Chapter II: Part 2

On the 27th of March, true bills of indictment for high treason were found against eleven of the prisoners; and, on the 17th of April, Thistlewood was put upon his trial. The principal witness was a conspirator, of the name of Adams, who, having escaped from Cato-street, had been taken on the following Friday, and had remained in custody up to the time when he was produced in court to give evidence. After a trial which lasted three days, the accused was found guilty on those counts of indictment which charged him with having conspired to levy, and with having levied war against the King. Ings, Brunt, Tidd, and Davidson, were afterwards severally tried and convicted. The remaining six, permission to withdraw their former plea having been given, pleaded guilty. One of them, who appeared to have joined the meeting in Cato-street without being aware of its true purpose, received a pardon; the other five had their sentence commuted into transportation for life. Thistlewood, with the four whom we have named, suffered the sentence of the law, rather glorying in what they had attempted, and regretting their failure, than repenting of their atrocious guilt.

THE DEATH OF GEORGE III. (1820).

=Source.=--_The Diary and Correspondence of Charles Abbott, Lord Colchester._ London, 1861. Vol. III. p. 112.

_Letter from Mr. B. Wilbraham._

"Portland Place, February 7th, 1820.

"My dear Lord,

"I am not aware that I can communicate much more information than the newspapers, if so much, but as a letter from London at a moment like the present is supposed to be interesting, I write a few lines.

"The death of the poor King was not expected by the public in general, but those who were about him saw a rapid change taking place, and a loathing of nourishment and other symptoms; and when I was at Windsor three weeks ago, the Duke of York, who had not seen him for five or six days, was much affected at the change.

"He died without any pain, spoke a short time before his death, and had no gleam of returning reason, which Dr. Willis then told me he would not have. Since his death we have been in some danger of losing the present King, who has been very ill of an inflammation of the chest, which was cured by his losing 130 ounces of blood. This loss would have killed you or me, but he is so accustomed to being bled, that the day after the operation was performed his pulse was at 84. He is now recovering, but I expect that his constitution will not be the better for this violent, though necessary discipline.

"He held a Privy Council two days after the King's death, and was forced to exert himself, which I believe was rather against him; but he has not done anything of the sort since, and I hope he will soon recover his strength.

"No political change has taken place under the circumstances of the country, but we look forward to a dissolution of Parliament; and whether it will be early or late, before the ensuing session of Parliament or after it, it is the question about which we are very anxious; though I am not of the number, it being a matter of indifference to me when I visit my Dover[1] friends.

"Brougham, it is said, has sent the Queen a detailed account of her patronage, which, as you know, is considerable, and a blank patent for the office of her Attorney-General; when this returns filled up, he will form a third party in the House of Commons, and probably will be very troublesome to both the others; though the Whigs will contrive to agree with him as often as they can.

"You will be glad to hear that we are as peaceable and quiet as lambs in Lancashire; that seditious printers, drillers at night, and others were found guilty by the juries at the Manchester Sessions, and were sentenced to various punishments without a single murmur being heard in Court. I understand that this implicit obedience to the laws has produced a sensation of considerable surprise on the Continent, where people imagined us on the eve of a revolution. I confess that I imagined we should not have been so quiet in the North as we are. Hunt and Co., you know, are to be tried at the Spring Lancashire Assizes....

"The Bank resumed bullion payments on the 1st February, in ingots (to the amount of £300), commonly called Ricardos; and I understand that in the first three days only three were applied for. One for Lord Thanet, one for a country banker, from curiosity, and the other I know not for whom. The price of gold is from two to three shillings below the Mint price, which accounts for this little demand.

"Yours very truly,

"E. B. WILBRAHAM."

THE KING'S SPEECH (1820).

=Source.=--_Annual Register, 1820._ Appendix to Chronicle, p. 749.

_The King's Speech to the New Parliament_ (_Thursday, April 27_).

"My Lords and Gentlemen;

"I have taken the earliest occasion of assembling you here, after having referred to the sense of my people.

"In meeting you personally, for the first time since the death of my beloved father, I am anxious to assure you, that I shall always continue to imitate his great example, in unceasing attention to the public interests, and in paternal solicitude for the welfare and happiness of all classes of my subjects.

"I have received from foreign powers renewed assurances of their friendly disposition, and of their earnest desire to cultivate with me the relations of peace and amity.

"Gentlemen of the House of Commons;

"The estimates for the present year will be laid before you.

"They have been framed upon principles of strict economy; but it is to me matter of the deepest regret that the state of the country has not allowed me to dispense with those additions to our military force which I announced at the commencement of the last session of parliament.

"The first object to which your attention will be directed is the provision to be made for the support of the civil government, and of the honour and dignity of the crown.

"I leave entirely at your disposal my interest in the hereditary revenues; and I cannot deny myself the gratification of declaring, that so far from desiring any arrangement which might lead to the imposition of new burthens upon my people, or even might diminish, on my account, the amount of the reductions incident to my accession to the throne, I can have no wish, under circumstances like the present, that any addition whatever should be made to the settlement adopted by parliament in the year 1816.

"My Lords and Gentlemen;

"Deeply as I regret that the machinations and designs of the disaffected should have led in some parts of the country to acts of open violence and insurrection, I cannot but express my satisfaction at the promptitude with which those attempts have been suppressed by the vigilance and activity of the magistrates, and by the zealous co-operation of all those of my subjects, whose exertions have been called forth to support the authority of the laws.

"The wisdom and firmness manifested by the late parliament, and the due execution of the laws, have greatly contributed to restore confidence throughout the kingdom, and to discountenance those principles of sedition and irreligion which had been disseminated with such malignant perseverance, and had poisoned the minds of the ignorant and unwary.

"I rely upon the continued support of parliament in my determination to maintain, by all the means intrusted to my hands, the public safety and tranquillity.

"Deploring, as we all must, the distress which still unhappily prevails among many of the labouring classes of the community, and anxiously looking forward to its removal or mitigation, it is in the meantime our common duty effectually to protect the loyal, the peaceable, and the industrious, against those practices of turbulence and intimidation by which the period of relief can only be deferred, and by which the pressure of the distress has been incalculably aggravated.

"I trust, that an awakened sense of the dangers which they have incurred, and of the arts which have been employed to seduce them, will bring back by far the greater part of those who have been unhappily led astray, and will revive in them that spirit of loyalty, that due submission to the laws, and that attachment to the constitution, which subsist unabated in the hearts of the great body of the people, and which, under the blessing of Divine Providence, have secured to the British nation the enjoyment of a larger share of practical freedom, as well as of prosperity and happiness, than have fallen to the lot of any nation in the world."

THE CHARACTER OF "JOHN BULL" (1820).

=Source.=--Washington Irving's _Sketch Book_. Pp. 237-239. Bohn's Libraries. G. Bell & Sons, London.

What is worst of all, is the effect which these pecuniary embarrassments and domestic feuds have had on the poor man himself. Instead of that jolly round corporation, and snug rosy face, which he used to present, he has of late become as shrivelled and shrunk as a frost-bitten apple. His scarlet gold-laced waistcoat, which bellied out so bravely in those prosperous days when he sailed before the wind, now hangs loosely about him like a mainsail in a calm. His leather breeches are all in folds and wrinkles, and apparently have much ado to hold up the boots that yawn on both sides of his once sturdy legs.

Instead of strutting about as formerly, with his three-cornered hat on one side; flourishing his cudgel, and bringing it down every moment with a hearty thump upon the ground; looking every one sturdily in the face, and trolling out a stave of a catch or a drinking song; he now goes about whistling thoughtfully to himself, with his head drooping down, his cudgel tucked under his arm, and his hands thrust to the bottom of his breeches pockets, which are evidently empty.

Such is the plight of honest John Bull at present; yet for all this, the old fellow's spirit is as tall and as gallant as ever. If you drop the least expression of sympathy or concern, he takes fire in an instant; swears that he is the richest and stoutest fellow in the country; talks of laying out large sums to adorn his house or buy another estate; and with a valiant swagger and grasping of his cudgel, longs exceedingly to have another bout at quarter-staff.

Though there may be something rather whimsical in all this, yet I confess I cannot look upon John's situation without strong feelings of interest. With all his odd humours and obstinate prejudices, he is a sterling-hearted old blade. He may not be so wonderfully fine a fellow as he thinks himself, but he is at least twice as good as his neighbours represent him. His virtues are all his own; all plain, home bred and unaffected. His very faults smack of the raciness of his good qualities. His extravagance savours of his generosity; his quarrelsomeness, of his courage; his credulity, of his open faith; his vanity, of his pride; and his bluntness, of his sincerity. They are all the redundancies of a rich and liberal character. He is like his old oak, rough without, but sound and solid within, whose bark abounds with excrescences in proportion to the growth and grandeur of the timber; and whose branches make a fearful groaning and murmuring in the least storm, from their very magnitude and luxuriance. There is something, too, in the appearance of his old family mansion that is extremely poetical and picturesque; and, as long as it can be rendered comfortably habitable, I should almost tremble to see it meddled with, during the present conflict of tastes and opinions. Some of his advisers are no doubt good architects, that might be of service; but many, I fear, are mere levellers, who, when they had once got to work with their mattocks on this venerable edifice, would never stop until they had brought it to the ground, and perhaps buried themselves among the ruins. All that I wish is that John's present troubles may teach him more prudence in the future. That he may cease to distress his mind about other people's affairs; that he may give up the fruitless attempt to promote the good of his neighbours, and the peace and happiness of the world, by dint of the cudgel; that he may remain quietly at home; gradually get his house into repair; cultivate his rich estate according to his fancy; husband his income--if he thinks proper; bring his unruly children into order--if he can; renew the jovial scenes of ancient prosperity; and long enjoy, on his paternal lands, a green, an honourable and a merry old age.

THE DEATH OF NAPOLEON (1821).

=Source.=--_The Gentleman's Magazine, 1821._ Vol. 91, p. 86.

May 5. At St. Helena, of a lingering illness, which had confined him to his bed for upwards of forty days, Napoleon Buonaparte. He desired that after his death his body should be opened, as he suspected he was dying of the same disease which had killed his father--a cancer in the stomach.

He lay in state three days, at the particular wish of the French people, who behaved to all visitors with much affability, amounting to condescension. The body was opened; the stomach was the entire seat of the disease--a cancer, or a schirrous state of that organ. The disease must have caused great pain, and appeared to have been of considerable standing. It was remarked before his death, that for more than nine days he had refused all nourishment, which was supposed to proceed from resignation or obstinacy; but the diseased state of the stomach fully accounts for it.

The body was laid out on a bed in a room of the middling size, hung with black, and well lighted up. He was dressed in full Field-Marshal's uniform; that said to have been worn by him at the battle of Marengo. His person seemed small, and rather diminutive (exact height five feet seven inches); but the fineness of the countenance much exceeded expectation. The face appeared to be large, compared with the body; the features pleasing and extremely regular, still retaining a half-formed smile; and must have been truly imposing, when enlivened by a penetrating pair of eyes. His skin was perfectly sallow, which seemed to be its natural colour.

The garden was laid out in the most fanciful manner; an astonishing variety being contained in a very small space.

Buonaparte died on Saturday, and the funeral took place the following Wednesday at 12 o'clock. A grand procession was formed of the officers, soldiers, and marines; which, altogether, made a very striking exhibition. The troops were drawn up two men deep on the road side, out of Longwood gates; each man resting the point of his musket on his foot, with the left hand on its butt; and the left cheek leaning on his hand in a mournful position; the band stationed at the head of each corps playing a dead march.

He was buried at the head of Rupert's Valley, about half-way between James' Town and Longwood, under the shade of a large willow-tree, near a small spring well, the water in which is both good and pleasant. For some years past he had water carried to him daily from this well, in two silver tankards which he brought from Moscow. Some years since, when visiting this well, in company with Madame Bertrand, he said, if the British Government buried him on St. Helena, he wished this to be the spot. It is certainly a very retired pretty situation, surrounded by high hills in the form of an amphitheatre, the public road to Longwood leading along the top of the ridge.

After letting the coffin into the grave, three vollies from 11 field pieces were fired, and the flag-ship also fired 25 minute guns. The Catholic priest performed the ceremony after the rites of the Romish Church.

The grave was 10 feet long, 10 deep, and five wide; the bottom happened to be solid rock, in which a space was cut to receive the coffin; the sides and ends of the grave were each walled in with one large Portland flag, and three large flags were put immediately over the coffin, and fastened down with iron bars and lead, beside Roman cement. The top of the grave is elevated about eight inches above the surface of the ground, and covered over with three rough slates.

NAPOLEON (1821).

=Source.=--P. B. Shelley's _Poems_.

What! alive and so bold, O Earth?
Art thou not over bold?
What! leapest thou forth as of old
In the light of thy morning mirth,
The last of the flock of the starry fold?
Ha! leapest thou forth as of old?
Are not the limbs still when the ghost is fled
And can'st thou move, Napoleon being dead?

How! is not thy quick heart cold?
What spark is alive on thy hearth?
How! is not _his_ death-knell knolled?
And livest _thou_ still, Mother Earth?
Thou wert warming thy fingers old
O'er the embers covered and cold
Of that most fiery spirit, when it fled--
What, Mother, do you laugh now he is dead?

"Who has known me of old," replied Earth,
"Or who has my story told?
It is thou who art over bold!"
And the lightning of scorn laughed forth
As she sung, "To my bosom I fold
All my sons when their knell is knolled,
And so with living motion all are fed,
And the quick spring like weeds out of the dead.

"Still alive and still bold," shouted Earth,
"I grow bolder and still more bold.
The dead fill me ten thousand fold
Fuller of speed, and splendour, and mirth.
I was cloudy, and sullen, and cold,
Like a frozen chaos uprolled,
Till by the spirit of the mighty dead
My heart grew warm. I feed on whom I fed.

"Ay, alive and bold," muttered Earth,
"Napoleon's fierce spirit rolled,
In terror and blood and gold,
A torrent of ruin to death from his birth.
Leave the millions who follow to mould
The metal before it be cold;
And weave into his shame, which like the dead
Shrouds me, the hopes that from his glory fled."

NAPOLEON AND ENGLAND (1821).

=Source.=--Lord Tennyson's _Early Sonnets_, V. 1832.

BUONAPARTE.

He thought to quell the stubborn hearts of oak,
Madman!--to chain with chains, and bind with bands
That island queen that sways the floods and lands
From Ind to Ind, but in fair daylight woke,
When from her wooden walls, lit by sure hands,
With thunders, and with lightnings and with smoke,
Peal after peal, the British battle broke,
Lulling the brine against the Coptic sands.
We taught him lowlier moods, when Elsinore
Heard the war moan along the distant sea,
Rocking with shattered spars, with sudden fires
Flamed over: at Trafalgar yet once more
We taught him: late he learned humility
Perforce, like those whom Gideon school'd with briers.

MONROE DOCTRINE (1823).

=Source.=--_Annual Register_, 1823 (Public Documents).

_President Monroe's Message to Congress, Dec. 2, 1823._

"In the wars of the European powers in matters relating to themselves we have never taken any part, nor does it comport with our policy to do so. It is only when our rights are invaded or seriously menaced that we resent injuries or make preparation for our defence. With the movements in this hemisphere we are, of necessity, more immediately connected, and by causes which must be obvious to all enlightened and impartial observers. The political system of the allied powers is essentially different in this respect from that of America. This difference proceeds from that which exists in their respective governments. And to the defence of our own, which has been achieved by the loss of so much blood and treasure, and matured by the wisdom of our most enlightened citizens, and under which we have enjoyed unexampled felicity, this whole nation is devoted. We owe it, therefore, to candor, and to the amicable relations existing between the United States and those powers, to declare that we should consider any attempt on their part to extend their system to any portion of this hemisphere as dangerous to our peace and safety. With the existing colonies or dependencies of any European power we have not interfered, and shall not interfere. But with the Governments who have declared their independence, and maintained it, and whose independence we have, on great consideration and on just principles, acknowledged, we could not view any interposition, for the purpose of oppressing them, or controlling in any other manner their destiny, by any European power, in any other light than as the manifestation of an unfriendly disposition towards the United States."

SLAVERY (1823).

=Source.=--_The Political Life of George Canning_, by A. G. Stapleton. 1831. Vol. III. p. 90.

He concluded with moving as a resolution, "that the state of Slavery was repugnant to the principles of the British Constitution, and of the Christian Religion, and that it ought to be abolished throughout the British Colonies with as much expedition as might be found consistent with a due regard to the well-being of the parties concerned."

Mr. Canning rose immediately after Mr. Buxton had concluded, in the hope that by at once making known the opinions of the Government he might restrain the warmth of debate on so "fearful" a question, on which he said the use of "one rash word," perhaps even of one too "ardent an expression, might raise a flame not easily to be extinguished."

After pointing out the impropriety, not to say unfairness, of Mr. Buxton, in having recourse to the by-gone question of the Slave Trade as a topick of declamation, and remarking that the course pursued by that gentleman of addressing himself not to the judgment, but to the feelings of the House, was the one the least likely to lead to a satisfactory result, Mr. Canning entreated the members to look at the then "situation of the West Indies not as a population accumulated by a succession of crimes, but simply as it then existed." We might deplore the crimes and condemn those who had encouraged their commission; but committed they had been with the sanction of the British Parliament, whose duty it then was to look at the subject not with reference to the crimes alone, but to the nature of that state of society which had grown up in consequence of their perpetration.

"Looking at the West Indies," said Mr. Canning, "I find there a numerous black population with a comparatively small proportion of whites. The question, therefore, to be decided is, how civil rights, moral improvement, and general happiness, can be communicated to this overpowering multitude of slaves with safety to their lives, and security to the interests of the White Population? For the attainment of so great a good as raising these unfortunate creatures in the scale of being, sacrifices ought undoubtedly to be made; but would I therefore strike at the root of the system--a system the growth of ages--and unhesitatingly and rashly level it at a blow? Are we not all aware that there are knots which cannot be suddenly disentangled and must not be cut--difficulties which, if solved at all, must be solved by patient consideration and impartial attention, in order that we may not do the most flagrant injustice by aiming at justice itself."

THE STATE OF IRELAND (1823).

=Source.=--_The Diary and Correspondence of Charles Abbot, Lord Colchester_, Vol. III. p. 302.

_From Lord Redesdale._

"Batsford, October 30th.

"My Dear Lord,

"I think the state of Ireland at this time most perilous.

"The government of a dictator, firm and well judging, assisted by a great armed force ready to execute his will, is now become necessary to the peace of Ireland. A Cromwell, at the head of such an army as he had, not subject to the control of a Cabinet in England--where is to be found such a man? Where is to be found such an army? And how is the government of such a man, if found, to be rendered independent of a Cabinet here?

"He ought also to have so fully the confidence of Parliament, and the spirit of the measures adopted by him ought to have been so fully previously adopted in Parliament, that there should remain no hope of obtaining countenance here for any complaint against him. The people of Ireland must be fully persuaded that his orders must be obliged. His government must bear some resemblance to that of the French in Italy, but it must be uncorrupt, just, and humane, and so far different from the French Government in Italy.

"In this conceit I have imagined what is not possible; but if we mean to save Ireland from great misery, we must approach as nearly to what I have imagined as possible.

"The first thing to be done must be to put an end to all the hopes of the Roman Catholics obtaining the overthrow of the Protestant establishment. This can only be done by a firm union of all Protestants in both islands. Can we hope for this? The two Houses of Parliament might pass strong resolutions on this subject. But can we hope for unanimity in such resolutions? Can we hope to carry such resolutions without strong opposition? May we not rather fear that such propositions would be rejected, or so modified as to be more mischievous than beneficial? I despair, therefore, of bringing Ireland to a state of quiet. The system now pursued, I think, must lead to increased agitation, and finally to insurrection, and perhaps open war is better than the secret war now carried on.

"I consider the late Tithe Bill as an experiment, which I apprehended would, if it produced no other effect, show the unreasonableness of the Irish landholders on the subject of tithes. Tithes are undoubtedly a great oppression to agriculture. They are a tax upon the most important manufacture, the production of food. If the woollen manufacturers, for instance, were obliged to pay the tenth yard of cloth manufactured for the maintenance of the clergy, what would be the effect? Just the same as the payment of the tenth of agricultural produce. The price must be raised in proportion to the charge, or the profit of the manufacturer would be wholly absorbed. A profit of 10 per cent. is esteemed a fair mercantile profit; but the tithe of the manufactured cloth would be more than 10 per cent. on the price for which cloth now sells. Importation would keep down the price, but it would ruin the manufacturer if the article could be imported at a cheaper rate. If, therefore, tithes could be transferred from the occupier to the landowner, it would be beneficial to cultivation, though it would fall heavy on the proprietors of land. On this ground also, I have approved of the commutation of tithes in enclosures.

"We give two-ninths of arable, and one-eighth of green land to the tithe-owner. So far as tithes belong to the clergy, they put so much land in mortmain. But land in mortmain is not so injurious to agriculture as tithes taken in hand. And I thought the Bill might lead to some permanent commutation, or at least to a settled rent, putting all the occupiers of land on an equal footing with respect to cultivation.

"The French agriculturists have gained a great advantage by throwing the maintenance of their clergy on the nation at large, instead of tithes which pressed wholly on agriculture. Formerly land was almost the only property productive of income; and, therefore, many charges were imposed on land which ought, in the present circumstances, to be a charge on property generally, if that could be effected. It seems to me that the present state of the European world is so changed that other changes must follow. Moneyed property, the profits of trade and manufacturers, are now a vast proportion of the income of the inhabitants of this country, and the persons deriving income from these sources bear that proportion only of the public burdens which are taxes on expenditure; while the income derived from land maintains the Church, the poor, the roads, the administration of justice, etc., etc., to a vast amount, and pays at the same time all taxes on expenditure; and the direct burdens on land increase with the riches produced by trade and manufactures, and the moneyed property. This I take to be a great cause of distress amongst the agriculturists and their landlords.

"Truly yours,

"REDESDALE."

TRANSPORTATION (1823).

=Source.=--In the _Edinburgh Review_, 1823, by the Rev. Sydney Smith.

Men are governed by words, and under the infamous term convict, are comprehended crimes of the most different degrees and species of guilt. One man is transported for stealing three hams and a pot of sausages; and in the next berth to him on board the transport is a young surgeon, who has been engaged in the mutiny at the Nore; the third man is for extorting money; the fourth was in a respectable situation of life at the time of the Irish Rebellion, and was so ill-read in History as to imagine that Ireland had been ill-treated by England, and so bad a reasoner as to suppose, that nine Catholics ought not to pay tithes to one Protestant. Then comes a man who set his house on fire, to cheat the Phœnix Office; and, lastly, that most glaring of all human villains, a poacher, driven from Europe, wife and child, by thirty lords of manors, at the Quarter Sessions, for killing a partridge. Now, all these are crimes no doubt--particularly the last; but they are surely crimes of very different degrees of intensity, to which different degrees of contempt and horror are attached--and from which those who have committed them may, by subsequent morality, emancipate themselves, with different degrees of difficulty, and with more or less of success. A warrant granted by a reformed bacon-stealer would be absurd; but there is hardly any reason why a foolish hot-brained young blockhead, who chose to favour the mutineers at the Nore when he was sixteen years of age, may not make a very loyal subject, when he is forty years of age, and has cast his Jacobine teeth, and fallen into the practical jobbing and loyal baseness which so commonly developes itself about that period of life.

It is to be believed that a governor, placed over a land of convicts, and capable of guarding his limbs from any sudden collision with odometrous stones, or vertical posts of direction, should make no distinction between the simple convict and the double and treble convict--the man of three juries, who has three times appeared at the Bailey, _trilarcenous_--three times driven over the seas.

THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON AND HIS SONS (1824).

=Source.=--_The Life of the Duke of Wellington_, by G. R. Gleig.

_Letter from the Duke of Wellington to the Rev. H. M. Wagner._

"Hatfield, 10th October, 1824.

"My dear Sir,

"I have received your letter of the 7th, to which I proceed to give an answer; and I request you to communicate it to my sons, which will save both me and them trouble.

"After all inquiries which I have made, I believe that the allowance which they ought to have, and which would go nearest to provide for their education at Oxford, excluding a private tutor, but including everything else, would be for Douro, who will be entered as a nobleman, £800 per annum, including his half-pay; and for Charles, who will be entered as a gentleman commoner, £500 per annum, besides his half-pay. I therefore, by this post, direct Messrs. Coutts to pay Douro £200, and Charles £125, on the 1st October, 1st January, 1st April, and 1st July, each year, beginning with the 1st inst.

"I beg that Charles will observe that I make him this allowance, at present, in order that he may defray the expenses of his education. He must recollect, however, that he is only a younger brother, and that it is not at all clear that he will ever have so much again, unless he should make it by his own industry and talent; and I beg you will tell them both that when I entered the world I had just the sum for the whole year which I now give Charles every quarter.

"I intend that these allowances shall cover all expenses of every description; and I have reason to believe them so ample that I expect they will not run in debt; particularly as I begin by paying them in advance, and as I will take upon myself the following expenses:

"The entrance fees at the college and university for both.

"The expenses of the nobleman's and gentleman-commoner's gowns.

"They must pay for the furniture of their rooms themselves, but if you should think the expense too heavy upon them immediately, I would advance the money, and they can repay me hereafter.

"I give them the horses which they now have with them, of which they may dispose as they may think proper; and they may take any servants they please out of my house or stables, they, of course, paying their wages, and also their expenses, from the time of their leaving me.

"Accordingly, if you let me know what the entrance-money is, and the expense of the gowns, I will send you the money.

"I beg you to impress upon them that there is but one certain and infallible way of avoiding debt, that is, first, to determine to incur no expense, to defray which the money is not in their pockets; secondly, to pay the money immediately for everything they get, and for every expense they incur. They will then be certain that everything they have is their own, and they will know at all times what they can and what they cannot do. There is nothing so easy, provided they begin in time; and I give them these ample allowances, and pay them beforehand, purposely that they may at once pay for everything the moment they get it.

"They should, in adopting this system, advert to the expenses of the college, which they have to defray themselves, their servants' wages and clothes, the keep of their horses, and lay by a sufficiency to defray their expenses till the 1st January. The remainder will be their own, and they will lay it out as they please; observing always, that if this remainder is laid out uselessly or idly, and they act up rigidly to the system of paying for everything at the time they get it, they may want clothes or other necessaries, or reasonable gratifications, before the quarter will expire.

"I think it best to remind them of all this, because I hope that they and I will have no further discussion upon these subjects. In respect of their studies, I am very anxious about their mathematics, as essential to those who serve in the army. If you will let me know what the course is in the university, I will give you my opinion upon other matters. They should likewise have a perfect knowledge of modern geography and history, of course, but I shall hear further from you on these points. I will go and see them shortly after they shall have gone to Oxford, where they ought to be on the 14th. They had better probably go to Strathfieldsaye to make their arrangements for their departure, as soon as you will receive this letter.

"I wish you would let each of them keep a copy of this letter, and send me one."

FREE TRADE (1825).

=Source.=--William Cobbett's _Rural Rides_, ed. by Mr. Pitt Cobbett, 1885.

One newspaper says that Mr. Huskisson is gone to Paris, and thinks it likely that he will endeavour to "inculcate in the mind of the Bourbons wise principles of _free trade_!" What next! Persuade them, I suppose, that it is for _their good_ that English goods should be admitted into France and into St. Domingo with little or no duty? Persuade them to make a treaty of commerce with him; and in short persuade them to make _France help to pay the interest of our debt and dead-weight_, lest our system of paper should go to pieces, and lest that should be followed by a _radical reform_, which reform would be injurious to "the monarchical principle!" This newspaper politician does, however, _think_ that the Bourbons will be "too dull" to comprehend these "_enlightened_ and _liberal_" notions; and I think so too. I think the Bourbons, or, rather, those who will speak for them, will say: "No thank you. You contracted your debt without our participation; you made your _dead-weight_ for your own purposes: the seizure of our museums and the loss of our frontier towns followed your victory of Waterloo, though we were 'your Allies' at the time; you made us pay an enormous tribute after that battle, and kept possession of part of France till we had paid it; you _wished_, the other day, to keep us out of Spain, and you, Mr. Huskisson, in a speech at Liverpool, called our deliverance of the King of Spain an _unjust and unprincipled act of aggression_, while Mr. Canning prayed to God that we might not succeed. No thank you, Mr. Huskisson, no. No coaxing, sir: we saw, then, too clearly the _advantage we derived from your having a debt and a dead-weight_, to wish to assist in relieving you of either. 'Monarchical principle' here or 'monarchical principle' there, we know that your mill-stone debt is our best security. We like to have your wishes, your prayers, and your abuses against us, rather than your _subsidies_ and your _fleets_; and so, farewell, Mr. Huskisson; if you like, the English may drink French wine; but whether they do or not, the French shall not wear your rotten cottons. And, as a last word, how did you maintain the 'monarchical principle,' the 'paternal principle,' or as Castlereagh called it, the 'social system,' when you called that an unjust and unprincipled aggression which put an end to the bargain by which the convents and other Church property of Spain were to be transferred to the Jews and jobbers of London? Bon jour, Monsieur Huskisson, ci-devant membre et orateur du club de quatre-vingt-neuf!"

If they do not actually say this to him, this is what they will think; and that is, as to the effect, precisely the same thing. It is childishness to suppose that any nation will act from a desire of _serving all other nations_, or _any one other nation_, as _well as itself_. It will make, unless compelled, no compact by which it does not think itself _a gainer_; and amongst its gains, it must, and always does, reckon the injury to its rivals. It is a stupid idea that _all nations are to gain_ by anything. Whatever is the gain of one, must, in some way or other, be a loss to another. So that this new project of "free trade" and "mutual gain" is a pure humbug as that which the newspapers carried on during the "glorious days" of loans, when they told us, at every loan, that the bargain was "equally advantageous to the contractors and to the public!" The fact is the "free trade" project is clearly the effect of a _consciousness of our weakness_. As long as we felt _strong_, we felt _bold_, we had no thought of conciliating the world; we upheld a system of _exclusion_, which long experience proved to be founded in _sound policy_. But we now find that our debts and our loads of various sorts cripple us. We feel our incapacity for the _carrying of trade sword in hand_: and so we have given up all our old maxims, and are endeavouring to persuade the world that we are anxious to enjoy no advantages that are not enjoyed also by our neighbours. Alas! the world sees very clearly the cause of all this; and the world _laughs at us_ for our imaginary cunning. My old doggrel, that used to make me and my friends laugh in Long Island, is precisely put to this case.

When his man was stuffed with paper,
How John Bull did prance and caper!
How he foam'd and how he roared:
How his neighbours all he gored.
How he scrap'd the ground and hurled
Dirt and filth on all the world!
But John Bull of paper empty,
Though in midst of peace and plenty,
Is modest grown as worn-out sinner,
As Scottish laird that wants a dinner;
As Wilberforce, become content
A rotten borough to represent;
As Blue and Buff, when, after hunting
On Yankee coasts their "bits of bunting,"
Came softly back across the seas,
And silent were as mice in cheese.

Yes, the whole world, and particularly the French and the Yankees, see very clearly the _course_ of this fit of modesty and of liberality into which we have so recently fallen. They know well that a _war_ would play the very devil with our national faith. They know, in short, that no ministers in their senses will think of supporting the paper system through another war. They know well that no ministers now exist, or are likely to exist, will venture to endanger the paper-system; and therefore they know that (for England) they may now do just what they please. When the French were about to invade Spain, Mr. Canning said that his last despatch on the subject was to be understood as a _protest_, on the part of England, against permanent occupation of any part of Spain by France. There the French are, however; and at the end of two years and a half he says that he knows nothing about any intention that they have to quit Spain, or any part of it.

THE FINANCIAL CRISIS OF 1824 AND 1825.

=Source.=--_The Political Life of Sir Robert Peel_, by Thomas Doubleday. London, 1856. Vol. I. pp. 329-331.

The most trustworthy account of the almost insane operations of 1824 and 1825 is perhaps that of Mr. Tooke, the well-known author of the treatise on "High and Low Prices," who in his "Considerations on the State of the Currency," published in 1826, immediately after the panic, thus describes the steps that led to it.[2] Speaking of the latter months of 1824 and the first six months of 1825, Mr. Tooke thus proceeds:

"Never did the public exhibit so great a degree of infatuation, so complete an abandonment of all the most ordinary rules of mercantile reasoning, since the celebrated bubble year of 1720, as it did in the latter part of 1824 and the first three or four months of 1825.

"The speculative anticipation of an advance was no longer confined to articles which presented a plausible ground for some rise, however small. It extended itself to articles which were not only deficient in quantity, but actually in excess. Thus coffee, of which the stock was increased compared with the average of former years, advanced from 70 to 80 per cent.; spices rose in some instances from 100 to 200 per cent., without any reason whatever, and with a total ignorance on the part of the operators of everything connected with the relation of the supply to the consumption.

"In short, there was hardly an article of merchandise which did not participate in the rise; for it had become the business of the speculators, or of the brokers, who were interested in the raising and keeping up prices, to look minutely through the general prices-current, with a view to discover any article which had not advanced, in order to make it the subject of anticipated demand. If a person, not under the influence of the prevalent delusion, ventured to inquire for what reason any particular article had risen, the common answer was, 'Everything else has risen, and _therefore_ this ought to rise.'

"Whilst such were the transactions in the markets for goods, and whilst there was an extension of the system of loans to the transatlantic states, some of them affording little or no security, but almost all coming out at a premium, an enlarged field was presented for the spirit of gambling to enter upon. New mining, insurance, and other schemes, were set on foot, on the principle of joint-stock companies, in immense number.

"The earliest South American mining speculations or associations formed in this country had been entered into with considerable circumspection, the parties with whom they originated having, by local information and connexion, secured comparatively beneficial contracts, and priority of the working of mines known to be most productive. These apparent advantages being made known, attracted numerous persons to buy shares from the original subscribers at a progressively increasing premium. The great gains--or rather premiums in anticipation of gains--thus obtained by one or two of these associations, held out an inducement to the formation of new ones.

"It is well known how numerously mining and other joint-stock companies sprung up, and how successful they were for some time in catching and turning to account the disposition for hazardous adventure which now pervaded the nation. The operators on the share market made the new schemes the basis for an enormous extent of gambling. Many persons, quite removed from all connexion with business--retired officers, widows, and single women of small fortune--risked their incomes or their savings in every species of desperate enterprize. The competition and scramble for premiums in concerns which ought never to have been but at a discount, were perfectly astounding to those who took no part in such transactions. These operations in shares had an effect like that of speculations in goods, in adding to the mass of the circulation of paper and of credit; and this, be it still kept in mind, concurrently with the addition which had been made to the Bank of England issues.

"It is not possible to compute, with even any approach to accuracy, the amount of the addition to the total of the circulating medium by these united causes; but if I were called upon to hazard an estimate, I should conjecture that the whole amount of the circulating medium, including the transactions on credit without the intervention of paper, must have been, on the average of the four months ending April, 1825, _little if at all short of fifty per cent. above what it had been in the corresponding period of 1823_. The approximation of this estimate to the truth is rendered probable by the consideration that, upon the principles which determine money prices and nominal values, such a general rise of prices, amounting in some instances to above 100 per cent., without even the allegation of any general scarcity, could not have taken place without an immense expansion of the circulating medium."

Tooke's _Considerations of the State of the Currency_, 1826, p. 47.

THE FRENCH OCCUPATION OF SPAIN (1826).

=Source.=--Martineau's _History of the Peace_, Vol. I. pp. 406-408. Bohn's Libraries. G. Bell & Sons.

It having been objected that the balance of dignity and honour among nations had been affected by the French occupation of Spain, which was thought to have exalted France and lowered England, Mr. Canning replied: "I must beg leave to say that I dissent from that averment. The House knows--the country knows--that when the French army was on the point of entering Spain, his Majesty's Government did all in their power to prevent it; that we resisted it by all means short of war. I have just now stated some of the reasons why we did not think the entry of that army into Spain a sufficient ground for war; but there was, in addition to those which I have stated, this peculiar reason, that whatever effect a war commenced upon the mere ground of the entry of a French army into Spain, might have, it probably would not have had the effect of getting that army out of Spain. In a war against France at that time as at any other, you might perhaps have acquired military glory; you might, perhaps, have extended your colonial possessions; you might even have achieved, at a great cost of blood and treasure, an honourable peace; but as to getting the French out of Spain, that would have been the one object which you almost certainly would not have accomplished. How seldom, in the whole history of the wars of Europe, has any war between two great powers ended in the obtaining of the exact, the identical object for which the war was begun! Besides, sir, I confess I think that the effects of the French occupation of Spain have been infinitely exaggerated. I do not blame those exaggerations, because I am aware that they are to be attributed to the recollections of some of the best times of our history; that they are the echoes of sentiments which, in the days of William and Anne, animated the debates and dictated the votes of the British Parliament. No peace was in those days thought safe for this country while the crown of Spain continued on the head of Bourbon; but were not the apprehensions of those days greatly overstated? Has the power of Spain swallowed up the power of maritime England? Or does England still remain, after the lapse of more than a century, during which the crown of Spain has been worn by a Bourbon, niched in the nook of that same Spain--Gibraltar?... Again, sir, is the Spain of the present day the Spain ... whose puissance was expected to shake England from her sphere? No, sir, it was quite another Spain; it was the Spain within the limits of whose empire the sun never set; it was Spain "with the Indies" that excited the jealousies, and alarmed the imaginations of our ancestors. But then, sir, the balance of power! The entry of the French army into Spain disturbed that balance, and we ought to have gone to war to restore it! I have already said that when the French army entered Spain, we might, if we chose, have resisted or resented that measure by war. But were there no other means than war for restoring the balance of power? Is the balance of power a fixed and unalterable standard? or is it not a standard perpetually varying, as civilisation advances, and as new nations spring up, and take their place among established political communities? The balance of power, a century and a half ago, was to be adjusted between France and Spain, the Netherlands, Austria and England. Some years afterwards, Russia assumed her high station in European politics. Some years after that again, Prussia became, not only a substantive, but a preponderating monarchy. Thus, while the balance of power continued in principle the same, the means of adjusting it became more varied and enlarged. They became enlarged in proportion to the increased number of considerable states--in proportion, I may say, to the number of weights which might be shifted into the one or the other scale. To look to the policy of Europe, in the time of William and Anne, for the purpose of regulating the balance of power in Europe at the present day, is to disregard the progress of events, and to confuse dates and facts which throw a reciprocal light upon each other. It would be disingenuous, indeed, not to admit, that the entry of the French army into Spain was, in a certain sense, a disparagement--an affront to the pride--a blow to the feelings of England; and it can hardly be supposed that the government did not sympathise, on that occasion, with the feelings of the people. But I deny that, questionable or censurable as the act might be, it was one which necessarily called for our direct and hostile opposition. Was nothing then to be done? Was there no other mode of resistance than by a direct attack upon France; or by a war to be undertaken on the soil of Spain? What if the possession of Spain might be rendered harmless in rival hands--harmless as regarded us--and valueless to the possessors? Might not compensation for disparagement be obtained and the policy of our ancestors vindicated, by means better adapted to the present time? If France occupied Spain, was it necessary, in order to avoid the consequences of that occupation, that we should blockade Cadiz? No. I looked another way. I sought materials of compensation in another hemisphere. Contemplating Spain, such as our ancestors had known her, I resolved that if France had Spain, it should not be Spain 'with the Indies.' I called the New World into existence, to redress the balance of the Old."

THE REMOVAL OF TRADE RESTRICTIONS

=Source.=--_The Political Life of George Canning_, by A. G. Stapleton. London, 1831. Vol. III. pp. 16-22.

Mr. Huskisson felt therefore, when he came to the Board of Trade, that although much had been done, yet more remained to do, and he proceeded fearlessly, yet at the same time most cautiously, in relaxing those restrictions on our commerce, which if preserved were calculated to render almost nugatory the concessions already made.