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Title: The Political History of England - Vol XI - From Addington's Administration to the close of William - IV.'s Reign (1801-1837)
Author: Brodrick, George C. (George Charles), 1831-1903, Fotheringham, John Knight, 1874-1936
Language: English
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_THE POLITICAL HISTORY OF ENGLAND_
_Seventy-five years have passed since Lingard completed his_ HISTORY OF
ENGLAND, _which ends with the Revolution of 1688. During that period
historical study has made a great advance. Year after year the mass of
materials for a new History of England has increased; new lights have
been thrown on events and characters, and old errors have been
corrected. Many notable works have been written on various periods of
our history; some of them at such length as to appeal almost exclusively
to professed historical students. It is believed that the time has come
when the advance which has been made in the knowledge of English history
as a whole should be laid before the public in a single work of fairly
adequate size. Such a book should be founded on independent thought and
research, but should at the same time be written with a full knowledge
of the works of the best modern historians and with a desire to take
advantage of their teaching wherever it appears sound._
_The vast number of authorities, printed and in manuscript, on which a
History of England should be based, if it is to represent the existing
state of knowledge, renders co-operation almost necessary and certainly
advisable. The History, of which this volume is an instalment, is an
attempt to set forth in a readable form the results at present attained
by research. It will consist of twelve volumes by twelve different
writers, each of them chosen as being specially capable of dealing with
the period which he undertakes, and the editors, while leaving to each
author as free a hand as possible, hope to insure a general similarity
in method of treatment, so that the twelve volumes may in their
contents, as well as in their outward appearance, form one History._
_As its title imports, this History will primarily deal with politics,
with the History of England and, after the date of the union with
Scotland, Great Britain, as a state or body politic; but as the life of
a nation is complex, and its condition at any given time cannot be
understood without taking into account the various forces acting upon
it, notices of religious matters and of intellectual, social, and
economic progress will also find place in these volumes. The footnotes
will, so far as is possible, be confined to references to authorities,
and references will not be appended to statements which appear to be
matters of common knowledge and do not call for support. Each volume
will have an Appendix giving some account of the chief authorities,
original and secondary, which the author has used. This account will be
compiled with a view of helping students rather than of making long
lists of books without any notes as to their contents or value. That the
History will have faults both of its own and such as will always in some
measure attend co-operative work, must be expected, but no pains have
been spared to make it, so far as may be, not wholly unworthy of the
greatness of its subject._
_Each volume, while forming part of a complete History, will also in
itself be a separate and complete book, will be sold separately, and
will have its own index, and two or more maps._
The History is divided as follows:--
Vol. I. FROM THE EARLIEST TIMES TO THE NORMAN CONQUEST (to 1066). By
Thomas Hodgkin, D.C.L., Litt.D., Fellow of University College,
London; Fellow of the British Academy. With 2 Maps.
Vol. II. FROM THE NORMAN CONQUEST TO THE DEATH OF JOHN (1066-1216). By
George Burton Adams, D.D., Litt.D., Professor of History in Yale
University. With 2 Maps.
Vol. III. FROM THE ACCESSION OF HENRY III. TO THE DEATH OF EDWARD III.
(1216-1377). By T. F. Tout, M.A., Bishop Fraser Professor of
Mediæval and Ecclesiastical History in the University of Manchester;
formerly Fellow of Pembroke College, Oxford. With 3 Maps.
Vol. IV. FROM THE ACCESSION OF RICHARD II. TO THE DEATH OF RICHARD III.
(1377-1485). By C. W. C. Oman, M.A., LL.D., M.P., Chichele Professor
of Modern History in the University of Oxford; Fellow of the British
Academy. With 3 Maps.
Vol. V. FROM THE ACCESSION OF HENRY VII. TO THE DEATH OF HENRY VIII.
(1485-1547). By the Right Hon. H. A. L. Fisher, M.A., M.P.,
President of the Board of Education; Fellow of the British Academy.
With 2 Maps.
Vol. VI. FROM THE ACCESSION OF EDWARD VI. TO THE DEATH OF ELIZABETH
(1547-1603). By A. F. Pollard, M.A., Litt.D., Fellow of All Souls'
College, Oxford, and Professor of English History in the University
of London. With 2 Maps.
Vol. VII. FROM THE ACCESSION OF JAMES I. TO THE RESTORATION (1603-1660).
By F. C. Montague, M.A., Astor Professor of History in University
College, London; formerly Fellow of Oriel College, Oxford. With 3
Maps.
Vol. VIII. FROM THE RESTORATION TO THE DEATH OF WILLIAM III.
(1660-1702). By Sir Richard Lodge, M.A., LL.D., Litt.D., Professor
of History in the University of Edinburgh; formerly Fellow of
Brasenose College, Oxford. With 2 Maps.
Vol. IX. FROM THE ACCESSION OF ANNE TO THE DEATH OF GEORGE II.
(1702-1760). By I. S. Leadam, M.A., formerly Fellow of Brasenose
College, Oxford. With 8 Maps.
Vol. X. FROM THE ACCESSION OF GEORGE III. TO THE CLOSE OF PITT'S FIRST
ADMINISTRATION (1760-1801). By the Rev. William Hunt, M.A., D.Litt.,
Trinity College, Oxford. With 3 Maps.
Vol. XI. FROM ADDINGTON'S ADMINISTRATION TO THE CLOSE OF WILLIAM IV.'S
REIGN (1801-1837). By the Hon. George C. Brodrick, D.C.L., late
Warden of Merton College, Oxford, and J. K. Fotheringham, M.A.,
D.Litt., Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford; Lecturer in Ancient
History at King's College, London. With 3 Maps.
Vol. XII. THE REIGN OF QUEEN VICTORIA (1837-1901). By Sir Sidney Low,
M.A., Fellow of King's College, London; formerly Scholar of Balliol
College, Oxford, and Lloyd C. Sanders, B.A. With 3 Maps.
The Political History of England
IN TWELVE VOLUMES
EDITED BY WILLIAM HUNT, D.LITT., AND
REGINALD L. POOLE, M.A.
XI.
THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND
FROM ADDINGTON'S ADMINISTRATION TO
THE CLOSE OF WILLIAM IV.'S REIGN
1801-1837
BY THE
HON. GEORGE C. BRODRICK, D.C.L.
LATE WARDEN OF MERTON COLLEGE, OXFORD
COMPLETED AND REVISED BY
J. K. FOTHERINGHAM, M.A., D.LITT.
FELLOW OF MAGDALEN COLLEGE, OXFORD; LECTURER IN
ANCIENT HISTORY AT KING'S COLLEGE, LONDON
_NEW IMPRESSION_
LONGMANS, GREEN AND CO.
39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON
FOURTH AVENUE & 30TH STREET, NEW YORK
BOMBAY, CALCUTTA, AND MADRAS
1919
_NOTE._
_When the late Warden of Merton undertook the preparation of this volume
he invited the assistance of Dr. Fotheringham in the portions dealing
with foreign affairs. At the time of the late Warden's death in 1903
three chapters (x., xii. and xviii.) were unwritten, and one (xx.) was
left incomplete. It was also found that the volume had to be recast in
order to meet the plan of the series. The necessary alterations and
additions have been made by Dr. Fotheringham, who has been scrupulous in
retaining the expression of the late Warden's views, and, where
possible, his words._
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
ADDINGTON.
PAGE
Mar., 1801. The new ministry 1
Condition of Ireland 2
Expedition to Copenhagen 3
Sept. Egypt evacuated by the French 6
French diplomatic successes 6
Bonaparte's concordat with the pope 7
Peace negotiations with France 8
Cornwallis at Amiens 10
25 Mar., 1802. The treaty of Amiens 12
Parliamentary criticism of the treaty 14
July. General election 15
Nov. Colonel Despard's conspiracy 16
Further aggressions of Napoleon 17
His colonial policy 18
Negotiations between Whitworth and the French government 19
18 May, 1803. Renewal of the war with France 22
CHAPTER II.
THE RETURN OF PITT.
23 July, 1803. Emmet's rebellion 23
Pitt's discontent with the ministry 24
Ministerial changes 27
Jan., 1804. The king's illness 29
April. Addington's resignation 31
The exclusion of Fox 32
18 May. Napoleon declared emperor 33
Pitt's ministry 34
The impeachment of Melville 36
July. The third coalition 37
Nelson's pursuit of Villeneuve 39
21 Oct., 1805. The battle of Trafalgar 40
Napoleon marches into Germany 41
Dec. Austerlitz: the peace of Pressburg 42
Collapse of the coalition 43
23 Jan., 1806. Death of Pitt 43
CHAPTER III.
GRENVILLE AND PORTLAND.
Feb., 1806. Formation of the Grenville ministry 45
13 Sept. Death of Fox 46
14 Oct. Jena and Auerstädt 47
General election 48
25 Mar., 1807. Abolition of the slave trade 48
Fall of the whig government 49
The Portland administration 50
General election 50
7 July. The treaty of Tilsit 52
Seizure of the Danish fleet 54
The "continental system" and orders in council 55
Fruitless expeditions 56
12 Oct. Conference of Erfurt 59
Army scandals 60
The Wagram campaign 63
July, 1809. The Walcheren expedition 64
21 Sept. Duel between Canning and Castlereagh 67
Oct. Perceval's administration 68
Capture of the Ionian Isles and Bourbon 69
25. Jubilee of George III. 69
CHAPTER IV.
PERCEVAL AND LIVERPOOL.
Jan., 1810. Debates on the Walcheren expedition 71
April. The arrest of Burdett 72
Appointment of the "Bullion committee" 73
The king's insanity: regency bill 74
11 May, 1812. Assassination of Perceval 76
1809-11. Social reforms in his ministry 77
July, 1810. Deposition of Louis Bonaparte 78
Opposition in Europe to the continental system 78
Alliances formed by Russia and France 81
Conquest of Java and Sumatra 81
June, 1812. The formation of Liverpool's cabinet 81
1811-12. Distress in town and country 83
Oct., 1812. General election 85
1813. Confirmation of the East India Company's charter 86
CHAPTER V.
THE PENINSULAR WAR.
1807, 1808. The origin of the war 87
Charles IV. and Ferdinand VII. seek the
protection of Napoleon 87
1808. Napoleon's plans for the conquest of Spain 88
24 July. Joseph Bonaparte proclaimed King of Spain 89
13 Aug. Landing of Wellesley 90
21. Battle of Vimeiro 91
Oct., 1808.- Expedition of Sir John Moore 92
Jan., 1809.
16 Jan. Battle of Coruña 95
Wellesley returns to Portugal 97
27 July. Battle of Talavera 98
Sept., 1810. Bussaco: the lines of Torres Vedras 101
Struggle for the frontier fortresses 103
16 May, 1811. Battle of Albuera 103
Jan.-April, Sieges of Ciudad Rodrigo and Badajoz 105
1812.
22 July. Battle of Salamanca 107
1812, 1813. Wellington reorganises the Spanish and Portuguese armies 109
21 June, 1813. Battle of Vitoria 110
Battle of the Pyrenees 113
Siege of St. Sebastian 113
8 Oct. Wellington crosses the Bidassoa 115
Battles round Bayonne 115
Feb., 1814. The investment of Bayonne 117
10 April. Battle of Toulouse 119
CHAPTER VI.
THE DOWNFALL OF NAPOLEON.
1812. French treaties with Prussia and Austria 122
Alliances made by Russia 123
June. Napoleon's advance into Russia 124
His retreat 125
War between England and the United States 126
Attacks on Canada 129
American successes at sea 131
Feb., 1813. Treaty of Kalisch 134
Austrian diplomacy 135
2, 21 May. Lützen and Bautzen 135
Aug., Oct. Dresden and Leipzig 137
France loses Saxony, Holland, and Switzerland 138
American war continued 138
1 June. Duel of the _Shannon_ and _Chesapeake_ 142
Jan.-Mar., Campaign in France 143
1814.
April. Napoleon deposed: Louis XVIII. recalled 145
24 Dec. Treaty of Ghent 147
July. Visit of Alexander and Frederick William to England 148
CHAPTER VII.
VIENNA AND WATERLOO.
30 May, 1814. The first treaty of Paris 149
English blockade of Norwegian ports 150
Union of Sweden and Norway 150
Restoration of Ferdinand VII. and Pius VII. 150
Attempts to abolish the slave trade 151
Sept., 1814- Congress of Vienna 152
June, 1815.
3 Jan., 1815. Secret treaty between England, France, and Austria 153
1 March. Napoleon's return from Elba 153
Flight of Louis XVIII.: the _Acte Additionnel_ 155
Plans of the allies 156
Defeat and death of Murat 157
June. Wellington at Brussels: his army 158
16. Ligny and Quatre Bras 159
18. Waterloo 160
July. Paris occupied by the allies 163
22 June. Second abdication of Napoleon 165
His surrender to England 165
Restoration of Louis XVIII.: treaty of Vienna 166
Resettlement of Europe 166
20 Nov. Second treaty of Paris: English gains 167
26 Sept. The Holy Alliance 168
Napoleon at St. Helena 169
CHAPTER VIII.
THE FIRST YEARS OF PEACE.
1816. Depression and discontent 171
Vansittart's financial policy 173
Union of British and Irish exchequers 174
2 Dec., 1816. Spa Fields riot 175
Prosecution of Hone 177
1818. General election 178
16 Aug., 1819. The "Manchester massacre" 178
Dec. The six acts 180
1817, 1819. Institution of savings banks: currency reform 182
6 Nov., 1817. Death of Princess Charlotte 184
1818. Royal marriages 184
29 Jan., 1820. Death of George III. 185
Royalist reaction in Europe 187
1816. Expedition against the Barbary states 187
1819. Murder of Kotzebue 189
30 Sept., Conference of Aix-la-Chapelle 189
1818.
Spain asks for assistance from the allies 190
The European alliance 190
CHAPTER IX.
THE LAST YEARS OF LORD LIVERPOOL.
1820. The Cato Street conspiracy 192
Dissolution of parliament 193
The "queen's trial" 194
7 Aug., 1821. Her death 196
1822. Changes in the cabinet 199
12 Aug. Death of Castlereagh 199
Sept. Canning foreign secretary 200
Jan. Peel home secretary 201
1823. Reform of the navigation laws 202
Agricultural discontent 203
1825. Speculative frenzy and financial panic 205
1823-26. Robinson's finance 206
General election of 1826 207
Close of Liverpool's ministry 208
CHAPTER X.
PROBLEMS IN SOUTHERN EUROPE.
1820. Revolution in Spain: policy of non-intervention 210
July, Aug. Revolutions in the Two Sicilies and Portugal 211
20 Oct. Congress of Troppau 211
Jan., 1821. Congress of Laibach 212
Mar., April. Revolution in Piedmont: Austrian intervention 213
Insurrections in the Morea and Central Greece 214
Aug. "Sanitary cordon" 215
Ultra-royalist parties in France and Spain 215
Loss of Spanish colonies in America 215
1822. Conference at Vienna 216
20 Oct. Congress of Verona 217
Offer of mediation declined 218
7 April, 1823. War between France and Spain 220
12 Oct., 1822. Independence of Brazil 221
July, 1825. Conference at London 222
2 Dec., 1823. The Monroe doctrine 223
1824-25. Conference at St. Petersburg 224
1 Dec., 1825. Death of the Tsar Alexander I. 225
CHAPTER XI.
TORY DISSENSION AND CATHOLIC RELIEF.
April, 1827. Formation of Canning's ministry 227
Additions to the ministry 228
8 Aug. Death of Canning 228
Sept. Goderich's cabinet 229
Dissensions: resignation of Goderich 230
9 Jan., 1828. Wellington accepts office 230
The Eastern question 232
20 Oct., 1827. Navarino 233
1828. Repeal of the test and corporation acts 235
May, June. Changes in the ministry 236
June, July. The Clare election 237
1821. Measures for catholic relief 239
1825. Further measures 241
George IV.'s opposition to catholic relief 244
1829. Wellington and Peel adopt catholic relief 245
Mar., April. Debates on the bill 246
13 April. The royal assent 249
21 Mar. Duel between Wellington and Winchilsea 250
Exclusion of O'Connell from Parliament 251
CHAPTER XII.
PORTUGAL AND GREECE.
10 Mar., 1826. Death of John VI. of Portugal 253
2 May. Peter abdicates in favour of his daughter Maria 254
31 July. Miguel proclaimed king by the absolutists 254
Dec. England sends troops to help the Portuguese government 255
3 Mar., 1828. Peter appoints Miguel regent for Maria 258
Dec., 1827. The sultan defies Russia 260
26 April, Russia makes war on the Turks 263
1828.
Negotiations for settlement of Greek question 264
Oct., Nov. French troops expel the Turks from the Morea 265
Terms of settlement agreed on at Poros and London 266
14 Sept., Peace of Adrianople 267
1829.
3 Feb., 1830. Greece independent: throne offered to Prince Leopold 268
France conquers Algiers 269
CHAPTER XIII.
PRELUDE OF REFORM.
1830. Amalgamation of English and Welsh benches 271
Motions for reform 271
26 June. Death of George IV. 272
General election 274
15 Sept. Death of Huskisson 275
Wellington's opposition to reform 277
Fall of his ministry 278
Nov. Grey accepts office 278
His cabinet 279
The regency bill 281
Feb., 1831. Althorp's first budget 283
Public demand for reform 285
Draft of the first reform bill 287
System of representation in the unreformed house 288
Popular excitement: second reading of the bill 291
Dissolution of parliament 292
CHAPTER XIV.
THE REFORM.
1831. General election 293
24 June. Second reform bill introduced 294
8 Oct. Rejection by the lords 296
Reform bill riots 296
Attempts at compromise in the lords 299
12 Dec. Final reform bill introduced 300
Gradual loss of the king's confidence in the ministry 302
9 May, 1832. Grey resigns 302
Wellington unable to form a ministry 303
The king recalls Grey 304
4 June. Third reading of the bill 304
Scotch and Irish reform bills carried 306
26 Oct. The cholera epidemic 309
1831. The census 311
State of Ireland 312
O'Connell's agitation 312
The "tithe-war" in Ireland 314
Legislation for Ireland 316
The Kildare Place Society 317
CHAPTER XV.
FRUITS OF THE REFORM.
1832. General election 318
1833. Irish coercion bill 320
Irish Church temporalities bill 322
Ministerial changes 325
Abolition of colonial slavery 326
Factory acts 327
The East India Company act 328
Bank charter act 330
Formation of judicial committee of the privy council 332
Act for the abolition of fines and recoveries 333
1831, 1832, Althorp's budgets 334
1833.
CHAPTER XVI.
RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS AND POOR LAW REFORM.
1833. The Tractarian movement 336
1832. First meeting of the British Association 338
Foundation of the Catholic Apostolic Church 339
1834. The "new poor law" 340
Creation of a central poor law board 343
Ministerial discord 344
9 July. Grey's resignation 346
Formation of Melbourne's ministry 347
16 Oct. Destruction of the houses of parliament 349
14 Nov. Melbourne's resignation 350
Wellington's provisional government 351
Dec. Peel's cabinet 352
The Tamworth manifesto 353
CHAPTER XVII.
PEEL AND MELBOURNE.
Jan., 1835. General election 354
Feb. Abercromby elected speaker 354
The "Lichfield House compact" 356
April. Peel's resignation 356
Melbourne's second ministry 357
Exclusion of Brougham 357
Municipal corporations act 360
Jan., 1836. Cottenham lord chancellor 363
Conflict with the lords on Irish bills 365
Tithe commutation act (English) 365
Reformed marriage law 366
Registration system 366
1835, 1836. Crusade against Orange lodges 367
1836. The paper duties lowered 369
Committee on agricultural distress 370
1836, 1837. Agitation in Ireland 371
1837. Irish municipal bill 372
Church rates 373
Burdett secedes from the whig party 374
20 June. Death of William IV. 375
CHAPTER XVIII.
FOREIGN RELATIONS UNDER WILLIAM IV.
July, 1830. The revolution of July 376
Recognition of Louis Philippe by the Powers 377
Sept. Belgian provinces in revolt 379
20 Dec. Protocol of London 381
June, 1831. Election of Leopold as King of the Belgians 383
Aug. War between Belgium and Holland 384
French troops enter Belgium 384
Nov. British and French fleets blockade the Scheldt 386
Nov., 1833. Convention between Holland and Belgium 387
1830. Insurrections in Switzerland, Poland, Italy, etc. 387
1831, 1832. Capture of Warsaw; Polish constitution abolished 388
7 April, 1831. Peter leaves Brazil for Portugal 388
Carlist rebellion in Spain 389
22 April, The quadruple alliance 389
1834.
26 May. Miguel renounces his claims 390
9 Oct., 1831. Capodistrias (Greek president) assassinated 392
1832. Otto of Bavaria becomes King of Greece 392
1831. War between Ibrahim and the Sultan 393
1833. Treaties of Kiutayeh and Unkiar Skelessi 394
8 Sept. Secret convention at Münchengrätz 395
CHAPTER XIX.
BRITISH INDIA.
1801. Annexation of the Karnátik 397
1803. Assaye and Argáum 399
1805. Resignation of Lord Wellesley 399
10 July, 1806. Mutiny at Vellore 400
Lord Minto's pacific policy 401
1801-10. Treaties with Persia 402
Elphinstone in Afghánistán 403
1813. Lord Moira appointed governor-general 404
The Pindárí war 405
1818. Subjugation of the Pindárís 407
First Burmese war 408
Abolition of satí 410
Extirpation of thagí 411
Defence of Herat 412
Communication with India 413
Burnes's mission to Kábul 413
CHAPTER XX.
LITERATURE AND SOCIAL PROGRESS.
The "Lake school" 416
Scott's novels 418
Minor poets: philosophical works 420
Newspapers and reviews 422
Essayists and historians 425
The arts: painting, sculpture 427
Scientific discoveries 428
University reform 429
Formation of London University 431
Improvements in agriculture 433
Steam navigation 434
The first railways 435
Geographical discovery 436
Philanthropy 436
Canada 437
South Africa 438
Convict settlements in Australia 438
Development of Australia 439
APPENDIX I. On Authorities 443
II. Administrations, 1801-37 451
MAPS.
(AT THE END OF THE VOLUME.)
1. Great Britain, showing the parliamentary representation after the
reform.
2. Spain and Portugal, illustrating the Peninsular war.
3. India.
CHAPTER I.
ADDINGTON.
When, early in March, 1801, Pitt resigned office, he was succeeded by
Henry Addington, who had been speaker of the house of commons for over
eleven years, and who now received the seals of office as first lord of
the treasury and chancellor of the exchequer on March 14, 1801. He was
able to retain the services of the Duke of Portland as home secretary,
of Lord Chatham as president of the council, and of Lord Westmorland as
lord privy seal. For the rest, his colleagues were, like himself, new to
cabinet rank. Lord Hawkesbury (afterwards the second Earl of Liverpool)
became foreign secretary, and Lord Hobart, son of the Earl of
Buckinghamshire, secretary for war. Loughborough reaped the due reward
of his treachery by being excluded from the ministry altogether; with a
curious obstinacy he persisted in attending cabinet councils, until a
letter from Addington informed him that his presence was not desired. He
received some small consolation, however, in his elevation to the
Earldom of Rosslyn. Lord Eldon was the new chancellor and was destined
to hold the office uninterruptedly, except for the brief ministry of Fox
and Grenville, till 1827. Lord St. Vincent became first lord of the
admiralty, and Lord Lewisham president of the board of control.
Cornwallis had resigned with Pitt, but it was not till June 16 that a
successor was found for him as master general of the ordnance. It was
then arranged that Chatham should take this office. Portland succeeded
Chatham as lord president, and Lord Pelham, whose father had just been
created Earl of Chichester, became home secretary instead of Portland.
An important change was introduced into the distribution of work between
the different secretaries of state, the administration of colonial
affairs being transferred from the home to the war office, so that
Hobart and his successors down to 1854 were known as secretaries of
state for war and the colonies. Soon afterwards Lewisham succeeded his
father as Earl of Dartmouth.
Though the Addington ministry has, not without justice, been derided for
its weakness as compared with its immediate predecessor, it is
interesting to observe that in it one of the greatest of English judges
as well as a future premier, destined to display an unique power of
holding his party together, first attained to cabinet rank; and in the
following year it was reinforced by Castlereagh, who disputes with
Canning the honour of being regarded as the ablest statesman of what was
then the younger generation. The weakness of the ministry must therefore
be attributed to a lack of experience rather than a lack of talent. It
was unfortunate in succeeding a particularly strong administration, but
is well able to bear comparison with most of the later ministries of
George III. Addington himself was in more thorough sympathy with the
king than any premier before or after. Conversation with Addington was,
according to the king, like "thinking aloud"; and with a king who, like
George III., still regarded himself as responsible for the national
policy, hearty co-operation between king and premier was a matter of no
slight importance.
In the early days of the new administration Pitt loyally kept his
promise of friendly support, and it is to be deplored that Grenville and
Canning did not adopt the same course. While the issue of peace and war
was pending, domestic legislation inevitably remained in abeyance. In
Ireland serious disappointment had been caused by the abandonment of
catholic emancipation; but the disappointment was borne quietly, and the
Irish Roman catholics doubtless did not foresee to what a distance of
time the removal of their disabilities had been postponed. The just and
mild rule of the new lord lieutenant, Lord Hardwicke, contributed to the
pacification of the country. But in reality the conduct of the movement
for emancipation was only passing into new hands; when it reappeared it
was no longer led by catholic lords and bishops, but was a peasant
movement, headed by the unscrupulous demagogue O'Connell. In these
circumstances it is to be regretted that the new administration
neglected to carry that one of the half-promised concessions to the
catholics which could not offend the king's conscience, namely, the
commutation of tithe. Nothing in the protestant ascendency was so
irritating to the catholic peasantry as the necessity of paying tithe to
a protestant clergy, and its commutation, while benefiting the clergy
themselves, would have removed the occasion of subsequent agitation. The
spirit of disloyalty, however, was believed to be by no means extinct
either in Ireland or in Great Britain, and two stringent acts were
passed to repress it. The first, for the continuance of martial law in
Ireland, was supported by almost all the Irish speakers in the house of
commons, where it was carried without a division, and was adopted in the
house of lords by an overwhelming majority, after an impressive speech
from Lord Clare. The second, for the suspension of the _habeas corpus_
act in the whole United Kingdom was framed to remain in force "during
the continuance of the war, and for one month after the signing of a
definitive treaty of peace".
[Pageheading: _THE HORNE TOOKE ACT._]
The only other measure of permanent interest which became law in this
session was the so-called "Horne Tooke act," occasioned by the return of
Horne Tooke, who was in holy orders, for Old Sarum. Such a return was
contrary to custom, but the precedents collected by a committee of the
house of commons were inconclusive. It was accordingly enacted that in
future clergymen of the established churches should be ineligible for
seats in parliament, while Horne Tooke was deemed to have been validly
elected, and retained his seat. The house of commons found time,
however, for an important and well-sustained debate on India, in which
among others Dundas, now no longer in office, showed a thorough
knowledge of questions affecting Indian finance and trade.
The naval expedition which had been prepared in the last days of Pitt's
administration sailed for Copenhagen on March 12, 1801, under Sir Hyde
Parker, with Nelson as second in command. The admiral in chief was of a
cautious temper, but was wise enough to allow himself to be guided by
Nelson's judgment when planning an engagement, though not as to the
general course of the expedition. The fleet consisted of sixteen ships
of the line and thirty-four smaller vessels; all these with the
exception of one ship of the line reached the Skaw on the 18th. A
frigate was sent in advance with instructions to Vansittart, the
British envoy at Copenhagen, to present an ultimatum to the Danish
government,[1] demanding a favourable answer to the British demands
within forty-eight hours. For three days Parker waited at anchor
eighteen miles from Elsinore, and it was only when Vansittart brought an
unfavourable reply on the 23rd that he took Nelson into his counsels. He
readily adopted Nelson's plan of ignoring the Danish batteries at
Kronborg and making a circuit so as to attack Copenhagen at the weak
southern end of its defences, but set aside his project of masking
Copenhagen and making straight for a Russian squadron of twelve ships of
the line which was lying icebound at Revel. The fair weather of the 26th
was wasted in irresolution, and it was not till the 30th that the fleet
was able to weigh anchor. It passed Kronborg in safety and anchored five
miles north of Copenhagen.
Parker placed under Nelson's immediate command twelve ships of the line
and twenty-one smaller vessels, by far the greater part of the British
fleet. With these he was to pass to the east of a shoal called the
Middle Ground and attack the defences of Copenhagen from the south,
while Parker with the remainder of the fleet was to make a demonstration
against the more formidable northern defences. The wind could not of
course favour both attacks simultaneously, and it was agreed that the
attack should be made when the wind favoured Nelson. The nights of the
30th and 31st were spent in reconnoitring and laying buoys. On April 1 a
north wind brought Nelson's squadron past the Middle Ground, and on the
next day a south wind enabled him to attack the Danish fleet, if fleet
it may be called. At the north end of the Danish position stood the only
permanent battery, the Trekroner, with two hulks or blockships; the rest
consisted of seven blockships and eleven floating batteries, drawn up
along the shore. An attack on the south end of the line was also exposed
to batteries on the island of Amager. Nelson's intention was to close
with the whole Danish fleet, but three of his ships of the line were
stranded and he was obliged to leave the assault on the northern end
entirely to lighter vessels.
[Pageheading: _BATTLE OF THE BALTIC._]
The Danish batteries proved more powerful than had been anticipated, and
as time went on and the Danish resistance did not appear to lose in
strength, Parker grew doubtful of the result of the battle and gave the
order to cease action. The order was apparently not intended to be
imperative, but it had the effect of inducing Riou, who commanded the
frigate squadron, to sail away to the north. For the rest of the fleet
obedience was out of the question. Nelson acknowledged, but refused to
repeat the order, and, jocularly placing his glass to his blind eye,
declared that he could not see the signal. At length the British
cannonade told. Fischer, the Danish commander, had had to shift his flag
twice, at the second time to the Trekroner, and all the ships south of
that battery had either ceased fire or were practically helpless. The
Trekroner, however, was still unsubdued and rendered it impossible for
Nelson's squadron to retire, in the only direction which the wind would
allow, without severe loss. He accordingly sent a message to the Danish
Prince Regent, declaring that he would be compelled to burn the
batteries he had taken, without saving their crews, unless firing
ceased. If a truce were arranged until he could take his prisoners out
of the prizes, he was prepared to land the wounded Danes, and burn or
remove the prizes. A truce for twenty-four hours was accordingly
arranged, which Nelson employed to remove his own fleet unmolested.
The destruction of the southern batteries left Copenhagen exposed to
bombardment, and the Danes, unable to resist, yet afraid to offend the
tsar by submission, prolonged the time from day to day till news arrived
which removed all occasion for hostility. Unknown to either of the
combatants, the Tsar Paul, the life and soul of the northern
confederacy, had been murdered on the night of March 23, ten days before
the battle, and with his death the league was practically dissolved.
When Nelson advanced further into the Baltic, he found no hostile fleet
awaiting him, and the new tsar, Alexander, adopting an opposite policy,
entered into a compromise on the subject of maritime rights. The battle
of the Baltic is considered by some to have been Nelson's masterpiece.
It won for him the title of viscount and for his second in command,
Rear-Admiral Graves, the gift of the ribbon of the Bath, but the
admiralty, for official reasons, declined to confer any public reward
or honour on the officers concerned in it.
At the same time, the French occupation of Egypt was drawing towards its
inevitable close. Kléber, who was left in command by Bonaparte, perished
by the hand of an assassin, and Menou, who succeeded to the command, was
not only a weak general, but was prevented from receiving any
reinforcements by the naval supremacy of Great Britain in the
Mediterranean. On March 21, 1801, the French army was defeated at the
battle of Alexandria by the British force sent out under Sir Ralph
Abercromby, who was himself mortally wounded on the field. His
successor, General Hutchinson, completed his work by taking Cairo,
before the arrival of General Baird, who had led a mixed body of British
soldiers and sepoys from the Red Sea across the desert to the Nile. The
capitulation of Alexandria soon followed. In September the French
evacuated Egypt, the remains of their army were conveyed to France in
English ships, and Bonaparte's long-cherished dreams of eastern conquest
faded away for ever--not from his own imagination, but from the
calculations of practical statesmanship.
French arms, and French diplomacy supported by armed force, were more
successful elsewhere. The treaty of Lunéville was only the first of a
series of treaties, by which France secured to herself a political
position commensurate with her military glory. By the treaty of Aranjuez
between France and Spain, signed on March 21, Spain ceded Louisiana to
France, reserving the right of pre-emption, and undertook to wage war on
Portugal in order to detach it from the British alliance. Spain and
Portugal were both lukewarm in this war, and on June 6 signed the treaty
of Badajoz, by which Portugal agreed to close her ports to England, to
pay an indemnity to Spain, and to cede the small district of Olivenza,
south of Badajoz. Bonaparte was intensely irritated by this treaty,
which deprived him of the hope of exchanging conquests in Portugal for
British colonial conquests in any future negotiations; he declared that
Spain would have to pay by the sacrifice of her colonies for the
conquered French colonies which he still hoped to recover. A French army
was despatched to Portugal and enabled Bonaparte to dictate the treaty
of Madrid, signed on September 29, whereby Portugal ceded half Guiana to
France and undertook, as at Badajoz, to close her ports against
England.
[Pageheading: _INFLUENCES MAKING FOR PEACE._]
This last condition was equally imposed on the King of the Two Sicilies
by the treaty of Florence, concluded on March 28, and before the end of
the year France had established friendly relations with the Sultan of
Turkey and the new Tsar of Russia. More important still, as
consolidating Bonaparte's power at home, was the concordat signed by him
and the pope on July 15 recognising Roman Catholicism as the religion of
the majority of Frenchmen, and of the consuls, guaranteeing stipends,
though on an abjectly mean scale, to the clergy, and placing the entire
patronage of the French Church in the hands of the first consul. Never
since the French revolution had the Church been thus acknowledged as the
auxiliary, or rather as the handmaid, of the state, and probably no one
but the first consul could have brought about the reconciliation. After
such exertions, even he may have sincerely desired an honourable peace,
as the crown of his victories, or at least as a breathing time, to
enable him to mature his vast designs for reorganising France. Perhaps
he did not yet fully recognise that war was a necessity of his political
ascendency, no less than of his own personal character. The French
people still clung to republican institutions; and the consulate was a
nominal republic, with all effective power vested in the first consul.
Time was to show how largely this unique position depended on his unique
capacity of conducting wars glorious to French arms; for the present,
France was satisfied, and longed for peace.
The English ministry, too, was impelled by strong motives to enter upon
the negotiations which resulted in the peace of Amiens. Not only was
Great Britain crippled by the loss of nearly all her allies, but the
high price of bread had roused grave disaffection,[2] and intensified
among British merchants a desire for an unmolested extension of
commerce; above all, English statesmen now recognised the consulate,
under Bonaparte, as the first stable and non-revolutionary government
since the fall of the French monarchy. Both countries, therefore, were
predisposed to entertain pacific overtures, but the very fact that these
were in contemplation stirred both sides to further endeavours in order
to secure better terms of peace. A French squadron, commanded by Admiral
Linois and containing three ships of the line besides smaller boats, was
making a movement for the Straits of Gibraltar in order to strengthen
the force at Cadiz. Sir James Saumarez with five ships of the line and
two smaller vessels engaged Linois off Algeciras on July 5, but the
French ships were supported by the land batteries, and one of the
British ships, the _Hannibal_ (74), ran aground, and Saumarez was
eventually compelled to leave her in the hands of the enemy. This
victory was hailed with delight throughout France, but it was fully
retrieved a week later. The French squadron had in the meantime been
reinforced by one French and five Spanish ships of the line, and on the
12th it made a fresh attempt to reach Cadiz; it was, however, engaged in
the Straits by Saumarez with five ships of the line. In the ensuing
battle two Spanish ships blew up, and the French _Saint Antoine_ was
captured. The remainder succeeded in reaching Cadiz, but Saumarez was
able to resume the blockade a few weeks later.
Meanwhile there was no relaxation of French preparations for an invasion
of England, or of naval activity on the part of Great Britain. No sooner
had Nelson returned from the Baltic than he was, on July 24, placed in
command of a "squadron on a particular service," charged with the
defence of the coast from Beachy Head to Orfordness. With this he not
only blockaded the northern French ports, but assumed the aggressive,
and bombarded the vessels therein collected. A more daring attempt to
cut out the flotilla moored at Boulogne by a boat attack was repelled
with some loss on the night of August 15. But couriers under flags of
truce were already passing between London and Paris, and hostilities
ceased in the autumn of the year 1801.
[Pageheading: _THE QUESTION OF MALTA._]
The history of the negotiations which ended in the peace of Amiens
derives a special interest from the events which followed it. The
earliest overtures for peace were made by Hawkesbury on March 21, 1801.
At first Bonaparte refused to listen to them, but the destruction of the
northern confederacy inclined him to more pacific counsels. On April 14
the British government stated its demands. They mark a distinct advance
on those which had been made in vain at Lille in 1797. France was to
evacuate Egypt, and Great Britain Minorca, but Great Britain claimed to
retain Malta, Tobago, Martinique, Trinidad, Essequibo, Demerara,
Berbice, and Ceylon. She was willing to surrender the Cape of Good Hope
on condition that it became a free port, and stipulated that an
indemnity should be provided for the Prince of Orange. At the outset,
Bonaparte opposed all cessions by France and her allies, but the steady
improvement in the fortunes of England in the north and in Egypt at last
determined him to grant some of the British demands, and as the
evacuation of Egypt became inevitable, he was resolved to gain something
in exchange for it before it was too late. The preliminary treaty was
accordingly signed by Bonaparte's agent Otto on behalf of France and
Hawkesbury on behalf of Great Britain on October 1, the day before the
news of the French capitulation in Egypt reached England. Great Britain
had already consented to relinquish Malta, provided that it became
independent. She now consented to relinquish all her conquests from
France, and with the exception of Ceylon and Trinidad all her conquests
from the French allies, requiring, however, that the Cape should be
recognised as a free port. The French were to evacuate not only Egypt,
but the Neapolitan and Roman States. Malta was to be restored to the
knights of St. John under the guarantee of a third power. Prisoners of
war were to be released on payment of their debts, and the question of
the charge for their maintenance was to be settled by the definitive
treaty in accordance with the law of nations and established usage.
No mention was made of the Prince of Orange, but Otto gave a verbal
assurance that provision would be made to satisfy his claims. He also
gave the British government to understand that France would be willing
to cede Tobago in consideration of the expenses incurred in the
maintenance of French and Dutch prisoners. The omission of all reference
to the continental relations of France is conspicuous. In France it was
interpreted as indicating that Great Britain renounced her interest in
continental politics. The Batavian, Helvetian, Cisalpine, and Ligurian
republics, the kingdom of Etruria, and the whole east bank of the Rhine
were, however, supposed to be already protected against French
encroachment by the treaty of Lunéville, and Great Britain had no wish
to impose terms involving a recognition of these new creations. Again,
no mention was made of commercial relations apart from the Newfoundland
and St. Lawrence fisheries, for Great Britain was too ready to believe
that a separate commercial treaty would be practicable, and was
naturally loth to delay the conclusion of peace by a difficult
negotiation.
Cornwallis was appointed to negotiate the definitive treaty, and had
some hope that he might arrive at an informal understanding with
Bonaparte at Paris before he proceeded to Amiens. But he was offended by
Bonaparte's manner, and, dreading to be pitted against so subtle a
diplomatist as Talleyrand, he left Paris before anything was
accomplished, and arrived at Amiens on November 30. There France was
represented by Joseph Bonaparte, the first consul's elder brother, and
the negotiator of Lunéville. At Amiens, the position of the British
government was compromised from the first by its renewed insistence on a
point which had been omitted from the preliminary treaty, namely, the
compensation of the Prince of Orange. This demand was accompanied by an
endeavour to obtain compensation for the King of Sardinia. Joseph
Bonaparte, on the other hand, entrenched himself behind the letter of
the treaty, and acknowledged no further obligation. Any additional
concession to Great Britain could only be purchased by British
concessions to France. Other difficulties arose over the question of
Malta, the payment for the maintenance of prisoners, and the inclusion
of allies as parties to the treaty.
[Pageheading: _CORNWALLIS AT AMIENS._]
On the first of these questions the French would appear to have aimed
throughout at reducing the knights to as impotent a position as
possible. The British, on the other hand, ostensibly desiring to see the
strength of the order maintained, were chiefly interested in securing
its neutrality. At the time of the signature of the preliminary treaty,
Russia was the power that seemed to Great Britain the fittest guarantor
of the independence of the knights. On the refusal of Russia to accept
this position, Naples appeared to be the next best alternative, but it
was eventually agreed to substitute for the guarantee of a third power
the obviously futile guarantee of all the powers. Neither party foresaw
that the impossibility of obtaining such a guarantee was destined to
leave the whole clause about Malta inoperative. After much dispute over
the future constitution of the order, France proposed to obviate the
chief source of difficulty by the demolition of the forts. This plan
commended itself to Cornwallis, but was rejected by the British
government. By the end of December it was agreed that a Neapolitan
garrison was to occupy the islands provisionally, until the new
organisation should be established. Great Britain proposed that this
garrison should be maintained at the joint expense of Great Britain and
France. It did not occur to the British government to propose any
guarantee for the preservation of the property of the order, and this
omission ultimately proved material. The question of including allies in
the treaty was less complicated. France preferred a number of separate
treaties so as to keep the British interest in Europe at a minimum.
Great Britain, on the other hand, wished to make France a party to the
cessions made by her allies, and successfully insisted on the
negotiation of a single comprehensive treaty. Joseph Bonaparte granted
this point on December 11, but, as he had not full powers to negotiate
with any power except Great Britain, he continued to interpose delays
till the end of the year.
In the meantime France had failed in her attempts to meet the British
claims on behalf of the Prince of Orange by demands for further
privileges and territory in the oceans and colonies. On the whole, the
first month's negotiations had contributed much to a settlement, without
giving a decided advantage to either side. The lapse of time, however,
turned the balance in favour of the negotiator who was the more
independent of his country's desire for peace. On January 1, 1802,
Hawkesbury wrote to Cornwallis, treating the acquisition of Tobago as
unimportant; on the 2nd Addington expressed his readiness to accept a
separate arrangement with the Batavian republic for the Prince of
Orange. By the 16th Hawkesbury had yielded the claim of Portugal to be a
party to the treaty. The refusal of the French to cede Tobago in lieu of
payment for the French prisoners, and the difficulty of assessing the
payment, opened a way to the evasion of compensation altogether.
Cornwallis, preferring to sacrifice this claim rather than re-open the
war, suggested to Joseph Bonaparte on the 22nd that the treaty should
provide for commissioners to assess the payment, while it should be
secretly provided that they should not be appointed. On the same day,
Joseph Bonaparte communicated his brother's consent to a clause engaging
France to find a suitable territorial possession in Germany for the
Prince of Orange.
If Hawkesbury and Cornwallis imagined that they had made sure of an
early peace by these extensive concessions, they were greatly mistaken.
Napoleon, flushed with this unexpected success, was encouraged to make
further trial of the pliability of the British diplomatists. Two events
occurred at this stage of the negotiations which tried the temper of
both sides to the uttermost. On January 26, Bonaparte was elected
president of the Cisalpine republic, to be styled henceforth the Italian
republic. This event seems to have taken the British government by
surprise; they thought it a distinct indication that he still
contemplated further aggressions in spite of the series of treaties by
which he appeared to be securing peace, and were therefore much less
inclined than formerly to make concessions. About the same time
Bonaparte was not unreasonably enraged at the outrageous attacks made on
him in the press conducted in London by French exiles, especially by
Jean Peltier, the editor of a paper called _L'Ambigu_, and he blamed the
British government for permitting their publication. He therefore
instructed his brother Joseph to raise further difficulties over the
garrison and permanent organisation of Malta, as well as over the
proposed accession of the sultan to the treaty. Vain attempts were also
made by Joseph to retain Otranto for France till the British should have
evacuated Malta, and to secure the inclusion of the Ligurian republic in
the treaty.
[Pageheading: _THE TREATY OF AMIENS._]
At last on March 8 Napoleon agreed that no important difference
remained, and urged his brother to conclude the treaty. A little more
time was wasted in providing for a temporary occupation of Malta by
Neapolitan troops, and a more marked division of opinion arose as to the
compensation for the Prince of Orange. In spite of instructions to the
contrary from Hawkesbury, Cornwallis accepted an engagement on the part
of France to find a compensation, not defined, for the house of Nassau,
instead of charging it on the Dutch government; and the treaty was
finally concluded on March 25. It was signed by Great Britain, France,
Spain, and the Batavian republic, while the Porte was admitted as an
accessory power. It differed from the preliminary convention in no
important respect, except in the illusory safeguards for the claims of
the Prince of Orange, the secret arrangement for evading the cost of the
French prisoners, and the provisions concerning Malta, pregnant with the
seeds of future enmity. These provisions were as follows: Malta was to
be restored to the knights of St. John, from whose order both French and
British were hereafter to be excluded. The evacuation was to take place
within three months of the ratification of the treaty, or sooner if
possible. At that date Malta was to be given up, provided the grand
master or commissaries of the order were present, and provided the
Neapolitan garrison had arrived. Its independence was to be under the
guarantee of France, Great Britain, Austria, Spain, Russia, and Prussia.
Two thousand Neapolitan troops were to occupy it for one year, and until
the order should have raised a force sufficient, in the judgment of the
guaranteeing powers, for the defence of the islands.[3]
On October 29, 1801, parliament was opened with a speech from the throne
briefly announcing the conclusion of a convention with the northern
powers, and of preliminaries of peace with the French republic. General
Lauriston, bearing the ratification of the preliminaries by the first
consul, had reached London on the 10th, when he was received by the
populace with tumultuous demonstrations of joy. Soon afterwards the
"feast of the peace" was celebrated in Paris with equal enthusiasm.
Short-lived as they proved to be, these pacific sentiments were
doubtless genuine on both sides of the channel. The industrial, though
not the military, resources of France were exhausted by her prodigious
efforts during the last eight years; while England, suffering grievously
from distress among the working-classes and financial difficulties,
welcomed the prospect of cheaper provisions and easier times, as well as
of emerging from the political difficulties originating in the French
revolution.
The preliminary treaty, however, did not escape hostile criticism in
either house of parliament. It was the subject of discussion in the
lords on November 3, and in the commons on the 3rd and 4th. Its most
strenuous assailants were Lord Grenville, who had been foreign secretary
under Pitt, and the whigs who had joined Pitt's ministry in 1794, among
whom Lords Spencer and Fitzwilliam and above all Windham call for
special notice. Windham's powerful and comprehensive speech contained
more than one shrewd forecast of the future. For once, Pitt and Fox
supported the same measure, and Pitt, dwelling on _security_ as our
grand object in the war, specially deprecated any attempt on the part of
Great Britain "to settle the affairs of the continent". Fox, in
advocating peace, fiercely denounced the war against the French
republic, and gloated over the discomfiture of the Bourbons.[4] It was
admitted on all sides that France was stronger than ever in a military
and political sense. She had already made treaties with Austria, Naples,
Spain, and Portugal; other treaties with Russia and Turkey were on the
point of being signed; while the still more important concordat with the
pope was already ratified. On the other hand, Great Britain had largely
increased her colonial possessions, and the chief question now discussed
was whether she would be the weaker for abandoning some of these recent
conquests. The general feeling of the nation was fitly expressed by
Sheridan in the phrase: "This is a peace which all men are glad of, but
no man can be proud of". Malmesbury, the negotiator of Lille, was absent
from the debates; but he has recorded in his diary his disapproval both
of the peace and of the violent opposition to it The king told
Malmesbury on November 26 that he considered it an experimental peace,
but unavoidable.[5]
[Pageheading: _DEBATES ON TREATY OF AMIENS._]
The debates on the definitive treaty of Amiens took place on May 13 and
14, 1802, and though vigorously sustained, were to some extent a
repetition of those on the preliminaries of peace. The opposition to it
was headed by Grenville in the lords and in the commons by Windham, who
compared it unfavourably with the preliminaries; and the stipulations
with respect to Malta were justly criticised as one of its weakest
points. Strange to say, Pitt took no effective part in the discussion,
which ended in overwhelming majorities for the government. As in the
previous session, domestic affairs, except in their bearing on foreign
policy, received comparatively little attention from parliament. The
income tax was repealed, almost in silence, as the first fruits of
peace, and Addington, as chancellor of the exchequer, delivered an
emphatic eulogy on the sinking fund by means of which he calculated that
in forty-five years the national debt, then amounting to £500,000,000,
might be entirely paid off. The house of commons showed no want of
economical zeal in scrutinising the claims of the king on the civil
list, and those of the Prince of Wales on the revenues of the duchy of
Cornwall. Nor did it neglect such abuses as the non-residence of the
parochial clergy, and the cruel practice of bull-baiting, though it
rejected a bill for the suppression of this practice, after a
characteristic apology for it from Windham, in which he dwelt upon its
superiority to horse-racing. In this session, too, a grant of £10,000
was voted to Jenner for his recent invention of vaccination. In
supporting it, Wilberforce stated that the victims of small-pox, in
London alone, numbered 4,000 annually.
The parliament, which had now lasted six years, was dissolved by the
king in person on June 28, and a general election was held during the
month of July. The new house of commons did not differ materially from
the old, and even in Ireland the recent national opposition to the union
did not lead to the unseating of a single member who had voted for
it.[6] Meanwhile the ministry was strengthened by the admission to
office of Lord Castlereagh, already distinguished for his share in the
negotiations precedent to the union with Ireland. On July 6 he was
appointed president of the board of control in succession to Dartmouth,
and was admitted to a seat in the cabinet in October. The new parliament
did not meet till November 16. During the interval members of both
houses, with vast numbers of their countrymen, flocked to Paris, which
had been almost closed to English travellers since the early days of the
revolution. Fox was presented to Napoleon, as Bonaparte, since the
decree which made him consul for life, preferred to be styled. Napoleon
conceived a great admiration for him, and afterwards persuaded himself
that, had Fox survived, the friendly relations of England and France
would not have been permanently interrupted. On the very day on which
parliament assembled, a conspiracy was discovered, which, however insane
it may now appear, attracted much attention at the time. A certain
Colonel Despard with thirty-six followers, mainly labourers, had plotted
to kill the king and seize all the government-buildings, with a view to
the establishment of what he called the "constitutional independence of
Ireland and Great Britain" and the "equalisation of all civic rights".
The conspiracy had no wide ramifications, and the arrest of its leader
and his companions brought it to an immediate end. Despard was found
guilty of high treason and was executed on February 21, 1803.
When parliament met, the king's speech referred ominously to fresh
disturbances in the balance of power on the continent; and votes were
passed for large additions to the army and navy, in spite of Fox's
declaration that he saw no reason why Napoleon, satisfied with military
glory, should not henceforth devote himself to internal improvements in
France. Nelson, on the contrary, speaking in the house of lords, while
he professed himself a man of peace, insisted on the danger arising from
"a restless and unjust ambition on the part of our neighbours," and
Sheridan delivered a vigorous speech in a like spirit. On the whole, in
January, 1803, the prospects of assured peace and prosperity were much
gloomier than they had been in January, 1802, before the treaty of
Amiens. The funds were going down, the bank restriction act was renewed,
and Despard's conspiracy still agitated the public mind. In the month of
February a strong anti-Gallican sentiment was roused by Mackintosh's
powerful defence of the royalist Jean Peltier, accused and ultimately
convicted of a gross libel on the first consul. On March 8 came the
royal message calling out the militia, which heralded the rupture of the
peace.
The renewal of the war, fraught with so much glory and misery to both
nations, can have taken neither by surprise. The ink was scarcely dry on
the treaty of Amiens when fresh causes of discord sprung up between
France and Great Britain. More than one of these, indeed, had arisen
between the signature of the preliminary convention and the actual
conclusion of peace. During the negotiations, the first consul had, as
we have seen, never ceased to protest against the violent attacks upon
himself in the English press, while Cornwallis persistently warned his
own government against the menacing attitude of France in Italy and
elsewhere. The proclamation of the concordat in April, 1802, and the
recognition of Napoleon as first consul for life in August, however they
may have strengthened his position in France, were no legitimate
subjects for resentment in England; but his acceptance of the presidency
of the "Italian" republic in January, followed by his annexation of
Piedmont in September, revived in all its intensity the British mistrust
of his aggressive policy.
[Pageheading: _FRENCH AGGRESSIONS._]
The month of October witnessed a renewed aggression on Switzerland. A
French army, commanded by Ney, advanced into the interior of the
country, and forced the Swiss, who were in the midst of a civil war, to
accept the mediation of Napoleon. The new constitution which he framed
attempted, by weakening the federal government, to place the direction
of Helvetian external relations in the hands of the French first consul.
Our government vainly endeavoured to resist this interference by sending
agents with money and promises. In Germany the redistribution of
territory necessitated by the peace of Lunéville was carried out
professedly under the joint mediation of France and Russia, but really
at the dictation of Napoleon. The final project, which destroyed all
except three of the spiritual principalities and all except six of the
free cities, was proposed by France on February 23, 1803, and accepted
by the Emperor Francis on April 27.
Against these rearrangements, Great Britain could have nothing to say;
their importance is that while the negotiations were pending, Austria,
Prussia, and Russia all had a strong motive for standing well with
France. Bonaparte's attitude towards Switzerland was, in so far as it
was backed by force, an infringement of the treaty of Lunéville, to
which, however, Great Britain was not a party. The neutrality of
Piedmont had not been safeguarded either at Lunéville or at Amiens; it
had already been occupied by France before the treaty was signed, and
Napoleon claimed to have as much right to annex territory in Europe
without the consent of Great Britain as Great Britain had to annex
territory in India without the consent of France.
Napoleon's schemes of colonial expansion, though equally within the
letter of the treaty, were not less disconcerting. The reconquest of San
Domingo appeared necessary in order to obtain a base for the effective
occupation of the new French possession, Louisiana. The despatch of an
expedition for this purpose in December, 1801, had excited grave
suspicion, and when two-thirds of the army had died of yellow fever and
the remainder had returned home, fresh troops were sent out to take
their place. A new naval expedition was prepared in the Dutch port of
Helvoetsluis, but it was impossible to persuade British public opinion
that its real destination was San Domingo. Finally, on the eve of
hostilities, in the spring of 1803 Napoleon, despairing of advance in
this direction and disregarding the Spanish right of pre-emption, sold
Louisiana to the United States for 80,000,000 francs. Still more
embarrassing was Bonaparte's eastern policy. In September, 1802, Colonel
Sébastiani was sent as "commercial agent" to the Levant. He was
instructed to inspect the condition of ports and arsenals, to assure the
sheykhs of French favour, and to report on the military resources of
Syria, Egypt, and the north African coast. His report, which was
published in the _Moniteur_ of January 30, 1803, set forth the
opportunities that France would possess in the event of an immediate
return to hostilities, and was naturally interpreted as disclosing an
intention to renew the war on the first opportunity. Six thousand French
would, he said, be enough to reconquer Egypt; the country was in favour
of France. In March, 1803, Decaen left France with open instructions to
receive the surrender of the five towns in India restored to France, but
with secret orders to invite the alliance of Indian sovereigns opposed
to Great Britain. On his appearance at Pondicherri, the British
commander prepared to seize him, but he escaped to the Mauritius, which
he put in a state of defence, and made a basis for attacks on British
commerce which lasted from 1803 to 1811.
[Pageheading: _CAUSES OF MISTRUST AFTER AMIENS._]
Ireland also was visited by political spies, passing as commercial
agents. It may not be easy to say how far Emmet's rebellion, to be
recorded hereafter, was the result of these visits. At all events a
letter fell into the hands of the British government, addressed by
Talleyrand to a French agent at Dublin, called Fauvelet, directing him
to obtain answers to a series of questions about the military and naval
circumstances of the district, and "to procure a plan of the ports, with
the soundings and moorings, and to state the draught of water, and the
wind best suited for ingress and egress". The British government
naturally complained of these instructions, but Talleyrand persistently
maintained that they were of a purely commercial character.[7] It is, of
course, true that these preparations in view of a possible recurrence of
hostilities, however obvious their intention, were not in themselves
hostile acts. Still, they were just grounds for suspicion, and, with our
retrospective knowledge of Napoleon's later career, we may seek in vain
for the grounds of confidence which had made the conclusion of a treaty
possible. Great Britain was guilty of more direct breaches of the peace
of Amiens. Russia refused her guarantee for the independence of Malta,
and the British government was therefore technically justified in
retaining it. No similar justification could, however, be alleged for
the retention of Alexandria and the French towns in India. These
measures were, as will be seen, defended on broader grounds of public
policy. Not the least of the causes of discontent with the new situation
was the refusal of Napoleon to follow up the treaty of peace with a
commercial treaty. He had even retained French troops in Holland, and
thus shown that he meant to close its ports against British commerce.
The hope of a renewal of trade with France had been a main cause of the
popular desire for peace, and had reconciled the British public to the
sacrifices with which the treaty of Amiens had been purchased. It soon
became clear that further concessions would be made the price of a
commercial treaty, and it was felt in consequence that the sacrifices
already made were made in vain.
In September, 1802, Lord Whitworth was sent as ambassador extraordinary
to the French Republic. The instructions which he carried with him from
Hawkesbury fully reflect the prevailing spirit of mistrust. He was to
watch for any new leagues which might prejudice England or disturb
Europe; he was to discover any secret designs that might be formed
against the East or West Indies; he was to maintain the closest
surveillance over the internal politics of France, but especially over
the dispositions of influential personages in the confidence of the
first consul, as well as over the financial resources and armaments of
the republic.[8] Two months later, he was expressly warned in a secret
despatch not in any way to commit His Majesty to a restoration of Malta,
even if the provisions made at Amiens for this purpose could be
completely executed; and the principle was laid down, from which the
British government never swerved, that Great Britain was entitled to
compensation for any acquisitions made by France since the treaty was
signed. Accordingly, the retention of Malta was justified as a
counterpoise to French extensions of territory in Italy, the invasion of
Switzerland, and the continued occupation of the Batavian republic.[9]
This resolution was naturally confirmed by the publication of
Sébastiani's report.
[Pageheading: _NAPOLEON AND WHITWORTH._]
The long negotiations between Whitworth and the French government,
during the winter of 1802 and the spring of 1803, only bring into
stronger relief the importance of the issues thus raised, and the
hopelessness of a pacific solution. Napoleon firmly took his stand
throughout on the simple letter of the treaty, which pledged Great
Britain, upon certain conditions, to place the knights of St. John in
possession of Malta, but did not contemplate the case of further
accessions of French territory on the continent. Although the conditions
specified were never fully satisfied, it is abundantly clear that the
British ministers, having at last grasped the value of Malta, created
all the difficulties in their power, and determined to cancel this
article of the treaty. They alleged, in self-defence, that the spirit of
the treaty had been constantly violated by Napoleon, in repeated acts of
hostility to British subjects, in the refusal of all redress for such
grievances, and, above all, in that series of aggressions on the
continent which he declared to be outside the treaty and beyond the
province of Great Britain.[10] None of the compromises laboriously
discussed in the winter of 1802 betoken any desire on the part of
either government to retreat from its main position, though it does not
follow that either sought to bring about a renewal of the war. Whitworth
constantly reported that no formidable armaments were being prepared,
and clung for months to a belief that Napoleon, knowing the instability
of his own power and the ruinous state of his finances, would ultimately
give way. On the other hand, Talleyrand and Joseph Bonaparte never
ceased to hope that Great Britain would make concessions which might be
accepted.
Such hopes were rudely dispelled by the king's message to parliament on
March 8, 1803, complaining of aggressive preparations in the ports of
France and Holland, and recommending immediate measures for the security
of his dominions. This message, with the consequent embodiment of the
militia, startled the whole continent, and was followed five days later
by the famous scene in which the first consul addressed Whitworth in
phrases little short of insult. During a public audience at the
Tuileries on the 13th, Napoleon, after inquiring whether the British
ambassador had received any news from home, broke out with the words:
"And so you are determined to go to war". The altercation which ensued
is best told in Whitworth's own words[11]:--
"'No, first consul,' I replied, 'we are too sensible of the advantages
of peace.' 'We have,' said he, 'been fighting these fifteen years.' As
he seemed to wait for an answer, I observed only, 'That is already too
long'. 'But,' said he, 'you desire to fight for fifteen years more, and
you are forcing me to it,' I told him that was very far from his
majesty's intentions. He then proceeded to Count Marcoff and the
Chevalier Azzara, who were standing together at a little distance from
me, and said to them, 'The English are bent on war, but if they are the
first to draw the sword, I shall be the last to put it back into the
scabbard. They do not respect treaties. They must be covered with black
crape.' I suppose he meant the treaties. He then went his round, and was
thought by all those to whom he addressed himself to betray great signs
of irritation. In a few minutes he came back to me, to my great
annoyance, and resumed the conversation, if such it can be called, by
something personally civil to me. He then began again, 'Why these
armaments? Against whom these measures of precaution? I have not a
single ship of the line in the French ports; but if you wish to arm, I
will arm also; if you wish to fight, I will fight also. You may perhaps
kill France, but will never intimidate her.' 'We wish,' said I, 'neither
the one nor the other. We wish to live on good terms with her.' 'You
must respect treaties then,' replied he; 'woe to those who do not
respect treaties; they shall answer for it to all Europe.'"
Too much stress has been laid upon this incident, so characteristic of
Napoleon's studied impetuosity. Little more than a fortnight later he
received the British ambassador with courtesy. Overtures now succeeded
overtures, and much was expected on both sides from the influence of the
Tsar Alexander, to whom France suggested that Malta might be ceded.[12]
At the last moment, a somewhat more conciliatory disposition was shown
by the French diplomatists; and the British government was blamed by its
opponents, alike for having failed to break off the negotiations earlier
on the broadest grounds, and for breaking them off too abruptly on
grounds of doubtful validity. But we now see that national enmity,
fostered by the press on both sides, rendered friendly relations
impossible, and that, even had Napoleon been willing to refrain from
aggressions, peace was impossible. On May 12, two months after the
king's message, Whitworth, having presented an ultimatum, finally
quitted Paris. A few days later an order was issued for the detention of
all British subjects then resident in France, and justified on the
ground that French seamen (but not passengers) were liable to capture at
sea. On June 10 Talleyrand announced the occupation of Hanover and the
treatment as enemies of Hanoverian soldiers serving under the King of
Great Britain. Meanwhile, on May 16, the rupture of peaceful relations
was announced to both houses of parliament; on May 18 war was declared,
and in June volunteers were already mustering to resist invasion.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] So Vansittart himself, in Pellew, _Life of Sidmouth_, i., 371.
Southey and Captain Mahan have erroneously supposed that Vansittart
accompanied the naval expedition and was sent by Parker in the frigate
from the Skaw.
[2] _Annual Register_, xliii. (1801), chapter i. The average price of
wheat in 1800 was 112s. 8d. the quarter, whereas the highest annual
average in the half century before the war had been 64s. 6d. On March 5,
1801, the price of the quartern loaf stood as high as 1s. 10½d. On
July 23 it was still 1s. 8d. The harvest of this year was, however, an
excellent one. The price fell rapidly during August, and by November 12
was as low as 10½d.
[3] Cornwallis, _Correspondence_, iii., 382-487.
[4] In a letter to Charles Carey, dated October 22, Fox went the length
of expressing extreme pleasure in the triumph of the French government
over the English (_Memorials of C. J. Fox_, iii., 349).
[5] Malmesbury, _Diaries_, iv., 60, 62.
[6] Lecky, _History Of Ireland_, v., 465.
[7] Lanfrey, _Napoleon I._ (English edition), ii., 202; Pellew, _Life of
Sidmouth_, ii., 164.
[8] Browning, _England and Napoleon in 1803_, pp. 1-6.
[9] Browning, _ibid._, pp. 6-10.
[10] See especially Hawkesbury's despatch in Browning, _ibid._, pp.
65-68, and Whitworth's despatches, _ibid._, pp. 73-75, 78-85.
[11] Whitworth's despatch of March 14, in Browning, _England and
Napoleon_, p. 116.
[12] Browning, _England and Napoleon_, p. 218.
CHAPTER II.
THE RETURN OF PITT.
The period following the rupture of the peace of Amiens, though crowded
with military events of the highest importance, was inevitably barren in
social and political interest. Disappointed in its hopes of returning
prosperity, the nation girded itself up with rare unanimity for a
renewed contest. In July the income-tax was reinstituted and a bill was
actually carried authorising a levy _en masse_ in case of invasion.
Pending its enforcement, the navy was vigorously recruited by means of
the press-gang; the yeomanry were called out, and a force of infantry
volunteers was enrolled, which reached a total of 300,000 in August, and
of nearly 400,000 at the beginning of the next session. Pitt himself, as
warden of the Cinque Ports, took command of 3,000 volunteers in Kent,
and contrasted in parliament the warlike enthusiasm of the country with
the alleged apathy of the ministry. On July 23 a rebellion broke out in
Ireland, instigated by French agents and headed by a young man named
Robert Emmet. The conspiracy was ill planned and in itself
insignificant, but the recklessness of the conspirators was equalled by
the weakness of the civil and military authorities, who neglected to
take any precautions in spite of the plainest warnings. The rebels had
intended to attack Dublin Castle and seize the person of the lord
lieutenant, who was to be held as a hostage; but they dared not make the
attempt, and after parading the streets for a few hours were dispersed
by the spontaneous action of a few determined officers with a handful of
troops, but not before Lord Kilwarden, the chief justice, and several
other persons, had been cruelly murdered by Emmet's followers. Futile as
the rising was, it sufficed to show that union was not a sovereign
remedy for Irish disaffection.
Meanwhile the relations between the prime minister and his predecessor
had been growing less and less cordial. Throughout the year 1801 Pitt
was still the friend and informal adviser of the ministry, and it is
difficult to overrate the value of his support as a ground of confidence
in an administration, personally popular, but known to be deficient in
intellectual brilliance. In 1802 he generally stood aloof, and though in
June of that year he corrected the draft of the king's speech, he
absented himself from parliament, for he was dissatisfied with the
measures adopted by government. His dissatisfaction was known to his
friends, and in November a movement was set on foot by Canning to induce
Addington to withdraw in Pitt's favour; but Pitt, though willing to
resume office, refused to allow the ministry to be approached on the
subject. He preferred to wait till a general wish for his return to
power should be manifested. In December he visited Grenville at
Dropmore, and expressed a certain discontent with the government.[13] It
was his intention still to treat the ministers with tenderness, but to
return to parliament and criticise their policy. It is easy to see that
his object at this date was not to drive the government from office, but
to give rise to a desire to re-enlist his own talents in the service of
the country, and thus prepare the way for a peaceable resumption of the
position he had abandoned in the preceding year.
[Pageheading: _NEGOTIATIONS FOR PITT'S RETURN._]
No sooner had rumours of Pitt's willingness to resume office reached
Addington in the last days of December, than he opened negotiations with
Pitt with a view to effecting this object. Pitt did not receive his
overtures very warmly. He doubtless wished to be brought back because he
was felt to be indispensable, without any appearance of intrigue. Time
was in his favour, and he allowed the negotiations to proceed slowly. As
the proposals took shape, it became clear that Addington did not wish to
be openly superseded by Pitt, but preferred that they should serve
together as secretaries of state under a third person; and Addington
even suggested Pitt's brother, the Earl of Chatham, then master-general
of the ordnance, as a suitable prime minister. Pitt's reply,
communicated to Addington by Dundas, now Viscount Melville, in a letter
dated March 22, 1803, was to the effect that Pitt would not accept any
position in the government except that of prime minister, with which was
to be coupled the office of chancellor of the exchequer. Addington
readily acceded to Pitt's claim to this position, but Grenville refused
to serve in a ministry where Addington and Hawkesbury held "any
efficient offices of real business," and Addington declined to abandon
ministerial office for a speakership of the house of lords, which Pitt
proposed to create for him. Finally, on April 10, Pitt at a private
conference with Addington proposed as an indispensable condition of his
own return to office that Melville, Spencer, Grenville, and Windham
should become members of his cabinet. This meant a reconstruction of the
whole ministry, and Pitt stipulated that the changes should be made by
the king's desire and on the recommendation of the existing ministry.
The situation had become an impossible one. Nothing was more reasonable
than that Pitt, the friend and protector of the existing ministry,
should assume the direction of affairs now that the nation appeared to
be on the brink of war. But Pitt could not honourably desert those
former colleagues, who had resigned with him on the catholic question.
Two of these, however, Grenville and Windham, though doubtless men of
the highest capacity, had bitterly attacked the existing ministry; and
it was not to be expected that that ministry, supported as it still was
by overwhelming majorities in both houses of parliament, supported as it
had hitherto been by Pitt himself, should consent to admit its opponents
to a share of office. It is highly improbable that Grenville and Windham
would then have co-operated with Addington and Hawkesbury, and their
admission to office would have ruined the cohesion of the cabinet,
unless it had been accompanied by the retirement of the leading members
of the existing ministry which Pitt's previous attitude, together with
the actual balance of parties in parliament, rendered it impossible to
demand. How difficult it was to induce Grenville and Windham to enter
into any combination future years were to prove. For the present the
ministry took not merely the wisest, but the only course open to it.
Addington, after vainly endeavouring to induce Pitt to modify his terms,
laid them before a cabinet council on April 13; they were immediately
rejected, though the cabinet declared itself ready to admit to office
Pitt himself and those of his colleagues who had hitherto acted with the
Addington ministry. Pitt could hardly have expected any other reply. No
ministry could have granted such terms except on the supposition that
Pitt was indispensable, and Pitt for the present hardly claimed such a
position.[14]
But if Pitt did not consider himself indispensable, his friends did, and
both he and others came gradually to adopt their view. The rejection of
his terms left him free to adopt the line of policy that he had sketched
to Grenville in the previous December. He had not to wait long for an
opportunity, but in the opinion of Pitt's friends at least the first
provocation came from Addington. Unable to strengthen his ministry by
any accession from Pitt and his followers, he had turned to the "old
opposition," the whigs who, under the leadership of Fox, had
consistently advocated a pacific policy. These had recently supported
the ministry against the "new opposition," as the followers of Grenville
and Windham were called. But since 1797 Fox and the majority of the "old
opposition" had generally absented themselves from parliament, and
George Tierney, member for Southwark, had led what was left of their
party.[15] He now received and accepted the offer of the treasurership
of the navy, one of the most important of the offices below cabinet
rank. As a speaker Tierney was a valuable addition to the government
which was sadly deficient in debating power; he had, however, been
particularly bitter in his attacks on Pitt, with whom he had fought a
duel in 1798, and had provoked the sarcastic wit of Canning, in whose
well-known parody, "The Friend of Humanity and the Knife-grinder"
(1798), the original illustration by Gillray depicted the friend of
humanity with the features of Tierney and laid the scene in the borough
of Southwark.
[Pageheading: _CHANGES IN ADDINGTON'S MINISTRY._]
The appointment, which Pitt himself does not appear to have resented,
was announced on June 1, and Tierney took his place on the treasury
bench on the 3rd. On the same evening Colonel Patten moved a series of
resolutions condemning, in extravagant terms, the conduct of the
ministry in the negotiation with France. Pitt seized the opportunity to
move the orders of the day. In other words, he proposed that the
question should be left undecided. He expressed the opinion that the
ministry was not free from blame, but declared himself unable to concur
in all the charges against it. He considered further that to drive the
existing ministers out of office would only throw the country into
confusion, and that it was therefore inadvisable to pursue the question.
To this the ministerial speakers replied by demanding a direct censure
or a total acquittal, and the consequent division served only to display
the weakness of the opposition. The Addington, Fox, and Grenville
parties combined to oppose Pitt's motion, which was rejected by 333
votes against 56. Pitt and Fox, and their respective followers then left
the house, leaving the ministerial party and the Grenville party to
decide the fate of Patten's resolutions, which were negatived by 275
votes against 34. A comparison of the figures of the two divisions,
allowing for tellers, gives as the voting strength of Pitt's party 58,
of Grenville's 36, of Fox's 22, and of Addington's 277. Of these the
Grenville party alone desired to eject the ministers from office, while
Fox's party openly professed a preference for Addington over Pitt.
During the remainder of the session Pitt seldom took any part in
parliamentary business, and never opposed the ministry on any question
of importance. On August 12 parliament was prorogued after a session
lasting nearly nine months, and the prime minister embraced the
opportunity of making some slight reconstructions in the ministry.
Pelham, who was removed from the home office, resigned his place in the
cabinet, and was shortly afterwards consoled with the chancellorship of
the duchy of Lancaster, an office which was not yet definitely
recognised as political. Charles Philip Yorke, son of the chancellor who
died in 1770 and half-brother of the third Earl of Hardwicke, resigned
the office of secretary at war and succeeded to the home office on the
17th. It was also considered advisable to strengthen the ministry in the
upper house, where Grenville's oratory gave the opposition a decided
advantage in debating power, and Hawkesbury was accordingly summoned to
the lords on November 16 in his father's barony of Hawkesbury. After
this rearrangement the cabinet contained eight peers and three
commoners, no illiberal allowance of commoners according to the ideas of
the age. The recess was further marked by a violent war of pamphlets
between the followers of Addington and Pitt, which began early in
September, and which, although no politician of the first order took any
direct part in it, did much to embitter the relations of their
respective parties.[16] Not less irritating were the _jeux d'esprit_
with which Canning continued to assail the ministry in the newspaper
press.[17] The most famous of these is the couplet:--
Pitt is to Addington
As London is to Paddington.
A more openly abusive poem, entitled "Good Intentions," described the
prime minister as "Happy Britain's guardian gander". The following
verses refer to the appointment of Addington's brother, John Hiley
Addington, to be paymaster-general of the forces, and of his
brother-in-law, Charles Bragge, afterwards succeeded by Tierney, to be
treasurer of the navy:--
How blest, how firm the statesman stands
(Him no low intrigue can move)
Circled by faithful kindred bands
And propped by fond fraternal love.
When his speeches hobble vilely,
What "Hear him's" burst from Brother Hiley;
When his faltering periods lag,
Hark to the cheers of Brother Bragge.
Each a gentleman at large,
Lodged and fed at public charge,
Paying (with a grace to charm ye)
This the Fleet, and that the Army.[18]
[Pageheading: _THE KING'S ILLNESS._]
When parliament reassembled on November 22 the opposition was still
disunited, and, though Windham severely condemned the inadequacy of the
provision made for national defence, he did not venture to divide
against the government. But during the Christmas recess a distinct step
was made towards the consolidation of the opposition by the reunion of
the two sections of the whig party. Grenville had conceived a chimerical
project of replacing the existing administration by one which should
include all statesmen possessed of real political talent, whatever their
differences in the past might have been. True to this policy, he
persuaded Fox in January, 1804, to join him in attempting to expel the
Addington administration from office as an essential preliminary to any
further action. Sheridan, however, with some of the Prince of Wales's
friends, still refused to enter into any combination which might result
in the return of Pitt to power. The parliamentary session was resumed on
February 1, but the course of events was complicated by a recurrence of
the king's malady. Symptoms of this were observed towards the end of
January; the disease took a turn for the worse about February 12, and on
the 14th it was made known to the public. For a short time the king's
life appeared to be in danger; his reason was affected during a longer
interval, but the attack was in every way milder than in 1789, and on
March 7 Dr. Simmons reported to Addington that "the king was competent
to perform any act of government".[19] It is true that for many months
the king's health did not allow him to give his full attention to public
business, but there was nothing to prevent him from attending to such
routine work as was absolutely necessary. There could, however, be no
question of a change of ministers till there should be a marked
improvement in the king's health.
The king's illness was made the occasion on February 27 of a motion by
Sir Robert Lawley for the adjournment of the house of commons. This was
parried by Addington with the statement that there was no necessary
suspension of such royal functions as it might be necessary for His
Majesty to discharge at the present moment.[20] The emphasis here
obviously lay on the word "necessary". A still bolder course was adopted
shortly afterwards by the lord chancellor. When on March 9 the king's
assent to several bills was given by commission, Fitzwilliam raised not
unreasonable doubts as to whether the king was capable of resuming the
functions of government. Eldon, however, declared that, as the result of
a private interview with the king, he had come to the conclusion that
the royal commissioners were warranted in assenting to the bills in
question. Whether the chancellor was justified in assuming this
responsibility must remain doubtful; at all events Pitt seems to have
determined that the time was now ripe for a ministerial crisis. He had
on February 27 criticised both the military and naval defences of the
country, but he would not directly attack the government till the king's
health was in a better condition. At last, on March 15, the first attack
was made. Pitt selected the weak point in the administration. St.
Vincent's obstinacy in refusing to believe in the possibility of a
renewal of hostility and his excessive economy had brought about a
marked deterioration in the strength and quality of the fleet. Pitt
accordingly moved for an inquiry into the administration of the navy.
Fox dissociated himself from Pitt's attacks on the first lord of the
admiralty, but supported the motion on the ground that an inquiry would
clear St. Vincent's character. On a division the government had a
majority of 201 against 130. On the 19th, however, Pitt refused to join
the Grenvilles in supporting Fox's motion for the re-committal of the
volunteer consolidation bill. On the following day Eldon made overtures
to Pitt, and on the 23rd Pitt dined _tête-à-tête_ with the chancellor,
but no record has been preserved of the nature of their negotiations.
On the 29th Pitt, in a letter to Melville, explained his position at
length. He intended, as soon after the Easter recess as the king's
health should permit, to write to the king explaining the dangers which,
in his opinion, threatened the crown and people from the continuance of
the existing government, and representing the urgent necessity of a
speedy change; he would prefer an administration from which no political
party should be excluded, but was unwilling, especially in view of the
king's state of health, to force any minister upon him; if, therefore,
he should be invited by the king to form a ministry from which the
partisans of Fox and Grenville were to be excluded, he was prepared to
form one from his own followers united with the more capable members of
the existing government, excluding Addington himself and St. Vincent;
should this measure fail of success, he would "have no hesitation in
taking such ground in Parliament as would be most likely to attain the
object".[21] As it happened, the parliamentary assault preceded the
correspondence with the king. Immediately after the recess the ministry
laid before parliament military proposals which Pitt felt bound to
resist. On April 16 Pitt, supported by Windham, opposed the third
reading of a bill for augmenting the Irish militia, and expressed a
preference for the army of reserve. He was defeated by the narrow
majority of 128 against 107. On the 23rd Fox proposed to refer the
question of national defence to a committee of the whole house. He was
supported by Pitt and Windham, and defeated by 256 votes only against
204. The division which sealed the fate of the ministry was taken two
days later on a motion that the house should go into committee on a bill
for the suspension of the army of reserve. This was opposed by Pitt, who
expounded a rival plan for the diminution of the militia and increase of
the army of reserve. Fox and Windham demanded for Pitt's scheme a right
to consideration, and on a division the motion was carried by no more
than 240 against 203. The division of April 16 had convinced Addington
that a reconciliation with Pitt was necessary. On Pitt's refusing to
confer with him, he agreed to recommend the king to charge Eldon with
the task of discovering Pitt's views as to the formation of a new
ministry, in case the king wished to learn them.
[Pageheading: _ADDINGTON'S RESIGNATION._]
The king, however, expressed no such wish, and on April 22 Pitt sent an
unsealed letter to Eldon to be laid before the king; announcing his
dissatisfaction with the ministry and his intention of declaring this
dissatisfaction in parliament.[22] It was not till the 27th that Eldon
found a suitable opportunity of communicating Pitt's letter to the king.
Before that date Addington, who considered that he could no longer
remain in office with dignity after the divisions of the 23rd and 25th,
had on the 26th informed the king of his intention to resign. The king
reluctantly consented to his resignation, which was announced to the
cabinet on the 29th. On the following day Eldon called on Pitt with a
request from the king for a plan of a new administration. Pitt replied
in a letter, setting forth at great length the arguments in favour of a
combined administration, and requesting permission to confer with Fox
and Grenville about the construction of the ministry.[23] The letter
irritated the king, who demanded a renewed pledge against catholic
emancipation, with which Grenville was specially associated in his mind,
and refused to admit Pitt to office if he persevered in his purpose of
consulting Fox and Grenville. Pitt then declared his adherence to the
pledge given in 1801[24] and requested an interview with the king. The
interview, which took place on May 7, lasted three hours, and ended in a
compromise. The king agreed to admit Grenville and his friends to
office, but, while ready to accept the friends of Fox, he refused, as
much on personal as on political grounds, to give Fox a place in the
cabinet. At the same time he declared himself ready to grant him a
diplomatic appointment. At a later date the king went the length of
declaring that, rather than accept Fox, he would have incurred the risk
of civil war.
[Pageheading: _PITT'S RETURN TO OFFICE._]
Fox readily agreed to his own exclusion, which he had fully expected,
and urged his followers to join Pitt, but Grenville and his friends
refused to serve without Fox, while the friends of Fox and the more
immediate followers of Addington refused to serve without their
respective leaders. Addington always considered that Pitt had treated
him ungenerously in driving him from office, when it was open to him to
return to the head of affairs with the full consent of the existing
ministers. More recently it has been the fashion to blame Pitt for
bringing too little pressure to bear upon the king and thus losing the
support of Fox and Grenville. Neither charge appears to be justified.
Through the whole length of the Addington administration Pitt showed
himself fully sensitive of what was due to the king, with whom he had
worked cordially for eighteen years, to Grenville who had resigned in
his cause, and to Addington who had assumed office under his protection.
There was no trace of faction in Pitt's attitude towards the ministry.
He merely opposed what he believed to be dangerous to the country, and
when he was convinced of the necessity of removing Addington from a
share in public business, he endeavoured to effect his purpose in such a
way as to give the minimum of offence.
On the other hand, Pitt's intended combination in a supreme crisis of
his country's destiny with his life-long antagonist, Fox, was a heroic
experiment, perhaps, but still only an experiment. The failure of the
ministry of "All the Talents" renders it exceedingly doubtful whether
such an alliance would have proved successful, and Fox's lukewarm
patriotism would have been dearly purchased at the expense of the
alienation of the king, perhaps even of his relapse into insanity. Nor
is it certain that the strongest pressure would have induced George III.
to accept Fox at this date. Addington was still undefeated and might
have remained in office if Pitt had refused to assume the reins of
government without Fox. Grenville is undoubtedly more responsible than
any one else for the weakness of Pitt's second administration. It was
from a sense of loyalty to Grenville that Pitt had suffered the
negotiations for his return to office in 1803 to fall through, and now
when the two statesmen could return together, and when, if ever, a
strong government was needed, either a quixotic sense of honour or a
wounded pride induced Grenville not only to stand aloof from the new
administration himself, but to do his utmost to prevent others from
giving it their support.[25] The new cabinet was quickly formed. Pitt
received the seals of office on May 10, and took his seat in parliament
after re-election on the 18th, the very day on which Napoleon was
declared emperor by the French senate.
This event, long foreseen, was doubtless hastened by the disclosure of
the plot formed by Moreau, Pichegru, and Georges Cadoudal against the
first consul. There was no proof of Moreau's complicity in designs on
Napoleon's life, and the mysterious death of Pichegru in prison left the
extent of his complicity among the insoluble problems of history, but
there can be no doubt that Cadoudal was justly executed for plotting
assassination. Unfortunately some of the under-secretaries in the
Addington administration had not only shared the plans of the
conspirators so far as they aimed at a rising in France, but had
procured for them material assistance. They appear, however, to have
been innocent of any attempt on Napoleon's life. Drake, the British
envoy at Munich, was, however, deeper in the plot. The evidence of
British complicity naturally received the very worst construction in
Paris.[26] Napoleon himself certainly believed in an Anglo-Bourbon
conspiracy, organised by the Count of Artois and other French royalists,
when he caused the Duke of Enghien to be kidnapped in Baden territory
and hurried off to the castle of Vincennes. He was, however, already
aware of his prisoner's innocence when on March 21 he had him shot there
by torch-light after a mock trial before a military commission. All
Europe was shocked by this atrocious assassination, and though Napoleon
sometimes attempted to shift the guilt of it upon Talleyrand, he
justified it at other times as a measure of self-defence, and left on
record his deliberate approval of it, for the consideration of
posterity. Two months later he became Emperor of the French.
When Pitt resumed office on May 10, 1804, he was no longer the
heaven-born and buoyant young minister of 1783, strong in the confidence
of the king and the anticipated confidence of the nation, with a
minority of followers in the house of commons, but with the brightest
prospects of political success before him. Nor was he the leader of a
devoted majority, as when he resigned in 1801 rather than abandon his
convictions on the catholic question. He had been compelled to waive
these convictions, without fully regaining the confidence of the king,
and, while the adherents of Fox retained their deep-seated hatred of a
war-policy, the adherents of Addington and Grenville were in no mood to
give him a loyal support. Windham and Spencer were no longer at his
side, and his ministry was essentially the same as that of Addington,
with the substitution of Dudley Ryder, now Lord Harrowby, for Hawkesbury
as foreign secretary, Melville for St. Vincent as first lord of the
admiralty, Earl Camden for Hobart as secretary for war and the colonies,
and the Duke of Montrose for Auckland as president of the board of
trade. Hawkesbury was transferred to the home office, vacated by Yorke,
and the new chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster, Lord Mulgrave, was
given a seat in the cabinet. Of Pitt's eleven colleagues in the cabinet
Castlereagh alone, who remained president of the board of control--a
wretched speaker though an able administrator--had a seat in the lower
house.
[Pageheading: _PITT'S RECONCILIATION WITH ADDINGTON._]
Military exigencies now engrossed all thoughts, and the king's speech,
in proroguing parliament on July 31, foreshadowed a new coalition, for
which the murder of the Duke of Enghien had paved the way. The
preparations for an invasion of England had been resumed, and Napoleon
celebrated his birthday in great state at Boulogne, still postponing his
final stroke until he should be crowned, on December 2, at Paris by the
helpless pope, brought from Italy for the purpose.[27] A month later he
personally addressed another pacific letter to the King of England, who
replied in his speech from the throne on January 15, 1805, that he could
not entertain overtures except in concert with Russia and the other
powers. Meanwhile, Pitt, conscious as he was of failing powers, retained
his undaunted courage, and while he was organising a third coalition,
did not shrink from a bold measure which could hardly be justified by
international law. This was the seizure on October 5, 1804, of three
Spanish treasure-ships on the high seas, without a previous declaration
of war against Spain, though not without a previous notice that
hostilities might be opened at any moment unless Spain ceased to give
underhand assistance to France. The excuse was that Spain had long been
the obsequious ally of France, and, as the alliance now became open,
Pitt's act was sanctioned by a large majority in both houses of
parliament in January, 1805. The parliamentary session which opened in
this month found Pitt's ministry apparently stronger than it had been at
the beginning of the recess. Despairing of any help from Grenville,
except in a vigorous prosecution of the war, he had sought a
reconciliation with Addington, who became Viscount Sidmouth on January
12 and president of the council on the 14th. Along with Sidmouth his
former colleague Hobart, now Earl of Buckinghamshire, returned to office
as chancellor of the duchy. To make room for these new allies, Portland
had consented to resign the presidency of the council, though he
remained a member of the cabinet, while Mulgrave was appointed to the
foreign office, in place of Harrowby, who was compelled by ill-health to
retire.
But this new accession of strength was soon followed by a terrible
mortification which probably contributed to shorten Pitt's life.
Melville, his tried supporter and intimate friend, was charged on the
report of a commission with having misapplied public money as treasurer
of the navy in Pitt's former ministry. It appeared that he had been
culpably careless, and had not prevented the paymaster, Trotter, from
engaging in private speculations with the naval balances. Although
Trotter's speculations involved no loss to the state they were,
nevertheless, a contravention of an act of 1785. Melville had also
supplied other departments of government with naval money, but was
personally innocent of fraud. There was a divergence of feeling in the
cabinet as to the attitude to be adopted towards Melville. Sidmouth,
himself a man of the highest integrity, was a friend of St. Vincent, the
late first lord of the admiralty, and had not forgiven Melville for his
part in the expulsion of himself and St. Vincent from office. He had
therefore both public and private grounds to incline him against
Melville. On April 8, Samuel Whitbread moved a formal censure on
Melville in the house of commons. Pitt, with the approval of Sidmouth
and his friends, moved the previous question on Whitbread's motion, and
declared his intention of introducing a motion of his own for a select
committee to investigate the charges. In spite of the support which Pitt
derived from the followers of Sidmouth the votes were equally divided on
Whitbread's motion, 216 a side. Abbot, the speaker, gave his casting
vote in favour of Whitbread, and the announcement was received by the
whig members with unseemly exultation.[28]
[Pageheading: _MINISTERIAL CHANGES._]
The censure was followed by an impeachment before the house of lords,
where Melville was acquitted in the following year. Meanwhile, he had
resigned office on April 9, the day after the vote of censure, and his
place at the admiralty was taken by Sir Charles Middleton, who was
raised to the peerage as Lord Barham. The appointment gave umbrage to
Sidmouth, to whom Pitt had made promises of promotion for his own
followers, and he was with difficulty induced to remain in the cabinet.
Pitt was, however, irritated by the hostile votes of Sidmouth's
followers, Hiley Addington and Bond, on the question of the impeachment,
and regarded this as a reason for delaying their preferment. Sidmouth
now complained of a breach of faith, as Pitt had promised to treat the
question as an open one, and he resigned office on July 4.
Buckinghamshire resigned next day. Camden was appointed to succeed
Sidmouth as lord president, Castlereagh followed Camden as secretary for
war and the colonies, retaining his previous position as president of
the board of control, and Harrowby, whose health had improved since his
resignation in January, took Buckinghamshire's place as chancellor of
the duchy. Thus weakened at home, Pitt could derive little consolation
from the aspect of continental affairs. On May 26, Napoleon was crowned
King of Italy in the cathedral of Milan, and the Ligurian Republic
became part of the French empire in the following month. The ascendency
of France in Europe might well have appeared impregnable, and it might
have been supposed that nothing remained for England but to guard her
own coasts and recapture some of the French colonies given up by the
treaty of Amiens.
But Pitt's spirit was still unbroken, and by the middle of July he
succeeded in rallying three powers, Russia, Austria, and Sweden, into a
league to withstand the further encroachments of France. Such a league
had been proposed by Gustavus IV. of Sweden, early in 1804, but nothing
definite was done till Pitt's ministry entered upon office. Meanwhile,
the assassination of the Duke of Enghien had led to a rupture of
diplomatic relations between France and Russia, though war was not
declared. Negotiations were presently set on foot for a league, which,
it was hoped, would be joined by Austria and Prussia in addition to
Great Britain, Russia, and Sweden. An interesting feature in the
negotiations was the tsar's scheme of a European polity, where the
states should be independent and enjoy institutions "founded on the
sacred rights of humanity," a foreshadowing, as it would seem, of the
Holy Alliance. The discussion of details between Great Britain and
Russia began towards the end of 1804. Difficulties, however, arose about
the British retention of Malta and the British claim to search neutral
ships for deserters. A treaty between the two powers was signed on April
11, 1805; but the tsar long refused his ratification, and it was only
given in July, after a formal protest against the retention of Malta.
The object of this alliance was defined to be the expulsion of French
troops from North Germany, the assured independence of the republics of
Holland and Switzerland, and the restoration of the King of Sardinia in
Piedmont; 500,000 men were to be provided for the war by Russia and such
other continental powers as might join the coalition. Great Britain,
instead of furnishing troops, was to supply £1,250,000 a year for every
100,000 men engaged in the war. After the close of the war an European
congress was to define more closely the law of nations and establish an
European federation. At the same time the allies disclaimed the
intention of forcing any system of government on France against her
will. It will be observed that the number of troops specified was far in
excess of what Russia alone could place in the field; such numbers could
only be obtained by the adhesion of Austria and of either Prussia or
some of the smaller German states to the coalition. So far as Austria
was concerned, Napoleon's Italian policy rendered war inevitable.
Already in November, 1804, the Austrian court had entered into a secret
agreement with Russia to make war on France in the event of further
French aggressions in Italy. The coronation of Napoleon as King of Italy
and the annexation of Liguria were, however, more than aggressions; they
were open violations of the treaty of Lunéville which had guaranteed the
independence of the Cisalpine and Ligurian republics. Austria hereupon
determined on war, and secretly joined the coalition on August 9, 1805.
Sweden, which was not a member of it, concluded separate treaties of
alliance both with Great Britain and with Russia. Greater difficulties
had to be surmounted in the case of Prussia. Frederick William III.
cherished no enthusiasm for European liberty, and vacillated under the
influence of Napoleon's offer of Hanover on the one hand and his
numerous petty insults on the other. Prussia in consequence remained
neutral throughout the most decisive period of the ensuing war.
[Pageheading: _NELSON AND VILLENEUVE._]
Long before the coalition was ready Napoleon's mind had recurred to his
venturesome project for the invasion of England. An army, the finest
that he ever led to victory, which, even after it had been transferred
to another scene of action, he still saw fit to call the "army of
England," was encamped near Boulogne. It was constantly exercised in the
process of embarking on board flat-bottomed boats or rafts, which were
to be convoyed by Villeneuve, admiral of the Toulon fleet, and
Gantheaume, admiral of the Brest fleet, for whose appearance the French
signalmen vainly scanned the horizon. In the meantime, Nelson had been
engaged for two years, without setting foot on shore, in that patient
and sleepless watch, ranging over the whole Mediterranean, which must
ever rank with the greatest of his matchless exploits. At last, he
learned in the spring of 1805, that Villeneuve, following a plan
concerted by Napoleon himself, had eluded him by sailing from Toulon
towards Cadiz, had there been joined by the Spanish fleet, and was
steering for the West Indies. Nelson followed with a much smaller number
of ships, and might have forced an action in those waters, but he was
misled by false intelligence and missed the enemy, though his dreaded
presence was effectual in saving the British islands from any serious
attack.
The combined fleets of France and Spain recrossed the Atlantic and in
accordance with Napoleon's plans made for Ferrol on the coast of
Galicia. After being repulsed with some loss off Cape Finisterre by Sir
Robert Calder, who was court-martialled and severely reprimanded for
neglecting to follow up his victory, they put in first at Vigo, and then
with fifteen allied ships at Coruña. But, instead of venturing to carry
out Napoleon's orders by challenging Admiral Cornwallis's fleet off
Brest, and making a desperate effort to command the channel, Villeneuve
now took advantage of his emperors recommendation to return to Cadiz in
event of defeat, and set sail for that port in the middle of August.
Nelson, ignorant of his movements, had vainly sought him off the Straits
of Gibraltar, and came home to report himself at the admiralty. Arriving
at Spithead on August 18, he was in England barely four weeks, most of
which he spent in privacy at Merton. During this brief respite he
received a general tribute of admiration and affection from his
countrymen, which anticipated the verdict of posterity. On September 15
he sailed from Portsmouth, with a presentiment of his own fate, after
having described to Sidmouth the general design of his crowning sea
fight: he would, he said, break the enemy's line in two places; and he
did so. He joined Admiral Collingwood off Cadiz on the 29th, and on
October 19 he received news that Villeneuve, smarting under the
prospect of being superseded, had put to sea with the combined fleet.
Complicated naval manoeuvres followed, but on the 21st the enemy was
forced to give battle, a few leagues from Cape Trafalgar, and Nelson
caused his immortal signal to be hoisted--"England expects that every
man will do his duty".
[Pageheading: _THE BATTLE OF TRAFALGAR._]
The French and Spanish fleet comprised thirty-three ships of the line,
of which eighteen were French and fifteen Spanish; the British had only
twenty-seven, but among these were seven three-deckers as against four
on the side of the allies. It had the additional advantage of superior
discipline and equipment, to say nothing of the genius of its commander.
The British fleet advanced in two divisions, Nelson leading the weather
division of twelve, and Collingwood the lee division of fifteen ships.
According to Nelson's plan Collingwood was to attack the rear of the
enemy's line, while he himself cut off and paralysed the centre and van.
Both divisions advanced without regular formation, the ships bearing
down with all the speed they could command and without waiting for
laggards. Collingwood in the _Royal Sovereign_, steering E. by N., broke
through the allies' line twelve ships from the rear, raking the _Santa
Ana_, Alava's flagship, as he passed her stern, with a broadside which
struck down 400 of her men. For some fifteen minutes the _Royal
Sovereign_ was alone in action; then others of the division came up and
successively penetrated the line of the allies, and engaging ship to
ship completely disposed of the enemy's rear, their twelve rear ships
being all taken or destroyed.
Meanwhile, Nelson in the _Victory_, who had reserved to himself the more
difficult task of containing twenty-one ships with twelve, held on his
course, advancing so as to keep the allied van stationary and yet to
prevent the centre from venturing to help the rear. He designed to pass
through the end of the line in order to cut the enemy's van off from
Cadiz, but, finding an opportunity, changed his course, passed down the
line and attacked the centre. He passed through the line of the allied
fleet, closely followed by four other ships of his division, and the
five British ships concentrated their attacks on the _Bucentaure_,
Villeneuve's flagship, the gigantic Spanish four-decker, the _Santísima
Trinidad_, which was next ahead of her, and the _Redoutable_, which
supported her. The centre of the allies was crushed and the van cut off
from coming to the help of the rear, which was being destroyed by
Collingwood.
Before the battle ended, the naval force of France, and with it
Napoleon's projects of invasion, were utterly and hopelessly ruined.
Eighteen prizes were taken, and, though many of these were lost in a
gale, four ships which escaped were afterwards captured, and the
remainder lay for the most part shattered hulks at Cadiz. By this battle
the supremacy of Great Britain at sea was finally established. Nelson,
who, during the ship-to-ship engagement which followed his penetration
of the enemy's line, was mortally wounded by a sharp-shooter from the
mizzen-top of the _Redoutable_, died before the battle was over, though
he was spared to hear that a complete victory was secure. His death is
among the heroic incidents of history, and his last achievement, both in
its conception and its results, was the fitting climax of his fame. The
plan for the battle which he drew up beforehand for the instruction of
his captains, and the changes which he made in it to meet the conditions
of the moment are alike worthy of his supreme genius as a naval
tactician. His arrangements were carried out by men who had learned to
love and trust him, and who were inspired by the fire of his spirit, and
hence it was that the allied fleet of France and Spain perished at the
"Nelson touch".[29]
Very different were the fortunes of war in central Europe, where
Napoleon himself commanded the "army of England". It was not until the
end of August that Napoleon knew that Villeneuve would be unable to
appear in the Channel, but no sooner did he abandon his project of
invasion in despair than he resolved on a campaign scarcely less
arduous, and gave orders for a grand march into Germany. Pitt, as we
have seen, had successfully negotiated an alliance with Russia and
Austria, whose armies were converging upon the plains of Bavaria and
were to have been reinforced by a large Prussian contingent. Unhappily,
they had not effected a junction when Napoleon crossed the Rhine near
Strassburg and the Danube near Donauwörth, while he detached large
forces to check the advance of the Russians and the approach of
reinforcements expected from Italy. One of these movements involved an
open violation of Prussian territory, but he could rely on the
well-tried servility of Frederick William. The first decisive result of
his strategy was the surrender of Mack at Ulm, with 30,000 men and 60
pieces of ordnance. This event took place on October 20, the very day
before the battle of Trafalgar, and opened the road to Vienna, which the
French troops entered on November 13, occupying the great bridge by a
ruse more skilful than honourable, during the negotiation of an
armistice. Vienna was spared, while Napoleon pressed on to meet the
remainder of the Austrian army, which had now been joined by a larger
body of Russians near Brünn. The allies numbered about 100,000 men;
Napoleon's army was numerically somewhat less, but possessed the same
kind of superiority as the British navy at Trafalgar. The result was the
crushing victory of Austerlitz on December 2, followed by the peace of
Pressburg, between France and Austria, signed on the 26th. The principal
articles of this treaty provided for the cession of Venetia, Istria, and
Dalmatia to the kingdom of Italy, and the aggrandisement of Bavaria and
Würtemberg, whose electors received the royal title as the price of
their sympathetic alliance with France. Russia withdrew sullenly, having
learned the hollowness of her league with Prussia, which had basely
temporised while the fate of Germany was at stake, and whose minister,
Haugwitz, suppressing the _ultimatum_ which he was charged to deliver,
had openly congratulated the conqueror of Austerlitz.
Great Britain had had no direct share in the conflict in Southern
Germany and Moravia; she had, however, joined in two expeditions, the
one in Southern, the other in Northern Europe. In spite of a treaty of
neutrality between France and the Two Sicilies, ratified on October 8,
an Anglo-Russian squadron was permitted to land a force of 10,000
British troops under Sir James Craig, and 14,000 Russians on the shore
of the Bay of Naples. These troops effected nothing, and the violation
of neutrality was, as we shall see, destined to involve the Neapolitan
monarchy in ruin. The expedition to North Germany was planned on a
larger scale. Hanover had been occupied by France since June, 1803. Its
recovery was attempted by an Anglo-Hanoverian force under Cathcart,
which was to have been supported by a Russian and Swedish force acting
from Stralsund. The co-operation of Prussia was also expected. In order
to secure this alliance the British government offered Prussia an
extension of territory so as to include Antwerp, Liège, Luxemburg, and
Cologne, in the event of victory. In November the expedition landed. In
December Prussia had definitely given her protection to the Russian
troops in Hanover and offered it to the Hanoverians. Pitt computed that
at the beginning of the next campaign nearly 300,000 men would be
available in North Germany. But the vacillation of Prussia ruined all.
On December 15 Haugwitz signed the treaty of Schönbrunn, by which
Prussia was to enter into an offensive and defensive alliance with
France and was to receive Hanover in return for Ansbach, Cleves, and
Neuchâtel. Frederick William could not yet stoop to such a degree of
infamy, and therefore, instead of ratifying the treaty, resolved on
January 3, 1806, to propose a compromise, which involved among other
provisions the temporary occupation of Hanover by Prussia. In
consequence of this determination he sent, on January 7, a request for
the withdrawal of the British forces, which were accordingly
recalled.[30]
[Pageheading: _THE DEATH OF PITT._]
The collapse of his last coalition was the death-blow of Pitt, cheered
though he was for the moment by the news of Trafalgar. The fatal
consequences of Austerlitz were reported to him at Bath, whence he
returned by easy stages to his villa at Putney in January, 1806. His
noble spirit was broken at last by the defection of Prussia, and after
lingering a while, he died on the 23rd of that month, leaving a name
second to none among the greatest statesmen of his country. His
sagacious mind grasped the advantage to be gained by freeing trade from
unnecessary restrictions, and anticipated catholic emancipation,
parliamentary reform, and the abolition of slavery. He gave the nation,
in the union with Ireland, the one constructive measure of the first
order achieved in his time, and only marred by the weakness of more
pliable successors in a lesser age. His dauntless soul, which bore him
up against the bitterest disappointments, the desertion of friends, and
the depression of mortal disease, inspired the governing classes of
England to endure ten more years of exhausting war, to save Europe (as
he foretold) by their example, and to crown his own work at Waterloo.
His lofty eloquence, which has been described as a gift independent of
statesmanship, was indeed a product of statesmanship, for it consisted
in no mere witchery of words, but in a luminous and convincing
presentation of essential facts. He may have been inferior to his own
father in fiery rhetoric, to Peel in comprehensive grasp of domestic
policy, and to Gladstone in the political experience gained by sixty
years of political life, but in capacity for command he was inferior to
none. If he was not an ideal war minister, he was not a war minister by
his own choice; his lot was cast in times which suppressed the exercise
of his best powers; and he was matched in the organisation of war,
though not in the field, against the greatest organising genius known to
history. He must be judged by what he actually did and meditated as a
peace minister; his conduct of the war must be compared with that of
those able but not gifted men who strove to bend the bow which he left
behind him; and we must assuredly conclude that none of his colleagues
or rivals was his peer either in powers or in public spirit.
FOOTNOTES:
[13] Buckingham, _Court and Cabinets_, iii., 242; Lewis,
_Administrations of Great Britain_, p. 225.
[14] Buckingham, _Court and Cabinets_, iii., 282-90; Pellew, _Life of
Sidmouth_, ii., 113-31; Stanhope, _Life of Pitt_, iv., 20-39.
[15] See vol. x., p. 399.
[16] Pellew, _Life of Sidmouth_, ii., 145-47; Stanhope, _Life of Pitt_,
iv., 88-93.
[17] For a list of Canning's squibs, belonging to this period, see
Lewis, _Administrations_, p. 249, note.
[18] It was not fair to hold Addington entirely responsible for the
promotion of his brother, who had been a junior lord of the treasury
under Pitt. The taunt came with a particularly bad grace from Canning,
who had himself been paymaster-general in the last administration.
[19] Pellew, _Life of Sidmouth_, ii., 250.
[20] _Annual Register_, xlvi. (1804), p. 34.
[21] Stanhope, _Life of Pitt_, iv., 135-44.
[22] See the letter in Stanhope, _Life of Pitt_, iv., appendix, pp.
i.-iii.
[23] There is preserved a sketch in Pitt's handwriting of a combined
administration with Melville, Fox, and Fitzwilliam as secretaries of
state, and Grenville as lord president.
[24] Stanhope, _Life of Pitt_, iv., appendix, pp. xi., xii.
[25] The best account of Pitt's return to power is to be found in
Stanhope, _Life of Pitt_, iv., 113-95; appendix, pp. i.-xiii. The story
is told in a very spirited manner by Lord Rosebery, _Pitt_, pp. 238-44.
[26] Rose, _Life of Napoleon I._, i., 450-53.
[27] Napoleon actually crowned himself, although he had originally
intended to be crowned by the pope.
[28] Malmesbury, _Diaries_, iv., 338.
[29] Nelson's tactics at Trafalgar are explained in a series of
remarkable articles in _The Times_ of September 16, 19, 22, 26, 28, 30,
and October 19, 1905. For incidents of the battle see Mahan, _Life of
Nelson_, ii., 363 _sqq._
[30] Rose, _Life of Napoleon I._, ii., 53-57, 63-65.
CHAPTER III.
GRENVILLE AND PORTLAND.
The immediate effect of Pitt's death was the dissolution of his
government. The king turned at first to Hawkesbury, afterwards destined
as Earl of Liverpool to hold the office of premier for nearly fifteen
years; but he then felt himself unequal to such a burden. He next sent
for Grenville, who insisted on the co-operation of Fox, to which the
king assented without demur, and the short-lived ministry of "All the
Talents" was formed within a few days. It was essentially a whig
cabinet, but it included two tories, Sidmouth as lord privy seal, and
Lord Ellenborough, the lord chief justice. Grenville himself was first
lord of the treasury, Fox foreign secretary, and Erskine lord
chancellor. Charles Grey, the future Earl Grey, was first lord of the
admiralty. Spencer home secretary, Windham secretary for war and the
colonies, and Lord Henry Petty, the future Marquis of Lansdowne,
chancellor of the exchequer. Fitzwilliam was lord president, and the
Earl of Moira master-general of the ordnance. Ellenborough owed his
place in the cabinet to the influence of Sidmouth. The appointment was a
departure from the established constitutional practice. Since Lord
Mansfield, who had ceased to be an efficient member in 1765, no chief
justice had been a member of the cabinet, and it was argued in
parliament by the opposition that a seat in the cabinet was inconsistent
with the independence which a common law judge ought to maintain. It is
also important to observe that Sidmouth when accepting office gave
express notice to Grenville and Fox that under all circumstances "he
would ever resist the catholic question".[31]
The friendly relations of the king with Fox were creditable to both of
them, and in the last few months of his life Fox showed himself a
statesman. Besides the abolition of the slave trade, his grand object
was the restoration of peace on a durable basis. There were some grounds
for believing that this was possible. France, under an emperor, seemed
no longer to represent a new principle in European politics, and was not
necessarily a menace to her neighbours; the coalition was fairly beaten
on land, while British supremacy had been reasserted on sea, and
Napoleon might well wish for peace to enable him to consolidate his
position on land and regain the power of using the sea, just as he had
done in 1801. Fox lost no time in renewing a pacific correspondence with
Talleyrand, afterwards carried on through the agency of Lord Yarmouth,
an English traveller detained in France, and Lord Lauderdale, who was
sent over as plenipotentiary. The principle of the negotiation was that
of _uti possidetis_, but it failed, as Whitworth's efforts had failed,
because the pretensions of France were constantly shifting, and
especially because France, anxious to isolate Great Britain, insisted on
negotiating separately with Great Britain and Russia, while Fox very
properly refused to make peace without our ally. Grey himself, now Lord
Howick, afterwards declared that France showed no disposition to grant
any terms which could be accepted by Great Britain. On September 13, Fox
died, and was buried in Westminster Abbey almost side by side with his
great rival.
While he was earnestly striving for peace, there was no cessation of
warlike movements or political changes either in Central Europe or in
Italy. In June, 1806, Napoleon converted the Batavian Republic into the
kingdom of Holland, over which he set his brother Louis. In July the
discord of Germany, which had long ceased to be a nation, was
consummated by the formation of the Confederation of the Rhine, which
separated all the western states from the Holy Roman empire, and united
them under the protection and control of France. On August 6, Francis
II., who had assumed the title of Emperor of Austria in 1804, formally
renounced the title of Roman Emperor, and the Holy Roman Empire became
extinct. The King of Prussia, with singular disregard of good faith and
national interest, finally accepted on February 15 the bribe of Hanover
for adhesion to France, but without the offensive and defensive alliance
offered him in the previous December, and with the additional
humiliation of being compelled to close his ports to English ships. He
vainly strove to conceal this shameful bargain, and was, as will be
seen, punished by the destruction of Prussian commerce. After all, he
found himself overreached by Napoleon in duplicity, and was at last
provoked into risking a single-handed contest with his imperious ally.
He declared war on October 1, and within a fortnight the army of
Prussia, inheriting the system and traditions of the great Frederick,
was all but annihilated in the twin battles of Jena and Auerstädt fought
on October 14.
[Pageheading: _SMALL EXPEDITIONS._]
The British government, though not unwilling to forgive the perfidy of
its former confederate, was powerless to strike a blow on his behalf
until it was too late. Indeed, the only warlike operation undertaken by
Great Britain in Europe during the year was in the extreme south of
Italy. Ferdinand, King of the Two Sicilies, had been driven out of his
capital to make way for Joseph Bonaparte, who entered Naples on February
15, and the exiled monarch took refuge in the island of Sicily. In
accordance with the shortsighted policy of small expeditions, a British
force under Sir John Stuart was landed in Calabria to raise the
peasantry, and on July 4, defeated the French at the point of the
bayonet in the battle of Maida. This action shook the confidence of
Europe in the superiority of the French infantry, and saved Sicily from
France, but the French troops remained in possession of the Italian
mainland. The prestige of Great Britain was raised by the conquest of
the Dutch colony of the Cape of Good Hope in January by a naval and
military force sent out by Pitt under the command of Sir Home Popham and
General, now Sir David, Baird, but was damaged by a futile expedition to
South America, undertaken by Popham without orders from the home
government. The city of Buenos Ayres was taken, indeed, in June by
General Beresford, but it was retaken by the Spaniards in August, and
soldiers who could ill be spared from the European conflict now
impending were lavished on a chimerical project on the other side of the
Atlantic.
The short administration of Grenville, so inactive in its foreign
policy, is memorable only for one redeeming measure of home-policy--the
abolition of the slave trade. Before Fox's death, the attention of
parliament had been divided mainly between Windham's abortive scheme
for a vast standing army, to be raised on the basis of limited service,
and the secret inquiry into the conduct of the Princess of Wales. This
resulted in her being acquitted of the more scandalous charges against
her, but on the advice of the cabinet, she was censured by the king for
unseemly levity of behaviour. On October 24 parliament was dissolved. It
was a foolish dissolution, for ministerial convenience only, and aimed
not merely at strengthening the ministry, but at weakening the tory
section within the ministry. The election was not well managed, and the
king withheld the subscription of £12,000 with which he was accustomed
to assist his ministers for the time being at a general election. Still
the ministry obtained a considerable majority.[32] The new parliament
met on December 15, and on March 25, 1807, the abolition bill, having
passed the house of lords in spite of strong opposition, was carried in
the commons by 283 to 16. Thus ended a philanthropic struggle, which
began in 1783, when the quakers petitioned against the trade. Three
years later Clarkson began his crusade. Two bills in favour of abolition
were carried by the house of commons before the close of the eighteenth
century, but were thrown out in the house of lords. The same fate befell
a bill for a temporary suspension of the slave trade, which passed the
commons in 1804 under the spell of Wilberforce's persuasive eloquence;
but Pitt's government caused a royal proclamation to be issued, which at
least checked the spread of the nefarious traffic in the newly conquered
colonies. A larger measure failed to pass the house of commons in 1805,
but in 1806 Fox and Grenville succeeded in committing both houses to an
open condemnation of the trade. This was followed on March 25, 1807, by
an enactment entirely prohibiting the slave trade from and after January
1, 1808, though it was not made felony to engage in it until a further
act was carried by Brougham in 1811.
[Pageheading: _FALL OF GRENVILLE'S MINISTRY._]
In default of important legislative tasks, the parliament which expired
in 1806 devoted much attention to various features of the military
system, as well as to proposed reforms in the public accounts. It
sanctioned the principle of raising a great part of the war-expenses by
special taxes rather than by loan. A property-tax of 10 per cent. was
freely voted, and this was then represented to be its permanent limit.
The assessed taxes were increased at the same time by 10 per cent., but
with an allowance in favour of poorer taxpayers for every child above
the number of two. It is worthy of notice that, while Grenville's
ministry was in office, Whitbread brought forward an elaborate plan not
only for reforming the poor laws but also for establishing a system of
national education. Some changes in the cabinet were necessitated by the
death of Fox. Howick became foreign secretary and was succeeded at the
admiralty by Thomas Grenville, brother of the prime minister, most
famous as a book-collector. Fitzwilliam retired at the same time on the
ground of ill-health. He retained his seat in the cabinet, but was
succeeded as lord president by Sidmouth, while Fox's nephew, Lord
Holland, succeeded Sidmouth as lord privy seal.
The fall of the whig government in March, 1807, was due to a cause
similar to that which had brought about the retirement of Pitt in 1801.
The Duke of Bedford, who was lord lieutenant of Ireland, had urged the
importance of making some concessions to Roman catholics. An Irish act
of 1793 had opened commissions in the army as high as the rank of
colonel to Roman catholics, and the ministry obtained the reluctant
consent of the king to the extension of this concession to Roman
catholics throughout his dominions. Without having fully ascertained the
king's mind, Howick, on behalf of his colleagues, moved for leave to
bring in a bill opening all commissions in the army and navy to Roman
catholics. The king at once refused his sanction, and the government,
finding that they could not carry their bill, agreed to withdraw it.
This decision was announced to the king in a cabinet minute, drawn up at
a meeting from which Ellenborough, Erskine, and Sidmouth, who
sympathised with the king, were excluded, and from which Fitzwilliam and
Spencer were absent owing to ill-health. The minute went on to record
their adhesion to the policy embodied in the bill, reserving the right
to advise the king on any future occasion in accordance with that
policy. Thereupon, Sidmouth, who had already sent in his resignation,
Eldon, Portland, and Malmesbury, with the concurrence of the Duke of
York and Spencer Perceval, urged the king to make a stand upon his
prerogative. He did so, by requiring the ministers who had signed the
minute, to give him a written pledge that they would never press upon
him further concessions, direct or indirect, to the Roman catholics.
This pledge they properly declined, and accepted the consequence by
resignation. Spencer was present at the meeting which arrived at this
conclusion and concurred in the decision of his colleagues.[33]
A new administration was formed by Portland, as nominal head, but with
Perceval as its real leader and chancellor of the exchequer, Canning as
foreign secretary, Hawkesbury as home secretary, and Castlereagh as
minister for war and the colonies. Camden, Eldon, Westmorland, and
Chatham resumed the offices they had held before the death of Pitt,
Mulgrave became first lord of the admiralty, and Earl Bathurst president
of the board of trade. In this government, too, Sir Arthur Wellesley,
the future Duke of Wellington, who had returned in 1805 from a brilliant
military career in India, held office outside the cabinet as chief
secretary for Ireland. Spencer Perceval was a half-brother of the Earl
of Egmont and brother of Lord Arden. He enjoyed a large practice at the
bar and had made his mark as a parliamentary debater when filling the
offices, first of solicitor-general, and then of attorney-general under
Addington. He had held the latter office again under Pitt. Not the least
source of his influence was his steady and determined opposition to the
Roman catholic claims.
[Pageheading: _NON-INTERVENTION._]
After a short but animated debate on the important constitutional
question raised by the circumstances of the change of ministers,
parliament was again dissolved on April 27. The king's speech in closing
the session was virtually a personal appeal to his people, and a
majority was returned in favour of the new ministry. This result may be
said to mark the last triumph of George III. in maintaining the
principle of personal government. "A just and enlightened toleration"
was announced as the substitute for catholic relief. Still, a certain
revival of independent popular opinion may be traced in the return of
Sir Francis Burdett and Lord Cochrane for Westminster. It was not until
June 22 that parliament assembled, and the engrossing interest of
foreign events left but little room for discussions on home-policy. A
motion by Whitbread, however, bore fruit in a bill for establishing
parochial schools, which Eldon successfully opposed in the house of
lords, mainly on the ground that it would take popular education out of
the hands of the clergy. The same not unnatural apathy about home
affairs prevailed throughout the session of 1808, which began on January
31, and though a large number of acts were placed on the statute book in
this and succeeding years, the mass of them, including many relating to
Ireland, were essentially of a local or occasional character. An
exception must be recognised in the partial success of a motion for the
reform of the criminal law, which was proposed by Sir Samuel Romilly,
famous for his efforts in the cause of humanity, and which resulted in
the abolition of capital punishment for the offence of pocket-picking.
During this critical period, when Great Britain was gradually drifting
into a position of isolation, the course of parliamentary history
becomes inseparable from the progress of those mighty events on the
continent, which Grenville's government would fain have treated as
outside the sphere of British interests. For, notwithstanding Windham's
schemes for a reconstruction of the army, that government had allowed
the naval and military establishments of Great Britain to fall below
their former standard. The leading idea of their policy was
non-intervention, and at the opening of 1807, there was no longer any
thought of sending a force to cope with Napoleon's veterans on the
continent When in 1805 a British force was operating in North Germany,
it was possible that if Prussia had been faithful to her engagements,
the disaster of Austerlitz might at least have been partially retrieved.
It was otherwise when, after the collapse of Prussia, France and Russia
stood face to face with each other. The drawn battle of Eylau in East
Prussia, marked by fearful carnage, was fought on February 8, 1807. This
check, breaking the spell of Napoleon's victorious career, had a
remarkable effect in raising the spirits of the allies, Russia, Sweden,
and Prussia, some remains of whose army were still in the field. These
powers now drew closer together, but they received a lukewarm support
from Great Britain, which might have done much to save Europe by timely
reinforcements and liberal subsidies. In reply to an urgent appeal from
the tsar for a loan of £6,000,000, the Grenville ministry doled out
£500,000 to Russia, and a still more pitiful gift to Prussia. No troops
were sent to aid Sweden on the Baltic coast, although, when, at
Napoleon's instigation, Turkey declared war against Russia, expeditions
were despatched to Alexandria and the Dardanelles. The notion of making
war on a large scale, in concert with allies, on the continent of
Europe, as in the days of Marlborough, and even of Lord Granby, seems to
have vanished from the minds of English statesmen, except Castlereagh,
who always advocated concentrated action.
The succession of Portland and Canning to Grenville and Howick brought
no immediate change in our insular policy and the new government had
been in office for above three months before a British force at last
appeared in the Swedish island of Rügen. It arrived too late, Danzig
surrendered in May, and on June 14 Napoleon obtained a decisive victory
over the Russian army and its Prussian contingent at Friedland. Russia
now gave a supreme example of that national selfishness, and contempt
for the rights of independent states which had dominated the counsels of
sovereigns ever since the first partition of Poland. Doubtless the tsar
might plead that Great Britain, too, had been wasting her strength in
selfish attempts to secure her mastery of the seas, and to open new
markets for her trade. He also deeply resented her recent failure to aid
him in the hour of his utmost need, while he still cherished the policy
of the "armed neutrality," and was eager to prosecute his designs
against Turkey. Dazzled and flattered by Napoleon, he welcomed overtures
for peace at the expense of Great Britain, and there is no doubt that
his imaginative nature indulged in the vision of a regenerated Europe,
divided between himself as emperor of the east and Napoleon as emperor
of the west. It is therefore far from surprising that he should have
held a private interview with Napoleon, on a raft in the Niemen, which
led to the treaty of Tilsit on July 7.
[Pageheading: _THE TREATY OF TILSIT._]
This treaty, in which the King of Prussia shared as a helpless partner,
contained both public and secret articles, but the distinction was not
very material, for the secret articles almost immediately became known
to Canning. The general effect of the whole agreement was the utter
humiliation of Prussia, the recognition by that country and Russia of
all Napoleon's acquisitions, and their combination with France against
the maritime claims and conquests of Great Britain. The western
provinces of Prussia were to be incorporated with other German
annexations to form the new kingdom of Westphalia; Prussian Poland was
to be converted into the duchy of Warsaw under the crown of Saxony, to
which a right of passage through Silesia was reserved; and Berlin with
other great Prussian fortresses were to remain in the hands of the
French until an exorbitant war indemnity should have been paid.[34] At
one stroke Prussia was thus reduced to a second-rate power, with a
territory little greater than it possessed before the first partition of
Poland. The rule of Joseph Bonaparte at Naples, that of Louis in
Holland, and the confederation of the Rhine, were solemnly confirmed.
Above all, Russia pledged herself to join France in coercing Sweden,
Denmark, and Portugal into an adoption of the organised commercial
exclusion, known as the "continental system," and hostility to Great
Britain in the event of her resistance. If Sweden refused to join this
league, Denmark was to be compelled to declare war on her.
No sooner did it receive information of this alliance than the British
government despatched a naval armament to Denmark and landed troops,
which were soon reinforced by those withdrawn from Rügen. There had been
no open rupture with Denmark, though much irritation existed between
Denmark and Great Britain with reference to neutral commerce. But there
were the best reasons for believing that the Danish fleet, as well as
that of Portugal, would be demanded by France and Russia, to be employed
against Great Britain, and it was certain that Denmark could not
withstand such pressure. The British envoy, Jackson, was accordingly
instructed to offer Denmark a treaty of alliance, of which one condition
was to be the deposit of her fleet on hire with the British government.
The proposal was accompanied by a threat of force, and the crown prince,
with a spirit worthy of admiration, refused the terms. In consequence a
peremptory summons to deliver up her ships of war and naval stores was
addressed to the governor of Copenhagen by the British commanders,
Admiral Gambier and Lord Cathcart, under whom Sir Arthur Wellesley was
entrusted with the reserve. The surrender, if made peaceably, was to be
in the nature of a deposit, and the fleet was to be restored at the end
of the war. The governor returned a temporising reply, and a bombardment
of Copenhagen followed (September 2); the fleet was brought to England
as prize of war; and Denmark naturally became the enemy of Great
Britain.[35] Sweden declined the proffered alliance of France and
Russia, and actually invaded Norway, then a part of the Danish kingdom.
The result was the loss of Finland and Swedish Pomerania. The king,
Gustavus IV., resembled Charles XII. in quixotic temperament, but not in
ability; and Sir John Moore, sent to his support with an army of 10,000
men, found it hopeless to co-operate with him. Shortly afterwards, his
subjects formed the same opinion, and he was compelled to make way for
his uncle, who succeeded as Charles XIII. with Marshal Bernadotte as
crown prince. In consequence of this change Sweden became reconciled to
Russia, and estranged from Great Britain.
The seizure of the Danish fleet, in time of so-called peace, roused
great indignation throughout most of Europe, and, in some degree,
strained the conscience of the British parliament itself. The justice
and wisdom of it were strenuously challenged in both houses, especially
by Grenville, Sidmouth, and Lord Darnley, who moved an address to the
crown embodying an impressive protest against it. It was defended,
however, by the high authority of the Marquis Wellesley, as well as by
Canning and other ministers, on the simple ground of military necessity.
Napoleon himself never ceased to denounce it as an international outrage
of the highest enormity. This did not prevent his doing his best to
justify it and to imitate it by sending Junot's expedition to Portugal,
with instructions to seize the Portuguese fleet at Lisbon. It is strange
that in the debates on this subject, peace with France was still treated
on both sides as a possibility; but Canning declared that neither
Russian nor Austrian mediation could have been accepted as impartial,
or as affording the least hope of pacification. However, on September
25, the king addressed a declaration to Europe, in which, after
justifying himself in regard to Copenhagen, he professed his readiness
to accept conditions of peace "consistent with the maritime rights and
political existence of Great Britain".
[Pageheading: _COMMERCIAL EXCLUSION._]
Still more reasonable attacks, supported by strong petitions, were made
by the opposition upon the "orders in council," whereby the British
government retaliated against Napoleon's "continental system". This
system was founded on a firm belief, shared by the French people, that
Great Britain, as mistress of the seas, was the one great obstacle to
his imperial ambition, and the most formidable enemy of French
aggrandisement, only to be crushed by the ruin of her trade. Prussia
had, in conformity with her treaty of February 15, 1806, issued a
proclamation on March 28 of that year, closing her ports, which would
now include those of Hanover, against British trade. The British
government replied by first laying an embargo on Prussian vessels in the
harbours of Great Britain and Ireland, and by proclaiming a blockade of
the coast of Europe from Brest to the Elbe. This was followed on May 14
by an order in council for seizing all vessels found navigating under
Prussian colours. As yet the policy of commercial exclusion had not been
carried to any great length, but the Berlin decree issued by Napoleon on
November 21 after the battle of Jena proclaimed the whole of the British
Isles to be in a state of blockade, prohibited all commerce with them
from the ports of France and her dependent states, confiscated all
British merchandise in such ports, and declared all British subjects in
countries occupied by French troops to be prisoners of war. Howick
replied by further orders in council in January, 1807, forbidding
neutrals to trade between the ports of France and her allies, or between
the ports of nations which should observe the Berlin decree, on pain of
the confiscation of the ship and cargo. On the 27th another decree,
issued at Warsaw, ordered the seizure in the Hanse Towns of all British
goods and colonial produce. The reply of Great Britain was a stricter
blockade of the North German coast.
The accession of Russia to Napoleon's commercial policy at Tilsit seemed
to have brought the combination against British trade to its furthest
development, and it was answered by new orders in council, treating any
port from which the British flag was excluded as if actually blockaded,
and further limiting the carriage by neutral vessels of produce from
hostile colonies. The Milan decree issued on December 17, and further
orders in council published during the same winter, carried to greater
extremes, if possible, this intolerable form of commercial warfare,
under which neutral commerce was gradually crushed out of existence.
Great Britain, owing to her command of the sea, was more independent of
this kind of commerce than her rival, and both the decrees and the
orders in council inflicted far more damage on France and her allies
than on Great Britain. But neither party was able to enforce completely
its policy of commercial exclusion. Europe could not dispense with
British goods or colonial produce carried in British vessels. The law
was deliberately set aside by a regular licensing system, and evaded by
wholesale smuggling; neutral ships continued to ply between continental
ports, and Napoleon did not disdain to clothe his troops with 50,000
British overcoats during the Eylau campaign. Still, Great Britain was
enabled to cripple, if not to destroy, the merchant shipping of all
other countries, and the interests of consumers all over Europe were
enlisted against the author of the continental system. On the other
hand, a heavy blow was dealt to friendly relations between Great Britain
and the United States, the chief victim of these belligerent
pretensions.[36]
[Pageheading: _FRUITLESS EXPEDITIONS._]
In the meantime, the prestige of Great Britain had been injured by three
petty and abortive expeditions projected by the Grenville ministry. The
first of these was sent out to complete the conquest of Buenos Ayres,
the recapture of which was unknown in England. Sir Samuel Auchmuty, who
commanded it, finding himself too late to occupy that city, attacked and
took Monte Video by storm with much skill and spirit, on February 3,
1807. Shortly afterwards, he was superseded by General Whitelocke,
bringing reinforcements, with orders to recover Buenos Ayres. In this he
signally failed, owing to gross tactical errors. The British troops were
almost passively slaughtered in the streets, and Whitelocke agreed to
withdraw the remains of his force, and give up Monte Video, on condition
of all prisoners being surrendered. On his return home, he was tried by
a court-martial and cashiered, being also declared "totally unfit to
serve his majesty in any military capacity whatever".
Equally ill-managed was the naval expedition, directed to support
Russia, then in close alliance with Great Britain, by coercing the
sultan into a rupture with France. Collingwood, who was not consulted,
was required to entrust the command of this expedition, which started in
February, 1807, to Sir John Duckworth. Everything depended on
promptitude, and the admiral found little difficulty in forcing the
passage of the Dardanelles, as it was then almost unfortified. Having
reached Constantinople, he allowed himself to waste time in fruitless
negotiations, contrary to Collingwood's earnest advice, and not only
effected nothing but gravely imperilled his return. Instructed by the
French minister Sébastiani, the Turks had armed their coasts, and
erected batteries along the Dardanelles, through which the British fleet
made its way with considerable loss. Instead of being detached from the
French alliance, the Porte was thrown into its arms and became more
embittered than ever against Russia. It was soon involved in a serious
conflict with that country--for the possession of Wallachia and
Moldavia--only to be deserted again by France under the compact made at
Tilsit. The expedition to Egypt, planned in combination with the
expedition to the Dardanelles, ended in a still worse disaster. Though
General Fraser, its commander, was able to surprise Alexandria on March
30, he awaited in vain the expected news of Duckworth's success; he
proceeded to attack Rosetta with as little generalship as Whitelocke had
shown at Buenos Ayres, and encountered a similar repulse. An attempt to
besiege the town met with no better fortune: the British troops
submitted to a capitulation, evacuated Egypt, and sailed for Sicily in
September, 1807. In an imperial manifesto addressed to the French nation
at the end of this year, the British failures at Buenos Ayres,
Constantinople, and Alexandria were paraded, together with our alleged
crime against the rights of nations at Copenhagen.
In the early months of 1808 the continental system was extended by the
establishment of French administration at Rome, and the annexation of
the eastern ports of the Papal States to the kingdom of Italy. On
February 18 of the same year Austria under French pressure adopted the
system. Sweden and Turkey were now the only continental countries left
outside it, but the retention of Sicily by the Bourbon king rendered it
easy for British commerce to enter Italy through that island. The
irritation of neutrals increased as the area of commercial exclusion
widened, but the United States were now the only neutral power of any
consequence. After April 17 Napoleon took the high-handed step of
confiscating all American shipping in his ports. In spite of this
aggression, the president and congress of the United States continued to
favour France against Great Britain. The story of the commercial warfare
between Great Britain and the United States will be related more fully
hereafter. For the present, it is sufficient to mention that an act,
placing an embargo on foreign vessels in American ports, was passed by
congress on December 22, 1807, and another on March 1, 1809, forbidding
commercial intercourse with Great Britain and France and the colonies
occupied by them.
Meanwhile Great Britain continued to enforce her maritime rights,
including that of searching American merchantmen for British-born
sailors, and impressing them at the will of British naval officers.
These grievances ultimately led to a war between Great Britain and
America in 1812. The continental system, however, did not long remain so
complete as in the beginning of 1808. Junot's expedition to Portugal had
led to a French occupation of that country before the end of 1807. The
conquest of Portugal was followed, as we shall see later, by a partial
conquest of Spain. This threw the Spaniards back upon the British
alliance and afforded an opportunity for the liberation of Portugal, so
that from May, 1808, Great Britain once more had a large seaboard open
to her commerce. The early success of the Spanish resistance to France,
and other events in the peninsula hereafter to be recorded, encouraged
Austria to arm again; and on the news of the capitulation of the French
army at Baylen in July, she pushed forward her preparations with
redoubled energy. A national movement arose simultaneously in North
Germany, but the Prussian government dared not head it so long as
Russia remained faithful to the French alliance.
[Pageheading: _NAPOLEON AT ERFURT._]
Notwithstanding a peremptory declaration from the tsar after the seizure
of the Danish fleet, Russia had nothing to gain by war with Great
Britain. She was bound to France by the prospect held forth to her at
Tilsit of the conquest of Finland and the partition of Turkey, but she
was inwardly desirous of peace with Great Britain. Napoleon, on the
other hand, saw in the partition of Turkey an opportunity of striking at
India, and had actually given orders for naval preparations to be made
in Spain, when all thought of eastern conquest had to be postponed owing
to the success of the Spanish patriots. After a conference between
Napoleon and the tsar at Erfurt a secret convention was signed on
October 12, by which France sanctioned Russian conquests in Finland and
the Danubian provinces, and Russia recognised the Bonaparte dynasty in
Spain and promised to assist France in a defensive war against Austria.
The two powers despatched a joint note to Great Britain inviting her to
make peace, on the principle of _uti possidetis_. Canning replied that
he was prepared to negotiate if his allies, especially Sweden and the
Spanish patriots, who were at that time in actual possession of almost
the entire country, were included in the peace. On November 19 Napoleon
expressed his willingness to treat with the British allies, but not with
the Spanish "rebels," as he styled them. Alexander took up a similar
position, speaking of the Spanish "insurgents," and expressly
recognising Joseph as King of Spain. Thus ended these pacific overtures,
and on November 3 the official _exposé_, annually issued in Paris,
described Great Britain as "the enemy of the world".
The year 1808 is memorable in English history for the active
intervention of Great Britain in the affairs of Spain which developed
into the "Peninsular war".[37] This intervention was rendered possible
and effective by the organisation of our army system in 1807, which was
due to Castlereagh, though he received little credit for it. Under this
system, the old constitutional force of the militia was made the basis
of the whole military establishment. By the militia balloting bill and
the militia transfer bill, that force, largely composed of substitutes,
and bound only to home-service, was practically converted into a
recruiting-ground for the regular army, and proved sufficient to make
good all the losses incurred during the long campaigns in Portugal and
Spain. The army thus raised contained, no doubt, many soldiers of bad
character, whose misdeeds, after the furious excitement of an escalade,
or under the heart-breaking stress of a retreat, sometimes brought
disgrace upon the British name. But these men, side by side with
steadier comrades, bore themselves like heroes on many a bloodstained
field; they quailed not before the conquering legions of Austerlitz and
Wagram; they could "go anywhere or do anything" under trusted leaders;
and they restored the military reputation of their country before the
eyes of Europe. To have forged such an instrument of war was no mean
administrative exploit. To have maintained its efficiency steadily on
the whole, though sometimes with a faint-hearted parsimony, and to have
loyally supported its commander against the cavils of a factious
opposition superior in parliamentary ability, for a period of seven
years, must be held to redeem the tory government from the charge of
political weakness.
[Pageheading: _PARLIAMENTARY ZEAL._]
At the beginning of 1809, however, the interest of parliament was less
concentrated on Sir Arthur Wellesley's first campaign in Portugal, or
even on the convention of Cintra, than on the scandals attaching to the
office of commander-in-chief, held by the Duke of York. Though an
incapable general, the duke had shown himself, on the whole, an
excellent administrator, and in the opinion of the best officers had
done much for the discipline and efficiency of the British army.
Unfortunately, Mrs. Clarke, his former mistress, had received bribes for
using her influence with the duke to procure military appointments.
Colonel Wardle, an obscure member of parliament, to whom Mrs. Clarke had
temporarily transferred herself after being discarded by the duke,
animated by a desire to damage the ministry, came forward with charges
directly implicating him in her corrupt practices, and incidentally
brought similar accusations against Portland and Eldon. The government
foolishly agreed to an inquiry on the Duke of York's behalf, and it was
conducted before a committee of the whole house, which sat from January
26 to March 20. In the course of this inquiry, Sir Arthur Wellesley
bore strong testimony in his favour, and the duke addressed a letter to
the speaker, declaring his innocence of corruption. Though Wardle and
his associates pressed for his dismissal, Perceval ultimately carried a
motion acquitting him not only of corruption but of connivance with
corruption. The majority, however, was small, and the duke thought it
necessary to resign on March 20, whereupon the house of commons decided
to proceed no further. A curious sequel of this case was an action
against Wardle by an upholsterer, who had furnished a house for Mrs.
Clarke by Wardle's orders, in consideration of her services in giving
hostile evidence against her former protector. The plaintiff obtained
£2,000 damages, and the law-suit was the means of producing a reaction
in popular feeling in favour of the duke.
This scandal in high places quickened the zeal of parliament for general
purity of administration, and led to a disclosure of some grave abuses.
One of these, connected with the disposal of captured Dutch property,
dated as far back as 1795. Others were found to exist in the navy
department and the distribution of Indian patronage; others related to
parliamentary elections. Perceval brought in a bill to check the sale
and brokerage of offices, nor did Castlereagh himself escape the charge
of having procured the election of Lord Clancarty to parliament by the
offer of an Indian writership to a borough-monger. A frank explanation
saved him from censure, especially as it appeared that the offer had
never taken effect. The charge was renewed, in a different form, against
both him and Perceval, and their accusers moved for a trial at bar. But
as it turned out that undue influence rather than corruption was their
alleged offence, and as the avowed object of the resolution was to force
on parliamentary reform, it was negatived by an immense majority.
Nevertheless, the object was not wholly defeated.
The removal of the Duke of York from the command of the army was
singularly inopportune, for Sir David Dundas had scarcely been appointed
as his successor when a juncture arose specially demanding a combination
of energy and experience. The British government, already engaged in the
Peninsular war, had at last resolved to take a vigorous part in the new
and desperate struggle between France and Austria in Southern Germany.
The latent spirit of German nationality, aroused by Napoleon's ruthless
treatment of Prussia, and quickened into a flame by sympathy with the
uprising in Spain, was embodied in the secret association of the
_Tugendbund_; and Austria, smarting under a sense of her own
humiliation, mustered up courage to assume the leadership of a national
movement. South Germany, governed by old dynasties, which profited by
the French alliance, displayed as yet no symptoms of disaffection to
France; but in North Germany the old dynasties had been either humbled
or deposed, and the general ferment among the people, needed, as the
Austrians believed, only the presence of a regular army to break out
into a national revolt against the foreigner. Prussia, it is true, was
still unwilling to move, because Russia was hostile; but the Austrian
court knew well the lukewarmness of Russia's attachment to France, and
hoped that a national upheaval would carry the Prussian government along
with it. No one, in fact, had played a more active part in rousing
Northern Germany than the Prussian minister, Stein, whom Frederick
William, by Napoleon's advice, had called to his councils after Tilsit,
and who was now compelled to resign his office and take refuge in
Austria.
[Pageheading: _NAPOLEON IN AUSTRIA._]
The British government was aware of the situation in Germany when it
received a request in January, 1809, for the despatch of a British force
to the mouth of the Elbe. Austria was, however, still nominally at war
with Great Britain, and George III., perhaps not unreasonably, refused
to give her active military assistance till peace was concluded.
Meanwhile a subsidy of £250,000 in bullion was despatched to Trieste,
and inquiries were set on foot as to the means of supplying such a
military expedition as Austria desired.[38] On March 22, Dundas, who had
only been a few days in office as commander-in-chief, reported that
15,000 men could not be spared from home service, and, in consequence,
no extensive preparations were made until the muster rolls in June
showed that 40,000 troops might safely be employed abroad. This
convinced the government that a large force could be sent without
interfering with home defence, as Castlereagh had long contended; and
throughout June and July the naval and military departments were busy in
preparing for what has since left a sinister memory as the Walcheren
expedition. Meanwhile, as if the passion of frittering away resources
were irresistible, a smaller force was despatched, as a kind of feint,
against the kingdom of Naples. It consisted of 15,000 British troops and
a body of Sicilians. Bailing from Palermo early in June it captured the
islands of Ischia and Procida and the castle of Scylla, and threw Naples
into consternation. But the attack was not pushed, and it was too late
to be of any assistance to the Austrians who had already been expelled
from the Italian peninsula. At last, in July, the treaty of peace with
Austria was signed and the great armament was ready to sail.
But Napoleon had not awaited the deliberations of British statesmen.
Hurrying back from Spain, he remained in Paris only long enough to
organise a campaign in South Germany, and left the capital to join his
armies on April 13. A week earlier, the Archduke Charles, having
remodelled the Austrian army, issued a proclamation affirming Austria to
be the champion of European liberty. On the 9th Austria declared war
against Bavaria, the ally of France, and her troops crossed the Inn. On
the 17th, when Napoleon arrived at Donauwörth, he found the archduke in
occupation of Ratisbon. His presence turned the tide, and, after three
victories, he was once more on the road to Vienna. The most important of
these victories was that of Eckmühl, and he regarded the manoeuvre by
which it was won as the finest in his military career. On May 13 the
French entered Vienna, but the Archduke Charles with an army of nearly
200,000 men was facing him on the left bank of the Danube. Napoleon's
army crossed and encountered the Austrians on the great plain between
Aspern and Essling. He was repulsed and fell back upon Lobau, between
which and the Vienna side of the Danube the bridge of boats had been
swept away by a rise of the river and by balks of timber floated down by
the Austrians. In this dangerous position he remained shut up for
several weeks. He finally succeeded in throwing across a light bridge by
which his army regained the left bank on the night of July 4. Finding
their position turned the Austrians took up their stand on the tableland
of Wagram. On July 6 another pitched battle was fought, which, in the
number of combatants engaged and in the losses inflicted on both sides,
must rank with the later conflicts of Borodino and Leipzig. A hard won
victory rested with the French, but it was not such a victory as that of
Austerlitz or Jena, though it secured the neutrality, at least, of
Austria for the next four years. Her army retreated into Bohemia, and on
July 12 an armistice was signed at Znaim in Moravia, which formed the
basis of a peace concluded at Vienna on October 14.
Nothing remained for Great Britain but to abandon the auxiliary
enterprise so long planned, but so often delayed, or to carry it through
independently, with little hope of a decisive issue. The latter
alternative was adopted. The very day on which the news of the armistice
arrived witnessed the departure of the greatest single armament ever
sent out fully equipped from the shores of Great Britain. The deplorable
failure of the Walcheren expedition has obscured both its magnitude and
its probable importance had it only proved successful. The command of
the fleet was given to Sir Richard Strachan, a competent admiral; that
of the army to Chatham, who sat in the cabinet as master-general of the
ordnance, an incompetent general, who owed his nomination to royal
favour. This was the first blunder; the second was the utter neglect of
medical and sanitary precautions against the notoriously unhealthy
climate of Walcheren in the autumn months. The armament sailed from the
Downs on July 28, in the finest weather and with a display of intense
national enthusiasm. It consisted of thirty-five ships of the line, with
a swarm of smaller war-vessels and transports, carrying nearly 40,000
troops, two battering-trains, and a complete apparatus of military
stores. Its destination, though more than suspected by the enemy, had
been officially kept secret at home. Castlereagh must be held largely
responsible for the delays and for the unwise choice of a general which
marred its success, but he showed true military sagacity in designating
the point of attack. Inspired by him, the British government,
distrusting the national movement in North Germany, had decided to
strike at Antwerp, which Napoleon had supplied with new docks, and
which, now that the mouth of the Scheldt had been reopened, threatened
to become the commercial rival of London. The town was entirely
unprepared, and a blow dealt here seemed the best way of doing as much
harm as possible to France and at the same time gaining a national
advantage for Great Britain.
[Pageheading: _THE WALCHEREN EXPEDITION._]
Chatham had received very precise instructions from Castlereagh, the
objects prescribed to him being, (1) the capture or destruction of the
enemy's ships, either building or afloat at Antwerp or Flushing, or
afloat in the Scheldt; (2) the destruction of the arsenals and dockyards
at Antwerp, Terneuze, and Flushing; (3) the reduction of the island of
Walcheren; (4) the rendering of the Scheldt no longer navigable to ships
of war. These objects were named, as far as possible, in the order of
their importance, and Chatham was specially directed to land troops at
Sandvliet and push on straight to Antwerp, with the view of taking it by
a _coup de main_. Napoleon, who clearly foretold the catastrophe
awaiting the British troops in the malarious swamps of Walcheren,
afterwards admitted that Antwerp could have been captured by a sudden
assault. Chatham obeyed his general orders, but, instead of taking them
in the order of importance, gave precedence to the objects which could
most easily be accomplished. By prompt action the French fleet, which
was moored off Flushing, might have been captured, but it was allowed to
escape to Antwerp. By August 2 the British were in complete possession
of the mouth of the Scheldt, and had taken Bath opposite Sandvliet,
while Antwerp was still almost unprotected. But Chatham concentrated his
attention on the siege of Flushing, which surrendered, after three days'
bombardment, on August 16, contrary to Napoleon's expectation. Antwerp
had meanwhile been put in a state of defence, and was now protected by
the enemy's fleet, while French and Dutch troops were pouring down to
the Scheldt. After ten days of inactivity, Chatham advanced his
headquarters to Bath, found that further advance was impossible, and
recommended the government to recall the expedition, leaving 15,000 men
to defend the island of Walcheren. This advice was adopted, but the
garrison left in Walcheren suffered most severely from fever in that
swampy island. Eventually, on December 24, Walcheren was abandoned, the
works and naval basins of Flushing having been previously destroyed. The
destruction of Flushing was the sole result of this expedition.
The failure of the British to make any serious impression on the French
either in the Low Countries or in Spain induced Austria to consent to
peace with France. By the peace of Vienna, signed on October 14, she
ceded Salzburg and a part of Upper Austria to Bavaria, West Galicia to
the duchy of Warsaw, and a part of Carinthia with Trieste and the
Illyrian provinces to France. A small strip of Galicia was ceded to the
Russian tsar, who had rendered France some very half-hearted assistance
and was further alienated by the extension of the duchy of Warsaw.
Austria was enslaved to the will of Napoleon. She had abandoned the
Tyrolese peasants whose loyal insurrection against the Bavarians was the
most heroic incident in the war, and she now joined the other nations of
the continent in excluding the commerce of Great Britain, which had made
a powerful diversion in Spain and an imposing though futile diversion on
the Scheldt to save her from national annihilation.
While the Walcheren expedition was preparing, two additions were made to
the cabinet. Lord Granville Leveson-Gower, brother of the Marquis of
Stafford, was admitted in June as secretary at war, and in July
Harrowby, who was created an earl, became president of the board of
control with a seat in the cabinet. After the fate of the expedition
became known, though before its final withdrawal, a serious quarrel took
place between Canning and Castlereagh. Personal jealousies had long
existed between these two statesmen, both half-Irish, half-English, and
of approximately the same age, yet widely different in character.
Canning was the most brilliant orator of his day, and no less persuasive
in private conversation than in public orations, gifted with an agile
brain that leaped readily from one idea or one project to another, but
cursed with a bitter wit which lightly aroused enduring enmities, and
which, coupled with an excessive vanity, rendered him unpopular with his
colleagues, and made it difficult for any one to take him seriously;
while his rival, not less able, and much more steady and trustworthy, a
skilful manager of men, was scarcely able to pronounce a coherent
sentence. Early in April Canning pressed upon the Duke of Portland the
transfer of Castlereagh to another office. Private communications
followed between various members of the cabinet, and it was understood
that Camden, as Castlereagh's friend, should apprise him of the
prevailing view, which the king himself had approved under a threat of
Canning's resignation. The duke, however, begged Camden to postpone the
disclosure, and others of Castlereagh's friends urged Canning not to
insist upon the change pending the completion of the Walcheren
expedition.
[Pageheading: _DUEL BETWEEN CANNING AND CASTLEREAGH._]
As the scheme took shape in July Camden was to resign, and thus make
possible a shifting of offices, which was to result in the Marquis
Wellesley succeeding Castlereagh as secretary for war. At last, on
September 6, the duke informed Canning of his own intention to retire on
the ground of ill-health, and at the same time disclosed the fact that
no steps had been taken to prepare Castlereagh for the proposed change
in his position. Thereupon Canning promptly sent in his own resignation,
the duke resigned the same day, and Castlereagh, learning what had
passed, followed his example two days later.[39] Believing that Canning
had been intriguing against him behind his back, under the guise of
friendship, he demanded satisfaction on the 19th, and on the 21st[40]
the duel was fought, in which Canning received a slight wound. Such
events provoked little censure in those days, and it is pleasant to
know that Canning and Castlereagh afterwards acted cordially together as
colleagues. Their enmity broke up the government. The Duke of Portland
did not long survive his withdrawal from office, and died on October 29;
Leveson-Gower insisted on following Canning into retirement.
Perceval was entrusted with the task of forming an administration, but
the new ministry was not formed without considerable negotiation.
Canning vainly endeavoured to impress first on his colleagues and then
on the king his own pretensions to the highest office, while attempts,
to which the king gave a reluctant assent, had been made to enlist the
co-operation of Grenville and Howick, who succeeded his father as Earl
Grey, in 1807, but they failed as all later attempts were destined to
fail. The most influential motive governing their conduct was,
doubtless, their feeling that they would not as ministers possess the
king's confidence. Sidmouth's following had also been approached.
Sidmouth himself was considered too obnoxious to some of Pitt's
followers to be a safe member of the new cabinet, but Vansittart was
offered the chancellorship of the exchequer and Bragge, who had taken
the additional surname of Bathurst, the office of secretary at war. They
refused, however, to enter the ministry, unless accompanied by Sidmouth
himself.
Perceval eventually became prime minister, retaining his former offices;
Lord Bathurst, while remaining at the board of trade, presided
temporarily at the foreign office, which was offered to the Marquis
Wellesley, then serving as British ambassador to the Spanish junta at
Seville, and taken over by him in December. Hawkesbury, now Earl of
Liverpool, succeeded Castlereagh as secretary for war and the colonies,
and was followed at the home office by Richard Ryder, a brother of
Harrowby. Harrowby himself gave up the board of control in November to
Melville's son, Robert Dundas, who, however, was not made a member of
the cabinet. Lord Palmerston, who had been a junior lord of the
admiralty under Portland, declined the chancellorship of the exchequer,
and though he accepted Leveson-Gower's post as secretary at war, he was
by his own desire excluded from the cabinet.
[Pageheading: _NEW BRITISH CONQUESTS._]
While the close of the year 1809 was darkened by national
disappointment and political anxieties, the honour of British arms had
been amply vindicated in the Spanish peninsula, and the brilliant
exploit of Lord Cochrane in Basque Roads had recalled the glories of the
Nile. Cochrane had already achieved marvels under Collingwood in the
Mediterranean, and notably off the Spanish coast, when he was selected
to conduct an attack by fireships on the French squadron blockaded under
the shelter of the islands of Aix and Oléron. This he carried out on the
night of April 11, with a dash and skill worthy of Nelson, and unless
checked by Gambier, the admiral in command, who had been raised to the
peerage after the seizure of the Danish fleet in 1807, he must have
succeeded in destroying the whole of the enemy's ships. Gambier was
afterwards acquitted by a court martial of negligence, but the verdict
of the public was against him. In the autumn Collingwood reduced the
seven Ionian islands, and gained an important advantage by cutting out a
considerable detachment of the Toulon fleet in the Bay of Genoa. In the
course of the year, too, all the remaining French territory in the West
Indies, as well as the Isle of Bourbon in the Indian Ocean, was captured
by the British navy. But this unchallenged supremacy on the high seas
did not prevent the depredations of French gunboats on British
merchantmen in the channel. Indeed after the battle of Trafalgar, the
French "sea-wasps" infesting the Channel were more active and
destructive than ever.
On October 25, being the forty-ninth anniversary of his accession, the
jubilee of George III. was celebrated with hearty and sincere
rejoicings. His popularity was not unmerited. He was politically
shortsighted, but within his range of vision few saw facts so clearly;
he was obstinate and prejudiced, but his obstinacy was redeemed by a
moral intrepidity of the highest order, and his prejudices were shared
by the mass of his people. Having lived through the seven years' war,
the war of the American revolution, and the successive wars of Great
Britain against the French monarchy and the French republic, he was now
supporting, with indomitable firmness, a war against the all-conquering
French empire--the most perilous in which this country was ever engaged.
The colonial and Indian dominions of Great Britain, reduced by the loss
of the North American colonies, had been greatly extended during his
reign in other quarters of the globe. His subjects regarded him as an
Englishman to the core; they knew him to be honest, religious, virtuous,
and homely in his life; they justly believed him, in spite of his
failings, to be a power for good in the land; and they rewarded him with
a respect and affection granted to no other British sovereign of modern
times before Queen Victoria. They had good cause to desire the
continuance of his life and reason, knowing the character of his
heir-apparent, and contrasting the domestic habits of Windsor with the
licence of Carlton House.
FOOTNOTES:
[31] Colchester, _Diary_ (Feb. 4, 1806), ii., 35, 36.
[32] Holland, _Memoirs of the Whig Party_, ii., 91-94.
[33] Holland, _Memoirs of the Whig Party,_ ii., 173-205, 270-320;
Colchester, _Diary_, ii., 92-115; Malmesbury, _Diaries_, iv., 357-72;
Walpole, _Life of Perceval_, i., 223-33; Buckingham, _Courts and
Cabinets_, iv., 117-50. Holland accuses the king of treachery and
duplicity, and Lewis (_Administrations of Great Britain_, p. 294)
repeats this charge in milder terms. But the documents quoted do not
prove any want of straightforwardness, and the king's conduct was the
logical consequence of his action in 1801.
[34] In the following year Napoleon consented to evacuate all the
Prussian fortresses except three, on condition that the Prussian army
should not exceed a total of 40,000 men.
[35] _Annual Register_, xlix. (1807), 249-70, 731-38; Rose, in _English
Historical Review_, xi. (1896), 82-92.
[36] Captain Mahan, _The Influence of Sea Power upon the French
Revolution and Empire_, ii., 272-357, shows that the policy of the
orders in council was essential to British safety.
[37] The course of this war is related continuously in chap. v.
[38] Rose, _Life of Napoleon I._, ii., 190, note.
[39] The best account of the quarrel, especially in its relation to the
composition of the cabinet, is to be found in Walpole's _Life of
Perceval_, vol. i., chap. ix., and vol. ii., chap. i. Lewis,
_Administrations_, pp. 314-15, finds a double ground for Canning's
resignation in his failure to obtain the removal of Castlereagh from the
war office and in the refusal of the king and cabinet to allow him to
succeed Portland as prime minister. It is quite clear, however, that at
the time of Canning's resignation no decision had been come to about a
successor to Portland. Some correspondence had passed between Canning
and Perceval, in which each had refused to serve under the other, but
that this correspondence was unknown to the cabinet as a whole is proved
by Mulgrave's letters to Lord Lonsdale of September 11 and 15 (Phipps,
_Memoir of Ward_, pp. 210-17); in the former of these he discusses
Canning's probable conduct without referring to this correspondence,
while in the latter he only knows of such negotiations as subsequent to
the resignations of September 6 and 8. So, too, Eldon's letter to his
wife of September 11 (Twiss, _Life of Eldon_, ii., 88-90), places the
whole correspondence between Canning and Perceval after Portland's
resignation on September 6. The king was not informed of Canning's views
as to a successor to Portland till September 13, and the cabinet minute
of September 18, advising co-operation with Grenville and Grey, mentions
the selection of Canning as prime minister as a course open to the king.
[40] This is the date commonly given. The _Annual Register_, li. (1809),
239, gives the 22nd, while Perceval refers to the result of the duel in
a letter dated the 20th (Colchester, _Diary_, ii., 209). It is clear,
however, that Canning did not receive Castlereagh's challenge till the
morning of the 20th (see his letter in _Annual Register_, _loc. cit._,
505, also his detailed statement to Camden, _ibid._, 525), and therefore
the duel cannot have taken place till the 21st. Lord Folkestone in a
letter dated the 21st refers to the duel as having been fought at "7
o'clock this morning" (_Creevey Papers_, i., 96).
CHAPTER IV.
PERCEVAL AND LIVERPOOL.
The administration of Perceval, covering the period from October, 1809,
to May, 1812, coincided with a lull in the continental war save in the
Peninsula, though it saw no pause in the progress of French annexation.
Nor was it marked by many events of historical interest in domestic
affairs. When parliament was opened on January 23, 1810, it was natural
that attention should chiefly be devoted to the Walcheren expedition,
which the opposition illogically and unscrupulously contrived to use to
disparage the operations of Sir Arthur Wellesley, now Viscount
Wellington, in Spain. Grenville, who argued with some reason that 40,000
British troops could have been employed to far better purpose in North
Germany, would have been on stronger ground if he had complained that
for want of them the British army had been unable to occupy Madrid.
Castlereagh, indeed, had confessed to Wellesley that he could not spare
the necessary reinforcements, after the reserves had been exhausted in
Walcheren; but it is by no means certain that Wellesley could have
collected provisions enough to feed a much larger force, or specie
enough to pay for them. Liverpool was driven in reply to Grenville to
magnify the value of the capture of Flushing, as the necessary basis of
the naval armaments which Napoleon had intended to launch against
England from the Scheldt. The government was also defended by the young
Robert Peel, lately elected to parliament. As the calamity was
irreparable, a committee of the whole house spent most of its time on a
constitutional question, regarding a private memorandum placed before
the king by Chatham in his own defence. So irregular a proceeding was
properly condemned, and Chatham resigned the mastership of the ordnance,
but the policy of the Walcheren expedition was approved by a vote of the
house of commons. Mulgrave received the office Chatham had vacated, and
was himself succeeded by Yorke at the admiralty.
Parliament was next occupied by a question of privilege, in which Sir
Francis Burdett, member for Westminster, then a favourite of the
democracy, played a part resembling that of John Wilkes a generation
earlier. Burdett had been for fourteen years a member of parliament, and
had been conspicuous from the first for the vehemence of his opposition
to the government, and more especially to its supposed infringements of
the liberty of the subject. He had more recently taken an active part on
behalf of Wardle's attack on the Duke of York and had supported the
charges of ministerial corruption in the previous session. On the
present occasion one John Gale Jones, president of a debating club, had
published in a notice of debate the terms of a resolution which his club
had passed, condemning in extravagant language the exclusion of
strangers from the house of commons. This was treated as a breach of
privilege, and Jones was sent to Newgate by order of the house itself.
Burdett, in a violent letter to Cobbett's _Register_, challenged the
right of the house to imprison Jones by its own authority, and, after a
fierce debate lasting two nights, was adjudged by the house, on April 5,
to have been guilty of a still more scandalous libel. Accordingly, the
speaker issued a warrant for his committal to the Tower. Burdett
declared his resolution to resist arrest, the populace mustered in his
defence, the riot act was read, and he was conveyed to prison by a
strong military escort, on whose return more serious riots broke out,
and were not quelled without bloodshed. On his release at the end of the
session a repetition of these scenes was prevented by the simple
expedient of bringing him home by water. During his imprisonment he
wrote an offensive letter to the speaker, and his colleague, Lord
Cochrane, presented a violently worded petition from his Westminster
constituents. In the following year he sued the speaker and the
sergeant-at-arms in the court of king's bench, which decided against him
on the ground that a power of commitment was necessary for the
maintenance of the dignity of the house of commons, and its decision
was confirmed, on appeal, by the court of exchequer chamber and the
house of lords.
[Pageheading: _THE CURRENCY QUESTION._]
The most important subject of internal policy discussed in the session
of 1810 was the state of the currency. Since 1797 cash payments had been
suspended, the issue of banknotes had been nearly doubled, and the price
of commodities had risen enormously. Whether these results had in their
turn promoted the expansion of foreign commerce and internal industry
was vigorously disputed by two rival schools of economists. The one
thing certain was the increasing scarcity of specie, and the serious
loss incurred in its provision for the service of the army in the
Peninsula. Francis Horner, then rising to eminence, obtained the
appointment of what became known as the "bullion committee" to inquire
into the anomalous conditions thus created, and took a leading part in
the preparation of its celebrated report, published on September 20. The
committee arrived at the conclusion that the high price of gold was
mainly due to excess in the paper-currency, and not, as alleged, to a
drain of gold for the continental war. They attributed that excess to
"the want of a sufficient check and control in the issues of paper from
the Bank of England, and originally to the suspension of cash-payments,
which removed the natural and true control". While allowing that paper
could not be rendered suddenly convertible into specie without
dislocating the entire business of the country, they recommended that an
early provision should be made by parliament for terminating the
suspension of cash-payments at the end of two years. These conclusions
were combated by Castlereagh and Vansittart, who afterwards, in 1811,
succeeded in carrying several counter-resolutions, of which the general
effect was to explain the admitted rise in the price of gold, for the
most part by the exclusion of British trade from the continent, and the
consequent export of the precious metals in lieu of British
manufactures. The last resolution, while it recognised the wisdom of
restoring cash-payments as soon as it could safely be done, affirmed it
to be "highly inexpedient and dangerous to fix a definite period for the
removal of the restriction on cash-payments prior to the conclusion of a
definitive treaty of peace". These counsels prevailed, and the
restriction was not actually removed until Peel's act was passed in
July, 1819.
The last domestic event in the inglorious annals of 1810 was the final
lapse of the king into mental derangement in the month of November. For
more than six years his sight had been failing, but he had suffered no
return of insanity since 1804. Now he lost both his sight and his
reason. This event, impending for some time, was precipitated by the
illness and death of the Princess Amelia, his favourite daughter, and
was perhaps aggravated by the Walcheren expedition and the disgrace of
the Duke of York. Parliament met on November 1, and was adjourned more
than once before a committee was appointed to examine the royal
physicians. Acting on their report, the ministers proposed and carried
resolutions declaring the king's incapacity, and the right and duty of
the two houses to provide for the emergency. It was also determined to
define by act of parliament the powers to be exercised in the king's
name and behalf. This implied a limitation of the regent's authority,
and was resented by the Prince of Wales and his friends. Perceval,
however, was able to rely on the precedent of 1788, to which Grenville,
for one, had been a party, and, after considerable opposition, the
prince was made regent under several temporary restrictions. With
certain exceptions, he was precluded from granting any peerage or office
tenable for life; the royal property was vested in trustees for the
king's benefit, and the personal care of the king was entrusted to the
queen, with the advice of a council. In this form, the regency bill was
passed on February 4, 1811, after a protest from the other sons of
George III. and violent attacks upon Eldon by Grenville and Grey. On the
5th, the regent took the oaths before the privy council, but, in
accepting the restrictions, he delicately expressed regret that he
should not have been trusted to impose upon himself proper limitations
for the exercise of royal patronage. The interregnum thus established
was to be provisional only, and was to cease on February 1, 1812, but
the queen and her private council, with the concurrence of the privy
council, were empowered to annul it at any time, by announcing the
king's recovery, when he could resume his powers by proclamation.
[Pageheading: _THE REGENCY BILL._]
The hopes of the opposition had been greatly excited by the prospect of
a regency, and it was generally expected that a change of ministry would
be its immediate consequence. Private communications had, in fact,
passed between the prince and the whig lords, Grenville and Grey, but
they were rendered nugatory by the dictatorial tone assumed by those
lords and by the unwillingness of the prince to dispense with the advice
of Moira and Sheridan. The two whig lords had by the prince's desire
prepared a reply to the address from the houses of parliament,
preparatory to the regency bill. Grenville had voted in favour of the
restriction on the creation of peers, and it is therefore not surprising
that the reply which he and Grey drafted appeared to the prince too weak
in its protest against the limitations. He therefore adopted in its
stead another reply which Sheridan had composed for him. The two lords
thereupon addressed to the prince a remonstrance, which practically
claimed for themselves the right of responsible ministers to be the sole
advisers of their prince. This remonstrance provoked the ridicule of
Sheridan, and certainly did not please the prince, who since the fall of
the Grenville ministry had refused to be regarded as a "party man". The
regent, accordingly, gave Perceval to understand that he intended to
retain his present ministers, but solely on the ground that he was
unwilling to do anything which might retard his father's recovery, or
distress him when he should come to himself. This reason was probably
genuine. The king appeared to be recovering; he had had several
interviews with Perceval and Eldon, and had made inquiries as to the
prince's intentions. Soon, however, the malady took a turn for the
worse, and the physicians came to the conclusion that it was
permanent.[41]
Before February, 1812, when the restrictions expired, and a permanent
regency bill was passed, the prince drifted further away from his former
advisers, and had been pacified by the loyal attitude of Perceval and
Eldon. Further overtures were conveyed to the whig lords through a
letter from the prince regent to the Duke of York, in which he declared
that he had "no predilections to indulge or resentments to gratify," but
only a concern for the public good, towards which he desired the
co-operation of some of his old whig friends, indicating Grenville and
Grey. They declined in a letter to the Duke of York, alleging
differences on grounds of policy too deep to admit of a coalition.
Eldon, on his part, expressed a similar conviction, but the regent never
fully forgave what he regarded as their desertion. Wellesley, who was
strongly opposed to Perceval's policy of maintaining the catholic
disabilities, resigned the secretaryship of foreign affairs, protesting
against the feeble support given to his brother in the Peninsula, and
was succeeded by Castlereagh. In April Sidmouth became president of the
council in place of Camden, who remained in the cabinet without office;
and in the next month, on May 11, Perceval was assassinated in the lobby
of the house of commons by a man named Bellingham, who had an imaginary
grievance against the government.
A very general and sincere tribute of respect was paid by the house to
Perceval's memory, for, though his statesmanship was of the second
order, he was far more than a tory partisan; he was an excellent
debater, and a thoroughly honest politician, and his private character
was above all reproach or suspicion. The cabinet was bewildered by his
death, and a fresh attempt was made to strengthen it by the simple
inclusion of Canning as well as Wellesley. Wellesley stipulated that the
catholic question should be left open, and that the war should be
prosecuted with the entire resources of the country, while Canning
declined co-operation on the ground of the catholic question alone. No
agreement being found possible, the house of commons stepped in and
addressed the regent, begging him to form a strong and efficient
administration, commanding the confidence of all classes. He replied by
sending for Wellesley, offering him the premiership and entrusting him
with the formation of a comprehensive ministry; but Wellesley soon found
that Liverpool and his adherents would not serve under him at all, while
Grenville and Grey, who secretly condemned the Peninsular war, would
only serve on conditions which he could not grant. Once more, the regent
treated directly with these haughty whigs, now including Moira, to whom
he committed the task of forming an administration. Grenville and Grey
raised difficulties about the appointments in the royal household, which
they wished to include in the political changes, and the negotiation was
broken off. The regent at last fell back on Liverpool, a capable and
conciliatory minister, who adopted Perceval's colleagues, and a spell of
tory administration set in which remained unbroken for no less than
fifteen years. Had more tact been shown on all sides, had the whigs been
less peremptory in their demands, and had the trivial household question
never arisen, the course of the war, if not of European history, might,
whether for good or evil, have been profoundly modified.
[Pageheading: _SOCIAL REFORMS._]
During the later period of Perceval's administration, from 1811 to 1812,
the strife of politics had been mainly concentrated on the regency
question, the chance of ministerial changes, and the fortunes of the war
in Spain. But it must not be supposed that social questions were
neglected, even in the darkest days of the war, however meagre the
legislative fruits may appear. Session after session, Romilly pressed
forward reforms of the criminal law, the institution of penitential
houses in the nature of reformatories, and the abolition of state
lotteries. Others laboured, and with greater success, to remedy the
delays and reduce the arrears in the court of chancery. Constant efforts
were made to expose defalcations in the revenue, to curtail exorbitant
salaries, and to put down electioneering corruption. In 1809 Erskine
introduced a bill for the prevention of cruelty to animals. In 1810
there were earnest, if somewhat futile, debates on spiritual
destitution, the non-residence and poverty of the clergy, and the
scarcity of places of worship. Moreover, early in 1811, a premonitory
symptom of the repeal movement caused some anxiety in Ireland. It took
the form of a scheme for a representative assembly to sit in Dublin, and
manage the affairs of the Roman catholic population, under colour of
framing petitions to parliament, and seeking redress of grievances. It
was, of course, to consist of Roman catholics only, and to include Roman
catholic bishops. The Irish government wisely suppressed the scheme, and
Perceval justified their action, on the ground that a representative
assembly in Dublin, with such aims in view, bordered upon an illicit
legislature.
Except for the war in the Spanish peninsula, and the war between Russia
and the Porte on the Danube, the year 1810 was marked by undisturbed
peace throughout the continent of Europe. France continued to make
annexations, but they were at the expense of her allies, not of her
enemies. Her supremacy was signalised in a striking way by the marriage
of her _parvenu_ emperor, whose divorce the pope still refused to
recognise, with Maria Louisa, daughter of the Emperor of Austria. Though
thirteen out of twenty-six cardinals present in Paris declined to attend
it, this marriage was a masterstroke of Talleyrand's diplomacy; it
secured the benevolent neutrality of Austria for the next three years,
and weakened the counsels of the allies during the negotiations of
1814-15. But it went far to estrange the Tsar of Russia, who, though he
had courteously declined Napoleon's overtures for the hand of his own
sister, was greatly offended on discovering that another matrimonial
alliance had been contracted by his would-be brother-in-law before his
reply could be received.
It was only within the limits of the French empire that Napoleon's
authority had been sufficient to enforce the rigorous exclusion of
British goods. His allies, including Sweden, which closed her ports to
British products in January, 1810, and declared war on Great Britain in
the following November, had adopted the continental system; but
administrative weakness, and the obvious interest that every people had
in its infraction, rendered its operation partial. Napoleon, determined
to enforce the system in spite of every obstacle, met this difficulty by
placing in immediate subjection to the French crown the territories
where British goods were imported. The first ally to suffer was his own
brother, Louis, King of Holland. His refusal to enforce Napoleon's
orders against the admission of British goods was followed at once by a
forced cession of part of Holland to France and the establishment of
French control at the custom houses, and shortly afterwards by the
despatch of French troops into Holland and its annexation to France on
July 9, 1810. In December the French dominion over the North Sea coast
was extended by the annexation of a corner of Germany, including the
coast as far as the Danish frontier, and the town of Lübeck on the
Baltic. As a result of this annexation, the duchy of Oldenburg, held by
a branch of the Russian imperial family, ceased to exist. The act was a
conspicuous breach of the treaty of Tilsit, which Napoleon considered
himself at liberty to disregard, as Russia had shown by her conduct
during the campaign of 1809 that she was no longer more than a nominal
ally of France. At last, on January 12, 1811, Russia asserted her
independence in fiscal matters by an order which declared her ports open
to all vessels sailing under a neutral flag, and imposed a duty on many
French products. Still the course of French annexation crept onwards,
and quietly absorbed the republic of Vallais in Switzerland, which had
been a great centre of smuggling.
[Pageheading: _THE CONTINENTAL SYSTEM._]
Meanwhile, the restrictions and prohibitions which formed the
continental system were made more and more severe. By the Trianon tariff
of August, 1810, heavy duties were levied on colonial products, and by
the Fontainebleau decree of October 18 all goods of British origin were
to be seized and publicly burned. In November a special tribunal was
created to try offenders against the continental system. Nevertheless,
the fiscal and foreign policy of France at this date alike show how far
the continental system had failed in its object, and to what extreme
lengths it had become necessary to push it in order to give it a chance
of success. The strain of the system on English commerce was immense,
but the burden fell far more heavily on the continental nations.
Colonial produce rose to enormous prices in France, Germany, and Italy,
especially after the introduction of the Trianon tariff, and a subject
or ally of the French emperor had to pay ten times as much for his
morning cup of coffee as his enemy in London. The German opposition to
Napoleon had failed in 1809 mainly through the political apathy of the
German nation. Napoleon's fiscal measures were the surest way of
bringing that apathy to an end, and converting it into hostility.
The events of December, 1810, and January, 1811, constituted a distinct
breach between France and Russia, which could only end in war, unless
one party or the other should withdraw from its position. A few months
sufficed to show that no such withdrawal would take place; but neither
power was prepared for war, and seventeen months elapsed after the
breach before hostilities began. The intervening period was spent in
negotiation and preparation. Much depended on the alliances that the
rival powers might be able to contract. Although Napoleon had bound
himself not to restore Poland, he had by the creation and subsequent
enlargement of the duchy of Warsaw given it a semblance of national
unity, and had inspired the Poles with the hope of a more complete
independence. The Polish troops were among the most devoted in the
French army, and the position of their country rendered the support of
the Poles a matter of great importance in any war with Russia. It
occurred to the Tsar Alexander that he might win their support for
himself by a restoration of Poland, under the suzerainty of Russia. He
promised Czartoryski the restoration of the eight provinces under a
guarantee of autonomy, and undertook to obtain the cession of Galicia.
On February 13, 1811, he made a secret offer to Austria of a part of
Moldavia in exchange for Galicia. Nothing came of this, but the massing
of Russian troops on the Polish frontier in March was met by the hurried
advance of French troops through Germany, and war seemed imminent until
Russia postponed the struggle by withdrawing her troops.
Meanwhile, other European powers looked forward to selling their
alliance on the best possible terms. Sweden and Prussia both approached
the stronger power first. Bernadotte, on behalf of Sweden, was prepared
for a French alliance if France would favour the Swedish acquisition of
Norway. Napoleon, on February 25, not only refused these terms, but
ordered Sweden to enforce the continental system under pain of a French
occupation of Swedish Pomerania. This threat Sweden ventured to ignore.
Prussia, lying directly between the two future belligerents, was in a
more dangerous position. Neutrality was impossible, because her
neutrality would not be respected. She first offered her alliance to
Napoleon in return for a reduction of the payments due to France and a
removal of the limit imposed on her army. Napoleon did not reply to this
offer at once. Meanwhile the movement of French troops already mentioned
and the increase of the French garrisons on the Oder, though primarily
intended for the defence of Poland, caused great alarm in Prussia and
resulted in preparations to resist a French attack. In July Napoleon
finally refused to discuss the Prussian terms. Ever since his marriage
he had been inclined more and more to an Austrian alliance. On March 26
of this year Otto, his ambassador at Vienna, had received information
that France would support Austria if she would protest against the
occupation of Belgrade by the Serbs. Napoleon even assured Otto that he
was prepared to undertake any engagement that Austria desired. Rest
was, however, essential to Austria. The military disasters of 1809 had
been followed by national bankruptcy, and with the government paper at a
discount of 90 per cent. she dared not incur further liabilities.
Russia had an advantage over France in that she was able to free herself
from her entanglement in Turkey, while Napoleon could not make peace
either with Great Britain or with the Bourbon party in Spain. An
armistice with the Porte was concluded on October 15. By that time all
pretence of friendly intentions had been abandoned by France and Russia.
Prussia, hoping still to save herself from an unconditional alliance
with France, now turned to Russia, and Scharnhorst was despatched to
seek a Russian alliance. Meanwhile Napoleon sent word to the Prussian
court that, if her military preparations were not suspended, he would
order Davoût to march on Berlin, and at the same time disclosed his
offer of an unconditional alliance against Russia. Prussia, hoping for
Russian aid still, put aside the French demands, but the Tsar Alexander
expressed a decided preference for a defensive campaign against France,
and refused any assistance unless the French should commit an unprovoked
aggression on Königsberg. Scharnhorst seems to have seen the wisdom of
this policy. He now turned to Austria, but there again a definite
alliance was refused. Russia was equally unable to move Austria to join
her, so that Russia and Prussia were each isolated in their opposition
to Napoleon.
In the months of August and September of this year a British force,
commanded by Auchmuty, effected the conquest of Java, the wealthiest of
the East Indian islands. The island had been a Dutch colony, and like
other Dutch colonies had passed into the hands of France. Sumatra fell
into English hands along with Java, so that the supremacy of Great
Britain in the East Indies was fully established.
[Pageheading: _LIVERPOOL'S MINISTRY._]
The new ministry which entered on office in June, 1812, differed largely
in composition from that which had preceded it. Ryder and Yorke retired
at the death of Perceval, Harrowby returned to office, and places in the
cabinet were found for Sidmouth's adherents, Buckinghamshire,
Vansittart, and Bragge-Bathurst. Sidmouth himself succeeded Ryder as
home secretary, while Harrowby succeeded Sidmouth as president of the
council. Earl Bathurst took Liverpool's place as secretary for war and
the colonies. Vansittart succeeded Perceval at the exchequer and
Bragge-Bathurst in the duchy of Lancaster. Robert Dundas, now Viscount
Melville, followed Yorke at the admiralty, and Buckinghamshire took
Melville's place at the board of control, which became once more a
cabinet office. Eldon, Castlereagh, Westmorland, and Mulgrave retained
their former offices, while Camden remained in the cabinet without
office. In September Mulgrave was created an earl, and Camden a marquis.
The internal history of England during the first two years of
Liverpool's premiership has been entirely dwarfed by the interest of
external events. For this period comprised not only the Russian
expedition--the greatest military tragedy in modern history--the
marvellous resurrection of Germany, with the campaigns which culminated
in the stupendous battle of Leipzig, and the invasion of France which
ended in the abdication of Napoleon at Fontainebleau, but also the
brilliant conclusion of the Peninsular war, and the earlier stages of
the war between Great Britain and the United States.
The nation was contented to leave the guidance of home and foreign
policy at that critical time to the existing ministers, all honest,
experienced, and high-minded statesmen, but none gifted with any signal
ability, and inferior both in cleverness and in eloquence to the leaders
of the opposition. Napoleon was not far wrong in regarding the British
aristocracy, which they represented, as his most inveterate and powerful
enemy; but he was grievously deceived in imagining that this
aristocracy, in withstanding his colossal ambition, had not the British
nation at its back. The electoral body, indeed, to which they owed their
parliamentary majority, was but a fraction of the population, and the
public opinion which supported them may seem but the voice of a
privileged class in these days of household suffrage. But there is
little reason to doubt that, if household suffrage had then prevailed,
their foreign policy would have received a democratic sanction; nor is
it at all certain that some features of their home policy, now generally
condemned, were not justified, in the main, by the exigencies of their
time.
[Pageheading: _INDUSTRIAL DISTRESS._]
The "condition of England," as it was then loosely termed, was the
first subject which claimed the attention of Liverpool's government.
While Perceval was congratulating parliament on the elasticity of the
revenue, a widespread depression of industry was producing formidable
disturbances in the midland counties. This depression was the
consequence partly of the continental system, crippling the export of
British goods to European countries; partly of the revival, in February,
1811, of the American non-intercourse act, closing the vast market of
the United States; and partly of the improvements in machinery,
especially those in spinning and weaving machines introduced by the
inventions of Cartwright and Arkwright. Unhappily, this last cause,
being the only one visible to artisans, was regarded by them as the sole
cause of their distress. During the autumn and winter of 1811 "Luddite"
riots broke out among the stocking-weavers of Nottingham. Their name was
derived from a half-witted man who had destroyed two stocking frames
many years before. Frame-breaking on a grand scale became the object of
an organised conspiracy, which extended its operations from
Nottinghamshire into Derbyshire, Leicestershire, Lancashire, and
Yorkshire. At first frame-breaking was carried on by large bodies of
operatives in broad daylight, and when these open proceedings were put
down by military force, they were succeeded by nightly outrages,
sometimes attended by murder. Early in 1812 a bill was passed making
frame-breaking a capital offence.
In spite of this riots grew into local insurrections, and a message from
the prince regent on June 27 recommended further action to parliament.
It was natural, in that generation to connect all disorderly movements
with revolutionary designs, and this belief underlies an alarmist report
from a secret committee of the house of lords on the prevailing tumults.
Accordingly, Sidmouth obtained new powers for magistrates to search for
arms, to disperse tumultuous assemblies, and to exercise jurisdiction
beyond their own districts. In November many Luddites were convicted,
and sixteen were executed by sentence of a special commission sitting at
York. These stern measures were effectual for a time, and popular
discontent in the manufacturing districts ceased to assume so acute a
form until after the war was ended.
The sufferings of the poor in the rural districts, though generally
endured in silence, were at least equally severe with those of the
artisan class, and it is difficult to say whether a good or bad harvest
pressed more heavily on agricultural labourers. When the price of wheat
rose to 130s. per quarter or upwards, as it did in 1812 and other years
of scarcity, the farmers were able to pay comparatively high wages. When
the price fell to 75s., as it did in years of plenty like 1813, wages
were reduced to starvation-point, but supplemented out of the
poor-rates, under the miserable system of indiscriminate out-door relief
graduated according to the size of families. In either case, the entire
income of a labourer was far below the modern standard, and the
prosperity of trade meant to him an increase in the cost of all
necessaries except bread. As for their employers, the golden age of
farming, which is often identified with the age of the great war, had
really ceased long before. Not only did the high price of a farmer's
purchases go far to neutralise the high price of his sales, but the
excessive fluctuations in all prices, due to the opening and closing of
markets according to the fortunes of war, made prudent speculation
almost impossible. The frequently recurring depressions were rendered
all the more disastrous, because in times of high prices "the margin of
cultivation" was unduly extended.
[Pageheading: _CORN LAWS._]
With a view to diminish the violence of these fluctuations, a select
committee on the corn-trade was appointed by the house of commons in
1813, and reported in favour of a sliding-scale. When the price of wheat
should fall below 90s. per quarter, its exportation was to be permitted;
but its importation was to be forbidden, until the price should reach
103s., when it might, indeed, be imported, but under "a very
considerable duty". It was assumed, in fact, that the normal price of
wheat was above 100s. per quarter, and the price above which importation
should be permitted was nearly twice as high as that fixed in 1801,
when, moreover, it was to be admitted above 50s. at a duty of 2s. 6d.,
and above 54s. at a duty of sixpence. It is remarkable that in the
debates of 1814 upon the report of this committee, William Huskisson, as
well as Sir Henry Parnell, supported its main conclusions, upon the
ground that agriculture must be upheld at all costs, and the home-market
preferred to foreign markets. Canning and others ably advocated the
cause of the consumers, alleging that duties on corn injured them far
more than they could benefit landowners or farmers. Finally, a bill
embodying a modified sliding-scale was introduced by the government,
and, though lost by a narrow majority in 1814, became law in 1815. Under
this act the importation of foreign corn was prohibited, so long as the
price of wheat did not rise above 80s. Above that price it might be
imported free. Corn from British North America might, however, be
imported free so long as the price of wheat exceeded 67s.
The parliamentary debates of 1812 chiefly turned on Spanish affairs, the
revocation of the orders in council, the subsequent rupture with the
United States which had anticipated this great concession, and the
wearisome cabinet intrigues which preceded the accession of Liverpool as
prime minister. It is noteworthy that so conservative a house of commons
should actually have pledged itself to consider the question of catholic
emancipation in the next session, and should have passed an act
relieving nonconformists from various disabilities. The next session of
this parliament, however, never came, for an unexpected dissolution took
place on September 29. This dissolution was attributed, with some
reason, to a wish on the part of the government to profit by an abundant
harvest, and to the restoration of comparative quiet both in England and
in Ireland. A new parliament assembled at the end of November. The
prince regent's speech in opening it, though it noticed the suppression
of the Luddite disturbances, was inevitably devoted to the great events
in Spain and Russia, the conclusion of a treaty with Russia, and the
American declaration of war. After the Christmas recess, Castlereagh
presented an argumentative message from the prince fully discussing the
points at issue between Great Britain and the United States, upon which
Canning, though out of office, delivered a vigorous speech in defence of
the British position. Eldon, in the house of lords, went further, boldly
justifying the right of search, and denying the American contention that
original allegiance could be cancelled by naturalisation without the
consent of the mother-country. The Princess of Wales, who had long been
separated from the prince, was the cause of more parliamentary time
being wasted by a complaint which she addressed to the speaker against
the proceedings of the privy council. That body had approved
restrictions which her husband had thought fit to place on her
intercourse with her daughter, the Princess Charlotte. Parliament,
however, took no action in the matter.
Perhaps the most important measure enacted in the session of 1813 was
the so-called East India company's act. By this act the charter of the
company was renewed with a confirmation of its administrative privileges
and its monopoly of the China trade, but subject to material
reservations: the India trade was thrown open from April 10, 1814, and
the charter itself, thus restricted, was made terminable by three years'
notice after April 10, 1831. In this year the naval and military
armaments of Great Britain, considered as a whole, perhaps reached their
maximum strength, and the national expenditure rose to its highest
level, including, as it did, subsidies to foreign powers amounting to
about £10,500,000. Of the aggregate expenditure, about two-thirds,
£74,000,000, were provided by taxation, an enormous sum relatively to
the population and wealth of the country at that period. Patiently as
this burden was borne on the whole by the people of Great Britain, we
cannot wonder that Vansittart, the chancellor of the exchequer, should
have sought to lighten it in some degree by encroaching upon the sinking
fund, as founded and regulated by Pitt. The debates on this complicated
question, in which Huskisson and Tierney stoutly combated Vansittart's
proposal, belong rather to financial history. What strikes a modern
student of politics as strange is that Vansittart, tory as he was,
should have advocated the relief of living and suffering taxpayers, upon
the principle, then undefined, of leaving money "to fructify in the
pockets of the people"; while the whig economists of the day stickled
for the policy of piling up new debts, if need be, rather than break in
upon an empirical scheme for the gradual extinction of old debts.
FOOTNOTES:
[41] For the whole crisis see Walpole, _Life of Perceval_, ii., 157-96,
and for Sheridan's share in the transactions, Moore, _Life of Sheridan_,
ii., 382-409.
CHAPTER V.
THE PENINSULAR WAR.
Reference has already been made to the conflict maintained for six years
by Great Britain against France for the liberation of Spain and
Portugal, which has since been known in history as the Peninsular war.
It had its origin in two events which occurred during the autumn of 1807
and the spring of 1808. The first was the secret treaty of Fontainebleau
concluded between France and Spain at the end of October, 1807; the
second was the outbreak of revolutionary movements at Madrid, followed
by the intervention of Napoleon in March, April, and May, 1808. The
treaty of Fontainebleau was a sequel of the vast combination against
Great Britain completed by the peace of Tilsit, under which the
continental system was to be enforced over all Europe. Portugal, the
ally of this country and an emporium of British commerce, was to be
partitioned into principalities allotted by Napoleon, the house of
Braganza was to be exiled, and its transmarine possessions were to be
divided between France and Spain, then ruled by the worthless Godoy in
the name of King Charles IV. Whether or not the subjugation of the whole
peninsula was already designed by Napoleon, his troops, ostensibly
despatched for the conquest of Portugal under the provisions of the
treaty, had treacherously occupied commanding positions in Spain, when
the populace of Madrid rose in revolt, and, thronging the little town of
Aranjuez, where the court resided, frightened the king into abdication.
His unprincipled son, Ferdinand, was proclaimed in March, 1808, but
Murat, who now entered Madrid as commander-in-chief of the French troops
in that city, secretly favoured the ex-King Charles. In the end, both he
and Ferdinand were enticed into seeking the protection of Napoleon at
Bayonne. Instead of mediating or deciding between them, Napoleon soon
found means to get rid of both. They were induced or rather compelled to
resign their rights, and retire into private life on large pensions; and
Napoleon conferred the crown of Spain on his brother Joseph, whose
former kingdom of Naples was bestowed on Murat.
In the meantime, sanguinary riots broke out afresh at Madrid, hundreds
of French were massacred, and the insurrection, as it was called, though
sternly put down by Murat, spread like wildfire into all parts of Spain.
A violent explosion of patriotism, resulting in anarchy, followed
throughout the whole country. Napoleon was taken by surprise, but the
combinations which he matured at Bayonne for the conquest of Spain were
as masterly as those by which he had well-nigh subdued the whole
continent, except Russia. He established a base of operations in the
centre of the country, and organised four campaigns in the north-west,
north-east, south-east, and south. Savary, who had succeeded Murat at
Madrid, was supposed to act as commander-in-chief, but was really little
more than a medium for transmitting orders received from Napoleon at
Bayonne. The campaign of Duhesme in Catalonia was facilitated by the
treacherous seizure of the citadel of Barcelona in the previous
February. It was not long, however, before effective aid was rendered on
the coast by the British fleet under Collingwood, and especially by Lord
Cochrane in the _Impérieuse_ frigate; the undisciplined bands of
Catalonian volunteers were reinforced by regular troops from Majorca and
Minorca; the fortress of Gerona made an obstinate resistance; the siege
of it was twice raised, and Barcelona, almost isolated, was now held
with difficulty.
[Pageheading: _FRANCE OCCUPIES THE PENINSULA._]
Marshal Moncey vainly besieged Valencia, while Generals
Lefebvre-Desnoëttes and Verdier were equally unsuccessful before
Zaragoza. In the plains of Leon, Marshal Bessières gained a decisive
victory over a superior force of Spaniards under Cuesta and Blake, at
Medina de Rio Seco, on July 14. Having thus secured the province of
Leon, and the great route from Bayonne to Madrid, he was advancing on
Galicia when his progress was arrested by disaster in another quarter.
General Dupont, commanding the southern army, found himself nearly
surrounded at Baylen, and solicited an armistice, followed by a
convention, under which, "above eighteen thousand French soldiers laid
down their arms before a raw army incapable of resisting half that
number, if the latter had been led by an able man".[42] The convention,
signed on July 20, stipulated for the transport of the French troops to
France, but its stipulations were shamefully violated; some were
massacred, others were sent to sicken in the hulks at Cadiz, and
comparatively few lived to rejoin their colours. Meanwhile a so-called
"assembly of notables," summoned to Bayonne, consisting of ninety-one
persons, all nominees of Napoleon, assumed to act for the whole nation,
had accepted the nomination of Joseph Bonaparte as king, and proceeded
to adopt a constitution. On July 20, the very day of the capitulation of
Baylen, Joseph entered Madrid, and on the 24th was proclaimed King of
Spain and the Indies. But the military prestige of the grand army
received a fatal blow in the catastrophe, of which the immediate effect
was the retirement of Joseph behind the Ebro, and the ultimate effects
were felt in the later history of the war.
At this moment almost the whole of Portugal was in possession of the
French. In November, 1807, under peremptory orders from Napoleon, Junot
with a French army and an auxiliary force of Spaniards, but without
money or transport, had marched with extraordinary rapidity across the
mountains to Alcantara in the valley of the Tagus. He thence pressed
forward to Lisbon, hoping to anticipate the embarkation of the royal
family for Brazil, which, however, took place just before his arrival
and almost under his eyes. With his army terribly reduced by the
hardships and privations of his forced march, he overawed Lisbon and
issued a proclamation that "the house of Braganza had ceased to reign".
A fortnight later a Spanish division occupied Oporto, and meanwhile
another Spanish division established itself in the south-east of
Portugal, but, as the French stragglers came in and reinforcements
approached, Junot felt himself strong enough to cast off all disguise;
he suppressed the council of regency, took the government into his own
hands, and levied a heavy war contribution. During the early months of
1808 he was employed in reorganising his own forces, and the resources
of Lisbon, where an auxiliary Russian fleet of nine ships was lying
practically blockaded. In a military sense, he was successful, but the
rapacity of the French, the contagion of the Spanish uprising, the
memory of the old alliance with England, and the proximity of English
fleets, stirred the blood of the Portuguese nation into ill-concealed
hostility. The Spanish commander at Oporto withdrew his troops to
Galicia, and the inhabitants declared for independence. Their example
was followed in other parts of Portugal. Junot acted with vigour,
disarmed the Spanish contingent at Lisbon, and sent columns to quell
disturbances on the Spanish frontiers, but he soon realised the
necessity of concentration. He therefore resolved to abandon most of the
Portuguese fortresses, limiting his efforts to holding Lisbon, and
keeping open his line of communication with Spain.
[Pageheading: _VIMEIRO AND CINTRA._]
Such was the state of affairs in the Peninsula when Sir Arthur Wellesley
landed his army of some 12,000 men on August 13, 1808. He had been
specially designated for the command of a British army in Portugal by
Castlereagh, then secretary for war and the colonies, who fully
appreciated his singular capacity for so difficult a service. Sir John
Moore, who had just returned from the Baltic, having found it hopeless
to co-operate with Gustavus IV. of Sweden, was sent out soon afterwards
to Portugal with a corps of some 10,000 men. Both these eminent soldiers
were directed to place themselves under the orders not only of Sir Hew
Dalrymple, the governor of Gibraltar, as commander-in-chief, but of Sir
Harry Burrard, when he should arrive, as second in command. Wellesley
had received general instructions to afford "the Spanish and Portuguese
nations every possible aid in throwing off the yoke of France," and was
empowered to disembark at the mouth of the Tagus. Having obtained
trustworthy information at Coruña and Oporto, he decided rather to begin
his campaign from a difficult landing-place south of Oporto at the mouth
of the Mondego, and to march thence upon Lisbon. He was opportunely
joined by General Spencer from the south of Spain, and chose the
coast-road by Torres Vedras. At Roliça he encountered a smaller force
under Delaborde, sent in advance by Junot to delay his progress, and
routed it after a severe combat. Delaborde, however, retreated with
admirable tenacity, and Wellesley, expecting reinforcements from the
coast, pushed forward to Vimeiro, without attempting to check the
concentration of Junot's army. There was fought, on August 21, the first
important battle of the Peninsular war. The British troops, estimated at
16,778 men (besides about 2,000 Portuguese), outnumbered the French
considerably, but the French were much stronger in cavalry, and boldly
assumed the offensive, confident in the prestige derived from so many
victories in Italy and Germany. Wellesley's position was strong, but the
attack on it was skilfully designed and pressed home with resolute
courage. It was repelled at every point of the field, and the French,
retiring in confusion, might have been cut off from Lisbon. But Burrard,
who had just landed and witnessed the battle without interfering, now
absolutely refused to sanction a vigorous pursuit.
On the following day he was superseded in turn by Dalrymple. The new
commander determined to await the arrival of Moore, whose approach was
reported, but who did not disembark his whole force until the 30th. In
the meantime, overtures for an armistice were received from Junot, and
ultimately resulted in the so-called "convention of Cintra," though it
was first drafted at Torres Vedras and was ratified at Lisbon. Under
this agreement the French army was to surrender Lisbon intact with other
Portuguese fortresses, but was allowed to return to France with its arms
and baggage at the expense of the British government. Having dissented
from the military decision which had enabled Junot to negotiate, instead
of capitulating, Wellesley also dissented from certain terms of the
convention. He was, however, party to it as a whole, and afterwards
justified its main conditions as securing the evacuation of Portugal at
the price of reasonable concessions. This was not the feeling of the
British public, which loudly resented the escape of the French army and
insisted upon a court of inquiry. The verdict of this court saved the
military honour of all three generals, but its members were so divided
in opinion on the policy of the convention that no authoritative
judgment was pronounced. Napoleon felt no such difficulty in condemning
Junot for yielding too much, and the inhabitants of Lisbon were
infuriated not only by the loss of their expected vengeance, but also by
the shameless plunder of their public and private property by the
departing French. Under a separate convention, the Russian fleet, long
blockaded in the Tagus, was surrendered to the British admiral, but
without its officers or crews.
The capitulation of Baylen paralysed for a time the aggressive movements
of France in Spain. Catalonia remained unconquered, even Bessières
retreated, and Joseph, as we have seen, abandoned Madrid. Happily for
the French, the Spaniards proved quite incapable of following up their
advantages, and though a "supreme junta" was assembled at Aranjuez, it
wasted its time in vain wrangling, and did little or nothing for the
organisation of national defence. Meanwhile, Napoleon was pouring
veteran troops from Germany into the north of Spain, where they repulsed
the Spanish levies in several minor engagements. On October 14 he left
Erfurt, where he had renewed his alliance with the tsar, and reached
Bayonne on November 3. His simple but masterly plan of campaign was
already prepared, and was carried out with the utmost promptitude. On
November 10-11, one of three Spanish armies was crushed at Espinosa; on
the former day another was routed at Gamonal; on the 23rd the third was
utterly dispersed at Tudela. Napoleon himself remained for some days at
Burgos, awaiting the result of these operations; on December 4, after a
feeble resistance, he entered Madrid in triumph, and stayed there
seventeen days, which he employed with marvellous activity in maturing
fresh designs, both civil and military, for securing his power in Spain.
[Pageheading: _ADVANCE OF SIR JOHN MOORE._]
Already, on October 7, Sir John Moore had taken over the command of the
British forces. He probably owed his appointment to George III., who
seems on this occasion to have overruled his foreign and war ministers,
Canning and Castlereagh. In spite of his unwillingness to offer the
appointment to Moore, Castlereagh gave him the most loyal and efficient
support during the whole campaign; and this loyalty to Moore was one of
the reasons for Canning's desire to remove Castlereagh from the war
office, which, as we have seen, led to the famous duel between those two
statesmen. It was at first intended that Moore should co-operate with
the Spanish armies which were then facing the French on the line of the
Ebro. For this purpose he was to have the command of 21,000 troops
already in Portugal and of about 12,000 who were being sent by sea to
Coruña under Sir David Baird. Burrard was to remain in Portugal with
another 10,000. Nothing had been done before Moore was appointed to the
command to provide the troops with their necessary equipment or their
commander with the necessary local information. The departure of the
troops was therefore slow. By October 18 the greater part of the British
troops in Portugal were in motion, but the whole army had not left
Lisbon till the 29th. The main body travelled by fairly direct routes to
Salamanca, where Moore arrived on November 13, but he was induced by
information, which proved to be incorrect, to send his cavalry and guns
with a column under Hope, by the more circuitous high road through Elvas
and Talavera. When this route was adopted it was anticipated that the
different divisions of the British army would be able to unite at, or
near, Valladolid. But the advance of the French rendered this
impossible, and Hope ultimately joined Moore at Salamanca on December 4.
Baird suffered from even more vexatious delays. Though the greater part
of his convoy had arrived at Coruña on October 13, the local junta would
not permit them to land without express orders from the central junta at
Aranjuez. Consequently the disembarkation did not begin till the 26th
and was only finished on November 4. Transport and equipment were
difficult to obtain, and on November 22 Baird was still only at Astorga.
There exaggerated reports of the French advance induced him to halt, but
by Moore's orders he continued his march. On the 28th the news of the
defeat of Castaños at Tudela reached Moore at Salamanca. Co-operation
with a Spanish army now appeared impossible, and even a junction with
Baird seemed too hazardous to attempt. Moore therefore, ordered Baird to
retire on Coruña and to proceed to Lisbon by sea, and, while waiting
himself at Salamanca for Hope, made preparations for a retreat to
Portugal. On December 5, the day after his junction with Hope, Moore
determined to continue his advance. He had received news of the
enthusiastic preparations for the defence of Madrid but did not know of
its fall, and he considered that the Spanish enthusiasm justified some
risk on the part of the British troops. He accordingly recalled Baird,
whose infantry had retired to Villafranca, though his cavalry were still
at Astorga. On the 9th came the news of the fall of Madrid, but Moore
believed that an attack on the French lines of communication might still
prove useful, and on the 11th the advance was renewed. Moore himself
left Salamanca on the 13th. On the 12th he learned for the first time
from some prisoners the true strength of the French army, 250,000 of all
arms, and also discovered that the enemy were in complete ignorance of
the position of his own army. Next day an intercepted despatch showed
him that he might possibly be able to cut off Soult in an isolated
position at Saldaña. Having at last effected a junction with Baird's
corps on the 19th he reached Sahagun on the 21st, and was on the point
of delivering his attack under favourable conditions, though his triumph
must have been short-lived.
His real success was of another order. He had anticipated that Napoleon
would postpone everything to the opportunity of crushing a British army,
and the ultimate object of his march to Sahagun was to draw the French
away from Lisbon and Andalusia. He was not disappointed. Napoleon at
last divined that Moore was not flying in a south-westerly direction,
but carrying out a bold manoeuvre in a north-easterly direction. He
instantly pushed division after division from various quarters by forced
marches upon Moore's reported track, while he himself followed with
desperate efforts across the snow-clad mountains between Madrid and the
Douro. Apprised of his swift advance, and conscious of his own vast
inferiority in numbers, Moore had no choice but to retreat without a
moment's delay upon Benevente and Astorga. He was now sufficiently far
north to prefer to retire upon Galicia rather than upon Portugal. The
retreat began on the 24th and was executed with such rapidity that on
January 1, 1809, Napoleon gave up the pursuit at Astorga, leaving it to
be continued by Soult. Whether he was influenced by intelligence of
fresh armaments on the Danube, or of dangerous plots in Paris, must
remain uncertain, but it is highly probable that he saw little honour to
be won in a laborious chase of a foe who might prove formidable if
brought to bay.
Moore's army, disheartened as it was by the loss of a brilliant chance,
and demoralised as it became under the fatigues and hardships of a most
harassing retreat, never failed to repel attacks on its rear, where
Paget handled the cavalry of the rear-guard with signal ability,
especially in a spirited action near Benevente. In spite of some
excesses, tolerable order was maintained until the British force, still
25,000 strong, reached Astorga, and was joined by some 10,000 Spaniards
under Romaña. Thenceforward, all sense of discipline was abandoned by so
many regiments that Moore described the conduct of his whole army as
"infamous beyond belief," though it is certain that some regiments, and
notably those of the reserve, should be excepted from this sweeping
condemnation. Drunkenness, marauding, and other military crimes grew
more and more general as the main body marched "in a drove" through
Villafranca to Lugo, where Moore vainly offered battle, and onwards to
Betanzos on the sea-coast. There a marvellous rally was effected,
stragglers rejoined the ranks in unexpected numbers, the _moral_ of the
soldiery was restored as the fearful strain of physical misery was
relaxed, and by January 12, 1809, all the divisions of Moore's army were
safely posted in or around Coruña. Bad weather had delayed the fleet of
transports ordered round from Vigo, but it ran into the harbour on the
14th, and the sick and invalids were sent on board.
[Pageheading: _THE BATTLE OF CORUÑA._]
Moore was advised to make terms for the embarkation of his entire
command, but he was too good a soldier to comply. Those who took part in
the battle of Coruña on the 16th, some 15,000 men in all, were no
unworthy representatives of the army which started from Lisbon three
months earlier. Soult, with a larger force, assumed the offensive, and
made a determined attack on the British position in front of the harbour
and town of Coruña. He was repulsed at all points, but Moore was
mortally, and Baird severely, wounded on the field. Hope, who took
command, knowing that Soult would soon be reinforced, wisely persisted
in carrying out Moore's intention, evacuated Coruña, and embarked his
army for England during the night and the following day. His losses were
estimated by Hope at above 700, killed and wounded; those of the enemy
were twice as great. Thus victory crowned a campaign which otherwise
would have done little to satisfy the popular appetite for tangible
success. The original object of supporting the Spanish resistance in the
north had been rendered impossible of fulfilment by Napoleon's victories
when Moore had barely crossed the Spanish frontier, and in this sense
the expedition must be regarded as a failure, though its commander was
in no sense responsible for its ill-success. On the other hand,
considered as a skilful diversion, the expedition was highly successful.
It drew all the best French troops and generals into the north-west
corner of Spain, leaving all the other, and far richer, provinces to
recover their power of resistance.[43]
The spirit in which Napoleon had entered upon this contest is well
illustrated in two sentences of his address to the citizens of Madrid.
"The Bourbons," he said, "can no longer reign in Europe," and "No power
under the influence of England can exist on the continent". The
counter-proclamations of Spanish juntas were more prolix and equally
arrogant, but one of them reveals the secret of national strength when
it asserts that "a whole people is more powerful than disciplined
armies". The British estimate of Napoleon's Spanish policy was tersely
expressed by the Marquis Wellesley in the house of lords, "To him force
and fraud were alike; force, that would stoop to all the base artifices
of fraud; and fraud, that would come armed with all the fierce violence
of force".
[Pageheading: _WELLESLEY TAKES COMMAND._]
For three months after the battle of Coruña, the Peninsular war, as
regards the action of Great Britain, was all but suspended. Two days
before that battle, a formal treaty of peace and alliance between Great
Britain and the Spanish junta, which had withdrawn to Seville, was
signed at London. Sir John Cradock was in command of the British troops
at Lisbon, and took up a defensive position there, with reinforcements
from Cadiz, awaiting the approach of Soult, who had captured Oporto by
storm, and of Victor, who was in the valley of the Tagus. At the request
of the Portuguese, Beresford had been sent out to organise and command
their army. Early in 1809 the Spaniards were defeated with great
slaughter at Ucles, Ciudad Real, and Medellin; Zaragoza was taken after
another siege, and still more obstinate defence; and the national cause
seemed more desperate than ever. On April 2, however, Sir Arthur
Wellesley, who had returned home after the convention of Cintra, was
appointed to the command-in-chief of our forces in the Peninsula.
Before leaving England, he left with the ministers a memorandum on the
conduct of the war which, viewed by the light of later events, must be
accounted a masterpiece of foresight and sagacity. When it was laid
before George III., his natural shrewdness at once discerned its true
value, and he desired its author to be informed of the strong impression
which it had produced on his mind.
Wellesley, indeed, could not estimate beforehand the vast numerical
superiority of the French while the rest of Europe was at peace, or the
impotent vacillations of Spanish juntas, or the "mulish obstinacy" of
Spanish generals, which so often wrecked his plans and spoiled his
victories. Nor could he foresee the advantages which he would derive
from the resources of guerilla warfare, the mutual jealousies of the
French marshals, and the sudden recall of the best French troops for
service in Germany and Russia. But his prescient and practical mind
firmly grasped the dominant facts of the position--that Portugal,
guarded by the ocean on the west and by mountain ranges on the east, was
far more accessible to the British navy than to the French army; that,
under British officers, its troops might be trained into an effective
force; and that, with it as a basis, Great Britain might ultimately
liberate the whole Peninsula. "I have always been of opinion," Wellesley
said in this memorandum, "that Portugal might be defended, whatever
might be the result of the contest in Spain; and that in the meantime
the measures adopted for the defence of Portugal would be highly useful
to the Spaniards in their contest with the French." On this simple
principle all his detailed recommendations were founded, and he
expressed a deliberate belief that, if 30,000 British troops were
supported by an equal number of Portuguese regulars, and a reserve of
militia was provided, "the French would not be able to overrun Portugal
with less than 100,000 men". This forecast was verified, and upon its
essential wisdom the fate of the Peninsular war, with all its
consequences, may be said to have depended.[44]
Wellesley landed at Lisbon on April 22, and was received with the utmost
demonstrations of joy and confidence. He found not only the capital but
the whole country in a state of tumult, if not of anarchy, due to a
growing despair of the national cause. His arrival rekindled the embers
of patriotism, and on May 5 he reviewed at Coimbra a body of troops
consisting of 17,000 British and Germans, with about 8,000 Portuguese.
The next day he marched towards the Douro, and on the 14th he effected
the passage of that river in the face of the French army occupying
Oporto, which the British forthwith recaptured. Soult beat a hasty and
disorderly retreat into Galicia. Having driven Soult out of Portugal,
the British general was encouraged to undertake a further advance into
Spain, where Joseph with Victor and Sébastiani had collected a much
larger army to bar the approaches to Madrid than Wellesley, relying on
Spanish intelligence, had been led to expect. During June and the first
days of July, he moved by Abrantes and the Tagus valley as far as
Plasencia, little knowing that Soult was about to sweep round his rear,
with 50,000 men, and intercept his communications with Lisbon. On July
10 he held a conference with the Spanish general Cuesta, who insisted on
making an aggressive movement with his own troops only, and met with a
repulse.
[Pageheading: _THE TALAVERA CAMPAIGN._]
On the 27th, the combined armies of Wellesley and Cuesta, numbering
respectively about 20,000 British and 35,000 Spanish, confronted 46,000
French troops, under Victor, in a strong position behind Talavera.[45]
The Spanish forces occupied the right and the British the left of this
position. Joseph was present, and disregarding the counsels of Jourdan,
his proper military adviser, authorised Victor to assume the offensive.
He failed in two preliminary attacks on the 27th, but renewed them on
the 28th, when a general engagement ensued. The whole brunt of the
battle fell upon the British troops, who gallantly withstood a desperate
onset, first on their left and then on their centre and right, until the
French quitted the field in confusion. The Spaniards, posted in
entrenchments nearer Talavera itself, did and suffered comparatively
little. Some of their regiments fled disgracefully, but the rest held
their ground, and Wellesley in his despatch spoke favourably of their
behaviour.[46] Perhaps the part which they played may be roughly
estimated by their losses, amounting to 1,200, as compared with 6,268
British and nearly 9,000 French. Wellesley, after further experience of
Spanish co-operation, made up his mind to dispense with it altogether in
future.
The victory of Talavera won for Wellesley the rank of viscount, to which
he was raised on September 4, with the title of Wellington. Although the
victory revived the respect of foreign nations for the prowess of
British arms, it was otherwise fruitless, and its sequel was fairly open
to criticism. Wellesley found that Soult, with Ney and Mortier, had
circumvented him, and that he must retreat through Esdremadura, on the
south of the Tagus, upon Badajoz. Cuesta, who had advocated bolder
counsels, undertook to guard the rear, and to protect the British
wounded at Talavera. But he soon found it necessary to abandon that
position. Fifteen hundred of the wounded were left behind, and were
humanely treated by the French generals. Wellesley's retreat over the
mountains was attended with great hardship and loss, for want of
supplies either from Spain or from the coast, and his long encampment in
the malarious valley of the Guadiana about Badajoz swelled the number of
his sick to a frightful extent. It was not until December, when it got
into better cantonments on Portuguese soil, that the British army,
triumphant at Talavera, recovered either its health or its _moral_.
Napoleon boasted, in a memorandum to be inserted in the Paris journals,
that Wellington had really been beaten in Spain, and that "if affairs
there had been properly conducted not an Englishman would have escaped".
Without going quite so far as this, the parliamentary opposition in
England made the least of the victory and the most of the retreat, which
unfortunately coincided in time with the wreck of the Walcheren
expedition. Even Wellington's best friends in England began to lose
heart, as did many of his own officers. He remained undaunted, and
having established his headquarters on the high ground between the Tagus
and the Douro, meditated designs which, slowly matured, bore good fruit
in later years.
It is difficult to understand the inaction of Wellington for so many
months after the Talavera campaign, without taking into account not only
the difficulty of obtaining sufficient recruits and stores from England
after the waste of both at the mouth of the Scheldt, but the greatly
increased strength of the French in Spain during the long interval
between the Wagram campaign and the Russian expedition. At the close of
1809 all the fortresses of Spain had fallen into the enemy's hands, and
all her principal armies had been defeated and dispersed in successive
battles of which the greatest was that of Ocaña in the month of
November. Suchet was master of Aragon and the east of Spain, nor was he
dislodged from it until the end of the war; Andalusia was nearly
conquered; Cadiz was only saved by the self-reliant courage of the Duc
d'Albuquerque, baffling the intrigues and treachery of the supreme junta
there assembled; and Napoleon was preparing a fresh army to overrun
Portugal, under the command of Masséna. The Perceval ministry, in which
Liverpool had taken Castlereagh's post of secretary for war and the
colonies, adopting an optimistic tone at home, practically told
Wellington that he must shift for himself; and he braced himself up to
do so with extraordinary fortitude.
He remained watching the gathering storm from the heights of Guarda,
south-west of Almeida, and commanding two great roads from Spain into
Portugal, but his thoughts were equally fixed upon the vast and famous
lines of Torres Vedras, which he was constructing for the defence of
Lisbon. His force, including the Portuguese regulars, did not exceed
50,000 men; that of the French under Ney, Reynier, and Junot consisted
of about 70,000, but they were not equally capable of being concentrated
on a single point. The Portuguese militia, too, were being gradually
disciplined, and the Portuguese civil authorities were being gradually
schooled into the new lesson of sweeping their own country bare of all
supplies before the coming French invasion. Wellington did not even
strike a blow to save Ciudad Rodrigo, which Masséna took on July 10,
1810. But it was no part of his plan that Almeida should capitulate, as
it did shortly afterwards, partly owing to the accidental explosion of a
magazine, and partly as was suspected, to an act of treachery. Still,
Masséna delayed until urged by Napoleon, and deceived by false
intelligence, he launched forth, at the beginning of September, on an
enterprise which proved fatal to his reputation. Both he and Wellington
issued appeals to the Portuguese nation, the contrast between which is
significant. The French marshal, echoing the prevailing note of his
master's proclamation, denounced Great Britain as the enemy of all
Europe; Wellington called upon the Portuguese to remember their actual
experience of French rapacity and outrage.
[Pageheading: _BUSSACO AND TORRES VEDRAS._]
The object of Masséna was to reach Coimbra before Wellington. His
manoeuvres to outflank Wellington's left were skilfully devised, but
the British army marched steadily down the valley of the Mondego,
carrying with it the population of the district, and took its stand on
the ridge of Bussaco, north of Coimbra, barring Masséna's progress.
There was fought, on September 27, 1810, a battle as deadly as that of
Talavera, and more decisive in its consequences. The French, as usual,
were the assailants; the English and the Portuguese stood at bay. Never,
in any of their brilliant victories, did French troops show more heroic
daring than in this assault under Reynier on the British right, and
under Ney on the British left. Both columns forced their way up bare
heath-clad slopes, and reached the summit, whence they were only driven
back after repeated charges. Their loss in killed and wounded exceeded
4,500, that of the allies was about 1,300. The French generals threw the
blame of defeat upon each other, but, in fact, the skill of Masséna
converted a defeat into an episode in his victorious advance. On the
following day, he again found a way of turning Wellington's left, and,
in an intercepted despatch, he naturally treated this as a compensation
for the repulse at Bussaco, which he did not disguise. Compelled to
retire once more with a vast drove of encumbered, panic-stricken, and
famishing Portuguese fugitives, and conscious that no reserves awaited
him, Wellington knew, nevertheless, that he was drawing Masséna further
and further away from his base, to encounter a terrible surprise. For,
so useless had been the French scouts, and so worthless the information
received from Portuguese sources, that no adequate conception of the
obstacle presented by the lines of Torres Vedras had entered the mind of
that experienced strategist.
These elaborate works had been constructed in the course of a year by
thousands of Portuguese labourers, directed by Colonel Fletcher of the
royal engineers, upon a plan carefully thought out and laid down by
Wellington himself. The first and principal chain of fortifications
stretched for nearly thirty miles across the whole promontory between
the river Tagus and the sea, about twenty-five miles north of Lisbon.
The summits of hills were crowned with forts, their sides were escarped
and protected with earthworks, their gorges were blocked with redoubts,
a small river at the foot of them was made impassable by dams; in short,
the utmost advantage was taken of the defences provided by nature, and
these were supplemented by artificial entrenchments. Portuguese
garrisons manned the greater part of the batteries, armed with guns from
the arsenals of Lisbon; British troops were to occupy the most
vulnerable points of attack. There was a second and third range of
fortifications behind the first, in case these should be forced, but no
such emergency arose. When Masséna had carefully inspected the
stupendous barrier reared in front of him, his well-trained eye
recognised it as impregnable: he paused for some weeks under semblance
of blockading the British forces, while he was really scouring the
country for the means of feeding his own; but in November he began to
retreat upon Santarem, Almeida, and Ciudad Rodrigo, with a half-starved
and dispirited army, greatly reduced in numbers during the campaign.[47]
The year 1811 was perhaps the least interesting, yet the most critical
in the history of the Peninsular war. Wellington had not escaped
criticism at home for allowing Masséna to remain so long unmolested near
Santarem. He described himself in a private letter, written in December,
1810, as "safe for the winter at all events". More he could not have
said, knowing, as he did, that Soult was in force before Cadiz, and
might at any moment join Masséna. This, in fact, he did; leaving his
fields of plunder in Andalusia under the positive orders of Napoleon, he
defeated the Spaniards at the Gebora on February 19, and captured
Badajoz, as well as Olivenza. In his absence, Sir Thomas Graham, who
commanded the British troops at Cadiz, sailed thence with La Peña, the
Spanish commander, and a combined force of about 12,000 men, to make a
flank march, and attack the French besiegers, under Victor, in the rear.
A brisk action followed at Barrosa, in which Graham obtained a complete
victory, but the Spanish troops, as usual, remained almost passive; the
beaten army was not pursued, and the siege of Cadiz was not raised.
This city was still the seat of the Spanish national government, but the
feeble junta had been superseded by a national cortes, fairly
representative of the nation, which passed some liberal measures, and
dissolved the so-called regency which assumed to represent Ferdinand.
[Pageheading: _FUENTES D'ONORO AND ALBUERA._]
The two great frontier fortresses of Spain, Ciudad Rodrigo and Badajoz,
were now in the hands of the French. Masséna had regained the Spanish
frontier in March, after frequent combats with the pursuing enemy, and
with heavy losses in men and horses, though he saved every gun except
one. This retreat involved the evacuation of every place in Portugal
except the fortress of Almeida. Wellington's pursuit would have been
still more vigorous, but that his Portuguese troops were half-starved,
and had lost discipline under intolerable privations. His next design
seems to have been the recapture of the fortresses, but he was not
without ulterior hopes--all too premature--of afterwards pushing on to
Madrid and operating in the eastern provinces of Spain. He first
invested Almeida, and, leaving General Spencer to continue the blockade,
proceeded to Elvas in order to concert measures with Beresford for the
siege of Badajoz. Thence he was suddenly recalled northward to repel a
fresh advance of Masséna, strongly reinforced, for the relief of
Almeida. The battle which followed at Fuentes d'Oñoro, south-east of
Almeida, was among the most hardly contested struggles in the whole
Peninsular war. It began on May 3, and, with a day's interval, concluded
on the 5th. The British remained masters of the field, and claimed a
somewhat doubtful victory, which at least secured the evacuation of
Almeida. The garrison of that fortress blew it up by night, and
succeeded, by masterly tactics, in joining the main French army with
little sacrifice of life.
Wellington returned to Badajoz, only to meet with disappointment.
General Cole, acting under Beresford, had retaken Olivenza; but Soult,
with a force of 23,000 men, was marching to succour Badajoz, when he was
encountered by Beresford at Albuera. Beresford's force was numerically
stronger than Soult's, but only 7,000 men were English, the rest being
mostly Spanish. Measured by the proportion of losses to men engaged on
both sides, this fight on May 16, 1811, must rank among the bloodiest on
record. In four hours nearly 7,000 of the allies and 8,000 French were
struck down. The decisive charge of the reserve was inspired and led by
Hardinge, afterwards Governor-General of India; the French were routed,
and Soult was checked, but little was gained by the victors.[48] The
siege of Badajoz, indeed, was renewed, but its progress was slow for
want of proper engines and artillery, and it was abandoned, after two
futile attempts, on June 11. By this time, Marmont had succeeded
Masséna, and was carrying out Napoleon's grand plan for a junction with
Soult's army and a fresh irruption into Portugal. With marvellous
audacity, Wellington offered battle to both marshals, who, happily
ignorant of his weakness, declined it more than once. In truth, he was
never more nearly at the end of his resources than when he went into
winter quarters at the close of 1811, having failed to prevent Marmont
from provisioning Ciudad Rodrigo, and having narrowly escaped being
overwhelmed by a much superior force. His army was greatly reduced by
sickness, he was very ill-supplied from England, and he received no
loyal support from the Portuguese government. Moreover, the French had
apparently extended their hold on Spain, both in the eastern and
northern provinces, while it was reported that Napoleon himself, not
content with dictating orders from afar, would return to complete the
conquest of the Peninsula.
At this juncture, he must have been cheered by the arrival of so able a
lieutenant as Graham from Cadiz, and by the brilliant success of Hill
against a detached body of Marmont's army south of the Tagus. There were
other tendencies also secretly working in favour of the British and
their allies. Joseph Bonaparte, as King of Spain, openly protested
against the extortions which he was enjoined to practise on his
subjects, and went so far as to resign his crown at Paris, though he was
induced to resume it. Again the broken armies of the Spanish had
reappeared in the form of guerilla bands under leaders such as Mina;
they could not be dispersed, since they had no cohesion, and were more
formidable through their extreme mobility than organised battalions.
Above all, the domination of France over Europe was already undermined
and tottering invisibly to its fall. The Tsar Alexander had, as we have
seen, been deeply offended by the preference of an Austrian to a Russian
princess, as the consort of Napoleon, and still more by his imperious
annexation of Oldenburg. Sweden, following the example of Russia, had
begun to rebel against the continental system. A series of internal
reforms had aroused a national spirit, and stealthily created the basis
of a national army in Prussia, and the intense hostility of all North
Germany to France was thinly disguised by the unwilling servility of the
Prussian court. Napoleon, who seldom laboured under the illusions
propagated by his own manifestoes and bulletins, well knew what he was
doing when, in August, 1811, he allowed himself to burst into a storm of
indignation against the Russian ambassador at the Tuileries. From that
moment he clearly premeditated a rupture with Russia, and soon he
withdrew 60,000 of his best troops from Spain, to be employed in that
fatal enterprise of 1812 which proved to be his doom.
[Pageheading: _CAPTURE OF CIUDAD RODRIGO AND BADAJOZ._]
The winter of 1811-12 was spent by Wellington in preparing, with the
utmost secrecy, for the sieges of Ciudad Rodrigo and Badajoz, as the
first steps in an offensive campaign. In January, 1812, he struck a
sudden blow against the former, and captured it by an assault, attended
with great carnage, on the 19th of that month. In this furious conflict,
lasting but half an hour, Craufurd, the renowned leader of the light
division, fell mortally wounded. Shameful excesses sullied the glory of
a splendid exploit. Marmont immediately drew in his troops towards
Salamanca, leaving Soult in the valley of the Tagus; and Hill, with his
southern army, moved northward. Wellington, who was created an earl in
February, transferred the greater part of his troops to Badajoz, and
began a regular siege, but with very imperfect materials, no organised
corps of sappers and miners, and very few officers skilled in the art of
taking fortified towns. He was greatly delayed on the route by the lack
of transport, and the vexatious obstinacy of the Portuguese authorities,
while time was of the utmost consequence lest any or all of three French
armies should come to raise the siege. Hence the extreme rapidity of his
final operations.
After the capture of an outlying fort, three breaches were made in the
walls, and on the night of April 6, under the cover of thick darkness,
two divisions of British troops descended into the ditch, many carrying
ladders or sacks of hay, and advanced to the foot of the _glacis_. Here
they were almost overwhelmed with a hurricane of fiery missiles, and in
mounting the breaches they had to face not only hand-grenades, trains of
powder, and bursting shells, but a _chevaux-de-frise_ of sabre-blades
crowning the summit. None of these attacks was successful; but another
division under Picton scaled the castle, and a brigade under Walker
effected an entrance elsewhere. After this, the French abandoned the
breaches; the resistance waxed fainter, and at six in the morning,
Philippon, the governor, with his brave garrison, surrendered
unconditionally. The loss of the British and Portuguese in killed and
wounded was stated at the enormous figure of 4,885, and it was avenged
by atrocities prolonged for two days and nights, worse than had followed
the storming of Ciudad Rodrigo. Wellington ordered the provost marshal
to execute any soldiers found in the act of plunder, but officers vainly
attempted to check their men at the peril of their own lives.
[Pageheading: _SALAMANCA._]
It had been the intention of Wellington to operate next against Soult,
and drive him, if possible, from Esdremadura and Andalusia. But, as
appears from one of his despatches to Lord Liverpool, he was ill
satisfied with the conduct of his allies guarding Ciudad Rodrigo, and
returned to resume command in that region. In the same despatch he
complains bitterly of the niggardly policy of his government in regard
to money and supplies. The same timidity on the part of ministers at
home appears in a letter from Liverpool, almost forbidding him to accept
the command-in-chief of the Spanish armies, which, however, was
conferred upon him later in this year.[49] At present, he decided to
march against Marmont in the plains of Leon. This movement was
facilitated by the success of Hill in surprising a body of French
troops, and seizing the important bridge of Almaraz over the Tagus on
May 19, thereby breaking the French lines of communication and isolating
Marmont's army for a time. Soon afterwards, Salamanca and its forts were
captured by Wellington, but Marmont proved a very formidable opponent,
and, having behind him another army under King Joseph, threatened the
British lines of communication. In the series of manoeuvres which
ensued, Wellington's forces met with more than one reverse, but the
French marshal was determined to win a victory on a large scale.
Wellington had no wish to risk a battle, unless Salamanca or his own
rear should be seriously threatened, and he stood on the defensive, a
little south of Salamanca, with Marmont's army encamped in front of him.
Early on July 22, the French seized one of two hills called the Arapiles
which formed the key of the position and commanded the road to Ciudad
Rodrigo. Marmont then organised complicated evolutions, of which the
ultimate object was to envelop the British right and cut off its
expected retreat. To accomplish this, he extended his own left so far
that it became separated by a gap from his centre. No sooner did
Wellington, with a flash of military insight, perceive the advantage
thus offered than he flung half of his troops upon the French left wing,
and made a vigorous attack with the rest upon the French centre. It was
too late for Marmont, himself wounded, to repair the mistake, the centre
was driven in, and, as was said, 40,000 men were beaten in forty
minutes. General Clausel, who took Marmont's place, showed great ability
in the retreat, but the French army could scarcely have escaped
destruction had not the Spaniards, who were entrusted with a post on the
river Tormes, left the passage open for the flying enemy. Nevertheless,
the battle of Salamanca was the greatest and most decisive yet fought by
the British in the Peninsula; it established the reputation of our army,
and placed Wellington in the first rank of generals. Three weeks later
he entered Madrid in triumph, and was received with the wildest popular
acclamations. Joseph once more abandoned his capital, joined Suchet in
Valencia, and ordered Soult against his will to withdraw from Andalusia
and move in the same direction. This concentration relieved Wellington
from immediate anxieties, but exposed him to a serious danger of being
confronted before long by forces thrice as great as his own. He also
needed reinforcements, and was in still greater want of money.
To students of military history it may seem a very doubtful question
whether, under such circumstances, it was prudent to advance farther
into Spain from his strongholds on the Portuguese frontier. But
Wellington, who had been created a marquis on August 18, judged it
necessary to crush if possible the remainder of Marmont's army which had
retired northward under Clausel. He therefore left Hill with a
detachment to cover Madrid, and marching through Valladolid occupied the
town of Burgos. The castle of that place remained in the hands of a
French garrison 2,000 strong and had been carefully fortified. Here
again we may be permitted to doubt whether, after the experience gained
at Ciudad Rodrigo and Badajoz, Wellington did wisely in resolving to
invest and storm a fortress so formidable, without an adequate
siege-train, and with the knowledge that Clausel might rally his forces
in time to relieve it. Wellington himself afterwards admitted to
Liverpool that he had erred in not taking with him the best of his own
troops, and that he did not possess the means of transporting ordnance
and military stores from Madrid and Santander, where there was abundance
of them. The siege lasted a month, from September 19 to October 18; the
garrison offered a most obstinate resistance, inflicting great loss on
the besiegers by sorties, and in the end the attack failed. Souham, with
Clausel, was closing in upon Wellington from the north, Soult from the
south-east; Hill's position at Madrid was untenable, and another retreat
became inevitable. It was the last and most trying in Wellington's
military career. The army which had behaved nobly at Salamanca broke
down under the strain of suffering and depression, like that of Sir John
Moore before Coruña. The enemy was driven back in various rear-guard
actions, but on the march the sense of discipline vanished and shameful
disorders occurred. A scathing reprimand from Wellington, which might
have been written by a French critic and which ought never to have been
made public, threw all the blame of this disorganisation on the
regimental officers, and denied that any scarcity of provisions could be
pleaded in excuse of it.
[Pageheading: _MILITARY REFORMS._]
By the middle of November the campaign ended, and Wellington's
headquarters were at Ciudad Rodrigo. For the present, Spain was still
dominated by the French, but its southern provinces were clear of the
invaders, and elsewhere the tide was already on the turn. The Russian
war cast its shadow beforehand on the Spanish peninsula; the French
army was constantly weakened in numbers and still more in quality, as
conscripts were substituted for veterans, and inferior generals
succeeded to high commands; the Portuguese and Spanish contingents of
the British army were stronger and better disciplined. Wellington
himself, tenacious of his purpose as ever, received heartier support
from home, where Liverpool had become prime minister in June, and had
been succeeded by Bathurst as secretary for war and the colonies; and
though the Marquis Wellesley, no longer in the government, complained
that his brother's operations had been crippled by ministerial apathy,
the Peninsular war, on the eve of its completion, was adopted with pride
and sympathy by the nation.
The last chapter of the Peninsular war opens with the operations
culminating in the battle of Vitoria, and closes with the battle of
Toulouse. Having accepted the office of generalissimo of the Spanish
armies, Wellington repaired to Cadiz during the winter of 1812-13, and
formed the lowest estimate of the make-shift government there carried on
under the dual control of the cortes and the regency. He failed to
obtain a reform of this system, but succeeded in effecting a
reorganisation of the Spanish army, to be in future under his own
command. He next addressed himself, with the aid of Beresford and the
British minister at Lisbon, to amend the monstrous abuses, civil and
military, of Portuguese administration. By the beginning of May, 1813, a
great improvement was visible in the equipment and _moral_ of the
Spanish and Portuguese troops; a vigorous insurrection against the
French occupation had broken out in the province of Biscay, endangering
the great road into Spain; and an Anglo-Sicilian army of 16,000 men,
under Sir John Murray, had repulsed Suchet, hitherto undefeated, at
Castalla on the Valencian coast, without, however, completing their
victory, or capturing any of the French guns in the narrow defile by
which the enemy fled. The want of unity in the command of the French
army, and of harmony between its generals, was more felt than ever now
that Napoleon's master-mind was engrossed in retrieving the awful ruin
of the Russian expedition.
Yet Napoleon's instructions to Joseph show that he had fully grasped the
critical nature of the situation. He enjoined Joseph to mass all his
forces round Valladolid, and imperatively directed that at all hazards
the communications with France should be maintained. The Spanish
guerillas had long rendered communications so insecure that couriers
with despatches had to be escorted by bodies of 250 cavalry or 500
infantry; they were now so effectually intercepted that Napoleon's own
despatch reached Joseph more than two months late, by way of Barcelona
and Valencia. Meanwhile, Joseph was openly accusing Soult, in a letter
to his brother, of criminal ambition--a charge to which he laid himself
open before in Portugal--and did not hesitate to add, "the Duke of
Dalmatia or myself must quit Spain". In England, on the contrary,
parties were at last united in the desire to bring the war to a
triumphant end, and parliament grudged neither men nor money to aid
Wellington's plan of campaign. It was, then, under happier auspices than
in former years that he broke up from his cantonments then stationed on
the Coa, a little to the north-west of Ciudad Rodrigo, and set forward
with 70,000 British and Portuguese troops, besides 20,000 Spaniards, to
drive the French out of Spain. So confident was he of success that, as
Napier relates, he waved his hand in crossing the frontier on May 22,
and exclaimed, "Farewell, Portugal".[50]
[Pageheading: _VITORIA._]
He advanced by the valley of the Douro; then, turning to the north-east,
he compelled the French to evacuate Burgos, and passed the Ebro on June
13. Graham in command of his left wing there joined him, after forcing
his way by immense efforts across the mountains of the Portuguese
frontier. Hill, commanding the right wing of his composite but united
army, was already with him. A depot for his commissariat and a military
hospital were established at Santander, where a British fleet was lying,
and whence he could draw his supplies direct from home. The French army,
under Joseph and Marshal Jourdan, fell back before him by a forced night
march on the 19th and took up its position in front of Vitoria, in the
province of Biscay. Here, on the plain of the river Zadorra, was fought
on the 21st the greatest battle of the Peninsular war. Wellington had
encountered serious physical difficulties in his passage from the valley
of the Ebro to that of the Zadorra; but for once his plans had been
executed with admirable precision, and all his troops arrived at the
appointed time on the field of battle. The French, conscious of their
impending expulsion from Spain, were encumbered by enormous
baggage-trains containing the fruits of five years' merciless spoliation
"not of a province but of a kingdom," including treasures of art from
Madrid and all the provincial capitals, with no less than 5,500,000
dollars in hard cash, besides two years' arrears of pay which Napoleon
had sent to fill the military chest of Joseph's army. A vast number of
vehicles, loaded with the whole imperial and royal treasure, overspread
the plain and choked the great road behind the French position, by which
alone such a mass of waggons could find its way into France.
The French army consisted of about 60,000 men, with 150 pieces of
cannon, but strong detachments, under Foy and Clausel respectively, had
been sent away to guard the roads to Bilbao and Pamplona. The British
army numbered nearly 80,000, inclusive of Portuguese and Spanish, with
90 guns. The French were posted on strong ground, and held the bridges
across the river. Graham, with the left column of the British, made a
circuit in the direction of Bilbao, working round to cut off the French
rear on the Bayonne road. Hill, with the right column, forced the pass
of Puebla, in the latter direction, carried the ridge above it after
much hard fighting, and made good his position on the left flank of the
French. Wellington himself, in the centre, under the guidance of a
Spanish peasant, pushed a brigade across one of the bridges in his
front, weakly guarded, and thus mastered the others; his force then
expanded itself on the plain and bore down all opposition. Graham had
met with a more obstinate resistance from the French right, under
Reille, but at last got possession of the great Bayonne road.
Thenceforward a retreat of the French army, partly encircled, became
inevitable, but it was conducted at first in good order and with
frequent halts at defensible points. The only outlet left open was the
mountain road to Pamplona, and this was not only impracticable for heavy
traffic but obstructed by an overturned waggon. The orderly retreat was
soon converted into a rout; the flying throng made its way across
country and over mountains towards Pamplona, leaving all the artillery,
military stores, and accumulated spoils as trophies of the British
victory.
The value of these was prodigious, but the great mass of booty, except
munitions of war, fell into the hands of private soldiers and
camp-followers. Wellington reported to Bathurst that nearly a million
sterling in money had been appropriated by the rank and file of the
army, and, still worse, that so dazzling a triumph had "totally
annihilated all order and discipline".[51] The loss in the battle had
been about 5,000, but Wellington stated that on July 8 "we had 12,500
men less under arms than we had on the day before the battle". He
supposed the missing 7,500, nearly half of whom were British, to be
mostly concealed in the mountain villages.[52] A large number of
stragglers afterwards rejoined their colours, but too late to aid in an
effectual pursuit of the enemy. The immediate consequence of this great
victory was the evacuation by the French of all Spain south of the Ebro.
Even Suchet abandoned Valencia and distributed his forces between
Tarragona and Tortosa. To his great credit, Wellington addressed to the
cortes an earnest protest against wreaking vengeance on the French party
in Spain, many of whom might have been driven into acceptance of a
foreign yoke "by terror, by distress, or by despair". At the same time,
he vigorously followed up his success by chasing and nearly surrounding
Clausel's division, while Hill invested Pamplona, and Graham drove Foy
across the Bidassoa, in his advance upon the fortress of St. Sebastian.
[Pageheading: _THE BATTLE OF THE PYRENEES._]
The fortifications of St. Sebastian were in a very imperfect condition,
but the governor, Emmanuel Rey, was nevertheless able to defend the
place with success. Wellington, after laying siege to it, sanctioned a
premature attempt to scale the breaches which cost Graham's force a loss
of more than 500 men. This check was succeeded by another, still more
serious, in the historic pass of Roncesvalles. Napoleon, hearing at
Dresden of the battle of Vitoria, and instantly fathoming its momentous
import, despatched Soult, as "lieutenant of the emperor," to assume
command of all the French armies at Bayonne and on the Spanish frontier,
still amounting nominally to 114,000 men, besides 66,000 under Suchet in
Catalonia. Soult reached Bayonne on July 13, fortified it strongly, and
reorganised his troops with amazing energy, inspiriting them with a
warlike address in the well-known style of Napoleon's proclamations. On
the 25th he set his forces in motion, with the intention of crushing the
British right by a sudden irruption, and relieving Pamplona. He all but
achieved his object, for, by well-concerted and well-concealed
movements, he actually carried the passes of Roncesvalles and Maya, in
spite of a gallant resistance and the French troops were on the point of
pouring down the Pyrenees on the Spanish side, when Wellington arrived
at full speed from his position before St. Sebastian.
He was opportunely reinforced, and gave battle on the rugged heights in
front of Pamplona to a force numerically superior, but for the most part
charging uphill. Never, even at Bussaco, did the French show greater
ardour and _élan_ in attack, and it was only after a series of bloody
hand-to-hand combats on the summits and sides of the mountains that they
were compelled to recoil and rolled backward down the ridge. Baffled in
his attempt to relieve Pamplona, Soult turned westwards towards St.
Sebastian, but was anticipated by Wellington, and faced by three
divisions of Hill on his right. A second engagement followed, in which
the Portuguese earned the chief honours, and 3,000 prisoners were taken.
At last Soult gave orders for a retreat, and in the course of it was all
but entrapped in a narrow valley where he could not have escaped the
necessity of surrender. It is said that he was warned just in time by
the sudden intrusion of three British marauders in uniform; at all
events, he instantly changed his line of march, and ultimately led his
broken army back to France, but in the utmost confusion, and not without
fresh disasters. One of these befell Reille's division in the gorge of
Yanzi, and another the French rear-guard under Clausel, which defended
itself valiantly, but was driven headlong down the northern side of the
Pyrenees from which this series of battles derives its name.
The siege of St. Sebastian was immediately renewed with a far more
powerful battering train, but its defences had also been strengthened by
the indefatigable governor. The final assault took place on August 31,
and rivalled the storming of Badajoz in the murderous ferocity of the
_melée_ at the breaches, as well as in the horrors practised on the
inhabitants by the victorious assailants, which Wellington and Graham
vainly endeavoured to check. So desperate was the defence, and so
insuperable appeared the obstacles to an entrance by the breaches, that
Graham adopted the heroic expedient of causing his artillery to fire a
few feet only over the heads of the forlorn hope, until a clear opening
had been made, and deadly piles of combustibles had been exploded behind
the main breach, blowing into the air 300 of the garrison. A hideous
conflagration destroyed the greater part of the town. A few days later
the castle, to which the governor had retired, yielded to an
irresistible cannonade, and he surrendered at discretion with about
1,200 men. Several hundred wounded, including a large number of British
prisoners, were found there in the hospitals.
On the 30th, the day before St. Sebastian was stormed, Soult attempted a
diversion for its relief by crossing the Bidassoa, and on the following
day he engaged a large body of Spaniards at St. Marcial. On this
occasion Wellington held the British troops in reserve, and the
Spaniards without their aid defeated the French with great slaughter. So
ended a well-planned and well-executed effort to reconquer the Spanish
frontier. Pamplona was still untaken, and Suchet was still in Catalonia,
but no further offensive movement was undertaken by the French against
Spain. Both Soult and Wellington had shown remarkable powers of
generalship, and there was a moment when Soult might have snatched the
prize of victory by raising the siege of Pamplona. But his ultimate
success was hopeless, and his failure was complete. Before the fall of
St. Sebastian and the battle of St. Marcial, Wellington estimated the
French losses at 15,000 men, who could ill be spared in the interval
between Napoleon's last gleam of victory at Dresden and on his signal
defeat at Leipzig.
[Pageheading: _WELLINGTON ENTERS FRANCE._]
But the Peninsular war, in the historical sense, was not yet over.
During the summer of 1813 a mixed force of British, Germans, Spaniards,
and Sicilians had been carrying on an intermittent war against the
French under Suchet in the eastern provinces. Their commander, Sir John
Murray, who had allowed the beaten enemy to escape at Castalla, proved
equally irresolute in an attempt to capture Tarragona, countermanded the
assault, and re-embarked his troops on the approach of Suchet. Soon
afterwards he was superseded by Lord William Bentinck, and Suchet after
the battle of Vitoria was compelled to retire behind the Ebro. Bentinck
renewed the investment of Tarragona, but permitted Suchet without a
battle to relieve it, demolish its fortifications, and withdraw its
garrison at the end of August. An ill-judged advance of the British
general into Catalonia brought about another misfortune, and, upon the
whole, the series of operations conducted against Suchet were by no
means glorious to British arms or generalship, however important their
effect in preventing a large body of French veterans from reinforcing
Soult's army at a critical time in the Western Pyrenees. Wellington
himself inclined to complete the deliverance of Spain by clearing the
province of Catalonia of the invaders, but the British government,
having in view the prospect of crushing Napoleon in Germany, urged him
to undertake an immediate invasion of France. Accordingly he moved
forward on October 7, leaving Pamplona closely blockaded, threw his army
across the Bidassoa on the 8th by a stroke of masterly tactics, forced
the strong French lines on the north side of it, and established himself
on the enemy's soil. Before entering France he issued the most stringent
proclamations against plundering, which he enforced by the sternest
measures, and announced that he would not suffer the peaceful
inhabitants of France to be punished for the ambition of their ruler. On
the 31st the French garrison of Pamplona, despairing of relief,
surrendered as prisoners of war.
The prolonged defence of Pamplona gave Soult time to strengthen his
position on the Nivelle. The lines which he constructed rivalled those
of Torres Vedras, and the several actions by which they were at last
forced and turned were among the most desperate of the whole war. The
first was fought in the early part of November, and resulted in the
occupation by Wellington's army of the great mountain-barrier south of
Bayonne, with six miles of entrenchments along the Nivelle, and of the
port of St. Jean de Luz. A month later Wellington became anxious to
establish his winter-cantonments between the Nive and the Adour, partly
for strategical reasons, and partly in order to command a larger and
more fertile area for his supplies. On December 9, therefore, Hill with
the right wing forded the Nive and drove back the French left upon their
camp in front of Bayonne. Then followed three most obstinate combats on
the 10th, 11th and 13th, in which Soult took the offensive, with Bayonne
as the centre of his operations, and with the advantage of always moving
upon interior lines resting upon a strong fortress. In the first of
these attacks, he surprised and nearly succeeded in overwhelming the
British left, under Hope, now Sir John, before Wellington could bring
other divisions to its support. In the second, he fell suddenly on the
same troops, exhausted by fatigue, and still more or less isolated, but
they were rallied by Hope and Wellington in person, and remained masters
of the field. In the third he concentrated his whole strength upon the
British right under Hill, aided by a thick mist, and by a flood upon the
Nive, which swept away a bridge of boats, and separated Hill from the
rest of the army. Nevertheless, that able general, emulating the noble
example of Hope in the earlier encounters, succeeded in repelling
assault after assault, until Wellington himself appeared with
reinforcements of imposing strength, and converted a stubborn defence
into a victory.
The loss of the allies since crossing the Nive had exceeded 5,000; that
of the French was 6,000, besides 2,400 Germans who deserted to the
British during the night of the 9th in obedience to orders from home.
Ever since he assumed the command Soult had shown military ability of a
rare order. Bayonne, the base of all his operations, was indefensible
before he fortified it. A great proportion of his troops were raw
conscripts, or demoralised by defeat, before he inspired them with his
own courage and vigour. He was practically dependent for subsistence in
his own country on the very system of pillage which had roused a
patriotic frenzy of resentment in Spain and other lands ravaged by
French armies. He now stood at bay in the south of France, as Wellington
had so long stood at bay in Portugal, and continued there during the
early part of 1814 a defensive campaign not unworthy of comparison with
the prodigious exploits of Napoleon himself against the invaders of his
eastern provinces.
[Pageheading: _THE INVESTMENT OF BAYONNE._]
A respite of two months succeeded the battles on the Nive. During this
interval Wellington's difficulty in paying his troops was great, owing
to the enormous drain of specie from England into Central Europe. He was
further embarrassed by the appearance of the Duke of Angoulême, elder
son of Charles, Count of Artois, afterwards Charles X., at his
headquarters. The British government was by no means committed to a
restoration of the Bourbons, and Wellington deprecated the duke's
appearance as at least premature. He therefore insisted upon his
remaining incognito and as a non-combatant at St. Jean de Luz. Soult
was in great straits, not only because he was compelled to "make war
support war" by exorbitant requisitions upon the French peasantry, but
also because the exigencies of Napoleon were such that large drafts of
the best troops were drawn from the army of the south. When hostilities
were resumed in the middle of February, 1814, the Anglo-Portuguese and
Spanish force combined outnumbered the French by nearly five to three,
but Soult retained the decisive advantage of having a strong _point
d'appui_ in Bayonne at the confluence of the Nive and Adour. Careful
preparations were made by Wellington for throwing a large force across
the Lower Adour below Bayonne, in concert with a British fleet. Contrary
winds and a violent surf delayed the arrival of the British gunboats,
but on February 23 Hope sent over a body of his men on a raft of
pontoons in the face of the enemy's flotilla, with the aid of a brigade
armed with Congreve rockets, which had been first used at Leipzig, and
produced the utmost consternation in the French ranks. The gunboats soon
followed, but with the loss of one wrecked and others stranded in
crossing the bar. By the joint exertions of soldiers and sailors a
bridge was then constructed, by which Hope's entire army with artillery
passed over the river, and, two days afterwards, began the investment of
Bayonne.
Meanwhile, the centre and right wing, under the command of Wellington,
had forced a passage across the Upper Adour and threatened Bayonne on
the other side. Leaving a garrison of 6,000 men in Bayonne, Soult took
his stand at Orthez, with an army of about 40,000 men, on the summit of
a formidable ridge. Wellington attacked this ridge on the 27th, with a
force of nearly equal strength in three columns so disposed as to
converge from points several miles distant from each other. The veterans
of the French army, admirably handled, fought with tenacity, and all but
succeeded in foiling the attack before Wellington could bring up his
reserves. The conscripts, however, were not equally steady, and when
Hill, advancing from the extreme right, pressed upon the French left,
Soult's orderly retreat became a precipitate flight. The French loss
greatly exceeded the British, and was soon afterwards swelled by
wholesale desertions; the road to Bordeaux was thrown open, and the
royalist reaction against Napoleon, stimulated by the depredation of
the French troops, ripened into a general revolt.
Meanwhile, Napoleon had lost Germany by the battle of Leipzig; early in
1814 the allied armies of Austria, Prussia, and Russia had entered
France, and a congress was being held at Châtillon-sur-Seine, to
formulate, if possible, terms of peace. The city of Bordeaux was the
first to declare itself openly in favour of the Bourbons. Wellington
sent a large detachment to preserve order, with strict instructions to
Beresford, who commanded it, to remain neutral, in the event of Louis
XVIII. being proclaimed, pending the negotiations with Napoleon at
Châtillon. But the excitement of the people could not be restrained, and
the arrival of the Duke of Angoulême evoked a burst of royalist
enthusiasm which anticipated by a few weeks only the abdication of
Napoleon at Fontainebleau. The defection of Bordeaux forced Soult to
fall back rapidly on a very formidable position in front of Toulouse.
The British army followed in pursuit, encumbered with a great artillery
and pontoon train. After a lively action at Tarbes, it arrived in front
of Toulouse on March 27, to find the Garonne in flood, and the French
army strongly entrenched around the town, with a prospect of being
joined by 20,000 or 30,000 veterans, under Suchet, from Catalonia.
[Pageheading: _THE BATTLE OF TOULOUSE._]
The dispositions of Wellington, ending in the battle of Toulouse, on
April 10, have not escaped criticism. Hill, with two divisions and a
Spanish contingent, threw a bridge across the Garonne below Toulouse,
but discovered that he could make no progress in that direction, owing
to the impassable state of the roads. Beresford crossed the river with
18,000 men at another point, but a sudden flood broke up the pontoon
bridge in his rear, and he remained isolated for no less than four days,
exposed to an attack from Soult's whole army. Having missed this rare
opportunity, Soult calmly awaited the attack, with a force numerically
inferior, but with every advantage of position. On the 10th Wellington's
troops advanced in two columns, separated from each other by a perilous
interval of two miles. One of these, including Freyre's Spaniards and
Picton's division, was fairly driven back after furious attempts to
storm the ramparts of the fortified ridge held by the French. Beresford,
however, who in this battle combined generalship with brilliant
courage, restored the fortunes of the day by a dashing advance against
the redoubts on the French right. Having carried these he swept along
the ridge, which became untenable, and Soult withdrew his army within
his second line of defences. Two days later, seeing that Hill menaced
Toulouse on the other side, and fearing that if defeated again he would
lose his only line of retreat along the Carcassonne road, he evacuated
Toulouse by that route, leaving his magazines and hospitals in the hands
of the British army. By so doing he left to Wellington the honour and
prize of victory, but few victories have been so dearly bought, and the
loss in killed and wounded was actually greater on the side of the
victors than on that of the vanquished.
Toulouse received Wellington on the 12th with open arms, and as news
reached him on the same day announcing the proclamation of Louis XVIII.
at Paris, he no longer hesitated to assume the white cockade. Soult
loyally declined to accept the intelligence until it was officially
confirmed, when a military convention was made on the 18th, whereby a
boundary line was established between the two armies. Suchet had already
withdrawn from Spain, and at last recalled the garrisons from those
Spanish fortresses in which Napoleon had so obstinately locked up picked
troops which he sorely needed in his dire extremity. But on the 14th, a
week after Napoleon's abdication, the famous "sortie from Bayonne" took
place, in which each side lost 800 or 900 men, and Hope, wounded in two
places, was made prisoner. For this waste of life the governor of
Bayonne must be held responsible, since he was informed of the events at
Paris by Hope, and instead of awaiting official confirmation, like
Soult, chose to risk the issue of a night combat, which must needs be
deadly and could not be decisive.
Thus ended the Peninsular war. This war on the British side has seldom
been surpassed in the steady adherence to a settled purpose, through
years of discouragement and failure, maintained by the general whose
name it has made immortal. Neither his strategy nor his tactical skill
was always faultless; and afterwards in comparing himself with Soult, he
is reported to have said, that he often got into scrapes, but was
extricated by the valour of his army, whereas Soult, when he got into a
scrape, had no such men to get him out of it. However this might be,
Wellington's foresight in appreciating the place to be filled by the
Peninsular war in the overthrow of Napoleon's domination, and his truly
heroic constancy in striving to realise his own idea will ever
constitute his best claim to greatness. No other man in England or in
Europe discerned as he did, that with Portugal independent and guarded
by the power of Great Britain on its western coast and its eastern
frontier, the permanent conquest of Spain by the French would become
impossible. No one else saw beforehand, what Napoleon discovered too
late, that a war in Portugal and Spain would drain the life-blood of his
invincible hosts, and at length help towards the invasion of France
itself. No other general would have shown equal statesmanship in
managing Spanish juntas and controlling even Spanish guerillas, or equal
forbearance in sparing the French people the evils which a victorious
army might have inflicted upon them.
FOOTNOTES:
[42] Napier, _Peninsular War_ (3rd edition), i., 123.
[43] For Moore's campaign see Napier, _Peninsular War_, i., pp.
xxi.-xxv., lvii.-lxxvi., 330-44, 431-542, and Oman, _Peninsular War_,
i., 486-602; and compare Moore's _Diary_, edited by Maurice, ii.,
272-398. Sir F. Maurice has not completely answered Professor Oman's
criticisms.
[44] Wellington, _Dispatches_, iv., 261-63 (March 7, 1809).
[45] For the exact figures see Oman, _Peninsular War_, ii., 645-48.
[46] Wellington, _Dispatches_, iv., 536 (July 29, 1809).
[47] For Masséna's lines of march see T. J. Andrews in _English
Historical Review_, xvi. (1901), 474-92.
[48] The battle is picturesquely described by Napier, _Peninsular War_,
iii., 536-66. See also _ibid._, pp. xxxv.-li.
[49] Wellington, _Supplementary Dispatches_, vii., 318-19.
[50] Napier, _Peninsular War_ (first edition), v., 513.
[51] Wellington, _Dispatches_, x., 473 (June 29, 1813).
[52] _Ibid._, x., 519 (July 9, 1813).
CHAPTER VI.
THE DOWNFALL OF NAPOLEON.
The war between France and Russia, publicly threatened in August,
1811,[53] was long deferred. On Russia's part the adherence to a
defensive policy delayed action until France was ready. But there was
another reason why the preparations for war were only slowly pushed
forward. Even at the court of St. Petersburg there was a French party
which retarded such preparations as committing Russia too definitely to
an open rupture. On the part of France, also, delay was necessary.
Though deliberately provoked by himself, the war was not altogether
welcome to Napoleon. It suited him best to have a strong but friendly
neighbour in Russia, and victory promised him but the half-hearted
friendship of a power to which he could no longer dare to leave much
strength. Besides it was necessary to make far more extensive
preparations than had been required for any of his previous campaigns.
Russia was too poor and too thinly peopled for it to be possible for war
to support itself, and immense supplies with correspondingly large
transport arrangements were needed for a large army which would have to
fight at so vast a distance from its base. It would have been impossible
to be ready in time for a summer campaign in 1811; the country was not
favourable to transport on a large scale during winter, and the war was
therefore postponed till the summer of 1812. The end of May or beginning
of June was the date originally selected for the beginning of
operations, as it was expected that the difficulty of providing fodder
would be greatly reduced when the grass had grown. But the preparations
were not sufficiently advanced by that date, and hostilities were only
opened on June 24.
The interval was spent by both powers in securing allies and pacifying
enemies. Early in the year 1812 Prussia had made a last attempt to avert
a French alliance by inviting Russia to join in a peaceful compromise.
After the failure of this negotiation her position was helpless, and
resembled that of Poland before its national extinction. Russia could
not become her active ally without exposing her own army to destruction
at a second Friedland, and Prussia could not fight France alone.
Frederick William, therefore, accepted the terms dictated by Napoleon.
By a treaty concluded on February 24 he agreed to supply the emperor
with 20,000 men to serve as a part of the French army, and was to raise
no levies and give no orders without his consent. The king was also to
afford a free passage and provide food and forage for the French troops,
payment for which was to be arranged afterwards. In return for this a
reduction was made in the war indemnity due to France. This was probably
as much as Napoleon could have obtained without authorising a dangerous
increase in the Prussian army.
[Pageheading: _RUSSIAN ALLIANCES._]
Austria was more fortunate, because an Austrian war would have been a
serious diversion, not a step towards the invasion of Russia. She was in
consequence able to impose her own terms on France. These terms, so far
as the nature and extent of the Austrian assistance to France were
concerned, had been sketched by Metternich to the British agent, Nugent,
as far back as November, 1811, and they were accepted by France in a
treaty of March 16, 1812.[54] Austria was to provide an army of 30,000
men to guard Napoleon's flank in Volhynia. In return France guaranteed
the integrity of Turkey, and secretly promised a restoration of the
Illyrian provinces to Austria in exchange for Galicia, which was to form
a part of a reconstituted Poland. Elsewhere Napoleon's negotiations were
unsuccessful. In January he fulfilled his threat of occupying Swedish
Pomerania, but it had no effect on Swedish policy, and when in March he
offered Finland and a part of Norway as the price of an alliance, his
terms were rejected and Sweden allied herself with Russia. On April 17
Napoleon made overtures for peace with Great Britain, offering to
evacuate Spain and to recognise the house of Braganza in Portugal and
the Bourbons in Sicily, if the British would recognise the "actual
dynasty" in Spain and Murat in Naples. The offer was certainly illusory.
"Actual dynasty" was an ambiguous phrase, but would naturally mean the
Bonapartes. Castlereagh declined to recognise Joseph, but declared his
readiness to discuss the proposed basis if "actual dynasty" meant a
recognition of Ferdinand VII. in Spain. Napoleon was enabled to say that
his offers of peace had been rejected, and made no answer to
Castlereagh.
Russia in her turn had to conciliate the Porte, Sweden, Persia, and
Great Britain. The Turkish negotiations were prolonged, and it was only
in May that the treaty of Bucharest was signed, by which Russia gave up
all her conquests except Bessarabia. Sweden had offered Russia her
alliance in February. She was prepared to surrender Finland to Russia on
condition that Russia should assist her in the conquest of Norway. A
joint army was to effect this conquest and then make a descent on North
Germany, threatening the rear of the French army of invasion. The
adhesion of Great Britain was to be invited. On April 5 an alliance
between Russia and Sweden was signed on the terms suggested. This was
followed on August 28 by the treaty of Åbo, which was signed in the
presence of the British representative, Lord Cathcart. By this treaty
Russia was to assist Sweden with 30,000 men and a loan, Sweden undertook
to support Russia's claim, when it should be made, for an extension of
her frontier to the Vistula. Shortly afterwards it was agreed to
postpone the attack on Norway till the following year, and thus at
length the Russian army in Finland was set free. The treaties with the
Porte and Sweden were too late to liberate troops to oppose Napoleon's
advance, but the troops thus liberated greatly endangered his retreat.
With Persia no peace could be made. Great Britain was still nominally at
war both with Russia and with Sweden. Negotiations with Russia in April
came to nothing because the British government refused to take over a
loan of £4,000,000, but on July 18 a treaty of alliance between the
three powers was signed, in which Great Britain promised pecuniary aid
to Russia. A further sign of friendship was given when the tsar handed
over the Cronstadt fleet for safekeeping to the British. The formal
treaty was, however, only the public recognition of a friendship and
mutual confidence which had begun with the breach between Russia and
France. This good understanding was shared by the nominal allies of
France, Prussia and Austria. Russia was fully informed of the military
and political plans of Austria, and knew that her forces would not fight
except under compulsion.
At last, on June 24, Napoleon's grand army began the passage of the
Niemen, which formed the boundary between the duchy of Warsaw and the
Russian empire. The main body, at least 300,000 strong, was commanded by
Napoleon himself. A northern division, including the Prussian
contingent, was commanded by Macdonald, and, after advancing to Riga,
which it pretended to besiege, remained idle throughout the campaign.
The Austrians, under Schwarzenberg, formed a southern division, but they
merely manoeuvred, and made no serious attempts to impede the
movements of the southern Russian army on its return journey from the
war on the Danube. Napoleon himself drove the main Russian armies before
him in the direction of Moscow. At last Kutuzov, who had taken over the
command of the Russians in the course of the retreat, made a stand at
Borodino, where on September 7 one of the bloodiest battles on record
was fought. The figures are variously given, but the French army
probably lost over 30,000 in killed and wounded out of a force of
125,000; and the Russians lost not less than 40,000 out of an army of
slightly smaller dimensions. This awful carnage ended, after all, in
little more than a trial of strength. The French gained the ground, but
the Russians made good their retreat, and six days later Kutuzov retired
through the streets of Moscow, taking the better part of the population
and all the military stores with him. The French vanguard entered on the
14th, and Napoleon himself next day. A fire, kindled either by accident
or by Russian incendiaries, raged from the 14th to the 20th and
destroyed three-fourths of the city.
[Pageheading: _NAPOLEON'S RETREAT FROM MOSCOW._]
The capture of Moscow was far from being the triumph that the French
emperor had anticipated. Deceived by his recollections of Tilsit, he had
fully counted upon receiving pacific overtures from Alexander or at
least upon his eager acceptance of conciliatory assurances from himself.
But as the weeks passed and the vision of negotiation with the Russians
proved illusory, retreat became inevitable. On the night of October 18
the French army, now about 115,000 strong, evacuated Moscow. Kutuzov,
who was stronger in cavalry, though perhaps still weaker in infantry,
hung upon its rear, and, while avoiding a pitched battle, was able to
prevent Napoleon from retreating by any other route than the now
devastated line of his advance. It has often been questioned whether
Kutuzov did not deliberately refrain from destroying the French army. He
certainly informed Sir Robert Wilson on one occasion that he did not
wish to drive Napoleon to extremities, lest his supremacy should go to
the power that ruled the sea. The remark may have been nothing more than
an outburst of ill-temper, but, whatever the motive, there can be no
doubt as to the policy adopted. The retreating French army suffered
terrible hardships from the cold, for which it was ill prepared. Twice
it seemed on the point of falling into the hands of the Russians; at
Krasnoe 26,000 prisoners are said to have been captured by Kutuzov's
army, while at Borisov the southern army under Chichagov and the army
returning from Finland under Wittgenstein joined hands, and disputed the
French passage of the Berezina on November 26-29. According to
Chambray's calculation, the French army numbered 31,000 combatants
before the passage, of whom but 9,000 remained on December 1. All the
non-combatants had been left in the hands of the enemy.
This was the last direct attack made by the Russians on the relics of
the grand army. But the worst ravages of the Russian winter had yet to
come. On December 3 the cold became intense. As the survivors of the
expedition dragged themselves homewards through the Polish provinces,
they were met by large bodies of reinforcements pouring in from the
west; these recruits, comparatively fresh, were at first appalled by the
gaunt and famine-stricken aspect of the returning veterans, but soon
perished themselves in nearly equal numbers. It is estimated that
altogether only 60,000 men recrossed the frontier out of a total of
630,000, and in the estimate of 60,000 is included Macdonald's division,
which was exposed to comparatively little hardship. That division with
the Prussian contingent began to fall back on December 19. On the 30th,
however, the Prussians were reduced to neutrality by the convention of
Tauroggen, signed by the Prussian commander, Yorck, with the Russians,
without the sanction of his government. Had Russia been in a condition
to press onwards at once and carry the war into French territory, it is
possible that Europe might have been spared the misery and bloodshed of
the next few years. But, for the moment, her strength and resources were
exhausted, nor was it until months had elapsed that other nations, or
even France herself, became aware of the magnitude of the catastrophe
which had overtaken Napoleon's host. That he was able to rally himself
after it, to carry the French people with him, to enforce a new
conscription, and to assume the aggressive in the campaign of 1813, must
ever remain a supreme proof of his capacity for empire.
[Pageheading: _DISPUTES WITH THE UNITED STATES._]
In the year 1812 war broke out between Great Britain and the United
States. For a time the continental warfare had led to a great increase
in American commerce, which was free from the attacks of privateers and
from the restrictions which the opposing parties placed on one another.
Presently, however, both parties attempted to force the United States
into a virtual alliance with themselves. Orders in council on the one
side and imperial decrees on the other had, as we have seen, declared a
blockade of the ports of the continent of Europe and of Great Britain,
and the United States saw their commerce threatened with disabilities
approximating to those suffered by the belligerent powers. President
Jefferson, who was supported by the republican party, adhered to a
policy of strict neutrality, and prepared to suffer any commercial loss
rather than be drawn into an European war. The only action which he took
was the defence of the river mouths with a view to resisting any
offensive movement. The federalist party on the other hand were in
favour of energetic action against France, so as to secure English
favour and the great commercial privileges which the mistress of the
seas could bestow. For a time no hostilities resulted, but constant
irritation was caused by the British claim to a right of search and to
the impressment of sailors of British nationality found on American
ships, while American ships accused of infringing the blockade were
seized by either of the European combatants. To some extent the
differences between Great Britain and the United States depended on
rival views of the law of allegiance. The British maintained the
doctrine _nemo potest exuere patriam_, and regarded all British-born
persons, unless absolved from their allegiance by the act of the
mother-country, as British subjects. The law of the United States, on
the other hand, permitted an alien to become a citizen after fourteen
years' residence, and previously to 1798 had required a residence of
five years only. In this way it often happened that sailors who had
received the American citizenship were impressed for service on British
ships, and sometimes sailors of actual American birth were impressed.
But it was impossible to justify the practice to which the Americans
resorted of receiving deserters of British nationality from British
ships of war, who were induced by offers of higher pay to transfer
themselves to the American service.
Jefferson at first preferred to coerce the European powers by
retaliatory legislation. As early as April, 1806, a law had been passed
forbidding the importation of certain British wares, but was suspended
six weeks after it came into operation. In June, 1807, irritation was
intensified by the incident of the _Leopard_ and the _Chesapeake_. Five
men, four of whom were British born and one an American by birth, were
known to have deserted from the British sloop _Halifax_, lying in
Hampton roads, and to have taken service on an American frigate, the
_Chesapeake_. After application for their surrender had been made in
vain to the magistrates of the town of Norfolk, where the _Chesapeake's_
rendezvous was, and to the officer commanding the rendezvous,
Vice-admiral Berkeley sent his flagship, the _Leopard_, carrying fifty
guns, with an order to the British captains on the North American
station to search the _Chesapeake_ for deserters from six ships named,
including the _Halifax_, in case she should be encountered on the high
seas. The _Leopard_ arrived in Chesapeake bay in time to follow the
_Chesapeake_ beyond American waters, and then made a demand to search
for deserters. On the captain of the _Chesapeake_ refusing compliance,
the _Leopard_ opened fire. The _Chesapeake_ was not in a condition to
make any effectual reply, and, after receiving three broadsides, struck
her flag. Only one of the deserters from the _Halifax_, an Englishman,
was found on the _Chesapeake_; but three deserters from the British
warship _Melampus_, which had not been named in Berkeley's order, all
Americans by birth, were removed from the _Chesapeake_, which was now
permitted to return to port.[55] Although the British government offered
reparation for this action, recalled Berkeley, and disavowed the right
to search ships of war for deserters, the incident could not fail to
make a bad impression on American opinion.
But still Jefferson adhered to a policy of pacific coercion. In
December, 1807, the act of April, 1806, was again put into force, and an
embargo act, passed by the American congress, now cut off all foreign
countries from trade with the United States. But the policy of embargo
was disastrous to its promoters. It ruined the commerce and emptied the
treasury of the United States. On March 1, 1809, a non-intercourse act,
applying only to France, Great Britain, and their dependencies, was
substituted for the embargo act.[56] The new act enabled the president
to remove the embargo against whichever country should cancel its orders
or decrees against American trade. Three days later Jefferson was
succeeded by Madison as President of the United States. The change made
no difference to the policy of the United States government. But the
opposition was now much stronger and more violent than formerly; so much
so that Sir James Craig, the Canadian governor, actually despatched a
spy, John Henry, to sound the willingness of New England, where the
federalist party was the stronger, to secede from the union and join
Great Britain against the United States. This venture becomes the less
surprising when we observe that in the previous year, 1808, John Quincy
Adams, the future president, had predicted such a secession. Nothing,
however, came of the attempt. Madison attempted to obtain concessions
from the British government, but while the Perceval ministry lasted he
met with no success. In May, 1810, the non-intercourse act expired, but
a proviso was enacted that, if before March 3, 1811, either Great
Britain or France should cancel her decrees against American trade the
act should, three months after such revocation, revive against the power
that maintained its decrees. Madison was cajoled into believing that
Napoleon had recalled his decrees on November 1, 1810, and the
non-intercourse act was accordingly revived against Great Britain and
her dependencies in February, 1811.
[Pageheading: _WAR WITH THE UNITED STATES._]
Almost the first act of the Liverpool administration was to cancel the
restrictions on American trade. But it was too late. Five days earlier
the United States had declared war against Great Britain on June 18,
1812. The explanation of this step must be sought in the party politics
of the United States. While the federalists courted British alliance,
the younger members of the republican party had conceived a hope of
conquering Canada as a result of a victorious war against Great Britain.
This was the reply of the national party in the United States to the
action of the Canadian governor. Madison knew the impracticability of
such a step, but, finding that he could only carry the presidential
election of 1812 with the support of this section of his party, he
declared war. Great Britain, with her best troops in the Peninsula, was
in no condition to use her full strength in America, but the United
States were entirely unprepared for war. Their treasury was still empty,
and their army and navy were small, while Canada generally was contented
and loyal to the British crown. Upper Canada was full of loyalists, who
had been expelled from the revolted colonies, and who with their
descendants hated the men that had driven them from their homes; lower
Canada was half-French and had nothing in common with the United States,
while the Roman catholic clergy threw the whole weight of their
influence on the British side. General Hull, who commanded the forces
employed against Canada, succeeded in crossing the river Detroit in July
and threatened the British post of Malden. But an alliance with the
Indians enabled the British first to possess themselves of Mackinac, at
the junction of lakes Huron and Michigan, and afterwards to imperil
Hull's communications through the Michigan territory.
Hull accordingly fell back on Detroit. The British, with 750 men under
Major-General Brock, together with 600 Indians, now prepared to attack
Hull at that place. Hull, who believed his retreat to be cut off by the
Indians, did not await the British attack, but surrendered on August 16
with 2,500 men and thirty-three guns. The effect of the capitulation was
to place the British in effectual possession, not merely of Detroit, but
of the territory of Michigan, and thus to render any attack on Canada
from that quarter extremely difficult. The advantages gained by the
British through this success were unfortunately neutralised by the
policy pursued by Sir George Prevost, who had succeeded Craig as
governor of Canada. Prevost was of opinion that, when the news of the
withdrawal of the orders in council reached Washington, the United
States government would be ready to abandon hostilities; and he
accordingly concluded a provisional armistice with General Dearborn, the
commander-in-chief of the enemy's forces in the northern states. But
President Madison, having engaged in war, was anxious to try the effect
of another attack on Canada before negotiating for peace, and therefore
declined to ratify the armistice. The interval enabled the United States
to bring up reinforcements, but their new army failed in an attack on a
British post on the Maumee river.
Meanwhile a second attempt was made to invade Upper Canada, this time
from the side of Niagara. On October 13, Brigadier-General Wadsworth,
acting under the orders of General Van Rensselaer, led an attack on the
British position of Queenstown on the Canadian bank of the Niagara
river. Brock commanded the defence, but was killed early in the fight.
The position was momentarily seized by the enemy, but was presently
recaptured by the British, who had in the meantime been reinforced by
Major-General Sheaffe, the son of a loyalist, with a force from Fort
George, and before the day closed Wadsworth found himself compelled to
surrender with 900 men. The remainder of the enemy's forces, consisting
of militia, rather than exceed their military obligations by crossing
the frontier, chose to leave these men to their fate. In spite of the
ignominious surrenders with which the first two expeditions against
Canada had terminated, a third attempt was made by Brigadier-General
Smyth to force the Canadian frontier; but on November 28 he was repulsed
with loss by the British under Bishopp between Chippewa and Fort Erie,
above the Niagara Falls, and at the end of the year the Canadian
frontier still remained unpierced.
[Pageheading: _AMERICAN SUCCESSES AT SEA._]
The glory of the British military successes was unfortunately obscured
in large measure by American successes on the sea. The maritime war
resolved itself into a series of fights between individual frigates.
This was the necessary result of the nature of the British force kept in
American waters. Ever since the renewal of hostilities with France in
1803 a species of blockade had been maintained along the coast of the
United States by British vessels on the watch for deserters or
contraband of war. It was also found necessary to employ ships of war
to guard against pirates in the West Indies and to protect British
commerce in that quarter against French privateers. For all these
purposes speed was of more importance than strength, and the British
force in the west contained a disproportionate number of smaller vessels
as compared with line of battle ships. The actual numbers of British
warships in North American waters at the beginning of 1812 were three
ships of the line, twenty-one cruisers and frigates, and fifty-three
small craft. The United States navy was still weaker, and amounted
merely to seven efficient frigates and nine small craft.[57] There was
no question of a contest between fleets, and though the numbers of the
British warships enabled them to destroy American trade, they were ship
for ship inferior to the American frigates, which were thus enabled to
win an empty glory in single-ship encounters. The American frigates
were, in fact, superior in every respect to the British ships which
nominally belonged to the same class. They were larger and more strongly
built, a frigate being as strong as a British seventy-four. Their crews
were more numerous, and were recruited entirely from seamen, about
one-third of whom would appear to have been of British nationality,
while, as has been seen, many of them had been decoyed from British
war-vessels by offers of higher pay. The British ships on the other hand
were manned largely by landsmen, often impressed from the jails. A false
economy had induced the British admiralty to impose narrow limits on the
use of ammunition for gunnery practice. The Americans on the other hand
were very liberal in this respect, with the result that in the early
years of the war they were greatly superior to their enemies in point of
marksmanship.
A good example of the disproportion between the British and American
frigates is furnished by the fight between the British frigate
_Guerrière_ and the American frigate _Constitution_, on August 19, one
of the first naval actions in the war. The _Guerrière_ was armed with
twenty-four broadside guns, discharging projectiles with a total weight
of 517 pounds; the _Constitution_ with twenty-eight broadside guns,
discharging a weight of 768 pounds. The crew of the _Guerrière_,
counting men only, numbered 244, that of the _Constitution_ with a
similar limitation 460. Finally the _Guerrière's_ tonnage amounted to
1,092, as against the _Constitution's_ 1,533. The _Guerrière's_ guns
proved very ineffectual from the start, while the marksmanship, not only
of the American gunners but of the riflemen in the _Constitution's_
tops, was the wonder of the British. It is stated that none of her shot
fell short. After a fight lasting nearly two hours the _Guerrière_
surrendered. The ship was a complete wreck, and she had lost fifteen men
killed and six mortally wounded as against seven killed and three
mortally wounded on board her opponent.
The effect of the engagement both on British and on American public
opinion was altogether out of proportion to its intrinsic importance.
The inequality in strength of the opposing frigates was not understood,
and any defeat of the mistress of the seas seemed an event of
considerable significance. The Americans soon met with other similar
successes. On October 18 their sloop _Wasp_, of eighteen guns, reduced
the British sloop _Frolic_, a weaker vessel, though of similar armament,
to a helpless hulk after a ten minutes' cannonade. The moral effect of
this victory was not impaired by the fact that the conqueror and her
prize were compelled to surrender a few hours later to the British
seventy-four _Poictiers_. On the 25th the _United States_, of forty-four
guns, captured the _Macedonian_, of thirty-eight, after three hours'
fighting, and on December 29 the British thirty-eight-gun frigate
_Java_, with a very inexperienced crew, was captured by the
_Constitution_ after a running fight of three hours and a half.[58]
[Pageheading: _THE GERMAN CAMPAIGN OF 1813._]
With the retreat of the French army from Russia the main scene of
operations on the continent was shifted from Russia to Germany. Great
Britain took little part in the actual warfare in Germany, and if she
had a larger share in the political negotiations which ultimately
determined the distribution of forces, still Austria and not Great
Britain was the power whose diplomacy had most effect on the course of
events. The upheaval of Europe against Napoleon, however, would have
been much less effective if it had not been supported by English
subsidies, and Austria, in the crippled state of her finances, would
probably have had to remain inactive if she had not been able to rely on
English gold and perhaps still more on English credit.
The campaign of 1813 falls naturally into three parts. During the first,
from the beginning of January to the latter part of April the victorious
Russians swept over North Germany, and, carrying the Prussian monarchy
with them, strengthened a reaction which had already begun against the
rule of Napoleon. The second part began with the arrival of Napoleon on
the scene of action towards the end of April and lasted to the
conclusion of an armistice on June 4. In this period of seven or eight
weeks the allies were forced to retire at all points and the war was
carried into Prussian territory. The armistice, which terminated on
August 10, preceded the opening of the third part of the campaign in
which Russia and Prussia were joined by Austria and Sweden, and, after
gradually drawing closer round the main French position in Saxony,
finally inflicted a crushing defeat upon Napoleon at Leipzig in the
middle of October. The campaign was virtually over when Napoleon secured
his retreat by the victory of Hanau on October 30; but it is impossible
to sever it from the events outside Germany which were directly
occasioned by the downfall of Napoleon's German domination. These are
the revolt of Holland in November, that of Switzerland in December, and
the Austrian attack on Northern Italy in October and November.
In the opening months of the campaign the movements were merely a sequel
to those of the previous year. The French retreat was continued from the
Niemen to the Vistula, the Elbe, and finally the Saale. The Russians
entered Prussia proper a few days after Yorck's capitulation, and the
French retired before them. Stein, the Prussian statesman who had
received a commission from Russia to administer the Prussian districts
occupied by her, ordered the provincial governor to convoke an assembly.
Although some indignation was felt at such a step being taken by Russian
orders, the assembly met and voted the formation of the Landwehr. In
this way Prussia actually began to arm against France, while the
Prussian government still professed to maintain the French alliance. A
few days later King Frederick William left Berlin, which was still
occupied by the French, for Breslau. Before the end of February he had
concluded the treaty of Kalisch with Russia, by which the two powers
were to conduct the war against France conjointly, and Russia was not to
lay down her arms till Prussia should be restored to a strength equal to
that which she had possessed in 1806. On March 2 Cathcart arrived at
Kalisch as British ambassador to the Russian court. He actively promoted
Russia's alliance with Prussia, from which Great Britain stood apart for
the present. He was able to obtain from Prussia a renunciation of her
claims on Hanover, but Frederick William was still opposed to any
increase of Hanoverian territory. On the 17th Prussia declared war on
France. By that time the Russians had entered both Berlin and Breslau,
and had freed Hamburg from French dominion, thus reopening Germany to
British commerce. The declaration of war by Prussia was accompanied by a
convention with Russia providing for the deliverance of Germany and the
dissolution of the confederation of the Rhine. This convention embodied
Stein's policy. It relied on popular support and it aimed at an unified
government, at least in the territories occupied at that date by
adherents of France.
[Pageheading: _THE GERMAN CAMPAIGN OF 1813._]
But the popular upheaval in Germany was confined to the kingdom of
Prussia, and the attempt to spread it elsewhere only provoked distrust
in Austria and the South German states; it was not until the
conservative elements in Germany were won over by Metternich's policy
that the anti-Napoleonic movement became truly national. For the present
Austria played the part of mediator. Lord Walpole, who had been sent on
a secret errand to Vienna in December, 1812, tried in vain to win
Austria to the side of the allies by promising the restoration of the
Tyrol, Illyria, and Venetia.[59] Her government would probably have
preferred a reconciliation with France, which would have arrested the
growth of Russia and left Germany divided, to a unified Germany such as
Stein desired; but Metternich, who directed her policy, cherished little
hope of the success of his endeavours, though he knew when to employ
agents more optimistic than himself. The Austrian treasury was empty,
and it therefore suited Austria to remain neutral as long as possible,
while in the event of a doubtful struggle this very neutrality would
raise the price of her ultimate alliance. It was in this way that she
came at last to exercise a decisive voice in the resettlement of
Germany, not to say of Europe. True to this policy, the Austrian court
concluded a truce of indefinite duration with Russia at the beginning of
the year, and withdrew its forces within its own borders. This was
followed by an offer of mediation made to France, which was, however,
declined. A renewed offer was declined early in April by both France and
Great Britain. The British still distrusted Austria, while France
desired to buy her active co-operation and made an offer of Silesia in
return for an army of 100,000, should Prussia or Russia open
hostilities. Austria did not, however, abandon her project, but notified
Prussia and Russia that she would proceed with the task of armed
mediation, and steadily busied herself with military preparations.
The vigour of the Prussians in recruiting had surprised Napoleon, but
his own vigour was the marvel of Europe. In spite of the losses of the
Russian campaign, he was able to take the field at the end of April with
an army which at the lowest estimate was 200,000 strong. But his
soldiers were for the most part mere boys, and he was sadly deficient in
cavalry. The veterans of Austerlitz, of Jena, of Friedland, and of
Wagram had been recklessly sacrificed on the plains of Russia. He was
victorious at Lützen on May 2, was joined by the King of Saxony, entered
Dresden, and thence pushed across the Elbe. On the 21st the victory of
Bautzen enabled him to advance to the Oder and occupy Breslau. A renewed
offer of Austrian mediation drew from him a declaration in favour of an
armistice and a diplomatic congress. On June 4 an armistice was actually
concluded at Poischwitz to last until August 1, and a neutral zone was
provided to separate the combatants. On June 7 the demands of Austria
were presented to Napoleon. They involved the renunciation by France of
all territorial possessions, and even of a protectorate in Germany, and
the restoration to Prussia and Austria of most of their lost provinces.
Napoleon refused these terms, but accepted the mediation of Austria, and
arranged for a congress which met at Prague in the middle of July. The
armistice was prolonged till August 10. Both France and Austria were
merely striving to gain time while they prepared for war, and there can
be no doubt that the allies profited most by the delay. During the
interval the news arrived of Wellington's great victory at Vitoria on
June 21, and Napoleon, recalled to Mainz, occupied himself in arranging
plans for the defence of the Pyrenees.
During the armistice Prussia and Russia not only greatly reinforced
their troops, but received valuable assistance from Great Britain,
Sweden, and above all Austria. Already, on March 3, Great Britain had by
the treaty of Stockholm given her sanction to the seizure of the whole
of Norway by Sweden, after a vain attempt to induce Denmark to consent
to a peaceable cession of the diocese of Trondhjem. At the same time
Great Britain promised Guadeloupe as a personal gift to Bernadotte, and
a subsidy of £1,000,000 for the Swedish troops fighting against
Napoleon. A new treaty between Russia and Sweden on April 22 guaranteed
the cession of Norway. On June 14 and 15 Cathcart, having at last
obtained Prussia's consent to an increase in the territories of Hanover,
signed treaties at Reichenbach with Prussia and Russia, by which Great
Britain undertook to pay a subsidy of two-thirds of a million pounds to
the former and a million and a third to the latter power. It was also
agreed to issue federative paper notes to an extent not exceeding
£5,000,000 to pay the expenses of the armies of the two powers during
the year 1813, and Great Britain undertook the responsibility for
one-half of these notes. Soon afterwards Austria received a promise of a
loan of £500,000 as soon as she should join the allies. Half of this
last sum was actually paid within a few days of the resumption of
hostilities.
[Pageheading: _DRESDEN AND LEIPZIG._]
When the armistice expired, French forces were threatening Austria from
three sides--from Bavaria, Illyria, and Saxony; and Napoleon's intention
seems to have been to amuse the Austrian court with negotiations until
he could defeat the Prussian and Russian armies, after which he counted
upon overwhelming the Austrians with his entire force. The task of
defeating the Prussians was entrusted to his army in Saxony with which
Davoût was expected to co-operate from Hamburg, retaken by the French on
May 30. Austria, however, declared war on France the moment the
armistice had elapsed, August 12, and the main army of the allies,
principally composed of Austrians with large Prussian and Russian
contingents, assembled in Bohemia. Napoleon was opposed in Silesia by an
army of Prussians and Russians, while Bernadotte, in command of a mixed
army, consisting mainly of Swedes, Prussians and Russians, but including
3,000 British troops and 25,000 Hanoverians under Walmoden, operated
against him from the north. These three armies were eventually able to
join hands, while Davoût's army, the French armies in Italy and Illyria,
and 170,000 French troops in various German fortresses were unable to
render effective aid in the struggle. On August 26-27 Napoleon himself
won the last of his great victories at Dresden over the main army of the
allies, while his lieutenants were defeated by the northern army at
Grossbeeren on August 23, and again at Dennewitz on September 6, and by
the Silesian army at the Katzbach on August 26. The capitulation of
Vandamme at Kulm, with some 10,000 men, neutralised Napoleon's victory
at Dresden, and his enemies were increased by Austrian diplomacy. The
treaty of Teplitz, concluded on September 9, and accepted by Great
Britain on October 3, committed the allies to the complete independence
of the several German states. On the 10th Bavaria renounced the French
alliance, and on October 8, by the treaty of Ried, she engaged to join
the allies with 36,000 men, in return for a promise that she should
suffer no diminution of territory. On the 7th the northern and Silesian
armies had united west of the Elbe; Napoleon, who had quitted Dresden on
the 6th and vainly attempted to engage the separate northern army,
arrived at Leipzig on the 14th. But it was now too late.
On the 16th the allied armies, which had concentrated on Leipzig,
compelled him to stand at bay, and to risk all upon the fortunes of a
single battle. This battle, lasting three days, was not only one of the
greatest but one of the most decisive recorded in modern history, for it
finally crippled the warlike power of Napoleon, and inevitably
determined the issue of the campaigns yet to be fought in 1814 and 1815.
It would appear that Napoleon had under his command about 250,000 men,
and that he lost at least 50,000 in killed and wounded on the field. The
allied forces were much larger numerically, and their losses fully
equalled those of the French. But their victory was crushing. One of its
immediate results was that Napoleon was forced to abandon Saxony, and
with it the French cause in Germany. The French garrisons were reduced
one by one. Of the fortresses east of the Rhine, Hamburg, Kehl,
Magdeburg, and Wesel alone held out until the conclusion of peace in
1814. The general rising of Central Europe against French domination
which followed the battle of Leipzig extended itself to Holland. The
French were expelled in the middle of November, and on December 2 the
Prince of Orange was proclaimed sovereign prince of the Netherlands. On
the 29th the Swiss diet voted the restoration of the old constitution.
The confederation of the Rhine was practically dissolved, but in Italy
Napoleon's viceroy, Eugène Beauharnais, after falling back before the
Austrian army, was able to hold the line of the Adige. On November 9 it
was decided to offer peace to Napoleon on condition of the surrender of
all French conquests beyond the Rhine, the Alps, and the Pyrenees. These
terms represented the policy of Metternich. The Earl of Aberdeen
consented to them on behalf of Great Britain and Nesselrode on behalf of
Russia, but they were not accepted by Napoleon before the date by which
an answer was required, and the war proceeded. On December 31 the
Prussians under Blücher crossed the Rhine near Coblenz and opened a new
campaign.
[Pageheading: _AMERICAN SUCCESSES._]
Meanwhile the war on the American continent was carried on with varying
success, though the balance of fortune was rather on the side of the
United States. The operations were in the main of a desultory character,
no permanent conquests being made. The first engagement in the year 1813
was at Frenchtown on the Raisin River in Michigan, where Colonel
Proctor, commanding 500 regulars and militia, and 600 Indians, defeated
an American force of 1,000 under Brigadier-General Winchester, and took
500 prisoners, while many of the remaining Americans fell into the hands
of the Indians. The immediate effect of this victory was that General
Harrison, who was leading an American force of 2,000 men against
Detroit, determined to retrace his steps. Three months later Proctor
made a descent upon an American position on the Maumee River in the
north of the State of Ohio. After besieging the enemy for a few days he
was compelled to retire, but, before he left, an engagement took place
on May 5, in which the British forces, with a total loss of less than
100, inflicted severe losses on their opponents and made about 500
prisoners. A subsequent attempt to capture Fort Sandusky, near the head
of Lake Erie, was repulsed on August 2; ninety out of 350 British troops
were returned as killed, wounded or missing.
The British had hitherto commanded the lakes, but Commodore Perry now
occupied himself in building a fleet at Presqu'isle in Pennsylvania on
the coast of Lake Erie. Commander Barclay, in command of such ships as
the British possessed, was badly supported and encountered the same
difficulties in obtaining seamen as had been experienced for the
sea-going ships. The ships in the service of the United States were in
consequence again the more powerful and the better manned. On September
10 the two squadrons engaged. The British had six vessels with a
broadside of 459 lb., while the enemy had nine vessels with a broadside
of 928 lb. With such odds the result could not be doubtful, and the
whole British squadron was compelled to surrender. This success enabled
the enemy to strike with effect at the south-western end of Lower
Canada. The British immediately evacuated the whole territory of
Michigan with the exception of Mackinac; and Proctor, now raised to the
rank of major-general, commenced a retreat in the direction of Lake
Ontario. On October 5 he was attacked at Moraviantown on the Thames by
Harrison, and the greater part of his forces were captured in an
engagement which reflected small credit on British generalship. The
remainder of his forces reached Burlington Heights, at the west end of
Lake Ontario, but the whole country to the west of the Grand River had
to be abandoned to the enemy.
On Lake Ontario the fortune of war was more equally divided. The
Americans had been gradually collecting a naval squadron at Sackett's
Harbour and had gained command of the lake as early as November, 1812.
The command was, however, precarious, since it might be disturbed by the
arrival or construction of new warships. One such was building at York,
now known as Toronto, the capital of Upper Canada, when, on April 27,
1813, the American squadron under Commodore Chauncey attacked the town
and succeeded in landing a detachment of troops under General Dearborn.
The British general, Sheaffe, withdrew his regular forces from the town
without awaiting an assault, but not before he had destroyed the ship of
which the enemy were in quest. The Americans captured some naval stores,
but did not attempt to hold the town; they set an evil precedent,
however, by burning the parliament house and other public buildings
before evacuating the place. On May 27 Chauncey co-operated again with
Dearborn in an attack on Fort George, the capture of which threw the
whole line of the Niagara into American hands. On the same day Prevost,
whose naval strength had been reinforced, availing himself of Chauncey's
absence, made an attack on Sackett's Harbour. The attack, which was
renewed on the 29th, was miserably conducted, and ended in failure,
though the Americans were compelled to burn the naval stores captured at
York. The reinforcements had, however, transferred to the British the
command of the lake, which was not challenged again till the end of
July. Meanwhile their land forces were not idle. On June 6 the Americans
were surprised by Colonel Vincent at Burlington Heights and over 100
prisoners, including two brigadier-generals, were taken. This defeat,
combined with the approach of the British naval squadron under Sir James
Yeo, induced Dearborn to abandon his other posts on the Canadian side of
the Niagara and to concentrate at Fort George, but on the 24th another
surprise ended in the surrender of a detachment of more than 500
Americans to a force of fifty British troops and 240 Indians. By the end
of July Chauncey's squadron was once more strong enough to put to sea.
It raided York on the 31st, but did not venture to join battle with Yeo;
though a skirmish on August 10 enabled Yeo to capture two schooners.
Meanwhile on the frontier of Lower Canada the British were everywhere
successful. On June 3 two American sloops attacked the British garrison
of Isle-aux-noix at the north end of Lake Champlain. Both ships were
compelled to surrender. On August 1 a British force raided Plattsburg
and destroyed the barracks and military stores. A combined movement on
Montreal was now made by the forces of the United States; it was mainly
owing to the loyalty of the French Canadians that they were repulsed.
General Hampton advancing from the south with a force 7,000 strong was
defeated at the river Chateauguay on October 26, by 900 men belonging to
the Canadian militia, commanded by Colonel McDonnell and Colonel de
Salaberry. The defeated general withdrew his troops into winter quarters
at Plattsburg. Not long after, on December 7, the American general
Wilkinson who had sailed down the St. Lawrence to Prescott and was
marching towards Cornwall, was defeated with heavy loss by Colonel
Morrison at Chrystler's Farm, and made no further attempt on Canada. In
the same month General McClure, who commanded at Fort George, retired to
the eastern bank of the Niagara before Colonel Murray's advance. His
retreat was disgraced by the burning of the town of Newark, where women
and children were turned homeless into the cold of a Canadian winter. At
the same time the American forces were withdrawn from south-western
Canada but still retained Amherstburg at the head of Lake Erie, the sole
conquest of the campaign.
[Pageheading: _NAVAL WARFARE._]
The naval warfare of 1813 was less rich in individual encounters than
that of 1812. The British captains were better acquainted with the
strength of the American ships and did not rashly engage vessels
stronger than their own. There was also a marked improvement in British
gunnery, and an increase in the strength of the British naval force in
American waters. At first the blockade of the American coast had not
been strictly maintained further south than New York, but as
reinforcements arrived it was made more complete, and after June of this
year it was only occasionally that any warship or privateer contrived to
elude the blockading vessels. Meanwhile the British constantly raided
and harassed the American coast, and had no difficulty in availing
themselves of the Chesapeake and Delaware estuaries as naval bases. A
new feature of this year's warfare was the appearance of American
cruisers, especially privateers, in British waters, and even in the St.
George's Channel. To such ships the French ports were a very serviceable
naval base. The Americans would appear to have captured more of British
commerce than the British captured of theirs, but this was no
compensation for the almost complete cessation of their foreign trade.
Of single ship actions the destruction of the British _Peacock_ by the
American _Hornet_, commanded by Captain Lawrence, on February 24, the
capture of the American _Argus_ by the British _Pelican_ not far from
the Welsh coast on August 14, and the famous duel between the
_Chesapeake_ and the _Shannon_ on June 1 were the most important.
The British frigate _Shannon_ (38) was commanded by Captain Broke, who
was famous not merely for the attention he paid to gun practice, but for
the care he had bestowed on the laying of his ship's ordnance. Ever
since the beginning of April the frigates _Shannon_ and _Tenedos_ (38)
had been lying off Boston, where they hoped to intercept any American
frigate that dared to leave the harbour. Two succeeded in eluding them.
The _Chesapeake_ frigate (36) commanded by Lawrence, lay in the harbour;
and Broke, having detached the _Tenedos_ in order to tempt her out, sent
a challenge to Lawrence on the morning of June 1, but before it could be
delivered the _Chesapeake_ had sailed. She steered for the _Shannon_,
who waited for her. The fight began at 5.50 P.M. about six leagues out
from Boston; it was brief and bloody. After ten minutes' firing the
_Chesapeake_ fell on board the _Shannon_, and was immediately boarded.
In four minutes more every man on board had surrendered. In this short
fight the _Shannon_ had lost out of a crew of 352 twenty-four killed and
fifty-nine wounded, two of the latter mortally, while the _Chesapeake_,
according to American official figures, had lost out of 386 forty-seven
killed and ninety-nine wounded (fourteen of the latter mortally). No
fewer than thirty-two British deserters were found on board the
_Chesapeake_. The victory made the best possible impression. The two
ships had been of approximately equal strength, the American having a
slight superiority of force, and the _Chesapeake_ had been captured in
the way in which most turns on individual courage, by boarding. Both
captains had distinguished themselves in the fight, and both were
severely wounded, Lawrence, as the event proved, fatally.
[Pageheading: _CAMPAIGN IN FRANCE._]
The abandonment of Germany by the French at the close of 1813 left the
outlying provinces and allies of France exposed to invasion. The
Austrian general, Nugent, aided by British naval and military forces,
captured Trieste on October 31. Dalmatia had been invaded by the
Montenegrins as early as September, 1813, and was afterwards attacked by
Austrians and British marines, but the town of Cattaro held out till it
was taken by the British in January, 1814. On the 14th of the same
month Denmark was compelled by the treaty of Kiel to cede Norway to
Sweden in exchange for Swedish Pomerania and Rügen, Sweden undertaking
to assist Denmark in procuring a fuller equivalent for Norway at the
conclusion of a general peace. A treaty signed between Denmark and Great
Britain at the same time and place provided for the restitution to
Denmark of all British conquests, with the exception of Heligoland,
while Denmark undertook to do all in her power for the abolition of the
slave trade. The people of Norway and their governor, Prince Christian
of Denmark, refused to submit to the transference of their allegiance,
and on February 19 the independence of Norway was proclaimed. At first
the Swedish government attempted to obtain the submission of Norway by
negotiation only, but so important a diversion of her interest and
energies was sufficient to prevent Sweden from joining in the new
campaign against France. In Italy on January 11 Napoleon's
brother-in-law, Murat, whom he had made King of Naples in 1808, formed
an alliance with Austria. The treaty was never confirmed by Great
Britain, but the British government subsequently consented to support
Murat, if he should loyally exert himself in Italy against Napoleon's
forces. Although Murat did actually engage in hostilities against the
French, the British were far from satisfied with his operations and
considered that his remissness left them a free hand. Accordingly on
March 9 a British fleet entered the port of Leghorn and landed 8,000
men, of whom Lord William Bentinck took command. From Leghorn he marched
upon Genoa which surrendered to him on April 18.
Meanwhile the main forces of the allies were concentrated for a campaign
against Napoleon in Champagne. Of the three armies which had combined at
Leipzig the Austro-Russian army under Schwarzenberg made its way through
Switzerland, Alsace, and Franche-Comté, while Blücher's army of
Prussians and Russians passed through the region which afterwards became
the Rhine province and Lorraine. The two armies united in the
neighbourhood of Brienne in Champagne. Bernadotte's army did not as a
whole take part in the campaign; but a portion of it, consisting of
Russians under Wittgenstein and Prussians under Bülow, was engaged in
the conquest of Belgium and was able to invade France itself later in
the year. Schwarzenberg's army was accompanied by the Emperors of
Russia and Austria, the King of Prussia, and the leading European
diplomatists, including Castlereagh. From the outset there was a marked
difference between the Austrian and Russian policies. Metternich was
content with reducing France to the natural frontiers already offered to
her, and aimed merely at compelling Napoleon to recognise the _fait
accompli_ in Germany, and to evacuate Italy and Spain. He was therefore
in favour of slow advances and of giving Napoleon every opportunity for
coming to terms. The tsar, on the other hand, wished to reduce France to
her ancient limits, and was anxious to enter Paris as a conqueror. He
also excited Austrian jealousy by his scheme of annexing what had been
Prussian Poland, and compensating Prussia with Saxony. Castlereagh and
the Prussian minister, Hardenberg, supported the tsar's policy towards
France, but without sharing his ardour.
On the first arrival of the allies in Champagne the tsar had only
induced Metternich to advance by threatening to prosecute the war alone.
After they had gained what appeared to be a decisive victory over
Napoleon at La Rothière on February 1, negotiations were commenced at
Châtillon. Napoleon insisted on continuing the war during the
negotiations and interposed every possible delay. The allies first
demanded that France should recede within the limits of 1791 and offered
a partial restoration of French colonies, but refused to specify the
colonies which they were willing to relinquish until France should
accept the first condition. To this the French demurred, and on the 9th
the tsar impetuously withdrew his minister. From the 10th to the 14th
Napoleon inflicted a series of crushing blows upon Blücher's army.
Negotiations were now resumed; they lasted till the middle of March, but
as Napoleon would not surrender his claim to Belgium and the Rhine
provinces they were fruitless, notwithstanding the pacific efforts of
Caulaincourt, the French negotiator. On the 21st Napoleon tried in vain
to detach Austria from the allies by a private letter to the Emperor
Francis, and on March 1 a permanent basis was given to the alliance by
the treaty of Chaumont (definitely signed on the 9th), by which the four
allied powers bound themselves to conclude no separate peace, and not to
lay down their arms till the object of the war should have been obtained
by the restriction of France to her ancient frontiers. Each power was
to maintain 150,000 men regularly in the field, and Great Britain was to
pay the three other powers a subsidy of £5,000,000 for the current year
and a like sum for every subsequent year of warfare. The signatory
powers were to maintain their present concert and armaments for twenty
years if necessary.
[Pageheading: _NAPOLEON'S FIRST ABDICATION._]
After this treaty on March 4 Blücher united with Wittgenstein and Bülow
near Soissons. On the 20th Napoleon was repulsed by Schwarzenberg's army
at Arcis-sur-Aube, after which he attempted to cut off its
communications by a movement to its rear. In consequence of this
movement the allied armies advanced on Paris, while the Austrian emperor
fled to Dijon taking Castlereagh and Metternich with him.[60] This left
the war to be concluded under the influence of the most vigorous of the
allied sovereigns, the Tsar of Russia. Paris capitulated on the 30th and
on the next day was occupied by the allies. The tsar now issued "on
behalf of all the allied powers" a proclamation in which he declared
that they would not treat with Napoleon or his family, but were willing
to respect the integrity of France, and to guarantee the constitution
that the French people should adopt. This prepared the way for a
reaction against Napoleon in France. A provisional government was formed
on April 1; on the 3rd the French senate proclaimed the deposition of
Napoleon, and on the 6th it published a constitution, and recalled the
Bourbons in the person of Louis XVIII., the younger brother of Louis
XVI. On the same day Napoleon signed an unconditional abdication at
Fontainebleau. On the 11th a treaty was signed between Napoleon and the
sovereigns of Austria, Prussia, and Russia, by which he renounced all
claim to the crowns of France and Italy, and was assigned the Isle of
Elba as an independent principality and a place of residence, together
with a liberal revenue charged on the French treasury, which, however,
was never paid. The duchy of Parma was secured to the Empress Maria
Louisa and was to descend to her son. The treaty was afterwards
confirmed by Great Britain, with the exception of the clauses providing
revenues for the fallen emperor and his family. The promise of Elba had
been made by the tsar in the absence of Castlereagh and Metternich. It
was vigorously opposed by Castlereagh's half-brother, Sir Charles
Stewart, but the tsar considered his honour bound to it, and Napoleon
sailed from Fréjus for Elba on the 28th.
In America the war was conducted with more vigour in 1814 than in
previous years, but with equally small effect on either side. In March
the American general, Wilkinson, advancing from Lake Champlain, was
repulsed by a small British garrison at La Colle Mill. In July an
American army under Brown invaded Upper Canada across the river Niagara.
It was attacked by General Riall, near Chippewa, on the 5th, but it
repelled the attack and occupied that place. Brown was, however, checked
by British regulars and Canadian militia under Sir Gordon Drummond at
Lundy's Lane, near Niagara Falls, on the 25th. Both sides claim the
victory, but on the reinforcement of the British troops Brown abandoned
the invasion. After the close of the Peninsular war some of the best
regiments of the Peninsular army, numbering about 14,000 men, were sent
to America. But they were not commanded by any of the generals who had
made their names illustrious in that war, and did not effect so much as
had been expected. On August 19 and 20 General Ross landed with 5,000
men at the mouth of the Patuxent in Chesapeake Bay. On the 24th he
defeated a large body of militia under General Winder at Bladensburg,
and occupied Washington, where he burned all the public buildings.
However deplorable such an act may seem, it is well to note that it was
a fair and even merciful reprisal after the action of the Americans at
York and Newark. Ross did not attempt to retain the city, but evacuated
it on the next day and re-embarked on the 30th. On September 12 he
landed near Baltimore, but was immediately killed in an attack on the
town. The attack had to be abandoned because it proved impossible to
obtain adequate support from the fleet, and the troops returned to the
ships on the 15th.
On September 1 Prevost invaded New York State by Lake Champlain. He
advanced against Plattsburg, which he bombarded on the 11th, but his
flotilla was defeated by an American flotilla during the bombardment,
and he felt himself compelled to retreat into Canada. At the end of the
year Sir Edward Pakenham took command of a force operating against New
Orleans, but on January 8, 1815, he was defeated and killed by the
American forces under the future president, Andrew Jackson. No
expedition was ever worse planned than this; the veterans of the
Peninsula were mowed down by a withering fire, and, losing confidence in
their leaders, forfeited their reputation for invincible courage in
attack. The fighting, however, was desperate while it lasted, and was
compared by one engaged in it with the storm of Badajoz, and the deadly
charges at Waterloo. It was but a small compensation for these failures
that the British were able to annex a strip of territory belonging to
the State of Maine. On the sea no general engagement took place, nor was
there any naval duel so famous as that between the _Shannon_ and the
_Chesapeake_ in the previous year. The Americans lost two of their best
frigates, but, with crews largely composed of British sailors, captured
several British ships of war.
[Pageheading: _THE TREATY OF GHENT._]
As early as January, 1814, advances had been made towards negotiations
for peace, but they were not actually begun till August 6. In the course
of a few days a serious difficulty arose, as the British commissioners
demanded the delimitation of an Indian territory which should be exempt
from territorial acquisitions on the part of either power, and also
claimed the military occupation of the lakes for their own government.
The Americans thereupon suspended the negotiations, and Castlereagh
expressed grave discontent with the conduct of the British negotiators
in pressing these points. Late in the year negotiations were resumed,
when the British abandoned these claims. The far more comprehensive
questions about the rights of neutrals, which had occasioned the war,
had ceased to be of practical importance now that peace was restored in
Europe. They were therefore, by tacit consent, suffered to drop, and a
treaty signed at Ghent on December 24, 1814, ended a war of which the
Canadians alone had reason to be proud.
The most dramatic incident in the domestic annals of England in this
year was the visit of the allied sovereigns to this country, after their
triumphal entry into Paris, and the signature of a convention, to be
described hereafter, for the resettlement of Europe. Louis XVIII. left
his retreat at Hartwell on April 20, and reached his capital on May 3
to find it occupied by foreign armies, and to discover that his French
escort, composed of Napoleon's old guard, was of doubtful loyalty. On
July 8 the Tsar of Russia and the King of Prussia, having accepted an
invitation from the prince regent, which the Emperor of Austria
declined, landed at Dover, and were afterwards received with the utmost
enthusiasm in London. Their appearance betokened the supposed
termination of the greatest, and almost the longest, war recorded in
European history, but it was also accepted as a tribute of gratitude for
the unique services rendered by Great Britain, the only European power
which had never bowed the knee to the French Republic or the French
Empire. They attended Ascot races, were feasted at the Guildhall,
witnessed a naval review at Portsmouth, and were decorated with honorary
degrees at Oxford, where Blücher was the hero of the day with the
younger members of the university. There were men of calmer minds and
maturer age, who must have remembered the time, but seven years before,
when Alexander swore eternal friendship with Napoleon, on the basis of
enmity to Great Britain, and Frederick William of Prussia shrunk from no
depths of dishonour, first to aggrandise his kingdom and then to save
the remnants of it from destruction. Others foresaw that a restoration
of the Bourbons portended reaction, in its worst sense, throughout all
the continent of Europe. But such memories and forebodings were hushed
in the sincere and general rejoicing over the return of peace, marred by
no suspicion of the new trials and privations which peace itself was
destined to bring with it for the working classes of Great Britain.
FOOTNOTES:
[53] See p. 105.
[54] George, _Napoleon's Invasion of Russia_, p. 33.
[55] James, _British Naval History_, iv., 470-84.
[56] See above, p. 58.
[57] See _Cambridge Modern History_, vii., 336, 338.
[58] For details of the naval warfare of this year see James, _British
Naval History_, vi., 115-202.
[59] Rose, _Life of Napoleon I._, ii., 372.
[60] For the importance of this flight of the Emperor Francis see Rose,
_Life of Napoleon I._, ii., 418, 425. The flight did not take place till
after the advance on Paris was begun.
CHAPTER VII.
VIENNA AND WATERLOO.
After the restoration of Louis XVIII. as a constitutional king, the
treaty of Paris between France and the allied powers was signed on May
30, 1814. The treaty amounted to a settlement in outline of those
territorial questions in Europe in which France was concerned, and aimed
mainly at the construction of a strong barrier to resist further
encroachments by France on her neighbours. The French boundaries were to
coincide generally with the limits of French territory on January 1,
1792, but with certain additions. The principle adopted was that France
should retain certain detached pieces of foreign states within her own
frontier (such as Mühlhausen, Montbéliard, and the Venaissin), while the
line of frontier was extended so as to include certain detached
fragments belonging to France before 1792, such as Landau, Mariembourg,
and Philippeville, as well as Western Savoy with Chambéry for its
capital. She was moreover allowed to regain all her colonies except the
Mauritius, St. Lucia, and Tobago. The Spanish portion of San Domingo was
restored to the Spanish government. Holland was placed under the
sovereignty of the house of Orange, and was to receive an increase of
territory; so much of Italy as was not to be ceded to Austria was to
consist of independent sovereign states; and Germany was to be formed
into a confederation. Finally an European congress was to meet at Vienna
in two months' time "to regulate the arrangements necessary for
completing the dispositions of the treaty". At the same time secret
articles provided that the disposition of territories was to be
controlled at Vienna by Austria, Great Britain, Prussia, and Russia;
that Austria, was to receive Venice and Lombardy as far as the Ticino;
and that the former territories of Genoa were to be annexed to
Sardinia, and the late Austrian Netherlands to Holland.
In the midst of the general restoration of legitimate princes
difficulties were occasioned by the exceptional cases in which
territories were reserved for the new dynasties that had arisen during
the Napoleonic wars. France, Spain, and Sicily objected to the retention
of the kingdom of Naples by Murat, Spain resented the cession of Parma
to the Bonapartes, and Norway was in revolt against the attempt to
subjugate it to the king of Sweden and his heir Marshal Bernadotte. The
Norwegian government under Prince Christian vainly endeavoured to secure
the British recognition of the independence of Norway. The British
government, on the contrary, held itself bound to support the claims of
Sweden, and on April 29 notified a blockade of the Norwegian ports,
which was promptly carried into effect. Meanwhile a new constitution was
promulgated in Norway, and Prince Christian was proclaimed king. While
the British maintained the blockade Sweden attempted to gain its ends by
negotiation. At last, on July 30, the Swedes invaded Norway. After some
Swedish successes a convention was signed at Moss on August 14, which
recognised the new Norwegian constitution, but provided for a personal
union of the crowns of Sweden and Norway. This constitution was accepted
by Charles XIII. of Sweden in the following November, and Norway
retained almost complete independence, though united to Sweden.
[Pageheading: _THE SLAVE TRADE._]
Among the last acts of Napoleon's government had been the release and
restoration of Ferdinand VII. of Spain and of Pope Pius VII. Ferdinand,
supported by the vast mass of Spanish opinion, declared against the
rather unpractical constitution established in his absence, and entered
Madrid as an absolute king on May 14. One of his first acts was the
revival of the inquisition. There was some apprehension among British
representatives lest the two restored Bourbon monarchies should renew
the family compact, and also lest they should attempt to assert the
Bourbon claims to Naples and Parma. Sir Henry Wellesley, afterwards Lord
Cowley, was, however, successful in negotiating a treaty of alliance
between Great Britain and Spain, which made provision against any
renewal of the family compact, restored the commercial relations of the
two countries to the footing on which they had been before 1796, and
promised the future consideration of means to be adopted for the
suppression of the slave trade. Spain was in fact too dependent on
British credit to be able to adopt a line of her own in politics. But
the hold which Great Britain had thus gained over Spain was somewhat
weakened by the British attitude towards the slave trade.
It is remarkable how large a space the abolition of the slave trade
occupied in the foreign policy of Great Britain, when the liberties of
Europe were at stake. During the months preceding the meeting of the
congress of Vienna, which had been postponed till September by the tsar,
British diplomacy had been engaged in a strenuous effort to obtain the
co-operation of such European powers as possessed American colonies in
securing this philanthropic object. Sweden had already consented to it,
and now Holland also gave her consent. Portugal agreed to relinquish the
trade north of the equator, on condition that the other powers consented
to impose a similar restriction on themselves. Strong pressure was
brought to bear upon France to consent to the immediate abolition of the
trade, and Wellington, who had been created a duke in May and who
arrived at Paris in August in the capacity of British ambassador, was
authorised by Liverpool to offer the cession of Trinidad or the payment
of two or three million pounds to obtain this end. By the treaty of
Paris only French subjects were allowed to trade in slaves with the
French colonies, and French subjects were excluded from trading
elsewhere; and the whole trade was to cease within French dominions
after five years. Talleyrand, negotiating with Wellington, refused to
consent to a general abolition, but, on being pressed to surrender the
slave trade north of the equator, consented to abandon it to the north
of Cape Formoso. In the following year Napoleon on his return from Elba
ordered its immediate suppression, and this was not the least
significant act of the Hundred Days. With Spain our diplomatists were
less successful. The British government refused to renew its subsidy to
Spain for the last half of 1814 except on condition that Spain
relinquished the slave trade north of the equator at once, and consented
to relinquish that south of the equator in five years' time; while it
would not issue a loan except on condition that Spain abolished the
whole trade immediately. Even these terms did not prevail with Spain,
and the most that she would grant at the congress was to relinquish the
trade at the conclusion of eight years.
Meanwhile Talleyrand was endeavouring to induce Great Britain to combine
with France in a joint mediation between Austria and Russia at the
congress, in the event of Russia demanding the duchy of Warsaw.
Wellington, while expressing himself in favour of an understanding,
refused to accept anything which might seem equivalent to a declaration
in favour of mediation by the two powers in every case. At the congress
itself Great Britain was first represented by Castlereagh, who was
succeeded in February, 1815, by Wellington. The two principal
difficulties were the questions of Poland and Saxony. The tsar desired
to erect the duchy of Warsaw, Prussia's share in the two partitions of
Poland in 1793 and 1795, into a constitutional monarchy attached to the
Russian crown, while Prussia, though not unwilling to resign her claims
to Polish dominion, wished to increase her territory by the
incorporation of Saxony in her monarchy. Austria was naturally averse
from any increase of strength in the states on her northern borders, and
she was also opposed to the establishment of a constitutional monarchy
in Poland which might serve as a centre for political discontent in her
own dominions. Even France urged this objection to a constitutional
Poland. Great Britain alone was willing to see an independent Poland,
but preferred to join France, Prussia, and Austria in demanding its
repartition between the two latter powers rather than its annexation to
Russia. All through October Austria, Great Britain, and Prussia
endeavoured to induce the tsar to withdraw his demand. Early in November
he won over the King of Prussia to whom he promised the kingdom of
Saxony, proposing to indemnify the Saxon king with a new state on that
lower Rhine which France was not allowed to have, but which no other
power desired.
[Pageheading: _THE RETURN OF NAPOLEON._]
It was no longer possible to resist Russia's claims on Poland, but
Austria was determined not to allow Prussia to receive the proffered
compensation. On December 10 Metternich notified the Prussian minister,
Hardenberg, that he would not allow Prussia to annex more than a fifth
part of Saxony. Great Britain, France, Bavaria, and the minor German
states joined Austria in this action, and thus the attempt to effect a
settlement of Europe by a concert of the four allied powers broke down.
On January 3, 1815, a secret treaty was concluded between Austria,
France, and Great Britain in defence of what their diplomatists called
"the principles of the peace of Paris". Each of these powers was to be
prepared, if necessary, to place an army of 50,000 men in the field.
Bavaria joined them in their preparations for war, and many of the
troops which occupied Paris in 1815 would have been disbanded or
dispersed, but for the prospect of a rupture between the allies
themselves. But a compromise was soon arranged, and on February 8 it was
agreed that Cracow, the Polish fortress which threatened Austria most,
should be an independent republic, and that Prussia should retain enough
of Western Poland to round off her dominions, while the remainder of the
duchy of Warsaw became a constitutional kingdom under the tsar. Prussia
was to be allowed to annex part of Saxony, and was to receive a further
compensation on the left bank of the Rhine and in Westphalia. The most
thorny questions were now settled, and Castlereagh had left Vienna when
the congress was electrified by the news that Napoleon had reappeared in
France.
The episode of "the Hundred Days" interrupted, but did not break up, the
councils of the congress at Vienna. It cannot be said that Napoleon's
escape from Elba took the negotiators altogether by surprise. They were
already aware of his correspondence with the neighbouring shores of
Italy, and his removal to St Helena or some other distant island had
been proposed by the French government, though never discussed at the
congress. Sir Neil Campbell, the British commissioner at Elba, had gone
so far as to warn his government of Napoleon's suspected "plan," and to
indicate, though erroneously, the place of his probable descent upon the
Italian coast. Owing to an almost incredible want of precaution, he
embarked on February 26 with the least possible disguise, and
accompanied by 400 of his guards, on board his brig the _Inconstant_,
eluded the observation of two French ships, and landed near Cannes on
March 1. Thence he hastened across the mountains to Grenoble, passing
unmolested, and sometimes welcomed, through districts where his life had
been threatened but a few months before. The commandant of Grenoble was
prepared to resist his further progress, but a heart-stirring appeal
from Napoleon induced a regiment detached to oppose him to join his
standard, and the rest of the garrison was brought over by Colonel
Labedoyère, one of the officers who had conspired to bring him back.
Thence he proceeded to Lyons, issuing decrees, scattering proclamations,
and gathering followers at every stage. He was lavish of promises, not
perhaps wholly insincere, that he would adopt constitutional
government--already established by the charter of Louis XVIII.--and
cease to wage aggressive wars. He relied unduly on the discontent
provoked by the blind partisans of the Bourbons, who, it was said, had
learned nothing and forgotten nothing. This was true, if the spirit of
the restoration were to be measured by the parade of expiatory masses
for the execution of royalists under the revolution, the ostentatious
patronage of priests, the preference of returned _émigrés_ to well-tried
servants of the republic and the empire, or the anticipated expulsion of
landowners in possession of "national domains" for the purpose of
dividing them among their old proprietors. All this naturally
exasperated those who had imbibed the principles of the revolution, but
it was more than compensated in the eyes of millions of Frenchmen by the
cessation of conscription and the infinite blessings of peace.
[Pageheading: _"THE HUNDRED DAYS."_]
The king was amongst the least infatuated of the royalists. On hearing
of Napoleon's proclamation, he had the sense to appreciate the danger of
such a bid for sovereignty and the magic of such a name, while his
courtiers regarded Napoleon's enterprise as the last effort of a madman.
He addressed the chamber of deputies in confident and dignified
language; the Duke of Angoulême was employed to rouse the royalist party
at Bordeaux; the Duke of Bourbon was sent into Brittany, the Count of
Artois, with the Duke of Orléans and Marshal Macdonald, visited Lyons,
upon the attitude of which everything, for the moment, seemed to depend.
Most of the marshals remained faithful to the restored monarchy, and Ney
was selected to bar the progress of Napoleon in Burgundy, and has been
credited with a vow that he would bring him back in an iron cage. But it
was all in vain. The Count of Artois was loyally received by the
officials and upper classes at Lyons, but he soon found that Napoleon
possessed the hearts of the soldiers and the mass of the people. Ney
yielded to urgent appeals from his old chief, signed and read to his
troops a proclamation drawn up by Napoleon himself, and was followed in
his treason by his whole army. As Napoleon approached Paris, all armed
opposition to him melted away. On March 19, Louis XVIII., seeing that
his cause was hopeless, proclaimed a dissolution of the chambers, and
retired once more into exile, fixing his residence at Ghent.
Napoleon re-entered the Tuileries on the 20th, after a journey which he
afterwards described as the happiest in his life. But his penetrating
mind was not deceived by the manifestations of popular joy. He well knew
that he was distrusted by the middle classes, as well as by the
aristocracy, and threw himself more and more on the sympathy of the old
revolutionists. When he came to fill up the higher offices, he met with
a strange reluctance to accept them, and was driven to enlist the
services of two regicides, the virtuous republican, Carnot, and the
double-dyed traitor Fouché. Feeling the necessity of resting his power
on a democratic basis, he promulgated a constitution modelled on the
charter of Louis XVIII., and known as the _Acte Additionnel_, which,
however, satisfied no one. The royalists objected to its anti-feudal
spirit, the revolutionists and moderates to its express recognition of
an hereditary peerage, and its tacit recognition of a dictatorial power.
It was by no means with a light heart that Napoleon took leave of Paris
on June 7, having appointed a provisional government, to place himself
at the head of his army.
Attempts had been made in the southern provinces and La Vendée to
organise armed rebellion against the emperor, and met for a time with
considerable success. But they were soon quelled by the overwhelming
imperialism not only of the regular army, but of vast numbers of
disbanded soldiers and half-pay officers, dispersed throughout France,
and disgusted with their treatment under the restored monarchy. Even
among the _bourgeoisie_ Napoleon had an advantage which he never
possessed before. Disguise it as he might, all his former wars had been
essentially wars of conquest, and, however patiently they might endure
it, the peasantry of France, in thousands upon thousands of humble
cottages, groaned under the exaction of crushing taxes--worst of all,
the blood-tax of conscription--in order to enable one man, in the name
of France, to usurp the empire of the world. Now, however, as in the
early days of the revolution, France was put on its defence, and called
upon to repel an invasion of its frontiers. For the news of Napoleon's
escape, announced by Talleyrand on March 11, instantly stilled the
quarrels and rebuked the jealousies which had so nearly proved fatal to
any settlement at Vienna. For the moment, the designs of Russia in
Poland, the selfish demands of Prussia, and the half-formed coalition
between Great Britain, France, and Austria, were thrust into the
background. Austria thought it necessary to repudiate decisively the
audaciously false assertion of Napoleon that he was returning with the
concurrence of his father-in-law, and would shortly be supported by
Austrian troops. Metternich, therefore, assumed the lead in drawing up a
solemn manifesto, dated March 13, in which Napoleon was virtually
declared an outlaw "abandoned to public justice," and the powers which
had signed the treaty of Paris in the preceding May bound themselves, in
the face of Europe, to carry out all its provisions and defend the king
of France, if need be, against his own rebellious subjects.
By a further convention made at the end of March, they engaged to
provide forces exceeding 700,000 men in the aggregate, to be
concentrated on the Upper Rhine, the Lower Rhine, and the Low Countries,
with an immense reserve of Russians to be rapidly moved across Germany
from Poland. Wellington having succeeded Castlereagh at Vienna, was
appointed to command the British, Hanoverian, and Belgian contingents on
the north-east frontier of France; Blücher's headquarters were to be on
the Lower Rhine, within easy reach of that frontier; for, whichever side
might take the offensive, it was there that the first shock of war might
be expected. The recent conclusion of peace with America at Ghent on
December 24, 1814, left England free to use her whole military power.
Enormous sums were voted by Parliament, with a rare approach to
unanimity, for the equipment of a British army, and a sum of £5,000,000
for subsidies to the allied powers. A small section of the opposition
led by Whitbread opposed the renewal of war. On April 7 he moved an
amendment to the address in reply to the prince regent's message
announcing that measures for the security of Europe were being concerted
with the allies, but he was only supported by 32 votes against 220. On
April 28 his motion for an address to the prince regent, deprecating
war with Napoleon, was defeated by 273 votes against 72. This was
Whitbread's last prominent appearance in parliament. On July 6, during a
fit of insanity, he died by his own hand. The subsidies to the allies
were opposed by Bankes, but were carried on May 26 by 160 votes against
17. There can be no doubt that the majorities in the house of commons
correctly expressed the national sentiment. Nobody wished to dictate to
France the form of government which she was to adopt, but it was
generally felt that Napoleon's character rendered peace with him
impossible.
[Pageheading: _THE CAMPAIGN OF 1815._]
In the end, about 80,000 men were assembled in Belgium under
Wellington's orders, but of these not half were British soldiers,
including untrained drafts from the militia, who replaced veteran
Peninsular regiments still detained in Canada and the United States. Yet
Napoleon admitted the British contingent to be equal, man for man, to
his own troops, while he estimated these to be worth twice their own
number of Dutchmen, Prussians, or other Germans. The first blow in the
war was struck by Murat. Already in February, dissatisfied with his
ambiguous position, he had levied troops and summoned Louis XVIII. to
declare whether he was at war with him. As soon as he heard of
Napoleon's return, he invaded the Papal States, and summoned the
Italians to rise in the cause of Italian unity and independence. Though
disowned by Napoleon, he persevered in this plan, but he was attacked
and twice defeated by an Austrian army. On May 22 the British and
Austrians took the city of Naples, and Murat fled to France. In October
he made an attempt to recover his kingdom, but was captured and shot. It
is noteworthy that, on hearing of his fate at St. Helena, Napoleon
showed but little sympathy with his brother-in-law.
On the morning of June 12, Napoleon left Paris, saying as he entered his
carriage that he went to match himself with Wellington. All his troops
were already marshalled on the Belgian frontier, and numbered 124,588
men, with 344 guns. The Imperial Guard alone was 20,954 strong, and the
whole army was largely composed of seasoned veterans. The Prussian army
consisted of 116,897 men, with 312 guns under Marshal Blücher, whose
headquarters were at Namur. Though the majority of these were veterans,
there was a considerable leaven of inferior troops, hastily raised from
the Westphalian and Rhine militia. Between this town and Quatre Bras lay
the Prussian line of defence, Sombreffe being the centre, with Ligny and
St. Amand in front of it, and rather on the south-west. Wellington's
headquarters were at Brussels, and, having no certain intelligence of
Napoleon's movements, he kept the various divisions of his army within
easy distance of that capital until the very eve of the final conflict.
Of the 93,717 men under his command, 31,253 were British, two-thirds of
whom had never been under fire; 6,387 were of the king's German legion;
15,935 Hanoverians; 29,214 (including 4,300 Nassauers in the service of
the Prince of the Netherlands) Dutch and Belgians; 6,808 Brunswickers;
2,880 Nassauers; the engineers, numbering 1,240, were not classified by
nationality. He fully expected that Napoleon would move upon Brussels
along the route by Mons and Hal, and maintained in later days that such
would have been the best strategical course. Napoleon thought otherwise,
and resolved to strike in between the Prussian and British armies,
crushing the former before the latter could be fully assembled. He very
nearly succeeded, and, if all had gone as he hoped, he could scarcely
have failed to win one of his greatest victories.
[Pageheading: _LIGNY AND QUATRE BRAS._]
On the evening of the 15th, Wellington was still at Brussels, with the
great body of his army, and only a weak force of Dutch and Belgians was
at Quatre Bras, some sixteen miles to the south. Blücher, with about
three-fourths of his army, was at Sombreffe, a few miles south-east of
Quatre Bras. Napoleon himself was at or close by Charleroi, ten or
twelve miles south of Quatre Bras; the mass of his army was at Fleurus,
south-west of Sombreffe, with Ligny and St. Amand between it and the
Prussians; and Marshal Ney, with Reille's corps, was at Frasnes,
opposite to and due south of Quatre Bras. On the morning of the 16th,
Napoleon arrived from Charleroi at Fleurus, and carefully inspected his
enemy's position, but delayed his attack upon Ligny and St Amand until
half-past two in the afternoon. The Prussians outnumbered the French,
and a murderous conflict ensued among the streets, gardens, and
enclosures of these little towns, which lasted until eight or nine
o'clock. At last Napoleon ordered his guard to advance, and the plateau
behind Ligny was taken, with a loss to the French of 12,000, and to the
Prussians of over 20,000. Blücher himself was unhorsed and severely
bruised in a furious charge of cavalry, but the Prussians retired in
good order towards Wavre, north of the battlefield.
Had Ney been in a condition to obey an urgent message from Napoleon, and
to envelop the Prussian right and rear, this defeat would have been
overwhelming in its effect. But while the battle of Ligny was raging,
another battle was going on at Quatre Bras, six miles distant, in which
the French sustained a serious check. Happily for the British, Ney
failed to bring up his divisions for an attack on Quatre Bras until two
o'clock in the afternoon, when the Dutch and Belgians under the Prince
of Orange were still his only opponents. The news for which Wellington
had been waiting did not reach him until just before the memorable ball,
given by the Duchess of Richmond at Brussels on the night of the 15th,
which he nevertheless attended, hurrying off his troops to Quatre Bras.
They arrived just in time to reinforce the Prince of Orange and save the
position; but Ney, too, was receiving fresh reinforcements every hour,
the Duke of Brunswick was killed, and a fearful stress fell on Picton's
division and the Hanoverians, who alone were a match for Ney's splendid
infantry and Kellermann's cuirassiers.
These made a charge like that which had borne down the Austrians at
Marengo, but the British squares were proof against it, and when a
division of guards came up from Nivelles, the French in turn were put on
the defensive and retreated to Frasnes. The loss on the British side was
4,500 men; that on the French somewhat less. It is not difficult to
imagine what the issue of the battle must have been if D'Erlon's corps
had been brought into action. This corps was occupied in marching and
countermarching, under contradictory orders from Napoleon and Ney,
between the British left and the Prussian right during the whole of this
eventful day. Its appearance in the distance just when Napoleon was
about to launch his guard against the Prussians at Ligny, caused him to
hesitate long, and lose the decisive moment for demolishing his enemy.
Its failure to appear at Quatre Bras, and to roll up the wavering
Dutch-Belgians, before Picton took up the fighting, enabled Wellington
to hold his ground at first, to repulse Ney afterwards, and on hearing
of Blücher's defeat at Ligny, to fall back in good order on Waterloo.
Even then, something was due to good fortune. Had Napoleon joined Ney
and marched direct on Quatre Bras early on the 17th, it is difficult to
see how his advance to Brussels could have been arrested. But whether he
was exhausted by his incessant labours since leaving Paris, or whether
his marvellous intuition was deserting him, certain it is that he
allowed that critical morning to slip by without an effort--and without
a reconnaissance. He assumed that Blücher must retire upon Namur as his
base of operations, and that Wellington, retiring towards Brussels,
would be cut off from his allies. He therefore despatched Marshal
Grouchy, with 33,000 men, to follow up the Prussians eastward by the
Namur road. His assumption was unfounded. Blücher, loyal to his
engagements, retired upon Wavre; Wellington, relying upon Blücher's
loyalty, took his stand on the field of Waterloo; and this error on the
part of Napoleon determined the fortunes of the campaign.[61]
[Pageheading: _WATERLOO._]
The British army retreated upon Waterloo almost unmolested. Ney was
probably awaiting orders, and Napoleon, believing the Prussians to be at
Namur, probably thought he might safely rest himself and his army before
crushing Wellington at his leisure. When they realised that Wellington
was deliberately moving his army to a position nearer Brussels, they
both followed in pursuit along different roads converging at Quatre
Bras, and a brisk skirmish took place near Genappe between Ney's cavalry
and that of the British rear-guard. Heavy rain came on, and the two
armies spent a miserable night, half a mile from each other, close to
Mont St. Jean, and south of Waterloo. Napoleon rose before daybreak on
the 18th, reconnoitred the British position, and convinced himself that
Wellington intended to give battle. He expressed to his staff his
satisfaction and confidence of victory, when General Foy, who had
experience of the Peninsular war, replied in significant words: "Sire,
when the British infantry stand at bay, they are the very devil
himself". Why Napoleon did not begin the battle at eight o'clock has
been the subject of much discussion. It is said that he waited for
Grouchy to join him before the close of the action. But neither he nor
Grouchy, though aware that at least a large force of Prussians had gone
to Wavre and not to Namur, suspected that Blücher had promised
Wellington to march with his whole army on the morning of the 18th to
support the British at Waterloo. It is more likely that he waited for
his men to assemble and for the ground to dry and become more
practicable for his powerful artillery.[62]
Exception has been taken to the conduct of Wellington in detaching
17,000 men to guard the approach to Brussels at Hal, and, still more, in
not recalling them, when he must have ascertained that nothing was to be
feared on that side, and when such a reinforcement of his right wing
must have been all-important. But it must be remembered that in this
force there were only 1,500 English troops, and 2,000 Hanoverian
militia. The rest were Dutch and Belgians. At all events, Napoleon left
his right flank undefended, though he was already somewhat anxious about
the Prussian movements, and Wellington fought the battle of Waterloo
with a force numerically inferior to that under Napoleon's command,
though it might have been rendered superior by the accession of the Hal
contingent. The effective part of this force, numbering in all 67,661
men, consisted of 24,000 British soldiers, 6,000 soldiers of the king's
German legion, and about 11,000 Hanoverians. Napoleon's force numbered
72,000 men, and it was stronger both in cavalry and in guns. It
represented the flower of the French army; there were few, if any,
recruits as raw as those who swelled the ranks of the British regiments;
there were thousands upon thousands who had formed part of that _Grande
Armée_ which had overawed the continent of Europe. It is fair, however,
to record that, while the British rank and file suffered much for want
of sufficient food, the French had fared still worse, and that very many
of them could have been in no fit condition for the struggle impending
over them.
Both armies occupied ground extending from west to east, on opposite
ridges, and crossed at right angles by the great highway running north
and south from Charleroi to Brussels. In front of the British right were
the château and enclosures of Hougoumont which were occupied by the
British; nearly in front of the centre were the large farm-house and
buildings of La Haye Sainte. Further to the left were the hamlet of
Smohain and the farms Papelotte and La Haye. Wellington had arranged his
brigades so as to distribute the older troops as much as possible among
the less experienced. Sir Thomas Picton's fifth division formed the left
of the line; to his right was Alten's second division, and beyond him to
the right was the guards division under Cooke. Further to the right and
partly in reserve was Clinton's second division, while Chassé's Dutch
division on the extreme right occupied the village of Braine l'Alleud.
Somerset's brigade of heavy cavalry and Kruse's Dutch cavalry were
posted behind Alten's division, and Ponsonby's "union brigade,"
consisting of the royal dragoons, Scots greys, and Inniskillings, was
stationed in Picton's rear. The whole line lay on the inner slopes of
the ridge with the exception of Bylandt's Dutch-Belgian brigade which
was posted on the outer slope in front of Picton's division. D'Erlon's
corps was opposite the British left, Reille's opposite the British
right. Squadrons of cavalry covered the outer flank of either of the two
French corps. The magnificent squadrons of French cavalry, 15,000
strong, under Milhaud, Kellermann, and other famous leaders, were in the
second line; the imperial guard, as usual, was massed in the rear.
[Pageheading: _WATERLOO._]
The battle opened about half-past eleven with a furious attack on
Hougoumont. It was defended with desperate gallantry, mainly by the
British guards, who reopened the old loopholes in the garden-walls, and
closed by sheer muscular force the eastern gate of the yard, which had
been forced open by the French. In the fruitless siege of Hougoumont, as
it may be called, the French left wing thus wasted most of its strength,
and incurred enormous loss. Meanwhile, the French right wing under
D'Erlon, advanced to attack the British left, which had been assailed
for an hour and a half by the fire of a battery with seventy-eight guns.
The Dutch and Belgians, who in their exposed position had suffered
severely from the French artillery fire, soon gave way; but Picton's
division, after a single volley, charged with the bayonet and drove
their assailants reeling backward, though Picton himself fell dead on
the field. Without orders from Wellington, Lord Uxbridge, in command of
the British cavalry, seized the opportunity, and launched the union
brigade with other regiments upon the flying masses. This whirlwind of
British horsemen swept all before it, slaughtering many of the French
cavalry in passing, taking 3,000 prisoners, sabring the gunners of Ney's
battery, and spiking fifteen of the guns. But their ardour carried them
too far. By Napoleon's orders a large force of French cuirassiers and
lancers fell upon their flank before they could take breath again, and
their ranks were frightfully thinned in a disorderly retreat. But their
charge had saved the day.
At one o'clock, while the fate of D'Erlon's onslaught was still
undecided, Napoleon observed Prussian troops on his right. An
intercepted despatch proved these to be Bülow's corps. He instantly sent
off a despatch to Grouchy, whom he supposed to be within reach, ordering
him to attack Bülow in the rear. Then followed the memorable succession
of charges by the whole of the French cavalry upon the squares of the
British infantry. Not one of these squares was broken; a great part of
the French cavalry was mown down by volleys or cut to pieces by the
British cavalry in their precipitate retreat, and the British line
remained unmoved, though grievously weakened, behind its protecting
ridge. This was the crisis of the fight. Much of the British artillery
was dismounted, and Wellington confessed to one of his staff that he
longed for the advent of night or Blücher. Napoleon next felt himself
compelled to detach Lobau's corps for the purpose of meeting the
advancing Prussians. Soon afterwards Ney carried La Haye Sainte by a
most determined assault, aided by the failure of ammunition within its
defences, and thus captured the key of the British position. But
Napoleon saw that his one chance of victory lay in a final _coup_ before
the Prussians could wrest it from him. He ordered the imperial guard to
the front, leading it himself across the valley, and then handing over
the command to Ney. The guard was but the remnant of its original
strength, for all its cavalry had been wrecked in wild charges against
the British squares, and several battalions of its infantry were kept in
reserve to hold back the Prussians and protect the baggage train.
Nevertheless, the advance of this superb corps, the heroes of a hundred
fights, who had seldom failed to hurl back the tide of battle at the
most perilous junctures, was among the most impressive spectacles in the
annals of war. They swerved a little to the left, thereby exposing
themselves to the fire of the British footguards and of a battery in
excellent condition. The former were lying down for shelter, but when
the imperial guard came within sixty paces of them they started up at
the word of command from Wellington himself. The footguards poured a
deadly fire into the front, and the 52nd regiment into the flank of
their columns; as they wavered under the storm of shot a bayonet charge
followed, and the imperial guard, hitherto almost invincible, was
dissolved into a mob of fugitives scattered over the plain.
It was now past eight o'clock; Bülow's Prussians had long been engaged
on the British left, and Blücher, with indomitable energy, was pressing
forward with all his other divisions. Wellington first sent Vandeleur's
and Vivian's cavalry, still comparatively fresh, to sweep away what
remained of the French reserves, and then ordered a general advance. The
French retreat speedily became a rout, and a rout to which there is no
parallel except that which succeeded the battle of Leipzig. Wellington
and Blücher met at La Belle Alliance on the high road, just south of the
battlefield, and lately the French headquarters. The British troops were
utterly tired out, but the Prussian cavalry never drew rein until they
had driven the last Frenchman over the river Sambre in their relentless
pursuit. The slaughter had been prodigious, though far short of that at
Borodino. The British army lost 13,000 men, the Prussian 7,000, and the
French 37,000[63] (including prisoners), besides the whole of their
artillery, ammunition, baggage-waggons, and military train. But the
battle was one of the most decisive recorded in history, and was the
real beginning of a peace which lasted over the whole of Europe for
nearly forty years. Grouchy heard the cannonade of Waterloo on his march
from Ligny to Wavre, and was strongly urged by Gérard to hasten across
country, with his whole force, in the direction of the firing. But he
pleaded the letter of Napoleon's instructions, and reached Wavre only to
find Blücher gone. After an encounter with a Prussian corps, which had
been left behind, he received news of Napoleon's defeat, and ultimately
escaped into France.
[Pageheading: _NAPOLEON'S SECOND ABDICATION._]
The march of the allies into France after the battle of Waterloo was not
wholly unchecked, but it was far more rapid than in 1814. The French
could not be rallied, and in the first week of July Paris was occupied
by Anglo-Prussian troops. The Austrians and Prussians were moving again
upon the eastern frontiers of France, but were still far behind. The
Prussian general and soldiers were animated by the bitterest spirit of
vengeance, and it needed all the firmness of Wellington to prevent the
bridge of Jena from being blown up, and a ruinous contribution levied on
the citizens of Paris. Napoleon himself was now at Rochefort, having
quitted Paris after a second abdication on June 22, but four days after
the battle. No other course was open to him. When he started for his
last campaign, he was no longer the champion of an united nation, and
consciously staked his all on a single throw. When he returned from it,
discomfited and without an army, he found the chambers actively hostile
to him. Carnot, who had formerly opposed his assumption of the imperial
title, was now the only one of his ministers to deprecate his
abdication, but Napoleon himself saw no hope of retaining his power, or
transmitting it to his son, without a reckless appeal to revolutionary
passions. From this he shrank, and he represented himself at St. Helena
as having sacrificed personal ambition to patriotism.
The chamber of deputies appointed an executive commission of five,
including the infamous Fouché, and from this body the late emperor
actually received an order to quit Paris. He retired to Malmaison, where
he received a fresh order to set out for Rochefort, which he reached on
July 3. On the next day Paris capitulated to the allies, and the
necessity for his leaving the shores of France became more urgent. Two
frigates were assigned for his escape to America, but a British squadron
was lying ready to intercept them. Some of his bolder companions devised
a scheme for smuggling him on board a swift merchant ship, but it was
foiled by the vigilant watch of the British squadron off the islands of
Oléron and Ré. At last he surrendered himself on board the
_Bellerophon_, relying, as he said, on the honour of the British nation,
and claiming the generous protection of the prince regent. He was,
however, clearly informed that he would be at the disposal of the
government. Under an agreement with the allied powers, the ministers
decided, and were supported by the nation in deciding, that he could not
be detained in England, either as a guest or as a prisoner, with any
regard to public safety or the verdict of Europe at Vienna. The proposal
of banishing him to St. Helena, suggested in the previous year, was
finally adopted, and he sailed thither in the _Northumberland_ on August
8, vehemently protesting against the bad faith of Great Britain. Louis
XVIII. was restored, and the treaty of Vienna, signed on the eve of the
Waterloo campaign, was but slightly modified.
The action of Murat had solved the difficulties which the congress had
to face in Italy. The kingdom of the Two Sicilies reverted to the
Bourbon, Ferdinand; and the Bourbons also acquired a right of reversion
in Parma, where the protest of Spain against the rule of Maria Louisa
could now be ignored. Genoa was annexed to the kingdom of Sardinia; the
pope received back the states of the Church; the Grand Duke of Tuscany
and the Duke of Modena were restored; while Austria had to be content
with Venetia and Lombardy as far as the Ticino. The organisation of
Germany occupied the congress until June, and was the least durable part
of its work. The basis of it was a confederation of thirty-eight states,
represented and in theory controlled by a diet under the presidency of
Austria. This diet naturally resolved itself into a mere permanent
congress of diplomatists for the purpose of settling the mutual
relations of the constituent states. Each state was ordered to adopt a
constitutional form of government, but, as no provision was made for
enforcing this clause, it remained a dead letter. Prussia regained her
provinces on the left bank of the Rhine, with a population exceeding
1,000,000, and was allotted the northern part of Saxony, with a
population of 800,000, besides retaining her original share of Poland,
with the province of Posen, which had formed part of the duchy of
Warsaw. Most of this duchy was annexed by Russia, but Cracow was left a
republic. Prussia also gained Swedish Pomerania. Bavaria, Hanover, and
Denmark profited more or less by the repartition of Germany. Denmark,
however, finally lost Norway, and Sweden paid the price of this
acquisition by resigning Finland to Russia. The neutrality of
Switzerland was proclaimed and her constitution simplified. The Belgian
Netherlands were united to Holland, the two forming together the kingdom
of the Netherlands, to which Austria ceded all her claims in the Low
Countries.
[Pageheading: _THE SECOND TREATY OF PARIS._]
The treaty of Vienna left the boundaries of France itself as they had
been defined by the first treaty of Paris in 1814. The second treaty of
Paris, however, signed on November 20, 1815, was less favourable to
France, which had already ceded Western Savoy to Sardinia, and was now
required to abandon Landau and other outlying territories beyond the
frontier of 1792. She was also compelled to restore all the works of art
accumulated during the war.
Great Britain had failed to obtain from the congress any binding
regulation on the subject of the slave trade. The most that she could
obtain was a solemn denunciation of that trade issued on February 8,
which declared it to be "repugnant to the principles of civilisation and
of universal morality". The moderation of the British demands, as
embodied in these treaties, excited not only the amazement but the
contempt of Napoleon, who discussed the subject at St. Helena with great
freedom. Well knowing that his paramount object throughout all his wars
and negotiations had been to crush Great Britain, and that Great Britain
had been the mainstay of all the combinations against him, he could find
no explanation of our self-denial except our insular simplicity. Perhaps
it might be attributed with greater reason to politic magnanimity; nor,
indeed, could Great Britain, as a member of the European council,
dictate such terms as Napoleon suggested. Still, the gains of Great
Britain were substantial. She retained Ceylon, the Cape of Good Hope,
the Isle of France (Mauritius), Trinidad, St. Lucia, Tobago, and, above
all, Malta. She also obtained possession of Heligoland and the
protectorate of the Ionian Islands, both of which she has since resigned
of her own accord. If she afterwards lost the commanding position which
she had attained among the allied powers, it was chiefly because the
colossal empire which she had defied was effectually shattered, because
neither her armies nor her subsidies were any longer needed on the
continent of Europe, and perhaps because the energies of her statesmen
were no longer braced up by the stress of a struggle for national life.
Even before the allied armies entered Paris Wellington considered it
necessary to induce Louis XVIII. to make advances to certain politicians
of the revolution so as to inspire national confidence in him, and to
anticipate the risk of a "White Terror," or a continuance of the war.
Fouché was accordingly summoned to power, and he had sufficient
influence to prevent any national opposition to the Bourbon restoration.
Napoleon remained at large for three weeks after his abdication, that
is, for eight days after the allied troops had entered Paris, and the
fear of a future Bonapartist revolution inclined the British government
under Liverpool to entertain favourably the demand of Prussia for the
cession of Alsace, Lorraine, and the northern fortresses. When, however,
Napoleon had placed himself on board the _Bellerophon_, the situation
changed. A contented France seemed preferable to an impotent France, and
Wellington argued that the Bourbon restoration could not last, if French
opinion connected it with the loss of Alsace and Lorraine. The tsar took
this line from the first, and Wellington won for it the adhesion first
of his own government and then of Austria. Prussia had finally to be
contented with a provision for the cession of the outlying districts,
which the treaty of Paris of 1814 had left to France. The second treaty
of Paris, which embodied this stipulation, also provided for an
indemnity of £40,000,000 to be paid by France to the allies, and for the
temporary occupation of Northern France by the allied armies. On the
same day Austria, Great Britain, Prussia, and Russia signed a treaty
pledging themselves to act together in case fresh revolution and
usurpation in France should endanger the repose of other states, and
providing for frequent meetings of congresses to preserve the peace of
Europe.
In addition to the formal treaties of alliance signed at Chaumont,
Vienna, and Paris, an attempt was made by the Tsar Alexander to bind
together the European sovereigns in an union based on the principles of
Christian brotherhood. A form of treaty was accordingly drawn up which
gave expression to these motives, dealt with all Christians as one
nation, and committed their sovereigns to mutual affection and
reciprocal service. This treaty of the holy alliance was signed on
September 26, by Austria, Prussia, and Russia. All European princes
except the sultan were invited to adhere to it, and all except the pope
and the sultan ultimately either accepted it or expressed their sympathy
with its principles. But in England there was hardly a statesman who
regarded the treaty seriously, Wellington avowed his distrust of it, the
prince regent declined to join it, and its effective value in promoting
the subsequent concert of the powers was less than nothing. Still,
however visionary and extravagantly worded, it remains as an unique
record embodying the deliberate adoption of the principle of
international brotherhood, and the sacrifice of separate national
interests for the sake of European peace.
[Pageheading: _NAPOLEON AT ST. HELENA._]
It is remarkable that so little public discussion took place on two
questions which have since been so hotly debated--the legal _status_ of
Napoleon after he surrendered himself, and the moral right of Great
Britain to banish him to St. Helena. One reason for this apparent
indifference to the fate of one who had overawed all Europe may be found
in the fact that parliament was not sitting when the decision of the
government was taken, and that, when it met on February 1, 1816, that
decision was virtually irrevocable. We know, however, that the first
question was fully considered by the allied powers and the British
ministry before his place of exile was fixed, and Great Britain
undertook the custody of his person. The view which prevailed was that,
after his escape from Elba, he could neither be treated as an
independent sovereign nor as a subject of the French king, but must be
regarded as a public enemy who had fallen into the hands of one among
several allied powers. Accordingly, it was by their joint mandate that
he remained the prisoner of Great Britain, and was to be under the joint
inspection of commissioners appointed by the other powers. Still the
minds of Liverpool, Ellenborough, and Sir William Scott, judge of the
court of admiralty, were not altogether easy on the legal aspect of the
case, which Eldon reviewed in an elaborate and exhaustive memorandum.
His conclusion was that Napoleon's position was quite exceptional, that
he could not rightly be made over to France as a French rebel, but was a
prisoner of war at the disposal of the British government, both on the
broad principles of international law, and under the express terms of
his surrender, as reported officially by Captain Maitland of the
_Bellerophon_.
It was thought expedient, however, to pass an act of parliament in the
session of 1816 for the purpose of setting at rest any objections which
might afterwards be raised. This measure was introduced on March 17 by
Lord Castlereagh, who defended it on grounds of national justice and
national policy. It met with no opposition in the house of commons, but
Lords Holland and Lauderdale criticised it in the house of lords, not
as sanctioning a wrong to Napoleon, but as implicitly admitting the
right of other powers to join in arrangements for his custody. Little
attention was then bestowed by parliament or the public on the moral
aspect of his life-long detention at St. Helena, the restrictions to be
there imposed upon his liberty, or the provision to be made for his
comfort. Yet these subjects have ever since exercised the minds of
myriads both in England and France, and have given birth to a copious
literature for more than three generations.
FOOTNOTES:
[61] For the movements of June 15, 16, see Chesney, _Waterloo Lectures_,
pp. 70-137; Ropes, _The Campaign of Waterloo_, pp. 44-196.
[62] Rose, _Life of Napoleon I._, ii., 494, 495.
[63] Oman in _English Historical Review_, xix., 693, and xxi., 132.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE FIRST YEARS OF PEACE.
When Parliament met on February 1, 1816, after a recess of unusual
length, Castlereagh was received with loud acclamations from all parts
of the house as the chief actor in the pacification of Europe. There
was, of course, a full debate upon the treaties, but the opposition
dwelt less upon the arbitrary partition of Europe than upon their
alleged tendency to guarantee sovereigns against the assertion of
popular rights and upon the manifest intention of the government to
"raise the country into a military power". From this moment dates the
whig and radical watchword of "Peace, Retrenchment, and Reform". The
nation was, in fact, entering upon a period of unprecedented depression
and discontent, which lasted through the last four years of George
III.'s reign. At the close of 1815, however, the whole horizon was
apparently bright. Great Britain had saved Europe by her example, and,
however small her army in comparison with those of continental states,
she stood foremost among the powers which had crushed the rule of
Napoleon. Her national debt, it is true, had reached the prodigious
total of £861,039,049, and the interest on it amounted £32,645,618, but
the expansion of our national resources had kept pace with it. In spite
of the continental system, the orders in council, and the American war,
the imports and exports had enormously increased, chiefly by means of an
organised contraband traffic; the carrying trade of the world had passed
into the hands of British shipowners; British manufactures were largely
fostered by warlike expenditure at home and the suspension of many
industries abroad; while population, stimulated by a vicious poor law,
was rapidly on the increase. In this last element, then considered as a
sure sign of prosperity, really consisted one of the chief national
dangers.
So long as the war lasted, low as the rate of wages might be, there was
generally employment enough in the fields or in the factories for nearly
all the hands willing to labour. When the inflated war prices came to an
end, and wheat fell below 80s. or even 70s. a quarter, until it reached
52s. 6d. early in 1816, labourers were turned off and wages cut down
still further; bread was not proportionately cheapened, and agrarian
outrages sprang up. The continent, impoverished by the war, no longer
required British goods for military purposes, and, as its own domestic
industries revived, ceased to absorb British products, flung in
profusion on its markets. Hence came a reduction of 16 per cent. in the
export trade, and of nearly 20 per cent. in the import trade, which
resulted in bankruptcies and the dismissal of workpeople. If we add to
these causes of distress, the influence of over-speculation, the
accession of disbanded soldiers to the ranks of the unemployed, and the
substitution of the factory system with machinery for domestic
manufactures with hand labour, we can partly understand why Great
Britain, never harried by invading armies, should have suffered more
than France itself from popular misery and disaffection for several
years after the restoration of peace.
[Pageheading: _VANSITTART'S FINANCE._]
The history of these years is mainly a history of social unrest, and
attempts to cure social evils by legislation or coercion. Liverpool and
his colleagues, with the possible exception of Eldon, were not bigoted
tories, and it is sometimes forgotten that among them, together with
Sidmouth, Castlereagh, and Vansittart, were Canning, Palmerston, and
Peel. One of the first parliamentary struggles was on the proposal of
the government to reduce the income tax from 10 to 5 per cent., and to
apply this half of it, producing about £7,500,000, towards the expense
of maintaining an army of 150,000 men. Since the income tax has become a
favourite of democratic economists, as pressing specially upon the rich,
we may be surprised to find that its total repeal was successfully
advocated by Henry Brougham, the leading democrat of that day--a man
whose noble services to progress and to humanity in the earlier part of
his career have been obscured by the inordinate vanity and unprincipled
egotism which he displayed in the later phases of his long public life.
He had entered parliament in 1810, and rapidly became the most active of
the opposition speakers. He now employed without scruple all the arts of
agitation, petition-framing, and parliamentary obstruction to achieve
his object, and succeeded, by the aid of bankers and country-gentlemen,
in defeating the government by a majority of thirty-seven. This vote
might be justified, more or less, on the principle laid down by Pitt,
that the income tax should be held in reserve as a war tax only, or on
the ground that it was equally wasteful and mischievous to keep up so
large a peace-establishment, especially if it might be used to bolster
up despotism abroad. It was also unfortunate that Castlereagh, ignoring
the heroic efforts made by the people of England for more than twenty
years, should have deprecated "an ignorant impatience to be relieved
from the pressure of taxation". Still, it is remarkable that friends of
the people and the ultra-liberal corporation of London, as it then was,
should have concentrated their indignant protests against the financial
policy of the government, not on the corn laws, or any other indirect
tax, but on the income tax.
Public confidence in the economic wisdom of the ministers was further
weakened by the gratuitous abandonment of the malt tax, apparently in a
fit of petulance, on the ground, explicitly stated, that, if another war
tax must be raised, two or three millions more or less would make little
difference. By a temporary suspension of the sinking fund, a deficit
might be converted into a surplus; Vansittart, however, neglected to
take advantage of this simple expedient, and raised £11,500,000 by loan.
His waning reputation was almost shattered by this absurd proceeding.
Finally, the excessive and irregular expenditure upon the civil list
provoked a searching inquiry into its abuses, prefaced by a scathing
attack from Brougham upon the character of the prince regent. His
character was, in fact, indefensible, and had justly forfeited the
respect of the nation. He was a debauchee and gambler, a disobedient
son, a cruel husband, a heartless father, an ungrateful and treacherous
friend, and a burden to the ministries which had to act in his name and
palliate his misdoings. That of Liverpool carried a measure for the
better regulation of the civil list, upon which, swollen as it was by
the wrongful appropriation of other public funds, many official
salaries had been charged hitherto. For these parliament now made a
separate provision. The house of commons, which properly grudged the
prince regent the means of reckless luxury and self-indulgence, was
unanimous in voting £60,000 for outfit and £60,000 a year to the
Princess Charlotte on her marriage, on May 2, to Prince Leopold of
Saxe-Coburg, looking forward to a reign under which virtue and a sense
of public duty would again be the attributes of royalty. In this
session, too, it conferred a boon upon Ireland, which earned little
gratitude, by the consolidation of the British and Irish exchequers.
Ireland was virtually insolvent before this measure was passed. With the
union of the exchequers the union of the countries was completed. The
administration, discredited by its financial policy, was strengthened in
June by the acquisition of Canning, who succeeded Buckinghamshire as
president of the board of control. In September, 1814, Wellesley Pole, a
brother of the Marquis Wellesley and the Duke of Wellington, had been
admitted to the cabinet as master of the mint, so that with Castlereagh,
Vansittart, and Bragge-Bathurst, there were now five members of the
cabinet in the lower house.
[Pageheading: _INDUSTRIAL RIOTS._]
The disturbances which broke out again and again during the years
1816-19 were partly the outcome of sheer destitution among the working
classes, and partly of a growing demand for reform, whether
constitutional or revolutionary. The statesmen of the regency must not
be too severely judged if they often confounded these causes of
seditious movements, and failed to distinguish between the moderate and
violent sections of reformers. Those who remembered the bloodthirsty
orgies of the French revolution, ushered in by quixotic visions of
liberty, equality, and fraternity, may perhaps be excused for
distrusting the moderate professions of demagogues who deliberately
inflamed the passions of ignorant mobs. Moreover, the whigs and moderate
reformers, who privately condemned the excesses of their violent
followers, made light of these in their public utterances, and reserved
all their censures for the repressive policy of the government. Bread
riots had begun before the harvest, which proved a total failure. The
price of wheat, which was as low as 52s. 6d. a quarter in January, 1816,
rose to 103s. 1d. in January, 1817, and to 111s. 6d. in June, 1817. And
when rickburning set in as a consequence of agricultural depression,
tumultuary processions as a consequence of enforced idleness in the coal
districts, and a revival of Luddism as a consequence of stagnation in
the various textile industries, itself due to a glut of British goods on
the continent, the reform party, now raising its head, was held
responsible by the government for a great part of these disorders.[64]
The writings of Cobbett, especially his _Weekly Register_, certainly had
a wide influence in stirring up discontent against existing
institutions, but it must be admitted that he condemned the use of
physical force, and pointed to parliamentary reform as the legitimate
cure for all social evils. Reform, however, in Cobbett's meaning
included universal suffrage with annual parliaments, and the Hampden
clubs, all over the country, agitated for the same objects in less
guarded language. Still, looking back at these democratic agencies by
the light of later experience, we can hardly adopt the opinion expressed
by a secret committee of the house of commons that their avowed objects
were "nothing short of a revolution".
It was on December 2, 1816, that the extreme section of reformers, now
for the first time known as radicals, in alliance with a body of
socialists called Spenceans, first came into open collision with the
forces of the law. A meeting was announced to be held on that day in Spa
Fields, Bermondsey, and was to be addressed by "Orator" Hunt, Major
Cartwright, the two Watsons, and other demagogues. Hunt was a gentleman
of Somerset, and had stood for Bristol in 1812. Though a prominent
speaker, he in no sense directed the movement. Burdett and Cochrane, the
orthodox leaders of London reformers, were not concerned in this
demonstration, which, according to an informer who gave evidence, was to
be the signal for an attack upon the Tower and other acts of atrocity.
As it was, before Hunt chose to appear, the mob, headed by the younger
Watson, broke into gunsmiths' shops, not without bloodshed, and marched
through the Royal Exchange, but were courageously met by the lord mayor,
with a few assistants, and very soon dispersed. The alarm produced in
the whole nation by this riotous fiasco was quite out of proportion to
its real importance, and was reawakened by an insult offered to the
prince regent on his return from opening parliament on January 28, 1817.
Even Canning, a life-long opponent of reform, did not scruple to magnify
these and similar evidences of popular restlessness into proofs of a
deep-laid plot against the constitution, and committees of both houses
urged the necessity of drastic measures to put down a conspiracy against
public order and private property. These measures took the form of bills
for the suppression of seditious meetings, and for the suspension until
July 1 of the _habeas corpus_ act, which had been uninterruptedly in
force since its suspension by Pitt had expired in 1801. This last bill
was passed on March 3, and, before the other became law, the so-called
march of the Blanketeers took place at Manchester. The march was the
ridiculous sequel of a very large meeting got up for the purpose of
carrying a petition to London, and presenting it to the prince regent in
person. The meeting was dispersed by the soldiers and police, after the
riot act had been read, and a straggling crowd of some three hundred who
began their pilgrimage, carrying blankets or overcoats, melted away by
degrees before they had got far southward.
[Pageheading: _SIDMOUTH'S UNPOPULARITY._]
A far more serious outbreak at Manchester seems to have been clumsily
planned soon afterwards, but it ended in nothing, and the enemies of the
government freely attributed this and other projects of mob violence to
the instigation of an _agent-provocateur_, well known as "Oliver the
Spy". This man was also credited with the authorship of "the Derbyshire
insurrection," for which three men were executed and many others
transported. Here there can be no doubt that a formidable gang, armed
with pikes, terrorised a large district, pressing operatives to join
them in overt defiance of the law, and killing one who held back. Being
confronted by a Nottinghamshire magistrate named Rolleston, with a small
body of soldiers, they fled across the fields, and the bubble of
rebellion burst at a touch. Whether they were legally guilty of high
treason, for which they were unwisely tried, may perhaps be doubted, but
it would certainly be no palliation of their crime if it could be shown,
as it never was shown, that Oliver had led them to rely on a jacobin
revolution in London. What does appear very clearly is that Sidmouth
was greatly alarmed by the reports of his agents on the disturbed state
of the country, but that he was highly conscientious in his instructions
and in the use of his own powers. The great majority of those imprisoned
for political offences at this time were liberated or acquitted, but the
suspension of the _habeas corpus_ act was renewed at the beginning of
July.
Moreover, a circular was addressed by Sidmouth to the lords-lieutenant
of counties, for the information of the magistrates, intimating that, in
the opinion of the law officers, persons charged on oath with seditious
libel might be apprehended and held to bail. No act of Sidmouth called
forth such an outburst of reprobation as this; yet it is not
self-evident that instigations to outrage, being criminal offences,
should be treated by magistrates differently from other offences for
which bail may be required, with the alternative of imprisonment. On the
other hand, it is hardly becoming for a home secretary to interpret the
law, and, since the forensic triumphs of Erskine, it had been declared
by an act of parliament that in cases of libel, as distinct from all
other criminal trials, both the law and the fact were within the
province of the jury. At all events, William Cobbett, feeling himself to
be at the mercy of informers and the crown, took refuge in America in
December, 1817. Hone, an antiquarian bookseller, was thrice prosecuted
for blasphemous libels, in which the ministers had been held up to
contempt. All these ill-judged, if not vindictive, prosecutions ended in
signal failure. Ellenborough, the chief justice, before whom the two
last trials were held, strained his judicial authority to procure a
conviction of Hone, but the prisoner, with a spirit worthy of a martyr,
defied the intimidation of the court, and thrice carried the sympathies
of the jury with him. His triple acquittal led to Ellenborough's
resignation, and perceptibly shook the prestige of the government.
In the year 1818 there was a temporary improvement in the economic
condition of the country. The depression of the preceding year was
followed in this year by a rapid increase of revenue. The importance the
ministry attached to finance was emphasised by the admission to the
cabinet in January of Frederick John Robinson, afterwards prime minister
as Lord Goderich, who had been appointed president of the board of
trade and treasurer of the navy. The chancellor of the exchequer and the
master of the mint were already members of the cabinet. The suspension
of the _habeas corpus_ act having expired, the reform agitation revived,
but assumed a less dangerous character, and no serious outbreak
occurred. A bill of indemnity was passed to cover any excesses of
jurisdiction in arresting suspected persons or in suppressing tumultuous
assemblies. A parliamentary inquiry showed both that the disorders of
the previous year had been exaggerated, and that, after all, the
extraordinary powers of the home office had been used with moderation.
Nevertheless, the early part of the session was largely occupied by
party debates on these questions, the employment of spies, and
apprehensions for libel. Parliament was dissolved in June, and the
general election which followed resulted in a gain of several seats to
the opposition.[65] The ministry was strengthened in January, 1819, by
the appointment of Wellington to be master-general of the ordnance, in
succession to Mulgrave, who remained in the cabinet without office.
[Pageheading: _THE "MANCHESTER MASSACRE"._]
Before the end of the year 1818, a strike of Manchester cotton-spinners
was attended by the usual incidents of brutal violence towards workmen
who refused to join in it, but a few shots from the soldiers, one of
which killed a rioter, proved effectual in quelling lawlessness.
Manchester, however, remained the centre of agitation, and during the
summer of 1819 a series of reform meetings held in other great towns
culminated in a monster meeting originally convened for August 9, but
postponed until the 16th. The history of this meeting ending in the
so-called "Manchester" or "Peterloo massacre," has been strongly
coloured by party spirit and sympathy with the victims of reckless
demagogy no less than of blundering officialism. It is certain that
drilling had been going on for some time among the multitudes invited to
attend the meeting of the 9th; that its avowed object was to choose a
"legislatorial representative," as Birmingham had already done, and
that, on its being declared illegal by the municipal authorities, who
declined to summon it on their own initiative, its organisers
deliberately resolved to hold it a week later, whether it were legal or
not.
The contingents, which poured in by thousands from neighbouring towns,
seem to have carried no arms but sticks, and to have conducted
themselves peaceably when they arrived at St. Peter's Fields, where
Orator Hunt, puffed up with silly vanity, was voted into the chair on a
hustings. Unfortunately, instead of attempting to prevent the meeting,
the county magistrates decided to let the great masses of people
assemble, and then to arrest the leaders in the midst of them. They had
at their disposal several companies of infantry, six troops of the 15th
hussars, and a body of yeomanry, besides special constables. The chief
constable, being ordered to arrest Hunt and his colleagues, declared
that he could not do so without military aid, whereupon a small force of
yeomanry advanced but soon became wedged up and enclosed by the densely
packed crowd. One of the magistrates, fancying the yeomanry to be in
imminent danger, of which there is no proof, called upon Colonel
L'Estrange, who was in command of the soldiers, to rescue them and
disperse the mob. Four troops of the hussars then made a dashing charge,
supported by a few of the yeomanry; the people fled in wild confusion
before them; some were cut down, more were trampled down, and an
eye-witness describes "several mounds of human beings" as lying where
they had fallen. Happily, the actual loss of life did not exceed five or
six, but a much larger number was more or less wounded, the real havoc
and bloodshed were inevitably exaggerated by rumour, and a bitter sense
of resentment was implanted in the breasts of myriads, innocent of the
slightest complicity with sedition, but impatient of oligarchical rule,
and disgusted with so ruthless an interference with the right of public
meeting.
It would have been wise if Sidmouth and his colleagues had recognised
this widespread feeling, had seen that famine and despair were at the
bottom of popular discontent, and had admitted error of judgment, at
least, on the part of the Lancashire magistrates. On the contrary, they
felt it so necessary to support civil and military authority, at all
hazards, that they induced the prince regent to express unqualified
approbation of the course taken, and afterwards defended it without
reserve in parliament. Even Eldon expressed his opinion privately that
it would be hard to justify it, unless the assembly amounted to an act
of treason, as he regarded it; whereas Hunt and his associates were
prosecuted (and convicted in the next year) not for treason, but only
for a misdemeanour. At all events, the storm of indignation excited by
this sad event, and not confined to the working classes, powerfully
fomented the reform movement. Large meetings were held over all the
manufacturing districts, and a requisition to summon a great Yorkshire
meeting was signed by Fitzwilliam, the lord-lieutenant, who attended it
in person. For these acts he was properly dismissed, but, in spite of
inflammatory speeches, nearly all the meetings passed off quietly and
without interference. Nevertheless, the government thought it necessary
to hold an autumn session, and strengthen the hands of the executive by
fresh measures of repression. These having been passed in December after
strenuous opposition, were afterwards known as the six acts, and
regarded as the climax of Sidmouth's despotic _régime_.
Two of the six acts, directed against the possession of arms and
military training for unlawful purposes, cannot be considered oppressive
under the circumstances then prevailing. Nor can exception be taken on
the ground of principle to another for "preventing delay in the
administration of justice in cases of misdemeanour," which, indeed, was
amended, by Holland, with Eldon's consent, so as to benefit defendants
in state prosecutions. Two were designed to curb still further the
liberty of the press. One of these made the publication of seditious
libels an offence punishable with banishment, and authorised the seizure
of all unsold copies. When we consider the extreme virulence of
seditious libels in those days, this act does not wear so monstrous an
aspect as its radical opponents alleged, but happily it soon became a
dead letter, and was repealed in 1830. The other, imposing a stamp-duty
on small pamphlets, only placed them on the same footing with
newspapers. The last of the new measures--"to prevent more effectually
seditious meetings and assemblies"--was practically aimed against all
large meetings, unless called by the highest authorities in counties and
corporate towns, or, at least, five justices of the peace. It was,
therefore, a grave encroachment on the right of public meeting, and the
only excuse for it was that it was passed under the fear of a
revolutionary movement, and limited in duration to a period of five
years.
[Pageheading: _SOCIAL LEGISLATION._]
Nor can it be denied that, as a whole, this restrictive code was
successful. From a modern point of view it may appear less arbitrary
than the suspension of the _habeas corpus_ act for a whole year
(1817-18), but it was assuredly tainted with a reactionary spirit, and
was capable of being worked in a way inconsistent with civil liberty.
That it was not so worked, on the whole, and caused less hardship than
had been anticipated, was not so much the result of changes in the
government itself, as of economic progress in the nation, aided by a
healthier growth of public opinion. The violence which marked the early
stages of the reform movement has been described as a safety-valve
against anarchy; it was, in reality, the chief obstacle to a sound and
comprehensive reform bill. While it lasted, the middle classes and
liberals of moderate views were estranged from the cause; when it
ceased, the demand for a new representative system became irresistible.
Whatever allowance may be made for the coercive policy of the government
during the dark period of storm and stress which succeeded the great
war, it is hard to find any excuse for its neglect of social
legislation. Then, if ever, was a time when the work of Pitt's best days
should have been resumed, when real popular grievances should have been
redressed, and when the long arrears of progressive reform should have
been gradually redeemed. Yet very little was done to better the lot of
men, women, and children in Great Britain, and that little was chiefly
initiated by individuals. In 1816, on the motion of a private member, an
inquiry was commenced into the state of the metropolitan police, which
disclosed most scandalous abuses, such as the habitual association of
thieves and thief-takers, encouraged by the grants of blood-money which
had been continued since the days of Jonathan Wild. In 1817 a committee
sanctioned by the ministers recommended a measure for the gradual
abolition of sinecures, which then figured prominently in the domestic
charter of reform. Their recommendations were adopted, and a large
number of sinecure offices were swept away. But inasmuch as sinecures
had been largely given to persons who had held public offices of
business, it was thought necessary to institute pensions to an amount
not exceeding one-half of the reduction. In 1816 a private member, named
Curwen, brought forward a fanciful scheme of his own for the amendment
of the poor laws, which in effect anticipated modern projects of old
age pensions. He obtained the appointment of a select committee, which
reported in 1817, but their proposals were thoroughly inadequate, and no
sensible improvement came of them.
It was also in 1816 that the cause of national education, the importance
of which had been vainly urged by Whitbread, was taken up in earnest by
Brougham. His motion for the appointment of a select committee was
confined to the schools of the metropolis. It sat at intervals until
1818, when its powers were enlarged, and its labours somewhat diverted
into a searching exposure of mismanagement in endowed charities. The one
direct fruit of the committee was the creation of the charity
commission, but in the opinion of Brougham himself it was of the highest
value in opening the whole education question. The almost universal
prevalence of distress in 1817, and the excessive burden thrown upon
poor rates, induced parliament to authorise an expenditure of £750,000
in Great Britain and Ireland for the employment of the labouring poor on
public works. A far sounder and more fruitful measure of relief owes its
origin to the same year. It was now that the institution of savings
banks, hitherto promoted only by single philanthropists, emerged from
the experimental stage and claimed the attention of parliament. A bill
for their regulation, introduced by Pitt's friend, George Rose, did not
pass into an act; but the establishment of savings banks was now
directly encouraged by the legislature, and there were thoughtful men
who already dimly foresaw the manifold benefits of their future
development.
[Pageheading: _THE CURRENCY QUESTION._]
In the year 1819 was initiated a very important reform in the currency,
which had long been delayed. When the bullion committee reported in
1810, Bank of England notes were at a discount of about 13½ per cent.
There were several reasons why this should be the case. Continental
trade was then compelled to pass through British ports, and a large
supply of gold was needed to serve as the medium of this trade. There
was also a steady drain of gold to the Spanish peninsula to meet war
expenses, while troubles in South America diminished the annual output
of the precious metals. In 1811 Bank of England notes were made legal
tender, but no further action was then taken, and the depreciation
continued until 1814. The magnificent harvest of 1813, together with
other causes, brought about a sudden fall of prices, in consequence of
which no less than 240 country banks stopped payment in the years
1814-16. The decrease and popular distrust of private banknotes produced
an increased demand for Bank of England notes, which in 1817 had nearly
risen in value to a par with gold. In 1819, when they were at a discount
of only 4½ per cent., a committee was appointed by the house of
commons to reconsider the policy of resuming cash payments, and Peel,
young as he was, became its chairman. In this character he abandoned his
preconceived views and induced the house to adopt those which had been
advocated by Horner. It was not thought prudent to fix an earlier date
than 1823 for the actual resumption of cash payments, but the directors
of the Bank of England anticipated this date, and began to exchange
notes for specie on May 1, 1821. The new standard was definitely one of
gold. A considerable fall of prices ensued, and it is still a disputed
question whether the return to a single standard was entirely
beneficial.
But for what is called the public, the readers of newspapers and the
frequenters of clubs or taverns, the rivalry of party leaders or the
incidents of court life excite a much keener interest than painful
efforts for the good of the humbler classes. During the closing years of
George III.'s reign there were no party conflicts of special intensity.
The whigs acquiesced in their self-imposed exclusion from office, and
contented themselves with damaging criticism; the radicals had not yet
acquired the confidence or respect of the electors. Liverpool remained
prime minister; Castlereagh, foreign secretary; Sidmouth, home
secretary; Vansittart, chancellor of the exchequer. Meanwhile there were
startling vicissitudes in the fortunes of the royal family. The king,
indeed, remained under the cloud of mental derangement which darkened
the last ten years of his life, and the Princess of Wales, who had been
the object of so much scandal, was now out of sight and residing abroad.
The Princess Charlotte, however, the only daughter of the regent, had
centred in herself the loyalty and hopes of the nation in a remarkable
degree, and was credited, not unjustly, with private virtues and public
sympathies contrasting strongly with the disposition of her father. Her
marriage with Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg, who bore a high character,
had been hailed with national enthusiasm, for it was known that, like
Queen Victoria, she had been carefully trained and had disciplined
herself, physically and morally, for the duties of a throne. It has been
truly said that her death in childbirth, on November 6, was the great
historical event of 1817. The prince regent, with his constitution
weakened by dissipation, was not expected to survive her long, and so
long as his wife lived there was no prospect of other legitimate issue,
unless he could procure a divorce. There was no grandchild of George
III. who could lawfully inherit the crown, and the apprehension of a
collateral succession became more and more generally felt.[66]
In the following year four royal marriages were announced. The Princess
Elizabeth espoused the Landgrave of Hesse-Homburg; the Duke of Clarence,
the Princess Adelaide of Saxe-Meiningen; the Duke of Cambridge, the
Princess Augusta of Hesse; the Duke of Kent, the Princess Victoria Mary
of Saxe-Coburg. The Duke of Sussex was already married, but not with the
necessary consent of the crown, and the Duke of Cumberland was
childless, having married three years earlier a divorced widow whom the
queen, for private reasons, declined to receive. It is a striking proof
of the discredit into which the royal family had fallen, since the old
king virtually ceased to reign, that parliament, in spite of its
anxiety about the succession, displayed an almost niggardly parsimony
when it was moved to increase the allowances of the princes about to
marry. No application was made on behalf of the Princess Elizabeth or
the Duke of Sussex, who was already married morganatically. The
additional grant of £6,000 a year asked on behalf of the Duke of
Cumberland was refused by a small majority, partly, no doubt, because
his anti-liberal opinions and untrustworthy character were no secret to
public men. £10,000 a year was asked for the Duke of Clarence, and
justified by Canning as less than he might fairly have claimed, but it
was reduced to £6,000 and declined by the duke as inadequate; he
afterwards married without a parliamentary grant. The provision of
£6,000 a year for the Dukes of Cambridge and Kent respectively was
stoutly opposed but ultimately carried. Of all George III.'s sons, the
Duke of Kent was perhaps the most respected. It has been truly said that
if the nation could have expressed its dearest wish, in the spirit of
prophecy, after the death of the Princess Charlotte, it would have been
that the issue of the Duke of Kent's marriage with Prince Leopold's
sister might succeed, as Queen Victoria, to the crown of her
grandfather.[67]
[Pageheading: _THE DEATH OF GEORGE III._]
On November 17, 1818, Queen Charlotte died, having filled her great and
most difficult position for nearly sixty years with sound judgment,
exemplary moral integrity, and a certain homely dignity. The Duke of
York succeeded her as guardian of the king's person. Little more than a
year later she was followed to the grave by the Duke of Kent, who died
on January 23, 1820, and by the king himself, who died on January 29, in
the eighty-second year of his age. He was not a great sovereign, but, as
a man, he was far superior to his two predecessors, and must ever stand
high, if not highest, in the gallery of our kings. His venerable figure,
though shrouded from view, was a chief mainstay of the monarchy. Narrow
as his views were, and obstinately as he adhered to them, he was not
incapable of changing them, and could show generosity towards enemies,
as he ever showed fidelity to friends. His reception of Franklin after
the American war, and of Fox after the death of Pitt, was that of a
king who understood his kingly office; and his strict devotion to
business, regardless of his own pleasure, could not have been exceeded
by a merchant engrossed in lucrative trade. The many pithy and racy
sayings recorded of him show an insight into men's characters and the
realities of life not unworthy of Dr. Johnson. His simplicity,
kindliness, and charity endeared him to his subjects. His undaunted
courage and readiness to undertake sole responsibility, not only during
the panics of the Gordon riots and of the impending French invasion, but
in many a political crisis, compelled the respect of all his ministers,
and his disappearance from the scenes, to make way for the regency of
his eldest son, was almost as disastrous for English society as the
exchange, in France, of Louis XIV.'s decorous rule for that of the
Regent Orléans.
The European concert which had been called into existence by the war
against Napoleon, and had effected a continental settlement at Vienna,
continued to act for the maintenance of peace. The treaty of alliance of
1815 only bound the four powers to common action in the event of a fresh
revolution in France which might endanger the tranquillity of other
states. The holy alliance was more comprehensive and wider in its aims,
but was too vague to form the practical basis of a federation. The
settlement of Europe by the treaty of Vienna was, however, the work of
all the powers, and they had therefore an interest in everything that
might be likely to affect that settlement. The habit of concerted
action, once formed, was not lightly abandoned, and the succeeding age
was an age of congresses. But though there was a general sentiment in
favour of concerted action it manifested itself in different ways. The
causes of the recent struggle with France had been political in their
origin, and it was agreed that a recurrence of disorder from France
could be best prevented by the establishment of a government in that
country which should be at once constitutional and legitimist. England
favoured, and Russia, the most autocratic of states, favoured still more
vehemently, the development of constitutions wherever it might be
practicable, while Austria, being composed of territories with no
national cohesion, endeavoured rather to thwart the growth of
constitutions. But Russia was also the most active advocate of joint
interference where a constitutional reform was effected by
unconstitutional means. Great Britain and Austria, on the other hand,
with a juster instinct, considered armed interference an extreme remedy
which might often be worse than the disease of a revolution.
[Pageheading: _ROYALIST REACTION IN EUROPE._]
The numerous restorations of 1814 and 1815 were followed by a royalist
and aristocratic reaction in many countries of Europe. In France Louis
XVIII. found himself confronted by an ultra-royalist chamber of deputies
which clamoured for vengeance on the partisans of the republican and
imperial _régimes_ and for the restoration of the privileges and estates
of the Church. Ferdinand VII. of Spain swept away the unwieldy
constitution of 1812 amid the rejoicings of his people, who little
foresaw his future tyranny; and Great Britain did not venture to resist
the action of Ferdinand of the Two Sicilies in abolishing a constitution
which British influence had induced him to grant his island kingdom in
1813. In Prussia the government dealt sternly with the liberal press,
and the provincial estates opposed the institution of a national diet;
while in Würtemberg a parliament assembled under a liberal constitution
demanded the restoration of the ancient privileges of the nobility and
clergy. In the Two Sicilies British influence, supported by that of
Austria, was used to prevent outrages on the defeated party; in Spain
the moderate counsels of Great Britain were less successful. Austria
endeavoured to prevent future disturbance in the Italian peninsula by a
secret treaty, which obtained the sanction of the British government,
requiring the Two Sicilies to adopt no constitutional changes
inconsistent with the principles adopted by Austria in the
Lombardo-Venetian kingdom. Similar treaties were concluded by Austria
with Tuscany, Modena, and Parma, and she thus gained an ascendency in
Italy, from which only Sardinia and the papal states were exempt.
Russian agents meanwhile began to conduct a liberal propaganda in Spain
and Italy, and Russia was even credited with a desire to make a
liberalised Spain a counterpoise to England on the sea.
For a time, however, there were no European complications of a
formidable nature. In 1816 a British squadron was sent out under Lord
Exmouth lo execute the decree of the congress of Vienna against the
Barbary states. The Dey of Algiers and the Beys of Tunis and Tripoli
were called upon to recognise the Ionian Islands as British, to accept
British mediation between them and the courts of the Two Sicilies and
Sardinia, to restore their Christian captives, and not to authorise
further piracy. These terms were accepted by the Beys of Tunis and
Tripoli, and the two first demands were granted by the Dey of Algiers.
He was allowed a delay of three months in order to obtain the sultan's
permission for granting the remainder, but in the interval a massacre of
Italian fishermen took place at Bona. Lord Exmouth now sailed from
Gibraltar to attack Algiers. On his demands being again ignored, he
bombarded that city on August 27 for more than six hours. The arsenal
and storehouses and all the ships in the port were burned, and on the
next day the dey accepted Exmouth's terms; peace was signed on the 30th,
the principal terms being the abolition of Christian slavery, and the
delivery of all slaves to Exmouth on the following day.
The treaty of Vienna in placing the Ionian Islands under British
protection had made no mention of the towns of Parga and Butrinto on the
mainland of Epirus which had passed under British rule along with the
islands. These places were now surrendered to Turkey in accordance with
a former treaty, in return for the Turkish recognition of the British
protectorate over the islands. The inhabitants of Parga were, however,
vehemently opposed to such a transference of their allegiance, and they
were conveyed to the Ionian Islands and compensated for the loss of
their property. The Turks entered into occupation of Parga in 1819. In
1817 and 1818 wild rumours of Russian aggression in the direction of the
Mediterranean began to circulate in England. It was reported that Spain
had promised to cede Port Mahon to Russia; and that Russia was preparing
a great military force, to be employed, if necessary, in alliance with
the Bourbon states, France, Spain, and the Two Sicilies, to counteract
British and Austrian influence. This influence, with that of Prussia,
had really been employed to keep the Dardanelles closed against Russian
ships. Meanwhile Austria had won over Prussia to her conservative policy
in Germany.
The violent language of the liberal party, especially at the
universities, already began to terrify the Prussian government. The
first danger signal was given at the Wartburg festival of delegates from
the German universities in 1817, at which the students indulged in some
boyish manifestations of their sympathies; their proceedings made some
stir in Germany, and Metternich declared that they were revolutionary.
The horror of liberalism was destined to be heightened in 1819 by the
murder of the tsar's agent, the dramatist Kotzebue, by a lunatic member
of a political society at Giessen. Its immediate result was a conference
of German ministers at Carlsbad, where several resolutions for the
suppression of political agitation were passed, and afterwards adopted
by the diet at Frankfort. This policy was embodied in the "final act" of
a similar conference held at Vienna in the following year (1820), which
empowered the greater states of Germany to aid the smaller in checking
revolutionary movements. At the same time it reaffirmed the general
principle of non-intervention, and even laid down the pregnant doctrine
that constitutions could not be legitimately altered except by
constitutional means. The union of Austria and Prussia on the
conservative side had rather the effect of throwing the secondary states
of southern Germany upon the liberal side. In the spring and summer of
1818 Bavaria and Baden framed constitutions, and in 1819 Würtemberg once
more essayed parliamentary government, which the reactionary policy of
her first parliament had compelled her to abandon. The significant fact
in European politics was that Frederick William III. of Prussia, always
accustomed to being led, had passed from the influence of Russia to that
of Austria.
[Pageheading: _THE CONFERENCE OF AIX-LA-CHAPELLE._]
Such were the general tendencies of European politics when the
conference of Aix-la-Chapelle assembled on September 30, 1818. The
primary object of this conference was to consider the request of France
for a reduction in the indemnity demanded of her and for the evacuation
of her territories by the four allied powers. Wellington and
Castlereagh, who represented Great Britain, earned the gratitude of
France by readily agreeing to these requests, which were granted without
any difficulty. This question was obviously one which required such a
conference to settle it; but the conference, having once assembled, was
urged to deal with other difficulties that less directly concerned it.
One of these was a dispute between Denmark and Sweden about the
apportionment of the Danish debt, which, in consideration of the
annexation of Norway to Sweden, under the treaty of Kiel, was to be
partly borne by Sweden. Denmark appealed to the four powers,
representing that treaty as in fact a part of their own settlement of
Europe. Sweden would not admit the right of the powers to intervene, but
finally settled her difficulty with Denmark by a separate negotiation
conducted by the mediation of Great Britain in 1819.
A still more doubtful question was raised by the request of Spain for
the assistance of the allied powers against her revolted colonies. The
Spanish dependencies in America had declined to acknowledge Joseph
Bonaparte, and had lapsed into a state of chaos; the restoration of
Ferdinand VII. had induced most of them to return to their allegiance,
but the three south-eastern colonies, Banda Oriental (Uruguay), La Plata
(the Argentine), and Paraguay, continued in revolt. In 1817 fortune
turned still further against Spain; Monte Video, the capital of Banda
Oriental, was taken by Portugal, or rather by Brazil, and Chile revolted
against Spain. On February 12, 1818, Chile proclaimed her independence,
and she began at once to procure warships in England and the United
States, of which Lord Cochrane took command. The four allied powers and
France had protested against the seizure of Monte Video, but otherwise
Spain had been left to herself. Great Britain seemed to have more to
gain than to lose by the insurrection. The revolted colonies were open
to her commerce, and by weakening Spain they had strengthened the
maritime supremacy of Great Britain. Nevertheless Great Britain was
willing to mediate, on condition that Spain would make reasonable
concessions. Spain, however, refused to make any concessions at all, and
called on the allied powers to aid her in crushing the insurrection by
force. Great Britain did not regard an unconditional subjection of the
colonies as either expedient or practicable, and opposed this course;
Austria took the same view, and thus placed intervention out of the
question.
[Pageheading: _THE EUROPEAN ALLIANCE._]
But the principal question before the conference of Aix-la-Chapelle was
not one relating to any particular difficulty, but the permanent form of
the European alliance. The tsar desired a general confederacy of
European powers, such as had signed the treaty of Vienna and the holy
alliance. This confederacy was to guard against two evils--that of
revolutionary agitation and that of arbitrary administration and
sectional alliances. Such a project, though doubtless proposed in good
faith, practically gave Russia an interest in the domestic movements,
both reactionary and constitutional, of every country, while it forbade
any political combination to which Russia was not a party. Castlereagh
agreed with Metternich in thinking that such an extension of Russian
Influence was more to be dreaded than local disorder, and Great Britain
and Austria proposed therefore that the alliance should be based on the
treaty of Chaumont, as renewed at Vienna and Paris, though they were
willing to have friendly discussions from time to time without extending
the scope of the alliance. All parties desired to include France in
their alliance, but the tsar pertinently objected that France could not
be admitted to an alliance aimed solely against France. A compromise was
therefore adopted. The quadruple alliance for war, in case of a
revolution in France, was secretly renewed, and centres for mobilisation
were fixed, while France was publicly invited to join the deliberations
of the allied powers. A secret protocol was then signed providing for
the meeting of congresses from time to time, and giving the minor
European powers a place in these congresses when their affairs should be
under discussion.
FOOTNOTES:
[64] For details of the riots see _Annual Register_, lviii. (1816),
60-73. They were particularly numerous in May, 1816, and in the counties
of Cambridge, Essex, and Suffolk. At Littleport in Cambridgeshire, on
May 24, it was found necessary to fire on the rioters. Two men were
killed and five were afterwards executed.
[65] Greville, _Memoirs_, i., 2; Walpole, _History of England_, i., 392,
393.
[66] The curious may be interested in the following list of the names
and ages of the persons who stood next in order of succession to the
crown after the death of Princess Charlotte. It will be observed that of
the fourteen who stood nearest the throne, not one was under forty years
of age, and not one had a legitimate child:--
Age. Relation to king.
1. George, Prince Regent 55 Son.
2. Frederick, Duke of York 54 Son.
3. William, Duke of Clarence 52 Son.
4. Edward, Duke of Kent 50 Son.
5. Ernest, Duke of Cumberland 46 Son.
6. Augustus, Duke of Sussex 44 Son.
7. Adolphus, Duke of Cambridge 43 Son.
8. Charlotte, Queen-Dowager of Würtemberg 51 Daughter.
9. Princess Augusta 48 Daughter.
10. Princess Elizabeth 47 Daughter.
11. Mary, Duchess of Gloucester 41 Daughter,
12. Princess Sophia 40 Daughter.
13. William, Duke of Gloucester 41 Nephew.
14. Princess Sophia of Gloucester 44 Niece.
15. Charles, Duke of Brunswick 13 Great nephew.
[67] See, however, the _Creevey Papers_, i., 268-71, 284.
CHAPTER IX.
THE LAST YEARS OF LORD LIVERPOOL.
The only important events of domestic interest in the year 1820, after
the death of George III., were the Cato Street conspiracy, and the
so-called trial of Queen Caroline. For the accession of the king, who
had so long exercised royal functions as regent, produced no visible
effect either on the personal composition or on the general policy of
the government. Immediately after his proclamation he was attacked by a
dangerous illness, but on his recovery he promptly raised two questions
which nearly involved a change of ministry. One of these was a proposal
to increase his private revenue, which he was induced to abandon for the
present. The other was a demand for a divorce, which the ministers
firmly resisted, though they ultimately agreed to a compromise, under
which the divorce question was to be deferred, so long as the queen
remained quietly abroad, but action was to be taken in case she returned
to assert her rights.
[Pageheading: _THE CATO STREET CONSPIRACY._]
In the midst of these difficulties the lives of the ministers were
threatened by a plot somewhat like those of the seventeenth century.
Later writers have represented it as contemptible in its conception, and
as directly provoked by the "Manchester massacre". So it may be said
that Guy Fawkes was an insignificant person, and that his employers were
exasperated by the severe treatment of popish recusants. The facts are
that Arthur Thistlewood, the author of the Cato Street conspiracy, was a
well-known confederate of the Watsons and other members of the extreme
reform party, and that his plan for murdering the assembled cabinet in a
private house would probably have been effectual, had it not been
detected by the aid of an informer. This informer, Edwards, had warned
the authorities in November, 1819, of the impending stroke, and may or
may not have instigated Thistlewood's gang to execute it at a moment and
place well-calculated to secure their arrest. At all events twenty-four
conspirators armed themselves in Cato Street, near the Edgware Road,
London, for the purpose of assassinating the ministers at a cabinet
dinner in Harrowby's house in Grosvenor Square, and some of their
associates were posted near the door of that house to summon them when
the guests should have assembled. Harrowby's dinner was of course put
off, but the watchers were deceived by the arrival of carriages for a
dinner party next door, and failed to apprise the gang in Cato Street.
The police rushed in upon the gang, but a body of soldiers ordered to
support them reached the spot too late, a policeman was stabbed, and
Thistlewood, with twelve or fourteen others, contrived to escape. He was
captured the next morning, and executed with four of his accomplices,
five more were transported for life, and the atrocity of the enterprise
was naturally treated in the king's speech as a justification for the
repressive measures in operation. In the following April a petty
outbreak in Scotland was easily put down by a few troops at a place
called Bonnymuir. It was, however, preceded by a treasonable
proclamation, which spread terror among the citizens of Glasgow for
several hours, and was sufficiently like an attempt at armed rebellion
to confirm the alarm excited by the Cato Street conspiracy. In the face
of such warnings, the energy of the government in stamping out disorder
could hardly be censured.
The last parliament of George III. was prorogued on February 28, 1820,
and dissolved on the following day. One of its last debates was on Lord
John Russell's proposal to suspend the issue of writs to the boroughs of
Grampound, Penryn, Barnstaple, and Camelford. This was carried in the
house of commons, but lost in the house of lords. The new parliament was
opened by George IV. in person on April 21. Widespread excitement
occasioned by the question of the divorce prevented the business of the
first session from attracting much attention. A deficit in the revenue,
coinciding with growing expenditure, compelled Vansittart to fall back
on a fresh manipulation of the sinking fund. One measure, however, of
the highest importance was introduced by Brougham. The committee of 1814
on national education had amassed a great body of valuable evidence,
and he now founded upon its report a comprehensive bill extending to the
whole country. It placed the management and teaching of elementary
schools entirely in the hands of Churchmen, and was dropped after the
first reading, but the conscience of the nation was roused by it, and it
bore fruit later. Further slight mitigations of the criminal law were
carried as a result of attacks made by Sir James Mackintosh, upon whom
the mantle of Romilly had fallen, and it is worthy of notice that even
Eldon, the stout opponent of such mitigations, condemned the use of
spring-guns, as a safeguard against poaching. The only ministerial
change in this year was the final retirement in May of Lord Mulgrave,
who had held high office in every ministry except that of Grenville
since 1804, and had voluntarily surrendered his post at the head of the
ordnance in 1818 to make room for Wellington.
[Pageheading: _QUEEN CAROLINE._]
The "queen's trial," as it is erroneously called, was the last act but
one in a domestic tragedy which had lasted twenty-five years. The
Princess Caroline of Brunswick was a frivolous and ill-disciplined young
woman when she was selected by George III. as a wife for the
heir-apparent, already united and really attached to Mrs. Fitzherbert.
The princess could not have been married to a man less capable of
drawing out the better side of her character, nor was she one to inspire
his selfish and heartless nature with a sentiment, if not of conjugal
love, yet of conjugal friendship. From the first there was no pretence
of affection between them. A few years after her marriage she was
relegated, not unwillingly, to live independently at Blackheath, where
many eminent men accepted her hospitality. During this period, as we
have seen, a "delicate investigation" into her conduct was instituted in
1806. Though she emerged from it with less stain on her character than
had been expected, she never enjoyed the respect of the royal family or
of the nation, and there was no question of her sharing the home of her
husband. Instead of being a bond of concord between them, the education
of her daughter was the subject of constant discord, requiring the
frequent intervention of the old king until he lost his reason. After
she went abroad in 1814, she travelled widely, but her English
attendants soon retired from her service, and she incurred fresh
suspicion by her flighty and undignified conduct. She had no part in the
rejoicing for the marriage, or in the mourning for the death, of the
Princess Charlotte; and in 1818 a secret commission, afterwards known as
the Milan commission, was sent out by the prince regent to collect
evidence for a divorce suit. Not only Liverpool, but Eldon, who had
formerly stood her friend, concurred in the appointment of this
commission, promoted by Sir John Leach, and its report was the
foundation of the proceedings now taken against her.
These proceedings were immediately due to her own action in returning to
England in June, 1820, but this action was not wholly unprovoked. She
had long and bitterly resented her official exclusion from foreign
courts, and when, after the king's accession, her name was omitted from
the prayer-book, she protested against it as an intolerable insult.
Contrary to the advice of her wisest partisans, including Brougham, she
persisted in braving the wrath of the king and throwing herself upon the
people. She was received at Dover with acclamations from immense
multitudes; and her journey to and through London was a continued
ovation. Not that her innocence was established even in the popular
mind, but that, innocent or guilty, she was regarded as a persecuted
woman, and persecuted by a worthless husband. The ministry fulfilled its
promise to the king by moving the house of lords to institute an inquiry
into the queen's conduct. Pending this, conferences took place between
Wellington and Castlereagh, on the part of the king, and Brougham and
Denman on that of the queen. It was at once laid down as a preliminary
basis of the negotiation that neither should the king be understood to
retract, nor the queen to admit, any allegation against her. The points
upon which she inflexibly insisted were, the recognition of her royal
status at foreign courts, through an official introduction by the
British ambassador, and the insertion of her name in the prayer-book.
The house of commons, on the motion of Wilberforce, offered to protect
her honour (whatever that might import) on condition of her waiving this
last point, but she courteously declined its conciliatory proposals on
June 22. On July 4 a secret committee of the house of lords recommended
a solemn investigation, to be carried out "in the course of a
legislative proceeding," and on the 8th Liverpool introduced a bill of
pains and penalties, to deprive her of her title, and to dissolve her
marriage. The second reading of this bill was formally set down for
August 17, and for several weeks afterwards the house of lords was
occupied in hearing evidence in support of the charges against her. The
whole country was deluged with the squalid details of this evidence, the
ministers were insulted, and the sympathy of the populace with her cause
was obtrusively displayed in every part of the kingdom. On October 3,
after an adjournment of the lords, Brougham opened the defence in the
most celebrated of his speeches. On November 2 the lord chancellor,
Eldon, moved the second reading of the bill, and on the 8th it was
carried by a majority of twenty-eight. Four days later, on the third
reading, the majority had dwindled to nine only. Knowing the temper of
the house of commons, Liverpool treated such a victory as almost
equivalent to a defeat, and announced that the government would not
proceed further with the measure.
Had the queen possessed the virtue of self-respect or dignity, she would
have been satisfied with this legislative, though not morally decisive,
acquittal. But she was intoxicated with popular applause, largely due to
her royal consort's vices, and, after London had been illuminated for
three nights in her honour, she declined overtures from the government,
and appealed for a maintenance to the house of commons, which granted
her an annuity of £50,000 in the next session. But she never lived to
enjoy it After going in procession to St. Paul's, to return thanks for
her deliverance, on the 29th, and vainly attempting, once more, to
procure the mention of her name in the prayer-book, she concentrated her
efforts on a claim of right to be crowned with the king. No government
could have conceded this claim, and, when it had been refused by the
privy council, her solemn protests were inevitably vain. Even her least
prudent counsellors would assuredly have dissuaded her from the attempt
which she made to force an entrance into Westminster Abbey on the
coronation day, July 19, 1821. It was a painful scene when she, who had
so lately been the idol of the fickle populace, was turned away from the
doors amidst conflicting exclamations of derision and pity. A fortnight
later, on August 2, she was officially reported to be seriously ill; on
the 7th she was no more. In accordance with her own direction her body
was buried at Brunswick. Her ill-founded popularity was shown for the
last time, when a riotous multitude succeeded in diverting her funeral
procession, and forcing it to pass through the city on its way to
Harwich. But it did not survive her long; the people were becoming tired
of her, and the king, who had forfeited the respect of the middle and
upper classes, was less hated by the lower classes after her death.
[Pageheading: _GEORGE IV. IN IRELAND._]
The personal character and opinions of George IV. seem to have
influenced politics less during the early years of his reign than during
his long regency. His coronation was celebrated with unprecedented
magnificence, and amidst external demonstrations of loyalty, hard to
reconcile with the unbounded enthusiasm which the queen had so lately
inspired. Soon afterwards, he sailed in his yacht from Portsmouth on a
voyage to Ireland, but put into Holyhead and there awaited news of the
queen's expected death. This reached him at last, and probably impressed
him, no less than his ministers, as "the greatest of all possible
deliverances, both to his majesty and the country".[68] He proceeded to
Dublin in one of the earliest steam-packets, and secluded himself until
"the corpse of his wife was supposed to have left England".[69] He then
plunged into a round of festivities, and pleased all classes of Irishmen
by his affable and condescending manners. He was, indeed, the first
sovereign of England who had appeared in Ireland on a mission of peace.
John William Ward, afterwards fourth Viscount Dudley in his letters,
describes him as having behaved like a popular candidate on an
electioneering trip, and surmises that "if the day before he left
Ireland, he had stood for Dublin, he might have turned out Shaw or
Grattan ".[70] Certain it is that his visit to Ireland was regarded as
an important political event. The same kind of success attended his
visit to Scotland in August of the following year, 1822. Thenceforth, he
scarcely figures in political life until the resignation of Lord
Liverpool in 1827, and though he consented with reluctance to Canning's
tenure of the foreign office, he did not attempt to interfere with the
change in foreign policy consequent upon it. He was, in fact, sinking
more and more into an apathetic voluptuary; but he could rouse himself,
and exhibit some proofs of ability, under the impulse of his brothers,
the honest Duke of York and the arch-intriguer, the Duke of Cumberland.
The cry for retrenchment, now taken up by the country gentlemen, and not
unmingled with suggestions for a partial repudiation of the national
debt, compelled the government to adopt a policy of strict economy.
Accordingly, in 1822, Vansittart introduced a scheme for the conversion
of the so-called "Navy 5 per cents.," which resulted in a saving of
above £1,000,000 annually. He also carried a more questionable scheme
for the payment of military, naval, and civil pensions, which then
amounted to £4,900,000 a year, but were falling in rapidly; the money
required for this purpose was to be borrowed by trustees, and was to be
repaid in the course of forty-five years at the rate of £2,800,000 a
year; in this way an immediate saving of about £2,000,000 annually was
effected at the cost, however, of the next generation. By means of these
expedients, with a considerable reduction of official salaries, the
government was enabled to repeal the additional duty on malt, to
diminish the duties on salt and leather, and, on the whole to remit
about £3,500,000 of taxes. When the entire credit of financial reform is
given to Huskisson, Joseph Hume, and other economists of the new school,
it should not be forgotten that a beginning was made by economists of
the old school, before Huskisson joined the government in 1823, or
Robinson took Vansittart's place as chancellor of the exchequer.
From the beginning of this reign a more enlightened spirit may be traced
in parliamentary debates. This was aided by the growth of a
constitutional movement in favour of reform in parliament as the first
step towards a redress of grievances. The movement left its first trace
on the statute-book in a measure carried by Lord John Russell in the
session of 1821 for the disfranchisement of Grampound, though the vacant
seats were transferred to the county of York, instead of to the
"village" of Leeds or some other of the great unrepresented cities. This
was the first instance of the actual disfranchisement of a constituency,
though it was not without precedent that the franchise of a corrupt
borough should be extended to the freeholders of the surrounding
district. A notable sign of the progressive change was the
reconstruction of the cabinet in 1822. Liverpool, who always possessed
the gift of working harmoniously with colleagues of different views and
felt the weakness of his present ministry, once more attempted to bring
about a coalition with the Grenville party in the opposition. Grenville
had long been drifting away from his alliance with Grey, and had been a
stout advocate of repressive legislation which the more advanced whigs
opposed. Though he declined office for himself, several of his relatives
and adherents were rewarded with minor appointments, his cousin, Charles
Wynn, became president of the board of control, in succession to
Bragge-Bathurst, who had himself succeeded Canning in the previous year,
and his nephew, the Marquis of Buckingham, obtained a dukedom. Such
recruits added little strength to the Liverpool government, and Holland
well said that "all articles are now to be had at low prices, except
Grenvilles".
[Pageheading: _THE DEATH OF CASTLEREAGH._]
But Liverpool gained far more powerful coadjutors in the Marquis
Wellesley, Peel, and Canning. In December, 1821, Wellesley undertook the
lord-lieutenancy of Ireland, which had relapsed into so disturbed a
state that it had been proposed to make Wellington both viceroy and
commander-in-chief. The significance of this selection was increased by
the appointment of Plunket as attorney-general. Sidmouth, while
retaining his seat in the cabinet, retired, by his own wish, from the
office of home secretary, with a sense of having pacified the country,
and was succeeded by Peel. Castlereagh, now Marquis of Londonderry,
remained foreign secretary, but on August 12, 1822, as he was on the
point of setting out for the congress of Verona, he died, like Whitbread
and Romilly, by his own hand. His suicidal act was clearly due to a
morbid fit of depression, under the stress of anxieties protracted over
more than twenty years; and the disordered state of his mind had been
observed, not only by Wellington, but also by the king. His successor
was Canning, who also became leader of the house of commons.
The characters and political aims of these rival statesmen have often
been contrasted by historians of a later age, who have seldom done
justice to Castlereagh. It is remembered that he was the author of the
Walcheren expedition; it is forgotten that he was the advocate of
sending a powerful force to the Baltic coast at the critical moment
between Jena and Eylau, that he was not altogether responsible for the
delays which rendered the Walcheren expedition abortive or for the
choice of its incompetent commander, that his prime object was to strike
a crushing blow at Napoleon's naval power, and that, if his
instructions had been obeyed, this would have been effected by a rapid
advance upon Antwerp when nearly all the French troops had been
withdrawn from the Netherlands. It is remembered that he was at the war
office when the operations of Wellington in the Peninsula were crippled
for want of supplies; it is forgotten that it was he who selected
Wellington, and that he loyally strained every nerve to keep him
supplied with troops, provisions, and specie, when few but himself
believed in the policy of the Peninsular war, and Sir John Moore had
assured him that if the French dominated Spain, they could not be
resisted in Portugal. It is remembered--or rather it is assumed--that he
was the eager promoter of coercive and reactionary legislation at home;
it is forgotten, or ignored, that he was among the earliest and
staunchest advocates of catholic emancipation, and that a despotic
temper is belied by the whole tone of his speeches. Above all, he is
unjustly credited, in the face of direct evidence to the contrary, with
being the champion of absolutism in the councils of Europe, the fact
being not only that his voice was always on the side of moderation and
conciliation, but that Canning himself, on succeeding him, dissociated
Great Britain from the holy alliance by taking his stand upon an
admirable despatch of Castlereagh and adopting it as his own. When he
met with his tragical end, the brutal shouts of exultation raised by a
portion of the crowd at his funeral were the expression of sheer
ignorance and not of intelligent public opinion. He was a tory, in days
when most patriots were tories, but he was a tory of the best type; and
we of a later generation can see that few statesmen of George III.'s
reign have left a purer reputation or rendered greater services to their
country.
[Pageheading: _CANNING AND PEEL._]
George Canning, his successor, has been far more favourably judged by
posterity, and not without reason, if intellectual brilliancy is a
supreme test of political merit. A firm adherent of Pitt, and a somewhat
unscrupulous critic of Addington, he was probably the first
parliamentary orator of the nineteenth century, with the possible
exception of Sheridan. Pitt's eloquence was of a loftier and simpler
type, Fox's was more impetuous and spontaneous; Peel's range of
political knowledge was far wider; Gladstone excelled all, not only in
length of experience but in readiness and dialectical resource.
Canning's rhetoric was of a finer quality and was combined with great
debating power, but he was a man to inspire admiration rather than
confidence, and had not held one of the higher political offices since
his resignation in 1809, after his quarrel with Castlereagh. He accepted
a mission to Portugal, however, and was in Lisbon when Napoleon returned
from Elba. In 1816, as has been seen, he became president of the board
of control, but, having been formerly one of the queen's advisers, he
declined to have anything to do with her trial and remained abroad
during its continuance. In December, 1820, he returned, but persisted in
resigning his place at the board of control on the supposed ground that
further parliamentary discussion of the queen's case was inevitable. On
this occasion he received a special vote of thanks from the directors of
the East India Company for his services on the board. The king objected
to his readmission after the queen's death, and he was a private member
of parliament when he was offered and undertook the governor-generalship
of India in March, 1822. But his departure was delayed until August, and
he was on his way to bid farewell to his constituents at Liverpool when
Castlereagh destroyed himself. It was generally felt that no other man
was so well qualified as Canning to succeed him. But the king declared
his "final and unalterable decision" to sanction no such change. Though
he afterwards relented, on the remonstrances of Wellington, he did so
with a bad grace; but there was no delay on Canning's part in accepting
the foreign secretaryship thus offered. From his acceptance may be dated
the most remarkable part of his career.
The accession of Peel to the Liverpool ministry, in the capacity of home
secretary; was only less important than that of Canning. Hitherto, Peel
had mostly been known to the British public as chief secretary for
Ireland, and as chairman of the committee which, in 1819, recommended
the early resumption of cash payments. In both these posts he displayed
a certain moderation and independence of mind, combined with a rare
capacity for business, which marked him out as a great administrator.
This promise he amply fulfilled as home secretary. He was the first
minister of the crown who took up the philanthropic work of Romilly and
Mackintosh, largely reducing the number of offences for which capital
punishment could be inflicted. He was also the first to reform the
police system of London, and to substitute for a multitude of decrepit
watchmen, incapable of dealing with gangs of active criminals, a
disciplined body of stalwart constables, which has since been copied in
every county and large town of Great Britain. Above all, while he cannot
be said to have shown a statesmanlike insight or foresight of the
highest order, he could read the signs of the times and the temper of
his countrymen with a sagacity far beyond that of his predecessor,
Sidmouth, or of such politicians as Eldon and Castlereagh. In him was
represented the domestic policy of Pitt in his earlier days, as Pitt's
financial views were represented in Huskisson, who had actually served
under him.
Though Huskisson was only made president of the board of trade, in
January, 1823, and not chancellor of the exchequer, it is certain that
his mind controlled that of Robinson, who succeeded Vansittart in that
position. Vansittart, who was created Lord Bexley, succeeded
Bragge-Bathurst as chancellor of the duchy. The cabinet changes were
completed in October by the removal of Wellesley Pole, now Lord
Maryborough, from the office of master of the mint. Huskisson, if any
man, was the leading pioneer of free trade, and there can be little
doubt that, had he not died prematurely, its adoption would have been
hastened by ten or fifteen years. In his first year of office he
welcomed petitions for the repeal of the import duties on foreign wool,
but failed to convince the wool manufacturers that it must be
accompanied by the abolition of export duties on British wool. The
proposed reform was, therefore, dropped, and a like fate befell his
attempt in the same year to benefit the silk trade by abolishing certain
vexatious restrictions upon it, including the practice of fixing the
wages of Spitalfields weavers by an order of the magistrates. For the
moment the ignorant outcry of the journeymen themselves prevailed over
their real interests, but in the following year, 1824, Huskisson carried
a much wider measure, providing that foreign silks, hitherto excluded,
should be admitted subject to a duty of 30 per cent. in and after 1826,
and another measure for the joint relief of wool growers and wool
manufacturers which imposed a small duty of equal amount on the
importation and the exportation of wool.
His great achievement in 1823 was the reform of the navigation laws.
These acts, dating from the commonwealth and the restoration, gave
British shipowners a qualified monopoly of the carrying trade, since
they prohibited the importation of European goods except in British
ships or ships of the producing country, while the importation of goods
from other quarters of the world was confined to British ships only.
America had protested against this exclusive system, and it was
abandoned, as regards the United States, by the treaty of Ghent in 1814.
The mercantile states of Europe soon followed the example of America,
and the reciprocity of duties bill, introduced by Huskisson on June 6,
1823, conceded equal rights to all countries reciprocating the
concession, only retaining the exclusion against such countries as might
reject equality of trade. The change involved some hardship to
shipowners who had built their vessels with timber bought at prices
raised by heavy duties, but they were too shortsighted to accept the
compromise offered by Huskisson. Before long, however, the act was
justified, and the shipowners compensated by a rapid increase in British
shipping.
[Pageheading: _AGRICULTURAL DISCONTENT._]
For nearly five years after the accession of George IV. the state of the
country was, on the whole, more prosperous, and the industrial classes
were more contented, than in the five years next preceding. Such
restlessness as there was prevailed among farmers and agricultural
labourers rather than among workmen in the manufacturing districts, and
in 1823 every branch of manufactures was reported to be flourishing. It
is difficult for a later generation, accustomed to consider 30s. a
quarter a fair price for wheat, to understand the perennial complaints
and petitions of the agricultural interest when 60s. a quarter was
regarded as a low price for wheat, and the cultivation of wheat extended
over a vastly larger area than it does at present. Nor is the difficulty
lessened, when we remember the miserably low rate of wages then paid by
farmers. A partial explanation may be found in the fact that what they
saved in wages they lost in poor rates, and that most agricultural
products except corn were sold at a very small profit. The high poor
rates were the result of the disastrous system of giving allowances to
labourers.
But there were other evils caused by the vicious policy pursued by the
government. The encouragement of home production had led to the
enclosure of land not fit for cultivation, so that a slight fall in
prices meant ruin to many farmers. Moreover, the corn laws, though
framed for the purpose of arresting fluctuations in price, actually
increased fluctuations and thus enhanced the risks attending
agricultural enterprise. Nor were landlords who had thriven on war
prices, and raised the scale of their establishments as if these prices
were to be perpetual, willing to reduce their rents on the return of
peace. Rent was said to have risen 70 per cent. since 1792; but the
landlords were often embarrassed, because their lands had too often been
burdened with jointures, settlements, and mortgages during the war. It
was in their interest that the act of 1815, which aimed at maintaining
war prices, had been passed. But the deeper reason for all this clamour
from the rural districts was the stagnation of ideas, and incapacity of
improvement, engendered by an artificial monopoly of the national food
supply. This was not the special lesson impressed upon landlords or
tenants by Cobbett, whose violent and delusive writings had a large
circulation in the country. But his teaching was so far beneficial that
it quickened the demand for parliamentary reform, though the fruits of
that reform were destined to be very different from the expectations
which he excited.
[Pageheading: _SPECULATIVE FRENZY._]
The spell of general prosperity which, in spite of some distress in the
rural districts, prevailed in the years 1820-23 was somewhat broken in
1824 by strikes and outrages in the manufacturing districts. Strikes for
higher wages naturally arose out of the increase in mill owners'
profits, and the ferocious spirit displayed by the strikers against
masters and fellow-workmen was attributed by reformers to the one-sided
operation of the combination laws. Accordingly, a committee of the house
of commons reported in favour of repealing these laws, and also part of
the common law which treated coercion either by trade unions or by
masters as conspiracy. A bill founded on this report was hastily passed,
with the natural result that strikes broke out in every quarter of the
country; wholesale and cruel oppression was practised by trade
unionists, and it became necessary for parliament to retrace its steps.
Under a new act, passed in 1825, which continued in force until very
recent times, trade unions were recognised as legal, but their worst
malpractices were once more brought within the control of the criminal
law.[71] So far the commercial policy of Huskisson was justified, as a
whole, by its effects on trade, and the session of 1824 was closed on
June 25 by a cheerful speech from the king, in which the disturbed state
of Ireland was the only topic suggestive of anxiety. Already, however,
the revival of commercial hopefulness at home, with the opening of new
markets in South America, was paving the way for the most ruinous mania
of speculation known in England since the south sea bubble. It was well
that sound and sober-minded economists now guided the action of the
government, and that Liverpool proved himself a worthy successor of Sir
Robert Walpole during the great financial crisis of 1825.[72]
The speculative frenzy of 1825 differed from the railway mania of the
next generation in that it had no solid basis of remunerative
investment. The development of the railway system, after the application
of locomotive steam engines to iron tramways, offered a legitimate
promise of large profits, and this promise would have been still more
amply realised but for the shameful waste of capital on competition and
law expenses. It was otherwise with the dupes and victims of the rage
for speculation which possessed all classes of society in 1825, and
arose out of an immense accumulation of wealth for which no safe
employment could be found at home except at a modest rate of interest.
The weakening of the hold of Spain on South America left her colonies
open to foreign trade, but the enterprises there and elsewhere which
absorbed the hard-won savings of humble families, by thousands and tens
of thousands, were nearly all chimerical, and some of them grotesque in
their absurdity. Whether or not warming-pans and skates were actually
exported to the tropics, it is certain that Scotch dairy-women emigrated
to Buenos Ayres for the purpose of milking wild cows and churning butter
for people who preferred oil. The incredible multiplication of
bubble-companies was facilitated by a marvellous cheapness of money,
largely due to an inordinate issue of notes by country bankers, and even
by the Bank of England, in spite of the fact that gold and silver were
known to be leaving the country in vast quantities, especially in the
shape of loans to France. The inevitable reaction came when the Bank of
England contracted its issue of notes in order to arrest the drain of
gold; goods recklessly bought up had to be sold at a fearful loss, bills
upon which advances had been made proved to be of no value, and several
great London banking houses stopped payment, bringing down in their fall
a much larger number of country banks dependent on them.
In the month of December, 1825, the crisis was at its height, and it is
stated that within six or seven weeks after the failure of the banking
firm of Pole & Company on the 5th, sixty or seventy banks had broken.
The king's speech in July had congratulated parliament on increasing
prosperity and had betrayed no misgivings about its stability. When the
crash came, however, the ministers showed no want of firmness or
resource. They could not repair the consequences of national folly, but
they devoted themselves with intelligence to a restoration of credit.
For this purpose they suppressed at once the further issue of small
notes from country banks by a high-handed act of authority, for which
they admitted that an act of indemnity might be needed. At the same time
they rapidly increased the supply of small notes from the Bank of
England, and of coin from the mint. Moreover, they induced the Bank of
England to establish branches in a few provincial towns and to make
advances upon merchants' goods to the amount of three millions. It cost
a greater effort to break down the monopoly of the Bank of England by
legalising joint-stock banks in the provinces, though not within a
distance of sixty-five miles from London. Such practical expedients as
these, seconded by the good sense of the mercantile community, proved
sufficient to avert a catastrophe only less disastrous than national
bankruptcy. With the subsidence of alarm, the causes of alarm also
subsided, the recuperative powers of the country reasserted themselves,
as during the great war, and the heart-breaking anxieties of 1825-26
were ignored, if not forgotten, in the political excitement of 1827.[73]
[Pageheading: _ECONOMIC REFORM._]
The budgets of 1823-26 indeed mark a memorable advance in financial
reform, which the commercial panic of 1825 scarcely interrupted. There
had been a reduction of the national debt by about £25,000,000. "The
poorer householders had been relieved from the pressure both of house
tax and window tax. The manufacturing classes had been encouraged by
the reduction of the duties on silk, wool, and iron. The consuming
classes had been benefited by the reduction of duties on spirits, wines,
coffee, and sugar."[74] Owing to Huskisson's enlightened policy the old
navigation laws had been repealed upon the condition of reciprocity; the
combination laws had been liberally revised; various bounties had been
abandoned on free trade principles, and the monstrous evils of smuggling
had been greatly abated. If the chancellor of the exchequer could show
no surplus in 1826, he could at least boast that after so desperate a
crisis there was no deficit, and he had no reason to be ashamed of
Cobbett's nickname, "Prosperity Robinson," which he owed to his
optimism, largely founded upon facts. Before the close of the year 1826,
however, this optimism received a rude shock. The agitation against the
corn laws assumed an acuter form than ever, and Huskisson prudently
deprecated it on the simple ground that no effective action could be
taken in an expiring parliament. Distress had recurred in the
manufacturing districts; mills and power-looms were again destroyed. The
free trade policy of Huskisson was vigorously attacked in parliament,
but it was successfully defended in powerful speeches by Canning as well
as by himself. Ultimately the government, having obtained limited powers
from parliament to admit foreign corn during the temporary emergency,
had the courage to exceed those powers and seek an indemnity from the
next parliament.
The dissolution of 1826, closing the life of one of the longest
parliaments in modern times, was the prelude to a very eventful year.
The general election brought into prominence the two burning questions
of catholic relief and the corn laws, and unseated for the moment
Brougham, Cobbett, Hunt, and Lord John Russell, but it produced no
material change in the balance of parties. Little was done in the short
autumn session, but when parliament met again early in February, 1827,
great events had already cast their shadows before. The Duke of York,
heir-presumptive to the crown, had died on January 5. He was known to be
a strong tory in politics, but, in spite of this, and of the scandals
which attached to his name in earlier years, he enjoyed a considerable
share of popular confidence. Compared with his elder brother, he was
respected; he was a true Englishman, like his father, whom he resembled
in character; his administration of the army had survived hostile
criticism, while a declaration which he had recently made against
catholic emancipation had produced a profound impression on public
opinion. Much less was known of the Duke of Clarence, who stood next in
succession. He had already injured himself in public estimation by
declining the increased allowance offered him, and then claiming it with
arrears; nor did he now improve his position in the eyes of his future
subjects by stickling for a larger addition to it than parliament was
disposed to grant. But the Duke of York's death was followed by a far
more important incident. Liverpool was disabled by illness from
attending his funeral, which, occurring in the depth of winter, proved
directly fatal to one of those who were present, and seriously weakened
the constitutions of others, including Canning. On February 8, the first
day of the session, Liverpool was in his place, though in broken health,
and on the 17th he took a feeble part in the debate on the grant to the
Duke of Clarence. On the following morning he was struck down by a
paralytic seizure, and, though his life was prolonged for two years, he
never recovered the use of his faculties.
[Pageheading: _THE CLOSE OF LIVERPOOL'S MINISTRY._]
Liverpool's disappearance from the political scenes may be said to mark
an epoch in the later history of England. Though only fifty-six years of
age, he had been continuously in office for twenty years, and prime
minister for fifteen, a tenure of power which none of his predecessors
had exceeded except Walpole and Pitt. His lot was cast in the most
critical period of the great war, and in the long night of adversity and
anxiety which ushered in the "thirty years' peace". As foreign secretary
he conducted the negotiations for the peace of Amiens; as home secretary
he led the house of lords and was responsible for the government of
Ireland; as secretary for war and the colonies he gave Wellington a
steady, if not ardent, support in those apparently barren campaigns
which strained the national patience; as prime minister he guided the
ship of state in all the difficulties of foreign and domestic affairs
which arose between 1812 and 1827. Castlereagh may have been the most
influential minister in the earlier years of his administration, and
Canning in the later, but he was never the mere tool of either; on the
contrary, it Is certain that he was treated with respect and deference
by all his numerous colleagues. In general capacity and debating power
he was inferior to few of them; in temper, judgment, and experience he
was superior to all.
He may be said to have lived and died without "a policy," in so far as
he forebore to identify himself with any of the great questions then
pressing for solution. His real policy both at home and abroad was one
of moderation and conciliation; he looked at party divisions almost with
the eyes of a permanent official who can work loyally with chiefs of
either party; and he succeeded in keeping together in his cabinet
ambitious rivals who never would have co-operated under any other
leader. This is not the road to fame, neither is it the course which men
of imperious character like Castlereagh, or Canning, or Wellington, in
his place, would have adopted. But Canning and Wellington actually
proved themselves incapable of winning the confidence which Liverpool so
long retained, and the whig government which followed them fell to
pieces in two years. Moderation in statesmanship does not always imply
mediocrity of ability; and if Liverpool failed to see how many
institutions needed radical amendment, he was not so blind as some of
his more celebrated associates. Not only was he more liberal in his
views than Eldon and Castlereagh, but he was less opposed to free trade
than most of his cabinet, to parliamentary reform than Canning, and to
catholic emancipation than Wellington or Peel. His fault was that he did
not act upon his own inward convictions with sufficient promptitude, or
assert his own authority with sufficient energy. Had he done so, the
beneficial measures of the last years of his administration might have
been anticipated, and the country might have been spared much of the
misery which darkened the close of George III.'s reign.
FOOTNOTES:
[68] Lord Londonderry in Twiss, _Life of Eldon_, ii., 432.
[69] Harriet Martineau, _History of England During the Thirty Years'
Peace_, i., 274.
[70] _Letters to Copleston_, p. 295.
[71] Cunningham, _Growth of English Industry and Commerce in Modern
Times_ (edit. 1903), pp. 756-59. Compare Dicey, _Law and Opinion in
England_, pp. 190-200.
[72] The graphic description of this crisis in Harriet Martineau's
_History of the Thirty Years' Peace_, i., 355-66, deserves to be studied
and remembered as a masterpiece of social portraiture by a contemporary.
[73] Cunningham, _Growth of English Industry and Commerce in Modern
Times_, p. 823.
[74] Walpole's _History of England_, vol. ii., p. 187.
CHAPTER X.
PROBLEMS IN SOUTHERN EUROPE.
The events of the year 1820 subjected the European concert to a severe
strain. An insurrection broke out in Spain on January 1, and on March 9
the king was forced to swear fidelity to the obsolete constitution of
1812. The result was to plunge the country into disorder, as both the
clerical party and the extreme revolutionists refused to accept the
constitution. Meanwhile the assassination by a working man of the Duke
of Berry, who died on February 14, 1820, had occasioned a new royalist
reaction in France, and had increased the general fear of the
revolutionary party. The Bourbon succession had seemed to depend on his
life, for his son, the Count of Chambord, was posthumous. On receiving
the news of the Spanish revolution the tsar, already tiring of his
liberal enthusiasm, fell back on his scheme for exercising paternal
discipline over Europe. He proposed in April that the ambassadors at
Paris should issue a joint remonstrance requiring the Spanish cortes to
disavow the revolution, and to enact severe laws against sedition.
Failing this, he proposed joint intervention, and offered for his own
part to send an army of 15,000 men through North Italy and southern
France to co-operate in the suppression of the revolution. To this
Castlereagh replied that England would never consent to a joint
intervention in Spain. Metternich was too much displeased with the
Russian encouragement of secret societies in Italy to wish to see
Russian troops in that country, and both Castlereagh and Metternich
wished to keep Spain free from French influence. In the face of this
opposition Russia could not, and France would not, do anything, and all
thought of intervention was postponed. It was the last time that
Castlereagh was able to assert the principle of non-intervention
without breaking up the European concert.
[Pageheading: _REVOLUTIONS IN SOUTHERN EUROPE._]
July and August saw three new revolutions. A rebellion at Nola on July 2
ended in King Ferdinand of the Two Sicilies taking the oath on the 13th
to the Spanish constitution, then regarded as a model by the liberals of
Southern Europe. But the grant of a constitution to Naples suggested a
demand for independence at Palermo. On July 17-18 that city rose in
revolt and was only subdued by the Neapolitans in the beginning of
October. Portugal, too, was in a disturbed state. The royal family had
been absent for nearly thirteen years, and the country had for five
years been governed by Lord, afterwards Viscount, Beresford as marshal
and commander of the Portuguese army. In April, 1820, he sailed for
Brazil, intending to induce the king, John VI., to return. During his
absence a revolution took place at Oporto on August 24, a provisional
government was established, and all British officers were dismissed.
This was followed by a similar revolution at Lisbon on September 15.
Beresford on his return was forbidden to land, and retired to England.
On November 11, the Spanish constitution was proclaimed in Portugal, but
six days later another proclamation left the question of determining the
constitution to the cortes which were to be elected on a popular
suffrage.
The Neapolitan revolution raised at once the question of intervention.
In this case Castlereagh held that Austria had a right to interfere,
because her position as an Italian power was endangered by the
revolution, and because the revolution was a breach of the secret treaty
of 1815 which had received the sanction of the British government. He
still objected to any joint interference and was opposed to the
reference of the question to a congress. Austria could not have
interfered alone without offending the tsar, who clung to the principle
of joint action. The question of intervention was therefore postponed
for the present. France, however, being jealous of Austrian influence in
Italy, demanded the meeting of a congress, and such a meeting was
accordingly held at Troppau on October 20. To this congress Austria,
France, Prussia, and Russia sent plenipotentiaries. Great Britain
carried her opposition to joint interference so far as to refuse to join
in the deliberations, though Sir Charles, now Lord, Stewart was sent to
Troppau to watch the proceedings. Metternich, on finding that he could
not avoid the meeting of a congress, determined to lead its proceedings,
and, before it met, drew up a memorandum defining his own views about
intervention. These views were accepted at the congress by Prussia and
Russia as well as by Austria; and a protocol was issued by the three
powers declaring that a state in which a revolution should occur was
dangerous to other states, and ceased to be a member of the European
alliance, until it could give guarantees for its future stability. If
such a revolution placed other states in immediate danger, the allied
powers were bound to intervene by peaceful means, if possible, or if
need were, by arms. Before parting, the congress invited Ferdinand of
the Two Sicilies to attend an adjourned meeting, to assemble early in
the following year at Laibach.[75] Against these decisions Castlereagh
protested in vigorous terms, and more especially against any possible
application of the principle of intervention to England; France under
the Duke of Richelieu joined in neither the protocol nor the protest.
The liberal tendencies of the tsar had been quenched by recent events,
so that, instead of a concert of Europe, there was left only a concert
of absolute monarchs.
[Pageheading: _AUSTRIAN INTERVENTION._]
In January, 1821, the sovereigns of Austria, Prussia, and Russia met the
King of the Two Sicilies at Laibach. France had vainly attempted to
mediate between the King of the Two Sicilies and his people. But the
Neapolitans were not satisfied with any vague promise of a constitution,
and before allowing their king to depart for Laibach, held him pledged
to the observance of an impossible condition, the maintenance of the
Spanish constitution of 1812. The king's oath to preserve this
particularly objectionable constitution was regarded by Austria as
sufficient to preclude negotiation, and it was resolved that she should
restore him by force as an absolute monarch, and should occupy the
Neapolitan territory. The duration of this occupation was reserved as a
question to be discussed at the next European congress, which it was
intended to hold at Florence in the autumn of the next year. After a
show of resistance at Rieti the Neapolitans submitted, and the Austrian
army entered Naples on March 24. The restoration of absolute government
was accompanied by severities towards the constitutionalists, but
Austria would not allow any repetition of the bloodshed of 1799.
While the Austrian army was marching southwards, a new revolution broke
out in Piedmont. The Spanish constitution was proclaimed at Alessandria
on March 10, and at Turin on the 12th. On the 13th, Victor Emmanuel I.,
King of Sardinia, abdicated, appointing as regent his distant cousin
Prince Charles Albert of Carignano, who had been in communication with
the revolutionary party. The regent immediately accepted the Spanish
constitution on condition of the maintenance of the line of succession
and of the Roman catholic religion. The new king, Charles Felix, was at
Modena when the revolt occurred. He refused to acknowledge the new
constitution, and ordered Charles Albert to betake himself to Novara,
where the royalist troops were collecting. On the night of the 21st,
Charles Albert fled from Turin to Novara, but the constitutional party
did not submit without a struggle. On April 8 the Austrians crossed the
frontier and, uniting with the royalists, defeated the constitutionalists
at Novara. Two days later the royalist army entered Turin. The two
Italian revolutions had thus ended in an Austrian occupation of the two
largest Italian states which were not ruled by members of the imperial
house. The Papal States were now the only Italian principality of any
size which was not dominated by Austria.
So far Austria had been sufficiently powerful in the congresses of the
powers to be able to prevent interference with other states where it was
not to her interest, and to incline the balance in favour of it where
intervention would strengthen her. The reopening of the Eastern question
made her ascendency more difficult to maintain. The congress of Laibach
had been closed, but the sovereigns had not yet departed, when the news
arrived that a revolt, engineered by Greeks with the pretence of Russian
support, had broken out against the Turks in Moldavia and Wallachia.
Russia at once agreed with Austria that the principle laid down at
Troppau applied to this revolt; the insurrectionary leaders were
disowned by Russia, and by the end of June Turkish authority was
restored in the Danubian principalities. So far the action of Russia had
met with the approval not only of Austria but of Great Britain, and
Castlereagh had written to Alexander urging him not to join the Greek
cause, which appeared to him to be part of an universal revolutionary
movement.
Early in April, however, a more serious insurrection broke out in the
Morea, and was followed a few weeks later by one in Central Greece. The
war was disgraced from the first by inhuman massacres on both sides. The
Greek patriarch at Constantinople together with three archbishops was
executed by the Turks on Easter Sunday, April 22. A great ferment in
Russia was the result, where the people were anxious to assist their
co-religionists and to avenge the death of the patriarch, whom they
regarded as a martyr. The grievances of the Orthodox religion were
seconded by the proper grievances of Russia. Greek ships, sailing under
the Russian flag, had been seized in the Dardanelles; the principalities
of Moldavia and Wallachia had not been evacuated by the Turkish troops
as was required by treaty, while an ancient treaty rendered it possible
to regard the wrongs of the Greek Church as the political wrongs of
Russia. A Russian ultimatum was despatched on June 28; and, while
awaiting a reply, Russia consulted the other powers as to the course
they would pursue in the event of war breaking out between Russia and
Turkey, and the system with which they would propose to replace the
Turkish domination if it came to be destroyed. The principle of joint
intervention, adopted at Troppau, seemed to require the powers to give
their support to Russia. Great Britain and Austria, however, refused to
treat war with Turkey as a possibility. The Greek revolt seemed to them
to express the principle of revolution, and the tsar himself became
inclined to take this view of the situation when the Greeks established
an advanced republican form of government. They accordingly
distinguished between the treaty rights of Russia, which the four powers
would urge Turkey to respect, and the provision of a more secure state
of order in Turkey, which would be discussed at a European congress. The
Russian ambassador had been withdrawn from Constantinople on August 8,
and the negotiation was conducted mainly by Lord Strangford, the British
ambassador at Constantinople, who was supported by Austria, France, and
Prussia. He succeeded in inducing Turkey to evacuate the principalities
and to open the Dardanelles to ships of all nations, but Turkish
obstinacy deferred the conclusion of a treaty.
[Pageheading: _THE SPANISH QUESTION._]
Meanwhile the Spanish question became more critical. As time went on
Spain grew less instead of more settled, while the ultra-royalist party
gained strength in France. To them the position to which the Bourbon
King of Spain had been reduced seemed at once an insult and a menace to
France. The establishment of Austrian supremacy in Italy made them long
for French supremacy in Spain. In August, 1821, the presence of yellow
fever in Spain was made the occasion for establishing a body of troops,
professing to act as a sanitary cordon, upon the frontier. They were
retained there when the fever had disappeared, and their numbers were
gradually raised to 100,000. In December, 1821, an ultra-royalist
ministry entered on office in France under the leadership of Villèle.
Villèle, like King Louis XVIII., was opposed to war, but he might easily
be forced to adopt the war policy which was popular with his party.
Fresh evidence was given of the contagious nature of the Spanish
revolution by the adoption, on the 27th of the preceding June, by the
Portuguese cortes, of a constitution modelled on that of Spain. Six days
later the Portuguese king arrived at Lisbon and was induced to sign the
new constitution. This event was the more significant in the eyes of the
powers, because the proclamation of the constitution had been
accompanied by an insult to the Austrian embassy.
If Spanish liberalism placed Spain in danger of a war with France, Spain
was in equal danger of a war with Great Britain because she was not
liberal enough. The revolution of 1820, instead of reconciling the
revolted colonies, had served as an example to the loyal colonies to
seek their liberty. By the summer of 1822 Upper Peru was the only part
of the American mainland where Spain held more than isolated posts; she
had been compelled to sell Florida to the United States, and San Domingo
had joined the revolted French colony of Hayti. The Spanish cortes,
however, were even more resolute than the king had been to maintain the
authority of the mother country, and protested against the right which
the British had claimed and exercised of trading with the revolted
colonies. The disorderly state of these colonies encouraged the growth
of piracy, which flourished even in the ports which still acknowledged
the supremacy of Spain. Special irritation was caused in 1822 by the
condemnation of the _Lord Collingwood_ for trading with Buenos Ayres, a
place over which Spain had exercised no authority for twelve years. In
the same year the new navigation acts greatly increased the facilities
for trading with Great Britain enjoyed by such places in America as
admitted British ships. In April, 1822, the United States recognised the
independence of Colombia, but Great Britain refrained as yet from
recognising any of the Spanish-American states, partly because of their
unsettled condition and partly because the threat of recognition was a
valuable diplomatic counter in negotiations with Spain.
Instead of a congress being held at Florence it was finally determined
that the Italian questions should be referred to a congress which was to
meet at Verona in September, 1822, and was to be preceded by a
conference at Vienna on the Eastern question; there could, however, be
little doubt that the Spanish question would also be raised.
Castlereagh, or as we should now call him Lord Londonderry, would have
preferred that Great Britain should stand aloof from the Spanish and
Italian questions, but he desired that she should participate in the
discussion of the Eastern question; it was accordingly arranged that he
should represent Great Britain at the conference of Vienna, and he had
actually drawn up instructions in favour of non-intervention in Spain
and of accrediting agents to some of the South American republics, when
his departure was prevented by his death on August 12. He was succeeded
by Wellington as plenipotentiary, and by Canning as foreign secretary.
The change was, however, one of persons rather than of policies. Canning
was less conciliatory in manner, and had less sympathy with the
principle of European congresses, but was prepared to carry on
Castlereagh's policy on the questions which for the time being agitated
the world.
[Pageheading: _THE CONGRESS OF VERONA._]
The Spanish question was, as a fact, the one question which occupied the
attention of the powers at Vienna and Verona. In consequence of the
efforts of Strangford at Constantinople and his own growing
dissatisfaction with the Greeks, the tsar was willing to allow the Greek
question to drop; at the same time the kings of the Two Sicilies and
Sardinia themselves desired the continuance of Austrian occupation, and
thus postponed the Italian question. As in 1820, Austria held the
balance between two rival policies. She had then thrown her weight on
the side of non-intervention, and, had the Spanish question stood by
itself, she would probably have done so again. But in Metternich's
opinion the Spanish question was of less importance than the Eastern,
and it was important that the tsar should not doubt her loyalty to the
principle on which she had persuaded him to refrain from an attack upon
the Porte.
On passing through Paris on his way to Vienna, Wellington found Villèle
desirous of avoiding war, but counting on it as a probability. He
arrived at Vienna too late for the actual conference, but in time to
have some conversation with Metternich and the tsar before leaving for
Verona. So far it appeared that Montmorency, the more active of the
French representatives, though professing to desire a peaceful
termination to the dispute between France and Spain, advocated French
intervention, if intervention should be necessary, but was opposed to
the passage of foreign troops through France. Metternich and the tsar
distrusted French troops when brought face to face with revolutionists,
and Metternich was therefore opposed to intervention, while the tsar
still desired to be allowed to march a Russian army on behalf of the
combined powers through Piedmont and southern France into Spain.
Metternich of course did not wish to see any Russian troops to dispute
Austria's supremacy in Italy. But all three desired the suppression of
the Spanish constitution, if they could find a trustworthy instrument.
Wellington adhered to Castlereagh's policy of non-intervention.[76]
When the congress opened at Verona on October 20, Montmorency proposed
three skilfully drawn questions. Avoiding the direct discussion of
hostilities, he asked whether, if France were compelled to withdraw her
ambassador from Madrid, the other powers would do the same. Then,
assuming their sympathy, he asked what form of moral support they would
give her in event of war. Lastly, he propitiated Russian views of joint
action by asking what form of material support the powers would give
France, if she should require it. Wellington refused to consider
hypothetical cases, but the sovereigns of Austria, Prussia, and Russia
answered the first question in the affirmative, and assured France of
their moral, and, if necessary, of their material support. So far no
power had abandoned its original attitude, but the promises had been
given in a form which lent itself best to the sole interference of
France, as the representative of the congress. Metternich now advocated
British mediation, but this was refused by Montmorency on the ground of
the differences between the policy adopted by Great Britain and that
adopted by the other powers. It was then agreed that Austria, France,
Prussia, and Russia should address notes of the same tenor to their
ambassadors at Madrid, who should make corresponding representations to
the Spanish government, and a _procès verbal_ was concluded between
these four powers defining the causes which would justify the recall of
their ambassadors.
As the French king was not present at Verona, the sending of the French
note was made conditional on the approval of the French government. The
occupation of Spain by foreign troops was to be discussed when the King
of Spain should have been restored to liberty. The tenor of the notes
agreed on seemed to Wellington more likely to inflame the Spanish
government than to win concessions, and he lost no time in informing
Villèle through Sir Charles Stuart, the British ambassador at Paris, of
the course of negotiations.[77] Although Wellington had been assured at
Verona that Villèle's decision would not affect the transmission of
notes from the other courts, he hoped and Canning believed that it was
still in the power of Villèle to arrest the machinery that Montmorency,
his representative at Verona, had set in motion. On November 30
Wellington left Verona, but the emperors remained. On December 5 Villèle
sent a message to Verona proposing to postpone sending the despatches
till an occasion for breaking off diplomatic relations as defined in the
_procès verbal_ should arise, and suggesting that the ambassadors at
Paris should determine when such an occasion had occurred. This proposal
was rejected. It was inconsistent with Russia's desire for war, while
Austria was anxious to please Russia in the west, so long as she
remained pacific in the east. The three eastern powers therefore
resolved that they would only delay sending their notes till the French
note was ready.
[Pageheading: _THE SPANISH QUESTION._]
While this negotiation was pending, Wellington arrived at Paris, where,
under strong pressure from Canning,[78] he renewed his offer of
mediation with Spain. It was declined. On the arrival of the reply from
Verona, Wellington was informed that even if the other powers sent their
despatches to Madrid, France would withhold hers. In the end, Villèle
dismissed Montmorency for the independent line he had taken, and sent a
milder note than the three eastern powers, but withdrew his ambassador
from Madrid soon after the other ambassadors had departed. Great Britain
was in consequence the only great power which still continued diplomatic
relations with Spain at the end of January, 1823. In the course of the
negotiations two curious suspicions had occurred to Canning and Villèle
respectively. Canning imagined that France would employ the threats of
her allies as a show of force to compel Spain to join her in an attack
on British commerce in the West Indies, while Villèle suspected that the
British defence of the political independence of Spain was to be
recompensed by the cession of some Spanish colonies in America.
Meanwhile, the war party before which Villèle had had to bow, was having
its own way in France. On January 28 Louis XVIII. in opening the
chambers announced the withdrawal of his ambassador, and declared that
100,000 Frenchmen were ready to march to preserve the throne of Spain to
a descendant of Henry IV., and to reconcile that country with Europe.
The sole object of any war that might arise would be to render Ferdinand
VII. free to give his people institutions which they could not hold
except from him, and which, by securing their tranquillity, would
dissipate the unrest in France. Canning protested against the apparent
implication that no valid constitution could rest on any other basis
than that of France did, as also against the apparent claim to interfere
in virtue of the family relation of the dynasties of France and Spain;
but he vainly endeavoured to persuade the Spanish government to come to
some agreement with its king. On March 31, when war seemed imminent,
Canning despatched a note to Paris defining the limits of British
neutrality. The independence of Spain and integrity of its dominions
were to be recognised; it was not to be permanently occupied by a
military force, and France was not to attempt to gain either by conquest
or by cession any of the revolted colonies of Spain in America. At the
same time he disclaimed any intention of acquiring any of those colonies
for Great Britain.[79]
[Pageheading: _PORTUGAL AND BRAZIL._]
War between France and Spain began with the passage of the frontier by
the Duke of Angoulême on April 7. On May 23 he entered Madrid. On
October 1 the Spanish constitutionalists were compelled to set their
king at liberty to join the French, and on November 1 the war was
terminated by the surrender of Barcelona to the royalists. The
restoration of Ferdinand VII. to absolute power was followed by a
furious and vindictive reaction, which Angoulême strove in vain to
moderate. For the next five years French troops occupied the country,
but Angoulême showed his disapproval of the method of government by
refusing the decorations offered him by Ferdinand. The restoration of
absolutism in Spain led to events in Portugal which forced Great Britain
to intervene and strengthened the difference between her policy and that
of the continental powers. The new Portuguese constitution was
unpopular, especially in the army, and as early as February, 1823, there
was a revolt against the constitution, but order was restored in April.
On May 26 another absolutist revolt broke out, and the rebels were
joined next day by the king's second son, Dom Miguel, then twenty years
of age; on the 29th the revolt spread to Lisbon; on the 31st the king
promised a revised constitution, and on June 2 the cortes ceased to sit.
The government resolved itself into an absolute monarchy, which
continued till the following year, in spite of the appointment of a
junta under the presidency of Palmella to draw up a new constitution.
The ambassadors of Austria, Prussia, and Russia opposed the granting of
a new constitution, and Dom Miguel still maintained a threatening
attitude. Palmella accordingly applied to Great Britain for troops to
support his government. This request created no little difficulty. It
was impossible for Great Britain to allow the government of Portugal to
fall into the hands of a party resting for support on the absolutists
in Spain and the French army, and it was equally impossible to employ
British troops to maintain the cause of the King of Portugal against his
ultra-royalist subjects when Great Britain had protested so vigorously
against the kings of Spain and the Two Sicilies receiving foreign
assistance against their liberal subjects; there were moreover no troops
that could well be spared.
Canning accordingly contented himself with despatching a naval squadron
to the Tagus to act as a moral support to the king. As the event proved,
this squadron was sufficient to determine the course of events. At the
same time Canning refused to guarantee any constitution, though when
France joined the eastern powers in threatening the proposed
constitution, he intimated his readiness to resist by force of arms any
foreign intervention in Portugal. On April 30, 1824, Dom Miguel
attempted another _coup d'état_, and was for nine days in possession of
Lisbon, where he made wholesale arrests of his political opponents. John
VI. was, however, supported by all the foreign ambassadors, and on March
9, by their advice, he went on board the British ship of war, _Windsor
Castle_, where he summoned his son to appear before him. Dom Miguel
thought it wisest to obey; the king sent him abroad, and the attempt at
a revolution was over for the present. The junta appointed in the
previous year to frame a constitution now reported in favour of a
revival of the ancient cortes, and this proposal was accepted by the
king. The cortes were not, however, actually assembled; still, the mere
fact of Dom Miguel's absence left the government a little stronger.
Meanwhile, the relations between Portugal and Brazil occasioned
difficulties between the former country and Great Britain. On leaving
Brazil, King John VI. had entrusted the government to his elder son,
Peter, to whom he had given secret instructions to proclaim himself
Emperor of Brazil in case he found it impossible to maintain the union
between Brazil and the mother country. Acting on these instructions,
Peter had proclaimed the independence of Brazil on October 12, 1822,
adopting for himself the style of constitutional emperor. Next month
Lord Cochrane, who had been in the service of Chile, quitted it for that
of Brazil. Neither party in Portugal was prepared for the separation of
Brazil, and it was therefore opposed, but without much effect, by the
home government. By the end of 1823 Cochrane had captured all the
Portuguese posts in Brazil, and in August, 1824, he suppressed a
republican movement in the north of that country. On July 23 of the same
year Great Britain signed a commercial treaty with the new empire. This
irritated the Portuguese government. Meanwhile, Beresford, who had
returned to Portugal in a private capacity, had been requested to resume
the command of the Portuguese army. This he refused to do so long as the
Count of Subsérra, a French partisan, held office at home. There was a
difficulty in forming a ministry without him, and eventually Subsérra
became virtual prime minister, and Beresford was excluded from office.
In order to obtain an excuse for the introduction of French troops into
Portugal, Subsérra sent a request to Great Britain for a force of four
or five thousand, knowing it would be refused. Great Britain's refusal
had not, however, the expected consequence, because the influence of the
other powers at Lisbon was weakened by their anti-constitutional policy.
In July, 1825, the representatives of Austria, Brazil, Great Britain,
and Portugal assembled at London to consider the relations of Portugal
and Brazil. While the conference was sitting it was discovered that
Subsérra was carrying on separate negotiations with Brazil. Canning was
now able to obtain his dismissal, which was followed by the recall of
the French ambassador, De Neuville, who had been the principal opponent
of British influence at Lisbon. As a result of this conference the
Portuguese government on August 29 recognised the independence of
Brazil.[80]
The restoration of absolute government in Spain revived the question of
Spanish America. Ferdinand VII., on recovering his authority, proposed a
congress at Paris for the consideration of South American affairs.
Canning, however, declined his invitation, and it was thought useless to
hold a congress without the participation of Great Britain. The position
in which Great Britain had been placed by the negotiations of Verona, as
diplomatic champion of Spain, had caused her to suspend her complaints
about the treatment of her merchant vessels trading with the revolted
colonies; but disorder continued, and on one occasion the British
admiral was authorised to land in Cuba to extirpate the pirates using
the Spanish flag. Canning was determined that French force should not be
employed to reduce the revolted colonies, and in October, 1823, he
informed the French ambassador, Polignac, that he would acknowledge the
independence of those colonies if France assisted Spain in her attempts
to reduce them[81]--a somewhat empty threat, as the commercial interests
of Great Britain would have compelled him to acknowledge them in any
case as soon as there should be settled governments in existence with
which he could treat. Diplomatic agents were in fact appointed in most
of the revolted colonies before the end of this year.
[Pageheading: _THE MONROE DOCTRINE._]
What, however, rendered French interference hopeless was the attitude of
the United States, as expressed in President Monroe's historic message
to congress on December 2, 1823. In this message occur the words, since
known as the Monroe doctrine: "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." After this the recognition of the
independence of the Spanish colonies was only a matter of time.[82]
Great Britain recognised the independence of Buenos Ayres, Colombia, and
Mexico, in 1824, and the rest soon after. In spite of the temporary
successes of Canterac, Peru, the last of the mainland provinces, was
lost to Spain in 1825, and the other European powers did not now delay
their recognition of the American republics. In April of that year
France recognised the virtual independence of her own revolted colony of
Hayti.
The Eastern question advanced more slowly. On March 25, 1823, Canning
recognised the Greeks as belligerents. After this step Great Britain
enjoyed the advantage of being able to hold the Greek government
responsible for piracy committed by Greek ships; but, coming as it did
after the isolated action of Great Britain at Verona, it created a
suspicion among the eastern powers of a desire to effect a settlement
of the Eastern question without the co-operation of other states. In
October, 1823, the Tsar Alexander and the Emperor Francis had a meeting
at Czernowitz in Bukowina. Here they discussed joint intervention in
Greece as a means of forestalling the isolated intervention of Great
Britain. During the meeting the news arrived of the Turkish concessions
to the Russian demands of 1821. Before the conference broke up, the tsar
informally suggested a conference at St. Petersburg to arrange joint
intervention on the basis of the erection of three principalities under
Turkish suzerainty in Greece and the Ægean. In January, 1824, the same
proposal was made formally in a Russian circular addressed to the great
powers. Metternich and Canning both opposed the scheme, thinking that
the principalities would fall under Russian influence.
Metternich met it by a counter proposal for the complete independence of
Greece. Canning preferred to adopt neither course, and to watch the
sequence of events. In April, however, he consented that Great Britain
should be represented at the conference at St. Petersburg on condition
that no coercion should be applied to Turkey, and that diplomatic
relations should have been previously restored between Russia and
Turkey; in August the Greek government sent to London its protest
against the Russian proposals, and in November Canning, finding that
neither Greeks nor Turks would accept the decision of the conference,
and being still opposed to violent interference, refused to take part in
it. At the same time he offered British mediation to the Greeks in case
it should be absolutely necessary. Early in 1825 Metternich induced
Charles X., the new King of France, to support his proposal. Russia,
however, would not hear of the independence of Greece, which might mean
the creation of a rival to her influence in the Turkish dominions. The
conference therefore merely resolved that the Porte should grant
satisfaction to its subjects, failing which the powers offered their
mediation.
[Pageheading: _THE DEATH OF ALEXANDER I._]
Turkey refused the offer. She was in fact busily engaged in restoring
order in her own way. In February, 1825, an Egyptian army was landed in
the Morea, and met with rapid successes of such a nature as to arouse a
suspicion that it was the fixed policy of its commander, Ibrahim, the
adopted son of Mehemet Ali, Pasha of Egypt, to depopulate the Morea.
His advance upon Nauplia was checked by an order of the British
commodore, Hamilton, and he retired towards Tripolitza and Navarino. The
Turkish successes induced Canning to make proposals to Russia through
Sir Stratford Canning, the British ambassador at St. Petersburg, for a
joint intervention of the powers on condition that there should be no
coercion of Turkey. The tsar refused to accept the condition and made
preparations for war. Canning meanwhile declined an offer of the Greek
government to place itself under British protection, and on August 18
Alexander declared that he would solve the Eastern question by himself.
He then set out for the south of Russia, where his army had collected.
Canning now dropped his scheme of an united intervention and opened
negotiations for a separate intervention on the part of Great Britain
and Russia alone. Meanwhile he informed the Greek government that he
would allow no power to effect a settlement without British
co-operation, and that if Russia invaded Turkey he would land troops in
Greece. The negotiations with Russia were proceeding favourably when
they were interrupted by the death of Alexander on December 1.
One event of the year 1825 which attracted little attention at the time
was destined to be a cause of friction at a much later date. In 1824 the
boundary between British America and the United States had been
partially delimited, and this was followed early in the following year
by a treaty, which attempted to settle the boundary between British and
Russian America. Unfortunately the words used in this treaty were
somewhat indefinite, and, although no difficulty was experienced for two
generations, the discovery of gold in the north-west of America
subsequently led to a bitter dispute between Canada on the one side and
the United States, which had acquired the rights of Russia, on the
other.
FOOTNOTES:
[75] Metternich, _Memoirs_, § 484, English translation, iii., 446.
[76] Wellington, _Despatches, etc._, i., 343-48.
[77] Wellington, _Despatches, etc._, i., 518-23. For a French account of
the congress see Duvergier de Hauranne, _Gouvernement Parlementaire en
France_, vii., 130-229.
[78] Wellington, _Despatches, etc._, i., 650. Compare pp. 638, 653-57.
[79] Stapleton, _Life of Canning_, ii., 18, 19.
[80] Stapleton, _Life of Canning_, ii., chapters x., xi.
[81] Stapleton, _Life of Canning_, ii., 26-33.
[82] See J. W. Foster, _A Century of American Diplomacy_, pp. 442-50;
Stapleton, _George Canning and his Times_, p. 375.
CHAPTER XI.
TORY DISSENSION AND CATHOLIC RELIEF.
The sudden illness of Liverpool in February, 1827, disclosed the dualism
and mutual jealousies which had enfeebled his cabinet. One section,
represented by Canning, advocated catholic emancipation, encouraged the
practical application of free trade doctrines, and was prepared to
support the principle of national independence, not only in South
America, but in Greece and Portugal. This section was dominant in the
house of commons. The other section, led by Wellington and Peel, which
was dominant in the house of lords, was strictly conservative on all
these questions, though Peel was beginning to show an open mind on one,
at least, of them. The king's known distrust of Canning, largely shared
by his own party, naturally suggested the hope of rallying it under the
leadership of some politician with the moderate and conciliatory temper
of Lord Liverpool. But no such politician could be found, nor was there
any prospect of Canning accepting a subordinate position in a new
ministry. For nearly six weeks the premiership was in abeyance, while
Liverpool's recovery was treated as a possible event. Canning himself
was in broken health, but, ill as he was, he proposed and carried in the
house of commons a sliding scale of import duties upon corn, variable
with its market price. He also made a fierce attack on Sir John Copley,
then master of the rolls, who had vigorously opposed a motion of Burdett
for catholic relief. At last the king, having consulted others, made up
his mind to send for Canning, who had been suffering from a relapse. It
was in vain that Canning advised him, unless he were prepared for
concession on the catholic question, to summon a body of ministers
sharing his own convictions. There was, in fact, no alternative to
Canning's succession, except that of Wellington or Peel. The former
declared that he would be worse than mad to accept the premiership; the
latter was still young for the office and deprecated as hopeless the
formation of any exclusively "protestant" cabinet. The selection of
Canning became inevitable, and on April 10 the king determined upon it,
irritated by what he regarded as an attempt to force his hand in the
choice of a minister.
[Pageheading: _CANNING ACCEPTS OFFICE._]
From that moment, during the short remainder of his life Canning had to
undergo the same bitter experience as Pitt in 1804, and to suffer a
cruel retribution for his aggressive petulance. All his strongest
colleagues, except Huskisson, deserted him. The resignation of Lord
Eldon, since 1821 Earl of Eldon, must have been expected, terminating,
as it did, the longest chancellorship since the Norman conquest. But
Canning seems to have really hoped that he might secure the support of
Wellington by the assurance of his desire to carry out the principles of
Liverpool's government. The duke, however, repelled his overtures with
something less than courtesy, and even retired from the command of the
army. Peel had already intimated privately that a transfer of the
premiership from an opponent to a champion of emancipation would make it
impossible for him to retain office. Three peers, Bathurst, Melville,
and Westmorland, followed his example. Canning had no resource but to
enlist colleagues from the ranks of the whigs. In this he was at first
unsuccessful. Sturges Bourne was appointed to the home office, Viscount
Dudley became foreign secretary, and Robinson, who was raised to the
peerage as Viscount Goderich, became secretary for war and the colonies.
Canning himself united the offices of first lord of the treasury and
chancellor of the exchequer. The Duke of Portland became lord privy
seal. Palmerston, the secretary at war, was given a seat in the cabinet.
Harrowby, Huskisson, Wynn, and Bexley, retained their former posts, and
Sidmouth, hitherto an unofficial member of the cabinet, finally retired.
One important office outside the cabinet, that of chief secretary for
Ireland, was given to a whig, William Lamb, afterwards Lord Melbourne.
It was a happy idea to make the Duke of Clarence lord high admiral
without a seat in the cabinet, and without any power of acting
independently of his council, while Copley (as Lord Lyndhurst) proved a
good successor to Eldon.
In May some of the whigs were induced to join the ministry. Tierney
entered the cabinet as master of the mint and the Earl of Carlisle as
first commissioner of woods and forests. The Marquis of Lansdowne, the
former Lord Henry Petty, joined the cabinet without taking office. Other
minor posts were assigned to whigs, and several whig chiefs, such as
Holland and Brougham, while they remained outside the government,
tendered it a friendly support. In July Lansdowne became home secretary,
Bourne was transferred to the woods and forests department, Carlisle
became lord privy seal, and Portland remained in the cabinet without
office.
The new cabinet was therefore still in an unsettled state when it met
parliament at the beginning of May. It there encountered a storm of
unsparing criticism even in the house of commons, but still more in the
house of lords. Lord Stewart, who had succeeded his brother as Marquis
of Londonderry, and the Duke of Newcastle denounced Canning in the most
intemperate language; and the veteran whig, Lord Grey, who had not been
consulted, delivered an elaborate oration against him not the less
virulent because it was carefully studied and measured. This attack was
so keenly felt by Canning that he was supposed to meditate the
acceptance of a peerage, that he might reply to it in person. The climax
of his vexations was reached when a corn bill, prepared by the late
cabinet, and passed by the house of commons, was finally wrecked in the
house of lords through an amendment introduced by Wellington. There was
some excuse for the duke's action in letters which had passed between
him and Huskisson, but Canning naturally resented his mischievous
interposition, and unwisely declared that he must "have been made an
instrument in the hands of others". So ended the session on July 2,
amidst discords and divisions which boded ill for the future, but threw
a retrospective light on the rare merits of Liverpool.
[Pageheading: _THE DEATH OF CANNING._]
The days of Canning were already numbered. Before the end of July he was
unable to attend a council, and retired for rest to the Duke of
Devonshire's villa at Chiswick. As in the case of Castlereagh, the king
had noticed the symptoms of serious illness, and on August 5 the public
was informed of his danger. On the 8th he died of internal inflammation
in the room which had witnessed the death of Fox. His loss was deeply
felt, not only by the king who never showed him confidence, but also by
the best part of the nation, and his funeral was attended by a great
concourse of mourners, both whigs and tories. No one doubted that he was
a patriot, and his noble gifts commanded the admiration of his bitterest
opponents. He belonged to an age of transition, and it must ever be
deplored that he missed the opportunity of showing whether his mind was
capable of further growth in the highest office of state; for the
inconsistencies of his opinions, obstinately maintained for years, would
have demanded many changes of conviction or policy. He was as stout an
enemy of reform at home as he was a resolute friend of constitutional
liberty abroad. He detested the system of repression consecrated by the
holy alliance, but he defended the necessity of such measures as the six
acts and arbitrary imprisonment for a limited period. He never swerved
in his advocacy of Roman catholic relief, but he was unmoved by
arguments in favour of repealing the test and corporation acts.
Probably, at the head of a coalition, embracing the ablest of the
moderate tories and reformers, and loyally supported by his colleagues,
he might have proved the foremost British statesman of the nineteenth
century. But it is more than doubtful whether his proud and sensitive
nature would have enabled him so to cancel past memories as to
consolidate such a coalition, or to inspire such loyalty in its members.
The death of Canning involved for the moment far less political change
than might have been expected. The king at once sent for Sturges Bourne
and Goderich, as the most intimate adherents of Canning. He then
commanded Goderich to form, or rather to continue, a ministry of
compromise, and this was done with little shifting of places. Wellington
resumed the command of the army, thereby revealing his motive in giving
it up so abruptly. But a very unwise choice was made in the appointment
of John Charles Herries, rather than Palmerston, as chancellor of the
exchequer, and it carried with it the seeds of an early disruption.
Palmerston had originally been proposed for the office, but the king
strongly favoured Herries, though he showed good sense in deferring to
public opinion, and desiring Huskisson to take the post himself.
Unfortunately, Huskisson preferred the colonial office, and, as neither
Sturges Bourne nor Tierney would accept the position, royal influence
prevailed, and Herries found himself at the exchequer. Meanwhile
Portland succeeded Harrowby as lord president, Charles Grant succeeded
Huskisson at the board of trade, and Lord Uxbridge, who had been created
Marquis of Anglesey after the battle of Waterloo, and who was now
master-general of the ordnance, was given a seat in the cabinet.
In the course of November it was decided by Goderich, in concert with
Huskisson and Tierney, that a finance committee should be appointed
early in the next session to consider the state of the revenue. Lord
Althorp, the son of Earl Spencer, was designated as chairman, and
provisionally undertook to act, but the chancellor of the exchequer,
who, contrary to all precedent, had not been taken into counsel,
strongly protested against the nomination, as soon as he was informed of
it. Out of this dispute arose the ignoble fall of the Goderich
administration, though it was preceded by more serious dissensions on
foreign policy. The king, whose activity revived with the increasing
weakness of his ministers, committed himself, without asking their
opinion, to a hearty approval of Codrington's action at Navarino, in
which, as will be recorded hereafter, that admiral had co-operated in
the destruction of the Turkish navy, though the British government
professed to be at peace with the Porte. The king was also adverse to a
proposal for the admission of Holland and Wellesley into the cabinet.
Goderich in consequence resigned, but had withdrawn his resignation when
the quarrel between Huskisson and Herries broke out afresh. Driven to
distraction by difficulties to which he was utterly unequal, Goderich
once more abandoned his post. The king gladly dispensed with his
services, and after some negotiation with Harrowby sent for Wellington
on January 9, 1828, giving him a free hand to invite any co-operation
except that of Grey. It was stipulated, however, "that the Roman
Catholic question was not to be made a cabinet question," and that both
the lord chancellors, as well as the lord lieutenant of Ireland, were to
be "protestants".[83]
[Pageheading: _WELLINGTON PRIME MINISTER._]
It must ever be regretted, for the sake of the country not less than of
his own fame, that Wellington undertook the premiership. He was beyond
all dispute the greatest man in England, and exercised up to the end of
his life a more powerful influence in emergencies than any other
subject. But he had judged himself rightly when he declared that he was
wholly unfit to be prime minister, and his administration was among the
weakest of modern times. The firmness which had sustained him in so many
campaigns, the political sagacity which had enabled him to grapple with
the complications of Spanish affairs, and with the great settlement of
Europe, equally failed him in party management and in the estimation of
public opinion at home. He understood better than any man how to deal
with the king, and overbore not only the king's own prejudices but the
machinations of the Duke of Cumberland with masterly resolution. He set
a good example in declining to regard himself as a mere party leader and
in refusing to study the arts of popularity hunting, but he never
grasped the principle that constitutional government ultimately rests on
the will of the people. Still he was too good a general not to see when
facts were too strong for him. His chief manoeuvres on the field of
politics consisted in somewhat inglorious though not unskilful retreats;
when he afterwards carried boldness to the point of rashness, he
encountered a signal defeat. Nevertheless, while he utterly lost his
political hold on the masses, and even the confidence of shrewd
politicians, he never ceased to retain the profound respect of his
countrymen, not only as the first of English generals, but as the most
honest of public servants.
Wellington naturally applied first to Peel, and, by his advice, attempted
a reconstruction of the Goderich cabinet, but with the addition of certain
new elements. Five of Canning's followers--Lyndhurst, Dudley, who had been
created an earl, Huskisson, Grant, and Palmerston retained their old
offices, and Palmerston gave an extraordinary proof of patience by
cheerfully remaining secretary at war after eighteen years' service in
that capacity. These cabinet ministers were now joined or rejoined by Peel
as home secretary, Earl Bathurst as lord president, Henry Goulburn as
chancellor of the exchequer, Melville as president of the board of
control, Lord Aberdeen as chancellor of the duchy, and Lord Ellenborough,
son of the former chief justice, as lord privy seal. Herries was
transferred from the exchequer to the mastership of the mint. Outside the
cabinet Anglesey became lord lieutenant of Ireland, where Lamb remained
chief secretary. It was understood that Eldon, now in his seventy-seventh
year, would have willingly accepted the presidency of the council, and
felt hurt that no offer or communication was made to him. On the other
hand, the whigs were by no means satisfied, while the inclusion of
Huskisson equally offended extreme tories and the widow of Canning, who
spoke of him as having become an associate of her husband's murderers.
This association was not destined to be long lived. The formation of the
ministry was not completed until the end of January, and very soon after
parliament met on the 29th of that month a rupture between Huskisson and
Wellington became imminent. For this Huskisson was mainly responsible.
Having to seek re-election at Liverpool, and irritated by the attacks made
upon his consistency, he delivered a very imprudent speech, in which he
implied, if he did not state, that he had obtained from his chief pledges
of adhesion to Canning's policy. Such a declaration from such a man was
inevitably understood as applying at least to free trade and the conduct
of foreign affairs. Both Huskisson and the duke in parliamentary speeches
disclaimed the imputation of any bargain; still the rift was not closed,
and it was speedily widened by events on which harmony between tories and
friends of Canning was impossible.
For six years the so-called war of Greek independence had been carried
on with the utmost barbarity on both sides. The sympathies of Canning,
as foreign secretary, had been entirely with the Greeks, as they had
been with the South American insurgents, but he was equally on his guard
against the armed "mediation" of Russia and her claim to be the supreme
protector of the Greek Christians. We have seen how at last, in 1825,
hopeless discord between the great continental powers led to overtures
for the peaceful intervention of Great Britain, and how at this juncture
the Tsar Alexander died on December 1, 1825. Wellington, at Canning's
request, undertook a special embassy to St. Petersburg for the
ostensible purpose of congratulating the new tsar, Nicholas, on his
accession, and succeeded, during April, 1826, in concluding an
arrangement for joint action by Russia and Great Britain with a view to
establishing the autonomy of Greece under the sovereignty of Turkey.
Meanwhile the impulsive enthusiasm which has so often seized the English
people on behalf of "oppressed nationalities" had been fanned into a
flame by the cause of Greek independence. Byron had already sacrificed
his life to it in April, 1824; Cochrane now devoted to it an energy and
a naval reputation only second to Nelson's; volunteers joined the Greek
levies, and subscriptions came in freely. In the course of 1826 Canning
succeeded in procuring the adhesion of the French government to the
Anglo-Russian agreement. Early in 1827 the three powers demanded an
armistice from Turkey, and, on the refusal of the Porte, signed the
treaty of London for the settlement of the Greek question. This treaty,
dated July 6, 1827, was almost the last public act of Canning. It was
moderate in its terms, embodying the conditions laid down in the
previous year at St. Petersburg, and making the self-government of
Greece subject to a payment of tribute to the Porte. It provided for a
combination of the British, French, and Russian fleets in the event of a
second refusal from Turkey; but Canning died in the hope that
hostilities might be avoided.
[Pageheading: _NAVARINO._]
This hope was not likely, nor was it destined, to be realised. The Porte
remained inflexible, and would grant no armistice; indeed, it had
summoned a contingent of ships from Egypt, and a fleet of twenty-eight
sail under Ibrahim Pasha was lying in the Bay of Navarino awaiting
further reinforcements. Admiral Codrington, who commanded the allied
fleet, now before Navarino, showed much forbearance. In concert with the
French admiral, he warned Ibrahim Pasha not to leave the harbour, and
obtained assurances which were speedily broken. Futile negotiations went
on during the early part of October, ending in a massacre among the
inhabitants of the coast by the direction of Ibrahim. The admirals of
the allied fleet no longer hesitated. On the 20th the fleet entered the
harbour. The first shots were fired by the Turco-Egyptian fleet, which
was skilfully ranged in three lines, and in the form of a horseshoe. An
action ensued, which lasted four hours, and resulted in the almost
complete destruction of the Ottoman armament. Had the allied fleet at
once proceeded to Constantinople, the Greek question might perhaps have
been settled promptly, instead of being left to perplex cabinets for two
years longer.
The news of Navarino reached England when the ministry of Lord Goderich
was already tottering, and caused its members far more anxiety than
satisfaction. Probably the wisest of them foresaw that, unless
immediate action were taken, Russia would declare war single-handed
against Turkey and enforce her own terms, but nothing in fact was done,
and Wellington, on coming into power, found the question of our
relations with Turkey and Greece still open. In spite of his own share
in bringing about the co-operation of Russia with Great Britain, he was
by no means prepared for a crusade on behalf of Greek independence, or
for a definite rupture with Turkey. Hence the memorable phrases inserted
in the king's speech of January 29, 1828, which described the battle of
Navarino as "a collision wholly unexpected by His Majesty" and as "an
untoward event," which His Majesty hoped would not be followed by
further hostilities. These expressions, however much in accord with the
pacific tone of the treaty of London, provoked an outburst of
indignation from the friends of Greece in both houses. Lords Holland and
Althorp, Lord John Russell, and Brougham recorded earnest protests
against any disparagement of Admiral Codrington's action. The
infatuation of the Porte, and the consequent war with Russia, checked
further agitation on the subject, and Wellington's government was able
to fall back on the policy of non-intervention proposed, though not
always practised, by Canning. But the reactionary tendency of
Wellington's foreign policy betrayed in the king's speech had its effect
in alienating the more liberal of his colleagues. Nor was his position
strengthened by his irresolute home policy. During the session of 1828
issues were raised which inevitably divided and ultimately broke up the
cabinet.
[Pageheading: _TEST ACTS REPEALED._]
The first of these difficulties was caused by the success of Lord John
Russell's motion for the repeal of the test and corporation acts, under
which dissenters were precluded from holding municipal and other
offices. It was, indeed, a grave blot on the consistency of reformers
that, while the claims of Roman catholics, and especially of Irish Roman
catholics, had been vehemently urged for nearly thirty years, those of
protestant nonconformists had been coldly neglected. Their legal
disabilities, it is true, had gradually become almost nominal, and an
indemnity act was passed yearly to cover the constant breaches of the
obnoxious law. Still, the law was maintained, and was stoutly defended
by such tories as Eldon on the principle that it was an important
outwork of the union between Church and State. Even the Canningite
members of the government supported it against Russell's attack, but on
the very opposite ground--that it had become a dead letter. However, the
measure for its repeal was carried in the house of commons by a majority
of forty-four, including some well-known Churchmen. This measure would
assuredly have been rejected in the house of lords had not Peel
judiciously procured the insertion of a clause substituting for the
sacramental test a declaration binding the office-holder to do nothing
hostile to the Church. Thus modified, it passed the house of lords, with
the assent of several bishops, in spite of the implacable opposition of
Lords Eldon and Redesdale, and the Duke of Cumberland. But the
declaration was amended by the addition of the words "upon the true
faith of a Christian," which incidentally continued the statutable
exclusion of Jews.
The enforced acceptance of this enactment was equivalent to a decisive
reverse, and could not but injure the prestige of the government, but it
did not actually cause a schism in the cabinet. It was otherwise when
the duke proposed a corn bill in lieu of that rejected at his instance
in the previous year. The difference between these measures was not very
material, but the duke insisted upon certain regulations of detail,
which Huskisson persistently opposed. Peel suggested a compromise which,
after long altercation and some threats of resignation, was adopted. But
the effect was to weaken the government still further in the eyes of the
public, inasmuch as the principle of duties on a graduated scale had
prevailed at last against the declared opinions of the duke. The
inevitable rupture was only deferred for a few weeks, and arose out of
motions for disfranchising East Retford and Penryn--a premonitory
symptom of the great reform bill. These were among the most corrupt of
the old "rotten boroughs," and the scandalous practices which flourished
in both of them had more than once shocked even the unreformed
parliament. In 1827 a bill for disfranchising Penryn had actually been
carried by the house of commons in spite of Canning's dissent, and one
for disfranchising East Retford would probably have been carried, but
that it was introduced too late.
The motions now introduced by Lord John Russell and Charles Tennyson
respectively could scarcely have been thrown out by the same house, but
squabbles arose in the cabinet, partly on the comparative guiltiness of
the two venal constituencies, but chiefly on the disposal of the seats
to be vacated. It was agreed at last that Penryn should be merged in the
adjacent hundred, and the majority of the cabinet, represented by Peel,
were for dealing in like manner with East Retford. The liberal section,
however, represented by Huskisson, was bent on transferring its
representation to Birmingham, and voted against Peel in the house of
commons. Having thus vindicated his independence, Huskisson, somewhat
too hastily, placed his resignation in the hands of the premier on May
20. The duke, having fairly lost patience with his insubordinate
colleagues, was equally prompt in accepting it, and declined to receive
the explanations offered. In the end, Palmerston, Dudley, Grant, and
Lamb, followed the fortunes of Huskisson, and Wellington's government
was completely purged of Canning's old supporters.
[Pageheading: _THE CLARE ELECTION._]
Two military officers, without political experience, were now imported
into the ministry. Sir George Murray succeeded Huskisson at the colonial
office, and Sir Henry Hardinge replaced Palmerston as secretary at war,
but was not admitted to the cabinet; Lord Aberdeen became foreign
secretary, and Vesey Fitzgerald president of the board of trade, while
Lord Francis Leveson Gower succeeded Lamb as chief secretary for
Ireland. So purely tory an administration had not been formed since the
days of Perceval. Looking back we can see that, for that very reason, it
was doomed; but to politicians of 1828 Wellington's ascendency seemed
assured, and it was not actually broken for above two years. By far the
most important event of domestic history within that period was the
crisis ending in the catholic emancipation act, and this crisis was
immediately precipitated by the almost casual appointment of Vesey
Fitzgerald. He was a popular Irish landlord, who had always supported
catholic relief, and his re-election for the county of Clare was
regarded as perfectly secure. The landlords were known to be entirely in
his favour, and Irish tenants, miscalled "forty shilling freeholders,"
had been used to vote obsequiously for the candidate of their landlords.
Indeed, these counterfeit freeholds had been manufactured recklessly
throughout Ireland for the very purpose of extending landlord influence.
Perhaps the recent defeat of a Beresford at Waterford by a nominee of
Daniel O'Connell, who had made himself the leader of the movement for
Catholic relief, ought to have undeceived the Irish tories, but no one
could have foreseen so daring an act as the candidature of O'Connell
himself, notwithstanding that, as a catholic, he was incapable of
sitting in the house of commons.
The contest began on June 30 and lasted five days. All the gentry and
electors of the higher class supported Fitzgerald, but all the poorer
electors, headed by their priests, flocked to the poll and voted for
O'Connell, who, on Fitzgerald's retirement, was triumphantly elected.
The violence of O'Connell's language was unmeasured, and as was said by
Sheil, "every altar became a tribune," but perfect order was maintained
throughout. The terrorism which has since disgraced Irish elections and
vitiated the whole representation of Ireland had no place in this
startling victory, and the impression produced by it was thereby
infinitely enhanced. Two conclusions were instantly drawn from it: the
one, that electoral power in Ireland could not safely be left in the
hands of the forty-shilling freeholders; the other, that, whether or not
they were disfranchised, nothing short of political equality of the
catholics of Ireland could avert the risk of civil war. It is seldom
that momentous changes can be so clearly traced to a single cause as in
the case of catholic emancipation. The whole interval between July,
1828, and April, 1829, was occupied by the discussion of this question,
or circumstances arising out of it, and it may truly be said to have
filled the whole horizon of domestic politics. The first and final
recognition by a responsible government of emancipation as a political
necessity dates immediately from the Clare election.
The question of catholic emancipation had been the only reason for the
resignation of Pitt in 1801, but we have seen that he resumed office in
1804 under a pledge not to re-open it. It is certain that he never
contemplated a complete emancipation of the catholics without safeguards
for the interests of the established church. Such a safeguard (though
ineffective against a future attack through disestablishment) was
provided by the act of union,[84] which inviolably united the Irish and
English churches. The catholic leaders, on their part, were profuse in
their disavowals of hostility to that establishment and to the
protestant government in Ireland. In their first solemn memorial,
presented by Grenville on March 25, 1805, they expressly declared that
"they do not seek or wish, in the remotest degree, to injure or encroach
upon the rights, privileges, immunities, possessions, and revenues
appertaining to the bishops and clergy of the protestant religion, or to
the churches committed to their charge". They further volunteered an
expression of their belief that no evil act could be justified by the
good of the Church, and that papal infallibility was no article of the
catholic faith. Thenceforward, frequent motions in support of the
"catholic claims" were made in both houses of parliament. In 1810 such a
motion was proposed in a very eloquent speech by Grattan, but
Castlereagh, though a staunch friend of the cause, deprecated it as
inopportune, since the catholics had injured themselves by imprudent
conduct, and fresh declarations inconsistent with their former
assurances. The motion was therefore rejected, and a similar fate befell
motions of the same kind in the two following years, especially in the
house of lords, where Eldon inflexibly resisted any concession, and
always commanded a majority.
[Pageheading: _CATHOLIC RELIEF._]
When Liverpool replaced Perceval as prime minister in 1812, catholic
emancipation became an open question in the cabinet. In that year
Canning succeeded in carrying triumphantly a resolution pledging the
house of commons to consider the question seriously in the next session,
and a like resolution was only lost by one vote in the house of lords.
Accordingly, in 1813, Grattan's motion for a committee of the whole
house on catholic disabilities was accepted, and a bill for their
removal passed its second reading. But it was loaded with vexatious
securities in committee and wrecked by the vigorous opposition of the
speaker, Abbot, who on May 24 carried by a majority of four an amendment
withholding the right to sit and vote in parliament. After this, the
bill was of course abandoned, but another was unanimously passed
exempting from penalties Roman catholics holding certain military and
civil offices, to which, by a harsh construction of law, they were not
eligible. In 1817 the question was debated at great length in the house
of commons, and several leading men took part in it, but the motion for
catholic relief was again defeated by a majority of twenty-four. It was
revived in 1819 by Grattan, who delivered on this occasion one of his
greatest speeches, and succeeded in reducing the majority to two only.
In 1821 a further advance was made by Plunket's success in obtaining a
committee to consider the claims of the catholics. This was carried by a
majority of six, and followed up by two bills, removing all catholic
disabilities with very slight exceptions, but subject to stringent and
somewhat illusory securities for the loyalty of the priesthood.
Ultimately on April 2 a comprehensive measure of catholic relief passed
the house of commons by a majority of nineteen. All the most influential
members of the lower house now voted in its favour, but the attitude of
the upper house remained unchanged. The spirit of Eldon still ruled the
peers, and his speech against Plunket's relief bill contains a complete
armoury of protestant arguments. But the catholics had a still more
doughty opponent in the Duke of York, who delivered on this occasion the
first of his famous declarations, binding himself to life-long
hostility. As Eldon said, "he did more to quiet this matter than
everything else put together".[85]
The year 1821 marks a turning point in the history of the catholic
question, since the protestant cause, no longer safe in the house of
commons, was felt by its champions to depend on the crown and the house
of lords. But it would be an error to suppose that catholic relief was
ever a popular cry in this country, like retrenchment and reform. On the
contrary, the feelings of the masses in Great Britain were never roused
in regard to it, and, if roused at all, would probably have been
enlisted on the other side. It would be too much to say that the
controversy was merely academical, for it was keen enough to split up
parties and produce dualism in cabinets. But it was never a hustings
question. It filled a much larger space in the minds of statesmen than
in the minds of the people, and even among statesmen it was so far
secondary that it could be treated as an open question in Liverpool's
ministry for a period of fifteen years. No doubt the disturbed state of
Ireland, which ultimately supplied the motive power for carrying the
emancipation act, contributed at an earlier stage to damp the zeal of
its advocates. Whatever the merits of the union, it had failed to pacify
the country, thereby verifying the warning of Cornwallis, that, although
Ireland could not be saved without the union, "you must not take it for
granted that it will be saved by it".
In 1800, the very year of the union, the _habeas corpus_ act had been
suspended and another act passed for the suppression of rebellion.
Though repealed in the following year, these coercive measures were
renewed in 1803, after Emmet's abortive rising, and continued in 1804.
In 1805, when they expired, special commissions were appointed for the
repression of crime in the south and west of Ireland. In 1807 the
_habeas corpus_ act was again suspended and a rigorous insurrection act
passed which continued in force until 1810. In that year a Catholic
Committee was formed, anticipating the more notorious Catholic
Association. An essential part of the scheme was the formation of a
representative assembly in Dublin, to discuss and procure redress for
the wrongs of catholics. This project was put down by the Irish
government, which treated it as a breach of the convention act of 1793.
The next ten years seem to have been somewhat quieter in Ireland, and
the disturbances which followed the peace in Great Britain had no
counterpart in that country. Still, it was thought necessary to suppress
another catholic convention in 1814, and to renew the insurrection act,
which remained in force with one interval till 1817. It can well be
imagined that a population so lawless, and so prone to horrible outrages
which shock Englishmen more than a thousand crimes against property,
should have excited little general sympathy by their complaints of
political grievances. These grievances were justly denounced by party
leaders, but in the eyes of ordinary politicians, and still more of
electors, coercion rather than concession was the appropriate remedy for
the ills of Ireland.
[Pageheading: _CATHOLIC RELIEF._]
Canning, however, though suspected of lukewarmness, did not let the
question rest in 1822. On April 30, while still out of office, he
introduced a bill which he could scarcely have expected to become law,
for enabling Roman catholic peers to sit and vote in the house of lords.
This bill was passed in the commons by a majority of five, but rejected
in the lords by a majority of forty-four, in spite of somewhat
transparent assertions that it was not intended to prejudice the main
issue. On April 18, 1823, an angry protest from Burdett against the
"annual farce" of motions leading to nothing was followed by a quarrel
between Canning and Brougham, who accused Canning, then foreign
secretary, of "monstrous truckling for the purpose of obtaining office";
and when Plunket moved, as usual, for the relief of catholics, a
temporary secession of radicals took place, which left him in a
ridiculous minority. In spite of this discomfiture, Lord Nugent
succeeded in carrying through the commons a bill, granting the
parliamentary franchise to Roman catholics in Great Britain. The bill
was lost in the lords, and the question remained dormant in 1824; but in
1825 it received a fresh impulse. This time it was Burdett who, at the
instance of Lansdowne and Brougham, appeared as spokesman of the
catholics. His action was in some respects inopportune, as the "Catholic
Association," founded by O'Connell and Sheil in 1823, was now usurping
the functions of a government, and regularly levying taxes under the
name of "rent". The necessity of suppressing it, though not apparent to
Lord Wellesley, the lord-lieutenant, was strongly felt on both sides of
the house of commons. A bill for this purpose, but applicable to all
similar associations, was rapidly carried by large majorities in both
houses, and the opposition was fain to rely mainly on the declaration
that it would be put in force against catholic associations only, and
not against those of the Orangemen, as the more violent of the Irish
protestants were called. It is needless to say that it was evaded by the
former, but on March 1, while it was still before the house of lords,
Burdett took courage to move another preliminary resolution in favour of
the catholics, and obtained a majority of thirteen. A bill founded on
this resolution was at once introduced.
The debates on this bill were memorable in several respects and opened
the last stage but one in the long history of catholic relief. In the
first place, more than one opponent publicly avowed his conversion to
it; in the second place, now that its "settlement" was actually within
view, the necessity of providing a counterpoise became admitted.
Accordingly, one independent member proposed a state grant of £250,000 a
year for the endowment of the catholic clergy, who might thus be
indirectly bound over to good behaviour, while another proposed the
disfranchisement of the 40s. freeholders. Both of these bills were read
a second time, but held over until the fate of the main relief bill
should be determined. That bill passed the house of commons on May 10,
1825, by a majority of twenty-one, and Peel tendered his resignation to
Lord Liverpool.[86] Two days later, the Duke of York, on presenting a
petition against the bill in the house of lords, delivered another
speech which fell like a thunder-clap on the country, and has been
celebrated ever since as an audacious breach of constitutional usage. In
this speech, he justified the inflexible attitude of his father, whose
mental disorder he expressly attributed to the agitation of the catholic
question. He concluded by declaring that his principles were the same,
imbibed in early youth and confirmed by mature reflection, and that he
would maintain them up to the latest moment of his existence, "whatever
might be his situation in life". It is certain that, in thus pledging
himself, he acted without having consulted the king, who somewhat
resented so direct an allusion to his prospect of succession. Still, the
sensation produced by the duke's utterance was prodigious, and he
remained the favourite champion of the protestant cause until his death.
Brougham attacked him with furious sarcasm in the commons, but the lords
threw out Burdett's relief bill by a majority of forty-eight, and the
No-popery cry influenced the general election of 1826. In that year no
further effort was made by the friends of catholic claims, but O'Connell
showed his growing power in Ireland by exciting a political revolt of
the peasantry at Waterford, and procuring the defeat of Lord George
Beresford.
[Pageheading: _CATHOLIC RELIEF._]
In the session of 1827, before Canning succeeded Lord Liverpool, Burdett
renewed his motion of 1825 on the catholic question, but found himself
defeated by four votes. The division had taken place in a full house,
after the fierce encounter, already mentioned, between Copley and
Canning; but it cannot be regarded as a decisive token of contrast
between the old and the new parliament, since relief was now claimed
without any mention of "securities". The subject was in abeyance during
the short administrations of Canning and Goderich, but was raised again
by Burdett in May, 1828, after the repeal of the test and corporation
acts. The number of votes on the catholic side, 272, was the same as in
1827, that on the protestant side, 266, was less by ten, the result
being a majority of six for the motion. A similar resolution was lost in
the house of lords, as a matter of course; but the language held by the
new lord chancellor, Lyndhurst, and by Wellington himself, as prime
minister, prepared observant men for an impending change of policy. Then
followed the Clare election, which revealed nothing which might not have
been foreseen, but which had the same effect in precipitating the
removal of catholic disabilities as the Irish famine afterwards had in
precipitating the repeal of the corn laws.
We now know that Peel had made up his mind to yield shortly after the
Clare election,[87] partly influenced by the alarming reports of
Anglesey, the Irish lord-lieutenant, on the state of Ireland. We also
know that Wellington himself was more than half convinced of the
necessity of concession, and was preparing to strengthen his government
for the coming struggle, in the event of Peel feeling bound to retire.
Meanwhile a vacancy in the ministry had been created by the Duke of
Clarence's resignation of his office of lord high admiral. In spite of
the limitations imposed on his power, he had insisted on hoisting his
flag, and assumed command. For this he was severely reprehended by the
king and Wellington, and was virtually forced to resign office. Melville
now became once more first lord of the admiralty, and was succeeded by
Ellenborough at the board of control. Ellenborough retained his former
office of lord privy seal, which Wellington was holding in reserve with
a view to strengthening the government. But the public of those days
remained in entire ignorance of their intentions until the meeting of
parliament on February 5, 1829.
The speech of George Dawson, Peel's brother-in-law, at Derry, on August
12, had greatly startled protestants. As it was never publicly
disavowed, Brunswick clubs were formed to repel the rising tide of
sympathy with the catholics, but the only tangible indication of
Wellington's personal sentiments favoured the belief that nothing would
be done. The circumstances under which this indication was given were
peculiar. The duke had written a letter to the Roman catholic archbishop
of Dublin, an old correspondent, deprecating agitation on the catholic
question, as likely to prejudice its future settlement, of which,
however, the duke saw "no prospect".[88] This letter was improperly
sent by the archbishop to O'Connell as well as to Anglesey. O'Connell
read it to the Catholic Association as a sign of conciliatory
inclinations; Anglesey's reply suggested, at least, that agitation might
continue. He was promptly recalled, and his recall was rendered the more
significant by the appointment of the Duke of Northumberland, a known
"protestant," as his successor. What the public could not then know was
that behind all other difficulties, political or personal, lay the
almost insuperable difficulty of inducing the king to allow the cabinet
to be even consulted. Indolent and unprincipled as George IV. was, he
was still capable of rousing and asserting himself. Probably no one but
Wellington could have prevailed against his anti-catholic prejudices,
shared, as they were, not only by most of the peers, both spiritual and
temporal, but also by the mass of the English people. At this juncture
Peel informed the duke that, rather than risk the success of the
proposed measure, he would remain at his post. His example was followed
by his "protestant" colleagues.
[Pageheading: _THE INTRODUCTION OF THE RELIEF BILL._]
During the winter of 1828-29 the strongest pressure was brought to bear
on the king by his ministers to procure his consent to a measure of
relief, accompanied by safeguards. Though he afterwards assured Eldon
that he had never explicitly given such a consent, the old chancellor,
on seeing the documents, felt obliged to express a contrary opinion. It
is certain that he gave way most reluctantly, and probable that his
scruples were as sincere as was consistent with his character; but he
knew well that, if he dismissed his ministers, he would be left
isolated, and he bowed to necessity. Indeed even the "protestant"
members of the cabinet had urged him to yield. His assent was, in fact,
only given by degrees; after each member of the cabinet, who had
previously opposed catholic emancipation, had had a separate interview,
the king consented on January 15 to the consideration of the subject by
the cabinet, but reserved the right to reject its advice. After this no
great difficulty was experienced in obtaining the royal assent to the
introduction of a bill.[89] Accordingly the king's speech, delivered by
commission on February 5, 1829, distinctly recommended parliament to
consider whether the civil disabilities of the catholics could not be
removed "consistently with the full and permanent security of our
establishments in Church and State". This recommendation, however, was
preceded by a severe condemnation of the Catholic Association and the
expression of a resolution to put down the disorders caused by it. The
sensation produced by the king's speech was increased by the
simultaneous resignation by Peel of his seat for the university of
Oxford. Considering that he was originally preferred to Canning mainly
on protestant grounds, he could not have honourably acted otherwise.
Many of his old friends stood by him, in spite of differences on the
catholic question, and Eldon's grandson, who had been proposed as a
candidate, was set aside as too weak an opponent. Ultimately Sir Robert
Inglis was put forward by the "protestants," and was returned by 755
votes against 609. Peel obtained a seat for the borough of Westbury,[90]
and moved a preliminary bill for suppressing the Catholic Association.
This passed both houses in February, but was already ineffective when it
became law, since the association had been shrewd enough to dissolve
itself upon the advice of its English well-wishers. The catholic relief
bill was therefore introduced under favourable auspices.
The motives which actuated Wellington and Peel in espousing the cause
which they had so persistently opposed admit of no doubt whatever. In
the memoir which Peel left as embodying his own defence, no less than in
his speech introducing the emancipation bill, he affects no essential
change of conviction. He rests his case entirely on the public danger of
leaving the question "unsettled" after the disclosures of the Clare
election, and argues calmly, as the agitators had been arguing for
nearly thirty years, that no settlement was practicable short of
complete, though not unconditional, surrender. There is no pretence of
consistency. All the constitutional, political, and religious objections
to civil equality between protestants and catholics in Ireland remained
unanswered and unabated. Indeed the increasing power and defiant tone of
the catholic demagogues might well have appeared a crowning reason for
refusing them seats in parliament. Peel, however, had adopted, and
pressed upon Wellington, the delusive opinion of Anglesey that by
"taking them from the Association and placing them in the house of
commons" they might be reduced to comparative impotence. He lamented, it
is true, the premature announcement of a new policy by Dawson, and he
had submitted his own resignation to the duke in the belief, apparently
sincere, that he could render better service in an independent position.
But he seems not to have felt the least scruple in urging the duke to
break all his pledges to his protestant supporters, and conciliate the
followers of O'Connell. Nor did his advice fall on unwilling ears.
Trained in a vocation where private conscience is subordinate to
military duty, where enemies must sometimes be welcomed as allies if it
may further the plan of campaign, and where a masterly retreat is as
honourable as a victory, Wellington did not shrink from undertaking the
part of an opportunist minister. He had always regarded himself as a
servant of the crown and the nation, rather than as a party leader, and
he saw no personal difficulty in adopting any political measure as the
less of two evils. Having once satisfied himself that civil war in
Ireland was the only alternative to emancipation, he abandoned
resistance to it as he would have abandoned a hopeless siege, and called
upon his tory followers to change their front with him.
Notice had been given of a resolution to be moved by Peel on March 5,
preparing the way for the catholic relief bill, when the king raised
fresh obstacles to its progress. As the day drew near, George,
encouraged by the Duke of Cumberland, grew very excited. He had violent
interviews with his ministers, and finally on March 3 he informed
Wellington, Lyndhurst, and Peel that he could not assent to any
alteration in the oath of supremacy. The three ministers accordingly
tendered their resignations, which were accepted. But the king soon
found that no alternative administration was possible, and on the
following day the existing ministers received permission to proceed with
the bill.[91]
[Pageheading: _PROVISIONS OF THE RELIEF BILL._]
Peel's great speech on March 5, in favour of his resolution, contains a
comprehensive review of the Irish question, as well as an elaborate
defence of his own position, resting solely on grounds of expediency. He
advocated the measure itself as the only means of pacifying Ireland,
reducing the undue power of the catholics, and securing the protestant
religion. It was simple in its main outlines, applying to the whole
United Kingdom, and purporting to open all political and civil rights to
catholics, with a very few specified exceptions. It contained, however,
a number of provisions, in the nature of securities against catholic
aggression. By the new oath, to be substituted for the oaths of
allegiance, supremacy, and abjuration, a member of parliament, or holder
of an office, was no longer required to renounce transubstantiation, the
invocation of saints, or the sacrifice of the mass. But he was still
obliged not only to swear allegiance, but to profess himself resolved to
maintain the protestant settlement of the crown, to condemn absolutely
all papal jurisdiction within the realm, and to disclaim solemnly any
intention of subverting the existing Church establishment or weakening
the system of protestant government. Moreover, priests were expressly
denied the privilege of sitting in parliament. Catholics were still
excluded from the high positions of sovereign, regent, lord chancellor
of England or Ireland, and lord-lieutenant of Ireland. They were enabled
to become ministers of the crown, but were debarred from the power of
advising the crown on presentations to ecclesiastical dignities or
benefices, nor were they allowed to exercise such patronage in their
personal capacity. They were still to be disabled from holding offices
in the ecclesiastical courts, or in the universities, and their bishops
were forbidden to assume diocesan titles already appropriated by the
establishment. Other clauses were directed against the use of catholic
vestments except in their chapels and private houses, and against the
importation of Jesuits or members of similar religious orders, with a
saving clause for those already resident and duly registered. Two other
safeguards, often proposed, were deliberately omitted from the bill.
There was no provision for a state endowment of catholic priests, or for
a veto of the crown on the appointment of catholic bishops. These
omissions, whether justifiable or not, were pregnant with serious
consequences.
The debates in both houses on Peel's bill, as it was rightly considered,
are chiefly interesting as throwing light on contemporary opinion. The
arguments for and against it had been fairly exhausted in previous
years, and would carry no great weight in a later age. The
constitutional objections to it, which seemed vital to Eldon, and
weighty to every statesman of his time, were at a later date put aside,
when they were pleaded against the dissolution of the Irish church,
directly guaranteed by the act of union. The criticisms on the personal
consistency of Wellington and Peel belong to biography rather than to
history. But no one can read the speeches of leading men on either side
without recognising the superior foresight, at least, of those who
opposed the bill, and distrusted the efficacy of the safeguards embodied
in it. Two assumptions underlay the whole discussion, and were treated
as axioms by nearly all the speakers. The one was that catholic
emancipation must be judged by its effect on the future peace of
Ireland; the other, that it could not be justified, unless it would
strengthen, rather than weaken, protestant ascendency, then regarded as
a bulwark of the constitution. Posterity may contemplate it from a
different and perhaps higher point of view; but it is certain that, if
its consequences had been foreseen by those who voted upon it, the bill
would have been rejected. It is no less certain that its adoption was a
victory of the educated classes, represented by nomination-boroughs,
over the unrepresented masses of the people.
The actual result in the division lists was all that its promoters could
have desired. Though the secret had been so well kept by the government
that few of its supporters knew what to expect, and though piles of
petitions showed the preponderance of protestant sentiment outside
parliament, that sentiment was not reflected in the division lists. The
first reading of the bill in the house of commons was carried by a
majority of 348 to 160; the second reading by a majority of 353 to 180;
the third reading by a majority of 320 to 142. The debates were
enlivened on the protestant side by a brilliant speech from Michael
Sadler, a tory friend of the working classes, returned by the Duke of
Newcastle for Newark, and a violent invective from Sir Charles
Wetherell, the attorney-general, who was thereupon dismissed from
office. Peel, who had borne the brunt of these attacks, replied on March
30, when the bill was sent up to the lords, and on April 2, the second
reading of it in the upper house was moved by Wellington. His candid
admission that he was driven to concession by the fear of civil war has
since become historical, and served as the watchword of many a lawless
agitation in Ireland. It was natural that most of the peers, and
especially of the spiritual peers, who took part in the discussion
should be opponents of the measure, but Lloyd, Bishop of Oxford, severed
himself from the rest of his order, and vigorous speeches were made in
support of it by Anglesey and Grey, neither of whom could be regarded as
friendly to Wellington's government.
[Pageheading: _ROYAL ASSENT TO THE BILL._]
Anglesey, who had been recently dismissed from the lord-lieutenancy of
Ireland, went beyond the duke in the use of purely military arguments;
Grey ventured to prophesy not only a future reign of peace in Ireland,
but an extension of protestantism, as the consequence of catholic
emancipation. The hopeless attempt of Lyndhurst to vindicate his own
consistency, and a forensic duel between Eldon and Plunket, who had been
raised to the peerage in 1827, relieved the monotony of the debate, but
probably did not influence a single vote. The old guard of the
anti-catholic party remained firm, but the mass of tory peers followed
their leader in his new policy, as they had followed him in his old, and
the relief bill was read a third time in the house of lords on the 10th,
by a majority of 104. Three days later it received the royal assent.
Lord Eldon had virtually encouraged the king to refuse this, at the last
moment, though he was too honest to accept the assurance of George IV.
that the bill was introduced without his authority. But the son of
George III. had not inherited his father's resolute character. After a
few childish threats of retiring to Hanover and leaving the Duke of
Clarence to make terms with the ministry, he abandoned further
resistance and capitulated to Wellington, as Wellington had capitulated
to O'Connell.
The disfranchisement of the forty-shilling freeholders and the
substitution of a ten-pound suffrage was the price to be paid for
catholic emancipation, and no time was lost in completing the bargain.
In days when it is assumed that every change in the electoral franchise
must needs be in a downward direction, it may well appear amazing that
so wholesale a destruction of privileges enjoyed for thirty-six years
should have provoked so feeble an opposition. It is still more amazing
that it should have passed without a protest from O'Connell himself, who
had solemnly vowed to perish on the field or on the scaffold rather than
submit to it. Yet so it was. These ignorant voters, it is true, had
never ventured to call their souls their own, and had only ceased to be
the servile creatures of their landlords in order to become the servile
creatures of their priests. Still, it was they who, by their action in
the Waterford and Clare elections, had forced the hand of the
government, and achieved catholic emancipation. It may safely be said
that after the reform act of 1832 it would have been politically
impossible to disfranchise them; and even in the unreformed parliament
it would have been scarcely possible if gratitude were a trustworthy
motive in politics. On the other hand, the government could never have
secured a majority for catholic emancipation, unless it had been
distinctly understood to carry with it the extinction of democracy in
Ireland. This, rather than declarations and restrictions of doubtful
efficacy, was the real "security" on which the legislature relied for
disarming the disloyalty of Irish catholics. For some time it answered
its purpose so far as to keep the representation of that disloyalty
within safe limits in the house of commons. But it naturally produced a
contrary effect in Ireland itself, and was destined to be swept away
before a fresh wave of agitation.
A few days before the relief bill passed the house of commons an episode
occurred which is chiefly interesting for the light which it throws on
the ideas then prevalent in the highest society. In 1828 Wellington had
presided at a meeting for the establishment of King's College, London,
an institution which was to be entirely under the influence of the
established church, and which was intended as a counterpoise to the
purely secular institution which had been recently founded under the
title of the "London University". The Earl of Winchilsea, a peer of no
personal importance, but a stalwart upholder of Church and State,
published in the _Standard_ newspaper of March 16, 1829, a virulent
letter, describing the whole transaction "as a blind to the protestant
and high church party," and accusing the prime minister of insidious
designs for the introduction of popery in every department of the state.
The duke at once sent Hardinge with a note couched in moderate language,
demanding an apology. Winchilsea made no apology, but offered to express
regret for having mistaken the duke's motives, if the duke would declare
that when he presided at the meeting in question he was not
contemplating any measure of catholic relief. Whereupon the duke
demanded "that satisfaction which a gentleman has a right to require,
and which a gentleman never refuses to give". A hostile meeting took
place on March 21 in Battersea fields. The duke intentionally fired
wide, and Winchilsea, after discharging his weapon in the air, tendered
a written apology, in conformity with the so-called rules of honour. The
duke was conscious that his conduct must have "shocked many good men,"
but he always maintained that it was the only way, and proved an
effectual way, of dispelling the atmosphere of calumny in which he was
surrounded. It is probable that he judged rightly of his contemporaries,
and that he gained rather than lost in reputation by an act which, apart
from its moral aspect, risked the success of a great measure largely
depending on the continuance of his own life. It may be noticed that he
afterwards became not only the personal friend of his antagonist, but
the most influential member of the Anti-Duelling Association.[92]
[Pageheading: _EXCLUSION OF O'CONNELL._]
Another episode, or rather sequel, of the great contest on catholic
relief had more serious political consequences. Though O'Connell was the
undoubted leader of the movement, and might almost have claimed to be
the father of the act, he was most unwisely but deliberately excluded
from its benefits. His exclusion was effected by a clause which rendered
its operation strictly prospective, for the very purpose of shutting out
the one catholic who had been elected under the old law. It had been
decided by a committee of the house of commons that he was duly
returned, the only question being whether he could take his seat without
subscribing the oath now abolished. This question was brought to a test
by the appearance of O'Connell in person in the house itself. The
speaker, Charles Manners-Sutton, declared that he could not properly be
admitted to be sworn under the new law, upon which O'Connell claimed a
hearing. A long and futile discussion followed as to whether he should
be heard at the table or at the bar. In the end he was heard at the bar,
and produced a very favourable impression upon his opponents as well as
his friends by the ingenuity of his arguments and the studied moderation
of his tone. His case, however, was manifestly untenable from a legal
point of view, and a new writ was ordered to be issued for the county of
Clare.
Then was shown both the folly of stirring up so needlessly the
inflammable materials of Irish sedition and the futility of imagining
that catholic emancipation, right or wrong, would prove a healing
measure. Having exhibited the better side of his character in his speech
before the house of commons, O'Connell exhibited its worst side without
stint or shame in his addresses to the Irish peasantry. Skilfully
avoiding the language of sheer treason, he set no bounds to his coarse
and outrageous vituperation of the nation which had sacrificed even its
conscience to appease Ireland; nor did he shrink from denouncing
Wellington and Peel as "those men who, false to their own party, can
never be true to us". The note which he struck has never ceased to
vibrate in the hearts of the excitable people which he might have
educated into loyal citizenship, and the spirit which he evoked has been
the evil genius of Ireland from his day to our own. He openly unfurled
the standard of repeal, but the repeal he demanded did not involve the
creation of an Irish republic. Ireland was still to be connected with
Great Britain by "the golden link of the crown," and though agitation
was carried to the verge of rebellion, the great agitator never actually
advised his dupes to rise in arms for a war of independence. Short of
this he did all in his power, and with too much success, to inflame them
with a malignant hatred of the sister country. If the promoters of
catholic emancipation had ever looked for any reward beyond the inward
satisfaction of having done a righteous act, they were speedily and
wofully undeceived.
FOOTNOTES:
[83] Wellington to Peel, January 9, 1828, in Parker, _Sir Robert Peel_,
ii., 27.
[84] Lecky, _History of Ireland_, v., 358-60, _n._; Stapleton, _Life of
Canning_, ii., 131-34.
[85] Eldon to Sir William Scott, Twiss, _Life of Eldon_, ii., 416. For
Eldon's Speech, see Twiss, iii., 498-512.
[86] Parker, _Sir Robert Peel_, i., 372-75.
[87] Parker, _Sir Robert Peel_, ii., 54-60.
[88] Wellington to Curtis, December 11, 1828, Wellington, _Despatches,
etc._, v., 326.
[89] For the king's qualified assent see Parker, _Sir Robert Peel_, ii.,
82-85; Peel's _Memoirs_, i., 297, 298, 310.
[90] See Peel's _Memoirs_, i., 3, for his unpopularity at Westbury.
[91] Peel's _Memoirs_, i., 343-49; Greville, _Memoirs_, i., 189, 190,
201, 202.
[92] See Maxwell, _Life of Wellington_, ii., 231-36, for the incident.
CHAPTER XII.
PORTUGAL AND GREECE.
It is now time to turn to the general course of foreign policy during
the closing years of the reign of George IV. The only foreign problems
which gave serious trouble during this period were the Eastern and
Portuguese questions. The influence which the former exercised on
domestic policy has rendered it necessary to trace its course as far as
the battle of Navarino in the last chapter. We must now take up the
other question where we left it, at the recognition of the independence
of Brazil and the expulsion of the Spanish troops from the mainland of
America.
Peter I., Emperor of Brazil, though an independent sovereign, was still
heir-apparent to the throne of Portugal, and the ultra-royalists hoped
that, in spite of the provisions of the Brazilian constitution, his
succession to his ancestral crown would restore the unity of the
Portuguese dominions. The death of King John VI. on March 10, 1826,
brought the matter to a crisis. Four days before his death he had
appointed a council of regency which was to be presided over by his
daughter, Isabella Maria, but from which the queen and Dom Miguel, then
twenty-three, were both excluded. By this act the absolutist party were
deprived of power until they should be restored to it by the action of
the new king, or by a revolution. The regency wished the new king to
make a speedy choice between the two crowns; and it was anticipated that
he would abdicate the Portuguese crown in favour of his seven-year-old
daughter, Maria da Gloria. The absolutists on the other hand hoped that
the king might by procrastination avoid the separation of the crowns.
What was their surprise when they discovered that the king had indeed
determined to procrastinate, but in such a way as to displease the
absolutists as much as the friends of constitutional government? No
sooner had the news of his father's death reached Peter at Rio Janeiro,
than he issued a charter of 145 clauses, conferring a constitution on
Portugal. This constitution which was destined to alternate for nearly a
generation with absolute monarchy or with the revolutionary constitution
of 1821, had the advantage of being the voluntary gift of the king. It
was, however, composed in great haste, and, except that it retained the
hereditary nobility as a first chamber in the cortes, was almost
identical with the constitution established in Brazil in the previous
December. Among other provisions it subjected the nobility to taxation
and asserted the principle of religious toleration. A few days later, on
the 2nd of May, King Peter executed an act of abdication in favour of
his daughter Maria, providing, however, that the abdication should not
come into effect until the necessary oaths had been taken to the new
constitution and until the new queen should have been married to her
uncle, Dom Miguel.
[Pageheading: _CIVIL WAR IN PORTUGAL._]
This compromise pleased nobody. It is true that it seemed to make
permanent the separation of Brazil from Portugal, since the former state
was destined for Peter's infant son, afterwards Peter II.; but the
Brazilian patriots would have preferred a more definite abandonment of
the Portuguese throne, and Peter's half-measure of abdication was one of
the main causes of the discontent which drove him to resign the
Brazilian crown five years later. The Portuguese liberals were alarmed
at the prospect of a restoration of Dom Miguel to power, while the
absolutists were indignant at the imposition of a constitution. From the
very first it encountered opposition. The new constitution was indeed
proclaimed on July 13, and the necessary oaths were taken on the 31st.
But on the same day a party, consisting mainly of Portuguese deserters
in Spanish territory, proclaimed Miguel as king and the queen-mother as
regent during his absence. Miguel, however, gave no open support to this
party; on October 4 he actually took the oath to the new constitution,
and on the 29th he formally betrothed himself at Vienna to the future
Queen of Portugal. But the Portuguese insurgents were not deterred by
the apparent defection of the prince whose claim to reign they
asserted, and they received a thinly disguised encouragement from the
Spanish government, which certainly did nothing to interfere with their
organisation in Spanish territory. On the 10th the last insurgents had
been expelled from Portuguese territory, but in November they were
openly joined by some Spanish soldiers, and on the 22nd of that month
they invaded the Portuguese province of Traz-os-Montes. Another division
made a simultaneous irruption into the province of Alemtejo. This latter
body was quickly expelled from the kingdom and marched through Spanish
territory to join its more successful comrades in Northern Portugal. The
whole province of Traz-os-Montes had fallen into the hands of the
absolutists in a few days, and its defection was followed by that of the
northern part of Beira, when the arrival of British forces gave the
constitutional party the necessary encouragement to enable them to
arrest the progress of the insurrection.
As in 1823, the Portuguese government, represented in London by
Palmella, applied for British assistance against the ultra-royalists at
home. But on the present occasion Portugal was able to appeal to
something more than the general friendship of Great Britain. By the
treaties of 1661 and 1703, renewed as recently as 1815, Great Britain
was bound to defend Portugal against invasion, and Portugal now claimed
the fulfilment of these treaties. The formal demand was received by the
British ministry on December 3, but it was not till Friday, the 8th,
that official intelligence was received of the invasion. Not a moment
was lost in despatching 5,000 troops to Portugal. This resolution was
formed by the cabinet on the 9th, approved by the king on the 10th, and
communicated to parliament on the 11th. On the evening of the 12th
Canning was able to inform the house of commons that the troops were
already on the march for embarkation.
The debate in the house of commons on the address in answer to the royal
message announcing the request of the Portuguese government, was the
occasion of two of the most famous speeches that Canning ever delivered.
After recounting the treaty obligations of this country to Portugal, and
the circumstances of the Portuguese application for assistance, and
disclaiming any desire to meddle with the domestic politics of
Portugal, he referred to a previous anticipation that the next European
war would be one "not so much of armies as of opinions". "Not four
years," he proceeded, "have elapsed, and behold my apprehension
realised! It is, to be sure, within narrow limits that this war of
opinion is at present confined: but it is a war of opinion that Spain
(whether as government or as nation) is now waging against Portugal; it
is a war which has commenced in hatred of the new institutions of
Portugal. How long is it reasonable to expect that Portugal will abstain
from retaliation? If into that war this country shall be compelled to
enter, we shall enter into it with a sincere and anxious desire to
mitigate rather than exasperate, and to mingle only in the conflict of
arms, not in the more fatal conflict of opinions. But I much fear that
this country (however earnestly she may endeavour to avoid it) could
not, in such case, avoid seeing ranked under her banners all the
restless and dissatisfied of any nation with which she might come in
conflict. It is the contemplation of this new power in any future war
which excites my most anxious apprehension. It is one thing to have a
giant's strength, but it would be another to use it like a giant. The
consciousness of such strength is undoubtedly a source of confidence and
security; but in the situation in which this country stands, our
business is not to seek opportunities of displaying it, but to content
ourselves with letting the professors of violent and exaggerated
doctrines on both sides feel that it is not their interests to convert
an umpire into an adversary."
In his reply at the close of the debate Canning vindicated his
consistency in resisting Spanish aggression upon Portugal, while
offering no resistance to the military occupation of Spain by France,
which had not yet terminated. He pointed out that the Spain of his day
was quite different from "the Spain within the limits of whose empire
the sun never set--the Spain 'with the Indies' that excited the
jealousies and alarmed the imaginations of our ancestors". He admitted
that the entry of the French into Spain was a disparagement to the pride
of England, but he thought it had been possible to obtain compensation
without offering resistance in Spain itself. Then came the famous
passage: "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."[93]
[Pageheading: _TROOPS SENT TO PORTUGAL._]
The two speeches were greeted with applause both in parliament and in
the country, but their vanity was excessive. So far from "creating the
new world," Canning had merely recognised the existence of states which
had already won their own independence, and even so he was only
following the example of the United States. It was not only extremely
foolish, but altogether disingenuous, to maintain that the recognition
of the South American republics had been resolved on as a counterpoise
to French influence in Spain. The reasons which prompted this
recognition were commercial, not political, and it had been announced to
the powers as our ultimate policy before any invasion of Spain had taken
place. The king had only consented to the step on condition that it was
not to be represented as a measure of retaliation, and Canning himself
when he delivered these speeches knew that the French had promised to
evacuate Spain in the following April.[94] But however little justified
by facts, the two speeches made a profound impression throughout Europe.
Whatever Canning might desire, it was quite clear that he contemplated
the possibility of a military alliance between this country and the
revolutionary factions on the continent, and the impression gained
ground that he desired to pose as the champion of liberalism against
legitimate government.
The first detachment of the British army reached Lisbon on Christmas
day. It was not destined, however, to play an active part in the
Portuguese struggle. The insurgent army was as greatly discouraged as
the loyal troops were elated by its arrival, and the government was
moreover enabled to employ a larger force on the scene of hostilities.
The insurgents were in consequence driven out of the province of Beira
and the greater part of Traz-os-Montes. A new invasion from Spanish
territory, supported by some Spanish soldiers and Spanish artillery,
took place during January, 1827. The greater part of the province of the
Minho fell into the hands of the rebels, and on February 2 they captured
the important town of Braga. But the forces of the regency proved too
strong for them, and early in March the insurgents evacuated Portugal
altogether. The Spanish government, now that little could be effected by
further assistance to the Portuguese refugees, determined at length to
perform the duties of a neutral power, and disarmed them.
The British troops remained in Portugal till March, 1828. By that time
the disturbances had assumed a purely domestic character, and it was
ultimately decided to recall them. But a firmer policy than that
actually followed would have been necessary in order to extricate Great
Britain from the strife of Portuguese factions, in which her recent
action had given a decided advantage to the constitutional party. That
party had been driven into opposition before the British troops were
recalled. On July 3, 1827, King Peter had issued a decree appointing Dom
Miguel his lieutenant, and investing him with all the powers which
belonged to him as king under the charter. Miguel, after visiting
London, arrived at Lisbon on February 22, 1828, and was sworn in as
regent four days later. As he was twenty-five years old, and therefore
of full age according to Portuguese law, he could not with any show of
equity have been kept out of the regency longer. Miguel's installation
as regent was followed by a series of riots as well on the part of the
absolutists, who desired to make him king, as on the part of the
constitutionalists who feared that he would make himself king. It was
not long before he definitely identified himself with the absolutist
party.
[Pageheading: _MIGUEL'S USURPATION._]
On March 14 the cortes were dissolved. On May 3 Miguel summoned the
ancient cortes in his own name, and on June 26 they acknowledged him as
king. The immediate result of this act was that all the ambassadors,
except those of Spain and the Holy See, quitted Lisbon, and the lapse of
time did not induce them to change their attitude towards Miguel. A
further complication was introduced by Peter's definite abdication in
favour of his daughter on March 3, executed before he had any suspicion
of Miguel's designs, which placed Miguel in the position of regent for
his infant niece instead of for his brother. After this formal
abdication Peter despatched his daughter to Europe, intending that she
should proceed to Vienna. When, however, she arrived at Gibraltar on
September 2, her conductors, hearing of Miguel's usurpation, determined
to take her to England, and she landed at Falmouth on the 24th. Peter,
on hearing of Miguel's usurpation, naturally considered the regency
terminated, and claimed to act as the guardian of the infant queen; the
Brazilian ministers in Europe acted as his agents, while his partisans
assembled in England and attempted to use this country as a basis for
warlike operations in Portuguese territories.
The situation of 1826 was thus reversed. Instead of an ultra-royalist
party resting on Spain, a constitutionalist party resting on Brazil and
attempting to rest on England was now threatening the established
government at Lisbon. Wellington was anxious to maintain a strict
neutrality, but he failed to prevent a ship of war and supplies of arms
and ammunition going from Plymouth to Terceira in the Azores, where
Donna Maria was acknowledged as queen. He succeeded, however, in
preventing a larger armament, which had been raised under the name of
the Emperor of Brazil, with Rio Janeiro as its nominal destination, from
landing at Terceira. This action, though the logical consequence of the
British opposition to the conduct of Spain in 1826, was severely
criticised in England as equivalent to an intervention on behalf of
Miguel.
Meanwhile Canning's attempt to prevent the separate action of Russia in
the Eastern question had been doomed to disappointment. The destruction
of the Turkish navy at Navarino was naturally regarded at Constantinople
as an outrage, and the Porte demanded satisfaction from the ambassadors
of the allied powers. This they refused to grant on the ground that the
Turks had been the aggressors, and they in their turn demanded an
armistice between the Turkish troops and the Greek insurgents. As the
Porte remained obdurate, the ambassadors of France, Great Britain, and
Russia, acting in accordance with their instructions, left
Constantinople on December 8, 1827. But though war seemed imminent, the
tsar still disowned all idea of conquest, and professed to desire
nothing further than the execution of the treaty of London. A protocol
was accordingly signed on the 12th by which the three powers confirmed
a clause in the treaty, providing that, in the event of war, none of
them should derive any exclusive benefit, either commercial or
territorial.
The British government imagined that the powers might still effect their
object by diplomacy, and that it would not be necessary to abandon the
Turkish alliance. But any such idea must have been rudely shaken by the
hati-sherif of December 20. In that document the sultan enlarged on the
cruelty and perfidy of the Christian powers and summoned the Muslim
nations to arms: he denounced Russia in particular as the prime mover of
the Greek rebellion, the instigator of the other powers, and the
arch-enemy of Islam; and he declared the treaty of Akkerman, by which
the outstanding disputes between Russia and the Porte had been settled
in October, 1826, to have been extorted by force and only signed in
order to save time. This defiance of Russia, if not of all Christendom,
was followed by a levy of Turkish troops and the expulsion of most of
the Christian residents from Constantinople. No course was now open to
Russia but to make war. It remained to be seen whether any other power
would join her. On January 6, 1828, a Russian despatch announced the
tsar's intention of occupying the Danubian principalities, and suggested
that France and Great Britain should force the Dardanelles and thus
compel the Porte to comply with the provisions of the treaty of London.
[Pageheading: _WELLINGTON'S EASTERN POLICY._]
It is possible that if the direction of British foreign policy had
remained in the hands of Goderich and Dudley, our government might have
lent its support to a settlement of the Eastern question which would in
effect have been the work of Russia only. The more daring policy of
Canning, by which Great Britain had attempted to take the lead as
opportunity offered, either in active co-operation with Russia or in
active opposition to her, could only be directed by a more versatile
statesman than the nation now possessed. The accession to office of
Wellington, though it left Dudley at the foreign office, was really
marked by a return to the policy of Castlereagh, a policy which, if not
brilliant, was at least honourable, consistent, and considerate, and
which in the hands of Wellington was managed with a sufficient measure
of firmness, though with less tact and insight than had been shown by
Castlereagh. The first object of this policy was to keep the special
grievances of Russia distinct from the complaints which Europe at large
or, in the present situation, the three allied powers were able to bring
against the Porte. By so doing the British government hoped to prevent
Russia from dragging other powers into a war for her private benefit,
and also to render it impossible for Russia to use her special
grievances as a lever by which she might effect a separate settlement of
the general question. For some years this policy was successful. Russia
did indeed wage a separate war with the Turks, but the Greek question
was settled by the three powers conjointly, and Great Britain rather
than Russia took the lead in the settlement. It was only after
Palmerston had succeeded to the direction of our foreign policy in 1830,
that it was discovered how far the victory of Russia in war had placed
her in a position to dictate the general policy of the Ottoman court.
Wellington experienced no difficulty in striking out a line of policy
along which he could carry France with him. On February 21 De la
Ferronays, who had been recalled from the French embassy at St.
Petersburg to occupy the post of foreign minister in the new liberal
administration, which had been formed in France in December, 1827,
despatched a note urging the immediate employment of energetic measures
against the Porte. He saw that the hati-sherif gave special occasion of
war to Russia, and he was naturally anxious to anticipate her isolated
action by combined measures of coercion. He had, however, nothing better
to suggest than the execution of the Russian proposals of January 6.
Wellington, in his reply, dated the 26th, rightly minimised the
seriousness of the hati-sherif, and characterised the proposed measures
of coercion as destined to be ineffectual. He also expressed the fear
that if the three powers combined to make war on the Turks there would
be a general insurrection of the subject races in the Turkish dominions
which might last indefinitely. He therefore proposed first to settle the
Greek question by local pressure, after which he anticipated no serious
trouble about events at Constantinople. On the same day he drafted a
memorandum to the cabinet in which he proposed that the allied squadrons
should proceed to the Archipelago, blockade the Morea and Alexandria,
destroy the Greek pirates, stop the warfare in Chios and Crete, and call
upon the Greek government to withdraw the forces which were operating
in western and eastern Greece respectively under the command of two
foreign volunteers, General Church and Colonel Fabvier. In other words,
he proposed to coerce not the Porte but the actual combatants, Greece
and Egypt, and to check each party where it was the aggressor. If the
prime object of the government in the eastern question was the
maintenance of order, these proposals were excellent. The one capital
defect of the whole scheme was that it ignored the Russian desire for
war, which rendered it impossible for the tsar to postpone the
settlement of his own grievances until an arrangement should be come to
on the Greek question; on the other hand, by isolating the Greek
question, it left it possible for the western powers to proceed with its
solution in spite of the outbreak of hostilities between Russia and the
Turks.[95]
[Pageheading: _WAR BETWEEN RUSSIA AND TURKEY._]
Russia's determination to act singly was, however, already made. On the
same day, February 26, on which Wellington sketched his policy,
Nesselrode issued a despatch declaring that war was inevitable,
including among his reasons the repudiation of recent treaties by the
Porte and the proclamation by it of a holy war. At the same time he
endeavoured to disarm any possible opposition on the part of the powers
by an invitation to them to make use of the coming war to carry out the
treaty of London. In any case Russia would execute the treaty, but if
she were left to herself, the manner of execution would be determined by
her own convenience and interest.[96] So far Russia had done nothing
directly inconsistent with the maintenance of her concert with France
and Great Britain, whose representatives had been sitting in conference
with hers at London since January, 1827. But the reference in this last
note to the possibility of a settlement of the Greek question according
to the convenience and interest of Russia appeared like a threat of
breaking up the alliance in case France and Great Britain refused to
send their fleets to the Mediterranean. At least Wellington so
understood it, and, rather than be a party to the war, he dissolved the
conference of London in the middle of March. But he soon found that by
so doing he lost the co-operation of France, and he was therefore
compelled to accept the assurances of Russia that she intended to keep
within the limits of the treaty of London, and to regard the
Mediterranean as a neutral area. The conference was in consequence
reopened at the beginning of July. Meanwhile hostilities had actually
begun between Russia and the Turks. Russia declared war on April 26. On
May 7 her troops crossed the Pruth. They rapidly overran the Danubian
provinces, and on June 7 crossed the Danube into Bulgaria. They were
destined, however, to spend more than a year between the Danube and the
Balkans before they could force their way into Rumelia.
During the interval considerable progress was made with the settlement
of the Greek question. The treaty of London in providing for the
autonomy of Greece had specified no boundaries, and the first problem
demanding the attention of the powers that had assumed the task of the
settlement of Greece was to determine the limits within which that
settlement was to be effected. It might be urged that all the Greeks who
had accepted the armistice imposed by the powers in consequence of the
treaty of London had a right to share in the settlement at which that
treaty aimed. But the armistice had been broken by Greek attacks on
Chios and Crete, and Wellington held that the powers were, in
consequence, free from any obligation imposed by the nominal acceptance
of the armistice. He, accordingly, desired to adopt the simple principle
of granting the proposed autonomy to those parts of Greece in which the
insurrection had proved successful, namely, the Morea and the Ægean
Islands, and refusing it in Northern and Central Greece, where the
Turkish forces still held their own. But the British cabinet was far
from being unanimous; many, among whom Palmerston was specially
prominent, urged the concession of a greatly increased territory. The
changes which took place in the British ministry towards the end of May,
1828, deprived Palmerston of his share in its deliberations, and by
substituting Aberdeen for Dudley at the foreign office, placed our
foreign relations under the direction of a man of talent and experience,
who had already exercised an important influence on British policy and
who was more in sympathy with the policy of the prime minister than
Dudley had been, but who was not content, like Dudley, to be a mere
cipher in the department over which he was called to preside. Aberdeen,
though opposed to the narrow boundaries which Wellington wished to
assign to liberated Greece, was no less antagonistic than his chief to
any attempt to make the new Greek state politically important; and he
was even of opinion that the Russian declaration of war had released
Great Britain from any further obligation under the treaty of London.
Such were the composition and policy of the British government when the
conference of London reassembled in July. The differences between the
powers had prevented any active intervention in Greece, since the battle
of Navarino. The ports in the Morea, still occupied by Ibrahim, had
indeed been blockaded, but it had been found impossible to induce
Austrian vessels to acknowledge a blockade of such questionable
legality, and the allied fleets had even permitted the embarkation of
Ibrahim's sick and wounded together with 5,500 Greek prisoners, who were
sold into slavery on their arrival at Alexandria. The renewal of the
concert of the three powers was followed by a rapid change in the
situation. On the 19th it was decided that France should send an
expedition to expel the Turco-Egyptian troops from the Morea, while
Great Britain should render her any naval assistance that might be
necessary. This step was valued by the British government as definitely
committing France to a share in the settlement of the Greek question,
and therefore interesting that power in opposition to any attempt at a
separate settlement by Russia. It also furnished a safe outlet for
French military ardour, disappointed by the results of the Spanish
expedition. In fact, the evacuation of Spain, which was in progress at
the date when this agreement was concluded, materially reduced the
strain which the new undertaking imposed upon the French government.
France immediately prepared to send out a force amounting to nearly
22,000 men. But before they could arrive, the greater part of their task
had been performed by other hands.
[Pageheading: _TURKS EXPELLED FROM THE MOREA._]
Codrington's conduct in permitting the embarkation of the Turkish sick
and wounded with their prisoners had given great dissatisfaction at
home, and the cabinet had resolved on his recall before the ministerial
crisis of the latter part of May. That crisis occasioned a fortnight's
delay, and, in consequence, Codrington was able, before his successor
arrived, to make a naval demonstration before Alexandria and on August 6
to obtain the consent of Mehemet Ali to the following proposals: an
exchange of prisoners was to take place, involving the liberation of
the recently enslaved Greeks, and the Egyptian army was to be withdrawn
from the Morea, but Ibrahim was to be allowed to leave behind 1,200
Egyptian troops to help to garrison five fortresses which were held by
the Turks. Before either the new London protocol or the Alexandria
convention could be carried into effect, further differences had arisen.
Russia had proclaimed a blockade of the Dardanelles and ordered her
admiral to carry it out. This proceeding was regarded by the British
government as a breach of faith and a menace to British commerce. It
was, however, impossible to abandon co-operation with Russia for fear
that the Greek question might become involved in the issues at stake
between her and the Porte. Wellington, in consequence, contented himself
with obtaining certain exemptions from the operation of the blockade on
behalf of British subjects trading with Turkey, and with the exclusion
of the Russian fleet from the operations conducted in the Mediterranean
in accordance with the orders of the London conference. The French force
for expelling the Egyptians from the Morea arrived almost simultaneously
with the Egyptian transports for removing them. On October 5 Ibrahim set
sail for Egypt, with 21,000 men, leaving 1,200 behind in the five
fortresses in accordance with the terms settled at Alexandria. The
French began their attack on the remaining fortresses two days later,
and by the end of November had expelled all the Turks from the Morea. By
the terms of their engagements, they ought now to have departed. But it
was hardly to be expected that France would so readily abandon the
advantage that the presence of her troops gave her in the settlement of
the eastern question.
Meanwhile the negotiations made slow progress. On November 16 a protocol
was issued placing the Morea with the neighbouring islands under the
guarantee of the powers. Wellington had opposed any extension of the
guarantee to Central Greece on the ground that the allies had to provide
both the necessary military force and the cost of maintaining the Greek
government, so that any undertaking beyond the Morea would involve heavy
expense without rendering lighter the task of maintaining order. But the
real decision of the question lay not with the diplomatists at London,
but with the diplomatists on the spot. Representatives of the three
powers had been sent to Poros to make detailed arrangements in
accordance with the terms of the treaty of London. Stratford Canning,
who represented Great Britain, was one of the supporters of an extended
frontier, and in the end the ambassadors at Poros drew up a protocol in
favour of erecting Greece south of a line connecting the Gulfs of Arta
and Volo into a hereditary principality, which was also to include
nearly all the islands. Even Samos and Crete were recommended to the
benevolent consideration of the courts. All Mohammedans were to be
expelled from this territory. The tribute payable to Turkey was to be
fixed at 1,500,000 piastres, but this was to be paid not to the Turkish
government, but to those who might suffer pecuniary loss by the
confiscation of lands hitherto owned by Mohammedans.
[Pageheading: _PEACE OF ADRIANOPLE._]
The spring of 1829 was marked by events which went far to cancel the
arguments on which Wellington had based his case for a restricted
frontier. Not only the north coast of the Gulf of Corinth but Acarnania
and Ætolia were liberated by the Greek forces under Sir Richard Church
the castle of Vonitza falling on March 17, Karavasara shortly
afterwards, Lepanto on April 30, and Mesolongi on May 17.[97] Meanwhile
the terms agreed upon at Poros had been adopted and further defined by
the conference at London on March 22. It was now provided that the
future hereditary prince was to be chosen by the three powers and the
sultan conjointly, and that the terms were to be offered to the Porte by
the British and French ambassadors in the name of the three powers; any
Turkish objections were to be weighed.[98] It was not till June that
Robert Gordon and Guilleminot, representing Great Britain and France
respectively, were able to lay these proposals before the Porte, and it
was only after a Russian army under Diebitsch had crossed the Balkans
that the Porte on August 15 accepted them, and even then only with
extensive modifications. These limited the new state to the Morea and
the adjacent islands, and left the tribute assigned to the same purposes
as before the revolt; a limit was to be set to the military and naval
forces of Greece, and Greeks were not to be allowed to migrate from
Turkish dominions to the new state.
Wellington was of opinion that these concessions were adequate. He
attached great importance to the consent of the Porte, to dispense with
which seemed to him a sure method of encouraging a general revolt in the
Turkish dominions; and he also advocated a limited frontier in the
interests of the Ionian Islands. He doubted whether it would be found
possible to remove Capodistrias, who had been elected president of
Greece for a period of seven years on April 14, 1827, from his office to
make room for a hereditary prince, and he felt sure that if Capodistrias
were once granted Central Greece he would not hesitate to attempt the
conquest of the Ionian Islands. Capodistrias had in fact refused to
accept any of the arrangements proposed by the London conference, and
was still engaged in the vigorous prosecution of the war. Wellington did
not, however, succeed in inducing France and Russia to remain content
with the Turkish concessions. Diebitsch's successful march through
Rumelia encouraged Russia to demand more, and filled the minds of the
French ministers with the wildest schemes of aggression. They actually
proposed to Russia that the northern part of the Balkan peninsula should
be divided between Austria and Russia while the whole peninsula south of
the Balkans, with Bulgaria to the north, was to be formed into a new
state under the sovereignty of the King of the Netherlands, whose
hereditary dominions were in their turn to be divided between France,
Great Britain, and Prussia.
Such chimerical projects were based on the assumption that
Constantinople lay at the mercy of the army of Diebitsch; and this was
believed to be the case not only by the court of Paris, but by that of
London, and even by that of Constantinople. But no one knew better than
Diebitsch how precarious his situation was, and, if Russia wished to
obtain advantageous terms, it was necessary for her to make the most of
the illusion while it lasted. On September 14 the peace of Adrianople
was signed, which established the virtual independence of the
principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia and secured for all powers at
peace with Turkey a free passage for merchant ships through the
Bosphorus and Dardanelles; Russia received a small addition to her
Asiatic territories, and Turkey accepted both the treaty of London of
July 6, 1827, and the protocol of London of March 22, 1829. The
difficulties raised by Turkey's opposition to the full terms of the
protocol were thus swept aside, and it was now clear that, if that
protocol was to be further modified, it would be modified out of regard
for the interests of Europe not by way of concession to Turkey. France
and Great Britain were naturally averse from a settlement of the
question by Russia alone, even when that settlement was on lines to
which they had given their consent, and they might have been expected to
propose some alteration in the scheme. But the conciliatory action of
Russia rendered such proposals needless. On September 29, only fifteen
days after the treaty, Aberdeen received a formal proposal from Russia
that Turkey should be offered a restriction of the Greek boundary in
return for a recognition of the total independence of Greece.[99] This
proposal removed Wellington's fear that the new principality might be
used as a basis for an attack on the Ionian Islands; while the
maintenance of Turkish suzerainty seemed less important after the
apparent prostration of Turkish military power in the recent war.
It now remained for the allied powers to select a prince to whom the new
crown should be offered. This subject engaged their attention from
October, 1829, to January, 1830. Finally, Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg,
widower of the Princess Charlotte, was selected, greatly to the
annoyance of King George IV. On February 3 Prince Leopold was formally
offered the sovereignty of Greece as an independent state, bounded on
the north by a line drawn from the mouth of the Aspropotamo to
Thermopylæ. Before accepting the crown he made an effort to obtain a
stronger position for its future prince. He asked for a complete
guarantee of independence from the three powers, some security for the
Greek inhabitants of Crete and Samos, an extension of the boundary to
the north, and financial and military support. The powers on February 20
decided to grant the guarantee and a loan of £2,400,000, and to allow
the French troops to remain in Greece for another year, but refused the
extension of territory and would not recognise the right of the Greek
state to interfere in the affairs of Crete and Samos. Leopold accepted
the crown on these conditions on February 24, and they were accepted by
the Porte on April 24. Capodistrias, who had no desire to make way for
another ruler, invited Leopold to the country, but suggested that he
would not be well received and that he would have to change his
religion.[100] These considerations, combined with other causes, induced
him to renounce the crown on May 21.
[Pageheading: _FRANCE CONQUERS ALGERIA._]
One other foreign event exercised the minds of Wellington's cabinet
during the last months of George IV.'s reign. This was the French
punitive expedition to Algiers, which resulted In the conquest of that
state. The expedition was originally planned in concert with Mehemet Ali
of Egypt, and appeared to Wellington to be prompted by the idea that the
defeat of the Turks by Russia afforded a convenient opportunity for a
partition of Turkish territory. The British government was able by means
of diplomatic pressure to induce Mehemet Ali to refrain from
co-operating, but it could not deny the justice of the French expedition
or prevent it from sailing.
FOOTNOTES:
[93] Stapleton, _Life of Canning_, iii., 220-25, 227-35.
[94] See Lloyd, _Transactions of the Royal Historical Society_, N.S.,
xviii. (1904), 77-105.
[95] Wellington, _Despatches, etc._, iv., 270-79.
[96] _Ibid._, pp. 280-86.
[97] So S. Lane-Poole, writing from Church's papers, _English Historical
Review_, v., 519.
[98] Hertslet, _Map of Europe by Treaty_, p. 142.
[99] Wellington, _Despatches, etc._, vi., 184.
[100] See the letters in the _Annual Register_, lxxii. (1830), 389-401.
CHAPTER XIII.
PRELUDE OF REFORM.
The year that elapsed between the prorogation of parliament on June 24,
1829, and the death of George IV., on June 26, 1830, was barren in
events of domestic importance. While Ireland was torn by faction, and
the Orangemen of Ulster rivalled in lawlessness the catholics of the
other provinces, England was undergoing another period of agricultural
and commercial depression. The harvest of 1829 was late and bad; the
winter that followed was the severest known for sixteen years; and a
fresh series of outrages was committed by the distressed operatives,
especially by the silk weavers in the east of London and the mill hands
in the midland counties. In the district of Huddersfield, where the
people bore their sufferings with admirable patience, a committee of
masters stated as a fact that "there were 13,000 individuals who had not
more than twopence half-penny a day to live on". When parliament met on
February 4, 1830, the prevailing distress was recognised in the king's
speech, but in guarded terms, and the ministers attributed it in the
main, probably with justice, to unavoidable causes. This gave the
enemies of free trade and currency reform an opportunity of renewing
their protests against Peel's and Huskisson's financial policy. They
failed to effect their object, but Goulburn, the chancellor of the
exchequer, initiated a considerable reduction of expenditure and
remission of taxes. The excise duties on beer, cider, and leather were
now totally remitted, those on spirits being somewhat increased. The
government even deliberated on the proposal of a property tax, and,
stimulated by a motion of Sir James Graham, actually carried out large
savings in official salaries. On the whole, this session was the most
fruitful in economy since the conclusion of the peace. The system of
judicature, too, was subjected to a salutary revision throughout Great
Britain by the amalgamation of the English and Welsh benches, and the
concentration of courts in Scotland. As the charter of the East Indian
Company was about to expire, a strong committee was appointed to
consider the whole subject of its territorial powers and commercial
privileges. This committee was not the least beneficial result of a
session which has left no great mark on the statute-book.
[Pageheading: _MOVEMENT FOR REFORM._]
The weakness of Wellington's position had long since become apparent to
all. By his conduct in regard to catholic emancipation he had estranged
a powerful section of his tory followers. By his jealousy and haughty
attitude towards his whig allies, he had forfeited their good-will,
never very heartily given. By his treatment of Huskisson, a small but
able body of politicians was thrown into the ranks of a discordant
opposition. No one else could have induced the king to give way on
catholic emancipation, but the king had not forgiven him, and submitted
to him out of fear rather than out of confidence. Though singularly
deficient in rhetorical power, he still maintained his ascendency in the
house of lords by the aid of more eloquent colleagues, but Peel was his
only efficient lieutenant in the house of commons. The vacancy in the
office of lord privy seal, occasioned by the transference of
Ellenborough to the board of control, had at last been filled in June,
1829, by the appointment of Lord Rosslyn, nephew of the first earl, who,
however, added nothing to the strength of the ministry. In the meantime,
reform had succeeded catholic emancipation as the one burning question
of politics, but with this all-important difference that it roused
enthusiasm in the popular mind. Political unions, like the branches of
the catholic association, were springing up all over the country, and a
series of motions was made in the house of commons which feebly
reflected the feverish agitation in all the active centres of
population. One of these, brought forward by the Marquis of Blandford,
who had made a similar motion in the previous year, was really prompted
by enmity against the author of catholic emancipation. Another,
introduced by Lord Howick, son of Earl Grey, called for some general and
comprehensive measure to remedy the admitted abuses of the electoral
system. A third, and far more practical, attempt was made by Lord John
Russell to obtain the enfranchisement of Manchester, Leeds, and
Birmingham. A fourth, and perfectly futile proposal, was made by
O'Connell, in the shape of a bill for triennial parliaments, universal
suffrage, and vote by ballot, to which Russell moved a statesmanlike
amendment, in favour of transferring members from petty boroughs to
counties and great unrepresented towns. All these motions were defeated
by larger or smaller majorities, but no one doubted that parliamentary
reform was inevitable, and few can have imagined that Wellington was
either willing or competent to grapple with it.
While domestic affairs were in this state, George IV. died. His
constitution, weakened by many years of self-indulgence, had been
further depressed by a growing sense of loneliness and by the long
struggle with his ministers over catholic emancipation. On April 15 his
illness had been made public, and on May 24 it had been necessary to
bring in a bill, authorising the use of a stamp, to be affixed in his
presence in lieu of the royal sign manual. A month later, the disease of
the heart from which he suffered took a fatal turn, and on June 26 he
passed away, not without dignity, in the sixty-eighth year of his age.
Perhaps no other English king has been so harshly judged by posterity,
nor is it possible to acquit him of moral vices which outweighed all his
merits, considerable as they were. The Duke of Wellington, who knew him
as well as any man, declared that he was a marvellous compound of
virtues and defects, but that, on the whole, the good elements
preponderated. Peel, who had become by his father's death Sir Robert,
testified in Parliament that he "never exercised, or wished to exercise,
a prerogative of the crown, except for the advantage of his people".
These estimates assuredly err on the side of charity, and are quite
inconsistent with other statements of the duke himself.
George IV., it is true, possessed many royal gifts. He was a man of no
ordinary ability, with a fine presence, courtly manners, various
accomplishments, and clear-sighted intelligence on every subject within
the sphere of his duties. But all these kingly qualities were marred by
a heartlessness which rendered him incapable of true love or friendship,
and a duplicity which made it impossible for him to retain the respect
of his ministers. His private life was not wholly unlike that of the
Regent Orléans and had much the same influence on the society of the
metropolis. He was an undutiful son, a bad husband, a perfidious friend,
with little sense of truth or honour, and destitute of that public
spirit which atoned for the political obstinacy of his father. No one
sincerely regretted his death, except the favourites who had been
enriched by his extravagance, and actually succeeded in carrying off a
large booty out of the valuables that he had amassed. Nevertheless, his
regency is identified with a glorious period in our military history,
and his reign ushered in a new age of reform and national prosperity. In
the great struggle against Napoleon and the pacification of Europe he
gave his ministers a cordial and effective support. To catholic
emancipation he was honestly opposed, but he kept his opposition within
constitutional limits, and his intense selfishness did not exclude a
certain sentiment of philanthropy and even of patriotism.
[Pageheading: _THE ACCESSION OF WILLIAM IV._]
His successor, William IV., was greatly inferior to him intellectually,
and infinitely less conversant with the business of state. Most of this
prince's early life was spent at sea, where he saw a fair share of
service, and became the friend of Nelson, but incurred his father's
displeasure by infringing the rules of discipline. Having been created
Duke of Clarence in 1789, he was rapidly promoted in the navy, but
remained on shore without employment for some forty years before his
accession, taking an occasional part in debates of the house of lords,
and generally acting with the whig party. During this long period he was
little regarded by his future subjects, and led a somewhat obscure life,
at first in the company of Mrs. Jordan, by whom he had a numerous
family. After his marriage with the Princess Adelaide of Saxe-Meiningen
in 1818, he became a more important personage, and, as we have seen, was
made lord high admiral by Canning, but held office for little more than
a year. He was thus entirely destitute of political training, and was
living in privacy when he was called to ascend the throne on the eve of
a singularly momentous crisis.
The session was prolonged until July 23, when parliament was prorogued
by the new king in person, and on the following day a dissolution was
proclaimed, the writs being made returnable on September 14. During the
month that elapsed between the death of George IV. and the prorogation,
no serious business was done, but the leaders of opposition in both
houses moved to provide for a regency, in view of a possible demise of
the crown before a fresh parliament could be assembled. This course was
clearly dictated by the highest expediency, for, had the king's life
been cut short suddenly, the young Princess Victoria, then eleven years
old, would have become sovereign with full powers, but without
protection against the baleful influence of her uncle, the Duke of
Cumberland, the least trustworthy person in the realm. In advocating it,
however, the whigs showed an evident disposition to win the favour of
William IV., who had never broken away, like his predecessor, from his
whig connexion. These motions were defeated, but the opposition gained
popularity at the expense of the government, by raising debates on
certain state prosecutions for libel, and on the question of colonial
slavery. Their position was further strengthened by a widespread
impression that the king himself was a reformer at heart, and would
seize an early opportunity of declaring his sentiments. His weakness had
not yet disclosed itself, while his kindliness earned him golden
opinions, as he "walked in London streets with his umbrella under his
arm, and gave a frank and sailor-like greeting to all old
acquaintances".
The election of 1830, following close on the revolution of July in
Paris, was the death-blow of the old tory rule in England. The
widespread sympathy which the original uprising of 1789 had excited
among Englishmen, but which the atrocities of jacobinism had quenched,
was now revived by the comparatively bloodless victory of constitutional
principles and the accession of a citizen-king in France. The growing
enthusiasm for reform, thus stimulated, exercised a decisive effect in
all the constituencies except the pocket-boroughs. Brougham was returned
without opposition for Yorkshire, and Hume by a large majority for
Middlesex, two brothers of Sir Robert Peel lost their seats, and Croker
was defeated for Dublin University. Distrust of the government was
equally shown in the counties and in the great cities, but in some
instances ultra-tories were elected, in revenge for catholic
emancipation or for alleged neglect of agricultural interests. It was
calculated that fifty seats, in all, had changed hands, and the
parliament which assembled in October 26 was very different in
constitution and temper from any of those which supported tory
ministries with unshaken constancy during the great war and the long
period of agitation consequent on the peace.
The losses of the government in Great Britain, partly due to its Irish
policy, were not compensated by any gain in Ireland, which did not fail
to display the ingratitude so often experienced by its benefactors.
Catholic emancipation was now treated as a vantage ground on which the
battle of repeal might be waged. Association after association was
formed by O'Connell, only to be put down by proclamation and to
re-appear under another name. The worst passions of the people were
effectually roused, assassinations became frequent, and Peel's
correspondence with Hardinge, then chief secretary, shows that he fully
recognised the failure of his experiment, as a cure for Irish
anarchy.[101] In the course of this new agitation, O'Connell used most
offensive expressions for which Hardinge called him to account. The
chief secretary's act may have been unjustifiable, but the shuffling and
faint-hearted conduct of O'Connell in declining this and later
challenges provoked by his foul language was fatal to his reputation for
courage. The most insolent of bullies, he never failed to consult his
own personal safety, by professing conscientious objections to duelling,
as well as by keeping just outside the meshes of the criminal law.
[Pageheading: _THE DEATH OF HUSKISSON._]
A few weeks before parliament met a tragical accident closed the life of
Huskisson, whose death was rendered all the more impressive by its
circumstances. In 1825 the idea of railways for the rapid conveyance of
goods and passengers bore fruit in an act for the construction of a line
between Liverpool and Manchester. It was not in itself a new idea, for
tramways had long been in use, and so far back as 1814 George Stephenson
had constructed a locomotive engine for a colliery. But it was generally
believed that such engines must always be limited to a speed of a few
miles an hour, and even the great engineer, Telford, giving evidence
before a committee in 1825, did not venture to speak of a higher maximum
speed than fifteen or twenty miles an hour. Few indeed were far-sighted
enough to credit this estimate, and the incredulity of ignorance was
aided by the forces of self-interest, for the profits of canals,
stage-coaches, and carriers' vans were directly threatened by the
innovation of railways. However, George Stephenson quietly persevered,
and from the moment that his pioneer engine, the "Rocket," won the prize
in a great competition of locomotives, "the old modes of transit were
changed throughout the whole civilised world". On September 15, 1830,
the first public trial of this and other engines was made at the opening
of the Liverpool and Manchester railway. Wellington, Peel, and other
eminent personages were present, among whom was Huskisson, just returned
for Liverpool. Two trains proceeded towards Manchester on parallel
lines, and stopped at the Parkgate station. There several passengers got
out, and Huskisson was making his way to shake hands with the duke when
he was struck by a carriage of the other train, already in movement,
fell upon the rails, and was fatally crushed. He bore his sufferings
with great fortitude, but died during the night at a neighbouring
vicarage to which he was carried. He could ill be spared by his party,
for, though he was not the man to ride the storm which raged over the
reform bill, his counsels might have saved the whigs from the just
reproach of financial incapacity and have hastened the advent of free
trade.
[Pageheading: _WELLINGTON ON REFORM._]
The winter session of 1830 opened with an ominous calm. It was believed
that private negotiations were going on between the ministry and the
survivors of Canning's following, which might result in a moderate
scheme of parliamentary reform. These expectations were utterly
discomfited by the king's speech delivered on November 2. It has
unjustly been described as "the most offensive that had been uttered by
any monarch since the revolution". On the contrary, it was tame and
colourless for the most part, recording his majesty's resolution to
uphold treaties and enforce order in the United Kingdom, but welcoming
the new French monarchy in terms which Grey emphatically commended. It
gave offence to liberals by describing the revolutionary movement in
Belgium as a "revolt"; but what called forth an immediate outburst of
popular resentment was its significant reticence on the subject of
reform. This resentment was aggravated tenfold by the Duke of
Wellington's celebrated speech in the lords, declaring against any
reform whatever. The duke always refused to admit that this declaration
was the cause of his subsequent fall, which he attributed, by
preference, to his adoption of catholic emancipation. Speaking
deliberately in reply to Grey, who had indicated reform as the only true
remedy for popular discontent, the duke stated that no measure of reform
yet proposed would, in his opinion, improve the representative system
then existing, which, he said, "answered all the good purposes of
legislation" to a greater degree than "any legislature in any country
whatever". He went further, and avowed his conviction not only that this
system "possessed the full and entire confidence of the country," but
also that no better system could be devised by the wit of man. Its
special virtue, according to him, consisted in the fact of its producing
a representative assembly which "contained a large body of the property
of the country, and in which the landed interests had a preponderating
influence". Finally, he protested that he would never bring forward a
reform measure himself, and that "he should always feel it his duty to
resist such measures when proposed by others".
There is no reason to suppose that the duke had consulted any of his
colleagues before making this declaration. Indeed, it is known that Peel
had just before received a confidential offer of co-operation in
carrying a moderate reform bill from Palmerston, Edward Stanley,
grandson of the Earl of Derby, Sir James Graham, and the Grants; nor had
these overtures been definitely rejected.[102] Some lame attempts were
made to clear the cabinet, as a whole, from responsibility for their
chief's outspoken opinions, and Peel cautiously limited himself to a
doubt whether any safe measure of reform would satisfy the reformers.
But he would not separate himself from Wellington, and Wellington's
ultimatum remained unretracted.
Brougham at once gave notice of his intention to bring forward the
question of parliamentary reform in a fortnight. In the meantime the
duke had committed a mistake which irritated the people, and especially
the inhabitants of London. It happened that the king and queen, with the
ministers, were engaged to dine with the lord mayor on November 9. Three
days earlier, the lord mayor-elect warned the prime minister that a riot
was apprehended on that occasion, that an attempt would probably be
made to assassinate him, and that it would be desirable to come attended
by a strong military guard. Upon this intimation, confirmed by others,
the cabinet most unwisely decided not to surround the mansion house with
a large armed force, but to put off the king's visit to the city. A
panic naturally ensued, consols fell three per cent. in an hour and a
half, and the disorderly classes achieved a victory without running the
smallest risk. There were local disturbances in the evening, and the
duke arranged to join Peel at the home office, in case decisive measures
should be required, but the new police were too strong for the mob, and
the whole affair passed off quietly, though not without involving the
government in some ridicule. The Marquis Wellesley, now in opposition to
his brother, declared the postponement of the dinner to be "the boldest
act of cowardice" within his knowledge.
If Wellington sought to conciliate the ultra-tories by his unfortunate
speech, he was soon undeceived. While Brougham's motion was pending, the
government proposed a revision of the civil list which purported to
effect slight economies for the benefit of the public. It was objected,
however, that a greater reduction of charges should have been
contemplated, and that parliament should have been invited to deal with
the revenues derived from the duchies of Cornwall and Lancaster, which,
as Peel explained, formed no part of those placed at the disposal of
parliament. Sir Henry Parnell moved to refer the civil list to a select
committee; the chancellor of the exchequer directly opposed the motion,
and, after a short discussion, a division was taken on November 15. The
result, which had been foreseen, was a majority of twenty-nine against
the government in a house of 437 members. There were many defections
among the discontented tories, and the Wellington ministry preferred to
fall on an issue of minor importance, rather than await a decisive
contest on the reform question. On the following day, therefore, both
the duke and Peel announced the acceptance of their resignations, and it
was known that Grey had received the king's command to form a new
administration.
[Pageheading: _GREY ACCEPTS OFFICE._]
Grey was the inevitable head of any cabinet empowered to carry
parliamentary reform. His dignified presence, his stately eloquence, his
unblemished character, and his parliamentary experience, marked him out
for leadership, and disguised his want of practical acquaintance with
the middle and lower classes of his countrymen. His political career,
ranging over forty-four years, though not destitute of errors, had been
perfectly consistent. From the first he was a staunch adherent of Fox;
he was among the managers who conducted the prosecution of Warren
Hastings; his connexion with the Society of the Friends of the People,
and his advocacy of reform during Pitt's first administration are
described in the preceding volume of this history. On Pitt's death he
became closely associated with Grenville; it will be remembered that he
joined his short-lived government, originally as first lord of the
admiralty, and afterwards as Fox's successor at the foreign office. It
was he who carried through the house of commons the bill for the
abolition of the slave trade, and it may truly be said that, in
opposition, he was equally persistent in supporting every measure in
favour of liberty, political or commercial, and in resisting every
measure, necessary or otherwise, which could be interpreted as
restricting it. We have seen how he more than once declined overtures
for a coalition with his opponents, and showed a bitter personal
antipathy to Canning, whom he was more than suspected of despising as a
brilliant plebeian adventurer. This suspicion of aristocratic prejudice,
ill harmonising with democratic principles, had never been quite
dispelled, and was now to be confirmed by the composition of his own
cabinet.
All the members of this cabinet, with four exceptions, sat in the house
of lords. No cabinet had contained so few commoners since the
reconstruction of Liverpool's ministry in 1822. Of the four who now sat
in the house of commons, Lord Althorp was heir-apparent to an earldom;
Lord Palmerston was an Irish peer; Graham was a baronet of great
territorial influence; Charles Grant was still a commoner, though he was
afterwards raised to the peerage. In the distribution of offices, full
justice was done to Canning's followers. Three of these occupied posts
of the highest importance, Palmerston at the foreign office, Lamb, who
had succeeded his father as Viscount Melbourne in 1828, at the home
office, and Goderich at the colonial office, while Grant became
president of the board of control. The selection of Graham as first lord
of the admiralty did not escape criticism, but was due to his tried
energy in financial reform, and was justified by the result. Lansdowne
was made president of the council, and Holland chancellor of the duchy
of Lancaster. Both of these had been Grey's colleagues in the
administration of "All the Talents". Althorp, who succeeded Goulburn at
the exchequer, and Carlisle, who accepted a seat in the cabinet without
office, were both whigs of tried fidelity. But the Duke of Richmond, the
new postmaster-general, was a deserter from the tory ranks, and Lord
Durham, the premier's son-in-law, the new lord privy seal, was a radical
of the most aggressive type, well qualified, as the event proved, to
disturb the peace of any council to which he might be admitted. Three
occupants of places outside the cabinet remain to be mentioned. One of
these, the Marquis Wellesley, had been a warm supporter of catholic
emancipation when the Duke of Wellington stoutly opposed it, and his
brother's conversion on that question had not affected his own relations
with the whig party, which now welcomed him as lord steward. Lord John
Russell, the new paymaster of the forces, had identified himself as
prominently as Grey himself with the promotion of parliamentary reform,
and Stanley, the new chief secretary for Ireland, was probably selected
for his brilliant powers in debate, as the natural and most worthy
antagonist of the great demagogue, O'Connell.
[Pageheading: _BROUGHAM BECOMES CHANCELLOR._]
But the most formidable of all the "radical reformers" still remained to
be conciliated, and provided with a post which might satisfy his
restless ambition. At the end of 1830 Brougham was in the plenitude of
his marvellous powers, and in the zenith of his unique popularity. As
member for the great county of York, returned free of expense on the
shoulders of the people, he already occupied the foremost position among
British commoners, and it was feared that he might use it for his own
purposes in a dictatorial spirit. He had recently declared in Yorkshire
that "nothing on earth should ever tempt him to accept place," and that
he was conscious of the power to compel the execution of measures which,
before that democratic election, he could only "ventilate". So late as
November 16, he assured the house of commons that "no change in the
administration could by any possibility affect him," adding that he
would bring forward his motion for parliamentary reform on the 25th,
whatever might then be the state of affairs, and whatever ministers
should then be in office. The great whig peers were most anxious to
keep him out of the cabinet without losing his support, or, still worse,
provoking his active hostility. With this view, Grey indiscreetly
offered him the attorney-generalship, and we cannot be surprised that
Brougham rejected the offer with some indignation and disdain. It was no
secret that his supreme desire was to become master of the rolls--an
office compatible with a seat in the house of commons--but his future
colleagues well knew that, in that case, they would be at his mercy in
the house. Thereupon it was suggested, probably by the king himself,
that it might be the less of two dangers to entrust him with the great
seal, which Lord Lyndhurst was quite prepared to resume under a fourth
premier. Accordingly, it was known on November 20 that Brougham was to
be the whig lord chancellor, and on the 22nd he actually took his place
on the woolsack. His title was Baron Brougham and Vaux, but, though he
lived to retain it for nearly forty years, he always preferred, with
pardonable vanity, to sign his name as "Henry Brougham".
Before the close of 1830 the new ministers found time to carry a regency
bill, whereby the Duchess of Kent (unless she married a foreigner) was
to be regent in the event of the Princess Victoria succeeding to the
crown during her minority. Having adopted the watchword of "Peace,
Retrenchment, and Reform," they gave an earnest of their zeal for
retrenchment by instituting a parliamentary inquiry into the possible
reduction of official salaries, including their own. The defeat of
Stanley by "Orator" Hunt at Preston was a warning against undue reliance
on popular confidence, for Preston was already a highly democratic
constituency, largely composed of ignorant "potwallopers". A similar but
more emphatic warning came from Ireland, where O'Connell did his utmost
to insult and defy Anglesey, the new lord-lieutenant, in spite of his
sacrifices for catholic emancipation, and his well-known sympathy with
the cause of reform. In the southern counties of England, too, violent
disturbances had broken out, and were marked by all the ferocity and
terrorism characteristic of luddism in the manufacturing districts. They
spread from Kent, Sussex, and Surrey into Hampshire, Wiltshire,
Berkshire, and Buckinghamshire. In these four counties there was a
wanton and wholesale destruction of agricultural machinery, of
farm-buildings, and especially of ricks, as if the misery of labourers
could possibly be cured by impoverishing their only employers. The
rioters moved about in large organised bodies, and their anarchical
passions were deliberately inflamed by the writings of unscrupulous men
like Cobbett and Carlile.
Happily, the ministers showed no sign of the weakness upon which the
ringleaders had probably calculated. They promptly issued a proclamation
declaring their resolution to put down lawless outrage, and promised
effective support to the lords-lieutenant of the disturbed counties.
Acting upon this assurance, Wellington himself went down to Hampshire,
and took a leading part in quelling disorder. The government next
appointed a special commission, which tried many hundreds of prisoners
and sentenced the worst to death, though few were executed. This vigour
soon overawed the organised gangs which, in one or two instances, had
only been dispersed by military force. Finally, they prosecuted Carlile
and Cobbett for instigating the poor labourers to crime. The former was
convicted at the Old Bailey, and condemned to a long term of
imprisonment, with a heavy fine. The trial of Cobbett was postponed
until the following July, when the frenzy of reform was at its height.
He defended himself with great audacity in a speech of six hours,
calling the lord chancellor with other leading reformers as witnesses,
and succeeded in escaping conviction by the disagreement and discharge
of the jury.
[Pageheading: _ALTHORP'S FIRST BUDGET._]
Two other questions engaged the attention of parliament on the eve of
the great struggle over the reform bill. One of these was the settlement
of the civil list, which the Duke of Wellington's ministry had failed to
effect. William IV. was not an avaricious sovereign, nor did he share
the spendthrift inclination of his brother. But he was disposed to
stickle for the hereditary rights of the crown, both public and private,
and he greatly disliked the details of his expenditure being scrutinised
by a parliamentary committee. Now, Grey and his colleagues stood pledged
to such a committee, and could not avoid promoting its appointment. They
propitiated the king, however, by excluding the revenues of the Duchy of
Lancaster from the inquiry, and ultimately succeeded in persuading the
house of commons to grant a civil list of £510,000 a year. But the
publication of a return containing a complete list of sinecure offices
and pensions was turned to good account by the economists, and produced
an outburst of public indignation, which was by no means unreasonable.
Great results were expected from the report of the select committee on
the civil list, which revised the salaries of officials in the royal
household, as well as the emoluments of pensioners. It was even demanded
that no regard should be paid to vested interests, but Grey firmly
supported the private remonstrances of the king against such an act of
confiscation. In fact, the savings recommended by the committee were so
trifling that it was thought better to waive the question for the time,
and the first economical essay of the new _régime_ ended in failure.
The budget introduced by Althorp soon after the meeting of parliament on
February 3, 1831, and in anticipation of the reform bill, was equally
unsuccessful as a specimen of whig finance. Finding that, after all, he
could not effect a saving of more than one million on the national
expenditure, as reduced by his capable predecessor, Goulburn, he
nevertheless proposed to repeal the duties on coals, tallow candles,
printed cottons, and glass, as well as to diminish by one half the
duties on newspapers and tobacco. To meet the deficit thus created, he
designed an increase of the wine and timber duties, new taxation of raw
cotton, and, above all, a tax of ten shillings per cent. on all
transfers of real or funded property. This last proposal was at once
denounced by Goulburn, Peel, and Sugden, the late solicitor-general, as
a breach of public faith between the state and its creditors. Their
protests were loudly echoed by the city, and the obnoxious transfer duty
was abandoned. The same fate befell the proposed increase of the timber
duties, and Althorp only carried his budget after submitting to further
modifications. Those who had relied on his promises of economical reform
were signally disappointed, and, had not parliamentary reform
overshadowed all other issues, the credit of the government would have
been rudely shaken in the first session after its formation. But this
great struggle, now to be described, so engrossed the attention of the
country, that little room was left for the consideration of other
interests, until it should be decided.
It is probable that no great measure was ever preceded by so thorough a
preparation of the public mind as the reform bills of 1831-32. Ever
since the early part of the eighteenth century the abuses of the
representative system had been freely acknowledged, and no one attempted
to defend them in principle. The multitude of close boroughs, the
smallness of the electoral body, the sale of seats in parliament, the
wide prevalence of gross bribery, and the enormous expense of
elections--these were notorious evils which no one denied, though some
palliated them, and few ventured to assail them in earnest by drastic
proposals, lest they should undermine the constitution. So far back as
1770 Chatham had denounced them, and predicted that unless parliament
reformed itself from within before the end of the century, it would be
reformed "with a vengeance" from without. In 1780 the Duke of Richmond
had introduced a bill in favour of universal suffrage, and Pitt had
brought forward bills or motions in favour of parliamentary reform as a
private member in 1782 and 1783, and as prime minister in 1785. But the
French revolution persuaded him that the time was not favourable to
reform, and he successfully opposed Grey's motion for referring a number
of petitions in favour of reform to a committee in 1793.
After this, a strong reaction set in, and the reform question had little
interest for the governing classes during the continuance of the great
war. It was never allowed to sleep, however, and in 1809, a bill
introduced by Curwen to pave the way for reform by preventing the return
of members upon corrupt agreements, actually passed both houses, though
in so mutilated a form that it was practically a dead letter. Still, the
cause was indefatigably pleaded by Brand, and Burdett, who in 1819 made
himself the spokesman of the violent reform agitation then spreading
over the country. Unfortunately, this violence, and the extravagance of
the demands put forward by the democratic leaders, were themselves fatal
obstacles to a temperate consideration of the question, and threw back
the reform movement for several years. In 1821, when Grampound was
disfranchised, it assumed, as we have seen, a more constitutional form,
and motions in favour of reform were proposed by Russell in 1822, 1823,
and 1826, and by Blandford in 1829. Had Canning placed himself at the
head of the movement the course of domestic history during the reign of
George IV. might have been very different. As it was, the number of
petitions in favour of reform sensibly fell off in the last half of the
reign, and its tory opponents vainly imagined that the movement had
spent itself. We now know that, in the absence of noisy demonstrations,
it was really and constantly gaining strength in the minds of thoughtful
men until it reached its climax at the end of 1830.
[Pageheading: _PUBLIC OPINION AND REFORM._]
The first act of the great political drama which occupied the next
eighteen months may be said to have opened with the fall of Wellington,
and the formation of the whig ministry. These events, together with the
success of the Paris revolution, supplied the motive power needed to
combine the great body of the middle classes with the proletariat in a
national crusade against the political privileges long exercised by a
powerful landed aristocracy. It is true that reform, unlike catholic
emancipation, had always appealed to broad popular sympathies, and had
been advocated by men like Grey and Burdett as carrying with it the
redress of all other grievances. But Canning was by no means the only
liberal statesman who heartily dreaded it, and even the advanced
reformers had not fully grasped the comprehensive meaning of the idea
which they embraced, or the far-reaching consequences involved in it.
The palpable anomaly of Old Sarum returning members to parliament, while
Birmingham was unrepresented, was shocking to common sense, and so was
the monopoly of the franchise by a handful of electors in some of the
larger boroughs, especially in Scotland. But few appreciated how
seriously constitutional liberty had been curtailed by the growth of
these abuses (unchecked by the Commonwealth) since the fourteenth and
fifteenth centuries, how effectually home and foreign policy was
controlled by a small circle of noble families dominant in the lower as
well as in the upper chamber, how vast a transfer of sovereignty from
class to class would inevitably be wrought by a thorough reform bill,
and how certainly men newly entrusted with power would use it for their
own advantage, whether or not that should coincide with the advantage of
the nation. Such general aspects of the question are seldom noticed in
the earlier debates upon it, and economical reform sometimes appears to
occupy a larger space than parliamentary reform in the liberal
statesmanship of the Georgian age.
With Wellington's declaration against any parliamentary reform, this
apathy vanished, and the movement, gathering up into itself all other
popular aspirations thenceforward filled the whole political horizon.
Reform unions sprang up everywhere, and instituted a most active
propaganda. So rapid was its spread and so wild the promises lavished by
radical demagogues, that Grey and his wiser colleagues soon felt
themselves further removed from their own extreme left wing than from
the moderate section of the conservatives. It is abundantly clear that
Grey himself, faithful as he was to reform, never dreamed of
inaugurating a reign of democracy. He often declared in private that
such a bill as he contemplated would prove, in its effect, an
aristocratic measure, and he doubtless believed that it would be
possible to bring the new constituencies and the new electoral bodies
under the same conservative influences which had been dominant for so
many generations. He did not foresee, as Palmerston did thirty years
later, that, even if the political actors remained the same, they "would
play to the gallery" instead of to the pit or boxes. He would, indeed,
have repudiated the maxim: "Everything for the people, and nothing by
the people"; he was fully prepared to place the house of commons in the
hands of the people, or at least of the great middle class, but he
regarded the crown and the house of lords as almost equal powers, and he
never doubted that property and education would practically continue to
rule the government of the country.
[Pageheading: _DRAFT OF THE FIRST BILL._]
When the whigs came into office they were singularly fortunate in the
high character and consistency of their chief, no less than in the
divisions of their opponents, whose right wing showed almost as mutinous
a spirit as their own left wing. Even between Wellington and Peel there
was a want of cordial harmony and confidence, yet Peel was the only tory
statesman of eminent capacity in the house of commons. The attitude of
the king, too, was not only strictly constitutional but friendly, though
it afterwards appeared that he relied too implicitly on Grey and Althorp
to protect him against the machinations of the radicals. The letters
written by his orders, though mostly composed by his private secretary,
Sir Herbert Taylor, display marked ability together with a very shrewd
and just conception of the situation. His loyal adoption of a moderate
reform policy was a most important element of strength to his ministers
at the outset of their great enterprise, and, if he afterwards held
back, it was in deference to scruples which several of them shared in
their hearts. Nor was the violence of the ultra-radicals, or the
scurrilous language of O'Connell by any means an unmixed source of
weakness to men engaged in framing and carrying a temperate reform bill.
Their firm resistance to extravagant demands reassured many a waverer
and showed how carefully their comprehensive plan had been matured. On
the other hand, they had to contend against difficulties not yet fully
revealed. One of these was their own want of administrative experience,
contrasting unfavourably with the statesmanlike capacity of Peel.
Another was the intractable character of two at least within their own
innermost councils--Durham and Brougham. A third was the inflexible
conservatism of a great majority in the house of lords, who, unlike the
people at large, clearly understood that the impending conflict was a
life-and-death struggle for political supremacy between themselves and
the commons--the greatest that had been waged since the revolutions of
the seventeenth century.
It was privately known that a committee had been empowered to draft the
bill awaited with so much impatience. This committee consisted of two
members of the cabinet, Durham and Graham, together with two members of
the administration not of cabinet rank, the Earl of Bessborough's eldest
son, Lord Duncannon, then chief whip of the whig party, and Russell, who
was second to none as a staunch and judicious promoter of parliamentary
reform. In spite of his vanity and petulance, Durham deserves the credit
of having drawn up the report, highly appreciated by the king, upon
which the projected measure was founded. It originally included vote by
ballot, and it is rather strange that on this point Durham was
powerfully supported by Graham, but opposed by Russell. It is still more
strange that Brougham, whose scheme of reform was locked up in his own
breast, was honestly disturbed by the radicalism of his colleagues and
specially objected to so large a disfranchisement of boroughs as they
contemplated. Upon the whole, however, the bill was the product of an
united cabinet, and received the express approval of the king in all its
essential features. The elaborate letter which he addressed to Grey on
February 4, 1831, betrays a sense of relief on finding that universal
suffrage and the ballot were not to be pressed upon him In declaring
that he never could have given his consent to such revolutionary
innovations, he insists strongly on the necessity of maintaining an
"equilibrium" between the crown, the lords, and the commons, as well as
between the "representation of property" and that of numbers.
The reform bill of 1831, which differed only in detail from the act
passed in 1832, cannot be understood without some knowledge of the
system which that act transformed. This system has been well described
as "combining survivals from the middle ages with abuses of the
prerogative in later times". The counties remained as they had remained
for centuries; Rutland, for instance, returned as many representatives
as Yorkshire, until in 1821 the two seats taken from Grampound were
added to those already possessed by Yorkshire. On the other hand, the
old franchise of the 40s. freeholders was more widely diffused since the
value of money had been greatly depreciated. Still, the influence of the
great county families was almost supreme, and they were firmly
entrenched in the nomination boroughs, where there was scarcely a
pretence of free election. The crown had originally a discretion in
summoning members from boroughs, and used it by issuing writs to all the
wealthiest as better able to bear taxation and more competent to
sanction it. The poorer boroughs, too, were also glad to escape
representation in order to save the expense of their members' wages. The
discretionary power of the crown was afterwards used in creating petty
boroughs such as "the Cornish group," for the purpose of packing the
house of commons with crown nominees. This practice, however, ceased in
the reign of Charles II., and these petty boroughs fell by degrees into
the hands of great landowners, who dictated the choice of
representatives.
The result has been concisely stated as follows: "The majority of the
house of commons was elected by less than fifteen thousand persons.
Seventy members were returned by thirty-five places with scarcely any
voters at all; ninety members were returned by forty-six places with no
more than fifty voters; thirty-seven members by nineteen places with no
more than one hundred voters; fifty-two members by twenty-six places
with no more than two hundred voters. The local distribution of the
representation was flagrantly unfair.... Cornwall was a corrupt nest of
little boroughs whose vote outweighed that of great and populous
districts. At Old Sarum a deserted site, at Gatton an ancient wall sent
two representatives to the house of commons. Eighty-four men actually
nominated one hundred and fifty-seven members for parliament. In
addition to these, one hundred and fifty members were returned on the
recommendation of seventy patrons, and thus one hundred and fifty-four
patrons returned three hundred and seven members."[103] Household
suffrage prevailed in a few boroughs, and here barefaced corruption was
common. Seats for boroughs, appropriately called "rotten," were
frequently put up to sale; otherwise, they were reserved for young
favourites of the proprietor. Neither yearly tenants, nor leaseholders,
nor even copyholders, had votes for counties. Of Scotland it is enough
to say that free voting had practically ceased to exist both in counties
and in boroughs, as the borough franchise was the monopoly of
self-elected town councils, and the county franchise of persons, often
non-resident, who happened to own "superiorities".
[Pageheading: _PROVISIONS OF THE FIRST BILL._]
The reform bill of the whig ministry, drawn on broad and simple lines,
struck at the root of this system. Its twofold basis was a liberal
extension of the suffrage with a very large redistribution of seats. The
elective franchise in counties, hitherto confined to freeholders, was to
be conferred on £10 copyholders and £50 leaseholders; the borough
franchise was to exclude "scot and lot" voters, "potwallopers" and most
other survivals of antiquated electorates, but to include ratepaying £10
householders. The qualification for this franchise had originally been
fixed at £20, and the king deprecated any reduction, but the omission of
the ballot reconciled him and other timid reformers to an immense
increase in the lower class of borough voters. Sixty boroughs of less
than 2,000 inhabitants, returning 119 members, were to be disfranchised
altogether; forty-seven others, with less than 4,000 inhabitants, were
to be deprived of one member, and Weymouth was to lose two out of the
four members which it returned in combination with the borough of
Melcombe Regis. Fifty-five new seats were allotted to the English
counties, forty-two to the great unrepresented towns, five to Scotland,
three to Ireland, and one to Wales. Altogether the numerical strength of
the house of commons was to be reduced by sixty-two, and this entirely
at the expense of England. Both the county and borough franchises in
Scotland were to be assimilated generally to those established for
England, and the £10 borough franchise was extended to Ireland. The bill
contained many other provisions designed to amend the practice of
registration, the voting power of non-resident electors, and the
cumbrously expensive machinery of elections. It is important to notice
that it also limited the duration of each parliament to five years--a
concession to radicalism afterwards abandoned and never since adopted.
On February 3 parliament met after the adjournment, and Grey stated that
a measure of reform had been framed, but the nature of it was not
disclosed to the house of commons until March 1, and during the interval
the secret was kept with great fidelity. The task of explaining it was
entrusted to Russell, whose thorough mastery of its letter and spirit
fully justified the choice, partly suggested by his aristocratic
connexions and historical name. His speech was remarkable for clearness
and cogency rather than for rhetorical brilliancy, and he was careful to
rest his case on constitutional equity and political expediency of the
highest order rather than on vague and abstract principles of popular
rights. The debate on the motion for leave to bring in the bill lasted
seven nights, and was vigorously sustained on both sides. The drastic
and sweeping character of the measure took the whole house by surprise,
while its authors justly claimed some credit for moderation in rejecting
the radical demands of universal suffrage, vote by ballot, and
triennial, if not annual, parliaments. Not only inside but outside the
walls of St. Stephen's the statement of the government had been awaited
with the utmost impatience, and it was universally felt that an issue
had now been raised which hardly admitted of compromise. The king
himself, though much engrossed by minor questions affecting the civil
list and the pension list, heartily congratulated Grey on the favourable
reception and prospects of the measure, which he regarded as a safeguard
against more democratic schemes. His great fear was of a collision
between the two houses, and the sequel proved that it was not unfounded.
For the present, however, all promised well. Peel denounced the bill
with less than his usual caution, but declined to give battle upon it,
and it passed the first reading on March 9 without a division. Indeed,
the chief danger to the stability of the government arose from its
defeat on the timber duties. This and other vexatious rebuffs so
irritated Grey that he actually contemplated a dissolution, lest the
reform bill itself should meet with a like fate. But the king would not
hear of it, and the cabinet wisely decided to follow the example of Pitt
and ignore an adverse division on a merely financial proposal, however
significant of parliamentary feeling.
[Pageheading: _SECOND READING OF THE FIRST BILL._]
Between the 9th and the 21st, the date fixed for the second reading,
popular excitement rose to a formidable height. Monster meetings were
held in the great centres of population, and the political unions put
forth all their strength. Nevertheless, the efforts of the
"borough-mongers" were all but successful, and after only two nights
debate the bill passed its second reading by a bare majority of one, 302
voting for it, and 301 against it. After this demonstration of strength
on the part of its opponents, no one could expect that it would survive
the ordeal of discussion in committee, and a letter of Lord Durham,
written in anticipation of the event, sums up with great force the
reasons for an early dissolution. The crisis was precipitated by the
action of General Gascoyne, member for Liverpool, who moved before the
house could go into committee that in no case should the number of
representatives from England and Wales be diminished. In the hope of
conciliating some wavering members, the ministry framed certain
modifications of their original scheme, but they do not seem to have
entertained the idea of accepting Gascoyne's proposal in its entirety.
In the division, which took place on April 19, they were defeated by 299
votes to 291, and on the following morning advised the king to dissolve.
In spite of his former refusal, more than once repeated, the king
yielded to necessity, feeling that another change of government, in the
midst of European complications, and in prospect of revolutionary
agitation in the country, would be a greater evil than a general
election.
The opposition, flushed with victory, pressed its advantage to extremes,
and successfully resisted a motion for the grant of supplies. Urged by
Althorp, the cabinet promptly resolved on recommending that the
dissolution should be immediate, and the king, roused to energy by
indignation, eagerly adopted their recommendation. Indeed, on hearing
that Lord Wharncliffe intended to move in the house of lords for an
address to the crown against a dissolution, he strongly resented such an
attempt to interfere with his prerogative, and declared himself ready to
start at once and dissolve parliament in person. Difficulties being
raised about preparing the royal carriages in time, he cut them short by
remarking that he was prepared to go in a hackney-coach--a royal saying
which spread like wildfire over the country. Both houses were scenes of
confusion and uproar when he arrived, preceded by the usual discharges
of artillery, which excited the angry disputants to fury. Lord
Mansfield, who was supporting the motion for an address, continued
speaking as the king entered, until he was forcibly compelled to resume
his seat. Even Peel was only restrained by like means from disregarding
the appearance of the usher of the black rod who came to summon the
commons from the bar of the house. The king preserved his composure, and
announced an immediate prorogation of parliament with a view to its
dissolution, and an appeal to the country on the great question of
reform. Such an appeal could only be made to constituencies under threat
of thorough reconstruction or total extinction, but from this moment the
ultimate issue ceased to be doubtful.
FOOTNOTES:
[101] Parker, _Sir Robert Peel_, ii., 160-62.
[102] Arbuthnot to Peel, Nov. 1, 1830, Parker, _Sir Robert Peel_, ii.,
163-66.
[103] Goldwin Smith, _United Kingdom_, ii., 320.
CHAPTER XIV.
THE REFORM.
The general election which took place in the summer of 1831 was perhaps
the most momentous on record. The news of the sudden dissolution,
carrying with it the assurance of the king's hearty assent to reform,
stirred popular enthusiasm to an intensity never equalled before or
since. From John o' Groat's to the Land's End a cry was raised of _The
bill, the whole bill, and nothing but the bill_. This cry signified more
than appears on the surface, and was not wholly one-sided in its
application. No doubt it was a passionate and defiant warning against
any manipulation or dilution of the bill in a reactionary sense, but it
was also a distinct protest against attempts by the extreme radicals to
amend it in an opposite direction. Now, as ever, the impulse was given
by the middle classes, and they were in no mood to imperil their own
cause by revolutionary claims. They could not always succeed, however,
in checking the fury of the populace, which had been taught to clamour
for reform as the precursor of a good time coming for the suffering and
toiling masses of mankind. The streets of London were illuminated, and
the windows of those who omitted to illuminate or were otherwise
obnoxious were tumultuously demolished by the mob, which did not even
spare Apsley House, the town residence of the Duke of Wellington. But,
except in Scotland, no formidable riots occurred for the present, and
some good resulted from the new experience of popular opinion gained by
candidates even from unreformed constituencies hitherto obedient to
oligarchical influence, but animated for the moment by a certain spirit
of independence.
Having sanctioned the dissolution, the king addressed an elaborate
letter to Grey, in which he did not disguise his own misgivings about
the perilous experiment of reform. Chiefly dreading a collision between
the two houses, he never ceased to press on his ministers the expediency
of making all possible sacrifices consistent with the spirit of the bill
in order to conciliate opposition in the house of peers. Grey's constant
reply was that no concessions would propitiate men bent on driving the
government from office, and that no measure less efficacious than that
already introduced would satisfy the just expectations of the people.
Both of these arguments were perfectly sound, and the constitutional
triumph ultimately achieved was largely due to the admirable tenacity of
purpose which refused to remodel the original reform bill in any
essential respect to please either the borough-mongers or the radicals.
The elections were conducted on the whole in good order. Seventy-six out
of eighty-two English county members (including the four Yorkshire
members), and the four members for the city of London, were pledged to
vote for the bill. Several notable anti-reformers were among the many
county representatives who failed to obtain re-election; even some of
the doomed boroughs did not venture to return anti-reformers; and the
government found itself supported by an immense nominal majority. The
new bill, introduced on June 24 by Lord John Russell, who had recently
been admitted in company with Stanley to the cabinet, differed little
from the old one. The number of boroughs to be totally disfranchised was
slightly greater, that of boroughs to be partially disfranchised
slightly less, but the net effect of the disfranchising and
enfranchising schedules was the same, and the £10 rental suffrage was
retained. The measure was allowed to pass its first reading after one
night's discussion. The debates on the second reading lasted three
nights, but the bill passed this stage on July 8 by a majority of 136 in
a house of 598 members.
[Pageheading: _SECOND REFORM BILL._]
The victory, however, though great, was far indeed from proving
decisive. By adopting obstructive tactics, of a kind to be perfected in
a later age, the opposition succeeded in prolonging the discussion in
committee over forty nights, until September 7. Though Peel separated
himself from the old tories, and steadily declined to cabal with
O'Connell's faction against the government, such an unprofitable waste
of time could not have taken place without his tacit sanction. Only one
important alteration was made in the bill. This was the famous "Chandos
clause," proposed by Lord Chandos, son of the Duke of Buckingham,
whereby the county suffrage was extended to all tenants-at-will of £50
rental and upwards. A very large proportion of tenant farmers thus
became county voters, and for the most part followed the politics of
their landlords. It may be doubted whether Grey seriously lamented
Chandos's intervention; at all events it went far to verify his own
prediction that aristocratic dominion would not be undermined by
reform.[104] Meanwhile, the country was naturally impatient of the
vexatious delay, and a somewhat menacing conference took place between
the political unions of Birmingham, Manchester, and Glasgow. Happily
public attention was diverted to some extent by the coronation, which
took place on the 8th. The bill was carried more rapidly through its
later stages, and was finally passed in the house of commons on the
21st, though by a reduced majority of 345 to 236.
On the following day the bill reached the house of lords and was set
down for its second reading on October 3. Thenceforth all the hopes and
fears of its friends and enemies were concentrated on the proceedings in
that house, whose ascendency in the state was at stake. The question:
"What will the lords do?" was asked all over the country with the
deepest anxiety. The debate lasted five nights, and is admitted to have
been among the finest reported in our parliamentary history. All the
leading peers took part in it, and several of them were roused by the
occasion to unwonted eloquence, but the palm was generally awarded to
the speeches of Grey, Harrowby, Brougham, and Lyndhurst. The first of
these occupied a position which gave increased weight to his counsels,
since he was the veteran advocate of reform and yet known to be a most
loyal member of the nobility which now stood on its trial. In his
opening speech he appealed earnestly to the bench of bishops, as
disinterested parties and as ministers of peace, not to set themselves
against the almost unanimous will of the people. Brougham's great
oration on the last night of the debate contained a masterly review of
the whole question, and, in spite of its theatrical conclusion, when he
sank upon his knees, extorted the admiration of his bitterest critics as
a consummate exhibition of his marvellous powers.
But very few of the peers were open to persuasion; the votes of
anti-reformers were mainly guided by a shortsighted conception of their
own interests, and Eldon did not shrink from contending that nomination
boroughs were in the nature of property rather than of trusts. A
memorable division ended in the rejection of the second reform bill on
the 8th by 199 votes to 158. Twenty-one bishops voted against it. The
king lost no time in reminding Grey of his own warning against
submitting the bill, without serious modifications, to the judgment of
the house of lords. He also intimated beforehand that he could not
consent to any such creation of peers as would convert the minority into
a majority. Grey at once admitted that he could not ask for so
high-handed an exercise of the royal prerogative, and undertook to
remain at his post, on condition of being allowed to introduce a third
reform bill as comprehensive as its predecessor. Thereupon the king
abandoned his intention of proroguing parliament by commission, and came
down in person to do so on the 20th when he delivered a speech clearly
indicating legislation on reform as the work of the next session.
[Pageheading: _REFORM BILL RIOTS._]
During the interval between the 8th and the 20th it became evident that
the reform movement, quickened by the action of the upper house, would
rise to a dangerous height. A vote of confidence in the government,
brought forward by Lord Ebrington, eldest son of Earl Fortescue, was
carried by a majority of 131, and speeches were made in support of it
which encouraged, in the form of prediction, every kind of popular
agitation short of open violence. In the course of this debate Macaulay,
the future historian of the English revolution, delivered one of those
highly wrought orations which adorn the political literature of reform.
The excitement in London was great, but kept for the most part within
reasonable bounds, partly by the firm and sensible attitude of Melbourne
as home secretary. The mob, however, vented its rage in window breaking
and personal assaults on some prominent anti-reformers, one of whom,
Lord Londonderry, was knocked off his horse by a volley of stones. In
the provinces more serious disturbances broke out. At Derby the rioters
actually stormed the city jail, releasing the prisoners, and were only
repelled in their attack on the county jail by the fire of a military
force. At Nottingham they wreaked their vengeance on the Duke of
Newcastle by burning down Nottingham Castle, which belonged to him, and
were proceeding to further outrages when they were overawed by a
regiment of hussars. A great open-air meeting of the political union was
held at Birmingham, while the bill was still before the house of lords,
at which a refusal to pay taxes was openly recommended in the last
resort, and votes of thanks were passed to Althorp and Russell. The
former, in acknowledging it, wisely condemned such lawless proceedings;
the latter unwisely made use of a phrase which gravely displeased the
king: "It is impossible that the whisper of faction should prevail
against the voice of a nation". Both were called to account in the house
of commons for holding correspondence with an illegal association, but
disclaimed any recognition of the Birmingham union as a body, and fully
admitted the responsibility of the government for the maintenance of
order.
This assurance was about to be tested by the most atrocious outbreak
which disgraced the cause of reform. On Saturday, the 29th, Wetherell,
as recorder of Bristol, entered the city to open the commission on the
following Monday. Of all the anti-reformers, he was perhaps the most
vehement and unpopular, but his visit to Bristol was in discharge of an
official duty, and had been sanctioned expressly by the government.
Nevertheless, the cavalcade which escorted him was assailed by a furious
rabble on its way to the guildhall, and from the guildhall to the
mansion house, where he was to dine. For a while, they were kept back or
driven back by a large force of constables, but, on some of these being
withdrawn, their ferocity increased, and threatened a general assault on
the mansion house. In vain did the mayor address them and read the riot
act; they overpowered the constables, and carried the mansion house by
storm, the mayor and the magistrates escaping by the back premises,
while the recorder prudently left the city. At last the military were
called upon to act, and two troops of cavalry were ordered out. But the
military as well as the civil authorities showed a strange weakness and
vacillation in presence of an emergency only to be compared with the
Lord George Gordon riots of a by-gone generation. After making one
charge and dispersing the populace for the moment, the cavalry were sent
back to their barracks, and when one troop was recalled on the following
(Sunday) morning, the rioters were all but masters of the city. Many of
them, having plundered the cellars of the mansion house, were infuriated
by drink; they broke into the Bridewell, the new city jail, and the
county jail, set free the prisoners, and fired the buildings. They next
proceeded to burn down the mansion house, the bishop's palace, the
custom-house, and the excise-office. The cathedral is said to have been
saved by the resolute stand of a few volunteers hastily rallied by one
of the officials. In the midst of all this havoc, the cavalry were
almost passive, Colonel Brereton, the commanding officer, waiting for
orders from the magistrates, and actually withdrawing a part of his
small force when it was most needed, because it had incurred the special
hatred of the criminals.
On the morning of Monday, the guardians of law and order seemed to have
recovered their courage; at all events, the cavalry, no longer forbidden
to charge, and headed by Major Mackworth, soon cleared the streets,
fresh troops poured in, and the police made a number of arrests. The
reign of anarchy was at an end, having lasted three days. When a return
of casualties was made up, it showed that only twelve were known to have
lost their lives, besides ninety-four disabled, most of whom were the
victims of excessive drunkenness or of the flames kindled by themselves.
But, though the riot was quelled, it was some proof of its deliberate
promotion, and of the aims which its ringleaders had in view, that
parties of them issuing out from Bristol attempted to propagate sedition
in Somersetshire. A special commission sent down to Bristol condemned to
death several of the worst malefactors; four were hanged and
eighty-eight sentenced either to transportation or to lighter
punishments; and Colonel Brereton destroyed himself rather than face the
verdict of a court-martial.
On the same Monday, the 31st, Burdett took the chair at a meeting in
Lincoln's Inn Fields, called for the purpose of forming a "National
Political Union" in London. Soon afterwards, however, he retired from
the organisation, on the nominal ground that half of the seats on its
council were allotted to the working classes, but more probably because
he was beginning to be alarmed by the violence of his associates. His
fears were justified by a manifesto summoning a mass meeting of the
working-classes to assemble at White Conduit House on November 7, for
the purpose of ratifying a new and revolutionary bill of rights. This
time the government was on its guard, and Melbourne plainly informed a
working-class deputation that such a meeting would certainly be
seditious, and perhaps treasonable, in law. The plan was therefore
abandoned, and soon afterwards a royal proclamation was issued,
declaring organised political associations, assuming powers independent
of the civil magistrates, to be "unconstitutional and illegal". The
political unions proposed to consider themselves outside the scope of
the proclamation, which had little visible effect, though it was not
without its value as proving that the government was a champion of order
as well as of liberty.
[Pageheading: _NEGOTIATIONS WITH WAVERERS._]
During the short recess of less than six weeks political discontent,
constantly growing, was aggravated by industrial distress and gloomy
forebodings of a mysterious pestilence, already known as cholera. A
voluminous correspondence was carried on between the king and Grey on
the means of silencing the political unions and smoothing the passage of
a new reform bill. It was not in the king's nature to conceal his own
conservative leanings, especially on the imaginary danger of increasing
the metropolitan constituencies, and Grey complained more than once of
these sentiments being confided, or at least becoming known, to
opponents of the government. At the same time attempts were being made
not only by the king himself, but also by peers of moderate views to
arrange a compromise which might save the honour of the government, and
yet mitigate the hostility of the tory majority in the upper house. In
these negotiations behind the scenes, Howley, Archbishop of Canterbury,
and Carr, Bishop of Worcester, took part, as representing the episcopal
bench, while Lords Harrowby and Wharncliffe, in temporary concert with
Chandos, professed to speak for the "waverers" among peers. As little of
importance resulted from their well-meant efforts, and as nearly all the
supposed "waverers," including the bishops, drifted into open
opposition, it is the less necessary to dwell at length on a very
tedious chapter in the history of parliamentary reform. Suffice it to
say that when parliament reassembled on December 6, 1831, the prospects
of the forthcoming bill were no brighter than in October, except so far
as the danger of rejecting it had become more apparent.
The final reform bill introduced by Lord John Russell on the 12th was
identical in its principle and its essential features with the former
ones. The chief alteration was the maintenance of the house of commons
at its full strength of 658 members. This enabled its framers not only
to reduce the number of wholly disfranchised boroughs (schedule A) from
sixty to fifty-six, and that of semi-disfranchised boroughs (schedule B)
from forty-six to thirty, but to assign a larger number of members to
the prosperous towns enfranchised. The bill was at once read a first
time and passed its second reading after two nights' debate on the 16th
by a majority of 324 to 162, or exactly two to one. But, after a short
adjournment for the Christmas holidays, a debate of twenty-two nights
took place in committee, and the opposition made skilful use of the many
vulnerable points in the new scheme. Every variation from the original
bill, even by way of concession, was subjected to minute criticism, and
especially the fact that the schedules were now framed, not on a scale
of population only, but on a mixed basis, partly resting on population,
partly on the number of inhabited houses, and partly on the local
contribution to assessed taxes.
It was easy to pick such a compound scale to pieces, to uphold the
claims of one venal borough against another equally venal, and even to
reproach the government with inconsistency in relying on the census of
1831, instead of on that of 1821--a course which the opposition had
specially urged upon them. But it was not so easy to combat the
irresistible arguments in favour of the bill on its general merits, to
ignore the reasonable concessions on points of detail which it embodied,
or to explain away the patent fact that no measure less stringent would
satisfy the people. There was therefore an air of unreality about this
debate, spirited as it was, nor is it easy to understand what practical
object enlightened men like Peel could have sought in prolonging it. He
well knew, and admitted in private correspondence, that reform was
inevitable; he must have known that a sham reform would be a stimulus to
revolutionary agitation; yet he strove to mutilate the bill so that it
might pass its second reading in the house of lords, and there undergo
such further mutilation as would destroy its efficacy as a settlement of
the question. For the present he yielded. No attempt was made to
obstruct the bill on its third reading, when the division showed 355
votes to 239, and it passed the commons on March 23 without any
division.
[Pageheading: _THE THIRD REFORM BILL._]
Such a result would have been conclusive in any parliament during the
second half of the nineteenth century. A house of commons elected by the
old constituencies, and under the old franchises, had declared in favour
of a well-considered reform bill. The same constituencies voting under
the same franchises had returned an increased majority in support of the
same, or very nearly the same measure; this measure, with slight
variations, had been adopted by an immense preponderance of votes in the
new house of commons: yet its fate in the house of lords was very
doubtful. Ever since the autumn of 1831, the expedient of swamping the
house of lords had been seriously contemplated. It was supremely
distasteful to the king, and Grey himself, in common with a majority of
the cabinet, was strongly averse from it. Then came the intervention of
Harrowby and Wharncliffe, the failure of which strengthened the hands of
the more determined reformers in the cabinet, and induced the king to
give way. Having already created a few peers on the coronation, he
consented to a limited addition in the last resort, but with the
reservation that eldest sons of existing peers should be called up in
the first instance, and upon the assurance that, reform once carried,
all further encroachments of the democracy should be resisted by the
government. He even authorised Grey to inform Harrowby that he had given
the prime minister this power, in the hope that it would never be
needed, and that at least the second reading of the bill would be
carried in the house of lords without it. His objection to a permanent
augmentation of the peerage remained unshaken, and Grey promised to
propose no augmentation at all before the second reading.
This compact, if it can be so called, was fulfilled in the letter, for
the bill was read a first time without a division, and it passed the
second reading on April 14 by a majority of 184 to 175. To all
appearance a notable process of conversion had been wrought among the
peers, seventeen of whom actually changed sides, while ten opponents of
the former bill absented themselves, and twelve new adherents were
gained. However encouraging these figures might be, the ministers were
under no illusion. They had the best reason for expecting the worst
from the struggle in committee, and they were conscious of gradually
losing the king's confidence. The very demonstrations of popular
enthusiasm for reform which impressed others with a sense of its
necessity impressed him with a sense of its danger; the political unions
and the Bristol riots alarmed him extremely; and the foreign policy of
the government elicited from him so outspoken a protest that Grey
tendered his resignation. The difficulty was overcome for the moment,
but recurred in a more serious form when parliament reassembled on May
7. Lyndhurst at once proposed in committee to postpone the consideration
of schedule A; in other words, to shelve the most vital provisions of
the bill until the rest should have been dissected in a hostile spirit.
This proposal is supposed to have been concerted with Harrowby and
Wharncliffe, if not to have received the sanction of the Duke of
Wellington. It was adopted by 151 votes to 116, and the cabinet, on May
8, courageously determined to make a decisive stand. They firmly advised
the king to confer peerages on "such a number of persons as might ensure
the success of the bill". The principle thus expressed had, as has been
seen, been reluctantly approved by the king himself, but he recoiled
from the application of it when he learned that it would involve at
least fifty new creations. After a day's thought, he closed with the
only alternative, and accepted the resignation of his ministry. He then
sent for Lyndhurst, who of course at once communicated with the duke.
The king, as we have seen, had never been able to understand the real
force of the reform movement, and his leading idea was that the demand
for reform might be satisfied by a moderate reform bill, which the house
of lords would not reject or reduce to nullity. Wellington shared this
impression, and, though an implacable opponent of reform, was willing to
undertake office for the purpose of carrying, not merely a mild
substitute for the whig reform bill, but the whig reform bill itself
with little modification. Such an act might appear immoral in a
statesman whose integrity was more open to question, but the duke's
political _moral_ appears to have been of a less delicate type than that
which is commonly expected in party politicians. As a general, he
considered, first of all and above all, what manoeuvres would best
advance his plan of campaign. As a political leader, he regarded
himself not as the chief of a party, still less as the exponent of a
creed, but rather as a public servant to whom his followers owed
allegiance, whether in office or in opposition. As a public servant he
felt bound to obey the king's summons, and conduct the administration,
honestly and efficiently, but without much concern for personal
convictions. He was also anxious to preserve the house of lords from
being swamped and so rendered ridiculous by an extensive creation of
peers.[105]
[Pageheading: _ATTEMPTS TO FORM A TORY MINISTRY._]
But Wellington knew that he was powerless to manage the house of commons
without the aid of Peel, and Peel, though pliable in the case of
catholic emancipation, was inflexible in the case of reform. He drew a
distinction between these cases, and absolutely rejected the advice of
Croker that he should grasp the helm of state to avert the worse evil of
the whigs being recalled. "I look," he wrote, "beyond the exigency and
the peril of the present moment, and I do believe that one of the
greatest calamities that could befall the country would be the utter
want of confidence in the declarations of public men which must follow
the adoption of the bill of reform by me as a minister of the
crown."[106] This language, repeated under reserve in the house of
commons, after a direct appeal from the king, strongly contrasts with
that of the duke who roundly asserted that he should have been ashamed
to show his face in the streets if he had refused to serve his sovereign
in an emergency. The marked divergence of views and conduct between the
two leaders of the conservative party led to a temporary estrangement
which materially weakened their counsels, and was not finally removed
until a fresh crisis arose two years later.
While Lyndhurst and the duke were vainly endeavouring to patch up a
government without Peel or his personal adherents, Goulburn and Croker,
the house of commons and the country gave decisive proofs of their
resolution. A vote of confidence in Grey's ministry, proposed by
Ebrington, was carried on May 10 by a majority of eighty. Petitions came
in from the city of London and Manchester, calling upon the commons to
stop the supplies, and the reckless populace clamoured for a run upon
the Bank of England. A mass meeting convened by the Birmingham
political union had already hoisted the standard of revolt against the
legislature, unless it would comply with the will of the people; the
example was spreading rapidly, and events seemed to be hurrying on
towards a fulfilment of Russell's prediction that, in the event of a
political deadlock, the British constitution would perish in the
conflict. The duke was credited, of course unjustly, with the intention
of establishing military rule, and doubts were freely expressed whether
he could rely either on the army or on the police to put down insurgent
mobs. The excitement in the house of commons itself was scarcely less
formidable, and it soon became evident that high tories were almost as
much incensed by the prospect of a tory reform bill as radicals and
whigs by the vote on Lyndhurst's amendment.
On the 14th Manners Sutton and Alexander Baring, Lyndhurst's trusted
confidants, plainly informed the duke that his self-imposed task was
hopeless, and on the next day the duke advised the king to recall Grey.
The king, who had apparently grasped the position earlier, acquiesced in
this solution of the question. He agreed to recall Grey and his
colleagues, and to use his own personal influence in persuading tory
peers to abstain from voting. He attempted to impose upon his old
ministers the condition of modifying the bill considerably, but they
continued to insist on maintaining its integrity, and on swamping the
upper house, unless its opposition should be withdrawn. It was, happily,
unnecessary to resort to such extreme measures. A letter from the king,
dated the 17th, informed Wellington that all difficulties would be
removed by "a declaration in the house of lords from a sufficient number
of peers that they have come to the resolution of dropping their further
opposition to the reform bill". On that night, after stating what had
passed, the duke retired from the house, followed by about 100 peers,
and absented himself from the discussion of the bill in committee. A
stalwart minority remained, and took issue on a few clauses, but their
numbers constantly dwindled, and when the report was received on June 1
only eighteen peers recorded their dissent in a protest. Grey himself,
though suffering from illness, moved the third reading on the 4th, when
it was carried by 106 to 22. His last words did not lack the dignity
which had marked his bearing throughout, and expressed the earnest hope
that, in spite of sinister forebodings, "the measure would be found to
be, in the best sense, conservative of the constitution".
[Pageheading: _ROYAL ASSENT TO THE BILL._]
The amendments made in the house of lords were slight, and the house of
commons adopted them without any argument on their merits. Peel, who had
made a convincing defence of his recent conduct, and who afterwards took
a statesmanlike course in the reformed parliament, declared, with some
petulance, that he would have nothing to do with the consideration of
provisions or amendments passed under compulsion, and that he was
prepared to accept them, _en bloc_, whatever their nature or
consequences. The bill, therefore, received the royal assent on the 7th,
but the king could not be induced to perform this ceremony in person.
Though his scruples had been respected in framing the scheme of reform,
though he was consulted at every turn and clearly recognised the
necessity to which he bowed, and though he was spared the resort to a
_coup d'état_ which he abhorred, he could not but feel humiliated by the
ill-disguised subjection of the crown and the nobility to a single
chamber of the people. It is greatly to his honour that, with limited
intelligence, and strong prejudices, he should have played a
straightforward and strictly constitutional part in so perilous a
crisis.
By the great reform bill, as it was still called even after it became an
act, the whole representative system of England and Wales was
reconstructed. Fifty-six nomination boroughs, as we have seen, lost
their members altogether; thirty more were reduced to one member, and
Weymouth which, coupled with Melcombe Regis, had returned four members,
now lost two. Twenty-two large towns, including metropolitan districts,
were allotted two members each; twenty smaller but considerable towns
received one member each; the number of English and Welsh county members
was increased from ninety-four to one hundred and fifty-nine, and the
larger counties were parcelled out into divisions. All the fanciful and
antiquated franchises which had prevailed in the older boroughs were
swept away to make room for a levelling £10 household suffrage, the
privileges of freemen being alone preserved. The rights of 40s.
freeholders were retained in counties, but they found themselves
associated with a large body of copyholders, leaseholders, and
tenants-at-will paying £50 in rent. The general result was to place the
borough representation mainly in the hands of shopkeepers, and the
county representation mainly in those of landlords and farmers. The
former change had a far greater effect on the balance of parties than
the latter. The shopkeepers, of whom many were nonconformists, long
continued to cherish advanced radical traditions, partly derived from
the reform agitation, and constantly rebelled against dictation from
their rich customers. The farmers, dependent on their landlords and
closely allied with them in defending the corn laws, proved more
submissive to influence, and constituted the backbone of the great
agricultural interest.
The enactment of the English reform bill carried with it as its
necessary sequel the success of similar bills for Scotland and Ireland.
In Scotland electoral abuses were so gross that reform was comparatively
simple, and that proposed, as Jeffrey, the lord advocate, frankly said,
"left not a shred of the former system". The nation, as a whole, gained
eight members, since its total representation was raised from forty-five
to fifty-three seats, thirty for counties and twenty-three for cities
and burghs. Two members were allotted to Edinburgh and Glasgow
respectively; one each to Paisley, Aberdeen, Perth, Dundee, and
Greenock, as well as to certain groups of boroughs. Both the county and
burgh electorates were entirely transformed. The "old parchment
freeholders" in counties, many of whom owned not a foot of land, were
superseded by a mixed body of freeholders and leaseholders with real
though various qualifications. The electoral monopoly of town councils
was replaced by the enfranchisement of householders with a uniform
qualification of £10. A claim to representation on behalf of the
Scottish universities was negatived in the house of lords. The number of
representatives for Ireland was raised from 100 to 105. The
disfranchisement of the 40s. freeholders was maintained against the
strenuous attacks of O'Connell and Sheil, but the introduction of the
£10 borough franchise amply balanced the loss of democratic influence in
counties. On the whole the transfer of power from class to class was
greater in Scotland and Ireland than in England itself, and in Ireland
this signified a corresponding transfer of power from protestants to
catholics. The rule of the priests was almost as absolute as ever until
it was checked for a while by a purely democratic movement, and the
Irish vote in the house of commons was generally cast on the radical
side.
[Pageheading: _RETROSPECT OF THE REFORM MOVEMENT._]
A calm retrospect of the reform movement, culminating in the acts of
1832, compels us to see how little the course of politics is guided by
reason, and how much by circumstances. Every argument employed in that
and the preceding year possessed equal force at the end of the
eighteenth century, and the benefits of reform might have been obtained
at a much smaller cost of domestic strife; nor can we doubt that, but
for the French revolution, these arguments would have prevailed. Whether
or not the sanguinary disruption of French society furthered the cause
of progress on the continent, it assuredly threw back that cause in
Great Britain for more than a generation. Not only did its horrors and
enormities produce a reaction which paralysed the efforts of liberals in
this country, but the wars arising out of it engrossed for twenty years
the whole energy of the nation. Had it been possible for Pitt to pass a
reform bill after carrying the Irish union, the current of English
history would have been strangely diverted. The sublime tenacity of that
proud aristocracy which defied the French empire in arms, and nerved all
the rest of Europe by its example and its subsidies, would never have
been exhibited by a democratic or middle class parliament, and it is
more than probable that Great Britain would have stood neutral while the
continent was enslaved or worked out its own salvation. On the other
hand, in such a case, Great Britain might have been spared a great part
of the misery and discontent which, following the peace, but indirectly
caused by the war, actually paved the way for the reform movement. It
remained for a second French revolution, combined with the infatuation
of English tories, to supply the motive power which converted a party
cry into a national demand for justice. The reform act was, in truth, a
completion of the earlier English revolution provoked by the Stuarts.
Considering the condition of the people before its introduction, and the
obstinacy of the resistance to be overborne, we may well marvel that it
was carried, after all, so peacefully, and must ever remember it as a
signal triumph of whig statesmanship.
It was the crowning merit of the reform act, from a whig point of view,
that it stayed the rising tide of democracy, and raised a barrier
against household suffrage and the ballot which was not broken down for
a generation more. It put an end to an oligarchy of borough-owners and
borough-mongers; it was a charter of political rights for the
manufacturing interest and the great middle class. But it did nothing
for the working classes in town or country; indeed, by the abolition of
potwallopers and scot-and-lot voters in a few boroughs, they forfeited
such fragmentary representation as they had possessed. Hence the seeds
of chartism, already sown, were quickened in 1832; but socialism was not
yet a force in politics, and it was still hoped that, under the new
electoral system, the sufferings of the poor might be mostly remedied by
act of parliament. The effect of the reform act on the balance of the
constitution was not, at first, fully appreciated. The grievance of
nomination-boroughs had been all but completely redressed, and that of
political corruption greatly diminished, but the hereditary peerage
remained, and the right of the lords to override the will of the commons
had ostensibly survived the conflict of 1831-32. But far-sighted men
could not fail to perceive that, in fact, the upper house was no longer
a co-ordinate estate of the realm. The peers retained an indefinite
power of delaying a measure, but it soon came to be a received maxim
that on a measure of primary importance such a power could only be
exercised in order to give the commons an opportunity of reconsideration
or to force an appeal to the country at a general election, and that a
new house of commons, armed with a mandate to carry that measure, though
once rejected by the peers, could not be resisted except at the risk of
revolution.
The best safeguard against collision, however, was to be found in the
latent conservatism of the house of commons itself. Reformed as it was,
it had not ceased to be mainly a house of country gentlemen, and the
non-payment of members was a security for its being composed, almost
exclusively, of men with independent means and a stake in the country. A
very large proportion of these had been educated at the great public
schools, or the old English universities. They might accept on the
hustings the doctrine, against which Burke so eloquently protested, that
a representative is above all a delegate, and must go to parliament as
the pledged mouthpiece of his constituency. But in the house itself they
could not divest themselves of the sentiments derived from their birth,
their education, and their own personal interests; nor was it found
impossible, without a direct violation of pledges, to act upon their own
opinions in many a critical division. Still, it has been well pointed
out that, with the flowing tide of reform there arose a new and
one-sided conception of statesmanship as consisting in progressive
amendment of the laws rather than in efficient administration, so that
it is now popularly regarded as a mark of weakness on the part of any
government to allow a session to pass without effecting some important
legislative change.[107]
[Pageheading: _CORONATION OF WILLIAM IV._]
The supreme interest of the reform bill and its incidents naturally
dwarfed all other political questions, and the legislative annals of
1831-32 are otherwise singularly devoid of historical importance. The
coronation of William IV., which, as has been seen, took place on
September 8, 1831, was hardly more than an interlude in the great
struggle, yet it served for the moment to assuage the animosities of
party warfare. The king himself, who disliked solemn ceremonials, and
the ministers, deeply pledged to economy, were inclined to dispense with
the pageant altogether. It was found, however, that not only peers and
court officials but the public would be grievously disappointed by the
omission of what, after all, is a solemn public celebration of the
compact between the sovereign and the nation. The coronation was,
therefore, carried out with due pomp and all the time-honoured
formalities, but without the profuse extravagance which attended the
enthronement of George IV. There was no public banquet, and the public
celebration ceased with the ceremony in Westminster Abbey. The Duke of
Wellington and other leading members of the opposition had been duly
consulted by the government; there was a welcome respite from
parliamentary warfare; the king's returning popularity was confirmed;
and all classes of the people were satisfied.
[Pageheading: _THE CHOLERA EPIDEMIC._]
Two months later, the appearance of the cholera at Sunderland added
another grave cause of anxiety to all the difficulties created by the
defeat of the reform bill in the house of lords, and the ominous riots
at Bristol. A similar but distinct and infinitely milder disease had
long been known under the name of _cholera morbus_, or more correctly
_cholera nostras_. Asiatic cholera, as the new disease was called, had
no affinity with any other known disease, and excited all the greater
terror by its novelty, as well as by the suddenness of its fatal effect.
It was first observed by English physicians in 1817, when 10,000 persons
fell victims to it in the district of Jessor in Bengal. About the same
time it attacked and decimated the central division of the army of Lord
Hastings, advancing against Gwalior. Before long it spread over the
whole province of Bengal, and eastward along the coasts of Asia as far
as China and Timur in the East Indies, crossed the great wall, and
penetrated into Mongolia. In 1818 it broke out at Bombay, and during the
next twelve years continued to haunt, at intervals, the cities of Persia
and Asiatic Turkey, with the coasts of the Caspian Sea. It was not until
1829 that it reached the Russian province of Orenburg, by way of the
river Volga, visiting St. Petersburg and Archangel in June, 1830. Thence
it travelled slowly but steadily westward through Northern Europe, as
well as southward into the valleys of the Danube and its tributaries,
until it made its appearance at Berlin and Hamburg in the summer of
1831. Long before this, and while the reform crisis was in its acutest
stage, the probability of its advent was fully realised in England, and
orders in council were issued in June, 1831, placing in quarantine all
ships coming from the Baltic. Notwithstanding the outcry against
meddling with trade, men of war were appointed to enforce these orders,
and when the news came that Marshal Diebitsch had died of the disease in
Poland, the alarm increased and all regulations against plague were made
applicable to cholera. Whether or not these precautions were
ineffective, it swooped upon Sunderland on October 26, and prevailed
there for two months, though its true character was very unwillingly
recognised.[108]
The conflict between the newly created board of health and the merchants
importing goods caused the government no little perplexity. The protests
of the latter were strengthened by the somewhat remarkable fact that,
once established at Sunderland, the cholera seemed to be arrested in its
course and for a while spread no further. There seemed to be some ground
for the belief that it was partly due to extreme overcrowding and
neglect of all sanitary rules in that town, but this belief was soon
dissipated by its appearance at Newcastle and progress over the
north-eastern counties even during the winter months. Seven cases of it
occurred on the banks of the Thames just below London early in February,
1832, and though its virulence in England was alleged to be less than on
the continent, further experience hardly justified that opinion. The
appalling violence of its first onslaught on some vulnerable districts
may be illustrated by the example of Manchester, where a whole family
just arrived from an infected locality was swept away within twenty-four
hours. The government did its duty by disseminating instructions for its
prevention and treatment among the local authorities, but the prejudices
of the lower orders were against all interference for their benefit, and
scenes of brutality were sometimes enacted such as may still be
witnessed in oriental cities scourged by the plague. After a temporary
decline, the visitation recurred in all its severity, and in July the
deaths of a few persons in the highest circles occasioned a panic in the
west end of London. Still the declared number of deaths in the
metropolitan area was only 5,275, showing a far lower rate of mortality
in London than in Paris at the same time, and much lower than in London
itself during the epidemic of 1849, when statistics were more
trustworthy. None of the cholera epidemics, however, approached in
deadliness the plagues of 1625 and 1665. In the latter year the number
of deaths in London from plague alone represented about one-fifth of the
entire resident population--a proportion equivalent to a mortality of
above 200,000 in the London of 1831-32. This comparative immunity was
partly due to improved sanitation, the vigorous development of which may
be said to date from the first visitation of cholera.
The census taken in 1831 revealed an increase of population, which,
though not equal to that of the preceding decade, indicated a most
satisfactory growth of wealth and employment. It was found that Great
Britain contained about 16,500,000 inhabitants, but of these, as might
be expected, a smaller percentage was employed in agriculture and a
larger percentage in manufacturing industry than in 1821. It has been
calculated that since the end of the great war the accumulation of
capital had been twice as rapid as the multiplication of the people,
but, in spite of this, pauperism, as measured by poor law expenditure,
had increased almost continuously since 1823, and emigration received a
startling impulse in 1831-32. Rick burning and frame breaking were the
joint result of childish ignorance, miserable wages, mistaken taxes on
the staple of food, and poor laws administered as if for the very
purpose of encouraging improvidence and vice. All these causes were
capable of being removed or mitigated by legislation, for even the rate
of wages was kept down by the ruinous system of out-door relief. But it
was only a few thoughtful persons who then appreciated either the extent
or the real sources of the mischief, and the disputes which soon arose
about the proper remedies to be applied have been handed on to a later
age.
Next to parliamentary reform the state of Ireland was by far the most
important subject which engaged the attention of the legislature in
1831-32. The population had increased from 6,801,827 in 1821 to
7,767,401 in 1831, and the increase, unlike that in England, had been
almost exclusively in the agricultural districts. While the political
motive for multiplying small freeholds had ceased, the motives for
multiplying small tenancies were as strong as ever, and were felt by
landlords no less than by cottiers. This class, often inhabiting huts
like those of savage tribes and living in a squalor hardly to be seen
elsewhere in western Europe, chiefly depended for their subsistence on
potatoes--the most uncertain and the least nutritious of the crops used
for human food. Many hundred thousands of them had no employment in
their own country and no means of livelihood except the produce of the
scanty patches around their own turf cabins. Tens of thousands flocked
to England annually seeking harvest work, and a small number emigrated
to Canada or the United States, the passage money for an emigrant being
then almost prohibitive. Those who could not pay rent were liable to
eviction, and eviction was a more cruel fate then than now, since there
was no poor law in Ireland. Fever was rife in their miserable abodes,
following in the steps of hunger, and for relief of any kind they could
rely only on the mercy of their landlords or the charity of their
neighbours. Under such conditions of life crime and disaffection could
not but flourish, and the Irish peasant could hardly be blamed if he
listened eagerly to the counsels of O'Connell. For him catholic
emancipation had no meaning except so far as it gave him a hope that
parliament, swayed by the great Irish demagogue, would abolish tithes,
if not rent, and find some means of making Irishmen happy in their own
country.
[Pageheading: _ANGLESEY LORD LIEUTENANT OF IRELAND._]
Had O'Connell been a true patriot, or even an honest politician, he
would have devoted his vast powers and influence to practical schemes
for the good of Ireland, and specially to a solution of the agrarian
question. Unhappily, smarting under a not unfounded sense of injustice,
when he was disabled from taking his seat for Clare, he threw his whole
energy into a new campaign for the repeal of the union, which occupied
the rest of his life. So far from acknowledging any gratitude to the
whigs, through whose support emancipation had been carried, he exhausted
all the resources of his scurrilous rhetoric upon them, lavishing the
epithets "base, brutal, and bloody," with something like Homeric
iteration. In December, 1830, Anglesey had returned to succeed the Duke
of Northumberland, and Stanley occupied the post of chief secretary, in
place of Hardinge. The ministers were privately advised to buy O'Connell
at any price, and it was intimated that he would not object to become a
law officer of the crown, or at least would not refuse a judicial
appointment. It may well be doubted whether the offer of such a bargain
to such a man could have been justified by success; it is more than
probable that it would have failed, and it is quite certain that failure
would have brought infinite discredit upon the government. At all events
the attempt was not made, and other catholic aspirants to legal
promotion were passed over with less excuse.
Lord Anglesey proved a resolute viceroy, and proclaimed the various
associations, meetings, and processions organised by O'Connell, with
little regard for his own popularity. O'Connell's policy, carried out
with the cunning of a skilful lawyer, was to obey the law in the letter,
but to break it almost defiantly in the spirit. At last, however, he
went a step too far by advising the people who had come for a prohibited
meeting to reassemble and hold it elsewhere. He was arrested on January
18, 1831, and pleaded "Not guilty," but on February 17, when his trial
came on, he allowed judgment to go by default against him on those
counts of the indictment which charged him with a statutable offence,
provided that other counts, which charged him with a conspiracy at
common law, should be withdrawn. The attorney-general assented, and the
case was adjourned until the first day in Easter term. Before that day
arrived, however, the reform bill had been introduced, and O'Connell had
made a powerful speech in support of it. In the desperate struggle which
ensued, the ministers shrunk from estranging so formidable an ally, a
further adjournment of the case was allowed, a sudden dissolution of
parliament took place, the act under which O'Connell was to be sentenced
expired with the parliament, and no further action was taken.
[Pageheading: _"TITHE-WAR" IN IRELAND._]
During the year 1831, the agitation for repeal which O'Connell had set
on foot, as soon as the emancipation act had been passed, was for a
while thrust into the shade by the fiercer agitation against tithes.
This agitation was connected, in theory, with the demand for the
abolition or reduction of the Irish Church establishment, but was, in
fact, entirely independent of that or any other constitutional movement.
It may seem inexplicable to political students of a later age that Irish
questions of secondary importance, and eminently capable of equitable
treatment, should have convulsed the whole island and disturbed the
whole course of imperial politics, during the reign of William IV. The
rebellion against tithes or "tithe-war," as it was called, had not the
semblance of justification in law or reason. Every tenant who took part
in it had inherited or acquired his farm, subject to payment of tithes,
and might have been charged a higher rent if he could have obtained it
tithe-free. The tithe was the property of the parson as much as the land
was the property of the landlord, and the wilful refusal of it was from
a legal point of view sheer robbery. On the other hand, the mode of
collection was extremely vexatious, perhaps involving the seizure of a
pig, a bag of meal, or a sack of potatoes; and a starving cottier,
paying fees to his own priest, was easily persuaded by demagogues that
it was an arbitrary tribute extorted by clerical tyrants of an alien
faith.
Thus it came to pass that the history of the Irish "tithe-war" exhibits
the Irish peasantry in their very worst moods, and it is stained with
atrocities never surpassed in later records of Irish agrarian
conspiracy. It is among the strange and sad anomalies of national
character that a people so kindly in their domestic relations, so little
prone to ordinary crime, and so amenable to better influences, should
have shown, in all ages, down to the very latest, a capacity for
dastardly inhumanity, under vindictive and gregarious impulses, only to
be matched by Spanish and Italian brigands among the races of modern
Europe. Yet so it is, and no "coercion" (so-called) ultimately enforced
by legal authority was comparable in severity with the coercion which
bloodthirsty miscreants ruthlessly applied to honest and peaceable
neighbours, only guilty of paying their lawful debts. It is not too much
to say that anarchy prevailed over a great part of Ireland, especially
of Leinster, during the years 1831 and 1832. The collection of tithes
became almost impossible. The tithe-proctors were tortured or murdered;
the few willing tithe-payers were cruelly maltreated or intimidated; the
police, unless mustered in large bodies, were held at bay; cattle were
driven, or, if seized and offered for sale, could find no purchasers;
and the protestant clergy, who had acted on the whole with great
forbearance, were reduced to extremities of privations. Five of the
police were shot dead on one occasion; on another, twelve who were
escorting a tithe-proctor were massacred in cold blood. A large number
of rioters were killed in encounters with the police, which sometimes
assumed the form of pitched battles and closely resembled civil war.
Special commissions were sent down into certain districts, and a few
executions took place, but in most cases Irish juries proved as
regardless of their oaths as they ever have on trials of prisoners for
popular crimes. O'Connell, and even Sheil, tacitly countenanced these
lawless proceedings, and openly palliated them in the house of commons.
The whig government, engaged in a life-and-death contest with the
English borough-mongers, hesitated to crush the Irish insurgents by
military force, or to initiate a sweeping reform of the Irish Church.
Early in 1832, however, committees of both houses reported in favour of
giving the clergy temporary relief out of public funds, and of
ultimately commuting tithes into a charge upon the land. A preliminary
bill for the former purpose was promptly carried by Stanley, and made
the government responsible for recovering the arrears. The committee,
pursuing their inquiries, produced fuller reports, and again recommended
a complete extinction of tithes in Ireland. But the method proposed and
embodied in three bills introduced by Stanley in the same year, was too
complicated to serve as a permanent settlement, and was denounced as
illusory by the Irish members. The first bill was, in fact, a compulsory
extension of acts already passed in 1822 and 1823, the former of which
had permitted the tithe-owner to lease the tithe to the landlord, while
the latter permitted the tithe-owner and tithe-payers of each parish to
arrange a composition. Unfortunately, the act of 1823 had provided that
the payment in commutation of tithe should be distributed over
grass-lands hitherto tithe-free in Ireland as well as over land hitherto
liable to tithe. The act was in consequence unpopular with a section of
farmers, while at the same time the bishops resented the commutation, as
likely to diminish the value of beneficies. But in spite of this
opposition the act of 1823 had been widely adopted. Stanley's bill to
render such commutations compulsory passed, but his other two bills,
providing a new ecclesiastical machinery for buying up tithes, were
abandoned at the end of the session. Of course the substitution of the
government for the clergyman as creditor in respect of arrears had no
soothing effect on the debtors. The reign of terror continued unabated,
and O'Connell contented himself with pointing out that without repeal
there could be no peace in Ireland. We may so far anticipate the
legislation of 1833 as to notice the inevitable failure of the
experiment which converted the government into a tithe-proctor. It was
then replaced by a new plan, under which the government abandoned all
processes under the existing law, advanced £1,000,000 to clear off all
arrears of tithe, and sought reimbursement by a land tax payable for a
period of five years.
[Pageheading: _EDUCATION IN IRELAND._]
It reflects credit on the unreformed house of commons that in its very
last session, harassed by the irreconcilable attitude of the catholic
population in Ireland, it should have found time and patience not only
for the pressing question of Irish tithes, but for the consideration of
a resolution introductory to an Irish poor law, of a bill (which became
law) for checking the abuses of Irish party processions, and of a grant
for a board to superintend the mixed education of Irish catholic and
protestant children. The discussion of Sadler's motion in favour of an
Irish poor law was somewhat academic, and produced a division among the
Irish members, O'Connell, with gross inconsistency, declaring himself
vehemently opposed to any such measure. The ministers professed
sympathy with its principle, but would not pledge themselves to deal
immediately with so difficult and complicated a subject, perhaps
foreseeing the necessity of radical change in the English poor law
system. The processions bill was vigorously resisted on behalf of the
Orangemen, as specially aimed at their annual demonstrations on July 12,
but it was so manifestly wise to remove every wanton aggravation of
party spirit in Ireland, that it was passed just before the prorogation.
The experiment of mixed education in Ireland had already been made with
partial success, first by individuals, and afterwards by an association
known as the Kildare Place Society. On the appointment of Dr. Whately to
the archbishopric of Dublin, it received a fresh impulse, and Stanley,
as chief secretary, definitely adopted the principle, recommended by two
commissions and two committees, of "a combined moral and literary and
separate religious instruction". A board of national education was
established in Dublin, composed of eminent Roman catholics as well as
protestants, to superintend all state-aided schools in which selections
from the Bible, approved by the board, were to be read on two days in
the week. Though provision was made for unrestricted biblical teaching,
out of school hours, on the other four days, protestant bigotry was
roused against the very idea of compromise. A shrewd observer remarked,
"While the whole system is crumbling to dust under their feet, while the
Church is prostrate, property of all kind threatened, and robbery,
murder, starvation, and agitation rioting over the land, these wise
legislators are debating whether the brats at school shall read the
whole Bible or only parts of it".[109] The opponents of the national
board failed to defeat the scheme in parliament, and it was justly
mentioned with satisfaction by the king in his prorogation speech of
August 16. But its benefits, though lasting, were seriously curtailed by
sectarian jealousy. Most of the protestant clergy frowned upon the
national schools, as the Roman catholic priesthood had frowned upon the
schools of the Kildare Place Society, and a noble opportunity of
mitigating religious strife in Ireland was to a great extent wasted.
Thus ended the eventful session of 1832.
FOOTNOTES:
[104] See Professor Dicey's observations on this clause, _Law and
Opinion in England_, p. 54, _n._
[105] Wellington, _Despatches, etc._, viii., 206; Parker, _Sir Robert
Peel_, ii., 207.
[106] Parker, _Sir Robert Peel_, ii., 206.
[107] Goldwin Smith, _United Kingdom_, ii., 354; Dicey, _Law and Opinion
in England_, p. 85.
[108] C. Creighton, _History of Epidemics in Britain_, ii., 768, 793-97,
860-62.
[109] Greville, _Memoirs_ (March 9, 1832), ii., 267.
CHAPTER XV.
FRUITS OF THE REFORM.
It was assumed in 1832, and has been held ever since, that a
redistribution act must be speedily followed by a dissolution, so as to
give the new constituencies the power of returning new members.
Accordingly, parliament, having been prorogued until October 16, was
further prorogued until December 3, and then finally dissolved. The
general election which followed, though awaited with much anxiety, was
orderly on the whole, and produced less change than had been expected in
the _personnel_ of the house of commons. The counties, for the most
part, elected men from the landed aristocracy, the great towns elected
men of recognised distinction, and few political leaders were excluded,
though Croker abjured political life and refused to solicit a seat in
the reformed house of commons. The good sense of the country asserted
itself; while Cobbett was returned for Oldham, "Orator" Hunt was
defeated at Preston, and no general preference was shown for violent
demagogues by the more democratic boroughs. The age of members in the
new house was higher, on the average, than in the old; its social
character was somewhat lower, and the high authority of William Ewart
Gladstone, who now entered parliament for the first time, may be quoted
for the opinion that it was inferior, in the main, as a deliberative
assembly. But it was certainly superior as a representative assembly, it
contained more capable men of business, and its legislative productions,
as we shall hereafter see, claim the gratitude of posterity. A certain
want of modesty in the new class of members was observed by hostile
critics, and was to be expected in men who had won their seats by
popular oratory and not through patronage. The house of commons had
already ceased to be "the best club in London," and later reforms have
still further weakened its title to be so regarded, but they have also
shown the wonderful power of assimilation inherent in the atmosphere of
the house itself, and the spirit of freemasonry which springs up among
those who enter it by very different avenues.
[Pageheading: _THE FIRST REFORMED PARLIAMENT._]
The change wrought by the reform act in the strength and distribution of
parties was immediate and conspicuous. The ancient division of whigs and
tories, which had become well-nigh obsolete in the reign of George IV.,
had been revived by the great struggle of 1831-32. It was now superseded
to a great extent by the combination of the radicals with O'Connell's
followers into an independent section, and by the growth of a party
under Peel, distinct from the inveterate tories and known by the name of
"conservative," which first came into use in 1831.[110] The
preponderance of liberalism, in its moderate and extreme forms, was
overwhelming. It was roughly computed that nearly half the house were
ministerialists and about 190 members radicals, Irish repealers, or free
lances, while only 150 were classed as "conservatives," apparently
including tories.[111] In such circumstances the attitude to be adopted
by Peel was of the highest constitutional importance. It is some proof
of the respect for statesmanship instinctively felt by the new house of
commons that Peel, as inexorable an opponent of reform as Canning
himself, should at once have assumed a foremost position and soon
obtained an ascendency in an assembly so largely composed of his
opponents.
But Peel himself was no longer a mere party leader. Unlike Wellington
and Eldon, he saw the necessity of accepting loyally the accomplished
fact and shaping his future course in accordance with the nation's will.
He, therefore, took an early opportunity of declaring that he regarded
the reform act as irrevocable, and that he was prepared to participate
in the dispassionate amendment of any institution that really needed it.
In a private letter to Goulburn he stated that, in his judgment, "the
best position the government could assume would be that of moderation
between opposite extremes of ultra-toryism and radicalism," intimating
further that "we should appear to the greatest advantage in defending
the government" against their own extreme left wing.[112] In this
policy he persevered; his influence did much to quell the confusion and
disorder of the first debate, and his followers swelled the government
majorities in several of the early divisions. When he came to review the
first session of the reformed parliament he remarked in a private letter
that what had been foreseen took place, that "the popular assembly
exercised tacitly supreme power," and, without abolishing the crown or
the house of lords, overawed the convictions of both.[113]
[Pageheading: _IRISH COERCION BILL._]
The passion for reform, far from spending itself in remodelling the
house of commons, filled the statute-book with monuments of remedial
legislation. No session was more fruitful in legislative activity than
that of 1833. But the way of legislation was at first blocked against
all projects of improvement by the urgent necessity of passing an Irish
coercion bill. This had been indicated in the king's speech, and on
February 15, 1833 Grey introduced the strongest measure of repression
ever devised for curbing anarchy in Ireland. It combined, as he
explained, the provisions of "the proclamation act, the insurrection
act, the partial application of martial law, and the partial suspension
of the _habeas corpus_ act". But the barbarities and terrorism which it
was designed to put down were beyond precedent and almost beyond belief.
The attempt to collect the arrears of tithe, even with the aid of
military force, had usually failed, and less than an eighth of the sum
due was actually levied. The organised defiance of law was not, however,
confined to refusal of tithes; it embraced the refusal of rent and
extended over the whole field of agrarian relations. The Whiteboys of
the eighteenth century reappeared as "Whitefeet," and other secret
associations, under grotesque names, enforced their decrees by wholesale
murder, burglary, arson, savage assaults, destruction of property, and
mutilation of cattle. In two counties, Kilkenny and Queen's County,
nearly a hundred murders or attempted murders were reported within
twelve months, and the murderous intimidation of witnesses and jurors
secured impunity to perpetrators of crimes. No civilised government
could have tolerated an orgy of lawlessness on so vast a scale, and
nothing but the exigencies of the reform bill can excuse Grey and his
colleagues for not having grappled with it earlier. Nor does it appear
that any remedy less stern would have been effectual. Where unarmed
citizens have not the courage either to protect themselves or to aid the
constabulary employed for their protection, soldiers, accustomed to face
death and inflict it upon others under lawful command, must be called in
to maintain order. Where civil tribunals have become a mockery, summary
justice must be dealt out by military tribunals. Force may be no remedy
for grievances, but it is the one sovereign remedy for organised crime,
and this was soon to be proved in Ireland.
The viceroy, Anglesey, true to his liberal instincts, would have
postponed coercion to measures of relief, such as a settlement of the
church question. Stanley, on the other hand, insisted on the prompt
introduction of a stringent peace preservation bill, and his energetic
will prevailed. The bill contained provisions enabling the
lord-lieutenant to suppress any meeting, establishing a curfew law in
disturbed districts, and placing offenders in such districts under the
jurisdiction of courts martial with legal assessors. It passed the house
of lords with little discussion on the 22nd, and was laid before the
house of commons a few days later by Althorp, who had already brought in
an Irish Church temporalities bill. The debate on the address had
already given warning of the reception which the Irish members would
accord to any coercion bill, and of their malignant hostility to
Stanley. Efforts were made to delay its introduction, and full advantage
was taken of Althorp's statement that one special commission had been
completely successful. His opening speech, tame and inconclusive,
discouraged his own followers. The fate of the bill appeared doubtful,
but Stanley, who had twice staked the existence of the ministry on its
adoption, reversed the whole tendency of the debate by a speech of
marvellous force and brilliancy, which Russell afterwards described as
"one of the greatest triumphs ever won in a popular assembly by the
powers of oratory".[114] It was in this speech that he proved himself at
least a match for O'Connell, whom he scathed with fierce indignation as
having lately called the house of commons a body of scoundrels. It cost
many nights of debate to carry the bill, with slight amendments, but
Stanley's appeal had a lasting effect, and it became law in April, to
the great benefit of Ireland.
[Pageheading: _IRISH CHURCH TEMPORALITIES BILL._]
Meanwhile, the Irish Church temporalities bill was pressed forward as a
counterpoise to coercion. It imposed a graduated tax upon all episcopal,
capitular, and clerical incomes above £200 a year, and placed the
proceeds, estimated at £60,000 or £70,000 a year, in the hands of
commissioners, to be expended in the repairs of churches, the erection
of glebe-houses, and other parochial charges. In this way Irish
ratepayers might be relieved of the obnoxious "vestry cess," a species
of Church rate, at the expense of the clergy. A further saving of
£60,000 a year or upwards was to be effected by a reduction of the Irish
episcopate, aided by a new and less wasteful method of leasing Church
lands attached to episcopal sees. Two out of four Irish archbishoprics
and eight out of eighteen bishoprics were doomed to extinction, as
vacancies should occur. Dioceses and benefices were to be freely
consolidated, clerical sinecures were to cease, and the more scandalous
abuses of the Irish Church were to be redressed.
As a scheme for ecclesiastical rearrangement within the Church itself,
the bill was sound and liberal, but it was utterly futile to imagine
that it would be welcomed, except as a mere instalment of conciliation,
by Roman catholics who looked upon the protestant Church itself as a
standing national grievance. The only boon secured to them was exemption
from their share of vestry cess, for, though Althorp intimated that the
ultimate surplus to be realised by the union of sees and livings would
be at the disposal of parliament, they well knew how many influences
would operate to prevent its reaching them. Not even O'Connell, still
less the ministry, ventured to propose "concurrent endowment" as it was
afterwards called, and the very idea of diverting revenues from the
protestant establishment to Roman catholic uses was disclaimed with
horror. More than a century earlier, a partition of these revenues
between the great protestant communions had been seriously entertained,
and Pitt had notoriously contemplated a provision for the Roman catholic
priests out of state funds. But no such demand was now made, and the one
feature of the bill which commanded the vigorous support of O'Connell
and his adherents was the 147th section, or "appropriation clause,"
which enabled parliament to apply the expected surplus of some £60,000
in income, or some £3,000,000 in capital, to whatever purposes, secular
or otherwise, it might think fit to approve. The far-reaching importance
of this principle was fully understood on both sides. To radicals and
Roman catholics it was the sole virtue of the bill; to friends of the
Irish Church and tories it was a blot to be erased at any cost.
The progress of the measure was not rapid. Its nature had been explained
by Althorp on February 12, but it was not in print on March 11 when,
notwithstanding the reasonable protest of Peel, he induced the house to
fix the second reading for the 14th. It was then found that, owing to
its form, it must be preceded by resolutions, in order to satisfy the
rules of the house. These resolutions, containing the essence of the
bill, were proposed on April 1, but were not adopted without a long
debate, and the debate on the second reading did not begin until May 6.
It ended in a majority of 317 to 78 for the government, chiefly due to a
moderate speech from Sir Robert Peel, who, however, denounced the policy
of "appropriation". The discussion in committee was far more vehement,
and radicals like Hume did not shrink from avowing their desire to pull
down the Irish establishment, root and branch. The attack on the
conservative side was mainly concentrated on the appropriation clause.
In vain was it argued that a great part of the expected surplus was not
Church property, inasmuch as it would result from improvements in the
system of episcopal leases to be carried out by the agency of the state.
Every one saw that, however disguised, and whether legitimate or not,
appropriation of the surplus for secular purposes would be an act of
confiscation, and must needs be interpreted as a precedent.
The cabinet itself was divided on the subject, and despaired of saving
the bill in the house of lords, without sacrificing the disputed clause.
On June 21, therefore, Stanley announced in the house of commons that
the appropriation clause would be withdrawn, and that any profits
arising out of financial reforms within the Church would be allowed to
fall into the hands of the ecclesiastical commissioners. The fury of
O'Connell was unbounded, and not so devoid of excuse as many of his
passionate outbreaks. He treated the Church bill as the stipulated
price to be paid for the coercion bill, and the appropriation clause as
the only part of it, except relief from vestry cess, which could possess
the smallest value for Irish Roman catholics. There was no valid answer
to his argument, except that another collision with the house of lords
must be avoided at any tolerable cost, for, as Russell bluntly said,
"the country could not stand a revolution once a year". Thus lightened,
and slightly modified in the interest of Irish incumbents, the bill
passed through committee and was read a third time by very large
majorities, the minority being mainly composed of its old radical
partisans. Peel's letters show how anxious he was to "make the reform
bill work," by protecting the government against this extreme
faction,[115] and the parliamentary reports show how much he did to
frustrate the attempt to intimidate the lords by a resolution of the
commons.
The debate in the upper house lasted three nights in July, but is almost
devoid of permanent interest. The appropriation question being dropped,
there was little to discuss except the historical origin of Irish
dioceses, the precedents for their consolidation, and the economical
details of the scheme for equalising, in some degree, the incomes of
Irish clergymen. Two or three peers, headed by the Duke of Cumberland,
took their stand once more on the coronation oath, and Bishop Phillpotts
of Exeter availed himself of this objection in one of the most powerful
speeches delivered against the bill. On the other hand, Bishop Blomfield
of London, and the Duke of Wellington, now acting in concert with Peel,
gave it a grudging support, as the less of two evils. After passing the
second reading by a majority of 157 to 98, it was subjected to minute
criticism in committee, and one amendment was carried against the
government, but Grey wisely declined to relinquish it except on some
vital issue. The majority on the third reading was 135 to 81, and on
August 2 the commons agreed to the lords' amendments, O'Connell
remarking that, after all, the peers had not made the bill much worse
than they found it. More than a generation was to elapse before this
"act to alter and amend the laws relating to the temporalities of the
Church in Ireland" was completed by an act severing that Church from
the state. But the ulterior aims of those who first challenged the
sanctity of Church endowments were not concealed, and the more than
Erastian tendency of the liberal movement was henceforth clearly
perceived by high Churchmen. We know, on the authority of Dr. Newman,
that he and his early associates regarded the Anglican revival of which
they were the pioneers as essentially a reaction against liberalism, and
liberalism as the most formidable enemy of sacerdotal power.
[Pageheading: _STANLEY COLONIAL SECRETARY._]
Long before the Irish church bill had passed the house of commons
Stanley exchanged the chief secretaryship of Ireland for the higher
office of colonial secretary, to which he was gazetted on March 28. His
uncompromising advocacy of the coercion bill, and his known hostility to
direct spoliation of the Church, alike provoked the hatred of Irish
Roman catholics, and Brougham had already advised his retirement from
Ireland. His promotion was facilitated by the resignation of Durham,
nominally on grounds of health, but also because he was in constant
antagonism to his own father-in-law, Grey, and his moderate colleagues
in the cabinet. He received an earldom, and was succeeded as lord privy
seal by Goderich, who became Earl of Ripon. This opened the colonial
office to Stanley, who instantly found himself face to face with a
question almost as intractable as the pacification of Ireland. Sir John
Hobhouse became chief secretary for Ireland, but without a seat in the
cabinet. He resigned in May, and was succeeded by Edward John Littleton,
who was married to a natural daughter of the Marquis Wellesley.
Among the statutes passed in 1833, there are several, besides those
relating to Ireland, of sufficient importance to confer distinction upon
any parliamentary session. One of these is entitled "an act for the
better administration of justice in His Majesty's privy council"; a
second, "an act for the abolition of slavery throughout the British
colonies, for promoting the industry of the manumitted slaves, and for
compensating the persons hitherto entitled to the services of such
slaves"; a third, "an act for the abolition of fines and recoveries, and
for the substitution of more simple methods of assurance"; a fourth, "an
act to regulate the trade to China and India"; a fifth, "an act for
giving to the corporation of the governor and company of the Bank of
England certain privileges, for a limited period, under certain
conditions"; a sixth, "an act to regulate the labour of children and
young persons in the mills and factories of the United Kingdom". Not one
of these salutary measures was forced upon the legislature by popular
clamour, every one of them represents a sincere zeal for what has been
ridiculed as "world-bettering," and the parliament that passed them must
have been thoroughly imbued with the spirit of reform.
Foremost of these measures, as a monument of philanthropic legislation,
will ever stand the act for the abolition of colonial slavery. No class
in the country was concerned in its promotion; the powerful interests of
the planters were arrayed against it; and humanity, operating through
public opinion, was the only motive which could induce a government to
espouse the anti-slavery cause. Stanley had not occupied his new office
many weeks when on May 14 it became his lot to explain the ministerial
scheme in the house of commons. Its essence consisted in the immediate
extinction of absolute property in slaves, but with somewhat complicated
provisions for an intermediate state of apprenticeship, to last twelve
years. During this period negroes were to be maintained by their former
masters, under an obligation to serve without wages for three-fourths of
their working hours, and were to earn wages during the remaining fourth.
All children under six years of age were to become free at once, and all
born after the passing of the act were to be free at birth. The
proprietors were to receive compensation by way of loan, to the extent
of £15,000,000, and additional grants were promised for the institution
of a stipendiary magistracy and a system of education.
Several resolutions embodying the scheme were carried, with little
opposition, though some abolitionists, headed by Mr. Fowell Buxton, a
wealthy brewer and eminent philanthropist, who sat for Weymouth, took
strong exception to compulsory apprenticeship, as perpetuating the
principle of slavery, however mitigated by the recognition of personal
liberty and the suppression of corporal punishment. It was found
expedient, however, in deference to a very strong remonstrance from West
Indian proprietors, to convert the proposed loan of £15,000,000 into an
absolute payment of £20,000,000, and this noble donation, for
conscience' sake, was actually ratified by parliament and the country.
The bill founded on the resolutions met with no serious opposition, but
an amendment by Buxton for adopting free labour at once was lost by so
narrow a majority that Stanley consented to reduce the period of
apprenticeship to an average of six years. In this instance the lords
followed the guidance of the commons, and a measure of almost quixotic
liberalism was endorsed by them without hesitation. It must be confessed
that experience has not verified the confident prediction that free
labour would prove more profitable than slave labour, but Great Britain
has never repented of the abolition act, and its example was followed,
thirty years later, by the United States.
[Pageheading: _FACTORY ACTS._]
The first of the general factory acts was marked by the same
philanthropic character, but here the manufacturing capitalists,
introduced by the reform act, were induced by self-interest to oppose
it. Ever since the beginning of the century the sufferings and
degradation of children in factories had occasionally engaged the
attention of parliament, but the full enormity of the factory system was
known to few except those who profited by it. It seems incredible, but
it was shown afterwards by irresistible evidence, that children of seven
years old and upwards were often compelled to work twelve or fourteen
hours a day, with two short intervals for meals, in a most unwholesome
atmosphere, exposed not only to ill-treatment but to every form of moral
corruption. A very partial remedy was applied by a law passed in 1802
which restricted the hours of labour to twelve for mills in which
apprentices were employed. The same limit of hours was extended to
cotton mills generally in 1816, and, but for the resistance of the house
of lords, it would have been reduced to ten, as a select committee had
recommended on the initiative of the first Sir Robert Peel. A few years
later the question was revived by Sir John Hobhouse, but left unsettled.
In 1831 Sadler introduced a ten hours bill for children, and obtained a
select committee, before which disclosures were made well calculated to
shock the country. At the general election of 1832, Sadler was defeated
by Macaulay for the new borough of Leeds, but his mantle fell on Lord
Ashley, afterwards Earl of Shaftesbury, one of the noblest
philanthropists of modern times.
Early in the session of 1833 Ashley introduced a ten hours bill,
applicable, like that of Sadler, to all young persons under eighteen
years of age working in factories. It also prohibited the employment of
children under nine, and provided for the appointment of inspectors. It
was strongly opposed by the Lancashire members as interfering with
freedom of labour even for adults, since mills could not be kept running
without the labour of boys under eighteen. They also objected to the
evidence already reported as one-sided, and succeeded in procuring the
appointment of a royal commission. This commission prosecuted its
inquiries with unusual despatch, but its report was not in the hands of
members on July 5, when the bill came on for its second reading. Though
Althorp, unwilling to offend the manufacturing interest, pleaded for
deliberation and urged that a select committee should frame the
regulations to be adopted, the majority of the house was impatient of
delay, and he encountered a defeat. The question now resolved itself
into a choice between a greater or less limitation of hours. On this
question, a compromise proposed by Althorp prevailed, and Ashley
resigned the conduct of the bill into his hands. It was further modified
in committee, but ultimately became law in a form which secured the main
objects of its promoters. No child under nine years of age could be
employed at all in a factory, after two years none under thirteen could
be worked more than eight hours, and no young person under eighteen
could be required to work more than sixty-nine hours a week, while the
provisions for inspection were retained along with others which
contained the germ of education on the half-time system.
[Pageheading: _THE EAST INDIA COMPANY._]
The trading monopoly of the East India Company, though confined to China
by the act of 1813, had been regarded ever since with great jealousy by
the mercantile community. As the revised charter was now on the point of
expiring, it was for the government to frame terms of renewal which
might satisfy the growing demand for free trade. Their scheme, which few
were competent to criticise, met with general approval, and the only
determined opposition to it was offered in the house of lords by
Ellenborough, who lived to come into sharp collision with the court of
directors as governor-general. It was embodied in three simple
resolutions, the first of which recommended the legislature to open the
China trade without reserve, the second provided for the assumption by
the crown of all the company's assets and liabilities but with the
obligation of paying the company a fixed subsidy, while the last
affirmed the expediency of entrusting the company with the political
government of India. Grant, who moved these resolutions, as president of
the board of control, had no occasion to defend the policy of setting
free the China trade which no one disputed; but he undertook to show
that it had declined in the hands of the company, and that private
competition had already crept in on a large scale. He also dwelt on the
advantage of bringing the political relations arising out of commercial
intercourse more directly under the control of the government. His
reasoning was sound, and the China trade rapidly developed, nor could he
be expected to foresee the course of events whereby the government
afterwards became embroiled with the Chinese empire, on the importation
of opium, and other economical questions. As compensation for the loss
of its exclusive privileges, the company was to receive an annuity of
£630,000, charged on the territorial revenues of India.
The policy of continuing the company's rule in India for twenty years
longer would have excited more earnest discussion in a session less
crowded with legislative projects. The way had been paved for the
concession of complete free trade in the eastern seas by the reports of
select committees and parliamentary debates under former governments.
The consumers of tea, numbered by millions, promised themselves a better
quality at a lower price, and a keen spirit of enterprise was kindled by
the idea of breaking into the unknown resources of China. But public
interest in the administration of India was languid. It might well have
appeared that a board sitting in Leadenhall Street was fitter to conduct
shipping and mercantile operations than to govern an imperial dependency
like British India. But the contrary alternative was almost tacitly
accepted. The directors were "to remain princes, but no longer merchant
princes," and Ellenborough complained that whereas "hitherto the court
had appeared in India as beneficent conquerors, henceforth they would be
mortgagees in possession". Perhaps the ministry shrunk from provoking
the storm of obloquy which must have resulted from placing the vast
patronage of the company in the hands of the crown. At all events, it
was agreed, with little dissent, that under the new charter the company
should nominally retain the reins of power, checked, however, by Pitt's
"board of control," the president of which, in reality, shared a
despotic authority with the governor-general of Bengal, who was
hereafter to be in name what he had long been in fact, governor-general
of India. The bill strengthened his council, and enabled him to
legislate for all India.
At the same time Europeans were permitted to settle and hold land in
India without the necessity of applying for a licence. Lastly, the
principle was laid down, pregnant with future consequences, that all
persons in India, without distinction of race or creed, should be
subject to the same law and eligible for all offices under the
government. Such was the last charter of the great company. It is
interesting to observe that Grant, in admitting that the government of
India under its sway had not been prone "to make any great or rapid
strides in improvement," paid a just tribute to its eminently pacific
character. "It excited vigilance," he said, "against any encroachment of
violence or rapacity; it ensured to the people that which they most
required--repose, security, and tranquillity." The immense annexations
of territory and far-reaching reforms which have created the British
India of the twentieth century were either most reluctantly sanctioned
by the court of directors or have been carried out since its dominion
was transferred to the crown. Irrevocable as they are, and beneficent as
they may be on the whole, they have certainly imposed difficulties of
portentous magnitude upon the rulers of India, nor would it be
surprising if some native survivors of the olden days in far-off
recesses of the country should remember with sad regret the paternal,
though unprogressive, despotism of the sovereign company.
[Pageheading: _THE BANK CHARTER ACT._]
The bank charter act of 1833, having been superseded by that of 1844,
fills a less important place than it otherwise would in the history of
legislation on currency. The bill was founded, however, on the report of
a secret committee which embraced Peel as well as Althorp and several
other members of high financial repute or great experience in the city.
Since the subject of it was familiar to a large section of members
engaged in business, and touched the pockets of bankers all over the
country, it was discussed in the house of commons far more earnestly
than the bill renewing the charter of the East India Company. In the end
two provisions were dropped, which directly encouraged the increase of
joint stock banks. The rest were passed, and contained important
modifications of the banking system as it then existed. The main
privileges of the Bank of England were continued, in spite of a strong
opposition and of protests against the one-sided inquiry said to have
been conducted by the secret committee. These privileges embraced the
exclusive possession of the government balances, the monopoly of limited
liability, then refused to other banks, and the right, shared by no
other joint stock bank, of issuing its own notes. Though private London
banks might have legally exercised this power they did not actually do
so, and nearly all of them deposited their reserves with the Bank of
England.
Another part of the scheme, which even Peel condemned, was thus briefly
stated in a preliminary resolution: "That, provided the Bank of England
continued liable, as at present, to defray in the current coin of the
realm all its existing engagements, it was expedient that its promissory
notes should be constituted a legal tender for sums of £5 and upwards".
In other words, country bankers would no longer be compelled to cash
their own notes, or pay off their deposits in gold, but might use Bank
of England notes instead, above the value of £5. The Bank of England,
however, and all its branches, remained liable to cash payments, as
before, so that, as Baring argued, only one intermediate stage was
interposed between the presentation of a country note and the exchange
of it for specie. Peel's objection, which did not prevail, chiefly
rested on the danger of the Bank of England closing its branches in its
own interests, in order to check the demand for cash. Though his fears
were not literally realised, experience disclosed the danger of country
banks multiplying unduly, and, by their over-issue of notes, causing a
severe drain upon the Bank of England for gold. For the present,
however, the critics of the measure were less concerned in forecasting
such remote consequences than in protesting against the charge to be
made by the bank for managing the public debt. This charge was, in fact,
to be reduced by £120,000 a year, but one-fourth part of the advances
made by the bank to the public (or £3,671,700) was to be paid off, and
the proposed remuneration was denounced as exorbitant. Althorp hardly
denied that it was a good bargain for the bank, though he persuaded the
house of commons to endorse the arrangement, rather than incur the
dislocation of national finance and commercial business certain to ensue
if the bank should withdraw from its connexion with the government and
use its vast influence for its own interest alone.
[Pageheading: _LEGAL REFORMS._]
Two great law reforms close the series of important remedial measures
passed in the first session of the reformed parliament--a session, be it
remembered, which embraced all the furious and protracted debates on the
Irish coercion act and the Irish Church temporalities act. The first of
these was Brougham's valuable bill constituting a permanent "judicial
committee of the privy council," and transferring to it the judicial
functions theoretically belonging to "the king in council," but
practically exercised by committees selected _ad hoc_ on each occasion.
Charles Greville, to whose memoirs all historians of this period are
greatly indebted, and who in 1833 was clerk of the council, was inclined
to disparage the proposed change as one of Brougham's fanciful projects,
designed to gratify his own self-importance.[116] Even Greville,
however, saw reason to modify his view, and the new court has ever since
commanded general respect, except from those high Churchmen who resented
its assumption of the appellate jurisdiction in ecclesiastical causes,
formerly vested, along with a similar jurisdiction in admiralty causes,
in the king in chancery, and exercised by a "court of delegates,"
usually consisting of three common law judges and three or four
civilians selected _ad hoc_.
The essential defects of such a court were fully stated in the report of
a very strong commission, including six bishops, appointed in 1830.
Probably the expediency of reforming the jurisdiction of the privy
council for the purpose of hearing these ecclesiastical appeals may have
suggested to Brougham the idea of constructing a standing appellate
tribunal within the privy council, for the purpose of hearing all
appeals that might come before that body. Accordingly, after carrying a
bill in 1832 whereby the privy council, as such, took over the powers of
the "court of delegates," he introduced the general bill whereby the
judicial committee was created, and under which it still acts. It was to
consist of the lord chancellor, with the present and past holders of
certain high judicial offices, and two privy councillors to be
appointed by the sovereign; to whom prelates, being privy councillors,
were to be added for ecclesiastical appeals. The system thus founded,
and since developed, is capable of indefinite expansion, in case still
closer relations should be established between Great Britain and the
colonies.
The act for the abolition of fines and recoveries, though scarcely
intelligible except to lawyers, was a masterpiece not only of
draughtsmanship, but of honest law amendment. It swept away grotesque
and antiquated forms of conveyance, which had lost their meaning for
centuries, and which nothing but professional self-interest kept alive.
Had it been followed up by legislation in a like spirit on other
departments of law, the profits of lawyers and the needless expenses of
clients might have been reduced to an extent of which the unlearned
public has no conception. As it was, it simplified the process of
selling land in a remarkable degree, though it left untouched the
complications of title and transfer affecting real property, which no
lord chancellor since Brougham has been courageous enough to attack in
earnest, and which remain the distinctive reproach of English law. It is
not without shame that we read in the king's prorogation speech,
delivered on August 29, 1833, the assurance that he will heartily
co-operate with parliament in making justice easily accessible to all
his subjects. He adds that, with this view, a commission has been issued
"for digesting into one body the enactments of the criminal law, and for
inquiring how far, and by what means, a similar process may be extended
to the other branches of jurisprudence". Seventy years have since
elapsed, yet this royal promise of codification is not even in course of
fulfilment. On the other hand, Brougham's scheme for establishing local
courts in certain parts of the kingdom was destined to bear ample fruit
in the next reign. It was described by Eldon as "a most abominable
bill," and, being generally opposed by the law lords, was rejected by a
small majority, but it was the germ of the county courts, which have
since done so much to bring justice within the reach and the means of
poor suitors.
Notwithstanding its legislative exploits, the whig government was
declining in popularity at the end of 1833, and was beginning to
discover how vain it is to rely on political gratitude. Other reforming
governments have since undergone the same bitter experience, the causes
of which are by no means obscure. No reform can be effected without
"harassing interests," and the sense of resentment in the sections of
the community thus harassed is far stronger and more efficacious than
any appreciation of the benefits reaped by the general public at home,
or by mankind at large. Again, the expectations excited by the agitation
of such a question as parliamentary reform are far beyond the power of
any legislature to satisfy. Grey and his colleagues were too well aware
of this, and Stanley, for one, manfully championed the government
measures on their own merits, disdaining to flatter the radicals, but
his discretion was not equal to his valour, and every debate brought
into stronger relief the more statesmanlike capacity and moderation of
Peel. There was no tory reaction, but a growing distrust of heroic
remedies for national disorders, and a growing faith in the possible
development of a liberal policy in a conservative spirit. Even the Duke
of Wellington found himself restored insensibly to popular favour, and
was again received in the streets with marks of public respect.
[Pageheading: _ALTHORP'S THIRD BUDGET._]
Of all the ministers, no one enjoyed a greater share of confidence both
in and out of parliament than Althorp. He was not a great financier, but
he was an honest and prudent chancellor of the exchequer, a free-trader
by conviction, and incapable of those artifices by which a plausible
balance-sheet may be made out at the cost of future liabilities. Yet his
budgets of 1831, 1832, and 1833 undoubtedly helped to shake the credit
of the government. The first had been far too ambitious, and became
almost futile, when the proposed tax on transfers was abandoned, and the
timber duties left undisturbed. The second was modest enough, and was
saved from damaging criticism by the absorbing interest of the reform
bill. Considerable reductions were made in the estimates, the revenue
yielded somewhat more than had been expected, and Althorp was enabled to
present a favourable account in 1833. He anticipated a surplus of about
a million and a half, out of which he was prepared to abolish certain
vexatious duties and to decrease others. But the country gentlemen,
headed by Ingilby, member for Lincolnshire, insisted on a reduction of
the malt duty by one-half, while the borough members, headed by Sir John
Key, clamoured for a repeal of the house tax and window tax. The former
motion was actually carried against the government by a small majority,
but its effect was annulled, and the latter motion was defeated, by a
skilful manoeuvre. This consisted in the proposal by Althorp of a
counter-resolution, declaring that, if half of the malt tax and the
whole tax on windows and houses were to be taken off, it would be
necessary to meet the deficiency by a general income tax. Such a
prospect was equally alarming to the landed interest and the
householders, whose rival demands were mutually destructive, the result
being that Althorp's amendment was carried by a large majority, and the
government escaped humiliation, though not without some loss of
prestige.
It was perhaps to be expected that private members in the first session
of the reformed parliament should be eager to gain a hearing for their
special projects of improvement. So it was, but two only of these
projects deserved historical mention. One of these was the abortive
attempt of Attwood, the radical member for Birmingham, to reverse the
policy of 1819 by inducing parliament to initiate the return to a paper
currency. Cobbett actually followed up this failure by moving for an
address praying the king to dismiss Sir Robert Peel from his councils, a
motion defeated by a majority of 295 to 4.
FOOTNOTES:
[110] _The Croker Papers_, ii., 198.
[111] Mahon to Peel (Jan, 8, 1833), Parker, _Sir Robert Peel_, ii., 209.
[112] Jan. 3, 1833, Parker, _Sir Robert Peel_, ii., 213.
[113] Peel to Croker (Sept. 28, 1833), _ibid._, p. 224.
[114] Russell, _Recollections and Suggestions_, p. 113.
[115] Parker, _Sir Robert Peel_, ii., 212-16.
[116] Greville, _Memoirs_, ii., 364, 365.
CHAPTER XVI.
RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS AND POOR LAW REFORM.
The year 1833, so fruitful in legislation, may be said to have witnessed
the birth of a religious movement which has profoundly affected the
character of the national Church. The neo-catholic revival, which
afterwards took its popular name from Pusey but drew its chief
inspiration from Newman, was in a great degree the outcome of the reform
act and a reaction against the more than Erastian tendencies of the
reformed parliament. In the early part of the century, as we have seen,
personal and practical religion was mainly represented by the
evangelical or low Church party, which did admirable service in the
cause of philanthropy, as well as in reclaiming the masses from
heathenism. The high Church party was comparatively inactive, but
co-operated with its rival in opposition to catholic emancipation. The
clergy, as a body, were hostile to reform, and the bishops incurred the
fiercest obloquy by voting against the first reform bill, which had
unfortunately been rejected by a majority exactly corresponding with the
number of their votes.[117] The democratic outcry against the Church
became louder and louder, as the evils of nepotism, pluralism, and
sinecurism were exposed to public criticism, and a growing disposition
was shown to deal with Church endowments both in England and in Ireland,
if not as the property of the state, yet as under its paramount control.
[Pageheading: _THE TRACTARIAN MOVEMENT._]
The recent infusion of Irish Roman catholics into the house of commons,
following that of Scotch presbyterians a century earlier, rendered it
less and less fit, in the opinion of high Churchmen, to legislate for
the Church of England, and every concession to religious liberty shocked
them as a step towards "National Apostasy". This was, in fact, the
impressive title of a sermon preached by John Keble, in July, 1833,
before the university of Oxford. From this sermon Newman himself dated
the origin of the Oxford or "Tractarian" movement, but its inward source
lay deeper. Having lost all confidence in the state and even in the
Anglican hierarchy as a creature of the state, a section of the clergy
had already been looking about for another basis of authority, and had
found it in theories of apostolical succession and Church organisation.
The university of Oxford was a natural centre for such a reaction, and
it was set on foot with the deliberate purpose of defending the Church
and the Christianity of England against the anti-catholic aggressions of
the dominant liberalism. It was not puritanism but liberal secularism
which Newman always denounced as the arch-enemy of the catholic faith.
For, as Wesley's sympathies were originally with high Church doctrines,
so Newman's sympathies were originally with evangelical doctrines, nor
were they ever entirely stifled by his ultimate secession to the Roman
Church.
The later development of this movement, which had its cradle in the
common room of Oriel College, belongs rather to ecclesiastical history,
and to the reign of Queen Victoria. But from the first it rallied a
considerable body of support. Many who were not influenced by the
movement, shared its earlier aspirations. Shortly after the formation of
an association, under Newman and Keble's auspices, seven or eight
thousand of the clergy signed an address to the Archbishop of
Canterbury, insisting upon the necessity of restoring Church discipline,
maintaining Church principles, and checking the progress of
latitudinarianism. A large section of the laity ranged themselves on the
side of the revival, and meetings were held throughout England. The king
himself volunteered a declaration of his strong affection for the
national Church now militant, and prepared to assert itself, not merely
as a true branch of the catholic Church, but as a co-ordinate power with
the state. In the autumn of 1833, Newman and one of his colleagues
launched the first of that series of tracts from which his followers
derived the familiar name of Tractarians. From that day he was their
recognised leader, yet he claimed no allegiance and issued no commands.
He felt himself, not the creator of a new party, but a loyal son of the
old Church, at last awakened from her lethargy. The spell which he
exercised over so many young minds was due to a personal influence of
which he was almost unconscious, but which spread from the pulpit of St.
Mary's Church and his college rooms at Oriel over a great part of the
university and the Church. It was broken some years later, when he gave
up the _via media_ which he had so long been advocating, accepted the
logical consequences of his own teaching, and reproached others for not
discovering that Anglicanism was but a pale and deformed counterfeit of
the primitive Christianity represented, in its purity, by the Church of
Rome.
Looking back at this movement across an interval of seventy years, we
may well feel astonished that it satisfied the aspirations of
inquisitive minds in contact with the ideas of their own times. For this
was the age of Benthamism in social philosophy and "German neology" in
biblical criticism. Though national education was in its infancy, a new
desire for knowledge, and even a free-thinking spirit, was permeating
the middle classes, and had gained a hold among the more intelligent of
the artisans. The Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge,
established by Brougham, circulated a mass of instructive and
stimulating literature at a cheap rate; popular magazines and
cyclopædias were multiplying yearly; and the British Association, which
held its first meeting at Oxford in 1832, brought the results of natural
science within the reach of thousands and tens of thousands incapable of
scientific research. The _Bridgwater Treatises_, which belong to the
reign of William IV., are evidence of a widespread anxiety to reconcile
the claims and conclusions of science with those of the received
theology. Thoughtful and religious laymen in the higher ranks of society
were earnestly seeking a reason for the faith that was in them, and
pondering over fundamental problems like the personality of God, the
divinity of Christ, the reality of supernatural agency, and the awful
mystery of the future life. Yet the tractarians passed lightly over all
these problems, to exercise themselves and others with disputations on
points which to most laymen of their time appeared comparatively
trivial.
[Pageheading: _THE CATHOLIC APOSTOLIC CHURCH._]
To them Church authority was supreme, and every catholic dogma a
self-evident truth. What engrossed their reason and consciences was the
discussion of questions affecting Church authority, for example, whether
the Anglican Church possessed the true note of catholicity or was in a
state of schism, whether its position in Christendom was not on a par
with that of the monophysite heretics, whether its articles could be
brought into conformity with the Roman catholic doctrines expressly
condemned by them, or whether its alliance with Lutheranism in the
appointment of a bishop for Jerusalem did not amount to ecclesiastical
suicide. Their message, unlike that of the early Christian or methodist
preachers, was for the priestly order, and not for the masses of the
people; their appeals were addressed _ad clerum_ not _ad populum_; still
less were they suited to influence scientific intellects. But their
propaganda was carried on by men of intense earnestness and holy lives,
few in number but strong in well-organised combination, and they carried
with them for a time many to whom any "movement" seemed better than
lifeless "high and dry" conformity. Herein consisted the secret of their
early success. Their subsequent failure was inevitable when they were
fairly confronted with protestant sentiment and with the independent
spirit of the age. How their aims were taken up and partially realised
in a new form by new leaders and through new methods, is an inquiry
which must be reserved for a later chapter in the history of the English
Church.
The strange religious movement which resulted in the foundation of the
so-called Catholic Apostolic Church was of somewhat earlier date, and
its author had already been disavowed as a minister by the presbyterian
Church before the _Tracts for the Times_ began to startle the religious
world. The most brilliant part of Edward Irving's career falls within
the reign of George IV., when his chapel in London was crowded by the
fashionable world, and even attended occasionally by statesmen like
Canning. According to all contemporary testimony he was among the most
remarkable of modern preachers, and his visionary speculations in the
field of biblical prophecy failed to repel hearers attracted by his
wonderful religious enthusiasm. Compared with the adherents of the
methodist or of the neo-catholic revival, his followers were a mere
handful, and his name would scarcely merit a place in history but for
the impression which he made upon men of high ability and position. What
brought him into discredit with his own communion and with the public
was his introduction into his services of fanatics professing the gift
of speaking with "unknown tongues". These extravagances led to his
deposition in 1832, and probably hastened his early death in 1834. But
his creed did not die with him, and a small body of earnest believers
has carried on into the twentieth century a definite tradition of the
gospel which he taught.
Far deeper and more lasting in its effects was the change wrought in
current ideas by the almost unseen but steady advance of science in all
its branches. During this epoch perhaps the most formidable enemy of
orthodoxy was the rising study of geology, challenging, as it did, the
traditional theories of creation. The discoveries of astronomy--the law
of gravitation, the rotation of the earth, its place in the solar
system, and, above all, the infinite compass of the universe--were in
themselves of a nature to revolutionise theological beliefs more
radically than any conclusions respecting the antiquity of the earth.
But it may be doubted whether it was so in fact; at all events,
theologians had slowly learned to harmonise their doctrines with the
conception of immeasurable space, when they were suddenly required to
admit the conception of immeasurable time, and staggered under the blow.
The pioneers of English geology were careful to avoid shocking religious
opinion, and Buckland devotes a chapter of his famous _Treatise on
Geology_ to showing "the consistency of geological discoveries with
sacred history". His explanation is that an undefined interval may have
elapsed after the creation of the heaven and the earth "in the
beginning" as recorded in the first verse of Genesis; and he rejects as
opposed to geological evidence "the derivation of existing systems of
organic life, by an eternal succession, from preceding individuals of
the same species, or by gradual transmutation of one species into
another". But speculations of this order were utterly ignored by such
religious leaders as Newman and Irving, whose spiritual fervour, however
apostolical in its influence on the hearts of their disciples, was
confined within the narrowest circle of intellectual interests.
[Pageheading: _POOR LAW._]
The great event of parliamentary history in 1834, and the crowning
achievement of the first reformed parliament, was the enactment of the
"new poor law," as it was long called. No measure of modern times so
well represents the triumph of reason over prejudice; none has been so
carefully based on thorough inquiry and the deliberate acceptance of
sound principles; none has so fully stood the conclusive test of
experience. It is not too much to say that it was essentially a product
of the reform period, and could scarcely have been carried either many
years earlier or many years later. In the dark age which followed the
great war, contempt for political economy, coupled with a weak sentiment
of humanity, would have made it impossible for a far-sighted treatment
of national pauperism and distress to obtain a fair hearing. After the
introduction of household suffrage, and the growth of socialism, any
resolute attempt to diminish the charge upon ratepayers for the
immediate relief but ultimate degradation of the struggling masses would
have met with the most desperate resistance from the new democracy. The
philosophical whigs and radicals, trained in the school of Bentham, and
untainted as yet by a false philanthropy, found themselves in possession
of an opportunity which might never have recurred. They deserved the
gratitude of posterity by using it wisely and courageously.
The irregular development of the poor laws, from the act of Elizabeth
down to that of 1834, belongs to economic rather than to general
history. It is enough to say here that in later years, and especially
since the system of allowances adopted by the Berkshire magistrates at
Speenhamland in 1795 had become general, the original policy of
relieving only the destitute and helpless, and compelling able-bodied
men to earn their own living, had been entirely obscured by the
intrusion of other ideas. The result was admirably described in the
report of a commission, appointed in 1832, with the most comprehensive
powers of investigation and recommendation. The commissioners were the
Bishops of London (Blomfield) and Chester (Sumner), Sturges Bourne,
Edwin Chadwick, and four others less known, but well versed in the
questions to be considered. A summary of the information collected by
them, ranging over the whole field of poor-law management, was published
in February, 1834. It astounded the benighted public of that day, and it
still remains on record as a wonderful revelation of ruinous official
infatuation on the largest possible scale. The evil system was found to
be almost universal, but the worst examples of it were furnished by the
southern counties of England. There, an actual premium was set upon
improvidence, if not on vice, by the wholesale practice of giving
out-door relief in aid of wages, and in proportion to the number of
children in the family, legitimate or illegitimate. The excuse was that
it was better to eke out scanty earnings by doles than to break up
households, and bring all their inmates into the workhouse. The
inevitable effect of such action was that wages fell as doles increased,
that paupers so pensioned were preferred by the farmers to independent
labourers because their labour was cheaper, and that independent
labourers, failing to get work except at wages forced down to a minimum,
were constantly falling into the ranks of pauperism.
Had some theorists of a later generation witnessed the social order then
prevailing in country districts, they would have found several of their
favourite objects practically attained. There was no competition between
the working people; old and young, skilled and unskilled hands, the
industrious and the idle, were held worthy of equal reward, the actual
allowance to each being measured by his need and not by the value of his
work; while the parochial authorities, figuring as an earthly
providence, exercised a benevolent superintendence over the welfare and
liberty of every day-labourer in the village community. The fruits of
that superintendence were the decline of a race of freemen into a race
of slaves, unconscious of their slavery, and the gradual ruin of the
landlords and farmers upon whom the maintenance of these slaves
depended.[118]
[Pageheading: _NEW POOR LAW._]
The evidence laid before the commissioners not only showed how
intolerable the evil had become in many counties, but also how purely
artificial it was. While the aggregate amount of the poor rate had risen
to more than eight millions and a half, while some parishes were going
out of cultivation and in others the rates exceeded the rental, there
were certain oases in the desert of agricultural distress where
comparative prosperity still reigned. These were villages in which an
enlightened squire or parson had set himself to strike at the root of
pauperism, and to initiate local reforms in the poor-law system. It was
clearly found that, where out-door relief was abolished or rigorously
limited, where no allowances were made in aid of wages, and where a
manly self-reliance was encouraged instead of a servile mendicity, wages
rose, honest industry revived, and the whole character of the village
population was improved. Fortified by these successful experiments, the
commissioners took a firm stand on the vital distinction, previously
ignored, between poverty and pauperism. They did not shrink from
recommending that, after a certain date, "the workhouse test" should be
enforced against all able-bodied applicants for relief, except in the
form of medical attendance, and even that women should be compelled to
support their illegitimate children. They also advised a liberal change
in the complicated and oppressive system of "parish settlement," whereby
the free circulation of labour was constricted. They further proposed a
very large reform in the administrative machinery of the poor laws, by
the formation of parishes into unions, the concentration of workhouses,
the separation of the sexes in workhouses, and, above all, the creation
of a central poor-law board, to consist of three commissioners, and to
control the whole system about to be transformed.
A bill framed upon these lines, and remedying some minor abuses, was
introduced by Althorp on April 17, having been foreshadowed in the
speech from the throne, and carefully matured by the cabinet. So wide
and deep was the conviction of the necessity for some radical treatment
of an intolerable evil that party spirit was quelled for a while, and
the bill met with a very favourable reception, especially as its
operation was limited to five years. It passed the second reading by a
majority of 299 to 20 on May 9, notwithstanding a violent protest from
De Lacy Evans, an ultra-radical, who had displaced Hobhouse at
Westminster. The keynote of the radical agitation which followed was
given by his declaration that "the cessation of out-door relief would
lead to a revolution in the country," and by Cobbett's denunciation of
the "poor man robbery bill". The _Times_ newspaper, already a great
political force, took up the same cry, and had not Peel, with admirable
public spirit, thrown his weight into the scale of sound economy, a
formidable coalition between extremists on both sides might have been
organised. He stood firm, however; radicals like Grote declined to
barter principle for popularity, and the bill emerged almost unscathed
from committee in the house of commons. It passed its third reading on
July 2 by a majority of 157 to 50. Peel's example was followed by
Wellington in the house of lords, and Brougham delivered one of his most
powerful speeches in support of the measure. With some modification of
the bastardy clauses and other slighter amendments it was carried by a
large majority, and received the royal assent on August 4.
No other piece of legislation, except the repeal of the corn laws, has
done so much to rescue the working classes of Great Britain from the
misery entailed by twenty years of war. Its effect in reducing the rates
was immediate; its effect in raising the character of the agricultural
poor was not very long deferred. Happily for them, though not for the
farmers, bread was cheap for two years after it came into force. Still,
the sudden cessation of doles and pensions in aid of wages could not but
work great hardship to individuals in thousands of rural parishes, and
there was perhaps too little disposition on the part of the
commissioners to allow any temporary relaxation of the system. The
rigorous enforcement of the workhouse test, and the harsh management of
workhouses, continued for years to shock the charitable sensibilities of
the public, and actually produced some local riots. When the price of
bread rose the clamour naturally increased, and petitions multiplied
until a committee was appointed in 1837 to review the operation of the
act. In the end the committee found, as might have been expected, that,
however painful the state of transition, the change had permanently
improved the condition of the poor in England.
[Pageheading: _QUESTION OF APPROPRIATION._]
While the bill was still in the house of commons the ministry which
framed it was torn by dissensions; before it came on for its second
reading in the lords Grey had ceased to be premier. The disruption of
his government had been foreseen for months, but it was directly caused
by hopeless discord on Irish policy. Anglesey had been forced by
ill-health to resign the vice-royalty, and the Marquis Wellesley, who
succeeded him, was more acceptable to Irish nationalists. But the king's
speech at the opening of the session contained a stern condemnation of
the repeal movement. O'Connell at once declared war, and the angry
feelings of his followers were inflamed by a personal and public quarrel
between Althorp and Sheil. Another incident, in itself trivial,
disclosed the discord prevailing in the cabinet on Irish affairs, and,
though O'Connell was defeated on a motion against the union by a
crushing majority of 523 to 38, the disturbed state of Ireland continued
to distract the ministerial councils. The ingenious devices of Stanley
and Littleton for solving the insoluble Irish tithe question had proved
almost abortive; the government officials employed to collect tithe were
almost as powerless to do so as the old tithe-proctors, and a new
proposal to convert tithe into a land tax was naturally ridiculed by
O'Connell as delusive. He made a speech so conciliatory in its tone as
to startle the house, but no words, however smooth, could now conjure
away the irreconcilable difference of purpose between those who regarded
Church property as sacred and those who regarded it not only as at the
disposal of the state, but as hitherto unjustly monopolised by a single
religious communion. It was reserved for Lord John Russell to "upset the
coach" by openly declaring his adhesion to "appropriation," in the sense
of diverting to other objects, secular or otherwise, such revenues of
the established Church as were not strictly required for the benefit of
its own members. After this act of mutiny against the collective
authority of the cabinet Grey's ministry was doomed.
Its ruin was consummated by a motion of Henry Ward, member for St.
Albans, which expressly affirmed the right of the state to regulate the
distribution of Church property and the expediency of reducing the Irish
establishment. This motion was supposed to have been instigated by
Durham, who had never been loyal to his colleagues. The government was
notoriously divided upon it; Brougham suggested a commission of inquiry,
by way of compromise; other ministerialists were in favour of meeting
the difficulty by moving the previous question. Peel was prepared to
support the conservative section of the government, and deprecated in
strong terms "all manoeuvring, all coquetting with radicals" in order
to snatch a temporary party triumph.[119]
Ward's resolution was introduced on May 27, 1834, and seconded by Grote,
but Althorp, instead of replying, announced the receipt of sudden news
so important that he induced the house to adjourn the debate. This news
was the resignation of Stanley, Graham, Richmond, and Ripon, whose views
on appropriation, as afterwards appeared, were shared by Lansdowne and
Spring Rice. The ministry was reconstructed by the accession of Lord
Conyngham as postmaster-general, without a seat in the cabinet, and of
Lord Auckland, son of Sidmouth's colleague, as first lord of the
admiralty, by the appointment of Carlisle (already in the cabinet) to be
lord privy seal, and the substitution of Spring Rice for Stanley at the
colonial office. Edward Ellice, the secretary at war, was included in
the cabinet, and James Abercromby, afterwards Lord Dunfermline, a son of
the famous general, Sir Ralph Abercromby, became master of the mint with
a seat in the cabinet. Poulett Thomson became president of the board of
trade, and minor offices were assigned to Francis Baring, and other whig
recruits. Grey himself, sick of nominal power, was dissuaded with
difficulty from retiring; Althorp, conscious of failing authority, was
retained in his post only by a high sense of duty. Unfortunately, he was
very soon entangled by his colleague Littleton in something like an
intrigue with O'Connell, which precipitated the final resignation of
Grey together with his own temporary secession.
The details of this affair may be passed over in a few words. What is
clear is that Brougham and Littleton, without the knowledge of Grey, had
persuaded Lord Wellesley, as viceroy of Ireland, not to insist on a
renewal of the coercion act in its full severity, and especially to
sanction an abandonment of clauses suppressing public meetings. Having
obtained Wellesley's consent behind the backs of Grey and the rest of
the cabinet, Littleton with the cognisance of Althorp, proceeded to
bargain with O'Connell for an abatement, at least, of his opposition to
all coercion. The cabinet as a body declined to ratify any such
agreement, O'Connell denounced Littleton as having played a trick upon
him, and Althorp, disdaining to advocate provisions which he was almost
pledged in honour to drop, resigned his office and the leadership of the
commons. Grey, who could not have remained in office without the support
of Althorp's great popularity in the commons, at once resolved to follow
his example, and on July 9 took leave of political life in a dignified
and pathetic speech. As for Ward's motion, the original cause of Grey's
desertion by Stanley and his subsequent fall, it had been rejected by an
enormous majority in favour of "the previous question" before Althorp's
disappearance from his old position. Meanwhile Stanley availed himself
of his liberty to make one of his most dashing but least prudent
speeches, and permanently compromised his reputation for
statesmanship.[120]
[Pageheading: _MELBOURNE PRIME MINISTER._]
No other whig possessed the prestige derived by Grey from nearly fifty
years of consistent public service. Althorp commanded an extraordinary
degree of confidence in the house of commons and the country, but his
intellectual capacity was not of the highest order, and many expected
that Peel might receive a summons from the king, whose sympathy with the
whigs, never very deep, had given place to mistrust. His choice,
however, fell upon Melbourne, whom he desired, if possible, to form a
coalition with Peel, Wellington, and Stanley against the radicals. But
neither Melbourne nor Peel would accept such a coalition, and they both
showed their wisdom in declining it. The king then empowered Melbourne
to patch up the whig ministry. In deference to a requisition signed by
liberals of all sections, Althorp was induced to withdraw his
resignation, and resumed his leadership in the commons with no apparent
diminution of popularity. Duncannon, who was created a peer, succeeded
Melbourne at the home office; Lord Mulgrave, son of the first earl,
became lord privy seal in place of Carlisle; and Hobhouse entered the
cabinet as first commissioner of woods and forests. The rest of the
session was mainly spent in discussing the budget and the two Irish
questions which for so many years were the curse of English politics. A
surplus of two millions enabled Althorp to propitiate an importunate
class of taxpayers by repealing the house tax.
It would have been more statesmanlike to repeal the window tax or reduce
indirect taxation, but relief was given, as usual, to those who raised
the loudest clamour, and the vindication of sound finance was reserved
for a conservative administration. A second and milder Irish coercion
bill was carried by a large majority, with the fatal proviso, which has
marred the effect of so many later measures, that it should continue in
operation for a year only. A far more serious conflict arose on the new
Irish tithe bill. A complicated plan had been proposed whereby
four-fifths of the tithe would have been ostensibly secured to the
church by conversion into a rent-charge, the remaining fifth being
sacrificed for the sake of peace and security. O'Connell succeeded in
inducing the house of commons to adopt a counter-plan, of a very
sweeping nature, whereby two-fifths of the existing tithe would have
been abandoned, and the tithe owner partly compensated out of the
revenues of suppressed bishoprics, aided by a state grant. The bill thus
amended was rejected by a majority of 189 to 122 in the house of lords.
Peel still cherished the idea of settling the question by a system of
voluntary commutation, but, after the peremptory action of the lords, no
compromise was likely to be acceptable, and there is some ground for the
opinion that in that division the Irish Church establishment received
its death-blow.
On August 15 parliament was prorogued, and the belief of Peel in the
stability of the government may be inferred from the fact that he left
England for Italy on October 14. During the vacation, however, two
incidents occurred, trivial in themselves, but pregnant with important
consequences. One of these was Brougham's triumphant progress through
Scotland, where he was enthusiastically received as the saviour of his
country, and assumed the air of one who not only kept the king's
conscience but controlled the royal will. The story of this famous tour
exhibits alike the greatness of his powers and the littleness of his
character.[121] The homage paid to him was not undeserved, for he was
assuredly the foremost gladiator of the whig party, and had given proofs
of more varied ability than any living politician or lawyer. But the
dignified eloquence of which he was capable on rare occasions was here
submerged in a flood of egotistical rhetoric, which carried him away so
far that he assumed a political independence which his colleagues deeply
resented, and even spoke of the king in a tone of patronage. Having
lowered himself in public opinion by these speeches, especially at
Inverness and Aberdeen, he attended a banquet in honour of Grey at
Edinburgh, where he provoked a passage at arms with Durham. The press,
and especially the _Times_ newspaper, which had formerly loaded him with
extravagant praises, now turned against him, and ridiculed him as a
political mountebank. But his worst enemy was the king. William IV.'s
ill-concealed impatience of whig dictation had at last been quickened
into disgust by this and other sources of irritation, when the sudden
death of Althorp's father, Earl Spencer, on November 10, gave him an
opportunity which he eagerly seized.
[Pageheading: _DESTRUCTION OF HOUSES OF PARLIAMENT._]
By a strange fatality, this event almost coincided with the destruction
by fire of the houses of parliament on October 16. This calamity was the
result of a carelessness, which it is easy to condemn after the event on
the part of some subordinate officials and the workmen employed by them.
Down to 1826, accounts had been kept at the exchequer by means of wooden
tallies, which were stored in what was called the tally-room of the
exchequer. This room was required in order to provide temporary
accommodation for the court of bankruptcy, and an order was given to
destroy the tallies. The officials charged with the task decided to burn
them in the stoves of the house of lords, and the work of burning began
at half-past six in the morning of October 16. The work, hazardous in
any case, was conducted by the workmen with a rapidity that their orders
did not justify; the flues used for warming the house were overheated,
and though the burning of the tallies was completed between four and
five, the woodwork near the flues must have smouldered till it burst
into flame about half-past six in the evening. In less than half an hour
the house of lords was a mass of fire. About eight a change in the wind
threw the flames upon the house of commons. That house was almost
completely destroyed. The walls of the house of lords and of the painted
chamber remained standing, while the house of lords library, the
parliament offices, and Westminster Hall escaped. The king offered the
parliament the use of Buckingham Palace, but it was found possible to
fit up the house of lords for the commons and the painted chamber for
the lords. When the legislature reassembled on February 9, 1835, a
conservative ministry was in office, though not, indeed, in power.
It is difficult for a later age to understand why the accession of
Althorp to a peerage should have afforded even a plausible reason for a
change of ministry. The position which Althorp held in the house of
commons is puzzling to a later generation.[122] It is well known that
Gladstone recorded the very highest estimate of his public services. Yet
he was not only no orator but scarcely in the second order of speakers,
he made no pretence of far-sighted statesmanship, he was not a
successful financier, and he made several blunders which must have
damaged the authority of any other man. The influence which he obtained
in leading the unreformed as well as the reformed house of commons was
entirely due to his character for straightforward honesty, perhaps
enhanced by his social rank, and his reputation for possessing all the
virtues of a country gentleman. The national preference for amateurs
over professionals in politics, no less than in other fields of energy,
found an admirable representative in him, and he was all the more
popular as a political leader because it was believed that he had no
desire to be a political leader at all. At all events, he inspired
confidence in all, and it was no mere whim of the king which treated his
removal from the commons to the lords as an irreparable loss to
Melbourne's administration.
[Pageheading: _MELBOURNE'S RESIGNATION._]
It is often stated that "without a word of preparation" the king got rid
of his whig ministers on November 14, 1834, and it must be admitted that
he afterwards took credit to himself for their dismissal as his own
personal act. But this view is not altogether borne out by contemporary
evidence. A published letter, of the 12th, from Melbourne to the king
shows that, as premier, he took the initiative in representing that,
whereas "the government in its present form was mainly founded upon the
personal weight and influence possessed by Earl Spencer in the house of
commons," it was for the king to consider whether, as "that foundation
is now withdrawn," a change of ministry was expedient.[123] It also
appears from a letter placed by the king in Melbourne's hands that a
"very confidential conversation" took place between them at Brighton, in
consequence of which the king resolved to send for Wellington.[124] In
the course of this conversation Melbourne informed the king that, in the
opinion of the cabinet, Lord John Russell should be selected for the
leadership of the house of commons. The king, incensed by Lord John's
action on the Irish Church question, would not hear of this arrangement,
especially as he thought Lord John "otherwise unequal to the task," and
disparaged the claims of other possible candidates.[125] He also
strongly resented the recent conduct of Brougham. In the end, he parted
kindly and courteously from Melbourne, who actually undertook to convey
the king's summons to Wellington. Another memorandum by the king, of the
same date, proves that a fear of further encroachments on the church was
really uppermost in his mind, and that he anticipated, not without
reason, "a schism in the cabinet" on this very subject.[126]
Wellington acted with his customary promptitude, and with his customary
obedience to what he regarded as a call of public duty. A certain degree
of mistrust had existed between him and Peel, arising, in part, out of
circumstances preceding the duke's election to the chancellorship of
Oxford University. This suspension of cordiality had now passed away,
and Wellington strongly urged the king to entrust Peel, then at Rome,
with the formation of a new government. Hudson, afterwards known as Sir
James Hudson, delivered the despatch recalling him on the night of the
25th. Peel started from Rome on the 26th and, travelling with a speed
then considered marvellous, reached Dover within twelve days on the
night of December 8. He was in London on the 9th, and, without
consulting any one else, immediately placed his services at the king's
disposal. In the meantime, Wellington had stepped into the gap, and
actually held all the secretaryships of state in his own hands, pending
the arrival of Peel.
The king had been encouraged to hustle his ministers unceremoniously out
of office by a paragraph which appeared in the _Times_ of November 15.
On the previous evening Brougham had been informed by Melbourne in
confidence that the king had accepted his suggestion of resignation, and
he carried the news to the _Times_, which, without giving Brougham's
name, published his message in his own words. It stated that the king
had turned out the ministry, and ended with the words: "The queen has
done it all". After this the king was determined to be done with his
ministers as quickly as possible. It is certain that neither Wellington
nor Peel wished to be thought responsible for their dismissal, the
propriety of which they both secretly doubted. The king, however, had
acted within his strict rights, and the outgoing ministers, as a whole,
were not ill pleased to be relieved from the burdens of office.
Peel, though by no means hopeful of ultimate success, endeavoured to
construct a cabinet on a comprehensive basis. He first obtained the
king's "ready assent" to his inviting the co-operation of Stanley, who
had succeeded to the courtesy title of Lord Stanley, and Sir James
Graham. These overtures were declined in friendly terms, and both
promised independent support. But Stanley explicitly declared that, in
his judgment, "the sudden conversion of long political opposition into
the most intimate alliance would shock public opinion, would be ruinous
to his own character," and would rather injure than strengthen the new
government.[127] After this failure, Peel felt his task well-nigh
hopeless, and though he spared no effort to procure an infusion of fresh
blood, he complained that after all "it would be only the duke's old
cabinet".[128] There was, in fact, no man of known ability in it, except
himself, the Duke of Wellington (as secretary for foreign affairs), and
Lyndhurst, the chancellor; for the capacity of Aberdeen, who had been
foreign secretary under Wellington, and who now became secretary for war
and the colonies, and Ellenborough, who returned to the board of
control, had not yet been generally recognised. Peel himself became
first lord of the treasury and chancellor of the exchequer; Goulburn was
home secretary, Rosslyn lord president, and Wharncliffe lord privy seal.
Earl de Grey, elder brother of the Earl of Ripon, was made first lord of
the admiralty, Murray became master-general of the ordnance, Alexander
Baring president of the board of trade and master of the mint, Herries
secretary at war, and Sir Edward Knatchbull paymaster of the forces. It
was fully understood that a conservative government, even purged of
ultra-tory elements, could not face the first reformed house of commons,
and the dissolution which took place at the end of the year had been
regarded by all as inevitable.
[Pageheading: _THE TAMWORTH MANIFESTO._]
In anticipation of this event, Peel issued an address to his
constituents which became celebrated as the "Tamworth manifesto". It is
somewhat cumbrous in style, but it embodies with sufficient clearness
the new conservative policy of which Peel was the real author and
henceforth the leading exponent. It opens with an appeal to his own
previous conduct in parliament, as showing that, while he was no
apostate from old constitutional principles, neither was he "a defender
of abuses," nor the enemy of "judicious reforms". In proof of this, he
cites his action in regard to the currency and various amendments of the
law; to which he might have added his adoption of catholic emancipation.
He then declares, absolutely and without reserve, that he accepts the
reform act as "a final and irrevocable settlement of a great
constitutional question," which no friend to peace and the welfare of
the country would seek, either directly or indirectly, to disturb. He
approves of making "a careful review of institutions, civil and
ecclesiastical, undertaken in a friendly temper," with a view to "the
correction of proved abuses, and the redress of real grievances," and
that "without mere superstitious reverence for ancient usages". He lays
stress on his recorded assent to the principle of corporation reform,
the substitution of a treasury grant for Church rates, the relief of
dissenters from various civil disabilities (but not from university
tests), the restriction of pensions (saving vested interests), the
redistribution of Church revenues and the commutation of tithes, but so
that no ecclesiastical property be diverted to secular uses. After these
specific pledges, the Tamworth manifesto concludes with more general
professions of a progressive conservatism equally removed from what are
now called "advanced radicalism" and "tory democracy".[129] It was, of
course, too liberal for the followers of Eldon, and was ridiculed as
colourless by extreme reformers, but its effect on the country was
great, and it did much to win popular confidence for the new ministry.
If such a policy must be called opportunism, it was opportunism in its
best form; and opportunism in its best form, under the conditions of
party government, is not far removed from political wisdom.
FOOTNOTES:
[117] If all the bishops present had not merely abstained, but actually
voted in favour of the measure, it would have been carried by one vote.
[118] Sir George Nicholls, _History of the English Poor Law_, vol. ii.,
see especially pp. 242, 243.
[119] Peel to Goulburn (May 25, 1834), Parker, _Sir Robert Peel_, ii.,
244.
[120] Hatherton, _Memoir_; Creevey, _Memoirs_, ii., 285-88.
[121] See Campbell's _Lives of the Chancellors_, viii., 446-57.
[122] Compare Walpole, _History of England_, iii., 478.
[123] _Lord Melbourne's Papers_, p. 220.
[124] _Ibid._, pp. 222, 223.
[125] Stockmar, _Memoirs_ (English translation), i., 330.
[126] Parker, _Sir Robert Peel_, ii., 235.
[127] Stanley to Peel (Dec. 11, 1834), Peel's _Memoirs_, ii., 39, 40.
[128] Croker to Mrs. Croker, _Croker Papers_, ii., 219.
[129] Peel, _Memoirs_, ii., 58-67.
CHAPTER XVII.
PEEL AND MELBOURNE.
The general election which took place in January, 1835, was hotly
contested, and in the second reformed parliament the conservatives
mustered far stronger than in the first. The party now consisted of some
270 members, chiefly returned by the counties. But they were still
outnumbered by the whigs, radicals, and Irish repealers combined, and it
was certain that an occasion for such a combination would soon arise. It
was found at once in the election of a speaker, when the house of
commons met on February 9, 1835. Sutton, now Sir Charles Manners Sutton,
was proposed for re-election by the government; the opposition candidate
was Abercromby. The number of members who took part in the division was
the largest ever assembled, being 622, and Abercromby was elected by a
majority of ten. It would have been larger, had not the government been
supported by some waverers, but its significance was appreciated by the
ministers, and still more by the king. He expressed his displeasure in a
very outspoken letter to Peel, declaring that, if the leaders "of the
present factious opposition" should be forced upon him by a refusal of
the supplies, he might, indeed, tolerate them, but could never give them
his confidence or friendship. Two days later, the 24th, the king's
speech was delivered, reflecting the spirit of the Tamworth
manifesto.[130]
[Pageheading: _PEEL'S POLICY._]
The government was again defeated by seven on an amendment to the
address, notwithstanding the loyal aid of Graham and Stanley, whose
attitude during the general election had excited Peel's mistrust. In the
course of this debate, the prime minister, abandoning his usual reserve,
definitely pledged himself not only "to advance, soberly and cautiously,
in the path of progressive improvement," but to bring forward specific
measures. "I offer you," he said, "reduced estimates, improvements in
civil jurisprudence, reform of ecclesiastical law, the settlement of the
tithe question in Ireland, the commutation of tithe in England, the
removal of any real abuse in the Church, the redress of those grievances
of which the dissenters have any just ground to complain." Nor were
these offers illusory or barren. On March 17, he brought in a bill to
relieve dissenters from disabilities in respect of marriage, which met
with general approval. It was founded on the simple principle, since
adopted, of giving legal validity to civil marriages duly solemnised
before a registrar, and leaving each communion to superadd a religious
sanction in its own way. The marriages of Churchmen in a church were to
be left on their old footing, but Churchmen were of course to be granted
the same liberty as other citizens of contracting a purely civil
marriage.
Still more important, as examples of conservative reform, were Peel's
efforts to purge the established Church of abuses, and to introduce a
voluntary commutation of tithes. His correspondence amply shows how
large a space these remedial measures occupied in his mind, and one of
his first acts was to appoint an ecclesiastical commission, with
instructions to institute a most comprehensive inquiry into every
subject affecting the distribution of church revenues. Compared with the
petty squabbles over the appropriation of an imaginary surplus to be
derived from Irish tithes which it was impossible to collect, the
schemes of Peel for purifying and strengthening the Church of England
assume heroic proportions. The report of the ecclesiastical commission
originated by him, with its startling disclosures of pluralism and
non-residence, became the basis of legislation which has wrought a
veritable revolution in the financial and disciplinary administration of
the church. His tithe bill, abortive as it was in 1835, was reproduced,
with little alteration, in the tithe commutation act of 1836.
But the whig-radical allies of 1835 had not the smallest intention of
giving Peel a fair trial; nor indeed had they any other object beyond
the recovery of power. His appeals to his opponents, though by no means
without effect in the country, fell upon deaf ears in the house of
commons, and further humiliations followed rapidly. One of these was the
successful outcry against the appointment of Londonderry, who had
excited much hostility as an uncompromising enemy to reform, to the
embassy at St. Petersburg, in consequence of which he, very honourably,
relieved the government from obloquy by declining the post. A motion to
repeal the malt tax was decisively defeated, and soon afterwards a
motion in favour of granting a charter to the University of London was
carried against the government by a large majority. Then came a defeat
on a motion for adjournment, and the arts of obstruction were
obstinately practised in debates on the estimates. At last the
inevitable crisis arrived, and, as might be expected, the final issue
was taken upon an Irish question.
The influence of O'Connell and his "tail," as his followers were called,
had been neutralised, since the reform act, by the overwhelming strength
of the whigs, and the public-spirited action of Peel, who, as leader of
the conservative opposition, actually supported the whig government in
sixteen out of twenty most important contests on domestic policy. A very
different spirit was now shown by the whig opposition, and an evil
precedent, pregnant with disastrous consequences, was set by the famous
"Lichfield House compact". This was a close alliance between O'Connell
and those whom he had so fiercely denounced as "the base, brutal, and
bloody whigs". It bore immediate fruit in a motion of Russell for a
committee of the whole house to consider the temporalities of the Irish
Church. After a debate of four nights, the resolution was carried, on
March 30, by a majority of thirty-three. On April 5, a further
resolution was carried by a majority of twenty-five for applying any
surplus-funds "to the general education of all classes of the people
without religious distinction," and was more emphatically affirmed two
days later by a majority of twenty-seven.
Peel had long been conscious of the hopelessness of his position and
impatient of maintaining the struggle. He felt the constitutional danger
of allowing the executive government to become a helpless instrument in
the hands of a hostile majority in the house of commons. Nothing but the
earnest remonstrances of the king and his tory friends, including
Wellington, had induced him to retain office so long, and, after the
division of the 7th, he firmly resolved to resign. On doing so, he
received from the whole conservative party, of which he was the
creator, a most cordial address of thanks and confidence. Though his
short administration had consolidated the whig forces for the moment,
and given them a new lease of power, it showed him to be the foremost
statesman in the country, and paved the way for his triumphant return to
office. As Guizot said, he had proved himself "the most liberal of
conservatives, the most conservative of liberals, and the most capable
man of all in both parties".
[Pageheading: _MELBOURNE'S SECOND MINISTRY._]
The king now discovered the fatal mistake which he had made in
"dismissing" his whig cabinet, as he boasted, instead of waiting for it
to break down under the stress of internal dissensions. His first idea
was to fall back on Grey, who had already betrayed his growing mistrust
of radicalism, but Grey declined to enter the lists again. There was no
resource but to recall Melbourne, whom the king personally liked, and to
put up with the elevation of Russell to a position which all admitted
him to have fairly earned. He became home secretary, as well as leader
of the house of commons, and the new whig cabinet differed little from
the old. Palmerston, Lansdowne, Auckland, Thompson, and Holland returned
to their former offices. Grant was made secretary for war and the
colonies, Duncannon became lord privy seal, Spring Rice chancellor of
the exchequer, Hobhouse president of the board of control, and Viscount
Howick, son of Earl Grey, was appointed secretary at war. Outside the
cabinet, Viscount Morpeth, son of the Earl of Carlisle, became Irish
secretary. The most significant difference between the two cabinets lay
in the omission of Brougham, which was effected by the expedient of
placing the great seal in commission. This negative act was, in reality,
the boldest and most perilous in Melbourne's political life. A
correspondence between Brougham and Melbourne in February must have made
clear to the ex-chancellor that he would be excluded from office, and he
reluctantly acquiesced in Melbourne's decision, hoping that it would be
merely temporary, and that he would soon resume his place on the
woolsack as the dominant member of the cabinet, but his exclusion was
destined to be final, and the close of a career to which English history
in the nineteenth century presents no parallel.[131]
[Pageheading: _BROUGHAM._]
Brougham was called to the Scottish bar at the age of twenty-one, having
already given proof of brilliant ability and rare versatility at the
University of Edinburgh. He was the youngest and most prolific of the
original writers in the _Edinburgh Review_, then a very powerful organ
of whig opinion, and his contributions to it ranged over some thirty
years after its first appearance in 1802. He was already twenty-nine
when he joined the English bar in 1808, and though he never rivalled
Eldon as a lawyer or Scarlett as a persuasive advocate, he soon became
an acknowledged master of the highest forensic eloquence. His fame was
already established by his argument before parliament against the orders
in council when he entered the house of commons in 1810. There his
passionate oratory and power of invective made him the most formidable
of party speakers, and it was said that Canning alone could face him on
equal terms in debate. Except during four years, 1812-16, when he was
out of parliament, his prodigious energy and versatility were the
greatest intellectual force on the liberal side throughout all the
political conflicts under the regency and the reign of George IV. His
speeches embraced every question of foreign, colonial, or domestic
policy, and it may truly be said that no salutary reform was carried
during that period of which he was not either the author or the active
promoter. The suppression of the slave-trade which had revived after the
great war, the liberty of the press, the cause of popular
education--these were among the almost innumerable objects, outside the
common run of politics, and largely philanthropic, to which he devoted
his restless mind, before it was engrossed for a while by parliamentary
reform. There, as we have seen, he showed a moderation which had not
been expected of him, nor is it too much to say that, both as a leader
of the bar and as chancellor, he made good his claim to be the greatest
of law reformers.
His famous speech of February 7, 1828, had quickened the germs of many
legal improvements carried out in a later age, and the four years of his
chancellorship actually produced great constructive amendments of the
law, such as the institution of the central criminal court and the
judicial committee of the privy council. Other reforms, in bankruptcy,
criminal law, and equity, were mainly due to his initiative, and it was
he who originated the county courts, though his bill was recklessly
thrown out by the house of lords on party grounds. His public life, up
to the year 1835, was perhaps the most brilliant and the most useful of
the century, yet it was hopelessly marred in the end by a certain
eccentric vanity, and want of loyalty to colleagues, not inconsistent
with the higher ambition of leaving the world better than he found it.
For some years after his fall he retained his astounding energy, and
even his ascendency in the house of lords, where Lyndhurst, his only
possible rival, was astute enough to court his co-operation. Never was
his fertility in debate more conspicuously shown than in the session of
1835, while he was still nominally a supporter of the whig government.
The last stage of his life, extending over more than thirty years,
belongs to another chapter of English history; it is enough here to
notice that, whatever his political aberrations, he continued in his
isolation and old age to work zealously for those social reforms which
he sincerely had at heart. The popularity which had been to him as the
breath of life never, indeed, returned to him, and his figure no longer
occupies a foremost place in the gallery of our statesmen, but the
results of his noble services to humanity remain, and the memory of them
ought not to be obscured by the sad record of his failings.
The new Melbourne administration came in with unfavourable omens.
Russell failed to secure his re-election in South Devon, but a seat was
found for him at Stroud, and though the premier emphatically denied that
he had made any bargain with O'Connell, the Irish people believed it.
Accordingly, they received the whig lord-lieutenant, Mulgrave, with a
tumultuous procession, as if his advent portended the repeal of the
union and extinction of tithes. An attempt to solve the insoluble tithe
question was, in fact, among the earliest efforts of the government, and
Morpeth, as chief secretary, introduced a very reasonable measure,
differing little, except in details, from that of his predecessor. Like
other proposals for agrarian settlements in Ireland, it involved a
certain sacrifice on the part of the tithe-owner for the sake of
security, and a subsidy from the state to relieve of arrears the
defaulting and rebellious tithe-payers. Peel stated his intention of
supporting these provisions for commutation, if they could be separated
from other provisions for "appropriation," coupled with them under the
influence of political necessity rather than of sound policy. The
proposals for appropriation were so moderate that little would have been
lost by dropping or gained by carrying them, but, moderate as they were,
they embodied a principle on which either party was resolved to stand or
fall. The consequence might have been foreseen. The bill, as a whole,
was passed in the house of commons, and even read a second time in the
house of lords, after which the appropriation clauses were rejected in
that assembly by a large majority. Thereupon Melbourne withdrew the
scheme altogether. Thus a question of third-rate importance, having been
the chronic difficulty of four Irish secretaries, was left to stand over
for three years longer, and ultimately to be settled on the very basis
which Stanley and Peel had accepted from the first. A greater waste of
parliamentary time has perhaps never been recorded.
[Pageheading: _MUNICIPAL CORPORATIONS BILL._]
The session of 1835, however, was rendered memorable by the enactment of
one beneficent measure of the first magnitude. This measure--the
municipal corporations act--was preceded, like the new poor law, by a
thorough and exhaustive inquiry. A committee of the house of commons,
followed by a commission, had been appointed in 1833. The commission
prosecuted careful researches into the local conditions of each
municipality, and did not conclude its labours until 1835. Its report
laid bare not merely grotesque anomalies, but the grossest abuses of
election and administration in boroughs ruled by small, corrupt, and
irresponsible oligarchies which then abounded in England, and, still
more, in Scotland.[132] The reform act had paved the way for the
purification of such urban communities, by disfranchising the smallest
and most venal of them, by extending the boundaries of many others, by
enfranchising great towns which had remained outside the pale of
representation, and by conferring the suffrage, theretofore monopolised
by freemen and other privileged classes, on the unprivileged mass of
ten-pound householders.
The municipal corporations bill, in its ultimate form, rested on the
same broad lines of policy. It imposed upon all boroughs, with the
exception of the city of London and a few of minor importance, one
constitutional form of government, identical in all its essential
features with those which a few model boroughs already possessed. The
governing body was to consist of a mayor, aldermen, and councillors,
together forming a town council. The councillors were to be elected
directly by ratepaying occupiers, with a saving for the prescriptive
rights of existing freemen. They were to hold office for three years;
the aldermen were to be elected by the councillors for six years, with a
provision for retirement by rotation. The mayor was to be elected
annually by the town council. The elementary powers of local government,
such as the control of lighting and the constabulary force, were to be
transferred (subject to certain exceptions) from the hands of committees
into those of the one recognised and supreme municipal authority. Other
clauses provided for a division of the larger boroughs into wards, for
the abolition of exclusive trading privileges, for the public management
of charity estates, and for the appointment, at the option of each
borough, of a recorder, for the purposes of jurisdiction.
Such were the main outlines of the great measure introduced by Russell,
to which Peel heartily gave his adhesion. It was a natural, and almost
necessary, sequel of the reform act, which had already broken up many
nests of jobbery, curtailed the lucrative exercise of the elective
franchise by freemen, and undermined the influence of those self-elected
rulers who, in the worst boroughs, had become gangs of public thieves.
Supported by Peel, the bill was read a second time in the house of
commons, on June 15, without a division. Several conservative amendments
were defeated in committee by small majorities, and the bill was sent up
to the lords on July 21. There its fate was far different. Though
Wellington himself was not disposed to obstruct it, he entirely failed
to check the obstructive tactics of Lyndhurst who, on this occasion,
outdid himself in the deliberate mutilation of a bill approved by the
late conservative premier. Lord Campbell, no partial judge of Brougham,
has left on record his belief that, but for his faithful and vigorous
support, the scheme of municipal reform must have been utterly
wrecked.[133] It was allowed to be read a second time, but with the
full concurrence of Eldon and all the ultra-tory peers, Lyndhurst
succeeded in pulling it to pieces in committee. For instance, one of the
amendments imported into it perpetuated proprietary rights which it was
a chief object of the bill to abolish; another gave aldermen a
life-tenure of their offices; a third retained a part of the old town
councillors on the new town councils. Proud as he was of his destructive
exploits, as a triumph of toryism over conservatism, Lyndhurst soon
found that he could not so lightly override the wiser counsels of Peel.
When the lords' amendments came to be considered in the commons, Russell
prudently advised the acceptance of the less important, and the
disallowance of those inconsistent with the principle of the bill. He
was followed by Peel who, professing to uphold the independence of the
upper house, declared against the more obnoxious amendments, and
stickled only for points which the ministry was not unwilling to
concede. His action proved decisive. The commons stood firm on the main
issues, and the hostile party in the lords, who had vowed to mar this
reform, flinched at the last moment. Many of them abstained from
attendance. Wellington and even Lyndhurst recommended concession;
conferences took place between the houses, at which Russell played the
part of moderator, and on September 9 the corporation bill became law,
not in its entirety, but in all its essential features.
In spite of this pacific compromise, popular feeling ran higher than
ever against the house of lords which, under the evil influence of
Lyndhurst, seemed bent on thwarting every liberal measure. John Roebuck,
member for Bath, a prominent radical, who acted independently of party
connexions, took a lead in denouncing their conduct, and went so far as
to propose giving them a merely suspensory, instead of an absolute, veto
on legislation. A sweeping reform in their constitution was loudly
advocated in the press. O'Connell, exasperated by their wanton rejection
of a Dublin police bill, spent a part of the parliamentary recess in a
tour over the north of England and Scotland, exhausting the stores of
his scurrilous invective in pouring contempt on the 170 tyrants who
could dare to withstand the will of the people. But O'Connell's
eloquence, marvellous as it was, never stirred British audiences as it
stirred the Irish masses, and it happened that at this moment he was
somewhat discredited by accusations of corruption afterwards proved to
be false. The house of lords not only survived his attacks, but was
instigated by Lyndhurst to further acts of obstruction in the following
year.
[Pageheading: _COTTENHAM, LORD CHANCELLOR._]
His most powerful opponent was about to disappear from the political
scenes for the present, and in the future to be converted into an ally.
When the great seal was entrusted to commissioners, Brougham had
affected to regard the arrangement as a temporary makeshift to
propitiate William IV., and hoped that he would inherit the reversion of
the chancellorship. With this expectation he not only patronised but
warmly supported the whig ministry in 1835. But his wayward and petulant
egotism had set all his old colleagues against him, and Melbourne had
made up his mind that "it was impossible to act with him". The
interruption of legal business caused by the constant withdrawal of
three judges from their proper duties, to act as commissioners, was
severely criticised by the press, and Sir Edward Sugden, who had been
lord chancellor of Ireland under Peel, published an effective pamphlet
entitled, "What has become of the great seal?" It was thought necessary
to appoint a new chancellor, and in January, 1836, Sir Charles Pepys,
then master of the rolls, was raised to that dignity as Lord Cottenham.
Foreseeing the implacable indignation of Brougham, the ministry decided
to confer a peerage on Henry Bickersteth, the new master of the rolls,
who became Lord Langdale, and who was supposed capable of confronting
the ex-chancellor in debate. No expectation could have been more
unfounded or delusive, but the sense of disappointment and desertion so
preyed on the health and nerves of Brougham that he forsook the house of
lords for a whole session. Campbell does not shrink from saying that he
was "atrociously ill-used" on this occasion,[134] and assuredly he
should not have been left to learn from a newspaper that he was thrust
aside in favour of a man of vastly inferior gifts and services.
One other change was made in the cabinet during the recess. The Earl of
Minto became first lord of the admiralty in succession to Auckland who
had been appointed governor-general of India. When parliament met on
February 4, 1836, the prospects of the whig government were more
favourable than on their first accession to office. The factious
conduct of the house of lords in the last session had disgusted the
country, while the statesmanlike moderation of Peel secured them
fair-play in the house of commons, though it was gradually building up a
strong conservative party. Ireland again blocked the way for a while
against useful legislation for Great Britain, and the first encounter of
parties was on an amendment to the address condemning the anticipated
reform of Irish corporations on the principles already adopted for
England. This amendment, unwillingly moved by Peel, was defeated by a
majority of forty-one, and the Irish municipal bill was introduced on
the 16th. Like its English prototype, it was founded on the report of a
commission which had disclosed the grossest possible abuses in Irish
municipalities, chiefly dominated by protestant oligarchies. A similar
measure substituting elective councils for these corrupt bodies had
actually passed its third reading in the commons before the end of the
last session, but the attempt to carry it further was then abandoned.
The debates on the bill of 1836 for the same purpose inevitably turned
on broad issues which continued to disturb Irish politics and to perplex
English statesmen for the rest of the century. On the one hand, no one
could justify "government by ascendency" in Ireland, or the shameful
malpractices incident to an exercise of power under no sense of
responsibility. On the other hand, no one acquainted with Irish history
and Irish character could honestly regard the people as yet qualified
for local self-government. In the social and some of the moral virtues
they might be favourably compared with Englishmen and Scotchmen; in the
political virtues, upon which civil institutions must rest, they were
several generations behind their fellow-subjects in Great Britain.
[Pageheading: _IRISH BILLS._]
All were agreed on the necessity of sweeping away or expurgating the
existing Irish corporations, but the whole strength of the conservative
party in both houses was enlisted against the experiment of elective
town councils, especially after the evidence lately taken before the
so-called "intimidation committee" in the house of commons. Peel's
scheme was to vest the executive powers and property of Irish
corporations, at least for the present, in officers appointed by the
crown. An amendment framed in this sense was defeated by a large
majority, and the bill passed the commons with little further
opposition. When it reached the lords it was stoutly contested by
Lyndhurst, now fortified by Peel's concurrence, on the not unreasonable
ground that it would make the radicals and repealers predominant in
every Irish municipality, and create "seats of agitation" for
revolutionary purposes in the new town councils. Being converted into a
bill "for the abolition of municipal corporations" in Ireland, it was
returned in that form to the house of commons. Russell vainly attempted
to meet the lords half-way by another compromise, and the measure was
abandoned only to be adopted, in a very modified shape, after the lapse
of four years. A like course was pursued by the upper house when a new
Irish tithe bill, with an appropriation clause, was sent up to them. Had
the whig government been well advised they would scarcely have
challenged a needless collision between the two houses by reviving this
burning question so early. It would have been possible to settle the
Irish tithe system on equitable lines, without prejudicing the future
application of superfluous Church revenues, and it was a somewhat
perverse obstinacy which persisted in coupling the two objects year
after year. The ingenuity of Lyndhurst in wrecking sound reforms should
have been left without excuse; whereas, in this case, the peers could
not have accepted what they regarded as a confiscation bill without a
sacrifice of conviction and self-respect.
Happily the commutation of tithes in England presented no political
difficulties of the same nature. The payment of tithes in kind, though
founded on immemorial usage, had, indeed, produced constant discord
between the parish clergyman and his flock, while landlords and farmers
justly complained that it impeded the improvement of agriculture. In
many localities the pressure of these evils had led to voluntary
compositions between tithe-owners and tithe-payers, which, being
temporary, lacked the force of law. The permissive tithe bills of
Althorp and Peel were designed to render general a practice which
already prevailed in a thousand parishes, and that now introduced by
Russell was little more than an extension of the same principle. Its
mainspring was the appointment of commissioners with compulsory powers
in the last resort, and the provision of a self-acting machinery for
assessing the reduced annual rent charge payable in lieu of tithes, so
as to vary with the average price of wheat, barley, and oats in the
seven preceding years. This practical solution of the question was
adopted cheerfully by the wearied legislature, and the commissioners
succeeded before long in effecting universal commutation. Amendments in
detail have of course been found necessary, but the system established
by 6 and 7 William IV., cap. 61, has stood the test of long experience,
and although tithe-owners have been impoverished by the fall of prices,
the payment of tithes in England has ceased to be a grievance, except
with those who absolutely condemn the endowment of a Church.
[Pageheading: _REGISTRATION ACTS._]
An equally valuable and permanent legacy of this session is contained in
two cognate acts regulating marriages and registration in England. By
the first of these acts two new modes of celebrating marriage were
provided, without interfering with the old privileges of the established
Church in regard to marriage by licence or banns. While the essential
conditions of notice and publicity were carefully secured, the
superintendent registrar of each district was empowered either to
authorise the celebration of marriage in a duly registered place of
worship, but in presence of a district registrar, or to solemnise the
ceremony himself, without any religious service, in his own office.
Clergymen of the Church of England were constituted registrars for
marriages celebrated by themselves, and were bound to furnish the
superintendent registrars with certified entries of such marriages. The
act was complicated by a variety of safeguards, enforced by heavy
penalties, against fraud and evasion, but its leading features were
simple and have proved effectual for their purpose. It marked an advance
on the earlier marriage bill of Russell, since it not only allowed
dissenters to marry in their own chapels, but to marry without having
their banns published in the parish church. It went beyond the marriage
bill of Peel, since it not only recognised marriage as a civil contract,
but utilised the new poor law organisation, and posted in each district
a civil official before whom that contract could legally be solemnised.
The rules laid down by the first act for the registration of marriages
were an integral part of a general registration system established by
the second act, and embracing births and deaths as well as marriages.
This system, rendered possible by the division of the country into
unions, brought under effective control the old parochial registers
which had been loosely kept for three centuries. The statistical value
of the returns thus checked and digested in a central department is now
fully recognised, but can only be appreciated by students of social
history, which, indeed, is now largely founded on reports of the
registrar-general. The special provisions for the registration of deaths
are also of the utmost service in the prevention of disease and crime.
Not until after this act of 1836 was it realised by the mass of the
people, not only that a sudden death would properly be followed by a
coroner's inquest, but that every death, with its circumstances, must be
treated as a matter of public concern and duly notified. Still more
important in its results has been the requirement of a medical statement
on the cause of death--a requirement which has brought about the
discovery of numerous murders and greatly checked the commission of
others. If the marriage act relieved a large class of the community from
vexatious disabilities, the whole community assuredly owes the second
reformed parliament a debt of gratitude for the registration act which,
like so many of the best acts in the statute book, provoked but little
discussion.
A far keener party interest was excited by the crusade against the
Orange lodges in Great Britain and Ireland which Hume and Finn, an Irish
member, carried on with great energy in the sessions of 1835 and 1836.
These societies then had an importance which they no longer possess, and
were the more open to radical attacks because the Duke of Cumberland was
grand master of the order. It was said, with some justice, that while
the catholic association was nominally put down, the Orange lodges in
Ireland were openly spreading, with the connivance at least of the Irish
authorities. Their officials included noblemen of high position;
Goulburn, when chief secretary, was an Orangeman, and special efforts
had been made to enrol members in the army. Their principles were
strictly loyal, but their demonstrations were naturally resented by the
Roman catholics, and were not far removed from preparations for civil
war. They hailed the accession of Peel's short ministry with tumultuous
enthusiasm, but when the legality of their organisation and proceedings
was challenged in the house of commons, during the session of 1835,
their advocates felt compelled to support a committee of inquiry. The
evidence taken before this committee, and the debate raised by Hume on
the formation of Orange lodges in the army, damaged their cause in the
eyes of the public, and seriously compromised the Duke of Cumberland. It
was shown that his brother, the Duke of York, had resigned the grand
mastership, and on being convinced of their illegality had forbidden
Orange lodges in the army, whereas the Duke of Cumberland had accepted
the grand mastership and directly promoted military lodges.
An address condemning them was carried; the king undertook to discourage
them, and the commander-in-chief issued a stringent order for their
suppression. The struggle, however, was continued by the pertinacity of
the radicals in demanding a more extended inquiry, and the obstinacy of
the Orangemen in defying both the house of commons and the horse guards.
Early in the session of 1836 Finn and Hume renewed their assaults, and
the latter moved for an address, to be framed in the most sweeping
terms, and calling upon the crown to dismiss all persons in public
employment, from the highest to the lowest, who should belong to Orange
societies. Russell, who had been gradually rising in public estimation,
showed the qualities of a true statesman on this occasion by a firm yet
conciliatory speech which commanded assent on both sides. He exposed the
extravagant and impracticable nature of Hume's demand, but condemned the
Orange societies, and proposed an address urging the crown to use its
influence for "the effectual discouragement of Orange lodges, and
generally all political societies, excluding persons of different faith,
using signs and symbols, and acting by associated branches". This
resolution was adopted without opposition, the king heartily endorsed
it, even the Duke of Cumberland acquiesced in it, and the Orange
societies quietly dissolved themselves, for a while, throughout the
United Kingdom.
If the session of 1836 had produced no other legislative fruits it could
not be regarded as wasted. But several minor reforms of great social
benefit also date from this year, and prove that, however checked by
political blunders, the energy kindled by the reform act had not yet
exhausted itself. After repeated efforts of legal philanthropists, a
bill was now passed for the first time allowing prisoners on trial for
felony to be defended by counsel. It was brought in by William Ewart, a
private member, who sat for Liverpool, but was supported by the highest
legal authorities in the house of lords, including Lyndhurst himself,
who openly recanted his former opinions, and declared the old law to be
a barbarous survival, inconsistent with the practice of other civilised
nations. In the same house an interesting debate took place on the
management of jails, which had been placed under a system of inspection
by an act of the previous year. The reports of the inspectors disclosed
gross abuses, not only in the smaller county jails but in Newgate
itself. Lansdowne, in pledging the government to deal with the larger
question, intimated that Russell, as home secretary, was considering the
means of separating juvenile offenders from hardened criminals by
establishing places of detention in the nature of what have since been
known as reformatories.
[Pageheading: _DUTY ON NEWSPAPERS LOWERED._]
A still more notable contribution to social improvement was made by
Spring Rice, the chancellor of the exchequer, in consolidating the paper
duties on a reduced scale, and lowering the stamp duty on newspapers
from fourpence to one penny. These were the only controversial elements
in a budget otherwise modest and acceptable. The battle over paper
duties and "taxes upon knowledge" raised in the debates of 1836 was
destined to rage many years longer, but the relief granted by Spring
Rice gave a powerful impulse to journalism and periodical literature. It
was opposed by all the familiar arguments against a cheap press, but
that which most endangered its success was a rival proposal to apply any
surplus revenue to cheapening soap. Soap, it was plausibly contended,
was a necessary, reading newspapers or periodicals was only a luxury,
and a luxury, too, far move capable of being abused than expenditure on
soap. When the penny stamp on newspapers was at last preferred to
reduced soap duties it was said that, "so far as financial arrangements
were concerned, everything went to supply the essential elements of low
political clubs, _viz._, cheap gin, cheap newspapers, filthy hands, and
unwashed faces".[135]
The legislative record of 1836 was creditable to the government, nor was
the action of the upper house in amending certain of their bills so
purely mischievous as it has been described. For instance, a strange
clause had found its way into the newspaper stamp bill, requiring all
the proprietors of newspapers, however numerous, to be registered at the
stamp office. This clause was struck out in the house of lords, at the
instance of Lyndhurst, though Melbourne declared it to be a vital part
of the measure, which, however, passed without it, and was the better
for the loss of it. But the same cannot be said of Lyndhurst's conduct
at the "open conference" between the two houses on a supplementary bill
for remedying defects in the operation of the municipal corporations
act. There no question of principle was involved, and the only motive
for resisting every attempt to improve the new machinery already
established by law was one unworthy of a statesman. At the close of the
session, Lyndhurst delivered a masterly vindication of his own
proceedings, but he was answered by Melbourne in a speech of great
ability, and the position now occupied by the whigs appeared stronger
than when they came into office in 1835.
In this year complaints of agricultural distress once more became
urgent, and a committee was appointed by the house of commons, as in
1833, to inquire into its cause. Strange to say, the immediate occasion
for the second inquiry was the occurrence of three magnificent harvests
in succession, which brought down the average price of wheat from 58s.
8d. in 1832 to 53s. in 1833, 46s. 2d. in 1834, and 39s. 4d. in 1835,
whence it rose to 48s. 6d. after the harvest of 1836. The average
gazette price of 1835 was the lowest touched in the nineteenth century
until 1884, and was simply due to excess of production. It was stated
before the committee of 1836, by the comptroller of corn returns, that
in the period between 1814 and 1834 the quantity of home-grown wheat
only fell short of the consumption, on the average, by about 1,000,000
quarters a year, of which at least half was contributed by Ireland. The
committee published its evidence without making a report, but this fact
is highly significant as marking the later revolution in British
agriculture. If the area then devoted to wheat crops almost sufficed to
feed an estimated population of 14,500,000, when the yield per acre was
relatively small, we may safely infer, in the absence of trustworthy
statistics, that it must have been very much greater than at present.
[Pageheading: _AGITATION IN IRELAND._]
At the opening of 1837 there was a marked stagnation in home politics,
mainly due to an equipoise of parties and serious divisions in the ranks
of the ministerialists as well as of the opposition. Not only was there
a very strong conservative majority in the house of lords, with a
sufficient though dwindling liberal majority in the house of commons,
but neither majority was amenable to party discipline. The aggressive
policy and vexatious tactics of Lyndhurst were distasteful to his
nominal leader, the Duke of Wellington, and still more so to Peel, the
only possible conservative premier, who eschewed the very name of tory.
There was greater unity of counsels between Melbourne and Russell, but
Russell, who had learned moderation, was dependent on the support of his
extreme left, composed of violent radicals and Irish repealers. The
king, though he did not carry his repugnance to his ministers so far as
he once threatened, yet almost excluded them from social invitations,
and made no secret of his preference for the opposite party. During the
winter of 1836-37 O'Connell and his satellites were busy in organising
monster meetings to demand the abolition of tithes and municipal reform.
A national association was formed on this basis, and a certain number of
protestants were induced to join it. The government dared not show
vigour in checking it lest they should estrange their Irish allies, and
Mulgrave, the lord-lieutenant, was openly accused of favouring sedition
and discouraging loyalty by his exercise of patronage and the royal
prerogative of pardon. At last, a very large and influential meeting was
held in Dublin, at which the discontent of loyalists and patriots was
expressed with truly Irish vehemence. Still, Ireland was less disturbed
than in several previous years. About the same time, Peel, having been
elected lord rector of Glasgow University, was entertained there at
dinner by a company including many old reformers, and made one of his
greatest speeches. Its spirit was that of his Tamworth manifesto, but he
was far more outspoken in his declaration of unswerving adhesion to the
protestant cause and to the independence of the upper house.
Such were the political conditions when parliament met on January 31.
The king's speech, delivered by commission, though singularly
colourless, indicated the importance of legislating on Irish tithes,
Irish corporations, and Irish poor relief. The debate on the address was
enlivened by a furious attack of Roebuck on the whigs, but was
otherwise devoid of importance. On February 7, however, Russell
introduced a new Irish corporations bill, invoking the authority of Fox
for the doctrine that "Irish government should be regulated by Irish
notions and Irish prejudices," and avowing a faith in the efficacy of
unlimited concession which has not been justified by later experience.
He further intimated the resolution of the government to stand or fall
by this measure. No serious resistance was offered by the opposition to
its first or second reading, but Peel took occasion to protest against a
transparent inconsistency which seems to beset the advocacy of Irish
claims. It is generally assumed, and with too much justice, that Ireland
is so backward and helpless a country as to require exceptional
treatment; in short, that it must be governed by Irish ideas, with
little regard to English principles of sound policy or economy. Such
was, in effect, Fox's contention, adopted by Russell; and yet, like
future supporters of "Ireland for the Irish," he argued in the same
breath that every liberal institution suitable to Englishmen, with their
long training in self-government and instinctive reverence for law, must
needs be extended to Irishmen, with their long training in anarchy and
instinctive propensity to lawlessness. He prevailed, however, in the
house of commons, where a hostile amendment was decisively rejected, and
the bill, having passed rapidly through committee, was read a third time
by a large though reduced majority.
Had it been possible to isolate the Irish municipal bill, and to compel
the house of lords to deal with it singly, the peers might possibly have
shrunk from another collision with the commons. But it had been coupled
in the king's speech with two other projects of Irish legislation, a new
tithe bill, and an Irish poor law. Both of these were, in fact,
introduced, the former by Russell in February, the latter by Morpeth
early in May. The course to be taken by the conservative party was the
subject of anxious consultation between Peel and Wellington, and that
ultimately adopted had the full sanction of both. They regarded the
separate presentation of the municipal bill as a "manoeuvre," and,
while they overruled the wish of Lyndhurst to defeat it by an adverse
vote on the second reading, they resolved to meet it by a
counter-manoeuvre. Accordingly Wellington induced the house of lords
to postpone the committee on the municipal bill until they should have
the other two bills before them, and Peel not only approved of his
action but stated reasons for regarding them as essentially connected
with each other. June 9 was originally fixed as the date for going into
committee, but this stage was afterwards deferred until July 3, before
which unforeseen events arrested all further progress.
[Pageheading: _CHURCH RATES._]
In the meantime, the prestige of the government had been weakened by the
failure of their scheme for abolishing Church rates. The dissenters, no
longer content with religious liberty, were beginning to demand
religious equality. In the forefront of their grievances was that of
paying rates for the repair of parish churches which they did not
attend, except as members of the annual "vestry," where they could
object to a rate but might be out-voted by a majority of their
fellow-parishioners. Althorp had proposed a scheme for the removal of
this grievance in 1834, involving a parliamentary grant of £250,000.
Setting aside this alternative, as well as that of a special
contribution, voluntary or otherwise, from members of the Church, Spring
Rice now proposed a solution of his own. It consisted in vesting the
property of bishops and chapters in a commission which, by improved
management, might raise the necessary sum for church repairs, without
impairing the incomes of these ecclesiastical dignitaries. Before the
government plan was discussed in the house of commons, Howley,
archbishop of Canterbury, entered a strong protest against it in the
house of lords on the ground that it would reduce the bishops and
chapters from the position of landowners to that of "mere annuitants".
Melbourne complained of his protest somewhat angrily as premature, and
provoked a vehement reply from Blomfield, bishop of London, who, though
a member of the ecclesiastical commission, denounced any such diversion
of revenues as "a sacrilegious act of spoliation". In the elaborate
debates on the resolutions moved by Spring Rice in the house of commons
Peel took his stand partly on financial objections and partly on the
injustice of taking away from the Church a fund belonging to it by
immemorial usage, and in the main willingly contributed. Amendment after
amendment was proposed by members of the opposition, and, though each
was defeated, the government resolutions were ultimately carried by so
narrow a majority in May that no further action was taken.
The conservative reaction, now in visible progress, was typified by the
open secession of Burdett from the ranks of the reformers. This sincere
but indiscreet radical, who had once enjoyed a popularity similar to
that of Wilkes as a political martyr, became estranged from his party
when it accepted O'Connell as an auxiliary, if not as an ally. Having
failed in procuring the exclusion of the great Irish demagogue from
Brooks's club, in 1835, he withdrew his own name. Soon afterwards he
became irregular in his parliamentary attendance, and more than lukewarm
in his allegiance. Early in 1837 he was, like Stanley and Graham, so
much suspected of gravitating towards conservatism, that some of his
Westminster constituents publicly called upon him to resign. He took up
the challenge, and was re-elected against a radical opponent by a
substantial majority. It was his last re-election for a borough which he
had represented for thirty years. In the Church-rate debate he rose from
the opposition side of the house, and lamenting his separation from his
old associates, did not spare them either reproaches or hostile
criticism.
Another desertion from the whig camp took place during this session, but
in an opposite direction. Roebuck, originally one of the philosophical
radicals, had become more and more violent in his attacks on his own
leaders, whom he accused of having deceived the people. According to
him, they were "aristocratic in principle, democratic in pretence," and
all the resources of his incisive rhetoric were exhausted in exposing
their incapacity, in a motion for a committee to consider the state of
the nation. This motion, so advocated, met with no support, and gave
Russell the opportunity of once more vindicating the wisdom of
moderation in statesmanship. But there were many besides Roebuck who
were eager to complete the work of the reform act by further organic
changes, and the notice book of the house of commons in 1837 embodied
several proposals of this kind. One was Grote's annual motion for the
ballot, on which an interesting debate took place. Among the others were
two motions of Sir William Molesworth for a reform of the upper house
and for the abolition of a property qualification for the lower house, a
motion of Tennyson, who had taken the additional name of D'Eyncourt, for
the repeal of the septennial act, and another of Hume for household
suffrage, overshadowing that of Duncombe for repealing the rate-paying
clauses of the reform act itself. Nearly all of these contained the
germs of future legislation, but they formed no part of the whig
programme, nor could any whig government have carried them against so
powerful an opposition, with an invincible reserve in the house of
lords, during the last session of William IV. Only seventeen public acts
were actually passed in this session.
[Pageheading: _THE DEATH OF WILLIAM IV._]
There were, indeed, other reasons for declining to provoke a grave
contest at this juncture. The king's health was known to be failing, his
death under the law then in force would involve a general election, and
no one could desire his successor, a girl of eighteen, to begin her
reign in the midst of a political crisis. In May his illness assumed an
alarming aspect, early in June the medical reports satisfied the country
that his case was hopeless, on June 19 he received the last sacrament,
and on the 20th he died at Windsor Castle. Something more than justice
was done to his character by the leaders of both parties in parliament,
but something less than justice has been done to it by later historians.
He was inferior in strength of will to his father, in ability to his
eldest brother, and in the higher virtues of a constitutional sovereign
to his niece, who succeeded him. But he was not only a kindly and
well-meaning man, a good husband to Queen Adelaide and a good father to
his natural children, faithful to his old friends, and bountiful in his
charities; he was also a loyal servant of the state, with a genuine
sense of public duty, a natural love of justice, an independent
judgment, and a noble indifference to personal or selfish objects. His
lot was cast in almost revolutionary times, and he was called upon to
reign at an age when few men are capable of shaking off old prejudices,
yet he deserved well of his people in supporting the ministry of Grey
through all the stages of the reform movement, in spite of his own
declared sympathies, but in deference to his own conviction of paramount
obligation under the laws of the land. He was quite as liberal in
opinions as Peel, whose hearty interest in the poorer classes he fully
shared, and far more liberal than the tory majority in the house of
lords. Great he certainly was not, and he never affected the royal
dignity which partially concealed the littleness of his predecessor. But
in honesty and simplicity he was no unworthy son of George III., and the
greater pliability of his nature contributed, at least, to make the
seven years of his reign more fruitful in reforms than all the sixty
years during which the old king occupied the throne of England.
FOOTNOTES:
[130] The king to Peel (Feb. 22, 1835), Parker, _Sir Robert Peel_, ii.,
287-89.
[131] See Melbourne's letters to Brougham, _Melbourne Papers_, pp.
257-64.
[132] The abuses in the Scottish municipalities had, however, been
already removed by an act conferring the municipal franchise on £10
householders. Not the least important result of this act was the
increased strength which it gave to the "evangelical" party in the
general assembly of the Church of Scotland, which was partly elected by
the municipalities.
[133] Campbell, _Lives of the Chancellors_, viii., 470.
[134] Campbell, _Lives of the Chancellors_, viii., 476.
[135] _Annual Register_, lxxviii. (1836), p. 244
CHAPTER XVIII.
FOREIGN RELATIONS UNDER WILLIAM IV.
In 1830 the closing months of Wellington's administration were disturbed
by the French and Belgian revolutions. The former of these was
occasioned by the publication on July 25 of three ordinances,
restricting the liberty of the press, dissolving the chambers, and
amending the law of elections. The Parisian populace rose against this
infringement of the constitution. In the course of a three days'
street-fight (the 27th to the 29th) the troops were driven out of Paris.
On the 30th a few members of the chambers, who had continued in session,
invited Louis Philippe, Duke of Orléans, to assume the office of
lieutenant-general of the kingdom, and he was proclaimed on the
following day. On August 7 the chamber of deputies offered him the
crown, which he accepted, and on the 9th he was proclaimed "King of the
French". On the 2nd Charles X. and the dauphin had renounced their
rights in favour of the young Duke of Bordeaux, and on the 16th they
sailed from Cherbourg to England. The change of dynasty was accompanied
by a transference to the _bourgeoisie_ of such political influence as
had hitherto belonged to the clergy and _noblesse_. It remained to be
seen whether it would also be accompanied by a change of foreign policy.
[Pageheading: _RECOGNITION OF LOUIS PHILIPPE._]
The new French revolution occasioned no slight perturbation in the
European courts. To say nothing of the fear of the precedent being
followed in other lands, there was no longer any guarantee that France
would respect the arrangements effected by the treaties of Vienna and
Paris. Austria, Prussia, and Russia agreed not to recognise Louis
Philippe, and entered into a convention for mutual aid in the event of
French aggression. Aberdeen, the British foreign secretary, declared
that the time had come for applying the treaty of Chaumont, which, as
extended at Paris, pledged Great Britain and the three eastern powers to
act together in case fresh revolution and usurpation in France should
endanger the repose of other states. Wellington, however, saw that the
cause of the elder Bourbon line was hopeless, and held now, as in 1815,
that if France was not to menace the peace of Europe, her political
position must be one with which she could be contented. He considered
that the arguments which justified the admission of France to the
councils of the powers at Aix-la-Chapelle in 1818 applied with no less
cogency to the government of Louis Philippe than to that of Louis XVIII.
He therefore determined to acknowledge the new French government at an
early date after the notification of its assumption of power. Nor were
the other powers slow in taking the same course. It is true that
Metternich suggested a closer bond between Austria, Prussia, and Russia,
partly to restore amicable relations between Austria and Russia, partly
to oppose any possible designs of France on Italy. Prussia, fearing war,
resisted the proposal, and preferred to draw France into a guarantee of
the _status quo_ by recognising Louis Philippe. Russia was last of the
great powers to acknowledge the new _régime_ in France, and she only did
so on condition that the powers should hold the French king responsible
for the execution of the international engagements of the fallen
dynasty. Louis Philippe was certainly not the man wilfully to embroil
France in a war with her neighbours, and, had he been independent of
French public opinion, there would have been no reason to fear French
aggression.
The state which had most to fear from an aggressive France was the new
kingdom of the Netherlands. Trusting for protection to the great powers
rather than to its own forces, the Netherlands government had adopted a
system which left it almost entirely without troops except during the
military exercises of September and October. Wellington, who knew the
pacific character of the new French government, advised the garrisoning
of certain isolated points on the frontier, but thought no further
preparation necessary. A few weeks were however to prove that the new
French revolution had aroused a more implacable enemy, against whom the
house of Orange would have needed all the troops it could summon to its
aid. The union of Holland and Belgium had been resolved on by the
powers at Paris in 1814, mainly for military reasons. Austria had been
unwilling to resume the heavy burden of guarding the Belgian Netherlands
and southern Germany against French aggression, and the powers had
consequently resolved on strengthening those smaller states on whom the
duty of resistance would fall. In these days, accustomed as we are to
the distinction between the Teutonic and Latin races, it might seem
reasonable that two countries in which the prevailing languages are low
German should be subject to the same government. But it was not yet
customary to turn the principles of comparative philology into arguments
for the rearrangement of political boundaries. The French language and
culture had moreover made considerable progress among the upper and
middle classes of Belgium, while religious differences alienated the
clergy from the house of Orange. In the states-general of the
Netherlands the Dutch had half the votes, and, as the Orange party was
strong in Antwerp and Ghent, commanded a majority. The fiscal system
adopted by the government favoured the Dutch rather than the Belgian
population. Dutchmen were generally preferred for state offices, and an
attempt to control the education of the clergy was deeply resented as an
attack on the Roman catholic religion. Belgium in consequence presented
the curious spectacle of the liberal and clerical parties working on the
same side, united against the Dutch government.
[Pageheading: _BELGIAN REVOLUTION._]
The example afforded by France turned a discontent which might have led
to local riots into a national conflagration. On August 25 there was a
rising of the populace at Brussels, which the troops proved unable to
quell. On the 27th it was suppressed by a body of burgher guards, a
volunteer force drawn from the _bourgeoisie_ of the town. The
_bourgeoisie_ finding themselves in possession of the Belgian capital,
at first presented a series of minor demands to the king, but on
September 3 they went the length of demanding a separate administration
for Belgium. The king undertook to lay this proposal before the states,
which assembled on the 13th. But before the states could come to any
conclusion the question had assumed a new aspect. All the leading towns
of Belgium had followed the example of Brussels by forming burgher
guards and had thus joined in the revolution; and on the 20th a fresh
rising of the populace of Brussels had overthrown the burgher guard and
instituted a provisional government. This was followed by an attempt on
the part of Prince Frederick of Orange, a younger son of the King of the
Netherlands, to occupy Brussels with a military force. After five days'
fighting he was compelled to retire, and when on the 30th the
states-general gave their consent to the proposal for a separate
administration, their decision fell upon deaf ears. All the Belgian
provinces were in revolt.
It was now clear to everybody that the national party in Belgium would
not consent even to a personal union with Holland. As the union of the
two countries formed a part of the treaty of Vienna, every European
power had a legal right to employ force to prevent its disruption, and
Russia and Prussia both desired active intervention. In France, on the
other hand, there was a loud popular demand for the reannexation of
Belgium to France, of which it had formed a part from 1794 to 1814.
Louis Philippe saw that he could not resist this demand if the Belgian
insurgents were coerced on the side of Prussia, and therefore announced
that Prussian aggression would be met by a French expedition to Belgium
to keep the balance even, until the question should be settled by a
congress of the powers. On September 25 Talleyrand had arrived in
England. He quickly obtained the adhesion of Wellington to the principle
of non-intervention. The duke had been among the first to grasp the fact
that reconciliation of Dutch and Belgians was impossible, and that the
intervention of the powers would necessitate a European war, to avoid
which the union of the two countries had originally been designed. He
agreed therefore to a separation of the countries on condition that
France should bind herself to observe the arrangements of the congress
of Vienna in 1815 and should take no separate action in Belgium.
On Talleyrand's suggestion it was decided to refer the question to the
conference already sitting in London for the purpose of settling the
Greek question, which would of course have to be reinforced by
representatives of Austria and Prussia for the present purpose. Molé,
the French foreign minister, would have preferred Paris as the seat of
the congress, but the King of the Netherlands absolutely refused to
entrust his cause to a conference meeting in a city where opinion ran so
strongly against him. On October 5 he made a formal appeal to the
powers for the aid guaranteed him by treaty, but the demand came too
late to induce Wellington to swerve from the policy of non-intervention,
and on November 4 the conference of London began its labours by
proposing an armistice in Belgium, which was accepted by both parties.
This left Maastricht and the citadel of Antwerp in the hands of Dutch
garrisons, and Luxemburg in the hands of a garrison supplied by the
German confederation. Every other place in Belgium was in the hands of
the insurgents. But the further solution of the question was reserved
for other hands. On the 3rd Louis Philippe was compelled to accept a
revolutionary ministry, and on the 22nd Wellington and Aberdeen had to
make way for a whig ministry with Grey as premier, and Palmerston as
foreign secretary.
The new foreign secretary had served a long political apprenticeship as
secretary at war in the successive administrations of Perceval,
Liverpool, Canning, Goderich, and Wellington, and under the three
last-mentioned premiers he had enjoyed a seat in the cabinet. It will be
remembered that he had been a warm champion of Greece, and had resigned
office along with Huskisson, Dudley, and Grant. He now returned in
company with Grant as a member of a whig cabinet. Although this change
of party involved the adoption of a domestic policy far removed from
Canning's, Palmerston's foreign policy remained rather Canningite than
whig. The interest and the honour of England ranked with Palmerston as
with Canning before all questions which concerned the maintenance of
European peace. But instead of Canning's versatile diplomacy he
displayed too often a reckless disregard of the susceptibilities of
foreign governments, and, if, like Canning, he lent the moral support of
Great Britain to the liberal party in every continental country, it was
not, as it had professedly been with Canning, because their success
would promote the interests of Great Britain, but because he had a
genuine sympathy with their cause. It is impossible to deny that in his
earlier years at least Palmerston's policy met with a success such as
Castlereagh and Wellington had not attempted to gain; real or imaginary
dangers at home left the foreign governments too weak to oppose the will
of the one strong man of the moment. Yet it is doubtful whether any
resultant benefits were not more than counterbalanced by the distrust
and ill-will with which the greater nations of Europe have learned to
regard the British government and people.
[Pageheading: _PROPOSED DIVISION OF THE NETHERLANDS._]
During the first few weeks of the new administration, the Belgian
question advanced far towards a settlement. On November 10 a Belgian
national congress assembled at Brussels; on the 18th it voted the
independence of Belgium; on the 22nd it resolved that the new state
should be a constitutional monarchy, and on the 24th it proclaimed the
total exclusion of the house of Nassau. Finally the outbreak of a Polish
insurrection at Warsaw made it clear that Prussia and Russia would be
too busily occupied in the east to be able to interfere effectively in
the Belgian question. On December 20 a protocol was signed at London by
the representatives of the five powers, providing for the separation of
Belgium from Holland. When however the protocol was sent to the tsar for
ratification, he would only ratify it subject to the condition that its
execution should depend on the consent of the King of the Netherlands.
Meanwhile the London conference was engaged in settling the boundary of
the new kingdom. For the most part it went on the principle of leaving
to Holland the districts that had belonged to the United Provinces
before the wars of the French revolution. The remainder of the kingdom
of the Netherlands, consisting chiefly of the former Austrian
Netherlands, but including also territories which had belonged to
France, Prussia, the Palatinate, the bishopric of Liège, and some minor
ecclesiastical states, was assigned to Belgium. An exception was,
however, made in the case of the grand duchy of Luxemburg. Luxemburg was
reputed to be, next to Gibraltar, the strongest fortress in Europe. It
was regarded as the key to the lower Rhine; it formed a part of the
German confederation, and was garrisoned by German troops. Although
Holland had no historical claim to its possession, the treaty of Vienna
granted it to the Dutch branch of the house of Nassau, as compensation
for its former possessions, merged in the duchy of Nassau; and it was
now felt that a place so important to the safety of Germany could not
safely be handed over to a state which seemed likely to fall under
French influence. The powers therefore determined that this duchy should
continue to belong to the king of the Netherlands.
There was also some difficulty over the apportionment of the debt.
Belgium was the more populous and the richer of the two countries, but
the greater part of the debt had been contracted by Holland before the
union. Belgium was, however, already responsible for its share of the
whole debt, and the powers can hardly be accused of injustice when they
determined to divide the debt in the proportion in which the
debt-charges had been borne in the three previous years, assigning
sixteen thirty-firsts to Belgium, and fifteen thirty-firsts to Holland.
Belgium was moreover to possess the right of trading with the Dutch
colonies and to contribute towards their defence. These provisions were
embodied in two protocols which were issued at London on January 20 and
27, 1831. As compared with the _status quo_ the Dutch were slightly the
gainers. The protocol permitted them to keep Maastricht and Luxemburg,
but required them to abandon the citadel of Antwerp; while the Belgians
were required to surrender those less important places which they had
occupied in Dutch Limburg and in the grand duchy of Luxemburg.
Talleyrand considered the present a favourable opportunity for claiming
for France the cession of Mariembourg and Philippeville which she had
been compelled to surrender to the kingdom of the Netherlands in 1815.
Palmerston, however, absolutely refused to hear of any extension of
French territory, for fear of imperilling the security of Europe. The
two protocols were accepted by Holland on February 13 but rejected by
Belgium. Though Talleyrand had signed the protocol of January 20, it was
repudiated by Sébastiani, the French foreign minister, on the ground
that the object of the conference was to effect a mediation, not to
dictate a settlement.
[Pageheading: _BELGIUM CHOOSES A KING._]
Meanwhile the national congress at Brussels had attempted to elect a
king. At first the most favoured candidate was Auguste Beauharnais, Duke
of Leuchtenberg, the grandson of Napoleon's first consort. Louis
Philippe naturally objected to the establishment on his frontier of a
prince so closely connected with the house of Bonaparte. The pliant
Belgians accordingly transferred their preference to the Duke of
Nemours, the second son of Louis Philippe. It was in vain that
Sébastiani declared that France could not allow such a selection, as it
would be interpreted by the powers as evidence of a French design to
reincorporate Belgium in France. On February 3, 1831, the Duke of
Nemours was actually elected king by the Belgian national congress. But
the conference of London had, two days earlier, adopted a resolution,
excluding from the Belgian throne all members of the reigning dynasties
of the five powers. Still there was a strong party in France, including
Laffitte, the revolutionary premier, who advocated the claims of
Nemours. Louis Philippe, however, stood firm on the side of European
peace, and on the 17th definitively declined the crown offered to his
son. The French now recommended the Prince of Naples, but the Belgians
declined to accept him, and on the 25th the national congress appointed
a regent to hold office till a king should be elected. On March 13 the
accession to office of an anti-revolutionary ministry in France rendered
the complete co-operation of the powers easier.
On April 17 France declared her adhesion to the protocol of January 20,
and by a new protocol the other four powers consented to the demolition
of some of the Belgian fortresses on the French frontier. Another
protocol of the same date ordered the Belgians to evacuate the grand
duchy of Luxemburg. On May 10 a further protocol even threatened Belgium
with the rupture of diplomatic relations in case she did not by June I
accept the protocol of January 20. But the powers soon adopted a more
conciliatory attitude. France and Great Britain desired that Prince
Leopold of Saxe-Coburg, who in the previous year had resigned the crown
of Greece, should now be offered that of Belgium. Prince Leopold would
not accept the crown so long as Belgium continued to defy the powers,
and on the other hand there was no chance of securing his election by
the Belgian congress unless he undertook to maintain the Belgian claim
to the possession of Luxemburg. Lord Ponsonby, the British minister at
Brussels, succeeded in inducing the London conference to sign a new
protocol, undertaking to negotiate with Holland for the cession of
Luxemburg to Belgium, in return for an indemnity elsewhere, provided
that Belgium should first accept the protocol of January 20. The Belgian
congress gathered that the acceptance of Prince Leopold was regarded by
the powers as more important than the maintenance of the terms of that
protocol, and they accordingly elected him as their king on June 4
without accepting the protocol. In answer to Dutch complaints Ponsonby
and General Belliard, the French minister, were recalled from Brussels
as the protocol of May 10 required. Leopold refused to accept the crown
until the conference should have offered better terms, and on the 26th
the conference signed another protocol, which differed from that of
January 20 in that it left the Luxemburg question open for future
negotiation, and rendered Holland liable for the whole of the debt that
it had incurred before the union of the two countries. On the same day
Leopold accepted the Belgian crown. The Belgian congress accepted this
last protocol on July 7, and on the 21st Leopold was proclaimed king,
and immediately recognised by Great Britain and France. The other great
powers were not long in following their example.
It was now Holland's turn to feel aggrieved. She refused to recognise
the changes proposed by the powers in the terms which she had already
accepted. On May 21 she had declared that if the protocol of January 20
were not accepted by June 1 she would consider herself free to act on
her own account, and on July 12 that the acceptance in Belgium of a king
who had not agreed to that protocol would be an act of hostility.
Feeling herself betrayed by the conference she gave notice on August 1
that the armistice which had existed since the previous November would
terminate on the 4th. It was soon seen how much Holland had lost in the
preceding year by being found in a state of military unpreparedness.
When hostilities began the Dutch carried everything before them. On the
8th the Belgians were routed at Hasselt, and on the 13th Leopold in
person was compelled to surrender Louvain. But Holland was now arrested
in the full tide of her success. The opportunity that French patriots
had long desired had presented itself, and Louis Philippe would only
have endangered his own throne if he had failed to come to the
assistance of Belgium against Holland. On the 4th he received Leopold's
appeal for assistance; on the 12th the first French division reached
Brussels, and on the following day the Prince of Orange, who led the
main Dutch army, received orders from the Hague to retire within the
Dutch frontier.
[Pageheading: _COERCION OF HOLLAND._]
The conference had in fact found it necessary to join in measures of
coercion. On the first news of the outbreak of hostilities it severely
reproached Holland for the breach of the armistice, and ordered the
Dutch forces to retire. By a protocol of the 6th it accepted and
justified the French expedition, which, it knew, could not safely be
recalled, and tried to minimise the danger by forbidding the French to
cross the Dutch frontier and requiring them to return to France as soon
as the Dutch should return to Holland. At the same time a semblance of
joint action was created by the despatch of a British fleet to the
Downs. If the Dutch invasion of Belgium created excitement in France,
the French expedition had a similar effect in England, and Palmerston
found it necessary to insist sternly on the immediate evacuation of
Belgium upon the withdrawal of the Dutch troops. The French government
naturally desired to point to some tangible triumph of French arms, and
requested that the troops should be allowed to remain till the frontier
fortresses should have been demolished in accordance with the protocol
of April 17. In a somewhat insulting message Palmerston threatened a
general war sooner than allow the French troops to remain. The most that
France could obtain was that 12,000 men might remain a fortnight longer
than the rest and that a number of French officers might enlist in the
Belgian service.
The conference now returned to the task of effecting a settlement in
accordance with the terms of the protocol of June 26. On October 15 it
provided for the partition of the grand duchy of Luxemburg between
Holland and Belgium and for the indemnification of Holland with a larger
portion of Limburg than had belonged to her in 1790. At the same time
provision was made for the freedom of the Scheldt, and the debt was
reassessed, 8,400,000 florins of _rentes_[136] being assigned to Belgium
and 19,300,000 to Holland. Along with this protocol a letter was sent to
the Belgian plenipotentiary, promising that if Belgium accepted it, the
powers would undertake to obtain the consent of Holland. The protocol
was converted into a treaty by the adhesion of Belgium on November 15.
Meanwhile the King of the Netherlands had appealed to the tsar against
the action of the western powers and of the Russian plenipotentiaries at
London, and the tsar had in consequence refused to ratify the treaty
till the King of the Netherlands should have given his consent. That
consent was slow in coming. It was only on June 30, 1832, that Holland
agreed to the exchange of territories and the reduction of Belgium's
share of the debt, and even then questions remained as to the dues on
the Scheldt and the transit of goods through Dutch Limburg. The Belgians
refused to negotiate further until the citadel of Antwerp should be
surrendered; the Dutch on the other hand refused to surrender it till a
definite treaty should be signed and ratified. On October 1 France, with
the approval of the British government, proposed to suspend the payment
of the Belgian share of the interest on the debt until the citadel of
Antwerp should be surrendered, and to deduct from the share of the
principal payable by Belgium, 500,000 florins of _rentes_ for each week
that should elapse before the surrender. The three eastern powers
refused to agree to any coercion of Holland, and, in consequence, Great
Britain and France determined to act alone.
On the 22nd they signed a convention providing for the coercion of
Holland by an embargo and by the despatch of a squadron to the Dutch
coast. If any Dutch troops should be still in Belgium on November 15, a
French force was empowered, subject to the consent of the Belgian
government, to advance into Belgium and expel the Dutch troops from the
country. The French were, however, to retire as soon as the Dutch
evacuation was complete. The first result of this convention was the
suspension of the conference. On the 29th the two powers made their
demand. As the Dutch refused compliance, a joint French and British
fleet sailed on November 4 to blockade the Scheldt, and the embargo was
proclaimed on the 6th. On the 15th a French army of 56,000 men,
commanded by Gérard, entered Belgium. On December 4 it opened fire on
the citadel of Antwerp, which surrendered after a nineteen days'
bombardment on the 23rd. The French army returned to its own country
before the end of the year, leaving the Dutch in possession of two small
forts on the Belgian side of the frontier, which were more than
compensated by the positions held by the Belgians in Dutch Limburg. Even
the fall of the citadel of Antwerp did not induce Holland to accept the
settlement proposed by the powers, and Great Britain and France now
attempted to effect a working agreement pending negotiations on the
details of the treaty. It was in vain that Holland asked that Belgium
should evacuate the Dutch provinces of Limburg and Luxemburg and pay
her share of the interest on the Dutch debt. Palmerston and Talleyrand
refused to include these provisions in a preliminary convention. Finally
on March 21, 1833, a convention was signed between Great Britain,
France, and Holland, which terminated the embargo and provided for the
free navigation of the Scheldt and Maas. A similar convention was signed
between Holland and Belgium on November 18. Six years, however, were to
elapse before the Dutch government would consent to the conditions drawn
up by the powers in 1831. Meanwhile the Belgians were free from their
share of debt, held the greater part of Limburg and Luxemburg, and
enjoyed the free navigation of the Maas and the Scheldt, over and above
the terms granted them in 1831.
[Pageheading: _POLISH REBELLION._]
It is inconceivable that the Belgian question should have been left so
entirely in the hands of the two western powers, and that the settlement
should have taken the form of a foreign coercion of a legitimate king
for his unreadiness to make concessions to his revolted subjects, had
not the attention of the three absolutist powers of eastern and central
Europe been directed to another quarter. Just as the revolution of 1820
had spread through southern Europe in spite of Castlereagh's attempt to
maintain that it was not of a contagious order, so that of 1830 awakened
similar outbursts not only at Brussels but in various German states, in
Switzerland, in Poland, and in Italy. The Polish insurrection was, like
the Belgian, a national revolt, and the consequent military operations
were of the nature of a war between Poland and Russia. The revolt broke
out at Warsaw on November 29, 1830, and on January 25, 1831, the Polish
diet proclaimed the independence of Poland. On February 5 a Russian army
crossed the Polish frontier. In France there was a loud popular demand
for intervention. But even the Laffitte ministry would not move without
the co-operation of Great Britain, though the French ambassador at
Constantinople tried to stir up the Porte to hostilities. The ministry
of Casimir-Perier, which came into office in March, proposed a joint
mediation of France and Great Britain, but to this Palmerston would not
assent. He remonstrated with Russia on her violations of the Polish
constitution, which Great Britain, along with the other powers, had
guaranteed at the congress of Vienna, but he could not support the
Polish claim to independence, since Great Britain had made herself a
party to the union of the two countries. As it happened, the
remonstrance was simply a cause of annoyance, which subsequent events
were destined to intensify. It was only on September 8, 1831, that the
Russians under Paskievitch captured Warsaw, an event which was followed
on February 26, 1832, by the abolition of the Polish constitution.
Palmerston protested again but with no more success than in the previous
year.
[Pageheading: _DOM MIGUEL AND DON CARLOS._]
In the Portuguese, as in the Belgian question, Palmerston drifted from
the position of a neutral into that of a partisan. Ever since the year
1828, British subjects accused of political offences had been brutally
ill-treated in Portugal, and as time went on the excesses increased. By
despatching six British warships to the Tagus Palmerston succeeded in
obtaining a pecuniary indemnity and a public apology on May 2, 1831.
Similar insults to France were not so readily redressed. A threat of
force on the part of the French government was followed by an appeal
from Dom Miguel for British assistance. This Palmerston refused to
grant, and in July a French squadron under Admiral Roussin forced the
passage of the Tagus, and carried off the best ships of the Portuguese
navy. Meanwhile much irritation had been caused in Brazil by Peter's
advocacy of his daughter's claim to Portugal, which was considered
inconsistent with his professed adherence to the separation of the two
countries. On April 6, Peter abdicated the crown of Brazil in favour of
his infant son, Peter II., and on the following day sailed for Europe in
order to assert his daughter's right to the Portuguese throne. He
arrived in Europe towards the end of May, and visited both England and
France.
Though neither government assisted him directly, he was permitted to
raise troops and even to secure the services of naval officers, and in
December a force of 300 men sailed from Liverpool to Belleisle, which he
had appointed as the rendezvous. Palmerston had thus, unlike Wellington,
adopted the same attitude towards the Portuguese liberals that Ferdinand
VII. had adopted towards the absolutists. Peter's expedition gathered
further strength at the Azores and sailed for Portugal on June 27, 1832.
On July 8, the fleet, commanded by Admiral Sartorius, a British officer,
appeared off Oporto, which submitted on the following day. The town was,
however, blockaded by Miguel's forces and Peter's cause made no headway
until in June, 1833, the command of the fleet was transferred to Captain
(afterwards Admiral Sir Charles) Napier. On the night of June 24, he
landed at Villa Real a force of 2,500 men who conquered the province of
Algarve in a week, and on July 5 he annihilated Miguel's navy in an
engagement off Cape St. Vincent. After a further battle near Lisbon,
Peter's forces entered the capital on the 24th, and subsequently
repulsed a Miguelite attack upon the city. Miguel still held out in
northern Portugal, when another train of events caused the western
powers to substitute direct for indirect interference.
Ferdinand VII. of Spain had fallen so entirely under the influence of
his fourth and last queen, Maria Christina of Naples, as to repeal by a
pragmatic sanction the Salic law which the treaty of Utrecht had
established as the rule of succession in Spain. The result of this edict
was to leave the succession to his infant daughter Isabella instead of
his brother Don Carlos, the leader of the Spanish absolutists. When
Ferdinand died on September 29, 1833, Don Carlos was absent from the
kingdom, supporting the cause of his fellow-pretender Dom Miguel.
Isabella received the hearty support of the constitutional party and was
almost universally acknowledged as queen. It was only in Biscay, where
the centralising tendency of the Spanish constitution, published on
April 10, 1834, seemed to entrench upon local liberty, that Don Carlos
met with much active support. His cause, like that of Miguel in
Portugal, was the more popular, but his adherents were as yet almost
entirely devoid of organisation. Peter's partisans had already made
substantial progress towards a complete victory, and Santha Martha, the
Miguelite commander-in-chief, had surrendered in the beginning of April,
when on April 22 a triple alliance, already signed between Great
Britain, Maria Christina, Queen-regent of Spain, and Peter, as regent of
Portugal, was converted into a quadruple alliance by the adhesion of
France. This treaty provided for the co-operation of Spain and Portugal
to expel Dom Miguel and Don Carlos from the Portuguese dominions. Great
Britain was to assist by the employment of a naval force, and France was
to render assistance, if required, in such manner as should be settled
afterwards by common consent of the four contracting powers. The Spanish
general, Rodil, immediately crossed the frontier. He met with no
resistance, and on May 26 Miguel signed a convention at Evora, by which
he accepted a pension, renounced his rights to the Portuguese throne,
and agreed to quit the country.
[Pageheading: _THE CARLIST WAR._]
Don Carlos, however, refused to renounce his rights to the Spanish
throne, and all that the British navy could do was to convey the two
pretenders, Carlos to England and Miguel to Genoa. Although Miguel, on
June 20, repudiated his abdication, the Portuguese question was really
at an end. The Spanish question was, however, merely entering on its
critical stage. Don Carlos secretly left London on July 1, and nine days
later appeared at the Carlist headquarters in Spain. Here he had the
assistance of the ablest general of this war, Zumalacarregui.
Melbourne's succession to the premiership in July left Palmerston at the
foreign office, and was followed by no change in foreign policy. On
August 18 an additional article to the quadruple alliance provided that
France was to prevent reinforcements or warlike stores from reaching Don
Carlos from the French side of the frontier, while Great Britain was to
supply arms and stores to the Spanish royalists and, if necessary,
intervene with a naval force. The short interlude of conservative
government, with Peel as premier and Wellington as foreign secretary,
was not marked by any change of policy nor yet by any new aggressions.
Wellington's only interference with the course of hostilities was the
mission of Lord Eliot to Navarre, which induced the combatants to
abandon for the time being those cruelties to prisoners which had been
the disgrace of the Spanish civil wars.
Shortly after the return of Melbourne and Palmerston to power,
Zumalacarregui won a victory in the valley of Amascoas on April 21 and
22, 1835, which opened to him the road to Madrid. The Madrid government
now appealed to France to send 12,000 men to occupy the Basque
provinces. By the terms of the quadruple alliance the assent of Great
Britain and Portugal was necessary in order to determine the manner in
which France was to render assistance. Thiers, on behalf of Louis
Philippe, suggested a separate French expedition on the lines of that of
1823. Palmerston, like Canning before him, refused to sanction such an
expedition, though he was prepared to allow France to make the
expedition on her own responsibility. He suggested in return that Great
Britain should intervene. But Louis Philippe was equally opposed to the
separate action of his own country and of Great Britain, and the result
was that neither government sent any troops. The Spanish government was,
however, permitted to enlist volunteers, and actually received the
assistance of an English legion, a French legion, and 6,000 Portuguese.
The immediate danger was averted by the obstinacy of Don Carlos, who
refused to permit Zumalacarregui to march on Madrid till the conquest of
Biscay was complete. The Carlist general turned aside in consequence to
the siege of Bilbao, in which a few weeks later he met his death.
In February, 1836, some changes in the French ministry increased the
power of Thiers, who had so recently advocated the policy of
intervention. Palmerston now proposed a French expedition to the Basque
provinces, while the British were to occupy St. Sebastian and Pasages.
Thiers did not, however, feel strong enough to accept this offer, and
Palmerston determined to act alone. A British squadron under Lord John
Hay was despatched to the Spanish coast with instructions to assist the
royalist forces. This squadron is probably entitled to the principal
share in the credit for the successful resistance of Bilbao to the
Carlist armies. In May, however, a conservative government entered upon
office in Spain, and France became more ready to grant assistance.
Isturiz, the new Spanish premier, persuaded Louis Philippe to send some
troops to Spain; but by leaning on foreign support Isturiz had
overreached himself. Spanish indignation found vent in a revolutionary
movement, accompanied by bloodshed; one town after another declared for
the constitution of 1812, which the queen-regent was forced to sign on
August 13, and on the following day a progressist ministry was installed
in office. Austria, Prussia, and Russia withdrew their ambassadors from
Madrid after the riots of the 13th, and Louis Philippe recalled the
forces he had sent to the assistance of the Spanish government. Had Don
Carlos listened to the advice of the eastern powers and given such
assurances as might have won over the more moderate of Isabella's
supporters, he would probably have proved successful. As it was the war
dragged on, but De Lacy Evans, who was in command of the British legion,
left Spain on June 10, 1837, and most of his men followed soon after.
The question of intervention had, however, put an end to that cordial
co-operation of Great Britain and France which had existed ever since
the July revolution, and left Great Britain as isolated in the counsels
of Europe as she had been when Canning and Wellington dissociated
themselves from the other powers at Verona.
The settlement of the Greek question proceeded very slowly. While the
powers were seeking a possible king, Capodistrias exercised an
autocratic sway as president. However, in the spring of 1831, the
Mainots of southern Laconia and the Hydriots revolted against him, and
got possession of the Greek fleet. Capodistrias appealed to Russia for
assistance, and a Russian squadron was sent to blockade the Greek fleet
at Poros. But Miaoulis, the Greek admiral, sank his ships in order to
save them from the Russians. The situation was simplified by the
assassination of Capodistrias on October 9, which left two rival
national assemblies struggling for the mastery. The French troops failed
to maintain order, and the way was clear for a king who would have the
prestige of an international treaty and an independent revenue to
support his position. This was the situation when on February 13, 1832,
a protocol was signed at London, offering the Greek crown to Otto, the
second son of King Lewis of Bavaria, a boy of seventeen. The boundary
was to be fixed where Palmerston, while still a member of the Wellington
administration, had wished to fix it, along a line running from the Gulf
of Arta to that of Volo. King Lewis would not, however, agree to accept
the crown for his son unless he should be granted the title of king,
instead of prince, and should be guaranteed a loan to enable him to meet
the expenses of his position. On May 7, 1832, the London protocol was
embodied in a treaty of London; the crown was definitely conferred on
Otto, who was given the title of king, guaranteed a loan, not exceeding
£2,400,000, and allowed to take out 3,500 Bavarian troops with him. The
Turkish consent to the proposed boundary was given on July 21; Greece
accepted the treaty in August, and the new king left for his kingdom in
December.[137]
[Pageheading: _VICTORIES OF IBRAHIM._]
Greece now disappears from the eastern question. But Ibrahim Pasha,
whose successes in Greece had induced Canning to interfere, had already
disclosed a new phase of that question by successes gained in another
quarter. Mehemet Ali had quickly repaired the losses which his fleet and
army had sustained in the Peloponnese. Meanwhile he demanded from
Sultan Mahmud that Ibrahim should be compensated with a part of Syria
for the loss of the Morea, which had been promised him as a reward for
his services in Greece. The sultan refused to grant this insolent
demand, and Mehemet Ali determined to conquer the province for himself.
Abdallah, Pasha of Acre, had taken under his protection some fugitive
peasants, and Mehemet Ali, in spite of the sultan's prohibition, sent
Ibrahim with an army of 30,000 men against him. He laid siege to Acre on
December 9, 1831, and took it on May 27, 1832. On July 8 he routed a
Turkish army at Homs; on the 29th he routed a larger army at the pass of
Beilan, and on the 31st he entered Antioch. In November he was at
Konieh. The Tsar Nicholas had, with Palmerston's approval, already sent
Lieutenant-General Muraviov on a mission to Constantinople, offering
military and naval support; but the sultan preferred to seek British
assistance first.
Unfortunately the message came at a time when the British fleet was
preparing to blockade the coasts of the Netherlands, and could not be
spared for service In the Mediterranean. An appeal to France was equally
unsuccessful. She had by this time formed the siege of the citadel of
Antwerp, and was moreover naturally averse from a struggle with Ibrahim,
whose army had been organised and trained by French officers. The sultan
therefore decided to avail himself of the offers made by Russia. Indeed
he had no choice, for the news now came that on December 21 Ibrahim had
completely defeated the Turkish general, Reshid, at Konieh and that
there was no army between him and Constantinople. Muraviov was sent on a
vain mission to Alexandria with authority to cede Acre to Mehemet Ali if
he would surrender his fleet to the sultan. Ibrahim advanced to Kiutayeh
and his advance-guard came as far as Broussa. The sultan on February 2,
1833, requested the assistance of the Russian navy, and on the 20th a
Russian squadron appeared at Constantinople.
The powers that had refused to move to save Turkey from Ibrahim were
quick enough to interfere when the danger was from Russia and not from
an oriental. Ibrahim might have been expected to make a stronger ruler
than the sultan, whose fall seemed imminent. A Russian protectorate was
a different matter. Roussin, the French ambassador at Constantinople,
protested against the Russian alliance and threatened to leave
Constantinople. A French envoy was, at his suggestion, permitted to
offer Mehemet the governorship of the Syrian pashaliks of Tripoli and
Acre. On March 8 Mehemet rejected these terms, and declared that if his
own terms were not accepted within six weeks his troops would march upon
Constantinople. The sultan then turned to Russia again and asked for
troops. Fifteen thousand Russians were in consequence landed on the
shores of the Bosphorus, and in the beginning of April an army of
24,000, which had remained in Moldavia ever since the war of 1828-29,
prepared to march southwards. Constantinople at least was thus rendered
safe from Ibrahim, and there was therefore more hope that Mehemet would
come to terms. The British, French, and Austrian ambassadors spared no
effort to induce the Porte to offer terms that might be accepted, and
their representations were probably rendered the more persuasive by the
appearance of British and French fleets in the Ægean. Roussin especially
urged that it was better to surrender Syria than to reconquer it by
Russian troops. At last the sultan yielded, and on April 10 a peace was
signed at Kiutayeh, though not ratified by the sultan till May 15. This
treaty granted to Mehemet Ali Syria and Cilicia, but restored the bulk
of Asia Minor to the Porte.
[Pageheading: _CONFERENCE OF MÜNCHENGRÄTZ._]
Turkey had been saved by the western powers, but only because they
dreaded the possibility of her being saved by Russia. A few weeks later
their worst fears seemed on the point of realisation. The Russian troops
on the Bosphorus were a sure guarantee of the predominance of Russian
influence at Constantinople, and this was illustrated in a marked degree
by the treaty of Unkiar Skelessi, signed on July 8, which provided for a
defensive alliance for eight years between Russia and the Porte. Russia
was, when required, to provide the sultan with both military and naval
forces, to be provisioned by him, but otherwise maintained by Russia. A
secret article, soon made known, provided that Russia would not ask for
material aid if at war, but that in that event the Porte would close the
Dardanelles to the warships of other nations. Great Britain had already
obtained the rights of the most favoured nation, so far as the passage
of the Dardanelles was concerned, and therefore maintained that the
treaty did not affect her right to pass those straits; and France
joined her in presenting identical notes declaring their intention of
ignoring the treaty in event of war. British public opinion, already
wounded by the conquest of Poland, was even more vehemently affected
than British policy. The treaty was regarded as the establishment in
Turkey of a Russian protectorate, which it was necessary for Great
Britain to destroy, and the antagonism thus produced has lasted to our
own day. Matters were not improved when the tsar asked for the cession
of the Danubian principalities, which were still occupied by Russia, in
return for a remission of the war indemnity owing since 1829. Austria,
France, and Great Britain protested against this proposal, and in
consequence nothing came of it.
Austria then assumed the _rôle_ of mediator. A friendly request for
explanation elicited a declaration from Russia, disclaiming all
intention of self-aggrandisement, and promising to accept the mediation
of Austria in any case where the treaty could be invoked. Austria in
consequence endeavoured to persuade the western powers that there was no
immediate danger, and that she would use her mediation to remove any
danger that might arise. Meanwhile she endeavoured to allay distrust of
Russia by inducing that power to evacuate the Danubian principalities.
But before this result could be accomplished the negotiations between
Austria and Russia had taken a turn which gave Austria, in English eyes,
the appearance of an accomplice rather than of a mediator. The
revolutionary movements of 1830 and following years had produced grave
apprehensions in the minds of the rulers of the three eastern powers,
Austria, Prussia, and Russia; and the coercion of Holland and Portugal
caused them to feel a deep distrust of the policy of Great Britain and
France, and to grasp the necessity of united action against the
revolutionary forces at work in Europe. For this purpose it was
considered necessary to revive Metternich's policy of 1820 as defined at
Troppau. The three powers had for some time been drawing together, and
in September, 1833, the Emperors Francis and Nicholas and the Crown
Prince of Prussia met at Münchengrätz in Bohemia, where a secret
convention was signed on the 18th. They refused to recognise Isabella as
Queen of Spain in the event of Ferdinand's death; they arranged for
mutual assistance against the Poles; and agreed to combine to resist
any change of dynasty in Turkey and any extension of Arab rule into
Europe. In the event of a collapse of the Ottoman empire, Austria and
Russia were to act together in settling the reversion. On October 15 the
three powers signed a further convention at Berlin, containing one
public and two secret articles. The latter recognised the right, already
asserted at Troppau, of intervention in the internal affairs of a
country whose sovereign expressed a desire for foreign assistance. There
can be little doubt that Austria and Russia were in earnest in their
professed desire to maintain the integrity of the Turkish dominions, but
an opinion gained ground in England that they had already agreed to
partition them between themselves.
On January 29, 1834, Austrian mediation bore fruit in a definite treaty
for the evacuation of the Danubian principalities. Russia merely
reserved to herself the appointment of the first hospodar of each
principality. The first act, however, of Alexander Ghika, the new
hospodar of Wallachia, was to forbid any change of statute without the
consent of Russia. Silistria alone remained in Russian hands till a
third part of the indemnity should be paid. The remaining two-thirds
Russia consented to abandon. A revolt among the Syrian mountaineers gave
Russia an opportunity of demonstrating her pacific intentions. The
sultan supported the revolt and also sent troops to conquer Urfa which
Ibrahim had neglected to surrender. Russia, however, refused to support
the sultan in an aggressive war, and the powers negotiated a peace. The
Syrian revolt was quelled, and Urfa surrendered to the sultan. In 1835
the Tsar Nicholas and the new Austrian emperor, Ferdinand, met at
Teplitz where they renewed the agreements concluded at Münchengrätz.
Metternich proposed a conference at Vienna to settle the eastern
question, but the tsar, who really possessed the decisive voice so long
as the question remained open, refused to hear of this. Finally in
September, 1836, the Russian evacuation of Silistria was obtained by a
payment of 30,000,000 piastres, borrowed, for the most part, in England.
The Eastern question now seemed to have entered upon a quieter phase,
and the military reforms which European officers, including Moltke,
afterwards famous in a different region, were carrying out in Turkey,
gave promise that she might be able to hold her own in future against
domestic foes.
FOOTNOTES:
[136] The debt was, according to the French practice, expressed in terms
of the interest payable annually (_rentes_), not in terms of a nominal
principal as in this country.
[137] Finlay, _History of Greece_, vol. vii., chapters ii., iii.
CHAPTER XIX.
BRITISH INDIA.
When Pitt resigned office in 1801, the Marquis Wellesley had already
reached the climax, though by no means the close, of his brilliant
proconsulate. This remarkable man, whose fame has been unduly eclipsed
by that of his younger brother, may justly be considered the second
founder of our Indian Empire. This empire, recognised at last, in the
vote of thanks passed by the house of commons on the fall of
Seringapatam, was soon to be aggrandised by three important accessions
of dominion. The first of these was the annexation of the Karnátik on
the well-founded plea that its nabob was too weak even for the semblance
of independence, that he was incapable of governing tolerably, and that
he had been in correspondence with Tipú. The effect of this and two
minor annexations was to place the entire south-western and
south-eastern coasts of the Indian peninsula under the British rule. The
next step was the system of subsidiary treaties, whereby the British
government assumed a protectorate over native states, providing a fixed
number of troops for their defence and receiving an equivalent in
subsidies. The Nizám of Haidarábád was already in a condition little
removed from vassalage, and now surrendered considerable districts in
lieu of a pecuniary tribute.
A similar course was taken with the Nawáb Wazír of Oudh whose territory
was threatened on one side by the Afghán king, Zemán Sháh, and on
another by the Maráthá lord, Daulat Ráo Sindhia, who had gained
possession of Delhi. By forcible negotiations Wellesley obtained from
him the cession of all his frontier provinces, including Rohilkhand, and
consolidated the power of the Indian government along the whole line of
the Jumna and Ganges. The last and greatest object of the
governor-general's ambition was the conquest of the confederate Maráthá
states, and for this a pretext was not long wanting. His forward policy,
it is true, had already excited alarm and criticism at home, while the
peace of Amiens had ostensibly removed the chief justification of
it--the necessity of combating the aggressive designs of France. But, in
the case of India, far more than of the American colonies, "months
passed and seas rolled between the order and the execution"; for in
those days ships conveying despatches occupied at least four or five
months on their voyage, and decisions taken in Leadenhall Street might
be utterly stultified by accomplished facts before they could be read in
Calcutta.
[Pageheading: _WELLESLEY AND LAKE._]
The Peshwá, at Poona, still maintained a show of independent authority
over the other great Maráthá chieftains, Sindhia, Holkar, and the Rájá
of Nágpur or Berár. But the real military power of the Maráthás rested
with these leaders, and their predatory troops of horsemen terrorised
all Central India. Happily for Wellesley's purpose, they were often at
feud with each other, and the Peshwá, though aided by Sindhia, was
utterly defeated by Jaswant Ráo Holkar. He fled to Bassein near Bombay,
where, on December 31, 1802, a treaty was signed by which not only the
Peshwá but the Nizám of Haidarábád was placed under British protection.
The Peshwá was conducted back to Poona by a British force under Arthur
Wellesley in May, 1803, but the other Maráthá chiefs naturally resented
this fresh encroachment on their independence, and a league was shortly
formed between the Rájá of Nágpur and Sindhia, which it was hoped that
Holkar would ultimately join. By this time, a rupture of the peace with
France was known to be impending, and Lord Wellesley eagerly seized the
opportunity to crush Sindhia, while he urged the home government to
seize the Cape of Good Hope and the Mauritius. Two expeditions were
directed against Sindhia's territory, the one under Arthur Wellesley,
moving from Poona in the west towards the Nizám's frontier; the other,
under General Lake, operating on the north-west against the highly
trained forces, under French officers, assembled before Delhi. Both
campaigns were eminently successful. Wellesley captured Ahmadnagar on
August 11, encountered the combined armies of Sindhia and the Rájá of
Nágpur at Assaye on September 23, and, after a desperate conflict,
obtained a decisive victory. Twelve hundred of the Maráthás were left
dead on the field and 102 guns were captured. He then advanced into
Berár and completely defeated the army of the Nágpur Rájá at Argáum.
Lake marched from Cawnpur, took Delhi and Agra, assuming custody of the
Mughal emperor, and inflicted a final defeat on a powerful Maráthá army,
no longer under French officers, at Laswári. Large cessions of territory
followed. The treaty of Bassein was recognised by Sindhia and the Rájá
of Nágpur. Gujrát, Cuttack, and the districts along the Jumna passed
into British possession, and the East India Company became the visible
successor, though nominally the guardian, of the Mughal emperor.
Meanwhile, Holkar remained a passive spectator of the contest. Jealous
as he was of Sindhia, he was by no means prepared to acquiesce in the
subjection of the great Maráthá power. Having taken up a threatening
position in Rájputána, and defied Lake's summons to retire, he was
treated as an enemy, and proved a very formidable enemy. Instead of
relying, like Sindhia, on disciplined battalions, he fell back on the
old Maráthá tactics, and swept the country with hordes of irregular
cavalry who lived by pillage. In 1804 a British force of 1,200 troops
under Colonel Monson was lured away from its base of supplies by a
feigned retreat and incurred a very serious reverse; scarcely a tenth of
them, utterly broken, "straggled, a mere rabble, into Agra". This
disaster was soon afterwards retrieved by other divisions of Lake's
army, but three attempts to storm the strong fortress of Bhartpur were
repulsed by the rájá, Ranjít Singh, an ally of Holkar. Though Holkar's
bands were at last dispersed, a new dispute arose with Sindhia about the
ownership of Gwalior and Gohad, which remained unsettled when Lord
Wellesley resigned early in 1805, not so much because his policy was
disapproved by the court of directors, for whom he always professed a
sovereign contempt, as because he was no longer cordially supported by
the home government.
In his despatch to the secret committee of the East India Company after
the conclusion of the war with Sindhia, Wellesley describes the
consolidation of the British empire and the pacification of all India,
as the supreme result of his beneficent rule.[138] That rule was
followed by ten years of comparative repose, if not of reaction, but two
events, occurring within this period, threw a significant light on the
inherent danger of relying too much on a native army under British
officers. Sepoy regiments had been raised and had served loyally on both
sides in the struggles between the French and English during the
eighteenth century. The Bengal sepoys were mostly Rájputs and showed the
highest military qualities in many a wearisome march and hard fought
field, from the days of Clive to those of Lake and Arthur Wellesley. But
outbreaks bordering upon mutiny had occasionally taken place in the
native armies of all the presidencies, and on July 10, 1806, a most
formidable mutiny, ending in a massacre at Vellore, west of Madras,
produced a sense of insecurity throughout all India. It was instigated
by the family of Tipú who had been quartered in that fortress, and its
immediate origin was the issue of certain vexatious regulations about
uniform which offended native prejudices of caste. The European force,
numbering some 370, was surprised and surrounded by a much larger body
of sepoys, half of them were killed or wounded, and Tipú's standard was
hoisted. Within a few hours, however, cavalry and artillery arrived from
Arcot, the mutineers were slaughtered by hundreds, and the disaffected
regiments were broken up. Three years later, a serious mutiny broke out
among the company's own officers at Madras, caused by a petty grievance
affecting their profits on tent-contracts. It was appeased rather than
suppressed, and, notwithstanding these discouraging symptoms of
insecurity, the Company's army retained its separate organisation for
half a century longer.
[Pageheading: _MINTO'S PACIFIC POLICY._]
Lord Cornwallis, the successor of Lord Wellesley, was opposed by
conviction to a progressive expansion of British territory, and
represented not only the cautious views of the home government, but the
financial anxieties of the East India Company, which always valued a
steady revenue more highly than imperial supremacy. Wellesley had
virtually reconstructed the map of India on lines destined to endure
until a fresh period of annexation set in some forty years later. These
lines were not disturbed by Cornwallis, who died on October 5, 1805,
three months after his arrival, but he clearly indicated his desire to
let the system of protectorates and subsidiary treaties fall gradually
into abeyance. His correspondence with Lake, whose victories had won him
the rank of baron, contains a somewhat peremptory warning against fresh
engagements contemplated by that enterprising officer, whose vigorous
remonstrance he did not live to receive.[139] Sir George Barlow, who
became acting governor-general for two years, adopted the same passive
attitude, and forebore to carry out a projected alliance with Sindhia,
though he would not allow any interference with our paramount influence
at Poona and Haidarábád. Lord Minto, father of the Earl of Minto who
presided at the admiralty under Melbourne, arrived as governor-general
in 1807. He was imbued with similar ideas, and was fortunate in finding
the Maráthás too much weakened to be dangerous neighbours. His rule was,
therefore, essentially pacific, but he did good service in maintaining
internal order, and especially in putting down the organised brigandage,
known as "dakáiti," which had been the curse of rural districts. The
distinctive feature of his career, however, was a permanent enlargement
of the horizon of Indian statesmanship to a sphere beyond the confines
of India and even of Asia, a change due to new movements in the vast
international conflict then engrossing the energies of Europe.
However chimerical the designs of Napoleon against British India may now
appear, there is no doubt that such designs were seriously entertained
by him, nor is it self-evident that what Alexander the Great found
possible would have proved impossible to one who combined with
Alexander's superhuman audacity the command of resources beyond anything
known in the ancient world. At all events, after the battle of Friedland
and the peace of Tilsit, an expedition to be launched from Russian
territory upon the north-west frontier of India, with the support of
Persia on the flank, became a contingency which an Indian
governor-general could not afford to neglect. It is, indeed, strange
that a march across Europe and half of Asia should have appeared to
Napoleon more practicable than a voyage across the English Channel, and
it is highly improbable that he would have cherished the idea of it, if
he could have foreseen the perils of the Russian expedition. But his
conversations at St. Helena prove that it was not a mere vision but a
half-formed design, and, even after it had been discouraged by Russia,
he sent a preliminary mission to Persia. Minto lost no time in sending
counter-missions, not only to Tihran, but to Lahore, Afghánistán, and
Sind.
The Persian court was already in diplomatic relations with the Indian
government. Colonel Malcolm, afterwards Sir John Malcolm, had been sent
by Wellesley as envoy to the sháh at the end of 1800, and in January,
1801, a treaty had been signed, establishing free trade between India
and Persia, and binding the sháh to exclude the French from his
dominions, while the company undertook to provide ships, troops, and
stores, in case of French invasion. This treaty, however, neither was
nor could have been actively carried out on either side. Early in 1806
the sháh, who had become embroiled with Russia, appealed to Calcutta for
aid, regardless of the fact that hostilities with Russia were not a
_casus foederis_. Failing to obtain it, he appealed to France.
Napoleon despatched General Gardane, who arrived in December, 1807. He
obtained a treaty under which the sháh engaged to banish all Englishmen
on demand of the French emperor. Thereupon Malcolm was entrusted by
Minto with a fresh mission, but never reached the Persian capital, where
French influence was still paramount, and the peremptory tone of
Malcolm's letters was resented. Meanwhile, Sir Harford Jones had been
sent out by the British foreign office, and was received at Tihran in
February, 1809, the peace of Tilsit having destroyed the Persian hope of
French support against Russia. For a while, the right of negotiating
with the sháh was in dispute between the Indian government and the
foreign office, and Sir John Malcolm reappeared at Tihran in the spring
of 1810, as the representative of the former. In the end, however, he
co-operated loyally with Jones, and a fresh treaty was signed, though
both these rival emissaries were soon afterwards superseded by Sir Gore
Ouseley as permanent ambassador.
[Pageheading: _ELPHINSTONE IN AFGHÁNISTÁN._]
Two other envoys selected by Minto left names which are famous in
Anglo-Indian history, and one achieved an important success. Charles
Metcalfe, Minto's envoy to Lahore, succeeded with the advantage of an
armed force within easy reach of the Sikh frontier, in converting into
an ally the redoubtable Ranjít Singh (not to be confounded with Ranjít
Singh of Bhartpur), who had gathered into his own hands the Sikh
confederacy and acquired sovereignty over the whole Punjab. He was now
induced not only to accept the Sutlej river as the boundary line of his
dominion, but to conclude a treaty of perpetual amity with the British
government. This treaty remained unbroken until his death, and stood us
in good stead during the perilous crisis of the first Afghán war. The
embassy of Mountstuart Elphinstone to Afghánistán was comparatively
fruitless, chiefly owing to the unsettled state of that mysterious
country. Sháh Shujá, its titular amír, so far from being in a condition
to resist French invasion, had lost possession of Kábul and Kandahár,
and was only anxious to obtain British aid against his elder brother
Mahmúd. Elphinstone, of course, had no authority to entangle the Company
in a civil war far beyond the Indian frontier and was obliged to content
himself with a worthless treaty empowering Great Britain to defend
Afghánistán against France. This treaty had scarcely been ratified when
Sháh Shujá himself was driven into exile, to play an ignoble part thirty
years later in the great tragedy of the first Afghán war.
However pacific Minto's policy was, he did not shut his eyes to the
necessity of guarding the coasts and commerce of India against the enemy
who still dominated Europe, and had not wholly abandoned his visions of
eastern conquest. We have seen already that the "half way" naval station
at the Cape of Good Hope had been retaken from the Dutch in 1806, the
year in which the Berlin decree was issued. In 1810 the French were
expelled from Java by an expedition despatched under Minto's orders,
though it was soon to be restored to Holland. In the same year the
islands of Mauritius and Bourbon were captured from the French and the
sea route to India was finally secured. Lord Minto, who was recalled in
1813 and raised to the dignity of an earl, left India after six years of
peaceful government in a state of tranquillity such as it had never
before enjoyed, and the settlement of the country under British
suzerainty appeared to have been assured. Yet the seeds of fresh trouble
were already working, and his successor was to prove himself a second
Wellesley, and add new territories of great extent to British India.
Lord Moira, better known by his later title as Marquis of Hastings,
displayed qualities as governor-general of which his previous career had
given no indication. He had already proved himself a good soldier, but
he was a court favourite as well as a somewhat impracticable politician,
and owed his appointment to other influences than his own merit. His
arrival in India nearly coincided with the charter of 1813, which threw
open the India trade, and virtually ushered in a new social era. He was
at once confronted with an empty treasury, on the one hand, and, on the
other, with alarming reports both from the northern frontier and from
the central provinces, still under independent princes of doubtful
fidelity. The earlier part of his nine years' residence in India was
engrossed by most harassing operations against the Nepálís and the
Pindárís, but these operations resulted in perfect success, and Hastings
was able to show before he left India that he was eminent alike in civil
and in military administration.
The mountainous region of Nepál, lying on the slopes of the Himálayas
north of Bengal and Oudh, had been occupied by the warlike nation, still
known as the Gúrkhas, whose capital was at Khátmándu. Like the Maráthás,
they had been in the habit of pillaging British territory as well as
Oudh, and when part of Oudh was annexed by Wellesley, frontier disputes
were added to former grounds of hostility. Minto remonstrated with them
sharply but in vain, and Moira lost no time in declaring war against
them. The first campaign of 1814, which followed, though skilfully
conceived by Moira, who held the office of commander-in-chief, was
carried out with little generalship, and was marked by disasters highly
damaging to British prestige. Three out of four armies launched against
the hill-tribes met with serious reverses, chiefly due to a contempt for
the enemy, and a persistence in making frontal assaults on strong
positions without practicable breaches, which have proved so fatal in
many a later conflict between British troops and undisciplined foes.
During the cold season, however, on the extreme north-west, the cautious
but irresistible advance of General Ochterlony penetrated the hill
ranges which had baffled all the other commanders, and retrieved the
fortunes of the war. The Gúrkhas were far, indeed, from being subdued,
but Ochterlony's success among their strongest fastnesses, aided by
that of Colonels Gardner and Nicholls in the district of Kumáun,
induced them to sue for peace, and offer territorial cessions. The loss
of the Tarái, or belt of forest interspersed with pastures at the foot
of the Himálayas, was the most onerous of the conditions imposed upon
them by the treaty of Almora, signed in 1815. Rather than submit to it,
the Gúrkha chiefs refused to ratify the treaty, and resumed their arms.
After two defeats, however, in February, 1816, they abandoned further
resistance, and Moira afterwards wisely consented to a modification of
the frontier-line. Retaining but a remnant of their dominions in the
lowlands, the Gúrkhas have ever since preserved their independence with
their military training in the highlands, and have contributed some of
the best fighting material to the British army in India.
[Pageheading: _THE PINDÁRÍS._]
While the war in Nepál was still undecided, fresh troubles broke out in
Central India, where Wellesley's settlement had left no permanent
security for peace. The very submission of the great Maráthá powers had
set free large bands of irregular troops, with no livelihood but
pillage, and ever ready, like the Italian _condottieri_ of the later
middle ages, to enlist in the service of any aggressive state. These
mounted freebooters, now called the Pindárís, were secretly encouraged
by the Maráthá chiefs, who looked upon them as useful auxiliaries in the
future, either against the government of India or against other native
princes. Several of these still remained in a more or less dependent but
restless condition, and the great leaders of the Maráthá confederacy,
Sindhia, Malhár Ráo Holkar, son and successor of Jaswant Ráo, the
Peshwá, and the Rájá of Nágpur, retained a large share of their former
sovereignty. Of these subject-allies, the one most directly under
British guidance and protection was the Peshwá, but even he took
advantage of hostile movements among his neighbours to join in a
combination against British rule, supported by the predatory raids of
the Pindárís. He had long been discontented with the subordinate
position which he had occupied since the treaty of Bassein. The
assassination in 1815 of an envoy of the Gáekwár of Baroda, who had been
sent to Poona on a special mission under British guarantees, nearly
provoked hostilities. But in June, 1817, a treaty was concluded, by
which the Peshwá accepted an increased subsidiary force, ceded part of
his territory, renounced his suzerainty over the Gáekwár and undertook
to submit all further disputes to the decision of the British
government. In November, however, chafing under the restrictions imposed
by this treaty, he broke out into hostility, burnt the British
residency, and after vainly attacking the British troops, fled from
Poona. Almost simultaneously Holkar and the Rájá of Nágpur rose. Holkar
was defeated in a pitched battle at Mehidpur in Málwá, while the sepoys
successfully held their own against the Rájá's troops at Nágpur. The
fugitive Peshwá was energetically pursued, and captured, and was
stripped of his dominions. The greater part of these was annexed by the
East India Company, but a portion was reserved for the heir of the old
Maráthá kings who was established at Sátára. The Rájá of Nágpur was also
compelled to cede a large portion of his dominions, and at the same time
the Company acquired the overlordship of Rájputána. Henceforth, the
British government claimed a control over all the foreign relations of
native Indian states, whose internal government was to be carefully
watched by a British resident, and whose military forces were to be
practically under the supreme command of the paramount power.
[Pageheading: _THE END OF THE PINDÁRÍS._]
Lord Moira, created Marquis of Hastings in 1816, was at last free to
hunt down the Pindárís, with the sullen acquiescence of the Maráthá
governments, and he executed his task with extraordinary vigour. He
would have undertaken it, at the instigation of Metcalfe, then resident
at Delhi, a year earlier, but for the peremptory orders of Canning, at
that time president of the board of control, who positively forbade him
to embark on a new war. These orders were greatly relaxed after the
bloodthirsty raid of Chítu, the famous Pindárí leader, who in 1816
desolated vast tracts of Central India. Still no effective action
against the Pindárís was possible until the Maráthá lords who harboured
and encouraged them had been crippled and overawed. With their
connivance, a second Pindárí raid, accompanied by shocking cruelties,
was made in the same year, but in 1817, when Holkar's followers were
severely defeated at Mehidpur, the secret coalition between these
bandits and our nominal allies was thoroughly broken up. Even then it
proved a most difficult enterprise to root out the Pindárís, who were
not a race, or a tribe, or a sect, but bands of lawless men of all
faiths; for they met and vanished like birds of the air, outstripping
regular cavalry by the length and rapidity of their marches, and
carrying off their booty almost under the eyes of their pursuers. But
the resolute tactics of Hastings prevailed in the end. Amír Khán, their
most powerful leader, disbanded his troops; and hemmed in on all sides,
cut off from every place of shelter, and chased by successive
detachments of horsemen almost as fleet as his own, Chítu became a
hopeless fugitive, with a handful of faithful adherents, who shared his
desperate efforts to escape, but advised him to surrender. He could not
bring himself to do so, possessed, it is said, with an unspeakable
horror of being transported across "the black sea," and he actually
remained at large or in hiding for a year after his lair was discovered.
Nor was he ever captured, for, by a strange fate, this ruthless scourge
of the Deccan, after baffling human vengeance, found his last refuge in
a jungle and died, a tiger's prey. By this time, all the wild bands
which sprung into existence out of the Maráthá war had been extirpated
or dispersed, and after the year 1818 the dreaded name of Pindárí was
heard no more in history.
The suppression of civil war and anarchy in Central India, which
completed the work of Wellesley, was the greatest achievement of
Hastings. One remarkable incident of it was a portentous outbreak of
cholera in 1817, during a campaign in Gwalior conducted by Hastings in
person. There had been several minor visitations of this disease in
India. But it now first established itself as an endemic disease, and it
has ever since infested the valley of the Ganges. So virulent was its
onslaught, and so fearful the mortality in Hastings' army, that it was
only saved by shifting its quarters, and the governor-general himself
made preparations for his own secret burial, in case he should be among
the victims. As we have seen already,[140] it was propagated from this
centre through other regions of Asia, until it spread to Western Europe,
and the "Asiatic cholera" of 1831-32 may be lineally traced back to the
last Maráthá war.
The position of Hastings in Indian history closely resembles that of
Wellesley. Disregarding the instructions of the board of control, as
well as of the board of directors, he forced upon them, like Wellesley,
a large extension of their empire. But it cannot be doubted that his
policy, dictated by exigencies beyond the ken of authorities sitting in
London, was eminently successful and beneficent in its results. It went
far to establish a "Pax Britannica" in the Indian Peninsula, and, if it
took little account of dynastic rights, it broke the rod of oppression,
and relieved millions upon millions from tyranny and intimidation which
overshadowed their whole lives. He retired in 1823, after seven years'
tenure of office, and died in 1826 as governor of Malta. Canning had
been designated as his successor, and, having accepted the post, was on
the eve of starting for Calcutta, when the tragical death of Castlereagh
recalled him to the foreign office, and opened to him the most brilliant
stage in his career. Thereupon Lord Amherst was appointed
governor-general, with every prospect of a pacific vice-royalty, whereas
it is now chiefly remembered for the annexation of new provinces on the
south-east of Bengal, and the capture of Bhartpur.
[Pageheading: _THE FIRST BURMESE WAR._]
The first Burmese war arose out of persistent aggressions by the new
kingdom of Ava or Burma on what is now the British province of Assam,
but was then an independent, though feeble, state. There had been
earlier frontier disputes between the Indian government and Burma about
the districts lying eastward of Chittagong along the Bay of Bengal, but
it was not until Burma conquered Arakan, invaded Assam, and occupied
passes on the north-east overlooking the plains of Bengal, that serious
action was felt to be necessary. Indeed, while Hastings was engaged with
the war in Nepál and the suppression of the Pindárís, even he was in no
mood to embark on a fresh campaign beyond the borders of India. The
incursions of the Burmese, however, became more and more threatening
both on the coast line and on the mountains above the Brahmaputra river,
and in February, 1824, Amherst resolved to check the extension of their
dominion. Notwithstanding the experience recently gained in Nepál, the
first operations of the Anglo-Indian troops were conducted with little
knowledge of the country, and met with very doubtful success. Rangoon
was easily captured, but the expedition was disabled from advancing up
the river Irawadi by the want of adequate supplies and the deadliness of
the climate. Part of the Tenasserim coast was subdued, but a British
force was defeated in Arakan. These reverses were retrieved in the
following year, 1825, when one army under Sir Archibald Campbell made
its way up the river to Prome, while another army conquered Arakan, and
a third, moving along the valley of the Brahmaputra, established itself
in Assam. The Burmese now abandoned further resistance. Assam, Arakan,
and the Tenasserim provinces were ceded to the company, whose
protectorate was also recognised over other territories upon the course
of the Brahmaputra. It was not until February, 1826, that the King of
Ava could be induced to sign the treaty embodying these cessions, and
many years were to elapse before the port of Rangoon was opened to
British commerce.
The strong fortress of Bhartpur, in the east of Rájputána, and near to
Agra, had acquired an unique importance, in the eyes of all India by its
successful resistance to Lake's assaults during the Maráthá war of 1805.
It was still held until 1825 by its own petty rájá, the son of Ranjít
Singh, who remained on terms of respectful amity with the Indian
government, though his little principality was a notorious focus of
native disaffection. In that year he died, and his child, after being
acknowledged by the Indian government as his successor, was forcibly
ousted by a usurper. Sir David Ochterlony, the hero of the Nepálese war,
then resident in Málwá and Rájputána, undertook to support the
legitimate heir, but was overruled by orders from Amherst. On his
resignation he was succeeded by Metcalfe, who had become Sir Charles
Metcalfe by his brother's death in 1822, and who now obtained authority
to carry out Ochterlony's policy, if necessary, by armed intervention.
As negotiation failed, Lord Combermere, as commander-in-chief, proceeded
to reduce the virgin fortress, not by the slow process of siege, but by
a well-organised assault. Having cut off the water supply, and mined the
mud walls, he poured in a storming party and overpowered the garrison.
The feat was probably not so great, from a military point of view, as
many that have left no record, but its effect on the superstitious
native mind was prodigious, especially as it nearly coincided with the
victorious issue of the Burmese war. Nevertheless, Amherst was shortly
afterwards recalled, and left India in 1828. His annexation of Burmese
territory and the increase of expenditure under his rule displeased both
the Company and the home government, so often foiled in the attempt to
enforce a pacific and economical policy. His successor was Lord William
Bentinck, who had been compelled to retire from the governorship of
Madras after the mutiny of Vellore.
Like Hastings, Bentinck showed a firmness and wisdom in his Indian
administration strongly contrasting with the restless self-assertion of
his earlier career. His lot was cast in an interval of tranquillity
after a long period of warfare, and his name is associated with internal
reforms and social progress in India, not unconnected with a like
movement in England. The measure upon which his fame chiefly rests was
the abolition of "satí," that is, the practice of Hindoo widows
sacrificing themselves by being burned alive on the funeral pile of
their husbands. This practice, which specially prevailed in Bengal, has
been explained by a false interpretation of certain texts in sacred
books of the Hindus, by the selfish eagerness of the husband's family to
monopolise all his property, and by the utterly desolate condition of a
childless widow in native communities. At all events, it was deeply
rooted in Hindu traditions, and no previous governor had dared to go
beyond issuing regulations to secure that the widow should be a willing
victim. Bentinck had the courage to act on the conviction that
inhumanity, however consecrated by superstition and priestcraft, has no
permanent basis in popular sentiment. With the consent of his council,
he prohibited "satí" absolutely, declaring that all who took any part in
it should be held guilty of culpable homicide; and the native population
acquiesced in its suppression.
But this was only one of Bentinck's reforms. Armed with peremptory
instructions from the home government, he effected large retrenchments
in the growing expenditure of the Indian services, both civil and
military, and a considerable increase in the Indian revenue. It may be
doubted whether one of these retrenchments, involving a strict revision
of officers' allowances known as "batta," was considerable enough to be
worth the almost mutinous discontent which it provoked. Another,
affecting the salaries of civilians, was aggravated, in their eyes, by
the admission of natives to "primary jurisdiction," in other words, by
enabling native judges to sit in courts of first instance. This
important change had been gradually introduced before the arrival of
Bentinck, but it was he who most boldly adopted the idea of governing
India in the interest and by the agency of the natives. On the other
hand, it was he who, supported by Macaulay's famous minute, but contrary
to official opinion in Leadenhall Street, issued the ordinance
constituting English the official language of India. In a like spirit,
he promoted the work of native education, partly for the purpose of
developing the political and judicial capacity of the higher orders
among the Hindus, but partly also for the purpose of making the English
language and literature the instrument of their elevation. He earnestly
desired to raise the standard of Indian civilisation, but he equally
desired to fashion it in an English mould.
[Pageheading: _THE EXTIRPATION OF "THAGÍ"._]
Under the rule of Bentinck, the revenue was largely augmented by a
reassessment of land in the north-western provinces, where an increasing
number of zamíndárs had fraudulently evaded the payment of rent, and by
the imposition of licence-duties on the growers of opium in Málwá, who
had carried on a profitable but illicit trade through foreign ports. But
the social benefit of the people was ever his first concern, and not the
least of his claims to their gratitude was the final extirpation of
"thagí". This institution was a secret association of highway robbers
and murderers who had plagued Central India almost as widely as the
roving troops of Pindárís. Their victims were travellers whom they
decoyed into their haunts, plundered, strangled, and buried on the spot.
For years they carried on their infamous trade with impunity, and no
member of the conspiracy had turned informer. At last, however, a clue
was found by a skilful and resolute agent of the government, and the
spell of mutual dread which held together the murderous confederacy was
effectually broken in India. Meanwhile, the same period of peaceful
development witnessed the execution of important public works, the
relaxation of restrictions on the liberty of the press, and a general
advance towards a more paternal despotism, coincident with the progress
of liberal ideas at home. These benign influences were favoured by the
continuance of peace and the maintenance of non-intervention, disturbed
only by the minor annexations of Cachar and Coorg, to which may be added
the assumption of direct control over Mysore.
When the charter of 1833 transformed the "company of British merchants
trading to the east" into the "East India Company," with administrative
powers only, Bentinck was in failing health, and he soon afterwards
returned home. On his resignation in 1835, Metcalfe became provisional
governor-general, but his liberal policy displeased the court of
directors, and Lord Heytesbury was selected by the short-lived
government of Peel as Bentinck's successor. Palmerston, however, on
resuming the foreign office, was believed to have used his influence to
set aside this nomination, and to procure the appointment of Lord
Auckland, then first lord of the admiralty. The supposed objection to
Heytesbury was his known sympathy with Russia, at a moment when distrust
of Russia's designs on the north-west frontier was about to become the
keynote of Anglo-Indian statesmanship. During the interregnum between
Bentinck's retirement and Auckland's accession, three more remedial
measures were carried into effect, the wisdom of which is not even yet
beyond dispute. These were the complete liberation of the Indian press,
the abolition of the exclusive privilege whereby British residents could
appeal in civil suits to the supreme court at Calcutta, and the definite
introduction of English text-books into schools for the people. For all
these reforms Macaulay was largely responsible, but the impulse had been
given by Bentinck, and was accelerated by Metcalfe.
During the years 1835-37 domestic affairs occupied much less space in
the counsels of Indian statesmen than schemes for counteracting the
growth of Russian influence at Tihran, and securing the predominance of
British influence in Afghánistán. For a time their anxiety was
concentrated on Herat, which the Sháh of Persia was besieging, with the
intention of penetrating into the heart of Afghán territory, while the
Afghán rulers themselves were suspected of secretly conspiring with
Persia against our ally, Ranjít Singh. Since Persia, having again lost
faith in British support, was drifting more and more into reliance on
Russia, this forward movement was regarded as the first step of the
Russian advance-guard towards India. The fate of India was felt to
depend on the defence of Herat under Pottinger, a young British officer,
who volunteered his services without instructions from home. The siege,
conducted under Russian officers, lasted ten months, and its ultimate
failure was hailed as a triumph of British policy, for Herat was
recognised, since the days of Alexander the Great, as the western gate
of India.
[Pageheading: _COMMUNICATION WITH INDIA._]
About the same time the question of a shorter route to India attracted
much attention both in Russia and in England. The first project was
that, ultimately adopted, of a sea passage by Malta to Alexandria, a
land transit across Egypt to Suez, and a second voyage by the Red Sea to
Indian ports. The alternative line was more properly described as an
"overland route," since it was proposed to make the journey from some
port in the eastern Levant across Syria and by the Euphrates to the
Persian Gulf. Colonel Chesney was sent out in 1835 as the pioneer of an
expedition by this route, and parliament twice voted money for its
development, but it was vigorously opposed by Russia, and abandoned as
impracticable owing to physical difficulties in navigating the
Euphrates, then considered as a necessary channel of communication with
the sea. The scheme has since been revived on a much grander scale in
the form of a projected railway traversing Asia Minor to Baghdad, and
running down the valley of the Tigris. In the meantime, the Red Sea
route, at first discredited, has far more than justified the hopes of
its promoters. With the aid of steam-vessels, since 1845, and of the
Suez Canal, since 1869, it has reduced the journey to India from a
period of four months to one of three weeks, and profoundly affected its
relations with Great Britain.
It would be well if the premature, but not unfounded, fear of Russian
invasion had produced no further effects on Anglo-Indian policy.
Unhappily, those who justly perceived the importance of Afghánistán, as
lying between Persia and the Punjab, were possessed with the delusion
that it would prove a more solid buffer as a British dependency than as
an independent state. In their ignorance of its internal condition and
the sentiments of its unruly tribes, the Indian government despatched
Sir Alexander Burnes to Kábul, nominally as a commercial emissary, but
not without ulterior objects. They could not have chosen a more capable
agent, for he added to a knowledge of several languages a minute
geographical acquaintance with Central Asia and an insight into the
character of its inhabitants which probably no other Englishman
possessed. He was to proceed by way of Sind to Pesháwar, and in passing
through Sind he received news of the siege of Herat, the significance
of which he was not slow to appreciate. Thenceforward his mission
inevitably assumed a political complexion, since the future of
Afghánistán became a practical question. His rash negotiations with Dost
Muhammad, the Amír of Kábul, and his brother at Kandahár, his return to
India, his second mission to Afghánistán in support of a policy which he
had deprecated, and his tragical death in the Kábul insurrection,--these
are events which belong to a later chapter of history. But, though
Burnes cannot be held responsible for the first Afghán war, there can be
no doubt that his travels in disguise through Central Asia, and
confidential reports on the border countries between the Russian and
British spheres of influence, were the immediate prelude to a campaign
the most ill-advised and the most disastrous ever organised by the
Indian government and sanctioned by that of Great Britain.
FOOTNOTES:
[138] Despatch of July 13, 1804, _Selection from Wellesley's
Despatches_, ed. Owen, pp. 436-41. See Sir A. Lyall, _British Dominion
in India_, p. 260.
[139] Cornwallis to Lake, Sept. 19, 1805, _Cornwallis Correspondence_,
iii., 547-55.
[140] See p. 310 above.
CHAPTER XX.
LITERATURE AND SOCIAL PROGRESS.
The period which elapsed between the resignation of Pitt and the battle
of Waterloo was hardly less eventful in the history of British
civilisation than in the history of British empire. To some, the
boundary line between the society of the eighteenth and that of the
nineteenth century appears to be marked by the outbreak of the French
revolution, and the far-reaching effects of that catastrophe upon ideas,
manners, and politics in Great Britain, as well as upon the continent,
are too evident to be denied. But it is equally certain that, before the
French revolution, an intellectual and industrial movement was in
progress which must have given a most powerful impulse to civilisation,
even if the French revolution had never taken place. In this country,
especially, the great writers, philanthropists, scientific leaders,
inventors, engineers, and reformers of various types, who adorned the
latter part of George III.'s reign, largely drew their inspiration from
an age, just preceding the French revolution, which is sometimes
regarded as barren in originality.
When the nineteenth century opened, the classical authors of that
pre-revolutionary age had mostly passed away. Hume died in 1776, Johnson
in 1784, Adam Smith in 1790, Gibbon in 1794, Burns in 1796, Burke in
1797, Cowper in 1800. John Howard, the great pioneer of prison reform,
became a martyr to philanthropy in 1790. The most remarkable of those
manufacturing improvements and mechanical inventions upon which the
commercial supremacy of England is founded date from the same period,
and have been described in a previous volume. Steam navigation was still
untried, but preliminary experiments had already been made on both sides
of the Atlantic before 1789. The application of steam to locomotion by
land had scarcely been conceived, but the facilities of traffic and
travelling had been vastly developed in the first forty years of George
III.'s reign.
It may truly be said, however, that English literature in the early
party of the nineteenth century bears clear traces of the influence
exercised on receptive minds by the French revolution. Three of the
leading poets, Coleridge, Wordsworth, and Southey, were deeply infected
by its spirit, and indulged in their youth fantastic dreams of a social
millennium; Wordsworth, especially, who in his maturer years could be
justly described as the priest of nature-worship and the poet of rural
life, had imbibed violent republican ideas during a residence of more
than a year in France. These were passing off in 1798, when he
published, jointly with Coleridge, the volume of _Lyrical Ballads_
containing the latter's immortal tale of the _Ancient Mariner_. In the
following year he settled in the English lake-country, where Coleridge
established himself for a while, and Southey for life. Hence the popular
but very inaccurate title of the "Lake School," applied to a trio of
poets who, except as friends, had little in common with each other.
Indeed, after Wordsworth had developed his theory of poetical realism in
the preface to a volume published in 1800, Coleridge rejected and
criticised it as wholly untenable. All three, however, may be considered
as comrades in a revolt against the conventional diction of eighteenth
century poetry, from which Coleridge's "dreamy tenderness" and mystical
flights of fancy were as remote as Wordsworth's rusticity and almost
prosaic studies of humble life.
[Pageheading: _COLERIDGE AND SCOTT._]
Although Coleridge survived to 1834 and Wordsworth to 1850, both seem to
have lost at an early date that power of imagination, whether displayed
in sympathy or in creation, in which their greatness consisted.
Wordsworth wrote assiduously during the whole of this period; in 1807 he
published a volume of poems, including the famous _Ode on the
Intimations of Immortality_ and several of his finest sonnets; but of
his later work only an occasional lyric deserves to be ranked beside the
poems published in 1800 and 1807. Coleridge, indeed, published two of
his finest poems, _Christabel_ and _Kubla Khan_, in 1816, but they were
written long before, _Christabel_, partly in 1797 and partly in 1801,
and _Kubla Khan_ in 1798. Even the new metre of _Christabel_, which is
not the least of Coleridge's contributions to English poetry, had, as
early as 1805, been borrowed in the _Lay of the Last Minstrel_ by Scott,
to whom Coleridge had recited the poem. Nevertheless, Coleridge
continued to exercise a great influence, partly through the charm of his
conversation and partly through his prose works, in which he introduced
to a British public, as yet unused to German literature, a vision of
that mystical German thought which finds its father in Kant, and was
represented at that day by Hegel in philosophy and Goethe in poetry. It
is uncertain how far the general ignorance of German literature in
England was responsible for the influence exercised in their own day by
the few English or Scottish thinkers, such as Coleridge, Hamilton, and
Carlyle, who had either fallen under the spell or learned the secret of
the German mystics. The most important of Coleridge's prose works was
_Aids to Reflection_, which appeared in 1828, and whatever be its
literary value, it deserves the notice of the historian, as the least
unsystematic treatise of an author who gave the principal philosophical
impetus to the Oxford movement.
Two other poets, eminently the product of their age, though not the
offspring of the French revolution, Scott and Byron, were equally in
revolt against conventional diction. Scott elevated ballad-poetry to a
level which it had never before attained, and composed some of the most
beautiful songs in the English language. If it be remembered that he was
cramped by the drudgery of legal offices during the best years of his
life, that he was nearly thirty when he made his first literary venture,
that he was crippled by financial ruin and broken health during his
later years, that his anonymous contributions to periodicals would fill
volumes, and that he died at the age of sixty-one, his fertility of
production must ever be ranked as unique in the history of English
literature. Already known as the author of various lyrical pieces, and
the _Border Minstrelsy_, he published the _Lay of the Last Minstrel_ in
1805, _Marmion_ (with its fine stanzas on Pitt and Fox) in 1808, the
_Lady of the Lake_ in 1809, _Don Roderick_ in 1811, and _Rokeby_ in
1813, as well as minor poems of high merit. He is said to have abandoned
poetry in deference to Byron's rising star, and it is certain that he
now fills a higher place in the roll of English classics as a prose
writer than as a poet. His first novel, _Waverley_, appeared in 1814,
and was followed In the next four years by six of the greatest "Waverley
Novels," as the series came to be called--_Guy Mannering_, the
_Antiquary_, the _Black Dwarf_, _Old Mortality_, _Rob Roy_, and the
_Heart of Midlothian_. It is not too much to say that by these works,
both in poetry and in prose, he created the historical romance in Great
Britain. The legends of chivalry and the folk-lore of his native land
had deeply stirred his soul, and fired his imagination from childhood,
and though later "research" has far outstripped the range of his
antiquarian knowledge, no modern writer has ever done so much to awaken
a reverence for olden times in the hearts of his countrymen. The easy
flow of his style, the vivid energy of his thought, the graphic power of
his descriptions, his shrewd and robust sympathy with human nature, and
the evident simplicity of his own character, not unmingled with flashes
of true poetical insight, justly rendered him the most popular writer of
his time.
Byron was born in 1788, and first sprang into notice as the author of
_English Bards and Scotch Reviewers_, a fierce and bitter reply to
critics who had disparaged his first essay in poetry. This satire
appeared in 1809, when he was just of age, after which he travelled with
Hobhouse, and it was not until 1812 that he "woke to find himself
famous," on publishing the first two cantos of _Childe Harold_. During
the next three years, he poured forth a succession of characteristic
poems, including the _Giaour_, the _Bride of Abydos_, the _Corsair_,
_Lara_, and the _Siege of Corinth_. His later work was of a more
finished order, including the remaining cantos of _Childe Harold_,
_Manfred_, _Cain_, and _Mazeppa_, and when he died at Mesolongi in 1824,
he left unfinished what is, in some ways, the most remarkable of his
works, _Don Juan_. Long before his death he had become the prophet and
hero of a pseudo-romantic school, composed of young Englishmen dazzled
by his intellectual brilliancy, and attracted rather than repelled by a
certain Satanic taint in his moral sentiments. But he also won the
admiration of Goethe, and the reaction against his fame in a later
generation is as exaggerated as the idolatry of which he was the object
under the regency. His morbid egotism, his stormy rhetoric, and his
meretricious exaltation of passion, have lost their magical effect, but
his poetical gifts would have commanded homage in any age. The message
which he professed to deliver was a false message, but few poets have
surpassed him in daring vigour of imagination, in descriptive force, in
wit, or in pathos. His style was eminently such as to invite imitation,
yet no one has successfully imitated him. Had he been a better man, and
had his life been prolonged, he might perhaps have towered above his
literary contemporaries as Napoleon did among the generals and rulers of
Europe.
[Pageheading: _KEATS, SHELLEY, TENNYSON._]
Yet among these contemporaries were Keats and Shelley, whom some critics
of a younger generation would place above him in poetical originality.
Their chief merit lay neither in thought nor in strength, but in an
exquisite sweetness of expression, which in the case of Shelley at least
was quite independent of the subject-matter. Keats, though junior to
Shelley, has been described as his poetical father, but his chief poem,
_Endymion_, did not appear until several years after Shelley had formed
his own distinctive style. He died in 1821 at the age of twenty-six,
leaving a poetical inheritance of the highest quality, which, though
limited in quantity and unequal in workmanship, has gained an enduring
reputation. Nevertheless his work lent itself readily to imitation, and
he exercised a marked influence on the style of later poets, not only in
this period, but in the Victorian age as well. The rebellious spirit of
Shelley had already shown itself at an early age in his poetry, and
especially in _Queen Mab_, printed in 1812. His ethereal fancy, his
dreamy obscurity, and his witchery of language, designated him from the
first as a master of lyrical poetry; though he wrote longer pieces, his
fame rests on the numerous short poems which continued to appear till
his death in 1822.
Perhaps the greatest master of melody was one who was only coming to the
front at the close of this period, Alfred Tennyson, born in 1809,
contributed with two of his brothers to a collection of verses,
misleadingly entitled _Poems by Two Brothers_, which appeared in 1826.
At Cambridge his _Timbuctoo_ won the chancellor's prize, but the first
proof of his powers was given by a volume of short poems published in
1830, followed by a similar volume two years later. By far the greater
part of his work lies in the next period, but the volume of 1833 already
included some of his best known poems.
Among minor poets of this period the highest rank must perhaps be
assigned to Thomas Campbell and Thomas Moore as authors of some of the
most stirring and graceful lyrics in the English language. The former
had attained celebrity by the _Pleasures of Hope_, published before the
end of the eighteenth century, but his choicest poems, such as _Ye
Mariners of England_, the fine verses on Hohenlinden and Copenhagen, and
_Gertrude of Wyoming_, appeared between 1802 and 1809. The series of
Moore's Irish melodies, on which his poetical fame largely rests, was
begun in 1807, though not completed until long afterwards. They were
followed by other lyrical pieces of great merit, and by a series of
witty and malicious lampoons, collected in 1813 into a volume called the
_Twopenny Post Bag_. _Lalla Rookh_, his most ambitious effort, was not
published until 1817.
Two prose writers of the same epoch, Southey and Bentham, claim special
notice, though Southey may also be numbered among the poets. Having
established himself close to Keswick in 1804, he prosecuted a literary
career with the most untiring industry until his mental faculties at
last failed him some thirty-six years later. During this period he
produced above a hundred volumes in poetry and prose, besides numerous
scattered articles and other papers. Most of these were of merely
ephemeral interest, but the _Life of Nelson_, published in 1813, may be
said to have set a standard of simplicity, purity, and dignity in
English prose which has been of permanent value. Bentham's style, on the
contrary, was so wanting in beauty and perspicuity that one at least of
his chief works is best known to English readers in the admirable French
paraphrase of his friend Dumont. This is his famous _Introduction to the
Principles of Morals and Legislation_, in which the doctrines of the
utilitarian philosophy are rigorously applied to jurisprudence and the
regulation of human conduct. Several of his numerous treatises had been
planned, and others actually composed, before the end of the eighteenth
century, but his practical influence, ultimately so great, first made
itself felt in the early part of the nineteenth century. This influence
may be compared within the sphere of social reform to that of Adam Smith
within the sphere of economy. Many amendments of the law, an improved
system of prison discipline, and even the reform of the poor law, may
be directly traced to his counsels, and it was he who inspired the
leading radicals when radicalism was not so much a destructive creed as
a protest against real and gross abuses.
[Pageheading: _MALTHUS._]
Perhaps, next to Bentham, no writer of this period influenced educated
opinion so powerfully as Malthus, whose _Essay on Population_, first
published anonymously in 1798, attracted comparatively little attention
until 1803, when it was republished in a maturer form. No work has ever
been more persistently misrepresented. While he shows that population,
if unchecked, will surely increase in a ratio far outstripping any
possible increase in the means of subsistence, he also shows, by
elaborate proofs, that it will inevitably be checked by vice and misery,
whether or not they are aided by moral restraint. Later experience has
done little to weaken his reasoning, but it has proved that "moral
restraint" (in the most general sense) operates more widely than he
ventured to expect, and that larger tracts of the earth's surface than
he recognised could be brought under profitable cultivation. With these
modifications, his theory holds the field, and the people of Great
Britain only escape starvation by ever-growing importations of grain
from countries whose production--for the present--exceeds their
consumption.
Several other writers of eminence, such as Sheridan and Paley, who lived
in the latter days of George III. are more properly to be regarded as
survivors of eighteenth century literature. Horne Tooke was returned for
Old Sarum in 1801, and enjoyed a reputation in society until his death
in 1812, but his old-fashioned radicalism had long since been superseded
by a newer creed. Dugald Stewart continued to lecture on moral
philosophy until 1809, and was fortunate in numbering among his pupils
Palmerston, Lansdowne, and Russell. A younger student of philosophy was
Richard Whately, who was born in 1787, and elected to a fellowship at
Oriel College, Oxford, in 1811. He soon began to play an active part in
university life, and, after being principal of St. Alban Hall, was
removed to the archbishopric of Dublin in 1831. Though not a great
philosopher, he was an acute logician, and his _Logic_, published in
1826, entitled him to a high place among the thinkers of his generation.
But it was not merely as a teacher and writer that Whately promoted the
cause of philosophy in Oxford. He was one of the leaders in that
organisation of studies which made philosophy one of the principal
studies, if not the principal study, of the abler students in that
university, and gave elementary logic a place in the ordinary
"pass-man's" curriculum.
The best work of Maria Edgeworth and Jane Austen appeared in the early
part of the nineteenth century. Maria Edgeworth's novel, _Castle
Rackrent_, was published in 1800, and rapidly followed by other tales
descriptive of Irish life; four of Jane Austen's novels, _Sense and
Sensibility_, _Pride and Prejudice_, _Mansfield Park_, and _Emma_, were
published between 1811 and 1816, while _Northanger Abbey_ and
_Persuasion_ appeared after her death in 1817. All her work displays a
power of minute analysis of character shared by few, if any, of our
other novelists. Both authors deserve gratitude not only for having
inspired Scott with a new idea of novel-writing, but for having
exercised a purifying influence on the moral tone of English romance.
The most typical feature of English literature in the earlier years of
the nineteenth century was the extraordinary development of the
periodical and newspaper press. The eighteenth century was the golden
age of pamphlets. When the "governing classes" represented but a
fraction of the population, mostly concentrated in London, the practical
effect of such political appeals as those issued by Swift or Burke was
incredibly great, and not to be measured by their limited circulation.
The rise of journalism as a power in politics may be roughly dated from
the notoriety of Wilkes' _North Briton_, and of the letters of "Junius"
in the _Public Advertiser_. Thenceforward, newspapers, at first mere
chronicles of passing events, inevitably grew to be organs of political
opinion, and had now almost superseded pamphlets, as addressed to a far
larger circle of readers. Notwithstanding the heavy stamp duties, as
well as duties on paper and advertisements, six daily journals were
published in London, of which the _Times_ was already the greatest.
Cobbett's _Weekly Political Register_, commenced in 1802, was diffusing
new ideas among the middle classes, but it was not yet committed to
radicalism, and did not win its way into cottages until its price was
greatly reduced in 1816. After Cobbett's death in 1835, it ceased to
appear. Still the ice was broken, and, as the educated public recovered
from the panic caused by the French revolution, the newspaper press
became a potent and independent rival of parliament and the platform.
[Pageheading: _EDINBURGH AND QUARTERLY REVIEWS._]
But the influence of the _Edinburgh_ and _Quarterly Reviews_ was perhaps
even greater among readers of the highest intelligence. The first of
these was founded in 1802 by Jeffrey, Brougham, Horner, and Sydney
Smith, but was supported at first by Scott and other able contributors.
So remarkable a body of writers must have commanded attention in any
age, but at a time when the only periodicals were annuals and
miscellanies, the literary vigour and range of knowledge displayed by
the new review carried all before it. For several years it had an unique
success, but, as it identified itself more and more with the whig party,
Canning, with the aid of Scott, determined to challenge its supremacy by
establishing a new review to be called the _Quarterly_. Scott was
finally estranged from the _Edinburgh_ by an article against the war of
independence in Spain, and the first number of the _Quarterly_ appeared
in February, 1809, with three articles by him. It was published by John
Murray, and edited by Gifford, on much the same lines as the
_Edinburgh_, but with a strong tory bias, and with somewhat less of
literary brilliancy. _Blackwood's Magazine_ followed a few years later,
and the almost classical dualism of the _Quarterly_ and _Edinburgh_ has
long since been invaded by a multitude of younger serials.
After the loss of its early monopoly of talent, the _Edinburgh Review_
still retained Jeffrey and Sydney Smith, and it was abundantly
compensated for the loss of Scott by the acquisition in 1825 of the
fluent pen of Macaulay. Born in 1800, the son of Zachary Macaulay, who
like many other philanthropists was on the tory side, he was early
converted to the whig party. He was well fitted to be a popular writer.
His thought, never deep, is always clear and vivid. None knew better how
to seize a dramatic incident or a picturesque simile, or to strike the
weak points in his adversary's armour. It has been said of him that he
always chose to storm a position by a cavalry charge, certainly the most
imposing if not the most effective method. Many of his contributions to
the _Edinburgh Review_ were afterwards republished as _Essays_, and
already in those earlier essays which appeared before 1837, we can see
him assuming the _rôle_ of the historical champion of the whigs. Widely
read and with a marvellous memory, he was generally accurate in his
facts, but his criticism of Gladstone applies with even greater force to
himself: "There is no want of light, but a great want of what Bacon
would have called dry light. Whatever Mr. Gladstone sees is refracted
and distorted by a false medium of passions and prejudices." The critic
is sunk in the advocate, and even a good cause is spoiled by a too
obvious reluctance to admit anything that comes from the other side.
Perhaps his happiest, though far from his greatest, work is to be found
in the stirring ballads of _Ivry_ and the _Armada_, the precursors of
the _Lays of Ancient Rome_. Deservedly popular and full of patriotic
fire, the class of literature to which they belong renders questions of
fairness or unfairness beside the point.
Another contributor to the _Edinburgh Review_, also famous as a
historian, was Thomas Carlyle. He was born in 1795 at Ecclefechan in
Dumfriesshire, and wrote for Brewster's _Encyclopædia_ and the _London
Magazine_ as well as the _Edinburgh_. In 1826 he married Jane Welsh, and
in 1828 he retired from journalism to live humbly on her means. It was
now that he began to produce his best work. _Sartor Resartus_ appeared
in 1833-34, and the _History of the French Revolution_ in 1837. Even in
the latter of these works he is as much a preacher as a historian.
Perhaps no other writer of the age exercised a greater direct influence,
and in his own country, which seems specially amenable to the preacher's
powers, his message has been as effective in favour of broader views as
the disruption of the Church of Scotland in 1843 was in favour of the
old orthodoxy. His teaching has its roots in a German soil, but it bears
the mark of his own strong personality. His style, with a wilful
ruggedness, displays the German taste for the humour of an incongruous
homeliness, where the subject seems to call for a more dignified
treatment. Perhaps this obvious falseness of expression only relieves
the weight of his stern earnestness of purpose and makes us the more
ready to join in his constant denunciation of everything hollow and
pretentious.
[Pageheading: _LAMB._]
Two new magazines appeared in or about 1817, _Blackwood's_ and the
_London_. Brilliant as the leading contributors to the former were, none
of them perhaps can claim a place in the front rank of English
literature. Of the contributors to the _London_ Lamb is doubtless
entitled to the first place. Born in 1775, he was employed as a clerk in
the East India House from 1792 to 1825. He was a schoolfellow of
Coleridge and contributed to his earlier volume of poems It is, however,
to the _Essays of Elia_ that he owes his fame. These appeared in the
_London Magazine_ and were published in a collected form after his death
in 1834. Few authors that have been so much admired have exercised so
little influence. The reason for this is not far to seek. His style
defies imitation, and he would have been the last man to endeavour to
win disciples to his opinions. Another essayist who belongs to the same
group of writers as Coleridge and Lamb is Thomas de Quincey. He wrote
both for _Blackwood's_ and for the _London Magazine_, in the latter of
which appeared in 1821 his best known work, the _Confessions of an
English Opium Eater_. He excelled in what was the dominant
characteristic of English prose of this period, in imagery, a quality
which is conspicuous in the light fancy of Coleridge's most famous
poems, and which gives life to an author so uniformly in dead earnest as
Macaulay. Viewed historically, this taste for imagery is the English
side of the romantic movement, which in Germany reacted against the
conventional, not only in works of the imagination, but in the heavier
form of new philosophical systems. But these systems, in spite of
Coleridge, never became native in England. The growth of the scientific
spirit has made such thought and such language seem unreal in serious
literature, and prevents a later generation from imitating, though not
from admiring, the brilliance of the early essayists.
Hazlitt's genius was of a heavier type. As an essayist his work breathes
the spirit of an earlier age; but as a literary critic he is a leader,
and displays an inwardness in his appreciation that makes him in a sense
the model of the new age in which criticism has so largely supplanted
creation. It may be doubted, however, whether the abnormal growth of
criticism, as a distinct branch of English letters, has been a benefit
on the whole to our literature. Certainly it has tended to substitute
the elaborate study of other men's thoughts for original production,
and, after all, the greatest critics have been those who, being more
than critics, have shown themselves capable of constructive efforts.
Two statesmen-novelists, Bulwer and Disraeli, are among the most
interesting literary characters of the end of this period. The former of
these, like his French contemporary Victor Hugo, had a remarkable gift
for expressing each successive phase of popular taste. He resembled
Disraeli in acquiring a pre-eminent position in letters in early youth,
which was followed by political success at a later age. Though neither
rose to cabinet rank before a time of life which must with literary men
rank as "middle age," Bulwer had, in the midst of an active
parliamentary career, been an active novelist, in fact the most popular
novelist of his day. Disraeli, on the other hand, only entered
parliament after the close of the period dealt with in this volume, and
it is to this period, while he was still unknown to politics, that the
greater part of his literary work belongs. One other resemblance between
these writers is perhaps not less interesting to the historian than to
the critic. Both made use of literature to establish for themselves a
reputation as "men of the world," an ambition which Bulwer's social
position might easily justify, and without which it would be impossible
to understand the career of Disraeli. Born in 1803 and 1804
respectively, both made their mark with their first novels in 1827,
Bulwer with _Falkland_, Disraeli with a work in which his own career has
been supposed to be foreshadowed--_Vivian Grey_. One other great
novelist had appeared before the close of the reign of William IV. In
1836 Charles Dickens produced _Sketches by Boz_ and began the _Pickwick
Papers_, but he belongs properly to the next reign.
Among the historians of this period the first place undoubtedly belongs
to Henry Hallam. Born in 1788, he produced his _View of the State of
Europe during the Middle Ages_ in 1818, and his _Constitutional History
of England_ in 1827, while his _Introduction to the Literature of
Europe_ began to appear in 1837. Like Macaulay he represents the whig
attitude towards politics, but does so less consciously and less
emphatically than his younger contemporary. There is a sense in which no
constitutional historian has adopted so strictly legal an attitude. It
is not merely that his interest centres on the legal side of the
constitution, but, lawyer-like, he judges every constitutional issue of
the past in the light of the legal system which the law of his own day
presupposes for the date in question. No one can deny the validity of
this principle in a court of justice, but no one gifted either with
historical imagination or with historical sympathy could wish to
introduce it into a historical work. Yet the very narrowness of his
outlook made it easier for him to adopt the impartiality of a judge; his
criterion of justice is too definite to allow him to indulge in special
pleading or to twist facts to suit his theories; and the student still
turns to Hallam with a sense of security which he does not feel in
reading Macaulay or Carlyle.
[Pageheading: _FINE ART._]
The fine arts cannot be said to have flourished in England during the
period of the great war, and architecture was certainly at a low ebb,
but several eminent names belong to this period. Sir Thomas Lawrence was
by far the foremost English portrait painter, and fitly represents the
elegance of the regency, while Raeburn enjoyed an equal reputation in
Scotland. Turner, however, was painting in his earlier manner and
showing originality even in his imitations of old masters. Constable,
too, was producing some of those quiet English landscapes which, though
little appreciated at the time, have since made him famous. Two other
English landscape painters, Callcott and the elder Crome, were also in
their prime, and Wilkie executed several of his best known masterpieces
at this time. David Cox and Prout did not earn celebrity till a little
later. The Water-Colour Society was founded in 1804. Soon afterwards
Flaxman was in the zenith of his fame, being elected professor of
sculpture by the Royal Academy in 1810, and Chantrey was beginning to
desert portrait painting for statuary.
Science, especially in its practical applications, made greater strides
than art in the early years of the nineteenth century. It was now that
Jenner's memorable discovery of vaccination, dating from 1796, was
generally adopted by the medical profession. In 1802 his claim to
priority was recognised by a parliamentary committee, with the result
that £10,000 were then voted to him, and a further grant of £20,000 was
made in 1807, when vaccination was established at the Small-pox
Hospital. In 1814, George Stephenson, after many preliminary
experiments, made a successful trial of his first locomotive engine. In
1812, Bell's steamboat, the _Comet_ made its first voyage on the Clyde,
and the development of steam navigation proceeded more rapidly than that
of steam locomotion by land. Sir Humphry Davy began his researches in
1800, and took part in that year, with Count Rumford and Sir Joseph
Banks, in founding the Royal Institution. His invention of the safety
lamp was not matured until 1815.
But if the principal contributions of England to physical science in the
early years of the century were mainly in the direction of practical
application, her contributions to pure theory under the regency and in
the reign of William IV. were no less distinguished. Sir John Herschel,
following in the footsteps of his father, began in 1824 his observations
on double stars and his researches upon the parallax of fixed stars,
while Sir George Airy published in 1826 his mathematical treatises on
lunar and planetary theory. In Michael Faraday England possessed at once
an eminent chemist and the greatest electrician of the age. The
discovery of benzine and the liquefaction of numerous gases were
followed by an investigation of electric currents, and in 1831 by the
crowning discovery of induction. Not less valuable perhaps than these
discoveries of his own were the fertile suggestions which he left to
others. William Smith, sometimes called the father of modern English
geology, vigorously followed up the work of James Hutton by publishing
in 1815 his great map of English _strata_ as identified by fossils.
Charles Lyell's _Principles of Geology_ marks a great advance in
geological science. In this book, which appeared in 1833, the author
advanced the view, now universally accepted, that the great geological
changes of the past are not to be explained as catastrophes, followed by
successive creations, but as the product of the continuous play of
forces still at work. This theory contained all that was vital in the
doctrine of evolution; but it was only at a later date, when the
doctrine had become the property of zoologists as well as geologists and
had been popularised by Darwin, that it came to exercise an influence
over non-scientific thought.
[Pageheading: _UNIVERSITY REFORM._]
A review of the literary and scientific progress of this period would be
incomplete without some notice of progress in higher education. The
universities of Oxford and Cambridge with their numerous colleges had in
the eighteenth century lapsed into that lethargic condition which seemed
to be the common fate of all corporations. They had to a certain extent
ceased to be seats of learning. At Oxford the limitations imposed upon
colleges by statute or custom in elections to fellowships and
scholarships ensured the mediocrity of the teachers and gave the
preference to mediocrities among the students. Where emoluments were not
so restricted they were generally awarded by interest rather than by
merit; and it was even the case that a scholarship at Winchester,
carrying with it the right to a fellowship at New College, was often
promised to an infant only a few days old. The Oxford examination system
had not been reformed since the time of Laud, and the degree
examinations had degenerated into mere formalities until the university
in 1800 adopted a new examination statute, mainly under the influence of
Dr. Eveleigh, provost of Oriel. The new statute, which came into
operation in 1802, granted honours to the better students of each year.
The number of candidates to whom honours were granted, at first very
small, rapidly increased till in 1837 about 130 received honours in a
single year. The attention which the examination system received from
the hebdomadal board, so often accused of sluggishness, is proved by the
frequent changes in the regulations, which among other things
differentiated between honours in "Literæ Humaniores" and in mathematics
in 1807, and separated the honours and pass examinations in 1830. The
same desire to encourage meritorious students showed itself in the
institution of competitive examinations for fellowships, in which Oriel
led the way. It was followed in 1817 by Balliol, which in 1827 threw
open its scholarships as well. It was not, however, till the reign of
Queen Victoria that the college statutes as a whole were so modified as
to make open competition possible in more than a very few instances.
Cambridge suffered less than Oxford from restrictions as to the choice
of fellows. In fact the majority of the fellowships, more especially of
those which carried with them a vote in the government of the colleges,
were, so far as the statutes went, open to all comers. Though the course
of study was still nominally regulated by statutes dating from the Tudor
period, which it would often have been ludicrous to enforce, an
effective stimulus was given to mathematical studies by the mathematical
tripos, which had existed from the middle of the eighteenth century,
and to which in 1824 a classical tripos was added. The ground covered by
these honour examinations was certainly narrower than that which lay
within the scope of the corresponding examinations at Oxford, but at
both places the studies of most undergraduates were still directed more
by the judgment of their tutors than by the regulations of the
university.
These two universities were, however, subject to two limitations, which
prevented them from providing a higher education for all aspiring
students. The expense of living at Oxford and Cambridge, and the close
connexion of both universities with the Church of England, rendered them
difficult of access to many. These limitations were emphasised by the
fact that Scotland possessed five universities which were the opposite
of the English in both respects, and not a few English students could
always be found at the Scottish seats of learning. The reform ministry
made a serious effort to remove or alleviate the grievances of
dissenters. Among other reforms mooted was the abolition of theological
tests for matriculation and graduation. In 1834 a bill, which proposed
to effect this change, but which left intact such tests as existed for
fellowships and professorships, passed its second reading in the commons
by a majority of 321 against 174, and its third reading by 164 against
75. It was, however, thrown out on the second reading in the lords by
187 votes against 85. Though in this particular case the demands of the
dissenters were moderate, they were themselves opposed to other measures
introduced for their benefit, and the question of tests at Oxford and
Cambridge was not unnaturally allowed to rest for another twenty years.
[Pageheading: _UNIVERSITY OF LONDON._]
It was only in the reign of George IV. that anything was done to provide
a university education for those who were unable to proceed to the
ancient seats of learning. But the movement, once started, progressed
rapidly. The oldest of the university colleges, as they are now called,
is St. David's College, Lampeter, which was founded in 1822, mainly
through the exertions of Dr. Thomas Burgess, Bishop of St. David's, who
was supported by many others among the Welsh clergy. The college was
opened in 1827, but at first it had no power of conferring degrees, and
contented itself with the education of candidates for holy orders. A
more important movement was initiated in 1825. In a public letter
written by the poet Campbell to Brougham, the project of founding a
university of London, which should be free from denominational
restrictions, was advocated. The scheme was warmly embraced by many
whose names are found associated with other movements of the times.
Among them were Hume, Grote, Zachary Macaulay, Dudley, and Russell. A
large proportion of the promoters of the new university had been
educated at Scottish universities, and had therefore a clear idea of the
type of university which they might establish, and the movement,
although started primarily in the interests of dissenters, received the
support of many who still valued the connexion of the universities with
the Church. The "London University," as it was called, was opened in
1828, when classes were formed in arts, law, and medicine, but not in
divinity. It was technically a joint-stock company, and the attempt of
the shareholders to obtain a charter of incorporation was successfully
resisted by the universities of Oxford and Cambridge.
Meanwhile some of the original supporters of the movement, regarding the
non-religious character of the new university with suspicion, had
decided to transfer their support to a new college, where the doctrine
and worship of the Church of England should be recognised. The Duke of
Wellington took a lively interest in this movement, and King George
IV.'s patronage gave the new institution the name of "King's College".
There seemed every reason to expect that the foundation would be on a
munificent scale, when Wellington's acceptance of catholic emancipation
offended many of the subscribers so deeply that they immediately
withdrew from the undertaking, and the college was in consequence left
almost entirely without endowment. State recognition, however, was given
it from the first. It was incorporated in 1829, and opened in 1831. In
1835 the demand of "London University" for a charter received the
support of the house of commons, and Lord Melbourne's government decided
to propose a compromise, by which the so-called "London University" was
to be converted into University College, and an examining body was to be
created under the title of the University of London, while the work of
teaching was to be performed by University College, King's College, and
other colleges, which might from time to time be named by the crown.
These terms were accepted by the existing "university," and charters
were given to the new university and to University College, London, in
1836. It was thus left open to students or their parents to select
either a denominational or an undenominational college, according to
their preference.
Meanwhile another university had been founded in the north of England.
The dean and chapter of Durham had determined to set aside a part of
their emoluments for the foundation of a university, and the bishop had
undertaken to assist them by attaching prebendal stalls in the cathedral
to some of the professorships. An act of parliament was obtained in
1832, authorising the establishment of the new university, which was
opened in October, 1833, and was incorporated by a royal charter on June
1, 1837. As an ecclesiastical foundation, the university of Durham was
of course in the closest connexion with the established Church.
None of these new foundations could compare in respect of endowments
with the old universities of Oxford and Cambridge, yet it was not
altogether without reason that the founders of University College,
London, hoped to give as good an education at a greatly reduced cost. It
must be remembered that only a small fraction of the endowments of the
old universities and their colleges was at this time applied to strictly
educational purposes, and, until they should either be reformed or
become more sensible of their opportunities, there was a fair field for
an energetic rival.
The beginning of the nineteenth century witnessed a marvellous expansion
of manufacturing industry, not so much caused by new discoveries as by
the energetic application of those made at the end of the last century,
by the growth of the factory-system, and, above all, by the monopoly of
English-made goods during the great war. The innovation of
machine-spinning and weaving by power-looms had an instant effect in
stimulating and cheapening the production of cottons, but that of
woollens, cramped by heavy duties on the raw material, languished for
some time longer under traditional methods of handspinning. When
stocking-frames and other forms of machinery penetrated at last into its
strongholds in the West Riding of Yorkshire and in the midland counties,
the demand for "hands" was inevitably reduced, and "frame-breaking"
riots ensued, which lasted for several years. From this period dates the
industrial revolution which gradually abolished domestic industries,
separated mill-owners and mill-hands into almost hostile classes,
undermined the system of apprenticeship, and brought about a large
migration of manufactures from centres with abundant water-power to
centres in close proximity to coal-fields.
[Pageheading: _PROGRESS OF AGRICULTURE._]
The progress of British agriculture during the period under review was
almost as marked as that of British manufactures. Under the impulse of
war prices, and of the improvements adopted at the end of the eighteenth
century, the home-production of corn almost kept pace with the growing
consumption, and between 1801 and 1815 little more than 500,000 quarters
of imported corn were required annually to feed the population. No
doubt, when the price of bread might rise to famine-point, the
consumption of it fell to a minimum per head; still, the rural
population continued to multiply, though not so rapidly as the urban
population, and neither could have been maintained without a constant
increase in the production of the soil. This result was due to a
progressive extension of enclosure and drainage, as well as to wise
innovations in the practice of agriculture. Not the least important of
such innovations was the destruction of useless fences and straggling
hedge-rows, the multitude and irregular outlines of which had long been
a picturesque but wasteful feature of old-fashioned English farming.
This was the age, too, in which many a small farm vanished by
consolidation, and many an ancient pasture was recklessly broken up,
some of which, though once more covered with green sward, have never
recovered their original fertility. Happily, the use of crushed bones
for manure was introduced in 1800, and the efforts of the national board
of agriculture, aided by the discoveries of Sir Humphry Davy, brought
about a far more general application of chemical science to agriculture,
partly compensating for the exhaustion of the soil under successive
wheat crops. Not less remarkable was the effect of mechanical science in
the development of new agricultural implements, which, however, retained
a comparatively rude form of construction. The Highland Society of
Scotland took a leading part in encouraging these gradual experiments in
tillage, as well as in the breeding of sheep and cattle, with a special
regard to early maturity. Had the farmers of Great Britain during the
great war possessed no more skill than their grandfathers, it would have
been impossible for the soil of this island to have so nearly supported
its inhabitants before the ports were freely thrown open.
The great triumphs of engineering in the fifteen years before the battle
of Waterloo were mainly achieved in facilitating locomotion, and are
specially associated with the name of Telford. It was he who, following
in the footsteps of Brindley and Smeaton, constructed the Ellesmere and
Caledonian Canals; he far eclipsed the fame of General Wade by opening
out roads and bridges in the highlands, and first adopted sound
principles of road-making both in England and Wales, afterwards to be
applied with marvellous success by Macadam. It is some proof of the
impulse given to land-travelling by such improvements that 1,355 public
stage-coaches were assessed in 1812, and that a rate of speed little
short of ten miles an hour was attained by the lighter vehicles. But
Telford's labours were not confined to roads or bridges; they extended
also to harbours and to canals, which continued to be the great arteries
of heavy traffic until the development of railways. The new power
destined to supersede both coaches and barges was first recognised
practically when Bell's little steam vessel the _Comet_ was navigated
down the Clyde in 1812, to be followed not many years later by a
steamship capable of crossing the Atlantic Ocean. In a few years steam
packets were numerous, but it was not till well into the reign of
Victoria that steam navigation was used in the royal navy.
[Pageheading: _RAILWAYS._]
The most conspicuous improvement in the social and economic condition of
the country between 1815 and 1837 is undoubtedly the invention of the
steam locomotive engine. A few steam locomotives had been invented
before the former date, but they had met with little success and were as
yet more costly than horse traction. It was only in or about the year
1815 that George Stephenson, enginewright in Killingworth colliery,
succeeded in inventing a locomotive engine which was cheaper than
horse-power. The value of railways was by this time better understood.
Short railways worked by horses were common in the neighbourhood of
collieries, and a few existed elsewhere. In 1821 Edward Pease obtained
parliamentary powers to construct a railway between Stockton and
Darlington. A visit to Killingworth persuaded him to make use of
steam-power. In 1823 an act authorising the use of steam on the proposed
railway was carried, and in 1825 the railway was opened. In 1826 an act
was passed for the construction of a railway between Liverpool and
Manchester. Stephenson was employed as engineer to make the line, and
his success as a road-making engineer proved equal to his brilliance as
a mechanical inventor.
In 1829 the line was completed. The directors were at first strongly
opposed to the use of steam-locomotion, but were induced by Stephenson,
before finally rejecting the idea, to offer a reward of £500 for the
best locomotive that could be made. Of four engines which were entered
for the competition, Stephenson's _Rocket_ was the only one that would
move, and it proved able to travel at the rate of thirty-five miles an
hour. The opening of the railway in 1830, and the fatal accident to Mr.
Huskisson which attended it, have been noticed already. The accident did
more to attract attention to the power of the locomotive than to
discredit it. The opposition to railways was not, however, at an end. A
proposal for a railway between London and Birmingham was carried through
parliament, only after a struggle of some years' duration, but the
construction of the line was at length authorised in 1833. The English
railway system now developed with great rapidity, and by the end of the
reign of William IV. lines had been authorised which would when complete
form a system, joining London with Dover, Southampton, and Bristol, and
both London and Bristol with Birmingham, whence lines were to run to the
most important places in Yorkshire and Lancashire, and on to Darlington.
Numerous small lines served other portions of the country, partly in
connexion with these, but more often independently.
Among the more conspicuous metropolitan improvements of this age may be
mentioned the introduction of gas and the incipient construction of new
bridges over the Thames, in which the engineer Rennie took a leading
part. Before the end of the eighteenth century the workshops of Boulton
and Watt had been lit by gas, and Soho was illuminated by it to
celebrate the peace of Amiens. By 1807 it was used in Golden Lane, and
by 1809, if not earlier, it had reached Pall Mall, but it scarcely
became general in London until somewhat later. At the beginning of the
century the metropolis possessed but three bridges, old London bridge
and the old bridges at Blackfriars and Westminster. The first stone of
the Strand Bridge (afterwards to be called Waterloo Bridge) was laid on
October 11, 1811, and Southwark Bridge was commenced in 1814, but these
bridges were not completed till 1817 and 1819 respectively. The existing
London Bridge, designed by Rennie, but built after his death, was
completed in 1831. In 1812, the architect Nash was employed in laying
out the Regent's Park, and in 1813 an act was passed for the
construction of Regent Street, as a grand line of communication between
it and Carlton House, the residence of the regent.
The work of geographical discovery had been well commenced before the
end of the eighteenth century, and was inevitably checked during the
great war. The wonderful voyages of Cook had revealed Australia and New
Zealand; Flinders had carried on the survey of the Australian coast;
Vancouver had explored the great island which bears his name with the
adjacent shores; Rennell had produced his great map of India; Bruce had
published his celebrated travels in Abyssinia; and an association had
been formed to dispel the darkness that hung over the whole interior of
Africa. Among its first emissaries was Mungo Park, who afterwards was
employed by the British government, and died in the course of his second
expedition in 1805-6. The idea of Arctic discovery was revived early in
the nineteenth century, and was no longer confined to commercial aims,
such as the opening of a north-east or north-west passage, but was
rather directed to scientific objects, not without the hope of reaching
the North Pole itself. Meanwhile, the ordnance survey of Great Britain
itself was in full progress, and that of British India was commenced in
1802, while the hydrographical department of the admiralty, established
in 1795, was organising the system of marine-surveying which has since
yielded such valuable fruits.
The progress of philanthropy, based on religious sentiment was very
marked during the later years of the war. The institution of Sunday
schools between 1780 and 1790 had awakened a new sense of duty towards
children in the community, and the growing use of child-labour, keeping
pace with the constant increase of machinery, forced upon the public
the necessity of legislative restrictions, which have been noticed in an
earlier chapter. Banks of savings, the forerunners of savings banks
under parliamentary regulation, had been suggested by Jeremy Bentham,
and one at least was instituted in 1802. The idea of penitentiaries, for
the reformation as well as for the punishment of criminals, had
originated with the great philanthropist, John Howard. It was adopted
and popularised by Jeremy Bentham, and might have been further developed
but for the introduction of transportation, which promised the
well-conducted convict the prospect of a new life in a new country.
Meanwhile, prison reform became a favourite study of benevolent
theorists in an age when the criminal law was still a relic of
barbarism, when highway robbery was rife in the neighbourhood of London,
when sanitation was hardly in its infancy, when pauperism was fostered
by the poor law, and when the working classes in towns were huddled
together, without legal check or moral scruple, in undrained courts and
underground cellars. So capricious and shortsighted is the public
conscience in its treatment of social evils.
[Pageheading: _CANADA._]
At the opening of the nineteenth century the colonial empire of Great
Britain was in a transitional state. The secession of thirteen American
colonies had not only robbed the mother country of its proudest
inheritance, but had also shattered the old colonial system of
commercial monopoly for the supposed benefit of British interests. Its
immediate effect was to annul the navigation act as affecting American
trade, which became free to all the world, and by which Great Britain
itself profited largely. Canada at once gained a new importance, and a
new sense of nationality, which Pitt recognised by dividing it into two
provinces, and giving each a considerable measure of independence, both
political and commercial. It was troubled by the presence of a conquered
race of white colonists side by side with new colonists of English
blood, who were, however, united in their resistance to the revolted
colonies in the war of 1812-14. After the war a steady stream of
immigration poured into Canada. In 1816 the population was estimated at
450,000; between 1819 and 1829 Canada received 126,000 immigrants from
England, and during the next ten years 320,000. The result was that the
French element ceased to be preponderant, except in Lower Canada. The
French Canadians felt that they did not enjoy their share of the
confidence of government; the home government, ready enough to grant any
favour that home opinion would permit, was trammelled by a public
opinion, which suspected all who were of a French origin of a desire to
restore the supremacy of the Roman Catholic religion and to assert
political independence. A vacillating policy was the result, which only
increased suspicions, and led in the first year of the reign of Victoria
to a civil war.
In the Mauritius and the West Indies the one event of importance in this
period is the abolition of slavery. It was found impossible to obtain
from free negroes as much work as had been obtained from slaves, and
their place had to be supplied by Indian coolies in the Mauritius, and
by Chinese in Jamaica. At the same time the West Indies had begun to
suffer from the competition of the United States.
The colony of the Cape of Good Hope was still peopled almost entirely by
blacks or by the descendants of Dutch settlers, known as _boers_, or
peasants. Four thousand British colonists went out in 1820 to Algoa Bay,
but these were a mere handful compared with the Dutch. Unfortunately the
government adopted a line of policy which produced great irritation in
the Dutch population. They were granted no self-government, and in 1826
English judicial forms were introduced, and English was declared the
sole official language. The reform administration made matters worse by
defending the blacks against the boers. In 1834 it set free the slaves,
offering £1,200,000, payable in London, very little of which ever
reached the boers, as compensation for slaves valued at £3,000,000. A
Kaffir war in 1834 had led to the conquest of Kaffraria, but in 1835 the
home government restored the independence of the Kaffirs, and appointed
a lieutenant-governor to defend their rights. After this the boers
considered their position intolerable, and in 1835 began their first
"trek" into the country now known as Natal.
[Pageheading: _AUSTRALIA._]
Meanwhile, the great discoveries of Captain Cook, and the first
settlement of New South Wales, brought within view a possible extension
of our colonial dominion, which might go far to compensate for its
losses on the North American continent. Governor Phillip had been sent
out by Pitt to Botany Bay in 1787-88, but it was many years before the
earliest of Australian colonies outgrew the character of a penal refuge
for English convicts. The first convict establishments were at Sydney
and Norfolk Island, but another settlement was founded on Van Diemen's
Land in 1805, and in 1807, after this island had been circumnavigated by
Flinders and Bass, it became the headquarters of that convict system,
whose horrors are not yet forgotten. Between 1810 and 1822 the resources
of New South Wales were vastly developed by the energetic policy of
Governor Macquarie. While his efforts to utilise convict labour, and to
educate convicts into free men, may have retarded the influx of genuine
colonists, he prepared the way for settlement by constructing roads,
promoting exploration, and raising public buildings, so that when he
returned home the population of New South Wales had increased fourfold,
and its settled territory in a much greater proportion. This territory
comprised all English settlements on the east coast, and included large
tracts of what is now known as Queensland, which did not become a
separate colony until 1859.
The early history of Australia, it has been said, is chiefly a tale of
convict settlements, bush-ranging, and expeditions of discovery. There
is much truth in this saying, but the real basis of Australian
prosperity was the introduction of sheep-farming on a large scale, after
the merino-breed had been imported and acclimatised by Macarthur at the
beginning of the century. Long before the region stretching northward
from the later Port Phillip grew into the colony of Victoria,
sheep-owners were spreading over the vast pastures of the interior,
though many years elapsed before the explorer Sturt opened out the great
provinces further westward.
The development of Australia made rapid progress during the generation
following the great war. Though Australia itself and Van Diemen's Land,
now called Tasmania, were still in the main convict settlements, free
settlers had been arriving at Sydney for some time, and in 1817 they
began to arrive in moderate numbers in Van Diemen's Land. In 1825 that
island had sufficiently progressed to be recognised as a separate
colony. The attempt to found a colony in western Australia in 1829 was,
on the other hand, an almost complete failure. But in 1824 a new centre
of colonisation in New South Wales had been established at Port
Phillip. Meanwhile a sharp cleavage of parties had arisen. The convicts
and poorer colonists were opposed to the large sheep-owners, who were
endeavouring to form an aristocracy. Governor Macquarie favoured the
convicts, and Governor Darling (1825-31) the sheep-owners. In 1823 a
legislative council, consisting of seven officials, had been instituted;
in 1828 it was developed into one of fifteen members, chosen entirely
from among the wealthiest colonists.
Gibbon Wakefield's _Letter from Sydney_, published in 1829, marks an
epoch in the history of Australian colonisation. In this work he
proposed that the land should be sold in small lots at a fairly high
price to settlers, and that the proceeds of the sales should be used to
pay the passage of emigrants going out as labourers. This idea had
hardly been published when it was adopted by the home government, and
five shillings an acre was fixed as the minimum price of land. The
number of emigrants increased rapidly, but the new system threatened
ruin to the owners of sheep-runs. Unable to pay the stipulated price,
they only moved further into the interior and occupied fresh land
without seeking government permission, an unlicensed occupation which
has left its mark upon the language in the word "squatter". At last in
1837 a compromise was arranged, by which the squatters were to pay a
small rent for their runs, the crown retaining the freehold with the
right to sell it to others at some future date. In 1834 the British
government sanctioned the formation of a new colony, that of South
Australia. It was to be settled from the outset on the Wakefield system,
and no convicts were ever sent to it. The first lots were sold as high
as twelve shillings an acre, and in 1836 a company of emigrants went out
and founded Adelaide.
APPENDICES.
I. ON AUTHORITIES.
II. ADMINISTRATIONS, 1801-1837.
APPENDIX I.
ON AUTHORITIES.[141]
(1) General histories of England for the period 1801-1837: MASSEY,
_History of England during the Reign of George the Third_ (4 vols., 2nd
ed., 1865), closes with the treaty of Amiens in 1802, and therefore
barely touches this period. There is still room for a general history of
England on an adequate scale between 1802 and 1815. After that date we
have HARRIET MARTINEAU, _History of England during the Thirty Years'
Peace_ (1816-1846, 2 vols., 1849, 1850). This was begun by Charles
Knight, the publisher, who brought it down to 1819. From 1820 onwards it
is Miss Martineau's own work. It is too nearly contemporary to depend on
any authorities except such as were published at the time, and it
represents in the main the popular view of public events and public men
held by liberals at the time. Sir SPENCER WALPOLE'S _History of England
from the Conclusion of the Great War in 1815_ (6 vols., revised ed.,
1890), a work of high quality and thoroughly trustworthy, full of
references to the best published authorities, sympathises with the whigs
and more liberal tories. Reference is sometimes made in this volume to
GOLDWIN SMITH, _The United Kingdom, a Political History_ (2 vols.,
1899), but the work is too slight to be regarded as an authority. Sir T.
E. MAY'S (Lord Farnborough) _Constitutional History of England from 1760
to 1860_ (3 vols., 10th ed., 1891) is also useful.
(2) The _Annual Register_ is probably the most useful authority for this
period. In addition to more general information, it contains a very full
report of the more important parliamentary debates and the text of the
principal public treaties and of numerous other state papers. The
narrative is not often coloured by the political partisanship of the
writer, but allowance must be made for the strong tory bias of the
volumes dealing with the reign of William IV. The _Parliamentary
History_ closes in 1803, at which date Cobbett's _Parliamentary
Debates_ had begun to appear. After 1812 Cobbett ceased to superintend
the work and his name was dropped, and in 1813 and afterwards the
title-page acknowledged that the work was "published under the
superintendence of T. C. Hansard," who had also been the publisher of
Cobbett's series and of the _Parliamentary History_.
[Pageheading: _MEMOIRS AND CORRESPONDENCE._]
(3) Political and other memoirs and printed correspondence. The
following have been noticed among the authorities for volume x.: PELLEW,
_Life and Correspondence of H. Addington, Viscount Sidmouth_ (3 vols.,
1847), very full wherever Sidmouth was directly concerned, written with
a strong bias in favour of the subject of the biography. Lord STANHOPE,
_Life of Pitt_ (4 vols., 3rd ed., 1867). The appendix to the last volume
contains Pitt's correspondence with the king in the years 1804-1806.
Lord ROSEBERY, _Pitt_ (Twelve English Statesmen Series, 1891), brilliant
but not always sound. Lord JOHN (Earl) RUSSELL, _Memorials and
Correspondence of C. J. Fox_ (4 vols., 1853-1854), and _Life and Times
of C. J. Fox, 1859-1866_. _Memoirs of the Courts and Cabinets of George
III._ (4 vols., 1853-1855; 1801 falls in vol. iii.), continued in
_Memoirs of the Court of England during the Regency_ (2 vols., 1856),
_Memoirs of the Court of George IV._ (2 vols., 1859), and _Memoirs of
the Courts and Cabinets of William IV. and Victoria_ (2 vols., 1861;
1837 is reached in vol. i.); these volumes, edited by the Duke of
Buckingham, contain the correspondence of the Grenville family. The
first series alone, which contains many important letters of Lord
Grenville, is of first-rate importance. The editing is often inaccurate.
_Diaries and Correspondence of the First Earl of Malmesbury_ (4 vols.,
1844), edited by the third earl (vol. iv. extends from February, 1801,
to July, 1809), authoritative and useful, especially for the crisis of
1807. _Correspondence of Marquis Cornwallis_ (3 vols., 1859), edited by
C. Ross, valuable for the negotiations at Amiens and for Cornwallis's
brief second governor-generalship of India. The notes are full of useful
biographical material concerning the persons mentioned in the
correspondence. _Diaries and Correspondence of George Rose_ (2 vols.,
1860), edited by L. V. Harcourt. _The Diary and Correspondence of
Charles Abbot, Lord Colchester_, edited by his son (3 vols., 1861,
extending from 1795 to 1829), with interesting notices of Perceval, and
generally useful from 1802-1817, when Abbot was Speaker. Lord HOLLAND,
_Memoirs of the Whig Party_ (2 vols., 1852), edited by his son, Lord
Holland. These memoirs do not extend beyond the year 1807. Volume ii.,
which covers the period during which Holland was a member of the
Grenville cabinet, is of special importance. His memory is not always
accurate, and he writes with a whig bias which makes him a harsh judge
of George III. Holland's _Further Memoirs of the Whig Party, 1807-1821_,
edited by Lord Stavordale, the present Lord Ilchester (1905),
interesting, and, like the earlier volumes, full of personal detail, but
of less value, since Holland was not in office again till 1830.
Similar in character to the above, but only of importance after 1801 are
the following: _Life of Perceval_ (2 vols., 1874), by his grandson, Sir
Spencer Walpole, written largely from the Perceval papers, especially
valuable for the ministerial crisis of 1809. The _Memoirs and
Correspondence of Viscount Castlereagh_ (12 vols., 1850-1853), edited by
his brother the third Marquis of Londonderry, consisting mainly of
military and diplomatic correspondence. Sir ARCHIBALD ALISON, _Lives of
Lord Castlereagh and Sir Charles Stewart, the Second and Third
Marquesses of Londonderry_ (3 vols., 1861), much more political than
biographical; valuable and appreciative, but not rich in documents. _The
Dispatches of the Duke of Wellington during his various Campaigns in
India, Denmark [etc.], from 1799 to 1818_ (12 vols., 1834-1838),
compiled by Lieut.-Colonel GURWOOD (really extending to 1815 only);
_Supplementary Despatches and Memoranda of the Duke of Wellington_ (15
vols., 1858-1872), edited by his son, the second Duke of Wellington,
extending from 1797 to 1818; _Despatches, Correspondence, and Memoranda
of the Duke of Wellington_ (8 vols., 1867-1880), by the same editor,
extending from 1819 to 1832. The second and third of these series
contain not only the duke's despatches, but the vast mass of political
correspondence which passed through his hands. In spite of the great
size of the collection, very little that can be considered trivial is
included. It is our most important authority for all foreign relations
between 1815 and 1827, and between 1828 and 1830. Sir HERBERT MAXWELL,
_The Life of Wellington_ (2 vols., 1899). HORACE TWISS, _Life of Eldon_
(3 vols., 1844). C. PHIPPS, _Memoir of R. Plumer Ward_ (2 vols., 1850),
containing important political correspondence from 1801 onward, and
Ward's diary from 1809 to 1820. Ward held numerous minor offices in the
government and was on terms of intimacy with Perceval and Mulgrave.
MOORE, _Life of Sheridan_ (2 vols., 1826), valuable for the crisis of
1811. _The Greville Memoirs; a Journal of the Reigns of King George IV.
and King William IV._ (3 vols.), edited by Henry Reeve. References are
to the first edition, 1874. New edition, also including 1837-1860 in 8
vols. (1888). Greville was clerk to the privy council from 1821 to 1859,
and as such possessed exceptional opportunities for making himself
acquainted with secret political transactions and with the personal
qualities of successive statesmen. _The Creevey Papers_ (2 vols., 1903),
edited by Sir Herbert Maxwell, not of first-rate historical importance,
full of gossip and scandal. Creevey was a whig member of parliament,
1802-1818, 1820-1828 and 1831-1832, and treasurer of the ordnance,
1830-1834. STAPLETON, _The Political Life of George Canning (from
September 1822 to August 1827)_ (3 vols., 1831), very full and valuable,
especially for foreign relations; strikingly deficient in documents and
dates. _George Canning and His Times_ (1859), by the same author,
largely written from memory and therefore untrustworthy. YONGE, _Life
and Administration of Lord Liverpool_ (3 vols., 1868). _Memoirs of Sir
Robert Peel_ (2 vols., 1856-1857), prepared by Peel himself, and dealing
with the Roman Catholic question, the administration of 1834-1835, and
the repeal of the corn laws. The memoirs, which are of the highest
importance, consist mainly of correspondence and are studiously fair.
PARKER, _Sir Robert Peel_ (3 vols., 1891-1899), a large collection of
Peel's correspondence with a brief connecting narrative by the editor,
of great value even for the periods covered by the _Memoirs_. _The
Correspondence of King William IV. and Earl Grey, from November 1830 to
June 1832_ (2 vols., 1867), edited by Henry, Earl Grey, valuable for the
history of the reform. _The Melbourne Papers_ (1889), edited by Sanders,
throw light on Melbourne's relations with William IV. and with Brougham.
TORRENS, _Memoirs of Melbourne_ (2 vols., 1878), polemical, and sadly
deficient in documents. Lord HATHERTON, _Memoir and Correspondence
relating to June and July, 1834_ (published 1872), edited by H. Reeve,
on events connected with the fall of Grey's ministry. _The Croker
Papers_ (3 vols., 1884), edited by L. J. Jennings. Croker was secretary
to the admiralty from 1809 to 1830. The papers, which are very full from
1809 onwards, consist of correspondence and selections from Croker's
journals and correspondence. L. HORNER, _Memoir of Francis Horner_
(1843). E. HERRIES, _Public Life of J. C. Herries_ (1880), a defence of
Herries against the sneers of whig writers. Lord DUDLEY, _Letters to the
Bishop of Llandaff_ (Copleston), (1840), and _Letters to Ivy_ (1905,
edited by Romilly), interesting and often vivacious, but not of
first-rate importance. Sir HENRY BULWER (Lord Dalling), _Life of
Palmerston_ (2 vols., 1870), extending to 1840. The first chapter of a
third volume, edited by Evelyn Ashley (1874) makes good a few omissions
belonging to this period. The work consists mainly of correspondence and
extracts from Palmerston's journal. _Memoirs of Baron Stockmar_ (2
vols., 1872-1873), by his son Baron E. von Stockmar, edited by F. Max
Müller. Stockmar was a confidential agent of Leopold, King of the
Belgians. The memoirs contain a narrative by William IV. of the
political history of his reign to 1835, including the circumstances of
Melbourne's resignation in 1834. CAMPBELL, _Lives of the Chancellors_ (8
vols., 1848-1869). The last volume contains excellent sketches of
Lyndhurst and Brougham, based largely on personal knowledge.
_Correspondence of Princess Lieven and Earl Grey, 1824-1834_, edited by
G. le Strange (1890). _Letters of Dorothea, Princess Lieven during Her
Residence in London, 1812-1834_, edited by L. G. Robinson (1902).
_Letters of Harriet, Countess Granville, 1810-1845_ (2 vols., 1894).
(4) Miscellaneous books. Sir G. C. LEWIS, _Administrations of Great
Britain (1783-1830)_, edited by Sir E. Head, 1864, has been mentioned
among the authorities for volume x. It is a valuable history of the
inner political life of England, but suffers from a strong whig bias.
LECKY, _History of Ireland in the Eighteenth Century_ (5 vols., 1892),
though nominally closing at the union, throws light on Irish history at
the beginning of the nineteenth century. A. V. DICEY, _Lectures on the
Relation between Law and Public Opinion in England during the Nineteenth
Century_ (1905), is very suggestive. HALÉVY, _La formation du
radicalisme philosophique_ (3 vols., 1901-1904), and Sir L. STEPHEN,
_The English Utilitarians_, vols. i., ii. (1900), are valuable for the
history of the radical party. C. CREIGHTON, _History of Epidemics in
Britain_ (2 vols., 1894), contains an excellent account of the cholera
epidemic.
[Pageheading: _ON THE GREAT WAR._]
(5) Books dealing with the great war are numerous. The following have
been already noticed among the authorities for volume x.: Dr. HOLLAND
ROSE, _Life of Napoleon I._ (2 vols., 1904), our most trustworthy guide
for the career of the French emperor. The book has gained not a little
from its author's independent researches at the British Foreign Office.
Captain MAHAN, _Influence of Sea Power upon the French Revolution and
Empire_ (2 vols., 1893), and _Life of Nelson_ (2 vols., 1897), valuable
for their general view of the naval warfare and commercial policy of the
period. JAMES, _Naval History of Great Britain, 1793-1820_ (6 vols., ed.
1826; vols. iii.-vi. extend from 1801-1820), very full and accurate,
largely used in this volume for the American war. Sir JOHN LAUGHTON,
_Nelson_ (English Men of Action Series, 1895), and articles in the
_Dictionary of National Biography_.
To these must be added ALISON'S _History of Europe from the Commencement
of the French Revolution in 1789 to the Restoration of the Bourbons in
1815_ (20 vols., 1847, 1848), an uncritical but still a standard work.
The reaction against Alison is probably due in large measure to
political causes. In addition to the European history which gives its
title to the book, it contains a narrative of the American war of
1812-1814. The classical though far from trustworthy narrative on the
French side is THIERS, _Histoire du Consulat et de l'Empire_ (21 vols.,
1845-1869), translated into English by Campbell and Stebbing (12 vols.,
1893-1894). See also LANFREY'S incomplete _History of Napoleon I._,
English translation (4 vols., 1871-1879), bitterly anti-Napoleonic. The
negotiations precedent to the outbreak of war in 1803 are to be found in
Mr. O. BROWNING'S _England and Napoleon in 1803_, containing despatches
of Whitworth and others, published in 1887, and in P. COQUELLE,
_Napoleon and England, 1803-1813_, translated by G. D. KNOX (1904),
based on the reports of Andréossy, the French ambassador at London. Sir
H. BUNBURY'S _Narrative of Certain Passages, etc._ (1853) is of the
highest value for the war in the Mediterranean. The _Times_ of September
16, 19, 22, 26, 28, 30, and October 19, 1905, contains an excellent
series of articles on Nelson's tactics at Trafalgar. For the Moscow
campaign, the Marquis DE CHAMBRAY'S _Histoire de l'Expédition de Russie_
(3 vols., 1839) is perhaps the most reliable of contemporary narratives.
There is a good account of the campaign in the Rev. H. B. GEORGE'S
_Napoleon's Invasion of Russia_ (1899). For the Peninsular war, W.
NAPIER'S _History of the War in the Peninsula and in the South of
France_ (6 vols.; vols. i.-iii., ed. 1835-1840; iv.-vi., 1834-1840) is
of the highest literary as well as historical value. C. OMAN'S _History
of the Peninsular War_ (in progress, vols. i., ii., 1902-1903, extending
at present to September, 1809) makes good use of Spanish sources of
information. The _Wellington Dispatches_ have been noticed already in
section 3. The _Diary of Sir John Moore_, edited by Sir J. F. Maurice (2
vols., 1904), is of value for the campaign of 1808-1809. For Waterloo,
in addition to Maxwell's _Life of Wellington_, and Rose's _Life of
Napoleon I._, Chesney's _Waterloo Lectures_, 1868; W. O'CONNOR MORRIS,
_The Campaign of 1815_ (1900), and J. C. ROPES, _The Campaign of
Waterloo_, may be studied with profit. Morris's work must, however, be
discounted for his extravagant admiration of Napoleon's genius and his
faith in the Grouchy legend. For the disputes with the United States and
war of 1812-1814, see chapters in the _Cambridge Modern History_ (vol.
vii., 1903); BOURINOT, _Canada_ (Story of the Nations), (1897); J.
SCHOULER, _History of the United States of America under the
Constitution_ (6 vols., 1880-1889); and MAHAN, _Sea Power in Its
Relations to the War of 1812_ (2 vols., 1905).
[Pageheading: _ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS._]
(6) For European politics and foreign relations generally, in addition
to some of the books mentioned in the last section, we have C. A.
FYFFE'S _History of Modern Europe, 1792-1878_ (ed. 1895), a very
readable book, which includes the results of some original study, and
SEIGNOBOS, _Political History of Contemporary Europe_, English
translation (2 vols., 1901), an useful but not always accurate book. The
great French work, _Histoire générale du IVe Siècle à nos jours_ (vols.
ix., x., 1897-1898), by numerous authors, edited by MM. Lavisse and
Rambaud, is naturally of varying merit; the chapters on France and
Russia are the best, and there is a very full bibliography at the close
of each chapter. The _Cambridge Modern History_, vol. ix., _Napoleon_
(1906), is a similar compilation by English writers. ALFRED STERN'S
_Geschichte Europas seit den Verträgen von 1815_ (3 vols., 1894-1901, to
be continued to 1871) is perhaps the best general history of the period
following the great war. _The Memoirs of Prince Metternich_ (5 vols.,
English translation, 1881-1882, edited by Prince Richard Metternich,
extending to 1835) contain much that is valuable for diplomatic history.
For French history see DUVERGIER DE HAURANNE, _Histoire du gouvernement
parlementaire en France_ (1814-1848, 10 vols., 1857-1872), which, in
spite of the title, does not extend beyond 1830. For the Greek revolt,
vols. vi. and vii. of G. FINLAY'S _History of Greece_ (7 vols., ed.
1877) are important. American policy is treated by J. W. FOSTER, _A
Century of American Diplomacy_ (1901). Sir EDWARD HERTSLET'S _Map of
Europe by Treaty_ (4 vols., 1875-1891), while professedly confined to
the treaties dealing with boundaries, contains the majority of those of
general historical interest. It covers the period 1815-1891. LE COMTE DE
GARDEN, _Histoire générale des traités de paix_ (14 vols., 1848-1888,
vols. vi.-xv., extending to 1814), and F. DE MARTENS, _Recueil des
traités et conventions, conclus par la Russie_ (tomes xi., xii.
(Angleterre), 1895-1898), contain the principal treaties belonging to
the period. The _Castlereagh_ and _Wellington_ _Despatches_ have been
noticed under section 3.
(7) For Indian history: JAMES MILL and WILSON, _History of British
India_ (10 vols., 1858), vols. vi.-ix., noticed as an authority for
volume x., ends in 1835; Sir ALFRED C. LYALL'S _Rise and Expansion of
the British Dominion in India_ (1894) contains a brief and masterly
sketch of the subject. See also _A Selection from the Despatches,
Treaties and Other Papers of the Marquess Wellesley_ (1877), well edited
by S. J. Owen; the first two series of the _Wellington Dispatches_,
noticed under section 3; and the vast mass of information collected in
Sir W. W. HUNTER'S _Imperial Gazetteer of India_ (14 vols., 1885-1887).
(8) For social and economic history: Dr. W. CUNNINGHAM'S _The Growth of
English Industry and Commerce in Modern Times_, vol. iii., _Laissez
Faire_ (1903), extending from 1776 to 1850, is now the standard work.
Reference has also been made to G. R. PORTER, _Progress of the Nation_
(1847), a work abounding more in statistics than in narrative, and to
Sir GEORGE NICHOLLS, _History of the English Poor Law_ (2 vols., 1854).
Nicholls took an active interest in social and economic questions from
1816 till his death in 1857. He probably understood the working of the
poor-law better than any other man of that date, and the poor-law
legislation of 1834 and 1838 was largely founded on his suggestions. He
was one of the poor-law commissioners of 1834, and was permanent
secretary to the poor-law board from 1847 to 1851. Sir G. C. LEWIS, _The
Government of Dependencies_ (1891), edited by C. P. Lucas, and LUCAS,
_Historical Geography of the British Colonies_, vols. i.-v. (1888-1901),
are of value. For literary history, SAINTSBURY'S _History of Nineteenth
Century Literature, 1780-1895_, (1896), is an excellent guide. For
educational progress at Oxford University reference may be made to the
_Report of H.M.'s Commissioners appointed to inquire into the State,
etc., of the University and Colleges of Oxford_ (1852), which contains a
good historical summary. The report of the similar commission appointed
for Cambridge hardly touches the progress of studies, and is therefore
of less value to the historical student.
FOOTNOTES:
[141] The dates given are, as far as possible, those of the editions
used by the authors of this volume.
APPENDIX II.
ADMINISTRATIONS, 1801-1837.
1. ADDINGTON, MARCH, 1801.
_First lord of treasury } H. Addington.
and chanc. exchequer_ }
{ _home_ Duke of Portland.
{ Lord Pelham, _succeeded_ July, 1801.
_Secretaries of { C. P. Yorke, _succeeded_ Aug., 1803.
state_ { _foreign_ Lord Hawkesbury.
{ _war and } Lord Hobart.
{ colonies_ }
_Lord president_ Earl of Chatham.
Duke of Portland, _succeeded_ July, 1801.
_Lord chancellor_ Lord Eldon.
_Lord privy seal_ Earl of Westmorland.
_Admiralty_ Earl St. Vincent.
_Ordnance_ Earl of Chatham, _appointed_ June, 1801.
_Board of trade_ Lord Auckland.
_Board of control_ Viscount Lewisham (July, 1801, Earl of
Dartmouth), _in cabinet_.
Viscount Castlereagh, _succeeded_ July,
1802, _admitted to cabinet_ Oct., 1802.
_Lord-lieutenant Ireland_ Earl of Hardwicke, _not in cabinet_.
_Secretary at war_ C. P. Yorke, _not in cabinet_.
C. Bragge, _succeeded_ Aug., 1803, _not in
cabinet_.
2. PITT, MAY, 1804.
_First lord of treasury } W. Pitt
and chanc. exchequer_ }
{ _home_ Lord Hawkesbury.
_Secretaries of { _foreign_ Lord Harrowby.
state_ { Lord Mulgrave, _succeeded_ Jan., 1805.
{ _war and } Earl Camden.
{ colonies_ } Viscount Castlereagh, _succeeded_ July,
1805.
_Lord president_ Duke of Portland (after Jan., 1805,
_without office in cabinet_).
Viscount Sidmouth (_before_ H. Addington),
_succeeded_ Jan., 1805.
Earl Camden, _succeeded_ July, 1805.
_Lord chancellor_ Lord Eldon.
_Lord privy seal_ Earl of Westmorland.
_Admiralty_ Viscount Melville (_before_ H. Dundas).
Lord Barham, _succeeded_ May, 1805.
_Ordnance_ Earl of Chatham.
_Board of trade_ Duke of Montrose.
_Board of control_ Viscount Castlereagh.
_Duchy of Lancaster_ Lord Mulgrave, _in cabinet_.
Earl of Buckinghamshire (_before_ Lord
Hobart), _succeeded_ Jan., 1805, _in
cabinet_.
Lord Harrowby, _succeeded_ July, 1805, _in
cabinet_.
_Lord-lieutenant Ireland_ Earl of Hardwicke, _not in cabinet_.
Earl Powis, _succeeded_ Nov., 1805, _not
in cabinet_.
_Secretary at war_ W. Dundas, _not in cabinet_.
3. GRENVILLE, FEBRUARY, 1806.
_First lord of treasury_ Lord Grenville.
{ _home_ Earl Spencer.
_Secretaries of { _foreign_ C. J. Fox.
state_ { Viscount Howick, _succeeded_ Sept.
{ _war and } W. Windham
{ colonies_ }
_Lord president_ Earl Fitzwilliam (after Oct., _without
office in cabinet_).
Viscount Sidmouth, _succeeded_ Oct.
_Lord chancellor_ Lord Erskine.
_Lord privy seal_ Viscount Sidmouth.
Lord Holland, _succeeded_ Oct.
_Chancellor of exchequer_ Lord H. Petty.
_Admiralty_ C. Grey (April, Viscount Howick).
T. Grenville, _succeeded_ Sept.
_Ordnance_ Earl of Moira.
_Chief justice, King's bench_ Lord Ellenborough, _in cabinet_.
_Lord-lieutenant Ireland_ Duke of Bedford, _not in cabinet_.
_Secretary at war_ R. Fitzpatrick, _not in cabinet_.
4. PORTLAND, MARCH, 1807.
_First lord of treasury_ Duke of Portland.
{ _home_ Lord Hawkesbury (1808 Earl of Liverpool).
_Secretaries of { _foreign_ G. Canning.
state_ { _war and } Viscount Castlereagh.
{ colonies_ }
_Lord president_ Earl Camden.
_Lord chancellor_ Lord Eldon.
_Lord privy seal_ Earl of Westmorland.
_Chanc. exchequer and } S. Perceval.
duchy of Lancaster_ }
_Admiralty_ Lord Mulgrave.
_Ordnance_ Earl of Chatham.
_Board of trade_ Earl Bathurst, _in cabinet_.
_Board of control_ R. S. Dundas, _not in cabinet_.
Earl of (_before_ Lord) Harrowby,
_succeeded_ July, 1809, _in cabinet_.
_Lord-lieutenant Ireland_ Duke of Richmond, _not in cabinet_.
_Secretary at war_ Sir J. Pulteney, _not in cabinet_.
Lord G. Leveson Gower, _succeeded_ June,
1809, _in cabinet_.
5. PERCEVAL, OCTOBER, 1809.
_First lord of treasury, }
chanc. exchequer and } S. Perceval.
duchy of Lancaster_[142] }
{ _home_ R. Ryder.
{ _foreign_ Earl Bathurst.
_Secretaries of { Marquis Wellesley, _succeeded_ Dec., 1809.
state_ { Viscount Castlereagh, _succeeded_ March,
{ 1812.
{ _war and } Earl of Liverpool.
{ colonies_ }
_Lord president_ Earl Camden (after April, 1812, _without
office in cabinet_).
Viscount Sidmouth, _succeeded_ April,
1812.
_Lord chancellor_ Lord Eldon.
_Lord privy seal_ Earl of Westmorland.
_Admiralty_ Lord Mulgrave.
C. P. Yorke, _succeeded_ May, 1810.
_Ordnance_ Earl of Chatham.
Lord Mulgrave, _succeeded_ May, 1810.
_Board of trade_ Earl Bathurst.
_Lord-lieutenant Ireland_ Duke of Richmond, _not in cabinet_.
_Secretary at war_ Viscount Palmerston, _not in cabinet_.
6. LIVERPOOL, JUNE, 1812
_First lord of treasury_ Earl of Liverpool.
{ _home_ Viscount Sidmouth (after Jan., 1822,
{ _without office in cabinet_).
{ R. Peel, _succeeded_ Jan., 1822.
_Secretaries of { _foreign_ Viscount Castlereagh (1821 Marquis of.
state_ { Londonderry).
{ G. Canning, _succeeded_ Sept., 1822.
{ _war and } Earl Bathurst.
{ colonies_ }
_Lord president_ Earl of Harrowby.
_Lord chancellor_ Lord Eldon (1821 Earl of Eldon).
_Lord privy seal_ Earl of Westmorland.
_Chancellor of exchequer_ N. Vansittart.
F. J. Robinson, _succeeded_ Jan., 1823.
_Admiralty_ Viscount Melville (_before_ R. S. Dundas).
_Ordnance_ Lord Mulgrave (Sept., 1812, Earl of
Mulgrave), (from 1818-May, 1820,
_without office in cabinet_).
Duke of Wellington, _succeeded_ Jan.,
1819.
_Board of trade_ Earl of Clancarty, _not in cabinet_.
F. J. Robinson,[143] _succeeded_ Jan.,
1818, _in cabinet_.
W. Huskisson,[143] _succeeded_ Jan., 1823,
_in cabinet_.
_Board of control_ Earl of Buckinghamshire, _in cabinet_.
G. Canning, _succeeded_ June, 1816, _in
cabinet_.
C. B. Bathurst, _succeeded_ Jan., 1821,
_in cabinet_.
C. W. Wynn, _succeeded_ Feb., 1822, _in
cabinet_.
_Master of the mint_ Earl of Clancarty, _not in cabinet_.
W. W. Pole (1821 Lord Maryborough),
_succeeded_ Sept., 1814, _in cabinet_.
T. Wallace, _succeeded_ Oct., 1823, _not
in cabinet_.
_Duchy of Lancaster_ C. B. Bathurst (_before_ C. Bragge).
N. Vansittart (March, 1823, Lord Bexley),
_succeeded_ Feb., 1823.
_Without office_ Earl Camden (Sept., 1812, Marquis Camden),
_in cabinet_.
_Lord-lieutenant Ireland_ Duke of Richmond, _not in cabinet_.
Viscount Whitworth (1815 Earl Whitworth),
_succeeded_ Aug., 1813, _not in
cabinet_.
Earl Talbot, _succeeded_ Oct., 1817, _not
in cabinet_.
Marquis Wellesley, _succeeded_ Dec., 1821,
_not in cabinet_.
_Secretary at war_ Viscount Palmerston, _not in cabinet_.
7. CANNING, APRIL, 1827.
_First lord of treasury } G. Canning.
and chanc. exchequer_ }
{ _home_ W. S. Bourne.
{ Marquis of Lansdowne (_before_ Lord H.
_Secretaries of { Petty), _succeeded_ July.
state_ { _foreign_ Viscount Dudley.
{ _war and } Viscount Goderich (_before_ F. J.
{ colonies_ } Robinson).
_Lord president_ Earl of Harrowby.
_Lord chancellor_ Lord Lyndhurst.
_Lord privy seal_ Duke of Portland (_after_ July, _without
office in cabinet_).
Earl of Carlisle, _succeeded_ July.
_Lord high admiral_ Duke of Clarence, _not in cabinet_.
_Board of trade and } W. Huskisson.
treasurer of navy_ }
_Board of control_ C. W. Wynn.
_Master of the mint_ T. Wallace, _not in cabinet_.
G. Tierney, _succeeded_ May, _in cabinet_.
{ C. Arbuthnot, _not in cabinet_.
_First commissioner of { Earl of Carlisle _succeeded_ May, _in
woods and forests_ { cabinet_.
{ W. S. Bourne, _succeeded_ July, _in
{ cabinet_.
_Duchy of Lancaster_ Lord Bexley.
_Without office_ Marquis of Lansdowne, May-July, _in
cabinet_.
_Lord-lieutenant Ireland_ Marquis Wellesley, _not in cabinet_.
_Secretary at war_ Viscount Palmerston, _in cabinet_.
8. GODERICH, SEPTEMBER, 1827.
_First lord of treasury_ Viscount Goderich.
{ _home_ Marquis of Lansdowne.
_Secretaries of { _foreign_ Earl (_before_ Viscount) Dudley.
state_ { _war and } W. Huskisson.
{ colonies_ }
_Lord president_ Duke of Portland.
_Lord chancellor_ Lord Lyndhurst.
_Lord privy seal_ Earl of Carlisle.
_Chancellor of exchequer_ J. C. Herries.
_Lord high admiral_ Duke of Clarence, _not in cabinet_.
_Ordnance_ Marquis of Anglesey, _in cabinet_.
_Board of trade and } C. Grant.
treasurer of navy_ }
_Board of control_ C. W. Wynn.
_Master of the mint_ G. Tierney.
_First commissioner of } W. S. Bourne.
woods and forests_ }
_Duchy of Lancaster_ Lord Bexley.
_Lord-lieutenant Ireland_ Marquis Wellesley, _not in cabinet_.
_Secretary at war_ Viscount Palmerston.
9. WELLINGTON, JANUARY, 1828.
_First lord of treasury_ Duke of Wellington.
{ _home_ R. (May, 1830, Sir R.) Peel.
_Secretaries of { _foreign_ Earl Dudley.
state_ { Earl of Aberdeen, _succeeded_ June, 1828.
{ _war and } W. Huskisson.
{ colonies_ } Sir G. Murray, _succeeded_ May, 1828.
_Lord president_ Earl Bathurst.
_Lord chancellor_ Lord Lyndhurst.
_Lord privy seal_ Lord Ellenborough.
Earl of Rosslyn, _succeeded_ June, 1829.
_Chancellor of exchequer_ H. Goulburn.
_Admiralty_ Duke of Clarence (_lord high admiral_),
_not in cabinet_.
Viscount Melville, _succeeded_ Sept.,
1828, _in cabinet_.
_Board of trade and } C. Grant.
treasurer of navy_ } W. V. Fitzgerald, _succeeded_ June, 1828.
_Board of control_ Viscount Melville.
Lord Ellenborough, _succeeded_ Sept.,
1828.
_Master of the mint_ J. C. Herries.
_Duchy of Lancaster_ Earl of Aberdeen, _in cabinet_.
C. Arbuthnot, _succeeded_ June, 1828, _not
in cabinet_.
_Lord-lieutenant Ireland_ Marquis of Anglesey, Feb., 1828, _not in
cabinet_.
Duke of Northumberland, _succeeded_ Feb.,
1829, _not in cabinet_.
_Secretary at war_ Viscount Palmerston, _in cabinet_.
Sir H. Hardinge, _succeeded_ May, 1828,
_not in cabinet_.
10. GREY, NOVEMBER, 1830.
_First lord of treasury_ Earl Grey (_before_ Viscount Howick).
{ _home_ Viscount Melbourne.
_Secretaries of { _foreign_ Viscount Palmerston.
state_ { _war and { Viscount Goderich.
{ colonies_ { E. G. Stanley, _succeeded_ March, 1833.
{ { T. S. Rice, _succeeded_ June, 1834.
_Lord president_ Marquis of Lansdowne.
_Lord chancellor_ Lord Brougham.
_Lord privy seal_ Lord Durham.
Earl of Ripon (_before_ Viscount Goderich)
_succeeded_ April, 1833.
Earl of Carlisle, _succeeded_ June, 1834.
_Chancellor of exchequer_ Viscount Althorp.
_Admiralty_ Sir J. R. Graham.
Lord Auckland, _succeeded_ June, 1834.
_Board of trade_ Lord Auckland, _not in cabinet_.
C. P. Thomson, _succeeded_ June, 1834.
_Board of control_ C. Grant.
_Master of mint_ Lord Auckland, _not in cabinet_.
J. Abercromby, _succeeded_ June, 1834, _in
cabinet_.
_Duchy of Lancaster_ Lord Holland, _in cabinet_.
_Postmaster-general_ Duke of Richmond, _in cabinet_.
Marquis of Conyngham, _succeeded_ June,
1834, _not in cabinet_.
_Paymaster of forces_ Lord J. Russell, _admitted to cabinet_
June, 1831.
_Without office_ Earl of Carlisle (to June, 1834).
_Lord-lieutenant Ireland_ Marquis of Anglesey, _not in cabinet_.
Marquis Wellesley, _succeeded_ Sept.,
1833, _not in cabinet_.
_Chief secretary for Ireland_ E. G. Stanley, _admitted to cabinet_ June,
1831.
Sir J. C. Hobhouse, _succeeded_ March,
1833, _not in cabinet_.
E. J. Littleton, _succeeded_ May, 1833,
_not in cabinet_.
_Secretary at war_ C. W. Wynn, _not in cabinet_.
Sir H. Parnell, _succeeded_ April, 1831,
_not in cabinet_.
Sir J. Hobhouse, _succeeded_ Feb., 1832,
_not in cabinet_.
E. Ellice, _succeeded_ April, 1833,
_admitted to cabinet_ June, 1834.
11. MELBOURNE, JULY, 1834.
_First lord of treasury_ Viscount Melbourne.
{ _home_ Viscount Duncannon.
_Secretaries of { _foreign_ Viscount Palmerston.
state_ { _war and } T. S. Rice.
{ colonies_ }
_Lord president_ Marquis of Lansdowne.
_Lord chancellor_ Lord Brougham.
_Lord privy seal_ Earl of Mulgrave.
_Chancellor of exchequer_ Viscount Althorp.
_Admiralty_ Lord Auckland.
_Board of trade and } C. P. Thompson.
treasurer of navy_ }
_Board of control_ C. Grant.
_Master of mint_ J. Abercromby.
_First commissioner of } Sir J. C. Hobhouse, _in cabinet_.
woods and forests_ }
_Duchy of Lancaster_ Lord Holland.
_Paymaster of forces_ Lord J. Russell.
_Lord-lieutenant Ireland_ Marquis Wellesley, _not in cabinet_.
_Secretary at war_ E. Ellice.
PROVISIONAL ADMINISTRATION, NOVEMBER, 1834.
_First lord of treasury_ Duke of Wellington.
{ _home_ Duke of Wellington.
_Secretaries of { _foreign_ Duke of Wellington.
state_ { _war and } Duke of Wellington.
{ colonies_ }
_Lord chancellor_ Lord Lyndhurst.
_Chancellor of exchequer_ Lord Denman.
12. PEEL, DECEMBER, 1834.
_First lord of treasury } Sir R. Peel.
and chanc. exchequer_ }
{ _home_ H. Goulburn.
_Secretaries of { _foreign_ Duke of Wellington.
state_ { _war and } Earl of Aberdeen.
{ colonies_ }
_Lord president_ Earl of Rosslyn.
_Lord chancellor_ Lord Lyndhurst.
_Lord privy seal_ Lord Wharncliffe.
_Admiralty_ Earl de Grey.
_Ordnance_ Sir G. Murray, _in cabinet_.
_Board of trade and } A. Baring.
master of the mint_ }
_Board of control_ Lord Ellenborough.
_Paymaster of forces_ Sir E. Knatchbull.
_Lord-lieutenant Ireland_ Earl of Haddington, _not in cabinet_.
_Secretary at war_ J. C. Herries.
13. MELBOURNE, APRIL, 1835.
_First lord of treasury_ Viscount Melbourne.
{ _home_ Lord J. Russell.
_Secretaries of { _foreign_ Viscount Palmerston.
state_ { _war and } C. Grant (May, 1835, Lord Glenelg).
{ colonies_ }
_Lord president_ Marquis of Lansdowne.
_Lord chancellor_ Great seal in commission.
Lord Cottenham, _appointed_ Jan., 1836.
_Lord privy seal_ Viscount Duncannon.
_Chancellor of exchequer_ T. S. Rice.
_Admiralty_ Lord Auckland.
Earl of Minto, _succeeded_ Sept., 1835.
_Board of trade_ C. P. Thompson.
_Board of control_ Sir J. C. Hobhouse.
_Duchy of Lancaster_ Lord Holland, _in cabinet_.
_Lord-lieutenant Ireland_ Earl of Mulgrave, _not in cabinet_.
_Secretary at war_ Viscount Howick.
FOOTNOTES:
[142] On May 23, 1812, after Perceval's death, the Earl of
Buckinghamshire was appointed chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster.
[143] Also treasurer of the navy.
INDEX.
Abbot, Charles (afterwards Lord Colchester), speaker, 36, 61, 72, 85, 238.
Abdallah, Pasha of Acre, 393.
Abercromby, James (afterwards Lord Dunfermline), master of the mint, 346;
speaker, 354.
Abercromby, Sir Ralph, general, 6, 346.
Aberdeen, 306, 348.
Aberdeen, Earl of (Gordon), 138;
chancellor of the duchy, 231;
foreign secretary, 236, 263, 264, 268, 352, 376, 380;
secretary for war and colonies, 352.
Åbo, treaty of, 123.
Abolition of slavery, acts for the, 46-48, 325-327, 438.
Abolition of slave trade, 48, 143, 151, 152, 167, 188, 274, 279, 358, 438.
Abrantes, 98.
Abyssinia, 436.
Academy, Royal. See London.
Acarnania, 266.
Acre, 393, 394.
_Acte Additionnel_, the, 155.
Adams, John Quincy, 128.
Addington, Henry (afterwards Viscount Sidmouth), 25, 39, 50, 54, 68, 200,
202, 346;
first lord of treasury and chancellor of exchequer, 1, 2, 11, 15, 16, 27,
34;
relations with Pitt, 2, 24-29;
attacked by Pitt, 30, 31;
resignation, 31, 32;
his adherents, 34, 36, 68, 81;
becomes Viscount Sidmouth and lord president of the council, 35;
resignation, 37;
lord privy seal, 45;
lord president of the council, 49;
resignation, 49;
lord president of the council, 76, 82;
home secretary, 81, 83, 172, 177, 179, 180, 183;
in cabinet without office, 199;
retirement, 227.
Addington, John Hiley, M.P., 28, 36.
Adelaide, 440.
Adelaide, Princess of Saxe-Meiningen (afterwards queen of William IV.),
184, 273, 277, 351, 375.
Adige, river, 138.
Adour, river, 115, 117.
Adrianople, peace of, 267, 268.
Ægean islands, the, 263;
sea, 224, 394.
Ætolia, 266.
Afghánistán, 397, 402, 403, 412-414;
treaty with East India Company, 403;
first Afghán war, 403, 414.
Africa, interior of, 436.
Agra, 399, 409.
Agriculture, condition of, 84, 433, 434.
Ahmadnagar, 398.
Airy, Sir George, 428.
Aix, island, 69.
Aix-la-Chapelle, conference of, 189-191, 377.
Akkerman, treaty of, 260.
Alava, Spanish admiral, 40.
Albuera, battle, 103, 104.
Albuquerque, Duke of, 100.
Alcantara, 99.
Alemtejo, province, 255.
Alessandria, 213.
Alexander the Great, 401, 413.
Alexander I., Tsar of Russia, 5, 7, 23, 37, 52, 59, 66, 78, 80, 81, 92,
104, 105, 124, 144-148, 151-153, 168, 189-191, 210-212, 214, 216-218,
224, 225, 232.
Alexandria, 261, 264, 265, 393, 413;
battle and capitulation of, 6;
retention by England, 19;
expeditions to, 52, 57, 264;
convention of, 264, 265.
Algarve, province, 389.
Algeciras, 8.
Algiers, Dey of, 187, 188;
bombardment of, 188;
conquest of, 269.
Algoa bay, 438.
Alliance, La Belle, 164.
"All the Talents" ministry. See ministries, Grenville's.
Almaraz, 106.
Almeida, 100, 102, 103.
Almora, treaty of, 405.
Alps, the, 138.
Alsace, 143, 168.
Alten, Count, 162.
Althorp, Viscount (afterwards third Earl Spencer), 230, 234;
chancellor of the exchequer, 279, 280, 283, 286, 291, 297, 321-323, 328,
330, 334, 335, 343-345;
resignation, 346;
chancellor of the exchequer, 347, 349, 350, 373.
Amager, island, 4.
Amascoas, battle, 390.
_Ambigu, L'_, newspaper, 12.
Amelia, Princess (daughter of George III.), 74.
America, British North, 85, 225.
See also Canada.
America, South, 205, 226.
See also Spain and Portugal.
Amherst, Earl, governor-general of Bengal, 408, 409.
Amherstburg, 141.
Amiens, 10;
treaty of, 16, 17, 19, 20, 208, 398;
negotiations, 7-12;
preliminary treaty, 9, 13, 14;
definitive treaty, 12, 13, 435.
Amír Khán, Pindárí leader, 407.
Andalusia, 94, 100, 102, 106, 107.
Anglesey, Marquis of. See Paget, Lord.
Angoulême, Duke of. See Louis Antoine, dauphin.
Ansbach, 43.
Anti-Duelling Association, 251.
Antioch, 393.
Antwerp, 43, 64, 65, 200, 378, 380, 382, 386.
Apsley House. See London.
Aragon, 100.
Arakan, 408, 409.
Aranjuez, 87, 92, 93;
treaty of, 6.
Arapiles hills, the, 107.
Archangel, 310.
Archipelago, the, 261.
Arcis-sur-Aube, battle, 145.
Arcot, 400.
Arden, Lord (Perceval), 50.
Argáum, battle, 399.
Argentine, the (La Plata), 190.
_Argus_, the, American ship, 141.
Arkwright, Sir Richard, 83.
Arta, gulf of, 266, 392.
Artois, Count of. See Charles X. of France.
Ascot races, 148.
Ashley, Lord (Ashley-Cooper), afterwards Earl of Shaftesbury, 327, 328.
Asia Minor, 394, 413.
Aspern, 63.
Aspropotamo, river, 268.
Assam, 408, 409.
Assaye, battle, 399.
Astorga, 93-95.
Attwood, Thomas, M.P., 335.
Auchmuty, Sir Samuel, 56, 81.
Auckland, first Lord (Eden), president of the board of trade, 34, 346.
Auckland, second Lord (Eden), afterwards Earl of, first lord of the
admiralty, 346, 357;
governor-general of India, 363, 412.
Auerstädt, battle, 47.
Augusta, Princess of Hesse, 184.
Augusta, Princess (daughter of George III.), 184 n.
Austen, Jane, 422.
Austerlitz, battle, 42, 43, 51, 60.
Australia, 436, 438-440;
New South Wales, 438, 439;
Queensland, 439;
South Australia, 440;
Victoria, 439;
West Australia, 439.
Austria, 17, 54, 58, 59, 62, 78, 80, 124, 214, 215, 220, 264, 267, 391;
guarantees independence of Malta, 13;
treaty with France, 14;
third coalition, 37, 38, 41;
Ulm and peace of Pressburg, 42;
struggle with France, 61-64;
treaty with England, 63;
war with Bavaria, 63;
piece of Vienna, 64, 66;
national bankruptcy, 81;
treaty with France, 122;
attacks North Italy, 133;
diplomacy, 132, 134-137, 144, 187-189, 217;
truce with Russia, 135;
treaty of Ried, 137;
treaty of Teplitz, 137;
war with France, 137, 142;
alliance with Murat, 143;
campaign of 1814, 118, 143-145;
treaty of Chaumont, 144, 145, 168, 186, 191, 377;
treaty of Fontainebleau, 145, 146;
first treaty of Paris, 147, 149, 151, 156, 167, 378;
congress of Vienna, 149, 151-153, 166, 167, 186, 188-190, 376, 379, 381,
388;
secret treaty of Vienna, 153;
acquires Venetia and Lombardy, 166;
second treaty of Paris, 167, 168, 376;
holy alliance, 168;
treaties with the Two Sicilies, Tuscany, Modena and Parma, 187;
conference of Aix-la-Chapelle, 189-191;
congress of Troppau, 211-214, 395, 396;
congress of Laibach, 212, 223;
army in Italy, 212, 213, 216;
congress of Verona, 216-219, 222, 223, 392;
conference at London, 222;
conference at St. Petersburg, 224;
joins conference of London, 379-386, 392;
secret convention at Münchengrätz, 395, 396;
convention at Berlin, 396.
Ava. See Burma.
Azores, islands, 259, 388.
Azzara, Chevalier, 21.
Bacon, Lord, 424.
Badajoz, 99, 102-106, 108, 113, 147;
treaty of, 6.
Baden, 34, 189.
Baghdad, 413.
Bailey, Old. See London.
Baird, David (afterwards Sir David), general, 6, 47, 93-95.
Balkans, the, 263, 266, 267.
Baltic, the, 52, 78, 90, 199, 310.
Baltic, battle of the, 4, 5, 420.
Baltimore, 146.
Banda Oriental. See Uruguay.
Bank charter acts, 325, 326, 330, 331.
Bank of England, 183, 205, 206, 303;
notes made legal tender, 182.
Bank restriction act, 16.
Bankes, Henry, M.P., 157.
Banks, Sir Joseph, 428.
Barcelona, 88, 110, 220.
Barclay, Commander, 139.
Barham, Lord (Sir Charles Middleton), first lord of the admiralty, 36.
Baring, Alexander (afterwards Lord Ashburton), 304;
president of board of trade and master of the mint, 352.
Baring, Francis (afterwards Lord Northbrook), 346.
Barlow, Sir George, governor-general of Bengal, 401.
Barnstaple, 193.
Baroda, Gáekwár of, 405, 406.
Barrosa, 102.
Basque provinces, 390, 391.
Basque roads, 69.
Bass, George, 439.
Bassein, treaty of, 398, 399, 405.
Batavian republic. See Holland.
Bath, 43, 362.
Bath (Holland), 65.
Bathurst, Charles Bragge-. See Bragge, Charles.
Bathurst, Earl, president of the board of trade, 50, 68;
secretary for war and colonies, 82, 109, 112;
resignation, 227;
lord president of the council, 231.
Battersea Fields. See London.
Bautzen, battle, 135.
Bavaria, 41, 42, 66, 136, 152, 153, 166, 189, 392;
war with Austria, 63;
treaty of Ried, 137.
Baylen, 58, 88, 89, 92.
Bayonne, 88, 89, 92, 112, 115-117, 119;
road to, 111.
Beachy Head, 8.
Beauharnais, Auguste, Duke of Leuchtenberg, 382.
Beauharnais, Eugène, viceroy of Italy, 138.
Bedford, Duke of (Russell), lord lieutenant of Ireland, 49.
Beilan, pass, 393.
Beira, province, 255, 257.
Belgium, 143, 144, 150, 158, 159, 161, 162, 200, 377;
Prince of Orange proclaimed, 138;
troops, 156;
Waterloo campaign, 157-164;
united to Holland, 166;
revolution, 276, 376-382;
elects Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg king, 383;
war with Holland, 384-386, 393;
convention with Holland, 387.
Belgrade, 80.
Bell, Henry, 427, 434.
Belleisle, 388.
_Bellerophon_, the, British ship, 165, 168, 169.
Belliard, French general, 383, 384.
Bellingham, John, 76.
Benevente, 94, 95.
Bengal, 310, 330, 400, 404, 408, 410.
Bentham, Jeremy, 338, 341, 420, 421, 437.
Bentinck, Lord William, 114, 143;
governor-general of India, 410-412.
Berár, 399.
See Nágpur.
Berbice, 9.
Beresford, Lord George, 242.
Beresford, William (afterwards Lord and later Viscount), 47, 96, 103, 109,
118, 119, 211, 222.
Berezina, river, 125.
Berkeley, Vice-admiral, 127.
Berkshire, 281, 341.
Berlin, 53, 81, 134, 310;
convention at, 396.
Berlin decree, the, 55, 403.
Bernadotte, Marshal (afterwards Charles XIV. of Sweden), 54, 80, 136, 137,
143, 150.
Berry, Duke of, 210.
Bessarabia, 123.
Bessborough, Earl of (Ponsonby), 287.
Bessières, Marshal, 88, 92.
Betanzos, 95.
Bexley, Lord. See Vansittart, Nicholas.
Bhartpur, 399, 403, 408, 409.
Bickersteth, Henry (afterwards Lord Langdale), 363.
Bidassoa, river, 112, 114, 115.
Bilbao, 111, 391.
Birmingham, 178, 236, 272, 285, 295, 297, 304, 335, 435.
Biscay, province, 109, 389, 391.
Bishopp, British officer, 130.
Blackburn, Francis, attorney-general for Ireland, 313, 314.
Blackfriars. See London.
Blackheath. See London.
_Blackwood's Magazine_, 423-425.
Bladensburg, battle, 146.
Blake, Spanish general, 88.
Blandford, Marquis of (Churchill), afterwards Duke of Marlborough, 271,
284.
Blanketeers, the, 176.
Blomfield, bishop of London, 324, 341, 373.
Blücher, Marshal, 138, 143-145, 148;
Waterloo campaign, 156-161, 163-164.
Bohemia, 64, 137.
Bombay, 310, 398.
Bona, 188.
Bonaparte, Joseph, 10-12, 21;
King of Naples, 47, 53;
King of Spain, 59, 88, 89, 92, 98, 104, 106, 107, 109-111, 122, 123, 190.
Bonaparte, Josephine (wife of Napoleon), 382.
Bonaparte, Louis, King of Holland, 46, 53, 78.
Bonaparte, Napoleon, 6, 19, 39, 41, 42, 51, 53-56, 58, 62, 64-66, 78,
80-82, 87-89, 91, 92, 95, 96, 99-102, 104, 105, 109-112, 114, 115,
117, 119, 120-126, 128, 143, 145, 148, 150, 168, 171, 186, 199, 382;
concordat with the pope, 7;
refuses overtures of peace, 8;
meets Cornwallis, 10;
elected president of the Italian republic, 12, 17;
plans for the invasion of England, 8, 35, 38, 41, 71;
attacked by French exiles in London, 12, 17;
consul for life, 15, 17;
Fox presented to him, 15, 16;
annexes Piedmont, 17;
mediates in Switzerland and Germany, 17;
schemes of colonial expansion, 18;
Whitworth, 20-22;
declared emperor, 33, 34;
plots against his life, 33, 34;
coronations, 35, 37, 38;
Ulm and Austerlitz, 42, 64;
Jena and Auerstädt, 47, 55, 64;
Eylau, 51, 56;
Friedland, 52, 122, 401;
meets Alexander, 52;
"continental system," 53, 55-58, 78-80, 83, 87, 105, 171, 403;
manifesto, 57;
at Erfurt, 59;
Eckmühl and Wagram, 60, 63;
Borodino, 63, 124;
Leipzig, 63, 114, 118, 133, 137, 138;
marriage with Maria Louisa, 78;
fiscal policy, 79;
first abdication, 82, 118, 145;
in Spain, 92, 94;
war with Russia, 121-126, 402;
campaign of 1813, 132-138;
Lützen and Bautzen, 135;
Dresden, 137;
campaign of 1814, 143-145;
La Rothière, 144;
Arcis-sur-Aube, 145;
treaty of Fontainebleau, 145, 146;
Elba, 145, 146, 153, 201;
"The Hundred Days," 151, 153-165;
Ligny, 158, 159;
Quatre Bras, 159;
Waterloo, 160-165;
second abdication, 165;
St. Helena, 166, 167, 169, 170, 402;
designs on India, 401-403.
Bond, Nathaniel, M.P., 36.
Bonnymuir, 193.
Bordeaux, 118, 154;
road to, 117.
Bordeaux, Henry, Duke of. See Chambord, Count of.
Borisov, battle, 125.
Borodino, battle, 63, 124, 164.
Bosphorus, the, 267, 394.
Boston (United States), 142.
Botany Bay, 438.
Boulogne, 8, 35, 38.
Boulton, Matthew, 435.
Bourbon, island, 69, 403.
Bourbon, Duke of, 154.
Bourne, W. Sturges, 341;
home secretary, 227;
first commissioner of woods and forests, 228, 229.
Braga, 258.
Bragge, Charles (afterwards Bragge-Bathurst), 28, 68, 202;
chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, 81, 82, 174;
president of the board of control, 199.
Brahmaputra, the, 408, 409.
Braine l'Alleud, Belgian village, 162.
Brand, M.P., 284.
Brazil, 89, 190, 211, 221, 222, 253, 254, 259, 388;
commercial treaty with England, 222.
Brereton, Colonel, 298.
Breslau, 134, 135.
Brest, 39, 55.
Brewster's _Encyclopædia_, 424.
_Bridgwater Treatises_, the, 338.
Brienne, 143.
Brighton, 350.
Brindley, James, 434.
Bristol, 175, 297, 298, 302, 309, 435.
British Association, the, 338.
Brittany, 154.
Brock, Major-general, 129, 130.
Broke, Captain, 142.
Brooks's club. See London.
Brougham, Henry (afterwards Lord Brougham and Vaux), 48, 172, 173, 182,
193-196, 207, 228, 234, 241, 242, 274, 277, 278, 280, 357-359, 363,
423, 431;
lord chancellor, 281, 282, 287, 295, 325, 338, 343, 345, 346, 348, 351;
legal reforms, 332, 333, 358, 359, 361.
Broussa, 393.
Brown, American commander, 146.
Bruce, Michael, 436.
Brünn, 42.
Brunswick, 196.
Brunswick (Charles), Duke of, 184 n.
Brunswick (Frederick William), Duke of, 159.
Brunswick, troops, 158.
Brunswick clubs, 243.
Brussels, 158-161, 378, 379, 381, 383, 384, 387.
_Bucentaure_, the, French ship, 40.
Bucharest, treaty of, 123.
Buckingham, Marquis of (Temple-Nugent-Brydges-Chandos-Grenville),
afterwards Duke of, 199, 295.
Buckingham palace. See London.
Buckinghamshire, 281.
Buckinghamshire, third Earl of (Hobart), 1.
Buckinghamshire, fourth Earl of. See Hobart, Lord.
Buckland, William, Dean of Westminster, 340.
Buenos Ayres, 47, 56, 57, 205, 216, 223.
Bukowina, 224.
Bulgaria, 263, 267.
Bull-baiting, 15.
"Bullion committee," the, 73.
Bülow, Frederick William von, General, afterwards Count, 143, 145, 163,
164.
Bulwer, Edward Lytton (afterwards Lord Lytton), 426.
Burdett, Sir Francis, M.P., 51, 72, 175, 226, 240-242, 284, 285, 298, 374.
Burgess, Thomas, bishop of St. Davids, 430.
Burgos, 92, 108, 110.
Burgundy, 154.
Burke, Edmund, 308, 415, 422.
Burlington Heights, 139, 140.
Burma, first Burmese war, 408, 409;
treaty with East India Company, 409.
Burnes, Sir Alexander, 413, 414.
Burns, Robert, 415.
Burrard, Sir Harry, general, 90, 91, 93.
Bussaco, 101, 113.
Butrinto, 188.
Buxton, Thomas Fowell, M.P., 326, 327.
Bylandt, Dutch general, 162.
Byron, Lord, 233, 417-419.
Cachar, 411.
Cadiz, 8, 39-41, 89, 96, 100, 102-104, 109, 256.
Cadoudal, Georges, 33.
Cairo, capture of, 6.
Calabria, 47.
Calcott, Sir Augustus, 427.
Calcutta, 398, 402, 408, 412.
Calder, Sir Robert, 39.
Caledonian canal, 434.
Cambridge. See Universities.
Cambridge (Adolphus), Duke of (son of George III.), 184, 185.
Cambridgeshire, 175 n.
Camden, Earl (Pratt), afterwards Marquis Camden, secretary for war and
colonies, 34, 37;
lord president of the council, 37, 50, 66, 67;
in cabinet without office, 76, 82.
Camelford, 193.
Campbell, Lord, 361, 363.
Campbell, Sir Archibald, 409.
Campbell, Sir Neil, 153.
Campbell, Thomas, 420, 431.
Canada, 128, 147, 157, 225, 312, 437, 438;
attacked by the United States, 129, 130, 139-141, 146.
Candia. See Crete.
Cannes, 153.
Canning, George, 2, 24, 68, 76, 84, 85, 172, 209, 231, 232, 238, 240, 245,
279, 284, 285, 319, 339, 358, 423;
_jeux d'esprit_, 26, 28;
foreign secretary, 50, 52-54, 59, 66, 92;
resignation, 67;
president of the board of control, 174, 176, 185, 199, 201, 406;
foreign secretary, 197, 199-201, 207, 208, 216, 218-226, 232-235, 241,
242, 255-257, 259, 260, 390, 392, 408;
first lord of the treasury and chancellor of the exchequer, 227, 228,
273, 380;
death, 228, 229.
Canning, Sir Stratford (afterwards Viscount Stratford de Redcliffe), 225,
266.
Canterac, Spanish general, 223.
Canterbury, archbishop of (Howley), 299, 337, 373.
Cape Finisterre, 39.
Cape Formoso, 151.
Cape of Good Hope, 9, 47, 167, 398, 403, 438.
Cape St. Vincent, battle, 389.
Cape Trafalgar, battle, 40, 43, 69.
Capodistrias, Greek president, 267, 268, 392.
Carcassonne, road to, 119.
Carinthia, 66.
Carlile, agitator, 282.
Carlisle, sixth Earl of (Howard), first commissioner of woods and forests,
228, 357;
lord privy seal, 228;
in cabinet without office, 280;
lord privy seal, 346, 347.
Carlos, Don. 389-391.
Carlsbad, 189.
Carlton House. See London.
Carlyle, Jane Welsh, 424.
Carlyle, Thomas, 417, 434, 427.
Carnot, French statesman, 155, 165.
Caroline of Brunswick, Princess of Wales (afterwards queen of George IV.),
48, 85, 86, 183, 184, 192-197, 200.
Carr, R. J., bishop of Worcester, 299.
Cartwright, Edmund, 83.
Cartwright, Major, 175.
Casimir-Perier, French premier, 387.
Caspian Sea, 310.
Castalla, 109, 114.
Castaños, Francisco Xavier de, 93.
Castlereagh, Viscount (Stewart), afterwards second Marquis of Londonderry,
2, 68, 71, 73, 100, 201, 202, 208, 209, 228, 238;
president of the board of control, 15, 34;
secretary for war and colonies, 37, 50, 52, 59, 61, 62, 64, 65-67, 90,
92, 200;
resignation, 67;
foreign secretary, 76, 82, 85, 123, 144-147, 153, 156, 169, 171-173, 183,
189, 191, 195, 199, 210-212, 214, 217, 260, 387;
death, 199-201, 216, 408.
Catalonia, 88, 92, 112, 114, 115, 118.
Cathcart, Lord (afterwards Viscount, later Earl of), 43, 54, 123, 134, 136.
Catholic Apostolic Church, 339.
Catholic Association, 240, 241, 244-246.
Catholic emancipation, 49, 76, 200, 207, 226, 230, 236-249, 431;
abandoned, 2, 34;
opposition to, 32, 34, 45, 50, 208, 227;
carried, 249.
Cato Street conspiracy, 192, 193.
Cattaro, 142.
Caulaincourt, French diplomatist, 144.
Cawnpur, 399.
Census, 300, 311, 312.
Ceylon, 9, 167.
Chadwick, Edwin, 341.
Chambéry, 149.
Chambord, Count de, 210, 376.
Chambray, Marquis de, 125.
Champagne, 143, 144.
Champlain, lake, 140, 146.
Chandos, Marquis of (Brydges-Chandos-Temple-Grenville), afterwards second
Duke of Buckingham, 295, 299;
"Chandos clause," 295.
Chantrey, Sir Francis Legatt, 427.
Charity Commission, 182.
Charleroi, 158, 161.
Charles, Count of Artois (afterwards Charles X. of France), 34, 116, 154,
224, 376.
Charles IV., King of Spain, 87, 88.
Charles XII., King of Sweden, 54.
Charles XIII., King of Sweden and Norway, 54, 150.
Charles, Archduke, 63.
Charles Albert, Prince, of Carignano (afterwards King of Sardinia), 213.
Charles Emmanuel II., King of Sardinia, 10.
Charles Felix, King of Sardinia, 213.
Charlotte, Princess (daughter of the Prince Regent), 86, 174, 183-185, 194,
195, 268.
Charlotte, Queen-dowager of Würtemburg (daughter of George III.), 184 n.
Charlotte, queen of George III., 74, 184, 185.
Charlotte, queen of John VI. of Portugal, 253, 254.
Chartism, 308.
Chassé, D. H., Dutch general, 162.
Chateauguay, battle of river, 141.
Chatham, Earl of (John Pitt), lord president of the council, 1;
master-general of the ordnance, 1, 24, 50, 64, 65, 71;
resignation, 72.
Châtillon-sur-Seine, congress at, 118, 144.
Chaumont, treaty of, 144, 145;
extended at Paris, 168, 186, 191, 377.
Chauncey, Commodore, 140.
Cherbourg, 376.
Chesapeake Bay, 146;
estuary, 141.
_Chesapeake_, the, American frigate, 127, 142, 147.
Chesney, Francis Rawdon, colonel, 413.
Chester, bishop of (Sumner), 341.
Chichagov, Russian general, 125.
Chichester, first Earl of (Pelham), 1.
Chile, 190, 221.
China, 86, 310, 325, 328, 329;
coolies, 438.
Chios, island, 261, 263.
Chippewa, 130, 146.
Chiswick, 228.
Chittagong, 408.
Chítu, Pindárí leader, 406, 407.
Cholera, 299, 309, 311, 407.
Christian, Prince (afterwards Christian VIII. of Denmark), 143, 150.
Chrystler's Farm, battle, 141.
Church, Sir Richard, general, 262, 266.
Church, Irish, temporalities act, 321-325.
Church rates, 373, 374.
Church, Scottish, 360 n., 424.
Church, states of the. See Papal states.
Cilicia, 394.
Cinque Ports, 23.
Cintra, convention of, 60, 91.
Cisalpine republic (Italian republic), 9, 12, 17, 38.
Ciudad Real, 96.
Ciudad Rodrigo, 100, 102-108.
Civil list, 15, 173, 174, 192, 278, 282, 283, 290.
Clancarty, Earl of (Le Poer-Trench), 61, 68.
Clare election, 236, 237, 243, 245, 250, 251, 313.
Clare, Earl of (Fitzgibbon), 3.
Clarence (William), Duke of. See William IV.
Clarke, Mrs., 60, 61.
Clarkson, Thomas, philanthropist, 48.
Clausel, General, 107, 108, 111-113.
Cleves, 43.
Clinton, Sir Henry, general, 162.
Clive, Lord, 396.
Clyde, the, 428, 434.
Coa, river, 110.
Cobbett, William, 177, 207, 282, 318, 335, 343, 423;
_Weekly Register_, 72, 175, 204, 422, 423.
Coblenz, 138.
Cochrane, Lord (afterwards Earl of Dundonald), 51, 69, 72, 88, 175, 190,
221, 222, 233.
Codrington, Admiral, 230, 233, 234, 264.
Coercion acts (Irish), 330-322, 324, 325, 346, 347.
Coimbra, 98, 101.
Colchester, Lord. See Abbot, Charles.
Cole, General (afterwards Sir) G. L. 103.
Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, 416, 417, 425.
Colle, La, Mill, 146.
Collingwood, Admiral, 39, 40, 41, 57, 69, 88.
_Collingwood, the Lord_, British ship, 216.
Cologne, 43.
Colombia, 216, 223.
Combermere, Lord (Cotton), afterwards Viscount, 409.
Combination laws, 204, 207.
_Comet_, the, steamboat, 427, 434.
Concordat, the, 7.
Congreve rockets, 117.
"Conservative," origin of name, 319.
Constable, John, 427.
Constantinople, 57, 214, 216, 233, 259, 261, 267, 387, 393, 394.
_Constitution_, the, American frigate, 131, 132.
Continental system, the, 33, 55-58, 66, 78-80, 83, 87, 105, 126, 128, 171,
403.
Convention act (Irish), 240.
Conyngham, Marquis of, 346.
Cook, Captain, 436, 438.
Cooke, General, 162.
Coorg, 411.
Copenhagen, 3-5, 54, 55, 57.
See Baltic, battle of the.
Copley, Sir John (afterwards Lord Lyndhurst), 226, 242, 281, 295, 302-304,
359, 361-363, 365, 369-372;
lord chancellor, 227, 231, 243, 246, 249, 352.
Corn, price of, 7 n., 84, 85, 172, 174, 203, 370.
Corn laws, 85, 173, 204, 207, 243, 306.
Cornwall, 288.
Cornwall (Canada), 141.
Cornwall, revenues of duchy of, 15, 278.
Cornwallis, Admiral, 39.
Cornwallis, Marquis, 239;
master-general of ordnance, 1;
negotiates treaty of Amiens, 10-12;
warns England, 17;
governor-general of Bengal, 400, 401.
Corporation act, 229, 334, 235, 242.
Corporation act (Irish), 372.
Coruña, 39, 90, 92, 93;
battle, 95, 96, 108.
Cottenham, Lord. See Pepys, Sir Charles.
Countries, the Low. See Belgium and Holland.
Cowper, William, 415.
Cox, David, 427.
Cracow, 153, 166.
Cradock, Sir John, 96.
Craig, Sir James, 42;
governor of Canada, 128, 129.
Craufurd, Robert, general, 105.
Crete, 261, 263, 266, 268.
Criminal law, reform of, 51, 77, 194, 201, 369.
Croker, John Wilson, 274, 303, 318.
Crome, John, the elder, 427.
Cronstadt fleet, 123.
Cuba, 222.
Cuesta, Spanish general, 88, 98, 99.
Cumberland (Ernest), Duke of (son of George III.), 184, 185, 197, 231, 235,
246, 274, 324, 367, 368.
Curtis, Roman Catholic archbishop of Dublin, 243, 244.
Curwen, John Christian, M.P., 181, 182, 284.
Cuttack, 399.
Czartoryski, Prince Adam, 80.
Czernowitz, 224.
Dakáiti, 401.
Dalmatia, 42, 142;
Duke of. See Soult, Marshal.
Dalrymple, Sir Hew, general, 90, 91.
Danube, the, 41, 63, 77, 94, 124, 263, 310.
Danubian principalities. See Moldavia and Wallachia.
Danzig, surrender of, 52.
Dardanelles, the, 55, 57, 188, 214, 215, 260, 265, 267, 394, 395.
Darling, Governor, 440.
Darlington, 435.
Darnley, Earl of (Bligh), 54.
Dartmouth, Earl of. See Lewisham, Viscount.
Darwin, Charles, 428.
Daulat Ráo Sindhia. See Sindhia.
Davoût, Marshal, 81, 136, 137.
Davy, Sir Humphry, 428, 433.
Dawson, George, M.P., 243, 246.
"Days, the Hundred." See Bonaparte, Napoleon.
Dearborn, American general, 130, 140.
Decaen, French general, 18.
Deccan, the, 407.
Delaborde, French officer, 90.
Delaware, estuary, 141.
Delhi, 397-399, 406.
Demerara, 9.
Denman, Thomas (afterwards Lord Denman), 195.
Denmark, 3-5, 53-55, 59, 69, 136, 190;
treaties of Kiel, 143, 189;
loses Norway, 166.
Dennewitz, battle, 137.
De Quincey, Thomas, 425.
Derby, 296.
Derby, twelfth Earl of (Smith-Stanley), 277.
Derbyshire, 83.
Derry, 243.
Desnoëttes, General Lefebvre-, 88.
Despard, Edward Marcus, colonel, 16.
Detroit, 129, 138.
Devonshire, 359.
Devonshire, Duke of (Cavendish), 228.
D'Eyncourt. See Tennyson, Charles.
Dickens, Charles, 426.
Diebitsch, Russian general, 266, 267, 310.
Dijon, 145.
Disraeli, Benjamin (afterwards Earl of Beaconsfield), 426.
Dissenters, 306;
disabilities of, 85, 234, 235, 353, 355, 430.
Donauwörth, 41, 63.
Dost Muhammad, Amír of Kábul, 414.
Douro, the, 94, 98, 99, 110.
Dover, 148, 195, 351, 435.
Downs, the, 64.
Drake, British envoy, 33.
Dresden, 112, 114, 135;
battle, 137.
Dropmore, seat of Lord Grenville, 24.
Drummond, Sir Gordon, 146.
Dublin, 19, 77, 197, 240, 317, 371;
castle, 23;
police bill, 362;
archbishop of (Whately), 317, 421, 422;
Roman Catholic archbishop of (Curtis), 243, 244.
Duckworth, Sir John, admiral, 57.
Dudley, Viscount and Earl of. See Ward, J. W.
Duhesme, French general, 88.
Dumont, Pierre Étienne Louis, 420.
Duncannon, Viscount (Ponsonby), afterwards Earl of Bessborough, 287;
home secretary, 347;
lord privy seal, 357.
Duncombe, Thomas S., M.P., 374.
Dundas, Sir David, commander-in-chief, 61, 62.
Dundas, Henry (afterwards first Viscount Melville), 3, 24, 25, 30, 32, 68;
first lord of the admiralty, 34;
impeachment, 36.
Dundas, Robert S. (afterwards second Viscount Melville), president of board
of control, 68;
first lord of the admiralty, 82;
resignation, 227;
president of board of control, 231;
first lord of the admiralty, 243.
Dundee, 306.
Dupont, General, 88.
Durham. See Universities.
Durham, Lord (Lambton), afterwards Earl of, 345, 348;
lord privy seal, 280, 287, 291;
resignation, 325.
East India Company. See India.
East Retford, 235, 236.
Ebrington, Viscount (Fortescue), afterwards second Earl Fortescue, 206,
303.
Ebro, the, 89, 92, 110, 114.
Ecclefechan, 424.
Ecclesiastical commission, 355, 373.
Eckmühl, battle, 63.
Edgeworth, Maria, 422.
Edgware Road. See London.
Edinburgh, 306, 348.
_Edinburgh Review_, the, 358, 423, 424.
Education, national, 49, 51, 182, 193, 194, 358;
Irish, 316, 317.
Edwards, George, informer, 192.
Egmont, Earl of (Perceval), 50.
Egypt, 6, 9, 18, 57, 224, 225, 233, 262, 264, 265, 269, 396, 413;
convention of Alexandria, 264, 265;
peace of Kiutayeh, 394.
Elba, island, 145, 146, 151, 153, 169, 201.
Elbe, the, 55, 62, 133, 135, 137.
Eldon, Lord (Scott), afterwards Earl of Eldon, 232, 234, 235, 238, 239,
244, 248, 249, 296, 319, 333, 353, 358, 362;
lord chancellor, 1, 29, 30, 31, 49, 50, 51, 60, 67 n., 74-76, 82, 85,
169, 172, 179, 180, 194-196, 202, 209;
resignation, 227.
Elections, general. See Parliament.
Eliot, Lord (afterwards Earl of St. Germans), 390.
Elizabeth, Princess (daughter of George III.), 184 n., 185.
Ellenborough, first Lord (Law), lord chief justice, 45, 49, 169, 177.
Ellenborough, second Lord, afterwards Earl (Law), 328, 329;
lord privy seal, 231;
president of the board of control, 243, 271, 352.
Ellesmere canal, 434.
Ellice, Edward, secretary at war, 346.
Elphinstone, Mountstuart, 403.
Elsinore, 4.
Elvas, 93, 103.
Embargo act (United States), 128.
Emmet, Robert, 18, 23, 240.
Empire, Holy Roman, dissolved, 46;
treaty of Lunéville, 6, 17.
Enghien, Duke of, murder of, 34, 35, 37.
England, negotiates with France, 7-12;
conquests, 9, 14, 47, 69, 81, 398, 403;
signs treaty of Amiens, 12, 13, 398;
industrial and agricultural depression, 13, 83, 171, 172, 174-180,
205-207, 270, 299, 312, 370;
fresh discord with France, 16, 17;
war declared against France, 22;
preparations for invasion, 23;
third coalition, 35, 37, 38, 41, 52;
treaty with Russia, 37:
treaty with Sweden, 38;
expeditions to Naples, 42, 47, 63;
Anglo-Hanoverian expedition to North Germany, 42, 43, 51;
negotiations with France, 46;
state of army in 1806, 51;
in 1807, 59, 60;
in 1813, 86;
troops in Sweden, 52;
troops in Denmark, 53, 54;
orders in council, 55, 56, 126, 130, 171;
commercial warfare, 58;
Peninsular war, 59-63, 65, 66, 68, 71, 73, 76, 77, 82, 87-120, 129, 182;
treaty with Spanish junta, 96;
Walcheren expedition, 62-66, 99:
treaty with Austria, 63;
Sweden declares war on, 78;
treaties with Russia and Sweden, 85, 123, 136;
war with United States, 58, 82, 126-132, 138-142, 146, 147, 156, 171;
treaty of Stockholm, 136;
treaties of Reichenbach, 136;
treaty of Teplitz, 137;
treaty of Ried, 137;
treaty of Kiel, 143;
treaty of Chaumont, 144, 145, 168, 186, 191, 377;
treaty of Fontainebleau, 145, 146;
treaty of Ghent, 147, 156, 203;
visit of the allied sovereigns, 147, 148;
first treaty of Paris, 147, 149, 151, 156, 167, 378;
treaty with Spain, 150;
congress of Vienna, 149, 151-153, 156, 166, 168, 186-188, 190, 376, 379,
381, 388;
Waterloo campaign, 156-165;
second treaty of Paris, 167, 168, 376;
union of Irish and English exchequers, 174;
expedition against the Barbary States, 187, 188;
conferences of Vienna, 189, 216, 217;
conference of Aix-la-Chapelle, 189-191, 377;
congress of Troppau, 211-215, 395, 396;
the Eastern question, 213, 216, 232-234, 259-269, 392;
congress of Verona, 216-219, 222, 223, 392;
assists Portugal, 220, 221, 255-258;
commercial treaty with Brazil, 322;
conferences of London, 222, 262-268, 379-386, 392;
conference at St. Petersburg, 224;
treaty with United States, 225;
treaty of London, 233, 234, 259, 260, 262-264, 266, 267;
treaties with Portugal, 255;
convention of Alexandria, 264, 265;
convention with France and Holland, 387;
triple and quadruple alliances, 389-391;
treaties with Indian states, 398, 399;
treaty with Persia, 402.
Epirus, 188.
Erfurt, 59, 92.
Erie, lake, 139, 141.
Erlon, d', French general, 159, 162, 163.
Erskine, Lord, 77, 177;
lord chancellor, 49.
Esdremadura, 99, 106.
Espinosa, battle, 92.
Essequibo, 9.
Essex, 175 n.
Essling, 63.
Etruria, kingdom of, 9.
Euphrates, the, 413.
Evans, De Lacy (afterwards Sir de Lacy), 343, 391.
Eveleigh, Dr., 429.
Evora, convention at, 390.
Ewart, William, M.P., 369.
Exchange, Royal. See London.
Exeter, bishop of (Phillpotts), 324.
Exmouth, Lord (Pellew), afterwards Viscount, 187, 188.
Eylau, battle, 51, 199;
campaign, 56.
Fabvier, Colonel, 262.
Factory acts, 326-328.
Falmouth, 259.
Faraday, Michael, 428.
Fath Ali, Sháh of Persia, 402.
Fauvelet, French agent, 19.
Fawkes, Guy, 192.
Ferdinand, Emperor of Austria, 396.
Ferdinand III., Grand Duke of Tuscany, 166.
Ferdinand IV., King of the Two Sicilies, 7, 47, 58, 166, 187, 211, 212,
216, 221.
Ferdinand VII., King of Spain, 87, 88, 103, 123, 150, 187, 190, 210, 215,
218, 222, 388, 389, 395.
Ferrol, 39.
Ferronays, De la, French foreign minister, 261.
Finance, 15, 48, 49, 86, 172, 173, 198, 201-204, 206, 207, 226, 238, 235,
270, 283, 291, 334, 335, 347, 356, 369;
income and property tax, 15, 23, 48, 49, 172, 173;
currency reform, 74, 182, 183.
Fines, act for abolition of, 325, 333.
Finland, 54, 59, 122, 123, 125, 166.
Finn, W. F., M.P., 367, 368.
Fischer, Danish commander, 5.
Fitzgerald, Vesey, M.P., 236, 237.
Fitzherbert, Mrs., 194.
Fitzwilliam, Earl, 14, 29, 32, 180;
lord president of the council, 45;
in cabinet without office, 49.
Flaxman, John, 427.
Fletcher, Colonel, 101.
Fleurus, 158.
Flinders, Matthew, 436, 439.
Florence, 212, 216;
treaty of, 7.
Florida, 215.
Flushing, 65, 71.
Fontainebleau, 82, 118, 145;
decree 79;
treaties of, 87, 145, 146.
Fort Erie, 130.
Fortescue, first Earl, 296.
Fort George, 130, 140, 141.
Fort Sandusky, 139.
Fouché, French politician, 155, 165, 168.
Fox, Charles James, 14-16, 26, 27, 29-34, 200, 279, 372, 417;
relations with George III., 32, 33, 45, 46, 185;
foreign secretary, 45, 46;
abolition of slave trade, 46, 48;
death, 46, 47, 49, 228.
Foy, French general, 111, 112, 160.
France, 13, 14, 17, 21, 39-41, 47, 54, 58, 64, 65, 69, 79, 88, 105, 119,
128, 130, 145, 150-153, 186, 187, 189-191, 205, 210, 212, 221, 223,
377, 398;
treaties of Lunéville and Aranjuez, 6, 17;
treaty of Florence, 7;
negotiations resulting in treaty of Amiens, 7, 13;
proposed invasion of England, 8;
war declared against England, 22;
alliance with Spain, 35;
encroachments in Europe, 37;
war with Austria, 38, 41, 42;
war with Russia, 38, 41, 42, 51;
"army of England," 38, 42;
peace of Pressburg, 42;
treaty with the Two Sicilies, 42;
treaty of Schönbrunn, 43;
treaty with Prussia, 46, 55;
war with Prussia, 47, 52;
treaty of Tilsit, 52, 53, 55, 57, 59, 78, 87, 401, 402;
secret treaty of Fontainebleau, 87;
Milan decree, 56;
Peninsular war, 59-63, 65, 66, 68, 71, 73, 76, 77, 82, 87-120;
war with Austria, 61-64;
peace of Vienna, 64, 66;
loss of foreign possessions, 69, 81, 215, 223, 403;
annexations, 77-79;
breach with Russia, 79-81, 105, 108;
treaty with Prussia, 122;
war with Russia, 82, 97, 100, 121-126, 402;
campaign of 1813, 132-138;
war with Prussia, 134;
war with Austria, 137, 142, 143;
campaign of 1814, 118, 143-145;
the allies enter, 118, 143;
congress at Châtillon-sur-Seine, 118, 144;
first treaty of Paris, 147, 149, 151, 156, 167, 378;
congress of Vienna, 149, 151-153, 156, 166, 167, 186, 188, 190, 379, 381,
388;
Waterloo campaign, 156-165;
second treaty of Paris, 167, 168, 376;
congress of Troppau, 211-214, 395, 396;
dispute with Spain, 215, 217-221, 256, 257, 264;
congress of Verona, 216-219, 222, 223, 392;
conference at St. Petersburg, 224;
treaty of London, 233, 234, 259, 260, 262-264, 266, 267;
the Eastern question, 259-269, 392-395;
conference of London, 262-268, 379-386, 392;
conquest of Algiers, 269;
revolution of July, 274, 276, 285, 376, 378;
assists Belgium, 384-386;
convention with England and Holland, 387;
attacks Portugal, 388;
quadruple alliance, 389-391;
officers in India, 398;
treaty with Persia, 402.
France, Isle of. See Mauritius, the.
Franche-Comté, 143.
Francis II., Holy Roman Emperor (afterwards Francis I., Emperor of
Austria), 17, 46, 78, 144, 145, 148, 218, 224, 395.
Francis IV., Duke of Modena, 166.
Frankfort, 189.
Franklin, Benjamin, 185.
Fraser, General, 57.
Frasnes, 158, 159.
Frederick, Prince Regent of Denmark (afterwards Frederick VI.), 5, 53.
Frederick, Prince, of Orange, 379.
Frederick II., the Great, King of Prussia, 47.
Frederick Augustus, King of Saxony, 135.
Frederick Joseph, Landgrave of Hesse-Homburg, 184.
Frederick William III., King of Prussia, 38, 42, 43, 46, 47, 52, 62, 122,
134, 144, 147, 148, 152, 189.
Frederick William, Crown Prince of Prussia (afterwards Frederick William
IV.), 395.
Fréjus, 146.
Frenchtown, 138.
Freyre, English officer, 118.
Friedland, battle, 52, 122, 401.
_Frolic_, the, British sloop, 132.
Fuentes d'Oñoro, battle, 103.
Gáekwár. See Baroda, Gáekwár of.
Galicia, 39, 66, 80, 88, 90, 94, 98, 122.
Gambier, Admiral (afterwards Lord), 54, 69.
Gamonal, battle, 92.
Ganges, the, 398, 407.
Gantheaume, French admiral, 39.
Gardane, French general, 402.
Gardner, Colonel, 405.
Garonne, the, 118.
Gascoyne, General, M.P., 291.
Gatton, 289.
Gebora, river, 102.
Genappe, 160.
Genoa, 143, 149, 166, 390;
bay of, 69.
George III., 2, 14, 22, 31, 32, 34, 48-50, 55, 62, 66-68, 71, 92, 96, 171,
194, 208, 242, 375;
insanity, 29, 74, 83;
relations with Fox, 32, 33, 45, 46;
jubilee, 69;
family, 184;
death, 185, 192;
character, 185, 186, 249, 273.
George, Prince of Wales (afterwards George IV.), his friends, 29;
regent for George III., 74-76, 83, 85, 148, 156, 157, 165, 168, 176, 179,
186;
marriage relations, 85, 86, 183, 184, 192-197;
character, 173, 174, 183, 184, 194, 197, 208, 244, 282, 375;
king, 192, 199, 201, 226-231, 242-244, 246, 249, 268, 271;
coronation, 196, 197, 309;
death, 272, 273.
Gérard, General (afterwards Marshal), 164, 386.
Germany, 38, 41-43, 46, 47, 55, 58, 59, 61-64, 71, 79, 80, 82, 92, 97, 105,
115, 118, 123, 132-138, 142, 144, 149, 152, 156, 188, 189, 381, 387,
424, 425;
redistribution of territory, 17, 53, 78, 153;
forces in the Peninsula, 98, 114, 116;
organisation of, 166.
See also Austria, Bavaria, Hanover, Prussia, etc.
Gerona, 88.
Ghent, 155, 378;
treaty of, 147, 156, 203.
Ghika, Alexander, Hospodar of Wallachia, 396.
Gibbon, Edward, 415.
Gibraltar, 188, 259, 381;
governor of, 90;
straits of, 8, 39.
Giessen, 189.
Gifford, William, 423.
Gillray, James, 26.
Gladstone, William Ewart, 44, 200, 318, 350, 424.
Glasgow, 193, 295, 306, 371.
Glenelg, Lord. See Grant, Charles.
Gloucester (William), Duke of (nephew of George III.), 184 n.
Goderich, Viscount. See Robinson, F. J.
Godoy, Spanish statesman, 87.
Goethe, Wolfgang von, 417, 418.
Gohad, 399.
Golden Lane. See London.
Gordon, Robert, diplomatist, 266.
Goulburn, Henry, 284, 303, 319;
chancellor of the exchequer, 231, 270, 278, 280;
home secretary, 352, 367.
Gower, Lord Francis Leveson (afterwards Earl of Ellesmere), 236.
Gower, Lord Granville Leveson- (afterwards Earl Granville), secretary at
war, 66;
retirement, 68.
Graham, Sir James, 270, 277, 352, 354, 374;
first lord of the admiralty, 279, 287;
resignation, 345.
Graham, Sir Thomas (afterwards Lord Lynedoch), 102, 104, 110-113.
Grampound, 193, 198, 284, 288.
Granby, Marquis of (Manners), 52.
Grand, river, 139.
Grant, Charles (afterwards Lord Glenelg), 277;
board of trade, 230, 231;
resignation, 236, 380;
president of the board of control, 279, 329, 330, 380;
secretary for war and colonies, 357.
Grattan, Henry, M.P., 197, 238.
Graves, Rear-admiral, 5.
Greece, 379, 380, 383;
revolts against Turkey, 213, 214, 216, 217, 223-226, 232-234, 253,
259-267, 393;
independent, 268;
boundary fixed, 392.
Greenock, 306.
Grenoble, 153.
Grenville, Thomas, first lord of the admiralty, 49.
Grenville, Lord, 2, 14, 24-26, 29, 33, 35, 54, 56, 67 n., 68, 74-76, 109,
238, 279;
his followers, 26, 27, 30, 32, 34;
first lord of the treasury, 45, 47-49, 51, 52;
resignation, 49, 50;
opposition to Peninsular war, 71, 76.
Greville, Charles, 332.
Grey, Charles (afterwards Viscount Howick and later second Earl Grey), 46,
67 n., 68, 74-76, 199, 228, 230, 249, 271, 276, 277, 348, 357;
first lord of the admiralty, 45;
foreign secretary, 49, 52, 55;
opposition to Peninsular war, 76;
first lord of the treasury, 278-283, 285-287, 290, 291, 293-296, 299,
301-304, 320, 321, 324, 325, 334, 375, 380;
resignation, 344-347.
Grey, Earl de, first lord of the admiralty, 352.
Grossbeeren, battle, 137.
Grosvenor Square. See London.
Grote, George, 341, 345, 374, 431.
Grouchy, Marshal, 160, 163, 164.
Guadeloupe, 136.
Guadiana, the, 99.
Guarda, 100.
_Guerrière_, the, British frigate, 131, 132.
Guildhall. See London.
Guilleminot, French diplomatist, 266.
Guizot, French statesman, 357.
Gujrát, 399.
Gúrkhas, the, 404, 405.
Gustavus IV., King of Sweden, 37, 54, 90.
Gwalior, 310, 399, 407.
See Sindhia.
_Habeas corpus act_, suspension of, 3, 176-178, 181, 240, 320.
Hague, the, 384.
Haidarábád, 40;
Nizám of, 397, 398;
treaty of Bassein, 398, 399.
Hal, 158, 161.
_Halifax_, the, British sloop, 127.
Hallam, Henry, 426, 427.
Hamburg, 134, 136, 138, 310.
Hamilton, English commodore, 225.
Hamilton, Sir William, philosopher, 417.
Hampden clubs, 175.
Hampshire, 281, 282.
Hampton, General, 140, 141.
Hampton roads, 127.
Hanau, battle, 133.
_Hannibal_, the, British ship, 8.
Hanover, 22, 38, 42, 43, 46, 55, 134, 136, 166, 249.
Hanoverian troops, 137, 158, 159, 161.
Hanse Towns, the, 55.
Hardenberg, Prussian minister, 144, 152.
Hardinge, Henry (afterwards Sir Henry and later Viscount Hardinge), 104;
secretary at war, 236, 250, 275, 313.
Hardwicke, Earl of (Yorke), lord-lieutenant of Ireland, 2, 23, 27.
Harrison, American general, 138, 139.
Harrowby, Lord (Dudley Ryder), afterwards Earl of Harrowby, 68, 193, 295,
299, 301, 302;
foreign secretary, 34;
retirement, 35;
chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster, 37;
president of the board of control, 66;
lord president of the council, 81, 82, 227, 230.
Hartwell, Bucks, 147.
Harwich, 197.
Hasselt, 384.
Hastings, Marquis of. See Moira, Earl of.
Hastings, Warren, 279.
Haugwitz, Prussian minister, 42, 43.
Hawkesbury, Lord (Jenkinson), afterwards Earl of Liverpool, foreign
secretary, 1, 8, 9, 11, 12, 19, 20, 25, 34, 228;
called to the house of lords, 27;
home secretary, 34;
declines office as first lord of the treasury, 45;
home secretary, 50;
secretary for war and colonies, 68, 71, 82, 100, 106;
first lord of the treasury, 77, 82, 83, 85, 108, 109, 151, 168, 169, 172,
173, 183, 195-199, 205, 238, 239, 242, 279, 380;
resignation, 208, 209, 226.
Hay, Lord John, 391.
Haye, La, farm, 162.
Haye Sainte, La, farm, 162, 163.
Hayti, 215, 223.
Hazlitt, William, 425.
Health, board of, 310.
Hegel, Georg, 417.
Heligoland, 143, 167.
Helvetian republic. See Switzerland.
Helvoetsluis, 18.
Henry IV., King of France, 219.
Henry, John, 128.
Herat, 412-414.
Herries, J. C., chancellor of the exchequer, 229, 230;
master of the mint, 231;
secretary at war, 352.
Herschel, Sir John, 428.
Hesse, Princess' Augusta of (Duchess of Cambridge), 184.
Heytesbury, Lord, 412.
Hill, Rowland (afterwards Sir Rowland and later Viscount Hill), 104-106,
108, 110-113, 115-117, 119.
Himálayas, the, 404, 405.
Hobart, Lord (afterwards fourth Earl of Buckinghamshire), secretary for war
and colonies, 1, 2, 34;
chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster, 35;
resignation, 37;
president of the board of control, 81, 82, 174.
Hobhouse, Sir John Cam (afterwards Lord Broughton), 325, 327, 343, 418;
first commissioner of woods and forests, 347;
president of the board of control, 357.
Hohenlinden, battle, 420.
Holkar, Jaswant Ráo Holkar, 398, 399, 405;
Malhár Ráo Holkar, 405, 406.
Holland (Batavian republic), 9, 11, 18 19, 21, 38, 53, 61, 81, 149-151,
156, 158, 159, 161, 162, 166, 199, 377;
treaty of Amiens, 13;
Louis Bonaparte, king of, 46;
loss of Cape of Good Hope, 47, 403;
Walcheren expedition, 65;
annexed by France, 78;
revolts, 133, 138;
Prince of Orange proclaimed King of the Netherlands, 138;
Dutch at Waterloo, 158, 161, 162;
united to Belgium, 166;
separation from Belgium, 376-386, 393;
convention with Great Britain and France, 387;
convention with Belgium, 387;
settlers in South Africa, 438.
Holland, Lord (Vassall-Fox), 170, 180, 199, 228, 230, 234;
lord privy seal, 49;
chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster, 280, 357.
Holy Alliance, 37, 168, 169, 186, 200, 229.
Holyhead, 197.
Homs, 393.
Hone, William, 177.
Hope, John (afterwards Sir John, later Lord Niddry and Earl of Hopetoun),
93, 95, 116, 117, 119.
Horner, Francis, M.P., 73, 183, 423.
_Hornet_, the, American ship, 141.
Hougoumont, 161, 162.
Howard, John, 415, 437.
Howick, Viscount. See Grey, Charles.
Howick, Viscount (afterwards third Earl Grey), 271;
secretary at war, 357.
Howley, archbishop of Canterbury, 299, 337, 373.
Huddersfield, 270.
Hudson, James (afterwards Sir James Hudson), 351.
Hugo, Victor, 426.
Hull, American general, 129.
Hume, David, 415.
Hume, Joseph, 198, 274, 323, 367, 368, 374, 431.
Hunt, "Orator," 175, 179, 207, 281, 318.
Huron, lake, 129.
Huskisson, William, 84, 86;
president of the board of trade, 198, 202, 203, 205, 207, 227, 228;
secretary for war and colonies, 229-232, 235, 270, 271;
resignation, 236, 380;
death, 275, 276, 435.
Hutchinson, General, 6.
Hutton, James, 428.
Hydriots, the, 392.
Ibrahim, Pasha, 224, 225, 233, 264, 265, 392-394, 396.
Illyrian provinces, 66, 122, 134, 137.
_Impérieuse_, the, British frigate, 88.
_Inconstant_, the, Napoleon's brig, 153.
Indemnity acts, 234.
India, 3, 18, 50, 59, 61, 104, 329, 330, 397-414, 436;
French towns in India, 18, 19;
East India Company, 201, 271, 399, 400, 406, 409;
acts and charters relating to East India Company, 86, 325, 328-330, 404,
411, 412;
treaties, 398, 399, 402, 403-406, 409, 412;
coolies, 438.
Indians (America), 129, 138, 147.
Indies, East, 20, 81, 310.
Indies, West, 20, 39, 69, 131, 219, 326, 438.
Indore. See Holkar.
Ingilby, Sir W. A., M.P., 334.
Inglis, Sir Robert, M.P., 245.
Inn, river, 63.
Insurrection act, 240, 320.
Inverness, 348.
Ionian islands, 69, 167, 187, 188, 267, 268.
Irawadi, the, 408.
Ireland, 16, 51, 55, 85, 197, 208, 242, 246, 247, 281, 289, 290, 312, 316,
317, 359, 360, 367, 368, 370-373;
condition of, in 1801, 2, 3;
in 1821, 199, 239;
in 1824, 205;
in 1828, 243;
in 1829, 270;
in 1830, 275;
in 1831-32, 312-317;
in 1833, 320, 321;
in 1834, 345;
in 1837, 371;
French spies, 18, 19, 23;
Emmet's rebellion, 18, 23, 240;
scheme for representative assembly, 77;
union of Irish and English exchequers, 174;
Clare election, 236, 237, 243, 245, 250, 251, 313;
disfranchisement of forty shilling freeholders, 241, 249;
famine, 243;
reform bill, 306, 307;
agitation against tithe, 313-316, 320;
church, 315-317, 322;
processions act, 316, 317;
education, 316, 317;
coercion act, 320-322, 324, 325, 332;
church temporalities act, 321-325, 332;
second coercion act, 347;
municipal corporations bill, 364, 365.
Irving, Edward, 339, 340.
Isabella II., Queen of Spain, 389, 395.
Isabella Maria, Regent of Portugal, 253.
Ischia, island, 63.
Isle-aux-noix, 140.
Istria, 42.
Isturiz, Spanish premier, 391.
Italy, 42, 58, 63, 79, 133, 137, 138, 143-145, 149, 153, 157, 166, 187,
210, 211, 213, 215-217, 348, 377, 387;
Napoleon crowned King of Italy, 37, 38.
Italian republic. See Cisalpine republic.
Jackson, Andrew (afterwards President of the United States), 147.
Jackson, Francis J., British envoy, 53.
Jails, 369, 437.
Jaswant Ráo Holkar. See Holkar.
Java, 81, 403.
_Java_, the, British frigate, 132.
Jefferson, Thomas, President of the United States, 58, 127, 128.
Jeffrey, Francis (afterwards Lord), 423.
Jena, battle, 47, 199.
Jenner, Dr. Edward, 15, 427.
Jessor, 310.
Jesuits, 247.
Jews, disabilities of, 235.
John VI., King of Portugal, 211, 215, 220, 221, 253, 254.
Johnson, Samuel, 186, 415.
Jones, Sir Harford (afterwards Brydges), 402.
Jones, John Gale, 72.
Jordan, Mrs., 273.
Jourdan, Marshal, 98, 110.
Jumna, river, 398, 399.
Junot, Duke of Abrantes, 54, 58, 89-91, 100.
Kábul, 403, 413, 414.
Kaffraria, 438.
Kalisch, treaty of, 134.
Kandahár, 403, 414.
Kant, Immanuel, 417.
Karavasara, 266.
Karnátik, the, 397.
Katzbach, the, battle, 137.
Keats, John, 419.
Keble, John, 337.
Kehl, 138.
Kellermann, French general, 159, 162.
Kent, 23, 281.
Kent (Edward), Duke of (son of George III.), 184, 185.
Kent (Victoria Mary), Duchess of 184, 185, 281.
Keswick, 420.
Key, Sir John, M.P., 334.
Khátmándu, 404.
Kiel, treaty of, 142, 143, 189.
Kilkenny, murders in, 320.
Killingworth colliery, 434, 435.
Kilwarden, Viscount (Wolfe), 23.
King's College. See London.
Kiutayeh, 393;
peace of, 394.
Kléber, French general, 6.
Knatchbull, Sir Edward, paymaster of forces, 352.
Knights of St. John, 9, 10, 13;
property of the order, 11.
Konieh, 393.
Königsberg, 81.
Kotzebue, murder of, 189.
Krasnoe, battle, 125.
Kronborg, 4.
Kruse, Dutch officer, 162.
Kulm, 137.
Kumáun, district of, 405.
Kutuzov, Russian general, 124.
Labedoyère, Colonel, 154.
Laconia, 392.
Laffitte, French premier, 383, 387.
Lahore, 402.
Laibach, treaty of, 212, 213.
Lake, General (afterwards Lord and later Viscount Lake), 398-401, 409.
Lamb, Charles, 425.
Lamb, William (afterwards Viscount Melbourne), 227, 231, 236;
home secretary, 279, 296, 299;
first lord of the treasury, 347, 350;
resignation, 351;
first lord of the treasury, 357, 359, 360, 363, 370, 371, 373, 390, 401,
431.
Lampeter, St. David's College, 430.
Lancashire, 83, 179, 435.
Lancaster, revenues of duchy of, 278, 282.
Landau, 149, 167.
Langdale, Lord. See Bickersteth, Henry.
Lansdowne, Marquis of. See Petty, Lord Henry.
Laswári, battle, 399.
Laud, William, 429.
Lauderdale, Earl of (Maitland), 46, 170.
Lauriston, General (afterwards Marshal), 13.
Lawley, Sir Robert, M.P., 29.
Lawrence, Captain, 141, 142.
Lawrence, Sir Thomas, 427.
Leach, Sir John, 195.
Leadenhall Street. See London.
Leeds, 198, 272, 327.
Leghorn, 143.
Leicestershire, 83.
Leinster, 315.
Leipzig, battle, 63, 82, 114, 117, 118, 133, 137, 138, 143, 164.
Leon, plains of, 88, 106.
_Leopard_, the, British flagship, 127.
Leopold, Prince, of Saxe-Coburg (afterwards King of the Belgians), 174,
183, 185, 268, 269, 383, 384.
Lepanto, 266.
L'Estrange, Colonel, 179.
Levant, the, 18, 413.
Lewis I., King of Bavaria, 392.
Lewisham, Viscount (Legge), afterwards Earl of Dartmouth, president of the
board of control, 1, 15.
"Lichfield House Compact," 356.
Liège, 43, 381.
Ligny, 158, 164;
battle, 158-160.
Ligurian republic, 9, 12, 37, 38.
Lille, negotiations at, 9, 14.
Limburg, province, 382, 385-387.
Lincolnshire, 334.
Lincoln's Inn Fields. See London.
Linois, French admiral, 8.
Lisbon, 54, 89-91, 93-98, 100, 102, 109, 201, 211, 215, 220-222, 257-259,
389.
Littleport, 175 n.
Littleton, Edward John (afterwards Lord Hatherton), 325, 345, 346.
Liverpool, 201, 232, 275, 276, 291, 369, 388, 435.
Liverpool, Earl of. See Hawkesbury, Lord.
Lloyd, Charles, bishop of Oxford, 249.
Lobau, island, 63.
Lobau, Prince of, 163.
Lombardy, 149, 166, 187.
See also Cisalpine republic.
London, 195, 196, 201, 202, 206, 270, 277, 278, 296, 303, 311, 435, 437;
bishop of (Blomfield), 324, 341, 373.
London:--
Apsley House, 293.
Battersea Fields, 251.
Blackheath, 194.
Bridges: Blackfriars, London, Southwark, Strand (Waterloo), Westminster,
436.
Brooks's Club, 374.
Buckingham Palace, 349.
Carlton House, 70, 436.
Cato Street, 193.
Corporation of, 173.
Edgware Road, 193.
Golden Lane, 435.
Guildhall, 148.
Grosvenor Square, 193.
King's College, 250, 431.
Leadenhall Street, 329, 398, 411.
Lincoln's Inn Fields, 298.
"London University," 250, 356, 431;
university of London, 431, 432.
Newgate, 72, 369.
Old Bailey, 282.
Pall Mall, 435.
Regent Street and Park, 436.
Royal Academy, 427.
Royal Exchange, 175.
St. Paul's, 196.
Small-pox Hospital, 427.
Southwark, 26.
Spa Fields, Bermondsey, 175.
Spitalfields, 202.
Tower, 72, 175.
University College, 431, 432.
Westminster, 51, 72, 343.
Westminster Abbey, 46, 196, 309.
Westminster Hall, 349.
White Conduit House, 298.
London, conferences of, 222, 262-268, 379-386, 392;
protocols of, 265, 267, 381-385, 392;
treaties of, 96, 233, 234, 259, 260, 262-264, 266-268, 385, 392.
_London Magazine_, the, 424, 425.
Londonderry, second Marquis of. See Castlereagh, Viscount.
Londonderry, third Marquis of. See Stewart, Sir Charles.
Lonsdale, Earl of (Lowther), 67 n.
Lorraine, 143, 168.
Loughborough, Lord (Wedderburn), afterwards first Earl of Rosslyn, 1, 271.
Louis XIV., King of France, 186.
Louis XVI., King of France, 145.
Louis XVIII., King of France, 118, 119, 145, 147, 149, 154-157, 166, 167,
169, 187, 215, 218, 219, 377.
Louis Antoine, Duke of Angoulême (afterwards dauphin), 116, 118, 154, 220,
376.
Louis Philippe, Duke of Orléans (afterwards King of France), 154, 274, 376,
377, 379, 380, 382-384, 390, 391.
Louisiana, 6, 18.
Louvain, 384.
Low Countries. See Belgium and Holland.
Lübeck, 78.
Luddite riots. See Riots.
Lugo, 95.
Lundy's Lane, battle, 146.
Lunéville, treaty of, 6, 10, 13, 17, 38.
Lützen, battle, 135.
Luxemburg, grand duchy of, 43, 380-387.
Lyell, Charles (afterwards Sir C.), 428.
Lyndhurst, Lord. See Copley, Sir John.
Lyons, 154.
Maas, river, 387.
Maastricht, 380, 382.
Macadam, John Loudon, roadmaker, 434.
Macarthur, John, 439.
Macaulay, Thomas Babington (afterwards Lord Macaulay), 296, 327, 411, 412,
423-427.
Macaulay, Zachary, 423, 431.
Macdonald, Marshal, 124, 125, 154.
_Macedonian_, the, British ship, 132.
Mack, Austrian general, 42.
Mackinac, 129, 139.
Mackintosh, Sir James, 16, 194, 201.
Mackworth, Major, 298.
Macquarie, Governor, 439, 440.
Madison, James, President of the United States, 128-130.
Madras, 400, 410.
Madrid, 71, 87-89, 92-94, 96, 98, 103, 107, 108, 111, 150, 217-220, 390,
391;
treaty of, 6.
Magdeburg, 138.
Mahmúd, Amír of Afghánistán, 403.
Mahmud II., Sultan of Turkey, 57, 168, 188, 266, 393, 394, 396.
Maida, battle, 47.
Maine, state, 147.
Mainots, the, 392.
Mainz, 136.
Maitland, Captain, 169.
Majorca, 88.
Malcolm, Sir John, colonel, 402.
Malden, 129.
Malhár, Ráo Holkar. See Holkar.
Malmaison, 165.
Malmesbury, Earl of (Harris), 14, 49.
Malta, possession of, 9-13, 20, 22, 37, 408, 413;
independence guaranteed, 13;
parliamentary debate on, 14;
retention by England, 19, 20, 167.
Malthus, Thomas Robert, 421.
Málwá, 406, 409, 411.
Manchester, 176, 178, 179, 272, 275, 276, 295, 303, 311, 435.
Mansfield, first Earl of (Murray), 45.
Mansfield, third Earl of (Murray), 292.
Maráthá wars, 398, 399, 406, 407.
Marcoff, Count, 21.
Marengo, battle, 159.
Maria II., da Gloria, Queen of Portugal, 253, 254, 258, 259, 388.
Maria Christina, Queen-regent of Spain, 389, 391.
Maria Louisa, empress of Napoleon I., 78, 145, 150, 166.
Mariembourg, 149, 382.
Marlborough, Duke of (Churchill), 52.
Marmont, Marshal, 104-108.
Marriage reform bills, 355;
act, 366, 367.
Martinique, 9.
Mary, Duchess of Gloucester (daughter of George III.), 184 n.
Masséna, Marshal, 100-104.
Maumee, river, 130, 138.
Mauritius, the (Isle of France), 18, 149, 167, 398, 403, 438.
Maya, pass, 113.
McClure, General, 141.
McDonnell, Colonel, 141.
Medellin, 96.
Medina de Rio Seco, 88.
Mediterranean, the, 39, 69, 188, 262, 265, 393.
Mehemet Ali, Pasha of Egypt, 224, 225, 264, 269, 392-394.
Mehidpur, battle, 406.
_Melampus_, the, British warship, 127.
Melbourne, Viscount. See Lamb, William.
Melcombe Regis, 289, 305.
Melville, first Viscount. See Dundas, Henry.
Melville, second Viscount. See Dundas, Robert S.
Menou, 6.
Merton, Surrey, 39.
Mesolongi, 266, 418.
Metcalfe, Charles (afterwards Sir Charles and later Lord Metcalfe), 402,
403, 406, 409, 411, 412.
Methodist revival, the, 339.
Metternich, Prince, 122, 134, 138, 144-146, 152, 156, 189, 191, 210, 217,
218, 224, 377, 395, 396.
Mexico, 223.
Miaoulis, Greek admiral, 393.
Michigan, lake, 129;
state, 138, 139.
Middle Ground shoal, 4.
Middleton, Sir Charles. See Barham, Lord.
Miguel, Dom (afterwards King of Portugal), 220, 221, 253-255, 258, 259,
388-390;
convention at Evora, 390.
Milan, 37;
decree, 56;
commission, 195.
Milhaud, French officer, 162.
Militia, the, 16, 21, 31.
Militia balloting bill, 59.
Militia transfer bill, 60.
Mina, guerilla leader, 104.
Minho, province, 258.
Ministries: Addington's, 1-31;
Pitt's, 33-44;
Grenville's (All the Talents), 45-50;
Portland's, 50-67, 87-99;
Perceval's, 68-76, 99-106;
Liverpool's, 77-86, 107-226, 253-258;
Canning's, 227, 228, 258;
Goderich's, 229, 230, 259, 260;
Wellington's, 230-252, 260-278, 376-380;
Grey's, 278-347, 380-390, 392-396;
Melbourne's, 347-351;
provisional administration, 351;
Peel's, 352;
Melbourne's, 357-375, 390-392.
Minorca, 9, 88.
Minto, second Earl of (Elliot-Murray-Kynynmound), first lord of the
admiralty, 363, 401.
Minto, Lord (Elliot), afterwards first Earl of Minto, governor-general of
Bengal, 401-404.
Modena, 213;
treaty with Austria, 187.
Moira, Earl of (Rawdon-Hastings), afterwards Marquis of Hastings, 75, 76,
310;
master-general of the ordnance, 45;
governor-general of Bengal, 404-408.
Moldavia, 57, 59, 80, 213-215, 260, 263, 267, 394-396.
Molé, French foreign minister, 379.
Molesworth, Sir William, M.P., 374.
Moltke, 396.
Moncey, Marshal, 88.
Mondego, river, 90, 101.
Mongolia, 310.
_Moniteur_, newspaper, 18.
Monroe, James, President of the United States, 223;
Monroe doctrine, 223.
Mons, 158.
Monson, Colonel, 399.
Montbéliard, 149.
Montenegrins, the, 142.
Monte Video, 56, 57, 190.
Montmorency, French diplomatist, 217, 218.
Montreal, 140.
Montrose, Duke of (Graham), president of the board of trade, 34.
Mont St. Jean, 160.
Moore, Sir John, general, 54, 90-95, 108, 200.
Moore, Thomas, 420.
Moravia, 42, 64.
Moraviantown, 139.
Morea, the, 214, 224, 225, 261, 263-266, 393.
Moreau, General, 33.
Morpeth, Lord (afterwards seventh Earl of Carlisle), 357, 359, 372.
Morrison, Colonel, 141.
Mortier, Marshal, 99.
Moscow, 124.
Moss, convention of, 150.
Mughal emperor, 399.
Muhammad, Sháh of Persia, 412.
Mühlhausen, 149.
Mulgrave, Lord (Phipps) (afterwards first Earl of Mulgrave), 347;
chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster, 34;
foreign secretary, 35;
first lord of the admiralty, 50, 67 n.;
master-general of the ordnance, 72, 82;
in cabinet without office, 178;
retirement of, 194.
Mulgrave, second Earl of (Phipps), lord privy seal, 347;
lord-lieutenant of Ireland, 359, 371.
Münchengrätz, secret convention at, 395, 396.
Munich, 33.
Municipal corporations act, 360-362, 370;
bill (Ireland), 364, 365.
Murat, Joachim, 87;
King of Naples, 88, 123, 143, 150, 157, 168;
death, 157.
Muraviov, Russian general, 393.
Murray, Colonel, 141.
Murray, Sir George, secretary for war and colonies, 236;
master-general of the ordnance, 352.
Murray, John, 423.
Murray, Sir John, general, 109, 114.
Mysore, 411.
Nágpur, 406;
Rájá of, 398, 390, 405, 406.
Namur, 157, 160, 161.
Napier, Captain (afterwards Admiral Sir Charles Napier), 389.
Napier, General Sir W., 110.
Naples, 47, 63, 157, 213;
bay of, 42.
Naples, kingdom of, 47, 53, 63, 88, 123, 143, 150, 157.
See also Sicilies, the Two.
Naples, Prince of, 383.
Napoleon, King of Rome, son of Napoleon I., 145, 165.
Nash, John, architect, 436.
Nassau, troops, 158.
National debt, the, 204, 206;
in 1802, 15;
in 1815, 171.
"National Political Union," 298.
Nauplia, 225.
Navarino, 225;
battle, 230, 233, 234, 253, 259, 264.
Navarre, province, 300.
Navigation laws, reform of the, 202, 203, 207, 216, 437.
Neapolitan States. See Sicilies, the Two.
Nelson, Lord (afterwards Viscount), 8, 16, 39, 69, 233, 273;
expedition to Copenhagen, 3-5, 8;
Trafalgar, 40, 41.
Nemours, Louis, Duke of, 382, 383.
Nepál, 404, 405, 408, 409;
treaty of Almora, 405.
Nesselrode, Russian diplomatist, 138, 262.
Netherlands, the. See Belgium and Holland.
Neuchâtel, 43.
Neuville, De, French ambassador, 222.
Newark (Canada), 141, 146.
Newark (England), 248.
Newcastle, 311.
Newcastle, Duke of (Fiennes-Pelham-Clinton), 228, 248, 296, 297.
New England, 128.
Newfoundland, fishery, 10.
Newgate. See London.
Newman, John Henry, 325, 336-338, 340.
New Orleans, 147.
"New poor law," 340-344.
New South Wales. See Australia.
Newspaper stamp act, 369, 370.
New York, 146;
state, 146.
New Zealand, 436.
Ney, Marshal, 17, 99-101, 154, 155, 158-160, 163.
Niagara, river, 130, 140, 141, 146;
falls, 130, 146.
Nicholas I., Tsar of Russia, 232, 259, 260, 262, 361, 385, 393, 395, 396.
Nicholls, Colonel, 405.
Niemen, the, 52, 124, 133.
Nile, the, 6;
battle of the, 69.
Nive, river, 115-117.
Nivelle, river, 115.
Nivelles, 159.
Nonconformists. See Dissenters.
Non-intercourse act (United States), 83, 128.
Norfolk (United States), 127.
Norfolk Island, 439.
_North Briton_, the, journal, 422.
Northern confederacy, the, 5, 8.
Northumberland, Duke of (Percy), lord lieutenant of Ireland, 244, 313.
_Northumberland_, the, British ship, 166.
Norway, 54, 80, 122, 123, 189;
ceded to Sweden, 136, 142, 143, 150, 166;
convention at Moss, 150.
Nottingham, 296;
castle, 297.
Nottinghamshire, 83, 176.
Novara, battle, 213.
Nugent, John, 122, 142.
Nugent, Lord (Grenville-Nugent-Temple), 241.
Ocaña, battle, 100.
Ochterlony, General (afterwards Sir David), 404, 405, 409.
O'Connell, Daniel, 2, 237, 241, 242, 244, 246, 249, 251, 252, 272, 275,
280, 281, 287, 294, 306, 312-316, 319, 321-324, 344-346, 348, 356,
359, 362, 363, 371, 374.
Oder, the, 80, 135.
Ohio, state, 138.
Old Bailey. See London.
Oldenburg, duchy of, 78, 105.
Oldham, 318.
Old Sarum, 3, 285, 289.
Oléron, island, 69, 165.
Olivenza, 6, 102, 123.
Oliver, the spy, 176.
Ontario, lake, 139.
Oporto, 89, 90, 96, 98, 211, 388.
Orange lodges, 367, 368;
Orangemen, 241, 270, 317, 367, 368.
Orenburg, 310.
Orfordness, 8.
Orléans, Duke of. See Louis Philippe.
Orléans, Philip, Duke of, 186, 272.
Orthez, battle, 117.
Otranto, 12.
Otto, French diplomatist, 80.
Otto, Prince of Bavaria (afterwards King of Greece), 392.
Oudh, 404;
Nawáb Wazír of, 397.
Ouseley, Sir Gore, 402.
Oxford, 148, 337, 338;
bishop of (Lloyd), 249;
movement, 337-340, 417;
university. See Universities.
Paget, Lord (afterwards Earl of Uxbridge and later Marquis of Anglesey),
94, 162, 245, 249;
master-general of the ordnance, 230;
lord-lieutenant of Ireland, 231, 243;
recalled, 244;
lord-lieutenant of Ireland, 281, 313, 321;
resignation, 344.
Paisley, 306.
Pakenham, Sir Edward, general, 147.
Palatinate, the, 381.
Palermo, 63, 211.
Paley, William, 421.
Pall Mall. See London.
Palmella, Portuguese statesman, 220, 255.
Palmerston, Viscount (Temple), 277, 286, 421;
secretary at war, 68, 172, 227, 229, 231, 263, 392;
resignation, 236;
foreign secretary, 261, 279, 357, 380, 382, 387, 388, 390, 391, 393, 412.
Pamplona, 111-113, 115.
Papal States, 9, 58, 157, 166, 187, 213, 258.
Papelotte, farm, 162.
Paraguay, 190.
Parga, 188.
Paris: the Tuileries, 31, 105, 155;
first capitulation, 145;
first treaty of, 147, 149, 151, 156, 167, 378;
second capitulation, 165;
second treaty of, 167, 168, 376;
treaty of Chaumont extended at, 168, 186, 191, 377;
revolution of July, 274, 285, 376;
cholera at, 311.
Park, Mungo, 436.
Parker, Sir Hyde, admiral, 3-5.
Parliament: general election of 1802, 15;
of 1806, 48;
of 1807, 50;
of 1812, 85;
of 1818, 178;
of 1820, 193;
of 1826, 207, 242;
of 1830, 274;
of 1831, 293, 294;
of 1832, 318;
of 1835, 354;
reform, 61;
liberals and conservatives, 319;
houses destroyed by fire, 349.
Parma, duchy of, 145, 150, 166;
treaty with Austria, 187.
Parnell, Sir Henry, M.P., 84, 278.
Pasages, 391.
Paskievitch, Russian general, 388.
Patten, Colonel, M.P., 26, 27.
Patuxent, river, 146.
Paul, Tsar of Russia, 5.
_Peacock_, the, British ship, 141.
Pease, Edward, 434, 435.
Peel, Sir Robert (first baronet), 327.
Peel, Robert (afterwards Sir Robert), 44, 71, 172, 183, 200, 227, 283, 286,
287, 290, 292, 294, 300, 303, 305, 319, 323, 324, 330, 331, 334, 335,
343, 345, 347, 348, 351, 359-362, 364, 365, 371-373, 375;
home secretary, 199, 201, 202, 209, 226, 231, 235, 236, 242-248, 252,
270-272, 274-278;
first lord of the treasury and chancellor of the exchequer, 352-355, 363,
366, 367, 390, 412;
resignation, 356, 357.
Pelham, Lord (afterwards second Earl of Chichester), home secretary, 1;
resigns office, 27;
chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster, 27.
_Pelican_, the, British ship, 142.
Peloponnese, the, 393.
See Morea, the.
Peltier, Jean, editor, 12, 16.
Peña, La, Spanish commander, 102.
Peninsular war, 59-61, 66, 68, 71, 73, 76, 77, 82, 87, 120, 129, 146, 182,
200, 423.
Pennsylvania, 139.
Penryn, 193, 235, 236.
Pepys, Sir Charles (afterwards Lord and later Earl Cottenham), lord
chancellor, 363.
Perceval, Spencer, 49;
chancellor of the exchequer, 50, 61, 67 n., 82, 83;
first lord of the treasury, etc., 68, 71, 74-76, 77, 236, 238, 380;
assassination, 76, 81.
Perry, Commodore, 139.
Persia, 123, 310, 401, 402, 412, 413;
treaties with East India Company and Great Britain, 402.
Perth, 306.
Peru, 215, 223.
Pesháwar, 413.
Peshwá, the, of Poona, 398, 405, 406;
treaty of Bassein, 398, 399, 405.
Peter (afterwards Peter I., Emperor of Brazil, and Peter IV., King of
Portugal), 221, 253, 254, 258, 259, 388, 389.
Peter II., Emperor of Brazil, 254, 388.
Peterloo, massacre of. See Riots.
Petty, Lord Henry (afterwards Marquis of Lansdowne), 241, 345, 421;
chancellor of the exchequer, 45;
home secretary, 228;
president of the council, 279, 280, 357, 369.
Philippeville, 149, 382.
Philippon, governor of Badajoz, 106.
Phillip, Governor, 438.
Phillpotts, bishop of Exeter, 324.
Pichegru, French general, 33.
Picton, Thomas (afterwards Sir Thomas), 106, 118, 159, 162.
Piedmont, 17, 38, 213, 217.
Pindárís, the, 404-408, 411.
Pitt, William, the elder (first Earl of Chatham), 44, 284.
Pitt, William, the younger, 2, 14, 15, 23, 47-50, 86, 173, 176, 181, 182,
185, 202, 208, 227, 237, 279, 284, 291, 307, 322, 330, 417, 437, 438;
his resignation in 1801, 1, 397, 415;
alienation from Addington's ministry, 24;
negotiations with Addington, 24-26;
attacks Addington, 30, 31;
overtures from Eldon, 30;
interview with the king, 32;
first lord of the treasury, 33-37;
organises third coalition, 35, 37, 38, 41;
loss of Melville, 36;
collapse of the third coalition, 43, 46;
death, 43;
his adherents, 68, 200.
Pius VII., Pope, 7, 35, 78, 150, 166, 163.
Plasencia, 98.
Plata, La. See Argentine, the.
Plattsburg (United States), 140, 141, 146.
Plunket, William (afterwards Lord Plunket), 239;
attorney-general of Ireland, 199, 241, 249.
Plymouth, 259.
_Poictiers_, the British ship, 132.
Poischwitz, 135.
Poland, 52, 53, 79, 80, 122, 144, 152, 153, 156, 166, 310, 381, 387, 388,
395.
Pole & Co., 206.
Pole, W. Wellesley (afterwards Lord Maryborough), master of the mint, 174,
178, 202.
Polignac, French statesman, 223.
Pomerania, Swedish, 54, 80, 122, 143, 166.
Pondicherri, 18;
French towns in India, 18, 19.
Ponsonby, Sir William, 162.
Ponsonby, Lord (afterwards Viscount Ponsonby), 383.
Poona, 398, 405, 406.
See Peshwá.
Poor law, 171, 181, 311, 312, 420, 437;
poor rates, 182, 203;
"new poor law," 340-344, 366;
poor law board, 343;
Ireland, 312, 316, 317, 372, 373.
Popham, Sir Home, 47.
Poros, 266, 392.
Porte, the. See Turkey.
Portland, third Duke of (Cavendish-Bentinck), 49, 66;
home secretary, 1;
lord president of the council, 1;
in cabinet without office, 35;
first lord of the treasury, 50, 52, 60;
minor reforms, 51, 61;
changes in his ministry, 66;
resignation, 67;
death, 68.
Portland, fourth Duke of (Cavendish Scott Bentinck), lord privy seal, 227;
in cabinet without office, 228;
lord president of the council, 230.
Port Mahon, 188.
Port Phillip, 439, 440.
Portsmouth, 39, 148, 197.
Portugal, 11, 53, 60, 122, 151, 190, 200, 201, 226, 395;
treaties of Badajoz and Madrid, 6;
Junot's expedition to, 54, 58, 89-91;
Peninsular war, 59-61, 66, 68, 71, 73, 76, 77, 82, 87-120;
revolutions, 211, 220, 221, 254, 255-258;
cortes, 211, 215, 220, 221, 254, 258;
junta, 220, 221;
relations with Brazil, 221, 222, 253, 254, 388-390;
conference at London, 222;
triple and quadruple alliances, 389, 390;
convention of Evora, 390.
Posen, 166.
Pottinger, British officer, 412.
Potwallopers, 281, 289, 308.
Prague, 135.
Prescott, 141.
Presqu'isle (Pennsylvania), 139.
Press, liberty of the, 180, 358;
Indian press, 411, 412.
Pressburg, peace of, 42.
Press-gang, 23.
Preston, 281, 318.
Prevost, Sir George, governor of Canada, 129, 130, 140, 146.
Privy Council, acts relating to the, 325, 332.
Processions act (Ireland), 316, 317.
Procida, island, 63.
Proclamation act, 320.
Proctor, English colonel, 138, 139.
Prome, 409.
Prout, Samuel, 427.
Prussia, 17, 51-53, 59, 80, 81, 105, 124, 136, 144, 187-189, 220, 267, 391;
guarantees independence of Malta, 13;
vacillation, 38, 41-43, 51;
treaty of Schönbrunn, 43;
treaty with France, 46, 55;
treaty of Tilsit, 52, 53, 55, 57, 59, 62, 78, 87, 124, 401, 402;
treaty with France, 122;
convention of Tauroggen, 125;
campaign of 1813, 133-138;
convention with Russia, 134;
treaty of Kalisch, 134;
treaty of Reichenbach, 136;
treaty of Teplitz, 137;
treaty of Ried, 137;
campaign of 1814, 118, 143-145;
treaty of Chaumont, 144, 145, 168, 186, 191, 377;
first treaty of Paris, 147, 149, 151, 156, 167;
congress of Vienna, 149, 151-153, 156, 166, 168, 186, 188-190, 378, 381,
388;
campaign of 1815, 156-165;
gains Swedish Pomerania, 166;
second treaty of Paris, 167, 168, 376;
Holy Alliance, 168;
conference of Aix-la-Chapelle, 189-191, 377;
congress of Troppau, 211-214, 395, 396;
congress of Laibach, 212, 313;
congress of Verona, 216-219, 222, 223, 392;
conference at St. Petersburg, 224;
conference of London, 379-386, 392;
secret convention at Münchengrätz, 395, 396;
convention at Berlin, 396.
Pruth, river, 263.
_Public Advertiser_, the, newspaper, 422.
Puebla, pass, 111.
Punjab, 403, 413.
Pusey, Edward Bouverie, 336.
Putney, 43.
Pyrenees, the, 110, 115, 136, 138;
battle, 113.
Quadruple alliance, 389, 391.
Quakers, the, 48.
_Quarterly Review_, the, 423.
Quatre Bras, 158-160;
battle, 159.
Queen's County, murders in, 320.
Queensland. See Australia.
Queenstown (Canada), 130.
Raeburn, Sir Henry, 427.
Railways, 275, 276, 427, 428, 434, 435.
Raisin, river, 138.
Rájputána, 399, 400, 406, 409.
Rangoon, 408, 409.
Ranjít Singh, Rájá of Bhartpur, 309, 403, 409.
Ranjít Singh, Sikh ruler, 403, 412;
treaty with East India Company, 403.
Ratisbon, 63.
Ré, island, 165.
Reciprocity of duties act, 203, 207.
Redesdale, Lord (Mitford), 235.
_Redoutable_, the, French ship, 41.
Red Sea, the, 6, 413.
Reform, movement for, 61, 77, 174, 175, 178, 181, 198, 204, 271, 272, 277,
278, 280-308;
partial reforms, 198, 235;
first bill of 1831, 287-291;
second bill, 294-296;
third bill, 300-306;
Scotch and Irish bills, 306, 307.
Regency act (1811), 74, 75.
Regency act (1830), 281.
Regent Street and Park. See London.
_Register, Weekly_. See Cobbett.
Registration bill, 355;
acts, 366, 367.
Reichenbach, treaties of, 136.
Reille, French general, 111, 113, 158, 162.
Religious movements, 336-340, 417.
Rennell, James, 436.
Rennie, John, 435, 436.
Rensselaer, Van, American general, 130.
Reshid, Turkish general, 393.
Revel, 4.
Rey, Emmanuel, governor of St. Sebastian, 112-114.
Reynier, French general, 100, 101.
Rhine, the, 9, 41, 138, 143, 152, 153, 158, 166, 381;
confederation of the, 46, 53, 134, 138.
Riall, General, 146.
Rice, Thomas Spring (afterwards Lord Monteagle), 345;
secretary for war and colonies, 346;
chancellor of the exchequer, 357, 369, 373.
Richelieu, Duke of, 212.
Richmond, Charlotte, Duchess of, 159.
Richmond, third Duke of (Lennox), 284.
Richmond, fifth Duke of (Lennox), postmaster-general, 280;
resignation, 345.
Ried, treaty of, 137.
Rieti, battle, 212.
Riga, 124.
Rio Janeiro, 254, 259.
Riot act, 72, 176, 297.
Riots, 344;
Luddite, 83, 85, 175, 432, 433;
bread, 174;
agricultural, 174, 281, 282;
Spa Fields, 175;
Derbyshire insurrection, 176;
"Peterloo" or "Manchester massacre," 178-180, 192;
reform bill, 293, 296-298, 302, 309.
Riou, Edward, 5.
Ripon, Earl of. See Robinson, F. J.
Robinson, Frederick John (afterwards Viscount Goderich, later Earl of
Ripon), president of the board of trade, etc., 177, 178, 198;
chancellor of the exchequer, 202, 207;
secretary for war and colonies, 227;
first lord of the treasury, 229, 230, 233, 242, 260, 380;
secretary for war and colonies, 279;
lord privy seal, 325;
resignation, 345.
Rochefort, 165.
Rodil, Spanish general, 389.
Roebuck, John, M.P., 362, 372, 374.
Rohilkhand, 397.
Roliça, 90.
Rolleston, magistrate, 176.
Romaña, Spanish general, 95.
Roman Empire, Holy. See Empire, Holy Roman.
Roman States. See Papal States.
Rome, 58, 351.
Romilly, Sir Samuel, M.P., 51, 77, 194, 199, 201.
Roncesvalles, pass, 112, 113.
Rose, George, M.P., 182.
Rosetta, 57.
Ross, General, 146.
Rosslyn, first Earl of. See Loughborough, Lord.
Rosslyn, second Earl of (St. Clair Erskine), president of the board of
control, 271;
lord president of the council, 352.
Rothière, La, battle, 144.
Roussin, French admiral, 388, 393, 394.
Royal Institution, the, 428.
_Royal Sovereign_, the, British ship, 40.
Rügen, island, 52, 53, 143.
Rumelia, 263, 267.
Rumford, Count, 428.
Russell, Lord John (afterwards Earl Russell), 193, 198, 207, 234, 235, 272,
284, 356, 421, 431;
paymaster of the forces, 280, 287, 290, 294, 297, 300, 304, 321, 324,
345, 350, 351;
home secretary, 357, 361, 362, 365, 366, 368, 369, 371, 372, 374.
Russia, 10, 13, 14, 17, 19, 35, 38, 41-43, 51, 52, 62, 66, 88, 90, 92, 187,
188, 210, 220, 225, 232, 391, 392, 402, 412;
holy alliance, 37, 168, 169, 186, 199, 229;
war of third coalition, 37, 38, 41, 42, 51;
treaty with England, 37;
treaty with Sweden, 38;
treaty of Tilsit, 52, 53, 55, 57, 59, 62, 78, 87, 124, 401, 402;
war with Turkey, 52, 57, 77;
secret convention at Erfurt, 59, 92;
breach with France, 79-81, 105;
armistice with Turkey, 81;
war with France, 82, 97, 100, 121-126, 132-138;
treaty with England, 85;
fleet, 90, 92;
alliance with Sweden, 54, 122, 123;
treaty of Åbo, 123;
treaty of Bucharest, 123;
treaties with England and Sweden, 123, 136;
convention of Tauroggen, 125;
convention with Prussia, 134;
treaty of Kalisch, 134;
treaty of Reichenbach, 136;
treaty of Teplitz, 137;
treaty of Ried, 137;
campaign of 1814, 118, 143-145;
treaty of Chaumont, 144, 145, 168, 186, 191, 377;
treaty of Fontainebleau, 145, 146;
first treaty of Paris, 147, 149, 151, 156, 167, 378;
congress of Vienna, 149, 151-153, 156, 166, 168, 186, 188-190, 376, 379,
381, 388;
gains Finland, 166;
second treaty of Paris, 167, 168, 376;
conference of Aix-la-Chapelle, 189-191, 377;
congress of Troppau, 211-214, 395, 396;
congress of Laibach, 212, 213;
breach with Turkey, 213-215;
congress of Verona, 217-219, 222, 223, 392;
conference of St. Petersburg, 224;
treaty of Akherman, 260;
conference of London, 262-268, 379-386, 392;
treaty of London, 233, 234, 259, 260, 262-264, 266, 267;
war with Turkey, 234, 260-267;
peace of Adrianople, 267, 268;
war with Poland, 387, 388;
assists Turkey, 393-395;
treaty of Unkiar Skelessi, 394, 395;
secret convention at Münchengrätz, 395, 396;
convention at Berlin, 396;
treaty with Turkey, 396;
influence in the east, 412-414.
Rutlandshire, 288.
Ryder, Dudley. See Harrowby, Earl of.
Ryder, Richard, home secretary, 68;
retirement, 81.
Saale, river, 133.
Sackett's Harbour, 139, 140.
Sadler, Michael, M.P., 248, 316, 327.
Sahagun, 94.
St. Albans, 345.
St. Amand, 158.
_St. Antoine_, the, French ship, 8.
St. David's, bishop of (Burgess), 430.
St. George's Channel, American privateers in, 141.
St. Helena, 153, 157, 165, 166, 167, 169, 170.
St. Jean de Luz, 115, 117.
St. Lawrence, river, 141;
fishery, 10.
St. Lucia, 149, 167.
St. Marcial, battle, 114.
St. Paul's cathedral. See London.
St. Petersburg, 121, 225, 232, 233, 261, 310, 356;
conference at, 224.
St. Sebastian, 112-114, 391.
St. Vincent, Earl of (Jervis), first lord of the admiralty, 1, 30, 34, 36.
Salaberry, Colonel de, 141.
Salamanca, 93, 94, 105-108;
battle, 107.
Saldaña, 94.
Salzburg, 66.
Sambre, river, 164.
Samos, 266, 268.
San Domingo, 18, 49, 215.
Sandvliet, 65.
_Santa Ana_, the, Spanish ship, 40.
Santander, 108, 110.
Santarem, 102.
Santha Martha, Miguelite general, 389.
_Santísima Trinidad_, the, Spanish ship, 40.
Sardinia, kingdom of, 150, 166, 167, 187.
Sartorius, Admiral, 388.
Sarum, Old, 421.
Sátára, 406.
"Satí," 410.
Saumarez, Sir James (afterwards Baron), admiral, 8.
Savary, French minister, 88.
Savings-banks, 182, 437.
Savoy, 149, 167.
Saxony, 53, 133, 136, 138, 144, 152, 153, 166.
Scarlett, James (afterwards Lord Abinger), 358.
Scharnhorst, Prussian statesman, 81.
Scheldt, the, 64-66, 71, 99, 385-387.
Schönbrunn, treaty of, 43.
Schwarzenberg, Austrian general, 124, 143-145.
Scientific discoveries, 340, 427-436.
Scotland, 193, 197, 271, 285, 289, 290, 293, 348, 360, 362, 433;
reform bill, 306;
church of, 360 n., 424.
Scott, Sir Walter, 417, 418, 422, 423.
Scott, Sir William (afterwards Lord Stowell), 169.
Scylla, castle, 63.
Sébastiani, French officer (afterwards foreign minister), 18, 20, 57, 98,
382.
Secretaries of state, division of departments of, 1, 2.
Selim III., Sultan of Turkey, 7.
Sepoys, 6, 400, 406.
Septennial act, 374.
Seringapatam, 397.
Servia, 80.
Seville, 68, 96.
Shaftesbury, Earl of. See Ashley, Lord.
Sháh Shujá, Amír of Afghánistán, 403.
_Shannon_, the, British frigate, 142, 147.
Shaw, Sir Robert, M.P., 197.
Sheaffe, Major-general, 130, 140.
Sheil, Richard Lalor, M.P., 237, 241, 306, 315, 344.
Shelley, Percy Bysshe, 419.
Sheridan, Richard Brinsley, 14, 16, 29, 75, 200, 421.
Sicilies, the Two, 9-14, 47, 166, 187, 188, 211-213;
treaty of Florence, 7;
treaty of neutrality with France, 42.
Sicily, island and kingdom of, 47, 57, 58, 150;
army in Spain, 109, 114.
Sidmouth, Viscount. See Addington, Henry.
Sikhs, the, 403.
See Ranjít Singh, Sikh ruler.
Silesia, 53, 135, 137.
Silistria, 396.
Simmons, Dr. Samuel Foart, 29.
Sind, 402, 413, 414.
Sindhia, Daulat Ráo Sindhia, 397-399, 401, 405.
Six acts, the, 180, 229.
Skaw, the, 3.
Small-pox, 15;
hospital, see London.
Smeaton, John, 434.
Smohain, hamlet, 162.
Smith, Adam, 415, 420.
Smith, Sydney, 423.
Smith, William, 428.
Smyth, American general, 130.
Socialists, 175.
Society for diffusion of useful knowledge, 338.
Society, Highland, 433.
Society, Kildare Place, 317.
Society of friends of the people, 279.
Society, Water-colour, 427.
Soissons, 145.
Sombreffe, French general, 158.
Somerset, Lord Robert, 162.
Somersetshire, 175, 298.
Sophia, Princess (daughter of George III.), 184 n.
Sophia, Princess, of Gloucester (niece of George III.), 184 n.
Souham, French general, 108.
Soult (Duke of Dalmatia), French general, 94-96, 98, 99, 102-108, 110,
112-119.
South Australia. See Australia.
Southey, Robert, 416, 420.
Southwark. See London.
Spa Fields, Bermondsey. See London and Riots.
Spain, 13, 35, 39-41, 47, 58, 59, 81, 85, 123, 144, 149-151, 166, 187, 188,
190, 200, 205, 231, 254, 259;
treaties of Aranjuez, Badajoz and Madrid, 6;
treaty of Amiens, 13;
alliance with France, 35;
Peninsular war, 59-61, 66, 68, 71, 73, 76, 77, 82, 87-120, 423;
juntas, 68, 92, 93, 96, 97, 103, 120;
secret treaty of Fontainebleau, 87;
abdication of Charles IV., 87;
Joseph Bonaparte, king of, 59, 88, 89, 104, 122, 123;
treaties with England, 96, 150, 151;
cortes, 103, 109, 112, 210, 215;
insurrection, 210, 215-217;
loss of colonies in America, 190, 205, 215, 216, 219, 220, 222, 223, 253,
257;
dispute with France, 215, 217-221, 256, 257, 264;
aggressions in Portugal, 254-256, 258;
triple and quadruple alliances, 389, 390;
Carlist war, 389-391.
Speculation, 205, 206.
Speenhamland, 341.
Spenceans, the, 175.
Spencer, second Earl, 14, 25, 34, 230, 349;
home secretary, 45, 49;
resignation, 50.
Spencer, General, 90, 103.
Spitalfields. See London.
Spithead, 39.
Stafford, Marquis of, afterwards Duke of Sutherland (Gower), 66.
_Standard_, the, newspaper, 250.
Stanley, Edward Geoffrey Smith- (afterwards Lord Stanley, later fourteenth
Earl of Derby), 277, 347, 352, 354, 360, 374;
chief secretary for Ireland, 280, 281, 294, 313, 315-317, 321;
secretary for war and colonies, 322, 323, 325-327, 334;
resignation, 345, 346.
Steamboats, 427, 428, 434.
Stephenson, George, 275, 276, 427, 434, 435.
Stewart, Sir Charles (afterwards Lord Stewart, later third Marquis of
Londonderry), 146, 212, 228, 296, 356.
Stewart, Dugald, 421.
Stockholm, treaty of, 136.
Stockton on Tees, 435.
Strachan, Sir Richard, admiral, 64.
Stralsund, 43.
Strand Bridge. See London.
Strangford, Viscount (Smythe), 214-216.
Strassburg, 41.
Strikes, 178, 204.
Stroud, 359.
Stuart, Sir Charles (afterwards Lord Stuart de Rothesay), 218.
Stuart, Sir John, 47.
Sturt, Charles, 439.
Subsérra, Count of, 222.
Suchet, Marshal, 100, 107, 109, 112, 114, 115, 118, 119.
Suez, 413;
canal, 413.
Suffolk, 175 n.
Sugden, Sir Edward (afterwards Lord St. Leonards), 283.
Sumatra, 81.
Sumner, John B., bishop of Chester, 341.
Sunderland, 309, 310.
Surrey, 281.
Sussex, 281.
Sussex (Augustus), Duke of (son of George III.), 184, 185.
Sutlej, river, 403.
Sutton, Charles Manners- (afterwards Sir C. Manners-Sutton, later Viscount
Canterbury), speaker, 251, 304, 354.
Sweden, 43, 51-54, 58, 59, 78, 80, 105, 151, 166, 190;
third coalition, 37, 38;
treaties with Russia and England, 38, 123, 136;
declares war on England, 78;
ally of Russia, 122, 123, 133, 136;
treaty of Åbo, 123;
treaty of Stockholm, 136;
war with France, 136, 137;
treaty of Kiel, 142, 143, 189;
acquires Norway (convention of Moss), 150.
Swift, Jonathan, 422.
Switzerland (Helvetian republic), 9, 38, 79, 138, 143, 166, 387;
civil war, 17;
invasion of, 17, 20;
revolts, 133.
Sydney, 439.
Syria, 18, 393, 394, 396, 413.
Tagus, the, 89, 90, 92, 96, 98, 99, 102, 104-106, 221, 388.
Talavera, 93;
battle, 98, 99, 101.
Talleyrand, French statesman, 10, 19, 21, 22, 34, 46, 78, 151, 152, 156,
379, 382, 387.
"Tamworth manifesto," the, 332, 354, 371.
Tarái, the, 405.
Tarbes, 118.
Tarragona, 112, 114.
Tasmania. See Van Diemen's Land.
Tauroggen, convention of, 125.
Taylor, Sir Herbert, 286.
Telford, Thomas, 275, 434.
Temporalities, Irish Church, act, 321-325.
Tenasserim, 408, 409.
_Tenedos_, the, British frigate, 142.
Tennyson, Alfred (afterwards Lord), 419.
Tennyson, Charles (afterwards Tennyson D'Eyncourt), M.P., 235, 374.
Teplitz, treaty of, 137;
conference at, 396.
Terceira, island, 259.
Terneuze, 65.
Test act, 229, 234, 235, 242.
Thagí, 411.
Thames, the, 435.
Thames, river (Canada), 139.
Thermopylæ, 268.
Thiers, French statesman, 390, 391.
Thistlewood, Arthur, 192, 193.
Thompson, Charles Poulett (afterwards Lord Sydenham), president of the
board of trade, 346, 357.
Ticino, river, 149, 166.
Tierney, George, 26, 28, 86;
master of the mint, 228-230.
Tigris, the, 413.
Tihran, 402, 412.
Tilsit, treaty of, 52, 53, 55, 57, 59, 62, 78, 87, 124, 401, 402.
_Times_, the, newspaper, 343, 348, 351, 422.
Timur, 310.
Tipú, 397, 400.
Tithe, agitation against (Ireland), 313-316, 320.
Tithe commutation act, 355, 365, 366.
Tithe commutation bills (Ireland), 347, 348, 365, 372.
Tobago, 9, 11, 149, 167.
Tooke, Horne, 3, 421;
act, 3.
Tormes, river, 107.
Toronto, 139.
Torres Vedras, 90, 91, 100-102, 115.
Tortosa, 112.
Toulon, 39.
Toulouse, battle, 109, 118, 119.
Tower of London. See London.
Tractarians. See Oxford movement.
_Tracts for the Times_, 339.
Trades Unions, 204.
Trafalgar, battle, 40, 41.
Traz-os-Montes, province, 255, 257.
Trekroner, the, battery, 4, 5.
Trianon tariff, the, 79.
Trieste, 62, 66, 142.
Trinidad, 9, 151, 167.
Triple alliance, 389.
Tripoli, 394;
Bey of, 187, 188.
Tripolitza, 225.
Trondhjem, diocese of, 136.
Troppau, congress of, 211-214, 395, 396.
Trotter, paymaster, 36.
Tudela, battle, 92, 93.
_Tugendbund_, the, 62.
Tuileries, the. See Paris.
Tunis, Dey of, 187, 188.
Turin, 213.
Turkey, 7, 57-59, 122, 188, 269, 387;
treaty of Amiens, 13;
treaty with France, 14;
war with Russia, 52, 57, 77;
armistice, 81;
treaty of Bucharest, 123;
Greek revolt, 213, 214, 216, 217, 223-225, 232-234, 259-267, 392;
rupture with Russia, 214, 217, 225;
war with Russia, 234, 260-267;
treaty of Akherman, 260;
peace of Adrianople, 267, 268;
treaty and protocol of London, 267;
Egyptian revolt, 393, 394;
assisted by Russia, 393-396;
treaty of Unkiar Skelessi, 394, 395;
treaty of Kiutayeh, 394;
Austrian mediation, 395, 396;
treaty with Russia, 396;
Asiatic Turkey, 310.
Turner, J. M. W., 427.
Tuscany, treaty with Austria, 187.
Tyrol, the, 66, 134.
Ucles, 96.
Ulm, 42.
Ulster, 270.
Union, act of, 237, 239, 240, 248;
movement for repeal, 252, 275, 313, 314, 316, 344.
United States, 56, 58, 83, 131, 157, 190, 216, 223, 257, 312, 337, 438;
sale to them of Louisiana, 18;
war with England, 82, 85, 126-132, 138, 146, 147;
non-intercourse act, 83, 128;
treaty of Ghent, 147, 156, 203;
buys Florida, 215;
treaty with England, 225.
_United States_, the, American ship, 132.
Universities, 247, 306, 308, 430;--
Cambridge, 419, 428-432.
Dublin, 274.
Durham, 432.
Edinburgh, 358.
Glasgow, 371.
London, 250, 356, 431, 432;
King's College, 250, 431;
University College, 431, 432.
Oxford, 148, 245, 337, 351, 421, 422, 428, 432;
Balliol College, 429;
New College, 429;
Oriel College, 337, 338, 421, 429;
St. Alban Hall, 421.
Unkiar Skelessi, treaty of, 394, 395.
Urfa, 396.
Uruguay (Banda Oriental), 190.
Utrecht, treaty of, 389.
Uxbridge, Earl of. See Paget, Lord.
Valencia, 88, 107, 109, 110, 112.
Valladolid, 93, 108, 109.
Vallais, republic of, 79.
Vancouver, Captain, 436.
Vandamme, French general, 137.
Vandeleur, Sir John Ormesby, 164.
Van Diemen's Land (Tasmania), 439.
Vansittart, Nicholas (afterwards Lord Bexley), 68, 73;
envoy at Copenhagen, 3, 4;
chancellor of the exchequer, 81, 82, 86, 173-174, 183, 193, 198;
chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster, 202, 227.
Vellore, 400, 410.
Venaissin, 149.
Vendée, La, 155.
Venetia, 42, 134, 149, 166, 187.
Verdier, General, 88.
Verona, congress of, 199, 216-219, 222, 223, 392.
Victor, Marshal, 96, 98, 102.
Victor Emmanuel I., King of Sardinia, 38, 213, 216.
Victoria. See Australia.
Victoria, Princess (afterwards Queen), 70, 185, 274, 281, 375.
_Victory_, the, British ship, 40.
Vienna, 42, 63, 80, 134, 189, 191, 254, 259;
peace of, 64, 66;
congress of, 149, 151-153, 156, 166;
secret treaty, 153;
treaty of, 166, 168, 186-188, 190, 379-381, 388;
final act, 189;
conference at, 216, 217;
proposed conference, 396.
Vigo, 39, 95.
Villafranca, 93, 95.
Villa Real, 389.
Villèle, French statesman, 215, 217-219.
Villeneuve, French admiral, 39-41.
Vimeiro, battle, 91.
Vincennes, castle, 34.
Vincent, Colonel, 140.
Vistula, the, 123, 133.
Vitoria, battle, 109-112, 114, 136.
Vivian, Sir Richard H. (afterwards Lord), 164.
Volga, the, 310.
Volhynia, 122.
Volo, gulf of, 266, 392.
Volunteer consolidation bill, 30.
Vonitza, 266.
Wade, General, 434.
Wadsworth, American general, 130.
Wagram, battle, 63, 100.
Wakefield, Edward Gibbon, 440.
Walcheren expedition, the, 62-67, 71, 72, 74, 99, 199.
Wales, 289, 291, 305, 434;
amalgamation of English and Welsh benches, 271.
Wales, Caroline, Princess of. See Caroline, queen of George IV.
Wales (George), Prince of. See George IV.
Walker, George T. (afterwards Sir G. T.), 106.
Wallachia, 57, 59, 213-215, 260, 263, 267, 395, 396.
Walmoden, Hanoverian general, 137.
Walpole, Sir Robert (afterwards Earl of Orford), 205-208.
Walpole, Lord (afterwards Earl of Orford), 134.
Ward, Henry, M.P., 345, 346.
Ward, John William (afterwards Viscount, later Earl of Dudley), 197, 431;
foreign secretary, 227, 231, 260;
resignation, 236, 263, 380.
Wardle, Colonel, M.P., 60, 61, 72.
Warsaw, 55, 381, 387, 388;
duchy of, 53, 66, 79, 124, 152, 153, 166.
Wartburg festival, 188.
Washington, 130, 146.
_Wasp_, the, American sloop, 132.
Waterford, 237, 242, 250.
Waterloo, battle, 44, 147, 160-166, 230, 415.
Waterloo Bridge. See London.
Watsons, the, father and son, 175, 192.
Watt, James, 435.
Wavre, 159-161, 164.
_Weekly Political Register_, the. See Cobbett.
Wellesley, Sir Arthur (afterwards Duke of Wellington), 61, 151, 152, 156,
167, 168, 174, 189, 195, 199, 201, 208, 209, 216-219, 226, 227-229,
259, 280, 282, 285, 286, 293, 302-304, 309, 319, 324, 334, 343, 347,
350, 361, 362, 371, 372, 392, 397, 431;
chief secretary for Ireland, 50;
bombardment of Copenhagen, 54;
Peninsular war, 60, 71, 76, 90-120, 200;
viscount, 71, 99;
Vimeiro, 91;
commander-in-chief in the Peninsula, 96, 97;
Talavera, 98, 99;
Bussaco, 101;
lines of Torres Vedras, 101, 102;
Fuentes d'Oñoro, 103;
earl, 105;
sieges of Ciudad Rodrigo and Badajoz, 105, 106;
Salamanca, 107;
marquis, 108;
Vitoria, 110, 111, 136;
the Pyrenees, 113;
siege of St. Sebastian, 113, 114;
Bayonne, 115-117;
Toulouse, 118, 119;
duke, 151;
Waterloo campaign, 156-165;
Waterloo, 160-165;
master-general of the ordnance, 178, 194;
first lord of the treasury, 230-232, 234, 236, 243-246, 248-252, 260-263,
265-269, 271, 272, 276-278, 376, 377, 379, 380, 388;
duel with Winchilsea, 250, 251;
provisional administration, 351;
foreign secretary, 352, 356, 390;
Indian campaign, 398-400;
Assaye and Argáum, 399.
Wellesley, Sir Henry (afterwards Lord Cowley), 150.
Wellesley, Richard, marquis, 54, 67, 76, 96, 109, 174, 230, 278, 280, 325;
foreign secretary, 68, 76;
lord-lieutenant of Ireland, 199, 241, 344, 346;
governor-general of Bengal, 397-400, 402-405, 407, 408.
Wellington, Duke of. See Wellesley, Sir Arthur.
Wesel, 138.
Wesley, John, 337.
Westbury, 245.
West Australia. See Australia.
Westminster abbey and hall. See London.
Westmorland, Earl of (Fane), lord privy seal, 1, 50, 82;
resignation, 237.
Westphalia, 53, 153;
troops, 158.
Wetherell, Sir Charles, 248, 297.
Weymouth, 289, 305, 326.
Wharncliffe, Lord (Stuart-Wortley-Mackenzie), 291, 292, 299, 301, 302;
lord privy seal, 352.
Whately, Dr., archbishop of Dublin, 317, 421, 422.
Whitbread, Samuel, M.P., 36, 49, 51, 156, 157, 182, 199.
Whiteboys, 320.
White Conduit House. See London.
Whitefeet, 320.
Whitelocke, General, 56, 57.
Whitworth, Lord (afterwards Earl), ambassador extraordinary to France, 19;
negotiates with French government, 20-22, 46.
Wilberforce, William, M.P., 15, 48, 195.
Wild, Jonathan, 181.
Wilkes, John, 72, 374, 422.
Wilkie, Sir David, 427.
Wilkinson, American general, 141, 146.
William, Duke of Clarence (afterwards William IV.), 208, 249;
marriage, 184, 185;
lord high admiral, 227;
resignation, 243;
king, 273, 274, 277, 278, 281-283, 286, 287, 289-294, 296, 297, 299,
301-305, 337, 347-352, 354, 356, 357, 363, 368, 371;
coronation, 295, 301, 309;
death, 375.
William, Prince of Orange, 9-13.
William Frederick, Prince of Orange (afterwards William I., King of the
Netherlands), 138, 158, 267, 378, 381, 385.
William, Prince of Orange (afterwards William II., King of the
Netherlands), 159, 384.
Wilson, Sir Robert, 125.
Wiltshire, 281.
Winchester, school, 429.
Winchilsea, Earl of (Finch-Hatton), 250, 251.
Winder, American general, 146.
Windham, William, 14, 15, 25, 26, 28, 31, 34, 47, 51;
secretary for war and colonies, 45.
Windsor Castle, 70, 375.
_Windsor Castle_, the, British ship, 221.
Wittgenstein, Russian general, 125, 143, 145.
Worcester, bishop of (Carr), 299.
Wordsworth, William, 416.
Würtemburg, 42, 187, 189.
Wynn, Charles Williams, president of the board of control, 199, 227.
Yanzi, gorge, 113.
Yarmouth, Viscount (Ingram-Seymour-Conway), afterwards third Marquis of
Hertford, 46.
Yeo, Sir James, captain, 140.
Yorck, Count, 125, 133.
York, 83.
York (Toronto), 139, 140, 146.
York (Frederick), Duke of (son of George III.), 49, 60, 61, 72, 74-76,
184 n., 185, 197, 207, 208, 239, 242, 268.
Yorke, Charles Philip, home secretary, 27, 34;
first lord of the admiralty, 72, 82;
retirement, 81.
Yorkshire, 38, 180, 198, 274, 280, 288, 294, 432, 435.
Zadorra, river, 110.
Zaragoza, 88, 96.
Zemán Sháh, King of Afghánistán, 397.
Znaim, 64.
Zumalacarregui, Carlist general, 390, 391.
PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN AT
THE UNIVERSITY PRESS, ABERDEEN
[Illustration: GREAT BRITAIN
showing
PARLIAMENTARY REPRESENTATION
according to the
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[Illustration: MAP OF
SPAIN AND PORTUGAL
illustrating
THE PENINSULAR WAR.]
[Illustration: INDIA]
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