HISTORY OF THE PEACE: BEING A HISTORY OF ENGLAND FROM 1816 TO 1854. WITH AN INTRODUCTION 1800 TO 1815. BY HARRIET MARTINEAU. VOL. II. B OSTON: WALKER, WISE, AND COMPANY. 1865. Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1864, by WALKER, WISE, AND COMPANY, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. RIVERSIDE, CAMWBR1DGE: STEREOTYPED AND PRINTED BY H. O. HOUGHTON AND COMPANY. HISTORY OF THE PEACE, 1815 -1826. CONTENTS. BOOK I. Page Savings-banks.,................ 102 1815 E lgin Marbles................. 104 Page Peace of Paris................... 1 1808 - 1816. Holy Alliance...............,,,. 2 Co ngress of Viennace.............. 2 Spanish America................ 106 Congress of Vienna............... 3 Colonial Misgovernment......... 106 Secret Treaty.. Colonial Misgovernment. 106 Secret Treaty..................... 5 General Miranda....... 107 Paris in the Autumn of 1815....... 7 eneral i..... 10 Mr. Pitt.......... 107 Territorial Limits settled by Peace.. 9 The Addington Cabinet.......... 108 The Grenville Cabinet........... 109 1816. The Portland Cabinet............ 109 State of Parties................ 12 The Perceval Cabinet......... 109 Parliamentary Leaders............ 13 Improvement of Brazil.......... 110 Lord Chancellor Eldon........... 14 Difficulties of the Spanish ProvinLord Liverpool and his Colleagues. 15 cials......................... 110 The Opposition........... 15 Mexico......................... 111 Lord Castlereagh and his Colleagues 16 New Grenada - Venezuela...... 113 The Opposition........... 17 Earthquake at Caraccas........ 115 Fourth Session of Fifth Parliament. 21 Rio de la Plata.. 116 Speech.......................... 21 Paraguay — Chili.. 117 Property Tax.........25 Position of Affairs in 1816........ 117 Civil List...... 31 Marriage of the Princess Charlotte. 32 181 7. Agriculture.................... 33 Manufactures and Commerce. 43 Opening of Parliament........ 119 Depressionsof IndCommeeustry...... 43 Outrage on the Prince Regent.... 119 Depression of Industry.............45 Alarm 120 Currency........................ 47 Rorts............. 121 Labor 50.............. Coal Districts March of the Blallketeers.... 123 Coal Districts, 53 Machine-breakitng.al. 5. Derby Insurrection........... 125 Private | rBenevolence.............. 5 Prosecutions for Libel........... 135 Private Benevolence............. 55 Parliamentary RefmHone's Trials................... 138 Parliamentary Reform...........59 Writings of Cobbett............ 62 Death of the Princess Charlotte.. 145 Hampden Clubs................. 64 Sinecures.147 mSpdenceans.................... 67 Roman Catholic Claims.... 148 Address of the City.......... 72 Parliamentary Reform........... 148 Real Dangersl-...................72 India - Pindarree War.......... 149 Algiers.g................M.... 74 Mahratta Wars.................. 161 Bonmbardment................. 78 Progress of Social Improvement... 83 Criminal Laws................. 84 Meeting of Parliament.......... 180 Police.......................... 87 Prince Regent's Speech.......... 180 Gas-light.................. 89 Address..................... 182 Mendicity and Vagrancy......... 91 State of the Country............ 183 Law of Settlement............... 91 Proceedings of Parliament........ 187 Administration of Poor-laws....... 93 Report of Secret Committees... 187 Education....................... 98 Bill of Indemnity............... 189 1i CONTENTS. Page Page Scotch Burgh Reform............ 195 Her Claim to be crowned......... 287 Bank Restriction Act............ 199 Her Death and Funeral.......... 288 Royal Marriages................ 201 Dissolution and New Parliament.. 290 Slave-Trade.................... 203 State of the Country............ 291 Alien Act...................... 204 Death of Grattan............... 291 Dissolution..................... 206 Education...................... 292 General Election................ 208 Capital Punishmlents............ 294 Strike of Manchester Spinners.... 211 Agricultural Distress............ 295 Death of the Queen............. 212 Death of Sir S. Romilly......... 213 1821. Congress of Aix-la-Chapelle...... 214 State of the Country............ 218 Catholic Cla.................302 Revival of the Reform Agitation.. 219 ConstitutionalAssociation. 303 Constitutional Association....... 303 1819. King's Visit to Ireland.......... 305 Coronation.306 State of the Country............ 221 Death of Napoleon.............. 306 Opening of Parliament........... 222 Coalition with the Grenville Party 310 Care of the King's Person....... 222 Resumption of Cash Payments... 225 1822. Financial Measures............. 229 vFinancial Measures.............. 229 Retirement of Lord Sidmouth... 311 rorogation o.................. 235 Mr. Peel - Mr. Canning......... 312 Condition of the Government..... 237 Lrd Weelei Ireland. 314 Continuance of Reform Agitation. 239 Lolrd Wellesley in Irelan d........314 Condition of the People.......... 231 Motion in favor of Catholic Peers. 315 Novelties in the Reform Movement 244 Peterborough Questions.........317 Drilling..................... 24 New arriage Act.............. 319 Drillin4New Marriage Act....... 319 Manchester Meeting............. 246 Close of Session................ 321 Conduct of the Manchester Magis- King's Visit to Scotland......... 321 trates 255 Death of Lord Londonderry..... 321 Conduct of the Government.....256 Mr. Canning Foreign Secretary.. 323 General Excitement.258 Lord Amherst goes to India.... 323 Session of Parliament............ 261 Policy of Cstlereagh. 324 Death of George III.. 262 The Princes and Peoples of Europe 325 Revolutions Abroad............. 327 Policy of Canning.............. 329 Congress of Verona............ 332 BOOK II. 1823. 1820. French Invasion of Spain........ 333 Revival of Sedition............ 263 Overthrow of Spanish Revolution. 336 Cato Street Conspiracy.......... 263 South American Provinces....... 337 Alarms....................... 266 Appeal from Portugal............ 342 The King's Speech.............. 266 New Era of Conflict............. 344 Spies and Informers............. 267 Deaths of Potentates............ 345 Sedition in Scotland............. 268 Affairs of Greece.............. 348 Trials of the Radicals............ 268 Algiers......................... 349 The Demagogue................ 269 Ashantee War.................. 350 Accession of George IV......... 272 Burmese War.................. 352 Position of the Queen.......... 273 Oregon........................ 354 King's Marriage in 1795......... 273 Aliens......................... 356 The Queen Abroad.............. 277 Changes in the Ministry........ 360 The Queen's Return............. 278 Mr. Canning and Mr. Huskisson.. 364 King's Message................. 279 The Debt and Taxation........ 368 Queen's Message................ 279 Commercial Policy.............. 373 Commission agreed to........... 280 Spitalfields and Navigation Acts.. 376 Lords' Report. Queen's Trial.... 281 Parliamentary Topics........... 380 The Defence.................... 285 Negro Slavery.................. 383 Abandonment of the Bill........ 285 | Government Resolutions......... 385 I'lie Queen's Law-officers........ 285 Circular and its Reception........ 386 Prorogation.................... 286 Smith the Missionary............ 387 The Queen goes to St. Paul's.... 287 Close of the Session............. 391 CONTENTS. Vii Page Page 1824. Colonial Office................. 431 Emigration Committee........... 432 Prosperity................ 392 Catholic Question reviewed...... 434 Repeal of the Spitalfields Acts.... 394 State of Opinion in 1824......... 445 Artisan Restriction Laws........ 395 Catholic Association............. 448 Free Trade..................... 396 Catholic Deputation............. 449 Silk Duties..................... 397 Mr. O'Connell.................. 453 Wool Duty..................... 402 Progress of the Question...... 455 Reduction of Duties and Bounties. 404 Sir F. Burdett's Relief Bill....... 456 Uniformity of Weights & Measures 404 Duke of York's Declaration...... 456 Close of Session................ 405 Bill lost..................... 458 Speculation.................... 406 Catholics and Dissenters........ 459 Joint-stock Companies.......... 410 Aspect of the Question.......... 461 Chancery Reform............... 462 1825. Government moves for Inquiry.. 464 Report of Commissioners........ 467 Collapse........................ 413 Lord Eldon.................... 468 Panic.................... 414 Bill proposed..................468 Crash.... 415 Jurors in India................. 469 Issue of Small Notes and Coin.... 416 Finance 469 Close of Session and Dissolution.. 472 The Elections................... 473 Crimes and Punishments........ 475 King's Speech. 417 Education...................... 480 Arrangement with Bank of Eng- Emigration..................... 481 land......................... 417 Arts and Discovery.............. 482 Suppression of Small Notes...... 417 Remarkable Seasons............ 486 Scotch Banks................... 419 Art and Literature.............. 489 Branch and Joint-stock Banks.... 420 Necrology...................... 490 Advances on Goods............. 420 Politicians...................... 490 Position of Ministers............ 420 Men of Science.................. 491 Suffering of the Period.......... 422 Travellers...................... 492 Riots........................... 425 Artists........................ 494 Release of Bonded Corn......... 428 Authors. 496 Opening the Ports.............. 429 Poets: Byron, Keats, Shelley.... 498 Emigration..................... 430 Close of the Period.............. 500 HISTORY OF THE PEACE. BOOK I. FROM THE SETTLEMENT OF EUROPE TO THE ACCESSION OF GEORGE IV CHAPTER I. T'-fHE world was at peace. 11 On the 20th of November, 1815, Viscount Castlereagh and the Duke of Wellington, on the part of the King of Great Britain and Ireland, for himself and his allies, and the Duke of Richelieu, on the part of the King of France and Navarre, put their signatures to the definitive treaty between Peace of France and the Allied Powers. That treaty was for Paris, Nov. the "object of restoring between France and her 20,115. neighbors those relations of reciprocal confidence and good-will which the fatal effects of the Revolution and of the system of conquest had for so long a time disturbed." At the moment of signing this pledge of peace, the Duke of Richelieu described it as "a fatal treaty." I " More dead than alive," he writes on the 21st November, "I yesterday put my name to this fatal treaty." It was fatal in his view, because it contained " an arrangement framed to secure to the allies proper indemnities for the past, and solid guarantees for the future." To France alone did this treaty of the 20th November apply. The settlement of Europe, as it was called, had been effected by the general treaty signed in congress at Vienna, on the 9th of June, 1815. Nothing remained but to carry out the great principles of justice and truth which were to heal the wounds of a bleeding world. Who could doubt that the reign of violence was destroyed -forever, when the Emperor Alexander of Russia proclaimed that henceforth the political relations of the powers of Europe were to be founded on the gospel of peace and love? In a manifesto from St. Petersburg, dated "on the day of the birth of our Saviour, 25th December, 1815," the emperor commanded that there 1 Capefigue, Cent Jours, vol. i VOL. II. 1 2 HISTORY OF THE PEACE. [BooK I. should be read in all the churches a "convention concluded at Holy Alli- Paris on the 26th of September, 1815, between the ance Sept. Emperor of Russia, the Emperor of Austria, and the 26, 1i85. King of Prussia;" in which " they solemnly declare that the present act has no other object than to publish in the face of the whole world their fixed resolution, both in the administration of their respective states, and in their political relations with every other government, to take for their sole guide the precepts of the holy religion of our Saviour, - namely, the precepts of justice, Christian charity, and peace; which, far'from being applicable only to private concerns, must have an immediate influence on the councils of princes, and guide all their steps, as being the only means of consolidating human institutions, and remedying their imperfections." All crime shall cease, and ancient frauds shall fail, Returning Justice lift aloft her scale, Peace o'er the world her olive wand extend, And white-robed Innocence firom heaven descend. - POPE. The declaration of " the Holy Alliance " - for so this convention of the 26th of September was named - was a rhodomontade which the Emperor Alexander amused himself by composing, with the assistance of a " white-robed Innocence," (called Madame Krudener,l) whilst the prosaic destinies of Europe were being settled amidst a conflict of jarring interests. The mystical doctrines of political perfectibility had few disciples, although the enthusiastic emperor labored unremittingly for converts. Metternich slyly laughed, and handed it to his master to sign; 2 Wellington coldly bowed, and said that the English parliament would require something more precise. The peace of Europe was settled, as every former peace had been settled, upon a struggle for what the respective powers thought most conducive to their own aggrandizement. We shall endeavor briefly to trace some of the circumstances of the final settlement of 1815. Time has revealed many of the hidden movements by which that settlement was accomplished. The "Treaty of Union, Concert, and Subsidy," of the 1st Treaty of March, 1814, known as the Treaty of Chaumont, was Chaumont, concluded between Great Britain, Austria, Russia, Mar. 1, 1814. and Prussia, whilst the contest with France still remained undecided. The four great powers were negotiating for peace with Bonaparte, whilst war was raging all around them. The Treaty of Chaumont declared that the four powers had "transmitted to the French government proposals for concluding a general peace;" and "should France refuse the conditions 1," Clothed always in white, kneel- commanded the elements."- Capefigue, ing in the oratories, she seemed one of Restauration. the Druidesses whose wonderful words 2 Capefigue, Restauration. CHAP. I.] CONGRESS OF VIENNA. 3 therein contained," that the object of this solemn engagement was " to draw closer the ties which unite them for the vigorous prosecution of a war undertaken for the salutary purpose of putting an end to the miseries of Europe, by reestablishing a just balance of power." But this treaty was not limited to the attainment of peace alone - it contemplated a long alliance for the preservation of what should be attained and established. Its second object was, " should the Almighty bless their pacific intentions, to fix the means of maintaining, against every attempt, the order of things which shall have been the happy consequence of their efforts." To this end the four powers each agreed to keep in the field a hundred and fifty thousand effective men; Great Britain engaged to furnish a subsidy of five millions sterling for the service of the year 1814; and the duration of the treaty was to extend to twenty years. Within one month from the date of this treaty, the counter-revolution of France was effected, and Napoleon was decreed to have forfeited the throne. On the 23d of April, a convention was agreed with the restored government for the suspension of hostilities; of which the second article left no doubt that the just balance of power was to be established by reducing France to the territorial limits of the 1st January, 1792. By the definitive treaty of peace of Treatyof the 30th May, 1814, some additions were made to Peace, May, these limits. With reference to the final disposal of 30) 1814. the ceded territories acquired by France during the war, the treaty was necessarily vague. The larger questions of contemplated aggrandizement by Russia and Prussia were wholly left out of view; all was to be settled in the general congress to be held at Vienna. The Congress of Vienna was not only the most important assembly that modern Europe had beheld, but it was, Congress of at the same time, the most imposing and ostentatious. vienna. It was accompanied by all the " fierce vanities " of the 1514 last days of feudalism; and the great dramatic poet's description of the splendors of " the vale of Andren" might, with little alteration, be applied to the saloons of Vienna in the latter months of 1814. In that city of pleasure were assembled, in October, the sovereigns of Austria, and Russia, and Prussia, with many of the lesser princes of the Germanic states. Emperors shook hands in the public streets; Metternich and Castlereagh strolled about arm in arm. The royal negotiators vied with each other in the splendor of their entertainments; the British minister, a commoner of England, o'ertopped the magnificence of the proudest royalties. The old Prince de Ligne exclaimed: " Le congres danse, et ne marche pas." They did not move on quite so easily and agreeably as their outward de 4 HISTORY OF THE PEACE. [BOOK I. lights and courtesies might seem to indicate. Talleyrand came with his profound adroitness to demand that France should take a part in all the deliberations. The parties to the Treaty of Chaumont would have narrowed his claims, but he persevered, and France regained her proper rank in European diplomacy. The ministers of England and Austria had begun to feel that ambitions might arise as adverse to the just balance of power as the humbled ambition of France itself. A voice had gone forth from the British parliament to protest against the annexation of Saxony to Prussia, and the total subjugation of Poland by Russia. The Chancellor of the Exchequer declared on the 28th November, in the House of Commons, that he did not believe that any British minister would be a party to these acts.l It was clear from his own letters, that up to the end of October the British minister had been a consenting party to the annexation of Saxony; and that he had defended the annexation upon the ground that the king had been guilty of perpetual tergiversations, and ought to be sacrificed to the future tranquillity of Europe. Of the wishes and interests of the people of Saxony he made no mention. Austria, on the other hand, strongly protested against the annexation. For three months Europe was on the brink of a new war. France, having recovered a position of independence at the congress, demanded the restoration of the Bourbon dynasty to the throne of Sicily and Naples, and refused to consent to the degradation of the King of Saxony. The principle of legitimacy was violated, according to Talleyrand, by both these acts. Austria made common cause with France in the discussions upon Saxony. Opposed to these powers were the sovereigns of Russia and Prussia, united by personal friendship, and most potential in their military organization. "Secure me Saxony," said Prussia, "and you shall have Poland;" " Secure me Poland," said Russia, " and you shall have Saxony." In these questions Great Britain had no direct interest; but she had the great national interest to uphold, that the weaker states should not be absorbed by the stronger, and that some regard to the people should be shown in those partitions of territory which the wars of a quarter of a century had rendered too familiar. There was a change in the policy of the British minister at congress. Before the end of 1814, England, France, and Austria were united in demanding the integrity of Saxony, and the independence of Poland. On the 11th of December, the Archduke Constantine, who had hurried from Vienna, called upon the Poles to rally round the protection of the Emperor of Rus-. sia; the Prussian minister declared that Saxony was conquered by Prussia, and should not be restored; Alexander, in revenge I Hansard, November 28, 1814. CHAP. I.] AN "HISTORICAL FACT." 5 for the opposition of France was resolved to support Murat on the throne of Naples. The rival powers began to look to war. There had been a million of allied men in arms to resist the aggressions of France, and to restore the just equilibrium of power in Europe. That these arms were now to be turned against each other was a more than possible event; it was an event to be instantly provided for and regulated by those whose mission was that of peace. In the treaty of Holy Alliance the rulers of Austria, Russia, and Prussia had solemnly engaged to " remain united by the bonds of a true and indissoluble fraternity; and considering each other as fellow-countrymen, they will, on all occasions, and in all places, lend each other aid and Assistance." In a secret treaty concluded between Secrettreaty, Austria, England, and France on the 3d February, Feb. 3,1815. 1815, an engagement was entered into to act in concert, each with an army of a hundred and fifty thousand men, to carry into effect the Treaty of Paris, in the manner most conformable to the spirit of that treaty; "convinced that the powers who had to complete the dispositions of the Treaty of Paris 1 ought to be maintained in a state of security and perfect independence, and holding it necessary, in consequence of pretensions recently manifested, to look to the means to resist every aggression." When, a year after the date of this treaty, Mr. Brougham moved in the House of Commons for a copy of the document, Lord Castlereagh resisted its production, on the ground that it might be considered in the nature of an unfinished transaction, "a mere historical fact," that could have no influence on our actual affairs. He contended that the cordial cooperation of the allies in the events of 1815 was sufficient to show that for all great purposes the spirit of strict alliance pervaded the powers of Europe. Thirty years have passed since this argument was employed. It was a good argument then, to prevent inconvenient disclosures; but there requires little to convince us now, upon the clear evidence of this "historical fact," that if Bonaparte had not leaped into the throne of the Tuileries in the spring of 1815, the peace of Europe might have been broken before it was consolidated. The "6 historical fact " is not without its lessons even at the present hour. On the 7th of March, Prince Metternich received a despatch announcing the hasty and mysterious departure of Napoleon from Elba. On the 13th the solemn declaration of congress was published, that Bonaparte was to be put down as the common enemy of mankind. The Congress of Vienna continued its deliberations; and whilst preparations for war were made on every side, the general treaty of congress for the settlement of Europe was 1 Capefigue, Restauration. 6 HISTORY OF THE PEACE. [BOOK I. prepared, and was signed only a week before the battle of Quatre Bras. The points of difference as to territorial limits were settled by mutual concessions. The principle of partition and readjustment of territory was established. The definitive treaty of the Congress of Vienna was signed on Treaty of the 9th of June. On the 14th the Chancellor of the Congress, Exchequer went down to the House of Commons, and June 9,1815. said that he had contracted a loan that day for thirtysix millions, and he asked for a total amount for the supplies of the year - in addition to the permanent charges of' thirty-seven millions and a half- of no less a sum than ninety millions. The resolutions of the Chancellor of the Exchequer were agreed to, with only one opposing speech, and without a division. On the 18th the battle of Waterloo was fought. On the 3d of July, Paris was in the occupation of the Anglo-Prussian army - Louis XVIII. was restored - Napoleon was banished to St. Helena. It is not within our province to trace the various political intrigues that followed the restoration of the Bourbons to the throne from which they had been hurled, partly by their own indiscretions, essentially by the reaction of that fierce military spirit which had held Europe in terror for a quarter of a century. There was once more to be a contest for power between England and Russia. England could repress the national hatred of Prussia, and preserve Paris from worse than useless outrage. She could even read France " a great moral lesson " in the restoration of the works of art to their lawful owners. But England could not preserve the influence which would have secured France from the dangerous revenge of the ultra-royalists. Talleyrand, who had raised his country to the position which she occupied at the Congress of Vienna, was driven from the councils of that king who, a few months before, was a powerless outcast. Russia, it is said, named his successor. The ministers of England did all that remained to them to do. The treaty of alliance, which accompanied the Treaty of Paris, was forwarded to the French minister with a note which contained sundry excellent lessons on the duty of uniting moderation with firmness, and rejecting imprudent or impassioned councils.'"Indemnities for the past" were to be secured by France paying, by gradual instalments, seven hundred millions of francs, - a sum not equal to the loan which the English Chancellor of the Exchequer raised in one day; " guarantees for the future" were exacted by the presence of the army of occupation for a term of years, supported at the expense of France, and garrisoning her strong places, under the command of the Duke of Wellington. England, having lost her real influence in the government of France, retained the power of making herself odious. The terms granted to the French were, in truth, CHAP. I.] PARIS IN THE AUTUMN OF 1815. 7 moderate. England, at the height of glory, had to pay penalties of longer duration, perhaps of greater severity, as the price of this tremendous conflict. The last three years of uwnar alone had cost the country one hundred and ninety-seven millions. Paris in the autumn of 1815 presented a scene even more remarkable than the Vienna of the preceding year. Parisin the The conquered city was one universal theatre of gay- autumn of ety and excitement. Here was no " Rachel weeping 1815. for her children." In some dark estaminet might a solitary soldier of the disbanded army of the Loire be heard execrating the presence of the foreigner. But the foreigner preserved an exact discipline. He paid for everything, and he had ample means of payment. "It is from this year, 1815, that the greater part of the shopkeeping fortunes of Paris are to be dated." I The haughty nobles of Russia lavished their rents upon Parisian mistresses and gamblers. Hundreds of the great English families rushed to Paris to gaze upon the conquering armies, and to contend for the honor of a smile from Lady Castlereagh in her evening circles, or a bow fiom the great duke at his morning levee. All this was to end. The ministers and serf-lords of Russia had to return to a St. Petersburg winter, and see how best they could persuade the Poles that their annexation was the triumph of their independence. The cautious diplomatists of Austria had to discover how the hot Italian spirits that had dreamt of liberty and national greatness were to sit down under the leaden sceptrle of the German stranger. Prussian councillors of state had to meet the excited landwehr, who had rushed to arms under the promise of constitutional liberty; and to accommodate the differences of one set of subjects with the old German laws, and her new Rhine people with the French code. The smaller German states had to rearrange themselves under the confederation. Sweden had to reconcile Norway. Holland had to amalgamate with BelgiumProtestant with Catholic, and interpret Dutch laws to a French race. Spain, which had put down the Cortes, had to try if proscriptions could satisfy a people that had been fighting seven years in the name of freedom. Certainly these home prospects were not so agreeable to the managers of national affairs as the reviews of the Bois de Boulogne, or the re'unions of the Faubourg St. Honor&. Perhaps to the English ministers, and to their admiring followers, there was less of apprehension than to the leaders of those states who had gained something more solid than the glory with which England remained contented. It was enough for her to believe that she had won security. She had proudly won the semblance of it; the one great enemy was overthrown. Still there might be some feeling - half fear, half disgust - at 1 Capefigue, Restauration. 8 HISTORY OF TIE PEACE. [BooK I. the thought of the House of Commons, with its searching ques. tions, its hatred of continental alliances, its denunciations of broken promises, coming from a small but active minority. The lofty port and the cold politeness that befitted the table of congress would be there out of place. Two years of negotiation in the midst of victory would not be favorable to debating equanimity. Hard every-day business would have to be talked of instead of glory. There was but one course:They must either - For so run the conditions- leave those remnants Of fool, and feather, that they got in France, With all their honorable points of ignorance, And understand again like honest men Or pack to their old playfellows. SHAKSPEARE: Henry VII. But if the plenipotentiaries of this country might return home a little imbued with the temper of despotic cabinets — if they could be accused of having too strenuously asserted the principle of legitimacy - if they had appeared to have contended too much for the claims of kings, and too little for the rights of the people - in one respect they had done their duty, and truly upheld the Declarations moral supremacy of England. They had labored against the strenuously, and they had labored with tolerable sucslave-trade. cess, for the abolition of the slave-trade. In the Treaty of Utrecht, England protected her commercial interests - despicable protection! - by stipulating for a monopoly of the slavetrade for thirty years. In the Treaty of Paris, England wrested from France an immediate abolition of the traffic, and a declaration from all the high contracting powers that they would concert, without loss of time, "the most effectual measures for the entire and definitive abolition of a commerce so odious." This was something to set off against the remarkable fact that Great Peace con- Britain, who had made such enormous sacrifices for cluded with- the deliverance of Europe, had not a single commerout any commercial cial treaty to exhibit as a compensation for her proditreaties. gal disbursements of loans and subsidies. During the most stringent period of Napoleon's anti-commercial decrees, her commerce went on increasing. The people of Europe would have her commodities, and no fiscal power could shut them out. The merchants and manufacturers of England might expect that when all the rulers of Europe were assembled todeliberate upon the future welfare of the great European family, there would be some relaxation of that almost universal system of high duties and prohibition which denied to the continental nations the advantages of free marts for the products of British industry. The days of neutrals, and licenses, and armies of smugglers, were gone., Our diplomatists came home with no treaties putting their coun CHAP. I.] COMMERCE.- TERRITORIAL LIMITS. 9 try "upon the footing of the most favored nations." The merchants and manufacturers would not have welcomed them if they had come with any treaty that went upon the principle of buying in the cheapest market and selling in the dearest.' Even the Treaty of Versailles, which Pitt negotiated with France in 1786, would have been offensive to the parliament of England in 1816, for it was a treaty of mutual concession and liberality. Had Lord Castlereagh said to the House of Commons, "I have made trade free," he would have been hooted. The ship-owners would have clamored for their beloved navigation laws. The landowners would have driven him from office had he admitted the corn of Poland and the wool of Saxony. The colonial merchants would have impeached him for letting in the timber of Norway. The manufacturers would have been in open insurrection at the faintest rustling of the silks of France. (As it was, the peace of 1815 was constructed without the slightest effort to secure its perpetuity by something stronger than conventions and protocols - by uniting mankind in a bond of common interests We request our readers to turn to the map of Europe, and to follow us in a few details which may save some after-trouble of reference and explanation. Look, first, at the kingdom of France, as its limits were fixed in 1815, nearly the limits of 1790 - the limits of the Territorial present hour. It is a noble territory, full of natural limits as settled by resources - a land that possesses all the elements of the peace. real prosperity -a country that must ever be one of France. the greatest powers of Europe - a military power, a naval power. The population of France, within the limits fixed by the peace, was in 1815 about thirty millions. But before the campaign of 1812, the empire of France embraced a population of more than fifty millions; the imperial domination extended over more than sixty millions. There were thirty-two millions of people, in 1815, to come under new laws and new governments. The old provinces of the Low Countries severed from the empire, were raised up into the kingdom of the Neth- Kingdom of erlands under the House of Orange. The line which the Nethernow separates Belgium and Holland was drawn after lands. the revolution of 1830. In 1815 this was made a compact kingdom of five millions of inhabitants - an agricultural, a manufacturing, and a commercial kingdom, with noble colonies. The physical arrangement of such a state was admirable. But the moral overcame the material. The people would not amalgamate. The Austrian Netherlands (Belgium), with all that part of Germany which lies on the left bank of the Rhine, were added to the old territory of France in 1801. Prussia 1 Macgregor's Commercial Statistics, i. p. 3. 10 HISTORY OF THE PEACE. [BOOK I. The Rhenish provinces were, in 1815, bestowed upon Prussia - a fertile territory, an industrious people. By the Peace of Tilsit, Prussia was stripped of nearly one half of her dominions. The Congress of' Vienna restored her to her full sovereignty. But the congress did more for this great member of the European confederacy. It gave Prussia one half of Saxony. It gave her a slice of the Duchy of Warsaw, with a million of people. The map will show better than words what the peace of 1815 did for Prussia. It raised her from the depths of her humiliation after the battle of Jena, to take rank amongst the most important of European powers. A territory larger than all Europe put together —a population forming one fifth of the whole of Europe - this is Russia. indeed a mighty country, and one that would seem destined for universal monarchy. But the largest states are not always the strongest. Russia, by its ascendency at the Congress of Vienna, obtained the kingdom of Poland in undisputed sovereignty, with four million inhabitants. The Duchy of Warsaw was swept from the domination of France. The new kingdom had a constitution; but the old annexations of Poland to Russia were to continue under the absolute monarch. The fabric was too frail to endure. Where vanished the French kingdom of Italy, with its six Austria, Sar- million inhabitants? Where all the lesser French indinia, &c. corporated states, Piedmont, Genoa, Tuscany, Lucca? The lord of the iron crown might indeed dream that the Mediterranean would become the French lake! Austria acquired the Lombardo-Veneto kingdom, with its four millions of inhabitants. Sardinia annexed Genoa to its territory, and became a more important state. The States of the Church were reistablished. Naples and Sicily were restored to the old Bourbon branch. Tuscany was again a grand-duchy. Smaller states are dotted about the famed Italian land. Visions of ancient grandeur have sometimes precipitated its people into revolt; but the arrangements of 1815 have not been disturbed. Austria obtained as great a prize in the dismemberment of the French empire as Prussia and Russia. ~Vith a policy that was undoubtedly the result of the most skilful calculation, she sought no very considerable enlargement of territory to the north. She became mistress of the Adriatic, and carried her frontier to the Alps': It is scarcely necessary for us to follow the minute territorial Germanic arrangements of the minor German states. The GerConfederation. manic Confederation will require to be noticed when we have to trace its internal workings. lit was not the least of the achievements of the Congress of Vienna, that the contending interests of a host of petty princes were harmonized into some CHAP. I.] GENERAL RESULTS OF THE PEACE. 11 semblance of nationality.: One Germany to be defended by the confederation of independent states, raised up a formidable barrier to external ambition, whether of France or of Russia. The last important territorial decision which it may be necessary to point out, is that of the annexation of Norway Denmark, to Sweden. This was in accordance with the Conven- Sweden, and tion of Kiel, in 1814, between Denmark and Sweden. Norway. We are now writing of the settlement of Europe exactly thirty years since the final act of' that settlement, the Peace General reof Paris, of November, 1815.1 From that time there suilts of the has been no general war in Europe. Spain has passed peace. through revolution upon revolution; the South American colonies have acquired independence without strength; Italy has in vain striven against the rule of Austria and Sardinia; Poland has succumbed more entirely to the power of Russia; Greece has been raised into a kingdom; the younger branch of the House of Bourbon has obtained the throne of France, as was contemplated by some in 1815; Belgium has been severed from Holland. Yet with all these changes the five great powers have not drawn the sword from the scabbard to assault each other: this is not to be forgotten in estimating the value of the peace of 1815. Napoleon, at St. Helena, said to O'Meara: " So silly a treaty as that made by your ministers for their own country was never known before. You give up everything and gain nothing." We can now answer, that we gained everything when we gained thirty years of repose. We gained everything when, after twenty years of warfare upon the most extravagant scale, the spirit of the people conducted that warfare to a triumphant end. The gains of a great nation are not to be reclkoned only by its territorial acquisitions, or its diplomatic influence. The war which England had waged, often single-handed, against a colossal tyranny, raised her to an eminence which amply compensated for the mistakes of her negotiators. It was something that they did not close the war in a huckstering spirit - that they did not squabble for this colony or that entrepot. The fact of our greatness was not to be mistaken when we left to others the scramble for aggrandizement, content at last to be free to pursue our own course of consolidating our power by the arts of peace. There were years of exhaustion and discontent to follow those years of perilous conflict and final triumph. But security was won; we were safe from the giant aggressor. The people that had subdued Napoleon - for it was the act of the people - would do the work that remained to them. The imperial parliament had continued prorogued from the 1 The reader will please bear in mind, when dates are referred to, that this history was written in 1846. 12 HISTORY OF THE PEACE. [BooK I. 11th July, 1815, to the 1st February, 1816. During this long State of and unusual interval of legislative business -for it parties. had been the previous custom for parliament to meet early in November - the foreign policy of the administration had been carried out without the slightest control from the representatives of the people. Sir S. Romilly writes in his diary of the lst February:1 " There has been no period of our history in which more important events have passed, and upon which the counsels of parliament - if they be of any utility - were more to be required, than during this long prorogation." It may be doubted if the counsels of parliament could have been " of any utility " in deciding the great questions involved in the irresistible triumph of the allied armies. Romilly was himself at Paris in October, 1815. He laments 2 over the unpopularity of the English in compelling the removal of the works of art from the Louvre; he doubts whether a peace of long duration could arise out of the occupation of France by foreign troops; he sympathizes with those who bitterly complain of the perfidy of the allied powers. Mr. Horner has similar views: 3 the good fruits of the French Revolution were to be lost to France; the confederacy of courts and the alliance of armies were to subject the French to the government of a family that they despise and detest; that the people are the property of certain royal families, was to be established as a maxim in the system of Europe; our army was degraded in being the main instrument of a warfare against freedom and civilization. If parliament had been sitting in the autumn of 1815, and had these been the general opinions of the opposition as a body, the Bourbons might not have been supported by the English diplomatists in their restoration; and the English army might have been withdrawn from the occupation of France, after the object had been accomplished for which England had professed to arm —the overthrow of Napoleon. But parliament was not sitting in the autumn of 1815; and, what is more important, the opposition, as a body, did not hold these opinions. Two days before the meeting of parliament, Mr. Horner writes:' 4I fear we are not likely to go on very harmoniously in opposition; there are such wide and irreconcilable differences of opinion between those who, on the one hand, will hear of nothing but a return to all that was undone by the French Revolution, and who, in the present moment of success, declare views of that sort which they never avowed to the same extent before - and those who, on the other hand, think that the French people have some right to make and mend their government for themselves.... You may expect very soon to see a breach in the 1 Romilly's Diary, iii. p. 213. 2 Ibid. p. 210. 3 Horner's Correspondence, ii. p. 273. 4 Ibid. iii. p. 291. CaAP. I.] STATE OF PARTIES. 13 opposition; I think it cannot be averted much longer." Mr. Ward (afterwards Lord Dudley) attributes to the opposition motives which could belong only to a few, and which even in those few were mixed up with something higher: ('Opposition had staked everything upon Napoleon's success, and are grieved at his failure.":; Had Napoleon succeeded, there might have been unity. He fell; and the great Whig party was broken for a season. It only recovered its power when it took deeper root in the popular affections. The triumph of the British arms was soon followed by grievous embarrassments at home. But the people, at the commencement of 1816, had little sympathy for those who were lamenting over the banishment of Napoleon. Even the chief Whig organ, the " Edinburgh Review," complained of " the strange partiality 2 which has lately indicated itself for him among some of those who profess to be lovers of liberty in this country;" and ridiculed "the sort of hankering after him which we can trace among some of our good Whigs." The people had as little respect for those who grieved that France had to pay severe penalties for her long career of spoliation. The success of England was too recent -the success was too splendid and overwhelming, not to throw its shield over just fears and reasonable complaints. It annihilated mere party hostility. The reaction was not yet come. The fever-fit of triumph had not yet been followed by the cold torpor of exhaustion. For a little while the nation could bear even the presumption of those who claimed all the merit of the triumph, and almost appeared to forget that never was a government so supported by the people as the English supported their government during the Hundred Days. Mr. Ward, a general follower of the administration, writes thus of the men in power in 1816: 3 "Their prodigious success - which, without at all meaning to deny their merits and abilities, must be allowed by all reasonable men to have been vastly beyond their merits and beyond their abilities - had made their underlings insolent, and the House too obedient." Such was the position of the two parties with reference to external politics. Domestic concerns, which were soon to assume the greater importance, were too little regarded during the war to divide men into parties. The policy of peace had slowly to construct the great modern division of the adherents to things as they were, and the advocates of things as they should be - the enemies and the friends of progress. Let us endeavor, with however feeble a pencil, to trace the outlines of those who had chiefly to interpret the Parliamenopinions of their time - to attack and to defend - to tary leaders. 1 Lord Dudley's Letters, p. 145. 2 Edinburgh Review, October, 1815. 8 Lord Dudley's Letters, p. 136. 14 HISTORY OF THE PEACE. [Boox I. propound lasting truths or fleeting paradoxes - in the parliament of 1816. The greater number of those who had to debate on the Peace of Paris sleep with those who had to debate on the Peace of Utrecht. The same narrow house that contained Oxford and Bolingbroke contains Liverpool and Castlereagh. Ponsonby and Tierney are as insensible to the historic regards of their younger contemporaries as are Stanhope and Hanmer. The living and the dead alike claim an honest and im., partial estimation. On the woolsack sits John Scott, Lord Eldon. The ChancelThe Lord lor is in his sixty-fifth year. He has filled his high chancellor. office, with the exception of a single year of absence from power, since 1801. The consummate judge is in him united with the narrowest politician. The acute lawyer, balancing every question with the most inflexible honesty and the clearest vision, is the most one-sided and halting statesman that ever sat in the councils of an empire in which truth was only to be established by conflict, and every element of change was in ceaseless, and for the most part, healthful activity. His thought by day, his dream by night, is to uphold what he calls the constitution - that indefinable compound of principles and expedients, that to him is as sacred as the commands of Holy Writ. Whoever approaches to lay his hands on that ark, whether he come to blot out a cruel statute, or to mitigate a commercial restriction, or to disfranchise a corrupt borough, or to break down a religious disability, is his enemy. lHe was the last great man who belonged to this sect.'i But he acted with perfect honesty and unshrinking courage in the assertion of these opinions. He retained office because he professed the opinions; but no one can believe that he professed the opinions to retain office. He lived in times when bursts of popular violence alarmed the peaceful, and licentious expressions of opinion disgusted the moderate; and he knew no other instrument but force for producing internal peace. Yet he was no hater of liberty, no assertor of the rights of unconditional power. The law, as it stood, was his palladium, yet no one was more ready to make the natural course of justice give place to suspensions of the constitution. But in his mind this was to preserve the constitution. To lop off a limb was life to the constitution; to infuse new blood was death. It has been truly observed that he confounded every abuse that surrounded the throne, or grew up within the precincts of the altar, with the institutions themselves -- alike the determined enemy of all who would either invade the institution or extirpate the abuse."' He is one that after-times will not venerate i; but, fortunately for the fame of the larger number of the great ones of 1 Brougham's Statesmen, series ii.. CHAP. I.] ELDON.-LIVERPOOL. —THE OPPOSITION. 15 the earth, there is a vast neutral ground between veneration and aontempt) The first Lord of the Treasury is the Earl of Liverpool. He has been prime minister from 1812; he has held Lord Liverhigh office from the beginning of the century; he pool and his colleagues has filled subordinate offices from the age of man- in the House hood. Respect is on all hands conceded to him, — of Lords. the respect due to honest intentions and moderate abilities. Admiration or disgust is reserved for his colleagues. As prime minister of England, he seems to fill something like the station which a quiet and prudent king may fill in other countries. He is the head of the nation's councils, with responsible ministers. The conduct of the war was not his; he suffered others to starve the war. The peace was not his; he gave to others the uncontrolled power of prescribing the laws of victory. The stupendous financial arrangements of the war were not his;ithey were expounded by a man of business in the House of CommonS, The resistance to all change was not his; the great breakwater of the coming wave was his sturdy chancellor. The people, during his war-administration, had quietly surrendered itself to the belief that good business talents were the most essential to the official conduct of the affairs of nations. A long course of victory had succeeded to a long course of disaster; and, therefore, the rulers at home were the best of rulers. The great Captain who saved his country, and threw his protection over the government, offered the strongest evidence, in after- years, of how little that government had done for him. Around the premier sit the Home Secretary, Viscount Sidlmouth, and the Colonial Secretary, the Earl Bathurst. They enjoy, even in a greater degree than himself, the privilege of not being envied and feared for the force of their characters or the splendor of their talents. It is not quite easy to understand now what constituted the Opposition in 1816. The two peers of the greatest The Opposimark had been divided in their opinions as to the war tion in the against Napoleon on his return from Elba. It is little House of doubtful that they were equally divided as to the character of the peace. Earl Grey stood at the head of the party that denounced the intimate foreign alliances which this country had formed in the support of legitimacy. He would have treated with Bonaparte. Lord Grenville held that the maintenance of peace with Bonaparte was impossible, and that consequently the foreign alliances and the restoration of the Bourbons were essential parts of the war policy. Both had been driven from office ten years before, through their firm adherence to the support of the Catholic claims. The natures of each of these eminent 16 HISTORY OF THE PEACE. [BOOk 1 statesmen were somewhat haughty and uncompromising. Had they remained in power after the death of Mr. Fox, they would have probably differed as to the conduct of the war. Had they succeeded to power upon the termination of the war, they would as certainly have differed as to the character of popular discontents, and the mode of appeasing them. Lord Grey was a Whig-reformer- Lord Grenville a Whlig-conservative. On the benches of opposition sat also the Marquis of Lansdowne and Lord Holland. Their differences of opinion were not of a very practical character. Lord Lansdowne saw in the overthrow of Napoleon the destruction of a military tyrant, and he rejoiced accordingly; Lord Holland, a man of large benevolence, had a generous tear for a fallen foe. Turn we to the House of Commons -that assembly whose House of voice, even when its defects were most fiercely canCommons. vassed, went forth throughout the world as the expression of a great and free nation. The leader of the ministerial Lord Castle- phalanx is Robert Stewart, Lord Castlereagh. To his reagh and his splendid figure and commanding face he has added the colleagues. outward show of honors which have not been bestowed upon a commoner since the days of Sir Robert Walpole. He is "the noble lord in the blue ribbon." He has been Foreign Secretary since 1812. He held high office in 1802. By the force of his character he bore down the calumnies whicul had attached to his connection with the government of Ireland before the Union. The triumphs of the Peninsula had obliterated the recollections of Walcheren. He comes now to parliament at the very summit of his power, having taken but little part in its debates during the mighty events of the two previous years. There is a general impression that he has a leaning towards arbitrary principles, and that his intercourse with the irresponsible rulers of the continent has not increased his aptitude for administering a representative government. He will be attacked with bitterness; he will be suspected, perhaps unjustly. But he will stand up against all attack with unflinching courage, and unyielding self-support. No consciousness of the narrowness of his intellect and the defects of his education will prevent him pouring out torrent after torrent of unformed sentences and disjointed argument. It is a singular consideration that mere hardihood and insensibility should have stood up so successfully against untiring eloquence within the walls of parliament, and determined hostility without. Lord Castlereagh even succeeded in living down popular hatred. Round this most fortunate minister of 1816 are grouped his colleagues - Nicholas Vansittart, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, " the noblest work of God," according to Pope's maxim; the Secretary of War, Lord Palmer CHAP. I.] CASTLEREAGH. - PONSONBY, ETC. 17 ston; the chief Secretary for Ireland, Mr. Peel; and, somewhat out of his place, the friend whom Canning raised to office when he ingloriously went to Lisbon in 1814- Mr. Huskisson. The accredited leader of the Opposition is George Ponsonby, formerly chancellor of Ireland. He is a prudent and The Oppositemperate leader, not remarkable for great powers as a tion. debater, but a safe guide for party men to rally round. Mr. PonOne who did not act with him says:1' He was the least sonby. eminent man that ever filled such a station." One who did act with him writes in his diary: 2," He was a very honest man, had many excellent qualities, and possessed very considerable talents; but he was by no means fit for the situation which he has for ten years occupied - that of leader of the party of opposition. Beside him sits George Tierney, a parliamentary veteran, who has been fighting for twenty years, chiefly in the ranks of opposition, once as a member of the Addington administration - a financier, a wit. Of ready powers as a debater, of great practical sense, of unblemished private character, he seemed fitted for higher eminence than he attained in the nation's eyes. He was a parliamentary man of business at a time when that high quality was not valued as it ought to have been; and, whether in or out of office, the best committee man, the clearest calculator, was held as a very subordinate person in affairs of legislation. He redeemed, however, the character of the opposition in regard to this quality, in which they were held, unjustly enough, to be singularly deficient; and he almost succeeded in persuading his hearers and the public, that genius and industry may be united. The nation seemed then to have confidence in its administration, because it regarded its chiefs and subordinates as essentially men of business. Mr. Tierney was to claim this confidence as the man of business of the opposition. He had declaimers enough about hint to make the attribute not too infectious. Mr. Tierney was the man of financial detail. There was one who then chiefly dedicated himself to the neglected walk of political economy. Francis Horner had Francis won a high reputation by the unremitting assertion of Horner. large principles which indolence and prejudice had shrunk from examining. More than any man he had gone to the root of financial difficulties. His opinions were to be adopted when he lived not to expound them - others were to carry them into practice. It is something to be an earnest thinker in an age of debaters. His are labors that have more endurance than mere party eminence. In the same ranks are a few other laborers "for all time." On the bench of honor sits one whose lofty port and composed 1 Lord Dudley's Letters, p. 171. 2 Romilly's Life, iii. p. 307. VOL. II. 2 18 HISTORY OF THE PEACE. [Book I. features show him to be a man of no common aspirations. His sir s. Rom- habitual expression is earnest, solemn, almost severe. illy. He has a great mission to fulfil, far above party politics and temporary contentions. Yet he is a partisan, but not in the ordinary sense of the word. He is sometimes bitter, prejudiced, perhaps vindictive; yet no one more deeply feels than himself that this is not the temper for the attainment of great social improvements. His hopes are not sanguine. He sees little of amelioration in the present aspect of affairs; he fancies that evil principles are in the ascendant. He has nearly reached his sixtieth year; he has been in parliament only ten years. But during that short period he has left an impression upon that assembly never to be obliterated. That lawyer, the acknowledged head of his own class, who in the House of Commons has won the highest reputation for sincerity of purpose, for vast ability, for the eloquence of a statesman as distinguished from that of an advocate, never rises without commanding the respect of a body not favorable to the claims of orators by profession. His forensic duties are too vast, his devotion to them too absorbing, the whole character of his mind too staid —perhaps too little imaginative and pliant - to make him the leader of his own scattered party. But as the founder of the noblest of our improvements, the reform of our hateful and inoperative penal laws, he will do what the most accomplished and versatile debater would have left undone. He will persevere, as he has persevered, amidst neglect, calumny, the frowns of power, the indifference of the people. The testament which he bequeathes will become sacred and triumphant. That man is Sir Samuel Romilly. The place which Whitbread filled is vacant. A sudden, mysterious, and most melancholy death had silenced that fearless tongue, which, as it was the last to denounce the war of 1815, would have been the first to tear in pieces the treaties which that war had consummated. The miserable and oppressed listened to him as their friend and deliverer. His political enemies acknowledged his inflexible honesty. His love of justice made him generous even to those whom he habitually opposed. He had been for several years the true leader of the opposition, and he had led them with right English courage. Others might win by stratagem; he was for the direct onslaught. He perished the day after Paris capitulated. Two nights before, he had spoken in the House of Commons. His health had been long broken. He was desponding without a cause. Insanity came, and then the end. A French writer has had the vulgar audacity to say that Whitbread destroyed himself because he could not bear the triumph of his country at Waterloo. The same writer affirms that Canning betrayed to Fouche the plans of Castlereagh for CrHA. I.] HENRY BROUGHAM. —THIE ABOLITIONISTS. 19 the expedition to Walcheren. Both falsehoods may sleep together. No two men more dearly loved their country, whatever they might think of its policy. The place of Whitbread is vacant. He that comes to earn the succession to the same real leadership is not an unknown man - he is the Henry Henry Brougham who, having appeared at the bar of the Brougham. House of Commons, in 1808, as counsel for the great body of merchants and manufacturers against the orders in council, carried the repeal of those impolitic orders in 1812, [after seven weeks of the most laborious and incessant exertion, almost unexampled in the records of parliament.? For three years, the place which he had won by a combination of industry and talent almost unprecedented had been surrendered to other tribunes of the people. The moment in which he reappears is somewhat unfavorable to the highest exertions of his powers, for he has no worthy opponent. George Canning is not in his place in parliament. He, who had sighed for peace, as Pitt sighed in the gloomy days of Austerlitz and Jena, was out of office during the triumphs of Leipsic and Vittoria. The peace of 1814 was accomplished without his aid. He had bowed before the humbler talents of his rival colleague, whom military success abroad had raised up into a disproportioned eminence at home. Time has shown how Canning was hated and feared by a large number of those who professed a common allegiance with himself to the principles of the son of Chatham. The hate and the fear applied as much to his principles as to his talents. The government of 1814 had secured his allegiance, and drawn the sting of his dreaded adherence to Liberal policies. They disarmed him; they had wellnigh degraded him. They opened the session of 1816 in the confidence that they could do without him. "They wondered what use he could be of, and why Lord Liverpool could have thought of making any terms with him." x On the 10th June, Canning took his place in the House of Commons as President of the Board of Control. The ten years which followed look like the last days of parliamentary eloquence. What is left us may work as well; but at any rate it is something different. The cross-benches of neutrality in the House of Commons are not over-full. The party of Canning has been scattered. But there sit a knot of men who hold the scales in one of the greatest questions - perhaps the most interesting question - that was ever agitated within the walls of parliament. It is the party of the abolitionists of the slave-trade. Victory abroad is to them defeat, if' it bring not the consummation of their hopes in the acts of foreign governments. At the peace of 1814, France — 1 Lord Dudley's Letters, p. 137. 20 HISTORY OF THE PEACE. [BooK I. the restored government of France -restored by our money and our arms -refused to consent to the immediate abolition. Bonaparte, amidst his memorable acts of the Hundred Days, abolished the hateful traffic by a stroke of his pen - and it was abolished. The Bourbon government, a second time restored, dared no longer refuse this one demand of Great Britain. Had they refused, the British minister could scarcely have met the parliament. He is now come to say that France has decreed that there shall be an end to this sin and shame. Other nations have promised. But — is it to be told that where we might have commanded, there alone is resistance? - Spain and Portugal still maintain the traffic. The firm band of abolitionists are Mr Wilber- secure that their silver-tongued leader - he who reforce. signed every meaner ambition to give freedom to the oppressed - will persevere through good report and evil report, with or without friends in power, till the chains of the negro are broken forever. They fear not enemies, they truckle not for friends; they have a support above what the world can give. This " band of brothers " - reviled or honored, proselytizing or solitary - will hold their ground. They are the only united body of enthusiasts in an age of political calculation;. They will manifest, as they have manifested, what enthusiasm may accomplish. CHAP. II.] THE PRINCE REGENT'S SPEECH. 21 CHAPTER II. THE House of Commons of 1816 presented a remarkable spectacle. The ministry met the representatives of the people with all the pride and confidence of a triumph sion of the beyond hope. The ministerial leader came flushed Fifth Parlia ment of the from his labors of restoration and partition, and took United his seat amidst shouts such as saluted Caesar when he Kingdom. went up to the Capitol. The march to Paris, twice over, says a conspicuous actor in the politics of that hour,' was sufficiently marvellous; " but it appeared, if possible, still more incredible, that we should witness Lord Castlereagh entering the House of Commons, and resuming, amidst universal shouts of applause, the seat which he had quitted for a season to attend as a chief actor in the arrangement of continental territory." The opposition, considered numerically, were a broken and feeble body; but, intellectually and morally, their strength was far more formidable in this the fourth session of the parliament than at any previous period of its duration. In opposing the enormous war expenditure from 1812 - in resisting the determination to make no peace with Napoleon - they had not with them the national sympathy. The tables were turned. They had now to contend against the evident partiality for continental alliances - the enormous standing army —the excessive peace expenditure — the desire to perpetuate war taxes. They were supported by public opinion, for the once accredited indivisibility of peace and plenty appeared to be wholly at an end. The people were suffering, and the excitement of the struggle against the domination of France having passed away, they were not disposed to suffer in silence. The speech from the throne, delivered by commissioners, was necessarily a speech of congratulation. Splendid suc- The Prince cesses, intimate union, precautionary measures, these Regent's were the key-notes to our foreign policy; manufac- speech. tures, commerce, and revenue were, somewhat rashly, declared to be flourishing at home; economy was hinted at, - economy consistent with the security of the country, " and with that station which we occupy in Europe." In the House of Lords there 1 Broughain's Speeches, i. p. 634. Introduction to Speech on Holy Alliance. 22 HISTORY OF THE PEACE. [BooK I. was no amendment to the address. In the Commons a bootless amendment, which was seconded by Lord John Russell,l declared the country to be suffering under "unexampled domestic embarrassments," and demanded " a careful revisal of our civil and mil-;tary establishments, according to the principles of the most rigid economy." The Chancellor of the Exchequer on this occasion declared his intention to continue the property or income tax, on the modified scale of five per cent. This avowal was the signal for one of the chief battle-cries which were to lead on the scanty powers of opposition. Party hostility was not disarmed by the deportment of the foreign minister. Mr. Broughamn having denounced Ferdinand of Spain as "a contemptible tyrant," Lord Castlereagh thereupon deprecated 2 (that scrutinizing criticism of the internal policy of foreign countries, which could only be properly exercised at home." The lecture was not forgotten. The treaties with foreign powers were presented to parliament on the fitrst day of the session. The formal debate upon them was deferred for a fortnight. Mr. Brougham had previously brought forward a motion for the production of a copy of the treaty between Rulssia, Austria, and Prussia, of the 26th September, 1815, — the treaty of Holy Alliance. Lord Castlereagh had declared, when notice of Mr. Brougham's motion was given, with reference to this extraordinary document, that " its object was confined solely to the contracting parties, and breathed the pure spirit of the Christian religion." The motion was of course rejected. It was not till a later period of our history that it was shown that there was cause for alarm,8 "when sovereigns spoke of leading armies to protect religion, peace, and justice." Mr. Brougham also moved 4 fbr a copy of a treaty said to have been concluded at Vienna in January, 1815. Lord Castlereagh admitted the existence of such a treaty, and that this country had been a party to it; but he refused to produce it, affirming that it was a mere matter of history. "Yes," said Mr. Tierney,5 "and, like other matter of history, it was necessary that it should be known, because the knowledge of it bore on other times." It appears to have been considered in the 1House of Commons that this alliance was directed solely against Russia. Trhe " historical fact " has become clearer; the contracting powers, thus prepared for the last resort, had not a common danger once more united them, were Austria, France, and England, against Russia and Prussia. The motion for the production of this treaty was also rejected. Before the great discussion upon the general treaties took I Lord John Russell was in parliament in 1814. 2 Hansard, xxxii. p. 48. 8 Mr. Brougham's Speech. 4 Hansard, xxxii. p. 353. 5 Ibid. p. 370. CHAP. II.] PRESUMPTION OF THE GOVERNMENT. 23 place, the government declared its intention with regard to the peace establishment. There was to be an army of a hundred and fifty thousand men, maintained at an expense of little short of thirty millions; and the secretary for foreign affairs justified this course by the example of the large military establishments of the other nations of Europe. It was on a debate in the committee of supply that Lord Castlereagh used the memorable expression which roused a spirit in the country of deep hostility, almost of disgust: 1 lHe felt assured that the people of England would not, from an ignorant impatience to be relieved from the pressure of taxation, put everything to hazard, when everything might be accomplished by continued constancy and firmness." From the moment of this offensive declaration, the income tax was doomed. The people had not borne the- taxation of so many years of war with a heroism such as no people had ever before shown, to be taunted with ignorant impatience of taxation, now that they had won peace. The presumption of the government at this period was calculated to produce a violent reaction throughout the land. In parliament it produced alarms which now look exaggerated, but which men of unquestioned integrity most certainly entertained. The minor questions of continental arrangements were less regarded, and wisely so, than the peculiarities of our internal position. Men really thought that the old English spirit of fireedom was about to be trampled upon. Lord Grenville, who on the first night of the session had given his heartiest assent to the address, rejoicing in the mode by which the. peace had been accomplished — the restoration of the Bourbons — now caused the Lords to be summoned; and on the 14th February, in moving for the estimates for the military service for the year, delivered a speech that spoke something of the spirit of " the good old cause." He said: 2 " The question which their lordships had now to consider was, whether, after a struggle of twenty-five years, maintained by such immense efforts, and at such vast expense, they were at length to obtain the blessings of that real peace for which they had so long contended, or whether their situation was to be exactly the reverse? Whether they were still to be charged with an immense military establishment; whether they were now to be called upon to take their rank among the military states of the continent; whether they were to abandon the wise maxims and policy of their forefathers, by which the country had risen to such a height, and had been enabled to make such great exertions, and, at an humble distance, turn servile imitators of those systems which had been the cause of so much distress and calamity to the nations by which they had been adopted and maintained?" The prime 1 Hansard, xxxiii. p. 455. 2 Ibid. xxxii. p. 512. 24 HISTORY OF THE PEACE. [BooK I. minister, in replying to Lord Grenville, called these " extraordinary and unreasonable fears." But they were reechoed on many sides. When the great debates on the treaties at length took place, in which the Earl of Liverpool moved the address, Lord Grenville proposed an amendment which deprecated in the strongest language 1" the settled system to raise the country into a military power." The House divided, the government having a majority of sixty-four. Lord Holland protested against the address, in terms which embodied his speech upon the treaties, and expressed the opinions of that section of the opposition: " Because the treaties and engagements contain a direct guarantee of the present government of France against the people of that country; and in my judgment imply a general and perpetual guarantee of all European governments against the governed." In the House of Commons the Foreign Secretary moved the address upon the treaties. An amendment was proposed by Lord Milton, which deprecated the military occupation of France, and the unexampled military establishments of this country. The debate lasted two nights, the address being finally carried by a majority of a hundred and sixty-three. Romilly, in his diary, has noted down the heads of his own speech: 1 " As I consider this as the most important occasion that I ever spoke on, I have been desirous of preserving the memory of some of the things I have said." The importance of the occasion could not have been over-estimated. But what was said on both sides was, to a considerable extent, the regular display of party conflict. The exultations of the government at the settlement of their war labors look now scarcely more inflated than the fears of some members of the opposition that the confederated arms of the despots of Europe might be turned against the liberties of England.:The practical business that was at hand - the enforcement of economy, the alleviation of distress - was the matter of real importance that was to grow out of these debates. There can be no doubt, however, that there was a strong and sincere belief amongst many good men that the liberties of this country were in eventual peril. Horner, in the debate on the treaties, made a very powerful speech; and a week after, he thus writes in the confidence of private friendship: 2 "We are nearly declared to be a military power. If this design is not checked, of which I have slender hopes, or does not break down by favor of accidents, we shall have a transient glory for some little while. The bravery of our men, the virtues which the long enjoyment of liberty will leave long after it is gone, and the financ'al exertions of which we are still capable, will insure us that distinction; but it is a glory in which our freedom will be lost, and which 1 Romilly's Life, iii. p. 229. 2 Homner's Memoirs, ii. p. 315. CHAr. II.] THE PROPERTY TAX. 25 cannot maintain itself when the vigor, born of that freedom, is spent." Visionary as we may now regard these opinions to be, the expression of them had its use. When Horner rejoiced that he had "his breath out about the Bourbons and Castlereagh," he, in common with other eminent men of his party, did something to repress the spirit which success had produced in high places. The ultra-Whigs, when they groaned over the captivity of Napoleon - when they shut their eyes to much that had been really high-minded in the conduct of the allies towards France - when they saw only danger in the future, overlooking the mighty peril from which we had escaped —had not the country with them. They had not the support of the great bulk,of the intelligent population, who, except on special occasions, are not party politicians. But when they addressed themselves, not as partisans, but as earnest representatives of the people, to reduce the public burdens, and to repress a career of' wasteful expenditure, they were on safer ground. The corporation of London took the lead in the national expression of opinion against the property tax. Their lroperty petition complained of the violation of the solemn tax. faith of parliament; of the injustice, vexation, and oppression of this tax - of the partiality of taxing, in the same proportion, incomes of a short duration, and those arising from fixed andpermanent property; they acknowledged the depressed state of the agricultural interests, but they contended that the manufacturing and trading interests were equally depressed, and equally borne down with the weight of taxation; they finally called for reduction in the public expenditure, and the abolition of all unnecessary places, pensions, and sinecures. It was not alone the anti-ministerial party of the city that joined in the petition; the judgments of mercantile men against the continuance of the tax were almost universal. The dislike of the rural population was as fixed as that of the inhabitants of towns. (The battle against this tax was one of the most remarkable examples of parliamentary strategy that was ever displayed; and the history of the struggle has been most pithily told by the leading tactician: I 1" On the termination of the war, the government were determined, instead of repealing the whole income tax, which the act enforcing it declared to be'for and during the continuance of the war, and no longer,' to retain one half of it — that is, to reduce it from ten to five per cent -and thus keep a revenue raised from this source of between seven and eight millions, instead of fifteen. As soon as this intention was announced, several meetings were held, and two or three petitions 1 Brougham's Speeches: Introduction to Speeches on Agricultural and Manufacturing Distress, i. p. 495. 26 HISTORY OF THE PEACE. [BOOK I. were presented. The ministers perceived the risk they ran, if the policy should be pursued, of continued discussion for a length of time; and they saw the vast importance of despatch. Accordingly, the Chancellor of the Exchequer gave notice on the Tuesday for his motion on the Thursday immediately following. The opposition took the alarm, and Mr. Brougham declared, on presenting a petition, numerously signed, from one of the London parishes, that if the hurry now indicated should be persevered in, he should avail himself of all the means of delay afforded by the forms of the House. Lord Folkestone, one of' the most strenuous, and in those days one of the most active and powerful supporters of the popular cause, vigorously seconded this menace, in which he entirely joined. On the next day, more petitions were flung in, more discussions took place, and the government postponed for a week the introduction of the bill. That week proved quite decisive; for so many meetings were held, and so many petitions sent up, that the bill was put off from time to time, and did not finally make its appearance till the 17th of March. Above six weeks were almost entirely spent by the House of Commons in receiving the numberless petitions poured in from all quarters against the tax. For it was speedily seen that the campaign of 18122 was renewed, and that the same leaders, Messrs. Brougham and Baring, had the management of the operations. " At first, the ministers pursued the course of obstinate silence. The opposition debated each petition in vain; every minister and ministerial member held his peace. No arguments, no facts, no sarcasms, no taunts could rouse them; no expression of the feelings of the country, no reference to the anxiety of particular constituencies, could draw a word from the ministers and their supporters. At length it was perceived that their antagonists did not the less debate, and that consequently the scheme had failed in its purpose of stifling discussion. The only effect of it then was, that all the debating was on one side, and this both became hurtful to the government in the House, and more hurtful still in the country. They were forced into discussion therefore; and then began a scene of unexampled interest, which lasted until the second reading of the bill. Each night, at a little after four, commenced the series of debates, which lasted until past midnight. These were of infinite variety. Arguments urged by different speakers; instances of oppression and hardship recounted; anecdotes of local suffering and personal inconvenience; accounts of the remarkable passages at different meetings; personal altercations interspersed with more general matter — all filled up the measure of the night's bill of fare; and all were so 1 The resistance to the orders in council. - K. CHAP. II.] MINISTERIAL DEFEAT. 27 blended and so variegated, that no one ever perceived any hour thus spent to pass tediously away. Those not immediately concerned - peers, or persons belonging to neither House - flocked to the spectacle which each day presented. The interest excited out of doors kept pace with that of the spectators; and those who carried on these active operations showed a vigor and constancy of purpose, an unwearied readiness for the combat, which astonished while it animated all beholders. It is recounted of this remarkable struggle, that one night towards the latter end of the period in question, when, at a late hour, the House having been in debate from four o'clock, one speaker had resumed his seat, the whole members sitting upon one entire bench rose at once and addressed the chair, - a testimony of unabated spirit and unquenchable animation, which drew forth the loudest cheers from all sides of the House. "At length came the 17th of March, the day appointed for the division; but it was soon found that this had been, with the debate, wholly anticipated. The usual number of petitions, and even more, were poured thickly in during some hours; little or no debating took place upon them; unusual anxiety for the result of such long-continued labor, and such lengthened excitement, kept all silent and in suspense; when, about eleven o'clock, Sir William Curtis, representing the city of London, proceeded up the House, bearing in his arms the petition, which he presented without any remark, of the great meeting of the bankers and merchants, holden in the Egyptian Hall, and signed by twelve thousand persons.' The division took place after a debate that did not last half an hour; no one could indeed be heard in an assembly so impatient for the decision; and by a majority of thirty-seven voices the tax was defeated forever, and the wholesome principle, as Mr. Wilberforce well observed, was laid down, that war and income tax are wedded together." The ministers did not expect this defeat.2 They had calculated on a majority of forty. The opposition expected to lose by twenty. It was not a party triumph. The national feeling was irresistible. Even members of the Tory party assisted at and rejoiced in the issue. Mr. Ward writes from Paris: 3 It was amusing enough to see the effect the defeat of our ministry upon the question of the income tax produced upon the minds of the people here. Most of them thought that the government would be changed, and that the Whigs would come in, and prob1 This is a mistake. Sir William restoration of peace." The division did Curtis spoke with great emphasis: "He not take place till the 18th. - K. was present in the House when the tax 2 Mr. Hallam's Letter in Horner's was first proposed, and he heard Mr. Memoirs, ii. p. 318. Pitt declare that it should be a war tax 3 Lord Dudley's Letters, p. 136. only. and should positively cease on the 28 HISTORY OF THE PEACE. [Book I. ably let loose Napoleon to disturb the world for the third time. If I had been in the I-ouse, I should have voted in the minority, and yet, I confess, I am not sorry it was a minority. Not that I am by any means convinced that the income tax ought to have been repealed, but because I think the ministry wanted beating upon something, no great matter what." Mr. Ward rejoiced because he sighed for the return of his friend Canning to office. But the people exulted in the abolition of the property tax upon no such narrow ground. They were suffering; and they saw no more effectual way to relieve their sufferings, than to remove the means of prodigal expenditure. There can be no doubt that the landed interest, of whatever party, were amongst the principal instruments in removing this burden from the land, which they declared could then pay no rent. Whether the decision was a permanently wise one, may now be doubted. It was salutary at the time, for it dispelled the belief that resistance to taxation was " ignorant impatience." The Chancellor of the Exchequer took a somewhat remarkable course after this defeat. He voluntarily abandoned the war duties upon malt - amounting to about ~2,700,000. The decision of the House would compel him to resort to the money-muarket - in other words, to raise a loan:' It was of little consequence that the loan should be increased by the amount of the calculated produce of the malt duty." Lord Castlereagh said it was " a matter of indifference whether they took a loan of six or eight millions." This was the " indifference" - the result of a long course of unbounded expense - that required all the efforts of the people and of their friends, during many years, to change into responsibility. No minister could now dare to speak of its being a matter of indifference whether he added two millions to the public debt. When we look at this temper of the government, we may excuse the bursts of indignation which were sometimes directed in parliament, even against the highest executive authority. It cannot be denied that, in a time of very general distress, the Prince Regent indulged in a career of unbounded extravagance. An indecent contempt of public opinion - a perseverance in the indulgence of sensual appetites and frivolous tastes - had made him, "in all but name a king," deservedly unpopular. The unhappy circumstances of his domestic position were in themselves enough to estrange from him much of the respect of the people. To counteract the evil influences of his past life, his conduct ought to have been at least decorous, when he was called to the possession of supreme power; for he had few public virtues to compensate for the offensiveness of his private example. IHis duties to the State - the mere routine of the kingly office - were invariably performed with tardiness and reluctance. Without any CHAP. II.] THE PRINCE REGENT. 29 strength of character but that which proceeded from his irresistible craving for ease and indulgence, his best qualities were distorted into effeminate vices. The constitutional bravery of his house forsook him, and he became a moral coward, whom his official servants had to govern as a petted child. Bred up amongst Whig friends and flatterers, he at once professed respect for the democratic parts of the constitution, with an instinctive hatred of public opinion. The feebleness of his intellect, the debasing character of his passions, made him miserable in the unequal contest between his sense of duty and his desires. He was subdued into the perfect Sybarite, and his people despised him. Men everywhere spoke out; and it was not surprising that the public voice was echoed in the House of Commons. When opinions there found vent, there was abundant sympathy out of doors to satisfy one daring orator for the coldness of his party. Sir S. Romilly writes on the 20th March: " A motion of disapprobation of the increase which has lately been made of the salary of secretary to the admiralty in time of peace, from ~3000 to ~4000 a year, was rejected by a majority of 29; there being for the motion 130, and against it 159. In the course of the debate upon it, Brougham, who supported the motion, made a violent attack upon the Regent, whom he described as devoted, in the recesses of his palace, to the most vicious pleasures, and callous to the distresses and sufferings of others, in terms which would not have been too strong to have described the latter days of Tiberius. Several persons who would have voted for the motion were so disgusted that they went away without voting; and more, who wished for some tolerable pretext for not voting against ministers, and who on this occasion could not vote with them, availed themselves of this excuse, and went away too; and it is generally believed that, but for this speech of Brougham's, the ministers would have been again in a minority. If' this had happened, many persons believe, or profess to believe, that the ministers would have been turned out. Poor Brougham is loaded with the reproaches of his fiiends; and many of them who are most impatient to get into office, look upon him as the only cause that they are still destined to labor on in an unprofitable opposition. I have no doubt that, whatever had been the division, the ministers would still have continued in office. But it is not the less true that Brougham's speech was very injudicious, as well as very unjust; for, with all the Prince's faults, and they are great enough, it is absurd to speak of him as if he were one of the most sensual and unfeeling tyrants that ever disgraced a throne." It does not appear in the imperfect reports of the parliamentary debates, that the Prince Regent was spoken of as strongly as 1 Romilly's Life, iii. p. 236. 30 HISTORY OF THE PEACE. [Book I. Romilly represents. The language of Mr. Brougham was indeed described by Mr. Wellesley Pole to be "such language as he had never listened to in that House before "- " such expressions as in his life he had never before heard any man utter who attempted to call himself a friend to the House of Brunswick." And yet Sir Robert Heron had, on the 12th of February previous, spoken in almost as unmeasured terms of " royal extravagance;" and there was " laughter" in that House when he thus described the aspect of the court:l' "You have assumed a most imposing situation; your armies have expelled one despot and set up another; you have a prince who has so much dignity, that he expends as great a sum on a thatched cottage as another monarch would on a palace; so dignified is he, so magnificent are his ideas, that he cannot endure to see the same furniture in hi's house for two successive years; he is such a friend to trade, that he cannot give less than eight hundred guineas for a clock; and such a protector is he of the arts, that he pays six thousand pounds for a Chinese cabinet." And then Sir Robert Heron talked of " the principal causes of the French Revolution." Again, on the 4th March, Mr. Methuen, who a month before had seconded the ministerial address, said, that, " had he the good fortune to be one of the constitutional advisers of the Crown, he would go boldly forward and say —You must keep your faith with the people, by abstaining from an extravagance which inexperience cannot palliate, and which poverty cannot justify." The plain speaking of Mr. Brougham was not, therefore, without precedent. But, however the Whig party may have felt themselves compromised, however the Tory party might have denounced any allusion to the personal character of him who exercised the sovereign attributes, we are not sure that the public interests were not truly served by one who fearlessly pointed out those " who,2 in utter disregard of the feelings of an oppressed and. insulted nation, proceeded from one wasteful expenditure to another; who decorated and crowded their houses with the splendid results of their extravagance; who associated with the most profligate of human beings; who, when the jails were filled with wretches, could not suspend for a moment their thoughtless amusements, to end the sad suspense between life and death." 3 We may now, without any violation of"' the duty and the loyalty we owe," think it as fitting that public opinion should penetrate a palace, through 1 Hansard, xxxii. p. 409. convicted at the December sessions. 2 Ibid. xxxiii. p. 496. " The difficulty and inconvenience of 3 This subject was debated on the assembling the law officers at Brigh18th March, two nights before Mr. ton," and "the indisposition of the Brougham's offensive speech, when it Prince Regent," - his royal highness appeared that there were fifty-eight was suffering from gout, -- were the persons under sentence of death in reasons assigned for this neglect. Newgate, many of whom had been CHAP. II.] EXPENSES OF THE ROYAL FAMILY. 31 the solemnly uttered censure of representatives of the people, as that the voice of praise only should reach the ears of princes. When the mightiest of the earth proclaim aloud that they live for their own pleasures alone, it is time that under a free government there should be some authoritative demonstration, to avert the contagion of the sensualist's example, if not to pale his cheek with words almost as fearful as those which suspended the revelry in the halls of Belshazzar. From the House of Commons the voice of the people might go forth without the dread of ex-offcio informations, - the common shield of power in the days of the regency. "Twopenny Post-bags "1 might make the mob of idle readers of all parties laugh at " Furn and Hum," and "The Marchesa," and "The Royal Dandy;" but there are seasons when the people should be made thoughtful, and this was especially one of those seasons. The danger of fostering discontent was small, when compared with the danger of suffering those who ought to live for example, to believe that they were wholly above the control of opinion. The damage to the expectants of office, on this particular occasion, may be laid aside, with many similar conventionalities, as a matter in which the nation is now, as it was then, wholly uninterested. In the session of 1815 the excess upon the civil list -that is, the amount spent in the support of the royal state Ci il at. and establishments, beyond the sum set aside by parliament - was no less than ~530,000. In 1816 it was mentioned that there was a present debt of ~277,000 upon the civil list, but that this arrear would be provided for out of the droits of the crown. The annual grant to the crown, instead of the old " hereditary revenue," was ~800,000. Out of this sum were to be paid the salaries of the judges of the realm, the expenses of foreign ministers and consuls, the salaries of certain high officers of state, besides other matters that did not pertain to the personal expenses of royalty. The average expenditure of seven years up to 1811 had been ~1,103,000. In 1815 it was ~1,480,000, having rapidly increased since 1811. The necessity for two royal establishments- that of the afflicted King at Windsor, and that of the Regent - involved some additional expense; but there was a source of expense far beyond ministerial estimates and parliamentary resolutions. A bill was brought in by the ministry for the better regulation of the civil list; and during its progress much anxious discussion took place. It appeared that the droits of the crown, and of the admiralty, were constantly applied i.n aid of the civil list, and that parliament was still called upon to provide a large arrear. It was contended that parliament ought to take the appropriation of these convenient 1 See Moore's Poetical Works. 32 HISTORY OF THE PEACE. [BooK I. funds into its own hands, so that the nation should be cognizant of the amount that went in aid of the civil-list revenue. The ministerial bill for the regulation of this expenditure, which was undoubtedly a step in reform, was carried. In the House of Lords a motion of Earl Grosvenor, "that a committee be appointed to consider what places and offices may be abolished, consistent with the public safety," was negatived by a large majority. The debates upon the army estimates, which eventually caused some reduction - the rejection of the property tax - the searching inquiry into the civil list,- the agitation of the question of sinecure offices - were indications of the feeling which any government would have to encounter that did not resolutely determine that a season of peace should be a season of economy. Upon these points the tone of public opinion was decided. It was not a factious, it was not a disloyal tone. The nation could discriminate between grants for worthy and grants for disreputable objects. When the details of the civil list exhibited items of wanton and ridiculous luxury, the members of the administration themselves were pained and humiliated. When the same ministers proposed the magnificent establishment for the Princess Charlotte and Prince Leopold, upon their marriage, not a dissentient voice was heard in parliament; the nation was unanimous in the wish to be liberal almost to profusion. For why? The nation saw in this marriage of the presumptive heiress of the crown - a marriage of affection - some assured hope that public duties might be fitly learned in the serenity of domestic happiness. The private virtues were felt to be the best preparation for the possession of sovereign power. The idea of a patriot queen discharging all her high functions with steady alacrity, confident in the affections of her people, of simple habits, of refined and intellectual tastes, her throne sanctified by the attributes of womanly affection, - such hopes were something to console the nation for the present endurance of authority that claimed only "mouth-honor," without love or respect. The marriage of the Marriage of. Princess Charlotte was hailed as a public blessing. It the Princess took place at Carlton House, on the evening of the 2d Charlotte. of May. There was perfect unanimity in the House of Commons as to the vote for the establishment of the royal pair: ~60,000 a year was the large sum determined on, with an income of ~50,000 a year to the Prince of Saxe Coburg, should his serene highness survive the Princess Charlotte. The most ample testimony was given in both Houses to the excellent character of the prince who was thus united to the presumptive heiress of the British crown. ChAP. III.] AGRICULTURE. 33 CHAPTER III. WHEN the government, in the name of the Prince Regent, informed parliament that " the manufactures, commerce, and revenue of the United Kingdom were in a flour- Agriculture. ishing condition," the exception of agriculture was a sufficient announcement that the cry of " distress " was near at hand. The history of " agricultural distress " is the history of agricultural abundance. Whenever Providence, through the blessing of genial seasons, fills the nation's stores with plenteousness, then, and then only, has the cry of ruin to the cultivator been proclaimed as the one great evil for legislation to redress. It was ever so. Pepys, in his diary of January, 1667-8, writes:' "Here they did talk much of the present cheapness of corn, even to a miracle; so as their farmers can pay no rent, but do fling up their lands." There had been a cycle of scarcity from 1658 to 1664, during which seven years the average price of wheat was about 57s. a quarter.2 There was a cycle of plenty from 1665 to 1671, during which seven years the average price of wheat was about 36s. per quarter. The obvious remedy for this excess in the disposable produce of one country, was to export the corn to other countries which had not been equally impoverished by abundance. Pepys, a shrewd man of business, saw the remedy: " Farmers can pay no rent, but do fling up their lands, and would pay in corn: but our gentry are grown so ignorant in everything of good husbandry, that they know not how to bestow this corn; which, did they understand but a little trade, they would be able to join together and know what markets there are abroad, and send it thither, and thereby ease their tenants, and be able to pay themselves." But the natural law of commercial intercourse - the law by which the bounty of the All-giver would be distributed amongst his universal flmily, so as to compensate for t'he inequalities of soil and climate - this law was despised as long ago as the time of Charles Ii. by the conventional law-makers, who were "grown so ignorant in everything of good husbandry," and did not understand even " a little trade." To remedy the evil of cheapness, they 1 Pepys's Diary, iv. p. I. 2 Eton Tables. VOL. II. 3 34 HISTORY OF THE PEACE. [BOOK I. made the famous corn-law of 1670, which imposed duties on the importation of grain, amounting to prohibition. The restrictions upon exportation were removed: wheat might be exported upon the payment of a shilling per quarter customs-duty. But importation was not to be free till the price of wheat had reached 80s. per quarter; when it was at 53s. 4d., a duty of 16s. was to be paid; when above that price and under the mysterious compensation price of 80s., a duty of Ss. was to be paicd. The more famous corn-law of 1815 was but a copy of the corn-law of' 1670. Amidst the best and the worst species of opposition - the power of argumenet and the weakness of tumult - a bill was in 1815 hurried through parliament, which absolutely closed the ports till the price of wheat rose to 80s. After the passing of the cornlaw of 1670 there was as much "agricultural distress " as befobre, till dearth came to the relief of the suffering cultivator. Farms were throwrv up, rents were reduced. In 1673, in spite of the prohibitory laws against importation. and the unlimited fieedom of exportation, wheat was as low as 35s.1 In 1674 there came the landlord's blessing of a bad harvest, and the price of' wheat rose to 64s. The cycle of scarcity had come round. It was precisely the same after the corn-law of 1815. It was passed during a season of wonderful abundance. It produced the immediate good to the landed interest of preventing the abundant supply being increased by importation; but the effect which it produced to the nation was to dry up the resources in years of scarcity which the foresight of other countries might have provided. The war-and-f-mine price of 1812 was again reached in the latter part of 1816, in 1817, and 1818. The golden days of the deity that is found in no mythology - the anti-Ceres -were returned. Ilut the people were starving. Misery and insurrection filled the land. It may be convenient at this place if we refer to the changes which were produced by the corn-law of 1815, and briefly exhibit the arguments by which it was maintatained or opposed. In 1814, the report of a select committee of the House of Corn mons presented inl 1813 - of which committee Sir Henry Parnell was chairman - was adopted as the basis of certain resolutions then debated. The first of the resolutions declared, " that it is expedient that the exportation of corn, grain, meal, malt, and flour, fiom anly part of the United Kingdonm, should be per-'nitted at all times, without the payment of any duty, and without receiving any bounty whatever." This resolution was carried in the same year, and passed into law. With recgard to the importation of corn, it was proposed, in resolutions laid upon the table in 1813, that till wheat should be 10s. 2d. a quarter, and other 1 Roger Coke, quoted in Tooke's History of Prices, i. p. 24. CHAP. III.] DISCUSSIONS ON THE CORN-LAWS. 35 grain in the sarme proportion, the importation should be subject to a prohibitory duty. This proposed sum was, in 1814, reduced to 84s., when wheat might be admitted upon payment of 2s. 6d. In 1791 the nominal-duty price was fixed at 54s.; in 1804, at 66s. In offlering objections of detail to these resolutions, Mr. Rose, a member of the government,1 " took it for granted that no one now entertains the remotest idea of an entirely free trade in corn." The reasoning of those who call themselves advocates of free trade fully justified his belief. Sir Henry Parnell 2,1 had always avowed himself the friend of a free trade..... If the corn and commodities of this country were on a level with those of the rest of Europe, he should then think it unnecessary to introduce an artificial system. But the price of corn in England had risen higher than in any other country in Europe, in consequence of the interruption of late years of our communication with the continent, and formed an exception to the general rule." That is to say, as the war of a quarter of a century had prevented importation under ordinary circumstances, and consequently raised the price of the people's food to an inordinate height, it was necesscary to perpetuate the war system upon the return of peace. Lir. lhuskisson, as might be expected, was somewhat more logical in his advocacy of a high duty upon importation. He had proposed a sliding scale, under which the free-importation price was 87s., and his argument was,3 that " the whole of our commercial and economical system was a system of artificial expedients. If' our other regulations with regard to the price of commodities stood upon the basis of the principles of free trade, then there could be no possible objection to leaving our agricultural productions to find their own level. But, so long as our commerce and manufactures were encouraged and forced by protections, by bounties, and by restraints on importation from abroad, he saw no reason why the laws relating to the growth of' corn should alone forin an exception to this general system in almost all other respects." On the other hand, those who represented the commercial interests were not sufficiently in advance of their time to deprecate the general system of protections and bounties forwhich they had so long clamored; but they saw the natural resources of commerce that would be opened by a free trade in corn, and the evils of a restricted trade. Mr. Phillips said: 4 "If a free trade in grain were to be allowed, it would lead to an improvement of our general commerce. This increase of commerce would give rise to an increase of national wealth, and consequently an increase of population, which in the end would afford an additional encouragement to agriculture." 1 Hansard, xxvii. p, 694. 2 Ibid. p. 612. 8 Huskisson's Speeches, i. p. 296. 4 Hansard, xxvii. p. 1094. 36 HISTORY OF THE PEACE. [Boo~K I, Mr. Baring, (now Lord Ashburton,) in reply to the argument that the high duties on importation would make the price of bread steady, contended I that " steady prices were never produced by restriction. Apply the doctrine of restriction to any one county in England, and it would be found that the doing so would not have the effect of steadying the prices in that particular county; on the contrary, the bread would be alternately high and low, according as there was a good or bad harvest in that particular spot; deprived, as it would be, of intercourse with the rest of the kingdom. As the whole of England was to any particular county in England in this respect, such exactly was the whole of Europe as to England." The Corn Bill of 1814 was opposed by very numerous petitions; and on this account, and also with reference to the lateness of the session, the bill was thrown out. But in the spring of 1815 the measure was hurried through the House, in spite of the most earnest and solemn petitions of great bodies of the commercial and manufacturing interests throughout the country. The average price of wheat was under 60s. a quarter; if it rose to 66s., the ports would be opened. The excitement was universal. The landlords and farmers were filled with terror, for the continental markets were open. The unreflecting multitudes of the capital and in some manufacturing districts were ready for violence. The political economists were divided in their opinions. The lowest point at which importation could take place was finally fixed at 80s., by a large majority of both Houses, with little that could be called discussion. Argument was exhausted in 1814. It was under the corn-law of 1815, a year after its hasty enactment, that the majority of the landed interest came to parliament to ask for the remission of peculiar burdens, and to demand fresh protection. They had learnt nothing' frorn the solemn protest against that law which some of the most eminent and the most wealthy of the peers had inscribed in their journals. It was in vain that the greatest amongst landed proprietors - Buckingham, Carlisle, Devonshire, Spencer - the most eminent, amongst statesmen - Grey, Grenville, Wellesiey - had recorded these memorable words: "2 WTe cannot persuade ourselves that this law will ever contribute to produce plenty, cheapness, or steadiness of price. So long as it operates at all, its effects must be the opposite of these. Monopoly is the parent of scarcity, of dearness, and of uncertainty. To cut off any of the sources of supply, can only tend to lessen its abundance; to close against ourselves the cheapest market -for any commodity, must enhance the price at which we purchase it; and to confine the 1 Hansard, xxvii. p. 1100. 2 Protest. Hansard, xxx. p. 263. CHAP. III.] EFFECTS OF CORN-LAWS. 37 consumer of corn to the produce of his own country, is to refuse to ourselves the benefit of that provision which Providence itself has made for equalizing to man the variations of season and of climate." The landed interest of 1816 could not foresee that, within five years, the very House of Commons that had passed the corn-law of 1815, would receive from one of its own committees a report, drawn up by an iconoclast minister of state, that should thus pull down the image of clay which he himself had assisted them to set up: 1 "This system is certainly liable to sudden alterations, of which the effect may be at one time to reduce prices, already low, lower than they would probably have been under a state of free trade, and at another unnecessarily to enhance prices already high; to aggravate the evils of scarcity, and to render more severe the depression of prices from abundance. On the one hand, it deceives the grower with the false hope of a monopoly, and by its occasional interruption may lead to consequences which deprive him of the benefits of that monopoly, when most wanted; on the other hand, it holds out to the country the prospect of an occasional free trade, but so regulated and desultory as to baffle the calculations and unsettle the transactions both of the grower and of the dealer at home - to deprive the consumer of most of the benefits of such a trade, and to involve the merchant in more than the ordinary risks of mercantile speculation. It exposes the markets of the country either to be occasionally overwhelmed with an inundation of foreign corn, altogether disproportionate to its wants, or in the event of any considerable deficiency in our own harvest, it creates a sudden competition on the continent, by the effect of which the prices there are rapidly and unnecessarily raised against ourselves. But the inconvenient operation of the present corn-law, which appears to be less the consequence of the quantity of foreign grain brought into this country, upon an average of years, than of the manner in which that grain is introduced, is not confined to great fluctuations in price, and consequent embarrassment both to the grower and the consumer; for the occasional prohibition of import has also a direct tendency to contract the extent of our commercial dealings with other states, and to excite in the rulers of those states a spirit of permanent exclusion against the productions or manufactures of this country and its colonies. In this conflict of retaliatory exclusion, injurious to both, the two parties, however, are not upon an equal footing; on our part, prohibition must yield to the wants of the people; on the other side, there is no such overruling necessity. And inasmuch as reciprocity of demand is the foundation of all means of 1 Report of the Select Committee of pressed State of Agriculture, 1821: the House of Commons on the De- ascribed to Mr. Huskisson. 38 HISTORY OF THE PEACE.'[BOO I. payment, a large and sudden influx of corn might, under these circumstances, excite a temporary derangement of the course of exchange; the effects of which, after the resumption of cash-payments, m-ight lead to a drain of specie from the Bank, the consequent contraction of its circulation, a panic anmong the country banks - all aggravating the distress of a public dearth, as has been experienced at former periods of scarcity." This was at once judgment and prophecy. But the landed interest of 1816 had but one remedy for every evil — unequal remission of taxation conjoined with protection. They desired themselves to pay less to the state than their fellow-subjects; they required the state to limit their fellow-subjects to that exclusive market for the necessaries of life which should dry up the sources of profitable industry, and thus make'their taxation doubly burdensome. On the 7th March, Mr. Western laid upon the table of the House a series of fourteen resolutions, which declared the "Lunexampled distress" of those whose capitals are employed in agriculture; the danger of the continuance of such distress; the insufficient demand for the produce of agriculture, so as to cover the heavy charges and burdens upon it; and the necessity for reducing those burdens - taxes, tithes, and poorrates. The resolutions then demanded the repeal of so much of the act of 1815 as should allow foreign corn to be warehoused, so that only British corn should be stored; and urged an advance of money by the government to such individuals as might be inclined to buy up our native produce. The principle upon which all this was advocated was a sufficiently broad one: " That excessive taxation renders it necessary to give protection to all articles the produce of our own soil, against similar articles the growth of foreign countries, not subject to the same burdens;" and " that it is therefore expedient to impose additional duties and restrictions on the importation of all articles the produce of foreign agriculture." It is a remarkable example of the power of the landed interest in the House of Commons, that these assertions and unconditional demands were received, not only with tolerance, but respect. The day-spring of economical politics had scarcely yet dawned. Amongst the representatives of the people, Mr. Huskisson was all sympathy with the mover of these resolutions, "whom 1 he would venture to call his honorable friend." Mr. Brougham, although opposed to bounties upon exportation, and the exclusion of foreign corn from our warehouses, spoke approvingly of the corn-law of 1815 as "politic,2 at the least as a palliative, or as affording the means of carrying the country through difficulties, the greatest pressure of which we may hope will only prove temporary." This temper, 1 Huskisson's Speeches, i. p. 312. 2 Brougham's Speeches, i. p. 533. CHAP. III.] DISTRESS OF THE AGRICULTURISTS. 39 even amidst men not essentially supporters of class interests, will not be wondered at when we consider the preponderating power of landed property in the House of Commons at that time. The strength either of the ministry or the opposition essentially depended upon the numerical force of the country gentlemen. The commercial and manufacturing interests -were most imperfectly represented. The landed aristocracy had retained official power, in association with a few " clerkly" workers, from the earliest feudal times. The admission of a merchant to the councils of the sovereign would have been deemed pollution. The mill-owners had carried us through the war; yet as a political body they were without influence, almost without a voice. There was no one in the House of Commons who had either the courage or the ability to probe the wounds of the agricultural interests, which were thus paraded before the nation. The distress of the agriculturists was thus stated, in 1816, in general terms, by Mi. Western: 1' Between two and three years ago, agriculture was in a flourishing and prosperous state; and yet, within the short period which has since elapsed, thousands have been already ruined, and destitution seems to impend over the property of all those whose capital is engaged in the cultivation of the soil." The causes assigned by him were excessive taxation, the reduction of the paper currency, tithes, poor-rates. " Yet, in spite of all these burdens, up to the middle of 1813, agriculture did sustain them, and under the weight of their united pressure continued to make most rapid advances." But the chief cause, as most correctly stated by Mr. Western, was " a redundant supply in the markets, a supply considerably beyond the demand, and that created chiefly by the produce of our own agriculture." With equal correctness did the speaker add: " It is perfectly well known that if there is a smlall deficiency of supply, the price will rise in a ratio far beyond any proportion of such deficiency; the ef-fect, indeed, is almost incalculable; so likewise, in a surplus of supply beyond demand, the price will fall in a ratio exceeding almost tenfold the amount of such surplus." And yet, with this knowledge of general principles, the same speaker asserts that in the period when 1" agriculture was in a flourishing and prosperous state," the profits of agriculture were not large. Let us endeavor to elucidate his position, that'" if there is a small deficiency of supply, the price will rise in a ratio fkr beyond any proportion of such deficiency." More than a century ago it had been computed that but one tenth of' the defect in the harvest may raise the plice three tenths, and two ninths deficiency raise the price eight tenths. This was the opinion of D'Avenant and Gregory King. Mr. Tooke, 1 Hansard, xxxiii. p. 34. 40 HISTORY OF THE PEACE. [Boox I. in quoting this passage, says: 1 "There in some ground for supposing that the estimate is not very wide of the truth, from observation of the repeated occurrence of the fact, that the price of corn in this country has risen from 100 to 200 per cent. and upwards, when the utmost computed deficiency of the crops has not been more than between one sixth and one third below an average, and when that deficiency has been relieved by foreign supplies." Upon this principle we may estimate the value of Mr. Western's assertion that, during the flourishing years to which he refers, the profits of agriculture had not been large. If the produce of an acre of wheat in good years be thirty-three bushels, sold for 6s. a bushel, the amount realized would be 91. 18s. If the produce in an unfavorable season were diminished one sixth, and the price raised from 6s. to 12s., the 27-1 bushels would produce 161. 10s. The difference is profit. At the commencement of the war, in 1793, the average price of wheat was 49s. 6d. a quarter; in 1794, it was 54s.; in 1795 and 1796, years of scarcity, it was above 80s.; in 1797 and 1798, it fell again to the prices of 1794. The harvests of 1799 and 1800 were fearful visitations of scarcity. At Michaelmas, 1798, the quarter of wheat sold for 92s.; and at Miclaelrnas, 1800, for 128s. The winter of 1800-1 -was the season of the greatest privation that had been experienced in this country since the days when famine was a common occurrence: before the harvest of 1801 the quarter of wheat had risen to 177s., and the quartern loaf had reached the fearful price of 2s. within a half-penny. From 1802 to 1807 were years of abundance; but the price of wheat never went down to that of the years preceding 1800. During these six years the lowest average price of any one year was 60s.; the average price of the six years was 75s. But the six years from 1808 to 1813 were years of deficient produce; the price of wheat during that period went up, according to the principle of Gregory King and of Mr. Western. The price bebtore the harvest of 1808 was 74s. 6d. the quarter;' at the same period in 1809, it was 100s.; in 1810, 120s.; in 1811, 104s.; in 1812, 136s.; in 1813, 136s. The average price of the six years, 108s.: an excess of 33s. above the average price of the six years from 1802 to 1807. In 1810 the foreign supply was very considerable; but for that supply scarcity would have become famine. In 1811 and 1812 there was a virtual exclusion of foreign supply. For four of these years of high prices out of the six, the agricultural interest had the exclusive advantage of the rise of price, far advanced above the degree of defect. That was the period. within the recollection of many of us, when every acre of land was eagerly bought up; when the enclosure of 1 History of Prices, i. p. 13. 2 Eton Tables. CHAP. III.] REVIEW OF AGRICULTURE. 41 wastes went on to an excess that had very sliglht regard to the quality of the land enclosed; when the cultivation of wheat was forced to an extent that had no reference to the exhaustion of the soil, or the necessities of economical husbandry; when rents were raised twofold, and often threefold, above the rents of 1792; when the race of small careful farmers vanished firom the earth, and gave place to a legion of the most luxurious and insolent of all the class of getters of sudden wealth; when the whole business of cultivation was an affair of grasping ignorance-a scramble for excessive gains, in which the landowners eagerly participated; when the system of bread allowances in aid of wages was made the instrument of debasing the laborer into a predial slave, and the poor-rates, heavy as they were, operated as a positive bounty to the agriculturists, by enabling them to feed their own laborers out of their own produce, thus raising, by improvident consumption, the price of bread on all the non-agricultural population, and leaving to the agricultural population no surplus for the minor necessaries of life. This was the period when, according to 2Mr. Western, " agriculture was in a flourishing and prosperous state." In 1814 there was the fear of peace and the fear of abundance, to come across the dreams that this state of things would last forever. When the overpowering landed interest in 1814 and 1815 demanded a new corn-law of parliament, prices had fallen to the average of the years fiomn 1802 to 1807. In 1816, when the cry of "' distress " was at its height, - when it, was proclaimed that the universal bankruptcy of the cultivators was at hand; that no rents could be paid; that the soil of England would go out of cultivation, - no one in parliament uttered the undoubted truth, that the years of agricultural prosperity had been years of suffering- and depression to all other classes of the community; that the reckless prodigality of the cultivators, and their false ambition to win a higher social position than their forefathers not by their prudence and intelligence, but by their ostentation; that the lavish and unprofitable expenditure of farming capital, in connection with excessive rents, had mainly led to the insolvencies and executions for debt which were paraded as evidences of national -decay; that the good soils unnaturally exhausted, and the poor soils unnaturally broken up, must go out of cultivation under a more healthy and less artificial system; that the exclusion of foreign supply had forced the growth of wheat, to the injury of truly productive cultivation; and that the boasted agricultural improvements were really little more than an extension of the surface under tillage, to the neglect of scientific husbandry, which the farmers of that day ridiculed, and the abandonment of the minor economies out of which their predecessors 42 HISTORY OF THE PEACE. [BooK I. had made their chief profits. The great crop of 1813, which left a surplus produce for two or three years, came as the natural corrective for this really evil condition of society. The remedy was a severe one, and we may commiserate the individual suffering of the transition state. We may even consider that the cornlaw of 1815, as a merely temporary measure, did something not unproductive of general benefit to break the fall of the agricultural interests. But when, in a course of struggle after struggle, it was sought to perpetuate the principles of that law - the principles which formed the creed of the land-owners of 1816 — "that excessive taxation renders it necessary to give protection to all articles the produce of our own soil, against similar articles the growth of foreign countries " - it was time to consider what were the interests of a class, and what were the interests of a nation. That consideration came tardily upon the most enlightened and disinterested of the government and the legislature. But it did come; and it'has constituted the great rallyingpoint of the commercial and manufacturing interests, whose power, whether of union, or wealth, or intelligence, has been growing year by year, and making proselytes slowly and surely'with the progress of that general spread of knowledge, compared with which all mere party bonds are but ropes of sand. The resolutions of MJr. Wdestern in 1816 came to no practical result; for the chief reason, that the forced abandonment of the property tax, and the voluntary relinquishment of the war maltduty, had really left very little within the reach of government to be offered as a further boon to the landed interest. When they demanded that foreign corn should be no longer warehoused duty free. it was manifest that they utterly set at nought every possible precaution against a season of dearth. Their relief was to be attained at all hazards by the most absolute and uneonditional monopoly. The bonded corn could not be let out of warehouse till the home price had reached 80s.; but that was not enough. When the hour of dearness should arrive, we were at once to scatter our emissaries over the face of the earth, to bny corn at any price, and by the sudden demand, to raise the foreign market to the level of the home market, so that the " flourishing and prosperous period " of agriculture might be secured beyond all hazard of the interruption to be produced by commercial foresight. But this was not all. Rape-seed and linseed of the growth of' forleign soils were to be prohibited; tallow, cheese, and butter weie proposed to be shut out. The ministers smiled a negative upon the most presumptuous of these demands, " afraid 1 that we had already gone quite as far as policy would admit in our systemn of prohibitions, if not indeed too far; and we should be par1 Mr. Robinson: Hansard, xxsiii p. p. 698. CHAP. III.] MANUFACTURES ANI) COMMERCE. 43 ticularly cautious how we advanced still further into the system." The legislative exhibition of the Nwisdom that shouted for unconditional protection may be summned up in one short and emphatic speech:1 "The strength, the virtue, and the happiness of the people mainly depended on the prosperity of the agriculture of the country; and on this principle the coun7try should be forced to feed its own population. No partial advantage to be derived firom commerce could compensate for any deficiency in this respect. The true principle of national prosperity was an absolute prohibition of the importation of foreign agricultural produce, except in extreme cases." "Manufactures and commerce," said the speech of tile Prince Regent, " are in a flourishing condition." This was to Muft rely upon the bare figures of custom-house returns. ures anld In 1815 the declared value of British and Irish prod- commerce. uce and manufactures exported was fifty-one millions, bein, six millions more than in 1814. Well might the commerce of the country seem to be flourishing. Those who knew the real workings of that commerce were not so deceived. MAr. Baring, on the second night of the session, declared that " he saw more loss than gain in this great increase of export." When the destruction of the power of Napoleon in 1814 had opened the tports of the continent to our vessels - when the consumption of our exports no longer depended upon a vast system of contrablTand trade —it was universally thought that there could be no limit to the demaind for British manufactures and colonial produce. If, under the anti-commercial decrees of our great enemy, the shipments to European ports had been twelve millions in 1811, why should they not be doubled in 1814? Aind accordingly they were doubled. The most extravagant profits were expected to be realized. The ordinary course of trade was forsaken, and small capitalists as well as large, at the outports as well as in London, eagerly bought up colonial produce, and looked for golden returns. "The shippers 2 found to their cost, when it was too late, that the effective demand on the continent for colonial produce and British manufactures had been greatly overrated; for whatever might be the desire of the foreign consumers to possess articles so long out of their reach, they were limited i~i their means of purchase; and accordingly, the bulk of the commodities exported brought very inadequate returns." IMlr. Brougham in 1816 correctly described tlhe result of these exportations:3 T'The bubble soon burst, like its predecessors of the South Sea, the Mississippi, and Buenos Ayres. English goods were selling for much less in Holland and the north of Europe, than in London 1 Mr. Barham: Hansard, xxxiii. p. 698. 2 Tooke's History of Prices, ii. p. 8. 3 Brougham's Speeches, i. p. 519. 44 HISTORY OF THE PEACE. [BOOK I. and Manchester; in most places they were lying a dead weight without any sale at all; and either no returns whatever were received, or pounds came back for thousands that had gone forth." A very slight consideration will explain the causes of this enormous mistake. In the first place, the continent was wholly exhausted by the long course of war -by the prodigious expenditure of capital that the war had demanded — by the wasteful consumption of mighty armies embattled against the oppressor - by the rapine of the predatory hordes that were let loose upon their soil- by confiscation. The people had necessarily the greatest difficulty to maintain life; they had little to spare for the secondary necessaries -- nothing for indulgence. The merchants of our own country - the nation in general - had been so accustomed to the outward indications of prosperity at home during the course of the war, that they had no adequate idea that war was the great destroyer of capital, and that it essentially left all mankind poorer. in the second place, what had the continent to give us in exchange for our coffee and our sugar, our calicoes and our cutlery? The old mercantile school still existed amongst us, who thought that the perfection of commerce was to exchange goods for money, and that a great commercial nation might subsist without barter. But the continent had no money to exchange for English products, even if the exploded theories of the balance of trade could have found any realization. The continent, exhausted as it was, had its native commodities; but those we refused. France had her wil-es, but we resolved, in the spirit of the most high-flown patriotism, not to receive them upon equal terms with those of Portugal; the Baltic had its timber, but we determined to build our houses with the inferior growth of our North American colonies; the entire north of Europe would have applied itself to raising a surplus produce of corn for our increasing non-agricultural population, but the corn-law of 1815 forbade the calling forth of the natural resources of the whole earth to remedy the miseries of occasional local scarcity; Holland and Belgium had their cheese and butter to supply the insufficient dairy produce of these islands, but new prohibitory duties were imposed, directly that we could resort to their markets. We panted for continental trade; we believed that the peace would give us the marts of the whole world. But we doggedly held on in a course of commercial regulation which belonged only to the infancy of society. We perpetuated foreign restrictions and exclusions of our own manufactured produce, by persistence in a system which other nations of necessity regarded as the cause of our manufacturing superiority. We did not then know how essentially this system retarded our national progress. We listened to those who, on every side, clamored for exclusive interests. CHAP. III.] DEPRIESSION OF INDUSTRY. 45 Agriculturists and manuifacturers, land-owners and ship-owners, equally shouted for protection. The state of the American trade of 1816 was described by Mar. Broughllam, after speaking of the disastrous results of the continental speculations' 1 a The peace with America has produced somewhat of a similar effect; though I am very far from placing the vast exports which it occasioned upon the same footing with those to the European markets the year before; because ultimn ltely thle Americmans will pay, which the exhausted state of the continent renders very unlikely." Let us remark that we did not prevent the Americans paying in the only way in which one great people can pcay another - by the interchange of commodities whiclh each vwants, in return for commodities of which each can produce a superfluity. We shut out their corn, but we did not shut out their cotton. In 1813 we retained for consumption only fifty million pounds of cotton-wool; in 1814, only fiftythree millions; the amount consumed of each year being less than that of 15804. The peace with America came at the end of 1814. In 1815 we consumed ninety-two million pounds; in 1816, eighty-six million pounds; in 1817, one hundred and sixteen million pounds; and in 1818, one hundred and sixty-two million pounds. But we went further with the United States in the recognition of just commercial principles, than with any European nation. By the Treaty of Ghent, in 1814, both countries agreed to repeal their navigation laws, and " the ships 2 of the two countries were placed reciprocally upon the same footing in tlhe ports of England and the United States, and all discriminating duties chargeable upon the goods which they conveyed were mutually repealed." The distresses of the agricultural and the commercial interests were thus coincident. The prices of agricultural General deproduce were depressed by superabundance; but the pression of superabundance and the consequent low prices produced industry. small benefit to the manufacturing consumers. The prices of manufacturing produce were depressed by the glut provided for extravagant speculation; but the glut produced no increase in the command over the secondary necessaries to the agricultural consumers. The means of purchase amongst all classes were exhausted. The capital which was to impel their profitable industry was dried up. There was "' a very general depression' in the prices of nearly all productions, and in the value of all fixed property, entailing a convergence of losses and failures among the agricultural, and commercial, and manufacturing, and mining, and shipping, and building interests, which marked that period 1 Brougham's speeches, i. p. 519. 2 Porter's Progress of the Nation. 3 Tooke's History of Prices, ii. p. 12. 46 HISTORY OF THE PEACE. [BooH I. as one of the most extensive suffering and distress." Some proclaimed that the depression and the distress were caused, not by the exhaustion of war, but by " the transition from a state of war to a state of peace." The theory upon which this delusion was upheld was this: The whole annual war expenditure, to the amount of not less than forty millions, was at once withdrawn from circulation. But public expenditure is like the fountain-tree in the Indian paradise, which diffuses in fertilizing streams the vapors which it was created to collect and condense for the purpose of more beneficially returning and distributing them." According to this logical imagery, or imaginative logic, the capital of a nation in the pockets of its proprietors is c" vapor; " it becomes a "fertilizing stream" when it condenses into taxes. It assumes that there is more demand when the capital of a country is expended by government, than when the same capital is expended by individuals. It assumes that the expenditure of capital by governmen!-, in subsidies, in the wasteful consumption of armies, in all the wear and tear of war, is more profitable than the expenditure of capital in the general objects of industry which create more capital. It assumes that the partial expenditure of capital by government in its victualling offices, is more profitable than the regular expenditure of the same capital left in the pockets of the tax-payers, to give them an additional command over the comforts and elegancies of life. One who saw through a fallacy as clearly as any person, and had no respect for the mincing phrases of the worshippers of power -- William Cobbett - says of such dreams of the advantage of' government expenditure - 2 ", To hear this talk, one would suppose that government was a very rich and generous thing, having an immense estate of its own, instead of being what it is -- the collector of enormous sums drawn away from the people at large." This fallacy, as well as many others connected with the depression of industry at the close of the war, has been disproved by the long experience of peace. We now know that consumption has increased at a more rapid rate than at any period during the quarter of a centur:y of wild profusion; that the agricultural and manufacturing production of the country has increased in the same proportion; that the real property of the nation has received the like increase; that the increase of population has been more than commensurate.' We had arrived in 1816 at the lighest point of war exhaustion. The peace came as the slosw, but sure corrective. Had the war been prolonged another three years, upon the same scale as the expenditure of 1813,'14, and'15 - had one hundred and ninety-seven millions more been thrown away of the capital of the nation - it may be doubted 1 Quarterly Review, July, 1616. 2 Political Register, Oct. 5, 1816. CHAr. III.] CURRENCY. 47 whether sixty years of peace, instead of thirty, would have repaired the consequences of such an unnatural exhaustion. Although the time is not arrived for presenting any details connected with the resumption of cash payments by the Bank of England, it is necessary that we should currency. very briefly notice the opinion which so generally obtained in 1816, that the depreciation of the currency during the war, and the practical return to a real standard at the period of peace, was a main if not the sole cause of the distress and embarrassment which we have described. Cobbett, in his strong and exaggrreratecl style, puts the argument thus:' " From this time [1797] there has been little besides paper-money. This became plenty, and, of course, wages and corn and everything became high in price. But, when the peace came, it was necessary to reduce the quantity of paper-money; because, when we came to have intercourse with foreign nations, it would never do to sell a one-pound note at Calais, as was the case, for about thirteen shillings. The Bank and the government had it in their power to lessen the quantity of paper. Down came prices in a little while; and if the debt and taxes had come down too, in the same degree, there would have been no material injury;'but they did not. Taxes have continued the, same. Hence our ruin, the complete ruin of the great mass of farmers, and tradesmen, and small landlords; and hence the misery of the people." This was published in Novemlbel' 1816. The theory might be right, that the reduced amount of the currency was the main cause of the depression of prices, if the facts were here correctly stated. But the Bank of England at the peace scarcely contracted its issues at all. In August, 1813, the circulation of bank-notes was nearly twenty-five millions; at the same season in 1814, it was twentyeight millions; in 1815, twenty-seven millions; in 1816, only half a million less. The utmost amount of the depreciation of bank-notes was in 1814, when a hundred pounds of paper would only buy 741. 17s. 6d. of gold, -a depreciation of about 25 per cent. In 1815 and 1816 a hundred pounds of paper would buy 831. 5s. 9d. of gold, — a depreciation of nearly 17 per cent. Thus the rise in the value of money which Cobbett, and many others of less violent politics, declared had produced the widespreading ruin of' 1816, by causing a proportionate fall of the prices of commodities exchanged for money, was not more than 8 per cent., as compared with the period when the value of an unconvertible paper-money was at the lowest. It is no less true that a vast amount of paper-money was withdrawn from circulation at this period, by the failure of many country-banks, and the contraction of their advances by all who were stable. This was a conse1 Political Register, Nov. 30, 1816. 48 HISTORY OF THE PEACE. [BOOK I. quence of the great fall of agricultural produce - a consequence of the diminished credit of the producers. When the restriction upon cash payments by the Bank of England was, in 1816, agreed to be renewed for two years, the bearing of the continuanlce of the restriction upon the state of prices was not overlooked. An extract from Mr. Horner's speech on the Ist May 1816, on his motion for a committee to inquire into the expediency of restoring the cash payments of the Bank of England, will supply all that is necessary at this point of our history for the elucidation of this complicated subject: 1 " He would ask the House, had they felt no evils from the long suspension of cashpayments? Were they sensible of no evils, after all that had passed in the course of the discussions of the agricultural distress, during which no one had been hardy enough to deny that a great evil had arisen from the sudden destruction of the artificial prices? Would any man say that there had not been a great change in the value of money? What this was owing to, might be disputed; but, for his own part, he had not the least doubt. From inquiries which lie had made, and fiom the accounts on the table, he was convinced that a greater and more sudden reduction of the circulating medium had never taken place in any country, than had taken place since the peace iin this country, with the exception of those reductions which had happened in France after the Mississippi scheme, and after the destruction of the assignats. He should not go into the question how this reduction had been effected, though it was a very curious one, and abounded in illustrations of the principles which had been so much disputed in that -louse. The reduction of the currency had originated in the previous fall of the prices of agricultural produce. This fall had produced a destruction of the countrybank paper to an extent which would not have been thought possible without more ruin than had ensued. The Bank of England had also reduced its issues, as appeared by the accounts recently presented. The average amount of their currency was not, during the last year, more than between twenty-five and twenty-six millions; while two years ago it had been nearer twenty-nine millions, and at one time even amounted to thirty-one millions. But without looking to the diminution of the Bank of England paper, the reduction of coutltry paper was enough to account for the fall which had taken place. Another evil which had resulted from the state of the currency, which he had foreseen and predicted, but which had been deemed visionary, was, that during the war we had borrowed money, which was then of small value, and we were now obliged to pay it at a high value. This was the most formidable evil which threatened our finances; 1 Hansard, xxxiv. p. 143. CHAP. III.] MR. HORNER ON CURRENCY. 49 and, though he had too high an opinion of the resources of the country, and of the wisdom of the government, to despair, he was appalled when he considered the immense amount of the interest of the debt contracted in that artificial currency, compared with the produce of the taxes..... Looking forward to the operation of this restriction in time of peace, it would be found to leave us without any known or certain standard of money to regulate the transactions, not only between the public and its creditors, but between individuals. The currency which was to prevail was not only uncertain, but cruel and unjust in its operation - at one time upon those whose income was fixed in money, and to all creditors — at another time, when by some accident it was diminished in amount, to all debtors. Was not this an evil sufficient to attract the attention of a wise, a benevolent, and a prudent government? If they looked at the agricultural interest, was not a fluctuation of prices the greatest of evils to the farmer? For, supposing prices were fixed and steady, it was indifferent to him what was the standard. As long as we had no standard - no fixed value of money - but it was suffered to rise and fall like the quicksilver in the barometer, no man could conduct his property with any security, or depend upon any sure and certain profit. Persons who were aware of the importance of this subject must be surely anxious to know whether there were any imperative reasons for continuing the present system; to know whether it was intended to revert to the old system; and if not now, when that system would be reverted to, and what would be the best means for bringing about that measure." Here, for the present, we leave this question of the currency. voL. lI. 4 50 HISTORY OF THE PEACE. [BooK I. CHAPTER IV. A FRENCH author, in one of those rapid generalizations which are characteristic of much of the modern historical writing of his country, and which, if not quite so far removed from truth as a positive falsification of facts, are as certainly deceptive - M. Capefigue- thus describes the condition of Great Britain after the peace: "The Convention of 1815 had scarcely been signed before England saw a formidable conspiracy of radicalism spring up in her bosom. It was not confined to a few outbreaks easily repressed, but displayed itself in masses of a hundred thousand workmen, who destroyed factories and pillaged houses. It was as if the earth trembled, ready to swallow up the old aristocracy." Let us endeavor to come somewhat nearer the truth, by tracing, through a multitude of details, the real dangers and the exaggerated alarms of this moral earthquake. We have shown how the exhaustion of British capital, the unavoidable consequent weight of taxation, the depression of agricultural stock, the want of markets for native and colonial produce, had produced that paralysis of industry which marked the latter months of 1815 and the beginning of 1816. That these circumstances were most felt by those whose voices of complaint were least heard, by the working population, was soon made perfectly manifest. There was a surplus of labor in every department of human exertion. Mr. Brand declared in parliament,2 at the end of March, speaking especially of the agricultural population, that " the poor, in many cases, abandoned their own residences. Whole parishes had been deserted; and the crowd of paupers, increasing in numbers as they went from parish to parish, spread wider and wider this awful desolation." Discharged sailors and disbanded militia-men swelled the ranks of indigence. If the unhappy wanderers crowded to the cities, they encountered bodies of workmen equally wretched, wholly deprived of work, or working at short time upon insufficient wages. But another evil, of which we find no parliamentary record, amidst debates on the prevailing distress, had come upon 1 Diplomates Europdens, tome i. p. 426. 2 Hansard, xxxiii. p. 671. CHAP. IV.] POVERTY, DISCONTENT, AND SEDITION. 51 the land to aggravate discontent into desperation.' While the land-owners were demanding more protection, and passing new laws for limiting the supply of food, the heavens lowered- intense frosts prevailed in February - the spring was inclement - the temperature of the advancing summer was unusually low -and in July incessant rains and cold stormy winds completed the most ungenial season that had occurred in this country since 1799.2 In January the average price of wheat was 52s. 6d.; in May it was 76s. 4d. The apprehensions of a deficient crop were universal, in Germany, in France, and in the south of Europe. The result of the harvest showed that these apprehensions were not idle. The prices of grain in England rapidly rose after July; and at the end of the year, rye, barley, and beans had more than doubled the average market-price of the beginning; wheat had risen from 52s. 6d. to 103s. "The matter of seditions is of two kinds," says Lord Bacon " much poverty and much discontentment." Both causes were fully operating in Great Britain in 1816. The seditions of absolute poverty - "the rebellions of the belly," as the same great thinker writes - were the first to manifest themselves. Early in lIay, symptoms of insubordination and desperate violence were displayed amongst the agricultural population of the eastern counties. Legislators had been accustomed to look with alarm at the organized outbreaks of large bodies of workmen in the manufacturing districts, as in 1812; but insurrectionary movements of the peasantry, ignorant, scattered, accustomed to the dole of forced benevolence, and therefore broken in spirit, were scarcely to be heeded. And yet these "poor dumb mouths" made themselves audible. They combined in the destruction of property with a fierce recklessness that startled those who saw no danger but in the violence of dense populations, and who were constantly proclaiming that the nation which builds on manufactures sleeps upon gunpowder. In Suffolk nightly fires of incendiaries began to blaze in every district; thrashing-machines were broken or burnt in open day; mills were attacked. At Brandon, near Bury, large bodies of laborers assembled to prescribe a maximum price of grain and meat, and to pull down the houses of butchers and bakers. They bore flags, with the motto: "Bread or blood." At Bury and at Norwich disturbances of a similar nature were quickly repressed. But the most serious ~demonstration of the spirit of the peasantry arose in what is called "the Isle of Ely," that isolated fen-country which is cultivated by a population of primitive habits, a daring and active population, with much of the dogged reliance upon brute force which characterized their Saxon forefathers. Early in the ses1 Tooke's History of Prices, ii. p. 14. 2 Annual Register, 1816, p. 353, 52 HISTORY OF THE PEACE. [Boox I. sion, Mr. Western described the agricultural distress of this district as exceeding that of most other parts of the kingdom. Executions upon the property of the cultivators, distresses for rent, insolvencies, farms untenanted, were the symptoms of this remarkable depression. When we regard the peculiar character of this portion of the country, we may easily understand how a great fall in the prices of grain had driven the land out of cultivation, and cast off the labor of the peasantry, to be as noxious in its stagnation as the overcharged waters of that artificially fertile region. That country was then very imperfectly drained; and the rates for the imperfect drainage being unpaid by many tenants, the destructive agencies of nature were more active than the healing and directing energies of man. It is well known, too, that in the fen-countries the temptation of immediate profit had more than commonly led the farmer to raise exhausting crops, and that the nature of the land under such circumstances is such that a more provident tillage, and abundant manure, cannot for a long time restore it. The high prices of wheat from 1810 to 1814 had supplied this temptation. The Isle of Ely in 1816 had become somewhat like Prospero's isle, where there was " everything advantageous to life, save means to live." It was uinder such circumstances that, on the 22d of May, a great body of insurgent fenmen assembled at Littleport, a small town on the river Lark. They commenced their riotous proceedings by a nightattack on the house of a magistrate. They broke into shops, emptied the cellars of public-houses, and finally marched to Ely, where they continued their lawless course of drunkenness and plunder. For two days and nights these scenes of violence did not cease; and the parish of Littleport was described as resembling a town sacked by a besieging army, the principal inhabitants having been compelled to abandon their houses, in terror of their lives, leaving their property to the fury of this fearful band of desperate men. There could, of necessity, be but one termination. The military were called in, and a sort of skirmish ensued, in which blood flowed on both sides. A large number of the rioters were finally lodged in Ely jail. Then came the sure retribution of the offended laws. A special commission was issued for the trial of the culprits. Thirty-four persons were convicted and sentenced to death, on charges of burglary and robbery, of whom five were executed. In pronouncing sentence upon these unhappy men, Mr. Justice Abbot said: "' It was suggested abroad, that you had been induced to perpetrate these violent outrages by hard necessity and want; but after attending closely and strictly to the whole tenor of the evidence, there has not appeared in the condition, circumstances, or behavior of any one of you, any reason to suppose that you were instigated by dis CHAP. IV.] AGRICULTURAL AND COAL DISTRICTS. 53 tress." And yet great distress might have existed in the general population, without the wretched leaders in these riots being especially distressed; for several of those who underwent the capital punishment were persons above the condition of laborers. It is difficult to believe that the distress of the land-owners and tenants should have been greater in the Isle of Ely than in most other parts of the kingdom, and that the laborers should not have been impelled to outrage by " hard necessity and want." Incendiary fires, attempts at plunder, riots put down by military force, spread alarm through districts chiefly agricultural. The distress which had fallen upon the manufacturing and other non-agricultural portions of the population was manifested in many signal ways. At the beginning of July, a body of colliers, thrown out of employment by the stoppage of iron-works at Bilston, took the singular resolution of setting out to London, for the purpose of submitting their distresses in a petition to the Prince Regent, and presenting him with two wagons of coals, which they drew along with them. One party advanced as far as St. Alban's, and another reached Maidenhead Thicket. The Home Office took the precaution of sending a strong body of police, with magistrates, from London, to meet these poor fellows, and induce them to return; and they were successful. The men, who had conducted themselves with the most perfect order, were satisfied to depart homewards, having been paid for their coals, and accepting also some charitable contribution. They bore a placard: " Willing to work, but none of us to beg;" and they required certificates from the magistrates that they had conducted themselves with propriety. Their example was followed by other unemployed colliers from Staffordshire, who yoked themselves in a similar way to loaded wagons. But their progress towards London was not very considerable.l The distresses of the workmen in the iron trade were quite appalling. Utter desolation prevailed in districts where iron-works had been suspended. The workmen in these districts used to be surrounded with many comforts. They had saved a little money. The factories were shut up; the furnaces blown out; the coal-pits closed. Then the neat cottages, where hundreds of families had lived in comfort, were gradually stripped of every article of furniture; the doors of these once cheerful dwellings were barred; the families were wandering about the country, seeking for that relief from private charity which the parishes could not offer. Depredation was very rare. Later in the year, the miners and colliers connected with the great ironworks in the neighborhood of Merthyr assembled in a tumultuous manner; and their numbers gradually swelling till they 1 Letter in Annual Register, 1816. 54 HISTORY OF THE PEACE. [BooK I. reached ten or twelve thousand, they finally extinguished the blast at several works, but did little other damage. These men were on very reduced wages; but their distress does not seem to have been nearly so great as the utter destitution of the Staffordshire colliers. In the year 1812 an act was passed "for the more exemplary Machine- punishment of persons destroying or injuring any breaking. stocking or lace frames, or other machines or engines used in the framework-knitting manufactory, or any articles or goods in such frames or machines." The object of the act was to make the offence capital. The cause for this increase to the fearful list of offences to which the penalty of death was attached, was the system of riot and destruction, bordering on insurrection, which had prevailed in Nottingham and the adjacent counties for more than three months. There never before was such an organized system of havoc resorted to by men who were at once grossly ignorant and preeminently crafty. " The depredations' had been carried on with a greater degree of secrecy and management than had ever been known in any similar proceedings; so much so, that the magistrates could not take upon themselves to apprehend the persons whom they suspected of having committed the outrages. It was peculiarly easy for parties who were ill disposed, to perpetrate those illegal acts; for, in many instances, the machinery was used in isolated houses, which were far from any neighborhood, and persons having secreted themselves about the premises, felt no difficulty in destroying the frames, which could be performed with very little noise. In one instance, the mischief had been done actually in sight of the military; and in another, they were not more than one hundred yards from the premises. The rioters had also occasionally gone to the villages in bodies of about fifty men, and having stationed sentinels at the different avenues, the remainder employed themselves in destroying all the frames; and this was executed with so much secrecy, that not a trace of the parties was left in the course of a few minutes." Such was the character of the Luddite insurrection of 1812. In spite of the increase of punishment, the system was never wholly put down. In 1816 it broke forth with new violence. At Loughborough, in July, many frames employed in the manufacture of lace were destroyed with the same secrecy as in 1812. Armed bands, under the command of a chief, held the inhabitants in nightly terror, commanding them to put out their lights, and keep within their houses, under penalty of death. Their ravages were not confined to the towns; they would march with suddenness and secrecy to distant villages, and rapidly effect their purposes of destruction. The General Ludd, who led on 1 Hansard, xxi. p. 809. Mr. Secretary Ryder. CH&AP. IV.] FRAME-BREAKING. 55 these armed and disguised desperadoes, would address his forces in a short speech, divide them into parties, and assign their respective operations. Then, in the silence of night, would houses and factories be broken open, frames and other machines demolished, unfinished work scattered on the highways, furniture be wholly destroyed. The ignorance which has more or less prevailed at all times on the subject of machinery - coupled with the want of employment produced by the depression of every branch of industry - was the cause that, undeterred by the terrible penalties of the law, the Luddites still pursued the course which had wellnigh driven the lace manufacture fiom their district, and converted temporary into permanent ruin. The futility of the legislation of 1812 was well exposed in a protest of Lords Lauderdale and Rosslyn on the introduction of the bill: 1 " We agree in the opinion so generally expressed in this House, that the conduct of the manufacturers, in destroying frames and other machinery used in our manufactures, must proceed from mistaken views of their own interest, as they, more than any other class of his majesty's subjects, are deeply interested in the preservation of machinery, to the improvement of which we owe our existence as a manufacturing country. But we think it our duty, strongly and in distinct terms, to reprobate the unprecedented folly of attempting to enlighten the minds of men in regard to what is beneficial for themselves, by increased severity of punishment; whilst every sound principle of criminal legislation makes us regard such an addition to the long list of offences already subjected to capital punishment by the laws of this country, with astonishment and disgust; and every feeling of humanity leads us to express the utmost horror at the wanton cruelty of punishing our fellow-creatures with death for those culpable acts, more injurious to themselves than to any other part of the community, to which, through mistaken views of policy, the increasing distress of the times has induced them to resort." The wealthier classes of this country are never wanting in the disposition to relieve the distresses of their fellow- Private besubjects by liberal contributions. The sufferings of nevolence. the poor in 1816 were too manifest not to call forth an unusual amount of public sympathy, displayed in subscriptions for relief, and in schemes for providing employment. However local charity may have mitigated the intensity of the evil arising out of the general exhaustion of capital, a calm review of the more ostentatious exertions of that period forces upon us the conclusion that such attempts are for the most part wholly inefficient - more calculated to produce a deceptive calm in the minds of those who give, than to afford any real or permanent benefit to those who receive. 1 Hansard, xxi. p. 1085. 56 HISTORY OF THE PEACE. [BooK I. On the 29th July a very remarkable meeting took place at the City of London Tavern, "to take into consideration the present distressed state of the lower classes, and the most effectual means of extending relief to them." The Duke of York took the chair; the Duke of Kent and the Duke of Cambridge moved resolutions; the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of London also took part in the proceedings, as well as several peers, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and Mr. Wilberforce. This meeting for purposes of holy charity was converted into a political brawl. It was a time of brawlers; but the rude energy and the bad taste of much of the declamation that disturbed the quiet of public meetings was not wholly removed from strong sense and unanswerable reasoning. Lord Cochrane, on this occasion, compelled the alteration of a resolution which declared " That the transition from an extensive warfare to a system of peace has occasioned a stagnation of employment and a revulsion of trade." The promoters of the meeting consented to affirm the fact, without setting up a delusive cause. The Duke of Kent, who moved the first resolution, said: " If they should be so happy as but to succeed in discovering new sources of employment, to supply the place of those channels which had been suddenly shut up, he should indeed despond if we did not soon;restore the country to that same flourishing condition which had long made her the envy of the world." The goodness of the intention could only be exceeded by the absurdity of the means. Here was a body of the great and wealthy coming forward to subscribe some forty or fifty thousand, perhaps even a hundred thousand pounds, not merely to give away as bread and soup to two or three millions of suffering laborers and their families, but to find, out of this fifty or a hundred thousand pounds capital, new sources of employment, which the millions of capital that were devoted to the ordinary courses of industry would have instantly created, if such new employments could have been profitably exercised. The new employment was, of course, to be unprofitable; it could afford no returns to produce continued employment. The promoters of this meeting themselves saw something of the fallacy, and talked of the inadequacy of their means to relieve national distress. The persons who disturbed the usual placid and complimentary course of such proceedings, clamored for remission of taxation, reduced expenditure, abolition of sinecures. Upon this subject the chief organ of government thus expressed the opinions of the wealthier classes: 1 "Such numerous bodies of men having been thrown out of employ, every good man perceived the necessity of affording them temporary relief, and the propriety of relieving the poor-rates by voluntary aid, till alterative measures of permanent policy could be devised 1 Quarterly Review, July, 1816. CHAP. IV.] PRIVATE BENEVOLENCE. 57 and brought into action for gradually removing a burden that was becoming intolerable." According to this authority, the subscriptions did not add to the fund for the relief of distress; they were in aid of the poor-rates, and not in addition to them. The poor-rates in 1816 were half a million less than in 1814; 1 the price of bread was higher; the population was increased; and the number of quarters of wheat for which the money raised by poor-rate could have been exchanged, was two hundred and forty thousand quarters less in 1816 than in 1814, and two hundred thousand quarters less in 1816 than in 1815. To put the efficiency of' the poor-rates upon the same level in 1816 as they were in 1814, by the aid of voluntary subscriptions, the committee of the London Tavern ought to have raised as much money as would have purchased two hundred and fifty thousand quarters of wheat, which at the time of this great meeting would have cost more than a million sterling. We mention these facts, not to make ourselves obnoxious to the reproof'2 then levelled against the reformers, that they realized the old story of the Needy Knife-grinder and the Friend of Hurnanity, but to point out the folly of deceiving our own consciences as to the power of almsgiving to afford adequate relief in great periods of national distress. The first duty of the capitalist is to understand what are the real claims of labor under ordinary circumstances, and what the amount of assistance that can be rendered under extraordinary contingencies. It is the duty of government so to shape its policy that the necessary inequalities of demand and supply shall not be rendered more oppressive by false legislation. All contention for interests of classes or individuals - all blindness to the dreadful calamity of an unemployed, inadequately paid, starving, and therefore dangerous population — are best exhibited in their fatal consequences, when it is seen how totally incompetent is the heartiest exercise of private benevolence to remedy great public suffering. The economical mistakes of such private benevolence would be matters of ridicule if they were not so awful in their delusions. In 1816, hand corn-mills were recommended for the employment of the poor, to supersede the labor of the miller; and women and even men were actually employed to shell beans in the fields, to supersede the more efficient labor of the thrasher. Minor schemes were recommended in London, and published to the world authoritatively, as remedies for the absence of profitable employment. Of these the most notable were the making of cordage out of hop-bines and weeds; the gathering of rushes to manufacture candles from the greasepot; the plaiting of baskets out of flags; and the mixture of 1 See Porter's Progress of the Nation, i. p. 82. 2 Quarterly Review, July, 1816. 58 HISTORY OF THE PEACE. [Boox I. fire-balls out of clay and cinders, to supersede coals. It is perfectly clear that if these employments could be found profitable by the sale of the articles produced, the regular employment in rope-making, or candle-making, or basket-making, or coal-mining, would have been diminished. Even the soup-kitchens, which in 1816 were set up through the country, to avert starvation, had their evils. The recipients of the benevolence were discontented with its limited amount. At Glasgow some imaginary insult offered by a doler of the soup to the more unfortunate of that large community, stung the people to madness: the soup-kitchen, with its coppers and ladles, was destroyed; the outrage swelled to riot; the military were called in; and for two days the populous city was exposed to a contest between the soldiers and the mob. At Dundee the people relieved themselves in the old summary way of plunder: a hundred shops were ransacked. CHAP. V.] DEVELOPMENT OF MIDDLE CLASS. 59 CHAPTER V. LORD BACON, discoursing of the second cause of sedition - "discontentments "- says: " There is in every state, Parliamenas we know, two portions of' subjects, the noblesse and tary rethe commonalty. When one of these is discontent, form. the danger is not great; for common people are of slow motion, if they be not excited by the greater sort; and the greater sort are of small strength, except the multitude be apt and ready to move of themselves." We at once perceive that the experience of Lord Bacon was limited to a totally different state of society than that of modern England. On one hand was " the noblesse," " the greater sort," - the makers of laws, the exclusive possessors of power; on the other, " the commonalty," " the common people," " the multitude," - strong in union, feeble in individuality. It required a century and a half to constitute an efficient third class - the middle class - the bourgeoisie of the French. The commonalty was then cut into two sections - the most influential of the two standing between the higher class and the lower class. The term "lower class," or "lower classes," is gone out of use. The term is thought not complimentary to the democracy, and so we say "' the working class," which is less precise, and conveys false notions. The union which Lord Bacon exhibited as the most fearful to the sovereign power, was that which sprang from the common discontent of the nobles and the people. A monarch, according to the great imaginative philosopher, should be the Jupiter whom Pallas counselled to call Briareus, with his hundred arms, to his aid. Sure of the good-will of the common people, he was safe. We see how all this consists with the government of the Tudors and the first Stuart; how strictly it represents the attributes of an imperfect civilization; how much remained to be developed before the more favored of fortune, the more complete in education and intelligence of "the commonalty," could be raised up into a new class. The far grander problem of the full development of the class lowest in point of wealth and power - of the class highest in point of numbers - of the most truly important class with reference to the happiness and safety of modern societies - this problem is little 60 HISTORY OF THE PEACE. [BOOK I advanced toward solution in our own day.( It scarcely formed an element in the habitual consideration of a legislator thirty years ago. And yet the agitation of this class convulsed our whole social system at that period.% Those struggles were, in truth, the first moving forces of the' great changes which have since taken place in the political position of the class next above the masses; and, as a natural consequence, indirectly in their own position. Up to the close of 1816, the spirit of parliamentary reform was seldom evoked in the British parliament. When the spirit was occasionally raised, upon the presentation of some stray petition, it had no alarms for the most timid, and very few consolations for the most ardent. It was a good quiet spirit "' in the cellarage " - an " old mole " - that called out, in antiquated phrase, about Magna Charta and the Bill of' Rights; and the House of Commons listened as to some gabble which concerned it not, and went on with its proper work of Whig and Tory fence, conducted upon the most approved principles of the first masters of the science. But the " worthy pioneer" got above ground in 1816, and, when he was fairly loosened to the open sky, he was not quite so tame, and innocent, and stupid a spirit as his ordinary supporters and his systematic revilers had been in the habit of believing him to be. The House of Commons was not generally popular in 1816. We have better evidence for the fact than that of the pamphleteering or oratorical champions of reform. Mr. Hallam, a calm, constitutional Whig of that day, rejoices over the defeat of the ministry on the property tax, chiefly because that decision had removed "' the danger1 of increasing the odium under which the House of Commons already labors among a large class of people, by so decidedly resisting the wishes of the nation." And yet the call for parliamentary reform seems to have made itself very feebly heard in the Lower House at this period. With the exception of some four or five petitions that produced very slight discussion, it would scarcely be thought, from an inspection of the parliamentary debates, that such a question agitated any part of the nation at all. On one occasion, in June, some members spoke very briefly upon the subject. One complained of the apathy with which the question was regarded in England; another (AMr. Brougham) mentioned the cause as "' opposed by some, deserted by others, and espoused by persons whose conduct excited no small degree of disgust out of doors." 2 But from this time the name of parliamentary reform became, for the most part, a name of terror to the government - to the elevated by rank and wealth - to the most influential of the middle classes. 1 Horner's Life, ii. p. 318. 2 Hansard, xxxiv. p. 1146. CHAP. V.] PARLIAMENTARY REFORM. 61 It became fearful from the causes which would have made it contemptible in ordinary times. It was " espoused by persons whose conduct excited no small degree of disgust out of doors." It passed away from the patronage of a few aristocratic lovers of popularity, to be advocated by writers of " twopenny trash," and to be discussed and organized by " Hampden Clubs" of hungering philanthropists and unemployed " weaver-boys." Let us hear the evidence upon this matter of a remarkable man - a man of real native talent, and, like a very large number of his class, of honest intentions: - "At this time [1816] the writings of William Cobbett suddenly became of great authority; they were read on nearly every cottage hearth in the manufacturing districts of South Lancashire, in those of Leicester, Derby, and Nottingham; also in many of the Scottish manufacturing towns. Their influence was speedily visible; he directed his readers to the true cause of their sufferings - misgovernment; and to its proper corrective — parliamentary reform. Riots soon became scarce, and from that time they have never obtained their ancient vogue with the laborers of this country. " Let us not descend to be unjust. Let us not withhold the homage which, with all the faults of William Cobbett, is still due to his great name. " Instead of riots and destruction of property, Hampden Clubs were now established in many of our large towns, and the villages and districts around them; Cobbett's books were printed in a cheap form; the laborers read them, and thenceforward became deliberate and systematic in their proceedings. iNor were there wanting men of their own class -to encourage and direct the new converts; the Sunday-schools of the preceding thirty years had produced many working-men of sufficient talent to become readers, writers, and speakers in the village meetings for parliamentary reform; some also were found to possess a rude poetic talent, which rendered their effusions popular, and bestowed an additional charm on their assemblages; and by such various means, anxious listeners at first, and then zealous proselytes, were drawn from the cottages of quiet nooks and dingles, to the weekly readings and discussions of the Hampden Clubs." Cobbett himself, on the 21st December, 1816, wrote as follows: 2_ "The country, instead of being disturbed, as the truly seditious writers on the side of corruption would fain make us believe; instead of being irritated' by the agitation of the question of reform, is kept by the hope which reform holds out to it, in a 1 Passages in the Life of a Radical, by Samuel Bamford, i. p. 8. 2 Political Register, xxxi. p. 799. 62 HISTORY OF THE PEACE. [Book I. state of tranquillity, wholly unparalleled in the history of the world, under a similar pressure of suffering. Of this fact the sad scenes at Dundee are a strong and remarkable instance. At the great and populous towns of Norwich, Manchester, Paisley, Glasgow, Wigan, Bolton, Liverpool, and many, many others, where the people are suffering in a degree that makes the heart sick within one to think of, they have had their meetings to petition for reform; they have agreed on petitions; hope has been left in their bosoms; they have been inspired with patience and fortitude; and all is tranquil. But, at Dundee, where a partial meeting had been held early in November, and where a gentleman who moved for reform had been borne down, there violence has broken forth, houses have been plundered, and property and life exposed to all sort of perils, and this, too, amongst the sober, the sedate, the reflecting, the prudent, the moral people of Scotland." The writings of William Cobbett, at this critical period, are writings of certainly amongst the most valuable of the materials Cobbett. for a correct view of the disturbing elements of our social system, and of the circumstances which led to the subsequent repressive policy of the government. Up to the 2d November, 1816, Cobbett's "Weekly Political Register" was a publication, not addressed to the " cottage hearth," but to persons who could afford to pay a shilling and a half-penny weekly, for a single octavo stamped sheet, printed in open type. His writings, singularly clear and argumentative, strong in personalities, earnest, bold, never halting between two opinions, powerful beyond all anonymous writing from their rare individuality, would have commanded an extensive influence under any form of publication. But on the 2d November, when the entire sheet was devoted to an address " To the Journeymen and Laborers of England, Scotland, and Ireland," Cobbett added this announcement: "This address, printed upon an open sheet, will be sold by the publisher at 2d. each, and for 12s. 6d. a hundred, if a hundred are taken together." On the 16th November, he wrote thus: "The' Register,' No. 18, which was reprinted on an open sheet, to be sold for 2d. by retail, having been found to be very useful, it is my intention to continue that mode of proceeding until the meeting of parliament, or perhaps until the reform shall have actually taken place.. Now, events are pressing upon us so fast, that my' Register,' loaded with more than half its amount in stamp, and other expenses incidental to the stamp, does not move about sufficiently swift to do all the good that it might do. I have therefore resolved to make it move swifter." He goes on to say that the stamped " Register " was "read in meetings of people in many towns, and one copy was thus made CHAP. V.] WILLIAM COBBETT'S WRITINGS. 63 to convey information to scores of persons;" but that he finds, in public-houses, " the landlords have objected to meetings for reading the' Register' being held at their houses, for fear they should lose their licenses." He accordingly prints the twopenny "Register." We see, therefore, why, at the end of 1816, " the writings of William Cobbett suddenly became of great authority, and were read on nearly every cottage hearth in the manufacturing districts." Never before had any single writer in England wielded such a powers The success of this experiment upon the influence to be produced by cheap publications was such as to lead him to reprint some of the more exciting of his previous "Registers." That they gave the discontent of the laboring classes a new direction, cannot be doubted; that they did much to repress riot and outrage, may fairly be conceded. His " Letter to the Luddites," on the 30th November, is a masterpiece of reasoning against the ignorant hostility to machinery, and must have been far more effectual than a regiment of dragoons. But that they were scattering the seeds of a greater danger than the outrage and plunder of infuriated mobs cannot be denied. Their object was suddenly to raise up the great masses of laborers and mechanics into active politicians; to render the most impatient and uncontrollable materials of our social system the most preponderating- hitherto as powerless alone as the "commonalty" of Bacon, without the leading of the " greater sort." The danger was evident; the means of repression were not so clear. The effect of Cobbett's writings may be estimated by the violence of his opponents, as well as the admiration of his disciples. From the date of his twopenny "Registers" he was stigmatized as a " firebrand," " a convicted incendiary." " Why is it I that this convicted incendiary, and others of the same stamp, are permitted, week after week, to sow the seeds of rebellion, insulting the government, and defying the laws of the country?.... We have laws to prevent the exposure of unwholesome meat in our markets, and the mixture of deleterious drugs in beer. We have laws also against poisoning the minds of the people, by exciting discontent and disaffection; why are not these laws rendered effectual, and enforced as well as the former? " The answer is very obvious. The laws, as they stood at the end of 1816, when this was written, could not touch William Cobbett. He knew well how to manage his strength. He risked no libels. He dealt with general subjects. He called upon the people to assemble and to petition. He exhorted the people against the use of force. He sowed the dragon's teeth, it is true, but they did not rise up as armed men. They rose up in the far more dangerous apparition of the masses, without property, without education, 1 Quarterly Review, xvi. p. 275. 64 HISTORY OF THE PEACE. [Boo L. without leaders of any weight or responsibility, demanding the supreme legislative power —the power of universal suffrage. The idea ceased to be a theory - it became a tremendous reality. In' the report of the secret committee of the House of ComHampden mons, presented on the 19th February, 1817, thi clubs. Hampden Clubs are thus described:1 — "The first thing which has here forced itself upon their obselvation is the widely diffused ramification of a system of clubs, associated professedly for the purpose of parliamentary reform, upon the most extended principle of universal suffrage and annual parliaments. These clubs in general designate themselves by the same name of Hampden Clubs. On the professed object of their institution, they appear to be in communication and connection with the club of that name in London.' It appears to be part of the system of these clubs to promote an extension of clubs of the same name and nature so widely as, if possible, to include every village in the kingdom. The leading members are active in the circulation of publications likely to promote their object. Petitions, ready prepared, have been sent down from the metropolis to all societies in the country disposed to receive them. The communication between these clubs takes place by the mission of delegates; delegates from these clubs in the country have assembled in London, and are expected to assemble again early in March. Whatever may be the real objects of these clubs in general, your committee have no hesitation in stating, from information on which they place full reliance, that in far the greater number of them, and particularly in those which are established in the great manufacturing districts of Lancashire, Leicestershire, Nottinghamshire, and Derbyshire, and which are composed of the lower order of' artisans, nothing short of a revolution is the object expected and avowed." The clear and honest testimony of Samuel Bamford shows that, in this early period of their history, the Hampden Clubs limited their object to the attainment of parliamentary reform - a sweeping reform, indeed, but not what is understood by the term "revolution." 2 Bamford was secretary to one of these clubs, established at Middleton in 1816. The members contributed each a penny a week; their numbers increased; and they held their meetings in a chapel which had been previously occupied by a society of Methodists. They were called " reformers" - not radical reformers, but simply reformers. Meetings of' delegates from other districts were held in this chapel; and on the 16th December, 1816, they resolved to send out missionaries to disseminate the principles of reform. On the 1st January, 1817, a meeting 1 Hansard, xxxv. p. 443. 2 Passages in the Life of a Radical, i. ch. ii. CHAP. V.] HAMPDEN CLUBS. 65 of delegates from twenty-one petitioning bodies was held at the Middleton Chapel, when resolutions were passed, declaratory of the right of every male, above eighteen years of age, and who paid taxes, to vote for the election of members of parliament, and that parliaments should be elected annually. "Such," he adds, " were the moderate views and wishes of the reformers of those days as compared with the present..... Some of the nostrum-mongers of the present day would have been made short work of by the reformers of that time; they would not have been tolerated for more than one speech, but handed over to the civil power. It was not until we became infested by spies, incendiaries, and their dupes - distracting, misleading, and betraying - that physical force was mentioned amongst us. After that, our moral power waned; and what we gained by the accession of demagogues, we lost by their criminal violence and the estrangement of real friends." It would appear, however, that in Scotland, at a very early stage of the proceedings of reform clubs -that is, in December, 1816 - the mode in which large masses of men ordinarily look for the accomplishment of political changes was not so cautiously kept out of view. In the proceedings in the High Court of Justiciary, in Edinburgh, early in 1817, against two persons for administering unlawful oaths, the obligation of the members of these reform clubs was shown to run thus: I" I do voluntarily swear that I will persevere in my endeavoring to form a brotherhood of affection amongst Britons of every description, who are considered worthy of confidence; and that I will persevere in my endeavors to obtain for all the people in Great Britain and Ireland, not disqualified by crimes or insanity, the elective franchise, at the age of twenty-one, with free and equal representation and annual parliaments; and that I will support the same to the utmost of my power, either by moral or physical strength, as the case may require: and I do further swear, that neither hopes, fears, rewards, nor punishments, shall induce nme to inform on, or give evidence against, any member or members, collectively or individually, for any act or expression done or made, in or out, in this or similar societies, under the punishment or death, to be inflicted on me by any member or members of such societies." Of the Hampden Club of London, Sir Francis Burdett was the chairman. Vanity, as well as misery, "makes a man acquainted with strange bedfellows." Bamford, at the beginning of 1817, came to London as a delegate from the Middleton Club, to attend a great meeting of delegates to be assembled in London. The Crown and Anchor Tavern was the scene of these deliberations. There was Major Cartwright in the chair -a 1 State Trials, xxxiii. p. 147. VOL. II. 5 66 HISTORY OF THE PEACE. [BooKr L placid enthusiast, sincere in his belief that unmingled good would be the result of the great experiment which he had so long advocated. His chief supporters were Cobbett, with his shrewd self-possession and "bantering jollity;" and Hunt, -- "orator Hunt," as he was called, - the incarnation of an empty, blustering, restless, ignorant, and selfish demagogue. The great baronet was absent, and his absence provoked no little comment. But he was accessible in his own mansion; and the hard-handed delegates had an interview with this " imp of fame," in his dressinggown and white cotton stockings hanging about his long spare legs, with a " manner dignified and civilly familiar; submitting to, rather than seeking conversation with, men of our class." Samuel Bamford was awe-struck by the passionate bellowing of Hunt, frozen by the proud condescension of Sir Francis Burdett, but charmed by the unaffected cordiality of Lord Cochrane. These were the chief actors in the procession scenes of the popular drama that was then under rehearsal. Other and more important parts were filled quite as appropriately. The graphic descriptions of a poor delegate weaver, who saw the secret workings of this drama, are as much matter of real history as the debates of senators and the reports of secret committees: 2, Several times I attended meetings of trades' clubs, and other public assemblages of the working-men. They would generally be found in a large room, an elevated seat being placed for the chairman. On first opening the door, the place seemed dimmed by a suffocating vapor of tobacco, curling from the cups of long pipes, and issuing from the mouths of the smokers, in clouds of abominable odor, like nothing in the world more than one of the unclean fogs of their streets; though the latter were certainly less offensive, and probably less hurtful. Every man would have his half-pint of porter before him; many would be speaking at once, and the hum and confusion would be such as gave an idea of there being more talkers than thinkers - inore speakers than listeners. Presently,' Order!' would be called, and comparative silence would ensue; a speaker, stranger or citizen, would be announced with much courtesy and compliment;' Hear, hear, hear!' would follow, with clapping of hands, and knocking of knuckles on the tables till the half-pints danced; then a speech, with compliments to some brother-orator or popular statesman; next a resolution in favor of parliamentary reform, and a speech to second it; an amendment on some minor point would follow; a seconding of that; a breach of order by some individual of warm temperament; half a dozen would rise to set him right; a dozen to put them down; and the vociferation and gesticulation would become loud and confounding. The door opens, and 1 Bamford, i. p. 21. 2 Ibid. p. 23. CHAP. V.] CLUB-MEETING DESCRIBED. - SPENCEANS. 67 two persons of middle stature enter; the uproar is changed to applause, and a round of huzzas welcome the new-comers. A stranger like myself inquiring who is he, the foremost and better dressed one? would be answered:' That gentleman is Mr. Watson the elder, who was lately charged with high treason, and is now under bail to answer an indictment for a misdemeanor in consequence of his connection with the late meeting at Spafields.' The person spoken of would be supposed to be about fifty years of age, with somewhat of a polish in his gait and manner, and a degree of respectability and neatness in his dress. He was educated for a genteel profession, that of a surgeon; had practised it, and had in consequence moved in a sphere more high than his present one. He had probably a better heart than head; the latter had failed to bear him up in his station, and the ardor of the former had just before hurried him into transactions from the consequences of which he has not yet escaped. His son at this time was concealed in London, a large reward having been offered for his apprehension. The other man was Preston, a cooperator with Watson, Hooper, and others in late riots. He was about middle age, of ordinary appearance, dressed as an operative, and walked with the help of a stick. I could not but entertain a slightful opinion of the intellect and trustworthiness of these two men, when, on a morning or two afterwards, at breakfast with me and Mitchell, they narrated with seeming pride and satisfaction their several parts during the riots. Preston had mounted a wall of the Tower, and summoned the guard to surrender. The men gazed at him - laughed; no one fired a shot -and soon after he fell down, or was pulled off by his companions, who thought, no doubt, he had acted fool long enough." The " late meeting at Spa-fields " here alluded to - the leaders of that meeting who loomed upon the Middleton delegate out of the reeking tobacco fog of a low tavern - were destined to become of historical importance. The general liberties of the country were suspended, chiefly through dread of the conspiracies of such men as the surgeon " with somewhat of a polish in his gait and manner," and the operative who " walked with the help of a stick." The surgeon and the operative were leading members of a society called the " Spencean Philanthropists." They derived their name from that of a Mr. Spence, a penceans. schoolmaster in Yorkshire, who had conceived a plan for making the nation happy, by causing all the lands of the country to become the property of the state, which state should divide all the produce for the support of the people. The schoolmaster was an honest enthusiast, who fearlessly submitted his plan to the consideration of all lovers of their species, and had the mis 68 HISTORY OF THE PEACE. [BooK I. fortune to be prosecuted for its promulgation in 1800. In 1816, "Spence's Plan" was revived, and the Society of Spencean Philanthropists was instituted, who held "'sectional meetings." and discussed " subjects calculated to enlighten the human understanding." This great school of philosophy had its separate academies, as London was duly informed by various announcements, at " the Cock in Grafton Street, Soho;" and " the Mulberry Tree, Moorfields;" and " the Nag's Head, Carnaby Market;" and " No. 8 Lumber Street, Borough." At these temples of benevolence, where "every individual is admitted, free of expense, who will conduct himself with decorum," it is not unlikely that some esoteric doctrines were canvassed, such as, that "it was an easy matter to upset government, if handled in a proper manner." 1 The committee of the Spenceans openly meddled with sundry grave questions besides that of a community in land; and amongst other notable projects, petitioned parliament to do away with machinery. They had not advanced to the more recondite knowledge of the St. Simoniens of France, nor to that of the disciples of " the new social system," 2 as expounded by M. Louis Blanc. But they had many very pretty theories, all founded upon the breaking up of the unequal distribution of individual property; which theories are sometimes produced by the philanthropists of our own day as prodigious discoveries. Amongst these otherwise harmless fanatics some dangerous men had established themselves —such as Thistlewood, who subsequently paid the penalty of five years of maniacal plotting; and some, also, who were clearly in communication with the police, and hounded on the weak disciples of the Cock in Grafton Street, and the Mulberry Tree in Moorfields, to acts of more real danger to themselves than to the public safety. If we are to believe the chief evidence in these transactions 3 John Castle, a man of the most disreputable character, who became a witness against the leading Spencean Philanthropiststhey had murderous designs of sharp machines for destroying cavalry, and plans for suffocating quiet soldiers in their barracks, destroying them as boys burn wasps' nests; and schemes for taking the Tower, and barricading London Bridge, to prevent the artillery coming from Woolwich. And there were to be five commanders to effect all these great movements of strategy,Mr. Thistlewood, Mr. Watson the elder, and Mr. Watson the younger, Mr. Castle, and Mr. Preston, who came the last in dignity "' because he was lame." And then there was to be a committee of public safety, who were to be called together after the soldiers were subdued - twenty-four good and true men - amongst 1 State Trials, xxxii. pp. 215, 216. 2 Organisation du Travail, 1845. 8 State Trials, p. 218, &c. CHAP. V.] MEETING AT SPA-FIELDS. 69 whom were 1 Sir Francis Burdett, the lord mayor [Alderman Wood], Lord Cochrane, Mr. Hunt, Major Cartwright, Gale Jones, Roger O'Connor, one Squire Fawkes of Barnbury Grange in Yorkshire, a person of the name of Sam Brookes, Thompson on Holborn Hill, the two Evanses, Watson, and Thistlewood." And then they calculated at what amount of public expense they could buy the soldiers, by giving them each a hundred guineas; and upon an accurate computation, it was found that the purchase-money would be "somewhere about two millions, which would be nothing in comparison with the national debt, which would be wiped off." 2 With this preparation, if we may believe the very questionable evidence of Mr. Castle, a meeting was held at Spa-fields, on the 15th November. Thirty years ago, the district known as Spa-fields, now covered with dwellings of industry and comfortable residences of the middle classes, was a large unenclosed space; and a public-house was there, called by the mysterious name of Merlin's Cave; and Mr. Hunt came in a chariot with the Watsons, and harangued a mob from the chariot-roof, attended with a flag and cockades, and "everything handsome." And after adjourning the meeting for a fortnight, Mr. Hunt and the chariot went away, drawn by the mob; and the mob running the chariot against a wall, they all got out and walked. So innocently passed the first Spa-fields meeting - innocently, save that at a dinner at Mr. Hunt's hotel in Bouverie Street, where, as he represented the matter, the Philanthropists thrust themselves upon him very much against his will — the betrayer Castle gave a toast, which is too infamous to be repeated here, and was threatened to be turned out of the room, but quietly remained, and went into what was described as " a fox-sleep." But the 2d December, the day to which the first meeting was adjourned, closed not so peaceably. Mr. Hunt came to town from Essex in his tandem, and, as he passed along Cheapside, at "twenty minutes to one o'clock," he was stopped by Mr. Castle, who was moving along with a considerable crowd; and the worthy man told him that the meeting had been broken up two hours, and they were going to the Tower, which had been in their possession for an hour. The country squire, to whom " the boisterous hallooing, of multitudes was more pleasing than the chinkling of the plough-traces, the bleating of lambs, or the song of the nightingale " - in these terms Cobbett defended his friend for his aspirations after mob popularity - was not weak enough to believe the tempter; and his tandem went on safely to Spafields, where the greatest number of people were collected together that he had ever beheld. But more active reformers 1 State Trials, p. 233. 2 Ibid. p. 234. 70 HISTORY OF THE PEACE.![BooK I. were in Spa-fields before Mr. Hunt. The Spencean Philanthropists had provided a wagon for their own operations, and arrived on the ground considerably before the appointed hour of meeting, with banners and inscriptions, one of which was, " The brave soldiers are our friends." These men also brought arms and ammunition, which they deposited in their wagon. Mr. Watson the elder commenced a sufficiently violent address, and then his son followed him. The young madman, after declaiming against the uselessness of petition, cried out: "If they will not give us what we want, shall we not take it? Are you willing to take it? Will you go and take it? If I jump down amongst you, will you come and take it? Will you follow me?" And as at every question the encouraging" Yes " became louder and louder, and put down the dissentient " No," he jumped from the wagon, seized a tri-colored flag, and away rushed the mob to take the Tower. Two resolute men, the chief clerk of Bow Street and a Bow Street officer, had the boldness to attack this mob, and destroyed one of their banners without any injury to themselves. The work of mischief necessarily went on. The young fanatic led his followers to the shop of Mr. Beckwith, a gunsmith on Snow Hill; and, rushing in, demanded arms. A gentleman in the shop remonstrated with him, and, without any pause, was immediately shot by him. Instantly, some compunction seems to have come over this furious leader, and he offered to examine the wounded man, saying he was himself a surgeon. The assassin was secured; but the mob, who destroyed and plundered the shop, soon released him, and proceeded along Cheapside, where they fired their recently acquired arms, like children with a new plaything. They marched through the Royal Exchange, where they were met by the lord mayor, and several were secured. The city magistrates on this occasion behaved with a firmness which admirably contrasted with the pusillanimity of their predecessors in the riots of 1780. The courage of the Lord Mayor and of Sir James Shaw is worthy of honorable record; and it shows not only the insignificancy of the so-called conspiracy, its want of coherence and of plan, but the real power of virtue in action to put down ordinary tumult. Sir James Shaw says: " On the 2d of December last, I was at the Royal Exchange at half-past twelve; I saw the mob first in Cornhill; the lord mayor and I went in pursuit of them; they crossed the front of the Royal Exchange; we rushed through the Royal Exchange to take them in front on the other side: the Lord iMayor and 1, having received information of prior occurrences, determined on putting them down. I seized several of them, and one flag of three colors, extended on a very long pole. I did not then perI State Trials. CHAP. V.] RIOT SUBDUED. 71 ceive any arms.... The Lord Mayor and I went to meet the mob with Mr. White and two constables; we got five constables in all; the whole party consisted of eight." Such is the way in which the beginnings of seditions ought to be met. Firmness such as this would have saved Bristol in 1832. After a further plunder of gunsmiths' shops in the Minories, and that summoning of the Tower by some redoubted and unknown champion, who, Bamford tells us, was Preston, the insurrection fell to pieces, altogether from the want of cohesion in the materials of which it was composed. The only blood shed was that of the gentleman in Mr. Beckwith's shop, who eventually recovered. An unfortunate sailor was convicted of the offence of plunder at the shop on Snow Hill, and was hanged. The younger Watson escaped from his pursuers. The narrative which we have thus briefly given is taken from the facts recorded in the voluminous trial of the elder Watson, in the summer of 1817, on a charge of high treason connected with this Spa-fields meeting. This is not the place to notice the course of that trial, which ended in the acquittal of the prisoner; nor to anticipate the account of the legislative measures of the spring of 1817, which were mainly founded upon the reports of secret committees, in which this frantic riot was described as a most formidable organization of " desperate men,1 who calculated without reasonable ground upon defection in their opposers, and upon active support from those multitudes whose distress they had witnessed, and whom they had vainly instigated to revolt." The parliamentary reports speak of these transactions — in which a mighty government was to be overthrown, and a vast city, with its formidable array of police and soldiery, utterly subdued by five fanatics hounded on by a spy - with a solemnity which is now almost ludicrous. A few passages from the report of the secret committee of the Lords will suffice: 2 "' A traitorous conspiracy has been formed in the metropolis for the purpose of overthrowing, by means of a general insurrection, the established government, laws, and constitution of this kingdom, and of effecting a general plunder and division of property.... Various schemes were formed for this purpose. Amongst them was a general and forcible liberation of all persons confined in the different prisons in the metropolis'.... It was also proposed to set fire to various barracks, and steps were taken to ascertain and prepare means of effecting this purpose. An attack upon the Tower and Bank, and other points of importance, was, after previous consultations, finally determined upon. Pikes and arms to a certain extent were actually provided, and leaders were named, among whom the points of attack were dis1 Commons' Report: Hansard, xxxv. p. 443. 2 Hansard, xxxv. p. 411. 72 HISTORY OF TIE PEACE. [BooK I. tributed..... It appears quite certain that the acts of plunder which were perpetrated for the purpose of procuring arms, and the other measures of open insurrection which followed, were not accidental or unpremeditated, but had been deliberately preconcerted as parts of a general plan of rebellion and revolution." Within a week after these occurrences the corporation of the Address of city of London presented to the throne an address and the city. petition from the lord mayor, aldermen, and commons, in which they set forth the "grievances" of the country, and the necessity for parliamentary reform. The lord mayor was a decided political partisan, and the majority of the corporation held then what were called liberal opinions. But it is nevertheless pretty evident that if the events of the 2d of December had been such as to produce real terror amongst the staid inhabitants of the city, this address would either not have been presented, or have been met by some counter-declaration of opinion. In 1814, when the long revolutionary war appeared to be ended, and men's minds were in a fever of joy at the extraordinary triumphs that conducted the allied armies to Paris, the corporation of London went up with an address of congratulation to the Prince Regent, in which they say: "We cannot but look back with the highest admiration at the firmness, the wisdom, and the energy which have been exercised by our beloved country during this long and arduous struggle." In 1816, the same corporation, in the address of complaint to the throne, says: " Our grievances are the natural effect of rash and ruinous wars, unjustly commenced and pertinaciously persisted in." The inconsistencies of a large popular body are not to be examined too severely; the change of tone ought to have shown the government that it had its origin in some deep-rooted evil. The truth was, that the people - using the term in its largest sense —had ceased to sympathize with the government. In 1814, and indeed during the fiercest years of the contest with Napoleon, the people were borne along with the government by the irrepressible energy of our national character. The peace came, and the government, instead of marching at the head of the people from victory to victory, was engaged in a struggle with the people for the maintenance of the war system of taxation and lavish expenditure, when the war excitement was passed away. Corn-laws carried amidst riots - property tax maintained for a season, and then wrested out of their hands - large military establishments continued - sinecures upheld and defended - reckless extravagance in the highest places - these were the things that the most sober and reasonable of the middle classes CHAP. V.] REAL DANGERS. 73 felt to constitute a cruel injustice - which those below them confounded with the sanative course of legislative and executive authority. The nation was defrauded of its reasonable expectations. The real danger, therefore, was not so much that the people should be irritated and misled by mob-leaders and unscrupulous writers, as that a general feeling should grow up in the nation, that government was a power antagonistic to the people -a power to be striven against as against a natural enemy an oppressive, and not a protective power - a power of separate and exclusive interests from the people - a power never to be trusted. F~e speak advisedly, and from experience, when we say that this was the general feeling of the great bulk of the industrious classes, long after the first sufferings that attended the transition state of peace had passed away. This was the feeling that was far more dangerous to the national interests than any insurrectionary outbreak of the masses of the working population. Deluded these masses unquestionably were -- acted upon by demagoOues. On the other hand, many amongst the upper and middle classes were alarmed into a prostrate adhesion to the menacing policy of the government, and were ready with "lives and fortunes" to put down the revolutionary spirit which they were assured was working under the guise of parliamentary reform. But, during all this unhappy time, the government had no love from any class -very little respect; intense hate from many — slavish fear from more. The government was denationalizing the people. (There was no confidence on either side. The wounds of the state during the last years of the regency were more severe than the wounds of war, and left deeper scars. The foundations of the state were loosened; there was no cohesion in the materials out of which the state was built up. The government took the fearful course of sowing distrust of the poor amongst the rich. The demagogues did their own counter-work of exciting hatred of the rich amongst the poor. It was a season of reciprocal distrust. "Divide and govern" may be a safe maxim for subduing a faction; it is the most perilous principle for ruling a nation. 74 HISTORY OF THE PEACE. [BOOK I. CHAPTER VI. TH:E attack upon Algiers forms an episode in the history of the peace. This terrific assertion of the rights of civAlgiers. ilized states, as opposed to barbarian violence and aggression, was, indeed, a consequence of the peace. The pirates of the Mediterranean were nourished in their lawless power by the jealousies of the maritime states of Europe; and England is perhaps not entirely free from the reproach which was raised against her of having truckled to the insolent domination of Algiers and Tunis, that she might hold them, like ferocious beasts in her leash, ready to let slip upon her maritime enemies. War calls forth as many of the selfish as of the heroic passions. At any rate, the attitude which England assumed towards the Bar bary States, at the termination of the war, was wholly different from that which she had maintained during many years, and under many governments, whether in war or in peace. Our treaties with these states had been of longer standing than those with any other European power. The treaties with Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli, date as far back as 1662. With the exception of one vigorous reprisal for an outrage upon the English flag in 1695, the greatest maritime country in the world had, for a century and a half, exchanged courtesies with the corsairs, who not only robbed upon the seas, but carried off the defenceless inhabitants of the Italian shores to the most fearful and hopeless slavery. With the full knowledge of the extent of these atrocities, we continued, up to the very end of the war, to treat these piratical governments with the respect due only to those states which submit to the law of nations. Lord Cochrane stated in parliament in 1816, that, three or four years before, the humiliating duty had been imposed upon him of carrying rich presents from our government to the Dey of Algiers; and it was even asserted, without contradiction, that a letter had been addressed to that chief pirate by the highest authority in our country. All this took place with the fullest conviction that the habits of the barbarian governments were wholly unchanged; that they were the same in the latter days of George III. as they were in the days of Charles II. "Algiers," says a writer of 1680, "is a 1 Discourse touching Tangier: printed in the Harleian Miscellany. CHAP. VI.] BARBARY STATES. 75 den of sturdy thieves formed into a body, by which, after a tumultuary sort, they govern, having the Grand Signior for their protector, who supplies them with native Turks for their soldiery, which is the greatest part of their militia; and they, in acknowledgement, lend him their ships when his affairs require it. They are grown a rich and powerful people, and, by a long practice of piracy, become good seamen; and, when pressed by our men of war, as of late we have experimented, they fight and defend themselves like brave men, inferior, I am persuaded, to no people whatever. They have no commerce, and so are without any taste of the benefits of peace; whence their life becomes a continual practice of robbery, and, like beasts of the desert, they only forbear to wrong where by fear, not honesty, they are deterred." And yet, however mean we may justly consider this long course of our national policy towards the Barbary States, the annihilation of their predatory governments was not an easy task to be accomplished, nor a safe object to be pursued, even if it were for a time successful. These pirates of Africa started up three hundred years ago, under the sway of the Barbarossas, and presented at once to the governments of Europe the daring, revengeful, and cruel race that they so long remained - opposed to every people - often chastised and menaced with destruction, but rising unsubdued from the passing blow, ready for new deeds of outrage and desperation. A long experience had shown that although pledges of peace - the release of Christian slaves, and the renunciation of the future power of making slaves - might be extorted from these states by the burning of their ships and the destruction of their fortifications, they would not continue the less a government of robbers, returning to their old trade in utter want of all other means of existence, all other sources of importance, all other relations of confidence between the rulers and the people. It was clear that Algiers, especially, would not come within the pale of civilization until it was revolutionized. England, which had just concluded a war against the a.ggrandizement of France, could not, with any consistency, have attempted to plant her laws and her language on the African shores of the Mediterranean; nor would she, with her experience of the difficulties of colonization under the most favorable circumstances, have endeavored, amidst the jealousies and possible hostilities of Europe, to amalgamate her own people with the barbarians of Northern Africa, and thus to found an orderly, a civilized, and a powerful nation. It would have been no common task there to change the habits of centuries; to plant useful industry in the soil where only destructive rapine had flourished; to connect the people with their rulers by salutary laws; and, hardest 76 HISTORY OF THIE PEACE. [BooK I. of all, to defer something to national habits and prejudices, whether in religion or in morals. The task has since been attempted by another great nation, not in the spirit of colonization, but of conquest. It was our task, in 1816, to take neither course - content to succor the oppressed, and to humiliate the oppressor. "One day of dreadful occupation more, Ere England's gallant ships Shall, of their beauty, pomp, and power disrobed, Like sea-birds on the sunny main, Rock idly in the port. "One day of dreadful occupation more! A work of righteousness, Yea, of sublimest mercy must be done! England will break the oppressor's chain, And set the captives free." 1 At the Congress of Vienna the aggressions of the Barbary States formed a natural subject of deliberation. An attempt was made by some enthusiasts to get up a European crusade against the infidel corsairs. It was perhaps fortunate that the congress had more pressing interests forced upon its attention. We were spared the fearful spectacle of Christianity girding on the sword of vengeance, to trample on the bleeding corse of an adverse faith. Civilization was content to assert her rights without the dangerous admixture of religious zeal. In 1815 the government of the United States, whose ships had been plundered by the Algerines, captured a frigate and a brig belonging to the Dey, and obtained a compensation of sixty thousand dollars. It has been stated 2 that this treaty saved the fleet of the Dey from attack in the harbor of Algiers, - an enterprise which had been resolved upon by the government of the United States before the expedition of Lord Exmouth. In the spring of 1816, Lord Exmouth, with a squadron under his command, proceeded to Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli, where he effected the release of seventeen hundred and ninety-two Christian slaves, and negotiated treaties of peace and amity on behalf of the minor powors in the Mediterranean. From Tunis and Tripoli a declaration was obtained that no Christian slaves should in future be made by either of these powers. The Dey of Algiers, however, refused to agree to the abolition of slavery without permission from the Sultan. Lord Exmouth acceded to a suspension for three months of the Dey's decision; and returned to England with his fleet. One condition of' the treaty with Algiers, then concluded by Lord Exmouth, was, that the governments of Sicily I Ode on the Battle of Algiers, by R. 2 Rush's Residence at the Court of Southey. First printed in The l'lain London in 1818, p. 237. Englishman, iii. p. 427 CHAP. VI.] LORD EQMOUTH'S EXPEDITION. 77 and Sardinia should pay ransom for the release of their subjects; and, in point of fact, they did so pay, to the extent of nearly four hundred thousand dollars. This clause of the treaty was justly denounced in the British parliament,' as an acknowledgment of the right of depredation exercised by the barbarians. In the debate on this occasion, Lord Cochrane maintained 2 ", that two sail of the line would have been sufficient to compel the Dey of Algiers to accede to any terms. The city of Algiers was on the sea-shore, the water was deep enough for first-rates to come up to the very walls, and those were mounted only with a few pieces of cannon, with the use of which the barbarians were scarcely acquainted." Lord Cochrane qualified this opinion in the subsequent session. It was fortunate that such an assertion was not the cause of an inadequate preparation and a fatal repulse. Lord Exmouth had his own observation for his guide. The event proved that the place, as well as the people, had remained unchanged during a long course of years. The city still preserved its ancient strength; the people, their accustomed daring and ferocity. Lord Exmouth returned home from the Mediterranean in June 1816. It would appear that the great possibility of the refusal of the Dey of Algiers altogether to renounce the practice of making slaves, was not contemplated as a reason for hostile preparations. The fleet of Lord Exmouth was dismantled; the crews were paid off and disbanded. A sudden outrage, which occurred even before Lord Exmouth quitted the MLediterranean, but which did not then come to his knowledge, was the obvious cause of the change in the determination of our government. In 1806 we contracted with the Dey for the occupation of Bona, a town, with a capacious harbor, in the regency of Algiers, for the purpose of the coral fishery being carried on under the protection of our flag. Here, on the 23d of May, it being the season of the fishery, were assembled a great number of boats from the Italian shores, and as that day was the festival of the Ascension, the peaceful crews were preparing to hear mass; suddenly a gun was fired from the Algerine castle, and a large body of infantry and cavalry rushed upon the unfortunate fishers who had landed, and fired upon those who remained within the harbor in their boats; the guns from the forts also joined in this fearful massacre. The British flag was torn down and trampled under foot, and the house of our vice-consul was pillaged. It would appear that this was no concerted act of the Algerine government, but a sudden movement of fanaticism on the part of the licentious soldiery. Be this as it may, an expedition against Algiers was instantly determined upon by the Brit1 Hansard, xxxiv. p. 1147. 2 Ibid. p. 1149. 78 HISTORY OF THE PEACE. [Book I. ish cabinet. A formidable fleet was equipped, with the least possible delay, at Portsmouth, and crews were collected fiom the different guard-ships, and volunteers invited to serve upon this particular enterprise. For once, a British fleet went to sea without recourse to the disgraceful practice of impressment. To render crews efficient, who were so hastily collected, and so unused to mutual operations, was a labor that required no common share of energy and prudence in the commander. With a part of his squadron, Lord Exmouth sailed to Plymouth, and finally left that port on the 28th of July, with a fleet consisting of twenty-five sail of large and small ships. At Gibraltar, the British admiral was joined by the Dutch admiral, Van Cappellan, with five frigates and a sloop, and having also received a reinforcement of gun-boats, he finally set sail for Algiers on the 14th. The winds being adverse, the fleet did not arrive in sight of Algiers till the 27th of August. During his course, Lord Exmouth spoke the British sloop Prometheus, which had been sent forward to bring off the British consul from Algiers: the family of our public officer had been rescued, but the consul himself had been put in chains. Here was a new insult to be avenged. A most interesting and graphic narrative of the expedition to Bombard- Algiers was published by Mr. Abraham Salame, a ment. native of Alexandria, who was taken out by Lord Exmouth to act as his interpreter. The description of a seafight, like the description of a shipwreck, is generally vague and unsatisfactory, unless we associate our interest with the fate of some one individual. Mr. Salame was, at one and the same time, an actor and a spectator in this remarkable contest. At five o'clock on the morning of the 27th, as the fleet was nearing Algiers, Salairn put on an English dress by the advice of Lord Exmouth, and was furnished with two letters, one for the Dey, the other for the British consul. The letter to the Dey demanded the entire abolition of Christian slavery; the delivery of all Christian slaves in the kingdom of Algiers; the restoration of all the money that had been paid for the redemption of slaves by the King of the Two Sicilies and the King of Sardinia; peace between Algiers and the Netherlands; and the immediate liberation of the British consul, and two boats' crews who had been detained with him. The commander's letter to the consul of course contained an assurance that every effort should be made for his safety; but who, under such circumstances, could forget that when the French Admiral Duquesne, in 1682, bombarded Algiers, the Dey fastened the unhappy French consul to the mouth of a cannon, and blew him to atoms, in savage defiance of the hostile armament? At eleven o'clock the interpreter CHAP. VI.] SECOND ALGERINE EXPEDITION. 79 reached the mole, in a boat bearing a flag of truce, and delivering his letters to the captain of the port, demanded an answer to the letter addressed to the Dey in one hour. The Algerine engaged that an answer, if answer were returned at all, should be given in two hours; and in the mean time the interpreter remained in a sufficiently uncomfortable situation, within pistolshot of thousands of the people who were on the walls and batteries. He employed himself in observing the situation of the city, and the strength of the fortifications. His description of the place differs very little from that given by Joseph PittsI more than a century before. "The houses," says Pitts, "are all over white, being flat, and covered with lime and sand as floors. The upper part of the town is not so broad as the lower part, and therefore at sea it looks just like the top-sail of a ship. It is a very strong place, and well fortified with castles and guns. There are seven castles without the walls, and two tiers of guns in most of them; but in the greatest castle, which is on the mole without the gate, there are three tiers of guns, many of them of an extraordinary length, carrying fifty, sixty - yea, eighty pound shot. Besides all these castles, there is at the higher end of the town, within the walls, another castle with many guns. And, moreover, on many places towards the sea are great guns planted. Algiers is well walled, and surrounded with a great trench. It hath five gates, and some of these have two, some three other gates within them; and some of them plated all over with thick iron. So that it is made strong and convenient for being what it is - a nest of pirates." The interpreter with his flag of truce waited for his answer from eleven o'clock till half-past two, but no answer came. During this time a breeze sprung up, the fleet advanced into the bay, and lay to within half a mile of Algiers. The interpreter then hoisted the signal that no answer had been given, and the fleet immediately began to bear up, and every ship to take her position. Salame reached the Queen Charlotte, Lord Exmouth's ship, in safety; but he candidly acknowledges, almost more dead than alive. Then he saw the change which comes over a brave and decided man at the moment when resolve passes into action. " I was quite surprised to see how his lordship was altered from what I left him in the morning, for I knew his manner was in general very mild; and now he seemed to me all-fightful, as a fierce lion which had been chained in its cage and was set at liberty. With all that, his lordship's answer to me was,'Never mind, we shall see now;' and at the same time he turned towards the officers, saying,' Be ready!'" "There is, perhaps, 1 Account of the Religion and Manners of Mohametans, 1704. 80 HISTORY OF THE PEACE. [BooK I. nothing in the history of warfare more terrific in its consequences than the first broadside that the British fired at Algiers. \The Queen Charlotte passed through all the batteries without firing a gun, and took up a position within a hundred yards of the molehead batteries. At the first shot, which was fired by the Algerines at the Impregnable, Lord Exmouth cried out: "That will do; fire, my fine fellows!" The miserable Algerines who were looking on, as at a show, with apparent indifference to the consequences, were swept away by hundreds by this first fire from the Queen Charlotte. "There was a great crowd of people in every part, many of whom, after the first discharge, I saw running away under the walls like dogs, walking upon their feet and hands." From a quarter before three o'clock till nine, the most tremendous firing on both sides continued without intermission, and the firing did not cease altogether until half-past eleven. During this engagement of nine hours, the allied fleet fired a hundred and eighteen tons of gunpowder, and five hundred tons of shot and shells. The Algerines exclaimed that hell had opened its mouth upon them through the English ships. That the Algerines had plied their instruments of destruction with no common alacrity is sufficiently shown by the fact, that eight hundred and fiftytwo officers and men were killed in the British squadron, and sixty-five in the Dutch. Lord Exmouth himself' says in his despatch: " There were awful movements during the conflict which I cannot now attempt to describe, occasioned by firing the ships so near us." Salame6 says that one of the Algerine frigates, which was in flames, drifted towards the Queen Charlotte, within about fifty feet of her; but a breeze springing up, carried the burning frigate towards the town. The Algerine batteries around Lord Exmouth's division were silenced about ten o'clock, and were in a complete state of ruin and dilapidation; but a fort at the upper angle of the city continued to annoy our ships, whose firing had almost ceased. This was the moment of the most serious danger to our fleet. Our means of attack were wellnigh expended; the upper batteries of the city could not be reached by our guns; the ships were becalmed. " Providence at this interval," says Lord Exmouth, " gave to my anxious wishes the usual land wind, common in this bay, and my expectations were completed. We were all hands employed warping and towing off, and by the help of the light air the whole were under sail, and came to anchor out of reach of shells about two in the morning, after twelve hours' incessant labor." There, when the ships had hauled out beyond the reach of danger, a sublime spectacle was presented to the wondering eyes of the interpreter, who had ventured out of the safety of the cockpit to the poop of the CHAP. VI.] RELEASE OF CHRISTIAN SLAVES. 81 Queen Charlotte. Nine Algerine frigates and a number of gunboats were burning within the bay; the storehouses within the mole were on fire; the blaze illumined all the bay, and showed the town and its environs almost as clear as in the daytime; instead of walls the batteries presented nothing to the sight but heaps of rubbish; and out of these ruins the Moors and Turks were busily employed in dragging their dead. When the fleet had anchored, a storm arose - not so violent as the storm which here destroyed the mighty fleet of Charles V., and left his magnificent army, which had landed to subdue the barbarians, to perish by sword and famine — but a storm of thunder and lightning which filled up the measure of sublimity, at the close of the twelve awful hours of battle and slaughter. It is unnecessary for us minutely to trace the progress of the subsequent negotiations with the humbled and sulky Dey. On the morning of the 28th, Lord Exmouth wrote a letter to this chief, who had himself fought with courage, in which the same terms of peace were offered as on the previous day. "If you receive this offer as you ought, you will fire three guns," wrote Lord Exmouth. The three guns were fired, the Dey made apologies, and treaties of peace and amity were finally signed, to be very soon again broken. The enduring triumph of this expedition was the release, within three days of the battle, of a thousand and eighty-three Christian slaves, who arrived from the interior, and who were immediately conveyed to their respective countries. " When I arrived on shore," says Salame, " it was the most pitiful sight to see all those poor creatures, in what a horrible state they were; but it is impossible to describe the joy and cheerfulness of them. When our boats came inside the mole, I wished to receive them (the slaves) from the captain of the port by number, but could not, because they directly began to push and throw themselves into the boats by crowds, ten or twenty persons together, so that it was impossible to count them; then I told him that we should make an exact list of them, in order to know to what number they amounted. It was, indeed, a most glorious and an ever-memorably merciful act for England, over all Europe, to see these poor slaves, when our boats were shoving with them off the shore, all at once take off their hats and exclaim in Italian:'Viva il Re d' Ingliterra, il padre eterno! e'1 Ammiraglio Inglese che ci ha liberato da questo secondo inferno!'- Long live the King of England, the eternal father! and the English Admiral who delivered us from this' second hell " "Seldom hath victory given a joy like this — When the delivered slave VoL. It. 6 82 HISTORY OF THE PEACE. [BooK I. Revisits once again his own dear home, And tells of all his sufferings past, And blesses Exmouth's name. Far, far and wide, along the Italian shores That holy joy extends; Sardinian mothers pay their vows fulfilled; And hymns are heard beside thy banks, 0 Fountain Arethuse i" 1 1 Southey's Ode. CHAP. VII.] SOCIAL IMPROVEMENT. 83 CHAPTER VII. SILENT leges inter arma - the laws are silent in the midst of arms - said the great Roman orator. During our Progress of quarter of a century of war, the laws held on their socialimcourse; but few had the courage to question the wis- provement. dom of that course, and still fewer the leisure to -attend to any suggestions of improvement. The daring adventurer who then mounted the car of progress 1 had to guide it, self-balanced, over the single rib of steel which spanned the wide gulf between the land of reality and the land of promise. Romilly was the foremost amongst the courageous spirits who risked something for the amelioration of the lot of their fellow-men. In 1516 Sir Thomas More wrote:2 " I think it not right nor justice that the loss of money should cause the loss of man's life; for mine opinion is that all the goods in the world are not able to countervail man's life. But if they would thus say, that the breaking of justice, and the transgression of laws, is recompensed with this punishment, and not the loss of the money, then why may not this extreme and rigorous justice well be called plain injury? For so cruel governance, so straight rules, and unmerciful laws be not allowable, that if a small offence be committed, by and by the sword should be drawn; nor so stoical ordinances are to be borne withal, as to count all offences of such equality that the killing of a man, or the taking of his money from him, were both one matter." ",In 1816 Sir Samuel Romilly carried a bill through the House of Commons, abolishing capital punishment for shoplifting, which had been rejected by that House three years before. IThe House of Lords, however, threw out this bill; and on that occasion, three hundred years after Sir Thomas More had proclaimed the opinion which we have just recited, Lord Ellenborough, the Lord Chief Justice, " lamented 3 that any attempts were made to change the established and well-known criminal law of the country, which had been found so well to answer the ends of justice." The history of the reform of our criminal law presents one of 1 See the Curse of Kehama, section xxiii. 2 Utopia, Introductory Discourse to. Dibdin's ed. 1808, i. p. 75. 3 Hansard, xxxiv. p. 684. 84 HISTORY OF THE PEACE. [Boox I. the most encouraging examples of the unconquerable success of Criminal the assertion of a right principle, when it is perseverlaws. ingly advocated, and never suffered to sleep; and when, above all, the reformation is attempted step by step, and the prejudices of mankind are not assailed by the bolder course which appears to contemplate destruction and not repair. The name of reform in the criminal laws had not been heard in the House of Commons for fifty-eight years, when, in 1808, Romilly carried his bill for the abolition of the phnishment of death for privately stealing from the person to the value of five shillings; in other words, for picking pockets.' It is instructive to see how, through the force of the circumstances around him, Romilly approached the subject of this reform with a caution which now looks almost like weakness. His object was originally to raise the value according to which a theft was rendered capital.' In January 1808, he gave up the intention of bringing forward even this limited measure,- he was sure the judges would not approve of it. To another distinguished lawyer belongs the merit of having urged Romilly to a bolder policy. His friend Scarlett, he says,2 " had advised me not to content myself with merely raising the amount of the value of property, the stealing of which is to subject the offender to capital punishment, but to attempt at once to repeal all the statutes which punish with death mere thefts unaccompanied by any act of violence, or other circumstance of aggravation. This suggestion was very agreeable to me. But, as it appeared to me that I had no chance of being able to carry through the House a bill which was to expunge at once all these laws from the statute-book, I determined to attempt the repeal of them one by one; and to begin with the most odious of them, the act of Queen Elizabeth, which makes it a capital offence to steal privately from the person of another." Upon this prudential principle Romilly carried his first reform in 1808. But the House of Commons, which consented to pass the bill, forced upon him the omission of its preamble: " Whereas, the extreme severity of penal laws hath not been found effectual for the prevention of crimes; but, on the contrary, by increasing the difficulty of convicting offenders, in some cases affords them impunity, and in most cases renders their punishment extremely uncertain." The temper with which too many persons of rank and influence received any project of amelioration at the beginning of this century, is forcibly exhibited in an anecdote which Romilly has preserved for our edification: 8 "If any person be desirous of having an adequate idea of the mischievous effects which have been produced in this country by the 1 Romilly's Diary, Oct. 1807. 2 Ibid. April, 1808. 8 Ibid. June, 1808. CHAP. VII.] CRIMLNAL LAWS. 85 French Revolution and all its attendant horrors, he should attempt some legislative reform, on humane and liberal principles. Hle will then find, not only what a stupid dread of innovation, but what a savage spirit, it has infused into the minds of many of his countrymen. I have had several opportunities of observing this. It is but a few nights ago, that, while I was standing at the bar of the I-Iouse of Commons, a young man, the brother of a peer, whose name is not worth setting down, came up to me, and breathing in my face the nauseous fumes of his undigested debauch, stammered out,'I am against your bill; I am for hanging all.' I was confounded; and endeavoring to find out some excuse for him, I observed'that I supposed he meant that the certainty of punishment affording the only prospect of suppressing crimes, the laws, whatever they were, ought to be executed.''No, no,' he said;'it is not that. There is no good done by mercy. They only get worse; I would hang them all up at once.'" In 1810 Sir Samuel Romilly brought in three bills to repeal the acts which punished with death the crimes of stealing privately in a shop goods of the value of five shillings, and of stealing to the amount of forty shillings in a dwelling-house, or on board vessels in navigable rivers. The first bill passed the House of Commons, but was lost in the Lords. The other two were rejected. In 1811 the rejected bills were again introduced, with a fourth bill abolishing the capital punishment for stealing in bleaching-grounds. The four bills were carried through the House of Commons; but only that on the subject of bleaching-grounds was sanctioned by the Lords. The constant argument that was employed on these occasions against the alteration of the law was this - that of late years the offences which they undertook to repress were greatly increased. Justly did Romilly say: " A better reason than this for altering the law could hardly be given." On the 24th of May, 1811, when three of the bills were rejected in the House of Lords, Lord Ellenborough declared: 1 "They went to alter those laws which a century had proved to be necessary, and which were now to be overturned by speculation and modern philosophy." The Lord Chancellor, Eldon, on the same occasion stated,2 that he had himself early in life felt a disposition to examine the principles on which our criminal code was framed, "before observation and experience had matured his judgment. Since, however, he had learned to listen to these great teachers in this important science, his ideas had greatly changed, and he saw the wisdom of the principles and practice by which our criminal code was regulated." In 1813 Sir Samuel Romilly's bill for the abolition of 1 Hansard xx. p. 299. 2 Ibid. p. 300. 86 HISTORY OF THE PEACE. [BooK I. capital punishment in cases of shoplifting was carried by the Commons in the new parliament; but it was again rejected in the House of Lords. No further attempt was made towards the amelioration of this branch of our laws till the year 1816; which attempt we have now more particularly to record. On the 16th of February,' Sir Samuel Romilly obtained leave to bring in a bill repealing the act of William III., which made it a capital offence to steal privately in a shop to the value of five shillings. He described this act as the most severe and sanguinary in our statute-book; inconsistent with the spirit of the times in which we lived; and repugnant to the law of nature, which had no severer punishment to inflict upon the most atrocious of crimes. /As recently as 1785, no less than ninety-seven persons were executed in London for this offence alone; and the dreadful spectacle was exhibited of twenty suffering at the same time. The capital sentence was now constantly evaded by juries committing a pious fraud, and finding the property of' less value than was required by the statute. The consequence, if severe laws were never executed, was, that crime went on to increase, and the crimes of juvenile offenders especially. On moving the third reading of the bill, on the 15th of March, Sir Samuel Romilly called attention to the great number of persons of very tender age who had recently been sentenced to death for pilfering in shops. At that moment there was a child in Newgate,2 not ten years of age, under sentence of death for this offence; and the recorder of London was reported to have declared that it was intended to enforce the laws strictly in future, to interpose some check, if possible, to the increase of youthful depravity. The bill passed the Commons, but was thrown out in the Lords on the 22d of May. On this occasion the Lord Chief Justice agreed with the Lord Chancellor,3 " that the effect of removing the penalty of death from other crimes had rendered him still more averse to any new experiment of this kind. Since the removal of the vague terror which hung over the crime of stealing from the person, the number of offences of that kind had alarmingly increased. Though the punishment of death was seldom inflicted for crimes of this nature, yet the influence which the possibility of capital punishment had in the prevention of crimes could scarcely be estimated, except by those who had the experience in the operation of the criminal law which he had the misfortune to have. When it was considered that the protection of the property in all shops depended on the act before them, and that even now thefts of that description were numerous, the House would not, he trusted, take measures to increase them." When we look back on the debates upon the criminal law, I Hansard, xxxiii. p. 630. 2 Ibid. p. 374. 3 Ibid. xxxiv. p. 684. CHAP. VII.] POLICE SYSTEM. 87 from 1809 to 1816, and see how little was asked by Romilly, and refused to him, compared with the amount of reform that has since been accomplished, we can only regard the arguments for the support of the ancient system of capricious terror, as the arguments of men slowly and painfully emerging from barbarism. When, in the time of Henry VI.,' more persons were executed in England in one year for highway robbery than the whole number executed in France in seven years; when in the reign of Henry VIII.,2 seventy-two thousand thieves were hanged, being at the rate of two thousand a year; and when, in the reign of George III., as we have seen, twenty persons were executed on the same morning in London, for privately stealingwe see the principle of unmitigated ferocity, the savagery which applies brute force as the one remedy for every evil, enshrined on the judgment-seat. The system went on till society was heart-sick at its atrocities, and then rose up the equivocating system which lord chancellors, and lord chief justices, and doctors in moral philosophy, upheld as the perfection of human wisdom,the system of making the lightest as well as the most enormous offences capital, that the law might stand up as a scarecrow an old, ragged, ill-contrived, and hideous maukin -- that the smallest bird that habitually pilfered the fields of industry despised while he went on pilfering. With the absolute certainty of experience that bloody laws rigorously administered did not diminish crime, the legislators of the beginning of the nineteenth century believed, or affected to believe, that the same laws scarcely ever carried into execution would operate through the influence of what they called " a vague terror." As if any terror, as a preventive of crime or a motive to good, was ever vague. The system was entirely kept in existence by the incompetence and idleness of the law-makers and the law-administrators. A well-digested system of secondary punishments never seemed to them to be within the possibility of legislation. We are very far from the solution of this great problem in our own days; but we have made some steps towards its attainment. l The revolting cruelty and the disgusting absurdity of our criminal laws, thirty years ago, were in perfect harmony olice. with the system of police, which had then arrived at its perfection of imbecile wickedness. The machinery for the prevention and detection of crime was exactly accommodated to the machinery for its punishment. On the 3d of April, on the motion of Mr. Bennet, a committee of the House of Commons was appointed to inquire into the state of the police of the metropolis. The committee was resumed in 1817; and two reports were presented, which were amongst the first causes of the 1 Fortescue. 2 Harrison. 88 HISTORY OF THE PEACE. [Boot I, awakening of the public mind to a sense of the frightful evils which were existing in what we flattered ourselves to be the most civilized city in the world. Twelve years after a committee of the House of Commons thus described the police system of 1816 and 1817:1, "If a foreign jurist had then examined the condition of the metropolis, as respected crime, and the organization of its police —and if, without tracing the circumstances from which that organization arose, he had inferred design from the ends to which it appeared to conduce — he might have brought forward plausible reasons for believing that it was craftily framed by a body of' professional depredators upon a calculation of the best means of obtaining from society, with securitto themselves, the greatest quantity of plunder. He would have found the metropolis divided and subdivided into petty jurisdictions, each independent of every other, each having sufficiently distinct interests to engender perpetual jealousies and animosities, and being sufficiently free from any general control to prevent any intercommunity of reformation or any unity of action." Another committee of the House of Commons, reporting in 1833, says of the same system: 2' "The police was roused into earnest action only as some flagrant violation of the public peace, or some deep injury to private individuals, impelled it into exertion; and security to persons and property was sought to be obtained, not by the activity and wholesome vigor of a preventive police, which it is a paramount duty of the state to provide, but by resorting from time to time, as an occasional increase of the more violent breaches of the law demanded it, to the highest and ultimate penalties of that law, in the hope of checking the more desperate offenders." The same report says: " Flash-houses were then declared to be a necessary part of the police system, where known thieves, with the full knowledge of the magistrates and public officers, assembled; until the state, or individuals, from the losses they had sustained, or the wrongs they had suffered, bid high enough for their detection." Flash-houses, known in the scientific phraseology of the police as "flash-cribs," "shades," and "infernals," were filthy dens, where thieves and abandoned females were always to be found, riotous or drowsy, surrounded by children of all ages, qualifying for their degrees in the college of crime. "There," says a Middlesex magistrate, examined before the committee of 1816, " they (the children) see thieves and thief-takers sitting and drinking together on terms of good-fellowship; all they see and hear is calculated to make them believe they may rob without fear of punishment; for in their thoughtless course they do not reflect that the forbearance of the officers will continue no longer than 1 Report on Preventive Police, 1829. 2 Report on Metropolitan Police. CHAP. VII.] GAS-LIGHT. 89 until they commit a forty-pound crime, when they will be sacrificed." A forty-pound crime!- the phraseology is as absolute as if it were written in the peddler's French of the rogues of the sixteenth century. A forty-pound crime was a crime for whose detection the state adjudged a reward, to be paid on conviction, of forty pounds; and, as a necessary consequence, the whole race of thieves were fostered into a steady advance from small offences to great, till they gratefully ventured upon some deed of more than common atrocity, which should bestow the 1ldood-money upon the officers of the law who had so long petted and protected them. The system received a fatal blow in 1816, in the detection of three officers of the police, who had actually conspired to induce five men to commit a burglary for the purpose of obtaining the rewards upon their conviction. The highwaymen who infested the suburbs of the metropolis had been eradicated - they belonged to another age. Offences against the person were very rarely connected with any offences against property. But the uncertainty of punishment, the authorized toleration of small offenders, and the organized system of negotiation for the return of stolen property, had filled the metropolis with legions of experienced depredators. The public exhibitions of the most profligate indecency and brutality can scarcely be believed by those who have grown up in a different state of society. When Defoe described his Colonel Jack, in the days of his boyish initiation into vice, sleeping with other children amidst the kilns and glass-houses of the London fields, we read of a state of things that has long passed away; but, as recently as 1816, in Covent-Garden Market, and other places affording a partial shelter, hundreds of men and women, boys and girls, assembled together, and continued during the night, in a state of shameless profligacy, which is described as presenting a scene of vice and tumult more atrocious than anything exhibited even by the lazzaroni of Naples. The brilliantly lighted, carefully watched, safe, orderly, and tranquil London of the present day, presents as great a contrast to the London of 1816, as that again Gas-light. contrasted with the London of 1762 -the year in which the Westminster paving and lighting act was passed. Street robberies, before that period, were the ordinary events of the night; security was the exception to the course of atrocity, for which the government applied no remedy but to hang. For half a century after this the metropolis had its comparative safety of feeble oil-lamps and decrepit. watchmen. The streets were filled with tumultuous vagabonds; and the drowsy guardians of the night suffered every abomination to go on in lawless vigor, happy if their sleep were undisturbed by the midnight row of the 90 HISTORY OF THE PEACE. [BOOK I. drunken rake.! In 1807 Pall-Mall was lighted by gas. The persevering Gerihan who spent his own money and that of the subscribers to his scheme, had no reward. The original gas company, whose example was to be followed not only by all England, but the whole civilized world, were first derided, and then treated in parliament as rapacious monopolists intent upon the ruin of established industry. The adventurers in gas-light did more for the prevention of crime than the government had done since the days of Alfred. } We turn to the parliamentary debates, and we see how they were encouraged in 1816 - nine years after it had been found that the invention was of unappreciable public benefit; " The company," said the Earl of Lauderdale,' " aimed at a monopoly, which would ultimately prove injurious to the public, and ruin that most important branch of trade, our whale-fisheries." Alderman Atkins 2 " contended that the measure was, calculated to ruin that hardy race of men, the persons employed in the Southern and Greenland whale-fisheries, in each of which a million of money and above a hundred ships were engaged. If the bill were to pass, it would throw out of employ ten thousand seamen, and above ten thousand rope-makers, sail-makers, mast-makers, &c. connected with that trade." Who can forbear to admire the inexhaustible fund of benevolence that for ages has been at work in the advocacy of the great principle of protection? At every step of scientific discovery which promises to impart new benefits to mankind, however certain and unquestionable be the benefit, we are called upon to maintain the ancient state of things, amidst the terrible denunciations of ruin to some great interest or other. It is quite marvellous the ruin that has been threatening us since the peace, when capital has been free to apply itself in aid of skill and enterprise. The ruin that gas-light was to produce is a pretty fair example of the ruin that has gone on, and is still going on, fobr no objects but those of thinning our population, diminishing our manufactures, crippling our commerce, extinguishing our agriculture, and pauperizing our landed proprietors. There never was a nation doomed to such perils by the restless character of its people. They will not let well-enough alone, as the only wise men say. In 1816 they risked the existence of the British navy, which depended upon the whale-fisheries, for the trifling advantage of making London as light by night as by day, and bestowing safety and peacefulness upon its million of inhabitants. And yet, at the very moment that this ruin was predicted to oil, it was admitted that we could not obtain a sufficiency of oil. There are some lessons yet to be learned on the subject of protection, even from this petty fight of oil and gas. 1 Hansard, xxxiv. p. 1280. 2 Ibid. p. 1072. CHAP. VII.] MENI)ICITY AND VAGRANCY. 91 A committee of the House of Commons was appointed in 1815 to inquire into the state of mendicity and va- Mendicity grancy in the metropolis and its neighborhood; and;andvathey continued their sittings in 1816, reporting min- grancy. utes of the evidence in each year. Beyond these reports no legislative measure was adopted. The evidence went rather to show the amount of imposture than of destitution. To collect suci evidence was an amusing occupation for the idle mornings of members of parliament. To inquire into the causes of destitution and its remedies would have been a far heavier task. The chief tendency of the evidence was to show how the sturdy beggar was a capitalist and an epicure; ate fowls and beefsteaks for supper, and despised broken meat; had money in the funds, and left handsome legacies to his relations. The witnesses, moreover, had famous stories of a lame impostor who tied up his leg in a wooden frame, and a blind one who wrote letters in the evening for his unlettered brethren; of a widow who sat for ten years with twins who never grew bigger, and a wife who obtained clothes and money from eleven lying-in societies in the same year. But the committee had also some glimpses of real wretchedness amidst these exciting tales of beggar-craft —as old as the days of the old Abraham men. They heard of Calmel's Buildings, a small court of twenty-four houses in the immediate vicinity of Portman Square, where more than seven hundred Irish lived in the most complete distress and profligacy; and they were' told that the court was totally neglected by the parish; that it was never cleaned; that people were afraid to enter it from dread of contagion. In George Yard, Whitechapel, they were informed that there were two thousand people, occupying forty houses, in a similar state of wretchedness. Much more of this was told the committee; but the evil was exhibited and forgotten. Very much of what was called the vagrancy of the metropolis was a natural consequence of the administration of the poor-laws throughout the kingdom. A large proportion of the money raised for the relief of the poor was ex- Law of setpended in shifting the burden of their relief from one tlement. parish to another; and Middlesex kept a number of functionaries in active operation, to get rid of the vagrants that crowded into London, by passing them out of the limits of the metropolitan county, to return, of course, on the first convenient occasion. The vagrants were dealt with " as the act directs," - that is, they were committed to a house of correction for seven days, and then passed to their respective parishes, if they belonged to England; or carted to Bristol or Liverpool, if they were natives of Ireland. As Middlesex worked under the law of settlement, so worked the whole kingdom. This law of settlement was in full 92 HISTORY OF THE PEACE. [BooK I, operation, playing its fantastic tricks from the Channel to the Tweed, when the peace filled the land with disbanded seamen and other servants of war; and agricultural laborers, who could find no employ at home, were wandering, as it was called, to search for capital, where capital was seeking for labor. The statute of 1662, the foundation of the law of settlement, forbade this wandering, and gave a very amusing explanation of the ground of its prohibitions: " Whereas, by reason of some defects in the law, poor people are not restrained from going from one parish to another, and therefore do endeavor to settle themselves in those parishes where there is the best stock." The great natural law of labor seeking exchange with capital, was to be resisted by a law which declared that those who sought to effect this exchange were " rogues and vagabonds." But still, in spite of statute upon statute, the laborers would wander, and " endeavor to settle themselves in the parishes where there is the best stock;" and, the happy days being gone, never to return, when Poor Tom was " whipped from tithing to tithing, and stocked, punished, and imprisoned," the poor-law functionaries, in deference to the more merciful spirit of the age, employed a great portion of their time, and a larger portion of the public money, in carrying the laborers about from one end of the kingdom to -the other, parcelling them out with the nicest adjustment amongst the fourteen thousand little divisions called parishes; and determining that, whatever circumstances existed in any one of' these fourteen thousand divisions to make the presence of the laborers desirable or otherwise, they should go, and they should stay, where they had been born or apprenticed, or last lived for a year. The committee of the House of Commons on mendicity and vagrancy, in 1816, received evidence upon evidence of' the extent of this transplantation of laborers, which set the whole country alive with the movements of vagrant-carts, without the slightest suspicion that there was something radically wrong at the foundation of a system which cost the rate-payers several millions annually in expenses of removal and of litigation, and with an indirect cost to the nation of many millions of profitable labor, which was destroyed by this constant exercise of the disturbing forces of ignorant legislation. After the peace, the clinging of parishes to the law of settlement became more monstrous than ever. "Soon after the close of the war,1 when the agricultural laborers were increased by the disbanding of the army, and the demand for their labor was diminished from various causes, agricultural parishes very generally came to the resolution of employing none but their own parishioners; which ruined the industry of the country, and produced more individual misery than can be conceived by 1 Answer from Sussex to Commissioners of Poor-Law Inquiry. CHAP. VII.] POOR-LAW ADMINISTRATION. 93 those who were not eye-witnesses; the immediate consequence of this determination was, the removal of numbers of the most industrious families from homes where they had lived in comfort, and without parish relief, all their lives, to a workhouse in the parish to which they belonged, and, without materially affecting the ultimate numbers in the respective parishes, the wretched objects of removal, instead of happy and contented laborers, became the miserable inmates of crowded workhouses, without the hope of ever returning to their former independence." On the 28th of May, MIr. Curwen,oan intelligent agriculturist, brought the subject of the poor-laws before the House of Commons, on a motion for the appointment of a ministration committee of inquiry. Mr. Curwen had a plan — as of thepoormany others had their plans. His plan was to abolish the poor-rates, enacting "that every individual who made any profit or advantage by his labor, should contribute towards a parish fund for the relief of sickness, acre, or misfortune, for the encouragement of industry and good morals, for a general plan of education, and such other objects as might be conducive to the comforts and happiness of the laboring classes; to which fund capitalists and property should contribute." Mr. Curwen had a theory that the extension of manufactures, having raised the average rate of wages, had produced general improvidence; that improvidence was the main cause of distress and poor-rates; and that to abridge the means of improvidence, by converting all the laboring population into fourteen thousand parochial friendly societies, was at once to establish the comfort and independence of all who had been so long degraded and demoralized by parish allowances. It is scarcely necessary for us to dwell upon the practical absurdity of this benevolent dream. The scheme of Mlr. Curwen formed small part of the deliberations of the committee, which reported in 1817. Their recommendations for the remedy of the enormous evil of the existing poor-laws, did not penetrate beneath the surface. It may be desirable here to record what was the actual state of poor-law administration thirty years ago. The system of poor-laws in England began, no doubt, in expediency. The gradual breaking up of feudal service and protection, the sudden dissolution of the monastic institutions, and the almost concurrent depreciation of the value of money consequent upon the discovery of America, produced an aggregate of misery which imperatively demanded a forced contribution from capital.' The same laws which, justly and mercifully to a certain extenit, required that casual misfortune should be relieved, also provided that " the poor should be set to work." The natural operations of demand and supply were here disturbed; 94 HISTORY OF THE PEACE. [BooK I. the natural relations between profits and wages were interrupted; a fund was created for the laborers, which could not be distributed with reference to the amount of profitable labor; the fund for the support of profitable labor was therefore broken in upon; and, for three centuries, consequently, a struggle was going forward between the demands of want and the demands of industry. Circumstances, which arose almost within our own generation, went on, steadily breaking down the barriers which separated the two classes of claimants upon the labor-fund; and at the close of the war, with,.reference to the largest body of laborers, the agricultural, the distinction between the two classes of claimants had in great part ceased. The demands of want and the demands of industry were confounded. The members of one class had insensibly slid into the other. The wages of idleness and vice, and the wages of industry and good conduct, were to be paid out of a common purse; and it is not therefore to be wondered at if the easier claim upon the wages had been generally preferred to the more laborious. In 1816, the sum expended for the relief of the poor of England and Wales amounted to 5,724,8391. The average annual expenditure had gradually increased from about two millions, at the commencement of the war, to six or seven millions at its close. A. very large portion of the money that had been spent in fostering pauperism during the war years, by parish allowances in aid of wages, represents the amount of degradation and misery which the laborers endured, as compared with their unallowanced forefathers. The national debt represents, in a great degree, the money expended in unprofitable wars, the waste of capital upon objects that can only be justified by the last necessity, and which are the result of those evil passions which the improved knowledge and virtue of mankind may in time root out. In the same way, had the money expended upon fostering pauperism been raised upon loan, we should have had an amount of some two hundred millions, representing, in a like degree, the waste of capital expended in drying up the sources of industry and skill, and paying the alms of miserable indigence, instead of the wages of contented labor. It is difficult to conceive a more complete state of degradation than the allowanced laborers exhibited in 1816. With the feudal servitude had passed away the feudal protection. The parish servitude imposed the miseries and contumelies of slavery, without its exemption from immediate care and future responsibility. So far were the agricultural laborers slaves, that, although they could not be actually sold, like ".villeins in gross," their labor was put up by auction to the best bidder by parish authorities. " The overseer 1 calls a meet1 Agricultural State of the Kingdom, 1816; published by the Board of Agriculture. CHAP. VII.] SYSTEM OF ALLOWANCES. 95 ing on Saturday evenings, where he puts up each laborer by name to auction; and they have been let generally at from is. 6d. to 2s. per week, and their provisions; their families being supported by the parish." When we regard the high price of food in 1816, with the inability of many tenants to pay poorrates, we can scarcely be surprised at these barbarous attempts to diminish the pressure of the allowance system. The whole adjustment of the social relations between the employer and the laborer, under this system, was founded upon injustice and oppression on one hand, and fraud and improvidence on the other. The farmer refused to employ the laborer till he had reduced him, by withholding employment, to beggary; robbed the laborer of his fair wages, to dole out to him " head-money," not according to his worth, but his necessities; denied employ to the single laborer at all; discharged his best workman, with a small family, to take on the worst, with a large family; and left his own land uncultivated, that a congregation of worthless idlers might be paid upon the pretence of working on the roads, while the independent laborer was marked as a fool for making any attempt to "earn his bread by the sweat of his brow." The authorities doled out their allowances upon the most partial and despotic system. The squire, the clergyman, and the farmer constituted themselves a tribunal for the suppression of vice and the encouragement of virtue, and they succeeded in producing either desperation or hypocrisy amongst the entire laboring population. If the junta was completed by the addition of a paid assistant-overseer, the discrimination was perfect. Squalid filth was the test of destitution, and whining gratitude, as it was called, for the alms distributed, was the test of character. If a laborer with a manly bearing came to the overseer, or to the vestry, to remove some sudden calamity - if he asked something to prevent him selling his bed - he was insulted. The agonized tear of wounded pride might start from the eye, and perhaps the groan of suppressed indignation escape from the lips. If the groan was heard, that man's "' character" was gone forever. The pretence to discriminate between the good and the evil, did much worse for the community than occasional injustice. It led away parish functionaries from the real object of their appointment - to administer relief to the indigent - into the belief that they were the great patrons of the whole laboring population, who could never go alone without their aid. They almost forced the condition of pauperism upon the entire working community, by their beautiful system of rewards and punishments. They forgot that it was their business to give relief to destitution, and to destitution only; and so they established every sort of false test of relief. 96 HISTORY OF THE PEACE. [BooK I. The old workhouse system was as productive of evil in principle, though not in amount, as the allowance system. The wretchedness of the parish workhouse, in consequence of bad management, and the want of order and classification, had become a prominent feature in pictures of English society. Seldom under any control, the workhouses afforded abundant proofs of neglect and want of feeling on the part of those who had the management of them. The workhouse master, who, probably, contracted for the paupers at a certain rate per head, endeavored to remunerate himself for the hardness of his bargain by disposing of the services of the inmates to the neighboring farmers. Abuses had so long existed, that they excited no remark. No means were taken to educate the children; no classification took place between the able-bodied; but persons of' both sexes, the aged and the young, the sick and the lunatic, were huddled promiscuously together. Such was the state of most workhouses in the rural districts. Many of the London parishes farmed their poor - that is, they contracted with individuals to maintain them at a certain rate per head. They were wretchedly lodged, without comfort or decency; ill-fed; allowed the use of ardent spirits, and encouraged to obtain them, by being suffered to wander abroad without restraint, to swell the numbers of metropolitan mendicants. In the parish workhouses the consequences of want of classification and bad management operated with the greatest hardship upon children. Habits were formed in the workhouse which rendered the path to respectability almost inaccessible. These children were disposed of under the apprenticing system, and were doomed to a dreary period of servitude, under some needy master, who had been tempted in the first instance to take them by the offer of a small premium. The parochial plan of putting out children, with its attendant evils, was a necessary consequence of' the want of training while in the workhouse. If these children had received useful instruction, and been brought up in habits of order and industry, their compulsory distribution among the different rate-payers would have been unnecessary, as each child would have been as valuable to its master as the children taken from the independent cottager. Even in those workhouses where attempts were made to conduct them according to the statute (43d of Elizabeth), directing that the fund for the relief of the poor should be employed in setting them to work in the poorhouse or workhouse, there were necessarily the grossest mistakes and mismanagement. In some of these houses manufacturing operations were carried on; and in others land was rented, and the inmates were employed in agricultural labor. Interests which never prosper but in the hands of private individuals, were expected to become CHAP. VII.] THE WORKHOUSE SYSTEM. 97 productive; notwithstanding the great majority of persons concerned were necessarily impelled to foster abuses out of which they could advance their own personal profit. The trades usually pursued were sack, linen, or cloth factories, or the manufacture of nets. The profits of the private dealer and the wages of the independent workmen were liable to unjust depreciation, for the operations of the houses of industry were not regulated by the extent of the demand, but would be most active when the markets were glutted. Workmen left the private factory because there was a superabundant supply of the article which they were engaged in producing, and they entered into the house of industry to add still further to the overstocking of the market. The balance by which the healthy state of the demand and supply could be regulated was destroyed. There is no balance which can be held between the funds for the maintenance of labor and the number of the laborers, but through the uncontrolled exchange of capital and labor, each operating with perfect freedom and perfect security. Whenever the scales are held by any other power than the natural power of exchange — whenever there is a fobrced demand for labor produced by a forced supply of capital- the natural proportions of capital and labor are destroyed by a forced addition to the number of laborers. All schemes for " setting the poor to work" by unnatural encouragements to labor, assume that " the poor" is a constant quantity; the unnatural encouragement produces more poor, and the funds that have been diverted firom the regular labor-market are devoured in an accelerated ratio. The poor-law, as it existed in full vigor at the close of the war, went further than any other human device for diminishing the funds for the maintenance of labor, and at the same time increasing the number of laborers. Rewards for illegitimate children, rewards for children under improvident marriages, sustenance for the pauper child from the hour he was born, increased sustenance as he grew, a large and liberal allowance for him when he prematurely married another pauper; and the same round again, till the next pauper generation was quadrupled in number. If these laws, intrusted as they were in their application to narrow-minded, short-sighted, and selfish individuals, had been imposed upon us by some dominant enemy, for the destruction of our best interests, they could not have more effectually answered such an end. They did two things which must produce misery and crime, and would have produced eventual anarchy, unless their progress had been arrested,they destroyed the labor-fund, and they increased the number of the laborers. They bestowed on unproductive consumers the bread which they took out of the mouths of the profitable laborVOL. II. 7 98 HISTORY OF THE PEACE. [Boox I. ers; and they, one by one, ground down the profitable laborers to the grade of unproductive consumers. Under these laws, no one was secure, and no one was happy. The laborers, for whose especial benefit they were alleged to be upheld, were the most insecure and the most unhappy. The dream of Pharaoh, that " seven lean and ill-favored kine did eat up seven fat kine; and when they had eaten them up, it could not be known that they had eaten them, but they were still ill-favored as at the beginning," was realized by the laborers of England under the old poor-laws. In 1807 Mir. Whitbread proposed to the House of Commons a very large and comprehensive measure of poor-law reform. The principles which he advocated were those of real statesmanship. To arrest the constant progress of pauperism, he desired to raise the character of the laboring classes. He called upon the country to support a plan of general national education; he proposed a method under which the savings of the poor might be properly invested in a great national bank. The last object has been fully accomplished. How little has the government done for the other object during forty years! At the period when Mr. Whitbread brought forward his plan of poor-law reform, the system of mutual instruction, introduced by Lancaster and Bell, was attracting great attention. Too much importance was perhaps at first attached to the mechanical means of education then recently developed; but the influence was favorable to the establishment of schools by societies and individuals. The government left the instruction of the people to go on as it might, without a single grant for more than a quarter of a century. It was in vain that, in 1807, Whitbread proclaimed the important truth, that nothing can possibly afford greater stability to a popular government than the education of its people. " Contemplate ignorance in the hand of craft — what a desperate weapon does it afford! How impotent does craft become before an instructed and enlightened multitude!" 1 Again: 2 2" In the adoption of the system of education, I foresee an enlightened peasantry, frugal, industrious, sober, orderly, and contented; because they are acquainted with the true value of frugality, sobriety, industry, and order. Crimes diminishing, because the enlightened understanding abhors crime. Tile practice of Christianity prevailing, because the mass of your population can read, comprehend, and feel its divine origin, and the beauty of the doctrines which it inculcates. Your kingdom safe from the insults of the enemy, because every man knows the worth of that which he is called upon to defend." Did Whitbread take one legislative step in advance by the enunciation of 1 Hansard, viii. p. 877. 2 Ibid. p. 918. CHAP. VII.] EDUCATION. 99 these truths? Ile was treated as a benevolent visionary; and every particle of his poor-law reform, and especially his plans for instruction and the investment of savings, were sneered away, whilst ministers and magistrates went on in the usual course of keeping the great body of the people ignorant, dependent, and wretched. A man of talent, Mr. Windham, put himself at the head of the advocates for keeping the people from the perils of instruction: 1 " His friend, Dr. Johnson, was of opinion that it was not right to teach reading beyond a certain extent in society. The danger was, that if the teachers of the good and the propagators of bad principles were to be candidates for the control of mankind, the latter would be likely to be too successful.... The increase of this sort of introduction to knowledge would only tend to make the people study politics, and lay them open to the arts of designing men." This miserable logic answered'its end for a season. Education was held to be dangerous - at least in England. In Ireland, the government encouraged education. In 1816, Mr. Peel, as secretary for Ireland, maintained that "it was the peculiar duty" of a government that felt the inconvenience that arose from the ignorance of the present generation, to sow the seeds of knowledge in the generation that was to succeed." The natural connection between ignorance and poverty was never more clearly put, at a very early period of discussing such questions, than by the present excellent Bishop of Chester: 3 " Ignorance is not the inevitable lot of the majority of our community; and with ignorance a host of evils disappear. Of all obstacles to improvement, ignorance is the most formidable, because the only true secret of assisting the poor is to make them agents in bettering their own condition, and to supply them, not with a temporary stimulus, but with a permanent energy. As fast as the standard of intelligence is raised, the poor become more and more able to cooperate in any plan proposed for their advantage, more likely to listen to any reasonable suggestion, more able to understand, and therefore more willing to pursue it. Hence it follows, that when gross ignorance is once removed, and right principles are introduced, a great advantage has been already gained against squalid poverty. Many avenues to an improved condition are opened to one whose faculties are enlarged and exercised; he sees his own interest more clearly, he pursues it more steadily; he does not study immediate gratification at the expense of bitter and late repentance, or mortgage the labor of his future life without an adequate return. Indigence, therefore, will rarely be found in company with good education." 1 Hansard, ix. p. 548. 2 Ibid. xxxiv. p. 38. 3 Sumner's Records of the Creation, ii. p. 338. 100 HISTORY OF THE PEACE. [Book I. From 1807 to the close of the war, the legislature heard no word on the education of the people. On the 21st May, 1816, Mr. Brougham moved for the appointment of a select committee to inquire into the state of the education of the lower orders of the people in London, Westminster, and Southwark. The motion, which was brought forward with great caution by the mover, was unopposed. The committee made its first report on the 20th June, having conducted its inquiries with more than usual activity. The energy of Mr. Brougham, who acted as chairman, gave a remarkable impulse to this important investigation. It was found that in the metropolis there were a hundred and twenty thousand children without the means of education. On presenting this report, Mr. Brougham informed the House 1 that the committee had comprehended in their objects inquiries concerning the management of the higher schools, such as the Charter'House, Christ's Hospital, and Westminster; the funds of such schools being originally destined for the use of the poor. The principal labors of the committee had, however, consisted in their examination of evidence as to the number and condition of the charity and parish schools destined for the education of the lower orders. The number of such institutions exceeded anything that could have been previously believed; but the expenditure of the funds was, in many cases, neither pure nor judicious. A few were educated and brought up - the many were neglected. In the country he had heard of instances of flagrant abuses. Mr. Brougham's report produced no hostile feelings on this occasion. Lord Castlereagh acknowledged that abuses existed in many charities for the purposes of education, and recommended the exercise of a vigilant superintendence of their administration. In 1817 the committee was revived, but was adjourned in consequence of the illness of the chairman; but in 1818 it was again appointed, with powers of inquiry no longer confined to the metropolis. Then the larger question of the extension of education was merged in a furious controversy as to the amount of abuses in endowed charities, and the propriety of subjecting the higher schools, such as Eton and Winchester, and also colleges in the universities, to a searching inquiry into the nature of their statutes, and their adherence to the objects of their foundation. An act was subsequently passed, in consequence of the labors of the committee, to appoint commissioners to inquire concerning the abuse of charities connected with education; and by a second act the right of inquiry was extended to all charities, the universities and certain great foundation schools excepted. The education commission was thus merged in the charity commission. Of the great national bene1 Hansard, xxxiv. p. 1232. CHAP. VII.] THE EDUCATION COMMISSION. 101 fits that resulted from that commission no one can doubt. But it may be doubted whether the controversial shape which the question of education thus assumed, in 1818, did much to advance the disposition to provide a general system of popular instruction which prevailed in 1816. When Mr. Brougham first obtained his committee, he said,' " his proposition was, that a measure for the education of the poor under parliamentary sanction, and on parliamentary aid, should be tried in London; for without a previous experiment he should not deem it proper to bring forward any general measure. But if the experiment 3hould be found to succeed in London, he would then recommend the extension of the plan to other great towns." This plan was never carried out, or further proposed. When Mr. Brougham presented his first report, there was unanimity and even cordiality in its reception by the House of Commons. Mr. Canning declared 2 that "he should contribute all his assistance to the object of the report, satisfied that the foundation of good order in society was good morals, and that the foundation of good morals was education." What was the temper of the House and of the country in 1818 is strikingly exhibited in a speech of Mr. Brougham's in 1835: 3' In the year 1818 the labors of the education committee of the House of Commons- labors to which no man can attach too high a value - were made the subject of great controversy; a controversy as fierce and uncompromising as almost any that ever raged, and to which I only refer as affording another reason for the hope I so fondly cherish, that though now, perhaps, in a minority upon this, as upon many other questions here debated, I yet may ultimately find myself with scarcely an antagonist. That bitter controversy is at an end - the heats which it kindled are extinguished — the matter that engendered those heats finds equal acceptance with all parties. Those are now still, or assenting, or even supporting me, who then thought that I was sowing broadcast the seeds of revolution, and who scrupled not to accuse me as aiming at the' dictatorship,' by undermining the foundations of all property. Those who once held that the education committee was pulling down the church by pulling down the universities and the great schools - that my only design could be to raise some strange edifice of power upon the ruins of all our institutions, ecclesiastical and civil - have long ceased to utter even a whisper against whatever was then accomplished, and have become my active coadjutors ever since. Nay, the very history of that fierce contention is forgotten. There 1 Hansard, xxxiv. p. 635. the Education of the People: Speeches, 2 Ibid. p. 1235. iii. p. 220. 8 Speech in the House of Lords on 102 HISTORY OF THE PEACE. [Book I. are few now aware of a controversy having ever existed, which, a few years back, agitated all men all over the country; and the measures I then propounded among revilings and execrations, have long since become the law of the land. I doubt whether, at this moment, there are above some half-dozen of your lordships who recollect anything about a warfare which for months raged with unbated fury, both within the walls of the universities and without- which seemed to absorb all men's attention, and to make one class apprehend the utter destruction of our political system, while it filled others with alarm lest a stop should be put to the advancement of the human mind. That all those violent animosities should have passed away, and that all those alarms be now sunk in oblivion, affords a memorable instance of the strange aberrations - I will not say of public opinion, but - of party feeling, in which the history of controversy so largely abounds. I have chiefly dwelt upon it to show why I again trust that I may outlive the storms which still are gathering round those who devote themselves rather to the improvement of their fellow-creatures than the service of a faction." From some unhappy prejudice, from apathy, or from cowardice, the education of the people made small legislative progress for twenty years. Perhaps the old fable of the sun and the wind, experimenting upon the removal of the traveller's cloak, may afford us some solution of this problem. But the reports of the education committee were of the highest value in showing us the extent of instruction at the time of its labors. There were 18,500 schools, educating 644,000 children; of this number 166,000 were educated at endowed schools, and 478,000 at unendowed schools, during six days of the week. This number was independent of Sunday-schools, of' which there were 5100, attended by 4:52,000 children; but of course, many of these Sunday-scholars were included in the returns of other schools. In the plan of poor-law reform brought forward by Mr. WhitSavings- bread in 1807, he earnestly advocated the consideraBanks. tion of a mode by which the savings of the poor might be safely and profitably invested: 1 " I would propose the establishment of one great national institution, in the nature of a bank, for the use and advantage of the laboring classes alone; that it should be placed in the metropolis, and be under the control and management of proper persons, to be appointed according to the provisions contained in the bill I shall move for leave to introduce; that every man who shall be certified by one justice, to his own knowledge, or on proof, to subsist principally or alone by the wages of his labor, shall be at liberty to remit to the accountant of the poor's fund - as I would designate it - I Hansard, viii. p. 889. CHAP. VII.] SAVINGS-BANKS. 103 in notes or cash, any sum from 20s. upwards; but not exceeding 201. in any one year, nor more in the whole than 2001. That once in every week the remittances of the preceding week be laid out in the 3 per cent. consolidated bank annuities, or in some other of the government stocks, in the name of commissioners to be appointed; to avoid all minute payments, no dividend to be remitted till it shall amount to 10s.; and that all fractional sums under 10s. be from time to time reinvested, in order to be rendered productive towards the expenses of the office." Three or four years previous, Mr. Malthus, in his " Essay on Population," had argued that " it might be extremely useful to have county banks, where the smallest sums would be received, and a fair interest granted for them." Mr. George Rose had, as early as:1793, legislated for the encouragement of friendly societies. In 1798 a bank for the earnings of poor children was established at Tottenham; and this was found so successful, that a bank for the safe deposit of the savings of servants, laborers, and others, was opened at the same place in 1804. Interest was here allowed to the depositors. A similar institution was founded at Bath in 1808. But the greatest experiment upon the possibility of the laboring poor making considerable savings was tried in Scotland. "The Parish Bank Friendly Society of Ruthwell" was established by the Rev. Henry Duncan in 1810. The first London savings-bank did not commence its operations till January, 1816. In the parliamentary session of 1816, Mr. Rose brought in a bill for the regulation of savings-banks, which was subsequently withdrawn for revision. Of the possible benefits of these institutions there could be no doubt in the minds of all men who were anxious to improve the condition of the people. Writers of opposite parties agreed in this matter: " Savings-banks 1 are spreading rapidly through Scotland; and we expect soon to hear the like good tidings from England, where such an institution is of still greater importance. It would be difficult, we fear, to convince either the people or their rulers that such an event is of far more importance and far more likely to increase the happiness, and even the greatness of the nation, than the most bril.liant success of its arms, or the most stupendous improvements of its trade or its agriculture. And yet we are persuaded that it is so." Again:2 "They to whom this subject is indifferent may censure our minuteness; but those who, like us, regard it as marking an era in political economy, and as intimately connected with the external comfort and moral improvement of mankind, will be gratified to trace the rise and progress of one of the simplest and most efficient plans which has ever been devised for effecting these invaluable purposes." The language of the 1 Edinburgh Review, June, 1815. 2 Quarterly Review, October, 1816. 104 HISTORY OF TIE PEACE. [Boor I. real philanthropist, whatever be his party, may be easily distinguished from the language of the demagogue: "What a bubble!1 At a time when it is notorious that one half of the whole nation are in a state little short of starvation; when it is notorious that hundreds of thousands of families do not know, when they rise, where they are to find a meal during the day; when the far greater part of the whole people, much more than half of them, are paupers; at such a time to bring forth a project for collecting the savings of journeymen and laborers, in order to be lent to the government, and to form a fund for the support of the lenders in sickness and old age! " The most sanguine expectations of the promoters of savings-banks could scarcely have anticipated that, within less than thirty years, the number of institutions in existence would amount to 577 in the United Kingdom; 2 that the total number of existing depositors would be 1,012,475; that they would possess an aggregate of property amounting to 31,275!6361.: and that the whole number of depositors would have received interest amounting to 16,254,109/.3 There is one other measure of social improvement from which Elgin Mar- we cannot withhold a slight notice. In 1816 the bles. House of Commons passed a vote for the purchase of the Elgin Marbles, for the sum of 35,0001. This was the first step that the British legislature had made in the encouragement of the fine arts. It was a step in the education of the people. Mr. Croker, who, as it appears to us, was far in advance of his time on this subject, truly and eloquently said what cannot be too often repeated in the consideration of such questions: 4,, The House had been warned, in the present circumstances of the country, not to incur a heavy expense merely to acquire works of ornament. But who was to pay this expense, and for whose use was the purchase intended? The bargain was for the benefit of the public, for the honor of the nation, for the promotion of national arts, for the use of the national artists, and even for the advantage of our manufactures, the excellence of which depended on the progress of the arts in the country. It was singular that when, two thousand five hundred years ago, Pericles was adorning Athens with those very works, some of which we are now about to acquire, the same cry of economy was raised against him, and the same answer that he then gave might be repeated now: that it was money spent for the use of the people, for the encouragement of arts, the increase of manufactures, the prosperity of trades, and the encouragement of industry; 1 Cobbett's Register, Jan. 4, 1817. banks and depositors, and amount of 2 Mr. Tidd Pratt's Report, 1846. deposits, have been much increased 8 This return is from August, 1817, since the making up df the return. to November, 1844. The number of 4 Hansard, xxxiv. p. 1034. CHAP. VII.] THE ELGIN MARBLES. 105 not merely to please the eye of the man of taste, but to create, to stimulate, to guide the exertions of the artist, the mechanic, and even the laborer, and to spread through all the branches of society a spirit of improvement, and the means of a sober and industrious affluence." Slowly, indeed, have these great principles progressed - but they have progressed. 1.06 HISTORY OF THE PEACE., [Boo. I. CHAPTER VIII. A BRIEF sketch must here be given of the Spanish colonies in Spanish South America - of their condition and prospects. If America. it is asked why we must stop to review the colonial affairs of another kingdom,- the answer is, that England had, at this time, as much interest in the colonies of Spain, as Spain and France had, forty years before, in the condition and prospects of her North American colonies. The powers of Europe were to be coerced or supported, punished or aided, by action upon their possessions beyond the Atlantic. We find, accordingly, that, through a long succession of administrations, the movements of Spanish America were watched and discussed, with deep interest, in the British cabinet. The Spanish possessions in America were at first divided into two viceroyalties - that of Mexico in the northern, and that of Peru in the southern continent. In course of time, two more viceroyalties were detached from the southern portions - those of New Grenada and Rio de la Plata; and then again, five smaller provinces were parted off, under the name of captaingeneralships. While Brazil, now belonging to Portugal, had once been jointly held by Spain; while some West India islands were changing hands, according to the chances of war; while the British colonies were establishing their own independence; and while Florida and Louisiana were transferred by purchase or negotiation from one crown to another, it was hardly possible that the Spanish colonies should not have ideas and feelings about their own position, and originate movements accordingly. The first stir was in 1750, when Venezuela revolted against Spain. For the next forty years, risings became more frequent, and almost every province rebelled once or oftener. The inhabitants suffered under gross misgovernment. There were three classes of them: the natives, the Spaniards, and the mixed race which always grows up under such circumstances. Those born in the colonies, even of European blood, were, though legally entitled to all the privileges of citizenship, depressed and insulted by the mother-country, and the official persons she sent out. The European officials not only engrossed all the dignities and sala CHAP. VIII.] SPANISH AMERICAN COLONIES. 107 ries of the colonies, but vexed and despoiled the inhabitants by oppressive customs, audacious self-seeking, and malpractices, against which no complaint was listened to. Though insulated colonial risings are of no immediate avail, a sufficient number of them is sure to suggest ideas of national independence. Such suggestions were spoken into the ear of Mr. Pitt in 1790, by a man who had much to say of the natural advantages of his country beyond the Atlantic, and of the benefits to Great Britain, if the South American continent were enabled to develop its resources, and become the home of a rising nation. General Miranda, a native of Caraccas, in Venezuela, was born about the time when the revolt, mentioned above, took place. His mind was early occupied with the ideas naturally generated by that revolt. He witnessed, in personal presence, a part of the war by which the British provinces became the United States; and he made it the aim of his life to obtain a similar emancipation for the Spanish colonies. He made no secret of his purpose. In the London " Political Herald" of' 1785, there is a notice of Miranda being in town, in pursuit of his object,- the deliverance of his country. In 1790, when there was a dispute between England and Spain about Nootka Sound, Miranda obtained access to Mr. Pitt, and spread before him the picture of what the great continent was, and could do. It was larger than Europe; it was more fertile, naturally, than Europe; it possessed the little strait which, cut through, would open to the merchant-ships of Europe the vast regions of the Pacific, saving them the long sweep towards the South Pole, which they must make to round Cape Horn or the Cape of Good Hope; it was veined with vast navigable rivers, which would bring to the coast the produce of the plains; and the prodigious backbone of mountains enclosed treasures of ore. As for the people, they were ignorant, debased, quarrelsome, at present; but independence would ennoble them, and gratitude would bind them in eternal alliance with the country which should aid them to obtain independence. So said Miranda to Mr. Pitt. Perhaps the minister saw more clearly than the applicant, that the popular faults he admitted, however corrigible by independence, were sadly in the way of obtaining it. England did not then undertake the business. Mr. Pitt thought well of the prqject, and promised to proceed in it if Spain should be obstinate about Nootka Sound. Spain yielded; and Mr. Pitt, then told Miranda that his scheme should not be lost sight of. He added, what proved to be very true, that it " would infallibly engage the attention of every minister of this country." In 1797, when England became possessed of Trinidad, Mr. Pitt remembered Miranda and his measure. Our governor of 108 HISTORY OF THE PEACE. [BOOK I. Trinidad encouraged the inhabitants of the Spanish colonies to rise, relying on aid from Great Britain, to be given without any other aim than enabling the colonists to achieve their own independence. In the next year, Miranda came to London from France, to lay his plans before the British government. His plans were, that England, the United States, and the Spanish provincials, should form an alliance to rescue the colonies from Spain. Great Britain was to furnish money and ships, for which she was to be hereafter repaid in the sum of 30,000,0001.; and the United States were to supply 10,000 men. Mr. Pitt agreed; and the plan waited only for the acquiescence of the United States. President Adams demurred and delayed; but the scheme was not given up; and we find it laid afresh before the Addington administration in 1801. Within this cabinet, the schemes of government for the new states were discussed, and the military movements arranged for the outbreak, when the Peace of Amiens again suspended the subject. When war broke out afresh, and it was seen that Spain would go with France, the preparations were resumed, now once more under Mr. Pitt. Lord Melville and Sir Home Popham were in full communication with Miranda, when the third coalition, on which Mr. Pitt staked the last hopes of his hopeful life, was formed; and it was confidently expected that Napoleon would be put down from that quarter. The secret of the American enterprise had oozed out before this time. It, no doubt, gave Napoleon a new hold on the Spanish Bourbons. It was discussed in both their courts; and also among the allies, now gathering in Germany. Miranda proceeded to the United States, to organize there his revolutionary plans, in full reliance on British aid from Trinidad. This aid he received, in the form of ships of war and small vessels, which were to support him in an invading expedition; but suddenly, in the summer of 1806, he was warned to expect no more active assistance, but only protection from the enemy. The reason of this change was that Mr. Pitt was dead, and Lord Grenville in power. It appears remarkable that the Tory governments, which had regarded with no good-will the independence of the United States, should be the supporters of the revolutionary party in South America, and soon afterwards in Spain; while the Whigs were those who disappointed Miranda, and groaned over the Peninsular war as dolefully as over the American war of 1812. It was said at the time, that it was at the desire of Russia that Fox drew back from the South American cause. However that might be, all the party prepossessions of the Whigs were against the cause of independence. They had seen South America played off against the North in our American war; and they had CHAP. VIII.] ENGLAND AND SOUTH AMERICA. 109 seen Pitt plant his hopes on the South American provinces in the continental war which they disapproved. So, as soon as the Grenville ministry came into power, it looked coldly on the protege's of its predecessors. If the Grenville ministry would not help South America to free itself, it contemplated the subjugation of that continent. Sir Home Popham's expedition from the Cape against Buenos Ayres was, as has been related, his own scheme altogether. He could plead no authorization from the government at home. But, as we have seen, the government at home adopted his scheme, and proceeded upon his beginnings. We remember Sir S. Auchmuty's expedition to Monte Video, and General Craufurd's to Chili; the last being turned from its track to afford aid to the unhappy General Whitelocke in his attack on Buenos Ayres. We have a letter from Mr. Windham, then Secretary at War - a "most secret " letter to General Craufurd - which desires that officer to keep down, by all means whatever, the insurrectionary spirit in the South American provinces, and to preserve the old methods of government, merely transferring the allegiance and obedience of the people from the King of Spain to the King of Great Britain. Mr. Windham and his colleagues left, as one of their disastrous bequests, the Buenos Ayres expedition; and the next cabinet was that of the Duke of Portland. The Portland cabinet recurred to the Pitt and Addington policy. Every effort was made, that so weak a government could make, to afford assistance to the South American patriots. It is believed that, when the harbor of Cork was filling with transports, in the summer of 1808, and when Sir Arthur Wellesley was preparing for foreign service, everybody was looking across the Atlantic for the battle-field. To Sir Arthur's Indian wars would now have succeeded American victories, if the sudden uprising of Spain against Napoleon had not called the British general and his forces to the Peninsula. If Wellesley had gone to South America, the independence of the colonies there would have presently followed; but they were far from being forsaken, or from feeling themselves left in the lurch, by the scene of the struggle being fixed in Europe. From the moment that the army of Napoleon crossed the Bidassoa, the favor of the Spanish American colonies was bid for by every power more or less concerned in the Peninsular conflict; and this gave occasion to Lord Liverpool to avow the policy which, on Mr. Perceval's becoming premier, he proposed to his cabinet, in regard to the colonial dominions of Spain. He distinctly declared, that, while aiding Spain to drive out her invaders, the English government could not consent to weaken her by detaching her colonies. If, however, Spain should be compelled to succumb to Napoleon, 110 HISTORY OF THE PEACE. [BooK I. then the aid of England would be given to sever the colonies from their European connection, in order that they might form no part of French Spain, but remain purely Spanish, as a refuge for emigrants from old Spain, and a representative of the monarchy. Before this, Caraccas had risen. Lord Liverpool treated the mistake indulgently, ascribing it to erroneous impressions of the intentions and conduct of the home government, and inviting the people back to a dutiful and honorable place as "an integral part of the empire." This letter was written in June, 1810. It is impossible to say what might have been the destiny of these colonies, if the citizens at Madrid had not cut the traces of the royal carriages on that memorable evening of March, 1808, when the Bourbons of Spain were about to set forth for their American dominions, as the Braganzas of Portugal had done four months before. By the time Lord Liverpool's letter was received and published, Brazil was like another counBrazil. try from that which had been known by the name. Her ports were opened; her restrictions were removed; manufactures sprang up; newspapers circulated; and it seems as if a specimen of European civilization had been suddenly set down in the most conspicuous part of the South American continent. Something like this must have happened with the other provinces, if the Spanish royal family had arrived; but the people of Madrid had cut the traces, and hunted Godoy into a garret; the family went into a shameful captivity at Bayonne, instead of crossing the Atlantic; and the Spanish provincials had to act according to their own discretion. They found this discretion a serious charge. The difficulty to know what to do was so great, that disunion was seen to be inevitable from the beginning. Their allegiance was asked for, in 1808, by Murat, as lieutenant-general, in the name of Charles IV.; and presently after, by the council of Ferdinand, established by him at Madrid, between his father's abdication, and his own departure for Bayonne; then by the juntas of Seville and Cadiz, appointed to carry on the affairs of the nation. The keen eye of Napoleon was also upon them. In July, 1808, a vessel arrived at the port of Caraccas, charged with letters and secret instructions for the governor, who had received Murat's agents with apparent cordiality. The French captain had his audience of the governor, and was pleased with his reception; but, in an hour after, an English captain - Captain Beaver, of the Acasta - presented himself also for audience. He was sent away, and desired to return in two hours. He spent those two hours in addressing the people in the streets, finding them wholly ignorant of the state of the mother-country, and of what the French had CRAP. VIII.] PARTIES IN MEXICO. 111 been doing there. When he had told the story, the inhabitants paraded the streets, bearing the portrait of Ferdinand VII., which they installed in the government-house, surrounded by lights and an enthusiastic crowd for the whole night. The French captain fled for his life; and Beaver, hastening after him, captured him and his brig in the course of a few days. To the other provinces, Napoleon sent circulars and agents. The proclamations of King Joseph were torn in pieces, and the agents driven away; and some few were killed. In this and the next year, the provinces transmitted to Spain not less than ninety millions of dollars in support of the national cause. This was done by the enthusiasm of the people, who were thinking of national, and not personal, interests. It appears, however, that their rulers, and most of the officials and provincial aristocracy, were less decided in their aims and wishes. As long as they could be secure of the maintenance of the connection between the mother-country and the colonies, they preferred that their own royal family should remain on the throne; but, rather than run any risk of separation, they would have acknowledged King Joseph. As the French successes in Spain became more and more decided, the provincial rulers grew more open in their evidences of adhesion; and it is said that the viceroy of Mexico was the only official personage throughout the Spanish colonies who was not ready to transfer his allegiance to Joseph, when the news arrived of the occupation of Madrid by the French. Mexico was the most flourishing of the Spanish colonies, and by far the least oppressed from home; yet the course Mexico. of revolution began there. As soon as the people were officially appealed to for sympathy on behalf of their captive king, they raised their voices in one chorus of loyalty. It was clear that the Bonapartes had no chance with the inhabitants of Mexico. It was proposed to call together representatives of the people, and to establish a council or junta for the province, in imitation of that of the mother-country. The audiencia, or supreme court, appointed from Europe, objected to this, as a revolutionary proceeding, and arrested the governor in his bed, deposed him, and lodged him in the prisons of the Inquisition, because he appeared to favor the proposal. The creoles were irretrievably offended by this virtual sentence of exclusion from provincial office and influence; and at once the struggle became one between the European and the native citizens, and the question was which party should be held to represent the home government. The Europeans assumed that they did; and they set up a governor in the person of an archbishop from Spain. The creoles maintained that the liberal governor had been wrongfully deposed, and that the authority of the king had been out 112 HISTORY O:F THE PEACE. [BOOK I. raged in his person. The juntas at home supported the European party, and showed no disposition to conciliate the creoles. The audiencia at Mexico was praised for what it had done, and authorized to administer the government. When there was talk at Cadiz of admitting a representation from the colonies, all citizens of a mixed race were excluded; and, in fact, no representatives found their way from Mexico to Cadiz at all. Some few, before resident at Cadiz, were chosen on the spot, and admitted; but it was a foolish and dangerous mockery. A certain degree of commercial freedom was granted, and then denied. Meantime, the insults of the Europeans in the province became intolerable; and, in 1809, a revolt was planned, which was obviated by timely arrests. In September, 1810, there was a rising against the Europeans, attended with much cruelty, throughout almost the whole province; but the city of Mexico was held against the insurgents by a new viceroy just arrived; and in November, and again in January, it was believed that the royal cause was made secure. It was not so, however. The conflict revived, as often as it seemed exhausted, for some years. When the Spanish constitution of 1812 was promulgated in the colonies, it seemed as if the Europeans were annihilated as a political party; and all offices were filled at once by natives; and the first outbreak of the freedom of the press terrified all who had ever been connected with the government. But, in 1814, Ferdinand abolished the constitution, on his return to Spain, and it was expected that the Europeans in Mexico would recover their spirits. It was too late for this. The viceroy wrote to his court that the desire for independence had become too strong to be met by any military policy. The name of the king was still used by the independents, but in no sense which could interfere with their resolution to govern themselves. The towns might, he said, be garrisoned with royalists; but the whole country was disposed in favor of the independence of Mexico. For his own part, he was willing to undertake the military occupation of the province, if authorized from home to proceed as against an enemy, even to the point of laying waste the country with fire and sword. If he was to do so, he must have troops and equipments. These were granted, to a sufficient extent to overpower the independents in military conflict. By the beginning of 1817, all but a few of their chiefs laid down their arms, accepted the pardon offered by government, and permitted that the fact should be proclaimed to the world, that Mexico was in an orderly state as a colony of Spain. It was owing to the hardness and imperiousness with which Spain demanded absolute submission from her provinces, even when at the lowest point of her fortunes, that she lost some of CHAP. VIII.] NEW GRENADA.- VENEZUELA. 113 them which were truly unwilling to be severed from their European connection, and had to part with others sooner than would have been necessary. The revolution in New Grenada became very complete at last; but it was by slow New Gre. degrees. At first, it was a mere local rising — at nada. Quito — and intended to procure redress of the grievances caused by the old colonial government. For the greater part of six years, it was conducted and sustained chiefly by only one out of three divisions composing the viceroyalty. The audiencias of Panama and Quito could give little or no help; and the acts of the so-called congress of New Grenada expressed the will of Bogota alone. After the old colonial system, the liberal party disowned the authority of the juntas in Spain - then the regencies - then the Cortes - then the sovereignty of Ferdinand - and, at last, the connection with Spain altogether. Still, Spain allowed no alternative between complete independence and unqualified submission; and the people of New Grenada chose that of complete independence. They appointed an executive government composed of three persons; and the three were well known to be zealous republicans. The appointment took place at the beginning of 1815, after the famous Bolivar, then compelled to retire from Venezuela, had given the benefit of his generalship to New Grenada, and had been proclaimed captaingeneral of Venezuela and New Grenada. The appointment of Bolivar was opposed by the city of Carthagena. Bolivar block. aded the city, and spent precious time before it, while a formidable Spanish force was approaching. As the Spaniards came on, the inhabitants sank deeper into faction; and before the summer of 1816, the rule of the mother-country was nearly reestablished. It was rendered to all appearance secure by the surrender of the capital to the Spanish general in June; and the world was informed that New Grenada also was in an orderly state. The independents were not converted, hoiwever; only dispersed. They had no power in the, cities, and no army in the fields; but their soldiery swarmed in the mountains, under the aspect of guerrilla bands; and there was a spirit of expectation, awake and watchful, abroad over the whole region, awaiting the hour of independence, which was sure to arrive. The two other great divisions, Venezuela and La Plata, were more interesting to Great Britain, during this struggle, than Mexico and New Grenada. She had vivid Venutela. recollections of her late adventures to Buenos Ayres and Monte Video; and not only was Venezuela the country of Miranda, but the island of Curagoa, very near the coast, and the neighboring district of British Guiana, gave England an immediate interest in the condition of the province. It was from VOL. II. 8 114 HISTORY OF THE PEACE. [BooK I. Curagoa that Sir James Cockburn crossed to Caraccas to propitiate the people in favor of Ferdinand, and rouse them against the French in 1808; when his entry into the province was like a royal progress, and England was at the summit of popular favor. It was to the next governor of Curagoa, Brigadier-General Ledyard, that Lord Liverpool addressed, in 1810, the letter before referred to as explaining the policy of the Perceval administration in regard to South America. It was at Curagoa that Miranda landed towards the end of that year. It had been hoped that he might have been persuaded to stay in London. He was known as the great champion of independence, and the existing popular government at Caraccas thought it too soon to talk of independence. They had been busily engaged in improving the state of the province; they had abolished the capitation tax upon the Indians, made the slave-trade illegal, and removed all the worst imposts which affected agriculture and commerce. Miranda was pretty sure to precipitate matters, and prove a formidable rival in the good-will of the people; so he was to be detained in London as long as possible. He was aware of all this, and slipped away quietly; not so quietly, however, as to arrive without introductions. He brought letters to the governor of Curagoa from the Duke of Cambridge and Mr. Vansittart. It was an English vessel which carried him to his own shore. Whether it was this close connection with England - whose policy now was to preserve the colonies to the mothercountry - that had changed Miranda's views, or that times had changed, and not he, the constitution he proposed was found, after all, not to be liberal enough; and he lost his popularity. Still, his arrival was a stimulus to decisive action; and on the 11th of July, 1811, the Declaration of Independence of Venezuela was published, according to a decree of the congress assembled at Caraccas. The constitution mainly resembled that of the United States, except that there were three executive chiefs instead of one, and that the Roman Catholic religion was established; provision being made that no foreigners should be permitted to reside in the country, unless they respected its established faith. It seems to have occurred to few or none of the parties concerned in these South American revolutions, to inquire whether the people were fit for self-government, or competent to settle how they would be governed. The old colonial rule was indefensible on every ground, and intolerable to the people. But it was a long step to take at once from that system to a constitution like that of the United States. Here were mixed races and severed factions, burning with jealousy, revenge, ambition, and every other evil passion; here was a total popular ignorance of CHAP. VIII.] DROUGHT AND EARTHQUAKES. 115 the very meaning of law and government; here were habits of disorder, in alternation and reaction with tryannical coercion; and here was an exclusive religion, sunk to the lowest point of superstition, by which the whole mind of the country was either subordinated to the most ignorant of priesthoods, or in a state of conscious impiety in the act of resistance. It appears strange that any enlightened person should have supposed that such a constitution as that of the United States could work well in Venezuela, on the instant of its severance from Spain, and with a Spanish priesthood spread over the whole province. In July, 1811, as has been related, the constitution was proclaimed. For a while all went well. The army was steady, commerce flourished, the people were contented. Throughout the autumn everybody was in spirits, unless it were that the agriculturists had some apprehensions of a dry season. In December the earth began to tremble, and the courage of the people was somewhat shaken. As the weeks went on, not a drop of rain fell within more than 300 miles from the capital. On Holy Thursday, the 26th of March, 1812, almost the entire population was to be in the churches; and if no rain fell before that day, the whole people would pray, as with one voice, for rain. The sky remained cloudless, and on the great day the heat was excessive. At a few minutes after four, when the churches were crowded, the bells clanged of their own accord; the pavement heaved under the people's feet, the steeples toppled and fell. There were two earthquakes at once; that is, the movements of the ground crossed each other. Nothing could stand this. The city of Caraccas was almost entirely overthrown, and much of it buried. The clear moon of that night, which shone brilliantly when the dust had subsided, lighted up as dreary a scene as the earth ever presented. No food was to be had; the conduit-pipes were snapped and crushed, and the springs choked up, and not a drop could be obtained for the dying who groaned out their entreaties for water. As the dead could not be buried, they were burned; and the yellow fires gleamed for many nights in the moonlight. The guilty confessed their sins aloud in the public ways; the licentious hastened to marry those whom they had seduced, and to acknowledge their illegitimate children; men of good fame avowed former frauds, and made restitution; enemies were reconciled. Such were the spectacles seen amidst the moral monstrosities which are always witnessed in such crises of panic and suffering, when the brutal and reckless come out into the light. The priests said that these acts of penitence and reparation were well, as far as they went, but they were not enough. The earthquake was a retributive infliction for the general sin of the community in setting up a constitution 116 HISTORY OF THE PEACE. [BooK I. for itself. The Holy Thursday procession of two years before had been the occasion of the first talk of the new constitution; and here, on the same high festival, was the sign of the displeasure of Heaven. Aided by other influences, the event, and this preaching on it, availed to overthrow the new liberties of Venezuela. The Spanish troops pushed the advantage given by the panic of the people. Whole bodies of the patriot army went over to them. Bolivar failed to hold a fortress against them; and in July Miranda agreed to a treaty which introduced the new Spanish constitution, in the place of that of Venezuela. This was the end of Miranda's career. The old patriot was seized in his bed by a party of political foes, of whom Bolivar was one, and put in irons, with the knowledge of the Spanish general, who took no pains to help him. After some months' imprisonment in irons, he was sent to Spain, where he died in close captivity in 1816. It is plain that there was no political enlightenment in Venezuela which could secure any stability. The country changed hands more than once, and was cruelly ravaged by each party in turn. Bolivar, as dictator, was dreadfully vindictive; and when he and his party were driven out of the country, and the patriots completely humbled, by the end of 1814, the Spanish rule was a mere system of barbarian pillage and oppression. During 1815 the patriots were quiet. In 1816, Bolivar and some comrades, driven out of New Grenada, were joined by volunteers from Great Britain and other European countries, and made an attempt at invasion, which was unsuccessful at the time. The struggle which proved successful at last, was begun, with similar' assistance, in January, 1817. The conflict was maintained till 1823, when the last of the Spanish troops left the country. In 1819, Bolivar had freed New Grenada; and the two states were now united for a few years, till the inconvenience of their junction was found to outweigh its advantages. This is looking forward a little. In 1816, when, as we have seen, Mexico and New Grenada were, humbled under the foot of the restored Ferdinand, Venezuela was in no better condition. We must now see how matters stood in La Plata. When the news arrived there of the French invasion of Spain, the viceroy of Rio de la Plata was the General Linieres to whom Whitelocke had submitted the year before. Linieres was a Frenchman, and in the interest of Napoleon; but he was soon superseded by a governor in the Spanish interest. He was afterwards executed, having been taken in arms against the patriot cause, which was, for a time, uppermost in 1810. After some vicissitudes, the Spanish flag was abolished in 1813, and coins were, for the first time, struck with the republican arms. CrEAP. VIII.] PARAGUAY. - CHILI. - BRAZIL. 117 Then followed a succession of Directors, whose presidency would, it was hoped, still " the vibration of the passions." Their short terms of office seem to show, however, that the passions were still vibrating very strongly. In March, 1816, the state of Rio de la Plata proclaimed, by the mouth of its congress, its declaration of independence. General Pueyrredon was made the supreme Director. Here is one great state which was not under the foot of the restored Ferdinand in 1816. The province of Paraguay managed matters very quietly. The people drove out the Spanish force sent against them when all La Plata was in commotion. In 1811, aPraguay. they deposed the Spanish government, and set up a junta, with Dr. Francia as secretary. In 1813, he was called Consul; and in 1814, Dictator of Paraguay; and so he remained till his death in 1840 - keeping his state independent at once of Buenos Ayres and of Spain, but under an excessive despotism from himself. Chili accompanied the fortunes of La Plata. The Spanish authorities were early deposed; but the usual in- chili. trigues and factions among the patriots followed, and gave occasion for the Spanish forces, who were strong in Upper Peru, to come down, and attempt to regain the province. The Carreras wvere then at the head of the provincial affairs; and next, the well-known O'Higgins was made commander-in-chief. He so far reduced the Spaniards that a treaty, advantageous to Chili, was prepared under the mediation of a British officer then on the spot - Captain Hillyar. But the viceroy of Peru drew back from his promise to ratify the treaty; and war began again. The Spaniards conquered, and remained supreme in Chili from 1814 to 1816. La Plata could not acquiesce in this subjugation of the bordering province, though the mighty Andes rose between. General San Martin, who had been laid aside by sickness, recovered his health and energy, and made a wonderful passage of the mountain-chain in the month of January, 1817. His little army crossed five ridges, terrible with ice and snow, besides many smaller ones - mules and horses, and even men, dropping dead in the cold. At the end of a fortnight. he was in fighting order on the other side. On the 12th of February, he gained a victory which secured the freedom of Chili. In 1816, therefore, the Spanish rule was subsisting in Mexico, New Grenada, Venezuela, and Peru — all northern provinces. The great empire of Brazil was rising in its fortunes, Brazil. under the advantages of the royal residence - of its being made, in fact, the Portuguese empire from 1807. It had put out a hand to keep quiet the little province of Uruguay, at its southern extremity. The provinces which had declared their in 118 HISTORY OF THE PEACE. [BooE I. dependence, and which were concluded to have republican tendencies and intentions, were La Plata and Chili. All the world knew that this was no permanent settlement. The northern provinces would not remain tranquil under the old colonial rule; and it was not probable that Spain would acquiesce in the independence of the southern states. It was a matter, not only of curiosity and interest what would happen next, but of serious political importance to the governments of Europe. Some of them, and Great Britain for one, must take some part in promoting or opposing the independence of the Spanish colonies of South America; and no British statesman was likely to forget that assurance of Mr Pitt, in 1790, which was always in Canning's mind - that the scheme of emancipating South America was one which would not be lost sight of, but would infallibly engage the attention of every minister of our country. CHAP. IX.] OUTRAGE ON THE PRINCE REGENT.!19 CHAPTER IX. ON the 28th of January, the Prince Regent opened the fifth session of the existing parliament. The speech from the throne contained the following passage: " In con- pareliament.of sidering our internal situation you will, I doubt not, feel a just indignation at the attempts which have been made to take advantage of the distresses of the country, for the purpose of exciting a spirit of sedition and violence. I am too well convinced of the loyalty and good sense of the great body of His Majesty's subjects, to believe them capable of being perverted by the arts which are employed to seduce them; but I am determined to omit no precautions for preserving the public peace, and for counteracting the designs of the disaffected." It would have been difficult to infer from this language that the government believed that a formidable and widely organized insurrection was threatening the country, and that the only remedy was a violation of the constitutional safeguards of the liberties of the people. Attempts to excite a spirit of sedition, amongst a people incapable "of being perverted by the arts employed to seduce them," were subjects for vigilance towards the few, without infringement of the rights of the many. The seconder of the address in the Commons asserted 1 that the demagogues and their acts would die of themselves. The debate in the Lower House was suddenly interrupted by a message from the Lords. An outrage had been offered to the Prince Regent on his Outrage return friom opening the parliament. The windows of offred the the state-carriage had been broken by some missile. Regent. The two Houses, after agreeing upon an address to the Prince Regent on this event, adjourned. Upon the resumption of the dabate the next day in the Commons, and upon its commencement in the Lords, the insult to the representative of the sovereign, which was at first asserted to be an attempt upon his life, gave a decided tone to the proceedings of both Houses. In both assemblies the opposition loudly proclaimed the necessity of a rigid and unsparing economy; and the proposed amendment upon the address went directly to pledge the most severe reduc1 Hansard, xxxv. p. 13. 120 HISTORY OF THE PEACE. [BOOK I. tion of every possible expense. The practical answer to these abortive proposals was the intimation of Lord Sidmouth, that in three days he should present a message from the Prince Regent on the subject of the alleged disaffection of large bodies of the Alarm. people. Alarm, that became the great instrument of governing till the close of the reign of George IlI., had its full capabilities revealed in what Lord Dudley described as "the pop-gun plot." Addressing the Bishop of Llandaff on the 1st of February, 1817, this able and temperate observer says: 1 " Pray tell me what you think of the state of public opinion and feeling at this moment. Is there a dangerous spirit abroad, or is there not? Canning says there is. But an eloquent minister is a bad authority upon such a subject. An alarm is the harvest of such a personage." With a real admiration of many points in the character of this "personage," we cannot but regard the period in which he was a mere gleaner in the harvest of alarm as the least creditable portion of his life. He had been excluded from power for three years. He returned to jealous colleagues and to bitter rivals. He could not exist out of the circle of party. Rather than not win the equivocal honors of a partisan, he was content to be a tool. When Canning, on the second night of the debate on the address, denied that the existing state of the representation was a grievance; when he said: 2,, I deny the assumption that the House of Commons, as it stands, is not, to all practical purposes, an adequate representation of the people; I deny that it requires any amendment or alteration;" he spoke, we have no doubt, his honest convictions. But when he attempted, as he did in the same speech, to confound the most moderate projects of reform with the doctrines of universal suffrage and annual parliaments, and mixed up the whole body of propounders of these doctrines with the mad fanatics called Spenceans,3 we lament to see a great mind prostituting its talents to such dishonest advocacy. He was thrust forward to play a part, and he so played it that he brought down his fine genius to the level of those under whom he served. But the policy was successful. It was in preparation for the message of the 3d of February, that the Prince Regent had given orders that there be laid before the Houses, " papers containing information respecting certain practices, meetings, and combinations in the metropolis, and in different parts of the kingdom, evidently calculated to endanger the public tranquillity, to alienate the affections of His Majesty's subjects from His Majesty's person and government, and to bring into hatred and contempt the whole system of our laws and institutions." In moving the order of the day for the consideration of this message, 1 Letters, p. 159. 2 Hansard, xxv. p. 130. 3 See ante, p. 67. CHAP. IX.] REPORTS OF SECRET COMMITTEES. 121 Lord Sidmouth, in the House of Lords, affirmed that the communication was in no degree founded on, or connected with, the outrage upon the Prince Regent on the first day of the session. And yet the House of Lords saw the attack upon the Prince Regent as 1 ani additional and melancholy proof of the efficacy of this system [the system complained of in the message] to destroy all reverence for authority." It is difficult to imagine that so serious a charge against a large portion of the people, as that made in the message of the 3d of' February, should have been so lightly passed over in the royal speech of the 28th of January, had not some new circumstances arisen to warrant the course which the government was now taking. Was it that the fears of the illustrious personage who had heard the upbraiding groans of the multitude, and had sustained a rude insult from some reckless hand, had urged his ministers upon the career which they were now entering, of exaggerating discontents, of tempting distress into sedition, of sowing suspicion of the poor in the minds of the rich, of confounding the reformer and the anarchist in one general hatred? One of the keenest of political reasoners 2 speaks of sovereigns, who, " neglecting all virtuous actions, began to believe that princes were exalted for no other end but to discriminate themselves from their subjects by their pomp, luxury, and all other effeminate qualities; by which means they fell into the hatred of the people, and by consequence became afraid of them, and that fear increasing, they began to meditate revenge." Up to a certain point, we are constrained to believe that this temper was something akin to that of the Regent in those unhappy days. It is well that the genius of our constitution rendered this temper comparatively powerless. The message of the Prince Regent of the 3d of February was referred to a secret committee in each House, and these Reports of committees made their reports on the 18th and 19th secretcomof the same month. We have already noticed 3 that mittees. portion of the report of the Lords which describes "' the traitorous conspiracy," which was developed in the riot at Spa-fields. One third of the report is devoted to a narrative of this riot, and the designs of its miserable abettors, in ternus of the most fearful solemnity. Not Cicero's denunciations of Catiline are more horrorstirring. The report then proceeds to detail the general state of the country. " It appears clearly that the object is, by means of societies or clubs, established, or to be established, in all parts of Great Britain, under pretence of parliamentary reform, to infect the minds of all classes of the community, and particularly of those whose situation most exposes them to such impressions, 1 Report of Secret Committee. 2 Machiavelli, Discourses on Livy, chap. ii. 3 See ante, p. 71. 122 HISTORY OF THE PEACE. [Bookc I. with a spirit of discontent and disaffection, of insubordination, and contempt of all law, religion, and morality, and to hold out to them the plunder of all property as the main object of their efforts, and the restoration of their natural rights; and no endeavors are omitted to prepare them to take up arms on the first signal for accomplishing their designs..... The country societies are principally to be found in, and in the neighborhood of, Leicester, Loughborough, Nottingham, Mansfield, Derby Chesterfield, Sheffield, Blackburn, Manchester, Birmingham, and Norwich, and in Glasgow and its vicinity; but they extend and are spreading in some parts of the country to almost every village." The report finally calls for " further provisions for the preservation of the public peace, and for the protection of interests in which the happiness of every class of the community is deeply and equally involved." The report of the House of Commons begins with the Spencean societies, and goes on to describe, at greater length than that of the Lords, the Spa-fields conspiracy. The Hampden Clubs are most emphatically denounced as aiming at " nothing short of a revolution." The report of the Commons thus concludes: "Your committee cannot contemplate the activity and arts of the leaders in this conspiracy, and the numbers whom they have already seduced and may seduce; the oaths by which many of them are bound together; the means suggested and prepared for the forcible attainment of their objects; the nature of the objects themselves, which are not only the overthrow of all the political institutions of the kingdom, but also such a subversion of the rights and principles of property as must necessarily lead to general confusion, plunder, and bloodshed; without submitting to the most serious attention of the House, the dangers which exist, and which the utmost vigilance of government, under the existing laws, has been found inadequate to prevent." Looking at these reports in connection with the facts which were subsequently brought to light, under the most solemn judicial investigations conducted in the spirit of the constitution, and under the extra-judicial powers which were granted for the detection and punishment of guilt, we must either come to the conclusion that the committees were the dupes of blind or wicked informers, or were unable to arrive at a sound judgment upon the facts presented to them, or were not unwilling to spread a panic which would leave parliament for an indefinite time to its ordinary struggles for the interests of particular classes to the comparative neglect of the welfare of the great body of the people. But, under the influence of these reports, it would have been impossible to have made such a resistance to the government as would have prevented the enactment of stringent measures, one of which was decidedly unconstitutional. Bills CHAP. IX.] MARCH OF THE BLANKETEERS. 123 were brought in and passed by large majorities, to guard against and avert the dangers which had been so alarmingly proclaimed. The first of these renewed the act for the prevention and punishment of attempts to seduce soldiers and sailors from their allegiance; the second extended to the Prince Regent all the safeguards against treasonable attempts which secure the actual sovereign; the third was for the prevention of seditious meetings. The last of the four was the most dangerous and the least called for. It gave to the executive power the fearful right of' imprisonment without trial. In common parlance, the Habeas Corpus Act was suspended, under " An Act to empower His Majesty to secure and detain such persons as His Majesty shall suspect are conspiring against his person and government." The suspension was, however, in this instance, limited to the ensuing 1st of July. The Habeas Corpus Suspension Act was passed on the 3d of March; the bill for restraining seditious meetings did arch of not become law till the 29th of March. Within a the Blanketweek after the passing of the act for imprisonment eers. without trial, and before the magistrates had received any accession to their power as to the dispersion of tumultuous assemblies, an occurrence took place at Manchester, which was at once evidence of the agitated condition of distressed multitudes in the manufacturing districts, and of the extreme weakness of their purposes. This was the famous march of the Blanketeers. And yet, when the renewed suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act was proposed in June, the report of the secret committee entered into minute detail of this senseless project, as one of the arguments for tampering again with the liberties of the whole kingdom. A plain and honest account of this affair is given by Samuel Bamford. According to his narrative, William Benbow, the shoemaker, had taken a great share in getting up and arranging a vast meeting, subsequently called the Blanket Meeting, for the purpose of marching to London to petition the Prince Regent in person. Bamford himself wholly condemned the measure. He deprecated the blind zeal of those who had proposed it; he believed they were instigated by those who would betray them. Up to this time the maxim of the reformers had been, " Hold fast by the laws." New doctrines now began to be broached, which, if not in direct violation of the law, were ill-disguised subterfuges for its evasion. The Blanket Meeting, however, took place in St. Peter's Field at Manchester. It consisted, according to Bamford, of four or five thousand operatives - according to the second report of the Lords' secret committee, of ten or twelve thousand. "Many of the individuals," says Bamford, 1 "were observed to have blankets, rugs, or large coats, rolled up and tied 1 Bamford's Life of a Radical, i. p. 32. 124 HISTORY OF THE PEACE. [BooK I. knapsack-like on their backs; some carried bundles under their arms; some had papers, supposed to be petitions, rolled up; and some had stout walking-sticks." The magistrates came upon the field and read the riot act; the meeting was dispersed by the military and constables; three hundred commenced a straggling march, followed by a body of yeomanry, and a hundred and eighty reached Macclesfield at nine o'clock at night. Some were apprehended, some lay in the fields. The next morning the numbers had almost melted away; " about a score arrived at Leek, and six only were known to pass Ashbourne Bridge." More terrible events, however, were in preparation. According to the second report of the Lords' secret committee, " It was on the night of the 30th of March that a general insurrection was intended to have commenced at Manchester. The magistrates were to be seized; the prisoners were to be liberated; the soldiers were either to be surprised in their barracks, or a certain number of factories were to be set on fire, for the purpose of drawing the soldiers out of their barracks, of which a party stationed near them for that object were then to take possession, with a view of seizing the magazine..... This atrocious conspiracy was detected by the vigilance of the magistrates, and defeated by the apprehension and confinement of some of the ringleaders a few days before the period fixed for its execution." Bamford records, that on the day after the Blanket leeting, a man dressed much like a dyer" came to him at Middleton,'to propose that in consequence of the treatment which the Blanketeers had received at the meeting and afterwards,'a Moscow of Manchester' should take place that very night." Bamford and his friends dismissed him with the assurance that he was the dupe of' some designing villain. The scheme which this dupe or scoundrel propounded was exactly that described in the Lords' report. But there were men who did not receive this proposal with disgust and suspicion, as those of Middleton (lid. The avowed reform-leaders - delegates and Hampden-Club menwere under perpetual terror. Some wandered from their homes in dread of imprisonment; others were seized in the bosom of their families. Public meetings were at an end. The fears and passions of large bodies of men had no safety-valve. "Open meetings thus being suspended, secret ones ensued; they were originated at Manchester, and assembled under various pretexts......Their real purpose, divulged only to the initiated, was to carry into effect the night attack on Manchester, the attempt at which had before failed for want of arrangement and cooperation." A little while after this " Moscow " proposal, a co-delegatc came to Bamford, to propose the assassination of all the ministers. We know that this scheme smouldered for several years. " The CHAP. IX.] TIE DERBY INSURRECTION. 125 fact was," says Bamford,1 "this unfortunate person, in the confidence of an unsuspecting mind, as I believe, had, during one of his visits to London, formed a connection with Oliver, the spy - which connection, during several succeeding months, gave a new impulse to secret meetings and plots in various parts of Lancashire, Yorkshire, and Derbyshire; and ended in the tragedy of Brandreth, Ludlow, and Turner, at Derby." The course of this tragedy we have now to recount. It is the only one of the insurrectionary movements of the manufacturing districts, in 1817, that has left any traces of judicial investigation, with the exception of proceedings at York, at which all the state-prisoners were discharged by the grand jury, or acquitted upon trial. All the persons connected with the Blanket expedition, and the expected risings at Manchester, were discharged before trial. The midland counties of Nottingham, Leicester, and Derby, had been in a disturbed state for several years. The Derby insurhabit of daring outrage was familiar to large numbers rection. of the manufacturing population. We have already exhibited 2 that course of ignorant and brutal violence known as Luddism. On the 23d of June, 1817, Mr. Ponsonby described this system,3 as one that had not originated in political principles; but he expressed his belief that those who had been trained to mischief by its laws had mixed themselves with those who had political objects in view, and that from them had proceeded some of the most atrocious suggestions for the disturbance of the public peace. At the Leicester assizes on the 1st of April, eight men were tried and convicted of the most daring outrages at Loughborough, and six of these offenders were executed on the 17th of the same month. There was not the slightest attempt at this trial to connect the crimes of these men with any political opinions. But amongst a population that for four years had witnessed the night attacks of armed men upon machinery, and with whom some of the leaders of such organized attacks were in habitual intercourse, it is manifest that the materials for political insurrection were abundantly accumulated. It was not the part of a wise and humane government to permit the feeblest spark of excitement from without to approach these inflammable materials.'We do not think that the facts which time has revealed warrant us in going so far as Sir Samuel Romilly, who in his place in palliament declared, on the 27th of January, 1818, that in his conscience he believed the whole of the Derbyshire insurrection was the work of the persons sent by government; but we do think that these facts justify a strong conviction that without the agency of these persons the insurrection would not have taken place. On the motion for the first reading of the bill for con1 Bamford, i. p. 77. 2 See ante, p. 54. 3 Hansard, xxxvi. p. 1114. 126 HISTORY OF THE PEACE. [BooK I. tinuing the suspension of the Habeas Corpus, on the 23d of June, Mr. Ponsonby, who had been a member of the secret committee, but had dissented from the majority as to the necessity of the further suspension, stated to the House 1 " some of the information gained from the papers and evidence presented to the committee." In March, a person calling himself a delegate came to London from one of the midland districts, and was introduced to one of similar opinions. He of similar opinions gave discouraging information as to the state of public feeling in the capital. The representations of the delegate as to the impatience of the country districts "to throw off the yoke," as he termed it, were not responded to. But he met two other persons ready to return with him as delegates from London; and Mr. Oliver proposed to go along with them, making a fourth delegate. Before they proceeded on their journey, Oliver was in communication with the Home Office; but received no instructions to compromise the safety of any one by tempting them into practices which he afterwards exposed. The co-delegates relied fully on Oliver - the country delegate introduced him to all his friends as a second self. Oliver remained among these people from the 17th of April to the 27th of May, everywhere received as the London delegate. He was examined before the secret committee, and told them he was very shy of giving information; what he said was, that " London was ready to rise, and only wished to know what assistance could be derived from the country; and that the people of London would not stir first, but would be ready to second any movement from the country. His friend, the country delegate, gave effect to this information, by telling his brethren, the country delegates, that 75,000 individuals could be relied on in the eastern parts of the capital, and 75,000 in the western. Mr. Ponsonby thus showed, with a moderation and candor most advantageously contrasted with the frenzied declamations against individual members of the government, made by such popularityhunters as Sir Francis Burdett and Mr. Grey Bennett, that the representations of Oliver himself, and the representations which he permitted to be made with his knowledge and approval, did excite the wretched individuals, with whom the spy-delegate and the dupe-delegate conversed, to acts of rebellion or insubordination. But Mr. Ponsonby only traced Oliver to the 27th of May. We are now enabled to follow his course up to the moment of the Derbyshire insurrection. On the 6th of June an outbreak in Yorkshire was expected, and ten delegates were arrested at Thornhill-lees, near Dewsbury. On the day of the meeting, Oliver called on Mr. Willans, a bookseller of Dewsbury, and urged him to attend the meeting of delegates at Thornhill1 Hansard, xxxvi. p. 1116. CHAP. IX.] OLIVER THE SPY. 127 lees. He had two months before addressed Willans in the most traitorous language. Willans, having some suspicion of the incendiary, refused to go. Oliver himself attended the meeting, and was arrested witl the others; but in the evening he was at large in Wakefield, and, entering the coach to go to Leeds, was accosted by a livery servant of Sir John Byng, who commanded the forces in the disturbed districts. This servant, after Oliver was gone, said that a few days before he had driven him in a gig from his master's house to meet a coach. These circumstances were discovered by the activity of Mr. Baines, of Leeds, who published them in his influential newspaper; and they formed the subject of a violent debate in the House of Commons on the 16th of June. In a work of considerable historical importance,' which appeared in February, 1847, and to which we shall have occasion frequently to refer, this particular transaction was minutely gone into, for the purpose of justifying Lord Sidmouth, as Secretary of State for the Home Department, against the imputations which arose out of the employment of such persons as Oliver. "None of them," says the author,2 " were employed in the first instance by Lord Sidmouth, but themselves sought him out; and if, which is not probable, they in any instances instigated the conspirators to crime, in order to betray them, the treacherous act must have been entirely their own; as nothing would have excited more his lordship's indignation than the bare idea of so base a proceeding." The Dean of Norwich has obtained the most satisfactory testimony of Lord Strafford (formerly Sir John Byng) to this opinion of Lord Sidmouth's own conduct, in a letter written in August, 1846; "Oliver," Lord Strafford writes,8 " was sent to me with a letter from Lord Sidmouth, to the purport that he, Oliver, was going down into that part of' the country where meetings were being frequently held, and that he had been desired to communicate to me any information he might obtain as to the time and place of such meetings, in order that I might take timely measures to prevent their taking place; the wish and intention being to prevent, not to encourage them, as was alleged against the government." Sir John Byng himself was perfectly incapable, as was acknowledged on all hands, of turning the spy into a tempter. We have no doubt that Oliver was a double deceiver. On the 16th of June, Mr. Allsop, who had been active at Nottingham in the preservation of the peace, as the Dean of Norwich reports, wrote to Lord Sidmouth as follows: 4 " I feel myself called upon, in justice to Oliver, to make this communication to your lordship 1 Life and Correspondence of Lord Sidmouth, by the Hon. George Pellew, D. D., Dean of Norwich. 2 Vol. iii. p. 187. 3 Life, iii. p. 194. 4 Life, iii. p. 189. 128 HISTORY OF THE PEACE. [Book I. respecting him. The first time I ever saw him was on the 7th of June, on his arrival at Nottingham from Leeds. Although he then knew that a meeting was to take place in the evening, he fixed to leave for Birmingham in the afternoon, and only consented to stay for the meeting at the solicitation of Mr. FHooley and myself, in order to furnish us with the necessary infbrmation. Oliver expressly stated to us that his instructions from Sir John Byng were, not to conceal anything as to the Yorkshire meeting by which these people could be deceived; and he also stated his instructions from your lordship, not to hold out any encouragement. It was then most explicitly decided, that at the meeting in the evening he should not, in any way whatever, hold out the least encouragement or inducement to the persons who might be there, to take any other steps than such as they might think proper to adopt themselves; and I am persuaded, my lord, that such was this man's conduct accordingly, for his life was in the greatest danger, their suspicion of him being excited by his refusal to remain at Nottingham and countenance their proceedings, and he only consented to stay, at last, to lessen their suspicions." Of this meeting at Nottingham on the 7th of June, the trials of the Derby traitors convey no record. All evidence was suppressed of any circumstances prior to the 8th of June. We have now to follow the course of these remarkable trials,l with the certainty that the spy of government was at the meeting of the 7th of June, at which this outbreak was organized, and with a tolerably clear conviction, as will become more evident, that the unhappy agents in this insurrection were acted upon by the most extraordinary delusions from without. The defence of the suspension of the Habeas Corpus was, that the leaders of a conspiracy might be seized so as to prevent an outbreak. The peace preservers of Nottingham on the 7th of June induced the government spy to attend a meeting of supposed conspirators, for the purpose of giving them the necessary information. If they had acted upon that informatiom by arresting the conspirators, the Derby insurrection would have been crushed in the egg. The expression of Mr. Allsop, " it was explicitly decided " that no encouragement should be given by the spy, assumes a discussion previous to the decision. Where there are clear and honest intentions alone, it is not necessary explicitly to decide against the adoption of a treacherous and disgraceful line of conduct. On Sunday, the 8th of June,2 there was a remarkable assemblage at Pentridge, a village situated some two miles from the Ambergate station, on the present North Midland Railway. The village is in the hilly and thinly-peopled district to the west of 1 State Trials, xxxii. pp. 755-1394. 2 Ibid., Evidence for the Crown, pp. 795-863. CHAP. IX.] JEREMIAH BRANDRETH. 129 the river Derwent. In the neighborhood of Pentridge there are several other scattered villages - all not far removed from a direct road to Nottingham. About a mile from Pentridge, at Butterley, was a large iron-foundry. Two men, in the employ of the proprietors of this foundry, went into the White Horse public-house, at Pentridge, in the morning of the 8th of June, and found a good many persons in the parlor there, " talking about this revolution." There was one amongst them they called " The Captain." He had a map in his hand, and the people came in, and kept asking him questions; and he said, there would be no good to be done except a complete overthrow of the government. All the country was to rise- all at one time. Many talked thus. They made no secret. They spoke it openly. They did not mind who heard them. They said they had plenty of pikes; and they would go and take Nottingham wholly to themselves; and when they got to Nottingham, every man would have a hundred guineas, and plenty of rum, and it would be nothing but a journey of pleasure. This extraordinary assembly lasted six or seven hours. The two men from the iron-works were special constables; but they were afraid to say anything about it. Having agreed to meet on the night of the 9th, after dark, the people separated. The captain, with the map in his hand, was Jeremiah Brandreth, a framework-knitter, whose family had received parochial relief. Mr. Denman - who was counsel for the prisoners - after Brandreth had been convicted, compared this man with the Corsair of Lord Byron, as one who " Dazzles, leads, yet chills, the vulgar heart," and obtains his superiority by " The power, the nerve, the magic of the mind." In spite of Mr. Denman's rhetorical description of the mastery of this man over his weak followers, through " the influence of great courage, of uncommon decision, of unrelenting firmness; the influence of an eye like no eye that I ever beheld before, of a countenance and figure formed for activity, enterprise, and command," we must be content to believe, from the evidence of Brandreth's acts, that he was a frantic enthusiast, goaded to violence by great poverty, by imaginary oppression, and, what is more, by the grossest delusions as to his own power and the strength of his cause. We do not think that he was the less dangerous from his real character and the real circumstances around him; but, we believe, as Mr. Denman came to the conclusion, that, in spite of his influence and command, " he was most clearly himself an instrument wielded by other hands." On Saturday night, the 7th of June, Oliver goes to a meeting at Nottingham, with instructions from Sir John Byng, "not to VOL. II. 9 130 HISTORY OF THE PLACE. [BOOK I. conceal anything as to the Yorkshire meeting by which these people could be deceived." On Sunday morning the Nottingham captain is heard saying,'" All the country is to rise, all at one time." On Monday night he passes the door of a laboring man at South Wingfield, about three miles from Pentridge, in his way to an old barn up in the field; and he urges the man to come with him, saying that "the countries, England, Ireland, and France, were to rise that night at ten o'clock; " and that " the northern clouds, men from the north, would come down and sweep all before them." This is somewhat different from the information that Oliver was authorized to give to the Nottingham meeting, that the Yorkshire delegates - the northern clouds - were scattered on the previous Friday. It is difficult not to regard the language of Brandreth as pure insanity, especially when we contrast it with the sober sense of some around him. "There was an old woman standing by," says the South Wingfield man, " and she tapped him on the shoulder, and said,' My lad, we have got a magistrate here; "' and the laborer himself, "thought he must be drunk or mad, to think of such things." But on the madman went. In the old barn at South Wingfield he assembled twenty men, who. had pikes and guns, and they went forward, stopping at solitary houses, and demanding guns, and dragging unwilling men out of their beds and hiding-places, and compelling them to march with them. At the farm-house of a widow, who behaved with unflinching courage, Brandreth fired in at a window, and killed one of her servants, upon arms being refused to him. His followers said he should not have shot that poor innocent man; and he replied, it was his duty to do it. Onwards they marched — the volunteers and the conscripts; and the captain, when they halted at some lone dwellings, and met with any one who refused to march, had his ready exhortation, that "a great cloud out of the north would sweep all before them;" with the more particular information, that " it would not be necessary to go further than Nottingham, for London would be taken by the time they got there." Who can doubt that the unhappy man was dreaming of the " 75,000 men in the eastern parts of the capital, and 75,000 in the western? " Some of the pressed men ran away in the darkness; one refused to march in rank, and upon Brandreth swearing he would shoot him in a moment, the bold fellow stepped up to him with his knife; and the captain turned off from him. During all this march the rain was incessant. By the time they reached the Butterley iron-works, their numbers amounted to about a hundred.' Bran1 This is the distinct evidence of the bers amounted to 500. Biography, as manager of the works. The Dean of well as history, should have regard to Norwich says, that, when they arrived accuracy. at the Butterley iron-works, their num CHAP. IX.] EVIDENCE OF SAMUEL BAMFORD. 131 dreth was boldly met by Mr. Goodwin, the manager of the works, and, when he demanded men, was told: " You shall not have one of them; you are too many already, unless you were going for a better purpose; disperse! depend upon it, the laws will be too strong for you; you are going with halters about your necks." Three men took shelter in the office of the works. One man, Isaac Ludlanm, who was afterwards convicted and executed, was exhorted by Mr. Goodwin not to go on; but he answered, much agitated, "I am as bad as I can be; I cannot go back." After a short pause, Brandreth gave the command, "March." Soon after, this main body was followed by about fifty other men. On the morning of the 10th of June, Mr. Rolleston, a magistrate, went from Nottingoham, on the road towards Eastwood, about six miles from Nottingham, and meeting there a considerable body of men armed with pikes, he returned to Nottingham, and procured some troops from the barracks, eighteen privates, commanded by a captain and a subaltern. Upon hearing that the soldiers were coming, the insurgents fled. The captain in command of the hussars deposed that the military were kept on the alert during the night. He was ordered out with a party, on the road towards Derbyshire, about six in the morning, and approached about sixty men near Eastwood, who fled across the fields. A man in the road tried to form them, but they paid no attention to him. A number of prisoners were taken, and about forty guns and other arms were collected together. Thus ended " the Derbyshire insurrection." For these offences, three men were executed; eleven were transported for life; four were transported for fourteen years; and five were imprisoned for various terms. There is one piece of evidence connected with these transactions which the Dean of Norwich has overlooked, - the evidence of Samuel Bamford, a poor weaver, but a man of considerable talent and unquestionable honesty - a man who has now a keen sense of his early mistakes, and a conviction that " no redemption for the masses can exist, save one that should arise from their own virtue and knowledge." Bamford was arrested on a suspicion of high treason, and was delivered to the custody of the king's messengers on the 30th of March, who conveyed him from Manchester to London. He was five times examined before the Privy Council; and he describes these examinations as being conducted by Lord Sidmouth with the greatest patience and kindness. He was finally discharged on the 30th of April. Soon after Bamford's return to Middleton, he found that private meetings had been held in his absence, and suspicious intrigues carried on; that Joseph Mitchell, an old acquaintance, and a stranger, were the chief movers in these proceedings. One day, there came 132 HISTORY OF THE PEACE. [Book IL to him an old man, who had been his co-delegate to London from Derby, and a tall decent-looking young man, much like a town's weaver. The old man said a delegate meeting was to be held in Yorkshire, which would cause a finishing blow to be levelled at the borough-mongers; and that a man -om Middleton, whose name he gave, and who had attended several previous meetings, was particularly wanted on the present occasion - concluding by asking Bamford to direct him to that man. Bamford suspected mischief, and pretended not to know such a man. He was suspicious of the designs of the stranger, who had been about Middleton, and had even inquired for him after his discharge. Bamnford advised the old man to pause; but he " huffed at the advice." The old man was Thomas Bacon, one of those who were arraigned at Derby, and transported for life; the young man was William Turner, who was executed with Brandreth and Ludlam. Bamford thus concludes this narrative: 1 " The stranger whom Joseph Mitchell had so assiduously introduced amongst the discontented classes of Lancashire, Yorkshire, and Derbyshire, first inveigled them into treasonable associations, then to armed insurrections, and then betrayed them. That stranger, that betrayer, reader, was Oliver, the spy." The acquittal of Watson, for high treason, took place on the 16th of June. It appears to have had no influence on the measures of government. The second suspension of the Habeas Corpus was passed by large majorities in both Houses; and the Prince Regent, in his speech closing this session on the 12th of July, averred that " a favorable change was happily taking place in the internal situation of the country, which was to be mainly ascribed to the salutary measures which parliament had adopted for procuring the public tranquillity." The private records of Lord Sidmouth's life show that he had no great confidence in the " favorable change." At the end of July, Lord Sidmouth established his family at Malvern, intending to remain there a short time himself, " and then back," as he said, " to sedition and treason again;" his under-secretary being left in charge during the interim. Before his lordship's departure, however, as he informed his brother on the 20th,2 he " revised all the cases of persons committed and detained under the Suspension Act; and the result, he trusted, would be the release of some upon their own recognizance, and increased indulgence to those who could not be released." How stands the balance, then, of " sedition and treason," on the part of the people, and " the salutary measures for preserving the public tranquillity," on the part of the government? Watson was acquitted of high treason, alleged against him for his absurd and guilty participation in the Spa-fields riots, I Life of a Radical, i. p. 156. 2 Lord Sidmouth's Life, iii. p. 196. CHAP. IX.] RESULTS OF THE TRIALS. 133 which formed so important a matter of the first reports of the secret committee. Three others of the Spa-fields conspirators,' indicted with him, were discharged; the younger Watson had eluded all pursuit. The persons imprisoned in Edinburgh Castle and Glasgow jail, on the charge of treason, seventeen in number, were set at liberty in July, receiving seven shillings each to carry them home. The Yorkshire insurrection thus terminated. "The trials of the state-prisoners,2 as they have been called, closed at York, this day, August 22; and of the twenty-four persons against whom the government solicitor was instructed to institute prosecutions, ten have been pronounced not guilty; against eleven others no bills were found; and one has been liberated on bail; leaving only two of the whole number in confinement, and these two have been detained without trial, by a secretary of state's warrant, under the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act." The Manchester Blanketeers were all discharged, in spite of the opinion of the Duke of Northumberland, expressed to Lord Sidmouth by letter on the 21st of March, that the French Revolution was to be acted over again in England:' 3 "I am sure, my lord, the intended march of the delegates from Manchester to London must too forcibly have reminded your lordship of the march of the Marseillois to Paris, at the commencement of the French Revolution, not to have convinced your lordship that the copy must have been at least recommended by some person deeply concerned in the original." These were the excitements of the fears of the great and the rich, that kept the Secretary of State in a fever about plots, and " sedition and treason." He was a courageous man, and what is called a consistent man. He was complimented on every side about his "public exertions." Whatever of peaceful and happy prospects remained in the country were to be attributed to his "firmness and prompt exertions in keeping down the democrats." Sedition and treason had become associated in his own mind with his own importance. He was anxious to discharge his duty; and he saw only one path before him - the detection and punishment of democratic movements. He lived in an atmosphere of plots. On the 7th of October there were " extraordinary circumstances " which would prevent him making another excursion that year. This was a plot to attack the Tower on the 11th of October. The plan, as we learn by a private letter of Lord Sidmouth on the 13th,5 was in imitation of that of Despard, and a number of persons met accordingly on Tower Hill, but retired and dispersed. No other record exists of this plot that we can discover. With the Derby insurrections, therefore, must the historian be content, 1 Annual Register, July, 1817, p. 64. 2 Ibid. p. 72. 8 Life of Lord Sidmouth, iii. p. 178. 4 Ibid. p. 199. 5 Ibid. p. 200. 1.34 HISTORY OF THE PEACE. [Boor I if he desire to bring forward a permanent example of the triumphs of government over the rebellious designs that frightened the isle from its propriety. And yet it would appear that the course of these trials was not entirely satisfactory to all in authority, as they certainly were not to the nation in general. Lord Colchester writes to Lord Sidmouth on the 26th of October: "I cannot refrain from expressing my great satisfaction at the issue of the Derby trials, as most important to the country, in dispelling the mischievous delusion that high treason was an offence for which low persons were not punishable." We have great doubts whether such a mischievous delusion ever existed. We know that when the Cato Street conspirators were brought to their just punishment, there was one universal feeling of satisfaction throughout the land, without regard to their being low persons. But we also know that the executions at Derby - with the exception of that of Brandreth, who had dyed his hands in blood - left a permanent conviction upon the minds, not only of low persons, but of a large number of the best informed and the most influential in the midland districts, that these unhappy men were state victims. There was a profound belief that the ignorant violence of these deluded creatures was criminal, but that it was not high treason. Lord Colchester intimates that some in high places held the same belief: "Also, I do most exceedingly rejoice, for the sake of my friend, the Secretary of State, that his judgment has been finally vindicated against all those hesitating and timid counsels which would have inclined to discountenance these proceedings, burying the reputation of the government in irredeemable disgrace." A discriminating lenity in this solitary case of condemnation by a jury, might, as it appears to us at the end of thirty years, have redeemed some little of the disgrace which must forever attach to the alarm system of 1817. CHP. X.] LORD SIDMOUTHI'S CIRCULAR. 135 CHAPTER X. ON moving the second reading of the Habeas Corpus Suspension Bill, Lord Sidmouth made the following state- ProsecutionB ment: "Some noble lords had complained that pros- for libel. ecutions had not been instituted against the authors, printers, or publishers of infamous libels; but it was but justice to government to state that they had not neglected their duty with regard to these publications. As soon as they reached the hands of ministers, they were transmitted to the law-officers of the crown, who felt that these publications were drawn up with so much dexterity — the authors had so profited by former lessons of experience - that greater difficulties to conviction presented themselves than at any former time." Within a month from this declaration Lord Sidmouth intrusted the administration of the law of libel to less scrupulous hands than the law-officers of the crown. On the 27th of March, the Secretary of State addressed his famous circular-letter to the lords lieu- Lord Sidtenants of counties, in which, urging the importance mouth's of preventing the circulation of blasphemous and se- circular. ditious pamphlets, he stated that he had obtained the opinion of the law-officers, that " a justice of the peace may issue a warrant to apprehend a person charged before him, upon oath, with the publication of libels of the nature in question, and compel him to give bail to answer the charge." He called, therefore, upon the lords lieutenants to communicate this opinion at the ensuing quarter sessions, so that all magistrates might act thereupon. Such a proceeding as this was perhaps the most daring invasion of public liberty that had been attempted since the time of the Stuarts. It called forth from Lord Grey, on the 12th of May, one of the most luminous speeches which that statesman ever delivered. One passage may be fitly quoted:1 "In all the varieties of writing which may constitute the offence of libel, what more difficult to be decided than the question of their guilt or innocence? What more exposed to the influence of undue motives in its decision? It has been formerly stated, by some of the most eminent persons in the profession of the law, nay, 1 Hansard, xxxvi. p. 474. 136 HISTORY OF THE PEACE. [Boos I. by almost all of them, to be so nice and difficult a question, that it could not be safely left even to a special jury; that they were only to find the fact of publication; and that the criminality of the writing, as a question of law, was exclusively for the decision of the court. This, my lords, was long contended for, and long acted upon as law; till, happily for the freedom of the press, and for the liberty of the country, of which the press is the great palladium, by the perseverance of my noble and learned friend (Lord Erskine), and by the exertions of the man whom, in public life, I most loved and admired (Mr. Fox), that principle was at length exploded; and by the Libel Bill it was at last established. that in prosecutions for libel, both the law and the fact were within the province of the jury, and to be determined by them. But, my lords, what avails this just and beneficent statute -what security is there either for the freedom of the press, or the liberty of the subject - if, whilst you have imposed this salutary restraint upon the judges in trials for libel, you give to them, and to justices of the peace, before trial, a right to decide that difficult question; and to commit to prison —in many instances, perhaps, to inflict a severer punishment than the court upon conviction would adjudge - upon a charge which, after all, may turn out to have had no foundation, but in the false interpretation of words perfectly innocent, by the justice before whom the charge was brought?.... If such be the power of the magistrate, and if this be the law, where, I ask, are all the boasted securities of our independence and freedom? " The House of Lords was indifferent to the preservation of these boasted securities. Writing, four months after this debate, to the Bishop of Durham, Lord Sidmouth says:' 1 The attempt to check the progress of treason and blasphemy, by apprising the magistrates that they had the power of apprehending and holding to bail the publishers or venders of either, was one of the charges brought against me in the course of the last session. Such a charge it shall be my constant endeavor to deserve; and I am happy in being able to assure your lordship that the activity of the itinerant dealers in these articles is materially controlled, and their number greatly diminished." We apprehend that there cannot be the slightest doubt in most minds, at the present day, that this pr oceeding, of Lord Sidmouth was most unconstitutional; and that he speaks and writes in defence of his conduct, with all the self-approval of the worst political bigot of the worst periods of tyranny. Truly did Sir Samuel Romilly say, in the discussion of the same question:2 By the constitution of this country there are only two modes in which the law, in matters of doubt, can be declared: one is, by the whole legislaI Life, iii. p. 176. 2 Hansard, xxxvi. pp. 1162-1165. CHAP. X.] FLIGHT OF WILLIAM COBBETT. 137 ture, by a declaratory statute; the other, by the decisions of the judges upon points which have come judicially before them. It has been at all times thought of the utmost importance to prevent the law from being in any other way declared, and particularly to guard against the crown presuming to declare it. The circular, resting on the opinion of the law-officers, had declared the laws of the land on a point that was before doubtful; and the Secretary of State, assisted by such advice as he could command, had thus assumed the functions of' legislation." It is difficult to imagine a more degraded and dangerous position than that in which every political writer was placed during the year 1817. In the first place, he was subject, by a Secretary of State's warrant, to be imprisoned upon suspicion, under the Suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act. Secondly, he was open to an ex-officio information, under which he would be compelled to find bail, or be imprisoned. This power was extended so as to compel bail, by an act of 1808; but from 1808 to 1811, during which three years forty such informations were laid, only one person was held to bail. In 1817 numerous ex-offcio informations were filed, and the almost invariable practice was to hold the alleged offender to bail, or in default to commit to prison. Under this act Mr. Hone and others were committed to prison during this year. To complete this triple cord with which the ministers believed they could bind down the " manmountain" of the press, came forth Lord Sidmouth's circular. The entire course of these proceedings was a signal failure. There was only one solitary instance of success - William Cobbett ran away. On the 28th of March he fled to America, suspending the publication of his " Register" for four months. In his farewell paper he thus explains his motive for this new Hegira:l "Lord Sidlmouth was'sorry to say' that I had not written anything that the law-officers could prosecute with any chance of success. I do not remove for the purpose of writing libels, but for the purpose of being able to write Bwhat is not libellous. I do not retire from the combat with the AttorneyGeneral, but from a combat with a dungeon, deprived of pen, ink, and paper. A combat with the Attorney-General is quite unequal enough. That, however, I would have encountered. I know too well what a trial by special jury is. Yet that, or any sort of trial, I would have stayed to faice. So that I could be sure of a trial of whatever sort, I would have run the risk. But against the absolute power of imprisonment without even a hearing, for time unlimited, in any jail in the kingdom, without the use of pen, ink, and paper, and without any communication with any soul but the keepers - against such a power it would 1 Register, March 28, 1817. 138 HISTORY OF THE PEACE. [BooK I. have been worse than madness to attempt to strive." It may be easy to call this apprehension cowardice; but there can be no doubt that Cobbett was the most dreaded of all the political writers of that time, by those who were terrified at the name of parliamentary reform. They were especially in fear of those of whose " dexterity" Lord Sidmouth complained. Cobbett went unscathed. The terrors of the law were reserved for more incautious and feebler delinquents. On the 12th of' May, Earl Grey mentioned in the House of Hone's Lords that a Mr. Hone was proceeded against for trials. publishing some blasphemous parody; but he had read one of the same nature, written, printed, and published some years ago by other people, without any notice having been officially taken of it. The parody to which Earl Grey alluded, and a portion of which he recited, was Canning's famous parody, "Praise Lepaux"- an imitation of the Benedicite, and of passages in Job - which was published in the " Anti-Jacobin;" and he asked whether the authors, be they in the cabinet or in any other place, would also be found out and visited with the penalties of the law. This hint to the obscure publisher against whom these ex-ofiicio informations had been filed for blasphemous and seditious parodies, was effectually worked out by him in the solitude of his prison, and in the poor dwelling where he had surrounded himself, as he had done from his earliest years, with a collection of odd and curious books, from which he had gathered an abundance of knowledge that was destined to perplex the technical acquirements of the Attorney-General, to whom the sword and buckler of his precedents was wholly useless, and to change the determination of the boldest judge in the land, to convict at any rate, into the prostration of helpless despair. Altogether the three trials of William Hone are amongst the most remarkable in our constitutional history. They produced more distinct effects upon the temper of the country than any public proceedings of that time. They taught the government a lesson which has never been forgotten, and to which, as much as to any other cause, we owe the prodigious improvement as to the law of libel itself; and the use of the law, in our own day,an improvement which leaves what is dangerous in the press to be corrected by the remedial power of the press itself; and which, instead of lamenting over the newly acquired ability of the masses to read seditious and irreligious works, depends upon the general diffusion of this ability as the surest corrective of the evils that are incident even to the best gift of heaven - that of knowledge. Wisely did our Milton say: 1'They are not skilful considerers of human things, who imagine to remove sin by removing the 1 Liberty of Unlicensed Printing. CHAP. X.] TRIAL OF WILLIAM HONE. 139 matter of sin." The course that the "not skilful considerers of human things " took in 1817, was a course that they might have avoided had they listened to a great political teacher of two centuries before them: -" The punishing of wits enhances their authority; and a forbidden writing is thought to be a certain spark of truth that flies up in the faces of them who seek to tread it out." On the morning of the 18th of December there is a considerable crowd round the avenues of Guildhall. An obscure bookseller, a man of no substance or respectability in worldly eyes, is to be tried for libel. He vends his wares in a little shop in the Old Bailey, where there are, strangely mingled, twopenny political pamphlets, and old harmless folios that the poor publisher keeps for his especial reading as he sits in his dingy back-parlor. The door-keepers and officers of the court scarcely know what is going to happen; for the table within the bar has not the usual covering of crimson bags, but ever and anon a dingy boy arrives with an armful of books of all ages and sizes, and the whole table is strewed with dusty and tattered volumes that the ushers are quite sure have no law within their mouldy covers. A middle-aged man - a bland and smiling man - with a half sad, half merry twinkle in his eye - a seedy man, to use an expressive word, whose black coat is wondrous brown and threadbaretakes his place at the table, and begins to turn over the books which were his heralds. Sir Samuel Shepherd, the attorneygeneral, takes his seat, and looks compassionately, as was his nature to do, at the pale man in threadbare black. Mr. Justice Abbot arrives in due time; a special jury is sworn; the pleadings are opened; and the attorney-general states the case against William Hone, for printing and publishing an impious and profane libel upon the Catechism, the Lord's Prayer, and the Ten Commandments, thereby bringing into contempt the Christian religion. "It may be said," argued the attorney-general, "that the defendant's object was not to produce this effect. I believe that he meant it, in one sense, as a political squib; but his responsibility is not the less." As the attorney-general proceeded to read passages from the parody upon the Catechism, the crowd in court laughed; the bench was indignant; and the attorney-general said, the laugh was the fullest proof of the baneful effect of the defendant's publication. And so the trial went on in the smoothest way, and the case for the prosecution was closed. Then the pale man in black rose, and with a faltering voice set forth the difficulty he had in addressing the court, and how his poverty prevented him obtaining counsel. And now he began to warm in the recital of what he thought 1 Lord Bacon. 140 HISTORY OF THE PEACE. [BooK I. his wrongs; his commitments - his hurried calls to plead - the expense of copies of the informations against him; and as Mr. Justice Abbot, with perfect gentleness, but with his cold formality, interrupted him, the timid man, who all thought would have mumbled forth a hasty defence, grew bolder and bolder, and in a short time had possession of his audience, as if he were "some well-graced actor" who was there to receive the tribute of popular admiration.1 "They were not to inquire whether he were a member of the established church, or a dissenter; it was enough that he professed himself to be a Christian; and he would be bold to say, that he made that profession with a reverence for the doctrines of Christianity which could not be exceeded by any person in that court. He had his books about him, and it was from them that he must draw his defence. They had been the solace of his life. He was too much attached to his books to part with them. As to parodies, they were as old at least as the invention of printing; and he never heard of a prosecution for a parody, either religious or any other. There were two kinds of parodies: one in which a man might convey ludicrous or ridiculous ideas relative to some other subject; the other, where it was meant to ridicule the thing parodied. This latter was not the case here, and therefore he had not brought religion into contempt." This was the gist of' William Hone's defence. To show fully how this argument was worked -- with what readiness, what coolness, what courace - would be to transcribe the trials of three days; on the first of which the defendant spoke six hours; on the second, seven h6urs; and on the last, eight hours. It was in vain that the attorney-general urged that, to bring forward any previous parody was the same thing as if a person charged with obscenity should produce obscene volumes in his defence. It was in vain that Mr. Justice Abbot repeated his wish that the defendant would not read such things. On he went, till interruption was held to be in vain. It was worse than vain; it was unjust. Truly did Hone reply to Mr. Justice Abbot: "My lord, your lordship's observation is in the very spirit of what Pope Leo X. said to AMartin Luther, -' For God's sake don't say a word about the indulgences and the monasteries, and I'11 give you a living;' thus precluding him from mentioning the very tiring in dispute. I must go on with these parodies, or I cannot go on with my defence." Undauntedly he went on, from the current literature of the time, such as grave lawyers read in their few hours of recreation, to the forgotten volumes of old theology and polemical controversy, that the said grave lawyers of modern days are accustomed to regard as useless lumber. The editor of "Blackwood's Magazine" was a 1 Hone's First Trial, p. 14. CHAP. X.] SECOND TRIAL OF HONE. 141 parodist - he parodied a chapter of Ezekiel; Martin Luther was a parodist — he parodied the first psalm; Bishop Latimer was a parodist, and so was Dr. Boys, Dear of Canterbury; the author of the " Rolliad" was a parodist, and so was Mr. Canning. Passage after passage did Mr. Hone read from author after author. lte thought it was pretty clear that Martin Luther did not mean to ridicule the Psalms; that Dr. Boys did not mean to ridicule the Lord's Prayer; that Mr. Canning did not mean to ridicule the Scriptures. Why, then, should it be presumed that he had such an intention? As soon as he found that his parodies had been deemed offensive, he had suppressed them; and that he had done long before his prosecution. It was in vain that the attorney-general replied that Martin Luther was a libeller, and Dr. Boys was a libeller. The judge charged the jury in vain.'William Hone was acquitted, after a quarter of an hour's deliberation. But Guildhall "saw another sight." 1 With the next morning's fog, the fiery lord chief-justice rose from his bed, and with lowering brow took his place in that judgment-seat which he deemed had been too mercifully filled on the previous day. The mild firmness of the poor publisher, and his gentlemanly sense of the absence of harshness in the conduct of his first trial, had won for him something like respect; and when on one occasion Mr. Justice Abbot asked him to forbear reading a particular parody, and the defendant said, "Your lordship and I understand each other, and we have gone on so good-humoredly hitherto, that I will not break in upon our harmony," it became clear that the puisne judge was not the man to enforce a verdict of guilty on the second trial. Again Mr. Hone entered the court with his load of books, on Friday, the 19th of December. He was this day indicted for publishing an impious and profane libel, called " The Litany, or General Supplication." Again the attorney-general affirmed, that, whatever might be the object of the defendant, the publication had the effect of scoffing at the public service of the church. Again the defendant essayed to read from his books, which course he contended was essentially necessary for his defence. Then began a contest which is perhaps unparalleled in an English court of justice. Upon AMr. Fox's Libel Bill, upon ex-oficio informations, upon his right to copies of the indictment without extravagant charges, the defendant battled his judge - imperfect in his law, no doubt, but with a firmness and moderation that rode over every attempt to put him down. Parody after parody was again produced, and especially those parodies of the litany which the cavaliers employed so frequently as vehicles of satire upon the Roundheads 1 Second Trial. 142 HISTORY OF THE PEACE. [BOOK I. and Puritans. The lord chief-justice at length gathered up his exhausted strength for his charge; and concluded in a strain that left but little hope for the defendant:-" He would deliver the jury his solemn opinion, as he was required by act of parliament to do; and under the authority of that act, and still more in obedience to his conscience and his God, he pronounced this to be a most impious and profane libel. Believing and hoping that they, the jury, were Christians, he had not any doubt but that they would be of the same opinion." The jury, in an hour and a half, returned a verdict of Not Guilty. It might have been expected that these prosecutions would have here ended. But the chance of a conviction -from a third jury,1 upon a third indictment, was to be risked. On the 20th of December, Lord Ellenborough again took his seat on the bench, and the exhausted defendant came late into court, pale and agitated. The attorney-general remarked upon his appearance, and offered to postpone the proceedings. The courageous man made his election to go on. This third indictment was for publishing a parody on the creed of St. Athanasius, called " The Sinecurist's Creed." After the attorney-general had finished his address, Mr. Hone asked for five minutes' delay, to arrange the few thoughts he had been committing to paper. The judge refused the small concession; but said that he would postpone the proceedings to another day, if the defendant would request the court so to do. The scene which ensued was thoroughly dramatic. No! I make no such request. My lord, I am very glad to see your lordship here to-day, because I feel I sustained an injury from your lordship yesterday - an injury which I did not expect to sustain..... If his lordship should think proper, on this trial to-day, to deliver his opinion, I hope that opinion will be coolly and dispassionately expressed by his lordship. My lord, I think it necessary to make a stand here. I cannot say what your lordship may consider to be necessary interruption; but your lordship interrupted me a great many times yesterday, and then said you would interrupt me no more, and yet your lordship did interrupt me afterwards ten times as much..... Gentlemen, it is you who are trying me to-day. His lordship is no judge of me. You are my judges, and you only are my judges. His lordship sits there to receive your verdict..... I will not say what his lordship did yesterday; but I trust his lordship to-day will give his opinion coolly and dispassionately, without using either expression or gesture which could be construed as conveying an entreaty to the jury to think as he did. I hope the jury will not be beseeched into a verdict of guilty." The triumph of the weak over the powerful was complete. " The frame of adaTI hird Trial, p. 12. CHAP. X.] ACQUITTAL OF HONE. 143 mant and soul of fire," as the biographer of Lord Sidmouth terms the chief-justice, quailed before the indomitable courage of a man who was roused into energies which would seem only to belong to the master-spirits that have swayed the world. Yet this was a man who, in the ordinary business of life, was incapable of enterprise and persevering exertion; who lived in the nooks and corners of' his antiquarianism; who was one that even his old political opponents came to regard as a gentle and innocuous hunter after "all such reading as was never read;" who in a few years gave up his politics altogether, and, devoting him self to his old poetry and his old divinity, passed a quarter of a century after this conflict in peace with all mankind, and died the sub-editor of a religious journal. It was towards the close of this remarkable trial. that the judge, who came eager to condemn, sued for pity to his intended victim. The defendant quoted Warburton and Tillotson, as doubters of the authenticity of the Athanasian creed. "Even his lordship's father, the Bishop of Carlisle, he believed, took a similar view of the creed." And then the judge solemnly said: " Whatever that opinion was, he has gone, many years ago, where he has had to account for his belief and his opinions..... For common delicacy forbear." " Oh, my lord, I shall certainly forbear." Grave and temperate was the charge to the jury this day; and in twenty minutes they. returned a verdict of Not Guilty. On Sunday, the 21st of December, the day after this last trial, Lord Ellenborough wrote thus to Lord Sidmouth:l 1 The disgraceful events which have occurred at Guildhall within the last three or four days have led me, both on account of the public and myself, to consider very seriously my own sufficiency, particularly in point of bodily health and strength, to discharge the official duties of my station in the manner in which, at the present critical moment, it is peculiarly necessary they should be discharged. I wish to carry my meditated purpose of resignation into effect, as soon as the convenience of government, in regard to the due selection and appointment of my successor, may allow." We have said that the proceedings of the government in the libel matters of 1817 were signal failures. A few miserable hawkers were held to bail, or sent to prison, under Lord Sidmouth's circular; some ex-offcio informations were filed, with only one conviction - that of a printer in the country, who republished one of Hone's parodies, and was tried before Hone himself. As to the three acquittals we have described, it is perfectly evident that three juries, consisting of respectable London merchants, would have assuredly convicted the defendant, had 1 Life of Lord Sidmouth, iii. p. 236. 144 HISTORY OF THE PEACE. [BooK I. they not felt that the real sting of the alleged profaneness was the severity of the political satire. Although the indictment stated that these parodies were seditious as well as profane, the sedition was studiously kept in the background. Had they not been really prosecuted for their political doctrines, their unquestionable indecency and impropriety must have carried a verdict against them on the first trial. The second and third trials looked like persecution; and public opinion threw its shield over the offender. A letter fiom MIr. Ward (Lord Dudley) to the Bishop of Llandaff, exhibits a striking example of the difference of opinion that existed in high quarters as to the prosecution of Hone. The personal friend of George Canning, writing to a most pious and learned dignitary of the church, responds to the sentiments of that dignitary that this transaction was uncalled for and oppressive. " I am particularly gratified 1 with what you say about the business of Hone. It is an additional proof, if any were wanting, of your superiority to those prejudices with which place and profession might have inspired a man of less sound understanding, and a less independent character. I have been inclined all along to think, and what you say confirms me in the opinion, that the prosecution was discreditable to the government and its law-advisers. Not that I believe they were actuated by tyrannical principles. It was a mere blunder; but the success of it would have afforded a very mischievous precedent for bad times. Certainly this man meant no good either to church or state; and that is reason enough for the whole race of methodistical Tories - who are guided entirely by their own feelings as to the particular case, without any regard to, or knowledge of, the general principles of justice - to be sadly grieved that his ears were not cropped, as they would have been by the Star-Chamber. That famous tribunal no doubt had its merits. It punished many scoundrels that could not have been got at by a regular course of law, and was therefore an object of admiration so long as it lasted, and of regret when it fell, to precisely the same sort of persons that now mourn over the acquittal of Hone." 1 Lord Dudley's Letters, p. 190. CHAP. XI.] DEATH OF THE PRINCESS CHARLOTTE. 145 CHAPTER XI. THE death of the presumptive heiress of the British crown, after the birth of a dead child, was the great historical Death of the event of 1817. Never was a whole nation plunged Princess in such deep and universal grief. From the highest Charlotte. to the lowest, this death was felt as a calamity that demanded the intense sorrow of domestic misfortune. Around every fireside there were suppressed tears and bitter remembrances. The most solemn disclaimer was uttered, through this universal mourning, of the foul calumny against the people, that they were desirous of a vital change in their laws and institutions. Whatever might be their complaints, they showed, on this occasion, that their attachment to a constitutional monarchy was undiminished by factious contests or real grievances; and that they looked with exulting hopes to the days when a patriot queen should diffuse the sunlight of just government through every corner of' a prosperous and happy land. The affection which the people of Great Britain cherished for the Princess Charlotte was ardent, but it was discriminating. It was a tribute to principles and to conduct. It was something much better than that unreflecting gallantry which would have called " a thousand swords from their scabbards" to have defended personal charms; it was the admiration of private virtue disciplining itself for public service. The Princess Charlotte seemed born to build up for generations the succession to the British crown, by calling around her own person the warmest devotion of a zealous but a reflecting people. A female sovereign can best make duty choice, and obedience happiness. What the birth of this Princess promised, her education ripened, and her own love of real glory perfected. Her early y` — ^ J —7'"~0 166 HISTORY OF THE PEACE. [BooK I. fainting from want of water, headed one more charge, the last of the many that they made during the day, recaptured the lost gun, and slaughtered the Arabs in a heap. The charge was utterly desperate, for every man felt that there was nothing between him and victory except torture and death. On this occasion, Lieutenant Pattinson, who had been wounded and carried into a house, appeared again at the head of his men, and continued to exert the little strength he had left, until he received another wound, which proved mortal. Captain Swanston and Lieutenant Connellon were rescued; and every man of the Arabs who had penetrated to the pagoda was bayoneted without mercy. By a little after nine, the enemy were completely driven from the village and all the ground near it, and our fiainting sepoys were then enabled to obtain a supply of water, the only refreshment they got during the whole day and following night. Where the desperate Arabs had failed, there was slight chance that the cowardly Mahrattas would renew the attempt. Captain Staunton and his people passed the night without any molestation. At daybreak on the following morning the Mahratta army was seen hovering about the village, but none of them would venture near; and this day also passed without any molestation. Captain Staunton had consumed so much powder during the nine hours' fighting of the preceding day, that he had only a few rounds of ammunition left; and provisions in the camp there were none, and none were to be procured in the village. Despairing, therefore, of being able to reach Poonah, he determined to move back to Seroor. He began his retreat in the dark on the night of the 2d of January; he sacrificed much of his baggage in order to provide the means of conveying his numerous wounded, but he brought off not only his guns, but likewise all his wounded, and with them reached Seroor by nine o'clock the next morning, the 3d of January. The men had had no refreshment but water from the 31st of December. Three officers were killed and two wounded; 62 men were killed and 113 wounded, exclusive of the auxiliary horse. The loss of men was most severe in the artillery, 12 being killed and 8 wounded out of a detail for two six-pounders only. In the course of the 3d of January, the day on which Captain Staunton got back to Seroor, Brigadier-General Smith reached the village of Corregaum with his strong division. The Peishwa and his Mahrattas fled back to the table-land near the sources of the Kistna, from which they had descended. General Smith followed them closely, and Brigadier-general Pritzler, with another division, was moving from another point to intercept them. The Mahrattas continued to turn and twist like eels; and though CHAP. XII.] DEFEAT OF THE MAHRATTAS. 167 Pritzler trod upon their tail more than once, and cut off part of it, they could not be so overtaken as to be brought to a general action, or even to a stand. They were very nearly caught in the neighborhood of Satara, on the 28th of January; but they escaped by a ghaut, with the loss of part of their rear-guard. A small detachment under Colonel Boles cannonaded them out of another ghaut, which they were attempting to thread; but they only changed their line of march. The troops were exhausted by this harassing pursuit, which seemed to produce no visible advantage. Miountstuart Elphinstone had the merit of recommending a better plan of operations. This was to storm the many strong places in the country, to deprive the Peishwa of the means of subsistence, to reduce Satara, which was still the nominal capital of the Mahratta empire, and to reinstate the Satara family in an independent sovereignty. The fortress of Satara surrendered to Brigadier-General Smith on the 10th of February, the day on which he first appeared before it. Some other places were in process of reduction, when the Peishwa made certain rash movements, which enabled General Smith to fall upon him at Ashtah, on the 20th of February, with the 2d and 7th regiments of Madras light cavalry, and two squadrons of His Majesty's 22d dragoons. Bajee Rao, the dastardly Peishwa, deserted his palanquin and his army, mounting a horse, and galloping away as soon as the battle began; but Gokla, his general, seeing that he must either fight or lose the baggage, and nearly everything else, made a bold stand, outflanking Smith's small force, and at one moment threatening it in the rear. But the British dragoons charged his gole,' and killed him in the charge. The death of Gokla left the Mahrattas without a head. From this moment, all was confusion and panic; each mass of cavalry breaking as our dragoons approached it. Some faint resistance was attempted in the camp; but our dragoons dashed in, and made good booty. Twelve elephants and fifty-seven camels formed part of this prize. General Smith was slightly wounded on the head, and Lieutenant Warrand, of the 22d dragoons, was wounded by Gokla, who fought fiercely in the mnlee, and wounded several of our men be-fore he fell; but no one was killed on our side, and only seventeen or eighteen of the soldiers were wounded. The remnant of the Peishwa's army fled towards the north, being daily thinned by desertion. Brigadier-General Pritzler, General Monro, Colonels Prother and Deacon, reduced all the forts that remained; the Mahratta flag was fast disappearing, and so were the hopes of the Mahratta chiefs. Our divisions and detachments in the field, in almost all parts of India, were too 1 A mass of Mahratta cavalry. 168 HISTORY OF THE PEACE. [BooK I, numerous and too well posted to allow of any junction being effected between the Peishwa and the forces of any of our other enemies. After the battle of' Ashtah, Brigadier-General Smith repaired to Satara, in order to assist Mr. Elphinstone in setting up the rajah. In this way the Peishwa gained a few days' respite, during which he continued to press to the northwest, with the design of throwing himself into the territories of the Nizam of the Deccan, which he hoped to find ill furnished with troops. But turning back from Satara, and making a short halt at Seroor, Smith renewed his pursuit of the Peishwa on the 10th of 1March. Brigadier-General Doveton, with his division, moved in another direction, in the expectation of intercepting the Peishwa. Nevertheless, the Mahratta traversed the iNizam's dominions from west to east, and appeared on the banks of the Whurdah on the ist of April. But as his van was crossing that river, with the intention of marching upon Nagpoor, it was met and driven back by a small detachment under Colonel Scott. The Peishwa then tried to cross the river at another point, but here he was met by Colonel Adams, and was informed by his scouts that General Doveton was getting close upon him. Without waiting the arrival of Doveton, Adams followed the Mahrattas, came up with them near Seuni, and with only one regiment of native cavalry and some horse-artillery, gave them a signal overthrow. The enemy fled through the jungles, leavino behind them five guns, the Peishwa's much-sunken treasure, three elephants, and 200 camels. This time Bajee Rao had a very narrow escape; for, though he began to run as soon as his people began to fight, a palanquin in which he had just been riding was taken, and was found to be perforated by a shot. More than 1000 of his Mahrattas remained dead on the field. They were knocked down by our horse-artillery, or by our cavalry, in their flight. They can scarcely have stood anywhere, for Colonel Adams's total loss was only two wounded.' General Doveton was near enough to hear the firing of Adams's guns; but it was found necessary to halt our troops, in order to wait for supplies; and then mistakes were committed as to the direction in which the pursuit ought to be continued. Nor was it easy to avoid these errors, for the Peishwa's army split up into various detachments, and each took a route of its own. Two thirds of his people quitted his standard altogether, and were only anxious to reach their homes as speedily as might be. Bajee Rao's whole object now was to get back to the northeast; but here he found his progress stopped by General Sir Thomas Hislop, who was returning from Malwah to the Deccan. On his way, Sir Thomas had resorted to a measure of unusual severity. The CHAP. XII.] ATTACK ON FORT TALNAIR. 169 fort of Talnair or Talneir, situated on the north bank, and commanding a ford over the river Taptee, was one of the places ceded to the English by Holkar under the late treaty. Sir Thomas had in his possession Holkar's own orders for the quiet surrender of the place; yet a fire was opened upon his troops from the fort. The Mahratta killadar, or commandant, was warned that if he continued to resist the order of his master, he would be dealt with as a rebel; without heeding the message, the killadar continued to fire. Upon this Sir Thomas Hislop occupied the pettah, or open town, and turned his artillery upon the fort. The gate of the fort was blown open by two six-pounders. The flank companies of the Royal Scots and of the Company's European regiment rushed in, and came to the second gate, which was found open. At the third gate they were met by the killadar, who caine out by the wicket and surrendered to Colondl Conway. The third and fourth gates were then opened, and the storming-party advanced to the fifth, which led into the body of the place. This was found shut, but part of the garrison within demanded terms, and expressed their dissatisfaction at the gates being closed. After a very short parley,' in which they were summoned to surrender at discretion, the wiclket-gate was opened from within, and Lieutenant-Colonel AMurray, Major Gordon, Captain MacGregor, and Lieutenants Chauvel and MacGregor, entered, and were followed by ten or twelve grenadiers. They were scarcely within the wicket when some wild Arabs, who formed part of the garrison, fell upon them with swords, spears, and knives. 3,Mljor Gordon and Captain MacGregor were killed forthwith; LieutenantColonel Murray was wounded in several places, cut down, and disabled; the two lieutenants were wounded and cut down also, and all the grenadiers were either killed or wounded. But the rest of our storming-party soon rushed through the wicket, drove off the murderous Arabs, and in the end slauglltered every man that was in the fort. Between Arabs, Patans, and Mahrattas, 300 men were sacrificed to the vengeance of our infuriated soldiery. On the next morning, Sir Thomas Hislop had the killadar hanged on one of the bastions, on the twofold charge of rebellion and treachery. It was doubted whether the killadar had ordered, or was privy to, the onslaught of the Arabs; it w\as doubted, but we think unreasonably, whether the Arabs understood that the killadar had surrendered, and that the Mahrattas had agreed to submit; and the conduct of Sir Thomas Hislop, in ordering the execution of the killadar, was severely censured 1 Colonel Valentine Blacker, Memoir Journals of the Sieges of the Madras of the Operations of the British Army Army, &c. in the years 1817-19, &c. in India, &c. Lieutenant Edward Lake, 170 HISTORY OF THE PEACE. [Boot I. in several quarters. But the example was useful, and upon knowing that the commandant of Talnair had been executed, the killadars of the much stronger forts of Gaulna, Chandore, and other places which Holkar had ceded, submitted upon summons, or as soon as they were shown Holkar's orders to admit the English. Bajee Rao had been running hither and thither for more than six months, but his race was now wellnighl finished. Nortl, south, east, and west, his road was cut off, and forces were moving round him from the intermediate points of the compass. Finding' himself so sorely pressed, he attempted again to pass into Maiwall; but Sir John Malcolm, w0ho was himself at Mhow, a town or large cantonment in the Malwah province, had so stationed some forces under Lieutenant-Colonels Russel and Corsellis as to render this movement impracticable. On the evening of the 25th of May, Sir John Malcolm learned that a vakeel from the Peishwa had arrived at a place on the Nerbudda River, about forty in iles from Mhow. Malcolm immediately moved towards that place, and took his troops with him. On the 27th of MI3ay, he lnet the vakeel or ambassador, who assured him that the Peishwa was determined to come to him, and to trust to his fiiendship and generosity. Sir John, being informed of the plan of displosing of' the Peishwa which had been framed by the Marquess of Hastings and Mir. Elphinstone, stated the conditions, and sent the vakeel back to his master, who was occupying a good position on a hill. The Peishwa remained irresolute for several days, during which the division of General Doveton and other troops got close into his neighborhood. At last, on the evening of the 1st of June, he came down to a village in the plain, and met Sir John Malcolm. The Mahratta did not colme alone; he had an escort 2500 strong, and he brought his faumily with him. Malcolm, who had come to the appointed place with only a thin attendance, repeated the conditions, and demanded the immediate surrender of' Trimbukjee. Bajee Rao declared that it was not in his power to give up Trimbuljee; that Trimbukjee had an army and camp of' his own; that he was stronger than he was. "Then," said Mlalcolm, " I will attack him forthwith. " Success attend you! " replied the Peishwa. The Mlahratta prince further declared that he had been involved in a war without meaning it; that he was treated as an enemy by the English, who had supported his family for two generations; that he was now in a lamentable situation, but believed that he still had a real friend in Sir John Malcolm. He was told that he ought either to throw himself at once on the magnanimity of the British government, or prepare for further resistance. "How can I resist now?" said the Mahratta; "I am surrounded." Mal. CHAP. XII.] SURRENDER OF BAJEE RAO. 171 colm replied that this was quite true, but that still he might escape if he preferred becoming a freebooter and wanderer to accepting the liberal provisions which the English were ready to give him. 13Bajee Rao protested that Malcolm was his friend, his only friend, and that he would never leave him, but trust entirely to his good offices. Nevertheless, the Peishwa, on breaking up the conference, asked for a little delay, and in retiring to the ghaut from which he had descended, he took care to guard his rear and flanks with his resolute Arab infantry, and to show the muzzles of his guns over the rocks; and upon reaching his camp he sent trusty messengers to the camp of Trimbukjee, to tell that favorite to beware of Malcolm. It was, however, utterly impossible for him to procrastinate very long, for he was completely hemmed in, and his supplies of provisions were failing. He informed Sir John Malcolm that he would go to his camp, and conclude the treaty as proposed to him, on the morning of the 3d of June. When that morning came, he tried one faint shuffle more. It was an inauspicious day, he had some religious ceremonies to perform; would not his dear friend Malcolm wait till to-morrow? Malcolm gave him to understand that he would not owait another hour; and this, with the not very distant firing of some English guns on one of his flanks or in his rear, had the effect of removing all further hesitation. At about eleven o'clock on the morning of the 3d, he came down to Sir John Malcolm's camp, and delivered himself up, with his family. Malcolm, like nearly all his distinguished Indian contemporaries, was a man of a large and generous heart; none knew better than he the demerits and the helplessness of the fallen enemy now before him, yet he agreed that the Peishwa's allow ance should not be less than eight lacs of rupees per annum, and that a most liberal provision should be made for his courtiers, Irallmans, temples, &c. The supreme government at Calcutta thought that Sir John had granted too much; but as it was done, they confirmed the grants. Bajee Rao renounced forever the dignity of' Peishwa, or supreme chief of the Mahrattas, tooether with all his claims of sovereignty. If Trimbukjee had not been secured in an English prison, the case might have been different; but as that turbulent felon was caught, after another hard run for it, the ex-Peishwa quietly resigned himself to a life of luxury and ease, spending his 80,0001. a year, not in raising troops or exciting combinations against the Company, but in mere sensual indulgences. He was very anxious to have his residence fixed at Poonah; but to this the Governor-General objected strongly, and for very evident reasons. To Benares, which was proposed to him as a suitable residence, he expressed a rooted aversion. 1HIe would have preferred Muttra, but as that Nwas a frontier station it 172 HISTORY OF THE PEACE. [BooR I. was refused. The village of Bithoor or Brimatwar, on the Ganges, near Cawnpoor, was finally fixed upon for his residence. His progress through Rajpootana and the Doab to the place of his exile excited hardly any sensation among the people. When settled at Bithoor, he bathed daily in the holy water of the Ganges, indulged in the highest living of a Brahman, maintained three expensive sets of dancing-girls, and surrounded himself with low buffoons and sycophants. The rallying-point of the Mahratta confederacy was thus broken up, and if it was not quite so easy to change the character of the Mahratta people, and to introduce peaceful industrious habits among them -- if the unchanged character of that people prognosticated future troubles in India - still their power of doing muischief was from this time vastly reduced. To the restored family of the Rajah of Satara, whose hereditary claim to the sovereignty of the country, and to the dignity of' Peishwa, was held to be much better than that of Bajee Rao, only a very limited territory was allotted, upon his yielding all claim or pretension to be Peishwa; a dignity Nwisely and forever abrogated. The Satara dominions occupy a surface of about 11,000 square miles; being bounded on the west by the Western Ghaut Mountains; on the south, by the Warna and Kistna; on the north, by the Neera and Beemnah Rivers; and on the east, by the frontier of the Nizam's dominions. The total net revenues amounted to 15,600,000 rupees; but out of this sum three lacs per annum were reserved fbr chiefs who had become subjects of the Company, and three lacs more were alienated. The management of' the territories, and the superintendence of the Rajah of Satara's affairs, were assigned to Captain Grant until the country should become tranquillized. Many df the hillforts, which had been what the worst of our baronial castles were in the early part of the twelfth century - dens of thieves, cutthroats, and violators - were dismantled; and others, cleared of their occupants, were allowed to go to ruin. In 1821, when the young rajah attained the age of twenty-one, he was invested with the administration of his dominions, which were then tranquil and prosperous. Upon the conclusion of the treaty with Sir John Malcolm, all that remained of the ex-Peishwa's army quietly broke up and dispersed. Not even Trimbukjee could keep a force together. This chief, knowing that the English would condemn him to imprisonment for life, fled with a few followers to the neighborhood of Nassuck, a large town and place of pilgrimage on the Godavery, principally inhabited by Brahmans. The murderer had ever shown a preference for these holy places, and he probably hoped to escape notice among the crowds of' Hindoo pilgrims that were constantly repairing to the temples of Nassuck. Here, CHAP. XII.] RESTORATION OF PEACE. 173 in fact, he remained concealed for some time, in spite of the active search making for him. At last, Captain Swanston, one of the heroes of Corregaum, being detached by Mr. Elphinstone from a distant station, succeeded, after a march of fifty miles in sixteen hours, in discovering the murderer's hiding-place, and in surrounding the house. When the gates were forced Trimbukjee was reclining on a cot; he fled to the upper part of the house, and concealed himself under some straw. He was presently dragged from his cover; he offered no resistance, and was sent under a good guard to Tannah, the prison from which he had escaped through the ingenious aid of the TIahratta groom and songster. After a short time he was carried to Calcutta, and put into the cage in Fort William, which had previously been occupied by Vizier Ali; but he was very soon conveyed to the rock of Chunar, near Benares. The capture of the fortress of Asseerghur was the last operation of the Pindarree and Mahratta war; a war which had witnessed an unprecedented number of sieges, an unprecedented number and complexity of movements, and some of the most remarkable forced marches that were ever made in any country. 1" Thirty hill-fortresses,' each of which might have defied the whole Anglo-Indian army, fell in the course of a few weeks; and this vast Mahratta empire, which had overshadowed the East, and before which the star of the Mogul had become pale, was annihilated." After the siege of Asseerghur the armies of the three presidencies returned to their several stations and cantonments ill Bengal, BMadras, and Bombay; and the regions which had been crossed and recrossed, and traversed in all directions by immense hosts of combatants, by British and native troops, Peishwa Mahrattas, Holkar Mahrattas, Nagpoor MIalrattas, Pindarrees, Patans, Arabs, Gonds, and others, became quiet as a bay of the ocean after a storm; quieter and happier than they had been for many ages. In the territories assumed by the Company, or0 taken under its immediate protection, able men were left by the~ Marquess of Hastings to improve this tranquillity, to establish permanently the reign of peace and law, and to better the condition of all the native inhabitants. For more than thirty preceding years, the province of Malwah and the whole of Central India had been oppressed, pillaged, and laid waste by the Pindarrees, by the Mahrattas of all tribes, by the Rajpoot princes, and by the Puars; these different powers acted sometimes in combination, but more frequently in opposition to one another; they were all equally cruel and rapacious in the moment of suc1 Edward Lake, Lieutenant of Madras Engineers. Journals of the Sieges of the Madras Army. 174 HISTORY OF THE PEACE. [BOOK I. cess and conquest, and about equally incapable of giving that stability to their conquests which would have given relief to the poor oppressed people, whose greatest calamity was the frequent change of masters. To Sir John Malcolm, who had assisted so potentially in subduing the sanguinary anarchists, and expelling the Pindarrees, was assigned the equally difficult duty of restoring order and repairing the frightful mischiefs which had been committed in so long a series of years. He was appointed by the Marquess of Hastings to the military and political command of Malwah, which had perhaps suffered more than any other part of India. IHundreds upon hundreds of its villages were deserted and roofless; the ferocious tigers of the jungles literally usurped the country, and fought with the returning inhabitants for their fields. In the state of Holkar alone, of 3701 villages, only 2038 were inhabited; 1663 were 1" without lamp " - were wholly deserted. Under the wise rule established by Malcolm, more than two thirds of these deserted villages were restored and repeopled before the end of 1820; and in less than five years from the time our army first occupied the country, Sir John could boast with an honorable pride, and with perfect correctness, that Malwah antd the rest of Central India were tranquil and contented, and rapidly advancing in population and prosperity. "It may be asserted 1 that history affords few examples where a change in the political condition of a country has been attended with such an aglregate of increased happiness to its inhabitants, as that which was effected within four years in Central India; and it is pleasing to think that, with the exception of suppressing a few Bheel robbers, peace was restored, and has hitherto been maintained, without one musket being fired." Accustomed to the extremities of' military violence, the inhabitants of the country, on the English first entering, betrayed feelings of doubt and alarm. These were, by some, mistaken for dislike to our suprernacy; but they arose only out of fear of insult or outrage, and they were speedily removed by the strict discipline preserved by our troops, whether stationary or marching. In a very short time, wherever troops or individuals moved, they were received with cordiality, as the friends and protectors of the people. To organize the country, honorable and intelligent British officers were sent into every part of it. "The result has been fortunate beyond anticipation. These agents, within their respective circles, have not only, by their direct intercourse with all classes, established great influence, but spread a knowledge of our character and intentions, which has increased respect and confidence; and they have in almost all cases succeeded, by the arbitration of differences, and the settlement of local disputes, in preserving 1 Memoir of Central India. CHAP. XII.] HAPPY EFFECTS OF BRITISH RULE. 175 the peace of the country without troops. The most exact observance of certain principles *is required from these officers, and their line is very carefully and distinctly prescribed. The object has been to escape every interference with the internal administration of the country, beyond what the preservation of thej public peace demanded." In other parts of India the change wa, equally beneficial - the blessings derived from the conquest of the Maahratas aind the extirpation of the Pindarrees were equally apparent. As Bishop Heber was travelling through the country in 1824, he overheard a conversation among some villagers, who were comparing the present peaceable times with those in which " Ameer Khau and Bappoo Scindia came up with their horsemen, and spoiled all the land, and smote all the people, and burned the cities through Miewar and Marwar, till thou comest unto the salt wilderness." He also heard them say that corn had been gradually getting cheaper, and notwithstanding a late unfavorable season, was still not so dear as it used to be in the years of trouble. The kind and warm-hearted prelate adds:'i When such have been the effects of British supremacy, who will refuse to pray for the continuance of our empire?" The reputation of the British in India has never stood higher than at the conclusion of the Pindarree and MIahratta war; and during the four remaining years of Lord Hastings's government, the face of Central India was changed to an extent which would have appeared almost incredible to any one who had not contemplated upon the spot the rapid progress of the change, and studied the causes by which it was produced. No war had begun in a higher motive, or had ended in a more positive good to mankind. " The campaign which had just terminated," says Malcolm, "was not an attack upon a state, or upon a body of men, but upon a system. It was order contending against anarchy; and the first triumph was so complete, that there ceased, almost from the moment, to be any who cherished hopes of the contest being either prolonged or revived; the victory gained was slight, comparatively speaking, over armies, to what it was over mind. The universal distress, which a series of revolutions must ever generate, had gone its circle, and reached all ranks and classes. The most barbarous of those who subsisted on plunder had found that a condition of continued uncertainty and alarm could not be one of enjoyment. The princes, chiefs, and inhabitants of the country had neither national feelings, confidence in each other, nor any one principle of union. When, therefore, the English government, too strong to be resisted, proclaimed every district to be the right of its proprietor, on condition of his proving himself the friend of peace and good order; and when 1 Memoir of Central India. 176 HISTORY OF THE PEACE.- [BOOK Is men found that the choice between such a course, and that of continuing the promoters of anarchy, was an option between its friendship or hostility, all concurred in submission. There appeared in a few a difficulty to conquer habits, but in none a spirit of opposition. The desolated state of the country was favorable to the change, for it presented an ample field for the revival of industry in peaceful occupations; but the paramount influence which the results of the war gave to the British government over several of the native states, was the principal cause of that peace and prosperity which ensued. Our officers werle enabled to give shape and direction to the efforts of these states, which became an example to others; and a tone of imnprovemnent was given to every province of Central India." The inhabitants of the wild provinces subject to Scindia started into prosperity as soon as his numerous, restless, and marauding army was broken up. And Scindia himself was as great a gainer as his subjects; for this army, and the insolent, rapacious chieftains who raised and commanded it, in reality oppressed him as well as the people, and rarely left him at liberty to use his own judgment, or act according to his own will. The most dangerous of these chieftains were now destroyed; and, aided by the presence of English armies, by the universal discouragement which had fallen upon the Mahrattas, and by the confirmed conviction that their old trade of war had become an unprofitable trade, Scindia was enabled to disband immense corps commanded by insubordinate chiefs, and to reduce his army to 13,000 regular infantry, and 9000 horse. The saving in actual expenditure, from reductions alone, was estimated at twenty laes of rupees per annum. At the same time the revenues were raised forty per cent. by the restoration of tranquillity and order. Even the disbanded soldiers returned to their native districts, and to theirl fbrmer occupation, as cultivators of the soil. The lamp had been altogether extinguished in only a few villages in Scindia's dominions, but many of these villages had been reduced to four 6r five families. The voids were rapidly filled up. In 1817 there was not one district belonging to Scindia that was not, more or less in a disturbed state; in 1821 there existed not one enemy to the public peace in any of these districts. All the districts which had been wrested from this chief by the Pindarrees were restored to him; the loss of the fortress of Asseerghur was nearly all he lost by the war. In the dominions of Holkar, where the anarchy and devastation had been greater, the change to good was the more striking. Our victory at Maheidpoor had scattered forever the overgrown army of this state; those battalions were never reembodied, and 200 men to guard the palace were all the infantry left in the service of this Mahratta dynasty. Three thou CHAP. XII.] RAPID IMPROVEMENTS. 177 sand obedient cavalry were retained for the police of the country, together with a small park of artillery. In less than four years the revenues of the state were nearly quadrupled; and the expenses of collection were brought down from forty to fifteen per cent. The rapid restoration of the roofless and deserted villages has been mentioned. The increase of population in the towns was surprising. Within the short space of three years, Indore, a city in the province of Malwah, the capital of the Holkar family, was changed from a desolate town to a flourishing capital, containing eighty or a hundred thousand inhabitants; for not only did those families return which had fled in the troublous times, but the inhabitants of other towns and districts migrated in large numbers, and settled in Indore. The young prince, who was secured on the musnud by British power, abandoned the custom of his predecessors of always residing in camp, and fixed his residence in this thriving capital. Other states and territories participated in these advantages. The Grasseas, the Sondwarrees, the Gonds, as well as the Bheels and other hereditary and professional robbers, were rapidly suppressed. 1 When the British armies first entered Central India, and even in 1818, the country along the banks of the Nerbudda, and in the YAindhya mountains, which stretch from the province of Bahar to Cape Comorin, was not safe for even troops to pass; and till the end of the same year, when a British cantonment was established at Mhow, the robbers continued their depredations. All these bands were repressed, and the most vicious and depraved among them were gradually made sensible of the blessings attending a better course of life. From the territories of Bhopal to those of Gujerat, along the right bank of the Nerbudda, and from Hindia to the country of' Burwannee, on the left bank of that river, a spirit of industry and improvement was introduced. New villages rose everywhere, and forests which had long been deemed impenetrable were fast cleared, on account of the profit derived from the timber required to rebuild villages, towns, cities. Between Jaum and Mandoo, the Bheels began to cultivate every spot, and their hamlets rose with a rapidity that promised an early and complete change in the whole face of that district, and in the manners of its inhabitants. Bishop Heber thought that he discovered a hankering among the "hill-people" after their old modes of life, and that there were many of the Bheels who still sighed after their late anarchy, and exclaimed, amid the comforts of a peaceable government," Give us our wildness and our woods, Our huts and caves again." An English party travelling from Mhow observed some Bheels 1 Malcolm, Memoir of Central India. VOL. IT. 12 178 HISTORY OF THE PEACE. [BOOK I looking earnestly at a large drove of bullocks which were drinking at a ford. Upon being asked whether those oxen belonged to him, one of the Bheels replied: 1 " No; but a good part of them would have been ours by this time, if it were not for you English, who will let nobody thrive but yourselves 1" But, in proportion as an efficient police was established, and roads, those grand means of civilization, were opened through the country, tile wild mountain Bheels were kept in check, and gradually brought within the pale of law and civilized life. But for the advance of British armies into Central India, these very Bheels would soon have attracted notice as a substantive power, for they had already acquired an ascendency over several petty native states; and neither Mahrattas nor Patans, neither Arabs nor any other kind of force at the disposal of the native potentates of Central India, would have ventured to attack them in their mountains, where no booty was to be expected, where nothing was to be got but hard blows. Sir John Malcolm completely succeeded in clearing the country of Arabs and Meckranees, a desperate set of adventurers from Mieckran, in Persia, who, in many instances, had made themselves perfectly independent of the native Indian. chiefs whom they pretended to serve; and all the petty chieftains were warned that to retain any of these desperadoes as mercenaries, or to attempt to bring any of them back to the country, would be considered as equivalent to a declaration of hostility against the British government. All other classes of mercenaries, or of ruffians, who looked only to sword and spear for their support, were dismissed. Never was the reign of terror and anarchy more complete than in 1817. No contrast can be greater than what was presented in 1821. The natives were happier then than afterwards; for the recollection of the dangers and miseries they had recently endured, increased the enjoyment of present security and good government. "Take it all in all," continues Malcolm,2 speaking of the period of 1821, "' there never was a country where the industrious classes of the population were better pleased with their condition than they now are; nor is this feeling much checked by the moody turbulence of the military classes, who have been deprived of their occupation. Almost all those who were actually natives of the country have been, in one way or other, considered; while a great proportion of the foreign mercenaries, who constituted the chief part of the disbanded armies, have been compelled to leave it; nor will these mercenaries ever return to disturb its peace, while the measures and principles by which the salutary change has been effected are preserved and supported." 1 Indian Journal. 2 Memoir of Central India. CHAP. XIII. ACCESSIONS OF TERRITORY. 179 At Poonah, and generally in the dominions of the ex-Peishwa, Bajee Rao, changes and reforms equally salutary were introduced, principally through the management of the Honorable Mountstuart Elphinstone, who had the genius of a true legislator, and all the generous sympathies of a philanthropist. By the conquest of the Poonah territory, the British dominion and possessions were extended along the western coast, from the northern boundary of the small province of Goa to the mouths of the Taptee; and inland to the long-established western frontier of the Nizam, from the junction of the Whurdah and Toombudra to the junction of the Wagoor and Taptee. Such places in Khandeish, belonging to the Holkar Mahrattas, as fell within these bounds were ceded to the British by the treaty of Mundesoor, which Sir John Malcolm had concluded after the splendid victory at Maheidpoor. Some other territories south of the Sautpoora range of hills were also yielded. By exchanges with the Guicowar Rajah, and by arrangements with some minor princes, a continuous, uninterrupted dominion was obtained from Bombay to Calcutta, and from Madras to Bombay. The former Mahratta war having been attended with the similar advantage of continuous dominion between Madras and Calcutta, the communication between the three presidencies might now be considered as complete. 180 HISTO.RY OF THE PEACE. Iloo_ I. CHAPTER XIII. THE death of the Princess Charlotte took place on the 6th of Meeting of November, 1817; parliament was opened by commisparliament, sion on the 27th of January following. It was the 27th Jan. sixth and probably the last session of the fifth parliament of the United Kingdom. The prospect of being speedily sent back to their constituents was not so generally alarming to members in those days as it has since become; still, in ordinary circumstances, a good many votes were apt to be affected by it, and the last session of the steadiest parliament, when it was certain or likely that a dissolution was at hand, was wont to be distinguished by some little refractoriness, showing itself both in a slight decline of the ministerial majorities and in the increasing number of popular motions, which were for the most part more favorably received than usual, as well as more pertinaciously urged. The Prince Regent's speech, which was read by the Lord Prince ne- Chancellor, after noticing in the customary terms the gent's speech. continuance of His Majesty's indisposition, proceeded to advert, at somewhat greater length, but in a phraseology hardly less dry and formal, to the death of the Princess. His Royal Highness, it was declared, had been soothed and consoled by the assurances he had received from all classes, both of their just sense of the loss they had sustained, and of their sympathy with his parental sorrow; and, amidst his own sufferings, he had not been unmindful of the effect which the sad event might have on the interests and prospects of the kingdom. Little cordiality, it was well known, had for a long time subsisted between the father and daughter; the natural inclination which the latter had evinced to take part with her mother had estranged and alienated them; and, if the Princess had lived much longer, there would probably have been seen the worst example that had yet been exhibited of the dissension and mutual hatred that had uniformly divided the wearer of the crown and the heir apparent since the accession of the present family; and the internecine war between husband and wife that soon after broke out, would have been rendered still more deplorable and revolting, by their child being in all CHAP. XIII.] PRINCE REGENT'S SPEECH. 181 probability involved in it as an active combatant. The premature death of the Princess Charlotte at least saved herself and all parties that unhappiness. It could not fail, nevertheless, to be keenly felt by her father. Even if he had been a hardhearted man, which he was not, but only a luxurious and selfish one, he must have been stunned by such a blow. His pride and sense of personal importance, if nothing else, must have been severely wounded by it. His hope of being the father of a line of kings was gone; he was become the last of his race; his blood would flow in the veins of no future occupant of his throne; no successor in a distant age would look -back upon him as a progenitor; his history would end with his own life. All this, however, more calmly viewed, would be found to resolve itself into his merely finding himself in a new position, different from, but not in reality perhaps worse than, the one he had lost. Accordingly, it does not appear that his grief long retained the bitterness and prostration with which it was at first accompanied. He was so ill for a short time that his life was considered to be in danger, and was only saved by copious bleeding; but in little more than three months he had so far recovered both his health and spirits, as to be able, at a dinner given by the Prussian ambassador, to entertain the company with a song. The sequel of the speech was all congratulatory. It referred to the improvement which had taken place, in the course of the preceding year, in almost every branch of domestic history - to the improved state of public credit - to the progressive improvement of the revenue in its most important branches; mentioned the treaties that had been concluded with Spain and Portugal, with a view to the abolition of the slave-trade; and concluded by recommending to the attention of parliament the deficiency which had so long existed in the number of places of public worship belonging to the Established Church, when compared with the increased and increasing population of the country. The important change which had taken place in the economical condition of the country, it was observed, " could not fail to withdraw from the disaffected the principal means of which they had availed themselves for the purpose of fomenting a spirit of discontent, which unhappily led to acts of insurrection and treason; " " and his royal highness," it was added, " entertains the most confident expectation, that the state of peace and tranquillity, to which the country is now restored, will be maintained, against all attempts to disturb it, by the persevering vigilance of the magistracy, and by the loyalty and good sense of the people." Thus did the government flatter itself that its troubles were over, and that the year 1817, in taking its departure, had carried its evil spirit along with it. 182 HISTORY OF THE PEACE. [Booc I. Perhaps, however, this apparent confidence may have been partly assumed by ministers, with a view to the defence of their own proceedings in coping with the late attempts of the disaffected. The best case they could make out for themselves would be to show that the measures they had adopted had been successful in putting down or keeping down disturbance, and that all the dangers against which the extraordinary powers intrusted to them had been intended to provide were now at an end. On the subject of these extraordinary powers, their cessation or their continuance, the speech said not a word. But as soon as it was read, and before the address in answer had been moved, the opposition in both Houses demanded the instant repeal of the act of last session suspending the Habeas Corpus Act. On this, ministers announced that it was their intention to present a bill for that purpose on the following day, and to propose the suspension of the standing orders, as had been done in the case of the act to be repealed, that it might pass without delay. The bill was accordingly passed through the Lords on the 28th, and through the Commons on the 29th. No amendment was moved to the address; but it gave rise to some debate in both Houses. Lord Lansdowne denied The address. that the recent trials had furnished evidence of the existence of any such conspiracy, or general disposition to insurrection throughout the kingdom, as had been assumed by ministers. " In the trials at Derby, where it was the business and the particular object of the Attorney-General to prove that the discontented there had a correspondence with others in different quarters, he had completely failed. He could not prove that in any part of the country there had been the slightest connection with these conspirators. This terrible conspiracy, too, was suppressed without the slightest difficulty by eighteen dragoons." His lordship admitted that the Derby conspirators had been very properly brought to trial, and justly convicted; but this, he said, was the only thing ministers had to bring forward as an apology for their measures. Still, he contended, "it was not the suspension of the Habeas Corpus that put down the insurrection, or the conspiracy, whichever it might be called; it had been extinguished by the due administration of the law - by apprehending and bringing the persons accused to trial; and the same law could have been applied with equal efficiency, though the Habeas Corpus Act had remained in force." He maintained further, that there was no proof that the conspiracy had been at all of a political character, or hostile to the institutions of the country. "The whole disturbance sprung from partial discontent, with which the great body of the population of the place where it broke out were untainted. Even in the very villages through CHAP. XIII.] DEBATES ON THE ADDRESS. 183 which the insurgents passed, the people ran away from them; and in no part of the country was there any trace to be found of the existence of a conspiracy to alter the king's government." In the Commons, Sir Samuel Romilly, as has been noticed in a previous page,' went still further. There could be no doubt, he observed, that the persons who were convicted at Derby, whether guilty of treason or not, were guilty of a capital crime; "Brandreth had committed a murder, and those who aided and abetted it were ill law equally guilty." But, he went on, " in his conscience he believed, from the information he had received, that the whole of that insurrection was the work of the persons sent by the government - not indeed for the specific purpose of fomenting disaffection — but as emissaries of sedition from clubs that had never existed." If these words be correctly reported, Sir Samuel, while acquitting ministers of designedly getting up or attempting to get up an insurrection, would appear to have charged them with being cognizant of the false pretences with which Oliver, and the other spies employed by them, are supposed to have deluded and ensnared their victims- to have concerted with those dangerous agents the fable of the metropolitan clubs of which they gave themselves out as the emissaries. This, however, as we have already observed, is certainly not for a moment to be believed, nor probably is it now a notion entertained by anybody. The ministers were likely enough both to have taken an exaggerated view of the extent and object of whatever tendency to disturbance existed, and to be willing to make the case appear to be, or to have been, as bad as possible; but there are no facts or probabilities which entitle us to suppose that they resorted, or were capable of resorting, to positive trickery and falsehood, even in order to get at the secret counsels of parties whom they might believe to harbor guilty designs. Their indiscretion and culpability consisted in the recklessness with which they let loose such miscreants as Oliver among the people, without taking sufficient, or apparently any, precautions to protect either themselves or others from being deceived and misled by their arts and machinations. Mr. Ward, writing to his friend Dr. Copleston, from Vienna, on the 14th of February, after mentioning that he had State of the just seen in the German papers some meagre extracts country. from the proceedings at the opening of parliament, comments as follows on the political condition and prospects of the country: " As fair a promise of an uninteresting session as a man desirous of staying abroad can wish. The exaggerated lamentation for the poor Princess could not but be, from its obvious purport, offensive to the other branches of the royal family; and in the 1 See ante, p. 125. 184 HISTORY OF THE PEACE. [Book I. speech which the minister has composed for the Prince Regent, I think I distinguish somewhat of that feeling which it was calculated to excite. The mention of her is rather dry - sulky, rather than sad. The country seems reviving. I have excellent accounts from Staffordshire. At one moment the iron trade was as brisk as ever, but since it has a little gone off; no distress, however." Afterwards, having noticed the recent decease of George Rose, and the appointment of Mr. F. Robinson (afterwards Earl of Ripon) — " a most amiable, gentlemanlike man" -as his successor in the office of Treasurer of the Navy, he adds: "' But this is one of those rare periods of tranquillity and prosperity, when the efficient members of the government may indulge themselves in appointing whom they please to what they please. Time was when the odds were ten to one against them; luckily for the country, as well as for themselves, they have won the game, and they are now enjoying themselves in spending the stakes." And this was probably the general opinion. Mr. Wyndham Quin, the seconder of the address in the Commons, gave in his speech a picture of the national prosperity, which was almost without a shade. " The country," he said, " feels an increased circulation in every artery, in every channel of its commerce. Last year the fires were extinguished in most of the iron-works; now they are in full activity, and the price of iron has risen from eight or nine to about fourteen pounds a ton. The demand for linen, the staple of the north of Ireland, is unprecedented both as to quantity and price. The funds are now 80, last year about 63. Money is most abundant, and, when lent at mortgage on good security, lowering in rate of interest, and to be had at 42z per cent.; at the same time that sales of land are effected at better prices than last year." Gold, too, the orator declared, had reappeared; though, he added, the little request in which it was held seemed to evince that a belief in the stability of our financial system was universal. Wages had advanced; employment was plentiful; imports and exports had increased; the revenue had improved; and confidence, finally, had returned among all classes and descriptions of men. The painter may have been rather profuse of his sunshine; but, with due allowance for the occasion, this was not perhaps a very extravagant representation of the outside aspect of things. Now let us look a little deeper, and endeavor to ascertain what was the real state of the case. First, in regard to the economical condition of the country. A great fall had taken place in the price of grain. The Gazette average for wheat, at the end of June, 1817, had been 11 Is. 6d.; by the end of September the price in Mark Lane had declined to 74s. 4d. Importation ceased in November. But prices very CHAP. XIII.] STATE OF THE COUNTRY. 185 soon began to rise again. "As the weather," Mr. Tooke writes,1 "during the greater part of the harvesting, though favorable in the main, was calm and foggy, with only short intervals in the day of brilliant sunshine, and as the rains again set in before the harvest was fully completed, the samples of new wheat, when brought to market, were found to be damp and cold, and unfit for immediate use. There being at the same time very little old corn of good quality remaining, the few samples of the new which were fit for use were in great demand, and fetched high prices." By the close of the year 1817, the average for wheat had risen again to 85s. 4d.; the ports opened in February, 1818; but, notwithstanding large importations, prices still continued to rise. After a rather wet spring, a drought, which commenced about the middle of May, continued almost without interruption till the middle of September, being the most severe that had been experienced in England since 1794. "2ALpprehensions," Mr. Tooke continues, "' were in consequence entertained of stunted crops of every description of vegetation. Hay got up to 91. and 101. the load. Beans, peas, turnips, and potatoes, were supposed to have totally failed. It was on the ground of anticipations of scarcity, in consequence of this character of the season, that British corn was bought freely on speculation, and that many farmers were induced to hold back their stocks; many persons, likewise, importers as well as dealers and fairmers, reasoned erroneously on the operation of the corn-laws, and supposed that, when once the ports were shut, having the monopoly of the home market, they would be secure of obtaining, at worst, within a trifle of the opening price of 80s." The entire importation of wheat in this year amounted to a million and a half of quarters. But an unhealthy speculation went on in many other articles as well as in grain. The imports of silk, of wool, of cotton, and various other descriptions of foreign produce, were doubled, and in some cases tripled, since 1816.2 Tile entire quantity of foreign and colonial produce imported in 1818 was double what it had been in 1816, and very nearly half as much again as it had been in 1817. The so-called prosperity, therefore, which was beginning to dazzle men's eyes when parliament met, had much more in it of show than of substance. It was for the greater part mere speculative excitement. " A state of prosperity," as Mr. Tooke observes, " it doubtless was, as long as it lasted, to those who were gaining, or appeared to be gaining, by the rising markets; but to the bulk of the population those rising markets were the occasion of privation and suffering." It was not long before symptoms of this suffering began to show themselves. 1 Tooke's History of Prices, ii. p. 20. 2 Ibid. pp. 61, 62. 3 Ibid. p. 27. 186 HISTORY OF THE PEACE. [BOOK I. For a time, however, there was certainly an improvement in the political temper of the popular mind. What we may call its combustibility was considerably reduced. Bamford tells us,' indeed, that with the restoration of the Habeas Corpus Act the agitation for reform was renewed, and that numerous meetings for the promotion of that object were held in various parts of the country; but we find no mention anywhere either of secret combination among the radical reformers of the earlier part of the year 1818, or of proceedings contemplating a resort to violence -no trace of conspiracy any more than of' disturbance, of any attempt either to defy or to elude the law. Having recovered the legal rights and liberties of which they had been for a season deprived, the first feeling, even of the generality of those who carried furthest a desire to amend the constitution, seems to have been to take their stand, nevertheless, upon the constitution — somewhat after Bacon's notion of the true import of the scriptural injunction to stand fast in the old ways, which he interprets as meaning " that men should make a stand thereupon, and discover what is the best way; but, when the discovery is well taken, then to make progression." Whatever may have been the darker designs of a few individuals, this was unquestionably the present disposition both of the working classes as a body and of the great majority of their leaders. The fuel that would have been required for a more thorough-going zeal, or a more desperate course of action, was for the present burnt out. The nearly universal inclination was at least to try what could be done with the law, and by means of the law, before attempting to act without it and against it. So much. at any rate, was gained by the restoration of the constitution. Then, however delusive or hollow might be much of the apparent economical prosperity of the country, the people were yet for the moment certainly better off than they had been. If the price of food was still high, and was even ascending, it was notwithstanding much lower than it had been in the early part of the preceding year. Employment, too, so long as the tide of speculation was rising, was really more plentiful, and wages had advanced. A spirit of activity, enterprise, and hope, had succeeded to general stagnation and despondency in the commercial and manufacturing world; and, with both their hands and their minds busied about matters of nearer and more natural concernment, the working classes found their interest in projects of political innovation considerably moderated, and also probably their views somewhat sobered down. Meanwhile, the parliament, at once the workshop of legislation and the arena of party contest, went on filling the air with 1 Passages in the Life of a Radical, i. p. 164. CHAP. XIII.] REPORTS OF SECRET COMMITTEES. 187 the din of its labors and its battles. The great subject of discussion for the first two months of the session was the Proceedings conduct of ministers in the application of their late of parliaextraordinary powers. Here ministers themselves ment. may be said to have taken the initiative. A green bag containing papers relative to the recent state of the country was, by command of the Prince Regent, presented in the Lords on the 2d of February, and in the Commons on the day following; and secret committees to consider and report upon the papers were appointed in both Houses. In the Commons, the motion for the appointment of the committee, which was made by Lord Castlereagh on the 5th, gave rise to some debate; but there was no division upon the main question. The two committees presented their reports, that of the Lords on the 23d, that of the Reports of Commons on the 27th. As the members of both had secret combeen, in the point of fact, named by the government, mittees. they quite agreed, of course, in their view of the matters which had been submitted to their consideration. Referring to what they described as the rising that had taken place in Derbyshire on the 9th of June, the Lords stated that the insurgents engaged in that affair were not formidable for their numbers, but were actuated by an atrocious spirit. The language of many of them, it was affirmed, and particularly of their leaders, left tno room to doubt " that their objects were the overthrow of the established government and laws, extravagant as those objects were, when compared with the inadequate means which they possessed." It was afterwards admitted, however, that in the villages through which they passed, a strong indisposition was manifested towards their caus:e and projects; and the insurrection was characterized as " of small importance in itself," and only a subject of material consideration as confirming the statements in the reports of the secret committees of the preceding session. The fact of this actual insurrection, so clearly proved, and about which there could be no dispute, appeared, it was declared, " to the committee to have established, beyond the possibility of a doubt, the credit due to the information mentioned in the last report, respecting the plans of more extended insurrection which had previously been concerted, and respecting the postponement of those plans to the 9th or 10th of June." Reference was also made to the movements in and near Nottingham on the night of the 9th of June; to a meeting of delegates held at Huddersfield on the 6th, and a tumultuous assemblage which took place in that neighborhood on the night of the 8th; and to the expectations proved to have been entertained in Yorkshire and the other disturbed districts, of powerful support and cooperation from London — "however erroneous such an expectation may have been, with 188 HISTORY OF THE PEACE. [BooK I. respect to the extent to which it was supposed to have existed" - as further confirmatory of the statements in the same report. But a decided opinion was expressed, that, not only in the country in general, but in those districts where the designs of the disaffected were most actively and unremittingly pursued, the great body of the people had remained untainted, even during the periods of the greatest internal difficulty and distress. It was intimated, however, that some of the persons who had been engaged in the late desperate projects, particularly in London, were still active, and appeared determined to persevere, though with decreasing numbers and resources. The report then proceeded to take up the subject of the arrests that had taken place during the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act. In addition to the cases of persons against whom bills of indictment had been found by grand juries, and of those who had either been tried or had fled from justice, warrants, it was stated, had been issued by the Secretary of State against ten persons who had not been taken, and against forty-four others who had not been brought to trial. Of these, seven had been discharged on examination; one had been released after being finally committed; another had been discharged on account of illness; another had died in prison. All these arrests and detentions the committee considered to have been fully justified by the circumstances under which they had taken place. "The committee," it was added, " understand that up to a certain period expectations were entertained of being able to bring to trial ca large proportion of the persons so arrested and detained; but that these expectations have, from time to time, been unavoidably relinquished." On the whole, it had appeared to the committee, the report declared in conclusion, that the government, in the execution of the powers vested in it by the two acts of the last session, had acted with due discretion and moderation. The report of the committee of the Commons travelled over the subject by nearly the same road; its expressions, however, upon the different points of the case, were generally stronger, and it adverted to a few additional facts or circumstances. The outbreak at Derby on the night of the 9th of June was designated an insurrection, and described as " the last open attempt to carry into effect the revolution which had so long been the object of an extended conspiracy." The trials at Derby, however, were referred to as proving the exemplary conduct of the mass of the population in the country through which the insurrection passed; and the committee had no doubt that the numbers of those who were either pledged or prepared to engage in actual insurrection had generally been much exaggerated by the leaders of the disaffected, from the obvious policy both of giving importance to themselves, and of encouraging their fol. CHAP. XIII.] BILL OF INDEMNITY. 189 lowers. They hoped that the time of delusion might be passing away; but it was nevertheless their opinion that it would still require all the vigilance of government, and of the magistracy, to maintain the tranquillity which had been restored. "Your committee," the report then proceeded, " have hitherto applied their observations to the lately disturbed districts in the country. In adverting to the state of the metropolis during the same period, they have observed with concern that a small number of active and infatuated individuals have been unremittingly engaged in arranging plans of insurrection, in endeavoring to foment disturbances that might lead to it, and in procuring the means of active operations, with the ultimate view of subverting all the existing institutions of the country, and substituting solne form of revolutionary government in their stead." The proselytes, however, that these leaders had gained to their cause had not been numerous; nor did the mischief appear to have extended beyond the lower order of artisans, nor to have received countenance from any individuals of higher condition. In conclusion, the committee expressed it as their opinion, that the vigilance of the police, and the unrelaxed superintendence of government, would probably, under present circumstances, be sufficient to prevent the agitators from breaking out into any serious disturbance of the public peace; and they declared, without hesitation, that the discretion intrusted to government by the acts of the last session had been exercised temperately and judiciously, and that ministers would have failed in their duty, as guardians of the peace and tranquillity of the realm, if they had not exercised their powers to the extent which they had done. Neither report excited much debate when it was presented. Mr. Tierney, however, made some remarks upon that laid before the Commons, which he concluded by observing that'" it was scarcely worth while to oppose seriously the motion for printing a document so absurd, contemptible, and ludicrous." Meanwhile, on the 25th, a bill had been brought into the Bill of InLords, entitled " A bill for indemnifying persons who, cemnity. since the 26th of January, 1817, have acted in apprehending, imprisoning, or detaining in custody, persons suspected of high treason or treasonable practices, and in the suppression of tumultuous and unlawful assemblies." In the awkwardness that there would have been in any member of the cabinet proposing such a measure of wholesale sanction and oblivion for any irregularities that might have been committed by himself and his colleagues, this bill of indemnity was presented by the Duke of Montrose, who held the household office of master of the horse. It was warmly and repeatedly debated in both Houses; but all 190 HISTORY OF THE PEACE. [BooK I' the attacks of the opposition were repelled by overwhelming numbers on the divisions. In the Lords, the second reading was carried, on the 27th of February, by a majority of 100 to 33 votes; and the third reading, on the 5th of March, by a majority of 93 to 27. If we may judge by the attendance, no very general interest was taken by their lordships in the matter; the number of peers present on the first of these two divisions was no more than 71, including only 15 opponents of the bill; on the second, there were 67 peers present, including 12 of the opposition. The task of supporting the measure was chiefly sustained by Lord Liverpool and the Lord Chancellor; the principal speakers on the other side were the Marquess of Lansdowne, Lord Erskine, and Lord Holland. A long and strong protest was entered on the journals by these three and seven other peers, in which it was argued that there had manifestly been no widely spread traitorous conspiracy, nor even any extensive disaffection to the government; that tranquillity might have been equally restored by a vigorous execution of the ordinary laws; that the only legal effect of the suspension of the Habeas Corpus being that it suspends the deliverance of the accused, ministers were not entitled to a general indemnity for all the arrests that had been issued upon mere suspicion, or expectation of evidence which was never produced, and for all the numerous and long imprisonments that had followed, until an open and impartial investigation should have taken place; that, from the mistaken principle of the bill, illegal proceedings were equally protected by it, whether they had been meritorious or malicious; and that it was not the occasional resort to secret and impure sources of evidence in cases of clear necessity, but the systematic encouragement of that manner of proceeding, that was sanctioned by such a bill as the present. In the Commons, the first reading of the bill was carried, on the 9th of March, by a majority of 190 to 64; the second reading, on the 10th, by 89 to 24; the committal, on the 11th, by 238 to 65; the third reading, on the 13th, by 82 to 23. Then, after one or two amendments had been negatived, the bill was passed, Mr. Brougham declaring that, although he and his friends would not again divide the House, they were as desirous at that moment as ever to avow their hostility to the detestable principle of the measure, and Mr. Tierney following him with the declaration that he believed it to be one of the most detestable measures ever introduced into parliament. The discussions throughout had been conducted in a tone of considerable asperity, rising at times to passionate vehemence. The most remarkable speeches made against the bill were those of Mr. Lambton (afterwards Earl of Durham), Sir Samuel Romilly, and Mr. Brougham. The charge of the measure was taken by CrIAP. XIII.] DEBATES. —OTHER PARTY MOTIONS. 191 the Attorney-General (Sir William Garrow); the other principal speakers in support of it were the Solicitor-General (Sir Samuel Shepherd), Mr. Canning, and Mr. Lamb (late Viscount Melbourne), who on this occasion left his party, as he had also done in voting for the Suspension Bills of the preceding session. Canning spoke on the motion for going into committee; and one passage of his speech raised a great clamor, which was long kept up. Referring to certain petitioners who had come before the House with complaints of harsh treatment to which they had been subjected, after being arrested under the suspension, he designated one of them, whose case had been made the theme of much pathetic eloquence, as "the revered and ruptured Ogden." There was some controversy at the time as to whether the latter epithet was correctly reported; but there is no doubt that it was the word he employed. The fact was that Ogden, while he lay in confinement, had been cured of a rupture of twenty years' standing at the public expense, for which, and for his treatment in all other respects, he had at the time expressed himself in the highest degree grateful; yet he had afterwards declared, in his petition, that the disease had been brought on the first day of his imprisonment in Horsemonger Lane jail, by the ponderous irons with which he was loaded on his journey thither from Manchester; and that, after being allowed to remain in agony for sixteen hours, he had with difficulty prevailed upon two surgeons, who were sent for the next morning, to perform an operation, under which they declared that, from his age, seventy-four, there was every reason to apprehend that he would die. His petition was made up for the greater part of an elaborate description of the said operation, garnished with every detail that could most excite horror and disgust. In reality, the operation had not been performed till after he had lain in confinement, and been released from his irons, for more than four months. These facts Canning stated to the House in the same sentence in which he employed the contemptuous expression that was so eagerly taken hold of; but they were as carefully kept back by the parties who so perseveringly quoted and repeated his words for their own purposes. as they had been by Ogden himself.'Yet their truth never has been called in question. It was not only in the great debates on the address and the Indemnity Bill that ministers were put upon their de- Other party fence. The opposition took advantage of many other motions. opportunities of attacking their recent conduct. Hone's case, and the general question of informations ex officio, were brought before the Commons on the 3d of February by Mr. W. Smith, and shortly debated. On the 10th of' the same month, Lord Archibald Hamilton brought forward the subject of the late pros 192 HISTORY OF THE PEACE. rBooi I. ecutions instituted against state-prisoners in Scotland, by moving that there should be laid before the House a copy of the proceedings on the trial of Andrew M'Kinley before the Court of Justiciary on the 19th of July. The motion, besides being introduced by a long speech from his lordship, was ably supported by Mr. J. P. Grant and Sir Samuel Romilly, but was negatived on a division by a majority of 136 to 71. The following day, another debate of considerable length took place on a motion of Mr. Fazake:rley, that the committee of secrecy should be instructed to inquire and report whether any and what measures had been taken to detect and bring to justice the parties described in one of the reports of the secret committee of last session, as persons who might, by their language and conduct, in some instances have had the effect of encouraging those designs which it was intended they shoold be only the instruments of detecting. The principal speakers were, in support of the motion, Lord Milton (now Earl Fitzwilliam), MIr. Bennet, Sir S. Romilly, and Mr. Tierney; against it, Mr. Bathurst (chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster), Mr. Wilberforce, the Solicitor-General, and IMr. Canning. Wilberforce, however, expressed his strong disapprobation of the employment of spies in any circumstances. The numbers on the division were, for the motion, 52; against it, 111. The debate, however, brought out the general course of Oliver's proceedings into tolerably clear daylight. On the 17th, Lord Folkestone (the present Earl of Radnor) moved the appointment of a select committee to inquire into the truth of the allegations of Ogden and other persons who had petitioned the I-louse, complaining of their treatment under the Habeas Corpus Suspension Act. What they chiefly complained of, however, was their having been imprisoned at all. His lordship's speech was answered by Lord Castlereagh, Mr. Wilberforce, and the Attorney-General, and the motion was supported by Sir Francis Burdett, Sir S. Rornilly, and other members; but it was negatived on a division by a majority of 167 to 58. Two days after, in the Lords, a motion by the Earl of' Carnarvon to refer certain petitions of other imprisoned parties, which had been presented to that House, to the secret committee, was negatived without a division, after speeches in its favor from the mover, from Earl Grosvenor, Lord King, and Lord Holland; and against it, from Lord Sidmouth, Earl Bathurst, and the Earl of Liverpool. Finally, on the 5th of March, another debate on the proceedings of the government spies and informers was brought on in the Commons by 3IMr. G. Philips, who, after referring to certain petitions — one of these was from Samuel Bamford - presented on previous days, moved that it was the duty of the House to investigate the nature and extent of the practices therein alleged to have been pursued by CHAP. XIII.] OTHER BUSINESS OF THE SESSION. 193 Oliver and others. The votes upon this motion were, ayes, 69; noes, 162. In the debate it was opposed, as the others of a similar character or tendency had all been, by Wilberforce, notwithstanding that Tierney, who spoke before him, had expressed his full concurrence in the doctrine that the employment of spies and informers by a government was indefensible in any circumstances, and his vote had been distinctly claimed as due to that principle, which he had been the first to proclaim. He objected to the motion as loose, vague, and indefinite. Let a definite motion be made, he said, and he would support it. He could compare the present motion, and some others like it, to nothing else than a pack of hounds in full cry, scouring the fields and starting a hare in every corner. The most sober, and perhaps the most sensible, view was that taken by Lord Stanley (the present Earl of Derby), who said, that " he should support the motion, but not on the ground that ministers were guilty of employing spies for the purpose of fomenting disturbances in the country. His belief was that Oliver and others had been solely employed to discover what was doing in the disturbed districts. Where blame was fairly to be cast on ministers was, he thought, in the manner in which those spies were chosen. Though ministers did not warrant the fomenting of disturbances, yet they left it in the power of those acting under them to do so..... He thought ministers had been much calumniated; but they would be most so by themselves, if they refused to inquire into those acts, when inquiry, according to their own statement, would fully acquit them of the charges laid against them." Such was the course of the main struggle in which the two parties tried their strength; for the history of the re- Remaining maining business of the session a summary of results business must suffice. Many subjects were taken up, and, no of the session. doubt, something was effected by the mere discussion of several of them; but very few were actually legislated upon. Early in the session a committee was appointed by the Commons to consider the state of the poor-laws, on the motion of Mr. Sturges Bourne, who had officiated as chairman of a similar committee in the preceding session; and three bills were afterwards brought in on the recommendation of the committee: one for the establishment of select vestries, another for the general amendment of the poor-laws, a third for the special regulation of the law of settlement. But it was soon agreed to postpone the Parish Settlement Bill to the next session; the Poor-law Amendment Bill, after having passed through all its stages in both Houses, was lost through a disagreement between the Lords and Commons in regard to one of its clauses; the Select Vestries Bill alone became law. In the beginning of March, the select comvOL. II. 13 194 HISTORY OF THE PEACE. [BOOK 1. mittee of the House of Commons on the education of the lower orders, which had already pursued its important inquiries for two sessions, was reappointed on the motion of its chairman, Mr. Brougham. Besides two reports, which were presented and ordered to be printed towards the end of the session, it originated a bill "for appointing commissioners to inquire concerning charities in England for the education of the poor," which passed into a law, though not without suffering some curtailment and mutilation in the Lords, where, indeed, the motion for going into committee upon it was opposed both by the Chancellor and Lord Redesdale, but was carried nevertheless by a majority of 10 to 8. In conformity with the recommendation contained in the speech of the Prince Regent at the opening of the session, an act was passed " for building and promoting the building of additional churches in populous parishes," by means of a grant of one million sterling, to be applied under the. direction of commissioners appointed by the crown. Of various attempts made to reform the criminal law, none of any importance were successful, with the exception of a bill brought in by Mr. Bennet for establishing a better system of rewarding persons who had been instrumental in apprehending highway-robbers and other offenders; and another brought in by Mr. G. Bankes for making it illegal to buy game, as it already was to sell it. Sir S. Romilly carried a bill through the Commons for taking away the penalty of death from the offence of stealing from a shop to the value of five shillings; but it was thrown out on the second reading in the Lords, on the motion of the Chancellor. The same potent voice prevailed upon their lordships to reject at the same stage, by a majority of 31 to 13, a bill introduced by Lord Erskine, " to prevent arrests on the charge of libel before indictment found." In the Commons, however, the government only succeeded in defeating a motion of Sir James Mackintosh, for the appointment of a select committee to inquire into the forgery of the Bank of England notes, by proposing an address to the Regent, requesting his royal highness to issue a commission under the great seal for the same purpose. A select committee was appointed, on the motion of Mr. Sergeant Onslow, to inquire into the effect of the usury laws, which reported in favor of their repeal; and the honorable member gave notice that he would early in the next session bring in a bill to carry that recommendation into effect. A bill for the amendment of the election laws, brought in by AMr. Wynn, was negatived on the third reading in the Commons by a majority of 51 to 44; as was another for the alteration of the law relating to tithes. brought in by Mr. Curwen, by a majority of 44 to 15 on the second reading. Repeated discussions took place on a bill introduced by Sir Robert Peel, (father of the present baronet,) for CHAP. XIII.] SCOTCH BURGH REFORM. 195 limiting the number of hours during which apprentices and otkers employed in cotton and other mills and factories should be permitted to work; it passed the Commons, but it was at last dropped for the present session, after being committed, in the Lords, where it had encountered a strong opposition, counsel having been allowed by their lordships to be heard, and evidence to be brought forward against it. Mr. J. Smith obtained leave to bring in a bill for the amendment of the bankruptcy laws; but it appears not to have been persevered with. Nor did anything come of a bill to amend the Copyright Act of 1814, which was brought in by Sir Egerton Brydges, and carried over some stages in the Commons. But a select committee was afterwards appointed to consider the subject, on the motion of Mr. Wynn, which recommended that the Copyright Act should be repealed, except in regard to the delivery of one copy of every new work to the British Museum, thd other public libraries being compensated by a fixed pecuniary allowance. On the 2d of June, Sir Francis Burdett brought forward a scheme of parliamentary reform in a series of twenty-six resolutions - the last divided into six heads - comprising the principles of universal male suffrage, equal electoral districts, elections all on the same day, vote by ballot, and a fresh parliament once in every year at the least; the motion was seconded by Lord Cochrane (the present Earl of Dundonald), who observed that it might probably be the last time he should ever have the honor of addressing the House on any subject, and alluded with great feeling, and apparently amidst the general sympathy of the House, to his own cruel case; afterwards Mr. Brougham, Mr. Canning, and Mr. Lamb, all spoke at considerable length; and then, the vote being taken on the previous question, which had been moved by Canning, the numbers were found to be 106 to none -the two tellers, Sir Francis Burdett and Lord Cochrane, being left alone on their own side. About a fortnight before this, Sir Robert Heron had moved for leave to bring in a bill to repeal the Septennial Act, and the motion had been supported both by Sir S. Romilly and Mr. Broiigham, but it was negatived on a division by a majority of 117 to 42. Most of the leading Whigs voted in the minority. There was one question about which the keenest interest had suddenly sprung up in Scotland in the course of the Scotch preceding year -the reform of the constitution of burgh the burghs of that part of the kingdom. The Scotch reorm. burgh system, as it still existed, had been established by an act of parliament passed in 1469, the general operation of which was to perpetuate in the government of the burghs, if not always the same individuals, at least the same party, and even personal and family interests, by the simple expedient of giving 196 HISTORY OF THE PEACE. [BooK I. the retiring office-holders in the corporations, or town councils, the power, for the most part, at the end of each year, of electing their own successors. They generally, of course, either reelected themselves, or, where that could not be done, brought in, upon a well-understood and rarely violated arrangement, certain confederates or doubles of themselves, who, in like manner, at the end of another twelvemonth, gave place again to their predecessors, and retired for a season into private life. Some constitutions, or sets, as they were called, were not quite so close as others; but the slight infusion that was permitted of the popular element was in no case sufficient to give the general body of the burgesses any control over the management of affairs. The reform or breaking up of this close system had been one of the principal objects pursued by the liberal or democratic party in Scotland, in the political agitation that spread over the interval between the American and French wars; but this, like the other projects of change among ourselves which the success of the American revolution had brought forth and fostered, was smothered for the time in the horror and terror produced by that of France, and in the new interests and passions with which the new war filled men's minds. Now, however, after the return of peace, the former zeal upon this subject, reawakened by what may be accounted an accident, was kept alive and diffused by a remarkable concurrence of circumstances. The movement took its beginning from a singular and unexpected catastrophe which befell the burgh of iMontrose. The opposition party there, in the early part of the year 1817, made application to the Court of Session, the supreme civil judicature in Scotland, to reduce or declare invalid the last election of their magistrates, on the ground of certain formal irregularities, and, probably, not a little to their own surprise, obtained a decision in their favor. The effect was to leave the burgh not only without a town council, but without any means of creating one till it should get a new charter from the crown. In this state of things, application was made to the privy council; and that body, or, in other words, the government, instead of merely reviving the old constitution, as it might have been expected to do, was induces! to hazard the experiment of allowing a certain number of the new maoistrates to be elected, as the inhabitants had petitioned they might be, by the general body of the burgesses. This example of a poll election immediately produced the strongest excitement in all the other burghs. Meanwhile some other events contributed to blow the flame. The burgh of Aberdeen found itself compelled to declare itself in a state of bankruptcy, with liabilities to the amount of some hundred thousands of pounds; and the magistrates accompanied this announcement CHAP. XIII.] SCOTCH BURGH REFORM. 197 with an address, in which they declared it to be their decided: opinion, that the existing mode of election of the town council, and the management of the town's affairs, were radically defective and improvident, tending to give to individuals or parties an excessive and unnatural preponderance, and to foster and encourage a system of secrecy and concealment, under which the best-intentioned magistrates might be prevented from acquiring a sufficient knowledge of the true situation of the burgh. A similar declaration was soon after publicly and formally made by the ruling party in the burgh of Dundee, where also dissatisfaction with the established system had long been general, although the pecuniary concerns of the burgh had not been so grossly mismanaged as in Aberdeen. From this time meetings of' the burgesses and inhabitants began to be held, not only in Edinburgh, Glasgow, Perth, and the other principal burghs, but in many also of those of inferior importance; and the most strenuous measures were taken for bringing about what the Aberdeen magistrates had declared in their address to be imperatively called for - some change in the manner of' electing the town councils, and the securing to the citizens an effectual control over the expenditure of the town's office-bearers. In this state matters were when Lord Archibald Hamilton brought the subject before the House of Commons on the 13th of February. The professed object of his motion was to obtain a copy of the act or warrant of his Majesty in council, dated in the preceding September, by which the poll election of magistrates at Montrose had been authorized, and the set of the burgh altered. He did not object to the poll election; but he contended that the granting of the new constitution, while he admitted it to be an improvement upon the old one, and a benefit to the burgh, was the usurpation of an unconstitutional and illegal power on the part of the crown. By this time, in fact, the leaders in the movement had extended their views much beyond the amount of alteration that had been conceded in the case of Montrose, and had also come clearly to see that the reform of the burgh system could not be left in the hands of the crown, but must be sought from parliament. Lord Archibald acknowledged that his present motion was merely preliminary, and that his intention was, having got this point of the legality of the Montrose warrant settled, to call the attention of the House to a more extensive consideration of the subject after Easter. The motion, however, after a short debate, in the course of which ministers contended that Scotch burgh reform was little else than parliamentary reform under another name, was negatived without a division. Later in the session, the Lord Advocate (Mr. Maconochie) brought in a bill "for the better regulating the mode of accounting for the common good and 198 HISTORY OF THE PEACE. [BOOK I. revenues of the royal burghs of Scotland, and for controlling and preventing the undue expenditure thereof." But this proposed measure was found to give no satisfaction to any party; and the bill, after being read only a first time, was withdrawn. Nor did Lord Archibald Hamilton introduce the subject again in the present session. Unsuccessful attempts were also made by Lord A. Hamilton Other mo- to urge on the government the abolition of the Scotch tions. commissary courts, in conformity with the recommendation of a commission of inquiry appointed by royal warrant in 1808; by General Thornton, to repeal the declarations required to be taken in certain cases against the belief of transubstantiation, and asserting the worship of the Church of Rome to be idolatrous; and by Dr. Phillimore, to amend the Marriage Act of 1753, in respect of its making the marriages of infants by license, without consent of parents or guardians, void ab initio if a suit for the avoidance of them should be commenced at any time during the lives of the parties. The principal taxes that were made the subjects of assault were the salt duties, the leather tax, and the Irish window tax. Ministers made no opposition to Mr. Calcraft's motion for a select committee on the salt duties; and a bill afterwards brought in by the honorable member, on the recommendation of the committee, for reducing the duty on rock-salt, used for agricultural purposes, from 101., to which it had been reduced in the preceding session, to 51. per ton, was passed. Ministers also offered Lord Althorpe a committee on his moving for leave to bring in a bill to repeal the additional duty upon leather imposed in 1812, against which numerous petitions had been presented; but his lordship persisted in going to a division, and the motion was carried by a majority of 94 to 84. The bill, however, was thrown out on the second reading, the numbers on that occasion being — ayes, 130; noes, 136. A committee to consider the expediency of repealing the Irish window tax was moved for by Mr. Shaw; but, after a debate of some length, the motion was negatived by 67 votes to 51. Finally, it may be noticed, in connection with this subject, that after several remonstrances from Mr. Brougham, ministers agreed to see that proper measures were taken for carrying into effect the destruction of all returns under the abolished income tax. This had been promised by the Chancellor of the Exchequer two years before, but the directions then issued had, it appeared, been very imperfectly complied with. The budget was brought fbrward by the Chancellor of the Exchequer on the 20th of April. The greater part of The budget. the navy, army, ordnance, and miscellaneous estimates had been already voted; and Mr. Vansittart now stated that the CHAP. XIII.] BANK RESTRICTION ACT. 199 vote for the army, which had last year been 9,412,3731., would this year be 8,970,0001.; that the vote for the navy, which had last year been 7,596,0221., would this year be 6,456,8001.; that the vote for the ordnance, which had last year been 1,270,6901., would this year be 1,245,6001.; that the miscellaneous estimates, which last year amounted to 1,795,0001., would this year amount to 1,720,0001.without including, however, the million granted for the building of churches, which was to be provided for by an issue of exchequer bills. Altogether, with the addition of 2,500,0001. for the interest on exchequer bills andt a sinking fund attached to them, and one or two extraordinary items, the total amount of the regular supplies for the service of the year would be 21,011,0001., the amount for the last year having been 22,304,0911. This was, of course, exclusive of the interest of the debt, which at this time was not quite 30,000,0001. No new taxes were proposed, nor the repeal or reduction of any old ones. The principal feature of the finance minister's announcement was a scheme for forming, out of the 3 per cent. stock, a new stock bearing interest at 31 per cent., by which a sum of 3,000,0001. would be raised for the public service of the year. It was proposed also to fund 27,000,0001. of the floating debt, which had accumulated to the inconvenient amount of about 63,000,0001. The session had scarcely commenced when ministers were asked in both Houses whether it was intended that Bank Restricthe resumption of cash payments by the bank should tion Act. really take place on the 5th of July, as then fixed by law. In reply it was stated that the bank had made amnple preparation for resuming its payments in cash at the time fixed by parliament, and that the government knew of nothing in the internal state of the country, or in its political relations with foreign powers, which would render it expedient to continue the restriction; " but that there was reason to believe that pecuniary arrangements of foreign powers were going on, of such a nature and extent as might probably made it necessary for parliament to continue the restriction so long as the immediate effects of those arrangements were in operation." This explanation was treated by the opposition with great contempt. "The truth was, as it appeared to him," Mr. Tierney observed, " that there were some persons in this country very much disposed to continue the restriction if they could find any excuse for it; and as such excuse did not offer itself at home, they looked abroad for it." In the other House, Lord King declared that the reason assigned by ministers " was so extraordinary in itself, and so unintelligible to the country, it being impossible to conceive how in reality the negotiation of foreign loans could tend to prevent the resumption of cash payments by the Bank of England, that it could only be 200 HISTORY OF THE PEACE. [Boow I. considered as the ostensible reason, and not the real one." Nevertheless there can be no doubt that the explanation thus denounced was perfectly correct. Mr. Tooke shows 1 that by the latter part of 1817 the value of bank-paper had been virtually restored, and that the banlk was then in a position to resume cash payments. "And the directors," he adds, "so far from taking advantage of the prolonged term of the restriction, were adopting measures for anticipating it; for in the months of' April and September, 1817, they actually undertook by public notice to pay, and did pay, a large proportion of their notes in coin." It is understood that thle payments in gold in pursuance of these notices exceeded five millions sterling. Mr. Tooke blames the bank and the government for cooperating to reduce the rate of interest on exchequer bills in the summer of 1817, while it was notorious that negotiations were going forward for the raising of loans to a very large amount by France and others of the continental states. "The. government," he argues, "ought to have taken the opportunity of the comparatively high price of stocks in the summer of 1817, to have diminished instead of increasing the unfunded debt; and the bank, instead of extending its advances upon exchequer bills at a reduced interest, ought, with a view to counteract the effect, which would otherwise be inevitable, of the tendency of British capital to investment in foreign loans, not only not to have extended its advances, but to have diminished its existing securities." But now commenced both a depression of the exchanges and a diminution of the circulation from the operation of a fresh set of disturbing causes. "Foremost among these causes," Mir. Tooke continues, "doubtless were the large loans negotiated for the French and Russian governments, the high rate of interest granted by them, and the comparatively low rate in this country, holding out a great inducement for the transmission of British capital to the continent. The importations of corn in the latter part of 1817, and through the whole of 1818, were on a large scale and at high prices, our ports being then open without duty. And there was at the same, time, as has before been noticed, a very great increase of our general imports; while a great part of the exports of 1817 and 1818 were speculative, and on long credits, the returns for which, therefore, would not be forthcoming till 1819 and 1820. Under these circumstances it is rather matter of surprise tl-lat the exchanges were not more depressed, than that they were so much depressed in 1818." For this state of things the bank and the government might, indeed, have made preparation; they ought at least to have abstained from pursuing a course which gave additional facilities to the negotiation of the foreign loans; but, that mis1 History of Prices, ii. p. 50, &c. CHAP.. XIII.] ROYAL MARRIAGES. 201 chief having been done, the depression of the exchanges thereby produced certainly furnished a good reason for the postponement of the resumption. A bill was eventually brought into the House of Commons for continuing the restriction till the 5th of July, 1819; various amendments were moved in both Houses, but were only supported by insignificant minorities, and the bill was passed in the end of May. The measure, however, drew two long protests from Lord Lauderdale, in one of which his lordship declared the ground on which it had been introduced and supported —that the raising of foreign loans would drain this country of its coin - to be " an opinion founded on gross misconception and ignorance of the subject." Some rather remarkable proceedings took place in the course of the session in relation to the royal fhmily, no fewer Royalmarthan four members of which were married in the riages. earlier part of this year. The first of the fbur marriages was that of the Princess Elizabeth, his majesty's third daughter, to His Serene Highness Frederic Joseph Louis Charles Augustus, Landgrave and H-ereditary Prince of Ilesse Homburg, on the 7th of April. In this case the two Houses of Parliament were asked only to offer their congratulations to the Regent, the Queen, and the new-married couple. As the bride had nearly completed her forty-eighth year, her marriage could, not be expected to contribute anything towards continuing the line of the old King, who now, notwithstanding his fifteen sons and daughters, twelve of whom were still alive, was left without any descendant beyond the first generation. A few days afterwards, however- on the 13th of April - Lord Liverpool brought down a message from the Regent to the Lords, and Lord Castlereagh to the Commons, in which his royal highness informed the House that treaties of marriage were in negotiation between the Duke of' Clarence and the Princess (Adelaide Louisa Theresa Caroline Amelia) of Saxe Meiningen, eldest daughter of the late reigning Duke of Saxe Meiningen; and also between the Duke of Cambridge and the Princess (Augusta Wilhelmina Louisa) of Hesse, youngest daughter of the Landgrave Frederic, and niece of the Elector of Hesse; and which went on to say, that after the afflicting calamity which the Prince and the nation had sustained in the loss of the Princess Charlotte, his royal highness was fully persuaded that the House of Commons would feel how essential it was to the best interests of the country, that he should be enabled to make a suitable provision for such of his royal brothers as should have contracted marriages with the consent of the crown. This last expression was designed to intimate both that the proposed provision was not to be extended to the Duke of Sussex, and that it was to comprehend the Duke of Cumberland, 202 HISTORY OF THE PEACE. [BooK I. who had been married, three years ago, to the Princess Frederica Sophia Charlotta, daughter of Frederic V., Duke of Mecklenburg Strelitz, and previously the wife, first, of Frederic Louis Charles, Prince of Prussia, from whom she had been divorced, and, secondly, of Frederic William, Prince of Solms Braunfels. The Duchess of Cumberland was niece to the Queen; but fbr some unexplained reason, her majesty refused to receive her royal higi ness after she came over to this country. It was generally understood that the refusal was occasioned by the conduct of the Duchess in breaking off a previous negotiation of marriage with the Duke of Cambridge. The Duke of Cumberland, however, was not popular; and when, soon after his marriage, a bill was brought in by ministers to grant him an additional allowance of 60001. a year, advantage was taken of the Queen's disapprobation, and the bill, which had been resisted by formidable minorities both on the motion for leave to bring it in and on the first reading, was thrown out on the second reading by a majority of one, the numbers being 126 against 125. It was hoped that now this decision might be reversed. Considerably larger sums were originally contemplated; but ministers were induced, by strong manifestations of adverse feeling both in and out of parliament, to pause and modify their proposition; and they determined to ask only an additional 10,0001. a year for the Duke of Clarence, and 60001. fbr the Dukes of Cumberland and Cambridge, and for the Duke of Kent if he too should marry. When Lord Castlereagh, on the 15th, moved a resolution to the effect that 10,0001. a year should be granted to the Duke of Clarence, Mir. Canning observed that in voting for this sum "' they would vote only for one half of the sum originally proposed, a sum the propriety of which both his noble friend and himself' thought then, and still thought, maintainable by fair argument, but which they had no hesitation in surrendering to the expressed opinion of that House." But on Mr. Sumner moving that the 10,0001. should be reduced to 60001., this amendment was carried by a majority of 193 to 184. "The result," it is stated,1 "was received with loud shouts of approbation; amidst which Lord Castlereagh rose and observed, that, since the House had thought proper to refuse the larger sum to the Duke of Clarence, he believed he might say that the negotiation for the marriage might be considered at an end." On the following day, his lordship informed the House that the duke declined availing himself of the inadequate sum which had been voted to him. He then proposed the 60001. a year for the Duke of Cambridge, which was carried, but not till after a debate of some length, and a division, in which the numbers were 177 for the resolution, and 95 against it. Rising 1 Hansard's Parliamentary Debates, xxxviii. p. 114. CHAP. XIII.] NEW GRANTS TO THE PRINCES. 203 again, his lordship moved that a similar grant should be made to the Duke of Cumberland; but this motion, after a warm debate, was negatived by a majority of 143 to 136. " Loud cheering," we are told,' "took place in the House when the result of the division was known." On the 13th of May, another message was brought down announcing that the Prince Regent had given his consent to a marriage between the Duke of Kent and Her Serene Highness Mary Louisa Victoria, daughter of the Duke of Saxe Coburg Saalfeld, widow of Enrich Charles, Prince of Leiningen, and sister of Prince Leopold. Of all these royal marriages this was the one which the heart of the country went most along with; the Duke of Kent had attached himself to the popular party, and the relationship of the lady to Prince Leopold and the lamented Princess Charlotte was of itself sufficient to awaken a strong interest in her favor. If the nation might have had its wish, it would have been from the first that that should happen which has actually fallen out, that to the issue of this marriage the inheritance of the crown should descend. Yet even the grant of the additional 60001. a year to the Duke of Kent was stoutly opposed in the Commons; 51 members, among whom were Lord Althorpe, Mr. Coke of Norfolk, Lord Folkestone, Mr. Lambton, and Mr. Tierney, voting against it. The number of votes in its favor, however, was more than four times as many. Meanwhile, the public had learned, with some surprise, that the marriage of the Duke of Clarence was to take place after all. That of the Duke of Cambridge was solemnized on the 1st of June; those of the Dukes of Clarence and Kent on the 13th of the month following. In connection with the subject of the royal family, it may be here mentioned, that the portion of the Regency Act relating to the custody of the King's person was this session altered by a short bill which ministers introduced, repealing the clause which made it necessary that parliament should reassemble immediately in case of the death of the Queen, and also adding four members to the council appointed to assist her majesty. As at first drawn up, the bill gave the nomination of the four new members to her majesty; but it was ultimately conceded that they should be appointed by parliament. In other words, their names were inserted in the bill. What occasioned this measure was an illness with which the Queen had been attacked; but she had nearly recovered before the bill passed. On the subject of the slave-trade, acts were passed for carrying into effect a treaty with Spain, and a convention with Portugal. The Spanish treaty, signed at Madrid Slave-trade. on the 23d of September in the preceding year, went the full 1 Hansard's Parliamentary Debates, xxxviii. p. 151. 204 HISTORY OF THE PEACE. [Boox I. length of declaring the traffic in slaves illegal, from the 30th of May, 1820, throughout the entire dominions of his Catholic majesty, and of recognizing the right of search on the part of the two contracting powers, to be exercised by vessels of war, provided with special instructions for that purpose. It was stipulated that the sum of 400,0001. should be paid by Great Britain to Spain, in compensation for losses sustained by the subjects of his Catholic Majesty engaged in the traffic. The convention with Portugal, a much more important power in reference to this matter, did not accomplish nearly so much for the interests of humanity and civilization; all that his Most Faithful Majesty would consent to do being to abolish the traffic in slaves carried on by his subjects in any part of the coast of Africa lying north. of the equator. This was done by a royal alvara, or law, given at Rio Janeiro, on the 6th of May in the present year. The subject of the condition and treatment of the slaves in several of our West India colonies was also brought before the House of Commons in a succession of motions by Sir S. Romilly; none of which were opposed, but which resulted in nothing except the production of some papers, and the appointment of a select committee to consider certain cases of cruelty alleged to have taken place in the island of Nevis. The principal subject which occupied parliament during the last six weeks of the session, was the renewal of the AlienAct. Alien Act. This measure, differing altogether from the Alien Act which subsisted during the war, had been first introduced after the peace of Amiens in 1802. It no longer fixed the residence of aliens, but only reserved to government and to magistrates the power of removing any of them who might become objects of suspicion. Nor had it ever been enacted as a permanent law. When it was reintroduced, after the peace in 1814, its duration had been limited to two years; and in 1816 it had been renewed for the same term. On the latter occasion, however, it had encountered the strongest opposition in its passage through parliament. And now, when it was proposed to be continued for two years more, the fight against it was resumed by the Whig party, and the ground contested with the greatest obstinacy at every step. Its opponents, in the Commons, even divided the House on the motion for leave to bring in the bill, meeting the majority of 55 votes in its favor with a minority of 18. This was on the 5th of May. Hostile motions for papers were then made by Mr. Lambton in the one House, and by Lord Holland in the other, Mr. Lambton pushing his to a division, when 30 opposition patriots were counted against 68 ministerialists. On the 15th, the second reading in the Commons, supported by 97 votes, was resisted by 35. Another division took place on the CHAP. XIII.1 THE ALIEN ACT. 205 motion for going into committee; and several more in committee. On the 22d, after it had been read a third time, first Mr. Brougham, and then Sir S. Romilly, divided the House on clauses which they proposed to insert in the bill; nor, when both had been negatived, was even the last question of all, " That the bill do pass," suffered to be carried without another division. On this concluding trial of strength, the nurimbers were 94 against 29. The first discussion of the measure in the Lords took place on the motion for going into committee, which was made by Lord Sidmouth on the 1st of June. But by this time a discovery had been made. It had been found that, by the act of the Scotch parliament, passed in 1685, for establishing the Bank of Scotland, all foreigners holding shares to a certain amount in that bank became thereby naturalized subjects of Scotland, while by the Act of Union all subjects of Scotland were naturalized in England. Lord Sidmouth, therefore, announced, that he should propose the insertion of a clause to prevent the object of the bill from being defeated by parties taking advantage of that enactment. The motion for going into committee was carried by a majority of 34 to 15; and then, the clause by which it was proposed to meet the old Scotch act, having been reduced by considerable tinkering to what was considered a proper form, was carried by another of 42 to 20. It deprived all foreigners of the privilege of naturalization acquired by holding bank-shares, who had purchased their shares since the 28th of April. The parties whom it affected petitioned the next day to be heard by council against this retrospective disqualification; but that was refused, after another division; and, the standing orders having been suspended, on which question there were three more divisions, the bill, with the added clause, was the samle day read a third time and passed. But when it was sent down to the Commons three days afterwards, it was met there, not only by another petition from the parties affected by the disqualifying clause, but by an objection founded upon the privileges of the House. It was observed that one right which foreigners acquired upon being naturalized was to import goods into the country at lower duties than aliens; and that, therefore, the Lords had by their amendment introduced a money-clause into the bill- an interference on the part of the other House which the Commons never submitted to. On the Speaker being appealed to, he gave it as his opinion that this objection was fatal to the clause; upon which Lord Castlereagh consented at once that the clause should be negatived, and the bill passed without it. On the following day, when Lord Liverpool, on the bill being brought back to the Lords, moved that that House should not insist upon its amendment, the opposition again divided in favor 206 HISTORY OF THE PEACE. [BOOK I. of a motion for deferring the further consideration of the matter till the next day of meeting, but were of course beaten as usual. It was now announced that a bill would be brought in to supply the place of the defeated clause; and on the 8th, leave to bring in such a bill was moved for by Lord Castlereagh in the Commons. The bill was made considerably more comprehensive than the clause had been, for it had been discovered that there were some English and Irish acts to be guarded against, as well as the Scotch one; at the same time it was divested of the retrospective effect which had been so much objected to. An unsuccessful attempt was even made by the opposition to prevent it from coming into operation till three or four days after it should have been enacted, on the ground that it would otherwise come upon the country without proper notice. Ministers, however, contended that people had had notice enough from the agitation the subject had already undergone in parliament; and so, the standing orders having been again suspended, the bill went through all its stages and was passed in the Commons on the same day on which it was brought in. On the day following it was hurried in the same manner through the Lords. This severe struggle was perhaps not altogether inspired and Dissolution; sustained by the particular measure respecting the 10th June. principle or details of which it professed to be carried on. The moment was one at which time gained or lost was of peculiar importance. Ministers, as we have seen, had, by an act passed in the latter part of the session, got rid of the clause in the Regency Act, which provided that the parliament should immediately reassemble in case of the death of the Queen. But it still remained the law that it should so reassemble on either the demise of the Crown, or the death of the Regent. The termination of the old King's protracted life could not now be far off, and was likely enough to happen any day. That event would revive the present parliament, even notwithstanding a dissolution, if the day appointed by the writs of summons for the assembling of a new parliament had not arrived before it took place.' In these circumstances ministers were very impatient to bring the session to a close, and to get the new parliament called together as expeditiously as possible. The unexpected discovery of the old Scotch act, enabling the opposition to renew and continue the battle on the subject of the Alien Bill, and so to have the benefit for a little longer of whatever the chapter of accidents might turn up, occasioned the loss of about a week. At last, however, on the 10th of June, the day after the supplementary Alien Bill, as it was called, was passed, the Regent came to the 1 The old parliament would have as- met, but for an act of the preceding sessembled if the new one had not actually sion, the 57 Geo. III. c. 157. CsAP. XIII.] DISSOLUTION OF PARLIAMENT. 207 House of Peers, and at once put an end to the session and dissolved the parliament. This was a very unusual, indeed in modern and constitutional times quite an unprecedented proceeding. The last instance in which the same thing had been done was when Charles II., in March, 1681, suddenly and angrily dismissed his fifth and last parliament, which he had called together at Oxford, after it had sat a week. This precedent was exactly followed in the present case; now, as then, as soon as the speech from the throne had been delivered, the Lord Chancellor, by the royal command, declared the parliament dissolved. The course thus taken excited much surprise and comment; and it also threw the Commons into considerable perplexity. When the members, after the ceremony which had made them members no longer, returned to their own House, and Mr. Manners Sutton, lately their speaker, was proceeding to read the speech at the table, as is usual after a prorogation, Mr. Tierney objected to his doing so, as implying some approbation of the mode of dissolution that had been adopted, which he regarded as an insult to parliament. To this it was rejoined by Lord Castlereagh, in a different tone, that at any rate they had better let the subject alone for the present, in case they should be charged with attempting to deliberate as a House of Commons, when they were only a meeting of private gentlemen, and might incur a prcemunire. In point of fact, the speech was not read. The proclamation for calling the new parliament was issued the same afternoon; and the writs were made returnable on the 4th of August. Nothing could now bring the old parliament to life again except the death of the King or the Regent within the interval of fifty-five days. 208 HISTORY OF THE PEACE. Boomi L CHAPTER XIV. THE general election kept the country in an uproar from the General middle of June till the middle of July. The interest election. that was excited by many of the contests was almost unprecedented; and in several instances the mob proceeded far beyond its ordinary license and violence. The contest at Westminster, in particular, drew and fixed universal attention, both by the extreme character of the outrages which took place, and by the doubt that continued to hang over the issue almost to the last. Of the two late members only Sir Francis Burdett stood again; Lord Cochrane, about to set out for South America to take the command of the naval forces of the state of Chili, declined to come forward. In these circumstances different sections of the electors looked about in different quarters. One portion of the Radicals, with an amusing ignorance of their man, applied to Mr. Wetherell (afterwards Sir Charles) to represent them; Mr. Wetherell had acquired great glory by his successful defence of Dr. Watson in the preceding year, on his trial of seven days for high treason; and these worthy Westminster electors imagined the learned gentleman to be as good a patriot as themselves. Mr. Wetherell, who had sat in the late parliament for Shaftesbury, got off on the plea of his professional engagements obliging him to give up the House of Commons; but he could not resist transfixing the deputation that waited upon him, by expressing his hope that they would find some other independent candidate, with whom they might unite their efforts to rescue the city of Westminster from the disgrace it had so long endured. The disgrace consisted simply in its having been represented by the two most thorough-going and far-going reformers in parliament. It was then determined by either the same wise men, or some other small section of Sir Francis Burdett's supporters, to put forward, in conjunction with him, his personal friend the Hon. Douglas Kinnaird, like himself the advocate of universal suffrage, annual parliaments, and the ballot. At the same time the regular Whig party addressed an invitation to Sir Samuel Romilly, which he accepted. Soon after, Captain Sir Murray Maxwell addressed the electors, offering to serve CHAP. XIV.] ELECTION FOR WESTMINSTER. 209 them on what he described as principles of attachment to his King, and veneration for the constitution - in other words, as a Tory and partisan of the existing government. Sir Murray was a very gallant and distinguished naval officer, and had lately displayed the highest professional qualities on occasion of his ship, the Alceste, being shipwrecked on one of the Loo-Choo Islands, in bringing back Lord Amherst from his embassy to China; but the thought of his standing for Westminster seems to have been suggested to his friends or to himself, principally by the consideration that a candidate from the quarter-deck might probably have a good chance in a place lately represented by Lord Cochrane. As soon as he announced himself, however, the Tories rallied round him. The election commenced on the 18th of June; and Covent Garden was a scene of almost incessant confusion and riot from that morning till the evening of the 4th of July. In addition to the four candidates we have mentioned, Major Cartwright and Mr. Henry Hunt, the then friend of Cobbett, and commonly known as Orator Hunt, were proposed; the show of hands was declared to be in favor of him and Romilly; but, nevertheless, he:tnd the Major polled very few votes: the latter, who withdrew atMcL the third day, only 23; Hunt, who obstinately persevered thro, gh the fifteen days, only 84, of which no more than 11 were the prcduce of the last eight days. Nor did Mr. Kinnaird continue the 6sruggle longler than Major Cartwright, having in the three days p~led only 65 votes. Romilly, on the other hand, took the lead f'rom the first, and remained safe at the head of the poll. The only contest was between Burdett and Maxwell. The latter was assailed by the populace, both with execrations and missiles of a more substantial kind, from almost the first moment of his appearance on the hustings. On the first day he was struck with a stone onil the right eye. For the first four days, nevertheless, he kept ahead of his antagonist: at the close of the fourth day's polling the numbers stood - for Maxwell, 1726; for Burdett, only 1263. This position of the two candidates infuriated the mob; and on the evening of the fifth day, as he was returning from the hustings, Sir Murray was so severely handled as to place his life for some time in danger. He was not able again to appear in public. Both on the fourth and fifth days, too, great exertions were made by Burdett's voting friends; by that fith evening they had the satisfaction of seeing the gallant captain second in the race, the entire poll being announced to be -for Maxwell, 2169; for Burdett, 2171; and, similar efforts being continued on the following day, this difference of two was increased to very nearly two hundred. Sir Murray never recovered his ground; and the final numbers were -- Romily, 5339; Burdett, 5238; Maxwell, 4808. On one of VOL. II. 14 210 HISTORY OF THE PEACE. [Book I. the days of the election, the Riot Act had to be read, and the military called out. The election for the city of London, though conducted with much less violence, was almost equally exciting. Of the four late members, Sir James Shaw declined to come forward again for private reasons; the candidates were the other three, Curtis, Atkins, and Wood, together with three new men, Waithman, Thorpe, and Wilson. The second day placed Wood and these three at the head of the poll, and at the close of the election they were found in the same position, although down to the very last day a close and doubtful struggle was maintained between Thorpe and Curtis. On the morning of that sixth day, Tuesday, the 23d of June, Curtis had a majority of 129; but the committees of his three friends who headed the poll now came to the rescue of Thorpe; the consequence was that by half-past eleven o'clock he was up with his antagonist; by twelve he was 35 ahead of him; and in the end the six competitors came in in the following order: Wood, 5700; Wilson, 4829; Waithman, 4603; Thorpe, 4335; Cilrtis, 4224; Atkins, 1688. The four new members were all Whigs; Wood, who was reelected, had been the only Whig, or anti-ministerialist, among the old ones. Another contest that attracted still more general attention was that for the representation of Westmoreland, where:the late members, Viscount Lowther and his uncle the Hion. Colonel Lowther, were opposed by Mr. Brougham, in the character of champion of the independence of the county, and its deliverer from family thraldron. All that an eloquent tongue could do was done by the new candidate; and he was at the head of the poll on the evening of the first day; but after this he fell more and more behind every hour; and on the evening of the fourth day, when he had polled only 889 votes against Colonel Lowther's 1157, he gave in. Besides about 70 members who had sat in the last parliament for other places, there were about 190 new members returned in all. Of these about 80 were brought in after contests, in addition to about a dozen old members so returned for new places. There were altogether a:bout 115 contested elections; so that, the entire number of cons ituencies in the empire being then 380, about one seat in three was disputed. Of those that were undisputed, however, about one half may have been nomination seats. Still the contests, perhaps, were not:so numerous as they would have been, but for the circumstances which made it almost certain that the next parliament would be a very short one, seeing that the death of the King, whenever it should happen, would necessarily dissolve it in six months thereafter. That seats, which were to be held by so unusually precarious a tenure, should be so eagerly sought in so many instances, was a strong evidence of the excited state of CHAP. XIV.] STRIKE OF MANCHESTER SPINNERS. 211 party feeling. The hopes of the Whigs, in fact, were now higher than they had ever been since they had been last in office, ten years ago. Mr. Ward, who had now returned to England though, having lost his election at Ilchester, which he had lately represented, he was, as he says, for the first time since he had been a boy, out of parliament - thus writes to Dr. Coplestone in the end of August: " The next session is likely to be more interesting than the last. Opposition comes into parliament in rather greater numbers, and in far greater spirits. It is marshalled, too, under an able and experienced leader [Tierney]. The government don't seem much beloved. It has quite spent the popularity of' the war. There seems, too, to be a great deal of discontent in the country, which may on some occasion be brought to bear upon party objects. I should be able less to understand what was the cause of this discontent, if I did not know that peace and prosperity have always a tendency to produce it. We have h-d peace for some time, and we seem rising fast to prosperity, for I observe the old symptoms of it again - credit, building, improving, and the increasing luxury of the middling classes." The elections were scarcely well over when considerable uneasiness began to be spread by the accounts that came Strike of from Manchester of the temper and proceedings of a Mtnakhester portion of the working classes there. Much dissatis- cottonfaction had prevailed for some time among the cottonspinners on the subject of wages; and so early as before the end of June they had struck work to the number of about fifteen thousand. Of course, as days and weeks passed on, and they felt more and more the pressure of diminished resources, while their hopes of attaining their object by peaceable or passive resistance were also dying away, there was the greater danger that they might be tempted to deviate into something illegal. It is probable, also, that from the first, although no satisfactory proofs of combination could be obtained, the usual means of intimidation at least, if not of actual violence, were employed to prevent those who were willing to work from continuing to do so, and to compel them to join the strike. But it appears not to have been till about the beginning of August that the authorities considered themselves called upon even to make any preparations in contemplation of a possible breach of the peace. By that time, if not befbre, the spinners had begun to assemble in processions, which were regarded as being intended to make a formidable display of their numerical strength; and, the government having been applied to, some troops were ordered to proceed to the town. The magistrates, also, on the 1st of that month, issued a public notice, in which they described the spinners as being in 212 HISTORY OF THE PEACE. [BooK I. the habit not only of assembling in great numbers and parading the streets, but of besetting particular factories, and forcibly preventing the well-disposed from continuing to work; and intimated their determination to use every exertion to bring to punishment the persons concerned in these proceedings. No collision, however, took place till the 2d of September, on which day the spinners, having been joined by a large body of others from Stockport, after a procession through the streets as usual, repaired to a factory in Ancoat's Lane, and, it is said, had actually begun to force their way into the building, when some soldiers and police that were stationed in it fired and wounded three of them, one of whom soon after died. A party of dragoons and infantry then arrived and dispersed the mob, which some calculations made to have amounted to not less than 30,000. A coroner's jury that sat upon the body of the man who had been killed, brought in a verdict of justifiable homicide. This affair appears to have put an end to the disturbances, and even to have broken up the strike. On the 11th, Lord Sidmouth, who had gone in the beginning of August to spend a few weeks in the west of England, but had been suddenly recalled to town by the alarming reports received at the Home Office, writes as follows to Lord Ellenborough:1 "The combination at Manchester is now nearly dissolved, and tranquillity is completely restored. The verdict of the jury in the case of the person killed in the attack on Gray's mill, the arrest of Johnson, Baguley, and Drummond, who are lodged in Chester jail, the failure of pecuniary supplies, and the admirable arrangements of Sir John Byng, in conjunction with the civil authorities - one of the chief objects of which was to afford protection to all persons disposed to return to their work — have effected this fortunate change." This affair, indeed, in its origin, and so far as it had actually proceeded, was merely a dispute about wages; but as such it proved at any rate, that all was not gold that glittered in the present show of national prosperity, and that the busy commercial speculation that had sprung up had not prevented the existence of much distress among large classes of the people. Wages, in fact, were not such as to compensate for the high prices of food. Except, however, that meetings for radical reform continued to be held occasionally in London and elsewhere, the tranquillity of the country remained undisturbed for the rest of the year. Almost the only other domestic event of a public or historical Death of the character that occurred in the course of the year was Queen. the death of the Queen, which took place on the 17th of November. Her majesty was in her seventy-fifth year, and had been suffering for about three months from dropsy in the 1 Pellew's Life of Lord Sidmouth, iii. p. 226. CHAP. XIV.] DEATH OF DISTINGUISHED MEN. 213 chest. The act passed in the last session of parliament, amending the Regency Act, prevented this event from having any immediate political consequences. A much more profound sensation was produced by another death which happened DeathsofSir about the same time, that of Sir Samuel Romilly, who Samuel destroyed himself on the 2d of November, four days Romilly, &c. after the loss of his wife, in a paroxysm of insanity, brought on by that severe shock falling upon a mind previously weakened and shattered by overburdening professional labors and anxieties. He was sixty-one years of age; and he had attained the highest position, both in the courts of law and in parliament, which ability and character, without office, could confer. Nor was any man more universally beloved.;:' His late triumphant return for Westminster, where he had been brought in at the head of the poll, without having either spent a shilling or asked a vote, or even once made his appearance on the hustings, was a sufficient testimony to his general popularity, and also, it may be added, to the purity of conduct, and elevation above all popularity-hunting arts, by which, or notwithstanding which, he had acquired it.: But the charm of his beautiful nature won its way even where wide difference of political principle and sentiment might have been expected to create some prejudice against him. His death was acutely felt, we are told,' by Lord Eldon, before whom he had been for many years in daily and preeminent practice. " The Chancellor," it is related, " came into court next morning obviously much affected. As he took his seat he was struck by the sight cf the vacant place within the bar which Romilly was accustomed to occupy. His eyes were filled with tears.' I cannot stay here,' he exclaimed; and, rising in great agitation, broke up his court." Within little more than a month after Romilly, on the 13th of December, died another great lawyer, of equally opposite politics and temper, Lord Ellenborough. This remarkable man, whose talents, so long as he continued in his vigor, were of the most commanding character, seemed never to have recovered from his discomfiture by Hone in the preceding year. We have already quoted the terms in which he wrote to Lord Sidnlouth on the day after the last of the three trials and acquittals. The purpose of resignation which he announced in that letter he had carried into effect about three months before his death. l-I was, when he died, in his sixty-ninth year, and he had presided in the court of King's Bench since April, 1802. KIn August this same year, had died, at the age of eighty-five, Warren Hastings, whose leading counsel Lord Ellenborough (then Mr. Law) had been throughout the five years of his memorable trial before the House of Lords, since the termination 1 Twiss's Life of Lord Eldon, ii. p. 324. 214 HISTOLRY OF THE PEACE. [BooK I. of which a quarter of a century had now elapsed. And, remarkably enough, before the year was outi Hastings had been followed to the grave by the most pertinacious and vindictive of his accusers and enemies, Sir Philip Francis.? I-Ie died at the age of seventy-eight, on one of' the last days of December, when there wanted only about a month to make exactly half a century since the appearance of the first of the famous " Letters of Junius," of which he has been supposed to be the author. The most important event belonging to the general history of Congess of Europe which marks this year is the congress of' the Aix-la-Cha- allied sovereigns held at Aix-la-Chapelle for the purpelle. pose of withdrawing the army of occupation fiom France. Of the 150,000 troops left in that country in 1815, 30,000, of which 6000 were English, had been withdrawn last year; and, although it had been originally stipulated that the occupation might extend to five years, it had been for some time universally expected and understood that it would be actually put an end to now at the end of three. So much was this the case, that the holding of the congress was looked upon as little more than going through a necessary form. And, in point of fact, little or nothing of deliberation or discussion appears to have taken place. The ministers of the several powers, including the Duke of Wellington and Lord Castlereagh, as representing his Britannic Majesty, had collected at Aix-la-Chapelle by the 25th of September; the King of Prussia arrived the next day; the Emperors of Austria and Russia on the 28th. T'wo preliminary conferences were held on the 30th and 31st; and at a third, held on the 2d of October, the evacuation was unanimously agreed upon. An envoy was immediately despatched to Paris, where the news was received on the 5th. A few more conferences were held, to settle the time and manner of the evacuation, and also to determine how much of the pecuniary idemnity of 700 millions of francs, imposed upon France, still remained due. But by the 9th, an agreement embracing all points was drawn up in the form of a treaty, and signed by the ministers of the several powers; and on the 17th the sovereigns affixed their own signatures. It was settled that the army of occupation should be entirely withdrawn by the 30th November, or sooner if possible; and the sum remaining to be paid by France was definitively fixed at 265 millions of francs. Afterwards, on the representation of the Duke of Richelieu, a slight modification was made by another protocol in the arrangements respecting the dates at which the successive instalments of the indemnity should be discharged by France. The removal of whatever apprehensions and objections might have been entertained in any quarter to the decision thus come to by the allied sovereigns, is under CHAP. XIV.] CONGRESS OF AIX-LA-CIAPELLE. 215 stood to have been chiefly due to the efforts of Louis XVI.1I. and the Duke of Wellington; and the smoothing away of any difficulties that arose after the congress met is attributed principally to his grace. " Sufficient justice," writes a recent French historian,' " has not generally been done to the Duke of Wellingtonl for the liberal and faithful manner in which he protected the interests of France throughout all the negotiations with foreign powers..... The Duke was highly favorable to France in everything that related to the evacuation of her territory. His position as generalissimo of the army of occupation gave a great weight to his advice on this question; he was consulted at every step, and his opinion was always given in terms expressive of an elevation of view and sentiment which did honor to his character..... With the cessation of the armed occupation, the Duke was to lose a great position in France, that of generalissimo of the allied powers, and one which made him, in some sort, a member of the government; he was to sacrifice also an appointment of immense pecuniary value; moreover, his grace knew the personal opinion of Lord Castlereagh, and of a large portion of the English aristocracy, to be that the continuance of the armed occupation was necessary. All these interests did not check him; he was of opinion that this measure of precaution ought to cease, seeing that not only had France duly discharged the stipulated payments, but that her government appeared to present the character of order and of duration; this opinion was most influential at the Congress of Aix-la-Chapelle." That town did not exhibit so much splendor and festive gayety as had been seen four years back at Vienna; but it was still a busy, animated, and brilliant scene. "We never saw so many stars in our lifetime," somebody wrote from the place in a letter whichl has been printed; " they appear as numerous at Aix-la-Chapelle as in the firmament; every sovereign is surrounded with his constellation." 2 Many entertainments were given; and plenty of dissipation and intrigue of every kind —except, perhaps, political - went on. Numbers of students firom the different German universities, in their antiquated and grotesque academic dresses, divided attention with the Cossacks about the household of the Emperor Alexander. Among the undiplomatic celebrities were Madame Catalani and Sir Thomas Lawrence; the latter sent by the Prince Regent to take the portraits of the Emperors of Austria and Russia and the King of Prussia. Another arrival which excited some curiosity was that of Robert Owen of New Lanark, then in the earliest stage of his unwearied advocacy and agitation of the new scheme of society - not ill described in the letter we have just 1 Capefigue, Histoire de la Restauration, i. p. 478. 2 Edinburgh Annual Register for 1816, part ii. p. 231. 216 HISTORY OF THE PEACE. [BooK I. quoted as "' a plan to civilize the lower classes by paricing, if we may so speak, indigent families in villages, where they would be subjected to a regimen combined of quakerism and jesuitism." Mr. Owen was presented to the Emperor Alexander, and had a long conference on the subject of his benevolent and impracticable theories. But his Imperial Majesty was also, it is said,1 beset by various philanthropists and regenerators of the other sex, who sought, by means of prophetic ejaculations and an im posing style of attire, to acquire the same influence over his imagination that Madame Krudener had exercised some years before. The anti-slavery party in England, too,2 sent Mr. Clarkson to endeavor to bring over Alexander to their views. This was done on the suggestion, or at least by the advice, of Wilberforce, ever watchful for any opportunity of promoting the great object of his life. "Castlereagh will tell you," he wrote to Mr. J. Stephen in August, " and tell you truly, that the congress will have nothing to do with abolitionism in any form. But my own idea is that the Emperor of Russia may be likely to come forward and befriend a proposal to make the slave-trade piracy, after the abolition of it by Spain and Portugal." Hie had despaired of bringing over the English government to his views, " conceiving Castlereagh to be a fish of the cold-blooded kind." " But," he goes on, " you have hit on the bait for him, if he be to be caught at all, by the exhibition of political considerations affecting our own interests, rather than any prospects of general philanthropy - not that he would not recognize these. Now I fear he would dislike our having any agent at Aix-la-Chapelle. I should be rejoiced, indeed, if he would suffer some one to go as his travelling depositary of tropical intelligence; but I have no notion he would, and it could not be done without his consent. It would not be at all proper for you to go, which Macaulay suggested. I fear I could not do it without impropriety. But Clarkson seems formed by Providence for the purpose.... He would be regarded as half Quaker, and may do eccentric things with less offence than you or I could. I can truly say I have no suspicion of Castlereagh. It would be most unjust to harbor any such notion after all his pains and efforts. But in his public character he might be unable, without a violation of diplomatic propriety, to do a thing which might be very usefully done by a nemo who should apply his lever to the great Alexander." The Emperor, however, we are told, would not be moved. The congress would do nothing for the abolitionists; and lMr. Clarkson only obtained from Alexander an audience of an hour and a half, with an assurance that he entirely entered into their views. In fact the sovereigns had resolved that their present meeting, I Capefigue, i. p. 480. 2 Life of Wilberforce, v. p. 2, &c. CHAP. XIV.] EVACUATION OF FRANCE. 217 which they themselves called, not a congress, but simply a reunion, should be devoted to the question of the evacuation of France exclusively; and it had been distinctly announced before they met that no other business would be taken up. The question of the slave-trade, nevertheless, was entered upon at some of the conferences, and formed the subject of some correspondence after the sovereigns separated. They remained together tillthe middle of November; on the 15th of which month was signed their last document, a declaration, as it was entitled, in which they referred to the treaty or convention of the 9th of October, as the accomplishment of the work of peace, and the completion of the political system destined to insure its solidity; and, having described their union as not tending to any new political combination, to any change in the relations sanctioned by existingo treaties, but having no other object than the maintenance of peace, went on to profess its fundamental basis to be their invariable resolution never to depart, either among themselves or in their relations with other states, from the strictest observance of the principles of the rights of nations; and concluded by avowing their solemn conviction that their duties towards God, and the peoples whom they governed, made it peremptory on them to give to the world, as far as in their power, an example of justice, of concord, of moderation; happy in the power of consecrating, from henceforth, all their efforts to the protection of the arts of peace, to the increase of the internal prosperity of their states, and to the awakening of those sentiments of religion and morality, whose empire had been but too much enfeebled by the misfortunes of the times. Long before this the several divisions of the army of occupation were on their march, each to its own country. The time fixed for the evacuation had been anticipated by about a month, and the troops had been reviewed for the last time by the Duke of Wellington, at Sedan, before the end of October, in the presence of the Emperor of Russia and the King of Prussia, who then paid a flying visit to Louis XVIII. at Paris. The duke took leave of the troops, which he had commanded for three years, in an order of the day dated from the head-quarters at Cambray on the 7th of November, in which he expressed his gratitude for the good conduct which had distinguished them during the time they had been under his orders, and the regret with which he had seen the moment arrive which was to put an end to his public connection and private relations with the officers; and begged the generals commanding-in-chief to receive and make known to the men under their orders the assurance that he should never cease to take the most lively interest in everything that might concern them; and that the remembrance of the three years during which he had had the 218 HISTORY OP THE PEACE. [Book I. honor to be at their head would be always dear to him. Our illustrious countryman was made during the congress a fieldmarshal in the Austrian, Russian, and Prussian services, and also a Grand Cordon, or Knight of' the First Class, of the French Order of the Holy Ghost. Even in matters of ceremonial, the great captain almost took rank with the crowned heads; and in real importance and personal ascendency he was the first figure there. After his return to England, his grace was appointed, in the end of December, AMaster-General of the Ordnance, with a seat in the cabinet. The economical condition of the country still continued at the close of the year to present much the same superficial the country appearance which it had done for some time preceding; at the close but the elastic spirit which had existed a twelvemonth ago had long been palpably on the decay, and was now quite gone. The harvest had turned out, upon the whole, better than had been expected.' Oats, barley, beans, and peas, indeed, proved very unproductive; but the wheat crop was of average quantity. Grass, turnips, and potatoes, which had all been almost given up, made a sudden recovery in the first week of September, when some rain at last fell after the long drought. The consequence was, that, although the prices of all other kinds of agricultural produce used as human food rose, and were much higher at the end of this year than they had been at the end of the last, wheat had considerably fallen in price. Oats, for instance, which had been at 45s. lld. the quarter in December, 1817, were now at 63s. 6d.; but wheat, which had been then at 85s. 4d., had now declined to 78s. 10d. Still this might be considered as a scarcity price. Nor had the prices of the other commodities of which speculation had brought in the largest supplies yet much given way. "It is well known," as Mr. Tooke observes,2 " that the resistance to a change, whether from a low to a high, or from a high to a low, range of prices, is at first very considerable, and that there is generally a pause of greater or less duration before the turn becomes manifest; in the interval, while sales are difficult or impracticable, unless at a difference in price, which the buyer in the one case, and the seller in the other, are not yet prepared to. submit to, the quotations are regulated by the last transactions, but are said to be, and are in fact, nominal. A struggle of this kind prevailed more or less, according as the articles were in greater or less abundance through the autumn, and into the winter of 1818-19, when many articles which had become unsalable from excess were still quoted at nearly as high prices as they had attained at any time in 1808." But the excessive importation, which had not yet much brought down prices, was al1 Tooke, History of Prices, ii. p. 21, &c. 2 Ibid. p. 62 CHAP. XIV.] REVIVAL OF REFORM AGITATION. 219 ready bringing down many of the importers and those connected with them; and the year closed in the midst of numerous and extensive bankruptcies. The Reform spirit, too, was spreading and rising again among the people, as they began to feel the pressure of the Revival of commercial stagnation in diminished employment, and the reform a tendency to decline in wages. But, as has been al- agitation. ready stated, meetings for reform had continued to be held from the commencement of the year, both in the metropolis and in the manufacturing districts. One which was held -in the latter part of the year, as we gather - at Birch, near Middleton, where he lived, is noted by Bamford for the following incident:,, It was moved and seconded that petitions to the Lords and Commons should be presented in the usual manner; when William Benbow, who had lately returned from prison, made his way through the crowd, and, mounting the wagon, urged the people, in a violent and irrational address, to march to London, and'present their petitions at the point of the sword and pike.' He was loudly cheered, with expressions such as,'Ay, that's the way'-' Go on, Benbow'-' That's the man for us.' At that same time he was pondering on a retreat from the country; that country which he was endeavoring to distract by a course of violence. That very weelk, or the week following, he sailed from Liverpool to join Cobbett in America. When I afterwards met some of his applauders, and asked them what they thought of the man who could urge them to rush on destruction, and then hasten out of the way, they shook with indignation." This may show that all the violent counsels which were addressed to the people did not proceed from the government spies; some of their leaders were, no doubt, the advisers of as extreme and insane courses as any recommended by Castles or Oliver. Another meeting at Lydgate, in Saddleworth,2 in the West Riding of Yorkshire, which appears to have taken place earlier in the year, is remarkable for the introduction of an innovation, of which Bamford was himself the originator. In a speech which he made, he proposed that his female auditors should take part with the men in the show of hands when the resolution was put to the vote, vindicating their claim to be allowed to do so on grounds both of right and expediency. "This," says he, " was a new idea; and the women, who attended numerously on that bleak ridge, were mightily pleased with it; and the men being nothing dissentient, when the resolution was put, the women held up their hands, amid much laughter; and ever from that time females voted with the men at the radical meetings." He adds, that the new impulse thus given to the radical movement was 1 Life of a Radical, ii. p. 167. 2 Ibid. i. p. 165. 220 HISTORY OF THE PEACE. [BooK I. not only soon after copied at meetings for charitable and religious purposes, but was erelong carried much beyond what had been at first contemplated, and brought about the formation of female political unions, with their committee-women, chair-women, and other officials. Bamford, we suppose from all this, would have had the franchise extended to women. In curious contrast to his radicalism, here is the following passage which we find in one of Cobbett's 6"Registers " of almost this very date; it occurs in a letter to Major Cartwright, written from the United States in September, principally in abuse of the toasts and speeches at Sir Francis Burdett's election-dinner: "Another curious thing took place at this dinner - the toast of:Jeremy'Bentham, Esq., the unanswerable advocate of the rights of the people.' I wonder who the baronet and his Rump will find out next! what unknown creature they will bring forth! There is no danger, you see, from AMr. Bentham; no danger that he will become the rival or foil of the baronet. It is safe to toast and praise him. Little care is taken to preserve consistency; for Mr. Bentham, if he can, with his quaint and unintelligible language and mode of stating and of reasoning, be called the advocate of anything, is the advocate of universal suffrage,' which he would extend even to women, and which, by such extension, he would, if he were attended to, render ridiculous." And then Benthan, his speculations, and his admirers, are kicked out of the way in the most summary and contemptuous style: "There is one thing which makes Mr. Bentham a favorite with this little band of feeble and ambitious men; indeed there are two things: he cannot be a rival; and he would, if he could, hurt Mr. Hunt and me. He shows his teeth, but lie has not dared to bite. He would have done it, if he had dared. But, indeed, he ran no risk; for very few, comparatively speaking, buy his book; and those who do, never read it half through. It is a covee to read it. It is not only bombast, but quaint bombast, and puzzling and tedious beyond mortal endurance..... The book is wholly inefficient. A very fit and proper person this to be toasted by the baronet and his Rump." 1 At this time Burdett had given up universal suffraye for what he called general sujfrage. CHAP. XV.] STATE OF THE COUNTRY. 221 CHAPTER XV. THE series of banlkruptcies which had commenced in the latter part of the year 1818, continued throughout the State of the first months of 1819. "The largest," says the his- country. torian of prices,l "in point of amount of the articles of which there was so great an excess of the importation, was cotton; and it was in this article that the fall in price was the greatest, and the failures among those concerned in it, consequently, the most extensive. The error usual on such occasions had been committed: the stocks on the spot had been, as we have seen, greatly reduced in 1816, and a rise of price of this reduced stock was perfectly justified; but then, as in more recent instances, the advanced price was not confined to the small stocks on the spot, but was paid for large quantities in the countries of growth, to be shipped hither." The result, he goes on to state, iwas, that "'importers, speculators, and manufacturers were successively ruined by having embarked too largely upon the anticipation of the maintenance of the former range of high prices. There were also very extensive failures in New York, but more especially in Charleston, and other southern ports of the United States, at the close of 1818, and at the commencement of 1819." This state of commercial pressure and distress could not but make itself be felt to some extent by the manufacturing population. It may not have gone the length of throwing any considerable number of them out of employment; but it could not fail to affect the labor-market, and to reduce still further the rate of wages, already inadequate to counterbalance the continued high price of provisions. The large importations and eager speculation which had gone on for the greater part of the past year, however, had had the effect of swelling the revenue, and giving a semblance of extraordinary prosperity to the national finances. This circumstance, which had the advantage of admitting of distinct and palpable exhibition in figures, enabled ministers to meet the new parliament with much complacency. 1 Tooke's History of Prices, ii. p. 77. 222 HISTORY OF THE PEACE. [BooK I. The Houses assembled on the 14th of January, but the first Opening of week was consumed in swearing the members of the parliament. House of Commons, and in the reelection of Mr. Manners Sutton to the chair of that House, in which he was replaced by acclamation. The session was opened by commission on the 21st, when the Regent's speech was read by the Lord Chancellor. In noticing the death of the Queen, it directed the attention of the legislature to the consideration of such measures as that event had rendered necessary fbr the care of' his majesty's person. It then mentioned the late negotiations at Aix-la-Chapelle, and announced that a treaty had been concluded with the United States for the renewal, for a further term of years, of the commercial convention subsisting between the two nations, and for the amicable adjustment of several points of mutual importance to the interests of both countries. An assurance was expressed that, when the estimates for.the current year should be laid before the Commons, they would learn with satisfaction the extent of reduction which the present situation of Europe, and the circumstances of the British empire, had allowed to be made in our naval and military establishments. At the same time they were informed that a considerable and progressive improvement would be found to have taken place in the most important branches of the revenue. The military operations of the Marquess of Hastings against the Pindarrees in the East Indies, the news of the successful completion of which had been received since parliament last rose, were dwelt upon with merited congratulation and eulogy. Lastly, his royal highness declared that he had the greatest pleasure in informing parliament that the trade, commerce, and manufactures of the country were in a most flourishing condition; and he observed that the favorable change which had so rapidly taken place in the internal circumstances of the IJnited Kingdom afforded the strongest proof of the solidity of its resources. The address was voted in both Houses without any amendCareofhis ment being moved, and after little debate. The first majesty's question that tried the temper of the new parliament person. was that of the new arrangements to be made for the care of the person of his majesty, in consequence of the death of the Queen. On the 25th of January a bill was introduced in the Lords by Lord Liverpool, appointing the Duke of York as the successor to her majesty. Some objections were made by the opposition to the amount of patronage to be vested in his royal highness; but no resistance of moment was offered to this bill in either House. Another, by which it was followed- the Royal Household or Windsor Establishment Bill - had not so smooth a passage. This measure was heralded by a message CHAP. XV.] THE ROYAL HOUSEHOLD BILL. 223 from the Regent, brought down on the 4th of February, acquainting parliament that his royal highness placed at its disposal the 58,0001. per annum which had, by the demise of her majesty, become disposable by him for the general purposes of the civil list; only recommending the claims of certain members of her majesty's late establishment to the justice and liberality of the House of Commons. On the same day Lord Castlereagh, after a speech in explanation of the intentions of the government noved and obtained the appointment of a select committee to take into consideration the whole subject of this 58,0001., and of tnother sum of 100,0001., which had been appropriated to the maintenance of the establishment at Windsor, and the distribution of which, also, it was now thought necessary or expedient to modify. It was agreed that, after the select committee had made its report, the subject should be taken up and further considered by a committee of the whole House. Meanwhile it was intimated that ministers would propose the assignment of 25,0001. of the income of the late Queen to be bestowed in annuities upon her majesty's servants; and the reduction of the yearly expense of the Windsor establishment to 50,0001. The entire immediate saving, therefore, would be 83,0001., which would ultimately become 108,0001., when all the annuities should have fallen in. But there was, besides, a sum of 10,0001., which the Queen had enjoyed as custos of his majesty's person; it was intended that the same salary should be continued to the Duke of York. This was the clause of the ministerial scheme which it was well known would prove of most difficult digestion with parliament. Accordingly, on the 22d, when the Commons resolved themselves into a committee of the whole House on the report of the select committee, it was about the duke's salary that the battle was chiefly waged. When the new arrangements were first proposed, Tierney had objected in strong terms to the 50,0001. allowed for the Windsor establishment. He could not conceive, he said, how this sum was to be expended. " Fifty thousand pounds for the establishment at Windsor, for the support of his majesty in his present unhappy state! To whom, and for what particular use connected with the due and dignified support of the King, was this sum to be given? His majesty, it was too well known, was incapable of even ordinary enjoyments. He could not, if he were rightly informed, speak or be spoken to; and indeed the necessary measures which were taken for the preservation of his health, and, if possible, the cure of his malady, rendered such a seclusion from conversation absolutely essential. His regimen was, from the same cause, so very plain, that the tenth of 50,0001. would be more than sufficient to supply it, with all the necessary forms of attendance." Upon this 224 HISTORY OF THE PEACE. [Book I. head, however, the right honorable gentleman, who had been a member of the select committee, had seen reason to alter his opinion. He now confirmed Castlereagh's statement, that the report of the committee, which, in regard to the Windsor establishment, and the allowances to her late majesty's servants, coincided with the recommendations of the government, had been agreed to with perfect unanimity. He had thought the 50,0001, too great; but when he had heard it stated in the committee, by competent witnesses, that, even if it were not to be inhabited by his majesty, the necessary charge of maintaining Windsor Castle would amount to eighteen or twenty thousand a year, he could not think that the remaining 30,0001. was too much for the royal establishment. Passing lightly over everything else, he now directed the main force of his argument upon the question - the great constitutional question, as he called it —out of what fund the guardian of the King's person was to be remunerated? Castlereagh, in the speech with which he opened the debate, had used strong language. He had said that, if the proposition which it was understood was to be brought forward from the other side of the House should be carried, it would, he believed in his conscience, consign the names of the members of the new parliament to infamy in the estimation of the country. Undismayed by this menace, Tierney moved his amendment, to the effect that the expense attending the care of his majesty's person should be defrayed out of the privy purse, or the other private funds of the crown. Let the country, he said, look at the various sums which had been voted to the royal family since 1811. The Prince Regent, besides 50,0001. a year set apart for the payment of his debts, had then a, privy purse of 60,0001. a year, to which an addition of 10,0001. a year had since been made. The King had also a privy purse of 60,0001. a year, with an additional revenue from the Duchy of Lancaster of more than 10,0001. There was thus a private property belonging to the crown of 140,0001. a year; and surely it was not too much to say that out of this large sum should be defrayed the expense of taking care of the king's person. The task of answering Tierney's speech was undertaken by Mr. Peel, at this time Secretary for Ireland. He relied principally upon the determination expressed by the Duke of York to accept of no salary which should come from the privy purse, and upon the sacredness and inviolability which had hitherto been held to attach to that fund. When he mentioned Mr. Sheridan and Mr. Adam (now become lord chief commissioner of the Scotch Jury Court) as two eminent Whig authorities who had been accustomed to preach this doctrine about the privy purse in its highest strain, the House, or at least the opposition, testified by loud derisive CHAP. XV.] WHENCE SALARY FOR CARE OF KING. 225 cheers how it was disposed to account for the high monarchic principles on this point entertained or professed by these personal friends of the Prince of Wales. Mr. Peel, however, dexterously chose to understand the manifestation in a somewhat different sense. " If," he exclaimed, "what I have heard fiom the other side be meant as a cheer of derision at the name of Mr. Sheridan, I must say that I could not expect such an expression towards an individual who was one of the most able supporters the party from which it proceeded ever had the honor to possess, while he was, by universal confession, one of the greatest ornaments of whom that House and the British empire ever had reason to be proud." The rest of the debate on the same side was principally sustained by other members of the government, by Mr. Huskisson, who held the office of chief commissioner of woods and forests, and by Sir Samuel Shepherd and Sir Robert Gifford, the Attorney and Solicitor General; the amendment was supported by a crowd of speakers, among whom the most conspicuous was Mr. Scarlett (the late Lord Abinger). Some of the more ardent of the opposition orators seem to have expected that their logic and rhetoric would prove triumphant that night over all the influences of power; but, when the vote was at last taken, the numbers were found to be 281 for ministers against 186, so that Tierney's proposition was negatived by a majority of 95. Wilberforce, who voted with the opposition, describes this as the best debate he had witnessed for a long time. " Castlereagh, Tierney, Peel, Bankes, Solicitor-General, Scarlett," he says, " all did well." And he adds: "I had really the plan of a good and very telling speech, from its taking up some of Peel's points, but, partly from my distress about Castlereagh, I came away without speaking." He was afraid that he had pained Castlereagh by some expressions in a speech a few days before. Another animated debate, distinguished by the mingled eloquence of Denman, Canning, and Brougham, took place on the 25th, when the resolution for giving the Duke of York the 10,0001. a year, was reported fiom the committee, and was carried by the still larger majority of 247 to 137. The discussion in the Lords was taken in committee, when Lord Grey in a long speech proposed the omission of the clause in the bill relating to the duke's salary; he was supported by Lord Lansdowne and other peers; but the amendment was not pressed to a division. The most important legislative act of the session was the arrangement made for the resumption of cash payments Resumption by the bank. This question, in its various branches, of cash paygave rise to about fifty debates and conversations in ments. the two Houses, the reports of which cover between four and 1 Diary, in Life, v. p. 13. VOL. II. 15 226 HISTORY OF THE PEACE. [BOOK I. five hundred long columns in Hansard; we can only rapidly indicate the course and the results of the discussion. Very soon after parliament met, secret committees were, on the motion of ministers, appointed in both Houses, to inquire into the state of the bank. Lists, of course, were, as usual, supplied to their adherents by the government, and the ballot, accordingly, returned a large preponderance of ministerial members for each committee; it appears, indeed, that, in the Commons, the opposition declined taking any part in the process of nomination; nevertheless, a few days afterwards, Mr. Calcraft moved that the name of Mr. Brougham should be added to the committee, and when a division took place, after a short debate, the motion was supported by the large minority of 133 votes against 175 - a result which, we are told, was received by the opposition with a loud cheer. It was asserted in the course of the debate 1 that of the twenty-one members of the committee, as appointed by the ballot, fourteen were ministerialists. In the beginning of April both committees presented short reports, recommending that, in order to facilitate the final and complete restoration of cash payments, a bill should be forthwith passed, prohibiting the continuance of the payment in gold by the bank of its notes issued previous to the first of January, 1817, according to its public notices of that and the preceding year. It appears that between six and seven millions in gold had already been paid by the bank in the fulfilment of these voluntary engagements. " The issue of that treasure," Mr. Peel observed in moving for leave to bring in the bill,'" had not been attended with any good to the nation; and he thought, indeed, it might have been foreseen, that, unless this issue had been accompanied by a simultaneous reduction of the number of bank-notes, the gold would find its way to those places where there was a greater demand for it. There was little doubt at present as to the place of its destination; for, by a report of the minister of finance in France, it appeared that, within the first six months of the last year, 125,000,000 francs had been coined at the French mint, three fourths of which, it was understood, had been derived from the gold coin of this realm. The opposition expressed some dissatisfaction; but the proposed bill was immediately brought in, and passed with all possible expedition through both Houses. It prohibited the continuance of the cash payments under the notices till the end of the current session. Much more elaborate reports, embracing the whole extent of the subject, were presented by the two committees about a month later. These expositions represented the condition of the bank as eminently flourishing. Its liabilities, it was stated, amounted, on the 30th 1 Hansard's Debates, xxxix. p. 358. CHAP. XV.] DEBATES ON THE CURRENCY. 227 of January, 1819, to 33,894,5801., and its assets in government securities and other credits to 39,096,9001., exclusive of the permanent debt of 14,686,8001. due from the government, and repayable on the expiration of the charter. The entire surplus in favor of the bank, therefore, was 19,899,1201.; and what might be called its immediate available surplus, 5,202,3201. The bullion in its coffers also, which had been very much reduced at the close of the war, had gone on increasing from July, 1815, to October, 1817, at which date it was much greater than it had ever before been since the establishment of the bank, although it had again been brought down by the payments that had since taken place. The committees, under the direction of the government, which was so influentially represented in each, agreed in recommending a plan for the resumption of cash payments, which was first embodied in a series of resolutions, and in that form submitted to the two Houses. It was founded upon the principle first announced by Mr. Ricardo in 1816, in his " Proposals for an Economical and Secure Currency," that the bank should be bound to exchange its notes, not for coin, but for gold ingots, the fineness of which should be attested by a stamp, and only in quantities above a certain weight, at a rate to be diminished from time to time until it should have descended to the Mint price of 31. 17s. 10d. per ounce. But, although this principle was adopted as the basis of the plan, the complete exchangyeability of bank-notes for cash was provided for as its ultimate result. The resolutions were first moved in the Lords on the 21st of lay, by Lord Harrowby, the president of the council, who had officiated as chairman of their lordships' committee. A series of counter-resolutions moved by Lord Lauderdale, although they met with no support, even from his own side of the House, gave occasion to a debate, which was principally sustained by his lordship, and Lords Liverpool and Grenville; the government plan received the approbation, not only of Grenville, but also of Lords King and Lansdowne; Lauderdales resolutions were negatived without a division, and those moved by Lord Harrowby were agreed to. The subject was much more fully discussed in the Commons, where the ministerial resolutions were proposed on the 24th, by Mr. Peel, in an elaborate and remarkable speech. Mr. Peel had been the chairman of the secret committee; the report of the committee was probably of his drawing up, and the government plan was understood to have been arranged and put together by him; but not only was he not the originator of its leading principle; it would appear from his own statement that neither he himself nor the government had been prepared for the adoption of such a plan when the commnittee was appointed and the subject was first brought forward. 228 HISTORY OF THE PEACE. [BooK I. He began his speech by frankly announcing that, in consequence of the evidence which had been received by the committee, and the divisions which had arisen upon it, his opinions had undergone a very material change. " He was ready to avow, without shame or remorse, that he went into the committee with a very different opinion from that which he at present entertained; for his views of the subject were most materially different when he voted against the resolutions brought forward in 1811 by Mr. Horner, as the chairman of the bullion committee. Having gone into the inquiry, determined to dismiss all former impressions that he might have received, and to obliterate from his memory the vote which he had given some years since when the same question was discussed, he had resolved to apply to it his undivided and unprejudiced attention, and adopt every inference that authentic information or mature reflection should offer to his mind; and he had no hesitation in stating that, although he should probably even now vote, if it were again brought before the House, in opposition to the practical measure then recommended [the resumption of cash payments by the bank after two years], he now, with very little modification, concurred in the principles laid down in the first fourteen resolutions submitted to the House by that very able and much-lamented individual. He conceived them to represent the true nature and laws of our monetary system." In the conclusion of his speech le adverted to another personal matter. Among other difficulties, he observed, which presented themselves to him in the discussion of this question, was one which gave him great pain; " and that was the necessity he felt of opposing himself to an authority [that of his father, Sir Robert Peel], to which he always had bowed, and he hoped always should bow, with deference; but here he had a great public duty imposed upon him, and from that duty he would not shrink, whatever might be his private feelings." Thus, in the first of the three great measures with which his name is associated, as well as in the other two, Catholic emancipation and the repeal of the corn-laws, it was the fate of this distinguished statesman to surprise the public by suddenly appearing as the chief figure in what we may call the triumph of the principles which up to that moment he had spent his life in opposing. Various modifications of the government plan in some particulars were proposed by Mr. Edward Ellis, Mir. Cripps, and other members, and the debate was kept up for two evenings; but the original resolutions were in the end agreed to without a division. Although opposed by Tierney, they were supported not only by Ricardo, who had been returned to this parliament for the Irish borough of Portarlington, and who, although not appointed to sit on the secret committee, had CHAP. XV.] RESOLUTIONS. -FINANCIAL MEASURES. 229 been examined before it at great length, but by Sir Henry Parnell, Mr. Abercromby (the present Lord Dunfermline), and other members of the opposition. The resolutions, as reported by the committee of the whole House, were to the following effect: That it was expedient that the restriction on payments in cash by the bank should be continued beyond the time fixed by law, the 5th of July, 1819; that a definite period should be fixed for the termination of the restriction, and that in the mean time certain preparatory measures should be taken; that provision should be made for the gradual repayment to the bank of 10,000,0001. of its advances for the public service; that from the 1st of February, 1820, the bank should be obliged to give in exchange for its notes gold, assayed and stamped, in quantities of not less than sixty ounces, at the rate of 81s. per ounce; that from the 1st of October, 1820, it should be obliged to pay gold for its notes in the same manner, at the rate of 79s. 6d. per ounce; that after the 1st of May, 1821, the rate should be 77s. 101d. per ounce; that from the 1st of May, 1823, the bank should pay its notes on demand in the legal coin of the realm; and that the laws prohibiting the melting and exportation of the coin should be repealed. Bills embodying these resolutions were afterwards brought in by Mr. Peel and the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and encountered scarcely any opposition in their passage through either House. The only alteration of any importance made in the original arrangement was the substitution of the 1st of May, 1822, for the 1st of May, 1821, as the date at which the bank should be obliged to begin paying gold for its notes at the Mint price. This amendment was introduced in the Lords, on the motion of Lord Harrowby, and was agreed to by the Commons. The bank, however, we may here mention, did not avail itself either of this postponement, or even of the liberty to refuse payment in gold of any demands under 2331. 12s. 6d.the value of sixty ounces — but on the 1st of May, 1821, commenced giving cash in exchange for its notes of whatever amount. A few days after the secret committees on the bank had been nominated, Lord Castlereagh, in the Commons, pro- Financial posed the appointment of a select committee for in- measures. quiring into the national income and expenditure, to consist of the same twenty-one members who had formed the finance committee of the last parliament, except that two new names were substituted for those of Sir Thomas Acland and Mr. J. P. Grant, who were not now in the House. In the speech with which he prefaced his motion, Castlereagh went into almost as much detail as if he had been opening the budget, and a debate was brought on; but no objection was made to the appointment of the corn 230 HISTORY OF THE PEACE. [Boox I. mittee. The committee presented an elaborate report in the beginning of April; and on the 3d of June, in a committee of' the whole House, the Chancellor of the Exchequer laid on the table a series of resolutions founded on this report, and presenting an outline of the proposed financial arrangements for the year. They began by affirming that the reduction of taxation since 1815 had been upwards of 18,000,0001. per annum, and that, when the revenues of Great Britain and Ireland had been consolidated in 1816, the mere interest upon the debt of Ireland, including the sinking fund applicable to its reduction, had exceeded the entire net revenue of that country by nearly 1,900,0001., " without affording any provision for the civil list, and other permanent charges, or for the proportion of supplies to be defrayed by that part of the United Kingdom;" it was then stated that the supplies required to be voted for the present year would be 20,500,0001.; that the portion of such supplies which might be provided by the continuance of the existing revenue could not be estimated at more than 7,000,0001., leaving the sum of 13,500,0001. to be raised by loan or other extraordinary resource; that the sinking fund might be estimated at 15,500,0001., exceeding the sum necessary to be raised for the service of the year by about 2,000,0001. only; and the concluding resolution was as follows: " That, to provide for the exigencies of the public service, to make such progressive reduction of the national debt as may adequately support public credit, and to afford to the country a prospect of future relief from a part of its present burdens, it is absolutely necessary that there should be a clear surplus of the income of the country, beyond the expenditure, of not less than 5,000,0001.; and that, with a view to the attainment of this important object, it is expedient now to increase the income of the country by the imposition of taxes to the amount of 3,000,0001. per annum." The debate on these resolutions was taken on the 7th, when the additional taxation was strongly opposed, and the previous question was moved as an amendment on that part of the ministerial scheme; but on a division the resolutions were carried by a majority of 329 against 132. The new taxes, it was now announced, would be raised on malt, tobacco, coffee, and cocoa, tea, British spirits, pepper, and foreign wool. The budget was opened by Mr. Vansittart on the 9th, when several more divisions took place, but all the ministerial propositions were carried by large majorities. The supplies voted in the course of the session were: for the army, 8,900,0001.; for the navy, 6,436,0001.; for the ordnance, 1,191,0001.; miscellaneous, 1,950,0001.; interest and sinking fund on exchequer bills, 2,000,0001.; repayment of advances from the bank, 5,000,0001.; reduction of other unfunded debt, 5,597,0001.; mak CHAP. XV.] OTHER SUBJECTS OF LEGISLATION. 231 ing in all 31,074,0001., exclusive of the interest upon the funded debt, and of the sinking fund, which together amounted to nearly 45,000,0001. more, and were provided for by permanent taxes. Of the 31,074,0001. it was calculated that the annual malt tax (3,000,0001.), the annual or temporary excise-duties continued (3,500,0001.), a lottery (yielding 240,0001.), and the sale of old stores, would produce 7,074,0001.; the remaining 24,000,0001. was to be provided for by two loans of 12,000,0001. each, the one derived from the sinking fund, the other raised by contract. The effect of the first of these borrowing operations would simply be to reduce the sinking fund for the present year to 3,500,0001.; that of the other, taken in conjunction with the repayment of the bank advances, and of the remaining unfunded debt that was to be paid off, would be - disregarding the speculative advantages that might accrue either to the government or the subscribers from the terms of the loan — to add 1,403,0001. to the amount of the entire debt. On the whole, therefore, the debt would be reduced by these operations to the extent of somewhat more than 2,000,0001.; and with the aid of the new taxes, the reduction might be expected to be above 5,000,0001. Nominally, however, the new stock created for the two loans of 24,000,0001. was 32,304,0001. We may notice under the present head a motion made by Mr. Tierney on the 18th of May, that the House would resolve itself into a committee of the whole House to take into consideration the state of the nation, which, after producing one of the longest debates of the session, was negatived by a majority of more than two to one (357 against 178); and a series of forty-seven resolutions in favor of retrenchment, which were moved by Sir Henry Parnell on the 1st of July, and which were disposed of, after a very short debate, on the 12th, by the further consideration of them being adjourned till that day three months. Not much more of the legislation of the session was of any historic importance. Mr. Sturges Bourne obtained Other subthe appointment of a new committee on the poor-laws; jects of legisand his bill for the general amendment of these laws, lation. which had been lost in the last session, was revived and passed. An act was also passed to amend the laws respecting the settlement of the poor so far as regards renting tenements. But a more comprehensive measure, the object of which was to amend the law of settlement generally, was lost in the Commons; as was another, to prevent the misapplication of the rates, on the second reading in the Lords. A bill was passed for the regulation of cotton-factories, and the better preservation of the health of young persons employed in them by limiting the hours of labor. An extension of the Charitable Foundations Act of the 232 HISTORY OF THE PEACE. [BooK I. last session was proposed and carried through the two Houses under the auspices of the government; the motion for leave to bring in the bill was made by Lord Castlereagh and seconded by Mr. Brougham. It was nearly the same with the bill of last session, as originally introduced and as passed by the Commons, embracing charitable foundations of all descriptions, as well as those connected with the education of the poor. Not only charities supported by private subscription, however, but all institutions having special visitors, were excepted; and when Mr. Brougham moved the omission of the latter exemption, the amendment was negatived by a majority of 107 against 75. Early in the session, petitions complaining of the state of the criminal law were presented to both Houses from the common council of the city of London; and on the 2d of March, Sir James Mackintosh, stepping into the space left vacant by the lamented Romilly, moved, in an elaborate address, that a select committee should be appointed to consider of so much of that law as related to capital punishments in felonies. The motion was opposed by ministers; but after a debate of some length, it was carried by a majority of 147 against 128 - a result which was received with repeated cheers. A report from the committee thus appointed was presented on the 6th of July; and after another eloquent speech from Mackintosh, was ordered to be printed. Committees were also appointed in both Houses, on the proposition of the government, to inquire into the state of jails and other places of confinement, " and into the best method of provided for the reformation, as well as the safe custody and punishment, of offenders." A report, it may be also mentioned, from the commissioners appointed the preceding year for inquiring into the means of preventing the forgery of bank-notes, was presented by command of the Prince Regent as soon as parliament met. But the only reforms of the criminal law of any importance that were enacted during the present session were the repeal of certain Scotch statutes, according to which a person sending or bearing a challenge to fight a duel forfeited all his movable property, and suffered banishment, whether the duel took place or not; and the abolition of the old and barbarous right of trial by battle, and of appeals of murder, felony, or mayhem. The latter invocation, however, suggested by a case in which an appeal of murder had taken place in the preceding year, and the trial by, or wager of, battle had been demanded by the appellee, was not effected without some opposition. Nobody stood up for the trial by battle either in appeals or in writs of right, but it was maintained that the appeal of murder was a great constitutional right which ought not to be taken away. The common council of the city of London petitioned that parliament would CHAP. XV.] OTHER QUESTIONS DISCUSSED. 233 not deprive the people of their ancient and undoubted right of appeal in criminal cases; but an amendment, moved by Sir Francis Burdett, with a view of attaining the object of this prayer, was, on a division in the Commons, supported only by four votes against eighty-six. Nor was another attempt, made at a subsequent stage to preserve the appeal by Sir Robert Wilson, more successful. Another ministerial measure was much more obstinately and vigorously resisted — what was called the Foreign Enlistment Bill. Even on the motion of the Attorney-General for leave to bring in the bill, the gallery was cleared for a division, though none took place. The second reading was only carried by the narrow majority of 155 votes against 142. Another debate arose on the motion for going into committee, which was made memorable by declamations of extraordinary eloquence from Mackintosh on the one side, and Canning on the other. The third reading gave rise to another animated discussion, followed by a division, in which the numbers were - ayes, 190; noes, 129. In the Lords, also, the bill encountered the keenest opposition; an amendment, moved on the question of its committal, was, after a debate of some length, supported by 47 votes against 100. The object of the act was sufficiently declared by its title, which was:" To prevent the enlisting or engagement of his majesty's subjects to serve in foreign service, and the fitting-out or equipping in his majesty's dominions vessels for warlike purposes, without his majesty's license." The main ground of objection to it was its bearing upon the contest which Spain was still carrying on in South America; great numbers of Englishmen were now in the service of the several states there which had declared or made good their independence; and the present measure was looked upon as being in effect and substantially a blow aimed at those young communities yet struggling to achieve or to complete their emancipation, and a quite uncalledfor helping hand held out to their old oppressor in its vain attempt to crush them. Finally, among the acts passed this session were, one to carry into effect a treaty recently concluded with the Netherlands for the suppression of the slave-trade, another to amend the act of the last session for carrying into execution the convention with Portugal on the same subject, and another to carry into effect certain commercial arrangements which had been made with Portugal and with the United States. On the 1st of July, within a few days of the end of the session, Sir Francis Burdett, for the eighteenth time, Other made his annual motion on the question of parliamen- questions tary reform. All that he now proposed, however, was, discussed. that the House should pledge itself to take the state of the representation into its most serious consideration early in the next 234 HISTORY OF THE PEACE. [BooK I. session of parliament. The motion was seconded by Mr. George Lamb (younger brother of the late Lord Melbourne);1 but neither he nor any other speaker who supported it professed to go along with the mover in the peculiar kind of reform which he advocated. Next to Sir Francis's own long and rambling oration, the most prominent speech of the evening was one delivered by Alderman Waithman. Some of the opinions that were expressed in various quarters are curious enough when read by the light of subsequent events. All the length, for instance, that Mr. Hume went on this occasion was to observe that the majority of the people of Scotland were favorable to a moderate reform, and that he should vote for the motion in compliance with the opinion of his constituents. Lord John Russell, again, though admitting the propriety of disfranchising such boroughs as were notoriously corrupt, and of restricting the duration of parliament to three years, could not support a motion " that went the length of proposing an inquiry into the general state of the representation, because such an inquiry was calculated to throw a slur upon the representation of the country, and to fill the minds of the people with vague and indefinite alarms." On the division, however, 58 members voted with Sir Francis, against 153. lfore success attended Lord Archibald Hamilton's efforts in the cause of Scotch burgh reform. This question formned the subject of two of the most exciting contests of the session. The election of magistrates for the burgh of Aberdeen, in 1817, had been declared illegal by the Court of Session, in the same manner as the Montrose election of the year preceding had been; but in this case the crown, when applied to for a warrant to enable a new election to take place - the burgh had not been found to be disfranchised, as Montrose was - had granted one to the old magistrates to elect their successors as usual, in the face of a petition numerously signed from the burgesses, that, as it seems had been usual in similar circumstances, the election should be by poll of the burgesses generally. Lord Archibald, on the 1st of April, moved an address to the Prince Regent for a copy of this warrant; the motion was strenuously resisted by ministers, through their organ the Lord Advocate; but the vote, announced amid the cheers of the minority, was not a triumphant one for the learned lord, his majority being only one of five in a House of two hundred and fifteen members. This was a victory ominous 1 Mr. Lamb has been returned for the part of the mob. His (then radiWestminster on the vacancy occasioned cal) opponent was the present Sir (then by the death of Sir Samuel Romilly, Mr.) J. C. Hobhouse; and the numbers after a contest which lasted from the at the close of the poll were -for 13th of February till the 3d of March? Lamb, 4465; for Hobhouse, 3861. 38 and which was distinguished through- votes were also given for Major Cartout by the most violent proceedings on wright. CHAP. XV.] PROROGATION OF PARLIAMENT. 235 of coming defeat. On the 6th of May, Lord Archibald brought forward the general question by moving that a great number of petitions, which had been presented in the course of' the session from the Scotch royal burghs, should be referred to a select committee. Of the sixty-six royal burghs, thirty-nine, containing a population of above 420,000 souls, had by this time voted resolutions in favor of reform; while of the remaining twenty-seven small burghs, the population amounted altogether to only about 60,000. The preponderance of opinion in Scotland on the side of burgh reform might therefore be taken to be as seven to one among the persons most interested in the matter, and most competent to form a judgment upon it. Lord Archibald's present motion was opposed almost exclusively on the ground of the alleged connection of burgh with parliamentary reform; but it was carried on a division, in a considerably fuller House, by the same majority by which his former one had been defeated, the numbers being - ayes, 149; noes, 144. Before the session terminated, a report was presented from the committee, in which they declared that the general allegations of the petitioners appeared to be borne out by the evidence. Another question on which the struggle of party in the House of Commons was equally close or doubtful, was that of Catholic emancipation. It was brought forward on the 3d of May, in the Commons, by Grattan, in the shape of a motion that the state of the laws by which oaths were required to be taken, or declarations made, as qualifications for the enjoyment of offices and the exercise of civil functions, so far as they affected Roman Catholics, should be immediately taken into consideration in a committee of the whole House. It was the last time that the great Irish patriot's eloquent voice was destined to be heard on that theme - almost the last time. indeed, that he was to take part in any parliamentary discussion; the debate that followed his opening speech was cut short by the clamor of the House for the vote, before either Canning, Plunket, or any other of the more eminent speakers on either side had risen; several members were shut out from the unexpected division; but the numbers, as ultimately settled, were 241 for the motion, and 243 against it. A fortnight later, a similar motion was made in the Lords by Lord Donoughmore, and was negatived, after a long debate, by a majority of 147 against 106. Parliament was prorogued, on the 13th of July, by the Prince Regent in person. His royal highness spoke of at- Prorogation, tempts which had recently been made in some of the 13th July. manufacturing districts to take advantage of circumstances of local distress to excite a spirit of disaffection, and urged the members of the legislature, on their return to their several counties, to use their utmost endeavors in cooperation with the 236 HISTORY OF THE PEACE. [BooK I. magistracy, to defeat the machinations of those who, under the pretence of reform, had in reality no other object but the subversion of the constitution. The origin, course, and issue of the state of things which had thus begun to darken the political horizon will now demand our attention. CHAP. XVI.] CONDITION OF THE GOVERNMENT. 237 CHAPTER XVI. THE first session of the new parliament had not strengthened the ministry either with the country or even in their Condition own estimation. " The ministry," Mr. Ward writes in of the govthe beginning of June, " is in a strange state. The ma- ernment. jority of the House of Commons seems equally determined upon two points: first, that it shall always stumble; second, that it shall not fall. The result of the great battle that was fought upon Tierney's motion [for a committee on the state of the nation, on the 18th of May, when ministers had a majority of more than two to one] seemed to promise more strength, but Thursday night [the 3d of June, when the second reading of the Foreign Enlistment Bill was only carried by a majority of thirteen] was a complete relapse into languid support and negligent attendance. You may judge what opinion is formed by persons whose trade it is to understand such matters, of the honesty and firmness of the present parliament, when I tell you that the dinner which the Prince gives to-day to some opposition lords was gravely assigned by the Secretary of the Treasury as a reason for the bad division to which I have just alluded upon the Enlistment Bill." The defect would seem, from this account, to have been rather one of discipline than of honesty; incidental, perhaps, in any circumstances to a first session, and in a higher degree to a parliament having so precarious a tenure of existence as the present. It would appear, however, from disclosures which have recently been made, that at one time in the course of the session ministers had seriously contemplated a resignation, and that in consequence not merely of the unmanageableness of the House of Commons, but also of differences of opinion among themselves. We have seen that when they met parliament, they had not made up their minds upon any particular plan for settling the important and pressing question of the resumption of cash payments by the bank. Mr. Peel stated distinctly, in proposing the arrangement which was actually adopted, that he had been made a convert to the principles upon which it was based by the evidence that had been adduced before the secret committee. The avowal of these principles by the government was a retractation altogether unex 238 HISTORY OZF THE PEACE. [BOOK I. pected at the time. In the same letter to which we have just referred, Mr. Ward writes from London to his friend at Oxford: I "Those that are near the scene of action are not less surprised than yourself at the turn the bullion question has taken. Canning says it is the greatest wonder that he has witnessed in the political world." In a preceding letter, written from Paris soon after the announcement of the new profession of faith by his old friends had reached him, the same shrewd observer, himself, though no zealot in politics, a steady ministerialist, with all the ordinary sympathies of a party man, and just about to start for England to take his seat in the new parliament, to which he had been returned on a vacancy, after having been thrown out at the general election, had thus expressed his opinion of the condition of the government:2 2 I presume your friend Van [Vansittart] will be turned out. Indeed, it is difficult to conceive he should stay in after the committee has reported upon principles directly opposite to his own. But his removal, and the substitution of Peel or Huskisson, will by no means cure the defects of the present ministry, which has suffered itself to be dragged through the dirt the whole session. For the sake of the country, as well as for its own, it ought to make some effort to raise.itself from the state of discredit and insignificance into which it has fallen; occasioned not so much by great strength or clear justice on the side of its opponents, as by the wavering conduct of lazy, capricious, pragmatical friends, and by its own want of courage in not proposing to them the alternative of a more vigorous administration, or of instant resignation. As it is, we have a most vigorous ministry, but no government; an evil which, if it endures much longer, will be severely felt both at home and abroad." A letter from Lord Liverpool to Lord Eldon, which Mr. Twiss has published, shows that the view of matters taken by the prime-minister himself at this time closely coincided with that which Mr. Ward thus expressed. The defeat of the government on Sir James Mackintosh's motionfor a select committee on the state of the criminal law, the large minority on the Roman Catholic question, and again the success of Lord Archibald Hamilton's motion for Scotch burgh reform, had shown, as Mr. Twiss observes, under what imperfect control the House of Commons was. When the plan to be taken for the restoration of a metallic currency was first proposed in the cabinet, it is conjectured not to have met with the concurrence of the Lord Chancellor; and in a communication to the premier, he appears to have suggested the postponement of the question for a couple of years. Lord Liverpool's reply is dated the 10th of May. After expressing his concern to find that they differ on so essential a point, his lordship 1 Letters of the Earl of Dudley, p. 222. 2 Ibid. p. 218. CHAP. XVI,] CONTINUED REFORM AGITATION. 239 proceeds:1 "I am sanguine enough to think that we have a reasonable chance of success in carrying the measures which were discussed on Saturday; but, whether I may turn out to be right or wrong, as to this I am quite satisfied, after long and anxious consideration, that, if we cannot carry what has been proposed, it is far, far better for the country that we should cease to be the government. After the defeats we have already experienced during this session, our remaining in office is a positive evil. It confounds all ideas of government in the minds of men. It disgraces us personally, and renders us less capable every day of being of any real service to the country, either now or hereafter. If, therefore, things are to remain as they are, I am quite clear that there is no advantage, in any way, in our being the persons to carry on the public service. A strong and decisive effort can alone redeem our character and credit, and is as necessary for the country as it is for ourselves. As to a postponement for two years, it would be mere self-delusion, and is far more objectionable, in my judgment, in every bearing, than at once renouncing all idea of setting the finances of the country right." 2 There is reason to believe that the bold course taken by ministers on the bank question did produce something of the effect which Lord Liverpool anticipated, and strengthened them both within the walls of parliament and out of doors. We find Lord Sidmouth writing to Lord Exmouth on the 21st of June: " The close of our parliamentary campaign is far more satisfactory than its commencement. The government has now received decisive proofs of that degree of confidence without which it could not be conducted honorably to ourselves, or usefully to the public." The Home Secretary and his colleagues, however, had got released only for a very short time from the warfare of parliament, when they found themselves in the thick of another of a different and more serious description. Reform meetings had continued to be held occasionally in the manufacturing districts from the beginning of the year. Continuance It was on the 18th of January that Orator Hunt made of reform his first appearance in a public capacity in Manchester. agitation. 1 Life of Lord Eldon, ii. p. 329. This, at least, may have been all tie 2 We may remark, however, that this dissent that he professed. We may letter hardly bears out the interpreta- admit that the new monetary doctrine tion put, upon it by Mr. Twiss, that the was not likely to find the readiest or Chancellor did not at first concur with most enthusiastic of disciples either in the majority of the cabinet in their fa- Eldon or Vansittart; but it is hardly to vorable opinion of Mr. Ricardo's plan. be supposed that any member of the His difference with Lord Liverpool may cabinet could have deferred to so late a have been simply on the prudence or moment an intimation of absolute hosexpediency of the government taking tility to the principles of the governits stand upon that plan, and endeav- ment plan. The report of both the seoring to force it at the present moment cret committees had by this time been upon the acceptance of parliament. presented. 240 HISTORY OF THE PEACE. [BooK I. Application had been made to the borough reeve and constables to summon a meeting to petition parliament for the repeal of the corn-law. On their refusal anll anonymous advertisement appeared, fixing the meeting for the day we have mentioned. Hunt, who had acceptedi at. invitation to preside, was met by the multitude, and conducted into the town in a style which must have been very soothing to his vanity — flags with the mottoes of " No Cornllaws," " Universal Suffrage," " Rights of Man," "Hunt and Liberty," being borne before him; the gatheringplace was that same St. Peter's Field, soon to be made so famous by the events of another day. Hunt in his speech derided the proposal of petitioning parliament, and the demand of the assembly was put into the form of a remonstrance to the Prince Regent; other speeches, of more or less violence, were delivered; and then the people peaceably dispersed. An evening or two after this, Hunt was roughly handled in the theatre at iManchester by some officers of the 7th Hussars, who alleged that he had hissed when " God save the King " was called for, - an incident which, of course, he did not fail to turn to account. He immediately wrote to the Duke of York, the Commander-in-Chief, and published his letter. At the same time he wrote to Samuel Bamford at BMiddleton, requesting that zealous follower, as he then was, to come to him.' When they met the next day, he directed Bamford to procure some ten or a dozen stout fellows to take their places in the pit on the evening of the following Monday, when he would again present himself in the theatre. On the appointed night Bamford was at the pit-door by six o'clock, accompanied_ by nine other Middleton cotton or silk weavers, picked men, each armed with a stout cudgel. The ten roughlooking country fellows had attracted some notice as they passed through the streets. Bamford gives a graphic description of them, which we quote the rather as it must be understood to set before us the writer's own personal appearance, at least in general outline: " They were all young men- tall, gaunt, and square-built - long-legged, free-limbed, and lithe as stag-hounds; and as they went tramp, tramp, along the flags, people looked, startled, and looked again; while the observed ones, nothing noticing, went onwards like men who knew their work, and were both able and willing to perform it." A crowd soon collected and filled the street in which the theatre stood; but any serious mischief was prevented by the prudent determination of the manager to have no performance that evening. Hunt, however, had his triumph, and one which suited his purpose as well, and was probably quite as much to his taste, as would have been any he could have had in a mele'e within the walls of the theatre. 1 Life of a Radical, i. pp. 169-176. CHAP. XVI.] CONDITION OF THE PEOPLE. 241 After some time a coach drove into the street, and on its being ascertained to contain the great popular champion and some of his friends, a loud huzza burst from the dense multitude. A few hisses were soon silenced. "Hunt," continues Bamford, "then mounted the box, and, addressing the people, stated that the manager had written to him, saying there would not be any performance that night, and requesting, I think, that he would come up and try to get the people to disperse and go home. He next entered on some general topics, and, with singular bad taste, to say the least of it - for his impetuosity overran his judgment he said the authorities only wanted a pretext to let the bloody butchers of Waterloo loose upon the people; and concluded by advising them to retire to their homnes peaceably. AWne then gave three cheers, the carriage disappeared, and the street was soon deserted. Our party went to the Robin Hood, where we were joined by a score or two of others, and we set to, and caroused until midnight, and then returned home." The rest of the winter and the spring passed in quiet, and without any movement among the working classes to condition excite alarm or uneasiness. As the year advanced, of tle peohowever, a growing depression in the labor-market was ple. experienced in all the districts of the kingdom where the population was the most numerous. The biographer of Lord Sidmouth has printed a letter addressed to that minister, in December of the preceding year, by Lord Sheffield (Gibbon's friend), in which the writer, a very old man, but with his faculties still entire and active, and accustomed all his life to watch the fluctuations in the economical state of the country, reports his views both on the actual condition of things at that moment and on the prospects of the future.' He cannot, he says, resist the pleasure of comiuunicating the very satisfactory accounts he has received of the state of trade and manufactures from different parts, and espetially fiom the neighborhood of Birmingham, the rest of Warwickshire, and from Staffordshire. " Both trade and manufactures," he goes on to observe,' are in a flourishing condition, and likely to improve still further. There appears to be little speculation beyond the regular demands of the different markets, men without adequate capital finding it almost impossible to procure credit; so that there is now no disposition to force a trade, and no injurious competition among the merchants to procure the execution of orders, and, consequently, wages are fair and reasonable." In point of fact, however, although Lord Sheffield was correct in his belief that the season of unsafe speculation had passed away, he was too hasty or too sanguine in assuming that the mischievous results of the late extravagant overtrading were 1 Life of Lord Sidmouth, iii. p. 242. VOL. II. 16 242 HISTORY OF THE PEACE. [Boos I. yet exhausted. It has been common to attribute the commercial pressure which was felt throughout the spring and summer of this year 1819, in whole or in part, to the measures that were taken by the legislature for the restoration of a metallic or at least convertible currency, and the contraction of the circulation to which the bank is assumed to have been thereby driven in its own defence. Mr. Tooke 1 has demonstrated the entirely imaginary nature of this theory by many facts and considerations, and especially by the fact that the bank did not reduce its issues during the period of the pressure, and that no such contraction of the circulation as is alleged then took place. The amount of Bank of England paper in circulation was, on the contrary, rather greater in August than it had been in February. The late excessive importations, however, were continuing to produce their natural effects, or rather the consequent and inevitable fall of prices was at last bringing down the speculators in great numbers; the bankruptcies in each of the six months from February to July inclusive were about double the ordinary average; credit sustained a shock; the interest of money rose; while the glut in the market of commodities obstructed the channels, the pressure in the money - market clogged the wheels of trade; finally, the market of labor came in for its share of the universal depression; employment became more difficult to be procured; wages fell. At the same time food maintained a high price; wheat, which had been at 80s. in February, had only fallen to 68s. 10d. in June, and had risen again to 75s. in August. The first meetings of the operative classes, accordingly, were called to consider the low rate of wages. Such were those of the gingham-weavers of Carlisle and the neighborhood in the end of May. These were succeeded, towards the middle of the following month, by others at Hunslet Moor near Leeds, at Glasgow, and at Ashton-underLyne, which assumed more of a political character, but at which the distress under which the people were suffering still supplied the text of every speech, and parliamentary reform and other such measures were proposed and recommended chiefly as remedies for that. The agitation, however, grew bolder as it proceeded; and the government now began to look at what was going on with considerable anxiety and apprehension. Still no breach of the public peace had been committed. On occasion of the Glasgow meeting, which took place on the 16th, a large body of military was in readiness to act; the multitude which assembled on the Green that summer afternoon amounted, it is supposed, to between thirty and forty thousand persons; but after going through their work, they dispersed as quietly as if they had been only three or four met together. What took place at this 1 History of Prices, ii. p. 94, &c. rHAP. XVI.] POLITICAL AGITATION. 243 convention, however, illustrates the natural course of mob deliberation. The people, mostly poor cotton-weavers, either out of employment or working at the lowest wages, appear to have been drawn together in the first instance simply by the hope of getting something done which might better their condition; the resolutions proposed by the parties that had called the meeting, after a statement of the prevailing distress, concluded with a petition to the Prince Regent to the effect that his royal highness would be graciously pleased to afford such of their number as wished it the means of emigrating to Canada, the emigrants engaging to repay the expense by yearly remittances of produce. But upon these original resolutions an amendment was moved, declaring that no good was to be expected from anything except annual parliaments, universal suffrage, and a diminution of taxation; speeches were delivered scouting alike emigration and petitioning, unless indeed the people, as was strongly recommended, would march in a body to London, and present their petition to the Regent themselves; and in the end the amendment was declared to be carried, though the vote in its favor was obtained, as is alleged, only by its supporters having taken possession of the space immediately around the hustings, and knocking down the hats and uplifted hands of their opponents, whose peaceable disposition prevented them from resenting or resisting such treatment. The oratory at the Ashton-under-Lyne meeting - where the chair was taken by a person calling himself the Rev. Joseph Harrison, and one of the speakers was the self-taught, or rather untaught, medical practitioner, Dr. Healey, who makes so amusing a figure in Bamford's autobiography — was still more violent and extravagant. At another great meeting, which took place at Stockport on the 28th of June, the chairman was Sir Charles Wolseley, Bart., who appears to have made his debut on this occasion. In an address which he delivered before descending from his post of honor, Sir Charles, after swearing to be faithful to the cause of annual parliaments and universal suffrage so long as his heart's blood should flow in his veins, informed his admiring auditors that his political career had commenced in France, that he was one of those who mounted the ramparts of the Bastille at the commencement of the revolution in that country, and that, if he did that for France, he should never shrink from attacking the Bastilles of his own country. At this meeting, one of the insignia displayed from the hustings was the cap of liberty on the top of a flag-staff. On that day fortnight, the 12th of July, another meeting was held at New Hall-hill, near Birmingham, where Sir Charles Wolseley was elected " legislatorial attorney and representative" for that town. This transaction seems to have startled government more than anything that had yet taken place, 244 HISTORY OF THE PEACE. [BooK I. and probably determined it not to stand any longer aloof. Indictments were now presented both against Wolseley and Harrison for seditious words spoken at the Stockport meeting, and, true bills having been found by the grand jury, Sir Charles was arrested at his own house of Wolseley Park, in Staffordshire, on the 19th. On the 21st, a meeting was held at Smithfield in London, at which Hunt presided; it had been announced for some time, and was looked forward to with considerable apprehension; a strong force, both civil and military, was stationed at various points in the vicinity of the place; but the demeanor of the assembled people was perfectly peaceable from first to last. Here Harrison was arrested on the hustings, by the same constable, Buck, who had taken Sir Charles Wolseley into custody two days before, and who the next day, on bringing Harrison to Stockport, was there attacked by some of the friends and disciples of his prisoner, one of whom fired a pistol at him, and lodged the bullet in his body. Three remarkable innovations are particularized in the contemporary accounts as having distinguished the presin the re- ent stage of the popular movement. It is stated to form move- have been now that the reformers first assumed the ment. name of Radicals. We have given in a former page' Bamford's account of the origin of female reform associations. "An entirely novel and truly portentous circumstance, " says the "Annual Register" for 1819, " was the formation of a Female Reform Society at Blackburn, near Manchester, from which circular- letters were issued, inviting the wives and daughters of workmen in different branches of manufacture to form sister societies, for the purpose of cooperating with the men, and of instilling into the minds of their children'a deeprooted hatred of our tyrannical rulers.' A deputation from this society attended the Blackburn reform meeting, and, mounting the scaffold, presented a cap of liberty and an address to the assembly. The example of these females was successfully recommended to imitation by the orators at other meetings." The Blackburn meeting here alluded to appears to have been held on the 5th of July. The third circumstance is the military training alleged to Drilling. have been now practised by the reformers. There is, and can be, no dispute about the fact; the only question is as to the design or object of the practice. Numerous informations upon this matter were taken by the Lancashire magistrates, and transmitted to the government, in the first days of August. We find one of the magistrates writing to Lord Sidmouth on the 5th of that month, that " the drilling parties increase very extensively." On the 7th, several persons state 1 See ante, p. 219. CHAP. XVI.] DRILLING OF THE RADICALS. 245 upon oath, that " in various parts of the neighborhood of Bury there are nightly assemblies of great numbers of men, who meet together to learn and practise military training." Other witnesses swear, on the 9th, to having seen the same thing going on in the neighborhood of Bolton. Many of the informations relate to the drilling of a large number of persons on Sunday, the 8th, at Tandle Hill, near Rochdale. One of the informants speaks of a man who told him that he had been drilled there on that day, and that a similar meeting would take place on the Sunday following, but that that would be the last. These dates are very important. An impression was generally produced at the time that the training had been going on in secret for a long while, and that it was a part of the generaltactics of the radical reform movement, the dark purpose of which was placed beyond doubt by the extreme care with which the practice had been concealed for many months. But there is, in fact, no evidence whatever to show that anything of the kind existed anywhere previous to these first days of the month of August; and we have just seen that the persons engaged in the drilling themselves spoke of it with perfect frankness, as far as appears, and without seeming to have any intention to deceive, as something that would be all over in a few days. It has all the look of having been merely a preparation for some particular occasion. That it was really nothing more we are assured by Bamford. It was, according to his straightforward account,1 adopted solely with a view to the great meeting to be held at Manchester on the 16th of this month. "It was deemed expedient," says Bamford, "that this meeting should be as morally effective as possible, and that it should exhibit a spectacle such as had never before been witnessed in England. We had frequently been taunted by the press with our ragged, dirty appearance at these assemblages; with the confusion of our proceedings, and the mob-like crowds in which our numbers were mustered; and we determined that, for once at least, these reflections should not be deserved." Of four injunctions issued by the committees, the observance of two - cleanliness and sobriety - was left to the good sense of individuals; that of the other two, order and peace, was provided for by general regulations. The drilling was the discipline adopted to secure order in their movements. "These drillings," Bamford adds, "were also, to our sedentary weavers and spinners, periods of healthful exercise and enjoyment. When dusk came, and we could no longer see to work, we jumped from our looms, rushed to the sweet, cool air of the fields, or the waste lands, or the green lane-sides..... Or, in the gray of a fine Sunday morn, we would saunter through the mists, fra1 Life of a Radical, i. pp. 177-180. 246 HISTORY OF THE PEACE. [BooK I. grant with the night odor of flowers and of new hay, and, ascending the Tandle Hills, salute the broad sun as he climbed fiom behind the high moors of Saddleworth..... There was not any arms -no use for any - no pretence for any; nor would they have been permitted. Some of the elderly men, the old soldiers, or those who came to watch, might bring a walking-staff; or a young fellow might pull a stake from a hedge in going to drill, or in returning home; but, assuredly, we had nothing like arms about us. There were no armed meetings; there were no midnight drillings. Why should we seek to conceal what we had no hesitation in performing in broad day? There was not anything of the sort." We believe this to be the true account of the matter; and that the government, the magistrates, probably many of the informants of the latter themselves, and the public in general, were frightened by an imagination of what had no existence. The drilling, whatever it might have led to, or have become if allowed to go on, had not, as far as it had yet gone, anything of the character ascribed to it. It was neither a clandestine nor an armed drilling. Whether or no it was a thing which the law should have allowed, is another question. It was perhaps liable to be abused, or carried out to purposes very different from its original one. Bamford himself admits that it had its seductions and dangers, or at least its liabilities to misconstruction, both by lookers-on, and, in some degree, even by those engaged in it. "Some extravagances," he observes, " some acts, and some speeches, better let alone, certainly did take place. When the men clapped their hands in "' standing at ease," some would jokingly say it was "firing," whilst those who were sent to observe us - and probably we were seldom unattended by such - and who knew little about military motions, would take the joke as a reality, and report accordingly; whence probably it would be surmised that we had arms, and that our drillings were only preparatory to their more effective use." We are now come to the great event of the year, and the most Manehester memorable incident in the history of these popular meeting. movements. The election of Sir. Charles Wolseley at Birmingham appears to have suggested a similar proceeding to the reformers of Manchester. Mr. Hunt, we suppose, must have been the person who was to have had the honor of being elected legislatorial attorney for that town. On Saturday, the 31st of July, an advertisement was published in the " Manchester Observer," inviting the inhabitants to meet on Monday, the 9th of August, in " the area near St. Peter's Church," for the purposes of choosing a representative, and of adopting Major Cartwright's plan of parliamentary reform. The magistrates immediately CHAP. XVI.] THE MANCHESTER MEETING. 247 put forth placards, declaring the intended meeting to be illegal, and warning the people to abstain from attending it at their peril. Upon this, on Wednesday, the 4th of August, the parties who had called the meeting announced in a handbill that it would not take place, but that a requisition would be addressed to the borough-reeve and constables, requesting them to convene a meeting at as early a day as possible, " to consider the propriety of adopting the most legal and effectual means of adopting reform in the Commons House of Parliament." This requisition was numerously signed in the course of the day. On its prayer being refused by the magistrates, the parties who had originally moved in the matter gave notice that the meeting would take place in St. Peter's Field on Monday the 16th. It was intimated that Mr. Hunt would take the chair. All was now busier preparation than ever in every town and village around Manchester. It is remarkable that the great manufacturing metropolis itself seems to have remained comparatively unaroused, and not to have contributed anything like its due proportion of numbers to the mighty reform gathering. Indeed, while bodies of three, four, or five thousand persons are spoken of as pouring in from almost every one of the two-andthirty points of the compass, and every separate neighboring district was represented on the ground by its dense and extended array, we do not recollect that any distinct body of Manchester reformers is mentioned at all. Some of the accounts, indeed, expressly state that the Manchester working people generally took little part in the demonstration, and that such of them as joined the crowd seemed to have come for the most part only as lookers-on. We believe that Bamford's animated description of the procession of his fellow-townsmen, the reformers of Middleton, who put themselves under his guidance, conveys a fair impression of the spirit in which the affair was entered upon by the generality of those engaged in it. By eight o'clock on that Monday morning, he tells us,l the whole town of Middleton was on the alert. Those who did not intend to go to the meeting came out at least to see the procession. The marshalled array was headed by twelve youths in two rows, each holding in his hand a branch of laurel, "as a token," says Bamford, "of amity and peace," and therefore, we must suppose, representing the olive on this occasion. There were two silk flags, the one blue, the other green, with "'Unity and Strength," " Liberty. and Fraternity," "Parliaments Annual," and'" Suffrage Universal," inscribed on them in letters of gold; and a cap of liberty, of crimson velvet, with a tuft of laurel, was borne aloft between them. The men 1 Life of a Radical, ii. pp. 197-204. 248 HISTORY OF THE PEACE. [Book I. marched five abreast, every hundred having a leader distinguished by a sprig of laurel in his hat; over these centurions were superior officers similarly decorated. Bamford himself, as conductor of the whole, walked at the head of the column, with a bugleman by his side to sound his orders. Before setting out, the entire number, of not less than three thousand men, having formed a hollow square, while probably as many more people stood around them, and silence having been obtained, Bamford shortly addressed them. After expressing his hope that their conduct would be marked by a steadiness and seriousness befitting the important occasion, he requested them " not to offer any insult or provocation by word or deed, not to notice any persons who might do the same by them, but to keep such persons as quiet as possible; for, if they began to retaliate, the least disturbance might serve ds a pretext for dispersing the meeting." If the peace-officers, he added, should come to arrest himself or any other person, they were not to offer any resistance, but to suffer them to execute their office peaceably. He also told them that, in conformity with a rule laid down by the committee, no sticks or weapons of any description would be allowed to be carried in the ranks; and those who had such were requested to put them aside. Many sticks, he states, were in consequence left behind, and only a few walking-staves were retained by the oldest and most infirm. There is reason, however, to believe that sticks were carried to the meeting in greater numbers by some of the other parties. " I may say with truth," continues Bamford, speaking of the body under his own command, "that we presented a most respectable assemblage of laboring men; all were decently though humbly attired; and I noticed not even one who did not exhibit a white Sunday's shirt, a neck-cloth, and other apparel, in the same clean, though homely, condition." After their leader's speech, which was received with cheers, they resumed their marching order, and, the music having struck up, set out at a slow pace. They were soon joined by the Rochdale people, the united numbers making probably six thousand men. A hundred or two of women, mostly young wives, preceded the column; about as many girls, sweethearts of the unmarried lads, danced to the music, or sung snatches of popular songs; even some children went forward with them, although a score or two of others were sent back; while some hundreds of stragglers walked along-side. As they proceeded they received various accessions to their ranks. At Newton, not far from Manchester, Bamford was beckoned to by a gentleman to whom he was known, one of the partners in a firm in whose employment the reform leader had lately been. Taking Bamford's hand, he said kindly, though in a tone expressing some anxiety, that he hoped CHAP. XVI.] FROM MIDDLETON TO MANCHESTER. 249 no harm was intended by all those people that were coming in. Bamford replied that he would pledge his life for their entire peaceableness. " I asked him," he continues, " to notice them; did they look like persons wishing to outrage the law? Were they not, on the contrary, evidently heads of decent working families, or members of such families?' No, no,' I said,' my dear sir, and old respected master, if any wrong or violence take place, they will be committed by men of a different stamp from these.' He said he was very glad to hear me say so; he was happy he had seen me, and gratified by the manner in which I had expressed myself. I asked, did he think we should be interrupted at the meeting? He said he did not believe we should.'Then,' I replied,' all will be well;' and, shaking hands, with mutual good wishes, I left him, and took my station as before." After they had entered Manchester, they heard that, among other parties which had preceded them, the Lees and Saddleworth Union had been led by Dr. Healey, walking before a pitchblack flag, with staring white letters, forming the words, G" Equal Representation or Death," " Love " - two hands joined, and a heart; all in white paint, and presenting one of the most sepulchral-looking objects that could be contrived. "The idea," observes Bamford, " of my diminutive friend leading a funeral procession of his own patients - such it appeared to me - was calculated to force a smile even at that thoughtful moment." They seem to have reached the place of meeting, where they found an immense multitude already collected, about half an hour before noon. As other parties successively arrived, they became more and more enclosed, till they finally stood about the centre of the vast multitude. About half an hour after their arrival, reiterated shouts proclaimed the near approach of the great man of the day; Hunt came, preceded by a band of music, and flags flying, standing up in an open barouche, on the box of which sat a woman, who, it afterwards appeared, had made no proper or original part of the show, but had only been hoisted into the carriage as it passed through the crowd, while a number of his male friends were seated around him. " Their approach," says Bamford,' "was hailed by one universal shout from probably eighty thousand persons. They threaded their way slowly past us, and through the crowd, which Hunt eyed, I thought, with almost as much of astonishment as satisfaction." The hustings, erected upon two wagons, stood close to the place where Bamford and his party were posted. The arrangements made by the authorities for the part they were to act, on the other hand, are to be found authentically detailed in the communications addressed by themselves at the time to the government, which were afterwards laid before par 250 HISTORY OF THE PEACE. [BooK I. liament, in the evidence given on the subsequent trial of Hunt and his associates at York, and most distinctly in a valuable and interesting narrative of the events of the day, furnished to the biographer of Lord Sidmouth by Sir William J. H. Jolliffe, Bart., M. P., who, as a lieutenant of the 15th hussars, was himself an actor in the scene he has described. A numerous committee of magistrates of the county had been constantly sitting since Saturday morning, taking depositions, and considering what they should do. It seems to have been upon considerable hesitation that they resolved not to attempt to prevent the meeting, but to defer the execution of a warrant which was issued for the arrest of the leaders, till the people had all assembled and the proceedings had commenced. The reasons for the adoption of this course are not explained; it is only stated that the committee " contented themselves,l till they saw what the complexion of the meeting might be, or what circumstances might arise, with coming to this determination only, which they adopted in concurrence with some of the most intelligent gentlemen of the town." About two hundred special constables had been sworn in; and the military force which they had at their command consisted of six troops of the 15th hussars, which had been quartered in the cavalry barracks near the town for about six weeks; a troop of horte-artillery, with two guns; nearly the whole of the 31st regiment of infantry; some companies of the 88th regiment; the Cheshire Yeomanry, comprising between three and four hundred men, who only arrived on the morning of the 16th; and, lastly, a troop of Manchester Yeomanry, numbering about forty members, chiefly wealthy master-manufacturers. The special constables and the Manchester Yeomanry the magistrates retained under their own immediate orders; the command of the rest of the force was taken by Colonel Guy L'Estrange, of the 31st regiment, as the senior officer, in the absenace of Sir John Byng (now Earl of Strafford), the general of the district, who was at his head-quarters at Pontefract, and to whom it would appear, among all the preparations that were made, no intimation had been sent of what was intended to be done, or of the strong view that was taken of the seriousness of the emergency. Of course, however, the military could only act on being authorized or called upon by the civil power. Early in the forenoon of the 16th, the constables were posted, one portion of them close to the hustings in the centre of St. Peter's Field, the rest so as to maintain a communication from thence to a private house on the south side of' that irregular square space of ground, to which the magistrates repaired about eleven o'clock fiom the Star Inn, 1 Letter from Mr. Hay, one of the magistrates, to Lord Sidmouth, 15th August. CHAP. XVI.] CIVIL AND MILITARY PREPARATIONS. 251 where they had first assembled. The distance from this house to the hustings was stated on the trial at York to have been about three or four hundred yards, but it was probably not quite so much; the entire extent of St. Peter's Field, now all built over, was only between two and three acres. The military force was disposed as follows. Two squadrons of the 15th hussars, having been marched into town about ten o'clock, were dismounted in a wide street to the north of St. Peter's Field, and at the distance of nearly a quarter of a mile from it; the Cheshire Yeomanry were formed on their left in the same street; of the remaining troops of the hussars, one was attached to the artillery, which took up a position between the cavalry barracks and the town, and the other remained in charge of the barracks. The Manchester Yeomanry were stationed in a street to the east of the field. The infantry were kept in readiness, but were not called upon to act till after the meeting had been dispersed. The whole work, as will presently appear, was done by the fbrty Manchester Yeomanry, and the two squadrons - four troops, or three hundred and twenty men - of the 15th hussars. The band which accompanied Hunt and his party on their approach played the national airs of " Rule Britannia" and " God save the King," during which, it is said, the people generally, or many of them at least, held their hats off. No time was then lost in proceeding to the business of the day. As soon as Hunt and his friends had mounted the hustings, the music ceased, upon which it was formally proposed that Mr. Hunt should take the chair; the motion, being seconded, was carried by acclamation, and the orator, advancing to the front of the stage, took off his white hat, and addressed the now silent and listening multitude. He had only, however, uttered a few sentences, when a confused murmur and pressure, beginning at one verge of the field, and rapidly rolling onwards, brought him to a pause. The soldiers were upon the people. The account given by Mr. Hulton, the chairman of the bench of magistrates, when he was afterwards examined on the trial at York, was that, when, after the meeting had assembled, the warrant for the apprehension of the reform leaders was given to Nadin, the chief constable, that person declared that he could not execute it without military aid; upon which two letters were despatched, one to the commander of the Manchester Yeomanry, the other to Colonel L'Estrange, requiring them to come to the house where the magistrates were. The yeomanry, being nearest at hand, made their appearance first. They came from IMosley Street. These must have been the troops that were seen by Bamford as he was retiring from the ground with a friend to get some refreshment. "I stood on tiptoe," he says, 252 HISTORY OF THE PEACE. [BooK I. " and looked to the direction whence the noise proceeded, and saw a party of cavalry in blue and white uniform come trotting sword in hand round the corner of a garden-wall, and to the front of a row of new houses, where they reined up in a line." This was in front of the house where the magistrates were. Mr. Hulton says that the troop came up at a quick pace, and that, the moment they appeared, the crowd set up a tremendous shout. The shout, as Bamnford understood it, was one of good-will. It appears that, when Hunt first saw the confusion, he exclaimed that it was some trick, meaning, perhaps, an attempt to frighten the meeting, and called to the people to be firm, and to give three cheers, which was done. All parties agree that after the people h