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 C. K. OGDEN 
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 W]15JL,]LIIM(&T(D)M. 
 
 QJ^/^^i^ I? i'^/f/wA-ivf /^ e^' <l' 'Jz-^^/Oi) J::fy/wi'/r7/rcy' 
 
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 n^httjfiej hi/ rJturtcs Knii/ht *C C l,itJi/atc Strrft
 
 THE 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 DUEINO 
 
 THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE 
 1816—1846. 
 
 BY HARRIET MARTINEAU. 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
 LONDON: 
 CHARLES KNIGHT, 90, FLEET STREET. 
 
 1849.
 
 LONDON : 
 A. SWEETING, pniNTF-n, n\nTLETT"S BliTl.niN(;^, llolllOIIN.
 
 3A_ 
 536 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 The " History of the Thirty Years' Peace" was begun in 18-46, and its issue 
 in Numbers proceeded up to the end of the Fii-st Book. Then a suspension 
 occurred, to Mr. Knight's great regret, in consequence of extensive changes in 
 his commercial arrangements. 
 
 -■d^ 
 
 After an interval of a year, Mr. Knight invited me to take up the work, and 
 carry it to a conclusion, on mj' own responsibility as regarded tlie authorship. 
 It was gratifying to me to be invited to prosecute any work begun by him ; 
 and it was in itself a labour peculiarly tempting to me. The only reluctance 
 I felt was from shame at the contrast which must immediately be evident be- 
 tween the remarkable beauty, as it appears to me, of the opening chapters, and 
 the inferior quality of the following Books. As Mr. Knight was, however, 
 really unable to resume, I joyfully agieed to work out his scheme. For the 
 whole of the " History," after the Fii'st Book, I am tlius solely responsible. 
 
 Yet, though left entirely free to do my work as I thought proper, there is 
 one subject on which, from the circumstances of the case, I have not felt at 
 liberty to speak ; — Mr. Knight's own relation to the historj- of his time. One 
 blessed result of the Peace has been the leisure and opportunity it has afforded 
 for the cultivation of the popular intelligence : and in this mighty work, I sup- 
 pose it Avill be admitted on every hand, that no one has done so much as he. 
 Under any other circumstances of publication, a review of his benefactions to 
 the nation would have been taken in the eleventh chapter of the Third Book , 
 in connexion with the notice of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Know- 
 ledge. It grieves me that such a statement should not appear in its proper 
 place : and I do not see why I should not make some reference to the subject 
 here, without his knowledge — though at some risk of his displeasure. — I have 
 mentioned in the text the leading publications of the Diffusion Society : and I 
 may here explain that many of the most important and influential of them are 
 owing to Mr. Kni^lit. 
 
 iClGGSS
 
 iv PREFACE. 
 
 Before he became connected with the Society, the plan was to issue the well 
 known Treatises on Scientific subjects. To his junction with the association, 
 to his inventive resource, his sagacity, his knowledge of the popular mind and 
 its needs, and his most disinterested toil, we owe that long series of valuable 
 works which forms a fine feature of the time ; — The Penny Cyclopa?dia, The 
 British Almanac and Companion, The Penny Magazine, and The Library of 
 Entertaining Knowledge. The Journal of Education, and The Gallery of 
 Portraits, were his undertakings. As for what more he has done, by his own 
 resources, without aid from the organization of any Society, it is only necessary 
 to refer to the book-shelves of all the homes in the land and its Colonies, where 
 the dwellers can read, from the palace library to the cottage window. This 
 reference is enough. It saves myself and my readers from the ingratitude of 
 wholly overlooking one of the chief national blessings of the period of the 
 Peace. 
 
 H. MARTINEAU. 
 
 Ambleside, 
 
 Jamutri/ 81, 1849.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 BOOK I. 
 
 1815. 
 
 Pace 
 
 Peace of Paris 1 
 
 Holy Alliance jb. 
 
 Congress of Vienna 3 
 
 Secret Treaty 4 
 
 Paris in the Autumn of 1815 5 
 
 TeiTitorial Limits settled by the Peace ... 7 
 
 1816. 
 
 State of Parties 9 
 
 Parliamentary Leaders 10 
 
 Lord Chancellor Eldon I 1 
 
 Lord Liverpool and his Colleagues ib. 
 
 The Opposition ib. 
 
 Lord Castlereagh and his Colleagues 1-2 
 
 The Opposition 13 
 
 Fourth Session of the Fifth Pailiament ... 16 
 
 Speech ib. 
 
 Property Tax 19 
 
 Civil List 24 
 
 Marriage of the Princess Charlotte 2.5 
 
 Agriculture 26 
 
 Manufactures and Commerce 33 
 
 Depression of Industry 35 
 
 Currency 36 
 
 Labour 39 
 
 Coal Districts 41 
 
 Machine Breaking 42 
 
 Private Benevolence 43 
 
 Parliamentary Reform ...• 46 
 
 Writings of Cobbett 48 
 
 Hampden Clubs 49 
 
 Spenceans 52 
 
 Address of the City 55 
 
 Real Dangers ib. 
 
 Algiers 57 
 
 Bombardment 60 
 
 Progress of Social Improvement 64 
 
 Criminal Laws ib. 
 
 Police 67 
 
 Gas-Light 69 
 
 Mendicity and Vagrancy 70 
 
 Law of Settlement ib. 
 
 General Admiuistration of Poor Laws ... 71 
 
 Education 76 
 
 Savings Banks 78 
 
 Elgin Marbles 80 
 
 1817. 
 
 Spanish A niericii SI 
 
 General Miranda 85 
 
 Paus 
 
 Mexican Revolt 96 
 
 Quito 103 
 
 Santa Fe 104 
 
 Bolivar 106 
 
 Venezuela 108 
 
 Rio de la Plata 124 
 
 Chili 126 
 
 Peru 127 
 
 Brazil 128 
 
 Opening of Parliament 129 
 
 Outrage on the Prince Regent ib. 
 
 Alarm ib. 
 
 Reports of Secret Committees 131 
 
 Marcli of the Blanketeers 132 
 
 Derby Insurrection 133 
 
 Prosecutions for Libel 142 
 
 Hone's Trials 144 
 
 Death of the Princess Charlotte 150 
 
 Sinecures 1,52 
 
 Roman Catholic Claims ib. 
 
 ParUaraentary Reform ib. 
 
 India 153 
 
 Pindarree AVar ib. 
 
 MahrattaWars 162 
 
 1818. 
 
 Meeting of Parliament 177 
 
 Prince Regent's Speech ib. 
 
 Address 178 
 
 State of the Country 180 
 
 Proceedings of Parliament 182 
 
 Report of Secret Committees ib. 
 
 BOl of Indemnity 184 
 
 Scotch Borough Reform 189 
 
 Bank Restriction Act 192 
 
 Royal Marriages 1P3 
 
 Slave Trade i05 
 
 Alien Act 116 
 
 Dissolution 197 
 
 General Election J99 
 
 Strike of Manchester Spinners 201 
 
 Death of the Queen 202 
 
 Death of Sir S. RomUly ib. 
 
 Congress of Aix-la-Chapelle 203 
 
 State of the Country 206 
 
 Revival of the Reform Agitation 207 
 
 1819. 
 
 State of the Country 209 
 
 Opening of Parliament ib. 
 
 Care of the King's Person 210 
 
 Resumption of Cash Payments 212 
 
 Financial Measures 215
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 Prorogation 220 
 
 Condition of the Government 221 
 
 Continuance of Reforni Agitation 223 
 
 Condition of the People 224 
 
 Novelties in the Reform Movement 226 
 
 DrUling 227 
 
 Manchester Meeting 228 
 
 Conduct of the Mancliester Magistrates... 235 
 
 Conduct of the Government 230 
 
 General Excitement 237 
 
 Session of Parliament 239 
 
 Death of George III 240 
 
 BOOK II. 
 
 1820. 
 
 Revival of Sedition 241 
 
 Cato Street Conspu'acy ib. 
 
 Alarms 243 
 
 The King's Speech ib. 
 
 Spies and Informers 244 
 
 Sedition in Scotland ib. 
 
 Trials of the Radicals 24-5 
 
 The Demagogue ib. 
 
 Accession of George IV 248 
 
 Position of the Queen ib. 
 
 King's Marriage in 179-5 249 
 
 The Queen Abroad 252 
 
 The Queen's Return ib. 
 
 King's Message 253 
 
 Queen's Message ib. 
 
 Commission agreed to 254 
 
 Lords' Report. Queen's Trial 2.55 
 
 The Defence 258 
 
 Abandonment of the BUI ib 
 
 The Queen's Law Officers ib. 
 
 Prorogation 259 
 
 The Queen goes to St. Paul's ib. 
 
 Her Claim to be Crowned 260 
 
 Her Death ib. 
 
 Her Funeral 261 
 
 Dissolution and New Parliament 262 
 
 State of the Country ib. 
 
 Death of Grattan 263 
 
 Education ib. 
 
 Capital Punisliments 265 
 
 Agricultural Distress 266 
 
 1821. 
 
 Parliamentary Reform 267 
 
 Catholic Claims 271 
 
 Constitutional Association 272 
 
 King's Visit to Ireland 274 
 
 Coronation ib. 
 
 Deatli of Napoleon 275 
 
 Coalition with tlic (iri'inille Party 278 
 
 PA.ri; 
 
 1822. 
 
 Retirement of Lord Sidmoutb 278 
 
 Mr. Peel 279 
 
 Mr. Canning ib. 
 
 Lord Wellcsley in Ireland 281 
 
 Motion in favour of Catholic Peers 282 
 
 Peterborough Questions 283 
 
 New Marriage Act 285 
 
 Close of Session 286 
 
 King's Visit to Scotland ib. 
 
 Death of Lord Londonderry ib. 
 
 Mr. Canning Foreign Secretary 287 
 
 Lord Amherst goes to India ib. 
 
 Policy of Castlereagh 288 
 
 The Princes of Europe 289 
 
 The Peoples of Europe 290 
 
 Revolutions Abroad 291 
 
 Policy of Canning 292 
 
 Congress of Verona 294 
 
 1823. 
 
 French Invasion of Spain 295 
 
 Overthrow of Spanish Revolution 298 
 
 South American Provinces ib. 
 
 Appeal from Portugal 302 
 
 New Era of Conflict 303 
 
 Deaths of Potentates 304 
 
 Affairs of Greece 306 
 
 Algiers 307 
 
 Ashantee War 308 
 
 Burmese 'War 309 
 
 Oregon 311 
 
 Aliens 313 
 
 Clianges in the Ministry 316 
 
 Mr. Canning and Mr. Husklsson 319 
 
 The Debt and Taxation 322 
 
 Commercial Policy 326 
 
 Spitalfields Acts 329 
 
 Navigation Acts ib. 
 
 Parliamentary Topics 331 
 
 Negro Slavery 334 
 
 Government Resolutions 335 
 
 Circular and its Reception 336 
 
 Smith the Missionary 337 
 
 Close of the Session 340 
 
 1824. 
 Prosperity 341 
 
 Repeal of the Spitalfields Acts 343 
 
 Artisan Restriction Laws ib. 
 
 Free Trade 344 
 
 Silk Duties 345 
 
 ■Wool Duty 348 
 
 Reduction of Duties and Bounties 350 
 
 Uniformity of Weights and Measures ib. 
 
 Close of Session 351 
 
 Speculal ion 352 
 
 Joint Stock Cmnpanics 355
 
 CUXTENTS. 
 
 PAOli 
 
 1825. 
 
 Collapse 308 
 
 Panic ib. 
 
 Crash 339 
 
 Issue of Small Notes and Coin 360 
 
 1826. 
 
 King's Speech 360 
 
 Arrangement with the Bank of England... 361 
 
 Suppression of Small Notes ib. 
 
 Scotch Banks 362 
 
 Branch and Joint Stock Banks 363 
 
 Advances on Goods ib. 
 
 Position of Ministers ib. 
 
 Sutiering of the Period 364 
 
 Riots 367 
 
 Release of Bonded Corn 369 
 
 Opening the Ports 370 
 
 Emigration 371 
 
 Colonial Office ib. 
 
 Emigration Committee 373 
 
 Catholic Question reviewed 374 
 
 State of Opinion in 1824 383 
 
 Catholic Association 384 
 
 Catholic Deputation 386 
 
 Mr. O'Connell 388 
 
 Progress of the Question 390 
 
 Sir F, Burdett's Relief Bill 391 
 
 Duke of York's Declaration ib. 
 
 BUI lost 392 
 
 Catholics and Dissenters 393 
 
 Aspect of the Question 395 
 
 Chancerj' Reform 396 
 
 Government moves for Inquirj- 397 
 
 Report of Commissioners 399 
 
 LordEldon 400 
 
 Bill proposed 401 
 
 Jurors in India ib. 
 
 Finance ib. 
 
 Close of Session and Dissolution 403 
 
 The Elections 404 
 
 Crimes and Punishments 406 
 
 Education 410 
 
 Emigration 411 
 
 Arts and Discovery 412 
 
 Remarkable Seasons 415 
 
 Art and Literature 416 
 
 Necrology 417 
 
 Politicians 418 
 
 Men of Science ib. 
 
 Travellers 419 
 
 Artists 4-20 
 
 Authors 420 
 
 Poets :— Byron, Keats, Shelley 424 
 
 Close of the Period 42^5 
 
 BOOK III. 
 
 1827. 
 
 Opening of New Parliament 427 
 
 Death of the Duke of York 428 
 
 Grant to the Duke of Clarence 431 
 
 Illness of Lord Liverpool ib. 
 
 Lord Liverpool and Mr. Canning 432 
 
 Lord Liverpool as ISIinister 433 
 
 The Corn Bill ib. 
 
 Catholic Question 434 
 
 New Administration 436 
 
 Mr. Canning consulted 437 
 
 Mr. Peel ib. 
 
 Resignation of seven Cabinet Ministers ... 438 
 
 Mr. Canning, Premier ib. 
 
 New Cabinet 439 
 
 Reth-ement of Lord Eldon ib. 
 
 Enmity to 5Ir. Canning 441 
 
 Business of Parliament 443 
 
 The Corn Bill 444 
 
 Close of the Session ib. 
 
 Mr. Canning's Health ib. 
 
 His Death 44.3 
 
 Funeral and Honours 446 
 
 Character of Mr. Canning ib. 
 
 Lord Goderich, Premier 449 
 
 His Colleagues lb. 
 
 Aifairs of Greece 450 
 
 Treaty of London 452 
 
 The Porte ib. 
 
 The Egyptian Fleet 453 
 
 Battle of Navariuo ib. 
 
 Ambassadors leave Constantinople 454 
 
 Greek Pirates ib. 
 
 Troubles in the Cabinet 455 
 
 Dissolution of the Ministry 456 
 
 Duke of Wellington, Premier... 4.57 
 
 1828. 
 
 The Wellington Cabinet 4.58 
 
 King's Speech 4f!0 
 
 The Porte 46I 
 
 Finance Committee 462 
 
 Repeal of Dissenters' Disabilities 463 
 
 Dissensions in the Cabinet 408 
 
 Mr. Huskisson's Resignation 470 
 
 Changes in the Administration 471 
 
 Catholic Question jb. 
 
 Clare Election 472 
 
 State of Ireland 475 
 
 Brunswick Clubs 473 
 
 Fortj^-shilling Freeholders ib. 
 
 The Viceroy 479 
 
 His Recall 490 
 
 Aspect of the Question jb.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 Paoe 
 
 Close of the Session of 1828 48'2 
 
 Affairs of Portugal ib. 
 
 Don Miguel in England ib. 
 
 His Usurpation 48.3 
 
 Queen of Portugal arrives in England . . . 483 
 
 Death of Lord Liverpool 486 
 
 1829. 
 
 Difficulties in the Cabinet 487 
 
 The King ib. 
 
 Mr. Peel's resignation of his seat iu Par- 
 liament 489 
 
 King's Speech and the Address ib. 
 
 Catholic Relief Bill 490 
 
 Mr. Peel 491 
 
 The Duke of Wellington 495 
 
 Catholic Relief Bill passed ib. 
 
 The King's Vacillation 496 
 
 The Bill becomes Law 499 
 
 Irish "Forties" ib. 
 
 Clare Election 501 
 
 Prospects of Ireland 50.3 
 
 Admission of Catholic Peers 506 
 
 Changes in the Cabinet ib. 
 
 Parliamentary Reform — Lord Blandford . 507 
 
 Duel ib. 
 
 Parliamentary Proceedings 508 
 
 Relations with Portugal 510 
 
 King's Speech 512 
 
 Affairs of France 514 
 
 Law of the Press 515 
 
 Villele's Resignation 518 
 
 Prince Polignac 519 
 
 1830. 
 
 Polignac Ministry 519 
 
 Summons to the Chambers .521 
 
 Dissolution of the Chambers 523 
 
 The Elections ,524 
 
 Ministers' Memorial ib. 
 
 Issue of the Ordinances 52.5 
 
 Protest of the Journalists 526 
 
 Destruction of the Press 527 
 
 Conference at the Tuileries 529 
 
 Messages to and from the King ib. 
 
 Marshal Marmont 530 
 
 Second Conference ib. 
 
 Retreat to St. Cloud 531 
 
 Wanderings of the Royal Family ,532 
 
 Reception in England 533 
 
 Conduct of the Revolution 534 
 
 Fate of the Ministers ib. 
 
 Duke of Brunswick ib. 
 
 Death of the Pope .535 
 
 Russia and Turkey ib. 
 
 Page 
 
 Settlement of Greece 536 
 
 Distress in England -aSO 
 
 State of the King 540 
 
 Duke of Wellington ib. 
 
 State of Parties 541 
 
 Mr. Peel ib. 
 
 Press Prosecutions 543 
 
 King's Speech 544 
 
 Reductions ib. 
 
 Removal of Duties 545 
 
 East India Committee ib. 
 
 Removal of a Judge ib. 
 
 Welsh and Scotch Judicature 546 
 
 Forgery ib. 
 
 Jewish Disabilities ib. 
 
 Parliamentary Reform 547 
 
 Duke of Newcastle 551 
 
 Illness of the King ib. 
 
 His Death .552 
 
 His Life and Character •5-53 
 
 Character of the Reign 5,55 
 
 Achievements ib. 
 
 Desiderata 5,57 
 
 State of Operatives ib. 
 
 Crimes and Punishments 559 — 563 
 
 Accidents 563 
 
 Arts and Edifices 564 — 568 
 
 Hanwell Asylum 569 
 
 Drainage ib. 
 
 Railway 570 
 
 Reading for the Blind ib. 
 
 Scott's Novels 671 
 
 Shakspere Festival ib. 
 
 Actors ib. 
 
 Irving 572 
 
 Religious Parties ,573 
 
 Conversions of Catholics ib. 
 
 Intolerance of Opinion 574 
 
 Dissenters' Marriages 575 
 
 Press at Calcutta ib. 
 
 Stamp Duty 576 
 
 Protector of Slaves ib. 
 
 Treaty with Brazil 677 
 
 Spring-Ciuns ib. 
 
 Society for the Diffusion of Useful Know- 
 ledge 578 
 
 Necrology ,580 
 
 Political Deaths 580, 581 
 
 Travellers 581 
 
 Men of Business 582 — 585 
 
 Artists 58-5—589 
 
 Men of Letters ,589—592 
 
 Philosophers 592 — 696 
 
 Philanthropista 597, 598
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 
 
 BOOK 1. 
 
 FROM THE SETTLEMENT OF EUROPE TO THE ACCESSION OF GEORGE IV. 
 
 Chapter I. 
 
 ri^HE World was at Peace. 
 
 -i- 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 France and the Peace of Paris, 
 
 Allied Powers. Iliat treaty was for the " object of restoring between France 
 
 and her neighboiu'S 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." "More dead than alive," he writes Capdigue, cent 
 
 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 gi'cat principles of justice and truth which were to heal the wounds 
 
 of a bleeding world. ^\lio could doubt that the reign of violence was destroyed 
 
 for ever, 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. Petersburgh, dated "on the day 
 
 of the birth of our Saviour, 25th December, 1815," the Emperor commanded 
 
 that there should be read in all the churches a " convention concluded at Paris on holv alliance, 
 
 the 26th of September, 1815, between the Emperor of Russia, the Emperor of 
 
 Austria, and the King of Prussia," in which " they solemnly declare that the 
 
 present act has no other object tlian to publish in the face of the whole world 
 
 their fixed resolution, both in the administration of their respective states, and 
 
 VOL. I. B 
 
 2Gth Sept., 1815.
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 [Book I. 
 
 Capefigne, Re- 
 stauration. 
 
 Treaty ofCiiau- 
 sioNT, 1st March, 
 
 1S14. 
 
 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 crimes 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 from 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 JVIadame Krudencr,* 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 laboured 
 imremittingly for converts. IVIetternich slily laughed, and handed it to his 
 master to sign ; 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 aggi-andizement. We shall en- 
 deavour briefly to trace some of the circumstances of the final settlement of 
 1815. Time has revealed many of the hidden movements by which that settle- 
 ment was accomplished. 
 
 The " Treaty of Union, Concert, and Subsidy," of the 1st March, 1814, known 
 as the Treaty of Chaumont, was concluded between Great Britain, Austria, 
 Russia, 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. Tlie 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 therein contained," that the 
 object of this solemn engagement was " to draw closer the tics which unite them 
 for the vigorous prosecution of a war undertaken for the salutary purpose of 
 putting an end to the miseries of Europe, hj re-establishing a just balance of 
 poircr." 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 in- 
 tentions, 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 thou- 
 sand effective men ; Great Britain engaged to furnish a suljsidy 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 23rd of April a convention was agreed with the 
 
 *" Clothed always in white, kneelintr in the whose wonderful words commanded the clo- 
 oratorics, she seemed one of the Druidcsscs nicnts." — Caprfiguc, Uestauration.
 
 t^n^ra vnl ty U'NJitatc^ 
 
 TAILLKYIRIAHD 
 
 
 y' 
 
 ■_^ ?/^n/inf /y 'yckat^< 
 
 • I'f Chitri^'.'t /</
 
 1 REATV OF 
 
 Peace, SOtll May, 
 
 1814. 
 
 Chap. I.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 
 
 restored Government for the suspension of hostilities ; of wliich 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 the oOth May, 1814, some additions were made to these limits. With 
 reference to tlie final disposal of the ceded territories acquired by France 
 during the war, the treaty was necessarily vague. The larger questions of con- 
 templated aggi-andizement 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 Congi-ess of Vienna was not only the most important assembly that conhress of 
 modern Europe had beheld, but it was, at the same time, the most imposing iJfi!'"*' "° "' 
 and ostentatious. It was accompanied by all the " fierce vanities " of the 
 last days of feudalism ; and the gi-eat dramatic poet's description of the splen- 
 dours 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 splendour of their entertainments ; 
 the British minister, a commoner of England, o'ertopped the magnificence 
 of the proudest royalties. The old Prince de Eigne exclaimed "Le Congres 
 danse, et ne raarche pas." They did not move on quite so easily and agi-ecably 
 as their outward delights 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 Hansard, No- 
 believe that any British minister would be a party to these acts. 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 degi-adation of the King of Saxony. The principle of legitimacy was 
 violated, according to Talleyi-and, 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 
 
 B 2
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 [Book I. 
 
 Secret Treaty, 
 3rd Feb. 1815. 
 
 Capefigue, Re- 
 stauration. 
 
 had the great national interest to uphold, that the weaker states should not be 
 absorljed 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 
 fi-om Vienna, called upon the Poles to rally round the protection of the Emperor 
 of Russia ; the Prussian minister declared that Saxony was conquered by Prussia, 
 and should not be restored ; Alexander, in revenge 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 
 ao-o-ressions 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-coimtrymen, they will, on all occasions and in all places, lend each other 
 aid and assistance." In a secret treaty concluded between Austria, England, 
 and France, on the 3rd February, 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 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 Ct)mmons for a 
 copy of the document, Lord Castlereagh resisted its production on the gi'omid 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. lie contended tliat the 
 cordial co-operation 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 Bona- 
 parte 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 
 " 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 declara- 
 tion of Congress was published, that Bonaparte was to be put down as the common 
 enemy of mankind. The Congi-ess of Vienna continued its deliberations ; and 
 whilst preparations for war were made on every side, the general treaty of Con- 
 gress for the settlement of Europe was 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 re- 
 adjustment of territory was established.
 
 Chap. I.] DURING TPIE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 5 
 
 The definitive treaty of the Congress of Vienna was signed on the 9th of June, treatv of Con- 
 On the 14th the Chancellor of the Exchequer went down to the House ""'^j'f' "">•'""''• 
 of Commons, and said that he had contracted a loan that day for thirty-six 
 millions, and he asked for a total amount for the supplies of the year, in ad- 
 dition 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 Exche- 
 quer were ag:-eed to, with only one opposing speech, and without a division. 
 On the 18th the battle of ^^'aterloo was fought. On the 3rd of July Paris 
 was in the occupation of the Anglo-Prussian army — Louis XVIII. was re- 
 stored — Napoleon was banished to St. Helena. 
 
 It is not within our province to trace the various political intrigues that fol- 
 lowed the restoration of the Bourbons to the throne from which they had been 
 hurled, partly by their own indiscretions, essentially by the re-action 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 irom 
 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. Rus- 
 sia, 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 unituig moderation with firmness, and re- 
 jecting imprudent or impassioned counsels. " Indemnities for the past " were 
 to be secured by France pajing, by gradual instalments, seven hundred mil- 
 lions 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 govern- 
 ment of France, retained the power of making herself odious. The terms granted 
 to the French were in truth 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 war alone had cost 
 the country one hundred and ninety-seven millions. 
 
 Paris in the autumn of 1815 presented a scene even more remarkable than pahis in the 
 the Vienna of the preceding year. The conquered city was one universal "''"'"'• "^ 
 theatre of gaiety and excitement. Here was no " Rachel weeping 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 fi-om this year, 1815, that the greater part of capefi-ue, Re- 
 the shopkeeping fortunes of Paris are to be dated." 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
 
 6 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book I. 
 
 armies, and to contend for the honour of a smile from Lady Castlereagh in her 
 evening circle, or a bow from the great Duke at his morning levee. All this was 
 to end. Tlie iSIinisters and serf-lords of Russia had to return to a St. 
 Petersburg!) winter, and see how best they could persuade the Poles that their an- 
 nexation 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 sceptre of the 
 German stranger. Prussian Counsellors 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 re-arrange themselves under the Confederation. Sweden had to 
 reconcile Norway. Holland had to amalgamate with Belgium — Protestant 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 fight- 
 ing 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 reunions of the Faubourg St. Honore. 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 w^as overthrown. Still there might he some feeling — half fear, half 
 disgust — at the thought of the House of Commons, with its searching questions, 
 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 ])laco. Two years of nego- 
 tiation in the midst of victory would not be favourable to debathig equanimity. 
 Hard every-day business would have to be talked of instead of glory. ITiei'e 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 honourable points of ignorance, 
 And umlorstand again like honest men, 
 Or pack to their okl jjlay fellows.'' — Sii.ucspere : — Henry VIII. 
 
 But if the plenipotentiaries of this country might return home a little im- 
 bued 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 moral 
 Declarations Supremacy of England. They had laboured strenuously, and they had laboured 
 .srAvrVaA^L^ with tolerable success, 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 slave trade 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
 
 CiiAr. I.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 
 
 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 fi-om 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. AVe 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 reckoned only by its territorial acquisitions, or its diplomatic 
 influence. Tlie 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 s])irit — 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 fi-ee 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 fi'om the giant aggressor. Ilie 
 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 fi'om the 11th July, 1815, 
 to the 1st February, 1816. During this long and unusual interval of legislative 
 business — for it 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 1st February, " There has been no period of our RomiUy's Diary, 
 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 
 bave been " of any utility " in deciding the gi-eat questions involved in the 
 irresistible triumph of the allied armies. Romilly was himself at Paris in 
 October, 1815. He laments over the unpopularity of the English in compelling m., p. 210. 
 the removal of the works of art fi"om 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 : the good fruits of the French Revolution were to nnmer's Coire- 
 be lost to France ; the confederacy of courts and the alliance of armies were to ii., p. 
 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 
 
 VOL. I. C 
 
 1816. 
 
 State uf Pah- 
 ties. 
 
 vol. iii., p. 213. 
 
 73.
 
 10 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 [Book I. 
 
 1816. 
 
 Horner's Corre- 
 spondence, vol. 
 iii., p. 291. 
 
 Lord Dudley's 
 Letters, p. 1 1 j . 
 
 Ed. Review, Oc- 
 tober, 1815. 
 
 Lord Dudley's 
 Letters, p. 13(j. 
 
 rAELIAMENTAHV 
 ItEADEUS. 
 
 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 wliich 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, " I fear we are not 
 likely to go on very harmoniously in opposition ; there are such wide and irrecon- 
 cilable 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 jrresent 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 them- 
 selves. * * * You may expect very soon to see a breach in the 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 Na])oleon 
 succeeded, there might have been unity. He fell ; and the great ^Vilig 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 ISlij, had little 
 sympathy for those who were lamenting over the banishment of Napoleon. Even 
 the chief AMiig organ, the Edinburgh Review, complained of "the strange par- 
 tiality 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 re-action 
 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 ap- 
 peared to forget that never was a government so supported by the people as the 
 English supported their government during the Hundred Days. INIr. A^'ard, 
 a general follower of the administration, writes thus of the men in power in 
 1816 : " 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 dm-ing 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 endeavour, with however feeble a pencil, to trace the outlines of those 
 who had chiefly to interpret the opinions of their time — to attack and to defend —
 
 IL,®M]II) EJtiBeW, 
 
 r -> 
 
 fc/^/fc l-e/ t^P ,^yA^'//ta/J _Z^itS'//ce,. 
 
 ^fthl £• t yjjidi/ali^ Streti
 
 CiiAP. I.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 11 
 
 to propound lasting truths or fleeting paradoxes — in the Parliament of 1816. 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 Bolinghroke contains Liverpool and Castlereagh. 
 Ponsonby and Tiemey are as insensible to the historic regards of their younger 
 contemporaries as are Stanhope and Ilanmer. The living and the dead alike 
 claim an honest and impartial estimation. 
 
 On the woolsack sits John Scott, Lord Eldon. The Chancellor is in his 6oth '^"^ ^''° '^"^''• 
 year. He has filled his high 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 states- 
 man 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 up- 
 hold what he calls the Constitution — that indefinable compound of principles 
 and expedients, that to him is as sacred as the commands of Holy Writ. 
 \Vhoever 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 cor- 
 rupt borough, or to break down a religious disability, is his enemy. He was the 
 last great man who belonged to this sect. But he acted with perfect honesty and 
 unshrinking courage in the assertion of these opinions. He retained office be- 
 cause 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 uncon- 
 ditional power. TTie 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 them- 
 selves — " alike the determined enemy of all who would either invade the insti- BrousimmN 
 
 1 1 »> TT • 1 n • •11 State-smep, 
 
 tution or extu'pate the abuse. lie is one that after-tmies will not venerate ; series ii. 
 but, fortunately for the fame of the larger number of the great ones of the earth, 
 there is a vast neutral ground between veneration and contempt. 
 
 'Hie first Lord of the Treasury is the Earl of Liverpool. He has been Prime i-nRD i.ivkhpooi. 
 Minister from 1812 ; he has held high office from the beginning of the century ; he i.eaodes in the 
 has filled subordinate offices from the age of manhood. Respect is on all hands 
 conceded to him — the respect due to honest intentions and moderate abilities. 
 Admiration or disgust are resers'ed for his colleagues. As Prime 3Iinister of Eng- 
 land 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 respon- 
 sible ministers. Tlie conduct of the war was not his ; he suffered others to 
 starve the war. The peace was not his ; he gave to others the imcontrolled power 
 of prescribing the laws of victory. Tlie stupenilous financial arrangements of the 
 war were not his ; they were expounded by a man of business in the House of 
 
 c 2
 
 12 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 [Book I. 
 
 1816. 
 
 The OpvosiTioN 
 IN THE House of 
 Lob 118. 
 
 House of Com- 
 mons. 
 
 IjOrd Castle- 
 
 . rkaoh and his 
 
 colleaoues. 
 
 Commons. The resistance to all cliange was not his ; the great breakwater of 
 the coming wave was his sturdy Chancellor. The people, during his war-admi- 
 nistration, 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 evi- 
 dence, in after years, of how little that Government had done for him. Around 
 the Premier sit the Home Secretary, Viscomit Sidmouth, and the Colonial Se- 
 cretary, the Earl Bathurst. They enjoy, even in a greater degree than him- 
 self, the privilege of not being envied and feared for the force of their characters, 
 or the splendour of their talents. 
 
 It is not quite easy to understand now what constituted the Opposition in 1816. 
 The two Peers of the greatest mark had been divided in their opinions as to the 
 war against Napoleon on his return from Elba. It is little 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 Bona- 
 parte. 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. Ilie natures of each of these eminent statesmen were some- 
 what 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 popidar discontents and the mode 
 of appeasing them. Lord Grey was a Whig-Reformer — Lord Grenville a 
 "\^'hig-Conservative. On the benches of Opposition sate also the Marquis of 
 Lansdowne and Lord Holland. Their differences of opinion were not of a vei-y 
 practical character. Lord Lansdowne saw in the overthrow of Napoleon the de- 
 struction 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 voice, even when 
 its defects were most fiercely canvassed, went forth throughout the world as the 
 expression of a great and free nation. Tlie leader of the ministerial phalanx is 
 Robert Stewart, Lord Castlereagh. To his splendid figure and commanding 
 face, he has added the outward show of honours 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 18U2. By the force of his character he bore down the calumnies 
 which had attached to his connexion 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. Tliere is a general im]iression 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
 
 Chap. T.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 13 
 
 government. He will be attacked with bitterness ; he will be suspected, perhaps 1816. 
 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 jwuring 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. Hound this most fortunate minister of 1816 are grouped his col- 
 
 leagues — Nicholas Vansittart, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, " the noblest 
 work of God," according to Pope's maxim : the Secretary of War, Lord 
 Palmerston ; 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. Iluskisson. 
 
 The accredited leader of the Opposition is George Ponsonby, formerly the opposition 
 Chancellor of Ireland. He is a prudent and temperate leader, not remarkable me. ponsondv. 
 for great powers as a debater, but a safe guide for party men to rally round. 
 One who did not act with him says, " He was the least eminent man that ever ^"^ Dudley's 
 
 L/ptters p. 171. 
 
 filled such a station." One who did act with him writes in his diary, " He was Romiiu-s ufe, 
 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 .mh. thrney. 
 Tierney, a Parliamentary veteran, who has been fighting for twenty years, 
 chiefly in the ranks of Opposition, once as a member of the Addington adminis- 
 tration — 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 aflairs of legislation. He redeemed, how- 
 ever, the character of the Opposition in regard to this quality, in which they 
 were held, imjustly 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 him to make the attribute not too infectious. Mr. 
 Tierney was die man of financial detail. There was one who then chiefly 
 dedicated himself to the neglected walk of political economy. Francis Horner Francis hob- 
 had won a high reputation by the unremitting assertion of 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 labours 
 that have more endurance than mere party-eminence. In the same ranks are a 
 few other labourers "for all time." 
 
 On the bench of honour sits one whose lofty port and composed features show Sm s. noMn.r.T. 
 him to be a man of no common aspirations. His habitual expression is earnest,
 
 14 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book I. 
 
 1816. solemn, almost severe. lie 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 xiot 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 lavi'yer, 
 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 favourable 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 fi-owns of ])ower, the indifference of the people. The testament 
 which he bequeaths will become sacred and triumphant. I'hat man is Sir 
 Samuel Romilly. 
 
 The place which ^\Tiitbread 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 inflcxilile 
 honesty. His love of justice made him generous even to those whom he habitu- 
 ally opposed. He had been for several years the true leader of the Opposition, 
 and he had led them with riglit English courage. Others might win by stra- 
 tagem ; he was for the direct onslaught. He perished the day after Paris capi- 
 tulated. Two nights before he had spoken in the House of Commons. His 
 health had been long broken. He was desponding without a cause. In- 
 sanity 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 I)etrayed to 
 Fouche the plans of Castlereagh for the expedition to ^^"alcheren. Both false- 
 hoods may sleep together. No two men more dearly loved their country, what- 
 ever 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 — ■ 
 Mil Hhoi.oham. he is the Henry Brougham who, having appeared at the bar of the House of 
 Commons, in 1808, as counsel for the great body of merchants and manufac- 
 turers against the Orders in Council, carried tlie 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 unjirecedcnted had been 
 surrendered to other tribunes of the people. The moment in wliich he re-appears 
 is somewhat unfavourable to the highest exertions of his powers, for he has no
 
 Letters, p. 137. 
 
 Chap. I.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 15 
 
 worthy opponent. George Canning is not in Ms place In Parliament. He, who 1816. 
 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 him- 
 self to the principles of the son of Chatham. Tlie 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 well nigh degraded him. Tliey opened the 
 Session of 1816 in the confidence that they coidd do without him. "They won- Lord Dudley's 
 dered what use he could be of, and why Lord Liverpool could have thought of 
 making any terms with him." 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. AVhat 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 ques- 
 tion — 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 brin" 
 not the consummation of then- hopes in the acts of foreign governments. At the 
 peace of 1814, France — tlie restored government of France — restored by our 
 money and oiu- 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 secure that their silver- 
 tongued leader, he who resigned every meaner ambition to give freedom to the *■" "ii.bei.- 
 oppressed, will persevere through good report and evil report, with or without 
 friends in power, till the chains of the negro are broken for ever. 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 honoured, proselytising 
 or solitary — will hold their ground. They are the only united body of enthu- 
 siasts in an age of ])olitical calculation. They will manifest, as they have 
 manifested, what enthusiasm may accomplish. 
 
 FORCE.
 
 16 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 [Book I. 
 
 1816. 
 
 Fourth Session 
 OF THE Fifth 
 Parliament of 
 THE United 
 Kingdom. 
 
 Brougham's 
 Speeches, vol. i. 
 p. (134 : 
 
 Introduction to 
 Speech on Holy 
 Alliance. 
 
 The Prince Re- 
 gent's Speech. 
 
 Hansard, vol. 
 xxxii. p. 4S. 
 
 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 confi- 
 dence of a triumph beyond hope. The ministerial leader came flushed from his 
 labours of restoration and partition, and took his seat amidst shouts such as 
 saluted Caesar when he 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 shoidd 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, con- 
 sidered 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 enor- 
 mous 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 vi'ar-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, antl 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 successes, intimate union, precautionary 
 measures, these were the key-notes to our foreign policy : manufactures, com- 
 merce, 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 was no amendment to the Address. In the Commons a bootless amend- 
 ment, which was seconded by Lord John Russell *, declared the country to be 
 suffering luider " unexampled domestic embarrassments," and demanded " a 
 careful revisal of our civil and military establishments, according to the prin- 
 ciples 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 5 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. 
 Brougham having denounced Ferdinand of Spain as " a contemptible tyrant," 
 Lord Castlereagh thereupon deprecated "that scrutinising criticism of the inter- 
 
 '' Lord Jolm Kassell was in Parliament in 1814.
 
 Chap. II.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 17 
 
 nal policy of foreign countries, which could only be properly exercised at home." 1816. 
 The lecture was not forgotten. ' 
 
 The treaties with foreign powers were presented to Parliament on the first tbeaties. 
 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 Russia, Austria, and Prussia, of the 26th September, 
 1815 — the Treaty of Holy Alliance. Lord Castlereagh had declai-ed, when 
 notice of Mr. Brougham's motion was given, with reference to this extraordi- 
 nary document, that "its object was coniined solely to the contracting parties, 
 and breathed the pvire 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, "when sovereigns spoke of leading armies to Mr. Brougham's 
 protect religion, peace, and justice." Mr. Brougham also moved for a copy of Hansatd, vol. 
 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 prodvice it, affirming that it was a mere 
 matter of history. " Yes," said Mr. Tierney, " and like other matter of his- '^^''■3°J- 
 tory, 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 House of Commons 
 that this alliance was directed solely against Russia. The " 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 place, the Govern- 
 ment 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: "He felt assured that the people of Eng- "^^^'.'.i^p' ™'j 
 land 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 decla- 
 ration 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 he 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 re-action throughout the land. In Parliament it produced 
 alarms which now look exaggerated, hut 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 freedom 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 esti- 
 
 VOL. I. D
 
 18 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 [Book I. 
 
 1816. 
 
 Hansard, vol. 
 xludi. p. 512. 
 
 RoinilIy*s Life, 
 vol. iii. p. 229. 
 
 Horner'a Me- 
 moirs, vol. ii. 
 p. 315. 
 
 mates for the military service for the year, deHvered a speech that spoke some- 
 thing of the spirit of " the good old cause." He said, " 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? 
 "\Miether 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 
 disti-ess and calamity to the nations by which they had been adopted and main- 
 tained ?" The Prime Minister, in replying to Lord Grenville, called these 
 " extraordinary and unreasonable fears." But they were re-echoed 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 amend- 
 ment which deprecated in the strongest language " 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 engage- 
 ments 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 occu- 
 pation 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 : " 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-labours 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 even- 
 tual 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 : 
 " 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 favom- 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
 
 CuAP. II.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 19 
 
 gone, and the financial exertions of which we are still capable, will insure us 1816. 
 that distinction ; but it is a glory in which our fi-ecdoui will be lost, and 
 which cannot maintain itself when the vigour, 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 Napo- 
 leon — 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 representa- 
 tives of the people, to reduce the public burthens, and to repress a career of 
 wasteful expenditure, they v/ere on safer ground. 
 
 The Corporation of London took the lead in the national expression of opi- pkopekty Tax. 
 nion against the Propei'ty Tax. Their petition complained of the violation of 
 the solemn 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 and permanent property ; — they 
 acknowledged the depressed state of the agricultural interests, but they con- 
 tended 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 leadinjT tactician : — " On the termination of the war, the Govei'n- Brougham's 
 ment were determined, instead of repealinsr the whole income tax, which the Jni-xiurtion to 
 
 ' 1 <o ^ Speeches on 
 
 Act enforcin" it declared to be ' for and during the continuance of the war and Agrit'iiturai and 
 
 o o IManntactunng 
 
 no longer,' to retain one half of it, that is, to reduce it from ten to five per rustiess, 
 cent., and thus keep a revenue raised fi"om 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 were presented. The 
 Ministers perceived the risk they ran, if the policy should be pursued, of con- 
 tinued discussion for a length of time ; and they saw the vast importance of 
 dispatch. Accordingly, the Chancellor of the Exchequer gave notice on the 
 Tuesday for his motion on the Thursday immediately following. The Opposi- 
 tion 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 sup- 
 porters of the popular cause, vigorously seconded this menace, in which he 
 
 D 2 
 
 vul. i.
 
 20 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book I. 
 
 1816. entirely joined. On the next day more petitions were flung in, more discus- 
 sions 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 number- 
 less petitions poured in from all quarters against the tax. For it was speedily 
 seen that the campaign of 1812* 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 Oppo- 
 sition 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 elfect 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 
 Inirtful still in the country. They were forced into discussion, therefore ; and 
 then began a scene of unexampled interest, which lasted until the second read- 
 ing 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 diflferent speakers ; instances of oppression and hardship 
 recounted ; anecdotes of local suffering and personal inconvenience ; accounts 
 of the remarkable passages at different meetings ; personal altercations inter- 
 spersed with more general matter — all filled up the measure of the night's bill 
 of fare ; and all were so 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 
 vigour 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 houre ; little or no debating took place upon them ; unusual anxiety for 
 the result of such long-continued labour, 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 resistance to the Orders in Council. — K. 
 
 I
 
 CuAP. II.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 21 
 
 the bankers and merchants, holden in the Egyptian Hall, and signed by twelve 1816. 
 thousand persons.* The division took place after a debate that did not last 
 half an hour ; no one coidd indeed be heard in an assembly so impatient for 
 the decision ; and by a majority of thirty-seven voices the tax was defeated for 
 ever, and the wholesome principle, as Mr. Wilberforcc well observed, was laid 
 down, that war and income tax are wedded together." 
 
 The Ministers did not expect this defeat. They had calculated on a majority Mr. Hiiium's 
 
 p p rpM r\ • ' 111 T Letter in Hor- 
 
 ot lorty. I he Uppositiou expected to lose by twenty. It was not a parti/ ners Memoirs, 
 triumph. The national feeling was irresistible. Even members of the Tory 
 party assisted at and rejoiced in the issue. Mr. "Ward writes from Paris : " It J;^jfe°"p.736. 
 was amusing enough to see the effect the defeat of our ministry upon the ques- 
 tion of the Income Tax produced upon the minds of the people here. Most of 
 them thouglit that the government would be changed, and that the Whigs would 
 come in, and probably let loose Napoleon to disturb the world for the third time. 
 If I had been in the House, 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 con- 
 vinced that the Income Tax ought to have been repealed, but because I think 
 the ministry wanted beating upon something, no great matter what." INIr. 
 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 ujion 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 burthen from the land, which they de- 
 ■clared 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 tlie 
 money-market — 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 " indiffei'ence " 
 — 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 
 indifl'erence 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. Au indecent 
 contempt of public opinion — a perseverance in the indulgence of sensual appe- 
 tites and frivolous tastes — had made him, " in all but name a king," deservedly 
 
 * This is a mistake. Sir William Curtis a war-tax only, and should positively cease on 
 
 spoke with great emphasis : — " He was present the restoration of peace." The division did not 
 
 ill the llonse when the tax was first proposed, take place till the 18th. — K. 
 and he heard Mr. I'ilt declare that it should be
 
 22 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book I. 
 
 vol. iii. p* li-Jt). 
 
 1816. unpopular. The unhappy circumstances of his domestic position were in them- 
 selves 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. His duties to the State,— the mere routine of the kingly office,— 
 were invariably performed with tardiness and reluctance. Without any 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 
 RomUiy-B Life, coldncss 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 Admli-alty in time of peace from 3000Z. to 4000Z. 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 de- 
 voted, 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 friends ; and many of them who are most impatient to get into 
 oflSce look upon him as the only cause that they are still destined to labour 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 Romilly represents. The 
 language of Mr. Brougham was indeed described by Mr. ^^'ellesley 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
 
 xxui. p. 4UK. 
 
 Chap. II.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 23 
 
 to call himself a friend to the House of Brunswick." And yet Sir Robert 181G. 
 
 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 : — •" You have assumed a most Hansard, voi. 
 
 imposing situation ; your armies liave 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 his 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, in utter disregard of the feelings of an oppressed and insulted Hansard, vol. 
 
 ' ° ° ^\ Xixui. p. 496. 
 
 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 
 gaols were filled with wretches, could not suspend for a moment their 
 thoughtless amusements, to end the sad suspense between life and death."* 
 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 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 con- 
 tagion 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-officio informations, — the common shield of power in the days of the 
 Regency. " Twopenny post bags " might make the mob of idle readers of all see Moore's 
 parties laugh at " Fum 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 discon- 
 tent was small, when compared with the danger of suffering those who ought to 
 
 * This subject was debated on the 18th difficulty and inconvenience of assembling the 
 
 March, two nights before Mr. Brougham's law officers at Brighton," and " the indisposition 
 
 offensive speech, when it appeared that there of the Prince Regent" (his Royal Highness 
 
 were fifty-eight persons under sentence of was suflering from gout), were the reasons 
 
 death in Newgate, many of whom had been assigned for this neglect, 
 convicted at the December sessions. " The 
 
 Poetical Works.
 
 24 
 
 1816. 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book I. 
 
 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, whollv uninterested. 
 c.v.lUst. In the Session of 1815 the excess upon the Civil List— that is, the amount 
 
 spent in the support of the royal state 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 provideef 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 otficers 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 afHicted 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 in 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 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 reduc- 
 tion — 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 them- 
 selves 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
 
 Chap. II.j DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 25 
 
 throne sanctified by the attributes of womanly affection — such hopes were some- 18] 6. 
 
 thing to console the nation for the present endurance of authoi-ity that chiimed ' '^ — "" 
 
 only " mouth-honour," without love or respect. The marriage of the Princess mabriaoe of 
 Charlotte was hailed as a public blessing. It took place at Carlton House, on charlotte.' 
 the evening of the 2nd 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. 
 
 VOT.. I.
 
 2G 
 
 IIISTOEY OF ENGLAND 
 
 [Book T. 
 
 1816. 
 
 AORICULTUBE 
 
 Pepyg' Diary, 
 vol. iv. p. 1. 
 
 Eton Tables. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 WHEN the Government, in the name of the Prince Regent, informed Par- 
 liament that " tlie manufactures, commerce, and revenue of the United 
 Kingdom were in a flourisliing 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 abun- 
 dance. 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, 1G67-8, 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 1<358 to 1664, during which seven years the average price of 
 wheat was about 57*-. a quarter. There was a cycle of plenty fi'om 1665 to 
 1671, during which seven years the average price of wheat was about 36.v. 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 W'Ould 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 familj', 
 so as to compensate for the 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 made 
 the famous Corn Law of 1670, which imposed duties on the importation of 
 grain, amounting to prohibition. The restrictions upon exportation were re- 
 moved : 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 80»-. per quarter. When it was at 53s. id. a duty of 16s. was to be 
 paid ; when above that price and under the mysterious compensation price of 
 80s., a duty of 8,?. was to be paid. 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 argument 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 SOs. After the passing of the Corn Law of 1670 there was 
 as much "Agricultural Distress" as before, till dearth came to the relief of the 
 suflTering cultivator. Farms were thrown up, rents were reduced. In 1673, in
 
 & 
 
 Chap. III.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 27 
 
 spite of the prohibitory laws against importation, anil the unlimited freedom of 1816. 
 exportation, wheat was as low as 35s. In 1(574 there came the landlord's blessing i(„g,.rCoke, 
 of a bad harvest, and the price of wheat rose to 64*. The cycle of scarcity had ^Cke's History 
 come round. It was precisely the same after the Corn Law of 1815. It was p^/.'""^' ™ " '" 
 passed during a season of wonderful abundance. It produced the immediate 
 good to tlie 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-famine 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. But 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 pro- 
 duced by the Corn Law of 1815, and briefly exhibit the arguments by which it 
 was maintained or opposed. 
 
 In 1814, the Report of a Select Committee of the House of Commons pre- 
 sented in 1813, of which Committee Sir Henry Parnell was chairman, was 
 adopted as the basis of certain resolutions then debated. The first of the reso- 
 lutions declared " that it is expedient that the exportation of corn, grain, meal, 
 malt, and flour, from any part of the United Kingdom, should be permitted 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 regard to the importation of corn, it was proposed in resolutions laid upon 
 the table in 1813, that till wheat shoidd be 105s. 2d. a quarter, and other grain 
 in the same proportion, the importation should be subject to a prohibitory duty. 
 This proposed sum was, in 1814, reduced to 84s., when wheat might be ad- 
 mitted upon payment of 2s. Gd. In 1791 the nominal duty price was fixed at 
 51s., in 1804 at 66s. In offering objections of detail to these resolutions, 
 Mr. Rose, a member of the Government, " took it for granted that no one now "x^j-"p.\™4; 
 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 Paraell " had always avowed himself the friend of a free ^^''^^'''''Ja'' 
 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 pre- 
 vented importation inider ordinary circumstances, and consequently raised the 
 price of the people's food to an inordinate height, it was necessary to perpetuate 
 the war-system upon the return of peace. Mr. Huskisson, 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 that " the whole of our commercial and nusUisson-s 
 
 I /. . ,1 . , 1 . T (. 1 Speeches, vol. i. 
 
 economical system was a system ot artihcial expedients. It our other regu- p. ase. 
 lations 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 
 
 E 2
 
 28 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 [Book I. 
 
 1816. 
 
 Hansard, vol. 
 xxvii. p. 1094. 
 
 Hansard, vol. 
 xxvii. p. 1100. 
 
 Protest. 
 Hansard, vol. 
 XXX. p. .263. 
 
 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 form 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 for which they had so 
 long clamoured ; 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, " if a free trade in grain were to be allowed, it would lead to an improve- 
 ment 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." Mr. 
 Baring (now Lord Ashburton), in reply to the argument that the high duties 
 on importation would make the price of bread steady, contended 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 con- 
 trary, 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 inter- 
 course 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 181 4. 
 
 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 burthens, and to demand fresh protection. They had learnt nothing 
 from 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, Devon- 
 shire, Spencer — the most eminent amongst statesmen, — Grey, Grenville, 
 Wellesley, — had recorded these memorable words : " We 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 com-
 
 Chaf. III.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 29 
 
 modity must enhance the price at which we purchase it ; and to confine the 1816. 
 
 consumer of corn to the produce of his own country, is to refuse to ourselves 
 
 the benefit of that provision whicli 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 : — " This select Committee 
 
 . iTii 11 1 . ^1*11 tr 1 ^^ ^^^ House of 
 
 system is certauily liable to sudden alterations, ot winch the etrect may be at Commons on ds- 
 one time to reduce prices, already low, lower than they would probably have Agriculture, issi: 
 been under a state of free trade, and at another unnecessarily to enhance prices HLkbaon.' 
 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 specu- 
 lation. It exposes the markets of the country either to be occasionally over- 
 whelmed 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 incon- 
 venient operation of the present corn law, which appears to be less the con- 
 sequence of the quantity of foreign grain brought into this country, upon an 
 average of years, tiian 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 pay- 
 ment, 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) might lead to a drain of specie from 
 the Bank, the consequent contraction of its circulation, a panic among 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 J 816 had 
 but one remedy for every evil — unequal remission of taxation conjoined with pro- 
 tection. They desired themselves to pay less to the state than their fellow-sub- 
 jects ; 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,
 
 30 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 [Book I. 
 
 1816. 
 
 Tlusltisson's 
 Speeches, vol. i. 
 
 p. 3ia. 
 
 Krougham'3 
 Speechesj vol. i 
 p. 5Xi. 
 
 Mar sard, vol. 
 xxxiii. p. 34. 
 
 and tlius make their taxation doubly burthensome. On the 7th March IMr.Western 
 laid upon the table of the House a series of fourteen Resolutions, which declared 
 the " unexampled distress" of those whose capitals are employed in agi-iculture ; 
 the danger of the continuance of such distress ; the insufficient demand for the 
 produce of agriculture, so as to cover the heavy charges and burthens upon it, 
 and the necessity for reducing those burthens— taxes, tithes, and poor-rates. 
 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 burthens ;" 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 econo- 
 mical politics had scarcely yet dawned. Amongst the representatives of the 
 people Mr. Huskisson was all sympathy with the mover of these Resolutions, 
 " whom he would venture to call his honourable 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, 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, even amidst men not essentially sup- 
 porters of class-interests, will not be wondered at when we consider the pre- 
 ponderating 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 aris- 
 tocracy 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 Mr. Western : — " Between two and three years ago agriculture was in a 
 flourishing and prosperous state ; and yet, within the short period which has 
 smce elapsed, thousands have been already ruined, and destitution seems to 
 impend over the property of all those whose capital is engaged in the cultiva- 
 tion 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 
 burthens, 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 redun-
 
 Chap. III.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 31 
 
 dant supply in the markets, a supply considerably beyond the demand, and that 1816. 
 created chiefly by the produce of our owi\ agriculture." With equal correct- 
 ness did the speaker add, " It is perfectly well known that if there is a small 
 deficiency of supply, the price will rise in a ratio far beyond any proportion of 
 such deficiency ; the effect, 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 " agriculture was 
 in a flourishing and prosperous state," the profits of agriculture were not large. 
 Let us endeavour to elucidate his position that " if there is a small deficiency 
 of supply, the price will rise in a ratio far beyond any proportion of such de- 
 ficiency." More than a century ago it had been computed that but one-tenth 
 of the defect in the harvest may raise the price three-tenths, and two-tenths 
 deficiency raise the price eight-tenths. This was the opinion of D'Avenant and 
 Gregory King. Mr. Tooke, in quoting this passage, says, " There is some History of Price?, 
 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 flourisliing 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 (5*. a bushel, the amount realised 
 would be 9/. 18*. If the produce in an unfavourable season were diminished 
 onc-si.\th, and the price raised from Gs. to 12^., the 275 bushels would produce 
 16/. 10s. The difterence is profit. At the commencement of the war, in 1793, 
 the average price of wheat was 49«. Qd. 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 Jlichaelmas, 1799, the quarter of wheat sold for 
 92s., and at Michaelmas, 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 halfpenny. 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 
 iVom 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 ]\Ir. 
 AYestern. The price before the harvest of 1 808 was 74s. 6^. the quarter ; Eton XaUes. 
 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 jears of high prices
 
 32 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book I. 
 
 1816. 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 wastes went on to an excess that had very 
 slight regard to the quality of the land enclosed ; when the cultivation of wheat 
 wa's 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 ftirmers 
 vanished from 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 labourer 
 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 
 labourers 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 Mr. 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 for 
 ever. When the overpowering landed interest in 1814 and 18 15 demanded a new 
 Corn Law of Parliament, prices had fallen to the average of the years from 1 802 
 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 culti- 
 vation — 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 culti- 
 vators, and their false ambition to win a higher social position than their fore- 
 fathers, not by their prudence and intelligence, but by their ostentation, — that 
 the lavish and unprofitable expenditure of farming capital, in connexion with ex- 
 cessive 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 cultiva- 
 tion, and that the boasted agricultural improvements were really little more 
 than an extension of the surface under tillage, to the neglect of scientific hus- 
 bandry, which the farmers of that day ridiculed, and the abandonment of the 
 minor economies out of which their predecessors 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 Corn Law 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
 
 Chap. III.] DURING THP: THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 33 
 
 principles which formed the creed of the landowners of 1816, — " that excessive 1816. 
 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 rallying-point of the commercial and raanufactiu'ing 
 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 Mr. Western 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 malt-duty, had really left very little within the reach 
 of Government to be oflered 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 unconditional 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 buy corn at any price, and by the sudden demand to 
 raise the foreign market to the level of the home market, so that the " flourisii- 
 ing 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 foreign soils were to be prohibited ; 
 tallow, cheese, and butter were proposed to be shut out. The Ministers smiled 
 a negative upon the most presumptuous of these demands, " afraid that we Mr. Robinson ; 
 had already gone quite as far as policy would admit in our system of prohi- JTiirp'. eW'. 
 bitions, if not indeed too far ; and we should be particularly cautious how we 
 advanced still further into the system." The legislative exhibition of the wis- 
 dom that shouted for unconditional protection may be summed up in one short 
 and emphatic speech : " The strength, the virtue, and the happiness of the 
 people mainly depended on the prosperity of the agriculture of the countiy ; 
 and on this principle the country should be forced to feed its oicn popidation. No 
 partial ad\antage to be derived from commerce could compensate for any defi- 
 ciency in this respect. The true principle of national prosperity was, an abso- 
 lute prohibition of the importation of foreign agricultural produce, except in 
 extreme cases." 
 
 " ]\Ianufactures and commerce," said the speech of the Prince Regent, " are manufactures 
 
 ' r » ' AND CoMMEKCE. 
 
 in a flourishing condition." This was to rely upon the bare figures of Custom 
 House returns. In 1815 the declared value of British and Irish produce and 
 manufactures exported was fifty-one millions, being six millions more than in 
 1814. Well might the commerce of the coimtry seem to be flourishing. Those 
 who knew the real workings of that commerce were not so deceived. Mr. Ba- 
 ring, 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 1811 had opened the ports of the Continent to our vessels — when 
 
 VOL. I. F 
 
 Mr. Ilarham ; 
 Ibid.
 
 34 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 [Book I. 
 
 1816. 
 
 Tooke'a History 
 of Pricei, vol. ii. 
 p. 8. 
 
 Brougham's ' 
 Speeches, vol. i. 
 p. j19. 
 
 the consumption of our exports no longer depended upon a vast system of con- 
 traband trade— it was universally thought that there could be no limit to the 
 demand 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? And 
 accordingly they were doubled. The most extravagant profits were expected 
 to be realised. Tlie ordinary course of trade was forsaken, and small capitalists 
 as well as large, at the outports as well as in London, eagerly bought up colo- 
 nial produce, and looked for golden returns. " The shippers 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 in their means of purchase ; and accordingly, 
 the bulk of the commodities exported brought very inadequate returns." Mr. 
 Brougham in 1816 correctly described the result of these exportations : "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 and Manchester ; in most places they were 
 lying a dead weight without any sale at all ; and either no retvu-ns 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 con- 
 fiscation. 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 accus- 
 tomed 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, ex- 
 hausted as it was, had its native commodities ; but those we refused. France 
 had her wines, 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
 
 Chap. III.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 35 
 
 believed that the peace would give us the marts of the whole world. Eut we 1816. 
 
 doggedly held on in a coui'se 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, clamoured for exclusive interests. 
 
 Agriculturists and manufacturers, land-owners and ship-owners, equally shouted 
 
 for protection. 
 
 The state of the American trade of 1816 was described bv Mr. Brougham, Brous^ham-s 
 
 * , ^ .Speeches, vol. I. 
 
 after speaking of the disastrous results of the continental speculations : — " The p- ^is- 
 
 peace with America has produced somewhat of a similar efiect ; 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 ultimately the 
 
 Americans 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 pay another — by the interchange 
 
 of commodities which each wants, 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 fifty-three millions; the amount consumed 
 
 of each year being less than that of 1804. 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 farther 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 of the o," JlfeNr'km^^ 
 
 two coimtries were placed reciprocally upon the same footing in the 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 asricultural and the commercial interests were thus genehal de- 
 
 O PRESSION OF 
 
 coincident. The prices of agricultural produce were depressed by superabun- indcstbt. 
 dance ; but the superabundance and the consequent low prices produced 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 pro- '^"''^<;'^ History 
 ductions, and in the value of all fixed property, entailing a convergence of p- 12- 
 losses and failures among the agricultural, and commercial, and manufacturing, 
 and mining, and shipping, and building interests, which mai-ked that period as 
 one of most extensive suffering and distress." Some proclaimed that the de- 
 pression 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, Quarterly Re- 
 
 1 n T 1 f .ii- -11 c • view, July, 1816. 
 
 to the amount oi not less than forty mdlions, was at once withdrawn li-om cir- 
 
 f2
 
 36 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 [Book I. 
 
 1816. 
 
 Political Regis- 
 ter, Oct. 5, 1816. 
 
 CUHRENCy. 
 
 Political Register, 
 Nov. 30, 1816. 
 
 cuktioii. But, public expenditure is like the fountain tree in the Indian 
 paradise, which diffuses in fertilizing streams the vapours which it was created 
 to collect and condense for the purpose of more beneficially returning and dis- 
 tributing them." According to this logical imagery, or imaginative logic, the 
 capital of a nation in the pockets of its proprietors is " vapour ;" 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 expen- 
 diture of capital by government, in subsidies, in the wasteful consumption of 
 armies, in all the wear and tear of war, is more profitable than the expen- 
 diture 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, " 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 fi-om the people at large." This fallacy, as well as many others con- 
 nected with the depression of industry at the close of the war, has been dis- 
 proved 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 
 century 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 highest point 
 of war exhaustion. The peace came as the slow 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 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 very briefly notice the opinion which so generally obtained in 18 1 G, 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 exaggerated 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
 
 Chap. III.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 37 
 
 too in the same degree, there would have been no material injury ; but tliey did ISIG. 
 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 November, 181(5. Tlie 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 twenty-eight 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 74/. 17.«. Gd. of gold 
 — a depreciation of about 25» per cent. In 1815 and 1816 a hundred pounds 
 of paper would buy 83Z. 5*. 9rf. 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 wide-spreading 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 consequence of the great fall of agi-icultural produce, 
 — a consequence of the diminished credit of the producers. When the restric- 
 tion upon cash payments by the Bank of England was, in 1816, agreed to be 
 renewed for two years, the bearing of the continuance of the restriction upon 
 the state of prices was not overlooked. An extract from Mr. Horner's speech 
 on the 1st May, 1816, on his motion for a committee to inquire into the expe- 
 diency 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 compli- 
 cated subject : — " He would ask the House, had they felt no evils from the Hansud, vol. ■ 
 long suspension of cash payments ? 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 ? Wovdd 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 he had made, and from 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 in 
 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 House. The reduction of the currenci/ had 
 originated in the previous fall of the prices of agricultural produce. This fall 
 had produced a destruction of the country-bank 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
 
 38 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book I. 
 
 1816. year, more than between twenty-five and twenty-six millions; while two years 
 ' ' ' ago it had been nearer twenty-nine miUions, 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 country paper was enough to account for the 
 fall which had taken place. Another evil which had resulted from the state of 
 the currency, wliich 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 ; 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, com- 
 pared 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 suff'ered 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.
 
 Chap. IV.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 39 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 1816. 
 
 A French author, in one of those rapid generalizations which are charac- lvbour. 
 teristie 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 Eirop^nJ 
 Britain after the peace: — " The Convention of 1815 had scarcely been signed '"""•p- 
 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 woi kmen, who destroyed factories and 
 pillaged houses. It was as if the earth trembled, ready to swallow up the old 
 aristocracy." Let us endeavour 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 conse- 
 quent 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 labour in every department of human exertion. Mr. 
 Brand declared in Parliament, at the end of March, speaking especially of the "^liL^.'s^i- 
 agricultural population, that " the poor, in many cases, abandoned their own 
 residences. Whole parishes had been deserted ; and the ci-owd 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 the land to aggravate discontent into desperation. rrpiliL^Torfi 
 While the landowners 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 temperatm-e of the advancing summer 
 was unusually low — and in July incessant rains and cold stormy winds com- 
 pleted the most ungenial season that had occurred in this country since 1799. fgl^p. f^f .'^'" 
 In January the average price of wheat was 52s. 6rf. ; in INlay it was 76s. Ad. 
 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 appre- 
 hensions 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 524-. 6d. to lOS.v. 
 
 " The matter of seditions is of two kinds," says Lord Bacon, *" much
 
 40 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book I. 
 
 1816. 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 May, symptoms of insubordination and desperate violence were dis- 
 played amongst the agricultural population of the eastern counties. Legislators 
 had been accustomed to look with alarm at the organised outbreaks of large 
 bodies of workmen in the manufacturing districts, as in 1812 ; but insurrection- 
 ary 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 ; threshing machines were broken or burnt in open day ; mills 
 were attacked. At Brandon, near Bury, large bodies of labourers assembled 
 to ])rescribe 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 re- 
 pressed. 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 characterised their 
 Saxon forefathers. Early in the Session, Mr. Western described the agricul- 
 tural 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 f;ill in the prices of grain had driven the land 
 out of cultivation, and cast off the labour 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 imper- 
 fect 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 coimtries the temptation of immediate profit had 
 more than commonly led the ftirmer 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 under such 
 circumstances that, on the 22nd 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 night attack 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 
 Littlepoi-t was described as resembling a town sacked by a besieging army, the
 
 Chap. IV.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 41 
 
 principal inhabitants having been compelled to abandon their houses in terror 18 16. 
 of their lives, leaving their property to the fui-y 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 gaol. 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 behaviour of any one of you, any reason to suppose that you 
 were instigated by distress." 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 labourers. It is difficult to believe that the 
 distress of the landowners and tenants should have been greater in the Isle of 
 Ely than in most other parts of the kingdom, and that the labourers should not 
 have been impelled to outrage by " hard necessity and want." 
 
 Incendiary fires, attempts at plunder, riots put down by military force, spread coal districts. 
 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 col- 
 liers, 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 
 waggons 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 per- 
 fect order, were satisfied to depart homewards, having been paid for their coals, 
 and accepting also some charitable contribution. They bore a placard, " Will- 
 ing to work, but none of us to beg ;" and they required certificates from the 
 magistrates that they had conducted themselves with propriety. Their ex- 
 ample was followed by other unemployed colliers from Staffordshire, who yoked 
 themselves in a similar way to loaded waggons. But their progress towards 
 London was not very considerable. The distresses of the workmen in the iron- i.etter in Annual 
 trade were quite appalling. Utter desolation prevailed in districts where iron- ^''°'^'"' ''''"■ 
 works had been suspended. The workmen in these districts used to be sur- 
 rounded 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 cheerfiil dwellings 
 were barred ; the families were wandering about the country, seeking for that 
 relief from private charity which the parishes could not supply them. Depre- 
 dation was very rare. Later in the year, the miners and colliers connected with 
 
 VOL. I. f.
 
 42 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 [Book I. 
 
 1816. 
 
 Machine- 
 Bbeakino. 
 
 Hansard, vol. 
 xxi. p. SOU. 
 Mr. Secretary 
 Ryder. 
 
 the great iron-works in the neighbourhood of Merthyr, assembled in a tuniuhu- 
 ous manner, and their numbers gradually swelling till they 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 
 Staflbrdshire colliers. 
 
 In the year 1812 an Act was passed " for the more exemplary punishment 
 of persons destroying or injuring any stocking or lace frames, or other machines 
 or eno-ines used in the frame-work 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 pre- 
 eminently 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 out- 
 rages. 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 neighbourhood, 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 occa- 
 sionally gone to the villages in bodies of about fifty men, and having stationed 
 sentinels at the diflferent avenues, the remainder employed themselves in destroy- 
 ing 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 vio- 
 lence. At Loughborough, in July, many fi-ames 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, command- 
 ing 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 de- 
 struction. The General Ludd, who led on 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 fac- 
 tories 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 well nigh driven the 
 lace-manufacture from their district, and converted temporary into permanent
 
 VOLENCK. 
 
 Chap. IV.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 43 
 
 ruin. The futility of the legislation of 1812 was well exposed in a Protest of 1816. 
 Lords Lauderdale and Rosslyn on the introduction of the Bill : " We agree in Hansard, vol. 
 the opinion so generally expressed in this House, that the conduct of the manu- ""■ p- ""^• 
 facturers, 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 preserva- 
 tion of machinery, to the improvement of which we owe our existence asa 
 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 private bene- 
 relieve the distresses of their fellow-subjects by liberal contributions. The 
 sufferings of 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. 
 
 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 Reso- 
 lution 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 reso- 
 lution, said, " if thet/ 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 floiuishing condition which had long made her the envy of 
 the world." The goodness of the intention could only be exceeded by the 
 
 g2
 
 44 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 [Book I. 
 
 1816. 
 
 Quarterly Review 
 July, 1816. 
 
 See Porter's Pro- 
 gress of the Na- 
 tion, vol. i. p. 82 
 
 Quarterlv Review 
 July, isie 
 
 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 labourers 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 pro- 
 fitably 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, clamoured 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 : — " 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 altera- 
 tive measures of permanent policy could be devised and brought into action for 
 gradually removing a burthen that was becoming intolerable." According to 
 this authority, the subscriptions did not add to the fluid 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 ; 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 then levelled against the Re- 
 formers, that they realized the old story of the Needy Knife-grinder and the 
 Friend of Humanity, but to point out the folly of deceiving our own consciences 
 as to the power of alms-giving 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 labour 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 dread- 
 ful calamity of an unemployed, inadequately paid, starving, and therefore dan- 
 gerous 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 benevo- 
 lence would be matters of ridicule it they were not so awful in their delusions. 
 In 1816, hand corn-mills were recommended for the employment of the poor, to 
 supersede the labour of the miller ; and women and even men were actually
 
 CiiAP. IV.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 45 
 
 employed to shell beans in the fields, to supersede the more efficient labour of the 1 816. 
 thresher. 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 grease-pot ; the platting 
 of baskets out of flags ; and the mixture of 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 stan-ation, 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.
 
 46 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book I. 
 
 1816. 
 
 Parliamentaby 
 Reform. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 LORD BACON, discoursing of the second cause of sedition, " Discontent- 
 ments," says, " There is in every state, as we know, two portions of sub- 
 jects, the Noblesse and the Commonalty. When one of these is discontent, 
 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 modem 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 bourfjeoisie 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 com- 
 plimentary 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 bis hmidred 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 im- 
 perfect civilization ; how much remained to be developed before the more 
 favoured 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 refer- 
 ence to the happiness and safety of modern societies — this problem is little 
 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
 
 Chap. Y.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 47 
 
 listened as to some gabble which concerned it not, and went on with its proper 1816. 
 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 foirly loosened to the open sky, he was not quite so 
 tame, and innocent and stupid a spirit as his ordinary supporters and his sys- 
 tematic 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 cham- 
 pions 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 deci- 
 sion had removed " the danger of increasing the odium under which the House ""'irp.'a'i^s' 
 of Commons already labours 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 dis- 
 cussion, 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 (Mr. Brougham) mentioned the cause as " opposed by some, deserted Hansard, vol.' 
 by others, and espoused by persons whose conduct excited no small degree of 
 disgust out of doors." But fi'om 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. 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 Passages in the 
 great authority ; they were read on nearly every cottage-hearth in the manu- cai, by samuei 
 facturing districts of South Lancashire, in those of Leicester, Derby, and Not- p. s. ° 
 tingham ; 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 labourers 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 labourers read them, 
 and thenceforward became deliberate and systematic in their proceedings. Nor 
 were there wanting men of their own class to encourage and direct the new 
 converts ; the Sunday-schools of the preceding thirtj years had produced many 
 working-men of sufficient talent to become readers, writers, and speakers in
 
 Political Register, 
 
 48 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book I. 
 
 1816. 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 :— 
 The country, instead of being disturbed, as the truly seditious writers on 
 
 vol. xxxi. pr7»».' jj^g gjjg ^£ 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 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." 
 
 writibos of The writings of William Cobbett, at this critical period, are certainly amongst 
 
 the most valuable of the materials for a correct view of the disturbing elements 
 of our social system, and of the circumstances which led to the subsequent repres- 
 sive policy of the Government. Up to the 2nd November, 1816, ' Cobbett's 
 Weekly Political Register ' was a jniblication not addressed to the " cottage 
 hearth," but to persons who could afford to pay a shilling and a halfpenny 
 weekly, for a single octavo stamped sheet, printed in open type. His writings, 
 singidarly clear and argumentative, strong in personalities, earnest, bold, never 
 halting between two opinions, powerful beyond all anonymous writing fi-om their 
 rare individuality, would have commanded an extensive influence under any 
 form of publication. But on the 2nd November, when the entire sheet was 
 devoted to an address " To the Journeymen and Labourers of England, Scot- 
 land, 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. 6(/. a 
 hundred, if a hundred are taken together." On the 16th November he wrote 
 thus : " ITie 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 inten- 
 tion to continue that mode of proceeding until the meeting of Parliament, or, 
 
 perhaps, until the Reform shall have actually taken place Noio, 
 
 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 there- 
 fore 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 to convey information to scores of persons;" but that he finds in 
 public-houses, "the landlords have objected to meetings for reading the Register 
 
 CuBBBTT.
 
 Chap. V.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 49 
 
 being held at their houses, for fear they should lose their licences." He accord- 18 IG. 
 ingly prints the twopenny Register. We see, therefore, why, at the end of ' 
 
 1816, " the writings of William Cobbett suddcnli/ became of gi'eat authority, 
 and were read on nearly every cottage hearth in the manufacturing districts." 
 Never before had any single ^vriter in England wielded such a power. The 
 success of this experiment upon the influence to be produced by cheap publica- 
 tions was such as to lead him to reprint some of the more exciting of his pre- 
 vious Registers. That they gave the discontent of the labouring 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 master-piece 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 labourers and mechanics into active politicians ; to render the 
 most impatient and uncontrollable materials of our social system the most pre- 
 ponderating, — hitherto as powerless alone as the " commonalty " of Bacon, 
 without the leading of the "greater sort." Tlie 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." " "Wliy is it that this convicted Quarterly iie- 
 
 ' J J view, vol. XVI. 
 
 incendiary, and others of the same stamp, are permitted, week after week, to p- 275. 
 sow the seeds of rebellion, insulting the Government, and defying the laws of 
 the country ? . . . . We have laws to prevent the exposure of unwhole- 
 some 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, 
 without leaders of any weight or responsibility, demanding the supreme legisla- 
 tive power — the power of universal sull'rage. The idea ceased to be a theory — 
 it became a tremendous reality. 
 
 In the Report of the Secret Committee of the House of Commons, presented nAMPDENCi.LBs. 
 on the 19th February, 1817, the Hampden Clubs are thus described: — 
 
 " The first thing which has here forced itself upon their observation is the Hansard, voi. 
 
 xxxv- p. 443. 
 
 widely diffused ramification of a system of clubs, associated professedly for the 
 purpose of Parliamentary Reform, u])on 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 insti- 
 tution, they appear to be in communication and connexion 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 
 
 VOL. I. H
 
 50 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 [Book I. 
 
 I8in. 
 
 r.T.'ssages in the 
 Life or a Kadical. 
 vol. i. chap. ii. 
 
 villngo in the kingdom. The leading members are active in the circulation of 
 publfcations 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, Nottingham- 
 shire, 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 attain- 
 ment of Parliamentary Reform— a sweeping reform, indeed, but not what is 
 understood by the term " Revolution." 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 
 IGth December, 1816, they resolved to send out missionaries to disseminate 
 the principles of Reform. On the 1st January, 1817, a meeting 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 Parlia- 
 ment ; and that Parliaments should be elected annually. " Such," he adds, 
 " were the moderate views and wishes of the Reformers of those days, as com- 
 pared 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 lest 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 accom- 
 plishment 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 mem- 
 state Trials, vol. bers of thcsc Reform Clubs was shown to run thus : — " I do voluntarily swear 
 that I will persevere in my endeavouring to form a brotherhood of affection 
 amongst Britons of every description, who are considered worthy of confidence ; 
 and that I will persevere in my endeavours to obtain for all the people in Great 
 Britain and Ireland, not disqualified by crimes or insanity, the elective fran- 
 chise, 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 ])ovver, 
 cither Inj moral or physical strength, as the case may require : and I do further 
 
 x.\xiii. p. 147.
 
 Chap. V.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 51 
 
 swear, that neither hopes, fears, rewards, nor punishments, shall induce me to 1816. 
 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 of 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 bed-fel- 
 lows." 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 delibe- 
 rations. There was Major Cartwright in the Chair — a placid enthusiast, sin- 
 cere in his belief that unmingled good would be the result of the great experi- 
 ment 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 gi'eat Baronet was absent, and his ab- 
 sence 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 dressing-gown and white cotton stockings hanging about his long spare legs, 
 with a " manner dignified and civilly familiar ; submitting to, rather than p^f '''' ™'' '' 
 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 : " Several times I iwa., p. 23. 
 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 suflfocating vapour of tobacco curling from the cups of long pipes, and 
 issuing from the mouths of the smokers, in clouds of abominable odour, like 
 nothing in the world more than one of the unclean fogs of their streets (though 
 the latter M'ere 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 — more 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»favour of Parlia- 
 mentary 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 two persons of middle stature enter ; the 
 uproar is changed to applause, and a round of huzzas welcome the new-comers. 
 
 II 2
 
 52 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book I. 
 
 1816. 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 misdemeanour in consequence of his connexion with the late meeting at 
 Spa-fields.' 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 re- 
 spectability and neatness in his dress. He was educated for a genteel profes- 
 sion, 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 ardour 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 co-operator 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 sliglitful opinion 
 of the intellect and trust-worthiness 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 meet- 
 ing 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." 
 
 Spenceans. The surgeon and the operative were leading members of a Society called tiie 
 
 " Spencean Phihmthropists." They derived their name from that of a Mr. 
 Spence, a 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 misfortune to be 
 prosecuted for its promidgation in 1800. In 1816 " Spence's Plan " was re- 
 vived, 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 aca- 
 demies, 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 ex- 
 pense, who will conduct himself with decorum," it is not unlikely that some eso- 
 
 xSii.'^"2'!5,'^2l6. teric doctrines were canvassed, such as, that " it was an easy matter to upset 
 Government, if handled in a proper manner." The committee of the Spenceans 
 openly meddled with sundry gi-ave questions besides that of a community in land ; 
 and amongst other notable projects petitioned Parliament to do away with ma-
 
 CiiAP. v.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 53 
 
 chinery. They had not advanced to the more' recondite knowledge of the St. 1816. 
 Sinioniens of France, nor to that of the disciples of "the new social system" as organisation du 
 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 dan- 
 gerous 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, John Castle, a man of the most disreputable state Trials, 
 character, who became a witness against the leading Spencean philanthropists, 
 they 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. Thistle- 
 wood, 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 
 whom were " Sir Francis Burdctt, the Lord Mayor [Alderman Wood], Lord ihn., p. 233. 
 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 Thistle- 
 wood." 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 accu- 
 rate computation it was found that the piu-chase-money would be " somewhere niiJ., p. ss^i. 
 about two millions, which would be nothing in comparison with the national debt, 
 which would be wiped off." 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 vrith 
 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, dravNH 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. Himt'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 de- 
 scribed as " a fox sleep." 
 
 But the 2nd 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
 
 54 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book T. 
 
 1816. 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 Spa-fields, where the greatest number of people 
 were collected together that he had ever beheld. But more active Reformers 
 were in Spa-fields before Mr. Hunt. The Spencean philanthropists had provided 
 a waggon for their own operations, and arrived on the ground considerably be- 
 fore 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 waggon. 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 ? AMU you go and take it ? If I jump down amongst you, 
 will you come and take it ? AVill you follow me ?" And as at every question 
 the encouraging " Yes " became louder and louder, and put down the dissen- 
 tient " No," he jumped from the waggon, seized a tri-coloured 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 de- 
 stroyed 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 be- 
 haved 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 honourable record ; and it shows not only the insig- 
 nificancy 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 
 State Trials. says — " Ou the 2nd 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 
 Mayor and I having received information of prior occurrences, determined on 
 putting them down. I seized several of them, and one flag of three colours, 
 
 extended on a very long pole. I did not then perceive any arms 
 
 The Lord Mayor and I went to meet the mob with Mr. White and two con- 
 stables ; 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. Firm-
 
 Chap. V.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 55 
 
 ness such as this would have saved Bristol in 1832. After a further plunder of 18 16. 
 gunsmiths' shops in the Minories, and that summoning of the Tower by some 
 redoubted and unknown champion, who Bamford tells us was Preston, the insur- 
 rection 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 con- 
 victed 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 Com- 
 mittees, in which this frantic riot was described as a most formidable organiza- 
 tion of " desperate men, who calculated without reasonable ground upon dc- Commons- Kp- 
 
 n • * ^ • 1 • /*! I'll port : Ilansnrd, 
 
 tection m tfieir opposers, and upon active support from those multitudes whose vol. xxxv. p. -a?,. 
 
 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 : — 
 
 " A traitorous conspiracy has been formed in the metropolis for the purpose Hansard, vol. 
 of overthrowing, by means of a general insurrection, the established govern- 
 ment, 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 imjjort- 
 ance, 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 distributed. * * * * 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 City of Lon- ADORsssoFTHr 
 don presented to the Throne an address and petition from the Lord Mayor, 
 Aldermen, and Commons, in which they set forth the " gi-ievances " 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 2nd of December had been such as to produce real terror amongst 
 the staid inhabitants of the city, this address would either not have been pre- 
 sented, or have been met by some counter-declaration of opinion. 
 
 In 1814, when the long revolutionary war appeared to be ended, and men's keal Dangers. 
 minds were in a fever of joy at the extraordinary triumphs that conducted the
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book I. 
 
 1816. 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 couutry during this long and arduous 
 stru"-"-le." 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 
 ou^lit 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 
 victoi-y 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 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 un- 
 scrupulous 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. We 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 tiie working population. Deluded 
 these masses unquestionably were, — acted upon by demagogues. On the other 
 hand, many amongst the upper and middle classes were alarmed into a pros- 
 trate adhesion to the menacing policy of the Government, and were ready with 
 " lives and fortunes " to put down the revolutionary spirit which they were as- 
 sured was working under the guise of Parliamentary Reform. But, during all 
 this unhappy time, the Government had no love from any class — very little re- 
 spect ; — 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 
 budt 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.
 
 Chap. VI.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 57 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 1816. 
 
 ^piIE attack upon Algiers forms an episode in the History of the Peace. This .\loieks. 
 J- terrific assertion of the rights of civilized states, as opposed to barbarian vio- 
 lence 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 domi- 
 nation 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 Barbary 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 con- 
 tradiction, 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 the Third as they were in the days of 
 Charles the Second. "Algiers," says a writer of 1680, "is a den of sturdy Discourse touch- 
 thieves formed into a body, by which, after a tumultuary sort they govern, having I,"fnted"fnTiie 
 the Grand Signior for their protector, who supplies them with native Turks for uny!'"" 
 their soldiery, which is the greatest part of their militia ; and they, in acknow- 
 ledgment, 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 sea- 
 men ; 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 oiu- national 
 
 VOL. I. I
 
 58 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book I. 
 
 1816. policy towards the Barbary States, the annihilation of their predatory govern- 
 ments 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 
 lono- remained — opposed to every people — often chastised and menaced with 
 destruction, but rising unsubdued from the passing blow, ready for new deeds of 
 outrao-e and desperation. A long experience had shown that although jjledges 
 
 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 revo- 
 lutionized. England, which had just concluded a war against the aggrandize- 
 ment 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 favour- 
 able circumstances, have endeavoured, 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 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 succour the oppressed, and to humiliate 
 the oppressor : 
 (Me on the Batile u Q„g j^y of dreadful occuiiation more, 
 
 of Algiers, hy R. •; ,,,,,,. 
 
 Sovitiiey. Fiisf. h,re England s gallant ships 
 
 KLiriiieMr Shall, of their beauty, pomp, and power disrobed, 
 
 man, vul. iii. Like sca-birds on the sunny main, 
 
 p. 4S7. . •' ' 
 
 Rock idly in the port. 
 
 One day of dreadful occupation more ! 
 
 A work of righteousness, 
 Yea, of subliniest mercy, must be done ! 
 
 England will break the oppressor's chain. 
 And set the captives free." 
 
 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 fortu- 
 nate 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 d.-mgerous admixture of religious 
 zeal. In 1815 the government of the United States, whose ships had been
 
 CiiAP. VI.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 59 
 
 plundered by the Algerines, captured a frigate and a brig belonging to the Dey, 1816. 
 
 and obtained a compensation of sixty thousand dollars. It has been stated that ii„si,-s Residence 
 
 this treaty saved the fleet of the Dey from attack in the harbour of Algiers — an LVmionTriHff, 
 
 enterprise which had been resolved upon by the government of the United States p- -"• 
 
 before the expedition of Lord Exmouth. In the spring of 181(5, 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 powers 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 
 
 Altriers, 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 and Sardinia should pay i-ansom for the release of their subjects ; and, 
 
 in point of fiict, 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, "ansard. vo\. 
 
 •'■'•' ^ xxxiv. p. 114 I. 
 
 as an acknowledgment of the right of depredation exercised by the barbarians. 
 In the debate on this occasion Lord Cochrane maintained "that two sail of the ibu. p- in-- 
 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 fortu- 
 nate 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 oft' and disbanded. A sudden outrage, which occurred even 
 before Lord Exmouth quitted the Mediterranean, 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 harbour, in tlie regency of Algiers, for the pur- 
 pose of the coral fishery being carried on under the protection of our flag. 
 Here, on the 23rd 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 inftintry and cavalry 
 rushed upon the unfortunate fishers who had landed, and fired upon those who 
 remained within the harbour 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 
 
 I 2
 
 60 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 [Book I. 
 
 181G. 
 
 BoMBABDMKNT. 
 
 Account of the 
 Reliyion ;ind 
 Manners of Mo- 
 hametaiis, 1701. 
 
 fanaticism on the part of tlic licentious soldiery. Be this as it may, an expe- 
 dition ao-ainst Algiers was instantly determined upon by the British cabinet. 
 A formidable fleet was equipped, with the least possible delay, at Portsmouth, 
 and crews were collected from 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 
 eflScient, who were so hastily collected and so unused to mutual operations, was 
 a labour that required no common share of energy and prudence in the com- 
 mander. A^'^ith 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 him- 
 self had been put in chains. Ilei'e was a new insult to be avenged. 
 
 A most interesting and graphic narrative of the expedition to Algiers was 
 published by Mr. Abraham Salame, a native of Alexandria, who was taken out 
 by Lord Exmouth to act as his interpreter. The description of a sea-fight, 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 rearing Algiers, Salame 
 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 con- 
 tained an assurance that every effort should be made for his safety ; but who, 
 under such circumstances, coidd 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 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 wei-e returned at all, should be given in two 
 hours ; and in the mean time the interpreter remained in a suflficiently uncom- 
 fortable situation, within pistol-shot 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 difl'ers very 
 little from that given by Joseph Pitts 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,
 
 Chap. VI.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 
 
 61 
 
 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 
 following little plan will give some idea of the strength of this place on the sea- 
 side, at the period of Lord Exmouth's attack : — 
 
 1816. 
 
 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. Salanie 
 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 
 conies 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 fi-om what 
 I left him in the morning, for I knew his manner was in general very mild ; 
 and now he seemed to me all-jiijldful, 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, 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 hvmdred yards of the mole-head 
 batteries. At the first shot, which was fired by the Algerines at the Impreg- 
 nable, Lord Exmouth cried out, " That will do ; fire, my fine fellows ! " The 
 miserable Algerines who were looking on, as at a show, with apparent indiflPer- 
 ence 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 
 
 under the walls like does. 
 
 away „..^., 
 
 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.
 
 G2 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book I. 
 
 1816. and tlie firing did not cease altogetlicr until half-past eleven. During this 
 ' ■ engagement of nine hours the allied tlect 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 fifty-two officers and men 
 were killed in the British squadron, and sixty-five in the Dutch. Lord Exmouth 
 himself says in his dispatch, " There were awful movements during the conflict 
 which I cannot now attempt to describe, occasioned by firing the ships so near 
 us." Salame says that one of the Algerine fi-igates, which was in flames, drifted 
 towards the Queen Charlotte within about fifty feet of her ; but a breeze spring- 
 ing 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 well-nigh 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 oif, 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 labour." 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 Queen Charlotte. Nine Algerine frigates and a number of gun-boats 
 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 day-time ; instead of walls the batteries jjresented 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 the Fifth, 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 ofl'er 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 Chi-istian slaves, who arrived from the interior, and 
 who were immediately conveyed to their respective countries. " AVlien I arrived 
 on shore," says Salame, " it was the most pitiful sight to see all those poor crea- 
 tures, in what a horrible state they were ; but it is impossible to describe the
 
 Chap. VI.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 63 
 
 joy and cheerfulness of them. ^Mien our boats came inside the mole, I wished 1816. 
 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, — ■ Southey's Ode. 
 
 Wiicii the delivered slave • 
 
 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, 
 O Fountain Aretliuse ! "
 
 64 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 [Book I. 
 
 1816. 
 
 PROOHESS OF 
 yoCIAL ImPROVE- 
 UENT. 
 
 See the Curse or 
 Keliama, section 
 xxiti. 
 
 Utopia, Intro- 
 ductory Discourse 
 to. Dibdin's ed., 
 1808, vol. i. p. 7J. 
 
 Hansard, vol. 
 xxxiv. p. 6H4. 
 
 Criminal Laws 
 
 Romilly's Didrv, 
 Oct. 1807. 
 
 CHAPTER Vir. 
 
 " QILENT leges inter arma" — the laws are silent in the midst of arms — said 
 O the great Roman orator. During our quarter of a century of war, the laws 
 held on their course ; but few had the courage to question the wisdom of that 
 course, and still fewer the leisure to attend to any suggestions of improvement. 
 The daring adventurer who then moimted the car of progress 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 sjjirits 
 
 who risked somethino; for the amelioration of the lot of 
 
 their fellow-men. In 1516 Sir Thomas More wrote, " 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 tliis extreme and rigorous justice well be called plain injury ? 
 For so cruel governance, so straight rules, and unmerciful laws be not allow- 
 able, that if a small offence be committed, by and bye 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. The 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 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 the most 
 encouraging examples of the imconquerable success of the assertion of a right 
 principle, when it is perseveringly 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 punishment 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
 
 Chap. VII.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 65 
 
 merit of having urged Romilly to a bolder policy. His friend Scarlett, he says, igjg 
 "had advised me not to content myself with merely raising the amount of the „' 
 
 • •' ° Komillys Diary, 
 
 value of property, the steanng of which is to subject the offender to capital ^pni, isos. 
 jninishment, 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 fl-om the statute-book, I deter- 
 mined to attempt the repeal of them one by one ; and to begin with the most 
 odious of them, the Act of Queen Ehzabeth, which makes it a capital offence to 
 steal privately fi'om 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 : " If any person be desirous of having an adequate itid. June, isos. 
 idea of the mischievous effects which have been produced in this comitry by the 
 French revolution and all its attendant horrors, he should attempt some legis- 
 lative reform, on humane and liberal principles. He 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 opportiuiities of 
 observing this. It is but a few nights ago, that, while I was standing at the 
 bar of the House 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 nau- 
 seous fiunes of his undigested debauch, stammered out, ' I am against your 
 Bill ; I am for hanging all.' I was confounded ; and endeavouring 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, what- 
 ever 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 aboli.shing 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 bleach- i 
 
 ing-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 imdertook 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 
 
 VOL. I. K
 
 66 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book I. 
 
 1816. rejected in the House of Lords, Lord Ellenborough declared, "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, that he had himself early in 
 life felt a disposition to examine the principles on which our criminal code was 
 
 Ibid. vol. XX. framed, " before observtition and experience had matured his judgment. Since, 
 however, he had learnt to listen to these great teachers in this important science, 
 his ideas had greatly changed, and he saw the wisdom of the principles and 
 ])ractice by which our criminal code was regulated." In 1813 Sir Samuel 
 Rorailly's Bill for the abolition of 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. 
 
 Ibid. vol. xxxiii. On the 16th of February Sir Samuel Romilly obtained leave to bring in a 
 Bill repealing the Act of William the Third 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, 
 whicii 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 suf- 
 fering at the same time. The capital sentence was now constantly evaded by 
 juries committing a pious ii-aud, 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 espe- 
 cially. 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 
 
 Ibid. vol. xxxiii. moment there was a child in Newcrate, not ten years of age, under sentence of 
 
 p. 374. . n ^ J o ' 
 
 death for this offence ; and the Recorder of London was reported to have de- 
 clared 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 22nd of May. On this 
 ibid^ vol. xxxiv. occasion the Lord Chief Justice agreed with the Lord Chancellor, " that the 
 effect of removing the penalty of death fi-om 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 tlie 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, from 1809 to 1816, 
 and see how little was asked by Romilly, and refused to him, compared with the 
 
 p. 684.
 
 JE/i^na-ei Irv JUTccAnan . 
 
 SEM g.MOMlIILlLY. 
 
 
 ZonJfm JitbU^vIuvI hv iJtiiri^S SJuaht-ZiiJaati: Sur£t
 
 Chap. VIL] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 67 
 
 amount of reform that has since been accomplished, we can only regard the 1816. 
 arguments for the support of the ancient system of capricious terror as the argu- "^ 
 
 ments of men slowly and pamfully emerging fi-om barbarism. ^Vllen, in the 
 time of Henry VI., more persons were executed in England in one year for Fonescue. 
 highway robbery than the whole number executed in France in seven years ; 
 when, in the reign of Henry VHI., seventy-two thousand thieves were hanged, narruon. 
 being at the rate of two thousand a year ; and when, in the reign of George HI., 
 as we have seen, twenty persons were executed on the same morning in London, 
 for privately stealing ; — we 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 h>iman wisdom — the system of making the lightest as well as the most enor- 
 mous offences capital, that the law might stand up as a scarecrow — an old, 
 ragged, ill-contrived, and hideous mawkin — that the smallest bird that habitu- 
 ally 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 possi- 
 bility 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. 
 
 The revolting cruelty and the disgusting absurdity of our criminal laws, Police. 
 thirty years ago, were in perfect harmony 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 3rd 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 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 : — "If a foreign jurist had then examined the condition of the Report on Pre- 
 
 *^ vpnt i vc Hoi ICG 
 
 metropolis, as respected crime, and the organization of its police — and if, with- isaa. 
 out 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 obtain- 
 ing from society, with security to themselves, the greatest quantity of plunder. 
 He would have found the metropolis divided and subdivided into petty jurisdic- 
 tions, each independent of every other, each having sufficiently distinct interests 
 to engender perpetual jealousies and animosities, and being sufficiently free from 
 
 K 2
 
 68 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book I. 
 
 1816. any general control to prevent any intercommunity of reformation or any unity 
 of action." Another Committee of the House of Commons, reporting in 1833, 
 
 Report on Metro- gays of the Same svstem, " The police was roused into earnest action only as 
 
 politan Police. •' „ , ,, . i • • i • . • t 
 
 some flagrant violation of the public peace, or some deep injury to private indi- 
 viduals, impelled it into exertion ; and security to persons and property was 
 sought to be obtained, not by the activity and wholesome vigour 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 aban- 
 doned 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 until they commit a forty-pound crime, when they will 
 be sacrificed." A forty-pound crime ! — the phraseology is as obsolete as if it 
 were written in the pedlar'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 atro- 
 city, which should bestow the blood-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 metro- 
 polis 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. "\\'hen Defoe described his 
 Colonel Jack, in the days of his boyish initiation into vice, sleeping with other 
 children amidst the kilns and glasshouses 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
 
 Chap. VII.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 69 
 
 vice and tumult more atrocious than anything exhibited even by the lazzaroni 1816. 
 of Naples. "^ 
 
 The brilliantly lighted, carefully watched, safe, orderly, and tranquil London ci^s-liobi. 
 of the present day, presents as great a contrast to the London of 181 G, as that 
 again, 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 decrepid watchmen. The streets were filled with tumultuous vaga- 
 bonds ; and the drowsy guardians of the night suffered every abomination to go 
 on in lawless vigour, happy if their sleep were undisturbed by the midnight row 
 of the drunken rake. In 1807 Pall-Mail was lighted by gas. The persevering 
 German 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 mono- n»nsi'<i, vol. 
 poly, which would ultimately prove injurious to the public, and ruin that most 
 important branch of trade, our whale fisheries." Alderman Atkins " contended iwd. p. 1072. 
 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 ropemakers, sailmakers, mastmakers, &c., connected with that 
 trade." ^^'ho 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, for no objects but 
 those of thinning our population, diminishing our manufactures, crippling our 
 commerce, extinguishing our agriculture, and pauperizing our landed proprie- 
 tors. 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 * 
 learnt on the subject of protection, even from this petty fight of oil and gas.
 
 70 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book I. 
 
 1816. A Committee of the House of Commons was appointed in 1815 to inquire 
 
 ' ■ ■ into the state of mendicity and vagrancy in the metropolis and its neighbour- 
 
 MeNPICITY AND , "^ , . . . • -I rn /i i." * /: P. I 
 
 vaorancv. hood; and they contmued then- sittings in 1816, reporting minutes ot the evi- 
 
 dence 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 such 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 for heavier task. The chief tendency of the evi- 
 dence 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 afi-aid to enter it from dread of contagion. In George Yard, 
 Whitechapel, they were informed that there were two thousand people, occupy- 
 ing 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 pro- 
 portion of the money raised for the relief of the poor was expended in shifting 
 
 Law OP ssTTLE- the burthcu of their relief from one 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 vagi-ants 
 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 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 
 labourers, who could find no employ at home, were wandering, as it was called, 
 to search for capital where capital was seeking for labour. The statute of 16G2, 
 the foundation of the Law of Settlement, forbade this wandering, and gave a 
 very amusing explanation of the gi-ound of its prohibitions : " WHiereas, by 
 reason of some defects in the law, poor people are not restrained from going 
 from one parish to another, and therefore do endeavour to settle themselves in 
 those parishes where there is the best stock." Tlie great natural law of labour 
 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 
 
 MKNT.
 
 Chap. VII.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 71 
 
 still, in spite of statute upon statute, the labourers would wander, and "endea- 1816. 
 vour 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 tything to tything, 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 labourers 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 labourers 
 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 evi- 
 dence of the extent of this transplantation of labourers, 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 
 labour, 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 Answers from 
 war, when the agricultural labourers were increased by the disbanding of the missinners of 
 army, and the demand for their labour was diminished from various causes, quiry. 
 af/ricultural 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 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 labourers, became the miserable inmates of crowded workhouses, 
 without the hope of ever returning to their former independence." 
 
 On the 28th of May Mr. Curwen, an intelligent agriculturist, brought the genebat. An- 
 subject of the Poor Laws before the House of Commons, on a motion for the the Poo"LAw"r 
 appointment of a Committee of Inquiry. Mr. Curwen had a plan — as many 
 others had their plans. His plan was to abolish the poor-rates, enacting " that 
 every individual who made any profit or advantage by his labour, should con- 
 tribute towards a parish fund for the relief of sickness, age, 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 labouring 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 labouring population into fourteen thou- 
 sand parochial friendly societies, was at once to establish the comfort and inde- 
 dendence of all who had been so long degraded and demoralized by parish
 
 72 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book I. 
 
 18 16. allowances. It is scarcely necessary for us to dwell upon the practical absurdity 
 of this benevolent dream. The scheme of Mr. Curwen formed small part of 
 the deliberations of the Committee, which reported in 1817. Their recom- 
 mendations 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. 
 
 Tim 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 aggre- 
 gate of misery which imperatively demanded a forced contribution from capital. 
 The same laws which, justly and mercifully to a certain extent, 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 ; 
 the natural relations between profits and wages were interrupted ; a fund was 
 created for the labourers, which could not be distributed with reference to the 
 amount of profitable labour ; the fund for the support of profitable labour 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. Cir- 
 cumstances, which arose almost within our own generation, went on steadily 
 breaking down the barriers which separated the two classes of claimants upon 
 the labour-fund ; and at the close of the war, with reference to the largest body 
 of labourers, the agricultural, the distinction between the two classes of claim- 
 ants 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 5,724,839/. Tlie 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 labourers 
 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 
 labour. It is difficult to conceive a more complete state of degradation than 
 the allowanced labourers 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
 
 Chap. VII.] DUEING THE THIRTY YEABS' PEACE. 73 
 
 future responsibility. So far were the agricultural labourers slaves, that, 1816. 
 
 although they could not be actually sold, like " villeins in gross," their labour 
 
 was put up by auction to the best bidder by parish authorities. " The overseer AKricuUurai 
 
 11 • o.l • uu ^ 111, 1 Stateof the King- 
 
 calls a meeting on Saturday evenmgs, where he puts up each labourer by name dom, isie; pub- 
 
 to auction ; and they have been let generally at from Is. ijd. to 2a-. per week, Board of Agncui- 
 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 poor-rates, 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 labourer, under this system, was 
 founded upon injustice and oppression, on one hand, and fraud and improvi- 
 dence on the other. The farmer refused to employ the labourer till he had 
 reduced him, by withholding employment, to beggary ; robbed the labourer of 
 his fair wages, to dole out to him " head-money," not according to his worth, 
 but his necessities ; denied employ to the single labourer 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 labourer was marked as a fool for making any attempt to " earn 
 his bread by the sweat of his brow." The authorities doled out their allow- 
 ances 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 despera- 
 tion or hypocrisy amongst the entire labouring 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 labourer 
 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 for ever. 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 labouring 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 
 jiunishments. They forgot that it was their business to give relief to destitu- 
 tion, and to destitution only ; and so they established every sort of false test of 
 relief. 
 
 The old workhouse system was as productive of evil in principle, though not 
 in amount, as the allowance system. The wretchedness of the parish work- 
 house, in consequence of bad management, and the want of order and classifica- 
 tion, 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, 
 
 VOL. I. L
 
 74 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book I, 
 
 1816. endeavoured to remunerate himself for the hardness of his bargain by disposing 
 of the services of the inmates to the neighbouring 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 con- 
 tracted 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 manage- 
 ment 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 conse- 
 quence 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 compidsory 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 (43rd 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 opera- 
 tions were carried on ; and in others land was rented and the inmates were 
 employed in agricultin-al labour. Interests which never prosper but in the hands 
 of private individuals were expected to become 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 over- 
 stocking 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 labour and the number of the 
 labourers, but through the uncontrolled exchange of capital and labour, 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 forced demand for labour produced by a forced supply of capital — the 
 natural proportions of capital and labour are destroyed by a forced addition to 
 the number of labourers. All schemes for "setting the poor to work" by
 
 CiiAP. VII.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 75 
 
 unnatural encouragements to labour assume that "the poor" is a constant 1816. 
 
 quantity ; — the unnatural encouragement produces more poor, and the funds ' • ' 
 
 that have been diverted fi'om the regular labour-market are devoured in an 
 accelerated ratio. 
 
 The poor-law, as it existed in full vigour at the close of the war, went further 
 than any other human device for diminishing the funds for the maintenance of 
 labour, and at the same time increasing the number of labourers. Rewards for 
 illegitimate children, rewards for children under improvident marriages, suste- 
 nance 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 applica- 
 tion 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 
 cmdd 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 labour- 
 fund, and they increased the number of the labourei's. They bestowed on 
 unproductive consumers the bread which they took out of the mouths of the 
 profitable labourers ; and they, one by one, ground down the profitable labourers 
 to the grade of unproductive consumers. Under these laws, no one was secure, 
 and no one was happy. The labourers, 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-favoured 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-favoured as at the beginning," was realized by the 
 lal)ourers of England under the old Pooi--Laws. ■ 
 
 In 1807 Mr. Whitbread proposed to the House of Commons a very large and eddcation. 
 comprehensive measure of Poor-Law Reform. The principles which he advo- 
 cated were those of real statesmanship. To arrest the constant progress of 
 pauperism he desired to raise the character of the labouring 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 jMr. 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 educatiou then recently developed ; but the influence was 
 favourable 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 vaiu that in 1807 
 AMiitbread proclaimed the important truth, that nothing can possibly afford 
 greater stability to a popular government than the education of its people. 
 " Contemijlate ignorance in the hand of craft, — what a desperate weapon does it Hansard vol. 
 
 . , . viii. p. S77. 
 
 afford ! How impotent does craft become before an instructed and enlightened 
 multitude !" Again : " In the adoption of the system of education I foresee an iiiM-, p- sis. 
 enlightened peasantry, fi-ugal, industrious, sober, orderly, and contented ; be-
 
 76 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 [Book I. 
 
 1816. 
 
 Hansard., vol. ix. 
 p. .■>!18. 
 
 Ibid., vol. xxxiv. 
 p. SU. 
 
 cause they are acquainted with the true value of frugality, sobriety, industry, 
 and order. Crimes diminishing, because the enlightened understanding abhors 
 crime. The practice of Christianity prevailing, because the mass of your popu- 
 lation can read, comprehend, and feel its divine origin, and the beauty of the 
 doctrines which it inculcates. Your kingdom safe fi'om 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 these 
 truths ? He 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 : " 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 man- 
 kind, 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 connexion between ignorance and poverty was never 
 more clearly put, at a very early period of discussing such questions, than by the 
 Sumner's Records prcscut cxcellcnt Bishop of Chcstcr : " Iguoraucc is not the inevitable lot of the 
 vol. ii. p. 33». ' 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 per- 
 manent energy. As fast as the standard of intelligence is raised, the poor 
 become more and more able to co-operate in any plan proposed for their advan- 
 tage, 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 advan- 
 tage has been already gained against squalid poverty. Many avenues to an 
 improved condition are opened to one whose faculties are enlarged and exer- 
 cised ; he sees his own interest more clearly, he pursues it more steadily, he 
 does not study immediate gratiiication at the expense of bitter and late repent- 
 ance, or mortgage the labour of his future life without an adequate return. 
 Indigence, therefore, will rarely be found in company with good education." 
 
 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 
 Soutliwark. The motion, which was brought forward with great caution by the 
 mover, was unopposed. The Committee made its first Report on the 20th
 
 xxxiv. p. 1232. 
 
 Chap. VII.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. — 77 
 
 June, having conducted its inquiries with more than nsual activity. Tlie 1816. 
 enercv of Mr. Brougham, who acted as chairman, gave a remarl^ahle impulse ' ' 
 
 to this important investigation. It was found that in the metropohs there were 
 a hundred and twenty thousand chiklren without the means of education. On 
 presenting this Report, i\Ir. Brougham informed the House that the Committee uansard.voi 
 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 labours 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 expendi- 
 ture 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 edu- 
 cation 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 founda- 
 tion. An Act was subsequently passed, in consequence of the labours 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 benefits 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 J816. When Mr. Brougham first obtained his Committee, he said, "his ibid^,_TOi. xmSv. 
 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 should be found to succeed in Loudon, 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 pre- 
 sented his first Report, there was unanimity and even cordiality in its reception 
 by the House of Commons. Mr. Canning declared that "he should contribute ibid., vol. 
 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." 
 
 AVhat was the temper of the House and of the country in 1818 is strikingly 
 exhibited in a speech of Mr. Brougham's in 1835: — "In the year 1818 the 
 
 XXXIV. 
 
 p. 1235.
 
 78 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Eook I. 
 
 1810. labours of the Education Committee of the House of Commons,— labours to 
 
 ' ;- ■ which no man can attach too high a value,— were made the subject of great 
 
 H''o'u'se otLris coutroversy — a controversy as fierce and uncompromising as almost any that ever 
 oi'tte Prapk !'"" nio-ed, and to which I only refer as affording another reason for the hope I so 
 spec.d,es, vol. i.i. ^^^^^jj^ chcrish, that though now, perhaps, in a minority upon this, as uiJon many 
 other questions here debated, I yet may ultimately find myself with scarcely an 
 anta"-onist. 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 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 war- 
 fare which for months raged with unabated 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, afibrds 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 legis- 
 lative 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 
 labours. 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 452,000 children; but of course 
 many of these Sunday-scholars were included in the returns of other schools. 
 Savings Banks. In the plan of Poor-Law Refomi brought forward by Mr. Whitbread in 
 1807, he earnestly advocated the consideration of a mode by which the savings 
 Hansai.i, vol. of tlic poor might be safely and profitably invested : " I would propose the esta- 
 blishment of one great national institution, in the nature of a bank, for the use 
 and advantage of the labouring classes alone ; that it should be placed in the
 
 Chap. VII.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 79 
 
 metropolis, and be under the control and management of proper persons, to be 181G. 
 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 know- 
 ledge, or on proof, to subsist principally or alone by the wages of his labour, shall 
 be at liberty to remit to the Accountant of the Poor's Fund (as I would designate 
 it), in notes or cash, any sum from 20s. upwards ; but not exceeding 20/. in any 
 one year, nor more in the whole than 200/. 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 re-invested, 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 fur 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, labourers, 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 expe- 
 riment upon the possibility of the labouring 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 are spreading rapidly through Scot- EUn. Rev., 
 land ; 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 brilliant 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: "They to whom this subject is indifferent may censure our g„arteriy ect., 
 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 im- 
 jjrovcment 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 real philanthropist, whatever 
 be his party, may be easily distinguished from the language of the demagogue : 
 — " What a bubble ! At a time when it is notorious that one half of the whole cohbetfs legist., 
 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
 
 80 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book I. 
 
 1816. collecting the savings of journeymen and labourers 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 
 
 RepJrt'l'lsjT^ of institutions in existence would amount to 577 in the United Kingdom ; that 
 the total number of existing depositors would be 1,012,475 ; that they would 
 possess an aggregate of property amounting to 31,275,636/. ; and that the 
 whole number of depositors would have received interest amounting to 
 16,254,109/.* 
 
 eloin Marbles. There is one other measure of social improvement from which we cannot 
 withhold a slight notice. In 1816 the House of Commons passed a vote for 
 the purchase of the Elgin Marbles, for the sum of 35,000/. 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 : 
 
 Hansard, vol. a 'j-'ijp House had been warned, in the present circumstances of the country, not 
 
 XXMV. p. 10J4. 'I ^ ' 
 
 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 honour 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 
 manufiictures, the prosperity of trades, and the encouragement of industry ; 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 labourer, and to spread 
 through all the branches of society a spirit of improvement, and the means of a 
 sober and industrious aifluence." Slowly, indeed, have these great principles 
 progressed — but they have progressed. 
 
 * This Return is from August, 1817, to much increased since the making up of the 
 November, 1844. The number of banks and Return, 
 deiiositors, and amount of deposits, have been
 
 Chap. VIII.] DURING THE THIRTY YEAES' PEACE. 81 
 
 G 
 
 CHAPTER VIII.* 
 
 1817. 
 REAT movements and changes, wliich had for some time been going on in Spanish 
 the New World, now began to draw a more fixed attention than tliey 
 
 had hitlierto received from the Old, unfolding prospects in the highest degree 
 interesting to our own country in particular; and at this point it therefore be- 
 comes desirable to throw back such a rapid but com])rehensivc glance over the 
 events which had been taking place in those regions of the globe, as may at least 
 mark out correctly and distinctly their origin, their general course, and their 
 results. "\Miat was said by a distinguished writer a few years ago is still true : 
 — " The confused South American revolution, and set of revolutions, like the Article (by Mr. 
 
 o A • • • ic • 1 Carlvle) on Dr. 
 
 South American continent itself, is doubtless a great confused phenomenon : Francia, in the 
 
 , Foreign Quarterly 
 
 worthy of better knowledge than men yet have of it. Several books. . . .have Review for July, 
 been written on the subject ; but bad books mostly, and productive of almost no 
 effect. The heroes of South America have not yet succeeded in picturing any 
 image of themselves, much less any true image of themselves, in the Cis-Atlantic 
 mind or memory." Yet, scattered as they are in many books, and variously 
 represented to an extent probably exceeding any other example of the pro- 
 verbial uncertainty and contradiction of recent history, a sufficiency of well 
 established facts for our present purpose may be collected and arranged in 
 moderate space. 
 
 The vast dominions belonging to the crown of Spain on the American conti- 
 nent — stretching in an unbroken line over nearly seventy-seven degrees of lati- 
 tude — were originally divided into two viceroyalties : — that of Mexico, com- 
 prehending all the territory in North America, or from about the 7th to the 
 38th or 39tli degree of North latitude ; and that of Peru, extending over the 
 space, of varying breadth, from the Isthmus of Darien to about 38 degrees to 
 the south of the line. The seat of government in Mexico, often called the 
 Kingdom of New Spain, was the ancient city from which the viceroyalty took 
 its name, situated midway across the continent, and at no very incommodious 
 distance at first from any point in the actually occupied part of the country, 
 though far enough both from the extreme wildernesses of California and 
 Florida in the north-west and north-east, and from the equally unpenetrated 
 or unsubdued Mosquito country and the regions beyond it to the south. The 
 
 * This chapter on Spanish America is con- of this History ; it being premised that a 
 tributed by a friend who has bestowed on the general agreement of opinion as to the treat- 
 subject much attention. Similar assistance ment of the particular subject is an obvious 
 may be rendered in other special portions condition of such aid. — C. K. 
 
 VOL. I. M
 
 82 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Hook I. 
 
 ^Sn. capital of Peru was Lima, on the coast of the Pacific, thirty-two degrees of 
 latitude to the south of Mexico, but yet separated by twenty-six degrees 
 more from the southern extremity of the viceroyalty of which it was the nominal 
 head. In course of time, however, it was found expedient, as new interests 
 grew up, and places at a great distance from the two capitals rose into im- 
 portance, to separate certain portions from each of these enormous govern- 
 ments. In this way, first the northern portion of Peru was formed into a 
 third viceroyalty, that of New Grenada, with the city of Santa Fe de Bogota, 
 about halfway between Lima and Mexico, for its capital ; afterwards a still 
 larger territory was cut off from the ancient limits of Peru, on the south-east, 
 to form a fourth viceroyalty, that of the Rio de la Plata, the seat of government 
 for which was established at Buenos Ayres, near the mouth of the river so called, 
 on the opposite side of the continent. And at different times five minor govern- 
 ments were also constituted, with the name of captain-generalships : — namely, 
 that of Venezuela, composed of the eastern part of the viceroyalty of New 
 Grenada, with Caracas for its capital ; that of Chili, with Santiago for its 
 capital, formed of another portion of the ancient viceroyalty of Peru to the 
 south ; that of Guatimala, with its capital of the same name, abstracted from 
 the southern part of the viceroyalty of Mexico ; that of the Ilavannah, com- 
 prehending the island of Cuba and the Floridas ; and that of Porto Rico, to 
 wliich the other islands belonged. A recollection of these divisions will be 
 found convenient in follov/ing the detail of the events to be related now and in 
 subsequent notices of the same subject ; for the newly established independent 
 states have for the most part been formed out of the old viceroyalties and 
 captain-generalships. It only remains to be added that Jamaica was wrested from 
 this power by England in 1655 ; that it had been obliged to cede the western 
 part of Hispaniola (otherwise St. Domingo, or Hayti) to France in 1697, and the 
 remainder in 1795 ; that Florida, though ceded to England in 1763, was 
 recovered by Spain in 1781 ; that Louisiana, acquired from France in 17G3, 
 was restored to that country in 1800, and purchased from France by the United 
 States in 1803 ; and that the whole of the eastern portion of the South 
 American continent, with the exception of that part of the viceroyalty of Rio 
 de la Plata which extended to the Atlantic, and of English, Dutch, and French 
 Guyana, at the opposite point, formed the vast coimtry of Brazil, which had 
 always belonged to Portugal, and had only been Spanish for the sixty years 
 when the two countries were united, from 1580 to 1640. 
 
 In England we had been made familiar with one kind of colonization, or at 
 least of foreign occupation, by our North American, with another by our East 
 Indian possessions. In the former the original inliabitants had been entirely 
 displaced by the settlers ; in the latter the natives had been left undisturbed, 
 and only the government of the country had been taken possession of. The 
 Spanish colonization of the continent of America was a combination of the two 
 forms. The population there really or nominally subject to the Spanish sceptre 
 consisted in part of Spaniards and their descendants, in part of tlie aboriginal 
 races, in part of a mixture of the two. But even the portion of it that was of 
 pure European blood was divided in interests and affections, partly by the 
 natural efi:ects of position, partly by the peculiar policy adopted by the mother 
 country. Although the Creoles, or Auiericau-born descendants of settlers,
 
 Chap. VIII.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 83 
 
 were not legally disqualified for public employment in the land of their birth, 1817. 
 they were excluded by a rule of state or of custom which was very rarely 
 broken through. Almost all offices, from the highest to the lowest, in every 
 one of the governments, were uniformly and systematically bestowed upon 
 individuals sent out from Old Spain merely to reap the harvest of their appoint- 
 ments, the produce of which, besides, generally depended much less upon the 
 fixed salary than upon a multitude of arbitrary or irregular fees and exactions 
 only to be properly designated by the term pillage. And this was only the 
 most conspicuous or obtrusive of the grievances of which the colonists had to 
 complain, and which tended both to keep them in a state of depression and to 
 alienate them in heart from the mother country, or at least might be counted 
 upon as sure to produce the latter effect whenever circumstances should afford 
 them a prospect of escaping from the former. For the policy appears, it must 
 be confessed, to a great extent to have answered its purpose so long as the 
 Creoles, kept down and insulted as they were, and as they must have felt 
 themselves to be, had still no other vision of patriotism to cling to than what 
 was supplied by their connexion, such as it was, with the country of their 
 ancestors. They were not Spaniards, it is true ; but as little were they 
 Americans : in some of the governments more particularly they were still 
 only an alien minority intermingled with or surrounded by another population, 
 that of the native tribes and the mixed races, who properly were the real 
 Americans, and considered themselves to have the rightful claim to the soil as 
 against both Creole and Spaniard. 
 
 In fact, the case to which the Spanish colonization of America bears the 
 closest resemblance is the English colonization of Ireland. The position of the 
 descendants of the English settlers in that country used to correspond exactly 
 to that of the Creoles : in one part of the country they were in a minority, 
 in another in a majority, as compared with the native population and that of 
 mixed blood ; but everywhere, while they were not looked upon as Irish, they 
 were at the same time not looked upon as English. They were almost as 
 completely excluded from public employment as the native Irish themselves ; 
 no Irishman was, as such, disqualified from holding office, but in point of fact 
 almost all government offices were held by Englishmen. They and the Creoles 
 of America were thus in like manner drawn by two opposite interests ; and 
 both were so situated as that, in the event of a contest of arms breaking out, 
 they would find themselves between two fires. The forces, and many of the 
 particular circumstances, were different in the two cases ; but what did take 
 place, or might naturally have taken place, in the one may enable us to 
 perceive what was the tendency of things in the other. Spaniards are not 
 Englishmen ; the free constitution of England did not permit Ireland to be 
 ruled in all respects as America was ruled by Spain ; no Dean Swift arose to 
 awaken in the Creoles the feeling that they were or ought to be a nation : nor had 
 they ever enjoyed even such semblance or shadow of free institutions as the 
 Protestants of Ireland possessed in their so-called Parliament and their other 
 English forms of government. But yet the policy pursued in the two cases was, 
 as far as circumstances permitted, the same in spirit and in principle. The 
 maintenance of the subordination of the colonized to the colonizing and govern- 
 ing country was alike the object in both ; both in Ireland and in Spanish Ame- 
 
 M 2
 
 84 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book I. 
 
 1817. rica nearly all places of honour and profit were reserved for natives of the 
 mother country ; expensive establishments, both civil and ecclesiastical, were 
 kept up almost exclusively for their benefit; the indigenous commerce and 
 manufectures were put in shackles, or strangled outright, that those of the 
 mother country might flourish or might be fi-eed from competition — in the case 
 of America, indeed, that the mother country with suicidal infatuation might 
 merely indulge in a little more luxury and a little more laziness and idleness. 
 Most of the grievances — of the real grievances — of Ireland, have fortunately 
 been redressed in time ; but the position in which the Anglo-Irish would have 
 found themselves in any attempt to effect the independence of that country in 
 other circumstances would have a good deal resembled that of the Creoles at the 
 breaking out of the revolutionary movements in Spanish America. If the Irish 
 insurrection had been originally a native, and, therefore, a Roman Catholic one, 
 the part of the population which was of English descent would certainly have 
 been withheld from joining it by its English and Protestant sympathies ; but it 
 might have been otherwise with an attempt of the same kind springing from 
 another quarter. There might have been for a time considerable indecision and 
 hesitation with the half-English half-Irishman ; where he was surrounded by a 
 preponderating native population, what was anti-Irisli in him would, probably, 
 in the first instance, have inclined him to stand aloof from, or to oppose, the 
 movement ; where there was less to alarm him with the prospect of a worse 
 domination if he should succeed in throwing oflPthat of England, he would per- 
 haps in most cases have at once joined the national cause. But in either case 
 that cause was sure of him in the end. So it was with the Creoles when the 
 standard of independence was raised in Spanish America. They owed no gra- 
 titude to the mother country, which had treated them not as a mother, but as a 
 step-mother ; and if, fi-om old tradition, or use and wont, they felt any attach- 
 ment in that quarter, the feeling was not of a nature long to withstand the sen- 
 timent of a more immediate nationality, drawing them in an opposite direction, 
 when once fairly awakened and called into action. Still, they had been accus- 
 tomed to look up to Old Spain as their natural head and protector, in the want 
 of any other ; and even the state of subserviency in which she had kept them 
 had tended to nourish both their want of confidence in themselves and their 
 actual incapacity for self-government. But what must have chiefly weighed 
 with them was the chance they might think they had of being able to secure a 
 position in the country, at least equal to what they had hitherto held, in the event 
 of its becoming independent. Would they be strong enough, after the Euro- 
 peans were driven out, to prevent themselves from being brought under a still 
 more oppressive yoke, by the population of native origin and mixed blood, 
 than that under which they were kept by Spain ? It was a serious question, 
 and might well make them both pause and vacillate. And so in fact they did, 
 or evinced an inclination to do, wherever the prospect before them was thus 
 dubious, until compelled by the force of circumstances to take their side. But 
 they were, of course, the only portion of the population who thus hesitated, at 
 least from any doubt or divided feeling as to what might be the consequences 
 of the struggle for independence if it should prove successful. The natives and 
 the mixed castes might be deterred by considerations of prudence from rising 
 in revolt ; but at heart they were, in every one of the colonies, naturally as
 
 Chap. VIII.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 85 
 
 much united in aversion to the dominion of Spain, as the handful of public func- 1817. 
 tionaries and other native Spaniards resident for the time in the country were 
 in its support. 
 
 We shall find presently, however, that when the struggle did at last come, 
 it was in circumstances which still further complicated the calculations both of 
 the Creoles, and even of the public functionaries themselves and other colonists 
 of European birth. But we must first notice some occurrences of earlier date. 
 
 The emancipation of Spanish America had been a speculation among poli- 
 ticians ever since the establishment of the independence of the English colonies. 
 England owed Spain a return in kind for the assistance she had lent to that 
 revolution ; France, herself revolutionized by the rebound of the blow she had 
 struck at England in America, was impelled by all sorts of reasons, or motives, 
 to propagate the movement under which she was herself convulsed and heaving ; 
 as soon as Spain should break with either of these powers, she was in danger 
 of having the same game to play in her trans- Atlantic dominions in which 
 England had lately been engaged in hers. Indeed, while the contest between 
 England and her colonics still raged, an insurrection of the Creoles and Indians 
 had broken out in Peru and New Grenada ; and two years after, another in the 
 former viceroyalty, which had at first threatened to prove much more serious, 
 and which it was thought might probably have succeeded so far as to wrest 
 all the mountainous part of the country from Spain if the sanguinary proceed- 
 ings of the Indians had not soon produced a separation between them and their 
 allies of white and mixed race. The English Government had made an attempt 
 to turn the first of these outbreaks to account ; but an e.xpedition which was 
 fitted out for that purpose was not more wisely planned, nor more ably or suc- 
 cessfully conducted, than the generality of the other operations of this unfor- 
 tunate war. 
 
 In an PZnglish publication, the Political tierald and Review for 1785, there 
 appeared the following paragraph: — "The flame which was kindled in North 
 America, as was foreseen, has made its way into the American dominions 
 of Spain. That jealousy which confined the appointments of government in 
 Spanish America to native Spaniards, and established other distinctions between 
 these and their descendants on the other side the Atlantic, has been a two-edged 
 sword, and cut two ways. If it has hitherto preserved the sovereignty of Spain 
 in those parts, it has sown the seeds of a deep resentment among the people. 
 Conferences are held, combinations are formed in secret, among a race of men 
 whom we shall distinguish by the appellation of Spanish Provincials. The ex- 
 ample of North America is the great subject of discourse, and the grand object 
 of imitation. In London we are well assured there is at this moment a Spanish 
 American of great consequence, and possessed of the confidence of his fellow- 
 citizens, who aspires to the glory of being the deliverer of his country." 
 
 The above passage is quoted in a remarkable article which was published in 
 the number of the Edinburgh Review for January, 1809. The personage 
 thus announced was Francisco de Miranda, afterwards famous under the name 
 of General Miranda. He w-as a Creole, a native of the city of Caracas, in 
 Venezuela, where he is said to have been born about the middle of the last 
 century. His family was one of the most opulent and distinguished in the pro- 
 vince of Caracas, of which his grandfather had been governor. Having been
 
 86 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book I. 
 
 1817. iJermltted to come over to Spain when only seventeen, he had, by the influence 
 
 '^ ~- of liis family, obtained a captain's commission in the Spanish army ; and he 
 
 afterwards served with his regiment in North America in the war between Eng- 
 land and her colonies. At the peace he resigned his commission, and it was 
 now that he made his first visit to England, whence he afterwards proceeded to 
 the Continent, and made a tour through the principal countries of Europe. 
 Returning to England in 1789, or the beginning of 1790, he was introduced to 
 Mr. Pitt, to whom he submitted a plan for the emancipation of the Spanish 
 colonies, to which that minister is said to have given the most cordial reception ; 
 but, the dispute with Spain about Nootka Sound being soon after adjusted, the 
 scheme was dropped for the present. It is asserted, however, by the writer in 
 EdinburKh Rev. the Edinburgh Review, who is understood to have derived his information from 
 for^jan. 180J, p. jjjj.j^jjjj^ Jjimsclf, that Pitt assured Miranda the measure would not be lost 
 sight of, " but would infallibly engage the attention of every minister of this 
 country." These words must have been well remembered thirty-three years 
 after by Canning. 
 
 Miranda now turned to the revolutionary government of France, and accepted 
 a military command in its service. In the end of November, 1792, Brissot 
 wrote from Paris to Dumouriez, with whom Miranda then was in the Nether- 
 lands, strongly in-ging that general to give his consent to a plan for sending 
 him out to the West Indies, first to quiet St. Domingo, then to rouse all 
 Spanish America, and finally to come back and revolutionize Old Spain itself. 
 This magnificent design, however, never got farther than paper. Miranda 
 himself seems to have had great misgivings about the premier pas — the reduc- 
 ibid.pp.28s,283. tion of St. Domingo. It is asserted, too, that he had by this time begun to fear 
 that the revolution in France " was proceeding too fast and too far ;" and 
 that, although he was soon after thrown into confinement by Robespierre, he 
 might still, after the death of that tyrant, have become a leading man in the 
 revolution if he had not refused the command of an army, which was odered to 
 liim by the new government, on the plea that " though he had fought for 
 liberty, it was not his purpose to fight for conquest." It is added, that he 
 forthwith, in 1795, published at Paris a pamphlet maintaining these viev/s. 
 
 After all, however, it was not by Miranda, or through his instrumentality, 
 
 that the next attempt was made to effect the separation and independence of 
 
 Spanish America. Already, in 1794, conspiracies of which little is known had 
 
 broken out both in New Grenada and in Mexico. It was given out by the 
 
 Spanish government that the latter was the work of two Frenchmen, and that 
 
 their plan was to murder the viceroy and his family, and to deliver up the city 
 
 of Mexico to be plundered by the Indians. But what took place three years 
 
 Lavaysse's re- after in Venezuela belongs more to our present subject. In the early part of 
 
 n"iaeK&"''' 'lic ycar 1797 three individuals, who had been detected in revolutionary prac- 
 
 tion!"Lond"f'2o, ^'^68 in Old Spain, arrived in the town of La Guaira, sentenced to imprisonment 
 
 svo,pp.22ti«,. for lifg jjj o,-,g Qf ^jjg fyj.jg j.|jyj.g rj>j^gy ^,j,j.j, pgrsons of great talent and 
 
 engaging manners ; one of them, Picornel, had for his exciting eloquence won 
 from bis countrymen the sui-name of the Spanish Mirabeau ; their fame had 
 probably gone before them to the New World ; their fate awakened a general 
 sympathy, which extended even to the garrison and the governor of the fort ; 
 and the indulgence with whidi they were treated, and the liberty they were
 
 S' 
 
 Chap, VIII.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 87 
 
 allowed of receiving visits and conversing v^ith many of tlie inhabitants, soon 1817. 
 enabled them to make both personal friends and converts to their principles. It 
 so chanced that the popular mind in the province of Caracas, in which La 
 Guaira is, was at the moment in an irritated state in consequence of some harsh 
 proceedings of the police authorities, and certain alleged illegal or imfair exac- 
 tions of the officers of the customs. In this condition of things it was hoped and 
 believed that the fuel of revolution only wanted to have a light put to it ; and a 
 conspiracy was organized, at the head of which were two Creoles, Don Manuel 
 Gual, who had served in the army as a captain of engineers, and Don Joseph 
 de Espafia, the corregidor of the village of Macuto, near La Guaira. both 
 described as among the most distinguished persons in the province for birth and 
 fortune, as well as for talent. But on the evening of the 13th of July, the day 
 before their attempt was to be made, a sudden terror seized one of the con- 
 pirators. Demanding to be conducted to the Archbishop, he confessed every- 
 thing, and put the authorities in possession of the names of his associates, on 
 receiving an assurance that his life should be saved. Both Gual and Espafia 
 made their escape, but seventy-two other persons were immediately arrested ; 
 Espana also was soon taken ; and, after the proceedings had been protracted for 
 nearly two years, seven of the prisoners were condemned to death, and five 
 were executed. Espana was also drawn and quartered at Caracas on the 
 8th of May, 1799. Thirty-three more were consigned to the galleys; the rest 
 were sent over to Spain, where they were kept in custody till 1802, and then 
 pardoned. 
 
 The scheme of Gual and his associates is admitted to have gone the full 
 length of both throwing off the dominion of the mother country, and establishing 
 a democratic republic in imitation of that of the United States, or perhaps rather 
 of some one of the systems that had been tried in France ; nor indeed could it 
 well be supposed that the former event would ever take place in any of the 
 Spanish American states without being accompanied or followed by the latter. 
 The only sort of independent government for which the materials existed in any 
 of these States was a democratic republic ; unless, indeed, the power of the sword 
 should carry it, and a military dictatorship or absolutism should be set up. 
 This was a consideration which it may be thought would be likely to weigh 
 powerfully in restraining any English minister from lieing very eager to set the 
 revolutionary spirit in motion. Yet that Pitt had made up his mind to disregard 
 such scruples is sufficiently clear. Immediately after our acquisition of the , 
 island of Trinidad in February, 1797, Sir Thomas Picton, the governor, circu- 
 lated a proclamation on the coast of the neighbouring continent, in which the 
 inhabitants were called upon " to resist the oppressive authority of the Sj)anlsh 
 Government," and were assured that measures had been taken " to support 
 them by means of the British naval force, and to supply them with arms and 
 ammunition, merely to enable them to maintain their commercial indepen- 
 dence ; without any desire on the part of the King of England to acquire any 
 right of sovereignty over them, or to interfere with their civil, political, or reli- 
 gious rights, unless they themselves should in any degree solicit his protection." 
 The writer, also, whom we have chiefly followed in our account of the conspiracy 
 of La Guaira, and who, although somewhat prejudiced, had peculiar opportuni- 
 ties of information, affirms that the moment the island of Trinidad came into our Uvaysse, p. 21.
 
 88 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book I. 
 
 18 1'^- possession, we established there a focus of insurrection, with the view of making 
 Spanish America independent. And all this is perfectly consistent with what 
 is related on the best authority of the communications that took place between 
 Pitt and General Miranda shortly after. 
 Edin. Rev. for j(; geems to havo been in this same year, 1797, that Miranda was waited upon 
 
 Jan. 1809, pp. •' . ■ HT ■ 
 
 ibu-aaa. at Paris by several persons deputed irom the revolutionary party ni Mexico, 
 
 and other provinces in Spanish America, to consult with him on the measures to 
 be taken for accomplishing the independence of that continent ; upon which it 
 was resolved that the General should immediately solicit leave to return to 
 England, with the view of laying their schemes and proposals before the govern- 
 ment of this country. The request was at once acceded to by Pitt ; and Miranda 
 accordingly came over in the beginning of 1798, bringing with him an instru- 
 ment drawn up and agreed upon at Paris on the 22nd of December preceding, 
 which began by stating that the II ispano- American colonies, having for the most 
 part resolved to proclaim their independence, were induced to address them- 
 selves to the government of Great Britain, in the confidence that she would not 
 refuse them her assistance ; and in subsequent articles proposed that a sum of 
 thirty millions sterling should be paid for this assistance by the American States, 
 and that a defensive alliance should be formed between those States, the United 
 States of North America, and England — an arrangement, said the paper, which 
 may be confidently declared to afford the only hope that remains to liberty, 
 audaciously outraged by the detestable maxims avowed by the Republic of 
 France, and the only means of establishing such a balance of power as may be 
 able to restrain the destructive ambition and devastating energy of the French 
 system. This would seem to betoken a parentage for the present scheme dif- 
 ferent from that of the recent conspiracy of La Guaira and its " Spanish Mira- 
 beau." Florida was to be ceded to the United States, and all the Spanish West 
 India islands were to be given up, except Cuba. It is stated that Miranda laid 
 this project before Mr. Pitt, at a conference which he had with him immediately 
 after his arrival in England ; that it was acquiesced in and adopted by the 
 English minister, and the outline of the proceedings for carrying it into effect 
 fully agi-eed upon ; and that by the month of October the arrangements were so 
 far advanced as that everything depended upon the concurrence of the United 
 States. " The proposal was," the narrative proceeds, " that North America 
 should furnish 10,000 troops, and the British Government agreed to find money 
 and ships. But the President Adams declined to transmit an immediate 
 answer, and the measure was in consequence postponed." 
 
 We apprehend that no doubt can be entertained as to the substantial truth of 
 this piece of secret history, although the Edinburgh Review, in which the par- 
 ticulars originally appeared, afterwards (in its Number for November, 1811) 
 thought jtroper to speak with disparagement of Miranda and his schemes, but 
 without disavowing any of the statements in its former article. These state- 
 ments are there in great part supported by documentary evidence, which it is 
 impossible to suspect of being fabricated for the occasion. The facts are also 
 repeated in the work entitled ' Colombia,' published at London in 1822, on the 
 authority of the son of General Miranda. 
 
 The writer in the Edinburgh Review for 1809 goes on to state that the 
 scheme of emancipation as projected by Miranda was again taken up by the
 
 Chap. VIII.J DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 89 
 
 British Government in the heginning of 1801, during the Addington adminis- 1817. 
 tration ; when the plans of government to be recommended to the Spanish 
 American States were considered and approved, and even the mihtary operations 
 sketched and arranged ; but, when the preparations for the expedition had been 
 far advanced, the measure was again put a stop to for the present by the Peace 
 of Amiens. "When war," it is added, "was again declared against France in 
 1803, the business of South America formed one of the principal designs of 
 ministers ; and measures were taken to earn' it into effect the moment that the 
 peace which still subsisted with Spain should be broken. This event did not 
 occur till 1804, when Mr. Pitt was again at the head of administration. The 
 measure was now prosecuted with zeal ; Lord Melville and Sir Home Popham 
 were employed in arranging with General Miranda the whole details of proce- 
 dure ; when the execution was again suspended by the affairs of Europe, and by 
 the hopes and exertions of the Third Coalition." Other accounts of Miranda 
 make him to have in the mean time returned to Paris in 1803, and to have been 
 soon after banished from France by Bonaparte. 
 
 He was now importuned by numerous applications from his countrymen resid- 
 ing in exile in the United States and in the island of Trinidad to come over and 
 make an attempt to effect their common object with such means as he could raise 
 on the other side of the Atlantic. He felt secure that at any rate no body of 
 French or Spanish troops would be permitted by the British Government to pro- 
 ceed to America to obstruct his designs ; so, thinking in these circumstances that 
 no great force woidd be required to effect the revolution, and deriving also some 
 hope that the United States would be inclined to assist him, from the disputes 
 then subsisting between that power and Spain respecting Louisiana, " with a full Eini Kcv. for 
 understanding," we are assured, " on the part of the Government here, and even, '"' '^' 
 as it would seem, with promise of support, he proceeded to America." But the 
 turn of events once more for the moment befriended Spain. '\Mien Miranda 
 reached the LTnited States, he " found, to his mortification, that a compromise on 
 the subject of Louisiana had alreadj' taken place, and that the public aid of 
 Government was not to be obtained." He was encouraged, however, to hope 
 that his proceedings would be secretly favoured ; and in this persuasion he at 
 last succeeded in inducing a considerable number of persons to join him in fitting 
 out an armament. Urged by the solicitations of the Spanish and French ambas- 
 sadors, the government of the United States now interposed, and instituted a 
 prosecution against the owner and the captain of an armed vessel in which two 
 hundred volunteers had embarked upon the expedition from New York ; but the 
 jury, convinced that the government had been pri\y to the whole afl'air, brought 
 in a verdict of acquittal. Other mischances, however, followed; above all, the 
 delay that had occurred enabled the Spanish authorities to obtain precise infor- 
 mation as to the point where the attack was to be made, and to make the neces- 
 sary preparations for defence. Two of his three small vessels having fallen into CoiomWa, «. son. 
 the hands of the guarda-costas, he put back to Trinidad, and applied for assist- 
 ance to Sir Alexander Cochrane, the British Admiral commanding on the station, 
 who in the first instance at once ordered some sloops and gun-boats to accom- 
 pany him on the expedition, and some time after sent him a ship of the line and 
 two frigates, with reiterated assurances of support. He was also permitted to 
 recruit his force both in Trinidad and in Barbadoes. But after some time the 
 
 AOL. I. N
 
 90 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book I. 
 
 1817. Admiral wrote to him that, "by recent instructions received from England, he 
 Edin. Rev. for was dircctcd to limit the assistance General Miranda was to receive from him to 
 Jan. 1909, p. 295. p[.Q);ection from the naval force of the enemy, to prevent succours being landed, 
 and to secure his re-embarkation in the event of his being obliged to leave the 
 Ojiombia, ii. 300. sliorc." Meanwhile, Miranda had set sail on the 24th of July, 1806, for the 
 coast of Caracas, with a fleet of fifteen vessels, having on board a force of five 
 hundred volunteers. On the morning of the 2nd of August he efl^ected a land- 
 ing at the town of La Vela de Coro, in the face of a force of 1200 men, com- 
 posed of Spanish soldiers and Indians, who, after a slight resistance, fled in all 
 directions ; and the place, with its forts, gvms, stores, and ammunition, fell into 
 his hands. From this point he advanced to the city of Coro, fifteen miles up 
 the country, and containing a population of 12,000, which he entered the next 
 morning ; but after some days, learning that troops were collecting to attack 
 him, and finding that the smallness of his force prevented the people from join- 
 ing him, he deemed it expedient to evacuate Coro, and to return to the coast. 
 He now dispatched an officer to General Sir Eyre Coote and Admiral Dacres, 
 commanding on the Jamaica station, requesting succours ; but the answer 
 returned was, that they regretted they could not comply with his application, 
 having received no instructions authorizing them to do so. Soon after, reports, 
 which proved to be unfounded, arrived that preliminaries of peace had been 
 signed by Lord Lauderdale at Paris ; upon which Miranda gave up all hope 
 of success, and retired to Trinidad. 
 
 It has been asserted that our abandonment of Miranda, or of his schemes, 
 was in deference to the wishes of Russia. From this moment the policy of 
 England in regard to Spanish America assumed a new character. It has been 
 asserted that when plans for attacking Spain in America were laid before the 
 British Government during what is called the Anti-Jacobin War, that is, the 
 Edin. Ann. Reg. war from 1793 to 1801, " they were always discouraged by a distinguished 
 member of the Cabinet, who, knowing the horrors which must necessarily accom- 
 pany a revolution in those countries, thought rightly that no political interests 
 could justify him to his own heart for spreading the plague ;" and that conse- 
 quently nothing was done or attempted. The facts that have just been detailed 
 show that the discouragement of plans for revolutionizing America, or the avoid- 
 ance of that mode of annoying Spain, was not the policy of the British Govern- 
 ment so long as Mr. Pitt lived. The history of this question exhibits one of the 
 many remarkable instances of how much more influential in directing the course 
 of a political party, at any particular emergency, is usually its position than its 
 principles. It was the Whigs who were formerly always opposed to the ])olicy of 
 encoiu'aging any attempt of the people of Spanish America to throw ofi" the domi- 
 nion of the mother country. As the close of the seventeenth century saw those 
 who were considered as pre-eminently the guardians and champions of civil and 
 religious liberty the foremost in imposing restrictions and penalties upon the 
 Roman Catholics, and as the early part of the present century saw the same great 
 party, with all its free and popular principles, the systematic apologists, if not 
 admirers, of the tyranny of Napoleon Bonaparte, so the latter part of the last saw 
 the same Whigs courting the friendship of the Russian Autocratess Catherine, 
 and discountenancing the emancipation of Spanish America. The \Vhig feeling 
 upon this last subject seems to have taken its rise from the course of events in
 
 Chap. VIII.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 91 
 
 our war with our own American colonies. The excitement of insurrection in 1817. 
 Spanish x'Vmerica was originally a part of the ministerial policy for carrying on 
 that war, and as such was distasteful to the friends of the independence of English 
 America. Its suhsequent adoption by Pitt in the war with revolutionary France, 
 to which the same party were as much opposed as they had been to the preceding 
 war with our American colonies, did not tend to remove or lessen their dislike 
 of it. And thus it happened that the accession of the Whigs to power on the 
 death of Pitt, in the beginning of the year 1806, at once, as we have intimated, 
 completely changed the policy of England upon this subject. The emancipation 
 of Spanish America was distinctly disavowed, by word and by act, as an object 
 to the furthering of wliich the English Government would give either aid or 
 encouragement. For emancipation was now substituted a new project, that of 
 the conquest of South America. The evidence by which this is proved is con- 
 clusive and abundant. About the same time that Miranda was preparing for 
 his attack upon Caracas, Sir Home Popham set out from the Cape of Good 
 Hope on his expedition against Buenos Ayres. It has been said that Sir Home's 
 design had received some countenance from Pitt ; but we do not know in what 
 shape it was laid before that minister ; we only know that the expedition, as 
 actually undertaken, was altogether imauthorized by instructions from home. 
 Buenos Ayres fell into the hands of the English on the 27th of June ; and the 
 capturing force was compelled to surrender to the Spaniards on the 12th of 
 August. So far the disastrous and disgraceful story involves nobody but Sir 
 Home Popham, the sole contriver and conductor of the whole affair. With 
 the events that followed we have nothing to do here, except in so far as the 
 measures directed by the new Whig administration indicated, and the instruc- 
 tions sent out by them declared, the new principles and policy which this country 
 had adopted in regard to Spanish America. Reinforcements were dispatched 
 from England to the Rio de la Plata, under the command of Sir Samuel Auch- 
 muty, in October ; and about the same time an expedition was sent to the 
 western coast of South America, with a military force of 4200 men under the 
 command of Brigadier-General Crawfurd. The reader has seen the procla- 
 mation issued by Sir Thomas Picton to the people of Spanish America in 1797, 
 under the direction of Pitt ; altogether different and opposite were the instruc- 
 tions now given in " a most secret letter " from the Right Hon. William Wind- 
 ham, Secretary-at-War, to General Crawfurd. If he should succeed in reducing 
 any part of the American continent, the General was expressly directed to 
 employ all the means in his power, whether of authority or conciliation, to 
 prevent among the inhabitants a spirit of insurrection. All the forms of their 
 former government were to be preserved, subject only to those changes which 
 might be rendered necessary by the substitution of his Majesty's authority for 
 that of the King of Spain. The part, it was added, of the General's conduct 
 requiring most caution would be that which related to the assurances to be 
 given to the inhabitants as to the support which they might expect on the con- 
 clusion of a peace ; and he was to take the greatest care to go no further than 
 to promise them protection so long as his Majesty's troops should remain in 
 force in the country, and to declare that it would be the anxious wish of his 
 Majesty so to regulate the conditions of any future peace, as to leave them no 
 cause for apprehension. Crawfurd was afterwards ordered to proceed, not to 
 
 N 2
 
 92 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book I. 
 
 1817. the western coast, but to the Rio de La Phita ; and in March, 1807, an additional 
 force was sent to the same quarter under General Whitelocke. The instruc- 
 tions o-iven to M'hitelocke were of the same tenor with those that had been given 
 to Crawfurd. 
 
 INIeanwhile, the town of Montevideo had been taken by assault by Sir Samuel 
 Auchmuty on the 3rd of February. A letter wi-itten from that place by Sir 
 Samuel to Mr. Windham on the 6tli of March exhibits the new system of policy 
 in its effects. Sir Sanuiel begins by observing that, from the appearances which 
 presented themselves when he first arrived in the country, he had had every 
 reason to believe that the inhabitants were without exception inimical. " Pre- 
 viously to the surrender of Montevideo," he goes on, " I could not place the 
 least confidence in any information I received ; nor did any person superior to 
 the lowest class come over to me. After its capture a sullen silence pervaded 
 every rank ; and for some time the best informed among the principal citizens 
 appeared ignorant of the most trifling occurrences." News tlien arrived that 
 the Spanish viceroy had been seized at Buenos Ayres by the inhabitants ; and 
 this event, Sir Samuel says, first gave him an insight into the views of many of 
 the leading men, and convinced him that, however inimical they were to the 
 English, they were still more so to their present government. " To the reports," 
 he continues, " of the capture of the viceroy, it was added, that the royal Court 
 of Audienza was abolished, the king's authority set aside, and the Spanish 
 colours no longer hoisted. These reports were circulated with avidity, and I 
 soon found that they were acceptable to the principal part of the inhabitants. 
 The persons who appeared before hostile and inveterate, now pressed me to 
 advance a corps to Buenos Ayres ; and assured me, if I would acknowledge 
 their independence, and promise them the protection of the English government, 
 the place would submit to me." It was afterwards ascertained that the reports 
 of the suppression of the Court of Audiencia, and of the general overthrow of 
 the Spanish government, were unfounded ; the Spanish party, consisting mostly 
 of natives of Old Spain, yet retained themselves in power. " But it appears," 
 Sir Samuel writes in conclusion, " that there are two parties in that city. . . . 
 The second party consists of natives of the country, with some Spaniards that 
 are settled in it. The oppression of the mother country has made them most 
 anxious to throw off" the Spanish yoke ; and, though from their ignorance, their 
 want of morals, and the barbarity of their disposition, they are totally unfitted 
 to govern themselves, they aim at following the steps of the North Americans, 
 and erecting an independent state. If we could promise them independence, 
 they would instantly revolt against the government, and join us with the great 
 mass of the inhabitants. But, though nothing less than independence will per- 
 fectly satisfy them, they would prefer our government, either to their present 
 anarchy or to the Spanish yoke, provided we would promise not to give up the 
 country to Spain at a peace ; but, until svxch a promise is made, we must expect 
 to find them open or secret enemies." Nothing else, indeed, could be reason- 
 ably looked for. Gross incompetency, presumption, and rashness made the end 
 of all more lamentable and humiliating than it needed to have been ; but it is 
 not probable that we could have long maintained our position in the country, 
 upon the principle on which its occupation was now attempted, by the ablest ma- 
 nagement or at any cost. General Whitelocke made his insane attack upon
 
 Chap. VIIL] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 93 
 
 Buenos Ayres on the 5th of July ; and on tlie next day signed a capitulation, by 1817. 
 which he surrendered both that town and Montevideo, and agreed to evacuate 
 South America. 
 
 It does not follow that the Whig policy may not after all have been both the 
 safest and the justest. If the inhabitants of Spanish America were really not 
 ripe for free institutions and fit to govern themselves, to encourage them to rise 
 and attempt to shake otF the dominion of the mother country was consistent 
 neither with prudence nor with any higher principle of public morality. All 
 that we would note here is the remarkable contradiction which the case presents 
 in both parties between principle and practice. We have the holders of anti- 
 popular doctrines on the subject of government eagerly evoking and endeavour- 
 ing to inflame the spirit of insurrection ; their opponents as anxiously seeking 
 to suppress it,_ and in every way evincing their distrust and dread of it. The 
 inconsistency is equal on both sides. 
 
 But was not the same thing shown in the general views of the two parties 
 upon the conduct of the war ? By whom was the popular resistance to Bona- 
 parte in Old Spain applauded and encouraged ? Certainly not by the Whigs. 
 They had little hope that the tide of French aggression could be stayed in any 
 way ; none whatever that it could be met and turned in that way. And this 
 brings us round again to the emancipation of Spanish America. It was out of 
 the state to which the mother country was reduced by the French invasion in 
 1808, that the next movements in that quarter sprung. 
 
 The first effect produced throughout all the Spanish American States by the 
 news of that invasion appears to have been a strong feeling of sympathv with the 
 national cause. It is said that the contributions transmitted from America to 
 the Central Junta in Spain during the years 1808 and 1809 amounted to 
 upwards of ninety millions of dollars. Even, however, amid the first general 
 astonishment and enthusiasm, it is asserted that most of the public functionaries, 
 and also many of the Creoles, betrayed considerable hesitation in making choice 
 between their legitimate sovereign and the French emperor, if not a decided 
 inclination to transfer their allegiance to the latter, in conformity with the decree 
 signed by the Council of the Indies. The question seemed to them to be, 
 whether they should hold by the royal family or by the country, by the King or 
 by the kingdom ; and those of them at least who were Spaniards born, and had 
 only come to reside for a few years in America, naturally regarded the preserva- 
 tion of the connexion with Europe as the point to which everything else was to 
 be sacrificed or postponed. It mattered comparatively little in their estimation 
 who was King of Spain, if only he were King of the Indies also. The thing to 
 be really dreaded for them was not the union or subjection of Spain to France, 
 but the separation of America from Spain. And even those of the Creoles who 
 believed that the mother country had no chance of escaping from the grasp of 
 Bonaparte had a more perplexed problem than ever to solve in this new position 
 of affairs : if they still shrunk from declaring for the independence of the colonies, 
 it might very well seem doubtful to them whether they would probably be better 
 able to maintain things for the present as they were, by attaching themselves to 
 the Spanish interest or to the French. On the other hand, a separation from 
 the mother country, if it should come, was by no means so sure to prove unfor- 
 tunate for them as for the government functionaries ; and accordingly the great
 
 94 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book I. 
 
 1817. body of the Creoles, obeying what was at such a moment the natural impulse of 
 such sentiment of nationality as they possessed, came forward zealously at first 
 in maintenance of the rights of the old royal family. Even fi-om the first, how- 
 ever, it is probable that many of this class were secretly looking forward to the 
 chance which the misfortunes of the mother country might afford of wresting the 
 colonies from her dominion, whoever sliould ultimately become her king. 
 
 It is said that the only one of the viceroys and other chief governors who was 
 not ready to transfer his allegiance to Bonaparte when the news was received of 
 the French occupation of Madrid was Don Jose Iturrigaray, the Viceroy of 
 Mexico. There is reason to suspect that even he was similarly inclined with 
 the rest in the first instance, but the popular voice calling upon him to preserve 
 his fidelity to his legitimate sovereign was raised with so much energy that he 
 suddenly became extremely patriotic. AVhen the Creoles at length began to 
 clamour for the establishment of a Junta, or committee of government, in imita- 
 tion of what had by this time been done in the mother country, and even for the 
 convocation of a Mexican National Assembly, or Parliament, he seemed to be 
 inclined to accede to both propositions. These proceedings of the Creoles in 
 Mexico appear to have been the first having anything of the character of a 
 popular movement that took place in any of the colonies. They proved fatal to 
 the authority of Iturrigaray. The Audlencia, or court of supreme jurisdiction, 
 deemed the course the Viceroy was taking so revolutionary and dangerous that 
 Ward's Mexico, Qu the niglit of the 15th of November they caused him to be seized in his bed, 
 
 1. 155. . "^ 
 
 and instantly hurried away to the prisons of the Inquisition. 
 
 The irritation and ill blood, and even the actual disturbances, produced by 
 these events were never allayed in Mexico. The Americans of all classes were 
 from this time united here in opposition to the Spaniards ; and although the 
 Creoles generally might not at first contemplate a renunciation of the dominion 
 of the mother country, they were thrown into a position which would be sure to 
 bring them to that conclusion ere long. Everywhere the ayuntamientos, or 
 municipalities, composed of natives of the country, were almost in what might 
 be called a state of revolt against the royal court of the Audiencia ; and order 
 was only preserved by means of juntas, or committees, of public security, and 
 armed a.ssociations, established by the latter, both these descriptions of bodies 
 being necessarily in such a state of things permitted and encouraged to e.xercise 
 their powers with very little regard to any forms of law. There was a strange 
 confusion both of names and things. On the one hand the armed bands of 
 Spaniards took to themselves the denomination of Patriots; on the other, the 
 two parties, divided and hostile as they were in reality, continued for some time 
 to vie with one another in their clamorous professions of loyalty and attachment 
 to their legitimate sovereign. And in these professions the Americans were 
 probably at first more sincere than the Spaniards ; with the latter, attachment 
 to the old royal family was secondary and subordinate to another feeling or 
 principle, that of attachment to the dominion of the mother countiy ; the latter, 
 until tliey were led or driven to take up the ground of independence, had no 
 other object or sentiment that came into competition with their loyalty, which, 
 indeed, for a short space was provoked to a degree of enthusiasm in great part 
 by the mere spirit of opposition and hatred to the Spanish party. 
 
 But all this was soon changed in Mexico, and everywhere else, by the conduct
 
 Chap. YIII] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 95 
 
 of affairs and the coarse of events both in the New World and in the Old. The 1817. 
 French invasion of Spain seemed to he rapidly becoming a complete conquest of 
 the country ; nearly every part of which by the beginning of the year 1810 was 
 overrun or kept in awe by the armies of the enemy, and in which, besides, no 
 regular national authority could be said to have existed since the renunciation 
 of the crown by King Ferdinand in May, 1808. Only a succession of so-called 
 Juntas and Regencies had taken upon them or struggled with one another for 
 the name and rights, with however little of the powers, of government. Passing 
 over the preliminary Juntas of Madrid, of Seville, of the Asturias, and others, 
 each of which, though they were all entirely local in their origin, aspired to be 
 recognised as the supreme authority throughout both Spain and the Indies, it 
 will be sufficient to note here that a Central Junta was at last installed on the 
 25th of September, 1808 ; that this was followed by the First Regency, esta- 
 blished in the Isle of Leon, by this time almost the only unviolated spot in the 
 country, on the 29th of January, 1810 ; that the Cortes assembled in the same 
 place in September of the same year; and that a Second Regency was nominated 
 by this body on the 18th of October. The tone and demeanour of all these 
 governments to the American colonies was unconciliating, arrogant, and domi- 
 neering. All the former absolute authority of the crown was asserted and 
 attempted to be maintained with as liigh a hand as in the palmiest days of the 
 monarchy. The Spanish party was everywhere supported as openly and 
 decidedly as ever against all races and colours of the native Americans. In 
 Mexico, for example, the act of the Audiencia in deposing and arresting 
 Iturrigaray was at once sanctioned by the Central Junta ; and the Audiencia 
 was soon after appointed to exercise itself the entire vice-regal authority, which 
 had in the first instance been confided by a temporary arrangement to Lizana, 
 the Archbishop. When it was determined to convoke the Cortes, a representa- 
 tion was indeed affected to be given to the colonies ; but, proceeding upon the 
 exclusion of all the inhabitants of mixed as well as of all those of Indian blood, 
 it was regarded as even in theory altogether inadequate and unsatisfactory, and 
 in the actual circumstances it was reduced to a mere mockery ; for the pretended 
 colonial deputies were only certain natives of America by chance resident or 
 present at the moment in the town of Cadiz, who were made to elect one another, 
 and some of whom even refused to take their seats. But what produced per- 
 haps the worst effect of all was the conduct of the First Regency in regard to 
 the commerce of the colonies, the restrictions upon which were felt by the body 
 of the people in the American States to be after all their great practical griev- 
 ance. After having, by a decree issued on the 17th of May, 1810, conceded to 
 the Americans a free trade, under certain limitations, during tlie suspension of 
 the usual intercourse with the mother country, the Regency was weak enough 
 six weeks after, at the clamour of the merchants of Cadiz, not to repeal or 
 revoke the decree, but actually to deny having ever issued it — to declare it to 
 be spurious, or a forgery, and of no value or effect, and to order all the copies 
 that could be found of it to be burnt ! Meanwhile, the assumption and insolence 
 of the government functionaries, and other Spaniards in ximerica, might almost 
 be said to rise and grow more overbearing as the fortunes of the mother country 
 declined. One of the leading members of the Audiencia of Mexico is recorded 
 to have been in the habit of affirming that, as long as a Manchego muleteer or
 
 Ward's Mexico, i 
 
 96 . HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book I. 
 
 1817. a Castilian cobbler remained in the Peninsula, that solitary Spaniard would have 
 a right to govern the Americas. 
 
 It does not belong to a History of England to relate in detail either military 
 operations or revolutionary movements and changes, howsoever brought about, 
 in which tliis country had no part. But in order that the exact state of things 
 in the several countries of Spanish America at the date at which we are now 
 arrived may be clearly understood, it is necessary that we should briefly indicate 
 the general course that events had taken in each of them. 
 
 In Mexico, where the spirit of discontent fermented rapidly and to a peculiar 
 bitterness under the violent and exasperating government of the Audiencia, it 
 is said that some attempts were made to concert insurrectionary movements as 
 early as May, 1809, although they were detected in time, and the persons con- 
 cerned in them apprehended. The standard of revolt was first actually raised 
 in September, 1810, by the famous Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla, cura, or parish 
 priest, of the little town of Dolores in the province of Guanajuato. In con- 
 junction with AUende, one of three Creole officers in garrison at Guanajuato, 
 ics tt seq. ' of whom he had made converts, and with the co-operation of ten of his parishioners, 
 Hidalgo boldly struck the first blow for liberty and independence on the morning 
 of the 16th of that month, by seizing the persons of seven Europeans resident in 
 the town of Dolores, and distributing their property among his followers. The 
 flame thus lighted, as it was expressed in a representation afterwards addressed 
 to the Cortes of Spain by the Mexican Audiencia, " spread through the country 
 with the rapidity of atmospheric pestilence." In a few hours Hidalgo was at the 
 head of such a force as enabled him to take possession of the town of San Felipe 
 on the 17th, and of that of San Miguel el Grande on the 18th, places each of 
 16,000 inhabitants. He now took the title of Captain-General of America, and 
 before the end of the month the town of Guanajuato, the capital of the province, 
 was in his possession. He had forced his way into it, assisted by the native 
 population of the place, by whom all the Europeans who fell into their hands 
 after the fight were savagely put to death, all their houses demolished, and all 
 their goods seized and divided. Here Hidalgo set up a mint, and assumed in 
 all respects the authority and state of a chief governor. He remained in the 
 place for above a fortnight, and then marched to Valladolid, which was aban- 
 doned by the Spaniards on his approach. Here he foimd himself at the head of 
 an army of nearly fifty thousand men, and was joined by his old college friend, 
 Jose Maria Morelos, cura of Nucupetaro, destined to play as remarkable a 
 part as himself. But lie had already nearly reached the summit and end of his 
 success. When he afterwards marched to attack the city of Mexico, he found 
 formidable preparations made to receive him by the new Viceroy, Francisco 
 Xavier Venegas, who had been installed only two days before the outbreak of 
 the insurrection at Dolores ; and, having deemed it prudent to retreat, he was 
 encountered on the 7th of November at Aculco by an army under the command 
 of Felix Maria Calleja, when his fierce but imperfectly disciplined troops were 
 put to rout with immense slaughter. He was afterwards defeated a second 
 time on the 16th of January, 1811, at the Bridge of Calderon, about sixteen 
 leagues from Guadalajara, by the same royalist commander (who took his title 
 of Conde de Calderon from this battle) ; and, although the Cura made his escape 
 from the field, he and three of his officers were, through the treachery of a former
 
 Chap. VIII.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 97 
 
 associate, surprised and seized as they were on their way to the frontier of the 1817. 
 United States, on the 21st of March, and, being all conveyed to the town of 
 Chihuahua, were there tried, condemned, and shot about four months after. 
 
 Very early in his career the savage and bloodthirsty system of Hidalgo, with 
 whom, besides the ferocity that he permitted in the heat of action and the first 
 flush of trium])h, the slaughter of his prisoners and secret assassinations were 
 ordinary proceedings, had disgusted and alarmed the great body of the Creoles, 
 and in several cases when he entered a town these native Americans were 
 attacked and butchered by their Indian fellow-countrymen along with the 
 Spaniards. But his death did not put an end to the insurrection. His place 
 as leader was supplied partly by Morelos, partly by Ignacio Lopez Ilayon, 
 styled El Licenciado (the Advocate), who had acted as his secretary, and who 
 now took upon him more especially the direction of what may be called the civil 
 department of affairs, holding himself, however, always ready to act in a military 
 capacity also when occasion offered. Under arrangements made by Rayon a 
 Junta, or Central Government, composed of five members, elected by an as- 
 sembly of the farmers and landed proprietors of the district, was installed on 
 the 10th of September, 1811, in the town of Zitacuaro, in the state of Valla- 
 dolid. In the scheme for the settlement of the country which this Junta soon 
 after proclaimed, it was proposed that Ferdinand VII. should be acknowledged 
 as sovereign of Mexico, provided he would relinquish his European dominions, 
 and come over and occupy the throne in person ; but it is believed that this was 
 a mere profession designed to satisfy the multitude, to whom the insurrection had 
 been all along represented as carried on in the name of the King. It appears to 
 be certain that Ferdinand and all things Spanish were little more to the taste of 
 either Morelos or Rayon than they had been to that of Hidalgo : the real 
 object of all three was most probably the establishment of some sort of republic. 
 The installation of the Junta, however, had a good effect in reviving the attach- 
 ment of the Creoles to the insurrection, confirming at least such of them as were 
 wavering, if it did not immediately bring back many who had actually gone over 
 to the Spanish party. And after some time, it would appear, the insurgents 
 came to lower their tone, and offered their opponents much more moderate 
 terms than at first. In a manifesto transmitted to the Viceroy in March, 1812, 
 the Junta summed up their proposals and demands as follows: — "If the ward s Mexico, 
 Europeans will consent to give up the offices which they hold, and to allow a 
 general Congress to be assembled, their persons and properties shall be reli- 
 giously respected, their salaries paid, and the same privileges granted to them 
 as to the native Mexicans; who, on their side, will acknowledge Ferdinand 
 as their sovereign, assist the Peninsula with their treasures, and regard all 
 Spaniards as their fellow-subjects and citizens of the same great empire." 
 
 Meanwhile Morelos, who had on the 25th of January, 1811, a few days after 
 the defeat of Hidalgo at the Bridge of Calderon, by a sudden and brilliant 
 attack scattered a royalist force commanded by Francisco Paris, wliich had 
 been stationed to defend the town of Acapulco, and taken its encampment, with 
 all the artillery, ammunition, and treasure, had followed up this first success 
 by a series of movements evincing much military science as well as activity, 
 and which had the effect of bringing the scene of action, by the beginning of 
 1812, within a few leagues of the capital. By this time, too, he had by great 
 
 VOL. I. o 
 
 ifi.
 
 98 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book T. 
 
 1817. energy and firmness managed to bring even that portion of his force which con- 
 ^ ' sisted of negroes into a tolerable state of discipline. Having taken np his 
 
 position near the town of Cuautla Amilpas, about twenty-two leagues fi-om 
 Mexico, on the 19th of February, in an action which lasted ii-om seven in the 
 morning till three in the afternoon, he repulsed an attack made upon him by 
 Calleja, who about six weeks before had assaulted and taken Zitacuaro, and 
 inflicted a terrible punishment upon that seat of the Jimta, decimating the inha- 
 bitants, razing the walls, and burning every house and building in the place, 
 with the exception only of the churches and convents. Morelos then threw himself 
 into the town of Cuautla, and, although the place was accoi-ding to military 
 rules untenable, defended himself there against all the efforts of Calleja for 
 two months, till he Wcis compelled to withdraw by famine, when he succeeded in 
 carrying off his force through the fire of the enemy, with the loss of less than a 
 score of men. Jn the latter part of the same year he made himself master first 
 of the town of Tehuacan, and afterwards of that of Oaxaca ; and on the 20th of 
 August, 1813, he succeeded in taking Acapulco after a siege of six months. On 
 the loth of the following month, what was denominated the National Congress 
 commenced its sittings under his auspices in the town of Chilpanzingo ; and on 
 the loth of November this assembly, composed of the five members of the Junta 
 of Zitacuaro, who upon the capture of that place had fled to the town of Sultcpec, 
 and of a number of other persons, of whom some were elected by the people of 
 the province of Oaxaca, and others were nominated by these last as representa- 
 tives of the other provinces, published what it was pleased to call the Declaration 
 of the Independence of Mexico. 
 
 But from this point the fortunes of Morelos and of the insurrection began 
 to wane. Having appeared before the town of Valladolid on the 23rd of De- 
 cember, he was encountered the next morning by a strong force under Brigadier 
 Llano and Augustin Iturbide (afterwards Emperor of Mexico), then a C'olonel 
 in the Spanish service, and received a complete defeat. On the Gth of January, 
 1814, he was again beaten by Iturbide at Puruaran. Other disasters followed 
 in rapid succession ; the insurgent forces were now worsted in every action ; 
 Wards Mexico, i. Oaxaca was retaken in the end of March ; soon after the Congress was driven 
 from Chilpanzingo ; and at last, on the 5th of November, 1815, Morelos was 
 suddenly fallen upon near Tesmalaca by two parties of royalists, and, after 
 fighting till only one man was left by his side, was taken prisoner. He was 
 speedily conveyed to the city of Mexico, and, being there brought to trial and 
 condemned to death, was shot behind the hospital of San Christoval on the 22nd 
 of December. 
 
 The insurgent cause never recovered its prosperity after this, till it suddenly 
 revived in altered circumstances, and without fm-ther struggle became at once 
 triumphant. The National Congress, which on the 22nd of October in the 
 preceding year had produced the scheme of a Constitution known as that of 
 Apatzingan, in the woods of which place its authors had taken refuge after 
 their expulsion fi-om Chilpanzingo, was, after having transferred itself to 
 Tehuacan, dissolved by Manuel Myer y Teran, the insurgent chief of that 
 district, exactly a week before Morelos had met his fiite. The members, it 
 seems, had voted themselves the very handsome salary of eight thousand dollars 
 each ; — and General Teran found their continual drafts an intolerable drain 
 
 207.
 
 CiiAP. VIII.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 99 
 
 ii])on the very precarious resources he had at his command. This act of 1817. 
 Teran's, however, destroyed the only common authority and centre of union, such 
 as it was, which the different insurgent commanders recognised ; and hence- 
 forward tlie insurrection was without concert, and rather a mere anarchy raging 
 in the country than a great national movement. The most noted of the chiefs, 
 each of whom had his district, which he kept in order or disorder as the case 
 might be, were at first, besides Teran and Rayon, "N^icente Guerrero, Nicolas 
 Bravo, and Jose Maria Fernandez, styled General Victoria. Other distin- 
 guished companions of Morelos, who had been cut off before this time, were 
 the Cura Matamoros, Ermencgildo Galeana, and Leonardo and Miguel Bravo, 
 the father and brother of Nicolas ; &c. Their names alone, when no more can 
 be given, are some record and memorial of the brave, and will hallow history 
 as well as song. But daring men of a different description also ere long arose to 
 share, under the guise of champions of independence, in the war of licence and 
 plunder — men reckless, unprincipled, rapacious, cruel, and profligate, who only 
 brought dishonour upon the cause for which they pretended to fight, and added 
 to the miseries of their unhappy country. Some of these, indeed, such as Vicente 
 Gomez and the notorious Padre Torres, were properly nothing else than chiefs 
 of bandits upon an unusually great scale. Torres had established what is 
 described as " a sort of half-priestly, half-military despotism," in the district ^3?'^'^ Mexico, >. 
 called the Baxio, "the whole of which," continues Mr. Ward, "he had par- 
 celled out amongst his Military Commandants, — men mostly without principle 
 or virtue, whose only recommendation was implicit obedience to the will of their 
 Chief. From his fortress on the top of the mountain of Los Remedios, Torres 
 was the scourge of the whole country around : vindictive, sanguinary, and 
 treacherous by nature, he spared none who had the misfortune to offend him, 
 whether Creole or Spaniard, and did more towards devastating the most fertile 
 portion of the Mexican territory, by his capricious mandates for the destruction 
 of towns and villages, under pretence of cutting off the supplies of the enemy, 
 then all those who had preceded him, whether Royalists or Insurgents, during 
 the first five years of the war." Yet under the protection of this man existed 
 the only government that the Insurgents still kept up, called the Junta of 
 Jauxilla, fi'om its usual residence, the little fort of that name situated in the 
 centre of a marsh, in the province of Valladolid, one of three strongholds which 
 were in the possession of Torres. But, composed as it was entirely of creatures 
 of the Padre, it possessed, Mr. Ward states, little influence and no authority. 
 Thus, by the beginning of the year 1817, the numbers of the insurgents actually 
 in arms had become extremely inconsiderable ; and the royalist forces were in 
 possession of all the towns and of nearly all the military stations. 
 
 But great changes had also taken place by this time on the royalist side 
 also. The new democratic or liberal Constitution decreed by the Cortes in 
 1812 for all the Spanish dominions, had come into operation in Mexico on the 
 29th of September in that year, while Venegas was still viceroy, and at first 
 had seemed likely to prove f\ital at once to the existence of the power of Spain 
 in America. Especially after the liberty of the press commenced on the 5th of 
 October, so many violent pamphlets were published, that the frightened vice- 
 roy suspended the new law before it had been in force for ten weeks. In their 
 Representation of November, 1813, which we have already had occasion to 
 
 o 2
 
 £110, 
 
 100 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book I. 
 
 1817. quote, tbc Audiencia describe the effect produced upon the Americans by the 
 political writers suddenly let loose upon them as having been the same that 
 spirituous liquors cause among savages. " Public opinion was so completely 
 corrupted," they further state, " that in the mobs of the 29th and 30th of No- 
 vember, assembled under the plea of celebrating the election of the electors 
 for the constitutional x\yuntamiento of Mexico, there were Vivas in honour of 
 the Creoles, of the Insurgents, and of Morelos ; intermingled with cries of 
 Death to the Government — to the King — to Ferdinand VII." But the unani- 
 mity and determination of the national feeling were also indicated by signs 
 much more deeply expressive than the Vivas and seditious cries of mobs, 
 wanii Mexico, i. " Out of two liundrcd and fifty-two elective appointments," Mr. Ward writes, 
 " of more or less importance, which the INIe.xicans were entitled by the Con- 
 stitution to make, not one was bestowed upon an European ; and most were 
 filled by men notoriously addicted to the Independent cause ! Nor were the 
 legal forms prescribed by the new system for the prosecution of criminals 
 turned to less account. Suspicions were no longer admitted as sufficient ground 
 for depriving an accused Creole of his liberty. Proofs were required by 
 the constitutional Alcaldes, whose jurisdiction replaced, in most cases, tliat 
 of the Audiencia ; and these proofs were most critically weighed, by men who 
 liad in general been recommended by their known jircdilection for the cause of 
 the Kevolution to fill those offices which enabled them to judge of the incli- 
 nations and loyalty of others. Thus, under the safeguard of the new insti- 
 tutions, disaffection became every day more prevalent ; and neither the resources 
 of the royal army in the field, nor the exertions of two viceroys, who undoubt- 
 edly possessed very superior talents, could give to Spain any prospect of perma- 
 nently suppressing the Revolution." 
 
 Venegas was succeeded as Viceroy by Calleja on the 4th of March, 1813. 
 The Constitution was abolished by Ferdinand VII. on the 4th of May in the 
 following year. On the 18th of August in that year, 1814, a long confidential 
 communication was addressed by Calleja to the Minister of War at Madrid, of 
 wliich Mr. AVard gives a translation from the original printed in Bustamante's 
 Cuadro llistorico, and which is in the highest degree curious, for the picture it 
 draws of the all but desperate state to which the Spanish cause had been already 
 reduced, even in the view of the royalists themselves. Nothing could be more 
 discouraging, Calleja begins by observing, than the aspect of afl^airs when he 
 took the command of the country : the Constitution had been sworn, and in 
 part established ; while " the rebels, flushed with the advantages which they 
 had already obtained, threatened the capital, and were already in possession of 
 Oaxaca, Acapulco, a great part of the western coast, the capital of Texas, — 
 through which they drew supplies from the North Americans, — in short, of the 
 largest portion of New Spain, as well as of innumerable towns, haciendas, mines, 
 and roads." His own situation in these circumstances he describes as most 
 critical ; compelled as he was " to make head against the attacks of an enemy 
 disseminated over eight hundred leagues of country, and protected by the great 
 majority of its inhabitants," with only a very small military force at his disposal, 
 and without hope of succour from the Peninsula ; while he was also surrounded 
 by concealed enemies, " who," he adds, " under the shelter of the new institu- 
 tions, aided, directed, and encouraged the rebels, from this and all the other
 
 Chap. VIII.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 101 
 
 principal towns in the kingdom, without my being able to counteract them, on ioii- 
 account of the Constitution and the decrees of the Cortes, which tied my hands ; 
 —deprived, too, of the support and assistance which I might have derived from 
 the principal corporations, all of which had been filled by the popular elections 
 with men interested in the ruin of the Spanish Government in this hemisphere." 
 Happily his military operations had been so fortunate that he had succeeded in 
 destroying Morelos, in recovering Oaxaca, with the port and fortress of Aca- 
 pulco, and in driving the rebels, with their Anglo-American allies, out of Texas ; 
 a number of the insurgent chiefs had also been taken, some of their principal 
 bands dispersed, and the roads in general so far cleared as to admit of communi- 
 cations being with little difficulty kept up with the interior. But still, Calleja 
 proceeds to intimate, the root and feeding source of the evil remained untouched 
 and unreached : " I am compelled to confess," he says, " that, notwithstanding 
 our victories, but little has been done against the spirit of the rebellion, the 
 focus of which is in the great towns, and more particularly in this capital. . . . 
 For jour Excellency must take as the corner-stone of my whole argument the 
 fact, that the great majority of the natives of this country is most decidedly in 
 favour of the insurrection and of independence, without their frequent invocation 
 of the respectable name of our Sovereign being any thing more than a veil with 
 which they endeavour to conceal their criminal projects." 
 
 He afterwards declares that the contagion of the political mania " seemed to 
 have spread to all classes, drawing alike the merchant, the citizen, the clergy- 
 man, and the husbandman, out of their proper spheres, and making them 
 politicians, or rather political dreamers." Some hope might indeed be enter- 
 tained of an end being put to these afl3icting evils, now that his majesty had 
 returned to his dominions, and the Cortes and its constitution were no more ; 
 but still there were the most serious difficulties to be contended with. " The 
 disaffected," continues Calleja, "are all in favour of the Constitution ; not that 
 they ever really and sincerely intend to adopt it, or to submit to the mother 
 country on any terms, but because it affords them the means of attaining what 
 they desire without risk, and with more facility than they could otherwise expect." 
 " Some even of the Europeans," he adds, " have wrong views upon this subject, 
 and will not see the danger to which they expose themselves by lending their 
 countenance to ideas which can only lead from disaffection to rebellion." In 
 short, "the insurrection," he affirms, "is so deeply impressed and rooted in the 
 heart of every American, that nothing but the most energetic measures, sup- 
 ported by an imposing force, can ever eradicate it ; for it is to be observed, 
 that, even if the arms of the rebels prove unsuccessful, and their plots fruitless, 
 still misery, and a growing consumption, will do that which neither force nor 
 intrigue may be able to effect." .... " The military force now at my 
 disposal," he goes on, " is but just sufficient to garrison the capitals of the 
 provinces, and to cover the large towns : but, in the mean time, an infinity of 
 smaller towns are left, unavoidably, at the mercy of the banditti ; the roads are 
 ours only as long as a division is passing over them ; and the insurgents, who are 
 infinitely superior to us in number, are masters of the largest proportion of the 
 cultivated lands : the consequence is, that trade is at an end ; agriculture lan- 
 guishes ; the mines are abandoned ; all our resources exhausted ; the troops 
 wearied out ; the loyal discoui'aged ; the rich in dismay ; in short, misery 
 
 VOL. I. P
 
 102 ' HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book I. 
 
 1817. increases daily, and the State is in danger." The armed bands of the rebels 
 are afterwards described as wandering over the whole country, " eating and 
 drinking where they can, and robbing, plundering, and devastating all that falls 
 in their way." The continuation of such a contest, Calleja remarks, is the 
 worst evil that can be experienced, and one that must prove little less ruinous 
 for Spain than for America. " The war," he says, " teaches the insurgents, to 
 our cost, the art of making it with success, and gives them but too good a 
 knowledge of their advantages in point of number and resources. The war 
 strengthens and propagates the desire of independence, holding out a constant 
 hope of our destruction, a longing desire for which (I must again assure your 
 Excellency) is general amongst all classes, and has penetrated into every corner 
 of the kingdom. The war affords the insurgents an opportunity of knowing 
 foreign powers, with whom they form connexions, and from whom they receive 
 aid." While, too, the armies of the king were destroyed in detail, all attempts 
 to recruit them by the usual means were utterly useless. If forced levies were 
 resorted to, the only effect was to fill the royal ranks for a moment, and after- 
 wards to strengthen those of the enemy by the desertion of the newly raised 
 men. Six millions of people decided in favour of independence had no need of 
 consulting together and concerting their measures ; every one had merely to 
 act according to his means and opportunities ; " the judge and his dependants, 
 by concealing or conniving at crimes ; the clergy, by advocating the justice of 
 the cause in the confessional, and even in the pulpit itself; the writers, by cor- 
 rupting public opinion ; the women, by employing their attractions to seduce 
 the royal troops . , . . ; the government officer, by revealing and thus para- 
 lysing the plans of his superiors ; the youth, by taking arms ; the old man, by 
 giving intelligence and forwarding correspondence." To all this was added the 
 systematic opposition of the ayuntamientos, or municipalities, who assisted the 
 common object by giving an example of eternal differences with the Europeans, 
 not one of whom they would admit as a colleague — by refusing any sort of 
 assistance to the Government — and by representing its conduct, and that of 
 its faithful agents, in the most odious light, in specious, however fallacious, 
 protests. 
 
 It was, indeed, seemingly as hopeless a case as well could be. In the city 
 of Mexico there had existed, it appears, for three years, an association under 
 the name of " The Guadalupes," composed of men whose situation necessarily 
 gave them a participation in the affairs of the government ; and by this club, 
 which kept up a correspondence with every part of the kingdom, all the o])era- 
 tions of the rebels were directed, and all the information they could want was 
 supplied to them. In the condition to which affairs had been brought, Calleja 
 sees no chance except in the establishment for a time of martial law, and the 
 immediate commencement of military operations for the re-subjugation of the 
 country on a great scale. A force of six or eight thousand soldiers at the least 
 must, he says, be sent over in the first instance. Not that that number of 
 troops would be nearly sufficient to complete the work ; but if, in addition, 
 arms and clothing could be transmitted for twelve or fifteen thousand infantry, 
 and six or eight thousand cavalry, he would hope then, strengthened as he would 
 be, to be able to fill the ranks with men of the country, after he should have 
 struck terror into the minds of the disaffected by a few examples of severity.
 
 Chap. VIII.] DUKING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 103 
 
 Finally, in any case, he promises for himself that Mexico shall not succeed in 1817. 
 throwing off the yoke and withdrawing her obedience from her lawful sovereign, ' 
 
 while he is charged with her preservation, if it should be necessary for him, as a 
 last resource, to lay waste the whole country with fire and sword. 
 
 The plan recommended by Calleja was followed as far as it was practicable 
 in the present state of the mother country. All throughout this contest with 
 her colonies Spain had made exertions for the suppression of the revolt which 
 might almost have been thought impossible in the condition to which she was 
 reduced. AMiile struggling for her existence as a country, and in the very 
 darkest hour of her fortunes, she had sent one body of troops after another to 
 South America, sometimes when she could hardly be said to have an army on 
 foot at home, or not at least a force sufficient to make head anywhere against 
 her invaders. The conduct of the Government in this particular strikingly 
 illustrated the habitual feeling of the nation on the subject of its colonies, and 
 might almost be said to indicate a conviction, or deep-seated sentiment, that 
 Spain was in truth rather the Indies than the-Peninsula. It was the same under 
 the restored absolutism as under the Constitution. In 1815 General Fernando ward-s Mexico, ■. 
 Miyares arrived in Mexico with a royalist reinforcement of two thousand men. 
 This eminent officer was soon after intrusted by the Viceroy with the chief com- 
 mand, both military and civil, of the province of Veracruz, where in the course 
 of the next year he beat the insurgent general, Victoria, in a succession of 
 actions, and, having at last driven him from his principal strongholds, established 
 a chain of fortified posts along the whole ascent to the table-land, which effectu- 
 ally protected that part of the province from his incursions. In this same year, 
 1816, Calleja was succeeded as Viceroy by Apodaca, who brought with bun 
 from Spain a further reinforcement of a thousand men. Discouraged by their 
 reverses, great numbers of the insurgents now accepted the indulto, or pardon, 
 offered by the Government; and by the beginning of the year 1817, although 
 Victoria and some of the other chiefs still withheld their submission, most of 
 their followers had deserted them and laid down their arms, and quiet and 
 order might be said to be restored for the present throughout the viceroyalty of 
 Mexico. 
 
 One of the first districts in Spanish America that assumed a decidedly revolu- Q""to. 
 tionary attitude after the French invasion of the mother country, was the province 
 of Quito, in the viceroyalty of New Grenada, which, professing to look upon 
 Spain as having fallen irrecoverably under the dominion of France, set up a 
 separate government for itself on the 10th of August, 1809. But this prema- 
 ture attempt was speedily put down. The forces of the junta which had been 
 established in the city of Quito, fallen upon at once by Amar, the Viceroy of 
 New Grenada, and by Abascal, the Viceroy of Peru, were completely and 
 easily overpowered, and the insurgent government compelled to dissolve itself. 
 It does not seem very probable that, in such circumstances, assurances, as is 
 asserted, should have been given by the victorious royalists that no person 
 should be punished or molested on account of what had been done ; but at any 
 rate a considerable number of those who had taken a lead in the movement 
 were arrested and thrown into prison ; and there they lay till they were all, or 
 most of them, massacred by the soldiers on the 2nd of August in the following 
 
 p2
 
 104 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book I. 
 
 1817. year on an alarm being raised that a new insurrection was on tlie point of break- 
 ing out. This calamitous event probably contributed much to give a sanguinary 
 and vindictive character to the whole course of the ensuing contest both in New 
 
 Colombia, ii. 326. Grenada and in Venezuela. It so exasperated and inflamed the people of 
 Quito at the moment, that they attacked the troops with knives and sticks ; they 
 were fired upon in return ; and appearances became so threatening and serious, 
 that the authorities deemed it prudent to publish an act of oblivion, and to send 
 away the obnoxious portion of the military, which consisted of the force that 
 had come from Peru. Soon after this, also, a junta was set up at Quito in the 
 Spanish interest, and was recognised by the Regency at Cadiz, this being, it is 
 said, the only instance of such recognition. 
 
 ibi.i.,316. Meanwhile, on the 7th of September, 1809, about a month after the first 
 
 movement at Quito, the Viceroy of New Grenada had convoked in his palace 
 at Santa Fe de Bogota, the capital of the viccroyalty, a number of the principal 
 persons of that city, professing to desire their advice in the crisis. It immedi- 
 ately appeared that the general santiment of this meeting was in favour of the 
 establishment of a junta at Santa Fe which should act in concert with the Vice- 
 roy, and recognise the authority of the Central Junta, the body at this time 
 exercising the supreme powers of government in Spain. Many of the members 
 may have had ulterior views ; but either they were not as yet fully formed or 
 matured, or some other reason prevented their being avowed, ^^^hen they came 
 again, as directed, on the 11th of the same month, they found the guards at the 
 palace doubled ; but this show of military preparation is stated not to have pre- 
 vented some frank and courageous enough debating. It was in the discussions 
 that took place on this occasion that Padilla, Moreno, and other afterwards 
 celebrated patriotic leaders, first distinguished themselves. 
 
 Nothing further was done, however, on either side, beyond the suppression of 
 the Independent Government at Quito, till after news arrived from Europe, in 
 the following spring, of the dispersion of the Central Junta and the other events 
 that had followed the irruption of the French armies into the south of Spain. 
 Disturbances now took place in several parts of New Grenada ; and at length 
 the people of Santa Fe set up a junta and a government for themselves on the 
 20th of July, 1810. At first, however, they went no farther than to renounce 
 the authority of the Viceroy; they even acknowledged the authority of the first 
 Regency, established in Spain 29th January, 1810. But after some time 
 they renounced the Regency too, and professed to hold by no part of the old 
 system except the sovereignty of the king. They now published a manifesto 
 inviting the other provinces to send deputies to Santa Fe, to deliberate upon 
 what form of government should be adopted during the captivity of Ferdinand. 
 Most of the other provinces immediately declared in favour of this project ; but 
 various causes for some time interfered to prevent the assembling of the pro- 
 posed Congress. In the first place, in the fervour of the new zeal for separation 
 and independence, not only each province seemed inclined to have a government 
 of its own, but even many of the departments evinced a disposition to break off 
 from their several provinces and to set up for themselves. In particular, 
 Mompox, a department of the province of Carthagena, proceeded to establish a 
 junta and to nominate deputies to the Congress of its own ; and it was not till 
 after a military force had been sent against it by Carthagena that the refractory
 
 Chap. VIII.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 105 
 
 department was reduced to submission. This was in January, 1811. Mean- 1817 
 
 while, also, the new government at Sauta Fe had been attacked or threatened • 
 
 by Tacon, governor of the province of Popayan, and had been obliged to send 
 some troops against him under the command of Baraya, by whom he was beaten 
 in a battle fotight on the banks of the river Palace, near the city of Popayan, 
 about the same time that Mompox was compelled to return to its allegiance. 
 Some time after, having fled into Los Pastos, Tacon sustained another and more 
 complete defeat from Rodriguez, the successor of Baraya, near Isquande. I'he 
 General Congress met at last at Santa Fe, in the spring of 1811 ; and on the 
 27th of November following a federal compact was assented to by the representa- 
 tives of the four provinces of Pamplona, Neyva, Carthagena, and Antinquia. 
 To this arrangement, however, the province of Cundinamarca, of which Santa 
 Fe is the capital, refused to accede ; and the junta of that city some time after 
 convened what was called a Constituent Electoral College, which eventually Colombia, ». 3,'5. 
 drew up a constitution for the province. This constitution was ratified, and 
 finally adopted, on the 17th of April, 1812. 
 
 Before this time, however, the Congi-ess and Cundinamarca were at war. 
 About the end of the year 1811 the office of President of Cundinamarca had 
 been conferred upon A. Narinno, who had long been distinguished as one of the 
 ablest, bravest, and most active friends of the cause of independence. Narinno 
 was opposed to the scheme of a federal government ; and we must suppose that 
 on this point the general feeling of his province went along with him. In the 
 first instance, however, the course of the contest was very adverse to Cundina- 
 marca. First, Baraya, and the division of troops he commanded, deserted and 
 went over to the Congress. On this, the province of Tunja, which was about to 
 join Cundinamarca, also went over to the other side ; in return for which the 
 Congress immediately transferred its sittings to the city of Tunja. Then 
 Narinno was defeated by Baraya at Palo Blanco. Soon after this the two pro- 
 vinces of Mariquita and Neyva followed the example of Tunja ; and Cundina- 
 marca was left alone with Socorro. The Congress now transferred itself to 
 Neyva, on the 4th of October, 1812. After this Narinno sustained a second iwd. ii. 337. 
 defeat at Ventaquemada ; and then, in December, the forces of the Congress 
 proceeded to lay siege to Santa Fe. But an attempt which they made to storm 
 that city, after having refused to accept of anything less than an unconditional 
 surrender, proved signally unsuccessful ; they were not only driven off, but 
 routed and dispersed. 
 
 In no long time, however, in the rapid mutations of the intricate and confused 
 story, we find Narinno conducting the united forces of the Congress and of his 
 own province against the Royalists. Ever since the secession of Cundinamarca 
 the province of Carthagena had taken the lead in the confederation. The pro- 
 vince of Santa ^Martha, adjacent to Carthagena, again, was the stronghold of the 
 Royalists, or Spanish party. From these circumstances Carthagena was pecu- 
 liarly exposed to the machinations and violence of the Royalists. In the course 
 of 1812 two of its departments were wrested from it ; but before the end of the 
 year they were both recovered ; and even the city of Santa Martha was taken 
 possession of on the 6th of Janutiry, 1813. although it was speedily abandoned. 
 It appears to have been soon after this that the Congress and Narinno made up 
 their quarrel, at least for the present, and that Narinno was put at the head of
 
 Colombia, ii. 360 
 
 106 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book I. 
 
 1817. the united forces of the two parties, amounting to 8000 men, with the title of 
 ^ ' Dictator. He now marched to meet the Spanish genei-al Samano, who was on 
 
 his way to attack Santa Fe', and defeated him, first in a great battle fought at 
 El Alto del Palace, and again at Calibio ; after which he set up a popular 
 government in Popayan, and reduced various towus between that city and 
 Pastes. When he had got near the last-mentioned place, however, Narinno was 
 suddenly attacked by a detachment of Royalists, when his panic-struck force was 
 defeated, and he himself fell into the hands of the enemy. This was in June, 
 1814. Narinno was not put to death, but was sent home to Spain, where he lay 
 in confinement till the revolution of 1820 set him once more at large. 
 
 The cause of independence in this part of South America was never in greater 
 danger than now. In addition to various important successes which the Royalists 
 had recently obtained in Venezuela and elsewhere, an army of 10,000 men 
 under the command of General Morillo was about to embark at Cadiz to make, 
 as was thought, utterly vain all resistance to the decree which Ferdinand VII. 
 had issued upon his restoration to liberty, commanding the people of the Indies 
 to lay down their arms and return to their allegiance. Cundinamarca, however, 
 or at least its new president Don Bernardo Alvarez, who had succeeded Narinno, 
 still persisted in refusing to accede to the federal union; and the consequence 
 was that the war between the province and the Congress was renewed. After 
 some ineffectual negotiation, the celebrated Simon Bolivar, who, having been 
 obliged to retreat from Venezuela, where he had been for some time commander- 
 in-chief of the army of independence, had recently arrived at Tunja, in which 
 place the Congress had held its sittings, and had there been immediately pro- 
 claimed Captain General of Venezuela and New Grenada, was sent in December 
 1814 against Santa Fe. He stormed the city and compelled Alvarez to agree 
 to a capitulation, by which Cundinamarca became a member of the federal 
 union. Soon after this the Congress transferred itself to Santa Fe, as being the 
 proper capital of New Grenada. 
 
 Although the Congress, however, had all along affected to represent the 
 whole of New Grenada, the transactions that have been related appear to have 
 involved only the twelve provinces belonging to the Audiencia of Santa Fe de 
 Bogota, one of the three composing the viceroyalty. The two provinces of 
 Veragua and Panama, forming the Audiencia of Panama, seem up to this date 
 to have taken little or no part in the revolutionary movement. And the third 
 Audiencia, that of Quito, containing eight provinces, had, ever since the esta- 
 blishment of the Spanish junta there in the latter part of the year 1810, been 
 so circumstanced as not to have it in its power to join that of Bogota if it had 
 been so inclined. The junta had united with the inhabitants of the city in 
 opposing Don N. Molina, whom the Regency had appointed President, when he 
 attempted to enter at the head of the same troops from Lima which had become 
 such objects of detestation for their massacre of the prisoners on the 2nd of 
 August ; and their remonstrances had been listened to by the Cortes, which 
 ordered Molina to desist ; but Don N. Montes, wlio had been appointed his 
 successor, after having laid waste all the country as he advanced, forced his way 
 into the place, and then signalized his success by the most frightful revenge, 
 Ibid. ii. 338. putting to death one in every five of the inhabitants. This is stated to have 
 taken place on the 6tli of November, that is to say, we suppose, of the same
 
 Chap. VIII.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 107 
 
 year 1810. But it may, possibly, have been in 1811 ; indeed the only account 1817. 
 that we have found is so confused, indistinct, and imperfect, that the year can ' ' 
 
 only be guessed at. At all events, from the time of this capture of the capital 
 by Monies, the whole of the Audiencia of Quito appears to have remained in 
 subjection to the Spanish authorities, and to have left the struggle for inde- 
 pendence in New Grenada to be waged for some years by the Bogota provinces 
 alone. 
 
 After it had established itself at Santa Fe, in the beginning of 1815, the 
 Congress appointed three persons, M. R. Torices, Garcia Rubria, and M. Pey, CuiomWa, ii. 3r,i. 
 to form an executive government. The revolution in New Grenada, we may 
 remark, as in other parts of Spanish America, had long before this date become 
 Anti-Spanish in all respects ; opposed not only, as at first, to the old colonial 
 system, and, as in most cases, to the authority of the juntas, the regencies, and 
 the Cortes, which had successively acquired or assumed the supremacy in the 
 mother country, but also to the sovereignty of King Ferdinand, and indeed to 
 any kind of monarchy, as well as to the Spanish connexion under whatever 
 modification. Entire independence and a republican form of government had 
 become everywhere the avowed objects of the struggle. To this point indeed, 
 even if other causes had not operated in the same dii'ection, matters would 
 necessarily have been brought by the attitude maintained by Spain, which left 
 the insurgents no choice except between complete independence and unqualified 
 submission. The three individuals selected to form the executive government 
 of New Grenada were all distinguished for their zealous republicanism. The 
 new system, it is affirmed, worked well and was very popular. The people felt 
 and appreciated the relief arising from the removal of many oppressive regula- 
 tions and burthensome imposts ; and all classes are said to have come eagerly 
 forward with their contributions and offers of service. 
 
 This prosperity, however, was but of short diu-ation. As if the hostility of 
 the Spaniards had not been enough, the insurgents had scarcely been left for a 
 moment in quiet when they fell to quarrelling and fighting among themselves. 
 The appointment of Bolivar as Captain-General had been opposed fi-om the 
 first by the province of Carthagena ; and it was thought necessary, therefore, as 
 soon as he had taken the city of Santa Fe, that, instead of either marching 
 against the Royalist territory of Santa Martha, or reserving himself to meet the 
 powerful force expected every day with General JMorillo fi-om Spain, he should 
 proceed to Carthagena and bring that city to terms. According to some cenenu nucou- 
 
 r o O J ..... dray Holstein's 
 
 accounts, indeed, this was a movement of Bolivar's own, in violation both of his Memoirs of 
 
 Simon Bolivar, 
 
 instructions from the Congress, and of his express promise to that body that he 2 vols. svo. Lond. 
 would apply himself in the first instance to the subjugation of Santa Martha. 
 Be this as it may, he actually led his troops against Carthagena, his attempt 
 upon which city, however, be was soon obliged to reduce to a blockade. While 
 the Captain-General of New Grenada was thus occupied, Morillo and his army 
 arrived from Cadiz at the island of JNIargarita, on the coast of Venezuela, on the 
 25th of March. Neither this news nor the urgent representations made to him 
 from all sides, nor even the advance of Morillo upon his rear, would move Boli- 
 var to desert his present object. At last on the 8th of May, after the Spaniards 
 had overrun the greater part of the province of Carthagena, he consented to a 
 peace with the authorities in the city ; and then resigning the command of his
 
 108 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book I. 
 
 1817. army to his cousin, Florcncio Palacios, he embarked two days after on board an 
 Enghsh brig for Jamaica. Even this arrangement, however, did not put an end 
 to the war of the two factions. Palacios and General Castillo, the commander 
 in Carthagena, soon fell out again ; and the state of matters threatened to 
 become as bad as ever. But at last in the latter end of August the siege of the 
 city of Carthagena was formally begun from the sea by Morillo, who had 
 allotted one division of his force to that enterprise, while a second was destined 
 to penetrate into the interior of New Grenada, and a third to reinforce the 
 Spanish troops in Venezuela. The end was that the place was evacuated by the 
 insurgents in the beginning of December. And with its capital, the whole pro- 
 vince of Carthagena may be said to have fallen into the hands of the Royalists. 
 Nor was this all. The recovery of the rest of New Grenada soon followed that of 
 Carthagena. There was some more fighting, but the Royalist troops were 
 every where victorious ; and at last, in June, 1816, Morillo obtained possession 
 of the city of Santa Fe de Bogota, and the cause of independence was for the 
 present as completely struck down and trodden into the earth in New Grenada 
 as in Mexico. Yet here too, although nothing that could be called an insurgent 
 army any longer kept the field, guerrilla bands continued to infest all the more 
 inaccessible parts of the country, and except in the great towns the nominal 
 re-establishment of the royal authority had produced rather an anarchy than a 
 government. 
 
 Venezusla. The quarter in which the war of independence was exciting the greatest 
 
 attention in England and in Europe at the date at which we are now arrived, 
 was Venezuela. Venezuela was, as we have seen, the native country of Miranda, 
 and had been the chief theatre of his operations, actual and intended. It was 
 here, also, that the conspiracy of Gual and Espana had been formed in 1797. 
 The revolutionary spirit, indeed, is said to have shown itself in Venezuela long 
 before any of these attempts, and before any thing similar had taken place 
 elsewhere in Spanish America. According to a statement given in a pamphlet 
 published in 1803 by the well-known Governor Pownall, entitled ' Memorial 
 addressed to the Sovereigns of Europe and the Atlantic,' this spirit, the progress 
 of which the writer had long watched with anxious attention, had first broken out 
 into actual insurrection or decided revolt in Peru and New Grenada in 1781, in 
 Mexico in 1773, in Quito in 1764, and in Venezuela in 1750. Venezuela, there- 
 fore, may properly be called the cradle of the revolution. Pownall, by the bye, 
 in this pamphlet, claims an important share in the plan of emancipation which 
 was submitted to Pitt in 1790.* The author of the work entitled 'Colombia,' 
 states that it was by Pownall that Miranda was introduced to Pitt. Pownall's 
 own account is, that, the subject having long engaged his attention, when an op- 
 portunity of carrying his views into effect now seemed to present itself, he not only 
 gave his assistance in devising the measures by which the emancipation was to be 
 attained, but arranged the plan of an independent sovereign government for the 
 emancipated states, " suited to the existing circumstances of the people and the 
 country ; clear of all democratic anarchy on one hand, and secured against the 
 dangers of despotism on the other." The Governor's notion, it may be remarked, 
 
 * See ante, p. 86.
 
 Chap. VIII.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 109 
 
 was, that the direction and result of the revolutionary movement in the Spanish 1817. 
 American colonies would prove monarchical, not republican ; or. as he himself " 
 
 expresses it, " The falling off of South America will be conducted, in its natural 
 progress, by the spirit of some injured enterprising genius taking the lead of a 
 sense of alienation, and of a disposition of revolt, to the establishment of a great 
 monarchy." It cannot be said to be yet certain whether this judgment be right 
 or wrong. Pownall, writing in 1803, declines to explain the details of his plan. 
 " The matters, however," he says, '■ have been suffered, somehow, to transpire 
 beyond their original bounds ; an echo of it vibrated amongst the officers 
 employ(!d on the expedition to Holland ; and we are told by Sir Robert Wilson 
 that 'Italy and Spanish America for some time occupied Sir Ralph Aber- 
 cromby's attention ' before he received orders to proceed to Egypt. That such 
 a plan existed is well known at Paris and IMadrid, and not unknown at Vienna." 
 The writer of the article, already more than once referred to, on Miranda's 
 efforts and ])rojects for the emancipation of Spanish America, which appeared in 
 the ' Edinburgh Review ' in January, 1809, affirms that the administration of the 
 Duke of Portland, which succeeded that of Lord Grcnville in 1807, and which 
 Miranda found in power when he returned to England in that year after his 
 unsuccessful attempt upon the coast of Caracas, was " prepared to embark in the 
 scheme with real energy." " After various delays," it is added, " a force was at 
 last assembled ; and it lias been oftener than once publicly stated, we believe 
 with perfect accuracy, that the expedition which was prepared at Cork last 
 summer, and which was to be commanded by Sir Arthur Wellesley, was in- 
 tended to co-operate with Miranda in the long projected measure of emancipating 
 South America ; and, had not the extraordinary revolution which broke out in 
 Spain given to those forces a different destination, it is probable that, by this 
 time, that important measure would at length have been accomplished." 
 
 It has been already stated that, on the occupation of Spain by the French 
 armies in 1808, all the different authorities which competed with one another 
 for the supremacy in that country sent out their manifestoes and agents with 
 the view of securing the adherence and support of the colonies. In the first 
 instance, their allegiance was sought for at once by Murat, acting as Lieutenant- 
 General of Spain and the Indies, in the name of Charles IV. ; in the name of 
 Ferdinand VII. by the Junta or Council installed by him at Madrid before his 
 departure for Bayonne ; by the Junta of Seville ; and by the Central Junta at 
 Cadiz. Afterwards, when Joseph Bonaparte had been proclaimed king, and the 
 authority of the Central Junta had come to be generally recognised, the struggle 
 grew to be simply and distinctly between Joseph and Ferdinand, between the 
 foreign interest and that of the nation, or, as it might be most truly and com- 
 prehensively expressed, now that the cause of the Spanish patriots had l)ecn 
 taken up by this country, between France and England. In July, 1808, a Jf4".'"jf„,^"-™; 
 French brig, dispatched by Bonaparte fi-om Bayonne, arrived at Laguaira, ^^^"''"^J^ 
 which is the port of Caracas, the capital of Venezuela, with secret instructions 
 and other papers addressed to the Captain-General, Don Juan de Casas, from 
 whom, and also, it is said, from the inhabitants of Caracas, a small military 
 detachment sent out some time previous by Murat, had met with a very kind 
 reception. The brig, which had touched at Cayenne, had been observed by 
 Captain Bea\er, commanding the English frigate Acasta, who immediately gave 
 
 VOL. I. Q
 
 110 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Booic I. 
 
 1817. chase ; and about an hour after the French captain had had his audience of 
 Casas, and been most graciously received, the active Englishman presented 
 himself. lie was told that he had come at a bad time, and might call again in 
 two hours. Beaver employed the interval to good purpose. Addressing the 
 people in the streets, he informed them of the proceedings of the French in 
 Spain, of which till now they had known nothing ; and it was not long before an 
 enthusiastic throng was bearing about in triumph the portrait of Ferdinand VII., 
 and making the air ring with their loyal vivas. The picture was deposited at 
 last with great solemnity in the government house, where it was all the night 
 surrounded with lights and with crowds of visitors ; the French captain with 
 diiBculty escaped from the city with his life ; and a few days after he and his 
 brig were captured by Beaver, as he was making the best of his way from the 
 coast. 
 
 This was a good beginning ; and it was followed by the entire failure of 
 attempts subsequently made by Bonaparte to induce the people of this and other 
 parts of America to acknowledge his brother Joseph for king, in conformity 
 with the circulars dispatched to all the viceroys and captain-generals by the 
 Council of the Indies. Joseph's proclamations were everywhere torn in pieces ; 
 his agents were driven out of the colonies, and some of them put to death. 
 England, however, was now placed in a dilTercnt position from what she had 
 formerly occupied when interfering or proposing to interfere in the affairs of 
 Spanish America. Being at peace with Spain, she was of course precluded from 
 pursuing her old policy of endeavouring to excite the colonies to the assertion 
 of their independence. But for the moment it did not seem that that mattered 
 nnich. Independence, or emancipation, had apparently ceased to be the object 
 of the colonists themselves ; the popular cry now, in America as in the mother 
 country, was directed only against France and King Joseph ; the Spanish con- 
 nexion and the sovereignty of Ferdinand had become the national rallying 
 words. All that was required, for the present at least, was to cherish these 
 feelings, and to support the colonies in acting upon them. Accordingly, orders 
 were sent out to Sir James Cockburn, the Governor of Cura^oa, to proceed 
 immediately to Caracas. " His secret instructions, which I have from good 
 authority," says General Ducoudray Ilolstein, " were to employ every imaginable 
 means to diminish and destroy the influence of the French party ; secondly, to 
 watch and prevent this party fi'om getting the upper hand, and wresting the 
 colonies from Spain ; thirdly, to endeavour to establish a provisional government 
 favourable to King Ferdinand VII., without engaging himself in any other con- 
 cerns relating to the administration and interior affairs of the government of the 
 country." Casas now felt himself compelled to yield to the prevailing sentiment. 
 He hastened to Laguaira to meet Sir James with a numerous and brilliant 
 retinue. By the people the representative of the English government was 
 received with rapture, and even with regal honours. Public opinion, General 
 Holstein tells us, was entirely changed in favour of England ; and the aversion 
 to the dominion of France was so great, that he saw many gold and silver French 
 coins which had the bust of Bonaparte pierced with tlie point of a dagger or 
 knife, and his portraits cut in pieces. The progress of Sir James Cockburn 
 from Laguaira to Caracas was a sort of ti-iumph. " His entry into the capital," 
 continues the General, " was not less solemn than would have been that of the
 
 Chap. VIIL] DURING THE THIRTY YP:ARS' PEACE. Ill 
 
 king lilmself. All was joy, bustle, and enthusiasm ; the city was spontaneously 1817. 
 illuminated; dinners, festivals, balls, &c., succeeded, during the whole time of 
 his stay ; and the exclamations, ' Long live our beloved, our cherished King 
 Ferdinand VII., and the English, our good and generous allies ! ' were heard 
 throughout the streets." The Captain-General now published a long procla- 
 mation calling upon the inhabitants of Venezuela formally to acknowledge 
 Ferdinand as the new King of Spain and the Indies. 
 
 At heart, however, Casas was believed to be in favour of King Joseph and 
 the French ; and, as it would seem, upon good grounds. Immediately before 
 the arrival of Sir James Cockburn he had thrown into prison the Marquis del 
 Toro, the Marquis de Casa Leon, and other persons belonging to some of the 
 first families in Caracas, for having drawn up, and circulated among their friends 
 for signature, a memorial or petition merely proposing the establishment of a 
 junta for the government of Venezuela in the name of King Ferdinand, of which 
 the Captain-General should act as president. Public opinion, however, expressed 
 itself so strongly against this arbitrary act, that they were soon released. And 
 not long after the Central Spanish Junta, though it might not have relished the 
 project of the colonial junta much more than Casas did, yet looking upon his 
 recently assumed patriotism as somewhat suspicious, replaced him by another 
 Captain-General, Don Vicente Emparan. Emparan, who is admitted to have 
 been well-intentioned, as well as a man of some talent and of very engaging 
 manners, arrived at Laguaira on the 24:th of March, 1809. 
 
 But the views and feelings, whatever may have been as yet their exact nature, 
 which had dictated the proposition for the establishment of a supreme domestic 
 government during the disturbed state of the mother country, continued to 
 strengthen and spread ; and, especially after the accounts received in the begin- 
 ning of 1810, that the Peninsula was all but completely in the possession of the 
 armies of France, they had become general among all classes, with the exception 
 of the official functionaries. At last, on Maundy Thursday, the 19th of April, 
 in that year, the revolution broke out. Emparan and all the members of the 
 Audiencia, having been first compelled to sign their own abdication, were some 
 of them sent to prison, whence they were soon after transferred by sea to the 
 United States, others ordered into confinement in their own houses till they 
 should signify that they were ready to leave the country ; while the new govern- 
 ment was proclaimed and installed under the title of the Provisional Junta of 
 Venezuela, Conservatrix of the rights of His Majesty King Ferdinand VII. 
 
 This movement in the capital of the country was immediately responded to 
 in most of the other provinces, but not with perfect accordance in any, imless 
 it may have been in Barcelona and the isle of Margarita, of the proceedings in 
 which we find nothing stated. Guayana established a junta which at first 
 acknowledged the authority of the Supreme Junta at Caracas ; but, being com- 
 posed of a majority of Spaniards, soon afterwards transferred its allegiance to 
 the Regency of Cadiz. The juntas of Cumana and Varinas sent deputies to 
 Caracas, but only to declare that they could not recognise the new government 
 there established, and to demand the convocation of a General Congress. When 
 the commissioners from Caracas presented themselves before Don Fernando 
 JNIiyares, the Governor of Maracaibo, he ordered them to be gone with violent 
 menaces ; and they were still worse treated by Cevallos, the governor of Coro, 
 
 Ci2
 
 112 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book I. 
 
 1817. by whom they were seized and shipped ofFto Porto Rico, and were there put in 
 
 ' ' ■ irons, till after some time the earnest intercession of the English Admiral, Sir 
 
 Alexander Cochrane, effected their liberation. 
 
 The policy that the English government intended to pursue with reference to 
 the Spanish American colonies was distinctly stated in a letter addressed by the 
 Earl of Liverpool on the 29th of June, to Brigadier-General Ledyard, the 
 Governor of CuraQoa, to whom the Junta of Caracas had early transmitted an 
 official communication of the events that had taken place in that province for 
 the information of his government, accompanied with a request that he would 
 afford them his countenance and protection. Lord Liverpool, after observing 
 that " it was the first object of his Majesty, on being acquainted with the revo- 
 lution in Spain, to second the efforts of so brave and loyal a people for main- 
 taining the independence of the Spanish monarchy in all parts of the world," 
 proceeded ; — " In conformity to these sentiments, and the obligations of justice 
 and good faith, his Majesty must discourage every step tending to separate the 
 Spanish provinces in America from the mother country in Europe. If, however, 
 contrary to his Majesty's wishes and expectation, the Spanish State in Europe 
 should be condemned to submit to the yoke of the common enemy, whether by 
 real compulsion, or a convention that should leave only the shadow of inde- 
 pendence, on the same principles his Majesty would think it his duty to afford 
 every kind of assistance to the provinces of America that should render them 
 independent o( French Spain, open an asylum to such of the Spaniards as should 
 disdain to submit to their oppressors, regard America as their natural i-efuge, 
 and preserve the remains of the monarchy to their lawful sovereign, if ever he 
 should recover his liberty." " It was," his lordship added, "a satisfaction to 
 his Majesty to learn by papers he had received, that what had passed in Caracas 
 was in a great measure owing to the erroneous impressions they had received 
 of the desperate state of Spain. These being removed, the inhabitants of 
 Caracas would be disposed to renew their connexions with Spain, as integral 
 parts of the empire, on their being admitted to take their place in the Cortes 
 of the kingdom." 
 
 Intimation of the change of government had also been made by the Provisional 
 Junta of Venezuela, as it called itself, to the Spanish Regency, of submission to 
 whose authority, however, nothing was said ; and this and the other intelligence 
 received from the colonies produced a decree or manifesto from that body, dated 
 at Cadiz the 18th of August, in which all the provinces of Venezuela, with the 
 exception of Maracaibo and Core, were ordered to be treated as in a state of 
 revolution and rebellion, their coasts declared to be in a state of blockade, and 
 the determination expressed " to use every means to stop the evil in its origin, 
 and prevent its progress." At the same time Don Ignacio Cortavarria was sent 
 out to Porto Rico with the title of Commisionado Regie, and with full authority 
 to employ every available means for the reduction of Venezuela to its former 
 subjection. 
 
 Meanwhile, the new government at Caracas had already commenced the 
 reform of some of the most oppressive abuses of the old system. The tribute or 
 capitation tax levied upon the Indians was abolished ; the slave-trade was 
 declared illegal; immediate relief was given to commerce by the removal of the
 
 Chap. VIII.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 113 
 
 alcabala, or tax upon sales, and of other duties ; and decrees, were passed in 1817. 
 favour of the general fi-eedom both of trade and agriculture. 
 
 Cortavarria began his operations .with an endeavour to produce a counter- 
 revolution by a series of proclamations addressed to the people of Caracas. 
 Finding that this method promised little success, he next had recourse to the 
 agency of emissaries and spies. But before the end of the year the contest had 
 become one of arms. Miyares, the former governor of Maracaibo, had been 
 nominated by the Regency Captain-General in room of Emparan ; both he and 
 Cevallos, governor of Coro, had joined Cortavarria ; and by their influence and 
 intrigues disturbances had been excited in several parts of the country. In 
 these circumstances the Marquis del Toro was placed by the government of 
 Caracas, with the title of General-in-Chief of the Army, at the head of a body of 
 troops, with which he entered the province of Coro on the 18th of November. 
 But the movement proved indecisive, or rather quite unsuccessful ; and the 
 Marquis, after a precipitate advance, in which he had neglected to take measures 
 to maintain his communication with Caracas, was glad to make a still more 
 precipitate retreat, which he accomplished with considerable difficulty. 
 
 In this state afiairs were, when about the end of the year news came of the 
 arrival at the island of Curaqoa of General Miranda : he had left London in 
 October. Nothing could have been less expected by all parties, and it may be 
 doubted whether the reappearance of the champion of independence on his old 
 field was most emban-assing to the Spanish or to the American party. The 
 Junta had instructed their agents and friends in England to use all their in- 
 fluence to prevent the General from coming over. They still professed to act 
 in the name or in the interest of King Ferdinand : Miranda had all along been 
 opposed to the Spanish dominion and the Spanish connexion in every shape. 
 The leaders of the present movement, too, may not have much enjoyed the 
 prospect of sharing their power and consequence with a rival of so much talent 
 and popularity. It would appear that they were even prepared to employ force 
 to keep him out of the country ; so that he found it expedient to slip quietly out 
 of England without any attendants, and to conceal his name till he reached his 
 native country. General Ilolstcin says that he came to Curacoa under the 
 name of Martin ; but bringing letters of introduction to the Governor from the 
 Duke of Cambridge and Mr. Vansittart. He was soon after conveyed in an 
 English vessel to Laguaira ; and there and in the city of Caracas he was wel- 
 comed by the people with tumultuous rejoicing, and with a succession of fetes, 
 which lasted for many days. According to Holstein it was Miranda's influence 
 that decided the question of having a Congress. Yet it may be doubted if he 
 was, in existing circumstances, disposed to push the revolution so far as even the 
 Junta would have done. He had apparently come to Venezuela with the sanc- 
 tion of the English government, whose present policy, as we have seen, was 
 altogether opposed to the separation of the colonies from the mother country. 
 When a committee, of which he was one, was appointed to draw up the scheme 
 of a constitution, he is stated to have stood alone in proposing one closely 
 resembling the former colonial system. It is affirmed indeed to have been the Haistox'i.'ii'"' 
 same that he had intended to have presented to the South Americans if his 
 expedition in 1806 had proved successfrd ; but this seems not very credible. 
 "It was," says Holstein, "as instructed and able men have assured me,
 
 Colombia, ii. 322. 
 
 il4 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book I. 
 
 1817. adapted to the spirit and character of the people." But he acknowledges that 
 it created Miranda many enemies. It did in fact expose him to the suspicion 
 of being a less zealous friend of liberty than he had formerly been esteemed, if 
 not of being an emissary of England, and of having designs which for the present 
 he could not safely avow. It is not at all probable that there was any justice 
 in these surmises ; Miranda may have so far been swayed by the change of cir- 
 cumstances as to have been willing, for the sake of securing the countenance of 
 England, to postpone his project of separation and independence, and to use his 
 influence in favour of a moderate course ; but his subsequent conduct sufficiently 
 shows that he had given up none of the objects or principles to which his pre- 
 vious life had been devoted. Holstein assures us that he himself treated the 
 murmurs against him with contempt, and that they did not aifect the attachment 
 of the wiser portion of the patriots. It is evident, indeed, that he lost little 
 either of popularity, or even, however reluctantly it might be accorded, of ascend- 
 ancy with the Junta ; for he was not only returned as one of the members to the 
 Congress (for the town of Pao in the province of Barcelona), but was, before the 
 meeting of that body, nominated by the government Commander-in-Chief of all 
 the Land and Sea Forces of the State. 
 
 Whatever may have been the views, either of Miranda or of the Junta, the 
 tide of events had now evidently set in for complete revolution. General 
 Ledyard, the governor of Curacjoa, upon receiving Lord Liverpool's letter quoted 
 above, had dispatched his secretary. Colonel Robertson, to Caracas to endeavour 
 to prevail upon the Junta to acknowledge the Regency of Cadiz ; but the feeling 
 of the colony was found to be such that Robertson did not think it prudent even 
 to mention the object of his mission. Some time after, or about the beginning 
 of 1811, an embassy was sent from Caracas to the Junta of Santa Fe, and a 
 treaty of alliance concluded between the two governments. On the 2nd of 
 March, 1811, the Congress assembled at Caracas. On the 4th of April three 
 persons were nominated by this body to form the executive government, with, 
 liowever, very limited powers. At last, on the 5th of July, it was moved and 
 carried that Venezuela should be declared to be a Republic, fi"ce and inde- 
 pendent of any foreign dominion ; and the Act or Declaration of Independence 
 was published on the 11th of the same month. 
 
 On the same day, however, an insurrection of the Spanish party, calling 
 themselves IsJeiios (that is. Islanders, from many of them having, it seems, been 
 born in the Canary Islands), broke out in one of the subiu'bs of Caracas. It 
 was not suppressed till Miranda had put himself at the head of an armed force, 
 and what is described as an obstinate battle had taken place, in which the 
 Islenos were worsted, and many of them made prisoners. It is not said, indeed, 
 that any body wtis killed on either side in the fight ; but sixteen of the captured 
 Islenos were shot in the course of the same month. Then the inhabitants of the 
 City of Valencia revolted ; and against them was sent first the Marquis del 
 Toro, and afterwards Miranda, who did not succeed in reducing the place till 
 he had made two attempts to storm it, in the first of which he was repulsed. 
 According to one account, when he at last effected his entry on the 18th of 
 August, he put both the garrison and the greater part of the unarmed population 
 to the sword. Other accounts merely speak of ten of the ringleaders in the 
 insurrection having been some time after put to death. Both statements may
 
 Chap. VIII.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 115 
 
 possibly be true. From all this it is very evident that the feeling in favour of 1817. 
 republicanism and independence was by no means universal as yet either 
 throughout Venezuela or even in the province of Caracas. The Congress, 
 nevertheless, proceeded with its work, and at last on the 23rd of December 
 produced the scheme of a constitution. It established a federal government for 
 Venezuela, imitated fi-om that of the United States ; the principal arrangements 
 being, that the legislative body should consist of a House of Representatives, to 
 be returned by the electoral colleges, or popular constituencies, and a Senate, 
 to be elected by the provincial legislatures ; and that the executive power should 
 be vested in three persons, to be nominated by the electoral colleges. The 
 Roman Catholic religion, however, was declared to be the religion of the State ; 
 and, along with a proclamation of the sovereignty of the people and the rights of 
 man, was introduced a provision that no foreigners should be permitted to reside 
 in the country unless they would respect the national faith. 
 
 This constitution appears to have been accepted, or assumed to have been 
 accepted, by the people ; and the Congress commenced its second session in the 
 subjugated town of Valencia, in March, 1812. At this time, it is affirmed, every- 
 thing wore a prosperous and promising aspect. The government was popular ; 
 actual opposition was everywhere put down ; the military force of the State was 
 respectable and efficient ; the commerce of the country flourished ; and, naturally 
 enough, the people were contented. In the preceding year the anniversary of 
 the revolution had been celebrated with illuminations, fetes, and other public 
 and private rejoicings. That year the 19th of April had been taken as the great 
 day, without any regard to the church festival of Maundy or Holy Thursday, 
 although it was, it must be confessed, the procession occasioned by that holiday 
 which had given the leaders of the revolution the opportunity of effecting their 
 design. In the present year, 1812, Holy Thursday fell on the 26th of March ; 
 and on that afternoon one of the most dreadful earthquakes ever known in South 
 America laid the city of Caracas in ruins. The shock, which took place a few 
 minutes after four o'clock, lasted nearly two minutes, and threw down between 
 four and five thousand private houses, and about twenty churches and convents, 
 together with all the other public buildings and monuments. The port of 
 Laguaira was also nearly overwhelmed, and various other places in the province 
 shared in the calamity. The number of lives destroyed is said to have amounted 
 altogether to nearly twenty thousand. In the city of Caracas the churches 
 were crowded at the moment with persons preparing to join in the very procession 
 which had been taken advantage of to bring about the revolution two years 
 before at the same hour. 
 
 A superstitious people naturally saw in this terrible event, and remarkable 
 coincidence, a condemnation of the revolution by heaven, and an outpouring upon 
 their heads of the Divine wrath and vengeance. The clergy, of course, the 
 majority of whom were disaffected to the new system, did their best to deepen 
 this conviction. The effect in detaching the popular mind from the cause of 
 independence is said to have been immense. In short, to the earthquake is 
 mainly attributed the failure of the revolution in Venezuela at this stage of its 
 progress. It is evident, however, that other causes contributed, and that things 
 had been beginning to go wrong in some respects before this. General IIol- 
 stein, in noticing the satisfied and excellent temper of the public mind at the
 
 116 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book I. 
 
 1817. era of the first anniversary of the revolution, in April, 1811, confesses that this 
 ' state of things did not subsist long. " After a while," he says, " the govern- 
 
 ment sunk into indolence, the natural result of a too greatly restrained executive 
 power. It had neither authority nor energy. The Congress was perplexed, 
 and uncertain what means to employ in order to give more strength and con- 
 sistency to its government." The government paper-money, too, it is admitted, 
 had become depreciated before the earthquake, though it was not till some time 
 after that it became entirely worthless. And, what was most serious of all, the 
 Spanish troops had already for some time been making considerable progress in 
 the recovery of the country. The General of the Cortes, Domingo Monteverde, 
 was lying before the town of Carora on the day of the earthqviake, and imme- 
 diately attacked and took it. He soon after reduced in like manner Barqui- 
 simeto, Araure, and San Carlos ; meeting, it is said, with little or no opposition, 
 Colombia, ii. 333. " wholc bodies of the patriot army deserting to him wherever he made his 
 appearance." Soon after, in June, Porto Cabello, the strongest fortress in 
 Venezuela, and the place to which all the prisoners of war had been regularly 
 sent, and in which the principal stores of arms and ammunition belonging to the 
 republic were deposited, fell into his hands. It had been intrusted, about nine 
 months before, to the charge of Simon Bolivar, being the first command ever 
 held by that afterwards celebrated personage. Bolivar, born in 1783, in the city 
 of Caracas, of one of the most opulent families in Venezuela, had been sent to 
 Madrid for the completion of his education at the age of fourteen, and, after 
 visiting all the principal countries in Europe, had returned to Venezuela in 
 1809 in the same fleet which brought over the new Captain-General Emparan. 
 He then held the rank or title of lieutenant-colonel in the Spanish army, and 
 brought with him a young and beautiful wife, whom he had married at Madrid 
 in 1802. She died, however, soon after. Bolivar did not take part in the 
 revolutionary movement in the first instance, but he was soon after persuaded 
 to give in his adhesion ; and, having accepted from the junta a militia colonel's 
 commission, to proceed in association with another individual on a mission to 
 London to solicit the support of the English government. He set out in June, 
 1810. After a short stay in London, finding his object unattainable, he 
 returned to Caracas ; and in September the following year he was appointed 
 to the command of Porto Cabello. According to General Holstein he had for 
 some time after his return declined all military ser\-ice, but was at last persuatled 
 by Miranda to accept this command, together with the rank of lieutenant- 
 colonel of the staff in the regular army. The loss of Porto Cabello was brought 
 about by an insurrection of the prisoners, by whom the garrison were over- 
 powered. Bolivar and most of his officers made their escape ; and the next 
 day Monteverde entered and took possession of the place. This event was 
 followed by a treaty concluded between Monteverde and Miranda on the 20th 
 of July, in which it was stipulated that the Constitution presented by the Cortes 
 to the Spaniards should be introduced in Venezuela, and recognised by the 
 inhabitants ; but that no person should be punished or molested on account of 
 former political opinions ^or conduct, that a general amnesty or act of oblivion 
 should be passed, that all private property should be held sacred, and that 
 all who desired to quit the coimtry should be freely permitted to do so. The 
 histories written in the interest of the revolution say that thus the province of
 
 Chap. VIII.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 117 
 
 Caracas came again into the possession of the Spaniards. But, in point of fact, 1817. 
 all the other provinces appear to have been previously recovered ; so that the 
 authority of the Cortes was now established throughout all Venezuela. It is 
 admitted that the Venezuelan republic, including junta, or executive, congress, 
 military force, and everything else, was for the present entirely put down. 
 
 This proved also the end of the career of poor Miranda. In their alarm, 
 according to one account, the Congress had shortly before this capitulation Colombia, n. 333 
 nominated him dictator, authorizing him, after the old Roman form, to act in 
 all things as he should in the emergency judge to be most for the good of the 
 country. He had been forced to evacuate first the town of Valencia, then a 
 strong post in the neighbourhood called La Cabrera, — the inhabitants of which, 
 it appeal's, notwithstanding his presence, declared for the royalists, — and had then 
 retreated to La Vittoria, where he was when he received the news of the loss of 
 Porto Cabello. It was at La Vittoria that the treaty with Monteverde was Hoistein, i. 
 
 • 124—129. 
 
 arranged. He then proceeded to Caracas, with the intention of leaving the 
 country by the English corvette Sapphire, Captain Haynes. On the afternoon 
 of the yOthof July he arrived, heated and fatigued, at the house of Lieutenant- 
 Colonel Manuel Maria Casas, the republican commandant of Laguaira, who had 
 not yet been relieved by a Spanish garrison. A large company was assembled 
 to receive him ; among the rest being, besides Casas, Doctor Miguel Penna, 
 Civil Governor of Laguaira, Bolivar, and Captain Haynes. The Spaniards 
 prevailed upon Miranda, notwithstanding Haynes's objections, to remain where 
 he was till morning ; and then, in the middle of the night, Penna, who is said 
 to have been the contriver of the plot, Casas, and Bolivar, accompanied with four 
 armed soldiers, entered his bedroom, and seized him as he lay asleep. Having 
 compelled him to walk with them to a fort in the neighbourhood of the town, 
 tliey there had him put in irons, and then dispatched an express to Monteverde, 
 informing him of what they had done. There is no reason to suppose that there 
 had been any previous concert with the Spanish General ; but he gave no direc- 
 tions to liberate the prisoner. The next day a Spanish garrison took possession 
 of the fort where Miranda was, by the Commandant of which he was sent back, 
 but still in fetters, to Laguaira. Here he lay in confinement for some months, 
 and was then sent to Porto Rico, whence he was transported to Cadiz ; and there 
 he was detained in close imprisonment in the fort of La Caraca, till death put 
 an end to his sufferings in 1816. 
 
 Bolivar and his associates in this transaction professed to have proceeded upon 
 the assumption that Miranda had been a traitor to the republican cause, having 
 been employed and sent out for the purpose of ruining it by the English govern- 
 ment ; and they may possibly have entertained such a belief But although 
 Miranda had many influential friends in this country, where he had been so 
 long known, and even the Government, confiding in the moderation of his prin- 
 ciples, may not have been sorry that the revolutionary movement should have 
 fallen under the guidance of such a man, the notion that the English govern- 
 ment had any part either in dispatching him upon his last visit to Venezuela, 
 or in directing or influencing his course after he got there, may be safely pro- 
 nounced to be an entire delusion. Even General Hoistein, with all his preju- 
 dices against England, and diseased suspicion of her habits of intrigue and 
 working in the dark, does not credit this imputation. It rests in fact upon 
 
 VOL. I. R
 
 lis HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book I. 
 
 1817. nothing stronger than the simple ciraimstance of Miranda having come to 
 the country in one English vessel, and having arranged to leave it in another. 
 There can be no reasonable question but that he was to the end of his public career, 
 as he had been from the first, the sincere friend of the emancipation of the 
 colonies, although his views may not have been so ardently democratic as those 
 of most of the younger and more inexperienced spirits with whom he found 
 himself associated in his last enterprise, and although also when he set out 
 upon that attempt he may, in the changed state of things in Spain, have been 
 prepared to submit, if necessary, for the present, to the continuance of a con- 
 nexion with thfe mother country which could be little more than nominal, and 
 have implied no real subjection, if he could have secured such a reform in the 
 system of the colonial government as would have produced most of the sub- 
 stantial benefits of freedom. Submission to the Cortes and the Constitution was 
 a very different thing from svibmission to the old monarchical absolutism. But, 
 with his peculiar views and principles, which were not precisely those of any of 
 the contending parties at that particular moment, Miranda, after his capitulation 
 to Monteverde, in July, 1812, could count upon no rescue from any quarter if 
 he should once chance to be thrown down, or to fall into the hands of any 
 faction of his personal enemies, of whom he is said to have made many by the 
 haughtiness of his demeanour, and the open contempt he expressed for the hot- 
 headed and incompetent persons with whom he had to co-operate, as well as 
 by the envy which his popularity excited. He was too little of a democrat for 
 his republican fellow-countrymen, and too much of one for either the Spaniards 
 or the English. Denounced as a traitor by the independent leaders in Vene- 
 zuela, he had undeniably borne arms against the Cortes, and had been as 
 indisputably opposed all his life to the royalist party in Spain, and had by the 
 course of events and his recent position lost whatever claim he might previously 
 have had upon the protection of the English government. He was consequently 
 left to perish, apparently without an effort being made to save him. 
 
 The overthrow of the republican government neither restored peace and 
 order in Venezuela, nor gave more than a momentary check to the revo- 
 lution. Monteverde, who had been appointed Captain-General, is described as 
 a man of no talent or force of character, and his government soon became a 
 mere anarchy. " Each commander of the smallest detachment," says General 
 Holstein, " followed his own will and caprice. The vast territory of Venezuela 
 was again the theatre of murders, cruelties, and every sanguinary deed, com- 
 mitted without the consent of Monteverde, who, if he heard them when some 
 few dared to complain, could not afford them any redress, his authority being 
 usurped by these chiefs, who despised his weakness, and did everything accord- 
 ing to their own will and pleasure." The consequence was, that detestation of 
 the Spanish regime now spread faster than ever, and the popular feeling through- 
 out Venezuela soon became ripe for a new insurrection. Leaders were not 
 wanting. Before the end of the year 1812 San Jago Marinno, a young student 
 of the city of Cumana, had again raised the standard of liberty and independence, 
 and, after having repulsed an attack made upon his head-quarters at Maturin 
 by Monteverde, had assumed the title of General-in-Cliief and Dictator of the 
 Eastern provinces of Venezuela. Meanwhile, in the beginning of the year 1813, 
 Bolivar, who had found his way to Carthagena, had entered the country from
 
 Chap. YIII.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 119 
 
 the opposite side at the head of a considerable force, consisting partly of volun- 1817. 
 teers raised in New Grenada, partly of regular troops suj)plied by the Congress 
 of that State. 
 
 In the fierce and sanguinary contest that followed, all the usages of civilized 
 warfare were disregarded on both sides. And it may be doubted on which side 
 most of the blame lies of having commenced this barbarous system. It appears 
 to be admitted that the war to the death — gnerra a mucrte — was first pro- 
 claimed in a manifesto, signed and published by a number of Bolivar's officers, 
 on the 1 6th of January, while they were advancing into Venezuela, and before 
 any encounter had yet taken place. The authors of this paper (which was not 
 signed by Bolivar) alleged as their ground and justification the oppressions and 
 cruelties that had been practised by the Spaniards on many of the inhabitants of 
 Venezuela, in violation of the late convention. On the other hand, the actual 
 practice of putting the prisoners to death seems to have been begun by the 
 Spaniards ; thfy quoted the above-mentioned proclamation as their excuse ; and 
 the first execution of the kind included Colonel Bricenno, one of Bolivar's prin- 
 cipal officers, and one of those who had signed the proclamation. The appear- 
 ance of Bolivar in Venezuela, however, was the signal for a general rising ; and 
 not only the people joined him in thousands, but great numbers of the royalist 
 soldiers, three-fourths of whom were Creoles, deserted to him, entire companies 
 and regiments in some cases coming over. The result was, that when he marched 
 upon Caracas the Spanish governor of the city found he was without the 
 means of making any resistance to his entry ; and, within little more than a year 
 after the capitulation of Miranda at Victoria, another treaty was concluded at 
 the same place, by which all Venezuela was again surrendered upon precisely 
 the same terms to the patriots. Monteverde, indeed, refused to ratify the 
 treaty ; and he still retained the strong fortress of Porto Cabello, where he lay, 
 with, it would appear, the command of the three provinces of Guayana, Mara- 
 caibo, and Coro. Bolivar, however, established himself in Caracas, which city 
 he entered on the 4th of August, a few days after the capitulation, amid the 
 tumultuous rejoicings of the inhabitants. He now, in conformity with the ex- 
 ample set by Marinno, assumed the title of Dictator and Liberator of the 
 Western Provinces of Venezuela. Of the five liberated provinces, Caracas, 
 Varinas, and Margarita were considered as forming his government ; those of 
 Cumana and Barcelona as subject to Marinno. 
 
 Very soon, however, everything again began to go wrong. In the first place, 
 the government set up by the two liberators, instead of being a free republic, 
 was a military despotism, and that both in form and in fact. The people seem 
 to have been nearly as much oppressed and pillaged by the troops of Bolivar and 
 Marinno as they had been by those cf Monteverde. Then the want of money 
 came in a short time to be severely felt by the new governments. Nor was the 
 war either concluded, or even suspended for more than a moment. Porto 
 Cabello was blockaded both by sea and land, but could not be reduced ; 
 Monteverde's force was soon strengthened by the arrival of a body of 1500 
 troops fi'om Cadiz, which the besieging squadron could not prevent from entering 
 the place. Some successes, indeed, were obtained by the patriots in the field ; 
 but even that was only for a short time. Meanwhile the character of the war 
 grew every day more horrid and demoniac. Boves and Morales, two of the 
 
 r2
 
 120 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book I. 
 
 1S17. royalist commanders, with their Infernal Division, as it was named, particularly 
 ' distinguished themselves by their atrocities. It is distinctly atfirmed that Boves 
 
 and another captain, Rosette, in one of their expeditions, in which they marched 
 through a country four hundred miles in extent, from the banks of the Orinoco 
 Colombia, i. 354. to the environs of Caracas, "did not spare one human being, but butchered all 
 those who refused to join them." On one occasion we read of Puy, another of 
 the Spanish military chiefs — for such they might properly be called, each of 
 them being in the habit of acting for himself with scarcely any reference to a 
 central or common authority — having ordered out five hundred and seventy-four 
 prisoners to be put to death at once, when five hundred of them were actually 
 shot, and the rest were saved by an alarm being raised that the republicans 
 were approaching. On the other hand, it is admitted that, some time after this, 
 Bolivar, " in a moment of frenzy," as it is phrased by his apologists, gave orders 
 for the execution of all the Spanish prisoners at Laguaira and Caracas. General 
 Ducoudray Holstein gives a particular account of this massacre, which was 
 appointed to take place on the 14th, 15th, and 16th of February, 1814. "This 
 bloody sentence," says the General, "was effectually executed upon 12.53 
 Spaniards and Islenos, prisoners of war, merchants, and others, who had never 
 taken arms against the Dictator, and who were established in Curacjoa and 
 Laguaira. These executions lasted the three appointed days, without any trial 
 or judgment. The Dictator would hear no representation, no entreaty ; nothing 
 could save them. Amongst these victims were men unable to walk, by reason of 
 infirmity or age, many of them being eighty years old and upwards. They were 
 put into an arm-chair, strongly tied, drawn to the place of execution, and shot !" 
 In retaliation, Colonel Salomon, who had become governor of Porto Cabello in 
 the place of Monteverde, disabled by his wounds, put to death all his prisoners 
 in that fort. Whenever a town was taken, the common practice seems to have 
 been to make a general slaughter of the inhabitants. The principal destruction 
 of life in all cases, indeed, appears to have taken place after the fighting was 
 over ; in few or none of the battles is the number of killed stated to have been 
 considerable. 
 
 In the midst of all this work of butchery and extermination, Bolivar had, on 
 the 1st of January, 1814, formally resigned, or offered to resign, his dictatorship 
 in an assembly of the principal inhabitants of Caracas, whom he called toge- 
 ther in the convent of San Francisco ; but the proposition was not accepted ; 
 it was voted, on the contrary, that he should retain the supreme power until 
 Venezuela and New Grenada should be united under one government. "With- 
 out taking into account the armed force by which his enemies or detractors say 
 the assembly was overawed, it is pretty evident that the circumstances of the 
 moment scarcely permitted any other conclusion of the business. Instead of 
 losing or even perilling his dictatorship by this proceeding, Bolivar in reality 
 obtained a confirmation of it, or rather his first regular institution into it, or 
 what might pass for such. 
 
 However, all would not do ; the new system was doomed once more to fall to 
 the ground. After the Spanish forces under General Cagigal and Colonel 
 Cevallos had been beaten on the 29th of May in the great battle of Carabozo, 
 and a number of other actions, which it would be wearisome to particularize, 
 had been fought with varying success, Bolivar and Marinno were attacked by
 
 Chap. VIII.l DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. ]21 
 
 Boves at La Puerta on the 14th of June, and completely routed. The Spaniards 1817. 
 now carried everything before them ; and, after Boves had forced the patriots 
 to raise the siege of Porto Cabello, and compelled Valencia to surrender by 
 capitulation, another royalist commander. Colonel Gonzales, advanced upon the 
 city of Caracas, which was abandoned by Bolivar upon his approach ; and the 
 Spanish forces re-entered that capital in triumph on the 7th of Jidy, or about a 
 year after it had last fallen into the hands of the insurgents. There was some 
 more fighting, in which Bolivar was again beaten by Boves ; and at last, on the 
 24th of August, he and Marinno embarked at Cumana for the island of Mar- 
 garita, whence they proceeded to Carthagena, and arrived there, as already 
 related, on the 25th of September. The war was maintained for some time 
 longer by Ribas, Bermudes, and other partisans of the two dictators, after they 
 had themselves left the country ; but before the end of the year the last remnant 
 of the patriot army was destroyed, having been attacked and beaten, first by 
 Boves at Urica, on the 5th of December (in which action, however, Boves lost 
 his life), and again by Morales at Maturin, where it made its last stand, six 
 days after. 
 
 But the re-establishment of the Spanish authority did not restore good govern- 
 ment and peace to Venezuela now, any more than it had done in 1812, or, 
 indeed, we may say, than any change had done since the first breaking out 
 of the revolution. On the recovery of Caracas, the civil government of the city 
 was intrusted provisionally to the Marquis de Casa Leon, and the military 
 government to Don Manuel Cagigal, who had for some time held the ofl'ice of 
 Captain-General of Venezuela. Both are admitted to have been humane and 
 moderate men ; but neither appears to have had much firmness or force of cha- 
 racter ; nor did the position of either allow him to make any stand against the 
 ascendancy of the military chieftains, and that power of the sword which visually 
 domineers over everything in times of civil confusion. Even the formal supreme 
 authority of Cagigal was soon after reduced by General Morales being appointed 
 Commander-in-Chief of all the portion of the country lying to the east of the 
 city of Caracas, which were thus withdrawn altogether from the jurisdiction of 
 the Captain-General. Morales is charged with being one of the most blood- 
 thirsty of the Spanish commanders ; and his government of the districts com- 
 mitted to his charge, as a mere system of barbarian pillage and oppression. 
 
 The revolutionary spirit, however, lay quiet in Venezuela, or at least made 
 no armed demonstration, throughout the year 1815. Only the island of Mar- 
 garita maintained its independence, first against all the efforts of Morales, and 
 afterwards, for a considerable time, against Morillo himself and his veterans fresh 
 from Spain, although they eventually obtained possession f)f Villa del Assump- 
 cion, the capital of the island. At last, in the beginning of 181G, after they had 
 lost Carthagena, and been driven out of nearly the whole of New Grenada, 
 the revolutionary chiefs made pre|iarations for another attempt in \ enezuela. 
 Bolivar had by this time left Jamaica, to which he had sailed from Carthagena in 
 May of the preceding year, and had come to Aux Cayes in the island of Hayti. 
 There he was met by most of the leading persons, military and civil, who had 
 taken part in the late wars in Venezuela and New Grenada, among the rest his 
 former coadjutor Marinno ; Generals Piar and Bermudez ; Francisco Antonio 
 Zea, afterwards President of Colombia; Louis Brion, a person of French
 
 122 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book I. 
 
 1817. extraction, a native of the island of Curaqoa, who had expended a large fortune 
 in support of the independent cause, and had in the preceding November arrived 
 at Carthagena from London, with a corvette of twenty-four guns which he had 
 purchased and laden with 14,000 stand of arms, and a great quantity of warlike 
 stores ; the half French, half German Ducoudray Holstein, who had taken a 
 conspicuous part in the late unsuccessful defence of Carthagena ; and the Scotch 
 adventurer Sir Gregor M'Gregor, another of the many foreigners from our own 
 and other countries who had by this time come over to expend their enthusiasm 
 or to seek their fortunes in these American wars. By these persons it was 
 agreed that a new expedition should be fitted out, and that it should be put 
 under the command of Bolivar, as Captain-General of the armies of Venezuela 
 and New Grenada. The Ilaytian government, then presided over by Petion, 
 made liberal advances in ammunition, provisions, and money ; Brion, who was 
 appointed commander of the naval part of the armament, contributed his cor- 
 vette with all she carried, and whatever besides remained of his property or his 
 credit ; and the expedition set sail from Aux Cayes on the 10th of April. 
 neinTf.'sIo""'' There were six generals, nine colonels, forty-seven lieutenant-colonels, and 
 many other staiF and other superior officers, besides majors, captains, and lieu- 
 tenants to the number of about five hundred ; but the number of soldiers was 
 by no means in proportion to that of the officers. On the 2nd of May, when 
 not far from the island of Margarita, the squadron fell in with two Spanish 
 men-of-war, a large brig and a schooner, both of which were captured after a 
 smart action. The brig was boarded by the patriots ; when they entered the 
 cabin with drawn swords, they found the Spanish commander, who had been 
 wounded, in the hands of the surgeon, upon which they killed first the one and 
 then the other. Brion, who fought bravely, was wounded, and was immediately 
 after the action promoted to the rank of Admiral of the republic of Venezuela. 
 They reached the port of Juan Griego, in the island of Margarita, the next day, 
 and were there welcomed and congratulated by General Arismendi, who had 
 held the greater part of the island till now against the Spaniards. A junta, or 
 general assembly, of the patriots of the place was held the same day in the 
 cathedral of La Villa del Norte, to which all the officers of the expedition were 
 invited ; and there Bolivar was, with much religious and civic ceremony, elected, 
 or recognised and proclaimed, General-in-Chief and Captain-General of the 
 Liberating Armies of Venezuela and New Grenada, to which titles he is stated 
 to have in his official acts added of himself that of Supreme Chief of the Re- 
 public of Venezuela. Their late success in the sea-fight had gone before them ; 
 and as soon as their arrival was known the Spanish forces evacuated Villa del 
 Assumpcion, the capital of the island, and retired within the fortifications of 
 Pampatar. Yet the Liberating Army was at this time in no very enviable 
 plight. " We were absolutely destitute of everything," writes General Ducou- 
 dray Holstein ; " the small and rocky island of Margarita was imable to furnish 
 us with the necessary provisions ; the vessels were in want of rations for the 
 crews, so that each oflacer and private had a scanty ration, consisting of a little 
 cake of Indian meal, not weighing two ounces, called arepa, and two small salted 
 fishes, with nothing else ! We general and staff officers dined with General 
 Arismendi ; but our table was surrounded by at least fifty hungry officers not 
 belonging to the staff, who took from our table what they could reach, so that
 
 
 i. al h WJI^U 
 
 BCDlLITAIi.. 
 
 /^■u- 
 
 S./.
 
 Chap. VIIT.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 123 
 
 many of the company rose without being able to satisfy their own hunger. 1817. 
 There was no money, no clothes, nor anything but great confusion and misery ! " 
 
 At last, on the 25th of May the squadron again set sail. Stretching across 
 to the main, they put in at the port of the town of Carupano, from which not 
 only the Spanish garrison but also the greater part of the inhabitants fled at 
 their approach. They stayed till the end of June, but in all that time not fifty 
 volunteers came and joined their ranks. Bolivar then determined to try another 
 point, and, again setting out with thirteen vessels, sailed for the town or village 
 of Oeumare, between Caracas and Porto Cabello, which they reached on the 3rd 
 of July. From this place he addressed a proclamation a few days after to the 
 people of Venezuela, telling them that an army provided with arms and munitions 
 of war of every kind was on its march under his orders to liberate them ; and 
 promising, among many other things, that the killing of prisoners should cease, 
 and that, as soon as possession should be obtained of the capital, the popular con- 
 stituencies would be invited to elect their deputies for a Congress. Bolivar's 
 boasted Liberating Army, according to Holstein, consisted at this time " of six 
 hundred and fifty men, of whom three hundred had never seen a battle, and whose 
 officers were, a great part of them, totally unfit to command." The procla- 
 mation appears to have induced one hundred and fifty or two hundred slaves to 
 join his ranks. But on the 10th of July, four days after, the Liberating Army 
 thus augmented was attacked on its march to the city of Valencia by Morales, 
 with a force hardly half as numerous, and scattered in a quarter of an hour. 
 The patriots are said to have lost two hundred men in this affair. Bolivar 
 made his escape to the coast, and, getting on board one of his vessels that 
 lay in the bay, reached the Dutch island of Buen Ayre the same afternoon. 
 He came across again to the continent the next day, but re-embarked 
 immediately after landing, and, giving up the enterprise for the present, 
 returned to Ilayti. All the ships of the liberating squadron also took their 
 departure from the Bay of Oeumare, and General M'Gregor was left to collect 
 and bring off as he best could the remains of the scattered land forces. He 
 retreated westward along the plains by the sea-shore, pursued and harassed all 
 the way by a body of Spanish troops, whom he had more than once to turn 
 round and fight ; but he succeeded at last in effecting a junction of his worn- 
 out men with another division of the liberating army under General Piar, and 
 in possessing himself of the city of Barcelona, from which he was enabled to 
 open a communication with other bands of patriots who had risen in the 
 provinces of Cumana and Guayana. 
 
 Li this state matters remained till the end of the year. Then, on the 25th of 
 December, Bolivar once more set out from Hayti, in a vessel laden with arms, 
 ammunition, and provisions, with which he had been again supplied by President 
 Petion, and arrived at Barcelona on the 31st. He immediately convoked a 
 Congress to meet at his head-quarters in that city ; and proclaimed a provisional 
 government under his own presidency, as Supreme Chief of the Republic of 
 Venezuela. On the 2nd of January, 1817, the patriots here were joined by 
 General Arismendi, with a body of three hundred men, the Sjjaniards having 
 by this time evacuated Pampatar, and left the island of Margarita completely 
 fi-ee ; and soon after commenced a new struggle, which proved the last, for the 
 liberation of this portion of Spanish America.
 
 124 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 [Book I. 
 
 1817. 
 
 RioDE laPlata. 
 
 Reports on South 
 America of 
 Messrs. Kodiiey 
 and Graham ; 
 with Notes by the 
 Editor. I.ond. 
 1819. NoteC. 
 
 It will be sufficient for the present to take a very cursory survey of the course 
 of events, down to the date at which we are now arrived, in the viceroyalty of the 
 llio de la Plata, and in the captain-generalship of Chili. 
 
 l"he first intelligence brought to Buenos Ayres of the extraordinary events 
 that had taken place in Spain in May, 1808, came by an envoy from Bonaparte, 
 who arrived in a French brig towards the end of July. The Viceroy at this 
 time was the same General Liniers to whom General Whitelock had surren- 
 dered in the preceding year. With the approval of the Audiencia and the 
 Cabildo, or municipality, Liniers in a proclamation announced, very vaguely, what 
 had happened in the mother-country, and in the name of the French emperor, 
 who, he told them, had been struck with admiration by their late triumph over the 
 English, exhorted the people to remain quiet. On this, Don Xavier Elio, the 
 governor of Montevideo, assembled a junta of Spaniards in that city, and, with 
 the support of a commissioner who soon after arrived from the Junta of Seville, 
 stirred up the Spaniards in Buenos Ayres to make an attempt, on the 1st of 
 January, 1809, to depose Liniers. It proved unsuccessful ; but a few months 
 afterwards he was superseded by the Central Junta, and replaced by Don Bal- 
 tazar Hidalgo Cisneros, who was as staunch a supporter of the Spanish interest 
 as Elio. Meanwhile, in the beginning of this year 1809, the people of the town 
 of La Paz had set up what they called a Junta Intuitiva, or government for 
 themselves, upon independent principles ; but, like the similar movement at 
 Quito in the following August, this attempt was speedily put down. Troops 
 were sent against La Paz both from Buenos Ayres and Peru. 
 
 The following year, however, when Spain seemed to be completely overrun 
 by the French armies, Cisneros found himself compelled to yield to the public 
 demand for the establishment of a colonial junta, which was accordingly consti- 
 tuted at a meeting held on the 28th of May, 1810, the Viceroy being recog- 
 nised as its head. But it was soon found necessary to get rid not only of 
 Cisneros, but of all the other Europeans in the service of the government. The 
 Viceroy and the members of the Audiencia were sent off to the Canary Islands, 
 and most of the rest betook themselves to Montevideo. 
 
 The government of the Junta, however, the most efficient member of which was 
 Dr. Mariano Moreno, one of the two secretaries, had to meet an armed opposi- 
 tion from various quarters. Liniers, who had been permitted by Cisneros to 
 retire to Cordova, raised a considerable force in conjunction with the governor of 
 that province ; but both he and the governor were soon taken and executed. 
 The resistance attempted by the governor of Chuquisaca was equally ineffectual. 
 The royalists made some stand in several provinces of U])per Peru ; but there 
 too they were soon put down. By the end of the year 1810, the only parts of 
 the viceroyalty in which the authority of the Junta was not acknowledged, or was 
 openly set at defiance, were Montevideo and Paraguay. 
 
 General Belgrano had been sent against Paraguay, but had got beaten by the 
 troops of that province ; and it appears to have been a few months after this, in 
 the year 1811, that the inhabitants of Assumpcion, the capital, quietly deposed 
 the Spanish governor, and set up a junta of their own. The secretary of the new 
 government was Dr. Jose Caspar Rodriguez Francia, who two years after got 
 himself appointed Consul, and in 1814 Dictator; under which name he con- 
 tinued to govern the country with absolute authority, and to preserve it inde- 
 pendent both of Buenos Ayres and of Spain, till his death in 1840.
 
 Chap. VIII.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 125 
 
 As for Montevideo, or the Banda Oriental, as the province is called ot which 1817. 
 that city is the capital, the contest for the possession of it was carried on with " ' 
 
 varying success for several years. The personage who made the principal figure 
 in this war was the famous Fernando Jose de Artigas, who was a native of the 
 Banda Oriental, and of respectable parentage, but had first become notorious as q™5^'ji[ii„ 
 chief of one of the bands of smugglers by which that region, a sort of border- '• '"^^ *"^- 
 land between the possessions of Spain and Portugal, and sometimes in the pos- 
 session of the one power, sometimes of the other, had always been infested. 
 The Spanish government at Montevideo then purchased his services, and em- 
 ployed him in the suppression of the illicit trade of which he had previously 
 been the most conspicuous and formidable protector. For some time after the 
 revolution broke out, .he continued to adhere to the Spanish party ; but in the 
 latter part of the year 1811 he quarrelled with the Governor of Montevideo and 
 went over to the Buenosayrian patriots. In little more than another twelve- 
 month, however, he broke ofi' ti-om his new associates and declared himself inde- 
 pendent. ITie Montevideo royalists had been defeated by General Rondeau at 
 El Cerito on the 31st of December, 1812 ; and they were afterwards worsted 
 again, in February, 1813, by Colonel Jose de San Martin, at San Lorenzo. On 
 the 20th of June, 1814, the town of Montevideo was taken by Colonel Alvear. 
 No sooner, however, had the patriots thus obtained possession of the place than 
 they were attacked by their old Mend Artigas, who soon compelled them to 
 evacuate it. Artigas now both claimed the sovereignty of the Banda Oriental, 
 and invaded the territory of Buenos Ayres. But at last, the Brazilian govern- 
 ment, on the ground that the district was without any proper government, sent 
 General Lecor into the Banda with a force of eight thousand men, which entered 
 and took possession of Montevideo on the 19th of January, 1817. 
 
 Meanwhile, the government at Buenos Ayres had undergone a succession of 
 changes. A contest for ascendancy between Moreno and the President of the 
 Jimta, Cornelio de Saavedra, had resulted in the discomfiture of the latter, and 
 the establishment of a new executive, on the 23rd of September, 1811. The 
 government thus constituted lasted till October, 1812, when it was forcibly over- 
 turned by a faction of the patriots w hich seems to have been of a more decidedly 
 democratic character than the party that had hitherto ruled. The new provi- 
 sional executive, styled El Gohierno Superior, immediately called a Sovereign 
 Constituent assembly, as a representation of the people, which met at Buenos 
 Ayres on the 30th of January, 1813. This Congress appointed a permanent 
 executive ; and it was now that the Spanish flag was abolished, and that coins 
 were for the first time struck with the republican arms. Tlie new constitution, 
 however, after a time failed to give satisfaction, and it was resolved to try the 
 government of one man. On the 31st of December, 1813, the Junta was abo- 
 lished, and Senor Gervasio Posadas was appointed Supreme Director — a reform Historical sketch 
 which, says a native historian of this revolution, "placed in the capital great FunesiinRerons 
 obstacles to the vibration of the passions." Posadas resigned in 1814; upon urXm!^"" 
 which General Alvear was elected his successor ; but in the following year he 
 was deposed and forced to leave the country by his rival General Rondeau. 
 Colonel Alvarez was then appointed Interim Director ; and he appears to have 
 been succeeded by General Balcarce in the spring of 1816. In March, 181C, a 
 new Congress was assembled in the city of Tucuman ; and by this body, which 
 
 VOL. I. s
 
 126 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 [Book I. 
 
 1817. afterwards transferred its sittings to Buenos Ayres, a Declaration of the Inde- 
 pendence of the Provinces of the Rio de la Plata was at last issued on the 9th 
 of July in that year. On the same day General Juan Martin Pueyrredon was 
 nominated Supreme Director ; and he continued to preside over the republic at 
 the date at which our narrative stops for the present. 
 
 All this time a great deal of fighting had been going on in another direc- 
 tion, as well as in that of Montevideo and the Banda Oriental. General 
 Balcarce, who had been sent to Upper Peru, and had in the first instance 
 put down all opposition from the Spanish party there, was signally defeated 
 by the royalist general, Goyeneche, at Huaqui, on the 20th of June, 1811, 
 and the patriots were soon after completely driven for the present out of 
 Upper Peru. On the 24th of September, 1812, however, Belgrano defeated 
 the royalist general, Don Pio Tristan, at Tucuman ; and a second time 
 at SaltA, eighty-seven leagues to the north of that city, on the 20th of 
 February, 1813. But Belgrano in turn was beaten by Tristan and General 
 Pezuela at Vilcapugio on the 1st of October foUowhig, and again at Ayoma on 
 the 14th of November. The command of the forces in this quarter was now 
 given to San Martin ; but in May, 1814, he was obliged to resign from illness ; 
 and on the 28th of November, 1815, General Rondeau, who had been appointed 
 his successor, was totally defeated by Pezuela at Sipesipe, and Upper Peru 
 was once more left for a tune to the undisturbed possession of the Sj)aniards. 
 Belgrano was afterwards re-appointed to the command, and put at the head of 
 an army of four thousand well-equipped troops but he effected nothing, and 
 soon saw his army dispersed, and found himself a prisoner in the hands of the 
 enemy. 
 
 Memoirs of 
 General Miller, 
 i. 109, S:c. 
 
 The history of the liberation of Chili is a part of that of the Rio de la Plata 
 revolution. In accordance with what was done about the same time in the 
 other colonies, the Spanish Captain-General, Carrasco, was displaced there on 
 the IStli of July, 1810, and the Count de la Conquista set at the head of a 
 domestic government. On the 18th of September following a junta, which, 
 however, acknowledged the sovereignty of Ferdinand VIL, was established at 
 Santiago. On the 1st of April, 1811, an attempt was made by the Spanish 
 party to overturn the new government, which was defeated ; and upon this the 
 members of the Audiencia, which had till now remained in the full exercise of 
 its functions, were deprived of their authority. Members were now elected for 
 a Congress, which assembled in June. But the meeting of this body proved 
 only the beginning of all sorts of intrigue and confusion. Three brothers, Jose 
 Miguel, Juan Jose, and Luis Carrera, who all held commands in the army, and 
 were favourites both with the troops and the people, seized the government by 
 force, and, after dissolving the Congress on the 2nd of December, got a new 
 junta fanned with the eldest of the three at its head. Taking advantage of the 
 dissatisfaction and dissension that now arose, Abascal, the Viceroy of Peru, in 
 the end of the following year dispatched a force from Lima, luider the com- 
 mand of General Pareja, which landed at San Vicente in the beginning of 1813. 
 The campaign commenced in the end of March, and at first the Chilenos, com- 
 manded by Jose Miguel Carrera, obtained some successes ; Pareja was driven 
 to take shelter in the town of Chilian, where he died, and the command of the
 
 Chap. VIII.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 127 
 
 royalist army fell to Colonel Sanchez. But nothing decisive was effected ; and 1817. 
 at last, on the 24th of November, Carrera, who was thought to have shown but 
 little military capacity, was forced to resign the command of the army to Colonel 
 Don Bernardo O'Higgins ; and at the same time he and his brothers were also 
 driven from the government. Not long after an additional body of troops 
 arrived from Lima under General Gainza ; but he was soon reduced by O'Hig- 
 gins to such difficulties, that on the 5th of May, 1814, he was glad to agree to 
 a treaty at Talca, by which he bound himself to re-embark for Peru with all 
 his troops within the space of two months. This convention was negotiated 
 under the mediation of Captain Ilillyar, of Ills Britannic Majesty's ship Phcebe, 
 who had recently arrived at Valparaiso, bringing overtures for an arrangement 
 from the Viceroy of Peru ; nevertheless, the Viceroy refused to ratify it. An 
 official intimation of his refusal reached Santiago, when everything there was 
 in confusion from an attempt made by the Carreras to regain their power, which 
 bad been already partially successful. Instead of turning their arms, as they 
 had been about to do, against one another, O'Higgins and Carrera now set out 
 to meet the common enemy : but all their efforts proved vain ; and, after routing 
 them in a fierce and destructive conflict at Rancagua on the 1st of October, in 
 which, we are told, each party hoisted the black flag, and no quarter was given, 
 the new royalist Commander-in-Chief, General Osorio, entered and took posses- 
 sion of Santiago without encountering any further resistance. 
 
 The Spanish authority continued undlstiu'bed in Chili for more than two 
 years, except by a few guerrilla bands under Rodriguez, Neyra, and other chiefs, 
 which harassed some parts of the country. But the re-establishment of the 
 royal government among their neighbours was an event that could not be viewed 
 with indlfltrence by the people of Buenos Ayres. Towards the close of the 
 year 1814, General San Martin, who had by this time recovered his health, 
 was appointed to the command of the province of Cuyo, which borders on Chili, 
 although divided from it by the mighty Andes, hitherto supposed to present an 
 insuperable barrier to the passage of a military force. He immediately set ."""'"'J'j^r,, 
 himself to prepare for the Invasion of Chili ; but the slender resources of the '■ '•"'. «"■ 
 provincial government, we are told, and the thinness of the population, consisting 
 only of fifty thousand souls sprinkled over an immense extent of pampa, pre- 
 vented him from forming a sufficient force in a shorter space of time than two 
 years. At last, however, the liberating army, being about 4000 strong, set 
 out from Mendoza on the 17th of January, 1817. They had to make their 
 way over five principal ridges, besides innumerable others of less elevation ; 
 great numbers of the men perished from the intense cold ; of 9281 nmles and 
 1600 horses, only 4300 mules and 500 horses lived through the march ; but 
 at last, in the beginning of February, the survivors had gained the western 
 declivity of the last ridge. On the 12th of that month was fought the great 
 battle of Chacabuco, in which the Buenos-Ayreans, under the command of 
 San Martin and O'Higgins, completely routed the Spanish forces commanded 
 by Generals Maroto and Soler ; and on the 14th the patriots entered Santiago 
 in triumph, and Chill was once more free. 
 
 The only disturbance that had as yet taken place in the viceroyalty of Peru 
 was a general rising of the Indians In the provinces of Cuzco, Huamanga, and 
 
 Perh.
 
 328 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book I. 
 
 1817. Arequipa ; but their unarmed and undisciplined multitudes were soou put 
 down by General Ramirez. Abascal was superseded in the office of Viceroy 
 by General Pezuela in July, 1816. 
 
 Brazil. The vast Portuguesc colony of Brazil also partook in the change which the 
 
 French invasion of the Peninsula brought about in every other part of South 
 America. King John VI. of Portugal, flying fi-om his European dominions 
 upon Bonaparte's declaration of war in 1807, arrived at Rio de Janeiro on the 
 22ud of January in the following year. The residence of the king and the royal 
 family, making Brazil the seat of government, at once rtdsed the country trom 
 the condition of a colony or dependency. Up to this time it had been as jealously 
 governed as any of the Spanish colonial possessions ; most of the commercial 
 and other restrictions by which it had been distinguished from the mother country 
 were now removed ; the ports were opened to the trade of all nations, many new 
 manufactures were established, printing-presses were set up and newspapers 
 published, and the social system generally assumed to a large extent a European 
 character. After the termination of the war with France, Brazil was formally 
 raised to the rank of a kingdom, King John taking the title of King of Portugal, 
 Algarve, and Brazil. An insurrection, of a liberatist if not anti-monarchical 
 character, broke out in Pernambuco in the spring of 1817 ; but it did not extend 
 beyond that province, and was soon suppressed.* 
 
 * The complete view which we have been understanding of tlie subsequent policy of the 
 
 enabled to present to our readers of the com- English Government ; and we therefore do 
 
 plicated events upon which the ultimate inde- not regret the length to which this important 
 
 pendence of the South American provinces narrative has extejided. — Ed. 
 was established, will greatly facilitate a right
 
 CirAP. IX.J DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. I09 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 ^N the 28th of Janxiary the Prince Regent opened the fifth session of the 1°1 '• 
 existing ParUament. The speech from the Throne contained the follow- qpemnc. of Par. 
 ing passage : " In considering our internal situation you will, I doubt not, feel '•'*>"=''t- 
 a just indignation at the attempts which have been made to take advantage 
 of the distresses of the coimtry, for the purpose of exciting a spirit of se- 
 dition 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 de- 
 termined to omit no i)recau^tions 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 emijloyed 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 that the demagogues H^m-arJ, vol. 
 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 octhage on the 
 been offered to the Prince Regent on his return fi-om opening the Parliament. 
 The windows of the state-carriage had been broken by some missile. The two 
 Houses, after agreeing upon an Address to the Prince Regent on this event, 
 adjourned. Upon the resumption of the debate 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 reduction 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 iiUeged disaffection of large bodies of the people. Alarm, that alahm. 
 became the great instrument of governing till the close of the reign of 
 George III., had its full capabilities revealed in what Lord Dudley described 
 as " the pop-gun plot." Addressing the Bisliop of Llandaff on the 1st of 
 February, 1817, this able and temperate observer says, "Pray tell me what Letters, p. 159. 
 you think of the state of public opinion and feeluig at this moment. Is 
 there a dangerous spirit abroad, or is there not ? Camiing 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 
 
 ^'0!.. 1. T
 
 130 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book I. 
 
 1817. wUicli he was a mere gleaner in the harvest of alarm as the least creditable 
 
 -^ — - portion of his life. lie 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 honours of a partizan, 
 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 
 Hans.nrti, vol. w^as a grievance ; Avhen he said, " I deny the assumption that the House of 
 «v. p. 130. Commons, as it stands, is not, to all practical purposes, an adequate repre- 
 sentation of the people ; I deny that it requires any amendment or alteration ;" 
 he spoke, we have no doubt, his honest convictions. But when he at- 
 tempted, as he did in the same speech, to confound the most moderate 
 projects of reform with the doctrines of universal siiifrage and annual 
 parliaments, and mixed up the whole body of propoundors of these doctrines 
 Set ante, page 55. witli tlic mad fauatics called Spenceans, we lament to see a great mind pros- 
 tituting its talents to such dishonest advocacy. He was thrust forward to 
 play a part, and he so played it that he brought down his tine genius to the 
 level of those under whom he served. But the policy was successful. It was 
 the preparation for the message of the 3rd of February, that the Prince 
 Regent had given orders that there be laid before the Houses, " Papers 
 containing information respecting certain practices, meetings, and com- 
 binations in the metropolis, and in different parts of the kingdom, evi- 
 dently 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, Lord Sidmoutli, in the House of Lords, affirmed that the communi- 
 cation 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 
 Report of Secret saw tlic attack upou thc Priucc Regent as " an 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 thc 3rd of February, should have been so lightly passed over 
 in the Royal Speech of the 28th of January, had not some new circum- 
 stances arisen to warrant the course which the Government was now taking. 
 Was it that the fears of the illustrious personage who had heard the up- 
 braiding 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 upon, of exaggerating discontents, of tempting distress into 
 sedition, of sowing suspicion of the poor in the minds of the rich, of con- 
 founding the reformer and the anarchist in one general hatred 1 One of the 
 Machiaveiii, ' keenest of political reasoners speaks of sovereigns, who, " neglecting all 
 
 Discoiirsrs on . . -, ^it i • 11/. ii 
 
 Livy, diap. ii. Yutuous actions, began to beheve that pnnccs were exalted for no other end 
 but to discriminate themselves fi-om 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 w^as something akin to that of the Regent in those
 
 Chap. IX.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 131 
 
 unhappy days. It is well that the genius of our Constitution lendered this 1817. 
 temper comparatively powerless. 
 
 The message of the Prince Regent of the 3rd of February was referred to a cR™coMMirTE"Es 
 Secret Committee in each House, and these Committees made their Reports on 
 the 18th and 19th of the same month. We have already noticed that por- 
 tion 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 terms of the most fearful solemnity. Not Cicero's denunciations of Catiline 
 are more horror- stirring. 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 
 Bvii?an, 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, 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 endeavoiirs are 
 omitted to prepare them to take up arms on the first signal for accom- 
 plishing their designs." . . . . " The country societies are principally to 
 be found in, and in the neighbourhood of, Leicester, Loughborough, Not- 
 tingham, 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 : 
 " Yom- 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 jwlitical 
 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 Govern- 
 ment, under the existing laws, has been found inadequate to prevent." 
 Looking at these Reports in connexion with the facts which -were subse- 
 quently brought to light, under the most solemn judicial investigations con- 
 ducted in the spirit of the Constitution, and inider the extra-judicial powers 
 which were gi-anted 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 wliicli would
 
 132 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book I. 
 
 1817. leave Parliament for an indefinite time to its ordinary struggles for the 
 
 — -^^ interests of particular classes, to the comparative neglect of tlie welfare of the 
 
 great body of the j)eople. 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 were brought in and passed by large ma- 
 jorities, 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 treason- 
 able attempts which secure the actual Sovereign; the third was for the 
 prevention of seditious meetings. The last of the four was tlie most dan- 
 gerous 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 jMajesty shall suspect are conspiring against 
 his person and government." The suspension was, however, in tliis instance, 
 limited to the ensuing 1st of July. 
 BLA"NKE°Lir The Habeas Corpus Suspension Act was passed on the 3rd of March ; the 
 Bill for restraining Seditious INIeetings did not become law till the 29th of 
 March. Within a week after the passing of the act for imprisonment 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 affiiir 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 meet- 
 ing, 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 pro- 
 posed 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 
 Ba-ntorti-s Life of twclvc thousaud. " Many of the individuals," says Bamford, " were observed 
 p. 32. ' • ■ to have blankets, rugs, or large coats, rolled up and tied knapsack-hke, on 
 their backs ; some carried bundles under their arms ; some had papers, sup- 
 posed to be petitions, rolled up ; and some had stout walking-sticks." The 
 magistrates came upon the field and read the Riot Act ; tlie meeting was 
 dispersed by the military and constables ; three hundred commenced a strag-
 
 Chap. IX.J DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 1.33 
 
 gling march, followed by a body of yeomanry, and a hundred and eighty 1817. 
 readied jMacclesfield 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 com- 
 menced at ]Manchestcr. The magistrates were to be seized ; the prisoners 
 M'ere 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 
 >'igilance of the magistrates, and defeated by the apprehension and confine- 
 ment of some of the ring-leaders a few days before the period fixed for its 
 execution." Bamford records, that on the day after the Blanket Meeting, 
 " a man dressed much like a dyer " came to him at jMiddleton, " 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 tliat 
 veiy night." Bamford and his friends dismissed him with the assiu'ance that 
 he was the dupe of some designing villain. The scheme wliich this dupe or 
 scoundrel propovmded 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 did. The avowed Reform-leaders — delegates and 
 Hampden-Club men — were 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 sus- 
 pended, secret ones ensued ; they were originated at Manchester, and as- 
 sembled 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 co- 
 operation." A little while after this ' Moscow ' proposal, a co-delegate came 
 to Bamford, to propose the assassination of all the ministers. We know that 
 this scheme smouldered for several years. " The fact was," says Bamford, Bamford, vol. i. 
 " this unfortunate person, in the confidence of an unsuspecting mind, as I 
 believe, had, during one of his visits to London, formed a connexion with 
 Oliver, the spy, — which connexion, 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 com-se of this tragedy we have now to re- 
 count. It is the only one of the insurrectionary movements of the manu- 
 facturing districts in 1817 that has left any traces of judicial investigation, 
 with the exception of proceedings at A'ork, 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 tlie expected risings at Manchester, 
 were discharged before trial. 
 
 The Midland Counties of Nottingham, Leicester, and Derby, had been in a derby 
 disturbed state lor several years. Ihe habit ol daring outrage was iamiiiar to
 
 134 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 [Book I. 
 
 1817. large numbers of the manufacturing population. 
 
 See ante, page 42. 
 
 Hsnsard, vol. 
 xxxvi. p. 1114. 
 
 that coiu-se of ignorant and brutal violence, known as Luddism, 
 
 Hansard, vol. 
 xsxvi. p. UIG 
 
 We have already exhibited 
 On the 23rd 
 of June, 1817, Mr. Ponsonby described this system^ as one that had not 
 originated in poKtical 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 Avere 
 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 tliat 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 pohtical insurrection were abundantly accumulated. It 
 was not the part of a wise and humane government to peraiit 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 Parliament 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 continuing the Suspension of the 
 Habeas Corpus, on the 23rd of June, Mr. Ponsonby, who had been a member 
 of the Secret Committee, but had dissented from the majority as to the neces- 
 sity of the farther suspension, stated to the House " 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 fi-om 
 London ; and Mr. Oliver proposed to go along with them, making a fourth 
 delegate. Before they proceeded on their journey, Oliver was in communica- 
 tion Avith the Home Office ; but received no instructions to compromise the 
 safety of any one by tempting them into practices which he afterwards ex- 
 posed. The co-delegates relied fully on Oliver ; — the country delegate intro- 
 duced him to all his friends as a second self. Oliver remained among these 
 people from the 17th of April to the 27th of May, every where 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 Ijondon 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.
 
 Chap. IX.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 13.3 
 
 ^vitll a moderation and candour most advantageously contrasted with the 1S17. 
 frenzied declamations against individual members of the government made 
 by such popularity hunters as Sir Francis Burdett and Mr. Grey Bennett, that 
 the representations of Oliver himself, and the representations which he per- 
 mitted to be made with his knowledge and approval, did excite the WTetched 
 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 INIay. 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 Dews- 
 bury. 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 Thornhill- 
 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 ^^^th 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. Bainesj 
 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, M'hich has iust appeared i-'f"" ™<i con-es. 
 
 /'T^ 1 tctt^ I'l ini • pondence of Lord 
 
 (February, lo4(), and to which we shall have occasion frenuentlv to refer, this suimouih. by the 
 
 ., ... . ,, "^ Hon. (Jpovge Pel- 
 
 particular transaction is minutely gone into, tor the purpose of justifying Lord lei^.^uo,. Dean 
 Sidmouth, as Secretary of State for the Home Department, against the impu- 
 tations which arose out of the employment of such persons as Oliver. "None voi. lii. p. is?. 
 of them," says the author of the Life, " were employed in the first instance by 
 Lord Sidmouth ; but themselves sought him out : and if, which is not pro- 
 bable, 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 satis- 
 factory testimony of Lord Straflbrd (formerly Sir John ByngJ, to this opinion 
 of Lord Sidmouth's own conduct, in a letter as recent as August, 1846; 
 " Oliver," Lord Strafford writes, " Avas sent to me with a letter from Lord Life, vol. iii. 
 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 mea- 
 sures 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, INIr. Allsop, who had been active at Notting- 
 ham in the preservation of the peace, as the Dean of Norwich reports, wrote 
 to Lord Sidmouth as follows : " I feel myself called upon, in justice to OliA'er, Life, toI. iii. 
 to make this communication to your lordship respecting him. The first time ""'
 
 I3r> 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 [Book I. 
 
 1817. 
 
 State Trials, vol. 
 xxxii. p<4ges 755 
 to 1394. 
 
 Stale Tri.ils. vol. 
 xxxli.. Evidence 
 for the {.rown, 
 p. 7U5 to 863. 
 
 I ever saw him was on the Tth of June, on his arrival at Nottingham from 
 Leeds. Altliough lie then knew that a meeting was to take place in the 
 evening, he fixed to leave for Birmingham in the afternoon, and only con- 
 sented to stay for the meeting at the solicitation of Mr. Hoolcy and myself, in 
 order to furnish us Mith the necessary information. Oliver exjiressly 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 he deceived ; and he 
 also stated his instructions from your lordship, not to hold out any encourage- 
 ment. It was then most explicitly decided, that at the meeting in the 
 evening he should not, in any way whatever, liold out the least encourage- 
 ment 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 tlieir 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 ; with 
 the certainty that the spy of government was at the meeting of the 7th of 
 June at which this outbreak was organized, and ■\\'ith a tolerably clear con- 
 viction, as will become more evident, that the unhappy agents in this insur- 
 rection 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 pre- 
 servers 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 information 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 dis- 
 graceful line of conduct. 
 
 On Sunday, the 8th of June, 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 the river Derwcnt. In the neighbourhood 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 parlour 
 there, " talking about this revolution." There Avas 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 overthroAv of the Government. All the country was to 
 rise, all at one time. Many talked thus. They made no secret. They spoke
 
 Chap. IX.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. W, 
 
 it openly. They did not mind who licard them. They said they had plenty 1817. 
 
 of pikes ; and they would go and take Nottingham wholly to themselves ; and ' — -^- ' 
 
 when they got to Nottingham, every man woidd 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 sepa- 
 rated. The Captain, with the map in his hand, was Jeremiah Brandrcth, a 
 frame-work knitter, whose family had received parochial relief. Mr. Dcnman 
 (who was counsel for the prisoners), after Brandreth had been convicted, com- 
 pared tliis 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 micom- 
 mon decision, of unrelenting firmness ; the influence of an eye like no eye 
 that I ever beheld before, of a countenance and figiu-e 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 con- 
 clusion, that in spite of his influence and command, " he was most clearly 
 himself an instrument ^vielded 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 conceal anything as to the Yorkshire meeting by which 
 these people could be deceived." On Sunday morning the Nottingham 
 C'aptain is heard saying, " All the country is to rise, all at one time." On 
 Monday night he passes the door of a labouring 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 Y^orkshire 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 labourer 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, 
 
 VOL. I. ti
 
 138 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Boi.k I. 
 
 1817. stopping at solitary houses, and demanding gims, and dragging umvilling 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, 
 Brandi-eth fired in at a window, and killed one of her servants, upon arms 
 beino- refused to him. His followers said he should not have shot that poor 
 iimocent 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 dwelUngs, and met with any one who refused to march, 
 had liis 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 farther 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.* Brandreth 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 pur- 
 pose ; 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 Ludlam, who was afterwards convicted and 
 executed, was exhorted by Mr. Goodwin not to go on, but be 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, tliis main body was 
 followed by about fifty other men. On the morning of the 10th of June, 
 Mr. Rolleston, a magistrate, went from Nottingham, 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 dvning 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 Derbyshii-e insurrection." For these ofiences, 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 
 
 * This is the distinct evidence of the manager of the works. The Dean of Norwich says, 
 that when they arrived at the Butterley Iron Works their numbers amounted to 500. Bio- 
 graphy, as well as History, should have regard to accuracy.
 
 Chap. IX.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 139 
 
 poor weaver, but a man of considerable talent and unquestionable honesty, — 1817. 
 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 Avas five times examined before the Privy Council ; and he describes these 
 examinations as being conducted by Lord Sidmouth with the greatest j)a- 
 tience 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 jJi'o- 
 ceedings. One day, there came 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 from Middleton, whose name he gave, 
 and who had attended several previous meetings, was particularly wanted on 
 the present occasion, concluding by asldng 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. Bamford 
 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 trans- 
 ported for life ; the young man was William Turner, who was executed with 
 Brandreth and Ludlam. Bamford thus concludes this naiTative : " The Life of a Rnriitai, 
 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 AVatson, for High Treason, took place on the 16th of 
 June. It appears to have had no influence on the measures of Govern- 
 ment. 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 favourable 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 procurmg the public tranquillity." The private records of Lord Sid- 
 mouth's life show_ that he had no great confidence in the " favourable 
 change." At the end of July Lord Sidmouth established his family at 
 Malvern, intending to remain there a short time himself, " and then hack," 
 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, he " revised all the cases of jiersons Lord sidmouihs 
 committed and detained under the Suspension Act; and the result, he p.'i%!" '"' 
 trusted, would be the release of some upon their own recognizance, and in- 
 creased 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
 
 140 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book I, 
 
 181T. salutary measures for preserviug 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, which foi-med 
 so important a matter of the first Reports of the Secret Committee. 
 
 Annual Register, Thrcc otliers of the Spa-ficlds conspirators, indicted with him, were 
 
 " '^ — p- • jiischarged ; the younger Watson had eluded all pursuit. The persons 
 
 imprisoned in Edinbiugh Castle and Glasgow Gaol, on the charge of 
 
 treason, seventeen in number, were set at liberty in July, receiving seven 
 
 shillings each to carry them home. The Yorkshire insmTection thus termi- 
 
 ibid. p. It. nated. " The trials of the State prisoners, 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 confine- 
 ment, 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 : 
 
 moutif TOi"*iH'^ " -'- ^'^ sure, my lord, the intended march of the Delegates from Manchester 
 
 p. 178. f Q 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 recom- 
 mended by some person deeply concerned in the original." These were the 
 excitements of the fears of the gi'eat 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 
 
 "''fgg'"'' '"■ °'^ every side about his " public exertions." "Wliatever 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 atmo- 
 sphere of plots. On the 7th of October there were " extraordinary circum- 
 stances " 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 
 
 Ibid. p. 200. we learn by a private letter of Lord Sidmouth on the 13th, was in imitation 
 of that of Despard, and a nimiber of persons met accordingly on Tower Hill, 
 but retired and dispersed. No other record exists of tliis plot that we can 
 discover. With the Derby insurrections, therefore, must the historian be 
 content, if he desii'e to bring forward a permanent example of the tri- 
 imiphs 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
 
 Chap. IX.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 141 
 
 were not punishable." We have great doubts whether such a mischievous 1817. 
 delusion ever existed. We know that when the Cato-Street Conspirators 
 were brought to their just punishment, there was one universal feeling of satis- 
 faction 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 un- 
 happy 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 dis- 
 countenance these proceedings, burying the reputation of the Government in 
 irredeemable disgrace." A discriminating lenity in this solitary case of con- 
 demnation by a jury, might, as it appears to us at the end of thirty years, 
 have redeemed some little of the disgrace which must for ever attach to the 
 alarm system of 1817.
 
 142 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Cook I. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 1817. f\^ moving the second reading of the Habeas Corpus Suspension Bill, 
 ^-^ ' v-/ Lord Sidmouth made the following statement : " Some noble lords 
 
 Prosecutions ^ , • • i • i i 
 
 Fon Libel. had complamed that prosecutions had not been instituted against the authors, 
 printers, or publishers, of infamous libels ; but it was but justice to Govern- 
 ment 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 entrusted the administration of the law of libel to less scru- 
 
 LoRD siDMouTH's p^lous liauds than the law officers of the crown. On the 27th of March the 
 Secretary of State addi-essed his famous Circular Letter to the Lords Lieu- 
 tenants of Counties, in which, urging the importance of preventing the cir- 
 culation of blasphemous and seditious 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 liim upon oath with the pub- 
 lication of libels of the natiu-e in question, and com^jel 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 magis- 
 trates might act thereujjon. Such a jiroceeding 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 
 
 Hansard, vol. fitly Quotcd : "111 all the varieties of ■\vritins which may constitute the offence 
 
 xxxvi. p. 474, ■' '- . . . " •' . 
 
 of libel, what is more difficult to be decided than the question of their guilt or 
 innocence ? What more exposed to the influence of undue motives in its de- 
 cision ? It has been formerly stated, by some of the most eminent persons in 
 the profession of the law, nay, 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 lawj 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 iiiend (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 pro\ ince of the jury, and 
 to be determined by them. Bat, my lords, what avails this just and bene- 
 ficent statute, — what security is there either for the freedom of the press, or
 
 Chap. X.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. H3 
 
 the liberty of the subject, — if, whilst you have imposed this salutary restraint 1817. 
 wpon 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) ujion a charge wliich, 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 secvuities of our independence and freedom.'" The House 
 of Lords was indifferent to the preservation of tliese boasted securities. 
 AVriting four months after this debate to the Bishop of Durham, Lord 
 Sidmouth says, " The attempt to check the progress of treason and bias- L>f<-; "oi- "■• 
 phemy, 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 iu the course of the last session. Such a charge it shall 
 be my constant endeavour to deserve ; and I am happy in being able to assure 
 your lordship that the activity of the itinerant dealers in these articles is ma- 
 terially controlled, and their number greatly diminished." We apprehend 
 that there cannot be the slightest doubt in most minds, at the present day, 
 that this proceeding 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, " By the con- Hansard vol. 
 stitution of this country there are only two modes in which the law, in iJ'eY'''' "°^~ 
 matters of doubt, can be declared : one is, by the whole legislature by a de- 
 claratory 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 assmned 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 181T. In the first 
 place, he was subject, by a Secretary of State's warrant, to be imprisoned upon 
 suspicion, imder 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-ofRcio 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 ' man-mountain' of the press, came fortli 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
 
 1 44 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book T. 
 
 1817. 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 
 
 Register, Hcgira : " Lord Sidmouth 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 what is not libellous. I do not retire from the combat with the Attor- 
 ney General, 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, 1 would have staid to face. 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 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 incau- 
 tious and feebler delinquents. 
 
 HovF.'j TniALs. On the 12th of May, Earl Grey mentioned in the House of Lords that a Mr. 
 Hone was proceeded against for publishing some blasphemous parody ; but he 
 had read one of the same nature, -wi-itten, 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-officio infomiations 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 fi-om his earliest years, wdth 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 tlian 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 wliich leaves what is dangerous in the press 
 to be corrected by the remedial power of the press itself ; — and whicli, 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
 
 rriAP. X.J DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. I.4.5 
 
 surest corrective of the evils that are incident even to the best gift of lieavcn, 1S17. 
 
 — that of knowledge. Wisely did our Milton say, " They are not skilful con- ~ '- — ^ 
 
 sidercrs of human things, Avho imagine to remove sin by removing the matter liberty of unii. 
 
 of sin." The course that the " not skilful considerers of human things" took ""'^'^ ""^"s- 
 
 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 Lord Bacon. 
 
 enhances their authority ; and a forbidden writing is thought to be a certain 
 
 spark of truth that flies up in the faces of theniAvho seek to tread it out." 
 
 On the morning of the IStli 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, two- 
 penny political pamphlets, and old harmless folios that the poor publisher 
 keeps for his especial reading as he sits in his dingy back parlour. Tlie 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 ^Wth 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 t^vinkle in his eye, — 
 a seedy man, to use an expressive word, whose black coat is wondrous bro^v^l 
 and threadbare, — takes his place at the table, and begins to turn over the 
 books which were his heralds. Sir Samuel Shepherd, the Attorney General, 
 takes his seat ; and looks compassionately, as was his nature to do, at the pale 
 man in threadbare black. Mr. Justice Abbott 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 Command- 
 ments, tliereby bringing into contempt the Christian religion. " It may be 
 said," argiied the Attorney General, " tliat the defendant's object was not to 
 produce this efiect. I believe that he meant it, in one sense, as a political 
 squib ; but his responsibihty is not the less." As the Attorney General pro- 
 ceeded to read passages from the parody upon the Catechism, the crowd in 
 eoiu't laughed ; the bench was indignant ; and the Attorney General said, tlie 
 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 ease for the prosecu- 
 tion Avas 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 his wrongs ; his commitments ; his hurried calls to plead ; 
 the expense of copies of the informations against him; — and as Mr. Justice 
 Abbott, 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. " They were not to inquire whetlier he were a member Hono-s fwm xriai 
 of the established Church or a Dissenter; it was enough that he professed ''' "' 
 himself to be a Christian ; and he would be bold to sny, that he made that 
 ■VOL. 1. X
 
 146 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book I. 
 
 1817. profession with a reverence for the doctrines of Christianity which coiihl 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 sohice 
 of his Hfe. 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 Avere 
 two kinds of parodies ; one in which a man might convey ludicrous or ridicu- 
 lous ideas relative to some other subject ; the other, where it Avas 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 courage, — would be to transcribe the trials of 
 three days ; on the first of which the defendant spoke six hours, on the second 
 seven hours, 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 shoidd produce obscene volumes in his 
 defence. It was in vain that Mr. Justice Abbott repeated his wish that the 
 defendant would not read such things. On he went, till interruption was 
 held to be in vain. It Avas Avorse than vain ; it was unjust. Truly did Hone 
 reply to Mr. Justice Abbott, " My Lord, your Lordship's observation is in the 
 very spirit of Avhat Pope Leo the Tenth said to Martin Luther, — ' For God's 
 sake don't say a Avord about the indulgences and the monasteries, and I '11 give 
 you a living ; ' — thus precluding him from mentioning the very thing in dis- 
 pute. I must go on Avitli these parodies, or I cannot go on with my defence." 
 Undauntedly he Avent on, fi-om the current literature of the time, such as 
 grave laAvycrs read in their fcAV hours of recreation, to the forgotten volumes of 
 old theology and polemical controversy, that the said gi-ave lawyers of modem 
 days are accustomed to regard as useless lumber. The editor of BlackAvood's 
 Magazine Avas a parodist, — he parodied a chapter of Ezekiel ; Martin Luther 
 was a parodist, — he parodied the first Psalm ; Bishop Latimer was a parodist, 
 and so Avas Dr. Boys, Dean of Canterbury ; the author of the ' Rolliad ' Avas a 
 parodist ; and so was Mr. Canning. Passage after passage did Mr. Hone read 
 from author after author. He thought it Avas 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 Scriptm-cs. 
 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. AVilliam Hone was 
 acquitted, after a quarter of an hour's deliberation. 
 Second Trial. jjut Guildhall " saAv another sight." With the next morning's fog, the 
 
 fiery Lord Chief Justice rose from his bed, and Avith loAvering broAv took his 
 place in that judgment-seat Avhich he deemed had been too mercifully filled 
 on the previous day. The mild firmness of the poor publisher, and his gentle- 
 manly sense of the absence of harshness in the conduct of his first trial, had 
 Avon for him something like respect; and Avlien on one occasion Mr. Justice 
 Abbott asked him to forbear reading a particular parody, and the defendant
 
 Chap. X.J DURING THE THIRTY YEARS" PEACE. "^- U7 
 
 said, " Your Lordship and I understand each other, and we have gone on so 1817. 
 good-humouredly 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 Sup- 
 plication.' Again the Attorney- General affirmed that Avhatever 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. 
 UjDon Mr. Fox's libel bill, upon ex-officio informations, upon his right to 
 copies of the indictment Mathout extravagant charges, the defendant battled 
 his judge, — imperfect in his law, no doubt, but with a fimmess and modera- 
 tion that rode over every attempt to put him down. Parody after parody was 
 again produced, and especially those parotlies of the Litany which the Cava- 
 liers employed so frequently as vehicles of satire upon the Roundheads and 
 Puritans. The Lord Chief Justice at length gathered up his exhausted 
 strength for his charge ; and concluded in a strain that left but Httle 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. Third xiiai, p. 12. 
 But the chance of a conviction fi'om a third Jury, upon a third indictment, 
 was to be risked. On the 20th of December, Lord EUenborough 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 
 offijred to postpone the proceedings. The courageous man made his election 
 to go on. This third indictment was for publishing a parody on the C^reed of 
 St. Athanasius, called ' The Sinecurist's Creed.' After the Attorney General 
 had finished his address, ^Ir. 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 fi-om 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 ojjiniou will be coolly and dispassionately ex- 
 pressed 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 inter- 
 ruption ; but yoiu- Lordship interrupted me a great many times yesterday, and 
 then said you would interrupt me no more, and yet your Lordship did interrupt 
 nie afterwards ten times as much. . . . Gentlemen, it is you who are trying me
 
 148 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book I. 
 
 1817. to-day. His Lordship is no judge of me. You are my judges, and you only 
 
 arc my judges. His Lordship sits there to receive your verdict I will 
 
 not say what his Lordship did yesterday ; but I trust liis 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 triiimph of the weak over the powerful was complete. " The 
 frame of adamant 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 np his 
 politics altogether, and, devoting himself to his old poetry and his old divinity, 
 passed a quarter of a century after tliis 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 Athanasiau Creed. " Even his Lord- 
 ship's father, the Bishop of Carlisle, he believed, took a similar view of the 
 Creed." And then the Judge solemnly said, " Whatever that opinion Avas, 
 he has gone, many years ago, where he has had to account for his belief and 
 
 his opinions For common delicacy forbear." — " O, 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 EUcn- 
 urcofLoidsia. borough wrote thus to Lord Sidmouth: " The disgraceful events which have 
 
 month, vol. 111., /-. -i 1 1 • • 
 
 p "li- occurred at Guildhall within the last three or four days have led me, both on 
 
 accoimt 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." 
 
 Wc 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-officio informations were 
 filed, with only one conviction, — that of a printer in the country, who repub- 
 lished one of Hone's parodies, and was tried before Hone liimself. As to the 
 three acquittals we have described, it is perfectly evident that three Juries, 
 consisting of respectable London merchants, woidd have assuredly convicted 
 the defendant, had 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 politi-
 
 Chap. X.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 149 
 
 cal doctrines, their unquestionable indecency and impropriety must have car- 1817. 
 ried a verdict against them on the first trial. The second and third trials ^-^^v-^— ^ 
 looked Hke persecution ; and public opinion threw its shield over the offender. 
 A letter from Mr. "Ward [Lord Dudley] to the Bishop of Llandaft', 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 senti- 
 ments of that dignitary that this transaction was uncalled for and oppressive. 
 " I am particularly gratified with what you say about the business of Hone. Lord Dudley's 
 
 •' ° . ^ . . Letters, p. liio. 
 
 It is an additional proof (if any were wanting) of your supenoiity to those 
 prejudices ■\\ith 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 prece- 
 dent 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, ^^ith- 
 out 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."
 
 150 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book I. 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 1817. rpHE death of the Presumptive Heiress of the British Crown, after the 
 ^"""""''^ A birth of a dead child, was the great historical event of 1817. Never was 
 
 Death of the , *^ 
 
 phincess jj^ whole nation plunged in such deep and universal grief. From the highest to 
 
 the lowest, this death was felt as a calamity that demanded the intense sorrow 
 of domestic misfortune. Around every fireside there were suj^pressed 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 
 miglit 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 hajjpy land. 
 
 The affection which the people of Great Britain cherished for the Princess 
 Charlotte was ardent, but it was discriminatmg. It was a tribute to principles 
 and to conduct. It was something much better than that unreflecting gal- 
 lantry which would have called " a thousand swords from tliek scabbards" to 
 have defended personal charms ; it was the acbniration of private virtue dis- 
 cipUning 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 years were devoted to an assiduous pre- 
 paration for her niaturer honours. Her studies were manly, and such as 
 befitted the probable successor to the glories of an Elizabeth. She was 
 disciphned in the school of religion and of philosophy. While slie was 
 habituated to those Christian exercises, in the j'ei'fonnance of which the 
 reigning Sovereign and his family furnished so excellent an example, she 
 stored up lessons for future practice in her probable destiny, by a ceaseless 
 contemplation of the characters of the truly great of all ages and countries. 
 She knew the fountains of her country's glory, she reverenced the founders of 
 its well-balanced constitution, her heart vowed an early allegiance to her 
 nation's liberty. In the cultivation of the accomphshments of her sex, while 
 she displayed an almost unlimited talent, she never lost sight of their legiti- 
 mate ends and uses. Her exercises and her amusements were equally asso- 
 ciated with her preparation for domestic and public duties. The people 
 exulted in the maturity of her person and her mind. She stood, as was 
 hoped amongst her future subjects, a beautiful, an accomplished, a noble- 
 hearted woman. She seemed equally fitted to command reverence by the 
 strength, and win affection by the graces, of her mind. Her state was not 
 supported by ostentation, her greatness was not asserted by pride, her dignity
 
 Chap. XT.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 151 
 
 did not estrange her from the lowly and the poor. Eaised ahove the great 1817. 
 
 portion of society, she deeply felt her alliance with the universal family of the ^ '-^- — ' 
 
 earth ; and while her endeavour was to purify herself from the follies and 
 weaknesses of mankind, she delighted to partake their sympathies, to assuage 
 their misfortunes, to merit by her benevolence the homage which Avas paid to 
 her rank. 
 
 A Princess so gifted was not a being that would pennit her affections to be 
 sacrificed at tlie altar of political calculation. She well knew that domestic 
 liappiness is the best foundation for public virtue. She felt that in the tran- 
 quillity of connubial enjoyment, the heart has no repining cares to interrupt 
 the search for truth — no restless anticipations or regrets to turn the thoughts 
 away from active duty, or contemplative preparation. She wisely asserted her 
 own right to choose for herself in the most important action of her life. The 
 nation hailed and reverenced her motives. The Prince of her choice brought 
 neither extent of territory, nor continental influence ; but he brought an un- 
 sopliisticated mind; an active, firm, inquiring, and amiable temper ; a meek 
 and affectionate heart. Their tastes were alike, their happiness was alike. 
 In dignified retirement they lived calmly and unobtrusively, in that enviable 
 tranquillity which is so congenial to British feeling. Their amusements were 
 elegant and simple ; their exercises of duty were habitual and uniform. In 
 the pursuit of health and of knowledge, their days passed away in that 
 serenity which devotion and benevolence stimulated and confirmed. A glo- 
 rious prospect was open to them of passing the summer of life in the disci- 
 pline of domestic virtue, and the autumn in a far more extended exercise of 
 tlie same principles. These hopes perished in an hour ! 
 
 Thirty vears aeo, when, " without the slightest warning, without the op- nobert Hairs 
 
 . \ " , . ,. ^ . , .' PIT Funeral Sermon, 
 
 portunity oi a moment s immediate preparation, in the midst ot tlie deepest «.c. 
 tranquillity, at midnight a voice was heard in the palace, not of singing men 
 and singing women, not of revelry and mirth, but the cry. Behold the bride- 
 groom cometli," — the nation first wept, and then gi-ew angry. Tliere had 
 been neglect, at any rate. The greatest in the land had been less helped in 
 her need, it was affirmed, than the humblest peasant wife. Lord Eldon used 
 to relate that, after the labour was over, he " went into the room where the i.ord i;M..n-8 ufe 
 surgeons were consulting what bulletin of the Princess they should send, and 
 they had actually drawn one up, stating that she Mas going on as favourably 
 as possible, when BaiUie came in, and, after reading it, he refused to sign it, 
 for such Avas not his opinion. We [the Cabinet Ministers] returned to our 
 homes about two o'clock in the morning, and before six a messenger arrived 
 to let us know the Princess was dead." Sir llichard Croft, against whom the 
 public odium was chiefly directed, became in a few months after his own self- 
 destroyer. 
 
 Amongst the fears that accompanied the death of the Princess Charlotte 
 was the apprehension that " a barren sceptre" might pass through the hands 
 of the illustrious family that freed these realms from a despotic sway. That 
 apprehension was dissipated by the subsequent marriages of the Dukes of 
 Clarence, Kent, Cumberland, and Cambridge. It is a remarkable example of 
 the vanity of human fears, that the people who wept, as a people without 
 hope, for the bereavement of Charlotte Augusta, sliould have realized through
 
 133 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book T. 
 
 1817. her premature death, precisely such a female reign, of just and mild govern- 
 
 ~ ' nicnt, of domestic %'irtues, of generous sympathy with popular rights, of bold 
 
 and liberal encouragement of sound improvenu^nt, as they had associated with 
 
 her career — perhaps more than they had thought, in that season of disquiet, 
 
 could ever be realized in a few coming years. 
 
 In the pleasing record of those years which were years of Progress, we shall 
 not have to enumerate the year 1817. It has left not the slightest trace of 
 public good. At the beginning of the Session ministers sanctioned the ap- 
 s.NEcinEs. pointuient of a Finance Committee. In three months the Committee brought 
 
 forward a measure, for the gradual abolition of sinecures, which Lord Castle* 
 Hansard, vol. ' rcagli Supported, because it would not diminish the influence of the Crown; 
 .'.xM. p. , c. ^yQ^jj produce no large reduction of expense; but would convince the peo- 
 ple that Parliament was doing every thing possible to relieve their burthens. 
 It appeared that savings Avcre to be effected by the abolition of sinecures to 
 the amount of £51,000 ; instead of which the Committee recommended tlie 
 substitution of a Pension List to the amount of £42,000. This bitter mockery 
 of the public expectations was a now source of discontent. 
 c"uM3.*^""'"' '" The Roman Catholic Claims Avcro debated at great length during this 
 Session. Of the debate on the 9th of May, Mr. Wilberforce makes this brief 
 entry in his Diary. " Roman Catholic Question decided. I would not speak. 
 Canning poor — Peel excellent — Lord Castlereagh very good." The debate 
 occupies a hundred columns of Hansard's Reports. We reserve for another 
 occasion a general view of the course of this great question. The majority 
 against the Roman Catholics in 1817, was twenty-four. 
 PAiiLUMENTAnv From tlils year we may date the retrogression of the cause of Parliamentary 
 Reform, which continued to go back, or stand still, as long as the middle 
 classes were afraid of its agitation. Writing to a friend in 1817, Mr. Wilbcr- 
 Life of wiiber- forcc savs, "I coutiuue friendlv to the moderate, gradual, and almost insen- 
 
 foiTP, Vol. iv. "^ , •' 1 • 1 
 
 p ai5- sibly operating Parliamentary Reform, which was last brought forward by 
 
 Mr. Pitt. I am firmly persuaded that at present a prodigious majority of the 
 more intelligent people of this country are adverse to the measure. In my 
 view, so far from being an objection to the discussion, this is rather a recom- 
 mendation of it. But it is a serious and very strong objection to its present 
 consideration, that the efforts of certain demagogues have had too much suc- 
 cess in influencing the minds of the lowest of the people in several of our 
 manufacturing districts, most falsely persuading them that the evils inuler 
 wliich we at present labour are owing to the state of our parliamentary repre- 
 sentation, and that they would be cured by a parliamentary reform." Tlie 
 rash movements of the operative classes in 1816, — their violent declamations, 
 their tumultuous meetings, — proceeded in most cases from an ignorant but 
 honest spirit. They had been taught, as some demagogues still contiuxie to 
 teach, that all the evils of civilization are political evils. A few scoundrels, a 
 few spies, and a few zealots of the operative class, placed the weapon of 
 alarm in the hands of the Government of 1817 ; and, what was more, laid the 
 foundation for those miserable conflicts and mutual suspicions, on the part of 
 the capitalists and the labourers, which are still amongst the most serious ob- 
 stacles to all large mitigations of the inequalities of society, however we may 
 all be improved in the common wish for Christian brotherhood.
 
 CrrAP. XII.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. loS 
 
 CHAPTER XII.* 
 
 THE period at which we are arrived was remarkable for a series of achieve- 1817. 
 ments in India, under the administration of the Marquess of Hastings, ^~ ■ ' 
 
 . . .1 O ' India. 
 
 at that time Earl of Moira. His lordship was nominated Governor-General 
 on the 18th of November, 1812, and, arriving in India, Lord Minto resigned 
 tlie government to him on the 4th of October, 1813. He was obliged to 
 attend almost immediately to matters of war, for the Birmans, or Burmese, 
 continued to trouble one of the frontiers of our empire, while the Nepaulese 
 made encroachments on another. The Birmans were brought to reason for 
 the present ; but the Nepaulese spurned negotiation, and were to be reduced 
 only by foi'ce. The Gorkhas, who domineered over a great part of Nepaul, 
 retained that passion for war and conquest to which they owed their recently 
 established dominion, and by which they hoped to extend their empire in 
 Hindustan. Their far extended frontier pressed everywhere upon the terri- 
 tories of the Company, or the territory of the Company's allies or dependents ; 
 and except in the neighbourhood of our military stations, it was found diffi- 
 cult or abnost impossible to check the border forays of the Nepaulese or the 
 quarrels that were constantly breaking out. In the month of May, 1814, 
 while some negotiations were still pending, the Nepaulese treacherously 
 attacked and murdered all the police-officers stationed in Bootwul. The 
 Earl of Moira detennined to send armies to deal with these troublesome 
 neighbours, and, after two campaigns, they were effectually subdued. 
 
 In the meanwhile our Indian armies were drawn into the field by new P''"'*''"^!! wvr. 
 enemies. The Pindarrees were not a distinctive race, but a numerous class of 
 men of different races, religions, and habits, gradually associating and assimi- 
 lated by a common pursuit. They were aU horsemen and all robbers. Their 
 name first occurs in Indian history about the end of the seventeenth century. 
 From obscure freebooters, they rose into sufficient consequence to be deemed 
 useful auxiliaries by the different Mahratta powers, whose desultory mode of 
 warfare was suited to their own habits. From their preceding or accompany- 
 ing Mahratta armies, the Pindan-ees became occasionally confounded with the 
 Mahrattas, though they were always considered by the latter as essentially 
 distinct, and so immeasurably inferior as not to be allowed to eat with them 
 or even to be seated in their presence. Occasionally the ]Mahratta rulers pur- 
 chased their aid by grants of land or by a tacit admission of their right to 
 possess tracts which they had already usurped. But the more usual price sir John Maicoim, 
 paid for their assistance was the privilege of plundering, even beyond the 
 ordinary licence given to a ^lahratta army. At times some of their durras 
 
 * This chapter is abridged from Mr. ]Mac Farlaiie's able work, "Our Indian Empire," of 
 wliieh the publisher possesses the copyriglit. 
 
 vol,. I. Y 
 
 Memoir ulCeutral 
 India.
 
 154 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book I. 
 
 1817. ficted for one Mahratta cliicf, and some on the opposite side for another Mah- 
 ~— — . — —^ ratta chief; and it occasionally happened that all the durras leagued them- 
 selves against the whole JNIahratta confederacy, plundering the territories of 
 the Peishwa, Scindiah, the Nagpoor Rajah, «&c., indiscriminately. As the 
 Pindarree chiefs acquired reputation, their claims to the services of their 
 adherents became hereditary, and were transmitted to their descendants. 
 Gangs and tribes were cemented in federal union, and common motives of 
 action led to the estabhshment of a commmiity of interest throughout the 
 whole of this community of robbers. The very looseness of the composition 
 of their union was favourable to its increase, as it admitted all castes and all 
 faiths, and offered a ready refuge to poverty, indolence, and crime — to all that 
 was floating and unattaclicd in the frequently revolutionized communities of 
 (Central India. What their numbers were could at no time be correctly 
 estimated : they varied with circumstances, being thinned by failure and 
 swelled by success. " It is also to be observed," says Sir John Malcolm, 
 " that the Pindarrees were fed and nourished by the very miseries they cre- 
 ated ; for, as their predatory invasions extended, property became inseciu'e, 
 and those who were ruined by their depredations Avere afterwards compelled 
 to have recourse to a life of violence, as the only means of subsistence left 
 them. They joined the stream wliich they could not withstand, and endea- 
 voured to redeem their own losses by the plunder of others." The strategy 
 of these overgrown bodies of banditti will show at once how difficult it was 
 sirjohn Malcolm, either to suppress them or intercept them. "When they set out on an 
 expedition, they placed themselves under the guidance of one or more chosen 
 leaders, called Lubburiahs, who were selected on account of their knowledge of 
 the country that it was meant to plunder. The Pindarrees were encumbered 
 neither with tents nor baggage ; each horseman carried a few cakes of bread 
 for his o^ai subsistence, and some feeds of grain for his horse. The party, 
 which usually consisted of two or three thousand good horse, with a proj»or- 
 tion of mounted followers, advanced at the rapid rate of forty or fifty miles a 
 day, turning neither to the right nor left till they arrived at their place of 
 destination. They then divided and made a sweep of all the cattle and pro- 
 perty they could find, committing at the same time the most horrid atrocities 
 and destroying what they could not carry away. They trusted to the secrecy 
 and suddenness of the irruption for avoiding those who guarded the frontiers 
 of the countries they invaded ; and before a force could be brought against 
 them, they were on their return. Their chief strength lay in their being in- 
 tangible. If pursued they made marches of extraordinary length (sometimes 
 upwards of sixty miles), by roads almost impracticable for regular troops. 
 If overtaken, they dispersed, and reassembled at an appointed rendezvous; if 
 followed to the country from which they issued, they broke into small parties. 
 Their wealth, their booty, and their families, were scattered over a wide region, 
 in which they found protection amid the mountains and in the fastnesses be- 
 longing to themselves or to those with whom they were either openly or 
 secretly connected ; but nowhere did they present any point of attack ; and 
 the defeat of a party, the destruction of one of their cantonments, or the tem- 
 porary occupation of some of their strongholds, produced no effect beyond the 
 ruin of an individual freebooter, whose place was instantly supplied by
 
 Chap. XII.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 155 
 
 another, generally of more desperate fortune, and therefore more eager for en- 1817. 
 terprise." They never fought when they could run away ; they considered it " — ^- — ^ 
 wisdom to plunder and fly, but folly to stay and fight. Even Allien acting 
 with the Mahrattas as auxiliaries, their object was plunder, not war. They 
 went before, indeed, biit it was only by surprise or in defenceless provinces ; 
 they were, fi-om theii- very origin, the scavengers of the Mahrattas ; and 
 though in the van, they had little more pretension to martial conduct or 
 valour than had the birds and beasts of prey that followed in their and their 
 allies' rear. Some of their chiefs, however, united to the qualities so essential 
 to theii- profession — activity, cunning, ready enterprise, presence of mind, and 
 promptitude of resources — a wonderful strength of mind (or it might be 
 apathy) in bearing the reverses of fortune and the privations of their lot. 
 Foremost among these chiefs was Cheetoo. This man first attracted the 
 attention of the English towards the end of 1806, when, raising himself on the 
 temjjorary ruinof Kureem, another Pindarree chief, who had incurred the dis- 
 jdeasure of one of the Mahratta potentates, and had been inveigled and made 
 prisoner, he united the durras or bands of many other leaders under his own 
 standard, and prejiared to commit depredations on an unprecedentedly grand 
 scale. Numerous and profitable to himself, and altogether ruinous to the in- 
 habitants of many wide districts of Hindustan, were the expeditions under- 
 taken by Cheetoo on his own account. But in 1811 the captive Pindarree, 
 Kureem, purchasing his liberty from the Mahrattas, returned to the scenes of 
 his former power, and soon obtaiiied his former supremacy. To make up for 
 lost time, and to restore his reputation among the robbers, Kureem laid his 
 plans to efiect a general combination of all the Pindarree bands for a predatory 
 cxjjedition more extensive than any that had hitherto been made. Cheetoo 
 was obliged to follow the example of the majority of his fellow-chiefs ; and at 
 the great gathering of 1811 his durra made part of 25,000 cavalry of all de- 
 scriptions, that were ready, under the command of Kureem, to march against 
 and plunder the city of Nagpoor, the large and populous capital of the Boonsla 
 Mahrattas. But Cheetoo, who continued to hate Kureem as a rival, plotted 
 against him, sold himself to his enemies, and went over to them with all his 
 diu'ra. Not long after this he entirely ruined Kureem, and obliged him to 
 flee with his diminished adherents to a distant country. Cheetoo again shone 
 forth on his rival's eclipse, and at his cantonment near Nemawur, in the pro- 
 vince of Malwa, on the north bank of the Nerbudda, no fewer than 15,000 
 horse annually assembled to issue forth to plunder. As the territories of the 
 Company and those of its protected allies offered the richest booty, the eyes of 
 the Pindarrees were alwavs bent in that direction. This imposed the neces- Henry t. Prinsrp. 
 
 .., ", 111 1.1 \^ ^ e t- J. Political and Mili- 
 
 sity of constant vigilance along the whole extent of the souta-west Irontier oi tary Transactions 
 
 1 -1 /• 1 • • 1 T~v 1 1 • 1 • '" India durinp 
 
 the Bensal presidcncY ; while, for the security of the Deccan, the subsidiary the A.iministra. 
 
 -r. ■ 1 11 1 1 • 1 j.\, C ^'°" "f 'he Mar- 
 
 forces of the Nizam and Peishwa were annually obliged to move to the ti-on- quess uf Hastinss. 
 
 tiers of their respective territories ; and notwithstanding all these precautions, 
 those states were constantly penetrated and overrun by the marauders. 
 
 The reverses and losses sustained in the first campaign in Nepaul in 1814, 
 encouraged the Pindarrees. In October, 1815, when our main aniiy was fully 
 occupied in forcing the stockades of the Gorkhas, Cheetoo crossed the Ner- 
 budda with nearlv 8000 of his Pindarrees. On the southern side of the river
 
 156 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book I. 
 
 181". tlicy broke into two parties and took opjjosite routes. Major Fraser, with 
 300 sepoys and 100 irregular native horse, surprised one of the parties in a 
 bivouac, and made them suiFer some loss before they could mount, gallop off, 
 and disperse. But this did not deter them fiioni continuing their depreda- 
 tions as far as the black river, the Krishna or Kistna. The other party, 
 Avhich had met with no such molestation, traversed the whole of the territory 
 of our ally the Nizam of the Dcccan, from north to south, and also appeared 
 on the banks of the Kistna. The territories of our Madras presidency lay on 
 the other side of the river, and were saved from devastation only by tlie for- 
 tuitous circumstance of the river's continuing not fordable so unusually late 
 H. T. Pvinsep. j,^ ^]^q scasou as the 20tli of November. " Finding the Kistna impassable, 
 the freebooters took a turn eastward, plundering the country for several miles 
 along its populous and fertile banks, and committing every kind of enormity. 
 On approaching tlie frontier of Masulipatam, they shaped their course north- 
 ward, and returned along the line of the Godavouree (Godavery) and AVurda, 
 passing to the east of all Colonel Doveton's positions, and making good their 
 route to Nema'v^Tir (Cheetoo's head-quarters), with an immense booty col- 
 lected in the Nizam's dominions, and with utter impunity." Elated by his 
 success, Cheetoo planned and proclaimed a second lubbur, or raid, immedi- 
 ately upon the return of the first. The Pindarrees again flocked in from every 
 side to join in it; and by the 5th of February, 1816, 10,000 horsemen had 
 again crossed tlie Ncrbudda from Nemawur. This time, the Company's terri- 
 tories did not escape. On tlie lOih of March, leaving plundered and burning 
 villages in their rear, the Pindarrees appeared on the western frontier of the 
 district of Masulipatam, under the Madras presidency. From this point they 
 pressed southward. On the lltli they made a march of thirty-three miles, 
 plundered seventy-two villages, and committed the most horrid cruelties upon 
 the inoifensive and helpless villagers. On the next day they destroyed fifty- 
 four villages, marched thirty-eight miles, and arrived at the civil station of 
 Guntoor. Here they plundered a considerable part of the town, and the 
 houses of all the civil oflticcrs ; but, steady to their system of never risking life 
 or limb in battle, they shrunk from the collector's office, where the government 
 treasure and the persons of the British residents were protected by a handiiil 
 of sepoys and invalids. The robbers went off as they came, suddenly and 
 noiselessly. That night there was not one of them to be seen in the neigh- 
 bourhood, and before the next day closed they were more than fifty miles 
 from Guntoor, looking westward for more defenceless A'illages. They swept 
 through the Kirpah or Cuddapah district, and, after being twelve days within 
 the Company's frontier, they recrossed the Kistna. A squadron of native 
 cavalry belonging to the Madras establishment reached the opposite bank of 
 the Kistna just after they had made good their passage. Farther to the west 
 there were numerous detachments of the Company's troops scouring the coun- 
 try in all directions, yet the plunderers escaped without the least brush. 
 Shortly after recrossing the Kistna the marauders broke up into separate 
 bodies. The greater part moved along the north bank of the Kistna, passing 
 south of Hyderabad, until they approached the Peishwa's dominions. Then, 
 turning short to the north, they retraced their steps to the Nerbudda in 
 several divisions and by various routes. Colonel Doveton came close up wilji
 
 Chap. XII.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. lol 
 
 one of the divisions as it was passing a ghaut, but still the robbers escaped 1817. 
 untouched. Another and a larger body was equally fortunate in escaping 
 from the colonel, who had obtained from a Pindarree prisoner a clue to its 
 movements, and who had made sure of cutting it up. It was soon after- 
 wards ascertained that nearly the whole of these Pindarrees who had passed 
 the Nerbudda on the 5th of February had recrossed it before the ITth of May, 
 bringing a second immense harvest of booty to Nemawur within the year. 
 It was ascertained by a commission appointed for the express purpose of the 
 investigation, that, during the twelve days the ferocious banditti remained 
 within the Company's frontiers, three hundred and thirty-nine villages had 
 been plundered, one hundred and eighty-two individuals put to a cruel death, 
 five hundred and five severely wounded, and no less than three thousand six 
 hundred and thi'ee subjected to different kinds of torture. 
 
 The Governor-General obtained certain information that the Peishwa, 
 Scindiali, and other Mahratta potentates, were in close and friendly corre- 
 spondence with the robbers, and that Mahratta agents had visited Cheetoo's 
 cantonment at Nemawur just before the last raid was undertaken ; and there 
 was every gi-ound for believing that the new Mahratta confederacy contem- 
 plated an invasion of our territories while our main army was engaged in 
 Nepaul, and the rest of our troops in the field occupied in an exhausting and 
 useless pursuit of the Pindarrees. His lordship, who saw the Nejiaul war 
 brought to an honourable and advantageous conclusion, at the very moment 
 when both the Mahrattas and the Pindarrees were confidently calculating on 
 its duration, was most eager to employ the imrcduced strength of his armies 
 in the accomplishment of the important object of securing the peace of Central 
 India by the extirpation of the robbers. He had written for the sanction of 
 the home authorities, and had made a second strong representation of the 
 horrors to which the country was exposed ; but the sanction he required be- 
 fore commencing operations on a grand scale had not yet arrived. A large 
 part of the Bengal army was, however, kept in advanced cantonments ready 
 to take the field at any moment. The Governor-General at length received 
 the sanction of the home authorities to his scheme for breaking up the con- 
 federacy and po^\•er of those banditti. 
 
 By the end of October, 1816, Lieutenant-Colonel Walker took up a defen- 
 sive line on the southern bank of the Nerbudda, with the main body of the 
 subsidiary force which the Company had sent into Nagpoor. This defensive 
 line, being nearly one hundred and fifty miles in length, was loose and weak ; 
 but the first appearance of a British army in the valley of the Nerbiidda spread 
 consternation among the robbers, and induced Clieetoo to prepare to quit the 
 northern bank of that river and cross the mountains into Malwa. Perceiving, 
 however, that the troops did not cross the Nerbudda, the Pindarrees recovered 
 confidence ; and on the 4tli of November they resolved to push small jiarties 
 between Colonel Walker's posts and round his flanks ; and a party crossed 
 the river, and then dividing into two, took different directions. Colonel Walker, 
 in attempting to intercept one of the divisions, unexpectedly fell upon the 
 other as it was bivouacking in a jungle ; he inflicted some loss ; but the nim- 
 ble robbers were soon in the saddle, and before long they had recrossed the 
 river. On the 13th of November all the durras were in motion. Cheetoo had
 
 158 HISTOIiY OF ENGLAND [Book I. 
 
 1817. discovered that Walker's cavalry was all on liis left flank, and lie therefore 
 
 ^- — ' ' threw forward more than five tlionsand of his well-nionnted thieves to turn 
 
 AValker's right flank. This hand, which appears to liave hcen followed hy 
 others, crossed the river in sight of the infantry post on the extreme right of 
 our line, and then dashed on with a rapidity which left our infantry no chance 
 of stopping or harassing their march. When collected on the southern side of 
 the Nerhudda, the Pindarrees separated into two great hodies. One swejjt 
 due east, through forests and over mountains, and fell unexpectedly upon the 
 Company's district of Ganjam, the northernmost frontier of the five Circars, 
 with the evident intention of proceeding to Cuttack and Juggernauth, to plun- 
 der the rich stronghold of Hindu superstition, to carry off the idols and the 
 votive offerings and rich donations of the pilgrims and devotees. But this 
 luhbur was met by a small body of the Company's troops almost as soon as it 
 entered Ganjam, and was driven hack with considerable loss. The other luh- 
 bur, which had gone off to the southward, rushed into the Kizam's territory 
 before Colonel Doveton could come up vrith it. It then marched leisurely 
 along, plundering and destroying, imtil it came near to the town of Beeder , 
 the capital of a province of the Deccan, and about 73 north-west from Hyde- 
 rabad. Here it came to a halt, and its chiefs disagreed as to the further course 
 Avhich ought to be pursued. While the leaders were in this state of indeci- 
 sion. Major Macdowall, \vho had been detached from Hyderabad, fell upon 
 the lubbur by night with the van party of his light troops, and cut it up com- 
 pletely, although it was six thousand strong, and the first attack made hy a 
 mere handful of light cavalry. Tlie robbers abandoned most of their horses 
 and the greater part of their booty, dispersed themselves over the country, and 
 thought of nothing but their personal safety, and of the means of retiu'ning to 
 the northern side of the Nerhudda. But one leader, named Sheik DuUoo, 
 indignant at the want of energy and concert betrayed by those who had the 
 chief command, had abandoned this lubbur altogether a few days before Mac- 
 dowall's exploit, and had gone oft' with from three to five hundred Pindarrees 
 to act for himself. He dashed across the Peishwa's territory, descended into 
 the Konkan, and thence shaped his coru-se due north, plundering the western 
 shores of India, from the 17th to the 21st degree of north latitude, and return- 
 ing by the valley of the Taptee, and the route of Boorhanpoor, the capital of 
 the Candeish province of the Deccan. This was the only lubbur that met with 
 any success this season. The only loss it sustained from British troops was on 
 its return to the Nerhudda, in the following March. Here Sheik Dulloo and 
 his people were within a few miles of home, or of Cheetoo's cantonment ; but 
 they found the ford by which they had hoped to cross the river guarded by a 
 redoubt occupied by a small party of our sepoys. Several of the robbers were 
 shot in attempting to dash across ; but the sheik himself, with his main body 
 and best-mounted followers, retiring from the ford, boldly swam the river 
 lower down, though not without a further loss of men and horses. Those who 
 had worse horses or less courage dispersed, and fled into the jungle on the 
 English side of the Nerhudda, where the greater part of them were cut off by 
 the wild inhabitants of the country. By the various accidents of flood and 
 H. T. Prinscp. flje morc than one half of those who had followed Sheik Dulloo perished ; but 
 the rest reached Cheetoo's durra with a rich booty in their saddles. The
 
 Chap. XII] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 159 
 
 sheik's fame waxed great : his daring Uibbiir and his marvellous return became ISIT. 
 the admired theme of the whole Pindarrce world. ^-— ^ " 
 
 Two or three other lubburs had contrived to cross the Nerbudda by passing 
 between the distant posts of Colonel Walker's line, or by turning that line ; 
 but they met with nothing except hard blows and disappointment. One of 
 them was cut to pieces by the 4th Madras native cavalry, led on by Major 
 Lushington. Making a forced march of more than 50 miles, the greater part 
 by night, Lushington surprised the Pindarrees as they were cooking and eating, 
 and presently strewed the field with some seven or eight hundred of their 
 dead bodies. As the ground was open, the INIadras cavalry pursued with good 
 effect. The Ganjam lubbur was almost annihilated on its rapid retiu-n home- 
 ward ; and as the different ghauts and fords by which they must pass in order 
 to get to the north bank of the Nerbudda were by degrees all guarded, very 
 few of the remnants of the other shattered lubburs ever reached their homes. 
 Hosts of tliem were cut off by our sepoys, and by the people whom they had 
 plundered in their advance. They had been continually fleeing before a hand- 
 ful of men, and had been beaten every time they had been met with. .Still, 
 however, their depredations dming this campaign or season of 1816-17 had 
 embraced a more ample expanse of territory than had ever before been at- 
 tempted, extending from shore to shore of the peninsula of India, and includ- 
 ing all the intermediate provinces they had omitted the preceding year. 
 
 By this time it was very completely demonstrated that stationary posts of 
 defence could not prevent the Pindarrees from crossing the Nerbudda and 
 getting into oiu- territories ; and that it would not be possible to deal properly 
 with those plunderers and miu'derers, unless our troops advanced into tlie 
 country north of the Nerbudda, to the " procreant cradle" of the infamous 
 race. 
 
 During tlie rains of this year the Pindarrees, well kno^^-ing that the English 
 were coming against them into the regions beyond the Nerbudda, made great 
 efforts to recruit their durras, and to concert some general plan of defence. 
 But disagreements broke out among the chiefs, particularly between Cheetoo 
 and his old rival Kin-eem, and no consistent plan could be formed. Their 
 superstitions were alarmed by evil omens, such as a great fire that broke out 
 in Kurcem's camp in the month of September, and destroyed all the valuables 
 of his durra. Generally, however, the Pindarrees relied, first on their own 
 rapidity of movement, and next on the potency of the hostile league which 
 they knew to be forming among the Mahrattas against the English. When 
 the rains were over they made some very unsuccessful attempts to break into 
 our territories. They were everywhere headed back ; and they were soon 
 pressed and pursued, and driven from their haunts beyond the Nerbudda by 
 the several corps of JNIajor-General Marshall and Colonel Sir John ^lalcolm. 
 The last-named officer, who has written the best account of the Pindarrees, 
 and who had the most active share in the operations which destroyed them, 
 had been absent in England, and had returned just in time to take the com- 
 mand of one of the corps of the Marquess of Hastings's army. Malcolm, being 
 informed of Clicctoo's flight to the westward, resolved to follow him as the 
 most able and dangerous of the robbers ; and he accordingly marched as far 
 as Agur. Here he learned that Clieetoo had pitched his camp close to that of
 
 160 ' HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book I. 
 
 1817. the Holkar Mahiattas : that he had heen received with friendship and distinc- 
 tion, and that those Mahrattas were fully determined to support the rohher 
 and to oppose the operations of the British. They had just received from the 
 Peishwa an advance of a lac and sixty thousand rupees. Upon this intelli- 
 gence Sir John ^Malcolm fell hack to the neighbourhood of Oojein, a town of 
 great celebrity in Malwa, where another corps d'armee was collected under 
 the command of Sir Thomas Hislop. While these forces lay at Oojein, an- 
 other revolution and murder took place in the Holkar camp. The young heir 
 to the musnud was enticed away from tlie tent in which he was playing, and 
 his mother, who was acting as regent, was seized at night and beheaded, as a 
 traitress sold to the English. Having done these deeds, the Patau chiefs be- 
 came clamorous for battle ; and the whole Holkar army, advancing rapidly, 
 plundered part of the English baggage. The next day (the 21st of December, 
 1817) they met their reward in the bloody battle of Maheidpoor. There, 
 strongly posted on the banks of the Sepra river (into whose waters they had 
 thrown the headless body of the regent), they were beaten, bayoneted, cut to 
 pieces, deprived of all their artillery, amounting to seventy pieces, and of 
 everything that gave them the character of an army. The remnant of their 
 force fled to the large walled town of Rampoora, in the heart of the province 
 of Malwa. Sir John Malcolm formed the plan of the battle, and headed the 
 assault on the left flank of the enemy. Lieut. -Colonels Scott, Macdowall, and 
 Russell, Major James L. Lushington, and other officers, greatly distinguished 
 themselves in the action. The British casualties were uimsually severe, 
 amounting to 174 killed and GO-1 wounded. Among the wounded were 35 
 officers, of whom 15 were severely injured. In the pursuit, which was conti- 
 nued by Sir John Malcolm and Captain Grant along both banks of the river 
 Sepra, immense booty was obtained, including elephants, some hundreds of 
 camels, &c. 
 
 Sir John Malcolm advanced rapidly towards the capital of the Llolkars, 
 being joined on the way by the Bombay army from Guzerat, under the orders 
 of Major-General Sir William Keir. Those Mahrattas now agreed to and 
 hastily concluded a treaty of peace, placing their territories under British pro- 
 tection, and surrendering in perpetuity to the Company various districts, forts, 
 and ghauts. The treaty was scarcely concluded ere some of the Patau chiefs 
 attempted to break it ; but these desperadoes were defeated and most of their 
 adherents slaughtered in Ranipoora by some detachments of infantry and ca- 
 valry luider General Brown. A few more marches and two or three stormings 
 of forts reduced the whole of the country of the Holkar Mahrattas to a state 
 of obedience. These rapid successes kept Scindiah steady to the treaty which 
 he had recently concluded, and deprived the wandering Peishwa of almost his 
 last hope. They also enabled our troops to follow the Pindarrees, who were 
 now flying in all directions, like sea-fowl in a storm. Some of Cheetoo's 
 durra had followed the Patau chiefs to jMalieidpoor ; but after our victory 
 there, Cheetoo fled to shift for himself, seeing that no aid was to be expected 
 from the Mahrattas. He was closely followed by the Guzerat army of Sir 
 William Keir, who surprised him and cut up part of his durra in the neigh- 
 bourhood of Satoolla. Harassed by the activity of Sir William's pursuit, and 
 finding that other corps were closing fast round them, the marauders endea-
 
 CnAP.XIL] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. IGl 
 
 voiived to retrace their steps to their old haunts in the valley of the Nerhudda 1817. 
 and in parts of Malwa. Other chiefs failed, and were cut up in the attempt ; 
 but Cheetoo succeeded in baffling every effort made to intercept him or over- 
 take him, and effected his object by penetrating through a most difficult coun- 
 try. He suddenly reappeared in Malwa, in the neighbourhood of the ancient 
 city of Dhar, situated among rocks, forests, and the soiu'ces of rivers ; but his 
 extraordinary march had cost him all his baggage and most of his horses. He 
 was now lost sight of for some time; during which the best of his fellow-chiefs 
 with their durras were extirpated in other parts. At last his lair was disco- 
 vered, and on the night of the 25th of January, 1818, a strong party of the 
 British came upon him and utterly broke up his band. The hill robbers of 
 Malwa, the Bheels and Grasseas, were encouraged to plunder and destroy the 
 fugitives, and are said to have executed the commission very zealously. Chee- 
 too, however, escaped Bheels and Grasseas, as he had so often the English, 
 and for a short time wandered and skulked about Malwa with some two hun- 
 dred followers. When in this state of hopeless misery, he was often advised 
 by some of his followers to surrender to the English and trust to their mercy. 
 He was possessed however by the dreadful idea, that the English would trans- 
 port him beyond the sea, and this was more hideous to him than death. 
 These followers, who all, one after another, came m and obtained pardon, re- si, jnhn jraicim. 
 lated, that during their captain's short and miserable sleejj at this period, he 
 used continually to murmur, " Kala Panee ! Kala Panee ! " — (" The black 
 Sea! Oh, the black Sea!") 
 
 At this conjuncture it struck Cheetoo that possibly the Nabob of Bopaul 
 might make terms for him and the remnant of his durra with the English ; 
 and rapidly acting on the idea, he suddenly entered the camp of that prince. 
 But when he learned that the nabob could offer or promise nothing beyond a 
 slender personal maintenance in some remote corner of India, he decamped as 
 suddenly as he had come. While he stayed, his horses were constantly sad- 
 dled, and his men slept with the bridles in their hands, ready to fly instantly. 
 Preparations were making for the purpose of seizing him the very night he 
 went off from the Bopaid camp. Though he got safely off, he was presently 
 pursued by the nabob's people and by parties sent out by Sir John Malcolm. 
 This distressed him so much, that Eajun, one of his most faithful and valuable 
 adherents, left him, and made his submission. Y^et, after all this, Cheetoo 
 found his way into the Deccan, and made common cause with the Arabs and 
 chiefs of the Peishwa's routed army, receiving occasional protection fi-om the 
 killadar of the fortress of Aseerghur, a place of great strength, the ancient ca- 
 pital of Candeish, and at this time included among the possessions of Scindiah. 
 His durra was completely destroyed, and nearly all his followers deserted him, 
 but nothing could subdue Cheetoo's spirit, or induce him to surrender. His 
 end, however, approached, and it was tragical and singular. Having joined 
 Apa Saheb, he passed the rainy season of 1818 among the Mahadeo moun- 
 tains ; and upon that Rajah's expulsion by the English, in February, 1819, he 
 accompanied him to the fort of Aseerghur. Being refused admittance, he 
 sought shelter in a neighbouring jungle, and on horseback and alone attempted 
 to penetrate a cover known to be infested by tigers. He was missed for some 
 days, and no one knew what had become of him. His well-known horse was 
 
 vol,. I. z
 
 ir.-2 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book I. 
 
 1817. at last discovered grazing near the margin of the forest, saddled and bridled, 
 ■^^ — "'^ — ^ and exactly in the state in which it was when Cheetoo had last been seen 
 upon it. A bag of two hundred and fifty rupees was found in the saddle, to- 
 gether with several seal-rings and some letters of Apa Saheb, promising future 
 reward to the great robber. A search was made in the cover for the body ; 
 and at no great distance were found clothes clotted with blood, fragments of 
 bones, and, lastly, the Pindarree's head entire, with the features in a state to 
 Henry T. Prinsep. |)g recogniscd. " The chiefs mangled remains," savs the best historian of his 
 
 History oJ rhe Po- *=* , P . 
 
 liticaianti Military advcnturcs, "werc givcii ovcr to his son for interment : and the miserable fate 
 
 uVansactioiis in tip 
 
 India. of one Avho so shortly before had ridden at the head of 20,000 horse, gave an 
 
 awful lesson of the uncertainty of fortune, and drew pity even from those who 
 had been the victims of his barbarity when living." 
 
 With Cheetoo ended the last of the Pindan-ees, and the spirit which had 
 animated their vast lawless associations. Their name is all that now remains 
 of them, for the sad traces of their devastation have entirely disapjjeared under 
 re-established order, industry, prosperity, police, and good government. It is 
 now nearly a quarter of a century since that gallant officer, accomplished di- 
 MemoiroVcenirni plomatist, and able writer, the late Sir Jolin Malcolm, said of them — " There 
 now remains not a spot in India that a Pindarree can call his home. They 
 have been hunted like wild beasts ; numbers have been killed ; all ruined. 
 Those Avho espoused their cause have fallen. They were early in the contest 
 shunned like a contagion, and even the timid villagers, whom they so recently 
 oppressed, were among the foremost to attack them. Their principal leaders 
 liad cither died, submitted, or been made captives : while their followers, with 
 the exception of a few whom the liberality and consideration of the British go- 
 vernment have aided to become industrious, are lost in that population from 
 whose dross they originally issued. A minute investigation only can discover 
 these once formidable disturbers, concealed as they now are among the lowest 
 classes, where they are making some amends for past atrocities by the benefit 
 which is derived from their labour in restoring trade and cultivation. These 
 freebooters had none of the prejudices of caste, for they belonged to all tribes. 
 They never had either the pride of soldiers, of family, or of country, so that 
 they were bound by none of those ties which among many of the communities 
 in India assume an almost indestructible character. Other plunderers may 
 arise from distempered times, but as a body the Pindarrees are so effectually 
 destroyed, that their name is already almost forgotten, though not five years 
 are passed since it spread terror and dismay over all India." 
 MAHtt»TTA\VA»s. -pjjg Mahratta wars which were waged by the Marquess of Hastings are 
 chiefly interesting from their having led to these desirable results. In these 
 wars there was very little manoeuvring, either on our side or on that of the 
 enemy. The great business of our commanders was to bring the army rapidly 
 up with the foe, and to correctly calculate and provide for the means of so 
 doinw. The valour of our troops, native as well as European, their steadiness, 
 rapidity in formation, and their bayonet-points, did the rest. But great Avas 
 the foresight required, and numerous the difficulties to be overcome, ere an 
 Ano-lo-Indian army, mth its amazing train of camp-followers, could be brought 
 up with alert enemies who were for the most part mounted. After leaving 
 their own frontiers, they had often to march hundreds of miles before they
 
 Ch i.p. XII.J DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 163 
 
 could come witliin reach of a tangible enemy. On these marches the followers 1817. 
 could never be left far behind. A very large number of attendants was consi- ^- — - — — ^ 
 dered indispensable : one man was required for e\cry three bullocks, and many 
 were required for the elephants and camels of the army ; every horse in the 
 army had, besides the rider, two attendants, one to clean and take care of him, 
 the other to cut the grass and provide his forage; the palanquin and Utter 
 bearers for the sick formed another numerous and useful class ; field-officers, 
 including the people who canicd or had charge of their tents, baggage, &c.., 
 had each about forty attendants ; captains had twenty, and subalterns ten ser- 
 vants each : the bazaar people, the merchants, their families, servants, &c., 
 formed another numerous body. Generally, while marching, there were no 
 towns to be depended on for supplies, and the army not only carried with it 
 most of the means of subsistence for several months, but many articles of mer- 
 chandize. The scene altogether resembled the migration of a nation guarded 
 bj' troops, rather than the advance of an army to subdue an enemy. 
 
 On the first year of this war against the Pindarrees and Mahrattas the army 
 of the Mai-quess of Hastings was assailed by a new and terrible enemy ; this 
 was the Indian Cholera Morbus, the virulence of which appears to have been 
 increased by the crowded state of our camps. The disease first broke out at 
 Jessore, the capital of a district in the southern quarter of Bengal, a populous 
 and unhealthy city in the centre of the Delta of the Ganges, and near the pes- 
 tiferous Sunderbunds. It began its ravages as the rainy season of 1817 set in, 
 and cut ofi" the majority of those whom it attacked. From Jessore it spread 
 in all directions, showing, as it was thought, a preference for the valleys of 
 rivers. Ascending the valley of the Ganges, it reached the camp of Brigadier- 
 General Hardyman about the beginning of October ; but the troops, being- 
 then encamped in a dry healthy country, and being but few in number, suf- 
 fered comparatively little. Continuing its course westward, it fell with extra- 
 ordinary violence upon the army commanded by Lord Hastings in person, just 
 after his lordship had concluded the treaty with Scindiah. This anny, when 
 first seized, was encamped in a low and unhealthy part of Bundelcund, on the 
 banks of tlic river Sinde, a confluent of the Jumna, which has its source in 
 the mountains of Malwa. The year was one of scarcity, and grain had been 
 collected for the troops, through the camp-followers, with extreme difficulty, 
 and of course of inferior qiuility. The water of the country, except where it 
 could be obtained from running streams, was indifferent. The time of the 
 year too was that at which the heat of the day is most strongly contrasted with 
 the cold of the night. To all these extraordinary circumstances was super- 
 added the very crowded state of the camp of so large an army. For about ten 
 days that the disease raged with its greatest fury, the whole camp was an 
 hospital. The mortality amounted to about a tenth of the whole number col- 
 lected there. Europeans and natives, soldiers and camp-followers, were ahke 
 affected ; but the latter, being generally worse clothed and fed than the fight- 
 ing men, suff"ered in a greater proportion. Of the Europeans fewer were seized, 
 but those who took the disease more frequently died, and usually witliin a few 
 hours. The camp was abandoned, and the army continued for some days to 
 move to the eastward in the hope of finding relief in a better climate ; but 
 each day's march many dead and dying were abandoned^ and many more fell
 
 164 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book I. 
 
 1817. down on the road — so many that it Mas not possible to furnish the means for 
 
 ■ carrying them on, although the utmost possible provision had been made by 
 
 the previous distribution of bullock-carts and elephants for the accommodation 
 of the sick. Nothing was heard along the line of march but groans and 
 shrieks and lamentations ; even the healthy were broken in spirit and incapa- 
 ble of exertion ; and, for the time, the efficiency of this fine army seemed to be 
 entirely destroyed. Towards the end of November, when the army reached a 
 healthy station at Erech, on the right bank of the Betwa river, the epidemic 
 had visibly expended its violence. The camp \\as, however, still crowded 
 with convalescents, when it marched with its noble commander to take an 
 active part in the war. 
 
 During the rage of the epidemic one or two of his servants in attendance 
 sunk suddenly from behind his lordship's chair ; and the noble marquess him- 
 self, seeing the probability of being attacked by the dreadful disease, gave 
 secret instructions, in case of his dying, to be buried in his tent, lest the 
 enemy should hear of his death and be thereby encouraged to attack his 
 disheartened and crippled troops. The return of health came very oppor- 
 tunely, for the army had been but a very short time at Erech when the mar- 
 quess received intelligence that Scindiah had sent an invitation to the Pin- 
 darrees. The Maliratta prince was reported to have promised the robbers 
 that if they would come so near to Gualior as to make his getting to them easy, 
 he would break his recent treaty with the English, and join them with the 
 force which he had at his capital. The Pindarrees in fact were in full march 
 for Gualior, without meeting even a show of resistance from troops of Scindiah 
 stationed on their route, though the co-operation of his army for the extinction 
 of the Pindarrees was an article of the treaty. The movements of these Pin- 
 darrees and the suspicious conduct of Scindiah's troops imposed on the mar- 
 Marquess of Has- quess the necessity of making a retrograde movement. " We hurried back to 
 the itise and Pro- the Siude," says his lordship; "but this time we chose a position nearer to 
 \v2,&c. Gualior than that which we had before occupied. We were within thirty 
 
 miles of the city, and our advanced-guard was sent to occupy the passes 
 through the hills, which run at some distance south of Gualior from the Sinde 
 to the Chumbul. These passes were the only rovites by which communication 
 could take place between the Pindarrees and Scindiah ; and I was nearer to 
 supjiort my advanced-guard than the Maharajah (Scindiah) was to attack it, 
 could he bring his men to so desperate a stake. The Pindarrees, finding tlieir 
 hopes baffled, and the pass, &c., stopped, attempted to retire ; but they had 
 been followed close by our divisions, were surprised, dispersed, and slaughtered 
 in a number of small actions. In short, they disappeared. And thus our 
 objects were completed." 
 
 AVhile the forces under the Marquess of Hastings, and the divisions under 
 Hislop, Malcolm, Marshall, Kcir, Adams, and other officers, were chasing the 
 Pindarrees from moor and mountain, valley and jungle, or reducing the forts 
 in Malwa, Brigadier-General Smith, who had been reinforced at Poonah, pre- 
 ])ared for an active pursuit of Bajee Rao, the fugitive Peishwa, who had flitted 
 liither and thither like an ignis fatuus. Mr. jNIountstuart Elphinstone, having 
 organized a police and a provisional administration for the city of Poonah, ac- 
 companied General Smith's division, M'hich began its march at the end of
 
 Chap. XII.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 165 
 
 November. Gokla, one of the Peisliwa's evil advisers, but bravest officers, 1817. 
 attempted to defend a ghaut leading to the high land where the Kistna has 
 its source, and where the Peishwa had found a refuge and a rallying point ; 
 but the Mahi-atta was beaten, and the pass was cleared by the British with 
 great ease. No fighting, but rapid and most wearying marches ensued, the 
 Peisliwa's army flying in a sort of zigzag, and the Peishwa himself always 
 keeping in advance of his main body. At last the Mahratta succeeded in 
 getting rormd Smith's division ; and then, passing between Poonah and 
 Seroor, he moved northward as far as Wuttoor, on the road to Nassik. Here 
 he was joined by his long-lost favourite Trimbukjee, who brought with him a 
 considerable reinforcement of horse and foot. Trimbukjee had collected 
 these forces in various directions, but a good part of them appear to have been 
 Pindarrees. But for the good fights made in front of the presidency at Nag- 
 poor, and within the walls of that city, Apa Saheb woidd have accompanied 
 Trimbukjee with liis large army and his desperate Arabs. After he had dis- 
 covered the direction the Peishwa had taken, and had recruited liis own 
 worn-out cattle. General Smith, on the 22nd of September, started again in 
 pursuit. This headlong race to the northward brought Smith close upon the 
 rear of the Mahrattas ; but, with the lubricity of eels, they slipped through 
 his fingers, and making a flank movement behind some hills, they turned 
 suddenly to the south, and retraced their steps towards Poonah. Colonel 
 Burr, who commanded in that city, apprehending an attack, solicited the 
 reinforcement of a battalion from Seroor. Captain Francis French Staunton,* 
 of the Bombay establishment, was forthwith detached from Seroor with about 
 600 sepoys, 300 auxiliary horse, and two six-pounders. The distance was 
 only two short marches. Staunton began his march from Seroor at eight 
 o'clock in the evening of the 31st of December, and at ten the next morning 
 he reached the heights of Corregaum, about half-way to Poonah, when, look- 
 ing down upon the plain which lay between him and that city, he saw the 
 whole of the Peisliwa's army, estimated at 20,000 horse and several thousand 
 foot. His march to Poonah was intercepted, and he himself was in great 
 danger of being cut off. The brave officer did what the circumstances of the 
 case required : he made a dash at the village of Corregaum (which stood on 
 the heights, and which was composed of a number of stone houses with 
 strong stone walls round the gardens), hoping to gain possession of it before 
 it could be obtained by the enemy. But the ]Mahrattas, or rather the Arabs, 
 who composed the main body of their infantry, were as near to the village as 
 was Captain Staunton ; and as he entered at one side and took possession of 
 some of the houses, the Arabs entered at the opposite side and took possession 
 of other houses. A terrible struggle ensued, at first between the Company's 
 troops and the Arabs for the possession of the whole of the village, and then 
 between our handful of men and nearly the whole of the Maliratta army. 
 Unfortunately Captain Swanston, who commanded our 300 auxiliary horse, 
 was wounded early in the day, and his weak squadrons could not show them- 
 selves in face of the masses of Mahratta cavalry. The enemy, who had been 
 running too fast to carry artillery with him, brought up only two guns ; but if 
 there was an equality in this particular arm, their infantry exceeded ours by 
 
 * Subsequently Col. F. F. Stauiitoii, C. B.
 
 166 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book I. 
 
 1817. ten to one. Nevertheless our admirable sepoys maintained their post, and 
 
 ^- ' kept up an incessant fl<;lit from the hour of noon till nine in tlie evening, 
 
 during which time they had no refreshment, and not even a drop of water to 
 drink. Attack after attack was made under the eye of the Peishwa, wlio 
 stood, no doubt at a safe distance, on a neighbouring hill. They had all 
 failed, when Lieutenant Chisholm, the officer of artillery, with most of his 
 men, having been killed at a post near a pagoda, and all the European officers 
 liaving been disabled except three, the Arabs charged and obtained possession 
 of one of our two guns which was stationed at tlie pagoda. Our wounded 
 were lying thick round that building, and among them were Assistant-Sui'geon 
 Wingate, Captain Swanston, and Lieutenant Connellon. The wild Arabs 
 immediately began to massacre these helpless wounded men and to mutilate 
 the bodies of the slain. Poor Wingate was literally hacked to pieces, as was 
 the body of Lieutenant Chisholm, the officer of artillery. But the Arabs did 
 not long enjoy their bloody triumph ; the three undisabled officers. Captain 
 Staunton, Lieutenant Jones, and Assistant-Surgeon Wylie, though almost ex- 
 hausted, and with their men 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 
 fainting sepoys were then enabled to obtain a supply of water, the only re- 
 freshment they got during the whole day and following night. Where the 
 desperate Arabs had failed, there was slight chance that the cowardly Mah- 
 rattas 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 Avere to be pro- 
 cured in the village. Despairing therefore of being able to reach Poonah, he 
 determined to move back to Scroor. He began his retreat in the dark on the 
 night of the 2nd 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 3rd 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 woiuided out of a detail for two six -pounders 
 only.
 
 Chap. XII.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 
 
 In the course of the 3rd of January, the day on which Captain Staunton 181" 
 got back to Seroor, Brigadier-General Smith reached the village of Corre- •'~-^'- 
 gaum witli his strong division. The Peisliwa and his Mahrattas fled hack 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 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 neighbourhood of Satara, on the 28 th of Janu- 
 ary; but they escaped by a ghaut, with the loss of part of their rear-guard. 
 A small detachment imder 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. IVIountstuart 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 Mah- 
 ratta 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 tlie Peishwa made certain rash 
 movements which enabled General Smith to fall upon him at Ashtee, on the 
 20th of February, with the 2nd and 7th regiments of Madras light cavalry, 
 and two squadrons of his Majesty's 22nd dragoons. Bajee Rao, the dastardly 
 Peisliwa, deserted his palanquin and his army, mounting a horse, and gallop- 
 ing away as soon as tlie battle began ; but Gokla, his general, seeing that he 
 must either fight or lose the baggage and nearly every thing 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 jNIahrattas 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 fomied part of this prize. General Smith was slightly wounded 
 on the head, and Lieutenant Warrand, of the 22nd dragoons, was wounded by 
 Gokla, who fought fiercely in the melee, and wounded several of our men 
 before he fell ; but no one was killed on our side, and only 17 or 18 of the 
 soldiers were wounded. 
 
 The remnant of the Peishwa's army fled towards tlie 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 
 numerous and too well posted to allow of any junction being effected between 
 the Peishwa and the forces of any of our other enemies. 
 
 • * A mass of Muliratta cavalry.
 
 168 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book I. 
 
 1817. After the battle of Ashtee, 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 
 north-west, 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 March. Brigadier-General Doveton, 
 with his division, moved in another direction in the expectation of intercept- 
 ing the Peishwa. Nevertheless the Mahratta traversed the Nizam's dominions 
 from west to east, and appeared on the banks of the Werda on the 1st 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, hut 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 Dove- 
 ton, Adams followed the Mahrattas, came up with them near Soonee, and 
 with only one regiment of native cavalry and some horse artillery, gave them 
 a signal overthrow. The enemy fled through the jungles, leaving belund 
 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 whicli 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 sup- 
 plies ; and then mistakes were committed as to the direction in which the pur- 
 suit ought to be continued. Nor was it easy to avoid these errors, for the 
 Peishwa's aimy split up into various detachments, and each tocjk a route of its 
 own. Two-thirds of his people qiuttod 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 north-east ; but here he found his progress 
 stopped by General Sir Thomas Hislop, who was returning fi-om Malwa to the 
 Deccan. On his way Sir Thomas had resorted to a measm-e of unusual seve- 
 rity. The fort of Talnere or Thalnir, situated on the north bank, and com- 
 manding a ford over the river Taptee, was one of the places ceded to the Eng- 
 lish 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 foimd 
 open. At the third gate they were met by the killadar, who came out by the 
 wicket and surrendered to Colonel Conway. The third and fourth gates were
 
 Chap. XII.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 169 
 
 then opened, and the storming party advanced to the fifth, which led into the 1817. 
 body of the place. This was found shut, but part of the garrison within de- 
 manded terms, and expressed their dissatisfaction at the gate's being closed. 
 After a very short parley, in which they were summoned to surrender at dis- g°^™^J. ^Memoi'r" 
 cretion, the wicket gate was opened from within, and Lieutenant-Colonel "J "?<^ "p""™'""^ 
 
 > . . "' *"^ British Ar- 
 
 Mun-ay, ^lajor Gordon, Captain [NlacGregor, and Lieutenants Chauvel and Lk,itenant''Ed'^' 
 MacGrcgor entered, and were followed by ten or twelve grenadiers. They '^^l^J'i^'^^^°'-^l' 
 were scarcely within the wicket, when some wild Arabs, who formed part of "f'^e Madras Ar 
 
 ^ '■ my, &c. in the 
 
 the garrison, fell upon them with swords, spears, aud knives. Major Gordon y^"* lan-io, &c. 
 and Captain MacGrcgor were killed forthwith ; Lieutenant-Colonel Munay 
 was wounded in several places, cut do\\ai, 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 slaughtered 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 kiUadar hanged on one of the bastions, on the twofold charge 
 of rebellion and treachery. It was doubted whether the kiUadar had ordered, 
 or was pri\T to, the onslaught of the Ai-abs ; it was doubted (but we think 
 unreasonably) whether the Arabs understood that the kiUadar had surren- 
 dered, and that the Mahrattas had agi-eed to submit — and the conduct of Sir 
 Thomas Hislop, in ordering the execution of the killadar, was severely cen- 
 sured in several quarters ; but the example was useful, and upon knowing that 
 the commandant of Talnere had been executed, the killadars of the much 
 stronger forts of Gaulnah, Chandore, and other places wliich Holkar had 
 ceded, submitted upon summons, or as soon as they were shown Holkar's 
 orders to admit the English. 
 
 Bajee Eao had been running hither and thither for more than six months, 
 but his race was now well nigh finished. North, 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 Mahva ; but Sir John ]\Ialcohn, who was himself at Mow, a town 
 or large cantonment iu the Malwa pro'S'ince, had so stationed some forces 
 under Lieutenant-Colonels Russel and CorselUs as to render this movement 
 impracticable. On the evening of the 25th of INIay Sir John Malcolm learned 
 that a vakeel from the Peishwa had arrived at a place on the Nerbudda river, 
 about forty miles fi-om Mow. Malcolm immediately moved towards that place, 
 and took his troops with him. On the 27th of May he met the vakeel or am- 
 bassador, who assiu'ed him that the Peishwa was determined to come to him, 
 and to trust to his friendship and generosity. Sir John, being informed of the 
 plan of disposing of the Peishwa which had been framed by the Marquess of 
 Hastings aud jNIr. Elphinstone, stated the conditions, and sent the vakeel back 
 to his master, who was occup}'ing a good position on a hill. The Peishwa re- 
 mained irresolute for several days, during which the division of General Dove- 
 ton and other troops got close into his neighbourhood. At last, on the even- 
 ing of the 1st of June, he came down to a village in the plain, and met Sir 
 John ISIalcolm. The Mahratta did not come alone, he had an escort 2-500 
 strong, and he brought his family with liim. Malcolm, who had come to the 
 
 VOL. I. 2 a
 
 170 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book I. 
 
 1817. appointed place with only a thin attendance, repeated the conditions, and de- 
 manded the immediate surrender of Trimbukjee. Bajee Eao declared that it 
 was not in his power to give up Trimbukjee, that Trimbukjee had an anny 
 and camp of his own, that he was stronger than he was. " Then," said Mal- 
 colm, " I will attack him forthwith." " Success attend you !" replied the 
 Peishwa. The Mahratta 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 la- 
 mentable situation, but believed that he still had a real friend in Sir Jolm 
 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." Malcolm 
 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. Bajee Rao protested that Malcolm was 
 his friend, his only friend, and that he would never leave him, but trust en- 
 tirely to his good offices. Nevertheless, the Peishwa, on breaking up the con- 
 ference, 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 
 T^ab infantry, and to show the muzzles of his guns over the rocks ; and iipon 
 reaching his camp he sent trusty messengers to the camp of Trimbukjee to tell 
 that favoiu'ite to beware of Malcolm. It was, however, utterly impossible for 
 him to procrastinate very long, for he was completely hemmed in, and his sup- 
 plies of pro\'isions Avere 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 3rd 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 wait 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 11 o'clock on 
 the morning of the 3rd he came down to Sir John Malcolm's camp, and deli- 
 vered 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 be- 
 fore him, yet he agreed that the Peishwa's allowance should not be less than 
 eight lacs of rupees per annum, and that a most liberal provision should be 
 made for his courtiers. Brahmins, 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 for ever the dignity of 
 Peishwa, or sxipreme chief of the Mahrattas, together 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 cauglit, after 
 another hard run for it, the ex-Peishwa quietly resigned himself to a life of 
 luxury and ease, spending his 80,000/. 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
 
 Chap. XII.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 171 
 
 was proposed to him as a suitable residence, he expressed a rooted aversion. 1817. 
 He would have preferred Mutra, hut as that was a frontier station it was 
 refused. The village of Betoor 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 Betoor, he bathed daily in the holy water of the 
 Ganges, indulged in the highest living of a Brahmin, maintained three expen- 
 sive sets of dancing-girls, and siurounded himself with low buffoons and syco- 
 phants. 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 futm-e troubles in India — still their 
 power of doing mischief 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 wisely and for ever abrogated. 
 The Satara dominions occupy a surface of about 11,000 square miles, beino- 
 bounded on the west by the Western Ghaut mountains, on tlic south by the 
 Warna and Krishna, on the north by the Neera and Becma rivers, and on the 
 east by the frontier of the Nizam's dominions. The total net revenues amount- 
 ed to 15,600,000 rupees ; but out of this sum three lacs per annum were re- 
 served for chiefs who had become subjects of the Company, and three lacs 
 more were alienated. The management of the territories, and the superinten- 
 dence of the Rajah of Satara's affairs, were assigned to Captain Grant until 
 the country should become tranquillized. Many of the hill-forts, which had 
 been what the worst of our baronial castles were in the early part of the 
 twelfth century (dens of thieves, cut-throats, 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 Trim- 
 bukjee 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 
 neighbourhood of Nassuck, a large town aird place of pilgrimage on the Goda- 
 very, principally inhabited by Brahmins. The murderer had ever shown a 
 preference for these holy places, and he probably hoped to escape notice among 
 the crowds of Hindu pilgi-ims that were constantly repairing to the temjjlcs of 
 Nassuck. Here, 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 detaclied 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 ]\Iah-
 
 172 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 [Book I. 
 
 Edward Lake, 
 Lieutenant of 
 
 1817. ratta groom and songster. After a short time he was carried to Calcutta, and 
 put into the cage in Fort William which had previously heen occupied by 
 Vizier Ali, but he was very soon conveyed to the rock of Chuuar near 
 Benares. 
 
 The capture of the fortress of Aseergliur was the last operation of the Pin- 
 darree 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. " Thirty hill-fortresses, each of which might have defied the whole 
 Madras Enginfers. Auglo-Indian army, fell in the course of a few weeks : and this vast INIahratta 
 
 Journals of ihe . 
 
 sipgesof the empire, which had overshadowed the East, and before which the star of the 
 
 Madras Army. ^ _ ^ 
 
 Mogul had become pale, was annihilated." 
 
 After the siege of Aseerghur the armies of the three presidencies returned to 
 their several stations and cantonments in Bengal, Madras, and Bombay; and 
 the regions which had been crossed and recrossed, and traversed in all direc- 
 tions by immense hosts of combatants, by British and native troops, Peishwa 
 Mahrattas, Holkar Mahrattas, Nagpoor Mahrattas, Pindarrees, Patans, Ai'abs, 
 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, or 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 inha- 
 bitants. For more than thirty preceding years the province of Malwa 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 rapa- 
 cious in the moment of success 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 tlie 
 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 mihtary and pohtical command of jNIalwa, 
 which had perhaps suffered more than any other part of India. Hundreds 
 upon himdreds 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; 16G3 were "^vithout lamp" — were wholly de- 
 serted. Under the Avise 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 honourable pride, and with perfect correctness, 
 that Malwa and the rest of central India were tranquil and contented, and 
 ureraoirs of cen- rapidly advancing in population and prosperity. " It may be asserted that 
 history affords few examples where a change in the political condition of a 
 country has been attended with such an aggregate of increased happiness to
 
 Chap. XII.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 173 
 
 its inhabitants, as that which was effected within four years in Central India ; 1817. 
 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 
 supremacy ; but they arose only out of fear of insult or oiitrage, 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 I'eceived with cordiality, as the friends and pro- 
 tectors of the people. To organize the country honourable and intelligent 
 British officers were sent into every part of it. " The result has been fortu- 
 nate beyond anticipation. These agents, -within their respective circles, have 
 not only, by their direct intercourse with all classes, established great influ- 
 ence, but spread a knowledge of our character and intentions, which has in- 
 creased respect and confidence ; and they have in almost all cases succeeded, 
 by tlie arbitration of diflTerences, and the settlement of local disputes, in pre- 
 serring the peace of the country without troops. The most exact observance 
 of certain principles is required from these oflSicers, and their line is very care- 
 fully and distinctly prescribed. The object has been to escape every inter- 
 ference with the internal administration of the country, beyond what the 
 jn-eservation of the public peace demanded." In other parts of India the 
 change was equally beneficial — the blessings derived from the conquest of 
 the jMahrattas and 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 Khan and Bappoo Scindiah came up with 
 their horsemen and spoiled all the land, and smote all the people, and 
 burned the cities through Mewar and Marwar, till thou comest unto the 
 salt wilderness." He also heard them say that corn had been gi-adually 
 getting cheaper, and notwithstanding a late unfavourable season, was still 
 not so dear as it used to be in the years of trouble. The kind and warm- 
 hearted prelate adds, "When such have been the effects of British supre- 
 macy, 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 Mahratta war ; and during the four remain- 
 ing 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 Memoire^of cen- 
 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 con- 
 tending against anarchy ; and the first triumph was so complete, that there 
 ceased, almost from the moment, to be any who cherished hopes of the con- 
 test being either prolonged or revived : tlie \'ictory gained was slight, compara- 
 tively speaking, over araiies, to what it was over mind. The universal dis- 
 tress, which a series of revolutions must ever generate, had gone its circle
 
 174 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book I. 
 
 1817. and reached all ranks and classes. The most barbarous of those who sub- 
 sisted 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 
 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 favourable 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 were enabled to give shape and direction to the eiforts of these 
 states which became an example to others : and a tone of improvement was 
 given to every province of Central India." 
 
 The inhabitants of the wild provinces subject to Scindiah started into pros- 
 perity as soon as his numerous, restless, and marauding army was broken up. 
 And Scindiah himself was as great a gainer as his subjects ; for this amiy, and 
 the insolent rapacious chieftains who raised and commanded it, in reality op- 
 pressed him as well as the peojile, 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 unprofit- 
 able trade, Scindiah was enabled to disband immense corps commanded by in- 
 subordinate chiefs, and to reduce his army to 13,000 regular infantry, and 
 9,000 horse. The sa\'ing in actual expenditure, from reductions alone, was 
 estimated at twenty lacs 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 their former oc- 
 cupation, as cultivators of the soil. The lamp had been altogether extin- 
 guished in only a few villages in Scindiah's dominions, but many of these vil- 
 lages had been reduced to four or five families. The voids were rapidly filled 
 up. In 1817 there was not one district belonging to Scindiah 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 wliich had been 
 ■\\Tested from this chief by the Pindarrees were restored to him : the loss of 
 the fortress of Aseerghur 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 for 
 ever the overgrown army of this state; those battalions were never re-embodied, 
 and 200 men to guard the palace were all the infontry left in the service of 
 this Mahratta dpiasty. Three thousand 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
 
 Chap. XII.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 175 
 
 of collection were brought down from forty to fifteen per cent. The rapid re- 1817. 
 
 storation of the roofless and deserted villages has been mentioned. The in- ^~— ^- ' 
 
 crease of popvdation in the towns was siu'prising. Within the short space of 
 tlrree years, Indore, a city in the province of IMalwa, the capital of the Holkar 
 family, was changed from a desolate town to a flourishuig capital, containing 
 eighty or a hundred thousand inhabitants ; for not only did those families re- 
 turn 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 seemed on the musnud by British power, abandoned the cus- 
 tom of his predecessors of always residing in camp, and fixed his residence in 
 this thriving capital. Other states and territories participated in these advan- 
 tages. The Grasseas, the Sondwarrees, the Gond.s, as well as the Bhecls and 
 other hereditary and professional robbers, were rapidly suppressed. When the *' ccmTa/inX"''^ 
 British armies first entered Central India, aiad even in 1818, the country along 
 the banks of the Nerbudda, and in the ^'indhya 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 esta- 
 blished at Mow, 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 Ufe. From the ter- 
 ritories of Bopaul to those of Guzerat, 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 Avas 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 cul- 
 tivate 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 Ufe, 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 Mow observed some Bheels 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, " No ; but a '"'''»° Journal. 
 
 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 ! " But in proportion as an 
 
 etficient police was established, and roads (those grand means of civilization) 
 
 were opened through the country, the 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 M'ould 
 
 soon have attracted notice as a substantive power, for they had already acquired 
 
 an ascendancy 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, Avould have ventured to attack them in their morm-
 
 Memoir of Cen- 
 tral India. 
 
 176 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book I. 
 
 1817. tains, 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 Mecki-an, 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 in- 
 creased the enjoyment of present security and good government. " Take it 
 all in all," continues Malcolm, 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 de- 
 prived 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 distiu'b its peace, while the measures and principles by which the 
 salutary change has been effected are preserved and supported." 
 
 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 Honourable Mountstuart Elphiustone, 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 Taptce ; and inland to the long- 
 established western frontier of the Nizam, from the junction of the Wurdah 
 and Toombudra to the junction of the Wagoor and Taptee. Such places in 
 Caudeish belonging to the Holkar Mahrattas as fell witliin these bounds 
 were ceded to the British by the treaty of Mundissoor, 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 ex- 
 changes Avith the Guicowar Rajah and by arrangements with some minor 
 princes a continuous, imintcn-upted 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.
 
 Chap. XIIL] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 177 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 T^HE death of tlie Princess Charlotte took place on the Gth of Novemhcr, 1818. 
 
 -^ 1817 ; Parliament was opened by Commission on the 27th of January ^—"^'^ " 
 
 following. It was the sixth and probably the last session of tlie Fifth Parlia- iiamcnt; 27111 
 nient 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 aflected 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 distin- 
 guished 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 favourably received than usual, as well as 
 more pertinaciously urged. 
 
 The Prince Regent's Speech, which was read by the Lord C-hancellor, after ^p"™™, «'!'^'^^'''» 
 noticing in the customary terms the 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 miglit 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 e\-inced to take part with her mother liad 
 estranged and alienated them ; and, if the Princess had lived mucli longer, 
 there would probably have been seen tlie worst example that had yet been 
 exhibited of the dissension and mutual hatred that had uniformly divided tlie 
 wearer of the crown and the heir apparent since the accession of tlie 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 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 hard-hearted 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 imjiortance, 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 
 
 VOL. I. 2 u
 
 178 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book I. 
 
 1818. back upon him as a pi-ogenitor ; his history Avould end with his own life. All 
 ^~~ -~'^— ^ flij^^ however, more calmly viewed, would be found to resolve itself into his 
 merely finding himself in a new position, difterent from, but not in reality per- 
 haps 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 sliort 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 tlie company with 
 a song. 
 
 The sequel of the Speech was all congratulatory. It referred to the improve- 
 ment 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 im])rovement of the revenue in its most important brandies ; 
 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 tlie deficiency which had so long existed in the 
 iiinnber of places of public worship belonging to the Established Church, when 
 compared with the increased and increasing jjopulation 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 disaftected 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 Higlniess," 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. 
 
 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 entrusted to theni had been 
 intended to provide were now at an end. On the subject of these extraor- 
 dinary powers, their cessation or their continuance, the Speech said not a 
 w'ord. 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 Avas accordingly i)assed through the Lords on the 2Sth, and 
 through the Commons on the 2yth. 
 Till! adi)ui.«s. No amendment was moved to the Address ; but it gave rise to some debate 
 
 in both Houses. Lord I,ansdowne denied that the recent trials had furnished
 
 Chap. XIII. J DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. I79 
 
 evidence of the existence of any such conspiracy, or general disposition to 1818. 
 
 insurrection throughout the kingdom, as had heen assumed by Ministers. " In ^ — — ' 
 
 the trials at Derby, where it was the business and tlie particular object of the 
 Attorney-General to prove tliat the discontented there had a correspondence 
 with others in different quarters, he had completely foiled. He could not 
 prove that in any part of the country there had been the slightest connexion 
 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 brouglit to trial and justly 
 convicted ; but tliis, he said, was the only thing Ministers had to bring forward 
 as an apology for their measures. Still, he contended, " it was not the sus- 
 pension of the Habeas Corpus that put do«ii the insurrection, or the con- 
 s])iracy, whichever it might be called ; it had been extinguished by the duo 
 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 
 farther, that there was no proof that the conspiracy had been at all of a poli- 
 tical 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 tlu-ough 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 Eomilly, as has been noticed in a previous page, went still see <™te,p uj. 
 farther. There could be no doubt, he observed, that the persons who Mere 
 convicted at Derby, whether guilty of treason or not, were guilty of a capital 
 crime ; "Eraudreth had committed a murder, and those who aided and abetted 
 it were in law equally guilty." But, he went on, " in his conscience he 
 believed, from the infonnation he had received, that the whole of that insur- 
 rection 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, wliilc acquitting Ministers of designedly getting up or attempting to 
 get up an insurrection, would appear to have charged them with being cog- 
 nizant of the false pretences with wliich Oliver, and the other spies employed 
 by them, are supposed to have deluded and ensnared their victims — to have 
 concerted with those dangerous agents tlie fable of the metropolitan clubs of 
 which tliey gave themselves out as the emissaries. This, however, as we liavo 
 already observed, is certainly not for a moment to be believed, nor probably is 
 it now a notion entertained by any body. 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 
 ))0sitive trickery and falsehood, even in order to get at the secret counsels 
 of parties whom they might believe to harbour guilty designs. Their indis- 
 cretion and cidpability consisted in the recklessness witli which they let loose 
 t.\icli miscreants as Oliver among the people, witliout taking suffiiient, or
 
 180 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book I. 
 
 1S18. apparently any, precautions to protect either thmselves or others from being 
 '--^•—•^—'--^ deceived and misled by their arts and machinations. 
 State np THE Mr. Ward, Writing to his friend Dr. Copleston from Vienna on the 14th 
 
 CutNTUY. " . . -^ . 
 
 of February, after mentioning that he had just seen in the German papers 
 some meagre extracts 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 Speech which the minister has composed for the 
 Prince Regent, I think I distinguish somewhat of that feeling which it was 
 calcidated 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 (the present 
 EarlofRipon) — "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 Avhom 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 arc now enjoying themselves in spending the stakes." And this was 
 probably the general ojjinion. Mr. Wyndham Quin, the seconder of the 
 Address in the Commons, gave in his speech a picture of the national pros- 
 perity 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 fi'om eight or nine to about 
 foiu'tccn 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 jear about 63. Money is most abundant, and, when lent at mortgage 
 on good security, lowering in rate of interest, and to be had at 4^ 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, liad 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 repre- 
 sentation of the outside aspect of things. Now let us look a little deeper, and 
 endeavour 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 Ills. 6d. ; by the end of September the price in 
 Mark Lane had declined to T4.s. id. Importation ceased in November. But
 
 Chap. XIII.J DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 181 
 
 prices very soon began to rise again. " As the weather," Mr. Tooke writes, 1818. 
 " during: the greater part of the harvesting, though favourable in the main, ' ^""—^ 
 
 O n 1 ^' ^ p*iT !• History of Prices, 
 
 was cahn and foggy, with only short intervals in the day of brilliant sunshine, »■ 20. 
 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. id. ; the ports opened 
 in February, 1818 ; but, notwithstanding large importations, prices still con- 
 tinued to rise. After a rather wet spring, a drought, Avhich 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. "Apprehensions," Mr. Tooke continues, "were in eon- 
 sequence entertained of stunted crops of every description of vegetation. Hay 
 got up to 9l. and 10/. the load. Beans, peas, turnips, and potatoes, were sup- 
 posed 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 fanners, rea- 
 soned 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 gecure of obtaining, at worst, within a trifle of the opening price of 
 SOs." 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. The entire quantity of foreign and colonial produce ^^^^ponP^i^.^^ 
 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 spe- 
 culative excitement. "A state of prosperity," as Mr. Tooke observes, "itid. p. 27. 
 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. 
 
 For a time, however, there was certainly an improvement in the political 
 temper of the popular mind. What we may call its combustibility -was con- 
 siderably reduced. Bamford tells us, indeed, that with the restoration of the Passasesimhe 
 
 TT 1 Vi • ■ ^ o ,11 Life of a Uadical, 
 
 Habeas Corpus Act the agitation for reform was renewed, and that numerous i. uh. 
 meetings for the promotion of that object were held in various parts of the 
 country ; but we find no mention any where either of secret combination 
 among the radical reformers of the earlier part of the year 1818 or of proceed- 
 ings 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 le^al rights and liberties of which tliev had been for a season 
 deprived, the first feeling even of the generality of tliose who carried farthest
 
 182 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book I. 
 
 1818. 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 dis- 
 cover what is the best way ; but, when the discovery is well taken, then to 
 make progi-ession." 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 thoroughgoing zeal, or a more 
 desperate course of action, Avas for the present burnt out. The nearly 
 universal inclination w'as 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 ajiparent economical 
 prosperity of the country, the people were yet for the moment certainly better 
 oiF than they had been. If the price of food was still high, and was even 
 ascending, it Mas notwithstanding much lower than it had been in the early 
 part of the preceding year. Employment too, so long as the tide of specu- 
 lation was rising, was really more plentiful, and wages had advanced. A 
 spirit of acti^-ity, enterprise, and hope, had succeeded to general stagnation and 
 despondency in the commercial and manufacturing Avorld ; and, M-ith both 
 their hands and theii- minds busied about matters of nearer and more natural 
 concernment, the working classes fouiul their interest in projects of political 
 innovation considerably moderated, and also probably their views somewhat 
 sobered down. 
 PRocEEDiNiis OP IMeanwliilc, the Parliament, at once the workshop of legislation and the 
 
 Parliament. „ ^-it i*-iit^.ii i 
 
 arena ot party contest, went on tilling the air with the dm oi its labours and 
 its battles. The great subject of discussion for the first two months of the 
 Session was the conduct of Ministers in the application of their late extra- 
 ordinary powers. Here Ministers themselves 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 2nd 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 
 Reports of presented their Eeports, that of the Lords on the 23rd, that of the Commons 
 
 Secret Com- ^ ^ ^ 
 
 MirrEBs. on the 27th. As the members of both had been, in point of fact, named by 
 
 the Government, they quite agreed, of course, in their view of the matters 
 which had been submitted to their consideration. Eeferring 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 atfirmed, and particularly of tlieir leaders; left no room 
 to doubt " that their objects were the overthrow of the established gOA^ernment 
 and laws ; extravagant as those objects were, when compared with the inade- 
 quate means which they possessed." It was afterwards admitted, however,
 
 CiiAP. XIII.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 183 
 
 that in the ^illagcs through which they passed a strong indisposition was 1818. 
 niauifested towards their cause 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 insurrec- 
 tion, so clearly proved, and about which there could be no dispute, appeared, 
 it was declared, " to tlie 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 whicli 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 Notting- 
 liam on the night of the 9th of June, to a meeting of delegates held at 
 Hiiddersfield on the 6th, and a tumultuous assemblage which took place in 
 that neighbourhood 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 co-operation from London — " however erroneous such an 
 expectation may have been, with respect to the extent to whicli it was sup- 
 posed to have existed" — as farther 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 luiremittingly 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 resoiu'ces. The Report then proceeded to take up the subject of 
 tlie 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 
 iiad been found by grand juries, and of those wlio 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 tlie Committee considered to ha^'e been fully 
 justified by the circumstances under which they had taken place. " The 
 Committee," it was added, " understand, that up to a certain period expecta- 
 tions were entertained of being able to bring to trial a 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. Tlie Report of the Committee of 
 the Commons travelled over the subject by nearly the same road ; its 
 expressions, however, upon the difterent 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 insur- 
 rection, and described as " the last open attempt to carry into effect the
 
 184 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book I. 
 
 1818. 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 doul)t that the num- 
 bers 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, 
 aiid of encouraging their followers. 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 main- 
 tain 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 endeavouring to foment disturbances that 
 might lead to it, and in procuring the means of active operations, with the 
 idtimate view of subverting all the existing institutions of the country, and 
 substituting some form of revolutionary government in their stead." The 
 proselytes, however, that these leaders had gained to their cause had 
 not been nmnerous ; 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 superin- 
 tendence of Government, would probably, under present circumstances, be 
 sufficient to prevent the agitators from breaking out into any serious dis- 
 turbance of the public peace ; and they declared, without hesitation, that the 
 discretion entrusted 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." 
 Bii.L or I.1DEM- Meanwhile, on the 25th, a Bill had been broudit into the Lords, entitled " A 
 Bill for Indemnifying Persons who, 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 tlie sujiprcssion of tumultuous 
 and unlaA^-ful assemblies." In the awkAvardness 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 liimsclf 
 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 the attacks of the 
 opposition were repelled by overwhelming numbers on the divisions. In the 
 Lords the second reading was carried on the 2Tth of February by a majority 
 of 100 to 33 votes ; and the third reading, on the 5th of Afarch, by a majority 
 
 NITV.
 
 Chap. XIII.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 185 
 
 of 93 to 27. If wc may judge by the attendance, no very general interest was 1818. 
 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 measiu-e was chiefly sustained by 
 Lord Liverpool and the Lord Chancellor ; the principal speakers on the other 
 side were the ilarquess 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 Govern- 
 ment ; that tranquillity might have been equally restored by a vigorous execu- 
 tion of the ordinary laws ; that, the only legal eftect of the suspension of the 
 Habeas Corpus being that it suspends the deliverance of the accused. Ministers 
 ^vere 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 mahcious ; 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 sanc- 
 tioned 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 amend- 
 ments 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 prin- 
 ciple of the measure, and jNIr. 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 jiassionate vehemence. The most 
 remarkable speeches made against the bill were those of Mr. Lambton (after- 
 wards Earl of Durham), Sir Samuel Romilly, and Mr. Brougham. The charge 
 of the measure was taken by the Attorney-General (Sir William Garrow) ; the 
 other principal speakers in sujjport of it were the Solicitor-General (Sir Samuel 
 Shepherd), Mr. Canning, and Mr. Lamb (late Viscount JMelbourne), wjio 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 
 committcG ; and one passage of his speech raised a great clamour, Avhich 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 coiTectly 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 cmed of a rupture of twontv years' standing at the public expense, 
 vol,. I. 2 (
 
 186 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book I. 
 
 1818. 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 gaol by the ponderous irons 
 with which he was loaded on his joinncy 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- 
 foui', there was every reason to apprehend that he Avould 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 dis- 
 gust. 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. 
 OTHEit pabtv It was not only in the gi'eat debates on the Address and the Indemnity Bill 
 
 Motions. . . . 
 
 that Ministers were put upon their defence. The Opposition took advantage 
 of many other opportunities of attacking their recent conduct. Hone's case, 
 and tlie general question of Informations ex officio, were brought before the 
 Commons on the 3rd of February by Mr. W. Smitli, and shortly debated. On 
 the 10th of the same month, Lord Ai-chibald Hamilton brought forward the 
 subject of the late prosecutions 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 Eomilly, 
 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, Fazakerlcy, 
 that the Committee of Secrecy should be instructed to inquire and report 
 whether any and what measures liad 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 Avlio might, by their language and conduct, in some instances 
 have had the effect of encouraging those designs which it was intended they 
 should be only the instruments of detecting. The principal speakers were, in 
 support of the motion. Lord Milton (now Earl Fitzwilliam), Mr. Bcnnet, Sir 
 S. Eomilly, and Mr. Tierney ; against it, Mr. Bathurst (Chancellor of the 
 Duchy of Lancaster), Mr. Wilberforce, the Solicitor-General, and Mr. Canning. 
 Wilberforce, however, expressed his strong disapprobation of the employment 
 of spies in any circumstances. The numbers on the division Mere, for the 
 motion, 52 ; against it, 111. The debate, however, brought out the general 
 course of Oliver's proceedings into tolerably clear dayhght. 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 House, complaining of their treatment 
 under the Habeas Corpus Suspension Act. What they chiefly complained of.
 
 Chap. XIII.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 18" 
 
 however, was tlicir having been imprisoned at all. His lordship's speech was 1818. 
 answered by Lord Castlereagh, Mr. Wilberforce, and the Attorney-General, and 
 the uaotion was supported by Sir Francis Burdctt, Sir S. Roniilly, 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, Avas negatived without a division, after speeches in its 
 favour from the mover, from Earl Grosvenor, Lord King, and Lord Holland ; 
 and against it froin Lord Sidmouth, Earl Bathurst, and the Earl of Liverpool. 
 Finally, on the 5th of INIarch, another debate on the proceedings of the 
 Government spies and informers was brought on in the Commons by JMr. G. 
 Philips, who, after referring to certain petitions (one of these was fi-om 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 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, not\vithstiinding that 
 Ticrney, who spoke before him, had expressed his full conciu-rence 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 dis- 
 turbed districts. AVhere blame was ftiirly 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 remaining business of the session a sum- 
 mary of results must suffice. Many subjects were taken up, and no doubt 
 something was eifected by the mere discussion of several of them ; but very 
 few Avere actually legislated upon. Early in the session a committee was 
 appointed by the Commons to consider the state of the Poor LaAVS on the 
 motion of Mr. Sturges Bourne, Avho had officiated as chairman of a similar 
 committee in the preceding session ; and three bills Avere afterwards brought 
 in on tlie recommendation of the committee; one for the establishment of 
 Select Vestries, another for the general am(>ndment of the Poor LaAvs, a third 
 for the special regulation of the Law of Settlement. But it Avas soon agreed 
 
 Bl'siM. SS OV THE
 
 188 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book I. 
 
 1818. to postpone the Parish Settlement Bill to the next session ; the Poor Law 
 vVmendmcnt Bill, after having passed through all its stages in both Houses, 
 was lost tlirough 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 Committee 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, 
 j\Ir. 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 suifering 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 Redes- 
 dale, 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 favour of their 
 repeal ; and the honourable 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 Mr. 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 INIr. 
 Curwen, by a majority of 44 to 15 on the second reading. Repeated discus- 
 sions took place on a bill introduced by Sir Robert Peel (father of the present 
 Baronet) for limiting the number of hours during which apprentices and 
 others 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 Loids, where it had encountered a strong 
 opposition, counsel having been allowed by their lordships to be heard and
 
 CiiAr. XIII.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 189 
 
 evidence to be brought fonvard against it. Mr. J. Smith obtained leave to 1818. 
 bring in a bill for the amendment of the Bankruptcy Laws ; but it appears ^-^--^— ^ 
 not to have been persevered with. Nor did any thing come of a bill to amend 
 the Copyright Act of 1814, which was brought in by Sir Egcrton Brjdgcs, 
 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, 
 the other public libraries being compensated by a fixed pecuniary allowance. 
 On the 2nd of June, Sir Francis Burdett brought forward a scheme of Par- 
 liamentary Reform in a series of twenty-six resolutions (the last divided into 
 six heads), comprising the principles of universal male suifrage, equal electoral 
 districts, elections all on the same day, \'Ote by ballot, and a fi-esli 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 ho should ever have the honour 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. Aboixt 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. Brougham, 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 sior.n buim^i 
 sprung up in Scotland in the course of the preceding year, the reiorm of the 
 constitution of the burghs of that part of the kingdom. The Scotch 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 gi^•ing 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 re-elected 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 affiiirs. 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 wliich tlie success of the American 
 revolution had brought forth and fostered, Mas smollicrcd for the time in the
 
 190 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book I. 
 
 1818. honor and tenor produced by that of France, and in the new interests and 
 passions witli which the new war filled men's minds. Now, however, after 
 the return of jjeace, 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 singidar and iniexpected catastrophe which befel the 
 burgh of Montrose. 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 favour. The 
 effect was to leave the burgh not only without a town council, but -ttdthout 
 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 induced to hazard the 
 experiment of allowing a certain number of the new magistrates 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 
 with an address, in which they declared it to be their decided ojiinion, that the 
 existing mode of election of the town council, and the management of the 
 town's affairs, were radically defective and imjirovident, tending to give to 
 individuals or parties an excessive and unnatural preponderance, and to foster 
 and encourage a system of secrecy and concealment, under Avliich the best 
 intentioned magistrates might be prevented from acquiring a sufficient know- 
 ledge 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 mis- 
 managed as in Aberdeen. From this time meetings of the burgesses and 
 inhabitants began to be hold, not only in Edinburgh, Glasgow, Perth, and 
 the other principal burghs, but in many also of those of inferior importance ; 
 and the most strenuous measin'cs 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 tlic
 
 Chap. XIII.J DURING THE THIRTY YEARS" PEACE. 191 
 
 usurpation of an unconstitutional and illegal power on the part of the Crown. 1818. 
 By this time, in fact, the leaders in the movement had extended their views ^-—^-'—'-^ 
 much beyond the amount of alteration that hud been conceded in the case of 
 Montrose, and had also come clearly to see that the refonn of the burgh system 
 could not be left in the hands of the Crown, but must be sought from Parlia- 
 ment. 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 revenues of the royal burghs of Scotland, 
 and for controlling and preventing the undue expenditure thereof." But tliis 
 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 Aixhi- 
 bald Hamilton introduce the subject again in the present session. 
 
 Unsuccessful attempts were also made by Lord A. Hamilton to urge on the other motions. 
 Government the abolition of the Scotch 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 Home to be idolatrous ; and by Dr. Phillimore, 
 to amend the Marriage Act of 1753, in respect of its making the marriages 
 of infants by licence without consent of parents or guardians void ah 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 honourable mem- 
 ber, on the recommendation of the committee for reducing the duty on rock- 
 salt, used for agricultural purposes, from 10/., to which it had been reduced 
 in the preceding session, to 5/. 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 gouig 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 repeahng 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 connexion with this subject, that after several remonstrances from Mr. 
 Brougham, Ministers agreed to see that proper measures were taken for carry- 
 ing into effect the destruction of all returns inider 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.
 
 192 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 [Book I. 
 
 1818. 
 
 The Bodcet. 
 
 Bank RcbTnic- 
 TioN Act. 
 
 Historv of Prices 
 ii. 60, 8ic. 
 
 The Budget was brought forward by the Chancellor of the Exchequer on 
 the 20th of April. The greater part of the navy, army, ordnance, and iniscel- 
 hnicous estimates had been already voted; and Mr. Vansittart now stated that 
 the vote for the army, which had last year been 9,412,373/., would this year 
 be 8,970,000/. ; that the vote for the navy, which had last year been 7,596,022/., 
 would this year be 6,456,800/. ; that the vote for tlie ordnance, which had 
 last year been 1,270,690/., Avould this year be 1,245,600/.; that the miscel- 
 laneous estimates, which last year amounted to 1,795,000/., would this year 
 amount to 1,720,000/., — 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 2,500,000/. for the interest on Exchequer 
 bills and 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 
 21,011,000/., the amount for the last year having been 22,304,091/. This 
 was, of course, exclusive of the interest of the debt (which at this time was 
 not quite 30,000,000/.) 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 3,000,000/. Avould 
 be raised for the public service of the year. It was proposed also to fund 
 27,000,000/. of the floating debt, which had accumulated to the inconvenient 
 amount of about 63,000,000/. 
 
 The session had scarcely commenced when Ministers were asked in both 
 Houses, whether it was intended that the resumption of cash payments by 
 the Bank should really take place on the 5th of July, as then llxed by law. 
 In reply it was stated that the Bank had made ample preparation for resuming 
 its payments in cash at the time fixed by Parliament, and that the Govern- 
 ment 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 arrange- 
 ments of foreign powers were going on of such a nature and extent as might 
 probably make 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 Avith great contempt. " The truth 
 was, as it appeared to him," INIr. 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 " Avas so extraordinary in itself, and so rmintel- 
 ligible 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 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 
 that by the latter part of 1817 the value of Bank paper had been virtually 
 restored, and that the Bank was then in a position to resume cash jiayments. 
 " And the directors," he adds, " so far from taking advantage of the pro- 
 longed term of the restriction, were adopting measiu'es for anticipating it ; for
 
 Chap. XIII.J DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 193 
 
 in the months of April and September 1817 they actually undertook by public 1SI8. 
 notice to pay, and did pay, a large proportion of their notes in coin." It is -^""'^ 
 understood that the payments in gold in pursuance of these notices exceeded 
 five millions sterling. Mr. Tooke blames the Bank and the Government for 
 co-operating 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, " ouglit to have taken the oppor- 
 tunity 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, o'.ight, 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. " Fore- 
 most among these causes," JNIr. Tooke continues, " doubtless were the large 
 loans negotiated for the French and Russian governments, the higlr 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 gTeat 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 that the exchanges 
 were not more depressed, than that they were so much depressed, in 1818." 
 F'or 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 mischief 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, how- 
 ever, 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 J^o"*'- 
 in relation to the Koyai l^ainily, no fewer than four members of which were 
 married in the earlier part of this year. The first of the four marriages was 
 that of the Princess Elizabeth, his Majesty's third daughter, to his Serene 
 Highness Frederic Joseph Louis Charles Augustus, Landgrave and Here- 
 ditary Prince of Hesse Homburg, on the 7th of April. In this case tlio two 
 
 VOL. I. 2 n
 
 IW HISTORY OF KNGLAND -[Book I. 
 
 ISIS. Houses of Parliament were asked only to offer their congi'atiilations to the 
 Regent, the Queen, and the new-married couple. As the bride had nearly 
 completed her forty-eighth year, her marriage could not he expected to con- 
 tribute any thing towards continuing the line of the old King, who now, not- 
 withstanding his fifteen sons and daughters, twelve of whom were still alive, 
 was left without any descendant beyond the first generation. A few days 
 afty:wards, however (on the 13th of April), Lord Liverpool brought doAvn a 
 message from the Eegent to the Lords, and Lord Castlereagh to the Commons, 
 in which his Royal Highness informed the House that treaties of marriage 
 ivere 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 Cam- 
 bridge 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 CroM'n. This last expression 
 was designed to intimate both that the proposed provision was not to be 
 extended to the Duke of Sussex, and tliat it was to comprehend the Duke of 
 Cumberland, who had been married three years ago (to the Princess Frcderica 
 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 (Himberland was niece to the Queen ; but 
 for some unexplained reason, her Majesty refused to receive her Royal High- 
 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 C^ambridge. 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 
 6000/. 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 thro-\\-n 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 mani- 
 festations of adverse feeling both in and out of Parliament, to pause and 
 modify their proposition ; and they determined to ask only an additional 
 10,000/. a year for the Duke of Clarence, and 6,000/. for the Dukes of Cum- 
 berland and C^ambridge, and for the Duke of Kent if he too should marry. 
 When Lord Castlereagh on the 15th moved a resolution to the effect that 
 10,000/. a year slumld be granted to the Duke of Clarence, Mr. Canning 
 observed that in voting for this sum " they ^^■ould vote only for one half of 
 the sum originally proposed, a siun the propriety of which both his 
 noble friend and himself thouglit then, and still thought, maintainable
 
 Cjiap. XIII.J during THE TIIIHTY YEARS' rEAClv 105 
 
 by fair argument, but wlikh they had no liusitation in surrendering 1818. 
 
 to the expressed opinion of that House." I)ut on Mr. Sumner moving " ' 
 
 that the 10,000/. should be reduced to 6,000/. tliis amendment was 
 
 carried by a maiority of 193 to 184. " The result," it is stated, " was Hansard-s ra.iia. 
 
 I'.ii-ii c 1 • •! I'lTjnl T- inf'lary Debates 
 
 received with loud shouts of approbation ; amidst which Lord Castlereagn xxxviii. lu. 
 rose and observed, tliat, 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 tlie inadequate sum which had been voted to him. He then i)ro- 
 posed the 6,000/. 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. Kising 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 w v- i5i. 
 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 Saaliield, widow of Enrich Charles, 
 Prince of Leiningen, and sister of Prince Leopold. Of all these royal mar- 
 riages 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 relation- 
 ship of the lady to Prince Leopold and the lamented Princess Charlotte was 
 of itself sufficient to awaken a strong interest in her favour. If the nation 
 might liave 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 
 6,000/. 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 ilr. Tierney, voting against it. The number of 
 votes in its favour, 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 connexion with the subject of the Eoyal 
 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 dra^vn up the bill gave the nomination of the four new members to 
 her ]\Iajesty ; 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 llip subject of the Slave Trade acts were passed for carrying into efiect a si.>r rnvpE. 
 IrcHly with Spuin, and a conv^-ntion with Portugal. The Spanish treaty
 
 196 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Rook I. 
 
 1818. (signed at Madrid on the 23rd of September in the preceding year) -vvent the 
 
 ■ — ' full length of declaring the tratfic in slaves illegal, from the 30th of May, 
 
 1820, throughout the entire dominions of his Catholic Majesty, and of recog- 
 nising the right of search on the part of the t'wo contracting powers, to be 
 exercised by vessels of war, provided with special instructions for that pur])ose. 
 It was stipulated that the sum of 400,000/. 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 alcara, 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. 
 alh:n Act. The principal subject which occupied Parliament during the last six weeks 
 
 of the session was the renewal of the 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 ojiposition 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 favour 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 
 IStli the second reading in the Commons, supported by 97 votes, was resisted 
 by 35. Another division t(jok place on the motion for going into committee ; 
 and several more in committee. On the 22nd, after it had been read a third 
 time, first Mr. Brougham, and then Sir S. lloniilly, 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 numbers were 94 against 29. The first discussion of the measiu-e 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
 
 Chap. XIII.J DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 197 
 
 in 1685, for establishing the Bank of Scotland, all foreigners holding shares 1818. 
 
 to a certain amount ill 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 shoidd pro- 
 pose 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 caiTied 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 ^2 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 Avas 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 same 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 tlie 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 sub- 
 mitted 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 favour of a motion for deferring the farther con- 
 sideration 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 retrospec- 
 tive 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 groiuid tliat 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, tlie 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 fol- 
 lowing- it was hurried in the same manner through the Lords. 
 
 This severe struggle was perhaps not altogether inspired and sustained by d.ssou nos; 
 the particular measure respecting the principle or details of which it professed 
 to be carried on. The moment was one at which time gained or lost was
 
 1<J8 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Buuk I. 
 
 1818. of peculiar iiiiportaiicc. Mini.stcrs, as we have seen, had, by an act passed 
 
 ^ , in the latter part of the session, got rid of the clause in the Reg-ency Act 
 
 wliich provided that tlie ParHamcnt should immediately reasscTuble in case 
 of the death of the Queen. But it still remained the law that it sliould so re- 
 assemble on either the demise of the Crown, or the death of the Ecsent. 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 wouhl revive the present 
 Parliament, even notwithstanding a dissolution, if tlie day ap])ointed 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 calk'd together as 
 expeditiously as possible. The unexpected discovery of tlie old Scotch Act, 
 enabling the Opposition to renew and continue the battle on tlie subject of tlie 
 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 iUien Bill, as it 
 was called, was passed, the Regent came to the House of Peers, and at once 
 put an end to the session and dissolved the Parliament. This was a very 
 luiusual, 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 1G81, 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 
 C'ommons into considerable perplexity. When the members, after the cere- 
 mony which had made them members no longer, returned to their OAvn 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 dift'erent tone, that at any rate they 
 had better let the subject alone for the present, in case they should be charged 
 Avitli attempting to deliberate as a House of Commons when they were only 
 a meeting of private gentlemen, and might incur apra'/iiunire. In point of 
 fact, the speech was not read. The proclamation for calling the new Parlia- 
 ment 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. 
 
 - Tlic olil Piii-liainent would liave assembled if tlm new one had not aetuully met, but for 
 an act of the preceding session (the 57 Geo. III., e. 107).
 
 CuAF. XIV.] DURTXO TIIK TIIinTY Vl'.AnS' PI'.ACE. 1!)!) 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 THE General Election kept tlio country in an uproar from the middle of 18 IS. 
 June till the middle of July. The interest that was excited hy many of the — 
 
 contests was almost unprecedented : and in several instances the mob pro- ELn'-nMN. 
 ceeded far beyond its ordinary licence and violence. Tiio contest at West- 
 minster, in particular, drew and fixed imiversal attention, both by the extreme 
 cliaracter of the outrages which took place, and by the doubt that continued 
 to liang over the issue almost to the last. Of tlic 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 tlie 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 ^Ir. 'Wethorell (afterwards Sir 
 Charles) to represent them ; — ^Ir. ^A'etherell 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 tln^se worthy Westminster electors imagined the 
 learned gentleman to be as good a patriot as themselves. Mr. Wethcrell, ^^ ho 
 had sate 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 tluit waited upon him, by ex- 
 pressing his hope that they would find some other independent candidate, 
 with wliom 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 Kin- 
 naird, like himself the advocate of universal suftrage, annual parliaments, and 
 the ballot. At the same time the regular ^A'hig party addressed an invitation 
 to Sir Samuel Romilly, which he accepted. Soon after. Captain Sir IMurray 
 Maxwell addressed the electors, offering to serve them on what he described 
 as principles of attachment to his King, and veneration for the constitution — 
 in other words, as a Tory and partizan of tlie existing Government. Sir 
 IMurray 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 Lewchew Islands, in bringing back Lord 
 Amherst from his embassy to China ; but the thought of his standing for 
 AVestminster seems to hav-e been suggested to his friends or to himself, prin- 
 cii)ally by the consideration that a candidate from the quarter-deck might 
 jjrobably have a good chance in a place lately represented by IjOrd Cochrane. 
 As soon as he announced himself, however, the Tories rallied round him.
 
 200 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book I. 
 
 1818. The election commenced on the 18tl\ 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 M'e have mentioned, Major 
 Cartwright and Mr. Henry Hunt, the then friend of Cohhett, and commonly 
 known as Orator Hunt, were proposed ; the show of hands was declared to be 
 in favour of him and Romilly ; hut, nevertheless, he and the Major polled very 
 few votes ; — the latter, who withdrew after the third day, only 23 ; Hunt, wlio 
 ohstinately persevered through the fifteen days, only 84, of which no more than 
 11 were the produce of the last eight days. Nor did Mr. Kinnaird continue 
 the struggle longer than Major Cartwright, having in the three days polled 
 only 65 votes. Romilly, on the other hand, took the lead from 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 on 
 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 fifth 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 eiForts being continued on the following 
 day, this difference of two was increased to very nearly two hundred. Sir 
 Murray never recovered his gi'ound; and the final nimibers were, Romilly, 
 5339 ; Burdett, 5238; Maxwell, 4808. On one of 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 nuich 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 Avcre found in the same position, 
 although down to the very last day a close and doubtful struggle was main- 
 tained between Thorpe and Cmtis. On the morning of that sixth day, 
 Tuesday, the 23rd of Jinie, 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 com- 
 petitors came in in the following order : — Wood, 5700 ; Wilson, 4829 ; Waith- 
 man, 4603; Thorpe, 4335; Curtis, 4224; Atkins, 1688. The four new 
 members were all Whigs ; Wood, wlto Avas re-elected, 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 Lowthcr and his uncle the 
 Hon. Colonel Lowther, were opposed by Mr. Brougham, in the character of
 
 Ct.vp. XrV.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 201 
 
 champion of the indeijendence of the county and its deliverer from family ISIS. 
 tliraldom. All that an eloquent tongue could do was done by the new can- ^- — ' 
 didate ; and he was at the head of the poll on the evening of the first day ; 
 but after this he fell more and more belli nd every hour; and on the evening 
 of the fourth day, when he had polled only 889 votes against Colonel Low- 
 ther's 1157, he gave in. Besides about TO members who had sat in the last 
 Parliament for other places, there Mere about 190 new members retinned 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 about 
 115 contested elections; so that, the entire number of constituencies 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 wliich made it almost certain that the next Parliament 
 would be a very short one, seeing that the death of the King, wllene^'er it 
 should happen, would necessarily dissolve it in six months thereafter. That 
 seats, which were to be held by so unusually jirecarious a tenure, should be so 
 eagerly sought in so many instances was a strong evidence of the excited state 
 of party feeHng. The hopes of the Whigs, in fact, were now higher than they 
 liad ever been since they had been last in office ten years ago. INIr. Ward, A\ho 
 had now returned to England, — though, having lost liis 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. Coplestonc 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 
 [Tieruey]. The Go^■ernment 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 discon- 
 tent, if I did not know that peace and prosperity have always a tendency to 
 produce it. We have had peace for some time, and we seem rising fast to 
 prosperity, for I observe the old symptoms of it again, — credit, building, im- 
 proving, and the increasing luxury of the middling classes." 
 
 The elections were scarcely well over when considerable uneasiness began to smiKP. of man. 
 
 J ^ ( lIF.sTEK t OTTUN- 
 
 be spread by the accounts that came from Manchester of the temper and pro- s.-inneu». 
 ceedings of a portion of the working classes there. Much dissatisfaction had 
 prevailed for some time among the cotton spinners 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 djing away, 
 there was the greater danger that they might bo tempted to deviate into some- 
 thing 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 ^'iolence, were employed to prevent those Avho 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 tliat the 
 vol.. I. 2 E
 
 202 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 [Book I. 
 
 1818. 
 
 Pellew's Life of 
 Lord Sidmuuth : 
 
 Death op the 
 
 ^UEEN. 
 
 Deaths ok Sir S, 
 
 UUMILLV, &c. 
 
 authorities considered themselves called upon even to make any preparations 
 in pontcmplation of a possible breach of the peace. By that time, if not before, 
 the spinners had begun to assemble in processions, which were regarded 
 as being intended to make a formidable disj)lay 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 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 contiiuiing 
 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 2nd 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 W"hom 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 : — 
 " 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 gaol, the failure of pecuniary supplies, and the 
 admirable arrangements of Sir John Byug, in conjunction with the civil autho- 
 rities (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, Avas merely 
 a disjiute 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 sprinig 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 character that occurred in the course of the year was 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 montlis 
 from dropsy in the chest. The act passed in tlie last session of Parliament 
 amending the Regency Act prevented this event from having any immediate 
 poUtical consequences. A much more profound sensation was produced by 
 another death which happened about the same time, that of Sir Samuel 
 Romilly, wlio destroyed himself on the 2nd of November, four days after the
 
 Chap. XIV.] DURING THE THIRTY YE.\RS' PEACE. 203 
 
 loss of his wife, in a paroxysm of insanity, brought on by that severe shock 1818. 
 
 falling upon a mind previously weakened and shattered by overburthcning ^— ' 
 
 professional labours and anxieties. He was sixty-one years of age ; and he 
 had attained the highest position, both in the courts of law and in parUament, 
 which ability and character, without office, could confer. Nor -svas 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 
 eitlier spent a shilling or asked a vote, or even once made his appear- 
 ance 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 popu- 
 larity-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 El- L^r^Kidin "^ 
 don, before whom he had been for many years in daily and pre-eminent prac- "■ ^^^■ 
 tice. " The Chancellor," it is related, " came into court next morning ob- 
 viously much affected. As he took his seat he was struck by the sight of the 
 vacant place within the bar which RomiUy was accustomed to occupy. His 
 eyes filled with tears. ' I caimot stay here,' he exclaimed ; and, rismg 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 oppo- 
 site politics and temper. Lord EUenborough. This remarkable man, whose 
 talents, so long as he continued in his vigour, 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 Sidmouth on the day after the last of the three trials and acquittals. The 
 purpose of resignation wliich he announced in that letter he had carried into 
 effect about three months before his death. He was when he died in his 
 sixty-ninth year, and he had presided in the court of King's Bench since 
 April 1802. In August this same year had died, at the age of eighty-five, 
 Warren Hastings, whose leading counsel Lord EUenborough, then Mr. Law, 
 had been throughout the five years of liis memorable trial before the House of 
 Lords, since the teraiination of which a quarter of a centiu-y had now elapsed. 
 And, remarkably enough, before the year was out, Hastings had been fol- 
 lowed to the grave by the most pertinacious and vindictive of his accusers and 
 enemies, Sir Philip Francis. He 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 Eirrope which f°.c'i"A'p''ELLE'^"' 
 marks this year is the Congress of the allied Sovereigns held at Aix-la-Cha- 
 pelle for the purpose of withdrawing the army of occupation from 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 
 stipidated that tlie 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 mucli was this the case, that the holding of the 
 Congress was looked upon as little mure than going through a necessary form,
 
 204 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book I. 
 
 1818. 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; 
 two preliminary conferences were held on the 30th and 31st ; and at a 
 third, held on the 2nd 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 indemnity of 700 millions of francs, imposed upon 
 France, still remained due. But by the 9th an agreement embracing all points 
 was dra^\^l 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 of 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- 
 stood to have been chiefly due to the efforts of Louis XVIII. and tlie Duke of 
 Wellington ; and the smoothing away of any difficulties that arose after tlie 
 "o^lfedfia'R^'siau Cougrcss met is attributed principally to his Grace. "' Sufficient justice," 
 ration; i. 478. writcs a rcccnt French historian, "has not generally been done to the Duke 
 of Wellington 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 favourable to France in every thing that related to the evacua- 
 tion 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 honour to his character AVith the 
 
 cessation of the armed occupation, tlie Duke was to lose a great position 
 in France, that of Generalissimo of the Allied Powers, and one which made 
 liim, 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 Castlereagli , 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 diuation ; this opinion was most influential at the 
 Congress of Aix-la-Chapelle." That town did not exhibit so much splendour 
 and festive gaiety 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 life time," somebody wrote from the place in a letter -N^hich has been 
 printed ; " they appear as numerous at Aix-la-C'hapelle as in the firmament ;
 
 ■''1 // //n ///'
 
 force ; v. 2, &c. 
 
 Chap. XIV] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 205 
 
 every Sovereign is siuTOimded with his constellation." Many entertainments 1818. 
 
 were given ; and plenty of dissipation and intrigue of every kind (except, per- "-7 — -'- ' 
 
 haps, political) went on. Ninnbers of students from the different German Ammai Kegisier. 
 universities in their antiquated and grotesque academic dresses divided atten- p. 231. 
 tion ^vith the Cossacks about the household of the Emperor Alexander. Among 
 the undiplomatic celebrities were Madame Catalani and Sir Thomas I-awrence, 
 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 earUest 
 stage of his unwearied advocacy and agitation of the new scheme of society — 
 not ill described in the letter we have just quoted as "a plan to civilize the 
 lower classes hy parking, if we may so speak, indigent families in villages, 
 where they would be subjected to a regimen combined of quakorism 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, beset by various philanthropists capeague; 1. 480. 
 and regenerators of the other sex, who sought, by means of prophetic 
 ejaculations and an imposing style of attire, to acquire the same influence over 
 his imagination that ^Madame Knidcner had exercised some years before. Life of wuber. 
 The anti-slavery party, m England, too, sent Mr. Clarkson to endeavour to bring 
 over Alexander to their views. This was done on the suggestion, or at leastby the 
 advice, of AVilberforce, ever watchful for any ojiportunity of promoting the 
 great object of liis 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." He 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 jirospects of 
 general philanthropy — not that he would not recognise these. Now I fear he would 
 dislike ourha^dnganyagentatAix-la-Chapelle. Ishouldbe 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 jNIacaulay suggested. I fear I 
 could not do it without impropriety. But Clarkson seems fonned by Pro- 
 vidence 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 harbour 
 any such notion after all his pains and efforts. But in his public character he 
 might be unable, without a violation of dijjlomatic propriety, to do a tiling 
 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 Congi-ess would do nothing for the abolitionists ; and Mr. 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, which they themselves called not a
 
 206 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book I. 
 
 1818. Congress but simply a rmnion, 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 coiTespondence after the Sovereigns separated. 
 They remained together till the 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 9tli of October as 
 the accomplishment of the work of peace and the completion of the political 
 system destined to ensure its solidity, and, having described their luiion as 
 not tending to any new political combination, to any change in the relations 
 sanctioned by existing treaties, but having .no other object than the main- 
 tenance 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 per- 
 emptory 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 eiforts 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 connexion 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 assm-ance 
 that he should never cease to take the most lively interest in every thing that 
 might concern them, and that the remembrance of the three years during 
 whicli he had had the honour to be at their head^vould be always dear to him. 
 Our illustrious countryman was made during the Congress a Field Marshal 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 crow^lcd 
 heads ; and in real importance and personal ascendancy he was the first figure 
 there. After his return to England his Grace was appointed in the end of 
 December Master- General of the Ordnance, with a seat in the Cabinet. 
 Condition OP THB The ccouomical conditiou of the covnrtry still continued at the close of the 
 CLOSE ui' 1818. year to present much the same superficial appearance which it had done for
 
 CitAP. XIV.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS PEACE. 207 
 
 some time preceding : but the elastic spirit wliicli liad existed a twelvemonth 1818. 
 
 ago had long been palpably on the decay, and Avas now quite gone. Tiie ^.^^^^^^TinTTT 
 
 harvest had turned out upon the whole better than had been expected. Oats, I'ncis; ii.-n, &c. 
 
 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, M'heat had considerably fallen in price. Oats, for instance, 
 
 Mhich had been at 45s. 11 fZ. the quarter in December, 1817, were now at 
 
 63s. (id. ; but wheat, which had been then at 85s. 4(7., had now declined to 
 
 78s. lOd. Still this might be considered as a scarcity price. Nor had the 
 
 prices of the other commodities of wliich speculation had brought in the 
 
 largest supplies yet much given way. " It is well known," as Mr. Tooke "■ f- ''"'■ 
 
 observes, " 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 struffffle of 
 
 this kind prevailed more or less, according as the articles were in gi-eater or 
 
 less abundance through the autumn, and into the winter of 1818-19, when 
 
 many articles which had become unsaleable from excess were still quoted at 
 
 nearly as high prices as they had attained at any time in 1818." But the 
 
 excessive importation, which had not yet much brought down prices, was 
 
 already bringing down many of the importers and those connected with them ; 
 
 and the year closed in the midst of numerous and extensive bankrujitcies. 
 
 The Heform spirit, too, was spreading and rising again among the peojde, as vf.mvm. of the 
 they began to feel the pressure of the commercial stagnation in diminished 
 
 HON. 
 
 employment, and a tendency to decline in wages. But, as has been already 
 
 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 follo^Aing incident : — 
 
 " It was moved and seconded that petitions to the Lords and Commons should ufenf auadicai; 
 
 be presented in the usual manner ; when William Benbow, who had lately "' 
 
 returned from j)rison, made his way through the crowd, and, mounting the 
 
 waggon, urged the people, in a violent and ii-rational 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 M'hich he was endeavoin-ing to 
 
 distract by a course of violence. That very week, or the week following, he 
 
 sailed fi-om Liveqiool 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
 
 . 1G5. 
 
 208 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Rook I. 
 
 1818. shook with indignation." This niaj' show that all the violent counsels Avhich 
 were addressed to the jJeople 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. 
 i.ife of a Radical; Another meeting at Lydgate, in Saddleworth, in the West Eiding of York- 
 shire, 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 w^omen, 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 not only soon after copied at meetings 
 for charitable and religious purposes, but was ere long carried much beyond what 
 had been at first contemplated, and brought about the formation of female poli- 
 tical unions, with their committee women, chairwomen, and other officials. Bam- 
 ford, we suppose from all this, Avould have had the franchise extended to w^omcn. 
 In curious contrast to his radicalism here is the following passage which 
 we find in one of Cobbett's Registers of almost this very date ; it occm's 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 elec- 
 tion 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, fi-om 
 Mr. 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 imintclHgible 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 
 ichich, by such extension, he voiild, if he were attended to, render ridiculous." 
 And then Bentham, 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 favom-ite with this little band of feeble and am- 
 bitious men ; indeed there are two things : he cannot be a rival ; and he 
 would, if he coxdd, hurt Mr. Ilimt and me. He shows his teeth ; but he 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 corvee to read it. It is not only 
 bombast, but quaint bombast, and puzzling and tedious beyond mortal endu- 
 rance. . . . The book is wholly inefficient A very fit and proper person, 
 
 this, to be toasted by the Baronet and his Rump !" 
 
 * At tliis time Burdett had given up Universal Svffrage for what he called General Suf- 
 frage.
 
 CrfAr. XV.J DURING THE THIRTY YEARS" PEACE. 209 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 THE series of bankruptcies which had commenced in the latter part of the 1819. 
 year 1818 continued throughout the first months of 1819. " The largest," _-^.._^ 
 
 savs the Historian of Prices, " in point of amount of the articles of which there state of the 
 was so great an excess of the importation was cotton ; and it was in this articte 
 that the fall in price was the greatest, and the failures among those concerned xooke's Hi^t. of 
 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 justi- 
 fied ; but then, as in more recent instances, the advanced price was not confined 
 to the small stocks on tlie spot, but was paid for large quantities in the coun- 
 tries of growth, to be shipped hither." The result, he goes on to state, was, 
 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 Charlestown, 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 labour market, and to reduce still farther 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 pa-st 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 Parlia- 
 ment with much complacency. 
 
 The Houses assembled on the 14th of January, but the first week was con- opEMNr. op 
 
 '' 1 • 1 Parliament 
 
 sumed in swearing the members of the House of Commons, and m the re- 
 election of Mr. Manners Sutton to the chair of that House, in which he was 
 replaced by acclamation. The session Avas 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 considera- 
 tion of such measures as that event had rendered necessary for 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 
 tlie renewal, for a further term of years, of the Commercial Convention sub- 
 sisting between the two nations, and for the amicable adjustment of several 
 points of mutual importance to the interests of both countries. An assurance 
 
 VOT„ I. 2 F
 
 210 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book I. 
 
 1819. 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 tlie 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 improve- 
 ment 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 
 Pindarics 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 pleasvire in informing Parliament that the trade, commerce, and 
 manufactures of the country were in a most flourishing condition ; and he 
 observed that the favourable change which had so rapidly taken place in the 
 internal circumstances of the United Kingdom afforded the strongest proof of 
 the solidity of its resources. 
 Care OF Ills The Address was voted in both Houses without any amendment being 
 
 p'ufoN* " moved, and after little debate. The first question that tried the temper of the 
 
 new Parliament 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 appoint- 
 ing 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 
 Hio-hness : but no resistance of moment was offered to this bill in either House. 
 Another by which it was followed, the Royal Household or Windsor Es- 
 tablishment Bill, had not so smooth a passage. This measure was heralded 
 by a message from the Regent, brought down on the 4th of February, 
 acquainting Parliament that his Royal Highness placed at its disposal the 
 58,000/. per annum which had by the demise of Her Majesty become dis- 
 posable by him for the general purposes of the Ci^il 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, moved and 
 obtained the appointment of a select committee to take into consideration the 
 whole subject of this 58,000/., and of another sum of 100,000/., whicli 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 agi-eed 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 woidd projiose the 
 assignment of 25,000/. 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 50,000/. The entire immediate saving, there- 
 fore, would be 83,000/., which would ultimately become 108,000/., when all 
 the annuities should have fallen in. But there was, besides, a sum of 10,000/., 
 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 22nd, when
 
 CiiAP. XV. J DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 211 
 
 the Commons resolved themselves into a Committee of the whole House on the 1819. 
 Keport 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 50,000^. allowed for the Windsor esta- 
 blisliment. 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 liis 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 ordi- 
 nary enjoyments. He could not, if he were rightly informed, speak or be 
 spoken to ; and indeed the necessary measures which were taken for the pre- 
 servation 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 50,000/. would be more than 
 sufficient to supply it, with all the necessary forms of attendance." Upon this 
 head, however, the Eight Honourable Gentleman, who had been a member of 
 the Select Committee, had seen reason to alter his opinion. He now con- 
 firmed 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 50,000/. 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-yoar, he could not think that the remaining 30,000/. was too much for the 
 royal establishment. Passing lightly over every thing else, he now directed 
 the main force of his argument upon the question — the gi-eat 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 whicli 
 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 infiimy 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 INIajesty'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 60,000/. a-year, 
 to which an addition of 10,000/. a-year had since been made. The King had 
 also a privy purse of 60,000/. a-year, with an additional revenue from the Duchy 
 of Lancaster of more than 10,000/. There was thus a private property belong- 
 ing to the Crown of 1-10,000/. 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 whicli 
 should come from the privy purse, and upon the sacredness and inviolability
 
 212 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book I. 
 
 1819. which had hitherto been held to attach to that fund. When he mentioned 
 I\Ir. Sheridan and Mr. Adam (now become Lord Cliief Commissioner of the 
 Scotch Jury Court) as two eminent Whig authorities who had been accus- 
 tomed to preach this doctrine about the privy purse in its highest strain, the 
 House, or at least the Opposition, testified by loud derisive cheers liow it was 
 disjjosed to account for the high monarchic principles on this point entertained 
 or professed by these personal friends of the Prince of Wales. Mr. Peel, how- 
 ever, dexterously chose to imderstand the manifestation in a somewhat dif- 
 ferent sense. " If," he exclaimed, " what I have heard from 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 
 honour 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 SoHcitor-Gcneral ; 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 Oppo- 
 sition 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, 
 SoHcitor-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, distin- 
 guished by the mingled eloquence of Denman, Canning, and Brougham, took 
 place on the 25th, when the resolution for giving the Duke of York the 
 10,000/, a-year was reported from 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 tlie Duke's salary ; he was supported by Lord 
 Lansdowne and other peers ; but the amendment was not pressed to a 
 division. 
 kesdmption of The most important legislative act of the session was the arrangement made 
 
 Cash Payments. . . 
 
 for the resumption of Cash Payments by the Bank. This question, in its 
 various branches, gave rise to about fifty debates and conversations in the two 
 Houses, the reports of which cover between four and five hruidred 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 
 
 ninrv, in Life 
 V. 13.
 
 358. 
 
 Chap. XV.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 213 
 
 of ministerial members for each Committee; it appears, indeed, that, in the 1819. 
 Commons, the Opposition declined taking any part in the process of nomi- 
 nation ; nevertheless, a few days' afterwards, ]\Ir. C'alcraft moved that the 
 name of Mr. Brougham should be added to the Committee, and when a divi- 
 sion 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 that of the twenty-one members of the Committee, as appointed by the ^ebatw ' 
 ballot, fourteen were ministerialists. In the beginning of April both Com- 
 mittees presented short Reports, recommending that, in order to faciUtate 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 1st 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 
 of 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 Oppo- 
 sition 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 imder 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 of 
 January, 1811), to 33,894,580^. ; and its assets in Government securities and 
 other credits to 39,096,900/., exclusive of the permanent debt of U,686,800/. 
 due from the Government, and repayable on the expiration of the charter. 
 The entire surplus in favour of the Bank, therefore, was 19,899,120/. ; and 
 what might be called its immediate available surjilus 5,202,320/. The bullion 
 in its coffers, also, which had been very much reduced at the close of the war, 
 luid 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 Conmiittees, under the direction of the Government, 
 which was so influcntially 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
 
 214 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book I. 
 
 J8J9 of which should be attested by a stamp, and only in quantities above a certain 
 weiaht, at a rate to be diminished from time to time until it should have 
 descended to the Mint price of o/. ITs. 10j(/. per ounce. But, although this 
 principle was adoi^ted as the basis of the plan, the complete exchangeability 
 of Bank notes for cash was provided for as its ultimate result. The resolutions 
 were first moved in the Lords on the 21st of May 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 approba- 
 tion not only of Grenville, but also of Lords King and Lansdowne ; Lauder- 
 dale's 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 Keport 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 fr(mi his own statement that neither he 
 himself nor the Government had been prepared for the adoption of such a 
 plan when the Committee was appointed and the subject was first brought 
 forward. 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 enter- 
 tained ; for his views of the subject were most materially different when lie 
 voted against the resolutions brought forward in 1811 by Mr. Horner, as the 
 Chairman of the Bullion Committee. Having gone into the inquiry, deter- 
 mined to dismiss all former impressions that he might have received, and to 
 obliterate fiom 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 luidi- 
 vided and unprejudiced attention, and adopt every inference that authentic 
 information or mature reflection should offer to his mind ; and he had no hesi- 
 tation 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 Uttle modification concurred in the principles laid down in 
 the fourteen first 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 he ad- 
 verted 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 Eobert 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
 
 fiiAP. XV.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 215 
 
 would not shrink, whatever might be his private feeUngs." Thus, in the first 1819. 
 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 modifica- 
 tions of the government plan in some particulars were proposed by ]\Ir. Edward 
 Ellis, Mr. 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 Com- 
 mittee, had 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 restric- 
 tion on paj-ments 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 pre- 
 paratory measures should be taken ; that provision should be made for the 
 gradual repayment to the Bank of £10,000,000 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 si.xty ounces, at the rate of 81.s. 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 T9s. 6d. per ounce ; that after the 1st of May, 1821, the rate should be 
 lis. lOld. per ounce ; that fiom 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 
 liOrds 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 £233 12.s. 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, F\x\sn\i. 
 Lord Castlereagh, in the Commons, proposed the appointment of a Select 
 Committee for inquiring 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 o])cniii£c the Budget, and a debate was
 
 216 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book I. 
 
 1819. brought on ; but no objection was made to the appointment of the Committee. 
 The Committee presented an elaborate Report in the beginning of April ; and 
 on the 3rd 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 tlie reduction of taxation since 1815 had been 
 upwards of £18,000,000 per annum, and that, when the revenues of Great 
 IJritain and Ireland had been consolidated in 1816, the mere interest upon 
 the debt of Ireland, including the sinking fund applicable to its reduction, 
 liad exceeded the entire net revenue of that country by nearly £1,900,000, 
 " 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 £20,500,000 ;— that the portion of such supplies 
 which might be provided by the continuance of the existing revenue could 
 not be estimated at more than £7,000,000; leaving the sum of £13,500,000 
 to be raised by loan or other extraordinary resource ; — that the Sinking Fund 
 might be estimated at £15,500,000; exceeding the simi necessary to be raised 
 for the service of the year by about £2,000,000 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 ex- 
 penditure, of not less than £5,000,000 ; and that, with a view to the atta,in- 
 ment of this important object, it is expedient now to increase the income of 
 the country by the imposition of taxes to tlic amount of £3,000,000 per 
 annum." The debate on these Resolutions was taken on the Tth, 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, £8,900,000 ; for the Navy, 
 £6,436,000; for the Ordnance, £1,191,000; Miscellaneous, £1,950,000; Inte- 
 rest and Sinking Fund on Exchequer Bills, £2,000,000 ; Repayment of Ad- 
 vances from the Bank, £5,000,000; Reduction of other Unfunded Debt, 
 £5,597,000; making in all £31,074,000 (exclusive of the interest upon the 
 Funded Debt and of the Sinking Fund, which together amounted to nearly 
 £45,000,000 more, and were provided for by permanent taxes). Of the 
 £31,074,000, it was calculated that the annual malt tax (£3,000,000), the 
 annual or temporary excise duties continued (£3,500,000), a lottery (yielding 
 £240,000), and the sale of old stores would produce £7,074,000; the remaining 
 £24,000,000 was to be provided for by two loans of £12,000,000 each, tlie 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
 
 Ch.vp. XV.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. oi"; 
 
 Fund for the present year to 3,500,000/. ; tliat of the other, taken in conjunc- 1819. 
 
 tion ■\vith the repayment of the Bank advances and of the remainmg unfunded ^~— ' 
 
 debt that was to be paid off, would be (disregarding the speculative ad\'antages 
 that might accrue either to the Government or the subscribers from the terms 
 of the loan) to add 1,403,000/. 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 2,000,000/. ; and with the aid of the new taxes, the 
 reduction might be expected to be above 5,000,000/. Nominally, however, 
 the new stock created for the two loans of 24,000,000/. was 32,304,000/. We 
 may notice under the present head a motion made by Mr. Tierney on the 18tli 
 of May, that the House would resolve itself into a Committee of the whole 
 House to take into consideration the State of the Nation, wliich, after pro- 
 ducing 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 reso- 
 lutions in favour 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 farther consideration of them being adjourned till that day 
 tliree months. 
 
 Not much more of the legislation of the session was of any historic import- "f le" "lmIIJI'. 
 ance. Mr. Sturges Bourne obtained the appointment of a new Committee on 
 the Poor Laws ; and his bill for the general amendment of these laws, 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 Com- 
 mons ; 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 labour. An extension of the Charitable 
 Foundations Act of the 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 
 ha\ing 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 2nd of March, Sir James Mackintosh, 
 stepping into the space left vacant by the lamented Eomilly, 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 
 vol.. I. 2 G
 
 218 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book I. 
 
 1819. to be printed. Committees were also appointed in both Houses, on the pro- 
 position of the Government, to inquire into the state of Gaols and other places 
 of confinement, " and into the best method of providing 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 })rcceding year for 
 inquiring- into the means of preventing the forgery of Bank Notes was pre- 
 sented 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 moveable property, and suffered banishment, whether tlie 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 innovation, 
 however, suggested by a case in which an appeal of miu'der 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 main- 
 tained 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 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 Enlist- 
 naent 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 
 1-12. Another debate arose on the motion for going into committee, which 
 Avas made memorable by declamations of extraordinary eloquence from Mack- 
 intosh 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 Ilis 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 objec- 
 tion 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 bemg in effect and substantially 
 a blow aimed at those young communities yet struggling to achieve or to 
 complete their emancipation, and a quite uncalled-for 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 con-
 
 Otiifr Questions 
 discussed. 
 
 Chap. XV.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 219 
 
 eluded with the Netherlands for the suppression of the SlaTC Trade, another 1819. 
 to amend the act of the last session for carrying into execution the convention 
 Avith 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, ^\4thin a few days of the end of the session, Sir Francis 
 Burdett, for the eighteenth time, made his annual motion on the question of 
 Parliamentary Reform. All that he now proposed, however, was, that the 
 House should pledge itself to take the state of the representation into its most 
 serious consideration early in the next session of parliament. The motion 
 was seconded by Mr. George Lamb (younger brother of the late Lord Mel- 
 bourne) ;* 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 
 speccli of the evening was one delivered by xAlderman Waithnian. 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 jMr. 
 Hume went on this occasion was to observe that the majority of the people of 
 Scotland were favourable 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 
 thi-ee years, could not support a motion " that went the length of projjosing 
 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. More 
 success attended Lord Archibald Hamilton's efforts in the cause of Scotch 
 Burgh Reform. This question formed the subject of two of the most exciting 
 contests of the session. The election of magistrates for the burgh of Aber- 
 deen 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 co-pj of this warrant ; the motion was 
 strenuously resisted by Ministers, through their organ the Lord-Advocate ; 
 but tlie 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 
 
 * 3Ir. Lamb h^d been returned for Westminster on the vacancy occasioned by the death 
 of Sir Samuel Romilly, after a contest which lasted from the 13th of February till the 3rd 
 of March, and which was distinguished throughout by the most violent proceedings on the 
 part of the mob. His (then Radical) opponent was the present Sir (then Mr.) J. C. Hob- 
 liouse ; and the numbers at the close of the poll were, for Lamb 4465, for Hobhouse 380!, 
 38 I otcs were also given for Major Cartwright.
 
 220 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book I. 
 
 1819. two hundied and fifteen members. This was a victory ominous of coming 
 
 • — —. ' defeat. On the 6th of May, Lord Archibald brought forward the general 
 
 question by moving that a great number of petitions, Mhich had been pre- 
 sented 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 reso- 
 lutions in favour of reform ; while of the remaining tM-enty-seven small 
 burghs the population amounted altogether to only about 60,000. The pre- 
 ponderance 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 
 connexion 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 3rd 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 oflices and the exercise of civil fmictions, 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 clamour 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. 
 Tst'uj'l" '.'"'' Parliament was prorogued, on the 13th of July, by the Prince Regent in 
 
 person. His Royal Higliness spoke of attempts which had recently been made 
 in some of the 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 
 endeavours, in co-operation with the 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.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 221 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 THE first session of the new Parliament had not strengthened the Ministry 1819. 
 either with the country, or even in their own estimation. " The ^-^-^-^ ' 
 
 --,. . i5 Ti r -xtr 1 • * 1 1 • • r' X ^ ■ • . . Condition OF THu 
 
 Ministry, Mr. \V aid writes in the begiiuiing oi June, is in a strange state, government. 
 The majority 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 gi-eat battle that was fought upon Ticrney's motion [for a 
 Committee on the State of the Nation, on the 18th of jNlay, when JNIinisters 
 had a majority of more than two to one] seemed to promise more strength, 
 but Thursday night [the 3rd of June, when the second reading of the Foreign 
 Enlistment Eill was only carried by a majority of thirteen] was a complete 
 relajjse 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 Ojipo- 
 sition 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. INIr. Peel stated distinctly, in proposing the arrange- 
 ment which was actually adopted, that he had been made a convert to the 
 principles upon Avhich it was based by the evidence that had been adduced 
 before the Secret Committee. The avowal of these principles by the Govern- 
 ment was a retractation altogether unexpected at the time. In the same 
 letter to which we have just referred, Mr. Ward writes from London to his 
 friend at Oxford — " Those that are near the scene of action are not less sur- ^Jj.5''„7 cud/ey, 
 prised than yourself at the turn the Bullion question has taken. Canning p- ^-''■ 
 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 liim, 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
 
 222 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book I 
 
 Id. p. 21t!. 
 
 1819. expressed his opinion of the condition of the Government : — " 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 princijiles directly 
 opposite to his own. But his removal, and the substitution of Peel or Hus- 
 kisson, 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 tliem 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 Eklon, 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 INIr. Ward thus expressed. The defeat of the 
 Government on Sir James Mackintosh's motion for 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 Birrgh Reform, had shown, as Mr. Twiss observes, under what imper- 
 fect 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 con- 
 jectured not to have met with the concurrence of the Lord Chancellor; and in 
 a communication to the Premier,he appears to have suggested the ijostponement 
 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 
 Life of Lord El- csscntial a point, liis Lordship proceeds : — " 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 coimti-y 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 per- 
 sonally, 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 tlie 
 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."* There is reason to believe that the bold course taken by Ministers on 
 
 * We may remark, however, that this letter hardly hears out the interpretation put upon 
 it by ]\Ir. Twiss, that the Chancellor did not at first concur with the majority of the Cabinet 
 in their faNourable opinion of Mr. Ricardo'a plan. His difference with Lord Liverpool may 
 ha^c been simply on the prudence or expediency of the Government taking its stand upon
 
 Chap. XVI.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 223 
 
 the Bank question did produce something of the effect which Lord Liverpool 1819. 
 
 anticipated, and strengthened them hoth 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 desree of confidence without which it could not be conducted honour- 
 
 ably 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 continiance 
 districts from the beginning of the year. It was on the 18th of January that agitation. 
 Orator Hunt made his first appearance in a public capacity in Manchester. 
 Application had been made to the Boroughreeve and constables to summon a 
 meeting to petition Parliament for the repeal of the Corn Law. On their 
 refusal an anonymous advertisement appeared, fixing the meeting for the day 
 Ave have mentioned. Himt, who had accepted an 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 Corn Laws," 
 " Universal Suffrage," " Eights of Man," " Hunt and Liberty," being borne 
 before him ; the gathering place 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 assesibly 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 Man- 
 chester by some officers of the Tth 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 Middleton, requesting that zealous follower, as he then LifeofaRRdicai; 
 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 sillv weavers, picked men, each 
 armed with a stout cudgel. The ten rough-looking 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 under- 
 stood 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- 
 
 tliat plan, and endeavouring to force it at the present moment upon the acceptance of Par- 
 liament. This, at least, may have been all the dissent that he professed. We may admit 
 that the new monetary doctrine was not likely to find the readiest or most enthusiastic of dis- 
 ciples either in Eldon or Vansittart ; but it is hardly to be supposed that any member of the 
 Cabinet could have deferred to so late a moment an intimation of absolute hostility to the 
 principles of the Government plan. The Report of both the Secret Committees had by 
 this time been presented.
 
 224 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book I. 
 
 1819. legged, free-limbed, and lithe as stag-hounds ; and as they went tramp, tramp, 
 
 ■ — ^- along the flags, people looked, startled, and looked again j while the observed 
 
 ones, nothing noticing, went onwards like men who knew their work, and were 
 both able and Avilling 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 melee within the walls of the theatre. 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 mul- 
 titude. A few hisses were soon silenced. " Hunt," continues Bamford, 
 " then mounted the box, and, addressing the people, stated that the manager 
 had ^\T;itten to him saying tliere 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 sin- 
 gular bad taste, to say the least of it (for his impetuosity overran his judg- 
 ment), 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 homes peaceably. AVe then gave three cheers, the carriage dis- 
 appeared, 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." 
 roNDiTioMiFTME Thc rcst of the winter and the spring passed in quiet, and without any 
 movement among the working classes to excite alarm or uneasiness. As the year 
 advanced, however, a growing depression in the labour market was 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 
 i.ifpofLord that moment and on the prospects of the future. He cannot, he says, resist 
 
 Siilinaiahjiii. 242. .., ,•<■> i ^ • ^ 
 
 the pleasure of communicating tlie very satisfactory accounts he has received 
 of the state of trade and manufactures from different parts, and especially 
 from the neighbourhood of Birmingham, the rest of Warwickshire, and from 
 Staffordshire. " Both trade and manufactures," he goes on to observe, " arc 
 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 impossibk^ to procure credit ; 
 so that there is now no disposition to force a trade, and no injurious competi- 
 tion among the merchants to procure the execution of orders, and, conse- 
 quently, wages are fair and reasonable." In point of fact, however, although 
 Ijord 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 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
 
 Chap. XVI.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 225 
 
 the measures that were taken hy the Legislature for the restoration of a 1819. 
 metallic or at least convertible cuiTency, and the contraction of the circulation " 
 
 to which the Bank is assumed to have been thereby driven in its own defence. 
 Mr. Tooke has demonstrated the entirely imaginary nature of this theory by Hinory of prices; 
 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 iu 
 August than it had been in February. The late excessive importations, how- 
 ever, 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 ; 
 tlie 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 labour 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 
 80«. in February, had only fallen to G8s. 10c/. in June, and had risen again to 
 755. 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 neighbourhood 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-under-Line, which assumed 
 more of a political character, but at which the distress under wliich the 
 people were suffering still supplied the text of every speech, and parlia- 
 mentary refomi 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 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 emig-rating 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 any thing except annual parliaments, universal 
 suffrage, and a diminution of taxation; speeches were delivered scouting alike 
 
 VOL. I. 2 H
 
 22G HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book I. 
 
 181'J. emigration and petitioning, unless indeed the people, as was strongly recom- 
 "^—'^-^—-^ mended, 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 car- 
 ried, though the vote in its favour 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-Line meeting, where the chair 
 was taken by a person calling himself the Reverend 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 Eamford'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 AVolseley, Bt., 
 who appears to have made his debut on this occasion. In an addi'ess which 
 he delivered before descending from his post of honour. Sir Charles, after 
 swearing to be faithful to the cause of annual parliaments and universal suf- 
 frase 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 Bastile at the commence- 
 ment of the revolution in that country, and that, if he did that for France, 
 he should never shrink from attacking the Bastiles of his own country. At 
 this meeting one of the insignia displayed fiom the hustings was the Cap of 
 Liberty on the top of a flag-stafl". On that day fortnight, the 12th of July, 
 another meeting was held at New Hall-hill, near Birmingham, M'here Sir 
 Charles Wolseley was elected " Legislatorial Attorney and Representative" for 
 that town. This transaction seems to have startled Government more than 
 any thing that had yet taken place, 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 
 liaving 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 appre- 
 hension ; a strong force, both civil and military, was stationed at various points 
 in the vicinity of the place ; but the demeanour 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. 
 NnvELTirs IN the Three remarkable innovations are particularized in the contemporary ac- 
 
 licpoiiM Move- . _..., „, , 
 
 MiiNT. counts as having distinguislied the present stage oi the popular movement. 
 
 It is stated to have been now that the Reformers first assumed the name of 
 
 seeante, p. 212. Radicals. We have given in a former page Bamford's account of the origin of 
 female Reform Associations. " An entirely novel and truly portentous circum- 
 stance," 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
 
 Chap. XVI.J DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 227 
 
 of manufacture to form sister societies, for the purpose of co-operating with 1819. 
 
 the men, and of instilling into the minds of their children ' a deep-rooted "^ • 
 
 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 addi-ess 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 have been dbellinc. 
 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. Nmnerous 
 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 upon oath, that " in various parts of the neighbourhood of Bury there 
 are nightly assemblies of great ninnbers 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 neighbourhood 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 general tactics 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 any thing of the kind 
 existed any where 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 ■\ve are assured by Baniford. It 
 was, according to his straightforward account, adopted solely with a view Lift of^a^Radicai ; 
 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 indi- 
 viduals ; 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 h(\tlthful exercise and enjoyment Wlien
 
 228 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book I. 
 
 1819. 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 tlie waste lands, or the green lane 
 
 sides Or, in the grey of a tine Sunday morn, we would saunter through 
 
 the mists, fragrant with the night odour of flowers and of new hay, and, 
 ascending the Tandle Hills, salute the hroad sun as he climbed from behind 
 
 the high moors of Saddlewortli 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-stafi"; 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 any thing of the sort." We believe this to be the true 
 account of the matter ; and that the Government, the magistrates, iirobably 
 many of the informants of the latter themselves, and the public in general, 
 Avere 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, any thing of the character ascribed to it. It M-as 
 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 diiferent fi'om 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 extravagancies," 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 pre- 
 paratory to their more effective use." 
 
 We are now come to the great event of the year, and the most memorable 
 incident in the history of these popular movements. The election of Sir 
 Charles Wolseley at Birmingham appears to have suggested a similar pro- 
 ceeding to the reformers of Manchester. Mr. Hunt, we suppose, must 
 have been the person who was to have had the honour of being elected legis- 
 latorial attorney for that town. On Saturday, the 31st of July, an advertise- 
 ment 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 Cart- 
 wright's plan of Parliamentary Reform. The magistrates immediately put fortli 
 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 hand-bill 
 that it would not take place, but that a requisition would be addressed to tlie 
 boroughreeve a.nd 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 Keform in the Commons House of Parliament." 
 
 INtANClirSTER 
 MliETINU.
 
 Chap. XVI.J DURING THE THIRTY YEARS" PEACE. 229 
 
 This requisition was numerously signed in the course of the day. On its 181!). 
 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 metropoUs itself 
 seems to have remained comparatively unaroused, and not to have contributed 
 any thing 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-and-thirty points of the compass, 
 and every separate neighbouring district was represented on the ground by its 
 dense and extended array, we do not recollect that any distinct body of Man- 
 cliester 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 tlie most part only as lookers on. 
 
 We believe that Bamford's animated description of the procession of his 
 fellow-townsmen, the reformers of Mlddleton, mIio put themselves under his 
 guidance, conveys a fair impression of the spirit in which the afiair was entered 
 upon by the generality of those engaged in it. By eight o'clock on that Lifeof a Radical; 
 IMonday morning, he tells us, the whole town of Mlddleton was on the alert. 
 Those who did not intend to go to the meeting came out at least to see the pro- 
 cession. 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 gi-een, 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 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 ex- 
 pressing 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, nor 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 distmbance might servo as a pretext 
 for dispersing the meeting. If the peace officers, he added, should come to 
 aiTest 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 tliat, In 
 conformity with a rule laid down by the committee, no sticks nor 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
 
 230 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book I. 
 
 1819. 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 labouring 
 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 Avith them, 
 although a score or two of others were sent back ; while some hundreds of 
 stragglers walked alongside. As they proceeded they received various acces- 
 sions to their ranks. At Newtown, 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 Bam- 
 ford's hand, he said kindly, though in a tone expressing some anxiety, that he 
 hoped no harm was intended by all those people that were coming in. Bam- 
 ford 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 
 Avill be committed by men of a different stamp from these.' He said he was 
 very glad to hear me say so ; he was hajjpy 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 Avell;' and, shaking hands, with mutual good 
 wishes, I left him, and took my station as before." After they had entered 
 INIanchester, they heard that, among other parties which had preceded them, 
 the Lees and Saddleworth Union had been led by Doctor Hcaley, " walking 
 before a pitch-black flag, Avith staring Avhite letters, forming the words — 
 ' Equal Representation or Death,' — ' Love,' — tAvo hands joined, and a heart ; 
 all in Avhite 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 OAvn patients — such it ajipeared to 
 me — Avas calculated to force a smile even at that thoughtfid moment." They 
 seem to have reached the place of meeting, AA'here they found an immense 
 multitude ali-eady collected, about half an hour before noon. As other parties 
 successively arrived, they became more and more inclosed, till tlicy 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 tlie 
 day ; Hunt came, preceded by a band of music, and flags flying, standing up in 
 an open barouche, on the box of Avhich sat a Avoman, avIio, it afterwards 
 appeared, had made no proper or original part of tlie show, but had only been 
 hoisted into the carriage as it passed tluough the crowd, Avhik^ a number of
 
 Chap. XVI.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 231 
 
 his male friends were seated around him. " Their approach," says Bamford, 1819. 
 " was hailed by one imiversal 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 waggons, stood close to the place where Bamford 
 and his party were posted. 
 
 The arrangements made by the authorities for the part they M'ere 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 Parliament, 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 loth 
 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 at- 
 tempt 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 pro- 
 ceedings had commenced. The reasons for the adoption of this course are not 
 explained ; it is only stated that the committee " contented themselves, till Letter from vr. 
 they saw what the complexion of the meeting might be, or what circumstances magisSe", to'" 
 might arise, with coming to this determination only, which they adopted in lilih kugu"". '' 
 concurrence with some of the most intelligent gentlemen of the town." About 
 two liundred 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 hoise artillery, with two guns — nearly the wliole of tlie 
 31st regiment of infantry — some companies of the 88th regiment — the Cheshire 
 Y^eomanry, 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 Y'eomanry 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 absence of Sir John Byng (now Earl of Strafford), the general of the 
 district, who Mas 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, tlie rest so as to maintain a 
 commmiication from thence to a private house on the south side of tliat irre- 
 gular square space of groimd, to which the magistrates repaired about eleven 
 o'clock from the Star Inn, where they liad first assembled. The distance from 
 this house to the Imstings was stated on the trial at Y'ork to have been about 
 three or four hundred yards, but it was probably not quite so much ; the entire
 
 232 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Buok I. 
 
 1819. 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 dis- 
 mounted 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 Bar- 
 racks 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 forty Manchester Yeomanry, and the two squadrons (four troops, 
 or three hundred and twenty men) of the 15th Hussars. 
 
 The band which accompanied Hunt and liis i)arty on their npproacli phiyed 
 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, 
 Avhen 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 ^Ir. Hulton, the chairman of the Bench of INIagis- 
 trates, 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'Estrangc, requiring them to come to the house where the magis- 
 trates were. The Yeomanry, being nearest at hand, made their appearance 
 first. They came from Mosley 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, " 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 Bamford 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 had shouted the 
 yeomanry, who had now halted about three minutes, waved their swords and 
 advanced. There are contradictory accounts of the pace at which they endca-
 
 Chap. XVI.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 233 
 
 voured to move forward ; in point of fact tliey appear to have penetrated the 1819. 
 dense crowd not in a hody at all, or in any kind of marching order, but 
 singly and separately. Of course they were soon brought to a stand. This 
 ■was the state in which things were when the two squadrons of Hussars came 
 up, having made their way round by the west side of the field. " It was 
 then," says Sir W. JoUifFe, " for the first time that I saw the Manchester 
 troop of Yeomanry ; they were scattered singly, or in small gioups, over the 
 greater part of the field, literally hemmed up, and wedged into the mob, so 
 that they were powerless either to make an impression or to escape : in fact, 
 they were in the power of those whom they were designed to overawe ; and it 
 required only a glance to discover their helpless position, and the necessity of 
 our beinw brought to their rescue." Here then was the second device of the 
 magistrates for the execution of the warrant utterly bafl[led ; their first notion 
 was to entrust it to Nadin, the constable, who told them that to execute it 
 Avitli the force at his command was im])ossiblc ; and now the troop of armed 
 yeomen, which was next tried, and which had actually made the attempt, was 
 stuck fast, and could neither advance nor retreat. Mr. Hulton's own account 
 is that, at the moment when the Hussars arrived, he conceived the Man- 
 chester Y'eomanry to be completely beaten. When Colonel L'Estrange, he 
 says, asked him what he was to do, he exclaimed, " Good God, sir, do you not 
 see how they are attacking the yeomanry i — Disperse the crowd." On this 
 the word " Forward " was instantly given, the trumpet sounded, and the 
 cavalry dashed among the multitude. Their charge swept every thing before 
 it. " People, yeomen, and constables," says Sir W. JoUiffe, " in their con- 
 fused attempts to escape, ran one over the other ; so that, by the time we had 
 arrived at the end of the field the fugitives were literally piled up to a consider- 
 able elevation above the level of the ground." As soon as he had given his 
 orders to Colonel L'Estrange, Mr. Hulton tells us he left the window, because 
 he " would rather not see any advance of the military." The Hussars gene- 
 rally. Sir W. Jolliff"e states, drove the people forward with the flats of their 
 swords ; " but sometimes," he adds, " as is almost inevitably the case when 
 men are placed in such situations, the edge was used, both by the Hussars? 
 and, as I have heard, by the yeomen also ; but of this latter fact, however, I 
 was not cognizant ; and, believing though I do that nine out of ten of the 
 sabre wounds were caused by the Hussars, I must still consider that it redounds 
 highly to the humane forbearance of the men of the loth that more wounds 
 were not received, when the vast numbers are taken into consideration with 
 whom they were brought into hostile collision." There can be no doubt, 
 however, as he observes, that " the far greater amount of injm-ies arose from 
 the pressure of the routed multitude." The scene during the few minutes 
 that it took to effect the dispersion must have been terrific in the extreme. 
 Bamford, who does not distinguisli between the advance of the Y'eomanry and 
 that of the Hussars, and whose situation did not allow him to do so, has de- 
 scribed it with perhaps a little rhetorical license in some particulars, but 
 with probably little exaggeration of the general effect. ' Stand fast,' he 
 called out to those around him, when he saw the troops darting forward ; 
 ' they are riding upon us ; stand fast.' " And there was a general cry," he 
 says, " in our quarter of ' Stand fast.' The cavalry were in confusion : they 
 
 VOL. I. 2 I
 
 234 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book I. 
 
 1819. evidently could not, with all the weight of man and horse, penetrate that 
 compact mass of human beings ; and their sahres were plied to hew a way 
 through naked held up hands and defenceless heads ; and then chopped limbs 
 and wound-gaping skulls were seen; and groans and cries were mingled with 
 the din of that horrid confusion. 'Ah! ah!' 'For shame! for shame!' was 
 shouted. Then ' Break ! break ! They are killing them in front, and they 
 cannot get away ;' and there was a general cry of ' Break ! break !' For a 
 moment the crowd held back as in a pause ; then was a rush, heavy and 
 resistless as a headlong sea, and a sound like low thunder, with screams, 
 prayers, and imprecations from the crowd, moiled and sabre-doomed, who 
 
 could not escape In ten minutes from the commencement of the havoc, 
 
 the field was an open and almost deserted space. The sun looked down through 
 
 a sultry and motionless air The hustings remained, with a few broken 
 
 and liewed flag-staves erect, and a torn and gashed banner or two dropping ; 
 whilst over the whole field were strewed caps, bonnets, hats, shawls, and 
 
 shoes, and other parts of male and female dress, trampled, torn, and bloody 
 
 Several mounds of human beings still remained where they had fallen, crushed 
 down and smothered. Some of these still groaning, others with staring eyes, 
 were gasping for breath ; and others would never breathe more. All was 
 silent save those low sounds, and the occasional snorting and pawing of steeds. 
 Persons might sometimes be noticed peeping from attics and over the tall 
 ridgings of houses, but they quickly mthdi-ew, as if fearful of being observed, 
 or unable to sustain the full gaze of a scene so hideous and abhorrent." About 
 thirty wounded persons were carried to the infirmary in the course of that 
 afternoon and the following day ; and about forty more were able to come 
 themselves to have slighter injuries looked at and dressed. There were no 
 doubt some cases besides that were not heard of. The greater number of the 
 injvnies were contusions or fractures ; the cases of sabre wounds do not appear 
 to have been more than twenty or thirty. Three or four persons were wounded 
 on the evening of the fatal day by the fire of one of the regiments of foot, which 
 was ordered to clear the streets, where the people had re-assembled in great 
 numbers, and their conduct had begun to be threatening. Altogether the 
 number of lives lost appears to have been five or six, including one of the 
 special constables, ridden over by the Hussars, and one of the Manchester 
 yeomen struck off his horse by a brickbat, and who had his skull fractured 
 either by the blow or the fall. 
 
 Hunt and some eight or ten of his friends were seized by the first of the 
 miUtary Mho came up to the hustings ; and, being brought up before the 
 magistrates on the Friday following, were then remanded on a charge of high 
 treason. On that day week, however, by which time Bamford and one or two 
 others who had made their escape on the day of the meeting had been appre- 
 hended, having been brought up again, they were informed that Government 
 had for the present abandoned that charge, and that they would be only 
 detained till they should find bail, to be tried for the misdemeanour of having 
 conspired to alter the law by force and threats.
 
 ^ Chap. XVII.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' REACE. 035 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 npHE Manchester Massacre, as it came very generally to be designated, was 1819. 
 -*- at once felt on all hands to have made an epoch in the history of the ^-^ — — 
 contest -with Radicalism. A new scene of that drama had commenced. Other conduct of the 
 feelings were called up, and a change was to come over the course of action, magisteates. 
 on both sides. The Manchester jNIagistrates themselves were probably as much 
 astonished as anybody at what they had done. Many other radical meetings 
 had been held in all parts of the country, but nothing had happened at any of 
 them like what had taken place here. The dispersion of a popular meeting 
 by armed force, on the ground solely of its being formidable fiom its numbers, 
 might be a legal proceeding, but similar circumstances had again and again 
 occurred of late without its having been adopted. AVhy should not this meet- 
 ing have been allowed to be held witliout being so interfered with, as well as 
 any of those that had preceded it i Could not the public safety have been as 
 effectually preserved now as on so many former occasions, merely by the 
 necessary preparations being made for repressing any outbreak on the jiart of 
 the people, if such shoidd be attempted ? Or, if the arrest of Hunt and his 
 associates was necessary or expedient, could that object not have been effected 
 in another way ? If it would have been too hazardous for Nadin, the peace 
 officer, to have attemjited to apprehend them during the meeting, as Harrison 
 had been ai)prehended a few weeks before without difficulty at Smithfield, 
 might they not have been easily seized at any time either before the meeting, 
 or after it I These and other such questions could not fail to suggest them- 
 selves. But, above all, they must have been conscious, for it is undeniable, 
 and is, indeed, as good as confessed, that, after all their two days' deliberation, 
 they had allowed the morning of the day of meeting to come upon them 
 without being prepared with any determined plan of action. Their notion of 
 being guided by circimistances was manifestly nothing more than a vague hope 
 that something might happen to deliver them in some way or other from their 
 indecision and perplexity, and compel them, as it were, to take some particular 
 course. Accordingly, we see them standing aloof and doing nothing as long 
 as they can. They neither attempt to prevent the meeting taking place, nor 
 to arrest the popular leaders on their way to it. Then, one favourable ojipor- 
 tunity having thus been let slip after another, they clutch as if in desperation 
 at what seems their last chance of doing any thing. It is determined that the 
 forty Manchester yeomen shall attempt to walk their horses up to the hustings 
 through the densely packed and all but impeiretrable multitude, -whose closing 
 around each, and separating him fiom his comrades, as soon as he had moved 
 a few yards forward, was inevitable. This was not to be guided by circum- 
 stances, but to be driven on by the imi)ulse of trepidation or passion. All that 
 followed was the result of the failure of this attempt, which could not but fail. 
 It is clear that the order to the Hussars to clear the ground was the thought
 
 Government. 
 
 236 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book I. 
 
 1819. of the instant. Up to that moment no such proceeding had heen contemplated 
 or dreamt of. The jieople were not allowed to assemble in order that they 
 might he swept off the ground by a charge of cavalry. The dispersion and 
 bloodshed were not premeditated ; they were the convulsive effort of the 
 authorities to extricate themselves from a danger, real or imaginary, into 
 which a previous false step had precipitated them. Perhaps a sounder judg- 
 ment might have seen that the yeomanry, after they had entered the crowd, 
 were not in so much peril as they appeared to he in to Mr. Hulton; but, how- 
 ever this may have been, the grand mistake had been committed in placing 
 them in that position. That this was a blunder was demonstrated by what 
 immediately ensued, was acknowledged by the magistrates themselves in the 
 very next order they issued. Nor was the failure one the blame of which was 
 to be laid upon circumstances having turned out otherwise than might have 
 been expected ; the experiment was much the same as if the forty yeomen had 
 been ordered to advance through the water upon a vessel lying a quarter of 
 a mile out at sea. It was an experiment which could not succeed in any 
 circumstances. 
 Conduct of the On the Other hand, however wanting in discretion they may have sho'\\Ti 
 themselves, however grievous an error in judgment they may have committed, 
 it does not appear that the Manchester magistrates can be made out to have 
 done any thing absolutely illegal on this occasion. They were of course jus- 
 tified on the sworn informations they had received in issuing their warrant for 
 the arrest of Hunt and his associates ; the warrant could be legally executed 
 at the time when the attemjot to execute it was made ; and any resistance, or 
 supposed resistance, to the officer entrusted with it, might be legally put down 
 by any available force wliich appeared to be necessary for that purpose. This 
 was no doubt the view of the case wliich determined the Government, under 
 the advice of the law officers, to notify immediately their sanction of what had 
 Debate of 23rd becu doue. Tlio Statement which Lord Sidmouth afterwards made in Parlia- 
 Hansard, x'li. 24. mcnt was, that the account of what had taken place at Manchester reached 
 ]\Iinisters on Tuesday night ; that on Wednesday one of the magistrates, accom- 
 panied by another gentleman, arrived in town to give the Government the 
 fullest information on all the circumstances ; that a Cabinet Council was 
 immediately summoned, at which the Attorney and Solicitor-General were 
 present ; that the two gentlemen from Manchester gave minute details of every 
 thing ; and that the law officers then gave it as their opinion that the conduct 
 of the magistrates was completely justified by the necessity under which they 
 acted. It appears that the first thing the Home Secretary did upon this was 
 to write to the Prince Regent. The reply of his Royal Highness was 
 despatched by Sir Benjamin Bloomfield on the 19th from the Royal George 
 Yacht off Christchurch. It conveyed the Regent's " approbation and high 
 commendation of the conduct of the magistrates and civil authorities at 
 INIanchester, as well as of the officers and troojis, both regular and yeomanry 
 cavalry, whose firmness and efiectual support of the civil power preserved the 
 i.ifp of Lord Sid- pcacc of the town on that most critical occasion." Lord Sidmouth then, on 
 the 21st, addressed letters to the Earls of Derby and Stamford, the Lord Lieu- 
 tenants of Lancashire and Cheshire, intimating that he had been commanded 
 by the Prince Regent to request that tlieir lordships M'ould express to the 
 
 mouth ; iii. 2G2.
 
 Chap. XVII.] DURING THE THIRTY YE.\RS' PEACE. 237 
 
 magistrates of the two counties who were present at Manchester on the IGth, 1819. 
 " the gi-eat satisfaction derived by His Royal Highness from tlieir prompt) 
 decisive, and efficient measures for the preservation of the public tranquillity." 
 I;0rd Sidmouth's defence of the course he thus took is stated as follows by his 
 biographer : — " Lord Sidmouth was aware that this proceeding would subject i'^'"'- 
 him to the charge of precipitation; but he was acting upon what he considered 
 an essential principle of government — namely, to acquire the confidence of the 
 magistracy, especially in critical times, by showing a readiness to support 
 them in all honest, reasonable, and well-intended acts, Avithout inquiring too 
 minutely whether they might have performed their duty a little better or a 
 little worse. So impressed was his lordship with the importance of this prin- 
 ciple, that he constantly declared in after life, that, had the question recurred, 
 he should again have pursued a course, the policy of which was not less 
 obvious than its justice. If, indeed, the Government had left those magistrates 
 exposed to the storm of popular indignation until the verdict against Hunt and 
 his associates in the succeeding year had demonstrated the legality of their 
 conduct,* the magistracy at large must, from the dread of abandonment, have 
 failed in duty towards that royal authority, which either could not or would 
 not stand by them in the hour of jieril ; and thus, in all probability, the most 
 calamitous consequences would have ensued." It would appear, however, 
 that, although the Home Secretary had the concurrence of his colleagues in 
 the step which he took, they were not unanimous in adopting the view upon 
 Avhich he acted. Mr. Twiss has published a remarkable letter of Lord Eldon's 
 to his brother. Sir William Scott, without date, but evidently written about 
 this time, in which his lordship says: "Without all doubt the Manchester ufc of i.ordEi. 
 magistrates must be supported ; but thctj are very generally blamed here. For ""' "' 
 my part, I think if the assembly tvas only an unlawful assembly, that task icill 
 be difficult enough in sound reasoning. If the meeting was an overt act of 
 treason, their justification is complete." Eldon, who goes on to say that he 
 was clearly of opinion that the meeting was an overt act of treason, and that 
 the previous Birmingham meeting was the same — his argument being, as he 
 afterwards stated it in the House of Lords, " that numbers constituted force, 
 and force terror, and terror illegality " — pressed for having the prisoners in- 
 dicted for treason, but was, as Ave have seen, overruled. It Avas, it seems, on 
 the 25th that Lord Sidmouth informed the Regent that the evidence against 
 Hunt and his associates "did not afford sufficient ground for proceeding i.i^ or Lord sid- 
 against them for high treason ; but that it fully Avarranted a prosecution for """' ' ' '"' 
 a treasonable conspiracy, Avhich Avould be instituted immediately, in order that 
 the bill of indictment might be presented to the grand jury at the ensuing 
 summer assizes for the county of Lancaster." This Avas done accordingly, and 
 true bills were found against Hunt and nine others. 
 
 Meanwhile the utmost excitement had been produced by the proceedings at generil exche. 
 Manchester all over the country. On the 22nd, immediately on reading the " 
 ncAvspaper account, Sir Francis Burdett addressed a public letter to the 
 electors of Westminster, denouncing the conduct of the magistrates in the most 
 
 * The legality of the conduct of the ^Manchester magistrates Avas not one of the questions 
 at issue on Hunt's trial, nor of course Avas it eitlier demonstrated or noticed in any Avay 
 whatever in the verdict on that occasion.
 
 238 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 [Book I. 
 
 1819. 
 
 Letters of the 
 Earl of Dudley, 
 p. 230. 
 
 TfiMPEn OF THE 
 
 People. 
 
 unmeasured terms. For this the Attorney-General immediately proceeded 
 against him by an cj: officio information for libel. Meetings, at which strong 
 resolutions against both the magisti-ates and the Government were passed, 
 were held in all parts of the kingdom. An address in this spirit, presented 
 to the Regent in the beginning of September, from the Common Council of 
 the city of London, drew from His Royal Highness a reply, in which he told 
 its authors that he received their Address with deep regret, and that they ap- 
 peared to know little or nothing either of the circumstances which preceded 
 the late meeting at jNIanchester or of those which attended it. This, however, 
 did not prevent addresses to the same effect, some more some less strongly 
 expressed, being sent in from Westminster, Norwich, York, Bristol, Liverpool, 
 Nottingham, and many other towns. Of the county meetings the most 
 remarkable was that of the county of York, which was held on the 1-ith of 
 October, and at which 20,000 persons were supposed to have been present. 
 Among those who signed the requisition to the High Sheriff was Earl Fitzwil- 
 liam, and his lordship was also present at the meeting ; for which acts, as they 
 were considered, of open opposition to the Government, he was immediately 
 dismissed from his office of Lord Lieutenant of the West Riding. Before this 
 the Duke of Hamilton, Lord Lieutenant of the county of Lanark, had sent a 
 subscription of fifty pounds to the committee for the relief of the Manchester 
 sufferers, accompanied by a letter, in which he expressed the alarm that had 
 been excited in his mind by the manner in which the meeting of the 16th of 
 Auoust had been interrupted. There were not, however, wanting some 
 addresses and declarations on the other side fi-om the smaller towns and 
 cormties ; and a few associations for raising troops of yeomanry in aid of the 
 civil power were formed in Scotland and in the north of England. The grand 
 jiu-y of the county of Lancaster also threw out a number of bills presented to 
 them against individuals belonging to the Manchester yeomanry for cutting 
 and maiming with intent to kill in St. Peter's Field ; and the proceedings of 
 an inquest which sat for nine days at Oldham on the body of one of the 
 persons killed at the meeting, after having been characterized by every species 
 of irreo-ularity and confusion, were at last quashed by the Court of King's 
 Bench. On the whole, the disposition of the classes possessed of property still 
 was o-enerally to rally around and support the Government, even although the 
 more reflecting among them might not see reason to approve of e^ery tiling 
 that had been done in the contest with the democratical party. The opinion 
 of one class of the ministerial adherents may be considered to be expressed in 
 a passage of one of Mr. Ward's Letters, written from Paris in the beginning of 
 October : — " What do reasonable people think of the Manchester business ? 
 I am inclined to suspect that the magistrates were in too great a hurry, and 
 that their loyal zeal, and the nova gloria in armis, tempted the yeomanry to 
 too liberal an use of the sabre — in short, that their conduct has given some 
 colour of reason to the complaints and anger of the Jacobins. The approba- 
 tion of Government was probably given as the supposed price of support from 
 the Tories in that part of the country." 
 
 But in that portion of the popiilation where sympathy with the radical 
 reform agitation was naturally the most strongly felt and the most 
 widely diffused, the only feeling produced by the attack on the Man-
 
 Chap. XVII.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 230 
 
 Chester meeting appears to have been one of the keenest exasperation and 1819. 
 thirst for revenge. There -was no diminution of the audacity which had ' • ' 
 hitherto characterized the reform movement. Large meetings of the working 
 classes were held in rapid succession in all the manufacturing districts, 
 at which the most inflammatory speeches were delivered and the most daring 
 resolutions passed. It was evident that a more resolute and dangerous spirit 
 than ever had been awakened in the popular mind. Yet it is worthy of remark 
 that no attempt was any where made by the authorities to repeat the course 
 which had been taken by the Manchester magistrates, unless we are to except 
 an rmcalled-for intei"ference with a meeting held about the middle of September 
 at Paisley, which produced a state of distiirbance and riot that lasted for three 
 days, and, having extended to Glasgow, was not put down without the military 
 having been called out and employed in both towns. All the other meetings 
 that were held both assembled and dispersed in peace. But the state of 
 feehng that every where prevailed among the operatives was such as excited 
 the greatest anxiety and apprehension. The communications received by 
 Government represented the country as being almost on the eve of an insur- 
 rection. Indeed Ministers were led at one time to believe that a plan had 
 been arranged for a general rising on a particalar day (the 1st of November). 
 The facts may have been exaggerated in many cases by design or by fear ; but 
 that the popular temper was in a highly combustible and alaraiing state there 
 can be no doubt. 
 
 A dissatisfaction vt'lth the existing laws for the repression of sedition was one w'^GovEnNill'Evr. 
 of the first feelings inspired in Ministers and many of their adherents by the 
 events of the 16th of August at Manchester. So early as on the 19th of that 
 month Lord Eedesdale, in a letter to Lord Sidmouth, while maintaining the Life of Lord sid- 
 
 ' ^ ^ ^ *^ mouth ; hi. 228, 
 
 very strong doctrine that " every meeting for radical reform was not merely 
 a seditious attempt to undermine the existing constitution of government by 
 bringing it into hatred and contempt, but was an overt act of treasonable con- 
 spiracy against that constitution of government, including the King as its 
 head," admits that " something more explicit was now required," and suggests 
 that a declaratory law should be passed " to remove all doubt of the treasonable 
 criminality of such assemblies." About the same time we find Lord Eklon pfe of Lord ei. 
 
 •J ... - don ; u. 3i7. 
 
 ■w-riting to his brother : " In fact the of state our law is so mapphcable to 
 existing circumstances, that we can't meet the present case ; and I am as con- 
 vinced as I am of my existence, that, if ParHament don't forthwith assembk', 
 there is nothing that can be done but to let those meetings take place, reading 
 the Riot Act if there be a riot at any of them." Lord Sidmouth accordingly, Life of Lord sid. 
 
 lli-u mouth ;iii.280,8!c. 
 
 early in September, proposed to Lord Liverpool that Parhament should be 
 assembled as soon as possible. The Premier was then opposed to the sugges- 
 tion ; a Cabinet Council, which met on the 15th of September, came to no 
 decision; another, which met on the 21st, decided against Sidmouth's views; 
 but at a third meeting, on the 8th of October, an order for the assembling of 
 Parliament on the 23rd of November was agreed upon. 
 
 The session was accordingly opened on tliat day by the Prince Regent in ^'/„';°^„°^^ 
 person. Amendments to the Address were moved by the Opposition in both 
 Houses, and long debates ensued, that in the Commons extending over two 
 nights and till five o'clock in the morning of the tliird day ; but the minis-
 
 240 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book L 
 
 1819. terial majorities on the di\'isioii were 159 to 3-1 in the Lords, and 381 to 150 
 in the Commons. A collection of papers relative to tlie internal state of the 
 country having then been presented by command of the Prince Regent, four 
 bills were introduced in the Lords on the 29th of November ; one by the Lord 
 Chancellor, entitled " An Act to prevent Delay in the Administration of 
 Justice in Cases of Misdemeanour;" the three others by Lord Sidmouth, 
 entitled severally, " An Act to prevent the Training of Persons to the Use of 
 Arms, and to the Practice of Military Evolutions and Exercise j" " An Act for 
 the more effectual Prevention and Punishment of Blasphemous and Seditious 
 Libels ;" and " An Act to authorize Justices of the Peace, in certain disturbed 
 Counties, to seize and detain Arms collected and kept for Purposes dangerous 
 to the Public Peace ; to continue in force until the 25th of March, 1822." On 
 the 3rd of December, Lord Castlcreagh introduced in the Commons a bill 
 entitled "An Act to subject certain Publications to the Duties of Stamps 
 upon Newspapers, and to make other Regulations for restraining the Abuses 
 arising from the Publication of Blasphemous and Seditious Libels •" and on 
 the 17th of that month. Lord Sidmouth introduced in the Lords a bill entitled 
 " An Act for more effectually preventing Seditious Meetings and Assemblies ; 
 to continue in force until the end of the session of Parliament next after five 
 years from the passing of the Act." These measures, which became memorable 
 under the designation of the Six Acts, were strenuously resisted at every stage ; 
 but they were all eventually passed. Both Houses then adjourned, on the 
 29th of December, to the 15th of February, 1820. 
 Death of Jh tliis interval an event occm-red, without occasioning any change what- 
 
 29th Jan. 1820, eygi- gxccpt oiily of Certain names and forms, which, if it had happened twenty 
 or even fifteen years before, miglit possibly have given a new movement to the 
 whole political system of this country and of Europe. Yet it was not without 
 a momentary pause of solemn and even somewhat tender emotion that all ranks 
 of the people received the announcement that the old King was no more. After 
 a seclusion of nearly ten years, George the Third died at Windsor, on the 
 evening of Saturday the 29th of January, 1820, in the eighty-second year of 
 his age and the sixtieth of his reign. The death of His Majesty had been 
 preceded by that of his fourth son, the Duke of Kent, in his fifty-third year, 
 on the 23rd of the same month. Thus, within little more than two years, had 
 been taken away the King and Queen, the actual wearers of the crown, the 
 daughter and only child of him by whom it was inherited, and the father of 
 her to whom it was eventually to fall. The birth of that other daughter and 
 only child, our present gracious Sovereign, had taken place on the 2-4th of 
 May, 1819. In the same year a son had also been born (on the 26th of March) 
 to the Duke of Cambridge ; a daughter, who died on the same day (the 2Tth 
 of March), to the Duke of Clarence ; and a son (on the 27th of May) to the 
 Duke of Cumberland.
 
 Chai'. I] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 241 
 
 BOOK II. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 TriOE. some time before the Manchester Massacre of August 1819, there had 1819. 
 -L been a subsidence of the sedition and rebellious intentions of the sufferers " — — ^— — ' 
 and demagogues who had caused a panic to the Government, and a portion of r,n,oN. 
 the coimti'y niagisti^acy of England and Scotland. The extensive conspiracy 
 supposed by the ruling powers had never existed : and the separate parties of 
 malcontents ivho had employed the leisure and relieved the painful thoughts 
 of poverty in seditious movements had become tired of fruitless efforts, of dis- 
 appointment in their leadei-s, and of that failure in combination which is the 
 invariable lot of the ill-informed and inexperienced when they aim at objects 
 too large for their powers. Their funds fell off; their drillings ceased fi-om 
 non-attendance ; and they dropped back into their sad homes, to mutter there 
 their discontents, or wait for better days. But the Manchester affair and the 
 subsequent proceedings roused them again as by an express simimons : and 
 during the months of September, October, and November, there was a busy Edinburgh Re. 
 
 .. «, .. .-,. ,, .,,. view. vol. xxxiii. 
 
 reorganization of the associations of the discontented, who put aside their p- 21 '• 
 mutual quarrels to carry on the grand one with the Government. It was in 
 November that Sir Herbert Taylor, who held a high office in the cstabhshment Life of Lord sia. 
 
 .' '^ moiiUi, vol. Ill, p. 
 
 of the King, was accosted at Windsor by a man named Edwards, who kept a ^^''■ 
 small shop at Eton for the sale of plaster casts, and who gave infonnation of 
 a desperate plot against the Ministers. Tliis infonnation was, of course, im- SoNspfBAcr.^ 
 mediately coininunicated to Lord Sidmouth. Edwards was taken into the pay 
 of the Home Office ; and the police were employed to veiifj^ his statements 
 during the months when he stimulated the purj^oses of the conspirators, and 
 received their confidence, in order to betray them, day by day, to his pay- 
 masters. It was after the affair became known to the Government, that an 
 emissary of Oliver the spy appeared at Middleton and elsewhere, and told of Bamford, i. p. 77. 
 other agents who were going about the country ■with the same commission — 
 to engage the discontented to join in the plot of Thistlewood and lus comrades 
 to assassinate the ministers, seize the Bank, the Mansion House, and the Tower, 
 and establish a provisional government. The discontented refused to join. 
 The scheme was too horrible and too foolish. In the end it appeared that the 
 number involved was very small ; so small, that the affair would scarcely de- 
 serve a place in history, but for the atrocity of the plan, and the illustration 
 the event affords of the working of the spy system adopted by tlie government 
 of the day. 
 
 AOL. I.- 2k-
 
 242 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book II. 
 
 1820. The leader, Thistlewood, was a desperate man; too vindictive about his 
 
 ' '^'~^ private wroncjs to make much pretence of patriotism. He had been engaged 
 
 Annu il Register, ^ -tt i .i !• •i/'i k c \ • 
 
 1820, p. 29. With the Watsons, and acquitted on his trial lor that matter. Alter his ac- 
 
 quittal, he had sent a challenge to Lord Sidmouth ; and this piece of audacity 
 had procured him a year's imprisonment. He came out of jail thirsting for 
 the blood of the jMinister. He drew about him a few ignorant and desperate 
 men ; and they would have attempted the deed at once, — in the autumn of 
 1819, — ^but for a series of accidents which delayed the enterprise, and gave 
 time for an aggravation of their wickedness by the arts of Edwards the 
 infomier. When the affair had been delayed till Christmas, there came 
 the dispersion of the intended victims for the holidays ; and then the death of 
 the King and the Duke of Kent, and the royal funerals : and perhaps Ed- 
 wards, who furnished the party with so much information about the Ministers, 
 might have told the conspirators how uncertain was the tenure of office by 
 their enemies, who were very near going out immediately on the accession of 
 George IV., on account of their refusal to procure liim a divorce from liis 
 
 Life of Lord Sid- Queen. The first record of the existence of the plot is in a note from the Duke 
 
 mouth, »i. 310. ^^ Wellington of the 5th of Januaiy, wherein he states, that he had "just 
 heard that Lord Sidmouth had discovered another conspiracy." On Saturday, 
 February 19th, it was resolved by the gang to murder the Ministers, each at 
 his own house ; and without further delay, as their poverty would not allow 
 them to wait any longer. On the Tuesday, however, Edwards informed them 
 
 Annual Register, that there was to be a Cabinet dinner at Lord Harrowby's the next day. 
 » . p- • Thistlewood sent out for a newspaper, to see if this was true ; and, finding it 
 
 to be so, remarked " As there has not been a dinner so long, there will, no 
 doubt, be fourteen or sixteen there ; and it will be a rare haul to murder them 
 all together." Thus it was settled. Some of their number were to watch 
 Lord Harrowby's house, to see that no police or soldiers were brought there. 
 One was to call with a note while the Ministers were at dinner ; and the 
 others were then to rush in, to commit the murders, carrying bags in which to 
 bring away the heads of Lords Sidmouth and Castlereagh. Then they were 
 to fire the cavalry barracks, by throwing fireballs into the straw sheds : and ■ 
 the Bank and Tower were to be taken by the people, who, it was hoped, would 
 rise upon the spread of the news. 
 
 Edwards was not the only traitor. A man named Hidon, who afterwards 
 
 Life of ixird Sid- found himself well-recompensed by the gift of a hackney coach, went from this 
 
 raouth, ill. 317. .^ V TT 1 , • 1 • 1 • 1 1 J • 
 
 final council to warn Lord Harrowby, by putting a letter into his hand during 
 his ride in the Park. No notice was apparently taken. The preparations for 
 dinner went on at Lord Harrowby's till eight o'clock in the evening ; but the 
 guests did not arrive. The Archbishop of York, who lived next door, hap- 
 pened to give a dinner that evening ; and the arrival of the carriages deceived 
 those of the conspirators who were on the watch in the street, till it was too 
 late to give warning to their comrades, who had assembled in a stable in Cato 
 Street, near the Edgeware Road. 
 
 While the conspirators were amiing themselves in a room above this stable, 
 
 by the light of one or two candles, the Ministers, having dined at home, met 
 
 Life of Lord Sid- at Loi'd Liverpool's ; where they awaited, in great anxiety, the tidings of what 
 
 the police and soldiers had done. When the news arrived, it was bad. One
 
 Chap. I.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 243 
 
 of the police had been stabbed through the heart, and Thistlewood had escaped. 1820. 
 This was owing to the soldiers not having been ready, as ordered, to turn out " ' 
 
 at a moment's notice. The poUce proceeded without them ; and Smithers, 
 the man who was killed, mounted the ladder which led from the stable to the 
 upper room. Thistlewood stabbed him, and blew out the light ; and after the 
 excliange of a few shots in the darkness and confusion, several of the conspi- 
 rators escaped. A reward of £1000 was immediately offered for the apprehen- 
 sion of Thistlewood : but he was taken before eight o'clock the next morning, 
 in bed at a friend's house in Mooriields. When about fourteen of the con- 
 spirators had escaped, the soldiers arrived, and captured the remainder of the 
 party, — nine prisoners, — and their arms and ammunition. 
 
 On the pviblication of the Gazette, the next morning, with the proclamation 
 of the reward for the apprehension of Thistlewood, London was thrown into 
 consternation, from the natural supposition that this plot was but the first ,'\™"?^' '^ "^'^'''r; 
 
 ' ^ ^^ ^ A ^ 1820, Chron. p. 49 
 
 movement of a great insurrection. But there is no evidence that it ever ex- 
 tended beyond the few desperate men who were immediately concerned in it. 
 The vigilance of the Government and the magistracy throughout the kingdom 
 detected no more schemes of rebellion, though there were flying rumours from 
 time to time of marches of armies of radicals, who were to burn the towns and 
 overtimi the throne. Those wlio are old enough to liave a distinct recollection ai.ahm». 
 of those times are astonished now to think how great was the panic which 
 could exist without any evidence at all : how prodigious were the radical 
 forces which were always heard of, but never seen : how every shabby and 
 hungi-y-looking man met on the road was pronounced "a radical:" how 
 country gentlemen, well-armed, scoured the fields and lanes, and met on 
 heaths to fight the enemy who never came : and how, even in the midst of 
 towns, young ladies carried hea^^ planks and ironing boards, to barricade 
 windows, in preparation for sieges from thousands of rebels whose footfall was 
 long listened for in vain through the darkness of the night. This imaginary 
 state of the times was used by the alarmists as an argument against popular 
 education (among other purposes to which it was turned) ; the plea being that 
 the leaders of the radicals, having circulated proclamations, must be able to 
 write ; and that this fact sufficiently proved the necessity of keeping the dis- 
 contented dumb. 
 
 On the next Sunday, February 27th, the Ministers publicly retm-ned thanks 
 for their preservation, in the Chapel Royal, St. James's. The King, who was 
 at Brighton, recovering from his dangerous illness, was supplied daily with a 
 minute account of the proceedings in regard to the conspirators. ^^1^^' ^^^ ^l^u^h'^^'^wf'''" 
 heard seems to have failed to convince him of the true causes and extent of 
 the treasonable schemes of the day ; for in the Speech delivered by commission 
 previous to tlie dissolution of Parliament, on the 1 3th of March, the following 
 notice is taken of the recent distm-bances : — "Deeply as his Majesty laments Annual Register, 
 that designs and practices such as those which you have been recently called 
 upon to repress, should liave existed in this free and happy country, he cannot Jp"/^^^;'"''' 
 sufficiently commend the prudence and finnness with which you directed your 
 attention to the meaus of counteracting them. If any doubt had remained as 
 to the nature of those principles by which the peace and happiness of the 
 nation were so seriously menaced, or of the excesses to which they were likely
 
 244 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 [Book II, 
 
 Hansard, vol. i. 
 (Second Series). 
 390. 
 
 Spies and In. 
 ruRMERs. 
 Hansard, i. 54. 
 
 Hansard, i. 242. 
 
 1820. to lead, the flagi-ant and sanguinary conspiracy which has lately been detected 
 '^ — — ^■^-' must open the eyes of the most incredulous, and must vindicate to the whole 
 world the justice and expediency of those measures to which you thought it 
 necessary to resort, in defence of the laws and constitution of the kingdom." 
 
 On the 20th of April, Thistlewood was condemned to death, after a trial of 
 
 three days : and on the 1st of May, he and his four principal accomplices were 
 
 executed. Five more who pleaded guilty had their punishment commuted to 
 
 transportation for life ; and one, who appears to have been present at Cato 
 
 Annual Register, Street Avithout being aware of the object of the meeting, received a free pardon. 
 
 1820 D 32 
 
 The question which must next occur to every one is, what became of Edwards ? 
 He was never pimished : and to what extent he was rewarded has never 
 been certainly known. That, after having been at the point of starvation, he 
 was soon able to assist Thistlewood with " some pounds " at need, is known : 
 ^' and that some of the conspirators attributed their treason to his instigation : 
 and that he went about giving away hand-grenades and divers weapons of 
 atrocious device, and endeavouring to persuade many persons to blow up the 
 House of Commons : and that he was not brought forward as a witness in the 
 trials of the conspirators, nor himself ever aiTested as a participator in their 
 designs. On the day after the execution of Tlristlewood, Alderman Wood 
 brought forward a motion in the House, in regard to the conduct of this man ; 
 and renewed the subject on the 9th of May, adducing depositions from many 
 persons which had been brought before him in his magisterial capacity, 
 charging Edwards with the promulgation of horrible schemes for the destruc- 
 tion of the Ministers and the Parliament, and with many direct attempts to 
 seduce needy men to join in those schemes. The information further showed 
 that he had then been living for six weeks in great affluence, under an assmned 
 name, in the house of a schoolmaster, in St. George's, Hanover Square, his 
 host having no idea, till informed by Edwards himself, whom he was har- 
 bouring. No permission, however, was given by Government for justice to 
 overtake this wretch. The Ministerial members enlarged on the necessity of 
 employing such agency for government purposes in critical times ; drew nice 
 distinctions between the offices of spy and informer ; disputed about the 
 amount of Edwards's new affluence ; ridiculed Aldemian AVood, and his sup- 
 position that the Home Office would proceed against Edwards on the depo- 
 sitions furnished to Lord Sidmouth by magistrates ; and finally negatived the 
 motion for a Select Committee, to inquire into the conduct of this acknow- 
 ledged traitor. From that time, Edwards disappeared ; and nothing more was 
 heard of him but an occasional rumour that he was living in Ireland, or on the 
 Continent, in ease and affluence. He escaped punishment from the hands of 
 man : but liis case was so flagrant and so universally understood, that probably 
 no one of the meanest of the sufferers fi-om poverty and ignorance whom lie 
 endeavoured to seduce would have exchanged conditions Avith him, loaded as 
 his name was with infamy, and his soul with the doom of his victims. 
 
 In Scotland, an outbreak occurred this spring. At the end of March, a 
 vague alarm began to spread of some approaching disturbance ; and the 
 peaceable work-people were visited by commands, fi-om unknown quarters, 
 to cease their work. On Sunday, April 2d, a treasonable proclamation was 
 found posted up on the walls, all through Glasgow, inviting the people to 
 
 Hansard, i. 293. 
 
 Annual Register, 
 1820, p. 37. 
 
 Sedition in Scot- 
 land.
 
 Chap. I.J DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 245 
 
 effect a revolution, and commanding a cessation of all labour. On the ^londay 1820. 
 morning every body stood idle, to see what was going to happen ; all, except ^"^"^ ' 
 
 the people of some cotton mills, who went to work as usual, but dared not 
 return after breakfast. Nothing ensued, except the calKng out of the military 
 and the preparations of the magistracy for defence, against some attack of 
 whose nature they were, and ever remained, entirely ignorant, for the alarm 
 continued a mystery. Two days afterwards, one of the Stirlingshire Yeo- 
 manry was met, near Kilsyth, by a party of aimed men, who demanded his 
 weapons. Some shots were exchanged, and the man returned to Kilsyth. A 
 detachment of twenty men was immediately sent out to scour the roads ; and 
 they found a party of rebels, about fifty in number, posted on some high 
 ground in Bonnymuir. The rebels made some resistance, but were soon over- 
 powered, some being wounded, and nineteen made prisoners. It appeared 
 that most of these poor creatures had been tempted hither from Glasgow, in 
 the expectation of joining an anny of four or five thousand men, who were to 
 take the CaiTon Iron Works, and thus supply themselves with artillery. On 
 the side of the authorities no death was caused but that of a horse ; but the 
 commanding officer and three of his party were wounded. Tliis is the affair 
 wliich goes by the name of the Battle of Bonnymuir. Numerous arrests 
 were made, in various parts of Scotland ; but the excitement caused was not 
 great, and soon at an end. In a few days everybody was at work again, as if 
 nothing had happened ; and the trials, which took place in July and August, 
 engaged little attention. Of the persons convicted, all were pardoned except 
 three : of these two had been active at Bonnymuir, and the thii'd was one of 
 those reckless agitators who were, at that time, the curse of the suffering 
 classes of society. 
 
 It was while the Cato-street conspirators were hangr in prison that the tbuls op tub 
 
 ■ Hadicals. 
 
 leaders of the Manchester movement — Hunt and his companions — underwent 
 their trial, and received sentence. The intervening months had done much to 
 undeceive some of Hunt's followers, as to the character of their leader, and 
 the prospects of any cause entrusted to such hands. 
 
 In the close intercourse of imprisonment and preparation for trial. Hunt 
 lost all the attributes of the hero, with which the credulous imaginations of 
 his admirers had invested him when he played the orator. One of these, his 
 fellow-prisoner, declares that he could not endiu'e to entertain an unworthy 
 opinion of any of his comrades, and least of all of him who occupied such a 
 position as Hunt's. " I deemed all refonncrs as good as myself," declares 
 Bamford ; " and I knew that I could answer for the sincerity and disinterest- 
 edness of my own intentions. It was not until years had elapsed, that 
 observation and reflection enabled me to penetrate the mist which had so long 
 enveloped me ; then it was that I became aware of the real nature of past 
 transactions, and of the character of some who had been my poHtical friends 
 and fellow-workers in the cause of refonn." The e^adence was pretty clear in Bamford, ii. 73. 
 the case of Hunt, as soon as he was lodged in Lancaster Castle, where he the demagogue. 
 "gave way to fits of impatience because no one appeared to bail him;" 
 " generally made use of the strongest tei-ms he could, at the moment, com- 
 mand ;" and showed " exliibitions of violent feeling." In T;ondon,it appeared Bamford, ». 5,41. 
 that " he became annoying and offensive, and his best fiiends were sometimes
 
 246 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 [Book II. 
 
 Bamford, ii. 21. 
 
 Bamford, ii. 7(i. 
 
 1820. compelled to defend themselves by not being at home." On his return from 
 Lancaster to Manchester, as he sat " on the box-seat," the hero of the proces- 
 sion, there was that in his manners which made his ingenuous admirer 
 " almost doubt whether he who loved himself so well, could ever really love 
 his country for its own sake." " Hunt continually doffed his hat, waved it 
 lowly, bowed gracefully, and now and then spoke a few kind words to the 
 people ; but if some five or ten minutes elapsed without an huzza or two, or 
 the still more pleasing sounds, ' Hunt for ever,' he would rise from his seat, 
 turn round, and cursing poor Moorhouse in limbs, soul, or eyes, he would say, 
 ' Why don't you shout, man ? why don't you shout ? Give them the hip ?' " 
 AVhen the liurra was produced by the ' hip ' of the panting and hoarse subal- 
 tern behind, " he would resume his seat, and the bowing and hat-waving 
 went on as before." On the trial, when the defence was to begin in the 
 afternoon, by which time the audience might probably be weary. Hunt reveals 
 himself again to the humbler defendants : " ' Now, Bamford, I'll tell you 
 what you must do, if called this .afternoon ; you must talk against time.' — 
 ' Talk against time ! what's that ?' — ' You must talk to put on time, in order 
 to prevent them from calling upon me, under any circumstances, to-night.' " 
 Then came the denouncing in coiirt of liis friend Carlile, at that time under 
 punishment ; and next " the worst tiling " his admirer " ever knew him do," 
 slandering Mrs. Thistlewood. Here was enough : the charm of the mob- 
 orator was dissolved. " At times, I had some difficulty to avoid laughing in 
 Hunt's face ; at times I was vexed at being a party in sucli a piece of con- 
 temptible vanity. I contrasted all this glare and noise with the useful residts 
 of calm, sober thought, and silent determination ; and I made up my mind 
 that, when once out of this, I woidd not, in future, be a party in such 
 trumpery exhibitions — in the unworthy setting up of the instrument instead 
 of the principle of a gi-eat cause." This is but a fair representation of the 
 relation between the demagogue and liis followers in all critical times of any 
 state : and if such critical times cannot but arise in every state from the 
 ine^^table inequalities of human condition, those have much to answer for 
 who, by needlessly abridging liberty of popular speech and action, stimulate 
 the powers of the demagogue and the passions of the simple and ignorant, who 
 know of no better leader. 
 
 Tlie simple-minded men who had followed Hunt were surprised, when 
 brought into the presence of the Privy Council, at the actual appearance and 
 manners of the rulers of the land, whom they had regarded as their cruel 
 persecutors. They found no cruelty and ferocity in the faces and demeanour 
 of the tyrants : the " good-looking person in a plum-coloured coat, Avith a gold 
 ring on the small finger of liis left hand, on which he sometimes leaned his 
 head," while eyeing the prisoners — Lord Castlereagh ; or the person who 
 addressed them — Lord Sidmouth — " a tail, square, and bony figure, upwards 
 of fifty years of age, with thin and rather gi-ey hair, forehead broad and pro- 
 minent," and whose " mild and intelligent eyes " looked forth from " caver- 
 nous orbits ;" his " manner affable, and much more encouraging to freedom of 
 Bamford,!. 106. spccch tliau " had been expected. Perhaps there was something of the same 
 surprise on the other side. It certainly appears that the prisoners were treated 
 ^vith kindness and respect by the great men they had to deal with, from the 
 
 Bamford, ii. 22.
 
 CuAr. I.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 247 
 
 Home Secretary to the police officials, when the parties were brought face to 1820. 
 face. If they could have known each other better beforehand — their feelings, 
 ideas, and interests — perhaps there would have been no Six Acts on the one 
 hand, or Spa Fields and jNIanchester meetings on the other. As it was, the 
 leaders and comrades of the discontented had to take their trial at York, on 
 the 16tli of this month of INIarch, 1820 : they Avere found guilty, and were to 
 appear for judgment, in the Court of King's Bench, at the end of April. 
 They were found guilty of unlawful assembling, for the purpose of moving and 
 inciting to contempt and hatred of the Government ; and their sentences 
 were various terms of imprvsomnent, in different jails, and the giving of large 
 securities for ftfttu'e good behaviour. Hunt spent the next two years and a 
 half in Ilchester jail, whence he sent forth incessant complaints of bad 
 treatment — complaints which may fairly be considered as efforts, natm-al in 
 such a man, to keep himself in the eye of the world, as his followers appear 
 to have been satisfied with the usage they met with in their several places of 
 confinement. Some of them learned certain lessons, through the experience 
 of their adventures, which enlightened them as to the causes of social evils 
 which they had hoped to remedy by pohtical action. They found, on occasion 
 of the trial, that " among us at York," " the same really contemptible feeling Bamford, a. sa. 
 of classism, the curse of England and Englishmen, and of EngUshwomen 
 also, existed in too great a degree among the witnesses. There were the 
 ' broad cloth ' and the ' narrow cloth ' ones — the rich and the poor ; and the 
 fonner seldom sought opportunities for intercommunication with the latter, 
 but rather shunned them." The conclusion drawn is one which it is worth 
 some suffering to anive at : " first of all, [for men] to respect themselves ; 
 next, to invite to a respectful equality by unoffending manners ; and thii-dly, Bamford, a. 90. 
 to assert their right position in society, by withholding the smallest deference 
 to mere assumption. This would be quite sufficient, without rudeness or 
 noise, to restore the natural balance of society." Such conclusions, arrived at 
 by men whose action is a part of the history of their time, are a worthy sub- 
 ject of historical record. 
 
 One other trial, for the seditions of the preceding year, remained — that of 
 Sir Charles Wolseley and a coadjutor, Mr. Harrison, for their conduct and 
 speech at a meeting in favour of Parliamentary Reform, at Stockport, in July, 
 1819. The sentence was eighteen months' imprisonment, and the giving of 
 securities at the expiration of the term. 
 
 With the new reign, new interests opened — interests so general, and admit- 
 ting of such overt expression, that the spies and secret agitators who had, of 
 late, become the curse of the country, found themselves driven from their 
 diabolical game. They are not traceable among the scenes and movements 
 which were now to engross the mind of the nation, and fix the attention of 
 the world.
 
 248 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 [Book II. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 1820. 
 
 Accession op 
 George iv. 
 
 Annual Register, 
 isao, IC, 17. 
 
 Position of the 
 
 Life of Lord 
 Ciianrelior Eldon, 
 ii. 307. 
 
 Life of Lord 
 Sidiiioutli, iii.SiO. 
 
 THE one thing that men said to each other, in England and abroad, 
 when they heard the news of the death ^f George III. was, that 
 never had there been an accession to the throne more merely nominal. The 
 new king had virtually reigned for eight years ; his opinions and character, in 
 the office of ruler, were well known ; and there would be no change of 
 ministry. There would be a royal funeral, a public mourning, a new parlia- 
 ment, and a new regal title ; and that would be all. This saying, which 
 appeared a truism, turned out not to be exactly true. 
 
 The King having died on Saturday, January 29th, 1820, the meeting of the 
 Privy Council took place on Sunday, when the new sovereign declared his 
 accession, and took the oaths ; and on Monday he was proclaimed. For 
 some days he had been ill ; and almost before his proclamation was over, he 
 was in a state of great danger from inflammation of the lungs. During that 
 week there was an expectation that this would prove the shortest reign in 
 English history — the sharpest lesson ever given as to the nearness of the 
 tlii'one to the grave ; but after a struggle of nine days, the disease was over- 
 come, and the business of a new reign proceeded. 
 
 The demise of the crown having happened during the parliamentary recess, 
 the two Houses, in obedience to the bidding of the law in such cases, met 
 immediately — that is, on the Simday, when the Lords were sworn in. The 
 Commons had to wait till Monday, for the return to town of the Lord High 
 Steward. After the administration of the oaths, both Houses adjourned to 
 the day after the royal funeral, which was to take place on the 16th of 
 February. During this interval, while people in the streets were talking of 
 the singular quietness and absence of change under this new reign, so that 
 the resignation of Ministers had been a mere fonn, those INIinisters were in 
 daily expectation of being dismissed by their Sovereign, while their heads 
 were in hourly danger from Thistlewood and his gang, whose quarrel with 
 them was as holders of the offices which they believed themselves about to 
 vacate. 
 
 The King, wliile yet suspended, as it were, over the grave, was planning to 
 begin life anew. He required peremptorily from his Ministers that they 
 should procure him a divorce ; and they, iniable to cndiue the idea of such a 
 scandal, positively refused. On the 13tli of February, Lord Sidmouth, in a 
 note to Earl Talbot, in apology for not having written sooner, said : " If you 
 knew how the day was passed, you Avould not be surprised at the omission. 
 The Government is in a very strange, and, I must acknowledge, in a preca- 
 rious state." The Ministers remained in office by a compromise on this point 
 which afterwards cost them dear. They induced tlie King to drop the subject 
 by jiointing out the advantage of the Queen remaining quietly abroad, which
 
 CHAr. II.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 249 
 
 she would no doubt do if impunity from divorce were granted her on tliat 1820. 
 condition ; and they readily promised to gratify the King's wishes, if she ^"""^ ' 
 should return to give any trouble. When they gave this promise, they little 
 understood the woman they had to deal with, or the disposition of the English 
 people to succour and protect the uidiappy and oppressed, irrespective of the 
 moral merits or demerits of the sufferer. 
 
 No pity can be too deep for the misfortunes of all the parties involved in Kings mabriage 
 the unhappy marriage which the King was now bent on ha-\ang dissolved. 
 In the early days when the young Prince of Wales had a heart which might 
 have expanded and warmed under happy domestic influences, his feelings were 
 cruelly dealt with ; he was under the common doom of English princes, for- 
 bidden to marry where he loved. He was not gratified in liis natiu'al wish to 
 travel abroad, Avhere he might possibly have seen some lady included within 
 the provisions of the Royal jMarriage Act whom he might have loved. He 
 knew himself to be disliked by his parents ; and it was almost inevitable that 
 he should seek solace in an illicit love, and in extravagant pleasures. He 
 loved Mrs. Fitzherbert ; and plunged into debt so deep that it caused Parlia- 
 ment two months' debate to settle how he should be extricated. By this 
 debate, and some misunderstandings about his debts, liis feelings were exaspe- 
 rated ; and it was in a spirit of recklessness that he agreed to marry some- 
 body — anybody — chosen for him by the King. He looked upon his marriage 
 as a state necessity, and as an unavoidable method of getting his debts paid. 
 The King decided that he should marry the Princess Caroline of Brunswick, 
 the second daughter of the King's sister ; and commands were sent to Lord 
 Malmesbury, at Hanover, to repair to Brunswick, to ask the Princess Caroline 
 in marriage for the Prince of Wales. No discretion was allowed to Lord 
 Malmesbury — no time for observation — no opportrmity for making any Diaries and cor. 
 cautionary representations. All was considered settled before the negotiator Eari^ofTraimes-'^ 
 saw the poor young creature who thought herself the most fortimate of prin- *""'' '" "'' 
 cesses. " All the young German princesses had learned English, in hopes of 
 being Princess of Wales." The tale of this coiu-tship read now, after the Diaries, iii. i.-,i. 
 event, is truly sad. The gay flights of the young bird before going into the 
 net, and the closing down of her fate upon her, make the heart ache. " The 
 Princess Caroline much emban-assed," says the Diary, " on my fii-st being pre- Diaries, .ii. us. 
 sented to her ; pretty face — not expressive of softness — her figure not graceful. 
 
 Vastly happy with her futiu-e expectations. The Duchess [the mother] 
 
 full of nothing else — talks incessantly." If this Duchess could, for a single 
 moment, have seen what .she had to answer for in her miseducation of her 
 daughter, it might have made her dumb with grief and shame, instead of 
 talkative with triumph ; but she was not a woman who could feel responsibility. 
 She was no more able to think and feel on behalf of her daughter, than her 
 brother, the King of England, on behalf of his son ; and the wretchedness 
 of their children in maniage was, therefore, assured beforehand. As for the 
 father, the Duke of Brunswick, " he entered fully into her future situation — 
 was perfectly aware of the character of the Prince, and of the inconveniences 
 which would result, almost mth equal ill effect, either from his liking the 
 Princess ton much or too little. He said of his daughter, ' Elle n'est pas bito, 
 
 VOL. 1. 2 L
 
 250 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 [Book II. 
 
 Diaries, iii. 159. 
 
 Diaries, iii. 189. 
 
 Diaries, iii. Isl. 
 
 Diaries, iii. 193. 
 
 Diaries, iii. 201. 
 
 1820. mais elle n'a pas de jugement — elle a ete elevee sev&rement, et il le falloit.' 
 (She is no fool ; but she has no judgment. She has been severely brouglit up; 
 and it was necessary.) He desired me to advise her never to show any 
 jealousy of the Prince." As for this severity of training, Lord Malmesbury 
 certainly thought less well of the method than those who had adopted it. He 
 says, " If her education had been what it ought, she might have turned out 
 excellent ; but it was that very nonsensical one that most women receive — one 
 of privation, injunction, and menace." And how had it issued ? Her father 
 observes, " that his daughter writes very ill, and spells ill, and he was desirous 
 that this should not appear." " Princess Caroline very misstsh at supper. I 
 much fear these habits are irrecoverably rooted in her. She is naturally 
 curious and a gossip ; she is quick and observing, and she has a silly pride of 
 finding out everything." " Argument with the Princess about her toilette. 
 She piques herself on dressing quick ; I disapprove this. She maintains her 
 point. I, however, desire Madame Busche to explain to her " what a neat 
 toilette is. " She neglects it sadly, and is offensive from this neglect." " It 
 is remarkable how amazingly, on this pomt, her education has been neglected. 
 Diaries, liL 204. and how mucli her mother, although an Englishwoman, was inattentive to it." 
 While such was her training, her natm-al quahties were good ; and if they had 
 had fair scope in private life, would have made her happy and beloved. 
 " Next to Princess Caroline at table," says the Diarist. " She improves very 
 Diaries, iii. 1C2. much ou a closer acquaintance ; cheerful, and loves laughing." On board 
 ship, " Impossible to be more cheerful, more accommodating, more everything 
 that is pleasant, than the Princess ; no difficulty, no childish fears, all good- 
 humour." A pregnant remark in this Diary strikes the reader now as the 
 sentence of her doom. " Walk with Sir B. Boothby. AVe regret the appa- 
 rent faciUty of the Princess Caroline's character, her want of reflection and 
 substance ; agree that with a steady man she would do vastly well, but with 
 one of a different description there are great risks." And while the Princess 
 was " vastly happy with her future expectations," the King of England was 
 writing to her mother that he hoped his niece would not have too much Hveli- 
 ness, and that she would lead a sedentary and retired life. " These words 
 Diaries, iii. 183. sliock the Priuccss Caroline," Lord Mahnesbury says. She heard of some 
 other things, too, which had a sobering effect : " It put a curb on her desire 
 for amusement — a drawback on her situation, and made her feel that it was 
 Diaries, iii. 197. not to bs all One of roses." 
 
 How wretched it was to be, was too plain in a moment to the only witness 
 of the first interview. Lord Malmesbury. The Princess kneeled, as she had 
 been instructed, and the Prince raised her " gracefully enough." He instantly 
 left her ; and before she had seen any other member of the family, vented to 
 the Queen his dislike of the young stranger whom he was to make his vnfe 
 in three days. She, meantime, left thus alone, " was in a state of astonish- 
 ment," and inquired whether the Prince was always hke this. She had but 
 too much reason to know soon that, to her, he was to be always like this. 
 Meantime, she found him very fat, and not nearly so good-looking as his 
 Diaries, iii. 210. portrait. Her only friend in England reports, that " she was disposed to 
 farther criticisms on this occasion, which would have embarrassed me very 
 
 Diaries, iii. 
 
 Diaries, iii. 176.
 
 Chap. II.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 251 
 
 much to answer, if luckily tlie King had not ordered me to attend him." A 1820. 
 more desolate creatiu'e than he left behind him never claimed pity from the ^~— ^ ' 
 lowliest who has any one to love. 
 
 The marriage ceremony took place three days after. Lord Malmesbury 
 records that " the Prince was very civil and gracious ; but I thought I covdd 
 perceive he was not quite sincere, and certainly unhappy ; and as a proof of 
 it, he had manifestly had recoiuse to wine or spirits." Diaries, iii. 213. 
 
 Such was the marriage which the htisband desired, as soon as he became 
 King, to have dissolved. From the beginning he had attached his wife by no 
 conjugal qualities ; he had never respected her rights or considered her feel- 
 ings ; and it was, doubtless, a gi-eat relief to both when she went abroad to 
 live — a step which she had taken some years before, in 1814. Careless as he 
 had been of her rights and her feelings, he watched her conduct ; and when 
 rumouis spread of infidelity on her side, he sent abroad, in 1818, a Commis- 
 sion to collect evidence, and to observe her proceedings. It is not to be 
 wondered at, if one who could not be made to imderstand anytliing of feminine 
 reserve or royal dignity while yet in her father's house, should lay herself open 
 to the criticism, both of enemies and ordinaiy obsen-ers, when her womanly 
 feehngs had, for a course of years, been outraged, and her genial affections 
 repressed ; when she had been long deserted by her husband, and separated 
 from her child. Abroad, she escaped from the heartless set among whom she 
 was doomed to dwell at liome ; and she enjoyed, the more by contrast, the 
 freedom of continental manners. Wliatever might be the truth about the 
 extent of her indiscretions, her freedom was certainly more than her chief 
 enemy, her husband, chose to peniiit. Their only child was dead, and now 
 he was eager to render himself free for another marriage. 
 
 The wife was not unprepared for the persecution which now awaited her ; 
 for she liad had more than one taste of it afready. She had been sent to 
 reside at Blackheath, in her early marriage days, in a sort of Court banish- 
 ment ; and there her most trivial proceedings were watched, and, at length, 
 her servants were brought up before the Lords charged with the " delicate 
 investigation," and closely examined, without any previous warning to 
 their mistress or themselves. She was declared innocent of all serious 
 offence ; and the King, her father-in-law, would have invited her to Court : 
 but her husband would not hear of such an atonement. According to all 
 the testimony of the time, she conducted herself extremely well under these 
 trj'ing circumstances. 
 
 INIr. Perceval was her adviser at that time ; and at that time, he made a 
 mistake very injm-ious to her and to himself. He collected and had printed 
 all the documents connected with the " delicate investigation," probably in the 
 hope of damaging the Prince and his friends : but he presently jierceived that 
 the step would injure no one more than the woman whose name had already 
 been so cruelly abused. A copy of " the Book," as it was called, was stolen 
 off his table one day ; and he had to pay brilies to the amount of £10,000 before 
 he could be sure of its being sujjpressed. The wisest thing the Princess coidd 
 now have done, would have been to remain on the spot where she had been 
 justified. But her life was intolerably irksome to lior ; and she went abroad 
 in 1814, against the adwce of her friends, in the ho])e of breathing more freely.
 
 252 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book II. 
 
 1820. But a watch was set on her there too. Sir John Leach, first hiw adviser to 
 ^~ ' '^'" the Prince, declared tliat in order to prepare for a divorce suit, certain com- 
 petent persons should be sent to Italy, to collect evidence there against the 
 Princess ; and a Commission was accordingly appointed, under the sanction 
 of Lords Eldon and Liverpool, to cany on another " delicate investigation," — 
 but, this time, without the knowledge of the accused. It was this Milan 
 Commission wliich supplied the evidence on which, at last, the prosecution 
 proceeded ; evidence which was scouted by the common sense and decency 
 of all England. 
 The Queen As the time approached when the Princess was likely to become Queen of 
 
 England, indications were given of the treatment she would receive at that 
 crisis. Our ambassadors abroad were instructed to prevent her admission at 
 foreign courts, by refusing to countenance any such admission. They were not 
 to afford her any official reception, or recognition whatever : and at home, the 
 last insult was offered her, by the omission of her name from the Liturgy, when 
 that of her Inisband took its place there as King. But for this, she might 
 probably have remained abroad, and given no further trouble. Tlie Ministers 
 consented to this omission ; and thereby destroyed the effect of their compro- 
 mise with the King. Their object was to avoid the scandal of a public 
 prosecution, which they were aware would bring the Crown into contempt ; 
 and yet to avoid recognising her as a Queen who could preside over a court. 
 They did not know the spirit of the English people, or they would have seen 
 that the Cro'mi could not be more degraded than by the persecution of a 
 woman, by excluding her from the f)ublic prayers of the nation. By this act, 
 they at once created that pecuUar interest which is beautifully indicated by 
 the saying of Mr. Denman, that if she had her place in the prayer-book at all, 
 it was in the prayer for " all that are desolate and oppressed." The news of 
 this insult reached her in Italy ; and slie immediately wrote to Lord Liverpool, 
 to demand the insertion of her name in the Liturgy, and announce her intention 
 of returning to England. 
 The Queen's Re. She camc. The Ministers were boinid by then: promise to the King to 
 
 TlillN, June 1820. . ^, tt • l l ?i i -» r tTr 1 
 
 obtain a divorce. " Her promptitude and courage, observes Mr. ward, 
 " confounded her opponents, and gained lier the favour of the people. What- 
 Lord Dudiev's ever oiic may think of her conduct in other respects, it is impossible not to 
 give her credit for these qualities." There seemed to be nothing left for her 
 to do but to throw herself upon the hearts of the people of England, unless 
 she chose to acquiesce in an imputation of infamy. In Rome, the guard of 
 honour appropriated to her as Queen of England, was refused to her by Car- 
 dinal Gonsalvi, on the ground of her non-recognition at home. The Emperor 
 of Austria had before declined receiving any kind of visit from her ; and she 
 found herself an outcast wherever any intercourse with the British Court 
 existed. She had no course but to admit herself guilty, or come home, and 
 meet the consequences. 
 
 The first queenly honours she received were from the gamson of Dover, 
 Avhose commandant, having been served with no orders to the contrary, of 
 course offered the customary salute. Her landing took place on Tuesday, the 
 6th of June. An immense multitude, in holiday dress, received her with 
 acclamations, when she set foot on English ground, after an absence of six
 
 Ciivr. II.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 253 
 
 years. An Address was presented to her by the inhabitants of Dover, that 1820. 
 evening ; and her reply, -which pleased them, flew over the country, which was ^— — — -^ 
 eager to catch her first words. She declared herself happy to find herself 
 again in the bosom of a noble and generous nation ; and expressed her hope 
 that the time would come when she should be pennitted to do what she could 
 to promote the happiness of her husband's subjects. Her journey to I^ondon 
 and her progress through the streets were one continued triumph ; and the 
 shouts of the multitude who thronged Pall Mall must have been heard through 
 every corner of the palace where her husband sat meditating his plans for her 
 degradation. His mind could not have been more full of the contemplation 
 than was that of almost every subject in his kingdom. " This scandalous 
 history," writes Mr. Ward, iust after that time, " holds entire possession of Lord Dudicy-s 
 
 •"' '■' 1-1 <■! Letters, p. '256. 
 
 men's minds, to the discredit, as well as the disadvantage of the comitry. 
 Brougham's proposition, yesterday, seems a reasonable one, that certain days 
 should be set apart for transacting the real business of the country." The 
 " discredit," the immoral influence, the obstruction to the public business, are 
 imputable to the King, and those who had pledged themselves to support his 
 proceedings, and who had driven a desolate creature so hard that she coidd 
 not but turn to meet her pursuers. Lord Eldon talked of his conscience, as 
 usual ; while its operation seemed rather extraordinary to observers like Lord 
 Dudley, in whose letters we find a remark on " the example of the present 
 Lord Chancellor, who having kept her conscience then, keeps her offended 
 husband's now — and all for the public good ! " 
 
 From the moment of the announcement of the Queen's approach, the cabinet 
 councils had been frequent and protracted. The Ministers met twice in a day, 
 and remained in consultation for hours. "V\liile the multitvide on the beach at 
 Dover were shouting their welcome, the King was going in state to the House 
 of Lords, which was unusually crowded, to give the Royal Assent to several 
 bills akeady passed by his new Parliament ; and after he had withdrawn, the 
 expected communication from him was read by the Lord Chancellor from the 
 woolsack. By this Royal Message, the King commended to the Lords an kino-^s message, 
 inquiry into the conduct of the Queen, in order to the adoption of " that coinse Hansard,!. p. 87i. 
 of proceeding which the justice of the case, and the honour and dignity of his 
 Majesty's crown, may require." Lord Liverpool then laid on the table the 
 green bag which contained the papers criminatory of the Queen. I^ord 
 Castlereagh off'ered the gi-een bag, and read the King's Message, to the other \^muai iii;^g>sier. 
 House. The Lords received the communication in silence, and adjoiuncd, 
 understanding that their address in reply to the Message should be considered 
 the next day. In the House of Commons, there was some vehement speaking : 
 and before Lord Castlereagh moved the address, the next day, Mr. Brougham 
 read to the House a message fi-om the Queen, declaring that her return to qi-een'sMessaoe. 
 
 . , ■ 1 1 „June7lh. 
 
 England was occasioned by the necessity her enemies had laid upon her oi 
 defending her character; declaring that for the fourteen years which had 
 elapsed since she was first accused, she had steadily required the justice of a 
 full investigation of her conduct ; and demanding now a public inquiry, instead 
 of that secret investigation before a Select Committee which was proposed 
 by the Ministers. " She rehes," said the message, '•' with full confidence upon
 
 254 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book II. 
 
 1820. the integrity of the House of Commons, for defeating the only attempt she has 
 ^-^-^--^—^ any reason to fear." 
 
 Hansard, i. 90G. irTii ,.i/-.»i- 
 
 Mr. Brougliam took the management of tlie Queen s business as her 
 
 Attorney General. He had been recognised in this office, as Mr. Denman 
 
 was in that of Solicitor General to the Queen, in the Court of Chancery, the 
 
 Annual Register, Vico Chancellor's Court, and the Court of Kinar's Bench, on the 20th of April 
 
 1820, Chron. 113. T T,r -n 1 1 1 . 
 
 preceding. Mr. Brougham had met the Queen in France, on her approach ; 
 and from this time, her affairs were under the guidance of himself and Mr. 
 Denman. They were her Commissioners, as the Duke of Wellington and 
 Lord Castlereagh were those of the King, in the negotiation which was now 
 entered upon, after the afipointment of the Secret Committee of Inquiry in the 
 House of Lords, in the hope of obviating the painful and demoralizing investi- 
 gation which had been proposed to both Houses of Parliament. 
 Commission It was the Quceii, who, after a pause, first i^roposed this negotiation. As a 
 
 AGREtD TO. . . -^ , -^ ^ ^ 
 
 preliminary step, she required and obtained full assurance that her doing so 
 could not be interpreted as an act of quailing or retreat. The Commissioners 
 met, and agi-eed on the basis of their negotiation — that the Queen should not be 
 
 Life of Lord El- held to admit, nor the King to retract, any thing. Of course, the failure of 
 ' ■ ■ the negotiation was included in the very tenns of this basis. The Queen was 
 willing to live abroad ; and the King would agree to drop all proceedings 
 against her : but she required two things Vv'hich the King's Commissioners 
 refused to grant — the insertion of her name in the Liturgy, or some equivalent 
 which would save her honour ; and a reception at foreign courts beseeming her 
 rank. She would even have been satisfied with such a reception at some one 
 foreign court, where she would fix her abode. On the King's part, it was 
 offered that at some one foreign court it should be officially notified that she 
 was legally Queen of England, leaving the question of her reception or 
 exclusion to the pleasure of that court. As all the world knew that she was 
 legally Queen of England, and as her exclusion fi'om all foreign courts would 
 inevitably follow from the discountenance at home, this proposal was naturally 
 regarded by herself and her advisers as a mockery ; and the negotiation was. 
 
 Annual Register, Oil the 19tli of Juiic, aiinouiiced to Parliament to have failed. 
 
 ' '"' ■ It was now clear that the investigation must proceed. Some attempts were 
 
 Hansard, i. 1223. madc by the House of Conunons, on the motion of Mr. Wilbcrforce, to stop it, 
 by entreating the Queen, under the assuiance of the protection of her honour 
 by the Commons, to yield the point of the insertion of her name in the 
 Liturgy : but the deputation who waited on her for the purpose of presenting 
 
 Annual Register, tlic entreaty Were groaned at by the crowds in the street, and the Queen's 
 courteous refusal was acceptable to the people. These proceedings were of 
 benefit to her cause, and her position was now much improved. Her recog- 
 nition as Queen of England was avowed by the transactions of the Commission ; 
 and next, the protection of the House of Commons had been tendered to her, 
 in lieu of justice, and had been declined. She was now, in the eyes of the 
 whole world, a Queen, a claimant for justice, as well as an accused woman, 
 siuiimoned to trial. On the motion of Lord Castlereagh, the House of Com- 
 
 Hansard, i. 1319. iiions. Oil Moiiday, Juiie 26th, adjourned the business of the green bag and the 
 Royal Message, to Friday, July 7tli, that it might be seen whether the Lords
 
 CiiAr. II.J DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 255 
 
 would in the meantime institute any proceedings. It would be indecent and 1820. 
 inconvenient if the two Houses should be piu'suing the same investigation at ^ — -^-.—^-^ 
 the same time. The Upper House was the fitter one for the business ; and the 
 Commons were anxious to avoid meddling ■^■ith it till they should be called 
 upon to consider any bill sent down to them by the Lords. 
 
 The Secret Conmrittee of the Lords made its Report on the 4tli of July, lobds- report. 
 The Report declared that the evidence affecting the honour of the Queen was "''■"■ 
 such as to require, for " the dignity of the Crown, and the moral feeling and 
 honour of the country," a " solemn inquiry," which might " be best effected 
 in the course of a legislative proceeding, the necessity of which," the Com- 
 mittee declared, " they cannot but most deeply deplore." The Queen the next Hansard, w. les. 
 day declared, by petition to the Lords, her readiness to defend herself, and 
 prayed to be heard by counsel, in order to detail some weighty matters, which 
 it was necessary to state in preparation for the inquiry. Her petition was 
 refused ; and Lord Liverpool proceeded to propose the Bill of Pains and 
 Penalties which is the everlasting disgrace of his administration. The Bill "">'"''." -'-■ 
 was entitled " An Act to deprive her Maiestv, Queen Caroline Amelia Eliza- bill of paws 
 
 L ^ J v^j ^ ^_.^.p Penalties. 
 
 beth, of the title, prerogatives, rights, privileges and exemptions of Queen 
 Consort of this realm, and to dissolve the marriage between his Majesty and 
 the said Caroline Amelia EUzabeth." It charged the Queen with improper 
 and degrading conduct generally, during her residence abroad, and particularly 
 with an adulterous connexion with a menial servant, named Bartolomeo 
 Bergami : and provided for her degradation and divorce. It was read a first 
 time, and copies were ordered to be sent to the Queen, and to her Attorney 
 and Solicitor General. The next day, her Majesty offered to the House of 
 Lords her protest, and a renewed prayer to be heard by coimsel. Her counsel 
 were called in, and instructed to confine themselves to the subject of the mode 
 of procedure under the BiU. The substance of thek demand was that the 
 whole business, if not di'opped, should be proceeded with, without any delay, 
 to a final issue. iVIi-. Brougham declared that her Majesty " was clamorous" '?™"*!,.''''|i?i"' 
 
 O J J Appendix, 967. 
 
 for this. 
 
 The second reading of the Bill was fixed for the 17th of August : and it was qieen-s trial, 
 
 " O August 17lh. 
 
 at this stage that the Attorney General adduced the charges on the part of the 
 Crown, and followed them up by the testimony of witnesses. From this day 
 to the 8th of September, the House of Lords was occupied with the testimony 
 offered on behalf of the Bill. And it was not only that House that was thus 
 occupied. Nothing else was heard of throughout the country ; — one might 
 almost say throughout Europe. From day to day, indecent tales were told by 
 a party of Italian domestics, — tales such as, at other times, are only whispered 
 by the dissolute in private, and are never offered to the eye or ear of the moral 
 and modest who compose the bulk of the English nation. These tales were 
 now translated by interpreters at the bar of the House of Lords, given in full 
 in the newspapers, and spread through every town, hamlet and lone house 
 within the four seas. The advisers of the King said much of what the Queen 
 had done for the tainting of public morals and the degi-adation of the dignity 
 of the Crown : but it was plain to most people then, and is to every one now, 
 that nothing that it was in her power to do, if she had been all that her prosecutors 
 declared, could liavc so injured public morals and degraded the Crown as the
 
 256 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book II. 
 
 1820. King's conduct in pursuit of his divorce. If he had obtained it, it would have 
 ^""^■"■'^ ' been at the cost of a responsibility towards his people, the weight of which 
 could have been borne by no man worthy to occupy a throne. 
 
 MmsTERs.^ "'' That such a responsibility was duly felt by the Sovereign we have no 
 evidence. That his Ministers were truly wretched at this time, we know from 
 the correspondence of some of them which has since been published to the 
 world ; but they ascribed their suffering to the supposed disloyalty and changed 
 temper of the English people ; and do not appear to have been at all sensible 
 that any blame attached to the Government. The Lord Chancellor writes to 
 his correspondents of his success in preserving the peace of his conscience, and 
 receives his unpopularity as an honourable martyrdom. "When he went 
 down to his country seat at Encombe, the people, even in his own neighbour- 
 
 V"'' .?'?;?'''' ^'- hood, shouted into his coach " Queen Caroline for ever ! " When the Queen's 
 friends were negotiating for a house for her, next to his, he never doubted that 
 it was " for the express pm-pose of annoying nie : " and cleverly bought it up, 
 
 dm ti ^s6 ^'" "^^ithout much danger of too large a sacrifice. " The purchase-money is large, 
 but I have already had such offers, that I shall not, I tliink, lose by it." He 
 
 dm if 376'"' ^'' " ^^'^^ ^ teazing day," when the Queen's first petition was presented to the 
 Lords : the Queen sent to him to say she was coming ; and he replied that he 
 could not, as Speaker, admit ladies during the debates without leave. Then 
 he declined to deliver a message fi'om her ; and then her petition ; and for this 
 last, he says, " Messrs. Grey, Lansdowne, and Holland, abused me pretty 
 handsomely." While his family and friends were guarding him down to the 
 House, the people beset the house of Alderman Wood, the Queen's host, and 
 were on the watch in the parks for the Queen's drives, to take her horses from 
 her carriage, and chaw her in triumph : and the illuminations in her honour 
 put the Lord Chancellor's windows in danger. When Lords Sidmouth and 
 
 Life of ixird Sid- Castlcreagli were walking arm in arm down Parliament Street, amidst the 
 
 mouth, ui. 330. i i • pi i t i r.- i 
 
 groans and fusses ot tiie mob. Lord Sidmouth observed, " Here we go, the two 
 most popular men in England." " Yes," replied Lord Castlereagh, " through a 
 grateful and admiring multitude." A political ffiend and former colleague of 
 Lord Sidmouth -vvrites to him at this time, " I cannot describe to you how 
 grievously I suffer, and have suffered, on account of the dangerous and 
 deplorable situation in which our country, the King's government, indeed all 
 of us, have been so long placed— a situation out of which, I profess, I see no 
 satisfactory, indeed no safe, deliverance." To which Lord Sidmouth's reply 
 inouth^u"^w3.'''' ^^' " I" venting your feelings, you have precisely expressed mine. — All that 
 just and honest pride which once gave comfort and dignity to a state of 
 existence, in this country, is nearly cancelled and obliterated. I am, however, 
 much more imder the influence of indignation than of any feeling which 
 approaches to despondency." There was, in truth, in a different sense from 
 that M-hich tlie writer intended, no cause for despondency. There was no 
 cause for despondency in seeing how strong were the feelings of loyalty in 
 England, though they were at present directed towards a Queen under prose- 
 cution, instead of a King on the throne. There was no cause for despondency 
 in seeing how sormd was the heart of the English people in regard to the 
 weightier matters of tlie law, — justice and mercy, — strong as is the tendency 
 generally to visit such offences as those no«- in question more severely on
 
 Chap. II] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 257 
 
 women than on men. Though it was ineWtabh" a question universally dis- 1820. 
 
 cussed, whether the person aiTaigned was guilty or not, the sympathies of ^ "^■^ ^ 
 
 the people did not depend upon the ansAver. Those who regarded the Queen 
 as a wholly innocent victim, and those who believed her driven into guilt by 
 her wrongs, joined hand in hand to draw her carriage, and strove who should 
 cheer the loudest as she passed. 
 
 That summer is distinct in the memory of those who were then of mature 
 age. It was a season of extreme heat. Horses di'opped dead on the roads, 
 and labourers in the fields. Y'et, along the hne of the mails, croAvds stood 
 waiting in the burning sunshine for news of the trial, and horsemen gallopped 
 over hedge and ditch to cany the tidings. In London, the Parks and the 
 West-end streets were crowded every evening ; and tlu-ough the bright nights 
 of July, neighbours were visiting one another's houses to lend newspapers, or 
 compare rumoiu-s. The King was retired within his palace, — imable to come 
 forth Avithout danger of meeting the Queen, or of hearing cheers in her favour. 
 She had her two o'clock dimier-parties, — " Dr. PaiT and a large party," — now Annual Register, 
 a provincial mayor, — now a country baronet, — now a popular clergyman, — "*'"' ^ '""' ■^''■'' 
 come up to tender his O'wni homage and that of his neighbours : — and then 
 came the appearance to the people in an airing ; and, on other days, the going 
 down to the House of Lords. Elsewhere were the ItaUan witnesses, — guarded 
 like a gang of criminals as they went to and fi'o : pelted and groaned at wher- 
 ever they were seen ; driven fast to back doors of the House of Lords, and 
 pushed in, as for their lives. Within the House, — there was the earnest 
 attention of the Lords to the summing up of the Solicitor General (Copley), 
 previous to the production of the witnesses, the rushing out to see the eclipse 
 when the pith and marrow of the matter were disposed of, and the rushing back 
 presently during the mingling of his voice at the close with the soimd of " the 
 di'ums and flourish, announcing the Queen's arrival : "^and then, the recep- 
 tion of her ^Majesty, all standing as she entered and took her seat, as hitherto, 
 on " the crimson chair of state, three feet fi-om the bar : " — and then the swearing .Annual Register, 
 in of the interpreter, and the introduction of the first witness, — at whose 
 entrance the Queen was looking another way, but on perceiving whom, she 
 uttered an inarticulate exclamation, and hastily retired. — She had nothing to Annual Register, 
 fear from this -N^dtness, however; for his e\idence was, on the face of it, so ludi- 
 crously untrustworthy, that his name, Majocclii, became a joke throughout the 
 country. The poor wretch was an admirable theme for the mob outside, in 
 the intervals between their exhortations to the guards, and the peers, and all 
 who passed to the House, to "remember their Queen," — "remember their 
 sisters," their " wives," their " daughters." Then there was the perplexity ('^^.'f'jJo^"'"'' 
 of underlings how to act. The sentinels at Carlton Palace, " after a mo- 
 mentary pause, presented arms," as her Majesty's caniage passed : " the 
 soldiers at the Treasm-y did not." Daily was the fervent " God bless her ! " Annual Register, 
 repeated ten thousand times, from the nearest housetop to the farthest point 
 of vision : and daily did the accused appear " exhausted by fatigue and 
 anxiety," on returninor from hearins:, or beino- informed of, the disgusting Annual Reamer, 
 charges, the time for repljing to which had not yet amved. Those who re- 
 member that Jtily and August, when men's minds were fevered AWth passion 
 
 VOL. I. 2 m
 
 258 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book II. 
 
 1820. or enthusiasm, and the thermometer was ranging from 80° to 90° in the shade, 
 
 "~- — • ' can always be eloquent about the summer of 1820. 
 
 ciiron., 245. ' On the Otli of September, her Majesty's coimsel applied for and obtained an 
 The defenhe, adjournment to Tuesday, the 3rd of October. The defence consisted of at- 
 
 OctobcrSrd. •' n ^ i i i • <■ 
 
 tempts, generally successful, to overthrow the credit of the witnesses against 
 the accused, and in bringing forward testimony in favour of her conduct and 
 manners while abroad. On the 2nd of November, the arguments of counsel 
 on both sides being concluded, the Lords proceeded to discuss the question of 
 the second reading of the Bill of Pains and Penalties. The division was taken 
 on Monday the 6th, when the majority in favour of the second reading was 
 
 jijnsard, iii. p. only 28, in a house of 218. On the third reading, which took place four days 
 
 Hansard, iii. p. afterwards, the majority was reduced to 9. Such a result in this House, the 
 stronghold of ministerial power, at once showed the Government that it must 
 yield : and that it would j'ield, " considering the state of public feeling, and 
 the division of sentiment just evinced by their Lordships," Lord Liverpool 
 announced on the spot. The King's Ministers had come to the determination 
 
 Hansard, iii. 1746. uot to procecd further with the measure. 
 
 ABANDONMENT OF Tlic joy wliicli spi'cad through the country with the news of the abandon- 
 
 Tember lotii. ' meut of the Bill was beyond the scope of record. Among the generality of 
 persons, who did not look beyond the interest of the particular case, the escape 
 of the Queen was a matter of congratulation : but to this, persons of more 
 reflection and a more comprehensive knowledge added a deeper joy. They felt 
 as Lord Ersldne did when he burst forth with his rejoicings, on the announce- 
 
 Hansard, iii. 1747. ment of the abandonment of the Bill. " My life, whether it has been for good 
 or for evil, has been passed under the sacred rule of the law. In this moment 
 I feel my strength renovated by that rule being restored. The accursed change 
 wherewithal we had been menaced has passed over our heads. There is an end 
 of that horrid and portentous excrescence of a new law, retrospective, iniquitous 
 and oppressive : and the constitution and scheme of our polity is once more 
 safe. My heart is too full of the escape we have just had, to let me do more 
 than praise the blessings of the system we have regained." In the midst of 
 
 theQieen'sLaw the enthusiasm, the law officers of the Queen became the idols of the nation. 
 In the face of the world they were the champions of an oppressed woman : and 
 the thoughtful saw in them also the defenders of the Constitution which the 
 Lord Chancellor was daily talking about, but not at this time taking the best 
 care of: the defenders of the dignity of law which, as Mr. Ward said on the 
 
 Lord Dudley's present occasioii, "outsteps its just functions when it interferes to punish mis- 
 conduct " (granting the guilt, for argument's sake) " that has been provoked by 
 outrage, and facilitated by neglect." And nowhere could there be a difference 
 of opinion about the disinterestedness and courage of Mr. Brougham and Mr. 
 Demnaii. Friend and foe could not but see how they exposed themselves to 
 the displeasure of the Court and Government, and to all the consequences of 
 that displeasure, for a term too long for calculation. There appeared every pro- 
 bability that they would suffer professionally for their advocacy of the Queen's 
 cause, through the present reign, and the one which was to succeed : for the 
 Dukes of York and Clarence voted for the Bill throughout its course. It is a 
 cheering fact in human life that the oppressed, when once his grief is known,
 
 Chap. II.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 259 
 
 never has to wait long for a cliampioii. The work has never to wait for the 1820. 
 workman, in the case of the defence of helplessness, any more than in other 
 matters. And the honour due in each instance is not the less for the certainty 
 that it will he claimed. These gentlemen suffered as they expected to do — 
 suffered a long delay of their professional advancement and rewards ; hut they 
 Avere not men who, in a free country, could be ke2)t down by royal or official 
 discountenance ; and they received first, the esteem and gratitude of the nation, 
 and finally, the prizes of their profession. The occasion was one A^hich, by its 
 appeal to their highest feelings, could not but rouse theii' intellectual jiowers 
 to the fullest action ; and both of them surpassed all expectation in the conduct 
 of the business. " The display of his power and fertility of mind in this 
 business," says ]\Ir. Ward of Mr. Brougham, " has been quite amazing ; and i.ord Dudley's 
 these extraordinary efforts seem to cost him nothing." " "^' ^' 
 
 Three nights of illumination in London, sanctioned by the Lord Mayor, fol- 
 lowed the announcement of the triumph of the Queen's cause. Prince Leopold, Annual Register, 
 
 ^ . ^ 1820, Chron. p. 
 
 the son-in-law of both the royal parties, ordered Marlborough House to be ^»7. 
 illuminated ; and no abode shone more brightly. The witnesses for the pro- 
 secution were burned in effigy in the streets ; and there was some mobbing of 
 the newspaper offices which had taken the Government side in the question : 
 but there was no serious breach of the peace. 
 
 On the 23rd, the Queen sent down a Message to the House of Commons, Hansard, iii. 1750. 
 
 ^ o ^ Prorogation, 
 
 which Mr. Denman had begun to read, when he was stojjped by the summons November 23rd. 
 to the Commons to attend the House of Lords, which preceded the prorogation of 
 Parliament. The contents of the Message were, of course, made known. Her 
 Majesty had declined offers of money and a residence, made by the Goverirment 
 since the dropping of the prosecution; and she commended herself to the 
 House of Commons, for a due provision, and for protection, in case of a 
 resumption, under some other form, of the proceedings against her — an event 
 strongly apprehended by herself, and by some others more fitted to exercise a 
 cool judgment. 
 
 Addresses were presented to the Queen, from all parts of the country and 
 almost all descriptions of people. On the 29th of November she went in pro- q,,een goes to 
 cession to St. Paul's, to return thanks for her deliverance from a great peril AnnuaYReguter, 
 and affliction. Her reception was everything that could be wished, as far as '*'"' chron.503. 
 the conduct of the vast multitude was concerned; and they did honour to her 
 by the utmost propriety of bearing ; but, within the cathedral, we stumble 
 upon an incident characteristic of that tune, but scarcely credible in ours. 
 " In the general ' thanksgiving,' the officiating clergj-man, Mr. Hayes, one of 
 the minor canons of St. Pavil's, omitted the particular thanksgiving which, at 
 the request of any parishioner, it is customary to offer up, and which it was 
 understood her Majesty desired might be offered up for her on the present 
 occasion. It is said that Mr. Hayes refused, on the gi-ound that the rubric 
 directs that those may be named as returning thanks who have been previously 
 prayed for ; but that the Queen, not having been prayed for, could not be 
 named in the thanksgiving." Thus the same interdict which deprived her of Annual Register, 
 the prayers of the nation, wrought to prevent her from returning thanks — a 
 privilege which is commonly supposed to be the right of every worshipper 
 within the Christian pale.
 
 260 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book II. 
 
 1821. The life of this unhappy lady offers but little more for record: for the life 
 
 ■ ' itself was ckawing to a close. When Parliament met again, the time of the 
 
 Hansard, iv. nation was largely occupied, and its temper tried, by discussions on the 
 Queen's affairs, caused by her continued exclusion from public jjrayers, and by 
 recriminations on the inexhaustible subject of last year's prosecution. An 
 aimuity of £50,000 was provided for her, by Act of ParUament ; and some 
 attempts were made to obtain for her a share in the honours of the ensuing 
 coronation. It was natural that one so long an outcast, and at length borne 
 back into social life by the sjTnpathies of a nation, should accept too much 
 from those sympathies, and fail to stop at the right point in her demands. It 
 would have been well if the Queen had retired into silence after the gi-ant of 
 her annuity, and the final refusal to insert her name in the Liturgy. Her 
 
 qdeen'schim TO demand to be crowned with the King was, besides being properly imtenable, 
 
 BE CROWNED, . O^ OlAJ 7 
 
 July 1821. far from prudent m regard to herself, or humane towards the King. He could 
 
 not meet her imder such circumstances ; and the being crowned was not 
 essential to her womanly honour, which was now as much ^dndicated and 
 protected as it could ever be. Whether the claim to be crowned was or was 
 not a false step in jjrudence and taste, there can be no doubt that the endea- 
 vour to obtain an entrance to the Abbey, to witness the ceremony, was a 
 mistake. The Queen was fairly turned away from the door, amidst contend- 
 
 Annuai Register, ing utterauccs of dcrisiou, s-STnpathy, and indignation at the exclusion. It 
 
 1821 J Appendix '^ , , ^ J l J ^ o 
 
 =<*• was a piteous sight ; the personages " on the leads," " in gi-otesque dresses," 
 
 di-awn out of the procession to see the transaction; and the "fashionable 
 ladies," all with tickets, no one stopping to offer hers to the pausing Queen, 
 but all hurrying on, " without taking the shghtest notice of her ;" the people 
 below, meantime, shouting her name " with great enthusiasm." 
 
 This was the last time of her giving trouble to her enemies, or perplexity to 
 the fashionable who crossed her path, or smiles to the people whose hearts 
 wanned towards her. She must have been often and long, if not perpetually, 
 since the accession of the King, in a fever of spirits which could not but wear 
 her fi-ame. The tension of mind which she had now long undergone would 
 have crazed most women, and could not be for ever sustained even by one of 
 " so httle substance" and so much versatihty as, following Lord Mahnesbury's 
 testimony to her early character, we may attribute to her still. Her mortifi- 
 cation at the Abbey door happened on the 19th of July; on the 2d of August 
 
 Annual Register, a bulletin was issucd, whicli showed that she was seriously ill of internal 
 
 \%'2\ ; Chron. 118. ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ _ -^ 
 
 QfEENs Death, inflammation. She was in no condition to contend with disease, and, on the 
 7th, she sank. It is testified that she said, with a mom-nful earnestness, on 
 
 Annual Register, that last day, that she had no wish to live : "I do not know whether I .shall 
 have to suffer bodily pain in dying ; but I shall quit life without any regi-et." 
 No wonder ! And who could wish that she should Hve ? At the best, her 
 future years must have been forlorn. Supposing her conduct, and that of the 
 people towards her, to have been all that could be -wished, to the end of a long 
 life, she would still have been a desolate being. To a woman it can never be 
 enough to be a queen — much less to be a nominal queen, under perpetual 
 solicitude for the very name. That her long home opened to her thus early 
 was an event of comfort to those who knew she could never have any other 
 home, or any natural work or food for her domestic affections. Yet the news
 
 Chap. II.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 261 
 
 of her death — joyful enough to her husband, who was on a pleasure trip at 1821. 
 the time— spread mourning over the land; and a countless multitude tlironged ^-^ — ' 
 to her fimeral procession. There were some riots on this occasion, caused by quees-s 
 the detcnnmation of the people to have the hearse pass thi'ough the City ; a 
 point which they gained after some conflict ^"ith the soldiers, during which two Annual Register, 
 men were killed by shots from the Horse Guards on duty. After the Lord 
 Mayor quitted the head of the procession, outside the City, the funeral com- 
 pany proceeded quietly enough to Har^vich, Avhere the body was immediately 
 embarked for Stade, on its way to Brunswick. Times had changed since she 
 arrived at the shores whence she thus departed ; arrived, " vastly happy with 
 her future expectations," with her prince's portrait in her bosom, and a place 
 on the greatest throne in the world within her view. She had soon found her 
 prince " not nearly so good-looking as his picture ;" and she found the same 
 thing in regard to the " prospects " about which she had been so " vastly 
 happy." For her the grave could never open untimely ; and we see it open, 
 as she did, " -without any regi-et," though not without sadness. She had just 
 entered her 53rd year. 
 
 We have finished the stoiy of Queen CaroUne at once, that we might not 
 have to recur to it, with pain, at intervals. We must now revert to the begin- 
 ning of the year, and the early transactions of the new reign.
 
 262 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book II. 
 
 CHAPTER III. . 
 
 1820. /^^ occasion of the death of the sovereign, it is usual for the Parliament 
 ^ ^ ' ^"' (which may remain in existence for six months, if the new king so please) 
 
 February, 1820. • i ,. i /- • -i t • • • c r-. 
 
 to pi'ovide for the Civil List, and all the exigencies of Government during the 
 
 coming elections, and then be dissolved. On the death of George III. there 
 
 was some anxious questioning as to what should he done, on account of the 
 
 peculiar condition of affairs. The time of Parliament had, thus far in the 
 
 Session, been almost wholly occupied with legislating against the disaffected ; 
 
 and the business of the country remained to be done. It could hardly be 
 
 gone through during the six months : and a six months' canvas for the elections 
 
 would be a serious evil to the country. It was clearly convenient, therefore, 
 
 that, as the King's Speech declared, there should be a new Parliament called 
 
 without delay. But the King and Government wanted money, and supplies 
 
 must be voted immediately ; or, these matters of the piu'se would be subject 
 
 to the dictation of the people at the elections. The Commons voted the 
 
 supplies ; the Lords acquiesced in the vote, expressly dispensing with the Act 
 
 of Parliament properly necessary on such an occasion. Two other subjects 
 
 were discussed; the position of the Queen, and the issue of writs to four 
 
 boroughs, against which gross corruption had been proved. Lord J. Russell 
 
 carried through the Commons a Bill to prevent the issue of writs to these four 
 
 Annual Register, boroughs of Grampound, Penryn, Barnstaple, and Camelford. The Bill was 
 
 '"'' lost, by a majority of eleven, in the Upper House; but the incident shows 
 
 that the question of Parliamentary Reform was, by tliis time, able to command 
 
 Dissolution of attention ill the most Critical seasons. On the 28th of February, the Parlia- 
 
 March 13, 1820. mcut was prorogucd, to be dissolved on the 13tli of March; on the 21st of April 
 
 New Parliament the ncw Parhameut asscmblcd, to be sworn in ; and on the 27th, the Kmg 
 
 ''" ' opened the Session in person. 
 
 Kino's Speech. His spcoch acquicsccd ill ecoiiomy, and declared his contentment with the 
 settlement of 1816, rather than that any addition should be made to the 
 popular burdens. This somided well, as the Lord Chancellor anticipated, in a 
 letter written the day before, that it would ; " I think now the Speech, in 
 which he will disavow wishing for any increase, will make him popular ; and, 
 if times mend, will give him better chance of a fair increase of income than 
 Life of Lord anything else could give him." This declaration, however, was obtained with 
 difficulty, from a Prince who was always in pressing need of money. " Our 
 royal master seems to have got into temper again," says the above letter ; " he 
 has been pretty well disposed to part with us all, because we would not make 
 additions to his revenue." 
 
 The Ministers might well, indeed, refuse " to oppress the countiy, at 
 present, by additional taxation for this purpose." The country was in no 
 state to be trifled with ; and if the King had <lismissed his Ministers, he 
 
 State of the 
 Country.
 
 Chap. Ill] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 263 
 
 could hardly have found others who could have promised him au increase of 1820. 
 income. The social disorders which had been occasioned by poverty were in ""— ^^- ' 
 course of treatment by the harshest methods the constitution could be made 
 to yield or countenance. The distress remained ; and the agricultural com- 
 plainants themselves declared that they did not seek relief at the expense of 
 the manufacturing and commercial classes, who were as sorely tried as them- 
 selves. The jails were full of " radicals j" prosecutions for high treason, 
 sedition, libel, and blasphemy were going fonvard all over the country, keep- 
 ing up the disloyal and defiant action of men's minds ; the Queen was 
 hastening home to take refuge among the people, from the persecution of their 
 rulers ; men were hanged in rows, under a criminal law whose severity was 
 now a common topic of discussion in the legislatvu'e itself; and, in this posture 
 of afliiirs, the temper of the nation was not the blandest. It was good enough 
 to let the elections pass over without violence ; but not so easy as to bear any 
 proposal for increasing the royal income : so the King had to get " into temper 
 again," and keep his Ministers. 
 
 The Parliament returned, amidst aU this tumioil and distress, differed little 
 in its composition from the last ; if anything, the Administration rather gained 
 strength in it. In its first days, it lost one of its chief ornaments. Mr. 
 Grattan had come up to ParUament again, on behalf of the Catholics, though deith op 
 his infirmities rendered him unfit for public ser^^ce. He arrived in London ill ; ' 
 never again entered the House ; and told a deputation, who waited on him in 
 May, that they would see him no more. He was then " in the lowest state 
 of physical exhavistion ;" made a vain effort to rise ; and here closed the 
 efforts of a long and honest political life, dying on the 4th of June, after 
 having spent forty-five years in the public service. He was missed and 
 regretted, not only as a faithful patriot and an able man, but as the last of 
 the band of orators bequeathed by the previous century to the present — the 
 last of the extraordinary group of whom Pitt and Fox were the prominent 
 members. 
 
 During this Session, when many subjects of great and growing interest were 
 brought forward — some in regular course, and some in consequence of the 
 distress of the times — one mighty plea was lu'ged, which some hearers thought 
 irrelevant to the business of the time, while wiser men saw its close connexion 
 with every form of popular misery and national difficulty. Tliis Session was 
 distinguished by Mr. Brougham's motion and speech on behalf of National edication. 
 Education. Mr. Ward might well speak of Mr. Brougham's capacity for 
 labour and versatility of powers. On the 24th of Jime, Mr. Lambton with- Hansard, i i3i9. 
 drew his notice of motion on Parliamentaiy Reform, for the 27tli, on the 
 ground that a subject so important coidd not be properly attended to by the 
 House or the country at a time when the Queen's business would engross all 
 minds. Mr. Brougham then observed that, standing in the same situation 
 with regard to his motion on National Education, he should not withdraw it, 
 as Pai-liamcnt and the coimtry could have nothing more important to attend 
 to. " By the production of the plan which he was about to submit to Parlia- 
 ment, he trusted that he should put it in the power of the House to do a 
 benefit to mankind, which would exist and be widely felt long after that 
 question [the Queen's business] should have been determined ; and long aft(;r
 
 264 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book II. 
 
 Hansard, ii. 49. 
 
 1820. the differences Avhich existed between indi\dduals, illustrious as they were, 
 who were more immediately connected with it, should have been forgotten." 
 On the 28th of June was brought forward the first comprehensive and definite 
 proposal for the Education of the Peofile of Great Britain. As has been 
 Book i. p. 77. recorded in a previous page, an Education Committee had been sitting since 
 1816, by Avhose labours a great mass of valuable information — of moral 
 statistics — had been collected and made available ; and Mr. Brougham had, at 
 that time, declared his intention of bringing forward a scheme of popular 
 education for London, under parliamentary sanction and control, before 
 attempting to diffuse instruction over the whole country. In his present 
 move he said nothing of this fonner intention, but proposed a plan for the 
 education of the entire population of " the poor in England and Wales." 
 
 The plan proposed by Mr. Brougham was never adopted ; but the movement 
 was not lost. No plan of general education of the poor has yet been adopted? 
 and it is still impossible to see when such an event will happen ; but the facts 
 obtained and made known, the attention excited, the conviction of the neces- 
 sity of education produced in a multitude of minds, which yet cannot agree 
 to any scheme hitherto brought forward, have been, in themselves, a sort of 
 education, in preparation for a higher and a better ; and these date from 
 Mr. Brougham's efforts in 1816 and 1820. If we have still too many marks 
 instead of signatures, in parish registers, the proportion is much smaller than 
 it was ; if we still find old gentlemen, here and there, who exhort against the 
 " over-instruction of the people," and ladies who refuse to take domestic 
 servants who can read and ^Tite, we rarely meet, in to-wTis and in ordinary 
 middle-class society, with those alarms about the effect of the alphabet and 
 the inkhorn upon the poor, which were common when Mr. Brougham rose to 
 plead their cause. 
 
 According to his statement, the childi-en requiring means of education were 
 about one-tenth of the whole population in England ; whereas those proAdded 
 with any means of education at all were only one-sixteenth (according to the 
 most recent census, it was one-seventeenth) ; and if the number was deducted 
 of those who received merely a decent training in regard to habits, Avhich was 
 all that dame-schools and other inferior schools could afford, the amount of 
 effectual teaching would be found to be indeed miserably small. Large 
 districts were destitute of all means of instruction whatever : in others, the 
 Sunday-schools of the Dissenters (who had carried out the plan of Sunday- 
 schools much more vigorously than the Church) were the only reliance : and, 
 good as are the principle and plan, no weekly meetings for instruction can ever 
 impart any considerable amount of knowledge, or supply the place of that 
 training of intellect and habits which is a main element in what is called 
 education. 
 
 The information obtained by the Education Committee was altogether fi-om 
 clergj-men of the Established Church : and Mr. Broiigham's plan pro\-ided for 
 the schoohnasters being all members of that Church ; for their being elected 
 on the recommendation of clergjTuen (together with that of resident house- 
 holders) ; and for their qualification for the office, by taking the sacrament 
 within a month of their appointment. These were proposals which could not 
 be acceded to by Dissenters ; and which, therefore, necessitated the rejection
 
 Chap. Ill] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 265 
 
 of the scheme. No scheme of popular education can ever become national, in 1820. 
 this country, which gives the management of schools and the appointment of ^— ~~'-"— ^ 
 masters to the Church, while Dissenters constitute a large proportion of the 
 inhabitants in almost every district, and especially in the most populous, 
 where the Dissenters bear their fidl share in such education as already exists. 
 Tliis difficulty was immediately ftital to the measure, and has been so to every 
 scheme proposed through succeeding years ; the members of the Established 
 Chin-ch insisting on direct rehgious instruction, as a part of the plan ; and 
 the Dissenters refusing either to subject their children to the religious instruc- 
 tion of the Church, or to pay for a system from which their children are 
 necessarily excluded. Whenever all parties shall consent to establish a system 
 of secular instruction, providing for the religious training to be carried on in 
 perfect freedom by the clergy and ministers of the respective denominations, 
 the nation may enjoy a scheme of general education ; but, e\'idently, not till 
 then. Mr. Brougham's measiue was dropped, after the first reading of the 
 Bill ; but it answered a great piu'pose in rousing the mind of the nation to 
 the most important subject which could occupy it ; and it will ever remain 
 memorable as the first express move towards the greatest achievement which 
 still remains to be effected. This Session was, the while, affording evidence 
 of the need of popular enlightenment, and of the educational training which 
 is afforded by the free discussion of social interests. We find petitions pre- 
 sented, from country districts, complaining of the operation of machinery in 
 throwing people out of work ; and, on the other hand, a large number of 
 petitions in favour of an extension of fi-eedom of trade. 
 
 Something was gained this year, in the direction of a diminution of capital capital pikisb- 
 punishment, by Sir James jNIackintosh's success, in carrying tluee bills out of "^''^' 
 six, which he brought forward in the place of the lamented Sir S. RomiUy. 
 By the passage of these bills, shopliftmg, to the value of five shillings, ceased 
 to be punishable with death — great as was the Lord Chancellor's apprehension 
 that, by this relaxation, small tradesmen would be ruined, in the face of the 
 clearest evidence that the severity of the law caused that offence to go almost 
 invariably impiuiished. There is something amusing, and certainly instruc- 
 tive, in looking back after a few years, upon the records of the fears of 
 legislators. Lord Redesdale was, on this occasion, alanned at the proposal Hansard, u. 494. 
 that men should no longer be put to death for blackening their faces in the 
 commission of theft by night. The offence of stealing game and other 
 articles by night remained punishable by fine and transportation ; it was pro- 
 posed to repeal that portion of the Black Act by which night thefts, with 
 blackened faces, were made punishable with death. Lord Redesdale told of 
 the tax he and his neighbours had to pay — £200 a year, for a police of six 
 men — to check deer-steahng on the borders of the forest ; and he declared his 
 fear that if men, afready deer-stealers, were no longer to be hanged for black- 
 ening their faces, " the practice among these dejiredators wovdd be universally 
 resorted to." He was supported by the Lord Chancellor, who actually 
 succeeded in throwing out that clause of the Bill. From tlris time forward, 
 however, it was no longer a capital offence for an Egyptian to remain one year 
 in the country ; for a notorious thief to reside in Nortliinnberland or Ciunber- 
 land ; for any one to be found disgiused in the Mint, or to injure Westminster 
 
 vol,. I. 2 N -
 
 266 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book II. 
 
 1820. Bridge. The Vagrant Laws were now to be supposed severe enough for 
 ^— """^— ^' gipsies ; and the laws which protected the southern counties to be sufficient 
 for the northern. By the third of the successful bills, wliich was carried 
 with some mutilation, several offences — some serious, and some no more so 
 than the wounding of cattle and the sending threatening letters — were reduced 
 from capital to simple felonies. But in no case were the offences of stealing on 
 navigable rivers, and even the hghter kinds of forgery, permitted to be visited 
 Hansard, i. 1338. with puuisliment short of death. The bills regarding these crimes were 
 necessarily withchawn ; no further advance was made, for some sessions, in 
 substituting milder punishments for that of death. Sir James Mackintosh 
 continued his efforts, year by year ; but could only work out some preparation 
 for future success. In his attempt in regard to forgery, in the Session of 
 1821, he committed a mischievous oversight in inserting the forgery of Bank 
 of England notes among those which were to remain pmiishable with death, 
 as the forgeries of wills, transfers of stock, and marriage registers and Ucenses. 
 He yielded this point, on the ground of the seriousness of the offence of 
 forging Bank notes ; but he thus gave up the strong ground that the capital 
 punislunent was less effective than a milder one for the prevention of the 
 offence, and enabled his opponents to regard him as considering the severer 
 punishment the best for its object. All that was gained for tlu-ee years, was 
 Haiuard, vii. 806. a pledge fi'om the House of Commons in the Session of 1822, "That this 
 House will, at an early period of the next Session of Parliament, take into 
 their most serious consideration the means of increasing the efficacy of the 
 criminal laws, by abating their undue rigour." This resolution was adopted 
 by a majority of 16, in a house of 218; and the "loud cheers" which fol- 
 lowed the announcement excited much expectation throughout the coimtry, as 
 to the fidelity with which the Commons would redeem their pledge on the 
 arrival of the Session of 1823. 
 AoRiciTLTURAL Tlic restlessncss of the country under " agricultural distress " was in these 
 uisTREss. ^^y^ ^ perpetual, as commercial distress was a frequently recurring evil. It 
 
 might really puzzle a visitant from another hemisphere to Uinderstand how it 
 could be that, with regard to an article of the first necessity — an article inevi- 
 tably produced, because inevitably consumed — the producers should be, for 
 long coiu-ses of years, distressed and impoverished. " From the commence- 
 Annuai Register, meut of the Scssiou of Parliament (1820), numerous petitions on the subject 
 " ' ■ of the existing agiicultm-al distress had been presented to the House, stating 
 
 in strong language the extent of the evil, and imploring Parliament to apply 
 a remedy." The remedy applied for was, the raising of prices by the creation 
 of an artificial scarcity ; a project which it could not be expected that the 
 great body of bread-eaters would agree to. A Committee of Inquiry was 
 obtained by a sort of accident — by a number of too-confident members of the 
 House having gone home, instead of waitmg till the debate closed at four 
 Hansard, i. C91. iu the moruing : but the Government, who did not choose to open again 
 the question of the Corn Laws, managed to limit the function of this Com- 
 mittee to the inquiry whether the averages were obtained correct, so as to 
 afford reliable information as to the prices of corn abroad. In 1821, " the 
 agricultural distress of the present year was not inferior to that of 1820. No 
 .■^o";?"?). '^'■^'''"' new causes of embarrassment had srirung up. but the price of corn still conti-
 
 Chap. III.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 267 
 
 nued low;" landlords would not reduce their rents, and fanners had to pay 1820. 
 their rents out of their capital. In 1822, " the beginning of the present year 
 was marked chiefly by the clamours of the fenners and land-o^\Tiers." lu fg™;";'. f '■«**'"• 
 1823, " the country exhibited the most unequivocal marks of a steady and 
 progressive prosperity. Every branch of manufactming indushy was in a 
 flourishing state." Y^et, though agriculture was in a somewhat less depressed Amuai Register. 
 condition, "comjjlaints were uttered, in various county meetings held imme- 
 diately before, or shortly after, the meeting of ParUament." These incessant 
 groanings, wearisome to the ears, and truly distressing to the hearts, of all 
 listeners, were not borne away idly on the winds. They did not obtain from 
 Parliament the aid which the complainants desired, but they largely advanced 
 the cause of Parliamentary Reform. If the agricultural interest had been in 
 a state of high prosperity from 1820 to 1830, the gi-eat question of Refonn of 
 Parliament must have remained afloat much longer than it did, fiom the 
 inertness or opposition of the agricultural classes ; who, as it was, were suffi- 
 ciently discontented with Parliament to desire a change. Extraordinary as 
 this may appear, when we regard only the preponderance of the landed 
 interest in the House at that time, we shall find, on looking abroad tluough 
 the country, that it was so. Such pohticians as Cobbett presented themselves 
 among the discontented fanners, and preached to them about the pressure of 
 the Debt, of a bad system of taxation, and a habit of extravagant expenditure ; 
 and of a short method of remedying these evils, by obtaining a better consti- 
 tuted House of Commons. It was no small section of the agricultural classes 
 that assisted in can-ying the question at last ; and it would be interesting to 
 know how many of that order of reformers obtained theii' convictions through 
 the distress of these years. 
 
 Except by such advancement in poHtical education as is wi-ought by adver- 
 sity, and the discussion which it excites, the first year of the new King's 
 reign cannot be called one of progress. No prosperity accrued to the people ; 
 and nothing was done by the Government, which coidd redeem them from the 
 odium of their proceedings in regard to the Queen. — The next Session was 
 more fidl of deeds and of promise, and some brightness of hope begins to 
 dawn upon the dark scene of misrule and discontent in England. It was pablumfxtarv 
 something that the question of Parliamentai-y Reform had now become so pro- 
 minent as that three motions relating to it were discussed in the course of the 
 Session ; besides that great meetings were held elsewhere, which kindled sen- 
 timent and stimulated discussion. Of these meetings, the most important was 
 a dinner at the London Tavern, on the -ith of ]May, when speeches of gi-eat 
 vigour were made by the leading refonners in the Hoiise of Commons, 
 and when Dr. Lusliington openly declared, and clearly proved, that the 
 way to every other refonn was through an amended constitution of the 
 legislature. 
 
 From this time may be dated the continuous and successftd agitation of the 
 Refonn question — an agitation which was one of the blessings of peace. It 
 appears to be as true in regard to the life of a nation as of an individual, that 
 in order to rise, morally and intellectually, it must be possessed by some gi'eat 
 idea, in the pursuit of which its best powers must bo appealed to and jierse- 
 veringly exercised. As a man will ne\er become wortliy of hi.s maiiliood who
 
 268 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book II. 
 
 1821. lives on from day to day, merely taking what comes, and neither endeavouring 
 to raise his conceptions of what he might be, nor to live up to such notions as 
 he has ; so neither can a nation keep up any nationality which has no aims 
 and no ideal. The herd who live under a despot may go on being a herd 
 from generation to generation ; they are not a nation, and not having national 
 privileges have no national duty. With those who hve under a representative 
 system, the case is widely different ; they must rise morally, or they will sink 
 politically ; they cannot keep still, fold the hands to sleep, and leave the 
 conduct of affairs to then- rulers. It was the mistake of the government of 
 Lords Liverpool, Sidmouth, Eldon, and Castlereagh, not to perceive this plain 
 truth ; and their not perceiving it was the cause, not only of their misrule, but 
 of their despondency about the state of the nation. During tlie war, the 
 nation were supplied with the idea of the time — from without, as it were ; so 
 that, to their short-sighted riilers, all appeared safe and well at home. The 
 idea, in this case, was of the national preservation first, and its honour after- 
 wards. It is the one only quality which makes war endurable, that it supplies 
 a national idea at the time for the people's heart and mind to work up to ; 
 and it is the great ciu'se of war — a heavier emse than its bloodshed, burnings, 
 and cost of woe and wealth — that it engrosses a nation with an idea lower 
 than it might have and ought to have, unless it be a struggle for existence or 
 redemption. The English nation liad now come out of a war ; and, by the 
 very constitution of the human mind, some great general aim must be pre- 
 sented for it to work up to. The Government did not see the necessity, and 
 would, ignorantly and unconsciously, have dissolved the national unity, by 
 requiring every man to s\ibside into his own home and proper business, with- 
 out entertaining any national ideas at all, till the next war should call up the 
 whole people again to act as one man. 
 
 In accordance with this notion of theirs, the Government set itself to repress 
 and punish every movement of thought and speech which had any political 
 aspiration in it. This brought out a more violent and ignorant thought, and 
 a more desperate speech, till there were treason orations on hustings, and drill- 
 ings on heaths, and diabolical murder plots in stables ; and the Government 
 regarded their charge, the nation, as sinldng under an attack of moral and 
 pohtical plague. There was no fear, however ; and the lesson offered by those 
 times may serve to guide and cheer a future time, when a like crisis may occur, 
 from however different causes. The necessary idea and consequent aim were 
 sure to arise ; and here, under this date, we see what they were. The nation 
 aspired to improve its own life. Like a man who finds his indolence weaken- 
 ing him, his want of aim giving occasion to disorder among his passions, and 
 his interior liberties wasting under this anarchy, and who rouses himself to 
 contemplate the idea he once had of what he would be, and stimulates himself 
 to overtake this ideal, — the English nation now began to rouse itself for its 
 immortal struggle to become the representative commonwealth that it professed 
 to be. Day by day it became clear to more minds, and more clear to all 
 minds, that to secure the integrity of the representation was to secure all that 
 was wanted by reasonable malcontents, and all that was necessary to silence 
 unreasonable disaffection. From the moment that Refonn of Parhament be- 
 came the ascertained and avowed aim of the enlightened part of the English
 
 Chap. III.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 269 
 
 nation, a new life was-infused into the frame of English society. Disaffection 1821. 
 was absorbed into a strenuous political action, and the noblest virtues of ac- ^— '^''^- — ' 
 ti\'ity, self-denial, and generosity manifested themselves with growing \'igour 
 and glory, till the struggle and the sacrifice of aristocratic prejudice, privilege, 
 and interest were completed (as regards that particular effort), by the achieve- 
 ment of Parliamentary Reform in 1832. It was not till that year that the 
 work was seen to be effectual ; but the effort pelded inestimable fruits fi-om 
 month to month of the ten preceding years. During all that time, the people 
 were learning to apprehend the value of that representative system wliich had 
 been duly appreciated hitherto only fitfully and partially, and had still to be 
 studied as a new lesson by the whole of the generation which had been occu- 
 pied by the ideas of the war. The lesson was learned, soundly and thoroughly. 
 The lowest of the people came to know something of the idea of citizenship : 
 the instructed became animated with more vivid and definite conceptions of 
 political duties and liberties ; and the holders of aristocratic power, privilege, 
 and interest, — those who held much of the representation as a personal pro- 
 perty, were strengthened and prepared for a sacrifice of political privilege and 
 property so noble as is even yet hardly appreciated, but ^viU not fail to be 
 admired and honoured as it ought through the unborn generations wliich will 
 read history in the clear light of a future age. While the apprehensive and 
 narrow-minded rulers of that period were shuddering over the revelations of 
 the time, and writing to each other that " all that just and honest pride which 
 once gave comfort and dignity to a state of existence in this country, is nearly Life of Lord sia- 
 cancelled and obliterated," that country was preparing to show how safe and """"' ' '"' ^'^' 
 how noble an abode it was for the principles of true liberty and impartial law, 
 and how little was to be feared for a nation whose multitude desired to share 
 in the responsibilities of legislation and order, and whose aristocracy could 
 surrender ancient privilege and property at the summons of a new time. 
 There had long been some among that aristocracy, enlightened and humane, 
 who had been awake to this summons, and many among the multitude who 
 had been impatient at its delay ; but the effectual efforts which achieved the 
 Refonn of ParHament may be considered to have begun from this sj)ring 
 of 1821. 
 
 The avowals and incitements uttered at that dinner at the London Tavern on 
 the -1th of May, spread through the land, being preceded by one, and followed Annual Resistpr, 
 by two more distinct movements in Parliament. That movements in Parlia- 
 ment were instigated and supported by the country is evident enough, — not 
 only fi-om the obvious truth that no order, or corporate or assembled body, ever 
 reforms itself without pressure fi-om -svithout, but fi-om the number of petitions 
 for reform which we find sent up to the Hoiise during this and succeeding 
 sessions. Supported by a mass of such petitions, Mr. Lambton moved, on the motions for re- 
 ITth of April, for a Committee of the whole House, to consider the state of ^.j"".'"' ^'""■"'^ 
 the representation of the people in Parliament. During the debate, which H.-msard, t. 359. 
 occupied two evenings, tlie opposite benches were nearly empty ; and there 
 was so thin an attendance during: both eveninjjs as to show that the House 
 itself was little aware of the growing importance of the question before it. 
 The di\ision was taken during the absence of the leadiiig members on both. 
 sides, and even of Mr. Lambton himself, the numbers being 55 to -43 ; that is.
 
 270 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 [Book II. 
 
 1821. 
 
 Hansard, r. 604. 
 
 Hansard, v. 624. 
 
 Hansard, v. 696. 
 
 Hansard, v. 974. 
 
 Hansard, v. 1046 
 Hansard, iv. 590. 
 
 Lord Dudley's 
 Letters, p. 226. 
 
 Lord Dudley's 
 Letters, p. 247. 
 
 there was a majority of 12 against ilr. Lambton's motion. Perhaps the lead- 
 ing members on both sides might have been surprised if they could have been 
 told liow, on that day eleven years, the country would be awaiting the issue of 
 the struggle, in the certainty of success ; and how, on that day twelve years, 
 the Reformed Parliament would be in full career, at leisure for further im- 
 provements, from the great question of the century being disposed of. 
 
 On the 9th of May, Lord John Russell took up the subject, without securing 
 much more attention to what he had to say than Mr. Lambton had enjoyed. 
 Few " leading members" took the trouble, or had the courage, to attend while 
 he recommended his resolutions. These resolutions went merely to declare 
 that the people were dissatisfied mth their representation : that means should 
 be taken to effect a representation of wealthy and populous places which had 
 as yet no voice in the legislatiu'e : and that boroughs convicted of bribery and 
 corruption should be disfranchised. There was little debate ; the first resolu- 
 tion was condemned by a majority of 31 in a house of 279 ; and the others 
 were negatived mthout a division. 
 
 Unpromising as all this looked, a real beginning was made, and immediately, 
 to amend the representation. Grampovmd was disfranchised, to the dismay 
 and grief of the Lord Chancellor, who saw no bounds to the mischief of de- 
 priving some possibly innocent electors there of their votes, on account of the 
 corruption of the rest, while he could perceive no reason for giving the fran- 
 chise to Leeds, Birmingham, Manchester, and other pojmlous places. As the 
 Bill passed the Commons, the Grampound fi'anchise was to be transferred to 
 Leeds : but the Lords decided for two additional members for the county of 
 York, instead of gi^dng a representation to Leeds. There was some difficulty 
 as to whether the Commons should put up with such a contravention of their 
 will by the Lords ; but Lord John Russell thought it imijortant to take all that 
 could be got on this question ; and, though the Bill had ceased to be his charge 
 after sustaining some essential alterations before it went up to the Lords, he 
 secured its final acceptance by the Commons, and it passed on the 30th of 
 May. It was on occasion of this bill that Mr. "Ward said that he did not con- 
 ceive that by voting for the disfranchisement of Grampomid, " he was giving 
 any pledge to what was called parliamentai-y reform." So he thought, and so 
 thought many who were, like him, unaware that they were now securely 
 involved in a movement against which they had formerly protested. It is 
 instructive to read the records (in this case very brief) of the gradual enlarge- 
 ment of views which time and thought bring to such men. It is an instruc- 
 tive comment on the past, and a valuable prophecy as to the futm'e. In 
 October 1819, Mr. Ward writes to the Bishop of Llandaff : " All I am afraid 
 of is, that by having the theoretical defects of the present House of Commons 
 perpetually dinned into their ears, the well-intentioned and well-affected part 
 of the community shoidd at last begin to suppose that some reform, is neces- 
 sary. Now, I can hardly conceive any refomi that would not bring us -witliin 
 the draught of the whirlpool of democracy, towards which we should be 
 attracted by an irresistible force, and in an hourly accelerating ratio. But I 
 flatter myself there is wisdom enough in the country to preserve us long from 
 such an innovation." In April, 1820, he writes : "But I confess that when 
 I see the progress that reform seems to be making, not only among the vulgar.
 
 Chap. III.J DURING THE THIRTY YEARS" PEACE. 271 
 
 but among persons like yourself, of imderstanding and education, clear of 1821. 
 interested motives and party fanaticism, my si^iiits fail me upon the subject. ^~-— n^— ^ 
 
 I should look forward mth much more comfort to what may remain 
 
 to me of life, if I could persuade myself that the first day of reform was not 
 at hand, and that the first day of reform would not be the first day of the 
 English Revolution." In February, 1821, he tells liis correspondent that Sii' Lord Dudley's 
 J. Mackintosh " wovdd keep the nomination boroughs," adding, " For my 
 part, I am well enough content with the constitution as it is. This much, 
 however, I must confess, that if pubHc opinion — the opinion of men of sense 
 and reflection Uke yourself, unconnected with party — once tuins against it, 
 there ought to be a change. We anti-reformers stand upon practical benefit — 
 now there is no talking about the practical benefit of a discredited consti- 
 tution." In June 1822, though still declaring himself " afraid of parlia- Lord nudiey's 
 mentary reform," he speaks with satisfaction of the control exercised by public 
 opinion over the votes of the Commons, and bears this remarkable testimony 
 to the improvement of the national mind under the agitation of the question. 
 Wiiting of Byron's prediction of a revolution, he says, " For my part, I camiot 
 help flattering myself, in spite of a great deal of distress, and some discontent, 
 that this event is highly improbable. It appears to me that the people of 
 England are advancing in knowledge and good sense. Party spirit seems to 
 be less blind and furious than it used to be. There is less factious opposition 
 (I am not speaking of the House, bvit of the country) to the Ministi-y, and less 
 factious support of it. People do not abandon themselves so entii-ely to certain 
 leaders, but exercise a more discriminating judginent upon each question as it 
 arises." In a few years, he became a member of the Melbourne ministry, 
 having for his colleagues the men who had canied the Reform Bill. Here we 
 have in brief the history of a large class of the minds of the time, which were 
 opening sideways, as one may say, while those of the lowest order of refonners 
 wore opening upwards. 
 
 The other great feature of the Session was the removal of the conflict on catholic claims. 
 the Cathohc claims to the floor of the House of Lords. It was evident to all 
 far-seeing men that the time was approaching when it wovdd no longer do for 
 politicians to go on repeating from year to year their o'wn feehngs about 
 admitting CathoUcs to the legislature, and their own opinions about the per- 
 nicious character and tendencies of the Catholic faith ; but when they would 
 be compelled by circumstances to take a fresh view of the whole question, 
 modified as it was by the admission of new elements, and bearing a new rela- 
 tion to the history of the time. The occasion was diawrng on fi-om year to year. 
 "Wlien we see it arrive, we shall take a brief survey of the old view in offering 
 the aspect of the new. Meantime, it must be recorded here that this Session 
 of 1821 was marked by the going over of the Commons to the cause of the 
 C^atholics, and by the responsibility of their exclusion from political life being 
 thrown upon the Lords. It was in March of this year that Mr. Ward wi-ote 
 " Well ! what say you at Oxford to the progi-ess the Roman Catholics are so 
 e\'idently making towards an equal participation of all pri-s-ileges ? Is it borne 
 patiently, or will a great cry be raised ? Not that I think the Bill will pass 
 tliis year ; but the intellectual preponderance in its favour is so great in Par- Lord nndicy-s 
 
 ,. , 1 11 • • 1 1 1 1 • T.etters, 279. 
 
 liameul, that one can hardly conceive either that or some such measure being
 
 272 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book II. 
 
 1821. very long delayed. The tone of opposition to it is lowered to tlie utmost point." 
 
 "^ ' It was not by " intellectual preponderance " that Mr. Plunket's Bill was thrown 
 
 out in the Lords after having been passed in the Commons by a majority of 19 
 
 Life of Lord El. ou the thud readinor. " The Duke of York," says Lord Eldon, " has done more 
 
 don, iL 416. .,. i i- i i tit, 
 
 to qmet this matter than every thing else put together. It has had a great 
 effect." If "every thing else" on that side delayed the resistance to the 
 Commons less than the Duke of York, the resistance was obviously in a des- 
 perate state. If the Duke had had any tiling to claim on the ground of " in- 
 tellectual prei)onderance," he was mortal, and he was not young. So the issue 
 was not doubtful, and probably not distant. The Catholics rejoiced with the 
 quietness politic under their still depressed condition. The lovers of civil and 
 religious liberty rejoiced more loudly and openly. The Lords rejoiced also. 
 In their blindness to what was coming, they thought all was well when they 
 had thrown out the bill of this Session by a majority of 39. Lord Eldon 
 
 Life of Lord El. writes, " I havo notliing further to delay your drinking to the thirty -nine who 
 saved the thirty-nine articles — a very fashionable toast." Their rejoicing 
 might be allowed luigrudgingly — not only because it was short-lived, but be- 
 cause it was merely a veil shrouding terrors, not the less pitiable for being 
 visionary. The spirit of fear is as much an object of compassion to the spirit 
 of faith in jiohtics as in any other department of life ; and, till those who 
 suffer under it can be disabused of their terrors, any snatches of relief and 
 mirth that they can enjoy may be regarded with forbearance, and even 
 sympathy by those, among others, whom they are oppressing for yet a little 
 while. So the Cathohcs could smile at the echoes of the toast of the thirty- 
 nine, while dihgently preparing for a reurging of theu" claims. 
 
 coNsriTUTioNAL Tlus vcar is remarkable for an organized attack upon the freedom of the 
 
 Association. -^ . 
 
 Press. It was so soon baffled and so effectually resisted, that a mere notifica- 
 tion of the fact would serve, were it not that the promjttitude and fideHty 
 shown in the defence of liberty of printing are themselves a feature of the 
 times which ought to be prominently brought forward. 
 
 Seasons of harsh rule are invariably those of license of speech. Men under 
 torment or in bonds groan or curse ; and a people under stringent misrule will 
 rail ; and their baser part may be expected to mock and blaspheme. Thus 
 it was while Lord Sidmouth was in power. Libels, caricatures, irreligious 
 scoffs, abounded ; and, the more they were noticed, the more they abounded. 
 It is observable that these libels were not the weajjon of any one party. 
 While the lowest vendors of printed trash were lampooning the riders of the 
 country, the government press Avas libelling the leaders of the popular jjarty; 
 and indeed pouring out slanders against every man of liberal politics whom it 
 could find means to attack. Evil-speaking seemed to have sprmig up like a 
 curse all over the land. Statesmen, and private gentlemen, and literary men, 
 were fighting duels ; and the prisons and police offices were crowded with bold 
 ruffians or tattered ballad-venders, who dealt in railing for bread. Women 
 were shamed in newspapers (a thing not much to be wondered at, at a time 
 when the liighest woman in the realm was pilloried in the House of Lords for 
 a succession of weeks) : the King was caricatured — the Ministers were nick- 
 named — every public man was slandered — and the diseased appetite for 
 mockery and vituperation seized upon sacred things ; and there was nothing
 
 Chap. III.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 273 
 
 so liigh or holy but that it was laid hold of for purposes of malice or low wit. 1821. 
 The evil was undeniable. The only questions were how it arose, and how it ^~""^ ^"^ 
 ■was to be dealt with. The great practical mistake was in the conclusion that 
 it arose, unprovoked, from the natural wickedness of men, and that it must be 
 put down by the strong hand — this strong hand being by no means impartial 
 in its pressure. Forty peers and bishops, a large number of the clergy of the Eiiinburgh Re. 
 Established Church, and of Tory leaders, in and out of Parhament, formed"™'"" 
 themselves into a company which they called the Constitutional Association, 
 but which was soon better known through the country by the name of the 
 IJridge Street Gang. They invited subscriptions and co-operation from all 
 who were well-disposed towards piety, peace, and order ; and their appeal to 
 the religious world, and on behalf of morals, taste, and quietude, was exten- 
 sively responded to. It took some time to show well-meaning and aiii5re- 
 hensive people the tyranny and vice of a system of party superintendence of 
 the Press. But this tp'anny and the %dcious principle of the Society were 
 apparent soon enough to secure the speedy insigiiiiicance and decay of the 
 enterprise. EngHslrmen soon began to see that the forty peers and bishops 
 who undertook the control of the press could be no proper members of a Coiu't 
 of final Appeal. As censors of the press, they could not projierly sit as judges 
 in the House of Lords. Englishmen soon began to inquire what was to 
 become of their liberties if a rich association of great men was to spread its 
 police of spies and informers over the land, and prosecute every poor tradesman 
 who might offer to sell what they considered blasphemous and seditious works. 
 It was e\ddont that by a mere threat of prosecution they might deter any 
 tradesman but a stout-hearted one here and there from selhng any book or 
 paper which they did not approve. Englishmen soon began to cry " shame ! " 
 when they saw members of this Association taking their places in the jury box 
 in trials for Ubel ; and the fate of the enterprise was sealed when the judges 
 adopted the practice of compelling jm-ymen to declare upon oath whether they 
 were members of the Constitutional Association, before permitting them to Hansard, v. 1 1»7 
 enter upon their function. The society had sent a circular to every justice of 
 the peace throughout the country, offering their exposition and application of Edinburgh Ko- 
 ike law'of libel, and requiring that it should be universally made kno'\^ai, as 
 its cUffusion would be considered in aggravation of pimishment in convictions 
 for libel henceforward : they had raised a vast fimd, instituted many prose- 
 cutions, — thrown grey-haired men, star\'ing women, and iU-conditioned adven- 
 turers into prison, to gTOw desperate there, and do double mischief when they 
 came out again : they had usurped the office of the Attorney General, inter- 
 fered with the administration of justice, and laid hands on the press, and were 
 about to raise up, by provocation, a counter Association, in conflict with which Hansard, v. h'.h. 
 the peace, temper, and manners of society would probably have given way 
 altogether ; Avlien, at this point, the ravage was stopped. Exposui'e was all 
 that was necessary ; and the exj)0surc was easily and speedily made. The 
 Association was fonned in December 1820. On the 23rd of the next May, Annual Rf^isifr, 
 
 iS21. p. CO. 
 
 Mr. Brougham directed the attention of the House of Commons to its proceed- 
 ings : and after a discussion of its legality and morality, a few nights after- 
 wards, its vigour decayed : and before another year was over, we find it spoken 
 of in the records of the time us a thing gone by, — a miscliief and danger prac- 
 VOL. I. 2 o
 
 274 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book II. 
 
 1821. tically extinguished, thougli the Association was not dishancled. ^Vhen we 
 consider what the resources of this society were, in funds, n\imbers, rank, 
 influence, and the support of good principle and feeling — however misled and 
 misapplied — we cannot but be struck with the strength and livehness of the 
 English instinct for liberty, and grateful for the security afforded by its 
 vigilance. 
 lii'ifLlNiT'^" ^" So late as the end of April of this year. Lord Eldon ^Tites to his brother, 
 dull! ii^ uo^ ^'^' " No Irish expedition : probably no coronation." Yet the King was crowned, 
 and Avent to Ireland, and also, later in the year, to Hanover. \Vlien he went 
 to Ireland, his Ministers were happy in the hope that the visit of the Sovereign 
 would " tranquillize " tliat luifortunate country : and the accounts sent home 
 by Lord Sidniouth, who attended the King, of his reception, show no mis- 
 giving as to the duration of the "good feeling" \viih whicli his Majesty was 
 greeted. Nothing was ^dsible but " enthusiastic loyalty," inducing hopes of 
 "permanent benefit," and this, as late as September. Yet, on the 20th of 
 October, Lord Sidmouth reports to Lord Londonderry (Lord Castlereagh under 
 his new title) " very unpleasant accounts from Ireland." Unreasonable as it 
 would be at any time to expect to satisfy a malcontent nation by a passing 
 visit from the sovereign, there seem to have been special reasons in this case 
 why the royal appearance acted only for the moment, and on the surface — and 
 a limited surface. Wliile the royal squadron was mnd-bound off Holyhead, 
 news arrived of the death of the Queen. The King proceeded to DubUn, and 
 Life of i,nra Sid- secliulcd liimsclf till tlic corpse of his wife was supposed to have left England. 
 
 moiuli, iii. 355. . ii-i ■• iiiii 
 
 He tlien emerged, — m a mood which we can imaguie to be shared by the 
 crowd around him, under the stimulus of Dublin festivities, but which can 
 hardly be supposed to have so impressed the Irish nation with reverence and 
 love as to work in them a sudden restoration to peace, contentment, and 
 
 Lord Duflpy's loyalty. " I camiot help suspecting," writes Mr. Ward, " that his Majesty's 
 late journeys to see his kingdoms of Ireland and Hanover will not, on the 
 whole, redound much to his honour or advantage. His manners no doubt are, 
 when he pleases, very graceful and captivating. . . . But on the whole he 
 wants dignity, not only in the seclusion and familiarity of his more private 
 life, but on public occasions He seems to liave behaved not like a sove- 
 reign coming in pomp and state to ^isit a part of his dominions, but like a 
 popidar candidate come down upon an electioneering trip. If, the day before 
 he left Ireland, he had stood for Dublin, he would, I dare say, have tinned out 
 Shaw or Grattan." 
 
 conoNATioN. A^t ti^e Coronation, which took place on the 19th of July, George IV., for 
 
 tlie time, looked the king. There was hollowness there too. The blaze of 
 jewels, the splendour of the robes, the peahng of the music, the ciy of 
 " God save the King," the smiles and loyal eagerness, all looked like re- 
 joicing ; but the King's Chancellor, the keeper of his conscience and slave 
 
 dolil^n.^p^^al^'" ol ^"® prerogative, admits, "Every body went in the morning under very 
 luicomfortable feelings and tkcad." The reason why was knowai to all. 
 There was one outside knocking for admission, " trying every door in 
 the Abbey in vain." This phantom of an injured Queen was felt, though 
 not seen, amidst the festivities ; and how dreaded it was, we perceive from 
 
 din' "l 427!''^'' *li^ triumph of the pious Lord Eldon in her mortification. " It is all
 
 Chap. III.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 275 
 
 over, quite safe and well A gentleman in the Hall told us, that 1821. 
 
 when her Majesty got into the carriage again, she wept Jolm Bull i^ir'TTLlITEi- 
 
 S])ared us ; indeed his family were very civil to me, in the course of my d"". «■ <"• 
 transit from the Hall to the Ahbey. The business is certainly over in a way 
 nobody could have hoped." 
 
 Another "business" was " certainly over " just at this time, which must J^^a™ of nv- 
 have caused relief to the King and his Ministers, even gi-eater than that the 
 coronation passed off well. It may be hoped that they also felt something of 
 the solemn and mournful emotion which ran tlu'ough the heart of the civilized 
 world at the news. "Wliile the pageantry of our great regal festival was pre- \ 
 
 paring — while the gems were burnishing, and the tapestries unrolling, and 
 the tlu-one erecting, and the choir ])ractising, the Chamber of Deputies at . , „ . 
 
 _ o' ... Annua) Rogisler, 
 
 Paris were recei\TJig the followng petition : — if-', t'tron. in. 
 
 " Napoleon is no more. We claim his remains. The honour of France 
 requires this restitution ; and Avhat the honour of France requires ■will be 
 accomplished. She cannot endm-e that he who was her chief — that he whom 
 she saluted with the title of Great, and the desig-nation of Emperor, should 
 remain as a trojjhy in the hands of foreigners ; and that every Englishman 
 may say, on showing an insolent monument, ' Here is the Emperor of the 
 French.' " 
 
 The temper of tliis petition may be excused when it is considered that it 
 is from the ofBcers and adherents of Napoleon, who saw him pine and die far 
 from home, and in captivity. At such a moment they had the sympathy even 
 of those who had most ui-gently demanded that the world should be secm-ed 
 by the rigid seclusion of him who had troubled it so long and so severely. 
 Now that it was over, and tliat that restless spirit could trouble his race no 
 more, the natural feelings of compassion and regret arose strongly and univer- 
 sally. His fellow-men began at once to look back upon him as a man, and 
 not only as a conqueror and disturber who had himibled the pride of nations, 
 and broken up the peace of continents. He was at once regarded as a suffer- 
 ing man — all pitying him. for the dreadful fate of his closing years, spent in 
 chafing against his bonds, and sinking inider the burden of ignominious idle- 
 ness ; while the most thoughtfid had a still deeper compassion for him, as one 
 who had failed in the true objects of human life by the pmsuit of personal 
 aims. Looking back, they saw how one endowed with noble powers could 
 have known but httle of the peace of the soid ; and how, in the crowning 
 moments of his triimiphs, his life had been a failure. Looking forwai'd, they 
 saw how, throughout the whole fut\ue of human experience, he would stand 
 dishonourably distinguished from the humblest servant of the race who had 
 ministered to its real good. Many, throughout aU time, who have apparently 
 been baffled in their aims, and laboured in vain to work out then schemes, 
 have, visibly or invisibly, attained the truest and highest success by an unwa- 
 vering fideUty to the right and the true, and have enjoyed their natiu-al recom- 
 pense in the exaltation of then o^^ai being. Tliis one man, before whose 
 powers the nations quailed, and whose will seemed to be, for the time, the law 
 of his kind, was, in his very triumphs, a sufferer — a wanderer from the home 
 of human affections — a powerless and defeated soldier m the conflict of human 
 life. And he could not retrieve himself in adversity. Leisure and solitude
 
 276 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book II. 
 
 1821. brought no healing to him. He had no moral force Avhich could respond to 
 ~~~^'"^"'""~^ the ajipeal of adverse circumstance. He had in him nothing of the man which 
 could, in a season of rest, look back with M'onder or a smile on the tui'bulence 
 of its childish vanity and pride ; nothing of the sage which could draw from 
 the vicissitudes of experience any aliment of present wisdom and peace. He 
 remained to the last morally a child and a sufferer — a baffled child, and an 
 unconscious suiferer from worse woes than his mortifications, his bondage, and 
 his privations. It might be a question whether all was done for him, or done 
 in the best Avay, which his vast powers, and his misfortimes, and liis appeal as 
 an enemy, might claim ; but if all had been done which the highest vrisdom 
 and magnanimity could suggest, it could have really availed him nothing. His 
 misery lay too deep for healing by himian hands : it was wrought into his very 
 being ; and it could be dissolved by no touch short of that which took out the 
 life fi-om the clay, and gave back the dust to dust. That time had now come. 
 The dulled eye no longer wandered over the boundless ocean which sur- 
 roimded his island prison ; his acliing mind no longer gazed abroad listlessly 
 over the lieaAdng sea of human affaii's ; his spent heart had ceased its beatmg ; 
 and liis dust lay under the willows in that nook at St. Helena, where strangers 
 came from the east and the west, to feel and wonder at the silence which had 
 settled doA\Ti on one who had made the world echo with the wail of the widow 
 and the orphan, the groans of dying multitudes, the tramp of hosts, and the 
 crash of falling empires. In this nook of the world, there had been no peace 
 to his soul ; and it was, perhaps, all the more soothing to find quietness about 
 his grave. 
 Annual Register, Jje died On the 5th of May, 1821, after a painful and lingering decline. 
 
 1821, Chron. 104. . ■' ' . ^ ° . 
 
 The news of his death reached England while London was preparing for the 
 Coronation of the Sovereign Avho had had him in charge, and who was to 
 follow him, after the lapse of a few years, to that bed of rest where foes lie 
 down side bv side — comrades at last.
 
 Chap. IV] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 277 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 T OllD Liverpool's admiuistratiou had been very powerful in its day; and 1821. 
 -" it stiU preserved an air of authority and security wliich imposed upon ---^ — - 
 the general public, and prevented all but the watchful lovers of liberty on the 
 one hand, and those who dreaded change on the other, from perceiving that a 
 new time was coming, — a way opening for the arrival of new men and new 
 measures. 
 
 The Ministry were not strong M'ith the King. We have seen how nearly 
 they were going out immediately after Iris accession. Again, when the King 
 went to Hanover, there existed " an uncomfortable state of feeling between 
 himself and his Prime Minister," which was afterwards accommodated ; but 
 not for long. In December, he was anxious and ill-humoured about a new 
 creation of baronets, on which Lord Sidmouth observes, in a note to the 
 Premier, "and really the matter is not worth a gale of wind, much less a ^ife of Lord sid. 
 
 ,, TT • ■ • ■ moulh, 111. 371. 
 
 storm. However trifling the subject of these royal discontents, their fre- 
 quency was by this time affecting the strength of the Ministry. 
 
 The Administration was not strong in itself. Lord Sidmouth had long 
 been wishing to retire ; and there was perpetual apprehension of the Lord 
 Chancellor being compelled to do so. Lord Londonderry showed at times 
 symptoms of fatigue and nervousness which made liis colleagues luieasy, and 
 caused the King to advise rest and change of scene : and the anxieties and 
 toils of office were wearing down the frame of the Premier himself. 
 
 The Administration was not strong with the country, though its weakness 
 was not perceived by every body. The distress of the agriculturists was 
 pressing ; and the return to cash payments had so lowered prices, and for the 
 time dcstrojed tlie ordinary relation between money and other commodities, 
 that tlie embarrassment created extreme discontent. While the ignorant and 
 impatient of both the moneyed and the landed classes threatened each other 
 with confiscation of the Funds or of estates, both united in claims for relief 
 from the Government which no government could grant. The Ministry pre- 
 served their attitude of grave sufficiency; but they looked about for aid and 
 support. 
 
 Above all, the Administration was not strong in regard to the times. It 
 spent a good deal of leisure and energy in bemoaning the changes in the 
 spirit of the times : but it could not prevent them, and it could not cope with 
 them. It would fain have strengthened continually the policy of the Holy 
 Alliance abroad : it would have kept a good old Protestant Tory, with under- 
 lings like himself, in power in Ireland : it would have gone on imposing the 
 same taxes, and follo^ving the same routine in England for another tenn of 
 years ; but it could do none of these things. Amelioration drew on, in spite 
 of their fears and ondoavonrs. England was about to will a more liberal
 
 278 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book II. 
 
 1822. continental policy. Ireland was about to have rulers well disposed towards 
 ^-^'^'-^-^ l]iQ Catholics. A remission of taxation was becoming necessary, and the 
 principles of commerce Avere brought more and more into question every year. 
 Something must be done. What should it be ? 
 Coalition with To keep the Whigs not Only out of office, but out of all thoughts of office. 
 Party. was the first tiling necessary. The Whigs were not trained for office, and 
 
 were supposed to be so incompetent to its business that it would be the greatest 
 of misfortunes to the country if their brilliancy and moral force in Parliament 
 should carry them into work for which they were imfit. They were supposed 
 to be aware of this unfitness, and to rely for its reparation on the Grenville 
 party, in alliance with whose practical ability they could luidertake to govern 
 the country. The thing to be done therefore was to separate the Grenvilles 
 from all sympathy with the Wliigs. It was a sore necessity, — that of pro- 
 posing a coalition with the Grenvilles : but it was done. The Lord Chan- 
 cellor mourned over it. " This coalition, I tliink, will have consequences 
 very different from those expected by the members of administration who 
 Life of Lord El- brought it about. I hate coahtions." The inconveniences were indeed great. 
 The Grenville party of course agreed in the main in the political principles of 
 the Liverpool Cabinet, or the coalition could not have taken place : but they 
 were friendly to the Catholic claims, — differing in this important matter fi-om 
 every member of the Cabinet except Lord Londonderry : and on the whole, 
 there was an inclination towards liberalism in them which was disturbing to 
 official men who had so long thought ahke, and had all their own way. Lord 
 Liverpool and his colleagues had to reconcile themselves to the changes which 
 they had foimd themselves compelled to make by the consideration that they 
 had materially damaged the Opposition. It was not only the Opposition that 
 was damaged by the change. The sujjporters of government were made as 
 angry as the Opposition leaders were made ironical, by the sight of the lavish 
 gifts made to the new allies on their own demand. The Whig Lords -RTote 
 and said that " every thing had fallen in price except the Grenvilles : " and 
 the adherents of the Ministry did not conceal their opinion that the good 
 things given to the Grenvilles would have been more righteously and usefully 
 bestowed upon themselves. The accession was not great, either as to numbers 
 or ability. Lord Grenville had retired from public life, and would not be 
 tempted out of his retreat. The Marquis of Buckingham was made a duke ; 
 one of the Wynns went to the head of the Board of Control ; and another 
 was sent as Envoy to the Swiss Cantons, ^\•iih appointments of the value of 
 about £4,000 a year. In return, they brought a few votes to the Government ; 
 lessened their own dignity and estimation in the eyes of men, and removed to 
 a greater distance the prospect of the accession of the Wliigs to power. One 
 other function they unconsciously fulfilled — that of a signal to the nation 
 that a change was occurring in the spirit of government wluch must bring 
 on a new and better time. 
 RETiBiiMENT OF A morc iniportaut circimistance than that of the coming over of any niunber 
 of Grenville officials and voters was that Mr. Peel at this jimcture took the office 
 from which Lord Sidmouth retired. There was little noise made about this 
 at the time. The friends and admirers of Lord Sidmouth once more congra- 
 tulated him on the number of plots which he had detected, and the energy
 
 Chap. IV.J DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 279 
 
 with which ho had frustrated them; and all agreed that there was so substan- 1822. 
 tial an accordance between the views, principles, and aims of himself and ^-^~''^"^-' 
 Mr. Peel, that the coxmtry would not feel the change of men. Such was really 
 the belief and sentiment a quarter of a century ago : but how strange does it 
 appear now ! It seems scarcely possible that these men should have been 
 regarded as, except in point of years, alike, — alike to the destinies of the 
 country ; wliile now the elder is regarded as a conscientious and complacent 
 bigot, — a man of one idea, — and that idea one which must unfit him for wise 
 administration : while the other, then in the first full vigour of intellectual 
 life, was preparing for an administration of aff"airs which should be signalized 
 by perpetual extension, and boundless fertility of resource. Lord Sidmouth 
 watched for sedition from day to day, and dreamed of plots in all seasons of 
 repose. His duty was, in his omti eyes, to discover and quell sedition, which 
 lie called preserving the monarchy : his triumph was to frustrate conspii-acy, 
 and hang the conspirators. His hope was to root up sedition, and leave the 
 field of politics clear ; and his solace in retirement was to be that he had 
 caught the wicked in their own snares, and in so far protected the good. 
 " The truth is," he observes, " that it was because my official bed was become i.ife of i.ord suu 
 comparatively a bed of roses that I detennined to withdraw from it. When 
 strewn with thorns, I would not have left it." While no plot was hatching, 
 there was nothing for him to do ; and he took the opportunity of introducing 
 his successor, to be in readmess for frustrating the next conspiracy. But that Mn. peel. 
 successor, considered at the time so wonderfully Uke him except in years, has 
 not been engaged ever since about plots and sedition. He has looked deep into 
 the causes of sedition, and seen how much better it is to obviate discontent 
 than to punish it. He has looked forwards, so as to see that there is a law of 
 progress as imperative in politics as in other human aff'aii-s ; and he has learned 
 to satisfy aspiration betimes, instead of attempting to crush it. He has looked 
 abroad, far and ^\\Ae over the expanse of human interests, and has allowed his 
 sense of responsibility to expand in proportion to that observation, till he has 
 risen to the head of statesmanship, as statesmanship is in our age. He has 
 been the watchman and steersman of an empire, — ahnost of a world, — while 
 Lord Sidmouth was but its rat-catcher. A sober, industrious, -Ndgilant rat- 
 catcher was he, whose heart was truly in his duty : but he coidd not rise 
 above that function ; and it is striking to read now, in the registers of the 
 time, concerning these two men, " that the substitution of the one for the other fg^rp! ^'^'^'"' 
 could have no effect in the course of administration." It is striking too to mark 
 how lesser men speak of gr-eater, — the lesser men being unable to see beyond 
 the circle filled by themselves. Lord Sidmouth writes approvingly of the 
 demeanour of his successor, declaring that " notliing could have been more 
 becoming and creditable:" language which is called by his biographer " an life of i-ord sw- 
 almost prophetic anticipation" of Mr. Peel's " futiu-e eminence." No : Lord 
 Sidmouth Avas disturbed by no such stirrings of prophecy, or he would have 
 remained on his " bed of roses," and have died on it sooner than recognise as 
 a successor such a redeemer of malcontents as Mr. Peel has since become. 
 
 It was at present impossible for Mr. Canning to be invited into the adminis- m... canning. 
 tration. Men were not agreed as to the ground of the evident iinpossibility : 
 but the general belief was that it was on account of his refusal to act against
 
 280 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book II. 
 
 1822. the Queen. He had been an early and influential adviser of the Princess: 
 he would not join in any of the proceedings of her adversaries, and offered 
 to resign, but was not permitted ; so he went abroad. When, on his retui'n 
 from the foreign travel with which he had occupied the time of the prosecu- 
 tion, he found the discussion of her afi"airs unavoidably mixed up with that of 
 all the doings of the administration, he peremptorily resigned his place at 
 the Board of Control. By this step, he was supposed to have incurred the 
 royal displcasm-e ; and he was not now one of the new members of the govern- 
 ment. But his time was coming, and the nation did not long inquire for him 
 in vain. Meanwhile there occurred in regard to him one of those strildng 
 instances of which history is full, of how, while " Man proposes, God disposes." 
 The India Company were not inclined to dispense with such a man, if the 
 Government could do without him. Tliey offered him the post of Governor 
 General of India; and soon after Parhament met in 1822, it was announced 
 that Mr. Canning was to succeed Lord Hastings in that office. . During the 
 spring and summer, Mr. Canning continued his preparations for India ; and 
 the nation found time, amidst its pressure of busiuess and of distress, to 
 watch them with regret. Many of the multitude feared and disliked the 
 aristocratic tendencies of the man, and the poUtical bias of the statesman : the 
 members of the administration disliked and cavilled at him; and there was 
 much jealousy of him in the House of Commons: but still, the eyes of the 
 nation were ujion him : he was generally regarded as the foremost man in 
 public life ; and there was a prevalent feeling of sorrow and sliamc that he 
 was allowed to go so far away. Still, his preparations went on : Mr. Ward 
 
 Lette°"'"3o? ^^ote, " It wiU be a singular and misatisfactory termination to the career of 
 the greatest orator in either house of parliament ; of a man too whose talents 
 have always been directed towards the support of a system of poUcy which has 
 succeeded beyond the most sanguine hopes of its promoters : " — Lord London- 
 derry was watching the outbreaks and rej)ressions of rebellion in Italy, imder 
 the despotism of the Holy Alliance, — not unconscious perhaps of the deep 
 curses with which his name was proscribed through all the Secret Societies, 
 and most of the homes of the Continent : Ireland was on her trial again 
 under the wise and mild administration of Lord Wellesley, who this spring- 
 succeeded Lord Talbot as Viceroy: — " Vansittart's crest was elevated" on 
 
 Life of Lord Sid- accouut of an improved report of the revenue ; and Lord Sidmovith was hoping 
 that "perilous and merciless retrenchments" would be no more heard of : and 
 this hope was so far disappointed as that £3,000,000 of taxes were taken off: 
 the agricultural interest obtained a loan of a million, to support them till the 
 first difficulties of a return to cash payments were over : all these interests 
 were in full career for the months of that spring and summer; yet Canning 
 was never lost sight of for a moment. When his preparations were made, and 
 the hour of sailing drew nigh, he went to Liverpool, to take his farewell of his 
 constituents ; and there we see him " at Seaforth House, the residence of liis 
 friend Mr. Gladstone (the father of the Right Hon. W. Gladstone), situated 
 on a flat, stretching north of the town, and overlooking the sea. The room 
 which he occupied looked out upon the ocean, and here he would sit for boms, 
 gazing on the open expanse, while young Gladstone, who has subsequently 
 obtained sucli distinction in the councils of his sovereign, used to be playing
 
 Chap. IV.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 281 
 
 on the strand below." On this occasion, as he sat " for lionrs," he was 1822. 
 revolving in his mind news which had reached him on his iourney down, and ^— ^- ' 
 
 11 ,„,,.,,. n Ti !• Life of Canning, 
 
 Avhich would penetrate, and nil with his name, every corner of Europe, as fast t>y Robert Bdi, 
 as the ^\■inds could carry the tidings. 
 
 Of all the interests presenting themselves at this important season, none lord weheslev 
 
 1*1 1 f»Tll 1111 '^ InF-I.AND. 
 
 was more entrrossmg at the time than the state oi Ireland. Alas ! when was 
 it otherwise ? and when will it be otherwise ? There is some satisfaction how- 
 ever in contemplating this period, because in this direction, as in others, some 
 promise of a better government, and more social welfare, was dawning. It 
 must always be long, and seem yet longer, before the good results of an 
 improved policy can appear in a reliable fonn in a society so disorganized as 
 that of Ireland : but the institution of the improvement is meanwhile a cheer- 
 ing spectacle in itself. Lord Talbot was a Viceroy whose mind was full of 
 ideas of Protestant Ascendancy: and it was little that his humane and sensible 
 secretary, Charles Grant, could do to ameliorate his rule : and at that time, 
 the bigot Saurin, the unrelenting foe of the Catholics, was Attorney General 
 for Ireland. Now, the Viceroy and the Attorney General, Mr. Plunket, were 
 in favour of the Catholic claims : and though the usual method was still pur- 
 sued of appointing men of mutually counteracting tendencies, Mr. Goulburn 
 being sent as secretary with the Marquis of Wellesley, the gain to the liberal 
 cause was, on the whole, very great. 
 
 The effect of the King's visit was over, almost as soon as he was out of 
 sight : and then the heart-burnings among fellow-citizens in the towns, and 
 outrages in the country, went on as virulently as before. The Conciliation 
 Dinner which was to celebrate the King's visit was given up, and the Com- Amnmi Register, 
 mittee pubKcly resigned their trust, on the g^-oimd of the dissensions of the 
 parties who were to conciliate. The Catholics offered addresses of affectionate 
 congratulation to the in-coming Viceroy : while the Corporation of Dublin 
 offered an address of affectionate condolence to the out-going Attorney General. 
 An attempt to introduce Catholics into corporations was defeated at a guild of 
 Dublin merchants : and the majority made ostentatious rejoicings under the 
 eyes of their new ruler. In the country, no man's house was secure ; and 
 those of the gentry were so many garrisons. Bands of Whiteboys — hundreds 
 in a band — besieged these garrisons, fought, plimdered, murdered, in defiance 
 of police and soldiery. The soldiers indeed found themselves powerless 
 against a foe so light-footed, so familiar with the country, and so utterly reck- 
 less and desperate as the peasantry of the south of Ireland. In the north, as 
 usual, all was comparatively quiet : but at length symptoms of disorder 
 appeared there also. It became necessary to empower the Viceroy to proclaim 
 any part of the country which might be disturbed, — and in February two bills 
 were passed ; one to reimpose the Insun-cction Act, and the other to susjjend 
 the Habeas Corpus, till the ensuing 1st of August. In the course of the Hansard, vi. 220. 
 month of April, after a dreadful season of disorder and its punishments, com- 
 parative quiet seemed to settle down on that unhappy country : but to rebel- 
 lion and its retribution now succeeded famine. As in later times, excessive Annual Register, 
 rains rotted the potatoes in the ground ; and, as in later times, the people were 
 taken unprepared. They ate their potatoes till no more were to be had : and 
 then they took to oatmciil, till they had no means of purchase left; and then 
 
 VOL. I. 2 p
 
 282 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book II. 
 
 1822. they crowded the roads and to^vTis to beg, or stole away into hiding places, to 
 die of hunger. As in later times, no seed potatoes were left, to give some hope 
 of a harvest the next year : and again, as so often before, did typhus fever 
 follow upon the famine, quelling rebellion itself in destitution and woe. The 
 next year's crop of potatoes, however, Avas good : there was a decline of insiu'- 
 rectionary movement ; and the iniluence of the liberal Viceroy did perhaps all 
 that it could luider the circumstances. But the opinions and temper of the 
 Viceroy can effect but Uttle in such a case while tlie laws and the conduct of 
 suiTounding officials proceed on principles that he does not hold. Tliat the 
 Marquis of Wellesley was favourable to the claims of the CathoUcs was gi-ati- 
 fying to them : but it did not enable him to do them or their country much 
 good while the laws, and almost every one concerned in the administration of 
 them, were anti-catholic. The true field of Irish ameUoration was the floor 
 of parhament, where oppressive and insulting laws could be remodelh^d or 
 repealed. To this end IMr. Canning directed what he believed would be his 
 last efforts for his country before going to the distant dependency where he 
 Mr. Canning's -jyas heuccforth to livc aiul work. On the 30th of AprU of, as he suijposed. 
 
 Motion on Ca- .... . 11' 
 
 Tiioiic peeiw. his last session in Parliament, he moved for leave to bring in a Bill to annul 
 Hansard, vii. 211. the disabilities of Catholic Peers to sit in the House of Lords. He professed 
 to have hope that a measure so limited as this might be obtained : and he saw 
 how its adoption must open a way to further concessions. The Bill was carried 
 successfully on its way, as far as to the second reading in the House of Lords, 
 when it was thrown out by a majority of 42. 
 
 Till the enlarged liberality of the laws should enable him to do more. Lord 
 
 Wellesley did, from his own resoiu-ces of wisdom and humanity, what he could. 
 
 Annual RpBisier, Jjc greatly iuiprovcd the police of Ireland : he completed the revision and 
 
 Annual Register, amendment of the list of maoistratcs : he su])i)ressed the offensive demonstra- 
 
 1S>2, p. 53. '^ , , '^ ' , 
 
 Annual liegisier, tious of the Orange party, forbiddingr the procession of the 5th of November, 
 
 1822, p. 53. O r J ' or _ ' 
 
 and the decking out of the statue on College Green : and he received witli 
 magnanimous good-humour the evidences of mipopularity which he thus 
 brought upon himself. The Dublin Corporation censured him, under cover 
 of a censiu'e of the Lord Mayor, who had co-operated zealously with him. 
 The "Protestant" newspapers abused him. The "Protestant" public 
 
 i8™,"p' f'^'^^"' mobbed him at the theatre ; some fraction of that loyal public throwing a 
 bottle at him, on one such occasion. The tiubulent people under him miglit 
 behave as they would ; it did not deter him from attempting to do them good. 
 The secret of success in that endeavour has not yet been found : but there can 
 be no doubt that the administration of Lord Wellesley was a benefit to 
 Ireland in many ways. Never before perhaps ■were the affairs of Ireland so 
 copiously discussed in the legislature as in this season, wlien her saddest dis- 
 order and misery called forth only the more of the paternal element in the 
 
 -Life of Lorrt Sid- mind aiul heart of her excellent ruler. Sir John Malcolm wrote of him, a 
 
 moutb. III. ilttC. 
 
 year later than this time, that he " was glad to find the extreme Cathohcs as 
 much out of humour with the Lord Lieutenant as the extreme Orangemen:" 
 and that " that strange scene, Ireland, appeared to be just at that crisis 
 when all his highest qualities, if allowed their scope," must do " essential 
 good." If we see, as yet, but too little of this " essential good," we must 
 remember that Ireland has improved, since the times prior to Lord Wellesley's
 
 Chap. IV.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 283 
 
 rule; improved in resoiu'ces, and even (bad as matters yet are) in piinciple 1822. 
 
 and temper : and there is no saying liow much worse she might have been now ^^— ~- ' 
 
 but for him, — how her Orangemen might have raved, and her factions have 
 fought and jobbed, as before his day. But there is so little to be said yet of 
 hope and gratulation about Ireland, that it is a welcome change to turn to 
 any other scene, — even of strife. 
 
 A strife took place in the Church at this time which requires notice from its peterborouuu 
 
 OuESTIONS 
 
 connexion with both past and future states of religion in England. Through- 
 out its whole existence, the Church of England has included three parties of 
 religionists ; men who naturally class themselves under one of three methods 
 of i-egarding and receiving the religion which is equally precious to them all. 
 These sections are the High Church, the Calvinistic, and the Moderate : or, 
 as Ave call them at the present day, the Catholic, the Evangelical, and the 
 Liberal. By the constitution and principle of the Roman Catholic Church, 
 men of all tendencies of mind are retained in hannony within its pale. Under 
 the authority of that Chm-ch, every diversity of mind, manners, and morals 
 may repose, without further strife than must arise wherever the inquisitive 
 and active mind of man has scope and interest. But a similar repose and 
 liarmony are not possible in a Protestant Church, whose appeal is to the 
 Scriptures themselves, or in other words, to some other interpretation of the 
 Bible than that of an infallible authority. In the framing of the Thirty-nine 
 Articles, openings were left for the liberty of scrupulous minds and strict 
 intellects : and by the spirit of the Church itself, it has always been under- 
 stood that the various human mind was to be liberally and gently dealt with, 
 in regard to difficult matters of doctrine. The miscliief to be ajjprehended is, 
 tliat bigots who have the power will think it right to close such openings, 
 which they consider openings to error : and the hope in such cases is, that the 
 instinct and principle of liberty which wrought the Reformation will ever 
 watch over the rights and privileges it was intended to secure. 
 
 Every one knows how much it cost Wesley to leave the Church : and all 
 can imderstand how men who followed soon upon his time might not only 
 share his reluctance in that particular, but take warning against dissent, from 
 the spectacle of the Methodist hierarchy, established with great and tlu-eaten- 
 ing power outside the limits of the Church. Some individuals of strong Cal- 
 vinistic tendencies had applied themselves for a considerable period before 
 our present date to rouse the Cliiuch from its indolence and carelessness ; 
 from what has been called its " avoidance of all collision with controverted 
 points, its study of ease and repose, its dealings in truisms and generaUties, i^,^'^^''^f,°fP';,'^'j"ff^ 
 and subsidence into a calm ethical view of Christianity." Tliis rousing, it of England, p. i^^. 
 was naturally thought, would be best effected by the placing in the piJpits of 
 the Church the gi-eatcst possible number of earnest men of sentiments caUed, 
 in the language of the time. Evangelical. IVIr. Wilberforce and his friends 
 did much in fm-therance of this object ; and their efforts no doubt caused a 
 great revival of life in the Chmch, and of personal religion in the higher 
 classes of society. But, as was sine to happen, they roused sometliing else 
 besides religious earnestness. They awoke the old High Church spirit of 
 domination and exclusiveness, which wrought at first in single instances, and 
 gradually enlarged its scope, till the attention of the whole of society was
 
 284 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book II. 
 
 1822. fixed on that movement, called Tractarian, which we shall have occasion to 
 '— "^^'^■^-^ survey at a future time. The first striking instance of the awakening of the 
 old High Chmxh spirit of domination over faith occmTed at this time, and 
 made no little noise. 
 Hansard, V. 1166. On the 14th of Jime, 1821, a petition was presented to the House of Lords 
 by Lord King, from the Rev. Henry W. Neville, rector of Blatherwick. The 
 story was this ; and it was presented to Parliament only because the petitioner 
 had no other appeal. This rector was under obligation to present a ciu-ate to 
 a living in the diocese of Peterborough : and he did accordingly present the 
 Rev. John Green, — a man of unquestionable character and ability, who had 
 signed the thirty-nine articles, and was ready to sign them again. The Bishop 
 of Peterborough (Dr. Herbert Marsh) sent to him a printed paper, containing 
 eighty-seven questions drawn up by himself, requiring answers to these — 
 such answers as shoidd be satisfactory to the bishop — as a condition of the 
 curate being licensed. Mr. Green decUned this new test ; and the bishop 
 refused his license. An appeal to the Archbishop of Canterbury being unsuc- 
 cessful, the petitioner had no choice but to apply to the House of Lords for a 
 judgment as to whether every bishop might frame new tests as a condition of 
 entrance upon the offices of the church. The matter was gone into at greater 
 Hansard, vii. 824. jgj^gj.|^ the ucxt year, when another petitioner, the Rev. INIr. Grimshawe, on 
 behalf of the Rev. Mr. Thurtell, complained that the bishop would not even 
 pei-mit to the respondent any choice as to the mode, even in regard to length, 
 in which he should reply to the questions. The questions were in a brief, even 
 an abbreviated, form : printed so as to leave only a certain blank space within 
 which the answers must be comprehended. Mr. Thurtell answered the questions, 
 appending, on separate sheets, his statements of his opinions, and the reasons 
 and authorities for them. But the bishop wanted " short, plain, and positive 
 answers," that he might " know whether the opinions of the persons examined 
 accorded with those of the Church." The points proposed were some of the 
 most difficult and intricate to be found in the whole compass of theological 
 science : and the wisest persons saw the most immediately and clearly that 
 these were matters which could not be pronounced upon, except without any 
 of the due reservations, in the compass of a few inches of paper. The bishop 
 pleaded his legal right to examine his clergy in any manner he chose : and if 
 this legal right covdd not be denied, the inference was that some further 
 security for liberty of opinion was needed than at present existed. He asserted 
 that his method was not an innovation, — that it was not even unusual : but 
 the indignation and sorrow that it roused seem to show that society was sur- 
 prised at his proceedings, and quite indisposed to acquiesce in them. He 
 pleaded also that there was nothing in his questions which was not in plain 
 and (.lirect accordance with the articles of the Church — the clear answer to 
 which was that his fellow-clergy might think otherwise : and that if they did 
 not. Ids questions were pm-ely needless. On both occasions the House of 
 Lords refused to entertain the subject : but it was long before the country let 
 it drop. On neither occasion was a word uttered by any bishop but the one 
 Hansard, vii.816. appealed against. Lord Carnarvon expressed his astonishment at their silence, 
 and did not conceal his contempt of it. He declared that these Spiritual 
 Peers, whose ample presence that night Avas certainly ornamental, though not
 
 Chap. IV.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 285 
 
 apparently useful, were ready enough to give their opinion on constitutional 1822. 
 
 questions, but had not a word to say on a matter so peculiarly -sWtliin their ^ -^— ^ 
 
 province. The truth was, they were unprepared. The great subject of liberty 
 of opinion was coming up again before they were trained and habituated to 
 its discussion, or even to its consideration. If, as is probable, they all believed 
 that their episcopal brother had a legal right to do as he had done, but had 
 yet been morally guilty of oppression, and therefore, fiuictionally, of impru- 
 dence and mischief making, they had better have said so. They gained nothing 
 by their silence ; for the country said it for them, thi'ough the press, the pulpit, • 
 
 and all private conversation. Something was gained to the cause of liberty 
 of opinion, in and out of the Church ; and much was done towards that clear 
 marking out of the three great religious parties which have since been as pro- 
 minently distinguished (allowing for the softened spirit of the times) as in the 
 days when Laud pilloried the Pui'itans, and " the ever-memorable Mr. John 
 Hales" was " bidihng CaMn good night." 
 
 A new MaiTiage Act passed tliis session, which was of considerable import- ^™ markuue 
 ance as the first great step towards a return to that treedom of marriage which Hansard vii. 1455. 
 was absolutely unlimited prior to the legislation of 1T53. The evils arising fi-om 
 nulHty of marriages had long been found to be so great that the Commons 
 had, within five years preceding this time, passed three bills granting some 
 relaxation. These bills had been tlu-own out by the Lords, who now, how- f-°^''^ fi^^^^"' 
 ever, so amended the bill of the Lower House as to give it a far ^-ider scope 
 than had been proposed there. The bill, when it reached the Lords, provided 
 that marriages which were null in law should become legal, if left thus far 
 unquestioned by any competent tribunal : and that illegal marriages of minors 
 should henceforth be not void, but only voidable : and voidable oidy within 
 the minority of the parties, and under certain conditions. The Lords improved 
 upon this so far as to decree that no solemnized marriage whatever could be 
 annulled. The Lord Chancellor, his brother, and some other old-fasliioned 
 peers were excessively scandalized at the favour- with which this bill was 
 received in their House : but they obtained Httle pity for their- concern : for 
 that concern was about those parts of the measm-e which related to property 
 pledged under the fonner law to parties who profited by the irregular man-iage 
 of their connexions. Such property would now go to the married parties, 
 whose marriage would be legalized by the new bill. The Lord Chancellor 
 was full of fears, as usual ; fears that the House which had hitherto possessed 
 the good opinion of the country would lose it, and be, before ten days were 
 over, utterly despised as guilty of legal robbery. But the House knew what Hansard, vii. 1455. 
 it was about, and what the nation would think. It supported the bill by a 
 majority of more than two to one : and it was aware that " the country" did 
 not, like the Lord Chancellor, think that a few partial claims of property, 
 accruing by accident, and by such an accident as an illegal marriage, were to 
 be preferred to the everlasting and illimitable claims of a fundamental morahty. 
 It was undoubtedly a hardship that certain parties who had been led by a 
 reliance on the statute to reckon on property forfeited by the irregular marriage 
 of others, should be disappointed of their expectations : but the blame of this 
 tlisappointment lay with a preceding generation of statesmen, who had been 
 too bhnd to see the mischief they were doing in tamperuig with the freedom
 
 286 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book II. 
 
 1822. of maiiiagc : and not with those who were now endeavouring to restore the 
 sanctity and stability of an institution in which the morahty of society was 
 still involved. Imprudence and carelessness in contracting marriage are a 
 great evil : but it is less than that of playing fast and loose with an institution 
 whose very \-irtue resides in its certainty and irreversibleness. Whether a 
 time may come when society may pei'ceive that its moral purity can be better 
 promoted than by connecting the conjugal relation with law and arrangements 
 of property, is a question fairly open to the speculative morahst, — a proper 
 • sidiject of individual opinion : but it was not the question now. There was 
 
 no question of the institution itself, but of legal arrangements under it : and 
 the Lords and " the coiuitry" were united in considering the inviolability of 
 marriage the first consideration in moraUty, and the fate of certain windfalls 
 of property a very inferior one. So tlie country did not throw off its " good 
 opinion" of the Upper House " within ten days," as the Lord Chancellor pro- 
 phesied, but certainly thought no worse of the Lords for the large majority 
 Avith which they passed the new Marriage Act of 1822. 
 Close of Session. Wlieu the Scssiou closcd. On the 6th of August, the King and the Lcgisla- 
 
 Annual Register, ^ o J D o 
 
 1822, p. 179. (;m.g dispersed, to take their rest and pleasui'e in various ways. On the 10th, 
 the King set off down the Thames, in gi'eat pomp, on his way to Scotland. 
 
 scOTLANuI'"^ Lord Londonderry hastened to his seat at Foot's Cray, to prepare for his 
 mission to the Congress of Verona in October, where he was to represent 
 England. His passage thither was sure to be attended by the cm-ses of all 
 the lovers of freedom along the road, and by the groans of all the Secret 
 Societies over which he was to ride rough shod, to be welcomed at the end of 
 his joru-ney by the sympathies of all the despots in Europe. He probably 
 knew this. He knew that the continent was honeycombed with these Secret 
 Societies ; and confident as he was of his motives — imperturbable as he was 
 in liis opinions — the consciousness of the hatred that would dog his steps may 
 have tended to disturb his nerves, and to perplex liis brain. He had been 
 over-wearied Avith the fatigues of the Session ; and he had astonished and 
 grieved his friends of late by extraordinary tales of conspiracies against his 
 
 Cabinet Hisiory ])rivate character, — of way-lavinss in the iiarks, and threats in the street 
 
 of England, Xiv. ^ . ' . ■ i i ■ i • ,. tt • , i • 
 
 p. 73. agiiinst his pm'se, his reputation, and lus lite. He repaired to Ins country- 
 
 seat, to refresh himself by rest and change of ideas, while some of his colleagues 
 went to Scotland in attendance upon the King. Mr. Canning meantime was 
 •one to Liverpool, to bid f;irewell to his constituents before embarking for 
 India. There, wliile he looked abroad upon the sea from his window at 
 
 dehth of Lord Scafortli Housc, hc had awful news to ponder, — news which met the King on 
 his landing at Leith, — news which struck the despots of Eui'ope aghast iqjon 
 their thrones, — news wliich was hailed with clasped hands and glistening eyes 
 by aliens in many a provincial town in England, and with imprudent shouts 
 by conclaves of jjatriots abroad. 
 
 " I have this moment heard from Liverpool," writes the King to his Chan- 
 
 Life of Lord El- ccUor, " of tlic melaucholy death of his and my dear friend, poor Loiidon- 
 ' ' derry." " Poor Londonderry" had destroyed himself. " In common wdth 
 
 Life of Lord El. evcry body," writes the Chancellor, " I am oppressed and much affected by 
 
 ' ' ' the loss of the Marquis of Londonderry." Every body was " much affected :" 
 
 but every body was not " oppressed." The relief to a multitude was so extra- 
 
 o
 
 Chap. IY.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 287 
 
 ordinary and portentous, that little children who earned the news, as children 1822. 
 love to carry wonderful news, without knowing what it means, were astonislicd ~^— ^^'^■^-^ 
 at tlie effect of their tidings, and saw, by the clasped hands and glistening 
 eyes of aliens in English towns, that there was a meaning in the tidings 
 beyond their comprehension. There are some now who, in mature years, 
 cannot remember without emotion what they saw and heard that day. They 
 could not know how the calamity of one man, — a man amiable, winning, and 
 generous in the walk of his daily life, — could penetrate the recesses of a 
 world, not as a calamity, but as a ray of hope in the midst of thickest dark- 
 ness. This man was the screw by wliich England had riveted the chains of 
 nations. The screw was drawn, and the immoveable despotism might now be 
 overthro'mi. It was not only the sufferers who thought so. " My great 
 object," continues the King to his Chancellor, — " my gi-eat object, my good i-'fe of i^oni ei. 
 friend, in waiting to you to-night, is to tell you that I have written to Liver- 
 pool, and I do implore of you not to lend yourself io any arrangement lohatecer, 
 until my return to town. This, indeed, is Lord Liverpool's own proposal ; 
 and as you may suppose, / have joined most cordially in the proposition. It 
 will require the \\\ost prudent foresight on 7ny part relative to the new anange- 
 ments that must now necessarily take place. You may easily judge of the 
 state of my mind." 
 
 Others could judge of the state of the King's mind, nearly as well as the 
 Chancellor. He was afraid of ha\'ing to accept Canning as a Minister. 'NVliile 
 the crowd at Westminster Abbey greeted the removal of Lord Londonden-y's 
 coffin from the hearse with " a shout which echoed loudly through every corner Anmmi Rejister. 
 of the Abbey," Mr. Camiing was received with acclamations in the streets of '"*'^' ""■ '*"' 
 Liverpool, and at a festival " to wliich five hundred gentlemen sat do-mi." ^iff of canning, 
 They had a persuasion that they should not lose him now. They could not 
 be sure of this ; for, as he told them, he did not himself know what to 
 expect. " I know as little," he said, " as any man that now Hstens to me, of 
 any arrangements hkely to gi-ow out of the present state of things." But canning-s 
 every one was aware, and no one more than the King, that Mr. Camiing was 
 the only man equal to the post wliich was vacant, and that he must now fiU it. 
 It was a sore necessity : but cii'cumstances were too strong for the royal and 
 ministerial will. Yet " it was not till the 8tli of September that Lord Liver- Life of canninir, 
 pool requested to see Mr. Canning. An interview took place on the 11th,''' 
 when the Foreign Office was offered to him by the Premier, and accepted after m„. canmno fo. 
 a struggle." There was much of struggle in the business : struggle in the «'='"'' '*'^'=«'=t"<*- 
 minds of the King and fritme colleagues who feared and disliked liim ; and 
 no little stniggle to him who well knew that he was entering on a career where 
 he would ever find opposition in his fi-ont, and hatred by his side. What the 
 struggle was to cost him was shown on a day too near for the interests of the 
 world. But he was full of chivafrous com'age ; and he entered manfully on 
 his task of liberating nations. 
 
 On the 17 th of September, the Duke of Wellington set out for Verona, to Annual Rcsisier. 
 attend the Congi-ess where Lord Londonden-y had been expected : and Lord 
 Amherst went to India in the place of Mr. Canning. Thus, while man had i-okd ameieb^t 
 
 TTIZ-^IT 11 1** ft 11 (;*)\KKNitR Gl^NE- 
 
 proposed, did (iod dispose ; and tfie destimes of tlie world were thereby "^i- of i!«D"i. 
 changed, beyond human calculation. 
 
 Speeches, p. 373,
 
 288 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book II. 
 
 POLICV OF Cas. 
 TLEHEAGH. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 1822. rpHERE was abundant reason for the rejoicing which spread thi'ough the 
 J- world on the death of Lord Londonderry : and the shout which rang 
 tluough the Abbey when his coffin was taken from the hearse was natural 
 enough, though neither decent nor humane. When a man's acts have proved 
 him an enemy to his race, his race will not desire that he should Uve to con- 
 tinue those acts : and the case is not altered by any evidence that that man's 
 eulogists can bring that he meant no harm ; that he meant some kind of good; 
 and that he was admired and beloved in private for certain qualities of liis 
 character. All these things may be true ; as indeed they are hkely to be ; for 
 the cases are rare in which men do deliberately mean harm, and propose to 
 themselves to do things for the purpose of injuring others. The tyrant no 
 more says to himself, "Now I will oppress my people, and make them 
 miserable," than the liar proposes to himself " Now I will tell a lie," or the 
 sot, " Now I will get drunk." In all these cases the sin is done through a 
 Avroug habit of mind. It comes out of narrow views, and selfish propensities ; 
 and not out of an express intention to do harm. The despots of Europe were 
 not the less tyrants because they sincerely pro]50sed to themselves in their 
 congress to make their alliance a mirror of the gospel, and to promote peace 
 on earth by means which could not but drive men at one another's throats, 
 and make the very name of a religious sanction ridiculous. The simple trutli 
 was that they did not understand the gospel they invoked, and were ignorant 
 of the relation they held to their people. If the issue of their counsels was 
 that the many were made miserable, it is natural enough that the many should 
 rejoice at the withdrawal of the chief counsellor. It was as natural that a 
 shout should be raised in Europe, and echoed from the Andes, on the death of 
 Londonderry, as that a groan should force its way, and tremble thiough the 
 ocean to the shores of the New World, when, too soon after. Canning also 
 disappeared from the council board of nations. 
 
 Lord Londonderry may be called the chief counsellor, because England cer- 
 tainly had the determining power as to the principles and groimds on which 
 the policy of Europe was to proceed. If a true Englishman had been present 
 who would have taken for granted such things as are usually taken for granted 
 in England, and wherever a representative system early impresses statesmen 
 with a sense of the value of men and their welfare, the parcelling out of 
 Europe could hardly have gone on as audaciously as it did in the first instance, 
 or the govei-ument of nations by a cabinet of sovereigns, through subsequent 
 years. But Lord Londonderry had a mind too narrow to comprehend the 
 constitution of the coiuitry he helped to govern, and by far too shallow to 
 aduiit in its greatness the idea of the new era of peace on which the world had 
 entered. He could not rouse or elevate the minds of the potentates who sur-
 
 Chap. V.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 289 
 
 rounded him, as England might and should have roused and elevated, at that 1822. 
 juncture, from her disinterestedness, the better impulses of Europe. He ^~— — ^'^■^-^ 
 entered for amusement, as it were, into the game -which others were playing 
 for stakes. He joined with others in fixing the boundaries of Eiu-ope, as men 
 lay out an estate. As proprietors point out the convenience of a brook here — 
 a rising groimd or a wood there — and consider, in their own way, the welfare 
 of the resident serfs, this party of potentates settled about the Rliine, and 
 the Alps, and the interior forests ; and threw together Belgium and Holland, 
 and spread out the new Prussia, and disposed of Poland and Lombardy, .and 
 accommodated or bartered -nith each other about the boundaries of their 
 imperial estates. The rejiresentative of England was the one who should 
 have reminded them that the inliabitants were the party to decide under Avhat 
 govenmrent they would Hve ; and that nationality can no more be imposed 
 than it can be uprooted in a day. But Lord Londonderry was not a man to 
 whom these primary considerations ever did, or ever could occur ; and those 
 at home, who sent him, were not the men who would spontaneously instruct 
 him in a functional duty which he could not perceive for himself. Therefore, 
 as nations are not serfs, and as the potentates were not, in this case, the 
 unquestioned proprietors of men, the result did not answer to the gospel pro- 
 mises of Congress ; and the issues of the Holy Alliance M^ere not exactly peace 
 on earth, and good-will among men. 
 
 From this time forward, accordingly, the class of sovereigns and of peoples 
 led lives as different as if they had been of different races ; as if, instead of 
 the paternal and filial relation between them which was pretended, there 
 were no relations at all. At the Congi-ess of Verona, in 1822, where the the princes of 
 Duke of WelUngton attended in the place of the deceased Lord Londondeny, '-'^'"°™- 
 " the style of compliment adopted bordered, in some instances, upon the ridi- 
 culous. The old Boiubon, Ferdinand of Naples, though he had Iris good 
 qualities, and no small share of humour and imtrained sagacity, was notori- 
 ously the least educated and the most thoughtless, indolent, and ignorant king 
 in all Europe ; but, as he chanced to be the oldest of the kings that met at 
 
 Verona, they called him the Nestor of that royal congress The wordy 
 
 and flowery Chateaubriand, who was present as a French negotiator, has 
 turned it into a book and a romance." At home, the King of Prussia amused c.it>inet History t.f 
 himself and his advisers mth devising a plan of a new nobility, which should 
 suddenly become as imposing and influential as if it had been a thousand 
 years old. Ferdinand of Spain was inventing tinsel oraaments for the Virgin. 
 The Princes of Gennany were putting off the u-ksome task of preparing the 
 constitutions they had promised to then- peojjles. The King of Sweden was 
 ordering the Storthing of Norway not to think of abolishing their order of 
 hereditary nobiUty. The Emperor of Russia was gratifying his benevolent 
 feelings, by ordaining comparative personal freedom for his sei-fs, while strin- 
 gently training his slave-army, and making military decoration the reward of 
 all kinds of merit. The restored Bourbons of France were studying how best 
 to impose dimibness on their noisy nation. The King of Sardinia was swim- 
 ming paper ducks in a wash basin, to while away his days. The Emperor 
 of Austria was, with Prince INIetternich's help, devising sufferings and insults 
 for the bodies and souls of the ConfaUonere and Pellicos, who, troublesome 
 vol.. I. 2 Q
 
 290 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book II. 
 
 1822. cliiklren as they were to such a father, would not accept his fatherly nile in 
 
 ^-^'^•^^■~-^ peace, or agree that to spare the rod was to spoil the child. While the 
 
 The Peoples of members of the Holy Alliance were thus employed, there was business of a 
 
 different kind going on among the multitude below them. 
 Annual Register, In Denmark, the young theologian, Dampe, suspended from his public 
 
 1820, p. 210. , . ..•'.'' , ,. . , T • , f , . 
 
 preachnig, was givmg private lectures on religion and politics ; and m his 
 study preparing plans for revolutionizing the kingdom, till he was shut up for 
 life in solitude and silence. In Paris, towards midnight of a certain Sunday, 
 
 ftf"o""chrmr'42' I-'"'ivel was Waiting outside the Opera-house, his hand upon the dagger with 
 which he hoped to cut off the successor to the throne of France by the 
 murder of the Due de Berri. In Germany, certain watchful eyes were count- 
 ing the letters which Kotzebue sent through the post-office, to inform the 
 
 Penny Cyclopedia, Russiaii autocrat of "the state of literature and public opinion in the cities:" 
 that IS, of the open songs and secret societies by which the university students 
 were endeavouring to rouse and organize the citizens for a pirrpose of consti- 
 tutional demands : and the young fanatic, Sand, was secretly nourishing his 
 resolution to free the land from the spy. WHien the act was done, and Sand 
 was sent after his victim, " thousands of spectators hastened, if possible, to 
 get some di'ops of his blood, or some of his hair. The chair on which he sat 
 when he underwent his punishment was purchased of the executioner by a 
 
 Foreign Newspa- socicty for six louis-d'oi's. No disorder, however, took place." The time was 
 
 ■ not come for what newspapers call "disorder," though there was much of 
 
 what the sovereigns considered so. The professors had " not yet completely 
 
 Annual Register. Icariicd to coiifine thcmsclves to their proper province ;" they forgot the 
 morals of the students in teaching them the principles of pohtics. Even at 
 Vienna, and in the metropolitan seat of learning, such a spirit appeared that 
 the Emperor was compelled to have recourse to " severe measures," to control 
 the teachings of the masters of learning. Along the Elbe, the Maine, and 
 the Rhine, a silent symbol was put forth which troubled the repose of rulers 
 on their thrones. For hundreds of miles, men appeared in the old German 
 costume, which suggested to every body thoughts of an " ancient ideal system 
 
 is™"p! 2u!^^"' of Teutonic freedom." In the streets of Jena and Heidelberg, and imder the 
 
 '■''ms ''""^°' '■ ^^'•ill'5 of the ducal palace at Darmstadt, a song was heard — the celebrated 
 " Great Song," " Princes arise, ye people rise," — ^which was all discord to the 
 cars of princes, all music to the hearts of the people, and whose authorship 
 coidd never, by threat or stratagem, be discovered. While the Emperor, at 
 St. Petersburgh, was dispensing liis benevolences, his brother Constantine 
 was torturing Polish officers at Warsaw, and teaching the most rapid lessons 
 of rebellion to the crowds gathered about the great parade of the city. When 
 any officer was declared to have failed to bring up his horse to a hair's breadth 
 in the line, he was compelled to leap his horse over a jjjTamid of bayonets so 
 high that it was barely possible to escape impalement of one or both : if both 
 escaped, the feat was to be done again, and then a third time ; and after the 
 popular cry of " Shame !" and military intercession had compelled the Prince 
 to release his victim, it was no surprise to any one that that \'ictim disappe.ired 
 in the night, and for ever. This Prince was, it is true, a sort of Caliban, and 
 no more like the ordinary run of princes than that of men in general ; but 
 the world saw him in cojnmand of an aiiny, and beheld in these scenes a
 
 Chap. V.J DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 291 
 
 spectacle of royal sport and popular sufFeriiig; and it went with other things 1822. 
 to deepen the abyss between sovereigns and subjects. ^ — ^ — - — ' 
 
 In Spain, there was no longer any pause or any disguise. In the south, ^Jy™*" "'^*"'-^'- 
 Colonel Eiego rose, in the beginning of 1820, and proclaimed the Constitution 
 of 1812. He was soon disabled, by accidents of the season and of fortime ; 
 and every endeavour was made to conceal from the rest of the kingdom what 
 had hapijened near Cadiz. It is doubtless more conceivable that such an 
 attempt should be made in Spain than that an English cabinet should hope to 
 prevent the people of Scotland knowing of a rising in Dorsetshire : but it was 
 yet too absurd to succeed. All Spain presently knew of Riego's enterprise ; 
 and the greater part of the nation immediately rose. In a few days, the rising 
 was in a state to be reported to all Eiuope as the Revolution m Spain. At the 
 end of February, the king saw his generals and his best troops joining the 
 liberal cause. On the 10th of March, he published lus intention of convening 
 the Cortes, and institiitmg various reforms. But it was too late. The people 
 of Madrid assembled round his palace, vA\\\ shouts for the constitution ; and 
 on the evening of that same 10th of JIarch, the feeble Ferdinand promised 
 and proclaimed the Constitution of 1812. i82o"p. 25?.'^""^' 
 
 This Spanish Revolution was the signal for many risings. In August, Por- otheuKeiolc- 
 tugal followed ; and before the year was out, Naples had demanded and 
 obtained the proclamation of the Spanish Constitution. Then Piedmont pre- 
 pared for a similar struggle, and believed liberty to be seciu'e when Charles Al- 
 bert, the present King of Sardinia, and then Prince of Carignano, swore that he 
 would lay down his hfe for the cause. He laid down other lives, however, instead 
 of liis own ; dra^ving back at the critical moment, and in fact, if not in purpose, 
 betraying his confederates and their cause. And now occuned the circum- 4°°"?',''': "'»'"- 
 
 J O rique L mversclle, 
 
 stances which in reaUty assembled the Congi-ess at Verona, though the pretext is^i.ciiap. iv. 
 was a consultation on the affairs of Greece. While Spain and Portugal were 
 shouting at the fall of the Inqmsition and many another ancient wrong, and 
 Germany was chanting the echoes of freedom, and Piedmont and Lombardy 
 were rapidly arming, and Naples was triumphing, and Sicily was trembling, 
 as if the very Titan beneath her mountain were about to arise, what was doing 
 in France ? The King of France was engrossed with the fear that his beloved 
 subjects would catch a fever. Tliat was the great affair in France in 1821. S"sbr;'vV^,"v"' '" 
 "A most pestilent fever" had broken out at Barcelona the autimm before : *™^"^(^!,;"j 
 and the French government, which took little apparent notice of the political '*^'' p *"'■ 
 epidemic which had appeared at Cadiz and Corunna, set up a vigorous oppo- 
 sition to this bilious fever at Barcelona. It does not appear that the disease 
 spread beyond a smaU district : but the passes of the Pyrenees were filled with 
 French troops ; only one road was left open ; and every tiling wlrich passed in 
 and out of Spain by that road was very critically examined. Every ass, and 
 every handful of fruit was sui-veyed: and any person who passed the line 
 without leave, any where from sea to sea, was to be shot. These precautions 
 were so extreme, and continued so long after the epidemic had ceased to be 
 heard of, that every body saw that the fever was not the real object of the 
 cordon. There had been, in fact, much correspondence between the French 
 and Spanish liberals. The Spaniards had been, as usual, too forward and 
 boastfid, representing the liberal cause as more advanced tlian it w as, in llieir J;* °f. j'ii"'''"" 
 
 Uislo- 
 crsolle.
 
 NINO. 
 
 292 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book II. 
 
 1822. own country and every where else ; and the French sovereign had some reason 
 ^~^"'""'""~^ to fear for his throne. Within a short time, so many consjjiracies were broken 
 up, and so many risings actually took place, that it is probable there was an 
 understanding between the Secret Societies of other countries and those of 
 France. From time to time, while these things were going on, more and more 
 forces were posted along the Spanish frontier : till at last they looked so Uke 
 a formidable amiy, that it became time for nations in alliance with both France 
 and Spain to inquire what all these preparations were for. It was too late now 
 to say any thing more about the Barcelona fever ; for the time we are speaking 
 of was the autumn of 1822 — the date of the Congress of Verona. 
 
 When the Duke of Wellington left London, to attend the Congress, Mr. 
 Canning had been in office only forty-eight hours. It may be doubted whether 
 he, bringing into office the comprehensive views of a by-stander, believed, as 
 the Duke of Wellington did, that the object of the Congress was to consider 
 the affiiirs of Greece, in prevention of a war between Russia and Turkey. At 
 Hansard, viii. 87 J. Paris, the Duke was informed by M. A^illele that the affairs of Spain would 
 
 also be deliberated on : and he wrote home to desire instructions. 
 Policy of Can- Here, in our vicw, is the parting point of the former and the later foreign 
 policy of England. The moment of sending off the reply to the Duke of 
 WelUngton was one of inestimable importance, and worthy of earnest notifica- 
 tion in history. The wording of the despatch was simple enough ; and there 
 may be little in its contents to indicate its significance : but there is just 
 enough to show that a new spirit had arisen in that conspicuous sphere ; and 
 that the function of that new spirit was not to bind but to unloose. When 
 the statesmen of the Continent heard that Wellington was to be the s^ibstitute 
 of Londonderry at the Congress, they no doubt thought that the actual repre- 
 sentative would be as good for their purposes as tlie proposed one, who had 
 been called away to a very different congress : and it was probably a long time 
 before they became fully aware of the magnitude of the change which had 
 taken place throvigh the substitution of personages at home. It was said 
 every where for years, and is even at this day said by some, that the death of 
 Londonderry made no difference whatever at Verona : that he would have 
 protested against desjiotic aggression in Spain and elsewhere : and that Can- 
 ning's opposition did not go beyond protests. But the character of a man's 
 mind stamps itself upon all his acts : and protests to the same general effect 
 fi'om two men of opposite character and views may be as truly unlike each 
 other as if they were opposed in substance. It was long before ]Mr. Canning 
 did any official act so new and singular as to startle the world into a conviction 
 that here was a new man who would reverse the old policy : yet he wrought 
 the revolution as effectually as if he had done it by proclamation. He j)ro- 
 claimed nothing which could plunge England and other countries into a war, 
 and 2)recij)itate the Hberals every where into a rising which he could not under- 
 take to sustain : but he furthered the liberties of the world quite as much by 
 his heart being honestly with them, and his heartiness showing itself in all 
 his transactions. Where Londonderry's despatches would have been vapid and 
 meagre, because he preferred transacting business, as far as possible, by con- 
 fidential conversation, C!anning's were frank and glo\\'ing, though moderate 
 and clear. Where, in the palaces, cafes and streets of Continental cities.
 
 2^i^ra,aj inj H.n,ir.m 
 
 (CAX^i^'f »N g 
 
 QSOi^vn^ (z^%c{^-^cyvf^ O^' .JA^m^i^-Z^ts^-cr. 
 
 Xciuicn. i'itDUsiitii. hi/ itiarirji niu^ht ^ C £u^iU^>SOvet
 
 Chap. V.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 293 
 
 nothing could have been reported of Londonden-y but what woidd have shown 1822. 
 him a true brother of liis colleagues in Congress — as hard and unsjTnpathizing, 
 as narrow, and as presiunptuous as the rest who proposed to give the world a 
 new image of the gospel — the speeches of Canning were creating a new 
 thought and a new soul. Never did the fires of western forests run tlu'ough 
 the wilderness more gloriously than the speeches of Canning tluough the poli- 
 tical wilds of Eui'Oije, under the deep night of the Holy AlUance. In those 
 western wildernesses, the unaccustomed and the timid tremble and shriek, 
 and hang together as they see the spreading flame, and hear the rush and roar, 
 and tliink of the waste of ashes that will be seen to-morrow : but the hardy 
 freeman enjoys the sight ; enjoys the sprinkling and scattering blazes which 
 seize upon decay and rottenness, to turn them into freshness and fruitftilness. 
 And so it was when the utterance of Canning in the British Parliament ran 
 over Eui-ope, kindling as it went. It was hateful and terrific to despots, 
 because it leaped upon their abuses, and scorched theii' vanities, and made of 
 their antiquated dogmas ashes for a new growth of opinion : but the restless 
 spirits of that time were quieted by that utterance ; — quieted not by compul- 
 sion, but from within. They could sit still, instead of prowling about under 
 the shadow of that night, while they had this kindhng to watch, and its 
 promise to dwell upon. Notliing in the career of Canning is more striking 
 than the quietness of his official action by diplomatic missions and state papers, 
 while the whole heart of Europe beat whenever he opened his lips to speak, 
 and was ready to burst when he had done. 
 
 The reply to the Duke of WelHngton's application for instructions ran as 
 follows : " If there be a determined project to interfere, by force or by menace, Hansard, viii.87J. 
 in the present struggle in Spain, so convinced are her Majesty's Government 
 of the uselessness and danger of any such interference, so objectionable does 
 it appear to them in principle, as well as utterly impracticable in execution, 
 that when the necessity arises, or (I would rather say) when the opportimity 
 offers, I am to instruct your Grace at once frankly and peremptoiily to declare, 
 that to any such inteiference, come what may, his Majesty will not be a 
 party." This was decided enough : and it may be considered decisive. The 
 assembled potentates said much — and much might reasonably be said — of the 
 violent character of the liberahsm of the time ; of the danger to empire when 
 civil reforms were insisted upon and imdertaken (as in Spain) by the soldiery ; 
 of the certain disorganization of society if secret associations were permitted 
 virtually to mle ; and of the ferocious character of wars thus occasioned : and 
 all this appeared conclusive to persons who did not perceive how theii- own 
 policy had generated all these perils : yet it was not determined at the Con- 
 gress of Verona to interfere with Spain by force of arms. France pleaded 
 strongly for such interference, on the ground of her ovn\ dangers from interior I'^^oa^ls"'''^'""' 
 disturbances, and her \'icinity to the revolutionized country : yet no interfer- 
 ence with Spain was determined on at the Congress of Verona ; and it was 
 this instruction to the British representative which prevented it. He who 
 issued that instruction saw that to make war on the plea of preventing war 
 was the course most full of danger ; and his plan was to endeavour, by all 
 possible prudence, to preserve peace. 
 
 Mr. Caiuiing's " system" was much tallied of at the time : and this was
 
 294 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book II. 
 
 1822. not to be wondered at, at a season when all government was sujiposed to be 
 carried on by " systems." System was the one idea of the members of the 
 Holy Alliance ; and it was that which solely occupied the mind of Lord Lon- 
 donderry. His successor differed from him in nothing more than in this. 
 Mr. Canning saw that there can be no stability or working power in any 
 system but by virtue of the principle involved in it: and his was a mmd 
 which could resort directly and constantly to the principle, leaving the details 
 of operation to form and discover themselves as they were wanted. Being 
 sure of liis jirinciple, he could thenceforth rely upon it; and hence his quietude 
 in official action, his calmness and power of resource amidst the fluctuations 
 of a disturbed time, and the consistency of his foreign policy amidst the ever- 
 changing aspects of circumstances whose total elements no enlightened mind 
 would dream of comprehending. The Metternichs, Alexanders, and Ferdi- 
 nands made a plan which they declared complete ; and they would have 
 endeavoured to coerce the very elements themselves when they arose to shatter 
 it. The philosopher who had now come among them saw the narrowness and 
 frailty of all political systems in an age when mankind had learned to live and 
 move ; and he knew that the age of self-will and system for rulers was past : 
 while the ruUng power of principles is everlasting. To speak of Canning's 
 " system," therefore, is not to do justice to him. To luiderstand him, we must 
 look for his principle first ; and then for the practical purpose which lay 
 nearest to it. 
 
 His principle was the preservation of Peace : and his immediate practical 
 piupose was to dissolve, by the quietest means, the Holy Alliance. 
 
 Mr. Canning never concealed that he would have been glad to have left 
 '''318^'^™"'"^' Eiigland unrepresented at the Congress of Verona, as the most inmrediate 
 method of withdrawing her fi-om the Holy Alliance : but the time was so 
 short that the step would have been too hazardous. It took him two years to 
 • set England fi-ee for her own action abroad : but he did it peacefully and effec- 
 
 tually. It was no very easy task. The sovereigns abroad and their ministers 
 had carefully and constantly represented England as favourable to the prin- 
 ciples of the Holy Alliance ; and every coiuitenance was given to this by 
 Lord Londonderry's conduct, and by our war against revolution in France. 
 All the rulers looked to England for aid against revolution every where. And 
 the suffering nations, longing to rise, when assured that England did not 
 favour the principles of the Holy Alliance, expected fi-om her that she should 
 aid revolution every where. Both these expectations included a breaking up 
 of Peace ; and the preservation of peace was Mr. Canning's first object : so 
 he gratified neither of the expectant parties. 
 
 But occasion soon offered for declaring the new policy of England, and for 
 
 loosening the bonds of the Alliance. It presently came out that the French 
 
 army on the frontier of Spain was not wanted against the Barcelona fever, 
 
 and would march on into Sjiain, to aid Ferdinand against his subjects, and 
 
 put down the Constitution. The Emperor of Russia was delighted ; and all 
 
 KONA."^*' '"' ^^' ^^^^ other potentates applauded and promised aid. But the Duke of Wellington 
 
 Hansard, viii, 877. followed his instructions, dissented and remonstrated, and withdrew. The 
 
 instructions in this instance were clear and decided ; Mr. Camiing's words 
 
 p.' 330. ''""'"^' being, that " if a declaration of any such determination shoidd be made at
 
 Chap. V.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 295 
 
 Verona, come what might, he should refuse the King's consent to become a 1822. 
 party to it, even though the dissohition of the Alhance should be the conse- ^~^^ ' 
 quence of the refusal." One consequence of the refusal was a correspondence 
 between Mr. Canning, the flowery Chateaubriand, and the bigot Polignac, 
 wherein the high-flown royalists expatiated on the blessing to the Spaniards 
 of seeing their King free to give them, with French aid, such a constitution 
 as should be best for them. Mr. Canning could not allow this to pass, and 
 protested against the doctrine that constitutional rights are conferred by the 
 royal pleasure. In noticing the Speech of the French King on opening the 
 C'hambers, in which the purpose of invading Spain was declared, while the 
 Due d'Angouleme laid his hand on liis sword, and raised his eyes to heaven, — 
 Mr. Canning declared that the Speech appeared to mean that " the free insti- 
 tutions of the Spanish people could only be legitimately held from the sponta- 
 neous gift of the sovereign, first restored to absolute power, and then divesting 
 himself of such portion of that power as he might think proper to part with :" Hansard, viii. 943. 
 that " the Spanish nation could not be expected to subscribe to this principle, 
 
 nor could any British statesman uphold or defend it It is indeed a 
 
 prmciple which strikes at the root of the British Constitution." 
 
 After all M. Chateaubriand's declarations and fine sentiments in favour of 
 Peace, the Due d' Angouleme laid his hand on his sword again, on the other 
 side of the P\Tenees. The French invaded Sijain. England had done what French invasion 
 
 OF Spain 
 
 she could in declaring for the right, and seceding from the Congress which 
 advocated the ■«Tong : she now held herself neutral. It was on the 1-lth of 
 April, 1823, that Mr. Canning made in the House all the declarations ren- 
 dered necessary by the act of France in invading Spain. He explained the 
 course and issue of all the attempts at mediation made by the English Govern- e"™7J™' '"' 
 ment, the grounds of the neutrality which she had now finally avowed ; and 
 pointed out what must be the conduct of England in regard to Portugal and 
 the South American colonies of Spain, in certain contingencies which might 
 arise. If Portugal joined Spain in repelling the French, there was no call 
 upon England to interfere ; but if Portugal, remaining quiescent, were to be 
 attacked, that attack " would bring Great Britain into the field ^\-ith all her 
 force, to support the independence of her ancient and her faithful ally." As Hansard, vm, 889. 
 for the South American colonies, it was clear that Spain, though claiming 
 them still as hers by right, had in fact lost all power over them. If France 
 should, in the course of the war, capture any of tliem, so that it would 
 become at last a question whether they should be ceded, and to whom, it 
 would be necessary for all parties to know that the British Government 
 "considered the separation of the colonies from Spain to have been eifected Hansard, viii. sai. 
 to such a degree, that it would not tolerate for an instant any cession which 
 Spain might make of colonies, over which she did not exercise a direct and 
 positive influence. To such a declaration the British Government had at last 
 been forced." 
 
 The declaration of neutrality was painful and disconcerting to some of the 
 best men in parliament and out of it. They were so accustomed to speak 
 of England as the champion of the Uberties of the world, and had so com- 
 pletely understood her secession from the Holy Alliance as declaratory of this, 
 that it appeared to them a disgrace to look on, without taking part in, one of
 
 296 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book U. 
 
 lol-,. f]jc most indefensible wars against liberty which had ever been entered into. 
 The Foreign Secretary had much to encounter in the House — angry rebuke 
 from some, and pathetic expostulation from others. When the debate on the 
 negotiations relative to Spain had been twice adjourned, Mr. Canning offered, 
 on the third night, an explanation of his proceedings and reasons, which 
 
 bv'Taul^a™!!™ sf'^'^ii"'-^*! '^i^i the enthusiastic support of the House and the country. The 
 motion which had occasioned the debate was one of censure of the feebleness 
 of tone assumed by Government, in the recent negotiations ; and the amend- 
 ment proposed was, a declaration of gTatitude and approbation m regard to 
 what had been done. At the close, the Opposition members were about to 
 leave the house in a body ; but some Ministerial members called for a division. 
 It was only for want of room in the lobby that any one appeared to vote 
 against the Government. The whole assembly poured into the lobby, till it 
 could hold no more ; and then the twenty members who were shut in were 
 compelled to pass for an Opposition, though there were Ministerialists among 
 
 Hansard, viii. 1548 them. They amoiuited to 20, in a house of 372. 
 
 One passage of Mr. Camiing's speech spread over the world, and was vehe- 
 mently hailed or resented wherever it reached : — 
 
 Hansar<i,viii. U83 "I contend. Sir, that whatever might grow out of a separate conflict 
 between Spain and France (though matter for grave consideration) was less to 
 be dreaded than that all the great powers of the Continent should have been 
 arrayed together against Spain ; and that although the first object, in point of 
 importance, indeed, was to keep the jieace altogether — to prevent any Avar against 
 Spain — the first in point of time was to prevent a general war ; to change 
 the question from a question between the Allies on one side, and Spain on the 
 other, to a question between nation and nation. This, whatever the result 
 might be, would reduce the quarrel to the size of ordinary events, and bring 
 it witliin the scope of ordinary dijjlomacy. The immediate object of England, 
 therefore, was to hinder the impress of a joint character from being affixed 
 to the war — if war there must be — with Spain ; to take care that the war 
 should not grow out of an assumed jurisdiction of the Congress ; to keep 
 within reasonable bounds that predominating Areojx/f/itical* spirit, which the 
 Memorandum of the British Cabinet, of May 1820, describes as ' beyond 
 the sphere of the original conception, and understood principles of the Alli- 
 ance' — ' an alliance never intended as a union for the government of the world, 
 or for the superintendence of the internal affairs of other states.' Aird this, I 
 I say, was accomplished." " Canning," says his biogi'apher, " always pro- 
 tested against the system of holding congi-esses for the government of the 
 
 Life of Canning, WOrld " 
 
 p. 334. . . ^ . . 
 
 As this noted speech declared, the object of Great Britain was accomplished 
 in the potentates at Verona being deterred from declaring a war against Spain. 
 The matter lay now between the two coiuitries which were separated by the 
 
 * The Council of Areopagus, at Athens, was remarkable for its penetrating and super- 
 intending character; pronouncing on tlie economy of private liouses, and judging children 
 for tormenting birds. It was a more meddling council than it became any congress to 
 resemble, in a later age of the world.
 
 Chap. V.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 297 
 
 PjTenees; and peace was preserved elsewhere. "What his idea was of the 1823. 
 
 peace to be preserved by Great Britain, he manifested in a speech delivered ^~— ^^^~— ' 
 
 at Plymouth in the antiimn of the same year when the French and Spaniards 
 
 were at war, — 1823. " Our ultimate object was," he said, " the peace of the 
 
 worhl : but let it not be said that we cultivate peace either because we fear, or 
 
 because we are unprepared for, war ; on the contrary, if, eight months ago, 
 
 the Government did not hesitate to proclaim that the coimtry was prepared 
 
 for war, if war should unfortunately be necessary, every month of peace that 
 
 has since passed has but made us so much the more capable of exertion. The 
 
 resources created by peace are means of war. In cherishing those resources, 
 
 we but accumulate those means. Our present repose is no more a proof of 
 
 inabiHty to act, than the state of inertness and inactivity in which I have 
 
 seen those mighty masses that float in the waters above yom- to^vn is a proof 
 
 they are devoid of strength, and incapable of being fitted for action. You 
 
 well know, gentlemen, how soon one of those stupendous masses, now reposing 
 
 on their shadows in perfect stillness — how soon, upon any call of patriotism 
 
 or of necessity, it would assume the likeness of an animated thing — instinct 
 
 with life and motion ; — how soon it woidd ruffle, as it were, its swelling 
 
 plumage ; — how quickly it would put forth all its beauty and its bravery, 
 
 collect its scattered elements of strength, and awaken its dormant thunder. 
 
 Such as is one of these magnificent machines when springing from inaction 
 
 into a display of its might — such is England herself: while ajjparcntly passive 
 
 and motionless, she silently concentrates the power to be put forth on an 
 
 adequate occasion." 
 
 For that adequate occasion he kept watch, as vigilantly as any advocate of 
 war could have done ; for he was not one to sacrifice the honoirr or influence 
 of the country for the sake of the peace for which these were, and always 
 must be, the guarantees. When it was necessary to speak and act again, 
 Great Britain spoke and acted. The French overran Sjiain, from end to end. 
 The Spanish liberals had fewer resources, less union, and less hope than their 
 enemy ; and they were cruelly betrayed, not only by some few traitors fi-om 
 among themselves, but by the boastings of the French hberals, who had 
 assured them that a large portion of the invading army would fi-atemize with 
 the invaded, on touching Spanish soil. Instead of this happening, however, 
 the French soldiery no sooner appeared from the passes of the Pp-enees than 
 the royahst minority in Spain were joined by such numbers as enabled them 
 to cope with the constitutional forces, even without the aid of a foreign invader. 
 The soldiery were certainly royalist ; and they showed it now. The French 
 entered IMadrid on the 24th of May, within a month after the deliverv, by Annuaire Histo. 
 
 ■nr r-i ' n 1 ' ■. J ^ J nque, 1823,p. 392. 
 
 JNIr. Canning, of his exposition of the British policy in regard to tliis conflict. 
 The liberals were still in possession of the person of the King, who was 
 imprisoned by them at Cadiz. There he amused himself with attempting to 
 make signals to fi-iends in the blockading vessels, or outside the walls, — taking 
 a sudden fancy for sending up rockets and flying kites. Rockets and kites 
 innumerable were ready to go up at the same moment with the King's, to 
 perplex the royalist watchers outside. He obtained his freedom at last fi*om 
 the hopelessness of his enemies. They dismissed him from Cadiz on the 1st of 
 October, to join his French friends : and two days afterwards tlicy surrendered riq"o823, m72. 
 VOL. 1. 2 R
 
 298 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book II. 
 
 1823. the to^vii, and gave up the cause. As it was not the cause of the whole 
 "-^■^■^■^-^ people, — as the clergy and the great bodv of the population welcomed the 
 
 siANisii revolu. French, it is clear that no aid given by Great Britain could liave saved Spain, 
 or materially beneiited it, while it would have precipitated war all over 
 Europe, and violated the great principle of non-interference with the affairs of 
 other nations. Ferdinand immediately annulled by proclamation all the acts 
 of the Constitutional government, — the whole legislation and administration 
 of Spain for the preceding three years and a half: and thus, when Riego had 
 
 ^""""i823"'^483 l*6en hanged on a very high gibbet, Avithout being permitted to speak to the 
 people, and when some treacherous generals had SM'orn new vows of fidelity, 
 did the feeble King suppose that all was set right, and that affairs might now 
 go on as if nothing disagreeable had happened. This was a mistake, of 
 coiu'se ; but it was not one to be wondered at. He knew nothing of the prin- 
 ciples of liberty, and of the vitality which resides in them ; and he desired to 
 know as little as possible of the consequences of revolutions. Tliere were 
 some such consequences near at hand wliich soon compelled his notice. 
 
 los*:^ °u fiT'''"" '^^^® French Ministry were, as Constant afterwards said, so afraid of the 
 result of the invasion of Spain, that, sustained as they were by the sympathy 
 of almost all the rulers of Europe, they would have gladly drawn back, at the 
 last moment, if the leaders of the Spanish Cortes would have saved their 
 honour by some " moderate concessions." It is probable that what the French 
 called " moderate concessions" might appear to the Cortes an unprincipled 
 and fatal yielding. However that may be, the French dropped all their 
 timidity and doubt in the course of their sweep over Spain ; and we find them 
 
 SOUTH AiiEnicAN next eager to subiugate, on behalf of Spain, the insurgent colonies in South 
 America. Mr. Canning had declared m parliament, with a prospective view 
 to such a juncture as this, that Great Britain would not tolerate any proposed 
 cession, by Spain to France, of any of those colonies over which Spain had 
 ceased to have an effective control. It could not therefoi'C be now permitted 
 that France should carry the war across the Atlantic, and attempt to capture 
 those colonies which Spain could not pretend to be able to cede. On this 
 occasion the British Minister pronounced words which stayed, like a spell, the 
 preparations for war on one side the Atlantic, while they kindled life and hope 
 on the other, fi'om the sea to the Andes, and over to the sea again. " We will 
 not," said Mr. Canning, " interfere with Spain in iiny attempt which she may 
 make to reconquer Avhat were once her colonies ; but we will not permit any 
 third power to attack or reconquer them for her." It was a proud position 
 which England held when tliis declaration was made. Her Minister had 
 declared his desire that she should hold a majestic station among the conflicts 
 of the world ; " that, in order to prevent things from going to extremities, she 
 
 ^%"i '^''""'"^' should keep a distinct middle gi-ound, staying the plague both ways." Ac- 
 cordingly, when some young liberals in England had been eager to repair to 
 certain of the South American colonies (as they were still called) to throw 
 themselves into the combat for independence, Mr. Canning had brought in a 
 bill to stop their proceeding, as one wholly irreconcilable vdih our relations 
 with Spain ; manifesting, however, very plainly, his expectation at that time 
 that the colonies could not fail to achieve their independence. He now 
 
 Hansard, s. 70S " Stayed the plaguc" on the other side. He applied, in October, 1823, to the
 
 Chap. V.J DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 299 
 
 French government for an explanation of its intentions in regard to the 1823. 
 South American colonies, in return for a similar explanation from England : ^-— '^-^^« ' 
 and it was in the course of this coiTespondence that he made the declaration 
 quoted above. Other words, of no meaner weight, were put upon record. 
 
 The French minister, the Prince de Polignac, declared " that he could not H'^^^''^' ■"• "^ 
 conceive what could be meant, mider the present circumstances, by a pure 
 and simple acknowledgment of the independence of the Spanish colonies ; 
 since, those comitries being actually distracted by civil wars, there existed no 
 goverimient in them wliich coidd offer any appearance of solidity ; and that 
 the acknowledgment of American independence, so long as such a state of 
 things continued, appeared to him nothing less than a real sanction of 
 
 anarchy That, in the interest of humanity, and especially in that of 
 
 the Spanish colonies, it would be worthy of the European governments to 
 concert together the means of calming, in those distant and scarcely civilized 
 regions, passions blinded by party spirit ; and to endeavour to bring back to 
 a principle of union m government, whether monarcliical or aristocratical, 
 people among whom absm'd and dangerous tlieories were now keepmg up 
 agitation and disiniion." Here was the principle and procedure of the Holy 
 Alhance openly proposed for the coercion of the South American people. 
 They were to live, not under such government as they might prefer, but mider 
 such as the rulers of Europe should impose upon them for their good. Tlie 
 reply of Mr. Canning was short, but large enough to enclose and exhibit his 
 principle and procedure — that none but the parties concerned have any busi- 
 ness with the form of govermnent under which any people may choose to 
 live ; and that Great Britain was equally ready to recognise institutions 
 founded by people and by kings. His reply was, "that, however desirable Hansar''. "• "2- 
 the establishment of a monarchical form of government in any of those pro- 
 vinces might be, on the one hand, or whatever might be the diihculties in the 
 way of it, on the other hand, his government could not take upon itself to put 
 it forward as a condition of their recognition." 
 
 In the preceding declaration, it had been announced to Spain that consuls 
 would be sent to South Ajnerica, to protect the interests of British trade there Hansard, x. 710. 
 — a list being furnished of the places to v/hich they would be sent. These 
 consuls were now appointed and despatched ; and this was the decisive act by 
 which Great Britain, following the example of the United States, recognised 
 the independence of the South American provinces of Spain. 
 
 Cahn and dignified as appears the attitude of Great Britain throughout 
 these transactions, which have so largely determined the fortmies of the world, 
 there was much struggle within the breast of the Queen of the Seas — the 
 umpire, as she was now made — in the rivalship, not only of the old world and 
 the new, but of the new and the olden time. Her Foreign Minister spoke 
 with decision and clearness in all his coiTespondence, but it was from out of 
 tho midst of turmoil. He met with almost as much resistance at home as 
 abroad ; and he was tTsdce on the verge of retiring from ofEce, before he ute of canmng, 
 finally achieved the recognition of South American independence. Up to tliis 
 time, Lord Sidmouth had retained a seat in the Cabinet, without office : he 
 now resigned it, partly because he coidd not agree with those " of his colleagues ufo of i.or 1 ski 
 wlio advocated the immediate recognition by his Majesty of the independence
 
 300 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book II. 
 
 182'4. of Buenos Ayres." Buenos Ayres and all the other struggling provinces 
 ' '^^^-^-^ might now date their declared independence from this year ; and little as they 
 then knew, or may know now, how to consolidate their freedom, the proud 
 boast of the British Minister was a true one which he uttered when, two 
 years later, he gave an account of his policy of this time. The speech is one 
 which ought to stand in every history of the period, for its effect upon every 
 living mind. " It was an era in the senate," says one, applying what was 
 said of the eloquence of Chatham. " It was an epoch in a man's life," says 
 
 Diary of an MP. anotlicr, " to havo heard him. I shall never forget the deep moral earnest- 
 ness of Iris tone, and the blaze of glory that seemed to light up his featiu-es." 
 It having been objected that the balance of dignity and honour among nations 
 had been affected by the French occupation of Spain, wliich was thought to 
 
 Hansard, xri. 395. havc exaltcd Francc and lowered England, Mr. Canning replied, " I must beg 
 leave to say that I dissent from that averment. The House knows — the 
 country knows — that when the French amiy was on the point of entering 
 Spain, his Majesty's Government did all in theii- jjower to prevent it ; that we 
 resisted it by all means short of war. I have just now stated some of the 
 reasons why we did not think the entry of that army into Spain a sufficient 
 groimd for war ; but there was, in addition to those which I have stated, this 
 peculiar reason, that whatever effect a war, commenced upon the mere ground 
 of the entry of a French army into Spain might have, it probably would not 
 have had the effect of getting that army out of Spain. In a war against 
 France at that time, as at any other, you might perhaps have acquired 
 military glory ; you might, perhaps, have extended your colonial possessions ; 
 you might even have achieved, at great cost of blood and treasure, an honour- 
 able peace ; but, as to getting the French out of Spain, that would have been 
 the one object which you almost certainly would not have accomplished. 
 How seldom, in the whole history of the wars of Europe, has any war between 
 two gi-eat powers ended in the obtaining of the exact, the identical object for 
 which the war was begun ! Besides, Sir, I confess I think that the effects 
 of the French occupation of Spain have been infinitely exaggerated. I do 
 not blame those exaggerations, because I am aware that they are to be attri- 
 buted to the recollections of some of the best times of our history ; that they 
 are the echoes of sentiments which, in the days of WilKam and of Anne, 
 animated the debates, and dictated the votes of the British Parliament. No 
 peace was in those days thought safe for this country wlule the crown of Spain 
 continued on the head of a Bourbon. But were not the apprehensions of 
 those days greatly overstated ? Has the power of Spain swallowed up the 
 power of maritime England ? Or does England still remain, after the lapse 
 of more than a century, during which the cro^vn of Spain has been Avorn by a 
 Bourbon, niched in a nook of that same Spain — Gibraltar ? . . . Again, Sir, 
 is the Spain of the present day the Spain .... whose puissance was expected 
 to shake England from her sphere ? No, Sir, it was quite another Spain ; it 
 was the Spain within the limits of Avhose empire the sun never set ; it was 
 Spain ' with the Indies,' that excited the jealousies, and alarmed the imagi- 
 nations of our ancestors. But then. Sir, the balance of power ! The entry 
 of the French anny into Spain distiubed that balance, and we ought to have 
 gone to war to restore it ! I have already said, that when the French army
 
 Chap. V.] DUEING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 301 
 
 entered Spain, we might, if we chose, have resisted or resented that measure 1824. 
 by war. But were there no other means than war for restoring the balance of ^— ^-^— ^ 
 power ! Is the balance of power a fixed and unalterable standard i or is it 
 not a standard pei-petually varjing, as civilization advances, and as new nations 
 spring up, and take theii' place among established political communities ? 
 The balance of power a centm-y and a half ago was to be adjusted between 
 France and Spain, the Netherlands, Austria, and England. Some years 
 afterwards, Russia assumed her high station in Ein-opean politics. Some 
 years after that again, Prussia became not only a substantive, but a preponde- 
 rating monarchy. Thus, wliile the balance of power continued in prmciple the 
 same, the means of adjusting it became more varied and enlarged. They be- 
 came enlarged, in proportion to the increased number of considerable states — in 
 proportion, I may say, to the number of weights which might be shifted into the 
 one or the other scale. To look to the policy of Eiu'ope, in the times of William 
 and Anne, for the piu'pose of regulating the balance of power in Europe at 
 the present day, is to disregard the progress of events, and to confuse dates 
 and facts which throw a reciprocal light upon each other. It would be disin- 
 genuous, indeed, not to admit that the entry of the French aimy into Spain 
 was, in a certain sense, a disparagement — an al&ont to the pride — a blow to 
 the feehngs of England ; and it can hardly be supposed that the Government 
 did not sympathise, on that occasion, with the feelings of the people. But I 
 deny that, questionable or censurable as the act might be, it was one which 
 necessarily called for our direct and hostile opposition. Was nothing then to 
 be done ? Was there no other mode of resistance than by a dii'ect attack 
 upon France ; or by a war to be undertaken on the soil of Spain ? "V\Tiat if 
 the possession of Spain might be rendered harmless in rival hands — hanuless 
 as regarded us — and valueless to the possessors ? Might not compensation for 
 disparagement be obtained, and the policy of oiu- ancestors \'indicated, by 
 means better adapted to the present time ? If France occupied Spain, was 
 it necessary, in order to avoid the consequences of that occupation, that we 
 should blockade Cadiz i — No. I looked another way. I sought materials 
 of compensation iir another hemisphere. Contemplating Spain, such as our 
 ancestors had laiown her, I resolved that if France had Spain, it should not 
 be Spain ' with the Indies.' I called the New World into existence, to 
 redr-ess the balance of the Old." 
 
 In this celebrated speech, Mr. Caiming appears to take his stand where he 
 avowed his msh that his country shoidd stand, " not only between contending 
 nations, but between conflicting principles." If we find in it a spirit higher 
 than that of the allied potentates who would have ruled both hemispheres 
 after the pattern of their antiquated ideas, we find in it also a tone lower than 
 that of sympathy mth the struggles for freedom which yet it was his poKcy to 
 aid. When, as a listener tells us, " his chest heaved and expanded, his nostril Diary of an m. p. 
 dilated, a noble pride slightly curled his lip ; and age and sickness were for- 
 gotten in the ardour of youthful genius," — it must have been the consciousness 
 of power and of the soundness of his policy wliich inspii-ed him : for he was 
 certainly not, by his own profession, under the sway of emotions so lofty as the 
 occasion created in others. It may be, however, that Ins sentiments were 
 loftier than his professions. " All the while," says the observer, " a serenity
 
 302 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book II. 
 
 1826. sat upon his brow, that pointed to deeds of glory." The deeds were glorious, 
 ^■^-"^'"""^ however the doer may have assigned reasons of mere policy for them in an 
 assembly which he coidd so sway as that they would have borne from him 
 expressions of a higher political generosity. Perhaps he remembered how, 
 many were watcliing afar to catch up his words ; the Holy Alhes for their 
 purposes, and many an eager malcontent for his ; and this may have made him 
 careful, in the midst of his emotions, to preserve his central stand between 
 the imperial policies and the popular enthusiasms of the time. If so, he spoke 
 wisely and well for such listeners, not only in his expositions of liis principles 
 and methods of peace, of non-interference, and of recognition of de facto 
 powers, Avhatever their origin and date, but he offered them, in the comse of 
 the same chapter of events, a warniaig and a prophecy which has never been 
 forgotten since, and is little likely to be forgotten now. 
 
 Appeal fhom The occasiou was the arrival of intelUgence that Spain was interfering with 
 
 PoKTUGAL. Portugal, whose free constitution was hated and feared by tlie restored despot 
 
 Ferdinand. Mr. Canning had fonnerly declared what our relations with 
 Portugal were. If she chose to midertake any war on her own accoiuit, for 
 the defence of freedom or any other cause. Great Britain had nothing to do \«th 
 that : but, if she were attacked on accoimt of her constitutional fi-ecdom, or for 
 any other cause. Great Britain was bound by treaties, and by every obUgation 
 of good faith, to repair to her assistance. Such a case had arisen now — in 
 December, 1826. Some Portuguese regiments had deserted to the royalist cause 
 in Spain. The Spanish government had repeatedly pledged itself to disarm 
 and disperse these regiments : but it failed to do so ; and pennitted these regi- 
 ments to make hostile inroads into Portugal, under the eyes of the Spanish 
 authorities, and with every tacit assistance fi'om them. On the night of Friday 
 the 8th of December, the British government received fiom the Princess Regent 
 
 Hansard, xvi. 334. of Portugal an earnest application for " aid against a hostile aggression from 
 Spain : " and the minister whose first principle of acbuinisti'ation had been the 
 preservation of peace was as prompt in action as if he had been eager for war. 
 His own account of the affaii- is the shortest, plainest, and clearest. Short 
 and plain as it is, it moved the heart of his immediate hearers first, and then 
 of the nation, to an enthusiasm wliich will never be forgotten by those who 
 
 Hansard, xvi. 357. byed at the time. " On Simday, the 3rd of this month, we received fiom the 
 Portuguese ambassador a direct and fomial demand of assistance against a 
 hostile aggression from Spain. Our answer was — that although rumours had 
 reached us tlirough France, his Majesty's government had not that accurate 
 uiformation — that official and precise intelligence of facts — on which they coidd 
 properly found an application to parliament. It was only on last Friday night 
 that this precise information arrived. On Saturday, his Majesty's confidential 
 servants came to a decision. On Simday, that decision received the sanction 
 of his Majesty. On Monday, it was communicated to both Houses of Parlia- 
 ment : and this day. Sir — at the hour in which I have the honour of addressing 
 you — the troops are on their march for embarkation." 
 
 There may be some wonder in Englislimen's minds at this day, as there 
 certainly is in the minds of some foreigners, that this procedure and its expla- 
 nation should have excited the enthusiasm that it did, in the House and the 
 nation. It may be said, truly enough, that the Portuguese are but two or
 
 Chap. V.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 303 
 
 three millions of priests and slaves, who have thus far incessantly shown them- 1826. 
 selves incapable of freedom; and that their alliance can never be of material ^— — ^'— — ' 
 advantage to England, for purposes of commerce or any other fellowship. All 
 this may be true; and yet there may be still feelings in the national heart 
 regarding Portugal which might account for the enthusiasm of the time. The 
 very discussion of our alliance ■with Portugal carries back the imagination to 
 the time of Charles II., when we became possessed of Bombay, and when our 
 government declared, in the affectionate style of ancient treaties, " the King Hansard, xvi. 355. 
 of Great Britain does profess and declare, with the consent and advice of his 
 council, that he will take the interest of Portugal and all its dominions to 
 heart, defending the same vath his utmost power, by sea and land, even as 
 England itself." There were remembrances of the treaties of Queen Anne's 
 time, and the watch then to be kept against Spain and France, as now. The 
 very words " our ancient and faithful ally," always used when our relations 
 with Portugal are spoken of, stir a sentiment in her favour. Again, there was 
 the generous complacency felt by the strong when appealed to by the weak, — 
 the obhgation being, in this case, not to disappoint the generous sentiment, 
 because our good feith was engaged on the side of the appeal. Again, though 
 the rational and firm desire of the British government and the majority of 
 the people had been to preserve peace during the last anxious and troubled 
 years, when despotism and revolution were every where in conflict, it had cost 
 not a little to generous hearts, and also to minds not yet disenchanted from 
 the spells of war, to refrain from rushing into conflict, and bringing the oppo- 
 sition of princijjles and prejudices to the arbitrament of battle. Mr. Brougham 
 had said that " Great Britain was bound over in recognizances of £800,000,000 
 to keep the peace : " and this consideration — of debt and exhaustion — availed 
 while there was no strong impulse in a contrary direction. But the moment 
 that the movement of troops became a movement of good faith and generosity, 
 the spiiit of the nation broke through its restraints of prudence, and its silence 
 of neutrality ; and the Minister's amiouncement of the transmission of troops 
 to Portugal was received Avith acclamations wliich shook the world. The 
 troops anchored in the Tagus on the 25th of the same month : but they were Annual Register, 
 
 IU2G n 31"' 
 
 not wanted. The winged darts of the jNIinister, his burning words, had done 
 
 the necessary work ^vith the speed of the winds. The revolted regiments 
 
 slunk away from the frontier, and were dissolved. The French agent at Madrid 
 
 stole away home : and King Ferdinand was profuse in his assurances of hatred 
 
 of any power which would molest Portugal. More than that, — this speech 
 
 was one which no censorship could exclude, or delay on its passage to those 
 
 whom it concerned. The newspapers passed from hand to hand under the 
 
 Spanish cloak : recitations of the EngUshman's words went on in whispers 
 
 under the bright Italian moon: and at Vienna and Warsaw, men's hearts 
 
 swelled and their eyes shone as phrases from this speech were detected in 
 
 common intercourse, and fortliwith formed a sort of free-masonry among those 
 
 who understood. The power lay in the warning and the prophecy M'hich we new era of con- 
 
 mentioned above — and which we here present — the warning and prophecy of 
 
 a War of Opinion in Europe. After referring to his desire and maintenance of 
 
 peace, when the French entered Spain, four years before, Mr. Canning pro- Hansard, xvi. aus. 
 
 weded, " I then said that I feared that the next war which should be kindled
 
 304 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book II. 
 
 1826. ill Europe would be a war, not so much of armies as of opinions. Not four 
 years have elapsed, and hehold my apprehensions realized ! It is, to be sure, 
 within narrow limits that this war of opinion is at present confined : but it is 
 a war of opinion that Spain (whether as government or as nation) is now 
 waging against Portugal : it is a war which has commenced in hatred of the 
 new institutions of Portugal. How long is it reasonable to expect that Por- 
 tugal will abstain from retaliation ? If into that war this country shall be 
 compelled to enter, we shall enter into it with a sincere and anxious desire to 
 mitigate rather than exasperate, — and to mingle only in the conflict of amis, 
 not ill the more fatal conflict of opinions. But I much fear that this country 
 (however earnestly she may endeavour to avoid it) could not, in such a case, 
 avoid seeing ranked under her banners all the restless and dissatisfied of any 
 nation with which she might come in conflict. It is the contemplation of this 
 new power in any future war which excites my most anxious apprehension. 
 It is one thing to have a giant's strength ; but it would be another to use it 
 like a giant. The consciousness of such strength is, undoubtedly, a source of 
 confidence and security ; but in the situation in which this country stands, 
 our business is not to seek opportunities of displaying it, but to content our- 
 selves with letting the professors of violent and exaggerated doctrines on both 
 sides feel that it is not their interest to convert an umpire into an adversary." 
 After describing the position of England as keeping in check the passions of 
 the world, and the horror of the scene if she were to descend from her post of 
 arbitrament to lead the conflict, he continued, " Tliis, then, is the reason — a 
 reason very difierent from fear — the reverse of a consciousness of disabihty — 
 why I dread the recuiTence of hostilities in any part of Europe : why I would 
 bear much, and would forbear long ; why I would (as I have said) put up mth 
 almost any tiling that did not touch national faith and national honour — 
 rather than let slip the fmies of war, the leash of which we hold in our hands — 
 not knowing whom they may reach, or how far their ravages may be carried. 
 Such is the love of peace which the British government acknowledges : and 
 such the necessity for peace which the circumstances of the world inculcate. 
 I will push these topics no further." 
 
 There was indeed no need to push these topics further. Enough was said. 
 From this moment it was understood thi'oughout the world that whenever 
 " the war of opinion in Europe" should involve Great Britain, the aspirants 
 to political freedom would be on her side. It was now clear — clear to all 
 sovereigns and to all people — that England had completely separated herself 
 from the Holy Alliance. Her Foreign Minister had carried out his main 
 principle, — the preservation of peace ; and achieved the gi-eat practical pur- 
 pose which lay nearest to it, — the destruction of the Holy Alliance. These 
 four years were a short time in which to have secured such objects, and to 
 liave placed such a fame as his on its pimiacle. 
 
 Dm-ing those four years, a few events had happened among our foreign 
 allies which it is necessary briefly to refer to. The Princess Regent of Por- 
 vr™p°o'iiT™rL. f ugal has been mentioned, in the place of the old King Jolm VI. That feeble 
 King had for a wife the sister of the Spanish king Ferdinand ; and for a son 
 (the second son) the notorious Don Miguel, who has since so pertinaciously 
 troubled the repose of his own and other countries. This wife and son in the
 
 CiiAr. v.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 305 
 
 spring of 1824:, imprisoned and threatened the King, who was ohliged to 1825. 
 throw himself upon the protection of the EngUsh, and to escape from his own ^^^^^^^^J'^J^Tu^r 
 family on board a British vessel in the Tagus. Miguel was sent away on his i»-i. p- '»6- 
 travels, and the King reinstated. A year afterwards, the King acknowledged 
 the independence of his gi-eat South American province of Brazil. Ten fs™"p' ,?4^'""' 
 months afterwards he died: and his eldest son, Don Pedro, who had for a (^g^'^'f^'f ''*'"• 
 year been emperor of Brazil, must now choose whether to remain so, or to 
 return to Portugal as its king. The choice between the two crowns was his. rualilmml^it 
 He chose to remain on his western throne : but he did what he could to 
 influence the affairs of the European kingdom. He abdicated the Portuguese 
 throne in favour of his eldest daughter ; and he sent over with her a constitu- 
 tion for Portugal. It was this constitution which enraged the French and 
 Spanish Courts, and caused the inroads upon Portugal which the British 
 troops Mere sent to repel. The Princess Regent mentioned above was the 
 sister of the Emperor of Brazil, who, under her father's will, administered the 
 affairs of Portugal till her young niece could enter upon her dignity and her 
 function. When Mr. Canning's gi-eat speech was made, then, King John VI. 
 had been dead some months : Don Pedro was on the throne of Brazil ; Don 
 Miguel was on his travels, caballing wherever he went : and their sister 
 Isabella was Princess Regent of Portugal, ruling the counti7 in the name of 
 the infant Queen, and according to the Constitution sent over by Don Pedro. 
 
 Other sovereigns had died, — had slipped out of the Holy AlHance on the n^^Tn o^ ™^^ex- 
 incxorable summons of death, when they would not attend to that of freedom. 
 The ex-King of Sardinia, Emanuel Victor, was no longer an European poten- 
 tate : but he had been conspicuous in the earlier meetings of the allies. He 
 died in January, 1824, leaving his brother, Charles Felix, on the throne. In 
 September of the same year died the King of France, after enjoying his op the king op 
 restored royalty foui-teen years. His had been the unhappy lot — to suffer 
 adversity without being able to profit by it. Neither reverses nor restoration 
 yielded any privilege of wisdom to him. His accession Avas as nothing to 
 the world, and his death was nothing, except that he left his throne to be 
 occupied by a brother yet more unenlightened, and more despotic in his 
 tendencies, than himself. The " Nestor" of the Verona Congress, Ferdinand, op^the Kmo^op 
 of Naples and Sicily, followed his relative of Sardinia in a year. The Duchess cilv. 
 do Bcrri was his grandchild : one daughter was wife to the King of Sanlinia : 
 another to the Duke of Orleans, whereby she became Queen of the French 
 five years after her father's death. The King of Naples died of apoplexy : 
 and the manner in which his death is notified indicates the ideas which beset 
 the death-beds of kings who live in dread of revolutions. " The Nuncio, the 
 Ambassador from Spain, the Austrian Minister, and the French Charge 
 d'Affaires, were introduced, with all the council, into the chamber of the 
 King. His Majesty was lying on his back, with his mouth open, but his 
 featiu-es unaltered ; the left hand, which was uncovered, showed some marks 
 of extravasated blood. The guards at the palace, and other public places, 
 were doubled, as a measui-e of precaution, but the public tranquillit)' was not 
 disturbed for a single moment." fs""™!.?!,^^',!'"^ 
 
 This could not be said on occasion of the death of a more prominent member 
 of the Alliance than this Verona Nestor. On the 1st of December of this or TiiE^EMPFBon 
 
 VOL. 1. 2 s
 
 306 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 [Book II. 
 
 Annua! Reffister, 
 1825, p. 158. 
 
 AFl'AIRH OP 
 
 1825. year 1825, Alexander of Russia died, — far away from his capital and his 
 northern Court. Some believe that he determined to pass the winter in the 
 South, because he knew himself to be hemmed in by conspirators at St. 
 Petersburg-. However that may be, lie died of fever ou a lofty cliff overlooking 
 a vast expanse of the Black Sea, while his successor was in imminent peril 
 from a plot so extensive that it was necessary to hush the matter up, as 
 speedily as possible ; and so mysterious that, to this day, nothing is clearly 
 understood about it in the world. Whether Alexander would have lived long, 
 and ruled as he chose, if he had escaped the fever which cut him off at 
 Taganrog, there is no saying. Tliere is every appearance of liis having ruled 
 as he chose up to the time of his last illness. What he chose was a benevo- 
 lent method. What he lacked was a sense and knowledge of justice. He 
 was not even aware that benevolence may operate as cruelty when it is not 
 enlightened and giiided by a principle of justice. Alexander will not appear 
 to posterity altogether as the bland, kindly, courteous. Christian gentleman 
 that he believed himself, and that he sincerely meant to be. He was bland, 
 kindly, courteous, and a religious gentleman : but he was a pedant in intellect, 
 and an oppressor on the throne. Nobody wept for him, even while there 
 was fear that his savage brother Constautine would succeed him. The savage 
 was, however, induced to set himself aside ; — a wonderfully enlightened act, — 
 such as some who are not Calibans are incaj)able of. The yomiger brother 
 Nicholas succeeded ; and walked up the steps of the throne amidst a thousand 
 daggers pointed at his breast. How he charmed them down, and how he 
 made terms with those who held them, no one knows. 
 
 Thus would the Holy Alliance have been already decimated, if Canning 
 had not before virtually dispersed the assembly. Soon after the arch enemy. 
 Napoleon, was in his grave, Londonderry followed, and carried with liim the 
 fate of the compact. Now, five of the sovereigns had slipped away ; and a 
 plebeian man had arisen who was too strong for all that were gone and all 
 that remained. Here, then, we may drop all mention of the Holy Alliance. 
 
 It has been related that when the Verona Congress was summoned, the 
 business proposed for its consideration was a consultation on the affairs of 
 Greece. As it turned out, the subject of Greece was scarcely mentioned at 
 that Congress, wliich was occupied with the then secret topic of the French 
 intentions towards Spain. The British Minister's mind, however, was not the 
 less open to Greek interests. In his youth he had written a poem on Greece — 
 a lament on its slavery; and when the extensive Greek insun-ection in 1821 
 seemed to open a prospect of liberty, no heart beat higher with hope and 
 sympathy than his. He was, like a multitude of others, sanguine about the 
 ability, physical and moral, of the Greeks to accomplish and maintain their 
 independence. His duty as a Minister, however, had to be considered before 
 his predilections as a man. He adhered firmly to the principles on which he 
 conducted his government in other cases. He preserved peace on the Con- 
 tinent by strict neutrality in regard to the war in Eastern Europe ; he enforced 
 this neutrahty by restraining individuals from rushing to Greece, to fight 
 against Turkey : while he used all the power of his position to influence 
 A^^u^'R^Bistcr, Tm-key favourably, and to soften the horrors of the war. His countenance 
 was on the side of liberty ; and he was akeady pondering a scheme, which he 
 
 British Policy.
 
 Chap. V.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 307 
 
 carried out In a subsequent year, for the protection of Greece against the dc- 1820. 
 structive violence of her foe, while yet strictly enforcing his policy of non-inter- ^-^^ ' 
 ference with any affau-s of other states in which Great Britain was not, as a 
 state, involved. Turkey had the same claim to the possession of Greece that 
 any other state has to its conquered dependencies : and however the sympathy 
 of the enlightened world might be with the insurgent Greeks, no government 
 had a right to interfere with the possessions of Turkey. Every assistance but eubutoan s^ ji- 
 political aid was, however, freely offered throughout Europe. Kings and 
 people subscribed money for the redemption of Greek captives, and the support Annual Register, 
 of Greek outcasts : and, in spite of all prohibitions of governments, many " ' ''' 
 volunteers from France, England, Italy and Germany went to fight under the 
 Greek leaders. Our own Byron perished in the cause — laid low by fatigue 
 and fever before Missolonghi. The accomplished and beloved Santa Rosa, who 
 had failed in the struggle to fi'ee his own Piecbnont from Austrian rule, gave 
 his efforts, and presently his life, to the Greek cause. At that time, the cause 
 appeared desperate : and its misfortunes were cruelly aggravated by the dis- 
 appointment of hopes held out from England of supplies of money and steam 
 boats. Perhaps the less said the better of the Greek loan negotiated ui London 
 in 1825, except that such incidents ought to yield their full lesson to future 
 times, when similar occasions may occur._ We are disposed to believe that the 
 business was originally undertaken with a true heartiness in the Greek cause — 
 with an enthusiasm which carried some parties beyond their calculations, and 
 a due consideration of their means : and this kiiid of inconsiderateness is too 
 likely to induce a reaction of selfish care, under which the pretension of bene- 
 volence and a love of liberty becomes a mockery. Thus it was in the matter 
 of the Greek loan in London, which pelded even less of credit to the managing 
 parties in England than of money to the Greeks. Amidst the flow and ebb of 
 sentiment and action among private parties in England, the government ^^p°"' ™„n,'^'' 
 steadily held its position of neutrality, gi\ing its endeavours in aid of humanity, p^^^y"^^^''^- 
 and its xnidisguised good wishes to the Greek insurgents. 
 
 It has been told how complete was the humiliation of Algiers in 1816, and ^*"j|^" "■''™ 
 how a thousand and eighty Christian slaves rushed fi'om the interior to the ^^^^- f°°^ '■ 
 shore, and from the shore into the boats, escaping fr-om what they called " a 
 second hell," to the British ships which were to carry them home. The victory 
 appeared complete : but victors never know when they have done A\ith such 
 an enemy as the piratical state of Algiers then was. Another quarrel arose in 
 January 1824. Captain Spencer was sent with two British vessels to arrange 1^^™""' ^fi?^'"'^'^' 
 a dispute between the Dey of Algiers and the Enghsh consul, Mr. Macdonald. 
 On his arrival. Captain Spencer fovmd two Spanish vessels in the Mole, 
 recently captined, whose crews were made slaves of. Of course, the liberty of 
 these Spaniards was demanded, imder the treaty made with Lord Exmouth. 
 No answer arriving in four days, Captain Spencer began to fear for the safety 
 of the Europeans on shore ; and, under a pretext of giA^ng them an entertain- 
 ment, he got them all on board one of his ships, while the other engaged the 
 piratical vessel which had captured the Spaniards, took it, and set fi-ee seven- 
 teen Spaniards who were found on board. War against Algiers was declared ; 
 and a squadron under Sir H. Neale's command appeared before the town on 
 the 24th of July. While waiting for a wind, the British commander received
 
 308 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book II. 
 
 1826. a message from the Dcy, requesting negotiation. The negotiations gave little 
 ^-^"^"^^^ trouble, for the Dey was submissive. He engaged that no more European 
 prisoners of war should be made slaves of, but that they should be treated with 
 all humanity, and regarded as prisoners of war are in Europe. Here Great 
 Britain closed accounts with Algiers, as it presently ceased to exist as an African 
 state. A dispute arising between the Algerine government and the French in 
 1827, France sent forth a power wliich conquered Algiers, and in 1830 made it 
 a French colony. 
 
 AsiiANTEE vvaii. "While Algiers was thus called to account, a little war was proceeding on 
 another part of the African coast, which brought nothing but disaster and 
 shame to the British engaged in it. Since the beginning of the century, the 
 
 artAshantees. "' Ashautce uation had been rising in importance by conquest. The successive 
 British governors of Cape Coast Castle had not preserved a steady course of 
 policy with the Ashantecs and Fantees : they had changed sides, and broken 
 faith : and now the settlement was to receive the natural retribution. These 
 governors had been appointed by the Airican Company, whose settlements 
 were all assumed by the British government in 1821. In 1822, Sir Charles 
 M'Carthy was sent out as Governor-in-Chief of all the settlements which had 
 belonged to the Company : and he presently found that he had the Company's 
 Ashantee war upon his hands. He seems to have been wholly unskilled in 
 
 Anmiiii Register, African Warfare. The narrative of the events of 1824 is a dismal story of niis- 
 
 1824, cliapter ix. <J 
 
 takes and misadventiures : of rehance on native auxiliaries who failed in every 
 possible way on all occasions ; of inability to cross rivers, and entanglements 
 in the bush ; of messengers not knowing their way ; deluges of rain being 
 encountered ; and of ammunition felling short, far from home. Sir Charles 
 M'Carthy, after receiving a warning that his skin (or his skull, for both are 
 reported) should adorn the great war drum of Ashantee, actually divided his 
 troops into four portions, and permitted the small force which he had con- 
 ducted into the interior to be surrounded by ten thousand Ashantees, He was 
 Avounded in the breast by a musket-shot, and three of his officers laid him 
 under a tree, where the enemy rushed, knife in hand, on the little party. By 
 the intervention of a chief, one of the Englishmen, named Williams, was saved, 
 after being wounded in the neck : and on turning roimd, the first thing he 
 saw was the headless bodies of his three companions. All the English officers 
 who accompanied Sir C. M'Carthy were killed or captured, except two. This 
 happened on the 21st of January, 1824. It was not till May that the British 
 found themselves strong enough to brave the enemy in the field. The forts 
 being garrisoned by seamen and marines, just arrived with the new Governor, 
 Colonel Sutherland, and the garrisons turned out to take the field. Colonel 
 Chisholm attacked the Ashantees, on the 21st, and drove them before him, 
 after five hours' hard fighting. The advantage covild not be followed up, for 
 want of resources, and because the native allies deserted. Much fighting 
 occurred between this time and the 11th of July, when the Ashantees were 
 again defeated in the field, near Cape Coast Castle. They hovered about till 
 the 20th, after which they were not seen again. Mutiny and desertion in his 
 own .army disabled the Ashantee king from harassing the British, as he might 
 still have done by his very numerous forces. He retired, leaving behind liim 
 bare and bloody fields, where he had advanced among rich crops of maize.
 
 Chap. V,] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 309 
 
 bananas, yams, and plantains. At this time, beef was sixteen guineas a tierce 1826. 
 at Cape Coast ; and it was scarcely possible to obtain flour or bread at any "~— — — ' 
 price. The poor natives had, of course, no prospect but of djing by hunger. 
 
 The Ashantee King did not give up his object of possessing himself of all 
 the country which lay between his northern boundary and the sea. During 
 the two succeeding years, he made vast preparations, in gTeat quietness. The fs2(i"p. 22T*""' 
 natives in alliance with England were much alarmed, and appHed for assist- 
 ance to Colonel Purdon, commanding at Cape Coast. They solemnly promised 
 not to run away again, if they were assisted and led by the British : and this 
 time, one king and liis forces were firm, and fought well. The final engage- 
 ment took place on the Tth of August, 1826, when the Ashantees lost, it was 
 believed, not less than five thousand men. On the British side, the loss was 
 eight hundred : and two thousand were wounded. The Ashantee King lost 
 the golden umbrella of state, the golden stool of state, and much wealth of 
 gold dust, ivory, &c. The great TaUsman of the Ashantees Avas taken also, 
 and exammed. Under the external covering of leopard skin, appeared a silk 
 handkerchief; and Tiathin the handkerchief were two folds of paper, covered 
 with Arabic characters : and within the paper, was the head of Sir C. M'Carthy. 
 One of the native kings was the captor of the talisman ; and he refused to 
 give it up. — Humbling as it is to be worsted in these barbaric wars, and 
 indeed to be engaged in them at all, their occirrrence and incidents cannot be 
 passed over in the history of the time. They are not only facts of the time ; 
 but they yield their lesson. Such wars occur in most cases, as in the present, 
 fiom the lack of steadiness, ability, or knowledge in the agents sent from 
 home : and we shall be liable to such wars and such humiliations as long as 
 due care is not taken to send fit and properly prepared agents to our meanest 
 settlements in the most remote nooks of the world, as anxiously as to the 
 most brilliant court in Europe. The bad faith of Governor Smith in 1819 
 led to the slaughter of Sir C. jNl'Carthy in 1824 : and the incapacity of Sir 
 C. ai'Carthy in 1824 caused the protraction of the war for two years, the diffi- 
 culty of putting down the Ashantees at the end of that time, and all the 
 horrors of famine which afflicted the temtory during the intermediate period. 
 
 For nearly four years prior to 1826, there had been war between the British Burmese wm. 
 in India and the King of Ava, who ruled over the Burmese empire. The 
 Burmese territory is above a thousand miles long, by six hundred broad ; and 
 it lies between Bengal and China, filUng up the whole space. The King was 
 as proud and as vain as barbaric sovereigns usually are when they know little 
 or nothing beyond the bovmds of their own territory; and he ventured to annoy 
 his western neighbour, unaware of the chastisement that he must submit to 
 in consequence. The Burmese pushed across the frontier, and connnitted |^g™_"j| R^;^'"- 
 thefts and violence, fi-om time to time, for some years before the war : but 
 these aggi-essions need not be supposed to be countenanced by the govern- 
 ment ; and they were not therefore made a subject of formal complaint. In 
 1823, however, the government picked a quarrel, slew some soldiers in the 
 British service, imprisoned some British subjects : and, on being called to 
 accoimt, talked of invading Bengal. The Burmese actually entered the British 
 territory, and set up forts, secured with strong palisades, from one of whicli a 
 British officer and his force were driven back with considerable loss, in the
 
 310 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 [Book II. 
 
 1826. 
 
 Annual RogistPr, 
 1825 ; Chop. 8th. 
 
 Annual Register, 
 1826, p. 211. 
 
 Annual Register, 
 1826, p. 215._ 
 
 month of Februaiy. After this, war followed of course : and of course, it 
 was a disastrous war enougli to the ignorant sovereign who had provolved it. 
 
 The principal seaport of the Bunnese, Rangoon, was attacked on the 11th 
 of May, and immediately submitted. The members of the government fled 
 at the first shot ; and the whole population of Rangoon, except one hundred 
 persons, ran away into the jungle before the British could take possession of 
 the town. After this, however, the conduct of the war became much more 
 difficult, fiom the security afforded to the enemy by the jungle, and by the 
 stockades which the Bunnese threw up before every advantageous spot where 
 they rested. It was a weary and dreary war ; as war with a barbaric people 
 must ever be. It was no comfort that the Burmese lost, many times over 
 more men than the British ; that they were always leaving their ammunition 
 behind them, and lapng waste their fields, that their enemy might not be 
 sujiported by their soil. There was no comfort in all this ; for it did not 
 appear to hasten the arrival of peace. The chmate and the country, — the 
 heavy rains, burning suns, jungles, and swamps, were unfavourable to the 
 invaders ; and at the end of 1824, though they had advanced deep into the 
 coimtry, they did not seem much nearer to peace. The year 1825 too was 
 filled up with successes which went for nothing, — though the British com- 
 mander, Sir Archibald Campbell, did his duty well. One-eighth of the 
 British troops were sick amidst the swamps and rains ; and they were fired 
 upon from the jungle where they could not follow their assailants. In 
 the autumn, there was an amiistice, with abundance of fine speeches and 
 compliments, ceremonious cHnings, and pretences of ardent friendship : but 
 probably every one knew that the whole was a device for obtaining time, — to 
 recover the sick of the one party, and replenish the means of defence of the 
 Other. Then followed the defeat of the great Burmese army by little more 
 than a tenth part of their number : and then a treaty of peace wliich, after 
 being duly signed, was found actually never to have been forwai'ded to the 
 king. The alleged difficulty about this treaty, on the part of the Burmese, 
 was that they could not pay the money demanded for the expenses of the war. 
 They begged Su- A. Campbell to take rice instead, or to cut down and carry 
 away the fine trees he might take a fancy to : but he insisted on the money, 
 and the treaty was signed. When, after the next victory, the British took 
 possession of Melloone, they found there the treaty, which had never been for- 
 warded to Ava. And they found also, in the Prince Memiaboo's house, the 
 sum of 30,000 rupees (£3,000). The treaty was forwarded to the Commis- 
 sioner, with a note saying that he had probably left it behind him in the hurry 
 of his departure. The Commissioner replied that in the same hurry he had 
 left behind him a large sum of money, which he was confident the British 
 general was only waitmg a favourable opportunity to restore to him. 
 
 There is something extremely painful in such stories as these ; in contem- 
 plating wars whose horrors are as gi-eat as those which are conducted by foes 
 under an equality of ci^^hzation, but which are yet made ludicrous by the 
 childishness of one of the parties. Such wars do not appear, as far as our 
 Eastern possessions are concerned, to have been the fault of the more civilized 
 party, any time within our century. There is no wish for war in a case like 
 this, where the cost of money can hardly be repaid by any fi-uits of conquest ;
 
 Chap. V.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 311 
 
 where the troops are cut off by climate and disease ; where the siuvivors gain 1826. 
 little gloiy by much hardsliip ; and where the sufferings of the conquered ^— ■^''"" ' 
 coiuitry are such as must give concern to the hardest heart. In the present 
 instance, all means of conciliation and negotiation seem to have been tried 
 before war was resorted to. The necessity was one to which future genera- 
 tions are subjected by those who first establish a footing by force in a barbaric 
 quarter of the globe. Such men little know what they do — to what an inter- 
 minable series of future wars they pledge their country ; what an embarrass- 
 ment of territory, and burden of responsibility, and crowds of quarrelsome 
 and irrational neighbours, they bring upon her ; and how they implicate her 
 in the obligation to superintend the fortunes of half a continent — or perhaps 
 half the globe, till civilization shall have so spread and penetrated as that the 
 nations can take care of themselves, and co-operate with each other. It is 
 thus with the British in Asia now. " After the close of this Burmese Avar, a 
 wise and benevolent statesman was wont to say in London, with a grave 
 countenance, that we should be compelled to conquer China : and those who 
 did not see as far as he did into our responsibihties on the field of Asia, and 
 who knew how far he was fiom desiring conquest as a good, used to jest about 
 liim as " the Conqueror of China." Before the day of the Chinese Avar 
 arrived, the far-seeing statesman Avas in his grave ; but his Avords remained in 
 the ears of his friends, as a dkection into the yet remoter future Avhere our 
 national responsibilities will still be acting Avhen we are in our graves. Ours 
 is, probably, not the only generation Avhich will pass aAvay before England's 
 wars Avith barbaric states are ended. 
 
 Peace was concluded with the King: of Ava, in February, on temis Annual Register, 
 
 . ..,°. •' 182G, p. 217. 
 
 Avhich Avere triumphant to the British. Their expenses Avere paid by the 
 Bunnese, and there was such a cession of border territory as would secure 
 Bengal fi-om incursions from the east. There was difficulty and delay about 
 the restoration of the prisoners and the payment of the tribute ; but every 
 condition Avas enforced by Sir A. Campbell, and, on the 5th of March, the 
 British troops turned their faces towards Rangoon, on their Avay back to 
 Bengal. 
 
 Wliile these eastern conflicts were taking place, Mr. Canning Avas earnestly OBEri.iN. 
 occupied at home in preventing a war in the western world. Till our globe is 
 better knOAvn, and ncAvly-discovered portions more accurately surveyed and 
 defined than has been possible in the early days of geographical science, there 
 Avill be danger of disputes about possession and boundaries between countries 
 Avhich have contributed to the discovery of new regions, and Avhich may have 
 been concerned in cessions of territory obscurely described. This has been 
 the case Avith regard to the territory pertaining to one of the most important 
 rivers in the Ncav World — the Columbia ; the possession of Avhich has been 
 repeatedly and vehemently disputed by the English government and that of 
 tlie United States. When Mr. Canning came into office in 1822, the condition 
 of the question Avas such that, as Lord Castlereagh told Mr. Rush (the 
 American Minister in London), A>-ar could be produced by holding up a 
 finger. 
 
 The matter was really a very important one. The Columbia is the largest 
 river which flows into the Pacific ; its course fiom tlie Rocky Mountains being
 
 312 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book II. 
 
 1826. nearly nine hundred miles. Its entrance is somewhat difficult ; but just 
 ^~^'^^"' ' within is a spacious and secure bay. The harbours along the west coast of 
 North America are very few ; not more than two or three outside the disputed 
 territory : and far-seeing men are aware that every secure anchorage will be 
 of inestimable value when the trade of the Pacific becomes what it is certainly 
 destined to be. Again, the Columbia is now the only large river amidst the 
 habitable regions of the globe which remains to be colonized ; and of all 
 possible considerations, none is so important to Great Britain as her field of 
 colonization. Embayed in the coast of the disputed territory is an island — 
 Vancouver's Island — two hundred and fifty miles long by fifty broad, wliich 
 is fertile, has a climate like that of England, and abormds in coal of an 
 excellent quality. In Mr. Canning's time, the importance of this island was 
 not so clear as it is now that we have obtained settlements in Chma, and 
 extended our steam navigation into the Pacific. The prospect was not then 
 so distinct as now, of the activity of commerce which must arise in those 
 regions where our agents are already looking for coal and good harbours. At 
 that time, the Oregon was a remote region beyond the Rocky Mountains, 
 which it seemed scarcely possible for emigrants to reach, and whence there 
 could hardly be any communication between them and the mother coimtry. 
 Now that it is accessible from the other side, being only eighteen days' sail 
 from our Chinese settlements, while commerce and navigation are quickening 
 along the whole American coast, the aspect of the question is much altered. 
 But even then, the Oregon territory was seen to be no trifle, to be lightly 
 given up by an insular nation, whose futme welfare must depend incalculably 
 on its means of colonization ; and the question of the right to Oregon was 
 disputed Mitli a proportionate wannth and jiertinacity. 
 
 The claim of the United States was for a boundary which should give them 
 not only the Columbia river, but Vancouver's Island, bringing their coast so 
 nearly to a junction with the Russian territory, as that British vessels could 
 pass in and out only among islands belonging to the one or the other power. 
 In 1818, the British Commissioners, Mr. Robinson and Mr. Goulburn, would 
 not concede this ; and the American government would not modify the claim : 
 and the parties, therefore, made an arrangement wliich could not but increase 
 the difficulty of a future settlement. They agr-eed to leave the territory open 
 to occupation by Americans and British for ten years ; after wliich the subject 
 should be resimied. As time drew on to the close of the term, Mr. Rush, the 
 American Minister, was directed to open the subject again with Mr. Can- 
 ning; the United States government having, meantime, sent a frigate to 
 the mouth of the Columbia, to explore the river, and establish a post at 
 its mouth, on what Congress declared to be " within the acknowledged 
 
 President's m«l limits " of the American territory. Mr. Rush waited on Mr. Canning, who 
 was in bed with an attack of gout. Mr. Rush was admitted : they spread 
 out maps upon the bed ; and Mr. Canning was astonished to discover how 
 
 i.ifeofCaiinini;, great was thc extent of the American claim. The next time they conferred, 
 the American Minister yielded two degrees of latitude, which would have left 
 Vancouver's Island to Britain, but not the Columbia river. This offer was 
 rejected by Mr. Canning, whose proposal of a modified settlement was in tm-n 
 rejected by Mr. Rush. The more the aifair was discussed, the more hopeless 
 
 p, 3:;7.
 
 Chap. V.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 313 
 
 (lid any conclusion appear : and so angry did the people of both countries 1 826. 
 become, that the slightest irritability on the part of the negotiators would 
 have instantly kindled a war. ]\Ir. C'auning's part was patience, and the 
 recommendation of patience. He lost no opportunity of testifying his good 
 will towards the government and people of the United States, and of restrain- 
 ing the jealousy between the two nations. The question was not settled in 
 his time ; but he did much in preventing a war, and in keeping open a way 
 for an ultimate amicable settlement of a question whose importance to his 
 country was greater than even he could be aware of. 
 
 Wlieuever the periods arrived — once in two years — for the renewal of the alien act. 
 Alien Act, the question was asked in parliament by the opponents of the 
 bUl, whether it was proposed for the benefit of our own country or for that of 
 foreign sovereigns. The subject is sufficiently connected mth our foreign 
 policy to find its place here : and especially because it was the prevalence of 
 discontent and insurrection abroad, during tliis period, which made the seasons 
 of the renewal of the Alien Act interesting and important occasions of dis- 
 cussion. 
 
 Every one who has travelled on the Continent is ready to join in comi^laint 
 and condemnation of the passport system there, by which every traveller is 
 compelled to carry about with him a description of himself — liis personal 
 appearance, age, station, and occupation ; and to have the statement certified 
 afresh for every new country he enters. The trouble and expense, the vexa- 
 tion and delay, the mistakes and inconveniences, suffered by travellers under 
 this system, are such as to make it hateful to every body. No such system 
 existing in England, it is clear that, during troubled times, every man who 
 had reason to wish to escape notice in any continental country would rush to 
 England, if he could, and there feel himself in safe Iriduig, if no method of 
 registration of foreigners were adopted. Among these, the great majority 
 might be such as, from their worth or their misfortunes, England would be 
 proud and eager to receive and console ; and such could have no reasonable 
 objection to register their names and description on their arrival. Others, 
 however, whether many or few, might be ci-iminals or mischief-makers, of 
 whose presence in the country it is absolutely necessary to the public security 
 and good faith that the government should be aware. This much appears to 
 have been imdisputed, while the successive Alien Acts of 1820, 1822, and 
 1824:, were under discussion in parliament. The provisions by which foreigners 
 arriving in England were requir-ed to declare who and what they were, and to 
 sign their names in the presence of an authority always on the spot, were not 
 objected to by those who strenuously opposed other parts of the bills. I'y 
 tliis registration it appears that in 1820 the number of foreigners in England 
 was no less than 25,000, very few of whom were engaged in commercial or 
 other settled pursuits ; a fact which seems to indicate the recent arrival of a 
 large proportion of tliem. There was a constant increase of arrivals over 
 departures, from an average of 266 to 1300 in a year, fi-om 1819 to 1822, 
 both inclusive. This extraordinary influx was, of course, o-s^dng to the revo- 
 lutions and revolts on the Continent ; and the class of immigrants was exactly 
 that which a Castlcreagh and Sidmoutb would watch with jealousy and 
 
 VOL. I. 2 T
 
 il4 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book II. 
 
 18126. dislike, and which TN-ould appeal strongly to the sjTnpathics of the Liberal 
 ^-^^■^^■^^ leaders in parliament, and of the hospitable English people throughont the 
 land. The objections made to the successive Alien Acts, and urged with 
 force and ardour by some of the best men in parliament, regarded the power 
 accorded to Government of sending away obnoxious strangers, and its possible 
 retrospective operation. The Acts secui'ed to the suspected alien a power of ap- 
 peal to the Privy Council : and he was to be dismissed openly, by proclamation, 
 or by an Order in Council. The opponents of the bills required some security 
 that the obnoxious foreigner should not be delivered up to his special enemies 
 abroad, nor subjected on the spot to threats from subordinate officers ; and 
 they demanded that all foreigners resident in Great Britain before 1814, 
 should be exempted from the operation of the Acts. Their speeches were 
 directed against the power of dismissal at all ; though the necessity of some 
 such power was not expressly denied. The replies showed that the Govern- 
 ment was under some effectual responsibiUty, and that the existence of the 
 power of deportation was the surest way of rendering the exercise of that 
 power unnecessary. The actual case seems to be that the power tvas unac- 
 ceptable to the holders, even more than to the givers who covild not control its 
 operation ; that it was used as sparingly, and surrendered as early, as possible ; 
 and that it is most improbable that it should ever be conferred again. The 
 bills passed by decided majorities on each occasion ; and on each occasion, the 
 Minister had to report that there had been no abuse of the powers of the Act, 
 and that the number of aliens sent away was so small as to appear to testify 
 to the efficacy of the legislation. In ten years, as Mr. Peel declared in 182-1, 
 only five or six persons had been sent out of the country, except a Httle band 
 of agitators connected with Napoleon ; and with regard to these cases, there 
 was no dangerous or tyrannical concealment. In short, the Acts, though in a 
 certain measure questionable, worked well in an exti-aordinary time ; and in 
 1824, Mr. Peel proposed a considerable amehoration in the provisions of the 
 renewed Act. At this time, the number of Aliens in the country Avas 26,500 ; 
 and some had been detected in devising plots for revolt in their respective 
 countries, amidst the facilities afforded by a residence in London. The Go- 
 vernment had, however, sent away only one person (Count Bettera) -within 
 two years, preferring to stop the plots of agitators by warning and remon- 
 strance ; and they now felt able to recommend that the Alien Act should 
 henceforth apply to no persons who had resided in England for seven years. 
 On the next occasion, in 1826, a much greater relaxation was made — the 
 power of deportation was AAithdrawn from among the provisions, a fuller pro- 
 cess of registration being substituted for it. 
 
 Great satisfiiction was occasioned by this change. No one objected to the 
 reasonableness of the demand that Government should know where the 
 foreigners who sought an abode in the country would be foimd ; all agreed 
 that the power of deportation had been carefully used, and guarded from abuse ; 
 and all were heartily glad when it could be given up, never, it was hojied, to 
 be asked for again. 
 
 During this course of years, these thousands of foreigners largely influenced 
 the mind of the English nation. It was a good thing to have among us men
 
 Chap. V.J DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 3] 
 
 of great and various Itnowledge, art, and accomplisluiient. It was a good 182G. 
 thing to have our minds, too long and too closely shut up in oxa own island 
 and our own affairs, opened to take in new ideas, and awakened to a fresh 
 cimosity. It was a good thing to have our sympathies appealed to, and our 
 hospitable impulses strengthened, by the claims of so many perplexed and 
 distressed strangers, Avho looked to us as their only refuge from despair. It 
 Avas a better thing still to have the subject of government and constitutional 
 liberties discussed at so many English firesides ; so many careless minds fixed 
 —so many timid inspired — so many ardent informed ; and all, perhaps, made 
 more aware than they could have been by any other means of the privileges 
 of their own political position, and their duty in the preservation and improve- 
 ment of it. If, in the next generation, England makes progress in constitu- 
 tional freedom and social amelioration, it may be surmised that among the 
 reformers and guardians of the national welfare are some whose eyes flashed, 
 and whose hearts beat, when they sat on parents' knees, listening to the foreign 
 speech, and sjTnpathising in the fortunes of the exiled noble, and the indomi- 
 table patriot, of whom his own country was not worthy. Among the blessings 
 of the Peace may be reckoned such fraternization as this.
 
 310 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book II. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 1823. TN looking back to the time of Mr. Canning's entrance upon office, in the 
 ^— i-^— i — ' -L autumn of 1822, it is cle.ar — made clear by the light of subsequent 
 Changes in the evcuts — that a ucw pcriod in the domestic history of the country was open- 
 ing. Many persons must have been aware of this at the time, if we may 
 judge by the satisfaction expressed in various ways at the appointment of 
 Mr. Robinson as Chancellor of the Exchequer, in the place of Mr. Vansittart, 
 who left office with the title of Lord Bexley ; and at Mr. Huskisson's becom- 
 ing President of the Board of Trade, in January, 1823. Enough of the old 
 elements was left to keep the timid and unobservant quiet, in the hope that 
 things would go on pretty much as before, while Lord Liverpool was the head 
 of the administration, and Lord Eldon was a fixtiu-e ; and the Duke of Wel- 
 lington represented England abroad, and the King was surrounded by so 
 many of his favourite class of statesmen ; and the Duke of York took a solemn 
 oath occasionally against countenancing any attempt to relax the disabilities 
 of the Catholics. It was a misfortune, to be sure, that the government of the 
 country could not go on without Canning ; without a man who was irretriev- 
 ably pledged to the cause of Catholic Emancipation : and that Mr. Huskisson 
 was admitted into the Cabinet, with his troublesome and dangerous notions 
 about impairing the protection to native industry ; but it was hoped that 
 native industry was safe in the fostering bosom of the English nation ; and 
 some expressions of Mr. Canning's were laid hold of — exjjressions about the 
 apparent impossibility of carrying Catholic Emancipation under any govern- 
 ment that could be devised — as affording an assurance that, though the ncv/ 
 minister was obliged to talk about the matter, he would never be able to do 
 any thing in it ; and thus the tedium and loss of time in talking would be 
 the extent of the evil. Besides, the two obnoxious men were " political ad- 
 ventm-ers," low-born, and therefore vulgar ; and their influence would be 
 kept down accordingly by their more aristocratic political connexions. Such 
 ajipears to have been the view of the Ministerial party, at this time, through- 
 out the country, from the King himself to the little country shopkeeper of 
 Tory politics. The light of subsequent events shows us, however, that the 
 case did not stand exactly thus. The King was gromng morbid in temper 
 and spuits — more addicted to a selfish and inglorious seclusion, and less inter- 
 ested about public affiiirs fi-om year to year. The Duke of York was to die 
 before him, and now in no long time. The Lord Chancellor was to find him- 
 self less influential, henceforth, in the Cabinet and in the House of Lords. 
 The Duke of Wellington was to prove himself as pliable before political 
 necessity as inflexible in military duty. Mr. Peel was to prove himself capable 
 of education in the politics and pliilosophy of a new period. And Lord
 
 Chap. VI.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 317 
 
 Liverpool himself was already so uneasy about the position of the Catholics 1823. 
 
 that he clid not, and could not, conceal from his intimate friends his conviction 
 
 that their emancipation was only a question of time. He was now within five 
 
 years of the date when, as is well known, he was making up his mind to resign 
 
 Ids post to another who would carry the emancipation of the Catholics ; which 
 
 purpose was intercepted by the fatal seiz\ire which ^vithdrew him fi-om public 
 
 life. 
 
 As for the two " political adventurers " whom it was so disagreeable to be 
 obliged to admit into the Cabinet, their present position was enough to mark, 
 to the observant thinker, the change in the times. A new peiiod must be 
 opening when men of a new order are so indispensable at the Council Board 
 of the empire as that they are found seated there ^Wthout effort of their own, 
 and against the will of their colleagues. A new period was opening. Let us 
 look at some of its features. 
 
 A time of war is a season of abeyance of social principles. Amidst the dis- 
 turbance of war, the great natural laws of society are obscured and temporarily 
 lost. An exceptional state is introduced, during which the principles of social 
 rule retire and hide themselves behind the passions and exigencies of the time. 
 During such a season, the statesmen required are such as can employ, as sub- 
 stitutes for large principles of social rule, a strong and disinterested will, com- 
 manding a clear understanding and a ready apprehension. In such a season, 
 the man is every thing. He truly rules, if he has the requisite power of will, 
 whether his aims and his methods be better or worse. Statesmanship is a 
 post which in war, as in a despotism, may well make giddy all but the 
 strongest heads — may relax any nerves but those turned to steel by the fire of 
 an unquenchable will. A statesman in such times is required above all things 
 to be consistent. Consistency — which then means an adherence to an avowed 
 plan or system — is the one indispensable virtue of a statesman who rules 
 during an obscui'ation of gi-eat social laws. There is no reason for vacillation 
 or change when he acts from internal forces, and not under the direction of 
 external laws couflicting with faculty put to a new school. While statesman- 
 ship was of this character — as long as the British nation lived under rule 
 which had more or less of despotism in it, and wliile it was engaged in war — 
 ( that is, dming almost the whole of its existence) — British statesmen were 
 naturally, almost necessarily, of the aristocratic class. Leaving behind, out of 
 notice, the administrators who were mere creatures of royal favour, and not 
 worthy to be called statesmen, and coming down to later times, when poUtical 
 function had become a personal honoiu' independently of royal grace, it was 
 inevitable that English statesmen should be derived fr-om a class to whom 
 personal honours were most an object, and whose circumstances of birth and 
 fortune set them at liberty for political action and occupation. Many 
 influences favoured tliis choice of statesmen fi'om the aristocratic orders : class 
 habits of intercourse — class views and class interests. A lawyer's birth is for- 
 gotten in his eminence ; so that low-born hnvyers might rise, by the bar, to 
 high political office : but otherwise a man must be, if not in some way noble, 
 highly aristocratic before he could be a statesman, under penalty of being 
 called a " political adventurer." After the peace, a different set of conditions 
 gradually developed themselves. When war is over — (the critical period which
 
 318 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book II. 
 
 1823. admits the rule of the statesman's will) — an organic state succeeds, wherein all 
 individual will succumbs to the working of general laws. The statesman can 
 then no longer be a political hero, over-ruling influences and commanding 
 events. He only can be a statesman in the new days who is the servant of 
 principles — the agent of the great natural laws of society. The principles 
 which had gone into hiding during the period of warfare, now show themselves 
 again, and assume, amidst more or less resistance, the government of states. 
 Administrators who will not obey must retire, and make way for a new order 
 of men. Amidst the difficulty and perplexity of such changes, a whole nation 
 may be heard calling out for a great political hero, and complaining that all 
 its statesmen have grown small and feeble : but it is not that the men have 
 deteriorated, but that the polity is gi'owing \-isibly organic ; and a different 
 order of men is required to administer its affairs. 
 
 When these new men come in, the old requisitions are still made — the old 
 tests applied : and gi-eat is the consequent turmoil and disappointment on all 
 hands. Every body is troubled, except a philosopher here and there, who sees 
 further than others. Consistency is talked of still, as the first virtue requisite 
 in a statesman : and perhaps the man himself considers it so, and pledges 
 himself fearlessly to consistency. But he soon finds himself no master of the 
 principles of government, but a mere agent of laws which work themselves out 
 whether he will or no ; a mere learner under the tutelage of time and events. 
 If he is a statesman from ambition, he must change the ground of his 
 ambition : not exulting in framing and carrying out a political theory or 
 system, but investing liis pride in the enterprise of carrying out in the safest 
 mamier changes which must be made ; doing in the best manner work which 
 must, in one way or other, be done. As this new necessity opens before him — 
 this fresh view of statesmanship presses upon him — he suffers more perhaps 
 than all whom he disappoints. He is in an agony for his consistency, till he 
 lias become fully convinced that the highest praise of a statesman imder the new 
 order of things is, that he can live and learn : and long after he has himself 
 obtained a clear view of this truth, he is annoyed by inquiries after his lost 
 consistency. A little time, however, justifies him. On looking round, he finds 
 that there is no politician of worth in any party who has not changed his 
 opinion on one or more questions of importance since entering upon political 
 life: and that the only "consistent" men — the only men who think and say 
 precisely what they thought and said at the begimiing — are the poHtical bigots 
 who cannot live and learn. 
 
 Under a new period like this, new men must come up, — men who discern 
 the signs of the times earher and more clearly than poUticians who are closed 
 in by class limits and governmental traditions. Such new men would hardly 
 escape criticism from their colleagues, even if belonging to the order from 
 which statesmen are usually derived. Tlieir being brought in as a sign of 
 new times is a ground of jealousy in itself. But the new men must, from the 
 very nature of the case, be from a class placed in a different position : and 
 they have much to encounter. If wealthy, so as to be, in regard to fortune, 
 independent of office, they are looked upon as upstarts. If without fortune, 
 they are called adventurers. No matter how great their genius, hoAV conspi- 
 cuous their honesty, how unquestionable their disinterestedness, or even, how
 
 Chap. YI ] DUEING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 319 
 
 aristocratic their tendencies ; — if they live on the proceeds of office, and make 1823. 
 statesmansliip the business of their lives, they are " adventurers." ^-^ — -^ 
 
 All the varieties referred to were found in the Cabinet of 1823. There 
 were some members of old and high families. There were some of middle 
 class origin who had risen by means of university connexion and high Toryism, 
 at a time when the war made a wider road to statesmanship than tlie iiatiu-al 
 laws of society pennit in seasons of peace. Lord Eldon was of wliat his 
 colleagues would have called low origin if they had cared about it : but he 
 liad risen by the way of the law, and was exempt from criticism on that 
 score. INIr. Peel was the son of a cotton -spiimer : but his father, besides mb. Peel. 
 being enonnously rich, was a vigorous Tory : and the son was quiet and 
 modest, submitting to be conunended patronizingly by Lord Sidmouth, and 
 never forgetting or concealing the fact of his origin. There can be no doubt 
 that, though Mr. Peel has managed the fact with all prudence and honesty, 
 and has long risen above the need of any adventitious advantages, he has felt 
 the awkwardness of being the son of a cotton-spinner innumerable times in 
 the course of his career. There is something in the way of his occasionally 
 referring to the fact which shows this. It is painful to dwell on these features 
 of the lot of statesmanship ; — alniost shocking ■\\lien we consider how far the 
 honoiu'S of the position transcend any honours of bii-th. But it is necessary 
 to historical truth to mark clearly the features of a new period of society : 
 and this period seems to be the one when the hold of the aristocratic classes 
 on the fruiction of statesmanship was first loosened ; — the first opening made 
 into the prospect of a future time M'hon men of the people will be admitted, 
 and must be welcomed, to a share in the management of the affairs of the 
 whole people. The first who entered the Government under this incipient 
 change were sure to suffer ; and to suffer on a point on which men of their 
 kind are peculiarly sensitive. The men who had thus to suffer were Canning *■"■ c^xnnsa and 
 
 . "^ ® Mr. HisKissoN. 
 
 and Huskisson. 
 
 Canning was one of whom it might be said, according to ordinary notions, 
 that he ought to have been a nobleman. High-spirited, confident, gay, 
 genial, chivalrous, and most accomphshed, — he had the attributes of nobility, 
 as they are commonly conceived of: and a nobleman he was, — for he had 
 genius. He held high rank in Natiire's peerage. But this was not distinc- 
 tion enough in the eyes of some of his colleagues, and the majority of their 
 party. His father had been poor, though of gentlemanly birth ; and after his 
 father's death, his mother had become an actress. Not only was there an 
 abiding sense of these facts in the minds of his colleagues, his party, and his 
 opponents ; but some spread a rumour, which mot him from time to time in 
 his life, that his birth was illegitimate. The same was said in the case of 
 Mr. Huskisson : and in both cases it was false. 
 
 Mr. Huskisson was the son of a gentleman of restricted fortune, who 
 possessed a small estate in Staffordshire. The gi-eater part of the property- 
 was entailed upon him ; and he might have led the life of a country gentleman, 
 if his talents and inclinations had not led him into another walk of life. As 
 it was, he became private secretary to Lord Gower, the British Ambassador 
 at Paris, in 1790, when he was only twenty years of age. Xot long after- 
 wards, he was requested by Mr. Dundas, in the name of the Cabinet, to
 
 320 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book II. 
 
 1823. accept the office of administering the Alien Bill, — his knowledge of foreign 
 languages and customs, and his gentlemanly manners, fitting him to conduct 
 in the best mode the affairs of tht- emigrants lauding in our ports. The 
 Staffordshire estate descending to him about this time, considerably burdened 
 with charges on account of tlie younger members of the family, he chose his 
 way of life, declined that of a country gentleman, cut off the entail, and 
 devoted himself to the public service. In his twenty-sixth year he became 
 Under Secretary of State for War and the Colonies, under Mr. Dundas. 
 
 As for Mr. Canning, he was descended from an ancient family of gentry, 
 one branch of which, — that from which the statesman was descended, — went 
 to Ireland two centuries before his time, to live on lands presented to them by 
 James I. Mr. Canning's ftither was called to the bar, but he never practised. 
 Literature beguiled him from the pursuit of law ; and he died early. Under 
 the pressiu'e of debt, he had consented to cut off the entail of the Irish estate, 
 which he soon saw settled on his younger brother. He married a beautiful 
 yomig lady of eighteen, of good family, — Miss Costello ; and their son, the 
 statesman, was born on the 11th of April, 1770, when the friend and colleague 
 of liis after years, Mr. Huskisson, was exactly a month old. The father was 
 wretched at the thought of liaving made his son landless ; his cares had long 
 preyed upon his health ; and he died on his child's first birthday, leaving the 
 young widow wholly destitute : and it was then that, seeing no other resource 
 for a maintenance, she went upon the stage. It is not going aside fi-om our 
 purposes to relate these particulars of family history. The cry against the 
 origin of Mr. Canning and Mr. Huskisson was so vehement, and so earnestly 
 echoed by the people themselves, when given out by the aristocracy, that there 
 is clearly some strong significance in it, which makes it a sign of the times. 
 The aristocracy ought not to have complained of the birth of either of these 
 men : and the people ought not to have been discontented at the spectacle of 
 men without hereditary fortune devoting themselves to the public service, 
 while complaining of the influence of hereditary fortune in unfitting poli- 
 ticians for popular sympathy. Wliat the people ought to have felt under such 
 an incident of government, Mr. Canning indicated in one of his Liverpool 
 Speeches, i>. 155. Speeches, after liis election in 1816; a speech for which certain aristocratic 
 families never forgave him, and for which they made his sensitive spirit suffer 
 to his latest day. " There is," said Mr. Canning to his Liverpool constituents, 
 " yet a heavier charge than either of those that I have stated to you. It is. 
 Gentlemen, that I am an adventurer. To this charge, as I understand it, I 
 am mlling to plead guilty. A representative of the people, I am one of the 
 people ; and I present myself to those who choose me only with the claims of 
 character (be they what they may) unaccredited by patrician patronage, or 
 party recommendation. Nor is it in this free country, where, in every walk 
 of life, the road of honourable success is open to every individual, — I am sure 
 it is not in this place, that I shall be expected to apologize for so presenting 
 myself to yoiu' choice. I know there is a political creed which assigns to 
 a certain combination of gi'eat families a right to dictate to the sovereign, and 
 to influence the people ; and that this doctrine of hereditary aptitude for 
 administration is, singularly enough, most prevalent among those who find 
 nothing more laughable than the principle of legitimacy in the Crown. — To
 
 Chap. VI] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 321 
 
 this theory I have never subscribed. If to depend directly upon the i)ooplo, 1823. 
 as their representative in Parliament ; if, as a servant of the Crown, to lean 
 on no other support than that of public coniidence, — if that be to be an 
 adventurer, I plead guilty to the charge: and I -nould not exchange that 
 situation, to whatever taunts it may expose me, for all the advantages which 
 might be derived from an ancestry of a huncfred generations." 
 
 It is easy to see why, after this avowal, his aristocratic comrades and foes 
 dwelt much on what they called " the lowness of his origin." The question 
 is, why so many of the people were for ever taunting him with it, and with 
 being an adventurer. — It was not only, in this case, from that strong infusion 
 of the aristocratic spirit into the English character which makes the town 
 footman, the country shopkeeper, and the labourer in the hamlet, value the 
 claims of birth as highly as any nobleman in the peerage. Mr. Canning and 
 Mr. Huskisson were too well born to be subject to popular scorn on this 
 ground. It was because they were not, till latterly, on the popular side. 
 Men of the people, their tendencies were aristocratic ; and they were seen in 
 company, and supposed in league, with the Eldons and the Wellingtons, — with 
 the comrades of Sidmouth and Castlereagh. As time passed on, and disclosed 
 the great truth that a new period had begun, the jealousy and dislike of the 
 aristocratic observers of these two men became aggi-avated, — mixed up as it 
 was with fear of change : and, fr'om the same cause, their footing with the 
 nation improved ; till the popular confidence in the case of Huskisson reached 
 the point of calm trust and gratitude for eminent services ; and in the case of 
 Caiming, a pitch of high enthusiasm which caused the news of his death to 
 be received with an imiversal groan. 
 
 AVhat dismay the introduction of the new men caused among the old is 
 
 shown, with a sort of ludicrous pathos, in the conespondence of the Lord 
 
 Chancellor at this time. He was always talking of retiring, on account of the 
 
 disgrace the Government was incurring by its advancmg liberalism. At every 
 
 new step taken, he threatened to retire : but he did not do it. He opposed, 
 
 and gToaned over every proposition made by liis colleagues : and it seems as 
 
 if even the Premier, his old friend, had g-rown tired of considting him ; and 
 
 especially about the appointment of men whose measures and conduct he 
 
 would be sure to disapprove as they developed themselves. The beha\'iour 
 
 seems cavalier ; but it must really have been difficult to know what to do -with 
 
 a man who would neither act heartily with his colleagues nor leave them. 
 
 " The * Cornier' of last night," wTites the Lord Chancellor to his brother, i''f« <>f ^"^ ei. 
 
 . . . . . . ''"°i "• P' '"J*' 
 
 " announces Mr. Huskisson's introduction into the Cabinet — -of the intention 
 
 or the fact I have no other communication. AVhether Lord Sidniouth has or 
 
 not, I don't know : but really this is rather too much. Looking at the whole 
 
 history of tliis gentleman, I don't consider tliis introduction, without a word said 
 
 about the intention, as I should perhaps have done with respect to some 
 
 persons that have been, or might be, brought into cabinet ; but turning out 
 
 one man, and introducing another in the way all this is done, is telling tlie 
 
 Chancellor that he should not give them the trouble of disposing of him, but 
 
 should (not treated as a Chancellor) cease to be a Chancellor. What makes 
 
 it worse is, that the gieat man of all has a hundred times most solemnly 
 
 declared that no connexion of a certain person's should come in." (Lord 
 
 VOL. I. 2 u
 
 322 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 [Book II. 
 
 p 355. 
 
 1823. Liverpool had declared that no Mend of Canning's should come in.) "There 
 "-^-^-'^'^-^ ig no believing one Avord any body says — and what makes the matter still worse 
 is, that every body acquiesces most quietly, and waits in all humility and 
 patience, till their own turn comes." — It is plain that the world was rolling 
 past the steadfast old Chancellor, and carrying every body with it but himself. 
 The wind that it made chilled him as it swept by ; and he was troubled at the 
 void that it left about him. He called out, sometimes angrily and sometimes 
 piteously, to the world, to come back and stand where it did before : but the 
 world was fairly on its way now, and could not stop to listen to him : so the 
 okl man had to cheer himself with the comforts of his conscience ; — that most 
 comfortable conscience which never gave him any trouble, but always so much 
 solace ! Perhaps this conscience of his would have stirred so far as to make 
 him retire if he could, amidst his many prophesyings, have foreseen how soon it 
 E.iinimigh Re- would be Said of the man now in question, " of Mr. Huskisson, in particular, 
 view, Sept. 1826, ^gjjj,^gj -jvhom Bvcry species of ribald abuse has been cast, we have no hesi- 
 tation in saying, that he has done more to improve our commercial policy dur- 
 ing the short period since he became President of the Board of Trade, tlian all 
 the ministers who have preceded him for the last hundred years." But the 
 Chancellor still only talked of retiring ; — only wrote to Lord Liverpool that he 
 had no wish to remain Chancellor, believing, as he did, that all who remained — 
 that is, acted with the two " adventurers" — would " stand a very good chance 
 of being disgraced." And how was it, with regard to this matter of disgrace, 
 to be brought upon the Cabinet by tliis " adventurer ?" " And it ought to be 
 remembered to his honour," the Edinburgh Review says of Mr. Huskisson, 
 " tliat the measures he has suggested, and the odium thence arising, have not 
 been proposed and incvmed by him in the view of serving any party purpose, 
 but solely because he believed, and most justly, that these measures were 
 sound in principle, and calculated to promote the real and lasting interests of 
 the public." A new period had indeed set in. The " combination of great 
 families" had been conscientious in their way; in discharging their responsi- 
 bility to their " party," and toiling and endeavouring to achieve its " purposes." 
 Now, here was a man out of their pale, (and therefore " an adventurer,") who 
 ruled in his province for " the real and lasting interests of the public." When 
 William Huskisson and his period came in, it was certainly time for Lord 
 Chancellor Eldon to go out : for his period was indisputably expiring. 
 And now — for the coming in of Huskisson's times. 
 
 During the war, when manufactures and commerce were in an artificial 
 state, the British people liad paid an amount of taxes which now appears 
 scarcelv credible. Wliat should we think of lia-\dng to pay now, in taxes and 
 loans, never less, and usually more, than a hundred millions a year. Yet this 
 is what was paid from 1805 to 1818. In 1813, the amount paid in was 
 £176,346,023. And in raising this amount of proceeds great injury was done 
 by the method of collection, which was expensive and bmdensome .to excess. 
 Mr. Vansittart did not understand his business : and no one seems to have 
 been able to teach it to him, or anxious to bid him learn it. He seems never 
 to have perceived that to double a tax is not to double its proceeds. He did 
 not consider that tlie lower ranks of society are the largest in number ; and 
 that numbers lessen with increase of rank, either of birth or money. He 
 
 I.ifc of Lord El- 
 don, ii. p. 4(38. 
 
 E.linburgh Re- 
 view. Sept. 1826, 
 p. 3,iU. 
 
 The Debt and 
 'i'axatio.n.
 
 Chap. VI.J DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. .323 
 
 never could see that if a tax was doubled — a tax on any commodity or usage — 1823. 
 a certain number of persons would give up the commodity or usage, from 
 inability to pay the heavy tax : and that those who would cease to pay would 
 be the poorer — that is, the larger class. If Mr. Vansittart wanted more money, 
 he doubled a tax, reckoned on double the former amount of proceeds, prepared 
 and presented his estimates on this supposition, was, of course, disappointed, 
 and had recourse to loans, or resorted to the Sinking Fund ; or in some way 
 plunged deeper, till he could induce the House to increase some other tax. 
 Such was the method of administration which gave advantage to seditious 
 dcclaimers, and enabled Mr. Cobbett to carry with triumph, on the hustings 
 at Norwich, resolutions in favour of applying the funds of the Church and 
 the Crown Lands to the payment of the Debt, abolishing all pensions, and 
 suspending almost every kind of income, for piu'poses of relief fi'om taxation. 
 It was clear that the pressure of taxation was now too great to be borne ; and 
 that something must be done to arrest the demoralizing discussion of the 
 question, whether the Debt could not somehow be got rid of. 
 
 Those days appear to us not very remote : yet it is difficult to believe how 
 little remote they are when we call to mind the way in which the Debt was 
 talked over. A large number of gentlemen contrived to convince themselves 
 and one another that the Debt was a source of public wealth — a name or ima- 
 gination which capitalists could trade in for mutual advantage, and for a share 
 in which rich foreigners would pay hard cash into the country. Such men 
 Avould not, of course, have the Debt diminished. An opposite, and daily 
 increasing party, which was not confined to those who foimd it hard to live, 
 wanted to sweep it away altogether. It was not uncommon, in those days, 
 to meet with persons who called themselves politicians, who would say openly 
 "Ah! you know, after all that can be said, we must come to the sponge." 
 The Cobbetts, Hunts, and Wolseleys of those days — the shrewd, the ignorant, 
 and the weak leaders of the people, not only spoke strongly (as they might 
 reasonably do) of the hardsliip of the annual payment of the interest of the 
 Debt, but misled multitudes as to the origin and nature of the Debt itself. 
 They not only exposed the badness of the principle of mortgaging the industry 
 of future generations ; and showed the mischief of diverting annually from pro- 
 ductive purposes so many millions as go to pay the fund-holder ; and ridicxded 
 the Siidving Fund : all this was fair enough : but they went so far as to repre- 
 sent the Debt as incurred by the aristocracy, for personal objects hostile to the 
 national interest : and they clamoured for a confiscation of the property of the 
 Crown, and the Church, and the aristocracy ; and, failing these, for an 
 expunging of the Debt, throwing the support of the fiind-holders wholly on 
 the aristocracy. There were others who understood the origin and progress 
 of the Debt rightly enough ; and who saw that, however indefensible was the 
 great increase of it during the wars of the last century, the most vast and rapid 
 increase of it took place during the present century, when this prodigious 
 expenditure had become indispensable to our national existence. Wliile 
 moiu'ning over the American War, and other unhappy conflicts which raised 
 the Debt from 129 millions in 1775 to 360 at the peace of Amiens in 1802, 
 they remembered that the vital struggle -which ensued, between 1803 and the 
 overthrow of Napoleon in 1815, added 420 millions to the capital of the Debt —
 
 324 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book II. 
 
 1823. an addition for which it seems impossible to blame, with any show of reason, 
 any class or party at home. But those who understood accmately the origin 
 of the Debt fell into strange errors about the means of its liquidation. Some 
 trusted to the Sinking Fund, even up to this date and beyond it. They did 
 not see the double mischief connected with the Sinkinff Fmid : that while 
 there was in reality any surplus revenue applicable to its purposes, the Govern- 
 ment would, almost of course, help itself to the money, under any temporary 
 embarrassment, to avoid proposing new taxes while the people found it more 
 and more difficult to pay the old : and then, that the Commissioners of the 
 Sinking Fund would borrow to make up the deficiency. Absurd as it appears 
 in the case of an individual that a man should borrow in one direction to pay 
 a debt in another — paying perhaps higher interest to his new creditor than to 
 the old — and should then call for congratulations on the decrease of his first 
 debt, this is exactly what was done by the government, prior to tliis date. 
 Mr. Pitt no doubt honestly believed that the money accruing to the Sinking 
 Fund would be allowed to accumulate untouched : but Mr. Vansittart declared 
 in 1813, that the sum produced by the Sinking Fund "would be an instrument 
 of great force in the hands of parliament, M'hich might lead to the most impor- 
 tant results :" and Lord Londonderry, just before his death, avowed that " he 
 had never represented the Sinking Fund as a saving to bo held sacred, but as 
 a mode of placing a large siun at the disposal of parliament, to be by them 
 disposed as might be thought most equitable, whether for the relief of a press- 
 ing exigency of the present day, or for the security of posterity." While this 
 extraordinary laxity of profession was used by members of the govenunent, 
 there was no less laxity in the actual management of the so-called fund. The 
 operations were curious enough in many ways : but the result was the most 
 cm-ious of all. While Ministers were announcing that the Sinking Fiuid had 
 paid off nearly twenty-five millions of the Debt since 1817, the public were 
 wondering how it was that the interest of the Debt was heavier by £700,000. 
 By borrowing, with all manner of ingenious and costly devices, on the one 
 hand, to pay on the other, the managers had actually increased the Debt by 
 seven milUons and a half since 1817, and had added £700,000 to the interest. 
 Since the close of tho war, the increase was upwards of eleven millions. Some- 
 thing must be done. 
 
 One process which had been begun in 1808 for the liquidation of the Debt 
 has acted well, as fiir as it has gone : and it is probable that whenever any 
 effectual reduction of the Debt takes place, it will be through a large extension 
 of this method ; — that of converting permanent into terminable annuities, — at 
 some present sacrifice, of course, but with certain future relief. But this pre- 
 sent sacrifice, this immediate increase of charge, was the objectionable featm'e 
 at the date of which we write, when the public safety required a lightening of 
 the burdens of the people. In Sir H. Parucll's " Financial Reform" there is 
 an observation, that " if all the loans which have been raised since the begin- 
 ning of the war of 1739 had been borrowed in annuities for ninety-nine years, 
 their extinction would aheady have commenced." We sliould now have been 
 outgi-owing the Debt from year to year, and feeling its shackles falling off in- 
 cessantly from our productive industry. And we may prepare for the emanci- 
 pation of a future generation now, by adopting this method in our day ; by
 
 Chap. VI.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 325 
 
 making some increased sacrifice to pay, for the sake of our cliiklren, the debt 1823. 
 incuiTed by our fathers. Mr. Vansittart witnessed the action of this method ; 
 and so did Mr. Robinson, his successor ; and both declared their approbation of 
 it. Yet, driven hard by the exigencies of the times, — that is, by tlie popular 
 discontent, — they had recourse to a directly opposite method of dealing with 
 the Debt ; — ^burdening posterity, for the sake of a very slight temporary relief : 
 and they found not a few followers and admirers who praised both schemes in 
 the same breath. 
 
 The sum required in 1822 for the discharge of half-pay and pensions was 
 five millions. If these had been let alone, the whole would have fallen in in 
 about forty-five 3'ears, fi-om the dying off of the recipients. But the Chancellor 
 of the Exchequer conceived a project of converting these annually diminisliiug 
 claims into a set of permanent annuities for the teim of forty-five years : fixing 
 this permanent annuity at £2,800,000, and providing by its immediate sale for 
 the discharge of the half-pay and pensions, with some considerable surplus. 
 Nobody bought in the first year. In 1823, the Bank of England bought a 
 portion of the long annuity, on terms which afibrded the people of 1823 to 1828 
 an amount of nine milhons and a half, at the expense of those who were to 
 come after them, and who are burdened with an annual payment of £585,74:0 
 for the thirty-nine succeeding years. INIr. Vansittart had devised this scheme ; 
 and Mr. Robinson believed himself obliged to carry it through, though the 
 circiunstances of the times made the bargain with the Bank as disadvantageous 
 in its terms as it was objectionable in its principle. — Strangely enough, j\Ir. Ro- 
 binson, in bringing forward his budget, in this spring of 1823, reckoned tmce 
 over a sum of two millions, expected to accrue from this arrangement : so that 
 the declared surplus of five millions which was destined to reduce the Debt 
 was at once sunk to three. 
 
 Such was the state of the afiairs of the Debt, at the date of the accession to 
 ofiice of the new men. The country was less afilicted than it had been ; and 
 there was a decided rc\ival in manufactures and commerce. But the pressure 
 of taxation was one which the nation was beginning to declare that it could 
 not and would not bear, after eight years of peace : and so loud was the cry for 
 reform of parliament, as the shortest way to a remission of taxation, that it was 
 time for government, not only to consider, but to show what could be done. 
 The new men were as heartily annoyed by all mention of reform of parliament 
 as their predecessors and their colleagues. They must set to work to obviate 
 it by improving the condition of the nation. 
 
 There were two ways of doing this. One was to ^lessen the amount of the 
 taxes : the other was, to increase the ahiUty of the people to pay them. Both 
 objects were good : but in the first there was nothing new, — nothing expan- 
 sive, — nothing significant of a better time. The minister who lays on new 
 taxes, always talks about taking them off' by and by : and when they are taken 
 off, there is so much saving to so many individuals ; so much left free for in- 
 vestment in productive industry. The jirocess is good ; and it is pleasant to 
 every body, tiom the humblest tax-payer, who saves his penny in liis weekly 
 Avages, to the Chancellor of the Exchequer himself, who announces welcome 
 news, and sees smiles on every face in return. Tliis was Mr. Robinson's pro- 
 cess ; and he went into it Mitli a temper so benign and sanguine, that he did
 
 326 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book II. 
 
 1823. not always come out of the experiment with fsuch credit as he anticipated. He 
 became known by tlie name of Prosperity Robinson when it was found, year 
 after year, that he underrated drawbacks, and overrated the public condition : 
 and that he was only too like himself when he exulted in the reduction of the 
 Debt during the years which had actually added above seven millions and a 
 half to its capital. In this spring of 1823, however, the Minister's tendency 
 to optimism was not fully known ; and liis announcement of a large reduction 
 of taxation was received with enthusiasm, though his scheme included the ob- 
 jectionable arrangement with the Bank, for the commutation of the half-pay 
 and pension charges. Several small taxes, annoying in their operation, were 
 taken off altogether, at a sacrifice of less than £78,000 :— such as taxes on 
 mixed services, on occasional gardeners, on the lower order of taxed carts, and 
 some of the horses, mules, and ponies, used in trade and husbandry. There 
 was a reduction of the window-tax ; fifty per cent, was taken off the taxes on 
 servants, carriages and horses : and Ireland was relieved of the whole of the 
 assessed taxes. — In the preceding year, some considerable reductions had been 
 forced upon Ministers, who had taken off the greater part of certain very onerous 
 taxes, — as those on salt and leather, and the annual malt tax. On that occa- 
 sion, the late Chancellor of the Exchequer did not see how the labouring man 
 needed pity for paying from 20s. to 25s. a year for salt ; since it was paid " in 
 almost imperceptible portions " from his weekly wages : but he was compelled 
 to try what the labouring man would think of the change. — Now, a year later, 
 a new Minister voluntarily and exultingly came forward to repeal taxes : and 
 the labouring man, telling over his weekly wages in his cottage, began to feel 
 that there was good, even to him, in peace above war. 
 coMMEBciAL Tlio othcr way to improve the condition of the nation was by increasing 
 
 theii- ability to pay their taxes : — by expanding their trade, — giving them an 
 increased command of the materials of their manufactures, and an improved 
 security of jiroduction, sale and returns. In every direction, the agriculture, 
 manufactures and commerce of England were hamj)ered by laws and arrange- 
 ments which, originally intended for safeguards, had become restrictions. The 
 food of the whole people was to be grown in their own island ; and its supply 
 was at the mercy of the weather, and of the changing state of men's minds 
 under the fluctuation of their fortunes : so that the prices of corn and otlier 
 food, the rent of the rich and the loaf of the poor, rose and fell in extremes 
 which destroyed all confidence and all regularity ; whereas, if the world were 
 laid open to the constant demand of the nations, the abundance of one region 
 would supply the deficiency of another, and a natural balance would be esta- 
 blished. As far as was possible, the same ancient plan was piu'sued with regard 
 to the materials of manufactures. Instead of a liberty of purchase of hemp, 
 silk, wool, timber, &c., where they could be had best, and when they were 
 most wanted, all sorts of impediments were interposed in the way of obtaining 
 supplies ; and production was rendered difficult and scanty in proportion. In- 
 stead of a liberty of sale of all productions, the producers were hampered by 
 treaties and laws, the jealousies of governments, and the meddling of rulers, till 
 the markets of the world were brought into an artificial state which discouraged 
 enterprise and industry, by making thenr cost more, in money, risk, and anxiety, 
 than they were worth. In truth, the methods which had been devised when 
 
 Policy.
 
 Chap. VI] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 327 
 
 states were young and half-peopled, and rulers were inexperienced, were now 1823. 
 outgi-Qwn. They were applicable no longer : and now, M-lien wars were over 
 for the time, and countries were fully peopled, and inventions sprang up every 
 day, and arts and economy improved from year to year, it was necessary that 
 men should have more liberty to produce and to exchange. jSociety was now 
 large, full and busy enough to come under the great natural laws which regu- 
 late conmiunities of men as infliUibly as they regulate systems of worlds : it had 
 outgrown the superintendence of a handful of managers who once thought it 
 their busmess to dispense all its affairs according to their own notions. When 
 Adams the mutineer found liimself in command of the little company from the 
 Boinity, and ruler of their island, he began with a sort of paternal rule. He 
 dictated what clothes his subjects shoidd wear, and how they should enclose 
 their gardens, and how much land should be set apart for growing yams, and 
 how much for maize ; and he might even order this plant to be watered, and 
 that to be sheltered, and another to be carefully reared in a seed-bed : but when 
 liis little company had spread out into a tribe, he could rule them, no longer as 
 a father, but as a legislator and judge. His business in his old age was to 
 frame, v/ith their concurrence, rules of behaviour, which he was to see enforced : 
 but when he sat before his cottage on the knoll, and looked abroad over their 
 harvests, spreading as far as he could see, and saw the people thronging in 
 their market, and their boats going to and fi-o among the islands in the sea, he 
 could no longer dream of such a task as regulating their households and their 
 fortunes. He must leave them to till their fields, and choose their fishing- 
 grounds, and dye their webs, and sell their cargoes, in the way they might find 
 answer best to them; certain that what was most conducive to the prosperitj' 
 of each individual family must tend most to the welfare of the whole com- 
 munity. — Thus, there had been a time in England wlien the King and his 
 advisers had ordained what clothes should be worn by the different classes of 
 the people ; wliat prices they should give for their food ; what wages they 
 should receive for their labour. When that close interference had to be given 
 up, the voice and hand of the sovereign and the legislature were still heard 
 and felt among tlic most important transactions of production and trade, spoil- 
 ing what they could no longer regulate. At the time we are contemplating, 
 the mischief was formd to be pressing very heavily. The taxes were burden- 
 some ; the supply and prices of food were precarious and fluctuating : and when 
 the sentinels of war were withdrawn from the boundaries of kingdoms and 
 continents, it was found that commerce could not pass, on account of restric- 
 tions at home. The nation cannot be said to have had a clear view and pur- 
 pose as to what should be done, to improve its ability to pay its taxes : nor did 
 the mind of any statesman, perhaps, embrace the whole scope of the reforms 
 now to be instituted : but the stir throughout the country and in parliament, 
 during this session of 1823, showed the general sense that something must be 
 done ; and IVIr. Huskisson was the man who saw furthest into the natui-e and 
 necessity — the philosophy and fact of the case. The aim at Freedom of Trade 
 ^\as not at present a great national idea, like that of llcform of Parliament. 
 Men were going imconsciously into the gi-eat change which the next twenty 
 years were to accom])lish : but, on looking back to this session of 1823, it seems 
 lliat we nuiy date thence the enumcipution of trade, not only because Mr. Hus-
 
 328 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book II. 
 
 1823. kisson then entered the cabinet to begin the work, but because the need of the 
 '^-^"^'""^-^ work being begun brought Mr. Huskisson into the cabinet. 
 
 The novelty and terror were not, in this case as in many, in the name of 
 the measures required. The opponents of CathoKc Emancipation and Parlia- 
 mentary Reform started back from the very names : but almost eveiy body 
 professed to think " a more liberal commercial policy," and " the removal of 
 restrictions on trade," very good things. The difficulty was that every step 
 taken to attain these good objects was desperately contested. The " protec- 
 tion" of each particular interest was so fought for, that to free any one from 
 restriction was as difficult as if tlie entire process had been opposed in the 
 abstract. In a subsequent session, the House, which had already begun to 
 jest on the tendency of each interest to recommend " a liberal commercial 
 policy" for every one but itself, was brought to a full sense of the absurdity 
 of this by the zeal of an honourable representative of a place abounding in 
 glass-houses. He had helped to take off protecting duties from a great variety 
 of articles in wliich his constituents were not particularly concerned : but 
 when green glass bottles were mentioned, he started to liis feet, and vowed he 
 would defend to the last the protection to green glass bottles. — Tliis was one 
 difficulty. Another was that few persons had yet learned to look at the 
 subject in the large. Wliile multitudes wished for a relaxation, few dreamed 
 of an entire removal of restrictions : and while this lasted, refoims worked 
 imperfectly, and men could not agree how much to aim at. 
 
 This year we are struck by the fact that numerous petitions were presented 
 
 m^^t fi'f'^^"' *° Parliament, for the repeal of the import duties on foreign wool, while the 
 manufactui-ers, the actual petitioners, would not hear of the fi-ee exportation 
 of wool. The answer they received was that the import tax now yielded a 
 revenue of £400,000, having risen to that from £250,000 : that this seemed to 
 show (one cannot now see how) that the duty did not injure manufactm-es, 
 while it was very imjiortant as revenue : but that foreign avooI should be 
 admitted free whenever the manufacturers would agree to a free exportation : — 
 a point of wisdom which they had not attained. An improved Warehousing 
 
 i8°3"p fui"^"' ^^^^ ^""'^^ passed tliis year, witli much difficulty. Some curious facts appeared 
 about our trade with India, which pointed further than people then saw to the 
 changes wliich the West India islands were to undergo hereafter. Mr. Whit- 
 more desired an inquiry into the duties on East and West India sugar. He 
 showed that before the trade with India was rendered open, it had gone on in 
 its own small way, — drugs, spices, silks, and a few muslins, being sent from 
 India, and paid for with bullion from Emope. Now, since the opening of the 
 trade, the whole business had assumed a new aspect. Instead of bidlion, 
 India received from us woollen goods to the amount of a million and a half. 
 A more remarkable thing was that, instead of sending us her fine muslins, 
 India sent us the cotton to make them of; and this cotton was spun, woven, 
 sent back, and sold on the spot, cheaper tlian the inhabitants could sell muslin 
 to each other. The exports to India of manufactm-ed cotton amounted already 
 to above a million per amium. The thing now desired was that India should 
 be permitted to pay for our manufactures in her own product of sugar, — 
 having little other means of payment, and our trade with that vast and popu- 
 lous country being lienceforth llmitable only by restriction on her means of
 
 Chap. VI] DUEING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 329 
 
 jiaying for what wo could supply. — It was not likely that Mr. Whitmore would 1 S23. 
 obtain his object, implicated as it was with the siibject of West India slavery : ~~— ^^■-^' ' 
 but ho had the honom- of driving Mr. Ilnskisson himself to his wit's end to 
 defend the existing state of the sugar duties, and get rid of the facts about 
 India : and it was one of the long series of preparatoiy steps wliich are still 
 loading us on towards an ultimate free trade in sugar, through a wilderness of 
 diihculties caused by former vicious restrictions, not only on freedom of trade, 
 but on the Hberty of man. 
 
 The Silk ]Manufacturers stirred this year against the bad political economy ^''^ijg^'-''''^''"' 
 of a foiincr reign. When the silk manufacture was almost entiiely confined 
 to Spitalficlds, statutes were passed eihpow^ering the magistrates to fix the 
 amount of wages, and settle a good many other matters wliich lay pretty 
 uddely out of their pro\-ince. Tlie manufacture could not flourish under this 
 kind of superintendence as it now did in other parts of the country where no 
 such meddling was authorized : and it was clear that the Spitalfields manufac- 
 ture must perish utterly, unless left free to compete with that of other districts. 
 The reasonableness of this was clear enough ; and the House seemed ready to 
 repeal the restrictive acts, when Mr. T. Fowell Buxton presented a petition 
 signed by eleven thousand joinnepnen silli weavers, who supposed that their 
 bread was gone if their wages were no longer to be fixed by law. The honour- 
 able members were not con^inced, but they were daunted by the " dismay and 
 alarm" of the journcjTnen: and some of them begged for delay. Mr. Hus- 
 kisson saw no use in delay in following up a principle* w^hich all agreed to be 
 sound: but, sound as the principle was declared to be, the majority on the "^"^""'■'''■''''■2- 
 second reading of the bill was only 8, in a House of 128. On the third reading, Hansard, ix. 8i8. 
 the majority was still only 13. This is sufficiently remarkable at a date so 
 late as 1823 : but the ultimate fate of the bill is a yet more wonderfid circum- 
 stance. The Lords were afraid to alter old laws in a hurry. The Lord Chan- 
 cellor especially, while professing not to understand much of political economy, 
 implored their lordships not to touch any old laws without abtmdant delay. Hansard, u. 1532 
 The peers introduced several amendments into the bill, which would have 
 continued to the magistrates the power of fixing wages, while kindly permit- 
 ting the manufacturers to invest their capital where they pleased, instead of 
 confining them, as hitlierto, -nithin a distance of ten miles from the Royal 
 Exchange. If the bill thus amended had passed, its operation would have 
 been, of course, to drive the capitalists to some manufactm-ing district where 
 they could pursue their business free from magisterial interference, lea^ing tlie 
 eleven thousand petitioners unemployed and helpless. But the promoters of 
 the bill disowned it when loaded with vicious amendments : and it dropped 
 for the time. The historical fact of its discussion at so late a date of oiu- liis- 
 tory, when Mr. Huskisson said lie could hardly account for the existence of 
 such a statute, is worth the trouble it gave at the time, and the small pains of 
 noticing it here. 
 
 The most important change which took place now, or had ever taken place, 
 in relation to commercial freedom, was opened, to parliament and the coimtiy, 
 on Jinie the 6th, by ^Ir. Huskisson, in a Committee of the House. 
 
 The svstem of Navigation Acts had begun in Cromwell's time, when it Navioation 
 
 Act" 
 
 occurred to the statesmen of the day that an everlasting commerce might be 
 vol,. I. 2 V
 
 330 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book II. 
 
 1823. secured to the shipping of Great Britain if the productions of Asia, Africa, and 
 "~ ^'~^ America were pennitted to he hrought in only in British ships, cominanded 
 only, and manned chiefly, by British subjects. A law to this eifect was made 
 in the 12th year of Charles II. : and the same law imposed duties on European 
 produce also, if brought in foreign vessels, which secured the monopoly to 
 British shipping. The plan appeared to work well till after the American Avar: 
 but then, American sliijjs, -wliich had before enjoyed the privileges of those of 
 the mother cormtry, were excluded with those of all other foreign states. They 
 came to England in ballast, while British vessels carried cargoes both ways. 
 It could not be supposed that they would submit to this : and the United 
 States government imposed the same restrictions on British ships that their 
 own vessels suffered under. Then the ridiculous spectacle was seen of the 
 sliips of both countries going in ballast, in order to return with cargoes : the 
 consumers of the cargoes having, of course, to pay for the expensiveness of the 
 voyage. The double freight was actually paid by the consumers of both 
 countries till 1815, when the two governments agi-ced to repeal the restrictive 
 duties. The wedge was now introduced which was to break up the monopoly 
 all over the field of commerce. In 1822, Mr. Wallace, President of the Board 
 Annual Register, of Trade, Carried five bills which relaxed the restrictions to a considerable 
 
 1822, p. 122. . 
 
 extent with regard to the shipping of other countries. This was done amidst 
 
 the most doleful projihecies of the riiin of our foreign trade, and the most angry 
 
 remonstrances on behalf of the shipping interest of England : but the thing 
 
 Hnskisson's must bc doue, for Portugal had retahated : the Netherlands had decreed a 
 
 Speeches, il. 201. ^ C3 
 
 premium of ten per cent, on all merchandise imported in Dutch bottoms, to 
 take effect at a certain date, if England did not change her policy : and Prussia 
 had raised the dues on all British vessels, and declared her intention to reta- 
 liate frirther, if England did not surrender her monopoly. The immediate 
 consequence of such relaxation as took place in 1822 was a stimulus to com- 
 merce which surprised the croakers. They insisted that the briskness would 
 not last : but it was necessary to try ; for Prussia was firm in her retaliatory 
 intentions, while expressing an enUghtened desire for freedom of commerce. 
 The Prvissian Minister declared, in his note on the subject, the principle held 
 by his government : " that reciprocal commercial restrictions were reciprocal 
 nuisances, prejudicial to all nations having reciprocal interests, and particularly 
 to those engaged in extensive commerce ; and that the pohcy of Prussia was 
 to substitute, in the place of reciprocal prohibitions, reciprocal facilities." The 
 time was now come for deciding whether the vessels of all states were to so 
 empty one way, charging all consumers double fr'eight : or whether they should 
 fetch and carry all they could for the same cost, to the great extension of com- 
 merce, and in natural justice to the consumers of all countries. It hardly 
 needs to be pointed out that foreign states would soon have agreed to dispense 
 with British shipping, as far as possible, and to supply one another by means 
 of a less expensive commerce than hers. The time was now come for deciding 
 on the principle, and decreeing the destiny, of our commerce : and Mr. Hus- 
 kisson, on this 6th of June, proposed his Reciprocity of Duties Bill. By this 
 Haisard, i.t. 7!i!>. y^ ^ dutics and drawbacks were to be imposed and allowed on all merchan- 
 dise equally, whether carried in and out by Britisli or foreign vessels. A pro- 
 vision was added, that the King in council should still have power to reciprocate
 
 Chap. VI.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 331 
 
 restriction. Under this authority, the former restrictions were to be continued 1823. 
 
 towards any state which shoukl continue to impose disadvantages on British -^^-^ 
 
 shipping-. Tlie case was so clear — the pressin-e of the circumstances, if not the 
 
 principle — that the bill passed the Commons by a majority of 5 to 1 — 75 to 
 
 15. One significant remark was made, just before the division, which shoukl 
 
 not escape the notice of an observer of those times. "Mr. Stuart Wortley Hansard, i.x. ii a 
 
 thought that the principles which now began to work in regard to commercial 
 
 regulations, must ere long be applied to those of agriculture." The gTeat 
 
 clianse now " bcgran to work : " and this session will ever be a marked one 
 
 accordingly. 
 
 The outcry of the shipowners was great — almost as loud as that of the agri- 
 cultural interest. Their grievances were real ; but they mistook their remedy. 
 The most important of their body possessed ships which were built when the 
 materials of ship-building were dear : whereas ships were now daily brought 
 into use whicli were built with comparative cheapness. Some of these cheaper 
 ships were British ; but the foreign ones had the further advantage of their 
 timber not being subject to the heavy duty on Baltic timber which our ship- 
 owners had been able to bear during the war, but now found very onerous. 
 Mr. Huskisson noticed this, in his closing speech on the Reciprocity Bill, and 
 pointed to a time when this duty might bo remitted. He saw, what the ship- 
 owners could not then see, that their hope of revived prosperity lay in a finther 
 liberation of commerce ; and not in an attempted return to old restrictions, 
 now become impracticable. Mr. Huskisson offered a benefit to the shipping 
 interest which deprived them of all reasonable ground of complaint : but they 
 would not accept it. He oiFered to grant to British ship-builders a drawback 
 equal to all the duties paid upon the materials used in constructing and equip- 
 ping their vessels. The shipowners declined this, in the fear that a stimulus 
 would thus be given to ship-building at home. It is plain that they could not 
 have at once cheap ships and the monopoly claimed on account of dcaniess of 
 build. They could not now have the latter ; and they refused the former 
 advantage : and bitter were their complaints, at that time, as they are even at 
 this day. But in a little while they ceased to obtain any pity from those who 
 knew the facts of their case. From the time of the passage of the Eeci^jrocity 
 Acts a rapid increase in British shipping took place. In the last nineteen 
 years of the restrictive system, the increase in British tomiage was ten per 
 cent. : while, in the first twenty-one years after the passage of the Reciprocity 
 Acts, the increase has amoimted to forty-five per cent. "We may rejoice there- Ji°"^',yfi?p"708. 
 fore that while the whole of the rest of society has been enjoying tlic benefits 
 of cheapened freight, and consequent extension of commerce, tlie shipping- 
 interest has derived its share of advantage from the change. 
 
 The more vital question of Reform of Parliament was brought forward again paruaventarv 
 this year, with evidences of increasing strength. On tlie presentation of a 
 petition from tlie Corporation of London in fixvour of Parliamentary Reform, 
 brought to the bar of the house by the sheriffs, Ijord John Russell declared that 
 "it gave him infinite satisfaction to see the growing- interest which all classes Hansani.viii. 12; 
 were taking in the question of Reform." The Norfolk petition — the extraordi- 
 nary one carried by Mr. Cobbett by ni<>ans of the discontents of the farmers — 
 excited due honor aud ridicule in the House by its proposed attacks on the
 
 33t2 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 [Book II. 
 
 1823. 
 
 Hansard, viil, 
 1287. 
 Catholic Claibi 
 
 lloiisard, vlii 
 1082. 
 
 Hansavci, viii. 
 1087. 
 
 Church and tho Fiimls: but the gi'eat "sensation" of the session was caused by 
 the presentation of the Yorkshire petition for Refonn. It mcasui-ed 380 feet in 
 length : and it was signed by two-thirds of the freeholders of Yorkshire, 
 including a large majority of the aristocracy of that great county. This cu-cum- 
 stance shows how important was the progress that the question had really made. 
 The Norfolk one might have been procured, as vras stated, by Cobbett's shout- 
 ing to a crowd of impoverished farmers and hungry labovurers, — " Here 's what 
 will save your beds from being taken from under you : — here 's what will fill 
 your belHes ! " and by his calling fund-holders " bottle spiders," and the clergy 
 " black slugs:" but no objections could be made to the character of the York- 
 shire petition, signed by 17,000 educated and propertied men. The utmost 
 pains had been taken, Lord Milton declared, to exclude the names of all who 
 were not botid fide freeholders : and he believed that there were not 50 names 
 out of the 17,000 to which any exception could be reasonably made. No 
 immediate conversion, however, appeared to be effected within the House ; nor 
 was there any gradual progress made to emulate that without. The annual 
 debate Avas as languid as usual; and Lord J. Russell's motion, proposing 
 "serious consideration," was negatived by a majority of 111 in a house of -149. 
 
 The discussion of the Catholic Claims was this session enlivened by a fearful 
 quarrel in the house, Avhich appeared at the time injrnious to the cause, but 
 which was perhaps not so in reality, while it discloses to us now the difficulties 
 of Mr. Canning's position, and the precariousness of political peace to him at 
 home, while he was, in his function, the pacificator of the world. He had said, 
 on some recent occasion, that he thought it impossible, in the existing state of 
 parliament and the country, to form an administration which should agree 
 upon this and other great questions, so as to be able to carry on the business 
 of the country. There Avas nothing in this declaration AA'hich AA'OuId have 
 attracted much attention from any one else : for all the Avoiid kncAv that the 
 existing cabinet Avere cordially united on only one gi-eat subject — opposition 
 to Parliamentary Reform. But Mr. Canning's Avords Avero caught up as 
 meaning that he considered the cause of the Catliolics hopeless. The main 
 error lay in concluding him to suppose that the question could not be carried 
 but by the Avhole of an adnxinistration being agreed in its favour ; Avhereas he 
 declared, in the course of the explanation, " I did not mean it : nor do I think 
 such an administration necessary." Under this supposition, and amidst the 
 uneasiness felt in sympathy Avith the expectant Catholics, Avho had hoped much 
 from Mr. Canning's accession to office, and in fear lest their patience should 
 not hold out, nothing Avas more likely than that Mr. Canning should be at 
 once condemned as having deserted the cause, and sacrificed the Catholics to 
 his OAvn ambition. 
 
 On the night of tho 17th of April, tho Catholic question was debated, on 
 occasion of a petition in favour of their claims being sent up from fifty-five cler- 
 gymen in the diocese of Norwich. During the accidental and short absence of 
 Mr. Caiuiing, Sir F. Burdett made a fierce attack upon him for his supposed de- 
 fection ; to AA'hich the accused replied on his retimi. Sir. Tierney foUoAvcd in 
 a speech Avhich charged Blr. Canning Avitli the ruin of the hopes of the Catho- 
 lics, and with all the possible consequences of that ruin, from his having taken 
 office Avithout making the concession of the Catholic claims an absolute con-
 
 Cii.vr. VI.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. • 333 
 
 (litioii. Mr. Grey Beunet declared, that " lie now thought the affair was a per- 1823. 
 feet trick ; or what, in familiar language, was called a humbug." All this avus ""— ■^^— -' 
 somewhat trying to the nerves of a man singularly sensitive, in health far from 
 robust, and in a state of anxiety, no less for a cause he had much at heart 
 than for liis own political honour. But there was more to come. Mr. Erougham 
 followed ■srith one of those violent accusatory speeches, charged with insult, 
 which had in those days a power that we now find it difficult to understand, — 
 so endurable as censure is usually rendered by extravagance in the expression. 
 It was too much for Mr. Camiing. He sat in constrained stillness, while hear- 
 ing of his " monstrous truckling," " political tergiversation," &c., his cheek 
 ilusliing, his nostril quivering, his cj"es almost glaring, till he interrupted his 
 adversary by slowly rising, with his eye fixed upon liim, and saying, v> ith forced 
 cabnness, " I rise to say that that is false." There was a dead silence in the 
 House for some seconds ; and even the Speaker seems to have been taken by 
 surprise. It v/as he who broke the silence by saying, in a low tone, that he 
 hoped the Right Honourable Secretary would retract the expression he had 
 used, as one not permissible by the laws and customs of the House. Mr. Can- 
 ning refused to retract "the sentiment:" and Mr. Brougham to explain away 
 his imputation. The matter was got rid of by an nnusual stretch of the usual 
 explanation in such cases ; that the charge referred to the political and not the 
 private character of Mr. Canning. On the face of it, this was absurd and un- 
 true : but to such shifts Avere the opponents of Mr. Canning more than once 
 reduced during these few latter years of his life A^^hen he stood almost alone in 
 the Icgislatru-e and the cabinet, while supported Avith a growing enthusiasm by 
 the people. This quarrel, so far transcending the ordinary squabbles in parlia- 
 ment, yielded some good results. It fixed xmiversal attention on Mr. Camiing's 
 view of the present state of the Catholic question ; that it rested securely on 
 its own merits ; and that imity of opinion in the existing cabinet about it was 
 not necessary" to its settlement. * 
 
 A steii was taken this session with regard to the Punishment of Death, which sektesce or 
 was of importance, in as far as it tended to separate the idea of death punish- 
 ment from crimes which were no longer capital. The practice of passing sen- 
 tence of death when every one knew it would not be executed, had long been 
 found veiy demoralizmg : and the practice was now superseded by one not 
 more defensible, but less offensive and pernicious. In couAdctions of felony 
 eliort of mm'der, discretion Avas afforded to the judge to reserve the case avow- 
 edly for a commutation of pimishment by recording, instead of pronouncing, 
 the sentence of death ordained by the law ; such record haAing the same efiect 
 " as if such judgment had actually been pronounced in open court, and the 
 offender had been reprieved by the Court." Such an arrangement shoAvs Iioav Annual r<bi^ici-, 
 little the gi-eat principle was understood that certainty of punishment is of more 
 consequence than the degree of it. When it is considered that most criminals 
 arc ignorant, it appears important above CA'cry thing that the consequences of 
 crime should be made as plain and intelligible, and as certain as possible. The 
 levity of pronoimcing a sentence AA'hich every one knew to be a mere form Avas 
 noAv to be avoided : but it was by AAliat appeared to the criminals Avhom it con- 
 cerned a falsehood and a quibble. " Do you knoAv," asked a prison-visitor of a 
 yo\ing thief, " Avhat your sentence Avill be if you are found guilty ;'" " Yes : —
 
 334 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book II. 
 
 1823. death recorded." " And do you know what that means ?" " Yes : — transpor- 
 "-""^ ' tation." It will be a marvel to a future generation that we are yet so far from 
 letting- our yea he yea, and our nay nay, in penal legislation, where stern truth 
 and plain retribution ought to be our first care. 
 
 felo de se. a remnant of barbarism was next got rid of by abolishing the old custom 
 
 (for which there was no express warrant of law) of ignominious burial of per- 
 
 fswl'p 88.'''""' sons/ei?c> de se. Up to this time, it had been the practice to bury such suicides 
 in some public place ; usually at the intersection of four roads, a stake being 
 driven through the body. One consequence of this was, that a verdict ot'fclo de 
 se was very rarely returned ; the coroner's jury offering a verdict of insanity, 
 without or against evidence, in almost all cases of suicide. Since the passing of 
 Mr. Lennard's bill, in this session, persons guilty of felo de se have been interred 
 ui burial-grounds, without funeral rites on the one hand, or barbarous usage 
 on the other ; witliin twenty-four hours of tlie return of the verdict, and be- 
 tween the hours of nine and twelve at night. 
 
 M.iKR.AUE Act. The subject of the Marriage law came up again; the Act of the preceding 
 year having been encumbered by so many troublesome forms as to impede 
 marriage, instead of fostering it] which it was the intention of the bill to 
 do. At the beginning of this session it was represented that marriages had 
 remarkably decreased since the jiassage of the new Act, and that loud com- 
 plaints were made by the poorer classes of society, to whom it was most desir- 
 able to make the forms of marriage easy. The obstructive clauses Avere im- 
 
 n;,ns.in!, viii. 23G. mediately repealed; and a Committee of the Lords was appointed to frame a 
 jjcrmanent bill. An attempt was made by this Committee to restore the void- 
 ability of marriage under certain circumstances : but the sense of parliament 
 was against it ; and the clause which would have rendered certain marriages 
 
 Hans nrd, ix. 004. of miuors Voidable within a certain period was thrown out by a majority of 
 six. 
 
 Ni:(^Ko stAVERv. Nothing is more memorable in the history of this year than the movement 
 in the House and in the West Indies on the subject of Negro Slavery. Those 
 who had achieved the abolition of the slave trade had declared, (and no doubt 
 in all sincerity at the time,) that their aim was confined to this object : but 
 when men have entered upon a work of principle, be it what it may, they had 
 better decline saying how far they will go. They can no more say beforehand 
 where they will stoj) in the application of a principle than in the development 
 of a science. New light is not calculable ; and the future must be left to re- 
 veal itself Thus did the truth now appear to the abolitionists. Their work 
 was only begun ; iind they must not rest till they saw the end. At present, it 
 is now clear, they did not see the end ; and they had much to learn about the 
 means : — much that we know only through their labours and sufferings, and 
 which we must therefore apply to their case with reverence and gratitude. — 
 They did not yet see fully that while there is slavery in the world, there will 
 be a slave trade : and that therefore the opposition should be made, in all parts 
 of tlie world, not to the trade, but to the institution, through effectual denun- 
 ciation of its principle. They did not then know that slaves can never be pre- 
 pared by education for freedom : that freedom itself is the only possible edu- 
 cation for a free man. They did not knoiv that, in regard to the aboKtion of 
 slavery, "gradualism" is impossible. They did not see for long that gradual
 
 Chap. VI.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 335 
 
 or prospfective eiuaucipation is indefensible in principle : and that, if it avcic 1823. 
 not so, it would be impossible in practice. Those to whom they have bequeathed "-— '^- ' 
 their good work see now, — and they saw it before they died, — that a man either 
 can or cannot righteously be the property of man. If he can, then slavery is jus- 
 tified, and there is nothing for abolitionists to do. If not, there can be no tam^- 
 pcring with the -wTong ; no retention of stolen goods ; no satisfaction in the 
 promise of restitution at a distant day. Nor, as the stolen goods are men, is it 
 possible to i)ut off their release. If they know that they are entitled to freedom, 
 on the ground of natural right, at any future time, they are entitled to it now. 
 If their cliikhen are to be free as a matter of right, they themselves have the 
 right to be fi.-ee now. This logic, wliich lies deep down in the negro's heart, 
 and is ever ready upon his tongue, cannot be controverted by legislative enact- 
 ment, even though all the highest wits of the world went to make the parlia- 
 ment. — All this appears plain enough to us now : but there is nothing in our 
 modern history more interesting than the evolution of the proof. It seems like 
 going back to the early tentative stage of an established moral question, to read 
 the debates of this session of 1823 on West Indian affairs. 
 
 Mr. Thomas Fowell Buxton moved, as a resolution, on the 15th of May, Hansard, is 2-4. 
 " That the state of slavery is repugnant to the principles of the British Consti- 
 tution, and of the Christian religion, and that it ought to be abolished gradu- 
 ally throughout the British colonies, with as much expedition as may be foimd 
 consistent with a due regard to the well-being of the parties concerned." The 
 enactments which he hoped would follow upon the adoption of this resolution, 
 were such as would ordain the freedom of all chikken born after a certain day, 
 and mitigate the condition of such slaves as were never to be freed. — Mr. Can- 
 ning seized at once upon the weak point ; — the " gradualism." He contended, 
 that if slavery was repugnant to the principles of the British Constitution and 
 of the gospel, no terms ought to be held with it. It should be met by no pro- 
 posal of gradual abolition, but by a demand for its immediate extinction. He 
 declared, however, that while the spirit of EngUsh society and government was 
 not that which could fraternize \^•ith slavery, it was certain that the legislatiu-e, 
 - — the maker and regulator of the British Constitution, — had sanctioned slavery 
 in the colonies during preceding centuries. As for the rest of his speech, it 
 amoimted to much the same as those of every body out of the band of asso- 
 ciated abolitionists. He did not go quite so far as jNIr. Baring, who, in the 
 same breath, declared himself as sincere an abolitionist as any man, and depre- 
 cated all mention of the subject of slavery in that House, rebellion and blood- Hausard, ix. 250. 
 shed being sure to follow. He did not, like Mr. Baring and some otliers, re- 
 gard the welfare of West India property as the only important consideration in 
 the case. He did remember, as too many did not, that the negroes were a party 
 in the case, and that their ftite Avas an element in the question. But he was 
 not prepared to assert any principle, or to contemplate any course of action, 
 which should bring the abolition of the institution into question practically, 
 witliin any assignable time. He proposed resolutions declaratory of the ex- govrhnment rf. 
 pediency of immediately ameUorating the condition of the British slave popu- "'"■'"''"'"*• 
 lation : of the hope that such amelioration might fit the slaves for freedom : 
 and of the desire of the House that these objects should be accomplished, at 
 the eariiest period that the safety of all parties would allow. -l^l"'"''' '" ''^'
 
 SrX) HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book II. 
 
 1S23. This Avas as much as tho most sanguine of the abolitionists had expected to 
 
 ^"^^ ' obtain : and it was more than their adversaries were able to bear. After a long 
 
 debate, Mr. Canning's resolutions were carried without a division ; and it was 
 
 nnn<!;irti, u. 3C0. Ordered that they should be laid before the King by certain members of the 
 Privy Council. — Then arose a prodigious clamour in the country, on the part 
 of the West India interest. The government was declared to have gone over 
 to idtra-aboiitiouism : and West India property fell in the market. — ^As for the 
 colonies, when the news of the debate amved, there was much anger : but 
 there was at first little fear. Mr. Canning's resolutions were looked \ipon as 
 mere declarations, — mere words; and abolition " in the abstract" is as little 
 fonnidablc to a slave-holder as slavery in the abstract is disturbing to the heart 
 of an abolitionist like Mr. Baring, whose action in the matter consisted in re- 
 commending universal silence on the subject. It soon appeared, however, that 
 the resolutions, and the House that had passed them, really meant something. 
 
 oovEiiNMF^T A circular, dated from Downing-street, on the 24th of May, reached the fiuic- 
 lionaries of the different islands : and in this circular they read the doom of 
 slavery. It did not convey any thing which appears to us very tremendous. 
 
 Annual Register, It drcw tile atteiitioii of its recipients to the debate in the House, and £jave a 
 
 ISi3, p. 130. ...... . ' o 
 
 decisive intimation that there must be an end of the flogging of women, and of 
 the use of the vdiip in the field. It was not the nature of these particulars 
 which affected so deeply the West Indian mind. It was the fact of the inter- 
 ference at all ; the prospect of further interference ; the dread of emancipation 
 at last ; and before all these, there Avas the besetting vision, — the panic which 
 comes upon the slave-liolder with every breath fi-om over the seas, — his cold 
 hoiTor at noon, — his nightmare in the dark, — the apprehension of insurrection, 
 if any one of a million of negroes should hear that the Eritisli government 
 was thinking about them. To other people it appears that the very time Avhen 
 the ncgi'oes are least disposed to rebel is that wlien they know that their cause 
 is in good liands : and that nothing is so likely to drive them to insurrection 
 as the feeling that they have none to help them. In another country, and at 
 a later time, this has proved eminently true. Before 1832, there were nume- 
 rous revolts among the negroes in the slave states of North America : the ave- 
 rage number being twelve in a ycai-. Since Garrison rose up, to be the Moses 
 to this multitude of bondmen, there have been no insurrections at all. The 
 slaves arc aware that their cause is in better hands than their OAvn : and they 
 Avait, in trust and hope. 
 
 RECErTioN IN ,ta. The House of Assembly in Jamaica was passionate, according to its wont ; 
 talked of proclaiming the independence of the islands, if parliament should at- 
 tempt to dictate to them; talked of addi-essing the King to remoA^e Lord 
 Bathm-st (the signer of the circular) from his Majesty's councils : talked of re- 
 pealing the Eegistry Act ; but did none of these things. What they did was 
 to appoint a committee to consider what steps should be taken in consequence 
 of the receipt of the circular : and they finally A'oted that they would take their 
 OAvn Avay of being just and kind to their slaves ; and would not attend to any 
 dictation from the mother country. They also voted an address to their Go- 
 
 ArmuTii RfRistpr, vonior, ill wliicli they declared against making any alterations in their slaA'e 
 
 lc«23. p. 133. . 
 
 .code. 
 i.-j i?.\RcinoF.^. In Barbadoes there Avas a rising : but it Avas of the slave-holding party. In
 
 I 
 
 Chap. VL] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 331 
 
 slavr-liolding countiics, the poorest order of freemen are, as every body knows, 1823. 
 a peculiarly depraved class ; for reasons obvious enough. Where there are --^-^--^-^-^ 
 slaves to do the work of a society, industry is opprobrious, and idleness is honour. 
 Such freemen as are too poor to have slaves, and to avoid work, are in a cHs- 
 graced position : and none but the degi'aded would hold that position. A mis- 
 sionary at Barbadoes, named Shrewsbury, was believed to have written home 
 to those who sent him that the lowest class of white men in that colony were 
 ignorant and depraved. It is probable that he did so write ; and that what he 
 wrote was tnie. A multitude assembled round his chapel while he was in the Amuai Register, 
 pulpit, and silenced him with the noise of cat-calls and other clamour. The 
 preacher stood in his place till he could be heard, and then went on with the 
 service. — The rioters next put out placards, inviting the missionary's enemies 
 to assemble at the chapel on the following evening. They did so, and levelled 
 the building ^vith the ground. A placard put forth by the governor, Sh Henry 
 Warde, oifering a reward for the apprehension of any of the persons engaged, 
 was answered by one issued by the rioters, threatening vengeance on any one 
 who should give information, and warning all missionaries not to set foot in 
 Barbadoes ; — a place which did indeed seem as ahen as it thus declared itself 
 fi-om the religion of Christ. Mr. Shrewsbury was obliged to fly for his life. 
 Such proceedings could not end at the point they had reached : and now en- 
 sued an excited state of suspense as to what was to happen next. 
 
 And so it was in another colony, Demerara, whose name and fame Avere in demeihr*. 
 deeply disgraced this year. When the circular reached the colony, the mem- 
 bers of the government and other gentlemen talked of it in the presence of 
 their domestic slaves, without making any express communications to the 
 negroes on the subject of it, and even endeavouring to keep it secret from the 
 field hands. Wlien the Coiu't of Pohcy passed regulations in accordance with 
 the instructions of the circular, pains were still taken to conceal the whole 
 affair from the negroes. From what they heard from the house-slaves, they ^'''°'''"'*''''*""~ 
 
 *-" ... . view, si. p. 243. 
 
 naturally supposed that orders for their emancipation had arrived from England, 
 and that they were to be defrauded of it. In most slave regions, tliis would 
 have led to a massacre of the whites : and it no doubt would here, but for the 
 influence of a missionary of the Independents, to whom the Episcopalian clergy- 
 man of the colony ascribes the whole merit of the fact, that not a drop of the 
 blood of white men was shed. — This missionary, John Smith, had been in the smith the mis ■; 
 colony for seven years, during which time he had trained his flock to habits of 
 order, industry, submission, and peace. Under his care, marriage became 
 almost universal ; and not one marriage in fifty was violated. There was an 
 extraordinary deficiency of religious ministers in this colony ; and that one man 
 could have effected what Mr. Smith did, shows what may be done by the calm 
 and steady zeal of one man, whose single object is the improvement and happi- 
 ness of his neighbours. — Just before the changes caused by the circular, the 
 Governor, whose object was to " make head against the sectaries" — (among 
 whom lie included all tin; religious bodies in the colony except the one Episco- 
 palian flock, — even the Dutch and Scotch churches, as well as the Methodist 
 and Independent missionaries) — had issued a prohibition to all the negroes to 
 attend public worship, except by means of a pa.ss from their owners ; — these 
 owners being under no obligation to grant such a pass. When the slaves found 
 VOL. I. 2 z
 
 338 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book II. 
 
 1823. themselves tluis hindered m their worship, and believed themselves debarred 
 
 ^■"-^""■"^ fiom the liberty which the King had granted them, they rose upon their 
 
 masters. They shed no blood ; but they imprisoned the %'\hites, and put some 
 
 i8™','p. ^3!!^^"' "^ t^i^ stocks. The first who rose were some upon the east coast, who had 
 suffered most by the deprivation of liberty to attend church, and they Avere 
 joined by others who thought more of the other cause of complaint. The rising 
 took place on the 18th of August. On the 19th, martial law was proclaimed. 
 On the 20th, the insurrection was completely over. While no white was sacri- 
 ficed, above two hundred negroes were killed and wounded in the first instance : 
 forty-seven Avere executed ; and the floggings of many more were worse than 
 death ; — a thousand lashes being a frequent sentence. So much for the insur- 
 rection. It was Mr. Smith's story, in connexion with it, which makes this 
 particular revolt conspicuous above others in the history of our time. 
 
 The Governor kept the colony under martial law for five months after this 
 insurrection of two days : and one of the persons brought to trial under this 
 
 Hansard xi. 908. martial law was the missionary, j\Ir. Smith. Now was the time, during the 
 reign of martial law, for " making head against the sectaries." The one 
 EpiscopaUan clergyman, however, gave the Governor no help in the vaUant 
 work. His testimony is all in favour of the " sectary " under persecution. He 
 
 Hansard, xi. 407. declared liis conviction, that " nothing but those religious impressions wliicli, 
 under Providence, Mr. Smith has been instrumental in fixing — nothing but those 
 principles of the Gospel of Peace which he has been proclaiming — could have 
 prevented a dreadful efiiision of blood here, and saved the lives of those very 
 persons who are now (I shudder to write it) seeking his." Under this reign 
 of martial law, the pastor was kept in prison for two months before trial ; in 
 apartments, — the one, under the roof, exposed to burning heat, — and the other 
 on the groimd, fetid from the stagnant water visible under the boards of the 
 floor. He was an invalid before his arrest : and his deatli under tliese circum- 
 stances is not to be wondered at. The mode and conduct of the trial abomided 
 in illegalities ; and his conviction took place, on the evidence of three negroes, 
 who afterwards confessed that they had been wrought upon to allege what was 
 
 Hansard, xi. 984. Avliolly falsc. The chargcs were, of having incited the slaves to revolt ; of 
 having concealed their intention to rise ; and of having refused (which he did 
 on the ground of ill health, and of Iris clerical office) to serve in the militia, 
 several days after tlie suppression of the rebellion. But the real pm-pose of the 
 trial is obvious, through all the ill-supported pretences put forward in the mili- 
 tary court which assembled in the name of justice. " No man," declared Mr. 
 
 Hansard, xi. 996- Brougham iu parliament, " can cast his eye upon this trial without percei\ing 
 that it was intended to bring on an issue between the system of the slave law 
 and the instruction of the negroes." This was, in truth, the cause in question ; 
 and John Smith was its martyr. The life of martyrs in a cause so vital and 
 so comprehensive as this is rarely or never given in vain : and few have been 
 laid down to more effectvial purpose than that of the Demerara missionary. 
 
 He was sentenced to death : but his persecutors had not the courage to sub- 
 ject themselves to the consequences of executing a judgment so obtained. They 
 transmitted the sentence to England, for the decision of the British govern- 
 
 i»" X'p' 1.7^."^"' ment. The British government rescinded the sentence of the court martial, 
 as far as related to the penalty of death, but decreed Mr. Smith's .banishment
 
 (• HAP. VI.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. Xid 
 
 from the colony. No time was lost in transmitting the information to Demc- 1823. 
 rara: but before it arrived, the missionary Mas in his grave. His medical at- " — "- 
 tendants had repeatedly declared that if he had not a better apartment, he must 
 sink : but he was not removed ; nor was he allowed a change of linen ; nor the at- 
 tendance of a friend to relieve the cares of his worn and wearied wife. He died on 
 the (jth of February, 1824. The funeral was ordered to take place at two o'clock 
 in the morning, that no negro tears might be shed over the jiastor's coffin. The Hansard, %i.\oan. 
 widow and her friend, Mrs. Elliot, intended to follow the coffin : but the head- fie'w.''^[.^p. m 
 constable declared that this could not be permitted. " Is it possible," cried Mrs. 
 Elliot, " that General Murray can wish to prevent a poor widow from follow- 
 ing her husband to the gi-ave?" The -nadow exclaimed that General Murray 
 should not prevent it : that she would go, happen what might. The head- 
 constable went to his Excellency to report this, and brought back orders to im- 
 prison the women, if they attempted to follow the coffin. The mourners, there- 
 fore, went first. They left the jail, attended by a negro with a lantern, and 
 arrived at the grave before the coffin was brought ; — the light weight, carried 
 by two ncgi'oes vs-ith a single lantern, and attended only by the clergj^man, Mr. 
 Austin, whose testimony in favour of his Christian brother we have quoted 
 above. — Two negro members of Mr. Smith's congregation, a carpenter and 
 bricklayer, Avished to mark the spot of their pastor's rest. They began to rail 
 in, and cover over the grave : but by official orders, the brickwork was broken 
 up, the rails torn down, and the spot left desolate. 
 
 Mr. Smith died on the 6th of February. On the 24th of the same month, a 
 public meeting of Demerara slave-owners resolved forthwith to petition the Hansard, xi. nu7. 
 Court of Policy " to expel all missionaries from the colony, and to pass a law 
 prohibiting their admission for the ftiture." — The government paper of the 
 same month declares, " It is most unfortunate for the cause of the planters, that 
 they did not speak out in time. They did not say, as they ought to have said 
 to the first advocates of missions and education, we shall not tolerate your plans 
 till you prove to us that they are safe and necessary : we shall not suffer you 
 to enliglrten our slaves, who are by law our property, till you can demonstrate 
 that when they are made rehgious and knowing, they Avill still continue to be 
 our slaves." — Again, " To address a promiscuous audience of black or coloured 
 people, bond and free, by the endearing appellation of ' My brethren and sisters, 
 is what can no where be heard except in Providence chapel." These are evi- 
 dences, quite as strong as any connected AA^ith the trial, that the Christian re- 
 ligion was wholly inappropriate to Demerara society. These are evidences, as 
 strong as any afforded by tlie trial, that " it was intended to bring on an issue 
 between the system of the slave law and the instruction of the negi'oes :" and 
 to one Avho clearly saAv this, the cause would appear one Avorth dying for. — But 
 to martyrs themselves, the scope of their case is seldom clear ; and in this in- 
 stance, the probability of such an animating comprehension Avas less than ordi- 
 nary. This John Smith, perhaps, prepared himself, during his missionary 
 training, for violence from half-naked savages, — for mockery in an unknoAvn 
 tongue, — for the fire, the flint-knife, the tomahaAvk, and every possible desti- 
 tution of comfort and of intercourse : but he could hardly have anticipated 
 persecution and heart-lneak from Christian gentlemen, and officials under the 
 British government. If he saAv clearly the scope of his OAvn case, — saw that he
 
 340 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book II. 
 
 1823. was not the less a maityr for his judges being British officers, the curses on him 
 ^~^ ' uttered by Christian tongues, and his bolts turned by Christian hands, he 
 might sustain his spirit amidst the reeking vapours of his dungeon, and tlie 
 damps of death. In Court, he had been silenced : but his voice was soon to.be 
 heard in the British parliament, and by the firesides in Orkney and Scilly, and 
 under the cane-roofs in India, and among the pine barrens of Canada. His 
 j)rivate joimial had been taken from his locked desk, to be pored over by ma- 
 lignant eyes ; but he need not, therefore, wish that he had never written it. 
 Once brought to light, the very light seemed to catch it up, and to present it, 
 sun-printed, before all eyes that were vigilant for human hberties. He might 
 have appeared to himself sunk in desolation, and squalor, and ignominious mis- 
 fortune, when arrested, tried, and sentenced as a criminal under the semblance 
 of the forms of British law and Christian authority : and he might not have 
 felt that exhilaration of martyrdom which would have thrilled through him in 
 a scene outwardly more savage. But not the less was he a martyr ; and the 
 cause was not the less express or worthy, because the heathens -with whom he 
 had]to do, bore the Christian name. The true issue will never be forgotten : — 
 " the issue between the system of the slave law and the instruction of the ne- 
 groes." It was understood in England as by an universal intuition; — by the 
 whole nation, — from the King, in his sumptuous seclusion, going over the 
 matter with the Premier, to the little child on its mother's knee, hearing its 
 father tell on the cottage bench of the missionary's negro flock, his unfair trial, 
 and his di-eary lantern-burial. It needed only to be brought fairly before Bri- 
 tish minds, and near to British hearts, that slaves were any where denied to be 
 their brethren and sisters, — were any where deliberately denied their birth- 
 right of knowledge and religious fellowship, — to secure the overthrow of 
 slavery. 
 
 From this time the doom of slavery was fixed, and known to be so ; and the 
 impotent struggles of resistance in the colonies served no other purpose 'so ef- 
 fectually as that of reminding men of Smith the missionary, and stimulating 
 them to new efforts in the cause for which he died. 
 c LOSE OF Session. The scssion of parhament closed on the 19th of July, the royal speech being 
 delivered by commission, owing to the indisposition of the King. The notice- 
 able point of the speech is its tone of congratulation on the abatement of agri- 
 cultural distress, and on the high prosperity of commerce and manufactures.
 
 Chap. VII.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. .341 
 
 Prosperity. 
 
 CHAPTEE VII. 
 
 rTMIE year 182-4 opened amidst sucli prosperity, that instead of grumbling, 1824. 
 -*- there was nothing heard of among capitalists of every order but antici- 
 pations of vast increase of wealth. The demand for all kinds of agricultural 
 produce was steadily rising ; and wheat was at 62s. on the average for the year. 
 The price of bread was not complained of; for almost every class of labourers 
 was well employed. The cotton manufacture increased largely : the iron 
 masters were in high spirits : the liardware trade was brisk ; and the woollen 
 manufactiu-ers made no complaint. In the exhilaration of the time, men were 
 disposed to make haste to be rich : and the immense sj)read of joint-stock com- 
 panies became a joke of the time : — a heavy joke enough in its issue ; but very 
 merry at the moment, ^\^lile this exhilaration and satisfaction were apparent 
 on the surface of society, and there was even in its depths a sense of comfort 
 and hope not often enjoyed there, some things were going forward in by-places, 
 which make us wonder now how men could have been satisfied with a state of 
 things so obviously needing improvement in its prmciple and in many of its 
 workings. 
 
 There were strange doings by night in the creeks and hollow-ways and caves 
 of the southern coast : and a remarkable order of passengers by day in the 
 packets from France. Every now and then^ a fisherman's gi'eat boots were 
 foimd to be stuffed with French lace, gloves or jewellery : or a lady's petticoats 
 to be quilted all through with silk stockings and lace. Here and there, a nice- 
 looking loaf of bread was found to have a curious kernel of lace and gloves : and 
 a roll of sail-cloth turned out to be a package of gay lutestring. In the dead of 
 the night, a large body of men would work for hours noiselessly in the soft 
 sands, rolUng tubs of spirits, and carrying bales of goods in the shadows of 
 the rocks, and tlirough tunnels, and up chasms, rnidcr the very feet of the 
 preventive patrol, and within sound of the talk of the sentries. — While tliis 
 wa3 going forward on the English coast, the smugglers on the opposite shore 
 were engaged, with much more labour, risk and expense, in introducing Eng- 
 lish woollens, by a vast system of fraud and lying, into the towns, past a series 
 of custom-houses. In both countries there was an utter dissoluteness of morals 
 connected -with these transactions. Cheating and lying were essential to the 
 whole system : drunkenness accompanied it : contempt for all law grew up 
 under it : honest industry perished beneath it : and it was crowned with mur- 
 der. Little children wlio lived near a smuggling haunt learned early to be sly, 
 and to say any thing that was convenient. Their mothers stole down to the 
 sands at night to bring up light g(jods which they might hide in the rafters of 
 the cottage, and s])rcrtd temptingly before any foolish ladies within their reach. 
 Or, if tliey di<l not themselves meddle, tliey reproached their liusbands for
 
 342 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book II. 
 
 182-4. working at tlie plo\ig'}i or the anvil when certain neighbours could make a 
 ^-^'^-'-'^-^ pocketful of money in a night. As for the men, they were tapping a cask of 
 spirits when their work was done at dawn, and passing the daylight hours in a 
 drunken sleep, in some hidden place, instead of being at honest labour in the 
 field or in the shop. — Then, if the expected boat did not come in, they would 
 not meet for nothing, but go poaching in the nearest preserves. When de- 
 tected, wliich was sure to happen pretty often, a conflict ensued : and the news- 
 papers of the time abound in notices of preventive men and smugglers shot. 
 
 As for the loss and iinancial injury to the nations from this state of things — 
 it was estimated at a later period (1831) when smuggling had much declined, 
 that the amount of duties evaded by the smuggling of French goods alone, and 
 p.iiiiicai Die- exclusive of the great article of tobacco, exceeded £800,000 a year : while the 
 Smuggling^ " value of British goods smuggled into France by the Belgian fi-ontier alone 
 exceeded £2,000,000. All this demoralizing trade was taken out of the very 
 substance of the honest trade which would have been carried on for the general 
 good, if our commercial system had been a wise one. And there was, besides, 
 an enormous annual outlay for the sake of ob^'^ating this undermining of the 
 revenue. The Preventive Service and the Coast Blockade were the expensive 
 apparatus employed for this end ; and fifty-two revenue cruisers were always 
 hovering about the coasts. The Coast Blockade consisted of 1500 officers and 
 seamen of the navy : and there was the Coast Guard besides, with their cot- 
 tages and establishments. In 1822 and 1823 the number of captures was 
 52 vessels and 385 boats engaged in smuggling. The cost at that time 
 amounted to between four and five hundred thousand pounds a year. When 
 to this is added the expense of the dwellings of the Coast Guard, and all other 
 items, the total annual cost of protecting the revenue may bo estimated at not 
 much below a million. This cost is independent of the loss to the revenue 
 from the evasion of the legal duties, and of the injury to lawful commerce by 
 the intervention of the smuggler. Amidst the general prosperity there was 
 something wrong here. 
 
 Elsewhere,, there was trouble of another kind. Exactly at the time when 
 work was pressing most to be done, it was made impossible to get it done by 
 the refusal of the workmen. The higher the prosperity, the higher ran the 
 discontents between masters and men, and among the different ranks of work- 
 men themselves. The strikes at this time were of a particularly formidable 
 character ; and so were the mutual violences of the workpeople. At Maccles- 
 field, there was a serious conflict between the soldiers and four hundred rioters, 
 part of a body of six thousand who had risen against their employers on a 
 question of time and wages. Near Glasgow, a mob of weavers assaulted and 
 persecuted a family of their own craft for working for an obnoxious master : 
 and in many places there were alarms and disorders, — lianging people in 
 effigy, throwing vitriol, and even, it is believed, the commission of murder ; 
 while the bulk of the workmen in every craft were under an insufferable 
 tyranny fiom the domination of their leaders, and the employers were harassed 
 with vain attempts to execute orders which would have enriched them and 
 their men together. Here a pubUc edifice was left unfinished till the best 
 weather for building was past : there, in the dyer's office, where the perfection 
 of tbe black dye depended on a speedy use of a favourable state of the atmo-
 
 Chap. VIT.J DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 343 
 
 sphere, the goods were left iii the vats exposed to the air for days, till they 1824. 
 
 were spoiled. Elsewhere, the weaver who was willing to work for a twelfth "~-^ ' 
 
 hour in a busy time, for increased wages, was met in the dark, and told that 
 he would be murdered if he worked for more than eleven hours : and another 
 found liis clothes burned to rags with vitriol for not having refused to work 
 for an unpopular master : and some disappeared altogether — departed or mur- 
 dered. There was something wTong here — that such troubles should exist 
 amidst the general prosperity. 
 
 The new men ushered in by a new time took these mischiefs in hand. To 
 consider the last-mentioned evils first — gieat changes were made this year in 
 the laws respecting Wages. 
 
 The Spitaltields journejTnen were now well employed ; and they wore as ^aYf^ieldTacts 
 careless about the passage of the bill proposed the preceding year as they had 
 then been alamied. It was not that they had grown wiser ; for they did not 
 yet perceive that a fixed legal rate of wages must have the effect of stopping 
 the manufacture in unfavourable seasons, and of precluding their employers 
 from competing with those of Macclesfield and Paisley, and other places where 
 labour and its rewards were left free. They did not perceive how much of 
 their business had been driven out of Middlesex by their Middlesex privileges : 
 but the eleven thousand who had earnestly petitioned against change the 
 year before, now let change take its course. They were fully employed 
 during this season of prosperity, and supposed it would be always so : so they 
 said nothing against the repeal of the Spitalfields Act, which took place very 
 quietly this session. Lord Lauderdale introduced the matter in the Upper 
 House, where the change met with some opposition. In the Lower, no dis- 
 cussion took place at all. But for this proceeding, there can be no doubt that 
 the silk manufacture in Spitalfields Mould have been extinct before this time. 
 
 A Committee of the House, with Mr. Hume for its chairman, reported upon 
 the laws relating to artisans and machinery. Three points had been especially 
 considered by this Committee : the state of the Combination Laws : the ques- 
 tion of permitting or proliibiting the emigration of artisans : and that of per- 
 mitting or prohibiting the exportation of machinery. Of these three points, 
 the last was left to stand over for futui-e consideration. The Report declared, 
 ■with regard to the second point, that no laws could effectually inevent the ejugration or 
 
 ^ ' . ..,.,,. ^ Artisans. 
 
 emigration of artisans: that it was inexpedient to irritate the leehiigs of a Hansard, xi.ms 
 valuable order of men by denying them the liberty of travelling which every 
 body else enjoyed, and interfei-ing to prevent their carrying their labour to the 
 best market : and that there was reason to believe that many valuable artisans 
 who wished to return home remained abroad fiom a supposition that they 
 were liable to punishment on their return. The total repeal of all laws affect- 
 ing the freedom of travelling of artisans was therefore recommended. The 
 recommendation was acted upon : and no o^jpositiou was made to this eman- 
 cipation. 
 
 The third point was a very serious one ; the consideration of the Combina- C">^binatio!. 
 tion Laws. The Committee reported their conclusions, — that these laws were Hansard, xi. aia. 
 instruments of ojipression in the hands of employers, who had the means of 
 l)utting them in force against their men, while no case was known to the C^om- 
 mittee of an employer being punished under them, even in the most flagiant
 
 344 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book II. 
 
 182-t. cases of conspiracy against the interests of artisans. The Report recommended 
 
 ~ ^^^^ that employers and their, men shonkl be left free, by a repeal of these laws, to 
 
 manage their interests in their own way : and that that portion of the common 
 law should be altered which treated as a conspiracy a peaceable meeting of 
 
 Huskisson's mastcrs and men. In the next session, jNIr. Huskisson explained that some 
 mistakes had been made in the proceedings which followed upon this Report : 
 that the Bill founded upon the Report had been framed and passed too hastily, 
 and without due legal supervision. The Bill repealed thirty or forty acts of 
 parliament, and took away all the security given by the common law against 
 the oppression and violence which might ensue upon combinations to regulate 
 labour and wages. The repeal was, indeed, too sweeping and unguarded. 
 The Act was no sooner passed than monstrous combinations arose, under which 
 industry was paralyzed, and dangerous discontents threatened the peace of 
 society. From August to January, scarcely a stroke of work was done in 
 Glasgow and the neighbomhood. The turbulent compelled the timid to strike 
 when they would fain have gone on to work in jjeace: and an organization 
 was formed luider which masters and men suffered for long years afterwards ; 
 the masters most in prosperous times, and the men in adverse seasons : but 
 both parties always from mutual jealousy and a constant sense of insecurity. 
 It is true that experience must teach in time, and that men must learn better 
 from experience than fi-om law, the injury on all hands when employers coerce 
 the labour of the employed, and when artisans refuse to labour for capitahsts, 
 and stand idly aloof from the means of bread. It is true that experience 
 appears to have taught the parties concerned something of this ; for strikes are 
 not now any thing Hke what they were at the period of which we write. But 
 at that time something must be done to control the existing license. Early in 
 the session of 1825, Mr. Huskisson moved for a Committee to reconsider the 
 action of parliament on the subject : and the result was that the Act of 182-1 
 was repealed, and another substituted for it, which is the existing law. By 
 this Act, combinations of masters and workmen to settle terms about wages* 
 and hours of labour are made legal : but combinations for controlling employers 
 by moral violence were again put under the operation of the common law. 
 By this as much was done for the freedom and security of both parties as can 
 be done by legislation, which, in this matter, as in all others, is an inferior 
 safeguard to that of personal intelligence. 
 
 fkee Trade. Important as was this era to the working classes on account of its legislation 
 
 on Wages, it was yet more so as introducing Freedom of Trade, promotive of 
 manufacture. The cotton manufacture had been allowed a fair chance from 
 the beginning by freedom from those restrictions with which the silk and 
 woollen trades had been fettered. In the history of the nation, the year 182-1 
 will ever be memorable, for the sake of the benefits secured to the manufac- 
 turing classes by the new man of the new time. 
 
 These manufacturing classes were at this period holding a higher position 
 in the nation than they had ever done before. The increase of nimibers was 
 not equally divided between the agricultural population and that engaged in 
 
 Porters Progress, manufactures and commerce. The increase of agricultural families was only 
 two and a half per cent, of the whole, in the twenty years from 1811 to 1831, 
 while that of manufactming and trading families was nearly thirty-one and a 
 
 &c., sec. iti. c. i).
 
 Chap. VI.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 345 
 
 half per ceut. The disproportion had now begun which was to go on increasing l>i'24. 
 
 up to the present day, and which must, as most persons agree, continue to "^ •'^-^ 
 
 increase till agriculture has so far improved, in science and art, as to create a 
 demand for labour like that arising from freedom and consequent improvement 
 in manufactm-es. In om- own time, we seldom see the childi-en of artisan 
 families destined to agricultural industry ; while we as seldom see all the chil- 
 dren of parents engaged in agriculture employed upon the soil. The fanner 
 places out some of his sons in business, while his daughters marry trades- 
 men : and the field-labourer is glad to get his clrildren out to service in the 
 tovnis, or to employment in factories. The agricultural portion of society has, 
 for many years, been diminishing, while the other departments of occupation 
 liavc been increasing in a constantly augmenting proportion. The fi-eedom of 
 the cotton trade, in contrast w4th the restrictions on agriculture which went 
 under the name of protection, were, no doubt, a cliief cause of the shifting of 
 the baliaice of preponderance prior to this time : and now the silk and woollen 
 manufactures were to be allowed to prosper, after the same method as the 
 cotton. 
 
 In the year 1685, the intolerant King of France, Louis XIA'., drove many ^"■'' di>t:bs. 
 thousands of his best subjects out of his kingdom by persecution for their reli- 
 gious faith. It is believed that not less than 50,000 came to England : and 
 of these many were skilled in silk-wea\ing. Tliese Frenchmen were the ori- 
 ginal Spitalfields weavers. Wlien they arrived, there was a free trade in silks 
 with all countries where they were jjroduced : but the immigrants obtained 
 laws in their own favour before the century was out, which shut out all foreign 
 silks whatever. In 1719, the brothers Lombe set up a silk-mill, — having 
 learned, at great risk and expense, how the Italian silk-mills Mere constructed. 
 The money they expended was rmder the security of the heavy duties which 
 were laid upon the tlurown silk imported fr-om Italy : and when they had been 
 repaid and rewarded by parliament, the expense of the establishment of silk- 
 mills in England was the reason always brought forward for continuing the 
 heavy duties on foreign thrown silk, when any one proposed to get it cheaper 
 fi-om Italy. This was very hurtful to the manufacture in England, both as 
 regarded its extension and the imlJro^'ement of its quality. It advanced very 
 slowly — much more slowly than was natural — till the introduction of cotton 
 fabrics into general wear, towards the end of the century, threw it back for 
 some years. In 1793, four thousand looms stood idle which had given emi)loy- EJinburBi, ne. 
 ment to ten thousand persons seven years before. When the manufactiu-e '""'"'"''' '" 
 revived, it was in consequence of the vast increase in the production of siUc in 
 India, where the Company had introduced the Italian method of preparing 
 the material. The price per lb. was not much lower than that of Itahan 
 silk, exclusive of duty : but in Italy only one crop of raw silk was produced in 
 a year, while in India there were two or three. Tlii.s abundance tended to 
 remove those restrictions on manufacture which arise fi'om scarcity of the raw 
 material. Before 1770, only 100,000 lbs. of silk were imported, whereas in 
 1823 the quantity amoimted to 1,200,000 lbs. of a much better quality. At 
 that time, the value of the silk manufactiu'e was estimated at ten millions ; and 
 it was believed to support about 400,000 persons. Yet, otir silks were higher si-cond Report of 
 priced than those of France, and generally considered not so good. It was the p!"3;i.' "'""""'"'• 
 vol,. I. 3 .V
 
 346 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 f Book II. 
 
 1824. 
 
 Huskisson's 
 Speeches, ii. 238. 
 
 Hansard, x. 803. 
 
 fashion among the ladies to prefer French silks ; and so gi-eat was the encou- 
 ragement given to smuggling through this fancy, that the English manufac- 
 turers found it answer well to send their fabrics to sea, to have them landed 
 as smuggled goods : and the ladies were perfectly happy, as long as they knew 
 nothing of the device, and could admue and show their dresses as Lyons manu- 
 facture, — so far superior to any thing that could be produced at home ! If the 
 French silks were then really superior to the English, while cheaper, the time 
 was coming when they would be neither better nor cheaper ; for the day was 
 at hand when that freedom of competition was to be allowed which is the true 
 stimulus to improvement, and when the reduction of duties on various articles 
 used in the silk manufacture would permit a lowering of the price of the fabric. 
 As soon as Mr. Robinson and Mr. Huskisson came into office, the principal 
 silk manufacturers in and around London presented a petition in favour of the 
 removal of restrictions on the manufacture, which enabled Mr. Huskisson to 
 plead that " the trade had been the first to suggest the removal of these restric- 
 tions ; and he was confident they would be nearly the first to rejoice at their 
 removal." The petitioners declare, that " tliis important manufacture, thoiigh 
 recently considerably extended, is still depressed below its natural level by 
 laws which jjrevent it fi'om attaining that degree of prosperity, which under 
 more favourable circiunstanccs, it would acquire. Taking into account the unli- 
 mited supply of silk with which we might be fornished from our East India 
 possessions, our indefinite command of capital, and the uniivalled skill and 
 industry of our artisans, your petitioners hesitate not to express their conviction 
 that, by judicious arrangements, our silk manufacture might be placed in a 
 condition ultimately to triumph over all foreign competition, and that silk, like 
 cotton, may be made one of the staple commodities of the coimtry." While 
 some few of the multitude engaged in the silk manufacture were wise enough 
 to wish for fi-eedom in both directions, the greater number were urgent for the 
 repeal of duties on the materials employed, but clamorous against the impor- 
 tation of manufactured silks, and against any great reduction of the duties on 
 the organzine, or prepared silk. It was no easy matter for the Minister to 
 determine his course among the various parties. The proprietors of silk-mills 
 remonstrated against the admission of foreign organzine ; and Mr. Buxton pre- 
 sented "a petition from 23,000 journeyman silk-weavers of the metropolis, 
 praying that the prohibition of the importation of foreign wrought silks might 
 not be removed." The Members of the House could with difficulty make their 
 way in through the crowds of pale-faced operatives, Avho filled all the passages, 
 and who watched every countenance with the wistfulness of men who are trying 
 to read their fate. In the House, the galleries were filled with manufacturers, 
 who occasionally burst into loud exclamations of joy or dismay, as the Minister 
 gratified or disappointed them. At the conclusion of Mr. Huskisson's speech, 
 however, they echoed the cheers of the House by a loud clapping ; a token of 
 satisfaction which was thought to be occasioned by the least wise part of the 
 proposed measures ; — that which extended the existing duty on wrought silks 
 over the next two years and a quarter. 
 
 The duties on raw silk were immediately reduced to 3d. per lb. from 5*. 7|r/. 
 on all that did not come from Bengal, and 4s. on all that did. The risk was 
 thought too great of making a corresponding reduction of the duties on thrown
 
 Chap. VII.J DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 347 
 
 silk ; and they were therefore reduced less than one-half — from lis. 8(7. to 1824. 
 
 7s. 6d. per lb. The prohibition against the importation of foreign silks was to ^— ^ ' 
 
 continue up to July 1826, when they were to be admitted at an ad valorem 
 duty of 30 per cent. By this latter pro^asion it was expected that time would 
 be given for preparation for the change, and for smoothing the transition. 
 But it was found so injurious in its working, by the uncertainty, slackness of 
 sales, and derangement of demand that it caused, that the Minister avowed 
 this to be the one gr-eat error of his scheme, and men of business learned from 
 the case of the silk manufacturers now, that far less mischief is done by a 
 prompt than a lingering change, when alterations in commercial policy have 
 to be made. Mr. Huskisson was so far free from the responsibility of the inju- 
 rious delay, that he declared " in his own opinion, the time which had been Hansard, x. 87o. 
 gi-anted was not at all called for, but he had ceded it in deference to the feel- 
 ings of the parties interested, and with a view to conciliate, as much as possible, 
 those who thought their interests might sutFer by the measure." It is amusing 
 now to see one reason alleged for the delay of the change. " We hope we 
 shall have time to get out of the trade before the storm arrives." As for the Hansard, %. 1221. 
 poor weavers, who could not "get out of the trade," their tone was very 
 humble. They " thanked the House and the Chancellor of the Exchequer for Hansard, x. mi. 
 the postponement of the day of their destruction till 1826, and prayed that it 
 might be fiuther postponed till 1829." The Bill passed the Commons on the 
 25th of March, and the Lords on the 21st of May. Hajuara.xi. 703. 
 
 And what happened, when this day of destruction anived? The poor 
 weavers who had been, from their first aggregation as a body, subject to 
 periodical famine, when the hand of charity was regularly invoked, to lead 
 them back fi-om death's door, — ^how was it with them now, when they were 
 awaiting a worse crisis than any they had known ? AMiat a blessed relief it 
 must have been to these thousands who had been kept in a state of nervous 
 apprehension for above two years, to find their manufacture gro^^•ing brisker 
 from month to month, and their children better fed and clothed after the year 
 1826 than they had been for a long time before! In the year 1826 itself there 
 was depression : but it was iii consequence of the crash of the banks at that 
 time, as is proved by the steady advance which took place in 1827, and con- 
 tinued till, in 1829, it was found that the silk manufacture was then tn-ice as 
 extensive as in 1821, 1822, and 1823, and still progi-essive. Our machinery 
 and oiu- taste improved, and with them the fabric and patterns and colours of 
 our manufactured silks, till it was clear to imprejudiced eyes that the English 
 silks had become superior to the French. In ten years fr-om the passing of the 
 Bill, and in eight years from the admission of French silks, we were exporting 
 silk goods to France, to the value of £60,3-16 in the year. New mills were Port«r,sec.ii.c. 2 
 erected, and the manufacture spread gradually from district to district, calling 
 more and more thousands into emploj-ment. A voice of distress was still (■» entry wea. 
 heard from Coventiy, while London, Manchester, and Paisley were reHeved 
 and satisfied. This was because the Coventry people liked their own old ways 
 better than new ones. They would not hear of power-looms, except from 
 those who complained of power-looms, and proposed to put them down. The 
 Member fi)r Coventry, ^Ir. Ellice, pleaded their cause in the House on the 
 23rd of February, 1826, in his compassion for their inability to compete with
 
 3^8 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book II. 
 
 1824. tlie Swiss and French ribbon-weavers, when the fabrics of the latter should be 
 
 Hansard, xiv. 744. introduced in July of the same year. He said, " the superiority of the French 
 
 and Swss looms has been ascertained beyond all doubt Much has been 
 
 done within the last two years in introducing improvements ; and time and 
 encovu-agement are alone wanting to give confidence for further application of 
 capital to this most important object. One workman can produce, with the 
 improved engine-loom lately adopted, six times the quantity of ribbon he could 
 have before manufactured in his common single-hand-loom : and it is a melan- 
 choly consideration, and one eminently desei-ving the serious attention of the 
 House and liis Majesty's Government, that fully three-fourths of the looms 
 still in use in Coventry, to which place this manufacture is almost entirely 
 confined, are of an inefficient desciiption, and by far the greater part of them, 
 the property, and it is sadly to be feared the only property, of the operative 
 Aveavers themselves." 
 
 These last considerations are very sad ; and so they were felt to be by the 
 House : but when it was proposed to decree protection to the Coventry weavers 
 on these grounds, the House decided against it, — by a vote of 222 to 40 against 
 the appointment of a Committee to consider of it. It was clear that instead 
 of countenancing a preservation of the antiquated and bad methods of weaving 
 ribbons by special protection, every facility should be afforded for improving 
 the manufacture by competition with the most able foreigners. As it was 
 clearly impossible to bring back the Swiss and French workmen to the use of 
 expensive methods, and to prevent their command of the markets by tlieir 
 superiority, the only thing to be done was to emulate that superiority, so as 
 to meet them fairly in the markets of the world. This method has completely 
 answered in the case of all the other kinds of silk-manufacture: and if the 
 Coventry operatives continued to suffer after those of Macclesfield and Man- 
 chester had begun their new career of prosperity, it was not fi-om the removal 
 of protection, under which they had sunk to their impoverished state, but to 
 their own deficiency of knowledge and skill. There was notliing in their 
 
 Hrmiard, xiv. 808. isolated casc to sliakc the confidence of the Minister when he said, " Whether 
 in a public station or in retirement, my greatest happiness Avill be to feel 
 assiu'ed that the power and resources of this country have been increased by 
 those measures of commercial poHcy, which it has fallen to my lot to submit to 
 parliament. That such will be their ultimate result is my fiiTn and con- 
 scientious conviction." Within three years of the utterance of these words, it 
 was proved that the power and resources of the country had been increased by 
 the doubling of the silk manufacture, and all the collateral advantages pertain- 
 ing to such an increase. It was against tliis benefactor of his country, and all 
 who acted upon his views, that a Member of the House, on that same night, 
 quoted, in his horror of " theory," the saying of Mr. Burke that " a perfect me- 
 taphysician, unbending and hard-hearted, exceeded the devil in point of malig- 
 
 Hansaij, XIV, 7C3. nity, and contempt for the welfare of mankind." This is a striking lesson on 
 the operation of prejiulice; — a subject on which there are few men who have 
 not something to learn. 
 
 REniKTioN OP fiig case of the woollen manufacture, which received a similar boon this 
 
 year, Mas somewhat different from that of silk. No duty was ever laid on wool 
 till 1803 ; and then it amounted to little more tlian |r/. per lb. The duty never
 
 Hansaid, x. 329. 
 
 Chap. VII.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 349 
 
 exceeded Id. per lb. till 1819, when Mr. Vansittart most imprudently increased 1824. 
 it to Gd. per lb. The trade had not been prosperous for some time before ; and 
 this increase of duty aggravated the mischief suddenly and greatly. The de- 
 cline in the export of woollens in the very first year after the imposition of the 
 duty was not less than one-fourth. It was to retrace the stejis taken, to repair, 
 if ])0ssible, the mischief done, that Mr. Huskisson now, after five years' trial of 
 the augmented duty, reverted to the former plan. Foreign wool imported for 
 English consumption of the value of Is. per lb. and upwards was to pay a duty 
 of Id. per lb. : and wool of an inferior quality was to pay ^d. per lb. The 
 novelty of the scheme was that English wool-growers were now permitted to 
 export wool, on payment of a duty of Id. per lb. 
 
 Before this time, the state of the case was this. The agriculturists would 
 have liked that the manufacturers should be allowed to have no wool but 
 theirs : and what they desired was a high duty on the wool that ^^as brought 
 in, while they themselves should be allowed to export wool treely ; selling it 
 abroad or at home, wherever they could get the best price for it. This, of 
 course, was not considered a reasonable demand.- — ^The manufacturers, on their 
 part, wished that the exportation of British wool should be prohibited, while 
 they begged for a free importation. In behalf of this free importation they 
 alleged, and with truth, that British wool is of only limited use by itself. It 
 is good for maldng carpets, baizes, flannels, blankets, and other coarse fabrics ; 
 but it will not make fine broad cloth, unless mixed with foreign wool. This 
 was an excellent argument for the free introduction of foreign wool ; but there 
 was nothing to be said for the desired restriction on the British wool-grower. 
 When Mr. Huskisson proposed to relieve both classes by permitting wool to 
 come in and go out on payment of a duty of If/, per lb. each way, he Avas as- 
 sailed with comjjlaints and abuse from both parties, who were more alanned 
 by the benefit offered to their adversaries (as they called each other) than 
 pleased at the advantage given to themselves. The Minister had fiuther to 
 sustain the abuse of the large number of persons who, in their horror of" theory " 
 and " abstract notions," forgot that he was reverting to a rate of duty which 
 had existed only five years before. However, he knew what he was about. 
 He knew that the unimpeded imj)ortation of foreign wool is absolutely neces- 
 sary to the very existence of the most important part of the manufacture in 
 England, which cannot proceed without it. He knew that the importation 
 would sustain the price of British wools by enabling some kinds to be profit- 
 ably worked up, wliich could not be otherwise used to advantage. He was well 
 aware that much ground had been lost in foreign markets by the injurious 
 policy of the preceding five years, by which the price of wool had been raised 
 at home and lowered abroad, thus giving to Continental manufacturers a great 
 advantage in the markets. But he felt it to be his duty to try whether the lost 
 ground could be regained ; and he went forward witli his project through all 
 the clamour. 
 
 It was, indeed, full late to set about retracing our steps. The foreigners 
 were before us every where. As for the home demand, cottons were now largely 
 superseding the woollen fabrics, which had been made artificially tlear. Tliis 
 was the complaint of the manufacturers. — Tlui lowness of price of wool, of 
 wliich the growers complained, was partly owing (o the slackness of tlie demand
 
 350 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book II. 
 
 1824. for woollen goods just alluded to ; partly to the much increased number of sheep 
 ^-^'^''"^ in the country, and the greater weight of the fleece ; and partly to the dete- 
 rioration in the quality of the wool, which takes place when sheep are managed 
 more with a view to their mutton than their fleece. Looking at these con- 
 siderations, and remembering that the exportation of wool constantly declined 
 diuing the five years of the high import duty, it is clear that the English wool- 
 grower owed no gratitude to Mr. Vansittart, and no grudge to Mr. Huskisson. 
 The latter gentleman gave the following account, in February, 1826, of the 
 result of his experiment, as far as concerned the export and import of wool. 
 
 Hiiskissoiis " Instead of our manufactures being ruined — instead of the fulfilment of the 
 
 assurances, that all the British wool woidd be exported, to the utter destruction 
 of our manufacturers, and that from their destruction the foreign wool would 
 no longer be wanted in this country — what has been the real effect of this 
 measure ? Why, that since the removal of the restrictions on the export, we 
 have sent abroad the amazing quantity of 100,000 lbs. weight of British wool ; 
 while, of foreign wool, Ave have imported no less a quantity than 40,000,000 lbs. 
 weight. This, sir, is not speculation. It is practice and result against specu- 
 lation. We removed the restrictive and prohibitory duties, and the conse- 
 quences were, that we exported, comparatively, none of native gi-owth — be- 
 cause we had a better market for it at home." — The price of wool continued so 
 low, however, that two years after this, a Committee of the House of Lords was 
 appointed to inquire into the causes. These have been evident in the course 
 of our narrative ; and it only remains to show what were the exports of manu- 
 
 Porier, sec. 11, c. 2. facturcd woollens. In the five years of the heavy import duty, the average 
 annual shipments amounted to 1,064,441 pieces. In the five years after the 
 removal of the restrictions, the average annual shijjment was 1,228,239 pieces : 
 and in the next five years, the average rose to 1,505,993 pieces. It is alleged 
 by the discontented, that the value of our exports of woollens has not in- 
 creased since the beginning of the century : and this is true. But it must be 
 remembered how far the value sank, and had to rise again : and also that, OAving 
 to the lowered price of wool (the grower being compensated by his mutton), 
 and the economical improvements in the manufacture, a much greater number 
 of people are employed in the process, and accommodated with the produce, for 
 the same money value which was employed for a smaller number at the be- 
 ginning of the centiu-y. 
 
 Reduction op There was tliis year a reduction of the duties on coals and rum, and a repeal 
 
 Dl'ties ani> /.ii- 1 T 1 n ' 1 • i ' t -i 
 
 Bounties. of the dutics on law proceedings, and oi various bounties which were useless, 
 
 and therefore injurious. There was also a conversion of four per cent, stock 
 into three and a-half, which jjrocured an annual saving to the counti-y of 
 
 Annual Register, £375,000. Tho cifects of the Peace upon the purse began to be tangible. 
 
 Uniformity op An important ciiactment of this session was oue which estiiblished a uni- 
 
 MiiAsuREs.' formity of Weights and Measures. In pursuance of a recommendation of a 
 Commission appointed by the Crown, weights and measures were settled by 
 
 Hans:.rd, x 450. natural standards, while the old denominations were retained. This difficidt 
 subject, which much needed attention, had been taken in hand by six men of 
 science, appointed as a commission in 1819, who issued a Report in the same 
 year. The Commons' Committee on the subject in 1821, considered their 
 Report ; and two years after, a Bill for the regulation of Weights and Measures
 
 Zr-^'-ated.b^ V.JIolL 
 
 JTS- 

 
 Chap. VII] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 351 
 
 was brought ia ; but it -was not canied till tlio next year. There was reason 1824. 
 for these delays; important as it was, as a practical matter, affecting the inte- -— — ^^^ ^ 
 rests of the whole of society, fi-om the masters of science to the humblest pur- 
 chaser at the village shop, that measiuements and weights should be true and 
 uniform. As was observed by Dr. Kelly, one of the witnesses before the Com- pcnnyCyciopjecUa. 
 mittee — " Nature seems to refuse invariable standards ; for, as science ad- 
 vances, difficulties are found to multiply, or, at lijast, they become more per- 
 ceptible, and some appear insuperable." Till we know all about the level of 
 the sea, and the effects upon the pendulum of every kind of attraction, with 
 other particulars of natural knowledge which remain to be ascertained, we 
 cannot have a perfect system of weights and measures. Meantime, scientific 
 men are busy, all over the civilized world, in making researches ; and govern- 
 ments must do the best they can in setting up improved standards in the foot- 
 steps of science, as was done in England by the estabUslunent of the new im- 
 perial measures on the 1st of May, 1825. — It is one of the beneficial results of 
 Peace, that the masters of science can, without impediment, unite in their pro- 
 cesses of research, and compare results as they are obtained. 
 
 The session of 1824 closed, on the 25th of June, with a Speech delivered by close of session 
 the King in person. It was a cheerful speech, free from all regretful allusions, 
 except as to the distui-bed state of Ireland, and declaratory of peace with the 
 world abroad, and the advancing prosperity of every interest at home.
 
 352 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book II. 
 
 1824 
 
 Speculation, 1824. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 T^IE now enter upon a chapter of modern English history which the moralist 
 ^ ' regards, and will, for a century to come, regard with wonder and 
 shame. It shows how childish the mind of a nation can be ; as crises of 
 another kind show how brave and noble it can be, according to the appeal made 
 to its lower or its higher faculties. The same people who had been calm and 
 courageous when their national existence appeared to be in peril, magnanimous 
 and disinterested when the partition of Eiuopcan territoiy was going on abroad 
 after the peace, staunch and loyal in the cause of a persecuted Queen, and well- 
 principled in liberty when a new course of foreign policy was entered upon, 
 were now to prove themselves very children under the temptation of sudden 
 prosperity, amidst extraordinary facilities for gambling. — It was not altogether 
 rapacity which instigated the follies of 1824 and 1825. Too many were eager 
 for gain, — making haste to be rich : and of these the sharpers of society made 
 an easy prey : but with many more, the charm was in the excitement, — in the 
 pleasure of spnpathy in large enterprises, — in the rousing of the faculties of 
 imagination and conception, when their field of commerce extended over the 
 Pampas and the Andes, and beyond the farthest seas, and among the ice-rocks 
 of the poles. When the grey-haired merchant gi-ew eloquent by his fireside 
 about the clefts of the Cordillera, where the precious metals glitter to the 
 miner's torch, it was not his expected gains alone that fired his eye, and qiuck- 
 ened his utterance ; but that gi-atification of his conceptive faculty to which 
 his ordinary life had ministered but too little. When the professional man 
 perilled his savings to cut through the isthmus of Panama, he gloried in help- 
 ing on a mighty work ; and described, like a poet, the pouring of the one vast 
 ocean into the other, and the procession of the merchant-ships of the world 
 riding through on the new-made current. And so with the aged ladies and 
 retired servants, who gave from their pittance of property and income whatever 
 they could squeeze out, to hold shares in steam-ovens, steam-laundries, or 
 milk and egg companies ; — they had their xisions of domestic comfort and 
 luxury, and looked joyfully for the time when the good things of the table and 
 the wardrobe should abound, with little expense of toil. Now was the time 
 for those who make their market of the unwaiy to come forth and be busy. 
 Needy speculators and scheming attorneys, and gamblers of every class used 
 their opportunity, first for exciting the gambling spirit every where within 
 their reach, and then for introducing themselves into a society where at other 
 times they could have obtained no admittance. They knew that their oppor- 
 tunity Avas short; and they used it diligently. Seasons of speculation and 
 reaction may be observed in the history of every nation, and may be expected 
 to recur till nations have grown much wiser than they are : but such a spec-
 
 Chap. VII.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 353 
 
 tacle of intoxication and collapse as is oifered by the years 1824 — 1826 will 1824. 
 hardly, we may hope, be equalled again in England. ^ """"^^ ' 
 
 Among the records of the time, we ha^'e the following picture of the state of 
 society, in its material aspect, amidst which the fever of speculation arose. ?iew"IIxii'^''"i89 
 
 "The increased wealth of the middle classes is so obvious, that we can 
 neither walk the fields, visit the shops, nor examine the workshops and store- 
 houses, without being deeply impressed with the changes which a few years 
 have produced. AVe see the fields better cultivated, the barns and stack-yards 
 more fully stored, the horses, cows, and sheep more abundant and in better 
 condition, and all the implements of husbandry improved in theii' order, their 
 construction, and their value. In the cities, towns, and villages, we find 
 shops more numerous and better in their appearance, and the several goods 
 more separated from each other; a division that is the infallible token of 
 increased sales. We see the accumulation of wares of every kind adapted to 
 the purses, the wants, and even the whims of every description of customers. 
 This vast increase of goods, thus universally dispersed, is an indication and 
 exhibition of flourishing circumstances. It may be traced into all the manu- 
 factories, and observed in the masses of raw materials in each, in commodities 
 of every kind in their several stages of preparation, and in all the subdivisions 
 of those stages, by which not only the increase of wealth is manifested, but 
 the modes by which it is acquired are practically illustrated. If we could 
 ascend a little higher, and examine the accounts of the bankers in the metro- 
 polis, and in the provmcial to^vns, small as well as large, we should find that 
 the balances of money resting with them, ready to embrace favourable changes 
 in the price of any commodity, or to be placed at interest as beneficial securi- 
 ties present themselves, are increased to an enonnous amount. This indeed 
 may be fairly inferred fiom the low rate of interest in the floating pubUc secu- 
 rities, from the prices of the funds, fi-om the avitlity with which every project 
 for the emplopnent of capital is grasped at, and from the general complaint, 
 almost the only complaint heard, that there is now no way of making interest 
 of money. The projects for constructing tunnels, railroads, canals or bridges, 
 and the eagerness with which they are embraced, are all proofs of that accu- 
 mulation from savings which the intermediate ranks of society have, by 
 patience and perseverance, been enabled to foiTQ. The natural efiect of this 
 advancement in possessions has been an advance in the enjoyments which those 
 possessions can administer ; and we need not be surprised at the general dif- 
 fusion of those gratifications which were formerly called luxuries, but which, 
 from their familiarity, we now describe by the softened, and exclusively 
 Enghsh term, comforts. This is manifested in om- houses, in their finishing, 
 in their decorations, and especially in the numerous conveniences with which 
 they are stored. The merchants of London forty or fifty years smcc li\ed in 
 the dark lanes iu which their counting-houses are still to be found, ate with 
 their clerks a hasty meal at two o'clock, and returned to the desk to m rite 
 their letters, by which they were often occupied till midnight. The shop- 
 keepers lived behind their shops, their best floor was let to lodgers, and few 
 only of the wealthier of them could aflbrd a retreat from the bustle and the 
 cares of the city to the surrounding \dllages of Islington, Hackney, or Cam- 
 bervvell. The watering-places which have sprung up on the whole coast of 
 VOL. I. 3 b
 
 354 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book II. 
 
 1824. Kent and Sussex were then unknown to those classes of traders, who now, by 
 ' "'^ " occasionally resorting to them, and spending there a part of what they can 
 spare from their annual savings, contribute largely to maintain the inhabitants 
 in comfort and respectability. If we visit the country, we experience the 
 same pleasing emotions as are communicated on the contemplation of the 
 increased enjoyments of the city. We do not see indeed among the farmers 
 such great strides, but we see universal advancement. The proiits on their 
 capitals are necessarily lower, and their growth consequently less rapid ; but in 
 the last forty or fifty years they, too, have made considerable progress. Whilst 
 they have exchanged the work of the hands for that of the head, they have 
 exchanged also the roinid frock of the ploughman for gaiments more suitable 
 to their improved condition. Their houses are more commodious and better 
 fmnished; carpets, china plates, and glasses are to be seen, instead of stone 
 floors, trenchers, and drinking-horns. Their wives and daughters, upon whom 
 the refinement of society mainly depends, are generally better educated, and 
 are able to attract their husbands and brothers from the fairs and the markets 
 at an earlier hour, and with less frequent breaches of the rules of sobriety 
 than Avere practised in the last generation. The country inn is no longer 
 superior in neatness or comfort to the farmer's own house. Among the manu- 
 facturers, we see some with princely yet well-merited fortunes. But there 
 is a numerous class inferior to them, who have amassed, and are amassing, 
 considerable wealth, and dispensing employment to thousands of their poorer 
 neighboiu's. AVe have had occasion before to notice the increased population 
 of Manchester, Leeds, Birmingham, and several other places which have been 
 the scenes of their operations. Forty years ago, we were well acquainted with 
 those places, with the fortinies which were then enjoyed, and the habits then 
 prevailing. On recent visits, after a long absence, we felt a degree of astonish- 
 ment which we cannot describe, at the changes which have taken place. 
 We do not speak of the numerous individuals, whose fathers or grandfathers 
 had, almost within recollection, hardly emerged from the condition of day 
 labourers, and whom we now found the owners of magnificent establishments; 
 for single instances prove little in a case like this; but we allude to the 
 immense addition to the buildings, the improvement in their construction, 
 and the general advance which the owners had made in all the liberal tastes 
 and enjoyments of life." 
 
 Such was the buoyant tone of the time. Such was the record, — much of 
 which was to merge into silent dismay, the gazette, and the obituary. 
 |^™"''*TioN OF Early in the spring of 1824, gold and silver were exported to South 
 K^inbur^ji Re- Amcrica: yet nobody appeared to observe that there was too much money 
 abroad. In June and July, there was a decided fall in the exchanges with 
 tlie continent: yet no one seemed to take the alarm. The Bank of England 
 went on increasing its issues through the whole of 1824, and for three months 
 of the next year : and it was not till the end of that time, in the spring of 
 1825, that even sagacious men of business began audibly to prophesy the evil 
 to come. At that time, some few declared their belief that a terrible revulsion 
 might be looked for soon. But it was then too late. Between June 1824 and 
 October 1825, from ton to twelve millions of coin and bullion were exported; 
 and during the greater part of that time, the Bank of England was still put-
 
 Chap. VII.J DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 355 
 
 ting out its notes; and the provincial banks issued as many as tliey could, till 1824. 
 the country was deluged with paper money. Many a man set up for a banker ^"— ^-^"^--' 
 who would, at another time, have as soon thought of setting up for a king. 
 Lord Liverpool complained, after the crisis, of the system which allows any- 
 petty tradesman, any cobbler, or cheesemonger, to usurp the royal prero- 
 gative, and to issue money without check or control. There was a perfect 
 mania of competition in making paper issues. Many of the country bankers, 
 who afterwards failed, discounted the paper tliat was brought to them by the 
 wildest and wickedest speculators, and paid a large commission to persons 
 who undertook to promote the circulation of their notes. 
 
 This inordinate supply of money followed upon a deficiency of cun'ency in 
 1821 and 1822; in which latter year an act was passed permitting the circu- 
 lation of small notes beyond the date originally fixed. This extension of time 
 temjjted the bankers to increase their issues, instead of providing for the with- 
 drawal of some of their paper. In 1825, there was from 30 to 40 per cent, 
 more paper out than in 1822. Just at that time, the Bank of England, fol- 
 lowed by other banks, lowered the rate of interest. Thus there Avas money in 
 abundance which its owners did not know what to do with. The rate of 
 interest was low. Prices had been so low for two years that they were sure 
 to rise, suddenly and vastly, while so much money was abroad; and the 
 opportunity for speculating was one which few men of enterprise, engaged in 
 trade, were able to resist. 
 
 It would have been well if the rage for speculation had been confined to Joint stock 
 men engaged in trade. The madness spread every where. Retired profes- 
 sional men, living on their acquired fortunes, ladies deriving all their income 
 from the funds, families who had lent their money on mortgages, looked at the 
 low interest on money on the one hand, and the enormous profits made by 
 speculation on the other, and grew dissatisfied. Hundreds who had before 
 been content with their moderate incomes, and had blessed God that their 
 lot had lain between poverty and riches, now watched with jealousy the 
 opportunities of their neighbours; were offended if shares in some Joint Stock 
 Company were not oftered to them, or sighed if obliged to admit that they 
 were not rich enough to pledge themselves to a series of calls. Some who 
 went on in their ordinary course, untouched by the madness of the time, were 
 reproached for injustice to tlieir families, in declining to help themselves from 
 the stores of wealth which were poured out all around. These were justified 
 in the end : but they suffered, more or less, with the rest : for this is a case in 
 which the suffering can never be confined to those who err. The scheming 
 attorneys, the needy speculators, the excitable professional men and ladies, and 
 the ignorant small capitalists whom they led astray were the sinners: but 
 many an hono\nable and sagacious merchant, who saw whither things were 
 tending, and did his utmost to preserve himself and his neighbours, was half 
 ruined, or wholly ruined, by the consequences of other people's folly. He, 
 like others, suffered by the stoppage of the banks, the sudden contraction of 
 the currency, and the prodigious depreciation of every kind of stock. 
 
 While the rate of interest was lowest, the possessors of capital were easily 
 tempted to invest their money in some scheme which shoidd yield them an 
 abundant return. While the rate of interest was lowest, men were tempted
 
 356 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book II. 
 
 1824. to borrow larger sums than they would othermse have ventured on, wherewith 
 ' ^ to carry on their speculations. And, again, this was the time, when bankers 
 
 were willing to discount bills at very long dates, for speculators to buy up 
 goods, hold them back for the high prices expected to ensue, and thus enhance 
 the prices yet further by creating an artiiicial scarcity. At the very time 
 when even reasonable people were discontented with the low interest they 
 obtained for their money, while threatened with high prices to come, they saw 
 their neighbours making fortunes almost in a day, by skilful buying and selling 
 among the projects afloat. A young lady, whose brother had encouraged her 
 to take a share of £100 in some joint-stock project, might pay her first instal- 
 ment of £5 with some trembling, and wonder when the next call would come. 
 But if her brother brought her £1-10 in a few days, with the news that he had 
 sold out for her while the premium was thus high, would she sit down content 
 with liaving for once gained £35 by her £5? Would she not be as eager to 
 invest again as the managers could be that she should.' Thus it was with 
 many thousands of ladies, and gentlemen as inexperienced as they. Some 
 selfish veretches knew well enough what must happen, and only wanted to 
 get rich before the crash, — to use the madness while it might serve their turn. 
 The greater number were seduced into the gambling game: but all, guilty, 
 thoughtless, and innocent together, suifered more or less xmder the inevitable 
 retribution. 
 
 1825. As for what the speculation was like, it can hardly be recorded, even at tlus 
 day, on the open page of history, without a blush. Besides the joint-stock 
 companies who undertook baking, washing, baths, life-insurance, brewing, 
 coal-portage, wool-growing, and the like, there was such a rage for steam- 
 
 Annuai Register, navigation, cauals, and railroads, that, in the session of 1825, 438 petitions 
 for private bills were presented, and 286 private acts were passed. Part of 
 the retribution of the national folly lay in the decline of the character of the 
 House of Commons, too many of whose members acted, in regard to these 
 bills, ^\'ith a recklessness which subjected them to a suspicion that they, like 
 others, had forgotten themselves, and had sacrificed their legislative conscience 
 to" the interests of themselves and their friends. The acknowledgment of the 
 independence of some of the South American States at this time turned the 
 stream of speculation in that direction. Companies were fonned to obtain 
 gold and silver from mountain tops and clefts, where there were no workmen 
 or tools to do the work, no fuel for the fires, and no roads or carriages to bring 
 away the produce. There were to be pearls fiom the coast of Columbia ; and 
 such precious articles were to come from the other hemisphere, that sober 
 persons began to fear too great a change in the afi'airs and the mind of the 
 English people. There would be so much gold and silver, that, after the 
 Chancellor of the Exchequer had paid off the National Debt, the value of 
 money in England and all Europe would be essentially changed. Gems and 
 pearls were to abound to such a degree that the jewels of ancient families were 
 soon to be shamed. The higher orders began to look about them, when these 
 things were said; and, finding that the middle and lower classes were to 
 become very rich in a short time, they too rushed into the scramble for the 
 
 Quarterly Re. wealth of South America. It is on record that a single share of the Real del 
 
 Tiew, X]txi. p 3o2. ^
 
 Chap. VII.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 357 
 
 Monte mine, on wliich £70 had been paid, jaelded £2000 per cent., having 1825. 
 risen speedily to a premium of £1400 per share. ^— s,^ ' 
 
 People who declined the grosser kind of gambling, — by Stock Exchange 
 speculations, — attached themselves to the idea of growing rich by trading with 
 the new markets opened on the other side of the Atlantic. At Rio Janeiro 
 more Manchester goods arrived in a few weeks than had been before required 
 for twenty years : and merchandise, (much of it perishable,) was left exposed 
 on the beach, among thieves and under variable weather, till the over-crowded 
 warehouses could afford room for its stowage. It is positively declared, that 
 warming-pans from Birmingham were among the articles exposed under the 
 burning sun of that sky ; and that skates from Sheffield were offered for sale 
 to a people who had never heard of ice. China and cut glass were, in some 
 places, pressed upon the natives, as preferable to the cocoa-nut shells and cow- 
 horns, which had hitherto been their dishes and drinking vessels. A work of Jowl," k^^pp!" 
 the time, -niitten by a lively observer of things on the spot, gives an idea which ^''^•^'^^■ 
 may be exaggerated, but wliich must have some truth in it, of how these South 
 American projects were set on foot, and canied out. 
 
 " We had all sorts of English speculations in South America, some of which 
 were really amusing. Besides many brother companies which I met with at 
 Buenos Ayres, I found a sister association of milk-maids. It had suddenly 
 occurred to some of the younger sons of John Bull, that, as there were a number 
 of beautiful cows in the United Pro^-inces of Rio de la Plata, a quantity of 
 good pasture, and as the people of Buenos Ayres had no butter to their bread, 
 a Churning Company would answer admirably; and before the idea was many 
 months old, a cargo of Scotch milk-maids were lyuig becalmed under the line, 
 on then- passage to make butter at Buenos Ajtcs." — When arrived, " the diffi- 
 culties they had to contend with were very great. Instead of leaning theii- 
 heads against patient domestic animals, they were introduced to a set of law- 
 less, wild creatures, who looked so fierce that no young woman who ever sat 
 upon a tliree-legged stool could dare to approach, much less to milk them. But 
 the Guachos attacked the cows, tied their legs with strips of hide, and as soon 
 as they became quiet, the shops of Buenos Ayres were hterally full of butter. 
 But now for the sad moral of the story. After the difficulties had been all 
 conquered, it was discovered, first, that the butter would not keep ; and 
 secondly, that, somehow or other, the Guachos and natives of Buenos Ayres — 
 liked oil better ! " — This gentleman was himself a victim of the spirit of the 
 time. He went out as manager of one of the mining associations ; left two 
 cargoes of English and German miners at Buenos Ayres, and rode on to explore, 
 gallopping a thousand miles here, and twelve hundred miles there, in search of 
 a fit spot to which to transport his miners. He foimd, as others did, that be- 
 tween fraud and folly, there was no hope, and there had never been any sohd 
 ground for speculation to build on. Some of the Gennans wished to remain Quarterly ne- 
 
 •1 T11P1 1*1 View, sxxv. U7. 
 
 m the country : the whole of the rest, English and Germans, returned without 
 having gone into the interior at all ; and the company was dissolved, with a 
 loss of at least £50,000. These are mere single specimens of a folly and rash- 
 ness which were the epidemic of the time. The reaction was not long in 
 coming. 
 
 On the 6th of July, 1825, the Lord Chancellor read the King's Speech, dis-
 
 358 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 [Book II. 
 
 1825. missing the Parliament for the session. The speech avowed that the " general 
 ^-^■^^—^-^ and increasing prosperity on which his Majesty had the happiness of con- 
 gratulating" his Parliament at the opening of the session, continued "to per- 
 
 Hansard,xiii.H83. vadc cvcry part of the kingdom." Yet there were a good many people in the 
 kingdom who were in a very different state of spirits about this prosperity from 
 that which they had been in at the opening of the session. In tlie early spring, 
 
 Collapse. the funds had bcguu to decline ; and soon the prices of almost all commodities 
 
 were lowered. Cotton, wine, silk, and other foreign products came into the 
 market in such vast quantities, that it must be long before they could be sold 
 off; and their prices fell incessantly, both from the superabundance, and from 
 the eagerness of the holders to sell. No returns came in from the great specu- 
 lations in foreign countries ; — no gold and silver from the Andes ; no profits 
 fi-om the butter of the Pampas ; no tolls ii-om the canal which was to unite 
 the Atlantic and Pacific : no pearls from the coast of Columbia. Again, a 
 multitude of traders had exhavisted their credit in obtaining capital which 
 they had locked up in enterprises extending far into the future : and their im- 
 mediate want of money was pressing. AVithout it, they could not await the 
 release of the capital they had locked up. They importuned the bankers 
 for further advances : but the bankers were as much hampered as any body : 
 they had been tempted, some months before, by the abundance of money, and 
 the low rate of interest, to discount bills of extremely long dates, and to lend 
 accommodation on securities of which they could make no use, in the present 
 state of the market. Just at this most critical time, the Bank of England 
 began to draw in. Her issues had been profuse when money was too plentiful, 
 and gold was rapidly leaving the country. Now, when money was wanted in 
 abundance to rescue commercial credit on all hands, she began to be stiff about 
 discounting, and to contract her issues. Panic first, and then despair were the 
 consequence. Every man seemed ready to seize his debtor by the throat, and 
 say, " Pay me that thou owest." The hilarity and opemiess of heart and hand 
 which had made England such a sunny place a year ago, were gone : and in- 
 stead, there was now the suspicion with wliich every man regarded his debtor and 
 his creditor ; the daily dread of the post ; the eager glance at the gazette ; the 
 walking out to await the mail ; the laying down of pony-caniage and new 
 footman ; the giving up the visit to the sea, and the subscription to the book- 
 club and concert ; and even, too often, the humbling inquiry of servants, whether 
 they could wait awhile for their wages. The manufacturer looked round on his 
 overloaded shelves, and for every thousand pounds' worth of goods now reck- 
 oned five hundi-ed. The widow lady and her daughters, who had paid ready 
 money all their lives, now found themselves without income for half a year to- 
 gether, and could not enjoy a meal, because the butcher's and baker's bill was 
 running on. The dying man, who could not wait for better days, altered his 
 will with a sigh, lessening his children's portions by one-half or two-thirds. 
 Young lovers, who were to have had a jocund wedding this autumn, looked in 
 one another's faces, and saw that it must not be thought of at present. — But 
 worse was to come. 
 
 pamc. Here and there, the failure of a commercial house was announced. First, 
 
 the failures were of houses which nobody supposed to be very stable : but pre- 
 sently, one firm after another stopped payment ; — one known to possess enor-
 
 Chap. VII.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 359 
 
 nious landed estates; another to be the proprietor of rich mines; a third to 1825. 
 have great wealth, fixed or afloat, in foreign lands. In these cases, the same ^— '-- ' 
 story was always told ; that it was merely a temporary embarrassment, and 
 that the firms possessed property far exceeding in value their entire liabilities. 
 But so many of these embarrassments occurred, each spreading disorder over 
 its own range of influence, that it presently became doubtful what any kind of 
 property was really worth, for any practical purpose. — Then, of course, came 
 the turn of the banks, — tlie securities they held for their vast and rash ad- 
 vances having become, for the time, little better than waste paper. — In a 
 country town, one market-day, the aspect of the market-place was \erj unlike 
 its wont. The country people were leaving their stalls, and collecting in 
 groups, while some made haste to pack up their produce, and put to their horsesj 
 and hie home as if they expected to be robbed if they stayed. Here, a man 
 passed with a gloomy face, and a bank-note clutched in his hand : there, a 
 woman wrung her hands, and wept : and an actual wail, of many voices, was 
 heard amidst the hubbub of the place. The bank of the district had stopped 
 payment. The hopeful went about telling all they met that it was only for a 
 time, and that every body would be paid at last : the desponding said that now 
 it had begun, there was no saying where it would stop, and that every body 
 would be ruined ; and neither the hopeful nor the desponding could suggest 
 any thing to be done. Buying and selling came almost to a stand ; for the 
 country people looked at every kind of bank-note as if it would burn their 
 fingers, and thought they would rather go home than sell any thing at all. 
 Before going home, however, all who had money in any bank ran to get it out. 
 The run upon the banks spread from district to district ; and very soon, to 
 London. Lombard-street was full of men of business, standing about, waiting 
 to hear the disasters of the day, or of persons, even of great wealth, who were 
 hastening to their bankers, to draw out their deposits. It was a time which 
 tried the faith, and courage, and generosity, of the rich. Some did not trouble 
 their bankers by any kind of application : and some few drove up in their 
 carriages, and carried away heavy bags of gold — with or without apparent 
 shame. On the 5th of December, the news spread with the speed of the wind, 
 that the banking-house of Sir Peter Pole and Company had stopped. This f^™"^' TjT^'"' 
 must occasion many failures in the provinces, as this fimi had accounts with 
 forty-four country banks. The funds went down immediately ; and faster still 
 next day, Mhen the bank of Williams and Company stopped. From this time, 
 the crash went on without intermission, till, in five or six weeks, from sixty to 
 seventy banks had stopped pa}-ment. 
 
 The question now was, how to get money to go on with from day to day : 
 a question which involved that of the very life of the working classes through 
 the winter. There seemed to be nothinsr before millions of them but absolute 
 starvation, unless commerce could be set a-going again, more or less. If they 
 could not earn, they must starve ; for even those of them who had some pro- 
 perty could not sell. The pawnbrokers' houses were crammed from the rafters 
 to the door-step, till they would not liold one article more : and if they had, 
 the pawnbrokers had no money, any more than other people. It was a touch- 
 ing thing to those who had acquaintance among the poor, to see, that winter, 
 tlie bride-housewife, who had lately looked forward to a marriage of substantial
 
 360 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book II. 
 
 1825. comfort, polishing up her new furniture, or looking for sometliing to mend in 
 ^-"-^"^ ^ her own or her husband's new clothes, while the faces of both were wan with 
 
 himger. It was touching to sec how long the pride of the decent dressmaker, 
 and the skilled weaver and his Av-ife, leaning faint against tlieir idle loom, stood 
 out against the charity soup and loaf, — declaring, even till it became no longer 
 true, that they could point out some neighbours who would be glad of tickets, 
 but that, for themselves, they could not say they had ever wanted bread. These 
 things were seen and heard from street to street of every town, throughout that 
 winter, even after Government and generous-hearted capitalists had done all 
 that could be done to stop the derangement of tlie national affairs. 
 
 On the failure of Pole and Co.'s bank, meetings of the Cabinet took place, 
 
 and went on with unusual frequency, till the disorder began to subside. Ten 
 
 Issue OF Small J^yg after the Stoppage of Pole's bank, an issue was made of one and two 
 
 Notes and Com. •' i • t • iin/i- 
 
 pound bank-notes for country circulation : and the Mint was set to work to 
 
 coin sovereigns as fast as its machinery would go. For above a week the coin- 
 
 Annuai Register, age amouiitcd to 150,000 sovcrcigiis per day. — At the same time, the most 
 
 1825, p. 124. . ° . ... . 
 
 influential and secure men of business in London and in the great towns lield 
 meetings, where they adopted resolutions pointing to the support of commercial 
 credit. This show of confidence, and the somewhat increased supply of money, 
 raised the spirits and allayed the panic of society : and by the end of the year, 
 — the year which had opened so brilliantly ! — the nation began to think it 
 might, one way or another, struggle through ; resolving, with the desperate 
 earnestness natural at such crises, if it once got out of this scrape, never to fall 
 into such an one again ; — a resolution which, in this case as in that of an indi- 
 vidual sinner, lasted only till the next season of strong temptation. 
 
 1826. The first days of the new year were, however, dark enough. Though the 
 banks no longer broke by the half-dozen a day, the crash was not over. Here 
 and there, one which had struggled on, and hoped to get through, was obliged 
 to give up at last : and on every such occasion, there was a spread of distress 
 through the district. Still, there was no employment for the poor, except such 
 as was created for them : and some of the Lancasliire Of)eratives rose, to destroy 
 the machinery which they supposed to be the cause of the glut in the markets. 
 The shipowners charged the same fact upon the relaxation of the Navigation 
 Laws, and clamoured accordingly. On the whole, however, the patience and 
 fortitude shown by the most suffering parties were as remarkable as the rash- 
 ness and selfishness of the speculators who had plunged them into their 
 misery. 
 
 It was the business of Parliament to see what it could, and what it could 
 not do, in such cases as the present : — how much of the mischief was occasioned 
 by bad, or could be prevented by good laws : and how much was independent 
 of legislative action altogether. This inquiry was recommended in the King's 
 
 King's Speech. Speccli, delivered by commission on the 2nd of February: and both Houses 
 
 ^™"''' .''^sister, began to debate the matter at once. 
 
 Io2u, p. 2. ^ 
 
 Some few members of each House were eager to bring forward their favourite 
 
 tojiics, in connexion with the prevalent distress, which was, indeed, large enough 
 
 to hang every political idea upon : but the greater number were anxious to 
 
 hear what the Ministers had to say, in explanation of the past, and proposal 
 
 Hansard, xiv. 17. for the futui-c. — Lord Livcrpool stated the fact, that the issue of paper by
 
 Chap. VIII.] DURING THE THIRTY YP^ARS' PEACE. 361 
 
 country banks was more tlian double in 1825 what it had been in 1823. Durin;? 1826. 
 
 the years 1821, 1822, and 1823, the value of notes stamped for country bankers ^— — ^'^— ^ 
 
 had been, on an average, a little above four milUons. In 1824 it had reached 
 
 six millions ; and in 1825 it exceeded eight millions. The Bank of England 
 
 was at the same time augmenting its issvies, though less remarkably. It was 
 
 now to be proposed by Government, to prohibit the circulation of £1 and £2 
 
 notes, after a certain period : and next, to negotiate with the Bank of Enaland arrangements 
 
 ' ^ -*■ -^ ' ~ O WITH Bank of 
 
 for an alteration of the terms of its privileges. The Charter of the Bank was E'*'=i-*ni>- 
 
 not to expire till 1833 ; but it was proposed to induce the Directors to establish 
 
 Branch banks in the commercial centres of the provinces, and to permit an 
 
 extension of the powers of the private banks, whose firms had hitherto not 
 
 been permitted to consist of more than six partners. — The same explanations 
 
 were made in the other House by the Chancellor of the Exchequer. A diih- 
 
 culty occurred at once in regard to the supi)ression of small notes. If a day suppression of 
 
 •' _ _ " ^1 1-1 Small Ncn-Es. 
 
 was fixed by law, after which no more small notes should be stamped, there 
 was evidence in the hands of Government to show that such an amount would 
 be stamped in the interim as Mould render the law altogether nugatory. The 
 Government, therefore, stopped the stamping process immediately, though 
 many bankers had paid for their licenses to issue notes up to the next 10th of 
 October. Of course, the Ministers were called to account for this high-handed 
 proceeding, — this " unconstitutional exercise of power," — this " violation of a 
 statutory guarantee." They admitted the justice of these descriptive terms ; 
 acknowledged that an Act of Indemnity might be required, and pleaded in 
 their defence, the urgent necessity of the case. After a little complaint and 
 remonstrance, the Government heard no more of the matter, — the state of the 
 commercial world being such as to make tlie most vigilant politicians less 
 scrupulous than usual about " statutory guarantees " being strictly observed. 
 It was a question of an act like that of blowing up a private house, without 
 leave asked, to stop a conflagration. Any thing was better than running the 
 risk of a deluge of small note paper in the year to come, like that of the year 
 that was gone. Lord Liverpool and the Chancellor of the Exchequer cxi)laincd Hansard,xiv. 17,49 
 that in 1825 the amount of small country note paper had not been less than 
 six millions. Since the crash, it had been reduced to four millions ; the vacancy 
 having been supplied by coin : and now there was no reason to expect that 
 there would be any difficulty in replacing the other four millions by coin : a 
 measure most desirable for the benefit of the poorer classes, who, as the principal 
 holders of small notes, were always the first to suffer, while the least able to 
 bear tlic suffering, from such a crisis as had just taken place. In some essential 
 points of the discussion, almost all the members of both Houses agreed : — that 
 the iiresent question was in fact of a metallic currency at all, as it was invari- 
 ably found that, luider an unrestricted small note currency, gold and silver 
 were ckivcn out of circulation by an equal amount of paper, — Lancashire, where 
 no small notes existed, being the only part of the country whicli had hitherto 
 had a metallic circulation at all ; and the coin, which had been issued with 
 gi-eat expense and trouble, being sent back to London by return of the mail 
 which had carried it down : — that the present was the time for the restriction 
 to be made, — the work being, as Mr. Brougham observed, akeady lialf done by 
 VOL. I. 3 c
 
 362 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book II. 
 
 1 S2(). the panic and crasli : — and that the present was the moment for another reason, 
 
 ^-""'''""^-^ — the severe test which liad been just applied to the stability of the country- 
 banks which had stood the shock, and which could therefore easily stand the 
 gradual withdrawal of the outstanding notes. The opposition, led by Mr. 
 
 ii!ms..rd, xiT. 351. Baring, numbered only 39 votes against 222; and when the opinion of the 
 majority was thus decisively declared, the minority abstained from fmther 
 objection. 
 
 Some needless difficulty arose, from the imprudent conduct of certain of the 
 country bankers, wlio withdrew their small notes from circulation too hastily, 
 allowing no time for the new metalhc currency to supply their place. In some 
 districts this created great difficulty about carrying on the smaller transactions 
 of commerce. To meet it, an enactment was proposed, and passed by a large 
 majority, by which the Bank of England was enabled to continue stamping 
 
 Hansard, .viv. 641. small uotcs duriug the interval till the 10th of October. This liberty did not 
 affect the term fixed for the circulation of small notes ; and the enlarged power 
 of preparation of notes for that term was sui'e not to be abused ; for the Bank 
 of England found its small note circulation a pure inconvenience. The 
 purpose of the enactment was merely to enable the Baiik to furnish a small 
 currency in particular districts, where it might be lu'gently wanted during 
 the period of change, when the country bankers were drawing in their £1 and 
 £2 notes. 
 
 One of the strangest arguments brought against the new measui'es, was by 
 
 Hansard.xiv. 1351. Lord Carnarvon in the Upper House. He gravely urged, that with a return 
 to a metallic currency, highwaymen would again come out upon the roads. At 
 a time within his recollection, before the common use of small notes, " a fi'iend 
 of his had been robbed on the highway ; another had been wounded by a shot 
 iired at him by a footpad ; and a thu'd had narrowly escajied with his life, by 
 seizing the muzzle of the pistol which the robber had tlirust into his carriage, 
 and wresting it out of his hand." This objection was easily met by proof's of 
 the extent of thefts, even on the high road, of bank notes ; and of the great 
 amount of the easy crime of forgery. — Lord Carnarvon probably derived his 
 plea from the celebrated " Letters of Malachi Malagrowther," as Sir Walter 
 Scott chose to style himself. In these Letters, which pleaded against the abo- 
 lition of the small note currency of Scotland, the author drew pictures of the 
 probable robberies of bankers' chests in the Highland glens. 
 
 Scotch Banks. The prohibition of the small note ciu-rency was not made to extend to Scot- 
 
 laud. The banking system of Scotland had all along been essentially different 
 from that of England. Its finns had been under no limitation with regard to 
 the number of partners ; and banking was carried on by large companies of 
 capitalists, under a system which admitted the commercial world to a much 
 fuller knowledge of the affairs of the banks than is thouglit of in England, or 
 would there be compatible with the practices of commerce. Small banlving firms 
 in Scotland must, therefore, consist of men known to be wealthy and trust- 
 worthy : and their responsibility in issuing small notes is understood to be com- 
 plete. During the crash of 1825 and 1826, not a single Scotch bank failed; 
 and there was, evidently, no need to interfere with a system which worked so 
 well in its own loqality, — however inapplicable it might be elsewhere.
 
 Chap. VIII.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 363 
 
 After much negotiation between the Government and the Bank of England, 1826. 
 
 the further changes introduced into tlio EngHsh hanking system were these. ^^ -•^-— ' 
 
 The Bank established Branches in many of the large trading to-mis ; a measure jo,NT™rocK 
 which has proved highly useful.— Banking firms might henceforth include any '^"''*- 
 number of partners, except within sixty-five miles of London. These changes, 
 •with the suppression of small notes, would, it was hoped, obviate much of 
 the danger of insecure banking, from which the coimtry had suffered so griev- 
 ously. 
 
 As for the relief that should be given on the instant to the commercial world, 
 — the Ministers were unwillmg to authorize an issue of Exchequer bills ; be- 
 cause they thought the remedy a fallacious one under the circumstances : but 
 they offered to bear the Bank harmless through a purchase of Exchequer bills 
 to the amount of two millions. The Bank did not stir : nor did it meet favour- 
 ably the Government proposition that it should make advances on deposits of 
 goods. But affairs pressed : times were not mending : the merchants of London and 
 the large pro\'incial towns were growing desperate : the Government was called, 
 even in parliament, hard and cruel. Something must be done to revive confi- 
 dence, and bring out the hoarded gold which was above every thing wanted. 
 It was no longer possible to refuse what the general opinion required : and be- 
 fore February was out, the Bank had agreed to make advances on deposits of fg""""' Register. 
 merchants' goods. A great pawning transaction was entered upon ; the ad- ADr.-,NCEs on 
 vances of the Bank being limited to three millions. Commissioners were ap- 
 pointed to conduct the business in the princijjal trading districts. It was 
 presently foimd that many of these commissioners would have little or nothing 
 to do. As soon as it was found that the money could be had, it appeared that 
 little of it would be wanted. The restoration of credit was the thing required. 
 On the strength of this new resource, men of high commercial character began 
 to trust one another. The example spread ; and in a short time the alarm 
 subsided, and fair and prudent trading began to re^'ive. 
 
 Good as were the consequences of this arrangement, the Govenunent had position up mi. 
 
 ^ . . . NISTEBS. 
 
 the judgment and s)^npathy of the best men in the country with them in their 
 unwilUngness to have recourse to it. The Prime Minister declared in his place 
 his serious objection to inducing merchants to look any where for aid in com- 
 mercial difficulties but to themselves and the banks of the country ; and that 
 "nothing justified the interference of the Government in mercantile embar- """"='■<*, «'>■■=" i- 
 rassments, unless the distress was occasioned by some great public calamity 
 inflicted by the hand of God, or some pohtical event of a very extraordinary 
 nature." Their position was a very hard one : one so hard that it must be 
 hoped that no government may ever again be made to sufier in like manner by 
 the folly and cupidity of the society they have to govern. First, the Ministers 
 had to witness large preparations for the failure of their own wisest policy ; 
 preparations with which they had no right or power to interfere. Before the 
 admission of foreign silks, there was such a rage for building siUc-mills, each 
 costing from £10,000 to £15,000, that many of them stood still unroofed at 
 the close of the panic and crash. In 1825, the population of Macclesfield s^"^;,''^^^""!- ^q^ 
 amounted to about 20,000 : and in the newspapers of February of that year may 
 be seen advertisements to " Overseers, Guardians of tlie Poor, and Families 
 desirous of settling in Macclesfield. Wanted immediately, from four to five
 
 364 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book II. 
 
 1826. thousand persons, from seven to twenty years of age, to be employed in the 
 " ' throwing and manufacturing of silk." Again : " Wanted to be built immedi- 
 ately, one thousand houses." This was only a single example of those specu- 
 
 Hansard, xiv. 320. latious wliicli, to usc Mr. Cauniug's words, " at the time, fixed the public gaze, 
 and so immediately excited their appetency, as to cover the nation, in the eyes 
 of foreign states, if not with disgrace, at least with ridicule. The most wild 
 and incoherent schemes were started ; projects which sprang with the dawn, 
 and expired before the setting of the sun, in whose beams they glittered for a 
 few hours, and then fell ; a puff of vapour sent them soaring towards the skies ; 
 the puncture of a pin brought them to the earth." In the midst of the in- 
 toxication the Government xittered warnings, strenuously and incessantly, but 
 in vain : and because these warnings were in vain, those who uttered them 
 were blamed for not having put forth the strong hand, to restrain the madness 
 
 Han5ard,xi7. 320. of tlic nation. " I really do not know. Sir," declared Mr. Canning, " what 
 legislative interference could possibly effect in such a case. I do not know how 
 a measure could be framed, to deal with those speculations of unreasoning- 
 avarice which would not, at the same time, have borne so hard on honest in- 
 dustry and rational enterprise, that it would have been likely to do more hann 
 than good. The inordinate appetite for gain, if left to itself, could not fail to 
 work its own cure, through its own certain disappointment." And then, when 
 the meteor schemes had all exploded, and left nothing behind but darkness and 
 stifling odours, the sufferers who refused timely warnings would have it that 
 the ^Ministers might make the sun rise, and bring wholesome breezes if they 
 would ; and taxed them with obstinacy and hard-heartedness. If they would 
 issue Exchequer bills, or do this and that which none but a despotic govern- 
 ment would think of doing, all might be well in a moment. " It is most un- 
 
 Hansard.xiT. 735. fair," Said jNIr. Canning, " to infer from any hesitation on the part of Govern- 
 ment to adopt any particular remedy, under such circumstances, that there 
 exists, therefore, on their part, an insensibility to the extent or nature of the 
 existing evil. For myself and for my colleagues, I totally disdain to answer 
 such insinuations. I impute to no man who now hears me, that he is insen- 
 sible ; but. Sir, for others to impute it to those upon whom, every day and 
 every night, care and anxiety are brought by the consideration of those distresses, 
 in addition to the common sympathy in which they share as men, is to impute 
 to them, not only a want of feeling, but a want of sense, which would unfit 
 them, not merely for the situations which they fill in the government of the 
 country, but to appear here, in the midst of those whom I have the honour of 
 now addressing." 
 
 sirrERiNQ or Sucli was the share which the Government had to endure of the pain of the 
 
 crisis ; the foreboding, — the heavy heart in a time of delirious joy ; the haunt- 
 ing care which cast its cold shadow by day, and sat on the pillow at night ; 
 the inability to ward off the mischief, and the discredit of it when it came ; the 
 strain put upon their principles ; and the reproach cast upon their steadfast- 
 ness : — such was their share of the suffering of the time. But if they suffered 
 more than the careless, they suffered less than the guilty. There were many 
 hundreds, many thousands in the country who might well envy them their very 
 cares. Perhaps even they, with all their means of knowledge, amidst all the 
 press of evil tidings which rushed in from day to day, could not be so well
 
 Chap. VIII.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 365 
 
 aware as those in an humbler station, of the worst miseries of the time. They 1826. 
 had the gazette under their eyes, and tlie clamour of the commercial world in " — ---•——' 
 their ears : they had before them the diminishing retm-ns of the taxes, and the 
 increasing returns of pauperism: but they were saved the anguish of witness- 
 ing the individual traits which most wring the heart in a season of national 
 calamity. It is not he who sees from afar the cloud of dust from an earthquake, 
 and who faintly hears the murmur of confused somids, and who knows that so 
 many churches, and so many dwellings, and even so many people have perished, 
 that can feel the deepest horror of the scene. It is rather he who, in some 
 naiTow street, meets the spectacle of the WTithing of a crushed sufferer here, 
 a childless mother there, a siu'viving lover, a forloni infant wailing among ruins 
 and flames, who has the best understanding of what has befallen. And so it 
 was with this social convulsion in England. There are some now of the most 
 comfortable middle-class order, who camiot think of that year without bitter 
 pain. They saw many parents grow white-haired in a week's time : lovers 
 parted on the eve of man-iage : light-hearted girls sent forth fi-om the shelter 
 of home to learn to endure the destiny of the governess or the sempstress : 
 governesses, too old for a new station, going actually into the workhouse : 
 rural gentry quitting their lands ; and whole families relinquishing every 
 prospect in life, and standing as bare imder the storm as Lear and his strange 
 comrades on the heath. They saw something even worse than all this. They 
 saw the ties of family honour and harmony snapped by the strain of cupidity 
 first, and discontent afterwards, and the members falling off from one another 
 as enemies. They saw the hope of the innocent, the faith of the pious, the 
 charity of the generous, the integrity of the trusted, giving way. They 
 saw the most guilty rewarded, and tlie most \'irtuous involved as deeply as 
 any in the retribution. But it would be an endless task to adduce the sorrows 
 of that time : nor can their issue ever be recognised. After a weary and di-eary 
 season of suspense, affairs began to mend ; but so heavily, that even the King's 
 speech, which is imderstood to make the best of every thing at all times, de- 
 clared in the next November, that the depression had abated more slowly than Hansard, xvi. ii. 
 his Majesty had thought himself warranted in anticipating. Still, the depres- 
 sion did pass away. Our ships were once more abroad upon the sea ; and the 
 clack of the loom and the roar of the forge were again heard in our towns. But 
 the heart-woiuids of such a time can no more be healed than the whitened hair 
 can resume its colour. The impoverished might grow rich, and many a laden 
 mind might throw off its cares : but the estranged could not be reiniited : the 
 dishonoured could not be reinstated : the gi'ave could not give back the broken- 
 hearted, nor prosperity reassm-e some who had suffered too fearfully. To a few 
 who were strong enough, this adversity may, hke other discipline, have minis- 
 tered increased strength : " to him that hath much shall more be given :" but 
 the strong are every where the few ; and in this case their lot is only the single 
 ray in the dark place, — the strong tower which outstood the earthquake. 
 
 Men are wont to talk glibly of commercial crises when they are past ; in a 
 tone quite diflerent from that in which they speak of a pestilence or a famine. 
 In this case, it can hardly be so, — the calamity was so fearful, the folly so 
 humbling, and the guilt now so clear. There is a certain Scripture text about
 
 366 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book II. 
 
 1826. the temptations and destruction of those " that woukl be rich," which must 
 have haunted many a man's mind, and rung in liis ears Uke a judicial sentence, 
 after the season of passionate cupidity was past. To the more disengaged 
 mind of the guiltless observer, the whole crisis must have been a significant 
 text, from which he could preach eloquently the great truth, how little govern- 
 ments can do for the welfare of nations in the absence or abeyance of individual 
 virtue and intelligence ; how necessary it is that men should rule their own 
 spirits before they can enjoy that social welfare Avhich a wise government may 
 help to secui-e, but can never confer.
 
 Chap. IX.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 367 
 
 CILiPTER IX. 
 
 THE liistory of 1825 and 1826 has shown us the state of English'capitalists; 1825. 
 the rapacity and ignorance of some, and the consequent sufferings of all. --^ — ■ — - 
 How was it with the lahourers, among whom it is natural to look for a worse 
 cupidity, a deeper ignorance, and a fiercer suffering? 
 
 From the time when the false prosperity of the countr-y hegan to decline, Riots. 
 there was much rioting. The first impulse of suiferers too ignorant to know 
 the causes of their suffering, is to rehel against the order of things under which 
 their misery takes place. The first serious rioting was at Sunderland, in at sonderland. 
 August, 1825, just after the tide of prosperity was seen to have turned. The 
 association of seamen, who were not on good tenns with the shipo'wners, saw 
 a collier quietly leaving the port, manned hy strangers, and went out to attack 
 the vessel. The principal shipowners, who had heen sworn in as special con- 
 stables, put off after them, but could make little resistance against over- 
 whelming numbers; the rioters being at least foiu- hundi'ed. The shipowners, 
 and all the obnoxious crew, except the master and the mate, were thrown into 
 the sea; whence they were picked up in no condition for further fight. A 
 party of dragoons was brought up; the Riot Act was read; but on the opposite 
 side of the river from that where the proceedings of the rioters had collected a 
 mob of men, women, and children. Some stones were thro\'\ii from the midst 
 of this mob, who had not heard the reading of the Riot Act. The soldiers 
 fired, and five persons were killed; one of whom was a carpenter, at work on 
 his stage, and another a labourer returning from the field. The funeral of the 
 victims was solemn, with banners and flags, and a band of singers ; and for Anmiai Registpr, 
 mourners twelve hundred seamen, Avith each a crape round the left arm, walk- 
 ing hand in hand, two and two. The circumstances had, however, been too 
 fatal for the courage of the men ; and they yielded the points for which they 
 had struck. 
 
 A more successful stand against authority and law was made in the Isle of '" the isie of . 
 Man, the next November, when the island was kept in a state of uproar for a 
 week, by the resistance of the poor to the collection of the tithe of potatoes by 
 the proctors of the bi.shop. The people overturned the laden carts, stood guard 
 over the poUitoos, pursued the bishop's proctors, rescued such of their ovm. 
 body as were apprehended, defied the constables, evaded the magistrates and 
 military, and obtained from the bishop, at the end of a week, the following 
 written declaration, which was delivered by his lordship himself into the 
 hands of a deijutation fiom the malcontents : " Whereas it has been renorted Annual Refristcr, 
 
 ,.,.,, , • , ,. .,, , , 1825, Chron. lis. 
 
 hy cvu-mnuied persons, tliat a tithe of potatoes will be taken from the poor 
 tenants of this island, and from persons little able to pay the same: — Thcv are 
 hereby assured that such titiie will not be demanded from them, either this
 
 368 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book II. 
 
 1825. year, or at any future time." These poor people needed only the assurance 
 
 ^-^"^^--^-^ that their potatoes should not be taken fronr their children to be given to the 
 
 church : and the bishop saw that it would be little for the advantage of reUgion 
 
 to give the food of the poor to the church. So there was grace on the one 
 
 side, and cheering on the other; and the affair was over for the time. 
 
 In Lancashire. gy ^^^^ spring of the next ycar, 1826, there was such fearful suffering among 
 the poor of the manufacturing districts, that no one could wonder much at the 
 spirit of violence which broke out in Lancashire. The peojile rose up against 
 the power-looms, M'hich they believed to be the cause of their distress ; and in 
 one day, every power-loom in Blackburn, and within six miles of it, Avas 
 
 i82rc'h™f o'/'' destroyed. It is worthy of note, that the rioters took the utmost care not to 
 injure any spinning machinery. Time was, when the hand-spiimers were as 
 much exasperated against spinning-jennies as the hand-loom weavers now 
 were against power-looms. They had discovered the value of the spinning 
 machinery by this time, but could not be persuaded that they should ever 
 derive any benefit from weavmg-machinery. It was a mournful spectacle in 
 Lancashire, that Aveek in April; the mob going from town to town, from 
 factory to factory ; snatching their food from bakers' shops and public houses ; 
 throwmg stones at the soldiers, and being shot do^vn, rather than give up 
 their object, believing sincerely that their very lives depended on the destruc- 
 tion of these looms ; leaping from two-story windows to escape the soldiery, 
 after haxdng cut up every web, and hewn down every beam and stick within ; 
 striking at their pursuers Avith table-knives made into pikes; with scythes and 
 sledge-hammers; swimming canals, — hiding in woods, — parading the streets 
 of towns, to the number of 10,000 at a time, frightening the night Avith cries 
 of hunger and yells of rage : — all this Avas terrible ; but it came at the end of 
 many months of such sore distress as rouses the fiercest passions of men. On 
 the first day, three persons Avere killed by the soldiers : on another day, nine : 
 here, it might be seen that Avoundcd men Avere carried aAvay across the fields : 
 there, the street Avas found, when emptied, to be " much stained Avith blood." 
 Here, a poor creature Avas loading his rusty gun Avith marbles, while the 
 manufacturers were bringing up cannon to plant round their factories : — there, 
 haggard men were setting buildings on fire, and snatching buckets from the 
 hands of those who Avould have supplied Avater to the engines. BetAveen 
 
 Annual Rogister, ;Monday momiug and Saturday night, a thousand poAver-looms Avere destroyed. 
 
 iBio, run. ». ^^^^ immediate money value of this machinery was £30,000; but it had a 
 greater value as the only means of bread of a large number of people who were 
 noAv left idle and destitute. 
 
 In Yorkshire. Ih the first Avcek in May, the INIanchester operatives rose again; and then 
 
 .■Annual Register, tkc Bradford Avool-combcrs and Aveavers met to consider " the present unpa- 
 
 182G, Cliron. 72. „.,. t- n ^ 'sii iil'l 
 
 rallelcd distress and famishing condition ot the operatives, and could think 
 of no Avay of mending it but by breaking AvindoAvs. There Avere inquests first; 
 and trials after Avards; but no relief. In Lanarkshire, the noblemen, magis- 
 tracy and gentry of the county, assembled to consult upon the Avretched and 
 heljjless state of the Glasgow operatives, knoAv no better than to throAv the 
 Annual Register, blamc On the invention of machinery. In Dublin, the starving silk-weavers 
 formed in procession, to exhibit their hunger in the streets. Tlicir idea of a 
 remedy Avas, that the public subscription raised for them should be applied in
 
 Chap. IX.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. ,%9 
 
 the purchase of the manufacturers' stocks; and thus, wlien the shelves were 182G. 
 
 cleared, they thought a new demand must at once ensue. At Trowbridge, the ' '-^— ' 
 
 people were dismayed at a rise in the price of potatoes in May, and would Annual Regisier,' 
 
 have it that the gardeners and greengrocers were hoarding the potatoes. On 
 
 market day, they attacked the gardeners' stalls so vigorously, that by eleven 
 
 o'clock not a vegetable was left in the place. The frightened butchers 
 
 removed: the soldiers came: window-breaking went on all night: a prisoner 
 
 was released by unroofing the prison; and two more were sent off to Salisbury, 
 
 for trial at the assizes. At Carlisle, the starving weavers mobbed one of the at Carlisle. 
 
 candidates for the city, clamorn-ing for a repeal of the corn laws and radical 
 
 reform; and a riot ensued, in which a woman standing at her own door, with ^™"?,', ""^pstfr, 
 
 / ... i>^iGy CUron. 94. 
 
 a key in her hand, and a little girl in the street, were shot through the head. 
 The inquests in these cases were not ceremonies tending to tranquillize the 
 exasperated. In the ii'on districts, there were strikes, and readini2S of the Eiot '" stafpord- 
 
 ^ ^ ' ^ ~ ^ SHIRE. 
 
 Act, and a scouring of the country by soldiery. In Bcthnal Green, the thieves 
 of the metropolis congregated, and robbed every body in the name of the dis- 
 tressed weavers. In Norwich, the unemployed weavers, who would not take i" Norfolk. 
 work at the wages which the manufacturers could aiford, kept watch at the 
 city gates for goods brought in from the country. They destroyed one cart- 
 load in the street, and tlucw the cart into the river ; broke the manufacturers' 
 windows; cooped in a public house three men from the country who had silk 
 canes about them; and kept the magistracy busy and alarmed for some weeks. 
 About 12,000 weavers in Norwich were then unemplojcd, and the whole city 
 in a state of depression, the more harassing from its contrast with the acti^-ity 
 and high hope of the preceding year. 
 
 While these scenes of disorder and wretchedness were witnessed from end 
 to end of the kingdom, the Ministers adhered to the principle on which they 
 had refused to issue Exchequer Bills, and declined to ptu-chase popularity by 
 the offer of any apparent assistance, while convinced that they could afford 
 none that was real and effectual. They were confident that the mischief must 
 work its o%\Ti cure, and could not be cured in any other way. Yet, something- 
 might be done to relieve the despair of the hungering, who saw large stores of 
 wheat laid up in bond in Li-N'erpool, Hull, and other ports, while the prospects 
 of the harvest were very doubtful, and pai-liament was about to be dissolved, 
 leaving the people without advocacy to the care of the government for an 
 interval of months before the noAv parliament could assemble. The Ministers 
 and Parliament had agi'eed, early in the session, that it would be improper to 
 bring forward the whole question of the Corn Laws while the country was in 
 a state of high excitement, and on the eve of a general election. But it was ]ily],'EB coly 
 thought by Ministers that the 300,000 quarters of corn in bond in the ports Hansard, xt. 795. 
 might be let out without tampering with the great question, and without doing 
 any appreciable injury to the agricultural interest ; while the manufacturers 
 declared that even the small imports of foreign corn which would follow upon 
 such a measure would afford just the stimulus to their business that -was 
 wanted. They were ready to resume business if they could obtain any returns 
 from abroad of the only commodity whiili their foreign customers could at 
 present send with advantage. It was decided, after eager and protracted 
 discussions, that the people sliould have the prospect of a suj)])ly of food, 
 
 ^<>I.. I. 3 1)
 
 370 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 [Book II. 
 
 1826. 
 
 Opening the 
 Ports. 
 
 Hansard, XT. 13C0, 
 
 Alarm op 
 Scarcity. 
 
 Annual Rpgisler, 
 1820, p. 173. 
 
 under arrangements which met the objections of both the parties who were 
 constantly opposed to each other on all branches of the question of the Corn 
 Laws. The manufacturers were to be gratified by the letting out of bond of 
 the 300,000 quarters already in the ports : and the agricultural interest 
 obtained the point that no prices and amounts of duty should be fixed in 
 relation to the further supply of 500,000 quarters which the Ministers were 
 authorized to import, if necessary, within the space of two months. The 
 responsibility in regard to the prices and duties was thrown wholly upon the 
 Ministers by the agriculturists, lest any fixing of these by parliament should 
 be made a precedent in any future action for the repeal of the Com Laws. 
 This period of two months was short; and the amount of 500,000 quarters 
 was less than half of the largest previous importation : so that the aiTange- 
 m^ent was not so fonuidable but that the landed interest were brought to agree 
 to it, under the extreme pressure of the times, while the manufacturers were 
 thankful for even this slight relaxation of the laws to which they were willing 
 to ascribe almost the whole of their distresses. The opposition to both bills 
 was strong in the House of Lords ; but the Premier made an earnest appeal 
 to them in view of a possible scarcity of food during the recess, following upon 
 all the recent disasters which had afflicted the country ; and at last, both bills 
 passed their Lordships' House on the 26th of May. 
 
 The object of the Ministers, real and avowed, in urging these bills, was to 
 obtain a constitutional permission to do that which they might otherwise be 
 compelled to do without authority, and on the chance of procui-ing indemnity 
 when the new parliament should meet. They foresaw that they should be 
 compelled to open the ports, during the recess, whether they obtained leave 
 beforehand or not : and of course they were extremely anxious for such autho- 
 rization. But after all, it did not answer their purpose. The hot summer of 
 1826 is well remembered. It was not very unfavourable to wheat, of which 
 there was about an average crop. But the barley crop was far below the 
 average: and at one time it appeared as if there would be no oats or pulse at 
 all. Oats are generally highest in June, when the preceding year's crop is 
 coming to an end. This year, oats were 22s. lid. in the middle of June; and 
 the price went on rising, instead of falling, through July and August, till, on 
 the 1st of September, it had risen to 30s. There was so little grass that the 
 cattle were fed on dry fodder on the richest meadow lands in England, which 
 were brown and burnt as if a fire had passed over them. The deer in noble- 
 men's parks died of drought : ponds and reservoirs were shrunk to muddy 
 pools : hard-working people sat up all night to watch the springs, — some to 
 carry home drink to their children, — others to have a commodity of cold water 
 to sell in the morning. In some high-lying towns, the richest people made 
 presents to one another of little pitchers of fresh water; and the consumption 
 of beer increased much among those who were disgusted with the warm and 
 stagnant water yielded by the brooks when the wells were all dry. All the 
 accounts from the north of Europe told of a rise in the price of oats and pulse, 
 like that at home ; and this increased the alarm. By the 1st of September, 
 the importation price was passed: but before the ports could be opened, the 
 average must be struck of the price above the importation price ; and the first 
 average would not be struck till the 15th of November. The Minister
 
 Chap. IX-l DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 371 
 
 decided not to wait for the quarterly average, but to issue an order In Council 1826. 
 at once for the admission of oats, rye, beans and pease. What was in bond ' — ' ■ ' 
 
 , " , ^ . Annual Register, 
 
 was brought into the market immediately: and the fresh imports were sub- is^c, p. n4. 
 jected to additional duties, to be confirmed by parliament when it should meet. 
 Thus, after all. Ministers were reduced to forestall the action of parliament, 
 and to seek an act of indemnity for themselves. Such a necessity was not 
 without its good results. It tended, like every perplexity and irregularity of 
 the kind, to disgust sensible people with that system of restriction on food 
 which was to be put an end to by a member of the administration of that 
 time. 
 
 The miserable are always restless. Hunger roams from land to land, as emicbation. 
 pain tosses on the bed it cannot leave. Tlie famished and cold cannot sit still 
 on the bare ground while there is life within them, and a capacity of hope 
 whicli points to food and warmth which may be had elsewhere. The poor 
 Irish, with their wistful looks and their tatters, are poured out upon the coasts 
 of England and Scotland every year: and when they are too many for the 
 existing work and food, or when the work and food fall short from other 
 causes, the grave and decent poor of England and Scotland wander away too, 
 shipping themselves off westwards, or to our furthest settlements in the east. 
 The subject of Emigi-ation must, sooner or later, become one of interest and 
 importance to every civilized state ; and soonest to an insular kingdom. It may 
 be theoretically a question whether, if the English nation had been altogether 
 wise, — had assumed the conduct of its own civilization, instead of being the 
 subject, and in some sense the victim, of its own civilization, — the time would 
 have yet arrived for sending abroad any of its people. It may be a question 
 whether, if we were all wise and all of one mind about social afiairs, there is 
 not enough for every one to do and to enjoy on his native soil. This is a 
 theoretical question now, which may become a practical one any day ; and the 
 sooner the better. But it has, for a course of years now, been a prominent 
 question how best to arrange matters for the needy among our people, who 
 ^vill and must roam, because they have no food for their little ones, and no 
 liome for their own hearts. The restlessness which forces upon us the question 
 of Emigration is of course greatest in seasons of adversity: and in the adversity 
 of the year 1826 it was fierce enough to originate what may prove to be an 
 important period in our national liistory. 
 
 In 1825, it was announced to the country that the business of the Colonial I'^s^^'throD'ti" 
 Office had so increased of late years, that it had become necessary to have an 
 additional Under Secretary of State. Mr. R. Wilmot Ilorton was the existing colomai. OfncE. 
 Under Secretary; and Mr. R. W. Hay was now appointed in addition. It 
 may be well that a future time should see what amount of business was appor- 
 tioned to our Colonial Secretaries in 1825, when Emigration, in the modern 
 import of the word, first began seriously to engage the attention of society. It 
 is still our way to approve of our Colonial INIiuister as we approve of ^Ministers 
 for home offices, on account of his general character and qualifications, without 
 much regard to his capacity for a function requiring a special and elaborate 
 training. It is still our way to permit our Colonial jNIinister to go out and 
 come i]i at short intervals, as if the stability of the administration wore not of 
 the highest importance, when his administration extends over various and
 
 372 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book II. 
 
 1826. distant countries. It is still too probable that a Colonial Minister's first 
 business is to shut himself up in his study, and find out on the globe where 
 the territories lie which he has to set about governing. But we are begiiuiing 
 to learn how absurd it is to exjject the machinery of the Colonial Office to do 
 the necessary work; to understand the growing magnitude of the business of 
 colonization, and to be prepared for a reconstitution and prodigious enlarge- 
 ment of the office which is to superintend it. When this impending change 
 is made, men will look back with astonishment on this list furnished in 1825, 
 of the colonies whose affairs at head-quarters had to be managed by Mr. 
 Wilmot Ilorton and Mr. Hay. 
 
 Mr. R. Wilmot Horton: — Jamaica, Barbadoes, St. Christopher, Nev-is and 
 Tortola, Antigua and Montserrat, Dominica, Grenada, St. Lucia, St. Vincent, 
 Tobago, Trinidad, Demerara and Essequibo, Berbice, Honduras, Bahamas, 
 Bermuda, Lower Canada, Upper Canada, Nova Scotia and Cape Breton, New 
 Brunswick, Prince Edward's Island, Newfoundland. Commission of Inquiiy 
 and Criminal Justice, West Indies; and Apprenticed Aiiicans. 
 
 Mr. Hay : — Gibraltar, Malta, Ionian Isles, Morocco, Algiers, Tmiis, Tripoli, 
 Missions to the Interior of Africa, Sierra Leone, Gold Coast, Cape of Good 
 Hope, Heligoland, New South Wales, Van Diemen's Land, Ceylon, Mauritius, 
 East Indies. Commission of Inquiry, Cape, Mauritius and Ceylon : Sierra 
 Leone. 
 
 The work of assisting Emigi'ation was henceforth to be looked forward to 
 by the Colonial Office as a part of its business. Since 1822, Government had 
 given occasional aid to Emigration to Canada: and now it heard on every side 
 of expectations from individuals and societies that it would assist in conveying 
 the neejly to new fields of labour. The landowners of a Scotch county applied 
 to Ministers for encoiu'agement to their poor to emigrate : and the working men 
 .formed themselves into societies, in many parts of the country, whose object 
 was to obtain funds for Emigration from rich neighbours and from the govern- 
 ment. Government was compelled to deliberate on this important svibject. 
 It would not do to go on giving sums of money here and there, Avithout 
 inquiring what was done with it. It was not right to continue supplying 
 grants without knowing how the former schemes had issued. It was not 
 possible to keep at home the poor creatures, rendered desperate by want, who 
 were resolved to try their fortunes abroad; and it was cruel to let them go 
 wholly unprepared and destitute. It became known, by this time, how piteous 
 was the lot of the emigrant when ho found himself among the snows of 
 Canada, with the remnant of his family about him, — the few whom hardship 
 and fever and the miseries of the voyage had spared, — and no possessions 
 whatever but the axe on his shoulder and the tatters they wore. It became 
 known how the Irish who flock to the United States are naturally regarded as 
 a nuisance in their ports: and how they die in the swamps, digging canals 
 which the Americans will not work at, and crouching in shanties which no 
 American would enter, — unless it were the missionary and the priest. Society 
 hatl not yet awakened to the perception of what EmigTation ought to be ; had 
 not yet admitted the conception of a small, complete society, removed with all 
 needful appliances to a new scene where it would be bound together as at 
 home by its mutual wants and aids; by its capital aiul its labour; its church.
 
 Chap. IX.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 373 
 
 its schools, its gradations of ranks and employments, and sufficient powers of 1826. 
 self-government. Such a conception as this had not yet entered the mind of 
 the government or of the nation: hut all were aware that the desperate and 
 random Emigration of the time was bad, and must give place to something 
 better. 
 
 On the 14th of :March, 1826, Mr. R. Wilmot Horton moved " that a Select f^Z"'""^""' 
 Committee he appointed to inquire into the expediency of encouraging Emi- """'"''■''"■'•"'''• 
 gration from the United Kingdom." He detailed the circumstances of the 
 experiments of the years 1823 and 1825, when, first, 268 persons emigrated 
 from Ireland to Canada at the expense of £22 each; and next, 2024 persons 
 followed at an expense of £20 each. It had never been the intention of govern- 
 ment to go on making grants for the removal of paupers in this mode : but it 
 was thought that the issue of these first attempts was sufficiently favourable 
 to indicate further inquiry and consideration. As the scheme was advocated 
 on the ground of its being a successful method of removing paupers, it was 
 opposed as an expensive and fruitless remedy for pauperism, as the numbers 
 removed could never pcrcejjtibly reduce the superabundance of labour at home. 
 The wider considerations of the benefits of calHng new regions into fertility, 
 and of creating new markets, and thus feeding and employing many who 
 remained beliind ; the considerations of the proper ages of those who were to 
 go ; of their mutual apportionment and co-operation as capitalists and labourers ; 
 of the means of making Emigration presently self-supporting and expansive : 
 these points were not yet discussed because they were not yet thought of. 
 The great subject wliich was soon to become a science was as yet treated super- 
 ficially, partially, and empirically. But a beginning was made. The Com- 
 mittee asked for was appointed; and it presented its Report and EA'idence 
 before the dissolution of Parliament, Avith a recommendation that the subject HaDsar(i,xvi.23i. 
 should be pursued without loss of time. 
 
 It was a disastrous year, — this year 1826: but if we have seen what miseries 
 marked its progress, we have witnessed too the birth of a great redeeming 
 blessing. It is possible that fi'om the woes and the terror and the clamour of 
 that fearful season may have sprung the fertilization and peopling of vast new 
 regions abroad, and the redemption of future generations at home.
 
 37-1 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book II. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 1825. npHE year 1825 was marked by nothing more conspiciiously than by a great 
 
 ^-^..^^--^^^ -»- change in the aspect and conduct of the Catholic question. In a pre- 
 
 Tio™"''"^ ^"^''' ceding page of this History, a promise was given of a brief narrative of tliis 
 
 great question : and here, at the beginning of its final stage, we seem to be at 
 
 the right point for a rapid review of its history. 
 
 The difficulty of most or all perilous political questions lies in the relation 
 they bear to the long distant past : a past which did not involve social principles 
 that have since become of primary importance, and by whose rule the matter 
 must be finally disposed of. For long before the present date, there had been 
 an incessant and unmanageable confusion in the general mind of the anti- 
 Catholic party between the religious and political mischiefs of admitting the 
 Catholics to an equality of civil rights with the Protestants : and tliis confusion 
 itself was modern, compared with the sufferings of the Catholics. This was 
 because the sufferings of the Catholics began in an age when there was no 
 distinction between civil and religious rights. When the distinction rose into 
 recognition, the Romanists were actively persecuted, sometimes on the re- 
 ligious, and sometimes on the political ground : and when the persecution be- 
 came negative, and therefore confined to the political ground, their enemies 
 had still not arrived at any clearness of thought, or any common agreement, 
 as to the basis of their opposition to the Catholic claims. This is illustrated 
 by the whole course of the history of those claims. 
 Review op the The Reformation is, of course, the point fi-om which the separate storv of 
 
 Question ; 1635. y ^, • r J 
 
 the Catholic body must date. When Henry VIII., by his emissaries, demo- 
 lished the holy shrine of St. Kieran, and turned out its relics into the street, 
 and burned the costly crozier of St. Patrick, he did not persecute the Irish 
 Catholics as Irish, but as Catholics : but his acts had the immediate effect of 
 uniting in a general hostility to England the chiefs and tribes who were before 
 incessantly at feud with each other. Nobody then thought of the distinction 
 which grew up in a subsequent age. There was so little call for a religious 
 reformation in Ireland, that we have it on good authority that there were not 
 sixty Protestants in the island when Elizabeth became queen. During her 
 " vigorous rule " in Ireland, she and her ministers made no nice distinctions 
 between her functions of head of the Church and head of the State, in the 
 penal laws decreed against the Irish Catholics, and the legalized force by which 
 she put down the Irish malcontents. In spite of the talk of the reformed re- 
 ligion in both countries, and the laws against the exercise of the Catholic religion, 
 the conflicting parties were evidently full of political matters, and not of re- 
 ligious. The English government employed Catholic officials in the most im- 
 portant and confidential services in Ireland ; even, if they belonged to the 
 Pale, in repelling the Spanish invasions which took place on account of her
 
 Chap. X.J DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 375 
 
 anti-Catholic laws and policy. The Catholics of the Pale fought agaiiist those 1825. 
 out of the Pale ; and in the reign of James I., as a fierce Catholic, O'Sullivan, 
 tells us, "the eyes even of the English Irish" (the Cathohes of the Pale) 
 " were opened, and they cursed their former folly for helping the heretic." 
 Elizaheth's wars were waged against the chiefs of savages : chiefs whose trihes 
 knew nothing of tillage, of homes, of property, or comforts ; who, in the re- 
 moter parts of the island, went almost unclothed, and lay down round fires to 
 sleep on the ground. These chiefs had lands to be rohbed of. " There will he 
 lands for those who want," said Queen Elizabeth, by way of stirring up her 
 officials, when there were tidings that O'Neal was about to rise : and it would, 
 no doubt, have been exactly the same, — the whole course of her conquest of 
 the rebels, whatever had been their religion, of all that existed, fi-om pole to 
 pole. Meantime, her Protestant church of sixty members did not expand to 
 her wish, though she gave bounties to it, and proscribed its enemies. When 
 it did expand, it was not from conversions in Ireland, but by the accession 
 of the colonists of her successor, and the settlement of the soldiers of 
 Cromwell. 
 
 The confusion which arose after the incursion of these new dwellers gave iciw. 
 
 rise to the Act of Settlement, by which 7,800,000 acres of land were trans- 
 ferred from Irish Catholic to English Protestant proprietors. At the first possible 
 moment, — that is, during the brief season when James II. held up his head in 
 Ireland, — the native parliament, in which only six Protestants sat, repealed 
 the Act of Settlement, against the will of the king. The battle of the Boyne 
 presently overthrew whatever had been done : and it is not to be wondered at 
 that the Popery laws which succeeded were excessively severe. Though they 
 said a great deal about religious error, they were imposed in dread of a pohtical 
 foe, whose physical force was truly formidable. " The Protestant ascendancy 
 of Ireland," savs the Edinbm"li Eeview of Sir J. Throckmorton's work on the '^■""''"r?'' '^^, , 
 
 ^ -J o view, vlii. p. 315. 
 
 Catholic question, " cared very little about purgatory and the seven sacra- 
 ments. They acted upon principles simply political ; and their severity was not 
 derived from polemical rancour, but from the two great springs of bitterness, 
 which turn the milk of human nature into gall : — revenge and fear. They 
 knew what the vanquished had done in the hour of success ; they looked at 
 their numbers with dread, and sought to strengthen the barriers of law against 
 the rude arm of physical power. The system of the Popery laws, indeed, in 
 Ireland, must be looked at as a whole. In their present state (1806) they are 
 folly, caprice, feeble and petulant tyranny. As they stood originally, they were 
 vigorous and consistent ; the firm, well-rivetted fetters of conquest, locking 
 into one another, and stretching down the captive giant to the floor." 
 
 jNIore forfeitures ensued as soon as King T\'illiam had driven out his enemy. irai 
 
 The estates transferred on this occasion are declared to have covered 1,000,793 
 acres. The one circumstance which softened their political adversity to the 
 Irish was that by the treaty of Limerick, framed when the struggle was over, 
 the free exercise of their religion was secured to them for the future, on the 
 strength of the King's guarantee for himself, his heirs and successors, as far 
 as in him lay. By the words of the treaty it was expressly declared, that " the 
 Roman Catholics should enjoy such pri\ileges in the exercise of their religion 
 as are consistent with the laws of Ireland, or as they did enjoy in the reign of
 
 376 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book II. 
 
 1825. Charles II. ; and their Majesties, as soon as they can summon a parliament in 
 this kingdom, will endeavour to prociue the said Roman Catholics such further 
 security in that particular as may preserve them from any disturhance on ac- 
 count of their religion." These articles, afterwards puhlished in letters patent 
 under the Great Seal, were signed hy the English general on the 3rd of October, 
 1691 : and for three weeks the Irisli Romanists were hopeful and liappy. But 
 it was only for three weeks : and then followed a season of oppression so cruel 
 as to provoke the question how it could have been borne, in an age of the world 
 so advanced. Of the English government of that time, Bm-ke says, " the 
 severe and jealous policy of a conqueror in the crude settlement of his new 
 acquisition, was strangely made a permanent rule for its future government." 
 And of the oppressed party. Swift declared that it was "just as inconsiderable 
 in point of power as the women and children." In this weakness lay their 
 strength. It was nourishing the germ of that future Catholic Question which 
 was soon to begin disturbing cabinets, and vdth more and more power, till, a 
 century after, it should be looked upon with constant dread as the explosive 
 force which was to shatter one administration after another for five-and-thirty 
 years together, and threaten at last to revolutionize the empire. Little did the 
 government of Queen Anne foresee the consequences of setting its lieel on the 
 neck of the Catholic interest : but, though it could not foreknow how it would 
 perplex and destroy a succession of administrations, and craze the feeble 
 brain of a sovereign, and invite invasion again and again, it might have re- 
 membered how dangerous it is to sink individuals, and, yet more, whole classes 
 so low, that they can fall no lower, and will therefore make desperate efforts to 
 raise themselves. They might have taken to heart Swift's words ; " General 
 calamities, without hopes of redress, are allowed to be the great uniters of man- 
 kind ; since nature hath instructed even a brood of goslings to stick together, 
 while the kite is hovering over their heads. It is certain that a firm union in 
 any coimtry where every man wishes the same thing with relation to the public, 
 may, in several points of the greatest importance, in some measure supply the 
 defect of power ; and even of those rights which are the natural and undoubted 
 inheritance of mankind." 
 treitv OP Lime- On the 3rd of October, 1691, as we have said, the treaty of Limeiick, includ- 
 '"'^** ing provisions favourable to the Catholics, was signed. On the 22nd of the 
 
 same month, the English parliament decreed that Irish members of both Houses 
 should take the oaths of sujiremacy : an enactment which excluded Catholics 
 from both the Irish houses of parliament. King William forgot his pledge to 
 recommend the liberties of the Catholics to the attention of parliament. Three 
 years after that pledge was given, and when nothing had been done to redeem 
 it, a set of enactments was passed which left the Romanists in such a condition 
 that the wonder is that they did not spring at the throats of their oppressors, 
 and peril every thing for a savage revenge. All Catholics were disarmed, and 
 the priests banished : — that much might have been borne : but the whole body 
 were deprived of all means of educating their children ; and were prohibited 
 from being the guardians, not only of other people's childi-en, but of their own. 
 reigs of qijeen ^s tiiis ^as endurcd, other piivations followed in 1704. Every son who woidd 
 
 ANNE; 1701. '1 J ^ 
 
 turn Protestant, might now succeed to the family estate, which was stringently 
 secured to him. A boy of ten years old, or younger, might tlius dispossess his
 
 Chap. X.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 377 
 
 family, if he declared himself a Protestant. A Catholic could no longer pur- 1826. 
 chase land, or enjoy a long lease, or make more than a certain income by his 
 land, or marry a Protestant, or take his place in a line of entail, or hold any 
 office, civil or military, or vote at elections, or, except under certain conditions, 
 dwell in Limerick or Galway. Five years after, more penalties were added; 
 and again in the next reign. Any son of a Catholic might bring his father 
 into Chancery, force him to declare on oath the value of his property, and to settle 
 such an allowance upon the family informer as the court should decree, not only 
 for the father's life, but the son's. This was a zeal for religion indeed, Avhicli 
 could slight morality, and set up a new commandment in the place of the old 
 one, which enjoins honour to fother and mother. Catholics keeping schools 
 were to be prosecuted as convicts ; and Papists were bound to furnish Pro- 
 testant watchmen for the towns, and horses for the militia. Any priest cele- 
 brating marriage between a Papist and a Protestant was to be hanged. No 
 CathoHcs were to enter the profession of the law ; and any lawyer marrying a 
 Catholic was to be held a Papist. If it makes the heart sick now to read these 
 things, done little more than a century ago, and done in the name of the religion 
 professed by both parties, what must it have been to have endured them ! 
 What must have been the interior of Catholic households in those days ! If the 
 blessing of education had been left them, Ave might understand their patience : 
 and we can but hope that circumstances were to them an education sufficient 
 for their needs : for the children did not rise against their parents ; nor the 
 oppressed against their oppressors. There was no rebellion during the scries 
 of years which added weight to the oppression with every new parliament. 
 Tliese Catholic households had, in the absence of learning, their faith, which 
 they found sufficient to bind them together in love, to strengthen them against 
 temptation, and inider poverty ; to nerve them to courage, and fortify them for 
 endurance. Thus it was at the time, while the spirit of confessorship was fresh 
 and strong among them. But it is the first fruits of adversity only, or chiefly, 
 that are blessed. In coiuse of time, the enforced ignorance began to tell upon 
 the mind, and the unrelieved oppression upon the temper, of the Catholic body ; 
 and we see the results now in those moral defects of the Irish which perpetuate 
 their social miseries after the oppression has been remoAcd. It should be re- 
 membered, on the other hand, that the spirit of the Reformation, which attri- 
 buted all the evils in the world to Papistry, had not died out : that the memory 
 of the worst days of the Incpiisition was fresh, and the horror of the Gunpowder 
 Plot, and the dread of the Stuarts. It was a mistake to suppose that the evils 
 which took place under the prevalence of the Catholic faith were all attribut- 
 able to that faith : and it was another mistake to suppose that any faith can be 
 exthpated by persecution : but those were not days of philosophical statesman- 
 ship ; and it would be unreasonable to look for the springing up of political 
 philosophy by the light of Guy Fawkes's lantern, on the footsteps of successive 
 Pretenders. 
 
 The first dawn of promise of better days appears to have followed upon the 
 quietness of the Irish in the two Stuart rebellions. While Scotland and the 
 north of England were up in anns, the Catholics of Ireland gave no trouble : 
 and the Brunswick sovereigns were gratified and grateful. It was during their 
 reigns that the Catholics had been deprived of the franchise : but that act had 
 
 VOL. I. 3 E
 
 378 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 [Book II. 
 
 1826. 
 
 Irish Interest. 
 
 1757. 
 
 Gbattan. 
 
 1780. 
 
 Volunteers. 
 
 been an adverting again to a political froni a religious ground. The English 
 faction had for some time been becoming Irish in its habits and predilections. 
 As j\Ir. Burke said, " The English, as they began to be domiciliated, began also 
 to recollect that thej' had a country ; — what was at first strictly an English 
 interest, by faint and almost insensible degi'ees, but at length openly and 
 avowedly, became an independent Irish interest." The government feared an 
 union between the two classes of Irish residents, which might become formidable 
 to EngHsh rule ; and they rendered the Catholic class politically powerless, by 
 depriving them of the only remnant of social influence they still held — the 
 franchise. But, when the Irish remained quiet during the two rebellions, they 
 procured for themselves a degree of good-wiU from the English government 
 Avhich opened the way for their final emancipation. Their quietness was called 
 " loyalty ;" a term which it would be no credit to them to accord : for they 
 owed no faith to a sovereignty which had kept none with them, but had humbled 
 them from the rank of subjects to that of slaves. By whatever name it may 
 be called, their demeanour obtained for them some countenance from George II. 
 and his minister, Walpole : and in 1757 they first reappeared as a distinct 
 moving body in the state, — presenting an address at Dublin Castle, during the 
 viceroyalty of the Duke of Bedford. 
 
 The " restraining system" continued, however, without material relaxation, 
 for twenty years longer. By that time, a yoimg champion of liberty had risen 
 up, ready to make use of, and to ripen, a better state of ideas and feelings than 
 had existed in the days of his fathers. By lapse of time, men's minds had be- 
 come enlarged, and their hearts freed from some old fears and hatreds : and 
 Grattan was one to make the most of improved facilities, and to win over the 
 best minds to the right side. After obtaining the removal of some restrictions 
 on Irish commerce, he carried in the Irish parliament, in 1780, the memorable 
 resolution, " that the King's Most Excellent Majesty, and the Lords and Com- 
 mons of Ireland, are the only competent power to make laws to bind Ireland." 
 Many disqualifying statutes were repealed in the few subsequent years : and 
 the admission of Catholics to a fi'eer possession and disposal of land was the 
 cause of that development of agriculture to which Ireland owes the greater 
 part of the improvement in her material resources from that day to this. 
 
 Some students of history look upon this year 1780 as the date of an Irish 
 Revolution as important to the Irish as that of 1688 had been to Great Britain. 
 Like most revolutions, it was achieved by the use of irregular instriunents. It 
 is not our business here to give over again the lustory of the Irish Volunteers ; 
 but merely to point to them and their agency, as a precedent which must be 
 kept in view when we come to the contemplation of future volunteer asso- 
 ciations in Ireland. The volunteers of the last centruy achieved a great work 
 with little or no damage or discredit : they were repeatedly thanked by parlia- 
 ment : they were honoured and praised by the best part of society, in both 
 England and Ireland : and there can be no reasonable wonder, after this, at the 
 formation of future volunteer societies, when further liberties had to be con- 
 tended for, and must, in the nature of things, be won. From the date of the 
 victories of 1780, it was certain that the questions of Irish and Catholic dis- 
 qualifications could never again be put aside. Complete equality with English- 
 men and Protestants, or complete separation, was thenceforth assured to the
 
 RENGrH OF 
 
 rnoLics. 
 
 Cii.vr. X.J DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 379 
 
 Catholics of Ireland. The English government had relinquished (under what- 1826. 
 ever compulsion) the function of oppressor. There could he no rest now till it 
 assumed that of liherator. And till the liberation was accomplished, there was 
 no rest. During the interval of delay, the mind of the sovereign was per- 
 turbed, — once to the point of insanity ; — every cabinet was first distracted 
 and then broken up ; — and parliament was agitated by the perpetual renewal 
 of the Catholic demand for justice, and the spectacle of the giadual strength- 
 ening of the claim which could never more be got rid of. 
 
 By this time, it must be remembered, the Catholics had largely increased in^^^' 
 numbers. It is disputed whether, in 1800, there was any increase at all in the 
 numbers of the Protestants in Ireland during the preceding half century : and it is 
 certain that from two to one, the Catholics had then become four to one. The 
 penal laws had tended to banish the Catholics from the towns, and drive them 
 into a rural hfe, — too often sordid as their hopes, and wild as their despair. There 
 in their recklessness, and under the influence of their priests, (who always 
 promote marriage to the utmost,) the population had increased at an unusually 
 rapid rate. The wise saw, at the end of the last century, that the Catholic 
 Question had become, in fact, a physical force question. It had long been said, 
 by a succession of WTiters and speakers, that the Catholics would obtain their 
 Ubcrties only by the fears and the wants of their oppressors : and now it began 
 to be clear, with their numbers thickening on the Irish soil, and foes gathering 
 against England on the Continent, that the time was coming for the fears of 
 government to act. The rebellion of 1798 showed, to every man living at the 
 time, what cause the government had for fear, and what its fears led it to do. 
 Those fears led to the Act of Union in 1800, which Act was agreed to by the 
 people of Ireland on a virtual pledge from j\Ir. Pitt that tlie Catholic disabili- 
 ties should be removed. There is no doubt that Mr. Pitt 25ur2)osed what he 
 was held to have promised : but he pledged himself to more than he could ac- 
 complish. He promised more, on behalf both of King ar.d parliament, than 
 either was willing to perfonn. The King scrupled about the Coronation Oath, 
 with regard to which he declared that his mind had been made up ever since 
 he came to the throne, in 1760. As he had done his part in rcjiealing penal 
 laws in 1778 and 1793, it was hardly to be supposed that he would make a 
 stand in his course of concession at the point now reached : but Mr. Pitt had 
 not formally ascertained that he would not : and a vigorous stand indeed Avas 
 now made. 
 
 With regard to the Coronation Oath, — the fact is, that it was framed at a coronation 
 time when Catholics sat in both houses of parliament in Ireland, and when 
 they were eligible to all offices, civil and military. The oath ^^•as taken by 
 King William two years before tlie disquahfpng statutes of his reign were 
 passed. Much more might be said about the intent, scojie, and terms of the 
 Coronation Oath, showing that it did not bear upon the question of the exclu- 
 sion of the Catholics : but the fact of the date is enough. The king, George 
 III. however, was not one to discern things that differ, or to admit facts which 
 opposed his opinions. So, when Lord Melville endeavoured to show him tliat 
 his oath did not disqualify him for improving the legislation of the country, 
 the King stopped him with the words " None of your Scotch metaphysics ! " 
 According to his own notion, he settled the matter by the well-known decla-
 
 380 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book II. 
 
 1826. ration which went to Pitt's lieart, that he should consider any man his 
 """^ ' personal enemy who proposed any measure of relaxation of the CathoUc dis- 
 abilities. He was not enlightened enough to know that the affairs of nations 
 cannot wait on the ignorance of kings. There were too many who helped to 
 keep him in the dark, hy applauses of his conscientiousness, and pleas on 
 behalf of his perverted sense of responsibility. There were too many who, 
 finding every ground of reasoning, pohtical and religious, cut from under them, 
 by the advance of time and enlightenment, clung to the one remaining plea, — 
 ^^ml'"' ^^^^^ ''■'^^ King must not be vexed. Pitt was too wise to class himself Avith any 
 of these : but yet he could not follow what he clearly saw to be the right. He 
 had, by some carelessness, brought himself into a difficulty which was too 
 strong for him. Even he, who took upon himself more responsibilities than 
 any other man of his day would have ventured to assume, was overcome by 
 the force of the dilemma in which he found himself placed. The King's 
 tendency to insanity formed the peculiarity of the case. The man who saw 
 the case so clearly, — the pressing nature of the Catholic claims, and the requi- 
 sitions of his own honour in regard to them, writhed under the anguish of 
 having driven the King into madness, and shrank from the risk of causing a 
 repetition of the calamity, though millions of wronged subjects were waiting 
 for their promised rights, and his own honour was importunate for satisfaction. 
 It was a cruel position ; and any man may be fi-eely pitied who finds himself 
 
 Diaries, iv. 34. in it, however he came there. " The King," says Lord Malmesbury (March 
 7th, 1801), "in directing Willis to speak or M-rite to Pitt, said, ' Tell him I 
 am now quite recovered from my illness ; but what has he not to answer for, 
 who is the cause of my having been ill at all ? ' This, on being repeated, 
 affected Pitt so deeply, that it immediately produced the letter mentioned 
 above, and brought fi'om him the declaration of his readiness to give way on 
 the Catholic question." Pitt's letter "was most dutiful, himible, and con- 
 trite." Here was one side of his difficulty. The other was, in Lord Malmes- 
 
 Diarip.^ iv. 9. bury's words, " While all these arrangements are making at home — all public 
 business is at a stand : we forget the host of enemies close upon us, and every 
 body's mind thinks on one object only, unmindful that all they are contending 
 about may vanish and disappear if we are subdued by France." 
 
 The danger was imminent of the Irish uniting with the French against that 
 tlii'one which the King declared would become the right of the House of Savoy 
 if he violated the Coronation Oath : and imminent the danger remained when 
 1801. Mr. Pitt came in again in 1804. But he had had too terrible a fright ever to 
 recover his courage ; and he avoided the question during the short remainder 
 ii!07. of his life. In 1807, there was much stir about it, and the subject was 
 brought forward in parliament, in the belief, authorized by some of the 
 ministers, that the King had become apathetic about this, as about other 
 public affairs : but, when appealed to for his opinion, by the enemies of eman- 
 cipation, he showed himself as determined and as anxious as ever ; and Lord 
 
 Diaries, iv. 378. Camdcu intimated to Lord Malmesbury that he conceived himself to have 
 given a sort of pledge to Pitt, " that the question should not be mooted during 
 the King's life." Lord Camden himself was, " like many others, not so much 
 against the principle of emancipation, as because the King had declared him- 
 self." Foolish and wrong as such a reason was, it was one which tended to
 
 CiiAr. X.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. , 381 
 
 keep the Catholics from rebellion. If they could really believe that their 1826. 
 emancipation was awaiting the death of an infirm man of sixty-eight, they ^— ^-^— ^ 
 might well have patience, in the hope of obtaining what they wanted by law, 
 instead of by violence. And theii- condition was no longer one which it was 
 difficnlt to endure from day to day, though it was such as they could not 
 acquiesce in as peraranent. At that time, in 1807, their disabilities were 
 these. 
 
 The CathoHcs of Ireland could not sit in either House of Parliament. No disabilities op 
 
 Catholics. 
 
 Catholic could be a guardian to a Protestant; and no priest could be a Edinburgh Re- 
 giuirdian at all. No Catholic could present to an ecclesiastical living, though 
 Protestant dissenters, and even Jews, could do so. Catholics were allowed to 
 have arms only under certain restrictions ; and no Catholic could be employed 
 as a fowler, or keep any arms or warlike stores, for sale or otherwise. The 
 pecuniary qualification of Catholic was higher than that of Protestant jurors. 
 The hst of offices, state and municijial, to which Catholics were ineligible, is 
 long ; and they were practically excluded from the public service. They Avere 
 also liable to the penalties of the severest of the old laws, if they did not punc- 
 tually exempt themselves by taking the oath and declaration prescribed by 13 
 and 1-1 George III., c. 3. Their legal disabilities occasioned incalculable suf- 
 fering in their social relations, — legal degradation being always an invitation 
 to the baser part of society to inflict insult and privation which cannot be reta- 
 liated. There was a systematic exclusion of Catholics from juries in Ireland ; 
 and in some districts absolutely a banishment of them from the soil. Every 
 Catholic was so effectually excommunicated, in certain i)arts of Ireland, that Edinburgh Re. 
 
 1 11 1 • -1 1 •,' 1 1 1 riew, xi. I'G. 
 
 lie could not preserve his property, or remain on tlie spot : and it lie happened 
 to die before he could effect liis removal, the jiassing bell was jerked into a 
 merry measure. Some wretched facts of this nature were related, not only at 
 a general meeting of Catholics held in April 1807, but by Protestant noblemen 
 and magistrates residing in Ireland, one of whom. Lord Gosford, chief magis- 
 trate of the county of Armagh, published a statement whose date alone 
 could make us believe that it belongs to the present century. Still, as there 
 appeared to be hope after the death of a man of sixty-eight, the Catholics did 
 not rebel. 
 
 In 1808, both Houses of Parliament refused to entertain the subject of 
 Catholic Emancipation, under existing circumstances. On that occasion, Mr. 
 Grattan first introduced the proposition of the Veto, afterwards so much dis- 
 cussed, according to which the King was to have power to put his Veto upon 
 the nomination of Catholic Bishops. Mr. Grattan spoke as by authority : but 
 a large portion of the Catholic body disapproved of the offer ; and it occasioned 
 much dissension among them. During Mr. Perceval's administration, broken 
 up by his death in 1812, it had been a principle of his cabinet to resist the 
 Catholic claims : but the resistance was based on no ground of principle, liut 
 only on the plea of unfiivourable circumstances. Still, therefore, the Catholics 
 might wait. But they were disposed to prepare for a change of circumstances, 
 and if possible to hasten matters a little : so they enlarged the numbers, 
 i)owers, and scope of their Catholic Committee, which met, debated, issued catholic com. 
 
 • 1 1 • • 1 • 11 ,. 1 1 • 1,. ,- MITTCE. 1811. 
 
 circulars, and originated action, and then dissolved itself, from year to year. 
 -V vain war was waged against this Committee in 1811 and 1812, by the Irish
 
 382 . HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book II. 
 
 1826. Govenimcut;, on the ground of the Convention Act of 1793. But the Catholics 
 ""^ continued to carry thi-ough theii- meetings, and carry out their objects ; and 
 parliament refused to interfere against them, while declining to act in favour 
 of the body they represented. 
 
 Open Question. The time was uow past for constructing Cabinets on the principle of oppo- 
 sition to the Catholic claims. From this time it became an open question : 
 and it proved as troublesome and unmanageable as open questions of pressing 
 importance always are. Mr. Canning directly spoke out, and obtained a ma- 
 jority on his motion, that early in the next session the House should take the 
 subject into its most serious consideration, with a view to a practical settle- 
 ment. But before the next session, there was a new parliament, and the 
 pledge of the old one was lost. 
 
 Now that the subject had obtained admission to parliament, arose the diffi- 
 culties which were sure to spring up about the details of any measure of 
 emancipation. The dissensions and discussions now began about how to jiro- 
 ceed, about the securities which were offered or required, the safeguards which 
 must be provided against foreign influence, the limitations as to office and 
 function necessary at home, and all those matters of arrangement which indi- 
 cated to men of business that some years must probably yet elapse before any 
 effectual measure could be obtained, while they indicated to men of sagacity 
 that this was the beginning of the end, — that the final stage of the struggle 
 was entered upon. The scruples of the sovereign were no longer in the way : 
 it was supposed, rightly or wrongly, that no difficulty would be found with the 
 Prince Regent : almost as soon as Lord Liverpool entered office, he became 
 convinced that concessions must be made in no long time ; and before his 
 health failed, he is known to have contemplated the necessity of retiring, to 
 enable INIr. Canning to carry Catholic Emancipation. Every one saw that tlie 
 shuffling expedient of sending over to Ireland administrations composed half 
 and half of pro and anti-Catholic men could not answer for any length of time. 
 It was clear that the crisis was coming : but the intei'val was painful and 
 dangerous : — painful for the delay of right-doing, and the obstinate clinging to 
 wrongful power; and dangerous to the political character of all concerned. 
 Lord Castlereagh and Mr. Canning went on, session after session, moving the 
 hearts and minds of the House and the country with ]3icturcs of the state of 
 Ireland and of the Catholic mind : but nothing seemed to come of it. Men 
 grow weary of so much talk ^:ith so little deed. By the time they had arrived 
 •820- at the session of 1820, accusations were all abroad against these two states- 
 men; accusations of insincerity and of cowardice; because it was behoved 
 that if they chose to make this a cabinet question, it could be can-ied at once. 
 They were accused of being bought off by the blandishments of the court, and 
 the amenities of the other section of the cabinet. Lord Castlereagh soon after 
 slipped away beyond the reach of himian censure. How it told upon Mr. Can- 
 ning was indicated by the extraordinary quarrel between him and INIr. Brougham 
 1324. in the session of 1823. In 1824, tlie aspect of the affairs of the Catholics was 
 
 sviiney Smith's tliis, to a liberal and enlightened C'hurchman. " AA^c are sorry we have nothinsj 
 
 Works, iii. 12, 13. „ , . , . , . . . 1 , . r- 1 /-, 1 1- • 
 
 tor -which to praise achninistration on the subject of tlie Cathohc question 
 
 Looking to the sense and reason of the thing, and to the ordinary working of 
 humanity and justice, when assisted, as they are here, by self-interest and
 
 CiiAP. X.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 383 
 
 worldly policy, it might seem absurd to doubt of the result. But looking to 1826. 
 the fiicts and the persons by ■\\hich we are now surroinided, we are constrained ^— — - — — ^ 
 to say that we greatly fear that these incapacities never will be removed, till 
 they are removed by fear. What else, indeed, can we expect when we see them 
 opposed by such enlightened men as 'Sir. Peel, faintly assisted by men of such 
 admirable genius as 'Sir. Canning, when royal dukes consider it as a compU- 
 ment to the memory of their fathers to continue this miserable system of bigotry 
 and exclusion, — when men act ignominiously and contem])tuously on tliis 
 
 question, who do so on no other question We repeat again, that the 
 
 measure never will be effected but by fear. In the midst of one of our just and 
 necessary wars, the Irish Catholics will compel this country to grant them a 
 great deal more than they at present require, or even contemplate. We regret 
 most severely the protraction of the disease, and the danger of the remedy : but 
 in this way it is that human affairs are carried on." 
 
 And wliat was it that was in the way of the emancipation of the Catholics ? State of op.mon. 
 This was the question of all others that it was, at the time, the most difficult 
 to get answered. Was it the political or religious ground that was taken now ? 
 There could be no fear in 1824 that the Irish wanted to bring in the French — 
 or to bring in the Stuarts, or to dethrone the House of Brunswick in favour of 
 any royal house designated by the I'ope. Tlicre could be no idea in this 
 century of massacres for the faith, or of gunpowder j)lots, or of Smithlicld tires, 
 or of an Inquisition in England. And surely there could not be, in our day, 
 any notion of converting five or six millions of Catholics from a false to a true 
 faith by a system of exclusion and insult. How was it? What was the 
 avowed ground of the opponents of the Catholic claims ? 
 
 This is a case in which we see in what " way it is that human affairs arc 
 carried on." The reality was all gone out of the question on one side, and 
 had left merely a residuum of words. The newer generations did not and could 
 not feel the fierce political hatred and fear which instigated the early repres- 
 sion of the Catholics; and they showed no signs of religious proselytism. The 
 truth was, there was no longer any common grouird on which the opposition 
 was conducted. Every opponent had his own plea : and the pleas were, for 
 the most part, mere words. One talked of the coronation oath, following the 
 lead of the Duke of York ; though it was known that the King did not recog- 
 nise that impediment. Another spoke of the compact with Ireland, according 
 to which the Protestant church was to be exclusively favoiu'cd by the State. 
 Another had no confidence in the Catholics. Others dreaded letting in the 
 influence of the Pope. Others talked of " the mysterious and sublimed union 
 of Church and State being a sacred subject, that soars above the ken of worldly 
 poUcy:" and of its being "an ethereal essence, that sanctifies and gives a 
 character of perpetuity to our State." All these difficulties, misty and unsub- 
 stantial, were sure to be wafted away by the first strong breeze of danger. 
 And so were the impediments which were, in fact, the most real ; those arising 
 from habit. The habit of considering the Catholics excluded, inferior, dan- 
 gerous, kept under by the wisdom of our ancestors, was iir fact the main 
 obstacle to their emancipation. That which was afterwards ascertained and 
 avowed was true now : that the real difficulty lay, not with kings, princes, and 
 cabinets, but with the people of England, before whom the question had never
 
 38-1 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book II. 
 
 1826. yet been fairly brought. Nothing was so Hkely to bring the question before 
 them as danger : and therefore it was that the advocates of the Catholics were 
 justified in predicting, as they did from century to century, that fear would 
 prove at last the emancipating power. Another means of presenting the matter 
 fully to the popular mind began now, however, to come into full operation. 
 The press was brought into action in a curious manner, on behalf of the strug- 
 gling party. While the sons of Catholic gentry in Ireland were excluded 
 from many lines by which eminence might be reached, they natmally flocked 
 to the career of the law. While in London, training for the bar, many of them 
 were glad to eke out their scanty resources by such profitable employment as 
 they could find for their leisure hours which was not incompatible with their 
 business and their station ; and a large proportion of reporters for the London 
 press at this time consisted of young Irish barristers. Those who reported 
 the parliamentary debates naturally gave prominence to such as affected the 
 Catholic question : and for some years before that question ^^•as settled, they 
 indefiitigably reported whatever was said upon it, excluding for its sake, when 
 there was not room for every thing, any other subject whatever. Those who 
 are at present familiar with Irish newspapers are amused to see how many 
 columns of parliamentary intelligence are filled with Irish affairs, while those 
 of England, Scotland and the Colonies are crowded into a corner ; and thus it 
 was when the Catholic question was approaching its crisis. By this accident 
 or method, the British people were led to suppose that Catholic affairs occupied 
 much more of the time and attention of the two Houses than they really did, 
 and were brought, accordingly, to devote more thought and feeling to the 
 great Catholic subject than they otherwise would. Every thing being thus in 
 train, the events of 1825 began their march, in the eyes of an attentive and 
 anxious nation. 
 
 Kix.^s Speech. Tlic King's Speccli, delivered by Commission on the 3rd of February, after 
 congratulating parliament on the prosperity of the country, expressed gratifi- 
 cation that this prosperity extended to Ireland, and that the outrages which 
 had formerly prevailed had of late almost ceased. " It is therefore," continued 
 the Speech, " the more to be regretted that associations should exist in Ireland, 
 Avhlch have adopted proceedings irreconcileable with the spirit of tlie constitu- 
 tion, and calculated, by exciting alarm, and by exasperating animosities, to 
 endanger the peace of society, and to retard the course of national improve- 
 ment. His Majesty relies upon your wisdom to consider without delay, the 
 means of applying a remedy to this evil." 
 
 Life of Lord El- Tliis is the Speech of which Lord Eldon wrote " To-day we have Cabinet in 
 Downing Street, and Coimcil at Carlton House, to try if we can make a good 
 Speech for the King. But there are too many hands at work to make a good 
 thing of it, and so you will think, I believe, when you read it." ..." I don't 
 much admire the composition or the matter of the Speech. My old master, 
 the late King, would have said that it required to be set off" by good reading. 
 It falls to my lot to read it, and I should read it better if I liked it better." 
 
 Catholic asso. A part of this Speccli, a very small part, caused long and vehement debate 
 in parliament. That small part was the letter S affixed to the word Asso- 
 ciation. The question was, whether the reprobation expressed related to the 
 great new Catholic Association just arisen in Ireland, and was therefore a blow 
 
 Hansard, xii. 
 
 don, ii. 534. 
 
 CIATION.
 
 Chap. X.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 385 
 
 aimed expressly at the Catholics, or whether it included the Orange Clubs 1826. 
 which were in gi'eat force at that time. The Catholic Association claimed the ^^-^"^-^ ' 
 credit of having quieted the outrages of Ireland ; and asserted their right to 
 honour accordingly : while their enemies clamoured for their suppression, on 
 the ground of the adjuration by which they had quieted Ireland. This adju- 
 ration was " by the hate they bore the Orangemen, who were their natural 
 enemies, and by the confidence they reposed in the Catholic Association, who 
 were their natural and zealous friends, to abstain fiom all secret and illegal 
 associations and Whiteboy disturbances and outrages." Whether that letter 
 S was a gloss or a reality, it is certain that the Catholic Association filled a 
 space in tlie view of the Ministry and the country which left little room for 
 clubs of inferior magnitude. " Let the proposed measures be carried," said 
 Mr. Brougham, " and the Catholic Association will be put down with one 
 hand, while the Orange Societies will receive only a gentle tap with the 
 other." 
 
 The Catholic Association had held its first open meeting in Januaiy of the Hansard, xi. 946. 
 preceding year : and in the following May, Mr. Plunkct had declared, on being 
 questioned in the House, that the government was closely watching its pro- 
 ceedings. The great avowed object of the Association was the preparation of 
 petitions to parliament : but during a course of months, no petitions were 
 forthcoming, while other kinds of business proceeded briskly. The Association 
 held regular sessions in Dublin, nominated committees, received petitions, Hansard, %\. 9u. 
 referred them to its committee of grievances, ordered a census of the jiopidatiou 
 to be taken, and levied a tribute which was called the Catholic Rent. This 
 tribute was declared to be voluntary, but it can hardly be said that the pay- 
 ments of the poor in Ireland, collected on the requisition of the priests, are 
 voluntary ; and the weekly collection was generally regarded as a tax. The 
 avowed objects to which the money was to be applied were the supply of a 
 Catholic priesthood to America ; the supply of more priests to England ; and 
 the purchase of as much as could be had of the influence of the press. Into 
 what other channels the money might flow, there was ample room for con- 
 jectiu-e, It was believed that the amount often reached fifty pounds in a day : 
 and government and parliament soon thought it time to be watcliing how it 
 was spent. 
 
 Among those who feared and disliked this Association were the English 
 Catholics generally. Lord Redesdale writes to the Lord Chancellor, on the Life of i.ord ei- 
 last day of 1824, "I learn that Lord Fingall and others, CathoUcs of English 
 blood, are cilarmed at the present state of things : and they may well be 
 alarmed. If a revolution were to happen in Ireland, it \vould be in the end an 
 Irish revolution, and no CathoUc of English blood would fare better than a 
 Protestant of English blood. So said Lord Castlehaven, an Irish Catholic 
 general of English blood, 170 years ago, and so said a Roman Catholic of 
 Irish blood, confidentially to me, above twenty years ago. The question is, 
 not simply Protestant and Catholic, but English and Irish : and the great 
 motive of action will be hatred of the Sasenagh, inflamed by the priests." 
 Here was the old quarrel again : and here was the danger which made wise 
 men believe that the day of emancipation was drawing on. 
 
 For a little while, the fear excited bj- this body caused an unusual jealousy 
 vol.. 1 3 F
 
 :3S6 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 [Book II. 
 
 1826. 
 
 Kaiil Marshal 
 
 (.'athiilic Dei'I 
 
 lATIuN. 
 
 Hiins: rd, xii. .'i'2 
 Association Di 
 
 SOLVED. 
 
 on the part of the King about any favour being shown to English Catholics. 
 lie who had, after his accession, cordially offered religious equality to his 
 Hanoverian subjects, cavilled at parliament, and grew stiff M'ith his Chan- 
 cellor, in the summer of 1824, because the Catholic Duke of Norfolk was 
 enabled, by a bill which passed both Houses, to exercise his office of Earl 
 Marshal of England, by taking the oath of allegiance, without that of supre- 
 macy, or the declaration against transubstantiation. The dread was lest, by 
 beginning to give any thing, it should become necessary to give, first, more, 
 and then every thing which the Catholics demanded. As the Chancellor him- 
 self bowed to the declared will of the Lords, the King yielded ; and the Earl 
 Marshal appeared in his robes in the House which he could not yet enter as a 
 peer of jiarliament : and the sky did not fall. 
 
 A deputation of Catholic Lords and gentlemen, sent by the Association, was 
 sitting in London, to watch over the interests of their body, under the 
 approaching attack upon it in parliament, and to be ready to afford infor- 
 mation to friendly legislators of either House, in answer to whatever charges 
 might be brought. On the 10th of February, the Irish Secretary, Mr. Goul- 
 burn, brought in a Bill " to amend the acts relating to unlawful societies in 
 Ireland," the object of which was to put down the Catholic Association. 
 Tlu'ough Mr. Brougham, the deputation made known their desire to be heard 
 at the bar of the House, in justification of their body from certain allegations 
 made against them in parliament. Of course, this could not be granted, as 
 the Association was not a recognised body, but one whose unconstitutional 
 character was admitted on every hand. The only question really was whether 
 there existed a crisis which could be held to justify the formation of such an 
 organization. Some spoke of the Volunteers of 1780, and reminded each other 
 tliat those Volunteers had repeatedly received the thanks of iiarliamcnt : but 
 the parallel between the two cases failed in the important particular, that the 
 Volunteers did not unite for political purposes, but for the military defence of 
 the country. They made use of their organization at length for political pur- 
 poses, and achieved them : but there was nothing in their case which could be 
 allowed as a precedent in any but warlike or revolutionary times. While the 
 Catholic claims were an open question in the Cabinet, and any one Cabinet 
 Minister was pledged in its favour, there could be no excuse for any kind of 
 revolutionary institution or movement. Mr. Govdburn obtained his bill by a 
 '; majority of 278 to 123, and it became law on the 9th of March. It apparently 
 annihilated the Catholic Association : but the dissolution was a mere form. 
 To lay a finger upon it was merely to scatter a globule of quicksilver : it was 
 sure to run together again. Justice was the only true amalgamating power ; 
 and every endeavour to delay its application only proved its necessity the 
 more. 
 
 The parliamentary advocates of the cause mourned at length and aloud the 
 formation of the Association, and its adjuration " by the hate you bear to 
 Orangemen." INIr. Canning, to whom it was owing that the King Avas con- 
 verted and the Cabinet liberalized, declared that the procedure " resembled 
 the scheme of an enemy, who had devised this as the best invention for 
 throwing back and thwarting the further progress of the question of emanci- 
 pation." So thought the friends of the Catholics, very sincerely. But they
 
 Chap. X.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 387 
 
 stood outside the cause j and those who were within it believed them '^^•l•ong: 1826. 
 and so the event proved them to be. The subjects of a great cause always 
 move in it differently from the way that their fiiends outside would have them : 
 and the sufferers usually show in the end that they understand their business 
 best. They were satisfied now with their own method of proceeding. They 
 knew that their Association would be put down: and they were no doubt 
 aware that it ought to be put down. The leaders were sagacious lawyers, as 
 was shown by the curious care with which the addresses and proceedings of 
 the body were kept within the letter of the existing law, so that it was 
 necessary for the Administration to come to parliament for a new law to siip- 
 press them. This necessity was the crowning success, for this year, of the 
 Association. The leaders were satisfied when they saw the House of Com- 
 mons sitting night after night, adjourning late in the morning for successive 
 mornings, filling the eye and ear of the nation with the acts and appeals of 
 tlie C^atholic body. This was A-ictory for the time : the completest victory that 
 the time would admit. They knew that the real obstacle to their emancipation 
 was now the indifference of the English nation. They knew that the King 
 was near the point of yielding, — thanks to the influence of Mr. Canning. 
 They knew that the Cabinet was vacillating, — thanks to the influence of Mr. 
 Canning. They knew that if Mr. Canning was called up, even to reprobate 
 them and their proceedings, they would have an all-sufficient advocacy : for 
 his very reprobation must be the strongest possible testimony to the pressure 
 of the time. They obtained all they could have contemplated, and perhaps 
 more than they anticipated, in the avowal and nan-ative which the pressvire of 
 the time elicited from him, of his own experience, and that of all the statesmen 
 of his day, in relation to this cause. Perhaps no single manifestation so aided 
 the Catholic cause, in its whole career, as the memorable speech of February 
 15th, in which Mr. Canning delivered to the world the history of the Catholic 
 question for the preceding century, and liis own history in connexion with it. 
 The narrative came to the ear of the nation as a decree of fate ; and his 
 political autobiogTaphy went far to win over the nation's heart. Having 
 shown how he took his stand upon the Catholic question when the most 
 insuperable obstacle was removed by the withdrawal of George III. from 
 political life, and how he refused office at the most tempting moment rather 
 than enter a Cabinet decided against the Catholic claims, he went on. " Sir, ^5"3'"'''''" 
 I have always refused to act in obedience to the dictates of the Catholic 
 
 leaders ; I would never put myself into their hands : and I never will 
 
 Much as I have wished to serve the C^atholic cause, I have seen that the 
 ser^^ce of the Catholic leaders is no easy service. They are hard task-masters : 
 and the advocate who would satisfy them must dehver himself up to them 
 bound hand and foot. . . . But to be taunted mth a want of feeling for the 
 Catholics, to be accused of compromising their interests, conscious as I am, — 
 as I cannot but be, — of being entitled to their gi-atitudc for a long course of 
 active ser\'iccs, and for the sacrifice to their cause of interests of my own, — this 
 is a sort of treatment which would rouse even tameness itself to assert its 
 honour, and vindicate its claims. — I have shown that in the year 1812, I 
 refused office rather than enter into an administration pledged against the 
 Catholic question. I did this at a time when office would liave been dearer to
 
 388 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book II. 
 
 1826. me than at any other period of my poUtical life; when I would have given ten 
 ^~~''~^''~ — ' years of life for two years of office ; not for any sordid or selfish purpose of 
 personal aggrandisement, hut for far other and higher views. But, is this the 
 only sacrifice which I have made to the Catholic cause ? The House will 
 perhaps bear with me a little longer, while I answer this question by anotlier 
 fact. — From the earliest dawn of my public life, — aye, from the first visions 
 of youthful ambition, — that ambition had been directed to one object above all 
 others. Before that object all others vanished into comparative insignificance ; 
 it was desirable to me beyond all the blandishments of power, beyond all the 
 rewards and favours of the Crown. That object was to represent, in this 
 House, the University in which I was educated. I had a fair chance of 
 accomphshing this object when the Catholic question crossed my way. I M'as 
 warned, fairly and kindly warned, that my adoption of that cause would blast 
 my prospect. I adhered to the Catholic cause, and forfeited all my long- 
 cherished hopes and expectations. And yet I am told that I have made no 
 sacrifice ! that I have postponed the cause of the Catholics to views and inte- 
 rests of my own ! Sir, the representation of the University has fallen into 
 worthier hands. I rejoice with my right honourable friend near me (Mr. Peel), 
 in the high honour which he has obtained. Long may he enjoy the distinction; 
 and long may it prove a source of reciprocal pride, to our parent University 
 and to himself! Never till this hour have I stated, either in public or in 
 private, the extent of this irretrievable sacrifice : but I have not felt it the less 
 deeply. It is past, and I shall speak of it no more." 
 
 Nothing could be a stronger testimony to the urgency of the cause than that 
 the foremost of British statesmen should be subject to compulsion hkc this, 
 forced to avowals like these, while separated by deep distrust and dislike from 
 the Catholic leaders. But even yet, the degree of the urgency was not under- 
 stood. Mr. Peel sat by Mr. Canning's side, and received his congratulations 
 on his relation to the LTniversity of Oxford, and heard his hopes that the rela- 
 tion might subsist long and happily. But even then there were stirrings in 
 the heart of the listener, — there were doubts beginning to move in his mind 
 which already put that relation in jeopardy, and were soon to exclude him, in 
 his turn, fi-om the representation of his University. When his turn arrived, 
 he confessed that the events of the session of 1825 had made such an impres- 
 sion upon him that he went to Lord Liverpool, desiring to resign his office, 
 because the opinion of the House was declared against him on the Catholic 
 qiiestion, and avowing to the Premier that he believed the time was come 
 when " something ought to be done about the Catholics." Lord Liverpool's 
 threat of retiring also induced Mr. Peel to wait for another manifestation of 
 the feelings of the country: but tlris was the time when the hook caught the chain 
 ■whicli bound him to follow the destiny of Canning in his sacrifices for the 
 Catholic question. 
 
 Mr. Canning called the Catholic leaders " hard task-masters," whose advo- 
 cates must submit to be boimd hand and foot. Nothing could please them 
 better tlian such a description. The reputation of a strong Mill is, in itself, 
 an unlimited power. These men had ceased to be suppliants, and had become 
 task-masters, whoever might be their servants. The description Avas true ; for 
 Mb. o'cosnell. there was a man among them who was about to become a power in the state.
 
 Chap. X.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 389 
 
 Darnel O'Connell had been an active agitator on behalf of the Catholic claims 1826. 
 for so many years now, as to be kno'wn by name thi-ough the length and breadth 
 of the kingdom. He had been a chief mover in the committees in Dublin : 
 he was the organiser of the Association, and was now reputed to hold three 
 millions of the Irish people in his hand, ready with a toucli to be turned to 
 good or evil. He came up as a delegate invested in a kind of glory : for in 
 Dublin, he had been indicted for sedition, in the January just past ; and the 
 grand jury had thrown out the bills. He who had evaded the law in the for- 
 mation and procedure of successive Catliolic committees, — he wlio had defied 
 the law in the late prosecution for sedition,- — he wlio held three millions of the 
 Irish people in his hand, and the peace of Ireland at his bidding, might think 
 himself entitled to be a " hard task -master." And he who was not only idol- 
 ized by the multitude among whom he had lived, and adored by his own family, 
 but who so attached his personal friends by his charms of intellect and temper, 
 as that they could not sit in the room while he was found fault with, might 
 well suppose liimself authorized to issue his commands, and have them readily 
 obeyed, whatever they might be. But there was one attribute of his which 
 made him too hard a task-master for men who chose to retain their manhood — 
 his incapacity for truth. The untruthfulness of O'Connell must be regarded 
 as a constitutional attribute. He was so devoid of all compunction and all 
 shame in regard to the random character of his representations, that the only 
 supposition is, that he had not the ordinary perception of truth and falsehood; 
 and this became at last so general an impression, that the rest of his character 
 was judged of, apart from this, in a way which, perhaps, was never tried in the 
 case of any other man. If he could not obtain respect, he obtained admiration 
 and enthusiasm, even from many who hold, with the rest of the world, that 
 the qualities he was deficient in, veracity and high courage, are precisely the 
 first requisites of political honour, the most essential attributes of the political 
 hero. Nature now and then sets aside, with a haughty movement, all rules — 
 even of morals : and in this case she so overruled matters, as that a man whom 
 every one knew to be neither brave, nor veracious, nor of thorough disinterest- 
 edness, should obtain, not merely the influence, but the deference Mhich is 
 usually accorded to high character only. Of course, he had quahties which 
 must account for this : moral as well as intellectual qualities. His domestic 
 use of power was very beautiful, — genial and benevolent. His ardoiu' was 
 captivating, and thoroughly respectable, when thrown into the great cause. 
 His buoyancy and gaiety of spirit were as attractive and attaching as his saga- 
 city, energy and perseverance were animating to his coadjutors. When we 
 consider, in connexion with these things, wbat it must have been to the Irish 
 CathoUcs to have a champion and leader who was really able to manage their 
 cause, and determined to carry it through, how much of ancient expectation 
 and new hope settled upon his liead, we cannot wonder that he was regarded 
 by multitudes as a heaven-sent king, and that he received homage accordingly, 
 though some of the highest kingly qiialities were wanting. The truth appears 
 to have been that in O'Connell two sets of characteristics were united, wliich 
 are usually supposed to be incompatible. He was genuinely impetuous, ardent, 
 open-hearted, patriotic and devoted : and then again, he was genuinely cautious 
 and astute ; calculating, sly, untruthful ; grasping, selfish, and hypocritical.
 
 390 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book II. 
 
 1826. He was profuse, and he was sordid : he was rash, and he was unfathomably 
 politic : now he was flowing out, and now he was circumventing. Among all 
 his changes, however, he never was brave, he never was reliable or accurate ; 
 and he never kept his eye off the money-boxes which supplied his animal in- 
 come fiom the scrapings of the earnings of the poor. There was no reason- 
 able objection to O'Connell's being supported by his country. There was every 
 reason why he should be, and none why he should not. He had a large family, 
 and was sure to rise to great eminence in his profession, if he had devoted him- 
 self to it as professional men usually do. If, because he was the man to re- 
 deem the Irish cause, he was withdrawn from his profession and its emolu- 
 ments, it was merely just that he should be compensated by the Irish people. 
 But nothing could be worse than the way in which it was done ; — nothing 
 could be worse for liis character, his mind, and the reputation of the cause. In- 
 stead of a single effort made vigorously and once by the wealthy of his clients, 
 and all who chose to give, whether Uttle or much, so that means might be raised 
 eqvial to the utmost which Mr. O'Connell could have made by his profession, 
 to set him free to serve his country for life, the subscription was made an 
 annual affair, and levied under the compulsion of the priests. There is no 
 need to dwell on this. The consequences may be easily inferred. It made his 
 very enemies blush to see how the affair went on, in the latter years of his life, 
 when the begging season came round. Great allowance must be made for a 
 man placed in such circumstances of precariousness. But a review of his cha- 
 racter on all sides, with every allowance tliat justice and mercy require, must 
 leave an impression that he must indeed have been the cliief of the " hard 
 task-m.asters " with whom statesmen could come into no alliance, because true 
 alliance was not possible, but only fettered service, such as cannot be rendered 
 by honourable men. 
 
 ouESTioN "'' ^'"^ '^^"^ sending of the delegates to London, and the necessity of bringing the 
 CatlioUc Association under the notice of parliament, were very welcome to the 
 liberal section of the cabinet. Till now, their position had been painful, as a 
 position of compromise must ever be. The administration in Ireland had been 
 carefully composed, half and half, of favourers and opponents of the Catholic 
 cause : and, of course, there had existed the consequent evil of an unsound and 
 unsteady government in that disturbed quarter. The enforced silence upon 
 Irish subjects in the cabinet must have been irksome ; and the awaiting of some 
 inevitable change not a little fearful. All were set free now ; for they were all 
 united in reprobating the Catholic Association as unlawful machinery which 
 could not be allowed to work : and the occasion brought freedom of speech and 
 hope of a good issue to the friends of the Catholics. They spoke out, and 
 emptied their full hearts and minds : and they saw that the protracted debates 
 on the Catholic subject which succeeded one another for some months of 
 this session, were aiding the cause more than any transactions of all previous 
 years. 
 
 Life of Lord El. By tlic bill which put down the Catholic Association, it was declared un- 
 lawful for all political associations to continue their sittings, by adjom'ument or 
 otherwise, or whether in full sittings or by committee, or officers, for more than 
 fourteen days : or to levj' contributions from his Majesty's subjects, or from any 
 descriptions of them : or for any such societies to have different branches, or to 
 
 don, ii. 538.
 
 Chap. X.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 391 
 
 correspond with other societies, or to exchide members on the giound of roli- 1826. 
 gioiis faith, or to require oaths or declarations otherwise than as required by ^-^^-^— ^ 
 law. As soon as the parUament rose, that is, in July, a new Catholic com- nbw catholic 
 mittee offered a plan of a n(>w association, and a recommendation to the Catholic 
 body to push to the utmost their practice of petitioning and other political 
 action, by methods independent of the association, as the law now forbade such 
 action within it. Suggestion like this was, in fiict, action ; and nothing was 
 gained by the new law but an excellent opportunity for setting forth the 
 strength of the Catholic cause. 
 
 During March, Sir F. Burdett introduced, first, a debate on the general RVarEF^'Bl'u.!'^'^^ 
 petition of the Catholics : next, a set of resolutions which were passed as the 
 foundation of a relief bill, which went through the stage of debate in the Com- 
 mons on the 21st of April. Mr. O'Connell declared, in a letter which found 
 its way into the newspapers, that the preparation of the draught of the bill had Annual nesisier, 
 been committed to him. This damaging declaration being noticed by the ad- 
 verse members of the cabinet, was emphatically denied by the committee, who 
 pledged themselves that no person out of the committee had had the smallest 
 share in the preparation of the bill. 
 
 This bill was an immediate consequence of the avowal which the friends of 
 the Catholics had found themselves bound to make in the preceding debate, — 
 that they were ready to support the Catholic claims when severed from their 
 connexion w^tli the Association. They were immediately taken at their word ; 
 and brilliant was the result. The debating was magnificent, or rather the out- 
 pouring of eloquence on one side ; for all the strength was in one direction : 
 and the majority by which the bill passed the Commons was 268 to 241. The Hansard,xiii. 123. 
 bill proposed the repeal of disabilities; the enactment of a state provision for the 
 Catholic clergy ; and the raising of the Irish franchise qualification fi-om 40s. to 
 £10. It was supposed that by placing the first of these jjropositions between the 
 other two, the advantage to the Catholics between an advantage to the state 
 and one to the Protestant minority, who complained of being swamped by the 
 (Jatholic majority at elections, the bill might be floated through parliament. 
 The two latter provisions were called the M-ings of the bill : but they proved to 
 be leaden wings. There was an outcry against both provisions too strong for 
 even the popidar O'Connell, who held the peace of Ireland in his hand. After 
 having boasted that the bill was of his preparation, he could not deny his agree- 
 ment to the obnoxious propositions. He made a recantation, and asked pardon 
 of God and his country. Such an error and recantation may pass for once : 
 and O'Connell's passed for this time. 
 
 After the division on the second reading of the bill in the Commons, the 2^;'^^°'^,^™'^'' 
 Heir Presumptive made a bold stroke in the Lords to obtain its rejection there. 
 In presenting a petition from the Dean and Canons of Windsor against the 
 Catholic claims, the Duke of York took occasion to declare his own opinion on 
 the subject, and his own intentions in case of his succeeding to the crown. He 
 laid before the House the case of the late king, — " the severe illness, and ten 
 years of misery which had clouded the existence of his illustrious and beloved 
 father," on account of the scruples of his conscience about the Coronation 
 Oath : he declared that his principles were the same ; " and that these were 
 the principles to which he would adhere, and which he woxdd maintain and
 
 392 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 [Book II. 
 
 1826. 
 
 Annual Register, 
 182.1, p. CO. 
 
 Hansard, xii. 808. 
 
 Life of Lord EI- 
 don, ii. 520. 
 
 Life of Lord El- 
 don, ii. 546. 
 
 Life of Lord El- 
 don, ii. 548, 
 
 B:ll lost. 
 
 Life of Lord El- 
 don, it. 554. 
 
 act up to, to the latest moment of his existence, whatever might be his situation 
 of life, — so help him God !" The Lord Chancellor listened with delight, and 
 wrote out the speech in his anecdote hook before he slept. Tlie bigots on his 
 side got it printed in gold letters, and framed it for their drawing-room walls , 
 and circulated it through the country. The effect produced was somewhat 
 different from what was intended and expected. It showed that an effort must 
 be made to secure Catholic emancipation during the life of the present king ; 
 and exertion was stimulated accordingly. It happened, too, that some words 
 had been spoken on the other side, which took gi-eat hold of the public mind, 
 and perhaps spread as widely as the declaration of the Heir Presumptive. On 
 the 28th of February, Mr. Plunket had said in the debate on Sir F. Burdett's 
 motion, that the danger to be looked in the face was not the danger of 
 the days of James II., but of the present time ; the danger of exasperating 
 milKons of fellow-subjects excluded from their rights. The bigot plea was of 
 the danger of innovation : but, said the speaker, " Time was the greatest inno- 
 vator of all. While man would sleep or stop in liis career, the course of time 
 Avas rapidly changing the aspect of all human affairs. All that a wise govern- 
 ment could do was to keep as close as possible to the wings of time, to watch 
 his progress, and accommodate his motion to their flight. Arrest his course 
 they could not ; but they might vary the forms and aspects of their institutions, 
 so as to reflect his varying asjjccts and forms. If this were not the spirit A^hich 
 animated them, philosophy would be impertinent, and history no better tlian 
 an old almanack. The riches of knowledge would serve them no better than 
 tlie false money of a swindler, put upon them at a value which once circidated, 
 but had long since ceased. Prudence and experience would be no better for 
 protection than dotage and enor." Lord Eldon was persuaded that these words, 
 everlastingly true, were aimed at a speech of his about tlie Catholics of the 
 time of Henry VIII., " thinking it proper to treat this as a sort of sijeech which 
 an almanack-maker, reciting past events, might make ; and which, therefore, 
 might deserve no answer." But the sentiment of Mr. Plunket's words made 
 its way. " Never," says the Chancellor, " was any thing like the sensation the 
 
 Duke of York's speech has made I hear that ' the Duke of York and No 
 
 Popery ' is to be seen in various parts. The Bishop of London declared that 
 lie beheved (speaking when he delivered a petition yesterday), ' that he was 
 satisfied — nine people in ten in the City were determinedly adverse to the 
 claims of the Roman Catholics.' " Yet the sentiment of Mr. Plunket's words 
 made its way. " I forgot to mention," writes the Chancellor, " in my last, 
 that the Commons stared me A'ery impiidently in the face, when they delivered 
 to me the Catholic Bill at the bai- of the House. This Bill, however, I think 
 those gentlemen will never see again." The Lords threw out the Bill at a 
 little before six in the morning of the 18th of May, by a majority of 48 in a 
 House of 308. " Lady AVarwick and Lady Braybrooke," writes the Chan, 
 cellor, " would not let theii- husbands go to the House to vote for the Catholics : 
 so we Protestants drink daily, as our favourite toast, ' the ladies who locked 
 Tip their husbands:'" "the glorious forty-eight" were toasted in bumpers, 
 and the victors "were becoming composed after their triumphs;" and still the 
 sentiment of Mr. Plunket's words was making its way. The temporary defeat 
 took place on Wednesday, May 18th. On the Thursday, " Mr. O'Connell,"
 
 Chap. X.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 393 
 
 wiites the Chancellor, " pleaded as a barrister before me in the House of Lords. 1826. 
 His demeanoxrr was very proper, but he did not strike me as shining so much ^-^"^^'^ — ' 
 in argument as might be expected from a man ^vho has made so much noise in don, a. 553. 
 his harangues in a seditious association." The Chancellor forgot that a cause 
 in the House of Lords could hardly be so inspiring to a banister as the cause 
 of his country to its champion : and that Mr. O'Connell might easily hold 
 himself calm and commonj)lace in another sphere, while in his own the senti- 
 ment of Mr. Plunket's words was making its way. 
 
 During the next session, that of 1826, nothing was done in parliament on '^^^ 
 the Catholic question beyond the presentation of petitions. The Lords had 
 declared their opinion decisively enough, for the present : and in the Commons 
 it was understood that the session would be short, in view of the ajiproaching 
 dissolution, and that the gieat questions of the time had better stand over 
 for the consideration of the new parliament. The Catholic petitions were Q"estion of d . 
 
 ... ,,..,. VIDIiD ALLEGI- 
 
 chiefly directed to meet the objection of the supposed divuled allegiance of *nce. 
 the Catholics. It was in vain attempting to meet this objection by the 
 declaration, however extensively confirmed, that Catholics held an undivided 
 allegiance to their King in civil affairs : no one doubted this. The objection 
 was, that their spiritual allegiance to the Pope might at any time interfere 
 with their civil allegiance to their King. The true way of meeting this 
 objection was to render them easy and satisfied. If tbe Pope really wished to 
 make mischief between the Catholics and the British Government, he could 
 do it very effectually already ; and with the more excuse the more they were 
 wronged. To keep them in a state of exasperation by political exclusion was 
 not the way to render them loyal, but rather to make the Pope their partisan 
 against their sovereign. The petitions of tliis session Avere therefore of little 
 use. They did not truly meet the objection of one party, and were not needed 
 by the other. 
 
 A new enmity became manifest tliis year. The Catholics and the Dissenters cathoiics and 
 drew off fi'om each other. The Dissenters were themselves sufforinn- under Annual Rc-gistor, 
 disabilities wliich might naturally dispose them to sympathize with tlie Ca- 
 tholics, and to work in their behalf. But they were, generally speaking, 
 lukewarm in the cause. It is not difficult to understand this, though the fact 
 is not an agreeable one to contemplate. Like too large a majority of mankind, 
 the English Dissenters could feel deeply and argue clearly about the rights of 
 conscience when their own consciences were interfered with, but be too much 
 affected by fear to see the full force of their abstract reasonings when their 
 own ex])ericnce was not concerned. They were Protestants : they feared the 
 Pope and the ravages of superstition as much as their Protestant brethren 
 within the church pale : and the Annual Indemnity Bill, which gave them 
 practical ft-ecdom, saved them from sharing the exasperation of tlie Catholics 
 imder their legal disabilities. And they were not united with the Catholics 
 in any hope from the influence of Mr. Canning: for Mr. Camiing was as 
 openly and fixedly their adversary as he was the advocate of the C'atholics. 
 Mr. Canning's o])position to the repeal of tlie Test Act remains a rebxdvc to 
 the pride of luinian reason and to the confidence of hero worshiji. Those wlio 
 exulted in liis clear A-iew of the case of the Catholics, and liis s(iundly-])riii- 
 ci])led advocacy of their claims, were perplexed and abaslied by his indefensible 
 
 \oi,. 1. 3 G
 
 The Elections, 
 
 394 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book II. 
 
 lcS2G. and unaccountable refusal to apply the same sagacity and the same principles 
 
 ' ^ to the case of the disqualified Dissenters. And it was not for Mr. Canning to 
 
 complain of the judgment which his inconsistency was sure to bring upon him; 
 
 nor for his friends to wonder and lament if, after his death, such speculations 
 
 as that of Lord Eossmore, in his " Letter on Catholic Emancipation," dis- 
 
 p'. rob. ' ' honoured his memory, as far as the matter went. " Is there no satisfactory 
 reason," says Lord Rossmorc, " why a mind like that of Mr. Canning should 
 depart from his own general principles in the case of the Dissenters alone ? 
 May he not have reasoned thus ? If I concede the wishes of the Dissenters 
 separately, may I not weaken the common caiisc, — the Dissenters not having 
 much sympathy with the claims of the Catholics ? But if I carry Emancipa- 
 tion, I secure the repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts ; for, if the former 
 succeeds, the latter follows." — This is not like Canning, — such a method of 
 coercing one set of people, under false pretences, to further the emancipation 
 of another. But, if this was not his reason, there is no saying what was. It 
 remains a painful mystery. 
 
 There is much that is painful in the survey of the time and persons under 
 our present notice. The Catholics were putting forth all their powers in pre- 
 paration for the elections ; and the full force of the influence of the priesthood 
 was brought to bear upon the forty-shilling freeholders, in a manner which 
 made as complete a mockery of the representative system as was ever made by 
 the Iri.sh landlords, who had covered their domains with small freeholds for 
 
 Annual Register, their poUtical convenieuce. Some of this class of Irish landlords were eiectinar 
 their tenants by wholesale, for their obedience to the priests in the elections : 
 and the new Catholic Association was voting fimds for the relief of the people 
 thus left homeless. The Dissenters were holding off fi-om aiding the Catholics ; 
 and the Catholic leaders were revihng the Dissenters. Mr. Canning was 
 doing %vi-ong by the one body by the very act of doing right by the other. 
 The Duke of York was endeavouring, by a proceeding of extraordinary 
 audacity, to achieve the dismissal of Mr. Canning from the Cabinet. He was 
 naturally animated by the effect his speech had produced : and he saw, as 
 evei-y one else did, Avhat its operation was in stimulating the friends of the 
 
 yI'L^I^u ?nE t^iitholics to obtain their emancipation during the life of the King. He took upon 
 
 Life of Canning ^"™ HOW, in the autumn of 1826, to address the King on the subject of obtain- 
 
 p. 357. ijig unity of opinion in the Cabinet on the Catholic question. In tliis he was 
 
 not likely to succeed, after his attempt on the royal feelings in his late speech. 
 
 don" H*^ 547'"^'' '-^'^^^ King had observed on that speech, in a good-humoined way, that the 
 Didie might have left out his reference to his possible accession to the throne, 
 as its present occupant did not mean to quit it. Preserving his good-hiimour, 
 he still would hardly relisli the Duke's interference with tlie oi)inions and con- 
 stitution of his Cabinet. But it was unnecessary to do more than keep quiet, 
 in relation to the Duke ; for it was becoming clear that he woidd never more 
 influence the politics of England, or any other human affairs. To complete 
 the circle of wrong-doers, Mr. O'Connell was treating the illness of the Duke 
 
 il™'"'' ,"*?'^"'''- of York in the following stvlc. " I wish no phvsical ill to the Eoyal Duke ; 
 but if he has thrown his oath in the way of our liberties, and that as long as 
 he lives justice shall not be done to the people of Ireland, it is mockery to 
 tell me that the people of Ireland have not an interest in his ceasing to live.
 
 CHAr. X.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 395 
 
 Death is the corrector of human errors; it is said to be man's hour for repen- 1826. 
 tance, and God's opportunity. If the Royal Duke should not become con- ^— ii— ^-^- — ' 
 verted from his political errors, I am perfectly resigned to the will of God, and 
 shall abide the result with the most Christian resignation." This declaration 
 was received with " laughter and cheers." — To this pass were men brought, — 
 to sucli a state of principle and temper as this, all round, by the protraction 
 of injury to one class of fellow-subjects. The consolation was in the moral 
 certainty that an eifectual change could not be far off. On the whole, the aspect of the 
 anti-catliolic interest seemed to have gained most iu the elections : but some '-"'"'■"'"'• 
 great single victories had been obtained on the side of emancipation ; and the 
 power of tlie Catholic Association had been so effectually proved, by the expul- 
 sion of the Beresfords fr6m the representation of their own tenantry, and in 
 some other instances, that it was clear that the struggle could not now end by 
 any other means than being brought to an issue. It was becoming clear that 
 the Duke of York would never reach the throne ; and a general belief was 
 arising that the Cabinet was in process of conversion to the views of Mr. Can- 
 ning. There was a persuasion, on the whole, prevalent iu the country, that 
 this new parliament Avas the last which would be occupied with the discussion 
 of the Catholic question.
 
 396 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 fBooK II. 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 1826. 
 
 Chancery Re- 
 form. 
 
 1823. 
 
 Hansard, is. 70G. 
 Ol'ENING OK In- 
 Ql'lUY. 
 
 IN the course of the last three sessions of this parliament, a reform was 
 begun which the nation had for some time been peremptorily demanding ; — 
 by its discontents, yet more than by its express petitions. The delay of justice 
 in the Court of Chancery had become insufferable ; and tlie time was come for 
 proof whether the grievance could not be amended. Perhaps no narrative of 
 a process of reform is more instructive than this in showing how that inexor- 
 able Fate, — the spirit of Reform, evoked by grievance, — compasses its end, 
 through all obstructions of human error and ignorance, human will, and even 
 human conscience, when that conscience is deficient in enlightenment. Among 
 the movers against the evils of the Court of Chancery Avere some men who 
 were not lawyers, and who therefore naturally stated their case ignonmtly : — 
 and there were some who were trained and practised in a different department 
 of the law, and who were therefore ridiciiled by Equity lawyers for errors in 
 the object and expression of their complaint. The strong, united will of the 
 Cabinet and of the Equity lawyers was opposed to all entrance upon the sub- 
 ject. And the conscience of the Chancellor was so satisfied with the existing 
 state of things, that it resented any question of them ; and, at the same time, 
 so tender that it winced under any inquiry into the discharge of business, as 
 under a personal injiuy. Yet the inquiry went on, because it had become 
 necessary. The Chancellor's friends laughed at the complaint of the locking 
 up of large funds in Chancery for half a century together, alleging the cases 
 in which property was truly in ward, and the dividends punctually paid : but 
 there were cases in which no proceeds could be obtained. The Chancellor and 
 his friends scorned the complaints of the expenses of the Court, showing that 
 his income had never exceeded a certain amount : but the expenses were into- 
 lerable notwithstanding. The Government clearly proved an enormous increase 
 of Chancery business within a certain term, and avouched the industry of 
 Lord Eldon : but it i-emained true, and unendurable, that suitors could not get 
 their business settled. The Cliancellor and his friends called the complainants 
 " ignorant fellows" and " malicious rascals ;" and the complainants called the 
 Lord Chancellor "a curse to the country:" yet, amidst their alienation, they 
 worked together, under that inexorable Fate, — the sjjirit of Reform, evoked 
 by grievance. Thus it always happens, and must happen; and it would be 
 well if v/e could learn from such histories to assume the certainty of reform, 
 after any manifestation of grievance, and to see the absurdity of all violence, 
 all loss of temper on any hand, in the prosecution of a work which pays no 
 heed to our infirmities. 
 
 On the ith of June, 1823, Mr. John Williams, afterwards one of the Judges 
 of the Queen's Bench, moved for an inquiry into the arrear of business in tlie 
 Coiut of Chancery, and the appellate jurisdiction of the House of Lords, and
 
 Chap. XI.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 397 
 
 the causes tlicreof. " It now seemed to be conceded on all hands," the mover 1826. 
 
 declared, " that evils of no ordinary magnitude existed, and that the present ^— ^^'^-— ' 
 
 system could no longer go on without some amendment or improvement." It 
 
 appears that the Chancellor himself was of the same niiud with other people, 
 
 as to the necessity of inquiry: for, within a month of Mr. Williams's motion, Life of Lord ei- 
 
 . , . . . don, ii, 488 
 
 he communicated to the House of Lords liis purpose of havnig a commission 
 to inquire whether any, and what, improvements could be made in the adminis- 
 tration of the Court of Chancery. Yet, his wrath against the inquirers in 
 the House of Commons seems to show that he Avould hardly have stirred at 
 this time, if they had not stimulated him to do so. Throughout the whole 
 affair, which extended over several years, he appears to have been unable, for 
 a single moment, to regard it as any thing but a personal matter. The com- 
 plainants divided their informations into two parts : those wliicli regarded the 
 faulty constitution or arrangements of the Courts, and those which related to 
 the quality of the Chancellor's mind, in which the tendency to doubt had 
 become so strong as to overbear the fine faculties and attainments which 
 otherwise fitted him eminently for his office. The debate on Mr. Williams's 
 motion continued for two nights, and brought out enough of fact and opinion 
 to assure the Ministers that the subject would not drop till something was 
 done. Their plea of the vast increase of Chancery business availed only to 
 prove that matters could not go on as they were ; and a broad hint to this 
 effect was given in the introduction of a discussion about separating the judicial 
 and political functions of the Lord Chancellor. 
 
 In the House of Lords it had been suggested in the preceding April to alter ,'^"3""' ^''°'*"^^''' 
 the method of hearing appeals there ; and it was proposed by Lord Liverpool, ^'^ "l"*"^ '" 
 on the 2Gth of June, that a deputy Speaker of the House of Lords should be 
 appointed, and that five days in the week, instead of three, should be devoted 
 to the hearing of appeals. The arrangement was made : but the Chancellor 
 could not let the occasion pass without entering upon an exhibition of self- 
 assertion and self-defence which not only lowered his dignity, and engaged 
 the compassion of parliament, but proved to the movers in the question of 
 Chancery Reform that it must inevitably be made a personal matter, as the 
 Chancellor chose to regard it so ; and the bickerings and evil speaking which 
 hence arose became very painful, and damaging aUke to the character of the 
 Court and tlie progress of the question. 
 
 As the next session (of 1824) approached, the Chancellor gi-ew uneasy, in '*-^- 
 apprehension of the renewal of the subject : and he applied to Mr. Peel for 
 the full support and protection of the Cabinet. Mr. Williams's motion was Jf" "'^ JS''* *"' 
 brought forward on the 24th of February. Lord Eldon observes upon it that 
 every moment of negligence in an official course of twenty-two years was 
 noted ; and that many of the complaints were perfectly new to him and his 
 friends : — an evident benefit already arising from the discussion, and a clear 
 reason for prosecuting the inquiry. In answer to the motion for a committee, Mm'ir5''F'(m ^ 
 Mr. Peel moved for a commission, such as the Chancellor had proposed after C"»'m'ss'on 
 the debate of the previous summer. Tliis was what was wanted, or something 
 very like it : find Mr. Williams therefore witlidrew his motion. The Chan- 
 cellor's own account of tlie matter is curious. "At mv instance, tlierefore. Life of rx]iii ei. 
 
 , . , . . 'Ion. "■ ■<»«*■ 
 
 Mr. Peel, in a most admirable speech, moved tor such a commission, as a great
 
 398 ' HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book II. 
 
 1826. merit on my part in aiming at improvement, instead of this Committee of 
 "~— ^^'^ ^-^ Vengeance ; and this threw Mr. Williams, &c. upon their hacks, and they did 
 not venture to divide. So, for the present, this storm is over, and matters will 
 be tolerable till the next begins to rage." 
 
 Here was his mistake, — in thinking himself at liberty to stand still as soon 
 as his enemies (as he called them) were quieted by the pledges of his friends. 
 As soon as the results were called for, he considered it a new onslaught of the 
 foe, and fortified himself in obstinacy accordingly, so as to place his colleagues 
 
 dra if m'^ ^' ^° ^ situation of great difficulty. He gives his view in a letter of the date of 
 February 28th, 1824. " The fact is, from year to year, party is attempting to 
 drive me out of the Chancellorship. God knows I should be very happy if I 
 had nothing to do with it. If these maligiiant attacks had not been made 
 against me, year after year, I shoxild have been in retirement ; but to hatred, 
 malice, and uncharitableness, I ■will not give way. I will not gratify those 
 who re\dle me. IMy rule through life has been to do what I think right, and 
 to leave the consequences to God." Strange words these last — given in the 
 same breath with the declaration that he remained in office only because others 
 wished him out of it ! And this pcttishness and self-will become nothing less 
 than shocking when we consider on whom the eyes and minds of the movers 
 in parliament were really fixed : — not on an aged judge, whom they wished to 
 insult and displace fi-om gratuitous malice ; but on the impoverished orphan, 
 the sunken widow, the broken-spirited gentleman, whose lives were passed in 
 vain hope, or listless despair of getting justice from the court which assumed 
 to be their protector. It was impossible to think much of Lord Eldon's com- 
 placencies, or tears, or self-pity, while vast estates lay waste and weed-grown, 
 and whole tenantries sank down into pauperism under the blight of the Court 
 of Chancery. 
 1825. In tlie session of 1825, it had become apparent that the stir had not been 
 
 without its use. It was now admitted on all hands that improvement was 
 needed. The commission of the preceding year had collected a vast amoimt 
 of evidence, but had not reported. There was a demand in the Commons that 
 the evidence should be printed, without waiting for the Report ; a demand 
 which was, of course, unacceptable to the Lord Chancellor and tlic other mem- 
 bers of the government. The correspondence between the Premier and tlie 
 Chancellor on this occasion shows how urgent the demand for Chancery reform 
 had become, and how much more important it was than it could have been 
 rendered by any mere enmity against the judge of the court. Meantime, that 
 judge was strengthening himself against his enemies, instead of making them 
 
 i.ifc of Lord El- friends by working with them in a good cause. " Lord S to well," he says, 
 " called on Wednesday very kindly to express his hope that Williams and Co. 
 
 had not on Tuesday disturbed my peace of mind. They certainly did not 
 
 But, thank God, I am well in health, and in mind I grow more easy and cal- 
 
 ORDEn or THE lous." The correspondence with the Premier took place on occasion of an order 
 recorded in the Journal of the Commons, on the 30th of June, " that there be 
 laid before this House a Hst of all causes that have boon heard by the liOrd 
 Chancellor, during the last eighteen years, wherein judgment has not yet been 
 given, specifying the time when heard ; comprising all petitions in cases of 
 bankruptcy, already heard, but not decided." The C'hancellor was highly in- 
 
 dnn, ii. 556. 
 
 CUMMONS,
 
 Chap. XI.J DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 399 
 
 censed ; and applied to the Ministers for information why snch an order shoiikl 1826. 
 
 have been permitted to pass, and whether or not he was to be protected by his ^~^'''~- ' 
 
 colleagues. His colleagues advised him to despise his enemies, and to keep 
 
 quiet. But he could do neither ; as he avowed in a letter to Lord Liverpool in 
 
 the following November, in which he repeated his complaints and demands. Life of Lord ei- 
 
 concluding with a threat of retiring on the meeting of parliament. Lord Liver- j^j^^ ^j ^^^ g, 
 
 pool's reply advises the Chancellor to wait at least till the obnoxious motions '•'"'' "• ^''■'• 
 
 should be renewed : declares the intention of the Alinisters to oppose it, by the 
 
 mouth of Mr. Peel ; adding, — " But in order to make it jjossiblv for him to carry 
 
 his intention into effect, the Report of the Commission of Inquiry must be commission ,rnnEn 
 
 iii'ii^ ,. . ,., . . f TO Repoht. 
 
 ready, and be laitl before parliament immediately upon its meeting. . . . Let me 
 entreat you, therefore, to spare no effort for the completion of this Keport with- 
 out further delay. It is really become a question of vital importance, and 
 there is no inconvenience that ought not to be incurred for the attainment of 
 this object. Independent of the complaint of neglect, and of the suspicion 
 which the very delay in making the Report occasions, the Report is really 
 necessary, in order to enable Ministers in the House of Commons to resist 
 effectually the unjustifiable attacks daily made upon the Court of Chancery. . . . 
 I hope I do not appear to press this matter with too much importunity ; but I 
 am so deephj sensible of its importance, that I should not do my duty if I did 
 not urge it in the strongest manner. Let us but have the Report, and all other 
 difficulties may be fairly encountered ; but, without that, no person (in the 
 ))rescnt heated state of the public mind upon the subject) can answer for the 
 <'onsequence." 
 
 In truth, while the Chancellor was thanking God that he was well in health, 
 and growing more easy and callous in mind every day, the same was far from 
 being the case with the imprisoned debtors, the impoverished widows and 
 orphans, and the broken-spirited gentlemen, who were suffering under the 
 ]nartical denial of justice by his court. The damp was spreading in the houses, 
 and the weeds growing in the fields of the estates shut up by his delays j and 
 the work-houses were receiving more and more of the paupers who ought to 
 have been cheerful labourers on those estates. The introduction of the subject 
 into parliament two years before had roused some hope : and with hope came 
 restlessness ; and the deferred hope was becoming as dangerous as the Premier 
 intimated in his letter. 
 
 On the IStli of April, a petition from one of the sufferers was presented to „ is2«. 
 
 A ' *■ _ »■ Petitions and 
 
 the House; and another on the 21st: and on both occasions the court and "'^""es. 
 
 ^ ^ ^ ^ Hansard, xv. 29S, 
 
 the judge were attacked with great vehemence. Instead of retiring, however, as '>35. 
 
 Lord Eldon had declared his intention of doing, on occasion of the expected stir, 
 
 he preferred keeping himself " easy and callous." " The Chancellor," says his Life of Lord ei- 
 
 1 • 1 ., 1 i n ■^■ . , , 1 don, ii.6C7. 
 
 niograplier, was now become so far familiar with these annoyances as to en- 
 dure them with considerable good-humour :" — a good-humour which was not 
 reciprocated by the other parties in the case, — in the jail and the work-house, 
 and among the damps and weeds of dilapidated mansions. There was hope 
 for them, however. The Commissioners' Report was ready: and it not only REPonr or com. 
 declared that the Court of Chancery had ftiults, and was capable of gi-cat im- ' 
 provement, but offered 187 propositions, containing the alterations in the prac- 
 tice of the courts which might, in the o])inioii of the commissioners, be adopted
 
 400 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book II. 
 
 1826. with advantage. As it was known that the Attorney-General was to introduce 
 
 ^-^"^-^■^^ a bill founded on the Report, the subject was dropped for a month ; but not 
 
 till the opinion of the public was effectually declared and recorded in the 
 
 House, and in the reports of its debates. That opinion, at the date of its 
 
 utterance, is an item of history which ought not to be passed over. It may be 
 
 Hansard, XT. 300. uiost briefly convcycd in the words of Mr. Grenfcll, spoken on the 18th of April, 
 after some clamour in the House .against Mr. Hume, who had said that he 
 thought it the greatest curse that ever fell on any nation to have such a Chan- 
 cellor, and such a Court of Chancery, as this country was visited with. " Mr. 
 Grenfcll said that he was not in the House when the words which caused this 
 discussion were used. If his honourable friend had stated that the Lord 
 Chancellor was a curse to the country, he had done that which was not alto- 
 gether becoming in him, or any other member, to do. If his honourable fi'icnd 
 had said that the Court of Chancery was a curse to the country, he had stated 
 that which no man conversant with the subject could deny. It was only stat- 
 ing the cmrent opinion of ninety-nine men out of every hunched. And he 
 would tell the House the reason he had for holding that sentiment. It was 
 because, by the practice of that court, a rich man was enabled to oppress, 
 injiu'e, and ruin a poor man. It was a mere engine of oppression ; and, con- 
 stituted as that court was, it was not too much to say that it was a curse to 
 the country." — This being, in the general opinion, the state of the case, the 
 187 propositions of the Commissioners might not be too many for the refonns 
 needed. One of the hopeful and pleasant circumstances connected with the 
 presentation of the Report was the testimony which it brought out to the 
 conduct of the Chancellor during the preparation of the work. It showed 
 what he could do when his mind was turned from its self-regards to business 
 
 Hansard.xT. i2.'is. of real interest and importance. Dr. Lushington declared that from the 
 beginning to the end of the investigation, the Lord Chancellor had afforded 
 the most material assistance to the Commissioners. His connexion with the 
 Commissioners had left "a most favourable impression •with regard to the 
 learning, intelligence, and integrity of the noble lord. So far from ever seek- 
 ing to check inquiry, he had done every thing to promote and forward it." 
 
 The chief complaint made, in the House and out of it, about the Report 
 was, that it passed over in silence the causes of past delays of justice. This 
 was believed by some to be attributable to the Chancellor's influence. There 
 is little doubt that it arose from the tacit agreement in all minds, that these 
 
 Lord eudon. dclays wcro caused by the peculiar quality of Lord Eldon's mind ; that 
 hesitation and over-caution which made him, in his own time, the popular 
 personification of Doubt, and which made him, in his judicial capacity, so 
 strange a contrast with himself in his poHtical function, where he appeared 
 rash in the extreme, in the obstinacy of his dogmatism. In his judicial func- 
 tion, where his business was to decide, he was ever doubtful and hesitating : 
 while, in his political function, wherein he was called upon rather to confer 
 than to decide, he was to the last degree oracular and peremptory. This was 
 understood by every body ; and the Commissioners relied upon that know- 
 ledge. It was also understood by every body, that it was too late now to 
 alter the quality of the Chancellor's mind. It was kno-(vn that he was 
 seventy-foul- years of age, and that he must soon siu'render the seals either to
 
 Chap. XL] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 401 
 
 the King or to the King of kings: and it was hoped that a decorous silence 1826. 
 on this point might, without injury, be preserved, from due respect to the grey ^— ^'^— ^ 
 hairs of the old judge. Dr. Lushiugton passed over this point as lightly as he 
 could. He observed, that " any person who read the evidence would see that Hansard, iv. laae 
 every witness was asked what was the cause of the delay, and also what were 
 the best remedies for it. He was aware that some of them had felt great 
 reluctance to answer that question ; but he contended that the Commissioners 
 could not have gone further, unless they had purposely sought for matter to 
 criminate the Lord Chancellor. Having said thus much, he would proceed." 
 
 It was on the 18th of May that the Attorney-General moved for leave to bul PBoposcn 
 bring in his Chancery-Reform Bill, founded upon the Report of the Commis- 
 sioners. It was not discussed, as the dissolution of Parliament was known to 
 be at hand ; and it M'as understood that the motion proposed merely to lay the 
 subject before the country, and recommend it to the succeeding parliament. 
 Some correspondence among the ministers in the coiu-se of the autumn shows, 
 not only their wilUngness to carry through such reform as should be decided 
 on by the new jjarliament, but their anxiety to be ready for co-operation by 
 having the requisite funds provided, or offered for purposes of compensation 
 luider the new arrangements which were contemplated. Thus was the great 
 question of Chancery Reform, not only stirred, in the course of these tliree 
 years, but brought up to the point of legislative action before the dissolution 
 of the expiring parliament. 
 
 Little more was done tliau has been akeady shown, diu'Ing the last session 
 of this parliament. The session was shortened by the approaching dissolution ; 
 and men's minds had little liberty from the engrossing subjects of the com- 
 mercial crisis and the Catholic question. Many topics were more or less 
 fully discussed ; but their issues lay in future years. One decision, however, 
 was made, with regard to the administration of justice in India, which is JiRonsiN India. 
 important enough to be recorded. By the words of the law, aU British sub- 
 jects were competent to serve on juries in India : but, by a custom now become 
 too deeply rooted to be overthrown but by an express law, the half-caste po])u- 
 lation of India, now very numerous, were held disqualified as jurors, under 
 the idea that they were not British subjects. By a bill passed this session, all J^™""' ,5j^"'"'' 
 " good €and sufficient" residents were declared competent to serve on juries, — 
 witli the one reservation, that only Christian jurors should sit on the trials of 
 Christians. Prejudice is ever stronger than law : and time and enlighten- 
 ment must be waited for before oiu' dark-skinned fellow-subjects in India 
 could enjoy their due equality in the administration of justice: but the law 
 had now done what it could in declaring tlie rights of the half-caste popula- 
 tion ; and further benefit might be hoped for, from occasion being taken by 
 the introduction of the bill, to point attention to the good done in Ceylon, by 
 the free admission of natives to serve on juries, under the administration of 
 Sir Alexander Johnston. 
 
 With regard to matters of Finance, there was rather more than the fihame. 
 usual amount of variation between the pictures offered by the Chancellor of 
 the Exchequer and opposition members. In the midst of the unquestionable 
 and fearful distress of 182(), the Chancellor of the Exchequer continued to 
 attract to himself his nickname of Prosperity Robinson. Every session, — no 
 
 vor.. I. 3h
 
 402 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book II. 
 
 1826. matter whether the political weather was fair or foul, — he came down to the 
 
 ~ — "^- ' House exulting in his Budget ; — exulting that his most sanguine expectations 
 
 had been smpassed, or that his calculations had been imaiFected by the mis- 
 D^vERSE toNCLB- fortuucs of thc times. The Opposition members answered him with words of 
 lamentation and foreboding ; — lamentation at tlie deteriorating condition of 
 the working classes, and forebodings that they would sink yet further, under 
 the pressure of taxation. Superficial readers and hearers were amazed at so 
 wide a difference of statement on what appeared to be a matter of figures. 
 But figui-es have no more chance of being right than the merest conjectures, 
 unless the premises on which they are to operate are well ascertained and 
 agreed upon : and the Chancellor of the Exchequer and his critics proceeded 
 from different premises, and resorted to different tests to discover the real con- 
 dition of the country. Mr. Robinson had taken off taxes : — all agreed that 
 this was well. He had fomid tliat the reduced taxes had yielded more revenue 
 just in proportion to their reduction : — wise men agreed that this was natvu-al 
 and right. He gloried in the excess of revenue above his calculations, and 
 proceeded to take off more taxes : — wise men agreed to his proceeding, but 
 questioned the grounds of his exultation. He argued, fr-om the increase in 
 the revenue, a vast improvement in the condition of the people ; an improve- 
 ment commensurate with tlic increase of revenue : — and here wise men 
 thought him wrong. The difference was that Mr. Kobinson compared the 
 yield of the revenue merely with its yield in former years. His opponents 
 considered also the great increase in the number of consumers. And a wide 
 difference it was that there was room for here. All who took this element into 
 their calculations, thought Mr. Robinson wrong : — some believed that the con- 
 dition of the people was, on the whole, actually deteriorating : some that it 
 was only not impro^'ing; some that it was improving more slowly than it 
 ought to do ; — and nowhere was any party found to sympathize fully in tlie 
 exultation of tlie Chancellor of the Exchequer at this time. Ai'ter the census 
 Pirtcr's Fr .Kress of 1831, it was found that, takinsj the nation all round, each person consumed 
 
 ol the N.uuii, c. ' ,-1 ■ 1 f r\-p ^ ■ ^ 
 
 iii. p. 307. one-seventh more of the necessaries and comforts of life which come under 
 
 the heads of taxation, than at the beginning of the century ; this small im- 
 provement having taken place chiefly dimng the latter years of this period. 
 Such a fact is full of promise and satisfaction in itself; but the proportion of 
 it which was true in 1826 would have been grievously disappointing to the 
 Chancellor of the Exchequer ; — disappointing to liis benevolence, even more 
 than to his pride. 
 
 The reductions which the Chancellor of the Exchequer found liimself en- 
 
 Hansani,xh.743. ablod to proposc iu 1825 were on hemp, coffee, wine, spirits, and cider, and 
 
 Taxes utuucEu. souie of tlic asscsscd taxes wliich pressed on industry, and on tlie comfort of 
 the working classes ; among which, the most important were the house-tax on 
 inhabited houses under £10 rent, and the Mdndow-duty on houses not having 
 
 Hansaiii,xiii.77i. iiiorc than seven windows. An effort was made by Mr. Hobhouse to get the 
 whole window-duty repealed : but this pernicious and most indefensible tax 
 still subsists. These taxes together amounted to a little more than a million 
 and a half In 1826, March 13th, when the country was in a ■Nery suffering state, 
 and when parliament was about to be dissolved, the Chancellor of the Exchequer 
 
 uos"" '^' '^ ' passed in review our whole financial system for the preceding ten years, declaring
 
 Chap. XI.] DURING THE THIHTY YEARS' PEACE. 40:5 
 
 tliat there had been a reduction of taxation to the amount of twenty-seven mil- 1820. 
 lions and a half since the Peace. Some Opposition members, — ^Nlr. Maberley, v,^-v-«*.^ 
 Mr. Hiune, and Mr. Hobhouse the foremost, — protested against the statement 
 tliat there had been any reduction at all, — the increase in the number of tax- 
 payers so far exceeding the relief as tliat multitiules had been deprived of the 
 use of articles of comfort and luxury w ho had formerly enjoyed them. Thus, 
 though the yield of the duties on comforts and luxuries had so increased as to 
 occasion the reduction of some of them, the enjoyment of these comforts by 
 individuals had considerably lessened ; and the country was therefore, if 
 judged of by its consumption, in a declining state. The object of this oppo- 
 sition was to obtain a revision of Government expenditure, and a reduction in 
 many national establishments. The object was not obtained : the House of 
 Commons throwing out by a large majority the forty-seven resolutions offered 
 by Mr. Ilumo, and the motion foimded upon them. The sum of the resolu- 
 tions was, " that the continued pressure of taxation has greatly increased the Hansard, w. 875. 
 privations and distress of the productive, industrious, and labouring classes of 
 the community :" and the resulting motion was for an address to tlie Crown, 
 praying that liis Majesty " would be graciously pleased to take into his consi- sJ'ate" o^thb"^ 
 deration the present alarming state of the country, and to direct an immediate ^'""''^^''^ 
 inquiry to be made into the causes of the existing distress, and the adoption 
 of measures calculated to bring it to as speedy a termination as possible, and 
 to prevent its fiu-ther spreading." The motion was lost by a majority of 152 
 to 51, on the 4th of May, within a month of the dissolution of parliament. Hansard, nv. «97. 
 A more curious instance can scarcely be found than in the addresses of Pros- 
 perity Robinsoii and Adversity Hume of the opposite conclusions which may 
 be drawn from a view of a statistical subject, where the figures were indisput- 
 able on both sides, — as far as they went. The discrepancy lay in the want of 
 a common ground on which to base their calculations. The existing parliament, 
 it is clear, thought the Chancellor of the Exchequer altogether in the right. 
 In the Poor-law inquiry of subsequent years, it came out that all who had 
 congratulated the nation on a pervading spread and increase of material 
 prosperity had been ^videly mistaken. 
 
 On the 31st of May, the session was closed by commission, the Speech ^|;°'^ "' •'''^' 
 declaring " that, the state of the public business enabling his Majesty to close ul"'"""' "'■ 
 the session at a period of the year the most convenient for a general election, 
 it is his Majesty's intention to dissolve, without delay, the present parliament, Dissolution. 
 and to direct the issue of writs for the calling of a new one." The Speech 
 announced peace with the Burmese ; declared that every endeavour had been 
 used to preserve peace among the nations, in both hemispheres ; and expressed 
 deep concern at the distresses of the manufactiu'ing classes at home, admira- 
 tion at the patience with which those distresses had been generally borne, and 
 a hope that the pressure was gradually giving way. 
 
 Thus was dismissed the seventh parliament of the United Kingdom, after ''""'' '•"^■ r*"- 
 
 i . LIAMENT. 
 
 a diu'ation of six sessions. It had done some great tilings. The Conunons 
 had not had the opportunity of protecting the Queen, further than by an- 
 noiuicing that they were ready to protect her ; for her case had never reached 
 them : but sucli indications as they had been able to give were on the right 
 side. The great work of Parliamentary Reform had begun, Avith the enlarge-
 
 -10-i HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book 11. 
 
 1826. ment of tlie representation of Yorkshire ; and that of the abolition of slavery 
 " "'^'— -^ with the issue of the celebrated circular to the West India colonies. Our 
 country had been ennobled in the eyes of the world by the Foreign PoUcy of 
 Mr. Canning, enthusiastically sanctioned by parliament ; and broad foundations 
 had been laid for friendship with mankind at large, and prosperity at home, 
 by a practical admission of the pruiciples of Free Trade. There had been a re- 
 duction of taxation, considerable, though less than men of a later time would 
 have achieved during ten years of peace. These were things actually done. 
 A considerable, but indefinite progress had been made towards other great 
 achievements, which were sure to be effected in time. Nothing was done for 
 National Education, for CathoHc Emancipation, for Emigration, for Chancery 
 Reform, for the repeal of the Corn Laws, or for general Parliamentary Reform : 
 but these great topics had been discussed, and some of them diligently stvidied ; 
 and all clear-sighted men knew that they were rijjening for fruition, through 
 all the gales of passion and frosts of indifference which retarded their growth. 
 There could be no doubt that the country was in an advancing state, however 
 severe the visitations of distress under which it was labouring at the end of the 
 six years' term ; and however fearful the turbulence of some districts and 
 classes from the withholding of political rights on the ground of religion. Mxich 
 as there was yet to be done and undone, the improvement in our political state 
 since 1820 was very striking. The cabinet was Uberalised, and still liberalis- 
 ing ; and, in the train of the cabinet, the King. The House of Commons had 
 grown wiser by its six years' experience, and under the influence of the genius 
 of Mr. Canning, — imperfect as was that statesman's fideUty to his own genius 
 in some points of liigh importance. And now, there was every reason to hope 
 that the new parliament would be an improvement upon its predecessor ; and 
 that the light which had been shed abroad in the diffusion of improved prin- 
 ciples of policy would appear with some effectual concentration in the people's 
 House, arranging their present affairs, and decreeing their future destiny with 
 a clearer and more comprehensive knowledge than hitherto. 
 The Elections. The pruicipal topics Set up for tests at the elections, were the Corn Laws 
 and Catholic Emancipation ; and, more partially, the Abolition of Slavery. The 
 anti-Catholic strength rather gained than lost by the perturbation of the time- 
 The uncompromised candidates said, with regard to the Corn Laws, what was 
 usually said in those days, — that they would agree to what should be best for 
 both grower and consumer : and the anti-Slavery test did not obtain much 
 support. There was an opposition talked of to Mr. Huskisson at Liverpool ; 
 but the enemies of Free Trade could not find a candidate. Lord Howick and 
 Mr. Beaumont failed in Northumberland, and JNIr. Brougham in Westmore- 
 land, where the Lowther interest put forth its strength. Some of the Radical 
 demagogues tried their chance ; or rather, as Cobbett avowed, did their best 
 to empty the piu'ses of certain of the aristocracy. Cobbett himself stood for 
 Preston, and polled nearly 1000 votes; and Hunt opj)Osed Sir Thomas Leth- 
 bridge in Somersetshii'e ; of course, unsuccessfully. Lord John Russell failed 
 in Huntingdonshire ; and the Bedford interest altogether succimibed for the 
 time to the anti-Catholic spirit. As has been mentioned, the priests were 
 active in Ireland, and wrought wonders, — overpowering the Beresford interest 
 in Waterford.
 
 ROCr.HT AND 
 RVEST. 
 
 Chap. XL] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 405 
 
 One circumstance which makes the elections of 1820 memorahle to those 1826. 
 engaged in them was the excessive heat of the season. Deaths from sun-stroke 
 were not confined to lahourers in the field and on the road, but extended to 
 persons engaged in the elections. There was difficulty in ohtaining grass for P"' 
 horses, and even water for thirsty agents and electors. The effect of the drought 
 upon the crops and the markets has been mentioned ; and the consequent 
 early summoning of the new parliament, in order to confirm the necessary 
 alteration in the duties, and to grant an indeinnity to Ministers for that alter- 
 ation. As there was an average crop of wheat, and a very abundant one of 
 potatoes, the alarm and inconvenience caused by the drought of the summer 
 were not of long duration.
 
 4()G 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 [Rook it. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 ,QQ/^ np. TN casting the eye over the chronicles of these years, nothing is so painfully 
 
 . - _, , J- impressive as the frequent records of capital punishments. Even in these 
 
 ciriTii PciNisH. recent clays, men were brought out upon the scaffold in batches, and hanged 
 in rows. Boys of seventeen, hired for the adventure of steaHng sheep, or to 
 pass forged notes, were hanged with the strong-bodied burglar, and the hoary 
 old coiner. The day before an execution, the gaol was crowded with the fami- 
 lies of the doomed men come to bid them farewell. Six or eight wives to- 
 gether, who are to be widows to-morrow, — fifteen or twenty children, who are 
 to be orphans to-morrow, — these were the moaning and weeping reprovers of 
 our law, so barbarous at so late a day ! Some ameliorations in the law had, 
 as we know, taken place ; but still, men were brought out in batches, and 
 hanged in rows. The number of executions was fearfully on the increase ; 
 and yet, it was universally known that so much impunity was allowed, on ac- 
 count of the severity of the law, as materially to weaken the authority of law, 
 and encoiu-age crime. 
 
 glodcestershire In 1826, a discovery was made of a gang of banditti who led a romantic 
 life in Gloucestershire. In the neighbourhood of Wickwar, the inhabitants 
 had suffered cruelly for seven years under incessant depredations, and the conse- 
 quent pains of insecurity. The thefts were so various and vast as to indicate 
 the co-operation of a large number of persons : but none of the stolen property 
 was ever traced, nor any thief ever recognised. The police at last wore set to 
 arrest, almost at a venture, a family of the name of Mills ; — an old man and 
 his wife, and their four sons ; and the confession of these people revealed the 
 whole. The gang consisted of forty or fifty thieves, of whom thirty-one were 
 immediately arrested. They had found or made a subterranean cavern of some 
 extent, which was entered by a hole behind the fire-place in Mills's cottage, — 
 the large pot concealing the aperture. Nearly fifty pounds worth of half-crowns 
 was found there ; no less than twenty flitches of bacon, and furniture, cloth, 
 and farm produce in plenty. 
 
 The romance of smuggling was expiring, at the close of the period we have 
 
 SMUGCLINO. 1 r- tit TT 1 ■ ? • • 
 
 traversed. From the date of Mr. Huskisson s measures coming into operation, 
 such tales of adventui-e began to decline. The plain prose of the matter is, 
 that smuggling does not answer when duties are reduced to 30 per cent, ad 
 valor etn ; and the poetry of the case was henceforth to be found in fictions of 
 a preceding time, and in the traditionary tales which haunt the Christmas 
 hearth. The mournful romance of the Game Laws remained, however. In 
 that direction men might stiU look for midnight murder, the raging of base 
 passions, the filling of the gaols, and the corruption of the peasant's home. 
 
 Witliin this period, the last remaining stocks in London, — those belonging 
 to St. Clement Danes in Portugal Street, — were removed. Tliis ancient 
 
 Gamb Laws.
 
 Chap. XII.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 40" 
 
 instrument of punishment was henceforth to be looked for only in the bye- 1820 — 26. 
 
 places of England, — in some nook of a \illage, or under some old park -paling, 
 
 — green with lichens, and sphntering away under rain and wind, or the pranks 
 
 of chikken, playing with the boards and the holes which were once so awful. 
 
 A new instrument of punishment had been previously introduced in gaols ; — 
 
 the tread-wheel, the very name of which was presently rendered detestable by TREAo-wiitix. 
 
 the abuse of the invention. New inventions are usually stretched beyond due 
 
 bounds ; and this was the case with the tread-wheel. Not only men who had 
 
 been unaccustomed to such muscular exertion as is necessary for ascending an 
 
 interminable flight of stairs (which the work of the tread-wheel in fact is), 
 
 were condemned to the same amount of treading as the most hardy, but women 
 
 were put upon the wlieel, long after the time which afforded ample proof that 
 
 this was work totally unfit for women. It might appear to a stranger from 
 
 another hemisphere a strange thing that we should boast of our Christian 
 
 civilization, while we had such a sijectacle to show as was seen even at a later 
 
 time than this. An elderly lady, of good station and fortune, might be seen 
 
 on the tread-wheel in Coldbath Fields prison, in the gaol dress, and with her 
 
 hair cut close, — for the offence of shoplifting. It is difficult to write this fact : 
 
 and it must be painful to read it : but the truths of the time must be told. 
 
 During tliis period, the tread- wheel was in high repute ; and the punislmient 
 
 might be applied at the discretion of the Justices of the Peace connected with 
 
 each prison : and it was some time before many of them had the discretion to 
 
 see and admit the gross inequality of the punishment, and therefore its 
 
 essential badness when applied indiscriminately. It was employed cliiefly for 
 
 raising water and grinding corn : and sometimes the convicts were pimished, 
 
 over and above their sentence, by the mockery of being compelled to turn the 
 
 wheel, to no purpose whatever. 
 
 In Ireland, the crimes of the early part of this period were as savage and ''"'^* i'AJiii.Y. 
 atrocious as in any portion of the history of that unhappy country. It was in 
 1821, that the murder of the Shea family took place, on the borders of Tip- 
 perary, when the whole farm-house and offices were burned, and seventeen 
 persons thrust back into the flames, as often as they attempted to escape. The 
 seventeen were the farmer himself and his wife, seven children, three female 
 servants, and five labourers. The only other offence alleged was, that Shea 
 had brought labourers from a neighbouring \dllage to dig his potatoes, when 
 his own tenants would neither pay their rent nor work it out. After the 
 formation of the CathoUc Association, there was a rapid diminution of crimes 
 of outrage : and the leaders of the Association were no doubt justified in 
 claiming the credit of the improvement. There is no ground for tUsputing 
 tlieir claim to have pacified the CathoHc peasant population of Ireland for the 
 time. 
 
 In England, evidences of popular ignorance abound diu-ing this period. In P"'"'*" !««»• 
 one place or another, from time to time, there was a demolition of machinery; 
 — sometimes power-looms, and sometimes thi-eshing machines : and we meet 
 with one or two instances of the stack buniiag which became a rage, some 
 years afterwards. Instances of fanaticism abound ; — the Holy Land Pilgrims, 
 — a sect of men who gave up their industiy, and sold their property, to go to 
 Jerusalem to meet the Lord ; — the followers of Joanna Southcote ; — the flying
 
 408 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book II. 
 
 1820 — 26. serpent of Dorsetshire and Devonshire which, in the shape of a black blight, 
 
 "~ " ' poisoned the air ; — the sorcerer, Isaac Stebbings, who was ducked in a Suffolk 
 
 village, in the presence of tliousands ; — the drowning of children, " to put the 
 fairy out of them ; " and the desertion of Carmarthen fair, on the ground of 
 the ancient prophecy of Merlin, that the town should be destroyed on the 12th 
 of August, 1824 ; — the cutting and carving of a witch at Taunton ; — and above 
 all, the sensation about the miracles of Prince liohenlohe. It is observable, 
 however, that a large proportion of such jiopular delusion lies at the door of 
 scientific and professional men, who ignore a class of facts M'hich demand their 
 serious attention; which stand out clearly as facts under the cognizance of 
 society, and which, till scientifically investigated, will continue to afford 
 material for popular fanaticism. The sympathies and operations of Prince 
 Hohenlohe have never been explained away, to the satisfaction of philosophical 
 minds, by the common talk of imposture and the influence of imagination ; 
 and they never can be, any more than the phenomena of somnambulism, 
 second-sight, prevision and presentiments, which are foxuid in all ages of the 
 world, and all states of society. One of the greatest of physical inquirers, 
 who died soon after this period, has left behind him a testimony which should 
 be taken home as a lesson by those whose business it is to explore the mys- 
 teries of the human frame. Sir Humphrey Davy says, in his Dialogiie on 
 Omens, " In my opinion, profound minds are the most likely to think lightly 
 of the resources of human reason ; and it is the pert superficial thinker who is 
 generally strongest in every kind of unbelief. The deep philosopher sees 
 chains of causes and effects so wonderfully and strangely linked together, that 
 he is usually the last person to decide upon the inij)ossibility of any two series 
 of events being independent of each other ; and in science, so many natural 
 miracles, as it were, have been brought to light .... that the physical 
 inquirer is seldom disposed to assert confidently on any abstruse subjects 
 belonging to the order of natural things, and still less so on those relating to 
 the more mysterious relations of moral events and intellectual natures." 
 When scientific men, and those whose profession pledges them to the pm-suit 
 of physiological science, are open-minded and earnest enough to admit and 
 study mysterious facts which occur before theu- eyes, popular fanaticism about 
 sorcery and inspiration may give way ; but, till this happens, not even the 
 widest spread of popular education will give more than a check to the cruel 
 follies of superstition. 
 Bonv-sNATcniNr.. One class of the violences of this period arose fi'om the practice of Body- 
 snatching. No sufficient provision was as yet made by law for the practice of 
 dissection ; a practice necessitated by the demands of science. Before it could be 
 foreseen what this necessity must become, an unfortunate arrangement had been 
 made by which disgrace and horror were associated with the process of examining 
 the human body after death. The bodies of criminals were devoted for this 
 purpose : and much time, and vigorous effort on the part of individuals, were 
 Inquired to overcome the prejudice thus originated. Meantime, as bodies 
 must be had, there was nothing for it but taking them fi-om the churchyards 
 by night : a painful fear was spread over the M'hole class of sur^dvors of those 
 who were buried in the ordinary way ; and affrays and police-cases in conse- 
 quence, appear frequently in the records of the time.
 
 Chap. XII] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 409 
 
 The period under review was far behind our own in regard to Uberty of 1820 — 26. 
 thouslit, SDCech, and the press. The influence which had deiirived the poet "^""^ ~~^ 
 
 , , . . . "ROSEtlTIONS FOR 
 
 Shelley of the guarthansliip of his own children, and the state of public blasphemy. 
 opuiion wliich had counteiumccd that outrage upon nature, were still para- 
 mount : and we find a multitude of prosecutions for blasphemy, as well as for 
 sedition, taking place ; and the law refusing its protection to literary property, 
 on account of opinions, statements, or merely representations therein contained. 
 In 1822, Lord Byron's pubUsher was refused an injunction Ln C'hancery to pro- 
 tect a poem of Lord Byron's from being pirated, on the ground of its appearing 
 to contain blasphemous matter. This was not precisely the way to restrict the 
 circulation of the poem : and thus it was bad, as a matter of policy. More- 
 over, as the author wrote to the publisher, — " Cain is notliing more than a 
 <lrama, not a piece of argument." We of the present day should add, that 
 the law acts -sN-itli tyramiy and impolicy when it suppresses " argument," on any 
 subject whatever. In the same year, protection against piracy was refused by 
 the Lord Chancellor to the " Lectures " of Mr. Lawrence, the eminent surgeon, 
 a work of (300 pages on physiological subjects. The author was debarred from the 
 fruits of his labour on the ground that some passages of the book discouute- Annual R^pister, 
 nanced the doctrine of the immortality of the soul. The Lord Chancellor 
 thus did what he could to promote the circulation of cheap copies of a book 
 wliich he considered dangerous. In the opinion of a subsequent time, he did 
 a more dangerous thing, in discouraging fi'eedom of research and of speech 
 among men of science, who camiot work well in their function mider the pres- 
 sure of foregone conclusions, and the tlueat of outlawry. As Messrs. Shadwell 
 and Wilbraham observed, in their pleading on the case, the liberty of the press 
 was materially involved in the question : but, as the event proved, the liberty 
 of the press must give way before the force of the Chancellor's " conscience " 
 on matters of opinion. 
 
 In the next year, Susanna Wright was brought up for judgment for having 
 been instrumental in publishing a libel on the Cliristian religion. " She was Annual RpfL^t<-r, 
 neatly di-essed, but appeared to have suffered in health from the imprisonment '""•""■»"■'*■ 
 slie had undergone." She was sentenced to eighteen months' imprisonment in 
 Coldbath Fields prison, to pay a fine of £100, and find siueties at the end of 
 the term, under pain of a longer imprisonment. 
 
 In the next year, eight shopmen of Richard Carlile were sentenced to various Annual Kegister 
 terms of imprisonment, and to fines, for selling, in their employer's shop, 
 " Paine's Age of Reason," and three other works, termed " irreligious." The 
 results of this course of action soon proved to reasonable people that prose- 
 cutions like these did not tend to ennoble and endear Christianity to the very 
 classes wliich were likely to be reached by these proscribed books. The 
 Christianity of the state appeared ui a tyrannical and most unloveable aspect, 
 when it impoverished and imi)risoncd the needy and hard-\vorking for offences 
 against itself: and thus a new stimulus was given to the appetite for libel 
 against Christianity. The Comis of Law, thus employed, were doing more 
 for the dishonour of religion than Avas ever done by the contempt of the 
 ignorant, and the invectives of the discontented, who had no knoA\ledge of 
 Cliristianity but in its abuses, and could not, therefore, influence any who 
 had. Mr. Cobbett had reckoned on a greater prevalence of admiration for 
 vol.. 1 3 I
 
 410 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book II. 
 
 1820 — 2(i. Thomas Paiuo than he found in England. lie imported the bones of liis 
 ■ '' favovirite ■\viiter, in the expectation that they would be run after by sight- 
 seers and piu'chascrs Avho regarded Christianity as Paine did, and would 
 receive his bones as saintly relics. But notliing came of it. The public 
 laughed, and a niece of Paine's was naturally veiy angry ; but Cobbctt Mas 
 made a bankrupt about that time : the bones were not exliibitcd, nor heard 
 of again. 
 
 Mechanics' iNsri. The London Mechanics' Institute was founded in 1823 : and in the next 
 year was laid the first stone of the lecture-theatre. In 1825, the number of 
 regular subscribers was 1185. In this year, there was a meeting of 120gentle- 
 
 i.oNonN cni- men, who deskcd the formation of a university in London, to meet the wants 
 of students who were precluded, either by religious opinion or mediocrity of 
 fortune, from attending the existing universities. " The object of the Insti- 
 tution is," said the Prospectus, " to bring the means of a complete scientific 
 and literary education home to the doors of the inhabitants of the metropolis, 
 so that they may be enabled to educate their sons at a very moderate expense, 
 and under their own immediate and constant superintendence." There are 
 no incidents of the period under notice more cheering than these. It is true, 
 neither of these institutions meets the great want of all, — the education of the 
 absolutely ignorant, Avho form the largest proportion of society in England : but 
 both aid in preparing the way to this all-important object. The London ITni- 
 versity educates a host of young men of the middle class, who, from generation 
 to generation, must exalt the standard of education among the great body of 
 Dissenters, hitherto but half-educated at the best ; and who become tlie mov- 
 ing spirits of large classes which had hitherto lain below the surface of the 
 prevalent learning of the time. And the value of Mechanics' Institutes in 
 exciting and training the intellects of the fathers of the next generation of 
 artisans and operatives can hardly be over-estimated. It is impossible but that 
 the members of these institutes must be more anxious to procure education for 
 their children, than if the advantages and charms of musemns, libraries, lec- 
 tures and reading-rooms had not been opened to themselves. At the time of 
 the establishment of these institutes, the chief advantage contemplated was 
 the most obvious one, — of opening means of knowledge to working men who 
 desired it : but we, of a somewhat later time, see a yet more important result 
 accruing in the exaltation of the idea of education in the popular mind, and 
 the quickening of parental as well as personal desires for knowledge. The 
 honour of originating these institutions belongs to Dr. Birkbeck more than to 
 any other man : and to iVIr. Brougham also great gratitude was throughout felt 
 to be due. Dr. Birkbeck had been preparing for the great event of 1823 from 
 the beginning of the century, by bringing together classes and audiences of 
 working men, for instruction by lectures and mutual communication. His 
 influence, and that of his coadjutors, always went to rouse the people to do the 
 Avork for themselves, and not to wait for patronage or aid from the state. The 
 response he met was hearty. Men of influence and high character presented 
 themselves as leaders ; and master mechanics and operatives flocked to the 
 movement. Two-thirds of the committee of the London Mechanics' Institute 
 were working men : and a continually larger proportion of that class became 
 
 r«nti ii sncieiy cf dircctovs, till, in elcAcn years from its formation, the directors were chosen 
 
 p. 'ITX.
 
 Chap. XIL] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 411 
 
 altogether by and fi'om tlie general body, with no other restriction than certain 1820 — 2<j. 
 conditions of membership. In a short time, many large towns — Manchester, ^~^ ' 
 Liverpool, Sheffield, Coventry, &c. — opened Mechanics' Institutes ; and then 
 they s])read into the central settlements of rural districts, Avhere, by the esta- 
 blishment of branches, the circulation of books could be carried on. At 
 Chichester, an institute numbered 400 members, and had two branches, — at 
 Bognor and Selsey ; and at Lewes there were 200 subscribers. The men of 
 the. present generation may well distinguish the year 1823 with a mark of 
 honour in the catalogue of their years. 
 
 After the close of the war, and two deficient harvests in succession. Govern- emici^ahon. 
 mcnt had taken alarm at the number of unemployed labourers who burdened 
 the country, and made a feeble attempt to relieve society at home by encou- 
 raging Emigration. They conveyed a small number of settlers to South Africa, 
 and established them there. By the Custom-house returns, whicli are not Prosresa of the 
 very reliable, but the only data we have relative to that time, it appears that p. 128. ' *•'•■■ 
 the sufferers took the matter very much into their own hands, — the number of 
 cmigi'ants to South Africa falling veiy short of that to our North American 
 colonics, and soon appearing far below that to Australia. In 1820 (according 
 to these returns) nearly 18,000 persons emigrated to our North American 
 colonies, while 1063 were conveyed to the Cape. As for the Australian settle- 
 ments, the number of emigrants to them increased nearly threefold between 
 1821 antl 1826. The total amount of emigration is seen to correspond with 
 the state of affairs at home. In the sad years of 1820 and 1821, it was (leav- 
 ing out the odd numbers) 19,000 and 13,000; — in the jnosperous years of 
 1824 and 1825, it sank to 8000 and 9000; and in the disastrous year 1826, it 
 suddenly rose to nearly 14,000, of whom nearly 13,000 went to our North 
 American settlements. These are facts which clearly point out the duty of the 
 state. There is evidently no question about whether emigTation shall pro- 
 ceed ; — no use in arguing now about whether it is a good thing or not. It pro- 
 ceeds ; and its rate of procedure corresponds with the state of affairs at home. 
 The question is, whether it shall go on well or ill ; under kindly or cruel 
 circumstances. In those days it was common, we might say usual, in the bad 
 years, for the labourer to land on the distant shore with nothing but his empty 
 hands, and his tribe of hungry children at his heels. We shall see hereafter 
 what has been done in regard to the question whether such shall continue to 
 be the method of British emigration, or whether every one who goes oxit shall 
 set forth -^-ith an assurance of finding, at the end of his voyage, wherewithal 
 to make a home, — land or employment, food, and a place in society. As we 
 have seen, a committee of parliament was inquiring on this great question, at 
 the expiration of the period under review. 
 
 A foreigner might ijoint to the state of the chief Insurance Office in England ?'"" *"" '"■= 
 at this time, as a curious illustration of the prudential character of the English 
 mind. The Equitable Insurance Office, though the chief, is only one among 
 many in London ; and the number in the country has been perpetually on the 
 increase. In 1825, the vested capital of the Equitable was upwards of eleven Annual Rcsisiw. 
 millions ; and of this amount, nearly nine millions had accumulated in twenty- ' """ 
 one years. In 1821, the sums insured against fire, in the United Kingdom, Progress of ii,c 
 amoiuitcd to more than X400,000,000. There are no means of knowing pre- cX'l"'iiZ' "'
 
 412 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 [Book II. 
 
 Annual Register, 
 1820,, Chron. 131. 
 
 Menai Bridge. 
 
 Annual Register, 
 l»2li, Chron. 14. 
 
 First Chain 
 Bridge. 
 
 Caledonian 
 Canal. 
 
 1820 — 2(3. ci.scly the amount of money on life insurance in the hands of the offices of the 
 kingdom : but it is believed to amoimt to forty millions. In looking at these 
 facts as an indication of national character, we must bear in mind that the 
 amount of insurance of life and fiom fire would undoubtedly have been much 
 larger throughout, but for the indefensible tax which has ever acted as a dis- 
 couragement to this wise method of saving. 
 
 The progress of the arts of life dui'ing this period was such as to answer to 
 all reasonable expectation. In May, 1820, a young lady under age received by 
 her trustees a sum of between £26,000 and £27,000, as compensation for the 
 loss of custom at Bangor Ferry ; which ferry had, up to this time, yielded the 
 young lady £900 a year. This was in preparation for the erection of the Menai 
 Bridge, which was opened on the 30th of January, 1826, at half-past one in the 
 morning. The resident engineer undertook to conduct the mail across : and he 
 had for his staff as many persons as could hang upon the coach. " Amidst the 
 blaze of lamps, the cheers of those assembled, and the roaring of a heavy gale 
 of wind, the gates were thrown open, and the mail passed triumphantly across." 
 There was a throng on the bridge throughout the next day : and truly, it was 
 a work worthy of admiration. The height from the high-water line was 100 
 feet : and the length of tlie chains was 1600 feet. 
 
 The first Chain Bridge in Great Britain, however, had been completed nearly 
 six years before. It was the work of Capt. S. Brown, R.N., and was thrown 
 across tlie Tweed where the width of the river was 437 feet from bank to 
 baidv. In 1822, the Caledonian Canal was opened, after the labour of twenty 
 years, and the sura of £900,000 had been spent upon it. The canal might or 
 might not turn out a good speculation ; but there could be no doubt of the 
 character of the population of the wastes along its course having changed re- 
 markably in the progress of the work. Regular and well-paid emplojinent, 
 and intercourse with able workmen brouglit from a distance, had roused them 
 from a state of torpor and ignorance, and given them habits of industry and 
 pleasures of intelligence, never dreamed of before. 
 
 On the 12th of September, 1823, the Bridge-house Committee, in contem- 
 plation of a new London bridge, met at Guildliall to consult, and adjom-ned 
 to the top of Fishmongers' Hall, to look about them, and determine wliere 
 they would ])ut their new bridge. It was to be as near to the old one as 
 possible : and the old bridge was to stand till the new one was completed. The 
 first stone was laid in .June, 1825, by the Lord Mayor, in the presence of the 
 Didce of York. Mr. Rennie, the architect, was the true hero of the day. At 
 the close of our period the works were in great forwardness, and the first stone 
 on the Southwark side had been laid at the beginning of January, 1826. 
 
 In 1823, we find that the length of streets lighted with gas in the metropolis 
 was 215 miles ; and that nearly 40,000 public gas lamps were lighted by the 
 three principal companies. 
 
 In 182G, the Thames Tunnel was fairly begun, — the first shaft having been 
 actually united with the commencement of the Tunnel. 
 
 Cambridge University was henceforth to have an observatory ; tlie senate 
 having decreed, in 1820, that one should be built, and furnished with instru- 
 ments, — voting on the spot £5000 towards the cost. 
 
 The Faculty of Advocates at Edinburgli purchased, in 1825, a fine Danish 
 
 New LnNDUN 
 
 Bkiioe. 
 
 Annu.-!! Register, 
 1823, thron. S'J. 
 (Us. 
 
 Thames Tunnel. 
 Annual Registf r, 
 l»-.ii), Cliron. 27. 
 
 Cambridge Ob. 
 
 SEltVATORV.
 
 Chap. XII.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 413 
 
 library from Copenhagen ; and in the next year, the Astorga library, the finest 1820 — 26. 
 collection of Spanish books of law, chronicles, and romance, existing out of " ' 
 
 Spain. Tliis library, founded by the Marquess Astorga, Viceroy of Portugal ^^"™«<^* bl- 
 under the administration of Olivarez, consisted of 8000 volumes, and was pur- 
 
 1 1 r /^finnn Annual Register, 
 
 CllaSOd tor JtoUUU. 1826,Chron. ll. 
 
 In 1821 an-ived the first Eg-ynitian obelisk seen in this country. It was one first obeli.sic . 
 
 1 m 1 Til -1 FROM Egypt. 
 
 of the pair standing at the entrance of the avenue to the iemple at rhilse, — 
 the Holy Island of the Nile, on the borders of Nubia. It is of gi-eat value, 
 from the curious matter contained in its inscriptions, which could not be read 
 in London at the time it was brought over : and the privilege of possessing it 
 seems to be enhanced by its having been very nearly lost in the act of removal. 
 A pier on the river bank gave way mider its weiglit, and it slipped into the 
 Nile : but Belzoni, the traveller, recovered it very skilfully ; and we next hear 
 of it Ivins at Ueptford, suiTOunded by artists who were eagerly making di^aw- Annual Register, 
 
 J O I ' J _ o J o l»21,Chron. 148 
 
 ings from it, for engi-aving purposes. The old priests of the Holy Island, whose 
 petition to Ptolemy it bears engraved, would have been astonished and dis- 
 mayed if they could have foreseen how far it was destined to travel. 
 
 The art of lithographic printing was beginning to spread at this period ; so {,'""""""'"" 
 that we read of patents being taken out for lithographic presses. The impor- 
 tance of the invention may have been exaggerated in the enthusiasm of its 
 first introduction : but there can be no question of its having wrought well in 
 presenting to the popular eye works of art, of a quality, and in a multitude, 
 which could never have been enjoyed without the discovery of such a method 
 of cheap engraving. The utility of the art in other ways, — in midtiplying 
 copies of manuscript, &c. — is so great as to entitle the first popular use of the 
 art of lithography to notice in a history of the time. 
 
 In 182-1:, the most eminent men in London and Edinburgh, — including the watt-s mom-- 
 members of the government, — met to do honour to the memory of James Annual Register, 
 Watt, as the benefactor of his country and liis kind. The Prime INIinister, 
 who opened the business at the London meeting, declared himself charged 
 with a message from the King ; — that if it should be determined on to erect a 
 monument to -James Watt, his Majesty would head the list with a subscription 
 of £500. The Edinburgh meeting was led by Sir Walter Scott and Lord 
 Jcflfrey. Every where, the foremost men seemed eager to honour the great 
 benefactor who has done so much for the material interests of society. His 
 statue now graces Westminster Abbey, where he may, by some, be thought to 
 hold a middle rank between the Edwards and Henries who lie there glorious 
 in their regality, and the higher sovereigns, — the kings of mind whose me- 
 morials sanctify the Poets' Corner. 
 
 In every period of modern history there seems to be something to record of d^°c "l™""'' 
 our increased knowledge of the globe on which we live. Now that we were 
 at peace, there was leisure and energy disposable for projects of geographical 
 discovery. 
 
 In 1820, some naval officers on the coast of South America rciiortcd home ANT»nrTirLANn. 
 
 ' ^ I Annual Register, 
 
 that an iSjitarctic Continent, or long series of islands, of whose existence an isiu,p. noc. 
 ancient rumour is reported, had been discovered by the master of a Northum- 
 berland trading vessel, — by name. Smith. It had always been the custom 
 for our trading vessels, and, as it apjjears, for those of other nations, to keep
 
 414 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book II. 
 
 1820 — 26. as near as possible to Cape Horn in passing into the Pacific. Mr. Smith, in 
 
 ' '^"^ command of the WilUam, traversed a higher latitude, and fell in with a line 
 
 of coast, which he followed for two or three hundred miles, and which he 
 named New South Shetland, — landing to take possession in the name of his 
 country. He found the climate temperate, the coast mountainous, and bearing 
 an occasional growth of firs and pines. He passed large bays which abounded 
 with the spermaceti whale and seals. A party of naval officers afterwards 
 accompanied him in his vessel, to verify and certify his discovery ; and New 
 South Shetland has since appeared in the maps of the world. This discovery was 
 NouTH Polar accidental at first, however well followed up : but our North Polar knowledse 
 
 Expeditions. ' i o 
 
 was the result of express research. In 1820, Captain Parry reported liis dis- 
 covery that Baffin's Bay was no bay at all ; he having found in its western 
 coast a passage into the Polar sea. Upon this, an expedition M'as fitted out 
 for purposes of further exploration of the Arctic Circle ; and rewards were 
 
 Annual Register, offered by Government: — £5000 to the first ship which should reach 130° 
 West long. : £5000 more to the first ship which should reach 150° "West 
 long.: and a further sum of £10,000 to the first ship which should reach 
 the Pacific by the North-West Passage. Smaller rewards were offered for 
 the attainment of high degrees of latitude. The result of this expedition was 
 the discovery of the Strait of the Fury and Hecla, and the ascertainment 
 generally that the land in those regions consists of a vast archipelago, — one of 
 the largest on the globe, of which Greenland may be considered the mainland. 
 An overland expedition was sent at the same time, under the command of 
 Captain Franklin, to explore the Coppermine River, and the coasts extending 
 east and west of its mouth. In 1824, Captain Parry was sent again. From 
 these and subsequent expeditions, the northern coast of the American Con- 
 tinent has become clearly defined, and the existence of a passage from ocean 
 to ocean satisfactorily made out, though it is not yet known to have been 
 traversed by any one person. 
 
 inTEEiou OF Considerable additions were made, during these years, to our knowledge of 
 
 Africa. ' ci j ' D 
 
 the interior of Africa. In 1823, Lieutenant Clapperton was employed, with 
 Major Dcnham and Dr. Oudncy, to explore a part of the Afiican interior by 
 proceeding south from the Mediterranean shore. Dr. Oudney soon died ; but 
 his two companions penetrated more than 1500 miles (in a measured straight 
 line), to Lake Tchad and the town of Soccatoo. In the great fresh water Lake 
 Tchad they saw huge hippopotami, and elephants and other mighty beasts on 
 its banks. At Soccatoo, they found crockery and other ware, with the names 
 of English makers upon them. They offer a much more favourable picture of 
 African civilization in the interior than had been looked for. Besides this 
 important piece of knowledge, — important as affecting the destinies of the 
 African race all over the globe, — these travellers liave given to the world much 
 infoiTuation about the territory round Lake Tchad, and south and west of it. 
 On this occasion, the results repaid their hardships, — which were great : but 
 their attempts to discover the course and rise of tlie Niger were unsuccessful. 
 In 1825, Clapperton, being raised to the rank of Commander, set forth again, 
 Avith several companions and servants, to explore the same region from the 
 southern side : but this expedition terminated disastrously, the whole party 
 dying except llichard launder, the faithful servant of Captain Cla])perton.
 
 ARKABLE 
 EASUNS. 
 
 Chap. XII.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 415 
 
 The master might have survived -with his servant, but for his detention at 1820 — 26. 
 Soccatoo for man)' months by the king, his old acquaintance. He died within 
 four miles of Soccatoo, in April, 1827. 
 
 It is impossible to read the records of these years without being struck by R™^*^ 
 the number of earthquakes, storms, eclipses, and volcanic eruptions, and the 
 rcciu-rence of extraordinary drought. Some causes, unknown to science, — 
 iuikno-\\ni, that is, in their mutual relations, — appear to have been at work, to 
 produce remarkable effects in earth, air, and sea. In 1820, a new crater opened 
 on Mount Vesuvius : and there were earthquakes in various parts of the globe. 
 In England, and throughout Europe, the summer was intensely hot. On the 
 7th of September happened the great eclipse, — the greatest in the memory of 
 tlie existing generation, — which drew away the peers and hsteners in the 
 House of Lords, while the Queen's trial was proceeding. In the next year, 
 tliero were rains so hea^'y as to cause floods in many districts of the kingdom. 
 That at AYestminster rose four inches above the great flood of 1774. On the 
 2Gth of April of this year, the thermometer (at Cambridge) in the shade, with 
 a N. E. aspect, stood at the extraordinary height of 73 degrees. Earthquakes 
 occurred in the south of England ; and t«o in the west of Ireland were 
 fblhnved by landslips, very disastrous to the residents. In the next year, there 
 was an earthquake in Yorkshire ; and also at Lisbon and Ancona ; but the 
 distinguishing calamity of the year was the destruction of Aleppo, by successive 
 shocks wliich lasted for three days. Many other towns in the neighboiuing 
 regions were destroyed also : but at Aleppo, the immediate destruction Avas 
 reckoned at upwards of 25,000 lives. Two rocks rose up in the Mediter- 
 ranean, making islets near Cyprus. In the autumn, Naples was threatened 
 by an erui^tion of Vesuvius, of extraordinary violence, — four rivers of lava 
 flo\\ing out from old and new craters. A volcano in Iceland began to stir, 
 twice in the same year, coating large districts with layers of ashes. It was the 
 turn of the Avcstern world, the next year. On the coast of Chih, the sea sud- 
 deidy sank twelve feet, and by the trembling of tlie earth, for a succession of 
 many hours, the city of Valparaiso was destroyed. In 1834, Persia was the 
 scene. Many towns, of which Sliiraz was the chief, were swallowed up or 
 overt hroA\ni, with the greater number of their inhabitants. After some extra- 
 ordinary storms which seemed to spring up about the coasts of England and 
 Holland during the summer, the disasters of the year were closed by a hurri- 
 cane Avliich swept over the North Sea, -wTecking all the ships on the coast of 
 Jutland, and then traversed Sweden, mowing down the forests which opposed 
 its course. The waters of the Baltic were swept into the Gulf of Finland ; 
 and St. Petersburg was almost droA\aied in the rise of the Neva. The destruc- 
 tion of life, lands, houses, and goods, was beyond all estimate. Earthquakes 
 continued through the two following years : and the heat of the summer in 
 Europe was such as to cause much conjecture as to the reasons of the changes 
 in the temperature of tlie seasons. Horses dropped dead in the streets of our 
 towns, and men in the fields. Upon the heat followed, as usual, storms, and 
 the fatal fires which it is so difficult to check after long drought. On the side 
 of one of the Granq)ians, a spark caught the ihied moss, and the fire spread 
 for above a fortnight. At one time, the mass of fire was from five to seven 
 feet deep in the moss, extending over an area of seven miles by five. On
 
 416 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 [Book II. 
 
 1820—26. 
 
 Windsor Teb. 
 race re-ofencd. 
 
 Life of Lord El- 
 don, ii. 5'/G. 
 
 Reversal of 
 Attaindf-rs. 
 Annual Register, 
 1824, p. 01. 
 
 Annual Register, 
 1826, p. 107. 
 
 Mdsical Fes- 
 tivals. 
 
 account of tlie heat, no oue could ai^proacli to take measures for extinguishing 
 it : and it burned itself out at last. During these years of elemental turmoil, 
 men felt as singular a sense of precariousncss, — with the globe gi-oaning and 
 heaving under their feet, and meteors flashing and storms rushing about their 
 heads, — as we may suppose a race of ants to feel, when man comes with his 
 candle and his gunpowder to blow up their settlement. Amidst the conflicting 
 forces of nature, man felt as powerless as they. 
 
 One incident of the new reign, not quite unimportant, was that Windsor 
 Terrace was once more opened to the public, as a consequence of the death of 
 the old King. There, in the days of the last century, he used to walk, with his 
 yoiuig family around liini, in the presence of a crowd of gazing subjects. There, 
 in his latter days he walked, blind, secluded, and with benighted mind, so that 
 for him the sim seemed not to shine, and the glorious landscape stretching 
 below might as well have been blotted out. Now, the place was again opened 
 to the public; but not, as formerly, for loyal subjects to greet their King. 
 George IV. could not submit to the observances of royalty wliich required his 
 meeting his people. He secluded himself more and more, from morbid feelings 
 of indolence and self-indulgence. From a letter of Lord Eldon's wc learn 
 how his Ministers disliked and disapproved of this growing indolence. " There 
 was what is called a grand review in Hyde Park yesterday (July 10th, 182-i). 
 The Duke of York was, I hear, very popular, and prodigiovisly clieered. My 
 Royal Master was in Carlton House : i. c, within half a mile of this scene, 
 but did not approach it. It is astonishing what is lost by this sort of dealing, 
 and it is grievous that popularity which might be so easily earned, and acquired 
 at so small an expenditure of time and trouble, should not only not be secured, 
 but a feeUug of disgust and reproach be engendered towards a person with 
 respect to whom a very different feeling most easily might and ought to be 
 created." While the King was thus negligent of his personal popularity, his 
 Ministers and Parliament did an act which secured, among some eminent fami- 
 lies, a grateful attachment towards the House of Brunswick. By a reversal of 
 attainders, five families were, in 1824, restored to their ancestral honours, for- 
 feited by rebellion in the last century : — the Jerninghams, Erskines, Gordons, 
 Drummonds, and Nauns : and in 1826, acts were passed restoring the peerages 
 of Earl of Carnwath, Earl of Airhe, Lord Duff, Lord Elcho, and the Baronetcy 
 of Threipland of Fingark. 
 
 It was during the period under notice that Musical Festivals were instituted: 
 and these, and every other signal advance in the love and practice of Art, may 
 be regarded as direct consequences of the Peace. The opening of the Con- 
 tinent gave a vast stimulus to the artistic mind of England : and the clioral 
 music of Germany was as striking a revelation of the power of Art to qualified 
 travellers as the picture galleries of that country, France, and Italy. By the 
 Festivals of York, Norwich, Birmingham, and AVorcester, music of a higli 
 order was offered to multitudes of the middle classes, some time before London 
 could yield music which, in the mass, could be compared to it : and subsequent 
 times have shown that thus was awakened in the English people a dormant 
 faculty, whose training is a most important auxihary to true civilization. If 
 we now observe any where among our people a tendency to musical pursuit, 
 stimulating the intellect, and softening the manners, like tlic musical faculty
 
 Chap. XII.J DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 417 
 
 of the Germans, we must date its rise from the institution of Musical Festivals 1820—26. 
 
 after the Peace, — though these could never, of themselves, have effected what "~^— ^-^ ' 
 
 has hccn done since bj' efforts of another kind, for the popular musical educa- 
 tion of England. The funds raised by these gatherings for tlic support of 
 charities are an important benefit : but it is perhaps a greater that music of 
 an elevating character has been carried into thousands of English homes. 
 
 The Kinff, on his accession, favoured the institution of a Royal Society of R"^*'- society or 
 
 »' ' ... LlTERATL'RK. 
 
 Literature, to serve " as a rallying point for concentrating and diffusing infer- Annual Rogisier, 
 
 e i- ■ -1 . . J -^55 II- 'S-"' '^hion. 530. 
 
 mation, by a union of persons ot similar tastes and pursuits : and tor purposes 
 of literary patronage. The King declared his intention of devoting a thousand 
 guineas a year to pension ten Associates of the society ; and the society agreed 
 to contribute a similar sum to pension ten more. These Associates were to be 
 men of eminent literary ability and good character, the poverty of whose circum- 
 stances would make the allowance of one hundred guineas a year acceptable 
 to them. The society was also to promote the publication of inedited remains 
 of ancient literatm'e, and of works of a valuable but not popular character ; to 
 reward literary merit by honorary tokens ; to establish a correspondence yx\\\\ 
 men of letters abroad ; and in every way to promote the character and pro- 
 gi-ess of literature. The scheme advanced slowly ; so that it was June, 1823, 
 before the first general meeting of the society was held, when its objects and 
 constitution wore declared to the world by some of the first men of the day. 
 
 Two curious discoveries were made in the State Paper Office in the yeai's (^"""I's*''.^?^^,'-' 
 182-t and 1826. It appears that while Milton was secretary to Cromwell, he fi"™"' ^v 
 
 Milton's MS. 
 
 must have deposited or left in this office the MS. of his Latin treatise on 
 Christian Doctrine, which had been known to exist, but could never be found. 
 It was now brought to light by Mr. Lemon, of that office. It was contained 
 in an envelope, addressed to Cyriac Skinner, Merchant. Of course, it immedi- 
 ately fixed the attention of the learned ; and it was soon published : but its 
 contents, set forth in the gi'cat poet's bold and free style, were too heterodox 
 for the taste of the learned of the modern time ; and, on account of the Arian- 
 ism of the doctrine, and some startling views on divorce and other subjects, it 
 Mas consigned, as far as was possible, to neglect. The other disco^•ery was of 
 some autograph MSS. of Queen Elizabeth, and of her secretary. These eon- """mss*" 
 sisted of an entire translation of Boethius, and poetical versions of Horace, by 
 the Queen. With these came to light a mass of documents relating to the 
 reign of Henry VIII. ; and especially his proceedings in regard to his divorced 
 drives. 
 
 While a new work of ]Milton was presented to his countrymen, his gi'cat 
 poems were introduced to the homes of a far distant people, — the dwellers in 
 a r(>mote island, " far, far amid the melancholy main." The long winters of 
 Icidiind are cheered by literary enjoyments, like the milder seasons of southern ^,'^''™'' '" ''^''' 
 lands : and at this time, while the new volcano was pouring out flames, and 
 covering the recking jdains of Iceland with ashes, the harmless and genial 
 flame of Milton's "enius was bcainninir to kindle liearts within a thousand 
 households. This, indeed, is fame ! Tlie translator of ' Paradise Lost ' into 
 the Icelandic tongue was Thorlakson, a native poet, \\\\n died at Copenhagen 
 in 1820. 
 
 The losses of our country by death were very great, during the seven y(\ars I/issfs by Death 
 vol.. I. ;i K
 
 418 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book II. 
 
 1820 — 20. of this period. Besides the statesmen wliom we have seen to disappear in the 
 ^- — — — ' course of our history, there were others who dropped quietly away, from being 
 ix)nn Malmes. at thc time not engaged in the public view. The old Lord Malmcsbury, who 
 "' has told us so mncli of the events and details of British policy during tlie last 
 century, and who wooed the unfortunate Caroline of Brunswick for the Prince 
 i.onn Ehskine. of Walcs, dicd towards the close of 1820. Lord Erskinc died in 1823, leaving 
 behind him the remembrance and tradition of an eloquence which his admirers 
 believed to he absolutely singular. In the same year departed an old admiral, 
 whose more name seems to carry us hack to the naval warfare of a preceding 
 i.onnST.viNrcNT century, — Earl St. Vincent, who nearly reached the age of ninety. 
 Hiiiis, iiEi. Of philosophers, there died the great Herschel, who in middle life passed 
 
 over from his passionate love of music to attend to the finer haimonies of the 
 stars in their courses. He learned many secrets of the heavens, and made them 
 known to men ; and in acknowledgment, his name is written in light in thc 
 heavens themselves. The remotest known planet of our system is symbolised 
 by the initial of his name. He left us not only his knowledge, but thc means 
 of gaining more. His great telescope at Slough M'as thc wonder of his time ; 
 and it will continue to be so, however science and art may enable men to im- 
 prove the powers of the instrument. He dicd in 1822, in his 84th year. Sir 
 s,n JOSEPH Banks. Joseph Bauks, President of the Royal Society, died in 1820, after a long and 
 useful life sjient in seeking and diffusing the knowledge of nature, and in en- 
 couraging in others the pursuit of natural science. In the same year died one 
 whose pursuits class him at once among the philosophers and the travellers, — 
 AHTiiin vouNo. Arthiu- Yoimg, the great master in agriculture. His researches in agriculture 
 led liim to observe mucli of the political and social condition of thc people of 
 every country in which he travelled ; and it is remarkable that he ])ublislicd, 
 in 1769, a work on the expediency of a free importation of corn. Whatever 
 he said was attended to by some of the sovereigns of Europe, as well as peers 
 and commoners : and his power was great, in his day, over the practice of agri- 
 culture, from Russia to Spain, and over the imposition of taxes at home, which 
 are in any way related to agriculture. While he was biuned in effigy in one 
 place, he was receiving honorary medals in another. He might be sometimes 
 mistaken, and somewhat apt to exaggerate methods and advantages which pre- 
 sented themselves strongly to his mind: but no one questioned his influence, 
 or his innocent ardour in a most important pin-suit. He held, at thc time of 
 his death, the office of Secretary to the Board of Agriculture, though he had 
 been blind for ten years. Lie was in his 80th year. 
 David RirAiiDo. The couutry had a great loss in the death of David Ricardo, who died, not 
 in the ripe old age of the philosophers we have been registering, but in his 
 56th year; and just at a time (1823) when his influence in parliament was 
 beginning to manifest itself in the changed spirit of legislation on economical 
 subjects ; and when, moreover, the new men wlio had entered the cabinet were 
 those who could give wide practical effect to his philosophy. He did all that 
 an independent member could do, and more than it could have been anticipated 
 that any independent member could do, to accelerate the progress of enliglitcned 
 legislation during his short parliamentary career : and his writings effected even 
 more outside the walls of parliament than his influence within. He was missed 
 and lamented for many years, by ministers, parliamentary comrades, and the
 
 Chap. XII. J DURING THE THIRTY YEARS" PEACE. 419 
 
 public ; and especially during the Bank follies and crash of the years imnicdi- 1820 — 26. 
 ately succcedinj^ his death. If any one could have made sound doctrine lieard, ^-^ — ' 
 and have checked the madness of the time, by keeping the House of Com- 
 mons in its senses, it was he ; but he was gone ; and our world was sorely the 
 worse. 
 
 The Travels of Dr. Edward D. Clarke were read with avidity in their day; Dn.E.D.cunKE. 
 and they answered some good purposes in arousing the ciiriosity, and stimu- 
 lating the imagination of the English reading public, whose faculties had been 
 kept too much at home by the long protraction of the war. These books opened 
 new regions to the fancy, and acted in some degree as works of the imagination 
 do. And so they might ; for they were truly works of fiction to a considerable 
 extent. Since those days, scientific travelling has become something which 
 the world was not then dreaming of : and certainly Dr. Clarke never chearaed 
 of painstaking in researcli, or care in relating his adventures. He travelled 
 because lie was too restless to keep still : and he had been too indolent as a 
 .student to be qualified to use the best privileges of foreign travel. His obser- 
 ^■ation was superficial, and his representations inaccurate. Therefore, his works 
 are now neglected, if otlier travellers have been over the same ground, thougli 
 they were, in their day, attractive and popular enough to make for him a con- 
 siderable reputation. He died in 1822, in the 54th year of lus age. Another 
 traveller, Belzoni, who died in the next year, may be considered English enough belzom. 
 to be classed among the national losses, though he was born at Padua, and died 
 in Afiica. He lived much in England, regarded our country as his home more 
 than any other, and enriched it with some precious fruits of his Egyptian re- 
 searches. To him we owe a great part of the Egyptian discoveries made in 
 recent years ; — the opening of the precious rock-temple of Aboo Simbel, and of 
 tlie tomb of Osirci at Thebes ; and of many monuments which, but for him, 
 would ha\e been buried still in the sands of the desert. He was a man of 
 miglity stature and great strength, courage, and hardihood. He was himself 
 reliable, while he believed few other people to be so ; for his temper was sus- 
 picious and jealous. He had no scholarship. His business lay in another 
 direction. It was for him to discover and bring to hand what scholars were to 
 attest and reason upon : and his function was no mean one, as will be agreed 
 by all who are aware what it is to have to deal with wild Arabs in wildernesses 
 of rock and sand. Such a man will always be felt to have departed too soon 
 ^vhile any part of the ancient world remains to be uncovered to modern eyes. 
 I lis age is not kno^vn : but he was about to make a youthful sacrifice of him- 
 self to the monastic life at Rome, when the entrance of the Frcncli, in 1798, 
 compelled a ihange of purpose. He was thus, jirobably, only a little above 
 fifty when he died in December, 1823. Another Egyptian traveller. Sir 
 Fredeiick Ilenniker, died at an early age, in 1825. He was only thirty-one. «■» f. nuNNrKEn. 
 Among his adventures abroad was one which befcl him on the road going 
 down from Jerusalem to Jericho, when robbers stripped and wounded him, and 
 left him for dead. He published a volume of Notes of his travels, after his 
 return, settling doA\^l as lord-lieuteuaut of the county of Essex, and colonel of 
 tlie local militia. His book of travels is accurate and interesting. Sir Stam- ?','"■'". stami-,.!,!) 
 
 ^ UAl'lLtS. 
 
 ford llafttes died in 182G. He was oidy forty-seven years of age ; but he had 
 done great thiugs during his too short life. He it was who acquired Java for us.
 
 420 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 [Book II. 
 
 AaiiowsMiTU. 
 
 Jenpter. 
 
 1320 — 26. !ind governed it during the time that it belonged to Great Britain. He ahohshed 
 "~- — -^^^^^ slavery there, advanced in every way the welfare of the native population, and 
 gave us a great amount of knowledge of those parts of the world, though his 
 collections and journals, and all that he had, was lost by ship\vreck on his return 
 home. He did almost as much for Simiatra as for Java, especially by abolish- 
 ing slavery ; and we owe to him the establishment of one of the most important 
 commercial settlements in the world, — that of Singapore, which may be con- 
 sidered the key of the great far-eastern world. His last service to his country 
 was establishing the British Zoological Society. The geographer An-owsmith, 
 who visits all Enghsh households in the shape of the best maps of the time, 
 died in 1823, in a good old age. And in the same year we lost the great 
 Jenner, who waged war against disease with greater success, as we believe, than 
 any other physician who ever lived. Lady Mary Wortley Montague supposed 
 she was rendering a great service to humanity, and was long supposed by all 
 to have done so, by introducing tlie practice of inocvdation for the small-pox : 
 and this M'as true, in as far as she communicated the idea of inoculation in any 
 mode. But the ravages of small-pox became incalculably greater in conse- 
 quence of her method, from the infection being always kept up, and spread 
 abroad, to seize upon all who were predisposed to the disease. Ur. Jenner put 
 together the facts of inoculation and of the exemption from small-pox of the 
 Gloucestershire milkers who had taken the cow-pox from their cows, and tried 
 the experiment of inoculation for cow-pox, which has banished all dangerous 
 dcgiees of small-pox wherever it has extended. He freely gave to the world 
 his discovery of vaccination, and thus made himself one of the greatest of 
 liuman benefactors. He reached the age of seventy-five. 
 
 Of actors, we lost in this period, John Kemble, the emperor of his art ; and 
 Incledon, whose ballad-singing was singularly suited to the English taste of 
 the last century. 
 
 Of artists, we lost some whom it grieved the heart of the nation to part with. 
 The noble-hearted and gentle Flaxman died in 1826, at the age of seventy-one. 
 Among his great benefits to his kind, it was one of the greatest, — though he 
 was wholly unconscious of it, — that he showed in his whole hfe what the 
 happiness of genius is, when allowed its full and free action. He had all the 
 genuine attributes of genius ; — its purity, its generosity, its benevolence, its 
 candour, its industry, its patience under God and towards man : and he was 
 one of the happiest of men, — joyous in his labours, blessed in his marriage, 
 and serene in the contentment of his mind, and the simplicity of his life. His 
 friends loved liim almost to a point of idolatry. He brought to the general 
 English mind, through the eye, the conceptions of Homer, JEschylus, and 
 Dante ; and presented, in fresh nobleness and beauty, many a sacred image 
 from the Scriptures. Working alone and in silence, in a spirit of monastic 
 holiness, he was the effectual preacher of a wider church than walls can con- 
 tain, or than can be reached by any other voice than that which appeals to the 
 soul. — The sculptor Nollekcns died in 1823, having attained the objects of his 
 life in a greater degree than is usual. These objects were, first, money, and 
 then fame ; and he also desired long life. He lived to the age of eighty-six ; 
 left more than £200,000 behind him, and enjoyed a considerable reputation. 
 His great natural po^^ crs had no fair chance against the drawbacks of a de- 
 
 JOHN Kt.MnLB. 
 
 Incledon.
 
 Chap. XII.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 421 
 
 fectivc education, and an overwhelming tendency to acquisitiveness. He piu'- 1820 — 26. 
 
 sued a lower style of art than his powers would have fitted him for, if he had ' ■ ' 
 
 been morally wiser ; and his latter days were passed among the unsatisfactory 
 attentions of suspected legacy-hunters. He knew that he was admired by 
 many ; and, for some quahties, truly, though partially esteemed : but he must 
 have known that he was not loved. Thus, while occupied through a long 
 course of years with the ideas and labours, he missed the best privileges of the 
 artist Ufe. — Another eccentric man and artist who died during this period, was 
 Fuseli, the protege of Reynolds, the beloved of INIary Wollstonccraft, the friend foseli. 
 of Lavatcr and Bonnycastle. It was his earnestness wliich made his power 
 and his fame. Exhibited in familiar subjects, and those which should be simply 
 natural, it was grotesque enough ; and the more so from the imperfection of 
 both his drawing and his colouring ; but when infused into his preternatural 
 subjects, — his " Nightmare," and " Sin piu'sued by Death," it is very im- 
 pressive. His great sei-vice to society was in presenting to it his own originality, 
 and in rousing attention to the arts of design and invention, at a time when 
 our insular seclusion was unusually close, and the inferior departments of art 
 naturally engrossed a disproportionate attention over the higher. He was as 
 eccentric in his mind generally as in his art : but he had friends about him all 
 his life, who thought it worth while to bear with liis strange temper, for the 
 sake of his goodness in other respects. His domestic life was happy ; and this 
 peace at home, together with his habits of industry and temperance, had, no 
 doubt, great effect in procuring liim excellent healtli and long life. He was 
 eighty-seven when he died, in 1825. — Benjamin ^y est was an American by birth ; west. 
 but he died (1820) President of our Royal Academy. As an historical painter 
 he stood very high, if not unrivalled, in this country, from his inventive power; 
 thougli lie was as feeble in expression as m coloiuing. Like so many of his 
 brethren in art, he was simple and virtuous in his life, of devoted industry ; 
 and he lived to a great age ; eighty-two years. He painted or sketched about 
 400 pictures : and when we consider how large some of these are, and how 
 thronged with figmres, we shall see that his life must have been spent chiefly 
 in liis painting-room. His greatest works are from Scriptural subjects ; — 
 " Christ HeaUng the Sick," " Christ Rejected," and " Death on the Pale 
 Horse." — One of the most eminent of oiu- portrait-painters. Sir Henry Raebum, Raebdrn. 
 died in 1823. His portraits are full of life, vigour, and pronrinence ; and they 
 are admirable as likenesses. He received his knighthood on the ^-isit of 
 George IV. to Edinburgh, and was appointed his portrait-painter for Scotland ; 
 but he died the following year. — William Sharp, the eminent line-engraver, willum shabp. 
 died in 1824, in a good old age. He Avas mainly self-taught, and was wont to 
 declare tliat his first attempts at engraving were made on a pewter pot. To 
 him we owe the practice of illustrating, in a worthy manner, tlie eminent 
 avithors of our literature. Sharp was a gi^at Radical ; and, in Home Tooke's 
 time, was repeatedly brought before the Privy Council. He was a man not 
 easily frightened, liowever ; and he used his opportunity to canvass Mr. Pitt 
 and others of the Council for subscriptions to his forthcoming engraving of 
 Kosciusko's portrait. They could not command their countenances to deal 
 severely with liini after this ; and they lot him go. He was, with all his 
 jocularity of temper, ardour in his profession, and good sense on most subjects.
 
 422 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book II. 
 
 1820 — 2G. singularly superstitious, — believing that the end of the woikl was at hand, and 
 ^" "' ■ bringing up Joanna Southcote to London, and maintaining her there. In middle 
 life, ho might have become an Associate of the Rojal Acadciuy ; but lie took 
 up the cause of some other eminent engravers, less favoured than himself, in a 
 manner which offended Sir Joshua Reynolds, who dropped his claims and his 
 acquaintance. 
 
 Some lovers and patrons of Art, who were, on that ground, benefactors of 
 am^ekstein. society, died during this period. Mr. Angerstein was born in Russia, but, 
 from the age of fourteen, spent his life in England, and was a most useful 
 citizen, in other ways besides accumulating his splendid collection of pictures. 
 He is believed to have saved the credit of the country in the commercial crisis 
 of 1793, by his proposal of an issue of Exchequer Bills; and it was through 
 him that the discovery of the life boat was estabhshed and rewarded. His 
 collection of pictm-es was purchased by Government for £57,000, to be the 
 foundation of a National Gallery of paintings. Mr. Angerstein died in 1823, 
 
 pavne K.Niour. at the age of 91. — Mr. Payne Knight died in the next year, bequeathing his 
 collection of medals, drawings, and bronzes, — worth £30,000, — to the British 
 jNIuseum. Mr. Knight was an eminent Greek scholar, and of high cultivation 
 in every way: and his accomplishments were ennobled by a magnificent 
 
 Duchess ov de- public Spirit. — The Duchess of Devonshire, who died in the same year, 
 devoted her whole fortime to the promotion of the Arts. She caused excava- 
 tions to be made at Rome, which restored to light many precious relics of 
 antiquity that might otherwise have lain bvnied for ever. — In another Avay, 
 
 Duchess; OF Rot- the Duchcss of Rutland, — who died in 1825, in middle life, — was a benefac- 
 tress of the Arts and of society : she built Belvoir Castle, superintending its 
 erection for twenty-five years with a vigilant interest and taste. All the 
 neighbouring villages and lands were in a constant state of improvement 
 through her care : and she obtained many premiums from the Society for the 
 Promotion of Arts and Manufactures, for her agricultural improvements and 
 skill in planting. It is no wonder that a multitude of weeping mourners 
 followed in her funeral traui. 
 
 There were women among the authors who died dm'ing this period whom 
 
 Mrs. baruauld. ^]jq world was sorry to part with. The A^enerable Mrs. Barbauld, whose 
 writings were small in bulk but eminent in beauty, died, very old, in 1825. 
 Her father had permitted her to share the classical education of her brother ; 
 and the result was seen in the mature richness of her mind, and the remark- 
 able beauty of her style. Charles James Fox declared her Essay on the 
 Inconsistencv of Human Expectations to be the finest Essay in our language : 
 and her Plea for the Repeal of the Corporation and Test Acts was like a 
 trumpet call to the whole host of English dissenters. Her private life was 
 
 Jane taylob. fj^j of liouour and of charm. — Then there was Jane Taylor who wrote the 
 delightful " Contributions of Q. Q.," which are to be found in thousands of 
 
 Mrs. raucl iffe. liomcs : — and Mrs. Radcliffe, the mother of modern English romance, — and 
 
 m'rT'pimI; Sophia Lee, one of the writers of the Canterbury Tales, — and Mrs. Piozzi, 
 once Mrs. Thrale, the hostess and friend of Dr. Johnson, and the recorder of 
 much that we know of him :— all these passed away within this period. — And 
 
 edgeworth. jiIjq tiig ijusy, complacent, useful Richard Lovcll Edgeworth, who put us upon 
 improving our principles and methods of education, and was full of mechanical
 
 Chap. XII.J DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 403 
 
 projects which set other people thinking and inventing and maturing: — and 1820 — 2G. 
 the pompous Dr. Parr, who believed himself a second Johnson, when Johnson ~ — -^-^—^-^ 
 was more thought of than he is now ; — Parr, of whom Porson said that " he 
 would have been a great man but for three things, — his trade, his wife, and 
 his politics." His trade was school-keeping, for which he was unfit ; his wife 
 was (as she took no pains to conceal) any thing but amiable ; and his politics 
 were ultra-liberal ; — a great offence to the Ministry when he dined Avith the 
 Queen, and said grace at Alderman Wood's table. He had acted with a firm- 
 ness and moderation which gaiiunl him respect at the time of the Birmingham 
 riots in 1T91, when his house and library were threatened with the same fate 
 as those of liis friend, Dr. Priestley : and his reputation stood high on accoimt, 
 not only of his scholarship, but of some Sermons and Tracts which he had 
 published : so that, though his fame at the time can now be hardly under- 
 stood, he was in truth by no means beneath the notice of those who were 
 bound to watch the proceedings of the Queen, and who were scandalized at 
 her choice of her domestic chaplain. — The virtuous Lindley Murray died in LiNDLEvMrnRiv. 
 1826, at an advanced age. AVhile learning our grammar of him, in our young- 
 days, and growing tired of his name, as associated with dull lessons, we little 
 knew to how good a man that name belonged. Lindley INIurray was an 
 American; and he came over to England in middle life, and remained with us 
 solely for the sake of the mildness of our climate, which was rendered necessary 
 to him by the loss of health. Under a condition of muscular weakness which 
 prevented his walking for the rest of his days, he contentedly gave up the 
 usual objects and amusements of life, and himibly devoted himself to be as 
 useful as he could from his invalid chair. His school-books spread by tens of 
 thousands over both his native and his adopted country ; and the proceeds 
 might have made him very rich. But he thought he had enough already for 
 his simple tastes and moderate desires : and he gave away to those who were 
 in need the entire profits of his works. Tims, much as we have learned from 
 his books, we may learn something better from his life. — A great public bene- 
 factor, who died in 1821, was Mr. James Perry, of the Morning Chronicle, Ja»ies perhy. 
 who gave a new and elevated character and influence to the newspaper press. 
 He was a scholar and a gentleman ; and his attainments and character could 
 not have wrought in a more important direction than in that Mhich he chose. 
 The press is now called the fourth power in the State : and just when the need 
 of this power arose, the right man came to regulate, refine, and elevate it. 
 
 Of those whose divine office it is to refine and elevate the whole mass of 
 society, — the Poets, — we lost some of groat name within a few years. 
 
 The good and accomplished Bishop Heber, — more known and valued Bisinu' heuer. 
 ])(n-haps by the beauty of his Hymns than by any other of his many qualifica- 
 tions, — was suddenly snatched away in the midst of his usefulness in India, 
 lie was found dead in his bath, — it was believed from apoplexy, — in April, 
 1826. His religious fervour gave a freshness of expression to lus devotional 
 ])oetry which, if it docs not stand in the stead of originality of thought, sup- 
 ])lies us with what is always revered by all minds, — originality of feeling. 
 Tlie Hymns of Bishop Heber have therefore made their way among Christians 
 of all denominations, and caused him to be ranked among the points of his 
 time. His age was only forlj-three. — In the last century, the poems of
 
 424 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 [Book II. 
 
 1820- 
 
 RoBEllT Bloom 
 FIELD. 
 
 Havley. 
 
 26. Robert Bloomfield, the farmer's boy, were brouglit into notice by Mr. Capel 
 LofFt, — a man of letters, and something of a poet himself. The protector and 
 protected died within a year of each other — the poet in August, 1823; the 
 man of letters in May, 182-1. — And Hayley, the friend of Cowper, and author 
 of some poems wliich had a good deal of popularity in their day, was gone. — 
 A deejjer cause for mourning, however, than any we have mentioned, — 
 perhajjs the deepest of the period, — was in the ruitimely loss of three great 
 l^octs, — Byron, Shelley, and Keats. At the time, the mourning for Bp-on 
 was infinitely the widest and loudest : but it is not so now, and it can never 
 be so again. His extraordinary popularity during his life, and for some time 
 afterwards, and even now among siu'vivors of his own generation, was justified 
 by the fact of its existence. Such a popularity never arises, — much less 
 endures, — without some reason : but the reason was of a temporary nature ; 
 and the fame must be temporary accordingly. Byi'on's power, which was 
 great, employed itself in uttering, fi-om his own consciousness, the discontents 
 of his time. He was unaware of this, and always believed himself an isolated 
 being, doomed to live and die without symjiathy : whereas, he was the mouth- 
 piece of the needs and troubles of men in a transition state of society. When 
 men found their troubles told, and their discontents avowed, in verse of a high 
 order, by a man of high rank, youthful, proud, and egotistical, they rushed 
 into a frantic s\Tnpathy with him, find received from him as true, noble, and 
 beautiful, much that will not stand a comparison with nature, morality, and 
 the everlasting principles of taste. Lord Byron could not produce, except by 
 snatches, what was permanently true, because the eye of his soul was per- 
 plexed and dimmed by troubles which prevented his seeing things as they 
 are : — ^he could not produce what was inherently noble, because he was almost 
 wholly engrossed by suffering moods of his own mind : — he could not produce 
 what must be lastingly beautiful, because he strove after affectations. As a 
 greater than liimself said of his irony and affectations, " It is a paltry origi- 
 nality which makes solemn things gay, and gay things solemn : yet it will 
 fascinate thousands, by the very diabolical outrage of their sympathies." So 
 said Keats, in pain and disgust at the levity of a passage of Byron, though no 
 man could relish humour more keenly. Thousands were fascinated, and horn 
 the cause assigned. Unless it were Scott's, Byron's was the greatest literary 
 fame of our o^vn times. It was kept up by the interest universally taken, — 
 and pointedly invited by the poet himself, — in his private misfortunes. His 
 life was cursed by misfortune from his birth : and his earlier griefs so injiu-ed 
 him as to make him himself the creator of his later ones. His life was not 
 pure, nor his heart affectionate, nor his temper disciplined. There was good 
 enough in him by starts, and by virtue of his genius, to suggest what he 
 might have been, if reared under good influences. He wandered about the 
 world during the latter jears of his short life ; and finally repaired to Greece, 
 to give what aid he could against the Turks. There he died of fever, luider 
 a steady refusal to accept of timely medical aid, on the 19th of April, 182-1. 
 — In Keats, the world lost a poet of infinite promise. He was little more 
 than a youth when he died : but he had made so vigorous and rapid a growth 
 in power and wisdom, and was learning so to wield his magnificent faculties, 
 that those who have studied his life and writings are dazzled at the mere con-
 
 Chap. XII.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 425 
 
 ception of what he might have become. The workl did not recognise his 1820 — 26. 
 quahty while he lived (indeed there was scarcely time for them to do so) : — ^— — .— ^^ — ' 
 and some few ignorantly denied, and scoffed at its pretension : but year by 
 year his name is oftener mentioned, and more and more minds are kindled at 
 the scattered flames of his young genius which would, if death had spared 
 him, have shone like a lofty beacon above the ordinary level of human 
 intellect. Men are often least conscious of their gi-eatest losses : and in this, 
 generations are like individuals. Keats died at Rome in February, 1821, in 
 the 25tli year of his age : and when the news arrived in England, few heard, 
 and fewer still regarded it. After the lapse of a quarter of a century, his fame 
 is rising. — He was soon, — in a year and a half, — followed by his friend 
 Shelley, who was drowned at the age of 29, off the coast of Italy. Shelley sheilev. 
 was a man of a noble and exquisite nature. He " was the most truthful of 
 men," and of the most godlike benevolence. " His aspect had a certain sera- 
 phical character," we are told ; and in that, it was a fair manifestation of 
 himself. He was idolatrously beloved by those who knew him face to face : 
 but his age and he were not on the best terms. There might be fault on both 
 sides ; — some defect of prudence and patience on his ; and, of course, a great 
 want of enlightenment on the other : — of course, because the greatest poets, 
 as indeed the loftiest men of every order, have to educate their followers up to 
 the power of appreciation of themselves. Thus Shelley was persecuted for 
 his opinions ; — tortured in his domestic affections by Lord Eldon, who, with 
 all his law, had no knowledge of the rights of opinion ; and society not only 
 looked on quietly, but a multitude applauded. So it was in his own day ; 
 and moreover, every act of his life, — a life of singular purity and disinte- 
 restedness, when some crudenesses of youth were gone by, — was criticised and 
 mocked by little minds which could hardly open to receive the least of his 
 thoughts. Yet, unpopular as he was, and young when he died, he did more 
 than any other man to direct and vivify the poetical aspiration of our time. 
 Shelley still lives to us, not only in his own writings, as yet but partially 
 diffused, but in the whole body and spirit of our recent poetry, and existing 
 poetical life. 
 
 We have presented and summed up the gains and losses of a seven years' cwse or ms 
 
 . . Pes TO;. 
 
 period. We have now to enter upon another, shorter, but not less alive with 
 incident and the spirit of progress. 
 
 END OF BOOK II. 
 
 A'or.. 1. 3 T,
 
 426 HISTORY OF ENGLAND TBook III. 
 
 BOOK III. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 1826. rpiIE period on which we are now entering, — the last years of the reign of 
 — ~ J- George IV. — is one of remarkable interest and importance in the retro- 
 spect, though the complaint of the time was of stagnation of public business. 
 It is true that, for three sessions, scarcely any thing was done of what is com- 
 monly called public business. In regard to variety of subject, the records of 
 parliament perhaps were never before so meagre, for three consecutive sessions. 
 At the same time, the registers of the period are full of ministerial correspon- 
 dence, ministerial explanations, and ministerial difficulties. For this there 
 was ample reason ; and in this lay the deep importance and interest of the 
 period. 
 
 It is common for society to complain of loss of the public time, and post- 
 ponement of public business, when a change of ministry, or other event, 
 induces explanation of their personal conduct on the part of public men. It 
 is common to complain of such explanations, as if statesmen were obtruding 
 their personal concerns upon a public which does npt care for them, but wants 
 to be about its own business. But this is, wherever held, a vulgar error, and 
 a most pernicious one. Every true statesman knows that his personal honour 
 is a national interest ; and every enlightened citizen knows that the highest 
 distinction of a nation is the rectitude of its rulers ; and that no devotion of 
 time, thought, patience, and energy, can be too great for the object of upliold- 
 ing the standard of political honour among statesmen. In the most ordinary 
 times, therefore, the enlightened citizen will eagerly receive, and earnestly 
 weigh, the statements of public men with regard to their official conduct, 
 aware that the postponement of legislative acts is a less evil than that of 
 foiling to discharge every conscience, to decide vipon every reputation, as it 
 comes into question ; and thus to ascertain that the moral ground is firm and 
 secure, before proceeding to political action. If it be thus in ordinary times, 
 much stronger was the obligation to prove the conduct and reputation of 
 statesmen at the period we are now entering upon. If, during the next three 
 years, ministerial difficulties and explanations seem to be endless, there must 
 be some cause ; — the embarrassment must be, in fact, a characteristic of the 
 time. 
 
 We have witnessed the admission into the Cabinet of two men who were 
 called "political adventurers:" and we have recognised in this event the 
 sign that a new time had arrived, requiring for its administration a new order
 
 Chap. I.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 427 
 
 of men. Though the new men had acted and succeeded in their function, 1826. 
 the struggles and perplexities of the transition from one state of society and v_^-v-<v^ 
 government to another had yet to be gone through : and the beginning of 
 these struggles and pei-plexities is what we have now to contemplate. We 
 sliall see ministry after ministry formed and dissolved. We shall see that the 
 ditficulty lay, — not in finding competent men, — for able men abounded at 
 that time, — but in determining what great principle, of those afloat, should so 
 preponderate as to determine the government of the country. In the trial of 
 this all-important point, the next three years cannot now be said to have been 
 wasted, though at the time the vexation was severe, of seeing great questions 
 standing still, ordinary legislative business thrust aside, and a temper and 
 language of political bitterness rising up, such as could never have been anti- 
 cipated among men of rational capacities and gentlemanly education. 
 
 The King opened the new jDarliament in person on the 21st of November, opemng of pa»- 
 declaring in his Speech that he called the Houses together for the special Annuai'^kegister, 
 purpose of declaring and accounting for the measures taken by government in " ' ''' 
 opening the ports to some kinds of grain and jjulse, in consequence of the 
 scarcity produced by the drought of the summer. In answer to various com- 
 plaints in both Houses about the scanty revelations of the Speech, Lord 
 Liverpool and Mr. Canning pleaded the special nature of the business wliich 
 occasioned the present sitting, and promised the regular supply of information 
 and suggestion at the regular time, — after the Christmas recess. Ministers 
 obtained the indemnity they sought for opening the ports during the recess ; 
 and, with one exception, little else was done before Cliristmas. But that Ante, p. 302, xc. 
 exception was a brilliant and most significant one. Mr. Canning accounted 
 to Parliament, and obtained its enthusiastic sanction, for sending troops to 
 Portugal. 
 
 The sanction of Parliament was indeed most enthusiastic ; and so was the 
 response from the country. But it is believed by those who ought to know, 
 that this speech was fatal to Mr. Canning. His earnestness and eloquence 
 were taken by the Tories as a demonstration in favour of liberalism. They 
 well knew that he was in fact, though not in name, the leader of the govern- 
 ment. They knew that the Duke of York so clearly considered him so that 
 he had just made an audacious attempt, by addressing the King, to get him 
 dismissed from the Cabinet. They gave all their strength to bear him down, 
 and wrought against him with a new exasperation, from the date of his 
 announcement of his having despatched the troops to Portugal. They could 
 not bear him down in intention and in act. They could not bear him down 
 in the estimation of the country, in which he was indeed rising from day to 
 day. But there was a way in which he was in their power : — they enfeebled 
 liis health. They could not bow his noble head, or tame his princely eye, by 
 reproach or threat ; but they could and did, — without design or consideration, 
 — by the poison of disease. There are few men whose nerves are not more or 
 less in the power of other men's judgments and tempers ; and of those few. 
 Canning was certainly not one. His magnificent organization, adequate to 
 the production of every thing that can ennoble tlie human being, — absolutely 
 teeming with genius, — had the one imperfection of being too sensitive. This 
 Avas so clear, — so evident on the merest glance at his face, — that those have
 
 428 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book III. 
 
 1827. much to answer for who failed in the consideration thus bespoken by nature 
 herself. Canning needed no indulgence. In the depth of illness, his high 
 courage would have spurned it. He never deprecated ;■ — ^never, we may be 
 sure, in the innermost breathings of his soul. He provoked much, dared 
 every thing, and endured till nature broke down. But nature was breaking 
 down all the time that his enemies were most merciless ; and they never saw 
 it. It was visible in the weakening broAv, the deepening eye, the quivering 
 lip, the heavy and uncertain step. His enemies did not mark these signs 
 which grieved his friends : and when, in reply to their rancour, the eye flashed 
 again as it was wont, and the cheek flushed, and the voice rang from the roof, 
 they were sure that they liad done him no harm. From the time of his 
 speech on sending aid to Portugal, the contest between Canning and his 
 policy, and his foes and tlieir policy, became deadly. It was indeed death that 
 now interposed, and finally settled the conflict. 
 Death of the The Dukc of York was the first who was withdrawn. Tlie Lord Chancellor 
 
 DL'KE of 1tORK. 
 
 saw much of him for some weeks before his death ; and the Chancellor's 
 opinion was, that his thoughts were almost exclusively occupied by the 
 Catholic question, and the dread, in regard to that question, of the ascendancy 
 of Mr. Canning. In Lord Eldon's own opinion, his existence was essential to 
 the effectual counteraction of Mr. Canning's influence, and to his displacement 
 
 Life of Lord El- fi-Qm the couucils of the King. "His death," declares Lord Eldon, "must 
 " ' ' ' affect every man's political situation, — perhaps nobody's more than my own. 
 It may shorten, it may prolong, my stay in office." Of course, Mr. Canning 
 himself must have known as well as other people the importance of tlie life 
 that had gone, — the significance of the death that had arrived. It must have 
 been mth a singular mixture of feelings that a man of his patriotism and power 
 of will — and of his magnanimity and sensibility must have bent over the vault 
 in St. George's Chapel, into whose darkness, amidst the blaze of torches, the 
 body of his arch-enemy was descending. It was then and there that he took 
 his own death, — perhaps at the moment when he was thinking how quiet is 
 that resting-place at the goal of every human career, where the small and great 
 lie down togetlier, and " princes and counsellors of the earth," — like his foe 
 and himself, — are quiet, and sleep after their warfare. 
 
 Funeral. If those wlio attended that funeral could have seen their own position 
 
 between the past and the future as we see it now, it would have so absorbed 
 all their thoughts as that the body might have been lowered into its vaxdt 
 unseen, and the funeral anthems have been unheard. A more singular assem- 
 blage than the doomed gioup about the mouth of that vault has seldom been 
 seen. In virtue of our survivorship, we can observe them now, each one with 
 his fate hoverins over his uncovered head. He who was next to be lowered into 
 that vault was not there. He was in his palace, weak in health and spirits, — 
 relieved and yet perplexed that the course of government was sim^jlified by 
 the removal of his remonstrant brother, whose plea of nearness to the throne, — 
 now so solemnly set aside, — had made his interference at once irksome and 
 difficult to disregard. There would be no more interference now ; — no more 
 painful audiences, — no more letters brought in with that familiar superscrip- 
 tion. The way was clear now ; — but to what i' Liverpool and Canning must 
 settle that. If they felt that the Catholic question must be settled, they
 
 Chap. I.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 429 
 
 must show how it was to be done ; and they must do it. Liverpool and 1827. 
 Canning ! By that day twelvemonths, how was it with them ? Lord Liver- 
 pool was not at Windsor that night. He laid down his careworn head to 
 rest, unaware that hut a few more days of life — (as he considered life) — 
 remained to him. The body breathed for some months ; but in a few days 
 after this, the mind was dead. As for Canning, — his heart and mind were 
 full as his noble brow shone in the torchlight. He well knew that it was not 
 only his chief personal enemy who was here laid low, but the only insur- 
 mountable barrier to his policy ! He saw an open course before him, or one 
 Avliich he himself could clear. He saw the foul fiend Revolution descend into 
 that vault, to be sealed down in it with that coffin. He saw beyond that 
 torch-lit chapel a sunny vision of Ireland tranquillized ; and the hope rose 
 A\ithin him that he might achieve a peace at home, — the sound peace of free- 
 dom, — as blessed as the peace which he had spread over the world abroad. 
 And all the time, the chill and the damps of that chapel, dim amidst the 
 yellow glare, with the night fog of January, were poisoning his vitals, and 
 shortening his allowance of life to a mere span. Beside him stood his friend 
 and comrade, Huskissou. They were born in the same spring ; they were 
 neither of them to know another moment of health after this chilly night- 
 service ; and their deaths were to be not far apart. What remained for both 
 was the bitter last drops of the cup of life ; — sickness, toil, perplexity, some 
 humiliation, and infinite anguish. Here, if they had known their future, 
 they would have laid down all self-regards, all ambition, all hope and mirth, 
 all thoughts of finished work and a serene old age, and have gone forth to do 
 and suffer the last stage of their service, before dropping into their untimely 
 rest. These two had made no professions of grief about the death of the 
 prince : they did not vaunt their feelings ; yet here they were, sad and solemn ; 
 while beside them stood one whose woes about the loss of his royal fi-iend, 
 and about the irreparable loss to the empire, were paraded before all men's 
 eyes, and dinned into the ears of all who would listen. Here stood Lord 
 Chancellor Eldon, beside the open grave in which he declared that the hopes 
 of his country were being buried. Was he lost in grief? — his ready tears in 
 fuller flo\v than ever ! — his soul absorbed in patriotic meditation ? " Lord 
 Eldon, recollecting" — what ? — that he might catch cold — stood upon his hat, 
 to avoid cliill from the fla"s : " and his i)rccaution was completely successful." Lift of Lord ei. 
 It it h,Td but occurred to Canning to stand upon his hat ! — but he was think- 
 ing of other things. There were others for whom death was in waiting ; and 
 some for whom great labours and deeds were prejjaring in life. The troublesome 
 opponent of Ministers, Mr. Tierney, who was to be found dead in his study 
 before the next royal funeral ; and Lord Graves, who was to die by his own 
 hand, under the provocation of roy.al vice or levity. And what tasks lay 
 before those who \\cre yet to live and work ! Among the six dukes who bore 
 the pall was he who was to succeed to the highest military office now thus 
 vacated : and Wellington liimself no doubt thought this night that he was of 
 one mind in the great political questions of the day with the prince whose 
 pall he bore. No doubt he believed that he should, in his proper place, do 
 what he could to exclude the Catholics, and to keep the conscience of the 
 sovereign fixed upon the Coronation oath, and his duty to Protestantism : — in
 
 430 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book III. 
 
 1827. his proper place, we say, because the duke spumed the idea of a military 
 ^ — """-^ — ' chief like himself taking civil office, and openly declared, with indignation at 
 an unfounded rumour, that he should be mad if he dreamed of the Premier- 
 ship. Yet, before tliis royal vault should again be opened, Wellington was 
 to be Premier, and use his office to repeal the disabilities of the Catholics. 
 Truly, pledges and projihecies are dangerous things for statesmen to meddle 
 with in times of transition : and it would seem to be a main featvn-e in the 
 mission of the honest and resolute Wellington, — honest and resolute beyond 
 all cavil, — to prove the presumption of pledges and prophecies in times of 
 transition. Then there was Peel, with the same work before him, and much 
 more, of which he had not yet begun to dream ; and with the fate before him 
 of losing his best-beloved honour — the representation of his Universitj' — and 
 gaining several others, — any one of which would suffice to make an immor- 
 tality. And there was Hardinge, the friend of both the deceased and the 
 incoming Commander-in-Chief, who was to signalize his age in the history of 
 India by his administration and achievements both of jieace and war. And 
 there was, as Chief Mourner, he who was to be the next king, and in whose 
 reign was to occur that vital renovation of oui- representative system which 
 will be to thoughtful students of a thousand years hence what Magna Charta 
 is to us. W'hat a group was here collected, within the curtain of the future, 
 seeing nothing but the vault at their feet, and the banners of the past waving 
 above their heads ; and, wherever they thought they saw some way into the 
 coming time, seeing wrongly, — mistaking their own fancy-painting on that 
 cui'tain for discernment of what was behind it. And behind that veil, agents 
 work unheard; — death at his grave digging, — and the people with their 
 demands and their acclamations, — and the trumpet voice of conviction sum- 
 moning prejudice to the surrender. But what they saw not, we, as survivors, 
 see ; and what they heard not, we hear ; for now that curtain of futurity is 
 hung up over our heads as banners of the past ; and the summons of death, 
 and of the popular will, and of individual conscience, are still audible to us, — 
 not in their first stunning crash, but as funereal echoes to which those banners 
 float. 
 Duke of yokk. The Duke of Y'ork went to his grave sincerely mourned by many, and 
 partially honoured by many more who could not honestly grieve that he did 
 not reach the throne. In his youth, he had shown valour and an earnest 
 aspiration to good generalship in the campaigns in Flanders. During the 
 thirty- two years that he held the office of Commander-in-Chief, he did eminent 
 service to the state in his administration of the army, — instituting and carry- 
 ing through such reforms and new discipline as made his management in fact 
 a recreation of that national force. His nature was frank and lionourable, if 
 only he had done justice to it. It endeared him to his friends, even to the 
 point of inducing them to overlook, and almost to justify, his vices. The loyal 
 cant of the day was that in his vices " there was nothing un-English, — nothing 
 unprincely :" but the princes and people of England could not be expected to 
 admit among their characteristics recklessness in sensual vice and pecuniary 
 extravagance. His dissoluteness was, — if not " unprincely," — vulgar, as all 
 selfish passion is : and his recklessness about debt was, we may surely say, 
 eminently " un-English." We cannot give up probity in money transactions
 
 Chap. I.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 431 
 
 as an English characteristic. As for his high toryism, — when all danger from 1827. 
 
 it was past, men remembered that he was ill-educated, and, by his position, ^-~ — -^ -' 
 
 precluded from the enlightenment which was flowing in upon men in humbler 
 stations. It was the subject of grave apprehension, very reasonably, wliile he 
 lived, with his foot upon the steps of the throne, and his eye upon the crown : 
 but as soon as he was let down into the grave, it was remembered with a sort 
 of respectful compassion as a delusion troublesome to himself, and a weakness 
 which would, in a former age, have been regarded as a grace of royalty. His 
 statue stands conspicuous on its pillar within sight of the Horse Guards, where 
 so much of his business lay. It might be that some debtors, ruined by his 
 cruel extravagance, might sigh in their prison when they heard of its erection ; 
 and some, whose domestic honour and peace had been tainted by his passions, 
 might wonder at the strange distribution of homage in a state which professes 
 the piu'ity of Christianity : but it was pretty generally admitted that he had 
 done his country better service than princes often do, and that to his labours 
 Avere partly owing the successes of our wars, and the high character of our 
 military forces. His death took place on the 5th of January, 1827, and his 
 funeral on the 20th. 
 
 The Duke of Wellington succeeded, as has been said, to his office of Com- 
 mander-in-Chief; and his sailor-brother, the Duke of Clarence, to his prospect 
 of the throne. On the loth of February, a message from the King was pre- iiansard, xvi. 47.i. 
 sented to both Houses of Parliament, recommendins an addition to the income <;'"~t to the 
 
 ' © D['keofCla- 
 
 of the Duke and Duchess of Clarence, in view of the increased expenses which ""^^ce. 
 would be occasioned to them by the Duke's proximity to the throne. A good 
 deal of objection was made to this in the Commons, but none in the Lords. 
 Tlie great distress of the people, whose condition had just been made the sub- 
 ject of a royal letter to the bishops, and the inconvenience of the precedent, 
 were the grounds of op])osition ; and these were met by the plea that the main- 
 tenance of royal dignity was an object which must not give way to temporary 
 pressure ; and that the sum proposed was only a portion of what would be 
 saved to the country by the death of the Duke of York. Up to this time, the 
 income of the Duke and Duchess of Clarence had been £26,500. By the death 
 of the elder brother, an addition of £3000 a year would now accrue : and it 
 was proposed that Parliament should grant £9000 more, — viz. £3000 to the 
 Duke, and £6000 to the Duchess ; by which their joint income would be raised 
 to £38,500. After much opposition and debating, it was thus settled. 
 
 It was on Thursday, the 15th of February, that this royal message was pre- 
 sented ; and it was taken into consideration the next evening, — Friday. Lord 
 Liverpool brought forward the subject in the Upper House, and spoke upon it. Hansard, xvi si-. 
 He was never seen to be better or more cheerful. The next morning, Satm-- 
 day, his servant was surprised at not hearing the bell, as usual, after breakfast, ti.iness of lo»d 
 and went into his master's study, where he found Lord Liverpool lying on the 
 floor in an apoplectic fit. Whether he would live was for some time doubtful ; 
 but it was ([uite certain that his political career was ended. His colleagues wrote 
 in tlicir private letters, " Heaven knows who will succeed him." Some felt it 
 " a tremendous blow, under present circumstances." The principal of these 
 circumstances was the luiiversal ex])ectation, — a state of doubtful expectation, 
 — about the proposed Corn JJill, and some legislation about the Catholics. Tlie
 
 432 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book III. 
 
 1827. King was at Brighton ; and Mr. Peel went down to inform him of the event. 
 ^— "~-^- — ' Mr. Canning was at Brighton, confined to his bed by the illness caught at the 
 funeral ; and Mr. Huskisson was confined to the house in London from the 
 same cause. Mr. Canning had charge of the Corn Bill, and he was awaiting 
 with extreme anxiety the approaching discussion of the Catholic question. At 
 such a moment as this, the Premier was struck down ; and the two friends 
 could neither meet nor wait upon the King. We liavc the Lord Chancellor's 
 
 Life of Lord El- first imprcssious ou the occasion. " If other things made it certain that he 
 would otherwise succeed him, I should suj)pose Canning's health would not let 
 him undertake the labour of the situation. But," he adds, in his usual temper 
 towards Canning, " ambition will attempt any thing." Tavo days after, the 
 Chancellor became very oracular, as was natural, when it was certain that there 
 
 Life of Lord El. was nothing to be known. " This, at any time," he says, " would be an event 
 of importance ; so immediately after the Duke of York's death, and upon the 
 eve of the days when the great qviestions of the Corn Trade and Catholic 
 Emancipation are to be dismissed and decided, it is of importance so great, that 
 nobody can be certain whether it is not of so much imj)ortance as to render 
 almost certain wrong decisions upon these vital questions." If we can make 
 out any meaning here, it is that Lord Eldon now supposed a liberal policy sure 
 to prevail, and believed that Lord Liverpool had been the only security against 
 the dreaded " changes in our institutions." The letter proceeds, — " Nobody 
 knows, and nobody can conjecture with probability, liow soon the illness of the 
 Minister will, as it seemingly must, dissolve the administration, or how another 
 is to be formed and comjjosed. Speculation as to this is very busy, and jioli- 
 ticians are all at work. The Opposition are in higli spirits, and confidently 
 expecting to enjoy the loaves and the fishes. They may — but they also may 
 not — be disappointed." 
 
 The first thing decided upon was to wait awhile, for the chance of Lord Liver- 
 pool recovering suificiently to send in his resignation. Week after week, as it 
 passed away, showed this to be less and less probable ; and by the end of INIarch 
 
 Lord Liverpool it was found ncccssary to Set about appointing his successor. Setting aside 
 ' their political relations, the loss of Lord Liverpool was very affecting to Mr. 
 Canning. Through life, the two had been close personal friends, from the time 
 of their first meeting at college. They were born in the same year ; they were 
 inseparable at Christ Church, where they laughed at one another's whims, — 
 Jenkinson's brown coat, with buttons bearing the initials of the great orators, 
 and Canning's gloriously nonsensical verses, — and where, in the intervals of 
 their mirth, they discussed the gravest subjects of human interest, with the 
 earnestness belonging to the genius of the one, and the integrity of the other. 
 They entered parliament at the same time, under Mr. Pitt, and were never 
 separated in their private regards by the differences on public matters which 
 occasionally arose. This is highly honourable to them both. It must be a 
 strong fiiendship which could enable the man of the Avorld to bear with the 
 views of the man of genius, Avhen those views were too large for his compre- 
 hension ; and which would enable the man of genius to bear with the negative 
 qualities of the mediocre man of the world, in times which demanded all the 
 energies of every statesman. In political life, each was largely indebted to the 
 other ; as is more apparent to us now than perhajis it ever was to them. Lord
 
 Chap. I.j DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 433 
 
 Liverpool was not, apparently, fully aware that it was Canning who had of 1827. 
 late years made his government illustrious in the eyes of the world : but every —-"'^-^^-^ 
 one now knows that it was so. And Canning could hardly estimate at the 
 time the influence of Lord Liverpool's presence in securing him a field for the 
 exercise of his statesmanshij). If he had entered the cabinet, he could hardly 
 have remained there, during the last four years, under any other Premier of the 
 same politics as Lord Liverpool. It was no time for weighing these considera- 
 tions, when the news of his friend's seizure came to him as he lay fe'wred in 
 his bed. He had but just returned from visiting Lord Liverpool at Bath, 
 where he had gone, after the Duke's funeral, to improve his health. He had 
 come back worse than he went ; and in the depth of his iUness, this news 
 reached him. The eifects of grief, anxiety, and sickness, were visible enough 
 when he appeared in the House to bring forward the measures he had in charge, 
 and to encounter the onslaught of persecution which was never mitigated by 
 any touch of reverence, symjiathy, or even common humanitv, till it had laid 
 him low. 
 
 The country was not the worse for the loss of Lord Liverpool, thoush his ^l? Livebfool 
 
 *' ^ ^ ^ -I ^ o A3 MlNlSTEK. 
 
 official life had been useful in its way, at certain periods of his career. He was 
 a good balance-wheel when the movements of parties might otherwise be going 
 too fast. He had no striking ability, either in action, or in speech. He was 
 diligent, upiight, exceedingly heavy, and, as his fi-iends well knew, extremely 
 anxious under his sense of responsibility. He could not throw off' his cares for 
 a day or an hour, — either in the free air of Wimbledon, or in his trips to Batli ; 
 and it ended in his cares throwing off" his life. He declared in private, that on 
 no one day for twenty-five years of official life had he seen his heap of letters 
 on the table without a sharp pang of apprehension, and a sense of reluctance 
 to break the seals, — so strong did he feel the probability to be every day that 
 something was going wrong in some part of the world. It apjjears strange 
 that a man of his cast, — merely respectable in abilities and characteristics, 
 should have held office so long — (the premiership for fifteen years) — in times 
 of such stir and convulsion : but the fact was, his highest ability was that of 
 choosing and conciliating able men, and keeping them together in sufficient 
 harmony to get through their work, if nothing more. Nobody quarrelled with 
 him : and he set his whole weight against his colleagues quarrelling with each 
 other; so that the Eldons and the Cannings, the Bexleys and the Huskissons 
 met in council, week after week, for years together, inwardly despising and 
 disliking each other, but outwardly on decent terms, and all working in their 
 own way in their own offices. This could not go on for ever ; and, as we have 
 seen. Lord Liverpool liimself knew it could not go on much longer. He meant 
 to retire presently ; to leave the way open for some settlement of the Catholic 
 question. Thus, the nation did not sustain much loss by the brief shortening 
 of his term : nor was there the aff'ectation of mourning a great political loss. 
 There was decorous regret that such a penalty on toil and conscientiousness 
 should have overtaken so meritorious a public servant ; and then ensued ex- 
 treme easrerness to know what influence would next be in the ascendant. This 
 could not be ascertained till the following April. 
 
 In the meantime, the Corn Bill must first be brought forward. It was com- i„e corn Bat. 
 niitted to Mr. Canning's care, as leader in the Commons. He was extremely 
 
 VOL. 1. 3 IM
 
 434 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 [Book III. 
 
 1827. 
 
 Memoir oi Has- 
 kissnn, SpeetLci 
 . 120. 
 
 Hansard, xvi. 77-2 
 
 IlnnsarJ, xvi'. 
 392. 
 
 Ilarsard, xvii. 
 1007. 
 
 Hansard, xvii. 
 
 I'i.'S. 
 Catholic Ques. 
 
 TION. 
 
 Ilansiard, x'^i. 
 
 \om. 
 
 anxious about it, as it was the elaborate work of his two friends, Lord Liver- 
 pool and jNIr. Huskisson ; and the subject was not one that he felt at home in. 
 His diffidence was aggravated by the misfortune that he and Mr. Huskisson 
 were kept apart by illness, — in London and Brighton, and were thus precluded 
 from personal conference about the Bill. The only thing tliat could be done 
 was to send a confidential friend backwards and forwards, till each Minister 
 was in possession of the mind of the other. If the conclusion of the matter 
 could have been foreseen, or the causes of that ending have been made known 
 as they ought to have been, the trouble and anxiety might have been, in great 
 part, spared. The Duke of Wellington made an end of the measure, by 
 heading the Opposition in the House of Lords, and carrying an amendment 
 which vitiated the Bill too seriously to allow it to be proceeded with : — the 
 very Bill which had been prepared by the Premier, and fully sanctioned by 
 the Cabinet of which the Duke was, at the time, a member. It was not till 
 the 1st of March that Mr. Canning was well enough to bring forward the 
 measure ; which he did in the form of a set of Resolutions, intended to be the 
 foundation of a new Corn Law. According to the Resolutions, foreign corn 
 might always be imported, free of duty, to be warehoused ; and it might 
 always be let in for home consumption on payment of certain duties ; — for 
 instance, the duty on wheat was to be Is. when wheat was at 70s., and to increase 
 2s. with every decrease of Is. in price : and so on, in different proportions, 
 with other kinds of grain. The Resolutions worve well received and sup- 
 ported, — the House rejecting, by a majority of three to one, on an average, 
 the amendments proposed on behalf of the landed interest. A Bill, — the new 
 Corn Law, as it was supposed to be, — was brought in on the 2nd of April, 
 and passed on the 12th, — before the House adjourned for the Easter holidays. 
 When Parliament reassembled, Mr. Camring was Premier, and the conduct 
 of the Bill in the Upper House devolved upon Lord Goderich ; — Mr. Robinson 
 under his new title. Under some extraordinary misconception, the Duke of 
 Wellington declared that he believed the amendment he had to propose would 
 be acceptable to the government : whereas it went to establish the principle of 
 prohibition, which it was the main object of the measure to cast aside. His 
 amendment proposed that " foreign corn in bond should not be taken out of 
 bond until the average price of corn should have reached 66s." The govern- 
 ment was left in a minority of eleven in the vote on this clause on the 12th 
 of June ; and the Bill was therefore abandoned. 
 
 The debate on the CathoHc Question came on on the 5th of March, and 
 continued two days. The anti-Catholic speakers, who mustered strong in 
 this new Parliament, wandered away from the consideration of the motion 
 before the House into the whole set of old topics, — back to the Treaty of 
 Limerick, and wide among the doings of the priests at the late elections : and 
 Mr. Canning had to bring them back to the question of the night, wliicli was 
 " that this House is deeply impressed with the expediency of taking into 
 consideration the Laws imposing Civil Disabilities on his Majesty's Roman 
 Catholic subjects." Mr. Canning's speech was deeply impressive to the 
 House ; but it would have been more so, and have been received as an oracle 
 by the Catholics, if it could have been known that these were his last words 
 on the subject which he had at heart during the whole of his career. The
 
 Chap. I.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 43S 
 
 danger of neglect, of letting things alone in such a crisis as had arrived, was 1^27. 
 his last topic on this last occasion. After stating that " one bugbear was 
 fairly disposed of," — the Coronation oath, — he said, "What are the other loolT"^ '"' 
 dangers which exist at this eleventh hour, I have yet to learn ; but a singular 
 fate has attended this question. The question is — ' Will you do as we pro- 
 pose ? or will you do nothing ? or what will you do ?' And secondly, ' What 
 dangers do you apprehend I' Now, to the question, ' Will you do as we 
 propose ? or will you do nothing ? or will you do something else ?' the 
 answer is clear enough : ' Wc will not do as you propose.' But to the two 
 remaining branches of the question, no answer is given. And when we ask, 
 ' What dangers do you apprehend from the passing of a bill similar to that 
 
 of 1813 ?' we are also unable to get any answer I conjure the House 
 
 to reflect that the motion is merely a declaration on the part of the House, 
 that the state of Ireland and of the Roman Catholic population, is such as to 
 demand the consideration of the House. To this proposition it is intended to 
 oppose a direct negative, importing that the House does not think the state of 
 Ireland, or the laws affecting the Eoman Catholics, deserve consideration. 
 That is the issue upon which the House is now going to divide. The resolu- 
 tion goes no farther than that the House should adopt the opinion of its 
 predecessors, who sent three bills up to the House of Lords, of relief to the 
 Roman Catholics. . . . On the other hand, if this resolution should be nega- 
 tived, — if the House of Commons should decide that the consideration of the 
 state of Ireland is not worthy to be entered upon, — then is the House of 
 Commons changed indeed ; and it would be more easy to imagine than it 
 would be safe for me to express, the consequence that may ensiie from such a 
 change." 
 
 It was now just five years since ^Nlr. Canning uttered in the House what he 
 supposed would be his last appeal on behalf of the Catholics; — in 1822, pre- 
 vious to his intended departvne for India. He was then mistaken ; and now, 
 when really uttering his last appeal, he was unconscious that it would be so. 
 Never coidd he have been more earnest than now : for any retrogression of 
 the Commons on this subject would be, at the moment, a most untoward 
 circumstance for the cause and for himself. It was the moment when a new 
 administration was about to be formed, — when its detennining principle 
 (whether avowed or not) was to be concession or opposition to the Catholic 
 claims, — and when the King liiniself was falling back, on the removal of the 
 rivalry of the Duke of York. The loss of the Commons from the cause must 
 be most disastrous at such a crisis. This loss, however, had to be sustained. 
 The division took place a little before five in the morning of the Tth of March, 
 in a House of 548 members ; and there was a majority of four against the 
 motion. The anti-Catholic party Iiad gained by the elections. The Marquess 
 of Lansdowne had given notice in the Lords of a motion grounded on the 
 petitions sent up by the Catholics : but on this decision of the Commons, he 
 withdrew it, fairly avowing that he dared not go forward, nor brave the con- Hav^ai^i, xri. 
 sequences of the disappointment to the Catholics, if both Houses should '°''^' 
 display a majority against them. This was an anxious season for the friends 
 of the Catholics, to whom it appeared that the question had gone back, and 
 who scarcely dared to reckon on the patience of their wronged fellow-subjects.
 
 436 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 [Book III. 
 
 1827. 
 
 New Adminis- 
 
 1 RATION. 
 
 I.iTe of Canning 
 p. 3o9. 
 
 I-ife of Canning, 
 p. 360. 
 
 But men rarely know what circumstances are really prosperous or adverse. 
 This was but the step back before the spring. It was too late now for the 
 Catholics to be disheartened, when they had just seen what they could do in 
 the field of the elections. They roused themselves for the struggle which was 
 to prove the final one. 
 
 First, this question broke up another Cabinet. Of the existing Cabinet, 
 the Duke of Wellington and Mr. Peel were the strong men on the one side, 
 and Mr. Canning and Mr. Huskisson on the other. Lord Liverpool had kept 
 them together hitherto, — he having been openly of the anti-Catholic party all 
 his life, but being well known among his colleagues to have arrived at the 
 conviction, — and to be about to act upon it, — that the friends of the Catholics 
 must soon carry their point. The repressive and combining influence of Lord 
 Liverpool being now removed, the diverse elements of the goverinnent parted 
 off, and rose up against each other ; so that it became immediately necessary 
 to decide which should have the ascendancy. It was not yet considered 
 indispensable that there should be an undivided Cabinet on this question. 
 The question might be left open ; but Avhether the Premier should be of the 
 one way of thinking or the other was the particular which could not but bring 
 this all-important matter to an issue. 
 
 Mr. Canning could not be dispensed with. The public showed that it 
 thought so ; — the King certainly thought so ; — and the members of the admi- 
 nistration and their friends betrayed in their correspondence, and by their 
 methods of consultation that, if they themselves did not think so, they feared 
 that every body else did. Mr. Canning also held the second place in the 
 Cabinet, and had the first right to look to the ijremiership, and to be consulted 
 upon it. He it was, therefore, whom the King summoned, on the 27th of 
 March, when it was found to be in vain to wait for any amendment in the state 
 of Lord Liverpool, and when the restlessness of the country and of political 
 parties showed that there must be no more delay in forming an administration. 
 The interview was long, and embarrassing to both. The King requested Mr. 
 Canning's opinion on the practicability of placing at the head of the Cabinet 
 a statesman who held Lord Liverpool's avowed opinions on the Catholic 
 question. Mr. Canning declared that it might, he believed, be done, and a 
 wholly anti-Catholic government be formed; in which case, of course, he 
 must retire ; and he plainly intimated that he could not remain in the govern- 
 ment except as Prime Minister. This could have been no surprise to the 
 King ; for there was no statesman of Mr. Canning's way of thinking to whom 
 he could, with any propriety, have been made subordinate. Yet the King 
 could not bring himself at once to the point of nominating Mr. Canning ; and 
 this first negotiation was at an end. 
 
 AVhat might have been the next step, if the King had been let alone, there 
 is no saying : but some anti-Catholic members of the aristocracy, alarmed at 
 the strength of the popular expectation in favour of Mr. Canning, took a step 
 of greater boldness than the sovereign was disj^osed to endure, and ruined 
 their own cause by an attempt at intimidation which roused the royal resent- 
 ment. A Tory peer, a duke and privy-councillor, requested an audience of 
 the King, and told his Majesty that he came as the express representative of 
 eight peers, — all, like himself, holding great electoral influence, — to declare
 
 Chap. I.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 437 
 
 that if Mr. Canning was placed at the head of the Cabinet, they -woiikl all 1827. 
 withdraw their siipijort fronr tlie grovernmcnt. This took place on the fourth .,^~~!r~''"~ ' 
 
 ^, . , ^ ... '^'"- Canning 
 
 day after the abortive interview. The effect of this disrespectful and corrupt consulted. 
 proceeding was to determine the King on the instant to send for Mr. Canning. 
 
 By this time, Mr. Canning M-as aware that if he became Premier, the 
 government must lose the services of jNIr. Peel ; for Mr. Peel had told him so M"- peel. 
 on the 29th of March. Between these two statesmen there was, ^\ith all 
 their differences of opinion, and much clashing of interests at this crisis, no 
 ill will. Private letters of Mr. Canning's are in existence which declare that 
 Mr. Peel was the only seceding member of the government who behaved well 
 to him at this time : and it is known that he declared Mr. Peel to be his 
 rightful political heir and successor. 
 
 Mr. Peel's difficulty in tliis instance was a peculiar one. It arose from his 
 being responsible in his office for the administration of the affairs of Ireland. 
 He was disposed for a Cabinet divided on this question, as the House of 
 Commons had just shown itself so very equally divided ; and on almost every 
 other question of importance, he was of the same mind with those of his 
 colleagues who sat with him in the Commons. But he felt that he could not 
 fill his place in the House as Irish Minister with any satisfaction under a 
 Premier who advocated a policy in regard to the Catholics opposite to his own. 
 Such were his reasons, assigned by himself in a frank and admirable letter to 
 Lord Eldon, of the date of the 9th of April. He made no difficulty that ^j^^ "f j^°f'' ^- 
 could be helped, and caused no embarrassment. He spoke to no one but the 
 King and Mr. Canning on the subject : and his intentions and feelings became 
 kno^vn only by the King's mention of them to the Chancellor. It is a curious 
 circumstance that while ^Ir. Canning was telling the King that he believed 
 an anti-Catholic Cabinet could be formed, and offering, in that case, to retire, 
 Mr. Peel was telling his Majesty that he " could not advise the attempt to 
 form an exclusive Protestant government ;" and that he could not be a party 
 even to the attempt, if it should be contemplated. He was confident that the 
 King was of the same opinion. And so it appears by the result. This letter 
 of Mr. Peel's was \VTitten on the 9th of April, and it was on the 10th that the 
 King sent for Mr. Canning ; — not now, as before, merely in his character of 
 privy-councillor, to consult and advise, but to receive the charge of forming an 
 administration. The animus with which this result was anticipated by his 
 anti-Catholic colleagues is shown in various of Lord Eldon's letters. " I doni u. bss. 
 think — who could have thought it ? — that Mr. Canning will have his own way. 
 I ffucss that I, Wellington, Peel, Bathurst, Westmoreland, &c., will be out." 
 Some occasional notices in the old Chancellor's letters of the temper of the 
 times unveil to us something of what the " political adventurer" liad to go 
 through, on taking possession of the highest political seat in the empire, and 
 make but too natural his rapid descent to the grave. " The wliole conversa- 
 tion in tliis town," writes Lord Eldon from London, " is made up of abusive. Life of i,nrd ei. 
 bitterly abusive talk, of people about eacli other, — all fire and flame. I have 
 known nothing like it." — " I think political enmity runs higher and waxes 
 wanner, than I ever knew it." Thus it was in private, before and dvuin"' the Lifonf i,nri ei- 
 
 -,, ^ n ^ , , , • ,• • , don, ii.G04. 
 
 Easter recess : and after that recess, no one needed any otiier niformatiou tlian 
 the reports of the debates, to learn how far the spirit of persecution, and the
 
 438 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 [Book III. 
 
 1827. 
 
 Resignation of 
 
 Seven Cabinet 
 Ministers. 
 
 Hansard, xvii. 
 622. 
 
 Hansard, xvii. 
 434. 
 
 Annual Register, 
 1827, p. 102. 
 
 Hansard, xvii. 
 390. 
 
 Mil. Canning, 
 Premier. 
 
 language of personality, could go among noblemen and gentlemen who were 
 charged with the gravest of all trusts, but could neither discern the greatness 
 of the man whose heart they were breaking, nor the needs of the time which 
 he was summoned to rule. Doubtless it was the needs of the time, the poli- 
 tical transition, that they quarrelled with, though they themselves beheved, 
 as did their victim, that it was the man: but if this goes to palliate their 
 conduct in any degree, it did not to him lessen the smart of the wounds they 
 inflicted in every possible mode, and at every possible opportunity. 
 
 We have seen that Mr. Canning received the King's commands on the 10th 
 of April. He immediately applied to all his late colleagues, inviting them to 
 remain in their offices. Of the replies that he received, the most extraordinary 
 appears to be that of the Duke of Wellington, who requested to know, before 
 signifying his intentions, who was to be at the head of the government. Mr. 
 Canning's answer of course was, that it is usually understood that the indivi- 
 dual charged with the construction of a government is to be at the head of it ; 
 and then the Duke resigned. "It was on the 11th of April," to adopt Mr. 
 Canning's own statement of the afiair, " that he received the resignation of 
 Lord Westmoreland. Of the resignation of Mr. Peel he was aware some days 
 before. He received the resignation of the Duke of Wellington on the 12th, 
 at half-past ten, a.m. Lord Bexley sent in his shortly after. With these, and 
 the verbal resignation of Mr. Peel, he went to St. James's. Those of Lord 
 Eldon and Lord Bathurst arrived during his absence, and did not reach him 
 till he was in the King's closet, having been sent after him, according to his 
 directions, in case of their arrival. He would state further, that so far were 
 they from anticipating the resignation of Lord Eldon, that the King and him- 
 self were both under the delusion that there were the best reasons to expect 
 
 the support of his services in the new arrangements It was bare 
 
 justice to Lord Eldon to say that his conduct was that of a man of the highest 
 feelings of honour, and that throughout it had been above all exception." 
 Mr. Canning presented this handful of resignations to the King, saying, 
 " Here, Sire, is that which disables me from executing the orders I have 
 received from you, respecting the formation of a new administration. It is 
 now open to your Majesty to adopt a new course ; for no step has yet been 
 taken in the execution of those orders that is irrecoverable ; but it becomes 
 my duty fairly to state to your Majesty, that if I am to go on in the position 
 where you have been pleased to place me, my writ must be moved for to-day ;" 
 (it was the last day before the Easter recess, and orders for the moving of the 
 Avrit had been given ;) " for if we wait till the holidays, without adopting any 
 definitive steps, I see that it is quite hopeless for me to attemjJt to persevere in 
 the objects I have undertaken." The King, in reply, gave him his hand to 
 kiss, and confirmed him in his appointment ; declaring, however, according to 
 some accomits, that he himself was resolved to oppose any further concessions 
 to the Catholics. In two hours after this interview in the royal closet the 
 House of Commons was ringing with acclamations, — Mr. Wynn moving, 
 " That a new writ be issued for the borough of Newport, in consequence of 
 the Eight Hon. George Canning having accepted the office of First Lord 
 Commissioner of the Treasury." 
 
 The Minister had now the Easter recess before him for constructing his
 
 Chap. I.J DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 
 
 Cabinet: but there were more resignations to come in. The Duke of Wei- 1827. 
 Hngton gave up his office in the Ordnance, as well as that of Commander-iu- ^~ ■ 
 Chief Lord Melville, though agreeing with Mr. Canning on the Catholic 
 question, declined holding office with some whom he believed INIr. Canning 
 about to solicit. The Master of the Mint, Mr. Wallace, the Attorney-General, 
 Sir Charles WethcrcU, and the Judge Advocate, Sir J. Beckett, next resigned ; 
 and even four of the King's household officers. There must have been among 
 these personages an expectation of a new time — of a transition to what they 
 called Radicalism or revolution, under a Minister of liberal politics ; for it is 
 difficult to see how some of them could be affected by ^Ir. Canning's becoming 
 the head of a Cabinet in which the Catholic question was still to remain 
 open, the King's resolution to oppose further concession being understood. 
 
 It was this which made Mr. Canning's task a very difficult one, it being 
 impossible for liinr to fill up the vacant offices with men of his own opinions 
 on the great question of the day. The task was achieved, however, by the 
 2Tth of April. On that day every office in the government was declared to be new cabinet. 
 filled up. Lord Bexley returned to office ; the Heir Presumptive became 
 Lord High Admiral the day after Lord Melville's resignation of his office at 
 the head of the Admiralty ; Sir John Copley, created Lord Lyndhurst, became 
 Chancellor; Lord Anglesey went to the Ordnance, Lord Dudley to the Foreign, 
 and Mr. Sturges Bourne to the Home-office. jNIr. Robinson, who had remained, 
 was removed to the Upper House, with the title of Lord Goderich, in order to 
 lead the business there. ^Ir. Canning himself assumed the Chancellorship of the 
 Exchequer (uniting it with that of First Lord of the Treasury), in order that 
 Mr. Huskisson and he might work with the fuller effect together in matters 
 of finance. Thus the ^Minister was prepared with a complete government to 
 meet the House of Commons on its assembling on the 1st of May, to the sur- 
 prise of not a few of both friends and foes, who had believed it impossible that 
 he could surmount such a mass of impediments as had been thrown in the 
 way of his entrance into the highest office of the state. The curiosity was 
 now intense to see how he would proceed. 
 
 The times were so busv and excitins that men had hardly leisure to note, as retirement o 
 
 J ^ ^ ^ ^ ' Lord Eldon. 
 
 they would have done at any former period, the retirement of the aged Chan- 
 cellor. Perhaps there was in their minds — perhaps there was in his own — a 
 doubt whether he had retired, never to return, — he who had talked of it so 
 often and so long, and had yet adhered to office for a longer time than any 
 other Chancellor, lay or clerical, from the Nonman conquest downwards. His 
 tenure of office had been but once interrupted, and had extended over within a J;;*:'' ''^.}-°y,^_ 
 few weeks of a quarter of a century. He felt sensibly the calmness with 
 which his resignation was received by the political world, and the coinitry at 
 large, though he was ready to be at least invited back to office under future 
 Ministers. He has left on record one really painful fact in connexion witli his 
 retirement, — a fiict so painful as to enable us jjartly to account for his low 
 estimate of persons beyond his own set of acquaintances. He ^^Tites, on the LifoofLord 
 
 ^1* • tr T r -T ^ t 11 1 f • • 1 t • -i 1 Eldon, ii. 691. 
 
 eve of his retirement, " If 1 had all the livings m the kingdom vacant when 
 I communicated my resignation (for what since that falls vacant I have nothing 
 to do with), and they were cut each into threescore livings, I could not do 
 what is asked of me by letters received evei-y five minutes, full of eulogies
 
 440 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book III. 
 
 1827. upon my virtues, all which will depart when my resignation actually takes 
 ^ '~ ' place, and all concluding with, ' Pray give me a living before you go out.' " 
 He delivered up the seals on the 30tli of April, the day before the re-assem- 
 bling of Parliament. His usual self-gratulation did not fail him on this great 
 occasion of his life. By the heartiness with which Lord Eldon is always found 
 rejoicing in his own conscientiousness, as in a special gift of Providence, it 
 seems as if he could not suppose that other men could ordinarily desire and 
 E!don''^ii^696. endcavour to do their duty. He writes, " I have now taken my farewell of 
 office. ... I bless God that he has enabled me to look back to a period of nearly 
 half a century, spent in professional and judicial situations and stations, with a 
 conviction that the remembrance of the past will gild the future years which 
 his providence may allow to me, not merely with content, but with that satis- 
 faction and comfort, and with much happiness, of which the world cannot 
 deprive me." This is characteristic ; and the old Chancellor might be partly 
 right in his special self-gratulation. We hope that most public men are at 
 least as conscientious as he ; but there are probably few who are so confident 
 and exulting in their own righteousness. The enjoyment of his special prero- 
 gative seems, however, to have been far from sufficient for his peace. It was 
 necessary to him that others should value him as highly as he valued himself: 
 and it is not long before we find him sore and irritated at that diminution of 
 his political importance, which was the natural and inevitable consequence of 
 his retirement into private life.
 
 CiiAF. II.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 441 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 « 
 
 THE session lasted two months after the re-assemhling of Parliament on the 1827. 
 1st of May. It was a season of turbulence and rancour, which it is painful 
 and liumbling to look back upon. The only consolation is in the reflection 
 that the disorder, though it took the appearance of hatred between individual 
 men, was in fact a feature of the state of political transition. The Minister enmity to Mh. 
 was the professed object of the rancour, and it was he who sank under it : but 
 not even he, with all his powers, and all liis attributes of oifence, could have 
 caused such perturbation at another time, and in another position. The real 
 conflict was between old and new principles of policy, and the wounds which 
 men received were as representatives of those principles. In as far as Mr. 
 Canning could keep this truth before him, he was able to bear what was 
 inflicted ; but he could not always keep it in full view. Perhaps no man, of 
 any temperament, could have done so; and it was not to be expected of one so 
 sensitive as he. Yet he might have got through if he had had any fair 
 chance of health : but he had been ill ever since the funeral in that cold 
 January night, which had been nearly fatal to many besides himself. Now, 
 feeble and exhausted, he was to experience no mercy. Those who had diftered 
 from his former politics, and those who detested his present aims ; all who 
 had suffered under his sarca.stic wit ; all who were disappointed that he had 
 overcome his late difficulties ; all who were jealous of a "political adventurer" 
 having risen over the heads of the aristocracies both of birth and of political 
 administration, stimulated one another to insult, and overpower, if they could, 
 the Minister who stood exposed to all attacks — incapable of aid, because him- 
 self so immeasurably greater than all who would have aided — as than all 
 Avho attacked him. During the remainder of the session he was a lion at bay. 
 The lion may turn a flashing eye upon his hunters, and shake the woods with 
 his roar; but a sufficiency of wounds must prostrate him at last ; and so it was 
 here. Here was the flashing eye, the indomitable valour, and the thundering 
 iittcrance, under which the assailants quailed for the moment. But the powers 
 of life gave way ; and, in a little while, only the silent ghost remained in the 
 old haunts to call up the awe and remorse which were now too late. It is 
 universally agreed that personality and insult were never before so rank in 
 any assembly of English gentlemen as now, during the two months following- 
 Mr. Canning's accession to the Premiership. 
 
 The most tangible complaint of his adversaries was about " coalition;" and 
 this fact is waiTant enough for the supposition that the discontent was with 
 the time, though the complainers themselves believed it was with the man. 
 The Minister was supported by the Whigs ; and the reason why was, that he The Wnrr.» 
 and they agreed upon most subjects of importance. About Reform of Parlia- government. 
 ment they differed ; but, as Canning's arch foe. Lord Grey, declared, there 
 
 vol,. 1. 3 N
 
 442 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book III. 
 
 1827. was no near prospect of carrying this question; and it ■was, in his opinion, no 
 ^^ — "" ~^ reason for separating men who could unite to carry points of more pressing 
 urgency. They differed about the repeal of the Corporation and Test Acts ; 
 and this was nearly all. They M'ere agreed upon the leading question of the 
 times, — the Catholic Disabilities ; and on all matters of foreign and com- 
 mercial policy and finance, by which Mr. Canning was most eminently distin- 
 guished. The attendants at Pitt dinners, the Tories who professed to worship 
 the statesman who desired Catholic Emancijjation and Parliamentary Reform, 
 were not exactly qu.alified to cry out upon the union between Mr. Canning 
 and tlie Whigs, whose differences might be called almost nominal, in compa- 
 rison Avith those which should have divided the Tories from Mr. Pitt. The 
 fact was, that names, and recollections, and insignia, connected the Tories 
 with Mr. Pitt, while political principles separated them ; and political prin- 
 ciples united the Whigs and Mr. Canning, Avhile names, recollections, and 
 insignia, severed them. Some were wise enough to see that princij)les are 
 of more importance than badges and names ; and we should be lenient towards 
 those who are less enlightened, remembering how, in ordinary times, these 
 names and badges serve as safeguards of political honour and consistency, 
 and that it is not every one who can see the moment when they cease to be 
 true, and ought therefore to be discarded. All the wisest people, — and Mr. 
 Canning assuredly for one, — would have been thus lenient, if the offended 
 persons had kept within the bounds of temper and courtesy. For the pre- 
 vailing rancour, however, there could be no excuse. 
 
 The enmity appeared not only in connexion with the explanations which 
 necessarily took place on all sides after the re-assembling of Parliament. No 
 one subject of the few brought forward during these two months could be 
 debated, or even touched upon, without occasion being taken to cavil at the 
 new administration, and especially its head. But of all the shafts which were 
 aimed at him, it is believed that none struck so deep as one, — or rather a 
 (jREv" "' ^ "" quiverfid,^ — from the hands of Lord Grey. In a speech of apparent calmness, 
 unn nvd xvii ^^ deep melauclioly, of affecting unconsciousness of the destiny awaiting 
 730—73.!. himself and his victim, and of the most intense personal animosity against 
 
 Mr. Canning, Lord Grey opened his views in the House of Lords on the 10th 
 of May. He believed his own political life to be closed ; and he declared in 
 pathetic terms his sense of loneliness in this latter stage of his life. He did 
 not blame his brother Whigs for their coalition with Mr. Canning, if their 
 personal feelings did not forbid it : but his did. He avowed his want of con- 
 fidence in the Minister ; and gave his reasons for it. A more striking and 
 mournful instance can hardly be found than this speech of the effect of pre- 
 judice, in blinding one great man to the merits, — even to the most familiar 
 attributes, — of another. Lord Grey had soon occasion to show how well he 
 could bear misconstruction and rancour : but if any thing could have shaken 
 his firmness in his own hour of the ordeal, it must have been the remembrance 
 of this fatal attack on Canning, — so insolent, hard, and cold, so insulting, 
 and so cruel ! As might be expected from the state of mind which produced it, 
 the speech was full of misconstructions and mistakes. As far as its matter 
 was concerned, nothing could have been easier than to answer it; but the 
 question was how ? The practice of answering in one House the personal
 
 I Chap. II.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 443 
 
 ! attacks made in another is radically objectionable ; and Mr. Canning had the 1827. 
 
 greatest reluctance to have recourse to this apparently only method ; and ^- — ' 
 
 besides, he was not in a state of health which would have borne him through 
 
 such an exertion. He believed that ere long he should be able to reply to 
 
 Lord Grey in person : but they never met more. Lord Grey's political friends, Lifeof cmmitii;, 
 
 now the allies of the Minister, did full justice to Mr. Canning's character in 
 
 tlie Upper House ; but this particular speech was never efficiently answered ; 
 
 and the thought of it rankled in the breast of the victim to the last. 
 
 When the Commons proceeded to business, there was something almost as 
 perplexing as strange in the aspect of the House ;— Mr. Brougham and Sir 
 Francis Burdett, ]Mr. Tierney and Sir Robert Wilson, sitting on the ministerial 
 benches ; and some ■who had till now scarcely known any other seat, finding 
 themselves on the opposite side. The one point in which all parties appeared 
 to agi"ee was in wishing the session over. In the present state of men's minds 
 no great question could be discussed with due calmness ; and the ministerial 
 members especially wished that their relations with the Cabinet should become 
 more assured and consolidated before they exposed the greatest questions of 
 the time to the passionate treatment of the legislature. Thus, not only were 
 notices of motions on Parliamentary Reform, and repeal of the Corporation 
 and Test Acts (Mr. Canning's great points of difference with his new allies) 
 withdrawn, but also two on the Catholic Question, which was too serious a bisivess»ith. 
 
 -. -, PI DRAWN. 
 
 matter now to be committed to the forces of such a tempest as at present 
 perturbed the world of politics. 
 
 A motion tending to take bankruptcy matters from under the jurisdiction of bpsiness 
 
 1 /~i P rf-il • 1 1 1 • • -n r XT p -1 1 ATTEMPTED. 
 
 tlie Court or Chancery, was negatived by a large majority. — Mr. Hume tailed 
 in his endeavour to get repealed that one of the Six Acts of 1819, which im- Hansard, x-.n. 
 posed a stamp on cheap periodical publications. — On the gi-ound of petitions 
 from some of the ports, a committee was asked for to inquire into the state of 
 the shipping interest : and this called up Mr. Huskisson to justify his policy by 
 such clear proofs of the increased employment of British shipping, both abso- 
 lutely and in relation to foreign shipping, that the mover. General Gascoyne, 
 Mr. Huskisson's colleague in the representation of Liverpool, abstained from 
 pressing for a division. — Two bills, attacking some of the worst evils of the Hansard, xtii. 
 Game Laws, those incessant rebukes to our pride of ])rogress and civilization, 
 reached the third reading, and then were thrown out ; — Lord Wharnclifte's by 
 a majority of one, the ]\Iarquess of Salisbury's by a majority of sixteen. Lord 
 Suffield, however, obtained the legal prohibition of man-traps and spring-guns, spiunc (iirNs. 
 and otlicr such barbarous defences of game at the expense of men. — ^Ir. Peel "j"^^''''' "'" 
 obtained some important improvements in the Criminal Law. Five acts were Haniani, x^u. 
 passed under his management, by which a great simplification of the law was cbiminal law. 
 effected, much old rubbish got rid of, and a ^ay prepared for further reforms. 
 — Some corrupt boroughs were doomed to disfranchisement ; but the session 
 closed before the necessary steps were taken. — The new Chancellor of the Ex- 
 chequer proposed to move for a finance committee in the next session ; and 
 there was therefore little discussion of the budget of the present, which was THKBtn.r.Lr. 
 brought forward on the 1st of June. The view which he presented of the affairs ions!'' '' 
 of the country was dark enough. The people were hardly yet beginning to 
 recover from the depression of 182(5. All were so far satisfied that it was better
 
 444 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 [Book III. 
 
 1827. 
 
 Hansard, xvii. 
 1312. 
 
 The Corn Bill. 
 
 Hansard, xviL 
 1338. 
 
 Close of TriE 
 Session. 
 
 Hansard, xvii. 
 444. 
 
 Mb. Canning's 
 
 HEALTH. 
 
 to leave the country to itself than to attemjjt at present any financial inno- 
 vations, that Mr. Canning's resolutions with regard to supply met with no oppo- 
 sition ; and all financial discussion was deferred till the committee of next 
 session sliould be moved for. — Mr. Canning moved and carried an amendment 
 on a motion of Mr. Western's respecting the Corn Laws ; the amendment 
 being grounded on the bill which had passed the House in the spring, and 
 been thrown out by the mistake of the Duke of Wellington. The last words 
 of the last speech of Mr. Canning in parliament related to the conduct of the 
 Duke of Wellington in this matter, and pledged the government to bring for- 
 ward another Corn Bill in the next session, of the same bearing as that which 
 had been lost. Great offence was given in the Upper House by his declaration 
 that he believed the Duke to have been, while meaning no harm, " made the 
 instrument of others for their own particular views." At the moment, some 
 few voices cried " Order ;" " but they were instantly lost in loud and continued 
 shouts of ' Hear, hear.' " This speech Avas the last of the oratory which has 
 become a tradition, and will continue to be so for an age to come. Except to 
 answer a trifling question, on the 29th of June, Mr. Camiing never spoke again 
 in parliament. 
 
 We have seen how meagre were the legislative results of the session. All 
 were glad when it closed. Mr. Canning's enemies felt powerless in the face of 
 his administration, the strongest, it Avas believed, since the days of Pitt : while 
 his adherents desired repose from parliamentary conflict in order to consolidate 
 their combination, while their leader sorely needed it for the strengthening of 
 his exhausted frame. On the 2d of July, the session was closed by commission, 
 with a speech which noticed little but the gradual revival of manufacturing 
 employment, and the royal hope that the Com Laws would be a subject of at- 
 tention in the next session. 
 
 The time was now come for rej^ose to many who greatly needed it after the 
 excitement of a most stormy session, during which, if there was little done, 
 there was more felt and said than some had strength of body and mind to bear. 
 Mr. Canning and Mr. Huskisson were both very ill. Mr. Huskisson was ordered 
 abroad by his physicians. Mr. Canning could not, of course, leave his post : 
 and those who watched him with the almost idolatrous affection which he in- 
 spired in all who were near to him, saw that no outward repose could be suffi- 
 cient for his needs. Time was the only healer that covdd avail him ; for his 
 oppression was of the mind. He keenly felt the loneliness of his position, — 
 estranged from those who had always been his comrades, and whom he loved 
 with all the capacity of his large heart ; obliged to bear with their miscon- 
 struction, more painful to him tlian the insults of their followers ; and pre- 
 vented by former passages of his life, and by many ghosts of departed sarcasms 
 of his own, from throwing himself into intimacy with his new coadjutors. He 
 had a bitter sense of loneliness on the pinnacle of his power ; and bitter was 
 it to bear alone the remembrance of the usage he had met with during the last 
 few weeks. Time and success would set all right. Of succo.';s he AAas certain ; 
 for he was not one who failed in his enterprises. Whether time would aid him 
 depended on whether his bodily forces would hold out. Those who looked at 
 his care-worn face and enfeebled frame trembled and doubted : but here were 
 some months before him of the finest season of the year : and it would be seen
 
 Chap. II.J DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 445 
 
 ■nliat they could do for him. — A week after the dispersion of parliament, he 1827. 
 dined with Lord Lyndhurst at Wimbledon, and sat down under a tree while 
 wann with walking : and upon this followed a feverish cold and rheumatism. 
 On the 18th, Mr. Huskisson called to take leave before his continental iourney, M™oiiof 
 
 ' J J -' Huskisson, p. Io7. 
 
 and found him in bed. He looked so ill, that his friend observed that he 
 seemed the most in need of change and relaxation : to which Mr. Canning re- 
 plied, " O ! it is only the reflexion of the yellow linings of the curtains." Mr. 
 Huskisson went abroad the next day, to be brought back by the news of his 
 friend's death. — Two days after this last interview, Mr. Canning removed to the 
 Duke of Devonshire's villa at Chiswick, where Fox died, and inhabited the very 
 room. He did not gain strength, though he attended to business, and on the 
 25th dined with Lord Clanricarde. He complained of weakness, and went 
 home early. On the 30th he waited upon the King, who was so alarmed at 
 his appearance, that he sent his own physician to him. Some friends dined i-ifeofcannin- 
 with him the next day. He retired early, and never left his bed again. His 
 illness, — internal inflammation, — was torturing, dreadful to witness ; but there 
 was yet much strength left ; for he lived till the 8tli of August. On the 5tli, 
 the Sunday before his death, he desired his daughter to read prayers, accord- 
 ing to his custom when he could not attend church. His agony ceased some death. 
 time before his death, when mortification had set in. It was a little before 
 four in the morning of Wednesday, the 8th of August, when he breathed his 
 last. 
 
 For some few days before, the nation had been on the watch in fearful 
 apprehension of the news ; but yet the consternation was as gi-eat as if this 
 man had been supposed immortal. Multitudes felt that the life most important 
 to the world of the whole existing generation had passed away. It was a life 
 in which men had put their trust, — (more trust than should perhaps be put in 
 any life,) — from the Isles of Greece to the ridges of the Andes. Wlien those 
 who had by their persecution sapped that life now awoke to a sense of its im- 
 portance, they must have been amazed at themselves that they could have 
 indulged spleen and passion in such a case, and have gratified their own pre- 
 judices and tempers at so fatal a cost. But thus it is when men serve instead 
 of mastering their prejudices and passions ; — they know not A\hat they do : and 
 if they discover what they have done, it is because it is too late. All the 
 honour that could be given now was given. All the political coteries, the 
 whole country, the whole continent, the whole vvorld echoed with eulogy of 
 tlie departed statesman. From the most superficial and narrow-minded of his 
 critics, who coidd comprehend nothing beyond the charm which invested the 
 man, to the wortliiest of his ajjprcciators who were sensible of the grandeur of 
 his intellect and the nobility of his soul, all now joined in grief and in praise : 
 and none with a more painful wringing of the heart than those who had but 
 lately learned his greatness, and the promise that it bore. Of his near friends, 
 one sat unmoved and insensible in the midst of the universal lamentation, — 
 TjOrd Liverpool, whose mind had died first, but whose frame remained after 
 the grave had closed over his comrade and successor; and another, Mr. Hus- 
 kisson, received among the Styrian Alps a report of Canning's convalescence, 
 three days after he was actually dead. The moiirnfid news soon followed ; 
 and in a few days, Mr. Huskisson was on his way home^\■ards, heart-stricken
 
 446 HISTORY OF ENGLAND fBooK III. 
 
 1827. for the loss of his friend, and convinced, as he repeatedly and earnestly said, 
 
 ^^■^-^ ' that his own political career was over. 
 
 FuNEKAL. Mr. Canning was fifty-six years of age. He was borne to his gi'ave in the 
 
 Abbey on the 16th of August. His family wished his funeral to be as private 
 
 as the funeral of such a man could be ; and they declined the attendance of 
 
 Annual Rpgistpr. scveral public bodics, and a multitude of individuals : but yet, the streets 
 
 1827, Chron. 143. ' i /• i , . • i • l l ■ xc 1 
 
 were so thronged (in a deluge oi ramj tliat a way was made with dimculty ; 
 and the Abbey was filled : and the grief of the mourners next the coffin hardly 
 exceeded that which was evident in the vast crowd outside. — The next morn- 
 ing, the King bestowed a peerage on Mr. Canning's widow. Statues of the 
 HoNouns. departed statesman, and monuments, exist in many places in the world : and 
 
 it is well : but the niche in history where the world holds the mind of the 
 man enshrined for ever, is his only worthy monument. 
 
 It would be a curious speculation, — but it is one not in our way at present, — 
 what Mr. Canning would finally have been and have done, if the great Euro- 
 pean war had lasted to the end of his life. His glory in our eyes is mainly 
 that he was the Minister of the Peace : his immortality lies in his foreign 
 policy, by which Peace was preserved and freedom established, in a manner 
 and to an extent which the potentate of the world of mind is alone competent 
 to achieve. Czars, emperors, kings, and popes, may make peace one with 
 another, in a mechanical and therefore precarious manner ; and this is all 
 that, as the princes of the earth, they can do. The princes of the wider and 
 • higher realm of mind can do what Canning did, — spread Peace over conti- 
 nents, and the great globe itself, vitally and therefore permanently, by diffusing 
 and establishing the principles of peace. Of a History of the Peace, ho must 
 be the hero. In a state of war, he must have been something great and 
 beneficent ; for his greatness was inherent, and his soul was — like the souls 
 of all the gi'eatest of men — benign: and his power, — the prerogative of 
 genius, — was paramount as often as he was moved to put it forth. Without 
 being able to divine what he would have done in a state of continuous war, — 
 without daring to say that he would have calmed the tempest in its wrath as 
 effectually as he forbade it to rise again, — we may be assured that he would 
 have chosen to do great things, and have done what he chose. 
 
 One of the strongest evidences of Mr. Canning's power is the different 
 light in which he appeared to the men about him and to us. His accomplish- 
 ments were so brilliant, his graces so exquisite, his wit so dazzling, that all 
 observers were completely occupied by these, so as to be almost insensible to 
 the qualities of mind which are most impressive to us who never saw his face. 
 To us he is, as Lord Holland called him, " the first logician in Europe." To 
 us he is the thoughtful, calm, earnest, quiet statesman, sending forth from his 
 office the most simple and business-like despatches, as free from pomp and 
 noise as if they were a message fr-om some pure intelligence. We believe 
 and know all that can be told of his sensibility, his mirth, and the passion of his 
 nature : and we see no reason for doubting it, as, in genius of a high order,— 
 in Fox, for instance, — the logic and the sensibility are so intimately united, 
 that in proportion as the emotions kindle and glow, the reason distils a purer 
 and a yet purer truth. But to us, to whom the fire is out, there remains the 
 essence ; and by that we judge him. We hear of his enthusiasms, kindling
 
 Chap. II.J DUEING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 447 
 
 easily at all times, but especially on the apprehension of great ideas: hut 1827. 
 ■what we see is that no favourite ideas led him away from a steady regard to the " "^ 
 realities of his time. We hear of his unquenchable fancy ; but we see that it 
 never beguiled him from taking a statesmanlike view of the society spread out 
 below him, and waiting upon his administration of the powers of the govern- 
 ment, lie was one of the most practical of statesmen : and herein lay one of 
 the most indisputable evidences of his genius. His genius, however, never 
 was questioned. There might be, and there were, men who disparaged genius 
 itself in its application to politics : but there were none who doubted Can- 
 ning's having it, — whatever it might be worth. 
 
 His faults were, not only unworthy of his genius, as all faults are, but of a 
 nature which it is not easy to reconcile with genius of so high an order as his. 
 Some of them, at least, were so. We may be able to allow for the confidence, 
 and the spirit of enterprise — of adventure, — which helped to obtain for him 
 the name of " adventurer;" — the spirit which sprang into the political amphi- 
 theatre, ready for the combat on all hands, and thinking at first more of the 
 combat than the cause : we can allow for this, because time showed how, 
 when he kne^v life and its seriousness better, the cause of any principle became 
 every thing to him, and the combat, a thing not to be sought, however joyfully 
 it may be met. The name of " adventurer" can never be given to him who 
 resigned office rather than take part against the Queen, and gave up his 
 darling hope of representing his University in order to befriend the Catholic 
 cause. He was truly adventurous in these acts, but witli the self-denial of 
 the true hero. 
 
 We may allow, again, for the spirit of contempt, which was another of his 
 attributes, least worthy of his genius. It was but partial ; for no man was more 
 capable of reverence : and much of his ridicule regarded fashions and follies, 
 and affectations of virtue and vice : but still, there was too much of it. It 
 did visit persons ; and it did wound honest or innocent feeling, as well as 
 exasperate some whose weakness was a plea for generous treatment. For this 
 fault, however, he paid a high penalty, — he underwent an ample retribution. 
 Again, we may allow for some of his political acts, — such as countenancing 
 restrictions on the press, — from the consideration of the temper and character 
 of the times, and of his political comrades : but they necessarily detract from 
 our estimate of his statesmanship. 
 
 The same may be said about Parliamentary Reform. It is exactly those 
 who most highly honour the advocates of Reform of Parliament who can 
 most easily see into the difficulties, and understand the opposition, of the 
 anti-reformers in parliament. But there is no knowing what to say about 
 Mr. Canning's opposition to the repeal of the Corporation and Test Acts. He 
 knew tlie facts of the case, of course : — his advocacy of the Catholic claims 
 shows that he knew the principle of it. His inconsistency in this case must 
 be regarded as one of the waywardnesses, — one of the faults, at once intel- 
 lectual and moral ffor he alleged no reasons, — no plea which he himself would 
 call reasonable) — -which are the links that bind down even the greatest to 
 their condition of human frailty. — As for all tlie rest of him, — he was worthy 
 of his endowments and his great function in life. Ho was an excellent son to 
 his huuible mother, who died, happily for hcrselfj before him, — in March of
 
 4'18 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book III, 
 
 1827. the same year. He was nearly as large an object in the mental vision of all 
 the leading men of his time as in that of his proud mother, or of his adoring 
 family and private friends. His mind and his name did indeed occupy a 
 great space in the world, from the year 1822 till his death : and when he was 
 gone, there was a general sensation of forlomness throughout the nation which 
 made the thoughtful ponder how such dismay could be caused by the with- 
 drawal of one from amidst its multitude of men.
 
 Chap. II.J DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 449 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 ^HE Catholics were now eager to learn their fate: and the nation — indeed 1827. 
 ■'- many nations — had the strongest interest in knowing whether Mr. Canning's '^'^'•^^^'^^^ 
 principles were still to reign by the administration of his friends, or whether 
 the old Tories were to return to power. It was soon known that there was 
 still to be a mixed Cabinet, under the ijremiership of Lord Goderich. lokd GooEiircH, 
 
 Mr. Huskisson, feeble in health, and cast down by the loss of his life-long mr. huskisso.n. 
 friend, wished to leave office. He had turned homewards on hearing the bad 
 news, and remained a few days at Paris, partly to await the arrival of the 
 despatches which were travelling after him, and partly for needful rest. If 
 the Tories shovild come into power, or if a successor of his own views could 
 be found, he intended to winter in the south of Eurojie. When his letters 
 arrived, however, he found that he had no choice. The new Premier earnestly 
 pressed him to take the Colonial office ; and the King had emphatically 
 expressed his desire that Mr. Huskisson would return to enter upon his func- 
 tion as soon as possible. Thus, then, it was clear that Mr. Canning's policy 
 was to be in the main pursued, and this was not the less believed for the 
 Duke of Wellington's returning to the command of the army ; for he made an Duke of 
 open declaration that he did so for the sake of the public service, and by no 
 means from any sympathy with the proceedings of the Cabinet, of whose mixed 
 character he disapproved as much as he had done five months before. He 
 desired to be considered as standing aloof from the policy of the Cabinet. Of 
 course, people asked why he could not have held his command in the same 
 way during ^Ir. Canning's administration : to which he replied by an intima- 
 tion that there were personal reasons for his secession at that time. The great 
 difficulty was what to do about the office of Chancellor of the Exchequer, — 
 filled by the departed Premier. It was declined by two members of the 
 administration, and by Mr. Tierney ; and at last it was given, — unfortunately 
 as it turned out, — to Mr. Herries, who had been Secretary of the Treasury mb. harries. 
 under Lord Liverpool. If there were before too many conflicting elements in 
 the government to be securely controlled by any hand less masterly than Mr. 
 Canning's, matters were pretty sure to go wrong now, after the admission of 
 a functionary so little powerful in himself, and so little congenial with his 
 colleagues, as ^Ir. Herries. The Whiji'S were very near "oing out at once ; bvit Jii-ranii-of 
 
 o ? c5 J n r^ ^ ■ Huskisson, p. 142. 
 
 they were persuaded to stay and make a trial. Lord Ilarrowby yielded his 
 ])lace to the Duke of Portland, Mr. Canning's brother-in-law, who had been 
 Lord Privy Seal; and I>ord Carlisle, an excellent moderator and pacificator, 
 succeeded to the Duke of Portland. 
 
 This was the third administration which had existed \\ ithin scvcmi months, 
 and it had no great promise of stability. The recess, however, was before it, — 
 the greatest advantage to a new Cabinet : and the nation supposed that by 
 
 voi,. I. -i n
 
 450 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 [Book III. 
 
 I 
 
 1827. 
 
 Loao Dl'DLEY. 
 
 Annual Register, 
 1833, Chron. 210. • 
 
 Affairs of 
 Greece. 
 
 the end of the year it woiikl be seen what it Mas -worth ; whether it coukl hohl 
 together, and what it proposed to do. By the end of the year the case was indeed 
 j)lain enough, — that it was about the weakest administration on record. Diffi- 
 culties occurred in several departments ; but the most confounding were in that 
 of Foreign policy. The Foreign Secretary, Lord Dudley (raised to an earldom in 
 September of this year), was a man of great ability, and much earnestness in 
 his work ; and he was fully possessed with i\Ir. Canning's views. At a former 
 period, he had suffered under a nervous depression which too clearly indicated 
 the probability of that insanity which ultimately prostrated him : but at this 
 time, he appeared to be capable of business, and to be eccentric in manner 
 only, and not in ways of thinking. Some inconveniences occurred from his 
 singularities, which made it rather a relief when he retired, in Way of the 
 next year ; but they did not occasion any serious difficulties. He was in the 
 habit of thinking aloud ; and, amusing as this might be in Cabinet council, it 
 was dangerous any where else : and it is believed that in the autumn we have 
 now arrived at, he directed to the Russian ambassador a letter intended for 
 the French ; — to Prince Lieven a letter intended for Prince Polignac. Prince 
 Lieven took this for a ruse, and boasted of his penetration in being aware of 
 the trick. — It w^as the state of a portion of our foreign affairs which might 
 have made this accident a most disastrous one. The truth is, the difficulty 
 was great enough, without any aggravation from carelessness and unfortunate 
 accidents. 
 
 The aspect of the Greek cause was much altered by the part the ruler oi 
 Egypt had been for some time taking in the war. Mohammed Alee, the 
 Pasha of Egypt, a tributary and vassal of the Porte, had brought all his 
 energy, and all his resources, to the aid of his sovereign. Before he did this, 
 the war dragged on, as it might have done for ever, if the parties had been 
 left to their rivalship of weakness. But when the Pasha sent his son Ibraheem 
 with ships, troops, money, and valour, to fight against the Greeks, every thing 
 December, 1826. Was changed. By the end of 1826, the whole of western Greece was recovered 
 by the Turks ; and the Greek government had transferred itself to the islands. 
 Men wlio find it at all times difficult to agree are sure to fall out under the 
 provocations of adversity ; and the dissensions of the Greek leaders ran higher 
 now than ever. Each was sure that the disasters of the country were owing 
 to some one else. It was this quarrelling which prevented the Greeks from 
 taking advantage of some successes of their brave general Karaiskaki, to 
 attempt the relief of Athens, — closely pressed by the Turks. The Turkish 
 force was soon to be strengthened by troops already on their march ; and now, 
 before their aiTival, was the time to attempt to relieve Athens. Some aid was 
 sent; and some fighting went on, — on the whole with advantage to the 
 Greeks; but nothing decisive was done till Lord Cochrane arrived among 
 them, rated them soundly for their quarrels, and took the command of their 
 vessels ; — the Greek admiral, INIiaulis, being the first and the most willing to 
 put himself under the command of the British officer. In a little while, Count 
 Capo d'Istria, an official esteemed by the Eussian government, was appointed 
 President of Greece for seven years.— The Turkish reinforcements had arrived, 
 absolutely unopposed, before Athens ; and this rendered necessary the strongest 
 effort that could be made for the deliverance of the place. General Chnirh 
 
 Annual Rpf^ister, 
 1827, p. 301. 
 Ai'RlL, 1827. 
 
 I
 
 Chap. III.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 451 
 
 brought up forces by land, and Lord Cochrane by sea; and by the 1st of May, 1827. 
 
 the flower of the Greek troops, to the number of ten thousand, were assembled ^- ^' ^ 
 
 before the walls of Athens. — It was soon too clear to the British commanders 
 that nothing was to be done with forces so un'disciplined and in every May 
 unreliable. The troops of Karaiskaki lost their leader, and incurred disaster 
 by fighting without orders ; and then, through a series of mistakes and follies, 
 the issue became hopeless. Between 8 ami 10 o'clock Ln the morning of the mav, 1827. 
 6th all was ruined. The killed and wounded of the Greeks amounted to 
 2500 : and the rest were dispersed, like chaif before the wind. Of those who 
 escaped, the greater number took refuge in the mountains. Lord Cochrane 
 was compelled to tlu-ow himself into the sea, and swim to his ship. — General 
 Church strove hard to maintain liis fortified camp at the Phalerus, with 3000 
 men whom he had collected : but when he found that some of the Greek 
 officers were selling his provisions to the enemy, he gave up, and retired to 
 Egina, — sorely grieved, but not in despair. — Lord Cochrane kept the sea, — 
 generally with his single frigate, the Hellas, contributed to the cause by the 
 United States, — and now and then with a few Greek vessels, when their com- 
 manders had nothing better to do than to obey orders. He was alone when 
 he took his station off Navarino, to watch the fleet of the Egyptian Ibraheem ; 
 and he had better have been alone when he went on to Alexandria, to look 
 after the fleet which the Pasha was preparing there ; for, when the Egyptians 
 came out to offer battle, the Greeks made all sail homewards. 
 
 The Turks now supposed they had every thing in their own hands. On the 
 intervention of the French admiral, Ue Rigny, they spared the lives of the 
 garrison of the Acropolis, permitting them to march out, without their amis, 
 and go whither they would. Then, all seemed to be over. The Greeks held 
 no strong places but Corinth and Napoli, and had no army : while the Turks 
 held all the strong places but Corinth and Napoli, and had two armies at 
 liberty, — that of the Egyptian leader in the West, and of the Turkish Seraskier 
 in the East, — to put down any attempted rising within the bounds of Greece. 
 — But at this moment of extreme humihation for Greece, aid was preparing; 
 and hope was soon to arise out of despair. While Mr. Canning was fighting 
 his own battles in parliament, he had his eye on what was passing in Greece ; 
 and the fall of Athens, and the dispersion of the Greek forces, only strength- 
 ened his resolution that the powers of Eui-ope should hasten the interposition 
 he had planned long before. 
 
 It was important to Russia that Turkey should be weakened in every tfiree allied 
 possible way ; and Russia was therefore on the side of the Greeks. The sym- 
 pathies of France and England were on the side of the Greeks ; but they must 
 also see that Greece should be freed in reality, and that Turkey should not be 
 destroyed ; so they were willing to enter into alliance with Russia to part the 
 combatants, preserve both, impose terms upon both, and see that the terms 
 were observed. The Duke of Wellington had gone to St. Petersburg to settle 
 all this : and the Ministers of the three Courts laid before the government of 
 the Porte at Constantinople, the requisitions of the allies. The great object 
 was to separate the Turks and Greeks, — the Faithful and the Infidels, — who 
 could never meet without fighting : and it was projioscd, — or, we may rather Annuaire lus- 
 say, ordained, — by the allies, that all the Turks shoidd leave Greece, receiving p°''ilj.i3.'^'''"'°'
 
 452 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book III. 
 
 1827. compensation (in some way to be devised) for the propertj- they must forsake. 
 The Greeks were to pay a tribute to the Porte, and to be nominally its 
 subjects : and the Tiukish government was to have some sort of veto on the 
 appointment of officials : but substantially the choice of officers, and the enjoy- 
 ment of their own modes of living, were to be left to the Greeks. As might 
 be expected, the victorious Turk was amazed at this interference between him- 
 self and his rebellious subjects : and if he would not listen to dictation before 
 the fall of Athens, much less would he afterwards. There was threat as well 
 as dictation ; — threat of enforcing the prescribed conditions : but the Porte 
 braved the threat as loftily as it rejected the interference. 
 
 The rejection was too natural and reasonable not to be received as final : 
 and the three Powers therefore proceeded to their acts of enforcement. It may 
 be remembered that Mr. Canning, ill and wearied, after the close of the session, 
 exerted himself to transact some public business. The chief item of this 
 
 LuNuoN."'^ business was causing to be signed the Treaty with France and Russia, con- 
 cerning the affairs of Greece, which was finished off in London, and imme- 
 diately despatched to Constantinople. In this treaty, the alliance and its 
 purposes were justified on the ground of " the necessity of putting an end to 
 the sanguinary contest which, by delivering up the Greek provinces, and the 
 isles of the Archipelago, to the disorders of anarchy, produces daily fresh 
 impediments to the commerce of the European states, and gives occasion to 
 piracies which not only expose the subjects of the contracting j)owers to con- 
 siderable losses, but render necessary burdensome measures of suppression and 
 protection." England and France moreover pleaded the appeals they had 
 received from the Greeks. The treaty concluded with a declaration and pledge 
 of disinterestedness ; — of desiring nothing which the whole world besides was 
 
 Annuaire Hs- not at Hbcrtv to obtaiu. 
 
 toriniii. Appen. 
 
 p- 102-103. A month from the date of the arri\ al of the instructions to the ambassadors 
 
 at Constantinople was the time allowed to the Porte for consideration. If the 
 terms of the three Powers were not by that time acceded to, they must proceed 
 to the threatened enforcement, ^^•ith every intention to preser\e their own 
 pacific relations with Turkey; The work of mediation was to be carried on 
 by force, in such a case, under the plea that such a proceeding would be best 
 ■ for the interests of the contending powers, and necessary for the peace and 
 
 comfort of the rest of the world. There were sqiiadrons of all the three Powers 
 ready in the Levant; — that of Russia being commanded by Admiral Heiden ; 
 that of France by Admiral De Eigny ; and that of England by Sir Edward 
 Codrington. 
 
 Annual Register, The fomial uotc of tlic auibassadors at Constantinople was delivered iu on 
 
 1827, p. 310. ... 
 
 the 16th of August, with a notification that an answer would be expected in 
 fifteen days. On the 30th of August, no reply having been volunteered, it 
 The Porte. -was askcd for, and given only verbally. Again the Porte declined recognising 
 any interference between itself and its rebellious subjects : and when the con- 
 sequent notice of enforcement was given, the Turkish government became, as 
 any other government would, in like circumstances, bolder in its declaration 
 of persistance in its own rights. Then began a season of activity at Constan- 
 tinople such as had seldom been witnessed there; — horses and provisions 
 pouring in from the country, and sent off, with ammunition, arms, and stores.
 
 Chap. III.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 4^3 
 
 to occupy the posts along the Bosphoius and the Dardanelles. There was an 1827 
 incessant training of troops, under the eye of the Sultan or his Wezeer; and " '' 
 
 the capital seemed in the way to be turned into a camp. There is something- 
 striking in the only words the Turkish Minister A\ould utter, in the final inter- 
 view of the 14th of September : " God and my right,"- — said he, in the calmest ^^™"^ n'■?i^l.•l■, 
 manner. " Such is the motto of England. "\Miat better answer can we give, 
 when you intend to attack us? " 
 
 Meantime, the Egyptian fleet, strongly reinforced, had arrived in the Morea : eivftias Fmtr. 
 and the English commander had no right to interpose any obstacle ; the time 
 being the end of August, and the answer of the Porte not being yet delivered. 
 Sir Edward Codrington, however, hailed Ibraheem, informed him of what 
 was going on at Constantinople, and offered him a safe conduct, if he wished 
 to return to Egypt. But if he chose to enter the harbour of Navarino, to 
 join the Turkish fleet there, he must clearly understand that any of his vessels 
 attempting to get out woidd be driven back. Ibraheem chose to enter. There 
 now lay the ninety-two Egyptian vessels, and the Turkish fleet, crowded in 
 the harbour ; and off its mouth lay the British squadron on the watch. For 
 some time, Ibraheem occupied himself in preparing his troops for action 
 against the Greeks ; but on the 19th of September he determined to try an 
 experiment. He sent out a division of the Turkish fleet, to see if the English 
 would let them pass. Sir Edward Codrington warned them back ; but the 
 Turkish commander replied that he was under no other orders than those of 
 Ibraheem. The Egyptian prince, being referred to by both parties, and after- 
 wards by the French Admiral, who had come up with his squadron, and the 
 danger of the case amply cxjdained to him, declared that he would recall the 
 Turkish ships, and ^^■ait the return of couriers whom he woidd send to Con- 
 stantinople and to Alexandria ; but that as soon as he received orders to sail, 
 his whole combined fleet would come out, and brave all opposition. A sort of 
 armistice was agreed on, verbally, for twenty days, during a long conference 
 between the Egyptian, French, and English commanders, on the 2ath of 
 September. Tlie two latter trusted to Ibraheem's word that his ships would ^^"^'^^ f^i'^" 
 not leave the harbour for the twenty days, — ample facilities having been 
 allowed by them for the victualling of his troops ; and they sailed for Zante 
 to obtain fresh provisions for their fleet. As soon as they were gone, only five 
 days after the conference, Ibraheem put out to sea, to sail to Patras. On the 
 2nd of October, an armed brig brought notice to Sir E. Codrington of this 
 violation of the treaty. The admiral immediately returned with a very small 
 force, met successively two divisions of the Turkish fleet, and turned them 
 back to Navarino. In his wratli, Ibraheem carried war inland, slaughtering 
 and burning, and driving the people to starvation, and even uprooting the 
 trees wherever he went, that no resource might be left to the wretched inha- 
 bitants. As the spirit of the treaty of London was thus broken through, the 
 three admirals concluded to compel an adherence to the terms agreed upon at 
 the conference, by entering the harbour, and placing themselves, ship by ship, 
 in guard over the imprisoned fleets. The strictest orders were given that not 
 a musket should be fired, unless firing should begin on the other side. They 
 were permitted to pass the batteries, and take up their position; but a boat fs";"^ s'l'?'"'"^' 
 was fired upon by the Turks, probably under the impression that she was sent J'^ 
 
 UaI ILK OF N'a 
 \ARINO.
 
 454 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book III. 
 
 1827. to board one of their vessels. A Hevitenant and several of the crew were 
 ^^" — '~-^ killed. There was a discharge of musketry in return by an English and a 
 French vessel : and then a cannon shot was received by the French admiral's 
 ship, which was answered V 7 a broadside. The action , probably intended by 
 none of the parties, was liow fairly begun : and when it ended, there was 
 nothing left of the Turkish and Egyptian fleets but fragments of wreck strew- 
 ing the waters. As the crews left their disabled vessels, they set them on fire ; 
 and among the dangers o^' the day to the allied squadrons, not the least was 
 from these floating furnaces drifting about among a crowd of ships. The 
 battle, ■\\hich took place on the 20th of October, lasted four hours. The 
 Turkish and Egyptian forces suffered cruelly. Of the allies, the English 
 suffered the most ; but with them, the loss was only seventy-five killed j and 
 the wounded were under two hundred. The three British line-of-battle ships 
 had to be sent home, after being patched up at ]\lalta for the voyage. 
 
 The anxiety of mind of the three admirals is said to have been great, — 
 both on account of the calamity itself, and the doubt about how their conduct 
 of the affair would be viewed at home. One reasonable apprehension was 
 that there would be a slaughter of the Christians at Constantinople. But 
 things were now conducted there in a more cautious and deliberate manner 
 than of old. An embargo was laid on all the vessels in the harbour ; but the 
 mob of the Faithful were kept in check. There were curious negotiations 
 between the government and the ambassadors while each party were in pos- 
 session of the news, and wanted to learn how much the other knew. The 
 Sultan himself wished to declare war at once ; but his counsellors desired to 
 gain time ; and there were doubts, fluctuations, and bootless negotiations, in 
 which neither party would concede any thing, for several weeks. The Turks 
 would yield nothing about Greece ; and the allies would yield neither com- 
 pensation nor apology for the affair of Navarino. On the 8th of December, 
 however, it being clear that nothing could be gained by negotjation, the am- 
 AMBAssADORs bassadors left Constantinople. The Christian merchants niiffht have embarked 
 
 LEAVE CONSTAN 1 O 
 
 TiNOPLE. with them ; but they must have left their property behind ; and some preferred 
 
 remaining. The Turkish authorities went to great lengths in encouraging them 
 to do so : but whether this was from pacific inclinations, or from a sense of 
 their value as hostages, could not be certainly known : and the greater nmnber 
 did not relish trusting themselves to conjecture in such a case. The day 
 before the ambassadors left, an offer was made of a general amnesty to the 
 Greeks. But this was not what was required. As they sailed out of the 
 harbour, the Sultan must have felt that he was left, deprived of his fleet, at 
 war with Russia, England, and France. But the coolness and ability shown 
 by his government in circumstances so extremely embarrassing as those of this 
 autumn were evidence that there were minds about him very well able to see that 
 if Russia desired to crush him, England and France would take care that she did 
 not succeed. As for the Greeks, their government was thankful to accept the 
 mediation of the allies ; but so weak as to be unable to enforce any of their 
 requisitions. Piracy, under the Greek flag, reached such a pass in the Levant, 
 that Great Britain had to take the matter into her own hands. In the month 
 of November, it was decreed, by an order in council, that the British ships in 
 
 GnEEK PiRATus. the Mediterranean should seize every vessel they saw under the Greek flag, or
 
 Chap. III.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 455 
 
 armed and fitted out at a Greek port, except such as were under the immediate 1827. 
 orders of the Greek government. Thus we were carrying matters with a high ^~^ " ' 
 hand in regard to both parties concerned in the unliappy Greek war. It is a 
 case on which so much is to be said on every side, hat it is impossible to help 
 sympathising with all parties in the transactions pieceding and following the 
 battle of Navarino : — with the Greeks, for reasons which the heart apprehends 
 more rapidly than tongue or hand can state them ; with the Porte, under the 
 provocation of the interference of strangers between her and her rebellious sub- 
 jects ; — with the Egyptians, in their duty of vassalage, (however wrongly it 
 might be performed ;) — with the Allied Powers, in their sense of the in- 
 tolcrableness of a warfare so cruel and so hopeless going on amidst the haunts 
 of commerce, and to the disturbance of a world otherwise at peace : and with 
 two of those three allies in their apprehension of Tmkey being destroyed, and 
 Greece probably once more enslaved, by the power and arts of the third. 
 
 If the case appears to us now, so many years after the event, perplexing, f^j™'','^* '" ™^ 
 and in every way painful, what must have been the sensation in the Cabinet 
 of Lord Goderich on the arrival of the news of the battle of Navarino ! The 
 Cabinet was already torn by dissensions of its own, so serious and unmanage- 
 able that the Premier was- meditating his resignation. At a moment when the 
 members of the government were feeling that no one of them was sure of his 
 function for a week, and that it was certain that all could not remain in power, 
 came this thunderclap — this stroke of war in the midst of peace. They were 
 the successors of the great peace Minister, whose fame as a pacificator had 
 spread over the world ; and here was a fierce belligerent act perpetrated on an 
 ally, amidst declarations of peace, and probably a train of consequences to be 
 met which there was no seeing the end of ! Any power but Turkey would go 
 to war with us on the instant. If Turkey did not, it would be only through 
 licr weakness ; and the first consequence of that weakness would be that 
 Russia would endeavour to devour her ; and there again was danger of far 
 more formidable war. While waiting to hear how the news would be received 
 at Constantinople, it was necessary to decide at once on the countenance to be 
 given to the admirals who had been driven to act on their own judgment. 
 The countenance afforded them by their respective governments, in the first 
 instance, was cordial and emphatic ; and there can be little doubt that this 
 was right. Theirs was a position of singular difficulty : not only they acted 
 in good concert to the best of their judgment, but no one ventui'ed to say what 
 they could have done better, while all deplored the event. There was a degree 
 of chance-medley about the catastrophe which seemed to exclude the event 
 from the scope of human control : and in cases so out of the common course, 
 tlio wisest method always is to uphold the reputation, and with it the nerve 
 and confidence, of responsible public officers. So, from the existing govern- 
 ment. Sir Edward Codrington received ample justice. The news of the battle 
 arrived in London on the 10th of November; and on the 13tli Sir Edward 
 Codrington was gazetted as Knight Commander, and eleven of his officers as 
 (Companions of the Bath. Erom the Emperor of Russia and the King of 
 France the English Admiral received thanks and liigh honours ; and, whatever 
 differences of opinion existed as to the treaty and tlie policy of the allies
 
 4;jG 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 [Book III. 
 
 DlSSOLl'TlON OF 
 
 'liiii Minis ruY. 
 
 Hnns;ird. xviii, 
 27J— 27iP. 
 
 1827. towards Turkey, there was notliinn; heard in Parliament but praise of the 
 ~ " ' ofKcers wliose cliarge it was to carry that pohcy into effect. 
 
 The difficulties which endangered the existence of the Cabinet at this time 
 were occasioned by a discordance of principle among its members, though they 
 took the form of a personal quarrel. Mr. Herries was imacceptable to the 
 liberal section of the Ministry; and, though he naturally supposed that, having 
 acted with Lord Goderich before, he could act n()\\- in a Cabinet of which 
 Lord Goderich was the head, he found that the Prenuer's connexion with the 
 Whigs had materially changed their relation to each other. The immediate 
 cause of quarrel was about the Finance Committee, promised by Mr. Canning, 
 and looked forward to in the approaching session. It was time to be making 
 arrangements for this committee, and to be agreeing upon a chairman. Lord 
 Goderich left the aifair in the hands of the ministers who sat in the Commons, 
 concluding that the Chancellor of the Exchequer would take the lead, or at 
 least be cognizant of whatever was done. But negotiations were entered into 
 with Lord Spencer to secure Lord Althorp for chairman, without a word being 
 said to ^Ir. Herries ; and it was only by accident that he learned what pro- 
 ceedings had been taken in the business of his own office without his know- 
 ledge. It did not gratify his feelings to find that every body, all round, 
 supposed that he knew, or had forgotten to inquire whether he did or not. 
 Either personal offence was intended, or he was too insignificant to have been 
 the object of it ; and in either case his position was intolerable. The nomina- 
 tion of Lord Althorp was disapproved by him, and he opposed it, stating his 
 reasons. This was on the 29th of November. Other difficulties, many and 
 serious, had now arisen ; and from this time till the 19th of Uccember, the 
 country can hardly be said to have had a government at all. Lord Goderich 
 had formally tendered his resignation. It was clear that either Mr. Huskisson 
 or ^Ir. Herries must go out; but nothing could be settled for want of a head 
 to the Cabinet; for, of course. Lord Goderich could not act as such among 
 his colleagues after having sent in his resignation. On or about the 20th of 
 December, Lord Goderich was induced to withdraw his resignation ; and then 
 Mr. Herries, and immediately after Mr. Huskisson, placed their offices at his 
 disposal. But Mr. Herries was again forgotten or slighted. No one told him 
 of Mr. Huskisson's offer to resign, while the Premier urged him to retain his 
 place. As soon as he heard of Mr. Huskisson's resolution to abide by the 
 nomination of Lord Althorp, and to go out if he could not carry that point, 
 Mr. Herries resigned. Lord Goderich, apjjarently believing both these gen- 
 tlemen to be absolutely essential to his government, and being iniable to 
 reconcile their differences, gave the matter up, and went to Windsor, on the 
 
 ma'^^'Mi^."'""'^' ^^'^ °^ January, to explain to the King that he could not go on, and to resign 
 his ofhce. 
 
 These miserable dissensions had been occupying the time and the minds 
 of the Ministers during the precious weeks which should have been employed 
 in preparing for the approaching session of Parliament. Parliament was to 
 have met at this very date ; but, in order to afford time for the formation 
 
 Annvwi Register, of a ministry, it was further prorogued to the 29th of January. During 
 the mterval of actual dissolution, Mr. Huskisson had been desired by the
 
 Chap. III.J DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 457 
 
 King to send Lord Hairowby to him. Lord Ilarrowby went to "Windsor, 1827. 
 but was firm in declining the Premiership, on the gi-ound of ill-health. There " — ^-^—^-^ 
 is good reason to believe that Mr. Hiiskisson might have risen into Canning's JJ™"" "f 
 
 o o o Huski^sun, p. 1 lo. 
 
 scat at this time ; but he was earned by his friend's fate, and decided that 
 lie had not health for the office. 
 
 Tliere had now been enough of mixed administrations ; or the King thought 
 so. Lord Liverpool had kept one in working order by his weight of cha- 
 racter, his business-faculty, and the power and dignity accruing from his length 
 of service. Mr. Canning would have kept such an administration together 
 by the commanding power of his mind. But it -was not to be supposed 
 that any one else could be found who could bring harmony out of elements 
 of discord ; and the condition of public affairs was such as unusually to require 
 a strong and united government. So the King sent for the strongest and 
 most peremptory man of all ; and, in spite of the Duke of Wellington's decla- 
 ration not long before, that he should be mad if he ever thought of under- 
 taking an office for which he was so little fit, he found himself, before the dukb of wel. 
 middle of January, 1828, Prime Minister of England. mimsteb.
 
 458 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book III 
 
 ADMtNlSTKATION. 
 
 don, iii. 30. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 I oQg TjlOIl a few clays the old Tory party were happy. All would be well now. 
 ^^^^■^^' -L The King would have no more trouble about the Catholics, for tliey 
 would be put down. Lord Eldon would be the person consulted by the Duke 
 about tlie formation of the new ministry, and would have great influence in it, 
 e^en if he should at length, at seventy-seven years of age, think himself too 
 old for office. There would be no more talk of a balance of parties in the 
 cabinet: but the Duke would have his political comrades drilled into uni- 
 fomiity ; — " a perfect machine," as he had declared his Penins\ilar army to 
 be. So people thought ; but the strongest and most peremptory of men must 
 bend like a willow wand before the force of opinion. Opinion was now too 
 strong for even the Duke of Wellington ; and no one of these anticipations was 
 fulfilled. 
 
 wellinctom The day after the Duke received his Majesty's commands, he wrote to Lord 
 
 Eldon, declaring his intention of calling on liim the next day. By Lord Eldon's 
 account, the meeting was a somewluit awkward one ; the ex-Chancellor evi- 
 dently expecting the offer of some position in the administration, though too 
 old to resume his seat on the woolsack. " From the moment of his quitting 
 
 Life of Lord i:i. mo," writes Lord Eldon, " to the appearance in the papers of all the appoint- 
 ments, I never saw his Grace. I had no communication with him, either per- 
 sonally, by note, letter, by message through any other person, or in any manner 
 whatever— and, for the whole fortnight, I heard no more of the matter than 
 you did, — some of my colleagues in office (and much obliged to me too) pass- 
 ing my door constantly on their way to Apsley House without calling upon 
 mo. — In the meantime, rumour was abroad that 1 had refused ull office : and 
 this was most industriously circulated, when it was found that there was, as 
 there really does appear to me to have been, very great dissatisfaction among 
 very important persons on my account, as neither included in office, nor at all, 
 
 not in the least, consulted However, there was a degree of discontent and 
 
 anger among persons of consequence, which, I suppose, Avorking together, with 
 its having been somehow communicated that I was much hurt at this sort of 
 treatment, brought the Duke of Wellington to me again ; and the object of his 
 visit seemed to be to account for all this. He stated, in substance, that he 
 had found it impracticable to make any such administration as he was sure I 
 would be satisfied with ; and, tlierefore, he thought he should only be giving 
 me unnecessary trouble in coming near me — or to that effijct." Then out came 
 the old politician's soreness about not having been offered the office of Presi- 
 dent of the Council; and about being considered impracticable, wliich he was 
 sure nobody had any reason to suppose ; and about having been neglected for 
 a whole fortnight. The Duke gave as a justification for having concluded that 
 Lord Eldon would not have approved the composition of the ministry, that it
 
 CiiAr. IV.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 459 
 
 seemed as if he did not like it, now the whole was complete : to which Lord 1828. 
 
 Eldon replied, that he thought it a d d bad one. " We conversed together," " — -^--—~-^ 
 
 he continues, however, " till, as it seemed to me, M'e both became a good deal 
 affected." — They might well rind themselves " a good deal affected." Perhaps 
 we may feel something of it, in merely reading the record. It is sad to think 
 of these "old comrades parting off in the way they were doing now, under a 
 control which neither of them liked, but to which the younger could wisely 
 bend, while the elder could only fret and be angi-y. Agreeing in dislike of the 
 changes in the times, they differed about how to meet them ; and the elder 
 called the younger inconsistent ; and the younger called the elder impracticable. 
 The wedge was in which was to split up policies, and parties, and friendships. 
 It had been driven in some ^^ ay now ; — every body having, by intention or 
 mischance, lent a hand to drive it further for some time past. The Duke was 
 the man to knock out the M'edge, and make all whole again : but lo ! he found 
 himself under a compulsion which permit ted him no choice but to drive the wedge 
 home, leaving our Protestant Constitution, as Lord Eldon believed, shivered to 
 fragments. — Meantime, he was compelled, as others had been, to adjust a 
 balance of political forces in the cabinet, and to find, as if he had been a weaker 
 man, that it was not in the power of his will to make them work. As Lord 
 Eldon classified them, pen in hand, it came out clear before his ej'cs that Pro- 
 testantism was in as much danger as ever. Of the thirteen, he marks six as 
 favourers of the Catholic claims, saying, " the other seven are as yet for Pro- i-'f* .°.'' J;"''"' '-'■ 
 
 ^ •! ^^ ^ J don, III. 27. 
 
 tcstants, but some ririi loose. You will observe Dudley, Huskisson, Grant, 
 Palmerston, and Lyndhurst, (five,) were all Canmncjites, with whom the rest 
 were, three weeks ago, in most violent contest and opposition. These things 
 are to me quite marvellous. Ho^^" they are all to deal with each other's con- 
 duct as to the late treaty with Turkey, and the Navarino battle, is impossible 
 
 to conjecture Viscountess Canning has written a strong letter, as Lord 
 
 Ashley tells me, to Huskisson, strongly reproaching him for joining (I use 
 Ashley's own expression) her husband's murderers." — From Mr. Huskisson's 
 own explanations of his position, it appears that this statement concerning him 
 is substantially true. In the first grief on his friend's loss, he uttered expres- 
 sions which were certainly received as a pledge that he would never enter office 
 in conjunction with those who had left Mr. Canning in the lurch. His words, 
 as avowed bv himself, were, "that his wounds were too green and too fresh to Memoir of iius. 
 
 , . ... . . Ill kissou, p. 1-17. 
 
 admit of his serving in the same cabinet with those who had deserted the 
 service of the country, at the time his friend's administration was formed." 
 Yet here he was now, in office under the Duke of Wellington, and by the side 
 of Mr. Peel ! We cannot wonder at the irritation of Mr. Canning's family ; 
 and we are, judging by the event, son-y that Mr. Huskisson entered this 
 cabinet : but we must remember the strangeness of the time, which confounded 
 all calculations, and made sport of all consistencies. This, of itself, would 
 guard us against a peremptory judgment : but we also know that Mr. Huskis- 
 son's acceptance of office was approved by the oldest and most valued friends of k!™n""p°Hs!"' 
 Mr. Canning. Still, the general feeling was that Mr. Huskisson passed at tlii,s 
 time under a cloud from which he never again emcrued in full brightness. 
 
 It was in his former office, the Colonial, that he remained : and Lord Dudley 
 remained in the Foreign Office. Mr. Grant was President of the Board of
 
 4G0 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book III. 
 
 1828. Trade, and Treasurer of the Navy ; and Lord Palmerston Secretary at War. 
 " ^ — ' These Mere (what we may call) the .semi-liberal members of the administra- 
 tion. Mr. Ilerries remained ; but in an office, — Master of the Mint, — which 
 need not bring him again into collision with Mr. Huskisson ; while INIr. Goul- 
 burn succeeded to the Chancellorship of the Excheqvier. ^Ir. Peel succeeded 
 Lord Lansdowne at the Home OtHcc. Lord Lyndliurst remained Chancellor, 
 and Lord Bathurst held the office, — President of the Council, — which Lord 
 Eldon had hoped to be able to accept or refuse. One of the most important 
 appointments was that of the Marquess of Anglesey to the Viccroyalty of Ire- 
 land, in the place of Lord Wellesley. 
 
 This administration was nearly the same as that which had existed under 
 Lord Liverpool ; — the only important changes being that Mr. Canning and 
 Lord Eldon were absent, and Lord Lyndliurst and Lord Dudley present in 
 their stead. But the men were altered. The spirit of the time had changed 
 them ; and it A\as no more the same government that had existed under Lord 
 Liverpool than if it had been composed of other men. 
 
 King's SpoErii. Tlicrc was great eagerness throughout the country to see how much would 
 be said in the King's Sjjecch about the great existing subjects of interest, that 
 men might know what to expect from the new government. There was not 
 a syllable about Ireland or the Catholic Association; and nothing about Corn. 
 There were intimations of improving prosperity at home ; a recommendation 
 to inquire diligently into Financial affairs ; — in other words, to appoint the 
 proposed Finance Committee ; — a notification that the troops had returned 
 from Portugal, — their appearance there having answered the purposes for 
 which they were sent ; and about half the Speech related to affiiirs in the East. 
 One paragraph supplied matter of debate in both Houses, and of jiarty offence, 
 for some time after ; and there are persons who have not got over it to this 
 
 Amu"! "i-Kisi", day. The paragraph was this: — "Notwithstanding the valour displayed by 
 the combined fleet. His Majesty deeply laments that this conflict [oi Navarino) 
 should have occurred with the naval foixe of an ancient ally ; but he still enter- 
 tains a confident hope that this untoward event will not be followed Ijy further 
 hostilities, and will not impede that amicable adjustment of the existing dift'e- 
 rences between the Porte and the Greeks, to which it is so manifestly their com- 
 mon interest to accede." Few words have excited more debate, or more passion 
 in their time than this word " untoward." To us, after the la^jse of years, it 
 seems a simple affair enough, — this application of the word " imtoward" to an 
 event which, originating in a sort of accident, ought to have involved us in 
 war with Turkey, and might have brouoht us into collision with Russia. But 
 the word was hardly looked upon at all with simplicity, as in cases w-here no 
 ■• passion is concerned. The late administration regarded it as implying censure 
 
 on their policy ; and the officers in the Mediterranean as impeaching their 
 judgment ; and the more on account of the compliment to their valour. 
 According to some, Russia was made suspicious. According to others, France 
 was made angry. In short, it was a season when all men were on the watch 
 for symptoms, and when many were implicated in great public affairs on new 
 and doubtful grounds ; and in such circumstances, a single word may become 
 the rallying point of a Mholc rabble of passions. The observer of those times 
 is cmious to know whether the framcrs of the Speech woidd have changed the
 
 Chap. IV.] DUKING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 461 
 
 ■word, or tlic paragrajili, if tlicy could have foreseen the excitement that woiikl 1828. 
 ensue; and whether they could have found any other expression that would " ' 
 
 have conveyed their meaning wilh less offence. 
 
 At home, the whole affair ended in debate. There were motions for cxpla- tue porte. 
 nations, and to obtain the thanks of parliament for the British officers engaged 
 at Navarino; — motions which were withdrawn when the objects of debate 
 were accomplished : — but there was no war. Russia was quite willing to 
 undertake that jiart of the consequences of the " untoward event :" and the 
 Porte had enough to do to cope with Russia, without insisting on war with 
 England and France. 
 
 On the departure of the ambassadors from Constantinople on the 8th of 
 December, the Tiu'kish government protested against the resident Christians 
 being put under the protection of the Netherlands ambassador, and claimed 
 the office of protector for itself. Four days after the departure of the Russian 
 ambassador, the Turkish "^^'ezeer ■^^Tote to the Russian jNIinister a remonstrance 
 against the act, as one apparently unauthorized by either government, and 
 likely to convey a ftilse imjjression of the hostile disposition of the Porte. To 
 this no answer was retvuned. Three weeks afterwards, — just at the time 
 when Lord Godeiich was going out, — a document sent by the Wezeer to all 
 the governors of provinces in the Turkish dominions was made public, which 
 revealed the whole state of the case. The Turkish government made gi-cat 
 complaint of the publication of this document, and insisted upon its being 
 regarded as a mere letter of private instructions, addressed to its own servants. 
 The world had nothing to do with the mode in which it had got abroad. The 
 contents were what other jiowers had concern with ; and these were such as 
 to put an end to all disguise, and render further duplicity needless. This [^™"p. J,*!!.'"'"""' 
 document declared that the coming war was, under poUtical pretences, a reli- 
 gious war : that the Christian powers desired to place the infidels over the 
 heads of the faithful in all countries where they lived intermingled, in order 
 to overthrow the institutions of the Prophet : that all the negotiations which 
 had been entered into, all the humility towards the Christian powers, all the 
 apparent apathy about the loss of the fleet at Navarino, had been merely for 
 the purpose of gaining time for military preparations ; and that it was needless 
 to explain that in the cause of Islamism, there was no obligation to keep faith 
 with infidels : that it was of the utmost consequence to defer the outbreak of 
 war till the sunnncr approached; and that every art had been employed, and 
 would be employed, to protract the negotiations till that time : and that mean- 
 while, every effort must be used by the officers of the empire to make the 
 people understand that this was a holy war, in which failure ^'^■as a misfortune 
 too great to be contemplated, as not only would the faithful and tlic infidels 
 be made to exchange social positions, but the mosques would he converted 
 into churches, aiul perhaps profaned by the sound of bells. " Let the faithful 
 then," this document concluded, "have no thought of their arrears, or of pay 
 of any kind. Let us sacrifice willingly our properties and our persons, and 
 struggle, body and soul, for the support of our religion. The worshippers of 
 the Prophet have no other means of working out their salvation in this world 
 and the next." — After this, there could be no doubt of what would happen; 
 and preparations for war went on in both countries. In tliis same month of
 
 462 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 [Book 111. 
 
 Annual Register, 
 1828, p. 223. 
 
 Finance Com. 
 
 .MITTEE, 
 
 H.insard, XTiii. 
 44C. 
 
 1828. .January, lists wore made of the Christians resident in Constantinople, and 
 — "^""^^ they were ordered off, with veiy few exceptions. Even the Aiinenians, sub- 
 jects of the Porte, were treated like the forcifjn merchants, or worse. Some 
 of tlie most respectable were put into prison, and al)oiit twelve thousand were 
 banished. The Bosphorus was closed ; and tlie corn in the vessels of any 
 nation, then in harbour, was seized. Reinforcements were sent to the for- 
 tresses on the Danube ; and a great camp was formed near Adrianopk'. The 
 loss of the fleet was a terrible misfortune, as it left Russia mistress of the 
 Black Sea: but all that could be done was done, in the interval before April, 
 when the Emperor formally declared ;var against the Porte. Thus stood 
 matters six months after the battle of Navarino. No tei-ms had been obtained 
 for the Greeks ; and if there was some respite and impunity for them, it was 
 obtained only by the approach of that Russian war with the Porte which it had 
 been a chief object with England and France to control, by joining in the 
 Treaty of London. 
 
 The Finance Committee, which had been the occasion of the misunder- 
 standings in Lord Godcrich's cabinet, was moved for by jNIr. Peel on the 
 loth of February, and voted for, almost unanimously. It consisted of twenty- 
 three members, of whom two were Mr. Herries and Mr. Huskisson. The 
 latter begged at first to be excused, on account of the pressure of business in 
 liis o^\"n office : but the wish for his presence in Committee was so strong and 
 general, that he yielded. The Report of this Committee was delivered in too 
 late to admit of many of its recommendations being immediately adopted : 
 but one discovery which it made very early cavised the speedy passage of a 
 short Bill, to suspend the Act for gi-anting Government Life Annuities, till a 
 better basis should have been found for the calculations of the duration of life. 
 When Mr. Perceval brought in, in 1808, his Bill, authorizing the sale of these 
 annuities, the calculations w^ere based on Dr. Price's tables. Whether these 
 tables were originally inaccurate, or whether the duration of human life had 
 improved since they were framed, they were certainly now causing the Go- 
 vernment annuities to be sold too low. There was also some curious specula- 
 tion going forward, against which no Minister could be expected to be on his 
 gu.ard, till warned by experience. Speculators bought annuities on the lives 
 of persons whose chances of longevity were unusually strong. On careful 
 inquiry, it appeared to these speculators that the most long-lived class of men 
 is that of Scotch gardeners : and many were the hale Scotch gardeners picked 
 out, and, for a consideration, made government annuitants. It had occurred 
 to ]Mr. Finlayson that some national loss was sustained through these annuities; 
 and he entered into calculations which proved to him that the loss was great. 
 Annual nrgister, He weut to Lord Bexley in 1819, and told him his views: and he was directed 
 
 1828, p. 71. .... 
 
 to prosecute his inquiries. Now, on looking to the outstandmg annuities, 
 Mr. Finlayson calculated that the rate of mortality, instead of being one in 
 forty, was only one in fifty-six, and that the average of female life especially 
 was much longer than had been supposed. The loss to the public was esti- 
 mated at £95,000 a year; — nearly £8,000 a month. Nothing could be done 
 with the sales which had been actually made ; but by the Act now quickly 
 passed, the process was to be stopped till better terms were provided. 
 Hans.ird,Mi.\ .683. When the Estimates were brought forward, it was proposed to grant a pen-
 
 Chap. IV.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 463 
 
 sion of £3,000 a year to Mr. Canning's fiimily, in the person of one of his loLo. 
 sons. Mr. Canning had, as every one knew, no private fortune. He wonld 
 have become wealthy in India ; and, if lie was kept at home for the public cj|J^'™c.™fa-°' 
 service, it was clearly the duty of the public whom he served, to the sacrifice """• 
 of wealth, to see that his family did not suflFer from poverty. He had held no 
 sinecures ; and had received notliing but the salary of the offices he filled. 
 There had been no time to lay by a provision for his family, even if his income 
 had admitted of such accumulation : and his death was sudden and untimely. 
 It appears a clear case enough ; one in which there could be but one opinion 
 and one voice. The sum proposed to be granted to Mr. Canning's son was 
 from a special fund, to which his father would have become entitled, if he had 
 lived to the expiration of two years from his entrance upon his last office. 
 Reasonable as the claim and the method appear to be, and as they appeared 
 to most persons at the time, so strong an opposition was raised that the matter 
 was twice debated at great length. Tlic objections ^^cre some on the score of 
 economy ; some on that of the mischief of the precedent ; and many more on 
 that of dissatisfaction with Mr. Canning's policy. It is impossible to avoid 
 supposing that the opposition arose mainly from the feelings which, a year 
 ago, had been brought to bear upon Mr. Canning himself, and which the 
 events of the interval had not calmed down or chastened. There was but too 
 little improvement visible in the tone of some who might have learned mode- 
 ration from the aifecting lessons of the preceding months. The Opposition 
 consisted of 54 in a House of 216. Mr. Bankes perhaps went further than 
 any one else when he projjosed to charge to Mr. Canning the expenses of the 
 battle of Navarino, and of the Mediterranean fleet, in connexion with it. 
 The Ministers were eager to promote the grant, — one and all, — and the more 
 eager perhaps for the doubtful or hostile terms on which they had been latterly 
 with the departed statesman : and the economists among them could be as 
 hearty as the rest, without drawback, as they could show that this pension 
 would involve no charge to the country. It was merely the transference of a 
 sum from an existing fund to Mr. Canning's son, in lieu of liis father, who 
 must have had it, if he had lived. It was for the lives of both sons that the 
 pension was granted, as the elder was in the navy, and thereby exposed to 
 many casualties. Five months afterwards, he was drowned in bathing at 
 INIadeira, — died in the reservoir into which he plimgcd after being extremely (^"""chum m"' 
 heated by exercise. He was a post-captain in the navy ; and fresh sympathy 
 was awakened towards the family when its new representative came to this 
 mournful and untimely end. 
 
 The great interest of the session Mas the debate and division on the pro- 
 posed Repeal of the Corporation and Test Acts. Lord John Russell moved, "'^^''Tf;\K"Di"'m- 
 on the 26th of February, that there should be a Committee of the whole '■""^^■ 
 House to consider of these Acts. In his speech, he gave the history of the "■'"""■J- ^'■'"■ 
 Acts, clearly showing that they bore no relation to present times and circum- 
 stances, hut to some long past and widely diftercnt. The Dissenters might be, 
 or appear, dangerous to the House of Stuart ; but they were certainly loyal 
 subjects of the House of Hanover, and did not deserve to be excluded from 
 civil office by the Corporation Act : and, as to tlie Test Act, — it was originally 
 intended as a barrier to the Church against the King, who was a converted
 
 464 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 [Book III. 
 
 1828. 
 
 Hansard, xvil 
 7»1. 
 
 HansarJ, x\ iii. 
 1183. 
 
 Hansard, xviii. 
 loOJ. 
 
 Papist. Tli(? ciiciiinstanccs were antiquated, and so woie the restrictions ; 
 and it was time, for the credit of English understandings, that they should be 
 repealed. The disqualifications of Dissenters were presented very forcibly to 
 the House, by a succession of speakers, and seen at once to be both disgraceful, 
 and in other ways injurious. — The government opposition was conducted by 
 JNIr. I'cel and Mr. Iluskisson. It was not surprising in those davs, however 
 it might be now, that Mr. Peel was on the side of old fashion and orthodox 
 assumption: but that Mr. Iluskisson should appear in behalf of intolerance 
 and injtiry for opinion, was mortifying to those who appreciated him most. 
 Both, however, were as feeble as the friends of religious liberty could desire ; 
 their ground was the narrowest and the most temporary that could be held ; 
 and it was taken solely because there was no other. Both admitted the prin- 
 ciples involved in Lord John Russell's motion and speech : but Mr. Peel 
 argued that the Dissenters did not really suffer, as they were incessantly 
 relieved by Indemnity Bills : and Mr. Iluskisson feared injury to the Catholic 
 cause by releasing the Dissenters from a condition of disability which kept 
 them vigilant on the subject of the rights of conscience, and fVoin the insult 
 that it would be to the Catholics to release others from disabilities while theirs 
 remained. The House decided in favour of the Committee by a majority of 
 44 in a House of 430. ^Ir. Peel had, happily, declared his belief that the 
 existence of the Church of England was not bound up Mith these restrictions : 
 so he could give up the contest, and bow to the will of parliament, without 
 such struggles and agonies as those of Lord Eldon and others, who believed 
 that all was over now with the true Protestant religion in our country. 
 
 The question arising, — what ^\as the government now to do I — it was a 
 matter of importance to decide whether the rejection of the expected Bill 
 should be secured in the Upper House, or whether government should provide 
 such securities, to be attached to the Bill, as might make it least objectionable. 
 This last course was decided on, — the will of the Commons being so declared 
 as to make the thought of opposition too hazardous. — After the Bill had been 
 read twice, and when the House was about to go into Committee, Mr. Sturges 
 Bourne proposed the substitution of a Declaration for the Sacramental Test ; — 
 a declaration of the person entering upon office that he would not use any of 
 the powers or influence of his office for the subversion of the Established 
 Church. And, as there would be some absurdity in regarding such a Declara- 
 tion from officials in the service of the Crown, another clause was proposed, 
 which rendered it optional with the Crown to require or omit the Declaration. 
 There was nothing in the first of these proposals to Avhich the Dissenters 
 could object so seriously, as to endanger the Bill as they had no thought of 
 taking office for the purpose of injuring the Church, but only for the sake of 
 doing the duties and enjoying the rights of equal citizenship : and they were 
 pleased at the second clause, because it left open a probability that the Decla- 
 ration itself, — the last badge of difference on account of their religious opi- 
 nions, — would fall into disuse. They therefore contented themselves with 
 protesting, through their advocates in the House, against the imposition of 
 any badge whatever; and pushed tluir Bill. When it arrived in the Upper 
 House, the Duke of Wellington s])oke in its favour, saying that the only 
 reason why the government had at first opposed it in the Commons was that
 
 Chap. IV.J DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 465 
 
 the system had appeared to work well hitherto; but, as it was clear that the 1828. 
 Commons thought the time was come for a change, and as the principle of ~— — — — -' 
 tlie old exclusion or opprobrium was not in itself defensible, he now thought it 
 the duty of the Peers to pass the bill, if they were satisfied, as he was, that 
 the Declaration afforded sufficient security against injury to the Established 
 Church. Thus was it regarded by government, and by some of the Spiritual 
 Peers ; the Archbishop of York, and the Bishops of Lincoln, Durham, and 
 Chester, speaking in favour of the bill. " We who oppose," says Lord Eldon, ^^f" °^ ^''aJ'-^ 
 " shall be in but a wretched minority, though the individuals who compose it 
 will, as to several, I think, be of the most respectable class of Peers : but the 
 administration have, — to their shame be it said, — got the archbishops and 
 most of the bishops to support this revolutionary bill." Again: "All the 
 AA'hig Lords will be against us : as government began in the Commons by 
 opposition, and then ran away like a parcel of cowards, I suppose government 
 also will be against us ; but what is most calamitous of all is, that the arch- 
 bishops and several bishops are also against us. What they can mean, they 
 best know, for nobody else can tell — and, sooner or later, perhaps in this very 
 year — almost certainly in the next — the concessions to the Dissenters must be 
 followed by the like concessions to the Roman Catholics. That seems un- 
 avoidable ; though, at present, the policy is to conceal this additional purpose." 
 We should like now to know how many influential members of both Houses 
 entertained this expectation, at this date of April, 1828. On the 12tli of the 
 month, the Chancellor again writes, " We, as we think ourselves, sincere 
 friends of the Church of England, mean to fight, as well as we can, on Thurs- 
 day next, against this most shamcfid bill in favour of the Dissenters, wlrich 
 has been sent up to us fi-om tlie (Vimmons — a bill which Peel's declaration in 
 the House as to the probability of its passing in the Lords, has made it im- 
 possible to resist with effect If the Lords won't at least alter it, which I 
 
 don't believe they will, I don't see how, if the Connnons act consistently with 
 themselves. Sir F. Burdett can fail in his motion on the 29th, in favour of the 
 Roman Catholics. The state of minds and feelings in the Tory part, and 
 aristocratical part, of the friends of Liverpool's administration is, at present, 
 excessively feverish, and they support Ministers, because they know not where 
 to look for others. It is obvious that the ]\linisters who were Canning's fol- 
 lowers, to use a vulgar phrase, rule the roast, or at least have too mucli influ- 
 ence." In his speeches Lord Eldon declared liis principle broadly : and he was 
 so angry with the bishops, and so pertinacious with his amendments, that it is 
 clear that he considered this measure of the List importance, from its invohing 
 release from all religious disabilities, as well as those of Protestant Dissenters. 
 He said, " The Constitution required that the Church of England should be 
 supported ; and the best way of affording that support to her was to admit only 
 her own members to offices of trust and emolument." Most people thought, 
 by this time, that Lord Eldon's method was likely to be fatal to the Church, 
 by inflicting injmy and indignity on nearly half the population of Great Britain 
 and Ireland ; — for to tliat number did Protestant Dissenters, Catholics, and 
 Jews, now amount. Lord Eldon declared, " that if he stood alone, he would go '■'f'-' of Lord Ei. 
 below the bar, and vote against the bill ; and were he called that night to 
 
 VOL. I. S Q
 
 4GG HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book III. 
 
 1828. roiulcr his account before Heaven, he -vvoukl go with the consoling reflection 
 
 " — "^" ' that lie had never advocated any thing mischievous to his covintry." The Lords 
 
 would not receive his proposed amendments : and he was very unhappy ; — 
 " hurt, distressed, and fatigued," he declares, " by what has lately been pass- 
 ing in the House of Lords. I have fought like a lion, but my talons have been 
 cut off." 
 
 Such amendments as the Lords did pass were called "poor things" by the 
 old Earl : but there was one whose practical bearing would have gi'atified his 
 bigotry, if he could have foreseen it. It would have solaced him to know that 
 the principle of exclusion from offices of citizenship for religious opinion was 
 to be extended and perpetuated by a sort of accident. The Bishop of Llandaff 
 projiosed to add to the Declaration a few words expressive of belief in Chris- 
 tianity. This was in consequence of a hint from Lord Harewood : not be- 
 cause he supposed it necessary, but merely decorous. He proposed it " for the 
 
 1685^'^''' *"" credit of parliament." These words were " on the true faith of a Christian." 
 By the carrying of this clause, the Jews have since been excluded from offices 
 which they were before competent to hold. Tliis was not the first time that 
 the Jews were unintentionally wronged by measures proposed to affect a 
 different party. As Lord Holland informed the House, there was nothing to 
 keep Jews out of parliament since the reign of Charles IL, except the Abju- 
 
 Hansara, xix. 158. ratiou Oath, which was introduced into the Toleration Act, — the Act brought 
 in against the adherents of the House of Stuart. And now they were again 
 excluded, — freshly wronged, — by words which were imposed, not for any 
 purpose of necessity, but for the credit of parliament ! However much a 
 subject of regret, it is not one of surprise to those who have experimental 
 knowledge of the operation of laws restricti\e on Opinion. The principle of 
 mutual judgment for matters of Opinion, and of legislative partiality for 
 Opinion, is so radically unjust and mischievous that it ought to be no matter 
 of surprise if the injury spread beyond its designed bounds, and the tyranny 
 works out retributive consequences. Lord Holland entered his protest against 
 
 Hansard, j.i\. 49. tlicse words ou tlic JouiTials of the House, " Because the introduction of the 
 words ' upon the true faith of a Christian ' implies an opinion in which I 
 cannot conscientiously concur, namely, that a particidar faith in matters of 
 religion is necessary to the proper discharge of duties pui'ely political or tem- 
 poral." And also because it had been found, in preceding cases, that a sus- 
 pension of this clause had taken place in regard to persons not contemplated in 
 the imposition of the Declaration. The amendments of the Lords were agreed 
 to by the Commons, and in the beginning of jNIay, the Bill, which, in its finished 
 state. Lord Eldon characterized as being, in his " poor judgment, as bad, as mis- 
 chievous, and as revolutionary, as the most captious dissenter would wish it 
 to be," received the royal assent. Lord Eldon's only idea of a dissenter was 
 that he was a captious and revolutionary man, always bent upon the destruc- 
 tion of the Church of England : and, this being the image in his eye, we may 
 pity him for the terror of his soul. A wiser man, who knew something of 
 dissenters, and of their strong resemblance to other men, felt happier on the 
 Hansard, xix. 180. occasiou. Lord Holkind said, that in performing the pleasing duty of moving 
 " that this Bill do pass," he could not refrain from expressing his feelings in
 
 Chap. IV.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 467 
 
 language both of gratitude and congratulation — gratitude to the House, for I0-8. 
 tlie manner in which it had discharged its duty to the conntr)-, and congratu- 
 lation to tlie country upon the achievement of so glorious a result. 
 
 This was universally considered the gi'eat measure of the session, — the 
 great achievement of the year : and it was no small achievement to have 
 obtained an equal position of citizenship for as loyal and peaceable and prin- 
 cipled a set of men as any in the kingdom. The credit is due, not to either 
 the aristocratic or the liberal section of rulers and their adherents, but to the 
 liberal members of each House unconnected with government. Government 
 yielded only when it could not resist. — And now, men looked anxiously to 
 see what would be done about the Catholics, after this practical protest 
 against exclusion from ofhee ou account of Religious Opinion.
 
 468 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 [Book III. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 1828. 
 
 M' 
 
 Distentions in 
 
 TBK Ciai.VET. 
 
 liidclen troubles there as early as March ; and when the Corn Bill was 
 brought forward on the 31.st of that month, it became clear that there had 
 been difficulties among its framers. It could hardly be otherwise when Mr. 
 Huskisson was necessarily the chief authority in the matter, and the Duke of 
 Wellington, who had thrown out the Bill of the preceding year, was the head 
 of the government. His principle of prohibition \\as disavowed by the govern- 
 ment in regard to the present Bill. The measure was declared to be in prin- 
 ciple exactly that of last session : but the duties proposed were higher. It 
 was generally understood that the Premier had met with a firmer adherence 
 to Mr. Canning's measure than he expected among his colleagues ; and he 
 yielded, — as he had now become practised in doing. He had yielded to the 
 expediency of taking the Premiership, after openly declaring that he should 
 be mad if he ever did such a thing. He had yielded to the necessity of form- 
 ing a mixed Cabinet, when the King had hoped to have an united one by 
 placing him at the head. He had yielded the emancipation of the Dissenters ; 
 and he now yielded his own particular objection to the Corn Bill. Truly, it 
 was now evidently too late to look for the old-fashioned " consistency " which 
 had been formerly the first requisite in statesmanship. If it was not to be 
 found in the honest, resolute, imperious Wellington, it need not be looked for 
 any where : — or rather, it must be admitted that consistency meant now some- 
 thing different from what it used to mean. The Duke went, with a good 
 grace, through the process of bringing forward the government Corn Bill, 
 destitute of the provision which he had thought indispensable a year before, 
 and of any substitute for it : and his liberal colleagues did not pretend to 
 approve of the higher rate of duties. It w'as a compromise throughout. The 
 agricultural interest complained of the absence of all prohibitory provisions ; 
 and other interests complained of the duties, and of the point at which they 
 were fixed ; — the pivot-point from which ascent and descent of duties began, 
 which they conceived to be virtually raised from 60s. to Gis. by the increased 
 duties charged on the intervening prices. But the Bill passed on the 26th of 
 June. — Mr. Huskisson made no secret of his opinions on the Corn Laws. He 
 condemned them in themselves, but thought they could not be abolished in 
 the existing state of affairs. " However expedient to prevent other evils, in the 
 M-moir of Hu5- present state of the country," he said, " thev are in themselves a burthen and 
 
 Jiisfion, p. 167. ^ . . ... 
 
 a restraint upon its manufacturing and commercial industry." The Cabinet 
 compromise appearing to be successful as far as this Bill was concerned, it was 
 supposed that the disagreements in the government were surmounted, and 
 that all might now go on smoothly. But it was not to be. 
 
 There had been in February a serious call for explanations from the Duke 
 
 Hinsard, xix, 
 1.M4.
 
 Chap. V.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 469 
 
 of Wellington and Mr. Huskisson about some expressions of the latter, uttered lo^o. 
 to his constituents at Liverpool on his late re-election ; and both made these 
 explanations in parliament. Mr. Huskisson was reported to have said on the 
 hustings that he did not enter upon office under the Duke without having 
 obtained from him guarantees that Mr. Canning's policy would be followed 
 out. The Duke, of course, rejected with scorn the idea that any gentleman 
 would propose to him any guarantee of the sort ; or that he could for an 
 instant listen to such a proposal. " Is it to be supposed," said the Duke, Hansard, xriii. 
 " that the right hon. gentleman to whom I suppose the noble earl to allude, 
 could liave used the expressions ascribed to him at the Liverpool election ? 
 If my right hon. friend had entered into any such corrujit bargain as he was 
 represented to describe, he would have tarnished his own fame, as much as I 
 should have disgraced mine. It is much more probable — though I have not 
 thought it worth my while to ask for any explanation on the subject — that 
 my right hon. friend stated, not that he had concluded any wholesale bargain 
 with me, but that the men of whom the government is now composed are in 
 themselves a guarantee to the public, that their measures will be such as ■\A'ill 
 be conducive to his Majesty's honour and interests, and to the happiness of 
 the i^eople." And Mr. Huskisson, supported by abundance of needless testi- 
 mony, declared that this was nearly what he did mean and say ; — namely, 
 that in the composition of the Cabinet would be found a sufficient guarantee 
 for the caiTving out of a liberal policy. — Still, though this matter was cleared Hansard, xvui. 
 up, affairs did not work easily ; and a disruption of the Cabinet took place in 
 ^lay, — the immediate occasion being a misunderstanding betA\een the same 
 two members of the government. 
 
 Mr. Iluskisson's popularity was somewhat declining. He had lost some ot 
 the sympathy of the country by re-entering office with Mr. Canning's enemies ; 
 and when it was seen with what different Ministries he could sit in Cabinet, 
 and how, among many changes, he, the bosom friend of Canning, could abide 
 in office, the old sneer — of his being a "political adventurer" — was revived, 
 with perhaps gi-eater effect than in a more aristocratic time. The events of 
 this month of JNIay damaged his reputation seriously ; and he never, during 
 the short remainder of his life, got over it. Those who knew him well, and 
 those who, not knowing him, were duly sensible of the compass and value of 
 his policy, understood his feelings so as to acquit him of every thing morally 
 wrong ; — of every thing in the least questionable about personal honour ; — of 
 every thing but uncertainty and error of judgment : but they could not com- 
 plain of the world in general for forming a somewhat severer judgment. 
 Those who knew the man understood his sensitiveness about responsibility, — 
 his timidity about breaking up the government of the country on account of 
 difficulties of his o\^ni. And those who appreciated the importance of his 
 Free-Trade policy, — the charge of which he could not depute to any one till 
 some were educated up to his point, — could well understand that he would 
 bear with much, and hesitate long, before he would vacate a position in which 
 alone he could effixtually promote that policy. He seems indeed to have 
 lingered too long; and to have mismanaged his method of retiring, so as to 
 have made his secession look too much like an expulsion from the Cabinet ; 
 but those who knew his state of health, his need and desire of rest and travel.
 
 470 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book III. 
 
 1828. and liis suffering in public life since the death of his friend, were well aware 
 — — ^■— ~— that his self-regards would have led him into private life long before. We 
 cannot doubt that he often wished that he had followed his inclinations. 
 Many and many a time within the last eight months must he have wished 
 that he had resisted the desire of the King and Lord Goderich, and, seeing 
 more clearly than they, remained abroad : and from this time, — this May, 
 1828, — ho could have had few but bitter thoughts connected with the last 
 stages of his public career. His final ministerial struggle is a strange instance 
 of strong impulse followed by infirmity of purpose. 
 
 East rftfoud Uills Were brought into parliament to disfranchise the boroughs of Penryn 
 
 Hausard.xTiii. 83. ^nd East Rctford J the movers — Lord John Russell and Mr. Tennyson — pro- 
 posing to transfer the franchise to Manchester and Birmingham. About the 
 disposal of the franchise there were two opinions ; — one that it should be given 
 to the neighbouring hundreds; the other that it should be transferred to 
 populous to\^Tis. Mr. Peel, whose opinion was the most important in the 
 House, had declared that, if there were two boroughs to dispose of, he should 
 advocate the transference in one case to a town, and in the other to the neigh- 
 bouring hundreds. Mr. Huskisson had declared that if there were but one, 
 he should be for giving it to a town. The Penryn case was first sent up to 
 the Lords, and the East Retford case was discussed in the Commons, on the 
 19th of jMay, under a persuasion on the part of the government that the 
 Penryn bill would be thrown out by the Lords ; so that there would be only 
 one borough to deiil with. Here arose the ministerial difficulty. The Govern- 
 ment opposed, through Mr. Peel, the transference of the franchise to Birming- 
 ham, while Mr. Huskisson felt himself bound by his previous declaration to 
 vote for that transference. Lord Sandon expressly claimed his vote on this 
 
 Hansard,xu. 80S. ground : and he did not SBC liow he could refuse it; though some suggested 
 that he might avoid voting against his colleagues, on the pretext that the 
 House of Lords had not yet decided on the Penryn Bill. Mr. Huskisson 
 himself earnestly wished for an adjournment of the subject, that Mr. Peel 
 and himself might have an opportunity of coming to some understanding : 
 but he could not carry this point ; and he voted against his colleagues. — At 
 the moment, he did not see that he could remain in office : or, at least, that 
 he could avoid offering to resign. He went home, at two o'clock in the 
 morning, with tlie buzz of the excited House in his ears, and the significant 
 countenances of colleagues and opponents before his eyes ; exhausted with 
 
 Hansard, xis. 928. fatiguc after sixtccn hours' attention to busiiiess ; feeble in health and sick at 
 heart ; and, instead of waiting for the morrow to consider, when refreshed 
 and composed, what he shoidd do, he sat do^^^l, and wrote to the Duke of 
 
 REVioNAniN."" " Wellington, a letter which was intended by Mr. Huskisson to be an offer to 
 resign, but understood by the Duke to be an actual and formal resignation. 
 
 Hansard, sin. 924- — Xlie Duko rcceivcd tlic letter before ten the next mornino; — was surprised — 
 did not think the superscription " Private and Confidential" had any bearing 
 on the purport of the letter, and made all haste to lay it before the King as 
 a fonual resisnation. Friend after friend went to him, on Mr. Huskisson's 
 behalf; but the Duke would acknowledge no mistake or undue haste on his 
 own part. Mr. Huskisson vrrote one explanatory letter after another ; but still 
 the Duke declared the resignation to have been positive : and if so, and if the 
 
 93d.
 
 Chap. V.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 471 
 
 Duke wished it to be irrevocable, it was irrevocable. — The truth plainly was, 1828. 
 that Mr. Iluskisson was first mistaken in his estimate of the fatal character ^~ ' 
 
 of his vote ; next, hasty in wTiting to the Duke under exhaustion and pertur- 
 bation, though his impulse was worthy and honourable ; and, finally, too slow 
 to accept the consequences of his own act. The Duke was clearly less anxious 
 about a disruption of his Cabinet than pleased at the occurrence of a fair 
 opportunity to dismiss the " Canningites." He off'ered one option to Mr. Hus- 
 kisson, — to withdraw his letter: but, as that act would have stultified the 
 writer in regard to all his subsequent explanations, it could not, of course, be 
 thought of. After a miserable series of negotiations, explanations, remon- 
 strances, accidents, and mistakes, so many as to suggest an idea of fatality, 
 Mr. Pluskisson's ofiice was filled up on the 25th of May. — Painfully as he had 
 shrunk from the risk of disturbing the government, lest the country should lose 
 the benefit of a continuance of Mr. Canning's policy, Mr. Huskisson was now 
 compelled to witness, as a consequence of that little letter of his, the retire- 
 ment of all the " Canningites." Lord Palmcrston, Lord Dudley, Mr. Lamb 
 Cafterwards Lord INIelbourne), and Mr. Grant resigned, and were succeeded Annual Register. 
 by Sir Henry Hardinge, Lord Aberdeen, Lord Francis Egerton, and Mr. 
 Vesey Fitzgerald. Mr. Huskisson's place was filled by Sir George Murray. ^^l^Zl" "'™' 
 
 At last, here was a cabinet such as the King desired, and had hoped to have 
 in January ; a cabinet, in which the aff'airs of the country could be managed as 
 in old days, and on good old principles. Were the King and the Duke happy 
 at last ? 
 
 The King could not much enjoy any thing at present. In the preceding 
 year. Lord Eldon had remarked a serious decline in his health ; and he did 
 not seem to be rallying. His state of health and nerve, of temper and spirits, 
 enhanced the difficulties of his Ministers, which were serious enough, without 
 that addition. Lord Eldon declared, a few days after Mr. Huskisson's retire- Life of Lord ei. 
 raent, " The Minister will have great difiiculties to struggle with. The Whigs, 
 the Canningites, and the Huskissonites, will join, and be very strong. With 
 the exception of Lord Lonsdale, the great Tory parliamentary lords are not 
 propitiated by the new arrangements, and many of them will be either neuter 
 or adverse." — But a more serious difiiculty was arising than any caused by this 
 phalanx of foes. 
 
 In the debate on the Dissenters' Bill, the Duke had said, while showing Annual RpBister, 
 how uncoiuiected he conceived this bill to be with the Catliolic cause, " there catholic oriis. 
 is no person in this House whose feelings and sentiments, after long considera- 
 tion, are more decided than mine are with regard to the subject of the Roman 
 Catholic claims ; and until I see a great change in that question, I certainly 
 shall oppose it." Recently as this had been said, there was already " a gi-eat 
 change." Tlie Duke had not yet, perhaps,'done yielding. It was a ])ity he had 
 not yet learned to refrain from engaging for future states of his mind. 
 
 On tlic 8th of May, after the passing of the Dissenters' bills, and before the 
 resignation of Mr. Huskisson and his liberal colleagues, the Catholic question 
 was brovight forward by Sir F. Ijurdett. The debate, which occupied three Hansard, xix. 373. 
 evenings, ended with the adoption of a resolution, that it was expedient to 
 consider the state of the laws affecting Koman Catholics, in order to such an 
 adjustment as might be satisfactory to all parties. There was now a majority
 
 472 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 [Book HI. 
 
 1828. 
 
 Uansai-d, xix. 7(>7 
 
 Clare Eleciion. 
 
 Annual Register, 
 1»2», p. laa. 
 
 of six, when; in the preceding session there had been a minority of four. It was 
 thought ad\'isable, con.sidcring the excitement caused by every movement on 
 this question, to learn, before going further, what the Lords were Hkely to do; 
 and a conference took j)lace on the 19th, when the Managers for the Peers re- 
 ceived the resolution of the Commons. The 9th of June was the day appointed 
 for the consideration of the resolution. Before that day arrived, a " great 
 change" took place, which produced an immediate effect on the tone of the 
 Duke of Wellington. 
 
 Durmg Mr. Canning's short administration the Catholics had been very 
 quiet. The Premier was their friend ; and a powerful one. During Lord 
 Goderich's short administration, they had been suspicious and restless. The 
 Premier was their friend ; but he was a powerless one. When the Duke of 
 Wellington assumed office, they became violent ; for then the Premier was 
 their enemy. O'Conncll boasted tliat no law should or could put down the 
 Catholic Association ; and it was, in fact, as active as ever. Their success in 
 such of the elections as they had carried, — a gi-eat success following upon a 
 sudden thought, without any preparation or previous consultation, — had taught 
 them what to do next, by showing them what a vast electoral power they held 
 in their command of " the Forties," as O'Connell called the forty-shilling free- 
 holders. Vigorous preparations were made for the next general election. 
 Missionaries were sent out to rouse and instruct the Forties throughout Ireland; 
 the priests gave all their influence to the cause ; and O'Connell spent his days 
 in abusing the Duke of Wellington, and exciting hatred towards England. 
 The exasperation of the landlords of the Forties was extreme. They found 
 the priests and the great Catholic leader every where, interfering with their 
 tenantry, and rousing the ignorant population of their estates to what they 
 called insubordination. Till now, it was a thing unheard of that the tenantry 
 of a landed proprietor should not vote as his landlord desired. To obtain 
 their votes, the proprietors had cut up their lands into forty-shilling free- 
 holds, and had covered their estates with an indigent population ; and now, 
 this political power, for which they had sacrificed every thing, — including the 
 welfare of the indigent tenantry themselves, — was turned against them by the 
 priests and the agents of the Association. The enmity was so fierce, and 
 the mutual injuries so exasperating, that it seemed as if a dissolution of society 
 must take place. While the Tory peers were fearing for the church and the 
 purity of the constitution if the Catholics were emancipated, men of wider 
 views saw that society itself must fall to pieces in Ireland if they were not. 
 It was in the midst of this state of things, and before the Lords had debated 
 the Catholic question for this year, that Mr. Huskisson and his colleagues 
 went out, and some new elections must take place on the assumption of office 
 by their successors. 
 
 Mr. Vesey Fitzgerald, who represented the county of Clare, was the suc- 
 cessor of Mr. Grant, as President of the Board of Trade. He was in favour 
 of the Catholic claims ; and neither he, nor any one else in England, doubted 
 his being returned, as a matter of course, with the hearty good-will of the 
 Catholics. But the Catholics seized the opportunity of bringing their cause 
 to a crisis. Their leaders resolved that Mr. O'Connell should be elected ; and 
 the thing was done with a high hand. The Catholics in London held a
 
 Chap. V.J DURING THE THIRTY YEARS* PEACE. 473 
 
 meeting, and subscribed funds : and the Catholic Rent in Ireland yielded what 1828. 
 
 else was wanted. The Irish people, though extremely docile to their leaders, ' ■ ' 
 
 were, to the lowest of the Forties, too acute not to see that there was little 
 use in electing a representative who could not sit : and it was not enough for 
 them that O'Connell declared, on his reimtation as a lawyer, that there was 
 nothing in the existing law which prevented his being elected. This was 
 clear, of course ; but not sufficient : so he proceeded to pronounce that he 
 could sit in parliament and vote, without taking the oaths. The acute Irish 
 naturally wondered what, in that case, became of their grievance of being un- 
 represented, and why O'Connell had not been there all this time. But Mr. 
 O'Connell was not the only lawyer who avowed that opinion. Mr. Butler, an 
 English Catholic barrister, published at this time a similar opinion, with the 
 grounds assigned. So the electors thought they would try. 
 
 The excitement was prodigious. In every corner of the county of C'lare 
 there was such preaching and haranguing, that to a spectator it looked more 
 like a crusade than an election. As one of their patriots, Mr. Shiel, after- 
 wards said, " Every altar was a tribune." If an orator arrived in the dead of 
 the night, he had a crowd about him in five minutes. It was not all joyous 
 excitement. There was misery enough in the midst of it; for the people were 
 between two fires. They had their religion on the one hand, with all its 
 awful threats, and their landlords on the other ; for almost every landlord in 
 the county exerted himself for Sir. Fitzgerald, and strove to engage his 
 tenantry on the same side. In a position of such difficulty, the people had, 
 naturally, recourse to their priests for guidance ; and this decided the struggle, 
 and left the landlords powerless. 
 
 The 30th of June was the day fixed for the polling ; and in the mean time, 
 while this extraordinary electioneering was fixing the attention of all men, 
 the Catholic debate came on in the Lords. By a shrewd and quiet passage 
 in a speech of Lord Eldon's, we learn that the electioneering of the Catholics Life of Lord ei- 
 was in the minds of the peers during the debate. "What Lord Eldon " wished ""' '"' 
 particularly to notice on this occasion was, a recent proscription by their chief 
 orator, of twentj-eight county and borough menibers. From the tone of con- 
 fidence in which the speaker calculated on removing those obnoxious repre- 
 sentatives, it appeared that the Roman Catholics had already sufficient elective 
 power in their hands, and ought not to require that it should be increased." 
 The interest of the debate lay in the speech of the Duke of Wellington. 
 Amidst declarations of his sense of the difficulty and danger of making altera- 
 tions, he impressed almost every body with the idea that he saw yet more 
 danger in making no changes. His complaints of the present agitation of the 
 subject were chiefly on the ground that it prevented such consultation and 
 mutual understanding as might take place if people's minds were at rest. The 
 concluding words are remarkable now, as showing how a man, who considered 
 himself eminently practical, could set his mind, and well-nigh stake his states- 
 manship, (m impossibilities ; and they were felt to be so remarkable at the 
 time for what they foreboded, that they ^\ere repeated c^Try where as a cause 
 for cither hope or dread. He said — Hansard, xix. 
 
 . 1291. 
 
 "There is also one fact respecting the state of things in Ireland, to which 
 1 should wish to call your lordships' attention. From 1781 to 17!)1, durin'i- 
 vor,. I. 3 k
 
 474 HISTORY OF ENGLAND fBooK III 
 
 1828. which many troublesome questions with respect to that country were dis- 
 
 ■^^ — ' cussed, the Roman Catholic question was in fact never heard of; and so little 
 
 was the question thoiight about, that when my noble and learned friend (Lord 
 Redesdale) brought into the House of Commons, at that period, a bill respect- 
 ing the Roman Catholics of England, it is a remarkable fact that the then 
 Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland was not only not consulted on the subject, but 
 actually did not know of it until tlie bill was brought into parliament. So 
 little did the Catholics of Ireland disturb the public miiul at that moment, 
 that the question was allowed to pass quietly by, almost without comment. 
 If the public mind was now suffered to be thus tranquil — if the agitators of 
 Ireland would only leave the public mind at rest — the people would become 
 more satisfied, and I certainly think it would then be jjossible to do some- 
 thing." 
 
 This, if not very wise, appeared significant. People smiled at the idea of 
 going back now, voluntarily, into the indifference of a past time, — of pouring 
 back the lava streams into the crater of the volcano ; but they saw that the 
 more this was foinid to be out of the question, the more inevitably would tlie 
 ruling powers discover it to be "possible to do something." We find, accord- 
 i-ifp of Lord El- ino-lv, in a letter of Lord Eldon's, written soon afterwards — " O'Connell's 
 
 don, iii. 55. . . . . 
 
 proceedings in Ireland, which you will see in the papers, and the supposed 
 or real ambiguity which marked the Duke of Wellington's speech, have led to 
 a very general persuasion that Ministry intend, or at least that the Duke 
 intends, next session, to emancipate the Roman Catholics, as he has the 
 Dissenters; and the world is uneasy." 
 
 The Clare election came on. Bands of the Forties Avcre marched into 
 Ennis, the county town, under the leadership of priests, and with the wateli- 
 word " For God and O'Connell ;" — the most intelligible expression to them 
 
 faw""' "m'""' "^ *^^^ adjuration "For God and our right!" Mr. Fitzgerald reasoned; Mr. 
 O'Connell declaimed and bullied, using on the hustings language so insuffer- 
 able, as to make the gentry of the county wonder what sort of an appearance 
 he would make in parliament, if he should really ever get there. After a few 
 days' polling, it was evident that ^Ir. Fitzgerald had no chance ; and he with- 
 drew. A protest against Mr. O'Connell's election, as illegal, was offered ; 
 and the matter was argued by counsel before the sheriff" and his assessor. It 
 was, of course, decided that the election was legal, the ditficulty of admission 
 to parliament consisting only in the nature of the oatlis to be tendered to the 
 representative on his presenting himself in the House. No one could take 
 upon himself to say beforehand that any man would not take the oaths. Mr. 
 O'Connell was therefore returned, as elected by a majority of qualified free- 
 holders ; but the circumstances of the contest, — a notification of the religion 
 of each candidate, and of the presentation of the protest, — were stated on the 
 face of the return. A petition against his return was immediately presented 
 
 Annual Register, to tlic HousB of Commous ; but the session was nearly over, and nothing was 
 
 182S, p- 120. _ _ ' ■' _ ' " 
 
 done in regard to it. O'Connell was well pleased at this, as the recess was 
 before him, for agitation in his new cliaracter of member of jiarliamcnt ; for 
 as such he was extensively regarded in Ireland. He now gave out that 
 Catholic representatives must be elected, as occasion offered, for all the coun- 
 ties of Ireland. The Catholic Association pushed its preparations for this
 
 Cir.vp. v.] DUKING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 475 
 
 great effort; and it began by taking under its protection sucli of tire Forties 1828. 
 as had been ejected, or distrained upon for rent by their hindlords, in conse- ~ — — v^- — - 
 quence of their votes at the hite election. Thus far the Association had acted 
 in wary evasion of the Suppression Act. That act expired in July; and the 
 Association immediately afterwards met, witli an ostentation of defiance, to dis- 
 cuss and jjush their measmes. They could not be touched now till the next 
 session ; and the intervening months were diligently used. Many of the 
 English Dissenters took part with them, subscribing funds for tlie Clare 
 election, and preparing to aid them further by the use of their Nonconformist 
 organization. 
 
 Mr. O'Conncll did not bring the question of his eligibility for parliament to 
 an issue this session. His enemies said it was " manifest that he could do 
 more mischief by prolonging his existence as a pretended M.P., than he could 
 do if he was now to appear, and be turned out of the House of Commons." J-^JJ" "^ ^^°"^ ^■ 
 His party justified his absence on the groimd that much might happen before 
 the next session, to improve his chances of admission : — some crisis was evi- 
 dently near at hand, which it might be well to await : — some new elections 
 might possibly occur which might bring a group of Catholic representatives, 
 instead of a single jone, to the table of the House, and make the attempt 
 much more imposing. Whatever were his reasons, Mr. O'Connell did not 
 oftcr himself for admission to the House during the three weeks of the session 
 Avhich remained after his return as member for Clare. 
 
 " Nothing is talked of now which interests any body the least in the world," 
 writes Lord Eldon, on the 9tli of July, " except the election of Mr. O'Connell, J-'f^ °', lo/'' "i. 
 and the mischief that it will produce among debaters in the House of Com- 
 mons, and the more serious mischief wliich it will, in all human probability, 
 excite in Ireland. As O'Conncll will not, though elected, be allowed to take 
 his seat in the House of Commons, unless he will take the oaths, &c. (and that 
 he won't do, unless he can get absolution,) his rejection from the Commons 
 may excite rebellion in Ireland. At all events, this business must bring the 
 Roman Catholic question, which has been so often discussed, to a crisis and a 
 conclusion. The natui'e of that conclusion I don't think likely to be favour- 
 able to Protestantism We shall see whether our present rulers have 
 
 the courage with which a Mr. Pitt would have acted under present circum- 
 stances. I don't expect it of them." — It is clear that the Clare election had 
 already done some good. It had opened the eyes of the most haughty of the 
 anti-Catholics to the fact, that the question was approaching its crisis and con- 
 clusion. 
 
 The next obvious effect was a singular one : — the conversion of some of the ^^*™ °' '""- 
 county members of Ireland \\lio were strong in the Protestant interest. It has 
 been seen that the Association Avas threatening and preparing to carry all the 
 other Irish counties as it had canied Clare : and one part of its preparations 
 was composing pledges which the Catholic candidates should be required to 
 take. Even if the system of pledging had not been objectionable, these pledges 
 must have been considered so in themselves, by every man of strict principle 
 and independent iniiul : and every candidate who would not agree to tlicm was 
 to be opposed by the whole power of the Catholic Association. Already tlie 
 old relations of landlord and tenant were broken up ; and the landed pro-
 
 476 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book III. 
 
 1828. pvictors who had fallen under the machinery of the Association, were humhled 
 ^— -V— — ^ and disabled. Here was another mode of operation threatened, under which 
 the political power of the Protestants was to he utterly crushed. The counties 
 would he lost ; or, if an existing member here and there held his position, it 
 would be in a sort of vassalage to the Association, and at its mercy. The 
 alarm ojjerated very quickly in producing conversions among the Irish county 
 Annual Rcsistcr, representatives and their friends. So early as the 12th of August, — ten days 
 after the moving of the pledges in the Association, we find Mr. Dawson, 
 brother-in-law of Mr. Peel, and hitherto a vehement anti-Catholic, publicly 
 avowing a change of opinions which induced him now to desire and advocate 
 Catholic Emancipation. Mr. Dawson was the head of the anti-Catholic party 
 in the Commons, and was in the service of the Crown : and whatever he said 
 publicly was of consequence, not only to his party, but to the adnrinistration. 
 What he now said, at a public dinner in Londonderry, was that the Catholic 
 Association must clearly be either crushed or conciliated, or society must dis- 
 solve into its elements in Ireland. He did not pretend to suppose it could 
 now be crushed ; and he avowed his wish that it might be conciliated. An 
 example like this was sure to be eagerly imitated by many of the sufferers 
 ruider the present evils of society in Ireland : and the conversions went on 
 rapidly. — The Association cared little about them ; for they were confident 
 that they should soon have the government avowedly on their side. Notwith- 
 standing all the disgrace with AA'hich Mr. Dawson was visited by the ministry, 
 and all the disavowals of his relatives of any participation in what he had said, 
 and all his protestations that he spoke for himself alone, the Catholic Asso- 
 ciation felt secure. He would not have said any thing, they were certaua, that 
 could put him into radical opposition with the ruling power.s, in whose imme- 
 diate ser^^ce he was. He might have been rash in speaking so soon and so 
 broadly ; but there could be no doubt that what he had said might be taken 
 as a prophecy of good times to come. So the Association went on gaily and 
 boastfully, — promising speedy victory, but neglecting no prejiarations for carry- 
 ing on a long conflict, if need should be. 
 
 We find in a speech of Mr. Shiel's at this time, an account of the state of 
 society in Ireland, which probably all parties, from Lord Eldon to IVIr. O'Con- 
 nell, would agree to be a fair representation. At one of the aggregate meet- 
 ings, of which several were held during the parliamentary recess, — at the great 
 Munster meeting, — Mr. Shiel said, " What has government to dread from our 
 resentment in peace ? An answer is supplied by what we actually behold. 
 Does not a tremendous organization extend over the whole island ? Have not 
 all the natural bonds by which men are tied together, been broken and burst 
 asunder ? Are not all the relations of society, which exist elsewhere, gone ? 
 Has not property lost its influence — has not raidi been stripped of the respect 
 which should belong to it .' and has not an internal government grown up 
 which, gradually superseding the legitimate authorities, has armed itself with 
 a complete domination i Is it nothing that the whole body of the clergy are 
 alienated from the state, and that the Catholic gentry, and peasantry, and 
 priesthood, are all combined in one vast confederacy ? So much for Catholic 
 indignation, while we are at peace : and when England shall be involved in 
 war . I pause ; it is not necessary that I should discuss that branch of
 
 Chap. V.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 477 
 
 the division, or point to the cloud which, charged with thunder, is hanging 1828. 
 over our heads." " -.^-^-^ 
 
 No feature of Irish society alarmed government and all reflecting men 
 more at that time than the sudden and almost total cessation of Irish crime. 
 That which, if it had come about gradually, and as a consequence of improved 
 education or prosperity, would have been hailed as the greatest of encourage- 
 ments and blessings, was now ominous and most alarming, as showing the 
 power of the Catholic leaders, and the strength of their organization. At 
 the bidding of these leaders, feuds were suspended ; factions met and acted 
 as brethren ; and men mastered their strongest propensities, in order to 
 become a vast soldiery for the achievement of political objects. In almost 
 every county, the judges on circuit congratulated the magistrates on the dis- Annual Register, 
 appearance of atrocious crimes, and the paucity of even the lighter offences. "^'' ■'■ ''*''' 
 The government would rather have had to deal with the average amount of 
 Irish outrage than to witness a lull which boded a coming hurricane. Ireland 
 was governed now by a power greater than their own. 
 
 On the expiration of the Suppression law in July, when the Catholic 
 Association resumed its primiti\e form, the Orange Clubs sprang up again, 
 affording a new cause of alarm. New Orange Associations were formed, 
 under the name of Brunswick Clubs, Avhich collected a Protestant Rent, and 
 in every way imitated the Catholic organization. The strength of the Bruns- 
 wick Clubs lay in the North : that of the Catholics in the South : but they 
 did not, as the magistracy hoped, lie apart, railing at each other, without 
 attempting collision. A rash and foolish Catholic agitator, Mr. Lawless, 
 declared his intention of braving the British lion in its den, — its Irish den. 
 He would visit " all the strongholds of the Orangemen." And he went, with 
 tens of thousands at his heels, for no other purpose, as far as appears, than 
 rousing the antagonism of the Orangemen. He advertised, for some time 
 previously, his intention of entering such and such a town, attended by so 
 many thousand Catholics : and, naturally enough, the town was entered, 
 early on the appointed morning, by troops of Orangemen, — many or most of 
 them armed. This was not to be endured. The magistrates warned the 
 people against attending these assemblages. The soldiery were kept on the 
 alert. On one occasion, when the agitator himself was prevailed on by the 
 magistrates and military commander to turn back, his followers got into a 
 scuffle with the Protestant mob, and one man, a Catholic, was killed. The '^"';"'''' f^T^^"' 
 
 ^^ 1 o2H, pi 1 i>U> 
 
 Catholic Association saw that this would never do. Their policy was one of 
 peaceful parade ; and they would enter into no competition of force with the 
 Orange party. They put forth all their influence at once to stop the assem- 
 blages of their own body, to induce them to lay aside all uniforms, flags, and 
 military music, and abstain from all provoking demonstrations. It was won- 
 derful how promptly and thoroughly the leaders were obeyed. Bodies of 
 men, in one case amounting to fifty thousand, marching on with flags, music, 
 and iniiform, were met on the road by a hortatory address of O'Connell's, aiul 
 at once tinned back and disbanded themselves, making no complaint of the 
 loss of their pleasure, or of the money they had spent in their decorations. 
 Throughout these pcriloiis weeks, the legality and peaceablcness were cer- 
 tainly on the side of the Catholics, — the rashness and vanity of some of their
 
 478 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book III. 
 
 1828. leaders being kept in check by the good sense and earnest patriotism of others : 
 ' — -""" ' while of the Orangemen, — of the Brunswick Clubs, — even the old Tory, 
 
 cl; us. Lord Eldon, could find nothing more approbative to say than this, — in answer 
 
 don, iii. 53. " to a request for his opinion on the subject of forming a Brunswick Club in 
 England : " Already very inconvenient questions seem to have been stated, 
 vvliether the calls upon the people of the country have not, some of them, 
 been expressed in such terms as make it questionable whether those who, in 
 such terms, make such calls, act as legally as they ought." — This is put so very 
 delicately, that we may see how reluctantly the admission is made. He goes 
 on : " It is true, those who may so complain may most justly be told that 
 they have not so objected to the shamefully illegal proceedings of the Roman 
 Catholic Association ; and I think it not impossible that we may hear some 
 abusing in parliament the proceedings of Protestant Associations, who have 
 mainly encouraged the proceedings of the Roman Catholic Association ; — but 
 this is an example not to be followed." It is curious to see how utterly blind 
 Lord Eldon was, even at this time, and with all his fears of the Liberals and 
 his distrust of the government, to the real pressure of the case. No man 
 talked more loudly of his terrors, or of expected apostacy in high places : 
 
 Life of Lord EI- yet what hc anticipated was this and no more. " I look on the Roman 
 Catholic question as, bit by bit, here a little and there a little, to be ultimately, 
 and at no distant day carried. I have no conception that even Oxford will 
 struggle effectually against the great church interests which will patronize 
 that question, and those who supjjort it in parliament." It was too late for 
 giving liberty " bit by bit; here a little and there a little." 
 
 The Protestant Clubs in England did not succeed very well. The people 
 generally were disposed to leave the matter to the government. There was a 
 
 Anmui Register, meeting of twenty thousand people on Pennenden Heath in Kent, convened 
 ' ""' ' by Protestant leaders, and attended by some advocates of the Catholic cause. 
 The petition to parliament proposed by the conveners was merely to declare 
 attachment to our Protestant Constitution, and to pray that it might be pre- 
 served inviolate. Some noblemen present moved that the business of dealing 
 with the Catholics should be left to the government : but the petition was 
 adopted by a large majority. This was the only demonstration of any impor- 
 tance in England. 
 
 O'Connell now found himself strong enough to declare his pleasiu-e as to 
 the legislation which should take place in regard to his cause ; and he even 
 dared a schism in the Catholic body. The English Catholics parted off from 
 the Irish on the question of Securities. They were willing to negotiate with 
 government on the subject of Securities : O'Connell scorned them, feeling, as 
 he said, that it was better to receive a part of the Catholic claims, without 
 being fettered with Securities, and in full certainty that the rest of the demand 
 must soon be granted, than to receive political equality on terms \\ Inch might 
 occasion future difficulty. He would not entertain the "paltry question of 
 political discount;" he would have full emancipation; cither at once or by 
 instalments ; but he would give nothing in return for clear political rights. 
 But on no subject were his asseverations so emphatic as on that of the disfran- 
 
 FoRTv-SHiLLiNG chiscuient of " the Forties." He well knew that his former agreement to 
 sacrifice the Forties had never been forgotten; and he now doubled and
 
 Chap. Y.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 479 
 
 redoubled his protestations, given in the strongest terms the language affords, 1828. 
 
 that he would never permit their francliisc to he touched. On the 16th of ^ "' ' 
 
 December, the Association unanimously passed a resolution, " That they 
 woidd deem any attempt to deprive the forty-shilling freeholders of their 
 franchise, a direct violation of the constitution." Mr. O'Connell " would 
 rather die" than yield that franchise : — " would say that if any man dared to 
 bring in a bill for the disfranchisement of the forty-shilling freeholders, the 
 people ought to rebel, if they cannot otherwise succeed." Again ; " Sooner 
 than give up the forty-shilling fiecholders, I would rather go back to the 
 penal code. They form part of the Constitution : their right is as sacred as 
 that of the king to his throne ; and it would be treason against the people to 
 
 attempt to disfranchise them I would conceive it just to resist that 
 
 attempt with force : and in such resistance I would be ready to perish in the 
 field, or on the scaffold." So said O'Connell up to the end of the year. As 
 for Mr. Shiel, he said, in anticipating the policy of the Duke of AYellington, 
 " I trust he will not pursue this course ; but if he should, I tell him, we wovdd 
 rather submit for ever to the pressure of the parricidal code, which crushed 
 our fathers to the gi-ave, than assent to this robbery of a generous peasantry." 
 These declarations were made in public, at the Clare election, and at the 
 meetings of the Association, and printed in the nc^^spapers, at a time when 
 all men's ears were open, and every word of the Catholic leaders echoed from 
 end to end of the empire : and by- them the leaders must be judged. 
 
 During these important months, nothing seems to have been seen and heard T"f viceroy. 
 of the Irish government, till, on the 1st of October, it issued a proclamation 
 against such assemblages as had already been put down by the influence of 
 the Association. .\11 was again still and mute till a strange incident, which 
 occuiTcd in the last month of the year, fixed attention on the two friends, — 
 the Duke of Wellington and the jMarquess of Anglesey, who governed 
 England and Ireland. 
 
 Dr. Curtis, the titular Catholic Primate of Ireland, had been intimate with 
 the Duke of Wellington ever since the Peninsular War, when Dr. Curtis held 
 a high office in the University of Salamanca, and was able to render important 
 services to the British army. The Catholic Primate wrote to the Premier on 
 the state of Ireland on the -Ith of December of this year: and on the lltli the f™'^'."^""' 
 Duke wrote in reply, — as friend to friend, and without any idea of a political 
 use being made of what he said. There was nothing in the letter which 
 woidd have fixed attention, if it had been from any other man ; and it now 
 appears natural and reasonable enough, and little or nothing more than he 
 had said in parliament half a year before. lie reciprocates his correspondent's 
 desire to see the question settled ; — sees no prospect of it ; — laments the exist- 
 ing ])arty-spirit and violence; — thinks, if men could bury the subject in 
 oblivion for a sliort time, during which diliicultics might be pondered — (a 
 curious method, by the way, of burying a subject in oblivion) — " it might be 
 possible to discover a satisfactory remedv." 
 
 A copy of this letter was presently in Mr. O'Comu'irs hands. — Mr. O'Con- 
 nell caiTied it to the Association, and read it aloud : — the Association received 
 it with cheers, and recorded it on tlioir minutes, as a decisive declaration of 
 the Prime Minister in favour of Catholic Emancipation. This was not, per-
 
 480 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 [Book III. 
 
 1828. 
 
 haps, so audacious a stretch of interpretation as some persons, — prohably 
 iuchuling the writer of the letter liimself, — supposed : for the impediments 
 ■were now clearly only external and circumstantial ; and the Association might 
 reasonably feel equal to the conquest of all such. — Meantime, Dr. Curtis had 
 replied to the Duke, in a long letter in which he set forth his reasons for 
 thinking that the burying the subject in oblivion was wholly out of the ques- 
 tion; and that every attempt to get rid of it would be extremely dangerous. 
 — He sent copies of the Duke's letter and his own reply to the Lord Lieu- 
 tenant : and the Lord Lieutenant in return explained his own view to be that 
 the Catholic agitation should be continued. No doubt, this was not intended 
 in contradiction or oj^position to the Premier; but vnidcr the idea that the 
 Catholic agitation was the surest means of overpowering the difficulties which 
 embarrassed the Premier, and thus, of aiding the government. Its effect how- 
 ever was strange, from its appearance of being in direct opposition to the 
 
 views of the head of the government. 
 
 Not less strange was the following 
 
 Annunl 
 1828, p. 
 
 I Kesister, Sentence of Lord Anglesey's reply. " Your letter gives me infonnation on a 
 subject of the highest interest. I did not know the precise sentiments of the 
 Duke of Wellington upon the present state of the Catholic question." What 
 were men to think of this ? They must conclude one of two things, — both 
 highly injurious to government: — either that there was such indifference 
 about the Catholics as that their cause had not been discussed with the Lord 
 Lieutenant among other subjects of Irish policy ; — or that the Lord Lieutenant 
 was not in the confidence of government at home. It was impossible not to 
 entertain the last of these suppositions ; especially as the Viceroy proceeds to 
 say that he must acknowledge his disappointment at finding — (still from the 
 Duke's letter merely) — that there was no prospect of Catholic Emancipation 
 being effected during the approaching session of parliament. — This was on 
 the 23rd of December ; — only six weeks before the opening of the Session. 
 These are curious disclosures of the way in which one of the most important 
 events in British History, and in the history of Civil and Religious Liberty 
 every where, was, first awaited, and then brought to pass. 
 
 This letter too was immediately carried to the Catholic Association, and read 
 aloud amidst plaudits, like the other. In this case, the applause was natural 
 enough; for the letter recommended a strenuous pushing of the Catholic 
 cause, by peaceable means : — " the question should not be for a moment lost 
 sight of:" but " let the Catholic trust to the justice of his cause," and use none 
 but unexceptionable means, that his plea might " be met by the parliament 
 under the most favourable circumstances." Such encouragement from the 
 ruler of Ireland and a Privy Councillor of the King, might well be received 
 with cheers. A large tribute of admiration was voted to him for his " manU- 
 ness and political sagacity." His sagacity seems to have failed him in regard 
 to his own interests, however; — his reputation for prudence and even political 
 honour. If he was siu'priscd, no one else was when the next English packet 
 brought his recall. He left Ireland in January, and was succeeded in the 
 Viceroyalty by the Duke of Northumberland. 
 
 One cannot but see some comic intermixture with the very serious aspect of 
 the times, at the close of 1828. There were the Duke of Wellington and the 
 Marquess of Anglesey made the two pets of the Catholic Association, — their 
 
 Recall of the 
 Viceroy. 
 Annua) Register, 
 1828, p. 151. 
 
 Aspect op the 
 Qllstion.
 
 Chap. V.J DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 481 
 
 letters treasured in the Minutes, and themselves assumed to be both friends 1828. 
 of Catholic objects ; while, at the same time, and in consequence of these 
 very proceedings, the Duke was recalling the jMaivjiiess, because the Marquess 
 had brought the Duke into an irremediable difficulty. The Catholic Associa- 
 tion was pledging itself to send seventy county members into the House, 
 while its very existence was for the purpose of obtaining an admission to 
 ParHament at all. While the Catholic leaders were assuming that they 
 should have all they wanted very soon, and the Brunswick Clubmen were 
 certain that they would never obtain any thing at all, as long as there were 
 true Britons who would make their dead bodies a barrier between the Catho- 
 lics and the privileges of Protestantism, the English Tories, through the 
 mouth of Lord Eldon, lamented that "bit by bit," emancipation would be 
 granted ; and the Liberals were certain that the Duke meant to yield every 
 thing in the course of the next session; while the Duke himself certainly 
 was not aware in the middle of the closing month of the year, that he meant 
 any thing at all. He might appropriate the saying of the sage, — " all 1 
 know is that I know nothing." 
 
 Mr. Shiel has left us a picture of the time, in a speech at the Association : 
 " The jNIinister folds his arms as if he- were a mere indifferent observer, and 
 the terrific contest only afforded him a spectacle for the amusement of his 
 official leisure. He sits as if two gladiators were crossing their swords for 
 his recreation. The Cabinet seems to be little better than a box in an amphi- 
 theatre, from whence his Majesty's Ministers may siu'vey the business of 
 blood." The Viceroy was recalled for desiring and promoting what the head 
 of the government was about to do. — As for the great Catholic leader, the 
 most noticeable particular about him was his having pledged himself to jier- 
 dition if ever again he would compromise the franchise of " the Forties." — 
 Times seem to have become too hard for men's wits ; — for their endowments 
 of sagacity and judgment, and of that prudence which, in afFaus so momen- 
 tous as this, should go by the name of conscience. 
 
 VOL. t. 3 jl
 
 482 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book III. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 1828. TN tlie Speech witli wMch the King, by commission, dismissed parliament 
 ' A on the 28th of July, the first ])oint of interest was a declaration of tlie 
 
 sess'ion°ofTs^28. re\'iving prosperity of the people. After the dreadful shocks of 1825 and 1826, 
 it was some time before any revival of trade was apparent, at all adequate 
 to the wants of the working classes. But now the immense stocks of every 
 species of manufacture which had been prepared under the mania of specula- 
 tion were pretty well cleared off ; money and commodities had resumed an 
 ascertained and natm-al value ; and the state of the Revenue and the general 
 contentment indicated that a condition of prosperity had returned. One ad- 
 vantage of this was that many statesmen, and whole classes of " interests," 
 became convinced that free-trade — (as the very partial relaxations of former 
 commercial restriction were then called) — was not the cause of the late dis- 
 tresses, — was certainly enhancing the prosperity, — was, in short, found to be 
 a very good thing. 
 
 The King's Speech carefully indicated that the war which had been declared 
 between Russia and the Porte was wholly unconnected with the Treaty of 
 London ; and promised to continue the efforts which had been made, in con- 
 cert with the King of France, to promote peace between Russia and Turkey. 
 Meantime, the emperor had been induced not to carry war into the Mediter- 
 ranean, where so many interests were involved ; and had actually recalled his 
 warlike instructions to the commanders of his fleet in the Levant. 
 
 tuual"' ""^ ''°"' It was announced that great disappointment had occurred with regard to 
 Portugal ; and that it had been found necessary by all the Powers of Europe 
 to withdraw their representatives from Lisbon. 
 
 The mistake with regard to Portugal had been in ever appointing as Regent 
 such a man as Don Miguel. It might be evident enough that difficulties 
 would be reconciled, and the future would be provided for by uniting the 
 interests of tlie different branches of the royal family in his regency, and his 
 marriage with the yet childish Queen : but all political arrangements proceed 
 on the supposition that more or less reliance is to be placed on the acting 
 parties, — that some obligations of conscience, or at least of reputation, exist 
 in each party that enters into a contract. But the conduct of Don Miguel 
 in regard to his father, and in other instances, had shown him to be, 
 not only untrustworthy, but a sort of moral monster who cannot be treated 
 with as men usually are. Yet his brother, the Emperor of Brazil, thought he 
 had arranged every thing, and settled adverse claims by appointing him 
 Regent of Portugal, and promising him marriage with the young Queen. 
 
 evol^I'd'^'' '" -^^^ the beginning of this year, Don Miguel had been in England. He 
 spent nearly two months in London ; and it was regarded as a good sign that 
 he went there, and associated with the rulers and statesmen of a free country, 
 rather than visit the courts of despotic sovereigns. He had taken the oath to
 
 CiiAP. VI.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 483 
 
 preserve the new Constitution of Portugal, and had written to his sister, — his 1828. 
 predecessor in the regency, — from Vienna, that he was detennined to maintain ^^^^^^j^j'^T'JJT^ 
 inviolate the laws of the kingdom, and the institutions legally granted hy "*-«. p- '7»- 
 Don Pedro, and to cause them to he observed, and by them to govern the 
 kingdom. And before he left England he had, according to the universal 
 belief, \vritten a letter, voluntarily, to George IV., in which he said that " if he 
 overthrew the constitution, he should l)e a wretch, a breaker of liis oath, and 
 an usurper of his brother's throne." There was never any question of his 
 being bound by the strongest obligations to administer constitutional govern- 
 ment in Portugal, if he had been one Avho could be bound by any obligations 
 whatever. But, as it was proved that he was not such an one, he should not 
 have been trusted with any political powers whatever. 
 
 The Princess Regent took leave of the Cortes in January ; and on the 22nd Annuairc His. 
 of Februarv, Don Miguel landed at Lisbon. Among the acclamations which ^'c. 
 gi-ceted him, — the cries of " Long live the Infant !" — a few voices were heard 
 shouting " Long live Don Miguel, the absolute king!" Neither on tliis occa- 
 sion, nor when he went in procession to the cathedral, and heard more of the 
 same shouts, did the Prince take any notice of them. They jjassed as the 
 cries of a few discontented men among the rabble ; and it was never clear 
 whether Don Miguel had at this time any intention of usurping the throne, 
 or whether he was afterwards instigated to it by his mother. From the 
 moment when he fell on his knees before his mother, he showed himself her 
 slave, and wrought out her wicked pleasure most zealously, whatever might 
 have been his previous intentions. — He was to swear to the Constitution, foiu' 
 days after his arrival, in the presence of the two Chambers, and of the Court. 
 There was something strange about the ceremony, which excited the suspi- 
 cions of the bystanders. The Prince was ill at ease, hurried, and confused : 
 and he spoke too low to be heard by those nearest to him. The Archbishop 
 of Lisbon, who administered the oath, stood directly in front of the Prince 
 with his priestly garments spread wide, so that the Regent was little better 
 seen than heard. He is declared not to have touched the book of the gospels, 
 and to have said, when the show was over, " Well, I have gone through the 
 ceremonv of swearing to the Cliarter ; but I have sworn notliing. " One Annmirp his. 
 
 .„ . .11 • 11 1 /• torique, 1S28, p. 
 
 Significant circumstance is that there was no register, or legal record ot any 520. 
 kind, of the event. — The next day, the new ^liuistry was announced : and 
 the announcement spread dismay among the constitutionalists. The funds 
 fell ; the Bank, which was to have set off on a new score that day, feared a 
 run, and postponed its payments indefinitely : all business was at a stand in 
 Lisbon. The mob assembled under the windows of the Queen-Mother, shout- 
 ing for absolutism ; and the Prime Minister distributed money among them. 
 During the mouth of March, the proceedings of the Regent were so open 
 and shameless iu insulting and displacing Lil)erals and favouriug the Abso- 
 lutists, that many hundreds of the best families in Lisbon left the capital. 
 Just at this time, the British troops sent by ^Ir. Canning were embarking for 
 their return ; and a liU'ge amount of money, — a loan from M. Rothschild to 
 the Prince, — was arriving. The new Ihitisli ambassador at Lisbon, Sir 
 Frederick Lamb, decided, on his own resjjonsiliility, to detain the troops, and 
 send the money back to London, — that the usurper (_for it was now no secret
 
 484 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book III. 
 
 1828. that the Pilnce was about to assume the title of King) might be awed by the 
 
 ' '^"^ presence of British troops, and unaided in his treasonable purposes by British 
 
 gold. — This was in the middle of March ; and it was the beginning of April 
 before the British Ambassador could receive instructions how to proceed. 
 
 On the 14th of March the Prince dissolved the Chambers, to evade the 
 passing of a vote of thanks to the British commanders, and some troublesome 
 inquiries into state abuses. On the 2nd of April the British troops Avere 
 embarked for home, in piu'suance of orders received by the Ambassador. 
 Before this, the Prince had been declared in several provincial towns to be 
 absolute King, Don Miguel I. "S^licn the British troops were gone, and with 
 them all the respectable liberals who could get away, there Avas no further 
 impediment to the proclamation taking place in the capital : and the thing 
 was done on the birthday of the Queen-Mother, on the 25tli of April. The 
 scene was opened by the Commandant of Police with his guard, before the 
 Hall of the Municipality, between eight and nine in the morning. Baring 
 their heads, and drawing their sabres, they cried aloud, " Long live Don 
 Miguel the First ! Long live the Empress-Mother ! " Thereupon the national 
 flag was slung up on the roof of the hall, and the municipal authorities 
 appeared in the balcony, to proclaim the new King. The proclamation was 
 repeated at noon through the city; and all citizens were invited to sign a 
 memorial, imploring Don Miguel to assume the function of King. This me- 
 morial was presented in the evening ; but the paucity and doubtful character 
 of the signatures (according to some authorities) annoyed and alarmed the 
 isMl'pl 193!""^'^' Pi'iiice. According to others, the signatures were wonderfully numerous ; but 
 Annuaire Histo. the Priuce dared not proceed to extremities at once, because all the foreign 
 ' ambassadors had notified that they should leave Lisbon immediately on his 
 assumption of the title of king. He desired the memorialists to wait, and see 
 Avhat he would do. 
 
 A note was sent round the next mornin'r fi-om the Foreign ^Minister to these 
 representatives, regretting the popular manifestation of the preceding day, and 
 assuring them that every thing possible had been done by government to keep 
 the people quiet. The foi'cign ambassadors met to confer upon their reply ; 
 and they agreed upon a notification to the minister that they suspended all 
 official intercourse with the government till they should receive fresh instruc- 
 tions from their respective courts. 
 
 All disguise was soon thrown off. On the 3rd of May, Don Miguel issued 
 a summons to the ancient three estates of the kingdom, who had not been 
 assembled for upwards of a hmidred and thirty years. They were to meet to 
 " recognise the application of grave points of Portuguese right," since the 
 importunate demand of various bodies in tlie state that the Prince would 
 assume empire, had become very perplexing to him. The difficulty was how 
 to sign this document. The awkwardness of signing in Don Pedro's name an 
 invitation to declare that Don Pedro had no rights in Portugal, was so great, 
 that the Prince actually signed it as Don Miguel the First. As king, he 
 siunmoned the estates who were to meet to invite him to become king. 
 
 The estates met on the 26th of June, and immediately declared Don Miguel 
 to be lawfully King of Portugal. On the 28th, the new sovereign assxuned 
 his full name and title. He had not been left in peace and quiet in the
 
 Chap. VI.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 485 
 
 interval. Oporto and other towns had risen against him ; and many of the 1828. 
 Portuguese refugees in England had returned to conduct the war. But they ^-^~~^"'*^ 
 were delayed on the voyage ; affairs had been mismanaged ; and there was 
 nothing left for them to do hut to make the best retreat they could through 
 Spain. 
 
 Of course, the ambassadors all took their departure at the end of June. At 
 first, the usurper did not conceal his rage and niortification ; but presently he 
 srave out declarations that thev had all been recalled by liis express desire, in Annual Register. 
 
 o J -J L ■' 1828 p. 201 
 
 order to be succeeded by others less addicted to freemasonry (his word, and 
 that of other despots, for liberahsm). From this time the course of the usurper 
 became altogether disgusting. His practices could only be (where it was pos- 
 sible) denied by his flatterers : nobody vindicated them. He filled the prisons ; 
 set aside the laws, in order to procure the sacrifice of his enemies ; confiscated 
 all the property he could lay hands on ; and spread such ruin, that, with all 
 his devices, he could not raise money enough for his purposes. He actually 
 asked for a loyal subscription ; and the names of the donors, advertised in the 
 Lisbon Gazette, looked grand in regard to rank and title ; but the sum pro- 
 duced was only £4,000. 
 
 Don Pedro, meantime, had heard of his brother's dutiful acceptance of the 
 charge of the regency, and of his being in London, where the Brazilian 
 Emperor hoped he would learn some good lessons. Believing that the time 
 ■WAS now come for his final surrender of all authority in Portugal, the Emperor 
 prepared his concluding act of abdication on the 3rd of March. He little 
 dreamed what his unworthy brother was doing, or he would not have yielded 
 up his powers at such a time : and much less would he have sent his young 
 daughter to Europe. As for the manifesto of abdication, the Brazilian Ministers 
 at Vienna and London assumed the responsibility of keeping it back, and 
 preventing its being officially communicated to any of the European powers. 
 When the bad news fi-om Portugal reached the Emperor, he issued a decree, 
 (on the 25th of July,) reprobating the acts of the usurping government, but 
 treating his brother with a leniency which appeared strange ; but which may 
 perhaps be accounted for on the supposition that he had fears for his daughter, 
 and might be uncertain about her probable fate. He spoke of Don ]\Iiguel as 
 doubtless a captive and a victim in the hands of a party who compelled him 
 to acts abhorrent to his nature. The government newspapers at Lisbon re- 
 torted by assuring the world that Don Pedro could not have prepared such a 
 decree, except under the influence of " the horrid sect of Freemasons, who 
 arc the enemies of the throne and the altar." 
 
 The little Queen, Donna ^Nlaria, now nine years old, arrived at Gibraltar on Q';."^" "' '"'"•- 
 the 2nd of iSeptember, on her way to Genoa, where she was to land, and pro- 
 ceed to Vienna, on a visit to her grandfather, the Emperor of Austria. The rt"ue""i'8iK"'"M8 
 ncAvs which her conductors heard at Gibraltar, however, put them also upon 
 considering their responsibilities ; and they decided, — as so many had before 
 done, to the high honour of our country, — that England was the safest retreat 
 for a sufferer under political adversity. One of the frigates was immediately 
 sent back to Brazil with the latest news of what had occurred ; and the other 
 bnHight Donna :\[aria to England. She arrived off Falmouth on the 24th of ^,",';;Y-",.''' 
 Sejitember. 8he was received with royal honours ; and there was something 
 very aft'ecting in -tlie- sight of the eagerness with which the noble Portuguese
 
 486 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 [Book III. 
 
 Annual Repistcr, 
 1828, Chron. 126. 
 
 iMg refuo'ees rushed on board, to devote themselves to her and the vindication of 
 her rio-hts. If she was too young to be duly touched with a sense of hor 
 situation, others felt it for her. He who had sworn to govern for her with 
 fidelity during her tender years, had usurped her throne: — he who was to 
 have been her husband, had repelled her from the shores of her own kingdom, 
 and cast her upon the mercy of the world. No wonder the refugees rushed to 
 her feet ; for every heart in England bled for her. 
 
 When the frigate arrived at Falmouth, the Queen and her conductors were 
 uncertain whether she would be received as Duchess of Oporto or as a sove- 
 reio-n. Every thing hung now on a few moments. But all was well. The 
 royal salute came thundering over the waters from the forts and the ships, and 
 up went the flags on every hand. Then up went the royal standard of Por- 
 tuo-al, and the young girl and her retinue knew that she was acknowledged 
 Queen by Great Britain. On her way to Loudon, she was greeted with ad- 
 dresses by the corporations of all the principal towns she passed through, and 
 the people every where received her with cheers. In London, almost before 
 the Portu"-uese residents could pay their duty to their sovereign, the Prime 
 Minister and Foreign Secretary arri\cd to welcome her Majesty to our metro- 
 polis. They came in their state carriages, in military uniform, and covered 
 with orders. The King sent messages. He was at his cottage at Windsor, 
 liviu"' in almost utter seclusion, and, as his people now began to be aw are, in 
 feeble and declining health. — On the 12th of October, the birthday of Don 
 Pedro, an affecting ceremony took place at the residence of the ]\Iarqucss Pal- 
 mella. The whole of the Portuguese and Brazilian legations being present, 
 and the Brazilian and Portuguese Ministers at the Courts of Vienna and the 
 Netherlands, the Marquess Palmella told the whole story of Don Pedro's con- 
 duct, and the young Queen's position, read the decrees, and the Emperor's 
 despatches, and, in short, put his hearers in possession of the entire case, in a 
 discourse of three quarters of an hour. The Marquess then, as the intended 
 Prime Minister of the Queen, first took the oath of fealty to her ; and his ex- 
 ample was followed by all present ; — ambassadors, generals, peers of her realm, 
 members of the Cortes, and military and political officers of various ranks, — 
 Annual Rpgistpr, jjj g\\ above two hundred. She had thus a little court about her wdiile she 
 
 1828, Chron. 138. ' i i r l n 1 
 
 remained in England; which was tiU the next year, when her father recalled 
 her to Brazil. By that time it was explained that, while Great Britain ac- 
 knowledged her sovereignty, discountenanced her usurping uncle, and desired 
 to extend all due hospitality towards her, it was not possible to do more. Our 
 treaties of alliance with Portugal, it was declared, bound us to aid her against 
 foreign aggression, but not to interfere in her domestic struggles. W e had 
 sent troops to Portugal when Spain w^as invading her liberties : but we could 
 not impose or depose her rulers. 
 
 Towards the close of the year, — on the loth of December, — the funeral train 
 at last left the door of Lord Liverpool's abode at Wimbledon. Of those who 
 had hom'ly looked for his death nearly two years before, and who had held the 
 affairs of the country suspended in expectation of it, some had long been in 
 their graves. He was now released at last ; and his funeral train was a long 
 one ; for his private life had won for him a gratitude and warm regard, 
 which made him now more thought of as the kindly-hearted man than as 
 the respectable. Minister^ who had ostensibly gaveroed tka country fca- fifteen 
 years. 
 
 Annual Register, 
 1828, Chron. 178. 
 
 Death of Lord 
 
 LiVEltPOOL.
 
 Chap. VII.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. ' 487 
 
 CHAPTER VU. 
 
 THERE never was an instance in which men were more universally hlamcil 1829. 
 tlian the Wellington administration were at the time of the removal of ' 
 
 the Catholic disabilities. The puhlic always will and must judge by what the cauinet. 
 they know ; and those who knew only what was on the face of things, could 
 not but form an unfavourable judgincnt, in every light, of the conduct of the 
 Duke and his colleagues. Their own party, of course, thought them faithless, 
 infirm, and cowardly. The foct was before all eyes that they had suddenly 
 relinquished the declared principles, and stultified the professions of their whole 
 political lives, deceived and deserted their friends and supporters, and offered 
 to history a flagrant instance of political apostacy. Tlie Ojjposition complained, 
 with equal appearance of reason, that, after having thwarted, in every possible 
 way, the efforts of Mr. Canning and the other friends of the Catholics, they 
 shamelessly carried the measures which they would not hear of from Mr. Can- 
 ning : that, having damaged the liberal statesmen of their day with all their 
 influence, they stepped in at last to do the work which had been laboriously 
 prepared in spite of them, and took the cr<?dit of it. Truly, their credit was 
 but little with even those who put the best construction upon their conduct. 
 By such, they were believed to have yielded to an o^•erwllelming necessity ; 
 aiul thus to deserve no praise at all : while there was much that was inex- 
 plicable and unsatisfactory in their method of proceeding. There was evidence, 
 that up to the middle of December, the Prime Minister did not intend to re- 
 move the Catholic disabilities, or that he chose the public to supjjose it : while 
 on the 5th of February, the Speech from the Throne recommeiuled their re- 
 moval. Time, however, clears up many things. The conduct of the Jlinisters 
 was inexplicable ; for their difficulties were of a nature which they could not 
 explain. They explained as much as men of honour and loyalty in their po- 
 sition could; — the necessity which existed for what they were doing : but about 
 e^erv thing which most closely concerned themselves, every thing which was 
 necessary to clear their political character, they were compelled to keep silence. 
 I3y others, however, bit by bit, and in a course of nearly twenty years, dis- 
 closures have been made which aj)pear to put us in full possession of their 
 case, and leave us with the conviction that their fault lay in their preceding 
 political course, and not in their conduct at this juncture. Their anti-Catholic 
 principles and policy had been mistaken, as the liberal party had, of course, 
 always declared. There was nothing new in that. And a close study of the 
 facts of their case, as now known, seems to lead to their acqvuttal of all blame 
 in the great ti-ansactions of 1829. 
 
 The difficulty which embarrassed them, and compromised their rep\itation, The Kisc. 
 was in regard to the King. Eord Eldou, and others, who saw him from time 
 to time, had been struck by the change in liis health in 1827, from which
 
 1829, p. 89. 
 
 488 ' HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book TIL 
 
 1820. period he continued to decline. By his mode of living, he had never given 
 v-^-v-^^ liimsclf <a chance for health : and when the health breaks up under such cir- 
 cumstances, there can hardly be any serenity of temper or tranquillity of 
 mind. He was at this time truly wretched ; and ho made every body about 
 him miserable. He vacillated between despondency and levity, ii-ascibility 
 and weak fondness ; and, worst of all, not the slightest dependance was to be 
 placed upon his word. In unreliableness he was a match for O'Conncll him- 
 self. There is usually a tacit understanding among us in favour of jNIinisters 
 where any difficulty with the sovereign is supposed to exist. It was so in the 
 case of the hovering insanity of George III. ; and there have been times since 
 when a generous aid has been aifordcd by Opposition in parliament to a 
 Minister who might be supposed to be under embarrassments which a loyal 
 subject and servant of the Crown could not explain, or in any way indicate. 
 But during the crisis under our notice, no one could imagine the difficulties 
 the administration were under with the King ; and the extreme seclusion in 
 which the King shut himself up gave them no chance of his so exposing him- 
 self to any eyes but their own as to obtain for them the allowance which their 
 position required. It is all known now ; or, at least, so much is revealed as 
 amply to vindicate the honour of the Wellington administration. 
 
 On the 28th of September, 1828, the Duke of Wellington had written to 
 
 Annual Rpgister, the Viccrov of Ireland that the Catholic question was " a subiect of which the 
 King never hears or speaks without his mind being disturbed." On the 11th 
 of November, again, he wrote, " I cannot express to you adequately the extent 
 of the difficulties which these and other occurrences in Ireland create, in all 
 discussions with his Majesty." We have already seen evidence that up to 
 the middle of December, the Ministers had no idea that any thing could be 
 done towards conciliating the Catholics. The King's own account of what 
 happened next was this, — given to Lord Eldon in conversation on the 28th of 
 
 Life of Lord El- the ncxt March : "That at the time the Administration was formed, no 
 reason was given him to supjiose that any measures for the relief of the Roman 
 Catholics were intended or thought of by Ministers ; that he had frequently 
 himself siiggested the absolute necessity of putting down the Roman Catholic 
 Association — of suspending tlie Habeas Corpus Act, to destroy the powers of 
 the most seditious and rebellious proceedings of the members of it, and par- 
 ticularly at the time that Lawless made his march : — that instead of following 
 what he had so strongly recommended, after some time, not a very long time 
 before the present session, he was applied to to allow his Ministers to propose 
 to him, as an united Cabinet, the opening of parliament by sending such a 
 message as his speech contained: — that, after much struggling against it, and 
 after the measure had been pressed upon him as an absolute necessity, he had 
 consented that the Protestant members of his Cabinet, if they could so per- 
 suade themselves to act, might join in such a representation to him, but that 
 he wovdd not then, nor in his recommendation to parliament, pledge himself 
 to any thing. He repeatedly mentioned that he represented to his Ministers 
 the infinite pain it gave him to consent even so far as that." 
 
 It was foolish to talk of refusing to pledge liimself to any thing, while per- 
 mitting his Ministers to request from him a message to parliament which he 
 contemplated granting. In consenting to receive the proposed representation 
 
 don, iii. S3.
 
 CiiAr. VII.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 489 
 
 of his Ministers, he pledged himself to their jwlicy : <ind he must have known 1829. 
 at the time that he did so, though in liis anger and wretchedness afterwards ^-^-^-^--—^ 
 he endeavoured to persuade liimseLf aud Lord Eldou that he had kept open a 
 way of escape. Meantime, the case of his Ministers was a hard one. Having 
 once ohtaincd the King's consent to bring forward a measure in relief of the 
 Catholics, they should have had every encouragement and assistance from 
 him. But he led them a terrible life at present, when they had quite enough 
 to bear from other quarters, and when they were so completely committed 
 that nothing could be gained by making them miserable. 
 
 When February came in, the best informed politicians began whispering to 
 each other that the King's Speech, which was to be read on the 5th, would 
 contain large concessions to the Catholics. On the 4th, at the dinners held 
 as usual at the houses of the two leaders of government in parliament, the 
 Speech was read, and found to contain all that had been rumoured, and more. 
 After an allusion to the disorders in Ireland caused by the Catholic Association, 
 and expressions of a determination to put them down, followed the recom- 
 mendation of the King to Parliament to consider whether the civil disabilities 
 of the Catholics could not be removed " consistently with the full and per- 
 manent security of our establishments in Church and State." — On the same mh. pfel-s re- 
 
 •' , Sir.NATION OF HIS 
 
 day, Mr. Peel addressed a letter to the Vice-Chanccllor of Oxford, oifering to seat. 
 resign his seat for the University, because he believed that his resistance to 
 the Catholic claims had been one of the main grounds upon which the con- 
 fidence of his constituents in him had been founded ; and he could now resist 
 those claims no longer, but, on the contrary, found himself impelled, for the 
 peace of the country, to advise the King to propose a settlement of the ques- 
 tion. What Mr. Canning had foregone, Mr. Peel now resigned, — the honour 
 and the trust which he valued above all others. 
 
 Mr. Peel's resignation was accepted ; and the new election soon took place- 
 There was an intention on the part of the anti-Catholic members of the Uni- 
 versity, to bring forward Lord Encorabe, the grandson of Lord Eldou, wlio 
 consented to the nomination : but it was fomid that Mr. Peel was so strongly 
 supported that it would be necessary to oppose to him a candidate of giaver 
 years and greater weight than the youthful Lord Encombe : and Sir Ivobert 
 H. Inglis was the choice of the University. The contest was eager and close. 
 During the three days that it lasted, 13G4 voters polled; and the majority by 
 which Sir Robert H. Inglis won his seat was only 146. — Mr. Peel was returned 
 for the borough of Westbury, in time to assume the management of the Ca- 
 tholic llelief Bill in the Commons. 
 
 No division took place in either House on the Address in answer to the J;|;'^^'^" "n '^"- 
 Uoyal Speech, which was, as usual now, deUvered by Commission. The 
 King appeared averse to meeting his parliament, or seeing any one else whom 
 he could avoid : and the present occasion was one the least likely to draw hira 
 forth from his retirement, though the sanction of his presence woiild at this 
 time have been especially valuable to his Ministers. The Prime Minister 
 expressed his desire that no discussion of the Catholic Question should take 
 place till the measure should be brought forward ; cxj)laining that the measure 
 would be proposed in a substantial sha])e, without going through a Com- 
 mittee ; that its purport -would be a removal of all the civil disabilities of the 
 
 vol.. I. 3 T
 
 490 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book III. 
 
 1829. Catholics, with a few .special exceptions ; and that it would be accompanied 
 ^-"-—^^ \)y provisions icndcicd necessary by the removal of the disabilities. 
 
 cuTioi'Dn'''"' Before the subject could be entered upon, it was essential to procure the 
 
 SOLVED. dissolution of the Catholic Association. The preceding acts passed for the pur- 
 
 pose had failed; and the difficulty was great of framing a law which could not 
 be evaded as they had been. The present act was limited as to time, being 
 proposed for only one year ; and the penalties were not severe ; but it gave 
 large powers to the Viceroy of Ireland. It was not opposed by the friends of 
 the Catholics, who took it as a jiart of a scries of measures, and were well 
 aware that there would be no need to put it in force. And its powers were 
 never put to the proof ; for the Association dissolved itself before the bill be- 
 came law. The bill was brought forward by Mr. Peel in the Commons on the 
 
 "l"""''^'"-'"- 10th of February; and it passed the Lords on the 24th of the same month. 
 Already, the Association existed no longer ; and the Houses and the country 
 were at liberty to go on with the gi'eat question of all. 
 
 Catholic Relief On the 5th of Marcli, Mr. Peel brought forward the measure for the relief of 
 
 nansard,xx.727. the Catholics. The tables of both Houses had been loaded with petitions for 
 and against the bill, from the first possible day after its announcement. The 
 strength of the anti-Catholic party, as shown in petitions, w^as great ; but in 
 the House of Commons it was not so. The same reasons which had caused 
 the conversion of tlic administration caused that of their adherents generally ; 
 and the power of argument was all on one side. 
 
 7(;o"3''"''^''' '^^^^ ^^'^^ proposed an Oath, in the place of the Oath of Supremacy, by 
 
 which a Catholic entering parliament bound himself to supjjort the existing 
 institutions of the State, and not to injure those of the Church. It admitted 
 Catholics to all corporate offices, and the enjoyment of all municipal advan- 
 tages; and to the administration of civil and criminal justice. The army and 
 navy were open to them before. The only exclusions were from the offices of 
 Regent, of Lord Chancellor of England and Ireland, and of Viceroy of Ireland. 
 From all offices connected with the Church, its Universities and schools, and 
 from all disposal of Church patronage, they were of course excluded. Such 
 were the grants and exclusions. As for the securities and restrictions pro- 
 
 Hnn^iini. XI. ]3osed, tlic most important related to the franchise ; and of these, the chief 
 w^as the substitution of a ten-pound for a forty-shilling qualification, in Ire- 
 land. The government refused to interfere, in one way or another, with the 
 Roman Catholic religion, but were willing to leave it on the footing of dissent, 
 neither projiosing, on the one hand, to endow the clergy, nor, on the other, 
 to pry into its relations with Rome : but the bill forbade the display of the 
 insignia of office in any place of worship but those of the Established Church : 
 the use of episcopal titles and names by Roman Catholic clergy ; the extension 
 of monachism within the empire; and the introduction of more Jesuits than 
 were already in the country (and who were henceforth to be subject to regis- 
 tration). Such were the securities and restrictions. 
 
 Mr. Peel's speech lasted four hours, during which time the House was 
 alternately in a state of profound stillness and echoing with cheers. At times, 
 the cheers were so loiul as to be heard in Westminster Hall. The occasion 
 united in itself two very strong interests, — that which related to the settle, 
 inent of the Catholic Question, and that which regarded the principles and
 
 Chap. VII.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' TEACE. :491 
 
 conduct of the leading statesmen of the time. In hoth directions, the speech 1829. 
 was eminently satisfactory. The Catholic Question might be considered as ^~''' ""^ 
 settled as the exposition of the measure fell from the lips of the speaker : and 
 ill regard to the political character of Mr. I'ecl, — the most important man in Mb. pkel. 
 the country at that time and to this day, — the case was clear to the eyes of 
 the impartial and philosophical observer ; and all subsequent events have been 
 but illustrations of what was that night revealed. Mr. Canning was wont to 
 say that Mr. Peel was liis rightful successor in statesmanship ; and so he has 
 proved himself: but the method of his procedure has been as different from 
 tliat of Canning as the nature of the man. Each has been an inestimable 
 blessing to his coimtiy in a singular and perilous period of transition, — the 
 one in spite of the drawbacks Mhich attend upon all human agency ; the other 
 apparently in consequence of them. Mr. Canning had a glorious apprehension 
 of the principles of freedom, clouded and intercepted by prejudices full of 
 insolence and perverseness. lie toiled and made sacrifices for the relief of 
 the Catholics, and used all the influence of his office and his character for the 
 promotion of political liberty abroad, but he opposed Parliamentary Reform 
 and the relief of the Dissenters. Mr. Peel appears nc\er to have had, in his 
 youth and early manhood, any conception of popular freedom at all. "\Miat 
 he has is the result of a political experience which has emancipated him from 
 the misfortunes of his early political training and connexions. If any man 
 could be said to have been born into a condition of political opinion, it was he. 
 He was born into conservatism, and reared in it, and stationed to watch over 
 and preserve it : and herein lies the misfortune which probably alone has 
 prevented his taking rank as a first-rate statesman. But that which is his 
 personal misfortune has been, in the opinion of many of the wise, the saving 
 of our country from revolution in an age of revolutions. He has been our 
 bridge over the abyss in which the State might, ere this, have been lost. A 
 statesman who, setting out on his course without high and definite aims, finds 
 his principles by the wayside as he proceeds, can never be the highest of his 
 order, however faithful and courageous he may be in the application of the 
 truths which he has appropriated : but, in the absence of the loftiest states- 
 manship which can be conceived of, and which no reasonable nation exjiects 
 at any given time to enjoy, the greatest blessing which can be desired is tliat 
 of a statesman who can understand and guide the time; that guiding — that 
 leading- on— supposing him ahead of the average ^^■isdom of his generation. 
 And this is what Mr. Peel has been to his country from the day of his 
 bringing in the Catholic Kelief Bill. He was not then what lie has since 
 proved himself capable of being : but his explanation on that day showed to 
 sagacious observers precisely what he was, and what he might be expected to 
 become. At that time he was sorry tliat changes on bclialf of liberalism were 
 required. It would have pleased him better to have been able to go on in the 
 old ways which he believed to be safer for rulers, and hajipier for the people, 
 than the new methods which compelled tlieir own adojjtion. But he saw the 
 necessity: he saw that to preserve the peace of society, and to respect the 
 convictions of the majority, was a higher duty than to rule according to his 
 own predilections. It was an irksome and a humiliating duty; luit it was a 
 clear one; and he did it. He had iiiucli to bear from tlie rage and contempt
 
 492 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book III. 
 
 1829. of old connexions, and from the jealonsy and scorn of the Liberals who had 
 — -^— "-— hitherto been his opponents : but these visitations were penalties on his former 
 and lower opinions, — on his previous false position, and not on his new 
 enlightenment. The enlightenment was not yet great : but when once the 
 clouds begin to part, there is no saying how much sunshine may be let down : 
 a rent was made in the educational prejudice which had hitherto canopied his 
 mind; and such rents are never closed. The cry at the time was, about this 
 speech, in the market-places and by firesides, that it was not the speech of a 
 great man; that it assumed a tone no higher than that of reluctant yielding 
 to an irresistible necessity. And this was quite true. Such was the tone of 
 the speech ; and it was this very characteristic wliicli gave hope to the wise 
 that the speaker would become, or would prove himself, a great man here- 
 after. They liked the simple truth of the explanation better than any sudden 
 assumption of a higher gi'ound. There was honesty and heart enough in it to 
 afford an expectation that he would soon attain a higher ground, while there 
 was an assurance that he would not pretend to any other ground than that 
 which he actually held. From that time his expansion and advancement 
 have been very remarkable. His mind and heart have kindled with an 
 enthusiasm of which he was, twenty years ago, supposed unsusceptible : an 
 enthusiasm of popular sympath}', and in favour of a pervasive justice. The 
 union of this liberal sympathy with former habits of political conduct has 
 made him a statesman precisely adapted to his age ; — to serve his country and 
 liis time, though not to reap the immediate rewards of popularity, or adequate 
 gratitude. The mischief of his early false position has followed him through- 
 out, and must ever follow him. Even such services as his, in themselves so 
 unquestionable, have been received, up to the latest period, with a certain 
 degree of mistrust : and this is right ; not because the man deserves it, — for 
 he has long shoMni that he merits, and from the most thoughtful he certainly 
 enjoys, the fullest confidence that can be reposed in any man who has proved 
 himself fallible in his vocation : — but because it is inevitable that a man who 
 has once been in a false position must forego the unhesitating trust which is 
 reposed in a man of equal qualifications, Avho has always recognised, taken, 
 and held his o^vn true position. We have not, however, any other man of 
 equal qualifications. We cannot have one of a more unquestionable disiu- 
 terestedness ; and Mr. Peel stands pronounced, beyond all controversy, the 
 greatest statesman of his age. To him we owe our rescue or exemption from 
 the political calamities which perhaps no one else coidd have averted : and to 
 him we are indebted for so many homely and substantial benefits of good 
 government, and such brilliant renovations of our national resources, that it 
 seems impossible for the national gratitude to overtake his deserts. If he was 
 at first the victim, he has since shown himself the conqueror, of time and cir- 
 cumstance; and, for many years past, it has been clear to the unprejiuliced 
 that all fault-finding with j\Ir. Peel's character and political conduct as a 
 whole, resolves itself into a complaint that he was not made another sort of 
 man than he is. This glance into the future, of whose events we have yet to 
 treat, may be excused by the relation which that future bears to the occasion 
 when Mr. Peel first stood up a reformer on any controverted party question. 
 He was aware at the moment that he stood at the most critical point of his
 
 Chap. VII.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 493 
 
 political life : and after the lapse of twenty eventful years, it is impossible to 1829. 
 say that he exaggerated, in the interest of the hour, its importance to himself, ~-— ^---^ — ' 
 while he was perhaps further than some other people from being aware how 
 serious was its significance in relation to the welfare of his country. 
 
 The state of the question, and the position of the Ministry were briefly 
 presented in the speech. " According to my heart and conscience," said Mr. "^^-jf, ''^• 
 I'ecl, " I believe that the time is come when less danger is to be apprehended 
 to the general interests of the empire, and to the spiritual and temporal wel- 
 fare of the Protestant Establishment, in attempting to adjust the Catholic 
 
 question, than in allowing it to remain any longer in its present state 
 
 Looking back upon the past, surveying the present, and forejudging the pros- 
 pects of the futiu-e, again I declare that the time has at length arrived when 
 
 this question must be adjusted." "I have for years attempted to 
 
 maintain the exclusion of Roman Catholics from parliament and the high 
 offices of the State. I do not think it was an umiatural or rmreasonable 
 struggle. I resign it in consequence of the conviction that it can be no longer 
 advantageously maintained : from believing that there are not adequate mate- 
 rials or sufficient instruments for its effectual and permanent continuance. I 
 yield therefore to a moral necessity which I cannot control, unwilling to push 
 resistance to a point which might endanger the Establishments that I wish to 
 defend." ... " The outline of my argument is this. We are placed in a 
 position in which we cannot remain. AVe cannot continue stationary. There 
 is an evil in divided Cabinets and distracted councils which can be no longer 
 tolerated. . . . Supposing this established, and supposing it conceded that an 
 united government must be formed ; in the next place I say that that govern- 
 ment must choose one of two courses. They must advance or they must recede. 
 They must grant further political privileges to the Roman Catholics, or they 
 must retract those akeady given. They must remove the barriers that obstruct 
 the continued flow of relaxation and indulgence, or they must roll back to its 
 source the mighty current which has been let in upon us, year after year, by 
 the gradual withdrawal of restraint. I am asked what new light has broken 
 in upon me ? wliy I sec a necessity for concession now which was not evident 
 before ?....! detailed, on a former occasion, that a dreadful commotion 
 had distracted the public mind in Ireland — that a feverish agitation and 
 unnatural excitement prevailed, to a degree scarcely credible, throughout the 
 entire country. I attempted to show that social intercourse was poisoned 
 there in its very springs — that family was di%-ided against family, and man against 
 his neighbour — that, in a word, the bonds of social life were almost dissevered — 
 that the fountains of public justice were corrupted — that the spirit of discord 
 walked openly abroad — and that an array of physical force was marshalled in de- 
 fiance of all law, and to the imminent danger of the public peace. I ask, could 
 this state of things be suffered to exist, and what course were we to pursue ? 
 Perhaps I shall be told, as I was on a fonner occasion, in forcible though familiar 
 language, that this is the old story! that all (his has been so for the last twenty 
 years, and that therefore there is no reason for change. AVhy, this is the very 
 reason for a change. It is because the evil is not casual and temporary, but 
 permanent and inveterate, — it is because the detail of misery and outrage is 
 nothing but ' the old story' that I am contented to run the hazards of a change.
 
 491 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book III. 
 
 1829. We cannot detennlne upon remaining idle spectators of the discord and dis- 
 ^■^"^" ' tnrbance of Ireland. Tlic universal voice of the country declares that sonic- 
 thin"' must be done. I am but echoing the sentiments of all reasonable men, 
 when I repeat that something must be done. I Avish however to take nothing 
 for granted, but to found ni}' argument, not upon general assent, but upon 
 unquestionable facts. I ask you to go back to a remoter period than it is 
 generally the habit to embrace in these discussions — I ask you to examine the 
 state of his Majesty's government for the last thirty-five years, and to remark 
 the bearing of the Catholic question iqion that government — the divisions it 
 has created among our statesmen — the distraction it has occasioned among our 
 councils — and the weakness it has consequently produced. I ask you then to 
 observe what has been the course of parliament for the same period. And 
 lastly, what has been the consequence of the divisions in the councils of the 
 King, and of disunion between the two Houses of Parliament — tlie practical 
 consequences as to Ireland." 
 
 The narrative of these divisions is mournful enough, not only in its detail 
 of the consequences to Ireland, but as proving how much evil men will cause 
 and endure rather than surrender their prejudices and the power whicli they 
 hold on the tenure of bigotry. In the time of Lord Liverpool, it appears 
 that the prejudices had become scarcely tenable, and the power of tyranny 
 Hansard, XX. 731. very precarious. In 1825, Mr. Peel declared, " I stated to the Earl of Liver- 
 pool, who was then at the liead of the Administration, that in consequence of 
 the decision given against me in this House, it was my anxious wish to be 
 relieved from office. It was however notified to me that my retirement 
 would occasion the retirement of the Earl of Liverpool : and that such an 
 event woidd at once produce a dissolution of the Administration, the respon- 
 sibility of which would rest with me. . . . Lord Liverpool was then approach- 
 ing the end of his career. I had entered public life under his auspices, and 
 I shrank from the painful task of causing his retirement, and the dissolution 
 of his Majesty's existing government. If I had acted simply in obedience to 
 my own wishes, I would have resigned. I was induced, however, to retain 
 office, and to ascertain the result of another appeal to the country, by a general 
 election. In 1826, there was a new Parliament. In 1827, a majority in tliis 
 House decided against the Catholic question. In 1828, however, the House took 
 a difierent view of the matter, and though it did not pass a bill, it agreed to a 
 resolution favourable to the principle of adjustment. That resolution being- 
 passed, I was again in the situation in which I had been placed in 1825, and 
 I determined to retire from office. I intimated my fixed intention in this 
 respect to the Duke of Wellington ; but I felt it my duty to accompany that 
 intimation with the declaration — not only that I would not, in a private capa- 
 city, any longer obstruct a settlement which appeared to me ultimately inevit- 
 able, but that I would advise and promote it. Circumstances occurred, as I 
 have already explained, under Avhich I was appealed to to remain in office ; 
 under which I was told, that my retirement from office must prevent the 
 adoption of the course which I was disposed to recommend. I resolved, 
 therefore, and without doubt or hesitation, not to abandon ray post, but to 
 take all the personal consequences of originating and enforcing, as a minister, 
 the very measm-e which I had heretofore opposed."
 
 TiiK Dike of 
 Vellinl-ton. 
 
 Chap. VII.J DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 495 
 
 In the other House, the explanations were as characteristic, and almost 1829. 
 as interesting, as in the Commons. The Duke of Wellington apologized 
 at the outset for being about to make a longer speech than their lordships w" 
 were accustomed to hear from him : but he made shorter work of it than 
 any other man would have done. It was in the course of this speech that 
 he uttered the declaration which is, and will continue to be, more remem- 
 bered than any thing else he ever said. " I am one of those," said the 
 great Captain, " who have probably passed a longer period of my life engaged Hansard, xxi. 40. 
 in war than most men, and principally, I may say, in civil war ; and I must 
 say this, — that if I could avoid, by any sacrifice whatever, even one month 
 of civil war in the country to which I am attached, I would sacrifice my life 
 in order to do it." In order to do this now, — in his absolute conviction 
 that Ireland was on the verge of civil war, the hero of a hundred fights 
 laid down ^\hat he cared for much more than his life. HaWng made up 
 his mind to it, he did it well. His measure was thorough : the grace it 
 gave was almost free ; so nearly so, that the Opposition made a great laugh 
 out of the securities and restrictions proposed. He said little in the wav of 
 personal excuse ; and he got the thing done quickly. He would not listen 
 to any plea for a dissolution of parliament, — to any remonstrance about not 
 taking the sense of the country once more. The mass of anti- Catholic 
 petitions showed him what might be the state of turmoil into Avhich the 
 country would be thro^Ti by the question being referred to it : and the 
 existing state of Ireland rendered the times too critical for such an experi- 
 ment. The will of the Commons was plahily enough declared; and that was 
 constitutional Avarrant sufficient for him to proceed upon : and, being resolved 
 to carry the matter through, he granted no delay. The opposition in the 
 Commons was swamped by the union of the liberal and the ministerial mem- 
 bers ; and the majority on the first division was 188 in a House of 508 mem- 
 bers. This was on the motion fin- going into committee, on the 5th of March. 
 On the 10th, the bill was brought in by Mr. Peel, and read a first time. The 
 debate took place on the second reading, which Avas fixed for the ITth: and 
 the majority the next night was ISO in favour of the bill. It issued from the H.<nsard,.\:t 
 committee on the 27th, not one of the many amendments proposed having been 
 earned. There was more debating on the 30th, on occasion of the third 
 reading, when the House did not adjourn till near four o'clock in the morning. Hansard, \x. 
 The majority was 178 in a House of 462. 
 
 On the same evening, the Premier brought forward the bill in the Lords, 
 had it read the first time, and fixed the second reading for two davs after- 
 Avards, in the midst of great clamour about his precipitation. Tlie debate 
 lasted three nights, and issued in a majority of 105 in favour of the bill; the 
 mnnbers being 217 for the second reading, and 112 against it. It was but Hnmani, sxi.3oi. 
 nine months since this same House liad decided by a majority of 45 against 
 entertaining the question at all : — a proof how rapid and threatening had been 
 the march of events in tlic meantime. — As in the Commons, all the amend- 
 ments pro])Oscd were rejected; and on the 10th of April the bill passed, by a CiTHonr nELrcr 
 majority ol 213 to 109. H.insara,xvi.694. 
 
 It was not yet law, hoAvcver ; and there were some wlio did not even now 
 give up all hope that the bill and the administration would perish together.
 
 496 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 [Book III. 
 
 1829. 
 
 England under 
 Scvin AUminis. 
 tratiuiis, vol. i. p. 
 219. 
 
 The KiNfi't 
 
 CILLATION. 
 
 Life of Lord El- 
 don, iii. 82. 
 
 Life of Lord El. 
 duu, iii. U3. 
 
 Of those who had struggled against the measure, Lord Eklon perhaps had 
 toiled the hardest : and he had worked with a stout heart hccausc he believed 
 that he had private reasons for ho])ing that the King would overthrow the 
 policy of his Ministers at the very last. " What a consistent career has Lord 
 Eldoii's been ! " Mrote a contemporary at this date ; " the ever active Principle 
 of Evil in our political world ! In the history of the luiiverse no man has the 
 praise of having effected so much good for his fellow- creatures as Lord Eklon 
 has thwarted." As he thought this " the most dangerous measure that was 
 ever brought before Parliament," and as he believed that it would inevitably 
 occasion the destruction of the Church, the aristocracy, and the monarchy, it 
 was natural that he should use every art of procrastination, and all possible 
 emphasis of M'arning, while the measure was in progi'ess ; and that he should 
 record his protest, comprehending ten grounds of dissent, on the Journals, 
 when all other means of opposition were exhausted : but those who observed 
 him were surprised that he ajipeared to forget his misery at the last. He 
 looked cheerful, and indulged in jocularity : insomuch that Lord Holland, 
 taking up a proverb just quoted by Lord Eldon, said, that in opposition he 
 had " come in like a Hon, and gone out like a lamb." The secret of this was 
 that Lord Eldon had been admitted by the King, and after two very long 
 conversations, was not without hope that the sovereign would (as he called it) 
 do his duty at last, — stand by the C^onstitution, and disappoint the Catholics. 
 We have learned, by the bringing to light of Lord Eldon's private papers, 
 much of what passed in these two interviews : and it is well, for the truth of 
 history, that we know thus much of what the Ministers had to struggle with, 
 in their dealings with a sovereign who, according to this record, was as 
 unscriipulous witli regard to truth, as he was weak and passionate. 
 
 The first interview took place on the 2Sth of March, two days before the 
 Relief Bill left the Commons; and it lasted about four hours. The King 
 seems to have opened by a statement so manifestly untrue, that Lord Eldon, 
 who " refuted this allegation of the King's" in his private memorandum, must 
 have seen how cautiously he ought to receive the complaints of the present 
 jNIinisters which followed. " His INIajesty employed a very considerable por- 
 tion of time in stating all that he rejiresented to have passed when Mr. Can- 
 ning was made Minister, and expressly stated that Mr. Canning would never, 
 and that he had engaged that he would never, allow him to be troubled about 
 the Roman Catholic question. He blamed all the Ministers who had retired 
 upon Canning's appointment ; represented, in substance, that their retirement, 
 and not he, had made Canning minister. He excepted from this blame, in 
 words, myself." This is as foolish as it is clearly false : but his Majesty was 
 not, at this time, affirming " on the word of a king," but indulging in the 
 fretfulness and helpless anger of a child ; in which state men will sometimes, 
 like passionate children, say any thing that their passion suggests. And this 
 helpless being was he whom his IMinisters, weighed down by responsibility, 
 had to call master, and to implicate in their work ! 
 
 " He complained that he had never seen the bills, — that the condition of 
 Ireland had not been taken into consideration, — that the Association Bill had 
 been passed through both Houses before he had seen it, — that it was a very 
 inefficient measme compared to those which he had in vain himself rccom-
 
 Chap. VII.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 497 
 
 mended, — that the other propcsed measures gave him the greatest possible 1829. 
 
 pain and uneasiness, — that he was in the state of a person with a pistol pre- ' ' ' 
 
 sen ted to his breast, — that he had nothing to fall back upon, — that his 
 
 Ministers had threatened (1 think he said twice, at the time of my seeing 
 
 him) to resign, if the measures were not proceeded in, and that he had said 
 
 to them ' Go on,' when he knew not how to relieve himself from the state in 
 
 which he was placed : — and that in one of those meetings, when resignation 
 
 was threatened, he was urged to the sort of consent he gave, by what passed 
 
 in the interview between him and his Ministers, till the interview and the 
 
 talk had brought him into such a state, that he hardly knew what he was 
 
 about when he, after several hours, said 'Go on.' — He then repeatedly 
 
 expressed himself as in a state of the greatest misery, repeatedly saying 
 
 ' What can I do ? I have nothing to fall back upon :' and musing for some 
 
 time, and then again repeating the same expression." 
 
 It is clear that the King had given his jNIinisters his formal sanction to 
 l^roceed, on their presenting the alternative of their resigning. It was mere 
 childishness now to say that he was in such a state that he did not know 
 what he was about : and it is astonishing that he could for a moment think of 
 drawing back, or suppose that Lord Eldou could suggest or sanction such a 
 retractation. This appears to be what he was aiming at throughout these two 
 interviews : but, well as the old Tory would have liked to see the measure 
 destroyed, he could not assume the responsibility of encouraging the King to 
 withdraw his royal word. — The whole demeanour of the King appears to 
 convoy the impression that he thought his Ministers were doing something 
 wilful and wanton in proposing relief to the Catholics. Throughout the two 
 interviews, he speaks as if the Premier and Mr. Peel had taken it into their 
 heads to gratify the Catholics, purely for the pmpose of teazing their sove- 
 reign. He thinks and speaks of no one but liimself ; dwells only on his own 
 annoyance, never even alluding to the state of the Catholics, or of the kingdom 
 at large. 
 
 "After a creat deal of time spent," Lord Eldon's accoimt continues, "in i-ife of r.nrd ei- 
 
 ® . ^ . . don, ill. 84. 
 
 which his Majesty was sometimes silent — apparently uneasy — occasionally 
 stating his distress — the hard usage he had received — his wish to extricate 
 himself — that he knew not what to look to — what to fall back upon — that he 
 was miserable beyond what he could express; — I asked him whether his 
 Majesty, so fretiuently thus expressing himself, meant either to enjoin me, or 
 to forbid me, considering or trying whether any thing could be found or 
 arranged, upon which he could fall back. He said, ' / neither enjoin you to 
 do so, nor forbid you to do so ; but, for God's sake, take care that I ana not 
 exposed to the humiliation of being again placed in such circumstances, that 
 I nuist submit again to pray of my present Ministers that they will remain 
 with me.' He appeared to me to be exceedingly miserable, and intimated 
 that he would see me again." 
 
 Within a fortnight after, on the 9th of April, the day before the Bill passed 
 the Lords, the old Earl went again to the King, with more addresses. The 
 interview lasted three hours ; the first portion of the time being occupied M'ith 
 complaints and expressions of misery uttered in almost the same words as 
 before. \i length Lord Eldon spoke, and courageously. He reports 
 
 VOL. T. 3 I
 
 498 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book III. 
 
 1829 " I told him that his late Majesty, when he did not mean that a measure 
 
 ^— — ^— — ' i)roposcd to him should pass, expressed his detennination in the most early 
 
 stage of the business : — if it seemed to himself necessary to dissent, he asked 
 
 no advice about dismissing his Ministers. He made that his own act — he 
 
 trusted to what he had to hope for from his subjects, who could not 
 
 leave him unsupported ; — that, on the other hand, there could not but be great 
 difficulties in finding persons willing to embark in office, when matters had 
 proceeded to the extent to which the present measure had been carried, — as 
 was supposed, and had been reprcsentad — after full explanation vf them to his 
 Majesty, — and he had so far assented. — This led to his mentioning again 
 what he had to say as to his assent. In the fomier interview it had been 
 represented that, after much conversation twice with his Ministers, or such as 
 had come down, he had said ' Go on,' — and upon the latter of those two occa- 
 sions, after many hours' fatigue, and exhausted by the fatigue of conversation, 
 he had said ' Go on.' He now produced two papers, which he represented as 
 copies of what he had written to them, in ichich he assents to their proceeding 
 and going on ivith the hill, adding certainly in each, as he read them, very 
 strong expressions of the pain and misery the proceedings gave him. It struck 
 me at the time, that I should, if I had been in office, have felt considerable 
 difficulty about going on after reading such expressions ; but whatever might 
 be fair observation as to giving, or not, effect to those expressions, I told his 
 3IaJcsty it ivas impossible to maintain that his assent had not been expressed, 
 or to cure the evils which were consequential, after the bill, in such circum- 
 stances, had been read a second time, and in the Lords' House with a ma- 
 jority of 105. This led him to much conversation on that fact, that he had, 
 he said, been deserted by an aristocracy that had supported his fatlier — that, 
 instead of 45 against the measure, there were t^vice that number of Peers for 
 it — that every thing was revolutionary — every thing was tending to revolu- 
 tion, — and the Peers and the aristocracy were giving way to it. They (he 
 said more than once or twice more) supported his father ; but see what they 
 had done to him. I took the liberty to say that I agreed that matters were 
 
 tending rapidly to revolution But I thought it only just to some of 
 
 tlie Peers who voted for the Bill to suppose that they had been led, or misled, 
 to believe that his Majesty had agreed and consented to it.— He then began 
 to talk about the Coronation Oath." — It was rather late to be taking that 
 matter to heart, after all the years that had passed, during which he had let 
 it be iniderstood that he should not, in the matter of the Oath, follow the 
 example of his father and the Duke of York. When this point was discussed, 
 and it was settled that every man must do as he thinks right in taldng any 
 oath, without making any one else responsible, 
 
 "Little more passed — except occasional bursts of expression — * AVhat can 
 I do ? What can I now fall back upon ? What can I fall back ujjon ? I am 
 miserable, wretched, my situation is dreadful ; nobody about me to advise 
 with. If I do give my assent, I '11 go to the baths abroad, and from thence 
 to Hanover : I '11 return no more to England — I '11 make no Roman Catholic 
 Peers — I will not do what this Bill will enable me to do — I '11 return no 
 more — let them get a Catholic King in Clarence.' I think he also mentioned 
 Sussex. ' The people will see that I did not wish this.' — There were the
 
 Chap. YII.] DURING TPIE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 49y 
 
 strongest apiicarances certainly of misery. lie, more than once, stopped my 1829. 
 leaving him. When the time came that I was to go, he threw his arms round ■^-^^^- — -^ 
 my neck, and expressed great misery." 
 
 Though Lord Eldon told the King that it was impossible to draw back, he 
 certainly entertained hopes that refusal, or at least delay, might yet be 
 expected. He says, " I certainly thought, when I left him, that he would 
 express great difficulty when the bill was proposed for the royal assent (great, 
 but which would be overcome) about giving it. I fear that it seemed to be 
 given as matter of course." It was with great horror that the old Earl heard 
 the conclusion of the business. " (April 14th, 1829.) The fatal bills received cathoiic reue 
 the royal assent yesterday afternoon. After all I had heard in my visits, not '-i"-. 
 a day's delay ! God bless us, and His Church !" i™! iu.^s''?.^' 
 
 What else could the helpless sovereign do, when even his friend, the late 
 Chancellor, told him that he could not draw back ? Delay could have done 
 no good, and might have cost him dear. The only thing he coidd now do was 
 to exhibit his temper towards his ]Ministers, and all friends of the Catholics. 
 He particularly requested the attendance of Lord Eldon at his next levee ; and 
 he distinguished him by attentions which contrasted strongly with his coldness 
 towards those who were "in the high places of office." This gracious recep- 
 tion, however, did not make Lord Eldon quite happy. " I was gi'ieved," he 
 says, " that my visit was a visit of duty to a sovereign whose supremacy is 
 shared by that Italian priest, as Shakspere calls the pope. But I heard that 
 he much wished it, and I understood that it would be a relief if I would go. 
 
 He is certainly very wretched about the late business. It is a pity 
 
 he has not the comfort of being free from blame himself." The King's 
 manner was observed, as he intended it should bo. Two days afterwards. 
 Lord Eldon writes, " The universal talk here is about the manner in which i-'"'"' "f ^-"'^ ^i. 
 
 1T^* 11 '11 rirf-tiT dun, iii. 88. 
 
 the King, at the levee, received the voters tor the Catholics — most uncivilly — 
 markedly so towards the Lords Spiritual, the Bishops who so voted, — and the 
 civility with which he received the anti-Catholic voters, particularly the 
 Bishops. It seems to be very general talk now, that his ministers went much 
 beyond what they should have said in parliament, as to his consent to the 
 measure. Consent, however, he certainly did ; but ■n-ith a language of re- 
 luctance, pain, and misery, which, if it had been represented, would have 
 prevented a great deal of tliat ratting which carried the measure." 
 
 Such was the monarch in whose name the JNlinisters were compelled to act, 
 and such the temper and conduct they had to bear with from him. Such was 
 " the first gentleman in England," — casting himself on the neck of his old 
 adviser, bemoaning himself like a child, and indulging himself in persecuting 
 the peers for their opinions, after having, by his message, demanded their 
 opinions on Catholic Relief, and led the way. His gentlcmanlincss might be 
 very striking to those who were in his presence : but it is not very conceivable 
 to us now when we find it did not preserve him from agitation and passion, 
 from sucli dcs])otism as he could use, and from extreme personal rudeness.- 
 We hardly know which to wonder at most, — his rebellion against a necessity 
 of which he could not have been ignorant, or his reputation for good 
 manners. 
 
 Im^n FonTv- 
 
 On looking back to this time, uothinir is more suri)rising tlian the (luiclncss '*""•"''" '"«'»-
 
 500 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book III. 
 
 1829. with which tlic disfranchisement of the forty-shilling freeholders took place. 
 There were some few who saw and exposed the badness of the proceeding ; but 
 they Averc very few : and the very men who ought to have understood and 
 been faithful to the principle of the case, — the very men who, in the same 
 session, spoke and voted for Parliamentary Reform, helped to extinguish the 
 political liberties of " the Forties." Mr. Brougham regarded it as " the 
 almost extravagant price of the inestimable good" which would arise from 
 Catholic Emancipation. Sir J. Mackintosh declared it a tough morsel which 
 he had found it hard to swallow. Lord Duncannon, Lord Palmcrston, and 
 Mr. Huskisson, tried another method. They did what argimient could do to 
 obtain the inestimable good without paying the extravagant price which they 
 did not conceive to be necessary. If they had been duly supported by all the 
 friends of parliamentary reform, there is little doubt that the relief of the 
 Catholics might have been obtained without the sacrifice of so vast an fimount 
 of political lights. But among the silent and idle was O'Connell, who threw 
 overboard his beloved " Forties," after pledging his life to destruction, and his 
 soul to perdition, if he ever again slighted their liberties ; and in a case where 
 O'Connell so failed, we have little power of censure to spare for meaner 
 offenders. 
 
 The two sides of the case were stated to be these. The Irish landlords had 
 split up their estates into small properties for their own political purposes ; 
 and the long trains of adherents had followed their great man to the polling- 
 booth, as obediently as sheep go to the water, till the recent period when the 
 Forties were secured by O'Connell and the priests on behalf of the Catholic 
 cause. The landlords would now have been glad to be able to undo their 
 work, to consolidate these small properties, and get rid of the Forties. But 
 this was a work which can never be undone. No earthquake came to swallow 
 up the Forties : no volcano overflowed to fuse their little properties into one. 
 The landlords therefore desired tliat the men whom they had made freeholders 
 should be disfranchised. They pleaded, and truly, that these multitudes were 
 led by the priests, and that their numbers were so gi-eat as to swamp all the 
 rest of the county constituency ; so that the representation of the Irish counties 
 would be wholly in the hands of the Catholic leaders. The wish of many 
 landlords was that the franchise should be restricted within a twenty pound 
 qualification : but the government would not hear of any thing higher than a 
 ten pound franchise. 
 
 The pleas on the other side were of the iniquity of playing fast and loose 
 in this manner with political liberties, and of treating a merely inconvenient 
 constituency in the same manner as a corrupt one. No corruption, no moral 
 disqualification, was alleged against the Forties. They had at first been under 
 the influence of the Protestant landlords, and they were now under that of 
 the Catholic priests : but every principle of political morality taught that the 
 true remedy for such dependence was, not in retrogression, but in jjromoting 
 the freedom and enlightenment of the class so easily led. There was irre- 
 parable mischief in visiting with the same penalties the superstitious voters 
 who were led by their priests, and the corrupt who were bought with gold. 
 As for considerations of expediency, the worst dangers, the only appreciable 
 dangers arising from this large constituency, would be over when the Catholic
 
 Chap. VII-l DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 501 
 
 Relief Bill was passed. Formidable as the action of this constituency might 1829. 
 
 be when directed towards objects not yet legalized, it covdd no longer be •"— — ' 
 
 mischievous when Catholics had free entrance into parliament. If every 
 county in Ireland should send Catholic members to parliament, where was the 
 evil ! It could only happen through the real preponderance of Catholics in 
 the constituency, and would afford a fair representation, while the Catholic 
 clement in the legislature would still be small in the presence of the Protest- 
 antism of the rest of the empire. It ought not to be forgotten, too, by the 
 friends of the Catholics that their relief had been obtained by this very con- 
 stituency whom it was now proposed to disfranchise. Those friends of the 
 Catholics were bound by every obligation of principle and feeling to resist 
 such a demolition of political rights as was proposed in return for action so 
 beneficial. But, admitting these things in the main, and scarcely attempting 
 to excuse themselves, almost all the friends of the Catholics voted for the dis- 
 franchisement of the Forties. The bill for that object accompanied the 
 Catholic Relief Bill through both Houses, and received the roy.il assent at the 
 same time. In each House only seventeen voted in favour of the rights of the 
 Forties, while the majority in favour of their disfranchisement was 122 in the 
 Lords, and 20G in the Commons. Among the voters wo do not find the names Hansard, xx.isds, 
 of Mr. Huskisson, and some others who spoke against the Disfranchisement 
 Bill. They contented themselves with stating the grounds of their disappro- 
 bation, and then stultified their speeches by voting with the government or 
 not at all. The quietness with which the decision of parliament was received 
 in Ireland, was a remarkable evidence of the importance of the great measure 
 of relief. Every one was engrossed with that. The Association sat no longer, 
 and could not therefore remonstrate. O'Connell strove to turn away attention 
 from the ii\Tongs of the Forties whom he had deserted, and to occupy all minds 
 with the gi^eat boon just obtained, and the spectacle of his attempt to take 
 his seat. No one could have believed beforehand that so sweeping a disfran- 
 chisement of any class in society could have taken place with so little remon- 
 strance or threat of retribution. 
 
 It was thought by many persons that the digniity of the Catholic Relief Bill C"ki; elechun. 
 was lowered by its containing a clause evidently intended to exclude Mr. 
 O'Connell from parliament till he should have been re-elected. There was, 
 l)erhaps, a strong temptation to show him up to his followers, to whom he had 
 pledged his reputation as a lawyer that he could sit in parliament witliout 
 taking the oaths. The point might have been regarded as still disputable if 
 Mr. O'Connell had been allowed to take his seat, in any manner, without 
 being re-elected ; and therefore the admission to parliament, by means of the 
 new oath, was limited to the case of "any person professing the Roman 
 Catholic religion, who shall after the commencement of this act be returned 
 as a Member of the House of Commons." The matter was easily settled by '^n™"' "•'f'''"^- 
 
 . "^ 'S-il. P- 104. 
 
 this clause ; but there were many who thought it a pity that justice should 
 stoop from her height to humble and annoy an individual who was virtually 
 triumphant. The discussion occasioned by Mr. O'Connell's claiming his seat 
 without a new election was considered by the country an extraordinary spec- 
 tacle ; and not a little astonislinicMt nas expressed at tiic diffRully wiiich llir
 
 502 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 [Book III. 
 
 Hansard, xxi. 
 1379. 
 
 1829. House seemed to find in settling- the bearings of a law just passed by 
 themselves. 
 
 Mr. O'Connell, supported by Lords Ebrington and Duncannon, presented 
 himself to be sworn at the table of the House of Commons^ on the 15th 
 of May. He was not, after all, the first Catholic member who so pre- 
 sented himself; for Lord Surrey, the son of the Duke of Norfolk, had been 
 elected for Horsham during the Easter recess, and had taken his seat : but 
 the strongest interest naturally attached to the appearance of Mr. O'Connell. 
 The clerk offered the oath which had been repealed by the late Act : and Mr. 
 O'Connell objected to it, on the ground that it was no longer in force, its 
 repeal being distinctly declared in the new Act. The clerk communicated the 
 objection to the Speaker, who had, of course, made up his mind what to do and 
 say. He addressed the House, declaring his opinion that the election having 
 taken place under the old law, the oaths imposed by the old law must be 
 taken, to entitle any member to sit in that House. The House might be 
 appealed to by petition fi'om without, or by the question being raised within 
 itself Meantime, Mr. O'Connell must withdraw. As soon as Mr. O'Connell 
 had withdra^^ai, Mr. Brougham moved that he should be recalled, in order 
 to be heard in regard to his claim. Every one was aware that he must be 
 heard. As it required some consideration whether he should be heard at the 
 table or at the bar, the debate was adjourned from the present Friday to 
 Monday the 18th. On that day, Mr. O'Connell spoke at length at the bar, 
 and astonished some of his hearers as much by the gentlemanly moderation of 
 his tone and manner as by the strength of his pleas. When he finished, 
 opinion was very much divided as to his construction of his case ; and some 
 proposed that, as there appeared even to the lawyers to be doubt, Mr. 
 O'Connell should have the benefit of the doubt, and be at once admitted on 
 taking the new oath. There would, however, have been no real kindness to 
 him and his constituents in so admitting him as to leave room for any 
 question as to the legality of liis position : and the true reason for the pro- 
 positi probably was, the desire to avoid the excitement of a new Clare election 
 at that time. The Solicitor-General having moved that Mr. O'Connell was 
 not entitled to sit without first taking the Oath of Supremacy, the question 
 was pressed to a division, when the numbers were 190 to 116 in favour of 
 Mr. O'Connell's exclusion. 
 
 When ]Mr. O'Connell appeared at the bar, the next day, to hear the decision 
 of the House, he was asked whether he was ready to take the Oath of Supre- 
 macy. He requested permission to look at the Oath ; and, after considering 
 Annual Register, it for a short time, observed, " I see, in this Oath, one assertion as to a matter 
 of fact which I know is not true ; and I see in it another assertion, as to a 
 matter of opinion, which I believe is not true. I therefore refuse to take this 
 Oath." — Then ensued some discussion as to whether a writ should be issued 
 for a new election, or an Act be passed for the relief of Mr. O'Connell, in 
 order to avoid the excitement of a new election : but the issue of the writ was 
 agreed to without a division. 
 
 Mr. O'Connell was elected without opposition : but not for this Mas the 
 language of his addresses and speeches the less violent and outrageous. He 
 
 Hansard, xxi. 
 1158. 
 
 I82'.l, p. 114.
 
 Chap. VII.J DURING TUE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 503 
 
 left not a moment's doubt in the mind of any one of his intention to keep up 1829. 
 
 agitation in Irehmd, by means as indefensible in themselves as ever, while ~~-^ ' 
 
 they had no longer the excuse of being the resort of a man under persecution. 
 The atrocity of his language in regard to all English statesmen is scarcely 
 credible now, even when the speeches themselves are before our eyes : and 
 this incendiarism of course appears worse after his having sho^vn how mild 
 and moderate he could appear away fi'om home, and among persons too 
 enlightened to be animated by violent language. He pledged himself to 
 obtain the repeal of every thing objectionable in the new Act, — the disfran- 
 cliisemcnt of the Forties, and the checks upon the increase of monachism in 
 Ireland. He promised every thing the Irish would like to have, if the county 
 of Clare would return him now : and among other things, the Repeal of the 
 Union. From this time the cry of Repeal was Mr. O'Coimell's tool for cul- 
 tivating the agitation by which, in regard to mind, fame, and fortune, he 
 lived. From this time he was dishonoured in the eyes of all upright men. 
 Up to this time he had had a good cause, and was truly the hero of it. There 
 was many another good cause yet to be advocated for Ireland, of which he 
 might have been the hero, — of which he must have been the hero, if he had 
 had in liim any thing of the heroic element. But from this time, his true 
 glory was extinguished. He rose in influence, power, and notoriety, to an 
 eminence such as no other individual citizen has attained in modern times in 
 our country : but the higher he rose in these respects, the deejier he sank in 
 the esteem of those whose esteem, is essential to the establishment of true 
 fame. Up to this time, he might be a patriot, though liis methods Avere too 
 much those of a demagogue : up to this time, he had a clear, definite, and 
 virtuous aim before him, and he followed it to the point of success : but 
 henceforward he professed aims which were not only unreal, but which ho 
 evidently did not expect that rational people could suppose to be real. Hence- 
 forward there was no more stabiUty, no more of the dignity which is involved 
 in a noble cause : — he made men fear him, court him, groan under him, 
 admire him, and (as regards the ignorant lower class of Irish) adore him : 
 but from this moment, no man respected him. After his addresses at the 
 second Clare election, there could be no more mistake about O'Connell. 
 
 The Catholic Association assembled again, under the name of an " Aggi'e- 
 gate Meeting" of the Catholics, to promote the re-election of Mr. O'Connell. 
 The Rent was still in existence, — a large balance of its funds being in the 
 hands of the treasurers, and disposable only at the bidding of the body which 
 had collected it. Five thousand poimds of this money were voted towards the 
 expenses of the new elections. On the 30th of July, Mr. O'Coiniell was fg^JJ'j'. JJ/sf "• 
 returned without oppositiou, nearly a month after parliament had risen ; so 
 that he did not take liis seat till the opening of the next session — February, 
 1830. 
 
 Here then we have witnessed the close of one of the most important contro- rnosrEcrs op 
 
 , . , .... i . .^ UbLANB. 
 
 versies which ever agitated society, in any age or country. In significance 
 it perhaps yields to no social controversy whatever : — in importance it must 
 of course yield to some few great organic questions which concern essential 
 principles of govcniment. It must be considered as of less importance, for 
 instance, in a large view, than the question of Reform of Parliament. But it
 
 504 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book III. 
 
 1829. ^^'^s praotically, and on a near view, of more pressing urgency than any other, 
 or than all others put together : and under the pressure of this urgency, men 
 generally judged amiss of the issues, — as men are -wont to do in circumstances 
 so critical. The No-Popery terrorists -were scarcely more mistaken in their 
 anticipations of ■vvoe and destruction from the emancipation of the Catholics 
 than the liberal politicians of the time were in their expectations of the con- 
 tentment and tranquillity which were to ensue in Ireland. The last reason- 
 ably laughed at the hobgoblin images of the Pope and the Jesuits which tlie 
 London Tories and Irisli Orangemen conjured up, to frighten themselves and 
 every body else whom they could alarm: they reasonably insisted on the 
 impossibility of doing any thing for Ireland till this measure of relief should 
 be granted : but they unreasonably went further in their expectations, and 
 concluded that the tranquillity of Ireland would follow from the measure of 
 relief. Mr. O'Connell had said that it would; but all who looked at the 
 aspect of aifaii-s for themselves, setting at nought the word of Mr. O'Connell 
 as it deserved, saw that Mr. O'Connell never meant that Ireland should be 
 tranquillized ; and that if he had wished for her tranquillization ever so 
 earnestly, he could not have effected it. A sudden change in the law could 
 not make a permanent change in the temper of a nation; — even of a nation 
 which knew how to reverence law. But by the Irish, the function and the 
 value of law had never been understood ; and it was now jNIr. O'Connell's 
 daily and nightly care that the people should not bo the better disposed 
 towards the law for its having become favourable to them. In his popular 
 addresses at this time, we find the pervading thought and purpose to be 
 inducing the people to distrust and despise legislation. He told them that 
 he had got the new law for them, and could get as much more as he liked ; 
 and he represented the whole administration of law and justice in Ireland as 
 purposely hostile to them, and to be regarded only for the sake of safety, — 
 whether in the form of obedience or evasion. He advocated, both by precept 
 and example, a wholly empirical method of political and social existence, 
 instead of using his eiforts to bring society into a tranquil organic state. 
 Accordingly, the Relief measure appeared to produce no effect whatever upon 
 the temper and troubles of Ireland. A multitude of Catholics found them- 
 selves deprived of the fi'anchise : and landlords, Protestant and Catholic, 
 found the value of their property much diminished by the operation of the 
 same provision. The Orangemen became more furious and bigoted through 
 fear and jealousy of their triumphant neighbours : and those triumphant neigh- 
 bours were urged on by their leaders to insufferable insolence towards the 
 government and sister-nation which had granted them relief no longer pos- 
 sible to be withheld. The list of Irish outrages, the pictures of Irish crime 
 which follow, in the registers of the time, the record of Catholic Emancipation 
 are very painful : but they show, not that there was any thing -nTOng in the 
 procedure of relief, but that it had been too long delayed. There could not 
 have been stronger evidence that a less generous measure Avoidd have done no 
 good and ihvich mischief. — As it was, there was no room for regret that the 
 right thing had been done at last, and done in the freest and amplest spirit 
 and manner. If there was any cause for regret, it was that it had not been 
 done long before : and also that even its promoters shoidd so little understand
 
 Chap. VII.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 505 
 
 tlie operation of t)'iannical restrictions as to believe that tlieir effects would 1829. 
 cease with their existence. Injury may be forgiven, and even forgotten : — 
 insult may be forgiven, though perhaps never forgotten : — but the temper and 
 character generated under insult and injury cannot, by any process, be 
 changed at once into a healthful condition of trustfulness, integrity, and good- 
 humour. The emancipators of the Catholics therefore had to put up with a 
 different fate from that which had been predicted for them by the true patriots 
 and best political prophets who had anticipated a brighter coming time for 
 Ireland. They had not grateful Ireland at their feet, relieved fi-om the raging 
 demon, — calm, clothed, and right in mind: but, on the contrary, it could 
 scarcely be seen whether or no the demon was really cast out. There was no 
 gi'atitudc, no peace, no trust, no inclination to alliance for gi'cat common 
 objects. But then, on the other hand, there was infinite relief in the sense of 
 the removal of wrong, in safety from revolution and civil war ; in conscious- 
 ness that the way was now clear for the regeneration of Ireland ; — clear as far 
 as the political conscience of England was concerned. Ireland was not, under 
 her new emancipation, what her Grattans and Plunkets had expected ; nor 
 what the Camiings and Broughams and Welhngtons and Peels had lioped to 
 see her: but it was enough for support that the right act was done, and that 
 the grand obstiniction of all was removed, though so many more Averc found 
 to exist that, after a lapse of twenty years, we see no end to them yet. 
 
 vol,. 1. 3 X
 
 50r> HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book III. 
 
 CHArTER VIII. 
 
 1829. rpiIE Catholic Question was so engrossing to tlio mind of tlie wliole nation, 
 ^"^^"^ ' J- that the records of tlic year present few notices of otlier subjects. In 
 connexion witli it, however, some incidents occurred which are worthy of 
 note. 
 
 cathouc Peers. Whcn the Housc of Lords assembled after the Easter holidays, on tlie 28t]i 
 of April, there was an unusually full attendance, and many ladies were 
 present, in expectation of a very interesting spectacle. On tlic entrance of a 
 group of persons who f)roceeded to the table, there was a profound silence ; 
 amidst wliich, three Catholic peers, — the Duke of Norfolk, Lord Clifford, and 
 
 is'™''chraf.'K2.'' Lord Dormer, — took the oaths. They liad obtained entrance at last to the 
 legislative assembly where their fathers sat and ruled when their faith was 
 that of the whole land. In those days, the cathedrals were theirs, and the 
 Universities, and the crown, and the legislature ; — all the " thrones, domina- 
 tions, princedoms, virtues, powers," of the civilized world ; and now, here was 
 a little remnant of tlie old Catholic peerage re-entering upon the fimction of 
 government under a sad reduction of pomp and circumstance. To the 
 student of history and the antiquarian, the spectacle was one of deep and 
 sonie\vhat melancholy interest ; but the more ignorant among the jiossessors 
 of power looked upon these peers of ancient lineage as a sort of intruders, — as 
 the newest order of upstarts, whose admission vulgarized their Protestant 
 legislature, while endangering its Protestantism. Here, however, was the 
 hereditary Earl Marshal of England present once more as a Peer of Parlia- 
 ment : and he and his companions were soon after joined by more of their 
 own faith. On the 1st of May, Lords Stafford, Petre, and Stourton, took the 
 oaths and their seats. Soon after, Lord Eldon paid a visit to two melancholy 
 Duchesses, who showed him their vast collections of Protestant speeches, pro- 
 testations, and pledges, — " some in gold letters," which, in better days, the 
 ladies had taken for an ample security that no C'atliolic would ever sit as a 
 legislator: but their sympathizing old friend told them they might now tlirow 
 all those valued securities into the fire. One of these ladies was the wife of 
 " the young Duke of Richmond, who did very well in all he said during the 
 debates" against the admission of the Catholics, and in opposition to tlie 
 IMinistry. Though lie failed in his object, he ■^^ as not without his reward for 
 
 Life nf Lord El. liis oppositioii. " I licai," wiitcs Lord Eldon, " tliat he is a great favoinite 
 v.ith the King, which seems not to be the fortune, be it good or bad, at this 
 moment, of those addicted to his ^linisters." 
 
 ciiA.vGEs IN TriE jn the same cause. Sir Charles "Wetherell, the Attorney General, had made 
 sacrifices. The Administration had hoped that he ■would at least have kept 
 silence on their great measure, though he had refused to prepare the bill : but 
 he held it dishonest to keep silence, threw his whole powers into opposition.
 
 Chap. VIII.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 
 
 507 
 
 iind of course was immediately dismissed from his office, in which he was sue- 18'29. 
 ceeded by 8ir James Scarlett, who had been Attorney General under Mr. --^^^- — ' 
 Canning. Another change was occasioned by the retirement of the Lord 
 High Admiral, the Duke of Clarence, who was thought by the straight-for- 
 ward and simple-mannered Premier to have mixed up too much of the popu- 
 larity-seeking of the Heir Presumptive with the business of his office. There 
 had been a vast deal of jaunting and cruising about, presenting of colours, 
 preparation of shows on sea and land, which appeared to the Duke of "Welling- 
 ton to be more expensive and foolish than in any way serviceable ; and it is 
 believed that the retirement of the Lord High Admiral was caused by a plain 
 expression of the Premier's opinion on this matter. It is said that on a long 
 account for travelling expenses being sent in to the Treasury by the Lord 
 High Admiral, the Duke of Wellington endorsed the paper, " No travelling 
 expenses allowed to the Lord High Admiral," and dismissed it. The health 
 of the Duke of Clarence was unsatisfoctory at this time ; — enough so to justify 
 liis retirement without other cause. His office merged again into that of 
 First Lord of the Admiralty, which was held by Lord jNIelville, who was suc- 
 ceeded at the Board of Control by Lord EUenborough. It was believed at the 
 time that the Ministers would have liked to offer the Privy Seal to Lord Grey, 
 but that the King could not be asked to approve of it. Lord Grey's time was 
 approaching ; but it was not quite yet. Meantime, the Ministers " took Lord ^.^^ ^^ j^^_, ^^ 
 Kosslyn, as another Whig." "»»■ "'• "■^■ 
 
 While waiting for Lord Grey, liowever, the subject of ParUamcntary f^J^;*^^;-^"""" 
 Iveform was not dropped. It was brought forward on the 2nd of .Tunc in an 
 extraordinary manner. The Marquess of Blandtbrd declared himself unhappy 
 in the thought that the " borough-market " was now so thrown open to Ca- 
 tholics, as that there was no longer any security for the liberties of English- 
 men, or for the prosperity of their manufactures and commerce. Such an 
 influx of Catholics into parliament might be secured by the purchase of 
 boroughs as that the voice of the nation might be silenced, and Protestantism 
 extinguished. The mover brought forward two resolutions, — one declaring 
 that there existed boroughs and small constituencies which might be bought 
 for money; and the other, that the continuance of such boroughs, and of such 
 practices in them, was disgraceful and injurious in every way. The llesolu- 
 tious were negatived by a majority of 74 in a House of 184. The debate, and 
 the ocevnrcnce which excited it, occasioned great amusement to the liberal 
 party in the House ; and Ur. William Smitli observed, that " one effect, he |iS';*-"<'' "i- 
 was happy to find, had been produced by the Roman Catholic Relief Bill — 
 an effect which its best friends had not anticipated: it appeared to have trans- 
 fonncd a nmnber of the highest Tories in the land to something very nearly 
 resembling radical reformers." 
 
 A few days before the Relief Bill went up to tlic Lords, the whole country n^'^'- 
 was electrified by the news that the Prime Minister had fought a duel on 
 account of the bill, or rather on the implication of his honour in the bill. 
 These were days wlien foolish men were niore foolish, and hasty men more 
 hasty than usual: and a very foohsh and hasty cliarge against the Duke of 
 Wellington, of designs to overthrow the Church and Constitution under false 
 pretences, was put forth in the newspajjcrs, in a letter from Lord Wincliilsea
 
 508 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book III. 
 
 1829. to the Secretary of the Committee for establishing King's College, London. 
 ■ ^ ^ It is generally agreed that gentlemen must judge for themselves about the 
 
 i»""j^atwa!l»J' requisitions of their honour : but it certainly appeared to the great majority of 
 the nation rather amusing that the Duke of Wellington should think it any 
 more necessary to vindicate himself against a clumsy charge of secret conspi- 
 racy against the constitution, than to show his courage by fighting a duel. A 
 graver qiiestion was whether it could be justifiable in the head of the govern- 
 ment to risk his life, at a juncture so extraordinary, in a personal qnarrel. 
 The Duke gives his own view in the letter to Lord Winchilsea which contains 
 his challenge. Every effort had been used to induce the Earl to make repara- 
 tion for his calumnious expressions, which he refused to do, imless the Duke 
 would explain how long he had entertained his present political views ; — a 
 requisition wholly absiird on the face of it. " The question for me now to 
 decide is this," the Duke wrote on the 20th of March. " Is a gentleman who 
 happens to be the King's Minister to submit to be insulted by any gentleman 
 who thinks proper to attribute to him disgraceful or criminal motives for his 
 conduct as an individual? I cannot doubt of the decision which I ought to 
 make on this question. Your lordship is alone responsible for the conse- 
 quences." The Earl did not choose to be responsible for the death of the 
 Prime Minister of England, at a most critical time in the history of the conn- 
 try : and perhaps he was conscious of wrong. After receiving the Duke's fire 
 uninjured, he fired in the air : and then pennitted his second to deliver to 
 the second of the Duke of Wellington a declaration of regret and retractation, 
 which he caused to be published in the newspapers. It was an absurd affair ; 
 but it might have cost the nation dear. 
 
 Silk Duties. fjjjg distrcss amoug tlic silk-wcavcrs being extreme this year, an attempt 
 
 was made in parliament to procure a reversal of the free-trade policy of Mr. 
 
 iiansard, xxi. Huskisson. It was so plainly shown, however, that, whatever the distress 
 might have been in any case, it was aggravated to excess by the ignorance 
 and violence of the unhappy operatives, that the agitation of the subject pro- 
 duced an issue the reverse of that which had been hoped. It was shown that 
 at Coventry the handloom weavers were thrown out of work by the introduc- 
 tion of machinery, which, instead of learning to use, they attempted to destroy. 
 The London silk weavers struck for wages which could not be obtained, and 
 destroyed by night the webs and material of workmen who would not join the 
 strike. To revert to the old restrictive policy could be no remedy for evils 
 like these. Instead of this, the duties on raw silk were again lowered, amidst 
 prophecies of ruin within the House, and outside, — in Bethnal-green and 
 Spitalfields, — scenes of fierce riot which Mr. Peel declared that he knew to 
 be intended to intimidate the House from lowering the duties. 
 
 The Bi.nGEi . Tij,. Budgot occupicd Httlc time and attention this session. The report of 
 
 the Chancellor of the Excheqvier Avas, on the whole, favourable : but the sur- 
 plus was not greater than was required to be set apart for the reduction of the 
 National Debt ; and there was therefore no diminution of taxation. 
 
 Game Laws. A bill passcd thc Commons this session for legalizing the sale of game. It came 
 
 up to the Lords supported by thc unanimous suffrage of the Lower House. Lord 
 Wharnclifte set before the peers snch an array of facts in regard to the corrupt- 
 ing and disorganizing cfibcis of the Game Laws as must, one would have
 
 Chap. VIII.J DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 509 
 
 thought, have procured an unanimous vote for their modification or repeal 1829. 
 from any body of men whatever. But Lord Westmorehand soon showed that " " 
 there was to he an opposition. He declared that the bill " would depopulate JIm!"'^'""" 
 the country of gentlemen." This sounded very fearfvd ; for the worst that had 
 been apprehended hitherto Avas that even the total repeal of the Game Laws 
 " woidd depopulate the country of" hares and pheasants. His lordship " was 
 sure that the friends of liberty in the other House must have been asleep 
 when this bill passed." And now Lord Eldon seems to have thought that the 
 friends of liberty, — that is, of aristocratic sports, — Mere napping in a little too 
 much security in the Lords' House. He speaks of his own opposition to the 
 measure, and says, " The Prime Minister opposed this bill also, and we old don'; Hi. a/ 
 Tories thought ourselves safe in our views of defeating it ; but many of the old 
 Tories, being very much out of humour, would not buckle to, and the Whigs, 
 the old Opposition, all sticking together, and I suppose courting popularity with 
 the lower orders by their vote, let the Duke have something like a proof that they 
 were mightier than he ; and so he was in a minority." Tlie bill was read 
 a second time by a majority of 10; but the Peers took more care of their 
 " liberty" next time ; and the majority — of two — was on the other side. The 
 jail must still be crowded with peasants sent to that school of crime for catching- 
 wild animals : — the life of a hare or a pheasant must still be protected more 
 carefully than the character and liberty of a man ; and still, while hinidrods 
 of thousands of the working classes were sinking into disease and death from 
 want of bread, the game of noblemen was to be encouraged to eat and destroy 
 food to the value of £5,000,000 in a year. The bill would have done little 
 in comparison M'ith tlie reform whicli was then, and is still, needed; but that 
 little was refused by the lords of the soil, who could not have fully known 
 what they were doing, but who preferred liberty of sporting to the trouble of 
 inquiring. Lord Eldon's language shows that he was aware that the Game 
 Laws were disliked by " the lower orders :" but he was notoriously fond of 
 shooting : and it seems not to have occurred to him, nor to some wiser and 
 better men than lie, that it is dangerous to pursue an aristocratic amusement at 
 theexpense of disgusting the middle, and corrupting and exasperating the"lower 
 orders" of their countrymen. This subject comes up again and again in the 
 recent history of England ; and even yet, the sportsmen in parliament have 
 not laid aside their tone of levity on a matter which has in it all the serious- 
 ness that can attach to any political topic whatever. AVhilc reviewing the 
 course and issue of other great questions, the mind occasionally reverts to 
 this yet pending one, with some wonder whether, in this case as in so many 
 preceding, there will be insolence, levity, and blindness, to the last moment, 
 to be succeeded by panic, rapid conversion, and precipitate legislation. Such 
 a speculation may be lauglied at by those who look at the Game-law question 
 as one of liberty of sporting, regarding merely the pleasiuTS and privileges of 
 gentlemen, and the lives of liares and birds : but there is another side to it, 
 as we shall have occasion to see hereafter. The true and permanent aspect of 
 the question is that in which it regards the feeding or robbing the hungry, — 
 the deterioration or improvement of tlie land, — the filling or emptying of 
 our prisons, — tlie incicase or diniinutiou of crime, — tiic oppression or redemp- 
 tion of a niiUion of rural labourers; — one might say, the very existence of
 
 Kklations with 
 
 I'oitTUUAL. 
 
 510 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book III. 
 
 1829. society as it is tind is to be. Of course, the Game LaMS will give way, sooner 
 than our social organization : but the two cannot much longer exist together ; 
 and when the sportsmen in parliament attain to seeing this, the grave aspect 
 of the question will present itself to them as it does now to those who foresee 
 the end. Meantime, we have noted one of the first attacks on the aristocratic 
 privileges of the gun, and the kind of thought, speech, and temper, which the 
 attack called forth. 
 
 One of the most interesting debates of the Session was on the subject of our 
 relations with the Queen of I'ortugal. The conduct of England in preserving 
 her neutrality as to the do facto government of Portugal had been apparently 
 so strange as to cause eager and angry discussion, not only on the Continent, 
 and on the other side of the Atlantic, but in the British parliament. It is 
 well that cases of such extreme nicety in regard to international honour occur 
 now and then, embarrassing as they may be at the moment ; for so close an 
 appeal to principles is good for the national conscience, and a noble exer- 
 cise for the national rulers. Seldom has there been a case more trying to 
 flesh and blood than the one before us, or more honourable to the conscience 
 of the government. Thus, at least, is the matter regarded now, at a distance 
 of twenty years ; though at the time it was difficult for the miijority to enter 
 into the motives of a conduct apparently contradictory. 
 
 In August, 1828, Lord Aberdeen had been applied to by the Portuguese 
 refugees for permission to send a large quantity of arms and ammunition 
 from England to Brazil. The Minister replied that permission would be 
 granted on a pledge from the applicants that the arms and ammvuiition should 
 not be employed in the civil dissensions in Portiigal, in which England w-as 
 bound, as a neutral power, not to interfere. The pledge was offered ; Count 
 Itabayana declaring that he could give a clear and precise reply, — that there 
 was no intention of employing these stores in the civil dissensions of Portugal. 
 Yet, the arms and powder were immediately conveyed, not to Brazil, but to 
 Terceira. Terceira, the largest island of the Azores, which are under the 
 dominion of Portugal, had declared in favour of the young Queen, and driven 
 off the troops of Don Miguel. The sending these arms there in such a mode 
 awakened the suspicions of our government that men would soon be sent after 
 them ; and thus the island would be garrisoned and strengthened by England 
 for war against the actual ruler of Portugal; a proceeding which would have 
 been a direct breach of neutrality. In October, ajiplication was made for a 
 igm!''"'' ""'■ conveyance for the Portuguese troops to Terceira. The reply of the Duke of 
 Wellington was, that " England was determined to maintain a neutrality in 
 the ci\-il dissensions of Portugal, and that the King, with that determination, 
 could not permit the ports and arsenals of England to be made places of 
 equipment for hostile armaments." He intimated also that the 4000 Portu- 
 guese troops could not be allowed to remain in any English port, as a military 
 body, ready for action. All needful hospitality should be shown them; but 
 they must disband, and distribute themselves over the neighbouring towns 
 and villages, or wherever they pleased, and not remain concentrated in I'ly- 
 mouth. The answer was, that sooner than separate and dissolve their mili- 
 tary organization, they would go to Brazil. The Duke's reply Avas, that we 
 did not wish to send them away ; but that they could repair to Brazil if they
 
 CrrAr. VIII.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 511 
 
 chose ; and a British convoy was offered to protect them from Portuguese 1829. 
 cruizers. This convoy was decKncd. In tlie next December apphcation was v-^~n^"'*--' 
 made for permission and means of transport to send the refugees, iinanncd, to 
 Tcrccira ; and this was refused, on the ground of the former deception. The 
 appUcants were tokl — "We have been aheady deceived; you profess to sail as 
 unarmed men, but you will find arms on your arrival at Terccira." The pro- 
 fession then, on the part of the Portuguese leaders, was that they were going 
 to Brazil; but the Government were aware that they sailed with false clear- I^J.™^*''''' '"''■ 
 ances, which were obtained at the Custom House as for Gibraltar, for Virginia, 
 and for other places. The expedition consisted of four vessels, which can-ied 
 ()52 officers and men, under the command of General Count Saldanha, who 
 had been the Portuguese war-minister under the Constitution. Distinct 
 notice had been given to the heads of the expedition that any attempt to land 
 at Terceira would be prevented ; and that a British force would be found 
 ready for the purpose stationed off the island. 
 
 A small force of armed vessels had, in fact, been despatched under the terceiih. 
 command of Captain Walpole, of the Ranger, with instructions to cruise off 
 the island, and to inform the Portuguese under Saldanlia, if they apjieared, 
 that he had authority to prevent their landing. " And," continued the in- Annual Register, 
 
 ,,,,,,. • 1 . 1- 1 • -1 • 1829, p. 188. 
 
 structions, should they persist, notwithstanding such warning, m hovering 
 
 about, or in making any efforts to effect a landing, you are then to use force 
 
 to drive them away fi-om that neighbourhood, and keep sight of them until 
 
 you shall be convinced by the course they may steer, and the distance they 
 
 may have proceeded, that they have no intention of returning to the Western 
 
 Islands." As Captain Walpole was keeping his watch, on the 16th of 
 
 .rannary, off Port Praya, in Terceira, the expedition appeared. The vessel 
 
 whicli carried Saldanha came first. It paid no attention to the two shots 
 
 fired by the Ranger to bring them to ; and appeared resolved to push into 
 
 port at all hazards. Captain Walpole was compelled to fire ; and his shot 
 
 killed one man and wounded another. That single shot echoed round the 
 
 world ; and it was years before the reverberation died away. Every body, in 
 
 all countries, who did not know what had passed unseen, asked what this 
 
 could mean. England had received the young Queen and her adherents 
 
 with all hospitality and encouragement ; had withdrawn her ambassador 
 
 from liisboii on the avowal of Don ^liguel's usurpation : and now was firing 
 
 upon the young Queen's troops, wlien they were entering the port of an 
 
 island which had remained faithful to her. The most mortifjing comment 
 
 was tliat of the usuiiicr. Don Miguel announced in the Lisbon Gazette, that Annu.ii Register, 
 
 " the conduct of England towards Portugal, in such circumstances, liad been 
 
 above all praise." The steady reply of the English government was, that we 
 
 \vere not at war with Portugal ; and we should not go to war with Portugal 
 
 while her conflicts were civil. Our obligations were to defend her, on her 
 
 own appeal, against foreign aggi'ession ; and beyond these obligations we 
 
 would not go. Our immediate business was to preserve our neutrality. 
 
 Captain W;ilj)olu's shot compelled Saldanha to a conference, at the end of 
 which he declared that he considered the whole expedition prisoners to the 
 English. Ca])tain ^^'al]lole took care not to indicate the direction in which 
 the Portuguese sliouUl depart ; and he told them to go where they pleased ;
 
 512 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 [Book III. 
 
 1829. 
 
 State of Lisbon 
 
 Hansaril, xxi. 
 1831. 
 
 King's Speech. 
 
 only not to stay where they were. They sailed westwards; and he followed 
 them, Saldanha keeping up the affectation of supposing him the captor of the 
 expedition. On the 2-ith, when the vessels were within five hundred miles 
 of Scilly, Captain Walpole thought it time to put an end to tliis pretence, 
 lest any colour should be afforded, by their simultaneous arrival in the 
 Channel, to the charge that England had violated her neutrality, to the 
 injury of the Constitutional cause. Ho therefore sent to ask Saldanha where 
 he was going. Saldanha expressed astonishment at the question, and said 
 that prisoners of war always went Avherever their captors chose to lead them. 
 Captain Walpole, declaring that Saldanha's conduct determined him to escort 
 the expedition no further, turned back to Terceira, where he intercepted 
 another vessel, charged with Portuguese officers, and fitted out from London. 
 The vessel was just about to enter Port Praya. Captain Walpole supplied 
 her mth water and provisions, and bade her go. The case of the Portuguese 
 does seem hard when viewed by itself; but their repeated deceptions sliow 
 their own consciousness that they had no right to involve a neutral power, 
 whose hospitality they were receiving, in their political conflicts. If they had 
 brought their vessels and stores from Portugal or Brazil, or from any country 
 beyond the limit of Portuguese alliance, it would have been well and good : 
 but their conduct, however palliated by the temptation and distress of their 
 circumstances, was not such as the English government could allow to pass 
 unrebuked and unexplained. 
 
 Don Miguel's conduct was not such as to permit any reasonable person to 
 suppose that the English government could have any partiality on his behalf. 
 He set aside the sentences of the Courts on political prisoners when they were 
 not severe enough to please him ; and actually caused death to be inflicted 
 by his own mere order, when transportation had been decreed by the judges. 
 He imprisoned multitudes, and confiscated their goods to himself without any 
 pretence of law ; and even attempted the life of his sister, the late Regent, 
 Avith his own hand. The Princess was suspected by him of having sent a 
 servant to England, with money and jewels, to save her property fi'om his 
 rajjacious grasp. He rushed, armed, into her chamber, and demanded an 
 account of the departure of this servant. When she did not reply, he rushed 
 upon her with a bayonet which was fixed upon a pistol in his hand. She 
 grappled with him, and actually threw him down. Pie sprang up, and again 
 attacked her : but by this time her chamberlain was in the way. Don Miguel 
 stabbed the chamberlain in the arm, and fired his pistol at the Princess. The 
 ball killed a servant by her side, but she was rescued by other servants who 
 came at the noise of the scuffle. Under such a sovereign, Portugal indeed 
 deserved the pity expressed for lier misfortimes in the King's Speech delivered 
 by Commission, at the close of the session of 1829, — on the 24th of June : 
 — " It is with increased regi'ct that liis Majesty again adverts to the condition 
 of the Portuguese Monarchy. But his Majesty commands us to repeat liis 
 determination to use every effort to reconcile conflicting interests, and to 
 remove the evils which press so heavily upon a country, the prosperity of 
 which must ever be an object of his Majesty's solicitude." 
 
 The Speech announced, in decorous tcniis, that the war with Turkey was 
 turned over to Russia. Ambassadors from France and England were on their
 
 Chap. VIII.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 5K 
 
 way to Constantinople; and Russia had not, on account of her own quaiicl 1829. 
 with the Porte, withdrawn her name lioni the negotiations for the final 
 pacification of Greece. The King thanked his rarliament for their attention 
 to the aftairs of Ireland and the Catholics, which he had especially recom- 
 mended to their deliberations ; and sincerely hoped that the important 
 measures they had passed would tranquillize Ireland, and draw closer the 
 bonds of union between her and the rest of the empire. 
 
 The King was not gone to the German baths and Hanover, leaving 
 ■"Clarence" or "Sussex" to be king of the Catholics. He remained in 
 seclusion at Windsor, Brighton, or London. It was generally understood that 
 he was ill ; and universally suspected that he was very miserable. The close 
 of his unhappy life was now not far off; and the state of certain foreign 
 affairs troubled him almost as much as the achievements of his own ministers 
 and parliament at home. 
 
 vol,. I 
 
 3y
 
 nii 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 [Book III. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 APFAIK3 UP 
 l-'llANCB, 
 
 1827 — 30. Xt was about the political state of France that the King and Ministers of 
 England were troubled at the close of the year 1829. By that time, indeed, 
 their relations of sympathy with the oovernment of France were becoming the 
 cause of more reasonable anxiety than even feelings of mutual hostility could 
 have been. To vmderstand this we must look back a little. 
 
 At the time when Mr. Canning sent British troops to Portugal to repel 
 aggressions from Spain, which were supported by France, there were three 
 parties in France by whom England was very differently regarded. In 1827, 
 indeed, there was such disorder in the political state of France, that there was 
 scarcely any subject on which the three great parties were not in bitter enmity 
 against each, other; and Mr. Canning's foreigir poUcy was naturally a promi- 
 nent topic. 
 
 The French King and his government justified England, in word, as well 
 as by the act of recalling their o^^^l ambassadors ii-om JNIachid, on occasion of 
 Ferdinand's interference with Portugal. But they had their cause of quan-el 
 with Mr. Canning. They vehemently resented his expressions about the 
 occupation of Spain by the French in 1823 ; about his method of baffling her 
 policy by separating the South American colonies fi-om Spain; and about the 
 power Avhich would be wielded by England in the event of a war of opinion 
 in Europe. This ruling party, called the moderate royalist party, was in 1827 
 supposed to he the strongest. The other two were the ultra-royalist, which 
 woidd have supported Ferdinand tlu'ough every thing, would have placed and 
 upheld Don Miguel on the throne of Portugal, would have made the Jesuits 
 masters of education in France, and which hated England to the last extre- 
 mity; and the liberal party, which justified Mr. Camiing throughout, and 
 sought to make their o■^^'n liberties approximate to those of England. 
 
 Men coidd hardly tell, at the commencement of the session of 1827, how to 
 account for the agitation and turbulence pervading society in France, of which 
 every one was sensible. Every body was expecting that something fearful 
 M'oidd happen soon ; yet no one seemed to know why. The minister Villfele 
 Avas extremely unpopular ; but this appeared to be rather on account of some- 
 thing he was expected to do than from any thing he had yet done. The 
 financial statement of the session was very favourable. It came out after- 
 Avards that it Avas delusive, and that the condition of the people in the pro- 
 A inces Avas deplorable ; but this AAas not yet understood in Paris. From some 
 tinkiiOAvn cause, CAery thing seemed throAvn out of its course, so that events 
 Avere no longer calculable, nor political bodies reliable. In the preceding 
 session the minister had been perplexed by the ucav Chamber of Peers, Avhere 
 he had supposed he might have altogether his oavu Avay. The peers had 
 rejected his project of a kind of law of primogeniture, and had refused to 
 
 182" 
 
 Social Inqiie. 
 
 TUDE. 
 
 Annuairp Ilifio. 
 rit;ue,18'i7,p. 1.
 
 CUAP. IX.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 515 
 
 tok'vati' the pivsciire of the Jesuits in establishments of public in.stiuciion. 1S27 — 30. 
 The other C'hamber sank in the national estimation from day to day ; and in ' ' 
 
 inojwrtion, the liberal party within it rose into strength and influence. The 
 newspaper press harassed the Minister by its unremitting hostility; while 
 the journals which he held at his disposal had scarcely any readers. The 
 Minister saw that he must either resign or put down the press. Unhappily 
 for himself aud his trust, he chose the latter coinse; and here was the first 
 thunder-clap of the tempest whose distant mutterhigs had held the nation in 
 dread. 
 
 During the preceding year the bishops had been urgent with the govern- 
 ment to restrain the licentiousness of the press, and the ministerial majority ^3""'"""'' ''^''''' 
 of the Chamber of Dejjuties had carried addresses for the same object ; and 
 now, at the opening of the session, a bill was brought in which must have 
 gratified tlie expectations of the bishops and the Tory deputies to the utmost. 
 T'liis bill was the production of Peyronnct, keeper of the seals, and minister {t^'JJ'' '""'■ 
 of justice. Hitherto the law had provided that five copies of every new work 
 sliould be deposited in the appropriate government department. But this 
 deposit was made at the moment of publication, allowing no time for revision 
 by the police — a purpose never contemplated in the arrangement. Now it 
 was to be enacted, tliat jio work of twenty sheets and under should be exposed 
 for sale, or be allowed, in any portion, to leave the printing-oificc, till five 
 complete days had elapsed from the period of deposit; nor any work of 
 above twenty sheets, till aft(>r the expiration of ten days. The penalties were 
 fines and confiscation of the edition. So much for works not periodical. As 
 for periodicals, cheapness was to be done away with by the imposition of heavy 
 stamps. The ])ublication of the political joxmials was to be rendered almost 
 impossible by restrictions as to proprietorship and editorship ; and all proprie- 
 tors whose case did not come witliin the conditions of the new law — all women, 
 minors, and partners, beyond the number of five — were to find their property 
 in journals extinguished within thirty days from the passing of the law, uidess 
 they could prc\dously accomplish a forced sale. Fines and other punislnnents, 
 and stamp duties, were heavily augmented. A fine of five hundred francs 
 (about £21) was ordained for every article relating to the private life of any 
 l''renchman living, or any foreigner resident in France, without express per- 
 missi(Hi being obtained from the individual noticed ; and, lest there should be 
 any remissness in such individiuils, from a dislike to bringing their private 
 affairs under the notice of the courts, it was provided that the public prose- 
 
 ., , , •/•! • 1 ^I'li AnmiHire, 1827, 
 
 cutor might take up the case if the aggrieved party diil not. pp. 70-77. 
 
 It is worth whik; giving this brief sketch of Peyronnet's atrocious law of 
 the press, to show what the Uourbon government of France was in its latter 
 day. The wickedness of bringing forward such a law in the nineteenth cen- 
 tury can be equalled only by the folly and blindness of the venture. The 
 King and his Ministers might as reasonably and hopefully have pvojiosed to 
 l)ut a padlock on the tongue of every Frenchmau. 
 
 Tlie CDiamber would liardly listen to the description of the law wlu-n it was 
 in-oposed. One of the deputies, ;M. Casimir Perier, (juitting his seat, exclaiiued, 
 " You might as well propose a law for the sui)])ression of ]>rinting in France, 
 for llie benefit of Belgium." Shouts of surprise and indignation burst forth
 
 516 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 [Book III. 
 
 1827—80. 
 
 Anniiaire, 1827, 
 p. 01. 
 
 \nnnaire, l$27, 
 p. U7. 
 
 at intervals ; and at tlio dose of Peyronnet's speech, there was too much cou- 
 fusion to permit the continuance of business. Of course, the Journals all came 
 out furiously the next day ; — all except the ^Ministerial papers which nobody 
 read. At the earhest possible moment, petitions began to pour in from the 
 remotest of the provinces. The most striking, however, of the myriad of 
 remonstrances called forth by the occasion was that of the French Academy. 
 It was particularly striking on account of the undue subservience to royalty 
 for wliich that great society was notorious. But this law was too obviously 
 injurious to the interests of science and literature to be allowed to pass without 
 the strongest protest that could be offered by the association which represented 
 the science and literature of France. Of the 28 members who attended the 
 discussion as to what should be done, 18 voted for the remonstrance, and 4 
 Mcnt away Avithout voting, leaving only 6 in favour of keeping quiet under 
 the infliction. jM. Michaud was one of the si)cakers who exposed the conse- 
 quences of the law : and the three members who were charged with the jn'e- 
 paration of the remonstrance were MM. Chateaubriand, Lacratelle, and Ville- 
 main. The next day, Villemain was dejirived of his office in the Privy 
 Council ; and the government newspaper announced that M. Michaud was no 
 longer one of the readers to the royal family, nor M. Lacratelle dramatic 
 censor. Crowds immecUately assembled before the houses of these three gen- 
 tlemen, thus (hsmissed from office ; and subscriptions were set on foot for the 
 publication of works which it was Itnowii that they were preparing. — The 
 Director of the Academy requested an audience of the Kuig, to present the 
 Memorial : and the King refused to see the Director of the Academy. He 
 could not yet, however, prevent the French nation seeing the remonstrance ; 
 for it was published, and spread far and AA-ide. 
 
 Though the government was more powerful in the Chamber of Deinities (of 
 which it had controlled the elections) than any where else, it had a severe 
 struggle to obtain a majority in the Committee which was to consider the 
 Bill ; and, after all, the provisions of the law were so altered and softened that 
 the Minister hardly knew his o^vn Bill when it came forth fi-om Committee. 
 He obtained the restoration of some of its original clauses ; and the Bill was 
 sent up to the Peers by a majority of 233 votes to 134. It was commonly said 
 that, if it passed the Peers, not more than three or four Journals would con- 
 tinue to appear in Paris : and the Ministers took no pains to conceal that this 
 was exactly what they wished. 
 
 While the Peers were occupied with the Bill, the Deputies were in^dted to 
 pass a measure to secure themselves against new.S2)aper rei^orters. Speech 
 was to be repressed in every du-ection. Men were not silenced yet, however ; 
 and they made the King aware of their opinions. — The Committee of the 
 Peers began their work by calhng before them the cliief printers and book- 
 sellers of Paris, to give evidence as to the probable operation of the law, if 
 passed. Putting this together ^^'ith the fact that of the seven who composed 
 the Committee, fom- were of liberal politics, the government must have seen 
 pretty clearly what the result was likely to be. Just at that time (April 16th) 
 the King reviewed some of his troops and the National Guard : and the 
 ominous silence with wliicli he was received seems to have struck upon his 
 heart. He called his Ministers to council the next day, and declared his will
 
 Chap. IX.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 61^ 
 
 tliat the Bill for the regulation of the press should be withdi-awn. — It is said 1827 30. 
 
 that Pcyronnct's appearance in the Chamber of Deputies on this 17th of A])ril 
 was really forlorn. He was embarrassed ; liis voice faltered ; and the listening 
 members could scarcely catch the words of the royal ordinance. They were 
 inimcdiately repeated loudly enough, however. The 30,000 journejanen who 
 would have been deprived of bread by the passage of tliis law, caught up the 
 news, and spread it over Paris : and the whole city was presently blazing with 
 ilhuninations and fireworks. The rejoicings of tlie people were regarded by 
 the Ministers as manifestations of revolutionary tendencies: and no one member 
 of the administration as yet offered to resign. 
 
 It had been arranged, before this issue, that the King should review the 5';'',^,"^°'' '"'^ 
 National Guard on the 29th of April — " in token of his satisfaction at their *"■^■""'^■ 
 zeal in his honoiu- on the amiiversary of his return to Paris." Some doubt 
 had arisen in regard to the loyalty of a portion of this popular force ; and there 
 was a question whether the review should take place in the Coiu't of the 
 Tuileries — whicli was not the most popidar locality. The King, however, 
 declined to alter the annoinicement given ; and the occasion was pre])ared for, 
 as a gTcat fete-day. — When the King appeared, smrounded by liis brilliant 
 staff, and followed by the whole royal family, none but loyal cries were heard : 
 but, after a time, a voice here and there from the ranks shouted " Down with 
 the Ministers!" "Down with the Jesuits!" The officers and comrades of 
 those who thus shouted strove to silence them ; but in vain. The King was 
 heard to say, in a tone of great dignity, " I came here to receive homage, and Annuairc. 1827, 
 not acbnonitions." Ujjon this arose a great shout of " Long live the King :" 
 but the disloyal cries were renewed and multiplied. The King would have 
 borne with them, as is known by his ha\'ing formally sigiiified his satisfaction 
 with the state of the Guard, and the ceremonial of the day : but his Ministers 
 could not forgive their share. The cries were uttered, with gi-eat rage, under 
 their windows : they went to the King, to bold covmcil, and sat late into the 
 night. Before daylight, the royal and ministerial order for the disbanding of 
 the National Guard was received by its commandant ; and before seven in 
 the morning, all the posts of the Guard were occupied by troops of the line. 
 
 Two days after the close of the session, in June, the old censorship of 1820-21 ci;>-™!siiip re- 
 was brought into action. Every one expected this : but nobody was the less angi-y. 
 In August, government took offence at the orations and ceremonies which 
 signalized the funeral of a deputy who had been expelled from the Chamber 
 in 1823, and prosecuted the printers and publishers of the report of the funeral. 
 The speakers and reporters came forward to acknowledge their share in tlie 
 nuitter. All the parties were prosecuted ; — and all authors, speakers, publish- 
 ers, and printers, were acquitted, and the confiscated copies of the pami)hlet 
 ordei'cd to be restored. Lafayette, who Avas one of these parties, made a kind 
 of political ])rogress through Prance; and he damaged tlie goAcrnment, at 
 every stage of his journey, by a plain narrative of its policy of the year. — The 
 King was travelling at the same time. He visited the camp at St.Omer; was 
 loyally received ; enjoyed the spectacle of the improved contUtion of his people ^'fii^"' "*^'^' 
 (which was in truth very miserable) since he ■N'isited the same regions in his 
 younger days ; and returned to Paris, fancying that all was well. 
 
 The next proceeding of the government remains inexplicable. Tlic Chamber iHrciiAMBBiToi 
 
 Dlil'l'TIES.
 
 518 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 [Book III. 
 
 1827 — 30. of Deputies was more devoted to them than any I'litiirc one could be expected 
 to be : yet they dissolved it this aiitimiii. They spared no effort to manage 
 and control the elections ; and their power of doing so was very great. But 
 they had brought on a crisis which was too strong for them ; and the new 
 elections were fatal to the Villelc ministry. The ultra-royalists and liberals 
 made a jiuiction for the occasion, and returned a motley assemblage of depu- 
 ties, whose only point of agTeement seemed to be hostility to Villele and his 
 conu'adcs. In Paris itself, every Ministerial candidate was thrown out. At 
 the moment of dissolving the Chamber of Deputies, the King had declared the 
 creation of seventy-six new peers in a batch. The peers, having been un- 
 manageable, were now to be swamped. In the new batch were found the only 
 archbishops (five) who were not peers before ; and the most slansh of the 
 creatxu'es of the government who had been thrust into the late assemblage of 
 deputies. 
 
 The King and his INIinister were among the last to perceive that these mea- 
 siu'cs would not do — that they were intolerable : but they discovered it at last ; 
 and on the 4th of January, Villele resigned. 
 
 The people of Paris were on the watch. On occasion of the election returns, 
 towards the end of November, there had been serious troubles in Paris ; and it 
 was at tliis time, as far as we are aware, that the first mention of barricades 
 occiu-s. Some of the rioters, we are told, pursued by the j^atrol, raised barri- 
 cades by means of the masons' tools and hewn stones which they found near 
 the Chiu-ch St. Leu, where some new houses were in process of construction. 
 Annual Rojisicr, It is two years and a half after tliis that we find in our own Annual Register, 
 the first mention of barricades, and of something else. " As a detachment ad- 
 vanced, it was stopped by a new obstacle, a barricade formed across the street 
 by one of those long coaches to which the Parisians have given the name of 
 Onmibus." 
 
 The people of Paris were, as has been said, on the watch. The coimtenance 
 of every minister was examined as he came forth from royal audience, during 
 the six weeks between the close of the elections and tlie resignation of Villele ; 
 and diu-ing the whole of the next two years they remained on the watch, while 
 a weak and incompetent ministry was kept in, only by consent of all parties, 
 because no party could put in a set of men of its oyvn. — Dming tliis period, 
 minds and aflaii's were rijjcning for the great struggle to come ; and every 
 body, unless it were the royal family, Avas aware that though little appeared to 
 be done, the time was not lost. 
 
 The cliief sig-ns of the times were, first, the introduction of an impeaclmient 
 of Villele, which was allowed to stand over from the session of 1828 to the 
 next, in order to prevent his return to office ; — a proceeding of which he and 
 his master could not complain, as the delay was reasonably accounted for by 
 their frustration of all attempts to obtain the evidence required. Next, the 
 continually growing proof of the impoverished condition of the people engaged 
 in labour and trade ; — and, again, the introduction of more liberals into office 
 and the Chamber; — a sure token of change; — and the more, because it was 
 achieved by a coalition for the crisis between the liberals and tlie ultra- 
 royalists. 
 
 Among those who were on the watch during all tliis time, was he by Avhom 
 
 IlESICNATION OP 
 
 Villele. 
 
 Annuaire, 1827 
 p. 201. 
 
 1830, p. 188. 
 
 1828.
 
 Chap. IX.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 519 
 
 England was brought into relation with this great French quarrel. Prince 1827 — 30. 
 
 Jules de Polignac has been mentioned as the French ambassador in London ^— — ' 
 
 who Avas a party to the Treaty of London in regard to Greece. Prince Polignac 
 was one of those men about whom neither the world at large, nor any one in 
 it, knows how to be moderate : — the accomplished, narrow-minded, strong- 
 7ninded, conscientious oppressor, whom the oppressed hate with extremity of 
 hatred, and whom his associates respect and regard as a man of sincerity, con- 
 science, and loyalty. The people of France lived in incessant mistrust of him, 
 and dread lest he should not remain in London. The King of England and 
 the Didce of Wellington entertained a cordial admiration, and a strong personal 
 friendship for him ; and his own sovereign was attached to liim as to a faithful 
 and able adherent and champion. — At the beginning of 1829, the Coxmt de 1829. 
 Ferronay, the French Foreign Minister, the most respected and trusted of the 
 Aveak ministry then existing, was compelled by illness to retire from office : 
 and immediately. Prince Polignac appeared in Paris. It was reported that ho 
 had been secretly sent for, — that, if he could be got into office, he was gi-adu- 
 ally to restore the Villele policy; and with one intolerable aggi'avation — that 
 he was to work out in France the pleasure of the Tory ministry of England. 
 The hated Wellington, who had brought back the Bourbons, and, in this, had 
 helped to impose the tyranny under wliich the French nation groaned, was now 
 about to impose a friend and fellow-conspirator of his own upon France, and to 
 rule the struggling nation with the rod of the Holy Alliance. If the French 
 King and Ministry had hoped to bring in Prince Polignac, they found it would 
 not do for this time. The Ministers themselves threatened to resign, if the 
 Prince came in as the nominee of the King. So, Prince Polignac returned to 
 London, after having made a speech of self-defence in the Chamber against 
 the accusations of the newspapers. But he was not absent long. He was seen 
 in Paris in July, a few days before the ominous close of the session of the 
 C'hambers : and on the 8th of August, the publication of some royal ordinances 
 made known to the world the formation of what will be for ever called the 
 Polignac Ministry, though the Prince's office was at first only that of Foreign 
 Minister. The transactions from the time of his appointment to the stormy 
 close of the year were such as might well distiu-b the feeble and anxious mind 
 of the King of England, sinking, as he was, daily deeper in disease, in his 
 close retirement at Windsor. The caricatines of the day, M'hose authors were 
 probably not aware how ill he was, represented him as going, under 2)retence 
 of fishing, to weep at Virginia Water, which spread out, by means of that in- 
 flux, to a lake of handsome size. He certainly never was more reasonable 
 than in his apprehensions for PoUgiiac and for France, — his ideas of the welfare 
 of France being what they were. 
 
 It is not now easy to decide what were the principles on which the 
 Polig-nac ministry intended, in the first instance, to govern. When, in J'^Jr''^"*'^ """* 
 September, the people, indignant at the government practice of tampering 
 with their Chamber, and thus procuriiig revenue by means of taxes decreed 
 by creatures of govenmient^ formed associations for purposi-s of resistanci' to 
 illegal taxation, the Polignac ministry made bitter complaints of misconstiiic- 
 tion and Tuifair ])rcjudgment. " Judging by the newspapers," said the 
 Ministers in the Moniteur of the 19th of September, " the government dreams Annuaire, iS29,
 
 520 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book III. 
 
 1827 — 30. only of mips d^'itat, and contemplates the overthrow of the charter 
 
 -^■^---^■^- Those Avho say such tilings know very well that the INIinisters (unless they had 
 lost all common sense) could not conceive the bare idea of violating the 
 charter, and substituting a government by ordinances for that of the laws. 
 Such men know also that if the Ministers desired ever so much a method of 
 government like this^ the King would, on the iirst hint of such a system, 
 tlirust them out of power — out of that power which he has confided to them, 
 in his name and under their responsibility, to govern according to the laws." 
 The only question, with regard to these protestations, is whether they were 
 weak or wicked. If Prince PoHgnac really intended in September to govern 
 only according to law, and to cherish the charter, the King and Prime 
 Minister of England need not be ashamed of their friendship for him then ; 
 but they must have wholly cast liim off from their respect and regard, when, 
 in a few months, he had ftilsified all his professions. The French people 
 believed nothing that he said. They expected from him exactly that which 
 he did. The newspapers told their opinions and anticipations very plainly. 
 ^\niile almost the whole joui-nalist press of Paris reviled the ministry from day 
 to day, that of London praised it and exulted in it, ^\"ith a fervoiu' so strange 
 and so mianimous, that it was no wonder that the friendship of the two admi- 
 nistrations became a subject of suspicion to the sensitive and unhapj)y people 
 of France, and that they gave the name of " the Wellington Ministry" to the 
 PoHgnac Cabinet. One of the very few English journals which thought ill 
 of the new French ministry from first to last was the Examiner ; and among 
 Engimid's Seven {fj, remarks at the time are these : " There seems to be this peculiarity about 
 
 Administrations, ^ i •" 
 
 i., p.227. i]ie new French Ministry; that those who know least of it approve it most. 
 
 The London journals, with a few exceptions, have been in raptures -n-itli it, 
 
 while the French are hiuling uj)on it a storm of the bitterest displeasure 
 
 "Wliy the Ministry should bo found good in the eyes of the English Whigs and 
 Radicals, is more strange than that it should be overcharged ■with ill in the 
 representations of the French liberaux. Our neighbours indeed style it a 
 Tory INIinistry ; and because the Duke of Wellington's original Tory Ministry 
 has worked better than could have been expected for us, it is supposed that 
 Tory ministers, all over the world, must have a similar operation. A Tory 
 Ministry cured our state of bigotry, but it may happen to kill the liberality of 
 France. AVe cannot, also, but give our neighbours credit for knowing more 
 of their own affairs than we do j and the common sentiment of the intelligent 
 on the other side of the water seems decidedly inimical to the new admi- 
 nistration." 
 
 The protestations of the Miiristry were scarcely issued before their authors 
 began to show what they were worth. They renewed their war against 
 the press. M. Bertin, responsible editor of the Journal des Debats, was 
 prosecuted for the following words, which appeared in his paper on the 
 accession of the new Ministry : " The bond of affection and confidence which 
 united the Monarch with the people is broken. Unhappy France ! unhappy 
 King !" On these words a charge was founded of offence against the King's 
 person and authority, on the ground that any impeachment of the King's 
 judgment in choosing his ministers, was an attack on his authority ; and any 
 declaration that there was no longer love between the King and his people, or
 
 Chap. IX.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 521 
 
 between the people and tlierr King, was an offence against liis person. The 1827 — 30. 
 
 courts of Paris were ahove trifling like this. After a deliberation of three ^~— " • — 
 
 hours as to the form of the judgment, the conclusion was that M. Bertin was ^^"J^"'''' '''"''■ 
 acquitted ; because, " however improper might be the expressions of the 
 article complained of, and however contrary to the moderation wliicli should 
 be preserved in discussing the acts of the government, they did not constitute 
 actionable offences against the royal person or dignity." Silence ■^^ithin the 
 coiu't had been enjoined ; but the acclamations -with which the judgment was 
 received were deafening ; and they were caught up by the crowds outside, 
 who soon, by their shouts, let all Paris know the result of the trial. 
 
 Meantime, the Cabinet was not strong in itself. Hitherto, the King or the 
 Dauphin had presided at coimcil; but both became weary of the dissensions 
 and weakness which they were compelled to witness ; and Prince Pohgnac 
 was made President of the Council. Upon this, the best, in theii" opinion — p""™"*"' "-'*■ 
 the most ultra-royahst of the ministers, Labourdonnaye — withdiew. And 
 now, the consequences of a bad season had to be met, in addition to other 
 difficulties. Wet and cold weather had materially injiued all the crops in the 
 country ; the manufacturers' stocks were large, and a multitude of people 
 therefore unemployed, when the winter set in early, and with gieat severity. 
 "VMiat would Polignac, whose head was full of old feudal ideas, do for the 
 modern fanninar and manufacturing France ? "\Miat would he do — and this 
 was the most anxious question to himseK— -v^-ith the Chambers ? The Chamber 
 of Deputies was hostile ; but to resort to a new general election could only 
 make matters worse. It is believed that even now, on the eve of meeting the 
 Chambers, he was undecided as to whether he would satisfy himself by merely 
 putting do^\-n journalism (not seeing that jom-nalism was now an expression 
 of the national wiU), or whether he would supersede the electoral laws by 
 royal ordinances, in order to obtain a Chamber which would work to his 
 likin<i. Whatever mitiht be in his mind, the fact of the case was that the 
 monarchy and the national hberties were now brought face to face for their 
 decisive conflict, and that Prince Polignac was not aware of it. 
 
 Early in January (1830) the King issued a notice to the Chambers to meet 1830. 
 on the 2nd of March. From tliis it was supposed that the representative part f I"""";;;;^'' ■"'" 
 of the State was safe for the present. But there was evidently no improve- 
 ment in the temper of the royal and governing clique. When the President 
 of the Court which had acqidtted M. Bertin went, according to custom, to 
 offer to the King and royal family the usual wishes for the new year, he met new yeak-sVks: 
 with a reception which showed that, in I'^rance as in England, the first gentle- p.°i"^"''' 
 man in the empire could lose his good manners in personal pique. The 
 upright judge, M. Seguier, who had asserted the function of his court in the 
 mcmovable words — "the court gives judgments and not services," — offered his 
 congratulations to the King, with an expression of satisfaction in the privilege 
 of a yearly audience to tender these wishes. The stem reply of the King 
 was, " that he desired the magistrates of the court never to forget the important 
 duties they had to fulfil, and to render tliemselves worthy of the marks of 
 confidence they had received from their King." As for the royal ladies, the 
 only word they had to give in reply to similar congiatulations, was " Pass 
 on :" and all the courtiers behaved to the judges exactly after the manner of 
 
 vol.. I. -J ''^-
 
 r.">o 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 [Book III. 
 
 KiNti's Si'CEcn. 
 
 1827 — 30. the royal family. Cliiltlish as this appears in the reading, it was of vast 
 
 ' -^--^ importance at the time, as showinc; that the government could not tolerate 
 
 the independent administration of justice — the most fatal of all symjjtoms. 
 
 Throughout Fehruary the newspapers contained articles which hinted, or 
 said plainly, that men were now driven to revive the old question, what 
 France had gained hy the return of the Bourbons, and ^^■hether she could 
 prosper better under some other dynasty. Of course, the prosecutions of the 
 journals were unremitting, and the sentences Avere often severe ; but the more 
 lines were imposed, the larger were the subscriptions to pay them ; and the 
 more men went to prison, the more volunteers appeared to carry on their work 
 outside. 
 
 On the 2nd of IMarch, the King, surrounded by the royal family, met the 
 Chambers. There was more than ordinary pomp and gi'avity observable in 
 the proceedings. It was remarked, and afterwards told, in every home in 
 France, that when the King set his foot on the step of the tluone, he drojiped 
 his hat, which was picked up by the Duke of Orleans, and presented by 
 him, kneeling on one knee. The Speech was listened to with breathless 
 eagerness ; and up to the last paragraph it gave nothing but satisfaction. It 
 told of peace abroad, of a good state of the finances, of fidelity to the charter; 
 but the last paragraph ruined every thing. In it the King called ujion the 
 peers to aid him in governing the country well ; expressed his trust in them 
 to repudiate wicked insinuations ; and declared that if obstacles to liis govern- 
 ment should arise which he could not, and did not choose to foresee, he should 
 find strength to overcome them in the loyalty of his people. The surprise and 
 dismay caused on the instant by these words wore evident enough through all 
 the usual loyal demonstrations of the occasion. 
 
 The Peers replied coldly to this direct appeal, assuring his Majesty that 
 there was indeed nothing to fear from the obstacles of faction, as the govern- 
 ment would have the support of both Chambers, and of the great majority of 
 the nation ; as the crown and the charter — the rights of royalty and the 
 liberties of the people — were inseparably connected, and must be transmitted 
 undivided. This was pretty strong in the way of admonition and rebuke ; 
 but the Ministry dared not object, for fear of bringing upon themselves some- 
 thing worse, in the form of direct censure. The King, to whom the Address 
 was presented on the 9th of March, veutin-cd to congratulate himself on the 
 substance of his sentiments having been so perfectly apprehended. 
 
 The tug of war was in the other Chamber, Avhere, from the first day of the 
 session, the Ministers found themselves overpowered by the Liberals, who 
 carried all the appointments of the Chamber. The attendance was very full 
 during the days employed in the preparation of the Address. Some j)ara- 
 graphs of this Address declared that the Charter supposed, in order to its 
 working, a concurrence between the mind of the Sovereign and the interests 
 of his people ; that it was the painful duty of the Deputies to declare that that 
 confurrence existed no longer, the present Administration ordering all its acts 
 on the supposition of the disaffection of the people ; a supposition which the 
 nation had a right to complain of, as injurious to its character, and threatening 
 to its liberties. It was not supposed that the King entertained this distrust. 
 His heart was too noble to admit it. But he could not be further from 
 
 Animaire, 1S30, 
 
 AnnitKra OF the 
 
 I'LLItS. 
 
 |.. VL
 
 Chap. IX.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 523 
 
 desiring despot i.sm than his people from desiring anaroliy ; and he -was 1827 30. 
 
 implored to have the same faith in the loyalty of the nation as the nation had ^^ — -. — ■ — ' 
 in the sincerity of his promises. Finally, his Majesty was appealed to to 
 choose between his faithful and confiding parliament, and the parties who 
 misapprehended the calm and enlightened mind of the peoide of France. Annuairc. i83o. 
 
 There was doubt as to whether the Kmg would receive this Address, though 
 it passed by a majority of 221 to 181. He received it, however, on the 18th 
 of ^larch, at noon. The attendance was more numerous than usual. The 
 President of the Chamber read the Address — the last the unhappy JNlonarch 
 was ever to receive from his parliament — with a grave and firm voice, which, 
 however, faltered towards the close. The King listened with gi'avity ; but, 
 when he delivered the reply which had previously been agreed upon in council, 
 strong emotion was evident in his voice through the constrained calmness of 
 his manner. His reply — for which the King of England was earnestly listen- 
 ing in his retreat at Windsor, and the British Ministry, because the peace of 
 our country might depend ujron it — was this: "Sir: I have heard the J^'"*'^'* "'^'''•''■ 
 Address which you present to me in the name of the Chamber of Deputies. 
 I was justified in relying on the concurrence of the two Chambers, in accom- 
 plishing all the good which I contemplated. I am gi-ieved to find that the 
 Deputies declare that, on their part, such concurrence exists no longer. 
 Gentlemen, I annoiuiccd my intentions in my speech at the opening of the 
 session. These intentions are immutable. The interest of my people forbids 
 my receding from them. My Ministers will make my further purposes known 
 
 to VOU " Annnairc, 1830, 
 
 p. 44. 
 
 The next day the Chambers were prorogued to the 1st of September. PttuHouATios. 
 And where Avas the King on the next 1st of September ? " Long live the 
 King !" cried some on the ministerial side. " Long live the Charter !" cried 
 some on the opposite side. " Long live the Constitution !" shouted a voice 
 from one of the galleries, where the citizens of Paris had crowded in, to see 
 what would happen. The royalists set up the cry " Down with faction !" 
 and called upon the President to order the departure of strangers ; but the 
 President's authority was at an end now that the session was closed, and the 
 whole assemblage broke up in disorder. There ^vere many heavy hearts in 
 both Chambers, and in every street in Paris. It had not been supposed that 
 the King would stand out to such a point as this. It was the "first time that 
 the Sovereign had used the })ower of thus untimely dispersing his parliament. 
 The Budget was not brought for-ward, nor any provision made for some 
 extraordinary expenses of the time. Every one saw that a dissolution might 
 next be expected, and that this was a ru])ture which coidd not be healed. 
 The Liberals, who were virtually conquerors, were sure of their ground; but 
 they were full of solicitude about what was to happen next. The royalists 
 were merry and confident, looking upon the present crisis as the emancipation 
 of royalty from tutelage. 
 
 After a gi-and expedition had been sent off" to Algiers, which, it was hoped, di.^olitio.n. 
 would divert the attention of the people from politics, and fix it upon military 
 glory, the Chambers were dissolved, on the l(Jth of May ; new elections 
 ordered for June and July ; and the new parliament directed to meet on the 
 3rd of Autjusl. .Vnd wiiere was the King on tliat 3rd of August .'
 
 524 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 [Book III. 
 
 1827—30. 
 
 TilB ELEtTIONS. 
 
 Annuairc, IbSO, 
 p. lU. 
 
 Ministers' Me- 
 
 MOKIAL, 
 
 In the elections, the government was beaten at all points. The nation was 
 fond of military glory, as hitherto : aud multitudes enjoyed the spectacle and 
 the news of the imposing departure of the Algcrine expedition. But the 
 political crisis had gone too far to be lost sight of. Finding this, the Ministiy 
 not only employed their whole power and influence in endeavouring to carry 
 the elections, but actually instigated the King himself to canvass for votes in 
 a proclamation, which was issued on the 14th of June, and which began with 
 the words " The elections are about to take place throughout the kingdom, 
 liistcn to the voice of your King ! " The voice of the King proceeds to extol 
 the charter and the national institutions ; but declares that, in order to make 
 them available, the royal prerogative must remain unassailed. The concluding- 
 words are interesting as the last which this wretched sovereign addressed to 
 his subjects. " Electors ! hasten to the place of voting. Let not guilty neg- 
 ligence induce you to absent yourselves ! Let one sentiment animate you — 
 one banner be your rallying point ! It is your King who requires this of you : 
 it is a father who summons you. — Do your duty; aud I will do mine." — 
 Characteristic last words ! 
 
 The government being beaten at all points, what was to be done next? 
 Either the Ministry must resign, and open the way to a new course of policy, 
 or they must choose one of two desperate methods of governing the country — 
 dispensing with a parliament altogether, or setting aside the electoral laws, 
 and ordaining new ones, in order to obtain an obedient Chamber of Deputies. 
 The government newspapers put out feelers about these latter courses, or 
 audaciously advocated them ; but every body supposed that the administration 
 would not venture upon them, Imt would resign. Up to the 26th of July, 
 however, there was no appearance of an intention to do any thing but simply 
 meet the new Chambers. The letters of summons to the Peers had been 
 transmitted, and the Deputies were travelling towards Paris from all parts of 
 the kingdom. They did not know — and the people along the roads, who 
 were rejoicing in the capture of Algiers, little suspected — what was taking 
 place between the Poligiiac Ministry and the Kmg. 
 
 Up to the last moment, the proposed plan of the Ministiy had been to bring 
 forward in the Chambers a popular Budget, in which many and great econo- 
 mical reforms would be recommended. Then, they were to excite to the utmost 
 the patriotic pride of the members about the Algerine ^dctories : and they hoped 
 that through the blaze of those glories, they might can-y, almost imobserved, the 
 restrictive laws of the press which they were resolved to obtain. Except their 
 actual conduct, nothing could be more blind and foolish than this plan of 
 procedure, nor more insulting to the French nation, who were thus to be 
 treated like children — bribed to suffer restraint by the exhibition of a glitter- 
 ing toy. — Their actual conduct was, however, even worse. — Finding it out of 
 the question to meet the Chambers, they still did not think of resigning, but 
 addressed a memorial to the King petitioning and recommending him to set 
 aside the charter. They had their own sense of duty ; and, mistaken — utterly 
 foolish— as it was, tliey resolved to abide by it. They believed that the 
 monarchical principle was noAV to be surrendered or snatched from destruction 
 by a bold hand. They despised the cowardly suggestion of retiring from the 
 contest, and (as they viewed the matter) deserting the King : so they remained
 
 Chap. IX.J DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 525 
 
 beside liiin, and urged him on to dcstrnetioii. In ruining their King, and 1827 — 30. 
 outraging his people, they never felt the smallest doubt that they were dis- ^ ^ ' 
 charging a sublime duty. Whatever the King of England might think of 
 this, the British Premier had shown that liis sympathy could not go this 
 length. His measures of the preceding year were a practical and most power- 
 ful protest against the policy which was unjustly supposed to be instigated, or 
 at least countenanced by him, because a personal friend of his was responsible 
 for it. Prince Polignac was known to be inaccessible to counsel. It is pro- 
 bable that if he had ever obtained any opinion at all from the Duke of Wel- 
 lington, or had guided himself by the j)olicy of England in her last great 
 crisis, he would not have been the one to overthrow the monarchy of France. 
 
 The Ministers had discussed, in some of their meetings, a plan of three 
 Ordinances, which, being issued by the King, might free the government at 
 once from its two great difficidties — the press and the Chambers. These 
 Ordinances were laid before the King in Coinicil, on the 21st of July, together Annuairf, mso, 
 with a ^Memorial which explained their object and their necessity. — This Me- 
 morial declared that there was no provision in the charter for the protection 
 of the periodical jjress, which had at all times been, from its very nature, 
 nothing but an instrument of disorder and sedition ; that it had established a 
 despotism in the Chamber of Deputies, Avhere every man who adhered to the 
 side of order was sure to be insulted by the newspapers : that the Algerine 
 expedition had been endangered by tlie disclosures and criticisms of the press : 
 that the King's own words and sentiments had been disrespectfully discussed 
 in the journals : that it was for his Majesty to say whether such conduct 
 should go unpunished : that government and the press could not coexist ; and 
 that the prolonged cry of indignation and terror from all parts of the kingdom 
 against the journals of Paris showed which must give way. — So much for the 
 press. — As for the other difficulty — the representation, the Jlinistcrs suggested 
 that the right of government to provide for its own security existed before any 
 laws, and, being founded in the nature of tilings, must overbear all laws : that 
 tlie time had arrived for the assertion of this primary right : that all legal 
 resources had been exhausted in vain ; and that if the Ordinances proposed 
 were not in accordance with tlie letter of the laws, they were with the s])irit 
 of the charter : and that the administration did not hesitate to recommend to 
 the King the issuing of the accompanying Ordinances, convinced as they were 
 that justice must always prevail. — Such -was the j\Iemorial which was 
 published with the celebrated Ordinances of Cliarles X. and his Polignac 
 Ministry. 
 
 These Ordinances were three, l^y the first, tlie liberty of the periodical isshk of the ob. 
 press was susjiended : — no journals were to be issued but by the express au- Annuaire', isso, 
 thorization of government, which must be renewed every three months, and 
 might be withdrawn at any time : — and all writings of less than twenty pages 
 of print were to lie under the same conditions. ]5y the second ordinance, the 
 Chamber of Deputies was dissolved, on the ground that means had been used, 
 in various parts of the kingdom, to deceive and mislead the electors, during 
 the late elections. By the third ordinance, means wore taken to correct such 
 abuses by setting aside those ])ro\ isioiis of the Cliarter which wore found in- 
 couvenienl in their operation : by the power coufened on the King by the
 
 526 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book III. 
 
 1^21 .30 Cluutcr to consult the security of tlio state, he lessened the number of depii- 
 
 ^~— i— v-^-^ ties, reduced their term of office, and altered their qualificatioH, and the methods 
 of election. 
 
 It is scarcely credible, even now, that any government of our day should 
 have conceived of doing such things as these by the mere will of the sovereign : 
 and the question arises how the government could have gone on thus far, ad- 
 ministered by men who now showed themselves destitute of all idea of natio- 
 Jui.v>f>th. nality, law, and the purposes of social organization. These three Ordinances, 
 together with some subordinate articles, recalling to the C'ouncil some men 
 odious to the people, were countersigned by the six ministers present in 
 council, and kept profoundly secret till half an hour before midnight of the 
 25th of Jvily, when they were communicated to the responsible editor of tlio 
 Moniteur newspaper, for publication in the morning. So profoundly had the 
 secret been kept, that neither the heads of the police nor the soldiery had the 
 least idea that any extraordinary call was likely to be made upon their ener- 
 gies. The Ministers had not made the slightest preparation for any awkward 
 reception of their measui'es. There is no evidence that, amidst all their com- 
 plaints of popular disobedience and violence, they dreamed of resistance to the 
 Ordinances, As for the public, though something of the sort had been prc;- 
 dicted and vaguely expected, from the day of Polignac's accession to office, the 
 amazement and dismay at last were as overwhelming as if no forebodings had 
 been entertained. 
 
 Animairc, 1830, ^j^jjg oppositiou joumalists were the first to act on that memorable 2Gth of 
 July 2Gth. .July. They obtained an opinion from the most eminent la'ivyers in I'aris of 
 
 PuoTEsT OP TUB jj^g illeffalitv of the Ordinances : and then assembled, to the number of forty- 
 four, in the office of the National, to ])repare the celebrated protest which first 
 gave direction to the bewildered mind of Paris. By this protest, they proved 
 the illegality of the Ordinances, declared their own intention of resisting them, 
 and invited the Deputies to meet on the properly- appointed day — the 3d of 
 Auo-ust. " The government," said the protest, " has to-day forfeited that cha- 
 racter of legality which makes obedience a duty. We, for our part, shall resist 
 it. It is for the rest of the nation to determine how far its own resistance 
 .shall extend." A legal sanction was given, in the course of the day, to such 
 a method of proceeding as this by the decision of a magistrate, M. Belleyme, 
 who authorized the printer of the Journal of Commerce to continue the issue 
 of that paper provisionally, as long as the Ordinance of the 25th had not been 
 promulgated according to the legal forms. 
 
 At the Exchange, the excitement was tremendous. Crowds assembled in 
 all the avenues to it, long before the gates were opened : aud then the hubbub 
 was such as might have alarmed even Prince Poligiiac, if he had witnessed it : 
 but his way was to see very little, and to believe nothing but what he saw. 
 Every one wanted to sell, and nobody to buy: manufactui'ers declared that they 
 should close their establishments, and dismiss their worlunen : and the Ex- 
 change had not been seen in so stormy a state since the return of the Bourbons. 
 Presently, the stir and excitement had spread to the remotest corners of Paris ; 
 and in the theatres the usual occasions were found or made for expressing the 
 popular opinion. The day passed over, however, without actual insurrection : 
 and the Ministers agreed that the discontent would exhaust itself in harmless
 
 Chap. IX.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 527 
 
 murmurs; that no struggle need bo apprehended till the new elections should be 1827 — 30. 
 
 entered upon ; and that they need not send police or soldiery into the streets, " ^-^ — 
 
 to disperse the groups Avhich began to form there. Even the usual leave of 
 absence, asked by some military otficers, was granted as on ordinary days. 
 Marmont, Dulvc of Ragusa, Avho commanded the troops, held a most difficult 
 position. He had no warning whatever of what was going to be done, though 
 the JNlinistry were as well aware as he was, that whole divisions of the soldiery 
 were so full of popular sympathy as to be unreliable, in case of insurrection. 
 As the event showed, there were only 6000 on whom he could depend ; and of 
 these nearly 2000 were needed for the supply of the regular posts in Paris, and 
 about the King's palace at St. Cloud : so that the General had but little more 
 than 4000 men wherewith to defend Paris, and put down revolt, if the citizens 
 should be disposed to resist the overthrow of the Charter. 
 
 The most remarkable scene, on Tuesday the 27th, was the conflict between •'"'y ^-ih. 
 the police and the newspaper corps. The doors of the offices were closed, and the pres™'" "" 
 the papers were thrown out of the windows as fast as they could be printed.; 
 and the eager mob handed them, by tens of thousands, to every house, or to 
 every reader who wished to see the famous Protest. The police, meantime, 
 were standing before the doors, unable to effect an entrance, because nobody 
 would give any aid. One blacksmith after another was brought to the spot, 
 with his tools : but one after another folded Ms arms, and refused to force the 
 locks. When half Paris had witnessed the scene, so damaging to the autho- 
 rity of the government, the doors were at last broken in, the manuscripts and 
 books seized, the types thi'own away, and the presses broken : a process which 
 did not make the temper of the government more respected than its power 
 had been. During this day, the Tribunal of Commerce declared itself. The 
 printer of the Courrier Frangais had been afraid to print the paper in viola- 
 tion of the Ordinance, and the editors sued him for breach of contract. The 
 tribunal, by the voice of its president, Gaiineron- — a voice which sounded 
 firm and clear amidst the iirst roar of the revolutionary storm — ])ronoimccd 
 that the Ordinance, being contrary to the Charter, coidd not be binding on 
 any one, from his Majesty the King to the remotest of his subjects ; and tliat 
 the printer must act in fulfilment of his contract witliin twenty-four hoius. 
 
 Before two o'clock, Marmont was posting his troops, and bodies of men 
 were arming themsches from the gunsmiths' shops. Some thirty Deputies thiktiDepi tjcs. 
 had met to consider whether or not th.ey should assemble on the 3rd of 
 August : and the police and soldiery drew round tlieir place of meeting. 
 They do not appear to have thought of any thing but legal resistance as yet : 
 but, in the midst of their consultation, a deputation came to them from the 
 electors of Paris, to say that by the ])vonuilgation of the Ordinances, law was 
 at an end, and that insurrection was the method open to the citizens, and that 
 whicli they were prepared to adopt. The (k'lnitation declared tliat assem- 
 blages were beginning in the streets; that they, tlie rci)rcsentatives of a 
 multitude, like-minded with tlicuiselves, had cast tlu'msclves, "body and 
 goods," into the enteri)rise ; and tliat they now called upon the Deputies to 
 sanction and guide their proceedings. Next came a body of young men, mes- 
 sengers from a large association resolved on an immediate struggle, who 
 offered a guard to the assembled Deputies. These last could come to no
 
 528 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book III. 
 
 1827 — 30. immediate deteraiinatiou imdcr tliesc exciting- visitations, with jwlice and 
 soldiers all aliout the ueighbouiliood, and shots multiplying in the streets, 
 and at the very door. They ajjpoiuted a place of meeting for the monow, 
 when some of them were to come prepared with a decisive Protest, which 
 should be immediately considered, and issued when agreed upon. The 
 Ministers met this afternoon at the Foreign Office ; and though they knew 
 evei-y thing that was going forward, saw with their own eyes the state of the 
 streets and the armourers' shops, and had (Prince Polignac and M. de Monthel) 
 been pelted with showers of stones, they could not yet perceive the serioiis- 
 ness of the occasion. They expected the people to become quiet, and talked 
 of declaring Paris in a state of siege, as a threatening measure, and of bringing 
 in troops from a (Ustance, if matters were not right to-morrow morning. 
 They had great faith in the power of soldiery agamst a mob ; and thought 
 little of the all-important circumstance that various bodies of the troops had 
 shown disinclination to act against the citizens. 
 •Inly 2«ii.. On Wednesday morning, the 28th, barricades were seen rising in all dii-ec- 
 
 tions : paving-stones, powder, and lead, were carried into houses favourably 
 placed for attacking troops in the streets : the court tradesmen, seeing that 
 they were in danger of insult from their disjday of the royal arms, took them 
 down ; and this became the signal for pulhng down the royal insignia every 
 where, and dragging them through the mud. The Arsenal, the Artillery 
 depot, and the powder-mills, were all emptied with extraordinary despatch, 
 and every soldier or government servant who carried arms was disarmed, as 
 soon as met. The Prefect of the Seine went at seven in the morning, to inform 
 the ^linister, that if the Hotel de Ville were not properly guarded, he feared it 
 would be entered, and a Provisional Council of the people be established 
 therein : but tlie ^linister still did not consider the matter serious ; thought 
 the people would be scared back to thefr homes when Paris shoidd be de- 
 clared in a state of siege ; and drove off to attend a council at St. Cloud, where 
 the King and royal family now were. When the magistrate retui-ned from 
 this interview, the Hotel de Ville was in the hands of the people, who had 
 turned out the guard of sixteen men, and were running up to the belfry, 
 where they rang the tocsin, and hung out the tri-coloured flag, with crape 
 for mom-ning ; and the eloquent flag streamed to the wind, in the sight of all 
 Paris. Presently there was another, streaming from the steeple of Notre 
 Dame, whose great bell was kept tolling, to call the people to arms. Soon 
 after this was accomplished, bodies of soldiery appeared, to guard the edifices 
 which were akeady in the possession of the citizens. In the course of the 
 morning, there were various encampments of troops m different parts of the 
 city : but no one seems to have remembered that they would want food : for 
 none was provided. Marshal Marmont now sent a letter and report to St. 
 Cloud, to alarm the King, and assure him that it was necessary to yield im- 
 mediately : that if measures of pacification were instantly offered, there might 
 yet be time to save the royal dignity ; but that to-morrow it would be too 
 late. This letter is declared to have been missent or suppressed. 
 
 When the Ministers returned from St. Cloud, they assembled and remained 
 at the Tuileries, belie^-ing that they should no longer be safe in their o\\ n 
 houses, and that they ought to be on the spot, ready to hold council with
 
 Ciivr. IX.J DURING THE THIRTY YEARS'. PEACE. 
 
 529 
 
 Marshal Mavmont, who was now — Paris being in a state of siege — the head 1827 30 
 
 of the govcrnmeut. — Ahnost as soon as they had arrived, a remarkable depu- - — -■. — -^ 
 tation was shown into the presence of Marshal iNIannont. Five Deputies 
 came, sent by the liberal members of their body, to propose a truce, for the 
 saving of life, till communication could be had with the King. The Marslial 
 appeared disposed for peace, on liis own part, but declared tliat his orders were 
 positive to enfoi-ce the decrees of the government. He offered to send a mes- 
 sage to St. Cloud ; and did so. He inquired if the Deputies had any objection 
 to see Prince Polignac. They expressed themselves willing; and he went 
 into an adjoining room. Returning almost immediately, he intimated that, 
 as nothing could be done till an answer arrived from St. Cloud, there would 
 be no use in their seeing Prince Polignac. — It M-as afterwards made known, 
 that orders had been issued for the arrest of five or six of the leadino- liberal 
 Deputies, some of whom were of this negotiating party : that the intended 
 victims passed through the presence of the officers charged to arrest them ; 
 and that on their departure. Marshal Marmont countermanded the orders 
 which could not now be executed without too much hazard. 
 
 The Marshal sent one of his aides-de-camp. Colonel Komierowski, to St. "^'essm^e to thk 
 Cloud with a letter which related the mission of the Deputies, and refen-ed 
 the King to the bearer for an account of what was passing in Paris. — It was 
 four o'clock when the messenger left Paris. When he arrived at St. Cloud, 
 the King was at cards, and some of the ladies were in the orangery, silently 
 listening to the distant firing. They had all been informed by an officer of 
 the royal suite of what was going on ; but the King comforted himself with the 
 thought that every body always exaggerates dangers. The messenger did his 
 duty well. He delivered the letter into the King's own hand, obser\'ing that 
 an answer could not be given too speedily ; that it was not the populace but' 
 the whole people that had risen. " It is a formidable revolt, is it ? " inquired 
 the King. " Sire," replied the soldier, " it is not a revolt : it is a revolution." 
 The King desired him to retire, and return to his presence to receive his 
 answer, when the letter should have been read ; and at the end of twenty 
 minutes of anxious waiting, he was called in. The Dauphin and the Duchess 
 dc Berri were present : and it was unchecked by them that the King gave the 
 message which he chose to send to Marshal Marmont ; a message so cold and i"""! King's Mrs. 
 
 ~ ... S\GE. 
 
 cruel, as well as foolish, as to extinguish any lingering feelings of compassion 
 for his loss of the sovereignty of France. His verbal message was that 
 Marshal JIarmont must hold on — " concentrate his forces, and act with the 
 masses:" — that is, he was to put down the people by military force, at all 
 events. It also signified the King's displeasure at the dispersion of the forces 
 over Paris. The method prescribed was already impossible. Tlie greater 
 number of the soldiers had gone over to the people ; those that remained were 
 too few for the work ; and they were hungry, weary, and distressed. At 
 niglit, orders were sent in the quietest way possible, to such of them as were 
 at the Hotel de Ville, where fighting had been going on, Avilhout result, for 
 many hours, to return to the Tuileries in the best way they could. — Since the 
 morning of the preceding day, there had been no issue of provisions to the 
 soldiers ; and now, when in a famished condition they reached tlic Tuileries 
 at midniglit, after fighting all day in a burning sini, there was neither food 
 
 \"OI,. I. 4 A
 
 5'JO 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 [Book III. 
 
 Aiiuiiai.e, 1830, 
 )■. I.i.-j. 
 
 M\H.sn\L Mar. 
 
 1827 — 30. lun drink for lliein. They were promised some at daybrciik : but it was not 
 to be got. The oiKcers bought up from tlie bakers whatever bread they had ; 
 but it went a very little way. It was no wonder that it was found, next 
 morning, that a large proportion of the troops of the line were not to be 
 depended on. 
 
 There was little rest for any body that night. Tlie soldiers were miu'mur- 
 ing ; and their commander was in great angulsli of mind, which caused a 
 miserable irresolution in his purposes. He disapproved the Ordinances as 
 much as any man in Paris, and had said so to M. Aiago, the Monday before : 
 .but his professional duty constrained him — or he thought it did — to fire upon 
 the citizens who had his sympatlli(^s in their enterprise. He was required to 
 fuliil his professional dut)' xuuler every kind of disadvantage. His troops were 
 too few ; and many of them untrustworthy : food and ammunition fell short : 
 he lay \nidcr the displeasure of the King, and was not on good terms with the 
 Ministers. Marslial Marmont was a wretched man that night. — All night, 
 tlie tocsin rang, banishing sleep from the city. All night, the people were 
 cutting down the trees of the Boulevards, and building \ip new barricades. 
 — On the 29th, however, these were no longer wanted. Tlic soldiers no longer 
 came out against the people. — They were posted "in masses,"' as the King 
 desired, and the people must come up and attack them. 
 
 There was a good deal of fighting, in a desultory kind of way; but regiment 
 after regiment luiscrewcd their bayonets, and joined the people ; or at least 
 withdrew fi-om the struggle. JMcantime, from early in the morning, a remark- 
 able scene was going forward in the palace of the Tuileries. 
 
 The Peers had made no demonstration as a Chamber ; but some of them 
 had fought as private men on the side of the people. Early in the morning 
 of the 29th, the ^Marquess de Semonville, who held a high office in the 
 Chamber of Peers, went to the Tuileries, saw MaiTnont, who carried despair 
 in his countenance, and requested fi'om him an inteiTiew with Prince 
 Polignac. The Marquess was accompanied by M. d'Argout : and their 
 accoimt of the interview has never been disputed. — The Marquess peremp- 
 torily requested Prince Polignac to withdraw the Ordinances, in order to stop 
 the effusion of blood, and preserve Paris : or, at least, to resign. Prince 
 Polignac replied, with cold politeness, that he had no power of his own to 
 take either step, without consultation with the King. The other Ministers 
 said the same thing : but their whole manner conveyed to the two peers the 
 impression that they were " under the influence of a power greater than their 
 own will :" that as they had tempted and in-ged on the King to this pass, he 
 would not now let them draw back. — At length, Prince Polignac, with the 
 same calm politeness, yielded so far as to propose to retire, to deliberate with 
 his colleagues. While he was out of the room, the Marquess urged Marmont 
 to arrest the Ministers, as the shortest way of putting an end to the slaughter 
 in the streets : the Governor of tlie Tuileries offering to do the deed, and the 
 Marquess himself proposing to go to St. Cloud, to work upon the King. 
 Marmont was convulsed with agitation : he shed tears of indignation and 
 passion, in the conflict between the convictions of his judgment and his pro- 
 fessional duty : but he had yielded, and was about to sign the requisite orders, 
 when Peyronnet came in, and said in a voice of great emotion, as he stood 
 
 Second Confe- 
 
 HKNCE. 
 
 Annnairp, \S?^0, 
 I). \:,'J.
 
 Chap. IX.] DURLNG THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 531 
 
 behind the Marquess, " What !— not gone yet?" The intention to yield was 1,S2T '»). 
 
 clear from, the tone and manner of these few words. The Marshal wrote <-^^~^/~^~j 
 something different from what he had intended ; — he wrote a pressing intreaty 
 to the King to give way. The Governor put the two peers instantly into a 
 carriage for St. Cloud : Prince Polignac and some of his colleagues entered 
 another ; and the two carriages reached St. Cloud at the same time. Their 
 arrival, and the disorder and agitation of their appearance created no little 
 astonishment there ; for even yet, the royal family insisted upon it that all 
 their informants exaggerated the confiisiou. . The King taunted the Marquess 
 with this in the interview which ensued. 
 
 During that interview, the King was as obstinate as ever about the Ordi- 
 nances and his "system" of government. It was only by presenting jdainly 
 to him his personal danger from the hands of the populace, and his responsi- 
 bility for the lives and fortunes of his family, that the Marquess could make 
 any imj)ression upon him whatever. It was not a moment for scruples ; and 
 the Marquess therefore laid upon the King the sole responsibility for any thing 
 that might happen to his family through his refusal to yield. This at length 
 brought tears to the old man's eyes : he drooped his head ujjon his breast, and 
 said in a low and agitated voice, " I will request my son to write, and assemble 
 the Council." 
 
 After a short deliberation, it was resolved that the Ordinances sliould be concession n-,c.5i 
 revoked, and a new ministry appointed : but, either from some difficidty about 
 the new appointments, or from some lingering hope of better news, the decision 
 was kept secret till the evening : and then it was too late. 
 
 The Ministers faiidy gone, Marmont ordered the soldiers to act only on the 
 defensive, and proclaimed a truce at various points : but he was not much at- 
 tended to ; and, in fact, not understood. In some places, the conflict raged 
 more than ever ; and elsewhere, more and more soldiers went over to the 
 people. In the afternoon, the citizens had penetrated every where ; and ^Mar- 
 mont found himself suddenly compelled to leave the city, if he wished to pre- 
 serve his force at all. He could not even give notice of his intention to several 
 scattered companies, which he was obliged to leave to their fate. ]\[ost of them, 
 however, made their way out, and joined him on the road to St. Cloud. His Hf:j« 
 only hope now was to guard the person of the King, and the safety of the 
 royal family. — On the road, the soldiers met the Dauphin, with two aides-de- 
 camp. They formed in battalions to receive him. They supposed that he 
 would address the troops, and invite them to follow him to Paris ; but he only 
 rode rapidly, and in dismal silence, along their front, and turned back towards 
 St. Cloud, whither they followed him with heavy hearts. Their case was a 
 hard one. Their good-will towards the people and their cause was such, that 
 they spared life to the utmost that was consistent with their military duty, 
 while they were pelted with stones, and treated as enemies Ijy the populace: 
 and, at the same time, they had no encouragement on the side of their pro- 
 fessional duty. 'I'heir wants were not cared for ; they were not supported by 
 an efficient connnand ; nor were their spirits cheered by a single demonstration 
 in favour of the royal cause. Throughout the whole struggle, not one solitary 
 cry of" Long live the King!" was heard. Ami now, when all was over, and 
 (hey were going to the presence of the King, the King's heir had not one 
 
 \r TO 
 
 LOll).
 
 532 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book III. 
 
 \S2~ — 30. wovil of thanks or sympatliy to address to thcin : but, on the contrary, he 
 
 "— — ■ ' yecniod to doubt whether tliey had done their duty. Some of them must have 
 
 M'ishcd themselves with those of their comrades who had fallen — with the old 
 grenadier, one of the heroes of Austerlitz, who fell mortally wounded tliis day 
 by a ball from the musket of a citizen ; — fell, exclaiming, "I was a good French- 
 man, however." 
 
 The troojis, on their arrival at ISt. Cloud, were encamped in the avenues of 
 the park : but still, no provision of food or comfort was made for them. Those 
 who had their pay in tlicir pockets bought of the bakers ; the others were at 
 last fed by requisitions on the nearest inhabitants. In the evening, Marmont 
 delivered a sort of proclamation, in wliich he declared the revocation of the 
 Ordinances, and the change of ministry. The soldiers cried " Long live the 
 
 Marmont's ue. King ! " and set about eating and reposing themselves. The Dauphin was in- 
 dignant with the INIarshal — called him traitor, ordered his arrest, and took his 
 
 Amnmiie, 1830, gword from him ■with his own hand : but the King checked these proceedings, 
 made some kind of apology for them, and ordered the troops to be infonned 
 that he was satisfied ■with their conduct. 
 
 The courtiers were the most at a loss what to do. It was long before they 
 could admit the idea of tlie popular victory : but -when they did, they took 
 their part with a primary view to their own security. Up to the night of the 
 2'Jth, all had been brilliant, gay, and confident. Next day, there was an eager 
 looking out for news : but when, all day long, nobody entered the park, no 
 deputations, no messengers, no newsbearcrs, the silence of consternation settled 
 do\vn on the 'palace of St. Cloud. Then, one by one, the carriages rolled 
 away — attendance slackened — manners became cold and careless ; and, in a 
 few hours, the great house appeared nearly empty. Only a few general officers 
 and gentlemcn-in-waiting remained — except, indeed, the disgraced ministers. 
 The King could not bear this ; and he did not know whether he was safe at 
 II^'ro'H" "■' ^t- Cloud : so, at three in the morning of the last day of July, he set off for 
 Trianon (another country palace), with his whole family and establishment, 
 except the Dauphin and his attendants, who remained with the troops. The 
 soldiers were naturally discouraged at this ; and some retimied to Paris with- 
 out asking leave. 
 
 Tlie unhappy King could not rest. He went fi-om place to place, seeing the 
 hated tricolour every where along the road, and forsaken by more and more of 
 his guard of soldiers, who could not endure being thus dragged about before 
 the eyes of the victorious people. His displaced ministers dropped off, except 
 Polignac, who remained some days in the suite of his sovereign, but conceal- 
 ing himself from observation. That night — the night of the 1st of August — 
 the King believed that all was lost for himself; for he heard that the Duke of 
 Orleans had accepted the office of Lieutenant-General of the kingdom : but 
 there might be a hope that the crown might be preserved for his grandson, the 
 posthumous child of the Duke dc Beni : and, in his favour, the Kuig that 
 night abdicated; and the Dauphin resigned his pretensions to the tlu-one. 
 Again they had to learn that it was too late. The only notice taken was by 
 sending commissioners from Paris to advise the departure of the wliole royal 
 family for Cherbourg, whence they were to leave the kingdom ; and to require 
 the delivery of the crcjwn jewels. It \\ as impossible to resist. The jewels 
 
 Wandeiung of 
 ■ml-: Ro' 
 Tamil V,
 
 CiiAr. IX."! DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. "533 
 
 were delivered up ; the lust orders to the troops were issued while the Cham- 1827 — 30. 
 
 bcrs met iu Paris, according to the King's first appointment, and in defiance ^— ii— . 
 
 of his subsequent decree of dissolution. The last orders to the troops Mcre to 
 repair to Paris, after having seen the royal family depart ; and to submit them- 
 selves to whatever authority they might find supreme in the capital. On the 
 morning of the 4th, the poor King affected to give the order for departure, 
 though the commissioners remained to accompany him to the coast, and were, 
 in fact, the masters. As he passed between the ranks of his soldiers, and among 
 the flags under which they were to fight no more, tears were in his eyes, and 
 in theirs : and these tears seem to have been the only mark of regiet that he 
 met -with during the whole process of his detluonement. The royal party 
 moved as slowly as possible towards the coast. They lingered — they coiu'tcd 
 sympathy — they looked in every face they met for comfort : but there was no 
 comfort for them ; for they had not deserved it. They had done nothing to 
 secure either the respect or affection of the nation : and they now met with 
 nothing but indifference or mere compassion. No one injured them : no one 
 insulted them : no one witlilield the observances of ordinary civility : but it 
 was impossible for them not to see that no one cared for them. For the children, 
 indeed, some emotion was shown — banished as they were from their birthright 
 before they were old enough to know what they had lost. 
 
 When the train arrived on the heights above Cherbourg, the spectacle that dei-abtirekiiom 
 met the eyes of the travellers was very affecting. The vessels in the harbour 
 carriedthe tricolour — all but two ; — two sliips in the distance, whose sails were 
 hung out, and all evidently ready for immediate departure. These were 
 American vessels engaged to carry the royal family into exile. The travelling 
 party drove through the to^\^l M'itliout stopping, and inmicdiately went on board 
 the Great Britain, the soldiers on the quay presenting amis, and tlieir officers 
 saluting in grave silence, as the exiles passed. Captain Dmnont d'Urville, 
 (who afterwards jierished by fire in the dreadful railway accident near Ver- 
 sailles j, Waited on tlic King, to inquire whither he should have the honom- of 
 escorting him. " To Spithead," was the reply. 
 
 Tlie pilot who took them out of port related, on his return, that as the 
 unhappy family saw the shores of France grow dim and dimmer in the dis- 
 tance, their sobs and lamentations became more and more irrepressible. The 
 King alone preserved his calmness. In twenty-four hours from their sailing, 
 that is, before three o'clock in the afternoon of the ITth of August, the vessels 
 anchored at Spithead. Two of the King's suite were put on sliorc, in order 
 to proceed to London, to learn the pleasure of the King and ministry of England. 
 As it was reported to the exiles that the people of Portsmouth, in their joy at 
 the emancipation of France, meant to hang out the tricolour all over the har- 
 bour, the vessels were removed from their first station, and moored off Cowes, 
 in tlie Isle of Wiglit. 
 
 The English Ministers had to consult the foreign ambassadors ; and it was receptiov in 
 two days before their answer arrived. The decision Mas that Charles X. 
 should be received — but as a private individvial; uiuler which character he 
 thenceforth bore the title of the Count de Ponthieu. From this time till 
 October the exiles lived at Lulworth in Dorsetshire : but there were reasons — 
 some assigned and more supposed — wliy they should be rccounnendcd to
 
 534 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book III. 
 
 lcSi>7 — 30. reside further from the coast, and in a place less immediately accessible from 
 ^-^^^^^-^ France. George IV. offered for their use tlie palace of Holyrood, ■«vhere the 
 ex- King had resided during his fonner exile. There the family lived in 
 retirement, occupied -with the education and prospects of the young king, 
 Henry "\'., as they called him. The dethroned Sovereign had nothing to 
 suffer fiom remorse, or even misgiving. He never ceased to believe and say 
 that the Ordinances were necessary; that the revolution Mould have happened 
 exactly as it did if he had never issued them ; and that the French nation 
 had misrepresented his intentions. 
 coMivTiT OP THE Wliat tlic Frcncli nation did next we shall see hereafter. The conduct of 
 the people during the Three Days was singularly noble. No deed of mean- 
 ness, and scarcely one of violence, is re])ortcd, at a time when public opinion 
 was the only law. The historical education of the French people may not 
 have fitted them for the full understaiuling and enjoyment of combined liberty 
 and order; but of the strength at once of their patriotism and self-command, 
 in an hour of crisis, no doubt remained in any mind in Europe, after the 
 spectacle of the Three Days. 
 Fate of the Mi- As for the latc ministers, they were tried by special commission. Prince 
 NisTtRs. Polignae was arrested on the night of the 16th of August, when he was on 
 
 the point of escaping to Jersey. He preserved his calmness throughout, 
 sending in to the government a letter of extraordinary confidence, in Avhich 
 he demanded his freedom, and permission to retire with his family to the 
 tranquillity of the domestic hearth, at home or abroad. If, however, his 
 detention should be decided upon, he requested that his place of imprison- 
 ment might be the fortress of Ham, where he had undergone a long captivity 
 in his youth. His life and the lives of his colleagues were spared. They 
 were sentenced to imprisonment for life (Polignae and Peyronnet at Ham) ; 
 to confiscation of all their goods, and outlawry — to a condition, in short, of 
 civil death. 
 
 The loss of Kfe during the Three Days was much less than could have been 
 
 expected, and than was believed at the time by those engaged. On the side 
 
 Annu-iire. 1830, of the troops, the loss is estimated at about 250 killed and 500 wounded. On 
 
 p. iGC(nuie). ^^^ popular side the numbers are more certainly known. The killed were 
 
 788 ; and the wounded 4500. 
 
 Wliile the state of France, viewed in connexion with politics at home, was 
 disturbing the mind of the sick King of England, he had to bear a series of 
 vexations on a personal matter, in Avhich he was really ill-used. Among the 
 Di.KB 01 BnuNs- killed at AVaterloo was the Dxdie of Brunswick, whose young heir was left to 
 the guardianship of the King of Hanover. The boy turned out ill; and there 
 was no end to the trouble he gave to his guardian. He concluded by pub- 
 lishing libels against George IV. which positively asserted charges too serious 
 to be allowed to pass ; as, for instance, that he, the Duke, had been excluded 
 from his rights for long after he came of age. Though the incessant brawls 
 and disgraces of the young man showed the world that he was not worth 
 attending to, it was necessary to put some check upon him : and his refusal 
 to recognise certain political acts of his guardian — liberal changes which 
 were valued by his subjects — rendered some interposition necessary. He 
 must also be rebuked for ha\ing sent a challenge to the Hanoverian Minister, 
 
 WIUK
 
 Chap. IX.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 535 
 
 Count Munster. The Courts of Vienna and Berlin tried to bring the young 1827 — 30. 
 
 man to reason and penitence, to avoid the serious disgrace of a virtual trial ^-^^^^"^^ 
 
 before the Diet : but he \\ould not yield. An appeal was therefore made to 
 
 the Diet, by both the subjects and the guardian of the Duke. The affair was 
 
 gone into, and judgment given against the Duke on every point. He was Amuai R<.gister, 
 
 enjoined to fulKl the pledges given to his subjects, and to make apology and *' '''•^ ^' 
 
 reparation to his guardian. But he paid no attention to tlie judgment : made 
 
 no apology, — withdrew no libels, — made no advances towards his subjects. 
 
 Such was the state of things in 1829. During the revolutions of the next 
 
 year, occasion was taken to settle his affairs. He was deposed, by universal 
 
 consent, and his younger brother put in his place. Of course he complained 
 
 loudly and long ; but his unfitness for power was so evident that no one aided 
 
 him, and every body advised him to be quiet. The judgment of the Diet 
 
 relieved George IV. from all apprehension for his reputation as the Duke's 
 
 guardian : but the affair was one of the annoyances ■\^-hich embittered the 
 
 close of his life, and which he had no longer strength of body or mind to 
 
 bear cheerfully. 
 
 The Pope Leo XII. died in February of this year 1829. His reign had ^^"" °^ '"'"■ 
 
 1 ^ >' J r> Pope. 
 
 been short, — only five years and a half: and it had not been distinguished 
 by any remarkable events, or indications of character or ability in himself. 
 His tendencies were despotic ; but he had not force of mind to withstand the 
 liberalizing influences of the time : so he indulged his predilections merely 
 by increasing the number and aggrandizing the condition of his clergy. 
 The King of the Netherlands forbade him to meddle in the management of 
 the Catholic ecclesiastical seminaries of that kingdom : and he yielded. The 
 French nation vexed him sadly by retrenching the power of the Jesuits in 
 France : but he yielded. And now, at the age of sixty-nine, he laid down 
 his predilections and his vexations together in the grave. His successor had 
 as much reason as himself to feel how times were changed for popes. The 
 new Pope, Cardinal Castiglionc, took the title of Pius VIII. One of his first Annual Register. 
 acts was excommunicating the tovra of Imola, which lay imder his displea- Aecessiono'f pius 
 sure. But neither the inhabitants of Imola, nor any body else, seemed to be 
 at all aware of the infliction ; and the afRiirs of that town and of the world 
 went on as before. Times were indeed changed for popes : but it seems as if 
 popes were not changed. Pius VIII. excepted from the amnesty usually pub- 
 lished on the accession of a pope all political offenders, declaring such to be of 
 the nature of assassins, undeserving of the mercy of even the compassionate 
 church. Thus the new pontiff did not enter upon his reign altogether in the 
 spirit of the gospel, of which he professed to be the High Priest. 
 
 The ^\in• between Russia and Turkey was soon over. The Russian aimy Ri«rA 
 swept all before it ; and when it had come like a hurricane down tlie Danube, 
 and was seen descending the southern slopes of the Balkan, there was nothing 
 more to be done but to obtain the best tenns for the Porte that the conqueror 
 would grant. On the 20th of August, the Russian general, Diebitsch, took 
 Adrianoplc, tlie second city of the empire, without firing a shot, so utterly 
 confounded were the 80,000 inhabitants by the speed of his approach. On 
 the Black Sea tlie Russians were unopi)0sed ; and every post yielded to them. 
 It now only remained to take Constantinople. Up to this time the Porte had 
 
 ANU 
 Tl'HKEY.
 
 536 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book III. 
 
 1827 — 30. refused all negotiation and offers of mediation. It was a religious war ; and 
 " ^ if the Christians were pennitted to mediate, all the infidel subjects of the 
 
 Porte would rise in rebellion, and the true faith would succumb. This was 
 the answer given to, or allowed to be inferred by, the ambassadors of France, 
 England, and Prussia, who had returned to Constantinople in Jvme. B\it 
 when the Russians were in full march on the capital, and the sacred flag itself 
 did not raise enough of the P'aithful to daunt the foe, the gallant riders of 
 Turkey yielded to necessity, and sent two plenipotentiaries to Adrianople, to 
 treat with the Russian general. The terms granted appeared at first sight 
 very liberal : but Russia obtained ^yhat she most desired — money in abund- 
 ance, and a protracted hold upon the country. Besides the indemnity to 
 Russian merchants, amounting to about £800,000, Turkey was to pay the 
 expenses of the war, in ten yearly instalments of half a million ster- 
 ling each. During these ten years the Turks were not to be rid of 
 the Russian presence. On the payment of the first instalment, the Rus- 
 sians were to evacuate Adrianople : on the second, to retire beyond the 
 Balkan : on the third, to quit the Danube ; and so on : but they were 
 not to evacuate the Turkish dominions till the payments were all made, 
 and the ten years expired. As for the question of territory, Russia left to the 
 Porte more than might have been expected, retaining some portions here 
 and there which would be useful auxiliaries to future conquests. It was a 
 galling thing, however, that the whole of the left bank of the Danube 
 was gone, and that no Mohammedan might possess a foot of land, or even 
 reside there : and yet more, that the methods of administration set up by the 
 Russians in the provinces were to remain : and worse still, that no Russian 
 in any part of the Turkish dominions, was to be subject to any government 
 
 i8™"pp. 22f,' 222! l^ut his own. Henceforth the Russians might 'come and go, and conduct 
 themselves as they pleased, with or without the connivance of the authorities 
 at home, and they could be controlled only by means of their own ambassador 
 and consuls, whose predilections would naturally be on the side of their 
 countrj-men. The truth was, all was now over with Turkey; and her poli- 
 tical existence was henceforth nothing but 'a mere show, granted to the 
 solicitations of the Three Powers which deprecated her open destruction. 
 
 Setti.embnt of Of course, Turkey Avas in no condition to refuse any terms which might be 
 proposed to her in regard to Greece. The Turks in Greece not being rein- 
 forced, had yielded almost every where to the arms of the Greeks and their 
 allies ; and the Three Powers might now fix the boundaries of Greece, and 
 arrange its affairs as they would. This had been begun in a protocol prepared 
 by the Three Powers in March ; but the President of Greece, Capo d'Istria, 
 objected to it. The National Assembly, which he convoked at Argos, on the 
 2.3rd of July, was composed mainly of his partisans ; and they occupied their 
 time till the 18th of August chiefly in uttering sentiments on peace, and in 
 compliments to the President. By that date, however, the Three Powers were 
 transacting the business of Greece more effectually at Constantinople, where 
 Russia forced upon the Turkish government the acceptance of the protocol of 
 March. To prevent Russia having too much influence, however, in the 
 disposal of Greek affairs, the conferences on tlio subject were, by agreement of 
 the Three Powers, now to be carried on in London, where, from this time.
 
 C-'hap. IX.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 637 
 
 neither tlic Turkish government, nor the President of Greece, had any part in 1S2T — 30. 
 tlie deUberations. The Three Powers, seeing the helplessness of the other ^— ^ —^ 
 parties concerned, took the matter into their own hands, somewiiat uncere- 
 moniou.'^ly, oifcring some compensation to Turkey, by proposing a narrower 
 boundary for Greece than tliat assigned in the ilarch protocol. 
 
 It was presently determined that Greece should be wholly released from 
 Turkish rule ; and that the powers which had thus created a new state should 
 appoint its fonn of government. The monarchical form having been chosen, 
 as of course, the next question was who should be its king. In order to avoid 
 jealousies, all princes connected with the com-ts of the Three Powers were 
 excluded. The first to whom the new crown was offered was Prince John of 
 Saxony. lie declined it. Prince Leopold of Saxe C^obonrg, the widower of p'^oj"""^ '*'"• 
 our Princess Charlotte, and at this day King of the Belgians, was supposed 
 at the time to be eager for the sovereignty of Greece; and to him it was 
 offered, in January, 1830, by the representatives of England, Russia, and 
 France. 
 
 The negotiators were rather snrprised by the Piince's method of proceeding. 
 He had no idea of an unconditional acceptance or rejection; and, believing 
 the possession of Candia to bo essential to the security of the sovereignty of 
 Greece, he asked for Candia. There were other stipulations, too ; and the 
 offerers of the Crown found themsches still involved in negotiations, when 
 they had believed that they had only to confer a dignity. There was good 
 will on both sides, however ; and by the montii of April it was understood 
 by all parties that Prince Leopold had accepted the Crown of Greece. Tlie 
 Prince himself, however, did not consider his acceptance to be beyond recall ; 
 for on the 21st of May he finally and conclusively declined the Crown of 
 Greece. 
 
 Various reasons for this conclusion have been assigned. One which is most 
 generally agreed upon is that the President of Greece had frightened him "„""''''' '^'*' 
 from his enterprise. Prince Leopold had written to Capo d'Istria on the 28th 
 of February, to announce his prospects and intentions, and to address his 
 future subjects through their present ruler. Tlie reply of the President, and 
 the report of the proceedings of the senate at Napoli, which reached the 
 Prince in May, and have been made public, certainly leave no gi-ound of 
 surprise that any rational man should decline a task so hopeless as that of 
 governing Greece, while her internal state and foreign dangers wore what 
 they were thus shown to be. For the Prince's reasons for drawing back, 
 there is no need to look beyond the fact that the senate refused to accept the 
 arrangements of the Three Powers, in regard to so important a matter as 
 the boundaries of the state. But other causes might easily be, and were, 
 alleged. By that month of May, it had become clear that George IV. was 
 dying; and Prince Leopold, the uncle of the young Princess, who was to 
 succeed the next aged and feeble heir to the throne, might, as brother to the 
 Regent Duchess of Kent, be a personage of great jiolitical consequence, in 
 case of the Princess coming to the throne before she was of age. Again, 
 there is no need to go so far as this for the Prince's reasons. There was pcr- 
 h.aps scarcely a child in England who, hearing any thing nf the matter at all, 
 did not feel an uneasy sense of the vulgarity of a new crown, manufactured 
 
 \()I.. I. \ V,
 
 538 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book III. 
 
 1827 — .'}(). by statesmen in a cabinet. Children, and all unsophisfieated people, feel the 
 
 ~ ■ ' vulgarity of new rank, and of the lowest dignity, in an assemblage of high 
 
 ranks. Every one understands that it may be better to be of high station 
 among commoners than a new comer into the lowest order of the peerage. If 
 it is so with the common dignities of society, how much stronger must the 
 feeling be about that highest position whose main dignity is derived fi-om 
 associations of antiquity ! 15ut for historical associations, a crown has, in our 
 age, absolutely nothing in it at all. If conferred by the united impulse of a 
 nation, the honoiu- of sovereignty is still the highest conceivable : but such a 
 position is, in the present age of the world, one of leadership — one of personal 
 responsibility — which is only impaired by reference to hereditary associations. 
 There may have been reasons of policy for placing a crown on the apex of the 
 destinies of Greece ; but, whatever might be the tastes of the parties most 
 nearly concerned, it is certain that the tastes of western Europe were offended 
 by the act of txirning a venerable symbol into a politic bauble. And it is very 
 conceivable that though a sensible man might, in the hope of usefulness and 
 true honour, get over his objection to the insignia of his new office, it is no 
 wonder that, upon the hope of usefulness and true honour being reduced to 
 painful doubt, he should give way to his disgust, and decline the office and its 
 titles and decorations together. 
 
 It was not till two years after this time, not till the year 1832 was far 
 advanced, that the Three Powers could procure the acceptance of the Crown of 
 Greece by an European Prince : and then the new sovereign was a mere boy. 
 Otho, a younger son of the King of Bavaria, with nearly three years of his 
 minority yet to run, went to Greece, as King, in December, 1833, with little 
 chance of composing its dissensions, and affirming his empire. The only thing 
 that can be said is, that where a boy must fail, the ablest man might have 
 succeeded no better.
 
 Chap. X.J DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 539 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 T. 
 
 HE year 1830 opened gloomily — not only in England, but thioiigliout 1830. 
 Europe, and oven in America. In llussia, great efforts were made to raise ^- — ■ — 
 subscriptions to feed tlie labouring classes who were suffering under the ^"'^'"''^ 
 depression of agxiculture, from bad seasons and other causes. Throughout the 
 whole of Germany and Switzerland there were stirrings of discontent, which 
 gave warning of revolutionary movements to follow. In the rural districts of 
 the north of France that strange madness of rick-burning, whicli after\vards 
 spread fearfully in England, had begun. The educated classes of England 
 spoke of it at first with contemptuous amazement, as showing the desperate 
 ignorance of the rural population of France ; not yet dreaming how soon the 
 proof would be brought home to them that our own agricultural labourers 
 were in a similar condition of savagery. In the United States the pressure 
 upon the least opulent class was extreme ; and that prosperous country came 
 to the knowledge of real and cxten.sive distress. At home, the distress was so 
 fearful that even the sanguine Duke of Wellington, with all his slowness to 
 see the dark side in politics, and all his unwillingness to depress his valetudi- 
 narian Sovereign, felt himself obliged to take emphatic notice of it in the royal 
 speech ; and the debates on the Address, which were keen and protracted in 
 both Houses, turned chiefly on the dispute whether the distress, which all 
 admitted to be intolerable, was pervading or partial. The Duke maintained 
 that there Avere some parts of the kingdom where the distress was not press- 
 ing: the Opposition maintained that there were none. The Duke spoke of 
 tlie ranges of new houses that were rising in the neighbourhood of most of 
 tlie large towns, and declared that he had heard of no complaints on the part 
 of the retail traders ; M'hile his opponents looked upon these ranges of new 
 houses as monuments of the speculative mania of five years before ; declared 
 that they stood empty, or that their inhabitants were pining with hunger 
 within the walls, unable to pay rent, and allowed to remain only because the 
 owners knew that they could get no other tenants, and it was better for now 
 houses to be inhabited than left empty. Tlie interest of money was never 
 known to be lower; and the manufacturers' stocks, with which their .shelves 
 wore too well loaded, had suffered a depreciation of 40 per cent. Tlie Chan- 
 cellor of the Exchccpier, we find, spoke this session of topics of " consolation," 
 and no longer of " congratulation ;" and one subject of earnest deliberation 
 with the Ministers was whether they should propose a property-tax. They 
 resolved against it ; but the deliberation indicates the pressiu'e of the time. 
 The restless spirits of the mercantile and political world, who, in seasons of Di'coxTii.Ms. 
 distress, want to be doing something for immediate relief, turned now, as 
 usual, to the ready device of an issue of ])aper nu)ney. This was urgently 
 demanded, not only by many half-informed people tlnoughout (lie country,
 
 540 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book 111. 
 
 1830. but by some wlio should at least have known that they had better not speak 
 
 ■ — — on this subject unless they understood it. This idea — of an issue of paper 
 
 money — seems to have lain under the opposition to the Address in both 
 Houses, and to have been the real drift of the amendments projjosed. And 
 yet money was abundant throughout this period of distress ; and, as has been 
 said, the interest of money never was lower. 
 
 The national diseontent with the government was veiy great : and the dis- 
 content of the government with itself was hardly less. The continuance of 
 the administration would not have been permitted for a day or an hour after 
 ^i^AtE OF THE j.-|^g meeting of parliament, but for one consideration — the luiderstood state 
 of the King. And some members of the administration would not have borne 
 the galling yoke of their military chief's authority, if they could, with any 
 honour or humanity, have left him, or known what to do with themselves 
 when free. 
 
 The state of tilings Mas understood to be this. The King, always selfish 
 and swayed by his passions, had been an occasion of incessant difficulty to his 
 INIinisters since the failure of his jjrosecution of his Queen. The sense of 
 Avcakness and loss of self-respect cousequent on that failure had added distrust 
 of his servants to all the evil tempers which existed in him before. His 
 caprices became incalculable. Like all jealous and suspicious people, he was 
 fond of having little plots of his own — sly ways of putting his INlinistcrs to 
 the proof, or disconcerting and spiting them ; so that, between this jealousy 
 and his constitutional infirmity of purpose, matters had now come to such a 
 pass that his decisions and commands were worth nothing. He changed his 
 orders between night and morning ; and held contradictory opinions or notions 
 from day to day. It had become necessary to rule him first, in order to rule 
 the country. By some means or other, he must be held to his pledges, and 
 brought back to declared opinions, and supported in the enforcement of his 
 orders. The Duke of Wellington could do this better than any one else. 
 At least, it was certain that if he failed, no one else could succeed. The times 
 M'cre too grave for any trifling — for any ungenerous driving on of party 
 objects. Nothing would have been easier than to turn out the Wellington 
 Ministry any day ; and notliing could be harder than it was to some of the 
 subordinates of the Premier to remain inider his humiUating rule : but then 
 no other government was possible in the existing state of affairs ; and the 
 consequences of leaving the King and country without a iNlinistry were too 
 fearful to be braved by the hardiest. All were aware, too, that there must be 
 a change before long, and every one was disposed to put oft" all struggles of 
 parties till the fair opportunity of a new reign. 
 
 Rarely has a Minister held a more lonely position than the Duke of Wel- 
 lington did at this date. He had no party, no colleagues, no support of any 
 kind — unless it were that questionable support of which the country heard 
 much at the time — of fashion in London drawing-rooms. There could hardly 
 have been so many reports prevalent, and we could hardly meet with so many 
 allusions to this kind of support in the records of the time, if there had not 
 been some truth in the allegation that the Duke was the fasliion among the 
 ladies in the higher circles in London, and that these talking ladies did no 
 good to their hero, nor added any security to the chances of the perilous time 
 
 ni'KE OP w 
 MNGTON. 
 
 I
 
 CHA.P. X] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 541 
 
 by tlioir exaltation of the despot of the day. Just as the Court ladies of 1830. 
 Charles X. were praising the vigour of Prince PolignaCj the great ladies in ^ ' ' 
 London were praising the Duke of Wellington : and probably the conster- 
 nation of the English ladies at what they saw before the year was out was 
 nearly as great as that of the French ladies when they beheld their idol con- 
 signed to prison and civil death. Happily, however, the cases presented no 
 further parallel. If Paris is France, London is not England: and England 
 possesses a parliament with which no Minister dreams of meddling, and a 
 press which, as the Duke of ^yellington found by an experience less disastrous 
 than that of his friend Polignac, cannot be assailed with impunity. 
 
 First, for the parliament— that is, the House of Commons— at this time. S"te of parties. 
 The Opposition consisted of three parties, while the Ministerial party was 
 nothing. Mr. Peel was the only ^Minister whoni^'any body saw or thought of 
 in the Lower House ; and his only natural and oi-ganized supporters were 
 tho.se who, inuler the name of adherents of the ^Ministry, have no opinions, or 
 are never asked for any, and therefore atibrd no particular credit to a govern- 
 ment. Mr. Peel was observed \\ ith intense interest, and spared or supported m«- i'^^l. 
 bv a generous admiration and sympathy, which graced the time, but could 
 not long have put oft' the struggle of parliamentary conflict. The Premier 
 and he had carried the Catholic question in the best possible manner and 
 temper that the circumstances admitted. jNIr. Peel's sacrifices were imivcrsally 
 respected; his sincerity luiiversally confided in, thus far; and his present 
 difficult position generously considered. He stood in fact the supporter and 
 administrator of liberal principles ; and in order to be fraternized with by the 
 leaders of the liberal Opposition, it was only necessary that he should also 
 profess those principles which lie was actually working out. For this he was 
 evidently not yet ready. His heart could not yet be with those whom he had 
 regarded as antagonists during his whole political life: — his heart was natu- 
 rally still with the allies with whom he had lived and worked and fought till 
 now. This was casilv comprehended : and it was known that he had suffered 
 much in his private and public relations on account of his recent political 
 conduct; and that he must suffer under the stern rule of his chief; and that 
 he must have his share of difficulty in the relations of the Cabinet with the 
 Kin<>-: and therefore was he observed with intense interest — and time was 
 given him — and he was spared or supported by a generous admiration and 
 sympathy. ^Ir. Canning had specially exempted him from censure for the 
 secession which he complained of in every other case : — the liberals exempted 
 him from the mockery and censure Avith which they visited his comrades in 
 conversion on the Catholic question : and now, the liberal section of the 
 Opposition exempted him from the censure with which they visited the other 
 managers of a perplexed and almost profitless se.s.sion — a session marked at 
 the time as that which had exhibited most talk and least work of any since 
 the Conquest. 
 
 The Premier's view of the Opposition was, witliout disguise, one which did 
 not secure him any indulgence tiom it. The bulk of the Opposition was the 
 liberal party, now strengtliened and graced by an abundance of parliamentary 
 talent, while its weakness of administrative ability was, of course, not yet 
 shown ; and animated by victory, hope, and expectation. Another powerful.
 
 542 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book III. 
 
 1830. though small party, hi opposition, was that of the " Canningites," led by Mv. 
 
 ^ — ' Huskisson in these his last days. The old Tories made up the tliiid party — 
 
 not a very numerous one, but strong in the energies of grief, disappointment, 
 and fear. The Uuke's tactics were -well understood. He expected to hold his 
 position by playing off these parties against each other. He did not see, as 
 others did, that the causes of their disunion had mainly disappeared, while 
 amidst the heavings of this volcanic time, new ground had arisen on ^^•hich they 
 might stand together, and look abroad upon the agitations of the political sea. 
 The Duke was blind to this, because he was not yet aware of the critical cha- 
 racter of the times. He had seen the dangers of Ireland, and shown that he 
 could yield to necessity, and do what was required. But he did not compre- 
 hend the state of France, nor entertain the least doubt that his friend Polignac 
 would conquer there : and hs was to speak a few words, the next November, 
 which should show the existing generation and a remote posterity that the 
 needs and destinies of England were no clearer to him than, as he should by 
 that time have learned, were now those of France. 
 
 As for the union which was possible and probable between these tliree oppo- 
 sition parties — an union more probable at present than any practical an- 
 tagonism — it must be remembered that a touchstone of political integrity had 
 been api)lied universally in the Catliolic Emancipation measure. It was now 
 clear which men had opinions and could hold to them. Xo one could be jn-e- 
 sent at the debates of this session, and not see that a new feeling of mutual 
 respect had grown up between the prominent men who had for life advocated, 
 and for life opposed. Catholic Emancipation. The dignity of irresistible victory 
 belonged to the one set ; and the dignity of adherence to conviction under the 
 new adversity of opposition belonged to the other : and the mutual recognition 
 attracted both to a cordial co-operation on questions on wliich they happened to 
 agree. Then again, the Huskisson party was strongly united with the Tories 
 on the subject of Parliamentary Reform, and with the Liberals on that of Free 
 Trade. And a clear understanding could not but exist among all tlie three 
 in regard to the Wellington administration — that it could not, and must not 
 continue long ; and that the utmost care and delicacy were necessary to support 
 it as long as it was necessary, and to displace it in the least perilous time and 
 manner. It is the belief of many that the Premier was slow in becoming 
 aware that he held office by the mercy of the Opposition which he had expected 
 to manage and control. It is certain that his experience with regard to Irish 
 questions had not yet humbled him enough ; and that the coming year was one 
 of most painful discipline to him. He was first to learn, in the spring, how- 
 ever slow he miglit be in receiving the lesson, that his government was in itself 
 quite powerless : and next, in the summer, how France spurned the govern- 
 ment which had not beforehand seemed to him monstrous ; and in the autumn 
 — but that lesson shall be revealed in its own time. In tlie long life of the 
 Duke of Wellington, perhaps no one year has taught him so mucli political 
 truth, luider a regimen of such severe discipline, as the year 1830. 
 
 He began the year with a course of action so weak and blind as really helped 
 to justify the popular belief in France, and in some quarters at home, that he 
 and Prince Polignac were, if not in league, at least actuated by strong 
 sympathy. He began tlie year witli a war, on his own account, against the press.
 
 CiiAp. X.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 543 
 
 Perhaps no act of the Duke of Wellington's has ever injured him so much 1830. 
 
 as this. It instantly lessened his power, and wholly altered the popular csti- ' — — ' 
 
 mate of his character. Much of his power was derived from the ini])rcssion, , "rroNs. 
 till then universal, that his self-reliance was not only indomitable, but so lofty 
 as to be beyond the reach of foolish or malignant censure. Some persons had 
 been rather surprised at his condescending to (piarrcl with Lord Winchilsea's 
 random assertions : but now, when he directed the Attorney-General to prose- 
 cute the Morning Journal for libels against the King, the government, and 
 himself individually, people looked at one another, and asked whether this 
 could be the man M'ho was supposed to have the world under his feet. The 
 libels complained of were very abusive ; but they were, for the most part, ex- 
 tremely vague. One allegation of corruption, supposed to refer to the Lord 
 Chancellor, was distinct : and it might, perhajjs, be necessary to the reputation 
 of a judge to rebut it : but, when the Lord Chancellor proceeded to prosecute 
 on his own account, the editor of the paper made an affidavit that the charge 
 did not refer to tlie Lord Chancellor. Ujion this, the government pursued the 
 charge, instituting a new jjrosecution for the same libel, as affecting some one 
 member of the government, whoever he might be ; and this proceeding, taking 
 plact! after the defendant had disclosed his line of defence, was universally re- 
 garded as harsh and vindictive. But it was reasonable in comparison with 
 the other prosecutions, which were for such vague charges as " treachery, 
 cowardice, and artifice," and such gossip as that the King had been observed 
 to look coldly on the Duke of Wellington, and giving hints of the reasons why 
 the King did not appear in public. It was no small humiliation to the Duke 
 that he had to be reminded by the verdict of the jury on the second of the three 
 trials, that the time succeeding the passage of the Catholic Relief bills was one 
 of extreme excitement, when some allowance should be made for vehemence 
 of temper, and intemperance of language. The Prime Minister, who best 
 knew the opposition of men's minds, should have been the first to make this 
 allowance, and that he did not, materially damaged his reputation. The private 
 chaplain of the Didce of Cumberland avowed himself the author of some of tiie 
 libels ; yet the printer and publisher were pursued for them. The Duke's plea 
 was, that such publications prevented the ])ublic excitement from subsiding ; 
 l)ut there could be no doubt of the irritation being greatly aggravated by the 
 prosecutions themselves. The Whig Attorney-General, who remained in the 
 ministry on the ground of the government being conducted on Whig principles, 
 never recovered the ground he lost in the national esteem, by these prose- 
 cutions. Mr. Scarlett after this obtained dignities, office, and title ; but he 
 was always felt to be a fallen man. Some contemporaries ascribed the whole 
 proceeding to his, <as others did to Prince Polignac's influence over the mind 
 of the Duke of Wellington. The Exann'ncr of that date says of the procec-d- 
 insr, " This may be hypochondria, or it may be Scarlett ; for surely it camiot F."Biand-s sovci. 
 be intended to countenance the measures of Prince Polignac, and to persecute voi. «. p.27. 
 the press with a view to preserving conformity of councils. The coincidence is, 
 at least, curious." Under any supposition — whether tiie Duke was spontane- 
 ously despotic, or whether he was wrouglit upon by Prince Polignac on the one 
 hand, or Mr. Scarlett on tlie other — the reputation of the ministry, and especi- 
 ally of tlie Premier, was deeply injured bv these cuuiiicts with the press. The
 
 544 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 [Book III. 
 
 Annual Register, 
 I HiiO, p. 5. 
 Ki.N«'s Speech. 
 Hansard, xxii. 1. 
 
 1830. editor of the ^lorning Journal and one of the proprietors were punished hy 
 fine and imprisonment. 
 
 The Kin<;'s Speech, dcHvered by commission on the 4th of February, an- 
 nounced the peace conch ided between Kussia and Turkey ; the continuance of 
 the Portuguese quarrel ; the distress among the agricultural and manufactm'- 
 ing classes at home, and the hope of the government that considerable re- 
 ductions of expenditure might take place, without injury to the public service. 
 The subject of improvements in the administration of the law was also recom- 
 mended to the consideration of parliament ; and measiires were announced to 
 answer this object, and prepare for a revision of the practice and j)roceedings 
 of the superior courts. 
 
 Before the Ministers could annomice their plans of retrenchment, they 
 formally pledged themselves to the principle and practice, to be pursued with- 
 out hesitation or delay. Only a week after the opening of parliament, Sir 
 REDticTioNs. James Graham brought forward a motion for a general reduction of the 
 salaries of official persons, on the ground of the restoration of the value of 
 money by Mr. Peel's bill of 1819. This motion was withdrawn in favour of 
 a resolution proposed by Mr. Dawson, Secretary to the Treasury, m-ging, in 
 the form of an address to the King, reduction of the persons employed in the 
 departments of civil government, and of their salaries. !Mr. Hume's motion 
 for a Committee of Economical Inquiry was also withdrawn, that the Minis- 
 ters might be left free to produce their plan. They did this on the 19th of 
 February. 
 
 Such reductions as were now to be proposed almost always disappoint the 
 popular expectation, because they must necessarily bear a very small propor- 
 tion to the vast expenditure of a country ancient enough in its form of govern- 
 ment and society to inherit the consequences of old financial errors, and to lie 
 under heavy obligations of good faith. Not only ignorant demagogues in 
 remote districts of the country, but some members of the House who should 
 understand the history of British Finance better than they do, point to the 
 large amount of annual expenditure and then to the small proposals of reduc- 
 tion, and scoff at the administration of the day — taking no pains to separate 
 the expenditure of the administration of the day from that to which the 
 present generation is bound by the pledges of a former one. On the present 
 occasion, there was less of this method of complaint than usual — leading 
 members in each section of Opposition making haste to declare that tlie 
 reductions proposed went beyond their expectations. The reductions amounted 
 altogether to £1,300,000; a large sum out of ^le £12,000,000 from which 
 alone they could be deducted ; but not an amount whose remission would be 
 any effectual relief to the country. All who knew best, in each party, agreed 
 that nothing further could at present he done in the departments of the army 
 and navy ; a conclusion which was not, however, allowed to pass without • 
 some severe taunting of the Ministers about the state of Ireland, which would 
 not yet admit of any diminution of the military force stationed there. It had 
 been concluded too hastily some months before that the pacification of Ireland 
 would follow upon the relief of the Catholics ; and now, Mr. Peel's mention 
 of "the two great hostile parties in Ireland" was received with ironical con- 
 gratulations by those who did not see that the disturbed state of Ireland was
 
 Chap. X.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 515 
 
 owing to thi; long delay of the niea.suie of Emancipationj which had exaspe- 1830. 
 rated the passions of parties to an indoniitablc point. -"^ ' ' 
 
 The duties removed were those on Beer, Cid(>r, and LtJathcr, by which the ^■^I'^l^^ °' 
 direct reUef to the people was calculated at £3,400,000; and the indirect at 
 so much more as would justify an estimate of £5,000,000 for the whole boon. 
 A prospect was held out of reducing the interest on some portions of the 
 National Debt; and a searching examination was going forward in every 
 department of government, into the minutest divisions of the public expendi- 
 ture. — This session gave the most important financial relief to the nation of 
 any since the Peace ; and the acknowli>dgments of this by the liberal members 
 of Opposition were full and gracious. Mr. Baring regretted that the project 
 of annually paying off a portion of the principal of the National Debt was 
 surrendered for the sake of present relief: but most people thought that the 
 fact of a deficit was hint enough to attend first to the immediate jiressure upon 
 the people. — The repeal of the Beer duty met with great opposition from the 
 landed interest in the House, who would have preferred a repeal of the Malt 
 tax ; and from the agitation of the brewers and publicans who were alanned 
 at the idea of cheap beer, and of the throwing open of the trade which was 
 proposed to take place at the same time. But the measures siiggestcd by the 
 Chancellor of the Exchequer were all carried. 
 
 The Government had promised, at the close of the preceding session, that ^•^^T^J'"'"' "^'"'• 
 a Committee of Parliament should be appointed this year to consider the 
 whole subject of the jurisdiction and Charter of the East India Company, as 
 that Charter was soon to expire. A Committee was accordingly appointed 
 this spring, the vast importance of its duties being emphatically indicated by 
 ftFr. Peel. The subjects of the Company had been coniputcd to amount to 
 ninety millions ; and the welfare of millions more was implicated with theirs : 
 — it was therefore impossible to overrate the seriousness of the inquiry whether 
 the teiTitorial and commercial powers of the Company should be continued ; 
 and if continued, on what understanding and what terms. The Company 
 had kept silence as to their own desires and intentions ; the government had 
 no ])ropositions to make, or opinions to express : and the Committee entered 
 upon its work with every possible appearance of impartiality, and security for 
 't. There was some remonstrance, here and there, about the appointment of 
 three or four India Directors to serve on the Committee : but the objection 
 gave way before the need that was felt of their information on the affairs of 
 India and of the Company. The result of the investigations of this Committee 
 will appear hereafter. 
 
 The Speech had referred to proposed improvements in the administration of removal op a 
 the law. One sn-eat improvement which took place this session — an incident Anniiai Rfsisicr, 
 so remarkable as to deserve special mention — was the removal ot an unjust 
 jvidge. The Crown was addressed by botli Houses of Parliament, praying 
 for the removal of the Judge of the High Court of Admiralty in Ireland — Sir 
 Jonah Banington — who had been lately discovered to have been guilty of 
 malversation in the years 1805, 180G, and 1810. The facts were clear, and 
 part of the c\'idence consisted of documents in the liandwriting of the accused, 
 which showed that he had approimated to his own use some of the proceeds 
 of derelict vessels adjiulicated on by himself He was, of course, removed. 
 vol,. I. -1 c
 
 546 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 [Book III. 
 
 1830. 
 
 Welsh and 
 
 Scutch Jl'dica. 
 
 TUBE. 
 
 Annual Rrgister, 
 IS^U, p. 130. 
 
 Fonr.EltY, 
 
 ll!in:iai'd,xxiiL 
 
 117i;. 
 
 Jewish DijAbili- 
 
 'JlCi. 
 
 Hansard, 
 
 The shock -which this proceeding caused thi-oughout the country testified 
 strongly to the confidence — so unhesitating as to become natural — which 
 society in England has in the integrity of its judges. 
 
 An important alteration in the administration of the law was, that Wales 
 was annexed to the English jtidieature, its own separate system being 
 abolished. Instead of twelve, there were to be henceforward fifteen English 
 judges, a new judge being added to each of the tlu-ee Courts of King's Bench, 
 Common Pleas, and Exchequer. In Scotland, two Courts were abohshcd — 
 the High Court of Admiralty and the Commissary Court ; and thus the Court 
 of Session had more to do. It was thought, however, that the Court of 
 Session had still more judges than were necessary : and their nimiber was 
 reduced from fifteen to thirteen. 
 
 Mr. Peel brought in a Bill, on the 1st of April, to circumscribe the infliction 
 of the punisliment of Death for Forgery, tie proposed to abolish the death 
 penalty in all cases where the forgery could have been defied by any degi-ee 
 whatever of care on the part of the person injured, preserving it only in cases 
 of the forgery of the great seal, the privy seal, and the sign-manual : in 
 forgeries of wills, on the public funds, on bank or money notes or orders, or 
 representatives of money in any shape. This Bill, important as it was, did 
 not meet the views of those who believed that the punishment of death for 
 Forgery did not discourage the crime, and did hinder conviction fpr it : and 
 Sir James Mackintosh proposed and carried a clause repealing the penalty in 
 all cases of Forgery but that of Wills. The Lords restored the Bill to its 
 original state, and sent it down so late in the session as to cause a question 
 whether it should be accepted in the Commons, or thrown out, in the moral 
 certainty that no lives would be forfeited under portions of a law which it was 
 understood would be repealed in a few months. On the whole, it v.as thought 
 best to take at once what was offered, and seek the rest hereafter ; and Mr. 
 Peel's Bill passed. 
 
 The cause of the Jews was advocated strongly in the House, tliis session — 
 as it was likely to be after the admission of the Catholics to parliament. Mr. 
 Robert Grant opened the subject, and was supported at once by many of the 
 ablest men in the House ; and afterwards by a considerable body of petitions 
 from the towns. There was a majority of 18 in favour of the introduction of 
 the Bill ; but it was thrown out on the second reading by a majority of 228 
 over 165. The argmnents against the admission of the Jews to parliament 
 were of the usual untenable and mutually contradictory sort. The Jews were 
 too few to be worth regarding : but they would overthrow the Cluistianity of 
 the legislature: — some Jews once hated the Founder of Christianity, and 
 therefore all Jews would now seek to overthrow his Church. Nobody wished 
 it : and then again, the desire to favour Jews showed the prevalent disposition 
 to infidelity. All the petitions on the subject were in favour of the Jews ; 
 there was not one against them : and tliis jiroved how carefully they must be 
 kept out, as a class of infidels powerful tluough popular sympathy. The most 
 amusing plea was that it was unreasonable to admit Jews while Quakers were 
 excluded ; to which the friends of the Jews replied, by offering to admit the 
 Quakers immediately. — To us it is strange to look back now, and see how 
 long ago the Quakers were admitted, while the Jews still stand waiting out-
 
 Ciixv. X.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 547 
 
 side : — it is strange to tliiiik that that method of management still subsists by 1830. 
 
 Avhicli the hypocrite and lax holder of opinion find entrance without difficulty " — ■ 
 
 to the national councils, while the conscientious Jew, one of a body of sin- 
 gularly loyal and orderly and useful subjects, is excluded on account of a diffe- 
 rence of belief on matters which, as is shown by the fundamental diversities 
 of faith which exist within the walls of parliament, can have nothing to do 
 ^\dtli the business which goes forward there. The real difficulty probably is, 
 in all such cases, that men suppose a jjroselyting tendency in all who differ 
 fi'om themselves. In the case of the Catholics, there might be some colour of 
 a reason for such an apprehension ; but as every body ought to know, there 
 can be none such in the case of a Jew. A Jew no more desires to make 
 gentiles Jews than a peer desires to make all the commonalty peers. In both 
 cases, the privilege must come from the fountain of privilege ; and its value 
 lies mainly in its restriction. The Jews consider themselves the peerage of 
 the human race, and accordingly have no tendency to proselytism. 
 
 At tlie beginning of this session it is probable that no one foresaw what a PvnmMnxxARv 
 vigorous growth of the political life of the nation was about to take place ''*^°''"' 
 through the agitation of the question of Parliamentary Reform. This was 
 beyond human foresight ; because as yet the French revolution had not taken 
 place, and its stimulating influence upon the politics of England could 
 not be anticipated. But the subject of Parliamentary Reform was not 
 neglected. The Marquess of Blandford was still too angry with parliament 
 for passing the Catholic Relief Bill, still too firmly persuaded that the people 
 of England were averse to Catholic emancipation, to give up his attempt to 
 destroy the existing constitution of the House of Commons. The spectacle 
 is curious of the zeal of this violent anti-Catholic gentleman, in the most 
 "radical and revolutionary" question of the day; a zeal so vehement and 
 rash, that long-avowed advocates of reform of parliament could by no means 
 keep it in check, or prevent its throwing ridicule on their great cause. The 
 Marquess of Blandford moved a very extraordinary amendment to the Address uansard, xxii. 
 on the 'Oth of February ; an amendment which he called a " wholesome admo- 
 nition to the throne." This amendment declared — what would have asto- 
 nished the King very much if it had been carried — that the House was 
 dctennined that his Majesty should not be the only person in his dominions 
 left ignorant of the astounding fact of the deep and universal distress of the 
 nation, and the consequent impending danger to the throne, and all the 
 venerable institutions of the country. The reason assigned for the distress 
 was the deviation from the true principle of representation, shown in the 
 existence of purchaseable seats in parliament ; by means of which the House 
 was filled \\-ith men who considered their own interests alone, and heaped a 
 ruinous weight of taxation upon the country ; to remedy which, the King 
 was exhorted to revert to the wisdom of our ancestors, and to make the House 
 of Commons once more a representation of the popular \rill. On account of 
 the truth mixed up with exaggeration and error in tli(> long amendment of 
 tlie Marquess, several of the liberal members voted lor it ; but all agreed that 
 the subject was too vast and important to be dealt ■with as an amendment 011 
 tlie Address ; and that a more definite statement of the object desired nnist
 
 518 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 [Book III, 
 
 1830. 
 
 ITixnsaril, xxii. 
 078. 
 
 Life of Lord El- 
 don, iii. p. 107. 
 
 Hansard, xxii. 
 170. 
 
 Kngland'a Seven 
 Adiiiinistratiuns, 
 i., p. 2.i8. 
 
 Hansard, xxii. 
 
 be proposed before the House could pass a really useful vote on any part of 
 the subject. 
 
 As early as the 18th of the same month, accorcUngly, the Marquess was 
 ready to put the House in possession of his plan. Though the French revo- 
 lution had not yet happened, the old Tories might be excused for thinking 
 that the Morld was coming to an end, when they saw the Marquess of Bland- 
 ford making advances to Mr. O'Connell, in promotion of the most " revolu- 
 tionary project" of the century; and Mr. O'Connell, again, fraternizing with 
 the Polignac ministry and the Bourbons, and expending all the virulence of 
 his abuse on the liberals of France. We have on record some of the sayings 
 of the time which reveal the state of men's minds. First, we have the 
 old Tory, Lord Eldon, who writes of the Wellington policy as " establishing a 
 precedent so dangerous, so encouraging to the present attempts at revolution 
 under the name of refonn, that he must be, in my judgment, a very bold tool 
 who does not tremble at what seems to be fast approaching. Look, too, at 
 France. The ministers beat in the Chambers, on the first day, by a very 
 considerable majority ! What the Duke of Wellington will do, I pretend not 
 to guess. What will be said now about the fact that all the occasional laws 
 against sedition have been suffered to expire ? Heaven save us now ! for in 
 man there is no sufficient help." Then we have the Tory turned Radical, by 
 the consternation which only plunged Lord Eldon " in very low spirits." The 
 IVLirquess of Blandford said, that " the honourable and learned member for Clare 
 had expressed sentiments on this momentous topic in which he most cordially 
 concurred. He was happy to sec that honourable gentleman devote his talents 
 to the reprobation of so execrable a system, and he could assure him that he 
 would gladly join heart and hand ^vith so efRcicnt a coadjutor in procuring its 
 abolition." And next we have tliis member for Clare, this efficient coadjutor in 
 the cause of Parliamentary Reform in London, vituperating the men who were 
 risking their all in vindicating the jirinciple of parliamentary representation 
 in Paris. "la Liberal!" exclaims Mr. O'Connell, at this juncture. "No: 
 I despise the French Liberals. I consider them the enemies, not only of 
 religion, but of liberty ; and I am tlioroughly convinced that religion is the 
 only secure basis of himian freedom." The assumption that because the 
 French liberals resisted tyranny, they therefore resisted religion, is ■worthy of 
 Lord Eldon : but a stroke of absurdity follows too gross for even Lord Eldon. 
 ftlr. O'Coimell sunmied up by declaring himself a Benthamite. To the end 
 of his days he cherished liis hatred of all Hberalism in France, probably from 
 his leaning to-\\ards the authority of the Jesuits. That he had no ftiith in the 
 Orleans family, and no congiatidations to offer on their accession, is not to be 
 wondered at ; but his loyalty to the old Bourbons was a trait which, in the 
 self-styled Liberator of Ireland, was too much for most men's gravity. " The 
 Liberals," he rashly and ignorantly declared, " do not desire any liberty save 
 that of crushing religion, and once again imbriung their hands in the blood 
 of the clergy" — an assertion which is merely an exaggeration of the terrors of 
 the "Protestant" members of the House of Lords about the Irish Liberals. 
 Such were some of the cxirious incidents of the time. 
 
 The Marquess of Blandford's plan was radical indeed. He proposed that a
 
 Chap. X.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE; 549 
 
 Committee of Parliament should be chosen by ballot, who should inquire 1830. 
 into the condition of all the cities and borouglis in the kingdom, and should -— — ~— ^ — ' 
 report to the Home Secretary all that liad forfeited the fair conditions of re- 
 presentation ; as if this last was a point so clear as to be left to the decision 
 of any " Committee chosen by ballot !" The Home Secretary was imme- 
 diately to notify the forfeiture to those constituencies and to tlic public 
 through the Gazette ; aiul the vacancies were to be tilled up by representation 
 of large towns, hitherto excluded. No compensation was to be given to the 
 proprietors of disfranchised boroughs, unless such conciliation should be abso- 
 lutely requisite to the passage of the measure. All mi'mbers were to be paid ; 
 city and borough representatives two jiounds, and county members four pounds 
 per day; and all were to have been hitherto residents among the constituencies 
 which they represented. Copyholders and certain leaseholders were to enjoy 
 the franchise ; and Scotland was to be placed on the same footing with 
 England. The most ob^■ious objection here is to the vagueness about the true 
 jn-inciple of representation, by which the committee were to try the existing 
 state of the cities and boroughs of England. If, as the mover declared, Hansard, xxii. 
 abundant infoiTnation and authority were to be found in the law and history 
 of England^ it was clearly necessary to find and arrange them — to fix the 
 test — before proceeding to the trial. That such a proposition should be enter- 
 tained at all, and debated through a long sitting, showed the earnestness that 
 existed for some measure of Parliamentary lleform. Lord Altliorp moved, as 
 an amendment, at a late hour, the resolution, " That it is the opinion of this 
 House that a refonn in the representation of the people is necessary." The 
 majority against the amendment was 113; and then the original motion was 
 
 negatived. Hansard, xxii. 
 
 The question about the destiny of East Retford was broTisht forward asrain ; L"^ . 
 that question which had cost Mr. Huskisson his seat in the government two ^^'■ 
 years before. He voted as formerly ; and there were 99 votes in favour of the 
 transference of the representation to Birmingham ; but 126 voted on the other 
 side ; and thus, in the opinion of many, cast the die which turned up " revo- 
 lution." There are many who believe at this day, tliat if the representation 
 of Birmingham had been jjcrmitted at that time, a bit-by-bit reform would have 
 taken place instead of the sweeping measiu-e which its enemies might be per- 
 mitted to call '• revolution." In Mr. Iluskisson's speech on this occasion we 
 find the first historical mention of the Political Unions which were now to form 
 so prominent a feahn-e of the times. The notice was this. " He saw in Birming- Hansard, kh. 
 ham lately an association which, as far as he could perceive its elements, prin- 
 ciples, and oj)crations, seemed exactly formed on the model of the Catholic As- 
 sociation ; for it had its subscriptions, its funds, its meetings, its discussions, 
 and its agitator. The piu'pose of this association was to raise a universal cry 
 for Parliamentary lleform — to carry the question by exaggerating the ditli- 
 culties, abuses, and distresses of the country. Admiring, as he did, tlic talent 
 of the gentleman who took the lead (Mr. AttwoodJ at the Birniingliam meet- 
 ing, he, for one, would much rather see that gentleman in the House of Com- 
 mons — as fortunately ho saw the honourable member for Clare in the House 
 of Cimimons. He would rather see the leader of the ]?irmingham meeting 
 here as the representative of that town than in conducting such an association.
 
 550 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book III. 
 
 1830. sending forth those statements and appeals to the country, -vvliich was, perhaps, 
 too prone, at the present moment, to act on the ajjprehensions generated hy 
 them." Is it possible that Mr. lluskisson did not see (he who had so clear an 
 eye for some things less evident), tliat when the attention of any portion of 
 the English people is once fairly ti.xcd on the principle of any one of their in- 
 stitutions, the yielding of a single point of detail can never satisfy them ? If 
 Birmingham had at that time obtained representation, and liad sent Mr. Att- 
 wood to parliament, did he sup])()sc that the Birmingham Union would have 
 dissolved, any more than the Catholic Association would have dissolved if 
 Mr. O'Connell had been permitted to take his seat after his first election for 
 Clare ? The Birmingham Political Union was formed for tlic promotion of the 
 whole question of Parliamentary Ileforra, and not only for obtaining a repre- 
 sentation of its own town. If this enfranchisement had been granted now, 
 the success woidd have stimidated Manchester and Leeds, and other places, to 
 a similar pursuit of their object; and tlien the old Tories would liave charged 
 the government with the consequences of yielding to popular movements. As 
 it was, the denial answered the same purpose, of stimulating the popular will. 
 The truth was, the time was come for the change. It mattered little, except 
 as to the tempers of the parties concerned, whether government gave assent or 
 denial. The time was come for the rending of the garments wliich the 
 nation's life had outgrown ; and the agreement or refusal to mend the first slit 
 coidd make but the difference of a day in the providing of a new suit. The 
 Duke of Wellington was soon to show that he saw nothing of this ; but if 
 ISIr. Huskisson did not, it is only a fresh proof how little those who stand in 
 the midst of a crowd of events can see before them. 
 
 Lord John Russell brought forward the subject of the representation of large 
 towns, by moving for leave to bring in a bill to enable Birmingham, Manchester 
 and Leeds to return members to the House of Commons : and this was the oc- 
 casion of Mr. Huskisson's last speech on Parliamentary Reform. He supported 
 the motion, but under protest against any extension of the boon beyond special 
 and very pressing cases. There is an interest in reading liis statement of his 
 views, though his views may not be ours, as the last words we shall be able to 
 naiisard,xxii.«!ii. give of ouc whosc mcmory will ever be precious to his country. " To such a 
 measure of reform" (as the present) "he should give liis cordial support. As 
 to a more extensive parliamentary reform — a measure founded upon the prin- 
 ciple of a general revision, reconstruction, and remodelling of our present con- 
 stitution — to such a general revision, and change of our constitution, he had 
 been always opposed ; and while he had a seat in that House, he should give 
 it his most decided opposition. He conceived that if such an extensive reform 
 were effected, they might go on for two or three sessions m good and easy times, 
 and such a reformed parliament might adapt itself to our mode of government, 
 and the ordinary concerns of the country ; but if such an extensive change were 
 effected in the constitution of parliament, sure he was that whenever an occasion 
 arose of great popular excitement or reaction, the consequence would be a total 
 subversion of oui constitution, followed by complete confusion and anarchy, 
 terminating, first, in the tyranny of a fierce democracy, and then in tliat of a 
 military despotism, these two great calamities maintaining that natural order 
 of succession which they have always been hitherto seen to observe. He was
 
 Chap. X.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 551 
 
 therefore opposed to siith an extensive change and revision of our representative 1830. 
 system. It miglit be easy to raise objections to the boroughs, and by separat- ^-- — -^ — ' 
 ing the rc])resi'ntative system into its various constituent parts, to point out 
 evils and abuses in several of them : but it was a waste of time, and a per- 
 version of common sense, to look at it in tliat way. He would take it as a whole, 
 and regarding our present system as one aggregate, he was opposed to any ma- 
 terial change in it." 
 
 Weak words — to be the last from such a man ! "NVith tlie explosive ele- 
 ments of wrong involved (as he allowed) in this aggi'egate, was the entireness 
 to be best preserved by leaving the explosive elements to burst and shatter 
 every thing connected with them, or by taking them out while they might yet 
 be safely handled \ These Avere weak words to be the last from sueli a man ; 
 but the wisest men are Aveak when they prophesy of the future under the insti- 
 gation of fear instead of the inspiration of faith. The motion was lost by a 
 majority of 48. The subject was brought up again in May, however, when 
 Lord John llussell took occasion to propose two resolutions in tlie place of a 
 motion of Mr. O'Connell's, which was negatived. IMr. O'Connell's motion was 
 for leave to bring in a bill to establish universal suffi-age, triennial parliaments, 
 and vote by ballot. Lord John Eussell's resolutions were in favour of an in- Hansard, xsir. 
 crease in the number of representatives, and for the additional ones being given ' ' 
 to large to^^^ls and populous counties. Tliis incessant bringing up of the sub 
 ject during the session, by Tory, Whig, and Radical leaders, testifies to the 
 progi-ess of the question in the national will. The French revolution might 
 accelerate the demand and the movement ; but these preceding transactions 
 show that parliamentary reform wouhl liave been required and obtained with- 
 out the awakening of any new sympathy with any foreign people. 
 
 The man in all England who, at this critical season, did most to promote duke of New. 
 the cause of parliamentary reform, was the Duke of Newcastle. He made an '^'^'^'-'^ 
 avowal so broad and clear of his belief that the francliises of the citizens of New- 
 ark were his own, as much as any property whatever that he held, that many 
 were startled into a contemplation of tlie actual system itself, who might other- 
 wise have continued to argue about mere words. The independent voters of 
 Newark sent up a petition to parliament complaining of the undue intluence "^'"*"''' 
 of the Duke of Newcastle in the elections, which he exercised without any ap- 
 parent recollection of the statute whicli prohibits the interference of peers in 
 elections. The Duke's influence was mainly derived from his being the lessee 
 of crown lands, amounting to 960 acres, which fonned a sort of belt round 
 tliree fourths of the town of Newark. The ministers declared plainly in the 
 House that they had no intention of renewing the lease of these lands to the 
 Duke of Newcastle ; and, this being the case, and the exposure and disgi-ace 
 very complete, the eonnnittee asked for was considered by the majority not to 
 be needful. The most really useful part of the affair, however, was the inno- 
 cent amazement of the peer himself at such an interference \\\\\\ his use of his 
 influence ; an amazement expressed in words which were never let drop for a 
 day during the continuance of the reform aj;itation, and which are a proverb 
 to this liour — " INIay I not do m hat I will with mine own ?" He had looked 
 u])on the electors of Newark as his " own ;" but the 587 who had resisted his 
 dictation, and striven Id velum an independent mcniber. were very far from
 
 552 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book III. 
 
 1830. answering to the peer's notion of what Newark electors onglit to be : and a 
 ^— ^v ' gi-eat blessing the country lioiu this time felt it to be that there were 587 elec- 
 tors within tlie Duke's belt of land who were not liis " own." 
 
 ki'JTg?' "'' '"" 'JL'he general impression that the King was very ill continued in the absence 
 of aU reliable information about liis state, and notwithstanding the activity of 
 the preparations for his customary birthday fete in Ajnil. It became known 
 at length, however, that tliose preparations were countermanded ; and on the 
 15th of April his Majesty's physicians issued a bulletin, ainiouncing that the 
 King was ill of a biKous attack, accompanied with ditficulty in breatliing. 
 The bulletins during this illness were extraordinarily deceptive ; and the 
 nation was kept as nearly as possible in the dark about the King's state to 
 the last — almost every bulletin declaring him better, till, as a contemporai-y 
 observed, " amidst these accumulated betternesses, the nation was wondering 
 why he was not well, when it heard that he was dead." It is supposed that 
 the King insisted on seeing the bulletins, and that the physicians feared the 
 responsibility of making them true. This is a mockery which should have 
 been prevented by some means or other. On the 24th of ^lay, however, a 
 message from the King to both Houses of Parliament, indicated the truth. 
 The message told that the King was so ill that it was inconvenient and painful 
 to him to sign papers with his own hand, and that he relied on the readiness 
 
 Hansard, xxiv. ^j- pjuliament to consider without delay how he might be reUevcd of this 
 labour. There was no doubt in this case about the reality of the bodily 
 illness, nor of the ability of the King to understand and give orders about the 
 business brought before liim ; but the danger of the precedent was very pro- 
 perly kept in view, and the provision for affixing the sign-manual without 
 trouble to the King was fenced about with all possible precautions, which 
 could prevent the authority from being used by the creatures of an insane 
 sovereign. The stamp was to be atfixed in the King's presence, by his imme- 
 diate order given by word of mouth (to obviate mistake of any sign by head 
 or liand) ; a memorandum of the circumstances must accompany the stamp ; 
 and the document stamped must be previously endorsed by three members of 
 the Pri\nt- Council. The operation of the bill was limited to the present ses- 
 sion, that, if the King's illness should continue, the irregular authority asked 
 for must be renewed at short intervals. The bill was passed on the 28th of 
 
 Death OF THE May; and the occasion for its use Avas over within a month. The King died 
 "june -iGih. at three o'clock in the morning of the 26th of June. The final struggle was 
 
 Ls™"p- 1"'^'"'"' sudden and short. He was sitting up when he felt what appears to be the 
 peculiar and rmmistakeable sensation of death. He leaned his head on the 
 shoulder of a page, exclaimed " O God ! this is death !" and was gone. The 
 immediate cause was the rupture of a blood-vessel in the stomach. Ossifica- 
 tion of some of the large vessels about the heart had begun many years 
 previously; and, before the end, the complication of diseases had become 
 terrible. 
 
 The Kings of England and France were beckoned down from their thrones 
 nearly at the same time. George IV. died just after his brother of France 
 had issued his canvassing proclamation — his last words to his people — and 
 before the result could be known ; and both sovereigns were in a state of dis- 
 content, anger, and fear, at the state of the popular mind, and in view of the
 
 Chap. X.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 553 
 
 future. Two men more unhappy than they were at this time could hardly 1830. 
 have been found in the dominions of both. ~ — "^ ' 
 
 It would indeed he difficult to point to a more unhai)pv life through its i-"""! and 
 whole extent tlian tliat ot George IV. Nothing went well with him; and as 
 his troubles came chiefly from within, he had none of the compensations 
 which have -waited upon the most unfortunate of kings. Kings defeated, 
 captive, dethroned — or diseased in body, or betrayed in their domestic rela- 
 tions — have usually had solace from noble emotions, strenuous acts, or sweet 
 domestic affections. But our unhappy King had none of these. Through life 
 he achieved nothing. lie was neither a warrior, nor a statesman, nor a stu- 
 dent, nor a domestic man. If he had been even a mechanic, like Louis XVI. 
 the lt)cksmith, it would have been something. He was nothing but the man 
 of pleasure ; and, even in an ordinary rank, no one leads such a life of pain 
 as the man of pleasure. In his rank, where real companionship is out of the 
 question, even that life of pain is deprived of its chief solace — the fellow- 
 ship of comrades. The "first gentleman in Em-ope" might make himself 
 as vulgar as he would in the pursuits of dissipation ; he was still Prince, and 
 therefore excluded fi-om the hilarity which cannot exist where there is not 
 equality. 
 
 His youth was unhappy. His parents disliked and restricted him, and thus 
 drove him early into distrust and offence. "What his married life w^as is seen 
 in the story of his Queen. If he loved his only child, she did not love him ; 
 and he lost her. He had no friends : and if he chose to give that name to 
 any of his counsellors, he knew that he had often their disapprobation and 
 their compassion. Between himself and his people there was no tie, nor any 
 pretence of one. He never showed the least desire for their liajipiness, which 
 involved any personal sacrifice. He showed himself capable of pettj' resent- 
 ments : he showed himself incapable of magnanimity. He let it be seen that 
 the best government of his reign took place against his will, while he attempted 
 disgraceful acts wliich did not succeed. He surrounded himself with persons 
 whom the nation could not respect, while his selfish prodigality at their 
 expense chocked every growth of that loyalty which springs from personal 
 attachment and esteem. Faulty as was his temper, his principles were no 
 better. We have seen in the course of this history that his word was utterly 
 unreliable : and other proofs stood out from the whole surface of his lite. If 
 it is asked whether there was no good to set against this amount of evil, the 
 only answer, probably, that could be given by those most disposed in his 
 favour is, tliat he was kindly and warm in his feelings towards those whom he 
 took for his companions, whatever their deserts; and that he could be ex- 
 tremely agreeable and winning, and even outwardly dignified, when he chose. 
 Like all l*rinces, he had his flatterers; and while he lived, ])raises of the 
 Sovereign were afloat, as they are in every reign. The glories and blessings 
 which accrued to the nation in his time naturally appeared to belong more or 
 less to him at the moment. But it is not so after the la])se of t\\enty years. 
 When we now look hack u])iin tlic close of the war, the breaking u]> of 
 the Holy Alliance, the reduction of taxation, tlie im])rovenu'Ht in ticcdom 
 of s]ieech and the pn>ss, the ('manci])alion of the Dissenters and the Ca- 
 tholics, and the establishment of the principle and some of the practice of 
 
 vol.. I. 4 n
 
 551 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book IIL 
 
 1830. Free Trade, we involuntarily regard these as tlie acts and experience of a 
 
 ■ ' ' nation without a head. If it is now a con-vnction very common among 
 
 lis, that hesides that irresistihlc influence which emanates from personal 
 character, the Sovereign has, with us, no longer any power but for obstruc- 
 tion, it is certain that no one person has done so much to ripen and extend 
 this conviction as George IV. He declined the noble ])rcrogative of rule 
 over the heart and mind of his people by personal quaUtios, while using 
 such opportunities as he had of remiuding them of his obstructive power j 
 and his death was received by them ■with an indifference proiiortioned to 
 siich deserts. 
 
 He died in the sixty-eighth year of his age, and the eleventh of his reign; 
 previous to which he liad held the Regency for ten years.
 
 Chap. XI.J DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 555 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 A T the clo.se of the first reif^n since the Peace, it is ea.sy to see that a great 1830. 
 -^*- improvement in the national welfare had taken place, though the period ^— ^--^ — ' 
 was in itself one of gloom and agitation. The old Tory rule was broken up, like or the reion. 
 an ice-field in spring, and the winds were all abroad to prevent its reiniiting. 
 There were obstacles ahead ; but so many were floating away behind that the 
 expectation of progi-ess was clear and strong. On ever}' account it was a good 
 thing that the old Tory rule was broken up ; but chiefly for this — that when 
 the thing was done by the strong compulsion of fact, of necessity, men were 
 beginning to look for the principle of the change, and thereby to obtain some 
 insight into the views of the parties that had governed, or would or might 
 govern the country. Men began to have some practical conception that the 
 Tories thought it their duty to govern the people (for their good) as a dispose- 
 able property ; that the Whigs thought it their duty to govern as trustees of 
 the nation, according to their own discretion ; and that there were persons 
 living and effectually mo\ing in the world of jwlitics, who thought that the 
 peo])le ought to govern themselves through the House of Commons. This 
 perception once awakened, a new time had from that moment begun, of which 
 we are at this day -Ncry far from seeing the end. "NVith the departure of 
 George IV. into the region of the past, we are taking leave of the old time, 
 and can almost join in even Lord Eldon's declarations about the passing away 
 of the things that had been, and the incoming of a new and portentous age of 
 the national history, though we do not sympathize in his terrors and regrets, 
 nor agi-ee with him that what had been dropped was that wliich should have 
 been retained, and that whatever should supervene was to be deprecated 
 because it was new. ^\'e have, what the old Tories have not and cannot 
 conceive of, the deepest satisfaction in every proof that the national soul is 
 alive and awake, that the national mind is up and stirring. There was proof 
 of this, at the close of this reign, in what had been done, and in what was 
 clearly about to be done ; and this trumpet call to advance was heard above 
 loud groans of suffering, and deep sighs of depression ; and the nation mar- 
 shalled itself for the advance accordingly. 
 
 As for the facts of wliat had been done, the old Tory rule by hereditary AcnitvEMENTs. 
 custom, or an understanding among the " great families" whom ^Ir. Canning 
 so mortally offended, was broken up. Exclusion from social right and pri- 
 vilege on account of religious opinion was broken up ; that is, the system was, 
 as a whole, though some partial exclusion ri'mained, and remains to this day. 
 In the same maimer, the system of commercial restriction was broken up, 
 though in practice monopoly was as yet far more extensive than liberty of 
 comnu-rcc. Slavery was brought up for trial at tlie tribunal of the national 
 conscience ; and, whatever might be the issue, impunity at least was at an
 
 ^^^ HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book III. 
 
 18b(). end. The delusion of the perfection of existing hiw was at an end ; and the 
 ''^ national conscience was appealed to to denounce legal vengeance and cruelty, 
 to substitute justice in their place. Hojjc had dawned for the most miseriihle 
 classes of society ; for, while some of the first men in the nation were con- 
 tending for an amelioration of the criminal law in parliament, one of the first 
 women of her time was going through the prisons, to watch over and enlighten 
 the victims of sin and ignorance. The admission of a new order of men into 
 the Cabinet ; the bending of the old order, even of the iron Duke himself, to 
 their policy ; the emancipation of Dissenters and Catholics ; the adoption of 
 some measures on behalf of slaves ; the partial adoption of free trade ; the 
 continued ameliorations of the criminal law through the efforts of Sir S. 
 Eomilly, Mr. Peel, and Sir James Mackintosh ; and the interest excited in 
 the condition of prisoners by the exertions of ?ilrs. Fry — are features in the 
 domestic policy of England which must mark for ever as illustrious the first 
 reign succeeding the I'eace. 
 
 Its chief misfortune, perhaps, is that it introduced a method, which some 
 consider a principle of government — which cannot, from its nature, be perma- 
 nent, and which no one w^ould wish to be so. Now began, with the Catholic 
 Relief measure, that practice of gianting to clamour and intimidation what 
 would not otherwise have been granted, wliich has ever since been the most 
 unfavourable feature of our political history. The mischief began with the 
 delay in granting the Catholics their fair claims ; and those who caused that 
 delay are answerable for the mischief. They are doubtless right in deprecat- 
 ing the evil, and in calling it a revolutionary symptom or fact : but they are 
 wrong in laying it at any door but their own. It was not till the Whigs came 
 into power that the greatness of the evil was evident to every body : and then, 
 when the Whigs alone were blamed for it, the censure was unjust. The earlier 
 liberal measures were pushed forward in good time. Mr. Canning's foreign 
 policy, and jNIr. Huskisson's free trade, and all the ameliorations of the criminal 
 law, were the results of the ideas of the men who offered them ; offered before 
 the nation was ready to demand them in a way not to be refused. With Catholic 
 Emancipation the change came. The leading members of the government 
 avowed their disinclination for the measure, and that it was extorted by neces- 
 sity. In the story which we shall have next to tell, we shall see the conse- 
 quences. They did not appear immediately ; for, though refonn of parliament 
 would have been extorted from an unwilling government, there was happily a 
 willing government ready to grant it. It was as much the result of the ideas 
 of the men who gave it as i\Ir. Canning's foreign policy, and jNIr. Husldsson's 
 free trade ; and all the world knew that the members of the government had 
 advocated this reform for long years past, through evil and through good re- 
 port ; and they could, therefore, now bestow the boon with consummate grace. 
 But the history of other transactions will not prove so gratifying. We shall 
 have occasion to see how the Whigs were, not only what all rulers of our day 
 must be, the servants, instead of the masters, of principles of policy, but the 
 servants, instead of the rulers, of the loudest shouters of the hour; and with the 
 less dignity from their being the professors of popular principles. Dangerous 
 as it might be to see a Wellington and a Peel yielding to popular demands 
 what they would never have originated, there might be, and there was, a certain
 
 Chap. XL] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 557 
 
 dijjiiity ill it — a touch of heroic mounifuhiess which is altogether absent in the 1830. 
 other case — when leaders professedly liberal do not originate measures, but ^"""^'^ ' 
 have them extorted against their own convictions, by the clamour of their own 
 preponderating party. As we shall sec, there has been too much of this in a 
 succeeding time ; and some fearful consequences have probably to be met here- 
 after : but this is the place in which to rix the reproach where it is due — to 
 charge upon the anti-Catholic portion of the aristocracy the consequences, be 
 they what they may, of first compelling concessions to popular intimidation, 
 and turning back the government from its glorious post of guide and ruler of 
 the will of the people, to the ignominy of being its reluctant follower and 
 servant. 
 
 As for what remained to be done — obviously, in the view of all the people — desiderata. 
 the House of Commons must be reconstituted ; municipal govennnent must be 
 purified ; slavery must be abolished ; something must be done to lighten the 
 intolerable burden of the poor-law ; the com laws, and as a consequence, the 
 game laws, must be repealed ; religious liberty must be made complete ; the 
 youth of the nation must be educated ; and something remained over and 
 above, and still remains — more important and more pressing (if all men coxdd 
 but see itj, than all these put together : the industrious must have their deserts 
 of food and comfort. .The Poor law, the Corn law, Taxation, and Education — 
 these, if properly taken in hand, and amended to the utmost, might do some- 
 thing : but, whatever they miglit leave over must be done. It cannot, in the 
 nature of things, happen for ever, or for very long, that men in rural districts 
 shall toil every day and all day long, without obtaining food for themselves and 
 their children ; or that men in the towns should sit at the loom, or stand over 
 the spindles through all the Avorldng hours of the day, for their whole lives, 
 till age comes upon them, and then have no resource but the work-house. The 
 greatest work remaining to be done, was to discover where the fault lies, and 
 to amend it while there was yet time. "We shall hereafter see what has been 
 done to this end ; and must then draw our inferences as to what remains to be 
 done. 
 
 In 1829, the weavers of Lancashire and Cheshire were earning, at best, siate ok opeua. 
 from 4s. 45^/. to Gs. per week when at work. The most favom-ed had to wait 
 a week or two between one piece of work and the next : and about a fourth of 
 the whole ninnber were out of employ altogether. The parishes made allow- 
 ances in the proportion necessary to enable these people to procure food and 
 shelter : and the burden became so heavy that a continually increasing num- 
 ber of rate-payers sank down into the condition of paupers. At tliis time, a 
 cotton mill was burned down at Chorley in Lancashire ; and there was reason 
 to suspect that the fire was not accidental — disputes having taken place 
 between the pro])rietors and their men about M'ages. The factory was rebuilt ; 
 and persons were employed at the rate of wages formerly given. An advance 
 was soon demanded and refused. The sj)inners turned out; and they used 
 every effort to jnevent others from taking their places : but, where so many 
 were in need, hands were sure to be found. Four of the new workers lodged 
 in the house of one of the overseers. At one o'clock in the morning (June Annuni nrgisier, 
 
 ,_,,,,,, , . . ^ 1830, Chrun. 32. 
 
 ITth, LS.iO), a tremendous explosion shook the liouse to its foundation, 
 destroyed tlic furniture, and blew out all tlie doors and windows — without.
 
 558 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book III. 
 
 1 cQQ however, materially injuring- any of the inmates. A common breakfast-can, 
 
 . ^ containing gimpowder, had been let down the chimney, and ignited by a slow 
 
 match. — Here was one symptom of the state of society which could not long 
 exist. Amidst fearful records of the destruction of property in the manufac- 
 turing districts by men wild with hunger, we meet with the yet more sicken- 
 ing stories of the Hibners and Philps, who hardly escaped from the hands of 
 the mob for their treatment of parish apprentices. The name of Esther 
 Hibner is familiarized to all ears by its infamy. The sum of her history is, 
 that she treated her apprentices as the most barbarous and depra\ed of slave- 
 holders treats his slaves, whom he would rather torture than make a profit of. 
 She starved them — she beat them — she pulled out their hair — she had them 
 ducked — till, happily, one died of the ill usage, and the others were in conse- 
 quence rescued. Esther Hibner was hanged. In this case, protection came 
 when only one life had been sacrificed : but the succession of cases that was 
 revealed at this time, and the general impression conveyed by the evidence, 
 caused a conviction that the pauper apprentices were too many and too help- 
 less to be properly cared for ; and that there must be something intolerably 
 wrong in the state of society which permitted them to swarm as they did. — 
 During the same period, a case here and there appeared at the police oflaces, 
 or came to the knowledge of inquiring men, which showed that if the amount 
 of paujjerism was becoming unmanageable, so were the abuses of pauper 
 funds. The corruption of morals caused by the parish allowance for infimts 
 was more like the agency of demons than the consequence of a legislative 
 mistake. In many rural districts, it was scarcely j^ossible to meet with a young 
 woman who was respectable — so tempting was the parish allowance for infants 
 in a time of great pressure. And then again, there were the pau])er marriages; 
 ■ — old drunkards marrying the worst subjects they could find in the neighbour- 
 ing workhouses, for the sake of the fee of two or three pounds given to get 
 rid of the woman. The poverty of the industrious, the violence of the exaspe- 
 rated, the cruelty of the oppressor, the corruption of the tempted, the swindling 
 of the corrupt, and the waste of the means of life all round, to a point which 
 threatened the stability of the whole of society — these were things which 
 could not long endure, and which made the thoughtful look anxiously for a 
 change. The amount of poor-rate expenditure for relief at this time was 
 between six and seven millions annually ; and incessantly on the increase. 
 ciAMB Laws. First among the changes needed was the introduction of an abundance of 
 
 food. While, however, men, women, and children, were actually wan and 
 shrunken with hunger, they saw a sight which turned their patient sighs into 
 angry curses. When the poor Irish lay hands on grain about to be exported, 
 we do not wonder at the act, though we would fain make them understand 
 that by the sale of that grain comes the fund which is their only resource for 
 the payment of their labour, and their consequent means of bread, and hope of 
 next year's crop. But when the hungering peasant sees whole breadths of 
 wheat devoured or laid waste before his eyes by the hares and pheasants of 
 his rich neighbour, what can be said that shall deter him from putting in for 
 his share ? During this period the jails were half-filled with offenders against 
 the Game Laws : and besides the melancholy stories, so frequent as to weary 
 the newspaper reader, of poaching affraj s, in which men of the one {larty were
 
 Chap. XL] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 559 
 
 killed by violence in the Jiiglit, and men of the other party were after^vards 1830. 
 killed by law, we find a new order of offences rising up under the vicious 
 system. We find that men prowled about in the field.s near the great game 
 covers, strewing and sowing poisoned grain. Country gentlemen were not 
 then so well aware as later events have made some of them of the danger of 
 suggesting to the ignorant peasant the use of poison, in any kind of self- 
 defence against his neighbour. But, if the evil had never spread beyond the 
 poisoning of pheasants and hares, there was enough in it to induce any 
 thoughtful and humane man to inquire whether he was not pursiung his 
 sports at too great a cost. If he did not know, and would not learn, the 
 amount of social injury that he was causing in the useless consumption or 
 destruction of food, it was clear to all eyes that he was causing his brother to 
 offend by his persistence in the piu'suit of a mere amusement. Some transac- 
 tions of this time between the country gentlemen and their peasant neighbours 
 remind us but too strongly of the days before the first French Revolution, 
 when the great man of the chateau kept the neighbouring cottagers up all 
 night, whipping the ponds, to silence the frogs. Subsequent events showed 
 that these cottagers were of opinion that, as they were to toil for the great 
 man in the day, he should have protected, instead of forbidding, then- sleep at 
 night : and events were now at hand which indicated something of the feeling 
 of the ignorant and suffering peasantry against the landed interests of 
 England. 
 
 It is during this period that we come upon the traces of the practice which Poison 
 is, beyond all others, the opprobrium of our time — the practice of poisoning 
 for the gratification of selfi.sh passion. The jierpetrators are of a different 
 order from those of whom we read in the history of past centuries ; — of whom 
 we read with a shudder at the thought of living in such times : but the crime 
 is as desperate in our day, and, it is to be feared, more extensive. Then, it 
 was the holders of science and their intimates that did it ;— those who ought 
 best to have known the value of human life, and the irredeemable suilt of 
 cruel treachery. In our day, it is the lowest of the low who do it : — 
 people whose ignorance and folly, offered in evidence on their trial, make 
 us aghast to think how, when, and Mhere, we arc living — with beings 
 like these for fellow-citizens. AVe look upon these fellow-citizens of ours 
 as upon ill-coiulitioncd children, killing flies for their amusement, and 
 breaking windows in their passion. They know nothing of the sacredness of 
 human life, of ^^rtue, decency, good fame, or of doing as they would be done 
 by. They want something — money, or a lover, or a house, or to be free of 
 the trouble of an infant ; and they put out the life which stands in the way 
 of what they want. Time and experience appear to show that this is but the 
 beginning. Their sluggish faculties seem to be pleasurably animated bv the 
 excitement of the act ; and they repeat it, till, at the jjreseut time, we find 
 cases of men and women who have been poisoning relations and neighbours 
 by the score, during a period of ten or fifteen years. The guilt and the shame 
 lie with the whole of society which has j)ermitted its members — hundreds of 
 thousands of them — to grow up as if they were not human beings at all, liut 
 a cross between the brute and the devil. We ran sec the horror of the exist- 
 ence of such a class in another country, and shudder at the atrocious mental
 
 560 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book III. 
 
 1830. 'Ill (I moral condition of the canaille at the time of the first French Revolution : 
 but it may be questioned whether France had at that time any tbinj;; to reveal 
 more sickening than our wholesale chikl-murdcr, for the sake of the profits 
 from Burial Chibs, and the poisonings which sweep off whole families in the 
 hamlets of our rural districts. In the year 1828, the idea seems to have been 
 so new and appalling as to make us feel, in tlie reading, ashamed of the fami- 
 liarity which has grown up in ten years. In 1828, Jane Scott was found 
 guilty, at the Lancaster Assizes, of having murdered her mother by poison. 
 She had been previously tried for the murder of her fixther ; but liad escaped, 
 through the death of a witness. Before she was hanged, she confessed both 
 murders, and also that she had poisoned an illegitimate child of her own, and 
 one of her sister's. The object of her parricide was to obtain property, which 
 might tempt an acquaintance to marry her. Her age was twenty- one. She 
 seems to have acted under the superficial excitability of a child, rather than 
 from any fury of passion. This first case of a long series is here given ex- 
 pressly as such. Henceforward a general mention must sufiice ; for the crime 
 becomes more and more frequent. Next to the pain of the fact is that of 
 hearing what is proposed as a remedy. Far and wide now, men are proposing 
 to restrict and impede the sale of poisons ; — as if any mechanical check could 
 avail against a moral mischief so awful ! It is not in barring out any know- 
 ledge once obtained that safety can be found, but in letting in more without 
 restriction or delay. We have had warning of this for many years now ; yet 
 no system of National Education is in practice, or likely to be so. Sectarian 
 quarrels have come in the way. To this hour men are disputing about the 
 order of religious education that shall be given, and insisting upon the right 
 to communicate exclusively each his own views, while one generation after 
 another passes off into the outer darkness, and beings, called human, are, 
 after leading the Hfe of devils, dying the death of brutes. Let this case of 
 Jane Scott be jireserved and perpetuated till we have done our duty by the 
 li-\ing of her class, and then forgotten as soon as may be ; for, in holding up 
 to view her dangling corpse, we are gibbeting ourselves. 
 
 At the close of our last period mention was made of the affi-ays caused by 
 the practice of body-snatching. In the present period, we have a long array 
 of such narratives, and something worse. It had been for some time suspected 
 that vai-ious ingenious methods were constantly in use to meet the demand of 
 the hospitals for subjects for dissection. Among others, the detection of a 
 single case of fraud in obtaining the body of a person unknown, dying in a 
 workhouse, caused a suspicion that such frauds were fi-equent. A man and 
 woman presented themselves to claim the body of a man who had dropped 
 down dead on Walworth Common, declaring that the woman was the sister of 
 the deceased. From their appearance of anxiety and grief, and the circum- 
 stantial story they told, no doubt of the relationship was entertained, till it 
 was accidentally discovered that these people had sold the body to Saint 
 Bartholomew's Hospital for eleven guineas. The only way in which the cul- 
 prits could then be reached was by prosecution for stealing the clothes of the 
 deceased. It had become pretty evident now that the requirements of science 
 must be met by some anangement which should facilitate the procuring of 
 bodies for dissection ; and already individuals here and there were doing what
 
 Chap. XL] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 501 
 
 they could by making known tliut they had by Mill left their own bodies for ISrJO. 
 
 dissection. Some few had even sold their own bodies for that purpose, ^ -^ — • 
 
 reeeivinf>- at once a portion of the sixteen guineas, which was then the average 
 price of such an article. But in the year 1828, a disclosure was made, which, 
 while it startled every body, warned such negotiators as wo have mentioned 
 to be careful as to the parties with whom th(>y made their bargain. By an 
 accidental discovery of a dead body, recognised as that of a woman in good 
 health a few hours before, iu the house of a man named Burke, at Edinburgh, 
 it was r(>vealed that a system of murder had been going on for some time, in 
 order to supply "subjects" to the dissecting rooms. Burke himself confessed 
 fifteen murders which he and his accomplice Ilarc had pcri^etrated together. 
 Their practice was to note any helpless half-wit and unfriended person in the 
 streets, invite them home, make them first merry, and then stupidly drunk, 
 and then suffocate them by covering the mouth and nose, and pressing upon 
 the body. The medical men do not appear to have noticed any suspicious 
 appearances about the corpses brouglit to them, or to have made any trouble- 
 some objections to the stories told in each case to account for the possession of 
 the body. The only observation on record is that Dr. Knox, in one case, " ap- 
 proved of it as being so fresh." The horror of the medical men must have been 
 extreme Avhcn the truth was revealed. The consternation of the public was 
 excessive. Probably it was not known to any one, or ever will be, how far the 
 practice of Burking (as the offence was henceforth called) extended at that time ; 
 liow much was true of the dreadful stories of murder current in every town and 
 village in the kingdom. jVIost people believed at that time that it was the 
 custom of not a few gangs of murderers to clap plasters on the mouths of 
 children and unsuspicious or helpless persons, to strangle them, and sell them 
 to the doctors : and it is probable that the crime was suggested by the fear, and 
 by the notoriety of the case of Burke and Hare : while the practical jokes insti- 
 gated by the general apprehension were, no doubt, nimierous. The crime v\as 
 sujjcrscdcd by imjiroved care on the part of surgeons, and by legislation, which 
 supplied them with what they wanted. But the memory of the occasion is 
 kept alive by the new tenn which it supplied. Since that date, we have had 
 the verb "' to burke ;" which means to stifle or extinguish any subject or ])rac- 
 tice, from motives of self-interest. The execution of the murderer took place 
 nt Edinburgh in .January, 1829, when the sjicctacle of po])ular rage and vin- J*,"I]"j'|"o'',f I'y''' 
 dictive exultation was fearful. Shouts arose from a multitude vast beyond 
 precedent — shouts to the executioner of " Burke him ; give him no rope ; burl<e 
 him !" And at every convulsive throe, a huzza was set up, as if every one pre- 
 sent was near of kin to his victims. When the body was cut down, there was 
 a cry for " one "cheer more !" and a general and tremendous huzza closed the 
 diabolical celebration. 
 
 Tliis was not the only crime of this period wliieli stimulated legislation. A Notiui.k rnmis 
 shock was given to the general feeling by the execution of a Quaker for forgeiy. 
 The case was so clear and so connnon — a case of rash embezzlement, covered 
 by the forgery of bills, in the ho]M^ of retrieval before tlie time canu' round — 
 that there could be no doubt about his ])iniisliinent while others were so 
 doomed: but the jieculiarities of the case (luiel^ened llie efforts of those who 
 disapproved of capilal punisliment for forgery, llunton was executed on the 
 
 vol.. I. 4 k
 
 .^(;2 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book HI. 
 
 1S;>0. f^th of Decembev : and on the 27 th of the same month, a case of embezzlement 
 ' — -^'^— -' occurred, which ccUpscd all prior adventures of the kind. A member of parlia- 
 
 is-i'sl'ciiro'nMTs.' mcnt, Treasurer of >St. Bartholomew's Hospital, and a partner in the banking- 
 house of llemington, Stephenson, and Co., absconded, in company with a clerk 
 of the bank. Some suspicion was excited in the minds of the gentlemen who 
 were his securities at the Hospital, by the culprit, Mr. Rowland Stephenson, 
 leaving home at four o'clock in a December morning ; and they obtained from 
 the President a cheque for £5000 on the bank, whercliy tlic balance at the 
 bank might be lessened. The cheque was presented and paid at eleven o'clock; 
 and at half-past one the bank stopped. The delinquents got off from the Welsh 
 
 Annual ncsisipr, coast for Savanuali. 
 
 1828, Chron. IKS. 
 
 A crime more remarkable than these, and unspeakably odious to public feel- 
 ing, was that of the abduction of a young lady, an only child, by the conspii-acy 
 of a rapacious family. The Wakefields were the conspirators, and one of them 
 was the principal in the case ; tlie husband as he hoped to be, and as he was, 
 in the eye of the law, till a divorce could be obtained ; a jJi'occss which was 
 quickly completed in a case where the universal sjTnpathy was with the wronged 
 parents, and their deceived and affectionate child. This young lady, aged only 
 fifteen, was fetched away from school at Liverpool, on false pretences ; and 
 then made the victim of her attachment to her parents, by means of stories of 
 their illness, pecuniary embarrassment, and so forth ; so that she was carried to 
 Gretna Green, and married there, and then conveyed abroad, where she was 
 soon overtaken and rescued by her uncle. She went through the suffering of 
 the prosecution of her enemy, and of the divorce process ; mamed not long 
 afterwards, and died early. The brothers Wakefield were imprisoned for three 
 Annual Rosisier, ycars — Edward Gibbon Wakefield in Newgate, and his brother William in 
 
 l»:i7, Chron. 320. t i r< il 
 
 Lancaster Castle. 
 
 A delinquent who has ever since been a standing satire on the gullibility of 
 
 English men and women, made his first appearance in public in May, 1830. 
 
 Annual Register, Joscpli Adv tlicii wroto liis first rccordcd letter, offering mysterious advantages 
 
 1830, Chron. 73. r • • i i i • 
 
 on payment of a sovereign ; and, the promised advantages not being apparent, 
 he was brought before a magistrate on a charge of swindling. And he has never 
 since left oft' swindling, in precisely the same manner, making, it is believed, 
 a good living for many years, by the credulity of his correspondents. He baffled 
 the ingenuity of every one who wished to stop his career, till the assistance of 
 the Post Office authorities was called in. By making him responsible for the 
 postage of his unaccepted letters, he has been checked at last, and laid up as a 
 debtor to the Postmaster-General. But in the intervening eighteen years, it 
 may be safely alleged that no one person in the kingdom has consumed so much 
 time and patience of the magistrates in London, or, in his character of swindler, 
 so tickled the fancy of the wide public — a multitude of whom, all the while, 
 fully aware of his dealmgs with others, hesitated to forego the chance of some 
 great advantage which might be purchased for one sovereign. Many are the 
 young and old ladies ; many the shopkeepers, -with entries of bad debts, possibly 
 recoverable, in their books ; many the professional men, experienced in the odd 
 turns of human life and fortunes — who have held a letter of Joseph Ady's be- 
 tween the fuiger and thumb, waiting for some suggestion which would save 
 them from shame and ridicule in the act of sending a sovereign to the noted
 
 CuAP. XI.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 5G3 
 
 Joseph. He is an old man now; but who will say that ho is too old to find 1830. 
 more dupes, if ever he escapes from the grasp of the Postmaster-General .' ^- ^ ' 
 
 At four o'clock in the niornin"^ of jVIondav, the 2nd of February, 1829, a X""" !*'"<sikei 
 man passed through tlie Minster yard at York, and saw a light in the building. 
 Supposing that somebody was at work about a vault, he took no notice ; and 
 indeed the last thing likely to occur to any one was that Y'ork Minster could 
 be on tire. Between six and seven, a boy, one of the choristers, passing the 
 same way, set his foot on a piece of ice, and fell on his back, when, dusk as it 
 was, he saw that smoke was coming out at various j)arts of the roof He ran 
 to the man who had the keys. On entering, it was found that the line carved 
 woodwork of the choir was all on fire. That carving, done in the fourteenth A.muai R.siM.r, 
 century, with its curious dc\-iccs, long become monumental, was e\-idcntly "*^'"'' ^''™''' "' 
 doomed. The inx'servation of any part now^ seemed to depend on the roof not 
 catching fire : but the wood of the roof was extremely dry ; and it presently 
 kindled as a tongue of flame touched it here and there : and at half-past eight, 
 it fell in. The mourning nmltitude who looked on now told each other that 
 their beautiful Minster was gone. But such exertions were used that the flames 
 were checked — less by the efforts of the people (though every thing possible 
 was done) than by the failure of any combustible substance when the tower 
 wiis reached. The great east window, the glory of the fabric, suffered but 
 little : and the stone screen which separated the communion table from the 
 Ladye Chapel was capable of repair. The clustered pillars of the choir were 
 ruined, being of magTiesian limestone, and splitting into fragments under the 
 action of the fire. 
 
 On inquiry, it was immediately ascertained that the mischief was done by 
 an insane man, named .Jonathan Martin, who believed himself directed by a 
 divme voice to destroy the Minster. He told his wife of liis supposed com- 
 mission ; and ^le nearly diverted him from liis purjjose by asking what was 
 to become of their child. The voice however urged him again : he travelled 
 to York, secreted himself in the Minster on the Sunday evening, struck a 
 light at night with a razor, flint, and tinder, shouted " Glory to God ! " till 
 he was weary, and at three in the morning collected the cushions, set fire to 
 them with a bundle of matches, broke a window, and let himself down to the 
 ground outside by the linotted rope of the prayer- bell. Such was his own 
 account ; and several persons testified to ha\ing heard noises in the cathedral 
 in the course of the night. How it was that no one of them took steps to 
 ascertain the cause has never been explained. — At the end of a month, the 
 estimates for the restoration were prepared, and a meeting was held, the tone 
 of which was so earnest and spirited as to leave no doubt that the work would 
 be well and completely done. Happily, some drawings of the stalls and screen 
 of the choir remained in the hands of the Dean and Chapter, which facilitated 
 the imitation of the work destroyed: and it was resolved that the iniitatiou 
 should be as cnm])lite as possible. The poor lunatic was of course so confined 
 as to be kept out of the way of further mischief He had done enough fin- 
 one lifetime. 
 
 On the 27th of April, there was a vet more serious alarm: for ^Vestminster Accmsvi 
 -Vbbey was on fire. A little after ten at night, flames were seen iss\iing from aouev. 
 the north transept. As the news spread, it caused a pang in nuiny hearts — so 
 
 •insvr*. 
 
 IIN&TLR
 
 5G1 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Douk III 
 
 1830. istiuiig seemed the jjiobability that the fasliion of buniing cathedrals would 
 
 ■ -^^^-^ spread, as the fashion of desperate crimes is wont to spread, among infirm 
 
 brains. The anxiety of the moment Avas about the difficulty of getting at tlie 
 place that was burning. The Dean was out of to\vn ; but his function was 
 well filled ; and the mischief soon stopped. A cast-off screen, used in the 
 Westminster plays, and j)ut away here, with other lumber, in a corner, was 
 on fire, and fiilling, had kindled the boards. When an entrance was obtained, 
 the flames were climbing rapidly to the roof j and it was considered certain 
 that the delay of half an hour would have caused the destruction of the build- 
 ui"""ui™u."fo^' "^S- — There was for some time a good deal of mystery about the origin of the 
 fire. The only thing clear at first was that it must have been done by some- 
 body secreted among the lumber : but the finding of a mass of lead in a 
 strange place, and traces of hobnailed shoes, were thought to show that thieves 
 had come to steal lead from the roof, and that the fire Avas caused by them. 
 New Biu.N-i»K.K \ fearful accident occurred durin": this period which occasioned a useful 
 
 TlltATUE. ... . . 
 
 amount of discussion — the Coroner's Jury sitting for six weeks. A new 
 theatre — the Brunswick Theatre — had been recently erected in Wells Street, 
 for the eastern part of London. The walls, twenty-two inches thick, supported 
 a cast-iron roof. The architect thought this roof enough, though not too 
 much, for the walls to support : and when he saw the proprietors adding one 
 weiglit after another — suspending the carpenters' shops, heavy scenes, iS:c. fi'om 
 the roof — he gave rejjeated warnings of the danger of the experiment. The 
 theatre was opened on ^londay, the 25th of February — the audience little 
 dreaming, as they left it, what a danger they had escaped. On the Friday 
 following, the 29th, at the time of rehearsal, when many people were in the 
 theatre, the Avails gave Avay, and the iron roof came crashing doAA'n. Ten 
 houses on the opposite side of the street Avere destroyed, and some passengers, 
 and a dray and horses crushed. Eleven persons within the theatre Avere 
 imuKMliatcly killed, and tAvcnty Avere seriously hurt. The jury returned a 
 verdict of strong censure against the proprietors, in Avhich the architect Avas 
 not implicated. 
 thr Thames The uiost interesting class of casualties AA'hich happened during this period 
 
 Avas that of Thames Tunnel accidents. Every man, Avoman, and child, Avho 
 read ncAvspapers had some ideas and feelings about this great Avork. They 
 kncAV that though many i)ersoiis had thought of tunnels under rivers, none 
 had been able to make them ; and that, in this case, the credit of doing the 
 thing was infinitely greater than that of conceiving of it. They had some 
 idea of the great commercial imjiortance of this Avork : but the predominant 
 interest Avas from sjmpathy Avitli the gallant engineer, Mr. Urunel. — The 
 Tunnel itself was begun Avitli the year 1826; and the first nine feet Avere 
 easy — the soil being stiff clay. Through this substance, the celebrated shield 
 of ]\Ir. Brunei pushed its Avay, inch by inch, as the Avorm, from Avhose boring 
 dop"du'^''art?'^^^" process he took the idea of his enterprise, Avorks in its cyUndrical shell, by 
 London vol. iii. h^irs brcadtlis, through the hardest Avood. Before the middle of February, 
 pp. £.0—01. the Avorkmen came to a dangerous part; a tract of loose, Avatevy sand ; and 
 
 for thirty-tAvo days, there was momentary danger of the river breaking in. 
 On the 14t]i of March, they came to clay again ; and they AA-ent on very 
 happily, boring through it till they had built 2G0 feet of their great cylinder.
 
 Chap. XI.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 565 
 
 On tliu Htli of September occuncd the first breach, when the river poured 1830. 
 down upon the top of the sliield. The engineer had foreseen the danger, and ^— — •'— -^ 
 pi-ovided against it. A month after, the same thing happened again ; and again 
 his foresight had been equal to the occasion. — AVith a few ahrrms, the work 
 went on well till the following April ; when the soil became so moist, that 
 men were sent down from a boat in a diving bell, to see what was tlic matter. 
 The men left behind them a shovel and hammer at the bottom of the river ; and 
 these tools were presently washed into tlie Tunnel on the removal of a board — 
 showing how loose was the soil thruughout the eighteen feet which lay between 
 the top of the Timnel and the bottom of the river. — In the middle of May 
 some vessels moored just above tlie tunnel-works ; and this occasioned an 
 unusual washing of the waters overhead. On the 18th occurred the first great 
 irruption of the river. In it came, sweeping men and casks before it, glittering 
 lor a moment in the light of the gas lamps, and then putting them out, and 
 blowing up the lower staircase of the shaft. The workmen barely escaped ; and 
 one who was in the water was rescued by Mr. Brunei. The roll was instantly 
 called; and not one was absent. — Tlie cavity above was closed with bags of 
 clay ; and beibre August was out, the traces of the disaster were cleared away ; 
 and all were at work again as if nothing had hajjpened.- — -By the beginning of 
 1828, the middle of the river was reached; and, whatever had been the wear 
 and tear of anxiety, vigilance, and aiiprehension, for two years, the engineer 
 had thus far succeeded, without the loss of a single life. On the 12tli of the 
 next August, a rush of water occurred which caused the death of six men. 
 Mr. Brunei himself was hurt ; and his life was saved only by the rush of 
 water carrjing him up the shaft. AVhen the river bottom was explored by 
 means of the diving-bell, the cavity was found to be so large that scarcely any 
 one but Mr. Brunei would have thought of filling it up : but he rnidertook 
 and achieved it, — four thousand tons of clay being requued for the purpose. 
 But the directors were discouraged : the funds were exhausted : the Tumiel 
 was shut up for seven years ; and Mr. Brunei had to bear the long mortifica- 
 tion of this suspense. He knew the substantial character of the work, as far 
 as it had gone : and he never lost the hope of being permitted to finish it : 
 and meantime, he had the spnpathy of a multitude of the English people in 
 his toils, his sufferings, and his indomitable courage and perseverance. It 
 was no unconnnon thing, in those days, to overhear little boys telling their 
 sisters the story of the enterprise, or arguing with each other as to whether 
 it would ever be completed : and in the factories and farmsteads and public 
 liouses of the land, the romance (jf the Tunnel engaged a large share of true 
 English pride ;uid hopefuhiess. 
 
 Some other public works prospered better: and one great event in tlie »' ';^>"itKiNi;s 
 commercial history of this i)eriod was the opening of .St. Katherine's Dock. 
 The privileges of the older docks were to die out between the years 1822 and 
 1827 : and some of the principal merchants of London considered it desirable 
 at once to obviate a renewal of dock monojiolies, aiul to ])rovide for jiresent 
 and future expansion of commerce, by building a new dock. They procured 
 their ]}ill in 1825 ; and proceeded to take down eight hundred liouses, and St. i...iui«n, i.u -i- 
 Katherine's Hospital, founded in 11 IS, by Maude, s])ous(^ of King Stephen — '' 
 re-establishing this hospital and api)urtenances in Kegent's I'ark. The first
 
 566 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book III. 
 
 1830. stone of the new dock was laid in May 1825; and it was actually finished and 
 "~— — ~— — ' opened in October 1828, though the mere circuit wall, lofty and secure, com- 
 prehends an area of twenty-tlucc acres, and there is accommodation withiii 
 for 120 sliips, besides smaller craft, and for 110,000 tons of goods. The most 
 noticeable circumstance in connexion with St. Katherine's Dock is perhaps 
 the new economy of time and convenience in loading and unloading vessels, 
 from the use of scientific princii)les and methods discovered since the last 
 erections of the kind. The capital employed exceeded £2,000,000. 
 London mak. The Markets of London were much improved during this period — the Duke 
 
 idmpanum to the of Bedford biuldiufif the handsome edifice in Covent Garden, which occupies 
 
 Almimac, 1830, P , . ■ i i i -i t i • i <• i 
 
 ■Jii. the place of the du'ty, inconvenient, and unsightly buildings which lormerly 
 
 stood in the centre of the market area : — Fleet Market being opened in No- 
 vember 1829, and Hungerford Market begun in 1830. Besides the conve- 
 nience and advantage to health conferred by the markets themselves, they 
 occasioned the opening of new streets and the removal of many nuisances. 
 The old Fleet Market became the present Farringdon-street ; and Ilunger- 
 ford-street was rebuilt, on a new site, and with an increased width of ten 
 feet. — Elsewhere, the street improvements were veiy gi-eat ; much space being 
 cleared round St. Martin's Church, by which a close neighbourhood was ven- 
 tilated ; and yet greater advantages gained by the removal of Exeter Change 
 and the adjacent houses. Men's minds were by this time turned to the subject 
 of street-improvement (which means primarily health-improvement) in London ; 
 and that course of action was beginning which, with the help of railway faci- 
 lities, will end only, we may hope, with the laying open every court and alley 
 where men live to the passage of the air of heaven. 
 Parks. . ^he health and pleasure of the Londoners were beginning to be considered 
 in regard to the Parks, as well as the streets. In 1827, St. James's Park, 
 which was before as little beautiful as any piece of ground in such a place 
 could well be made, was laid out anew, with such exquisite taste as makes it 
 one of the finest walks in tlie world. In the same year, Hyde Park was much 
 improved by drainage and planting. — The Regent's Park was continually 
 improving by the growth of its plantations, and becoming as much a favourite 
 of promenaders as any park in London. On its outskirts, too, there was now 
 a great and increasing attraction. The Zoological Gardens, begun in 1825, 
 were opened to visitors in the spring of 1828 ; and those who came to enjoy 
 the wise and profitable pleasures of the place soon amounted to hundreds of 
 thousands, so as to guarantee the self-support of the institution. The opening 
 of the first Zoological Gardens in England deserves to be noted in any liistoiy 
 of popular interests — so great is th(> privilege of an airy walk among a vast 
 variety of the creatures, winged and fom- -footed, which we may read of as 
 peopling all the lands of the globe, but can here alone ever hope to see. 
 Bj^cKi^NoiiAM xhe King was during this period pleasing himself, but nobody else, with the 
 
 erection of Buckingham Palace. Whatever may be thought of his gentlemanly 
 qualities in other ways, his subjects agreed, when they looked at the Brighton 
 Pavilion, and at his Pimlico palace, that he had not good taste in building 
 and architecture ; for his edifices were neither hcathful, convenient, nor beau- 
 tiful. The cost of Buckingham Palace was enormous ; partly from frequent 
 changes of plan in the sovereign and his architect, \\hich went to impair the
 
 CiiAr. XI. J DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 567 
 
 beauty of tlic sfructiivc, a.s -well as to increase the expense. Tlie one altera- 1830. 
 tion of raising; the wings cost £50,000 ; and the whole affair little if at all ^-^-^^-^-^ 
 less than £500,000. Parliament did not permit this extravagance to pass 
 nnrcprovcd, a committee of the Hoii.se of Commons issuing a strong censure 
 upon it in 1829. A nearly similar sum was voted by parliament for the pre- 
 servation and improvement of Windsor C'astle ; and no one was heard to wjndsorCasti.k. 
 object to this item of the national expenditure. The preservation of this old 
 royal castle is truly a national duty ; and the manner in which it was done 
 was satisfactory and gratifying to the best judges. 
 
 The new Tost-office bears inscribed on the frieze above tlie columns of the ^'"^^ post.office. 
 fagade the date of the reign of George IV., 1829. Yet it was set about in 
 1815, after the old situation in Lombard-street had been found unfit for the 
 enlarged and increasing business of the establishment. It is amusing to read 
 now, in the papers of the time, the accounts of the vastness of the new esta- 
 blishment, as transcending even the needs of the expanding postal communi- 
 cation of the day. If any one could have foreseen what \\as to happen to the 
 postal communication of Great Britain within a few years, a somewhat dif- 
 ferent tone would have been used. But it is well that men should enjoy the 
 spectacle of tlioir own achievements for a while, before they become abashed 
 by a knowledge of the greater things yet to be done. The new Post-office will 
 always bo considered fine in aspect; and in 1829 it might fairly bo calbnl vast 
 in its dimensions and arrangements, however much these may need enlarge- 
 ment to meet the wants of a later time. 
 
 During the same year London University was advancing; the groimd was i.'iNn.m cu n?. 
 clearing for the erection of King's College, and the Athenieum Clubhouse was 
 preparing for the rccejition of its members at the opening of the next year. 
 The club had been in existence six years ; and it was now so flourishing as to 
 be able to build for itself the beautiful house which overlooks the area where 
 the Regent's palace of Carlton House stood at the time of its origin. These 
 modern clubs are a feature of the age worthy of note ; for they differ essen- 
 tially from the clubs so famous in the last two centuries. The two have no 
 condition in conunon except that of admission by ballot, or by consent of the 
 rest, however expressed. Dr. .Tohnson's account of a club is that it is " an 
 assembly of good fellows, meeting under certain conditions ;" but there is 
 inqdied in this a degree of mutual acquaintanceship and fcUow.ship which do 
 not exi.st in the large modem clubs, where the object is not political or literary, 
 or even social, but merely the personal convenience and enjoyment of the 
 members, who use for this object the principle of the economy of association. 
 The modern club is a mixture of the hotel, the home, and the reading-room. 
 The member calls for what he pleases, and is waited on as at a hotel ; ho 
 goes in aiul out, and lives in splendid apartments without daily charge, as at 
 home, liis subscription covering his expenses ; and he sees newspapers and 
 books, and meets acquaintances, as at the reading-room. Of the convenience 
 of the arrangement, of the soundness of the princijde of the economy of asso- 
 ciation, there can be no doubt ; and it is on this account — because it may be 
 lioped that the principle will be extended from these clubbists to classes which 
 need the aid move ])vessingly — that the T^ondon clubs of this century form so 
 important a feature of tin' tiim-. There is some complaint that these luxurious
 
 568 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book III. 
 
 1830. abodes draw men iVom homo, make them foiitl of a bachelor life, ami tend to 
 discourage maiTiage — already growing too infrequent among the upper classes 
 of society — and to lessen the intercourse between men and \\omen of educa- 
 tion : objections which will never be practically available against the clear 
 daily convenience of such institutions. The remedy will be found, if it is 
 found, not in unmaking these associations, but in extending them to a point 
 which will obviate the objections. Already, the less opulent classes arc 
 stirring to prove the principle of the economy of association in clubs, where 
 the object is — not bachelor luxury and case — but comfort and intellectual 
 advantage, in which wife and sister may share the general table, library, and 
 lecture-room, where those whose daily business lies far from home may enjoy 
 midday comfort and evening improvement at a moderate expense, through the 
 association of numbers. The city clerk, the shopman, the music and drawing 
 master and mistress, the daily governess, married persons, and brothers and 
 sisters, can now live out of town, can dine here, and see the newspapers, and 
 stay for the evening loctifre, while enjoying the benefit of an abode in the 
 country, instead of a lodging in a close street in the city. When the expe- 
 riment has been tried somewhat further, and found to succeed, it may be 
 hoped that women will have courage to adopt the principle, and to obtain 
 more comfort and advantage out of a slender income than a multitude of 
 widows and single women do now. In a state of society like oui' own at i)rc- 
 sent — a transition state as regards the position of women — the lot of the 
 educated woman -with narrow means is a particularly hard one. Formerly, 
 every woman above the labouring class was supported by father, husband, or 
 brotlier ; and mam' age was almost universal. In the future, possibly marriage 
 may again become general ; and if not, women will assuredly have an inde- 
 pendent position of self-maintenance, and more and more employments will 
 be open to them as their abilities and their needs may demand. At present, 
 there is an intervening state, in which the condition of a multitude of women 
 of the middle class is hard. Marriage is not now general, except among the 
 poor. Of the great middle class it is computed that only half, or little more, 
 marry before middle age. It is no longer true that every Moman is supported 
 by husband, father, or brother ; a miiltitvulc of women ha\e to support them- 
 selves ; and only too many of them, their fathers and brothers too ; but few 
 de])artmcnts of industry are yet opened to them, and those few are most 
 inadequately paid. "\Miile this state of things endures (which, however, 
 cannot be for long) there is a multitude of educated women in London, and 
 the country towns of England, living in isolation on means so small as to 
 command scarcely the bare necessaries of life. They are dispersed as boarders 
 in schools and lodging-houses, able to obtain nothing more than mere food, 
 shelter, and clothes, without society, without books, without the pleasures of 
 art or science, while the gentlemen of the London clubs arc living in luxury 
 on the same expenditure, by means of the principle of economy of association. 
 When such women have looked a little longer on the handsome exterior of 
 these Club-houses, and heard a little more of the luxury enjoyed within, it 
 may bo hoped that they will have courage to try an experiment of their own ; 
 clubbing together their small means — their incomes, their books and music — 
 and make a home where, without increased expcmditure, they may command
 
 Chap. XI.J DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 569 
 
 a good table, good apartments, a librai}', and the advantages and pleasures of 1830. 
 society. It seems scarcely possible that the new Club principle of our time, "~— ^- ' 
 already extending, should stop short of this, while so many are looking forward 
 to a much wider application still. Those who think this a reasonable expec- 
 tation will consider the opening of the Athenteum Club-house, with its 1000 
 members, and that of the United Ser\-ice and other neighbouring joint-stock 
 mansions, a sign of the times worth noting. 
 
 Two large public buildings were rising at this time within a few miles of 
 London, which have nothing in common but their date. There was a grand AmTuariirgistiT, 
 Stand on Epsom race-course, of which nothing more need be said than what "^-''> chr""- '<• 
 •was said at the time ; that it was " on a more magnificent scale than the stand 
 at Doncaster." What does the subject admit of more .' The other edifice was 
 the iMetropolitan Lunatic Asylum at Ilanwell ; of whose destination so much "^'•"t:"- asv- 
 midit be said as to need a volume. We can merely note here what a history companion to ijjj 
 
 " ^ . . . ,, Almanac, 1S31, 
 
 of the time requires — that the mode of life within those walls was almost as p--"- 
 new as the edifice itself; and there were things to be seen there far nobler 
 and more interesting than any architectural spectacle ever offered to the eyes 
 of men. The building-up that was to go on within was far grander than any 
 tliat could be seen without ; — the building-up of the overthrown faculties — the 
 restoration of shattered affections. The Middlesex magistrates secured the 
 services of Dr. and Mrs. ("afterwards Sir William and Lady) Ellis as superin- 
 tendents : and their method of management stands in noble contrast with that 
 of former times, when the insane were subjected to no medicinal or moral 
 treatment, but only to coercion. Instead of being chained, and left in idlenes>; 
 and misery, the patients here were immediately employed, and permitted all 
 the liberty which their emjdoymcnt required. Xot only might they be seen 
 gardening, with the necessary tools ; but the men dug a canal , by which stores 
 were brought up to the building at a gi-eat saving of expense. A score of 
 insane men might be seen there, working with spade, pickaxe, and shovel : 
 they built the wall ; they kept the place in repair ; they worked and lived 
 much as other men would have done ; and from first to last, no accident hap- 
 pened. They attended chapel ; and no interruption to the service ever 
 occurred. The women earned in their work- rooms the means of buying an 
 organ for the chapel-service. No sign of the times can be more worthy of 
 notice than this ; that the insane had begun to be treated like other diseased 
 persons, — by medicine and regimen, and with the s)inpathy and care that 
 their suffering state requires. As for the results, — the recoveries were found 
 to be out of all jirojiortion more numerous than before, and continually in- 
 creasing : the pecuniary saving of a household of working people over that 
 of a crowd of helpless beings raving in a state of coercion, was very great ; 
 and of the difference in the comfort of each and all under the two systems 
 there can, of course, be no doubt. The Ilanwell Asylum was not, even at 
 first, the ohIv one in which the humane and efficacious new method of treating 
 insanitv was practised ; but, as the ^letropolitan Asylum, built at this date, 
 it was the most conspicuous, as were the merits of Dr. and Mrs. Ellis, from 
 their having been many years engaged and successful in the noble task of 
 their lives. 
 
 We find during this period much improvement going on in drixinage aiul ORiiNA.it. 
 vol.. I. 4 r
 
 570 HISTORY OF ENGI>AND [Book IIL 
 
 Ib-iu. enclosure of laud, and extension of water-works. The Ewbank drainajje, by 
 roil i)a..ion 1.. ihe '^^'l"*'^i 9,000 acrcs of land in Cardiganshire were reclaimed for cultivation, 
 p.'L"'.""' """' ■*^'''s completed in 1828, with its eniLanknicnts, cuts, three miles of road, and 
 stone brid<;o. In a small insidar territory, the addition of 9,000 acres to its 
 area of cultivation is not an insignificant circumstance. — At the same date we 
 find an achievement of somewhat the same kind notified in the records of the 
 year, in those capital letters which indicate the last degree of astonishment. 
 Chat Moss, lying in the line of the Manchester and Liverpool Usiilway, was 
 under treatment for the fonnation of the line ; and we are told, that " horses 
 with loaded waggons, each weighing five tons, are constantly moving over 
 those parts of the moss which originally would scarcely bear a person walking 
 nAii.« AY. oy,^!- {f " — The marvels of this first great English Eailway were opening upon 
 the world by degiecs. This solidifying of Ciiat Moss was enough at first. 
 • Next, we find that t%vo locomotives were put to nsc on the works, to draw the 
 
 marl and rock from the excavations, at a saving of nearly £50 a month in one 
 case, and more in tlie other. Dut the highest astonishment of all was expe- 
 rienced on occasion of the race of locomotives on the line, for a prize of £500, 
 Almanac"" »3o',''^ wlicu " tlic Eoclvct actually accomplislicd one mile in one minute and twenty 
 '''' • seconds; being at the rate of forty-five miles an hour." If men had been 
 
 told at eveji that late date at what speed our Queen would be travelling twenty 
 years later, they Avonld have been as truly amazed as our great-grandfathers 
 could have been at the notion of travelling from London to Edinburgh in a 
 day. It is very interesting to observe how strong was the exultation, twenty 
 years ago, when any improvement in road-making turned up : how anxious 
 men were to publish new facts about the best methods of skirting hills, managing 
 differences of level, and connecting the substructm'e and superstructure of the 
 mail roads, so as to fiicilitate to the utmost the passage of the mails. We find 
 earnest declarations of the increase of postal correspondence, of the evils of delay, 
 and of the benefits of rapid communication between distant places. These no- 
 tices seem to us now clear indications of the approach of the railway age : but no 
 one then knew it. What those complaints, and declarations, and desultory 
 toils indicated, we can now recognise, but our fathers — except a philosopher 
 here and there — could not then foresee. Nor shall we perhaps learn j^hilosophy 
 from the lesson, nor perceive that every rngent want, every object of restless 
 popular search, foreshows a change by which the want will be met, and the 
 search rewarded. As men were anxiously and restlessly mending their old roads 
 up to the very time of the oiiening of the great first English railway, so may we 
 be complaining and toiling about some iniidequate arrangement which needs 
 superseding, while on the verge of the disclosure of the supersession. It would 
 save us much anxiety and some wrath, and render us reasonable in our discon- 
 tents, if v.e could bear this in mind as often as we come into collision with 
 social difficulties, whether they be mechanical or political ; for social difficulties 
 of both orders come under the same law of remedy. 
 
 In 1828, a conunittec of the Professors of the University of Edinburgh were 
 employed on a very interesting service — witnessing how, by means of a special 
 Ai'S'i'sSi!'''''"' rnct^ot^ of printing, the blind " were able to read with their fingers as quickly, 
 or nearly so, as we could suppose then; to do with their sight in ordinary cir- 
 cumstances." Since that time, the method of printing for the blind by raised 
 
 RKAnisn Fo« 
 
 THB UlIND.
 
 Scott's Novels 
 
 Chap. XL] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 5T1 
 
 letters, to be traced with tlic fingers, has been much extended ; and embossed 1830. 
 maps are largely brought into use, to teach thcni geography. The question of 
 the gxistence of a faculty by which space could be apprehended and reasoned 
 about, without any aid from the sense of sight, was proved by the case of Dr. 
 Saunderson ; and it is very hitercsting to watch its working in children ^^ lio 
 liave never seen light, when they learn geography by means of these embossed 
 maps. And the printing of books for their use has been facilitated from year 
 to year, till now the number of books to which they have access is greatly in- 
 creased, and their cost nmch diminished. The honour of the invention, in the 
 form under notice, was assigned to INIr. Gall, by the committee of Edinburgh 
 Professors : and it is an honour greater than it is in the power of princes to 
 bestow. 
 
 Before this time, the public had become aware of Sir W. Scott's claim to the 
 undivided authorship of tlie AVaverley Novels. In 1S2T, the copyrights of the 
 novels, from AA^averley to Quentiu Durward, with those of some of the poems, 
 were sold by auction, and bid for as if the successive editions of these wondrous 
 works had not already o^■erspread the civilized world. After the luiparalleled 
 issue which had amazed the book-trade for so many years, the competition for 
 the property was yet keen ; the whole were purchased by Mr. Cadell for 
 £8500; and he made them produce upwards of £200,000. What would the is^l'thruTaoo.' 
 novelists of a century before — what will the novelists of a century hence — if 
 such an order of writers then exists — think of this fact ? Genius of a high 
 quality finds or makes its own time and place : but still the unbounded popu- 
 larity of Scott as a novelist seems to indicate some peculiar fitness in the public 
 mind for the pleasure of narrative fiction in his day. And it might be so : for 
 his day lay between the period of excitement belonging to the war, and that later 
 one of the vast expansion of the taste for physical science, under which the ge- 
 neral middle class public purchases five copies of an expensive work on geology 
 for one of the most popular novels of the time. Certain evidences, scattered 
 tlirough later years, seem to show that while the study of physical science has 
 spread widely and rapidly among both the middle and lower classes of our 
 society, the taste for fiction has, in a great degree, gone down to the lower. 
 Perhaps th(! novel reading achieved by the middle classes during Scott's career 
 was enough for a whole century ; and in sixty years hence, the passion may 
 revive. To those, however, who regard the clianges occurring in the office and 
 value of literature, this appears hardly probable. IIoAvever that may be, the 
 Avorld will scarcely see again in oiu- time a pajinent of above £8000 for any 
 amomit of copyright of naiTative fiction. 
 
 A great festival was held at Stratford-upon-Avon, in April, 1827, on Shak- AmuaiRrgiMer, 
 spere's birth-day, and the two following days — from the 23rd to the 2rnh in- LvKsi-tict i 
 elusive. There was a procession of Shakspere characters, music, a chanting ^'"" 
 of his epitapli at the church, banquets, rustic sports, and a masquerade, chiefly 
 of Shakspere characters. Such festivals — connaemorating neither political nor 
 warlike achievement, but something better than eitlier — are good for a nation, 
 and lliemselves worthy of commemoration in its history. 
 
 Some old favourites of the drama, or rather of the stage, went out during .Anons 
 this period ; and some new ones came in. Paweett retired, after having anuised 
 and interested the crowd of his admirers for thirty-nine years; and Grimaldi, 
 
 EsTI-
 
 572 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book III. 
 
 1830. the unequalled clown, took his farewell in a prodigious last pantomime. There 
 
 -- — -, was something unusually pathetic in his retirement, however, sad as are always 
 
 Aimuai itosisicr, ^jj^ faiewells of favouriie actors, lie was prematurely worn out. As he said 
 that night, he was like vaulting amhition — he had overleaped himseli. He was 
 not yet eight-and-forty ; hut he was sinking fast. " I now," he said, " stand 
 worse on my legs than I used to do on my head." This was a mohineholy 
 close of the merriment of Grimaldi's night and of his career. Eut there is 
 seldom or never an absence of favourites in the play-going world. AVhile, ac- 
 cording to Lord Efiftn, the sun of England was about to set for ever — while a 
 Catholic demagogUfe was trying to force his way into parliament, to the utter 
 Life of Lord El. destruction of Church and State, and every thing else — Lord Eldon tluis writes: 
 ' ' " Amidst all our political diiliculties and miseries, the generality of folks here 
 
 direct their attention to nothing but meditations and controversies about the 
 face, and figure, and voice, of the new lady who is come over here to excite 
 soMiu. raptxn-es and encores at the Opera House, viz. Mademoiselle Sontag. Hardly 
 
 any other subject is touched upon in conversation, and all the attention due to 
 Church and State is withdrawn from both, and bestowed on this same [Made- 
 moiselle Sontag. Her face is somewhat too square for a beauty, and this sad 
 circumstance distresses the body of fashionables extremely." 
 
 Mademoiselle Sontag did not stay very long ; and her bird-like warblings 
 
 were forgotten in the higher interest of the appearance of another Kemble, the 
 
 lANsv KcMBLB. Hcxt ycar. The young Fanny Kemble, then only eighteen, came forward in 
 
 Annual Rigist-r, Octobcr, 1829, uudcr circumstances which secured to her beforehand the 
 
 isiu, chrun. irx g,^.„^p^j|jy ^f j]jg p^i\)lic, as her name ensured for her a due ai)preciation of her 
 
 sreat talents. She came forward to retrieve her father's alfiiiis, and tliose of 
 
 Covent Garden theatre ; and her success was splendid. For two or three 
 
 seasons, she was the rage. There were always those who, true to art, and 
 
 loyal to Mrs. Siddons, saw that her niece's extraordinary popidarity coidd not 
 
 last, unsustained as it was by the long study, experience, and discipline — to 
 
 say nothing of the unrivalled genius — of Mrs. Siddons : but the appearance of 
 
 the young actress was a high treat, though a temporary one, to the Ijondou 
 
 public. She went to America, and married there : and subsequent appearances 
 
 in Enaland have not revived the enthusiasm which her first efibrts excited. 
 
 The dramatic world is not more sine of a constant succession of enthu- 
 siasms than the religious. It is at this time, in 1828, that we first hear of 
 that extraordinary man who was soon to turn so many heads, the gi-eater 
 lunnber by a passing excitement, and not a few by actually crazing them. 
 iRviNQ. The way in which we first hear of the Ilev. Edward Irving is characteristic. 
 
 Annual upgister, It was bv tlic fall of a churcli in Kirkaldy, from the overcrowding of the 
 people to hear him. The gallery fell, and brought down much ruin with it. 
 Twenty-eight persons were killed on the spot, and one hundred and fifty more 
 or less injured. Among the killed were three young daughters of a widowed 
 mother, who never more lifted up her head, and was laid by their side in a 
 fe^v weeks. What Irving was as a sign of the times we shall have occasion 
 to see hereafter ; for, for seven years from this date, and especially dining 
 the first half of that period, he was conspicuous in the public eye, and 
 doing what he could, under a notion of duty, to intoxicate the national 
 mind. What he had been up to the first burst of his fame, we know through 
 
 18i3, Chron. 7d.
 
 Chap. XI] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 573 
 
 the testimony of one who uiulei-.stood liini well : — " What the Scottish mice- 1830. 
 
 lebrated Irvinsr was they that have only seen the London celebrated (and " ^ ' 
 
 distorted) one can never know. His was the freest, hrotherlicst, bravest i"""*. ■"•*•. »■'■ 
 
 hiiniiin soul mine ever came in contact with. I call him, on the whole, 
 
 the best man I have ever (after trial enough) found in the world, or now hope 
 
 to find. The first time I saw Irving was six-and-twenty years ago in his 
 
 native town, Annan. He was fresh from Edinburgh, with college prizes, 
 
 high character, and promise. He had come to see our schoolmaster, who 
 
 had also been his. We heard of famed professors, of high matters classical, 
 
 mathematical, a whole wonderland of knowledge : nothing but joy, health, 
 
 lu^jH'fulness without end, looked out from the blooming young man." It was 
 
 in liSOy that lie was this " blooming young man." The rest of the picture — 
 
 \\hat he was just before his death at the age of forty-two — we shall see but 
 
 too soon. 
 
 These were times when some such man as Edward Irving was pretty sure liinciioua 
 
 , 1-1 I'.VtlllES. 
 
 to rise up ; times certain to excite and to betray any such man who might 
 
 exist within our borders. The religious world was in an cxtraordinar)- state 
 
 of confusion, with regard both to opinion and conscience. The High Church 
 
 party was becoming more and more disgusted with the appeals of the day 
 
 to the vulgar " Protestantism " of the mob, Avhile it was no less alarmed at 
 
 the concessions made to the popular will on both civil and ecclesiastical 
 
 matters. The most earnest members of this jjarty were already looking towards 
 
 each other, and establishing that sort of union which was immediately to cast 
 
 discredit on the hitherto honoured name of rrotestantism, and very soon to 
 
 originate the " Tracts for the Times." This party had lost its trust in the 
 
 Crown : it had no sympathy with parliament, and saw that it must soon be 
 
 in antagonism with it; and its only hope now was in making a vigorous effort 
 
 to revive, purify, and appropiiate to itself the Church. This exclusive reliance 
 
 upon the Church appears to have been, as yet, the only new point of sympathy 
 
 between this party and Koine; but it was enough to set men whispering 
 
 ini])iitatioiis of llomanism against its members. While such imputations 
 
 were arising and sj)reading, the Low Church party were zealous among the 
 
 Komanisls to convert them; and the registers of the time show their great convehsions op 
 
 success. Conversions from popery figure largely among the incidents of the 
 
 few years following Catholic Emancipation : and nothing could be more 
 
 natural. There were in the Catholic body, as there would be in any religious 
 
 body so circumstanced, many men who did not know or care very much about 
 
 matters of faith, or any precise definitions of them, who were of too high and 
 
 honourable a spirit to desert their church while it was in adversity, who had 
 
 fought its battles while it was depressed, but were indifferent about being 
 
 called by its name after it came into possession of its rights. Again, amidst 
 
 the new intercourse now beginning between Catholics and churchmen, it was 
 
 natural that both parties, and especially the Catholics, should find more 
 
 common ground existing than they luul previously been aware of; and their 
 
 sympathy might easily become a real fraterni/ation. Again, there might 
 
 naturally have been many Catholics constitutionally disposed to a more inward 
 
 and " spiritual" religion than they received from a ])riest who might add to 
 
 the formalism of his church an ignorance or hardness which would discjualify 
 
 Cai IIOLICS.
 
 IS23, C'brou. G3 
 
 574 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book III. 
 
 1830. him for meeting the needs of such persons. Under tliose influences we cannot 
 
 -■ .-^i^ -wonder that conversions from popery were numerous at that time; but we 
 
 may rather wonder wliat Lord Lklon, and other pious Protestants, thought of 
 a fact so directly in opposition to all their anticipations. Protestantism had 
 its day then, when its self-called champions least expected it ; and Popery ha.s 
 had its day since, when the guardians of the Church, or those who considered 
 themselves so, were least prepared for it. An extraordinary incident which 
 occurred in the midst of these conversions -was the defence set up bv the 
 counsel for the defendants in an action for libel, brought by the Archbishop 
 of Tuam, against the printer and publisher of a newspaper. The libel com- 
 plained of was an assertion that the Archbishop had offered a Catholic priest 
 £1000 in cash, and a living of £800 a year, to become a Protestant. Serjeant 
 Taddy declared the allegation to be purely honourable to the archbishop, 
 instead of libellous, as, by a whole series of laws, he was authorized to bestow 
 rewards on Catholics who should submit to conversion ; and under this head 
 of his argument he brought forward the atrocious old laws of Queen Anne 
 and the first Georges, by which bribes to protestantism, on the one hand, were 
 set against penalties for Catholicism on the other. The defence was purely 
 ironical ; but the judge had to be serious. lie pronoiniced these old laws irre- 
 levant, being Irish ; and, not stopping there, declared their intention to be, 
 not to bribe, but to grant a pro^•ision afterwards to those " who, from an honest 
 conviction of the errors of the Komish church, had voluntarily embraced the 
 purer doctrines of Protestantism." 
 
 The moderate churchmen, meanwhile, were dissatisfied with the pros])ect 
 opened by the conflicts of the High and Low Chinch parties ; and some of 
 them began to desire a revision and reconstitution of the whole Establishment. 
 
 Life of Arnold, Dr. Arnold writes, " What might not do, if he Mould set himself to 
 
 work in the House of Lords, not to patch up this hole or that, but to recast 
 the whole corrupt system, which in many points stands just as it did in the 
 worst times of popery, only reading ' King' or ' Aristocracy,' in the place of 
 
 Lifo of Amaid, ' Popc.' " Again, when disturbed by the moral signs of the times : " I think 
 that the clergy as a body might do much, if they were steadily to observe the 
 evils of the times, and preach fearlessly against them. I cannot understand 
 what is the good of a national Church if it be not to Christianize the nation, 
 and introduce the principles of Christianity into men's social and ci^•il rela- 
 tions, and expose the wickedness of that spirit which maintains the Game 
 laws, and in agriculture and trade seems to think that there is no such sin as 
 covetousness, and that if a man is not dishonest, he has nothing to do but to 
 make aU. the profit of his capital that he can." — Men were too busy looking 
 after the faith of every body else to attend to the moral evils of the times ; 
 and yet, no party was satisfied with the Church, or any body of churchmen of 
 its own. This was exactly the juncture to excite and betray Edward Irving. 
 Amidst these diversities of faith, there never was a time when diversity of 
 opinion was less tolerated. Amidst the ^•ehemcnt assertion of Protestantism, 
 its famous right of pri^■ate judgment was practically as much denied, with 
 impunity and applause, as it could have been under Popish ascendancy. The 
 fact of the illegality of bccpiests for the encouragement of Popery was brought 
 
 ui>uoi ofBlois. prominently before the public in 182S, by a claim of the Crown against the 
 
 i. 82. 
 
 i. 271. 
 
 1ntoi.eRv\nce of 
 Opinion.
 
 CirAT. XI.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 575 
 
 I5isliop of Blois. The ]5ishop of Ulois had put out a book when resident in 1830. 
 England at the hcffinninK of the century, which lie believed miorht serve the .^~"TT~~^ 
 
 ^ . . . , Annual Resistor, 
 
 cause of religion permanently: and he invested a large sum of money, ap- i^'^'^i ehron. iss. 
 
 pointing trustees, who were to pay him the dividends during his life, and 
 
 apply them after his death to the propagation of his work. It seems as if the 
 
 IJishop had disrovercd that his bequest was likely to be set aside as illegal, at 
 
 tlie present time of eager eontroversj' ; for he petitioned in the Ilolls Court 
 
 that his bequest might be declared illegal and void, and that the stock might 
 
 be retransfcrrcd to hims(>lf. r>ut here the Crown interposed, demanding the 
 
 stock in question, on tlie ground that the money, having been applied to a 
 
 superstitious use, was forfeited to the Crown ; — any proviso of the testator in 
 
 prevention of such forfeiture being an evasion of the law. The Master of the 
 
 Rolls, however, decreed justice to the IJishop, giving him back his money, 
 
 while deciding that he must not put il (in the way of bequest) to such " a 
 
 superstitious use" as spreading a book in advocacy of tlie foith that he lield. 
 
 The wliole transaction looks like one not beloniiin"' to our own ccntnry. The 
 
 laws w(>ro ancient : but the nse made of them by the ('rown, on the plea of 
 
 the contrariety of the book to the policy of the conntry, is disheartening to 
 
 look back upon as an incident of our own time. 
 
 One small advance in religious liberty was, however, made in 1828, when BAinztn ir.w-. 
 the question was raised whether baptized Jews should be permitted to pur- 
 chase the freedom of the city of London. In 1785 the Court of Aldermen had 
 made a standing order that this privilege should not be granted to baptized 
 Jews : and an application now, nearly half a century afterwards, by the 
 brothers Saul, who had been always brought up in the Christian faith, though 
 children of Jewish parents, was thought a good opportunity for one more 
 struggle for religious liberty, after the failure of many in the intervening time. 
 Much discussion having been gone through, the old-fashioned order was 
 rescinded, and the petitioners were directed to be sworn in. fsaS^c'iiro'if'-iT' 
 
 Some (extraordinary and painful scenes which took place during this period dtssi-nters- 
 at the marriages of I'rotestant Dissenters foreshowed the near approach of that *'*"«'*""• 
 relief to conscience which was given by the Dissenters' INIarriage Bill. One 
 wedding party after another delivered protests to the officiating clergj-raen, 
 and declared to persons present their dissent from the language of the service, 
 and that it was under compulsion only that they uttered and received it. One 
 clergyman after another was perplexed what to do ; and there was no agree- 
 ment among them what they should do. One refused to proceed (but was 
 compelled to give way), and another took no notice. One rejected and another 
 received a written protest. Some sliortened the service as much as possible ; 
 and others inflicted every word with unusual emphasis. Such scandals could 
 not be permitted to endure ; and more and more persons saw that the Dis- 
 .senters must be relieved and silenced by being made free to marry according 
 to their consciences. 
 
 Two or three awkward (|ii(>stlons arose at this time in our De])endencies on 
 (piestions of liberty -which were in each case decided in favour of the subject 
 against the go\'crnment. Tlie Kast India Company were so rash as to attempt Anmmi Hi-sisior. 
 
 , . , , , . [. TA IH-.>-,pp. I!H, l!i:.. 
 
 at tlic same tunc to coerce tlie ])rcss at Calcutta, and to imiiose a Stamp Duty, i'ukss at cai.- 
 of iloubtful legality, when the period of the expiration of their charter was
 
 576 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book III. 
 
 1830. drawing on. The Council at Calculta prohibited the publication of any ncws- 
 
 - — -^ ' paper or other periodical work by any person not licensed by the Governor 
 
 and Council : and the licenses given were revocable at pleasure. Englishmen 
 were not likely to submit to such restrictions on the liberty of printing, at any 
 distance from home ; and the men of Calcutta, after the regulation had been 
 registered there, looked anxiously to see what Avould be done at Bombay. 
 Two of the three Judges of the Supreme Court of Bombay refused to register 
 the regulation, as contrary to law : and the Calcutta authorities were therefore 
 ignominiously defeated. — And so they were, by the ordinary magistrates, 
 about tlie same time, on another occasion of equal importance. The govern- 
 
 stami- Dt'Tv. ment wished to pay the expenses of the Burmese Avar by a new Stamp Duty, 
 which Avas pronounced by the whole population of Calcutta unjust and 
 oppressive, and even illegal. All argument of counsel, all petition and remon- 
 strance being found unavailing, the inhabitants resolved to petition parliament. 
 They obtained permission from the Sherifi", as usruil, to meet for the pin-pose : 
 but the Sheriff was visited with a severe reprimand from the Council, and the 
 meeting forbidden. — The next step was to hold a meeting as an aggregate of 
 individuals, instead of in any corporate capacity ; and public notice of this 
 intention was given. The Council, Avliile professing to have "no objection" 
 to the inhabitants petitioning parliament (a thing to which they had no more 
 right to object than to the inhabitants getting their dinners), sent an order to 
 the stipendiary magistrates to prevent the meeting, and, if necessary, to dis- 
 perse the assemblage by force. The magistrates consulted coinisel, and finding 
 that each of them would be liable to an action for trespass for disturbing a 
 lawful meeting, they declined acting, and the meeting took place. Here was 
 foreshown some of the future under the new charter. 
 
 pimTFrroR OF In 1827, We first hear of the new functionary, the Protector of Slaves, and of 
 
 proceedings instituted by him. An Order in Council was promulgated in 
 
 Edinburgh Kc- Dcuicrara, in Janiiarv, 1820, which had, after vehement disputes, been previ- 
 ously promulgated in Trinidad, by which, among other provisions, a Protector 
 of Slaves was ordained to be appointed, who was to be cognizant of all pro- 
 ceedings against slaves, and against persons declared to have injured slaves ; 
 and to see that justice Avas done to the negroes. He Avas to assert and main- 
 tain the right of the slaves to marriage and to property ; and to look to their 
 
 First selp-piir. p]^;„i ^Q emancipation. In 1827, the first claim of a slave to purchase liberty 
 
 i-liASBU Slave. i ' . . 
 
 Avas made in Berbice ; and the Protector carried the cause. The opposition set 
 up by the owner of the woman whose case Avas in question exhibited the A'icious 
 assurance Avhich Avas an imdcrstood characteristic of West India slaAC-holders. 
 The plea — there, in that spot Avhere marriage among slaAcs had been a thing 
 iinheard of, and where pxnity of morals was, naturally, equally unknoAvn — was, 
 that the money Avith Avhich the slave desired to purchase her freedom had been 
 obtained by immoral courses — the Avoman having had a mulatto child. The 
 plea, odious from its hypocrisy, Avas rejected on a gi-ound of laAV. The Prstcctor 
 claimed for himself, as the legal officer concerned, the power of determining 
 whether the money had been honestly earned. He had ascertained that it had 
 been honestly earned. The result Avas, that the woman and her child were de- 
 Annuai Register, clarcd frcc On payment of a sum fixed by appraisers. Thus, not only Avas a 
 great inroad made on the despotism of slavery, but a prophecy Avas given forth
 
 Chap. XI.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 5T 
 
 to the whole world, that greater changes were impending. The wedge was in, 1S30. 
 
 and the split mu.st widen. In the same year, a treaty for the abolition of the . ' 
 
 Slave Trade was made with lirazil, the Emperor engaging that the traffic should bkaziu ''"" 
 cease in three years from the ratification of the treaty; after which the act of 
 trading in slaves was to be considered as piracy. 
 
 A proceeding, big with ])rophecy of the fate of all remnants of feudality, is sprinq Glxs. 
 noticeable in the Scotch High Court of Justiciary in 1827. A gamekeeper of 
 Lord Home being indicted for murder for having set and charged a spring-gun, 
 by which a man was shot dead, the counsel of the accused began his defence 
 by asserting the legality of the act of setting and charging a spring-gun. Cer- 
 tain English judges, Abbott, Bailey, and Best, had delivered an opinion, a few 
 years before, tliat the act was lawful, and morally defensible. As the practice 
 was abolished in this same year, 1827, we may spare ourselves the pain and 
 shame of citing the arguments — the prejudices under the name of opinions — 
 which English judges could bring themselves to deliver at so late a date as the 
 nineteenth century. The men and their judgments are gibbettcd in the pages 
 of the Edinburgh Review. The Scotch iudses now, after hearing full and fair Edinburgh rc 
 
 .7 , . Ill- 11 1 1- c 1 vi>n, vol. xxxT. 
 
 argument, decided aganist the legality, as well as the morality of the act ; and pp. 12c— uo. 
 
 declared the accused liable to prosecution for wilful murder. " The general 
 
 doctrine of the law, even in England," their lordships agreed, " was, that it .vnnuai Regssior, 
 
 _. ... . ° . , ,,11 1 1 1627, thron. in. 
 
 will not suffer, wath impunity, any crime to be prevented by death ; unless the 
 same, if committed, could be punished with deatli. Poaching would not be so 
 punished. Spring-guns were secret, deadly, and, at the same time, dastardly 
 engines. ...... It was an aggravation that they did in a secret, clandestine, 
 
 and dastardly manner, what durst not be openly attempted." To ordinary per- 
 sons, the case always seemed clear enough. The man who set a spring-gun 
 either meant to shoot somebody, or he did not. If he did, he was guilty of 
 murderous intent. If not, why set the gun at all 1 Much was said, in the days 
 of spring-guns, and very properly, of the number of persons, not poachers, who 
 were shot ; — of the constant danger to childicii, old people gathering sticks, or, 
 as Sydney Smith has it, " some unhappy botanist or lover." But the one point 
 of murderous intent, if any intent at all, is enough — enough to stamp our age 
 with barbarism to the end of time. " If a man is not mad," says Sydney 
 Smith, " he must be presumed to foresee common consequences : if he puts a \vori,s, i. 100. 
 bullet into a spring-gun — he must be supposed to foresee that it will kill any 
 poacher who touches the wire — and to that consequence he must stand. AN'e 
 do not suppose all preservers of game to be so bloodily inclined, that they 
 would prefer the death of a poacher to his staying away. Their object is to 
 preserve game ; they have no objection to preserve the lives of their fellow- 
 creatures also, if both can exist at the same time ; if not, the least worthy of 
 God's creatures must fall — the rustic without a soul — not the Christian par- 
 tridge — not the immortal pheasant — not the rational woodcock, or the account- 
 able hare." If it appears an idle task to be presenting matters so plain — even 
 after it had long been decided that it was unlawful to kill a dog whieli is pur- 
 suing game in a manor. Lord EUenborough declaring that '• to decide tlie con- 
 trary would outrage reason and sense," — we can only say that A\e arc present- 
 ing a picture of the times under our hand — times when such a remonstrance 
 as this was needed in England. " There is a sort of horror in thinkijig of a 
 vol.. I. 4 c;
 
 5T8 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book III. 
 
 1830. wliolc land filled with lurking engines of death — machinations against human 
 
 ^ • ' life under every green tree — traps and guns in every dusky dell and bosky 
 
 hourn ; tlie ferte natnru — the lords of manors eyeing' their peasantry as so 
 many butts and marks, and panting to hear the click of the trap, and to see the 
 flash of the gun. How any human being, educated in liberal knowledge and 
 Christian feeling, can doom to ceitain destrtiction a poor wretch, tempted by 
 the sight of animals that naturally appear to him to belong to one person as 
 well as another, we are at a loss to conceive. We cannot imagine how he could 
 live in the same village, and see the widow and orphans of the man whose 
 blood he had shed for such a trifle. We consider a person who could do this to 
 be deficient in the very elements of morals — to want that sacred regard to 
 human life whicli is one of the corner-stones of civil society. If he sacrifices 
 the life of man for his mere pleasirres, he would do so, if he dared, for the low- 
 est and least of his passions. He may be defended, perhaps, by the abominable 
 injustice of the Game Laws — though we think and hope he is not. But there 
 rests upon his head, and there is marked in his account, the deep and indelible 
 sin of hlood-gmltincssP This is the deep and indelible sin which is marked in 
 the account of the nation, inidcr the head of its Game-defences, till, as before 
 recorded. Lord Suflield obtained a parliamentary prohibition of man-traps and 
 spring-guns, in the session of 1827. 
 soriFTv FOR TTiE ^^g ^ wiuding-up of the improvements of this period, and in rank the 
 
 DirprBioNCFUsE- o i ^ i ^ ^ x ^ ' 
 
 ri'L K.NOWLEUGE. Ypi-y fifst, wc must mention the systematic introduction of cheap literature, 
 for the benefit of the working classes. A series or two of cheap works had 
 been issued before ; chiefly of entertaining books, meant for the middle classes : 
 and there vFas never any deficiency of infamous halfpemiy trash, hawked about 
 the streets, and sold in low shops. The time had now arrived for something 
 very different from either of these kinds of literature to appear. 
 
 Immediately upon the estabhshment of Mechanics' Institutes, it was found 
 that the deficiency of attainable books in science and literature was a serious 
 misfortune. Men can learn little from lectures, unless they can follow up their 
 subjects by reading : and hearty efforts were made to collect libraries, and form 
 reading societies. These efforts convinced all concerned in them of two facts : 
 that books were dreadfully expensive, and that many that were eminently 
 wanted did not exist : — elementary treatises on scientific subjects, by which 
 students might be introduced into the comprehension of a new subject by a more 
 rational method than through a wilderness of technical terms. The friends of 
 popular enlightenment began, upon this, to consider whether the want could 
 not be supplied ; whether works truly elementary could not be issued so cheaply 
 as to meet the needs of the members of Mechanics' Institutes ; and in April, 
 
 Eiinhurgh Re. 1825, Mr. Brougham, Lord John Russell, Dr. Lushington, Mr. Crawford, Wil- 
 Iiam Allen, and others, formed themselves mto a society, under the name of the 
 ' Society for Promoting the Dift'usion of Useful Knowledge.' Largo sub- 
 scriptions were offered, and all looked promising, when the commercial con- 
 vulsions of the time stopped the progress of the work ; and little more was 
 done, tlian in the way of preparation, till November, 1826, W'hen ^Ir. Brougham 
 assembled the friends of the enterprise, and the organization of the society was 
 completed. The issue of works began on tne 1st of jNIarch, 1827, in the fonn 
 of pamphlets of unexampled cheapness ; and the publication was continued 
 
 1
 
 Chap. XI.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 679 
 
 fortnifrlitly for a long period. The subscriptions declined when the society was 1830. 
 once fairly in operation ; and, after the first year, it was mainly su^jported by 
 the sale of its works. The society was incorporated by a charter, in 1832, and 
 before the virtual expiration of its efforts and powers, it had done great sernce 
 to the existing generation, though not precisely (as happens -with almost all 
 social enterprises) to the extent, or in the mode, contemplated. The profession 
 (and no doubt the intention) was to teach the elements of all the sciences — 
 moral as well as natural; ])olitics, jurisprudence, and universal history, as well 
 as physical science. As jMr. Brougham said, in his ' Treatise on Popular Edu- 
 cation,' " Why should not political, as well as all other works, be published in 
 a cheap form, and in numbers?" and he proceeded to assign good reasons why 
 they shovdd : but it was not done. In the laudatory and exulting notice of the 
 operations of the society, some months after its works were spread over the 
 kingdom, the Edinburgh Ileview slides in a hint : " We trust, however, that 
 the appearance of the ethical and jjolitical treatises will not be unnecessarily 
 delayed." They never came : and the consequences to the society and to the 
 ])ublic were very serious — too serious to be passed over without grave mention. 
 8ome of the leading promoters of this society became the rulers of the country 
 a short time afterwards. Those whom they had invited to be their readers 
 were aware of their o\vn lack of political and historical knowledge ; and that 
 tliis knowledge was, at tliat period of our history, of the highest importance to 
 them. They desired it, and asked for it ; it was promised to them, but not 
 given. It was promised by men about to enter into office ; and wlien they were 
 in office, it was not given. While a vast change was taking place in tlie consti- 
 tution, and a multitude of men were eager to learn the history and bearings of 
 this change, th(>y were put off with treatises on dynamics and the polarization 
 of light. Explanations of the fact might, perhaps, be easily given ; but the fact 
 was injurious to the spread of the knowledge which the society was willing to 
 afford. The calm observers of the time presently saw that the position of the 
 Whig ministry, after the passage of the Reform Bill, was seriously affected 
 by the popular persuasion, whether right or wrong, that the AVhigs desired to 
 preclude them from political knowledge. So much for what this important 
 association failed to effect. It is very animating to observe and note what it 
 achieved. 
 
 The actual distribution of tens of thousands of copies of works of a high 
 (piality, is by no means tlie leading fact of this case— great as it is. A more 
 important one is the raising of the popular standard of requirement in literature 
 and science. It is no small matter to have issued the Penny Magazine at the 
 rate of nearly 200,000 copies per week : but it is a greater to have driven out 
 of the market the vast amount of trash to which the Penny ^lagazine was pre' 
 ferred. The society's Almanac is a gTeat boon : but a part of the good is, 
 that it excluded tlu; absurd old-world almanacs, and immediately caused an 
 improvement in those issued by the Stationers' Company. Otlier Cyclopedias 
 and Family Libraries followed upon the different series issued by the society; 
 and the Clnistian Knowledge Committee set up their Saturday Magazine, after 
 the model of tlie Penny Magazine. There being (as provided by the charter) 
 no division of profits in the society, the gains from tiu'ir more popular works 
 went to set up works of gi'eat value which could not possibly pay ; such as
 
 580 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book III. 
 
 1830. their Statistics of the British Empire. A reduction in tho cost of maps gene- 
 rally followed the appearance of the society's Atlas. When to these great 
 benefits wc add the consideration of the value of the works published — the 
 Penny Cyclopedia, the Library of Entertaining Knowledge, the Journal of 
 Education, the Gallery of Portraits, the Geographical and Astronomical ISIaps, 
 with many a series besides, we shall see that the institution of this society was 
 an important feature of its times, and one of the honours belonging to the reign 
 of George IV. It did not succeed in all its professed objects : it did not give 
 to the operative classes of Great Britain a library of the elements of all sciences : 
 it omitted some of the most important of the sciences, and with regard to some 
 others presented any thing rather than the elements. It did not fully penetrate 
 the masses that most needed aid. But it established the principle and precedent 
 of cheap publication (cheapness including goodness), stimulated the demand 
 for sound information, and the power and inclination to supply that demand ; 
 and marked a great era in the history of popular enlightenment. Bodies of men 
 are never so wise and so good as their aggi-egate of individual wisdom and 
 goodness pledges them to be : and this society disappointed the expectations of 
 the public, and of their own friends, in many ways : but tliis was because the 
 conception and its earliest aspirations were so noble as they were : and it is 
 with the conception and original aspiration, that, in reviewing the spirit of the 
 period, we have to do. Any work suggested is sure to find doers — one set, 
 if not another : it is the suggestion that is all-important in the history of the 
 time.* 
 
 Within two years after the death of the Duke of York, happened that of his 
 sister, the Queen of Wirtemberg, the eldest daughter of George III. After she 
 became the second mfe of the King of Wirtemberg, she had little connexion 
 with England ; and the tidings of her death were chiefly interesting as remind- 
 ing men that one generation was passing away, and another coming. She died 
 on the 6th of October, 1828, in her sixty-third year. 
 Mii.TiER.vET. In January, 1830, a death hajjpened in the political world, which occasioned 
 
 extraordinary relief to aU dull, or indolent, or in any way incapable or unworthy 
 members of the House of Commons. Mr. Tierney, the castigator — the unre- 
 mitting satirist of incapacity and unworthiness in any sort of functionary — died 
 suddenly on the 25th of that month. He had long been known to be suffering 
 imder an organic disease of the heart ; and he was found, dead and cold, sitting 
 in his chair in the attitude of sleej). The most notorious single event in the 
 political life of Mr. Tierney, was his duel with Mr. Pitt in 1798, the fault of 
 which appears to have lain wholly -with Mr. Pitt, who charged j\Ir. Tierney with 
 " a wish to impede the service of the country," and refused to retract, when 
 time and opportunity were afforded. Both parties left the ground unharmed. 
 Mr. Tierney v.as generally regarded as a sort of concentrated parliamentary 
 opposition ; but he was in office for short periods, at different times of his life ; 
 first, as Treasurer of the Navy under Mr. Addington, in 1803, and last, as Master 
 of the Mint under Mr. Canning, in 1827. He represented many places in parlia- 
 
 * I am obliged to refer the reader to the Preface for a notice properly belonging to this 
 period, wliich I am precluded, much to my regret, from entering upon here, in its proper 
 place— II. W. 
 
 Dpatii of tiib 
 
 yi-EEN OC WlR. 
 TE.MUEKU.
 
 CuAP. XI.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 581 
 
 ment diiviiii^' his political life of forty-two years ; and died member for Kiiarcs- 1830. 
 borough. ^-— -s ' 
 
 It -was in May of the same year that Sir Robert Peel, the father of the sm u. peel. 
 minister, died at the age of eighty. lie was originally a cotton manufacturer ; 
 and in that business he early obtained great wealth, which enabled him to 
 become an extensive landed proprietor, a benefactor to the borough of Tam- 
 worth, where his influence soon transcended that of the Townshcnds, and a 
 member of parliament who discharged his function well. He was an able 
 and conscientious public man, and blessed in his domestic relations, dying in 
 the midst of a family of above fifty descendants. His politics were high Tory. 
 He considered the National Debt a national blessing, believed every thing to 
 be right that was done by Air. I'itt, and was unable so to perceive that the 
 times were changing as to take any pleasure in the political acts of his son 
 during the last two or tlu-ee years of his life. His life was interesting as an 
 indication of the greatness of th(> career laid open to ability and industry, 
 under favouring circumstances, in our country ; and liis death was interesting, 
 not only as conferring title and increased wealth on his illustrious son, but as 
 giving him that freedom of speculation and action Mhich had necessarily been 
 more or less restrained of late by virtuous filial regards. 
 
 Two great Indian officers, both Scotch by birth, died in 1828 and the ■'^"' """• «>'«"■ 
 following year — Sir Da\-id Baird and Sir Thomas Munro. Sir David Baird 
 had been one of Tippoo Saib's prisoners, chained by the leg in a dungeon ; 
 after which he lived to receive the thanks of parliament four times — for his 
 services in India, in 1799; in Egypt in 1803; in the Danish expedition in 
 1807; and in the Peninsula in 1809, after the battle of Corumia, at which 
 time he was made a baronet. He had been Governor of Fort George two 
 years when he died, on the 18th of August, 1829. — Sir Thomas Munro was sirTmo.mas 
 Governor of ^Madras at the time of his death, which happened by a sudden 
 attack of cholera in July, 1828. Having spent his life in Indian ser^-icc, he 
 was anxious to return to England in 1823, but was entreated by the Directors 
 to remain. lie received his baronetcy in 1825. Capable in every way as he 
 had shown himself to be as a soldier, his most eminent se^•^'ices were wrought 
 in a nobler field, in settling, governing, and fostering one conquered province 
 after another that was put under his charge. His just and humane govern- 
 ment was his highest title to honour. 
 
 Two African explorers died within this period — Mr. Salt, on the 30th of 
 October, 1828 ; and Major Laing, at some time not perfectly Icnown, but sup- m.kim i.u.no. ; 
 posed to be during the autunni of 1826. INIajor, then Lieutenant Laing, 
 having been sent M-ith his regiment to Sierra Leone, experienced the passion 
 for African exploration, which has proved fatal to so many brave adventurers 
 in all times ; and, after various expeditions on jiolitical business to tribes 
 residing not far from the western coasts, he was made happy by an appoint- 
 ment to proceed, vifl Tripoli, to Tinibuctoo, in order to ascertain the coiuse of 
 the Niger. By that time tlic discoveries of Dcnhani and Clapperton had 
 roused much expectation and ambition, which it was Major Laing's hope to 
 gratify. On the 14th of July, 182-5, he married the daughter of the British 
 Consul at Tripoli, and two days after set fortli on th(" ex])idilion from whii-h 
 he never returned. There is a good deal of mystery abnut liis fate. On the
 
 582 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 [Book III. 
 
 1830. 
 
 Mil. Salt. 
 
 DB. KiTCIlENtR. 
 
 Samuel Old- 
 know. 
 
 21st of September he wrote from Timbuctoo the hist h'tter ever recei^■e(l I'roin 
 him ; and in this letter, which conveys an impression of discomfort and dan<i;er, 
 he declares his intention of leavini;' the j;reat town tlie next morninsj. Tie 
 was well satisfied with his own views about the course of the Nij^-er, and 
 declared himself laden with infomiation, from, "records" wliich were "abun- 
 dant" at Timbuctoo. Of all this he promised to write from Sego, in two or 
 three weeks ; but nothing more was heard of him but from some Arabs, whose 
 testimony could not be relied on. All agreed that he was killed, and that his 
 property was stolen ; but where, in that fearful desert, his bones are whitening, 
 and what was done with his effects, no real knowledge has ever been ol)tained. 
 — Mr. Salt M'as the companion of Lord A'alentia in his eastern travels; and he 
 published his dra^^ings, by which Lord Valentia's work is illustrated in a 
 valuable manner. His familiarity with oriental customs and languages caused 
 him to be selected by the government for a mission to Abyssinia, to carry- 
 presents to the Emperor, and afterwards to be our Consul-General in Egypt. 
 He died at a village between Cairo and Alexandria, after having added 
 much to our knoAvledge of eastern countries. He was a native of Lichfield, 
 and received his education at the grammar school of that city. 
 
 Among the promoters of the useful arts who died during this period, wc 
 find one strange humourist — Dr. Kitchener, whoso name was supposed to be 
 an assumed one by a multitude who had read his cookery-books, without 
 being aware that he had written upon optics and music before lie committed 
 liimsclf to gastronomic science. We say " read his cookery-books," because 
 it is impossible not to read them, if one looks at them at all, so full are 
 they of sense and appropriate learning, and of sly fun. Dr. Kitchener was 
 educated at Eton and Glasgow, was nominally a physician, but did not 
 trouble himself about practice, as he had an independent fortune, and bad 
 health. He suffered under complicated disease for many years before his 
 death, which happened when he was fifty years of age, suddenly, from a 
 spasmodic affection of the heart. It was his state of disease, and not ejncurism, 
 which made him so refined a teacher of the laws of luxury. The laws of 
 luxury were, in his opinion, involved in those of health ; and he taught both 
 together, to the great advantage of a multitude of readers, numerous beyond 
 computation. He amused himself with experiments in cookery ; and was to 
 the last degree exact about tlie preparation of his food : but with liim this 
 was an intellectual pursuit, follo'\\'ed up with an aim; his own habits being 
 regular, and even abstemious, except on occasion when an attack of peculiar 
 disease caused a craving for an enormous quantity, according to his own 
 account, of animal food. His chief delight was in music, and he was a 
 student of natural philosophy. As he is probably the only man who will ever 
 give us the overflowings of a scientific and gentlemanly mind in the form of 
 witty cookery-books, he should find a place in the records of his time. He 
 died in February, 1827. 
 
 In the next year, died the man to whom chiefly our country owes the in- 
 troduction of the muslin manufacture ; — Mr. Samuel Oldknow, who reached 
 his seventy-second year. When quite a young man, he tried the experiment 
 of manufacturing muslin handkerchiefs at Anderton, near Bolton in Lanca- 
 .sliire. In a few years, he established a great manufactory at Stockport, and
 
 CnAP. XI.l DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 533 
 
 afterwards at Mellor, in Derbyshii'c. The results were that, as regarded 1830 
 
 himself, he g;i-ew ricli and became a great hindod proprietor and agriculturist, — v.— ^-^- - 
 
 being President of the Derby xVgTiculturul Society at the time of his death : 
 and, as regards the public, that the manufacture is now brouglit to such a 
 point of perfection that we can bring cotton from India, make it into muslins 
 rivalling those of India themselves, and sell them in India at a lower price 
 than the native fabric can be sold for on the spot. Mr. Oldknow had the 
 energy and perseverance which invariably distinguish pubHc benefactors of 
 his order. He seldom saw a muslin chess in any drawing-room, of a pattern 
 that was new to him, but he had the pattern, with improvements, in the loom 
 the next day. It was a gicat benefit and blessing to his mind that he could 
 interest himself in agricultm'al pursuits. The penalty which imju'overs in 
 the useful arts usually have to pay for their privilege is that they cannot rid 
 tliemselves of their object : as an eminent ribbon-designer was heard to say 
 that it Mas the plague of his life that he saw ribbons every where — ribbons 
 in the ^Wnter fire — ribbons in the summer evening clouds — and wherever 
 there was fonu and colour. ]Mr. Oldknow must have di'opped his muslins 
 when in his farmyard, and among his crops. 
 
 The great printer, Luke Hansard, died in 1828, at the age of seventy-six. lcke hv>sard. 
 His father, a Norwich manufacturer, had died early in embarrassed circum- 
 stances. At the end of his apprenticeship to the printing business, Luke 
 Hansard went to London, with one guinea in his pocket. The very next time 
 that he had a guinea in liis jrocket, he sent it to Norwich to pay a debt of his 
 father's — Ids father having then bc-en dead some years. Mr. Hughs of Great 
 Turnstile, was then, in 1774, printer to the House of Commons ; and Luke 
 Hansard became a compositor in his office. In two years, he was made a 
 partner : and from that time his career, as sketched in the Eeport of a Com- 
 mittee of the House of Commons on Parhamentary Printing (1828), was 
 nothing short of illustrious. He improved the extent and quahty of the par- 
 liamentary printing beyond what had been dreamed of Employed by Mr. 
 Orme in printing his History of India, he informed himself so thoroughly on 
 Indian subjects that he was Burke's right hand in selecting evidence from 
 India documents for the trial of ^\'arren Hastings. — It was he who supplied 
 without delay, and without the commission of an error, the unequalled demand 
 for IJurke's Essay on the French Revolution. Dr. Johnson secured him for 
 his i)rinter : and Porson pronounced him the most accurate of Greek printers. 
 ^\'hen ^Ir. Pitt was perplexed how to get the Report of tlie Secret Committee 
 on tlie French Revolution printed under such impossible conditions as his o\\ri 
 illegible hand-writing, extreme haste, and absolute secrecy, Luke Hansard ])ro- 
 miscd that the thing shoidd be done ; and the Minister was amazed by the siglit 
 of the proof-sheets early the next morning. After the Union with Ireland, tlie 
 l)arliamentary printing increased so much that iNlr. Hansard declined all pri- 
 vate business except duiing the parliamentary recess, when he liked to have 
 it, to keep his gi-eat corps together and in practice. His great corps once 
 thought they had him aiul his affairs in their own hands. In no business 
 could a strike of workmen be more fatal tlian in this ; and in 1805, when 
 strikes were the fashion, Hansard's men thought themselves sure of any wages 
 they chose to ask. But they did not yet know their employer. The greater
 
 584 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book III. 
 
 1830. the (liingor, the better prepared was such a man to meet it. He liad foreseen 
 -^■^ — " the event, and had devised phuis, and tauj^ht them to his sons, by which the 
 art of printing might, by extreme subdivision of employment, be practised by 
 untrained hands. He let his workmen go ; picked up great numbers of un- 
 employed men from the streets and stable-yards, put on a working jacket, and, 
 witli his sons, went from one to another, showing how the business was to be 
 done, and aiding in it. He was an early riser; and his plans — so original, 
 so various, and so singularly successful — were made in the clearness and cool- 
 ness of the morning, before those were awake who were to execute his schemes. 
 He was little seen out of the range of his business ; and that business Avas of 
 so wide a range as to afford constant exercise to all the faculties of his miiul. 
 It united the interests of the scholar, the literary man, and the politician, -with 
 those of the vast mechanism of his business. He had tlie excellent health 
 which is the natural privilege of men who work the whole of the brain equably 
 and diligently, — the faculties which relate to the body, the intellect, and the 
 affections. Up to the age of seventy-five, he felt no change in his powers ; 
 nor was any failure apparent to his friends. At that time he experienced 
 paralysis of the left eye. It disappeared ; but when the business of the session 
 began, he declared his conviction that this would be his last season of regular 
 work ; but that he would work on while parliament sat. And so he did ; and 
 he had the gratification of printing the Report on Printing in which his labours 
 are immortalized. When this was done, and parliament rose, he felt himself 
 sinking, and summoned to his presence the principal persons in his establish- 
 ment, taking a solemn leave of them, and declaring his belief that he should 
 see them no more. We cannot but hope that some of them knew how he 
 came to London, and what he did with his first spare guinea. — He died a few 
 weeks after this leave-taking, saying farewell to each member of his family 
 individually, explaining what provision he had made for them, and offering to 
 each his blessing and a parting gift. — Such was the life of Luke Hansard, 
 which speaks for itself The particulars given will not be too many for those 
 who, hearing the name of Hansard incessantly, may not be aware how it came 
 to be connected with the printed Debates of the Lords and Commons of 
 England. 
 PinLci' RuNiiEM.. Just at the time when George III. came to the throne, a youth belonging 
 to Bath was apprenticed to a jeweller there; — a youth of high spiiit, little 
 industry, a strong love of pleasure, good talents, and especially a remarkably 
 refined taste, which contrived to show itself before he knew any thing of Art. 
 When this gay lad heard of the accession of the young king, and of the splen- 
 dours of the coronation, he little dreamed how much he should hereafter have 
 to do with tliis king and all his family; nor how it would be his own industry 
 that would make a way for him into the royal presence and emjiloyment. This 
 somewhat harum-scarum youth, apt to go into aviolent passion, apt to sing and 
 dance rather than to work, was Philip Eundell, who was to die one of the richest 
 and best-known men in England. A new apprentice came into the business at 
 Bath, a few months before he left it, to be trained to take his place ; and the 
 new apprentice's name was Bridge. Here we have the Eundell and Bridge, 
 whose firm is known all over Europe. NcAcr were two men more unlike than 
 Mr. Rundcll and Mr. Bridge ; yet the partnership turned out admirably, by
 
 Chap. XL] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PE.VrE, 585 
 
 tlu'ir undertaking diffi'rcnt departments. ^Sfr. Runddl studied art, con amorc, 1830. 
 lieeame an unequalled judge of diamonds, and work(>d indefati<^al)ly — aliso- ^— — "-'— ^ 
 lately revelling iu the gvatifieation afforded by his business to his intelleet and 
 taste, when once it had expanded to a point which satisfied liis desires. He was 
 very iraseible ; but his people knew him, and revered his generosity, through 
 his bursts of temper. No one ever left his employment on account of his temp(M'. 
 But he was not the man to go about for orders among the gi-eat — always ex- 
 cepting the royal family. Mr. Bridge, amiable, gentlemanly, and as able iu 
 liis way as his partner, undertook this jiart of his business. And he sacrificed 
 no independence by it. On matters of taste in their department, Messrs. Rundell 
 and Bridge were called on to advise, and not to be dictated to. If it is asked 
 how they reached this point of eminence, the only answer is, that they won it. 
 Mr. Rundell was placed by his relations as a partner in the ancient jewellery 
 establishment of the Golden Salmon, on Ludgate Hill j and there, if he had 
 l)een an ordinary man, he might merely have made a competence, as an ordinary 
 jeweller, in a respectable house. "When the senior partner retii-ed, leaving his 
 money in the concern, Mr. Rundell invited Mr. Bridge to be his partner. In 
 liberality of views the partners were one. They studied, and they largely 
 bought, pictures, statues, gems — every species of antique beauty that they 
 could obtain access to : and that they obtained access to so many as they did 
 in those days of continental warfare, is a proof of their zeal in the pursuit of 
 peaceful art. It was for the sake of art that they executed their celebrated 
 Shield of Achilles. It was not ordered : it was not likely ever to be bought. 
 But they communicated their idea to ^Ir. Flaxman, and paid him £G20 for his 
 model and drawing of the shield. George IV. and the Duke of York, and two 
 noblemen, had each a cast of this shield, in silver gilt : and the jewellers now 
 stood before the M'orld as artists ; and they gathered into their establishment 
 all the talent, foreign as well as native, which promised to advance their art. 
 It was about 1797 that they became diamond-jewellers to the royal family, 
 on the retirement of their predecessor ; and ^Ir. Rundell retired from busint'ss 
 in 1823 ; so that his intercourse with royalty extended over twenty-six years ; 
 and a long time that was to be handling and taking care of many of the finest 
 jewels in the world. He was in the habit of giving away money fi-eely. To 
 persons out of the line of relationsliip, he gave sums not exceeding £200: 
 and he is supposed to have given away about £10,000 in this manner. To his 
 relations he presented gifts varying from £500 to £20,000 : and in this way he 
 distributed about £145,000 dining his life. Besides this, he settled annuities 
 on a considerable number of persons, that he might not keep them waiting till 
 his death : and at last, he left property far exceeding a million. It was not 
 the money that it brought, nor yet the fiime, which made his success in life 
 precious to him. It was the high gratification of his faculties and taste. And 
 he enjoyed this long ; for he had worked well during the last two-thirds of his 
 life. His mind remained clear to the last ; and he was eighty when he died, 
 on the 17th of February, 1827. 
 
 His life carries us over from the department of the useful arts to that of Art, *''^""'-' O"""- 
 proijcrly so called. Ihit first we must note the melancholy case of the eiigineer 
 to wliom we owe the design for AVaterloo 15ridg(\ and the institution of steam- 
 passage from f.ondon to Margate and to Richmnud. Mr. George Dodd was 
 
 vol.. I. -In
 
 Mils. DVMI.R 
 
 58G HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book TIT. 
 
 1(930. the son of Mr. Ralph Dndd, who effected some excellent engineering in hi? 
 
 • " day. His nnhappy son, in his hest years, revived the idea of the Strand 
 
 Bridge ; and on its being seriously undertaken was appointed resident en- 
 gineer, with a salary of £1000 a year. This situation he hastily resigned : but 
 he received £5000 in all fi-oni the conipauy. His habits, however, put pros- 
 perity out of the question, gi'cat as were his talents. Tliosc whom he had 
 served could not save him from himself; and he lived to be brought up to the 
 Mansion-house as a drunken pauper. He asked for a week in prison, after 
 which he would begin life afresh. He was taken care of in the iutirmary of 
 the prison; but he rejected medicine and advice, and sank at the end of the 
 week, killed by intemperance, at the age of only forty-foxir. He died in 
 September, 1827. 
 
 iiioMisnoi,- In the preceding March died a patient artist who had devoted thirty years 
 
 of incessant labour to engraving the Cartoons of Raffaelle. Thomas Holloway 
 was scarcely heard of as an engiaver till a book came out which presently 
 became the rage — Dr. Hunter's translation of Lavatcr, for which HoUow.iy 
 had engraved seven hundred plates. He was made historical engraver to the 
 ICing ; and when he was about fifty, applied himself to the great work of the 
 Cartoons, six of which were nearly completed, and the seventh begun, v^hen 
 he died, in the eightietli year of his age. What a succession is here of men 
 engaged in virtuous and intcUectnal toil, who lived in health, and died in a 
 clear and serene old age ! 
 
 INIany people have seen the bust of Nelson which is placed in the Common 
 C'ouncil-room at Guildhall, and the bust of Sir Joseph Banks at the British 
 Museum ; and the colossal heads of Thames and Isis on Henley Bridge ; and 
 some know the statue of George III. at the Register Office at Edinburgh. 
 These arc all works of the Hon. Mrs. Danier, whose father was the General 
 Conway (afterwards Field Marshal) to whom the largest share of Horace 
 Walpolc's correspondence was addressed. To this lady Horace Walpole left 
 Strawberry-hill, with £2000 to keep it in repair, on condition that she lived 
 there, and did not dispose of it to any one but his great-niece. Lady Walde- 
 grave. Mrs. Damer's marriage was unhappy ; and her husband destroyed 
 himself nine years after their union. She had no children ; and from the 
 time of her husband's death, she applied herself to the study and practice of 
 art. She went to Rome for improvement, and returned to be the acknow- 
 ledged head of amateur sculpture in Europe. She was always at work ; and 
 her work is in many great houses, valued as her gift, as well as for real merit. 
 One of her last achievements was a bust of Nelson, which she sculptured for 
 tlio King of Tanjore, at the request of her relative. Sir Alexander Johnston, 
 then governor of Ceylon. Great was the sensation excited when the bust 
 reached its destination ; and its reception by the gazing multitude was such 
 as to encourage further attempts to foster the artistic faculties of the natives 
 of our dependencies. ]Mrs. Damcr directed that her apron and tools should 
 be buried with her. Let us hope that her example does not lie buried with 
 them. She was in her eightieth year, and died on the 28th of May, 1828. 
 
 sre georoe Another amateur-artist, better known as a patron of art, who died during 
 
 -this period, was Sir George Ilowland Beaumont, the friend of Sir Joshua 
 Reynolds, to whom Sir Joshua left his picture (by Sebastian Bourdon) of the 
 
 Beaumont.
 
 CiiAP. XI.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. o^T 
 
 Return of the Ark. This picture Sir George Beauinout presented, witli fifteen 1830. 
 
 others, to the National Gallery, a short time before his death. He was in "^ ^ — 
 
 parliament for one session : but liis heart was in private life — in his home, Iiis 
 painting, and his friends. He was a liberal and judicious patron of art and 
 artists ; and the idea Ave form of him from Wordsworth's Works, the Life of 
 Wilkie, and other pictures of the time, is genial and ciKlearing. He was one 
 of tliose whose pursuits and tenor of life promise and deserve old age. He 
 ^vas seventy-three when lie died, and then his death was fiom an attack of 
 erysipelas. The event happened on the 7tli of February, 1827. 
 
 George Dawe, the painter, died in 1829. The latter part of his life was fiuoRGtu.vwi:. 
 spent on the continent, and most of his Avorks were done there, as he was 
 first painter to the Emperor of llussia. He was a Royal Academician ; and a 
 picture of his, the Demoniac, hangs in the Council-room of the Academy. He 
 realized a very large fortune at St. I'etersburgh, but died in England, and was 
 buried at St. I'aul's. The Russian Ambassador and Sir Thomas Lawrence led 
 the pall-bearers. 
 
 Only three months afterwards, Sir Thomas La-v\rcnce Mas himself carried sm iimMAs 
 to burial in St. Raid's, with as much pomp as rank and Mealth can contribute ^"""^■'"^'' 
 to the honour of genius. Great as Sir Thomas Lawrence M'as, the abidiu"- 
 impression of him is and will be, that he was not all that nature intended 
 him to bo. His early promise was most marvellous. At six years old he took 
 crayon likenesses, those of Lord and Lady Kenyon still existing to show the 
 wonderful spirit the child could put into his dra^\ings, Avhicli were also stroii"' 
 likenesses. At the age of eight he saw a Rubens — the first good picture he 
 had ever seen. He could not leave it; and when he was fetched away, 
 he sighed, " Ah ! I shall never be able to paint like that !" At ten he 
 painted historical pictures; and one especially— Christ reproving Peter — 
 manifested such promise as makes it a matter of infinite regret that he 
 spent his life in painting portraits, even though that life establishes a new 
 era in portrait painting in England. At thirteen he received from the 
 Society of Arts, for his copy of the Transfiguration, the great silver gilt 
 palette, and a premium of five guineas : and yet at sixteen he was very 
 near going upon the stage. There was something to be said for this fancy. 
 He was fiill of personal beauty, grace, activity, and accomplishments: a 
 hearty lover of Shakspere, and a wonderfully fine dramatic reader. He was 
 also very intimate with the Kembles. Indeed, he was early engaged to a 
 daughter of ilrs. Siddons ; but the father doubted the prudence of the con- 
 nexion, and the young lady afterwards died. Thus far Lawrence had studied 
 under Mr. Hoare at IJath — an artist of exquisite taste, who fi>stered the boy's 
 powers. At sevcntecu LaUTence's father took him to London, and ])eti- 
 tioned for an interview with Sir Joshua Reynolds. Sir Joshua was mani- 
 festly struck on the instant with the extraordinary beauty and manners of 
 the youth, and gave dose attention, during a long silence, to the young artist's 
 iirst attempt in oils — a pictinx' of Christ bearing the Cross. It was an anxious 
 pause for bolli father and son: and the son at least thought that all was 
 over, and that he siiould never be a painter, when Sir Joshua found fault 
 with his colouring in many particulars. It was Sir Joshua's way, however, 
 to get all the fault-finding done livbt, and then to praise; and this was what
 
 588 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book III. 
 
 1S30. he was doing now. When lie had raised the lad's spirits again, he said, 
 impressively but mildly, " It is very clear you have been copying the old 
 masters : but my advice to you is to study Nature. Apply your talents to 
 nature, and don't ro/^y paintings." Then followed an invitation to call when- 
 ever he liked ; and the great man's kindness never failed during the foiu- 
 vears that he continued to live. Lawrence succeeded him in liis office of 
 principal painter in ordinary to the King. Honours were showered upon him, 
 from this time, and wealth flowed in, to be immediately dispersed in acts 
 of generosity, or by habits of carelessness. He never married; he made 
 money at an unequalled rate ; yet he was never rich. Of course, it was said 
 that he gamed: but this was so far from being true, that he conscientiously 
 abstained from billiards (at which he had never played for money), because 
 his line play occasioned immoderate betting ; and he thought it as wrong to 
 occasion gambling in others as to game himself. At Christmas, 1829, he 
 consviltcd a friend about insuring his life for £5000, and resolved to effect 
 the insurance on the 8th of January ; but on the 7th he was dead. — Between 
 1T!)2 and 1818 he was painting the portraits of half the aristocracy of England: 
 and then he was called to paint the royalty of Europe. The Regent sent him 
 to the Congress at Aix-la-Chapelle, to paint the potentates there assembled ; 
 and he proceeded afterwards to various Courts to complete his commission. 
 He had never been abroad before — had never seen Rome, nor even the pictures 
 that Paris had to show. Before bis return he was elected, on the death of 
 West, President of the Royal Academy. After his return be went on portrait 
 painting to the time of his death. His service to art was in idealizing por- 
 traits. He had that honhommie of genius Avhich showed to him at once not 
 only the best side of Avhatever human phenomenon met his eye, but all that 
 a face and figure were capable of being under the best influences : and that 
 ideal he had power to present. His portraits of children are beautiful beyond 
 parallel. His own face and manner were most attractive to children. They 
 would hang upon his neck, and sit on his knee to be fed; and their antics in 
 his painting-room were as free as in the fields : and not a trait of frolic or 
 grace ever escaped him. Wc have a myriad such traits, caught at a glance, 
 and fixed down for ever. At Christmas, 1829, as wc have seen. Sir Thomas 
 Lawrence believed himself, as he then said, likely to attain a good old age. 
 He declared bis health to be perfect, except that at night his head and eyes 
 were heated, so that he was glad to bathe them. On Saturday, January 2nd, 
 be dined, with Wilkie and others, at Mr. Peel's. On Tuesday, though not 
 fecliniT very well, he was bitSy at the new Athena;um Club-house, about whose 
 interior decoration he was much interested. On Wednesday, the Gth, he 
 A\rote a note to his sister, to say that he could not dine yyiih her on Thursday, 
 but would conic on Friday — the day he meant to insin-e his life. On Thursday 
 evening, being better than for some days before, he received two friends, with 
 Avhom he conversed very cheerfully. Before they had left the house they heard 
 a cry from his servant, which made them return to the room, where they found 
 him dead in his chair. He had told his servant that he was very ill — that he 
 must be dying. His disease was ascertained to be extensive ossification of the 
 heart. He Avas sixty years of age. 
 .Mis5 FABctx. One of Lawrence's famous portraits was of Miss Farreu, the bewitching
 
 Chap. XI.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 589 
 
 actress, of whom our grandt'atlicr.s could not speak without enthusiasm. This 1830. 
 
 hidy, become Coimtess of Derby, died in April, 1829. Among her captives ^— ^- - 
 
 she reckoned Charles James Fo.\, who spent evening after evening behind the 
 scenes at Drury Lane : but there was no coquetry on the lady's part, ^he 
 became the second wife of the Earl of Derby in 1797 ; was received at Court ; 
 and, to the end of her days, was considered the most accomplished lady in the 
 peerage. It may be a question whether, under the happiest domestic circum- 
 stances, it is wise to exchange the excitement of artistic life for the level dul- 
 ness of aristocratic existence : but Miss Favren's ease is a proof that it may 
 be done without scandal, or open bad consequences : and all ^vill agree that, 
 supposing an opening to aristocratic life to be a good thing, artistic genius is 
 a nobler aveiuie than the commoner one of ■wealth. 
 
 IJfforc this time, and for some years afterwards, tliere was a good deal of h*""-'''''- 
 disputation going forward as to the best method of learning a foreign lan- 
 guage ; -whether in the old plodding way by grannnar and dictionary, or by 
 the new method of Mr. Hamilton — by interlinear translations, in which each 
 foreign word was placed above or below the eqiuvalent English one. The 
 dispute at times ran high, the advocates of each method not seeing that both 
 may be good in their way. If people found that they could, by Mr. Hamil- 
 ton's means, learn to read a foreign language more speedily and easily than 
 by beginning with the grammar, they would certainly become Hamiltonians, 
 wliatever their opponents had to say to the contrary : and if parents wished to 
 give their children a thorough grammatical knowledge of a foreign language, 
 they M-onld put the grammar and dictionary before them, as of old. A great 
 number too would use both methods at once — the ancient for a knowledge 
 of the construction, the modern for a knowledge of the idiom, and of its 
 affinity \\'\\\\ their mother tongue. In the midst of the controversy, and of 
 great success, iNIr. James Hamilton, author of the Ilamiltonian system, died, at 
 the age of fifty-nine, in September, 1829. 
 
 Of men of letters, there died during this period, AMlliani Giff'ord : Professor ^^'"- C"'F"'"'- 
 Jardine : Mitford the historian : and Professor Dugald Stewart. — Gifford's 
 career was a remarkable one. He worked his wiiy upwards from the lowest 
 condition of fortune and education ; his spirit and his love of knowledge 
 being indomitable. He became known, when cabin boy of a ship, to a surgeon 
 of Ashburton, Mr. Cookesley, who so exerted his interest and his own genero- 
 sity as to send the aspiring boy to Oxford. Earl Grosvenor afterwards took 
 him into his house, to be tutor to his son. He was intimate with Canning, 
 and became the editor of the Anti-jaeobin : and afterwards, for a long course 
 of years, of the Quarterly Ileview, which he edited from its origin in 1809 
 till within two years of his death. His k^arning, his industry, his literary 
 taste, his unscrupulousness as a partisan, and liis intense bigotry, all favoured 
 him in making the Quarterly lieview what it was ; — worthy of inuuortality 
 for its literary articles, and sure of an undesirable immortality as a monmiient 
 of tlie extreme Toryism of its day, — witli all its insolence, all its selfishness, 
 unscrupulousness, and destitution of philosophy. Cold and cruel as Gitl'ord 
 was in his political and satirical writings, he had a warm heart for gratitude 
 and for frieiulship. He was generous in liis transactions, and courteous in 
 his manners; and he tluis won a ((ndial aU'eelion IVotm liis friends, while he
 
 590 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book III. 
 
 1830 provoked a feeling of au adverse kind iVoni the public at large, lie left a 
 ^^ — . ' considerable portion of his property to a member of Mr. Cookesley's i'amily ; 
 
 PnoFEssoR jau- and died on the la.st day of the year 182G, at the age of seventy. — Professor 
 Jardine, who taught Logic at Glasgow College, and won to himself the respect 
 and affection of a Avide circle of eminent men, once his pupils, died, at the age 
 
 WM.MmoKii. of eighty-four, on the 28th of January, 1827. — Mitford, the historian of 
 Greece, reached the age of eighty-three, and died in February of the same 
 year. His History was universally read, and celebrated accordingly, in its 
 early days : but this was mainly because it was uncontroverted and left unri- 
 valled. Since the great recent expansion of the philosophy of history, Mit- 
 ford's work has fallen into discredit, from which it is not likely to recover. — 
 
 Di'GALi) Professor Dugald Stewart is never spoken of by those who knew him without 
 
 affection and admiration, on account of the amiability and charm of his cha- 
 racter and manners. He early devoted himself to metaphysical speculation, 
 and became the most popular lecturer on Mental Philosophy ever known in 
 this country. For a long course of years, his lecture-room was crowded ; and 
 his circle of pupils was enlarged indefinitely by his fi-cquent publication of 
 his lectures, rmder one form or another. The service that he rendered to 
 philosophy was, however, confined to that of interesting a wide public in the 
 subjects which occupied his mind. He added nothing to the science which he 
 luulertook to teach ; but rather drew away from the track of real science 
 many minds which might have followed it, if they had not been enticed by 
 the gTaces of his desultory learning into a wilderness where he indicated no 
 path at all. No comprehensive principle is to be found amidst the whole 
 mass of his works ; no firm ground under his speculations ; no substance 
 beneath his illustrations. Nothing that he wrote under the name of pliilosophy 
 could cohere for a moment under the test of science. And the science was 
 already abroad, — the strong breeze which was to drive before it the mists of 
 mere speculation. Prince ^letternich, who, whatever had been his political 
 sins, understood and appreciated as well as any man the nature and benefits of 
 true science, had before this time, when Austrian ambassador at the French 
 Court, guaranteed to Dr. Gall the expenses of the publication of his work on 
 the Functions of the Brain : a work which has already begun to change the 
 aspect of both medical science and mental philosojjhy throughout the civilized 
 world. Dr. Gall's work had been prohibited (as first-rate scientific achieve- 
 ments are apt to be every where) by the government at "N'icnna in 1802. In 
 1810, Prince Metternich himself had secured its presentation to the world. 
 Before the close of the war, it had begun to modify the views of physicians 
 and philosophers abroad : and soon after the war, when continental ideas 
 began to reach Great Britain, the scientific discoveries of Dr. Gall were heard 
 of in England ; and they received in Scotland, before the death of Dugald 
 Stewart, that primaiy homage of outrageous abuse from partisans of old 
 systems, which invariably precedes an ultimate general reception. The noise 
 reached the placid man ; but it did not disturb him. He had lived a long 
 and tranquil life — amused with speculation, undisturbed by difficulties which 
 were not apparent to him, unspoiled by adulation, unabashed by the excess 
 of his popularity, clierished by family and friends, and uudoubting about the 
 permanence of his works. — Those works it is impossible to characterize, in
 
 Chap XI.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 591 
 
 any pliiloso])liical sense : for no basis is assigned for them ; and no proof of 1830. 
 any part of them is any where offered. The most positive part of thorn is a '--^•■~^—~-^ 
 protest, sometimes expressed, sometimes implied, against the philosophy of 
 Loeke. They contain some recognition of facts of the mind ■which there is 
 no attempt to account for ; and much desultory information and disquisition 
 which are entertaining to read ; and would he more so if the reader could 
 forget his constant unsatisfied craving for that analysis and reasoning which 
 are always professed in the mere undertaking of such subjects, but are in the 
 writings of Dugald Stewart nowhere to be found. He reache<l the age of 
 seventy-four, and died in June, 1828, — tMO months before the great German 
 physician and philosopher who was to extinguish the will-o'-the wisps which, 
 in the name of the Scotch philosophy, had beguiled multitudes wliil(> the 
 continent and its science was closed to us. Dr. Gall died in the neighbourhood 
 of Paris, aged seventy-one, on the 22nd of August, 1828. 
 
 A young man died during this period, whose name should perhaps be men- ''<"■'•"'<• 
 tioned on account of the popularity of a poem which he published; such popu- 
 larity, won by such a poem, being a curious sign of the times. The Rev. 
 Robert Pollok, who had been educated at Glasgow, issued a long poem, 
 called " the Course of Time," which immediately went through many editions, 
 in spite of faults so offensive, and such an extraordinary absence of merits, as 
 completely perplexed all the authoritative literary critics of the day. The 
 tmth seems to be that Isir. Pollok's readers and admirers Avere the whole of 
 that great and opulent body called, in common conversation, the religious 
 world — the great body which has a conscientious objection to the cultivation 
 of taste by familiarity with the best models in art and literature ; with whom 
 music is objectionable, as "exciting the passions," painting as "frivolous," 
 and Shakspere and our other classics as " profane." When a novel — Ilannali 
 More's Cadebs — came in the way of this portion of the public, a novel whitli 
 they might read, they carried it through a succession of editions presently ; 
 and now that a poem had come in their way, a poem that they might read, 
 they devoured it so ravenously as to set the world and the reviews of the day 
 wondering liow it might be. The young author left the world before his brief 
 fame reached its height. lie was on his way to Italy, consumptive, when he 
 died, in September, 1827. 
 
 In the days of the first French Revolution, when the excitement of the "",';,"'„'J*"'* 
 occasion brought out all existing enthusiasms in one foi-m or another, many 
 women found a voice, and listeners to their A'oice, who would have been little 
 attended to at other times. Among these was Helen Maria Williams, a hidy 
 who had previously published some poems of small account, but whose political 
 \mtiiigs, animated by a sincere enthusiasm, were eagerly received both in 
 England and in France. She was an ardent Republican ; and she was feared 
 ami hated accordingly by one party, and extolled by another. She was a 
 woman of good intentions, warm benevolence, and considerable powers: but, 
 that there was a want of balance or sagacity in her mind seems to be shown 
 by the fact, that she died a champion of the Bourbons and their rule. Her 
 most celebrated works were her " Farewell to England," " Sketch of the 
 I'nlitics of ]''ranre," and "State of Manners and Opinions in the French 
 Kcpulilic."' .She died at Paris, before the breaking out of the second revolu-
 
 592 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book III. 
 
 1830. (ion, -wliicli would have perplexed and alarmed lier extremely. Her dealli 
 
 " — ' — ' took j)lace in Doeembor, 1827. 
 
 lin'run"^'"'"'' There is soiuetliing interesting, and perhaps profitable, in noting cases of 
 individuality of character, which make themselves felt and heard of amidst the 
 organic movement of a highly civilized society ; and we may therefore note 
 the death of a lady whose story is still told by many firesides, where a grey- 
 headed elder sits in the seat of honour. There were two high-bom young ladies, 
 of the families of the ]\Iarqucss of Ormond and Lord Bcsborough, who, before 
 the breaking out of the first French Revolution, distressed their relations by 
 an early disgust with the Avorld, and longing for absolute seclusion. They left 
 their homes together in 1779, and settled in retirement : but their families 
 brought them back, and endeavoured to separate them, that they might not 
 encourage one another's " romance." The consequence was that they eloped ; 
 and it was some time before they could be traced. They settled near Llan- 
 gollen in Wales, where, for some years, the country people knew them only 
 by the name of " the ladies of the vale." Their fiiends hoped and believed 
 that they would grow tired of their scheme ; but they did not. They had 
 refused marriage ; and friendship, and the tranquillity of a eoiuitry life, 
 appeared to satisfy them to the end. It is true, those who visited them 
 during the latter years of their lives were struck by their inquisitiveness about 
 the afliiirs of the world, and especially about the gossip of high life in London. 
 A singular sight it was, we are told — the reception of a visitor by these 
 ancient ladles, in their riding-habits, with their rolled and powdered hair, 
 their beaver hats, and their notions and manners of the last century, perfectly 
 unchanged. Amidst the storms of revolutions, when the world was gathered 
 i)ito masses to contend for great questions, this quiet side-scene of romance 
 and individuality is worth glancing at for a moment. Lady Eleanor Butler 
 died in her Llangollen cottage on the 2nd of June, 1829. She must have 
 been about 70 years of age. Her companion followed in a few months. 
 
 woi.LASToN. jj seems as if the world were destined to be stripped of its most eminent 
 
 men of science during the period under review. Laplace and Volta died on 
 the same day, March 5th, 1827 — the one in France, and the other in Italy : 
 and soon afterwards, three deaths took place in England within six months, 
 which made scientific foreigners inquire of travellers, "whom have you left?" 
 — On the 22nd of December, 1828, died Dr. Wollaston, the most illustrious 
 member of a family distinguished for science through three generations. The 
 father and two uncles of William Hyde Wollaston were all Fellows of the 
 Royal Society. He, in whose f;ime the distinction of his family is now con- 
 centred, was born on the 6th of August, 1706. His profession was that of a 
 physician ; but he left it early in a fit of wrath at not being elected to a 
 desired office in St. George's Hospital. He never repented of his hasty deter- 
 mination ; and from his devotion to science he reaped all kinds of rewards. 
 He was eminently useful to his race ; he was happily occupied ; he was highly 
 honoured ; and he was very rich. One of his discoveries — that of a method 
 by which platinum can be made ductile and malleable — brought him in 
 £30,000; £10,000 of which he gave away at a stroke to a relation who was 
 in embarrassed circumstances. — Dr. AVollaslon"s organization was in favour of
 
 Chap. XL] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 593 
 
 his accomplisliing with certainty and completeness whatever he undertook. 1830. 
 
 His hodily senses were particularly acute and delicate ; his understanding -^^ ^^-^ • 
 
 clear and patient ; and his habits of thought and language eminently coiTect. 
 From his singular accuracy of observation and reflection, he was able to 
 pursue a method of research ^^•hicll would have been impossible to another 
 kind of man. He was able to diminish and simplify the material and appa- 
 ratus of his experiments in chemistry and natural philosophy to a degree 
 which appeared incredible to those who first heard of his methods. He could 
 carry on a process in a thimble which the world would wonder at : and he 
 would draw out from that little galvanic battery, a wire too slender to be seen 
 but in a full light. With an apparatus which would stand on a tea-tray ho 
 ^vould effect what another man would require a roomful! of utensils to do. A 
 gi'ain of any substance would serve his purposes of analysis as well as another 
 man's pound. This peculiarity, though chiefly interesting as characteristic of 
 the man, is useful also, as suggesting to other labourers the practicabiHty and 
 benefit of simplifying the processes of chemical research. To a certain extent, 
 his example may be imitable, though no one else is likely to arise gifted with 
 his delicacy of sense, acutencss of sagacity, and precision of understanding, 
 which made small amounts of evidence as good as large, if only they were 
 indisputable. — As for the immediate practical results of his labours — we have 
 mentioned one whose profit to himself showed its immediate utility. He dis- 
 covered two new metals, rhodium and palladium. Then we owe to him the 
 Camera Lucida : and that boon to practical chemists, the sliding scale of che- 
 mical equivalents : and that great help to crystallographers, the goniometer, 
 or angle measurer ; by which the angle contained between two faces of a 
 crystal can be measured with a degree of accuracy never before attainable. 
 But it is an injury to gi-eat chemical discoverers to specify as the result of their 
 labours those discoveries which take the fonn of inventions. We are thankful 
 to have them ; but they are a small benefit in comparison ^^-ith the other ser- 
 vices of such men. Their true service is in their general furtherance of 
 science ; their pioneering in new regions, or opening out new methods of pro- 
 cedxu'c, whose importance cannot be at once communicated to, or appreciated 
 by, the multitude of men. It is a good thing to invent a useful instrument, 
 for the service or safety of society and men : but it is a much greater thing to 
 evolve a new eh-ment, to discov(>r a new sxibstancc, to exhibit a now combi- 
 nation of matter, and add confirmation to a general law. WoUaston did much 
 in both ways to serve the world. He died of a disease of the brain which, 
 liowever, left his mind clear to the last. He employed his latter days in dic- 
 tating to an amanuensis an account of the results of his labours. AVhen he 
 was speechless and dying, one of his friends observed aloud that he was in a 
 state of iniconsciousness : whereupon, he made signs for paper and pencil, 
 wrote down figures, cast them up, and returned the paper : and the sum was 
 right. He was in the 63rd year of his ago. 
 
 Dr. Thomas Young went next. He was the son of quaker parents, whom dh.voinu. 
 he astonished not a little by his ability to read at two years old. He appears 
 to have been able to Icain and to do whatever he chose ; and that, with such 
 versatility, he had any soundness of science at all seems surprising. His 
 VOL. I. 4 1
 
 594 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book III. 
 
 1830. fii'st passion was for languages, even for the oriental; and to this we owe tlie 
 vast benefit of an introduetion to the interpretation of the hieroglvphies of 
 Egypt. It was Dr. Young who was the first to read the proper names in the 
 hieroglyphic and euehorial inscriptions on the Rosetta stone, by a comparison 
 of them with the third — the Greek inscription ; and it was on this hint that 
 ChampoUion proceeded in his elaborate researches. — It is by this service, and 
 liis theory of the Undulatory character of Light, that Y'oiuig is chiefly known ; 
 though there is hardly a department of natural science on which he did not 
 cast some wondrous illumination. It is a coumion mistake of superficial 
 readers to suppose that there must have been three or four Dr. Youngs at 
 work in diflerent regions of the world of science. He was the last Secretary 
 of the Board of Longitude ; and then sole conductor of the Nautical Almanac. 
 His writings are too numerous for citation. He was a physician by profession; 
 but the greatest service he rendered in that province was by his testimony to 
 tlie empirical character of medical treatment, and the absence of all real 
 science in that department of pursuit. He was himself too scientific to be a 
 good practical physician, or to make his patients think him one. Where he 
 saw no guiding principle, he could not pretend to a decision that he did not 
 feel : and he was open in his complaints of the darkness Mhicli involves the 
 laws of the human frame. When he said this in his lectures at St. George's 
 Hospital, and avowed that his idea of the advantage of skiU in medical prac- 
 tice was the advantage of holding a larger number of tickets in a lottery over 
 a smaller, the students were offended, as this was, as Arago observes, a doctrine 
 which students of medicine do not like to hear. From this cause of inipopu- 
 larity, and from his instructions being too high and deep for the comprehension 
 of his class, his lectures were not well attended, nor was liis practice large, as 
 the least scientific and therefore most confident practitioners must have, with 
 the anxious and trusting sick, the advantage over those who are more aware 
 of consequences while more doubtful about causes, till the laws of the human 
 frame are less obscure than they as yet are. From these disappointments, and 
 other causes of irritation, Dr. Y'oung was not a happy man : and the contro- 
 versies in wliich he was engaged are painfid records of the aberrations from 
 the serenity of science induced by those self-regards which the love of science 
 should cast out. He was hardly and insultingly treated ; but he might not 
 have been so, if his temper had been worthy of his vocation. He and his 
 enemies are gone down to that common resting-jilace wliere there is no more 
 strife : and the testimony remains, of which Ai-ago was the utterer, that among 
 philosophers he must always be held to be one of the greatest "whom England 
 has produced in modern times. 
 
 The man who, of this group, presented the most strongly to the popular 
 observation the attributes of genius was Davy. In his case, there was no 
 occasion to offer upon trust -assertions of his greatness, or assurances that a 
 future generation would become aware that he was a transcendant man in his 
 \vay. People all knew it during his life, whether they understood any thing 
 of his services to science or not. His ardour, his eloquence, his poetical 
 faculty, the nature of his intense egotism, his countenance, his manners 
 (before he was spoiled), and his pleasures, all spoke the man of genius, from 
 moment to moment. He brought the poet's mind into philosophical research. 
 
 Sm UuMrHRV
 
 Chap. XL] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 595 
 
 and the results were as brilliant as might he expected fi-oni such a concentra- 1830. 
 tion of such faculties as his. The world will for ever he the better for them. 
 Those who know nothing else about him have heard of the Davy lamp, and 
 know what a service he rendered by tracking Death through the foul caverns 
 of the earth to bind and disarm him. This was only one of many immediate 
 practical services which he rendered to society before the eyes of all men — 
 the wise and ignorant together : but the wise know that there is a host more 
 behind which the multitude must as yet take upon trust. — The genius of the 
 Cornish boy made itself felt l)y society before he had reached mature years ; 
 and when he lectured in London at the beginning of the ccntvnv, he was 
 probably the most popular man of his time — so clear were his expositions, so 
 beautiful his experiments, and so bewitching his ardent eloquence. When 
 we call him perhaps the most popular man of his time, we mean with the 
 listening public ; for he was not popular in private life. Besides the degree 
 of wildness which appears in all the evidence of his life and writings, tliere 
 M-as an excessive egotism, a lack of magnanimity, an insufferable pride and 
 vanity united, which destroyed all jjleasure on both sides in his intercourses 
 with others than his flatterers. His visit to Paris ended badly, heartv as was 
 the welcome accorded to himself and his discoveries by the French philo- 
 sophers. The serenity of a life of scientific research was not his. He had 
 manifold and intense enjoyments ; but not the peace which occupies the luiso- 
 phisticated mind when employed in its noble researches into the secrets of 
 nature. His ambition did not take the direction of wealth. About money, he 
 was simple-minded and generous. As for the rest, such men are so rare that 
 they may well bo permitted the isolation of egotism when they must have so 
 much isolation of other kinds. It is happy for themselves, and for those about 
 them, if they can preserve tlie childlike nature, innocent, humble, and loving, 
 which bears the truest affinity to genius : but if the world comes in to strip 
 genius of its natural gi-acos, we must not reckon too hardly with a being so 
 singularly circumstanced, but honour and glory in the gifts that remain, and 
 let the losses go. — Davy was born at Penzance, in December, 1778. He 
 arrived in London in 1801; was knighted in 1812; and was afterwards, in 
 1818, made a baronet; but, his marriage being childless, his title died with 
 him. lie became President of the Koyal Society in 1820 ; went abroad in ill 
 health in 1825, and again, and finally, in the early part of 1828, dying at 
 (xcneva on the 2r)th of May, 1829. The authorities of Geneva decreed a 
 ])ublic funeral; and there was ^^•ide-spread mourning in England when the 
 news arrived that her great philosopher had sunk into the grave at the age of 
 51. — Davy and AYollaston never crossed each other's path, the character of 
 their minds and their metliods of pursuing science being essentiallv unlike. 
 A\'ollaston was the elder by twelve years ; and on some occasions he was called 
 tlie Mentor of the younger and more brilliant genius : but they generally 
 worked apart, and certainly without mutual hindrance, if without co-operation. 
 ^^'hile ^^'llllastou was busy with his thimble, and a shaving of metal, and a 
 ])inch of earth, using the most delicate manipulation, and refined observation, 
 Davy was rushing about in his laboratory, among heaps of aj)paratus and 
 masses of material, holding to his work for days and nights together, or half- 
 killing himself by res])iring fatal gases. ^\'oilast()Il never declared a fact or a
 
 596 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book III. 
 
 1830. cloctriiic, even lo his own mind, till the veiitication of every step of the 
 evidence was complete: while Davy intrepidly published the proofs of the 
 enor of his own former pnhlishod opinions. WoUaston was seldom or never 
 wrong : 13avy was often miraculously right. Both had sagacity not to he sur- 
 passed : hut the sagacity of the one w-as clear insight, and of the other excited 
 prevision. Both men were too great to be confined within the limits of their 
 own science. Wollaston Avas a man of various reading and open intellect ; 
 and he was capable of genuine intercourse with minds of various character. 
 Uavy had not that liberality ; but his own pursuits were diversified. He 
 loved sport — fishing and fowling— with all the intensity of his nature. He 
 was fond of what he thought to be mental and moral philosophy, and attached 
 an unaccountable value to his writings on such subjects. That estimate, how- 
 ever, must be regarded as one of his wildnesses, and as another instance of 
 that opposition which is so common between great men and every body else 
 as to what they can do best and w'orst. The inspiration of Davy's genius 
 could not but leave some traces in his miscellaneous writings, and we find 
 accordingly a passage of beauty here and there ; but if there is philosophy in 
 them it is such as may be dropped through the dreams of the night. Amidst 
 his mass of achievements, we may well throw^ out without slight what there 
 was of mistake and transient : but Wollaston left as little as it is possible for 
 fiillible and tentative man to leave for rejection, and much, very much, for 
 which the world will ever be the better. They were two wonderful and truly 
 great men ; and at the date under our notice, and for long after, the scientific 
 world felt blank and dreary without them. 
 jiajou Riix.NELL. Major Rennell is considered the first Englishman who ever attained a high 
 and permanent reputation as a geographer. He began life in the navy, and 
 early showed what he was capable of in surveying. After being in India, he 
 was induced to leave the navy for the army ; and he went out to Bengal as an 
 officer of engineers. His Bengal atlas, and some charts of great value, appeared 
 before long. His gTcatest work is "The Geographical System of Herodotus;" 
 a work of the highest interest and importance to un travelled scholars, and a 
 marvel in its way, from the fact that ]Major Rennell could not read Greek — 
 had no better translation of Herodotus than Beloe's, and was actually able to 
 detect the errors of the translation, by his sagacity and his geographical know- 
 ledge toircther. Ho assisted Dr. Vincent in making out the track of Nearchus 
 for his Commentary on Arrian's account of that voyage : he assisted Sir 
 William Jones in his Oriental Collections; and it was he who made out 
 Mungo Park's track, from his journals and descriptions ; and, by comparing 
 Park's account with prior discoveries, formed the map which accompanies the 
 Travels with an approach to con-ectness since proved to be truly surprising. 
 One of his most remarkable and interesting Avorks is his " Observations on 
 the Topography of the Plain of Troy," which the lovers of Homer rushed to 
 read, and have studied ever since. As a practical boon, none of his labours 
 are more important than his account of the currents in the oceans navigated 
 by European ships. This excellent man and eminent public benefactor lived 
 to the age of 88, being born near Chudleigh, in Devonshire, in 1742, and 
 dying on the 29th of March, 1830. Though he never reached a higher rank 
 than that of Major in llm army, and Surveyor-General of Bengal, he had
 
 CHA.P. XI.J DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 597 
 
 abundance of honours in the scientific world, being a member of the cliief 1830. 
 learned societies in Europe. His must have been an eminently happy life ^— — — —^ 
 — full of diversity and interest, full of innocence and uprightness, and of 
 achievements of the most unquestionable value to the whole society of the 
 civilized world. 
 
 Among the philanthropists whose lives and labours closed during this period, rusTALozzi. 
 the name of Pestalozzi ought not to be omitted; for, though a foreigner, he was a 
 benefactor to our country and people. One of the most remarkable results of the 
 Peace, was the improvement in methods of education in countries which had for 
 many years been shut up within themselves, but could now freely comnuniicate 
 with each other. Pestalozzi was the principal medium of this benefit to England. 
 He was a Swiss, born at Zurich, in 1746 ; and his benevolence led him to sur- 
 render all the ordinary views of young men entering upon the profession of 
 the law, and to devote himself to the service of the ignorant and poor. As 
 director of an orphan institution, at Stanz, he obtained experience, and the 
 opportunity of testing the value of some of his ideas on the training of the human 
 mind. Here he was seen at ■\\-ork by various English travellers, or his pupils were 
 encountered here and there; and his popular Morks were made known among 
 us, and the rage for the Pcstalozzian method of education which ensued can 
 never be forgotten by those who witnessed it. This Pestalozzian method was 
 in fact the Socratic, but applied to little children, with whom Socrates himself 
 would probably not have used it. Hitherto, commonplace and unreflecting- 
 parents and teachers had gone on in the old method — ])utting everything into 
 a child, and not thinking of bringing anything out ; while reflecting and able 
 teachers had of course done both. Now, everything was to be done by tlie 
 interrogative method, and nothing was to be received by the memory which 
 could in any way be made otherwise accessible. The suffering of a multitiulc 
 of children was at first very great, as under every new fashion in education ; 
 and there are many who rue the prevalence of that fashion to this day. But 
 this was no fault of Pestalozzi's. It was not his way to teaze a little child 
 with questions that it could not see the drift of, till every fibre in its fiame 
 was quivering with irritation. It was not his way to work a child's reasoning 
 faculties before they ought to have been appealed to at all; or to forbid the 
 natural and pleasant exercise of the floinishing memory of childhood till a 
 little creature might be seen clutching a vocabulary or chronological table, as 
 most children lay hands on a fairy tale. He interrogated his pupils only on 
 subjects which they were able and ready to understand, and on which they 
 had ideas which they could produce on easy solicitation. I3ut the truth was, 
 his ])rocedure was more a peculiar talent than a system, and it was impossible 
 that it could be extensively imitated without serious sibuse, for which he was, 
 all the while, in no way responsible. Serious as were the abuses at first in 
 England, as no doiibt elsewhere, the benefits given us by Pestalozzi unques- 
 tionably and innneasurably sin-passed them. The mischief was one which was 
 certain to work its own cure ; while all that was noble and true nnist live and 
 grow. Pestalozzi's respect for the human mind, wherever he found it, his 
 sense of its equal and infinite rights, xnulcr all circumstances, his recognition 
 of the diversity of its faculties, hi.s skill in enlarging its, scope and substan- 
 tiating its kiiDu ledge — nil this was like a new idea to a nation of parents wlso
 
 598 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book III- 
 
 1830. had been too long shut uj) alone with old methods, and deban'ed from inter- 
 
 ^~-^- ' course with thinkers abroad. Since that time, English children have had a 
 
 better chance in education (those of them who are educated at all) — a better 
 chance of a natural and timely development of their various faculties, physical, 
 intellectual, and moral. Therefore it is that we may fairly class Testalozzi 
 amonsr our national benefactor, and record his death amonc the national 
 losses. He died at the age of 82, on the 17th of February, 1827. 
 db. watsu.n. Another educator died during this period, whose name should not be ungrate- 
 
 fully ])asscd over — Dr. "Watson, of the Deaf and Dumb Institution in the Kent 
 lload, London. Without going into any general account of the education of 
 the deaf and dumb, wo may note, in explanation of Dr. Watson's services, 
 that the most fatal oversight in that branch of education has been that of sup- 
 posing that a full communication of mind and reception of ideas can be 
 obtained by written language and gesture. Written words and gesture are 
 but the signs of language, after all; and without oral communication, the 
 mind cannot possibly be fully exercised and cultivated. This difficulty is, to 
 all appearance, insuperable : but men have risen up, from time to time, who 
 saw that though the deaf and dumb can never be brought to an equality of 
 cultivation with those who have the full use of speech, much is gained by 
 giving them spoken as well as written language ; and Dr. Watson was the 
 man who gave the deaf and dumb more power in this direction than any pre- 
 ceding teacher. Bulwer, the chirosophist, opened up the track in England in 
 the seventeenth century ; and his work, dated 1648, plainly shows that he 
 taught articulate speech, as well as the written and hand language. WalHs 
 followed, being a contemporary of Bulwer, and anxious to engross the merit 
 which belonged truly to him. Dr. W^illis had great merit ; but he is proved 
 not to have been a discoverer. Articulate speech had been found attainable 
 for the born deaf previously in Spain, and subsequently in Holland, where 
 Dr. Amman published his method in full : and during the eighteenth century, 
 Germany and France followed. Henry IJaker taught various deaf and dumb 
 persons to speak ; but he bound them over not to reveal his method ; and, 
 though he half-promised Dr. Johnson to make it kno^^^l, he never did so. 
 Thomas Braidwood began his career in 17(30, at Edinburgh, and carried to 
 some extent the practice of articulate speech among his pupils. When he 
 removed to London, in 1783, Dr. Watson studied and worked at his institu- 
 tiou, and made up his mind to devote himself to the education of tluit unfor- 
 tunate class, of whom there are not fewer than 13,000 in our islands; and in 
 his eyes the practice of articulate speech was indispensable to the attainment 
 of such cultivation as could be afforded. For five-and-forty years he laboured 
 at his benevolent task, and he carried the capability of speech much higher 
 than any predecessor. In regard to the general run of his pupils, an authority 
 declares, " Some of the pupils articulate not luipleasantly : their reading is 
 monotonous, but their animation in ordinary conversations, especially on sub- 
 jects of interest to them, gives a species of natural tone and emphasis to what 
 they say." This, great as it is, is not all. A few days before Dr. Watson's 
 death, one of his private pupils was called to the bar by the Honourable 
 Society of the Middle Temple. Here were tidings for a good man to receive 
 on his death-bed ! The days of miracles will never be over wliile human
 
 Chap. XI.] DURING THE THIRTY YE.\RS' PEACE. 599 
 
 benevolence is unexhausted : and here wc liave, for a sign of our own times, 1830. 
 a good man soothed to his rest by the blessings of the dumb. Dr. Watson 
 died on the 23rd of November, 1829, in the 65th year of his age. 
 
 It is not a purely melancholy task to make up this account of our national 
 losses. In the presence of great deeds, the doers fade into shadows even 
 during their life, except to the few to whom they are dear for other reasons 
 than their deeds. The shadowy form is dissolved by death, and we strain our 
 eyes to catch the last trace, and sigh when it is gone : but the substance 
 remains in the deeds done, and yet more in the immortal ideal of the man. 
 
 END OF VOLUME 1. 
 
 A. awEETING, PKINTER, BARTLinT'S aUILDINat, UOLBOSN.
 
 THE 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 nURING 
 
 THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE: 
 
 1810—1846. 
 
 BY HARRIET ^lARTINEAU. 
 
 VOT. IT. 
 1830 — 184 6. 
 
 LONDON: 
 CTTARl.ES KNTGIIT, DO, FLEET STREET 
 
 LS-)0.
 
 LONDON : 
 A. SWEETING, PRFNTER, BVRTLETT'S BUILDINGS.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 OF VOL. II. 
 
 BOOK IV. 
 
 1830. 
 
 Page 
 
 WilUaralV 1 
 
 King's Message 2 
 
 Regency Question ib. 
 
 Manners of the Commons 3 
 
 Prorogation 4 
 
 Dissolution ib. 
 
 Sympathy with France ib. 
 
 Mr. Brougham 5 
 
 Yorkshire Election 6 
 
 New House ib. 
 
 Death of Mr. Huskiason ib. 
 
 O'Connell and the Viceroy 7 
 
 Repeal of the Union 8 
 
 Rick-burning 13 
 
 Anxieties of Parties 14 
 
 Opening of the Session 15 
 
 The Duke's Declaration 16 
 
 Alderman Key's Panic 18 
 
 Change of Ministry ib. 
 
 The Grey Ministry 20 
 
 Regency Bill 22 
 
 Official Salaries 23 
 
 State of Ireland ib. 
 
 The Cholera ib. 
 
 1831. 
 
 Popular Discontents 24 
 
 Prospect of Conflict ib. 
 
 Ministerial Declaration 20 
 
 Reform Bill brought forward ib. 
 
 Reception of the Bill 2S 
 
 Debate 31 
 
 First Reading 32 
 
 Second Reading 33 
 
 Defeat of Ministers 34 
 
 True Crisis ib. 
 
 The Palace ib. 
 
 The Lords 36 
 
 The Commons 36 
 
 Prorogation 37 
 
 Dissolution 38 
 
 (leneral Election 39 
 
 Popular Action ib. 
 
 Pace 
 
 Riots -11 
 
 New House ib. 
 
 Second Reform Bill ib. 
 
 Committee 42 
 
 Bill passes the Commons ib. 
 
 First Reading in the Lords 43 
 
 Debate ib. 
 
 Lord Grey ib. 
 
 The Bishops ib. 
 
 The Bill lost 45 
 
 Prorogation 46 
 
 Vote of Confidence ib. 
 
 Riots at Derby ib. 
 
 At Nottingham ib. 
 
 At Bristol 47 
 
 Prevalence of Order -50 
 
 National Political Union 51 
 
 Metropolitan Union ib. 
 
 Question of a Creation of Peers 52 
 
 The Waverers 53 
 
 Gravity of the Time ib. 
 
 Proclamation against Political Unions ... ib. 
 
 The Cholera ib. 
 
 The Unknown Tongues 54 
 
 Opening of the Session ib. 
 
 Third Reform Bill 55 
 
 1832. 
 
 Final Passage through the Commons ... 56 
 
 First Reading in the Lords ib. 
 
 Debate and Division ib. 
 
 Pressure from AVithout 57 
 
 Meetings and Petitions ib. 
 
 Newhall Hill Meeting 58 
 
 Defeat of Ministers 59 
 
 Resignation of Ministers 60 
 
 Address of the Commons 61 
 
 Attempt to form a Cabinet (52 
 
 Failure ib. 
 
 Agitation throughout the Country ib. 
 
 The LTnions ib. 
 
 London Municipality C;) 
 
 Soldiery aud Police ib. 
 
 Lord Grey recalled (!(> 
 
 King's Ajipeiil to the Peers lb. 
 
 Progress of the Bill C7 
 
 Its passage into Law ib.
 
 IV 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 Pacie 
 
 Position of the House of Lords 67 
 
 Substanceof the Keform Bill G8 
 
 What the Bill is and is not 70 
 
 State of Public Interests ib. 
 
 The King ib. 
 
 The Administration 71 
 
 Aspects of the Time 72 
 
 The Cholera 73 
 
 The Poor Law ib. 
 
 Swan River Settlement 74 
 
 Slavery 75 
 
 Canada ib. 
 
 India ib. 
 
 Irish Church 76 
 
 Tithes ib. 
 
 Law Reform ib. 
 
 Education ib. 
 
 Bank ib. 
 
 Municipal Reform ib. 
 
 Strength of tlie Government 77 
 
 Weakness of the Government .- 78 
 
 Civil List 80 
 
 Pensions ib. 
 
 Regal Income 81 
 
 Pauperism 82 
 
 Confusion of Poverty with Pauperism ... 83 
 
 1832—34. 
 
 New Poor Law 84 
 
 Its Principles ib. 
 
 Its Machinery 85 
 
 Reception of the Measure 86 
 
 Its Passage 89 
 
 Its Operation ib.' 
 
 Factory Children 90 
 
 1833. 
 
 Renewal of the Bank Charter 93 
 
 India Company's Charter 95 
 
 Negro Slavery 97 
 
 Abolition Movements 99 
 
 Negro Emancipation 101 
 
 First of August, 18.34 102 
 
 1831—34. 
 
 Irish Church 105 
 
 Prosecution of O'Connel' 106 
 
 Irish Outrage 108 
 
 Royal Notice of Tithes 110 
 
 First Act of 1832 Ill 
 
 Second Act of 1832 112 
 
 Act of 1833 113 
 
 Tardy Truth about Tithes ib. 
 
 Proposed Act of 1834 114 
 
 Bill lost 115 
 
 Irish Ecclesiastical Commission ib. 
 
 Irish Census 116 
 
 Paok 
 
 Reductions 116 
 
 Appropriation Doctrine ib. 
 
 Delays ib. 
 
 Appropriation refused 117 
 
 Irish Church Tem])oralities Bill passes ... ib. 
 
 Official Changes 118 
 
 Mr. Ward's critical Motion ib. 
 
 King's Declaiation 119 
 
 Commission of Inquiry 121 
 
 Coercion Bill 122 
 
 Negotiation with Mr. O'Connell ib. 
 
 Mr. Littleton's Explanation 123 
 
 Resignation of Lord Althorp ib. 
 
 Of Lord Grey ib. 
 
 Lord Grey's Farewell 124 
 
 His Political Character 125 
 
 Religious Crisis 127 
 
 The Tractarians 128 
 
 The Evangelical Party 130 
 
 Death of Wilberforce 131 
 
 Of Hannah More ib. 
 
 Moderate Church Party 132 
 
 Opening of Universities to Dissenters ib. 
 
 The Church in Danger 134 
 
 Church Reform ib. 
 
 Lord Henley ib. 
 
 Dr. Arnold ib. 
 
 The Dissenters I3J, 
 
 Government Circular ]3() 
 
 Perplexities of Ministers ib. 
 
 Admission of Quakers to Parliament 137 
 
 Continued Exclusion of Jews ib. 
 
 Death of Robert Hall 138 
 
 Of Rowland Hill ib. 
 
 Of Charles Wesley ib. 
 
 Of Adam Clarke 131) 
 
 Of Rammohun Roy ib. 
 
 Of Dr. Doyle 140 
 
 Schism in the Scotch Church ib, 
 
 Irving ib. 
 
 St. Simonism 141 
 
 Proposed Ecclesiastical Commission 142 
 
 Finance 143 
 
 Fu-st Budget 144 
 
 Statement of 1832 145 
 
 Statement of 1833 146 
 
 Assessed Taxes Movement 147 
 
 The House Tax ib. 
 
 Statement of 1834 148 
 
 Westminster Election 149 
 
 The Malt Tax ib. 
 
 Surplus of 1834 150 
 
 The Corn Laws ib. 
 
 Total Reductions ib. 
 
 Poor Law for Ireland ib. 
 
 Registry of Deeds 151 
 
 The Ballot ib.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 Vm.s 
 
 Military Flogging 103 
 
 Impressment of Seameu ib. 
 
 Popular Discontents 154 
 
 Trades Unions ib. 
 
 Dorsetshire Labourers 15-5 
 
 Day of the Trades ib. 
 
 Changes in the Cabinet loG 
 
 Late Intrigues 157 
 
 Irish Tithes 158 
 
 The Lord Chancellor ib. 
 
 Lord Durham ib. 
 
 The Grey Banquet ib. 
 
 Prospect of new Parties 159 
 
 Dissolution of the Ministry 160 
 
 Retirement of Lord Brougham IGl 
 
 Lord Ly ndhurst succeeds ib. 
 
 Lord Brougham's Law Reforms ib. 
 
 Local Courts Bill ib. 
 
 Chancery Reform ib. 
 
 Hetirementof LordSpencer 163 
 
 1830—34. 
 
 Affairs of France 164 
 
 The Duke of Orleans ib. 
 
 The Charter 165 
 
 Louis Philippe accepts the Crown 166 
 
 Disquiet 167 
 
 Suicide of the Duke de Bourbon ib. 
 
 Disturbance in Paris ib. 
 
 Constitution of the Chambers 168 
 
 Abolition of Hereditary Peerage ib. 
 
 Electoral Law 169 
 
 Parties ib. 
 
 Press Prosecutions 170 
 
 Insurrections ib. 
 
 Fortification of Piuis 171 
 
 Characteristics of the Reign ib. 
 
 Death of Lafayette 17-2 
 
 Separation of Belgium and Holland ib. 
 
 Prince Leopold King of Belgium 173 
 
 Brunswick ib. 
 
 Saxony il,. 
 
 Hesse Cassel ib. 
 
 Baden ib. 
 
 Switzerland 174 
 
 Italy ib. 
 
 Spain ib. 
 
 Death of the King ib. 
 
 Don Carlos ib. 
 
 Portugal ib. 
 
 Death of Don Pedro ib. 
 
 Marriage of the (Jueen ib. 
 
 Her Widowhood ib. 
 
 Egyi)t and Turkey ib. 
 
 Poland 175 
 
 Heviilt ib. 
 
 Paus 
 Defeat of the Poles 176 
 
 Character of the Struggle ib. 
 
 Royalty in England 178 
 
 The Coronation of WUliam IV ib. 
 
 The Princess Victoria ib. 
 
 Assault on the King 179 
 
 Popular Ignorance ib. 
 
 Riots ib. 
 
 Anatomy BiD 180 
 
 Medical Education 181 
 
 Criminal Trials ..-. 182 
 
 Steam in the East 183 
 
 Conveyance of Mails ib . 
 
 Diving to Wrecks 184 
 
 The Druramond Light ib. 
 
 Polar Discovery 185 
 
 Islington Cattle Market ib. 
 
 Peterborough Cathedral ib. 
 
 New London Bridge 186 
 
 Education ib. 
 
 British Association Meetings ib. 
 
 Statistics of Suicide ib. 
 
 Duelling ib. 
 
 Loss of the Rotbsay Castle 187 
 
 Fire at the Dublin Custom House ib. 
 
 Burning of the Houses of Parliament ... 188 
 
 Necrology 189 
 
 Political Deaths 189 — 192 
 
 Men of Science 192 — 194 
 
 Seamen and Travellers 194 
 
 Actors 195 
 
 Musicians 196 
 
 Architects ib. 
 
 Antiquarians ib. 
 
 Artists 197 
 
 Authors 198 
 
 Philanthropists i>03 
 
 BOOK V. 
 
 1834-35. 
 
 The three Parties 204 
 
 The Duke's Offices 205 
 
 Position of Sir R. Peel ib. 
 
 New Cabinet 206 
 
 Dissolution of Parliament 207 
 
 Tamworth Manifesto ib. 
 
 The New Parliament 208 
 
 Temper of tlie Time ib. 
 
 Election of the Speaker 210 
 
 King's Speech jb. 
 
 Debate on the Malt Tax 212 
 
 Lord Londonderry's Appointment 213 
 
 Dissentei's' ^larriages '. .214 
 
 Ecclesia.>'tiiul Commission 216 
 
 Ministerial Defeats 217
 
 VI 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 Paul 
 
 London University Cliarter 217 
 
 Conflicts in Parliament 218 
 
 Appropriation Question 219 
 
 Resignation of the Cabinet 221 
 
 1835—39. 
 
 Difficulties 222 
 
 The Melbourne Administration 223 
 
 Lord Melbourne ib. 
 
 Mr. Charles Grant 225 
 
 Lord John Russell ib. 
 
 Irish Administration 226 
 
 Two great Questions ib. 
 
 The Irish Church 227 
 
 Appropriation Question ib. 
 
 Church Rates 230 
 
 Surrender of the Appropriation Principle 232 
 
 Second great Question 234 
 
 Municipal Reform ib. 
 
 Corporation Commission ib. 
 
 Rise and Historjr of Municipal Institutions 235 
 
 Report of Commissioners 237 
 
 Existing State of Things 238 
 
 Principle of the Case 239 
 
 Defects of the Reform 240 
 
 Substance ofthe Bill 241 
 
 The Bill in the Commons 244 
 
 In the Lords ib. 
 
 It becomes Law ib. 
 
 Ecclesiastical Commissions 246 
 
 Popular Ignorance ib. 
 
 Courtenay Delusion 247 
 
 Results of the Commission 248 
 
 Non-residence Act 249 
 
 Abolition of Sinecures ib. 
 
 Tithe Commutation Act 2-50 
 
 Popular Education ib. 
 
 Lord Brougham's Scheme 252 
 
 Ministerial Scheme ib. 
 
 Conduct of the Peers 2-57 
 
 Peerage Reform 258 
 
 Chartism -62 
 
 Radical Chartists 203 
 
 Tory Chartists 264 
 
 Hungering Chartists 205 
 
 Factious Chartists ib. 
 
 Orangeism 200 
 
 Duke of Cumberland 208 
 
 Col. Fairman ib. 
 
 Orange Peers 271 
 
 Plot 273 
 
 Action of Orangeism 274 
 
 Detection ib. 
 
 Committee of Inquiry 275 
 
 Mr. Hume's Resolutions ib. 
 
 Address to the King '.^76 
 
 Col. Fairman's Contumacy ib. 
 
 Pai;b 
 
 Proposed Prosecution 277 
 
 Death of Haywood ib. 
 
 Address to the King ib. 
 
 Dissolution of Orangeism 278 
 
 Ireland from 1835—40 279 
 
 Various Theories 280 
 
 Religious Rancour ib. 
 
 Distrust of Law ib. 
 
 Principle of Government ib. 
 
 Political Corruption ib. 
 
 Municipal Deterioration ib. 
 
 Uncertainty of Subsistence 281 
 
 Fundamental Difficulty 282 
 
 Insecurity of Title to Land ib. 
 
 Impartiality to Sects 283 
 
 Ribbonmen and Orangemen ib. 
 
 Catholics in the Jury-box 285 
 
 National Education ib. 
 
 Impartiality of Law 286 
 
 Decrease of Crime 287 
 
 The Viceroy's Clemency 288 
 
 Thomas Drummond ib. 
 
 Reform of Constabulary 291 
 
 Of Magistracy ib. 
 
 Prevention of Crime ib. 
 
 Repression of Crime ib. 
 
 Government by Functionaries or by 
 
 Apostles ib. 
 
 The Queen 292 
 
 O'Connell ib. 
 
 Father Mathew 294 
 
 Temperance Movement 295 
 
 The Franchise and Registration 297 
 
 Lord Stanley's Registration Bdl 298 
 
 The Government Bill 299 
 
 Failure of both 302 
 
 Political Education ib. 
 
 Municipal Reform ib. 
 
 The Measure 305 
 
 Certainty of Maintenance 309 
 
 O'Connell on the Poor Law ib. 
 
 Question of a Poor Law 311 
 
 History of the Measure 312 
 
 Its early Operation 314 
 
 Resignation of Lord Normanby 315 
 
 Whig Government of Ireland ib. 
 
 1835—38. 
 
 Church and State 317 
 
 Church of Scotland 318 
 
 Severance not Dissent ib. 
 
 Patronage ib. 
 
 Dissent 319 
 
 Resort to Church Extension ib. 
 
 Commission of Inquiry 320 
 
 Teinds ib. 
 
 Bishops' Teinds 321
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 3-21 
 32i> 
 
 ib. 
 
 ib. 
 323 
 
 Reports of Cominissinn 
 
 Election Struggles 
 
 Impotence of the Church 
 
 Government favours Church Extension... 
 Incompetence of Parliament and Ministers 
 
 1835—37. 
 
 Agricultural Distress 325 
 
 Committee of Inquiry ib. 
 
 Result ilj- 
 
 Finance 326 
 
 Duties ib. 
 
 Budget 327 
 
 Distress ib. 
 
 Joint Stock Banks 328 
 
 Committee of Inquiry 329 
 
 Acta ib. 
 
 National Registration 331 
 
 Marriage ib. 
 
 Births and Deaths 332 
 
 First Operation ib. 
 
 Imprisonment for Debt 333 
 
 Counsel for Felons ib. 
 
 Coroners' Powers ib. 
 
 New Houses of Parliament ib. 
 
 Admission of Ladies to Debates 335 
 
 Privilege of Parliament 336 
 
 Weakness of the Administration 337 
 
 Illness of the King 330 
 
 His Death 341 
 
 Accession of Queen Victoria ib. 
 
 Severance of Hanover from England 342 
 
 The CouncU ib. 
 
 William IV 343 
 
 His Funeral 344 
 
 Queen Victoria 345 
 
 Queen proclaimed 346 
 
 Continuance of the Melbourne Ministry . 347 
 
 Party Discontents 348 
 
 The Queen's Favour ib. 
 
 Radical Reform Party 351 
 
 188.5—38. 
 
 Portents in Europe 354 
 
 France ib. 
 
 The Representation ib. 
 
 Free Trade Inquiry 355 
 
 MonsterTrial ,350 
 
 Plots 357 
 
 Strasburg Insurrection 358 
 
 Press Law ib. 
 
 Foreign Relations 350 
 
 Algeria 300 
 
 Release of State Prisoners ib. 
 
 Marriage of tlie Duke of Orleans 301 
 
 Of the Princess Marie ib. 
 
 Distress ib. 
 
 PAi.r. 
 
 Dissolution of the Chamber 302 
 
 Death of Talleyrand ib. 
 
 Spain ib. 
 
 Queen Regent ib. 
 
 Queen Isabella ib. 
 
 Carlist War 303 
 
 British Legion 304 
 
 Three young Queens 305 
 
 Portugal ib. 
 
 The English in Portugal 360 
 
 Portuguese Indigence ib. 
 
 Central Europe ib. 
 
 ZoU Verein 307 
 
 A ustrian Commercial Treaty ib. 
 
 Russia 368 
 
 The Emperor at Warsaw ib. 
 
 Passage of the Dardanelles 369 
 
 Circassia ib. 
 
 Persia ib- 
 
 Craco'W ib. 
 
 Death of the Emperor of Austria 370 
 
 Coronation of his successor ib. 
 
 Hanover 371 
 
 Proceedings of the King ib. 
 
 Denmark 372 
 
 Opening of a Constitution ib. 
 
 Sweden and Norway ib. 
 
 Holland and Belgium ib. 
 
 Young Germany 373 
 
 Switzerland ib. 
 
 Prince Louis Napoleon 374 
 
 Zillerthal Protestants ib. 
 
 Lutherans of Prussia ib. 
 
 Mixed Marriages ib. 
 
 The Pietists 375 
 
 Hungary ib. 
 
 1838—41. 
 
 Canada 370 
 
 Lord Durham ib. 
 
 Sketch of Canada as a British Colony ... 377 
 
 The Assembly of the Council 378 
 
 Stoppage of Ofhcial Salaries 370 
 
 Canada Resolutions ib. 
 
 Rebellion ib. 
 
 Gosford Commission ib. 
 
 Constitution of Lower Canada suspended 380 
 
 Lord Durham's Offices 381 
 
 His Powers .382 
 
 Executive Council .383 
 
 State of the Canadas ib. 
 
 Speedy Improvements ib. 
 
 Scheme of Federal Union of Colonies 384 
 
 Disposal of Prisoners 385 
 
 Ordinance of the 28th of June ib. 
 
 Approval at Home 380 
 
 Attacks by Opposition ili.
 
 Till 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 Lord Rroughara's Dnelartitnry Bill 380 
 
 Ministers succn nib 387 
 
 Confused Uesult ib. 
 
 Disiillowancc of the Ordinance ib. 
 
 Retirement of Lord Glenelg 388 
 
 Reception of the News in Canada ib. 
 
 Necessity of Resignation ib. 
 
 The Prisoners 38'J 
 
 Proclamation ib. 
 
 Report .390 
 
 Return of the Commission ib. 
 
 Incidents ib. 
 
 Lord Durham's Decline and Death 391 
 
 His Character ib. 
 
 Mr. Charles Buller 392 
 
 Lord Sydenliam(Mr. C. Poulett Thomson) ib. 
 
 Responsible Government 393 
 
 Union of the Canadas ib. 
 
 Death of Lord Sydenham 39-t 
 
 His Character .'.. ib. 
 
 Jamaica. The Planters 390 
 
 Imperial Agents 397 
 
 Lord Sligo ib. 
 
 Sir Lionel Smith ib. 
 
 Proposed Suspension of the Constitution... ib. 
 
 Weakness of Ministers 398 
 
 Their Resignation ib. 
 
 Bedchamber Question ib. 
 
 Sir R. Peel summoned 399 
 
 Household Appointments ib. 
 
 Restoration of the Whig Ministers 401 
 
 Election of a Speaker ib. 
 
 New Jamaica Bill ib. 
 
 Official Changes 402 
 
 Queen's Engagement ib. 
 
 Her Marriage 403 
 
 Prince Albert's Annuity ib. 
 
 Dark Times 405 
 
 Successive Harvests 400 
 
 Grinding of Corn in Bond 407 
 
 Discontents 408 
 
 Ti-ade Unions ib. 
 
 Factor^' Question 409 
 
 Chartism ib. 
 
 National Convention 410 
 
 National Petition 411 
 
 John Frost ib. 
 
 Riots ib. 
 
 Rising at Newport 413 
 
 Origin of the Anti-corn-law League ib. 
 
 Delegates 415 
 
 The Ministers ib. 
 
 Motion for Inquiry refused ib. 
 
 Consequences 416 
 
 Attacks on the Queen ib. 
 
 Dockyard Fires 418 
 
 Pack 
 
 Storms 418 
 
 Repeal Agitation ib. 
 
 Troubles in tlie East ib. 
 
 Birth of the Princess Royal ib. 
 
 1837—1841. 
 
 Criminal Law Commission 419 
 
 Restriction of the Punishment of Death... ib. 
 
 Results of the Commission 421 
 
 Infants' Custody Bill ib. 
 
 Lord Brougham on the ])osition of Wives 422 
 
 Division in the Lords 423 
 
 Bill of 1839 made Law ib. 
 
 Post Office System 425 
 
 Rowland Hill 427 
 
 His Facts ib. 
 
 His Proposal ib. 
 
 History of the Movement 428 
 
 The Reform made Law 429 
 
 Immediate Results 430 
 
 Further Results 431 
 
 Privilege of Parliament 432 
 
 State of the Case ib. 
 
 The Sheriffs 433 
 
 The House ib. 
 
 The Court of Queen's Bench 434 
 
 Bill of Enactment 4.35 
 
 Unsatisfactory Conclusion 430 
 
 Imbecility of the Administration ib. 
 
 Queen's Speech ib. 
 
 Finance 437 
 
 Last Resort ib. 
 
 The Budget ib. 
 
 Fixed Corn Duty proposed 438 
 
 Defeat on the Sugar Duties ib. 
 
 Vote of Want of Confidence ib. 
 
 Dissolution of Parliament 430 
 
 1835—1841. 
 
 The Queen 440 
 
 At Guildhall ib. 
 
 The Coronation ib. 
 
 Her Marriage 441 
 
 Birth of Heir to the Throne ib. 
 
 State of the People ib. 
 
 Crime ib. 
 
 Times Testimonial 442 
 
 Game Laws. Lord Suffield ib. 
 
 Opium Eating jb. 
 
 Church Building and Bishoprics 443 
 
 Religious Intolerance ib. 
 
 Grace Darling ib. 
 
 Agricultural Associations 444 
 
 India Cotton 446 
 
 Niger Expedition ib.
 
 COSTENIS. 
 
 President Steamer 447 
 
 Royal Exchange burnt ib. 
 
 Other Fires 448 
 
 Balloons ib. 
 
 Thames Coiiservuney ib. 
 
 The Eglintoun Tournament 449 
 
 Mummy Inquest ib. 
 
 Trial of a Peer ib. 
 
 Suicides from the Monument 450 
 
 India Mails ib. 
 
 Acarus Crossii 451 
 
 Deaths 452 
 
 Men of Science 4.32, 453 
 
 Travellers 453, 4.54 
 
 Court Personages 455 
 
 Wealthy Personages ib. 
 
 Politicians 456 — 4G0 
 
 Religious Philanthropists 460 
 
 Musicians ib. 
 
 Architects 401 
 
 Artists ib. 
 
 Actors 402 
 
 Men of Letters 463 
 
 Orientalists 404 
 
 Authors — light Literature -lOS — 467 
 
 Historians 467 
 
 Pliilosophers 408 — 470 
 
 1841. 
 
 General Election 471 
 
 New Parliament 474 
 
 Queen's Speech ib. 
 
 The Address amended ib. 
 
 Queen's Household changed 475 
 
 Resignation of Ministers ib. 
 
 New Administration 477 
 
 Lord Aberdeen ib. 
 
 Sir James Graham 478 
 
 Lord Stanley ib. 
 
 Lord Wharnclitfe ib. 
 
 Mr. Gladstone ib. 
 
 First Nights in Parliament 479 
 
 Prorogation 481 
 
 Policy of China 482 
 
 State of Cliina 484 
 
 The Ojiium (Question ib. 
 
 Britisli Superintendents — Lord Napier ... 485 
 
 Political Relations in Abeyance 486 
 
 Opium Traffic prohibited 487 
 
 Negligence iit Iliune ib. 
 
 Crisis 488 
 
 War ib. 
 
 Chnsan taken 490 
 
 Negotiation 401 
 
 Warfare ib. 
 
 Captain Elliot superseded 492 
 
 .Sir Henry Pottinger ib. 
 
 Pace 
 
 Capture of Ningpo 492 
 
 Treaty of Peace 493 
 
 Governor-General sent to China 494 
 
 Opium Compensation ib. 
 
 Sir Henry Pottinger's Testimony 495 
 
 India 490 
 
 Troubles ib. 
 
 North West Frontier ib. 
 
 Fear of Russia 497 
 
 Designs of Persia ib. 
 
 Rulers of Afi'ghauistan 498 
 
 British Agency at Caubool 499 
 
 Herat ,500 
 
 Explanations of Russia ib. 
 
 Lord Auckland's Declaration of War 
 
 against Attglianistan 501 
 
 Affghan Princes ib. 
 
 Scheme of Alliance ,502 
 
 Ameers of Scinde ib. 
 
 In vasion of Affghanistan ili. 
 
 The Bolan Pass 503 
 
 Ghuznee jb. 
 
 Settlement at Caubool ib. 
 
 Khiva 504 
 
 Troubles of the British .505 
 
 Portents ib. 
 
 The Punjaub ib. 
 
 Recall of Lord Auckland .506 
 
 Lord EUenborough ib. 
 
 The British at Caubool ib. 
 
 Rising at Caubool • ,507 
 
 Murder of the Envoy ,508 
 
 Retreat of the British ib. 
 
 Lady Sale. General Sale ib. 
 
 Relief from India .310 
 
 Murder of Shah Soojah ib. 
 
 Evacuation of Affghanistan ib. 
 
 Lord Ellenborougli's Proclamation ; 51 1 
 
 Recall of Lord EUenborough 512 
 
 Sir Henry Hardinge, Governor-General... ib. 
 
 Scinde in 1842 ib. 
 
 Battle of Meanec 513 
 
 Gwalior ib. 
 
 Wyburd, Stoddart, and Couolly 513, 514 
 
 Borneo .514 
 
 .lames Brooke ib. 
 
 Labuan ceded to Great Britain 51.5 
 
 1842-1843. 
 
 Condition and Fate of Parties .516 
 
 The Distress .520 
 
 Riots 522 
 
 Rebecca and her Cliildren 52,3 
 
 Commission of Inquiry gofi 
 
 South Wales Turnpike Act ib. 
 
 The Court ib.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 Page 
 
 Aliinus 527 
 
 Jrurder of Mr. Drumnioud ib. 
 
 Oipouing of the Session of 184-2 62'.) 
 
 Secession of the Duke of Buckingham ... ib. 
 
 The Queen's S|)eech 530 
 
 Tlic Corn Question ib. 
 
 The Aliiiisterial Sclieme ib. 
 
 Corn Billof 18-1-2 531 
 
 Its Reception 532 
 
 Bill becomes Law 533 
 
 Financial Statement ib. 
 
 Financial Sclieme 636 
 
 Income Tax ib. 
 
 New Tariff 537 
 
 Passage of the Bill 542 
 
 Sugar Duties ib. 
 
 The Domestic View ib. 
 
 The Anti-Slavery View 543 
 
 Poor Law Renewal Act 544 
 
 Law of Literary Property ib. 
 
 Petitions for an Extension of Copyright... 546 
 
 Proposed Bills 547 
 
 Copyright Law of 1842 ib. 
 
 Election Compromises ib. 
 
 Mr. Roebuck 548 
 
 Stewardship of the Chiltern Hundreds ... .549 
 
 Proceedings in the House .550 
 
 Character of the Session ib. 
 
 Legislation for the Working Classes 551 
 
 Lord Howick's Distress Motion 552 
 
 Lord Ashley 553 
 
 Mines and Collieries Act 554 
 
 Government Factory Bill 555 
 
 Education Clauses 556 
 
 Education Clauses withdrawn 558 
 
 Vacillation about the New Bill 550 
 
 Decision against the Ten Hour Clause ... ib. 
 
 Debate on Colonization 5(30 
 
 Early-closing Movement ib. 
 
 Case of Governesses ib. 
 
 Improvement of Dwellings 561 
 
 1841—1846. 
 
 Movements in Ireland 562 
 
 O'Connell's Proceedings ib. 
 
 " Monster Meetings" 665 
 
 Arbitration Courts 566 
 
 Anti-rent Movement 567 
 
 Irish Arras Act ib. 
 
 Clontarf Jleeting 568 
 
 Arrest of Repeal Leaders 56!) 
 
 The Trials 570 
 
 The Verdict .572 
 
 The Sentence ib. 
 
 Appeal to the Lords ib. 
 
 Judgment reversed 573 
 
 Pack 
 
 Demonstrations 574 
 
 O'Connell as a Landlord ib. 
 
 His Decline 575 
 
 His Death ib. 
 
 Industrial Improvements 576 
 
 Charitable Bequests Act ib. 
 
 Penal Acts Rciieal 577 
 
 Viceroyalty discussed ib. 
 
 Endowment of Catholic Clergy 578 
 
 Maynooth Grant 579 
 
 New Colleges 580 
 
 The Devon Commission 581 
 
 Coercion Bill ib. 
 
 Bill lost 582 
 
 Threateninga of Famine ib. 
 
 1839—1844. 
 
 Church Patronage in Scotland 583 
 
 The Veto Law 684 
 
 The Auchterarder Case ib. 
 
 The Strathbogie Case 585 
 
 Position of the Church Party 586 
 
 Lord Aberdeen's Bill 587 
 
 The General Assembly 588 
 
 Its Memorial ib. 
 
 Reply of Government ib. 
 
 Quoad Sacra Ministers ib. 
 
 Petition of the Assembly ib. 
 
 Failure ib. 
 
 Preparations for Secession 589 
 
 The Secession ib. 
 
 Counter Proceedings 590 
 
 Act of Separation ib. 
 
 Spirit of the Blovement ib. 
 
 The Religious World in England 591 
 
 Troubles in the Church 592 
 
 At Oxford 593 
 
 Tractarian Secession 695 
 
 Death of Di\ Arnold ib. 
 
 Sydney Smith 596 
 
 Augmentation of Clergy 597 
 
 Colonial Bishoprics 598 
 
 Consolidation of Sees 599 
 
 Struggles of Government and Church ... 600 
 
 Dissenters' Chapels Bill 601 
 
 Relief to Jews 603 
 
 1842—1845. 
 
 Canada Com Question 605 
 
 Confusion of Parties 006 
 
 Passage of the Bill ib. 
 
 Corn-law Debates ib. 
 
 Richard Cobden 607 
 
 The League 610 
 
 London Election 613 
 
 Anecdotes 614
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 PaO 1! 
 
 Ltague Registration 015 
 
 Freeliold Laud Scheme ib. 
 
 The Game Laws 616 
 
 Financial St<atement, 1843 G-20 
 
 Of 1844 ib. 
 
 Sugar Duties 621 
 
 Mr. Miles's Motion ib. 
 
 Crisis of Parties 622 
 
 Reduction of the 3 J per Cents 623 
 
 Bank Act of 1844 624 
 
 Railway Extension 628 
 
 Raihvaj' Legislation 629 
 
 Delivery of Plans 631 
 
 Gauge Question 632 
 
 Poor Law Amendments 633 
 
 Post-office Espionage ib. 
 
 Alien Act 635 
 
 Antagonism in Europe 637 
 
 Russia ib. 
 
 The Caucasus 638 
 
 Servia ib. 
 
 Cracow 639 
 
 Russian Jews ib. 
 
 The Czar and the Pope ib. 
 
 Gregory XVI 640 
 
 Portugal and Spain ib. 
 
 Switzerland '. 641 
 
 Hanover ib. 
 
 Sweden ib. 
 
 Turkey and Egypt ib. 
 
 Route to India 643 
 
 France ib. 
 
 War Spirit ib. 
 
 Right of Search 645 
 
 Death of the Duke of Orleans 646 
 
 Royal Visits ib. 
 
 Tahiti ib. 
 
 Spanish Question 648 
 
 Death of tlie Duke D'Angouleme 661 
 
 Boulogne Invasion ib. 
 
 Napoleon's Remains ib. 
 
 Algeria ib. 
 
 M. Guizot in 1842 662 
 
 American Relations 653 
 
 The Frontier ib. 
 
 Right of Search 654 
 
 '■TheCreole" ib. 
 
 " Repeal" Sympathy 6-56 
 
 •' Repudiation" ib. 
 
 I'exasand Mexico 656 
 
 Boundary Question ib. 
 
 Oregon Question 657 
 
 India 659 
 
 Sikh Invasion ib. 
 
 Tlie Sandwich Islands 660 
 
 \iiu Dienien's Land ib. 
 
 Page 
 
 South Australia 661 
 
 New Zealand 662 
 
 Canada 664 
 
 Compensation Question ib. 
 
 Fires at Quebec 066 
 
 At St. John's ib. 
 
 At Hamburg ib. 
 
 At Smyrna ib. 
 
 At New York ib. 
 
 1845. 
 
 The Corn Question 667 
 
 Mr. Gladstone's Retirement 668 
 
 Financial Statement ib. 
 
 Agricultural Interests 670 
 
 Portents 671 
 
 Bad Weather 673 
 
 The Potato Rot ib. 
 
 The League 674 
 
 More Portents 075 
 
 Lord John Russell's Letter ib. 
 
 Cabinet Councils 676 
 
 Announcement of the 'Times' 677 
 
 Resignation of Ministers 678 
 
 Negotiation with Lord John Russell ib. 
 
 Return of Sir Robert Peel to Power 679 
 
 Death of Lord Wharncliffe ib. 
 
 Sir Robert Peel's Position ib. 
 
 1846. 
 
 Opening of the Session 681 
 
 Further Remission of Duties ib. 
 
 The Revenue prosperous ib. 
 
 The Corn Duties 682 
 
 Relief to Farmers ib. 
 
 The Issue ib. 
 
 The Minister 683 
 
 Nature of the Reform 685 
 
 Dissolution of the League ib. 
 
 Irish Life BUI ib. 
 
 Resignation of Ministers 686 
 
 The retiring Minister ib. 
 
 18-41—1846. 
 
 Deaths.— Royal 687 
 
 Of Statesmen and Warrioi-s 687—689 
 
 Of Artists 690—692 
 
 Men of Science 693, 694 
 
 Literary Men 69.5—699 
 
 Other Benefactors 099—701 
 
 Living Benefactors 701 
 
 George Stephenson 702 
 
 Barry ib. 
 
 Macrcady ib. 
 
 Turner ib.
 
 xn 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 I'aOE 
 
 Wordsworth 702 
 
 Joanna Baillic ib. 
 
 Rogers ib. 
 
 Alfred Tennyson ib. 
 
 Wilson 70:3 
 
 Jefi'rey ib. 
 
 Thomas Macaulay ib. 
 
 Landor ib. 
 
 Hallam ib. 
 
 Carlyle ib. 
 
 Maria Edgeworth 704 
 
 Bulwer ib. 
 
 Dickens ib. 
 
 Punch 70.j 
 
 Herschel ib. 
 
 Faraday ib. 
 
 1815—1846. 
 
 National Advan/'eraent 707 
 
 Electric Telegraph ib. 
 
 Pagc 
 
 Siin-Painting 707 
 
 Lord llosse's Telescope ib. 
 
 The Thames Tunnel 708 
 
 British Scientific Association ib. 
 
 Geology 70'J 
 
 Medicine ib. 
 
 Sanitary Improvement 710 
 
 Agricultnnil .Associations 711 
 
 Prisons and Criminiil Law ib. 
 
 Extinction of Slavery 712 
 
 Education ib. 
 
 Popular 51 usic 7)3 
 
 Popular Art ib. 
 
 The Educator ib. 
 
 Methods of Charity 714 
 
 Duelling ib. 
 
 Political Morality ib. 
 
 What remains 71.5 
 
 The Labour Question ib. 
 
 Lists of Cabinet Ministers, from 1RI4 to 
 184G 717— 7->l
 
 DIRECTIONS FOR PLACING THE PORTRAITS 
 AND MAPS. 
 
 Map of South Africa 
 
 to face the Title. 
 
 Earl Grey 
 
 3> 
 
 page 20 
 
 Map of Australia 
 
 )} 
 
 74 
 
 Louis Philippe 
 
 93 
 
 166 
 
 Sir Robert Peel 
 
 3? 
 
 205 
 
 Lord Melbourne 
 
 J> 
 
 223 
 
 Queen Victoria 
 
 3J 
 
 341 
 
 Map of North America 
 
 5> 
 
 377 
 
 Jeremy Bentham 
 
 !> 
 
 467 
 
 Map of New Zealand 
 
 Si 
 
 662 
 
 Lord John Russell 
 
 » 
 
 675 
 
 James Watt 
 
 » SS 
 
 709
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 
 
 BOOK IV. 
 
 Chapter I. 
 
 THE valetudinarian King was gone, with his moods and caprices : and 1830 
 with him went all the considerations of expediency which had deter- 
 mined the 2'olitical conduct of the year, on every side. It was not now 
 necessary to have the most peremptory man in the empire to hold its first 
 office, for the purpose of keeping its sovereign in order. There was no longer 
 an incessant appeal to the generosity of the three bodies in Opposition to 
 abstain from joining to throw out the Ministry. There need no longer be a 
 mere show of transacting business, while in reality nothing was done — 
 through the mechanical character of the Administration on the one hand, and 
 the desultory forbearance of the Opposition on the other. It was no longer 
 necessary that the country should be without a government in fact, while the 
 nation was kindling and stirring under the news from France, which became 
 more interesting every day. There was now a King who did not shut himself wil 
 up with his discontents and his flatterers, but who walked in London streets 
 with his umbrella imder his arm, and gave a frank and sailor-like greeting to 
 all old acquaintances, whoever they might be. There was no longer a King 
 who regarded every contravention of his prejudices as a personal injury ; but 
 one who sincerely and kindly desired the welfare of his people, without any 
 regard to his personal feelings. He gave an immediate and strong proof of 
 this by continuing the Uuke of Wellington and his colleagues in power, not- 
 withstanding a well-understood personal disinclination, and from the pure 
 desire not to unsettle public affairs till the national will should liavc shown 
 itself in the elections. He had not been many days on the throne, when he 
 took the opportunity, at some public collation, of proposing the Duke of 
 Wellington's health, and declaring, in a manner more well meant tlian 
 dignified, that it was a mistake to supposi; that he had any ill-feeling — 
 any feeling but of entire confidence in his good friend, the Duke of Wel- 
 lington. A steady man, of determined will, he certainly did require, as 
 head of his government, as every British sovereign must, in days when 
 
 VOL. II. B
 
 2 HISTORY or ENGLAND [Book IV. 
 
 1830. sovereigns have little power, and scanty means of knowledge of the national 
 
 ■ ' mind and needs: and in this case, the sovereign was at no time a man ot 
 
 ahility, and often liable to attacks of incapacitating illness ; and he was sixty- 
 five years of age : but he was honest, unselfish, and earnestly desirous to do 
 his duty well : so that the steadiness of his Prime Minister was required, not 
 to control him, but to inform, and guide, and aid him in the fulfilment of his 
 function. There was in no direction any necessity for the Wellington Minis- 
 try to remain in power, unless by the wish of the nation : and what the desire 
 of the nation was, the elections would soon show. 
 
 The late King had died on the 2Gth of June. On the 29th, William IV. 
 ktn</s iiEssAGE. sent down his first Message to Parliament — just after the unhappy King of 
 France had addressed his last words to his people, and while the elections 
 nar.sani.xxr. 706. were proving that he had lost all. King William's Message, after adverting 
 to the loss sustained by liimself and the nation, declared his opinion that the 
 sooner the necessary new elections took place the better, and recommended 
 the Commons to make provision, without delay, for the maintenance of the 
 public service during the interval between the close of the present session and 
 the meeting of the new parliament. 
 
 This was very well, as far as it went ; but it struck every body on the instant 
 that there was an enormous omission. The King was childless ; and the 
 lircEwv Qt ts- Princess Victoiia, who was to succeed him, if he died without heirs, was only 
 eleven years old. Without express provision, there is no recognition by the 
 law of the minority of a sovereign ; and if the King should die before the 
 new parliament met, this child would be sovereign without control, unless 
 some provision were made for a regency. Something must be done about this, 
 many members of both Houses and of all parties said; but they took a day 
 to consider how they should proceed. On this first day, they spoke merely on 
 that part of the Message which related to the death of the late King — the 
 Duke of Wellington's motion in reply being seconded by Lord Grey, and Sir 
 Robert Peel's by Mr. Brougham. All w-as thus far civility and harmony ; a 
 civility and harmony which endured for that day only. 
 
 On the 30th, Lord Grey in the one House, and Lord Althorp in the other, 
 moved for the delay of a day in replying to the Message, in the understood hope 
 that the King would send down a request to parliament to consider the subject 
 of a regency. The grounds on which the Ministers resisted this proposition 
 were such .as now excite astonishment. They talked of the excellence of the 
 King's health, of " not indulging in such gloomy forebodings," of this not 
 being a matter of pressing necessity, and of its being so important in its 
 natme that it should be left for the deliberation of a new parliament, instead 
 of being brought forward when the minds of members were occupied with 
 their approaching election conflicts : — the fact remaining clear to all men's 
 minds, that by an overtiu-n of the King's carriage, or a fall of his horse, or 
 the slipping of his foot, or an attack of illness, the country might be plunged 
 into inextricable difficulty, from which the legislation of a day or two now 
 might save it. The Dukes of Newcastle and Richmond, Lords Wellesley and 
 naiisar.i,xsv.767. Londonderry, and even Lord Eldon, voted with Lord Grey, though the Duke 
 had said that he should regard a defeat as the signal for the dissolution of the 
 Ministry. The Ministry, however, obtained a majority of 44 in the House of
 
 CiiAP. I.] DURING TIIK THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 3 
 
 Peers, and of 46 in the Commons. The general conviction resulting from this 1830. 
 affair was that all compromise was now over ; that the Duke was laying aside " — ^ 
 his method of balancing the sections of Opposition against each other, and 
 intending to try his strengtli, while the Opposition no longer thought it 
 necessary to spare him. Mr. Brougham lost no time in taking out in full the 
 license which he had of late, on the whole, denied himself, and on this night 
 used language and excited uproar which dejjrived the opponents of Parlia- 
 mentary Reform of their plea of the dignity and decorum of the House as 
 then constituted. Some one having complained of " a peculiar cry" (whether mannfus or i he 
 a baa, a bray, or a grunt, Hansard does not say) — a "peculiar cry which was 
 heard amidst the cheers of the House," Mr. Brougham observed that " by a 
 wonderful disposition of nature, every animal had its jjeculiar mode of ex- 
 pressing itself; and he was too much of a philosopher to quarrel with any of 
 those modes." And presently after, he called up Sir Robert Peel to a personal 
 altercation, by saying, after a reference to the Duke of Wellington, " Him I Hmssini, xxr. 
 accuse not. It is you I accuse — liis flatterers — his mean, fawning parasites." 
 Such quarrels are always got rid of with more or less quibbling and ill grace : 
 but it should be noted that they did occur before the great opening of the 
 representation which was now near at hand. Much was said by the enemies 
 of Parliamentary Reform of the vulgarity of manners which would certainly 
 show itself in the House when the manufactiuing towns were represented : 
 but at this time it was the complaint of strangers who attended the debates, 
 that not only violence of language was occasionally very great, but that offen- 
 sive noises — the braying, baaing, crowing, mewing of animals — were ventured 
 upon and tolerated in the House to an extent which would not be thought of 
 in any other association assembled for grave purposes. 
 
 The King's answer to the Address contained no allusion to the subject of a 
 Regency ; nor did he make any reference to it in any foiin. The omission 
 was daring ; but nobody doubted that the Ministers pressed upon him, as 
 upon Parliament, the consideration of " a great present inconvenience" being 
 of more consequence than " a remote future risk :" and the King did not die Hansard, ^kv. 
 during the recess, so as to put the ftillacy to the proof. How much he tliought ' 
 of dying during those weeks, and whether he felt like a family man who is 
 prevented by vexatious accidents from making his will, and who grows ner- 
 vous about his personal safety till the thing is done, there is no knowing: 
 but the matter was discussed with deep interest in the homes of the land — 
 children and adults wondering whether the little Princess was aware of her 
 position — whether, if the King were now to die, she would have the sense to 
 desire a regency for some years, or whether she would choose to rule according 
 to her own pleasure ; — and if so, what kind of persons she would select for 
 her ministers. There was another consideration Tqipennost in all minds, and 
 largely concerned in the (piestion, though it could not be openly s])oken of in 
 Parliament. After the King's death, the Duke of Cumberland would be her 
 eldest uncle. He must succeed to the; crown of Hanover, which descends 
 only to male heirs. Would he go to Hanover and stay there, and let England 
 alone ? To say that the Duke of Cumberland was unpopular throughout the 
 empire would be to use language too fe(>ble for the fact. He was hated ; and 
 hated with that mixtuie of fear which bclonR-s to total disestecm. It was
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 [Book IV. 
 
 1830. 
 
 PltOROGATlON. 
 
 1-Iansard, xxv. 
 1315. 
 
 D[SSOLt'TION, 
 
 Sympathy wi 
 France. 
 
 ■widclv I'elt that the Princess would not be safe, if unprotected by a regency 
 on ascending the throne in chihlliood : and it was generally believed that the 
 nation would not submit to any kind or degree of rule, governance, or influ- 
 ence, from the Duke of Cumberland. This being the state of the royal family, 
 and the warning condition of France being before all eyes, it was an act of 
 extraordinary rashness in the iNlinistry to insist on the dissolution of parlia- 
 ment before any provision had been made for a llegcncy. 
 
 It was carefully pointed out, when the King came down to prorogue parlia- 
 ment, that he appeared to be in excellent health. There was something exhi- 
 larating in the sight of a King, in excellent health, coming down with an open 
 face and frank demeanour, to meet his parliament. He wore his admiral's 
 vniiform under the royal robes. There was not much in his Speech ; for the 
 session did not supply much matter. The most important point was that 
 with which the Speech concluded ; an expression of his desire that, as parlia- 
 ment had declared its will tliat civil distinctions on account of religious 
 opinion should cease, his suljjects vmiversally should join Avith him in promot- 
 ing peace, and burying all such differences in oblivion. 
 
 The next day, July 24tli, parliament was dissolved by proclamation ; and 
 in a few hours the bustle of the new elections began. In a few days, some 
 of them were actually decided : for the writs were made returnable on the 
 14th of September. 
 
 The people of England, Scotland, and Ireland, met together in crowds 
 for other purposes than electing their representatives. By this time, the 
 " three days in Paris were over: the French people had thrown off the 
 Polignac tjTanny, and the English were not slow to congratulate them. 
 Public meetings were held in counties and towns to prepare addresses for this 
 purpose ; and a long file of deputations crossed the Channel to present these 
 addresses in Paris. At these meetings men spoke to each other, in high 
 exhilaration, of the bearing of these French events upon their own political 
 afiiiirs. They pointed out to each other how the representation was the central 
 ground of struggle ; and how victory there was total victory. They agreed 
 ujion the powerlessncss of Kings, Cabinets, and armies, when in opposition to 
 the popular will : and all who were in any degree on the liberal side in politics 
 saw that now was the time to secure that Reform of Parliament which was a 
 necessary condition of all other political reforms. That was a stirring time 
 in England. Again, the men of the towns went out early in the summer 
 mornings, or late at night, to meet the mails ; and brought news to the break- 
 fast table, or to the eager listeners round the lamp, that Paris was in a state 
 of siege ; — that the Parisians had taken Paris ; — that the French King was 
 coming to England ; — that the Chambers had met at the appointed time, as if 
 no impediment had arisen ; — that the tricolour had been seen in the Thames, 
 and that the Duke of Wellington, riding along the ^-vharves, had turned away 
 his head from the sight with unconcealed anger and mortification; — that, 
 though the King had called the Duke his friend, it was clear that we could 
 not have an intimate of Prince Polignac for our Prime Minister; — that 
 almost the whole newspaper press of England was hostile to the present ad- 
 ministration ; — and, finally, that the men of Yorkshire had sent such a requi- 
 sition to Harry Brougham to become their representative as left scarcely a
 
 Chap. I.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. t 
 
 doubt of his triumphant return ; — a portentous sign of the times, if such 1830. 
 
 should be the issue. * ^— ""^ ' 
 
 There is something very affecting to those who were of mature years at 
 that time in looking back upon these glories of the Harry Brougham who ^'"- B'>o«"'>m- 
 was the hope and admiration of so large a portion of the liberal body in the 
 nation. As he himself said, ho had now arrived at the piiniacle of his fame : 
 he had attained an honour which could never be paralleled. When he said 
 this, he did not contemplate decline ; nor did those who listened to him ; nor 
 did the liberal ]iarty generally. Those who did were some close observers 
 who had never had confidence in him, and who knew that sobriety of thought 
 and temperance of feeling were essential to success in a commanding position, 
 though they might not be much missed in one of struggle and antagonism. 
 These observers, who had seen that with all his zeal, his strong spirit of pug- 
 nacity, his large views of popular rights and interests, Henry Brougham gave 
 no evidences of magnanimity, patience, moderation, and self-forgctfulness, felt 
 now, as throughout his course, that power would be too much for him, and 
 that his splendid talents were likely to become conspicuous disgraces. This 
 was what was soon to be tried : and in the interval, he stood, in these times 
 of popular excitement, the first man in England ; — called by the popular voice 
 to represent the first constituency in England, in a season when constituencies 
 and their chosen representatives were the most prominent objects in the 
 nation's eye. Mr. Brougham had been twenty-one years in public life : his 
 endowments were the most splendid conceivable, short of the inspiration of 
 genius ; and they had been, thus far, employed on behalf of popular interests. 
 Men thought of his knowledge and sagacity on colonial affairs — shown early 
 in his career : they thought of his brave and faithful advocacy of the Queen's 
 cause : they thought of his labours for popular enlightenment — of his fur- 
 therance of Mechanics' Institutes, of the London University, and of the 
 Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge : — they thought of his plans 
 for the reform of the law, and his labo>irs in making justice accessible to the 
 poor : they thought of his mighty advocacy of the claims of the slave, and of his 
 thundering denunciations of op))ression in that and every other relation; and 
 they reasonably regarded him as a gTcat man, and the hope of his country. 
 It was so reasonable to regard him thus, that those who had misgivings were 
 ashamed of them, and concealed them so anxiously that it is certain that ^Ir. 
 Brougham had as fair a field as any man ever had for showing what he could 
 do. But, though those who knew him best concealed their doubts, the doubts 
 were there ; — doubts whether his celebrated oratory was not mainly facti- 
 tious — vehement and passionate, but not simple and licartf'elt ; — doubts 
 whether a temper of jealousy and irritability would not poison any work into 
 which it could find entrance ; — doubts whether a vanity so restless and insa- 
 tiable must not speedily starve out the richest abilities ; — doubts whether a 
 habit of speech so exaggerated, of statements so inaccurate, would not soon be 
 fatal to respect and confidence ; — doubts about th(^ perfect genuineness of his 
 popular sympathies — not charging him witli hyjiocrisy, but suspecting that 
 the people were an object in his imagination, rather than an interest in his 
 heart — a temjwrary idol to him, as lie was to them. These doubts made the 
 spectacle of Ileiuy Ihougham at the head of the representation of Great
 
 6 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 [Book IV. 
 
 Ni.\V IIOUSH. 
 
 1830. Britain an interesting and anxious one to those who knew him well, whether 
 
 ■ — ■ from personal intercourse or from a close study of his career. With all the 
 
 other liberals of England, it was an occasion of unbounded triumjdi. He has 
 since publicly and repeatedly referred to tliis period as that of his highest 
 glory; and there are now none, probably, who do not agree with him. At 
 YiiHKSHiBE klul. this Yorkshire election, when four representatives were required, five candi- 
 dates came forward, and j\lr. Brougham stood next to Lord "Morpeth, who 
 headed the poll. 
 
 A very few days were enough to show the Ministers what they had to ex[)ect 
 from the new House. The Tory magnates whom they had oflended by their 
 liberal measm-es, took this opportunity of revenging themselves, and returned 
 members opposed to them, who, though not liberals, served the purposes of the 
 liberals nearly as well as if they had been comrades. Two brothers and a 
 brother-in-law of Sir Robert Peel were thro'mi out. Mr. Hume came in for 
 the county of Middlesex, while the Duke of Newcastle was causing the return 
 of members hostile to the Ministry. Their faithful friend the Duke of Ilutland 
 could not carry the county of Cambridge ; and Lord Ebrington was returned 
 for Devonshire. No cabinet Minister obtained a seat by anything like open 
 and popular election. Of the eighty-two county members, only twcnty-ciglit 
 were avowedly on the ministerial side, while forty-seven were avowedly on the 
 other side. Of the twenty-eight members representing the greatest cities, 
 three were ministerialists, and twenty-four liberals. Such being the state of 
 things where the elections were open and popular, and the proprietors of close 
 boroughs being still steady anti-catholics, the fate of the Ministry was sealed, 
 and known to be so, before the summer was over. Even the revolutions on 
 the continent, now following one another with a rapidity which, at a different 
 time, would have pressed all the Conservatives in England into close union, 
 had not at present that effect. The great soldier, the peremptory commander, 
 the Iron Duke, must be got rid of; and then, all good Conservatives would 
 join at once, and see what must be done to save the Chiu-ch and the State 
 The Ministry, on their part, hoped to effect some good understanding in the 
 interval betwixt August and November. In Se])tcmber, an event occurred 
 which seemed to open some prospect of this ; though the Ministers themselves 
 were too much touched and grieved at heart to think of such a result so soon 
 as some of their less interested adherents. 
 
 The first great English railway was completed, and the line from Liverpool 
 to Manchester was opened on Wednesday, the 15th of September. The Duke 
 of Wellington, Sir Robert Peel, and other great men, arrived to take part in 
 the ceremony, which was to h;ive been succeeded by a banquet, at Manchester. 
 Mr. Huskisson was already on the spot, having arrived, as soon as the state of 
 his feeble health permitted it, to visit the constituency of Liverpool, who liad 
 elected him in his absence. Before the trains left Liverpool, a jiarticular request 
 was made that none of the company would leave the carriages, and the printed 
 bills exhibited a caution to the same effect ; but when the trains stopped at 
 Parkside, several of the party alighted, and a mutual friend of the Duke of 
 Wellington and Mr. Huskisson thought that this would be a good opportunity 
 for bringing them together, and putting an end to the coolness whicli had 
 existed between them since Mr. Huskisson's dismissal from tlic cabinet- 
 
 Dfatii of Mn 
 Huskisson.
 
 Tiivr. I.J DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 7 
 
 Both parties were -willing and cordial. When the Uuke saw Mr. Iluskisson 1830. 
 approaching, he advanced and held out his hand ; and almost hefore the — ■ — ^^-^-^ 
 friendly grasp was loosened, some one took alarm at the approach of a locomo- 
 tive, and there was a general cry to those who were standing in the road, " get 
 in, get in ! " If Mr. Huskisson had stood still beside the car, he would have 
 been safe. Whether, feeble and nervous from illness, he was attempting to 
 get round the oi)en door of the car, in order to enter it, or whether he was 
 merely holding by it, appears not to be known. The event was that the open 
 door by which he held was struck by the locomotive, and threw do\vn j\Ir. 
 Iluskisson, who fell, with his leg doubled across the rail, so that the limb was 
 instantly crushed. He was at once aware that the accident was fatal, and he 
 died that night, at the parsonage at Eccles, where he was conveyed with all 
 skill and tenderness. The Ministers were in no spirits for further public 
 exhibition that day, and they would fain have m ithdrawn ; but it was repre- 
 sented to them how serious would be the public alai-m in such a place as 
 Manchester ; how report would exaggerate the mischief if they were not seen ; 
 and how fatal might even be the effect on future railway travelling of a false 
 panic that day ; and they consented to proceed. All was now gloom, and the 
 chief guests refused to leave the car at Manchester, or do more than the public 
 safety required. 
 
 It was not they who immediately began to consider what effect this mourn- 
 ful death would have on their political position ; but, as was natural, there 
 were many who did. The " Canningitcs " would now merge into another 
 party. I'or some time there had been no sufficient peculiarity of doctrine or 
 principle to necessitate their forming a separate party ; and that they did stand 
 aloof, was owing to the state of feeling between the Duke and Mr. Huskisson. 
 That was all over now. There was no quarrel which survivors ought to keep 
 alive ; and it was hoped that the Grants and Lord Palmerston would strengthen 
 the Ministry in the Lower House. It was too late for this, however. The 
 Ministry had done their utmost, and in vain, to exclude Mr. Charles Grant 
 from Inverness ; and Mr. Robert Grant had thrown out a brother of Sir Robert 
 Peel's at Norwich. The few remaining " Canningites " advanced towards 
 liberalism from this day. The only hope now was that the bringing forward 
 of the parliamentary reform question in revolutionary times would alarm all 
 but the extreme Liberals into miion at the last moment. 
 
 Up to the last moment, indeed, matters looked gloomy enough. In October 
 the Viceroy of Ireland, Sir Henry Hardingc, issued a proclamation intended 
 to prevent the meeting of an Association for promoting the Repeal of the Annual Rrpister, 
 UnioTi. The prohibition was positive and comprehensive ; but British govern- '*'^"' ""'""■ ''^■ 
 ments, and British officials, did not yet know Daniel O'Connell; how impossible o'Coijnei.i and 
 it was to restrain him by law in the prosecution of his enterprises, or to have '""^ ^■t^""''- 
 dealings with him, as between man and man. Daniel O'Connell issued his 
 proclamations forthwith, in which he arraigned " that paltry, contemptible, 
 little English soldier, that had the audacity to put his pitiful and contemptible 
 name to an atrocious Poligiiac proclamation ; " and laid down tlie law about 
 obtaining the Repeal of the Union. He declared, as he continued to declare 
 to the end of his life, that the Rejwal of the Union was just at hand, and that 
 " no power on earth could prevent it, except the folly or the crimes of sojue of
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 [Book IV 
 
 1830. 
 
 Dublin Freeman' 
 Journal, Oit. a3, 
 I8o0. 
 
 Annual Register, 
 1830; Chron. 
 17U— 178. 
 
 Repeal of the 
 
 L'.NION. 
 
 the Irish themselves." He proposed " that a society sliouhl be formed to meet 
 in Dubhn, to be called the Association of Irish Volunteers ; the motto of the 
 society to be ' 1782,' over the word ' Resurfjam.' The members were to be 
 unarmed, open in all their proceedings, and to be active, in the first place, m 
 procuring petitions from every parish in Ireland in behalf of Repeal of the 
 I'nion. In the course of his speeches and proclamations on this matter, Mr. 
 O'Connell used language with regard to Sir H. llardinge, for which he was 
 called to account by that gentleman. A recurrence to tliis fact seems to take 
 us back to a distant time indeed ; all modern recollections of O'Coiniell being 
 such as to attach an idea of ridicule to any" person resenting his foulness of 
 language. On this occasion he behaved as disgracefully as possible, shuffling 
 about what expressions he did or did not use, and refusing to accept a challenge. 
 There cannot be a finer spectacle in our time than an honourable man refusing 
 to fight a duel, from a con\'iction of the sin and folly of that kind of ordeal in 
 a Christian nation and a modern age. But then it is essential that he be an 
 honourable man, observing the Christian rule of doing as he would be done by, 
 and peaceable and inoffensive, as truly brave and considerate men always arc. 
 It was far otherwise with O'Connell : he was the bully all over ; the most foul- 
 mouthed railer of his time ; and, till men left off calling him to account, he always 
 fell back upon his conscientious objection to duelling. He indulged in offence, 
 and then made a merit of declining the penalty. As his sons grew up, he 
 permitted them, two or three times, to fight his duels for him ; but the public 
 cry of disgust and indignation was so strong, that he at length forbade his 
 sons to fight in his quarrels, and made a merit out of that. The correspond- 
 ence on occasion of this ofience to Sir H. Hardinge settles the matter for ever 
 about O'Connell's honour, and the possibility of having dealings with him, as 
 between man and man ; and it is referred to here as an evidence that all parties 
 who afterwards conrted him, or allied themselves with him, more or less, for 
 whatever political purposes, were not entitled to complain when he betrayed, 
 insulted, and reviled them. That any terms should have been held with 
 O'Connell, by governments, English public, or gentlemen, in or out of parlia- 
 ment, after his present agitation for Repeal, and his published correspondence 
 with Sir II. Ilardinge's aide, in Octobt'r, 1880, is one of the moral disgraces 
 of our time. It shows that a man's abilities and political influence can secure 
 to him an impunity for bullying, cowardice, and falsehood, which would drive 
 a man of meaner talents and power from any society in the land. It is at this 
 time that we find first recorded that expression of O'Connell's w hich he used, 
 with the utmost freedom of ai^plication, for the rest of his life. The adminis- 
 tration was "base, bloody, and brutal :" and henceforward, every law, every 
 cabinet, every person, and every party, that he objected to, was " base, bloody, 
 and brutal;" and it really appears as if every successive party to whom the 
 epithets were applied winced under them as if they had never been used before, 
 or as if they carried any weight. 
 
 Our country and our time have, since this date, rung with the Irish cry of 
 " Repeal of the Union!" and this seems the occasion on which to look and 
 see what it means. There are many in France and Germany, and a multi- 
 tude in America, who would be surprised that any question could be made as 
 to the meaning of that cry. They suppose the case to be plain enough ; that
 
 Chap. I.]" DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 9 
 
 England conquered Ireland, and has ever since oppressed her ; draining her of 1830. 
 her produce, insulting her religion, being indifferent to her discontents, and _^,.-^,-i^ ■ 
 careless of her woes. They suppose that the entire Irish people wLsh to be 
 wholly separated from England, and insist that a nation which desires to live 
 by itself, and to govern itself, should be allowed to do so. Of course, they 
 believe that the reason why England does not let Ireland go, is that the terri- 
 toiial possession and its produce are of consequence to England. Such was the 
 story told by O'Connell to the world; though it is utterly impossible that he could 
 have believed it himself. He had too much warrant in history for some of his 
 complaints. It was true that Ireland had once been fiercely conquered and 
 cruelly oppressed ; that, till now, her Catholic population had been bitterly 
 insulted by exclusion from political rights on account of their faith ; that the 
 Church of seven-eighths of her people was still insulted by the presence of an 
 established episcopal Church, and endowed Protestant Meeting Houses ; and 
 that a large proportion of her people were in a condition of poUtical discontent, 
 and intolerable social misery. Thus much was true ; but O'Connell, in his 
 addresses to the ignorant among his countrymen, and to the world abroad, never 
 failed to cast the blame of ancient tyranny on the existing generation ; never 
 failed to impute the purely social miseries of Ireland to political causes ; never 
 failed to suppress the fact that Ireland had any imperial rights at all, or to 
 throw contempt and ridicule on benefits which he could not ignore ; never held 
 forth to his countrymen the means of welfare which they had in their power, 
 if they would but use them ; and, above all, never made the slightest rational 
 attenqjt to show how the Repeal of the Union would cure their woes, and give 
 them peace and comfort. Any one who studies his speeches, as a series, may 
 see that he knew the truth, from the directions in which he levels his vitupe- 
 ration aiul his sarcasm. He certainly knew that the miserable tenure of land, 
 and multiplication of a destitute population, were the chief causes of the mise- 
 ries of Ireland, and that, as a natural consequence, the people would not work 
 and were prone to outrage. He certainly knew that these evils could not be 
 cured by a parliament sitting in Dublin. He certainly knew that the great 
 majority of the people of Ireland, including nearly all persons of education and 
 property, were averse to a Repeal of the I'nion, and did not choose that it 
 should take place. He certainly knew that such a complexity of interests had 
 grown up betwfien England and Ireland during their imperial connexion as 
 made separation impossible, and that the interests of Great Britain would no 
 more permit her to have for an independent neighbour an insular nation in a 
 state of desperate and reckless misery (as Ireland would be if left to her own 
 turbulence and poverty), than her conscience would permit her to cast off from 
 her ])rotection a people whom she had formerly helped to make miserable. 
 From O'Coiniell's speeches, during a course of years, it is clear that he well 
 knew all these things ; yet it was his custom to speak (when on Irish ground) 
 as if all the Irish desired R('])eal — as if (lie Dublin parliament would truly 
 represent the Irish people ; as if Irisli industry would tlui\e when commerce 
 with England should be stopped ; as if Repeal would give to every man for 
 his own the land he lived on ; as if Irish turbulenre were merely the result of 
 English provocation ; and as if all liad been well in Ireland till the Ihitish con- 
 nexion began, and wf)uld be iTuuiediately well again if that eouMexifin could be 
 vol.. II. c
 
 10 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book IV. 
 
 1830. dissolved. As for the reasons why any man should plead such a cause in such 
 
 • — ■'N^i— ' a way, tlioy seem clear eiiou<;h in this case. Aiuoug the ignorant of his own 
 coimtrynicn, and uninformed foreigners, he obtained credence enough to give 
 liim great power ; and this power sustained him in his chosen career as an 
 agitator in Ireland. ^loreover, he believed, and truly, that it gave him great 
 importance in England ; great power of annoyance to the government ; great 
 power of obstruction in parliament ; a power of intimidation which he could 
 take up at any time when he had an object to gain for himself or his coiuitry. 
 He raised tlie Utpeal cry whenever any benefit to Ireland was moved for, to 
 hasten it, as he thought ; and again, whenever it was granted, to save the 
 awkwardness of acknowledgment ; and he raised it in the autumn of every 
 year — unless some other cry was abroad which would spare this for once — 
 when the O'Connell Rent was to be collected. As for the question of Repeal 
 itself, let us see how it stands, apart from the prejudice which O'Connell con- 
 nected with it. 
 
 People had different opinions about what the cfl'ect woidd be in Ireland of 
 granting measures which had been too long delayed. When the Duke of 
 ^^^ellington was proposing Catholic Emancipation, he said, at his own table. 
 Life of Lord Sid. at a ministerial dinner, " It is a bad business; but we are aground." Lord 
 Sidmouth asked, " Does your Grace think, then, that this concession will 
 tranquillize Ireland ?" " I can't tell. I hope it will," the Didie replied. He 
 shortly discovered and ow-ned his mistake. The Duke Mas no philosopher, to 
 be sure ; but, if he had been, he would have seen that the union itself, though 
 working well on the whole, worked very slowly, because it had been too long 
 delayed. And this other great measure, being much too long delayed, could 
 not be expected to " tranquillize Ireland," so as to gratify the eyes of existuig 
 statesmen with the sjiectacle of tranquillity. 
 
 The slightest observation of Ireland, and the most suiicrficial knowledge of 
 her history, must convince every one, that if she had been an independent 
 kingdom from 1782, or earlier, she would have been from that time in a state 
 of misery and ruin which could not have been allowed in any civilized quarter 
 of the world, either for her own sake or that of her neighbours. The civil wars 
 of her factions, and the hunger of her swanning multitudes, must presently 
 have destroyed her as a nation. If she had been up to this time an ally, or 
 self-governing province of Great Britain, instead of being incorporated with 
 her, her ruin could hardly have been less complete. In such a case, it is 
 impossible to prevent the weaker going to the wall. It is impossible to pre- 
 vent more or less abuse of power by the stronger party, and to obviate the 
 jealousy or sycophancj- of the leading men of the weaker, who make their oym. 
 people their prey. We have a picture of Scotland, before and after the Union, 
 which may enlighten us much in regard to the case of Ireland, though Scot- 
 land never was subject to the worst economical evils of Ireland; economical 
 evils which arc the true cause of her miseries, and which can be remedied 
 only by her intimate connexion with a country of superior industrial condition 
 and habits. 
 Edinburgh Re. " If auv ouc doubts," says an eminent Scotchman, " of the wretchedness of 
 
 TiCW, Oct. 1827. •' ... . 
 
 an unequal and unincorporating alliance, of the degi'adation of being subject 
 to a provincial parhament and a distant king, and of the efficacy of a sub-
 
 Chap. 1.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 11 
 
 stantlal union in curing all these evils, he is invited to look to the obvious 1830. 
 example of Scotland. When the crowns only were united, and the govern- 
 ments continued separate, the weaker country was the scene of the most atro- 
 cious cruelties, the most violent injustice, and the most degrading oppressions. 
 The prevailing religion of the people was proscribed and persecuted, with a 
 ferocity greater than has ever been systematically exercised, even in Ireland ; 
 her industry was crippled and depressed by unjust and intolerable restrictions, 
 her parliaments coiTupted and overawed into the degraded instruments of a 
 distant court, and her nobility and gentry, cut off from all hope of distinction 
 by vindicating the rights, or promoting the interests, of their country at home, 
 were led to look up to the favour of her oppressors as the only remaining avenue 
 to power, and degenerated, for the most part, into a band of mercenary adven- 
 turers, the more considerable aspiring to tlie wretched honour of executing the 
 orders which were dictated from the South, and the rest acquiring gradually 
 those habits of subserviency and selfish submission, the traces of which are by 
 some supposed to be yet discernible in their descendants. The Revolution, 
 which rested almost entirely on the prevailing antipathy to Popery, required, 
 of course, the co-operation of all cl.asses of Protestants ; and, by its success, the 
 Scottish Presbyterians were relieved, for a time, from their Episcopalian per- 
 secution. But it was not till after the Union that the nation was truly eman- 
 cipated, or lifted up from the abject condition of a dependant, at once sus- 
 pected and despised. The cftects of that happy consolidation were not indeed 
 immcdidtcJij apparent ; for the vices which had been generated by a century of 
 provincial misgovernment, the meannesses that had become habitual, the ani- 
 mosities that had so long been fostered, could not be cured at once by the mere 
 removal of their cause. The generation they had degi-aded must first be 
 allowed to die out, and more perhaps than one generation ; but the poison tree 
 was cut down, the fountain of bitter waters was sealed up, and symptoms of 
 returning \igour and happiness were perceived. Vestiges may still be traced, 
 perhaps, of our long degradation ; but for forty years back, the provinces of 
 Scotland have been, on the whole, but the Northern provinces of Great Britain. 
 There are no local oppressions, no national animosities. Life, and liberty, and 
 property, are as secure in Caithness as they are in Middlesex, industry as much 
 encouraged, and wealth still more rai)idly })rogTCSsi\ c, while, not only difterent 
 religious opinions, but different religious establishments, subsist in the two 
 ends of the same island, in unbroken harmony, and only excite each other by 
 a friendly emulation to greater piu'ity of life, and greater zeal for Christianity. 
 If this hap])y Union, however, had been delayed for another century ; if Scot- 
 land had been doomed to submit for a hundred years more to the pro\incial 
 tyranny of the Laudcrdales, llothcses, and Aliddletons, and to meet the cruel 
 persecutions which gratified the ferocity of her Dalzells and Dnmimonds, 
 and tarnished the glories of such men as Montrose and Dundee, with her 
 anned conventicles and covenanted saints militant ; to see her patriots exiled, 
 or bleeding on the scaffold ; her teachers silenced in her churches and schools, 
 and her courts of justice degraded or overawed into the instruments of a 
 cowardly oppression, — can any man doubt, not only that she would have pre- 
 sented, at this day, a scene of even greater miseiy and discord than Ireland did 
 in 1800 ; but that the corruptions and animosities by which she had been
 
 12 HISTORY or ENGLAND [Book IV. 
 
 1830. desolated woidd have been found to have struck so deep root as still to encum- 
 ber the land, hnii; after their seed had ceased to be scattered abroad on its 
 surface, and only to hold out the hope of their eradication after many years of 
 patient and painful exertion ? " 
 
 In the Irish case, England had indeed much, very much, to answer for in 
 not having immediately aiul strenuously given the fullest ])ossible effect to the 
 Union ; in having continued the disabilities of the Catholics, and in stiU main- 
 taining a Church Establishment useless and hateful to scvcn-cishths of the 
 Irish jjcople. But, by means of the Union, agriculture was improving in 
 Ireland, and manufactures were advancing every year. Throughout the North, 
 life, liberty, and property, were secure, to a degree never known before. The 
 whole island had begun to be governed by the wisdom and impartial rule of 
 the British government, instead of by turbulent native factions ; and now a 
 way was, however late, freely opened into the Imperial legislature. What a 
 benefactor would O'Connell have been to his country, if he had now used 
 patriotically the rights so hardly gained ! If he, and the Irish members he had 
 brought into the legislature with him, had used their im])erial rights for the 
 thorough realization of the Union, their country might by this time have been, 
 not prosperous and peaceful and satisfied, for her troubles coidd not be annihi- 
 lated so speedily, but advancing towards such a condition. He, and he alone, 
 could control the impatient Irish temper ; he set himself diligently to exaspe- 
 rate it. He could have v\on the peasantry to industry and conscientious thrift : 
 he di'ew them off studiously from their labours to roam the country in attend- 
 ance on his political agitation. He could have united their wills and voices in 
 a calm and effectual remonstrance against their remaining wrongs, and demand 
 for rights yet due ; but he bade them spurn the benefits granted, and taught 
 them to put a foul construction on every act of the government and people of 
 which they were now a part, and trained them to a passionate contempt and 
 luitred of the law, which was all they had to look to for security and social 
 existence. To all this he added that worst and ultimate act of promising to 
 those who would believe him the Repeal, and the speedy Repeal, of the Union ; 
 well knowing that that repeal was rendered impossible by the iniited will and 
 judgment of England, Scotland, and the most enlightened and influential part 
 of Ireland. He promised a federal allegiance to the British sovereign who 
 would not receive such a partial and pernicious allegiance. He promised a 
 parliament in Dublin where parliaments had never been anything but assem- 
 blages of jobbers and faction leaders. He promised Irish laws, while corrupt- 
 ing the people out of any capacity for obedience to law at all. He promised 
 the exclusion of British commerce, while without British commerce the Irish 
 could not live. He promised every thing he could not perform, and that no sane 
 and shrewd man (and O'Connell was sane and shrewd) v\oidd have pcrfonned 
 if he could ; and every thing which could most effectually draw off the vast 
 multitudes of the Catholic peasantry of Ireland from the remedy of their social 
 hardships, from the duty to their own households, and their vveltare in the 
 State. Whether he gained any objects by threatening and annoying the 
 governments of his day, we may see hereafter. Whether he and his compani- 
 ons in the legislature might not have gained more by honest political endca- 
 voms — gained more even in definite achievements, as well as in personal and
 
 Chap. I.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 13" 
 
 national character, and in British sympathy for Ireland — there can be no 1830. 
 question. Thus early, ho^vcvcr, in the summer and autimm of 1830, O'Con- 
 nell exhibited the programme of his political course. One of the troubles of 
 the Wellington Ministry during this October was the state of Ireland, where 
 the magistrates of Tippcrary were obliged to apply for military force, to put 
 down outrage ; where one Ilcpcal Association after another was prohibited by 
 the Viceroy, the people believing their liberties assailed in each case ; and where 
 O'Connell (on all other occasions the partisan of the Bourbons) bade the 
 people look to the Revolutions of France and Belgium for examples what to 
 do, and counselled a run on the banks throughout Ireland, in order to show 
 government the danger of resisting their demands. 
 
 Nearer home, too, a strange new trouble was arising which it was extremely ''"^''•' 
 difficult to cope with. A year or two before this time, English gentry had 
 been holding up hands and eyes at the atrocious barbarism of the peasantry in 
 the north of France, who burned corn ricks in the night. People observed to 
 one anotlier on the awful state of stupidity and malice in wliich any society 
 must be sunk where such a crime could spread ; — a crime so foolish — so 
 suicidal — as well as malicious ! What could induce a peasantry to destroy 
 their own food ? What a set of idiots they must be ! — But, as soon as the 
 dark long nights of October and November came on, the same thing was hap- 
 pening in our agricultural counties, and particularly in Kent. The mystery 
 appears never to have been completely explained. Here and there, perhaps, 
 was seen some skulker — some shabby stranger, wandering about in cojjses, 
 and behind inclosures, or hiding in sheds, or dropping into the public house, 
 all ear and no tongue, or patting farm-boys and girls on the back, and having 
 confidences with them. Such people were seen here and there ; and there 
 were several instances in which young persons on trial for incendiarism accused 
 the principal witness of having enticed them to do the act, and then got the 
 reward by informing against them. But, if these things were true, they do 
 not ac((junt for the origin of the practice. There was considerable distress ; 
 but not nearly so pressing or threatening as during two or three preceding 
 years. There was — as there always is among an ignorant population — some 
 discontent with machinery ; but it did not appear that the fanners who used 
 machinery were more pursued by the incendiary than others. It was probably 
 from all these causes in tmn, fiom some imported knowledge of what had 
 been done in France, and fiom that never-failing propensity in human nature, 
 by which extraordinary crimes — crimes which produce vast effect by a rapid 
 and easy act, gratifying the relish for power in an luitraincd mind — spread 
 like a fashion of a season : but, however it was, that autumn was a memorable 
 time to all who lived in the southern agricultural counties of England. The 
 farmers and their families had no comfort in their lives. All day they looked 
 witli luiavoidable suspicion upon the most ill-conditioned of their neighbours, 
 and on every stranger who came into the parish. .Vll night, they were wake- 
 ful ; cither acting as patrols, or looking out towards the stackyards, or listening 
 for the riunble of the fire engine. Those who were fully insured did not like 
 the idea of fire close to the dwelling-house ; and there were some serious 
 doubts about the stiibility of some of the Insurance Offices, under a pressure 
 for wliicli nil jnudence could have provided. The farmers who were not
 
 M HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book IV. 
 
 1830. iiisiu-ed need not think of it ; for no offices would do new business, on any 
 ' — ^--^^ — ' terms that farmers could offer, during the rick-burninijj ])enod. If a man, 
 weary with patroUinj^ for three or four nights, hoped for a night's sleep, and 
 went, the last thing, to his rickyard, and explored every corner, and visited 
 every shed on his j)remises, he might find his chamber illuminated by his 
 biu'ning ricks, by the time he could get upstairs. If the j)atrol, after a similar 
 search, looked round as they .shut the gate, some one of them asked what that 
 blue speck in the air was; and before he could be answered, a blue flame 
 would run, rocket-like, along the ridge of a stack, and down its sides, and in 
 one minute the farm-house windows would be glittering, and the sheds would 
 seem to come out into the yellow light, and the pond would be burnished, and 
 all darkness would be suddenly annihilated, except in the shadows cast Ijy the 
 mounting and spreading flames. How it was done was never learned. Some 
 believed that a particular stack in a yard was previously wetted ^vith some 
 liqiud that would blaze up with a spark ; and so few persons were a])preliended 
 in the very act, or under very strong suspicion, that it was a widely spread 
 belief that some kindling substance was directed upon the jn-epared stack 
 from a distance. Several persons declared, and were more or less b(>lieved, 
 that they saw the blue spark traverse the air and descend ; and now and then, 
 a long slender wire was said to be foinul among the ashes. A considerable 
 number of persons saw the fire begin before their- very eyes, ^^•itllout being 
 able to discover traces of trespassers. This was naturally a time for malicious 
 or encroaching persons to send threatening letters ; and for foolish jesters to 
 play oft' practical jokes ; and for timid persons to take needless alarms ; and 
 for all the discontented to make the most of their grievances : and a dreary 
 season of apprehension indeed it was. It is memorable even to those who 
 lived in towns, and conducted no business, and had no enemies, and feared no 
 evil for themselves. It was a great shock to such to find themselves living in 
 a state of society where such things could be. In Kent, there were gibbets 
 il'i!l",'!^''''^'*',!r' erected on Penenden Heath, and bodies swung there in the December winds : — 
 
 1830, Chron. 201. ^ . . 
 
 bodies of " boys about eighteen or nineteen years old, but looking much 
 younger ;" brothers, who had said to each other on arriving at the spot, and 
 seeing the gallows, " that looks an awful thing." And from Kent, the deadly 
 fashion spread into Hampshire, Wiltshire, Buckinghamshire, Sussex, and 
 Sun-ey. The military were harassed with fruitless marches, their nightly path 
 lighted by fires from behind, whichever way they turned. Large rewards were 
 offered — £500 for a single conviction ; and these rewards were believed to 
 have been now and then obtained by the instigators, while the poor tools were 
 given over to destruction. A special commission was ordered to proceed into 
 the shires where this kind of outrage abounded ; and the subject was one of 
 several unwelcome topics in the King's Speech, in November. 
 
 The opening of this parliament was awaited throughout the country with 
 anxious expectation. In September, when tidings of new continental revolu- 
 tions were arriving, almost day by day, the funds fell ; and what Lord Eldon 
 and the Ministers called " London," — that is, the aristocracy with whom they 
 had intercourse, and who remained clustered together in the metropolis in a 
 very unusual manner — was in gloomy apprehension of the fall of the mo- 
 narchy ; — not because there were any threatenings of the monarchy, public or 
 
 Anxikties Of 
 Parties.
 
 Chap. I.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 15 
 
 private, but because other monarchies were falling. The aristocracy shook 1830. 
 theii- heads over the free and easy sayings and doings of the new sailor-King. ^ — •■^-^ — ' 
 " I hear," wrote Lord Eldon, •' that the condescensions of the Kins' are heffin- Life of i^rdEi. 
 
 . . ,,.,.. ° " dun; iU, 117. 
 
 ning to make him inipopular. In that station, such larauiarity must produce 
 the destruction of respect. If the people don't continue to think a King 
 somewhat more than a man, they will soon find out that he is not an object 
 of that high respect which is absolutely necessary to the utility of his charac- 
 ter." It may be doubted whether any body in England was at that time 
 saying any thing more injurious to monarchy than this. Lord Eldon, hoAV- 
 ever, did what he could towards preserving the monarchy by rebuking the 
 King for improper condescension. The anecdote is an interesting one, as 
 presenting both these old men — so perfectly unlike each other — in a favour- 
 eible lisht. Lord Eldon went up with the Bishoi) of Bristol to present an p'''' °f 'f/'' ^i- 
 
 . . , . . . ^OD, 111. 113. 
 
 address. As Lord Eldon was retiring, the King stopped him and said, " My 
 lord, political parties and feelings have run very high, and I am afraid I have 
 made observations upon your lordship which now . . . " — Here Lord Eldon 
 interrupted him, and said, '' I entreat yoiu- Majesty's pardon — a subject must 
 not hear the language of apology from the lips of his sovereign ;" and then 
 the dutiful subject passed out from the presence of his rebuked King. If the 
 Tories were right in supposing the existence of the monarchy to depend in 
 any considerable degree on the personal reserve and dignity of the sovereign, 
 it was assuredly very unsafe under the open-hearted sailor-King. 
 
 This same " London" believed in October that, in consequence of the re- 
 moval of Mr. Huskisson, negotiations were going on between the Ministry 
 and " Palmerston and Co.," — the survivors of the " Ccanningites ;" but, on a 
 footing which yielded far too much to the requisitions of this remnant of a 
 party; — on the footing of pledges for some kind of Parliamentary Reform 
 (which could hardly have been true), some measure about tithes, and some 
 close dealing with the Civil List. Whether these reports had any foundation 
 or not, they are of importance to us now, as shelving that the great Tory world 
 of London was prepared for some assertion of the necessity of these measures, 
 and would not have been surprised if they had been brought forward bv the 
 Duke himself. — AVlien night closed in on the 1st of November, nobody knew, 
 except those Avho were seated round the tables of the Ministers, what the dis- 
 closures of the Speech were to be next day. For five days, the swearing in 
 of members of parliament had been going on ; but the session M'as not opened 
 till the 2nd of November. 
 
 When the Speech was promulgated, it was found to be the most offensive opening of the 
 that had been uttered by any British monarch since the Revolution. Now, 
 indeed, unless it could presently be shown that the King had been made a 
 tool of by his Ministers, there might soon be some gi'ound for the Tory ajipre- 
 hcnsions about the unpopularity of the sovereign. Except a sxmender of the 
 Civil List to the consideration of parliament, and a recommendation to provide 
 a Regency, in case of his death, there was no topic Avhich gratified the ex- 
 pectation of the people. Tliere was much regret at the distiu'bed state of 
 Europe ; determination to uphold the treaties by which the political system of 
 Europe had been established ; indignation, contempt, and hoiTor, about dis- 
 turbances in England and Ireland ; a pledge to use all the powers of law and
 
 16 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 [Book IV. 
 
 1880. 
 
 Hansanl, ,'tr.l .Se. 
 ries, i. 8. 
 
 Tub Diikb's Dr. 
 
 ('^AR\TIO^. 
 
 Hansard, 3rd Sp. 
 ries, i. 52. 
 
 constitution to put down and punish such disturbance ; and a k>ctmc on the 
 supreme happiness of tliose who hve under liviti.sli institutions. — Wliile men 
 were gatliering together in streets and pubHc buildings to discuss this Speecli, 
 the tmbulcnt in exasperation at its insolence, and the thoughtful in regret at 
 its hardness, the Prime Minister settled every thing — the fate of his govern- 
 ment, and the coiu'se of public aft'airs for years to come — by a few sentences in 
 the opening debate which made some people ask whether he had lost his 
 senses, while they revived the Tory party with hopes that sonu' hidden re- 
 sources of power existed to justify the apparent rashness. In the debate on 
 the Address, the Duke of Wellington uttered that celebrated declaration 
 against Reform in Parliament which immediately overthrew his power at 
 home, and his reputation as a statesman tliroughout the world. His personal 
 fiicnds have since accoimted for the apparent madness of uttering those words 
 at that moment, by saying that it was a mistake owing to his deafness ; and 
 this is quoted as his own plea. A deafness had been long growing upon him 
 which had now become considerable ; and it was declared on his behalf that 
 if he had heard «hat had been said by men of his own party, and what was 
 passing on the benches behind him, he would not have made such a declara- 
 tion in that place and at that time, and without consultation with his colleagues. 
 But the plea goes for nothing in his defence. It does not disprove his igno- 
 rance — an ignorance extraordinary and culpable in a member of Administra- 
 tion — of the popular opinion and will: and it proves a most reprehensible 
 carelessness, want of concert with his colleagues, and want of deference for 
 their judgment, on a matter of supreme importance. The memorable sen- 
 tences were these — uttered with the coolness and confidence with which he 
 would have delivered a lecture on the British Constitution in a ]Mcchanics' 
 Institute : — 
 
 " The noble Earl (Grey) had alluded to the propriety of effecting Parlia- 
 mentary Reform. . . . He had never heard or read of any measure, iip to the 
 present moment, which could in any degree satisfy his mind that the state of 
 the representation could be improved, or be rendered more satisfactory to the 
 country at large than at the present moment. He would not, however, at 
 such an unseasonable time enter upon the subject, or excite discussion, but he 
 should not hesitate to declare unequivocally what were his sentiments upon it. 
 He was fully convinced that the country possessed at the present moment a 
 legislature which answered all the good purposes of legislation, and this to a 
 greater degree than any legislature ever had answered in any country what- 
 ever. He would go further, and say, that the legislature and the system of 
 representation possessed the full and entire confidence of the country — de- 
 servedly possessed that confidence — and the discussions in the legislature had 
 a very great influence over the opinions of the country. He would go still 
 further, and say, that if at the present moment he had imposed upon him the 
 duty of forming a Legislature for any country, and particularly for a country 
 like this, in possession of great property of various descriptions, he did not 
 mean to assert that he could form such a Legislature as they possessed now, 
 for the nature of man was incapable of reaching such excellence at once ; but 
 his great endccavour would be, to form some description of legislature which 
 would produce the same results. The representation of the people at present
 
 CriAr. I.J DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 17 
 
 contained a large body of the property of the country, and in which the landed 1 830. 
 
 interests had a preponderating influence. Under these circumstances, he was ^-— ^^^^ ' 
 
 not prepared to bring forward any measure of the description alluded to by 
 the noble lord. He was not only not prepared to bring forward any measure 
 of this nature, but he would at once declare that, as far as he was concerned, 
 as long as he held any station in the government of the country, he should 
 always feel it his duty to resist such measures when proposed by others." 
 
 On that same night, Mr. Brougham gave notice in the Commons of his 
 intention to bring forward, in a fortnight, the question of Parliamentary 
 Reform. The next day, the unrepresented men of Birmingham were telling- 
 each other in the streets that the Prime Minister of the country had declared 
 that the representation could not be improved : and perhaps some traveller, 
 on his way from Marlborough to Salisbury, gazing as he passed on the little 
 mounds of Old Saruni, enclosing its few bare acres, where no living creature 
 dwelt, would tlrink of the two members sitting in the Commons, to represent 
 this patch of ground, and would say to himself, with some amusement, that 
 the Prime Minister of the country had declared that the representation could 
 not be improved. There were thousands of inhabitants of Leeds and Man- 
 chester, sustaining hundreds of thousands of labourers — five to one of rural 
 labourers — who conferred ominously on the jNIinister's satisfaction, at the 
 preponderance of the landed interests in the legislature. While the ferment 
 was spreading and rising in the country, the liberal party in both Houses of 
 Parliament were looking in a spirit of calm and confident expectation upon 
 the struggles and difficulties of the rash and helpless administration. Some 
 members of the' Cabinet took pains to intimate the next night after the Duke's 
 declaration, that he spoke for himself alone : — Sir George Murray owned him- Hansnrd. i. ics. 
 self in favour of some moderate reform : — Sir Robert Peel would not declare 
 any opinion on a subject as yet wholly indefinite. In the Commons, Mr. Hansard, 1. 175. 
 Tennyson conjured the country to await in qiuet the downfall of the Duke, 
 which was now sure to happen, and by no means to let the Duke's opinion on 
 RefoiTn go for more than any one man's opinion was worth : and in the Lords, 
 the Earl of Winchilsea proposed to lay before the King the opinion of parlia- Hansard, i. i9'. 
 ment in regard to the incapacity of his Ministers. It was as yet only the 4th 
 of November : but this was a season when hours told for days. In forty-eight 
 hours the Duke was in the embarrassment of another scrape, in which there 
 was so much of the ludicrous mixed up with what might have been very 
 serious, that the subject was ever a most exasperating one to the great soldier. 
 
 In justice to him, it must be remembered how his mind had been wrought 
 upon for some months past, in sympathy with his friend Polignac, in appre- 
 hension for that distribution of power in Eiu'opo which he had been concerned 
 in establishing ; and by the daily increasing disturbances in our rural districts 
 which exactly resemlded those that preceded the revolution in France. It 
 must be remembered how little he really knew the people of England ; and 
 how, to a mind like his, the mere name of revolution suggests images of regi- 
 cide, and of every thing horrible ; — images which were, no doubt, in his mind 
 when he turned away as he was seen to do from the spectacle of the tricolour 
 floating in the Thames. These things mark him as unfit to be the Prime 
 Minister of England in 1830; but they soften the shame of tlie tlioiiglit that 
 
 \0\.. II. 13
 
 18 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 [Book IV. 
 
 1830. 
 
 Al-DBRMAN KeY*S 
 
 Panic. 
 
 HBTisnrd, i, 2^1. 
 
 1830, Chron. 1S7, 
 
 the high courage of tlie great soldier sank under a senseless alaiin given by an 
 ahlerman of London. This ,\klrinian Key had been ck-etcd to serve tlic 
 office of Lord Mayor for the coming year ; and the King and Queen and the 
 Ministers were to dine with him at Guildhall on the 9tli of November. On 
 the ()th, the aldennan addresised a letter to tlie I'rinic ^Minister, the tone and 
 wording of which shoidd have shown to any man of sense that it was not a 
 communication to be acted upon without large confirmation of its statements. 
 This letter warned the Duke that a certain number of " desperate characters" 
 intended to make an attack upon him near the Hall; and it plainly desired 
 that, as the civil force would not be enough for the Duke's protection, he 
 would not come without a strong military- guard. The next night, Saturday, 
 Sir Robert Peel sent a letter to the Lord Mayor to state that their Majesties 
 declined visiting the city on the 9th. The Ministers pleaded that they had 
 received other letters, besides that from Alderman Key : and, but for this, the 
 case wovild have been much simplified ; for the poor man expressed, again and 
 Annual Register, again, the dcepest contrition for his folly in writing as he had done, when he 
 saw how serious were the consequences of the act. — In the course of Smiday, 
 a deputation from the committee of the feast waited thi'ee times on the Minis- 
 ters ; and the Duke's declaration Avas that either the banquet must be postponed, 
 or a large military force must be put in possession of the city. The banquet 
 was postponed. 
 
 In the morning, the consternation in the city was extreme. No one knew 
 what was the matter ; but that there must be something terrible, there could 
 be no doubt. Some said that there was to be a 5th of November on the 9th : 
 some, that while their Majesties were dining, the gaspipes were to be cut. 
 Temple Bar blockaded, the royal personages made prisoners, and London 
 sacked. There was no nonsense that could not find belief on that fearful 
 Monday, though every body agreed that no sovereign had ever been more 
 popular than William IV., who had not done an ungi-acious thing, nor spoken 
 an ungracious word, except that Speech, a few days before, which everybody 
 knew to be solely the work of his Ministers. On that ^londay morning, Consols 
 fell three per cent, in an hour and a half: careful citizens renewed the bolts and 
 bars of their doors, lined their shutters with iron plates , and laid in arms and 
 ammunition, in expectation of the sacking of London. Before the end of the 
 week, the most alarmed were laughing at the panic : but not only was the 
 mysterious panic a fearful thing at the moment, but the natural effects wore 
 very vexatious. There was a good deal of desultory and immeaning rioting, 
 by such disorderly citizens as thought that if they had the discredit, they might 
 as well have the fun. And, worse than this, an imfounded impression went 
 abroad through all the world, that it was not safe for the King of England to 
 pass through the streets of his own capital, to dine with its Chief Magistrate. 
 Day by day now, it became only a question of weeks about when the Ad- 
 ministration would go out ; — whether before the Christmas recess or after. 
 Before a single week from the panic, they were out. On the 15th, Sir Llenry 
 Parnell made his promised motion for a Select Committee to examine the 
 accounts connected with the Civil List. The debate was not long, the Minis- 
 ters declaring that simplification and retrenchment had been carried as far as 
 was possible : and the Opposition desiring to have it proved whether the 
 
 Change of Vi 
 
 MSTRY.
 
 Chap. I.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 19 
 
 matter was so. On the division, the government were left in a minority of 1830. 
 twenty-nine, in a House of 437 members. Mr. Hobhouse asked Sir Robert ^-ii-.,.-.i^^ 
 Peel whether the jNIinisters would retain their seats after such a division ; but "•"^""■d, i. 54*. 
 lie received no answer. He was about to press the question, when INIr. 
 Brougham proposed to wait till the next day for the answer and the appoint- 
 ment of the Committee just decided upon. The Committee, however, was 
 appointed at once : — the reply was waited for. The Ministers afterwards de- 
 clared that they might not have considered this division on the Civil List 
 reason enough for their resignation, by itself; but that they considered with 
 it the probable result of Mr. Brougham's motion for Parliamentary Refonu, 
 ■which was to be debated on the night after the Civil List question. 
 
 On that evening, the 16tli, the Duke of Wellington came do•n^l to announce 
 to the Lords that his resignation of office had been presented and acce^jted, 'i^"»a.d, i. oos. 
 and that he continued in his position only till Ids successor should have been 
 appointed. In the other House, Sir Robert Peel made the same declaration 
 on behalf of himself and all the other members of the administration. 
 
 Lord Althorp immediately requested Mr. Brougham to defer his motion on 
 Parliamentary Reform, which Avas too important to be debated while the 
 government of the country was in an unsettled state. Mr. Brougham ex- 
 pressed great reluctance, and threw the responsibility upon the House of 
 delapng the matter till the 25th, declaring that he would then bring it for- n»n"''d. '■ si"'- 
 ward, whatever might be the condition of circumstances, and whoever might 
 be his Majesty's Ministers. — No one had any doubt about who, in the main, 
 would be his Majesty's Ministers. It was well understood that the great day 
 was at hand when the British polity was to renew its youth and replenish its 
 life. Some who walked homewards from their parliamentary halls to their 
 own firesides, through the darkness of that November night, told each other 
 that a brighter sun than that of Midsummer was to arise to-mon-ow, encum- 
 bered and dimmed at first, probably, by clouds and vapours, but destined to 
 send down its vital warmth and light through long vistas of remote gene- 
 rations.
 
 20 IIISTOKY OF ENGLAND ['^'^"k J^' 
 
 The GRiiY Ml 
 
 NISIKV. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 1830. rpiIERE was no doubt in any quarter as to who would be the new Premier, 
 -L or what woukl be the general composition of the iNIinistiy. The anti- 
 Catholic party was broken up and humbled. The demand of the people for a 
 liberal government was strong ; and there was no one to say that it should 
 not be obeyed. The King requested Lord Grey to form a government ; and 
 he agreed to do so on condition that Reform of Parliament should be made a 
 Cabinet question ; a condition immediately gi-anted. As the news spread 
 through the land, it excited a stronger sensation than men of a futin-e time 
 could perhaps be easily made to understand. The interest felt for Lord Grey 
 was strong. Men remembered his advocacy of Refonn of Parliament in the 
 last century; his patient and dignified assertion of the principle and idtimate 
 necessity of the case during a long course of years, obscure and unprosperous 
 for him ; and the deep melancholy of his unhappy speech against Canning, 
 three years before, when he spoke of his own political career as over, and his 
 political loneliness as complete. Now, with more years upon his honoured 
 head, be stood at the summit of affairs, empowered to achieve with his own 
 hand the great object of his life and time, and surrounded by comrades of his 
 own choice and appointment. This trait of the time interested the hearts of 
 hundreds of thousands : but to the millions there was something far more 
 exciting still. The year which was closing was called the year One of the 
 People's Cause. 
 
 It was now fifteen years since the Peace. Of these fifteen years, the first 
 seven had been dark and troubled under a discouraging and exasperating Tory 
 rule, during wliich, however, by virtue of the Peace, good things were pre- 
 paring for a coming time. During the last eight years, there had been vicissi- 
 tudes of fortune — some exidtation and prosperity — more depression and dis- 
 tress, as regarded the material condition of the people : but the country had 
 been incomparably better governed. It was under this better government 
 that the people had learned striking and virtuous lessons about their own 
 power ; lessons which had prepared them to require wisely, and conduct mag- 
 nanimously, the greatest revolution in the history of their country. 
 
 It was in the leisure of the new peace that a multitude of minds had re- 
 ceived the idea, and made it their own, that the shortest and only safe way of 
 procuring all reforms and all good government was by making the representa- 
 tion as true as it could be made. This became the vital principle of the 
 political life of Great Britain as soon as the excitements of the war died away : 
 and it must long continue to be so. Among the many reasons wliich make 
 us now and for ever deprecate war, the chief is, and should ever be, that we 
 would not have the national mind and will called off from this great truth and 
 aim — that the first duty, and most unremitting obligation, of a people living 
 under a representative system is to make the representation true and perfect.
 
 rr/<^e/
 
 Chap. II.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 21 
 
 111 this year One of the People's Cause, the people were ready; and they were 1830. 
 blessed with rulers who were Avilling to make a beginning so large and decided 
 as to secure the permanence of the work, as far as they carried it, and its 
 certain prosecution through future generations. It is nothing that they did 
 not foresee this further prosecution, nor believe it when it was foretold to 
 them. Great deeds naturally so fill the conceptions and sympathies of the 
 doers that they are — except a great philosopher here and there — Finality- 
 men : but those who are not so immediately engaged see further, and re- 
 member that sound political institutions are made perfect very slowly, 
 and by a succession of improvements. There were many, therefore, who in 
 that day of exultation saw more cause for rejoicing than did those who were 
 proudest of the immediate triumplx. They saw in the Parliamentary Reform 
 of Lord Grey a noble beginning of a great work which it might take centuries 
 to perfect, and in every stage of which the national mind would renew its 
 strength, and gain fresh virtue and wisdom. They appreciated the greatness 
 of the first eifort, by which the impediments to true representation were to be 
 removed, and some steps taken towards a recognition of the vast commercial 
 interests which had risen up in modern times : but tliey saw that the due 
 equalization of the landed and commercial interests, and the true proportion 
 of the representation of property and nimibers could not be attained at a 
 stroke, and that much of the noble work of Parliamentary Eefomi must 
 remain to occupy and exalt future generations. The wisest and the most 
 eager, however, the oldest and the youngest, desiied nothing more than what 
 they now saw — their nation, as a whole, demanding and achieving its own 
 self-improvement, instead of ringing bells and firing cannon about bloody 
 victories obtained in the cause of foreign governments. 
 
 It was news enough for one day that this great era was opening, and that 
 Lord Grey stood on the tlu-eshold. By the next day, the people were eager to 
 know who were to be his helpers. The newspapers could not give the Ust of 
 the Ministry fast enough. In reading rooms, and at the corners of streets, 
 merchants, bankers, and tradesmen, took down the names, and carried them to 
 their families, reading them to every one they met by the way ; while poor 
 men who could not write, carried them well enough in their heads ; for most 
 of the leading names were of men knowai to such of the labouring class as 
 understood their own interest in the great cause just coming on. 
 
 Next on the list to Lord Grey was Lord Althorp, as Chancellor of the 
 Exchequer. He was known as an advocate of the Ballot ; as having been 
 forward in questions of retrenchment and rcfonu ; and as being a man, if of no 
 cinincnt vigour, of great benevolence, and an enthusiastic love of justice. His 
 abilities as a statesman were now to be tried. Mr. Brougham's name came 
 next. He was to be Lord Chancellor. It was amusing to see how that 
 announcement was every where received with a laugh : in most cases, with a 
 laugh which he would not have objected to — a laugh of mingled surprise, 
 exultation, and amusement. The anti-reformers laughed scornfully — dwelling 
 upon certain declarations of his against taking office, and upon his incompe- 
 tency as an equity lawyer ; facts which he would not himself have disputed, 
 but which his party thought should be put <iside by the pressure of the time. 
 To liis worshippers there was something comic in the thought of his vitality
 
 22 ' HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book IV. 
 
 1830. tixL'd down upon the Woolsack under the compression of the Chancellor's wig. 
 ^— — .^— ' .Some expected a world of uniiisement in sceinf> how he got on in a position so 
 new; how the wild and mercurial Harry Brougham M'ould comport himself 
 among the ])eers, and as the Head of the Law. Some expected from him the 
 realization of all that he had declared ought to be done by men in power : and 
 as the first and most certain boon, a scheme of National Education which he 
 woidd carry with all the power of his office and his pledged political character. 
 Others sighed while they smiled ; sighed to give up the popular member tor 
 Yorkshire, and feared that his country had had the best of him. Lord Lans- 
 downe, the President of the Council, was held in a quiet general respect. 
 Lord Durham, the Jolin George Lambton who had ever fought the people's 
 battle well, was hailed with great warmth. He was Lord Privy Seal. There 
 were some '* Canningites," who were received with good will without much 
 expectation. Charles Grant, President of the Board of Control ; Lord Pal- 
 merston. Foreign Secretary ; Lord Melbourne, Home Secretary ; and Lord 
 Goderich, as Colonial Secretary. The only anti-Catholic and anti-reform 
 member of the cabinet was the Duke of Richmond, who was Postmaster-Ge- 
 neral. How he found himself there was a subject of speculation on all hands. 
 The other members of the Cabinet were Sir James Graham, at the Admiralty ; 
 Lord Auckland, at the ]\Iint and Board of Trade ; and Lords Holland and 
 Carlisle. Out of the Cabinet, there were the names, among others, of Lord 
 John Russell, pledged to Parliamentary Reform ; Mr. Charles Poulett Thom- 
 son, pledged to Repeal of the Corn-laws ; and Sir Thomas Denman and Sir 
 William Home as Attorney and Solicitor General. Lord Anglesey was again 
 Viceroy of Ireland, and Lord Plunket the Irish Lord Chancellor. The Chief 
 Secretary for Ireland was Mr. Stanley. Such was the government about to 
 conduct the gi'eat organic change in the British Constitution which the anti- 
 reformers were still resolved should never take place. 
 
 There was a suspension of business in Parliament while the re-election of 
 ~ some of the ministers went on. One defeat was ludicrous enough. Mr. Stan- 
 ley, the heii- of the house of Derby, -Nvas thi-own out at Preston by Hemy Hunt, 
 who was not yet, it thus appears, seen thi'ough by all his followers as by 
 Bamford. 
 
 KEiitNcY Bill. xhe first busiiiess to be proceeded with was the Regency Bill, which had 
 already been delayed too long. By this Bill it was i)rovided, that in case of 
 the birth of a posthumous child of the King's, the Queen should be Regent 
 during the minority. In the other case, the Duchess of Kent was to be 
 Regent, if the Princess Victoria should come to the throne dining her 
 minority, unless, indeed, the Duchess should marry a foreigner. 
 
 Lord Wynford proposed a grant of additional powers to the magistracy in the 
 
 Hansard, i. 071;. distmbed districts, where matters were going on from bad to worse ; but the 
 ministers declared that the existing powers of the law were sufficient, if duly 
 put in force ; but they did not conceal their opinion that a more active and 
 sensible set of men might be brought into the commission of the peace. How 
 serious was the aspect of the times we find by the gazetting of an Order in 
 
 Annual Rcfisicr, Coiuicil that ths Archbisliop of Canterbury shouUl prepare a prayer for relief 
 from social disturbance ; which prayer ^vas to be read in all the episcopal 
 churches and chapels of England and Scolhmd. 
 
 Ainiiial KryisU'r, 
 1830, 1). lli.i.
 
 Chap. II.] DURIXG THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 23 
 
 In the Commons a select committee was appointed, on the motion of the 1830. 
 Chancellor of the Excheqner, to inquire what reductions could be made in the ~ — ^-^ ^ 
 salaries and emoluments of offices held by members of cither House of Parlia- '^J^^"*'- ^'"■ 
 ment, during the pleasure of the Crown. This was a gi-aceful beginning of 
 the business of retrenchment by the ministers — this offer to reduce, in the first uausard, i. nzi. 
 place, their own salaries. As the new administration had much to do in pre- 
 paring during the recess the great measures to which they were pledged, they 
 moved for a long inten'al, and parliament was adjourned to the 3rd of Febru- 
 ary, 1831. 
 
 At the close of this year One of the People's Cause, there was as much dis- f™- "" '"''- 
 turbance in Ireland as if the government in London had been composed of the 
 rankest anti-Catholics, O'ConncU set himself up against Lord Anglesey ; 
 organized insults to him on his anival ; encouraged tumultuous processions 
 and meetings, by which he was himself to be thanked for his advocacy of 
 Repeal of the Union ; and put out addresses, in defiance and reply to the pro- f.,3""j!|,|',^n^'2^^- 
 clamations of the Viceroy, the whole tenour of which was to rouse the strong — ^i-*- 
 passions of the Irish artisans and peasants against the government, the law- 
 and the imperial connexion, from which, at this juncture, so many benefits 
 might be expected. His interspersed exhortations were to observe the law ; 
 his influence went to excite that fever of the mind which is sure to throw off 
 law, sooner or later : and thus inauspiciously began the new reign of the popu- 
 lar Viceroy, Lord Anglesey. 
 
 By this time the dread of something more awful than Irish disturbance and T't ri:oicin. 
 Kentish rick-burning, was stealing into the heart of the nation. All reports 
 of the Asiatic Cholera which Englishmen had listened to, had been to their 
 ears and imaginations like the accounts which have come down to us of the 
 desolating plagues of the middle ages — something horrible to conceive of, but 
 nothing to be afraid of, as if it could ever reach us. But now it was known 
 — known by orders of the Privy Council — that the i)lague had spread from Annual R»gisi<T, 
 
 ... , ■ . ,,.,.. 1831), thrun. l!.0. 
 
 Asia into Europe, and was travelling north-westwards, exactly in the direction 
 of our islands. All that was at present proposed was an attention to the 
 Quarantine laws ; but the imagination of the people naturally went further 
 than the letters of the Privy Council. If George IV. and the Wellington ]\Ii- 
 nistry had lived Ihrough the year, its close woidd have been a season of almost 
 unequalled gloom. But the nation now had an honest-hearted and unselfish 
 King, a popular ministry, and a prospect of immeasurable political benefits. 
 So that it was in a mood, on the whole, of hope and joy that they saw the 
 expiration of the Year One of the People's Cause.
 
 24 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book IV. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 1831. T^IIE year 1831 opened gloomily. Thoso who believed that revolution was 
 ^— — '^—^ -■- at hand, feared to ■wish one another a happy new year ; and the anxiety 
 abont revolution was by no means confined to anti-reformers. Society was 
 already in a discontented and tumultuous state; its most ignorant portion being 
 acted upon at once by hardship at home and example from abroad ; and there 
 was every reason to expect a deadly struggle before ParliaTnentary Eeforni 
 could be carried. The ignorant and misled among the peasantry and artisans 
 looked upon the French and other revolutions as showing that men had only 
 to take affairs into their own hands, in order to obtain wliatever they wanted ; 
 and, in their small way, they took matters into their own hands. ^Machine- 
 
 te"'!'" °'"^°''" breaking went on to such an extent, that men were tried for the offence in 
 groups of twelve or twenty at a time ; and the January nights were lighted up 
 by burning barns and ricks, as the preceding months had been. On the 3rd 
 of January, a Manchester manufacturer was murdered in a manner w'hich gave 
 a shock to the whole kingdom. He left his father's house to go to tlie mill, in 
 the evening, when it was dark; he was brought home dead within ten minutes, 
 shot through the heart in the lane, by one of three men who were lying in wait 
 for him. The significance of the case lay in the circumstance that it was a 
 murder from revenge, occasioned by a quarrel about the Trade Union. There 
 was fear lest the practice should spread ; lest every manufacturer who refused 
 to employ men belonging to a Trade Union (and there were many such) should 
 be liable to be picked off by an assassin, appointed by lot to be tlie instru- 
 ment of the vengeance of his Union. A reward of 1000/. for the detection of 
 
 /8™"cimr's'"' ^^^ murderer was offered by the Secretary of State, and another 1000/. by the 
 father and family of the victim ; but no clue was obtained at the time, nor for 
 some years afterwards. 
 
 PnospKCToproN- ^s fQj. tJig danffers which miiilit follow upon the action of government 
 on the great question, the coolest heads had the strongest sense of them. The 
 apprehensions of the anti-reformers were all about the consequences of tlie 
 llcforni Bill, if carried. The apprehensions of the most thoughtful reformers 
 were of the perils attending its passage. On a superficial view it might 
 appear that the result was so certain that the Avay could not be much embar- 
 rassed ; but there was not only the anti-reforming aristocracy to be encountered 
 on the one hand, but large masses of malcontents on the other. In the esti- 
 mate of the anti-reform forces might be included — possibly, under certain cir- 
 cumstances — the sovereign ; certainly, the House of Peers ; — almost a whole 
 House of Peers, made desperate, not only by fear of loss of political power, 
 but by spoliation of what they considered their lawful, and a wholly inestima- 
 ble property : next, the aristocracy in the House of Commons and out of it 
 who had influence and property of the same kind at stake : and lastly, the
 
 Chap. III.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 25 
 
 whole body of Toryism in England ; a party never small, and at this limc 1831. 
 made particularly active and desperate by a sincere belief that the Constitution 
 ■was likely to be overthrown, and that the English nation would presently be 
 living under mob-rule. Large numbers of this party, who had not the remotest 
 interest in borough property, were as fierce against the Reform measure as the 
 peers themselves, from this tremendous fear. There was quite as nnich folly 
 among the lowest classes on the other side. The hungry and the despe- 
 rately ignorant, who are always eager for change because they may gain and 
 cannot lose, believed that Parliamentary Reform would feed and clothe them, 
 and bring work and good wages, and a removal of all the taxes. It was too 
 probable that a protracted opposition would raise these poor people in riot, and 
 turn the necessary revolution, from being a peaceable one, into an overthrow 
 of law and order. It is necessary to take note of this state of things, in order 
 to understand and appreciate the action of the middle classes during the two 
 following years. 
 
 While the Ministers were hard at work, preparing their mighty measure, 
 the middle classes were jireparing for their support. The action of the non- 
 electors during this month of January was as powerful a satire on the then 
 existing system of representation as could have been displayed. The vast 
 populations of Leeds, Birmingham, and Manchester, and countless hosts of 
 intelligent and enlightened tradesmen and artisans elsewhere, sent shoals of 
 petitions to parliament for a Reform of the House of Commons : and they did 
 something more effectual by forming Political Unions, or preparing for their 
 immediate formation, in case of need. This was the force which kept the 
 peace, and preserved us from disastrous revolution. These people knew what 
 they were about ; and they went calmly to their work. Of course, the anti- 
 reformers complained of compulsion — of extorted consent — of imconstitutional 
 forces being put in action. This was true ; since they themselves compelled 
 the compulsion, and called out the unconstitutional forces. There was no 
 question about the fact, but only about the justification of it. No one denies 
 that occasions may and do occur when the assertion of a nation's will against 
 either a corrupt government or a tyrannical party is -s-irtuous, and absolutely 
 requu-ed by patriotic duty. The fearful and trying question is, when this 
 ought to be done, and how men are to recognise the true occasion when it 
 comes. There probably never was an occasion when the duty was more clear 
 than now. The sovereign and his ministers were on the side of the people : 
 and if the opposing party should prove disloyal to sovereign and people, for the 
 sake of their own political power and mercenary interests ; if they held out till 
 the one party or the other must yield, it was for the interest of peace, law, 
 order, loyalty, and the permanence of the Constitution, that the class most 
 concenicd— the orderly middle class, Avho had the strongest conceivable 
 stake in the preservation of law and peace — should overstep the bounds of 
 custom, and occupy a debateable land of legality, in support of the majority of 
 the government and the nation. They felt that they occupied the strong 
 central position whereby they upheld the patriotic government above them ; and 
 repressed the eager, untaught, and impoverished multitude below them ; and 
 they saw that whatever might best secure the completion of the act which 
 must now be carried through, they must do. They therefore prepared them- 
 
 vni,. II. E
 
 26 
 
 HISTORY or ENGLAND 
 
 [Book \X 
 
 1831. 
 
 Ministerial De- 
 
 t'LAR^TItiN. 
 
 Hansard, ii. 1 IS. 
 
 Bill BRour.nT 
 
 FORWARD. 
 
 selves for all consoqucnccs of their determination that rarliaiiientary Keform 
 should take place. Some fonned themselves into Political Unions ; some held 
 themselves rtnuly to do so, if need should arise : all made a more rapid pro- 
 gress in political knowledge and thought than they could perhaps have ante- 
 cedently supposed possible in the time ; when the period of straggle anivcd, 
 they did their duty magnificently ; and their conduct staiuls for ever before 
 the world, a model of critical political action, and a giound of confidence iTi 
 the political welfare of England in all future times. 
 
 AVhcn the Houses re-assembled, on the 3rd of February, liord Grey made 
 the expected declaration that a measure of Parliamentary Reform was in rea- 
 diness to be brought forward in the other House. He intimated that the work 
 had been laborious, and, in its first stages, difficult ; but that it had been the 
 desire of the Ministers to prepare a scheme " which should be effective, with- 
 out exceeding the bounds of a just and well-advised moderation;" and that 
 they had succeeded to their wish, the Avhole Government being unanimous in 
 their adoption of the measure as an exponent of their principle and aim. "When 
 Lord John Russell afterwards brought the measure forward, he declared the 
 whole scheme to be Lord Grey's ; and there was assuredly no mind in England 
 which had more earnestly, or for more years, meditated the subject. The execu- 
 tion was universally understood to have been confided in chief to Lord Durham ; 
 and there was assuredly no heart more in the work, or more true to the jjrinciples 
 of popular freedom. The profoundest secrecy was observed as to the scope and 
 details of the measure, to the very last moment. It was of great consequence 
 that it should be so, in order that the eager friends and foes of the measure 
 should not rush into conflict on any misunderstanding or fragmentary know- 
 ledge. The very few persons who were necessarily admitted to the confidence 
 of the government felt this confidence to be a heavy burden. One, deeply en- 
 gaged, and hard-worked, said afterwards that he was almost afraid to sleep, lest 
 he should dream and speak of what his mind was full of. The great day of 
 disclosiue was the Istof^NIarch, when Lord John Russell had the honour — 
 though not a cabinet minister, but on account of his long advocacy of the cause 
 — of bringing forward the measure in the Commons. On that day, the friends 
 of the iMinistry had dinner-parties, where the guests sat watching the clock, 
 and waiting for tidings. The Lord Chancellor had promised the hostess of one 
 of these parties that no one should be earlier served with the news than she ; 
 and anxiously she sat, at the head of her table, till the packet was brought in 
 which the Lord Chancellor had despatched, the moment he found that Lord 
 John Russell had begun his speech. As she read aloud, exclamations of sur- 
 prise at the scope of the scheme burst forth. And so it was, all over the king- 
 dom. During the recess, some of the liberal papers had conjured the people to 
 receive thankfully whatever measure the Ministers might offer, and be assiu-ed 
 that, however inadequate, they could not have more. Other papers had been 
 more true to their duty, exhorting the people to take nothing less than the whole 
 of what they demanded. If they understood their principle, and were earnest in 
 their demand, they ought not to yield an inch of their ground. It now appeared 
 that there was no faltering on the part of the Ministers ; no desire that the 
 people should surrender an inch of their ground. They knew that there could 
 be no half-and-half dealing with borouglunongery. It was a vice which must
 
 CnAr. III.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 27 
 
 be extinguished, and not an indulgence which might be gradually weakened. 1831. 
 
 By this Bill, the practice of boroughmongery was cut up by the roots. This ' ' 
 
 was the essential feature of the measure. Whether the further reforms advo- 
 cated were complete or inadequate, this opened the way to all else. " Like 
 Sinbad," as was said at the time, " we have first to dash from our shoulders fZTontt"ii^ 
 the ' Old Man of the Sea,' and afterwards to complete our deliverance." It 
 will afterwards appear how partial was the representation proposed to be given, 
 and how inadequate and faulty were the constructive aiTaugements. But there 
 wore not two opinions at the time as to the Ministers having gone further than 
 anybody expected, and proposed a measure wliich could never be withdrawn 
 without a deadly struggle, nor stand without becoming a dividing line between 
 the old History of England and the new. 
 
 It was a great night — that night of the 1st of March, 1831 — when for the 
 first time a response was heard from within the vitiated House to the voice of 
 intelligence without. This House had long been the property or the tool of 
 powers and parties adverse to the general weal. While the world without had 
 been growing ^^•iser and more enlightened in political principle, this assembly 
 had made no progress, or had deteriorated, till the voice of general intelligence 
 had given it unmistakeable warning that it must either reform itself or succumb. 
 The last and effectual warning was the demand of an administration which 
 should invite the House of Commons to reform itself: and here, at least, on 
 this memorable night, was the response — the answering hail — for which the 
 stretched ear of the vigilant nation was listening, to the furthest boundary of 
 the empire. AVhile the occasion appeared thus serious to those who brought 
 it about, there were listeners, and not a few, in the House that night who could 
 not receive Lord John Russell's exposition otherwise than as an audacious jest. diJ m 'ila'' ^'" 
 Others came away at the end, and said they could give no clear account of it; 
 and that there was no need, as Ministers could have no other intention than to 
 render office untenable for those who must presently succeed them. Thus blind 
 were the anti-reformers, after all the long and threatening warnings they had 
 received. But a few hours opened their ej-es. The morning newspapers 
 exhibited the scheme, with all its royal and ministerial sanctions : and that 
 wliich appeared a jest the night before was noAv pronounced a revolution. 
 
 The proper occasion for giving a specific account of the Reform Act will be 
 wlien its provisions were finallv settled. It may suffice now to say that, in 
 tlie words of Lord Grey, " Representation, not Nomination, is the principle of 
 the Reform Bill :" that, in pursuance of this principle, sixty " rotten boroughs " 
 were deprived of the franchise ; and 1G8 borough seats were abolished. A few 
 small boroughs were retained — to the dissatisfaction of reformers generally — 
 for the purpose of admitting an order of members not likely to be returned for 
 large towns or counties, and providing for some little representation of the small- 
 borough class of citizens. The reformers were also sorry that fifiy-four mem- 
 bers were given to counties which had hitherto been opposed to popular inter- 
 ests ; and the stopjiing short at the representation of the middle classes was 
 disajjjjrovcd by a multitude in the middle and upper classes, as much as by the 
 excluded artisans themselves. Wise statesmen and observers know well that 
 the strongest Conservative power of a country like ours resides in the holders of 
 the smallest properties. However much the nobleman may be attaciied tu his
 
 28 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book IV. 
 
 1831. broad lands, and his mansions and parks, and the niiddlc-cdass manufacturer 
 " — — v-i— ^ Qj- professional man to the station and provision he has secured for his family, 
 this attachment is weak, this stake is small, in comiiarisou -with those of the 
 artisan who tastes the first sweets of property in their full relish. He is the man 
 to contend to the last gasp for the institutions of his country, and for the law 
 and order which secure to him what he values so dearly. The commonest 
 complaint of all made by the restless and discontented spirits of any time is 
 that their former comrades become " spoiled" from the moment they rise into 
 the possession of any ease, property, or social advantage ; and they do truly 
 thus become " spoiled" for any revolutionary or disorderly pin-pose. By all to 
 whom this fact was clear it was thought a mistake to have stopped at the pro- 
 posed point in the communication of the franchise : but they knew that it was an 
 error which might and would be corrected in a future time, and were content 
 to wait. They saw how the clumsy ancient methods of conducting political 
 affairs, in the rough, as it were, at the bidding of a few individual wills, were 
 giving way to the more comprehensive, refined, and precise methods of govern- 
 ment by representation ; and that, when this new jihilosophical practice had 
 gone somewhat further, the value of the artisan class, as the nicest of political 
 barometers, would be practically acknowledged. To them, to their union of 
 popular intelligence and strong love of property, would rulers and all propertied 
 classes hereafter look foi- the first warnings of approaching disturbance, the 
 earliest breathings of Conservative caution : and to representatives of this class 
 will a welcome assuredly be given in the councils of the nation, as our political 
 procedure improves in elevation and refinement. The reduction of the number 
 of members of the Commons was not at first objected to on any hand. As Lord 
 
 Hansard, ii. 1071. Johu Russcll obscrvcd, "it is to be considered that when this parliament is 
 reformed, there will not be so many members who enter parliament merely for 
 the sake of the name, and as a matter of style and fashion : " not so many, he 
 went on to say, who were travelling abroad during the whole session, or who 
 regarded the House as a pleasant lounge, and not an arduous field of duty. 
 The 168 displaced members were not therefore to be succeeded by an equal 
 number. There was to be a decrease of sixty-two, making the total nimibcr 
 of representatives 596. The parishes and suburbs of London were to send 
 eight new members, and the large towns in the pro-\ances thirty-four ; all these 
 together not equalling the new county representation. 
 
 KixFPTioN oFTHE Qn tliB wliolc. It was concluded by the Reform party that the measure should 
 be received as most meritorious and sufficiently satisfactory, on account of its 
 bold dealing with corruption ; — of its making a complete clearance for further 
 action: but that it was not a measure of radical reform. As a contemporary 
 
 Seven Adminis. obscrved, " Tlic grouud, limited as it is, which it is proposed to clear and 
 
 ra ions, ii. . ^ppj^ (.q ^|jp popular influence, will suffice as the spot desired by Archimedes for 
 the plant of the power that must ultimately govern the whole system." 
 
 It was thus that the authors of the measure expected it to be received by 
 the Reform party. In the course of the debates on the Bill in the House of 
 Peers, Lord Sidmouth, who supposed Lord Grey to have been carried by cir- 
 
 i,ircori.ordsio- cumstances far beyond his original intentions, said to him, " I hope God will 
 
 mouth, iii. 439, n • /.i.-t^.titisi'it »»m I'lTi 
 
 forgive you on account of this Bill: 1 don t think 1 can. lo which Ijord 
 Grey replied, " Mark my words : within two years you will find that we have
 
 Chap. III.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 29 
 
 become unpopular, for having brought forward the most aristocratic measure 1831. 
 that ever was 'proposed in parliament." Lord Althorp did not conceal his 
 opinion — he avowed it — that the Reform Bill was the most aristocratic Act 
 ever offered to the nation : and the wonder is who could doubt it while the 
 new county representation preponderated over the addition to the towns. The 
 inestimable virtue of the bill — that which made it the horror of the " borouah- 
 market " men, as the Marquess of Blandford called them, was the destruction 
 of borough property by the substitution of election for nomination. 
 
 As for the reception of the measure by its enemies — we have seen that when 
 Lord John Russell opened the business, it was supposed to be a jest, or a fac- 
 tious manoeuvre. The staid Hansard, usually so strictly adhering to bare 
 reporting, here gives us a 'passing glimpse of the aspect of the House when 
 Lord John Russell read the list of boroughs proposed for disfranchisement. 
 In the course of his reading " he was frequently interrupted by shouts of 
 laughter, cries of ' hear, hear ! ' from members for those boroughs, and various 
 interlocutions across the table." And what was it that they were about to Hansard, ii 1077. 
 lose ? There was a man living, speaking and preaching in those days, who 
 could convey more wisdom in a jest, more pathos in a burlesque sketch, than 
 other men could impress through more ordinary forms ; and he has left a pic- 
 ture of the " boroun-h-market " which, as the last and unsurpassed, ought to be Sydney smith's 
 
 , t:^ r r .,. 'o Works, iii. 126. 
 
 put on p,ermauent record : — " So lar from its bemg a merely theoretical im- 
 provement, I put it to any man, who is himself embarked in a profession, or 
 has sons in the same situation, if the unfair infliicnce of boroughmongers has 
 not perpetually thwarted him in his lawful career of ambition, and professional 
 emolument ? ' I have been in three general engagements at sea,' said an old 
 sailor — ' I have been twice wounded ; — I commanded the boats when the 
 French frigate, tlii' Astrolabe, was cut out so gallantly.' ' Then you are made 
 a post-captain ? ' ' No : I was very near it ; but Lieutenant Thompson cut 
 me out, as I cut out the French frigate: his father is to«ni-clerk of the borough 
 
 for which Lord F is member ; and there my chance was finished.' In the 
 
 same manner, all over England, you will find great scholars rotting on cura- 
 cies — brave captains starving in gan-ets — profound lawyers decayed and 
 mouldering in the Inns of Court, because the parsons, warriors, and advocates 
 of boroughmongers must be crammed to saturation, before there is a morsel of 
 bread for the man who does not sell his votes, and put his country up to auction : 
 and though this is of cvcry-day occun-ence, the borough system, we are told, is 
 no practical evil." .... " But the thing I cannot, and will not bear, is this : — 
 what right has this Lord, or that ^Marquess, to buy ten seats in parliament, in 
 the shape of boroughs, and then to make laws to govern me .' And how are 
 tliese masses of power redistributed ? The eldest son of my Lord is just come 
 from Eton — he knows a good deal about yEneas and Dido, Ajiollo and Daphne 
 — and that is all : and to this boy his father gives a six-hundredth part of the 
 power of making laws, as he would give him a horse, or a double-barrelled 
 gun. Then Vellum, the steward, is put in — an admirable man ; — he has raised 
 the estates — watched the progress of the family Road and Canal Bills — and 
 Vellum shall helj) to rule over the people of Israel. A neighbouring country 
 gentleman, ^Ir. I'lumpkin, hunts with my Lord-«-opens him a gate or two, 
 while the hounds arc running — dines with my Lord— agrees with my Lord —
 
 30 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book IV. 
 
 1831. ■wishes lie couW rival the Southdown sheep of my Lord — and upon Pluinpkin 
 ^ — ^^.— ^ is confoiTL-d a portion of the govenimont. Then there is a distant relation of 
 the same name, in the County Militia, with ■white teeth, -who calls up the car- 
 riage at the Opera, and is always wishing O'Connell was hanged, drawn, and 
 quartered — then a barrister, who has written an article in the Quarterly, and 
 is very likely to speak, and refute M'CuUoch ; and these five people, in whose 
 nomination I have no more agency than I have in the nomination of the toll- 
 keepers of the Bosphorus, are to make laws for me and my family — to put their 
 hands in my purse, and to sway the future destinies of this country ; and when 
 the neighhours step in, and beg permission to say a few words before these per- 
 sons are chosen, there is an universal cry of ruin, confusion, and destruction ; — 
 we have become a great people under Vellum and I'liimpkin — under ^'ellum 
 and Plumpkin our ships have covered the ocean — under Vellum and Plumpkin 
 our armies have secured the strength of the Hills — to turn out ^'cllum and 
 I'lumpkin is not Reform but Revolution." 
 
 In recognising the truth of this picture, and declaring that such a state of 
 things could not have endured much longer, we must remember the cost of 
 the breaking up to those who nobly volunteered to do it. The framcrs of the 
 Reform Bill were noblemen and gentlemen of high family, who were laying 
 down hereditary possessions of their own while requiring the same sacrifice 
 from others. The borough-wealth of the Russell family was known to be 
 enormous ; yet the Duke of Bedford cheered on Lord John Russell in his task. 
 If we read with tender admiration of loyal noblemen and gentry who brought 
 their wealth to the feet of an unprosperous sovereign, and made themselves 
 landless for the sake of their King, what must we feel at this great new spec- 
 tacle of the privileged classes divesting themselves of privilege for the sake of 
 the people — for the honour and integrity of the country? It was a great 
 deed : and posterity will ever declare it so. — It is objected by some that these 
 peers and gentlemen were well aware, and indeed openly avowed, that they 
 could not retain this kind of wealth, nor, perhaps, any other, if Reform of 
 Parliament were not granted : they apprehended a convulsion, and said so ; 
 declaring also that this was the reason why their reforms were made so promj)t 
 and sweeping. This is quite true : but it is precisely this which shows how 
 superior these men were to the selfish greed which blinded the eyes of their 
 opponents. They had open minds, clear eyes, calm consciences, and hands at 
 the service of their country; and they therefore saw things in their true light, 
 and tinned the pressure of an irresistible necessity into a noble occasion of 
 self-sacrifice, and disinterested care for the public weal ; while the opposite 
 order of borough-holders saw nothing, believed nothing, knew nothing, and 
 declared nothing, but that they would not part M'ith their hereditary property 
 and influence. When they protested that to take away their borough property 
 was " to destroy the aristocracy," they passed a severer satire upon their order 
 than could have been invented by any enemy. If the aristocracy of England 
 could not subsist but upon a rotten-borough foundation, it was indeed a differ- 
 ent order fi'om that which the world had, for many centuries, sujjposed : but no 
 one could look upon the dignified head of the Prime Minister, or the coun- 
 tenances of his self-sacrificing comrades in the House of Peers, without feeling 
 that the world was right, and that those who said any thing so derogatory to
 
 Chap. III.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 81 
 
 the aristocratic tenure in England Merc basely and sordidly wrong. Lord 1831. 
 Eldon was one of these ; and in his speech at the Pitt Club, supposing that 
 point granted, he went on to his view of the consequences ; in the cour.se of 
 M-liich we find him, who ought to have known better, falling into the vulgar 
 error of the aristocracy of supposing only one class of society to exist below 
 that wealthy one with which they arc compelled by their affairs to have 
 business. Lord Eldon, like others who must know better, included under one 
 head — " the lower classes" — every body below the wealthiest bankers — manu- 
 facturers, tradesmen, artisans, labourers, and paupers ; as we now and then 
 hear fine people confusing the claims of great capitalists and humble cottagers, 
 announcements in Town Hall meetings and gossip in servants' halls. Lord 
 Eldon must have known, but he seems to have forgotten, that there is a large 
 proportion of society, composed of the ignorant and hopeless classes, lying 
 below the rank from which he rose ; yet this is the representation he gives 
 of the happy state of the English people which was to be broken up by 
 the Reform lUll, through its destruction of the aristocracy. " The aristocracy 
 once destroyed," he declared to his brother Pittites, " the best supporters of 
 the lower classes would be swept away. In using the term ' lower classes' he 
 meant nothing offensive. How could he do so ? He himself had been one of 
 the lower classes. He gloried in the fact : and it was noble and delightful to 
 know that the humblest in the realm might, by a life of industry, propriety, 
 and good moral and religious conduct, rise to eminence. All could not become 
 eminent in public life — that was impossible ; — but every man might arriA'e at 
 honour, independence, and competence." 
 
 AVhat ! — every man ? — he whose early years are spent in opening and shut- 
 ting a door in a coal pit ; who does not know his own name, and never heard 
 of God .' — or any one of thousands of hand-loom weavers, who swallow opium 
 on Saturday nights, to deaden the pains of hunger on Suiidays ? — or the Dor- 
 setshire laboiu'er, whose only prospect is that his eight shillings a week may be 
 reduced to seven, and the seven to six, but never that his wages may rise ? 
 May " every man" of these arrive at honour, independence, and competence ? 
 Truly, Lord Eldon did his best to prove how sorely these "lower classes" 
 needed some kind of representation in parliament, or at least the admission 
 of some who might make known their existence and their claims. 
 
 The debate which followed the introduction of the Rcfoi-m Bill extended DEnAxn. 
 over seven nights, between seventy and eighty members delivering their views 
 in the course of that time. The adversaries of the measure argued on groimds 
 more contradictory than are often cxliibited, even on gi'cat occasions like the 
 present. Some cried out that democracy was henceforth in the ascendant, 
 while others were full of indignation that the qualification was raised, and so 
 many poor freemen disfranchised. Some complained of the qualification as 
 too low, and others as too high. Some insinuated pity for the sovereign, as 
 overborne by factious Ministers ; others were disgusted at the parade of the 
 King's sanction, and intimated that it was nothing to them what the King 
 thought. Of all the objections \ittercd, none rose higher in matter or tone 
 than a deprecation of change in a country which had been so great under the 
 old laws ; and a remonstrance against lessening the jiroportionate power of 
 the House of Lords.
 
 32 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book IV, 
 
 1831. <^'ri tlic side of the moasuic, tliore was a brief statement of objections on 
 
 • — — — — ' the score of deficiency ; but an agreement to work cordially for the Bill as it 
 was offered, in the hope of su])i)lyins its deficiencies afterwards. Many would 
 have desired an extension of the francliisc downwards, as well as upwards and 
 laterally, as was now provided by the removal of many restrictions. Yet 
 more liad hoped for the Ballot, to purify the elections, and for a shortening of 
 the duration of parliaments. But all agreed to relinquish their minor objects 
 for the time, to secure the overthrow of boroiigh-corruption : and the great 
 cry was agreed upon which from that hour rang through the land for above a 
 year — " The Bill — the whole Bill — and nothing but the Bill." 
 
 There was to be no division on the first reading. Neither party seemed dis- 
 posed to bring the matter to any test so soon : the Ministers apprehending 
 being left in a minority, and their opponents not being yet combined for an 
 imsriiFA..iNc. oraanized resistance. The Bill was read a first time on the 14th of jNIarcli. 
 
 And now began the great stir among the middle classes which kept tlic 
 country for nearly two years in a state which was called revolutionary, and 
 with justice ; but which showed with how little disturbance of the public 
 peace that prodigious growth of political sentiment can take place which is 
 the resulting benefit of a principled revolution. At each stage of the business 
 there was some disorder, and much noble manifestation of intelligence and 
 Avill. Illuminations were called for foolishly, at times, and windows broken — 
 especially at Edinburgh, in the course of this spring. Lists of placemen and 
 ])ensioners, containing incorrect items and invidious statements, wore handed 
 about at a season when it was dangerous to inflame the popular mind against 
 an aristocracy already too much vituperated. Many of the newspapers were 
 not only violent on their own side, but overbore all rights of opinion on the 
 other as insufierably as the rankest of the Tory journals : and, naturally enough, 
 a multitude of the ignorant believed that all the taxes would be taken off", and 
 that every man would have the independence and competence that Lord Eldon 
 talked about, if the Reform Bill passed, and regarded accordingly those who 
 stood between them and the Bill. These were the sins and follies of the time : 
 and it is marvellous that they were no worse. 
 
 Some will ask even now, and many would have asked at the time, whether 
 the determination of the Political Unions to march on London, in case of 
 need, was not the chief sin and folly of the time. We think not, while feeling 
 strong sympathy with those who come to an opposite conclusion. In judging 
 of the right and wrong of a case so critical, every thing depends on the 
 evidence that exists as to what the principles and powers of the opposing par- 
 ties really were. This evidence we shall find disclosed in the history of the 
 next year. Meantime, in the March and April of 1831, the great middle 
 class, by whose intelligence and determination the Bill must be carried, be- 
 lieved that occasion might arise for their refusing to pay taxes, and for their 
 marching upon London, to support the Kuig, the Administration, and the bulk 
 of the nation, against a small class of unyielding and interested persons. The 
 Political Unions made known the numbers they could muster, the Chairman 
 of the ]5irmingham Union declaring that they could send forth two armies, 
 each fully worth that which had won Waterloo. On the coast of Sussex, ten 
 thousand men declared themselves ready to march, at any moment : Northum-
 
 Chap. III.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 33. 
 
 bcrland was prepared in like maimer: Yorkshiie was up and awake ; and in 1831. 
 
 short, it might be said that the nation was read)' to go up to London, if want^l. " ■ ' 
 
 ^^'hen the mighty processions of the Unions marched to their meeting-gi-ounds, 
 the anti-reformers observed with a shudder that the towns were at the mercy 
 of these mobs. The toivns were at their mercy ; but they were not 
 mobs : and never were the good citizens r.iore safe. The cry was vehement 
 that the measure Avas to be carried by intimidation : and this was true. 
 The question was whether, in tliis singular case, the intimidation was 
 wrong. The Ministers were vehemently accused of resorting to popular aid, 
 and making use of all possible supports for the carrying their measure, in 
 violation of all established etiquette. Lord Eldon thought them extremely 
 vulgar, it is evident. The truth was that the popular aid resorted to them ; 
 and that they did consider the times too grave for etiquette, and the matter in 
 hand far too serious to be let di-op, when a momentary vacillation on their part 
 would bring on immediate popular convulsion. So, they did declare in public — 
 at the Lord Mayor's Easter dinner — what Lord Eldon thought " perfectly Life of Lord eu 
 unconstitutional" — that they had the King's confidence and good wishes : 
 they did wait in silence to see wliether it woidd become necessary for tlie Poli- 
 tical Unions to act : and they did not retire from office when left with a 
 majority of only one, but boro with all taunts and sneers, and preferred a 
 neglect of propriety and precedent to a desej tion of the cause to vriiich they 
 liad pledged their fidelity. We cannot reckon any of these things, though 
 irregular and portentous, among the sins and folHcs of the time, but rather 
 among its noblest leatui'es. — Among these we should reckon also a public 
 Declaration against the Bill, put forth by several hundreds of merchants, 
 bankers, and eminent citizens of London : a Declaration which, though jJlyTs'sf.'^J!!"' 
 proved mistaken in its view, was in its diction and manner calm, loyal, and 
 courageous. If the opposition of the anti-reformers generally had been more 
 of this character, there woidd have been less marshalling of Political Unions. 
 
 Some of the experienced old Conservatives thought it one of the sins and 
 follies of the time that their own party made no preparation for combined 
 action against the Bill. It was on the second reading that the Ministers had second RuADi.Nr:. 
 been left \A-itli a majority of one, in the fullest House ever known to have Hansard, iii. soj. 
 divided — the numbers being, besides the Speaker and the four Tellers, 302 to 
 301, making a House of G08. The Ministers did not resign on this; and the 
 people illuminated because they did not. The Easter holidays were at hand ; 
 and immediately after, the Bill was to be considered in Committee. These 
 Easter holidays were the time when, as the experienced old Conservatives 
 thought, their party sliould have been organizing for opposition : but the party 
 were very confident that it was quite unnecessary to take sucli trouble. The 
 late vote had shown that t]ie AVhigs coidd not carry their measin-c. They 
 were, their opponents declared, a factious set, who vulgarly staid in office as 
 long as possible, and -.ore prejiaring all possible trouble for their successors : 
 but tliey were now proved too weak in the Commons to be formidable to the 
 Lords. " All A\-ill be lost," Lord Eldon wrote in this interval, " by the confi- I'feof r-ord ei. 
 dence with which people act, and with whicli they persuade tliemselves that 
 all will be sale. Lord Sidmouth, on tlic day in which the second reading of 
 
 vol.. n. F
 
 Msrtus. 
 
 34 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book IV. 
 
 1831. tlie Bill was carried, spoke to mc of the majority by which it woukl undoubt- 
 edly be lost and negatived. And now the few, very few individuals here whom 
 I sec, speak of the rejection of the IJill, as if it was certainly to be rejected, 
 though no two persons agree as to what shall be the course of the measures 
 by Avhich its rejection can be accomplished." 
 ^"^'ul '"' '*''■ ^^^ ^^^'^ ^'^'^^^ °^ April, the Commons went into Committee on the lleform 
 Bill ; and on the 19th, Ministers were defeated on the point of reducing the 
 number of members in the House. General Gascoyne moved that the numbers 
 Hansard, iii. 1088. sliould not be rcduccd J and he obtained a majority of eight over JNIinisters. 
 
 On the 21st, or rather on the morning of the 22nd, there was another defeat, 
 which brought matters to a crisis. The Opposition, after losing much time in 
 talking about any thing but the question before the House, refused to go into 
 the consideration of a question of Supply. They moved and carried an ad- 
 jom-nment against the Chancellor of the Exchequer, leaving Ministers in a mi- 
 Hansard, iii. '.805. nority of 22. Tliis act of the Ojjposition was looked upon, by some stretch of 
 construction, as a refusal of the Supplies. In the morning, the Ministers 
 offered their resignations to the King : but he would not accept them. He 
 desired that they should go on with the Refomi Bill, and get it canied as well 
 as they could ; but, unfortunately, though very naturally, he objected to the 
 first mcasme which they considered essential — the dissolution of the new 
 parliament, now in the midst of its first session. 
 TniE Crisis Thougli othcr parts of that mighty struggle might appear more imposing, 
 
 more dangerous, more awful, in the eyes of common observers, the real crisis 
 lay within the compass of this day — the 22nd of April. The Ministers them- 
 selves said so afterwards. When, in a subsequent season, the very ground 
 shook with the tread of multitudes, and the broad heaven echoed with their 
 shouts, and the peers quaked in their House, and the world seemed to the 
 timid to be turned upside down, the ilinisters were calm and secure : they 
 knew the event to be determined, and could calcidate its very date : whereas 
 now, on this 22nd of April, they found themselves standing on a fearful 
 INlohammedan bridge — on the sharp edge of chance, with abysses of revolution 
 on either hand. The people were not aware of the exigency ; and the Minis- 
 ters were not, for the moment, aided by pressm-e from without. The doubt — 
 the critical doubt — was whether the King could be persuaded to dissolve the 
 parliament. 
 
 The probable necessity of this course, and the King's repugnance to it, had 
 been discussed throughout London for some days, and especially on the pre- 
 ceding day. The Administration and the cause were injured by the under- 
 stood difficidty with the sovereign ; and it was in a manner perfectly unprece- 
 dented that Lord Wharncliffe, on the night of the 21st, had asked Lord Grey 
 Hansard, iii. 1V41. in the Housc wliethcr Ministers had advised the King to dissolve parliament. 
 On Lord Grey declining to answer the question. Lord Wharncliffe gave notice 
 that he should move to-morrow an address to the King, remonstrating against 
 such a proposed exertion of the royal prerogative. — After what happened in 
 the other House at a later hour, there was nothing to be done but to enforce 
 upon the King the alternative of losing his TNIinisters or dissoh-ing parlia- 
 TiiF Pii.Acr. ment ; and the next morning, Lord Grey went to the palace for the pui-pose
 
 Cri.vp. III.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 35 
 
 of procuring a decision of the matter. He and a colleague or two walked 1831. 
 
 quietly and separately across the Park, to avoid exciting notice. For some -^"^ 
 
 hours there appeared little chance of a decision ; but at length the perplexed 
 sovereign began to see his way. He was yielding — had yielded — but with 
 strong expressions of reluctance, when that reluctance ■was suddenly changed 
 into alacrity by the news which was brought him of the tone used in the 
 House of Lords about the impossibility that he would actually dissolve parlia- 
 ment, undoubted as was his constitutional power to do so. — What ! did they 
 dare to meddle ^^-ith his prerogative ? the King exclaimed : he would presently 
 show them what he could and would do. He had given his promise ; and now 
 he would lose no time : he would go instantly — that very moment — and dis- 
 solve jiarlianient by his own voice. — " As soon as the royal carriages could be 
 got ready," his JNIinisters agreed. " Never mind the carnages ; send for a 
 hackney coach," replied the King : — a saying which spread over the kingdom, 
 and much enhanced his popularity for the moment. 
 
 Lord Durham ran down to the gate, and found but one carriage waiting ; — 
 the Lord Chancellor's. He gave orders to drive fiist to Lord Albemarle's — 
 the Master of the Horse. Lord Albemarle was at his late breakfast, but 
 started up on the entrance of Lord Durham, asking what was the matter. 
 " You must have the King's carriages ready instantly." — " The King's car- 
 riages ! Very well: — I will just finish my breakfast." — " Finish your break- 
 fast ! Not you ! You must not lose a moment. The King ought to be at 
 the House." — "Lord bless me! is there a revolution.'" — "Not at this 
 moment ; but there ■N^ill be if you stay to finish your breakfast." — So the tea 
 and roll were left, and the royal carriages di'ove up to the palace in an incre- 
 dibly short time. — The King was ready and impatient, and walked with an 
 unusually brisk step. And so did the royal horses, in their passage through 
 the streets, as was observed by the curious and anxious gazers. 
 
 Meantime, the scenes which were taking place in the two Houses were such 
 as could never be forgotten by those who witnessed, or who afterwards heard 
 any authentic account of them. 
 
 The peers assembled in unusual numbers at two o'clock to hear Lord tme lokos. 
 "Wharncliffe's motion for an addiess to his Majesty, praying that his Ma- 
 jesty would be gi-aciously pleased not to exercise his undoubted prerogative 
 of dissolving parliament ; every one of them being in more or less expectation 
 that his lordshij)'s speech might be rendered unavailing by some notification 
 from the throne, though few or none probably anticipated such a scene as took 
 place. 
 
 Almost immediately, the Lord Chancellor left the woolsack. Could he be 
 gone to meet the King ? — Lord Shaftesbury was called to the chair, and Lord 
 Wharnclitfe rose. As soon as he had opened his lips, the Duke of Eichmond, 
 a member of the Administration, called some of their lordships to order, re- 
 questing that, as bound by the rules, they would be seated in their proper Hanmrd, iii. isuc. 
 places. This looked as if the King was coming. Their lordships were angr\'; 
 several rose to order at the same time, and said some sharp things as to who 
 or what was most disorderly; so that the Duke of Richmond moved for th(> 
 Standing Order to be read, that no offensive language should be used in that
 
 36 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book IV. 
 
 1831. House. Ill the midst of this lordly wrangling, and of a confusion of voices 
 ^— ^-^— ' rising into cries. Boom ! came the sound of cannon which announced that 
 the King was on the way! — Some of the peeresses had by this time entered, 
 to witness the spectacle of the pioiogation. For a few minutes, something 
 like order was restored, and Lord Wharncliffe read his proposed Address, 
 which was as strong a remonstrance, as near an approach to interi'erence with 
 tlie royal prerogative, as might he expected fii'om the occasion. — The Lord 
 Chancellor re-entered the House, and, without waiting for a pause, said, with 
 Hansard, in. 1807. strong cmphasis, " I never yet heard that tlie Crown ought not to dissolve 
 parliament whenever it thought tit, particularly at a moment when the House 
 of Commons had thought lit to take the extreme and unprecedented step of 
 refusing the Supplies." — Before he could be frnther heard for the cries of 
 " Hear, hear!" shouts were intermingled of " The King! the King!" and the 
 Lord Chancellor again rushed out of the House, rendering it necessary for 
 Lord Shaftesbury to resume the chair. Every moment now added to the 
 confusion. The hubbub, lieard beyond the House, reached the ear of the 
 King — reached his heart, and roused in him the strong spirit of regality. 
 The peers grew violent, and the peeresses alarmed. Several of these high- 
 born ladies, who had probably never seen exhibitions of vulgar wTath before, 
 rose together, and looked about them, when they beheld theii- lordships below 
 pushing and hustling, and shaking their hands in each others' faces. 
 
 Lord Mansfield at length made himself heard ; and he spoke strongly of 
 the "most a\\'ful predicament" of the King and the country, and on the 
 conduct of Ministers in " conspiring together against the safety of the State, 
 lla.]^ard, lii. 1808. Hnd of making the sovereign the instrument of his own destruction ;" words 
 which naturally caused great confusion. He was proceeding when the sliout 
 again arose "The King! the King!" and a commanding voice was heard over 
 all, solemnly uttering " God save the King !" Lord Mansfield proceeded, 
 however. The great doors on the right side of the throne flew open : still his 
 lordship proceeded. Lord Durham, the first in the procession, appeared on 
 the threshold, carrying the crown on its cushion : still his lordship proceeded. 
 The King appeared on the threshold ; and his lordship was still proceeding, 
 when the peers on either side and behind laid hands on him, and compelled 
 him to silence, while his countenance was convulsed with agitation. 
 
 The King had a flush on his cheek, and an unusual brightness in his eye. 
 He walked rapidly and firmly, and ascended the steps of the tlu-one with a 
 kind of eagerness. He bowed right and left, and desired their lordships to be 
 seated wliile the Commons -were summoned. For a little time it appeared 
 doubtful whether even the oil of anointing would calm the tossing waves of 
 strife : but, after all, the peers were quiet sooner than the Commons. 
 THE Commons. Tliat House too was crowdcd, expectant, eager, and passionate. Sir 
 Hamard, m. 1811 j^igj^^jij yyyyan yras the spokesman of the Opposition; and a very strong 
 one. A question of order arose, as to whether Sir Richard Vyryan was or 
 was not keeping within the fair bounds of his subject — which was a Reform 
 petition ; whereas he was speaking on " dissolution or no dissolution." The 
 Speaker appears to have been agitated from the beginning : and tliere were 
 several members who were not collected enough to receive his decisions with
 
 Chap. III.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 37 
 
 the usual deference. Honourable members turned upon each other, gi-owing 1831. 
 
 co7itr;ulictious, sharp, angTy — even abusive. Lord John Russell attempted to ^ ' 
 
 make liimself heard, but in vain : — his was no voice to pierce through such a 
 tumult. The Speaker was in a state of visible emotion. Sir Eichard Vyvyan, 
 however, regained a hearing; but, as soon as be was once more in full flow. 
 Loom ! came the cannon which told that the King was on his way ; and the 
 roar drowned the conclusion of the sentence . Not a word more was heard for 
 the cheers, the cries — and even shouts of laughter — all put down together, at 
 regular intervals, by the discharges of artillery. At one moment. Sir Robert 
 Peel, Lord Althorp, and Sir Francis Burdett, were all using the most vehement 
 action of conmiand and supplication in dumb show, and their friends were 
 labouring in vain to procure a hearing for tliem. The Speaker himself stood 
 silenced by the tumult, till the cries took more and more the sound of " Shame ! 
 shame !" and more eyes were fixed upon him till he could have made himself 
 lieard, if he had not been too much moved to speak. When he recovered 
 voice, he decided that Sii- Robert Peel was entitled to address the House. 
 With occasional uproar, this was permitted ; and Sir Robert Peel was still 
 speaking when the Usher of the Black Rod appeared at the Bar, to simimon 
 the Commons to his Majesty's presence. Sir Robert Peel continued to s])eak, 
 loudly and vehemently, after the appearance of the Usher of the Black Rod : 
 and it was only by main force, by pulling him down by the skirts of his coat, 
 that those near him could compel him to take his scat. 
 
 The hundred members who accompanied the Speaker to the presence of the 
 King rushed in " very tumultuously." There is an interest in the mutual 
 addresses of Sovereign and People in a crisis like this which is not felt in 
 ordinary times ; and the words of the Speaker first, and then of the King, 
 were listened to with extreme eagerness. 
 
 The Speaker said: " May it please your Majesty, we your Majesty's jnost "^''"■''' "'■""'• 
 faithful Commons approach your jMajesty with profound respect ; — and. Sire, 
 in Tio period of our history, have the Commons House of Parliament more 
 faithfully responded to the real feelings and interests of your Majesty's loyal, 
 dutiful, and affectionate people ; while it has been their earnest desire to sup- 
 ])ort the dignity and honour of the Cro^\'n, upon which depend the greatness, 
 the happiness, and the pros])crity, of this country." 
 
 The King spoke in a firm, cheerful, and dignified tone and manner. The 
 speech, which besides referred only to money-matters and economy, and to 
 our state of peace with foreign powers — began and ended thus : — " I have come 
 to meet you for the purpose of proroguing this parliament, with a view to its 
 immediate dissolution. I have been induced to resort to this measure, fur the prorocahon. 
 purpose of ascertaining the sense of my people, in the way in which it can be 
 most constitutionally and most authentically expressed, on the expediency of 
 making such changes in the Representation as circumstances may appear to 
 require, and which, founded upon the acknowledged ])rinciplcs of the Consti- 
 tution, may tend at once to uphold the just rights and prerogatives of the 
 
 Crown, and to give security to the liberties of the People In resolving 
 
 to recur to the sense of My People, in the present circumstances of the coinitry, 
 I have been influenced only by a paternal anxiety for the cuntentnicnt and
 
 38 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book IV. 
 
 1831. happiness of my subjects, to promote which, I rely with confidence on your 
 ~--^--^'^-' continued and zealous assistance." 
 
 " It is over!" said those to each other who understood the crisis better than 
 it was apprehended by the nation at large. "All is over!" whispered the 
 anti-reformers to each other. The members of both Houses ■\\ent home that 
 Ajjril afternoon hoarse, heated, exhausted — conscious that such a scene had 
 never been witnessed within the walls of parliament since Cromwell's days. 
 The Ministers went home, to take some rest, knowing that all wa.s safe : — that 
 is, that to the people was now fairly committed the People's Cause. 
 DissouurioN. A proclamation, declaring the dissolution of the parliament, appeared next 
 
 dav : and the new writs were made returnable on the 14th of June.
 
 Chap. IV.J DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 39 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE People thoroughly understood that their cause was now consigned to 1831. 
 their own hands. In all preceding " revolutions"^ to adopt the term ■ ' 
 
 used by the anti-reformers — they had acted, when they acted at all, under the general elec 
 direction of a small upper class who thought and understood for them, and used """' 
 them as instruments. Now, the thinkers and leaders were of every class, and 
 the multitude acted, not only under orders, but in concert. If for every noble- 
 man and legislator who desired Parliamentary Reform for distinct jjolitical 
 reasons there were hundreds of middle-class men, for every hundred middle- 
 class men there were tens of thousands of the working classes who had an 
 interest, an opinion and a will in the matter which made them, instead of mere 
 instnnnents, political agents. The whole countless midtitude of reformers had 
 laid hold of the principle that the most secure and the shortest way of obtain- 
 ing what they wanted was to obtain representation. This was a broad, clear 
 truth which every man could understand, and on which every earnest man was 
 disposed to act as men are wont to act on clear and broad truths : and the non- 
 electors felt themselves called upon to put forth such power as they had, as a 
 means to obtaining the power which they claimed. The elections were, to a 
 wonderful extent, carried by the non-electors, by means of their irresistible 
 power over those who had the suffrage. Times were indeed changed since the 
 centmy when Leeds and Manchester had, for a short time, been allowed to 
 send members to parliament in Cromwell's days, and had then again been , 
 
 quietly disfranchised, almost without a murmur on any hand. In those old 
 days, these populous towns had been admitted to the representation because 
 legislators, looking abroad from their point of survey, saw that in reason they 
 ought to be. They were to be represented now because the inhabitants them- 
 selves demanded it, for reasons which it was their turn to propound. For some 
 time they had been preparing to enforce their demand : and tlie first obvious 
 occasion for action was now, when a House of Commons was to be returned 
 whose special business it was to reform itself. 
 
 The great unrepresented to■^^•ns were co-ojierated with all over the country — pmi nu AmoN. 
 even in rural hamlets, and scattered farm-steads. In such places, half a dozen 
 labourers would club their earnings to buy a weekly newspaper (these costing 
 sevenpcnce,'at first price) on the second day ; and the one who could read best 
 read aUmd the whole of the debates after the memorable 1st of March, to his 
 companions, as they crowded round him in a shed, by the light of a single tallow 
 candle. Rural artisans walked miles after working hours to the nearest towns, 
 to learn what was posted up ou the walls, and said in i)nblic liouses. By the 
 time the elections were to take place, tens of thousands of working men knew 
 something more than the mere names of Russell, Grey, and Brougham, and 
 tlieir leading opponents : — they knew their ways of thinking and speaking,
 
 40 HISTORY or ENGLAND [Book IV, 
 
 1831. their aims and tlicir plans ; and this was an inestimahlo lielp in showing such 
 political students what to do. It is true, few of" these novices were very wise 
 on their great subject, and a multitude were ignorant and prejvidieed : — some 
 wished for foreign war, and some for civil war, as a vent for their own pugna- 
 city : — some were for persecuting their neighbours who differed from them : — 
 and others drew glorious jiicturcs of tlie wealth tliey should all enjoy when 
 every man had a vote, and had voted away all the taxes : but even tlic most 
 ignorant and unreasonable were in a better condition than before — more able 
 to understand reason — more fit to be influenced by their wiser neighbours — 
 better qualified to trust the authors and influential promoters of the great 
 measure. As for the higher orders of non-electors, the intelligent men of the 
 towns — by combining their lights, they easily saw what to do. They combined 
 their will, their knowledge, and their manifest force, in Political Unions, whence 
 they sent forth will, knowledge, and influence, over wide districts of the land. 
 And the electors, seeing the importance of the crisis — the unspeakable import- 
 ance that it sliould be well conducted — joined these Unions, and by their 
 weight of character, intelligence, and station, preserved them from much folly 
 and aimless effort, kept up tlie self-respect and sobriety of the best of the non- 
 (dectors, and curbed tlie violence of the worst. Wealthy capitalists, eminent 
 bankers, members of the late parliament, and country gentlemen, agreed over 
 their wine that they ought to join the Political Union of the district, and went 
 the next morning to enrol themselves. When face to face in their meetings 
 with their neighbours of lower degree, they taught and learned much : — new 
 openings for action appeared ; — daily opportunities offered for spreading know- 
 ledge, proposing soimd views, and discountenancing violence. They were 
 startled by sudden apparitions of men of minds superior to their own — men of 
 genius and heroism — rising up from the most depressed ranks of non-electors ; 
 and they, in their turn, were found to be imbued with that respect for men as 
 men which is the result of superior education, but which the poor and depressed 
 too often conceive not to exist among the idle independent, whom they are apt 
 to call the proud. Such was the preparation going forward throughout the 
 country Mhile the ministers were at their work in London ; — the rapid social 
 education of all ranks, which may be regarded as another of the ever-springing 
 blessings of the Peace, and by which the great transition from the old to the 
 new parliamentary system was rendered safe. That the amount of ■s'iolence 
 was no greater than it was remained, and still remains, a matter of astonish- 
 ment to the anti-reform party, and was a blessing scarcely hoped for on the 
 other side. After the Three Days in Paris, in the preceding July, thoughtful 
 Englishmen asked each other with anxiety, whether it was conceivable that 
 their own countrymen would behave, in a similar crisis, with such chivalrous 
 honour and such enlightened moderation as the French populace. Tlie 
 question was not now precisely answered, because the crisis was not similar — 
 the British King and liis Ministers being on the side of the people, and the 
 conflict being only with a portion of the aristocracy of birth and wealtli : but 
 there was enougli of intelligence and moral nobleness in the march of the 
 Enghsh movement to inspire Englishmen with a stronger mutual respect and a 
 brighter political hope than they had ever entertained before.
 
 CiiAP. IV.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 41. 
 
 Such evidence as there was at present, was window-breaking on illumination 1831. 
 
 nights, and hiistlings and threatenings in the streets, at the election time, ' '^^ — ' 
 
 which compelled some anti-reform candidates and their agents to hide them- 
 selves. A few scattered instances of this kind of disturbance occm-red in 
 England ; and in Scotland the liots were really formidable. The anti-reformers 
 there carried all before them, from their possessing almost a monopoly of poli- 
 tical power. These election days and illumination nights are the occasions 
 when brawlers and thieves come forth to indulge their passions and reap their 
 harvest : and in Edinburgh and Loudon they made use of their opportunity, 
 to the discredit of the popular cause. On the dissolution of parliament, the 
 Lord Mayor sanctioned the illumination of London : and the windows of the ''"'^'• 
 Duke of Wellington, Mr. Baring, and other leading anti-reformers, were 
 broken. After the Edinburgh election, the Lord Provost was attacked on the 
 North Bridge, and with difficulty rescued by the military. We happen to know 
 what was thought on the occasion by a reformer noted for his radicalism : "As Auto-hiograrhynf 
 dash went the stones," he says, " smash fell the glass, and crash came the iot.s. " ' 
 window-frames, firom nine o'clock to near midnight, reflection arose and asked 
 seriously and severely what this meant : — was it reform { was it popular 
 liberty ? Many thousands of others who were there must have asked them- 
 selves the same (piestions The reform newspapers were content to say 
 
 that the riots reflected no discredit on reformers ; the rioters were only ' the 
 blachjnards of the to^vii.' .... I believe that there is now one problem 
 solved by experience which was hidden in futurity then — namely, that the 
 greater the number of men enfranchised, the smaller is the number of ' black- 
 guards.' " 
 
 The election cry was " The Bill, the whole Bill, and nothing but the 
 Bill :" and the result was that such an assemblage of reformers was returned 
 that their opponents styled them a company of pledged delegates, and no true 
 House of Commons. And it was certain that such a thing as they called a new hoi 
 true House of Commons they would never more see. Out of eighty-two 
 county members only six were opposed to the Bill. Yorkshire sent four Ar.nuai Register, 
 reformers ; and so did London. General Gascoyne was driven from I<iver- 
 pool. Sir Richard Vyvyan fi-om Cornwall, Sir Edward Knatchbull from Kent, 
 and Mr. Bankcs from Dorsetshire. The Duke of Newcastle could, this time, 
 do nothing with his " o'mi." The most remarkable defeat of the Ministerial 
 party, but one which was sure to happen, was at Cambridge University, where 
 Lord Palmerston and Mr. Cavendish were driven out by Mr. Goulburn and 
 Mr. W. Peel. 
 
 After re-electing the Speaker, and hearing from the King's own lips a re- 
 commendation to inulertake the Reform of their House, the Commons went to 
 work again. The Bill was introduced on the 24th of June ; but the second 
 reading stood over till the -Ith of July, that the Scotch^and Irish Refonn Bills second reforv 
 might be brought in. The debate lasted three nights, when a division was "''" 
 taken on the second reailing, which gave the Ministers a majority of 136 in a 
 House of 598 members. n.insard, iv. goo. 
 
 It was clear that the ^linisters were so strong that they were sure of their 
 own way in this House : but the strain upon the temper and patience of the 
 large majority was greater than they would have supported in a meaner cause, 
 vol.. II. G 
 
 SE OP 
 
 Commons.
 
 42 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book IV. 
 
 1831. When we remember that the minority sincerely believed that they were now 
 ^— — ^^-^^ witnessing the last days of the Constitution, we cannot wonder at their deter- 
 mination to avail themselves of all the forms of the House, and of every pass- 
 ing incident, to delay tlie destruction of the country. They avowed their 
 purpose, and they adhered to it witli unflinching obstinacy. Tlie House went 
 roMMirriE. into Committee on the 12th of July; and it was at once evident that every 
 borough was to be contended for, every population return questioned, every 
 point debated on wliich an argument could be hung ; and this, not on 
 account of the merits of the case, but merely to protract the time, and leave 
 room for " Fate, or Providence, or something," to interfere. If at midnight, 
 in the hot glare of the lamps, any member dro]ipcd asleep, a piqued orator would 
 make that a cause of delay, that he might be properly attended to to-morrow : 
 and another time, the House would sit till the summer sunsliine was glittering on 
 the breakfast tables of the citizens, the Opposition hoping to wear out the vigi- 
 lance of the proposers of the Bill. The people grew angry, and the newspapers 
 spoke their wrath. It was all very well, they said, to insist on the fullest dis- 
 cussion of every principle : but to wrangle for every item, after the principle 
 liad been settled — to do this with tlie avowed object of awaiting accidents, and 
 in defiance of the declared will of the nation at large, was an insolence and 
 obstruction not to be borne. When, towards the end of the month, people 
 besran to ask when and how this M'as to end, the Ministers moved that the 
 Reform business should take precedence of all other ; and it was arranged that 
 the discvission should proceed from five o'clock every day. Before August 
 came in, however, signs appeared of an unappeased discontent on the jjart of 
 the non-electors, who dreaded lest the heats of August in town and the 
 attractions of that month in the Scotch moors should draw off their champions 
 from their duty : and it became known in the House that a conference had 
 taken place between the Political Unions of Birmingham, Manchester, and 
 Glasgow, in order to agree how long they would wait. The majority in the 
 House thought it right to intimate such facts, to prove the danger of the times. 
 The minority called it stifling discussion by threats, and considered whether 
 they could not be a little slower still, inassertionof their constitutional right of 
 debate. Weeks passed on: the summer heats rose to their height, and 
 declined : the days shortened : Hon. members, haggard and nervous, worn 
 with eight hours per night of skirmishing and wrangling, pined for fresli air 
 and country quietness; and still every borough, and every population statement 
 was contested. It was the 7th of September before the Committee reported. 
 On the 13th and two following days the Eeport was considered, when only a 
 few verbal amendments were proposed. The final debate occupied the even- 
 Hirsarf, vii. 464. lugs of the 19th, 20th, and 21st of September ; and at its close, the Bill passed 
 the' common""' the Commons by a majority of 109 ; the numbers for and against being 345 to 
 236. Both London and the country had grown tired of waiting, and had 
 somewhat relaxed their attention when they found that the members might be 
 relied on for remaining at their posts : but on this occasion, all were as eager 
 as ever. The House was surrounded by crowds, who caught up the cheers 
 wdthin on the announcement of the majority ; — cheers which were renewed so 
 perseveringly that it seemed as if the members had no thoughts of going home. 
 There was little sleep in London that night. The cheering ran along the
 
 CiiAr. IV.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. • 43 
 
 streets, ami was caught up again and again till morning. Such of the peers 1831. 
 as ■wore in town, awaiting their share of the business, which was now inime- ^— — — — 
 diatcly to begin, must have heard the shouting, the whole night through. It 
 is certain that it was the deliberate intention of the greater number of them to 
 throw out the Bill very speedily. If the acclamations of that night did not 
 luise a doubt as to the duty and safety of their course, they must have been in 
 a mood unlike that of ordinary men, meditating in the watches of the night. 
 
 Before daylight, the news was on its way into the country ; and wherever it 
 spread, it floated the flags, and woke up the bells, and filled the air with 
 shouts and music. In the midst of this, however, the older and graver men 
 turned to each other with the question, — " What will the Lords do?" Lord 
 Grey's speech in opening the debate in the House of Peers shows to those 
 who read it now that he had a precise foresight of what the Lords would do, 
 and particularly the Bishops. Lord Althorp, attended by a hundred of the 
 Commons, carried up the Bill to the Peers, the day after it had passed the f^E^/o*"""' " 
 Lower House : but the debate took place on the question of the second reading 
 — extending over five nights — from the 3rd to the 7th of October. It was an Hausard, vii. 92s ; 
 
 , . . viii. 1—310. 
 
 exceedingly fine debate, as might have been expected from its nature. Not debate. 
 only did the accomplishments of the noble speakers come into play, but they 
 had never before spoken on a subject which concerned them so nearly, which 
 they at once so thoroughly understood and so deeply felt ; and their minds 
 were roused and exercised accordingly. No position could be more dignified 
 than that of Lord Grey. He was safe from the taunt under which the Duke lord gbet. 
 of Wellington had winced, and under which many a minister has since winced 
 — that he was the slave of popidar clamour ; for he could point back to the 
 year 1786, when he voted with Mr. Pitt for shortening the duration of par- 
 liaments ; and to a time before the old French revolution, when he voted for 
 Mr. Flood's measure of Parliamentary Reform. Standinsr on this hi<Ai ground 
 of principled consistency, the venerable statesman was at liberty from all self- 
 regards to be as gi-eat in his bearing as his measure was in its import. And 
 truly great he was. From this day, for many months he was subject to a scries 
 of provocations which must often have worn his frame and sickened his 
 spirit : but he never stooped to anger or imjiatience. His conscience calm and 
 clear, his judgment settled, his knowledge and his powers concentrated in his 
 measure, he could maintain his stand above the jiassions which were agitating 
 other men. And he did maintain it, through all the personal fatigue and mental 
 weariness of months. Through the vacillations of the King above him, and the 
 raging and malice of the Peers around him, and the surging of the mob far 
 below him, for which lie was made responsible, he preserved an unbroken yet 
 genial calmness which made observers feel and say that among the various 
 causes of emotion of that time, they knew nothing so moving as the greatness 
 of Lord Grey. On this opening night of the debate — the 3rd of October — he 
 stood, by virtue of his experience and the meditation of half a century, like a 
 seer, showing the issues of such procedure, on the one hand or the other, as 
 their Lordships might tidopt. Among his other warnings, that to the Bishops the Bisnops. 
 stands out conspicuously and prophetically. " Let me resjiectfully entreat 
 those Right Reverend Prelates," he said, after an acknowledgment of their nomard.vii. 907 
 deserts and dignities, "to consider, that if this Bill should be rejected by a
 
 44 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book IV. 
 
 1831. narrow majority of the lay peers, wliitli 1 liave reason to hope will not be 
 
 " — -— V— — ' the case; but if it should, and that its fate should thus, within a few votes, 
 
 be decided by the votes of the heads of tlie Church, what will then be their 
 
 situation with the country. Those Right Reverend Prelates have shown that 
 
 they were not indifferent or inattentive to the signs of tlie times They 
 
 appear to have felt that the eyes of the country are upon them; that it is 
 necessary for them to set their house in order, and prepare to meet the coming 
 
 storm They arc the ministers of peace; earnestly do I hope that the result 
 
 of their votes will be such as may tend to the tranquillity, to the peace, and hap- 
 piness of the country." If the Bishops were aware that the eyes of the people 
 were upon them, they seem to have been ignorant or thoughtless of one of the 
 reasons why. Tlie people, do^vn to the very lowest of the populace, were ^^•illing 
 to bear more on this question from the most aristocratic of the lay peers than 
 from any of the spiritual peers. There was no man anywhere so ignorant as 
 not to see that much allowance was to be made for noblemen of ancient line- 
 age, called on to i)art with hereditary borough property, and with political 
 influence which became more valuable from one session of j^arliament to 
 another. The Bishops had no plea for such allowance — commoners by birth 
 as they were, having no interest in borough property, and no hereditary asso- 
 ciations making war against present exigencies. If they really approved of oiu- 
 representative system, they should naturally desire its purification : and the 
 whole people looked to see whether they did or not. If they did, they would 
 show themselves indeed shepherds of the flock : if not, they must be regarded 
 as the humble servants of the hereditary aristocracy ; and their Church would 
 be distrusted in proportion to the worldliness of her prelates. They did their 
 utmost to ruin themselves and their Church. One Bishop alone — the Bishop 
 of Norwich — voted in favour of the Bill. Twenty-one — exactly enough to turn 
 the scale — voted against the Bill : the majority by which it was thrown out 
 Hansard, viii. 340. ijeing 41. It was proclaimed over the whole kingdom, and it will never be 
 forgotten, that it was the Bishops who threw out the Reform Bill. News- 
 papers in mourning edges told this, in the course of a day or two, to every 
 listener in the land. Every schoolboy knew it : every beggar coidd cast it in 
 the teeth of footmen in purple liveries on the steps of great houses. For many 
 months — till some time after the Reform Bill became the law of the land — it 
 was not safe for a Bishop to appear in public in any article of sacerdotal dress. 
 Insults followed if apron or hat showed themselves in the streets. And the 
 Bench gained nothing by yielding at last, because every body knew they could 
 not help it. While tlicy imputed their yielding to a love of peace, they could 
 not complain if the people assigned it to a lack of courage. Whether the 
 deficiency was of sagacity, or knowledge, or independence, or principle, it did 
 more to injure the Church throughout the empire than all hostility of Catho- 
 lics and Dissenters together. Among the twenty-two anti-reform voters in the 
 Lords, on the final reading, a few months after this, there is no Bishop's name. 
 Not the less for this was it every where still repeated that it \\as the Bishops 
 that threw out the Reform Bill, till no child old enough to understand the 
 words could ever forget them. 
 
 The peers were not tempting fate in blindness. They knew ^\hat was said 
 and tliought of them, and what was threatened in case of their refusal to surrender
 
 CiiAi'. IV.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 45 
 
 tlieir borough interests. They were aware, if they read the newspapers, that 1831. 
 
 there was a change in the form of the popular question which every man had ■-— ' 
 
 been asking his neighbour. Instead of the question, " ^Miat will the Lords 
 do .' " men were now asking, " What must he done with the Lords ! " and the 
 iournals, having taken for granted that four liundred peers were not to stand 
 in the way of an essential improvement desired by king and people, were 
 beginning to discuss whether the king or the people should take the peers in 
 hand : — whether, as this was understood to mean, the king should create so 
 many new peers as to obtain a majority for the Bill, or the people should refuse 
 to pay taxes till they had obtained a better representation. If the Lords did 
 not read the newspapers — and Lord Grey gave great and general offence, in 
 the midst of his popularity, by declaring that he did not — they had other means 
 of information. On the day of the loss of the Bill, Lord Eldon wi-ote, before i.ife of Lord ei. 
 going to the work of unschief, " Jlaknig new peers to pass it has been much 
 talked of; but, unless our calculation of numbers is erroneous, and most 
 grossly so, audacity itself could not venture to attempt a sufficient supply of 
 new Peers." Again, on the 5th of October, a remarkable scene had taken 
 jilace in the House of Lords, before entering on the topic of the night. During 
 the debate, more and more peeresses attended every evening, bringing their 
 daughters and relations, for whom scats were placed below the bar. Instead Hansard, tu.isos. 
 of two or three ladies, quietly listening behind a curtain, there was now an 
 assemblage on rows of chairs, smiling, frowning, fidgctting, indicating their 
 agitation in every way short of clap])ing and groaning. The space about the 
 throne was thronged with listening foreigners and members of the other House : 
 and on this evening, the conspicuous figure of the intelligent Hindoo, Ram- 
 niohun-Roy, was in the midst of the group, his spreading turban attracting 
 many eyes, and his mobile countenance varying with every turn of the dis- 
 cussion. All these, and a very full House of Peers, were present when evidence 
 was brought forward of what the people were thinking of doing with the 
 Peers, in case of too obstinate a stand for the rotten boroughs. On occasion of 
 the presentation of petitions, infonuation was given of something ominous 
 which had taken place at a meeting of 100,000 people at Birmingham. After Hansard, vii. 1323. 
 one orator there had, quite unconstitutionally, asked repeatedly and signifi- 
 cantly, the question whether the Lords would " dare " to reject the Bill, 
 another had declared his intention to pay no taxes till the Bill should have 
 passed; and his declaration had been received with loud cheers. On his 
 desiring those who agreed with him to hold up their hands, a countless 
 multitude of hands was held iij) : and on his asking for a sign of dissent, not a 
 single hand was held up. While all the Peers who spoke upon this news, 
 from Lord Chancellor Brougham to his predecessor Lord Eldon, denoimced 
 such proceedings as unconstitutional, no peer could, from that hoiu', be sup- 
 posed ignorant of what he was doing in driving the people and the sovereign 
 to one or the other of these methods of procuring a law which all but a small 
 fraction of society desired and chose to obtain. Yet, on the 7th, they threw 
 out the Bill, by a majority in which they gloried, as being much larger than theHili. lost. 
 the ministers had anticipated. Their expectation was that all would now go 
 well. Lord Gri'y had declared, that by this measure the Administration would 
 stand or fall. The meiisure having been lost, the Administration must fall.
 
 46 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book IV. 
 
 1831. After relating how the final debate lasted till between six and seven in tlie 
 ^-— ~"'~- — ' morning, Lord Eklon wrote, " The fate of the Bill, therefore, is decided. . . . 
 
 a'on'^ »f 'I'o^'' ^' '^^^^ night was made interesting by the anxieties of all present. Perhaps 
 fortunately the mob would not on the outside wait so long as it was before 
 Lords left the inside of the House." Their lordships got home luimolested that 
 autumn morning, and awaited joyfully the tidings of the fall of the Adminis- 
 tration. But they had far other news to hear. The King meant to prorogue 
 parliament immediately, in order to a speedy re-assembling, and going over 
 of the whole matter again. 
 
 PiioRooAiioN. This was a prospect full of weariness and anxiety to every body. As for 
 
 the King, he came down to the House on the 20th of October, in temper and 
 spirits as yet apparently unchanged ; and his Speech manifested the mn-elaxed 
 
 Hansard, riii. 928. rcsolution of his Ministers. It earnestly recommended the careful preserva- 
 tion of tranquillity throughout the country, during the suspense in which the 
 great question was held. As for the jiecrs, some believed, and witli too much 
 excuse, that the hour of revolution was really come. " Our day here yester- 
 day was tremendously alarming," Lord Eldon had written a week before this 
 time. Many windows had been broken, several peers insulted in the streets, 
 and Lord Londonden-y struck insensible from his horse, by the blow of a stone. 
 
 Life of Lord El- Lord Eldon, while writing of " the immense mob of Keformcrs," admits that 
 there was " hardly a decent looking man iimong them :" and it was indeed 
 the case that the excitement of the time had called out all the disorderly part 
 of society into view and action. Not only the ignorant and violent desirers 
 of Parliamentary Reform, but thieves and vagabonds made use of the opportu- 
 nity to stir up the passions under whose cover they might pursue their aims 
 of plunder. This was made clear by the presence of well-known London 
 faces, not only at the window-breaking at the West end, but in the mobs 
 at Derby and Bristol, where the most serious damage was done to the 
 Reform cause. "Everywhere," Lord Eldon said, "the mischief is occa- 
 sioned by strangers from other parts coming to do mischief." The fact 
 was clear: only — I^ord Eldon called these strangers " reformers," while the 
 police called them " the swell mob." Disastrous indeed was the injury 
 they did. 
 
 The great body of reformers stood firm and calm, because the government 
 did so. The House of Commons had immediately followed up the rejection 
 
 Hansard,viii. 385. of the Bill bv a vote of confidence in Ministers which removed all fear of 
 
 Vote of Confi. ... 
 
 DENCE. their resigning : and calm patience was certain to carry the gTcat objects of 
 
 the time. But then came these incendiaries, stirring up riots in Derby 
 and Nottingham first, and afterwards at Bristol — not only discrediting the 
 Reform cause, but doing a yet more ten'ible mischief by perplexing and alarm- 
 ing the King. The King remained to all appearance firm till after the pro- 
 rogation of Parliament, the Derby and Nottingham riots having meantime 
 occurred : but the more fearful aftair at Bristol shook his decision and his 
 courage ; and it is understood that from that date, the work of his Ministers 
 was more arduous than before. 
 Riots at derdv. ^j j)erby, somo rioters were consigned to jail for window-breaking : and 
 issrchron. 101.' the jail was carried by the mob, the prisoners released, and several lives lost 
 At Nottingham, after the arrival of the military. — At Nottingham, the Castle was burnt —
 
 Ciivp. IV.J DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 47 
 
 avowedly because it was the property of the Duke of Newcastle. To all to 1831. 
 
 whom the name and fame of the devoted Lucy Hutchinson and her spouse ■— ^v- ' 
 
 are dear, this event was a mournful one : hut the walls remain, and the beauty 
 
 of the site cannot be impaired while any part of the building meets the eye. 
 
 The Duke recovered £21,000 from the county, as damages, and certainly Annual Register, 
 
 appeared to suiter much less under the event than his respectable neighbours 
 
 of the Reform party. He evidently enjoyed his martyrdom. 
 
 The Bristol mobs have always been noted for their brutality: and the out- 
 break now was such as to amaze and confound the whole kingdom. It will 
 ever remain a national disgrace that such materials existed in such quantity 
 for Ijoiulon rogues to operate upon. Nothing like these Bristol riots had 
 happened since the Birmingham riots in 1791. 
 
 Ijondon rogues could have had no such power as in this case if the political 
 and moral state of Bristol had not been bad. Its political state was disgrace- 
 ful. The venality of its elections was notorious. It had a close corporation, 
 between whom and the citizens there was no community of feeling on muni- 
 cipal subjects. The lower parts of the city were the harbourage of probably 
 a worse sea-port populace than any other place in England, while the police 
 was ineffective and demoralized. There was no city in which a greater 
 amount of savagery lay beneath a society proud, exclusive, and mutually 
 repellent, rather than enlightened and accustomed to social co-operation. 
 These arc circumstances which go far to account for the Bristol riots being so 
 fearfully bad as tliey were. Of this city, Sir Charles Wethcrell — then at the 
 height of his unpopularity as a vigorous opponent of the Reform Bill — was 
 Recorder ; and there he had to go, in the last days of October, in his judicial 
 capacity. Strenuous efforts had been made to exhibit before the eyes of the 
 Bristol people the difference between the political and judicial functions of 
 their Recorder, and to show them that to receive the Judge with respect was 
 not to countenance his political course : yet the sjTuptoms of discontent were jiomhiv neposu 
 such as to induce the Mayor, ]Mr. Finney, to apply to the Home Office for ""■■ • "■ '*"—^^-- 
 military aid. Lord Melbourne sent down some troops of horse, which were 
 quartered within reach, in the neighbourhood of the city. It was an unfortu- 
 nate circumstance that, owing to the want of a common interest between the 
 citizens and the corporation, scarcely any gentlemen offered their services as 
 special constables but such as were accustomed to consider the lower classes 
 with contempt as a troublesome rabble, and rather relished an occasion for 
 defying and humbling them. Such was the preparation made in the face of 
 the fact that Sir Charles Wethcrell could not be induced to relinquish his 
 public entry, though warned of danger by the magistrates themselves ; and 
 of the other important fact that the London rogues driven from the metropolis 
 by the new police were known to be infesting every place where there was 
 hope of confusion and spoil. 
 
 On Saturday, October 29th, Sir Charles Wethcrell entered Bristol in pomp : 
 and before he reached the Mansion House at noon, he must have been pretty 
 well convinced, by the hootings and throwing of stones, that he had better 
 have foregone the procession. For some hours, the special constables and the 
 noisy mob in front of the Mansion House exchanged discourtesies of an era-
 
 4S HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book IV. 
 
 1831. pliatic character: but there was no actual violence till night. At night, the 
 
 ■ — —' Mansion House was attacked ; and the Kiot Act was read ; but the military 
 
 1831, chrou. 172.' wcrc not brouf^lit down, as they ought to have been, to clear the streets. 
 The Mayor had ''religious scruples," and was "humane;" and Ids indecision 
 was not overborne by any aid from his brother magistrates. When the mili- 
 tary were brought in, it was after violence had been committed, and when the 
 passions of the mob were much excited. Sir Charles Wetherell escaped from 
 the city that night. During the dark hom'S, sounds were heard provocative of 
 further riot ; — shouts in the streets, and the hammering of workmen who 
 were boarding up the lower windows of the Mansion House and the neigh- 
 bouring dwellings. — On the Sunday morning, the rioters broke into the 
 Mansion House, without opjjosition : and from the time they got into the 
 cellars, all went wrong. Hungry wretches and boys broke the necks of the 
 bottles, and Queen Square was strewed with the bodies of the dead drunk. 
 The soldiers were left without orders ; and their officers without that sanction 
 of the magistracy in the absence of which they could not act, but only parade ; 
 and in this parading, some of the soldiers naturally lost their tempers, and 
 spoke and made gestures on their own accoiuit which did not tend to the soothing 
 of the mob. This mob never consisted of more than five or six hundred ; 
 and twenty thousand orderly persons attended the churches and chapels that 
 day, to whom no appeal on behalf of peace and the law was made. At a 
 word thi-ough the pastors from the magistrates, indicating how they should 
 act, the heads of these families could easily have co-operated to secure the 
 protection of the city. The mob declared openly what they were going to 
 do ; and they went to work unchecked — armed with staves and bludgeons 
 from the quays, and with iron palisades from the jNIansion House — to break 
 open and burn the Bridewell, the Jail, the Bishop's palace, the Custom House, 
 and Queen's Square. They gave half an hour's notice to the inhabitants of 
 each house in the Squai-e, which they then set fire to in regular succession, 
 till two sides, each measm-ing 550 feet, lay in smoking ruins. The bodies of 
 the drunken were seen roasting in the fire. The greater number of the rioters 
 were believed to be under twenty years of age : and some were mere children — 
 sonic Sunday scholars, hitherto well-conducted : and it may be questioned 
 whether one in ten knew any thing of the Reform Bill, or the offences of Sir 
 Charles Wetherell. — On the ]Monday morning, after all actual riot seemed to 
 be over, the soldiery at last made two slaughterous charges. More horse 
 arrived, and a considerable body of foot soldiers ; and the constabulary became 
 active ; and from that time, the city was in a more orderly state than the 
 residents were accustomed to see it. 
 
 The inhabitants at large were not disposed to acquiesce quietly in the dis- 
 grace of their city. Public meetings were held, to petition the government to 
 make inquiry into the causes and circumstances of the disturbances, the 
 petitioners emphatically declaring their opinion, " that Bristol owed all the 
 calamities they deplored to the system under the predominance of Avhich they 
 had taken place." The magistrates were brought to trial ; and so was Colonel 
 Brereton, who was understood to be in command of the whole of the military. 
 The result of that court-martial caused more emotion throughout the king- 
 
 e
 
 Chap. IV.] DURING THE THIRTY YE.\RS' PEACE. 49 
 
 (lorn than all the slaughtering and burning, and the subsequent executions 1831. 
 which marked that fearful season. "~- • ' 
 
 It was a year before the trial of the magistrates was entered upon. The re- p^'loM."'^' ''^^' 
 suit was the acquittal of the mayor, and the consequent relinquishment of the 
 prosecution of his brother magistrates. While every one saw that gi'eat 
 blame rested somewhere, no one was disposed to make a victim of a citizen 
 who found himself, at a time of extreme emergency, in the midst of a system 
 which rend(Tcd a proper discharge of his duty impossible. All agreed that 
 Bristol must no longer be misgoverned ; but no one desired to punish the one 
 man, or the three or five men in whose tenn of oiRce the existing corruption 
 and inefficiency were made manifest by a sort of accident. Instead of com- 
 jilaining that Mr. Pinney and the other aldermen escaped, men mourned that 
 Colonel Brereton had not lain under the same conditions of impunity. 
 
 Tlie magistrates believed that they had done their part in desiring that the 
 commanders of the military would act according to their discretion. Colonel 
 Brereton believed that, before he could act, he must have a more express 
 sanction from the magistracy than he could obtain. Between them, nothing 
 was done. The Mayor was not the only " humane" man. Colonel Brereton 
 also was " humane." He saw a crowd of boys and women, with a smaller 
 proportion of men, collected without apparent aim, and in a mood to be di- 
 verted, as he thought, from serious mischief. While inwardly chafing at 
 being left without authority— not empowered to do any thing but ride about — 
 he rode in among them, made use of his popularity, spoke to them, and let 
 them shake hands with him. This would have been well, if all had ended Annual nepsitr, 
 
 1S32, p. 50. 
 
 well. But the event decided the case against him. He knew how unfavour- 
 ably these acts would tell on his trial. Full of keen sensibilities, nothing in 
 him was more keen than his sense of professional honour. He sank under the 
 conflict between his civil and professional conscience. He was crushed in 
 the collision between the natural and the conventional systems of social and 
 military duty in which he found himself entangled. He had been too much 
 of tlie man to make war, without overruling authorization, on the misguided 
 and defenceless ; and he found himself too much of the soldier to endure con- 
 ventional dishonour. His trial began on the 9th of the next January. For 
 four days, he struggled on in increasing agony of mind. On the night of the 
 12th, he, for the first time, omitted his visit at bedtime to the diamber of his 
 childi'en — his two young motherless daughters : he was heard walking for 
 liours about his room : and when the court assembled in the morning, it was 
 to hear that the prisoner had shot himself through the heart. — The whole Annual Register, 
 series of events at Bristol became more and more disconnected in the general 
 mind with the subject of the Kcfonn Bill, as focts came out which showed 
 that other proximate causes of disturbance would have, no doubt, wrought 
 the same effects, sooner or later, as well as the one which chanced to occur. 
 The question which did, from that time, lie deep down in thoughtful minds 
 was, how long oiu- ('hristian profession and our heathen practice — our social 
 and military combinations — were to be supposed compatible, after a man who 
 united in himself tlie virtues of both had been drivcMi to suicide by their 
 contrariety. 
 
 It is necessary to note the social disturbances which followed ujion the re- 
 
 VOT,. TI. II 
 
 l»32, ChroQ. U.
 
 50 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book IV. 
 
 LS.'Jl. jcction of tlie second Reform Bill: but it i.s no less necessary to point out 
 ^-^^^"*-^ that the turbulence of this, as of all seasons, is easy to observe, while no 
 account can be "ivcn which can represent to the imagination the prevailing 
 calmness and order of the time. Calnniess and order present no salient point 
 for narrative and description : but their existence must not therefore be over- 
 oruek'"^'^'^ °^ looked. A truly heroic state of self-discipline and obedience to law prevailed 
 over the land, while in jiarticular spots the turbulent were able to excite the 
 giddy and the ignorant to riot. The nation was steadily rising to its most 
 heroic mood ; that mood in which, the next year, it carried through the sub- 
 lime enterprise which no man, in the darkest moment, had any thought of 
 surrendering.
 
 Chap. V.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE preparations for the renewal of the struggle for Parliamentary Reform 1831. 
 began immediately after the prorogation, and were of a very serious cha- ^ '^^- ' 
 vrtcter on every hand. As might be expected from the protraction of the 
 quaiTcl, each party went further in its own direction ; and the King, whose 
 station was in the middle, became occasionally iiTesolute, thi'ough anxiety — 
 an anxiety which plainly affected his health. 
 
 On the 31st of October, the London Political Union held an important ^'^'J ^ :;';/"'-' "' 
 meeting which was so fully attended that the multitude adjourned to Lincoln's 
 Inn Fields. The object of the day was to decree and organize a National 
 Union, the provincial associations to be connected M-itli it as branches, sending 
 delegates to the central Board. Thus far, all had gone well, as regarded these 
 Unions. The administration liad not been obliged to recognise their existence, 
 while undoubtedly very glad of the fact. "Wliethcr their existence was constitu- 
 tional was one of the two gi-eat questions of the day. Hitherto, the government 
 were not obliged to discuss it, in public or private, or to give any opinion ; for 
 till now, the Unions had done nothing objectionable. Now, however, the diiS- 
 culty began. The less informed and more violent members of the London 
 Union insisted upon demanding Universal Sufii'agc, and other matters not in- Aiim-biographv of 
 
 .. ? .. ,. ,,•> W.irking Man, 
 
 eluded in the Bill, while the wiser majority chose to adhere to their watchword, p- 2w. 
 " The Bill, the whole Bill, and nothing but the Bill." The minority seceded, 
 and constituted a [Metropolitan Union of their own, whose avowed object was MtiRopoLiTiN 
 to defeat the Ministerial measure, in order to obtain a more thorough opening 
 of the representation. In their advertisements, they declared all hereditary 
 privileges and all distinction of ranks to be unnatural and vicious ; and invited 
 the working men throughout the country to come up to their grand meeting at 
 White Conduit House, on the 7th of November, declaring that such a display 
 of strength must carry all before it. The government brought soldiery round 
 the jNIetropolis, had an army of special constables sworn in — all in a quiet way 
 — and as quietly communicated with the Union leaders. On the 5th, the 
 llatton Garden magistrates infonned these leaders that their proposed pro- Amn.ni Rogister, 
 cccdings were illegal. A deputation begged admission to the presence of the '''■" '" 
 Home Secretary. L(n'd Melbourne saw them, and quietly pointed out to them 
 wliich passages of their address were seiUtious, if not treasonable, involving 
 in the guilt of treason all persons ■\\ ho attended their meeting for the purpose 
 of promoting the objects proposed. The leaders at once abandoned their 
 design. The ministers were blamed for letting them go, and taking no notice 
 of the seditious advertisement : but no one who, at this distance of time, com- 
 pares the ^lelbourue and the Sidmouth days can doubt that the forbearance 
 was as wise as it was kind. What the ofienders needed was better knowledge, 
 not penal restraint, as their conduct in disbanding plainly showed. The peace
 
 52 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book IV. 
 
 1831. of society lost nothing, and the influence of the government gained nuich, by 
 ^— ^^-^— -^ the ministers sliowing themselves willing to enlighten rather than to punish 
 ignorance, and to reserve their penalties (where circumstances allowed it ) for 
 wilful and obstinate violations of the hnv. Tlie affair, however, alarmed the 
 sovereign and the more timid of the aristocracy who had hitherto supported the 
 lleform measure. 
 
 At the same time. Lord Grey was beset by deputations from all ranks and 
 classes, urging the shortening of the recess to the utmost, and the expediting 
 the measiu-e by all possible means ; and especially by inducing the King to 
 create peers in sufficient numbers to secure the immediate passage of the Bill 
 through the House of Lords. All the interests of the kingdom were suffering 
 under suspense and disappointment, and the popular indignation against the 
 obstructive peers was growing dangerous. Tliis proposition of a creation of 
 peers was the other great question of the day. 
 cnEAxloN OP ' ^11'^ seldom or never has there been a question more serious. Men saw now 
 plers. j]jj,j {|jg word " revolution," so often in the mouths of the anti-reformers, 
 
 might prove to be not so inapplicable as had been supposed : that, if the peers 
 should not come immediately and voluntarily, and by the light of their own 
 convictions, into harmony with the other two powers of the government, it 
 would prove true that, as they were themselves saying, " the balance of the 
 Constitution was destroyed." Was it not aheady so .' it was asked. Unless 
 a miraculous enlightenment was to be looked for between October and Decem- 
 ber, was there any alternative but civil war, and, in some way or another, 
 overbearing the Lords i Civil war was out of the question for such a handful 
 of obstructives. The King, Commons, and People, could not be kept waiting 
 much longer for the few who showed no sign of yielding ; and it would be the 
 best Ivindness to all parties to get the obstructives out-voted, by an exertion of 
 that kingly power whose existence nobody disputed, however undesirable might 
 be its frequent exercise. From day to day was this consideration urged upon 
 the Premier, who never made any reply to it. It was not a time when men 
 saw the full import of what they asked ; nor was this a subject on which the 
 Prime ^Minister could open his lips to deputations. He must have felt, like 
 every responsible and every thoughtful man, that no more serious and mourn- 
 ful enterprise could be proposed to any minister than to destroy the essential 
 character of any one of the three component parts of the government ; and 
 that, if such a destruction should prove to be a necessary condition of the requi- 
 site purification of another, it was the very hardest and most fearful of con- 
 ditions. Men were talking lightly, all over the kingdom, of the necessity of 
 swamping the opposition of the peers : they were angry, and M'ith reason, with 
 the living men who made the difficulty ; and nobody contradicted them when 
 they said that the extinction of the wisdom of these particular men in the 
 national counsels would be no great loss : but they did not consider that the 
 existing Roden and Newcastle, and Eldon and RoUe, were not the great insti- 
 tution of the British House of Lords, whose finiction shone back through the 
 history of a thousand years, and might shine onwards through a thousand years 
 more, if the ignorance and selfishness of its existing majority could be overcome 
 on the present occasion by a long patience and a large forbearance. Lord 
 Grey was the last man to degrade his " order," if the necessity could by any
 
 Chap. V.J DURING THE THIRTY YEARS" PEACE. 53 
 
 means be avoided. It was his first object to cany the Reform of the Conmions ; 1831. 
 but it wouhl well nigh have broken his heart to be compelled to do it through ^-^-^-^-^^ 
 the degradation of the Lords. At this time, while, from his silence, multitudes 
 believed ^\hat they wished, and confidently expected a large creation of peers, 
 it is now known that he had not yet proposed any such measure to the King. 
 
 One consequence of the prevalence of an expectation of a batch of new peers 
 was the parting off from the obstructive Lords of a large nimiber who were 
 called the Waverers. There is always such a set of people in such times ; and the w.nEncu,. 
 greatly do they always embarrass the calculations of the bestinlbrnied. These 
 kept the issue in uncertainty up to the last moment. On the one part were 
 the honest and enlightened peers who saM' that the end of borough-corruption 
 was come. On the other part were the honest and unenlightened, or the 
 selfish who would not have our institutions touched on any pretence whatever; 
 and between them now stood the Waverers, hoping to keep things as they were, 
 but disposed to yield voluntarily, if they could not conquer, rather than be put 
 down by an incursion of numbers. 
 
 Tliore was something unusually solemn in the meeting of parliament on the ,^,"^*J'''' '"' '"'" 
 Cth of December. It may surprise men now, and it will surprise men more 
 hereafter, to remark the tone of awe-struck expectation in which men of sober 
 niiiul, of cheerful temper, and even of historical learning (that powerful anti- 
 dote to temporary alarms), spoke and wrote of the winter of 1831-2. A govern- 
 ment proclamation, issued on the 22nd of November, with the aim of putting 
 down Political Unions, was found to be as ineffectual as such proclamations proclamation 
 always are against associations which can change their rules and forms at cal unions. 
 pleasure. It appeared strange that the ministers should now begin to make 
 war upon the Unions, when their policy hitherto had been to let them alone : 
 a policy befitting men able to leam by the experience of their predecessors in the 
 case of the Catholic Association. There was a general feeling of disappoint- 
 ment, as at an inconsistency, when the proclamation appeared. It has since 
 become known that the Administration acted under another will than their- 
 own in this matter. In December, Lord Eldon had an interview with the 
 Duke of Wellington, of which he wrote, "I sat with him near an horn-, in Life or i.ord i:i. 
 deep conversation and most interesting. Letters that he wrote to a great 
 pirHonage produced the proclamation against the Unions. But if parliament 
 will not interfere further, the proclamation will be of little use — I think, of no 
 use." It was certainly, at present, of no use. The National Union immedi- 
 ately put out its assertion that the proclamation did not ajjply to it, nor to the a™u«i n^sister, 
 great majority of Unions then in existence. So there sat the monstrous 
 offspring of this strange time, vigilant, far spreading, intelligent, and of incal- 
 culable force— a power believed in its season to be greater than that of King, 
 Lords, and Commons: there it sat, watching them all, and ready to take up 
 any duty which any one of them let drop, and force it back into the most 
 reluctant hands. — .V dark demon was, at the same time, brooding over the 
 land. It chills one's heart now to read the Cholera proclamations and orders the cholera. 
 of that year, and the suggestions of Boards of Health, to which men looked for 
 comfort, but from which they received nnuh alarm, ^fen were not then able 
 to conceive of a mild plag\ie : and what tliey had heard of the Cholera carried 
 back their imaginations to the plagues of the middle ages. Among nuuiy dis-
 
 54 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book IV. 
 
 1831. iiial recommendatious from authority, therefore, we find one which it ahnost 
 
 ' — — — — ' made the public ill to read of: — that, when the sick could not be carried to 
 
 cholera hospitals, their abodes should be watched and guarded, to prevent 
 
 communication — that the word " sick " should be conspicuously painted on 
 
 the front of the dwelling, while there were patients there, and the word 
 
 Ort"o"i83T"'''' "'"•^'^'''"^" ^"*' some weeks afterwards. Men began to think of the nightly 
 bell and dead cart, and of grass gi-owing in the streets, and received with panic 
 ' the news of the actual appearance of the disease in various parts of the island 
 
 at the same time. In the truthful spirit of history, it must be told that a 
 large and thoughtful class of society were deeply moved and impressed at tliis 
 time by what was taking place in Edward Irving's chapel and sect. Men and 
 
 T'I'-LVI""'""'' women were declared to have tlie "ift of Unknown Tongues ; and the mani- 
 festations of the power (whatever in the vast range of the nervous powers of 
 Man it might be) were truly awe-striking. Some laughed then, as many 
 laugh now : but it may be doubted whether any thoughtful person coidd laugh 
 in face of the facts. We have the testimony of a man who could never be 
 hstened to without respect, of a man whose heart and mind were not only 
 naturally cheerful, but anchored on a cheerful faith — as to what was the aspect 
 of that season to such men as himself. In reply to some question about the 
 
 now f 302 'V' Ii'vingite gift, Ur. Ai-nold writes, " If the thing be real, I should take it merely 
 as a sign of the coming of the day of the Lord — the only use, as far as I can 
 make out, that ever was derived from the gift of tongues. I do not see that it 
 was ever made a vehicle of instruction, or ever superseded the study of tongues 
 but that it was merely a sign of the power of God, a man being for the time 
 transformed into a mere instrument to utter sounds which he hunself under- 
 stood not However, whether this be a real sign or no, I believe that 
 
 ' the day of the Lord ' is coming, /. c, the termination of one of the great 
 aiaiyes" (ages) " of the human race, whether the final one of all or not: that I 
 believe no created being knows or can know. The termination of the Jewish 
 aidty in the first century, and of the Koman aiwy in the fifth and sixth, were 
 each marked by the same concurrence of calamities, wars, tumults, pestilences, 
 earthquakes, &c., all marking the time of one of God's peculiar seasons of 
 visitation." . . . . " My sense of the evil of the times, and to what prospects 
 I am bringing up my cliildren, is overwhelmingly bitter. All the moral and 
 physical world appears so exactly to announce the coming of the ' great day 
 of the Lord,' i. e., a period of fearful visitation, to terminate the existing 
 state of things — whether to terminate the whole existence of the human race, 
 neither man nor angel knows — that no entircness of private happiness can 
 possibly close my mind against the sense of it." Thus could the thoughtful — 
 active in the duties of life — feel at this time : and when men of business pro- 
 posed to each other any of the ordinary enterprises of their calling, they were 
 sme to encoimter looks of surprise, and be asked how any thing could be done 
 while the Cholera and the Ilefonn Bill engrossed men's minds. At the same 
 time, London was overhmig Avith heavy fogs ; and that sense of indisposition 
 was prevalent — that vague restlessness and depression — which are observable in 
 the seasons when cholera manifests itself. TNTien the King went down to the 
 
 Opening or the IIousc, to opcu the scssiou On the 6th of December, it was observed that he 
 did not look well ; and the topics of the speech — the disputed Bill, the pesti- 
 
 Session, 
 Hansard, ix. 1
 
 Chap. V ] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 55 
 
 Icncc, the distress, the riots — were not the most cheerful. It was under such 1831. 
 
 intiuences as these that parties came together in parKament, for what all knew " — ' 
 
 to be the final struggle on the controversy of the time. 
 
 On the 12th of December, Lord John Russell ,moved for leave to bring in a J[['"° ^"o"^' 
 new Reform Bill. It was to be not less efficient than the last, and the few Hansard, ix. iic. 
 alterations made tended to render it more so. There was now also a new 
 census — that of the year then closing — so that the census of 1821, with all the 
 difficidties which liung about it, might be dismissed. The Bill was read a first 
 time. The debate on the second reading began on Friday the 16th, and was 
 continued the next evening, concluding early in the morning of Sunday the 
 18th, when the majority was 162 in a House of 486. The majority was a very Hansarj, ix. 541;. 
 large one ; and ministers might rest on that during the Christmas recess : but 
 the spirit of opposition to reform in general, and to this Bill in particular, was 
 growing more fierce from day to day. 
 
 The House met again on the 17th of January, and on the 20th went into 
 Committee on the Bill. It is amusing to read the complaints of the anti- Hansard, ii.sii. 
 reformers about being hurried in Committee — as if the provisions of the Bill 
 were perfectly new to them. Some changes had been introduced since the 
 long summer nights, of which so many had been spent in the discussion of 
 the measiu'e, and these (due mainly to the use of the new census) were consi- 
 dered with all possible cHlatoriness. By no arts of delay, however, could the 
 minority of the Committee protract its sittings beyond the 9th of March. 
 The Report was considered on the 14th. When, on the 19th, the third 
 reading was moved for. Lord ^lahon, seconded by Sir John JMalcolm, made 
 the last effort employed in the House of Commons against the Bill. He 
 moved that it should be read that day six months; and a debate of three 
 nights ensued — worn out as all now felt the subject to be. Worn out as all 
 felt the subject to be, there was a freshness given to it by the thought that 
 must have been in every considerate mind, that here the peojile's representa- 
 tives were ending their preparations for a gi-eat new period ; — that they had 
 done their share, and must now await the doubtful event — the one party 
 expecting revolution if the Bill did become law, and the other if it did not. 
 All felt assured that they should not have to discuss a fourth Bill, and that 
 the issue now rested finally with the Lords. At such a moment, the words 
 of the leaders are weighed with a strong interest. " At this, the last stage of 
 the Reform Bill," said Lord Mahon, "on the brink of the most momentous Hansard, xi.-iu. 
 decision to which, not only this House, but, I behove, any legislative assembly 
 in any country, ever came — when the real alternative at issue is no longer — 
 between Reform or no Reform, but between a moderate Reform on the one 
 hand, and a revolutionary Reform on the other — at such a moment, it is with 
 feelings of no ordinary difficulty that I venture to address you." — Lord John 
 Russell's closing declaration, when the last division had yielded a majority of 
 IK), in a House of r>94, was this: " With respect to the expectations of the Hansard, ^i. t9o. 
 government, he would say that in proposing this measure they had not acted 
 lightly, but after much consideration which had induced them to thuik a year 
 ago, that a measure of this kind was necessary, if they meant to stand between 
 the abuses which they wished to correct, and the convulsions which they 
 desired to avoid. He was convinced that if parliament should refuse to entei"-
 
 5G HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book IV. 
 
 1832. fiiiii ^ moasurc of tliis nature, tlicy would place in collision that ])aity which, 
 
 ■ . ' on the one hand, opposed all Reform in the Commons House of Parliament, 
 
 and that which, on the other, desired a lleform extending to universal suffrage. 
 The consequence of this would ho, that much blood would be shed in the 
 struggle between the contending parties, and he was perfectly persuaded that 
 the Ihitish Constitution would perish in the conflict. — I move, Sir, that this 
 
 Hansard, xi. B55. UiH tlo pass." It passcd ! aud then "the next question, ' That this be the 
 title of the Bill — A Bill to amend the Representation of the people of England 
 and Wales,' was carried by acclamation. — Lord John Russell and Lord Althorp 
 
 Final passage were Ordered to carry the Bill to the Lords, and to request the concurrence of 
 
 Tiinottr.ii Tim is. 
 
 Commons. their loidshlps to the same. 
 
 Hansard, XI. 858. ,,., ,,. ,, , « , -uti 
 
 When they discharged their errand, three days afterwards — on JMonday, 
 
 March 26th — they were attended by a large number of members of their own 
 
 First KEAniNi. IN jjQygg file fiist reading in the Lords took place immediately; and the 
 
 •1 ilB Lords. °. .. '■ , ritif 
 
 second, which was to be a period of critical debate, was fixed for the 5th of 
 April, but, for reasons of convenience, did not begin till the 9th. — Already, 
 on this first night, there was a defection of waverers from the late majority — 
 several peers intimating their intention of voting the Bill into C"ommittec, 
 some in hopes that it might be improved there into something good, and others 
 
 Hansard, xi. 801, bccausc there was now less danger in passing the Bill than in refusing it. 
 This conduct, after the anti-reformers had strained every nerve to bring up 
 before the King's face all the opposition that could be aroused throughout the 
 British islands — Lord Roden having presented at the levee on the 28th of 
 
 Autobiograrhy of February a petition against Reform signed by 230,000 Irish Protestants — dis- 
 
 a ^ m ing i an, ^.^^^.j^ggj some members of their Lordships' House, and exasperated others ; 
 so that the conflict of passions within the House Avas almost as fierce as 
 between their House and the Unions. — The Duke of Buckingham did what 
 he could to accommodate matters all round by promising that, if their Lord- 
 ships would throw out the Bill on the second reading, he would himself imme- 
 diately bring in a Reform Bill, by which representatives should be given to 
 
 Hansard, xii. 1. all the large towns, and some consolidation of boroughs be effected. Absurd 
 as was the supposition that the country would give up its own Bill for one 
 from the Duke of Buckinghiim, the incident is worth noting as a proof that 
 the high Conservatives were giving way — were surrendering their main argu- 
 ments of antiquarian analogy — and becoming eager to avow themselves 
 reformers. 
 
 The deepest anxiety that had yet been felt was about the division on the 
 question of the second reading in the I^ords. The staunch Tories saw that it 
 was " too clear," as Lord Eldon said, that their own party would split on this 
 question, and that then it was to be feared the Bill would pass. The Reform 
 Lords saw that another triumph of their opponents would be the doom of 
 their House ; wliile they were by no means sure that the Bill would pass even 
 in case of victory now ; for the event would be determined by the waverers, 
 who could not be depended on at the last moment. The debate extended 
 over the nights from the 9th to the 13th of April. It was bright morning on 
 
 Debate and di- i]^q i^.^]^ when the votcs wcre taken. The lights had gi-own yellower and 
 
 VISION. ^ . 
 
 dimmer in the fresh daylight, the faces of the wearied legislators had appeared 
 more and more haggard and heated; and at last, the slanting rays of the
 
 CnjLT. v.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 57 
 
 morning sun shone full in upon the woolsack, as the keen eyes of the Chan- 1832. 
 cellor shot their glances, as wakeful as ever, from under the great wig. The "-" — ~ — ' 
 attendance of strangers was as full as it had been twelve hours before ; for it 
 was not a scene which men would miss for the sake of food and sleep. It 
 was a quarter past seven on Friday morning, when the House adjourned, after 
 yielding a majority of nine to the Administration. Hansard, in. 4>i. 
 
 In a few hours, lists were handed about which showed how the minority of Annual Rei-istur, 
 
 ....-, '832, p. UG, 
 
 forty-one of si.x months before had been changed into a majority of nine. Seven- 
 teen peers had turned roimd. Twelve who had been absent before, now voted 
 for the Bill : and ten who had voted against it before, now absented them- 
 selves. Among the twelve were the Archbishop of York, and tli(^ Bishops of 
 London, St. David's, Worcester, and Chester. Among the ten was the Bishop 
 of Peterborough. It was the bishops who saved the Bill this time : but their 
 deed did not restore the credit their order had lost in October. 
 
 The Easter recess, which postponed the meeting of the Houses till the 7th 
 of May, now afforded time for the people to apply that " pressure from without" ,^"I:"o"'' ''"'"' 
 which miglit be necessary to prevent the wavercrs from spoiling the Bill in 
 Committee. This " pressure from without" was spoken of by the peers with 
 an abhorrence and contempt in which it is impossible for any one who appre- 
 ciates their function not to sympathize. But they had brought it upon them- 
 selves ; and now they must bear it. The Birmingham Political Union met meetino, and 
 
 i*tTITIONS 
 
 on the 27th of April, and in%'ited all the Unions of the counties of Warwick, 
 Worcester, and Stafford, to congi-egate at Newhall Hill in Birmingham on the 
 day of the reassembling of parliament. Monster meetings were held in all 
 the large towns, and monster petitions sent to the King to yield to the neces- 
 sity for creating more peers. The Edinburgh meeting, 60,000 strong, was 
 held before the windows of Charles X. at Ilolvrood : and there he saw the speria:.>r, is3i, 
 
 410. 
 
 spectacle of an orderly assemblage met to express their concord with their 
 sovereign, and their determination to aid him in obtaining for them the rights 
 to which he was able to sec that time had given birth. The cheering of that 
 multitude for " King William, the father of his country," must have gone to 
 the exile's heart. The petitions to the King and the Lords fi'om Liverpool, 
 Manchester, Sheffield, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Paisley, Dundee, and indeed 
 from every populous place in the land, were in exactly the same strain, and 
 nearly in the same words. That from Birmingham implored the peers " not 
 to drive to despair a high-minded, generous, and fearless people, or to urge 
 them on, by a rejection of their claims, to demands of a much more extensive 
 nature, but rather to pass the Reform Bill into a law, unimpaired in any of its 
 great parts and provisions." The National Union, on the 3rd of May, spoke 
 out plainly enougli. Its petition infonned the I^ords, that if they denied or 
 impaired the Bill, " there was reason to expect that the payment of taxes 
 would cease, that other obligations of society would be disregarded, and that 
 the ultimate consequence might be the utter extinction of the pri^•ilegcd 
 orders." Among the serious and solcnni petitions which it is a duty to place 
 upon record, there was a fable put forth which should stand beside them, as 
 having done as much for the great cause as any or all of them. It has passed 
 into a proverb ; but its original delivery should be registered, for the benefit 
 vol.. II. [
 
 5S 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 [Book IV 
 
 1832. 
 
 SvdnPV Smith's 
 Works, ill. 1'23. 
 
 of a fur future. At a meeting at Taunton, a clergyman, who felt himself 
 equally at home and free to speak the truth among peers and cottagers — after 
 declaring in regard to the IJishops that he " could not hut hlnsh to have seen 
 so many dignitaries of the Church arrayed against the w ishes and happiness 
 of the people," w^ent on to say, " As for the possihility of the House of Lords 
 preventing ere long a Reform of Parliament, I hold it to he the most ahsurd 
 notion that ever entered into human imagination. I do not mean to he dis- 
 respectful, but the attempt of the Lords to stop the progress of Reform reminds 
 me very forcibly of the great storm of Sidmouth, and of the conduct of the 
 excellent Mrs. Partington on that occasion. In the winter of 1824, there set 
 flood upon that town — the tide rose to an incredible height — the 
 
 Newhai.l Hi[.i> 
 Meeting. 
 Sppctator, 1832, 
 p. 430. 
 
 in a 
 
 great 
 
 waves rushed in upon the houses, and every thing was threatened with destruc- 
 tion. In the midst of this sublime and terrible storm, Dame Partington, 
 who lived upon the beach, was seen at the door of her house w^ith mop and 
 pattens, trundling her mop, squeezing out the sea water, and vigorously 
 pushing away the Atlantic Ocean. The Atlantic w^as roused. Mrs. Parting- 
 ton's spirit was up ; but I need not tell you that the contest was unequal. 
 The Atlantic Ocean beat INIrs. Partington. She was excellent at a slop or 
 a piuldlc, but she should not have meddled Avitb a tempest. Gentlemen — be 
 at your ease — be quiet and steady. You will beat Mrs. Partington." 
 
 The congi-cgation of the Unions at Birmingham on the Tth of May com- 
 posed the largest meeting believed to have been ever held in Great Britain. 
 The numbers did not foil short of 150,000. The hustings were erected at 
 the bottom of the slope of Newhall Hill, in a position so favourable that the 
 voices of most of the speakers reached to the outskirts of the great assem- 
 blage, and to the throngs on the roofs of the surrounding houses. The Unions 
 poured in upon the ground in one wide unbroken stream till the gazers were 
 almost ready to ask one another whether this was not a convention of the 
 nation itself. At the sound of the bugle fi-om the hustings, silence was in- 
 stantly produced ; and Mr. Attwood, the Chairman, announced to the assem- 
 bla'i-e the object of the meeting ; — to avow the unabated interest and resolute 
 will of the people in the cause of Reform, and their determination to support 
 their excellent King and his patriotic ]\linisters in carrying forward their 
 great measure into law. — While the Chairman was speaking, the Bromsgrove 
 Union, which arrived late, was seen approaching from afar. Their assembled 
 brethren greeted them with the Union HjTnn — deserving of record from being 
 then familiar to every child in the land. It never was so sung before, nor 
 after ; for now, a hundred thousand voices pealed it forth in music which has 
 never died away in the hearts of those who heard it. Seventy-four members 
 of the Society of Friends — men of education, who had just joined the Union 
 on principle — might now know something of the power of music. A dif- 
 ferent order of men, who could not be on the groimd — some soldiers of 
 the Scots Greys who had quietly joined the Union — must have listened 
 from within their banacks with a longing to be on the hill. The Duke of 
 "NVcllin'iton was reckoning on their services to finish the business, after 
 all : but the Hymn seems to tell that the warlike intentions were wholly 
 on one side.
 
 CiiAr. v.] 
 
 DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 
 
 59 
 
 UNION HY'MN. 
 
 1832. 
 
 " Lo ! we answer ! see, we come, 
 
 Quick at Freedom's holy call. 
 \Vc corac ! we come ! we come ! we come ! 
 
 To do the glorious work of all : 
 And hark ! we raise from sea to sea 
 Tiie sacred watchword Liberty ! 
 
 God is our guide! from field, from wave, 
 
 From plough, from anvil, and from loom, 
 We come, our country's rights to save. 
 
 And speak a tyrant faction's doom. 
 And hark! we raise from sea to sea 
 The sacred watchword Liberty ! 
 
 God is our guide! no swords we draw, 
 
 ^Ve kindle not war's battle fires ; 
 By union, justice, reason, law, 
 
 AVe claim the birthright of our sires. 
 We raise the watchword Liberty ! 
 We will, we will, we will be free !" 
 
 Spirit-stirring as this was, a more solemn manifestation followed; — the 
 Pli}>htiiig of their Faith hy these hundred thousand earnest men. " Here," 
 said one of tlic speakers, Mr. Salt, " I call upon you to repeat, with head 
 uncovered, and in the face of heaven and the God of justice and mercy, the 
 following words after me." Every man hared his head, and, with the true 
 Anglo-Saxon sj)irit swelling at his heart, uttered, slowly, one by one, as they 
 were given forth, these words : " With unbroken faith, through every peril 
 and privation, we here devote ourselves and our children to our country's 
 cause." 
 
 On this same Tth of May, the Duke of Wellington was beginning to see 
 how the hope of such multitudes as this was likely to be foiled, and relpng 
 confidently on the Scots Greys in their barracks for putting down this parti- 
 ( iilar multitude, if it should prove troublesome. Mrs. Partington was going 
 to her cupboard, to bring out her mop. — On this same Tth of May, the Lords, 
 on reassembling after Easter, went immediately into Committee on the Bill ; 
 and, as their first act, overtluew the Administration. Before the echoes of 
 the Hymn had well died away at Birmingham, before the tears were well 
 dried which the Plighting of the Faith had brought upon many cheeks, the 
 Lords in London had decided, by a majority of thirty-five against Ministers, nKPE*TOKMi. 
 and on the motion of Lord Lyndhin-st, to postpone the disfranchising clauses, iiansarJ, xh. -sj. 
 going first to tlio consideration of the new francliises. When Lord Grey 
 moved to have the business stand over till the 10th, he was taunted with a 
 desire to delay the Bill. Lord EUenborough '• could assure the noble earl and 
 their lordships that, from the side of the House on which he sat, there was 
 no wish whatever to interpose any dclav to the adjustment of the measure." i^nismj. xii.vjs. 
 He went on to intimate that he was ready to proceed with a very large mea- 
 sure of Reform. As, however, he had given no notice of any reforming
 
 60 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 [Book IV. 
 
 183 
 
 spectator, 1832, 
 p. 429. 
 
 1 . 244 
 
 intentions, and as the Ministers found themselves in a minority of thirty-five 
 on the very first clause, Lord Grey persisted in asking for and obtaining an 
 interval of three days. 
 
 M'ithiii those three days it became known that the division on the Monday 
 ni'i-ht, the Tth, was the result of an intrigue which had been going on for 
 many months. The King's personal intercourses had been throughout with 
 some of the highest Conservatives in the country, rather than with liis jNIinis- 
 ters and their connexions. lie was old, and very dependent on the ladies of 
 his family: he was no statesman; and he had no knowledge of the mind and 
 condition of the people, except through those who surrounded liim. His wife, 
 some of his daughters (the cliildrcn of Mrs. Jordan), and his sisters, were opposed 
 to the new measure, and were kept in constant alarm by their conservative 
 friends ; and they fed the King's mind with apprehensions which unfitted 
 him for the discharge of his duty towards his ^Ministers and his people. Lord 
 Wharncliife, as representative of the anti-reforming lords, liad engaged to 
 Lord Grey at the beginning of the winter that the Bill should be carried 
 through the second reading if no new peers were made ; and accordingly the 
 King was not asked to create peers. That the whole business was to be over- 
 thrown in Committee, and when, was certainly known in Edinburgh before- 
 hand, when the Ministers themselves were in the dark as to \vhat was likely 
 to happen. Orders had also been issued from the Horse Guards for all the 
 officers on furlough to join their regiments before this critical -week; and every 
 preparation that could be made by the Duke of Wellington for putting down 
 risings of the people was made. During this week, orders were sent down to 
 the barracks at Birmingham that the Scots Greys should be daily and nightly 
 biograiihy of booted and saddled, with ball cartridge ready for use at a moment's notice. 
 The Conservatives were determined tluit tliere should be a revolution rather 
 than that the Reform Bill should pass. 
 
 The people were, however, too strong and too determined to render a revo- 
 lution necessary. They were indignant on behalf of the ill-used Ministers ; 
 indignant at the weakness of the King ; indignant at the meddling of the 
 royal ladies ; and in the last degi-ee indignant at the intrigues of the Tory 
 leaders : but they knew their strength to be so great that they had only to 
 put it forth peaceably to subdue the adverse faction by a manifestation of 
 will, instead of by force of arms. A nobler scene was never enacted by any 
 nation than that of the nine days' waiting while the country was without a 
 government. 
 
 On the morning of Tuesday, the 8th, a Cabinet Council was held, when it 
 was determined to request from the King a creation of Peers sufficient to carry 
 the Bill. The two highest officers of the realm, the Prime Minister and the 
 Lord Chancellor, went to Windsor, to make this request. As none of the 
 three persons present were likely to report what passed in this interview, it 
 canirot be spoken of with any certainty : but a morning paper wliich pro- 
 fessed to have information, declared that the King wept, and lamented that 
 he must sacrifice liis Ministers to his wife, his sisters, and his children. The 
 Ministers tendered their resignations. On Wednesday morning, a special 
 messenger brought a letter from the King, accepting the resignations of 
 the Cabinet. The King came to town the same morning, to hold a levee ; 
 
 Spp'-talor, 1 8:12, 
 p. 129. 
 
 A;itol 
 Working Man, 
 
 Morning Chroni- 
 lie. 
 
 Ri:«lCNATinN 
 
 MiMslEns.
 
 Chap. V.J DURING THE THIRTY YE.\RS' PEACE. 61 
 
 and he then formally received the resignations of the whole Administration, 1832. 
 with those of their friends in the Royal Household. The Whigs made a com- ^- — '■^—^ 
 plete clearance, leaving not a single official, of any rank, about the King. 
 They had done with the business ; and they left a clear field for the anti- 
 rcformcrs. The Duke of Wellington afterwards spoke of his fruitless cnter- 
 ]nise of the next nine days as an act of gallant devotedness, in which he was 
 willing to sacrifice himself rather than desert his sovereign in an hour of per- 
 ])lexity and distress. It might be so : and the Duke might easily be too much 
 feared, and too much respected, by the intriguers to be invited to their counsels : 
 but the blame of the royal perplexity and distress should rest where it is due. 
 It was not the King who was deceived and deserted, but his Ministers. The 
 honour and fidelity were all on tlieir side : and, if the Duke of Wellington 
 went in to the rescue, it ^\as on the appeal of a sovereign who had weakly 
 deserted his faithful advisers and servants, and given himself into the hands 
 of persons no less weak, who had brought him into a difficulty from which 
 they could not rescue him. If he had refused to aid his sovereign, the Duke 
 said, he " should have been ashamed to show his face in the streets." He Hansard, xii. 997. 
 endeavoured rather " to assist the King in the distressing circumstances in 
 which he was placed ;" meaning, however, by these " distressing circum- 
 stances," the advice of Lord Grey to create Peers, and not the position of 
 humiliation, in regard to Lord Grey, in which a clique of helpless advisers had 
 placed the sovereig-n. On the Wednesday evening, the Ministers announced to 
 the two Houses their relinquishment of the government of the country ; and on 
 the Thurschiy, the Commons, on the motion of Lord Ebrington, addressed the Hansard, xii. 78-. 
 King, deploring the retirement of the late administration, and imploring his ^"^""^"j"'' '^"'^ 
 Majesty to take none for his advisers who would not carry the Refonn 
 measure unimpaired, and without delay. It was on this occasion that Mr. 
 IJaring declared himself " entuely ignorant of the cause which had led to the 
 extraordinary resignation;" a statement which first occasioned loud laughter, 
 and then called up Lord Althorp to make an explanation which was listened 
 to in breathless silence, as he spoke with the calmest deliberation and the 
 strongest emphasis. The moment he liad uttered the words, there was " a 
 burst of cheering, by far the most enthusiastic, universal, and long continued, Times nvws- 
 ever Avitnessed within the walls of parliament." Lord Althorp's words were, wn.' ' 
 " I have no objection to state — tliat the advice which Me thought it our duty Hansard, xii. bos. 
 to offer to liis jMajesty was, that he should create a number of peers sufficient to 
 enable us to carry the Reform Bill through the other House of Parliament in 
 an efficient form." The same advice was now tendered to the King by the 
 Commons in the Address passed this night ; and he did not feel himself 
 at liberty to neglect it, even wliile placing himself in the hands of anti- 
 reformers. " His Majesty insisted," declared the Duke of ^^'ellington, a week 
 later, " that some extensive measure of Reform (I use his Majesty's own words) Harvard, xii. ; sc. 
 should be carried." But the Duke was opposed to all I'arliamcntary Reform. 
 ^Vhat was to be done .' The Duke proposed a compromise. He proposed to 
 set aside tlie question of an " unconstitutional " creation of peers by granting 
 a measure of Reform " moderate " enough to be passed by the Lords. He 
 could not himself take office in any administration which would xuidertake 
 even this : but he would resriie the Sovereign from his difficulties by making
 
 62 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book IV. 
 
 1832. up a Cabinet for liiiu — takiiij^ measures meantime for the safety of tliu country. 
 
 " -^ — Such was the extraordinary task which the great soldier undertook with the 
 
 idea of serving his King ami country : and very hard he worked to fulfil his 
 
 AiTEMi'TiuFouM duty. For five days he went about from door to door among his Tory friends: 
 
 but from first to last, in vain. He had Lord Lyndhurst, the active spirit of 
 
 the whole transactioUj to help him : but there was no anti-reformer except 
 
 Lord Lyndhurst who could be found to undertake to carry " a large measure 
 
 taihirb. of Reform;" and on the 15th, the Duke was compelled to announce to the 
 
 Hansard. »a. 999. j^j^^^, ^j^,^j ,j|^ j^-^ attempted negotiations had failed. 
 
 During this interval, the nation was as busy as the Duke. As the news of 
 the division on the night of the 7th spread through the country, men found 
 
 Ar.iTATioN themselves unable to give their minds to their affairs till the suspense should 
 
 coun'iuv""' ^""be relieved. The mail roads were sprinkled over for miles with people who 
 were on the watch for news from London ; and the passengers on the tops of 
 the coaches shouted the tidings, or threw down handbills to tell that the 
 Ministry had resigned. Then was there such mourning throughout England 
 as had not been known for many years. Men forsook their business to meet 
 and consult what they should do. In some places, the bells tolled : in others 
 they were muffled. In many towns, black crape was hung over the signs of 
 the King's Head : and there was talk of busts of Queen Adelaide being seen 
 with a halter round the neck. These vain shows, however, did not suit the 
 temper of earnest and efficient reformers, who did something better than 
 mourn and threaten. While they went to their serious work, there was much 
 for the mere observer to note and remember ; — the full streets — for every body 
 was abroad, from a desire for news, and because it was difficult to sit still at 
 home ; — the wistful faces of little children, who saw that something fearful 
 was going on, but could not understand what ; — and, above all, the close 
 watching of the soldiery, wherever there were barracks ; for the prevalent 
 expectation now was, from the intimacy between the Duke of Wellington and 
 the King, that a military control was to be attempted. It has since become 
 certain that there were just grounds for this apprehension. 
 
 Tilt iNioNs. The Political Unions met early and continually. The National Union 
 
 declared itself in permanent session: 1500 new members — all men of sub- 
 stance — entered it in one day. Its watchword was, " Peace, Order, Obedi- 
 ence to the Law." It'passed a resolution, " That whoever advises a dissolution 
 of parliament is a public enemy." As soon as the news reached Manchester, 
 a petition to the House of Commons was prepared, praying the House to grant 
 no Supply till the Bill was passed imimpaired : and this petition had received 
 
 Hansard, xii. 877 in four liours the signatures of 25,000 persons, and was despatched to London 
 in the hands of three eminent citizens. This jjetition was the first of a large 
 number which, within a few days, urged the same demand upon the House. 
 The Bolton petition was signed by 20,300 within two or three hours. After 
 reading the Manchester petition to the House, Mr. John Wood, who presented 
 
 Har.sard, xii, S7S. it, declared, " The whole of the north of England, the deputation from Man- 
 chester informed him, was in a state which it was impossible to describe. 
 Dismay, and above all, indignation, prevailed every where. He believed, how- 
 ever, if the House did its duty, that the country might yet be saved : if it 
 would not, he believed the people knew their duty ; and if the House
 
 CiiAP. v.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 03 
 
 would not stop the Supplies, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, whoever he 1S32. 
 
 might be, would very soon find that his coffers were unrcplcnished. Whetlier — --^ 
 
 such a line of conduct might be right or wrong, it was not for him to argue 
 then ; but it was his duty, as a Reformer, to state his firm conviction, that if 
 a Borough-mongering faction should prevail, tlie people would take the most 
 effectual mode of stopping the Supplies by telling the tax collector to call upon 
 them when the Reform Bill had passed into a law." So much of this kind of 
 statement was offered in the House, the petitions against votes of Supply were 
 presented and received with such hearty concurrence, that it became a question 
 every where what the Duke of Wellington and I^ord Lyndhurst could possibly 
 propose to do with the House of Commons. The present House would cer- 
 tainly nc\er yield up the Reform measure ; and if, as Avas reported and 
 believed, the present parliament was to be immediately dissolved, there could 
 be no doubt that the people would return an overwhelming majority of Reform 
 members in the new elections. 
 
 The Common Council of the City of London were among the petitioners to i-ondon MuNin- 
 parliament to refuse the Supplies; they declared that all concerned in stopping 
 the passage of the Reform Bill were enemies to their country ; and they appointed 
 a permanent committee, to sit from day to day, till the measure should be se- Annual RpRisier, 
 cured. The Livery of London, assembled in Common Hall, adopted exactly the 
 same course. There can be no doubt that both bodies held themselves ready to 
 communicate and co-operate with the political unions which were expected to 
 march up to London, in case of a prolongation of the struggle. Some of the 
 smaller unions discussed plans of marcliing peaceably to the metropolis, and 
 bivouacking in the squares — there to wait till the Reform Bill should become 
 law. The gi-eat Birmingham Union, now 200,000 strong, was to encamp on 
 Ilampstcad Heath, or perhaps I'encnden Heath, in order to incorporate with 
 it bodies coming from the south. On the movements of this Birmingham 
 Union, which had so lately uttered its sublime vow under the open sky, all 
 eyes were now turned : and there is reason to believe that what passed at Bir- 
 mingham immediately determined the issue of this mighty contention. 
 
 Declarations began to appear in the Tory newspapers that all reports of the so, i.terv and 
 disaffection of the Scots Greys at Birmingham were mere fabrications of the 
 Reformers ; and that it was a gross and scandalous falsehood that the Duke of 
 Wellington could not rely upon the soldiery. These declarations immediately 
 showed men that such things had been said, and that the reports were con- 
 sidered of importance ; and most people believed that they wei'e true. Reve- 
 lations haAC since been made which show that there was much truth in them. 
 Tliere had been talk of " cold iron" on the Tory side, for some days ; and the 
 Duke of Wellington liad been understood to stand pledged since the 9th, " to .spod.n.r, isss, 
 quiet the country in ten days;" and an attempt at military government for''' 
 the time was almost iniiversally looked for. What the Duke's intentions were 
 precisely is not known, and perha])s it will never be known ; but circumstances 
 have been revealed which show that his reliance at first was more or less on 
 the soldiery ; and that he was informed of the vain nature of his reliance im- 
 mediately before he gave up his enterprise. Tiie earliest liours of his negotiation 
 were employed in sending out feelers of the disposition of the new police ; and 
 Colonel Rowan's report was unsatisfactory. From two of the divisions the
 
 (U 
 
 HISTORY OF EXGLAM) 
 
 [B<i,.K IV. 
 
 1832. 
 
 Spectator, 1832, 
 p. 462. 
 
 Spertator, m32, 
 p. im. 
 
 answer was, that if it was iuteiided for the police to act against the people, 
 they could not be relied on. There were some among the soldiery who re- 
 ported of themselves to the same effect with the least possible delay, not even 
 waiting to be questioned ; and from a pa.ssage in a speech of a relative of the 
 Duke of Wellington's on the 16th, it appears that the disinclination to oppose 
 the people was concluded to be prevalent in the army. In the last preceding 
 struggle, in October, the Duke of Wellington had said to Mr. Potter, of Man- 
 chester, who represented the determination of the working classes to have 
 Refomi, " the people of England are very quiet if they are left alone ; and if 
 thev won't, there is a way to make them." In the opinion of his relative, 
 Mr. Wellesley, member for Essex, he was now, on the 16th of May, finding 
 himself mistaken. Mr. Wellesley "was sorry he had shown so much ignorance 
 of the character of the IJritish people, in supposijrg that they were not fit to 
 be trusted w-ith those liberties to which avc, as Reformers, say they arc wor- 
 thily entitled. He had told him so often ; and he was astonished that a man 
 of such intelligent mind — a man who had led them ou through blood and 
 battle, through danger to victory — should have so mistaken the character of 
 the British people, as to suppose that the red coat could change the character 
 of the man, or to imagine that the soldier was not a citizen." Some of the 
 yeomanry corps resigned during the critical interval ; that of Ware being in 
 such haste to declare themselves on the side of the people, that they assembled 
 immediately on hearing of the retirement of the Whig ministry, and informed 
 the Marquess of Salisbury of their resignations by sending them at midniglit 
 to Hatfield House. Of all the forces in the kingdom, the soldiery at Birming- 
 ham fixed the most attention, because liirmingham was the foremost place in 
 public observation ; because the Duke nnist be able to rely on the soldiery 
 stationed there at such a time, if on any; and because of the reports afloat that 
 the Scots Greys would refuse to act against the people, if called upon. 
 
 The officers of the Birmingham Union knew that certain of the Scots 
 Greys were on the Union books. Letters were found in the streets of the 
 town, which declared in temperate language that the Greys w^ould do their 
 duty if called on to repress riot, or any kind of outrage, but that they would 
 not act if called on to put down a peaceable ijublic meeting, or to hinder the 
 conveyance to London of any petition, by any number of peaceable persons. 
 Some of these letters contained the strongest entreaties to the people of Bir- 
 mingham to keep the peace, that they might not compel their sympathizing 
 friends among the Greys to act against them. Letters containing similar 
 avowals were sent to the King, to the Duke of Wellington, and to Lord Hill 
 Aiiiohiosrnphy of at the War Office. We know this on the testimony of a private of the regi- 
 p. 240. ' ment, who avows himself a party in these proceedings, and who gives us the 
 
 Auiobiosraphy of folloAving clcar and impressive account of his own view of the position in 
 p. 249. ' ' which he and his comrades stood ; a view which he knew to be shared by 
 many of his comrades, and which he took care shoidd be well imderstood by 
 the Duke of Wellington : " The duty of soldiers to protect property and 
 suppress riots expressed then were the o^nnions which I have since expressed. 
 To write, or say, or think, that in any case we were not to do what we were 
 ordered was a grave offence, nothing short of mutiny. I was aware of that 
 grave fact. I remonstrated with the soldiers who had joined the Political
 
 Chap. V.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. G.5 
 
 Union, and succeeded in persuading them to recall their adhesion to it. Witli 1832. 
 
 the same regard to my own safety, I never went near the Political ITnion. • . ' 
 
 Had the time and the circumstances come for us to act according to our 
 design and judgment, and not according to orders, it would have been an 
 occasion gi-cat enough to risk all that we were risking. It would have been a 
 national necessity. We would have either been shot dead, or triumphant with 
 a nation's thanks upon our heads. For either alternative we were prepared." 
 This state of preparation being made known at head-quarters on the one 
 hand, and by the whole people of Birmingham and the ^lidland Counties 
 through the newspapers on the other, all plans of military coercion in that 
 neighbourhood were clearly frustrated. 
 
 The first probation of these soldiers was on the Sunday after the Newhall 
 Hill meeting. At all times hitherto the barrack yard had been the resort of 
 people who liked " to see the Greys :" and on the preceding Sunday, " there 
 were upwards of 5,000 people within the gates, most of them well dressed 
 artisans, all wearing ribbons of light blue knotted in their breasts, indicating Autobiomphv of 
 
 ..-,.,, ^-.-1 -,1 1^ WorkiDg Mall, 
 
 that they were members of the political union. On the next Sunday, the p- 2<J. 
 scene was different indeed. Tlie gates were closed ; the soldiers were marched 
 to prayers in the forenoon, and their occupation for the rest of the day was 
 rough-sharj)ening their swords on the grindstone. This was at the time that 
 they were kept supplied with ball cartridge, and booted and saddled day and 
 niglit. They were kept so close within their walls at present, that they did 
 not know ^^•ith any precision what was going forward : but their impression 
 was — and the impression soon became a rumour — that the Birmingham Union 
 was to march for London that night, and that the Greys were to bar its pro- 
 gress. The doubt and dread were not lessened by the nature of their work. 
 The purpose of rough-sharpening the swords " was to make them inflict a 
 ragged wound. Not since before the battle of Waterloo had the swords of the 
 Greys undergone the same process. Old soldiers spoke of it, and told the 
 young ones. Few words were spoken. We had made more noise, and pro- 
 bably looked less solemn, at prayers in the morning, than we did now grinding 
 our swords. It was the Lord's day, and we were icorki/iff." 
 
 The Union did not start for London that night. It had to hold a meeting 
 the next day. There were then 200,000 persons present. They resolved to pay 
 no taxes till the Bill was passed ; and they carried a Declaration of unappeas- spectator, 1932, 
 able ojijjosition to the faction Avhich had misled the King, and of reasons why 
 the nation should demand the removal of the Duke of Wellington from the 
 royal counsels. This declaration was to have been signed (after legal re'N'ision) 
 by all the Unionists in the kingdom : but it was not wanted — any more than 
 the jagged swords of the Grej'S. The Birmingham Union met again on the 
 Wednesday for purposes of thanksgiving. 
 
 The debating of the newspapers, and of all assemblages of people, in jniblic 
 and ])rivate, as to whether it was or was not true that the army was not to be 
 relied on, was fatal to all reliance on the army, and would have been, if every 
 soldier in the kingdom had been precisely of the Duke's way of flunking. It 
 must have been an extreme surprise to the great Captain to find already that 
 if the people would not bo quiet, there was /lot a way to make them so against 
 their \vill. So it proved, however ; and tlie end of it was tliat if the Duke 
 
 vol.. II. K
 
 m 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGI-AND 
 
 [Book IV. 
 
 Spectator, 1932, 
 p. 4U5. 
 
 1832. would not be quiet, the people had found a way to make him so. On the 
 
 "^— ^'- second day after the giinding of swords — on Tuesday, the 15th — Lords Grey 
 
 ca"l"d."'^'' ""^ and Althorp intimated to the two Houses the joyful news that communications 
 Hansard, xii. 982. -jygje roncwed between the sovereign and themselves which rendered it expe- 
 dient to adjourn till Thursday. The words were scarcely uttered before there 
 was a msh from the Houses, to spread the tidings. There was no electric 
 telegraph then : but the news flew as by electric agency. By breakfast time 
 the next morning, placards were up in the streets of Birmingham ; and pre- 
 sently the people thronged to Newhall Hill, after bringing ]Mr. Attwood into 
 the town. As by an impulse of the moment, a minister present was asked to 
 offer thanksgiving ; and that prayer — that devout expression of gratitude for 
 their bloodless victory, and their privileges as exulting freemen, was felt by 
 the throng to be a fitting sequel to their last week's solemn vow. 
 
 It nuist be some days before the facts could become perfectly known, or the 
 future certainly anticipated : but men felt secure enough of the result to begin 
 to return to their business. There had been a run on the Bank of England 
 to the extent of above £1,000,000 in small sums. Now, this began to flow- 
 back again : the weaver stepped into his loom : the blacksmith blew up the 
 fire of his forge : the husbandmen parted off into the fields ; and the mer- 
 chants of London ceased to crow-d the footways of Lombard-street all day long. 
 In forty-eight hours more there Avas a rumour in London that by some 
 means unlcnown the peers had been induced to yield. What the conjuration 
 was which brought about such a marvel was not understood at present ; except 
 that some unusual exertion of his personal influence had been made by the 
 King. That the good behaviour of the peers was not absolutely assured 
 seemed to be shown by the care with which Lord Grey and his colleagues 
 evaded the question whether they had received any pledge about a creation of 
 peers. By acute observers it was supposed that some method of warning or 
 persuasion had been used by the King : and that he held himself ready, in 
 case of its failure, to create peers, to the extent necessary for can-ying the Bill. 
 This proved to be the truth. The first expedient was successful : and it is 
 entertaining now to see, on looking back to that date, how credit is taken by 
 the Lords who now yielded to this final appeal for haA-ing " saved the Peerage, 
 with what else was left of the Constitution." The final appeal to the Lords — 
 the last practical acknowledgment of their fiee will, was in the form of the 
 following circular letter, dated from St. James's Palace, May 17th, 1832 : — 
 
 " My dear Lord, — I am honoured with his Majesty's commands to acquaint 
 your lordship, that all diificulties to the arrangements in progress will be 
 obviated by a declaration in the House to-night from a sufficient number of 
 peers, that, in consequence of the present state of affairs, they have come to 
 the resolution of dropping their further opposition to the Refomi Bill, so that 
 it may pass without delay, and as nearly as possible in its present shape. I 
 have the honour, &c. Herbekt Taylor. " 
 
 This, which was called the King's letter to the waverers, removed all diffi- 
 culties. It was dated on the Thursday ; and on that night the Duke of Wel- 
 lington made his explanation of the transactions of the preceding week, retiring 
 from the House when he had finished, and absenting himself during all the 
 
 Life of r,nrd El. 
 don, iii. 178. 
 
 King's .Appeal 
 TO THE PEtns. 
 
 Annual Repister, 
 I8:tj, p. 187.
 
 Chap. V.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 67 
 
 remaining discussions of the Reform Bill. About 100 peers went out with 1832. 
 
 him, and absented themselves in like mamier. On the next Monday, the 21st, " — -^ ' 
 
 the peers I'csumed the discussion of the Bill in committee — the Duke of New- bill. 
 castle 2)rotesting against their assuming such an appearance of free will as this, 
 and dcsiiing that they would read through the whole Bill at once, and pass it 
 as quickly as possible— as men acting under open compulsion. The first 
 di\4sion took place the next night, on the question of the separate represen- 
 tation of the Tower Hamlets, when the anti-reformers exhibited their largest 
 minority — 36 to 91. But this disheartened them ; and on the next night only 
 15 were present. On Thursday, the 'Z-Lxh, 23 were preset. On ^Vednesday, 
 the 30th, the disfranchising sections of the Bill were gone through — the ten- 
 derest points where all was painful. These sections were read through with 
 little discussion, and no real opposition ; and on the same night the Committee 
 finished its business. On the 1st of June the Eeport was received, eighteen 
 peers recording their dissent in a protest. On the 4th, Lord Grey was ill ; but 
 he went down to the House to move the third reading of his Bill. Unfit for 
 exertion as he was, he was called up by an attack on the Administration from 
 Lord Harrowby. When he sat down, it was suddenly, from inability to stand 
 and speak ; but his last words on Parliamentary Reform, though not designed HansarH,xiii.3G8. 
 to be the last, were a fitting close to the testimony o{ his whole political Ufe: 
 " He trusted that those who augured unfavourably of the Bill would live to 
 see all their ominous forebodings falsified, and that, after the angry feelings of 
 the day had passed away, the measure would be found to be, in the best sense 
 of the word, conservative of the Constitution." The majority were lOG ; the 
 minority 22. The question ' that the Bill do pass' was put and carried ; and Hansard, xia 371. 
 then a great number of congratulating peers gathered about the venerable 
 Minister who had so majestically conducted to fruition a measure which he had 
 advocated before many of the existing generation of legislators were born, and 
 through long years of discouragement, which ordinary men woidd have taken 
 for hopelessness. The Commons next day agreed to the few amendments pro- 
 ])oscd by the Lords, which left untouched the disfranchising and enfranchising 
 clauses ; and on Thursday, June 7th, the Reform Bill became law — the Royal J^^*'***'^'^ '■■■'^° 
 assent being given by a commission consisting of the Lord Chancellor, the 
 Marquesses of Lansdowue and "Wellesley, and Lords Grey, Holland, and 
 Durham. spccwtor, issa, 
 
 p. b-ji). 
 
 It is not to be supposed that when Lord Grey received the congratulations 
 of his friends, there Wiis no melauclioly mingled with his satisfaction ; or that 
 he had no sympathy with the stoutest of his opponents. The provocation 
 caused by the long resistance of the Beers to a necessary change might natu- 
 rally bliiul the people at large to a portion of their case, and might urge the 
 most lordly of the Ministers themselves into a state of popular feeling at 
 which they might afterwards stand surprised. But Lord Grey was too 
 nuich of a man, too much of a scholar, too much of a peer, not to feel and 
 remt^mber that, by the passage of this Act, the ancient glory of the House of position of the 
 his Order was declared to have departed. The change could not be prevented. 
 It was rendered so imperative by time that the course of wisdom was clear — 
 to acquiesce in the change, and to obtain the utmost possible good out of the 
 attendant circiunstances. But, however anxious to put an end to the abuses
 
 68 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book IV. 
 
 1832. of borough coiniption and the inteit'oience of peers witli popular represen- 
 tation, suc-li a man as Lord Grey could not hut roincniher the ancient days 
 when the lords of the realm were the parliament of the realm — when there 
 was no middle class, and the peers were tlic proteetors of such pojnilar interests 
 as existed then ; — lie could not but remember the majesty of his House during 
 the centuries when the popular element was advancin<>- and expanding ; and 
 though tliat House had of late fallen from its dignity — become adulterated in 
 its quality, and disgraced by too much of ignorance and sordidness in its self- 
 will and its claims — it still was the IJritish House of Peers which was now 
 overborne and humbjed, and made conscious that it existed no longer as a 
 vital part of the English Constitution, but for the sake of decorum and ex- 
 ]iediency. It was natural for the pcoj)lt — the large majority of Avhom contem- 
 plate the present and the future in all their interests — to enjoy the signal proof 
 now given of the continuous rise and expansion of the popular element in the 
 nation ; but the most that could be expected from Lord Grey was to perceive 
 and i)rovide for the fact in the noblest and the amplest manner. His associ- 
 ations were too much concerned with the past to admit of his rejoicing with an 
 unmingled joy. Many of us who rejoiced without drawback at the time, and 
 held the strongest opinions of the folly and selfishness of the Tory peers, can 
 now see that they really were much to be pitied : that it was true that " the 
 balance of the Constitution was destroyed ;" and that the change was some- 
 thing audacious and unheard of. In as far as these things were true, the Con- 
 servative Peers had a claim to the sympathy of all thoughtful persons in their 
 regrets. Their fault and folly lay — that fault and folly which deprived them 
 of popular sympathy — in supposing that the operations of time could be re- 
 sisted, and their own position maintained, by a mere refusal to give way. They 
 lost more than they need have done by a foolish and ungracious resistance, 
 which served but to complete and to proclaim their humiliation. It is a fact 
 not to be denied, that, as the kingly power had before descended to a seat lower 
 than that of parliament, the House of Peers now took rank in the government 
 below the Commons. It -will ever stand in history that the House of Commons 
 became the true governing power in Great Britain in 1832, and that from that 
 date the other powers existed, not by their own strength, but by a general 
 agi-eement founded on considerations as well of broad utility, as of decomm 
 and ancient affection. In as fiir as the House of Peers was now proved to be 
 destined henceforward (as the Eoyal function had for some time been) to exist 
 only by consent of the people at large, it might be truly said that the Consti- 
 tution was destroyed ; and the Prime Minister who had conducted the process 
 could not be insensible, even in the moment of his triumph, to the seriousness 
 and antiquarian melancholy of the fact, however convinced he might be of the 
 historical glories which were to arise out of it. 
 By the Eeform Bill, as passed, the representative system of the British Islands 
 
 PoiitDict. i. 5»o. became this. 
 
 suDSTANCE OF lu Euglaud, tlic county constituencies, which had before been fiftv-two, 
 
 THE Reform . . ^ •^, . , , . . . •' 
 
 Bill. returning ninety-ioiir members, were no^v increased by the division of counties 
 
 to eighty-two constituencies, returning 159 members. In Ireland there was 
 no change. In Scotland, the number of constituencies and members remained 
 as before, but some shifting took place to secure a more equitable representa-
 
 Chap. V.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 69 
 
 tioii. The gicat iiitivase in the county representation is the chief of those 1832. 
 
 features which woukl soon cause the measin-c to be calk'd (as Lords Grey and ' — —^ 
 
 Althorp predicted) " the most aristocratic measure that ever passed the House 
 of Commons." 
 
 All boroughs whose population was, according to the census of 1831, under 
 2000 were disfranchised. Fifty-six English boroughs, which before returned 
 111 members, were thus exting\iished as constituencies. Such boroughs as 
 had a population under 4000, and had hitherto returned two representa- 
 tives, were now to have one. These being thirty in number, thirty members 
 were thus reduced. The united boroughs of We}'inouth and Melcombe Regis 
 were now to send two members instead of four : and thus was the total reduc- 
 tion of 143 old borough members provided for. 
 
 As the total number of representatives was not to be altered (as decided by 
 the House of Commons), the 143 were to be distributed over new or newly- 
 arranged constituencies. New and large constituencies in England and Wales 
 received 63. The Metropolitan districts and other boroughs with a population 
 of 25,000 and upwards were now to return two members each ; and these took 
 up 22 more. The remaining 21 were to be returned by 21 boroughs whose 
 population amounted to 12,000 and upwards. In Ireland, the increase of the 
 representation was only from 35 to 39 members ; with an additional member 
 given to Dublin University. In Scotland, there was much redistribution of the 
 franchise, and change in the formation of constituencies : and the luuuber of 
 town representatives was raised from 15 to 23. 
 
 There was much changing of boundaries where a population had gTOwn up 
 outside the old limits, and fixing of limits to the boroughs wliich had a large 
 new population. 
 
 Improvements were made in the practice of issuing writs for new elections, 
 and in the conduct of elections, by the ordaining of convenient polling dis- 
 tricts, and the shortening of the time of polling in contested elections. The 
 term of fifteen polling days in county elections was shortened to two in 
 England, Wales, and Scotland, and five in Ireland : and instead of the old 
 process of scrutiny, which occasioned endless delays and A'cxations, there was 
 to be henceforward only a comparison of the voter's statement as to name and 
 qualification with his description in the register. 
 
 In the great matter of the qualification of voters it was thought impossible 
 to avoid compromise ; and some provisions therefore exist wliich every body 
 imderstands must be got rid of sooner or later. The old " freemen " were 
 pei-mitted to remain among the qualified, the condition of residence being 
 imposed, and all being excluded who had been made freemen since March 
 1831, the fact being notorious that a multitude of such voters had been 
 created by the corporations, for the sake of defeating the Reform measure. 
 The new borough franchise rested on the basis of inhabitancy. Inhabitants 
 of abodes (whose various kinds are specified) of the yearly valiio of 10/., become 
 electors, provided they comply with all conditions of registration payment of 
 rates and taxes, and length of residence. The privileges of cut-voters were 
 abolished entirely, the elector being able to vote only in the place where he 
 resides, or where he has property in land or houses of the re(iuired .'imount. 
 In Ireland great changes were occasioned by this fixing of the franchise, as the
 
 "0 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book IV. 
 
 1832. corporations tliere had been excessively conupt in the use of the large powers 
 of which they were now deprived. In Scotland, the franchise was at once, 
 and for the first time, put into tlie hands of the true constituency, while the 
 town councils were deprived of the powers which tlicy liad grossly abused. 
 
 As for tlie county franchise — it was extended by admitting copyholders and 
 leasehoklers, and even, inider some circumstances, occupiers, to the franchise 
 wliidi was before confined to freeholders, to the value of 40.v. ; w hile free- 
 holders were prevented fiom voting in both county and borough elections. 
 The most xuifortunate part of the Bill was that clause proposed by the Mar- 
 quess of Chandos, by which tenants-at-will in the counties, occupying at a 
 yearly value of bOL, have the franchise. By this provision, the power of the 
 great landed proprietors over their tenantry is perpetuated ; and hence arises a 
 greater frustration of the purposes of the Act than from all other errors and 
 faults together. The county franchise in Ireland was so resettled in 1829 as 
 to be little affected by the present Act, such alteration as there was being the 
 admission of certain copyholders, leaseholders, and occupiers. By the new 
 arrangements, the county constituency in .Scotland was much enlarged. 
 
 As for the qualification of the representative, disabilities on account of pro- 
 fession (as the clerical), and the holding of modern ofiiccs under the crown, 
 and of situations of government emolument, remained much as before. Disabi- 
 lities on account of religious opinion had been aheady almost entirely abrogated. 
 The qualification for an English, Welsh, and Irish member remained as before 
 in regard to property ; viz., a clear estate of 600/. a year for a county seat, and 
 of 300/. a year for a city or borough seat. The property qualifications were 
 not extended to Scotland at the time of the Union ; nor were they by the new 
 Act. A qualification was formerly required for a Scottish elector which is 
 not necessary for a Scottish representative now. 
 What the Bill Such was the Rcform Act of 1832, by which the landed interests were 
 
 Ttf A un fa Will* • 
 
 brought down some little way from a supremacy which had once been natui-al 
 and just, but which had now become insufferably tyrannical and corrupt. As 
 the manufacturing and commercial classes had long been rising in numbers, 
 property, and enlightenment, it was time for them to be obtaining a propor- 
 tionate influence in the government. By this Act they did not obtain their 
 due influence: but they gained much; and the way was cleared for more. 
 Great as was the gaui thus far, there was a yet mightier benefit in the proof 
 that the will of the People, when sufficiently intelligent and united, could 
 avail to modify tlie government through the forces of reason and resolution, 
 without violence. Tliis pomt ascertained, and the benefit secured, all subsided 
 into quiet. Trade and manufactures began immediately to prosper; credit 
 was firm, and the majority of the nation were in high hope of what might be 
 expected from a government which had begun its reforms so nobly, and pro- 
 mised many more. There were some, and not a very few, who declared that 
 the sun of England had set for ever : but yet nobody could see that it was 
 growing dark. Men in general thought that if they had ever walked in broad 
 daylight, it was now. 
 
 The King was presently pitied and pardoned, as an old man, called late to 
 the throne— more amiable than enlightened, and entangled between public 
 duty and private aflbctions which had been brought by the fault of others into 
 
 IS, AND IS NOT. 
 
 .St^tr of Public 
 Interests.
 
 Chap. V.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 71 
 
 contrariety: but, as was fitting, he never recovered his original popularity. 1832. 
 
 When the Refonn Bill was once secure, men no more carried a black flag, " ^ ' 
 
 with the inscription, " Put not your trust in princes ;" nor a crown stuffed 
 ■with straw, with the inscription " Ichabod ;" but neither did they rend the 
 clouds again with cheers for their " King William, the father of his coimtry." 
 Tlierc was no longer any thing to fear from him : but men saw that neither 
 was there any thing to hope from him : and he was thenceforth treated with 
 a mere decorum, which liad in it full as much of compassion as of respect. 
 
 As for his Ministers, they Avcre idols, aloft in a shrine. the admisistea.
 
 T'2 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book IV. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 1832. "^ISrillLE the Reform Bill was in progress and in jeopardy, little else was 
 ^"^^•"^ — ' ^ ^ thouslit of — except, indeed, the new plague which liad come to overcloud 
 
 Aspects on iin ^ ^ •in pi i*i iii 
 
 TiMB. all hearts, and to attract to itseli some of the terror which would otherwise 
 
 have hcen given entire to the apprehension of coming revolution. There 
 were many in those days who would have been intensely grateful to know, 
 first, that the Cholera would have departed by a certain day, leaving them and 
 their families in safety: and next, that revolution — by which they understood 
 the overthrow of the whole social fabric — would not happen in their life time. 
 If they could have been assured of these two immunities, they would have 
 been quite happy, woidd have believed their way was clear for life, and that 
 affairs would remain in their existing state, as long as theii' own generation 
 had any concern M'ith them. Very different from this view was that taken by 
 braver spirits, with that truer vision given by courage and enlightenment. 
 
 i.ifr, i. ■.'fi4. " The truth is," wrote Dr. Arnold, in April 1831, " that we are arrived at one 
 of those periods in the progress of society when the constitution naturally 
 undergoes a change, just as it did two centuries ago. It was impossible then 
 for the King to keep down the higher part of the middle classes ; it is impos- 
 sible now to keep down the middle and lower parts of them. . . . One would 
 think that people who talk against change were literally as well as motaphori- 
 Ciilly blind, and really did not see that every thing in themselves and around 
 them is changing every hour by the necessary laws of its being." — " There is 
 
 Life, i. 281. nothing so revolutionary, because there is nothing so unnatural and so convul- 
 sive to society, as the strain to keep things fixed, when all the world is by 
 the very law of its creation in eternal progress ; and the cause of all the evils 
 of the world may be traced to that natural but most deadly error of human 
 indolence and corruption, that our business is to preserve and not to improve." 
 Such was the view taken, and maintained at first with some consistency, by 
 the ^Ministry which came into power in November, 1830. They saw that a 
 new period had arrived, from which great changes must take their date. 
 They saw what opposition would be raised by those who feared change ; and 
 what difficulties by a host of sufferers from existing evils, or um-easonable 
 
 Works, iii. 133. expectants of impossible good. They could laugh when Sydney Smith said, 
 in a speech on the Reform Bill, " All young ladies will imagine, as soon as 
 this Bill is carried, that they will be instantly married. Schoolboys believe 
 that gerunds and supines will be abolished, and that currant tarts must ulti- 
 mately come down in price ; the corporal and sergeant are sm-e of double pay; 
 bad poets will expect a demand for their epics ; fools will be disappointed, as 
 they always are :" — Ministers might laugh at the expectations of the fools and 
 school-children ; but they were aware that a multitude of evils which must 
 be redressed now and obviated for the future must be dealt with in another
 
 Chap. VI. J DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. T.J 
 
 manner than the sufferers themselves had any idea of, or were at all likely to 1832. 
 approve. Not only had they to carry through some arduous work in which ~ — "^^ ' 
 they were supported by the demand aud the sympathy of a majority of tlie 
 nation : they had also much to do which was not less imperatively demanded ; 
 but in doing which they must adopt methods which their supporters had to 
 be taught to understand. — To appreciate their position, irrespective of the 
 Reform Bill, let us briefly survey the state and prospects of the country when 
 Lord Grey and his friends came into power. 
 
 Tlie much-dreaded Cholera pro\ed the smallest of the prominent evils of the i'"e choleoa. 
 time. Its first assault was the most violent ; and then it attacked few but 
 the ■v'icioas, the diseased, and the feeble ; and it carried off in the M-hole fewer 
 victims tlian many an epidemic, before and since, which has run its course 
 very quietly. Before its disappearance fiom the United Kingdom, in fifteen 
 months, the average of deaths was one in 3j of those attacked: and the total ^^^J^''* "''""■"■ 
 number of deaths in and near London was declared to be 5,275. No return 
 was obtained of tlie number in the kingdom. Wlien it is remembered how 
 many deaths happened in the noisome places of our towns, and in damp 
 nooks of wretched country villages ; and in the pauper haimts of Edinburgh 
 and Glasgow, and among the hungering Irish, it is clear that the disease 
 could hardly work any appreciable effect in the open places, and among the 
 comfortable classes of the kingdom. If a person of rank, or substance, or in 
 healthy middle age, was attacked here and there, it was spoken of as a remark- 
 able circumstance ; and the Cholera soon came to be regarded as a visitation 
 on the vicious and the poor. Happily the preparations which depended on 
 the apprehensions or the benevolence of the rich were made before that change 
 in the aspect of the new plague; — the cleansing and white-washing — the 
 gifts of clothing and food : and the impression was made on all thoughtful 
 minds that imjiroved knowledge and care on the subject of health were the 
 cause of our comparative impunity imder the visitation of this jjlague, and 
 that a still improved knowledge and care were the requisites to a complete 
 impunity hereafter. Though our progress from that day to this has been 
 slower than it ought to have been, the awakening of sociefv in England to 
 the duty of care of the Public Healtli must date from the visitation of the 
 Cholera in 1831-2. 
 
 The state of the rural districts was fearful at the time of the accession of 
 the Grey administration. Every body knew about the rick-burning and 
 machine-breaking ; and the thoughtless and narrow-minded called for soldiery 
 and police, stringent laws and severe punishments. More thoughtful persons, 
 however, looked also at the condition of the agricultural interest generally — 
 the complaints of distress, renewed from year to year, the increase of pauperism 
 aud j)oor rates, aiul the growth of crime, as well as of misery; and they saw 
 that the evil was one which stringent laws and severe punishments could not 
 cure, nor even reach. They saw that the real mischief lay in the antiquated 
 and corrupted I'oor-law which they knew to be wliat it was declared to be by the poor Law. 
 a French commission sent over to inquire into its operation — " the great poli- 
 tical gangrene of England, which it was equally dangerous to meddle with 
 and to let alone." Under this system, in its union with the Corn Laws, the 
 condition and prospects of the country were truly sucli as to make sagacious 
 
 vol.. n. I,
 
 74 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book IV. 
 
 1832. statesmen tremble. No previous administration liad understood the mischief 
 
 ^ — — ' in all its extent and its bearings ; but the facts were that -while rents were 
 
 nominally very high, no lando>vner was sure of his income ; that the farmers 
 were subject to fluctuations in their receipts which discouraged all pru- 
 dence and self-education for their business ; that land was badly tilled, or 
 actually going out of cultivation ; that the quality of labonr was deteriorating 
 incessantly, from the practice of paying wages more and more out of the 
 rates ; that the labourers were becoming more and more reckless and demoral- 
 ized, as they came to fonn a huge pauper class ; that the honest and inde- 
 pendent of their order were drawn doAvn faster and faster into pauperism ; 
 that the class of small shopkeepers were becoming, in increasing numbers, 
 unable to pay rates, and compelled, instead, to apply for relief; that country 
 parishes were exhibiting themselves, with less and less shame, as scenes of 
 unprincipled jobbing and scandalous vice, where every one who could thrust 
 his hand into the public purse, where the honest and independent became the 
 victims of the knavish and reckless, where the unchaste might prosper while 
 the chaste must starve, where the capitalists of the parish must sink under 
 the coalition between the magistracy and the paupers ; and where ruin im- 
 pended over all. The amount of money expended for the relief of the poor 
 in England and Wales had risen in half a century from mider two millions 
 to above seven millions per annum : and this vast cxpenditiu-e went to 
 increase instead of to relieve the pauperism of the country. Here was this 
 enormous tax, becoming ruinous by annual increase, less production from the 
 land, less industry among the labourers, more vice, more misery, a great race 
 of illegitimate children growing up, riots by day, fires by night, the stout 
 heart of England sinking, and likely to be soon broken ; and all from the 
 existence of a Poor-law system for whose repeal or alteration there was no 
 popular demand, while it was certain that every item of it would be clutched 
 fast to the last moment by parties and persons the most difficult to deal with 
 from their lack of either enlightenment or public principle. Next to the 
 Reform question, the gravest which presented itself to the handling of the 
 new Ministry was undoubtedly that of the Poor Law. 
 
 If it was proposed to lighten the pressure upon the poor-rate by the resource 
 of Emigration, the question was, how was it to be done ? — where were the 
 people to go ? The true principles of colonization were on the eve of being 
 announced ; but they were not yet understood ; and there was the story of the 
 Swan RivtR sr.T- Swau River settlement, new and disheartening, within every man's knowledge. 
 The Swan River settlement dates from 1829 as a British colony. The 
 accounts given of the district (on the western coast of New Holland) by 
 Captain Stirling, who became its first governor, caused the grandest expecta- 
 tions. And the fault of the failure did not lie in any deception about the 
 natural advantages of the place. The fault was in ignorance of the first 
 principles of colonization. Vast tracts of land were sold or granted to indivi- 
 duals. The colony was to be exempted, as a favour, from any importation of 
 convicts. The settlers were to be allowed 200 acres of land for every labour- 
 ing man, woman, or child above ten years of age, that they should import into 
 the colony: and forty acres of land were given (up to the end of 1830) for 
 every amount of £3 imported into the settlement in any shape. Thus land
 
 Chap. VI.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 
 
 superabouiided in proportion to capital: and the capital bronght in, though so 1832. 
 scanty in proportion to the land, abounded in proportion to the labour. The 
 richest of the colonists could obtain no labourers ; and they sat down upon 
 tlicir lands, surrounded by their rotting goods, their useless tools, and the 
 frames of houses which there were no hands to erect — without shelter, and 
 certain soon to be without food, if more labour could not be obtained. Instead 
 of more, there \vas daily less, as the few labourers who were on the spot made 
 use of their first exorbitant earnings to possess themselves of enough of the 
 cheap land to make them their own masters. Now it appeared that the secret 
 of the success of otlier settlements, pitied for their liability to convict immi- 
 gration, was in their convict labour : and the Swan River colonists petitioned 
 the government at liome to send them convicts to save them from destruction. 
 Some of the settlors wandered away, as they could find opportunity, to other 
 colonies, stript of every thing, or carrying the mere wrecks of their expensive 
 outfit, and declaring of the famous Swan River district, " it is a country to 
 break one's heart :" and people at home heard such tales of perplexity and 
 disaster as shook the popular confidence in Emigration as a resource, and 
 might well make the government hesitate in regarding it as a remedy, in any 
 degree, for the intolerable pressure upon the poor-rate. 
 
 And what was tlie state of older colonies? The moral sense of the nation ■■'>■ 
 must be met in regard to the abolition of Slavery. From the time of the issue 
 of the famous Circular in Canning's day — ftom the time that the cause of the 
 negro had been taken up by the powers at home — it was certain that a radical 
 cliange must take place in the relation between the proprietors of men and 
 their legal human property : and none who saw what a vast universe of morals 
 lies above and beyond the range of the law, could for a moment doubt what 
 that cliange would be. But tliere were enough of men, as there are in every 
 community, who see nothing above and beyond the existing law, to make the 
 process of change appear in anticipation very difficult and hazardous. Those 
 interested in human proprietorship would perhaps no longer try to push Clarkson 
 into the dock at Liverpool, or even dare to murder missionaries at such a distance 
 as Demcrara : but they had to be reminded that laws could be altered or 
 abolislied, and tauglit that eternal principles exist which compel the destruc- 
 tion of bad laws : and unwilling pupils like these are very slow at learning 
 their lesson. Tliis mighty work, of the abolition of Slavery, lay clear before 
 the eyes of the Ministers, needing to bo done, and soon. Another colony in 
 the AVest — Canada — was in an unsatisfactory state : but the call for reform '" 
 there appeared to be less pressing than it really was : and no adequate atten- 
 tion was given to it for yet a few years. As for our great Indian dependencies, i>" 
 there was no option about attending to them and their needs, for the Com- 
 pany's charter was about to expire : but it was a question of mighty import- 
 ance to future ages, as well as of vital consequence to many millions of living 
 men, what the terms of tlie great East India propvietorshij) or admiiiistralioii 
 sliouUI be from this time forward : whether the new doctrine of connnercial 
 freedom should sjircad to the nations of the East by our practice of it there, 
 or wliether any of the tinic-hallowcd monupolies of the most majestic ol' 
 Meriliant ('oini)anies shouhl be contended for against the rising pop^dar will. 
 
 Nearer home, there \>as that difhculty, without limit as to depth and extent ,
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 [Book IV. 
 
 1832. 
 
 Irish Church. 
 
 Law RtFuRM. 
 
 Mi'NICIPAL Ue- 
 I'UKlM. 
 
 the state of Ireland. The form in which the spirit of outrage now showed 
 itself was opposition to the Church. It had hecome impossible to collect 
 tithe in Ireland ; and men saw that to collect tithe in Ireland would never be 
 possible again. Here was the insulted Church to be vindicated (for there was 
 as yet no debate whether to maintain it), and, at all events, the starving Irish 
 clergy to be succoured, many of whom had pawned or sold their furniture and 
 clothes, and were working like labourers to raise potatoes to feed their children, 
 or were thankful for the gift of a meal of porridge for their families from a 
 neighbour. In England too, in places where the clergymen were strict about 
 their dues, an imitation of Irish methods of dealing with tithe-collectors began 
 to be heard of; and the affair was becoming urgent. Chancery reform, and 
 many improvements in our judicial system besides were needed and demanded. 
 The severity of our Criminal Law had been for many years condemned ; and 
 one relaxation after another had been procured : but much more remained to 
 be done than had yet been effected. The infliction of punishment was still 
 perniciously uncertain, from the law ordaining severer penalties than the 
 tribunals chose to inflict ; and a complete revision of the Criminal Law, in 
 order to bring it into harmony with the spirit of a new age, was a great work 
 pressing to be done. There was another noble task — new, beneficent, biit not 
 on that account the less urgently necessary — for which the nation looked con- 
 fidently to the new administration, and especially to the Henry Brougham who 
 was so deeply pledged to the cause : — the work of preparing a National System 
 of Education lay before the new rulers. The struggle and siiccess of the 
 people in the Reform question was a plea for it : the growing evils of the 
 Poor-law system were a plea for it : — the hope of the operative classes, 
 and the despair of the rick-burners and the machine-breakers, were pleas 
 for it. But these pleas, and all others, were in vain. It was not that 
 Henry Brougham, during his four years of power, made efforts which were 
 defeated, as efforts on behalf of Education have been since, by sectarian or 
 other differences : it was not here that the disappointment lay ; but in Henry 
 Brougham never approaching the subject at all, during his four years of 
 power. This affair lay before the new administration, when they came into 
 office, with the others just enumerated ; and it was the greatest of them all. 
 It alone was left untouched, and must be omitted in the narrative of what was 
 done between 1830 and 1834. 
 
 There was, besides, the Currency question, sure to turn up, under all admi- 
 nistrations, with every vicissitude of the national fortunes ; and now more sure 
 than usual, from the approaching expiration of the Bank Charter. There was 
 the usual eagerness every where for the reduction of taxation ; and more than 
 the usual expectation, from the confidence felt that a reforming ministry would 
 deal freely with sinecure offices and pensions which a Tory government could 
 not be expected to touch. 
 
 The opportunity must be taken while the spirit of refomr pervaded the nation, 
 and the enlightened will of the middle classes was in its completest ruiion and 
 vigour, to reform the municipal institutions of the country. A liberal cabinet, 
 anxious to raise the national mind and character by an extension of self-govern- 
 ment, could not but know that it was as desirable to juirify and enlarge 
 municipal administration and powers as to amend the parliamentary repre-
 
 Cii.vp.VI.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 77 
 
 sentatiou. And this work, which would have been necessary if they had had 1832. 
 
 nothin"- else to do than to carry Parliamentary and Corporation Reform, was - — ' 
 
 made yi't more indispensable in their eyes by the necessity which tliey foresaw 
 of introducing a principle and practice of centralization, new to administration 
 in England, and requiring, not only a careful watch over itself, but a set-off 
 of cnlari>ed local powers in some other direction. They foresaw that the per- 
 plexing and overwhelming task of Poor-law refonn could be accompUshcd no 
 otherwise than , by taking out of the hands of local administrators the powers 
 which had been so long and so grossly abused, that the wisest and best indi- 
 viduals could not be the reformers of the system in their own neighbourhoods, 
 but only its victims. These powers must now be confided to some central 
 body, and by them locally administered. Whether this necessity was a good 
 or an evil one might be and was debated by the two orders of politicians by 
 whom the great question of centralization and local administration is for ever 
 debated ; but, while some insisted that business was much better done when 
 done for the people by well-trained officials, sending out their functionaries 
 from a central office, and others contended that no such advantages could 
 compensate for the loss to the people of the habit and the privilege of manag- 
 ing their local affiiirs for themselves, the new government felt that a municipal 
 reform which should enlarge the local powers and public interests of the peo- 
 ple would be the best safeguard they could give against the possible evils of 
 such centralization as they must establish in the prosecution of some other 
 indispensable reforms. 
 
 Such was the series of works which lay before the new Ministry, when they 
 should have accomplished their distingTiishing achievement of Parliamentary 
 lieform. Tlie mere list is an indication that we have arrived at a new period 
 of history, and that our method of narration must change accordingly. 
 Hitherto, while governments went on from year to year, legislating for the 
 time — adding, amending, abrogating, from session to session, as natural occa- 
 sion arose — our history could not but take sometliing of the form of the 
 Chronicle — as it will again before its close. But at the incoming of a new 
 period, so marked by a great act of regeneration or revolution — whichever it 
 may be called — the chronicle method can do no justice to the matter to be 
 conveyed. The story of the Reform Bill could not be fitly told but in regular 
 sequence : neitlier can the story of the other refonns which it held in intimate 
 relation. We have catalogued the ordinary stars as they set : but no•\^• that a 
 magnificent new constellation appears in our political firmament, we must do 
 sometliing more than name the stars and let them go down in the list. They 
 must be signalized, so that all may know what has arisen. The story of these 
 enterprises will therefore be given in sequence, after a glance at the condition 
 of the new xVdministration in regard to its powers and its impediments. 
 
 Lord Grey's administration was strong in political character. All its mem- stbcnoth of the 
 bers had been not only liberal while in Opposition, but consistent for a long 
 course of years in contending for the precise objects which they now came 
 into power for the purpose of achieving. They were strong in the popular 
 support from the beginning : this strength went on increasing during the two 
 years occupied by the Reform struggle, and the meeting of the first reformed 
 parliament : but it must, as every nirmbcr of the government could not but
 
 WllAKVKSS (IF 
 Tin: CiO\EKN. 
 
 T8 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book IV. 
 
 1832. know, end in weakness. The enlliiisia-sm Mitli wliicli niinistois Mere rcgaidcd 
 in 1832 could not last. From tlie nature of the hiniian mind, it must sub- 
 side : and, when idolatry has once begun to decline, it is certain that the idol 
 will soon be found to be clay. Lord Brougliam was ridiculed for saying, after 
 the meeting of the first reformed parliament, that the government was too 
 strong. Whatever was the sense in which he meant this, the event proved 
 that it would have been better for the government not to have had so over- 
 wlielming a majority as they could number. A patriotic minister Avishes to 
 liave as strong an opposition as is consistent with the stability of his govern- 
 ment, that his measures may be well sifted, and all objections considered 
 before it is too late; and that he may thus share the responsibility of his acts 
 with his sharp-sighted opponents. This kind of aid and support from the foe 
 was especially needed by the Whigs, from their inexperience in office, and 
 their absolute lack of training for jiower. Thus was Lord ]5rougham justified 
 in saying that they were too strong in the new parliament ; and five years 
 afterwards, there was nobody who would not have agreed with him. At the 
 moment, however, this popular support was a vast power for good. It fixed 
 the kind-hearted but feeble king : it saved time when the pressure of work 
 was extreme ; and it saved the country from reflex agitation from the political 
 storms on the continent. 
 
 Here perhaps ends the list of the powers of the new Ministry. They were 
 MtNT""""" representatives of liberal principles of policy : they stood high in political 
 character, and v^crc sustained by unequalled popular support. Some would 
 have said beforehand that they must be strong in the ability of tlie respective 
 members ; but it did not prove so. While there was not a man among them 
 who might not have been called able in his way, there was no one of them of 
 commanding ability in office : no one great statesman. Lord Brougham was 
 the man whose splendid talents were looked to for magnificent results : but 
 he proved himself no statesman ; and it was only because his supposed states- 
 manshiji Avas wanted that he was raised to the Woolsack while known to be 
 no Equity laAvyer. Some of his colleagues have since, after considerable train- 
 ing, shown high ability in office — of Avhicli Sir James Graham is an eminent 
 example : but this training Avas exactly that in Avhich they Avere unavoidably 
 deficient, while it Avas essential to enable them to Avork together, and to render 
 their respectable amount of individual ability compensate for the absence of 
 commanding poAver. This Avant of training and of business habits is particu- 
 larly incapacitating in the case of men of aristocratic station Avho, if they have 
 not the discipline of official life, can hardly have any business habits or talents 
 at all : and again, the CAil Avas here aggravated by the ncAV JNIinisters having, 
 for the most part, spent their lives in opposition. Men in opposition incA'itably 
 form and utter rash judgments, from having only partial information on sub- 
 jects of Avhich they arc called to judge. They inevitably commit themselves, 
 so as to stand virtually pledged to courses of which they may think very 
 differently amidst the lights of office. Thus hampered as to ca'cu the princi- 
 l)les of much of the work to be done, they are in still gi-eater difficulties as to 
 the procedure. 
 
 Untrained as they Averc, it Avas absolutely necessary for the Whigs to retain 
 the services of the underlings of former administrations. It Avas a bitter, a
 
 Chap. VI.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 7!) 
 
 well-nigh fatal necessity; but a necessity it was. Tliat men as new as theiv 1832. 
 miisters, clerks as incxpcriencecl in official routine as the Ministers, could not 
 have carried on the business of the departments, needs no showing. The men 
 who were at the desks must be continued, in order to get through the work of 
 every day. These men were of like politics with the late administration : or 
 rather, they were as much stronger in political opinion than their late chefs 
 as mulcrlings are wont to be in proportion to their superiors : they were very 
 confident that their late masters would soon come back again ; and they 
 regarded the new Whig rule as an irksome and vexatious interval between two 
 organic periods of strong government. According to the testimony of the per- 
 plexed new Ministers and their friends, the disasters from this cause were 
 innumerable and very serious. They were misled, quizzed, kept in the dark, 
 left unaided at critical moments — in short, served faithlessly or not at all. It 
 may be said, and it was said, that a great part of the capacity for government 
 consists in secm-ing good service. The Whig ministers pleaded that a man 
 must himself understand the business he wants to have done before he can 
 secure good service from fresh hands. However this may be, the fact was 
 tliat they were incessantly complaining of hardship and misadventure from this 
 cause. It is certain also that their povrer, popularity, and usefulness, were 
 seriously impaired by the imperfection of tlie work they produced, and the 
 flaws in the schemes they proposed. Perfection of detail might have sufficed 
 in the absence of commanding ability of statesmanship: and commanding 
 statesmanship might have overborne the impediment of imperfect routine 
 execution : but here, where both the compensating powers were absent, it is 
 a strong proof how entliusiastic was the national trust that the Whig Minis- 
 ters were enabled to carry the noble series of reforms for which they have a 
 claim to the acknowledgments of far future generations.
 
 so HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book IV. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 1832. T)EFORE the Wellington administration went out, the House of Commons 
 -L' had resolved that a Select Committee should examine the Civil List, in 
 
 cmi. List. order to separate the proper expenditure of the Crown fi-om a large and various 
 expenditure of another kind which ought to be under the control of parliament, 
 but was not so, from its coming arbitrarily under the head of Civil List expen- 
 diture. The King and his new Ministers went heartily to work to carry out 
 the pleasure of the Commons, and correct the abuses of the old system. The 
 conduct of the sovereign on this occasion was very honourable to him. As 
 an honest, plain-minded man, it was probably more satisfactory to him to have 
 a certain defined income, paid and accounted for quarterly, than to be troubled 
 with a dozen kinds of revenue, necessitating a vast complication of accounts, 
 and causing him to be continually vexed with applications and complaints 
 about pensions and fanciful claims, and harassed by periodical inquiries and 
 censures in parliament about the pension list. He might see how much ease 
 and relief he would gain by turning over the whole business to parliament for 
 rearrangement : but that he did see this from the station of the throne was 
 such a proof of good sense, and the grace with which he surrendered every 
 thing to the judgment of his Ministers and ])arliament was so entire, that his 
 popularity was as much strengthened as it could be by any one act. He and 
 the Queen relinquished all their annuities : and he placed at the disposal of 
 his faithful Commons his Avhole interest for life in all hereditary revenues, 
 droits of the Crown, and casual income from any source whatever, trusting to 
 their judgment and affection to make sufficient provision for the dignity of the 
 
 Hansard, i. Hi. royal function, and for the comfort of himself and his consort. 
 
 Now was the time for the reformers and economists of the House to speak 
 
 Pensions. their minds about the Pension List, and to learn all that could be told about 
 
 it. From this time forward, there was to be no more mystery about the 
 gi-anting of pensions. The yearly amount was to be fixed ; and all secrecy 
 was to be put an end to. There are many at this day who think it a matter 
 of regret that the occasion was not used for establishing an honourable system 
 of rewards for public service, not official, such as might befit a people now 
 awakening to a sense of the value and dignity of science, literature, and art. 
 For the best benefactors of society — its sages, philosophers, authors, and 
 artists, men whose pursuits are the least likely to obtain pecuniary recom- 
 pense — there is in England no appropriation worthy of government to offer, 
 or of them to receive. The amount left at the disposal of the sovereign is 
 destined for any kind or degiee of real or imagined service, and is far too 
 trifling to be of use in the encoiu-agement of lofty pursuit, or the reward of 
 exalted service. It has to be offered with an apology, and received with 
 shame : and there are few of those whose claims are strongest that would
 
 CHA.P. VII.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 81 
 
 choose to receive as an act of favour or favouritism from the Minister that 1832. 
 which tliey would regard as an honour and unmixed hlessiug if confen-ed by v^^^/-^-^ 
 parliament, out of a liberal appropriate fund. Here and there, at present, a 
 great natural philosopher receives a pension which does not pay for his appa- 
 ratus ; and a poor author has a pittance which hardly provides him bread, 
 fire, and candle, while he is penning his thoughts — rendering services to the 
 world which no money can ever pay : and such pensioners know that their 
 names stand among some so unconnected with all proper purposes of a pen- 
 sion list, that the wonder is how they ever got there. It is not to the credit 
 of England, and was not in 1831 an honourable result of sixteen years of 
 Peace, that hundreds of thousands of pounds should be annually appropriated 
 for mihtary and naval purposes, whik- only a pittance of a few hundreds was 
 really disposable for honour and encouragement to the ^^•isdom, knowledge, 
 and eiuiobling arts, by whicli the human race is, if at all, to be exalted above 
 the Uabihty to war. This was the proper opportunity for establishing a 
 National Reward Fund : but it was missed, and the occasion has never been 
 even looked for since. 
 
 The pensions charged on the Civil List for England amounted at this time 
 to £74,200 : tliose for Scotland, to £31,222 : those for Ireland, to £53,795 :— «"««<>•" "■*^- 
 total, £159,217. AJl these were legally void by the death of the sovereign 
 who had granted them : but there was no one who wished that they should 
 not be renewed to the individual recipients, if the system of granting coukl 
 be amended. It was now proposed to reduce the amount charged on the Civil 
 List to £75,000 for the three countries together — the amount to be made up 
 by the oldest pensions on the lAst, in order that the King might have some 
 power of bestowing grants before the cud of his reign by the dying off of 
 the oldest pensioners. Parliament was to deal with the rest as it thought fit, 
 after they had been transferred to the Consolidated F'und. This chief point, 
 and some less disputed matters being agreed upon, their Majesties' financial 
 affairs stood thus: — In return for all that they had surrendered, they were to 
 receive, in quarterly papncnts, during the life of both, the sum of £510,000, ""vai, income. 
 under the five following heads : — "'"• '^ • "^ ^• 
 
 First Class, For their Majesties' Privy Purse £110,000 
 
 Second ,, Salaries of his Majesty's Household .... 1.30,300 
 
 Third ,, E.\penses of his JIajcsty's Household .... 171,500 
 
 Fonrtli ,, Special and Secret Service 23,200 
 
 Fiftii ,, Pensions 7o,0(»0 
 
 f.i 10.000 
 
 If the Queen survived her Consort, she was to have an income of £100,000, 
 and Marlborough House and Uushy Park for residences. — This opening of a 
 system of rational management of royal income and expenditure is worthy of 
 record. The country had suffered much in jjurse and patience from the extra- 
 vagance and debts of royal personages : ami it is sutfiuing even now; for there 
 are tracts lying waste in our British American colonies — not only useless in 
 themselves, but a positive impediment to cultivation — tracts made over by the 
 Duke of York to certain jeweller.s and others, his creditors. Since the arrange- 
 ment here chronicled, there have been no complaints of royal extravagance, 
 
 vol.. II. M
 
 82 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [IU.ok 1Y. 
 
 1832. 110 instances of royal debt : and, tliouf^li we English do not admit that we 
 are a nation of shopkeepers, it is certain that we liave so much respect for 
 high probity in money matters as to feel that tlie honour of the Crown is 
 eminently enhanced by the faultlessness of the last and the present sovereign 
 in living within their incomes. 
 
 The alarming increase of Pauperism throughout the kingdom has been 
 noticed. This increase was complained of, and adverted to in terms of ap- 
 prehension, year after year, in parliament and elsewhere : and when the 
 annual poor-rate exceeded seven millions, with a clear prospect of augmenta- 
 tion, men began to ask, in their clubs and by their firesides, where this was to 
 end, and who could be sure of not sinking down from being a rate-payer to 
 becoming a rate-receiver. — Parliamentary Committees were found to be useless. 
 A more stringent search was needed than such a body could institute. In 
 1832, the Crown appointed a Commission of Inquiry, consisting of nine 
 ])ersons, among whom Avere the Bishops of London and Chester, under whose 
 direction the condition of every parish in England and Wales was investigated 
 and reported. These Reports, in their mass, and in the nature of their 
 details, were enough to overwhelm any faculties, and to extinguish hope. 
 Those whose business it was to receive the documents and consider them, as 
 they came in, week after week, for two years, could scarcely help regarding 
 the nation as a group of people, some busy and some gay, on an island destined 
 to be overflowed by the deep, and round whose whole circuit the waves were 
 advancing, inch by inch, while only those who were innnediatcly disturbed 
 were fully conscious of the danger. There was one solid ground of hope, 
 however — one fixed point presented — from which improvement might proceed. 
 There were two or three parishes in England blessed with the presence of 
 a sensible man, sagacious enough to see into tlie causes of parochial evils, 
 and powerful enough to obviate them. To half a dozen quiet coinitry resi- 
 dents like these, men aiming only to do the duty which lay before their doors, 
 our country mainly owes its rescue from the most appalling danger which has 
 ever threatened its social condition, and its comparative purification from the 
 worst complication of vice perhaps ever caused by any institution, except that 
 of slavery, for which she has in any age been answerable. — The amount of rate 
 was a broad fact which every man could understand, and which any one might 
 know from the newspaper : but, fearful as it was, it was that which pressed 
 least upon the minds of the Commissioners and of those whom they admitted 
 to a sight of the Reports. Among a multitude of painful facts, the most 
 mournful was the pervading and unceasing oppression of virtue and encou- 
 ragement of vice. The poor-rate had become public spoil. The ignorant 
 believed it an inexhaustible fund which belonged to them. To obtain their 
 share, the brutal bullied the administrators, the profligate exhibited their 
 bastards which must be fed, the idle folded their arms and waited till they got 
 it; ignorant boys and girls married upon it; poachers, thieves, and prostitutes, 
 extorted it by intimidation; count>ry justices lavished it for popularity, and 
 guardians for convenience. This Avas the way the fund went. As for whence 
 it arose — it came, more and more every year, out of the capital of the shop- 
 keeper and the farmer, and the diminishing resources of the country gentle- 
 men. The shopkeeper's stock and returns dwindled, as the farmer's land
 
 CoNFfSIOM OF 
 'OVERTV WITU 
 
 Chap. VII.J DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. '83 
 
 deteriorated, and the gentleman's expenditure contracted. The farmer's sons, 1 330, 
 waiting, at the age of fivc-and-thirty, for abilit}- to inan-y in comfort, saw in 
 every ditch and field on the estate lads mider twenty whose children Avere 
 maintained by the rates which were ruining their employer. Instead of the 
 proper number of labourers to till his lands — labourers paid by himself — the 
 fanner was compelled to take double the number, whose wages were paid 
 partly out of the rates : and these men, being employed by compulsion on 
 him, were beyond his control — worked or not as they chose — let down the 
 qualify of his land, and disabled him from employing the better men who 
 ■would have toiled hard for indeijcndence. These better men sank down 
 among the worse : the rate-paying cottager, after a vain struggle, went to the 
 paj-table to seek relief: the modest girl might starve, while her bolder neigh- 
 bour received 1*. 6d. per week for every illegitimate child. Industry, probity, 
 purity, prudence — all heart and spirit — the whole soul of goodness — were 
 melting down into depravity and social ruin, like snow inider the foul internal 
 fires which precede the earthquake. There were clergjmen in the Commis- 
 sion, as well as politicians and economists ; and they took these things to 
 heart, and laboured diligently to frame suggestions for a measure which should 
 heal and re-create the moral spirit as well as the economical condition of 
 society in England. 
 
 To thoughtful observers it is clear that the same grave aristocratic error ^ 
 ■\\hich has before been adverted to — that of confounding in one all ranks ''a'-i»=»i«>' 
 below a certain level of wealth — was at the bottom of much Poor Law abuse, 
 as it has been of the opposition to its amendment. Gentlemen in parliament 
 who talk over poor law matters, and gentlemen in the coinitry who discuss 
 and administer the law, and gentlemen of the newspaper press who desire, 
 ■with real benevolence, to advocate the cause of the poor, have been too apt to 
 confound under this name classes more widely distinguishable, in fict and in 
 pinnciplc, than any other ranks in our society — except only that of sovereign 
 and subject. Except the distinction between sovereign and subject, there is 
 no social difference in England so wide as that between the independent 
 labomer and the pauper : and it is equally ignorant, immoral, and impolitic 
 to confound the two. Tliis truth was so apparent to the Commissioners, and 
 they conveyed it so fully to the framers of the New Poor I,aw, that it forms 
 the very foundation of the measure : and all cflectual opposition to the work- 
 ing of the system since it became law has proceeded from blindness to this 
 gr(!at fact and fundamental ])rinciple. — Here arc two classes to be dealt with ; 
 the indigent and the independent labourer, who, however oppressed by poverty, 
 is a noble member of the state, and can lift up his head in the consciousness 
 that he fulfils the part of a citizen, and is beludden to no man for a degi'ading 
 charity. In the pauper class, are many whom the state is willing to maintain, 
 because they cannot maintain themselves — the sufferers under helplessness, 
 from whatever cause : and it included also, at the time of the Refonn of the 
 Poor Law, a much larger number who were not suffering under any natural 
 or accidental helplessness at all. These were the people whom a hasty aiul 
 ignorant hinnanity called " the poor," and for whose support and comfort they 
 pleaded ; — pleaded as if that sup])ort and comfort were to come out of the 
 pockets of the rich alone. Now. the verv first aim of llie ( 'ommi.ssioners was
 
 84 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book IV. 
 
 1832. to consider the poor; — the independent and virtuous and most suffering poor. 
 — — ■'^— While magistrates were giving to pauper applicants at their own houses an 
 additional loaf for every child, that loaf was provided hy the more high-minded 
 labourer, who toiled to raise the rate demanded of him, while he and his 
 children were hungering together. Both the poor man and the pauper were to 
 be cared for ; but neither of them at the expense of the other. The law- 
 ordered, and it still orders, that every man shall be fed : but every law should 
 provide, as all moral principle does, that the pauper, while supported by public 
 charity, should be placed in a lower condition (if only that were possible) 
 than the man who abstains from putting out his hand to the public purse. 
 Clear as this principle is, and much as it has been preached since 1832, there 
 is still existing a surprising blindness to it. Appeals on behalf of the pauper 
 are incessantly made, in forgetfulness of that class of the poor which should 
 be considered and cherished with all possible honoiu' and care : and those who 
 are engaged in thus considering and cherishing an all-important class in our 
 state are reproached with hardness of heart towards the poor on account of 
 restrictions which are absolutely necessary as safeguards of the integrity of 
 the people and the capital of the country. In the very few parishes where 
 such restrictions had already been enforced, it was clear that justice and mercy 
 were, as they must ever be, coincident. In those parishes, while all necessitous 
 persons were relieved, idleness, and not industry, was discouraged ; prudent 
 marriage was not rendered impossible by a premium on profligacy ; the land 
 was not deteriorating, nor the capital of the district wasting away; farmers 
 employed such labour as they wanted, and could choose it of a good quality ; 
 and the independent labourer was respected, while the pauper was pitied and fed. 
 Under the guidance of these few examples, and enlightened by a prodigious 
 •Nnv Poor Lam. accumulation of evidence, the Commissioners offered their suofiestions to 
 
 1834 . 
 
 government ; and a Bill to amend the Poor Law was prepared and proposed 
 to the consideration of parliament, early in 1834. 
 Irs PaiNciPLEs. The first principle of the new law was that of the old ; — that every neces- 
 sitous person had a claim to relief. The matter was to be much simplified 
 now by the repeal of the worst restrictions of settlement. If one main object 
 of the reform was to encoiu'age industry, it was clearly desirable to remove 
 the impediments to the circulation of labour. "Settlement by hiring and ser- 
 vice was to exist no longer: labour could freely enter any parish where it was 
 wanted, and leave it for another parish which might, in its turn, want hands. 
 In observance of the great principle that the independent labourer was not 
 to be sacrificed to the pauper, all administration of relief to the able-bodied at 
 their own homes was to be discontinued as soon as possible ; and the allowance 
 system was put an end to entirely. The shameless petitioner was no longer 
 to carry home so many shillings or loaves for so many children while his more 
 honourable neighbour not only went without, but bore part of the cost. 
 Henceforth, the indigent must come into the workhouse for relief, if he must 
 have it. There stood the great house — with shelter, clothing, and food, for 
 the destitute who chose to claim it : but, in justice to the independent poor, 
 and to society at large, there were conditions belonging to this relief which 
 ought never to have been objected to by reasonable persons, however irksome 
 they might and must be to the idle, dissolute, and extremely ignorant, who
 
 Chap. VII.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 85 
 
 form a large proportion of the pauper class. One condition was, that the 1832. 
 
 able-bodied should work ; — should do a certain amount of work for everj- meal, ^..^i^s 
 
 They might go out after the expiration of twenty-four hours ; but while in 
 the house they must work. The men, women, and children must be sepa- 
 rated ; and the able-bodied and infirm. The separation of the men and 
 women — husbands and wives among others — was absolutely necessary to 
 common decency, in an establishment like a work-house : and that of husbands 
 and wives was required by every consideration of justice to the state, which 
 could not rear a race of paupers within the work -house, to the prevention of 
 virtuous marriage without. That the aged and infirm sliould be separated 
 from the able-bodied was necessary to their own quiet and comfort. Their 
 diet included indulgences which others could not have ; and the turbulence of 
 sturdy paupers was no lit spectacle for tliem. That the children should be 
 segregated was necessary to their moral safety and educational training. No 
 part of the new law has occasioned more complaint and opposition than this 
 work-house classification ; and no part is more clearly defensible from every 
 j)oint of view, or more evidently necessary. Because the work-houses could 
 not be permitted to be rookeries for pauper families to roost in, tlicy were 
 called prisons ; though every man could go out with his family any day, and 
 was kept in only by tlie inducement of a maintenance. As for the efiects of 
 the separation and training of the children, a curious light is thrown upon the 
 subject by a discussion which took place a few years after the reform was insti- 
 tuted ; — a discussion among certain barristers on circuit, a large number of 
 M'hom were dining together when some circumstance led them to compare 
 their observations on work-house schools. From the encouragement given to 
 dissoluteness by the old poor law, tlie first series of cliildren in the work- 
 houses of some of the rural districts were almost all illegitimate. The question 
 discussed by these barristers was, what the effect on the disrepute of illegitimacy 
 was likely to be, in the course of another generation, of the manifest superiority 
 of the children educated in the work -houses over those of the neighbouring 
 peasantry born in wedlock. The practical conclusion was that the cliildren 
 of the independent labourers must be educated up to the work-house schooling 
 point, and as much beyond it as possible. 
 
 In order to a complete and economical classification in the work-houses, its macjunbrv. 
 and for other obvious reasons, the new Act provided for Unions of parishes — 
 the rating and expenditure of the rates remaining a separate concern. Thus, 
 instead of half a do/cii small, expensive, and ill-arranged establishments in as 
 many different parishes, one central house, properly prepared for its purposes, 
 would answer all objects, and be uiuler a completely conspicuous management. 
 To afford tlie necessary control over such a system — a system so new and 
 unwelcome to a host of local authorities and managers — a Central Board was 
 indispensable, by whose orders, and through whose Assistant Commissioners, 
 every thing was to be arranged, and to wliom all appeals were to be directed. 
 The Central Board was to consist of three (Commissioners ; and the Assistant 
 Commissioners were at first twenty-one, diminishing to nine, as the new 
 organization was completed. Xo change was proposed in regard to the rate- 
 ability of property, or the mode of collecting the rate. The bu.siness of tlie 
 new Act was witli the application of tlie rale wlien collected. Tlie distribution
 
 86 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book IV. 
 
 1832. was left to guardians and select vestries ; and, in the absence of these authori- 
 ties, to overseers. The discretionary power of magistrates was much con- 
 tracted, none being left whicli could interfere with the main aim of the refomi — 
 the subordinating the condition of the pauper to that of the independent 
 labourer. 
 
 Of the changes proposed by the new Law, none was more important to 
 morals than that which thi-ew the charge of the maintenance of illegitimate 
 children upon the mother. Hitherto the father had been made chargeable 
 upon the oath of the mother as to his paternity. It was now proposed that 
 the law should take no cognizance of the father at all. The Lords, however, 
 modified this arrangement by giving an appeal to the Quarter Sessions against 
 the father. This appeal was rendered sutticiently difficult to leave the prac- 
 tical operation of the law pretty much what it was intended to be, till a change 
 was made in 1839, by which it was rendered more easy to reach the father. 
 This change was occasioned by feelings of humanity wliich many wise persons 
 still think misguided. When the law was framed, there was much wonder 
 abroad that the Bishop of London, and many moral and humane persons 
 about him, and not a few thoughtful women, were in favour of an arrangement 
 which left the father of an illegitimate child " unpunished," and threw the 
 whole burden upon the mother. The Bishop of London and his coadjutors 
 were presently proved to be right by the demonstration of facts. The decrease 
 of illegitimate births was what many called wonderful, but only what the 
 framers of the law had anticipated from the removal of direct pecuniary 
 inducement to profligacy, and from the awakening of proper care in parents of 
 daughters, and of reflection in the women themselves. The first case or two 
 occasioned a shock of surprise and dismay among those who had not under- 
 stood the change in the law : and after that, the offence seemed almost to dis- 
 appear in some districts where before it had abounded. As for the thoughtful 
 women who did not object to the new arrangement — their feeling has been 
 nobly expressed by one of them — Mrs. Jameson — in a passage which will not 
 be forgotten; — a few sentences in which she indicates the benefit to the 
 whole sex when Woman is made, even through apparent hardshii), mistress 
 of herself — the guardian of her own mind and morals, instead of the ward 
 of Man. 
 keceptios of Extracts from the Reports had been given to the public from time to time, 
 
 and all reasonable means used to prepare the mind of the nation for the new 
 measure. Up to the last moment, it was impossible to conjecture how it 
 would be received ; and therefore, how it would work : for there never was a 
 measure which more absolutely required, for its successful working, the coun- 
 tenance and co-operation of the intelligent portion of society. One certain 
 thing was, that the measure itself supposed and necessitated a repeal of the 
 Corn Laws — by its alterations in the provisions of settlements, its general 
 release of labour from thraldom, and its reliance on general laws ; ■\\hile there 
 Avas too much reason to apprehend that, carefully as this was explained and 
 proved to the Ministers, they would not admit it in parliament, if they did in 
 their own minds. The apprehension was but too well founded. Lord Jolui 
 Russell and Lord Althorp, wlio brought forward the measure in the Commons, 
 presently after refused even to receive evidence regarding the operation of the 
 
 THE MUASL'RG-
 
 Ch,vi>. VII.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 87 
 
 Com T,nws : and Lord Melbourne, Premier of the Administration which set 1832. 
 the 15111 to work, made a declaration in the Lords only less memorable than 
 that of the Duke of Wellington against Reform of Parliament, because Lord 
 JMelbourne was the lesser man : — that he had heard many mad things said in his 
 life; but that the Corn Laws could be repealed was, before God, the very 
 maddest thing he had ever heard. Yet the framers of the Poor Law Amend- 
 ment Act knew, and always avowed to the Whig Ministers, that the measure 
 could never have a fair chance of working till the Corn Laws were repealed ; 
 and in the interval they must pray for a succession of good harvests. On the 
 occurrence of the first deficient harvest, it would probably be necessarj' — as 
 they said in the freedom of conversation — to march soldiers to superintend the 
 enforcement of the law. Nor did any condemnation of the measure lie in this 
 assertion : for the state of things under the old law was so desperate that any 
 determination short of desperation in the enforcement of the Amendment Act 
 miglit be a mere matter of prudence. Except for the complication of the 
 Corn Laws with this measure, there was nothing to make it a party affair. 
 Every body was suffering under the existing system ; and while the proposed 
 reform was brought forward by a Liberal Ministry, none were more eager for it 
 than the landed interest, in and out of the House. If it was probable that the 
 country justices would resent the restriction of their powers in their own pro- 
 vince, it was certain that their neighbours the farmers — of the same politics — 
 were sinking under the burden of the rates, and would welcome any prospect 
 of relief. As it was not a party matter, it was impossible to divine how the 
 newspapers would go. The only thing considered certain under this head was 
 that the Times — the great paper of all — was wholly in favour of the Eeforni. 
 One of the editors had, a few days prcA-iously, sent a message declaratory of 
 intended support, to some of the managers of the measure. Up to the last 
 moment, though the prospect was wholly uncertain, every thing looked 
 well. 
 
 And at midnight of the 17th of April, every thing looked better still. The 
 Chancellor of the Exchequer, Lord Althorp, had obtained leave from the 
 Commons to bring in the Bill. His speech, plain, earnest, and impressive, Hansard, 
 had produced a strong effect upon the House, and his proposal had been 
 res])ectfully gi-eeted and warmly supported. The members went home, feeling 
 convinced that the evils of the Poor Law system were virtually abolished, and 
 that this " gi-eat political gangiene of England " was successfully dealt with at 
 last. When each of them took up the Times from the breakfast table, the 
 next morning, to gratify himself with the study of its advocacy of the 
 measure — an advocacy sure to be more finely expressed than any that could be 
 lieard elsewhere — what M-as tlie amazement to find a tliundering article against 
 the measure ! It became known afterwards that the change in the mind of 
 the Times had taken place at the very last moment. It was naturally declared 
 and believed to be owing to evidence received of the hostility of tlie countiy 
 justices to tlie measure: and the country justices were not only the great 
 provincial .support of the Times newspaper, but com])osed an influence too 
 imjjortant to be liglitly regarded. AMiatever might be the reason, the Times 
 newspaper certainly did, at tlie last moment, cliaiige its mind about supporting 
 the New Poor Law. The fact — of the suddenness of tlic change— in con-
 
 88 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book IV. 
 
 1832. noxion with (he temper of the new opposition, is worth noting, as ilhistrative 
 of the character of newspaper support or opposition in our day. The side 
 wliich the Times wouhl take was a chance pregnant with good and evil 
 consequences wliich will influence the fate of whole generations. The 
 hostility has heen so venomous, so unscrupulous, so mischievous in one 
 direction, and so beneficial in others, so pertinacious, so vigilant, and so 
 remarkably based upon the aristocratic error before alluded to — of confusing 
 all ranks below a certain level — that it could not be passed over in the history 
 of a time when the Press is admitted to be our Fourth Estate. 
 
 Before London had breakfasted, a wealthy member of the Commons was in 
 the City, mth a friend, and had bought the Moniincj Chronicle : and comrades 
 were beating about for writers of the leading articles ; writers well familiarized 
 with the new measure. The consternation of the Ministers was not small. 
 There was to be a Cabinet Council that day ; and the Lord Chancellor wrote 
 a note to Lord Althorp, to ensure his attendance, as it was to be considered 
 whether the Times should be propitiated or defied. Some expressions were 
 added, not very complimentary to the editor who had lately ofiered support. 
 Some tidings having arrived from Lord Althorp which rendered the note 
 unnecessaiy, it was torn up, and the scraps thrown among waste papers under 
 the table. Some mischievous person picked them up, pasted them in order, 
 and sent them to the person remarked on, who was not propitiated by what 
 he read. From that hour, the virulence with which the leading paper pur- 
 sued the Lord Chancellor, the New Poor Law, and the parties concerned in its 
 preparation, exceeded any hostility encountered by the Whig government fi'om 
 any other quarter, and certainly had no small effect in impairing their much- 
 weakened influence and popularity, and in impeding the working of Poor Law 
 Reform. The mischief done was by the dishonesty of the jjapcr in constantly 
 misrepresenting the enactments and operation of the New Law ; in imputing 
 to it the faults of the old system which it w^as actually in course of remedying; 
 in fostering the prejudices, and perpetuating the mischievous powers, of the 
 least enlightened of the country justices ; in upholding the cause of the 
 unworthy among the indigent by confounding them with the worthy among 
 the poor ; — in short, by a partial and unscrupulous and luiintermitting hos- 
 tility to a measure which had its faults, but which was not only necessary in its 
 time, but an eminent glory of its time, and which it would have been a moral 
 benefit to Englishmen to appreciate better than they have done. The good 
 effected by this hostility has, on the other hand, been very great. Bad as has 
 been its temper and principle, it has acted in the name of humanity, and it has 
 done some of the best work of humanity. Nothing in the shape of an abuse, 
 a hardship, or a levity in the treatment of the poor, has it ever let pass. It has 
 incessantly been unjust, and more cruel than the persons and usages it 
 denounced : but it has induced a spirit of watchfulness and a sense of respon- 
 sibility in official men — it has evoked a spirit of lunnanity in society, for which 
 the whole class of sufferers may be grateful, and for the sake of which the 
 most feeling moralists may subdue their natural and well-grounded resentment, 
 and cheerfully acquiesce in the results wliich will remain when the warfare 
 and all its disgraces, on every hand, are forgotten. 
 Hanaard.xxv. Qii the I4th of August, 1834, the Royal assent was given to the Poor Law
 
 Chap. VII] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 89 
 
 Amendment Act, amidst prognostications of utter failure fi-oni the timid, and 1833. 
 
 some misgivings among those who were most confident of the absolute neecs- ■-■— ' 
 
 sity of the measure. These last knew that it was either now or never. When 
 a member in the Commons complained of the short time allowed for the 
 consideration of the I^ords' amendments. Lord Althorp declared that he Mould "»'"»"'. "'• 
 be a bokl man who shoukl bring forward the 15ill in another session, after it 
 had once been dropped. It is true — and the fact was repeatedly brought for- 
 ward in the course of the debate — the abuses of the Poor Law were almost all 
 under forty years old ; and the present object was rather to restore the princi- 
 ple and revert to the operation of the Law of Elizabeth than to establish a new 
 system: but still, there was the great and fearful fact before all men's eyes of 
 the demoralization of the peasantry ; — of their moral and social state being so 
 bad, in many parts of the country, that it was a grave question whether they 
 could be retrieved. It must be now or never. It appeared from the Reports 
 that a remnant still existed of the peasant order as it was before the corruption 
 of the Poor Law — a few hearty old men between sixty and eighty, s^jrinkled 
 through the country parishes, who had, for the forty years of misrule, talked of 
 the good old times, and turned away from the pay-table with a disgust which 
 would 0])crate well now, while the new purification was going forward. Of these, 
 there would be fewer every year ; and the advantage of their presence was 
 certainly an additional reason why the refoim should not be delayed. The 
 Hill became law : the law came into speedy operation : — for a time (long '^» passacf. 
 enough to secure the refonn) the seasons were kind, and events were favour- 
 able. Every body was not convinced — and every body is not convinced yet — 
 of the blessedness of the retrieval we have enjoyed. There are many who 
 charge upon the new law the abuses of the old, and the difficulties which 
 attend upon the very institution of a poor law ; there are many who charo-e 
 upon the law itself some gross faults in parts of its administration ; there 
 are many who will never be satisfied till every poor person is thoroughly 
 comfortable in his own home (a virtuous asjjiration, but one not to be fulfilled 
 by a por)r law of any nat\nc) ; but there are also many who think with a kind 
 of shudder what our condition would have been by this time under the old 
 la^v, or a less stringent reform. The facts which all men might know if they its operation. 
 would arc, that before two years were out, wages were rising and rates were second Annu;,i 
 falling in the whole series of country parishes: farmers were employing more '"''""''■ 
 labourers ; surplus labour was absorbed ; bullying paupers were transformed 
 into steady working men ; the decrease of illegitimate births, chargeable to 
 tlie parish throughout England, was nearly 10,000, or nearly 13 per cent.; 
 clergymen testified that they were relieved from much of the pain and shame 
 of having to celebrate marriages where the bride was on the point of becoming 
 a mother, or where the parties were mere children, with no other prospect 
 than the parish pay-table ; and, finally, the rates, which had risen nearly a 
 million in their annual amount during the five years before the Poor Law 
 Couimission was issued, sank down, in the course of the five years after it, 
 fronr being upwards of seven millions to very little above four. After that P'-nnv cvdop-. 
 time, when a long period of severe distress enstied, the new law was found ll'm.""' '"'"''"' 
 insufficient (pending the maintenance of the Corn Laws, it must be remem- 
 bered) to deal with tlie needs of our large maiuifacturiug towns, as anv otlicr 
 vol.. II. N
 
 DRP.N. 
 
 90 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book IV. 
 
 1833 P°°i' ^''^^ would have been. Of this wc shall have to speak under its own date, 
 ;is also of the changes found to be necessary in the application of the Amend- 
 ment Act : but, from tirst to last, its operation in the rural districts has been 
 not only salutary, but nothing short of salvation. This reform must ever be 
 regarded as in the first rank of the honours of the Whig Administration, and 
 of the pregnant victories of the Peace. 
 FACTonv cniL- The Poor Law Inquiry was not the only one which disclosed facts of guilt 
 and misery in our social state which might have lain concealed under the 
 excitements of War, but which became gradually revealed amidst the (quietude 
 of Peace. The Poor Law Commissioners had discovered how brutal and 
 wretched was the condition of the children of rural labourers in too many dis- 
 tricts of the coxnitry ; — of children who struggled with the pigs for food 
 during the day, doing nothing useful, learning nothing which raised them 
 above the beasts of the field — and at night huddled down on damp straw, 
 under a roof of rotten thatch — or went out to carry poached game, or fire the 
 farmers' stacks. Another picture, equally mournful, was presented from the 
 factory districts. Throughout the mamifactming districts, in ordinary years, 
 there ought to be a sufficient provision for all who are not behind their times 
 — like the poor hand-loom weavers, who would have power-looms put do-\vn, to 
 give them work. Such cannot be effectually aided, but among other classes, 
 if there were sense, IvJiowledge, and goodness, there need have been no poverty 
 at the time we speak of. This knowledge and goodness, however, are what 
 the nation has taken no pains to cultivate in the mass, and to diffuse among 
 the classes which are least able to desire them for themselves : and hence has 
 arisen the misery, the vuispeakable disgrace, of the corrujjtion of the parental 
 relation among large numbers of our people. At the time now under review, 
 it became known that parents sold their childi^en to excessive labotir ; and it 
 has since become known that a considerable ninnber have sold them to death 
 through the Burial Clubs — actually poisoned them for the sake of the burial 
 money, after entering the clubs for the very purpose. When Mr. Sadler and 
 I^ord Ashley brought forward the subject of the oppression of the Factory 
 Children in 1833, the question of legal protection to these children was as 
 difficult an one as could be brought under the notice of any Ministry and par- 
 liament. It is admitted by the most sagacious to be an insoluble difficidty. 
 By guilty neglect we had brought ourselves into an inextricable embarrass- 
 ment, which has become only more apparent, and not less perplexing to deal 
 with, during all the discussion which has taken place from that day to tliis. 
 Amidst much legislation which has been ventured upon, the question is 
 apparently as far as ever from being settled — the great question, whether 
 effectual legislation is possible between parents and children, and in defiance 
 of the great natural laws which regulate the operation of labour and capital. 
 r>y our guilty neglect we had placed in abeyance the still greater natural laws 
 of the lumian heart, which alone can overrule economical laws ; and now we 
 were reduced to try the fearful experiment whether, by interposing thus late 
 with feeble arbitrary decrees and arrangements, we were likely to mitigate or 
 aggravate the existing evil. 
 
 Here were children — little creatures whose life should have been spent in 
 growing, in body and mind — employed all day and far into the niglit, in the
 
 Chap. VII.l DURING THE THIRTY YEARS* PEACE. 
 
 monotonous and stupifying work of spinning in the mills. Most of the mills 
 were foinid to be fairly wholesome : the owners were not oppressors : the pay 
 was good : the work was not in itself severe, or otherwise objectionable : and 
 all representations of the case as, generally speaking, worse than tliis were found 
 to be imtrue. 15iit it was too true that the parents let out their children to 
 that class of middlemen, the spinners, from whom neither the care of parents 
 nor the consideration of educated masters was to be looked for : and the chil- 
 dren were kept too long standing — too long awake — too long on the stretch 
 over work which was not in itself of a hmtful nature. People who thought 
 only of the children's instant welfare, and not of the considerations of justice 
 and of actual practicability with which the case was complicated, clamoured 
 for a law whicli should restrict the hours of labour, and determine the ages of 
 the persons who should be employed in the cotton and silk mills. Economists 
 showed how vain had always been, and must ever be, laws to regulate labour 
 and wages. Statesmen knew how vain it was to interfere by law with private 
 relations: and the mill-owners complained of the injustice of arbitrarily raising 
 wages ; while this was exactly the prospect which delighted the operatives. 
 They began to see before them a long perspective of legal protection and privi- 
 lege, by which they as well as their children should obtain the same wages for 
 less and less work, while too few of them perceived that any law which should 
 deprive them of the free disposal of their own labour would steal from them 
 tlieir only possession, and be in fact a more flagrant oppression than any law 
 had inflicted on their order for centuries. Such was the diversity of opinion 
 in society in 1833, when a demand was made in parliament for an Act which 
 should regulate the labour of children in factories. The Ministers were fully 
 aware of the difficulty in which they stood, and they endeavoured to satisfy 
 all parties, at the expense of the smallest amount of mischief. They sent out 
 a Commission to obtain evidence and report. 
 
 When the time came for the commissioners to report and suggest, it was 
 clear that their convictions were just what might have been expected. The 
 evil of overworking children was clear. Though there were fewer swollen 
 joints, shrunken limbs, and distorted spines, than had been represented, there 
 was far too much of stunted growth, and far too little of the character of natu- 
 ral childhood, among those who were called " the victims of the factory 
 system," but wlio were in fact the victims of their parents' poverty or heartless- 
 ness. But could a cure be found in a mere law ? The Commissioners thouffht 
 not. They foresaw that there would be false swearing about the children's 
 ages, and deception in many ways tliat no law could obviate or detect : — the 
 parents from ^^■hom children needed protection being exactly those who would 
 have least scrui)le about deception and perjury. But the Commissioners had 
 not to decide wliether there should be a law or not. It was evidently settled 
 tliat there should be one : and what the Commissioners had to do therefore 
 was, first, to suggest the best kind of law under the circumstances, and ne.xt, 
 to introduce and promote by it the measures in which they believed the remedy 
 really to lie. About one of the remedies they could do notliing — that free 
 importation of food which ought naturally at once to accompany a free circu- 
 lation of labour, and to obviate all restrictions on it. The next most important, 
 the education (if the cliildicn, tliey tluiught they could introduce under the
 
 92 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book IV. 
 
 1833. head of factory arrangements. The measure of education would be but small, 
 "-^""^^"^^ and its (luality but poor, if instituted in a way so indirect as this, and as an 
 ostensibly subordinate object : but the Commissioners thought that any educa- 
 tional training was better than none, and that they could but try for this 
 collateral success, convinced as they were that the measure must fail in its 
 professed object. They therefore proposed that the children should be secured 
 from working for more than half the day by being placed at school, and certi- 
 fied to be there during some hours of the other half. 
 
 The Factory Bill of 1833 has received so many alterations since, that it 
 would be useless to give a minute account of its provisions. It is enough to 
 Poiitu-ai Diction- say that, except in silk mills, no child under nine years of age was to be 
 employed at all : children under eleven were not to be employed more than 
 nine hours in any one day, nor more than forty-eight hours in one week : and 
 after a time, this provision extended to children under thirteen years of age. 
 School attendance was provided for — the cost (not to exceed Id. in the Is.) to 
 be paid out of the child's wages, if the mill-owner desired it. Medical super- 
 ^ision was ordered ; and four Factory Inspectors were appointed, to watch over 
 the operation of the Act. This was the beginning of that legislation protective 
 of factoiy labour which has gone on to this day ; — the opening of a gi-eat con- 
 troversy which is far from being concluded, and whose consequences lie deep 
 in a future which no man now li\'ing shall see.
 
 CuAP. VIII.] DURING THE THIKTY YEARS' PEACE. . 93 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THERE were two matters of great importance wliich must be considered at 1833. 
 this time, whoever might be in or out of power, and whatever might be "^^ — '-" — -^ 
 happening, at home or abroad. The two great charters, of the India Com- 
 pany and of the Bank of England, were to expire in 1834, and it must be 
 timely determined whether they were to be renewed, and on what conditions. 
 As lias been notified, a parliamentary committee had already been appointed, 
 and had begun its work of inquiring into the claims and affairs of tlie India 
 Company. On the 22nd of May, 1832, the Chancellor of the Exchequer pro- 
 posed a similar inquiry in regard to the Bank of England. This last committee rfnewai. tf niE 
 
 , ■' ^ 1 , • 1 T 1 Bank Cminl.li. 
 
 was, however, a secret one, lor the obvious reason that disclosures on currency 
 subjects, for a succession of months, with uncertainty at the end of it, would 
 embarrass all commercial transactions. The committee sat, and diligently 
 pursued its inquiry during the rest of the session, offering its report on the 
 11th of August. This committee was appointed on the fifth day after the 
 return of Lord Grey and his colleagues to power ; and it began its abstract 
 and passionless work while words were running high in the other house 
 between Lords Kenyon and Grey, and while the remnant of anti-refonuing 
 peers were undergoing defeat as often as they adventured a division on the 
 clauses of the Reform Bill. Such were the days when the Bank Committee 
 sat, and when the very eminent men who were in it were preparing a report 
 of extraordinary value. They felt the seriousness of their work ; and well 
 they might. The last renewal of the exclusive privileges of the Bank had 
 taken place in 1800, when the term assigned was a year's notice after the 1st mtuiiocH's cnm. 
 01 August, 1833 : and during that interval what vicissitudes and alarms had "v, p. co. 
 taken place ! What warnings of the disastrous nature of errors in currency 
 matters, and of the magnitude of the interests now to be involved in an engage- 
 ment for another term of years. The distresses of 1814, the crisis of 1819, and 
 the crash of 1825-6, were fresh in the recollection of several members of tlie ■ 
 committee, and a matter of deep interest to all : and under this stimulus, they 
 so exerted themselves that their report is considered — in connexion witli the 
 evidence on which it is founded — the most important instrument towards the 
 establisliment of sound principles of banking as yet offered to the government 
 and people of England. Among otliers, tliere M-ere on the committee, Sir ","!;"'"*• *"• 
 Robert Peel, Mr. PoulcttTliomson, Sir Henry Parnell, Mr. John Smith, Mr. 
 Baring, Mr. Warburton, Mr. Morrison, INIr. Bonham Carter, and the Chan- 
 cellor of the F.xcliequer — statesmen, financiers, economists, and practical men 
 
 of business. — What they had to investigate was tliis: — whether the paper ""i'"" »' ■'*'••■"' 
 •' " r r coiiimitu'i'. All- 
 
 money of l,ondon should be limited to the issues of one bank, or whether a p""' n, 1832. 
 
 competition of issues should be allowed : — whether all the exclusive privileges 
 
 of the Bank of England were necessary, supposing it to be still the only bank
 
 94 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book IV. 
 
 1833. of issue in London: — and what checks were desirable to secure the pubHc 
 ' — ^ ' from danger from banks of issue, and especially whether a periodical publica- 
 tion of accounts would be a benefit or a disadvantapjc. On these points, the 
 Committee gave a vast amount of information, without any imposition of 
 decided opinions of their own. They did all that time and circumstances 
 allowed in laying before parliament the fullest materials for a judgTiient, and 
 in venturing to reveal the exact state of the affairs of the Bank of England, 
 thereby breaking up the system of mystery which had hitherto been one of 
 the dangerous privileges of the Bank Corporation. Up to this date, the 
 Directors had preserved the most cautious secrecy about their affairs, declaring 
 dividends, year after year, upon their own arbitrary judgment, without any 
 sanction of publicity. Now, however, the House of Commons printed the 
 Report of the Secret Committee ; and it was understood tliat darkness would 
 never again be allowed to settle down on the transactions of the gi'eat cor- 
 poration. 
 
 A new Charter was granted, terminable " at any time upon twelve months' 
 notice to be given after the Lst of August, 1855 :" and the privileges of the 
 Bank might cease sooner, upon the fulfilment of certain conditions by the 
 country ; one of which was the repayment by parliament of upwards of eleven 
 r^y'^'aos— 2G°"' millions, owing by the public to the Bank. The Bank retained, inidcr the 
 new Charter, the chief of its old privileges ; and one principal new advantage 
 in a restriction on all other banks, having more than six partners, from 
 issuing notes or bills within sixty-five miles of London. A great convenience 
 was also afforded to the Bank by its notes, and the notes of its Branches, 
 being made a legal tender every where but at the Bank and its Branches. 
 By this provision, the Bank was saved the expense, inconvenience, and risk 
 of having to keep up, all over the kingdom, stocks of bullion to meet any run 
 which might occur in any direction, at any time. There was some alarm at 
 first among half-informed people about this provision, which was regarded as 
 countenancing a sort of inconvertible jjaper currency : but the holders were 
 in fact in exactly the same position as before in regard to the converti- 
 bility of the notes, while new facilities were, at the same time, added for 
 obtaining cash in any of its forms from the Bank, by the establishment of 
 new Branches. All Branch notes were made payable only at their place of 
 issue. Weekly returns of bullion and of notes in circulation were to be sent 
 in to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, in order to publication in the London 
 Gazette — a provision of publicity which has worked so well as to be carefully 
 renewed, after ten years of trial. One-fourth of the debt due from the public 
 to the Bank was immediately paid, by an assignment of Stock previously held 
 by the Commissioners of the National Debt. In consideration of its new 
 privileges, the Bank was to deduct £120,000 per annum from its charge for 
 the business of conducting the National Debt affairs. At the time of this 
 inquiry, the total receipts of the Bank for the year were £1,689,176 : and its 
 expenses somewhat under £500,000; leaving £1,164,235 to be divided among 
 the proprietors. The establishment employed about 1000 persons, and sup- 
 ported 193 pensioners; the average receipts of the 1000 functionaries being 
 £225 each, and those of the pensioners £161 each. — Such Avere the state and 
 constitution of the Bank of England on the granting of the ncAv Charter of
 
 Chap. Vlil.] DURING THE THIETY YEARS' PEACE. 95 
 
 1834. It will be seen hereafter how the never-ceasing changes of commercial 1833. 
 
 affairs, and the imperfection of the best knowledge on the great subject of the ■ ■— — ' 
 
 circulating medium compelled in ten years a remodelling of the constitution 
 of the Bank, with a provision for another change, if necessary, in ten years 
 more. For these furtlier arrangements an essential preparation was made by 
 the new provision for publicity ; by the establishment of more Branches, with 
 better security against a disastrous local drain ; and by the thought and know- 
 ledge brought to bear upon the subject in the investigations and discussions of 
 1832 and 1833. 
 A more striking change than any in the constitution of the Bank could be im>ia companv s 
 
 1 11,1 .1-1 1 '1 Charter. 
 
 to society at large took place at the same time. i*or nearly two centuries and 
 a half, the merchant vessels of the East India Company had traversed the seas, 
 before the eyes of the world. This magnificent Association had formed the 
 link between the barbarism of the past and distant, and the civilization of the 
 futiu'e in its home : .and now it was to be quietly let drop as useless — the east 
 and the west having come into a communication which should now be left free. 
 The commerce of this corporation, which had once been altogether a fiicility, 
 had become a monopoly ; and the changes of centuries required that it should 
 be broken up. So the Company remain princes, but no longer merchant 
 princes. — About a quarter of a century before the time now under notice, a 
 Liverpool merchant, the most honoured of his class, jNIr. William Rathbonc, 
 was in London, and, struck with the spectacle of the Company's shipping, he 
 inquired of a London merchant at his elbow why such a trade — a trade so 
 gi-cat, and so capable of unlimited expansion — was quietly left to be the pro- 
 perty of a corporation. His friend replied by convincing him of the overwhehn- 
 ing power of the Company in London, under whose shadow no discontent 
 could stir with impunity ; and the two agreed that whenever any movement 
 was made, it must be in the provinces. Mr. Rathbone was not a man to loiter 
 over any work which he saw ought to be done. He stirred up Liveii)ool, 
 Glasgow, Paisley, and Manchester, to demand an opening of the trade ; and 
 the movement had proceeded so far before 1813, when the Company's Charter 
 was to expire, that a considerable relaxation of the monopoly was then ob- 
 tained. From that time British merchants were permitted to trade to the teni- 
 torios of the Company, and India generally, though none but the Company 
 might traffic with China. During the next twenty years, the doctrine of Free 
 Trade had been elaborated and partially practised ; the demand for tea had 
 largely increased in England ; those who had visited the United States could 
 tell what a variety of Cliiuese productions they had seen in the houses of the 
 Salem merchants, and in the shops of New York, and how much tliey liad 
 heard of the desire of thickly-jjeopled Cliina for a supply of European and 
 American productions : and the demand for a complete opening of the eastern 
 seas had become too strong to be resisted. By the Charter of 1813, the Com- 
 pany had been bound to keep their territorial and commercial accounts sepa- 
 rate : and on their first examination, it was clear tliat they could not for a 
 moment compete with private merchants in supplying India with manu- 
 factured goods, to the advantage of both parties. In fifteen years, tlie Com- 
 i)anv's exports of manufactured cottons to India liad dwindled to almost 
 
 ,". 1 '1 1 !• • 1 1 1 • 1 11 ■ MTulloch's Com. 
 
 notlung, while those of private mercliaiits exceeded in value a million anil a mcrciai Uii.i.p.i02.
 
 96 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book IV. 
 
 1833. lialf per annum, and were still on the increase. After all that the English 
 — "^"^ — ' public had been told of the immutability of Hindoo habits, and the impossi- 
 bility of any great expansion of trade, it became clear that the Hindoos, like 
 other people, would stretch out their hands to obtain good and comfortable 
 things, if only such things wore placed within their reach. Bishop Heber's 
 Join-nals were by this time published ; and they told of the strong disposition 
 of both Hindoos and Mohammedans in India to imitate the English, and ob- 
 tain whatever ^^•as necessary to enable them to assimie an English Tnode of 
 living : — he tells of jackets and trowscrs, shoes and stockings, round hats, 
 English furniture, French devices and mottoes on jewellery, English hardware, 
 crockery, writing-desks, arms, and clothing — not only in and near Calcutta, 
 but in remote provincial towns. This much ha\dng been proved, the com- 
 mercial world did not attend to what the Company now said of the immuta- 
 bility of Chinese habits, and the impossibility of any great expansion of trade 
 there. It was time to try. The Company took warning by their experience 
 of the results of competition with private enterprise in India, and did not in- 
 sist upon renewing the experiment in China. Their age as traders was past ; 
 and they now retired upon their tenitorial dignity, leaving a large section of 
 the world open to British commerce. It was a striking event to a multitude 
 of people at home, and to many abroad. Almost every body reckoned on 
 having cheap tea, and plenty of it ; and some anticipated that a few houses in 
 London and oin- principal ports might soon have curiosities to show like those 
 of Salem and New York; — elegant matting, a variety of serviceable silks, extra- 
 ordinary toys, and Chinese copies of English prints — a miracle of painstaking. 
 Many, it may be hoped, thought of the blessing to the Chinese of new means 
 and opportunities of civilization ; and some, of the effect upon the relations of 
 the whole world of the throwing open the intercourse between the East and 
 the West which, whether cursed with a war at the outset or not, was certainly 
 necessary to an ultimate condition of fraternization and peace. In this view, 
 one point was of eminent interest to some of the best people living in the 
 world. In these newly-opened countries of the East, there arc wide regions — 
 broad belts of soil and climate, — fitted for the production of sugar and cotton. 
 It is the limitation of the area for the production of sugar and cotton ■which 
 protracts the existence of negro slavery. It is well to use all possible means 
 of appeal to the justice and humanity of men, to induce an abolition of negro 
 slavery: but here was another opening for hope and enterprise. If slavery were 
 not abolished sooner, it certainly must be by a cheaper production of sugar and 
 cotton in the east by free labour than can be accomplished in the west by slave 
 labour. No such possibility existed while the India Company held the East 
 in their hand : but now the prospect seemed to be opening ; and in this view, 
 again, the date of the expiration of the Company's Charter might be one of 
 high importance in the history of the world. 
 Poiit.Dict.i.p.707- By the Act of 1833, the Charter was renewed for twenty years, during which 
 time the territorial government remains in the hands of the Company. From 
 the 22nd of April, 1834, the China and tea trade of the Company was to cease, 
 and all its commercial concerns were to be wound up, and its commercial pro- 
 ])crty sold. All the restrictions which prevented the free admission of Emo- 
 peaiis, and their free residence in India, were repealed; and equality of claiju
 
 Chat. VIII.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 97 
 
 to office and employment between natives and foreigners was decreed. There 1833. 
 
 was to be no distinction on account of race, colour, or religion. From that day, ^ ' 
 
 new hoi)cs have been dawning upon tlie East ; and it is now universally inider- 
 stood that the great work to be done in India is to raise the native population 
 by educational methods, and by a just administration of our power, and not, 
 as it once was, to keep them down by force — whether for their own sake or 
 ours. As for the commercial results of the new Charter, the number of ships 
 which passed to and fro increased year by year, even before the introduction of 
 steam navigation into those seas. In ten years, the trade with China had 
 doubled, and the value of British and Irish exports to India and Ceylon had 
 increased from two millions and a half to six millions and nearly half. 
 
 During the same period, as is observed in the commercial registers of the ^'^"'"' si»' t:"*- 
 time, the value of the exports to the West Indies bad declined. These colo- 
 nies were in a disturbed and unsatisfactory state. For some years, the experi- 
 ment of a gradual preparation of the slave for freedom had been going on ; 
 and -vvith the inevitable result of failure. The slaves were infonned by the 
 arrival of successive Orders in Council, by the appointment of Protectors of 
 Slaves, and by the trial of a few slave causes, that they had rights : and when 
 a man of any colour once knows to a certainty that he has rights which are 
 withheld from him by parties close at hand, he is never contented again in his 
 wronged condition. The planters were as restless in their way as the slaves. 
 They resented tlie Ordei'S in Council, and every thing in the shape of admo- 
 nition from home, as an unwarrantable interference with their management of 
 their property ; and they refused the slave registration and other observances 
 prescribed by Government. The language in their Assemblies was audaci- 
 ously disrespectful and petulant ; and in Trinidad there was a proposition that 
 the inhabitants should refuse to pay taxes till the last Order in Council was 
 rescinded. In December, 1831, a formidable insurrection broke out in Jamaica, 
 which occasioned suspension of business and other loss, and was put down only 
 by martial law : and in the following April the West India merchants in Lon- 
 don endeavoiu'ed to make Government liable for the losses thus incurred, and 
 for all wliich, in the opinion of the planters, could be traced to the operation 
 of the Orders, or of other movements in behalf of the slave. When, at this 
 meeting, the responsibility for all disorders was thrown upon the British j^u^^'^js '"<•''• 
 Government, and protests and claims were sent in to the (Colonial Secretary 
 " in consequence of the measures pursued by his Majesty's Ministers," it Mas 
 clear that a final settlement of the great question was at hand. It Avas now 
 too late to desert the cause of the slaves, and hand them over to the arbitrary 
 management of their owners. There must be a final issue ; and tlie jilanlers 
 were bringing it on as fast as they could. If they had not done so, events 
 would. In the three years from 1828, the production of sugar had so far les- 
 sened as that the imports in England had sunk from 15)8,400 tons to 185,()60 
 tons. The planters believed that they could recover their ground if England 
 would give them aid, and only leave them to manage their slaves in their own 
 way; while England felt, not only that the negroes were fellow- subjects as 
 well as the whites, but that no power on earth could roll back the years so as 
 to reinstate the planters in tlieir fonner poNitiun. Hy their present conduct, 
 
 vol.. II. o
 
 98 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book IV. 
 
 1833. <!'<' West India merchants and proprietors hurried on the crisis at a rate not 
 
 ^-^•--- ' dreamed of by the friends of the negro at home. 
 
 Hansard, xii. 500. Ou thc 17th of April, the Earl of Harewood presented to the House of Lords 
 a petition from persons interested in the colonies, for a full parliamentary in- 
 quiry into the hxws, usages, and condition of the West India colonies, their 
 past improvements, and possible future ameliorations — due regard being had 
 to " the best interests of the slaves themselves, and the rights of private pro- 
 perty." The committee v\"as granted ; and the last Order in C'ouncil was sus- 
 pended for the time. Ou the 24th of May, the Lord Cliaucellor presented a 
 
 Hansard, xiii. 6. petition from 135,000 pcrsous, residcnt in and near London, praying for the 
 speedy abolition of slavery, and that no delay might be caused by the appoint- 
 ment of the West India committee. Lord Suffield followed with twenty-one 
 petitions to the same purpose. While these were discussed in the one House, 
 
 Haiisard, xiii. 3R. Mr. T. Fowcll Buxtou was moving in the other for a Select Committee to pre- 
 pare for the extinction of slavery in the British dominions at the earliest 
 possible moment. It is painful now to read thc debate on this occasion, not 
 only on account of the perpetual pleas which make the reader blush for the 
 conscience of the legislature — pleas of the good food, light -vvork, and relief 
 fi-om resjionsibility, of the slaves, and of their enjoyment of the blessings of 
 Christianity — but on account of thc timidity and supineness of many who 
 called themselves the friends of thc negroes. INIr. Buxton had a hard battle 
 to fight: but he stood his ground. He must have been aware that he imder- 
 stood the matter, while his opponents, of all parties, did not. He knew that 
 the abolition of slavery was inevitable ; and that the most speedy abolition 
 would be the safest for all parties. He knew that a gi-adual preparation of a 
 slave for freedom was an impossible thing : — he knew that to leave the matter 
 in the hands of the Government was to give up the cause : — he kncAV tliat to 
 revert to the Resolutions of the 15th of ^lay, 1823, was to acquiesce in another 
 nine years' delay : — he knew that to mix up in the same motion the questions 
 of emancipation and of compensation to the planters would be to expose the 
 great moral to all the risks of the minor financial question : and he therefore 
 stood firm, amidst the entreaties of friends, the mockery of foes, and the some- 
 what contemptuous displeasure of the Ministers, who on this occasion could 
 not be ranked cither with friends or foes. Lord Althorp, unaware what a 
 Avork he and his colleagues were destined to do in a few short months, 
 
 Hansard, xiii. 00. " would not pledge himself to any immediate abolition of slavery, because 
 he did not think that the slave-population was in a situation to receive that 
 boon beneficially for themselves ; but he thought that the legislature might 
 employ itself most usefully in bringing the slaves to such a state of moral 
 feeling as would be suitable to thc proposed alteration in their condition :" 
 and he moved an amendment on Mr. Buxton's motion in favour of " con- 
 formity with the Resolutions of this House of the 15th of May, 1823." 
 Thus far were our statesmen behind the time, that one of the most honest, 
 one of the most sensitive to the claims of justice, was unaware that the only 
 possible education for the use of rights is in the exercise of the rights them- 
 selves, and was unashamed to revert to the barren resolutions of nine years 
 before. In that spirit of rectitude which includes the truest mercy, Mr. Buxton
 
 CHA.P. VIII.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 99 
 
 refused to surrender his motion, even if lie should vote alone. Ninety, how- 1833. 
 ever, voted on his side, and 163 on the other. This majority of 73 on Lord ^— ^-— — ' 
 Althorp's side was not so large as was expected : and it was prohably out- 
 numbered, a hundred times over, by the converts to Mr. Buxton's view outside 
 the House, who could bring an eifcctual force to bear on the Government. 
 
 This question is one which implicates not two quarters of the world only, ,'^/™J'°'' '*'"''■ 
 but three ; — not Europe and Africa only, but America. It is necessary to sur- 
 vey the whole area of the operation of negro slavery, in order to give the time 
 history of any one part. There was at this date an infant movement in the 
 United States which was destined to signalize om- centmy as the Refoi-mation 
 distintruished its own a^e. Some who live nearest to the cradle of this refor- 
 mation are only now — five-and-twenty years after its birth — beginning to 
 perceive with any clearness the magnitude of the event : but so it is with all 
 the great transitions in the world. AVhilc the Eeformation was going on, 
 multitudes of ordinary people in Germany were living on as usual, in unconsci- 
 ousness that any thing remarkable was befalling the world : — " likewise also as 
 it was in the days of I-ot ; they did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold, 
 they planted, they builded :" and if any stranger had inquired of them about 
 the new prophet and his doctrine, they would have denied that such existed, 
 till the fire-sho'wer of Luther's^lenunciations came to burn up the superstitions 
 of the age. Thus it was now in the United States, where the gibbet and the 
 tar-kettle and the cow-hide were iweparing for the patriots of the community ; 
 and the time was draM'ing on when the rights of Petition to Congress, of the 
 Press, and of free speech, were to be suspended, in order to be restored with in- 
 creased security, for the object of freeing the soil from negro slavery. Before 
 this could happen, some noble hearts must be broken ; some precious lives 
 sacrificed ; some public halls burned, and many private dwellings laid waste : 
 but the end was decreed, and the beginning was now made. In 1830, two 
 young men had been wont to walk across the Common at Boston, and discuss 
 the right way of setting about the abolition of slavery in America : and they 
 and another — poor and obscure, all three of them — had met in a gaiTCt, and 
 there, with their feet upon a wood-pile, and by the light of a single candle, 
 they had solemnly resolved steadfastly to measure their moral force against the 
 hideous evil. It has fallen to them and their followers to contend for a wider 
 emanci])ation than that of the negroes ; to be the champions, in the New 
 AN'oild, of freedom of opinion, speech, and the press; and before their work — 
 now secure, but not fully accomjilishod — is finally dismissed from their hands, 
 it may a]i])ear that yet other kinds of freedom have been brought in and esta- 
 blished by them. The conflict between the powers of light and darkness, of 
 liberty and tyranny, in the Ignited States is now, in the middle of the century, 
 approaching its issue. At the time when Mr. Buxton stood up in the British 
 House of Commons, refusing to yield his point, an indomitable brother-reformer 
 over the seas had presented his manifesto in one of the finest declarations ever 
 given to the world. No one knew better than Mr. Buxton, and no one would 
 liave been more eager to explain the fact — that the brother-spirit over the seas 
 had infinitely the harder lot, and the most arduous work, of the two for his 
 portion. It was only by living on bread and wati'r that the confessor of this
 
 100 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book IV. 
 
 1833. mighty cause could obtain means to publish his jjaper. " AVhen it sold pai- 
 ^— '-'-^— ^ ticulaily well," says his partner in the sacrifice, " we treated ourselves with a 
 bowl of milk." In the small, shabby first sheet of "The Liberator," printed 
 with old types, we find the manifesto which will not be forgotten while the 
 Anglo-Saxon liberties and language last. " I am aware," says Garrison, " that 
 many object to the severity of my language ; but is there not cause for severity? 
 I irill be as harsh as truth, and as uncompromising as justice. I am in earnest — 
 I will not equivocate — and I will be heard. The apathy of the people is 
 enough to make every statue leap from its pedestal, and to hasten the resur- 
 rection of the dead. It is pretended that I am retarding the cause of emanci- 
 pation by the coarseness of my invective, and the precipitancy of my measures. 
 The charge is not true. On this question my influence, humble as it is, is felt 
 at this moment to a considerable extent, and shall be felt in coming years — 
 not perniciously, but beneficially ; not as a ciuse, but as a blessing ; and pos- 
 terity will bear witness that I ^vas right. I desire to thank God that he enables 
 me to disregard the fear of man, and to speak his truth in its simplicity and 
 power." — There were persons in the House of Commons who exclaimed against 
 coarseness and precipitancy, and called out for soft words, and a mincing gait 
 towards the object— the gaze reverting to the resolutions of nine years before. 
 But the men who understood the case knew that events — and not any impulse 
 of impatient minds — now called for a thundering utterance, and a tread that 
 should shake the ground. The demand for liberty was now one which could 
 not be neglected. The property question might be considered too; but it must 
 not be permitted to cause the delay of the greater argument. Though de- 
 feated on the division, Mr. Buxton had made this clear ; and from that day 
 there was no more halting on either shore of the Atlantic. 
 
 A vote of relief in money to the West India colonies, on account of a de- 
 structive hurricane in Barbadoes, St. Vincent, and St. Lucia, was now made to 
 include Jamaica, on account of the recent insurrection, and raised from 
 100,000^. to 1,000,000^. The Chancellor of the Exchequer declared that it 
 would require 800,000/. to rebuild the premises destroyed by the insurgent 
 slaves. — It was in this same year that the slaves in America heard of Ciarri- 
 son's manifesto ; and from that time they ceased to rise. Till then, revolts 
 had been frequent — several taking place every year. Since Garrison, the 
 " peace-man," has arisen in their behalf, there has not been one. 
 
 By the 14th of the next May, the Government had declared that they had 
 found the pressure of public opinion on the subject of slavery too strong to be 
 iiausird xvii 1230. 1'esisted ; and they had brought forward, by the mouth of Mr. Stanley (who had 
 become Colonial Secretary), a series of resolutions, which were to be debated on 
 the 30th of the same month. In the speech of the Secretary, introducing the 
 resolutions, nothing is more remarkable than the narrative given of West India 
 distress ; a distress so frequently recvu-ring, so incessantly complained of, in all 
 conditions of war and peace, and of changing seasons, as to show that the secret 
 of prosperity does not lie in slavery, and that there was some fatal fault in the 
 system which the planters Avere so rmwilhng to have touched. There was 
 nothing in this narrative to surprise the economists, in or out of tlie House ; 
 and the economists and the friends of the negro, and the most enlightened of
 
 Chap. VIII.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 101 
 
 the advocates of the planters, were alike sorry to see in the Resolutions a cling- 1833. 
 
 ins to the unsound method of " gradualism" in the abolition of slavery. It was "~- — 
 
 proposed that all children horn after the passing of any Act of emancipation, 
 and all that should be under six years old at the time of its passage, should be 
 declared free : — that all others, then slaves, should be registered as apprenticed 
 labourers, being considered free, except for the restriction of being compelled 
 to labour for their present owners, under conditions, and for a space of time to 
 be determined by parliament : — that a loan, not exceeding 15,000,000/., should 
 be offered to tlu' planters ; and that parliament should provide for the expense 
 of a local magistracy, and of means of education and religious training of the 
 negroes. 
 
 Mr. Buxton declared at once against the compulsory apprenticeship, as a 
 device pregnant with mischief. He was joined by one who had been a mem- 
 ber of the Govenmient, Lord Ilowick, who had resigned office from his inability Hansard.xvii 1231. 
 to countenance this proxision, and his reluctance to introduce confusion into 
 the Government by Ids opposition, otherwise than as an independent member 
 of the House. This apprenticeship arrangement was one great difficulty : 
 and the loan was another. The planters and their advocates considered the 
 amount a mere pittance, and yet were sure they could never repay it. With 
 a good grace, the loan of fifteen millions was converted into a gift of twenty 
 millions ; and the term of apprenticeship was reduced. Mr. Buxton was so 
 well supported in his opposition, that Government had no choice but to yield. 
 The field-slaves were to have been apprenticed for twelve years ; and the house 
 slaves for seven: — their terms were now reduced to seven and five. As to the 
 money part of the aflfair, there were many who saw and declared that, in strict 
 principle, there could be no claim for compensation for deprivation of that 
 which, from its very nature, never could have been property : and such opposed 
 any payment at all to the planters, as they would have refused to purchase a 
 slave who could be freed without. But the greater number, seeing how long 
 the law had recognised human beings as property, and on how bare a legal 
 basis all right to property rests, were willing to avoid subtle controversy, and 
 to close the dispute rather with generous concession than with rigidity ; and 
 the gift of twenty millions was voted with an alacrity which must ever be con- 
 sidered a remarkable and honourable sign of the times. The generous acqui- 
 escence of the people under this prodigious increase of their burdens has 
 caused the moralists of other nations to declare that the British Act of Emanci- 
 pation stands alone for moral grandeur in the history of the world ; while those 
 of other nations who do not happen to be moralists, sec in it only an inexpli- 
 cable hypocrisy, or obscin-e process of self-interest. 
 
 On the 30th of August, 1833, the Emancipation Act passed the Lords. The nkoro emanh- 
 name, and mucli 01 the substance ot slavery was to expire on the 1st 01 August, 
 1834. The young children were then to be free ; and the Government fondly 
 hoped, against the warnings of those who understood the secoiul nature which 
 overgrows the first in the holders of irresponsible power, that the parents 
 would, from the same hour, be morally and civilly free — bound only in the 
 salutary obligations to virtuous labour. However that might be. the day was 
 within view when all siiould be wholly free. To her great honour — and not
 
 102 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book IV. 
 
 1834. the less because the act proved to be one of true policy — Antigua surrendered 
 — — -^ the right of apprenticeship, and set her slaves wholly free on the appointed day. 
 Elsc^\ here, the arrangement worked so ill — the oppression of the negroes was 
 so gross, and to them in their transition state so intolerable — the perplexities 
 were so many, and so difficult to deal with — that Government was soon con- 
 vinced that " gradualism" was as impracticable under the name of freedom as 
 of slavery ; in three years, the term of apprenticeship was shortened ; and pre- 
 sently afterwards the arrangement was relinquished altogether. 
 
 The season of emancipation was dreaded by some of the slave-holders, Avho 
 had spent all their lives in fear of negio risings. To others it appeared that 
 the danger of revolt was when the negroes were suffering under tyranny, and 
 not when they were relieved from it. On both shores of the Atlantic, how- 
 ever, expectation stood on tip-toe to watch the moment which shoidd give 
 freedom to 800,000 of the enslaved race. The Carolina planter looked well to 
 his negro quarter, to see that his "hands" were not abroad after dark. Gar- 
 rison and his band sat waiting for tidings — with more faith in the negro 
 temper than any body else, but still with some anxiety for the cause. The 
 British parliament looked benevolently forth, in the consciousness of having 
 done an act which should stand alone in the history of the -ixorld. The 
 British peasant thought affectionately of the black brethren whom he, as a 
 freeman and a tax -payer, had helped to release from bondage. And when 
 }j3^°^ *''"''*■'' the tidings came — the nan-ative of how the great day had passed over — there 
 was such joy as is seldom excited by one event among opposite interests. 
 Garrison and his band were as much relieved as the Carolina jilantcr ; and 
 the English peasant was as proud and pleased as the British jiarliament. — 
 The 1st of August fell on a Friday; and there was to be holiday from the 
 Thiusday night till iNlonday. The missionaries did their duty well ; and they 
 completely succeeded in impressing the people with a sense of the solemnity 
 of the occasion. The arri\al of that midnight in the island of Antigua, where 
 the negroes were to be wholly free at once, was an event which cannot be 
 read of without a throbbing of the heart. It was to the negroes their passover 
 night. They were all collected in their chapels — the Wesleyans keeping 
 Thome and Kim- watcli-niglit in the chapels throughout the island. The pastors recommended 
 turn In thcTveit to tlic pcoplc to rcccive the blessing in silence and on their knees. At the 
 first stroke of midnight fi-om the great cathedral bell, all fell on their knees, 
 and nothing was heard but the slow tolling 'bell, and some struggling sobs in 
 the intervals. The silence lasted for a few moments after the final stroke, 
 when a peal of awful thunder rattled through the sky, and the flash of light- 
 ning seemed to put out the lamps in the chapels. Then the kneeling crowd 
 sprang to their feet, and gave voice to their passionate emotions ; — such voice 
 as might be expected from this excitable people. Some tossed up their fi-ee 
 arms, and groaned away at once the heart's burden of a life. Families and 
 neighbours opened their arms to each other. Some prayed aloud, after the 
 lead of their pastors, that they might be free indeed : and a voice was heard 
 in thanksgiving for a real Sabbath now, when the wicked should cease from 
 troubling, and the weary be at rest, and the voice of the oppressor should be 
 no more heard, and the servant should be free from his master. In some of
 
 s 
 
 Chap. VIII.J DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 103 
 
 the chapels the noble spectacle was seen of the masters attending with their 1834. 
 negroes, and, when the clock had struck, shaking hands with tlicm, and 
 wishing them joy. The rest of the holiday was spent partly in mirth, as Avas 
 right, and much of it in listening to the addresses of the missionaries who 
 urged upon them with much force, and in the utmost detail, the duties of 
 sobriety and diligence, and harmony with their employers. On the Monday 
 morning, they went to work — that work which they were proud of now, as it 
 was for wages. 
 
 Fair as was this promise, and well as the conduct of the negroes has justified 
 the highest expectations of their most sanguine friends, no reasonable persons 
 were so sanguine as to suppose that all parties would be satisfied — that an Act 
 of Parliament could neutralize all the evil results of an iniquity tliat was 
 centuries old — that the striking of that cathedral clock was to silence all 
 discontents for the future as well as the past. From the nature of things it 
 could not be so. The planter could not, at the striking of that clock, put off 
 his habits of command, and his life-long associations of inferiority with the 
 negro race. He could not, in a moment, or a year, become an economist, a 
 practical man, carrying on his business with the close attention and care and 
 thrifty skill held necessary in the employers of fr-ee labour elsewhere. And 
 the negroes would certainly work in a A'cry diiferent way, and to a very 
 different amount henceforth. The husband and father might, and no doubt 
 would, accomplish much more actual work between year's end and year's end : 
 but some of it would be for himself — on ground of his own : and the women 
 would be almost universally withdrawn from field-labour ; and they would 
 keep their children under their own care at home. As the possession of land 
 was, in the eyes of negroes, the symbol of all earthly power and privilege, 
 it was certain that their great ambition woidd be to buy land ; and thus, 
 again, moi'c labour would be withdrawn from the existing estates. And these 
 estates were in that bad state of tillage which always co-exists Avitli slave 
 labour ; and the conditions were thus unfavourable to a change of system. 
 The probability seemed to many to be that there would be a decline in the 
 production of sugar, and distress among the planters, not remediable by any 
 kind or degree of aid from England, ending probably in a transfer of the 
 estates from the representatives of the old system to those of the new. A 
 tone of fretful triumph would have to be borne with for a time from the 
 enemies of emancipation ; and perhaps a temporary deficiency of sugar — 
 entailing further sacrifice on the English working classes who had so cheer- 
 fully undertaken their share of the tAvenly millions of compensation: and, in 
 some future time, every white might have sold his plantation to a black or 
 mulatto ca])italist. There would be much evil in all this, if it sliould happen : 
 but after so long and grievous a sin, some retributive penalty must be expected : 
 and there were bright points both in the near and distant prospects. The 
 negress Avas now under the protection of a husband, and had a home in 
 which to labour and rest. Christianity could now be preached, Avithout 
 dread and witliout omission. While regretting any decline in the outward 
 fortunes of the planters, no considerate person coidd for a moment put those 
 outAvard fortunes into the scale against the moral and material interests of
 
 104 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book IV. 
 
 1834. the vast majority of residents in the West Indies : and, as for the supply of 
 suarar — there is a hroad helt surroundin<r the world — here studded with South 
 American ranches, there feathered with African pahns, and beyond, watered 
 by the rivers of India, and strewn with the islands of the eastern archipelago — 
 where sugar enough may be grown for the needs of the whole race. The 
 centmies bring witli them their own resources. Ours brought a rich one in 
 the insight and impulse to extinguish a mighty sin. Necessity and justice 
 were seen and heard to demand it : tlie thing was done : and necessity and 
 justice may always be trusted to vindicate themselves.
 
 Chap. IX.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. lOo 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 ^pHUS far the Whig Ministry had -wTOught and prospered welL They had 1S31. 
 A undertaken their great works with a clear view of wliat ought to he dont;, 
 and a determination to do it : or, if they at any time fell short in either of these 
 requi.-^ites, the sympathy or opposition of the liheral party soon brought them 
 up again. Among many dcficieneies and weaknesses which they were now to 
 cxliihit, the most fatal, and one of the most inexcusable, was in regard to 
 Ireland. It required no miraculous wisdom to see that Catholic Emancipation 
 would not tranquillize Ireland while she suffered under the burden of what the 
 Titncs called " too much Church." In the most orderly state of society in any imsii chiucm. 
 country, it could not be expected that between six and seven millions of inha- 
 bitants of one religious faith would pay a portion of their produce to support 
 a church ^\•hich included only a few hiuidred thousands — a church which they 
 conscientiously disajjprovcd, and whose funds they saw to be ample, Avhile 
 their ovn\ priesthood had nothing to depend on but the precarious contribu- 
 tions of their flocks. On the one hand was a church numbering 853,000, 
 with four archbisliops, eighteen bishops, and a law which authorized its clergy 
 to derive an essential part of their incomes from tithes ; and this in a country 
 where tillaffo was the almost universal means of subsistence, and the division 
 of the land was so minute that the tithe-collectors seemed never to have done 
 making their demands of shillings and half-pence. On the other hand, there 
 was a church including six millions and a half of members, without aid from 
 government, without countenance from the law; with a multitudinous priest- 
 hood who lived with the poor and like the poor; and from these poor was the 
 tithe extorted by perpetually recurring applications — applications backed by 
 soldiery and iiiTned police, who carried off the pig, or the sack of potatoes, or 
 the money-fee which the peasant desired to offer to his own priest. It required 
 no miraculous wisdom to see that the long exasperated Irish must consider 
 this management as reUgious persecution, and feel that Catholic Emancipa- 
 tion was not yet complete. A very ordinary foresight would have shown that 
 it would soon be found impossible to collect tithe in Ireland; and further, 
 that it must soon be acknowledged by the whole world at home, as it had long 
 been declared by the whole world abroad, that the maintenance of the esta- 
 blisliment in Ireland was an ius\ilt aiul injury whicli no nation could be 
 expected to endure, and which must preclude call chance of peace till it should 
 be abolished in its form of a dominant chuich. The Whig ^Ministers were not 
 only without the miraculous \visdoiii, but they were witliout the ordinary 
 foresight. Tliey — Whigs as they were — were blinded by that same super- 
 stitious dread of changing the law which had, time after time, been the destruc- 
 tion of tlieiv (>pi)oneuts. They, Whigs as they were, seenu'd to have forgotten 
 that no huuiiui law can be made for eternity — that no ago or generation can 
 vor,. II. V
 
 lOG 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 [Book IV. 
 
 1831. 
 
 Spectator, 1833, 
 p 59. 
 
 Prosecution of 
 o'connell. 
 
 Itiiid down a future age or generation to its own arrangements, or legislate in 
 a spirit of prophecy. They, whose ancestors had declared these truths in 1688, 
 and as often since as any great reform had hecn needed : — they who had dis- 
 solved the laws which gave seats in parliament as a property to individuals, 
 and the negro as a property to his white fellow-man, pleaded now, while Ire- 
 land was convulsed from end to end with the church question, that the church 
 in Ireland could never be touched, because its establishment and revenues were 
 guaranteed by law. If it was asked to whom Avere this establishment and 
 these revenues guaranteed, it was necessary to dismiss the abstraction called 
 the Church, and to reply either the worshippers or their clergy ; and the ques- 
 tion then was, whether means of worship could not be provided for the one, 
 and an honourable subsistence for the other, by some method less objection- 
 able than taking by force the tenth potatoe and the tenth peat from the Catho- 
 lic peasant, and parading the Church of the small minority before the eyes of 
 the vast majority as the pensioned favourite of the state. If the Whig 
 ministers had had sagacity to see the imtenable nature of the Irish Establish- 
 ment, and courage to propose its reduction to the proper condition of a Pro- 
 testant denomination, they would have gained honours even nobler than those 
 which they won by Parliamentary Refonn. It is highly probable that Ireland 
 Avould have been by this time comparatively at ease ; for the Ministers might 
 apparently have carried such a measure at the outset of their legislation for 
 Ireland, when their power was at its height, and the question of Church 
 Reform in England was discussed with a freedom and boldness Avhich soon 
 disappeared. If not, however — if they had failed and gone out upon this 
 question — they would have entitled themselves to the eternal gi-atitude of the 
 nation, and of so much of the world at large as is interested in the interior 
 peace and prosjierity of the British empire. But they did not see nor ruider- 
 stand their opportunity. The phantom of the impersonal Church, and its 
 shadowy train of legal guarantees, was before them, so as to shut out the 
 realities of the case — the substantial interests of the Protestant religion, and the 
 weighty facts that many of the churches Avcre empty, the mmibers of Protestants 
 stationary or decreasing, and the working clergy actually living upon alms. 
 The Administration tried this and that and the other small metliod of dealing 
 AA-ith the diiRculty ; at Avhat expense of delay, contention, and ultimate partial 
 yielding, we shall hereafter see. " Of this," said their friends at the time, 
 by the most calm and moderate of their organs, " there can be no doubt ; — 
 the only way to afford her (the Irish Churcli) tlie least chance of a permanent 
 existence, is to abolish Tithes entirely, and to cut down her other emoluments 
 very low indeed, — that is to say, to reduce them until they amount to no more 
 than a fair equivalent for the services which she can render in retiu-n for 
 them." 
 
 In 1831, the state of Ireland seemed to be growing daily worse, in regard 
 to violence. There was a conflict of forces between the Lord Lieutenant and 
 Mr. O'Connell. The Lord Lieutenant issued proclamations against a certain 
 order of public meetings. O'Connell and his fi-iends disobeyed the proclama- 
 tion, and were brought to trial. Delays and difficulties Avere introduced into 
 the legal process, as is usual in Ireland ; but the matter ended in O'Connell 
 and his comrades pleading guilty to the first fourteen counts in the indictment,
 
 Chap. IX.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 107 
 
 wliicli charged them with holding meetings in violation of various proclama- 1831. 
 
 tions. Tho Attoriiuy-Gencral was satisfied, and withdrew the remaining ^— — ^ ' 
 
 counts. Mr. O'Conncll denied in the newspapers that he liad pleaded guilty; 
 and declared that he had allowed judgment to go by default, in order to plead 
 before the House of Lords, through the twelve Judges — before which time, 
 he hoped the Act under which he was prosecuted would expire. As it was 
 asserted and proved in the House of Commons that he had actually pleaded 
 guilty, and that nothing remained but for sentence to be pronounced against 
 him, his followers, in their amazement at such a fall, resorted to the supposi- ■ 
 tion that some kind of compromise had taken place between himself and the 
 government, and that the Liberator had humbled himself in order to obtain 
 some boon for Ireland. The supposition grew to a rumour ; and the rumour 
 spread to the friends and opponents of the Ministers in parliament : and, 
 though it was promptly met, it was never again extinguished. Whether it 
 was through indolence, carelessness, timidity, or temporary convenience, 
 certain it was that the Whig government brought on itself, for a course of 
 years, the charge of compromise with O'Connell, after repeated proofs of his 
 utter unworthiness of all trust, and therefore of all countenance as the repre- 
 sentative of his country. On the present occasion, Mr. Stanley, Secretary for 
 Ireland, was questioned in the House about the transactions of Government 
 with Mr. O'Comiell ; and his reply was express and clear. He would not say n.-msard, ii. 491, 
 that Mr. O'Connell's friends had not endeavoured to make terms for him : but 
 the reply of Cxovernmcnt had been that Mr. O'Connell's conduct had not en- 
 titled him to any consideration, and " the law must take its course :" — "judg- 
 ment should be pressed against him :" — the Cro^^n had " procured a verdict 
 against Mr. O'Connell ; and it would, undoubtedly, call him up to receive 
 judgment upon it." Within a fortnight after, a ridiculous scene took place in 
 the House. Mr. O'Connell asked the Secretary for Ireland on what ground he 
 had asserted that friends of his had endeavoured to make terms for him. 
 " There could be no delicacy in disclosing their names, because, if they were 
 accredited agents, he — on the supposition the principal — asked for publicity ; 
 and if they were not his agents, it was but common justice to hold them up as 
 impostors." Again, Mr. Stanley's answer was express and clear. A letter had nnnsard, ii. joiw, 
 been laid before him which ]iroposed terms, to induce the Irish Government to 
 forego the prosecution, the letter being dictated by Mr. O'Connell himself to 
 his son-in-law, and enclosed in one from his son. The House received this 
 explanation with shouts of lauglitcr: and the shouts were renewed when Mr. 
 O'Connell said that " he could not but admit that his question had been an- 
 swered most satisfactorily by the right honomable gentleman." The tei-n\s 
 ])roposed were, as Mr. O'Connell now declared, that he sliould forego his agi- Hansard, «. ico/. 
 tation for the Repeal of the Union, which he regarded only as means to an 
 cud, if the Government would, in the first place, drop the prosecution, and 
 next propose good measures for Ireland. " The answer was, that no such ctmi- 
 proniise wo\ild be for a monu'ut entertained by the Irish CJovernment, and that 
 the law must take its course." It is difficult to account for a self-exposure so 
 audacious as this of O'Connell, on any other su])position than that he wished 
 to advertise his readiness to be uegotiate<l \\\{\\, and to surrender his Rejieal 
 agitation on sullieirni iuiliicenieul. lie had long before so surrendered all
 
 108 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 [Book IV 
 
 1831. 
 
 Irish Outrage. 
 
 AiinunI Roffister. 
 1»31, pp. 324, 5. ■ 
 
 pretensions to honour, and shown himself so incapable of conceiving of honoin-, 
 that he could go through a scene like this of the 2Sth of February, 1831, with 
 less embarrassment than any other man. The misfortune of the case to the 
 Government was, that it did not redeem the pledge given by Mr. Stanley. The 
 law did not take its course ; INIr. O'Connell was not brought up for judgment. 
 Time passed on : the Act under which he was convicted expired : and wlien it 
 was defunct, the Ministers considered that it would be ungracious to inflict 
 the penalties it decreed. 
 
 From week to week of tliis session, the outrages in Ireland grew ■^^•orse. 
 Tithe collectors were murdered in some places : in others, they were dragged 
 from their beds, and laid in a ditch to have their ears cut off. Five of the police 
 were shot dead at once by a party in ambush. The peasantry declared against 
 pastures, and broke up grass lands in broad day. Cattle were driven off, lest 
 the owners should pay tithe upon them. A committee of Roman Catholic 
 priests, assembled at Ennis for the promotion of order and peace, broke up 
 with expressions of despair. O'Connell attended some of the trials in May, 
 before a special commission issued for the purpose ; and he took the oppor- 
 tunity of making matters worse by addressing the people in speeches, in which 
 he told them that many of the convicted peasants would have been acquitted 
 if fairly tried, but that the juries were afraid to acquit. He charged his hearers 
 M'ith — not crime, but — indiscretion, and advised them to deUver up their arms, 
 not because the law required it, but because they might thus mollify the 
 Government, and purchase leniency for their comrades who had been caught. 
 Towards the end of the month, there was a fight between the police and the 
 peasants, at Castle Pollard, in Westmeath, on occasion of an attempted rescue. 
 The chief constable was knocked down ; the police fired, and nine or ten per- 
 sons were killed. The police were tried for manslaughter, on the prosecution 
 of the Government ; and O'Connell found matter of complaint even in this, 
 after the men were acquitted, alleging that the prosecutions would have been 
 fairer, if left to be instituted by the families of the slaughtered men. If they 
 had been so left, his complaints of the apathy of the Government would have 
 been more formidable still. In June, an affair happened at Newtonbarry, in 
 Wexford, which shows what was the position of the Church in the Catholic 
 districts of Ireland at that time. On the 18th of June, which was market day, 
 some cattle were to be sold which had been impounded for tithe payment. The 
 following placard was on the walls of the town : — " Inhabitants, &c. &c. There 
 will be an end of church plunder : your pot, blanket, and pig, will not hereafter 
 be sold by auction, to support in luxury, idleness, and ease, persons who en- 
 deavour to make it appear that it is essential to the peace and prosperity of the 
 country, and your eternal salvation, while the most of you are starving. Attend 
 to an auction of your neighbour's cattle, seized for tithe by the Rev. Alexander 
 M'Clintock." The yeomanry were on the alert to assist the police. As soon 
 as the sale began, it merged into a fight ; and twelve of the Catholic mob were 
 killed. The consequent law proceedings were baffled and rendered fruitless by 
 trick and timidity ; but the affair was never forgotten. Before the year was 
 out, the clergy had become afraid to ask, and their flocks to pay, their dues. 
 As the )-ear closed, soldiery assisted the police ; but this only enlarged the area 
 of the fights, and deepened their animosity. On one occasion, fi^e of the
 
 Chap. IX.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 10'.) 
 
 Catholics were shot deiid by the military ; and, a fortnight after, when a strong 1831. 
 
 hody of police were escorting a tithe-collector, they were snmnioned to sur- — -^-- 
 
 render him to popular vengeance ; and, on their refusal, twelve of them were 
 slaughtered in a lane, and more left fearfully woinidcd. The captain of police 
 and his son, ten years old, were among the slain ; and the pony which the boy 
 rode was stabbed dead. The arms of the assailants were scythes, pitchforks 
 and bludgeons. A country lad, who appeared about thirteen years old, went 
 from one to another of the prostrate ])olicc, and finding that five of them still 
 breathed, made an end of them with his scythe. Such were the things that ^^^l""^ "f;"'"' 
 were done in the name, and for the alleged rights, of the religion which brought 
 " peace on earth, and good-will to men." As for the reviled clergy, — the men 
 who were declared to be living " in luxury, idleness, and ease," and whose 
 claim to tithe the Irish Secretary was advocating in the House as " a matter of 
 justice between man and man," — they were living, some in fear of a prison for 
 debt, as they had received no money for many months ; many more in fear of 
 their neighbours ; and not a few in fear of seeing their children starve before 
 their eyes. Sometimes there would come in by night a pig, or a bag of meal, 
 or a sack of potatoes, from some pitying friend ; and by day, the clergyman 
 might be seen digging " for bare life " in his garden, with his shoeless childi-en 
 iibout him, Avhile his wife was trying, within the house, whether the tattered 
 clothes would bear another and another patch. Such was the system of "jus- 
 tice between man and man " which Mr. Stanley would not at this time touch, 
 because it was legal. If this was justice, on every or any hand, what then was 
 injustice ! 
 
 Some clergymen, how-ever, differed fiom Mr. Stanley about perseverance in 
 not touching the tithe system, on account of its justice. The Archbishop of 
 Dublin declared that he spoke the ojjinion of many of his clerical brethren, as 
 well as his own, when he said, in his evidence before the Lords' Committee in HMisard, %. 1277. 
 this year — " As for the continuance of the tithe system, it seems to me that it 
 must be at the point of the bayonet — that it must be through a sort of chronic 
 civil war. The ill feelings that have so long existed against it have been em- 
 bodied in so organized a combination, that I conceive there would be continu- 
 ally breakings out of resistance, which must be kept down by a continuance of 
 very severe measures, such as the Government might indeed resolve to have 
 recourse to for once, if necessary, but would be very unwilling to resort to ha- 
 bitually, so as to keep the country under military government. And the most 
 intelligent persons, and the most experienced I have conversed with, seem to 
 think that nothing else will permanently secure the payment of tithes under 
 the present system." If this was true, tithes were condemned, in spite of their 
 justice ; for it could not be supposed that the preachers of a non-aggressive and 
 non-resistant religion would desire to have their maintenance permanently col- 
 lected at the point of the bayonet. There must, in that case, be more " anxious 
 thought" about meat and clothing than consisted with their profession. Al- 
 ready, indeed, the two faiths in Ireland seemed to have exchanged characters. 
 It was the Protestcant Church which displayed its protected, and endowed, and 
 dominant hierarchy ; and it was tlie Catholic faith which sent its priests from 
 house to house, to preacli glad tidings to tlie poor, ac(i'i»ting subsistence from 
 the t)vertlow of good-will, but demanding nothing in the name of human law.
 
 no HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book IV. 
 
 1832. In the royal speech, at the opening of the next session, some progress in 
 
 ^~^"^ — '~-^ Ministerial opinion was apparent. The King requested the parliament to 
 
 KoYAi, Notice OF . . 
 
 TuHts." consider whether some improvement could not be made in the law regarding 
 
 tithes in Ireland. In after years, there was abundant cause for lamentation 
 that the advance was so small. Committees of Inquiry were appointed by 
 both Houses ; and the evidence adduced was so astounding as to induce, in a 
 midtitude of minds, views of the Protestant Church in Ireland which it is 
 lamentable that the Government did not take heed to and act upon. Many 
 friends of Ireland, as well as the Catholics themselves, desired, if tithes were not 
 to be abolished, that they should be so appro})riated as to yield benefit to the 
 body who paid them, by means of a recurrence to the first principles of tithes. 
 Originally, one-fourth of the tithe was devoted to the maintenance of the poor, 
 and another to that of the places of worship : and it was now projDosed, even 
 in petitions to parliament, that tliis application should be made of the proceeds 
 of tithe and of the lands of the Church in Ireland. Lord Grey took the earli- 
 
 H.insnrd, s. 3. cst Opportunity of intimating tliat he should strenuously oppose any proposi- 
 tion which went to deprive the Church (that ever impersonal pleader \) " of 
 her just rights." Perhaps the best expression of the widely awakened feeling 
 
 Hansard, x. 13S4. WO havc advorted to may be found in the speech of Lord Ebrington, who had 
 himself been on the committee in the Commons, " respecting the unfortunate 
 anomaly which the Church of Ireland presented. He should not think any 
 plan could lead to a final settlement of the question, which attempted to ex- 
 clude the consideration of a thorough reform of the Church of Ireland. When 
 he saw the clergy of that Church receiving salaries so disjjroijortionate to the 
 number of Protestants under their care ; and when he saw that those salaries 
 were paid chiefly by Roman Catholics, he looked upon the system as pregnant 
 with injury to the cause of religion. He protested, therefore, against the 
 number of the clergy being so disproportioned to their congregations ; and he 
 should be glad to see some more just distribution of the revenues of the Church, 
 such as would afford a more adequate provision for the working clergy ; and he 
 should also be glad to see a state of things in which no part of the revenues of 
 the Church should be diverted from tlie use of the Church. He could think 
 no settlement of the existing complaints satisfactory which, with a due regard 
 to all existing interests — for God forbid that they should attempt to strip any 
 man of that which of right belonged to him — did not contemplate the reduc- 
 tion of the Church of Ireland to a condition better proportioned to the wants 
 of the Protestant inhabitants." Such was the view brought out of Committee 
 by as thorough-going a friend of the AVhig administration as sat in the House. 
 There was now no time to be lost. The Irish recusants knew, to a man, 
 that the royal speech had recommended to parliament a consideration of the 
 tithe system : and they took this for a royal condemnation of tithe-paying. 
 They knew before February was out that the parliamentary committees had 
 reported that nothing would avail short of " a complete extinction of tithes " 
 by commutation for a charge upon the land : and these things were considered 
 warrant enough for a refusal to pay tithe at all, and for persecution of those 
 
 ism""' ai'2 '^'^'^' ^^^^° ^^'^ 1''^^" ^"^ archdeacon in the neighbourhood of Cashel hoped to esta- 
 blish a commutation with his parishioners ; but now they refused his terms, 
 came up to him in a field in sight of his own house — a field where several
 
 CuAP. IX.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS" PEACE. 1 1 1 
 
 persons were ploughing, who took no notice of the transaction — and stoned him 1832. 
 till his head was beaten to pieces. If any resident, pressed by his pastor, or ^~—-^-^-~-^ 
 by conscience, or by fear of the law, paid the smallest amount of tithe in 
 the most secret manner, his cattle were houghed in the night, or his house 
 was bimit'over his head, or his flock of sheep was hunted over a precipice, and 
 lay a crushed heap in the morning. There was a sound of a horn, at that 
 time, which made men's flesh creep, whether it was heard by night or day ; 
 for those who took upon them to extinguish tithes now boldly assembled their 
 numbers by the sound of tlic horn ; and all who heard it knew that murder or 
 mutilation or arson was going to be perpetrated. Captures, special commis- 
 sions, and trials, were useless. Witnesses dared not give evidence : jurors 
 dared not attend. Magistrates and police were multiplied ; but the thing 
 needed was a removal of the grievance, which was real enough, however atro- 
 ciously avenged. On the very chapels, notices were now posted by the" f^^™^ "/f '*'"• 
 insurgents, and no m;in dared to take them down. There was indeed no time 
 to lose. 
 
 The clerg)' naturally ceased to demand their dues : but even those of them 
 Avho had any thing to live upon found that they were not to be left in peace. 
 It seemed to be intended to drive them from the country. If they had cows, 
 nobody could be foimd to milk them. Tradesmen who supplied articles to 
 clergjTnen found that nobody would buy of them, or even sell to them. 
 Throughout the Catholic rural districts of Ireland, the clergy were dependant 
 now upon the government, or ujjon private charity, for mere sustenance, while 
 large county meetings in Carlow, Cork, and elsewhere, were passing resolu- 
 tions and issuing addresses which were almost alike in matter and form, and 
 of which the following is a fair specimen: — " Resolved, that it is a glaring 1382. "°""'"^''' 
 wTOng to compel an impoverished Catholic people to support in pampered 
 luxury the richest clergy in the world — a clergy from whom the Catholics do 
 not experience even the return of common gratitude — a clergy who in times 
 past opposed to the last the political freedom of the Irish people, and at the 
 present day are opposed to reform and a liberal scheme of education for their 
 countrymen. That ministers of the God of Charity should not, by misappli- 
 cation of all the tithes to their own private uses, thus deprive the poor of their 
 patrimony — nor should ministers of peace adhere with such desperate tenacity 
 to a system fraught with dissension, hatred, and ill-will." The gi"ievance was 
 real enough — obA-ious to all who were not blinded by a superstitious worship of 
 man-made law, so as to be insensible to those ulterior laws which it is 
 impious to disregard. There was indeed no time to lose : but unhappily, there 
 was no man in power free and bold enough broadly to assert the higher laws ; 
 and thus the lower was not withdrawn, but only fcibly mended ; so that the 
 change was found ineffectual. The work had to be done over again ; and the 
 chief part of it — the reduction of the Protestant Church to the needs of the 
 Protestant population — has to be done yet, while Ireland appears as far from 
 being tranrniilli/ed as ever. 
 
 The Act which bears date June 1st 1832, authorizes the Lord Lieutenant first act of 
 of Ireland to advance 60,000/. to the Irish clergy who could prove themselves ^wm. iv.c. 41. 
 unable to collect their tithes for the year 1831. Their claims for that year 
 thus became a debt fi'om the Irish people to the government, recoverable by
 
 112 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book IV. 
 
 1832 '^"^ powers of government. The claim of the clergy to any former arrears was 
 
 • — »-^,-~ — - not to be prejudiced by tliis Act, which was designed for temporary relief, and 
 to interpose the government between the irritated people and the clergy. The 
 government was to levy the arrears. Many in the House asked at once 
 whether the government would be able to levy the arrears — defeated as it had 
 been in endeavouring to aid the clergy to do so. The Bill was proffered under 
 a pledge from government that a titlio commutation should be instituted, 
 which alone could justify the temporary measure of an advance to the clergy. 
 The Act passed rapidly through both Houses, and became law on the 1st of 
 June. It was July before the further and permanent measures of government 
 regarding tithes were brought forward ; and, as the Minister declared, the ses- 
 tion was too far advanced to admit of the passage of them all. They were 
 
 HM-m ■"'"'' three. The first rendered the existing Tithe Composition Act permanent and 
 compulsory, instead of voluntary, and for a term of twenty-one years. The second 
 constituted the bishop and beneficed clergy of every diocese a corporation for 
 the management of tithe business, whereby individual clergymen would be 
 relieved from the difficulties and dissensions attendant on a prosecution of 
 their own claims. The corporation would levy and distribute the tithe for 
 the diocese. The third provided for the redemption of the tithe by all who 
 might wish to buy up their freedom from the charge. Sixteen years' purchase 
 was the amount proposed ; and permission was to be given to possessors of 
 mortgaged and entailed estates to mortgage them further, in the first case, to 
 the exteat necessary for this object — such mortgage to have precedence of all 
 that existed before ; and, in the other case, to sell as much of the entailed 
 estates as should be necessary for the redemption of the tithe. 
 
 This last and most important of the three Bills was left over to the next 
 session. It was the wish of Ministers to carry the other two ; but they suc- 
 
 2 & 3 Will IV. ceeded only with the first ; — the Act by which the Tithes Composition in 
 Ireland was made compulsory and permanent. 
 
 The Relief Act would not work. The clergy were as much hated as ever 
 for giving in to the government an account of the arrears of 1831. A clergy- 
 
 Annuai RpRistor, man in Tipperarv was shot dead on his own lawn. The son of another and 
 his driver were left on the highway — the one dead, the other supposed to be 
 so. The people would not permit the posting of notices of arrears ; and in 
 the affrays caused in this process, several lives were lost at ditferent points ; 
 and this furnished occasion to O'Connell for cries for vengeance for the Irish 
 blood that was shed ; cries which told with prodigious effect. It had been 
 clear to many from the first that this was a game at which government could 
 not play. Defeat, and victory by force of soldiery, were equally fatal. The 
 issue was defeat. Towards the end of the next session, the avowal of Minis- 
 
 Hansurd.xx. 312. fers in parliament was that out of a sum of 104,285/. of arrears due for 1831, 
 government had been able to levy only 12,000/. : and that amount " had been 
 collected with great difficulty, and some loss of life.'' Government had decided 
 to abandon all processes under the existing law, and to seek reimbursement 
 in some other form, after having paid to the clergy the arrears of 1832, and 
 the amounts due in the present year; which, together with those of 1831, now- 
 reached the sxun of about a million. This amount of a million was to be pro- 
 vided by an issue of Exchequer Bills. This sum supposed a deduction from
 
 CiiAP. IX.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 11, J 
 
 the claims of the clergy, for the advantage of secure and immediate payment. 1S;3;5. 
 The reimbursement was to be by means of a general land-tax for a term of ^ — — %^.. — ' 
 years ; exemption being granted to those who could prove that they had paid 
 their tithes. These propositions were warmly debated. The Conservatives 
 condemned all concession, and claimed for the Church and clergy the utter- 
 most fartiiing of their dues. The Irish members condemned the le^-y of tithe 
 in any form, declared that the government was now regarded as a great tithe- 
 proctor, and hated accordingly ; and foretold a repetition, with aggravation, of 
 tJK' outrages of preceding years, on every attempt to levy the land-tax. Many 
 of the liberal party, who yet would not desert the government, complained of 
 the issue of the million under the name of a loan, when every body knew that 
 it would not i)r()ve recoverable, and would be in fact a gift to the Irish Church 
 which they had no inclination to make. The Conservatives yielded, from 
 l)ity and respect for the suffering clergy : the Liberals from a dislike to em- 
 barrass the government : and the Irish members could make no head against 
 so many adversaries. The Bill for collecting the arrears of tithes therefore act ov i8.i3. 
 passed the Lords on the 28th of August, 1833. """"''• ="• *''• 
 
 Tlie next year, the subject had to be brought up again. There was infinite 
 mischief in this annual debating on a topic so charged with irritation to all 
 parties : and now, at this late day, came out some facts which, if they had 
 been understood earlier, as they ought to have been, would have convinced so 
 large a majority of the insufferable irksomeness of the imposition of tithe in 
 Ireland, as to have ensured its being got rid of long ago. Mr. Littleton was 
 now Secretary for Ireland : and he made his disclosures, and rendered his 
 account on the 20th of February. 
 
 On the 4th of that month, the King's Speech had recommended a consider- lasj. 
 
 ation of " a final adjustment of tithes" in Ireland : and in his remarks on the 
 motion for the Address, the Duke of Wellington had said, that the Irish Hansard, xxi. 13. 
 clergy were in precisely the same miserable situation at present that they had 
 been in before the passage of measures for their relief; and he considered 
 that " that most deserving race of men" was in danger of utter destruction : 
 a statement which was not contradicted by Lord Grey in his reply to the 
 J )uke's speech. After two years of experiment and debate, the Irish Secretary 
 was now compelled to call the attention of Parliament to a new measure : but 
 it was to be four years yet before this single point was settled. At the outset 
 of his speech, Mr. Littleton made an avowal which might prudently have 
 been taken to heart before, so as to save years of " chronic civil war," much 
 misery of mind, and the loss of many lives. Mr. Littleton begged the House Hamnrii,xxi.573. 
 " to bear in mind, that the statute-book had been loaded with enactments by 
 the legislatures of both countries for the purpose of giving the proprietors of 
 tithes eflectual means to enforce the law. The whole of those enactments had 
 pi-oved ineffectual. Many of them of the most severe description, extending 
 even to cajjital punishment, had proved utterly useless." No one could 
 wonder at this who heard the statement that followed of the vexatious inci- 
 dence of the Irish tithe. Owin<i to the extreme subdivision of land, the tardy TnrTu 
 
 . . i ■ 1 *«"'"r Tithes, 
 
 amounts were small — somrtimes literally bevoiid (■xiucssu)n ; and ni such 
 ca.ses, the debtor was one who had no money, or ready means of payment, itnd 
 to wliom i( was exasperating to be called on, fi-om time to tin\e, for a religious 
 
 vol,. II. (J
 
 114 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book IV, 
 
 183-i. tax, so paltry, and yet so inconvenient and so hurting to his conscience. In a 
 
 •~. -— . — ' parish in Carlow, the sum owing by 222 defaulters Avas a farthing each. " A 
 
 Hansard, xxi. 57*. i-ctiim of the actual number of defaulters whose debts were under a farthing, 
 and rise by farthings up to a shilling, would exhibit a very large proportion of 
 the gross number. In some instances, the charge upon the land amounted to 
 only seven parts of a farthing. When he informed the committee that many 
 of the smaller sums were payable by three or four persons, some idea might be 
 formed of the difficulty of collecting tithes in Ireland. The highest aggregvitc 
 charge was against those who owed individually about 2d. ; and he would 
 then betr to remind the committee, that it was not so much the sum as the 
 sitviatiou of the individual, that rendered these charges oppressive. Two pence 
 to one might be as great an impost as 21. to another. There was another great 
 severity connected with the question of tithes. They were not simjile. One 
 proprietor alone did not come to the poor man to demand his tithes ; but many, 
 whose interests were irrcconcileable and adverse, fastened upon him. There 
 were different kinds of tithes — the vicarial, rectorial, and impropriate — all often 
 fastening on the same individual, who was bound to meet the separate demands 
 of each tithe-owner. The opposition to tithes, then, though it might receive 
 an impulse from agitation, was not to be wholly traced to that source. There 
 was a deeper source in the severity of the impost itself." This was all very 
 true : the disaster was, that it had not been known sooner. Such had been the 
 state of the case during preceding years of legislation ; during years when the 
 Irish were called purely ungrateful because the Emancipation Act did not 
 tranquillize them. A quieter procedure on their part would have been wiser 
 and more virtuous ; but there was also little wisdom in the expectation that 
 quietness would rise up and spread among an excitable and long-injured people 
 Avhile a grievance like this was ignored by a government which called itself 
 liberal, and fi-iendly to Ireland. Now that the Ministers had at last discovered 
 that they had grievance, as well as agitation, to deal with, the method in which 
 Hansard, xxi. they proposcd to deal with it was this : — that all compositions for tithes should 
 bnoposED Act of ceasc from the 1st of next November : and that the amormt should be paid in 
 the form of an annual land-tax to the King, who should cause provision to be 
 made out of it, in land or money, for the clergy and other tithe-owners. This 
 land-tax was to be redeemable. Mr. O'Connell, and other members from Ire- 
 land, vehemently opposed this proposal, reasonably alleging that it woidd 
 merely establish the same impost under another name. They did not succeed 
 now in delaying the introduction of the Bill : but on the 30th of July, when 
 it was in committee, Mr. O'Connell had his revenge for the moment, He 
 objected to the proposal that government should recover the amount of the 
 tithes; said that they Avould never succeed in taming the Irish people by 
 pretending to throw salt on the tails of the landlords ; and moved that the 
 tithes should be made payable immediately from the landlords to the clergy, 
 after being reduced forty per cent. This motion was in the form of an amend- 
 ment to the third clause of the Bill : and it was carried by a very large 
 Hansard.xxr. majority ; the numbers being 82 to 33. 
 
 After taking time to consider, the Ministers determined to go on with the 
 Bill. They never would have proposcd a large reduction in the incomes of 
 the Irish clergy : but as the House of Commons had declared itself broadly in 
 
 '.II 
 
 771.
 
 Chvp. IX.J DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 115 
 
 favour of sucli a reduction, and it would facilitate the settling of the system, IS34 
 
 they could have no objection. And they believed that the clergy (to whom - — _-. - 
 
 indi\'idually the reduction would be only twenty-two and a-half per cent.) 
 would be willing and thankful to receive that amount, in consideration of the 
 security, punctuality, and peaceableness, which would now attend the pay- 
 ments. The Lord Chancellor put it to the Peers, when the Bill came before 
 them, whether any one of them deriving a nominal income of 100,000/. from 
 his estates, Mould not be very glad to receive in gold, on a certain day, without 
 a chance of disappointment, 77,500/., with a release from all disputes, pains, 
 and penalties, from bad or impoverished tenants. If their own bishops were 
 to be believed, however, the great majority of the Irish clergy were hostile to 
 the measure. In that case — if they were still able and disposed to stand out, 
 under the lisk of Irish outrage, for the full hire of theii' spiritual service — the 
 compassion of parliament was thrown away upon them, and that of the nation 
 must be reserved for the suftering minority of the clergy, who were ready to 
 sacrifice something for peace, and to avoid causing their brother to offend. 
 But even these more higli-mindcd sufferers were not to be aided yet. On the 
 motion for the second reading in the Lords, Lord Ellenborough moved that 
 the Bill should be read that day six months, and threw it out by a majority 
 of 67 out of 311 votes, by proxy or present. The bishops who were in favour ['^"•■•^ lost. 
 of the measure were those of Derry, Chichester, and Norwich. On the other '•^'n. 
 side were the Archbishops of Canterbury and Cashel, and nineteen bishops. 
 The division showed that the spii-itual peers were quite of Lord ^Iclbourne's 
 opinion (which was earnestly expressed), as to the unspeakable importance of 
 the measure ; only they took an opposite view of it. It was but for a short 
 time; for within five years they had to yield: and meanwhile, their conduct, 
 whether attributed to pride, to greed, to enmity to the Catholic Irish, or 
 merely to such narrowness of view as ill becomes legislators, went as far to 
 impair the dignity and influence of the Church among those who watched the 
 case, as their success in throwing out the Reform Bill three years before. 
 
 Thus ended in failure the endeavour of the Whig administration to deal 
 with the Irish tithe question ; a difficulty so radical as to require radical 
 treatment, as has been since practically acknowledged. The effect of merely 
 tampering with it was very disastrous : — the government was foiled ; tlie 
 clergy sank into a deeper slough of popular hatred ; and the Irish Church lost 
 every year more of its dignity in the eyes of its own well-wishers. 
 
 The great question of its preservation in any forai had now for some time 
 been discussed ; and so discussed that it was necessary for the administration 
 of the time — whatever it might be — to take up the argument. Every body 
 knew that the chief incitement to the Repeal agitation was the hope of getting 
 rid of the Church. The Tories were disposed to defy the Repeal cry, and all 
 agitation, and to uphold the dues of the Church even to the last penny of 
 rhuvch-eess, and tlie smallest fraction of a fartliing of tithe. A large number 
 of the Liberal party were for so abating the Irish Churcli as to throw its main- 
 tenance upon its own members, and reduce its ministers to some proportion to 
 their flocks. The endeavour of the administration was to keep a middle 
 eoMvsc between these extreme parties. In IS:33, the government proposed to ini<ii Ecntsus. 
 empower a Hoard of l'"celesiastieal Commissioners, by Act of Parliament, to mission.
 
 116 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 [Book IV 
 
 Political Dir.Iiuil- 
 ary, i. 8j-l. 
 
 InisH CENSt-Ji 
 
 Hansard, XV 
 567— 57li. 
 
 RKDUcnuN-, 
 
 1834. iiifikc extensive changes in the Irish Church, which, it was hoped, would he 
 so nianitcstly for the advantage of all parties as to secure a sufficient support 
 in parliament. 
 
 It appears, by a census purposely taken in 1834, that the proportion of the 
 numbers of the Protestant Cliurch in Ireland to that of Catholics and Dissent- 
 ers was this : — The Catholics were 6,436,0(50 : the members of the Established 
 Church Avere 853,160 : and the Dissenters, 665,540 : that is, while the Catho- 
 lics were above 80 per cent., the Church Protestants were just above 10, and 
 the Dissenters 8, per cent. The revenues of this Church were 865,525/. : above 
 1/. per head of its members ! There were nearly 1400 benefices — of which 
 forty-one did not contain a single Protestant ; twenty had under five, and 165 
 contained under five-and-twenty. In 1 57 benefices, no service was performed, 
 tlie incumbent being an absentee. There were four archbishops and eighteen 
 bishops for this little flock. It was impossible that such a Clun-ch could long 
 be endured in a country so peopled ; and the reductions now proposed by 
 government were very considerable. 
 
 Two archbishops and ten bishops were to be the last of their name. Their 
 dioceses were to be united \vith others as ojiportunity arose : and on the death 
 of the Primate, the income of his see was to be reduced from 14,500Z. to 
 10,000/. Deans and chapters were no longer to enjoy dignity without work. 
 They were to be abolished, or to undertake the cure of souls. Sinecure bene- 
 fices were to be endured no longer : the Commissioners might suspend the 
 appointment of ministers who had not done duty for three years before. The 
 First-fruits, which were a trouble and grievance producing little return, Avere 
 to be abolished, and replaced by a tax on benefices and episcopal incomes, 
 rising in its per centage from the smallest benefice not imdor 200/. a-year, to 
 tlic vast incomes of some of the bishops ; the humble livings paying five per 
 cent. ; and any episcopal income exceeding 1,500/. a-year, fifteen per cent. It 
 was expected that by the sum thus raised (about 69,000/. a-ycar), a sufficient 
 provision would be secured for the repair of churches and conducting of the 
 service, so that the odious impost of church-cess might be abolished, its amount 
 being estimated at 70,000/. a-year. The one remaining point was that which 
 occasioned the fiercest disputes ; disputes which lasted for a course of years, 
 and are certainly destined to be renewed hereafter. In opening the scheme 
 of government for altering (to the advantage of all other parties, without 
 injury to the clergy) the terms for letting the lands of the CHiurch, Lord 
 Althorj) did not conceal his opinion that any additional funds accruing from 
 such change of management were fairly to be considered state funds, applica- 
 ble to general state purposes. Supposing the Cliurch left where she was 
 before — deprived of nothing present or future — the profits of any improve- 
 ment suggested and achieved by the government might be claimed by the 
 government for the good of the state. The amount anticipated from this 
 source was about, or nearly, three millions. 
 
 The government were anxious to lose no time " mider existing circmn- 
 
 stances," in carrying this Bill. It was brought in on the 11th of March. 
 
 Hansard, xvi.cj?. Tlicrc was dcbatc about the time of the second reading, and one of those mis- 
 
 DcL>vs. takes to which the present Ministry seemed to be doomed; so that a delay of 
 
 many weeks ensued. This was a tax-bill ; and it was necessary to introduce 
 
 ArPROpniAT 
 
 DiiCTHlMi.
 
 Chap. IX.] DURING THE THIUTY YEARS' PEACE. 117 
 
 it ill a committee of the whole House : and thus, as the point had to be argued, 1834. 
 the Ministers to be convicted of eiTor, and the whole matter gone over again, ^-^^^'^^ 
 it was the (itli of jMay before it reached tlie second reading. It was then 
 very nearly dismissed a second time on account of an oversight of jMinisters in 
 reciting a message fiom tlic King wliieh had never been delivered to parlia- 
 ment : but the Speaker decided that the objectors should have brought forward 
 their point before the first reading, and must now wait till the Bill was in com- 
 mittee, by which time the necessary message fi'om the King might be received. 
 The majority on this occasion was large in favour of the measure — many mem- 
 bers, however, giving notice that they should idtimately oppose it, unless it was 
 decided in committee that all accruing funds whatsoever should be devoted to 
 ecclesiastical purposes. It was in vain that government explained that the 
 fund from new church leases should be applied to educational and other 
 objects which ought to be those of the Church. That pro^'ision was expunged 
 from the Bill in Committee. It was also decreed that the tax on clerical appropb.ation 
 
 Reflseu. 
 
 incomes should date only from the death of the present incumbents. With 
 
 these alterations, the Bill passed the Lower House, on the 8th of July, 1833, 
 
 by a majority of 27-4 to 94; — a proi)ortion which shows how much stronger "'"'^'^''■^'''■•'""• 
 
 was the apprehension of danger from Ireland than the cry, loud as it was, 
 
 about contiscation of the ])roperty of the Chmxh. 
 
 The Peers were believed to intend to make a vigorous rally against this 
 very im])ortant Bill, with whose passage the existence of the Ministry was 
 understood to be bound up. On a recent occasion, when the Eefonn Bill had 
 been in danger, a well-timed vote of the Commons of confidence in Ministers 
 had been found of service ; and it was now proposed again to intimate to the 
 Peers that the Commons had a very decided will in regard to the reformation 
 of the Irish Church. Sir J. Wrottesley, after due notice, and in opposition to 
 the entreaties of Ministers, moved for a call of the House on the 17th of 
 .July — the day of the second reading in the Lords; and he was nearly success- 
 ful ; — 125 voting with him, and 160 against him. Hansar.i, xix. 002. 
 
 The opposition in the Lords was strong, but not eSectual. The support 
 given to the measure was somewhat gTudging ; but it was sufficient — no doubt 
 for the reason assigned, in a few remarkable words, by the Earl of Wicklow Hansard, xij.7i;i. 
 for his share in carrying the Bill through. " He could not be taken to be a 
 supporter of ^linisters, because he meant to vote for their present measure. 
 He conceived that every act of theirs bore upon it the stamj) of revolution — 
 the present no less than others : but he would for that very reason vote for the 
 present liill, because, if he did not, he might on a future occasion — like him 
 with the books of the Sibyl — have to jiay a higher price for less value." The 
 Uiike of Wellington, who had more reason than most men to know what to 
 dread from Irish discontent, supported the Bill, on coiulition of certain amend- 
 ments : and all went well, except that Ministers were outvoted on the point of 
 the disposal of the revenues of suspended appointments. By a majority of two 
 it was decided that such revenues should be aj)plied to the rejjairs of the 
 church and glebe-house ; and then, any sui-plus should go into the hands of 
 the commissioners. After consideration. Lord Grey and his colleagues deter- 
 mined not to tlirow u]) the Bill for the sake of this one point. It i)assed, on i,,,,,, (■„,, 
 the 30th of July, by a majority of 54, out of 21() votes, and in the midst of a i" 
 
 I Kill 
 
 Tlmimhalitie^ 
 
 ilLL l*ASSL.<,.
 
 118 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 [Udoic IV. 
 
 1834. 
 
 IliUisard, x.\. 127. 
 
 Official 
 
 CUANGIS. 
 
 Mn. Ward's 
 Chiticai. Motion 
 Hansard^ xxiii. 
 139C. 
 
 vigorous recording of protests by alarmed Peers. Of these protests, the most 
 remarkable one is that of the Duke of Cumberland, who reverts to the old 
 ground — by that time forgotten by every one else^ — of the Coronation Oath, 
 of which he declares this measure a clear violation. The commissioners 
 appointed under the Bill were the Primate of Ireland and Archbishop of 
 Dublin, the Lord Chancellor and Chief Justice of Ireland, and four of the 
 Irish bishops. Tlieir powers were great ; and it was contidently hoped that 
 they would be put to vigorous use. But no one supposed that any thing that 
 they could do would finally settle the difficulty of the Irish Church : and it 
 would be so long befoi'e the relief of their measures could be practically felt, 
 that much might hapjjen meantime. 
 
 Though the state of Ireland was less disturbed, in the course of a few 
 months, the agitation for repeal went on so vigorously that the royal speech 
 made express reference to it at the opening of the session of 1834, and both 
 Houses of Parliament replied in a special address ; — it being well understood 
 by all parties that the Church grievance supplied the whole body and spirit of 
 the agitation. Men who agreed that the fact was so were far from agreeing 
 as to what should be done : and none differed more irreconcileably than the 
 members of the cabinet; as events presently showed. 
 
 In the preceding year, jNIr. Stanley had ceased to be Irish Secretary, having 
 entered the cabinet as Colonial Secretary, when Lord Goderich became Earl 
 of Ripon, with the office of Lord Privy Seal. It was at that time that 
 Mr. Littleton (since Lord Ilatherton) became Irish Secretary, and entered 
 upon the warfare which his office imposed upon any one compelled daily to 
 hold a sort of Conservative ground against jNIr. O'Connell and his friends in 
 the House. Towards ftlr. Stanley the Irish members had been to the last 
 degree fierce ; and he was not of a temper to keep the peace under provoca- 
 tion, or so made as to conceal the disgust and contempt from which he has 
 ever appeared to suffer, as from a chronic malady, all the days of his life. 
 What the Colonies might have to say to the change would be known in due 
 course : meantime, it was a comfort to the Ministers to see a good-tempered 
 man, who seemed to be liked by the Irish members, in the place of one who 
 was so vehemently hated by them. The difference of opinion in the cabinet 
 about the power of the state over any new revcnvies of the Irish Church, was 
 of less consequence, as the chief of the minority — who called such a doctrine 
 a plan of confiscation — was now occupied with colonial affairs. The difference 
 might for some time longer have caused nothing more serious than preparatory 
 discussion, but for the subject of the Irish Church being brought up by Mr. 
 Ward, member for St. Alban's, on the 27tli of JMay, in a motion for the reduc- 
 tion of its establishment, as it exceeded the spiritual wants of the Protestant 
 population ; and as it is the right of the state to regulate the distribution of 
 Church property, in such manner as parliament may determine. The motion 
 ■was seconded by IMr. Grote, one of the members for London, who had scarcely 
 begun to address the House when Lord Althorp received some information 
 which induced him, at the close of Mr. Grote's speech, to request the House 
 to adjourn the debate from the present Tuesday to the JNIonday following. On 
 this question — of the right of the state over any proceeds of Church property 
 — the administration could not bear a touch. The news which had reached
 
 Chap. IX.J DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 11<J 
 
 Lord Althoip was that the leaders of the ininoiity in the cabinet — Mr. Stanley 1834. 
 
 and Sir James Graham — had resigned. They had hiimed on their court ■ — -. 
 
 dresses, and gone to the King, to surrender othce. Their example was imme- 
 diately followed by Lord Kipon and the Duke of Kichmond. The single 
 Torj% and two " Canningites," were now gone ; and the Ministry, being 
 wholly Liberal — or supposed to be so — could henceforth work more freely. 
 Such was the speculation in the House of Commons, in Lombard-street, and 
 in Ireland. Lord Auckland went to the Admiralty ; Mr. Spring Kice to the 
 (Jolonial Office ; and the Privy Seal was held by Lord Carlisle. Mr. Poulett 
 Thomson at the same time became President, instead of A'ice-President, of the 
 lioard of Trade ; and the Marquess of Conyngham succeeded the Duke of 
 liichmond at the I'ost Office. 
 
 Tiie opponents of a liberal policy knew what was the weakest point of the 
 administration : — of this administration, as of several that had preceded ; — 
 the timidity and deficient ability of the King. They lost no time in attacking 
 this weak point. The day after the debate had been so strangely inten-upted 
 was the King's birth-day festival; and the Irish bisliops went up to the throne 
 with an address, signed most numerously by Irish prelates and clergy, depre- Annu.ii Kegisier, 
 eating changes in the establishment. Whether the King's mind was over ' """ 
 full of the subject before, so as to flow out at the first touch of his feelings, 
 or whether any circumstance at the moment tempted him away from the 
 ordinary practice in replying to such addresses, there is no saying ; but he 
 poured out a set of sentiments, ideas, and promises, which placed himself and King's decu*- 
 
 , . . . . -. , 1 • 1 RATION. 
 
 Ins government in a position ot great eml)arrassment, and grievously aggra- 
 vated the prevalent excitement. This extraordinary speech began with the 
 words, " I now remember you have a right to require of me to be resolute in 
 defence of the Church." Tlie King went on to assure the eagerly listening 
 clergy that the Church of England and Ireland should be presers'ed unimpaired 
 by him : and that if any of the inferior arrangements in the discipline of the 
 Irish Church required amendment, " which, however, he greatly doubted," 
 he hoped it would be left to the bishops to correct, them, without interference 
 on any hand. He was comjdeting his sixty-ninth year, and must prejiare to 
 leave the world with a conscience clear in regard to the maintenance of the 
 Church." " I have spoken more strongly than usual," he said in conclusion, 
 with tears running down his cheeks, " because of unhappy circumstances that 
 have forced themselves u])on the observation of all. The threats of those wlio 
 are enemies of the Church make it the more necessary for those who feel 
 their duty to that Church to speak out. The words which you hear from me 
 are, indeed, sjioken by my mouth, but they flow from my heart." He liad, 
 somewhat unnecessarily, assured his hearers that his speech was iiot a pre- 
 pared one, got by heart, hut uttered fi-om the feeling of the moment. As such 
 an indiscretion must be infinitely embarrassing to his Ministers, the utmost 
 pains were taken to scatter this speech through the country without the delay 
 of an hour, that the House of ('ommons and tlie ^Ministers miuht be overawed 
 before the renewal of the debate on INIr. Ward's motion, the next Monday. 
 
 .Meantime, tlie ^linisters did not resign. Tiicy liad had experience before 
 of the weakness of tlie King, and did not think it right to give up f lie country 
 to be governed by the leaders of tiie minority, under a sovereign who could not
 
 120 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book IV. 
 
 183-1. liclp agreeing with the last speaker, and who was always impetuous ou behalf of 
 ^— — v-^i^^ his latest impression. The Ministers did not resign ; but the general convic- 
 tion of their insecurity in office was so strong that Mr. Ward declined to 
 withdraw his motion, saying that the assertion of its principle was made 
 doubly important by the probability that men would presently be in power 
 
 Spectator, 1831, who Would need such a check from the legislature. During the week, it had 
 
 ""' ' become known that Lord Grey had declared that he had neither nerve nor 
 
 spirits for the vigorous reconstruction of the Cabinet ; and that his predomi- 
 nant wish — to have Lord Durham there — had been overborne by the Lord 
 Chancellor and Lord Lansdownc. Two addresses to the Premier had been 
 presented on the part of members of the House of Commons : — the one, a 
 declaration of confidence in Lord Grey ; the other, prepared after the intrigues 
 in the C'abinet had become known, expressive of dissatisfaction at the discoun- 
 tenance of popular principles in the new appointments. The Ministerial 
 papers themselves openly warned the nation that the government was only 
 " patched up," to get through the session ; and that, before the ye ir ^vas out, 
 unless the matter were looked to in time, the nation would be at the mercy of 
 the Court, which was itself in the hands of the Church. 
 
 Under such circumstances, Mr. Ward refused to withdraw his motion. He 
 
 Hausiird.xxiv. 21. was probably aware that Mr. Hume was about to quote a letter fi-om Lord 
 Anglesea to the Premier, in which he insisted on a large reform of the Church 
 as absolutely essential to the peace of Ireland ; and he could quote as a sanc- 
 
 iiansard, xv. 574. tiou to liis motiou the words of Lord Althorp himself, a few months before — 
 " if by any act of the legislature new value can be given to any property 
 belonging to the Church, that new value will not properly belong to the 
 Church, because it is an acquisition dependent on such act of the legislature, 
 and may be apjiropriated immediately to the use of the state." Mr. Ward's 
 anxiety was to reassert this principle ; and pitiable was the position of Lord 
 Althorp, if he was really about to evade that declaration of his own. His 
 position was pitiable. He was wont to say, with his good-humoured smile, 
 that it was hard upon him to force him to be a statesman, when nature had 
 made liim a grazier : and the lot was doubly hard w-hich threw him into a 
 Cabinet where there was no power of will, no enlightened union, no combined 
 working faculty, to sustain the efficiency and dignity of the government when 
 the appui of popular will and popular dictation was withdrawn. Lord Grey 
 was aged, worn, and weary : Lord Lansdowne was for taking a middle course, 
 and evading difficulties, on all occasions whatever. Mr. Stanley had aggra- 
 vated all existing difficulties and created many new ones by his porcupine 
 demeanour : and the whole administration was kept in perpetual hot water by 
 the intrigues and indiscretions of the Lord Chancellor. Thus disunited among 
 themselves, struggling in a slough of difficulties, where no one could help 
 another, and the people withdrawing from them further and further every day, 
 they contradicted themselves and each other, gave pledges, and forgot or 
 dropped them, strove in the first place always to evade difficulties which they 
 had not faculty or influence to overcome, had long lost their popularity, and 
 stood a spectacle of weakness to the weak sovereign himself. Thus, Lord 
 Althorp's position on the evening of the 2nd of June was truly a pitiable 
 one.
 
 OHAr. IX.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 121 
 
 By prodi<jious exertion, a plan for a Commission of Inquiry respecting the 183-t. 
 
 Irish Church had been framed, and commissioners found, by the ^Monday ' ' 
 
 morning. In the afternoon, a Council of the supporters of the Cabinet was in'cjlibv.'"^ °' 
 
 held in Downing-street, at which the procedure of the evening was detemiincd 
 
 on. Mr. Ward was to be out-voted at any risk, as his success would biing on 
 
 a decision of tlic perilous question about Church property, cause the dissolution 
 
 of the Ministry, and, no doubt, a general election, in which the Church and 
 
 8tatc question would be the watch-word. The supporters of the ^Ministry 
 
 knew that their constituents were in a mood which it would not be pleasant to 
 
 encounter ; and they were thankful to learn that government had provided a 
 
 means of escape from cither affirming or denying Mr. Ward's principle. 
 
 When they went to the House, they found it surrounded by a crowd, and 
 so filled that it was difficult for them to make their way to their seats. Mr. 
 Ward's speech was brief, courteous, but firm. Lord Althorp then announced Hansard, xxir. n. 
 the intention of the government to issue a Special Commission of Inquiry, 
 composed of laymen, which should visit every parish in Ireland, and report 
 its population, luidor the heads of the three religions, its spiritual provisions, 
 and its ecclesiastical revenues. The Church party regarded the measure as 
 merely a preparation for "confiscation;" and the Liberals saw no occasion 
 for further evidence on a point of fact which was undisputed, wliile the prin- 
 ciple which was the point of dispute was passed over in silence, and nothing 
 gained by this device but more time for the government to shuffle on. I^ord 
 Althorp declared that the Commission was in fact already issued ; that he saw 
 no necessity for jiarliament to pronounce on the principle of Mr. Ward's 
 motion, and that he should move the previous question. This he did, and 
 obtained an overwhelming majority ; — of 276 in a house of 516. iiansard.xxiv.so. 
 
 In the other House, the Premier had to run the gauntlet between the lines 
 of objectors to the new Commission : and there really was no good answer to 
 give to the complaint that the Ecclesiastical Commission of the preceding year 
 had been agreed to on the supposition of its being a final measure ; and that 
 no one had dreamed of its, being overridden by another Commission, before it 
 had had time to show how it would do its work. The true answer to this 
 would liave been that the Ministers were as far from dreaming of such a thine 
 as any body else, till recent perplexities had put it into their heads. From 
 this moment, the Ministers were incessantly called on for explanations of their 
 views on this great subject of the appropriation of t!hurch revenues by the 
 State ; and on different occasions they expressed themselves with varying 
 degrees of exi)licitness. On the 23rd of June, Mr. O'Connell moved an in- 
 struction to the Committee on the Tithe bill, that whatever surplus remained, 
 after the wants of the Protestant Cliurch were duly provided for, should be 
 a])])lied to purposes of general utility — which he explained to mean, not the 
 milking of roads and bridges, but purposes of charity and of education, in 
 whose benefits tlie needy of all faiths sliould sliare alike. On this occasion. 
 Lord .John llussell and Lord Althorp declared their a^frecment with Mr. H.-insani. xxiv. 
 O'Connell, if the ground were taken that these purposes were of a religious 
 cliaracter, leaving open the (|uestioii whether s\u'h funds could be :ip]ilie(l — by 
 not only legal right, for that was clear, but by moral and e(|uilal)li' right — to 
 secular purposes. 'I'lic (piestion was thus transferred td a new ground — the 
 
 \()l,. II. K
 
 12-2 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book IV 
 
 1 qo I shaking bog of metaphysics, on which it would bo for ever impossible for any 
 ^^^-^.^.^^ legislature to decide and act. It is no subject for legislation whether charity 
 and education are religious or secular works ; nor can it be settled whether 
 parliament, having a clear legal right to dispose of any funds, must have a 
 proved moral and equitable right also ; nor how a moral and equitable right 
 is provable, or even assignable, otherwise than by affirming or repealing the 
 legal right. The only thing clear was that nothing could be actually done in 
 the matter, for the relief of the Irish Catholics, and the satisfaction of the dis- 
 contentt'd throughout the kingdom, while the war was one of metaphysical 
 distinctions. 
 
 The -whole bearing and importance of this question in 1834 can hardly be 
 understood without taking a view of the condition of religion and the Church 
 in England at that date. This will presently come before us, when we shall 
 have to show what were the views and aims of the TV'liig Administration in 
 this direction. The story of what they achieved during their present term of 
 office is nearly concliuled : and we see them now in a position of pei-plexity 
 and weakness which it is clear they could not long maintain. They must 
 obtain more strength or sink. 
 coehhon But.. In the preceding year, a Bill had been passed which conferred extraordinary 
 jiowers on the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, for putting down the fearful dis- 
 turbances of that country. Among the provisions of that Bill were two of 
 eminent importance : that of suspending the ordinary course of justice in favour 
 of martial law ; and of prohibiting political meetings iind discussions. The 
 Bill was reported by the Irish authorities to have worked well ; and to the 
 Premier's mind it was clear that it ought to be renewed on its expiration in 
 August, 1834, with the omission only of the portion relating to martial law. 
 To others, however, the expediency was not so clear : and it appears that the 
 same want of confidence between the members of the government, or other 
 causes of disunion, existed in regard to this as to other measures ; for it is 
 scarcely possible to doubt, among much conflicting evidence, that up to a 
 certain day, it was not the intention of government to renew the Coercion 
 Bill entire, except as to martial law, but to leave out that portion relating to 
 public meetings which most exasperated the wrath of ^Ir. O'Connell. Mr. 
 Littleton, the Irish secretary, certainly relied upon this ; and he sent for Mr. 
 O'Connell to assure him of this agreeable prospect, hoping, as Mr. Littleton 
 himself avowed, to deter O'Connell from agitating on occasion of the pending 
 Wexford election. The comminiication was made under the seal of secrecy. 
 It is hard to know whether to wonder most at the simplicity which supposed 
 that O'Connell was to be trusted with a political secret, or at the folly of 
 imagining that political secrets of such weight can be kept, except among con- 
 federates. Mr. O'Connell explained how he conceived himself relieved from 
 obligation to secrecy, and revealed the awkward fact that Mr. Littleton had 
 H.msniH, xxiv. toUl him that the Irish government was opposed to the renewal of the C'ocrcion 
 Bill. The Agitator had immediately caused the Repeal candidate for Wex- 
 ford to retire ; and, when it was too late, he received a message fi'om Mr. 
 I^ittleton, that the government intended to enforce the whole Coercion Bill, 
 except the part relating to martial law. He was naturally indignant, declared 
 himself tricked out of the Wexford election, called upon the Irish Secretary 
 
 KrrOTiATloN 
 wiT-H Mr. O'Con 
 Nr.LL. 
 
 Hansard, xxiv. 
 1101. 
 
 HOG.
 
 Chap. IX.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. ]-2:i 
 
 lij ictivc, ami luld llu' wliolc stoiy in the House — inciting his opponent to 1834. 
 deliver his version first. On inquiry in the other House, the Premier and tlie " — — ~ — 
 Lord Chancellor declared, the next evening, that they knew nothing of any 
 negotiations between the Irish Secretary and Mr. O'Conncll, and that they 
 did not believe that any such had taken place. Great must have been their 
 astonishment when they read the Secretary'sownstatement of the transaction, 
 which was not so materially difFcront from Mr. O'CJonnell's as to exempt him 
 from the charge of "gross indiscretion." His plea for the change of the m». i.irn.moN's 
 policy of tlie Cabinet was that now circumstances became known to government, ' ""'"""'• 
 which justified a renewal of the provisions against political meetings : but, as 
 he did not explain what those circumstances were, the plea did not improve 
 his case. The general impression was that he had been sincere, but most 
 unwise : that he ought to have resigned office, on such a conviction of indis- 
 cretion ; and that the affairs of the nation could no longer be safely confided 
 to an administration so ill combined, and whose proceedings were so desultory 
 and immature. 
 
 To the Premier, the affair must have been deeply wounding : and it proved 
 to be fatal to his political life. He was aware, as we know by Lord Althorp's Hansard, sxiv. 
 explanations, that a valuable minority in his Cabinet were of the same opinion ''^'' 
 with the Lord Lieutenant; vi/., that the clauses against public meetings in 
 Leland need not be re-enacted ; and that tliis minority had yielded the point 
 only to avoid breaking up the Cabinet : and now that Mr. O'Connell had been 
 admitted by the Irish Secretary to a peep at this state of things — (he, of all 
 men \) — what remained of dignity or efficiency to his government .' When he 
 moved the second reading of the Coercion Bill on the 4th of July, he spoke 
 \o\v and hurriedly. His son-in-law. Lord Durham, opposed the re-enactment 
 of the clauses against political meetings, in words as few and moderate as his 
 honest convictions permitted ; and his opposition was received with a good 
 grace by the INIinister ; but it was one of the incidents which wrought against 
 the tottering government. 
 
 This was on Friday night. On Saturday, Mr. Littleton tendered his 
 resignation. It was not accepted — indignant as Lord Grey had declared 
 himself about the transiiction with ]Mr. O'Connell. It was supposed that 
 there was little hope of filling up the vacancy, in a perilous crisis, with an 
 abk> man who was sure of a seat in the House — so deep was now the unpopu- 
 larity of the Whig ministry. But on Monday Lord Althorp resigned, and Re'ignvhon ..r 
 would not be persuaded to remain in office. High as his character stood for 
 honesty and courage, he was aware that it would not sustain him under the 
 odium of carrying through the Commons such a Coercion Bill as he was now 
 universally known to have condemned in Council. He persisted in retiring ; 
 and then Lord Grey saw no other course than resigning too. ]iy I-ord Al- "' '•""" '""'> 
 thorp's retirement, he lost his best colleague : the Coercion Bill would have no 
 authority now, if even he could pass it ; and if he relinquislied it, his belief 
 was well known to be that Ireland could not be governed without it. On 
 Tuesday he presented his resignation to tlie King. 
 
 On Wi'dnesday evening, the last act was to be done. The old statesman, 
 now in his 7 1st year, had to take leave of power. He was worn and weakened 
 by the toils and responsibilities of office, and lie was conscious of having
 
 IlM 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 [Book IV. 
 
 1834. 
 
 I.nni> fJTiv's 
 Fari-m ki.i.. 
 Ha!isurd,,\xiv. 
 1305. 
 
 Hiiiisartl, xxiv. 
 1325. 
 
 fallen somewhat behind the time — earnest as he was in saying that tlie times 
 Avcnt too fast, and not he too slow. The close of his term of power was morti- 
 fying, if not ignoble, in its character — affording but too much incitement to 
 the taunts and vindictiveness of adversaries — taunts and triumphs which were 
 not spared even on this occasion, l^^dee he rose and murmured a few words, 
 stopped, and sank down upon his seat. The House cheered him, but he 
 seemed unable to rise. The Didie of Wellington occupied a few minutes in 
 presenting petitions, in order to give Lord Grey time to recover himself. When 
 the old man rose a third time, he spoke feebly and tremulously ; but he 
 gathered strength as he proceeded, and so spoke as to interest all feelings, of 
 friend or foe, except where, as in the cases of the Duke of Wellington and 
 the Lord Chancellor, an overpowering fear for the Church and other institu- 
 tions, and personal regards, hardened the heart and closed the mind against 
 reverent emotions and clear convictions, which were shared by all others who 
 had the privilege to hear. The Duke naturally fired up at the implied charge 
 of vacillation against his brother, the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, in regard 
 to the Coercion Bill ; and it was natural that, with a brotherly feeling for Lord 
 Wellesley's responsibilities, he should vehemently assert that Lord Grey's 
 resignation, being unnecessary, w-as a desertion of his sovereign : but the rest 
 of the speech, in which he reviewed the measures of Lord Grey's government, 
 was nothing short of malignant. One circumstance which could not be over- 
 looked at the time, and cannot pass unnoticed by the reader of our day, is its 
 perfect likeness, in concej)tion and spirit, to Lord Grey's speech against Can- 
 ning, which fixed the deepest arrow of the flight under which he sank. Lord 
 Grey was less unhappy than Canning in being present to hear what was said 
 of him, instead of learning it from others and being unable to reply : and 
 again, the Duke had not power so to express himself as to wound so deeply 
 as Lord Grey ; and thus the retribution was not severe : but it must have 
 sorely embittered the parting moment. It is bitter even to the impartial 
 reader to witness these displays of infirmity — of that deep-seated infirmity 
 which weakens the moral force of three such men as these — rendering them 
 unable, not only to appreciate each other's course, but to M'ait with patience 
 to see the results — asking Time to be the arbiter, who will be the arbiter in 
 spite of them. The Lord Chancellor's speech drew off the hearers from the 
 painful feelings excited by the Duke, or gave others in their place. There 
 was abundant laudation of Lord Grey — such as it required courage to offer, 
 face to face, to such a man : but with it a clear rebuke to him for resigning : 
 and upon this followed a sentence or two which, grave as was the occasion, 
 caused shouts of laughter — there being few present who did not know some- 
 thing of the state of the King's mind towards the Ministers, who were so 
 fomiidably reforming the Church against his will. The Lord Chancellor 
 "felt that he should not disdrarge his duty if, at all sacrifice of his comfort — 
 at all abandonment of his own ease — at the destruction, if so it might be, of 
 his own peace of mind, he did not stand by that gracious Monarch and that 
 country whose support — whose cordial and hearty support — he had received 
 during the three years and a-half of which he had been a member of the 
 government. After having said this, he need not add that he had not tendered 
 his resignation." When the laughter permitted him to be again heard, he
 
 CiiAi-. IX.] UURIXG TIIK THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 125 
 
 asked, "Did their Lordships think that there was any thing very peculiarly 1834. 
 
 merry or amusing in being Minister at the present time ?" No ; — in the con. ^ ' 
 
 tempt into which this administration had long been falling, there was nothing 
 that was not painful to all sound-hearted men, of every party. 
 
 Lord (Jrey, in his speech, requested a fair judgment from those who tliought r,onn c;iu v's 
 he had committed errors, and did not anticipate any charge of indifference to chakacteu. 
 princijjle or deviation from honour. He might well feel this security, 
 brighter honour never shone through any statesman's life : a nobler con- 
 sistency never crowned a statesman's career. On this not a syllable need be 
 said ; for with him, throughout his life, the word answered to the tliought ; 
 and he possessed the deep secret of high honour, in other people's feelings 
 being to him as his own. His honour was not of the nice and sensitive cha- 
 racter which springs from egotism, and has therefore a dash of cowardice in 
 it: it was of the brave and healthy sort which needs no special care, but 
 flourislies best by thinking seldonx of itself. The only approach to a doubt 
 on this part of Lord Grey's character was caused by his profuse distribution 
 of office among his relations ; and he thought, witli great simplicity, tliat he 
 had disposed of this complaint in his speech of this night, by asking whether 
 these many relations did not do their work well, and declaring that the family 
 connexion generally had grown, not richer but poorer since they came into 
 office. Could such a man overlook the truth that it is unfair to exclude others 
 from office by filling departments with members of one family, and detrimental 
 to the interests of the State to have in its departments an overruling cast 
 of ideas and feelings ? Did he not know how strong was the national response 
 to Canning when he complained of the monopoly of government by " a fe^v 
 great families ?" And could such a man sujipose that the complainants were 
 thinking only of the salaries that his relations engrossed, and not of the 
 honours, powers, occupations, and dignities, of office ! This was one of the 
 " errors" with which he anticipated that he might be charged. And it 
 is difficult to charge him with any other: for the rest was not error but 
 incapacity ; — an induced incapacity, with which he was afflicted (and the 
 nation through him) through the evil operation of aristocratic station, un- 
 corrected by timely political laboin-, and the extensive intercourses which 
 are a privilege attendant upon it. He knew no more of the British 
 people than he did of the Spaniards or the Germans. He did not see 
 the scope of his own Reform Bill, and could not bear the consecpiences 
 of his own greatest act — the fruition of the aim of his whole life. When 
 he had himself taken up the House of Lords in his hand, broken its 
 fastenings, and set it down in a lower place, he insisted that it was still 
 where it was before ; and he " would stand by his order" against any who 
 declared to the contrary. He governed with a feeble and uncertain liand, 
 because he could not freely throw his mind into the common stock with his 
 colleagues, or induce them to do the same. He respected tliem — valued tliem 
 — gi-aced them — but could not make common cause with them. And he fell 
 by insisting on coercing speech in Ireland when the ruler of Ireland offered 
 to govern that country without a power so stiiugent, and his own " best arm" 
 in the Cabinet, and some other valuable members, were oi)posed to the act of 
 despotism. It was needless to protest that he iictcd from his conscience. No-^
 
 126 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book IV. 
 
 1834. body doubted his doing so, in all his political acts. The question was whether 
 his conscience was illuniinod by the best lights of intelligence. When the 
 Grand Inquisitor declared that he acted from conscientious love of his victims; 
 when Francis of Austria and Metternich declared that the Spielburg prisoners 
 were tortured, body and mind, for the sake of the nation ; — when the Duke 
 of York pleaded conscience for his intended rigour towards the Catholics — no- 
 body doubted the sincerity of the men. The question was, whether their con- 
 sciences could be permitted to overrule those of a multitude of other men. 
 And so, in a much milder way, was it now in the case of Lord Grey. The 
 question ^vas, whether speech was to be coerced in Ireland because Lord Grey 
 conscientiously believed it ought. Mr. Littleton expressed in the Commons, 
 Hansani, xxiv. On tliis Same night, a remorse which it was painful to witness for the act by 
 which he had compelled^ the decision. It was natural that he should do so, 
 but there were few or none who thought, in a little while, that the event was 
 to be lamented. It was not only that the Cabinet could not have stood for 
 any length of time : it was that the manner of Lord Grey's fall, however 
 mortifying to his friends and his party, and pathetic in all eyes, Mas instruc- 
 tive, alike as a comment on the past and a warning for the futiu'c. And for 
 himself — his lot was not hard, though less brilliant than it had been. He was 
 nowhere blamed for any fiiult but that which perhaps he had no gi'eat objec- 
 tion to be charged with — an excess of the aristocratic spirit. He retired, 
 amidst universal, if not unmingled sympathy and respect, to enjoy the repose 
 which his years required, in the bosom of a family by whom he was adored. 
 He had had the last experience of civic glory : and he was now to find how 
 much more he enjoyed the serene household glories of a home like his. 
 
 1333.
 
 Chap. X.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 127 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 TTTK poriod iintler review, memorable on many aceonnts, is for nothing 1834. 
 more so than for the perturbations of its rehgious Ufe. How long the '-— ^- ' 
 
 crisis might have been deferred, and what would have been its issue, if the relig.oi s crisis. 
 war had been protiacted, it is impossible to divine. It was after seventeen 
 years of Peace, and witli the rcfomis of a Peace-period for its proximate 
 cause, that it actually occurred ; and sooner or later it must have occurred, 
 under any conditions of the secular life of the nation. As it was, the pertur- 
 bation was so extraordinary, and to those who were timid by constitution or 
 by creed so fearful, that it seemed as if the fountains of the deeps of men's 
 minds were broken up. Amidst the deluge of conflicting theologies and wills, 
 the administration and parliament drifted helplessly and blindly ; and it was 
 clear that no good steering was to be expected from them, nor any discovery 
 of dry land where the struggling minds of men might find a footing and rest. 
 Such crises are, as the clear-sighted of all parties admit, an inevitable conse- 
 quence of an union of Church and State. The firmest friends of that union 
 admit this without hesitation, while declaring the advantages of such an 
 arrangement to preponderate over the occasional inconvenience and risk. As 
 time passes on, and those changes are wrought which never cease, the tenns 
 of the union must be remodelled, and newly-risen questions must be settled, 
 while it is quite certain that the Ministers of the State will not be able fully 
 to enter into the views of those of the Church ; and the Ministers of the 
 Church must inevitably despise and be shocked at the statesman's views of 
 religious claims and affairs. 
 
 When the critical period of indispensable change arrives, all difficulties are 
 aggravated — in the instance of England and her Establishment — by the jier- 
 petual existence of three parties within that church, whose views and habit 
 of mind differ too widely to admit of a peaceable coexistence for any length 
 of time in a Protestant Establishment — though the Romish Church is able, 
 in such a case, to include and occupy them all, without controversy and con- 
 fiision. This weighty fact has been adverted to before, in connexion with the v..i. i. p. 283. 
 first manifestation of the great disturbance which was now to reach its lieight 
 for tlie time — that is, when the controversy on the Peterborough Questions 
 took place in 1H21. That first instance of revived Iligli Church domination 
 over faitli took the nation by surprise — tlie oppressed clergy petitioned parlia- 
 ment for relief aiul justice ; .almost every voice that was raised at all was raised 
 against the claim of the Bisliop ; aiul there was one circumstance in the ca.se 
 that was never forgotten, and will never be forgotten— that no Bishop but the 
 one appealed against opened his li])s upon the subject, though every endeavour 
 was used in the House of Lords to make the Prelates speak. Clear as it was 
 to all that they were in parliament for ihv very purpose of guiding the State
 
 128 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book IV. 
 
 IR34. in such afi'airs as this, their constrained and ignoble silence showed that they 
 
 ^^ • ' were unprepared for the great controversy, just then opening, between the 
 
 claims of the Church and the Protestant doctrine of liberty of opinion. 
 The traitahi. Twclvc ycavs clapscd between that discussion in parliament and the reduc- 
 tion of the Irish Church by the Administration of Lord Grey. In the inter- 
 val, rumours had spread of the rise of a sect within the Church, whose head- 
 quarters were at Oxford : as there had been rumours before of the rise of a 
 Church sect at Cambridge. That at Cambridge had originated the movement 
 called Evangelical, intended to revive the life of religion in the Church, and 
 promoted by the earnest zeal and munificence of its members in filling the 
 pulpits of the Establishment with devout Calvinistic Ministers, who caused 
 a powerful religious revival among the aristocratic and wealthy classes of 
 society. The Oxford movement was of a widely different character — repre- 
 senting as it did the opposite party in the Church from that of the Simeons, 
 Wilberforces, and Thorntons. The rumours which stole abroad told of obser- 
 vances which excited no little surprise, while some who heard were amused, 
 and others seriously grieved and alarmed. It was scarcely conceivable that 
 Laud and his ways should have risen up again among us in the nineteenth 
 century ; yet those who had seen and heard what went on within the Univer- 
 sity of Oxford told of priestly claims, and obedience of novices, of homage to 
 the memory of Charles the Martyr, of devout reception and study of ancient 
 Tradition and the Christian Fathers, and a passionate disparagement of the 
 Reformation and Protestantism ; of exclusive reliance on the sacraments of 
 the Church ; of the most fiequcnt possible celebration of its services ; of the 
 setting-up of oratories and of crosses ; of scrupulosity about garments and 
 postures and fasts ; and even of auricidar confession. Where so much was 
 said, something must be true ; and it was not long before the Oxford men 
 published to the world ample evidence that some strange things indeed were 
 true. 
 
 On occasion of the reduction of the Irish Church, the Oxford party believed 
 the time to be come for them to preach their principles, and save, if it yet 
 might be, the Church and the nation. They denied the rightful power of the 
 government to touch the constitution and revenues of the Church ; and they 
 apprehended that parliament would gratify the earnest desire of a large body 
 of churchmen, in reforming the Book of Common Prayer, through a commis- 
 sion of State appointment. To avert such a desecration, and all further 
 spoliation of the Chinch, and to obtain perhaps a restitution of what had been 
 taken from her, the Oxford sect resolved to work upon the piddic mind in all 
 directions : through the press, as well as by means of the pulpit and private 
 exhortation, and vigorous proselyting among the young. According to their 
 own authorized statement, delivered by Mr. Perceval in a letter to the Editor 
 of the Irish Ecclesiastical Journal, their first business was to enforce their 
 tenets through a set of Tracts, which gave to the sect, for some years, the 
 name of Tractarians. The leading doctrine of these Tracts is that of Apostoli- 
 cal Succession. The only way of salvation is declared to be through the 
 sacrament of the Lord's Supper ; and the only way in which that sacrament 
 can be administered is by the hands of the successors of the apostles, with 
 whom is deposited this sole power of communicating the means of salvation.
 
 Chap. X] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 129 
 
 The necessity of Episcopacy is thus declared, and not merely its expediency : 1834. 
 
 and from this follows a train of doctrines which do not need more than a slight ^— ' — ' 
 
 indication. As the .Scriptures do not contain any account of the institution of 
 episcopacy by Christ, some other and co-equal authority must be adduced : and 
 Tradition is that co-ordinate authority. Hence follows the exclusive reverence 
 for the Christian Fathers, as the historians and registrars of tradition. Hence, 
 too, the reverence for many of the forms and observances of Eomanism which, 
 being traced to an episcopal foundation, cannot be refused. Hence, too, the 
 indignation and hoiTor at the interference of government with Church funds 
 and offices ; and an expressed willingness that the Church should, as soon as 
 possible, be separated from the State. Of these Tracts, Dr. Arnold wTOtc in 
 A\m\, 1834, "they arc strenuously puffed by the British Magazine, and J-^jr.' '^""''''' 
 strenuously circulated among the clergy ; of course, I do not suppose that 
 any living man out of the clergy is in the slightest danger of being influenced 
 by them, except so far as they may lead him to despise the clergy for counte- 
 nancing them." The fact did not answer to this anticipation. If the Trac- 
 tarian clergy might soon be counted by hundreds, their followers, and the 
 diligent readers of the ' Tracts for the Times,' presently amounted to tens of 
 thousands : and there is nothing to wonder at in this, if we remember the 
 proneness of the human mind to rely upon authority, and to seek safety in 
 definite observances. Far on in the nineteenth century, therefore, the zealous 
 Protestants of the empire saw spectacles which filled them with anger and 
 dismay : — on the one hand, a striking increase of the Catholic body, from 
 the earnestness with which noble and \Aealthy Catholics applied them- 
 selves to use the present crisis for the good of their Church : and on the 
 other hand, the rise and spread of a body, within and from our own 
 university of Oxford, who were always disparaging Protestantism, and them- 
 selves growing so like Catholics, that it was hard for the common run of 
 men, who used Protestantism for a political cry, to make out the difference. 
 From month to month, there were rumours of one or another Tractarian 
 having gone over to Romanism — nunours which were highly resented, and 
 [)roved in the ' Tracts' to be necessarily false : and for a while, they were not 
 true : but, in no long time, a conversion to Romanism began within the 
 University, and spread so undeniably, that the kindred character of the prin- 
 ciples of Romanism and Tractarianism has for some time ceased to be disputed. 
 During this period, then, one of the three parties in the Church was succeed- 
 ing in substituting lor the previous idea of religion another whose popular 
 sj)read made some good men's hearts fail them for fear. Theology in the 
 priesthood and unlimited obedience in the flock were now to be the idea of a 
 Christian Chinch. In many a church there w-as contention about wearing 
 the surplice ; about old and new or revived methods of celebrating the service ; 
 about the frequency of the administration of the Communion ; and other 
 points which the bishops were as sorely perplexed as pressed to solve. As a 
 body, the bishops showed themselves weak and still unprepared. There was 
 no unity of view or action among them on the occurrence of this great schism 
 in the Church; and the nmltitude added contempt of this weakness to their 
 iiidignation at the conduct of the spiritual jieers about the Reform Bill, and 
 were at no pains to conceal their feelings. The .Vrchbishop of Canterbury 
 VOL. 11. . ^
 
 130 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book IX. 
 
 18.34. ^^"S mobbed at the doors of his own cathedral — pelted with brickbats, cabbage 
 - — — V— — ' stalks, and oj>probrious words, to his extreme consternation. The Bishop of 
 
 IRK. (iiii'm.'^iui;.' London had a year before been prevented from preaching at St. Ann's, Soho, 
 
 iss'il'chnm.'^il?.' by an intimation that when he rose in the pulpit, the larger part of the con- 
 gregation would leave their seats. Much of this was political feeling : but it 
 was aggravated, and not dispersed, by the irresolute and uncombined conduct 
 of the jirelates under the appeal of the Tractaiians. The heads of the church 
 were evidently not ready for the crisis of the chin-ch. 
 
 The strongest popular sympathy, in connexion with this party, was with a 
 clergyman here and there who fell a victim to his sense of duty in enforcing 
 his rights — not from the love of lucre, but the fear of surrenderuig any of the 
 prerogatives of his function. One of these, the Rev. Irvine Whitty, rector of 
 a parish in Ireland, was shot, after having brought forty-five suits for the 
 
 iKsa, chrun. is:)', rccovcry of tithes at one sessions. Another was a clergyman in the south of 
 England, who enforced his tithes, under a sense of duty to his Church, to a 
 ]ioint which maddened his poor neighbours ; and the general feeling was fear- 
 fully expressed by a man who shot him dead from behind a haycock in his own 
 field. The popular resentment in these cases followed those who had instituted 
 a false ideal of a Christian Church, rather than the weak men who had been 
 mastered by that idea. While the pity for these victims was yet fresh, every 
 one looked to see what would happen at the installation of the Duke of Wel- 
 lington as Chancellor of Oxford, at a time so critical. The proceedings there, 
 while very amusing, were significant enough. The young men in the theatre 
 are wont to express their partialities .and dislikes, political and religious, on 
 these occasions — thus giving notice to the world what it has to expect from the 
 rising generation of professional men and legislators : and the watch-words 
 and cries were never more significant than on the present occasion. There 
 were tlmnders of applause when cheers were asked for the Bishops, Mr. Stan- 
 ley, and the Duke of Cumberland : and never-ending groans at the Irish 
 Church Commission, the Administration, and the Gower Street Company — 
 
 Annual Rpfristcr, meaning the London University. The word " the Dissenters" was received 
 " with a long-protracted snuffle, and an cjacidation of ' Amen', from several 
 voices, in imitation of tlie nasal twang of the conventicle." This, again, was 
 like a restoration of the seventeenth century. The peculiar enmity against 
 the Dissenters on this occasion was a piece of retribution on a movement of 
 the moderate Church party to obtain admission for them to the Universities : 
 and nothing could be more offensive than two cries and their reception — 
 " the University and her privileges," and " London University and her want 
 of privileges." The cheers for Oxford and her exclusiveness were natural 
 and fair enough : but the virulent desire to exclude the Dissenters from privi- 
 lege every where was well understood to be expressed by these lads on behalf 
 of their class and order. Such were the doings — serious and playful — of the 
 High Church party during this period. 
 
 Pari^"'"''^^'"^'"' -^^ f"^' the immediately opposing party — the Low Church or Evangelical 
 section — they were active, but less prosperous than they had been. It appeared 
 that the Tractarian multitude was largely increased fi-om the ranks of the 
 Evangelical party. There Avere many lowly and tender spirits, worn 
 and anxious with the care of working out their salvation by the constant 
 upholding of their faith at a certain pitch, and afflicted with misgivings
 
 C.T\p. X] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 131 
 
 about the sufficiency of tlicir pt-rsoiial interest in Christ, and of their assur- 183-i. 
 ance of safety, who were glad to turn at once into the shelter of a system ' — ^^^^-' 
 where they had the jirotcction of a priesthood, which permitted them to 
 repose their cares upon others, on the simple condition of obedience to definite 
 commands, and which prescribed a clear ritual duty in discharge of obligations 
 whicli had hitherto weighed heavily upon their consciences. It was natural 
 that the numbers that went over from the Low to the High Church should 
 be considerable. — Some of the brightest lights of the sect, too, were extin- 
 guished within this period. Its honoured and beloved Wilberforce was laid TiluKu'Kni.^^ "' 
 in his grave during this time : and to no man did the sect owe so much. His 
 IMayday nature was too genial to be clouded by the gloomiest Calvinism. 
 While striving through life to afflict himself with self-reproach and doubts of 
 his safety, as well as to take upon himself (which he did in the noblest sincerity 
 of heart) the woes of all who sinned and suffered, his glorious and exquisite 
 nature broke through all factitious restraints, and made him free, joyous, and 
 benign, as if he had never taken upon his lips that language of his sect which 
 aboinuls at once in denunciation and terror, in slavishness and pride. He 
 was far above fear arul haughtiness alike, though he might strive to feel both : 
 and, while exhorting to the attainment of a specific faith, as the only security 
 for salvation, he so abounded in good works as to earn tlie wondering venera- 
 lion of all living men, and the gratitude of unborn generations. The affec- 
 tionate, confidiug, cheerful old man — wise as a sage and fresh as an infant — 
 sank into death just after learning that the Negro Emancipation Act might 
 be considered safe : and when he closed his eyes, the brightest light of his 
 sect went out. — The influence of the body had been materially confirmed by 
 the writings of Hannah More, whose books are a curious reflection of a part mo"""'*" 
 of the spirit of her time. The reflection may be regarded as 'exaggerated 
 however ; for it would be hard to impute to tho sect all the spiritual pride and 
 censoriousness, the naiTOwness of view, and factitious interpretation of nature, 
 life, and scripture, which pervade her writings. But the solemnity, the self- 
 analysis, vigilance, asceticism, and intemperance of both fear and hope, are 
 thoroughly characteristic of the sect, and merely aggravated in Hannah More, 
 as they were neutralized in Wilberforce, by the constitution of the individual. 
 Her writings had a vast circulation in their day; and, as they sprang from the 
 spirit whicli originated the present Evangelical movement, so they largely 
 assisted in kindling and spreading it. 
 
 The activity of the sect was shown during this period chiefly in its own 
 walk — of denunciation, and obstructive asceticism. It does not appear to have 
 taken any conspicuous part either with or against the government on the 
 questions of the time regarding the rights, liabilities, and duties of the 
 Cluirch. 15ut it begged for ordinances of religious humiliation uiuler the 
 infliction of the Cholera — in some places held up the Cholera as a judgment 
 on tlie nation for its spiritual levity; — instituted the Sabbatarian nu)venient 
 which has been revived, from time to tinu!, to this day; — obstructed tlie pub- 
 lication of geological knowledge, lest Scripture should be discredited by tlu' 
 disagreemi'ut of the beginning of Genesis with the discoveries of modem 
 science; and discountenanced the Musical Eestivals which were a featme of 
 tlie time, including, as they did, sacred music, and being frequently held in
 
 1S34. 
 
 Cliu«t:ii Tauty 
 
 132 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book IV. 
 
 1834. iliuiches. While tlic Oxford sect were encouraging Art, promoting freedom 
 ^^^■^^~ — ' and gaiety of spirits in the intervals of religious observance — as on Sunday 
 evenings — and holding that none but the priesthood have any concern Avith 
 consequences wliile they scrupulously fulfil conditions, the sons of the Cam- 
 bridge movement were acting in a curiously opposite manner. A Sabbatarian 
 Kill, full of insufferable and impracticable provisions, was called for once a 
 year, by aristocratic gentlemen who could not suffer inidcr it while bringing 
 it to bear upon the poor in their comfortless homes, or to prevent their going 
 abroad : — a Bishop employed himself in invidiously counting the boats which 
 passed under Putney Bridge on the Sunday: — dissension was risked at the 
 early meetings of the British Association for the advancement of Science by 
 clergymen who declared themselves resolved to defend the Mosaic scrijJtures 
 from the inroads of scientific innovation : and certain newspapers praised the 
 conduct of divines — and among others, the Bishop of London — for withdrawing 
 from all appearance of countenancing the Musical Festival, held in West- 
 SLiiuiani, July, minstcr Abbey in 1834. The scruple was about "employing a church as a 
 place of sensual recreation :" and the doubt was presently extended to the 
 use of music at all in religious worship. These differences between the two 
 sects were practical assertions of their respective doctrines of priesthood and 
 no priesthood ; — the insvifFiciency and the sufficiency of Scripture ; — and the 
 ritual and ascetic modes of life and worship. 
 
 The action of the Third party in the Church during this period is no less 
 conspicuous than that of the first, and far more so than that of the second. 
 This, the Moderate party, was that to which the Ministry and, on the whole, 
 parliament may be said to belong, if they could, with their diversity of view 
 and unflxedness of theory, be said to belong to any one division. Ministers 
 of state, and members of parliament, generally speaking, liave not the 
 training — that of the clergy on the one hand, and of the nonconformists on 
 the other — which furnishes men with fixed principles of judgment and action 
 on Chiuch matters ; and there is therefore no subject on which legislators 
 usually appear so weak. The surest indication of their views given by 
 Alinisters was by their clerical appointments ; and the appointments under Lord 
 Grey's administration — especially that of Dr. Whateley to the Archbishopric 
 of Dublin — spoke plainly enough. Amidst their infirmity of action, and 
 backwardness of speech, they showed their conviction that the Establishment 
 needed reform : they made a large reduction of Irish bishoprics, consented to 
 a large reduction of Irish tithe (though the measure was not carried), and 
 proposed to commute Church rates in England, for the relief of the consciences 
 of Dissenters. The Dissenters refused to accept any thing short of a total 
 abolition of these rates, seeing no relief to conscience, and no recognition of 
 its rights, in a measure which would compel them to pay the same tax under 
 another name : but the proposition showed the tendencies of Ministers. 
 Another decisive act of the same character was their favouring the petitions 
 sent in, whether by Dissenters or Members of the University, for the admis- 
 oiF.NiNc. or usi- siou of Dissenters to degrees in the University. The exclusion of Dissenters 
 sENTEiis." " by their being required to sign the Thirty-nine Articles Avas an innovation — 
 declared to be so by the petitioners in the senate of the University of Cam- 
 bridge — and a very injurious one to the interests of all parties. The restric-
 
 Chap. X.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 133 
 
 tioiis were laid on in the icigu of James I., in a manner informal and iinprc- 1834. 
 cedcnted, against the wishes of a large number of the then existing members, 
 and in a time of extraordinary tnrbulence and spiritual oppression. The 
 academical petitioners prayed for a restitution of their ancient laws and liberal 
 usages, whereby many excellent citizens, now excluded by conscience from 
 entering tlie Universities, might be admitted to degrees, and thus made more 
 available to the good of their country. When Lord Grey presented tliis 
 petition in the Upper House, and Mr. Spring Rice in the Lower, both these 
 Ministers pledged themselves to use every effort in their individual capacities 
 to carry the measiu'e of relief proposed. Counter petitions were sent in 
 from both Universities, much more numerously signed ; and their advocates 
 in the House and elsewliere appeared to think the cpicstion decided in equity 
 by the preponderance of opinion within the Universities : but the government 
 and the Houses generally thought that the opinions of parliament, the Dis- 
 senters themselves, and the public at large, were no less pertinent than those 
 of the privileged University men ; and the debate was long and ardent. The 
 case of the cxclusionists was destroyed by the existing Cambridge practice of 
 admitting Dissenters to every thing but the honours. They might enter and 
 study, and be on an equal footing with churchmen till their twelfth term, 
 when the demand upon them to sign the articles barred them from degrees. 
 This was strongly presented by Mr. Spring Rice, in the debate on the Dis- 
 senters' Bill ; while others showed how fearful was the snare to consciences 
 in such a case — how powerful a temptation was presented to a young man to 
 sign what he did not believe ; and how injurious it was to the Universities 
 themselves, and to public rectitude, to enforce regulations which, in common 
 with all religious tests, keep out the most valuable men — the conscientious — 
 and let in the unscrupulous. On the other side, there was some ridicule 
 of Dissenters for " feeling so deeply exclusion from the empty honour of a 
 degr-ee," and apprehension that, if admitted to that, they would next crave 
 possession of office and emoliunent in the iniiversities : they were too small a 
 minority to be worth altering the plans of the institutions for ; yet they were 
 so ninnerous, and increasing so fast, that they M-ould soon overthrow the 
 Church : — the subscription to articles was a mere form which no reasonable 
 man need scruple to go through ; yet it was the bulwark of the Church which 
 nmst not be touclied : — the Dissenters woidd carry off so few prizes in life 
 compared with Churchmen that it was folly to suppose they lost any thing 
 worth debating about by the present arrangement ; yet, there was no saying 
 what M'ould become of the connexion between Church and State if the liberal 
 professions were thrown open as freely to nonconformists as to members of the 
 Church. Amidst these mutually destructive pleas, the Ministers declared 
 their judgment to be in favour of recurrence to the ancient liberties of the 
 Universities, and deprecated all argument from possible future consequences, 
 not contemplated in the present measures, and which might very well be met 
 in their own time, if they should ever arise. The scene at the third reading 
 of the IJill was disgracefully clamorous, so that the Sjieaker himself was 
 scarcely able to preserve his equanimity. The mover of the measure, Mr. 
 Wood, could not be heard in his concluding explanations for the "jeeriug, 
 shouting, loughiug, and crowing;"' ye( lie obtained .i majorily of 1(34 against
 
 13-1 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book IV. 
 
 1834. '75 : a proof tliat Ministers had on this occasion, and in tliat House, asserted 
 ^-^^- — — -' lihcral principles with sufficient plainness. Nor did they fail in the other 
 House ; though there the Piill was thrown out by a majority of 187 to 85. 
 
 The apprehension in tliis case was that the Dissenters would endeavour to 
 obtain a separation of the Church from the State. The promoters of Mr. 
 Wood's bill saw that to refuse what appeared to them justice to the Dissenters 
 was more dangerous to the Church than any recognition of liberty of con- 
 
 TiiE chi.h.ii in scicnce. The Church really was at that time in great danger. The Hioh 
 Churchmen and Dissenters were almost equally discontented at its connexion 
 with the State ; and the intermediate parties were dissatisfied with its condi- 
 tion, and alarmed at its prospects. " The Church as it now stands," wrote 
 Dr. Arnold in 1832, "no human power can save." He and other moderate 
 Churchmen, therefore, set to work to reform it, while the High Chmchmen 
 were proposing its being put under the care of its hierarchy, and the govern- 
 ment were stri\'ing to disarm the enmity of the Dissenters (as far as they con- 
 sidered that enmity reasonable) ; and the Dissenters were striving for relief from 
 the liability to support a church of which they conscientiously disapproved. 
 
 Ciiincii refobji. Among the proposals offered by Churchmen for a reform of the Establish- 
 ment at that time, the two most conspicuous publications were put forth by 
 
 ■■""" henlev. Lord Henley and Dr. Arnold. Lord Henley's plan was, that ecclesiastical 
 affairs should be managed by a Convocation ; that the bishops should cease to 
 sit in parliament, and that laymen should be wholly silent about matters of 
 
 i>i( Arnold. Cliin'ch doctrinc. This was so contrary to all Dr. Arnold's ^dews of right, 
 that it called forth his jirotest in the shape of a pamphlet on Church reform 
 which, in that season of excitement, caused much and angry controversy. " I 
 have one great principle which I never lose sight of," wrote Dr. Arnold : " to 
 
 •iff of Arnold, i. iusist sti^ongly on the difference between Christian and non-Christian, and to 
 sink into nothing the differences between Christian and Christian." As he 
 proceeds to say, all the world quarrelled with the one half of his principle or 
 the other : but he succeeded in impressing his view at least upon the notice 
 of society, if not upon its convictions. And so he did with regard to a truth, 
 so obvious that it is difficult now to believe how lately society in general was 
 blind to it : — that the Church means not the priesthood, but the body of 
 believers. In every possible way he reiterated this — insisting that Clu-istianity 
 recognised no priesthood — that the whole body of believers were equally 
 brethren and the clergy no more than brethren — till the truth took firm hold 
 of the public mind, and the Tractarian party regarded Dr. Ai-nold as an 
 impious leveller, and persecuted him for years v. ith the moral weapons which 
 alone the advancement of intelligence has left in the power of the bigot. 
 
 Mo of Arnold, i. „ Nothing, as it seems to me," wrote Dr. Arnold, after issuing his plan, " can 
 save the Church but an union with the Dissenters." Under the conviction of 
 exti'emo danger to the Establishment, and of the calamity which its overthrow 
 would be to the whole of society, he proposed changes which, as he afterwards 
 said, ought to be considered in connexion with the alarms of the time, as well 
 as on their own merits — by which, however, he was prepared to abide. After 
 offering an earnest defence of the Establishment, and a statement of its 
 dangers, he proposed, as the only safeguard, the admission of Dissenters 
 Avithin its pale, an accommodation of hours and tlirowiug open of chiuclies 
 
 3SI
 
 Chap. X.J DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 13o 
 
 which wouhl enable all to worship conscientiously under the shelter of the 1834. 
 •general Church ; and such an alteration of the ordinary services as should -—^ — " 
 admit of llieir being joined in by a large number of Dissenters whose differ- 
 ences with the Chuich were not radical. He not only defended the presence 
 of the bishops in parliament, but desired in every practicable way to amalga- 
 mate religious and secular interests. While doing his utmost for the Church cbaS'KefJrm. 
 and people whom he loved, he had, however, little hope, from the injustice 
 and insolence with which he saw the Dissenters treated by so-called advocates 
 of the Church; and from the keenness with which, as he observed, the 
 Dissenters understood and felt their principles and their position. " If you 
 see my Pamphlet and Postscript," he wrote, " you will .see that I have kept i-;^ "f Ai-n,.i.i, i. 
 clear of the mere secular questions of tithes and pluralities, and have argued 
 
 for a comprehension on higher grounds But I fear that our reforms, 
 
 instead of labouring to unite the Dissenters with the Church, will confirm 
 their separate existence by relieving them from all ^^■hich they now complain 
 of as a burden. And continuing distinct from the Church, will they not 
 labour to effect its overthrow, till they bring us quite to the American 
 ])latform ?" 
 
 What answer were the Dissenters giving to this question ? The plain '''"'= ncssENrnn-^. 
 answer was, that every thing depended on what was meant in this case by 
 overthrowing the Church. If the Church was taken in Dr. Arnold's own 
 comprehensive sense of the gi'eat body of believers, or in the more limited 
 sense of a body of believers in any particular form of doctrine, neither the 
 Dissenters nor any one else wished to overtlu'ow, or in any way to interfere 
 with, such a church. Put if the meaning was an establishment which com- 
 pelled its own support from those who disapproved of its doctrine and structure, 
 it was certainly true, throughout that period, that a multitude of the Dissenters 
 did desire the overthrow of the taxing and exeluding power. Without con- 
 cerning themselves about other people's belief and management of their own 
 concerns, many of the Dissenters did exert themselves vigorously to obtain 
 relief of conscience for themselves. Some helped to throw out Lord yUthorp's 
 measure for the comnmtation of church-rates, on the ground that it was not 
 the amount of tax that they complained of, but the obligation to support a 
 religious institution of which they disai)])roved. Several went to prison, 
 during these and succeeding years, and lay there long, rather than pay a few 
 shillings of church-rate. jMany petitioned parliament for the removal of the 
 bishops from tlie legislature. Many demanded admission to the Universities. 
 Many agitated for a dissolution of the union between Clunch and State. And 
 the body generally gave their support to tlu^ propositions of the Ministers to 
 reduce the Irish Church, to review the resources of the Church in England, 
 to extinguish tithes, and to abolish pluralities. 
 
 Some curious incidents are found scattered through the registers of these 
 years which show the temper of the times, amidst the convulsion of religious 
 parties. The work called Fronde's Kemains opens to the reader an astonishing 
 picture of the state of mind and mode of life of the early Tractarians — with 
 their talk of the " detestable lleformation," " odious Protestantism," the insuf- 
 ficiency of Scripture, and its utter destitution of assertion and evidence of the 
 cliief essential doctrines of the Christian faith : ami their fastings, forms, and
 
 13() HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book IV. 
 
 1834. strong tendency to monacliism. An analysis and comparison of their principles 
 «-^~v-v^ and modes of belief, their forms and organization, present so curious and 
 minute a resemblance to those of tlie Pharisees, as exhibited favourably by 
 Josephus the Pharisee, as to make it astonishing that the parallelism could 
 be overlooked by the members of the new sect themselves. From their great 
 doctrines of the insufficiency of Scripture, the need of Tradition, and priestly 
 succession, to their daily religious forms, the resemblance is astonishing. 
 
 covERNMFNT Ncxt wc comc to several occasions of great amazement to members of the 
 
 Administration. — I^ord Altliorp found himself worsted in an unexpected col- 
 lision with refractory churchwardens, when he issued a Circular to that body 
 in England and Wales, preparatory to the institution of the Ecclesiastical 
 Commission. The Circuhar requested information as to the amount, owner- 
 ship, and liabilities of Church property in their respective parishes. Some 
 took no notice ; some declined giving any information ; and some wrote in a 
 tone of wliicli the following extract may serve as a specimen. It occurs in the 
 midst of a lecture to the Minister on the Coronation Oath, the sacredness of 
 
 spei-u.inr, IH31, Church property, and so forth : " It is the part of wise legislators to obtain the 
 most accurate and authentic information, before they attempt to make enact- 
 ments touching the pi'operty and vital interests of millions. Not so with the 
 Administration in wliich your Lordship holds a prominent office : — they pre- 
 judge a case — administer to the passions and vices of the mob, to obtain tlieir 
 concurrence and support — act in ignorance — and mar every thing that they 
 pretend to mend. Nor are we satisfied that you and your colleagues have any 
 more right to meddle with, so as to deteriorate, the property belonging to any 
 clergyman, or any corporate body of the clergy, than the highwayman lias to 
 take your purse." We are here furnished with proof that liberty of speech 
 was unrestricted in Great Britain in 1834. 
 
 Prbpi.rxities op Next, we find Lord Grey, now old enough to be astonislicd at nothingr, 
 
 MlNIS'I'l'll^. ' . . 
 
 wholly taken by sm-prise by popular rebukes of his countenance of pluralities. 
 He presented to the Deanery of Down a clergyman who already held a living 
 
 Hansani,xxii.599. ^f 1200/. a-ycar, aud gave as his reason, by the mouth of the Irish Secretary, 
 that " it was not too much that such preferment should be bestowed on a son 
 of the Lord Chancellor of Ireland." So open an avowal of Church prefemient 
 following on political connexion Mas caught up with tlie eagerness to be 
 expected at such a season of crisis : and so was the explanation which the 
 Premier found himself obliged to authorise, of the circumstances under which 
 
 AdmlUfst^ratlon", he had given a stall at Westminster to his relative the Bishop of Hereford. 
 
 "■ '*''■ Amazed as he was at the censure incurred by acts till now so little liable to 
 
 question, the fact was so ; and he had only to acquiesce in it : as had Lord 
 Althorp in the Dissenters being offended instead of gi-atified by his proposed 
 Churcli-rate measure. The most striking scene of this class, however, appears 
 to have been an interview between the Prime Minister and a deputation of 
 
 Amn.ai negisier, Nottingham Dissenters. When these delegates presented their memorial, 
 Lord Grey supposed that its contents were the same with those of other 
 memorials from Dissenters ; to which Mr. HoAvitt's reply was, that the paper 
 itself would explain that better than he could, as the memorial proceeded from 
 persons whose object was to express their own wishes, and not to look abotit 
 to see what others were doing. Tliey had prayed for the separation of Church
 
 Chap. X.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 137 
 
 and State. Lord Grey, who seems throughout this crisis to have been blind 1834. 
 to the safety of perfect openness, to have always supposed that people meant --^^^^-^^ 
 more than they said, and to have approved of that method of proceeding, 
 declared that he was son-y, that Ministers would be embarrassed, and parlia- 
 ment alarmed. He could not see what more Dissenters could wish than relief 
 from disabilities as to maniage, burial, registration, and such matters. The 
 deputation replied, that their brethi-en had thought it best not to stop short of 
 the broad ground of religious liberty. Still Lord Grey was perplexed, for he did 
 not understand the principles of religious liberty. He asked if they wanted to do 
 away with all state establishments of religion : to which ISIr. Hewitt's reply was, 
 " Precisely : that was what they desired." He explained, that in the opinion 
 of the body he represented, a C'hristian government should protect Christi- 
 anity ; but that this could be done only by making all bodies of Christians 
 equal before the law. Lord Grey indicated unconsciously the spirit and the 
 fault of his government, by setting forth what he believed it would have been 
 politic for the petitioners to have asked ; and that the gaining of that step 
 might have led to something more. The views of the petitioners, however, 
 were not politic but moral ; and they were not a party whose obligations and 
 conscience the Prime Minister was likely to be able to expound. The simple 
 reply of the deputation conveyed a severe rebuke. They did not think it honest 
 to ask for less than they desired to have, with a concealed view of obtaining 
 more hereafter. Where a principle was concerned, they thought it right to 
 make a plain and full assertion of it. In this course there was nothing disin- 
 genuous ; and it left no ground for future discontent and misunderstanding. 
 It might have been happy for the "Whig Administration if it had been early 
 familiarized with the broad principle of religious liberty, and, yet more, with 
 the spectacle of a calm and intrepid assertion of any principle in its full scope. 
 
 It may be remembered that, at a former period, one objection to the admission 
 of Jews to parliament was that Quakers were excluded ; to which the advo- 
 cates of the Jews replied, that they were quite ready to admit the Quakers. 
 This wiis now done. Early in the session of 1833, Mr. Pease, member for admission of 
 Darlington, presented himself at the table, and claimed to make affirmation, P»rl.v«r.nt. 
 instead of taking the oaths. lie was ordered to Avithdraw, on his refusal to eis. 
 take the oaths, and a connnittce was appointed to consider of his case. The 
 result was that the House, on the reconmiendation of Mr. Wynn, the chairman 
 of the committee, resolved to admit Mr. Pease, conceiving that if he became, 
 by his entrance, liable to penalties in any courts, the risk Avas his own, and 
 no concern of theirs. The Ayes were loud and multitudinous, and there were 
 no Nays ; and when the Quaker member appeared to make his affirmation, 
 clothed in a complete suit of brown, elegant from its extreme neatness, he was 
 received with a very cordial and general cheering. If one of the objections to 
 the admission of Jews was thus done away, they did not at present profit by it. coxTimEn ex. 
 Their cause was annually pleaded by some Christians, as unqiiestionably and "^'"'"' »''•'''»»• 
 earnestly religious as any in the House: but the same mutually contradictory 
 arguments for their exclusion were also repeated from year to year ; and the 
 religious conflicts of the time yielded no increase of civil rights to them. 
 
 And during these conflicts in the Church, and between its members and the 
 Dissenters. Death was putting in his cold liand, to draw away one and another 
 
 vol.. II. r
 
 Hill. 
 
 \Veslly. 
 
 138 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book IV. 
 
 1834. of the asscrtois of full religious liberty, to a region of utter stillness. 'NMiere 
 
 ■ — i^v^— ^ angry voices were noAV clamouring, tlieir loved tones would never more charm 
 
 to silence tlie strife of tongues : where eyes were flashing in enthusiasm or 
 
 passion, or congregations Avere met calmly to assert their rights of conscience, 
 
 some grey-haired leaders were absent, and would never meet their brethren 
 
 nEATM OP no- again. The Baptists had lost Robert Hall ; or rather, the world had lost him. 
 
 HERT HAI.r,, ... . 
 
 From him. Sir J. Mackintosh said that he had learned more of principles than 
 from all the books he had ever read: and while he could thus meet the 
 strongest men on their own gi'ound, he could charm the most ignorant, and 
 rouse the most apathetic, by the light and glory which streamed from the 
 fountain of the lieart in floods of eloquence wliich it required only an open 
 heart to receive. This great man's life was one of fearful suffering from dis- 
 ease — from anguish of body which, at one period, helped to overthrow his 
 mind, and which, ever after his recovery from that insanity, kept him appa- 
 rently too low and weak for duty. But duty was his strength ; and in him 
 was seen, from week to week, that marvel which has often attended a briefer 
 martyrdom — that of the extinction of the sense of pain under the strong- 
 workings of the nobler powers. AA^hen he feebly entered the pulpit, and rose 
 feebly to speak, and spoke at first in a voice so low and husky as to make his 
 hearers wisli him at home and at rest, it was scarcely possible to believe him 
 the Robert Hall whose vigorous championship of the riglits of conscience, 
 and broad assertion of a liberal philosophy, were before the world : but from 
 moment to moment the fire was kindling and spreading within him : his 
 torment subsided — -his eye brightened — his voice grew strong and sweet — he 
 was in heaven for the time, and carried his hearers a long Avay on to^^ards it 
 too. Amidst the conflicts of Christian faiths at this time, he disappeared ; 
 and the voice which, the more it roused souls, spread the more a deej)ening 
 calm, woidd never again rebuke the strife of sects, and recommend to them, 
 as he loved to do, " the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace." — Anotlier 
 was withdra-vATi, too, of whom no one knew whether he ought to be called 
 Of Rowland Cliurcliman Or Dissenter. Rowland Hill had received deacon's orders, and 
 always insisted that he was an episcopalian clergyman : but he preached any 
 and every where — in all sorts of chapels, in private rooms, under trees in 
 parks, and in the open fields. His mission was — or seemed to himself to be — 
 to find fault all round, except with persons too obscure to fix the eyes of men. 
 He was the foe of John Wesley in early life, and afterwards the censor of all 
 churches — having as vehement an intolerance of sectarianism as sects in his 
 latter days had of each other. When the white hairs of fourscore years hung 
 beside his brows, his rebukes had another power added to that of his strong 
 and apt and piercing thought ; and, aged as he was, he was missed at a time 
 of conflict, when he would have proved himself almost as powerful in shaming 
 men out of their religious contentions as Robert Hall in elevating them above 
 Of Charles tlicm. — His orgauist, Charlcs Wesley, whose devout soul found utterance in 
 music, was wont to soothe the troubled and abashed hearers of the eccentric 
 pastor by divine strains, wliich were only in true harmony, however, with the 
 prayers of the old divine : and now, the pastor being gone, the harmonist soon 
 followed — wafted away, it might almost be said, in music. During the wan- 
 derings of his last illness, he scarcely ceased his low singing of the airs of
 
 Chap. X.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 139 
 
 Handel. With liim departed one more tranquillizing and sanctifying influence 183-1. 
 from the religious world of the period. From four years old, when his music 
 drew tears down the clieeks of listeners, to the age of seventy-six, ho was a 
 living harp, made resonant hy every breath of thought, incident, and feeling; 
 and a sad silence settled down upon his place when death had snapped the 
 chords at last. — The learned Adam Clarke died during the fierceness of the ^^^^^'l" 
 sectarian conflict. In his youth, he had kno^vn and witnessed more of reli- 
 gious excitement than most men ; for, when only nineteen, he was one of 
 Wesley's itinerant preachers. The quietness of the study suited him better, 
 however ; and he withdrew more and more into it — delighting himself witli 
 various antiquarian research, but devoting his best resources of every kind to 
 his great Commentary on tlie Bible. Ho educated two Buddhist priests for 
 tlie function of Cluistian missionaries in Ceylon, and baptized them : but tliat 
 part of his work afterwards appeared to himself fruitless ; for they became 
 high priests in their own temples at home. He was immersed in his biblical 
 studies in his last days ; and we may hope that the clamours of theological 
 strife came softened to him in liis retreat, and gave as little disturbance to liis 
 peace as to his faith : but liis very quietness was an admonition which could 
 ill be spared at such a time. — One other there M-as whose departure at tliis 
 junctiu-e can never be alluded to without clouding the countenances of all who 
 knew his story. Rammohun Roy was the descendant of Brahmins of a high of n»M.Moia!< 
 order. He was born a British subject in India ; and he used all the opportunity 
 given him by birth and position for cultivating his mind, and enlarging his 
 knowledge. He became a Christian, and gloried — till he came to England — 
 in the liberty and liberality secured, as he believed, by that faith. He learned 
 the languages necessary for studying the Scriptures in the original ; and from 
 them he directly derived his views of the comprehension, charity, and funda- 
 mental liberty, of the Christian religion. He arrived in England in 1831, to 
 watch over the reconstruction of the India Company's Charter. The imjjres- 
 sible Hindoo was sufficiently excited by the merely political movements of 
 the time : but its religious conflicts affected him much more deeply-. He could 
 not recognise the Christianity he had learned and so dearly loved amidst tlie 
 pretension of the Tractarians, and the asceticism of the Evangelicals, and the 
 ^\Tath of the Irish Protestants, and the tumult of the Irish CatlioHcs, and the 
 conflicts between the Church and the Dissenters, and the widening split in 
 the Scotch Church, and the profane antics of the Irvingites. He went to hear 
 all \vitliin his reacli — he •was ready with sympathy for all who were not angry 
 or proud — he poiu'ed out his wonder and sorrow at what he saw — and — he 
 wasted, day by day. Other causes of trouble he is believed to have had : but 
 it was the painful excitement of his sojourn in England that was fatal to him. 
 A sickly hue — not concealed by tlie dark skin — settled upon his cheek : flie 
 hair round the turban, once so crisp, became thin and lank ; the long fingers 
 grew thinner and thinner ; the cheerful voice grew listless and lioarsc ; the 
 light of the eye went out ; the tall frame was bent ; and an expression of 
 ghastlincss gathered about the once mobil(> and smiling moutli. He sank at 
 the first touch of ilhiess, resigning liimself to the Hindoo observances desired 
 by his attendants, and was laid — not among any of the Christians whose 
 strifes had so chilled and wounded his hope and heart — but alone, among the
 
 140 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book IV. 
 
 1834. trees of a private garden belonging to the mansion where he died. It is not 
 > — li-v— — ^ in our time, as it once was, that the heatlien say, as they look thoughtfully 
 on, " See how these Christians love one another !" Rammoliun Hoy found 
 the religious world in England very far indeed from even the view of one of 
 her own churchmen — " to insist strongly on the difference between Christian 
 and non-Christian, and to sink into nothing the diflerences between Christian 
 and Christian." 
 
 The prevalent faith in Ireland lost a champion at this time in the death of 
 
 Of db. dovle. the Roman Catholic Bishop Doyle. And iia Scotland, the schism was begun 
 which was to end in the secession of the Free Church from the Establishment. 
 
 1834, p. 220. ' In 1834, the General Assembly, whose constitution had been much modified 
 by the operation of the Scotch Borough Reform Bill, passed a law which 
 
 cuuKuii'." ^"'"^'^ interfered considerably with the function of patronage, increasing the difficulty 
 to any patron of settling a minister who should be miacceptable to a congre- 
 gation. Bodies of Churchmen had already seceded, and formed themselves 
 into " Voluntary Church Associations," many Dissenters joining them ; and 
 now, many more Dissenters sided with the Church, on the passage of the Act 
 restraining the powers of patrons ; which powers had been the most important 
 original cause of dissent in Scotland. A fierce storm was evidently driving 
 up ; and we shall hereafter have to watch its explosion. 
 
 Amidst such turbulence, there must be eccentricity. The intellectually 
 and morally infirm become excited in noisy times, and cannot be kept quiet. 
 
 inv.Nu. Irving and his fantastical worship have been mentioned before, as a natural 
 
 product of such a crisis : and now came the close of that tragedy ; — a tragedy 
 which, like so many others, involved with its mournfulness much of the 
 horrible and of the ludicrous. Canning had been one of his hearers. On 
 Sir J. Mackintosh mentioning a prayer of Irving's — " We pray for those 
 orphans who have been deprived of their parents, and are now thrown on the 
 , ^ „ , . fatherhood of God," Canning " started" at the beauty of the expression, and 
 
 Life uf Mackiu- ? O J 1. ' 
 
 tosh, ii. 478. made Sir J. Mackintosh take him to the Scotch Church the next Sunday. 
 There was then no one of any kind of eminence who did not go to swell the 
 crowd at the Scotch Church. But such fashions do not last. As soon as the 
 social and sympathetic iiatiu'e of the man was roused, and his love of sympathy 
 and approbation kindled to an irrepressible flame, " fashion went her idle 
 way," as Carlyle says, " to gaze on Egyptian crocodiles, Iroquois hunters, or 
 what else there might be ; forgot this man — who unhappily could not in his 
 turn forget. . . . There was now the impossibility to live neglected ; to walk 
 on the quiet paths, where alone it is well with us. Singularity must hence- 
 forth succeed singularity." By the time his church was ready, his fame had 
 greatly sunk ; and even the exhibition of the Unknown Tongues brought few 
 strangers. There can be no doubt that some of his own flock, and a few 
 more, were sincere believers in the gift of Tongues : — that of those who sat 
 in that church in the grey of the wintry morning, listening for the shrill 
 unearthly sound from the lips of the " gifted," many believed that the end of 
 the world was at hand ; as indeed did some who were not usually supersti- 
 tious. But Irving felt himself, for the last seven years of his life, neglected; 
 and to him to be neglected was to be forlorn. He could not acquiesce; and 
 he wore himself out in the effort to keep up incessant excitement in himself
 
 Chap. X.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 141 
 
 and his sect — and to draw in towards himself notice, wonder, and sympathy 1834. 
 from without. Ou the 2nd of ^lay, 1832, he was excluded from the Scotch 
 Church, ou the ground of heresy. It was after this that he hetook himself to 
 the little chapel in Newman Street, where the -worst exhibitions of eccentricity 
 took place. Through all these, he was believed by Ur. Chalmers " to be a 
 man of deep and devoted piety." We have seen what he was as " the 
 blooming young man." " The last time I saw him," says the same recorder, ,^'i'j^'''i^ ^^^i"^"^' 
 "was three mouths ago, in London. Friendliness still beamed in his eyes, 
 but now from amidst unquiet fire : his face was flaccid, wasted, unsound ; 
 hoary as with extreme age : he was trembling over the brink of the grave." 
 His last words were, " In life and death I am the Lord's." He was in his hisDeith. 
 43rd year. The body of his followers did not immediately melt away ; and 
 the name of an Irvingite may still be heard here and there : but there was no 
 distinctive doctrine to hold them together ; scarcely a bond but that of belief 
 in Irving and the Tongues : and the sect stands on record chiefly as an eccen- 
 tricity — as a rebuke of the intemperance of the time. 
 
 In such a period, it is not wonderful that some, sickened with the apparent 
 fruitlessness of the religion of unity, peace, and charity, should turn towards 
 a profession which combined social with religious objects, and should become 
 eccentric in their turn. The system called St. Simonisni was preached in st. simonism. 
 England in 1832, offering a new law of love and human equality, in the place 
 of that Christian one which it assumed, from existing appearances, to have 
 failed. Attempts were made to laugh it down : but the strife of the Christian 
 world gave it a weight which could not be got rid of by mere scorn : and 
 many listened, with new hope and a long-forgotten cheer, to the preaching of 
 the golden rule of this new faith ; — that every one should be employed accord- 
 ing to his capacity, and rewarded according to his works. Society was to be 
 ruled by persons of genius and virtue, and under them, all were to have a 
 fair start — to be allowed the free use of their best powers, and reap their natural 
 reward. The spiritual, intellectual, and industrial concerns of each and all 
 were to be combined in a closer union than ever before ; and thus, work was 
 to be worship, and affectionate co-operation was to be piety. Amidst much 
 that interested some of the best hearts, and engaged some of the noblest 
 minds of the time, there were doctrines and provisions that would not 
 stand a close examination. While it was supposed that the rulers would 
 be persons of virtue and genius, the j)roposed organization offered a scheme of 
 a hierarchy wliich might easily, and would probably, become an intolerable 
 despotism — a locked frame-work, in which individual freedom might become 
 impossible. Still, from the nobleness of its social Rule, from its union of 
 religious appeal with social sympathy, and from the humbling aud embarrass- 
 ing condition of the religious world at the time, the disciples of St. Simon 
 were not few in England, and their quality was of no mean order. At meet- 
 ings in Loudon, the French chief of the St. Simouian Chiircli in London Anmmi negisier, 
 presided, in the costume of the sect, and told, by the lips of English friends, '*^- *^''"'°- '*'• 
 the story of its i)ropagandism ; for its missionaries were abroad, from Con- 
 stantinople to the ^Mississippi. Among the speakers, stands the name of the 
 virtuous Rowland l)ef rosier, the Chairman of the ilanchester Political Union — 
 as an inquirer and assistant, not an advocate : and it may be noted among the
 
 142 .' HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book IV. 
 
 1834. signs of the times that a system of Communism, elevated, just, and sjiiritual- 
 ' — ii-v^i^-^ ized enough to engage the inquiring sympathy of men of his class, should 
 then, amidst the haughty claims of tlie churches, obtain any footing in Eng- 
 land. Rowland Detrosier died the next year, " directing his remains to be 
 devoted to the purposes of science :" and St. Simonism did not long survive 
 him. There may be wardrobes where the dress of the sect is laid by in 
 lavender, and now and then wistfully looked at : — there may be times when 
 families and friends revert to the golden rule of labour and its recompense, 
 and speculate on when it will come into practice : but St. Simonism has long 
 taken its place among the religious and social eccentricities of its day. 
 
 The most evident practical result of the religious conflicts of the period was 
 JiA^nclL S '■^ ^^^ quickening of the purposes of the government to get out the Ecclesiastical 
 MISSION. Commission which was to inquire into the condition of the Church in Eng- 
 
 land, and redistribute its temporalities. This Commission was set to work in 
 1835. — As for the rest, it may be hoped that a multitude remembered at the 
 time, as we do now, that noise and confusion are in their very nature sujjerficial 
 and fitful. Turbulence is on the surface : calmness is witliiu the depths. 
 Christianity in England was far from being like what this narrative of 
 critical phenomena, taken alone, would represent it. For every conspicuous 
 personage Avho was announcing or denouncing, or remonstrating, or pro- 
 pounding, or anathematizing, or demanding, there were himdreds or thousands 
 of quiet Christians at home, humbly living by tlieir light, and religiously 
 following peace with all men. Because the faith was, visibly, before the eyes 
 of all men, corrupted in high places, it was not necessarily sjioiled to the 
 multitude who dwelt below. To the thousands who sat on the grass in the 
 wilderness of life, Christ might be breaking bread, while his handful of 
 preachers and witnesses vrere contending which should be greatest. If it was 
 scarcely possible at the moment for all to help visiting some of the pain and 
 shame of such contentions on the religion whicli was their ostensible theme, 
 it would be folly and ignorance for us to do so now. The controversialists 
 and brawlers of the time were not the British nation : and those to whom the 
 Christian religion was dear as glad tidings of Peace and good-will, lived in 
 that sunshine, and only wondered at the far-off blackness and tempest which 
 did not overcloud their sky.
 
 Chap. XL] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 143 
 
 Finance. 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 IF the unreasonable expectations of the rountry were a hardship upon the 1834. 
 Whig Administration generally, tliere was no particular in which such 
 expectations were more perplexing than that of Finance. The nation ought to 
 liave known that this was a point on which the Whigs must be weak — in 
 practice, if not in conception. There is, perhaps, no office of the government 
 so difficult to fill well as that of Chancellor of the Exchequer ; and certainly 
 none in regard to which it is so impossible to anticipate correctly whether any 
 man -n-ill fill it well or ill. He may have gone through all the preparatory 
 offices, and he deservedly looked up to for all the qualities which all these 
 offices can elicit; and yet, when he takes the one other step, he, for his part, 
 may find himself in a wholly new world, for which his previous training may 
 liave done little to fit him, and every body else may find him a very bad 
 (Hiancellor of the Exchequer. The only certain point about the matter is, 
 that a man who has had no training, and who is moreover a novice in execu- 
 tive politics altogether, cannot fill the office well. This was Lord Althorp's 
 constant jjlea — urged even pathetically. He was wont to say that he was 
 forced into the office against his will : he was wont to solicit infonnation, as 
 an alms, on every hand : he entreated every one to observe the tentative cha- 
 racter of his proposals, and to believe that he was quite ready to give them 
 up : and he conveyed the impression, every time he opened any financial sub- 
 ject, that he supposed the chances to be against his infonnation being correct, 
 and his plans feasible. Yet, with all this candour on his part, the people were 
 slow to learn the incapacity of Whig administrations in matters of Finance. 
 A\'hen the sayings of the Whigs in opposition Mere remembered — their com- 
 plaints of heavy taxation, their demands of reform, their criticisms on financial 
 measures — the multitude, including wliole classes who ought to have known 
 bettor, looked for a large immediate reduction of taxation — a prodigious light- 
 ening of the national burdens — as soon as a liberal minister should take the 
 national accounts in hand. At the end of their first term — when Lord Grey 
 went out of office, there was sometliing ludicrous as well as humbling in look- 
 ing back to see what had been done. The Ministers and their friends com- 
 plained of factious opposition in ]iarliament, and of faithlessness and imperti- 
 nence in their underlings ; complaints which were a mere confession of weak- 
 ness : for the Duke of Wellington's government had practically shoMii their 
 willingness to reduce the national burdens ; and there was no party, in or out 
 of parliament, which was not ready for as much financial reform as the Whig 
 government was able to conceive of: and, as for the underlings, this was a sort 
 of business which it was not in their power to obstruct, if it had been pursued 
 on any broad and clear principle, such as parliament and tlic country were 
 able to understand and to sustain. But tliere was no principle in the rase,
 
 144 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 [Book IV. 
 
 First BrocET. 
 
 1834. nor the remotest conception of any; while there was a wholly gi-atuitous vio- 
 lation of principle, as Lord Althorp himself avowed, on the very first occasion 
 of producing his hudgct. 
 
 At the outset of his explanations, the Chancellor of the Exchequer declared 
 that the government adopted the principles and views of Sir Henry Parnell, 
 in his work on financial reform : a declaration which the author, who was 
 present, Avould naturally wish unmade when he heard, year after year. Lord 
 Althorp's recommendations of his budget. 
 
 Tlio subject was opened on the 11th of February, 1831, when it was yet too 
 early for much more than a declaration of intentions. Lord Althorp referred 
 to the national expectation of great reductions of abuse and expense, and said 
 that the government proposed to reduce eventually 210 jdaces under its own 
 Hansard, ii. 404. aj)pointment. The reduction would for some time be merely of patronage, and 
 not of expense : and of the 210, seventy-one were officers of the dock-yards, 
 sixty in the Irish post-office, and forty-six receivers of taxes in England, whose 
 salaries could not be large ; so that the benefit was more in the example tlian 
 in any immediate relief. The surplus this year would be small- — about 
 300,000^. ; an amount which some of the friends of government considered 
 too small to justify any reduction of taxation : but Lord Althorp seems to have 
 considered himself bound to make some immediate changes. He seems to 
 have been unaware that a mere transposition, such as he jjroposed, can give 
 little relief, while any disarrangement is in itself an evil requiring relief to 
 compensate for it ; and that a partial reduction of several taxes tells for less than 
 a total abolition of a few, because the expenses of collection and management 
 remain, instead of being swept away. In both these points his scheme was 
 faulty ; and Sir Henry Parnell presently took occasion to deny its being formed 
 on his principles. He approved of taking ofl' taxes ; but there was nothing in 
 his book to sanction laying on new duties when the public service could be 
 provided for without. 
 
 There was to be a reduction of the duties on tobacco, on newspapers, stamps and 
 advertisements, on candles and tallow, and an abolition of duties on sea-borne 
 coal, on printed calicoes, on glass, and on auctions. As a deficiency of above 
 three millions woidd be thus caused, compensation must be found. For this 
 end, there was to be an equalization of the duties on foreign wines, on Baltic 
 and Canada timber, and on large and small coal for export : and several 
 new duties were to be laid on, of which the worst in principle — and admitted 
 by Lord Althorp himself to be so — was that of an increase to Id. per lb. on 
 all raw cotton imported. The taxing of the raw material of manufactures, he 
 declared to be an essential mischief, " which, however, the advantages would, 
 he hoped, counterbalance." He pleaded its smallness in extenuation of its 
 badness. The other new taxes were on travellers by steam-boat ; on the 
 transfer of landed property ; and on the bond fide transfer of property in the 
 funds. 
 
 The whole budget was severely treated ; but the outcry on this last item 
 was the loudest. Lord Althorp gave it up, and also the steam-boat tax. The 
 duty on the transfer of real property of course went too : and to make up for 
 the cutting-off of these proposed resources, the duties on tobacco and glass 
 must be retained. Thus the greater part of the plan was gone already ; and 
 
 Hansard, ii. 988. 
 
 Hansard, ii. 414.
 
 Chap. XI.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 14-5 
 
 a defeat on the Timber-duties question awaited the Minister. He proposed, 1834. 
 
 on the 18th of March, to render the change of duties more gradual, and so in- ^~— ^^^ ' 
 
 volved tlic fiscal question with the wider one of Free Trade, that the Oppo- 
 sition reipiired either a Committee of Inquiiy, or time for consideration. 
 Lord Althorp declined both, and was left in a minority of forty-six. The duty Hansard, iii. i-e. 
 on Cape wines was again altered, and the penny cotton duty was reduced to 
 5-8tlis of a penny ; and thus scarcely any thing remained of Lord ^\lthorp's 
 lirst IJudgct. 
 
 This compelled him to bring forward the subject again within the year ; and 
 October was the time, as parliament was sitting at that unusual season on 
 account of the Reform Bill. The most remarkable fact in connexion M'ith this 
 statement was the result of the reductions in the Excise and Customs, made 
 by the late government within two years. The estimated reductions had 
 amotmtcd to nearly four millions and a half, while the actual decrease had been 
 little more than two millions and a half, in the last year. Lord Althorp felt 
 confident that he did not make any exaggerated statement when he assured 
 tlie House that it might rely on asurjdus for the year of £493,479. "He had 
 examined the statements in every way that he could, and he was sure that he 
 was not chargeable with any exaggeration." This was on the 3d of October. Hansard, vu. 
 On the 17th, the Duke of Wellington gave warning that the jNIinisters would 
 find themselves mistaken in their hopes of half a million of surplus ; and de- 
 clared that the utmost surplus could not exceed £10,000: but Lord Grey Hansar(i,viii.847. 
 "could not see on what principle" the statement of Lord Althorp could be 
 disallowed, and was confident that government might have taken credit for a 
 much larger surplus. The event was such as might make the Uuke himself 
 as much surj)rised as the Ministers were ashamed. 
 
 From the occupation of parliament and the country with the Reform Bill, statement or 
 it was the 27th of July before Lord Althorp could bring forward his financial 
 statement, though he must long have been wishing the exposure well over. 
 His delightful candour, however, smoothed his way through difhculties which 
 would have been most galling to men less truthful, or more self-seeking. 
 " I am (pilte aware," said he, " that my statement must bo one which a Hansard, xiv. 84:) 
 Chancellor of the Exchequer has been imaccustomed to make of late years ; 
 and therefore I have to throw myself upon the indulgence of the House." 
 The surplus of last autiunn had dwindled away, month by month ; and in- 
 stead of the half milliiin anticipated, there was now a deficiency of more than 
 £()()0 ,()()(). Under such circumstances, no reduction of the public burdens 
 could be ])ro])osed ; and the ^Ministers were persuaded, now that they saw 
 things by the liglits of oflice (which really are essential to a perfect judgment 
 of such matters), that the vigorous reforms under the late government had 
 cairied reduction as far as it could safely go. The present ^Ministers had cut 
 down the estimates to the amount of £2,000,000, and declared that hence- 
 forth any relief to the people must come from economy in the departments, 
 to obtain a surplus, and not from reduction of taxes. The unexpected 
 deficiency was ascribed in part to the arrival of the cholera, and to political 
 excitement ; but there was also an oversight of Lord Althorp's, pointed out 
 by himself: he had forgotten the expiration of the beer duties in the sjniiig, 
 which Tuadc a difference of £350,000. 
 
 vol.. II. U
 
 U6 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book IV. 
 
 1834. On tlie next occasion, he presented his Budget for the first time to a 
 
 ^■^ Reformed Parliament. This was on the 19th of April, 1833. First, ho 
 
 1833. gave a good account of the rcdvictions of ofRcial expenses by Lord Grey s 
 
 3S6-339. '' ■ government. They had abolished 1307 places, with an immediate saving of 
 £192,000, and a prospective one of £38,000 more, on the expiration of the 
 retired allowances : and some saving in such allowances had taken place in 
 another direction, by bringing retired revenue servants into active duty 
 again, as opportunity offered. Lord Aberdeen's reductions in the diplomatic 
 department, under the late .administration, had been carried on, till they now 
 reached nearly £100,000. There was now a surplus, and one considerable 
 enough to do more than pay off the previous deficiency : and Lord Althorp 
 ascribed this to the reduction in the estimates, and not to any remarkable 
 improvement in the yield of the taxes. It enabled him to offer something 
 in tlie shape of a boon to the tax-payers ; and what he proposed was this : — 
 to abolish the duty on tiles, and the cotton duty laid on two years before : 
 and to reduce the duty on soap one half, and, in various proportions, the duties 
 on advertisements, and on marine insurance, and several assessed taxes. 
 
 It was clear that the jNIinisters had no ideas on the subject of taxation : 
 no principle — no orderly plan. There was a touch here and a touch there ; 
 now a notice of a little experiment ; and again a retractation of it : but no- 
 where, a broad procedure based on sound reasons. The whole management 
 was not only empirical but desultory. To men who knew anything of the 
 principles of finance, certain lessons of this year — this first year of a 
 Reformed Parliament — would have been painfully impressive ; only, that to 
 men who duly felt the responsibilities of government tlicy could not have 
 occurred. 
 
 " When I laid the additional duty on raw cotton in 1831," (there had been 
 an almost inappreciable ad valorem duty before) " I said that it was radically 
 HHnsai(i,xvii33c. wrong in principle," Lord Althorp now declared, with an unabashed air, " and 
 tlint, on the first opportunity which arrived, it ought to be reduced. That 
 opportunity has now arrived." It seems never to have occurred to him that 
 there was anything wrong in thus playing fast and loose with such a power of 
 interference as that of taxation — that there was any objection to laying on a 
 tax one year and taking it ofi" another, deranging the course of manufactures 
 and commerce at each operation. Nor, on any one of the many occasions of 
 his acknowledgment of the vicious principle of the taxes which he imposed 
 or retained, did he show any shame in alleging the most trifling pretences 
 of temporary convenience. Some astonished observers at last came to tlie 
 conclusion that there was something behind;— that Lord Althorp himself — the 
 most ingenuous of men— assigned one set of reasons, and acted upon another. 
 Aiid in truth, there was something behind; and it u-as the practice of this 
 administration, and perhaps its very worst fault, to assign bad reasons for good 
 acts, and insufficient reasons for bad acts. 
 
 Some reference has been made before to the fatal practice of the Whig 
 administrations of yielding to clamour whatever it chose to demand ; and, 
 after a time, to yield nothing but what was demanded by clamour. It was 
 pointed out that- this really revolutionary system began with tlie Tories — witli 
 the protracted refusal of the Catholic claims : but it has since become a dis-
 
 Chap. XL] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 147 
 
 tinguishing characteristic of what arc called liberal administrations. In this 183-1. 
 particular, in which Lord Grey's cabinet as a whole was inculpated. Lord ' — -^-^—^-^ 
 
 I , , • -, -, ii*'i^i/< A^sEssm Taxes 
 
 Althorj) wa^! perhaps the greatest sinner : and a clear publication oi the fact Movement. 
 was before the world during this and the succeeding session. At a public 
 meeting, at tliis date, when some proposition about Dissenters' riglits was 
 made, the mover was entreated to wait and be patient, and not embarrass the 
 Ministry. " Not embarrass the Ministry !" he cried: "Why, 1 never found 
 yet that any thing was to be had but by emban-assiug the Ministry :" and liis 
 closing words were lost amidst vociferous cheering. And of the whole admi- 
 nistration, it was understood that the Chancellor of the Exchequer was the 
 most impressible by clamour, from his good-nature, his indolence, his con- 
 sciousness of unfitness for his work, and his consequent lack of self-reliance. 
 Accordinglv, he became the butt of all discontented tax-payers : and they made 
 him so miserable that lie daily sighed to be able either to repeal all taxes 
 whatever, or to hide himself on one of his stock farms. From the moment 
 he could not but see that the turbulent among the tax-paying multitude had 
 discovered how to manage him, he lost all energy : and the movement against 
 the assessed taxes reached a point which disturbed the peace of the nietro- 
 [)c)lis. And not only of the metropolis ; for in several large towns there were 
 threatenings of fiscal rebellion, and every where a strong disgust at the in- 
 eptitude of the Finance Minister. 
 
 In answer to the universal complaints of the injury and inconvenience of 
 our nietliods of taxation, by which industry was fettered, food made dear, 
 knowledge taxed, incomes rendered uncertain, and tempers tried past endur- 
 ance, the government thought it enough to say that these; things could not be 
 remedied without making " an extensive change in the Avhole financial sys- 
 tem." But this extensive change in the financial system of the country was 
 one of the promises of the Reform Ministry — one of the labours to which a 
 I{eform('(l I'arliameiit was pledged. It was told in the House how astonished 
 an eminent foreigner, ^I. Simond, was at seeing an exciseman in a glass-house 
 ({uietly permitted to interfere with the process of manufacture, and how 
 earnestly ^1. Simond iiupiired whether the spirit of the English people could 
 really patiently endure such an intrusion. It was asked why the English 
 people should endure such a method of taxation — why there should not be a 
 c(mi])lete revision and reform of our financial system — why there had not 
 been already such a reform — why a year had been lost. The discussion of 
 this matter, the pressing of these questions in the House, and, through the 
 newsjJMpcrs, in the country, became very urgent during this session of IS.')."); 
 and Lord .Vltliorp had nothing, as yet, to reply, but that he would take ofi" a 
 little bore and lay nn a little there, and that to do more would be " to make 
 ail e.\tensive change in the whole financial system." Certain classes of tax- 
 payers therefore took the matter into their own hands. A prodigious outcry 
 was raised against the House and ^^'indow taxes. 
 
 These two taxes were always mentioned together by those who desired to The Hoi«eTa\. 
 get rid of them: but many thought — and among them the Chancellor of the 
 Exchequer — that while the window-tax was one of the worst on the list, 
 the house duty was one of the best. The window-tax is a duty ujxm 
 fresh air, sunshine, and health: the house duty had the merits of being a
 
 148 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book IV. 
 
 1831. direct tax, and of fulling on a class particularly well able to pay it — that of 
 ^^^"•^^^^^ proprietors of houses. The truth of the nuxtter was, however, that the 
 tenants of London houses — a numerous class of shopkeepers and others occu- 
 pying large premises — paid the tax during occupancy, tlie amount being 
 allowed for in their rent. By obtaining a rei>eal of the tax, they would 
 pocket its amount during the remainder of their lease ; and the event proved 
 that this was motive enough for a noisy agitation. It never was general in 
 the country: it did not spread beyond London and two or three of the large 
 towns : but it was too much for the energy of Lord Althorp. Associations 
 were formed to resist the payment of these taxes : no purchasers came 
 forward for goods seized for arrears of these duties : when the levy was made, 
 it was necessary to bring out, not only a large force of police, but of soldiery : 
 and these were got rid of by terrified lodgers or friends of the recusants 
 handing the money out of upper windows. Long and noisy processions of 
 London tenants— chiefly shopkeepers of the west-end — came to besiege the 
 Treasury chambers : and for some hours, it was difficult for horse or foot 
 passengers to make their way between Parliament Street and Charing Cross. 
 Lord Althorp was earnestly assured by tliose who understood the parties, 
 (and he declared that he believed it himself,) that the outcry was only tenta- 
 tive, and the discontent partial and selfish : yet he gave way, as will be 
 presently seen. " What taxes would you reduce, if you were in my place ?" 
 he asked of an adviser. " Certainly not the house duty — that is nearly the 
 r best tax we have," was the reply. " It is," he said : " it is a good tax : yet 
 you would yield if you had been in Whitehall yesterday, and had lieard the 
 clamour that I had to hear." " It is only the west-end shopkeepers, who 
 want to pocket a bonus." " I know it: but what can I do ?" This was early 
 in 1834; and it was only in the preceding May that the Chancellor had 
 obtained the sanction of parliament to the continuance of the house and 
 noi.tard,x\Jii. 32. window taxes by a majority of 273 to 124, On the 21st of next February, 
 he incurred the banter of Sir Robert Peel, by his change of tone on this 
 question. He was rather disposed to remit the house tax, though he believed 
 that it was not the best that he could remit — he could have put down the 
 resistance to the tax : yet the resistance was partly the reason of his giving up 
 the point. " He would leave the matter open for a certain period, so that 
 each member might present his plan to the House : and if any honourable 
 gentleman should succeed in inducing the House to prefer any other tax for 
 Hansard, xsi. ffiio. remission, he would not propose to repeal the house tax." This was a direct 
 invitation to clamour against every tax on the list. " The noble Lord," said 
 Sir Robert Peel, "was the last person to object to this gentle violence. There 
 
 never was so clear an invitation to be ravished He would, for six 
 
 months, give a clear stage and no favour to all those who were anxious to 
 make him change his course." After this, it was no matter of wonder that 
 the house tax figured at the head of the reductions proposed, when the Budget 
 Statement of was brought forward, ill the next July. " The first, and by much the largest," 
 Hansard, xxv. Said Lord Altliorp, " was that reduction which he had already proposed, 
 of the house tax, amounting to 1,200,000/." The window tax was at the 
 same time slightly reduced, at a cost of 35,000/. — the relief being given to 
 small farm-houses. 
 
 Hai 
 506,
 
 Chap. XI.j DURING THE THIRTY YEARS" PEACE. 149 
 
 The excitements of the times in relation to these duties, and the difficulties 183-i. 
 
 of Ministers, were increased hy the necessity of a Westminster election, on ^;— — ■ 
 
 account of them. Sir J. C. liobhouse, one of the representatives of West- ELtcnoM. 
 minster, and secretary for Ireland, had repeatedly condemned these taxes in 
 his addresses to his constituents, and in his speeches in parliament. When 
 Lord Althorp bej>'an to waver. Sir J. C. liobhouse absented himself from 
 divisions : and after doing so on the 30th of April, was called to account by 
 his constituents, and resigned both his office and his seat. He presented him- 
 self a<Tain for ^^'estnlinster, but was thrown out ; and the election was con- 
 ducted with a violence, and an enmity towards the government, which showed f833"ehro'n°''7"' 
 how far it was possible to sink in popularity in one year, by a timid or indo- 
 lent omission to redeem pledges of financial reform given in days of struggle 
 and hope. There is no doubt that this Westminster election determined 
 much of the character of the next year's Budget, though the Chancellor of 
 the Exchequer was not qualified, as he himself declared, to redeem the 
 promises of the government by proposing a large measure of financial refonn. 
 If the administration showed itself irresolute and imperfectly informed, it 
 was not the House of Commons that had at this time any right to offer 
 ridicule or reproach. On the 2Gth of April, 1833, a reduction of the Malt the malt tax. 
 tax was proposed by Sir William Ingilby — a reduction amounting to at least 
 as much as the relief proposed from the repeal of the house duty. The 
 (Chancellor of the Exchequer remonstrated, declaring that such a reduction 
 would compel the imposition of a property tax. The House decided in its t 
 fax our, however, by a majority of 10 : and the Ministers found themselves in 
 a difficulty under which they must have time for deliberation. The only 
 declaration made on the instant by Lord Althorp was, that he should be 
 ashamed not to acquiesce in the expressed decision of the House. On con- 
 sideration, however, it did not appear necessary so to acquiesce ; and it was 
 resolved in the Cabinet to induce the Commons to rescind their vote. Lord 
 Althorp tendered his resignation the morning after being out-voted on Sir 
 William Ingilby's motion : but Lord Grey advised the King not to receive 
 it. The country gentlemen were by some means made to understand that any 
 reduction of taxation begun by them would be taken out of their hands by 
 the manufacturing interest with more vigour than any other party could 
 connnand. Lord Althorp was persuaded that he did not stand pledged to 
 abide by the decision of the House, as his words at the moment were taken 
 to imply ; and the Commons rescinded, on the Tuesday night, the vote of the 
 preceding Friday on the malt tax. It is not to be wondered at that the 
 people were becoming dissatisfied with the way in which their financial affairs 
 wi-re decided on and conducted. Once more during the session of 1833, the 
 C'liancellor of the Exchequer was in a minority on such matters. On the 
 Kitli of July, Mr. Ruthven carried a resolution in favour of relief by the 
 abolition of all sinecures, obtaining a majority of nine over the government. iiunsarJ,xi.x.7oi. 
 On this occasion, however, it was not necessary to act on the resolution, or 
 to resign in consequence of it: and nothing ensued from this ministerial 
 defeat. 
 
 Next year, atlairs looked better. The estimates were reduced half a 
 jnillion : and Sir .lames Graham had been so active in liis office at thr
 
 150 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book IV. 
 
 1834. Admiralty, that a reduction of nearly a million and a-quarter on an expendi- 
 
 " — —v.— — ' tiire of six millions had taken place in three years. The surplus for the year, 
 
 ' when the accounts were made up in July 1834, was up^vards of two millions. 
 
 There would be a smaller surplus next year, because the interest of the 
 
 twenty millions given, to the West India planters was to be payable from the 
 
 ensuing 1st of August : but there would still be enough to admit of a con- 
 
 uansaid,x.\v.502. siJeiable rcductiou of taxation — -probably 1,()20,000/. There was no occasion 
 now for O'Connell to renew his proposition, made in April, to attack the Debt, 
 by reducing the interest arbitrarily one-sixth ; and then again, when wanted — 
 a proposition which excited so much outcry as made him glad to be silent upon 
 it henceforth, and never more to try the House of Commons with talk of 
 
 Hansard, xxi.GSj. " thc caut of uatioual faith." It was no longer necessary, the House thought 
 this year, to repeal the malt duty ; and Mr. Cobbett's motion for its abolition 
 was voted down by an immense majority. It was not thought necessary for 
 
 THii Corn Laws, the Housc to attend to the subject of duties on food, as Mr. Hume proposed. 
 Some members of the government voted with Mr. Hume, being previously 
 pledged to advocate relaxations in the corn laws. Lord Althorp, though made 
 fully aware long before that the New Poor Law was framed on the supposition 
 of the repeal of the Corn Laws, declared to the House that he should meet the 
 motion with a direct negative, " although against his theoretical opinion :" 
 
 Hansard, xxi. and also, that " it was not the intention of the government, as a government, 
 
 1 329, , 
 
 to introduce any measure for the alteration of the Corn Laws, and that govern- 
 ^ ment, as a government, would not support any such measure, if introduced." 
 What remained was for the Chancellor of the Exchequer to say what he 
 could propose for the relief of the tax-paying public. 
 
 By some changes in the duties on thc licenses of dealers in spirits and in 
 beer, he expected to raise his surplus to 1,815,000/. Out of this he proposed 
 to repeal the house tax (as before declared), several minor assessed taxes, 
 some small Customs and Excise duties which interfered with manufac- 
 tures, and one of the Stamp duties — that on' almanacs, which produced some 
 popular irritation. All these together would amount to upwards of a million 
 
 Hansard, XXV. 505. and a-half. On this, the last occasion of Lord Al thorp's responsibility to 
 parliament as Chancellor of the Exchequer, he spoke cheerfully of the con- 
 
 Tm.\\. redic- dition and prospects of the country. While between six and seven millions 
 of taxes had been taken off during his term of office — (immediately after 
 large reductions by the preceding Ministi'y,) the income was reduced only 
 3,000,000/. The reduction of the expenditure had been nearly two millions 
 and a-half ; and provision would actually be made for our new obligations to 
 the West Indies, not only without increased taxation, but at the same time 
 ■with a diminution. It was certainly true that great improvements were 
 taking place, and considerable relief granted from year to year, though thc 
 nation had yet to wait for an able administration of its financial affairs, and 
 for any thing approaching to reform, or even revision, of its financial system. 
 
 Poon Law for Bcforc the ncw English Poor Law was framed, a Poor Law for Ireland was 
 
 Hansard,xiii. 831. proposed in parliament by Mr. Sadlcr, in June, 1832. For various reasons, 
 the general feeling was strongly against it. Several members implored the 
 House and the Ministry not to subject Ireland to such a cm-se as the Poor 
 Law had been to England, till it should be proved that there was no better
 
 CiiAr. XI.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 151 
 
 way of relieving the indigent. Ministers wished to wait to see the result of 1S34. 
 
 certain new aiTangemcnts in Ireland about rating for the benefit of the sick, ^— — ' 
 
 from the success of which some hints might be derived. There was no 
 subject on which O'Connell vacillated more than this; and there is no doubt 
 that his irresolution was real. He had promised the poor Irish that when 
 lie came into parliament, he would never rest till he had obtained a Poor 
 I,aw for them : but now he opposed Mr. Sadler's resolutions ; and frequently 
 afterwards alleged that a compulsory charity was irreligious, and tended to 
 lessen tlic free alms-giving Mhich he regarded as a duty and grace enjoined 
 and commended in scripture. In saying this, he truly represented the 
 Catholic portion of his countr3'mcn, and exhibited the main difficulty of that 
 most difficult problem — how to work a Poor Law in the C^atholic and most 
 pauperized districts of Ireland. At a subsequent time, O'Connell assented 
 to a Poor Law, when in London, among reasoning men : and then again he 
 repented, on the other side the channel, and implored pardon of God and man 
 for his irreligious compliance: and then, once more, he changed — not through 
 ])rotligacy in this case, apparently, but through a conflict between two sets of 
 ideas and feelings which could not be made to agree. He had time for con- 
 sideration ; for the commission sent out to investigate and report upon the 
 applicability of a Poor Law to Ireland did not go forth on their work till 
 IH'So : but ()'C(mnell was no more ready with a decision then than three 
 years before. 
 
 The refusal of parliament during this period to entertain any proposition j^^J;'*''"^ ""■' 
 for a registry of deeds relating to real property was striking and perplexing 
 to foreigners and persons unfamiliar with the interests of the landed aristocracy 
 in our country. Bills were brought in by Mr. Campbell and Mr. William 
 IJrougham — measures which were declared to be well framed and unobjec- 
 tionable ; yet the House of Commons rejected them again and again. No 
 one openly disputed the need of such a registry. It was allowed to be a 
 hardship that when a purchaser was buying land, he had no means of clearly 
 ascertaining whether he had access to all the deeds which could affect the 
 title. It was admitted that nothing could be more just, more simply con- 
 venient, than a general registry of deeds, which siiould put a purchaser in 
 ])ossession of his own case, and secure him from all risk from evidence, con- 
 cealed through design or accident, which might affect his purchase after he 
 liiid paid for it. Vet the House would not accept any measure of the 
 kind ; and both Mr. Campbell's and Mr. W. Brougham's were got rid of on 
 such frivolous pretences as to convey an irresistible impression that the landed 
 interest liail unavowed reasons for what they did. Wlien they thus set people 
 guessing, the reason assigned was that they were afraid of their mortgages 
 becoming known — afraid that it would no longer remain a secret how their 
 estates were encumbered. Mr. Camjjbell's first announcement of his measure 
 was in December, 1830, and Mr. W. Brougham's in May, 1833; and the 
 secoiul rejection of tiu; latter measure took place ^lay 7th, 1834, by a majority 
 ot IGl to 4.") against the second reading: and a curious social symptom this Hansard, «iii. 
 a])pearcd to all thoughtful observers. 
 
 Tliere was anotlier case, far more important than this, in regard to which Thu Baliot. 
 the whole world was aware tliat men's speetli did not answer to tlieir thought.
 
 152 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book IV. 
 
 1834. There was another measure which parliament rejected, year after year, for 
 pretences so utterly untenable as to show that the real reasons for opposition 
 were unavowed. This was the Ballot. Of course, every man was at full 
 liberty to dislike and deprecate the ballot. The peculiarity of the case was 
 in the assigning of various reasons so incompatible as to make the listener 
 look round, and wonder at the gravity with which the argument was carried 
 on. The case to be met was simjjly this. The extended franchise was not 
 fully exercised ; the negligent possessors were lectured, rebuked, sounded, can- 
 vassed ; but they (in large numbers) omitted to vote. Anxious as they had 
 been for the Reform Bill, they now did not use its privileges. Their reason 
 was that the Bill did not furnish the needful safeguards of their new respon- 
 sibility. Intimidation of voters ran as high as ever ; and Lord Althorp, the 
 long-declared advocate of the protecting ballot, now thought himself obliged 
 to be mute and idle, and leave the tradesman and the farmer, and every voter 
 who had any connexion with a class above him, to the mercy of his neigh- 
 bours or his patrons. Year after year, did Mr. Grote bring forward his 
 motion in favour of the ballot for the protection of voters; and year after year 
 was he met by the same incompatible objections — that it would not work, and 
 that it would work too well — that Britons will not be bribed, and that they 
 would be bribed incessantly under the cover of the ballot — that the A'oting 
 classes arc of too high an order to be insulted with such a protection, and 
 that broad publicity was necessary to keep them up to their duty. Thus the 
 question was met, ir-om year to year, till, through a singular virtual coalition 
 between two opposite classes, the popular demand for the ballot was over- 
 powered. The aristocracy would not surrender their inHuence over the 
 dependent class of voters : and that influence was known to be so powerful, 
 through intimidation where bribery would not avail, that the vast multitude 
 of non-electors took upon themselves to watch over its operation. The 
 electors were their representatives; and this secondary representation they 
 were resolved not to relinquish. They could send up an influence from 
 below as powerful as that which brooded from above, and they would not, 
 any more than the aristocracy, have it intercepted by the ballot. Such was 
 the issue of the painful state of the question which lasted during this period, 
 when those who declared in favour of this protection of voters would not act ; 
 and those who did were insulted with pleas which were understood all roinul 
 to be mere disguises of real reasons which no man had courage to avow. 
 Something would have been gained to the heart and courage of the nation, 
 and probably nothing lost to its reputation, if the annual debate had been 
 cut short with the declaration, " We will not give up our power over the 
 voting classes. By mere threats of ruin we can now make tools of our 
 tradesmen and farmers, or keep them quiet ; and no harm is done. If they 
 were to be really free in the exercise of the franchise, there is no saying what 
 confusion would ensue ; and we only know that all control from lis would 
 be at an end." Such was the state of things after the passage of the Reform 
 Bill ; a state of things sickening to the hearts of many thousands of husbands 
 and fathers who would have dared any thing for themselves, but could not 
 see that their political duty required them to bring ruin on their households. 
 Such neglected to qualify — setting a bad example therein, and in so far abro-
 
 Chap. XL] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 153 
 
 gating the Reform Act. And in the midst of a representative system like 1834. 
 this — a system which worked imperfectly where it did not work viciously, the v-^~v^>-^ 
 Ministers took occasion to say, on all fair opportunities, that they considered 
 the Reform Act final. AVhile it was scarcely possible to exaggerate its value, 
 and tlic importance of the era which it formed, it was because it opened the 
 way to the achievement hereafter of a real representation, and not because 
 the largest classes of the British nation were actually and immediately repre- 
 sented much more truly than before. As the ballot was not decreed in its 
 own time, it only remains to be seen what stronger security for true represen- 
 tation will have to be accorded at a later day. That such an event is in 
 store is an irresistible conclusion from reading the debates on the ballot during 
 the period under review. 
 
 The question of military flogginsi was brought forward year by year by Mimtarv Fuor- 
 Mr. Ilume ; and by the session of 1S33, it was clear that the debate was 
 becoming more and more embarrassing to men who had always spoken with 
 a natural horror of the flogging of soldiers, but who had lately become aware 
 of the weight of military authority on the other side. After the summer of 
 1832, every one had perceived that the abolition of military flogging was only 
 a question of time. In May of that year, a private of the Scots Greys had 
 been flosrsed imder circumstances wliich induced an universal belief that his 
 
 DO 
 
 real offence was not a breach of discipline in the riding-school, as alleged, but 
 his having Avritten a political letter to a newspaper. A Court of Inquiry 
 was held in July, and a sort of reprimand was adjudged to the officer in 
 command. The publicity given to the facts greatly aided the cause advocated 
 by Mr. Hume ; and in the next division, there was a majority of only eleven 
 votes in a House of 291 members in favour of the existing system of military Hansard, xvu. cs. 
 punishment. The other fearful tyranny which occurs t« all minds in connex- 
 ion with this — the impressment of seamen — was now beginning to be treated ^'J™^"""''^ "" 
 in a tone of seriousness and humanity ; and in August, 1833, a division took 
 place less imworthy of the eighteenth year of Peace, than some that had pre- 
 ceded. There was a majority of only five against Mr. Buckingham's motion Hausard,x.^.c94. 
 tliat it was the duty of the House to avail itself of the season of Peace to 
 intpiire whether there was not some better method than that of Impress- 
 ment of manning ships in time of war. 
 
 VOL. II.
 
 154 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book IV. 
 
 CHAPTER Xll. 
 
 1834. A GLIMPSE is afFoided us at this period of that awful interior of the 
 
 ■ — — v— — ^ XX history of the time of which registers and reports tell nothing. They 
 
 tell nothing because they know nothing, of those movements in some corner 
 
 of the national heart and mind which are of graver moment than any tiling 
 
 ropiiLAH DiscoN. j^jjjjf jg jjjj^ open to all eyes. Things were going on in the year 183-4 which 
 disheartened the few of the upper classes who knew of them, and whose 
 calculations had been too sanguine as to the social effects of nineteen years 
 of Peace, and of four of liberal government. The good effects of peace and 
 liberal government were in fact shown — not in the absence of igno- 
 rance and guilt among the people — but in the small results of their guilt and 
 ignorance. If Sidmouth and Castlereagh had been in power, the year 1834 
 would have been as black an one to remember as that of the Cato Street 
 conspiracy. 
 
 Trades umons. The prevalence and power of Trades Unions have been referred to ; and the 
 mm-der of a Manchester manufacturer was mentioned at its date. The power 
 and tyranny of the Unions went on increasing, till, in 1834, it became a serious 
 question whether their existence was compatible with the organization of 
 society in England. Half-a-dozen uneducated men — sometimes one able but 
 lialf-informcd man — commanded an obedient host of tens of thousands : and, 
 though the capitalists usually beat in the competition for victory set up by the 
 labourers, the power of the latter over the production and commerce of the 
 country was very great. At this time, a new combination gave an enormous 
 increase of power into their hands. Hitherto, each body had struck for an 
 advance of wages for itself. Now, the various trades combined for the pur- 
 pose of supporting one another by turns. Some were to work, and maintain 
 others who were contending for their objects : and when these objects were 
 gained, the good office was to be reciprocated. If the great body of labourers, 
 or even the majority of their leaders, had been men of cultivated intelligence, 
 and tempers disciplined accordingly, this year would jirobably have stood in 
 our history as the date of a vast social revolution wherein capital and labour 
 would have been brought into deadly conflict, or into some new and wonder- 
 ful agreement. But, though these bodies of labourers understood some 
 momentous truths, and set some noble objects before them — making sacrifices 
 and arrangements for the education of their children and the elevation of their 
 own pursuits — they were not yet instructed and disciplined enough for per- 
 manent concert, and, therefore, for success. The tailors of I-ondon broke 
 away from their compact, and struck work without the sanction of bodies 
 earning smaller wages than they : and these trades refused to support the 
 tailors. Then, some office-bearers — chosen unwisely — absconded with money ; 
 and others mismanaged the funds ; and, from one cause or another, continued 
 co-operation appeared to be impossible.
 
 CiiAP. XII.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 155 
 
 In the midst of this confusion, which woukl have presently settled the fate 1834. 
 
 of tlic Unions for a time, some events occurred, the gravity of which was tlicn, ' ■ ' 
 
 and is now, hut little understood by any hnt a few who did not tell what they 
 knew, because it would not have been believed. Hitherto, the Unions had 
 been universally spoken of as those of Trades : but now it appeared that the 
 extremely poor, ignorant, and depressed agricultural labourers of the southern 
 counties were banded together in Unions, like the Trades. It was the expres- 
 sion of that resistance to supposed tyranny which is the glory or the disgrace 
 — the safeguard or the peril — of a state, according as it is enlightened by 
 knowledge or darkened by passion. In this case, it was considered dangerous, 
 and it was found to be inconvenient. These agricultural Unions must be dorsetshirc 
 
 1 1 • 1 LAIiOt'BERS. 
 
 dissolved ; and a method was used which brought after it endless mis- 
 chief and shame. Six labouring men were indicted at the spring assizes 
 at Dorchester — not for any offence wliich they and others had ever thought of 
 — but under an obsolete statute, enacted to meet the case of mutiny in the navy, 
 and which made the administering of certain oaths a transportable oflFence. 
 Ignorant as these men were, they knew that they were in fact charged with 
 one offence and punished for another ; and, rapidly as they were hurried out of 
 the country, to luidergo their sentence of seven years' transportation, they 
 had time to become aware that public sympathy was with them. Public 
 sjTiipathy was with them, as witli men punished by a stretch of law for a 
 nominal offence, which did not repair the mischief of their example in that 
 particular in which it was really wrong and dangerous. As for the Unionists 
 every where, they were exasperated ; and they declared that the time was 
 now come for them to rise and overthrow the oppressors whose rule had 
 hitherto disappointed their expectations all the more bitterly for those expec- 
 tations being in great part unreasonable. 
 
 Ey the Unionists at large, it was agreed that a grand assemblage of all the 
 Trades should take place in or near London in April, to procure the recall of 
 the Dorsetshire labourers. The day fixed on w-as the 21st of April, and tlie °^l„ll ''"^ 
 place Copenhagen Fields. This was all that the Trades generally knew of the 
 matter. Their leaders, however, agreed that the gi-eat unions could and 
 should overawe the weak government of Lord Grey (now in its latter days), 
 and obtain whatever they had set their minds upon. This was all that the 
 leaders in general meditated : but there was a little knot of ferocious con- 
 spirators in the midst of them who conducted a central movement, and 
 resolved upon a violent seizure of the government, in the persons of the royal AuiobioRraphy of 
 firmily and Ministers. The Trades were requested to carry their tools — those p. m. "'^ ' ""' 
 being specified which would best serve as weapons in the attack upon London. 
 The " glorious band," as the handful of consjiirators called tlieinselves, were 
 to carry arms. Accompanying the deputation to the Home Oflice, they were 
 there to seize the JMinister at the moment of reception, dispose of every body else 
 in the office, lot in coadjutors, seize the other Offices, take the King and Queen 
 prisoners, secure the Hank and the Tower, and so forth. Lord Melbourne 
 had graciously consented to receive the deputation on the 21st; and this 
 would make the first step easy. lie was declared to be '' done for." But he 
 received warning, and attended to it: and tlie Duke of Wellington made 
 ready for the occasion witli his uFual (piietness and proiniititude. The great
 
 156 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book IV. 
 
 1834. t^ay was a iMonday. Ou Sunday night, twenty-nine pieces of artillery were 
 
 " > • brought in from Woolwich, and [phiced in ^thc noighbom-hood of Wliitehall, 
 
 out of sight. Some light cannon were stationed on the roofs of the govern- 
 ment offices, so as to command the streets. Large bodies of soldiery came 
 into town during the niglit, and were kept ready for instant action, though 
 under cover. The public offices were strongly guarded; the police stations 
 were filled with their force, well armed ; the magistrates were early at their 
 posts ; the park-gates were closed, and the citizens took the hints of the 
 newspapers to stay at home ; aides-de-camp were in the streets, in plain 
 clothes, to reconnoitre : and five thousand householders were quickly sworn 
 in as special constables at Guildhall. As for Lord ^Melbourne, he was not 
 visible. The under-secretary, Mr. IMiillips, received the deputation, and told 
 them that a petition, however respectfully worded, could not be received by 
 the Minister when brought in such a manner, nor could Lord Melbourne 
 grant an intcr^dew to a deputation so accompanied ; — that is^ by a procession 
 of -30,000 men. So the petition was placed on its car — a car all blue and 
 crimson — and carried away, to be presented again in a quiet and orderly 
 manner, by a small deputation, five days afterwards. The whole procession 
 repaired to Kennington Common, where Mr. PhiUips's reply was repeated 
 on various parts of the gi'ound. There was no attempt to measure their 
 strength against the Duke of Wellington, with his troops and cannon — no 
 attack upon the palace, the Bank, or the Tower. No soldiers Avere seen in the 
 streets, and scarcely a policeman ; when London was again asleep, the artillery 
 and soldiery were conveyed away ; and next day, the great city was as if 
 nothing had happened. The end of the matter, as regarded the Dorsetshire 
 labourers, was, that public opinion bore so strongly upon their case, that a 
 free pardon was sent out to them, in Van Diemen's Land ; and they returned 
 in 1837, to be escorted through the streets of London, and past the govern- 
 ment offices, by a procession of the Trades as numerous as that which had 
 petitioned in their favour in 1834. 
 
 On the retirement of Lords Grey and Althorp, the anxiety of the nation 
 about who was to govern the country was less eager than might have been 
 anticipated. The cause of the comparative indifference was that a universiil 
 persuasion was abroad that any government that could be formed out of any 
 party must be merely temporary. The feeling in favour of a liberal ministry 
 was still too strong to permit any hope to the Conservatives; while the un- 
 popularity of the Whigs, and the known apprehensions of the King about 
 Church questions, rendered it improbable that such a Cabinet as the last would 
 keep any firm grasp of power. 
 Changes in the It was immediately understood that the King's desire was for a coalition 
 
 Cadinbt 
 
 Ministry. But this was clearly impracticable. The Commons would hear of 
 no other leader on government questions than Lord Althorp ; and they 
 earnestly desired that he should be the head of the government. His station 
 and character would have justified the appointment ; and his unsurpassed 
 popularity in parliament — a popularity which could not be fleeting because it 
 was grounded on fine qualities of mind and manners — would have been a 
 strong point in favour of his administration. But he had not ability for 
 such a position. He said so himself, and every body knew it. His being
 
 Chap. XII.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 157 
 
 Premier was out of the question; but he was not to be parted with from 1834. 
 
 office ; and he gave up witli a sigh the prospect of retirement to his country '-^•^^—'-^ 
 
 business and pleasures, received a pledge that the new Coercion Bill should 
 
 be framed to meet his views, and became again Chancellor of the Exchequer. 
 
 Tt was Lord Melbourne, and no one else, with whom the King consulted upon 
 
 the reconstruction of the Cabinet. Lord Melbourne becoming Premier, his 
 
 place at the Home Office was taken by Lord Duncannon — made a Peer: 
 
 and Sir J. C. Hobhouse took the Woods and Forests, with a seat in the 
 
 Cabinet. 
 
 The first act of the reconstituted government was to cany a new Coercion late intrioies. 
 Bill, in which the clauses prohibitory of political meetings were omitted. 
 The subject of the late intrigues and follies, by which Lord Grey had been 
 removed from office, was not allowed to drop. Repeated demands were made 
 for the production of the Lord Lieutenant's correspondence ; and the son of 
 Lord Grey pressed Mr. Littleton with close questions as to who besides him- 
 self had been the correspondent of the Lord Lieutenant. Mr. Littleton had 
 suffered too much to be indiscreet again : he positively refused to answer : 
 but it was not denied that there was another. In the Upper House the Lord 
 Chancellor astonished his hearers by declaring his dissent from Lord Grey in 
 regard to Mr. Littleton's act of communicating with Mr. O'Connell. " He 
 did not know how government could be carried on if certain leading men Hansard, xxt. 
 were to be considered as tabooed and interdicted from all communication with ''^'' 
 the government." When, after making this declaration, he proceeded to 
 avow that he had privately corresponded with the Lord Lieutenant about the 
 Coercion Bill, men felt that no answer was needed from Mr. Littleton to 
 Lord Howick's pressing questions. "He was also" (after mentioning Mr. 
 Littleton's correspondence) " in the frequent habit of corresponding with the 
 liord Lieutenant of Ireland. He had communicated with him on every sub- 
 ject interesting on this or the other side of the water." The newspapers of 
 the time pointed out the Lord Chancellor as the "accomplice " of Mr. Littleton 
 in writing the letter which changed the Lord Lieutenant's opinion on the 
 Coercion lUU, without the knowledge of the Premier : and they further asked 
 whether any Cabinet could be safe with a member in it who could so perplex 
 its councils. The experiment proved a short one. 
 
 The Liberal party believed that it had gained by the changes in the Cabinet; 
 and a more frank and genial spirit of liberalism seemed to spread itself 
 through the government after Lord ^lelbourne's entrance upon his new office. 
 He was as yet httle known in official life : but those who knew him best 
 spoke well of him ; he did not suffer under any lack of warning that much 
 had been borne with from Lord Grey that wotdd be fatal to the power of any 
 one else : and the new Premier took such warnings in good part. The session 
 was nearly over — a session in which a vast amount of real business had been 
 done, in the midst of all its mistakes and misadventures : the work of the 
 government lay clear before it; and here was the recess just at liand, in which 
 the measures of the next session might be prepared — for nobody dreamed of 
 a change of Ministry and of principles of government before the next .session 
 could begin. On the whole, Lord ^lelbourne's administration opened cheer- 
 fully: and the King's speed i, on the l.-Jtli of August, was animated in its tone.
 
 IniSH 'riTllES. 
 
 158 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book IV. 
 
 1834. The autumn was variously occupied by the leaders of the parties and the 
 
 destinies of the kingdom. Mr. O'Ccmnell published a series of letters to the 
 Home Secretary which could be of no service to any good cause from their 
 violence of language, and in this case only aggravated the indisposition of his 
 Irish supporters to receive with a fair construction any measures offered by tlie 
 Imperial government. The " Slaughter of Rathcormack," which took place 
 in November, and which was a prominent theme with O'Connell during the 
 remainder of his life, might not perhaps have happened if he had not ex- 
 horted the people to impatience instead of patience, pending the trial of the 
 government measures in regard to tithe. Some peasants who were opposing 
 the collection of tithe, barred themselves into the yard of a cottage, as an 
 escape from the military who were escorting the clergyman — Archdeacon 
 Ryder — in his tithe-collecting excursion. The gate of the yard was forced, 
 the soldiers fired, and thirteen men were killed, and eight wounded. Eleven 
 of the thirteen were fathers of fomilies. The widow paid her tithe, and tlie 
 Archdeacon " proceeded to collect his tithes throughout the parish without 
 
 pl'me?'^" '*^^' further molestation." He left behind him the peojile shutting their shops in 
 the village, and driving every cow and pig out of sight for miles round, and 
 bereaved fathers kneeling with clasped hands, to utter curses on the govern- 
 ment, civil and ecclesiastical, which brought such desolation in the name of 
 religion. O'Connell lost no time and spared no strength in exasperating the 
 discontent, as if no liealing measures had yet been entered upon. 
 
 The t.oiiD Chan. Meantime, the Lord Chancellor was recreating himself, after a long stretch 
 of arduous business, with a journey in Scotland, before the close of wliich 
 some incidents occurred which deeply affected a part of the history of future 
 years. He went from town to town, from one public reception to another, 
 opening his mind to any hearers, on any subject : and thus the amount of egotism 
 and indiscretion accumulated in ten days' time so as to fill tlie newspapers of 
 the day, and fix universal attention. It was on this journey that he declared, 
 at Inverness, that he should let his sovereign know by that night's post how 
 loyal were his subjects in the north of Scotland; a promise which was found 
 not to have been fulfilled. About such proceedings as these men might laugh 
 and be amused ; but a scene full of seriousness and significance, and pregnant 
 with political results, took place at Edinburgh, wliich caused the sliedding of 
 many tears in private, and the disappointment of much national hope at a 
 subsequent time. Lord Grey was travelling northwards during this autumn 
 — conveyed in a sort of triumph to his home — and beyond it — to Edinburgh, 
 where a great banquet was given in his honour on the 15th of September. 
 
 Loud DiRHAM. Among the members of his family who attended him was Lord Durham, at 
 once the trusted friend of tlic old statesman and the beloved of the people. 
 He was the principal framer of the Reform Bill, the consistent advocate of all 
 genuine reforms — a man of the rarest honesty, which took the character of 
 genius for the recognition of truth and right, and for the expression of it. 
 When Lord Grey had earnestly desired his presence in the Cabinet in the 
 summer, he was kept out by the Lord Chancellor and another ; and the 
 Liberals in the Commons had expressed their sense of tliis act by an address 
 to Lord Grey. Notwithstanding these circumstances, the Lord Chancellor 
 
 J'et.'^""'' ^'^ ' appeared at the Grey banquet at Edinburgh : and nothing, as far as was 
 
 «jrET.
 
 Chap. XII.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 159 
 
 known, liad passed between the lionoured guest of that banquet and himself, 1834 
 which need liinder his being present. lie made a speech, tlie most prominent ^— i^--^ — 
 part of which consisted of rebidcc to reformers who, in a fretful impatience, pl'wf.""^' ' 
 endangered all progress by rash attempts to go too fast. His language was so 
 figurative that it is possible that he lost sight, in the pursuit of a succession of 
 metaphors, of tlie substance of what he meant to convey, or of the impression 
 whicli it would make on his hearers : but the great body of listeners — who were 
 nearly three thousand — certainly understood him to desire a slackening pace of 
 reform, and less pressure of popular will on the government: and it was in this 
 understanding that Mr. Abercromby, ^Ir. Ellice, and Sir J. C. Hobhouse re- 
 sponded to the appeal of Lord Durham, and followed up his speech — the cele- 
 brated speech of that day — of which some words passed into a proverb, which 
 sustained the heart and hope of the people at the time, but which, in the end, 
 cost him his life, and set back the gi-eat work of Colonial Eeform. The 
 most memorable words of that speech, the words which were received at tlie 
 moment with an enthusiasm that spread over the whole kingdom, were these : 
 " My noble and learned friend, Lord Brougham, has been pleased to give ATrnwlTrauon", 
 some advice wliich 1 have no doubt he deems very sound, to some classes of "'■"^■ 
 persons — I know none such — who evince too strong a desire to get rid of 
 ancient abuses, and fretful impatience in awaiting the remedies of them. 
 Now I frankly confess I am one of those persons who see with regi'et every 
 liour which passes over the existence of recognised and unreformed abuses." 
 These words were received with cheers whicli seemed as if they would never 
 end ; and wlien single voices could be heard, one member of the government 
 after another responded heartily, and said that it was good for public men to 
 witness such scenes and hear such truths : it kept them up to their duty. 
 Among these voices, however, the Lord Chancellor's was not heard. He sat 
 mute — mute at the moment, but not elsewhere. He travelled fast, and was 
 presently at .Salisburj-, making a speech of defiance against Lord Durham, in 
 which he challenged him to a meeting in the House of Lords. In the number 
 of the Edinburgh Review which appeared immediately afterwards, there was 
 an article whose authorship was evident enough, and was never denied by either 
 the editor or the presumed writer, which charged Lord Durham ■^^•ith having 
 opposed a thorough refonn of Parliament in the Cabinet, and with the gravest 
 breach of trust — with revealing the secrets of the Cabinet. By the Salisbury 
 challenge this quan'el — interesting in itself, as between two eminent liberal 
 leaders — was made a matter of public i)rinciple : and it was inevitable that 
 Lord Durham should be regarded as the staunch reformer that he had ever 
 shown himself to be, while Lord Brougham offered himself as the representa- 
 tive of the retarding or " drag " system of government, as it was then called, p 
 Hence it was that those words of Lord Durham at the Grey banquet passed '"'' 
 immediately into a proverb, and were taken as a text for political discourses, 
 and were seen on banners, and as mottoes to newsj)apers and tracts. Hence 
 it was too that tlie vindication of Lord Durham's honour became a public 
 concern. It is probable that no one ever doubted his honour : but such a 
 charge as that of betraying Cabinet secrets must be met — difficult as it was 
 to do so witliout a betrayal of Cabinet secrets in the act of defence. Tlie 
 tiling was done, and well done, at a banquet given to Lord Durham, at Glas- 
 
 IKlsrFCT OF NFW 
 RTIKS.
 
 160 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 [Book IV. 
 
 1834 
 
 Spectator, 1 834, 
 p. 1 033. 
 
 Spectator, 1834, 
 p. 1034. 
 
 DlSSOLI'TIO^t OF 
 THE MiNI.STUY. 
 
 gow, on the 29th of October. He there read a letter from Lord Grey which 
 settled the question. Lord Grey declared his opinion that it was impossible 
 for Lord Durham to reveal, for his own justification, anything that had passed 
 in the Cabinet ; but he offered his own unqualified testimony to Lord 
 Durham's fidelity to his public professions and his official duty. This testi- 
 mony of the Prime ^Minister was enough ; and the past was settled. As for 
 the future, there was to be first a passage of words in the House of Lords. 
 To this men began to look forward eagerly. They saw no further, and little 
 dreamed what consequences of this hostility lay hid in the future. And, as a 
 few days proved, they could not see so far as even the opening of the session. 
 "He has been pleased," said Lord Durham, of his antagonist, " to challenge 
 me to meet him in the House of Lords. I know well the meaning of the 
 taunt. He is aware of his infinite superiority over me in one respect ; and so 
 am I. He is a practised orator, and a powerful debater. I am not. I speak 
 but seldom in Parliament, and always with reluctance in an assembly where 
 I meet with no sj-mpathy from an unwilling majority. He knows full well 
 the advantage which he has over me ; and he knows too that in any attack 
 which he may make on me in the House of Lords, he will be warmly and 
 cordially supported by them. With all these manifold advantages, almost 
 overwhelming, I fear him not, and I will meet him there, if it be unfortu- 
 nately necessary to repeat what he was pleased to term my ' criticisms.' " Thus 
 did the groiuid appear to be prepared for a new assertion of the People's Cause, 
 in regard to the reforms remaining to be achieved ; but before the time came, 
 the King had interposed — Lord Brougham had taken leave of office, and the 
 Conservative party was in power. The King, it was understood, did not look 
 forward with any satisfaction to the proposed controversy in the House of 
 Lords ; and his mind had long been uneasy about the treatment of the Irish 
 Church by the Whig Ministry. He seized the occasion of the death of Lord 
 Spencer — by which Lord Althorp was raised to the peerage — to dismiss his 
 Ministers, and seek for satisfaction to his mind from the opposite party. 
 
 The surprise to the Ministers themselves appears to have been great. All 
 that had happened was that Lord Althorp could no longer be Chancellor of the 
 Exchequer, from his removal to the LTpper House. But Lord Melbourne had 
 an immediate resource in Lord John Russell. He went down to Brighton on 
 the 13th, and remained there till the Friday evening, when he returned to 
 town, to tell his colleagues that the King had sent for the Duke of Wellington. 
 Whether he had any thing more to tell — whether he understood any secret 
 causes of a change so sudden — or whether he agreed with the general belief 
 as to the King's apprehensions and dislikes, there is no saying. The one fact 
 of the case avowed by Lord Melbourne was, that he was taken by surprise — 
 the cordiality of the King towards himself having never been interrupted. 
 
 The event occasioned a prodigious sensation, abroad as well as at home. 
 French poUtics were forgotten at Paris : and on the quays of New York, New 
 Orleans, and Boston, men stood in groups to read the papers or discuss the 
 news. Here was an experiment of a recurrence to principles of government 
 which had been solemnly, and \\ith much sacrifice on every hand, disavowed 
 by the British nation. The most interesting spectacle to the world now was 
 of the success or failure of the experiment. Those who looked at the weak-
 
 Chap. XII.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. l(,l 
 
 iiess and faults of the Wliig' Administrations of tlie last four years bflieved 1834. 
 it would sucreed. Those who looked deeper — into the mind ( so lately declared ) v^^^^>_^ 
 of the English people — knew that it would fail. LJut the suspense was excit- 
 ing and painful — more exciting and painful than people could believe a year 
 afterwards : for it was not long before the Whigs were in again, with Lord 
 Melbourne at their head, but not with Lord Brougham on the woolsack. 
 Loi'd Urougham now finally left office, after having held the Great Seal four UEriRRMr.NToF 
 
 . . . ..... Lo»l) IlK<)U(iH*M 
 
 years. He did not, however, acquiesce at tlie moment in the reliiH|Uishment 
 of all office. The Duke of Wellington could not fill up all the appointments 
 for some time, as Sir Ilobert Peel's presence was indispensable ; and Sir 
 Robert l^eel Avas at Rome : but the Lord Chancellor must clearly be Lord 
 Lyndliurst ; and he was appointed at once — on the 21st of November. Lord i.imnLvNnirunsT 
 
 SITCEEDS. 
 
 Broui'ham immediately vvrote to him, to offer to take, without salary, the vimuai Register, 
 
 ^ . ■' •" 1834, p. 330. 
 
 office of Chief Baron, actually held by Lord Lyiulhurst. The ap])lication did 
 
 not succecnl. Lord Lyiulhurst could say nothing till the return of Sir Robert 
 
 Peel ; and before that return. Lord Brougham had withdrawn his request. 
 
 The public voice on this act was not to be mistaken. Lord Brougham pleaded i,.)rd Bmusii.im's 
 
 that his intention was to save 12,0()()/. a year to the country, and to spare licLember, in34. " 
 
 suitors the evils of a double appeal : but tliis last object, of the abolition of the 
 
 Vice C'hanccllorship, he had not j)ursued during the four years when the power 
 
 of Chancery Reform was in his hands ; and, as for the saving of salary, the 
 
 general feeling was that it would have been no compensation for the c\il of the 
 
 " jiolilical immorality," of taking office under the Conservatives, in a luanuer 
 
 which indicated confidence in their remaining in power. Lord Brougham 
 
 therefore withdrew his application ; but not before the act had affected his 
 
 political reputation in foreign countries, where all preceding inconsistencies 
 
 had been allowed for, or unrecognised. 
 
 Ill reviewing his four years of office, the most agi-eeable point to dwell upon {'"""""."oKMr'^ 
 is his activity in his function, and in the cause of Law Reform. In the 
 summer of 1S30, he had brought forward a Bill for the establishment of 
 Courts of Local Jurisdiction in certain districts, intended to apply afterwards 
 to the whole of the kingdom. By this measure it was hoped that justice liaL" 
 would be rendered cheap and easy of attainment in a number of cases where 
 it could not be had by multitudes, unless brought near their doors. As 
 soon as he was in ofifice — in December, 1830 — Lord Brougham brought for- 
 ward this measure in the House of Peers, where it was laid on the table for 
 consideration, being, as Lord Lyiulhurst testified, an aft'air of the very highest 
 importance — one consideration being that it would create fifty new Courts, 
 with fifty new judges and their establishments. To the great grief of its 
 author, and of all who intelligently wished that justice should be accessible to 
 evi-ry citizen, this which was callinl, both lightly and seriously, the Poor 
 Man's Bill, was thrown out by the Lords on the 9th of July, 1833. The Ha»sani,xix.3--2. 
 rejection of tlie measure was believed to be owing to the fear that it would 
 draw away too much business from the higher Courts, impose too much ex- 
 pense, and yield too much patronage. In the session of 1833, Lord Ihougham 
 broULjht in a liill, which was i)assed bv the Commons on the '22nd of .Vu'nist. '"""""v Rf- 
 for abt)lislmig thuteen otiu-es in the Court oi" Chancery, and reducing others, """'■»"i, sn. s:ii. 
 effecting altogether a saving of about TO.OOO/. Lord Eldon did not think he Lif'-uf i-".i 
 
 ^ Klilon, iii. 1S7. 
 
 vol.. II. Y
 
 1G2 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book IV. 
 
 1834. should be able to persuade liimself to go down to Parliament again — he had, 
 
 ■ ■ as God knew, too little strength to spend on an attendance utterly hopeless : 
 
 and it weighed him down more than he could endure to observe what was 
 going on there, and how. This was written while waiting upon the progress 
 of this Bill, " vindicating his own conduct " the while, and objecting " to the 
 haste " with which Parliament was abolishing thirteen sinecures which had 
 flourished under his own eye. Alas ! there was other haste to object to — in 
 the Chancellor's judicial function. The clearance of business that he effected 
 in the Court of Chancery was such as to make his predecessor feel as if the 
 " iron mace," that Sydney Smith spoke of, were swinging about his ears. 
 
 wurks, iii.129. " For twenty-five long years," said Sydney Smith, just after the coming in of 
 the Grey Ministry, " did Lord Eldon sit in that Court, surrounded with 
 misery and sorrow, which he never held up a finger to alleviate. The widow 
 and the orphan cried to him, as vainly as the town crier cries when lie offers 
 a small reward for a full purse : the bankrupt of the Court became the lunatic 
 of the Court ; estates mouldered away, and mansions fell down; but tlic fees 
 came in, and all was well. But in an instant, the iron mace of Brougham 
 shivered to atoms this house of fraud and of delay." And it is true that fiom 
 that hour we have heard no more of the delays in the Court of Cliancery being 
 ruinous to property, as well as trying to the patience. It is true, also, that 
 there was at the time, and has been since, much impugning of the quality of 
 the judgments which were dispensed so industriously and so promptly. How- 
 ever this maybe — whatever might be true about Lord Brougham's qualifications 
 for such a post of judicial decision — there can be no question of the benefit to 
 the country, after so long a rule of Lord Eldon's, of the clearance which was 
 made by Lord Brougham. At another period, the quality of the judge's law 
 must be the first consideration : then, and for once, there was something more 
 important — that racked minds should be eased, and unsettled minds certified ; 
 that a vast amount of deteriorating property shoidd be restored to use and 
 good management — and that the reproach of the highest Court of the realm 
 — the reproach of being a bottomless pit of perdition — should cease. In 
 
 Annua) Register Lord Brougliam's farcwcll to the Court, on the 21st of November, he said, 
 
 l8J4i Cliron. 170. ^ ^ ^ ^ ' ' 
 
 after lamenting the compulsion v\hich obliged him to give np the seals in 
 haste, " I have the greatest satisfaction in reflecting that this Court, repre- 
 sented by its enemies as the temple of discord, delay, and expense, has been 
 twice closed within the space of five months." He went on to ascribe the 
 merit of this to the Vice Chancellor and late Master of the Rolls, and also to 
 the Bar ; but these functionaries all existed in Lord Eldon's days, and did 
 not save the Court from its reproach. Lord Brougham was himself the spring 
 of their activity, as Lord Eldon had been the check upon it : and Lord 
 Brougham was doubtless entitled to the satisfaction he naturally expressed on 
 this parting occasion. As for the rest, it is not necessary here to enter into 
 the controversy between himself and his contemjioraries as to the share he 
 had in promoting some good measures and defeating others. " I should be 
 Lettl"to"Mr"" ^^^^y f'l'iguing you," he wrote to j\Ir. Bulwer, " were I to name the other 
 her'^isii'''"'"' measures of large and imcompromising reform Avith which my name is con- 
 nected." There were indeed many popular interests in former years with 
 which his name was connected ; and it should not, and will not, be forgotten^
 
 Chap. XII.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 163 
 
 amidst speculations on his short official career, that in early and unpromising 1834. 
 
 days, the most conspicuous advocate of political reforms, and of education, ^ — "^ ' 
 
 and the most effectual denoinicer of negro slavei'y, and of tyranny in every 
 
 form, was the Henry Brougham who, in 1834, was sighing for that position , 
 
 among Commoners, in wliich he had won his fame. At public meetings in 
 
 London, and latterly in Scotland, he earnestly put forward his regrets that he 
 
 had ever quitted the scene of his triumphs, the House of Commons, and liis 
 
 longing to " undo the patent " of his nobility : and there were many who 
 
 lamented that he should ever have left the ranks of opposition. Such now 
 
 hailed his retirement from office, and the clear indications of circumstances 
 
 that the retirement was final : for they had a lingering expectation that, 
 
 tliough in another House, ho might resume his old habits, and be again the 
 
 hope of the oppressed, and a terror to tyranny in high places. 
 
 Lord Althorp, now become Lord Spencer, was thus soon at liberty to enter Retibfment of 
 upon tlie privacy he sighed for. He never returned to office. Perhaps no 
 man ever left the House of Commons and an official seat about whom there 
 was so little difference of opinion among all parties. Nobody supposed him 
 an able statesman : and nobody failed to recognise his candour, his love of 
 justice, his simplicity of heart, and his kindliness and dignity of temper and 
 manners.
 
 Ifi4 HISTORY or ENGLAND (Book IV 
 
 Uhi.ean». 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 18;5(t. rpiIE aft'airs of Franco during this ijeriod were only less interesting to the 
 ■ ^ J Englisli than llioir own ; and the proceedings of England were commented 
 
 v^l"cl "' on by Frciicli statesmen of every party tiom day to day. English (Jonservatives 
 found cause for apprehension, during the whole struggle for Reform, that we 
 were proeeediiig jitiri passu with the revolutionists of France ; and English 
 liberals watched with interest wlietlier it was so, while French aftairs were 
 undecided. The eyes of the world were fixed on Louis Thilipije, Duke of 
 
 TimniKKOK Orleans, from the moment when he accepted the office of Lieutenant General 
 of the kingdom, before Charles X. and the Dauphin sent in their abdication, 
 and set forth for exile. Tliis Louis Philippe, whose father had died on the 
 scaffold in the first Revolution, who had known the depths of poverty, and 
 been long lost in obscurity, was now at the head of tlie French nation; and 
 it was a spectacle of eager interest how he would conduct himself there. He 
 had walked, almost bare-footed, over the Alps, and had taught mathematics 
 in a school in Switzerland. He had lived humbly on the banks of the Thames : 
 he had been a modest resident in Philadelphia, where he had fallen in love 
 with a lady whose father refused his addresses as a match too inferior for his 
 daughter : and he was now the centre of order in France, and the hope of all 
 who craved the continuance of monarchy, and also of those who desired a safe 
 and fima republic. The abdication of the King was placed in his hands at 
 eleven o'clock of the night of the 2nd of August ; and the next day, he 
 opened the session of the Chambers, which met punctually according to the 
 order of the late King, given some months before. 
 
 His speech declared his disinclination to his present prominent position, 
 but his willingness, as that position was assigned him by the will of the 
 
 Annnairc Histo. uatiou, to acccpt all its cousequcuces — all the consequences of a free govern- 
 ment. He pointed out to the Chambers the subjects which it was necessary 
 for them to consider first; and especially the fourteenth article of the Charter, 
 of which tlie late Ministers had availed themselves to assume that the King 
 hud a ]iower beyond the law, when a crisis should render the observance of 
 the \a\y incompatible with regal rule. Wliile delivering this speech, he stood 
 on tlie platform covered ^vitli crimson velvet, strew^n over with golden fleurs- 
 de-lis, and with the tricoloured flag waving over his head. It was observed 
 that he left the royal chair vacant, and took the lower seat on the right of the 
 throne, while his second son took that on the left. His duchess and her 
 daughters were present in a gallery, provided for the purpose ; and every one 
 remarked the expression of mournful gravity in the countenance of the 
 anxious wife — the expression which has marked that countenance to this day. 
 
 riquc, 1830,p. 19S.
 
 Chap. XIII.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 1(;,5 
 
 The Chambers were not satisfied with considering the fourteenth article of 1830. 
 
 the Charter. There was much besides which must be changed ; for what was ' — ^~- 
 
 needed now was not the ("barter with a new executive ; but one dechiratory 
 of such new principles as would be a better safeguard than the last had been. 
 The preamble, for instance, declared the Charter to be a gift fi-om the King to 
 his people : and, if this had ever been true, it was not so now. The whole 
 must be revised. It was revised ; and never, perhaps, had a work of so much 
 importance been done so rapidly. The venerable Lafayette, Commander-in- 
 Chief of the National Guard, kept watch over the Deputies to prevent their 
 being disturbed. Vast crowds outside shouted day and night for their various 
 objects, and cs])ocially for the abolition of the hereditary peerage : but 
 Lafayette stood between them and the legislature, and pennitted no disturb- 
 ing influences to penetrate to the Chamber of deliberation. On the night of 
 the ()th, the whole was prejiared. The throne was declared, by the new pre- 
 amble, vacant by the forfeiture of the whole elder branch of the Bourbons. 
 By alterations in the Charter, all Christian denominations of religion were 
 ordained to be su])ported by the State ; and in the following December, the 
 .Fewish religion was added. The censorship of the press was abolished for 
 ever. The King was declared to have no power to suspend the laws, or to 
 dispense with their execution. No foreign troops were to be taken into the 
 service of the State without an express law. The age of eligibility to the 
 ( 'hamber was fixed at thirty. These were the alterations : and the Charter, the ch ibteb. 
 thus amended, was placed under the protection of the National Guard and 
 the citizens of the empire. By a special provision, the peerages conferred by 
 I lie late King were annulled, and the question of a hereditary peerage was 
 reserved for consideration in the session of 18.31. Two peers degraded by this 
 special provision were inmiediately reinstated — Marshal Soult and Admiral 
 Duperre. Several peers recorded their protest against this act of the Lower 
 Cliamber which concerned them : and the whole peerage question stood o\ ev 
 to tlu^ next session. 
 
 There was not, perhajis, a more anxious mind in France than that of 
 Lafayette between the .'hd and the S)th of Augtist. lie was a republican, and 
 he could now have established a republic : but whether France, as a whole, 
 desired it, and whether the French people were fit for it, he coidd not decide; 
 and the necessity of making a decision was an occasion of great anguish to 
 him. lie afterwards believed that he had decided wrong in offering the 
 throne to Louis Philippe ; and he never again knew what it was to have an 
 easy mind. His last words, spoken from his pillow, declared his conviction 
 in a phrase which cannot be recorded while the head on which he placed tlie 
 crown is dislionoured, but not laid low in death. It was on the night of the 
 (ith of August, !is we have seen, tiiat the Deputies finished their work. 
 Whetlier I>nfayette hoped or feared delay in the Upper Chamber, there was 
 none. On the Tth, the I'eers passed the measure — only ten being dissentient Amui,i.r,. Uu. 
 on any part but that relating to their owni order. The old royalist Chateau- '"•'"'•'' '^*'- 
 briand objected to the throne being declared vacant while the infant son of 
 the Duke de I'erri lived : but these were no times for a child to occujty the 
 throne ; and the exclusion of tlie whole of the elder branch of tlu' Bourbons 
 was a point on which the nation at large was determined. Lafayette's time
 
 Ckuwn. 
 
 10(5 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book IV. 
 
 18;5l). for ilcliber.ation was past. On the t»th he had to assist in offering the Consti- 
 tution and the Crown to Louis Philippe. 
 
 The time was so short as to place the foreign ambassadors in great diffi- 
 culty. They could not receive instriictions from home; and at the ceremony, 
 while every other part of the Chamber of Deputies was crowded, their gallery 
 contained only ladies and a few attaches. The golden fleurs-de-lis had dis- 
 appeared from the drapery about tlie throne, and four large tricoloured flags 
 were disposed behind it. Instead of the anointing of the Sovereign, there 
 was to be the solemnity of swearing to the Charter. Ninety Peers were pre- 
 sent ; and those absent were the seventy-six of the creation of the late King, 
 and those who had protested against the new Charter. The royalist Deputies 
 were all absent. At the opening of the business, the Duke was seated on a 
 chair in front of the throne, his head covered, and his sons standing on either 
 hand. While thus seated, he asked that the declaration of the Tth of August, 
 as agiTcd to by the Peers, should be read, and then delivered to him, and then 
 said, addressing the Peers and the Deputies, " I have read with great atten- 
 tion the declaration of the Chamber of Deputies, and the Act of Agreement 
 of the Chamber of Peers. I have weighed and meditated all their expres- 
 sions. I accept, without restriction or reserve, the clauses and engagements 
 which this declaration contains, and the title of King of the French which it 
 confers upon me ; and I am ready to swear to their observance." Here he 
 rose, and received in his left hand the form of the oath. The whole assembly 
 rose, in solemn (^notion ; and tlie new King, baring his head, and raising his 
 right hand, pronounced the oath in a firm, clear, and solemn voice: — " In the 
 presence of God, I swear to observe faithfully the constitutional Charter, with 
 the modifications expressed in the Declaration : to govern only through the 
 laws, and according to the laws : to cause good and exact justice to be rendered 
 to every one according to his right, and to act in all things with a single view 
 to the interest, the happiness, and the glory, of the French nation." The diver- 
 sity of the cries which composed the acclamation that followed was remarked 
 by all, and derided by some who said that the very legislature did not know 
 what to call the new King they had been in such a hurry to make. " Long 
 live the King!" "Long live Philippe the Seventh !" " Long live Philippe 
 the First !" were the cries, which, however, soon mingled in one great shout of 
 " Long live the King of the French !" Others thought it a good symbol of 
 the absorption of ancient territorial regalities in the cliieftainship of a people. 
 
 The man has lived long ; the King not so long. There was a picture of 
 this ceremonial — of Louis Philippe swearing to the Charter — which men 
 thought would remain through many ages as a historical record of a great 
 new era in the history of France. Men thought that their posterity in distant 
 centuries would look upon the central figure of that picture — the bared head, 
 the raised hand, the lettered parchment — and would regard them as the in- 
 signia of a new and lofty chieftainship, under which liberty and peace should 
 be established in France. But already that picture has been torn from its 
 frame in the royal palace, and carried out to be draggled in the dust, and cut 
 to shreds. The act which it represented had rottenness in it: and one charac- 
 teristic of the time which had set in was, as indeed it is of all times since 
 the dark ages, that nothing abides that is not sound and true.
 
 Chap. XIII. | DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 167 
 
 Four Marshals of France now brought the crown and sceptre, and otlier in- 1830. 
 sig^ria of royalty, with which they invested the new King. As he returned 
 witli his family to the Palais-Iloyal, escorted by the National Guard, the 
 multitude extended to the remotest points within view: and, of that sea of 
 heads, all eyes were fixed upon the Citizen King. At the same moment, the 
 displaced family were taking their way, neglected and forlorn, to the coast, 
 the very peasants on the road scarcely looking up at them as they passed. 
 
 For a while — a very little while — all looked gay and bright about the ne^^^ 
 royal familj- — except the countenance of the mournful Queen. Slie and her 
 daughters visited in the hospitals the wounded of the days of .July. The 
 King invited to his table members of the deputations which came to congra- 
 tuhite him on his courage in accepting the crown. Sometimes there were 
 olKcers of the National Guard, sometimes students from the colleges, some- 
 times nuniicipal dignitaries from the provinces, sitting down to dinner with 
 the King and his many children, like a large family party. These children 
 were idolized. Togetlier with caricatures of the exiled family were handed 
 about prints of the Orleans gi'oup, each member of wliich was made beautiful, 
 noble, or graceful. All this was very natural. A fearful oppression had been 
 removed : the revolution had been nobly conducted, and now, there was a 
 bright new hope to gladden many hearts. But under all this there were tlu; 
 elements of future trouble ; and distress was already existing to a fearful 
 extent. The pains and penalties of revolution were upon the people, and, Oi-gtitr. 
 amidst all the rejoicing, there was stagnation of trade, depression of commer- 
 cial credit, aiul hunger among the operative classes. Higher in society, there 
 >\ as a beginning of that conflict between the parties of movement ami resist- 
 ance which is a necessary consequence of political convulsion. Before the 
 end of the year, two Administrations had been in power ; the first containing 
 origiiuilly but one member of the Movement party, but being presently 
 rendered a coalition government ; and the second being perpetually in collision 
 with the (Hiamber of Deputies. The executive was kept in continual anxiety 
 by seditious movements which took place, in capital or country, at short in- 
 tervals. Tlu^ royal family, besides its share in all these intei'csts, had to 
 endure a great shock in the suicide of the Duke do Bourbon, the last of the siicitookthk 
 Condes. lie had been one of the Boiu'bon exiles, and retained the prejudices oon. 
 of his party: and whether his suicide was owing to his grief at the Bevolu- 
 lion, or to domestic miseries, it was most painful to the family of the new 
 King, to one of whose sons he bequeathed the greater part of his wealth, 
 under domestic- influences of a dishonourable character. Thus, amidst nnich 
 gloom and apprehension, closed the year of the lievolution, leaving nuich to 
 be done and endured during the next. 
 
 In February, a most alarming disturbance took place in Paris, whicli ended 18.31. 
 in tlie sacking of a church, antl tlie destruction of tlu' .Vrchbisliop's palace. 
 
 .\iiiuiiiiri' His. 
 1m;11. p. SI. 
 
 I'lie anniversary of tlie assassination of tlie Duke de Berri was kept by a re- i>i>ii'"»»'"->' "< 
 
 ligimis service, notwithstanding a warning from the Archbishop of Paris of 
 the danger of such an apjieal to ))olitical ]iassions. Some one iasleiied a jirint 
 (if the lilllc Duke (Ic l!iimilc;ni\ mi the drapery of llic funeral car in the 
 ihurcli, and ]ilaced over it a crown (if everlastings. The crown was jiulli-d tn
 
 168 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book IV. 
 
 1831 piofes by royalists who were anxious to wear its blossoms next their hearts. 
 -——^1- Murmurs spread, and the excitement was presently such as to call for the 
 clearance of the church by the National Guard. i5ut the people outside 
 turned their indiiinution against the priest and the Archbishop, who might 
 iiave prevented tliis royalist scandal; and the mob rose against the church and 
 the palace, and destroyed also the Archbishop's coiui try -house. One conse- 
 quence of this riot was that the fleur-de-lis now disappeared altogether. It 
 had been twined round the crosses in the churches and elsewhere, to symbol- 
 ize the miion of devotion and loyalty : and now it was found that if they were 
 not separated, the cross would be made to share the fate of the " flowers ol' 
 kings." The government charged itself with stripping the crosses of their 
 lilies : the Seal of State was altered, and the fleur-de-lis was proscribed thus 
 soon after those who had worn it. Before the year was out the Chambers had 
 decreed the ])erpetual banishment of the elder branch of the Bourbons, and 
 the sale of all their efl'ects within six months. The same measure was dealt 
 out to the family of Napoleon. 
 coNsriTirioN ol-' ^g foi- the Other measures of the parliament, the most important regarded 
 
 THE Chambers. i tt ■ i i* i i 
 
 the constitution of the two Chambers. Ihe Hereditary Peerage was abolished ; 
 and the power of the King to nominate Peers was restricted within certain 
 defined classes of persons, luider declared conditions of fortune and length of 
 service. It is difficult to see what remained after this, to make a Peerage de- 
 sirable — at least, without a change of name. To sit in an Upper House, and 
 be graced by the Sovereign, might be an honour; but it is one altogether apart 
 fioni all former ideas of Peerage. It was easy to cany this Bill through the 
 ( 'hainber of Deputies : but what was to be done next ! There was no doubt 
 of a majority in the Upper House against the abolition of the hereditary 
 principle. It was necessary to create Peers for the occasion ; and there was 
 a creation of thirty-six. The Liberals were as angry as the Peers at this pro- 
 ceeding, which they considered illegal and tyrannical. The plea of the 
 government was the singular nature of the emergency. The Peers showed 
 their wrath in sullen silence : the Liberals in clamour. During the Avhole 
 proceeding, scarcely a sound was heard in the Upper Chamber. The voting 
 was conducted, as nearly as possible, as it would have been in an assembly of 
 AiiciirriDNorrmi the dumb. The majority by which the Hereditary Peerage Avas abolished in 
 I'EirK'iuE."" France was thirty-three. One touching incident which followed upon this 
 Animaire Histo. act was that thirteen Peers sent in to the President of their Chamber, a week 
 or two afterwards, their abdication of their rank and privileges. In their 
 letters, they assigned as their reason the abolition of the hereditary principle. 
 The President received the letters, but refused to read them aloud. In con- 
 sidering the conduct of the British House of Lords -with regard to the 
 Reform Bill, it should be borne in mind what was passing in France. When 
 there was a threat of a Jarge creation of Peers to carry the Bill, it was by a 
 natural association of ideas that British noblemen, seeing what was doing at 
 Paris, apprehended the abolition of their hereditary dignities, and looked 
 upon their eldest sons as too likely to become Commoners, while the family 
 titles and honours would either expire, or be given to some stranger, as the 
 reward of public service, to pass at his death to some other stranger. That 
 
 riqui\ 18.11, p. 333.
 
 Chap. XIII.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 169 
 
 such were the appvehensions of some nobles at home, whik^ the thing was 1831. 
 actually clone in France, there can be no doubt ; nor ought there to be much ^— ' ^ 
 
 wonder. 
 
 The new Electoral Law, the French Reform Bill, was the most important electohil law. 
 subject of alHhat had occurred since the days of July. The number of electors 
 to the Chamber of Deputies had hitherto been about 94,000 for the whole 
 kingdom; and their qualitication had consisted in the pajanent of yearly 
 taxes to the amount of 300 francs (12/.). The Ministers proposed to double 
 the number, taking the electors from the largest taxpayers. The project was 
 not approved ; and, after much debate, the Bill that was carried provided a 
 constituency somewhat exceeding 200,000, in a population of 30,000,000, the 
 qualification being lowered to the payment of 91. per animm in taxes. That 
 a constituency so small should have satisfied a people who had achieved a 
 revolution for the sake of it, indicates that the principle of a representative 
 system of government was little understood as yet in France. There was one, 
 however, who understood it but too well : and that was the King. He now 
 sanctioned the law ; and, from this first year of his reign to its last day, he 
 was employed in virtually narrowing the constituency, and extending his own 
 power over it by means of patronage, till, in the imminent peril that the re- 
 presentation would become as mere a mockery as in the time of his prede- 
 cessor, his strong hand of power was snatched away from the institution which 
 he had grasped for his own purposes. In 1831, however, he accepted the 
 new Electoral Law, and congratulated his people on the enlargement of their 
 representative rights. 
 
 Nothing in the record of this period is more interesting to us now than to 
 read the declarations on the jirinciples of the jjolitics of the day made by two 
 men, conspicuous in that and in a later revolution — the King and M. Guizot. I'mtiEs. 
 M. Guizot was a member of the King's first Administration, and of his last. 
 We find on record the opinions of both, in this first year of the revolution, on 
 the character of the two great parties — of the Movement and of Resistance. 
 On the opening of the new Chamber in July of this year, M. Guizot declared 
 himself to be, where it was the business of the government to be, between 
 these two ])artles. After declaring that tlie Resistance — the Conservative — 
 party would be gradually won upon by the blessings of good government, he 
 said to the Chamber, " The other is the jiarty that you have to deal with. Anmuiirc iiisi. 
 That party, which I will not call the republican, but the bad revolutionary '*'' 
 party, weakened and exhausted, is, at this time, thank Ciod, incapable of re- 
 pentance and amendment. The revolution of July is all that there was good, 
 sound, and national in our first revolution ; and the whole converted into a 
 government. This is the struggle whieli you have to maintain — between the 
 revolution of July — that is, between all that is good, .sound, and national from 
 17^S9 ti) l.S3(), and tlie had revolutionary party — that is, the rump of our first 
 revolution, or, all that there was of bad, unsound, and anti-national, from 1789 
 to 1830." The King, in a speech in answer to a provincial address, in the 
 early part of the year, had given his view of this nuitter, in tenns familiar at 
 this day to all who have cars: " We endeavour to preserve the just medium Anmi.iirc i;isc. 
 (Jtisio milieu), e(|ually distant from the excesses of popular power on the one 
 liand, and the abuses of royal power on the other." This phrase, " un juste 
 
 VOL. II. z
 
 170 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book IV. 
 
 1831. milieu," thus creditable iu its on<,nii, became discredited by subsequent events. 
 
 V— -. It was I'roui this nioinent indissolubly associated with the policy of the King 
 
 and his Cabinet; and it presently came to share their disgraces. After having 
 for years heard it used as the nickname of a tampering and hypocritical 
 despotism, it is iiateresting to revert to the origin of this familiar term. 
 1832 From this time a cursory view of the politics of France presents little but a 
 
 Press pboseci-. gainful spcctacle of a disguised conflict between the King and his peoi)le. 
 In 1832, the King began his prosecutions oi the press, which were carried on 
 for the rest of his reign to such an extent as makes the historical reader 
 wonder that they were endured so long as they were. It was not only that 
 newspapers were watched over and punished for their political articles, but 
 that paragiaphs in ridicide or censure of the King himself were laid hold of, 
 and the authors subjected to cruel imprisonment. It required no small 
 courage to brave such hatred as the King incurred when, for a libel against 
 himself, he snatched a young man from liis bride and his home, and shut him 
 iq) for a term of years — the victim fainting three times while his head was 
 shaved on his entering liis prison after sentence. When such punishments 
 were inflicted by tens, by fifties, the King could not expect to be beloved, even 
 by those to whom the name of Public Order was most sacred. And he showed 
 no sign of a desire to be beloved, but only to preserve order by the means 
 which seemed to him best. The excuse of his libellers was, that he merged 
 his function of King in that of Minister — that he did not reign, but govern; 
 and that he had therefore no right to complain of the same amount of criticism 
 and comment which would be put up with by any one of his Ministers. He 
 chose, however, to be both Minister and King, and he compelled others, as 
 well as himself, to take the consequences. Within three years of the acces- 
 sion of Louis Philippe, the number of prosecutions of the press on the part of 
 
 Annual Register, the government was 411. Out of this number, there were 143 condemnations. 
 
 1833, p.213(nole;. . " ' 
 
 This was not exactly the method of government that the nation had hoped to 
 obtain by their revolution : but they bore with more than could previously 
 have been expected. They were weary of changes and tumults; and thankful 
 to be spared the expense and burden of war. In the hope that the resources 
 of the country would improve under a peace-policy, like that of Louis 
 Philippe, the great middle classes of France were willing to bear with much, 
 in order to gain time, and wait for natural change. The discontents of the 
 injured therefore showed themselves in acts without concert— in attacks on 
 i.NsiRflEcTioNs. the King's life, and libels against his character; and in occasional insurrec- 
 tions. Among the most formidable of these were two in 1832 — one in Paris, 
 on occasion of the funeral of General Lamarque, and supposed to be the w^ork 
 of the republican party ; and the other in La Vendee, for the purpose of re 
 storing the old branch of the Bourbons in the person of the Due de Bourdeaux, 
 whose mother conducted the insurrection. During the revolt in Paris, the 
 capital was declared in a state of siege ; on the legality of which there were 
 endless discussions afterwards — hurtful to the influence of the government. 
 The provincial insurrection was put do^vn, and the Duchess de Berri taken 
 prisoner. The afiair ended in a manner most mortifying to the exiled family, 
 and ludicrous in all other eyes. The devoted mother, the widow of the 
 murdered prince, the pathetic symbol in her own person of the woes of the
 
 Chap. XIII.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 171 
 
 banished line, gave birth to an infant in prison, and was thereby compelled to 1832. 
 
 avow a private marriage in Italy. Every body laughed at this proof of a " — ^ ' 
 
 divided devotion, and the heroine was allowed, on her recovery, to go where Annuairc his. 
 she would. She did not go to Holyrood, to meet the reproaches of the sufferers 
 whom she had made ridiculous. 
 
 It was after these revolts that the vigilant among French patriots observed 1833. 
 with uneasiness the stealthy progress of measures for fortifying Paris. Strong i>aius. 
 works were rising in commanding positions round the capital : and when 
 inquirv was made, the name of Napoleon was put forth by Marshal Soult. 
 Napoleon had resolved to fortify Paris ; and had fixed on these very positions. 
 But then, it was answered, that was during the Hundred Days, when he had 
 reason to apprehend attacks from all the world. France was not now in ap- 
 parent danger of invasion from any quarter : and the vigilant intimated their 
 suspicion that these fortifications were intended to be held, not for but against 
 Paris. In 1833, the ^linister required from the Chamber, when he brought 
 in his Budget, a grant of 2,000,000 francs (above 83,000/.) for carrying on the fg™"^'''^,^*"' 
 works. The Deputies protested against a series of detached forts, and de- 
 manded that, if there were any fortifications at all, they should be in the form 
 of circuit walls, which might be manned, against a foreign enemy, by the 
 National Guard or the citizens. The government held to its right to fortify 
 the towns of the kingdom in its own way, ■"■ithout being called to account 
 about the method; and the Chamber refused the amount by a large majority. 
 The works, however, proceeded : the vigilance of the citizens increased : there 
 was reason to apprehend a forcible demolition of these works — raised by in- 
 \isible funds : and at length tlie workmen were dismissed, and all was quiet 
 for a time. 
 
 In the affairs of go\ernmcnt, however, there was no quiet. There were 1831:. 
 several changes of Ministry during the year 1834 — more suppression of 
 Journals and Political Societies ; more riots in Paris and Lyons ; and at one 
 time, some danger of a war with the United States, about a money claim 
 which France at last hastened to satisfy, to avoid war. The King made more ciiahacte!!istii » 
 and more advances towards being the sole ruler of the coimtry, with mere '"' 
 servants under him in tlie name of Ministers. The substantial middle class 
 grew more and more afraid of disturbance, the longer they enjoyed the bless- 
 ings of external order. They escaped the qualms of a consciousness of their 
 having bartered freedom for quiet, by endeavouring, as much us possible, to 
 avoid the whole subject of politics. Those who felt the despotism, in their 
 consciences, intellects, and affections, became dishe<utened under this apathy 
 and contentedness of the niiddh* classes, and stirred less and less under the 
 incubus. It was no wonder that the King himself, and large classes of his 
 ])eople, and almost all foreigners, believed that his system was completely 
 succeeding — that he liad fiiund out the way to govern the French — and that 
 his reign would be memorable in history as the close of a long period of dis- 
 turbance — memorable for its strengthening success from the beginning 
 onwards, and for its peaceftd close. Yet there were men in England at that 
 date — sensible and moderate men — who said that Louis Philippe might possi- 
 bly, though not probably, die a King: but that if he did, he would be the 
 last: ami tiiat no son of his would ever be Kiny; of the French. At the close
 
 172 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 [Book IV. 
 
 1S34. 
 
 Death op 
 
 I-AFAVbTlE. 
 
 Annuaire Hisl. 
 1«34. p. 2i3. 
 
 1830. 
 
 SuPARATtON UK 
 l>Hl.i:il'M AMI 
 HuLLAMi. 
 
 of this pmiod, liowovov, lie seems liiinself to have been satisfied with his pro- 
 gress, and sincerely believini;' that lie was doing what was b(!st for the people 
 under his care. ]5y a rapid and perpetual extension of fiiuctionarism — by 
 planting officials all over (he country to do the work of central departments 
 .seated in Paris — he was casting a net over France, by means of which he 
 could draw the representation into his own hands, and govern with ever im- 
 proving unity of plan — still and always for the nation's own good. Thus it 
 seems to have been with France at the close of 1834. 
 
 In the course of this year, a silent censor was removed — a witness of old 
 times whose presence was a perpetual rebuke to a Citizen King engaged in 
 fortifying Paris. Lafayette died in May, and was laid in the ground without 
 connnotion — owing partly to the strong force of soldiery sent to the spot 
 on the pretext of military honours to the deceased, and partly to the timidity 
 and apathy which had grown on the middle classes A vast multitude, orderly 
 and silent, attended the funeral ; and there was no discourse at the grave. It 
 was left to other countries to pronounce his funeral discourse; and it was done, 
 as by one impulse, by all whom he had assisted to political freedom, from the 
 western boundaries of America to the depths of Germany. The reputation of 
 Lafayette, both in its nature and extent, is as striking a tribute to virtue as 
 can be fui-nished by any age. In him were collected all virtues but those 
 which require high intellectual power for their development : and he was at 
 least as much adored as any such idols of the time as had more intellectual 
 power and less virtue. It was a misfortune to the world that his magnanimity 
 had not as much of strength as it had of purity; for he was rej)eatedly placed 
 in those critical positions when an individual will, put forth at a moment's 
 warning, decides the destiny of a nation. On such occasions, he showed him- 
 self weak ; and, through the same irresolution, such services as he rendered 
 to his country were of a somewhat desultory nature, and seldom fully success- 
 ful. But the love in which he was held showed that, for once, a man was 
 estimated by the true rule — by ■\\liat he was, and not by Avhat he did. He 
 could not achieve great enterprises; but he could meet danger anywhere, 
 endure loathsome imprisonment at Olmiitz, protest against wrong in the 
 French Convention, fight under Washington for American independence, de- 
 cline the headship of the republic in France, in order to put the crown on the 
 head of Louis Philippe ; and when he found that he had therein committed an 
 error, retire to his farm, to end his life in humility and silence. He could 
 pass through a life of 76 years without showing a sign of selfish ambition, 
 or any other kind of cupidity. He traversed a purgatory of human 
 passions without a singe from any flame, or a single flutter of fear in his 
 heart; the angel of compassion walking with him as his guard in that furnace. 
 His goodness so clothes his whole image to men's eyes that they forget his 
 rank, and do not inquire for his talents ; and, in our age and state of society, 
 this is the strongest possible testimony to the nobleness of his character. 
 Lafayette was born of a noble family in Auvergne, in 1757, and early married 
 a lady of rank equal to his own. He died, in his 77th year, on the 20th of 
 May, 1834. 
 
 At the very first revolutionary stir in Europe, Belgium began to move. The 
 arbitrary union of Holland and Belgium had never answered ; and Belgium
 
 Chap XIII. J DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 173 
 
 was now bcmt on its being dissolved. There was no power of compulsion 1830. 
 existing which could enforce a longer union against the will of a nation, v^^^^"'*->' 
 however small, which was unanimous in a desire to live hy itself, and after its 
 own manner : so, after much marching and counter-marching of the Prince of 
 Orange and his troops, and the rising of an insurgent amiy, and messages 
 from the King, and consultations of the States General, and a grand conclud- 
 ing bombardment of Antwerp, which called in the Allies to interfere, the inde- 
 l)endence of Belgium was declared at IJrussels, in November, 1830; a monar- 
 chical government was decided on, and a vote of exclusion passed against the 
 House of Orange. The Dutch people showed no particular reluctance to the 
 separation; and there was therefore nothing to be done but to give up 
 Antwerp to the Belgians, and leave them to settle their own affairs. It is 
 somewhat amusing at this day to the English traveller to hear at Rotterdam 
 the carping statements of Dutch merchants, and to witness their eagerness to 
 disparage the trade of Antwerp ; and at Antwerp to see the efforts made to 
 exhibit its small commerce to the best advantage. It is, on a large scale, the 
 spectacle of a village shop-partnersliip dissolved in a quarrel, where each party 
 keeps a watch over his neighbour's custom, and is sure he cannot live by it, 
 while neither wishes that the two concerns should come together again. The 
 rest of the world hopes that there may be business enough for both ; and in 
 the separation of Holland and Belgium, both had the good wishes of England. 
 The Dutch heir-apparent had been educated by an English Archbishop, and 
 liad been a suitor for the hand of the Princess Charlotte — a suitor refused only 
 by herself, and not from any ill-will in other quarters ; and the Prince finally 
 chosen by the Belgians to be their new King was the husband of the Princess 
 Charlotte, and the uncle of the presimiptive heiress of the I5ritish throne. 
 Thus was England in amity with both countries when Prince Leopold became 
 King of the Belgians. There was trouble for some time afterwards, from the privce leopolii 
 
 Ai''l'tPrS THE 
 
 difficulty that was naturally found in bringing the Dutch government to ac- Bi;L<;i»NCnu«N. 
 quicsce in the new arrangements, and from some fear that France and England 
 might have to sustain the cause of Belgium against Holland, supported by the 
 other Allied Powers. It was by French arms at last that the citadel of 
 .\ntwerp was compelled to evacuate its Dutch gamson. France was by this 
 time closely imited to the interests of Belgiinn. The King of the French re- 
 fused the sovereignty for his son, the D<ike de Nemours, to whom it was 
 offered at the beginning of the struggle : but he gave his eldest daughter to 
 share the throne of Belgium with Leopold, the marriage taking place in the 
 autumn of 1832. 
 
 It was in the autimin of 1830, that the little Duchy of Brunswick tlnew 1S30. 
 off the annoyance of its turbulent young ruler. By advice of the British and ""''^■»""''- 
 other sovereigns, the brother of the absconding Duke assumed his place and 
 government, according to the invitation of liis subjects. — In .Saxony, the cry Saxonv. 
 for various reforms was so strong that the King, an indolent devotee, asso- 
 ciated liis ne])hew with him in the government, as joint Pegent, the yoimg 
 man's father, Duke Maximilian, passing over in his favour his o^\^l right of 
 succession to the throne. — Duke Frederick Augustus thus became the virtual 
 ruler of Saxony. — In Hesse Cassel, the ])eople were up, demanding and oh- utwi ( »>»ri. 
 taining a constitution. — There was a dispute about the succession at Baden. — bwuh.
 
 174 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 [Book IV, 
 
 1830. 
 
 SwiTZEIlLANn. 
 
 1831. 
 
 Italy. 
 
 1833. 
 
 Spain. 
 
 Death of the 
 King. 
 
 183-i. 
 
 Death of Don 
 Pbdso. 
 
 Marriage op the 
 
 <>t'EBN OF PORTI'- 
 CiAL. 
 
 Heu widowhood. 
 
 Kgvpt Axn 
 
 TlltKEV. 
 
 In Switzerland, the pjovernnients of the respective Cantons, threatened by the 
 stir within and beyond their country, hastened to ])ropitiate ])opuhir feeling by 
 a reform of abuses, and amelioration of institutions, and a grant of stronger 
 guarantees of liberty. — In the next year, there were insurrections in several 
 of the Italian states ; but the troops of Austria marched down, presently 
 restored order, and precluded all ameliorations in the government. — In S])ain, 
 the King died in 1S33, of apoplexy, occasioned by over-eating. His little 
 daughter, then three years old, was declared Queen, under the Regency of her 
 mother, that Christina of whom France and England have since had occa- 
 sion to know so much. These two governments were the first to acknowledge 
 the young Queen of Spain. The other governments of Europe kept aloof 
 till it could be seen what would become of Don Carlos, the Pretender, who 
 had now been driven from the soil of Spain, and had taken refuge in Portugal. 
 This Pretender was, for a course of years after this, of some consequence to 
 England; for he served as a last refuge for the sympathies and hopes of the 
 extreme Tories, when disappointed of all that they desired and hoped athomo. 
 It is necessary for such sympathies, and for that royalist imagination which has 
 in it much that is venerable and beautiful, to have some object on which to 
 exercise themselves; and the world is seldom without some fugitive Prince, 
 devoutly persuaded of his own right to some throne, who leads brave men with 
 him, and is cheered on by romantic admirers from afar. There were now no 
 more Stuarts; and Don Miguel, of Portugal, was too bad even for romance to 
 advocate: but here was Don Carlos of Spain, whose case actually bore a 
 dispute, who had lived among mountain fastnesses, and was now in exile, but 
 likely to return; and here was the Whig administration espousing without 
 hesitation, and in conjunction with revolutionary France, the cause of the 
 infant Queen, and hastening to acknowledge her sovereignty. It was no 
 wonder that a Peer here and there, and a few rich Commoners, seeing all 
 going to wreck at home in the passage of the Reform Bill, retired to their 
 estates, and there studied the map of Spain, and thence wrote to the Spanish 
 Pretender accounts of the progress of revolution in England, and offers of 
 sympathy, service, and hospitality, in case of need. — In Portugal, Don Pedro 
 conducted the war against his guilty brother in person — amidst much hard- 
 ship and many reverses, till, in 1834, having been assisted by British ships 
 and a Spanish anny, he drove the Usurper from the Peninsula, assembled the 
 Cortes, was appointed to the Regency on the 28th of August, and died on the 
 22nd of September. Two days before his death, the Queen was declared of age 
 by a decree of the Cortes, who feared to commit the powers of government to 
 any other hand. Some steps had been already taken in regard to her marriage, 
 and on the 1st of December she married the Duke de Leuchtenberg, the son 
 of Eugene Beauharnois, and already a family connexion by marriage. The 
 union seemed to promise well, as far as the character of the young man was 
 concerned; but it was presently dissolved. The marriage had taken place by 
 proxy : the Prince arrived in Portugal in February, and in March died of sore- 
 throat occasioned by cold. 
 
 These events in the West of Europe were interesting; but less so than what 
 was going on in the East. The Pasha of Egypt was acquiring the possessions 
 of Turkey almost as fast as his forces could march over them. Under the
 
 Chap. XIII.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 175 
 
 command of his adopted son and avowed heir, Ibraheem Pasha, his aiiny had 1832. 
 taken possession of the whole of Syria — perhaps not much to the discontent of •^—^••'—~-^ 
 the Syrians themselves — and by the end of 1832, the Egyptian general had 
 passed the Taurus, on his way to Constantinople. The abasement of Turkey 
 was extreme. It was this Egyptian vassal whose aid had supported her in 
 her struggle with the Three Powers ; and now, what could she do but appeal 
 to Russia for assistance against her own vassal ? The next year, she did so 
 appeal, to the great annoyance of France and England, whose object was to 
 keep Turkey out of the grasp of Russia. Mohammed Alee was remonstrated 
 with; and he showed gi-eat moderation in the midst of some anger. He had 
 made Avar only when the Porte had interfered with what he considered his 
 right to conduct a quarrel of his own with a brother vassal — the governor of 
 Acre. He made no difficulty about stopping the march of his army ; but, 
 before Ibraheem turned back, he had obtained from the Porte all that he 
 chose to demand. Early in the summer of 1833, Mohammed Alee found 
 liimself master of all the provinces from the borders of Asia Minor to the un- 
 known retreats of the infant Nile; and he had himself learned, and had shown 
 the world, how easy it was to march upon Constantinople, and knock at the 
 doors of the Sultaiui's seraglio. It was of his own free pleasure that Ibra- 
 heem turned back now. He was soon seen in every part of the Syria he had 
 won for his father, taking barbarous vengeance on his enemies, when so in- 
 clined, but, at the same time, building hospitals, repairing mosques, promot- 
 ing agriculture, taking an interest in manufiictures, and every where securing, 
 with the whole force of his authority, toleration and good treatment of the 
 Christians. 
 
 Russia had answered promptly and gladly to the appeal of the Porte for 
 protection; but she had some engrossing affairs on her hands elsewhere. It 
 was during the revolutionary autumn of 1830 — that season of political earth- Poland 
 ((uake — that the oppressions of the Russian Grand Duke Constantino at i-ooV. 
 Warsaw became so intolerable, that it may be questioned whether they would 
 not have produced the same results, whether the rest of Europe were on the 
 stir or in a dead sleep. Some students of the Military School had drunk to 
 the memory of Kosciusko, and other heroes. The Grand Duke caused two 
 successive commissions to sit on this offence ; and the decision being in each 
 case, that there was no ground for ])unisliment, the Grand Duke took the 
 affair inlo liis own hands, and, without warrant of law, ordered some of the 
 youtlis to be flogged and others imprisoned. The yoinig men rose : the Polish 
 part of the garrison joined them; and then the townspeople began to act. ni^vuLr. 
 They helped themselves with arms from the arsenal, and aided in driving out 
 the Russian soldiery, amidst fearful bloodshed, from tlie streets of ^yarsaw. 
 It was on the 2'.)th of Xovembcr that the .students rose; and on the 3rd of 
 December, Constantino was travelling towards the frontier, having recom- 
 nuMuled all establishments, persons, and property, to the ^notection of tlie 
 Polish nation. 
 
 In this short interval, six Polish nobles had taken the place of some ob- 
 noxious members in the Administrative Council, and had i)resented to the 
 (•rami Didvc tlieir propositions for various rcforins, and tlicir demand for the 
 lidfilment of the constitution. l'l\civ tiling was still dune in tlic name of the
 
 17(i 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 [Book IV. 
 
 1830. 
 
 Dkfeat ov the 
 Poles. 
 
 lilt SritfuGLi". 
 
 Emperor. AVlieii Constaiitiiie set out on liis journey liome, it was thought at 
 AVarsaw so doubtful how the Emperor would receive the tidings of what had 
 happened, tliat it would be as well to provide for defence, if hesliouhl be very 
 angry. The I'olcs did not yet know Nicholas, and the eharactcr and power of 
 his wrath. The day was coming when fierce torture of the heart and mind 
 was to show what it was. It was nothing uncommon to be forming and ex- 
 ercising a force, as tlic Poles now were. They were a military people ; and 
 their organization had been kc])t up by Russia. The worst feature in their 
 case was tlic absence of any port. They had no command of the sea, either 
 for the arrival of aid, or for facility of escape. At the close of the year iheir 
 prospect was an anxious one. If Russia should be incensed, Prussia and 
 Austria would join her to put down the nuisance of Poland. But the die was 
 cast. News must soon arrive. Meantime, the Commander-in-Chief, Klopicki, 
 was made Dictator, in case of its being necessary to prosecute the rebellion. 
 It was necessary. The first news from St. Petersburg was, that the Emperor 
 promised to inflict signal vengeance for the " horrid treason" of the Poles. 
 
 And the Emperor kept his word. At the beginning of the year, 1831, his 
 wrath was announced to the Polish nation ; and at the beginning of February, 
 his armies began to pass over the frontier. When it had become clear tliat 
 Poland must declare for independence, the Dictatorship had been exchanged 
 for a Council of State, consisting of a few of the most eminent patriots. 
 Before the end of the year, all was over; the constitution of Poland was 
 withdrawn: she was declared "an integral part of Russia:" her nobles were 
 on the way to Siberia; her high-born ladies were delivered over for wives to 
 the common soldiers on the frontier ; her tenderly reared infants were carried 
 away in waggon loads to be made Russians, and trained to worship the Czar. 
 Polish law was abolished : the Polish language was prohibited : and the 
 Emperor uttered his declaration to listening Eurojje, " Order reigns in 
 Warsaw." 
 
 The spectacle of the conflict had been one of intense interest to the world 
 outside. The struggle had been a brave, an able, and, under the circum- 
 stances, a long one : and there were times when the most anxious observers 
 had some hope that the Poles might succeed. The word "hope" may be 
 used here without reserve, because the sympathy was almost all on one side. 
 The highest Conservatives might and did sympathize with the Polish rebels; 
 for there were no higher Conservatives in the world than these Polish rebels 
 themselves. If their deep-rooted conservatism, their intensely aiistocratic 
 spirit, had been xnidcrstood by the Liberals of Europe and America from the 
 beginning, there would perhaps have been less sympathy in their eff'orts, and 
 certainly less hope of their success. It was not till long afterwards that the 
 discovery was made that the Poles had been fighting — for nationality, it is 
 true — but not for national freedom : that they had not the remotest idea of 
 giving any liberty to the middle and lower classes of their people; and that 
 they carried their proud oligarchical spirit with them into the mines of Siberia, 
 the drawing-rooms of London and Paris, and the retreats of the Mississippi 
 Valley. This is not mentioned as a matter of censure, but of plain fact, 
 which it is necessary to know, in order to the understanding of their case. 
 They strove for all that they understood; and they did for the rescue of their
 
 Chap. XIII.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 171 
 
 n;iti()ii;ility, iiU that bravery and devoteducss could do. To contend for popu. 1834. 
 lar freedom was another kind of enterprise, of which they had no coucejitiou 
 and for not understanding which, therefore, they cannot be bhimed. But it is 
 to this inability that their utter destruction is now, at last, seen or believed to 
 be owing. They themselves impute their latter disasters to dissensions among 
 themselves : and there were dissensions enough to account for any degree of 
 failure. But it also seems clear that their cause was doomed from the begin- 
 ning, from the absence of any basis of popular sympathy. The great masses 
 W'Cre indiifercut, or rather disposed in favour of Russian than of Polish rule. 
 They did not know that they should be better off under a change, and they 
 might be worse : so they let the armies pass their fields, and scarcely looked 
 u]) as they went by. No cause could prosper under such a dead weight as 
 this. This view, now generally taken, is borne out by the impressions left by 
 the exiles in the countries where they have taken refuge. Every where, all 
 homes, all hearts, all purses, have been open to them ; for hard and narrow 
 must be the hearts and homes that would not welcome and receive strangers 
 so cruelly afflicted, and so insufferably oppressed : and every where the im- 
 ])ressiou left seems to be the same — that the Poles undertook an enterprise for 
 which they were not morally prepared. They coidd sacrifice their lives and 
 fortunes ; and they could fight bravely and most skilfully for any cause to 
 which they would give the lustre of their arms. But something more than 
 these things, fine as they are, is required to entitle men to the honour of the 
 last contention for nationality : — an humble industry must be iniited to the 
 magnanimous courage of the battle-field : aristocratic pride must be laid down 
 when its insignia are throw n into the common cause : and the most intense 
 hatred of tyranny is an insufficient qualification, if it be not accompanied by 
 an answering enthusiasm for human liberties wherever there are human hearts 
 to be ennobled by the aspiration. Many of the Polish exiles have caught 
 something of this enthusiasm in the countries over which they have been 
 scattered by their revolution : but it does not appear to have been the moving 
 force of their struggle for nationality in 1831. 
 
 vol.. II. 2 A
 
 178 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book IV. 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 1330 34. rpiIE accession of William IV. was really enjoyed by his people as affording 
 
 -^—^ J- exercise to their loyal feelings, and giving them the opportunity so dear 
 
 ^i™*."^ '" ^^°' to Englishmen of talking about royal doings, and obtaining an occasional 
 glimpse of regality itself. Through the ilhiess of George III. and the morbid 
 fancies of his successor, royalty had for many years lived so retired as to be 
 known only in its burdens and its perplexities. Now it came forth again, not 
 only on Windsor Terrace, but into the very streets, and sometimes on foot — 
 with friendly face and cordial manners. Amusing stories — amusing to most 
 people, but shocking to Lord Eldon — were soon abroad of the curious liberties 
 taken by forward and zealous people, in their delight at finding themselves not 
 afraid of royalty. On one of the first occasions of their Majesties' going to 
 Annual Register, \\^q thcatrc lu State, tlicrc was an exhibition of placards in gallery and pit, 
 evidently by concert — placards bearing the words " lleform, and " Glorious 
 King." At a word from a policeman, the placards were withdrawn : but here 
 was a " revolutionary symptom" for the timid to exercise their apjirchensions 
 teif. coBoNATioN. upon. The Coronation, which took place on the 8th of September, 1831, was 
 i83i,chron. uo.' a quict affair, befitting the accession of a Sovereign who was humbly and 
 reasonably aware that his reign must be short, and undistinguished by aTiy 
 energetic personal action. There was no banquet, and the royal procession 
 returned through the streets at three o'clock. The King and his Ministers 
 gave great dinners at home, and London was illuminated in the evening. 
 The Princess There was oue pcrsoii, presoiit in all minds, who was absent from the cere- 
 mony — she who was, in all probability, to fill the principal place at the next. 
 It was given out that the state of the Princess Victoria's health made it de- 
 sirable that she should remain in retirement in the Isle of Wight : and 
 perhaps it was best, considering her tender age, and her peculiar position, that 
 she should. She was only twelve years old ; and, if certain authorities are to 
 be trusted, had only within a year become fully aware that a regal destiny was 
 before her. 
 
 It was now time that overt preparation for that destiny should be made, if 
 it was to be done, as it ought to be done, gradually. In the next year, we see 
 her beginning a series of tours, wherein were embraced all the good objects of 
 health, of her becoming acquainted with the principal institutions, monu- 
 ments, and scenes of the country of which she was to be Sovereign, and of her 
 being inured to move in public. In 1831, the journey comprehended the 
 singular old city of Chester, several cathedrals, some noblemen's seats, where 
 the royal party were entertained, and ending with the University of Oxford. 
 During these tours, the young princess, who at home was wont to walk out in 
 thick shoes and a warm cloak, in all weathers, on a common or through fields 
 and lanes, was familiarized ^\-ith the gaze of a multitude, and with processions.
 
 Chap. XIV.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 179 
 
 addresses, and observances, such as she must hereafter be accustomed to for 18.'5() — 34. 
 
 her whole Hfe. The management was good ; and \ve may suppose the recrea- ' • ' 
 
 tion was pleasant; for it has been kept up. Of all royal recreations, 
 
 there c;ui be none more unquestionably good than that of an annual tour. If 
 
 there is more dulness and constraint, and less intellectual freedom and stir, in 
 
 royal life than in any other, this is a natural safeguard and remedy, as far as 
 
 it iroes. A large accession of ideas must accrue from annual travel; and there 
 
 is no other method by which the distance between sovereign and people can 
 
 be so much and so naturally diminished as by the sovereign going forth from 
 
 tlie palace among universities and towns and villages, and scattered dwellers 
 
 on wild heaths and the sea-shore. To those that hope that the practice and 
 
 its pleasures may be renewed for many many years, it is interesting to mark 
 
 its formal beginning, in the autumn of 1832. 
 
 Amidst all the alanns talked about by the anti-reformers during the " re- 
 volutionary period" under our notice, there was less danger and even disre- 
 spect to Majesty than has been common in much quieter times. It was aj^'aij'tosthh 
 impossible for a sovereign to incur the consequences of a change of mind 
 about a course of policy to which he stood ])ledged without suffering more or 
 less: but William IV. was gently dealt with, considering the circumstances. 
 The utmost suspicion could not make out tliat his life was in danger from 
 political discontents : and on the two occasions when his life was threatened, 
 the ill-conditioned ■iNTetches who threw the stone and wrote the letter gave fgs^ci.wn.'Te'i' 
 their private wrongs and wants as their excuse. On the first occasion, a '*^^'*^'"'°"''"- 
 depraved old pensioner, live times turned out of Green\\-ich Hospital for mis- 
 conduct, tliought he " would have a shy at tlie King," and put stones in his 
 pocket for the purpose. At the first " shy," he struck the King on the fore- 
 head, as his j\Iajesty was looking out of the window at Ascot races. But that 
 he -svore his hat, the King might have been seriously hurt. As it was, he 
 was somewhat stunned, but presented himself again at the window before 
 there was time for alarm. Though this happened at so critical a season as 
 June, 1832, it was impossible for the most ingenious alarmist to connect it 
 with politics. 
 
 There is little in this period to yield comfort as to the state of popular 
 enlightenment. The proceedings of the Dorsetshire labourers were marked [,'°";|:*'' ''■™- 
 by an astonishing barbarism. In introducing agricultural labourers into their 
 union, they used death's heads, and hobgoblin mysteries, the very mention of 
 wliich carries back the imagination five hundred years. — During the years 
 1831 and 1832, we find records of Enclosure lliots, of a formidable kind. In R'""- 
 one place, the poor people fancied that fencing in boggy land was against the 
 law altogether ; and in another, that the law expired in twenty-one years 
 from the first enclosure in 18()S : and in both these instances, the levelling 
 of fences went on, night after night, till nothing was left : and the soldiers 
 were pelted, and exasjierated proprietors were wounded, and a world of mis- 
 chief done because the poor jieople knew no better than to suppose they wi're 
 struggling for their rights. — Then, we have more Combination horrors — more 
 ferocity towards ca])italists, and tyranny over oi)eratives, exercised by a very 
 few worthli'ss nieddhrs, who feasted on the earnings of the honest l)ut nu- 
 euhghtened men wlioni they made their tools. Wc find the leaders of strikes
 
 180 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book IV. 
 
 ] 830 — 34. cuttinf>' pieces out of the looms, and tliiasliinfr ami stabbing men M'ho were 
 content witli their wages, and only anxious to be left free to maintain their 
 families by their own industry. — One of the most formidable riots of the time 
 
 Airana) Rf^ster, took iilacc On the (lay ai)pointed for a General Fast, on account of the cholera 
 
 I S3J, Chron. 40. in <■ ■> r i i o.i ^ 4 • 1 • 1 ■ ■ 1 • 1 n 1 
 
 — tlie 21st ot Marcli, IfSoz. An ignorant and violent association, which called 
 itself the Political Union of the Working Classes, and which subsisted for 
 only a short time, failing in all its aims, raised a fearful mob-power by offer- 
 ing to feed the hungry with bread and meat, in Finsbury Square, instead of 
 observing the Fast. Alarmed at their prospect when it was too late, they failed 
 to appear ; and no bread and meat were forthcoming. It is said that the 
 assemblage of the hungry that day — amidst a season of deep distress — was 
 enough to appal the stoutest heart. The emaciated frames and haggard faces 
 were sad to see ; but far worse was the wrath in their eyes at the mockery, 
 as they conceived it, of an order to fast to avert the cholera, when here were 
 above 20,000 poor creatures in danger of cholera from fasting and other evils 
 of destitution. As their wrath and their hunger increased, and the women 
 among them grew excited, conflicts with the police began; and before the 
 multitude were dispersed to their wretched lurking places, more hungry than 
 they came, there had been some severe fighting. More than twenty of the 
 police were wounded, and many of the crowd. — The incitements to rick- 
 burning, machine-breaking, and seizure of corn, addressed to the agricultural 
 population in 1831 by Carlile and Cobbett, were so gross as would not have 
 been dreamed of in any country where the barbarous ignorance of the rural 
 labourers might not be confidently reckoned on. Whether it was wise in the 
 government to prosecute these two profligate writers, affording thereby an 
 Annual Register, effectual advertisement of their sedition, may be a question : but the trials 
 
 l»31,Chron. 18. ..^, i,i- iiii 
 
 95. Stand out as an exposition ot tlie popular barbarism, and the low demagoguism 
 
 AMiTOMY BrLL. of the time. — The murders for the sake of selling bodies for dissection did not 
 cease after the retribution on Burke and Hare, but rather increased — as it is 
 usual for fantastic or ferocious crimes to do, while the public mind is strongly 
 excited about them. The disappearance and proved murder of ItaUan boys 
 and other homeless and defenceless beings was hastening the day when the 
 law should be so altered as to permit Anatomy to find its own resources in a 
 legal and recognised manner : and the settlement of the matter was further 
 accelerated by an incident which fixed a good deal of attention in 1832. A 
 woman who knew herself to be likely to die, and believed that her disease was 
 an unusual one, desired her brother to deliver over her corpse to a public hospi- 
 tal, and to spend in charity what her funeral would have cost. The brother 
 obeyed the directions. As it appeared that the law rendered interment neces- 
 sary, the remains were buried from the hospital. The brother was brought 
 before the Hatton Garden magistrate under a vague notion of his having done 
 something shocking and illegal. On a full hearing on a subsequent day, it 
 appeared that he and the officers of the hospital were entirely blameless; the 
 magistrate closing the business by informing the prisoner "that he had not 
 ^^olated the laws of the country, but, on the other hand, had acted in strict 
 accordance with them." As far as the public were concerned, the sister's 
 memoi-y was not left without its share of admiring gratitude. In the next 
 2&3Wiii. IV session, Mr. Warburton introduced and carried a Bill, bv which the provision 
 
 r. R4. 3rd August, ' ' ." I 
 
 JS33.
 
 Chap. XIV.J DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 181 
 
 for the dissection of bodies of murderers was repealed, and the association of 1830 34. 
 
 (lisgi-acc with dissection thereby extinguished ; and by which facilities were - — ' 
 
 offered for anatomists to avail themselves of the wish or jjermission of djing 
 j)ersons and survivors, while abuse was excluded by a machinery of certifi- 
 cates and registration. 
 
 By tliis time, the imperfect character of medical education was beginning mej>i<al edi-ca- 
 to be seen and admitted : and in 1830, we find great improvements in course 
 of introduction by the Society of .\])othccaries' Hall, and prescribed to students Annual Register, 
 
 1 • T 1 o.TO 1.1 11-1 , 1 . 1H30, Chron. 15). 
 
 as regulations. In lo28, the student was not obhged to attend more than six 
 courses of lectures : in 1829, it must be ten courses; in 1830, fourteen. 
 There must be more hospital practice, and a more extended examination before 
 candidates could be admitted to tlie profession. The subject of medical 
 qualification was kept painfuUy before the public mind in this and two suc- 
 ceeding years by the results of the quack-practice of a young man, once a 
 portrait-painter, named St. John Long, who believed that he had discovered 
 an infallible ointment, and method of treating the sores that it caused. While 
 mourning over the ignorance of the populace, we must not lose sight of that 
 of the educated classes, as they are called. Long's patients were of the 
 moneyed classes ; and his rooms were besieged by ladies and gentlemen who 
 supposed that one particular ointment would cure all their various complaints: 
 — they adhered to tlicir young doctor in the face of all the deaths that were 
 tiiking place under his treatment ; and when he died, in 1834, the " secret " 
 of his ointment was sold for several thousand pounds. In September, 1830, 
 an inquest Avas held on the body of a young lady who was one of the victims 
 (if his quackery; and in consequence of the verdict. Long was brought to trial, 
 and convicted of manslaughter. Not the less for this, do we find him, the 
 next l-Y-bruary, on his trial again for the death of a healthy person, who had 
 ajiplied to him on account of a slight and common ailment, and who died in 
 torture under his treatment in a month's time. On this trial the fact came 
 out that liong was making 12,000/. a year. His plea in the j)iesent case was, 
 the malice of his enemies, by which he was kept away fi-om his patient in her 
 last moments, when he should have recovered her. The jur)-, evidently not 
 ■ enlightened enougli to see the igniorance shown in the principle of Long's 
 practice, and naturally impressed by tlie aiTay of gentry of " the highest 
 respectability," who came forward to vindicate his qualifications, returned, 
 after some delay, a verdict of Not Guilty : whereupon " several elegantly- Annmi Register, 
 (h-essed ladies went to the prisoner, and shook him cordially by the hand." 
 The young man, who may have believed in his own specific, had only three 
 years more in which to torture his patients, and let their flatteries and their 
 guineas flow in upon him : but the spirit of quackery ditl not die with him, 
 nor the propensity to it in his admirers — the ignorant of the " educated chisses." 
 .) list at the time when Long was laid in his grave, an innkeeper at York was 
 sentenced to six months' imprisonment for manslaughter of an invalid by ad- 
 ministering the ^Morrison's I'ills which have since sent so many to the church- 
 yard before their time. — The thing wanted evidently is such an advance of 
 physiological and medical knowledge as shall exalt that knowledge into real 
 science. While tiit- best medical practice is yet but empirical, there will be 
 unqualified as well as educated empirics; and portrait-painters and inn-
 
 182 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book IV. 
 
 1830 — 3-i. kei'iJCTS, if they can but lay hold of a specific, may number their patients by 
 ^— ^-- ^— — - thousands. 
 
 tRrjMNAL 1 iiiALs. j,^ (}jg ffiidst of thc iucendiarism of the Carliles and Cobbetts of the time, 
 the po])ular resi)ect for and trust in thc law was enhanced by some incidents, 
 otherwise purely painful, wherein justice was made to visit persons of " pro- 
 perty and standing" as if they had had neither property nor standing. Thc 
 never-ceasing and too just complaint that thc friendless and over-tempted are 
 punished with hardness and indifferenee, while the well-friended and educated, 
 whose intelligence aggravates their offences, are, somehow or other, almost 
 always let off, had been prevalent, as usual, when Captain INIoir — " William 
 Moir, gentleman," — was tried, in 1830, for the murder of a man whom he had 
 shot for trespass, very wantonly, and after repeated threats of mischief to his 
 
 Annual ReBister, victim. Captaiu Moir was hanged, as simi)lv as his victim would have been 
 
 1830. La» Chsus, ' -111 1 T 1 II 
 
 380. it the act of aggression fiad been reversed. — In the siime year, a lady was con- 
 
 victed for shop-lifting, who actually carried on her person at the moment of 
 Annual Kcgister, (^g thcft, tlic suiii of 8,000/. in Bank notes and India bonds. She underwent 
 
 1x30, Chrcjn. 158. / ' . 
 
 her punishment. In this case, if insanity had existed, it must have been 
 proved. All parties would have been too happy to admit the plea. It was no 
 doubt one of those cases of strong propensity for which neither our education, 
 law, nor justice makes provision. It is a case which makes the heart bleed : but 
 if such are not allowed for among the poor, who have so little advantage of 
 discipline, they cannot be among the rich, whose sin is in outrage of all re- 
 straining influences. The ■wretched woman of wealth suffered as if she had 
 been a hungry mother, snatching a loaf for famishing children at home. — In 
 the next year, a Scotch clergyman, " Minister of a Gothic chapel in Edin- 
 
 issrchro'if'?"' ^urgh, in high repute for his evangelical preaching," was tried on an 
 extensive indictment for book-stealing, found guilty of eleven acts of theft, 
 and transported for fourteen years. — To set against these acts of justice (in 
 common phrase) were a few which went as far to weaken popular trust in the 
 law as these to strengthen it. In a very gross case of shop-lifting in the 
 
 i83""chron''u»' autumn of 1832, by " two young ladies of high respectability," there was such 
 collusion as caused the escape of the culprits : the father was forewarned of the 
 warrant, "that he might not be taken by surprise," and so much time was 
 given that the minds of all the prosecuting parties had changed, and no one 
 would attempt to identify the thieves. — Far worse, however, were two cases, 
 which happened near together, of erroneous verdicts and hasty sentences — 
 cases so gross as must have made all the poor in the neighbourhood believe 
 that a criminal trial was a sort of lottery, as they had long concluded the 
 punishment of transportation to be. A man was convicted at Salisbury of 
 threatening a neighbour by letter ^vith a fire on his farm, the judge telling 
 
 is3rciirun."iL' '"nij ^ith severity, that his crime was certainly not mitigated by his denial 
 after such evidence — " evidence which must satisfy evei-y reasonable man," 
 — and passing on him a sentence of transportation for life. Presently, the 
 prisoner's son came forward, and owned himself the writer of the letter, of 
 which his father had no knowledge whatever. As more letters had been sent 
 to neighbours, the sentenced man was tried on another accusation which 
 enabled him to bring forward the new evidence of his innocence. He was 
 " pardoned," as the insulting phrase is ; and thc son, a mere youth, trans-
 
 Ch.vp. XTV] during the THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 183 
 
 ported for seven years. — The other case occurred only a few weeks afterwards, 1830 — 34. 
 and was a very serious one. A receiver of stolen goods was convicted of hav- ' — — -^i — ' 
 ino- stolen them by an act of burglary, and sentenced to death, from which he Anmui Register, 
 
 o . . ^ . . p 1 1831, Chron. Oo. 
 
 was saved only by great exertions. It was the manifest insufficiency of the 
 evidence which occasioned the efforts of those who saved him ; and the whole 
 affair was a disgrace. — While such a transaction as this was stimulating 
 the gi'OT\-ing (lisapi)robation of capital punishments, on the ground of the 
 tremendous risk to the innocent whicli they involve, the worthy magistrates of 
 Inverness were taking another ground, in an application to the Lord Advocate. 
 They exhibited their case : — that they had discharged their executioner ; 
 and that they would be subjected to very serious expense, if a man at present 
 in custody on a charge of murder should be sentenced to be hanged. If this 
 memorial had but been made sufficiently public at the time, \vho knows but 
 that the abolition of capital punishments might have been much hastened by 
 a general discharge of executioners ? 
 
 A Chinese advertisement was translated and sent to England at this time ^,""' "•' ™' 
 which excited a good deal of attention. The steamer King-fa, running 
 between 'Canton and a northern port, carried cows, a surgeon, a band of 
 music, and had rooms elegantly fitted up for o])ium smoking. It was now 
 clear that the eastern seas were to become steam-highways ; and it was time 
 that the English were assuming the lead, in this as in other enterprises of 
 world-wide interest. We find therefore trial made at Blackwall, in 183-1, of 
 an iron steam-boat, to be used as a towing-vessel on the Ganges : and in the 
 same year, an appliration from the India merchants to government to establish 
 a regular communication from Malta to Alexandria, in order to facilitate their 
 fonrespondencc with India. In the course of the negotiation, wc find that a 
 steamer or a man-of-war was sent from Bombay up the Red Sea " about once 
 a year," and their Lordships of the Admiralty could not think of going to 
 any expense unless something more was done on the Bombay side. The fiicc 
 of things has changed in the Mediterranean and the eastern seas since that 
 date. 
 
 A passion of admiration at the marvels and privileges of railway conveyance c.)NvKVANrE or 
 runs through the records of this period. We are told of the coaches super- 
 seded, of the number of passengers and weight of parcels carried— the speed, 
 the ease, the safety : " but one fatal accident in eighteen months :" and of a 
 railway opened between Leeds and Selby, in 1834. A singularly interesting 
 passage is found, under tl»e date 1832, in Mr. Babbage's " Economy of 
 ^lachincry and Manufactures," wherein we see shadowed forth in one sug- First edition, p. 
 gcstion two of the mightiest enterprises of our time. After indicating the 
 vast increase which might be looked for in epistolary con-espondence, if the 
 time and cost of Ictter-canying could be reduced, Mr. Babbagc invites us to 
 imagine a scries of high pillars, erected at frequent intervals as nearly as 
 possible in a straight line between two post towns — a wire being carried from 
 post to post, and so fixed as that it might be traversed by a tin cylinder which 
 sliould carry the letters. The cylinder was to be moved by being attached to 
 a smaller wire —an endless wire whicli would be wound round a drum by a 
 man placed at each station. We have an anticipation of tlie convenience of 
 iwo or three deliveries of letters ])vr day in country jdaccs; of the vast in-
 
 184 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book IV. 
 
 1830 — 34. crease of correspondence that would ensue, from the lessening of the cost of 
 
 — -^— .. conveyance, hoth in money and time ; an exposure of the clumsiness of the 
 
 then existing method of conveying the mails ; and a conception, remarkably 
 expressed, of a possibility of shooting thought through long spaces by wires 
 stretched above the road-side. " Nor is it impossible," concludes Mr. Babbage, 
 " that the stretched wire might itself be available for a species of telegraphic 
 communication yet more rapid." This was a near approach to the machinery, 
 though not glancing at the principle, of the electric telegraph: and it would 
 at that time have startled even Mr. Babbage's alert imagination to have knoMii 
 that in fifteen years there would be established, in the broad territories of the 
 United States, a means of communication so rapid as even to invert the order 
 of time, to set at defiance the terrestrial conditions of space and duration, so 
 that, by an electric telegTaph between New York and Cincinnati, news is sent 
 of an event which, happening at noon in the one place, is known at five 
 minutes before noon at the other. 
 wbeITks™ One use early made of the invention of waterproof cloth was for diving 
 
 i8"""chm^ Kw! purposes. In 1832, some expert divers at Y'armouth, the crew of a small 
 cutter there, discovered for themselves, and to their great amazement, that 
 they could carry enormous weights under water, almost without being sensible 
 of them, and perform feats of what would be strength in an atmospheric 
 medium, which they could themselves hardly believe. The diver went down 
 in three chesses, the uppermost one being of India-rubber cloth, with a tube 
 inserted at the back of the neck, through which air was pumped from above 
 to meet the consumption by his lungs. The copper helmet he wore, with its 
 three glass windows pressed with a weight of 50 lbs. upon his shoidders ; and 
 he carried down in bags 120 lbs. of lead : yet he felt perfectly unencumbered as 
 he walked under the green water, and leisurely surveyed the wreck which he had 
 come to pillage. There he discovered that the large iron crowbar which he 
 took down with him — a tough instrument enough on board the cutter — could 
 be bent by him, on board the wreck, till its ends met. By a set of signals he 
 obtained what he wanted fi'om his comrades overhead ; and when they sent 
 him down baskets, he returned them full of wine. — A diver at Portsmouth 
 was, during the same summer, exploring the wreck of the Boyne, which had 
 sunk thirty-seven years before. He was to deliver over the copper he found 
 to the dockyard, and to keep every thing else. One part of his treasure was 
 wine — twenty-one bottles of port and claret, from the captain's store. As the 
 bottles, crusted with large barnacles, came up from the deep where they had 
 lain for thirty-seven years, persons were eager to purchase ; but the owner re- 
 fused twenty shillings a bottle, which was offered on deck. The Portsmouth 
 diver wore a lighter dress than the Yarmouth crew. When his simple leather 
 hood and Mackintosh dress were seen, men of enterprise began to think of 
 walking round the coasts of tnir islands, rnidcr the waves, to measure the in- 
 equalities of the submarine hills and valleys, picking up, as they roved over 
 hill and dale in the dim green light, the treasures of the wrecks which lie 
 strewn there, fi-om the days of Julius Cffisar to our own time. 
 lIuu^""""""" Before these adventurers descended into the depths, a philosopher had been 
 on certain heights of oiu' islands whence he had brought down a discovery 
 ^^•hi(■h dazzled men's eyes, both literally and metaphorically. Lieut. Drummond
 
 Chap. XIV.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 185 
 
 has since been known :ukI honoured in the world of politics: but when lie 1830 3-i. 
 
 became Jjoril Althorp's secretary, at the in-gent desire of the wliole Cabinet, ^— v-^— - 
 he said decidedly and repeatedly that his true vocation was the pursuit of 
 physical science in connexion with his profession, and that he should return 
 to it after a certain term of service in political life. He did not live to return 
 to the pursuit of science, but died worn out in devotcdncss to Ireland. Before 
 accepting any political office, he was engaged in a trigonometrical survey in 
 Ireland : and, being anxious to obtain as large a base for his triangle as pos- 
 sible, he pondered means of establishing signals between two distant mountain 
 summits. This desire led him to the discovery and use of the brightest light 
 at that time ever known — the Drummond light, as it was then called. It 
 was obtained by directing a stream of oxygen, and another of hjdrogen, under 
 certain conditions, upon lime. The doubt was whether steadiness and perma- 
 nence could be ensured. No time was lost, however, in attempting practical 
 applications of it to purposes the most vast and the most minute. We find 
 records of trials of new lenses with this light, by which the mariner's star, the 
 beacon, would brighten to an ever-increasing magnitude ; and of microscopic 
 application of alight penetrating enough to show the wliole interior organiza- 
 tion of a flea, and of animalcules of the ditch, which presented themselves as 
 ti-ansparent monsters of the deep. 
 
 Captain lloss and liis comrades returned from the North Pole, and landed ^ons. dis. 
 at Hull in 1833. They had discovered the Gulf of Boothia, and the Continent Ammai Reinster, 
 
 1 • 1 /• T. 1 • T-. T 1 • 1 1 ■ ,11 rr., '*3^ Chron. 151. 
 
 and isthmus oi lioothia Jrclix, and many islands, rivers, and lakes. Ihey 
 l)rought home also a store of valuable observations, particularly on the magnet. 
 What remained to be discovered in connexion with the North West passage, 
 was now brought within such compass that no one doubted that a few years 
 would witness the completion of the survey. 
 
 In the last month of 1833, we find an announcement of an enterprise of a islincton cattik 
 spirited individual, named Perkins, who had expended £100,000 in erecting a ' 
 cattle-market at Islington, covering 22 acres of ground, and ready to receive 
 4,000 beasts, 40,000 sheep, and calves and pigs in proportion. The projector, 
 and many other persons, were simple enough to believe that the nuisance of 
 Smithfifld Market would now be abated; that there would soon be an end of 
 the danger to passengers in London streets from over-diiven cattle; and of the 
 jiollutiou of the cattle-market in a crowded district; and of the inevitable 
 cruelty used towards the animals in a space so crowded and inconvenient; and 
 of the badness of the moat, in consequence of the suffering condition of the 
 animals. — All this had been true for many years ; and it liad been represented 
 again and again, and with great urgency, to Parliament: but the trustees of 
 various trusts, the inhabitants of Smithfield, and the cattle salesmen, had 
 always hitherto been too strong to permit a change; and they have been so to i/,ndon, ii.,3:>. 
 this day. It should not be forgotten, however, that as early as 1833, an 
 opportunity was afforded for abating the nuisance of Smithfield Market. 
 
 A new choir, of great beauty, was erected in IVterborough Cathedral during PETKHBonoimH 
 tliis period, and the church was made once more what it was before it was 
 devastated by the Puritans. The expense was defrayed by a subscription 
 within the diocese, and the work was superintended by the dean, Dr. Monk, 
 who had become Bishop of Gloucester before it was finished. 
 
 AOI,. IT. 2 B
 
 ISO HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book IV. 
 
 1830 — 31. The opening of the New London liiidge by their INIajestics in Aiignst of 
 - — -- — 1831, was kept as a holiday thiougliout London; and the occasion was truly 
 
 vl^Zr.T..^""" a great one. This was a farewell to the old bridge, with its memories of a 
 on.on, 1., .,. tijQjjgjjjjj years; and here was a far surpassing work, wliicli might carry on 
 the mind to a thousand years more. Here it was, in its strength and grace, 
 bestriding the flood with its five wide elliptical arches, without obstructing the 
 stream ; and here it was likely to stand, perhaps till bridges should be wanted 
 no more. The King was in an enthusiasm ; so exhilarating did he find the 
 grandeur of the scene and the beauty of the day. He told the gentlemen of 
 the Bridge Committee, as he stepped out of his barge, that he was most happy 
 to see them on Loudon Bridge ; that it was certainly a most beautiful edifice, 
 and that the spectacle was in every way the grandest and the most delightful 
 that he ever had the pleasure to witness. — It was towards the end of 1832 
 that the last stone of the last arch of old London Bridge droj)ped into the 
 river ; and as the circles on the water were effaced, a historical scroll of many 
 centuries seemed to be closed for ever. 
 
 Education. London University was by this time advancing to a condition to receive its 
 
 charter: and King's College, London, was in a prosperous state, as to credit, 
 funds, students, and the number of schools in London — now seven — in con- 
 nexion with it. — An university being clearly wanted in the north of England, 
 that of Durham was projected, and its plan made known in 1831. 
 
 BnmsH As«ociA- In 1830 took place the first meeting of the British Association for the Ad- 
 vancement of Science; an institution of the time which, thougli not involving 
 all the benefit which the sanguine expected from it at first, has yet been the 
 occasion of too many advantages not to be noted in its origin. In a few years 
 it became evident that while tlie less qualified members of the scientific world 
 were delighted to run to these meetings, with their notions, and their self- 
 importance, and their admiration of the eminent, many of the greatest found 
 it inconvenient, and, from the throng of the idle and unscientific, even 
 irksome to attend ; and that a great deal of mere talk, and boast, and quackery, 
 must be put up with ; and especially that once a year was much too often for 
 the convenience of real hard students to leave home for such mectinsrs. But 
 yet it was a noble thing for the wise in various departments of human know- 
 ledge to congregate and compai'e their discoveries iind their views, and unite 
 their efforts, and support one another's undertakings, and indicate to govern- 
 ments the scientific aims whicli it rests with the rulers of the globe to see 
 fulfilled. At a later period it will fall in our way to note tlie influences and 
 enterprises of this Association. Here it is necessary only to record that its 
 origin is referrible to this period. 
 
 sriTC5TirsoF A Statement of suicides in Westminster was drawn up from official docu- 
 
 Annuariieeisier, mcuts in 1833, from which somc iustructive results wcrc obtained. It appeared 
 
 IS33. Chron. 1J7 , i r i i i i , , i 
 
 that the number oi men who destroyed themselves were nearly tlireo to one 
 in comparison with women ; a ftxct which was accounted for by another of 
 great importance — that a very large proportion of suicides was occasioned by 
 that state of tlie brain induced by intoxication. Some surprise was felt at the 
 proof that the smallest number of suicides occurred in the month of November, 
 which had hitherto borne the opprobrium of this kind of slaughter. — A sen- 
 D^,•p.LLI^c. sible chcck was, from this time, given to the practice of duelling by the disgust
 
 Chap. XIV.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 187 
 
 I'XL-ited at a fatal diwl between 8ii John JefFcott, Chief Justice of Siena Leone, 1830—34. 
 
 ami Dr. Hennis of Exeter. Sir J. Jcficott had received his appointment and v.^~v-^ 
 
 kni^litliood. and was; on the eve of embarking for Africa, mIicm some tattling 
 
 took place at night, over brandy and water and cigars, which occasioned a 
 
 challenge to Dr. Hennis. He denied the words imputed to him, but \\ as 
 
 called by his antagonist "a calumniating scoundrel," forced out to light, in 
 
 spite of strenuous efforts on the part of friends, and shot dead, at the moment 
 
 before the departure of his antagonist. Sir J. Jeflcolt Avas tried in his una- 
 
 \oidable absence, and acquitted, as gentlemen always arc in duelling cases ; 
 
 l)ut he was necessarily displaced from his judicial post. He was drowned a 
 
 few months afterwards by the upsetting of a boat oft" the coast of Africa. The 
 
 vulgar brawling character of the whole transaction, and the force put upon 
 
 Dr. Hennis, sickened a multitude with tlie barbarous character of the ordeal 
 
 of the duel who had before regarded it in the light of an older time. 
 
 Another transaction between two men, who had not even the ground of '■'""' ""'■^"'■ 
 friendship for their generosity, deeply touched those hearts which felt most the 
 horror of the Exeter duel. In no crisis of human life are men put more 
 severely to the proof than in shipwreck. Tlie most awful shijiwreck of this 
 period, or that which was most generally impressive, was that of the Rothsay 
 Castle, in August, 1831. The Rothsay Castle was a battered, leaky old Anmiai Rogisii-r, 
 steamer, which plied between Liverpool and Beaumaris : and at this time she 
 had a caj)tain who appears to have been unworthy of the command of any 
 vessel. He started in rough weather, and silenced the remonstrances of all ou 
 board who implored him to put into a port of safety. She drifted and went 
 to ])ieces in the night from the failure of the coal through her excessive leak- 
 age; and all her pleasure parties, her groups of tourists, her band of music, 
 and her crew, were plunged into the deep at micbiight. The captain denied 
 that she was aground, when her cabins were filling with water, swore that 
 there was no danger, hung out no lights, refused to tire a gun, though the 
 lights of Beaumaris were visible in the distance, and was himself one of the 
 first to perish. Only twenty-two persons were saved out of nearly a hundred 
 and fifty wlio left Liverj)ool. Two men, strangers to each other, found them- 
 selves lioldiiig on to the same plank, which, it soon appeared, could support 
 only one. Each desired the other to hold on — the one because liis companion 
 was old; the other, bi;cause his companion ^vas young — and they quitted their 
 grasj) at the same moment. By extraordinary accidents botli were saved, 
 without the knowledge of either, and they met on shore in great surprise. 
 l''ew "Tcetiniis in the course of human life can be so sweet and movinjj' as must 
 liave been that of these two heroes, its contrast with that on the E.\eter 
 race-course shows like a glimpse into heaven and hell. 
 
 In llu' summer of 1833, a terrific fire cousunu'd a part of the Dublin iiuiMrnt iii u. 
 Custom House, and occasioned a vast destruction of jJioperty, tluiiigli little in ii,.i5t~ ' 
 comparison with what might have been if, as was for some time apprehended, 
 the (|uays and tlii' s]iip])ing liad been involved in the confiagration, and if much 
 valuable merciiandise had not been stored in fire-proof vaults. The sugar 
 ])uncheons flared up like great torches in <(ui(k succession ; the tallow sent 
 columns of flame u]> into the night ; while fiery floods of whisky rushed 
 o\cr the <iuay, pouiing uwi the wall into the l^ilfey whicli presented a shei't
 
 188 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book IV. 
 
 1830 34. of blue flame over half its breadth, tlireatenin^' the coal-vessels that were 
 
 ~— ^- ' drawn to the other side. The origin of the fire was never discovered; though 
 
 large rewards were offered by government and the magistrates, from a suspicion 
 of incendiarism. Men tliought that they had now Avitnessed the most remark- 
 able fire that would be seen iji their generation : but they were mistaken ; for 
 in the next year, a conflagration occurred in ■which that of the Dublin Custom 
 House was forgotten. 
 iiiRs.No OF THE lu coursc of ccntuiios, the power of the Commons had increased till their 
 uTMENir *" House had become a dignified spectacle in the eyes of the world : yet the 
 members sat, a closely-packed assembly of business-like men, in the old St. 
 Stephen's Chapel ; — a dingy, contracted apartment, whose sides had been 
 drawn in by wainscoting, to hide the pictures of the old Catholic times, and 
 whose height was lessened by a floor above, and a ceiling below, the old ones. 
 In such a Chamber as this were the British Commons found by wondering 
 strangers till the end of the year 1834. — At that time, the tally-room of the Ex- 
 ch('(iucr was wanted for the temporary accommodation of the Court of Bank- 
 Rcpori of Lords of ruptcy : and it was necessary to get rid of an accumulation of the old Exchequer 
 iiie I'rivjr Council. ^g|jjgg . — about two cart-loads in quantity. These tallies were used for fire- 
 wood ; but this method of clearance was too slow ; and there had once been a 
 bonfire of them in Tothill Fields. There was some talk now of burning them 
 in the open air ; but the plan was given up, in the fear of alarming the neigh- 
 bours. The burning was ordered to be done, carefully and gradually, in the 
 stoves of the House of Lords : but the conmion workmen, to whom the busi- 
 ness was entrusted, did it in rashness and hurry, nearly filling the furnaces, 
 and creating a vast blaze, which overheated the flues. Many times in the 
 course of that day (Thursday, October IGth) the housckee])cr of tlic House 
 of Lords sent to the men, to complain of the smoke and heat; but they 
 believed in no danger. At four in the afternoon two strangers were admitted 
 to view the House. At that time, the throne could not be seen from the bar; 
 the visitors had to feel the tapestry, to know that it was tapestry, found the 
 heat so stifling in one corner as to be led to examine the floor, when it 
 ajjpeared that the floor-cloth was " sweating" underneath, and too hot to be 
 borne by the hand. In answer to the siu'prise and doubts of the strangers, 
 the housekeeper replied that the floor was stone ; and that that corner was so 
 hot that its occupants sometimes fainted on full nights. Within two hours 
 after the pcrjilcxed strangers were gone, with their disajipointed notions of 
 the House of Lords, the mischief broke out. Flames burst from the windows 
 of a neighbouring apartment, and the alarm was spread all over London. 
 Tlie Ministers were presently on the spot, and the King's sons, and such 
 members of both Houses as were in town. Little could be done ; and of that 
 little, much was left undone from want of concert and discijjline. Mr. Hume 
 saved a portion of the library of the House of Commons : and many hands 
 helped to throw out of the a\ indows, and carry away, the papers of the Law 
 Courts. These Law Courts were saved, at the exjiense of their roofs being 
 stripped ofi", and the interior deluged with water. The most painful ajipre- 
 honsion was for Westminster Hall : but engines were taken into the Hall, 
 and kept at play so abundantly as to prevent any part being caught by the 
 flames. Many valuable things were lost ; and among others, the original
 
 Chap. XIV.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 189 
 
 deatli-wanant of Charles the First, and the registration and qiiaHfication roll 1830 — 34. 
 signed by members of the Commons after taking the oaths. The destruction ^— — ^■^— ^ 
 comprehended the t^vo Honses of Parliament, the Commons' librar)-, the 
 Lords' Painted Chamber, many of the committee rooms ; the Clerk's house, 
 and part of the Speaker's, with all the habitations between ; the rooms of the 
 Lord Chancellor, and other law officers ; and the kitchens and eating-rooms. 
 The comments of the crowd on such occasions show something of the spirit of 
 the time. Mr. Hume, who was busy before all eyes, seems to have been the 
 butt of the night, from his perseverance, for a long time past, in endeavouring 
 to obtain a better House for the Commons to meet in. In one place some 
 gentlemen cried " Mr. Hume's motion carried without a division :" and in 
 another, poor men were saying that Mr. Hume could never get over this : — 
 the fire was certainly not accidental : and every body knew how he had said 
 he would not bear the old House any longer, he was so uncomfortable in it. — 
 There was a shout about Lord Althorp's disrespect for the I'eople's House 
 when he was heard to cry out " D — n the House of Commons : — save, O ! save 
 the Hall !" which last words the French newspapers changed to " the House 
 of Lords ;" thus showing what an anti-refomier he was at heart. The Climb- 
 ing Boys' Act was unacceptable to the sweeps of London ; and now one of 
 them was in high glee because the " Hact" was destroyed, and, in the joy of 
 his heart, set up, above all the roar, the cry of " Sweep !" 
 
 There was nothing unseemly in this joking ; for, really, the occasion could 
 not possibly be considered a very melanclioly one by those who were aware 
 how seriously the public interests were injured by the unfitness of the Parlia- 
 ment Houses for the transaction of business, and their hurtfulncss to the health 
 of members. " Mr. Hume's motion was now carried without a di^^sion ;" 
 whereas, it would have been years, under ordinary circumstances, before any 
 move would have been practically made towards a better housing of tlie legis- 
 lature. The antiquarian interests concerned were not very strong; — (the 
 relic most mourned at first, the tapestry of the Spanish Aniiada, was after- 
 wards found :) — no lives were lost ; no poor men were ruined ; and, on the 
 wliolc, the impression was that this compulsion to build new Houses of Par- 
 liament was not to be lamented. 
 
 In the moniing, the King sent to offer Buckingham Palace for the use of 
 tlie Legislature. Some suggested St. James's Palace : but it was determined 
 to fit u]) rooms on the old sites as speedily as possible. On tlic whole, this 
 was found the least expensive and most convenient plan. The House of 
 Lords was to be made habitable for the Commons, and the Painted Chamber 
 for the Lords, at an expense of X30,000 : and not a day was lost in beginning 
 the ])reparation for the next session. — It was a week or more, however, before 
 the fire was out. It smouldered among the coals in the vaults ; and the play 
 of the engines within the boarded avenues was heard, and pufis of steam 
 were seen to ascend, till after the Privy Council had closed their careful and 
 protracted inquiry into tlie origin of the fire. This origin, as has been said, 
 was decided to be rashness and carelessness in burning the Exchequer tallies. 
 
 The last memorials, in the form of living witnesses, of the strong govern- ijEiin.. 
 uieul at the latter ]iart of the eighteenth century, were now slipj)ing away. 
 Thomas Hardy died in 1832, in very old age; and Ids comrade, John Thcl- tuomaoiabov.
 
 JuHN Tiii*:l« Al.l.. 
 
 A. 11. l!ou IN. 
 
 190 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book IV. 
 
 1830 — 3-1. wall, two years later. Those men were made, by the passions of tlieir time, 
 the lieroes of the lil)eral party of their time. They invaded the convenience 
 and composure of authorities and men in high jilaces by an intemperate 
 assertion of somewhat crude views of liberty and political aims : and the 
 authorities did something worse in invading the rights of these men, and of 
 all other citizens in their persons, by endeavouring by a harsh construction of 
 law and facts to convict them of high treason. The attempt was unsuccessful ; 
 and the men remained a sort of heroes, with a slight martyr-glory roinid their 
 heads, as long as they lived. Their prosecution and acquittal, in company 
 witli Ilorne Tooke, were annually celebrated in London by a festival of the 
 friends of civil and religious liberty, till the deaths of Hardy and Thehvall 
 brought the observance to a natural close. — Another hero of the same period, 
 Archibald Hamilton Kowan, died in 1834, in extreme old age. He escaped 
 the penalties of high treason only by slipping out of prison, and putting off 
 from the Irish coast in an open boat, in which he was long tossed about before 
 he reached Brest. The charge against him was of treasonable correspondence 
 with the French government. He was a gentleman of education and for- 
 tune ; and in his old age, when time and change had mellowed his mind, his 
 conversation and manners were full of charm. Forty years of a useful and 
 benign life would have been wasted and foregone, if the gallows noose had 
 caught him in that cruel season, when extreme men of all parties hated each 
 other with a hatred far too unphilosophical and impolitic to beseem philan- 
 thropists and statesmen. 
 
 cnvBLEs blitleii. It was a day to be remembered by the whole Roman Catholic body in onr 
 islands, when a member of the body was, for the first time after their long 
 depression, called to the rank of King's counsel. The first who was so called 
 was the distinguished Charles Butler, author of a whole library of books, the 
 dread of bishops and other clergy for his religious writings, and the supporter 
 of O'Connell in claiming his seat in parliament for Clare without re-election. 
 Mr. Butler was in his 80th year at that time, and he lived three years longer. — 
 
 kai.lfitz«il- ^j asred man died in the next year, 1833, who was not less beloved by the 
 Catholics, and not less a friend to them, ^vhile himself a good Protestant; — 
 the venerable Earl Fitzwilliam, who, in the harsh times at the close of the 
 last century, was recalled from Ireland after a Mce-royalfy of two months, on 
 account of his countenance of the Catholic claims. On the day of his departure 
 from Dublin, all the shops were closed, and the inhabitants appeared in 
 mourning. He was a member of the Grenville administration for a year 
 before its fall ; and his only public connexion with polities afterwards was one 
 as honourable to him as his Irish failure. He took part in a public meeting- 
 convened to discuss and rebuke the conduct of the Manchester yeomanry in 
 1819 ; and for this he was dismissed from the lieutenancy of the West Riding 
 of Yorkshire. Earl Fitzwilliam died in February, 1833, in his 85tli year. — 
 He was soon followed — within a few months, by his old friend. Lord Gren- 
 ville — another staunch champion of Catholic rights, and one who had a long 
 course of years in which to advocate all causes that seemed to him good. 
 Lord Grenville had been Speaker of the Commons, and found himself Secre- 
 tary of State, at thirty years of age ; and this appeared nothing remarkable 
 to him — his friend William I'ilt having held place and power when ten years 
 
 1 
 
 Luiiu Giti:.N\ n.i.i
 
 Chap. XIV.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 191 
 
 younger still. In our days, a politician of thirty is regarded as a youth of 1S30 — 34. 
 promise. But whenever a gi'eat political genius arises, it is probable that 
 rules and customs about age, as about every thing else, will give way. — Lord 
 Greuvillc reached the age of seventy-four, and died childless, so that the barony 
 became extinct. — Another aged Minister of State died in the same year — Earl 
 Bathurst, who was esteemed by his party as a good man of business, and one eahl batmcbct. 
 of their soundest meuibers. — Lord Spencer, who also died in the same year, e\ri. spenceii. 
 aged 7G, had not been a stable politician, having entered life as a Whig, 
 afterwards become a supporter of Mr. Pitt, holding office at the Admiralty 
 during the period of Nelson's victories, and going into power with Grenville 
 and Fox, in 1806. His tastes were more literary than political, and he was 
 the collector of the finest pi'ivate library in England, the bulk of which was 
 deposited in a suite of ground-floor rooms at Althorp, nearly 250 feet in length. 
 The political influence of Lord Spencer's death was greater than that of his 
 life, in his decease being the occasion of the dismissal of the Whig govern- 
 ment, and the rctuni of the Conservatives to power. 
 
 Another nobleman, who died in the same year, was more fond of literature '-""" teign- 
 
 *' ^ Morrn. 
 
 than of statesmanship; yet his name must have honourable mention among 
 statesmen. Lord Teignmouth began life as John Shore, son of a plain counti-y 
 gentleman. He entered tlie civil service of the India Company, and rose to 
 the office of Governor General of India. Lord Cornwallis's settlement, and 
 other great measures of that ruler, were mainly attributable to Lord Teign- 
 mouth. Yet his heart was more in literature than in statesmanship. He 
 was the bosom-fi'iend of Sir William Jones, whose life he ^\Tote, and whose 
 works he edited. In his old age, he was the president of the Bible Society, 
 and died in his 83rd year. — Another statesman, Mho cared more for philoso- f"""- n'm-c*- 
 phy and literature than politics, was lost to the world in 1833, mourned by all 
 with compassionate grief — Earl Dudley. He was only fifty-two ; and his 
 powers had died before him ; for his brain gave way, after many threatenings 
 and m\uh suffering from a morbid temperament, two or three years before his 
 death. He was an intimate of Home Tooke, the friend of Canning, and a 
 Cabinet Minister in 1827 : a man of fine tastes and accomplishments, and of 
 independent thought. After much repugnance he had determined to support 
 the Reform Bill, as a better alternative than Avithstanding the will of the 
 nation : but when the time came, ho was too ill to take his jdace in the legis- 
 lature ; and he never knew how the gi'eat (piestion had issued. — Sir John 
 Leach, Master of the Rolls, and a Privy Councillor, died in 1834. He began «">•'""> i"™- 
 his studies as an engineer ; but a discerning friend perceived in time his a])ti- 
 tudes for the legal profession, and induced him to follow it ; and England 
 thus obtained one of the best judges of modem times. His defence of the 
 Duke of York, in 1809, obtained for him the good-Mill and confidence- of (he 
 I'vincc Ucgenf ; and his M'ay Mas then clear to the eminence Mhich he reached. 
 He opposed the creation of the Vice-Chancellor's Court ; but yet became Vice- 
 Chancellor after Sir Thomas Plomer, and Master of the Rolls after Sir J. 
 Copley (now Lord Lyndliurst). His clearness of apprehension in the recep- 
 tion of evidence, and his decision of judgment in determining and delivering 
 the results, M-ere his most remarkable professional characteristics ; and in pri- 
 vate life ho won rcsjiect by a singular calmness and simplicity in the cndur-
 
 192 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book IV. 
 
 1830 3-4. ance of a long course of bodily suffeiing of groat intonsity. Most men Avould 
 
 ^-— — '•^•^^ have died untimely under such pain as he endured; but his indomitable mind 
 °Aur"' "'"'^"" ^°^"*'' ^^^^^ "P' ''"'^ '^^ reached the age of 7-i. — The interest of the -whole 
 political world of Europe was engaged by one death ■which took place at this 
 period. The young sou of Napoleon, the Duke; de Reichstadt, died at Vienna 
 in 1832, at the age of twenty-one. The birth of the little King of Komc, as 
 he was called in his cradle, had been regarded, in the short-sightedness of 
 men, as a mighty event ; and the eyes of the world were fixed upon the child. 
 But before he was old enough to be conscious of human destiny, his rights 
 were gone, his father was borne away over the sea, and he became a landless 
 German Prince, under the care of his grandfather, the Emperor of Austria. 
 His attendants adored him for his personal qualities; and from a distance, 
 many hopes waited upon him : but he was withdrawn from any possible 
 struggle for thrones and dominations by early sickness and death. IJy the age 
 of sixteen, he had otitgrown his strength; and consumptive tendencies en- 
 croached upon him, till he sank thus in early manhood. As he lay in state in 
 the palace, those who passed by the bier received the most affecting lesson of 
 the time as to the dcceitfulness of worldly hopes. 
 Sill John i.f«i.ie. In science, one of the most interesting names of the times is that of Sir 
 John Leslie, born of an humble farmer and miller in Fifeshire, who died 
 Professor of Natural Philosophy in the Liniversity of Edinburgh. He was a 
 sickly child, averse to books and lessons, but always delighting himself in 
 calculations, and following out mathematical inquiries. This peculiarity fixed 
 the attention of the parochial minister, and was the occasion of his being 
 sent to St. Andrew's, to study for the chinch. He and Ivory went to Edin- 
 burgh together, neither of them probably anticipating the eminence to which 
 both were to raise themselves. Leslie was aware that the church was not his 
 true destination ; and he declined it, becoming tutor to a nephew of Adam 
 Smith's, and to two of the Randolphs of Virginia, with whom he went to 
 the United States. On his return, he intended to lecture on Natural Philo- 
 sophy, but found, to use his own words, that " rational lectures would not 
 succeed." A disgraceful controversy took place between the magistrates and 
 clergy of Edinburgh respecting his nomination to the Mathematical Chair in 
 their University, in 1805, the clergy objecting to him on the ground of his 
 having irreligiously declared Hume's Theory of Causation " a model of clear 
 and accurate reasoning." The magistrates appointed Leslie, in disregard of 
 the clerical opposition ; and the clergy brought the affair before the General 
 Assembly. After a discussion of two days, the Assembly decided not to 
 subordinate science and liberty of ojiinion to dogma propounded on an occa- 
 sion of mere inference, and dismissed the appeal of the clerical objectors as 
 " vexatious." Mr. Leslie filled that chair till he was called to succeed Play- 
 fair, in the Professorship of Natural Philosophy, which ho held till his death, 
 in November, 1832. He invented or revived the Differential Thermometer, 
 and aided science in many ways by a vigorous exercise of his bold inventive 
 and conjectural faculty, which was more remarkable in him, matheniatician as 
 he was, than his powers of reasoning and research. His pupils complained 
 of a want of simplicity in his style, and of clearness in his arrangement ; 
 while more advanced students believed that the difficulty lay also in his over-
 
 Chap. XIV.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 193 
 
 rating the powers and experience of those to mIioiu lie addressed himself. 1830 — 34. 
 The highest order of his hearers were continually charmed with the life and "-— ' — ~— ' 
 vigour of his views, and the rich illustration he cast over his scientific sub- 
 jects from the stores of his general reading. His experimental processes were 
 exquisite from their ingenuity and refinements. His last production is to bo 
 found prefixed to the 7th edition of the Encydopirdia Britaiinica — a Dis- 
 course on the History of ^lathematical aud Physical Science during- the 18th 
 century. He died in his 67th year. 
 
 In the next year, died a mathematician w-ho put liis science to a practical ^*'- •*'""'•»"■ 
 use which all could understand. William Morgan, who was for fifty-six years 
 actuary to the Equitable Assurance Society, was a nephew of Dr. Price ; and 
 it was Dr. Price who withdrew him from the medical profession to which he 
 was destined, and caused him to be fitted to the function in which he did so 
 much for the practical application of the science of Probabilities, and for the 
 elucidation of National Finance. He published much that was useful ; but it 
 was as a standing authoritj^, always ready for reference, that he rendered his 
 most important services j and all the while, the Equitable Office was rising, 
 under his management, from being a small society, with a capital of a {c\^- 
 .thousands, into an institution of national importance. 
 
 The hurricane at the Mauritius, in 183-1, killed a man wliose name is Dwid tm..mi^i..n 
 destined to live in connexion with nautical science, Captain David Thompson, 
 whose computation aud production of the Lunar and Horary Tables, and inven- 
 tion of the Longitude Scale, were emphatically acknowledged by the Board of 
 Longitude. He did much to fence in with safety the broad highway of 
 nations ; and thus, his services so lie on the verge between science and the 
 arts as to lead us to consider him as a comrade of the great man who opened 
 so many roads to us on the firm land, and whose engineering achievements 
 come under the head of the Arts. — Thomas Telford was President of the Thomas Titronn. 
 Society of Civil Engineers at the time of his death, Avhich hajjpeiied in the 
 autumn of 1834, when lie was 77 years of age. Telford was a poet in his youth ; 
 and surely we may say that he was a poet in action in after life; for where 
 are lofty ideas and a stimulus to the imagination to be found, if not in such 
 spectacles as the Meiiai Bridge, and the Caledonian Canal, and his great 
 Welsh Aqueduct, and St. Katherine's Docks, and the water communication 
 that he made through the pine-hills of Sweden, from the North Sea to the 
 Baltic!' It was thus that he regarded his works, and in this spirit that he 
 wrought them; for he had the loftiness of mind, the bright integrity, and 
 benign candour, which are the characteristics of genius that has found its 
 element. There is hardly a county in England, Wales, or Scotland, which is 
 not strewn with monuments of him, in the best fi>rm of monument — bene- 
 ficent works. There is no day of any year in which thousands are not the 
 better for the labours of this man. — Two years before his own death, Telford 
 had been called to mourn that of a pupil and a friend whom he had introduced ALixiMim 
 into a career which promised success something like his fiwn. Alexander 
 Nimmo was, when very young, rccomniended by Tclfovd to the Parliamentary 
 Commissioners for fixing the boundaries of the Scottish counties ; and again to 
 the Commissioners for reclaiming the Irish bogs. All rciund the coast of 
 Ireland his works are fouiul — liarlmms. docks, piers, and fishing slatioiis: and 
 A ni.. II. 2 (;
 
 104 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book IV. 
 
 1830 3-t. his Chart of the whole coast is held to be a guide of gieat v;ihie. He died at 
 
 ■ • Dublin, ill 1S32, a-cd 49. 
 
 R. n.(;o«E». During- the same period we lost Richard Hall Gower, the author of various 
 
 improvements in naval architecture, which were {•radually, though slowly, 
 
 HiNuv ueli.. brought into practice before his death in 1833: — and Henry Bell, who, so 
 early as the 2nd of August, 1812, launched the first steam-vessel, called the 
 
 iioNHLi-iKiN. Comet, on the Clyde: — and the aged Lionel Lukin, who was the inventor of 
 the safety-boat. The Norway yawl, on which he first experimented, was 
 bought by him, with his earnings in his coach-building business, in 1784; and 
 his patent bears date the next year. Though his boat was established for the 
 time by the approbation of Sir Sydney Smith, who found that it could be 
 neither overset nor sunk, the invention of safety boats was afterwards claimed 
 by other parties, and Mr. Lukin was deprived of much of the honour and 
 emolument which were his due. He contributed in other ways to the public 
 safety and convenience, as by his raft for the rescue of persons carried under 
 the ice ; by a bedstead for invalids, and several improvements in the con- 
 struction of carriages. He was 92 when he died, in 1834. — Some now living 
 remember the introduction of the Camellia Japouica into this country. We 
 
 archibalu owe the luxury to Archibald Thomson, a kinsman of the poet of the Seasons, 
 and chief gardener at the Marquess of Bute's estate in Bedfordshire. The 
 superb Magnolia Thomsonia was raised from seed by Archibald Thomson ; 
 and he saw the plant reach a height of eighteen feet, and a circumference of 
 twenty-four. like most of the hardy and well-employed race of Scotch 
 gardeners, he attained a great age, dying in his 81st year, in 1832.— The 
 
 John AniiKNiiinv ecccutric Abernetliy died in 1831, after having made himself so talked about 
 for his oddities as hardly to have justice done him for his important services. 
 He raised the reputation of English surgery all over Europe by indicating and 
 performing an operation, in certain cases of aneurism, which was before sup- 
 posed impracticable: and, by its connexion with him, St. Bartholomew's 
 Hospital rose to be the first in London. Mr. Abernetliy did not at all 
 approve our following, in any degree, the ancient Egyptian practice of parting 
 off the human body among dozens of classes of doctors— so that one was to 
 have charge of the limbs, and another of the lungs, and another of the 
 stomach, and others of the eye, the ear, the mouth, and so on. Mr. Abernethy 
 did not like to hear of oculists and aurists, but insisted upon it that no man 
 was fit to undertake the charge of any member without being fit for the 
 charge of the whole, as no function of the frame is isolated. In this, tlie 
 sense of society went with him, the only wonder being that, since the days of 
 the old Egyptians, there should have been any doubt about it. Mr. Abernetliy 
 did not know where he was born, but only that his parents removed to 
 London in his early infancy. He was 66 years old when he died. 
 PErpuHKYvvo..],. Among the rovers of their time, we find two names of great interest in the 
 riiicLLL. j.^^ ^j. ^^^ (leaths of the period. Two midshipmen, it will be remembered, 
 
 remained with the mutineers of the Bounty, in 1788, when the other officers 
 were set adrift in an open boat on the Pacific. One of these midshiimien, 
 Peter Heywood, died in 1831, and Mr. Purcell, who was one of those in the 
 open boat, followed in 1834. Peter Heywood was only fifteen at the time of 
 tlic mutiny: and before he was much older, he led a parly of sixteen of the
 
 Chap. XIV.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 195 
 
 mutineers to settle in Otahcite, in order to meet the vessel wliicli it was 1830 — .34. 
 
 certain \\ould be sent after tliem from England. The Bount)- was given up " ^ — 
 
 to Christian and his eight comrades, who had no wish to stir from M'here they 
 were, or to meet any English vessel. "VA'hen the Pandora arrived in Otaheite, 
 the two youths rowed out to her, and made themselves known, when they were 
 put in irons, and treated with extreme rigour. After a most disastrous voyage 
 home, young Heywood met his trial — showed that his case was one for pity 
 rather than punishment — was found guilty, but freely pardoned by the King. 
 He afterwards became an able and trusted officer. One of his last services was 
 with Lord Exmouth in the Mediterranean, in ISloand 1816: and Lord Exmoutli lofi. E\M.vr.i. 
 died soon after him — in February, 1833. As Lord Exmouth lay on his painful 
 death-bed, we may hope it cheered him to think of the Christian cajjtives 
 whom ho had released from their Algcrine slavery. He reached his 76th year. — 
 CaiJtain Sir Murray Maxwell, who commanded the unfortunate Alceste at the sirMcr'hv 
 time of her loss, died in 1831. He passed, with spirit, fortitude, and in the 
 finest temper, as dreary a period as can well occur in any man's life — the 
 fortnight which elapsed between Lord Amherst and his forty-six companions 
 leaving the Captain and crew on their desert island, and the arrival of the 
 cruiser from Batavia which relieved them. During this fortnight, the little 
 party of British seamen were besieged by Malay pirates, in fifty or sixty 
 boats, who burned the Alceste to the w-ater's edge, and allowed her crew no 
 rest from self-defence, while they had no alternative before them but starva- 
 tion. Captain MaxM-ell's command, under these circumstances, and the 
 discipline of his crew, have obtained a world-wide fame, as they truly deserve. 
 -^One other rover, Richard Lander, in whose discoveries the nation took an rkhaiiui.ani.iii. 
 unwonted interest, was cut off untimely, by an attack of the pirates of the 
 Niger, in 1834. Lander had attended Captain Clapper ton into the interior of 
 Africa, and had witnessed and reported the discoveries made in Clapperton's 
 final expedition : and he had afterwards, when accompanied by his brother, 
 solved the great problem of the termination of the Niger, by following it 
 down from Boussa to the sea. His ears had drunk in the sound of the surf 
 upon the beach, and his eyes had seen the sea-line, dressed all in the more 
 than tropical light of triumph, and of solemn acliicvement: and this wonder- 
 ful happiness — as much as is yielded by the whole life of some men — was to 
 be enough for him; for in three years afterwards he was dead, at the age of 
 30. He had bouglit an island off Attah, and meant to establish a trading 
 station there: but the piratical natives attacked him at a disadvantageous 
 moment, and shot him in the hip, and he died of the wound. 
 
 in the do])artmi'nt of Art there were gi'eat losses during this period. \\\ Mi^s. sri>n,is>. 
 1831 died Mrs. Siddons, in her T6th year. There are few living now who 
 remember her in the fulness of her power ; but there are few who have not 
 witnessed the enthusiasm of tlieir fathers and gTand-jjarents at the mention of 
 her name, and who are not aware that the enthusiasm was justified as much 
 by the purity of her character as by the glory of the genius which derived its 
 exaltation from tliat purity. A yet more ancient favourite, the favourite of 
 George III., Quick, the actor, died in the same year, aged 83: — and also the ui rrn. 
 monarchical Elliston — and in a few months after, the comic Munden — and in Min»Ks!" 
 1833, Edmund Kcan, tlic last of the stars of the first magnitude. Kean was
 
 196 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 [Book IV. 
 
 1830—34. 
 
 RPTIHEMENT OF 
 
 Mil. YorNfi. 
 
 Dramatic Com- 
 mit ike. 
 
 Nfw English 
 OpF.RA House. 
 
 Mrzio Clementi. 
 George Asrt'Li.. 
 
 Ai'tirsTt's Pi'Gi\. 
 
 JAMS'; Cin{i*;Tlf^. 
 
 a study as interesting to the mental philosopher as to the plaj-gocr, so extra- 
 ordinary was his possession of his " single gift." It would appear before- 
 hand that to be such an actor as Kean must require a large variety, as well as 
 a high degree, of intellectual ability ; yet he never manifested any power of 
 mind at all above the average — hardly indeed up to the average — any where 
 but on the stage. His mode of life was not such as to husband his powers ; 
 and he died at the age of 45, worn out by excess and exhaustion of body and 
 mind. His first appearance was at four years of age, riding the elephant in 
 Bluebeard, when his beauty, and especially the grandeur of his eyes, fixed 
 the attention of some who afterwards saw him at the summit of his fame. His 
 last appearance was in March, 1833, in the character of Othello, when his 
 performance, begun languidly, was broken off in the third act by the utter 
 failure of his strength ; and in the ensuing May, he was carried to his grave. — 
 The prospects of the stage were further darkened by ^Ir. Young having retired 
 in the preceding year, during which an attempt was made to retrieve the 
 failing fortunes of the di-ama by the appointment of a Parliamentary Com- 
 mittee on Dramatic Representations, for the purpose of ascertaining what 
 changes could be made in the licensing laws, which could relax the monopoly 
 of the two great theatres, and afford a better opening for authors, actors, and 
 the play-going public. Amidst all the reasons alleged for the decline of the 
 drama — such as the late dinnei-s of the aristocracy, the absence of royal 
 patronage, and the spreading objection of certain religious bodies to dramatic 
 representations — it was clear that the main cause of that decline was the decay 
 of the public taste for this kind of amusement, without which the other causes 
 alleged would not have been operative. The Committee, however, recom- 
 mended a large invasion of the existing monopolj" of the two great theatres, 
 for their own sake, as well as justice to others; a revision of the system of fees 
 to the censor of plays; and an extension of the same protection to dramatic 
 authors as was enjoyed by authors in other departments of literature. The 
 rising passion for the Italian Opera afforded, at the same time, a hint to 
 parties concerned to try whether the popular taste for the spoken drama was 
 or was not merging into that for the musical drama: and the New English 
 Opera House was opened in the summer of 1834. 
 
 Two eminent pianists died during 1832 — one at the end of a very long 
 career — the other at the beginning of one which promised great marvels — Cle- 
 menti, who reached his 81st year, and George AspuU, who died in his 19th. — 
 Augustus Pugin, a Frenchman, spent the forty last years of his life among us, 
 and revived in England the study of Ecclesiastical architecture, which has 
 since spread and flourished under the favouring influences of the Tractarian 
 party in the Church. He died in 1832, in his 64th year. — In the department 
 of Vertu, we lost Christie, who, being intended for the Church, became an 
 auctioneer ; but such an auctioneer as was never dreamed of before. He 
 raised his business to the rank of a profession, and lived in a world of artistical 
 and philosophical ideas which the poet might covet. He explored the nature 
 of the Greek game invented by Palamedes before the siege of Troy, and 
 believed that he had traced it down, through old ages and countries, to our 
 own firesides, where it bears the name of Chess. He wrought among the old 
 idolatries and their symbols, till he penetrated into some curious secrets of art.
 
 Chap. XIV.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 197 
 
 He was the first authovity in the kingdom in pictures, sculptures, and vertu. 1830 34. 
 
 He made the workl understand the Aalue of Mr. Hope's collection of vases: \-^'~n/-^ 
 and these friends, after having solaced themselves with the delights of art and 
 antiquarianism, left the world together. Mr. Christie died on the 2nd, and 
 Mr. Hope on the 3rd of February, 1831. — Mr. Hope's name is distinguished '"•"■.s hopb 
 on so many grounds that it is rather difficult to assign his place among our 
 benefactors. From our insular position, and our being kept at home by the 
 long war, and also from our English habit of ridiculing what we do not under- 
 stand, we were at first guilty of treating ]Mr. Hope with contempt when he 
 endeavoured to improve our taste in decorative art : and an article in the 
 Edinburgh Review, on his folio volume on "Household Furniture and Decora- 
 tions," stands as a monument of our shame. But Mr. Hope trivimplied ; and 
 we have gained, among other things, a lesson in modesty. It was he who 
 first sustained Thorwaldsen, and brought the young Chantrey to light, and 
 stimulated the mature genius of Flaxman. His town and country houses 
 were a paradise of delights to lovers of antiquities and art. He is perhaps 
 most generally known as the author of "Anastasius," a romance in whicli the 
 author gives evidence of (among other things) the thoughtful spirit in whicli 
 he went through his early travels in the east. — To another hunter after anti- 
 quities we find ourselves more deeply indebted now than any one was aware 
 of during his life; for John Thomas Smith, keeper of the prints and drawings Johntuomis 
 at the British Museum, died the year before the burning of the Houses of'""" 
 Parliament. ^Ir. Smith had published in the closing years of the last century, 
 " Antiquities of London ;" and when, in 1800, the accession of Members on 
 account of the Irish Union compelled the enlargement of the House of Com- 
 mons, and the wainscoting of St. Stephen's Chapel was taken down, revealing 
 the old paintings that were behind, Mr. Smith determined on following up his 
 former Avork with the "Antiquities of Westminster." He made haste, as the 
 workmen were always at his heels ; and in the August mornings he was at 
 work as sooti as there was light enough, and painted diligently till the work- 
 men arrived at nine o'clock, when he sometimes saw them destroy the very 
 paintings he had just been copying. He made memoranda, matched the tints 
 carefully, and took all pains to perfect his work — both with regard to the paint- 
 ings which were disappearing, and others which it was sujjposed might last for 
 centuries. Many of the jirints, colom-ed and gilt by his wife and himself, were 
 lost by a fire at the printing-office where they lay; and tlie loss was severe: 
 but the place given him at the British JIuseum provided comfortably for his 
 latter days. He is remembered chiefly as the preserver of the antiquities of 
 Westminst(!r: but this was not one of the seven great things by which he used 
 to tell that his life hiid been distinguished. He delighted to say "I received 
 a kiss when a boy from the bea\Uiful Mrs. Robinson — -was patted on the head 
 by Dr. Johnson — have frequently held Sir .losjuia Reynolds's spectacles — 
 partook of a pot of porter with an elephant —saved Lady Hamilton from fall- 
 ing, when the melancholy news arrived of Lord Nelson's death — three times 
 eonvers(>d witli (ieorge III. — and was shut up in a room with Mr. Kean's 
 lion." It seems a pity that he did not live a few months longer, to see the 
 flames swallowing up the Houses of Parliament, and exult in the thought of 
 what he bad saved from their ravages. — Cooke, the engraver, who presented (.i..m.i!(„oiii!.
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 [Book IY, 
 
 Thomas St(>- 
 
 TIl.lHD. 
 
 Peteh NA.s%n'TH. 
 
 Hgnry LivF.n- 
 
 SEE or. p.. 
 
 
 John JwK^oy. 
 
 Grorge F. 
 
 Unn 
 
 SON, 
 
 
 Pmsni.Ti VVxKF.. 
 
 Kltl.t>. 
 
 Tlrrn\nn F.v\n«. 
 
 such a world of sccnerj' to stayers at liomt', died in 1834, from brain fever, at 
 the anfc of 53 — and a few weeks after him the aged Thonras Stothard, who 
 began life as the apprentice of a pattern designer for brocaded silks. Brocaded 
 silks went out of fashion; and Stothard had, as the fruits of his apprentice- 
 ship, his nicety of eye and hand, and elegance of taste in designing STuall em- 
 bellishments ; and he used them in illustrating, witli exquisite little designs, 
 Bell's British Poets, and the Novelists' Magazine. These caught Flaxman's 
 eye, and brought him that good man's friendship. lie passed easily from 
 such small works as these to painting figures seven feet high, ou the stair- 
 case at Burghley House. His latest designs are seen among the illustrations 
 of Rogers's poems, bearing date 1833 — some months before his death. — I'eter 
 Nasmyth, called "the English Hobbima," died in middle life, in 1831, with 
 the love of his art so strong upon him, that when he was dying, and a thunder- 
 storm was sweeping by, he asked his sisters to draw aside the curtain, and 
 lift him up, that he might watch the effects of the stoimy lights. — And then 
 went the young Liverseedge, just when his fame was rapidly rising, and 
 before he had reached his 30th year. He lived in the world of Shakspere, 
 Cervantes, and Scott ; and it was his picture of Adam AYoodcock that was 
 kindling his fame when the cold hand of death was laid on his life. — Jackson, 
 the portrait-painter — not so strong as Raeburn, nor so graceful as Lawrence, 
 but with a clear style of his own, distinguished by its fine colouring — died in 
 1831: — and in 1833 we lost, by a sad accident, Robson, whose landscapes 
 were amongst the most eagerly looked for at the Water-Colour Exhibition 
 every year. The cause of his death was the bursting of a blood-vessel in sea- 
 sickness. His life was happy fi-om that devotedness in the study of Nature 
 which is not subject to the disappointment to which most human pursuits are 
 liable. His eagerness about his first earnings was that tliey might carry him 
 into the Scotch Highlands, where, v\-ith his plaid about his shoulders, and the 
 "Lay of the Last Minstrel" in his pocket, and the dusky fells and rolling- 
 mists before his cj'es, he was happy to his heart's content. The spirit of those 
 early-seen Scotch mountains is in his pictures to the last. The frequenters of 
 the Water-Colour Exhibition must have been struck by the frequent appear- 
 ance of Durham and its cathedral. It was because Durham was Robson's 
 native city. He took care that its fine aspect should be nearly as familiar to 
 others as to himself, though they had not, as he had, feasted their eyes upon 
 it from foin- years old, and crept to the shoulder of every wandering artist ■\>'ho 
 sat down to sketch any where in the cn^'irons. One of Robson's last pictures 
 was judged to be one of his best — London fi-om the Bridge, before sunrise. 
 
 There are, in the province of literature and learning, some names of the 
 departed during this period which we would not let pass without some grate- 
 ful mention; and there are others wliich excite a deeper emotion. — Among the 
 humbler benefactors in this department was Priscilla Wakefield, whose hooks 
 for children were usually found in a thumbed and tattered condition on 
 nursery shelves — intensely moral as they were, and fine in the phraseology of 
 their dialogue. In those days, when there were scarcely any children's books 
 in existence, her efforts were as welcome as they were praiseworthy. i\[rs. 
 Wakefield died, very aged, in September, 1832. — An excellent man was 
 removed in tlu' same year, before he was fortv, who had given his life to such
 
 Chap. XIV.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 199 
 
 good works thiit it is sad that his years were not douhled. Richard Evans, 1830 — 34. 
 liinisclf a schohir, and the conservator of the ancient Welsh MSS. of the " — i^-v— ^ 
 Cambrian Society, took to heart the ignorance of tlie poor Welsh in London 
 who were not at home in the English tongue. Mr. Evans collected and super- 
 intended a little colony of Welsh families — about twenty — in the neighbour- 
 hood of one of his warehouses. He instituted weekly lectures on Mechanics in 
 Welsh, for all of that people in London who chose to attend ; and he spent 
 much money and time in diffusing the means of knowledge among them. — 
 One of the most curiously learned men of the time was the Professor of ^,'"'V"" 
 Oriental languages in Edinburgh University, Dr. iVlexander Murray, who was 
 born of poor parents in the depths of Galloway, and died in 1834, at the head 
 of his own department of learning in Great Britain. His early progress in 
 Latin and Greek, acquired in some mysterious manner before he even went to 
 school, sec\ired his further education. While an Edinbiugh student, some one 
 was wanti'd to arrange the pajjcrs of ISruce the traveller. Young Murray in 
 a trice Icanied half a dozen eastern languages, to qualify him for the business, 
 which he did well. After he was settled in his manse, something happened 
 which disturbed the great and the wise in high places: — a communication 
 came from the Court of Abyssinia, which nobody coidd read. Again Murray 
 was wanted ; and this time he was ready. lie had now only to step into his 
 chair at the University, where the authorities were glad enough to have him: 
 for such oriental scholars are not always to be had when they are wanted. — In wjiliamhaziih . 
 Ilazlitt we lost the prince of critics, at this time; and after lie was gone, there 
 were many who could never look at a picture, or see a tragedy, or ponder a 
 point of morals, or take a survey of any public character, without a melancholy 
 sense of loss in Ilazlitt's absence and silence. There can scarcely be a stronger 
 gi-atificatiou of the critical faculties than in reading Hazlitt's Essays. He was 
 born in 17T8, and died of cholera in 1830. He was not an amiable and 
 hap])y, but he was a strong and courageous-minded man. His constitutional 
 irritability was too restless to be soothed by the influences of literature and 
 art, and his friends suffered from his temper almost as much as himself Yet 
 he was regarded with respect for his ingenuous courage in saying Avhat was 
 true about many important things and persons of his time, of whom it was 
 fitting that the trutli should be told. Hazlitt would have passed his life as an 
 artist, but that he could not satisfy his own critical taste, and had no patience 
 with any position but the first in any department in which he worked. The 
 greater part of his life therefore was spent in a province of literature in which 
 he was supreme in his own day, if not alone. As an essayist he had rivals : 
 as a Critical essayist, he had none. — Two popular dramatists, O'Keefe and 
 I'rince Iloare, died in 1S33 and 1834. The name of OTveefe carries us back •'•""' ''''^"'''*- 
 some way into the last century, his popular farce, Tony Lumpkin, having been 
 acted at the Ilaymarket Theatre in 1778. After writing fifty dramatic pieces, 
 he subsided into the ipiiet befitting his blindness and old age, and HvchI till 
 ills 8(>lh year. — Prince lloare was very aged too — 80 when he died. In 1788 i'i'im" iioahb. 
 his comic ojjcra, " No Song no Supper," won him his first ftime. In more 
 advanced life, he became secretary to the Royal Academy, and, from iiis 
 scholarship in Art and literature he was a member of several societies. He 
 was esteemed and beloved for the most engaging moral qualities; and his
 
 200 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book IV. 
 
 1830 — 34. parting act was a beneficent one : lie bequeathed his bbrary to the Royal 
 
 ■^— ^ — Society of Literature. — The veneriible A\'ilHam Iloseoe, of Liverpool, died in 
 
 u»coL. 2g3j . — venerable for the benignity of his character and the purity of liis 
 
 tastes, and especially for the gentle steadiness with which, through long 
 
 seasons of trial, he upheld the cause of the negro against the slave-holding 
 
 spirit of Liverpool in his day. On this matter, he never, with all his love of 
 
 peace and social good-will, gave way for a moment. It is for this, rather than 
 
 his literary acts, that Mr. Roscoe is and will be remembered. His principal 
 
 work was the " Life of Lorenzo de' Medici," which obtained great reputation 
 
 at once, from the character of the times, which, impeding research of tlie kind 
 
 required, rendered such works scarce and extremely sujjerficiul. Mr. Koscoe 
 
 reached his 81st year. 
 
 s.» jAMiisMAc Some of the most affectionate and solemn associations relating to this 
 
 KINIOSII. ^ ... 
 
 period are called up by the name of Mackintosh. Sir James Mackintosh 
 died, unexpectedly, in 1832, at the age of 67; and the word "untimely" was 
 applied to his death, through a sort of general expectation that a man of such 
 powers would yet do something which would make his great name live after 
 him. In early life, when he published his " Vindicise Gallicse," his name 
 had been in every mouth : and in his latest years, the Llouse of Commons 
 listened, heart and soul, whenever he spoke. But he was not destined to effect 
 much during his life, or to make a monument for himself. He had stores of 
 knowledge, remarkable powers of subtle thought, and an unsurpassed facility 
 of expression ; but a fatal indolence, which extended to the interaction of his 
 faculties, scattered his resources, and ^-itiated much of the work which he 
 actually did. His " Dissertation, containing a General View of the Progress 
 of Ethical Philosophy," (prefixed to the Encyclopaedia Britannica,) is the work 
 on wliich his rejiutation is commonly supposed to rest : but it is a more frail 
 support than the memories of those who knew him, and than the records of 
 his speeches in parliament. It will not bear the test of advancing science, 
 any more than the kindred writings of Dugald Stewart. In parliament, his 
 heart and voice were always on the side of justice and humanity, as justice 
 and humanity appeared to him. In print and in private, though there might 
 be much that was superficial and unsound in his views, as well as subtle and 
 profound, the spirit of earnestness and reverence was never absent. He held 
 the office of Recorder of Bombay for some years ; and was in parliament for 
 several sessions ; and had a way to any eminence opened to him by the pio- 
 neering influence of general expectation : yet he died amidst a celebrity wliich 
 had still more of anticipation than of acknowledgment in it. His life had 
 been a swaying between contemplation and action ; and, though he might by 
 this have obtained some enlargement for his own mind, the indecision was 
 fatal to his leaving any substantial memorial of himself in either region. He 
 enjoyed the friendship and homage of most of the leading men of his time ; 
 and there was no one living who did not share his placid good-will. His 
 integrity in political life was in accordance with the simple unworldliness of 
 his mind. 
 HiMiv Mm- Henry Mackenzie, who Mrote " The Man of Feeling," died at the age of 
 
 85, in 1831. A mistake of his own affords as good an eulogium as his wor- 
 shippers could desire. From the unbounded success of his beautiful story, 
 
 kO/tK.
 
 CiiAP. XIV.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 201 
 
 " The Man of Feeling," he was induced to offer a companion novel, " The 1830 34. 
 
 Man of the World," which shows, unmistakeahly, the unsophisticated character •— ^-— -^ 
 of the author, and his inability to understand thcM'ays and thoughts of worldly 
 men. Those who were amazed at the badness of the second tale should have 
 felt rebuked for their disappointment by the beautv of the first. — Anna Maria anxa Mahia 
 Porter, the novelist, died in 1832, just three months before him whose mar- 
 vellous works had swallowed up the fame of all contemporary craters of 
 fiction. Wliile Scott Avas yet but a boy, however — while he was lying on the 
 heathery hill-side, nourishing and playing with his powers of conception and 
 narration — Miss Porter's novels — " Thaddeus of Warsaw," the "Recluse of 
 Norway," and others — were giving great pleasure, and preparing the multitude 
 of lovers of fiction for the treat to come. — Of Scott, it is impossible, as it is sm w*i,tfr 
 needless, to speak at length in this place. Every trait of his life is in all 
 memories ; every character of his long-dra^^^l pageant is vivid before all eyes. 
 Any attempt to estimate his share in modifying the mind of his time would 
 be in vain : and if it were not, the materials for an estimate lie equally open 
 to all. Every one can iiujuire of himself what the writings of Scott have been 
 to himself and to those whom he knows best : and from that recognition, let 
 him fonn his estimate. — As for the man himself, every one knows all that 
 can be told, and sees that he was not so happy or so wise as such a genius as 
 his should have made him : that he did not honour his genius, and repose 
 upon it as it would have been bliss to do ; but looked down to lower objects, 
 and so, was deprived of his repose by that very genius, avenging itself. In a 
 mood of respectful compassion, the nation had seen him sinking under toil to 
 which a common-place ambition had subjected him, and wliich it would have 
 been cruelty to him to compel him to forego. For some time before his death, 
 his mind had sunk \itterly; and at last, the day of repose for the feeble body 
 came — brightly and mildly. It was in the noon of one of those autumn days 
 which are so sweet in Scotland, when the window was open, and the ripple of 
 the Tweed over the stones was heard by those who were around the death- 
 bed, that the eyes closed and the breathing ceased. The life which had gone 
 out had been crowded with toils : the world was full of these rich gifts, and 
 the national heart was sad at the thought that there could be no more. Tlu 
 gifts remain, however, a boon for each coming generation as it rises ; and thus 
 the fame of Scott may well be committed to the general cliarge. — There was 
 a sad sweep among Iris connexions afterwards. Within half a year, his con- 
 fidant, partner, friend, and printer, .Tajnes Hallantyne, without whose co-opera- 
 tion the whole of his enterprise must have borne a different character, died in 
 middle age. And in the next .lune, the daughter Ann, who had tended Scott 
 in his long decline, drooped and sank. And since that time, all his other 
 children have died — in these few ycar.s — and no descendants but two grand- 
 children are left to inherit the glory for which he cared so little, and the 
 estate for wliicli he sacrificed so much. Such arr tlie caprices of tli(^ Iiuiunn 
 mind and the human lot ! 
 
 Of Poets, we lost, during tliis period, some of great note. The elegant, 
 scholarlv Sothebv was not one to be i)oi)ular; but he gave much pleasure to wuxum 
 
 • ■ ... . SoTHEHV. 
 
 his own circle of admirers : and his life was happy in a serene course of literary 
 exertion. He made many eh'gant translations, and wrote tragedies, masques, 
 vol,. II. 2 I)
 
 Gkokge Chardr. 
 
 S. T. fnr.Enincr. 
 
 202 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book IV. 
 
 1830 — 34. and epics, none of thena containinfj elements of trvandcur ; but all of them 
 full of pviiity and giace. lie lived to 7(), and died at the close of 1833. — 
 The venerable George Crabbe died, in old age, in 1832, leaving behind 
 him memories which any one might covet. It is one of Burke's titles to 
 honour that he saved this pure genius from extinction under the pressure of 
 poverty, from no lower impulse than a generous humanity. Crabbe was 
 starving, when he made a simple and straight appeal to the great man, and 
 was met in the spirit in which brother should meet brother in our perplexed 
 human life. From that hour, all went well with Crabbe ; and liis long life 
 was passed in virtuous clerical duty, in domestic peace, and in giving a 
 charming utterance to his experience of the heart, and his observation of tlie 
 various human lot. His poems are full of minute details, ennobled by a genial 
 spirit, and made touching by the pathos of truth and love. His poems, 
 besides finding their way at once to a million of hearts and homes, remain a 
 quiet but living picture of English life in his time, which may probably kindle 
 the heart of a remote antiquarianism in ages when English life, always the same 
 in spirit, may have changed most of its forms. — S. T. Coleridge may perhaps 
 be best placed among the Poets, rather than the philosophers, of his time, 
 because the finest characteristics of his philosophy give an immortal substance 
 to his poetry, while they leave his philosophy without base or permanent sub- 
 stance. A genius so lofty and so various has rarely distinguished man : but 
 the absence of one essential element brought it down to a lower level than 
 that of a crowd of otherwise inferior minds. AVith an imagination which 
 soared above the stars, a subtlety which would have enabled him to hold his 
 place in a council in Pandemonium, a power of abstraction which shoidd have 
 strengthened him to put the sensuous world beneath his feet, and an eloquence 
 which might have enslaved the human race, he had no power of will — of that 
 virtuous will without which every man — -be he who he may — is himself a 
 slave. In Coleridge, it was a constitutional defect, early marked, and fatal to 
 his life. It was a constitutional deficiency, to be allowed for as such ; but it 
 must not be disguised that it rendered him incapable of Duty — of fidelity in 
 friendship, in citizenship, and in domestic life. And it vitiated his philosophy 
 by eating out of it its reality and substantive truth. Thus, his theology was 
 any thing but the gospel— the religion which men prize because it is equally 
 the treasure of the lowly and the exalted in intellect : it was an airy fabric 
 of the argumentative faculties and the imagination, and baseless sentiment, 
 and not a deep concern of the understanding and the heart. And thus it was 
 with his philosophy; for true philosophy absolutely requires a broad fomidation 
 of science, and the vital element which can be supplied only from the affec- 
 tions. This said, which in conscience must be said, the rest remains wonder- 
 ful — even awful in its wonder. And the consolation of the case lies in the 
 virtue which the power and the deficiency together called out in other men. 
 The forbearance, the tenderness, the reverence, with which Coleridge was 
 regarded, in the face of his vitiated life, are more than a compensation for 
 what was wanting in himself. From the days when awe-struck schoolmates 
 gathered round " the inspired boy" in the cloisters at Christ's Hospital, to 
 the present moment, when his worshippers turn away from a sound of censiue, 
 as from a desecration of his grave, he has met with that magnanimous justice
 
 Chap. XIV.] DUKING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 203 
 
 whicli it requires some of the loftiest qualifications to cominaud : and in this 1830 — 34. 
 
 influence lay one of the chief benefits of his life. Others were the sublime -— ii-v 
 
 faculty by which he ojx'ued to us new worlds of thought, and made the oldest 
 new; tlic subtlety of analysis by which he displayed the inner workings of 
 what was before our eyes, before closed and impenetrable ; the instinct by 
 which he discerned relations among things which before were isolated ; and 
 the thi-illing sense of beauty which he awakened by bringing all the appear- 
 ances of nature into illustration of ideas before wholly abstract. Thus, his 
 discourses on the laws and facts of thought, his dramatic criticisms, and his 
 own poems, are full of lights and charms which hardly need the magic of his 
 utterance to make them intoxicate the young thinker, and stimulate the facul- 
 ties of the more mature. He was the Avonder of his time. If he had not been 
 subject to one great deficiency, he Avould have been its miracle. As it is, his 
 fame is not likely to grow — less because his magical voice is silenced, than 
 because his endiantment itself must be broken up by the touch of science. 
 Even then, glorious will be the fragments that will remain. They will be 
 truly the traces of old idolatries — not of one, but of many; for he spent his 
 life in the worship of a succession of idols — those idols being Ideas, w^hich he 
 called Opinions, and which he was for ever changing. S. T. Coleridge was 
 born in a Devonshire vicarage, in 1772 ; and he died at Highgate, on the 25th 
 of July, 1834. 
 
 A man of great benevolence, who indirectly contributed mucli to the great 
 work of National Education, which yet remains, for the most part, to be achieved, 
 ought to be mentioned at the close of this period. Dr. Bell, a prebendary of b'^^*"'""'" 
 Westminster, was once a chaplain in India, and tliere conceived the idea of 
 extending the benefits of education by setting pupils to instruct each other. 
 He reported his method; and it was soon adopted in England to such an 
 extent, that he saw 10,000 schools established, attended by 000,000 children. 
 He believed that the object of general education was gained; and so did many 
 others. It required some years to show that nothing like education can be 
 obtained by the ignorant teachiu": the ignorant. Tlie results have been such 
 as to disabuse the most sanguine. But public attention was turned to the in- 
 struction of the childhood and youth of the nation : and, in this sense, we 
 may be said to be still benefitting by the introduction of tlie Bell and Lancas- 
 ter system. Dr. Bell employed his large fortune in acts of beneficence, 
 devoting 50,000/. to the establishment of a college in his native city of St. 
 Andrew's. He died in January, 1831. 
 
 Having now recorded tlie acts, and buried the treasures, of an important 
 period of our history, we must proceed to learn what further blessings have 
 been brought home to our country and people by the life-giving hand of 
 Peace. 
 
 •;m) oi' liodiv i\.
 
 204 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book V. 
 
 BOOK V, 
 
 PAKlltS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 1834. T?ROM tlie time of the passage of the Reform Bill, the three parties in the 
 December. X State — kindred with those which exist in every free State — began to 
 The Three accept One another's new titles, and the professions included in those titles. 
 The Tories, Whigs, and Radicals wished to be called Conservatives, Reform- 
 ers, and Radical Reformers; and the easy civility of calling people by the 
 name they like best spread through public manners till the word Tory was 
 seldom heard except among old-foshioncd people, or in the heat of political 
 argument. The Whig title has since revived — inevitably — from the Whigs 
 having ceased even to pretend to the character of Reformers: and the Radical 
 Reformers were not numerous or powerful enough in Parliament to establish 
 for themselves a title which should become traditional. There was some dis- 
 pute, and a good deal of recrimination, at the outset about the assumption by 
 each party of its own title ; the Tories declaring that they were as reforming, 
 in intention and in fact, as the Whigs, only in a preservative way; the Whigs 
 declaring that the only true conservatism was through reforms like theirs ; and 
 the Radicals, who were called Destructives by both the others, declaring that 
 a renovation of old institutions — a regeneration on occasion — was the only way 
 to avoid that ultimate revolution which the Tories would invite and the AVhigs 
 permit. While the titles were changing, the parties were as yet essentially the 
 same as ever : — as usual, they consisted mainly of the representatives of those 
 who had much to lose, thosewho had much to gain,and the umpire party, disliked 
 by both, whose function is to interpose in times of crisis, and whose fate it is to 
 exhaust the credit acquired in such seasons during long intervals of indolence 
 and vacillation. Such was, as usual, the constitution of the three political 
 parties, after the passage of the Reform Bill, and when the changes in their 
 titles actually took place: but there were clear-sighted men at that time who 
 perceived that the change of names was but the first sign of an approaching 
 disintegration of the parties themselves ; a disintegration which must be suc- 
 ceeded by more or less fusion; that fusion being introductory to a new exhibi- 
 tion of products. The old parties — notwithstanding their new names — were 
 about to disappear. They could not be annihilated; but they would re-ap- 
 pear so transmuted that none but the philosopher would know them again 
 — with new members, a new language, a new task, and a whole set of new- 
 aims. As much of this prevision has come true as time has yet allowed for.
 
 IL' Fj
 
 Chap. I.J DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 205 
 
 The disintegration and fusion have taken place ; and all thoughtful people see 1834. 
 
 that a new fonnation of parties must be at hand. One limit of the transition ^»--»-^^- 
 
 period of parties remains still future : the other must be laid down at the date 
 
 of Sir Robert Peel's accession to power, in December, 1834. Here we have 
 
 the old Eldon oracle speaking again — speaking "in the spirit of fear," and not 
 
 " in that of power, and of love, and of a sound mind," and therefore giving out 
 
 its truth in a dismal disguise ; but still giving out more truth than any body 
 
 could use at the time. — Here we have Lord Eldon's party view of the future, 
 
 while the Wellingtons and Rodcns, and Knatchbulls and Lyndhursts, and 
 
 Wliarncliifes and Ellenboroughs, were in power, at the opening of the year 
 
 1835. " The new Ministers certainly have the credit, if that be creditable, of "^^ "' ^''', , 
 
 • ^ ' Elaon, 111. i<*. 
 
 being incUned to get as much popidarity by what are called refonns as their 
 predecessors ; and if they do not, at present, go to the full length to which tlic 
 otliers were going, they will at least make so many important changes in 
 Cliurch and State, that nobody can guess how far the precedents they estabhsh 
 may lead to changes of a very fonnidable kind hereafter." Though Lord 
 Eldon could sec no other reason for Tories making changes than a hankering 
 after popularity, we can discern in the facts and his statement of them the 
 bei^inning of that wasting away of parties which he did not live to see. 
 
 The new Conservative rule began with a joke. Some, who could not take 
 the joke easily, were very angry ; but most people laughed: and among them, 
 the i)erson most nearly concerned — the Duke of WellinsTton — laughed as the di se-s 
 cheerfully as any body. Sir Robert Peel was at Rome ; it must be a fortnight 
 before he could arrive : and nothing could be done about the distribution of 
 office in his absence: so the Duke took the business of the empire upon him- 
 self during tlie interval. This he called not deserting his sovereign ; and he 
 was as well satisfied with himself in this singular way of getting over the crisis, 
 as on all the other occasions when he refused to desert his sovereign. His de- 
 votion was such that for the internal he undertook eight offices — five principal, 
 and tlu-ee subordinate. " The Irish hold it impossible," wrote a contempo- Engiand-s seven 
 rary, "for a man to be in two places at once, 'like a bird.' The Duke has in. u".'"^"°°'' 
 proved this no joke — he is in five places at once. At last, then, we have an 
 united government. The Cabinet Council sits in the Duke's head, and the 
 Ministers are all of one mind." The angi-y among the Liberals treated the 
 spectacle as they would have done if the Duke had proposed to carry on the 
 government permanently in this manner. Condemnations passed at public 
 meetings were forwarded to him with (>mphatic assurances that the coudcmna- 
 lion was unanimous : an orator here and there drew out in array all the 
 consequences that could ever arise from the temporary shift being made a pre- 
 cedent; and Lord Campbell condescended to talk, at a public meetin" at 
 Edinburgh, of impeaching the multifarious Minister. At all this, and at a 
 myriad of jokes, the Duke laughed, while he worked like a clerk from day to 
 day, till the welcome sound of Sir Robert Peel's carriage-wheels was lieard. 
 
 It is a strong'proof of the virulence of the party-spirit of tlie time, tliat even po,it.on of si> 
 generous-minded men, experienced in the vicissitudes of politics, could not at """"""^ '■""■■ 
 first — nor till after the lapse of months or years — ajipreciate the position of Sir 
 Robert Peel. Every body saw it at last ; and there vere many whi). diirini; 
 that hard probation, watched him and sympathized "ilh liini wilh daily in-
 
 206 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book V. 
 
 1834. creasing iiitoiest aiul admiration: but there were too many who turned his 
 ^- — • ' difficuhies against him, and who were insensible till too late to the rebuke in- 
 volved in the fine temper which became nobler, and the brilliant statesman- 
 ship which became more masterly, as difficulties wliidi he had not voluntarily 
 encountered pressed upon him with a daily accumulating force. His being at 
 Home proved how little he had anticipated being called to oflicc. He had no 
 option about accejiting it — his sovereign sent for liim, and he must come : 
 and when he arrived, he found there was uo possibility of declining a task ■\'\hich 
 he believed to be hopeless. Unpopular as the Whig Ministry had become, the 
 Conservatives were not the better for it, but the worse ; for the cry for reform 
 was growing stronger every day : and he could have no hope of gratifying the 
 majority of his own party, as he could not attempt to repeal the Reform Bill, 
 or to get back to the old ways. There was nothing before him but failure, 
 with discredit, on every hand : but, while he would certainly never have chosen 
 to fill a position so hard and so hopeless, he had a spirit whose nature it was 
 to rise under difficulties, and to feel the greatest alacrity under desperate con- 
 ditions. 
 
 One of the desperate conditions was, that he could not form the Cabinet 
 which his intentions and the necessities of the times required. He arrived in 
 London early on Tuesday, December 9th, and went at once to the King: yet 
 on the next Saturday nothing Avas known but that he would himself be 
 Clianeellor of the Exchequer, as well as First Lord of the Treasury. Lord 
 Stanley and Sir James Graham had declined being of his corps; and he did 
 not accept tlie Ultra-Tory adherents of the Duke whom he found hanging 
 about on his return. Li his Ministry are found, natin-ally, but unfortunately 
 for its chances, four men whose political steadiness could never again be 
 counted upon — Lords Lyndhurst and Rosslyn, Sir James Scarlett, now made 
 Lord Abinger, and Mr. Alexander Baring, afterwards Lord Ashburton. The 
 rest were of such politics as to discredit at once all professions of the Duke and 
 his friends, in Sir R. Peel's absence, of the desire of the government to pro- 
 NiiwCABiNLT. mote all rational reforms. The Duke himself went to the Foreign Office: 
 Mr. Goulburn to the Home — Mr. Herries to the War — and Lord Aberdeen to 
 the Colonial Office. Sir Henry Hardinge was Irish Secretary — Lord Wharn- 
 cliffe. Lord Privy Seal — and Lord Rosslyn, President of the Cormcil. Lord 
 Lyndhurst Avas on the woolsack, and Lord Abinger became Chief Baron. 
 Some of the King's sons-in-law, who were Whigs, resigned their offices in the 
 Household, and ^vere succeeded by Conservatives of a very pure water. 
 
 Another of the desperate conditions was the state of parties in the Commons. 
 From the moment there was a rumour of a difficulty between the King and 
 Lord Melbourne, the Whigs and Radicals in the House began to incline to- 
 wards each other, lest the reformers of England should lose any of the ground 
 they had so hardly gained. From the moment it became known that Lord 
 Melbourne had declined the earldom and the Garter, which the poor King had 
 the bad taste to offer as a compensation for imreasonable treatment, all dif- 
 ferences were sunk for the .season, and the two parties united as one ; so that 
 it was believed on every hand that little more than a fourth — certainly less 
 than a third — of the existing House of Commons, would support the new 
 Ministry. Though the people might not, at tliat juncture, return a mucli
 
 CnxT. I.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 207 
 
 more favourable House, the experiment must be tried. Pai-liament was pro- 1834. 
 
 rogued on the 18tli of December; and on the 30th it was dissolved by procla- " ' 
 
 mation, and a new one was convoked, to meet on the 19th of Febniary. priiTuVRvr."'' 
 
 Before taking the sense of the country, it was necessary for the Minister il-i'il'p. wT'"^"^' 
 to put forth some declaration of what the country had to expect from him: 
 and this lie did in the form of an address to his Tcamworth constituents, avow- tvmwortmMam- 
 ing that he was at the same time addressing the whole middle classes of the "''^''' 
 nation. It is observable that while he speaks undoubtingly of his obligation 
 to take office, and heartily of his intention to toil and persevere, there is 
 scarcely an expression in the address which indicates hope of permanence and 
 success. Its tone is cheerful, but no one could call it sanguine ; and, in indi- 
 cating the principles on whicli he means to act, he speaks for himself alone, 
 and makes no reference to a Cabinet policy, or to administrative co-operation 
 in any way, merely declaring, in a parenthetical manner, that the sentiments 
 of his colleagues are in entire concmrence with his own. 
 
 First, he declares himself a reformer of abuses, and points to his own 
 great measures in regard to the Currency, to Criminal Law, to Jury trial, and 
 Other matters, in proof of his disposition to remove abuses and facilitate im- 
 provements. In the same spirit, he would accept and make operative anv 
 reform actually accomplished, whether he originally approved of it or not : 
 and he would therefore acccjit the llcform Bill, considering it " a final and 
 irrevocable settlement of a gi-eat constitutional question :" and he would carry 
 out its intentions, supposing those to imply a careful review of old institutions. 
 \uidertaken in a friendly spirit, and with a jnn-pose of improvement. Comin^'- 
 down to particulars, he would not interfere with the Inquiry of the Corporation 
 Commissioners, of which he had shown his approbation by being voluntarilv 
 a member of the parliamentary Committee upon it. He had voted witli 
 government on Lord Althorp's Clmrch-rate measure, and was still willing to 
 relieve the Dissenters from the grievance of paying chm'ch-rates, and of a cele- 
 bration of marriage in terms to which they conscientiously objected. He 
 would not admit the right of Dissenters to admission to the tmivcrsities ; but 
 he would recommend an alteration of the regulations which prevented anv of 
 the King's subjects from being on a perfect equality with others in respect to 
 any civil privilege. — He would not countenance any retrospective incpiirv 
 into the pension list — filled, as it had been, under circumstances that had 
 ])assed away ; but he would advocate more care in future in the confemng of 
 pensions. About Church Reform in Ireland again, his mind was not changed : — 
 he was in favoiu' of the best distribution, be it ever so new, of ecclesiastical 
 property for ecclesiastical pui-poses ; but he could not sanction its application 
 to any other than strictly ecclesiastical objects. He wislied to see a commu- 
 tation of tithe in Liigland ; and with regard to dtvper matters — the laws 
 which govern the Church — he desired time for f'urtlur thought, and opjiortu- 
 nitv for new light. The somewhat deprecatory tone of the conclusion of this 
 Address is striking now, and must have been strongly felt by all the manv 
 classes of readers who thronged to get a sight of it on the moniing of its 
 appearance. " I enter u])on the arduous duties assigned to me with the 
 di'cppst sense of the res])onsil)i]itv they involve, willi great distrust of my own 
 i|\ialifications for thiiv adequate discharge, but rit the s.iiiie lini(> witli a ri'scilu-
 
 20H HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book V. 
 
 183-t. tion to persevere, wliitli nothing could inspire but the strong impulse of 
 
 ^^— -. ^1^ public duty, the consciousness of upright motives, and the firm belief that 
 
 the people of this country will so far maintain the prerogative of the King as 
 
 to give to the Ministers of his choice, not an implicit confidence, but a fair 
 
 trial." 
 
 Such was the text on which the popular comment of the elections was to 
 proceed. It was much more liberal than the Liberals had expected : but when 
 they looked at the group of colleagues behind, they distrusted the iMinister 
 and liis Manifesto, and set vigorously to work to elect a House which should 
 bring all his counsels to nought, and frustrate all his eflforts. He could not 
 have said that they, as Liberals, were wrong ; and neither he nor they could 
 anticipate how their opposition would rouse his faculties and exalt his fame. — 
 This address appeared in one paper as a mere advertisement, in small type. 
 In another, it was conspicuous as the leading article. It was immediately 
 rejirinted, throughout the country; and it is strange now to sec it standing 
 under the heading of " the Tory Manifesto." If this was its true title, Toryism 
 had indeed changed its character, much and rapidly. 
 1835. The first reformed parliament had not satisfied its constituents ; it had done 
 
 some wTong things, and omitted many right ones ; but it had had the great 
 virtue of being in advance of the ill-compacted, desultory, unbusincss-likc AVliig 
 Cabinet. It would have done more and better but for the drag of the ^Adminis- 
 tration, which was always put on when there was up-hill work to be attempted. 
 If the same parliament had been allowed to remain, its great reform party no 
 longer impeded by the Whigs, but aided by them, great things might be hoped. 
 As it was not to remain, it was parted vnth more respectfully and good-hu- 
 mouredly than could have been supposed possible three months before, under 
 a prevailing sense tliat much allowance must be made for the disadvantage of 
 the Reform Ministry having so soon fallen so far below all rational expecta- 
 tion. Every thing might be hoped from the next House of Commons. The 
 first object of every class of reformers was clear enough — to depose the Con- 
 servatives, and reinstate a reforming Ministry : and it would be perfectly easy 
 The Nek i'ar. jq ^q fj^jg ^y uniou bctwcen the Whig and Radical parties, though, as every one 
 knew, there would be more Conservatives returned under a Peel, than rmder 
 a Grey Ministry. JNIore Conservatives were returned ; but the reformers had 
 still an overwhelming majority; and from the hour when the members assem- 
 bled, it was only a question of time — a consideration of sense and temper — 
 when and how Sir Robert Peel should be compelled to retire. The popular 
 power being thus clearly able to do what it would, it now appears strange 
 that the virulence of the time was what it was. The Minister seems to liave 
 been almost the only man who preserved temper and cheerfulness, though his 
 2)osition was incomparably the hardest — placed, as he was, in that hopeless 
 position without any choice of his own. It is not necessary to record the ill- 
 humoiu- of the time by anecdotes which would now convey more disgrace than 
 the parties deserved : but it may be said that the kingdom was covered with 
 altercation, from the House of Lords, where the late Ministers spoke with 
 extreme bitterness of late events, down to the street coi'ners and police courts, 
 where fretful men complained of each other, and of the police, and the bill- 
 stickers, and all officers concerned in all elections. The Conservatives quar- 
 
 Temper of the 
 
 TlMI".
 
 t'MAP. I.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. L'Oi) 
 
 relied among themselves quite as virulently as either party ^^^th the other. 1835. 
 
 The old Tories put out a caricature of the search of Diogenes, who lights upon " -^ — 
 
 Lord Eldon as the only honest man. The Times lectured the party on its 
 slowness and apathy ; and other Conservative papers denounced all compro- 
 mise with reform, now that the opjiortunity was present of putting down the 
 Papists and the Radicals by the powers of government, under the countenance 
 of the King. As soon as it was clear that the Reformers had a very large 
 majority, and wlien the Times retreated so far as to discuss the possibility of 
 a coalition between the Grey and Peel parties, the other leading paper, the 
 Standard, intimated that the new parliament Avould be immediately dissolved, 
 in order to afford the people an opportunity of reconsidering their duty, and 
 returning a House more agTceable to the other ruling powers. This intima- 
 tion caused such an outcry about a return of the time of the Stuarts, that the 
 paper softened its menace immediately : but it could not recall the hint it had 
 given to the constituencies to keep up their organization, in readiness for a 
 new election, at any hour. Accusations of bribery all round were profuse, 
 and, on the %\hole, too well deserved ; for the occasion was indeed a most 
 critical one, when the corrupt, as well as the honourable, felt called on to put 
 forth all their resources. Then, there was incessant quarrelling about the 
 Wavercrs, or doubtful men, who Mere just sufficient to make it difficult to 
 calculate, and easy to dispute, what the Conservative minority would in reality 
 be. Then, again, it was certain that, from the losses to the Reform party in 
 the English boroughs where corporation reform was most wanted, the two 
 parties were run so close that any effectual parliamentary majority must be 
 yielded by Scotland and Ireland ; and this gave occasion for a fierce renewed cry 
 about Papist supremacy. When the last election returns came in, it appeared 
 to the most careful calculators that the Reformers were secui'e of a majority of 
 above 130; and, if all the doubtfuls were given to the ministerial party, the Con- 
 servatives would still be in a minority of 82. Thus the fate of the new Ministry 
 was decided, and known to be so, before the Premier met parliament ; — known 
 at least by the Liberals, though the Premier himself appears to have gained 
 confidence as time went on, from finding how much refonn it was practicable 
 for him to effect. At a dinner at Tamworth, he intimated that the ominous 
 prcilictions of his being unable to carry on the government might not, perhaps, 
 be necessarily true : parliament might give him a fair trial : and he could not 
 but think that many who were classed as Reformers held views very like 
 his own. 
 
 The Reformers, however, felt tliat this was no time for a comparison of 
 views on any particular subjects ; but rather an occasion for deciding between 
 opposite priuci))les of government in the large. In this there can now be no 
 question that they were right : and, the more the late Whig government had 
 fallen short of fidelity to Reform principles, the more important it was now to 
 reassert th(-m, and to put aside any Minister, be his personal merits what they 
 might, and his policy ever so promising, who stood forth as the representative 
 of the Tory party, with a group of Tories at his back. " Public principle" — 
 however the words miglit be ridiculed by the newspapers of the day, as mean- 
 ing private interests and jealous tempers — did require tliat the distinction of 
 parties should at that crisis be made as conspicuous as possible ; and if anger, 
 
 vol.. II. 2 E
 
 210 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book V. 
 
 1835. »nd disappointment and jealousy among ministerial men on the Whig side did 
 
 • ' make sad havoc with temper and manners, such incidents did not alter the 
 
 duty of the time. Those Reformers who were much of Sir Rohert Peel's 
 mind about many things, and might have supported him in a tranquil organic 
 season, were now bound to set him aside if they could, because the first duty 
 of the critical period was to choose decidedly between an unregenerate and a 
 reo-enerate system of government. There was not therefore, necessarily, any 
 spirit of faction in the determination of the Reformers to begin the campaign 
 Ei,ErTioN OF THE ^y Tcquiriug a Speaker of their own party. Whether or not they had been 
 right hitherto in maintaining Sir Charles Manners Svitton in the Chair, it was 
 clear that it would not be right now. Times were altered ; and the man Mas 
 visibly altered by the change in the times. He had been unable — as every 
 body else was unable — to resist the temptation to active partisanship ; and he 
 was so far less qualified for the Chair than formerly, even if no " great public 
 principle" had become involved in the question of his reappointment. 
 
 Mr. Abercromby was the man on whom the wishes of the Reformers settled ; 
 but Mr. Abercromby objected to the nomination, and he resisted the honour 
 till nearly the last hour. He yielded, however ; and immediately left town, 
 while it was universally known that on the other side even mgent personal 
 canvassing was practised. This difference, and the inclination of many quiet 
 or lukewarm Reformers to have a Speaker of such proved qualifications as 
 Sir C. Manners Sutton in so troubled a session as was before them, ren- 
 dered it doubtful, to the last moment, which way the election would timi. 
 Mn.ABERCRoMnv -jijpyg ^^jjs an extremclv full House on the critical 19tli of February: only 
 
 CHOSEN. •' ft 
 
 a few of the Doubtfuls and six Tories were absent : almost all the rest of the 
 Spectator, 183-,, "Wavercrs and thirty-five Reformers voted for the Ministerial Sijeaker ; and 
 
 P' • ■ IT-IP- 
 
 yet jNIr. Abercromby was chosen by a majority of ten. The Reformers irom 
 this time knew that the session was theirs, if they were active and united. 
 Sir Charles iNIanners Sutton at once received the peerage which his long ser- 
 vices truly merited, being called to the Upper House by the title of "N^iscount 
 CanterbiuT. 
 
 On the 24th, the King came down to open Parliament in person. His 
 HanMnf'xxw""63 Spccch declared the rising prosperity of manufactures and commerce, but 
 deplored the depression of agricultiu'e, and recommended to parliament the 
 consideration of reducing the burdens upon land. Wearisome as it is to record 
 and to read of the depression of agriculture, almost from year to year, it 
 becomes the more necessary to do so as we approach the period when a free trade 
 in corn was demanded by a majority of the people. It is necessary to see, as 
 we proceed, what the state of things was which the opponents of change would 
 have perpetuated — what the good old times were which they were unwilling 
 to abandon. This year, the farmers' cry came up so piteously that it was 
 echoed in the King's Speech ; and it was left for the multitude below to 
 wonder how it was that there were any farmers in England — so losing a busi- 
 ness as farming evidently was. Another series or two of farmers had to be 
 impoverished yet, before the withering system of protection was put an end 
 to : but every complaint to government, and every mention by the sovereign, 
 of agricultural distress now went to remind the thoughtful that there must be 
 something radically wrong in the existing system, whatever might be the
 
 Chap. I.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 211 
 
 difficulty of agreeing about a better. — The King also requested the attention 1835. 
 
 of parliament to the Tithe questions in Irohind and Enghand; to Ecclesiastical "— — ~ 
 
 lleforni, in regard to discipline and the administration of justice ; to the best 
 way of relieving Dissenters from a form of the celebration of Marriage to 
 which they conscientiously objected ; to the Municipal (Corporation question ; 
 to the operations of the Ecclesiastical Commission ; and to the condition of 
 the Church of Scotland. 
 
 The conflict of parties began at once, in the Plouse of Lords, about the 
 Address. According to Lord Eldon's report, there was a serious dread, some 
 days before, of a large majority against Ministers, even in the Upper House ; '*""'"''' U"""^'- 
 and the Conservatives made a solemn call upon each other to muster strongly, 
 for the last chance of preserving their dignities and their property, lest their 
 children, like those of the French nobility, should be doomed to become 
 Commoners. The feeble old man was himself in his place, almost for the last 
 time. " I sat," he says, " last night in the House of Lords till between twelve Ji^^ t^'ttf' 
 and one — till all in that House was over. I certainly would much rather 
 have sat by my fireside, quietly, and enjoying the comforts of conversation." 
 But he was resolved, as long as he lived, to do his part in saving the monarchy. 
 The debate was deformed by much anger and mutual unfairness. In both 
 Houses the recrimination was unworthy of so great an occasion, the late 
 Ministry unreasonably finding fault with the dissolution of parliament, and 
 with the Duke of Wellington's way of conducting the business of the State 
 during the Premier's return from Rome ; and the Conservatives unwisely 
 dwelling on an anecdote of the time which has never ceased to be vividly 
 remembered. It had actually happened that before the King could have sent 
 to the Duke of Wellington, and before Lord Melbom-ne could have officially 
 communicated to his colleagues the state of the King's mind, an ostentatious 
 statement appeared in a morning paper — a statement which must have 
 been derived from a Cabinet Minister, and which was universally attributed 
 to Lord Brougham — that Lord Mclboiu'ue's administration was dismissed, and 
 that " the Queen had done it all." Though the Speech made no allusion to 
 the change of Ministry, and Lord Melbourne's proposed Amendment was also 
 silent about it, the anecdotage of the crisis formed the chief part of the debates 
 on the Address in both Houses. The Amendments insisted on carrying out 
 the jn-inciples of Ilefornr in regard to the projects contemplated by the late 
 parliament, and lamented its xmnecessary dissolution before those reforms were 
 com])letcd. In the Lords' House, the Amendment was sim2)ly negatived. 
 In the Connnons it was carried by a maiority of seven. And here, at the Hiuisnrd, xxvi. 
 
 1 -■' 1 , 1 1 0. 
 
 outset, the Premier had to consider what was to be done. He took time to namard, xx»i. 
 consider, in order, as he frankly avowed, to guard himself against any mislead- 
 ing from mortification, and to ascertain whether the vote conveyed the real 
 sense of the House. When satisfied that it did so, he did not oppose the 
 amendment of the Address ; and it was carried up to the King, therefore, with 
 the unusual feature conspicuous in it of the discontent of the Commons with 
 the late dissolution of their House. The King was sony, of course, that the 
 Commons did not concur with him in regard to that act, and declared that he Annual ncsiMcr. 
 exercised his jirerogatives with tlie sole view of promoting the welfare of his ''"•'■"'•""■ 
 people.
 
 212 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 [Book V. 
 
 1835. 
 
 Hansard, wvi. 
 J71. 
 
 Hansard, xxvi. 
 
 474—473. 
 
 Hamard, xxvi. 
 
 DtDAfE UN 
 
 Malt Tax. 
 
 The restlessness of the Opposition was increased by the two majorities they 
 had calready obtained ; and, through one opening or another, inquiries were inces- 
 santly conveyed to the Minister whether he meant to resign. His answer was 
 that the two votes did not convey a declaration of want of confidence in the 
 government, and he therefore thought it his duty to proceed. These inquiries 
 naturally caused rumours out of doors ; and then again, these rumours were 
 reproduced in the House, to elicit further explanations from Ministers. On 
 the 2nd of March, Lord John Russell made a statement of two reports which 
 were prevalent — that Parliament was again to be dissolved, on the first minis- 
 terial reverse ; and that if this should happen before the Mutiny Act could be 
 discussed, the army was to be kept up, on the responsibility of the administra- 
 tion, without the assent of Parliament. That such a project should have been 
 imputed to one political leader by another, in our day, is a remarkable indica- 
 tion of the disturbance of the general mind. Lord Jolin Russell declared that 
 he should avoid putting the direct question whether these things were true; 
 but that he intended to test the disjjosition of the Cabinet by bringing forward, 
 at a time of which he gave notice, the Appropriation question, and that of 
 Municipal Reform. The Premier's reply was clear and frank. He had never 
 discussed or proposed any where a speedy dissolution of Parliament ; but it was 
 not his business to place in abeyance, by any declaration of his, the royal pre- 
 rogative of dissolving Parliament: and this, as he observed, was a fuller reply 
 than Lord Grey had given to the well-remembered question of Lord Wharn- 
 cliife on the same subject. As to the Irish Church question, he and liis 
 colleagues were anxious that the Commission should prosecute their labours, 
 as yet only half finished ; and when they had furnished the requisite informa- 
 tion, government and the country would sec what ought to be done — the 
 present government adhering to its principle that the property of the Chui-ch 
 ought to be applied only to strictly ecclesiastical purposes, but being ready to 
 amend the distribution of that property, when the requisite evidence shoidd be 
 complete. There was no objection on the part of the government to any 
 needful reform of Corporation abuses; but neither they, nor any body else, 
 could declare what such reforms should be till the Commissioners should have 
 offered their Report. As for the rumour about the maintenance of the army 
 ^vithout the sanction of Parliament, he had never heard the subject mentioned 
 till that night. The same kind of suspicious inquiry was made of Lord 
 Aberdeen in the Upper House about the carrying out of the Emancipation 
 Act in the West Indies, when the Colonial Secretary declared that no one 
 could be more anxious than himself — whose first vote had been against slavery 
 — that the Act should be completely carried out ; and lie had written to Lord 
 Sligo to entreat him to remain in his oftice of Governor of Jamaica, and com- 
 plete his work, without any misgiving on account of the change of adminis- 
 tration at home. 
 
 On the next great subject of discussion, men of all parties united on either 
 side. Lord Chandos proposed, to the embarrassment of the government ^\hich 
 he usually supported, the repeal of the ]\Ialt Duty — the promise of which boon 
 to the farmers was believed to have greatly influenced the elections. Many 
 Whig and Radical members agreed with the Premier that such a proposition 
 could not be entertained before the financial condition of the country was
 
 Chap. I] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 213 
 
 known: that there was no reason to suppose that the surplus in the Treasury 1835. 
 could meet such a demand: that it was not the barley-growers whose distress •^— ^^--^^ — • 
 now called for attention, as the price of barley had been rising for a consider- 
 able period : and that it was extremely doubtful whether the farmers would be 
 peculiarly benefited by the repeal of the duty. On the division, Mr. Grote 
 and ^Ir. Hume were found voting on opposite sides; and three members of 
 the late government spoke in support of Sir Robert Peel against the motion 
 of his own adherent; the strife of party was visible only in the sarcasms 
 thrown out in the coiu-se of debate; and the majority against the repeal of the 
 
 Malt tax was 158. HansarJ, x;,v,. 
 
 On the next occasion of defeat, the Administration had little sympathy fiom 
 any quarter. They had made an indefensible appointment to an office of high 
 importance ; and they had to take the consequences ; and the Premier among 
 others, not onlv Ijecause his was the first respon.sibility in such cases — how- 
 ever his opinion might be oveiTuled in private — but because he attempted a 
 lamentable defence in Parliament of an appointment which could in no view 
 be justified. Early in January, the following paragraph appeared in the Times 
 newspaper : " We notice, merely to discountenance, an absurd report, that 
 Lord Londonderry has been, or is to be, named Ambassador to St. Petersburg. 
 The rumour is a sorry joke." It was no joke. If all England had been i.o»d London- 
 searched for a man whose politics were most like tliose of the Jimperor oi me.nt. 
 Russia, Lord Londonderry might well have been chosen : and he was now to 
 be sent to represent the mind of England to the Emperor of Russia — now, 
 when the affairs of Turkey were in a state to require the most accurate repre- 
 sentation of the opinion of Great Britain — now, when Poland was command- 
 ing the sympathies of the whole world, but when Lord Londonden-y was in 
 the habit of speaking decisively of the Poles as " the rebellious subjects of the 
 Emperor of Russia ;" and when he professed himself a sympathizer with Don 
 Carlos and Don Miguel. His Lordship's notions about a fair personal interest 
 in public service were also too well known throughout the country to dispose 
 the i)eople of England to place him again in tlieir service. It could never be 
 forgotten that he had, a few years before, brought disgiace upon liimself by 
 declaring, in the House of Lords, that he had been calumniated and injured 
 by the Foreign Office, and challenging I,ord Dudley, then Foreign Secretary, 
 to produce a certain correspondence which would explain the case. In the 
 course of explanation it appeared that Lord Londonderiy had been importu- nansani, ixvi. 
 natc for a pension, in consideration of his diplomatic services; and that tlie 
 calm and moderate Lord Liverpool had written in pencil on the back of the 
 letter, "This is too bad." These things, before well known, were now repeated 
 in Parliament, and the i)ortrait of the rank Tory nobleman, with his rashness, 
 his obtuscness, his narrowness, his ingenuous conclusions tliat the people and 
 tlieir purses were created for the benefit of the aristocracy, was held up before 
 the ])ublic eye in a way infinitely damaging to the Administration. Sir Robert 
 Peel held up, on the other side, his manliness and liis military (pialificatitins — 
 qualities which, with some other very good ones, nobody denied, but which 
 did not constitute liim a fitting representative of the mind of the British nation 
 nl the Court of Russia. The appointment was not actually made out: but 
 Sir \\. I'eel declared liimself ready to maintain the nomination. The difficulty.
 
 214 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 [Book V. 
 
 1835. 
 
 Hansard, xwi. 
 1003. 
 
 Dissenters' 
 Marriages. 
 
 liowever, was ended by Lord LondondeiTy immediately withdrawing. The 
 debate in the Connnons was published on Saturday ; and on Monday, the 
 Marquess declared, with his characteristic manliness, that he saw it to be im- 
 possible that he could act with advantage at a Foreign Court while diso^vned 
 as a representative by any considerable portion of the political body at lionie; 
 and therefore, while scorning all scoffs and imputations, and heedless of invi- 
 dious censure, he should, for the sake of his sovereign, decline the service pro- 
 posed. The Whig Lords were anxious to explain that their disapprobation 
 was grounded on the speeches he had made in that House, Avhich had mani- 
 fested his dismay and anger at the expulsion of the Bourbons, his rancour 
 against the Poles, and his sympathies with Don Sliguel and Don Carlos ; 
 which state of opinion seemed to qualify him rather for tlie post of Russian 
 ambassador in England than British ambassador in Russia. The Ministers 
 were as severely judged by their own party on this occasion as by any other. 
 They had humbled the King, and rendered his prerogative ineffective. If it 
 had before been true that the sovereign could not practically carry out any 
 such appointment without the approbation of Parliament, express or implied, 
 the truth had not been exhibited; and decent appointments had made all easy. 
 In this case, the King had been first misled and then humbled; and the Con- 
 servatives had little more mercy on the Ministers than any body else. 
 
 In the preceding year. Lord John Russell had brought forward a measure 
 for the relief of Dissenters in regard to the marriage ceremony. It was well 
 meant; but the Dissenters could not possibly accept it. All proposed legisla- 
 tion on this subject, thus far, had been kind in its spirit, and earnest in the 
 desire to give relief; but it had unconsciously carried an air of condescension 
 — a supposition of respective superiority and inferiority not admissible in 
 affairs of conscience. No one could be further than Lord John Russell from 
 sympathizing in the sayings of the Eldons and the Wynfords, and others, who 
 could not conceive of a Dissenter as a man whose rights were as precious, and 
 whose conscience was to be as much considered, as their own. Nobody could 
 be further than Lord John Russell from the insolence of asking what harm it 
 could do a Dissenter to be blessed in a form of words offensive to his religious 
 feelings, as long as he was not required himself to repeat those words. Lord 
 John Russell was disposed to relieve the Dissenter from the pain and humilia- 
 tion of being a party to a religious service which he conscientiously disajj- 
 proved ; and he proposed to open their own chapels freely to the body for the 
 performance of the ceremony of marriage. But he did not see, till the rejec- 
 tion of his measure by the Dissenters pointed out the fact to him, that it was 
 an infringement of religious liberty to render the Dissenters dependent on the 
 Church for the pubhcation of tlicir banns, and the declaration of that procedure 
 by the clergyman. He did not see that it was an encroachment on liberty of 
 conscience to permit marriages to be celebrated only in places of worship, thus 
 perpetuating the modern innovation, injurious to many consciences, of abso- 
 lutely connecting the civil contract with the religious celebration. On these 
 grounds, and also because they objected to the necessity of affixing the license 
 in some conspicuous part of their chapels, the Dissenters had rejected Lord 
 John Russell's measure of the session of 1834. Many whose occasions have 
 not led them to a A'ery close study of the application of the principles of re-
 
 Chap. I.J DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 215 
 
 ligioiis liberty, called them, as usual, captious. Others, who, like Lord 1835. 
 Holland, knew the Nonconformists, and recognised their function in the state, " — — ^— ^--- 
 received their petitions and statements with respect, and considered them with 
 deference. " Take care," said Lord Holland to a brother peer, a few years 
 later, on another question of Dissenters' rights — " take care how you conclude 
 against the Nonconformists on anj' question of religious liberty. I have seen 
 more of them than most men; and I never differed from them without finding 
 myself in the wrong." In such a temper of honest respect did Sir Robert 
 Peel now look into this case of Dissenters' marriages. He went down to the 
 principle of the matter at once, in which he was as well supported by the 
 lawyers in the House as by the Dissenters out of it. On the principle that 
 the civil contract is the first consideration before the law; and that, even in Political Diciion- 
 churches where marriage is regarded as a sacrament, the religious ceremony 
 only arises out of the civil contract, the Minister now proposed to establish at 
 once the broad principle of the validity of marriage by purely civil contract. 
 He also offered full liberty to all denominations of Dissenters to marry in their 
 own chapels. It was honourable to the House of Commons that it received 
 this broad measure as it deserved, recognising the truth of its principle. So 
 did the Dissenters also receive it ; but, amidst their satisfaction and gratitude, 
 they did not forget their fidelity to their function. They pointed out that even 
 this Bill would not establish equality before the law for men of differing faiths : 
 — it still provided one method of marriage for Churchmen and another for 
 Dissenters, and they required liberty of marriage by civil contract to be ex- 
 tended to the wliole of society. They also objected, on their own account, to 
 being dependent on the clergy for the registration of their marriages. Lord 
 Eldon's remark on this is, "The Dissenters are pleased, but they seem not to ufoofLord 
 
 .... . ./.i-ri'i 1 *.•!.. 1 KUlon, iii. p. 24J- 
 
 disguise that they are not satisfied. I take it that tlie true iiiends of the 
 Church are neither pleased nor satisfied. As to the Dissenters, it is their nature 
 not to be satisfied, as I can judge from very long experience." These haughty 
 gentlemen, who regarded the Nonconformists as a separate breed, and talked 
 of " their nature," seem never to have asked themselves whether they would 
 themselves ever be "satisfied" to be compelled to marry nowhere but in a 
 Roman Catliolic Church, or to depend on the Catholic priesthood for the cele- 
 bration and registration of their marriages. The ^linister received the repre- 
 sentation of the Dissenters with respect and good-will, and saw the force of 
 the objection about the registration by the clergy ; or, in case of the civil con- 
 tract celebration, by a magistrate who was usually a clergyman. He had it 
 in his mind to bring forward a registration measure of large scope; but he 
 could not do every thing at once, and at present could only announce it. On 
 going out of office, shortly after, he committed the whole business to Lord 
 John Russell, by whom that ultimate measure was brought forward the next 
 year which has happily settled the Marriage question. This ultimate measure 
 was brought in toyrether with one for a Re";istratioii of Hirths, IMarriatres, and 
 Deaths: by it, the civil contract becomes all lliat the State has to do witli the 
 celebration of marriage; and it is accomplished through the Registration 
 Office, while all persons are left free to conduct the religious celebration of 
 marriage according to their own views. 
 
 Dining this extraordinary session, the Minister seemed to be inexhaustible
 
 210 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book V. 
 
 1835. — '•! purposes, in resources, in energy, and, it may be added, in temper. By 
 
 ■ — — V this time, his political antagonists had begun to admire ; and the country was 
 
 a^vake. Success and permanence in office were evidently out of the question 
 still; but all that man could do the Minister did to lessen the rancour of 
 parties by uniting them in good objects. His speech upon the malt tax had 
 manifested great care, knowledge, and industrious research; and now his in- 
 troduction of a measure for the Commutation of Tithes impressed his hearers 
 yet more Avith a sense of these qualities. He hoped to induce a pretty general 
 commutation of tithes, by offering facilities and inducements to such a settle- 
 ment. His antagonists believed that none but a compulsory commutation 
 would take full effect: and many pronounced any settlement at all of that 
 question an achievement not to be expected of any statesman whatever. This 
 was no occasion of party strife, while it evidently improved the Minister's 
 position. He had caused the re-appointment of all the Committees of the 
 preceding session which had for their object the investigation into needs and 
 abuses; and it was clear to all by this time that he had no intention of med- 
 dling with any questions on which the mind of Parliament had been declared, 
 and its legislation settled. With regard to other matters, as well as Education 
 in Ireland, and the incipient plan for England and Wales, he declared his 
 principle to be to acquiesce in what had been deliberately decided on, and to 
 endeavour faithfully to carry out the purposes of the Icgislatm-e. 
 Ecclesiastical Que of the first acts of the Ministry had been to issue a Commission to in- 
 quire into the evils which had arisen from the old ecclesiastical arrangements, 
 now outgrown, about the territorial divisions, income, and patronage, of the 
 Church. Already the Commission were in waiting with their Report, which 
 was presented on the 19th of INIarch. A new arrangement of dioceses was 
 proposed, and the erection of two new bishoprics — those of Manchester and 
 Ripon; while, on the other hand, the sees of Bangor and St. Asaph might be 
 united; and also those of LlandafF and Bristol. An equalization of great 
 Church incomes, and a fairer distribution of work and salaries, were also pro- 
 posed. — About the same time, the Attorney General gave notice of a Bill to 
 amend the discipline of the Church of England: and he also renewed a 
 measure for the improvement of the administration of Ecclesiastical Law 
 which had been originated under the Duke of Wellington's former Ministry, 
 and adopted by the Whigs in their act of issuing a Commission. There was 
 much disputation as to which party ought to enjoy tlie credit of these proceed- 
 ings; for it was not yet clear to all who were in high places that a time was 
 come when, by a law of necessity, men must make a common stock of states- 
 manship — must unite their wisdom for the general good — and be satisfied with 
 the honour and blessing of having originated, or of having carried through, 
 good measures, with all procurable assistance from every quarter, Avithout in- 
 sisting on that glory of a more ancient statesmanship, in which the people had 
 little or no part — of being responsible for the whole conception, preparation, 
 and execution, of a ncAv act of policy. Our successive Ministers and their 
 parties were, for a scries of years, incessantly complaining of each other for 
 taking up and carrying good measures Avhicli they did not originate : but what 
 would they deserve as Ministers if they avoided taking up and carrying good 
 measures because they did not originate them? Ours are not times when men
 
 Chap. I.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 217 
 
 can say, "That is my bit of (rutli, and you shall not have it" — "That is my 1835. 
 hit of uscfuhiess, and you shall not touch it." The truth and the usefuhiess ^ — -^-^^-—^ 
 become, under a faithful representative system, as free as the light and the air. 
 The real glory is in effectually dispensing them — a work in which every poli- 
 tical benefactor we have is more or less concerned with some predecessor : — and 
 if, in the midst of such work, any man's heart is really set upon his due of 
 praise for his precise share in the suggestion and management, it might be 
 easy to ascertain that precise share. The difficulty would be to make any 
 body care to know what it was. — Amidst the prevalence of the charges all 
 round of borrowing or stealing political measures, the people are quietly 
 drawing their inferences — surely distinguishing the make-shift politician who 
 catclii's at a popular cry, takes up in a slovenly way what is suggested to him, 
 and offei's it without imjirovement or adaptation, from the true statesman, who, 
 amidst many mistakes of his opponents, sees here and there a good embryo 
 measure, reflects upon and expands it, collects all needful knowledge about it, 
 imbues it with originality and life, clothes it with a proper organization, and 
 produces it in his day of power, acknowledging whence he derived it, but 
 secretly conscious that but for him it would never have been thus matured. 
 .Such has been the process, so repeatedly and so conspicuously of late years, 
 on our platform of government, that men in high places have begun to under- 
 stand it like the crowd below — and we hear less complaint with every change 
 of government, of a borrowing or stealing of tlie thoughts of rivals : but, dur- 
 ing the short Peel administration of 1835, such complaints w^re abundant, 
 and very bitter. 
 
 Tlds short administration was now approaching its close. On the 24th of yl.p"^""'*'' 
 March, the Minister was outvoted about the functions of a Committee to in- 
 quire into a charge of intimidation at the late Chatham election, by an officer 
 in command there. ^ — On the 26th, another defeat was sustained on the ques- "if""*' *"'"• 
 tiou of the London University Charter. The grounds of proceeding about 
 this Charter had been examined by the Privy Council ; and, during the 
 period of Whig government, nothing had been done about it; while Oxford 
 and Cambridjie had petitioned against any i)ermission to the London Uni- L"^i»x I'm. 
 versty to grant degrees of the same denominations as those of the ancient 
 Universities; not objecting, as they declared, to the grant of a Charter, or the 
 power of conferring academical honours, but desiring to keep appropriate to 
 themselves the titles of honour which should prove that those who bore them H.msard, x.\>ii. 
 belonged to the Established CIuutIi, and had graduated at Oxford or Cam- 
 bridge. The motion on the present occasion was for an address to the King, 
 beseeching him to grant such a Charter to the Loudon University as was ap- 
 proved by the Law Officers of the Crown in 1831, and containing no other 
 restriction than against conferring degrees in divinity and in mediciue. Tlie 
 proposers declared, on being questioned, that the reason why they brought 
 forward this motion now was that they had no longer the hope which existed 
 in the days of a liberal government, of tlie admission of Dissenters to the old 
 Universities: and if such admission could not be obtained, tlicy must seek for 
 justice in the social career by accpiiring such privileges as could be had for the 
 one University wliich was open to them. Tlie goveniiuent amendment was 
 one which did no credit to any liody coucciiRd in it, and was, perhaps, the 
 
 vol,. II. 2 K
 
 21S 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 [Book V. 
 
 1835. 
 
 Hansard, xxvii, 
 J7if. 
 
 Hansard, xsvli. 
 3U1. 
 
 Penny Tydo- 
 Jisdm, xxvi. 1 
 
 Life of AruoM, i 
 11-121. 
 
 CifVrLICTS IN 
 
 Takliamlnt. 
 
 most damaging act of Sir Robert Peel's short term of office. It was of an 
 obstructive character which couhl not be mistaken — addressing the King for 
 copies of the memorials presented against the project of a Charter, together 
 with an account of the proceedings before the Privy Council. This was prac- 
 ticallv a reverting to tlie okl wrong of considering the Dissenters an inferior 
 and disgraced body, and excluding them from any fair chance in professional 
 life: and the wrong was too flagrant for the times, strong as. was the spirit of 
 bigotry, and the habit of prejudice among the classes from which the legisla- 
 ture is selected. The time was come when either the old Universities must 
 thro\v their gates wide to Dissenters, or they must abstain from interference 
 Avith that honoiuablc and conscientious body — withheld by honour and con- 
 science from winning University privileges — in obtaining justice by another 
 mode. The government was left in a minority of 136 to 246. The King's 
 reply to the Address was gracious ; but for several months after the return of 
 the Whigs to power, nothing more was heard of the matter. By the next 
 August, the pressxu'e of the government by the Council had become such as 
 to procure a proposal which was at once accepted by all the parties concerned 
 in the University — that a body of men of science and scholarship should be 
 incorporated by Charter in London, for the purpose of examining candidates 
 and conferring degrees in Arts, Medicine, and Laws, on not only students 
 educated in the one college in question, but in others in London, now speci- 
 fied, and also some in the country to be afterwards recognised. This satisfied 
 all reasonable persons. The Dissenters desired justice, <ind not a monopoly; 
 and the proposed extension conferred dignity, while securing enlarged use- 
 fulness. On the 28tli of November, 1836, two Charters were granted — one to 
 constitute the University of London, hitherto so called, "University College, 
 London," for " the general advancement of literature and science, by afford- 
 ing to young men adequate opportunities of obtaining literary and scientific 
 education at a moderate expense," — the other Charter creating the "University 
 of London." The proceeding, however, bore the ordinary character of the 
 executive acts of the Whigs — it was imperfect, if not illegul, the instrument 
 bearing the words, without qualification, " during Royal Will and Pleasure." 
 These words doomed the Charter to expire within six months after the death 
 of William IV. Queen Victoria, as advised, revoked it, and granted a new 
 one on a better tenure, which received the great seal on the 27th of December, 
 1837. In this Charter the object is declared to be to hold out the encoiu'age- 
 ments of the institution " without any distinction whatsoever ;" a declaration 
 '• so clear as deeply to discredit an attempt made in the next year to introduce, 
 in the form of optional discipline, a test which should establish "distinctions" 
 on account of differing modes of faith. It was Dr. Arnold who tried the un- 
 happy experiment; and he failed, as the best-intentioned man must do who 
 attempts to force his personal convictions on a public institution, in opposition 
 to its leading principle, and the express terms of its Charter. The LTniversity 
 remains equal in its operations to all, on the broad ground of the equal rights 
 of all, -without fear or favour, to liberty of opinion. 
 
 To return to the last nights of the Peel administration. — There was a re- 
 currence of party conflict at every practicable interval — the Opposition leaders 
 reproaching Sir R. Peel with perilling the prerogatives of the Crown, and
 
 Cn\r. I.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. ^V.) 
 
 troubling the course of legislation, by attempting to govern without a majority 18.35. 
 in the Commons; and Sir K. Peel inviting a vote of want of confidence as a ^-^^^'"x^ 
 ground, and as the only ground, on which he would be willing to retire before 
 ha\-ing laid all his measures before the House. Lord John Russell replied 
 that such a vote could not be called for before the production of the Ministe- 
 rial measures, without subjecting the Opposition to the charge of unfairness : 
 the obvious reply to which was, that if the Opposition intended to wait 
 for the Ministerial measures before voting want of confidence, they ought to 
 abstain from invidious remark and construction in the mean time. The 
 Opposition — those among them who were not leaders — acknowledged the 
 truth of this, but gave an intimation that the Opposition would choose their 
 own time. After two or three weeks of such antagonism as this, the "NA'higs 
 chose their opportunity. Their topic was the Appropriation question; their 
 time, the 30th of March. 
 
 On the 2nd of March, Lord John Russell had intimated that he should finai. .^nroci.c. 
 bring forward the whole subject of the Irish Church in the latter part of the 
 month, in order to test the position of the Ministry with regard to the country. 
 He waited till then for the Reports of the Commission. A fortnight later, he 
 had doubts of receiving the Reports, and declared them not necessary to his 
 argument, but desirable for the satisfaction of members. On the 18th, he 
 suggested that it would be well to wait for a partial Report which would soon 
 be in the hands of members : on the 19th, he fixed his motion, with notice of 
 a call of the House, for the 30th: and on the 20th, he formally relinquished 
 every kind of demand of Reports, because none would be ready, and he must 
 proceed without them. The 30th, now, was to be the great day of assertion 
 of the distinctive principle of the Whig government, which was to serve as a 
 test of the power of the existing administration, and as the instrument of 
 their overthrow : — the distinctive principle at that period, but not for long; for ArpnorauT. .s 
 it was dropped presently after the return of the Wliigs to power, and has ~ ' " ' 
 never been heard of from them since. The conflict now under notice cannot 
 be judged of without the retrospective light cast on it by this fact. 
 
 There had been an introductory debate on the Ministerial Resolutions \\ hicli 
 proposed to convert Irish tithe into a rent charge, redeemable under siich 
 conditions as should secure the redemption : and in this debate the O]iposition 
 were divided, some objecting to the measure, and others complaining that it 
 was a mere reproduction of the last Whig measure on the same subject ; some 
 desiring to proceed, and others thinking it essential to have the decision of 
 the House on the Appropriation question first. In consequence of these 
 differences, the Ministers carried their Resolution. — On the 30th, Lord John ",""'"'''• '""'■ 
 Russell repeated his proposition that the House should resolve itself into a 
 ('ommittee for the purpose of considering the state of the Irish Church, with 
 a view to applying any surplus left over from spiritual objects to the education 
 of the people at large, without distinction of religious persuasion. — lie declared JJlllflJl' '''^'^ 
 himself friendly to the principle of an Estahlislinient ; adopted the ground of 
 utility laid down by I'aley; showed that the Irish Church did not fulfil the 
 condition, and must therefore be reformed ; that, in this case, reform involved 
 reduction, and a reduction involved a surplus; and that, as to the application 
 of this surplus, no distinct line of religious approjiriaticm could be drawn
 
 '220 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book V. 
 
 1835. between making additions to tlie incomes of individual clergymen, and devc- 
 
 ~ ^^—^ loping the mental and moral capacities of the inhabitants of the country. — It 
 
 was necessary to advert to the difficulty which the Opposition leaders foimd 
 themselves in through the delay of the Commissioners' Report. Last year, 
 they had voted down the Appropriation question, on the ground that the 
 requisite information could be obtained only by the Inquiry of the Commis- 
 sioners ; and yet they were now bringing up the question again, without 
 waiting for the results of the Inquiry. The facts on which the question was 
 based were indeed patent enough ; and so had they been the year before, and 
 every year of the century ; but Lord J. Russell rested his excuse for his incon- 
 sistency on the broad declaration of the Premier, that luider no circumstances 
 would he consent to the appropriation of ecclesiastical funds to any but strictly 
 ecclesiastical purposes. Such a declaration, prior to the reception of the 
 Reports, justified tlie Oj)position, in their own opinion, in declaring their 
 principle in a manner equally broad. Another consideration, adverse to delay, 
 was that it was highly desirable to come to some vote, or other decision, which 
 should show whether or not the Administration enjoyed the confidence of the 
 House. 
 
 Lord Howick's speech was perhaps the most interesting, on the side of the 
 Reformers, delivered during the four nights of this important debate. He 
 
 H.msord, xxrii. lamented that this question was made the test of the stability of the adminis- 
 tration, because he believed that the abrupt overthrow of the Ministry would 
 be extremely disastrous to Ireland, as protracting the unsettlement of the tithe 
 question, and causing a confusion which no succeeding government could 
 remedy. For his own part, he would have been glad to have been spared the 
 necessity of declaring his views at such a juncture : but, being called upon to 
 avow his opinion on the one side or the other, lie was compelled to declare 
 himself in favour of the principle of Appropriation ; and this he did in the 
 
 Hansani. nxvii. most tliorougli and manlj- manner. — Sir Robert Peel's speech was what might 
 have been expected from tlie training of his life, though far fi-om what could 
 be desired from the Prime ^Minister of the empire. He dwelt upon the compact 
 with the Church in the Act of Union with Ireland ; admitted that there were 
 circumstances under which all compacts must be broken, as there were circum- 
 stances under which constitutions themselves must be dissolved : but he 
 insisted on proof to demonstration that such moral sacrifices were inevitable 
 before they could be deliberated upon : he denied that any proof of the kind 
 had been offered in the present case, and declared his disbelief that any such 
 could be produced. He insisted that before any convulsive proceeding could 
 be honestly proposed, the innovators should be prepared with a comprehensive 
 and complete new policy to supersede the existing compact : he was justified 
 in asserting, after repeated challenges to his opponents, that no such scheme 
 was prepared : and therefore, though he might be compelled to succumb to an 
 adverse vote, he should ever condemn the procedure of procuring that vote 
 at the expense of the Irish Church, rather than by means of a direct motion 
 of want of confidence in the government. He believed that, on this question, 
 the House was not an expression of national opinion : he believed that his 
 view Avas tliat of the large majority of the people : and he therefore felt strong 
 to meet the decision that might ensue from his adherence to his view of duty
 
 Chap. I.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 211 
 
 to the Ivisli Chuicli. — The whole speech proceeded on the assumption that 1835. 
 the motion involved the virtual overthrow of the Irish Church, and a conse- — — ~— — ' 
 quent convulsion : an assumption which the Reformers reasonably denied : 
 but an analysis of the division seems to show that, with regard to the state of 
 national opinion, the Minister was right. Sound as was the Ajjpropriation 
 principle, in the view of the soundest thinkers of the time, it was not one 
 which interested the general mind ; and it was not long before the Whig 
 leaders had to make bitter complaints of the indifference of the people to it. 
 It is much to be wished that the continued existence of the Peel administra- 
 tion of 1835 had been put upon Some other issue. The Resolutions in favour 
 of Appropriation, jiroposed by I^ord J. Russell, were carried by the Scotch and 
 Irish members ; the English leaving the motion in a minority of nine. Of 
 the Scotch members, 32 were in fiivour of it, and 17 against it. Of the Irish 
 members, 64 voted with the Opposition, and 37 with the government. The t»" «nM op or. 
 majority against Ministers was 33, in a House of 611 members. The I'lamard; xxvii. 
 division took place at three o'clock in the morning of the 3rd of April. 
 
 In Committee, Lord J. Russell moved a resolution, that no measure on the 
 subject of tithes in Ireland could succeed which did not embody the Appro- 
 priation principle : and he obtained a majority of 27. This was on the 7th of Hansard, xxvii. 
 April. On the 8th, Sir- R. Peel announced the resignation of the Cabinet. ni-smNATioN of 
 He avowed that it was with great reluctance that he retired, because his nans.ini, xxvii. 
 government, supported by the full coniidence of the King and by gi-eat 
 moral strength in the country, could, as he and his colleagues believed, have 
 speedily settled some public questions, especially that of Irish tithes, which 
 required innnediatc adjustment, but nmst now be cast adrift. But they con- 
 sidered that, on the whole, it would be more hurtful still to tlie public service 
 to continue the attempt to govern the country, imsupported by the confidence 
 of the House of Commons : a confidence which, as was shown by four im- 
 pressive defeats, they did not possess. There was, as Sir Robert Peel must 
 have known, no need of protestations of personal disinterestedness : for the 
 whole temper and conduct of the ^Minister during the last five months had 
 been a consistent silent assertion of right feelings, as well as of the most 
 eminent ability. Every one knew that he had had no option about undertaking 
 office ; and every one felt and said that he had failed only because ))arties had 
 been, as yet, too strong for him. The Opposition had gained nothing, during 
 the interval, in general estimation, while he had gained as much as was possible 
 in the time. At lliis day, there are many who avow that thick mists of 
 prejudice dissolved fVom before their minds in the course of these five months ; 
 and that they now for the first time began to apprehend the character and 
 appreciate the powers of Sir Robert Peel; — a character so peculiar as to 
 require a long obscivation to obtain a true view of it; and powers whicli had 
 not, even yet, fully revealed themselves to those who knew him best. 
 
 The cheering of the whole House at the conclusion of his speech was long 
 in subsiding;. >Vh(>u any thinji' else could be lieard, Lord J. Russell said that ii«n-arti jxi.i. 
 "he did not wish to make any comment on what had fallen from the Right 
 Hon. (lientlcman, except to express his opinion that the Right Hon. (ieiitlemaii 
 had acted entirely in (he spirit of the Constitution." 
 
 Xow, tlien, the lu formers were to have another trial with the King and ihe 
 cDunlrv.
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book V. 
 
 CHAPTER ri. 
 
 1835. rpiIERE was an Interval often days before the King and country could feel 
 ^— -'^— J- that there was a government to rely on. It was a season of anxious 
 expectation to all : but few were aware how many and how serious were the 
 causes of anxiety. 
 niFFici>.TiM. The King sent first for Lord Grey, who declined office, but gave his best 
 
 advice — which was to send for Lord Melbourne. Thus, the character of the 
 administration might certainly be anticipated : but what were they to do i By 
 choosing the Irish Church question for the overthrow of the Peel administra- 
 tion, the Whigs had pledged themselves to carry the Appropriation principle 
 into practice without delay — even in connexion with the pressing affair of the 
 tithes : whereas the King was not only understood to be opposed to any inno- 
 vations upon the privileges of the Church, but was remembered to have spon- 
 taneously and eagerly pledged himself to the bishops to resist all such innova- 
 tions. — Again, their present victory had been gained by means of the Irish 
 members, who might and would fairly presume upon the fact, and who must 
 be specially considered in the impending legislation for Ireland; whereas 
 O'Connell had recently been pledging himself, in the hearing of all the world, 
 to obtain organic changes of the greatest importance ; and, in the first place, a 
 reform of the House of Lords as sweeping as that of the Commons; and, as 
 usual, he promised a speedy repeal of the Union. — Again, the Wliigs had not 
 among them any man of very eminent ability in statesmanship, while many 
 were sufficiently distinguished for talent to be entitle'd each to set up for him- 
 self in regard to the work of his own department. In such a case, tbe absence 
 of any controlling or harmonizing mind, of any mind which could be truly 
 called that of a statesman, was fatal to all chance of firm and effective rule. 
 Thus it appeared to the most thoughtful people throughout tire country, who, 
 remembering how the last "Whig administration had disappointed expectation, 
 considered the present prospect to be any thing but exhilarating. The King 
 could not have forgotten these facts, either ; nor his alarm at the promised 
 passage of political arms between Lords Brougham and Durham in the winter, 
 from which, but for the intervention of the Peel Ministry, might have arisen 
 a new struggle between the halting and the advancing Reformers. Such a 
 struggle might now, probably, be expected ; for the whole country was aware 
 that the radical reform party must become of importance, both as stimulus and 
 support to the Whigs, who were almost powerless without them. It was 
 believed to be an earnest wish of the King's that such a conflict of liberal 
 parties and leaders should be avoided ; and that it was a positive stipulation 
 of his that Lord Brougham should not return to the woolsack. Lord Dur- 
 ham's health did not permit of his taking office at home, though it did not 
 interfere with his filling a diplomatic function abroad. So we soon find him 
 in the honourable post of Ambassador to Russia. The Great Seal was for
 
 Klt.M^yo^
 
 CnAt.lI.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE, 223 
 
 some time in commission, either from the difficulty of finding a Chancellor, or 1835. 
 
 from the danger of making an enemy of Lord Brougliam, who was one of the ■ -— — 
 
 perplexities of the crisis. It had been found impossible to act with him : but 
 it was dangerous and painful to have him for an enemy. If there was any 
 alternative besides these, it was not found. He presently came out broadly in 
 the character of an enemy; and even Lord Melbourne's good-humour and 
 indifference were insufficient to bear up his temper, courage, and spirits, vmder 
 the hostility of his former colleague — unremitting and bitter as it was, and 
 protracted from session to session — not a little affecting, as we shall see, the 
 political action of the time. 
 
 The country was aware of this complication of difficulties : the King felt it 
 keenly — the new Ministers alone seemed undismayed by it. It was tlieir way 
 to be confident; and now they were exulting and gay, though the embarrass- 
 ment of forming themselves into a government was great. It was the 8th of 
 April when Sir II. Peel and the Uukc of A\'ellington announced their relin- 
 quishment of office ; and it was not till the 18th, after repeated adjournments 
 of the Commons, that the new administration was declared to be completed. 
 Lord Melbourne was the Premier ; and in his announcement to the Lords, he admin'stka™*!.^ 
 spoke of the difficulties of the government as "great and arduous — many J^™*"'^''' "™- 
 indeed of a peculiar and severe kind." Lord Melbourne, however, was imder- lo"" mel- 
 stood to be more teazed than dismayed by difficulties. He felt them more 
 than he chose to show ; for it was his chief fault to affi'Ct a 2Wco-curante 
 character of mind unworthy of his sound sense, his actual diligence, and his 
 disinterested love of his coinitry. Ilis patriotism took the form of a love of 
 peace and quiet for society ; and that love of peace and quiet proceeded, in a 
 great degree, from the speculative character of his intellect. His views were too 
 comprehensive and too .abstract to permit him to perceive the importance of 
 particular questions and particular acts, or to engage his sjmpathies in tem- 
 porary occasions, when other men were ardent and resolute. He was not one 
 who would ever stimulate the public mind, or concentrate its energies on pro- 
 minent ideas or definite enterprises. "When occasions arose, he regarded them 
 with philosopliy, \\ith sincerity, and with much of the ripe ivisdom of tlie 
 scholar and the gentleman : and, if compelled to act, he acted with diligence 
 and decision : but he waited for them to arise, and conceived that it was his 
 business to do so. He was out of his place as the head of a Ileforming Ad- 
 ministration, from his inability to originate, and his indisposition to guide. 
 In his function at the Home Office, he had done extremely well. His benign 
 contempt and philosopliical compassion for the ignorant herd luid mack' him a 
 calm and merciful ruler of the restless and untoward ; while his good sense 
 and sincerity, witli his love of public tranquillity, had made him diHgent and 
 watcliful in anticipation of disturbance. His conduct at the time of the 
 demonstration of the Unions on behalf of the Dorsetshire labourers was admi- 
 rable ; and it is understood that this passage of his political life so recom- 
 mended and emleared him to the King as to make the present transition of 
 power easier than it could otherwise have been. Tlu-re had not yet been 
 opportunity for the world to become fully acquainted witli his great and fatal 
 faidt — fatal at such a crisis of the national mind and fortunes — his affectation 
 of scepticism unil poco-cura?iteism. .Vt a time when earnestness was tlie first 
 
 \
 
 22-i HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book V. 
 
 1835. rcqtiisite in the chef of a leforming administration, the want of it would have 
 
 ^— 1 — ' been a deadly sin: and the affectation of the want was a moral offence. 
 
 Unapt for combination, incapable of effective organization, as his colleagues 
 were, his assumed indolence and indifference went to increase the evil, and 
 may be considered one of the causes of their failure to govern the country 
 well. He might consider it amusing to perplex and astonish deputations and 
 single applicants by his extraordinary manners during interviews; but his 
 pranks were of more serious consequence than he supposed, at a time when 
 the people were in earnest, and believed that they had a government to which 
 they might refer their cause. It was very well for him to look philosophically 
 from a Avindow of the Home Office upon the 30,000 Unionists who came to 
 intimidate him — and some few, as he was aware, with the idea of taking his 
 life : but it was a different thing to appear absorbed in blowing a feather, or 
 nursing a sofa-cushion, when giving audience about the abolition of the punish- 
 ment of death, or receiving a report on Criminal I^aw lleform, in preparation 
 for the Debate of the night. It was a serious thing to send for a philosopher 
 to offer him a pension, and begin the interview with the remark that he 
 thought such pensions a great humbug. And it did not mend the matter that, 
 on one occasion which leaves the deepest blot upon his name — one occasion 
 which forms an exception to the general kindliness and philosophy of his tem- 
 per and demeanour — he showed that he really could and did feel in an inten- 
 sity of party-feeling. In the next reign, he had mournful occasion to write 
 two letters to the mother of Lady Flora Hastings ; and then he was hard and 
 ungentlemanly, even cruel, to a degree which deprived him of that reputation 
 for superiority to emotion for which he strove by the affectation of a Hfe. As 
 yet, when he assumed the Premiership in 1835, neither his failings nor his 
 sterling merits were fully known. He was held in general respect and trust, 
 without exciting any high expectation: but it was not long afterwards that the 
 good-humoured and scarcely burlesque character of him given by Sydney Smith 
 in his second letter to Archdeacon Singleton, was laughingly recognised as a 
 capital likeness. The subject and the caricaturist are both gone now; and a 
 solemnity is cast over the mirth of the time ; but there is enough of truth and 
 of serious appreciation in the sketch to make it valuable as a permanent 
 \\ Miks, lu. 2if . iliiistration. " Viscount Melbourne," says Sydney Smith, "declared himself 
 quite satisfied -with the Church as it is ; but if the public liad any desire to 
 alter it, they might do as they pleased. He might have said the same thing of 
 the monarchy, or of any other of our institutions ; and there is in the declaration 
 a permissiveness and good-humour which in public men has seldom been 
 exceeded. Carelessness, however, is but a poor imitation of genius ; and the 
 formation of a wise and well-reflected plan of Reform conduces more to the 
 lasting fame of a Minister than that affected contempt of duty which every 
 man sees to be mere vanity, and a vanity of no very high description. — But, 
 if the truth must be told, our Viscount is somewhat of an impostor. Every 
 thing about him seems to betoken careless desolation : any one would suppose 
 from his manner that he was playing at chuck-farthing w-ith human happi- 
 ness ; that he was always on the heel of pastime ; that he would giggle away 
 the Great Charter, and decide by the method of teetotmn whether my Lords 
 the Bishops should or should not retain their scats in the House of Lords.
 
 Chap. II.J DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 225 
 
 All this is tlie mere vanity of surprising, and making us believe that he can 1835. 
 
 play with kingdoms as other men can with ninepins. Instead of this lofty — ■ — ■ 
 
 nebulo, this miracle of moral and intellectual felicities, he is nothing more 
 than a sensible honest man, who means to do liis duty to the Sovereign and to 
 the country. Instead of being the ignorant man he pretends to be, before he 
 meets the deputation of Tallow Chandlers in the morning, he sits up half the 
 night talking with Thomas Young about melting and skimming, and then, 
 though he has acquired knowledge enough to work off a whole vat of prime 
 Leicester tallow, he pretends next morning not to know the difference between 
 a dip and a mould. In the same way, when he has been employed in 
 reading Acts of Parliament, he would persuade you that he has been reading 
 ' Cleghorn on the Beatitudes,' or ' Pickler on the Nine Difficult Points.' 
 Neither can I allow to this Minister (however he may be irritated by the 
 denial) the extreme merit of indifference to the consequences of his measures. 
 I believe him to be conscientiously alive to the good or evil that he is doing, 
 and that his caution has more than once arrested the gigantic projects of the 
 Lycurgus of the Lower House. I am sorry to hint any man's feelings, and 
 to brush away the magnificent fabric of levity and gaiety he has reared ; but 
 I accuse our Minister of honesty and diligence ; 1 deny that he is careless or 
 rash ; he is nothing more than a man of good understanding, and good prin- 
 ciple, disguised in the eternal and somewhat wearisome affectation of a political 
 Roue." 
 
 There was another yjoco-cMrrt«<e Minister in the Cabinet, though it might ^'''■ci"'"-^^ 
 be felt that one was enough. Mr. Charles Grant, afterwards Lord Glenelg, 
 was Colonial Secretary; and events were at hand which made his post as 
 important as any in the Cabinet. He was regarded with universal good-will 
 for his quiet steadiness in the advocacy of liberal principles : and he was 
 respected as a man of large information and clear sagacity.. But his indolence 
 was extreme ; — an indolence which was so thoroughly constitutional as to be 
 inveterate ; and he naturally failed in an office which requires the powers of 
 more than one man to fulfil its duties, be his energy what it may. — To make 
 uj) for these lovers of ease, there were half a dozen men whose activity, in one 
 form or another, nobody could question : — Lord Palmerston, Lord John 
 Kussell, Lord Howick, Mr. Spring Rice, Lord Duncannon, and Mr. Poulett 
 Thomson. — As for Lord Palmerston, " the world was all before him where to 
 choose" to make England felt and talked about, for good or for evil. " Per- 
 fidious Albion" was sure to be the world's topic while he was in power. — 
 Lord John Russell was now to show — and tlie nation was trulv anxious to '-<""' ■'""'' 
 learn — whether his activity would now be measured and sustained, under the 
 responsibility of having wrested the government out of the liands of other 
 men, and taken it into tlie grasp of himself and liis frionds, instead of requir- 
 ing, as before, to be kept up by the pressure of deputations, and demands 
 from witliout. He had to show wliether he could originate as well as persist, 
 and whetlier his persistance could hold out to the ])oint of success. He liad to 
 show whether he could keep in check his rash courage and self-confidence, 
 learn to abstain from projdiecy and jdedge, perceive tliat he could be and often 
 was mistaken, and leave off making declarations during the parliamenfary 
 recess which the next session compelled liim to stultify. No one doubled his 
 
 vol.. II. 2 (i
 
 22(5 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 [Book V. 
 
 1S35. 
 
 Irish Adminis- 
 tration. 
 
 Two GREAT 
 
 Questions. 
 
 readiness to undertake ; the question was what he could accomplish. No one 
 doubted his courage : the question was of his ultimate efficiency. No one 
 doubted his patriotism : the question Avas of its scope and enlightenment. 
 No one doubted his cleverness : the question was whether he had enough of 
 philosophy, candour, and sustained energy, to raise his cleverness into states- 
 manship. No one looked to him for originality — for the genius of statesman- 
 ship : if he had had it, it must have appeared before this time : but of the 
 secondary order of statesmansliip, the ability which can appropriate, and 
 organize, and vivify, the floating wisdom of the political world, and make it a 
 ruling power, he might yet show himself capable. He had now a fair field ; 
 and that his own expectations were sanguine was shown by his determination 
 to obtain power, and his exultation in having obtained it. — Lord Howick went 
 to the War Office, with a high reputation for honesty, diligence, and courage, 
 and a fair one for ability, to begin with. — Mr. Spring Rice, smart and good- 
 humoured, but not yet distinguished for financial wisdom, became Chancellor 
 of the Exchequer ; an appointment which the critical Sydney Smith thought 
 somewhat rash. " If," said he, " Mr. Spring Rice were to go into holy orders, 
 great would be the joy of the three per cents." But, as was said before, there 
 is no knowing what kind of Chancellor of the Exchequer any man will make 
 till he is tried. — The merits of Lord Duncannon were not fully appreciated 
 till he went to Ireland, some years afterwards : but the few who now took an 
 interest in the management of the Woods and Forests department saw that its 
 work was thoroughly well done, with quiet wisdom and strenuous diligence. — 
 Mr. Poulett Thomson was the only member of the government admitted from 
 the Radical Refonn party. He was President of the Board of Trade, for 
 which his knowledge and experience and sound economical principles well 
 fitted him. He entered the Cabinet on the stipulation that he should have 
 perfect freedom in advocating the repeal of the Corn laws. — Ireland was well 
 treated in the apportionment of office. The good-himioured and accomplished 
 Lord Mulgravc, afterwards Lord Normanby, with his demonstrative character 
 and manners, was just the man to engage the admiration and good-will of the 
 impressible Irish ; while the benevolent and chivalrous Lord Morpeth as 
 Secretary, and the no less chivalrous Drummond as Under Secretary, with 
 his wisdom, his highly-principled diligence, and excellent habits of business, 
 took care that the hard and serious work of the government of Ireland should 
 be duly performed. As tlie case of Ireland was not yet understood, and the 
 true and permanent principle of her rule had not yet been found, any policy 
 attempted at that time could be but of temporary effect : and it was but a few 
 years before her rulers avowed that their policy — of conciliation — was " ex- 
 hausted :" but, as a preparation for a higher system of statesmansliip, and a 
 means of getting over the transition from a bad old system to an indeterminate 
 new one, it was true, as was said at the time, that Ireland had never been so 
 well governed as during the Viceroyalty of Lord Mulgrave. — As for the rest — 
 Lord Lansdowne was President of the Council ; — Lord Auckland went to the 
 Admiralty ; — Lord Holland was Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster ; — and 
 Sir J. C. Hobhouse was at the head of the India Board. 
 
 The new Ministers pledged themselves to tAvo great measui'es as the prin- 
 cipal work of the remainder of the session ; — Municipal Reform, and the
 
 Chap. II.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. oo- 
 
 settlement of the Irish Church. The Irish Church question was, at the 1835. 
 moment and on principle, the most important of any question of the time, not v-^^v">^ 
 only because it had broken up two Administrations, but because it involved 
 the principle for whose sake the Whigs now possessed themselves of office, 
 and by which, therefore, they were pledged to stand or fall. 
 
 On the 26th of June, Lord jNIorpeth brought forward the ministerial mea- "j^^"^- '^'■'''• 
 sure. He avowed that if the question now were whether or not to establish 
 the Protestant Church in Ireland, no sane man would dream of such an act. TiiEim^n 
 
 . . . .... CnrKdi. 
 
 But the C'hurch was there, with all its long prescription, and its implication 1835 — 38. 
 with the civil polity of the empire ; and it was not proposed to touch its foun- 
 dation, or disturb its framework. If it were to endure, however, it must be 
 made a less exasperating spectacle than it was to the bulk of the people among 
 whom it stood. The measure which he brought forward actually consisted, as 
 was presently pointed out by the Opposition, of two parts ; though the framers 
 considered the two so intimately connected that it was an act of opposition in 
 itself to separate them. The first provided for the conversion of tithe into a 
 rent-charge, in much the same way as in the last two measures proposed : — 
 the other provided for the ai)pro])riation of the accruing sui-])lus to the religious q,^™",^"'"'"" 
 and moral instruction of all classes of the community, without distinction of 
 religious persuasions. After two readings, the proposal to go into Committee 
 was made on the 21st of July, when Sir R. Peel renewed his opposition to the J'™"»^' ''"''^ 
 second part of the measure, on the two gi-ounds, that there would be no sur- 
 plus : and that, if there were, it would be a breach of faith to the Irish 
 Church to apply its funds out of its own pale, and for any but strictly ecclesi- 
 astical purposes. — The Chancellor of the Exchequer stated that the House H.nn5ard, xxix. 
 had decided, after long debates, that the question of appropriation was connected 
 with the concession to the tithe owners of the £1,000,000 advanced to them 
 in preceding years ; he conceived that this precluded the division of the 
 measure into two parts : and he declared the purpose of this partition to be to 
 get rid of the Appropriation clause: which was undoubtedly true. — Lord 
 Morpeth warned the legislature of the consequences of drawing back from 
 the Resolutions recently passed in that House. The Irish were now aware 
 that parliament knew of the parishes vacant of Protestants— of the churches 
 without flocks, of the incomes jiaid for no service — of the provision for the 
 extension of that Protestantism which was not extending — of the desperate 
 poverty and ignorance of the Catholic peasantry who had hitherto been called 
 upon to pay, instead of to benefit by these funds ; and now that these things 
 were admitted — now that the principle of Appropriation luid been sanctioned 
 by that House — it was too late to recede. On a division, the Ministers had a 
 majority of 37— the number being made up, not only by Irish members, but [J^^'ird. sxi^. 
 by a nuijority of 8 among the English and Scotch members. The Bill was 
 now safe in the Lower House; and the ^linisters proceeded to add, in Com- 
 mittee, a clause providing for the advance of £50,000, from the Consolidated 
 Ftind, in anticipation of the surplus to accrue, for purposes of general educa- H^^snrj, xxix. 
 tion in Ireland. The reason for this was that there was said to be much 
 cxasjieration in some Irish parishes, where the new anangemcnts were not to 
 take eifect during the life of the present incumbents : and it was believed that 
 the safety and tranquillity of these clergymen would be jjromoted by a begin-
 
 22S 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 [Book V. 
 
 1S35. 
 
 Hansard, xxx. 
 
 934. 
 
 1836. 
 
 Hansard, x.\xiii. 
 •201. 
 
 Hansard, xxxiii. 
 127-1. 
 
 ning of the educational expenditure being made at once. — The Radical reform 
 members oppcsed tlio concession of the £1,000,000 advanced as a loan: and 
 the Ministers admitted the encroachment on the intentions of the legislature, 
 but ])leaded tlie mucli more serious evil which would ensue from attempts to 
 recover what was irrecoverable. — The Bill passed the Commons on the 12th 
 of August, and was read a second time in the Lords on the 20th. — In Com- 
 mittee, the Lords struck out all the Appropriation clauses, by a majority of 
 97, in a House of 179. — The Ministers abandoned the whole Bill; and thus 
 the matter stood over till the next year. It was a great evil, in the existing 
 state of the Irish Church ; but it was felt to be worth enduring for the sake 
 of the essential principle involved in the measure ; a principle by which not only 
 the Whig Administration, but the connexion of England and Ireland, and the 
 religious liberties of a nation, must ultimately stand or fall. If, three years 
 later, the Whig administration drew back from their obligation to stand or fall 
 by this principle, neither they nor any other human power could alter its relation 
 to the political connexion of Ireland, and to the religious liberties of a nation. 
 The struggle was renewed the next spring. On the 25th of April Lord 
 Morpeth brought forward the tithe measure, about which the two parties in 
 both Houses would have agreed, if it had stood without the appropriation 
 provision. This last was not brought forward in the express and conspicuous 
 manner of preceding years ; but Lord jNIorpeth gave notice that it was involved 
 inextricably in the Bill. As yet. Ministers were evidently resolved to stand or 
 fall by it. He was now able to declare that there would certainly be a sur- 
 plus — he believed of nearly £100,000 ; but it would not be available for a 
 considerable time. — Lord Stanley moved an amendment, consisting of a pro- 
 posal of the tithe measure, without reference to appropriation. Amidst the 
 general resemblance of the debates in successive years, there ai-e interesting 
 divergences of topic, and changes of views to be noticed. This year, there 
 were three at least that were remarkable. The Opposition had certainly 
 advanced considerably in their estimate of the reforms that were essential to 
 the maintenance of the Irish Church. They spoke more freely of the disgi-ace 
 of the spectacle of an overpaid and an underpaid clergy within the same area : 
 they were more earnest about equalization of incomes, and more bold about 
 the prosecution of the needful inquiries. — Another most pregnant fact was 
 that Lord Stanlej' complained of the cause of disagi-eement as not practical. 
 AVhat the government stood out for was a mere abstract principle — " a shadow" 
 which they had better give up for " the substance" of his plan of details : and 
 he implored them to relinquish the pursuit of what was so ineffectual — such a 
 mere idea — and unite with their opponents in coming to practical business. 
 Often as we are compelled to mourn the moral scepticism, the destitution of 
 faith, which is prevalent in the political world, and which is the just ground 
 of the deep disrepute of legislative assemblies, almost universally, it is not 
 often that we meet, in Hansard or elsewhere, with so open an avowal as this 
 — that principles are " the shadow," and arrangements " the substance" — that 
 it is not practical for the legislature to resolve, by clear implication, that there 
 is a world of morals above and beyond the law, to which mankind must occa- 
 sionally resort for the regeneration of their laws. To admit this solemnly and 
 deliberately, in full conclave, with a spectacle of murder and famine before 
 
 !
 
 CiiAr. II.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 5i2'J 
 
 the eyes, and the curses and groans and wailings of a suffering people filling 1836. 
 the air, is an unpractical thing for a legislature- to do, while they might be ^— — -v~~-^ 
 busy in ordering a plan of distribution of money — some more here and some- 
 thing less there, the suffering of the multitude remaining untouched. Lord 
 Stanley was so far ti-om understanding that a principle is the most substantial 
 and enduring of realities', that he evidently thought he was speaking loftily 
 and patriotically in making his unphilosophical and degrading appeal. He 
 was sure there would be no surplus ; and he supposed that settled the 
 matter of the " principle" being unpractical. 
 
 The third noticeable incident was that the debate turned, for a little while, 
 upon the important point — what is the object of a church establishment — to 
 propagate doctrine, or to enlighten the people by instruction and training. 
 Sir James Graham thought the former; Lord J. Russell, the latter. It was Hansard, xxxui. 
 for the former object that the Protestant Church was established in Ireland ; 
 and it was to the latter that Ministers now desired to overrule it. It was truly 
 a controversy for whose principle any government might be proud to struggle 
 to the death : but, till now, no express discussion of the principle of a reU- 
 gioiis establishment seems to have been entered into during the debates of the 
 last few years. The historical fact of the case in question seems to be, that 
 the church in Ireland was established for proselyting purposes: that these 
 purposes failed : that, at the date before us, many were unwilling to give up 
 the hope of yet converting the Irish to Protestantism, while, on the other 
 hand, those who saw the hopelessness of such an aspiration, and who neither 
 dared to touch the foundations of the Church in Ireland, nor to let her remain 
 as she was, believed that the only chance for Chin-ch and nation was in con- 
 necting the establishment with large and beneficent general objects. The case 
 might have been simplified, and the strife softened, if all parties had spoken 
 out — some admitting the disappointment of their missionary aims, and others 
 acknowledging that they were supplying a wholly new foundation for the 
 Church ; but no nearer approach to such frankness was made than by the 
 slight and superficial controversy during tlie present debate. — On this occa- 
 sion, the ^linisterial majority was 39 ; and the liill passed the Conmions on 
 
 the 15th of July. Uamard, xxsr. 
 
 Tlie Lords again threw out the Appropriation clauses, passing the rest of 
 the Bill, with slight alterations in some clauses regarding stipends. These 
 liist gave occasion to Lord J. Russell, and, as he believed, justification to refuse 
 the amended Bill, as sent down, tln-ough a breach of privilege — the Lords 
 having interfered with a money bill. The question was one difficult of deci- 
 sion — the question whether this was a breach of privilege or not; and the 
 Speaker himself avowed the nicety of the point. At length, the motion for iiin«.ir.i, xixt. 
 rejecting the altered Bill was carried by a majority of 29; and once more, the ' 
 controversy was adjourned to another year. 
 
 In the royal Speech, at the o])ening of the session of 1837, we find a reconi- 1837. 
 mendation of tlie subject of Tithes, among otliers, to the attention of Parlia- Hansarj,xijti.4. 
 ment : but the discussion of tlie topic was intercepted by the death of the 
 King. The argument on the principle of A]ii)ropriation may, however, be 
 observed proceeding, under other terms, tliroughout tlie discussion on the
 
 230 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 [Book V. 
 
 183" 
 
 Clll'RCIl Raics. 
 
 Spectator, 1837, 
 p. Iffi). 
 
 Hansard, xxxvi. 
 
 1207—1252. 
 
 measure of the Clianeellor of the Exchequer for the solution of the question of 
 Church rates. The temper of parties interested in church questions was at 
 this time bitter in the extreme. Lord Lyndhurst had made use of an expres- 
 sion about the Irish Catholics, haughty, hard, and unpatriotic, but still, by 
 no means conveying, when taken with its context, the full import which was 
 attributed to it. He called the Irish Catholics " aliens in blood, in language, 
 and in religion." This language was natvu'ally seized upon by the Irish agi- 
 tators, and reprobated by the English Liberals who were authenticating, in 
 every possible way, a conciliatory policy in Ireland. A striking scene took 
 place in the House of Commons, late one February night, when Lord Lynd- 
 hurst was seen sitting under the gallery, and Mr. Shiel was speaking. On 
 Mr. Shiel's use of the word " alien," uttered with the strongest emphasis, the 
 cheering from the Liberal side of the House broke forth, and continued till it 
 rose almost to a confusion of yells. The members appear to have had no compas- 
 sion for a man sitting by to hear such reprobation, while prevented from 
 explaining and remonstrating. Never was man more abundantly punished for 
 an insolent expression ; and the worst part of the punishment must have been 
 the seeing daily, in all companies and in every newspaper, the words 
 assumed to mean much more than he had intended them to convey, both from 
 the temper in wliich they were quoted, and from their being separated from 
 his argument. — Then there was O'Connell's National Association, threatening 
 and boastful : — then, there were the Bishops meeting at Lambeth, on the first 
 announcement of the Ministerial C'hurch-rate measure, to prepare a declara- 
 tion against it before it was brought before them as legislators : — and there 
 were the Ministers vehemently resenting this method of opposition : — and there 
 were legislators and constituencies debating the question of the exclusion of 
 the Bishops from Parliament. The times were indeed bitter and angry ; and 
 the Appropriation question was hardly likely to fare better than in preceding 
 years. 
 
 The Chancellor of the Exchequer showed that something must be done to 
 amend the unquiet and disgraceful state of things that existed in rela- 
 tion to the payment of Church rates. While the rate was voted by the 
 vestries, and the vestries were composed of persons of every variety of faith, 
 it was clear that the obtaining of a rate at all depended on the agreement of 
 parties who had for a long time been disagreeing more and more. If the rate 
 were refused, there were no means of obtaining it ; and, in point of fact. 
 Church rates had ceased in Sheffield since 1818 ; and in Manchester, none had 
 been levied since the beginning of the contest in 1833. It was not for a 
 member of the government to give a full report of the reasons of the Dissen- 
 ters for refusing to pay Church rates : and Mr. Spring Rice did not attempt 
 it : but there was nobody in the House who Avas not aware that opulent men, 
 to whom time and trouble were of more account tlian money, had undergone 
 toil and vexation to a great extent rather than pay very small sums for Church 
 rates ; and that several persons of high respectability bad gone to prison in 
 the cause. Many who paid tithes, without dispute though unwillingly — paid 
 tithes because the payment was a charge involved in the purchase of their 
 land — refused to pay Church rates, having good legal assurance that they were 
 not a legal charge, and being conscientiously reluctant to contribute, except
 
 Chap. II.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 231 
 
 under a clear legal obligation, to the maintenance of the places and forms of a 1837. 
 worsliip which they disapproved. — The proposal of the government was to ^—^^ — -^ 
 jjlacc Church Lauds under management which should cause them to yield 
 more than at present ; and from the improved income to pay Church rates, 
 and then hand over the surplus to the Ecclesiastical Commissioners. The 
 church and conservatism smelt a savour of the Appropriation principle in this 
 plan, and they resisted it accordingly. They could not say, indeed, that the 
 surplus was to be appropriated to other than ecclesiastical purjioses ; but they 
 complained that it would intercept the Dissenters' money ; and declared that 
 the (Jhurch was entitled to all increase of income from her own possessions, 
 and to the Dissenters' contributions too. Therefore it was that fifteen Bishops 
 assembled at Lambeth, and the Archbishop of Canterbury delivered his pro- Annual Register, 
 test against the Ministerial measin-e before it had left the Commons ; and the 
 Chancellor of the Exchequer carried his measure ill the Lower House by a 
 majority of only five. This was a virtual defeat, and the Ministers dropped Hansard, xxxniL 
 the Bill, which they had put forth as the leading measure of the Session. — 
 On the 12th of June Lord John Russell moved for a committee to inquire 
 into the management of Church lauds, with a view to the improvement of 
 their revenues. He declared that this had no connexion whatever with the Hansard, lawm. 
 principle of Appropriation : but the Church and the Conservatives believed 
 that it had, and they exerted themselves against it accordingly. Three divi- 
 sions took place on this occasion which show the temper of the House on the 
 question of church property. A direct proposal on the part of a Radical 
 reform member, Mr. Harvey, for the abolition of Church rates, was voted 
 down by a majority of 431 — only 58 members voting for the motion. — Lord 
 J. Russell's motion obtained a majority of 86 in favour of an inquiry into the 
 management of Church lands. — Mr. Goulburn proposed an addition of a pledge 
 from Parliament that any new funds accruing from improved management 
 should be applied to the extension of rehgious instruction by the clergy to the 
 members of the established chui-ch alone ; and the ministerial majority against 
 the motion was now only 26. From this it appeared that the Church would Hansard, mitju. 
 accept of any improvement of her own revenues, but would neither forego 
 funds derived from the Dissenters, nor extend her expenditure beyond her own 
 members. 
 
 Thus stood the matter when the elections took place, after the death of the 
 King. The Church question was the leading one on the hustings : and, 
 though the Ajijjropriation question was that by which the ]Ministers had turned 
 out their predecessors, and by which they were pledged to stand or fall, the 
 Ministerial majority in Parliament was sensibly lessened in the new House. 
 The government were discouraged accordingly, and they began to draw back 
 from their ])ledge — no doubt, from relaxing in their sense of being pledged on 
 behalf of the Appropriation principle : and the result was seen in the next 
 Session, in a way fatal to their political honour. 
 
 On the 2Tth of March, 1838, Sir R. Peel inquired of Lord J. Russell what 1838. 
 course he meant to pursue with regard to Irish tithe; and whether he intended 
 to bring forward the Appropriation ((uestion again, in accordance with the 
 Resolutions of 1835. The reply was that the Ministers intended to place the 
 tithe question " on a ground altogether new," as it ai>peared useless and irri- 
 
 UI6. 
 
 I
 
 232 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 [Book V. 
 
 1838. 
 
 SliRIIKMHR OF- 
 THE AHHBni'UIA. 
 TIUN l*IUM.IPl.Ii. 
 
 Hansard, xlti. 
 1J03. 
 
 IlEcEpnoN on-nr, 
 
 Si:RHL;NDtR. 
 
 Han«ar.l, xlii. 
 1325—13-15. 
 
 Hansard, xUi. 
 1353. 
 
 Hansard, xliii. 
 IISl. 
 
 II insard, xliii. 
 liS.1-7. 
 
 tating, after a conflict of four years, to prolong an argument whicli produced 
 no result. This announcement, unaccompanied by any hint now of standing 
 or fiilling by the great jninciplc by which the government had come into 
 office, prepared Sir 11. Peel and the Church party for their approaching 
 triumph over the honour of their opponents ; — the most mournful of triumphs. 
 The estimate of that honour was already so low that men of every party in 
 the House declared, a few weeks afterwards, that they perceived — some with 
 fear and some with hope — that they saw the Appropriation principle lurking 
 amidst the ambiguities of Lord J. Russell's new resolutions on the Tithe 
 question; ambiguities whicli were themselves discreditable on an occasion 
 which was professed to be a decisive one. 
 
 On the 14th of May, Sir Thomas Acland moved the rescinding of the cele- 
 brated resolutions of the Hoiise, of April, 1835, in favour of the Appropriation 
 question ; and then broke out Sir R. Peel's emotions of triumph. He told the 
 whole story ; — how he offered to carry a tithe measure like the present, and 
 was taunted with having derived it from the preceding government ; — how he 
 was compelled to retire because such a measure must, on principle, as his op- 
 ponents said, be connected with Appropriation clauses ; — how those opponents 
 staked their political existence on such a connexion ; — and how they were now 
 proposing to carry the Tithe measure, after all, without the Appropriation ; 
 introducing it by resolutions so ambiguously worded that no one could be sure 
 of what they meant. The true reply would have been that the Ministers, find- 
 ing that they could not stand by their principle, were ready to foil by it ; that 
 they had been mistaken about the interest of the public mind in the question, 
 and would accept the consequences of their mistake ; and that, having faith in 
 their principle, the only thing impossible to them was to surrender it. Their 
 actual reply was that their convictions on the question were unaltered ; but 
 that they surrendered the principle. — Sir Thomas Acland's motion for rescind- 
 ing the memorable resolutions was lost by a majority of only 19. When the 
 time arrived for the Tithe debate — the 2d of July — the Appropriation ques- 
 tion was once more brought forward by one who had never wavered uijon it, 
 and who was universally admitted to be, from his early action and steady ad^•o- 
 cacy, the highest authority on the subject — Mr. Ward. He, too, told the 
 whole story over again ; and the effect was withering upon the reputation of 
 the INIinisters. Referring to a pamphlet which, in 1835, had foretold that Sir 
 R. Peel must go out upon this question, he said : — " The Right Hon. Baronet 
 adhered to his opinions, sacrificed place and power to his opinions, and ceased 
 to be a Minister ; but they must have a new edition of the pamphlet to tell 
 them how those who rose into power upon the Right Hon. ISaronet's fall could 
 now adopt his opinions, and make them their rule upon this occasion, and do 
 so without the sacrifice of character and station." The only Minister who 
 offered any reply to Mr. Ward was Lord jNlorpeth ; and he made no reference 
 to the main point of the difficulty. He dwelt upon the courage and perseve- 
 rance of Ministers in ha^dng three times asserted their principle, and on their 
 prudence and love of peace shown in dropping it now : but he said nothing of 
 any obligation to resign. Mr. Ward's motion was, of course, lost by a large 
 majority — the Ministers themselves voting against it. But his speech was not 
 lost : and it has probably not yet fulfilled all its purposes. A principle may
 
 Chap, ll.l DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 253 
 
 be trodden down; but it can never be extinguished. When the one in question 1837. 
 
 revives, and men turn back to the history of the struggle, they may take warn- ~ — "~^ ' 
 
 ing and guidance from the record. While studying it, they will pause upon 
 the words of another highly-principled member, Mr. Grote, who said, in re- •ia"«Ti.<'''-.c60. 
 gard to this transaction, that it afforded melancholy proof of the way in which 
 great principles were made subservient to party purjioses ; and that he believed 
 history would note this as one of the most discreditable instances of tergiver- 
 sation on record. — -The Whig government now evinced a moral scepticism 
 equal to that of Sir James Graham on the same subject. They praised their 
 own "wisdom" in not sacrificing the substance to the shadow, and their de- 
 votion to the general good in surrendering a principle which was found not to 
 be generally appreciated. 
 
 It is true, the principle was not generally appreciated ; and government was 
 not duly supported in npholding it : but not the less for this were the Minis- 
 ters lowered in the estimation of the nation at large. It might be only the 
 thoughtful, and those familiarized with the philosophy of society, who saw the 
 whole scope of the controversy, and were interested in it accordingly ; but all 
 could see — and most did see — that the Whig ministry did not govern the 
 people, but was governed by them, and took, not merely suggestion and 
 stimulus from the popular will, but guidance and control. There was less 
 tlemonstration of disapprobation at the moment than earnest men hoped, and , 
 
 perhai>s than the Ministers feared : but they never recovered a high position 
 in the resj)ect and confidence of the country. 
 
 Such is the history of the Appropriation question which deteiinined the 
 return of the Whigs to power in 1835. 
 
 vol,, n. ii II
 
 234 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 I Book V. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 1835. 
 
 KKfOND r.REAT 
 
 QuEyrioN. 
 
 Municipal Rr- 
 
 FUKM. 
 
 ConpoRATroN 
 
 C'OMMISSIUN. 
 
 ON their return to power, in April, 1835, the Whig ministers had, as wc 
 liave seen, promised two leading measures during the session. We have 
 pursued the history of one. The other is the large and just measure 
 whicli, next to Reform of Parliament, is their chief title to honourable 
 remembrance. It was during the session of 1835 that the Municipal Reform 
 bill was carried. 
 
 This measure could not precede Parliamentary Reform ; but it was sure to 
 follow it. It could not precede Parliamentary Reform, because a large pro- 
 portion of members were sent by the corrupt boroughs where corporation 
 abuses were the most flagrant : and to attack those abuses was to attack parlia- 
 mentary corruption itself, in the presence of the delegates of that corruption. 
 Every borough proprietor and delegate would stand up for his own borough 
 corporation, aided by others to whom he would render a similar service in 
 their hour of need. And the people would not have borne to see the most 
 insignificant boroughs — those which had no parliamentary representation — 
 called to account and laid under discipline while the great parliamentary towns 
 were passed over. So it was necessary to purge Parliament first of the close- 
 borough class of members before the corporations could be exposed, though the 
 evil of municipal corruption had become well nigh intolerable for a long course 
 of years. — It was not merely the corruption of the old municipal bodies which 
 made their reform a necessary consequence of the regeneration of parliament : 
 it was also that the people were resolved to possess and use the rights of the 
 franchise provided for them by the Reform Bill, but intercepted by the oppres- 
 sive maladministration of the borough corporations. The franchise was of little 
 nse in a town where the corporate ofl[icers elected and re-elected themselves 
 and each other for ever ; and employed the trust funds which should have 
 healed the sick, and sheltered the old, and instructed the young, in bribing a 
 depraved class of electors ; where the town-clerks were nominated by the 
 patrons of boroughs, to countenance electoral subserviency, and do the dirty 
 work of venal electioneering, and where the efforts of honest electors might 
 be neutralized through the public-houses alone, if there were no other way 
 — the publicans being dependent for their licenses upon justices of the peace, 
 who had, as a body, no relish whatever for freedom of parliament. Such a 
 state of things could not be tolerated by the men who had won the Reform 
 Bill, with the intention of using it : and the authors of the Reform Bill were 
 gratefully supported by the majority of the middle classes in their first move- 
 ment in 1833, and their prosecution of the enterprise on their return to power 
 in 1835. 
 
 The first move was the appointment of a commission under the Great Seal 
 to twenty gentlemen, whose charge was " to proceed with the utmost despatch
 
 CiiAP. nr.J DURING THE THIRTY YEARS" PEACE. 
 
 'S.io 
 
 to inquire as to tlie existing state of the municipal corporations in England 1835. 
 
 and Wales, and to collect information respecting the defects in their consti- ^— — 
 
 tution— to make inquiry into their jurisdiction and powers, and tlie adminis- 
 tration of justice, and in all other respects ; and also into the mode of electing 
 and appointing the memhers and officers of such corporations, and into the 
 privileges of the freemen and other members thereof, and into the natui'e and 
 management of the income, revenues, and funds, of the said corporations." 
 
 While these twenty gentlemen were about their work, pairing off among 
 the districts into which they had divided England and Wales, how busy were 
 many minds — some with dread of exposure and of loss of jtcrquisitcs ; — some 
 with calculations how best to make their fortunes by claims for compensation 
 for offices wliich they saw would be taken from them ; — some with planning 
 how best to evade or mislead the inquiries of the commissioners, and others 
 how best to stimulate and aid these inquiries ; — some with the hope of seeing 
 at length a chance allowed for the culture of public and private virtue, through 
 the extinction of borough corruption ; — others rejoicing to see that the principle 
 of centralization was not to be extended beyond institutions where it was abso- 
 lutely indispensable ; and many, very many, looking back into history with a 
 new interest, whctlier hopeful or melancholy, now that the time had come for 
 an essential modification of an institution which forms a part of the body of •'"'''■ Did. u. 
 
 I J 380— 3S5. 
 
 that history from end to end ! 
 
 First, they saw groups of Romans sitting down here and there in the land, Ri'EA.vnHisTonv 
 
 / . . ? . . .OK MiiMcii'M. In. 
 
 and arranging their own local affairs, while living under the general law of stititioss. 
 Home. — Then, there were the Saxons, who, on arriving, found the to-vvn com- 
 munities fitted, by their municipal practice, for adaptation to their own more 
 general system of self-government, which extended equally over town and 
 country. They put their boroughreve at the head of the towTi government (by 
 popular election) as they placed their shirereves over the shires, to collect the 
 revenues of the state. — And then came the Normans, who no longer permitted 
 the boroughreve to be elected by his neighbours, but put in his place a bailiff 
 a])pointed by the king, — as the Shirereve was superseded by the Viscount. — 
 'i'hon appears in the history, the way of escape from the oppressions of tlic 
 bailiff foiHid by the citizens ; — the offer to the king of a larger smn, to be 
 transmitted direct to his exchequer, than could be collected by the bailiff, wlio, 
 besides, absorbed some by the way : and next there is the ready acceptance of 
 these terms, and the grant of a long succession of charters, granting the 
 boroughs to the burgesses in fee-farm ; that is, to be their own, as long as they 
 should punctually pay to the royal exchequer the crown rent agreed upon. 
 And here, when the relieved inhabitants were returning to their habits of 
 municipal freedom, docs the familiar name of Mayor first present itself. The 
 Saxon townsmen had no cause to love the title of bailiff; and they took, in- 
 stead, the Norman name which signified the chief mmiicipal officer of a to>vu. 
 At this time, the burgesses or townsmen were those who had a settled abode 
 in the town, were members of some one trade comjjany, and shared in the 
 liberties and free customs of the town. This was, in fact, a household ([uali- 
 fication, distinguisliiug the citizens from temporary residents, (for trade or 
 oilier purposes,) who neither paid taxes nor enjoyed the ])rivileges of citizen- 
 -'lili. Tlic means of obtaining the franchise seem to have arisen simply luii
 
 23G HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book V. 
 
 1835. of the conveniences of the ease. A man's settled residence was most easily 
 ascertained through the circumstances of his hirth, apprenticeship, and mar- 
 ria"-e. A man who obtained trading advantages by a settlement in a particular 
 town would gladly obtain citizenship by purchase. As for obtaining the free- 
 dom of any borough through the gift of the inhabitants, it was obviously a 
 substantial advantage in those days, as well as the honour that it is, by tra- 
 ditional associations, in ours. — In the time of Ed^vard III. we find an authori- 
 zation of the residence in towns of men who were not free of the borongh — 
 the citizens being empowered to make them contribute to the public expendi- 
 ture ; and hence it is easily seen how those guilds or trade companies became 
 important, which verified the position and rights of every resident within the 
 town walls, and were the settled method of access to the privileges of citizen- 
 ship. We can see these men and times with the mind's eye ; — the great 
 middle class, of which history has told so little, busy within their to^^^ls, — busy 
 about their private affairs, their manufactures and their commerce, — busy 
 about their local affairs, their magistracy, their criminals, the defences of their 
 walls, and the amount and management of their funds, — and all idle and in- 
 different about those wars, those struggles, among princes and nobles, of which 
 history tells so much. The chroniclers of the time saw the great movements 
 of the country, — the march of armies, the gatherings of the great barons and 
 their retainers, and the exterminating conflicts on noted fields of battle ; but 
 they knew little of the conclaves of townsmen within their walls, to take 
 measures of defence against the threats and exactions of neighbouring nobles, 
 for the j)rotcction of their ever-expanding commerce, and for the choice of their 
 annual delegate — their mayor — who was to be answerable to the King for 
 the payment of the duties to the Crown. — In course"of time, the citizens ob- 
 tained release from the necessity of sending their chief magistrate to London, 
 and had permission by charter to take the oaths of their own ofiicers, or to 
 tender them to the constable of the nearest royal castle. — Thus far, the 
 functions of the town magistracy were executive only. The making of local 
 laws was a separate affair, and had been managed by general assemblies, 
 weekly or other, which agreed upon regulations binding upon all. — As num- 
 bers increased, and trade extended, this became inconvenient ; and a repre- 
 sentative system gi-ew up ; and with it a distinction of classes, which originated 
 a town aristocracy, and the danger (which became an abuse, increasing from 
 century to century) of that mutual election and self-election which ripened 
 into our modern and intolerable grievance of close corporations. In Henry the 
 Third's reign, an attempt was made in London by " the more discreet of the 
 city" to elect a mayor in opposition to the popular voice ; but the citizens met 
 at St. Paul's Cross, and showed that the innovators were less " discreet" than 
 tliey had thought themselves. The discreet of the city were happily defeated 
 in their aim. — Among the charters of Henry VII., there is one establishing a 
 self-elective council of aldermen in Bristol. But the great contest — the 
 greatest recorded in the history of Enghsh municipal institutions — took place 
 after the Reformation, when the question of a parliament disposed in favour of 
 a Catholic or Protestant occupant of the throne became all-important to 
 government. Tlien it rested with the sheriffs to declare which were parlia- 
 mentary and wliich non-parliamentary boroughs. The parliamentary could
 
 Chap. III.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 237 
 
 not be put down ; but less important ones might be raised up ; and in the 1835. 
 three reigns succeeding Henry the Eighth's, wc find sixty-three phiccs send- 
 ing members to parliament -which were before, or of late, unrepresented. 
 There was little or no enlargement of popular freedom in this proceeding : for 
 the Crown took care that the accession should tell in its own favour. It as- 
 sumed the right of giving Governing Charters, by which it controlled nnuiici- 
 pal operations ; most of the new order of charters giving to small councils — of 
 express royal appointment, and indissoluble self-elective powers — the jirivilege 
 of local government, and even, in many cases, of election of parliamentary 
 representatives. 
 
 Hence was derived the pernicious power of the Stuarts ; and from this 
 period we may date the subjugation of Uritisli political independence. The 
 royal and aristocratic power over the commonalty was not overthrown even 
 by the Revolution ; for subsequent charters were framed upon the model of 
 those of the Charleses and .Jameses : and, as the Corporation Commissioners 
 tell us in their Report, "the charters of George III. do not differ in this 
 respect from those granted in the worst period of the history of these 
 boroughs." 
 
 To those who felt, as well as said, that the welfare of a nation depends on 
 its public and private virtue, who saw that the private vice of a comminiify 
 was found to be in substantial accordance with its municipal corruption, and 
 Avlio looked back througli this avenue of history so as to perceive how low our 
 people had sunk from the municipal freedom and purity of long preceding 
 ages, it was consolatory to read the bold exposure of the case by the Corpora- 
 tion Commissioners, in their Report of 1835. From this Report, two Com- ^,';™"ilt1,''s.^""' 
 missioners dissented, on grounds which had no influence on subsequent pro- 
 ceedings; and the following statement bears the signatures of sixteen : " Even 
 where these institutions exist in their least imperfect form, and are most right- 
 fully administered, they are inadequate to the wants of the present "state of 
 society. In their actual condition, M'here not productive of evil, they exist, in 
 a great majority of instances, for no purpose of general utility. The perver- 
 sion of municipal institutions to political ends has occasioned the sacrifice of 
 local interests to party puqioses, which have been frequently pursued through 
 the corruption and demoralization of the electoral bodies. — In conclusion, wc 
 report to your Majesty that there prevails among the inhabitants of a gi'cat 
 majority of the incorporated towns a general, and, in our opinion, a just dis- 
 satisfoction with their nuuiici])al institutions, a distrust of tlie self-elected 
 municipal councils, whose po\\ers are subjected to no popular control, and 
 whose acts and proceedings, being secret, are unchecked by the influence of 
 public opinion — a distrust of the munici])al magistracy, tainting with susi)icion 
 the local administration of justice, and often accomj)anied witli contempt of 
 the persons by whom the law is administered — a discontent under the burthens 
 of local taxation, while revcinu-s tlial ought to be a])plied for the public 
 advantage are diverted from their legiliniate use, and are sometimes wastefuUy 
 bestowed for the benefit of individuals, sometimes squandered for purj)oses in- 
 jurious to the character and nu)rals of the jjcople. We therefore feel it to be 
 our duty to represent to your Majesty that tlie existing muuiciiial corp(tration» 
 of England and Wales neither possess nor deserve the confidence and respect
 
 OV Tlll.NUS. 
 
 238 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book V. 
 
 1835. of your Majesty's subjects, and that a thoiough reform must be effected before 
 
 • ' tlicy can become, what we humbly submit to your Majesty they ouylit to be, 
 
 useful and efficient instruments of local government." 
 Existing State It is cvidcnt at a glancB that a thorough reform must meet with vehement 
 opposition. The means of getting up such opposition lay mainly in the 
 hands of those whose corruption was to be exposed, and whose gains were to 
 be abolished. In the worst towns, there was the strongest body of con-upt or 
 bigotted officials who held tlie worst portion of the inhabitants under their 
 control, while those who most desired reform were precisely those who were 
 least in a position to make themselves heard. The noble-minded operative 
 who had refused 50/. for his vote was borne down by the noisy, tipsy freeman, 
 whoso " loyalty " was very profitable to him. The benevolent and painstaking 
 cpiiet citizen who strongly suspected that the funds of an orphan girls' school 
 went to support a brothel, or who could never obtain admission to a charity 
 trust because it was supposed that he would remonstrate against the frequent 
 banquets at the expense of the trust — the peaceable dissenter who found him- 
 self put aside in times of public danger, because the loyal corporation charged 
 him with wishing to burn down the cathedral — the luiexceptionable trades- 
 man, who found himself cut out by the idle and unskilful, because they had 
 corporation connexion — such men as these had no chance of being heard 
 against the sharp and unscrupidous lawyers, the pompous aldermen, the rabble 
 of venal voters, and the compact body of town contractors, who clamoured, as 
 for life, for the maintenance of things as they were. — Then, there were the 
 thoughtless and ignorant who loved the city shows — the Mayor's feast, the 
 election processions, the fun and riot of the ward-elections — the antique 
 pageantry of some old towns, with their grim Dragon carried about the streets, 
 and the prancing St. George, and the Whifflcrs in pink and blue, with their 
 wooden swords — an antique pageantry which wiser people than themselves 
 would be sorry to see no more. And again, there were the anxious Conserva- 
 tives, and the positive old Tories, who believed that the world would come to 
 an end if long-standing institutions were meddled with. What could the 
 plaints of the sick and the aged and the orphan, and the indignation of the 
 disinterested, and the protest of the excluded, and the appeal of the obscure, 
 do amidst the hubbub of desperate wrongdoers and exasperated haters of 
 change ? Hitherto they could do nothing but complain: but now they might 
 hope, and they could speak. In every corporate town sat men sent on purpose 
 to hear all that could be told. Great was the consternation at first; and 
 fiercer grew the threats and clamour, every day, from the highest to the 
 lowest of those who dreaded change. No one can forget what he saw of the 
 action of opposition in any part of that scale. — At the lowest end were the 
 insolent and profligate freemen, who earned bread, and the drink in which 
 they rolled about the streets, by selling their votes, and who would never want 
 a market while the corporate funds remained untouched, and the account 
 books kept secret. These swaggerers swore to put the Duke of Cumberland 
 on the throne if any Ministry dared to look into their resources. At the end 
 of the scale sat he in whom was embodied the rank old Toryism which was 
 only waiting to depart with him from our social life of England. Lord Eldon 
 fitly headed the scale of the angry and the alarmed. " Tie protested loudly
 
 Chap. III.J DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 2o\) 
 
 in private," we learn from a contemporary sketch of him, " with feverish 1835. 
 ahirm," against the measure, " as leading directly to confusion. Its interfer- ^~— ^- ' 
 ence with vested rights shocked his sense of equity even more than the sweep- ^-'o- "'''■ 
 ing clauses of the Reform Act. To set at nought ancient charters as so 
 many bits of decayed parchment, and destroy the archives of town halls, 
 seemed in the eyes of the old magistrate, for so many years the guardian of 
 corporate rights, a crowning iniquity. Pale as a marble statue, and confined 
 to his house in Hamilton Place by infirmity, he would deprecate equally the 
 temerity of Ministers and the madness of the people; and his vaticinations, 
 like the prophet's scroll, were full to ovei-flowing with lamentation and woe. 
 His correspondence, for some years previously, had borne marks of the 
 troubled gloom with which he viewed the changes gradually darkening ovi'r 
 all he had loved and venerated, till he felt almost a stranger to the institu- 
 tions of his native land." 
 
 The opposition was incalculable, and might have been supposed unmanage- 
 able ; yet, so flagi'ant were the abuses that, at last, it required less than half 
 of one session of ParliamcMit — from June to September — to carry into law a 
 thorough reform of the munici])al institutions of England and Wales. 
 
 The abolition of abuses, flagrant as they might be, was not, however, the principli; of the 
 most weighty consideration with the advocates of ]\Iunicipal Reform. They 
 had a higher aim and hope — to train the people to self-government, witliout 
 which Parliamentary Reform could be little more than a name. A represen- 
 tative system is worse than a despotism for a nation which has no ideas to 
 represent — no clear conception of its political duties, rights, and privileges — 
 no intellect and no conscience in regard to social affairs. The opponents of 
 both Parliamentary and Municipal Reform feared the ignorance and the self- 
 will of the mass of the people ; and not without reason ; since the corruption 
 of the representation in both departments had caused the ignorance and 
 aggravated the self-will which were now sure to be displayed. The evil was 
 uiKpiestionable: the question was how to deal with it. Either the people 
 must be governed without participation from themselves — that is, England 
 must go back into a despotism; or the people must be educated into a 
 ca])aclty for being governed by themselves, through the principle of rejircsen- 
 tation. The only possible education for political, as for all other moral duty, 
 is by the exercise of the duty itself. It was high time to begin the training 
 anew : and those who most clearly saw the necessity were most thoroughly 
 aware of the imperfections which would immediately appear. They knew 
 that the mass of the municipal electors would show much folly, much igno- 
 rance, much selfishness, much anger, in the first exercise of new rights: they 
 knew that much nonsense would be talked in the Town Councils ; and that 
 party wrangling would be violent at first ; Jind they no more regarded this as 
 an objection to a reformed system than they looked to schoolboys for the dis- 
 cretion and steadv consciontiousness of discijdined men. They knew also 
 that time would do its work, in instructing tlic raw, and giving the wise and 
 disinterested their natural ascendancy over the violent and the corrupt. They 
 wen^ aware that this measure was of the highesl impi)rtance to the virtue and 
 the liberties of tlie nation; the most necessary [jicparation for all future good ; 
 (he seed field of hope for the future political life of Great Britain : and they 
 
 I
 
 240 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book V. 
 
 1835. {>-avo their efforts to the cause accordingly, with a seriousness and energy which 
 
 " -v^^^ they could never have commanded for the mere abolition of abuses of any 
 
 enormity. The great virtue of the Reform Bill was its extinction of corrup- 
 tion, and its clearing the ground for a true representation. The Municipal 
 Reform Bill had all that merit, and, besides, the greater one of pressing every 
 man's public duty home to him, and engaging him in its exercise, in his own 
 street, and amidst a community where every face was familiar to him. The 
 work was of tlie highest order ; its scope was fully perceived by the Whig 
 Administration; and it was done by them in the most admirable manner that 
 the times and their position admitted. Great as w^erc some of their objects 
 and achievements during the early years of their rule, it is probable that this 
 reform will, in far future centuries, stand out to view above the rest as the 
 highest, from its connexion with the deepest principles of political virtue, and 
 therefore the most lasting system of political liberties. 
 DRFErTs OF niB Xhe most radical imperfection of the scheme, and that which must subject 
 
 Reform. ' . .... • /• i 
 
 it to a future reform as sweeping as the last, is its protraction of the severance 
 of the interests of town and country. The Romans, as we have seen, con- 
 ferred their municipal quality (capacity for civil rights through liability to 
 civil duties) prominently on the inhabitants of towns, where alone institutions 
 of citizenship were established by them during their occupation of Britain. 
 The Saxon system was scarcely cognizant of towns at all: but when the 
 Saxons came to Britain, they found a system existing in the towns to Avhicli 
 theirs was easily adapted; and they did not subvert it. During the feudal 
 ages, all civil rights were concentrated in the towns; so that the very word 
 Municipal is to us applicable only to a town system. As civil war subsided, 
 agi'iculture rose to the point of superseding mere territorial dignity ; and before 
 the great rise of manufactures, it was the unquestioned leading interest of the 
 commonalty, while closely connected with the territorial dignity of the 
 aristocracy. With the rise of manufactures, a new political era opened in 
 England. For half a century before the reign of William IV. the manufac- 
 turing population had been gaining upon the agricultural, at a perpetually 
 increasing rate ; and, if the country gentlemen in Parliament who opposed 
 the Municipal Reform Bill had understood their own case, they would rather 
 have striven for some possible inclusion of the rural population in the scheme 
 than have opposed a reform in the towns. It is an evil all round that the 
 nation should be divided into two populations, the urban and the rural, wliose 
 interests are supposed to be antagonistic : and the vehement cries of agricul- 
 tural distress which had pained the ears of the nation almost without inter- 
 mission since the Peace, seemed to tell that the agricultural interest was 
 certainly not that which was gaining the ascendancy at present. It would 
 have been a vast benefit to all if the two populations could have been united 
 under a system of local government whose objects are of absolutely universal 
 importance, instead of being separated as peremptorily as ever by the reform 
 of town government, while rural administration remained as before. But 
 neither the Whig Ministers, if they had wished it, nor any others could have 
 effected this in 1835, when the mere mention of such a scheme would have 
 been received as a proposal to subordinate the country to the towns. So the 
 rm-al population remain in a backward and unfavourable condition — subject
 
 Chap. III.J DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 041 
 
 to tlic jurisdiction of Justices of the Peace of counties and divisions of counties, 1 83-5. 
 
 while the town population is in the enjoyment of a representative svsteiii ' ' 
 
 which, by improving their intelligence and independence, could not but widen 
 the severance between the two populations, to the disadvantage of the rural, 
 if other influences were not operating, at perhaps an equal rate, on behalf of 
 the latter. The extension of Free Trade to agricultural produce, and the 
 consequent improvement of agi-icultural science and skill which may with 
 certainty be looked for, are likely to raise the mind and the condition of the 
 rural population, till they may become capable of desiring and requiring i'or 
 themselves a system of local government as favourable as that obtained by the 
 men of the towns: and then, some future government will have to grant to 
 the producers and sellers of food, and the capitalists of their class, the same 
 political scope and privilege which the Bill of 1835 secured to the producers 
 and sellers of all other articles, and the capitalists of their multifarious 
 class. 
 
 The other great impcrfct'tion of the measure was one, only temporary in its 
 character, but of pernicious operation during the critical years when the 
 citizens required every aid, and no hindrance, in learning to discharge their 
 new duties and exercise their new rights: — the privileges of the old freemen 
 were preserved, and wdth them a large measure of corruption. This was not 
 the work of the Administration, but an amendment insisted on by the Lords. 
 The preservation of the parliamentary franchise and corporation property of 
 this depraved body has been the greatest impediment to the purifying opera- 
 tion of the measure : but care was taken by the Ministers and the House of 
 Commons that, while existing property and privilege of an objectionable 
 character were tenderly dealt with, no new interests of a similar kind shoidd 
 be pennitted to arise: and thus, beneficial as have been the efliects of corpo- 
 rate reform from the day that the Bill became law, its best results have yet to 
 be realized. 
 
 The substance of the measure, as passed, is this. PoiiUcai picti.™. 
 
 The points for review are four — the Area in the Sfat^ occupied by the si »--r*NceoKVHE 
 system — the Objects of Miuiicipal Government — the Municipal Constituency 
 — the Municipal Finictionaries. 
 
 The number of boroughs included under the Bill was 178, and the collec- 
 tive jiopulation about 2,000,000, at that time. Of these boroughs 128 of the 
 most important had a commission of the peace assigned to them ; Avhile the 
 other oO might obtain such a connnissiou on a representation to the Crown, 
 by the Town Council, that the borough needs the appointment of one or more 
 salaried police magistrates. — London is not included under the Act, a special 
 measure being promised for the metropolis: towards which, however, iiolliing 
 bus yet been done. Of the 178 boroughs, 03 were parliamentary boroughs, 
 and their limits were taken as settled by the Reform Bill. The boundaries of 
 the remaining 85 stood as they were before, luitil jiarliament should direct 
 ail alteration. — Each borougli was divided into electoral wards — Liverpool 
 into l(i; others into 12, 10, or fewer, till the smallest were reached, which 
 needed no division at all. The boundaries of the wards, and the number of 
 Town Councillors to be returned by each, were settled after the passing of the 
 Act, by barristers appointed for the purpose. 
 
 vol.. 11. 2 I
 
 '-'42 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book V. 
 
 1835. The Objects of Municipal Govcniment wore briefly set i'ortli in (lie King's 
 
 ■ — ' — ' si)eecb at the close of the session of 1833, in the sentence which recommends 
 
 H insard, XX. 905. * i • i i c i i 
 
 parliament "to mature some measures wliich may seem best ntteil to place 
 the internal government of corporate cities and towns upon a solid foundation, 
 in respect to their finances, their judicature, and their police." — The new Act 
 left the old objects untouched, for the most part, except in regard to the 
 administration of justice and of charity trusts. The administration of charity 
 trust funds was now placed in the hands of trustees appointed by the Lord 
 Chancellor; and justice was made more accessible, and its functionaries more 
 responsible, by various new provisions. As to the appointment and manage- 
 ment of the constabulary, the paving and lighting of the towns, and other 
 duties of the local government, they were not dictated, nor local Acts interfered 
 with, by express enactment. The thing to be done was to procure a practical 
 amendment by giving a true constituency to the towns, by which the local 
 authorities should be elected in a genuine manner. 
 
 Hitherto, the functionaries made the constituency; and the constituency in 
 return appointed the functionaries : so that if a sufficient number of corrupt 
 and indolent men could be got into league, they could do what they pleased 
 with the powers and the funds of the boroughs. This was now amended. The 
 first class considered ^as that of tlie existing freemen, whose privilege, having 
 been hitherto much restricted, was supposed to have been valuable, and of 
 proportionate original cost. It was therefore preserved to them, their wives 
 and widows, sons, daughters, and apprentices, who were to enjoy the same 
 privileges in land and property, shares in common lands and public stock of 
 the borough or corporation as if the new Act had never been passed: but 
 henceforward, the debts of the corporation were to be paid before, and not after as 
 hitherto, the claims of such persons were satisfied. The parliamentary fi-anchise 
 was also, as we have said, preserved to the old freemen. But the way to further 
 abuse was stopped, not only by creating an honest constituency which should 
 swamp the corrupt old one, but by a provision that no rights of borough free- 
 dom should henceforth be acquired by gift or purchase, or in any other modes 
 than those now enacted. — The Act prescribes a property qualification, on the 
 understood ground that the municipal funds are provided by the propertied 
 classes, who ought therefore to have the disposal of them. The condition of 
 a three years' residence was much objected to, by men here and there of all 
 parties: but it was believed to be necessary to obviate sudden and large crea- 
 tions of voters for party purposes — an evil of which government had had re- 
 cent and inconvenient experience, the admissions of freemen in certain towns 
 in England having been six times as many in 1830 as in the preceding year. 
 If a necessity, however, the restriction is a bad necessity ; and it will probably 
 be repealed when the purification of miniicipal government has become 
 assured. — To be a municipal constituent, a man must be of full age; must, on 
 the last day of the preceding August, have occupied premises within the 
 borough continuously for the three previous years; must have been for those 
 three years an inhabitant householder within seven miles of the borough ; and 
 must have been rated to the poor, and have paid those and all borough rates 
 during the same three years. — Such was the constituency ordained by the new
 
 Chap. III.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 243 
 
 Act — a narrow one; but good as far as it goes, and understood to be so re- 1835. 
 stricted on account of previous abuses. 
 
 The Registration of the constituency was to be managed by an organization 
 rcseinbhng that under the Reform Bill, with the variations rendered necessary 
 by difference of circumstances. The overseers of parishes make the lists: 
 the Town Clerk corrects and publishes them; and, since the first year, the 
 Mayor and the Assessors appointed for the purpose have revised them. 
 
 The Functionaries of Town Corporations and their constituents had hitherto 
 borne a strange variety of titles in difFereut places. Henceforth they were 
 every where to be called "the Mayor, Aldermen, and Burgesses." This body 
 was henceforth a constituted Corporation ; empowered to do all legal acts as a 
 body, and not as individuals; to sue and be sued by the corporate name; and 
 to transmit their corporate rights to their corporate successors. The Town 
 Council is the great ruHng body of the borough. The wards elect the Coun- 
 cillors, whose number was, as has been said, api)ortioned after the passing of 
 the Act by barristers who visited the boroughs for the purpose. The Coimcil 
 administers, by its Committees, all the local business — the constabulary ap- 
 pointments, and the paving and lighting; and the body in conclave appoint 
 their own officers: decree the expenditure of the borough fund, and the 
 leasing of land and buildings ; and they have the power of making bye-laws 
 for the prevention and suppression of nuisances, and other objects of minor 
 legislation. All needful safeguards against corruption are provided by making 
 committees responsible to the whole Comicil, by the appointment of auditors 
 of accounts who shall not themselves be councillors at the time ; and by the 
 regulations that all town accounts shall be published; that two-thirds of the 
 Council shall be present at the passing of any bye-law, and that forty days 
 shall be allow^ed to the Secretary of State to object to such bye-law, and pro- 
 cure its disallowance by the sovereign. — A property qualification for the office 
 of councillor is requisite. One-third of the Council go out, and are supplied 
 by annual election on the 1st of November. 
 
 The flavor is chosen from among the councillors: and he must serve, or 
 pay a fine of 100/. He presides over the public acts of the borough during 
 his year of office; is for that time and the next year a Justice of the Peace; 
 revises the registration with the assessors, and sanctions the lists by his signa- 
 ture in open court; and is made Returning Officer on occasion of election to 
 parliament. 
 
 Tlie function of Alderman is somewhat anomalous imder the new Act, info 
 which it was introduced by the I-ords, more, as it ajipears, from a clinging to 
 old names and forms than from any clear idea of what there was for aldermen 
 to do. By their remaining in office six years, and half going out every three 
 years, while their body includes one-third of the whole Council, the regula- 
 tion for replenishing the Council by new members to the number of one-third 
 annually is set aside. They are little more than councillors having precedence 
 of others and being removeable at the cud of six years instead of three. 
 
 The Town Clerk and Treasurer are appointed by the Council. The first 
 has to keei)iii safety the charter d(,'eds and records of the borough; to make 
 out the registration lists; keep ihc ^Minutes of the Council, and be subject to 
 their direction. The treasurer is responsible for his accounts to the auditors.
 
 2U HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book V. 
 
 1835. to whom he is to submit them half-yearly. — The Auditors are annually elected 
 
 ■ — ' hy the burgesses, on the 1st of March. The Assessors arc elected in like 
 
 manner. 
 
 The power was reserved to the Crown of appointing such Justices of the 
 Peace as government may think proper : also such salaried Police Magistrates 
 as the borough may apply for; and again, a Recorder for a single borough, or 
 for two or more in conjunction, provided the councillors of such town or towns 
 desire to have a Recorder, show cause for such an appointment, and prove 
 that they can pay his salary. Boroughs having a Recorder have separate 
 Courts of Quarter Sessions of the Peace, such Courts being coequal in powers 
 with similar Courts for counties. 
 
 AH Clnu-ch property in the hands of the old Corporations was required to 
 be sold under the direction of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners; the proceeds 
 to be invested in government securities, and the annual interest to form a part 
 of the Uorough fund. Towns not at that time incorporated, might obtain a 
 charter of incorporation by petition to the Privy Council. Some of the 
 largest towns in England obtained charters by this method within a few years 
 after the passing of the Act. 
 
 Cu'mm" N.S. ""' ^"^ It was on the 5th of June that Lord John Russell introduced the Muni- 
 cipal Reform Bill to the House of Commons. By the cordial union of the 
 Whig and Radical parties, it was passed rapidly and safely through the Lower 
 
 In the Lonns. Hqusc. The difficulty was with the Peers, who carried one amendment after 
 another against Ministers ; and among others, a decision to hear counsel for 
 the existing Corporations, which delayed the progress of the measure for some 
 time. The opposition was, as might be expected, about the rights of property 
 • — the property of poor men, it was insisted, and therefore to be the more care- 
 fully regarded ; and about the overthrow of ancient practices and observances. 
 But tlie case was too bad for a destructive opposition. As for the rights of 
 property of the poor — in the city of Norwich, there were 3,225 resident free- 
 men, of whom 315 were paupers; 808 more were not rated. In Lincoln, 
 nearly four-fifths of the population were excluded from the Corporation; and 
 of the corporate body, three-fourths paid no rates. At Cambridge, out of 
 20,000 inhabitants, there were only 118 freemen. At Ipswich, of 2,000 rate- 
 
 imss'iomi°Rep°iN P'^y^i'S, Only 187 belonged to the Corporation. In the face of these facts, it 
 was a mockery to talk of the rights of property being disregarded by the Bill. 
 — As to the ancient practices and observances, it was only necessary to look 
 back into history to see that the existing state of things was in fact a mass of 
 modern innovation and con-uption, and that the Bill was a restoration of 
 ancient rights — a recurrence to the true old municipal principle. From a con- 
 viction that the fact was so, and that the true old principle would, in a gene- 
 ration or two, work itself clear of the mischief of the Lords' amendments, the 
 jNIinisters, after due consideration, adopted those amendments rather than lose 
 the measure. So they preserved the existing race of poor freemen, 'who must 
 die out in a few years ; let in the anomalous aldermen, in the hope that their 
 uselessness and the evil of breaking in on the rotation of the Town Councillors 
 would be ascertained before long ; yielded some points in regard to qualification, 
 and induced the Lords to yield some of their points ; and finally passed the 
 
 It decomes Law. Bill ou the 7th of September. On the 9th, it became law.
 
 Chap. III.J DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 245 
 
 The passage of the Bill was a severe and unexpected blow to the high Tory 1835. 
 party, who had confidently reckoned on its being rejected by the Commons 
 when returned from the Upper House. After all that they had done, they 
 found that their staff of magistracy was swept away, to be succeeded by 
 responsible officials returned by a genuine principle of election. The corrupt 
 office-holders under the old system saw with dismay that the Church and 
 Charity Funds which had given them so much power and profit were now to 
 be publicly administered for the general good, and that borough property 
 would be henceforth the property of the borough, and the police the servants 
 of the public and not theirs. As Colonel Sibthorp expressed it, these exclu- 
 sive privileges were gone "at one fell swoop:" — as O'Connell expressed it, 
 " tag rag and bobtail was swept away." — The rejoicing among the honest and 
 enlightened townsmen of the kingdom was naturally great. Yet, perhaps, 
 there were few, even of the most joyous, who did not feel more or less regi'et 
 at some of the adjuncts of the change ; at the extinction, for instance, of 
 antitpie municipal observances and shows. It was a great thing to see ancient 
 charities renovated — schools and asylums rising again, and coffers filling with 
 money restored to the purposes of the needy. It was a great thing to see our 
 country planted over with little republics where the citizens would henceforth 
 be trained to political thought and public virtue: but it seemed a pity that 
 the city feasts must go — the processions be seen no more — the gorgeous dresses 
 be laid by — the banners be folded up — the dragon be slielvcd, and St. George 
 never allowed to wear his armour again ; and the gay runners, in their pink 
 and blue jerkins, their peaked shoes and rosettes, and their fearful wooden 
 swords, turned into mere weavers, tinmen, and shoemakers. Already, some of 
 us may find ourselves discoursing eagerly to children, as Englishmen used to 
 do to wondering Americans, of the sights we once saw on great corporation 
 days : aiul when we are dead, a future generation may turn over the minii- 
 cipal wardrobes, before their colours are fiided, and cast a glance over the 
 Mayors' bills of fare, and ask whether such things could have belonged to 
 common life in the 19th century. These things, from being once solemn and 
 significant, may have become child'.') play, of which we of the 19th century 
 ought to have been ashamed: yet there are perhaps few of us that were not 
 sorry to see them go. For once, Lord Eldon was not without general sym- 
 pathy.
 
 >4G HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book V. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 1835. A MIDST the existing state of feeling with regard to the Church, its weahh 
 
 ' — "^^ ' -^*- and its inefficiency for the religious instruction and guidance of the 
 
 Commissions. people, it was impossible lor any government to leel or assume indiiierence to 
 its condition. We find, therefore, both the Administrations of 1835 issuing 
 an Ecclesiastical Commission, for the purpose of inquiring into and reporting 
 upon the changes which might be effected in regard to Church territory, in- 
 come, and patronage, so as to render remuneration and labour more commen- 
 surate with each other, to enforce residence, and destroy the necessity of plu- 
 ralities, by providing for all a sufficient revenue. Both Commissions — the 
 one issued by Sir R. Peel in February, and the other by Lord iMelbourne in 
 June — were publicly objected to by parties within the Church, ranging from 
 Dr. Pusey to Sydney Smith ; while those outside the C'lnuch, constituting 
 nearly half the population between the Land's End and .lohnny Groat's, re- 
 garded the matter with no great interest, because with little hope. Dr. Pusey 
 and his High Cliurch party denied the right of the government to meddle 
 with the distribution of Church offices and funds ; and Sydney Smith, in a 
 series of published letters, complained of the Commission being composed 
 chiefly of the high dignitaries of the Church, whose judgment might, he 
 thought, have been beneficially aided by information and suggestion from a 
 lower order of clergy, more conversant with the minds and the needs of the 
 people. Those outside the pale of the Establishment, knowing that the 
 appropriation principle was not to be named, expected little from a mere 
 redistribution of office and funds, made by the highest holders of office and 
 income : and to the people at large, the most interesting part of the whole 
 matter was the conspicuous fiict that the Church was at last compelled to un- 
 dertake its own reform — or what its dignitaries conceived to be so. Startling- 
 evidences of popular ignorance and the blindest fanaticism were forcing them- 
 selves on universal attention, just at the time when the publication of the 
 revenues of the Church was prompting the question how it was possible that 
 an establishment so rich in men and money could exist beside a population in 
 a state of such heathen blindness. — The Ecclesiastical Commission of 1831 
 had declared the gross revenues of the Established Church in England and 
 r,.i,ucui Diriion. Walcs to amount to 3,792,885/.; and the net revenue to 3,490,497/. Duriuff 
 
 ury, 1. p. 8j3. ^ .... * 
 
 the ensuing years of inquiry and legislation, men did not forget that the net 
 revenue of the English Church amounted to three millions and a half; and 
 while they were waiting to see how these funds would be dealt with, events 
 were continually occurring to show what ought to be done with them. 
 
 AVithout going over again the sickening record, found in the register of 
 
 r.iiiinR ii.No. almost every year, of ignorance and fanaticism shown in disturbances lequii- 
 
 ing repression by soldiery and punisliment by the law, we may refer to one
 
 C'HAr. IV.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 247 
 
 event -which seemed to occur, as Avas said in parliament, for the shaming of 183.5. 
 
 the Church. We find too much besides — we find a rector of Lockington ■ — -^ ' 
 
 tithing the wages of a poor hihourcr, named Dodsworth, and throwing him 
 into jail for the sum of four shillings and fourpcncc. We find Church rate 
 riots abounding — the pannelling of pews broken in, and men exchanging 
 blows in the Church with fists and cudgels. We find revivals of religion 
 taking place here and there — scenes worthy only of a frantic heathenism — 
 scenes of raving, of blasphemous prayer, of panic-struck egotism, followed by 
 burial processions to lay in the ground the victims of apoplexy or nervous ex- 
 haustion. — We find men selling their wives in the market-places, with halters 
 round their necks — none of the parties having the remotest conception of 
 what marriage is in the eye of the law or of the Christian religion. — We 
 find crowds in such a place as Sheffield gutting, and repeatedly firing, the 
 jMedical School, through the old prejudices against dissection. — But all these 
 incidents, and many others of like nature with them, wrought less on the 
 public mind to the shame of the Church than an event which happened in 
 1838 almost under the shadow of Canterbury Cathedral. That in such a ruir.TF.N«v tie. 
 neighbourhood, a large body of the common people should believe a lunatic to """""• 
 be the Messiah, and follow him to death through such a series of observances 
 as only a lunatic could have imposed, was a shock to the clergy, it was 
 believed, and Avas certainly a subject of painful amazement to the rest of the 
 world, which was not at all solicitous to keep its opinion to itself. From the 
 House of Commons to the wayside inn, men Avere asking what the Church 
 was for, and what the clergy could be about, if the population of a district 
 near Canterbury coidd worship tlie wounds in the hands and side of a raving 
 lunatic; see him fire a pistol at a star, and bring it down; believe him invul- 
 nerable, and themselves through him; expect to see him sail away, as he 
 declared he came, on clouds of glory througli the heavens; and, when he was 
 shot dead, be quite happy in the certainty that he would rise again in a 
 month. 
 
 This poor wretch, named Thom, had been confined in a lunatic asylum for 
 four years, and was then delivered over to his friends on the supposition of his 
 being luirndess. lie tlicn called himself Sir William C^oiutenay, fancying him- 
 self a man of high family, as well as large estates, — in the same breath claim- 
 ing to be the Messiah, and threatening hell-fire against all who would not 
 follow him to obtain his estates, and get rich themselves. He did not want 
 for followers; for, as the people said about his knowledge of the Scriptures, .sprciator. mis 
 "no un/'T/Tied person could stand before Sir William." He fired a jjistol 
 against hiiuself, and was not wounded — there being no bullet. He put a lighted 
 lucifer match under a bean stack which did not burn : and these things Averc 
 regarded as true miracles by his followers. They believed that nothing could 
 hurt them while following him ; and when a mother could not refuse to recog- 
 nise the wounds of her son, she comforted herself that he was " fighting for 
 his Saviour." They kis.sed the madman's feet, and worshipped him. A woman 
 followed him on the last day of his life, wherever he went, with a pail of water, 
 because he had said that if h(> died, and if sh<' put water between his li]is, he 
 would rise again in a montli. lie administered the Sacrament to his followers 
 in bread and water. .\s he lay dead, his blouse was torn up, that his followers 
 
 I
 
 248 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book V. 
 
 1S35. might carry away the shreds as relics. The strongest rchuke to the Church, 
 ^-^~v-x-^ however, was at the funerah From the fear of attack, and rescue of the body, 
 there was a race to the churchyard — a trial of si)eed between the funeral van 
 and the attendant gigs and carts : but, far Morse, the clergyman felt it nccess.iry 
 to omit those parts of the burial service which relate to the resurrection of the 
 dead. Many stolid and miserable wretches were watching the interment from 
 the railing — some ghastly from wounds received in the fight : and the clergy- 
 man feared that any promise of a resurrection would make them watch for the 
 return of their prophet, to reign in the Powderham estates, float in tlie clouds, 
 and give to each of his true followers a farm of forty acres. It was long before 
 the clergy of Canterbury heard the last of this. — In the aiFair of this madman 
 and his pretensions, ten lives were lost in a few moments, and many persons 
 were wounded. The party of fanatics had strolled about the country for four 
 days, praying, obtaining recruits, and looking for the Millenium. A farmer, 
 whose men had been seduced from their Mork, gave information to the police. 
 The first constable who presented himself was shot, by Thom himself, who 
 then took his sword, and hacked the body, crying out, " Now am I not your 
 Saviour ?" A party of military was brought from Canterbury, whose officer, 
 Lieut. Bennett, was deliberately shot dead by the same hand. The lunatic 
 himself was the next to fall, crying with his last breath, " I have Jesus in my 
 heart." The local jails were filled with his followers, who were too ignorant 
 to wonder at what they had done, even after the discovery that their leader 
 and companions could be wounded and die. Some were transported for life, 
 or for terms, and the rest imprisoned for different periods. They were now at 
 last brought, under such circumstances as these, under the care of the Church, 
 by which they should have been instructed and guided from tlieir youth up ; 
 Annimi Register, gi^d at the end of a year's imi^risonmeut some of them signed a paper declara- 
 
 l«:j'.l, Chroil. 134. . •' ^ .... ii- , 
 
 tory of their shame and sorrow at their impious delusion, and at the acts to 
 which it had led them. Some who could not sign their names, declai-ed the 
 same thing among their old neighbours. Very few of the band could read and 
 write. 
 
 It was not likely that such evils as were indicated by this event would be 
 reached by a commission of church dignitaries inquiring into property and 
 income, and unpractised in dealing with the popular mind : but, small as was 
 the expectation of all parties, the result in eight years disappointed even that. 
 The number of benefices and churches whose incomes had been augmented by 
 
 Poiit. Did. i. 802. the Ecclesiastical Commissioners for England was, in that time, 4G9 ; and the 
 augmentation amounted, in the whole, to the sum of £25,779. The Church 
 would certainly not save the peoiile or itself in this way : and it was well that 
 other measures were attempted. 
 
 rebilts OP THE The Ecclesiastical Commissioners were incorporated by Act of Parliament 
 oMMissioN. j^^ 1836, their number then consisting of thirteen, and including several mem- 
 bers of the government. One of their first operations was a re-arrangement of 
 episcopal sees. Two new sees — those of llipon and Manchester — were 
 created; and four of the old ones were consolidated into two — Gloucester 
 b(nng united to Bristol, and St. Asaph to Bangor. — After this, the chief work 
 of the Commissioners was making the re-distribution, whose result, after eight 
 years, has been mentioned. It was felt by most reasonable people that the
 
 Chap. IV.J DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 249 
 
 less they expected the better, after lieariug that the Comuiissioners did not 1835. 
 
 find that any process of re-distribution could render the income of the " -^^ — 
 
 bishoprics sufficient for the '.s-ants of the bishops- — the number of bishops being 
 twenty-six, and the amount of income nearly £150,000 per annum. Church Poui. oict. i. ass. 
 reformers who made such a declaration as this were not the kind of reformers 
 wlio would secure the peasantry of England against seduction by future 
 maniacs and blasphemers. Something more than this must be done. 
 
 In 1838, an Act passed, the object of which was to correct the abuse of non- N"n kcmdesce 
 residence — to render it impossible henceforth for the beneficed clergyman to 
 be absent, at his o\\ti pleasure, from the field of his duties, while enjoying the 
 proceeds of his li\-ing. If absent for between three months and six, for other 
 than professional ])urposes, without a license, he must forfeit a third of the 
 income from his benefice ; if between six and eight months, half the income -. 
 if twelve months, three-fourths of the income. These requisitions were not 
 new : but they were to be fenced about with strong securities. Before grant- 
 ing the license, the bishop must be satisfied that the intended absentee has 
 provided a proper substitute, duly salaried. Other regulations came in with 
 this — methods by which the bishop can keep himself informed of the condition 
 of the parishes under the care of his clergy, and not only check the tempting 
 practice of non-residence, but form some idea of the state of the relation be- 
 tween the pastors and their flocks. This was a great improvement, not only 
 as securing to the flocks the presence of their pastors, but as discouraging the 
 entrance into the service of the Church of men who have no taste for its duties, 
 but come in merely for a maintenance. The condition of residence is as terrible 
 or disgusting to such a class of clergy as it is welcome to those who are \\orthy 
 of their function. Great as this improvement ^vas, much more was wanted : 
 and two years after, another considerable step was taken. 
 
 In 1840, an Act was passed which made a great sweep of abuses, and applied p^iu. dici. i. soi. 
 the accruing funds to good purposes. It abolished many ecclesiastical sine- ^ga,„,o^ „, 
 cures, or deprived the holders of their emoluments; it abolished the old self- '''"""'^ ""« •"• 
 elected deans and chapters, decreeing that deans should be aiipointed bv the 
 Crown, and canons by the bishops ; — it autliorizcd the purchase and suj)pres- 
 sion of sinecure rectories in private patronage, and tlie devotion of the proceeds 
 to the s]iiritual wants of the people at hand or else^vhere. All the profits 
 arising from these proceedings were to form a fund at the disposal of the Com- 
 missioners for the su])ply of the most pressing spiritual needs which came to 
 tlieir knowledge. Tlierc was a good deal of outcry, from tlie clergy as well as 
 others, about granting such powers as this bill conveyed to such a body of 
 functionaries — placed so high above the level of popular feeling — as constituted 
 the Ecclesiastical Commission. Pages might be filled with the remonstrances, 
 serious and jocose, of Sydney Smith upon the occasion; and there was much 
 truth in the objections whicli he made : but it Avas so great a thing to get rid 
 of so much scandal, to sweep away so much abuse, and administer a stern re- 
 buke to the sinecurists of the Church and their patrons, that the Act was, on 
 the wliole, regarded as the most considerable advance yet made by the Com- 
 mission towards a reform of the Church. As far as it went, it was a clearing 
 of the ground. l?ut this, after all, was a small matter ; and more must be 
 (lone. 
 
 VOL. u. '2 k
 
 250 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book V. 
 
 ii. 
 
 1835. The Tithe Commutation Act, for England and Wales, which passed in 1831 
 
 " — — ~-~ — was a great promoter of peace and good-will between the Chiuxh and the 
 
 HON An"""^*' ppople at large. From year to year, the irritation on both sides on the subject 
 of tithes had become more and more intolerable ; and, as we have seen, in one 
 place a peasant was shooting his rector, and in another, a rector was tithing 
 the peasant's wages, and throwing him into jail for the sum of 45. 4f/. Such 
 things have not been heard of since ; for the admirable measure of 1837 has 
 put an end to the quarrelling which was discreditable enough to the nation, 
 and perfectly scandalous in connexion with the Church. Tithe, not being a 
 tax paid to government, nor to any institution, but to almost as many lay as 
 clerical individuals, could not be swept away, or repealed like an ordinaiy tax. 
 It had become so mixed up with a mass of interests and affairs, that its abo- 
 lition could not have been effected but by a confiscation which would have put 
 the gain into the pockets of men who had no business with it. — The true 
 method was to convert tithe into a rent-charge : and this was done in a very 
 
 roht.Dict ii. 812. effective manner. The charge, payable in money, was determined by the ave- 
 rage price of com for the seven preceding years ; and all kinds of tithe were to 
 come under this arrangement. Every facility was given for a voluntary agree- 
 ment between the tithe-owner and payer ; and both were, in a large number 
 of cases, glad to settle their disputes upon this basis : but if, after the lapse of 
 a sufficient time, no such agreement was made, the Tithe Commissioners had 
 power to enforce it. In eight years from the passing of the Act, about half the 
 business of assigning and apportioning rent-charges throughout the kingdom 
 was completed : and a very large proportion of the agreements was voluntary. — 
 Provision was made for a redemption of the tithe-charge, where desired, the 
 payer being authorized to make over land to the owner, not exceeding twenty 
 acres in one parish, in purchase of his release from tithe-charges for ever. This 
 power of redemption, though good, was less valuable than it would have been 
 thought at an earlier date. Formerly, men would have sacrificed much to free 
 themselves from the perplexing and galling uncertainty of tithe-charges, which 
 prevented them fiom undertaking improvements, or deprived them of all the 
 profit. But now the uncertainty and malicious incidence of the tax were re- 
 moved by its conversion into a rent-charge, on a broad and ascertainable basis. 
 Here, again, was a great clearing of the ground for improvement of the relation 
 between the Church and the people. But it was not enough. The worst evils 
 remained ; and there were some at the time who expressed their sense of these 
 evils in the words of Milton, which tell how the poor " sit at the foot of a 
 pulpited divine to as little purpose of benefiting as the sheep in their jiens at 
 Smithfield." 
 
 Tnrm.m Enf- The desideratum was a system of Education. Every body knew this. That 
 
 is, every body knew that the great mass of the working classes, and all the 
 vast pauper class of England, were deplorably ignorant. But who could say 
 what was to be done, while the Church did not educate its own body, and yet 
 rose up in opposition at every mention of a plan which did not give the con- 
 trol and administration of education to the clergy, and the Dissenters could not 
 possibly agree to any such condition ? The Dissenters exerted themselves 
 much more than the Church to educate the children within their respective 
 bodies ; but, besides that the instruction they could give was desultory, partial. 
 
 < ATIOX.
 
 Chap. IV.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 2al 
 
 anil superficial, those bodies did not comprehond tlie most ignorant and desti- 1835. 
 tute classes — the very poor agricultural labourers and the abandoned of the 
 towns, who belonged to no religious denomination at all. The majority of all 
 denominations objected to secular education ; and on any system of religious 
 instruction they could not agree. In various parts of the Continent the 
 spectacle might be seen of children sitting on the same bench, Catholics, Pro- 
 testants, and Jews, having their understandings opened, their consciences 
 awakened, and their affections flowing out upon one another, with a prospect 
 before them of co-operation in their future lives — the duties of citizenship ren- 
 dered easy by associations of school days, and purged from the sectarian taint 
 tliat renders English society an aggregate of bodies which distrust and dislike 
 each other through prejudices sent down fi-om generation to generation. But 
 among us such a spectacle coidd not be hoped for ; for no subject is less under- 
 stood by our nation at large than that of religious liberty. Religious liberty 
 could not become understood but by improved general education : and general 
 education eoidd not be had for want of religious liberty. It was truly a 
 desperate case. We have seen how fruitlessly efforts had been made, by 
 Mr. Brougham and others, to extinguish this fatality : and while such efforts 
 resulted only in increased positivcness and bitterness on every hand, thousands 
 and tens of thousands of children had been passing off into a condition of hope- 
 less ignorance and depravity, amidst which the most erroneous views of the 
 Christian religion would have been as the day-spring from on high to those 
 who sit in darkness. Combined with what else they would have learned, there 
 were no views of Christianity which could have been imparted in England that 
 would not have been salvation to the host of children in the Durham coal-pits, 
 and the wilds of Wales, and the hovels of Dorsetshire, and the cellars of Liver- 
 pool, and the precincts of Canterbury, and the rookeries of London, who have 
 sunk, the while, into abysses of guilt and misery through the neglect of the 
 State of which they were the helpless and unconscious members. The high 
 honour of being the first to lay a hand on the barrier of exclusion belongs to 
 th(^ "WHiig administrations of this period. It was little that they could do : aiid 
 tliat little could not expand into an effective system. From the nature of the 
 case, their plan could be but of tem])orary duration, as well as most restricted 
 operation : for they could only help those who could, more or less, help them- 
 selves ; whereas the aid was neediMl especially by those who were unconscious 
 of tlieirown need: but, if they could drive ill only a little wedge whicli must 
 be thrown away, it was they who foinul the crevice, and struck the first blow. 
 It was the fashion of the time to laugh at the Whig administrations for their 
 resort to special commissions : a resort, however, for which the country is much 
 indebted to them. Tliat they did not employ this method in the early days of 
 their rule, as a preparation for an educational system, while they used it with 
 eminiMit success in their Poor T^aw and Municipal reforms, is an indication of 
 tlieir hopelessness about establishing a system at all. Without a full and ]iv(i- 
 tractcd inquiry, the results of which should be offered in a comprehensive Ke- 
 port, no measure could b(^ framed whicli had a chance of working t,\v]\. Tlie 
 question of endowments was under investigation; and nothing couhl be pro- 
 posed .about funds till the results of tliat inquiry were known. Tlic actual 
 state of education was not aseertaiiied ; nor had the legislature any ilrliiiile
 
 252 HISTOHY of ENGLAND [Book V. 
 
 1 So;"). notions as to the kind and dogrce of education which should he desired or at- 
 
 ^— ^ " tempted for the people at large. It was a rare thing to meet with an I'.nglish 
 
 gentleman, in or out of parliament, who had any clear views on the question of 
 state or voluntary education ; — which was best for us in itself — which was most 
 procurable for us — and whether they should, could, or might be in any degree 
 united. Such a "Whig Commission" as it was the fashion of the day to 
 laugh at would have brought knowledge to legislators, and made them think 
 and discuss, till their minds had attained some clearness. The public attention 
 ■would have been iixed, and its interest roused, by the same means ; and in a 
 few years — perhaps two or three — the matter w-ould have been ripe for legis- 
 lation. But it was clear that Ministers dared not employ this method. Par- 
 liament, being yet blind to the importance of the project, would have com- 
 plained of the expense ; the Church would have risen up to oppose an invasion 
 of what she considered her province : and the Dissenters would, as we sec by 
 the light of a later time, have attacked with fury any proposal to modify their 
 operations among the yoimg of their own sects. So, nothing was said about 
 any broad plan of an extensive commission, with a view to future legislation ; 
 and Ministers and parliament could leam only from such information as came 
 in through the Factory Inspectors, the Cliarity and Poor Law Commissioners, 
 and the witnesses who gave testimony before an Education Committee of the 
 House of Commons in 1834-5. 
 i.oiin Bnoro- Lord Brougham ventured to proceed upon the partial and most imperfect 
 
 I'sw.* cuEME, ij^fQrniation thus obtained, to form and propose to parliament a scheme of 
 National Edvication in the session of 1837: and the result was what might 
 have been anticipated — a plan too crude for adoption. His plan would liave 
 placed the school system under the control of the Administration of the day, 
 while leaving it subject to the worst evils of voluntaryism; and thus it could 
 never have commanded general confidence, while it left unsolved the sectarian 
 difficulties which have been the chief embarrassment throughout. There were 
 yet other objections, so evident to those who knew most on the subject of 
 which all knew but too little, that the measure, introduced in two succeeding 
 MiMSTiniAi. vears, was dropped without a contest. — What the Ministers did was very 
 modest m comparison with this ; and, modest as their eltort was, it cost them 
 so much trouble and opposition, that no one will venture to say they coidd 
 have done more. 
 
 As we have seen, a Committee of the Commons sat during two sessions, to 
 receive and report upon evidence as to the condition of Education. This is a 
 subject quite unmanageable by a Parliamentary Committee, by its vastness, 
 and the impossibility of securing an average — a true representation — of wit- 
 nesses. The Committee therefore was of little use, except as an evidence that 
 the great subject of Education was becoming really interesting to the legisla- 
 ture. In 1834, the government obtained from Parliament the first grant in 
 aid of Education. It was only 20,000^.: but it was a beginning: and it went 
 on through subsequent years till 1839, when a vote of 30,000/. was asked for. 
 — The grant was distributed in different proportions through the National 
 School Association, which Avas in strict connexion with the Church of 
 England, and the British and Foreign School Society, which admitted children 
 of all Christian denominations, without imjiosing upon them sectarian teach-
 
 Chap. IV ] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 0.53 
 
 ing. The mctliod of distillnition was 1))' giving aid to applicants in propov- ls;jy 
 
 tion to the amounts which tliose applicants could prove themselves ahle to - — •— ^ ' 
 
 raise for the building of school houses. It is obvious at a glance that on this 
 principle aid is given precisely where it is least wanted — to districts which can 
 raise funds for educational purposes, while the poorest and most neglected 
 could proffer no claim. After a few years, the Educational Committee of tlie 
 Privy Council resolved that the principle of giving most where most could he 
 raised on the spot should not be invariably adhered to, if applications should 
 be made fi-om very poor and populous districts, where subscriptions could not 
 be obtained to a sufficient amount. As to the desolate districts where there 
 was no one to stir at all amidst the deadncss of ignorance and poverty — there 
 was no provision made for them. — To those that had mxich, more was 
 to be given; and to those that had less, was less to be given: and to 
 those who had nothing — nothing. One beneficent work which the annual 
 parliamentary grant (still annually disputed, however, and therefore un- 
 certain) enabled the Ministers to effect, was the establishment and organiza- 
 tion of a model school, from which might descend long generations of 
 schools for the training of teachers. In 1835, 10,000/. was expressly voted by 
 Parliament for this obicct; and in 1839, the Committee of Privy Council ex- Mimuc, jimcsid, 
 pressed their regret that, owing to the sectarian difficulties of the case, they 
 could not propose a plan for the establishment of a Normal school under the 
 care of the State, instead of that of a voluntary association. 
 
 Opposition was made at every step. Lord Stanley even declared in 1839, 
 that the grant of 10,000/. for a Normal school, in 1835, was made at a late 
 period of the session, when Members were not duly vigilant. When, in 1839, 
 an Order in Council vested the management of the Education fund in a Com- 
 mittee of Privy Council, instead of the Lords of the Treasury, in whose hands 
 it had hitherto been, the sharpest debate, and that which most clearly revealed 
 the difficulties of the case, took place in both Houses, and led to a severe re- 
 tort from the goverinnent. On Lord John Russell moving for the grant, Lord 
 Stanley moved an amendment proposing an address to the Sovereign to re- unnsarj xiviii 
 scind the Order in Council for the appointment of the Board of Privy Council. '^"'' 
 A debate which was reiunved at intervals for some weeks brought out tlie 
 views of a variety of members on the whole Education question; and the 
 reader sees, with a sort of amazement, that a member here and there set him- 
 self to prove that in France there was least crime where ignorance was most 
 dense, and desired the House to infer that the innocence of tlie masses was 
 in proportion to their inability to read and write. In the Commons, the 
 ^linisters obtained their grant by a majority of only two: and in the Lords, 
 an .Vddrcss to the Sovereign, like that proposed by Lord Stanley, moved by 
 the Archbishop of Canterbury, was carried by a majority of 111. The Lords Hiins.ir.i, xivni. 
 carried up the Address, sincerely believing, no doubt, that they were rescuing 
 their young Queen and the State from the guilt and danger of countenancing 
 dissent by ])ermitting any ])ortion of the parliamentary grants to reach the 
 schools of the Hritish and Foreign Society through the hands of members of 
 the Privy Council. IJut they received their rebuke from the clear voice of 
 their young (iueen, wlio saw. under the guidance of lier Ministers, the full 
 enonnitv ol' tlie claim of the Chunli to eniiross the education of the nation.
 
 254 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book V. 
 
 1835. There was nothing in the present condition of the people — ahout Canterhury, 
 
 ■^^■^^ • for instance, as people were saying — or of the National schools, to induce a 
 
 belief that the Church was fulfilling well the function which it claimed: but 
 if it had — if the education in those schools had been as good as it then was 
 proved to be bad, and if the Church had been really educating all who did not 
 expressly belong to dissenting bodies, the claim of the Church — that tlie 
 government should not countenance and aid the efforts of Dissenters, by send- 
 ing help through the hands of the Privy Coinicil Committee, was too mon- 
 Annuai Register, strous not to bc rcbukcd as it was by the royal reply. The Queen was sensible 
 
 ' "" of their Lordships' zeal for religion and the Church ; was always happy to 
 
 have their advice ; yet thought it a matter of regret that they should have 
 thought it necessary to offer it now : — was deeply aware of her duties to the 
 Church, in sanctioning the very measure in question — reminded their Lord- 
 ships that by annual Eeports they would always know what was done by the 
 Committee, and have opportvniity for objection or control ; and finally, hoped 
 that it would appear that the gi-ants had been expended with strict fidelity to 
 the purposes of Parliament, to the rights of conscience, and the security of 
 the Established Church. 
 
 The clergy, with few exceptions, henceforth refused to permit participation 
 in these grants; and the quarrel between the Church and the government, in 
 regard to the principles of administration of the grants for education, has been 
 revived, from time to time, and is not settled at this day. — One good result 
 of the proceedings of the session of 1839 was that a strong effort was made to 
 extend, and also to improve, the National Schools. The Church party wished 
 to test and bring out the strength of its own body ; and also to compensate the 
 clergy who had conscientiously refused participation in the government grants. 
 The chief solace to the observer of these melancholy contentions of bigotry with 
 the needs of the time was in seeing how the Church became roused to some 
 sense of her duty towards the ignorant and the poor, and how the great subject 
 of popular education was at last making its way to the front on the platform of 
 public interests. The struggle with which each step was attended showed, in 
 a stronger light than any one had anticipated, the utter blindness of a large 
 number of educated Protestants, in or outside of the British parliament, to the 
 rights of the universal human mind and conscience — of the mind to know- 
 ledge, and of the conscience to equal liberty : but the more this blindness was 
 exhibited, the less mischief there was in it, and the more likely were the friends 
 of popular enlightenment to understand and agree how to proceed. 
 
 Among these friends of popular enlightenment must certainly be considered 
 the Melbourne administration and that which succeeded it. The Whig Minis- 
 ters made the beginning which has been detailed : and their successors carried 
 out their plan with a zeal and fidelity for wliich they merited and obtained 
 high honour. — By this scheme, the Church was offered the opportunity which 
 she seemed to need for regaining some of the honour she had lost, and retriev- 
 ing some of the disgrace under which she lay at this particular period : but 
 she could not accept the opportunity ; and, while torn more fiercely every year 
 by the conflicts of parties within her own pale — her very bishops being by this 
 time arrayed against each other as favourers or repressors of "Tractarianism" — 
 she was dissolving the traditional associations of respect and awe in the minds
 
 Chap. IV.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 255 
 
 of the nation at large by her practical opposition to popular enlightenment. 1835. 
 Such reforms, however, as she pcnnittcd in the workriig of her own affairs ^-^^■' — —^ 
 were already operating for good ; and it is the recorded opinion of some of lier 
 highest dignitaries that the preservation of the very existence of the Church of 
 England is o^-ing to the Melbourne administration. Those who may not agree 
 in sucli an opinion yet, may aiul do now see that that administration was really 
 most friendly to the Church precisely in insisting on those measures which the 
 Chiu'ch most vehemently opposed. If, for one instant, they had yielded to 
 the control of the Church the parliamentary grant for education, they would 
 liave done as much for her speedy destruction, as they could have done for her 
 stability and prosperity if they had been able to carry their Appropriation 
 principle.
 
 256 HISTORY OF ENGLAND fDooic V. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 1835. nj"10 the contemplative pliilosoplicr, notliiiis is more striking, tliroughout the 
 ■ •- -' J- whole range of human life, than the universal tendency of men to over- 
 rate the relative importance of the business under their hand. It would be 
 mireasonable to quarrel with this tendency — evidence though it be of human fal- 
 libility and blindness : — it Avould be unreasonable to quarrel with it, wliile 
 human faculties are what they are — able to work but slowly, and within a very 
 limited range : because the stimulus of hope and confidence is necessary to 
 impel men to do all that they can ; whereas, they would sink down in the in- 
 action of discouragement if they could see at the moment the actual proportion 
 that their deeds bear to their needs. Children would never learn to read first, 
 and then would never learn the grammar of a new language, if they were aware 
 beforehand what a language is, and what a work it is to master its structure 
 and its signs : it is by seeing only the page before them, by not looking beyond 
 the task of the hour, that they accomplish the business at last : and it is not 
 till they liave become men that they apprehend the philosophy of their achie^■e- 
 ment, and learn to be grateful that they did not recognise it sooner. Thus it 
 is in the great sphere of politics, where the wisest men are but cliildren, -worlv- 
 ing their way to achievement with more or less of the confidence of simplicity; 
 a simplicity which the ordinary life of man is too short to convert into a poAver 
 of philosophical retrospect. In the longer life of a nation, this power of pliilo- 
 sophiceal retrospect belongs to a future generation ; and it is very interesting to 
 tlie thoughtful of each generation to contemplate the confident satisfaction of 
 their forefathers in the belief that they had set things straight as they went, 
 and compassed tlie whole of the business which was under their hand. How 
 complete did the Reformation appear to those who ■v\rought it ! How confi- 
 dent were they that Romanism was subordinated to Protestantism for ever ! 
 whereas, oiu' own time has taught us that the work was not only incomplete, 
 but certainly insecure, and possibly transient. How complete did the Revo- 
 lution of 1688 appear to those who wrought and witnessed it ! How confi- 
 dent were they that good principles of government were firmly established by 
 it ! Yet we see how not only those principles might be evaded, but how the 
 most important part of the work, the government of the towns, was left in a 
 state of corruption as dire as all the Stuarts had made it. How complete did 
 the work of Catholic Emancipation appear to those who emancipated the 
 Catholics ; and how confidently did they, and their supporters of the liberal 
 party, conclude that the tranquillization of Ireland was achieved ! Yet the mere 
 use of the terms " tranquillization of Ireland" now appears a mockery. To a 
 future generation, the most astonishing part of the whole business will be that 
 the men of 1821) could be such children as thus to overrate the importance oi' a 
 single act — great as the act might be. — Again, how confident were the Whigs
 
 Chap. V.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 257 
 
 of 1832 of the finality of the Reform measure ; and those who were less childish 1835. 
 than this were themselves as childish iu supposing that the nation was settled 
 and satisfied for a time ; safe at least from revolution ; and that further reforms 
 might proceed with regularity, in the midst of security. In a spirit of security, 
 the intelligence of the kingdom prosecuted its work — the government achiev- 
 ing political and social reforms — the Church carrying on ecclesiastical reforms; 
 and the liberal parties, in and out of parliament, proposing and maturing 
 schemes for the orderly and regular removal of abuses and obstructions, as if 
 the deposits of the corruptions and miseries of centuries were not still present 
 in their midst, working towards explosions which might shatter our polity to 
 fragments in a day. Already we begin to see — what will be seen much more 
 clearly a hundred years hence — that those who lived in the years succeeding 1832 
 were living in times perhaps as perilous as the history of England has to show — 
 amidst a romance of peril as striking, when fully understood, as any of the times 
 of the Plautagenets and the iStuarts. If this statement appears extravagant, it 
 must be because the greater number of quiet Englishmen have not yet contem- 
 plated the history of their own time as they wo\ild that of another. This is 
 certainly the case with the greater number of us ; while some few regard the 
 story of this chapter with a sort of incredulity — a dread of giving way to ro- 
 mance — which disturbs their judgment, and obstructs their percejjtion of the 
 wonder and interest of the too unquestionable tale. It was not that the facts 
 were any secret. They were published in newspapers, in reviews, and in the 
 reports of parliamentary committees and debates. It was that few, in the midst 
 of the pressing business of the time, saw the full significance, or felt the full 
 enoiTnity, of the case ; and the few who did used a reserve and prudence so 
 imcommon in them as to indicate the depth and force of their own im- 
 pressions. 
 
 It was a time of revolutionary conspiracies ; conspiracies to which those of 
 the Castlereagh and Sidmouth times were trifles — consjiiracies at both extremes 
 of society — one under the steps of the throne — the other under the shadow of 
 the workhouse. Of them we shall speak presently : but we must first show 
 the reflex agitation of both as apparent in a remarkable movement in an inter- 
 mediate portion of society. 
 
 It is unnecessary to present again the conduct of the majority of the Peers {;°J°^ 
 during the Reform struggle. It is, and ever will be, fresh in men's minds ; 
 the disgrace of the bishops above all ; and next, the insolence and rancour of 
 the least enlightened of the lay peers. From year to year they protracted the 
 provocation they gave to the people at large, by obstructing and damaging 
 measures of improvement which they could not wholly get rid of. They did 
 this with a raslmess which appeared unaccouiilalilc till revelations were 7nade 
 that showed how the most violent of the obstructive Peers had reckoned on 
 political changes which should give them justification for the past, and their 
 own wav for tlie future. Wc have seen how they came to yield the point of 
 Parlianu'iitary Reform : but it was not known at the time how confidently they 
 expected soon to repeal the Reform IJill. We have seen liow they repeatedly 
 extinguished the Irish Church bills sent up by large majorities of the Com- 
 mons ; — how fifteen bishops assembled at Lambeth to concert measures for 
 intimidating the Ministry ; — and how tlir IMniate began his agitation in tlie 
 
 vol.. 11. 2 I. 
 
 DrCT OF THE
 
 2-58 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book V. 
 
 1835. Upper Houso before the measure was introduced there. We have seen how 
 
 ^— ^^^'' materially they injured the Municij)al Reform Bill, in its principles as well as 
 its details ; and how they went up in a crowd to address the Sovereign in oppo- 
 sition to a liberal, though extremely small, educational measure, and received 
 their due rebuke. If it were necessary to follow their action, step by step, 
 through the legislation of the time, we should sec that these were but a small 
 part of the obstructions opposed by the majority of the Lords to necessary or 
 desirable reforms. 
 
 It was not to be expected that the nation would bear this. The question, 
 "What must be done with the Lords?" so familiar in 1830 — 1832, was not 
 dropped ; and a succession of replies to this question was proffered in the other 
 
 PEKHAOEREFomi. jjouse. Various members there proposed a reform of the House of Lords as a 
 fitting sequel to the reform of their own ; and the seriousness with which the 
 question was discussed during the years 1835 — 1837 is rather startling to the 
 reader of the present day, till he remembers the then recent abolition of the 
 hereditary peerage in France, the triumphant reform of our own Lower House, 
 and the insolent attitude of defiance assumed at the time by the Kenyons, Ro- 
 dens, Wynfords, and Newcastles, who were secretly expecting a speedy 
 restoration of their domination in the State. — The most favourable circum- 
 stance, perhaps, for them was, that Mr. O'Connell early pledged himself to 
 procure a reform of the House of Lords. On Irish questions, Mr. O'Connell 
 was supremely to be feared by his opponents, but not on questions which must 
 be agitated elsewhere than in Ireland. — At the close of the session of 1835, he 
 
 o'CoNMi.L's went on what he called " a mission" to the North of England and Scotland, to 
 rouse the people to require an elective peerage — the election of a peer, for a 
 term of years, by every 200,000 electors; which would yield a House of 130 
 peers for the 170 then sitting. He was received and feasted, with accla- 
 mations, by large numbers of people at Manchester, Newcastle, Edinburgh, 
 and Glasgow. Yet no visible effect was produced — at least, none to the injury 
 of the cause of the Peers ; for O'Connell's oratory, so powerful in Ireland, 
 seemed to astonish or amuse, rather than persuade, his English and Scotch 
 audiences. The following seems a fair specimen of his methods of incitement : 
 and no Englishman or Scotchman will wonder that it did not assist the sub- 
 version of so time-hallowed an institution as the British House of Peers. On 
 
 f r ""' 36'i"''^'"' ™^'^*'"o the Edinburgh Trades, he said, "We achieved but one good measure 
 this last session ; but that was not our fault ; for the 170 tyrants of the country 
 prevented us from achieving more. Ancient Athens was degraded for submit- 
 ting to thirty tyrants : modern Athens will never allow 170 tyrants to rule over 
 
 sppctator, 18:15, licr It was statcd in one of the Clubs that at one time a dog had 
 
 bitten the bishop ; whereupon a noble lord, who was present, said, ' I will lay 
 any wager that the bishop began the quarrel.' Now really the House of Lords 
 began the quarrel with me. They may treat me as a mad dog if they please : 
 I won't fight them : but I will treat them as the Quaker treated the dog which 
 had attacked him. 'Heaven forbid,' said he, ' that I should do thee the 
 slightest injury. I am a man of peace ; and I will not hurt thee :' but when 
 the dog went away, he cried out, ' JNIad dog ! Mad dog !' and all people set 
 upon him. Now, that is my remedy with the Hoiise of Lords. I am more 
 honest than the Quaker was ; for the dog that attacked me is really mad. Bills 
 
 p. filB.
 
 Chap. V.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 259 
 
 were rejected in the House of Lords simijly because Daniel O'Connell supported 1 835. 
 
 them ; and I do say that if I liad any twelve men on a jury on a question of ^ '^— ^ 
 
 lunacy, I would put it to such jury to say if such men were not coniinnod mad- 
 men. So you perceive the dog is really mad — and accordingly I have started 
 on this mission to rouse the public mind to the necessity of reforming the 
 House of Lords ; and I have had 50,000 cheering me at Manchester ; and 
 100,000 cheering me in Newcastle ; and I heard one simultaneous cry, ' Down 
 A\-ith the mad dogs, and up with connnon sense.' The same cry has resounded 
 through Auld Reekie. The Calton Hill and .Aitliur's Seat re-echoed with the 
 sound ; and all Scotland has expressed the same determination to use every 
 legitimate effort to remove the House of Lords. Though tlie Commons are 
 with us, yet the House of Lords are against us ; and they have determined that 
 they A\'ill not concede a ])ortion of freedom which they can possibly keep back. 
 Sir Robert Peel, the gi-eatest humbug that ever lived, and as full of political 
 and religious cant as any man that ever canted in this canting A\orld — feeling 
 himself quite safe on his own dunghill, says that we want but one Chamber — 
 one House of Radical Reformers. He knew that in saying this he was saying 
 •what was not true. We know too well the advantage of double deliberation 
 not to su])port two Houses ; but they must be subject to popular control ; they 
 must be the servants, not the masters, of the people." — It was true that Auld 
 Reekie caught up the sound, and that the Calton Hill and Arthur's Seat re- 
 echoed with the cry. O'Connell had a magnificent reception by the Edinburgh 
 Trades and the United Irishmen : and the Calton Hill was covered with a dense 
 mass of the well-dressed inhabitants of the city. " The reception of O'Connell 
 by the immense assembly," we are told, " combined solemnity with en- 
 thusiasm." But the enthusiasm melted away, and the cry died out, •without 
 producing any effect on the constitution of the Lords' House. O'Connell could 
 not lead a political reform any where but in Ireland, even •where, as now, he 
 began with every advantage. 
 
 ^luch more effectual was the action within the walls of the House of Com- attacks o> tub 
 mons, on the ground of the petitions sent up during the mutilation of the 
 Municipal Hill by the I'eers. On tlic 2nd of September, Mr. Roebuck de- 
 clared his intention of moving for leave to bring forward, in the next session, 
 a Bill for the removal of the veto possessed by the House of Lords, substituting unnsard, nx. 
 for tliis veto a suspensive power which slionld cause the reconsideration of any 
 measure which the Peers should object to, but which susi)cnsive power should 
 not intercept the Royal assent to any Bill after its second passage tlirough the 
 Commons. ^Ir. Hume gave notice tiic same night, tliat he should move, 
 early in the next session, for a Select Committee to inquire into the constitu- 
 tion and condition of the House of Peers — who the Peers were, how qualified, 
 and how they discharged their duties. Some amusement was caused by ^Ir. 
 Hume's courageous repudiation of all ])oelical feeling, and all anti(|uarian asso- 
 ciations, •when he complained of " the farce" of tlie forms of conference bet^ween 
 the Lords and Commons, when the Peers were seated and covered, and the 
 C'ommons standing and bare-headed — " to exchange two bits of ));iper;" as 
 Mr. Hume said. He saw nothing of the old days whieli his words e.iUed up 
 before the mind's eye of those who lieard him — the days when the Peers were 
 like Princes, each Avilh a little annv at his call : and when tlu^ uuwarlike
 
 260 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book V. 
 
 1835. burgess representatives really did half worship or tremble before the valorous 
 nobles of the land. It might be time, as Mr. Hume thought, to give up forms 
 which had ceased to contain any truth; but ^Ir. Hume's way of setting about 
 it amused some people, and sliockcd others, with the sense that he did not 
 know what he was about. But, before that day twelvemonths, Mr. Hume 
 stood higher than any other man in the House or in the kingdom, in connex- 
 ion with the people's quarrel with the House of Lords. By him, the Lords 
 had, by that time, been humbled, awed, brought to their senses — and this, by 
 no vulgar clamour or extreme devices, but by industry and sagacity and 
 courage applied in ascertaining and revealing facts which placed the most 
 insolent of the Peers at the mercy of the Crown and the Commons. — Of this 
 matter, however, the Members were not generally aware on this 2nd of Sep- 
 tember, 1835; and a third notice of motion was added to those of Mr. Roe- 
 buck and INIr. Hume. Mr. Cuthbert Rippon gave notice that, next session, he 
 should ask leave to bring in a Bill to relieve the Archbishops and Bishojis from 
 their attendance in the House of Lords. 
 
 After the prorogation, the various political parties and leaders were watched 
 with anxiety by the enUghtened liberals of the country, who saw that some- 
 thing must be done to remove the obstructive quality of the Peers, if the legis- 
 lation of the country was to proceed at all, in pursuance of the purposes of 
 the Reform Bill. The JNIinisters were watched. Some of them used strong 
 language on public occasions respecting the recent conduct of the obstructive 
 Peers: and on Mr. O'Connell's retiu-n to Ireland, after his "mission" was 
 concluded, he was invited to dine with the Lord-Lieutenant; an incident which 
 was regarded by the Tory Peers as a declaration of war on the part of the 
 Viceroy. On the other hand. Lord John Russell made a public and emphatic 
 avowal that he was opposed to all further organic change; and the govern- 
 ment newspapers declared, now without comment, and now with expressions 
 of regret, that no views of any important modification of the structure of the 
 
 r.iobc, Oct. 7ih, Upper House were at present held by the administration. Few of any party 
 doubted that Lord John Russell would learn to see the necessity of reform, by 
 some means or other. There was a strong party in Parliament, and a large 
 body of the nation occupied in thinking of what should be done : and, on the 
 whole, the conclusion, in the autumn of 1835, was that the subject was ripe 
 for discussion ; but that it must take more than one session to bring the matter 
 to a practical issue. There were few who imagined how prodigiously the 
 inflation of the insolent section of the Peers would have subsided, without 
 danger of organic change, before the close of the next session. 
 
 On the 26th of April, 1836, Mr. Rippon made his promised motion to 
 release the Spiritual Peers from their attendance in Parliament. It was 
 opposed by Lord John Russell on the plea that it woidd lead to no practical 
 
 Hansard, xxxUi. rcsult. Ou a division, 53 Members voted with Mr. Rippon, and 180 against 
 liiin. — In jNIay, Mr. O'Connell gave notice of his intention to introduce his 
 proposal to make the Upper House elective. Some laughed — laughed in loud 
 shouts ; and others were very gi-ave, thinking the matter too serious, in the 
 existing state of affairs, for laughter. One member, Mr. G. Price, -wished to 
 move that the notice should be expunged from the notice-book: but here. 
 Lord John Russell interposed in defence of the right of the Commons to 
 
 l»3i. 
 
 320.
 
 Chap. V.J DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 261 
 
 entertain any proposition for what any member might consider a reform in any 1835. 
 branch of the legislature, even if it should extend to regulating the succession v^-^-^— ^ 
 of the throne: in which he was clearly supported by historical precedent. 
 Mr. Price withdrew his motion. The question, however, was not brought on, 
 the events of the close of the session rendering any further humiliation of the 
 obstructive Peers unnecessary. Sir W. Molesworth, who knew more of the 
 singular history than almost any one, quietly dropped the motion for peerage 
 reform of which he had given notice for 1837. But the Bishops were not yet 
 to be left in peace. — jNIr. Charles Lushington moved, on the 16th of February, 
 for the exclusion of the Spiritual Peers from the Upper House, and was ably Hansard, xxxn. 
 supported by ]Mr. Charles Buller, whose opinion was that the Bishops had 
 abundant employment elsewhere; that they were seldom prepared to enlighten 
 legislation on subjects which lay peculiarly within their province; and that 
 they were invariably found voting with the Minister who gave them their 
 sees. Lord John Russell opposed the motion with the question — where, if 
 Parliament once began to modify the constitution of the country, would they 
 stop ? — How far would they go ? — a question which Mr. Buller declared to be 
 easily answered. They would go only as far as the door of the House of 
 Lords, to show the Bishops out, and then leave them to go where they pleased, ^l"'^"^- *"''"■ 
 He, who had a great respect for the Bishops, thought them most honourably 
 seated in their own dioceses, where they had as much business to do as would 
 (|uite engross them. On this occasion, 92 members voted with the reforming- 
 mover, and 197 against him. — One more attack was made on the functions 
 of the Peers in May of the same session, when Mr. Buncombe proposed the 
 abolition of the Lords' privilege of voting by proxy. The resolution was thus 
 worded :—" That the practice of any deliberative assembly deciding by proxy Hansard, x«viii. 
 upon the rejection or adoption of legislative enactments, is so incompatible 
 with every jmnciple of justice and reason, that its continuance is daily 
 becoming a source of serious and Avell-foimded complaint among all classes of 
 his Majesty's subjects." It was shown that when the practice of voting by 
 proxy began, in the time of Edward I., the proxies were men of lower rank, 
 sent as messengers by the nobles who could not attend in person ; and that it 
 was not till the reign of Henry VIII. that the abuse crept in of allowing one 
 Peer to represent others. When, in the time of Charles I., the DidvC of 
 Buckingham held fointeen proxies, the evil was so evident as to cause an 
 order to be passed that no peer should henceforth hold more than two proxies. 
 In modern days, when legislation lias become inmiediately interesting and im- 
 portant ti) tJK; great mass of the people, the practice of proxy voting has 
 become more indefensible than ever; and yet, the safeguard was withdrawn of 
 the King's license being a condition of a Peer's absence. Lord Stanley and 
 Sir 11. Peel met the argument by likening proxy-voting to the custom of 
 pairing in the Conmions. The analogy was shown not to be a true one : and 
 if it had been, the obvious reiily would have been, " then abolish the custom 
 of pairing, except on individual occasions." The majority of 48 against the 
 motion was formed by the othcial Whigs and their dependents, so that the 
 state of the question ajipeared by no means desperate. But again, events were 
 occurring which deferred the controversy to a future time. 
 
 Sucli was tlie course of the mildest of tlie three " revolutionary" move-
 
 262 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book V. 
 
 1835. ments of the period ; — that in wliich the sober and educated classes of the com- 
 munity reflected the far more serious agitation which was going forward on 
 either hand. 
 
 It was at this period that men who went among the Avorking classes of the 
 great towns first began to speak of Chartism, Cliartists, and the Charter. 
 Some in higher ranks now and then asked what tlic words meant ; but too 
 many in every station — especially, too many in the ranks of government — did 
 not look closely into it, but dismissed the matter as a thing low and disagree- 
 able, and sure to come to nothing, from its extreme foolishness. It is the year 
 1838 before we find the word " Chartism" in the Annual Register; yet, long 
 before that. Chartism had become the chief object in life to a not inconsiderable 
 portion of the English nation. And when it came to be a word in the index of 
 the Annual Register, government and their friends regarded it as a " topic of 
 the day." When the great National Petition, bound with iron hoops, was 
 carried, like a coffin, by four men from its waggon into the House of Conmions, 
 Ministers and their friends looked upon the show as upon an incident of that 
 vulgar excitement which poor Radicals like or need, as the tippler likes or 
 needs his dram. Reckoning on the fickleness of the multitude, they pro- 
 nounced that Chartism would soon be extinct ; and then that it was extinct. 
 Their Attorney-General, Sir John Campbell, in a sort of declaratory minis- 
 terial speech at a public breakfast at Edinburgh, declared Chartism to be 
 " extinct," shortly before the Monmouth rebellion. The chief law officer of 
 the government gloried in the supremacy of loyalty, law, and order, immedi- 
 ately before the breaking out of a long - planned rebellion, of which every 
 possible warning had been given, in the form of preceding riots ! The news- 
 papers agreed with the government ; and government took its information from 
 the newspapers ; and thus, from year to year, was Chartism declared to be ex- 
 tinct, while we, in the present day, have the amplest evidence that it is as much 
 alive as ever. And, as it is living so long after the announcement that it was 
 dead, so was it living long before it was declared to be bona. When govern- 
 ment and London were at last obliged to take heed to it, they found that their 
 tares were ready for harvest, and that long ago the enemy had been sowing 
 them while they slept. While they slept, literally as well as metaphorically; 
 for the gatherings and speechifyings had been by torchlight on the northern 
 moors and the Welsh hill-sides. There were stirrings certainly as early as the 
 date before us — the years 1835-36. 
 
 And what were these stirrings ? ^Miat was it all about ? The difficulty of 
 understanding and telling the story is from its comprehending so vast a variety 
 of things and persons. Those who have not looked into Chartism think that 
 it means one thing — a revolution. Some who talk as if they assumed to under- 
 stand it, explain that Chartism is of two kinds — Physical Force Chartism, and 
 Moral Force Chartism — as if this were not merely an intimation of two ways 
 of pursuing an object yet undcscribed ! Those who look deeper — who go out 
 upon the moors by torchlight, who talk with a suffering brother under the 
 hedge, or beside the loom, who listen to the groups outside the Union work- 
 house, or in the public-liouse among tlie Durham coal-pits, will long feel 
 bewildered as to what Chartism is, and will conclude at last that it is another 
 name for popular discontent — a comprehensive general term under wliicli are
 
 Chap. V.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 263 
 
 included all protests against social suffering. And thus it was at the date 1835. 
 before us, whether or not it be so now. ~ — ^^^-^-^ 
 
 There were men among the working classes, sound-headed and sound- J^*""^*'' ^"'"'^- 
 heartod, wanting nothing but a wider social knowledge and experience to make 
 them fit and safe guides of their order — fsome few of them not deficient even 
 in these) — who saw that the Reform Bill was, if not a failure in itself, a 
 failure in regard to the popular expectation from it. If it was all that its 
 framers meant it to be, they must give a supplement. A vast proportion of 
 the people — the very part of the nation whose representation was most im- 
 portant to the welfare of the State — were not represented at all. As a sage ex- 
 nressed the matter for them not Ion"; afterwards, " A EefoiTned Parliament, one larhie's • chart- 
 would tliink, should inquire into popular discontents hcjore they get the length of 
 pikes and torches ! For what end at all are men, honourable members aiul 
 reform members, sent to St. Stephen's, with clamour and effort ; kept talking, 
 struggling, motioning and counter-motioning .' The condition of the great body 
 of people in a country is the condition of the country itself: this you would 
 say is a truism in all times ; a truism rather pressing to get recognised as a 
 truth now, and be acted upon, in these times. Yet read Hansard's Debates, 
 or the morning papers, if you have nothing to do ! The old grand question, 
 whether A is to be in office or B, with the innumerable subsidiary questions 
 growing out of that, courting paragraphs and suffrages for a blessed solution 
 of that : Canada question, Irish Appropriation question, West India question. 
 Queen's Bedchamber question; Game Laws, Usury Laws ; African Blacks, 
 Hill Coolies, Smithfield cattle, and Dog-carts — all manner of questions and 
 subjects, except simply this, the Alpha and Omega of all ! Surely honourable 
 members ought to speak of the Condition of England question too — Radical 
 members, above all ; friends of the people ; chosen with effort, by the people, 
 to interpret and articulate the dumb deep want of the people ! To a remote 
 observer they seem oblivious of their duty. Are they not there, by trade, 
 mission, and express appointment of themselves and others, to speak for the 
 good of the British nation .' Whatsoever gi-eat British interest can the least 
 speak for itself, for that beyond all they are called to speak. They are either 
 speakers for that great dumb toiling class which cannot speak, or they are 
 nothing that one can well specify. — Alas, the remote observer knows not the 
 natur(> of parliaments : how parliaments, extant there for the British nation's 
 sake, find that they are extant withal for their own sake ; how parliaments 
 travel so naturally in their deep-rutted routine, common-place worn into ruts 
 axle-dee]), from which only strength, insight, and courageous generous exertion 
 can lift any parliament or vehicle ; how in parliament, reformed or unreformed, 
 there may chance to be a strong man, an original, clear-sighted, gieat-hearted, 
 patient and valiant man, or to be none such." The men we have spoken of — 
 soon confounded in the group of Chartist leaders — felt and knew such things 
 as Clarlylo has here set down for them : felt that parliament had not done what 
 was needed — that the people's stm-y had not been told there — that the ' strong 
 man' had not yet appeared there; and their eonelusion was, that they miglit 
 try and get the duty of parliament better done. They miglit possibly expect 
 too much from the means they pro])osed ; — extension of the suffrage, shorten- 
 iii<i; of ]iarliaments, protected voting, and establishing a control over repre-
 
 264 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book \'. 
 
 1835. seiitatives, and opening a wider field of choice of such, by paying the expenses 
 
 -— — V of tlieir function ; — they might possibly expect too much from these aims ; but 
 
 it is a libel upon the best class of Chartist leaders to say that they expected 
 from these aims all that they wanted. These men were the heartiest and 
 truest advocates in the country of universal education. They saw more clearly 
 than any body else, and lamented more deeply, the miseries arising from popu- 
 lar ignorance. They mourned over the murders and vitriol-throwing of the 
 operatives who were enslaved by mercenary delegates : — they mourned over the 
 fate of the followers of " Messiah Thorn:" — they mourned over the nightly 
 drillings on the heath, with pike and bludgeon: — they moiu-ned over the 
 nature of the opposition to the New Poor Law, when crowds of thousands of 
 men who could never be called together again to be disabused, were assured 
 by orators whom they took for educated men, that under the new Poor Law 
 every poor man's fourth child was strangled ; and that none but the rich were 
 henceforth to have more than three children. They did more than mourn : — 
 they spent their hard earnings, their spare hours, their sleeping hours, their 
 health, their repose, to promote the education which the State did not give. 
 By wonderful efibrts, they established schools, institutes, lecture and reading 
 rooms, and circulated knowledge among their class in every way they could 
 think of. Such were some of the body soon to be called Chartists — as soon 
 as their political ideas had resolved themselves into the form of a Charter 
 which the people might demand. These men were all Radical Reformers. 
 They saw little to choose between the Tories and the Whigs. As we again 
 
 ism/ p! 93.' '"^' find their ideas expressed for them, " Why all this struggle for the name of a 
 Reform Ministry ? Let the Tories be Ministry, if they will ; let at least some 
 living reality be Ministry ! A rearing horse that will only run backward, he 
 is not the horse one would choose to travel on : yet of all conceivable horses 
 the worst is the dead horse. Mounted on a rearing horse, you may back him, 
 spur him, check him, make a little way even backwards : but seated astride of 
 your dead horse, what chance is there for you in the chapter of possibilities .'" 
 These men wanted a strong, steady-going progression ; and they would have 
 therefore neither the pomp and prancings of Toryism, nor the incapacity of 
 Whiggism. They were Radical Reformers. 
 
 Tory chahtists. Auothcr sct Were Tories — Tory agitators who went about to raise the people 
 against the New Poor Law, and divert them from the aim of repealing the 
 Corn Laws. These men, guilty or stupid, according as they were or were not 
 really the Reverends and Esquires that the mob believed them to be, were the 
 orators on the moors by torchlight. These were the men who taught in those 
 thronged meetings that the Poor Law was a system of wholesale murder ; and 
 that no one could blame a poor man who carried a knife in his bosom for the 
 workhouse official who should attempt to part him from his wife. These 
 were the men who represented the whole class of manufacturers as devils who 
 caused children to be tortured in fiictories for their own amusement ; and too 
 often the declamation ended with a hint that the hearers evidently knew how 
 to get torches, and that factories would burn. These were the men who 
 warned their hearers against a repeal of the Corn Laws, because these laws 
 were the last restraint on the power of the mill-owners. These rabid and 
 ranting Tories were another class of Chartists.
 
 Chap. V.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 265 
 
 There were thousands who knew little about themselves except that they 1835. 
 were very hungry and miserable. A landed proprietor now and then, liero — — ^ --i. — 
 and there, said in the House pretty things about the sun of Christ's natal day "1^",;:,";^''' 
 gilding the humble thatch of the laboiu'er at the same moment with the spire 
 of the church and the windows of the mansion — intending to convey that the 
 joyousness of Christmas was shared by all ranks; while, the very next Christ- 
 mas, in the very county, the very parish of these oratoi's, the labourers were 
 shivering without fire — cowering luider a corner of the decaying thatch which 
 let in snow and rain upon their straw litters — and hungering over the scantiest 
 morsels of dry bread — one neighbour in four or eight, perhaps, having a slice 
 of bacon, and a fire whereon to cook it. Such parishes as these furnished a 
 contingent to the Chartist force — haggard wretches, ready to be called by any 
 political name which might serve as a ticket to better cheer in life than they 
 had found. 
 
 Largest of all ^^•as the number of those who ought not to have felt them- factiois nmu. 
 selves under any immediate pressure of wrong at all. There were many 
 thousands of factory operatives, of Welsh, Durham and Cumberland colliers, 
 and others, who were far from poor, if only they had been wise enough to see 
 their condition as it was. But they were not wise enough; and that they 
 were not was tltcir social wrong. Of these, great numbers had a larger annual 
 income than very many clergymen, half-pay officers, educators, and fund- 
 holders, who are called gentlemen: but they did not know how to regard and 
 manage their own case : — they reckoned their income by the week instead of 
 by the year, and spent it ■within the week: — had nothing to reply when asked, 
 in a time of prosperity, why they who worked so hard had not mansions and 
 l)arks lilvc people who did nothing ; and, in a pinching time, when hungry and 
 idle at once, with hungry children crying in their cold homes, were too ready 
 to believe, as desired, that every other man's fire and food and cheerfulness 
 were so much out of their pockets. By no act of the State could these men 
 have been blessed with higher wages: but if the State would have educated 
 them, they might have found themselves abundantly blessed in their present 
 gains: — they might have sat, in their school days, on the same bench witli the 
 curate, and the seaman, and the schoolmaster, and the tradesman, whom they 
 were now cn^7ing and hating; and might now have been content, like thein, 
 with the position which was "neither poverty nor riches." But the State 
 had left them ignorant ; and here they were, drilling on a hill side, and plot- 
 ting to burn, slay, and overthrow. They had an indistinct but fixed idea that 
 there was unbounded wealth every where, for every body, if only there were 
 no tyrants to intercept it; and there can be no wonder in any sympatliizing 
 mind and heart, that a man in a desolate home, without occupation, and suffer- 
 ing under that peculiar state of brain caused by insufficiency of food, becomes 
 a torcli-hcaring Chartist, or anything else, however clear it may be that tlie 
 money he iuul earned mif;ht, if wisely managed, have made him a ten-pound 
 liouseholder, exercising the suffrage, and a capitalist, giving education to his 
 children. 
 
 It was but lately tliat the King's S])eech had intimated the prosperity of Hun»arj.ixvi.tji. 
 commerce and manufactures, while agriculture was grievously depressed. l'>ut 
 already, there was some sense abroad of ('\ il to come. Trade slackened, and 
 
 vor.. u. 2 Ji
 
 •206 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book V. 
 
 1835. became iiregulai-, and tlie most sagacious ineu of business began to apprehend 
 that a new term oi' commercial distress was setting in. They were right ; only, 
 their apprehensions did not rompass any thing like the truth. It is well tliat 
 they did not; for a mere glimpse of the horrors of the seven years to come 
 would liave been too much for tlie courage of any but the boldest of the 
 enterprising classes of British merchants and manufacturers. Though they 
 saw little, they soon began to feel uneasy, with an uneasiness far transcending 
 any reason that they could give for it. As yet, wages were scarcely lowered, 
 though profits were sensibly sinking: but the employed assumed a new air to 
 their employers, in many a town and factory district in England — a sauciness 
 that seemed to say they felt themselves injured, and were not going to put up 
 witli it long. This was the temper wliich was fast growing into the Chartism 
 of 1839. 
 
 J5ut that seven years' distress brought out an opposite class of facts of the 
 most cheering nature, as we shall see under their date. We shall see, here- 
 after, something of the marvellous and sublime patience of the working 
 classes under a trial which might well be thought too sore for human endur- 
 ance. This patience was in precise proportion, and in the clearest connexion, 
 with the knowledge by this time gained by the working class most concerned 
 — that there is no such thing as an inexhaustible finid of wealth, and that no 
 tyrants were standing between them and- comfort. The patient class knew 
 that they had had their share — as shares are at present naturally apportioned: 
 — they could and did live for a long series of months on the savings tliey had 
 made; and when at last they were left bare, tliey knew that the richest capi- 
 talists were sinking too. Of this class many hundreds were Chartists; but 
 they did not carry pikes and torches, to avenge discontents of their own. 
 The People's Charter was then in existence ; and their aim was to carry that. 
 It would give them, as they believed, a parliament whicli would understand 
 their case, and cure many evils under which they were suffering. And some 
 had visions of an association of small capitalists, who might defy the fickle- 
 ness of fortune: and some dreamed of buying a field and being safe and in 
 harboiu' there, through some wonderful skill and simple arrangements of 
 Chartist leaders. But these were not the revolutionary Chiirtists who were 
 at work, burrowing in tlie foundations of society at the date before us. The 
 better class came in later — after the promulgation of the Charter — as, indeed, 
 did many of the worst: but, in 1835 and 1836, the boring was begun, and the 
 train was laying, which produced, for one result among many, the explosion 
 at Monmouth in 1839. 
 
 The revolutionary movement referred to as occurring at the other end of 
 society was one which it would be scarcely possible to credit now, but for the 
 body of documentary evidence which leaves no shadow of doubt on any of the 
 principal features of the conspiracy. The whole affair appears so unsuited to 
 our own time, and the condition of our monarchy — so like a plunge back into 
 a former century — that all tlie superiority of documentary evidence of whicli 
 we have the advantage is needed to make the story credible to quiet peojile 
 who do not dream of treason-plots and civil war in England in our day. 
 
 A month before Sir R. Peel's resignation in the spring of 1835, the Liberal 
 party throughout the country were surprised by tlie appearance of a sudden
 
 CiiAP. v.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS" PEACE. SfiT 
 
 tit of captiousness and pertiuiacity in some of their representatives, in teazing IS.'Jo. 
 (he ^Ministers about the reception of addresses from Orange Societies to the ^— ^^— ' 
 King. From the temper of the time in the House, and especially among the jM^^ui""'' 
 ()j)])osition, any captiousness must have been great indeed which could have 
 struck every body as remarkable. ^Member after member rose to cross-examine 
 the Ministers (who themselves could have hardl)' understood the proceeding), 
 as to whether the addresses purported to be from Orange Societies; whether 
 the King could or ought to receive addresses from associations of declared 
 illegality ; whether the replies given had really, as the newspapers said, been 
 avowedly gracious; whether the graciousness had been connected with a 
 recognition of the parties as Orangemen ; and finally, and very seriously, 
 \vhether Mr. Goulburn, as Minister of the Crown, considered an Orange 
 Lodge to be legal or illegal, and whether he was prepared to justify the pre- 
 sentation of an address fi-om such a Society to the sovereign. — The Ministers 
 were probably surprised and perplexed, beginning to see that this was a matter 
 of higli importance, but hardly understanding why or how: for no one of them 
 rose for a considerable time. After the dead silence in which the question had 
 been listened to, and the rising of the Minister looked for, vociferous cheers 
 from the Opposition filled the House when he did not rise. At length INIr. spwiator, isa.-., 
 (jroulburn made his answer. The reply to the addresses was intended as an 
 acknowledgment of their receipt, and not as any recognition of the legality oi 
 tlic party name by which the signers might designate themselves. Cheering 
 no less loud followed the reply. Perhaps no cheers given in that House — 
 not even those which signalized the passage of the Reform Bill — ever carried 
 such anxiety and pain to the hearts of certain of the Tory Peers; and especially 
 of the highest Prince of the Blood, the eldest of the King's brothers. He 
 and some others of the Peers could very well understand what all this might 
 mean, while it was a singular mysterj' to the country at large. 
 
 The country at large knew little about Orange Societies, except that the 
 Orangemen in Ireland were proud of their loyalty, and made conspicuous pro- 
 cessions on great Protestant occasions, and were ever and anon coming to 
 blows with the Catholics. Orangeism belonged exclusively to Ireland, in the 
 general mind. People generally would have stared to liear that Orangeism 
 was in England, Scotland, and the Colonies, and that it constituted an army 
 of itself, ill tlie midst of the military forces of the empire. — t)rangeism was 
 exclusively Irish at first — in 1795, when it was first heard of. Before that 
 time, tlic Protestants who patrolled the country, (o prevent the seizure of arms "•"'• 'r«i«"''. '■ 
 by the Catholics in the night, in preparation for their insurrection, bore the 
 name of " Pcep-o'-day Boys." The Catholics, who organized themselves 
 against these patrolling bands, called themselves "Defenders," and soon ex- 
 tended the term to include tlie defence of "The United Nations of France and 
 Ireland." As soon as the aim of an Union with France was avowed, and a 
 descent of the French upon the coasts of Ireland wasexpectcd, the Protestants 
 began to improve and extend their organization, in tlie hope of preserving 
 the Union with England. Tliey would have taken the title of "Defenders," 
 but that their adversaries already bore it. They reverted to the period of tlie 
 bringing in of a Protestant sovereign over the head of the Catholic James II., 
 and called tlicinsclvcs Orangemen. Such, at least, is the traditionary accnuiit
 
 268 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book V. 
 
 1835. in the district where Orangeism sprang up. The Diamond— a little hamlet, 
 
 , ^i^_ about five miles from Armagh, where a conflict took place iu 1795, which is 
 
 called the Battle of the Diamond, is assigned as the birth-place of Orangeism. 
 A few yeomen and formers joined for mutual defence and the assertion of 
 British rights, after the Battle of the Diamond ; and this was the first Orange 
 Lodge. The gentry saw what this might grow to, and encouraged the forma- 
 tion of Lodges, and the promulgation of rules. As Presbyterians abounded 
 iu that part of the country, they formed the main element of the societies ; 
 and it is said that the religious observances of the Orange Lodges which after- 
 wards degenerated into a subject of scandal when Dissenters were no longer 
 admitted, were introdviced originally by them. The Orangemen of Ireland 
 were the deadly foes of the " United Irishmen," and the most effective check 
 upon them, and they have even claimed the credit of having preserved Ireland 
 to England. 
 
 Perhaps it was through the connexion of some English noblemen with 
 Irish property that Orange institutions were introduced into England. 
 London Rerieiv, Lodges wcrc at first held in England imder Irish warrants : but in 1808 a 
 No. IV. p. 19". Lodge was founded in jManchester, and warrants were issued for the holding 
 of Lodges under the English authority. On the death of the Grand Master 
 at Manchester, the Lodge was removed to London, in 1821, and the meetings 
 were held at the house of Lord Kenyon, who was Deputy Grand Master. 
 The Duke of York was to have been Grand Master ; but he found that the 
 law oflicers of the Crown considered the institution an illegal one. The rules 
 were modified so as to meet the terms of the law. The Act which prohibited 
 political societies in Ireland from 1825 to 1828, appeared to dissolve Orange- 
 ism there for the time : but Lodges were held under English warrants: and in 
 1828, the whole organization sprang up, as vigorous as ever, on the expiration 
 of the Act. — At this time, the entne Institution, in Great Britain and Ireland, 
 came under the direction of the Duke of Cumberland, as Grand Master. 
 The critical part of the history, as regards England, lies between the years 
 1828 and 1836. In 1829, when the Duke of York was gone, and the King 
 had given the Royal Assent to the Emancipation Act, the Orangemen seem to 
 have lost their senses, as they certainly lost their loyalty. The proofs of this 
 which came out in 1835, when the Orangemen on our side the Irish Channel 
 numbered 140,000 — 40,000 of whom were in London — bewildered the nation 
 with amazement. 
 1828. In 1828, on the accession of the Duke of Cumberband to tlic throne of 
 
 miKEOFCiMni.B- Qj.j^j^ggjgjj.j^ jjg gpj^|. forth, under a commission of the Great Seal — ("given 
 ^tueeo''n orange "udcr my scal, at St. James's, this 13thday of August, 1828. Ernest, G. M.") 
 ber'^Mr.' *'■'"'''"' — a certain person, chosen " from a knoAvledge of his experience, and a confi- 
 coL. faikman. dence in his integrity," the " trusty, well-beloved, and right worshipful brother, 
 Lieut. -Col. Fairman." This person, thus chosen and confided in by the Duke 
 of Cumberland, had a plenary authority, declared in the Commission under 
 the Great Seal of the Order, to establish Orangeism wherever he could, and 
 by whatever means he thought proper. He went to Dublin, in order to bring 
 the Irish and English Lodges into one perfect system of secret signs and pass- 
 words : and he made two extensive tours, in England and Scotland, to visit 
 and establish Lodges in all the large towns and populous neighbourhoods
 
 Chap. V.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 269 
 
 where he beheved he conld bring the people to " rallj' round the Throne and 1835. 
 tlic Church" — (to use the language of the party and the time). The nation "— ^^— 
 at large saw no particular occasion for rallying round the Throne, as it seemed 
 to them that the House of Bnmswick never was safer. But the Orange leaders, 
 ajiparcntly driven frantic by the reforms of the time, were of a different opinion. 
 They actually got it into their heads, at the time when the Duke of Wellington 
 was carrying the Catholic Emancipation Act, and George IV. was evidently 
 sinking, that the Duke of Wellington himself meant to seize the Crown. Men 
 laughed wlien they first heard this ; and men M'ill always laugh, whenever they 
 hear it : but that such were the apprehensions of the Orange leaders is shown 
 by correspondence in Col. Fainnan's hand-writing, which was brought before 
 the Parliamentary Committee of 1835. The following is an extract from a if°^°° •*"■''"• 
 letter evidently designed for the Grand Master Ernest himself, and written 
 during the last illness of George IV. :— " Should an indisposition, which has 
 agitated the whole country for a fortnight, take a favourable turn — should the 
 Almighty in his mercy give ear unto the supplications that to his heavenly 
 throne are offered up daily, to prolong the existence of one deservedly dear to 
 the nation at large — a divulgcment I have expressed a willingness to furnish 
 would be deprived of no small portion of its value. Even in this case, an 
 event, for the consunuiiation of which, in common with all good subjects, I ob- 
 test the Deity, it might be as well your lloyal Highness should be put in pos- 
 session of the rash design in embryo, the better to enable you to devise mea- 
 siu'cs for its frustration ; at any rate, you would not then be taken by surprise, 
 as the nation was last year, but might have an opportunity of rallying your 
 forces and of organizing your plans for the defeat of such machinations as 
 might be hostile to your paramount claims. Hence, should the experiment be 
 made, and its expediency be established, your Ixoyal Highness would be in a 
 situation to contend for the exercise in your own person of that office at which 
 the Mild ambition of another may prompt him to aspire." Who this " other" 
 was is plainly expressed in two subsequent letters. It was Wellington ! — the 
 devoted Wellington, who perilled his reputation for consistency, and what his 
 party call political honour, over and over again, rather than "desert his sove- 
 reign." Wellington lived to have this said of him by a man claiming to be a 
 Colond in his own " perfect machine" of an army. In a letter from Fairman 
 to Sir James Cockburn, in which he gives a most imposing account of the 
 numbers and discipline of the Orange forces in Ireland and Great Britain, he 
 speaks of grovelling worms who dare to vie with the Omnipotence of Heaven; lonHon Revici», 
 and of one among tliem ho writes thus: — " One, moreover, of whom it might ill 
 become me to speak but in ternisof reverence, has nevertheless been weak enough 
 to ape tlic coarseness of a Cromwell, thus recalling the recollection to what 
 would have been far better leit in oblivion. His seizure of the diadem, with 
 his planting it upon his brow, was a precocious sort of self-inauguration." This 
 seems a subject for fun — for a caricature of the day — so admirably is the 
 charge in o])position to all the Duke of Wellington's tendencies: but there 
 were some things in connexion with this matter too serious to be laughed at. 
 At the first hint of treason, men were roiised to indignation on behalf of the 
 good-natured King William, of wiiom it had been in contemplation to dispose 
 so easily ; and much more strongly did iliiii affections spring to guard from
 
 270 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book V. 
 
 1835. insult and injury the fatherless young I'rincess whose rights were thus dealt 
 
 ^- — with by that trusty and well-beloved brother Fairman, whom the Duke of 
 
 Cumberland sent forth as his representative. On this letter being published, 
 people began to understand the strange ]jroceedings, and the violence of the 
 debate about a Regency, after the accession of William IV. And on this letter 
 being published, peo])le began to remember how, from one occasion to another, 
 rumours of the insanity of King William came floating abroad from the 
 recesses of Toryism, till exploded by contact with free air and daylight. The 
 
 1830. letter is dated April (5, 1830 — during the last illness of George IV., and it is 
 London iievie„, j, jji^egj-gd fo the Editor of the ]Morning Herald :— 
 
 " Dear Sir, — From those who may be supposed to have opportunities of 
 knowing ' the secrets of the Castle,' the King is stated to be by no manner in 
 so alarming a state as many folks would have it imagined. His Majesty is 
 likewise said to dictate the bulletins of his own state of health. Some whisper- 
 ings have also gone abroad, that in the event of the demise of the Crown, a 
 Regency would probably be established, for reasons which occasioned the 
 removal of the next in succession from the office of High Admiral. That a 
 maritime government might not prove consonant to the views of a military 
 chieftain of the most unbounded ambition, may admit of easy belief; and as 
 the second heir-presumptive is not alone a female, but a minor, in addition to 
 the argument which might be applied to the present, that in the ordinary 
 course of nature it was not to be exjiected that his reign could be of long du- 
 ration, in these disjointed times it is by no means unlikely a vicarious form of 
 government may be attempted. The effort would be a bold one, but after the 
 measures we have seen, what new violations should surprise us? Besides, the 
 popular plea of economy and expedience might be urged as the pretext, while 
 aggrandisement and usurpation might be the latent sole motive. It would only 
 be necessary to make out a plausible case, which, from the facts on record, 
 there could be no difficulty in doing, to the satisfaction of a pliable and ob- 
 sequious set of Ministers, as also to the success of such an experiment. 
 
 Most truly yours, 
 
 W. B. F." 
 
 There is nothing to wonder at now in the pertinacity with which the Oppo- 
 sition questioned the Peel Ministry about Orange addresses. INIr. Hume had 
 got hold of these letters of 1830-31, and the members who cheered so loiuUy 
 on the perplexity of the ^linisters, were aAvarc how the loyal Orangemen had 
 listened to suggestions for making the Duke of Cumberland King, to prevent 
 the usurpation of the Crown by the Duke of Wellington ; for expecting that 
 William IV. would be superseded on an allegation of insanity, and the 
 Princess Victoria because she was a woman, and probably still a minor. If 
 the Orangemen, with all their importance of rank, wealth, and numbers — with 
 their array of British peers, and their army of 140,000 men, avowedly ready 
 for action — could have shoAvn that they did not listen to such suggestions, and 
 that Col. Fairman was a crack-brained adventurer, with whose wild notions 
 they had no concern, they would assuredly have done so. But it was impos- 
 sible : the proof was too strong the other way. The letters cited above were
 
 CuAV. V.J DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 271 
 
 ■(viittiMi in 1830-31 ; and a long array of con-espondence shows that the trusted 1835. 
 
 and helovfd AVilliam Blcnnerhassett Fairman lost no ground with the heads of -^ — ' 
 
 the party by his speculations. Some of the most offensive suggestions were set change pkebs. 
 forth in " a series of essays," written at the request of a noble hird, for that %\'p.205:'i.'e't"er 
 noble lord's information ; — that noble lord being I^ord Kenyou : and these 
 essays were handed over to the Duke of ('uml)erland, who kept them by him. 
 In December, IfSol, and in January, 1832, Col. Fairman had long and confi- 1832. 
 (U'utial conversations M'ith the Duke of Cumberland at Kew ; and there were p. 208: uiti-r ij. 
 more such interviews in February. On the IDth of the next April, Col. Fair- 
 man was unanimously elected to the most im])ortanl office in the society, that 
 of Deputy Grand Secretary — the present Duke of liuckingham being Secretary. 
 Col. I'^airman was nominated by the Duke of Cumberland, seconded by Lord 
 Ivenyon, and sui)ported by the D\ikc of Gordon. In June, Col. Fairman went i' i^^- 
 fortli on his mission among the Lodges, furnished by the Duke of Cumberland 
 with powers so extensive as to render it a serious and difficult matter to draw 
 lip his commission. 
 
 It is under this date that Lord Londonderry appears on the scene. Before 
 leaving London on this mission. Col. F'airman learned from the lips of the 
 Duke of Cumberland, as lie declared, that he had written to Lord Londondei-ry p. 208: i.citer vi. 
 on Orange affairs, and Col. Fairman therefore wrote with more explicitness, 
 he says, than he should otherwise have done. The subject is establishing 
 Orange clubs among the pitmen on the estates of the ^larquess ; and his Lord- 
 .ship's agent and Col. Fairman had already been consulting about it. Consider- 
 ing the " popish ("abinet and democratical Ministry," with which the country 
 was opiircssed, Col. Fairman thought fit to suggest in this letter, "By a rapid 
 augmentation of our physical force, we might be able to assume a boldness of 
 attitude ■« hich should command the respect of our Jacobinical rulers." .... 
 ••' If we prove not too strong for such a government as the present is, such a 
 government will soon prove too strong for us: some arbitrary step would be 
 taken in this case, for the suspension of our meetings. Hence the necessity 
 for our laying aside that non-resistance, that passive obedience, which has 
 hitherto been religiously enforced, to our own discomtiture." He further 
 relates how he was reproached by Lord Longford, in a long conversation, the 
 day before, for the tameness of the British Orangemen, while the Irish were 
 resolved to resist all attempts to put them down. In a short letter, a few days 
 afterwards, he says he writes to supply an omission — he had forgotten to say 
 that the Orange leaders had the military with them: — " ^Ve have the military p. ioo: u-iut 13. 
 with us, as far as they are at liberty to avow their principles and sentiments: 
 but since the lamented death of the Duke of York, every im])edimeiit has been 
 thrown in the way of their holding a Lodge." (It will be remembered that 
 tlie Duke of York withdrew from his intended jjosition of Grand Master on 
 bcinn assured of the illegality of the Association.) — AVe liave the answer of 
 the Marquess of Londondirry to the above letters; the purport of which isi'-.ws: i.eiicr u. 
 that he had consulted Lord Kenyou, who hoped to convince the Duke of 
 (Cumberland that "the nujment had not arrived," owing to the refractory 
 state of the pitmen, and tlie AVhig temper of tlie county; but, says the last 
 sentence, " I will lose lu) opportmiity of embr.icing any opening that may 
 arise." Lord Loudonderrv admitli'd in the House of Lords all the facts of
 
 272 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book V. 
 
 1835. tliis correspondence, only explaining that the Duke of Cumberland's wishes 
 
 ~— i—- •-^ were made known to him through Lord Kenyon, and not by interview or 
 
 letter. — In the same month of August in which his commission bears date, 
 
 p.-m: Letici 15. there is a letter of Fairman's to the Duke of Gordon, in answer to an invita- 
 tion to Gordon Castle, in which he anticipates that "we shall bo assuming, 
 I think, such an attitude of boldness as will strike the foe with awe; but we 
 inculcate the doctrine of passive obedience and of non-resistance too religiously 
 by far." He has letters, he says, written "in the highest spirits," from Lords 
 Kenyon and Londonderry, Longford and Cole; and he declares liis expectation 
 of an approaching crisis. — It was after: all this that he still went to Kew, and 
 "was closeted three hours" with' his Royal Highness. — It was after these 
 things — viz. on October 24th of the same year — that Lord Wynford wrote to 
 Col. Fairman in praise of the Duke of Cumberland, and that "the Tories 
 have not been sufficiently grateful to him," winding up with the following 
 
 p. 213: Letter 23. words : — " As you are so obhging in your last letter as to ask my advice as to 
 whether you should pursue the course you have so ably begun, I can only say 
 that you must exercise your discretion as to the company in which you make 
 such appeals as that which I have seen reported. When you meet only sure 
 Tories, you may well make them feel what they owe to one who is the con- 
 stant, unflinching champion of the party, and who, by his steady coin-se, has 
 brought on himself all the obloquy that a base, malignant faction can invent." 
 Col. Fairman quoted Lord Wynford and Lord Kenyon to each other, as con- 
 
 p. 215: letter 30. sulted by him, "on the propriety of my continuing to iuti-oduce the Duke's 
 name in the prominent shape I had previously done." " If he " (the Duke) 
 " would but make a tour into these parts," continues the Colonel, " for which 
 I have prepared the way, he would be idolized." By "these parts," he means 
 Doncaster, whose maudlin loyalty — such loyalty as he saw — the tears of the 
 
 p. 216: Letter3i. gentlemen, which made him "play the woman" — the enthusiasm of the "noble 
 dames," whom he compliments with the title of " the blue belles of York- 
 shire," — is described in a letter too absurd to have been penned by the confi- 
 dential agent of Princes and Lords on the gravest political matters. It was 
 a grave affair to the private interests of some of the brethren, if we may 
 
 p. 21.5 : Letter 28. judgc by a letter of Lord Kenyou's to Col. Fairman, in January, 1833. " The 
 
 I066. good cause," writes his Lordship, " is worth all the help that man can give it, 
 
 but our only trust must be in God. In the last two years and a half I shall 
 
 have spent, I suspect, in its behalf, nearer 20,000^. than 10,0{)0Z." — We find 
 
 the Orange Peers continuing their confidence to Col. Fairman up to the time 
 
 p. 220: Letter 4.'). of tlio demand of a Parliamentary Committee. Lord Roden writes to him 
 about "our cause." Lord Kenyon confides to him his views of the compara- 
 
 p. 220: Letter 47. tivB influeucc of somc Scotch Peers, and observes, " It is a great pity, too, that 
 the amiable Duke of Buccleuch does not see the immense importance of his 
 
 p. 221: Letter 48. sanctioning such a cause as the Orange cause." Lord Thomond writes to 
 him about his subscription, in England and Ireland. Lord Wynford reports 
 1834. to him, in April, 1834, a private consvdtation between the Duke of Cumber- 
 land, Lord Kenyon, and himself, about the purchase of a newspaper, and 
 
 p. 221 : Letter 49. dcclarcs it highly probable that something would soon be done about it by the 
 Carlton Club. Another " sound paper, as well as the Morning Post" was 
 wanted; and the ^(/e had previously been thought of — its " scurrility " and
 
 Chap. V.J DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 273 
 
 " looseness of principle " being admitted, but Lord Kenyoii not admitting, 
 " as some do, tliat the private characters of public men ought to be considered 
 .sacred against all attack." This newspaper, the Age, was at that precise date " 
 occupying itself, week by week, ■\\ath exhibiting the personal infirmities and 
 peculiarities of the Whig Ministers — the baldness, the lameness, the nervous 
 twitchings, the short-sightedness, and so on. Lord Kenyon seems to have 
 considered these things as belonging to private character — " not to be con- 
 sidered sacred against all attack." But the subject of the moralities of the 
 Orange leaders is too large an one to be entered upon here. The gleanings 
 which might be made from the Evidence of the Report would afford material 
 for a curious inquiry into the theory of Christianity held by men whose boast 
 (by the mouth of Lord Kenyon) was, " Ours is the cause of all friends ofp-^": Letter i?- 
 Christianity," and whose most Christian hope was of " the arrival of a day of 
 reckoning," when certain " hell hounds" would "be called on to pay the fullP-^"^- '-<■"" 7. 
 penalty of their cold-blooded tergiversations." So late as July 27tli, 1834, 
 we find the Duke of Gordon confiding to Col. Fairman his gladness "that the p '^'^" Letter so. 
 unprincipled Ministers remain to do more mischief; as yet we are not ready 
 for a change." It is clear that there could be no attempt on the part of the 
 Orange leaders to repudiate Col. Fairman as their confidential agent : and 
 when all this correspondence, and much more, was laid before the Parlia- 
 mentary Committee, it became a matter of serious consideration how to 
 proceed. 
 
 There was much more behind. — It was important to know what was "the 
 prominent shape " that the agent gave to the name of the Duke of Cimiber- 
 land, in his assemblages of Orangemen, throughout his tour. It was charged 
 upon Fairnuin, by an Orangeman of the name of Haywood, that he had ''"J^™,,""- "'■ 
 sounded his hearers at Sheffield and elsewhere on their willingness to support 
 the Duke of Cumberland as their sovereign, if, as was probable, William IV. Pt-oT- 
 should be deposed for his assent to the Reform Bill. Col. Fairman denied 
 this : but liis word did not go for much wdth those who had read his con-c- 
 spondence, nor with any who knew that it had been proved in a Court of 
 Justice that he had given a false address to get rid of a troublesome creditor. London Her., v. 
 
 Again, it was discovered that of the 381 Lodges existing in Great Britain, lodges. 
 30 were in the army : and that Lodges existed among the tro()])s at Bemnida, 
 Gibraltar, Malta, Corfu, New South Wales, "\'an Diemcn's Laud, and our the .\ km v. 
 North American colonies. The Duke of Cumberland and Lord Kenyon posi- 
 tively asserted that they were ignorant of the fact of the existence of an Orange 
 organization at all in the army. But in the coiTCspondence we find Lord 
 Ivenyon writing to the Colonel "His Royal Highness promises being in p»'<- i-*'""'^'- 
 Kngland a fortnight before Parliament assembles. — To him.pi-ivately, you had 
 better address yourself about your military ijvopdsition, which, to me, appears 
 veiy judicious." — Again, "The statement you made to me before, and respect- p-^'s: Umrsi;. 
 ing which I have now before me particulars from Portsmouth— should be 
 referred to his Royal Highness, as military matters of great delicacy. At the 
 same time, private intimation, I submit, should be made to tlie military 
 coiTespondents, letting them know how highly we esteem them as brethren." 
 — Again, "If you hear any thing further from the Military Districts, let hisp. ii'.': u-ner to. 
 Iioyal Highness know all particulars fit to be connnimicated." So nnich for 
 
 VOL. II. - N
 
 274 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 [Book V. 
 
 1835. 
 
 N*o. iv. 
 500. 
 
 p. 4aa_ 
 
 'I'he CHI'UCII. 
 
 p. 487- 
 
 Action of 
 Orangeism. 
 
 No. W. p. 497. 
 
 1835. 
 
 Detection. 
 
 Lord Keynou's ignorance of Orangeisni in the army! — But there was, as 
 regarded the Duke, more direct evidence in the records of the Lodge meetings 
 at which he presided, and himself granted new warrants to soldiers present, 
 some of which are actually entitled "military warrants." The military 
 Lodges were entered in the books, noticed by the Circular Reports of the 
 meetings where the Duke of Cumberland presided ; and the laws and ordi- 
 nances, containing provisions for attracting soldiers and sailors by a remission 
 of the fees, are declared to have been inspected and approved by the Duke, 
 and handed over to Lord Kcnyon for final supervision. Thus, it is not 
 wonderful that the Committee reported "That they find it most difficult to 
 reconcile statements in evidence before them, with ignorance of these proceed- 
 ings on the part of Lord Kenyon, and by his Royal Highness the Duke of 
 Cumberland." 
 
 Such was the dealing of these loyal leaders with the army. — As for the 
 
 Church, they had the Bishop of Salisbury for Lord Prelate and Grand Cliap- 
 
 lain of the Order; and there were twelve or thirteen deputy grand chaplains, 
 
 and clergymen as Masters of Lodges and managers of their aflairs. Not a 
 
 single minister of religion out of the Establishment belonged to the order in 
 
 England. The religious observances, conducted by the clergymen, bore but 
 
 too close a resemblance to the mummeries of the poor Dorsetshire labourers, — 
 
 as did the proceedings altogether, in their illegality. In one of the circulars, 
 
 the clergy are invited to come in, and take appointments, with the notification 
 
 that no salary was attached to office, but that it might lead to patronage. In 
 
 one of these circulars, the position of the Church, in the eyes of Orangemen 
 
 of the period, is described in language too indecent for quotation. As for 
 
 the rest, the Grand Lodge declared itself possessed of " the facility of knowing 
 
 the principles of every man in the country;" the institution excluded Roman 
 
 Catholics and Dissenters, and included the most violent and unscrupulous of 
 
 the Peers ; it numbered 140,000 actual members in Great Britain, and 175,000 
 
 in Ireland ; it expelled members who voted for liberal candidates ; it proposed 
 
 the employment of pliysical force within a proximate time, to overtln-ow the 
 
 liberal institutions which had just been gained ; it was beginning to interfere 
 
 with the common duties and rights of men — as when a Lodge of pitmen in 
 
 Scotl.ind expelled a body of Catholics "who had before lived and Morked with 
 
 them in peace and harmony:" and, at the latest date, it was found holtUng out 
 
 threats to the half-pay of the army and navy to draw them to itself in jjrefer- 
 
 ence to other political unions. "It is the bounden duty of such" (pensioners 
 
 and disbanded soldiers) " in a crisis of danger like the present (February, 
 
 1835), to enlist under the banners of a loyal association, instead of repairing 
 
 to factious unions, no less hostile to sound policy than to true religion, at the 
 
 imminent risk of incurring a just forfeiture of their hard-earned remunerations, 
 
 of which a scrupulous government would not hesitate to deprive tliem. Of 
 
 this intelligible hint the half-pay of the army and navy might do well to profit, 
 
 ill a prospective sense." 
 
 Such was the institution — the great conspiracy against the national will and 
 national interests — the conspiracy against the rights of all, fi-om the King on 
 the throne to the humblest voter, or soldier, or sailor, or Dissenter, or Catholic 
 — which was discovered by the energy and diligence of Mr. Hume in 1835.
 
 Chap. V.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 07; 
 
 Such as has been related was the infoiination of which minds were full, on 183.5. 
 
 the Opposition side of the House, when that scene of pertinacity was transacted -^ — — - 
 
 which perplexed all who did not yet understand the case. The simple- 
 minded King- had been receiving, with studied graciousness, addresses from 
 these illegal societies, in which the question of his deposition had certainly 
 been agitated. — The question was now, ^vhat should be done i 
 
 The seriousness of the question, and of the whole case, was relieved by the 
 certainty, speedily obtained, that the institution, with its political objects, its 
 signs and pass-words, and its oaths, was illegal. There was some reluctance, 
 here and there, to admit the illegality ; but the opinion of the most eminent 
 lawyers soon settled the matter. — It might be fortunate too that the seri- 
 ousness of the case was relieved by the touches of the comic which we have 
 encountered — the Uuke of Wellington, of all people, crowning himself witli 
 the diadem; and the Doncaster loyalists — the "blue belles of Yorkshire" 
 smiling, and their fathers and brothers weeping, over that hero of romance, 
 the Duke of Cumberland ; and the style, both of letters and circulars, which 
 must come in among the comic incidents of the case. — The extreme silliness of 
 the conspirators — a fair set-off, as it appears to us, against the ig-norance of 
 the Dorsetshire labourers — was another fortunate alleviation of the seriousness 
 of the case ; though it is no light matter to see so gi-eat a number of men — 
 some powerful through rank and wealth — playing the fool, and compelled 
 virtually to petition to be tliought fools, as the only alternative from the 
 reputation of traitors. With all its nonsense, and looked at from any 
 pinnacle of superiority, this was a very serious matter. How was it to be 
 dealt with ? 
 
 The first thing done was obtaining a Committee of Inquiry in the Commons, committee or 
 within three weeks after the scene of pertinacious questioning with which the Hansard', xxvii. 
 revelations began. Before the Committee had reported, portions of the 
 evidence were published in the newspapers : and several people, besides Mr. 
 Hume, thought that no time was to be lost in exposing and annihilating the 
 illegal practice of maintaining political societies in the amiy. Amidst many 
 complaints of his proceeding before the Committee had reported, Mr. Hume 
 moved eleven resolutions, on the ■ith of August, declarator^' of the facts of mr. Hemb-j 
 Orangeism, of its illegality in the army, according to the general orders issued na^°!,Jd,"«x. 
 by the Commander-in-Chief, in 1822 and 182!); and ending with a proposal ^*^'° 
 of an Address to the King, calling his attention to the whole subject, and 
 especially to the Duke of Cumberland's share in the illegal transactions com- 
 jdained of. — Mr. Hume's opponents alleged that the military warrants must 
 iiave been misapplied without the knowledge of the chief officers of the 
 association, whose signatures were given to blank warrants, in order to their 
 being sent out in parcels of a hundred or two, in the confidence that they 
 would be properly employed ; and also, they declared that Orangeism in the 
 army was a purely defensive measure, against Kibband societies, and other 
 secret associations, whose suppression they required, if Orange Lodges were 
 put down. To this there could be no objection in any quarter. The last of 
 Mr. Hume's resolutions was objected to as conveying, inevitably, more or less 
 censure on the Duke of Cumberland; a proceeding which could not be justi- 
 fied before the delivery of the Committee's Report and Evidence. Lord
 
 276 HISTORY OP^ ENGLAND [Book V. 
 
 1835. John Russell, who had to act and speak for the government in the Lower 
 "^ — -^^-^-^ House, went through this affair with eminent prudence, courage, and modera- 
 tion. The Whig administrations had been blamed bj' some parties in the 
 House for supinencss in permitting the pranks of the Orangemen for so long; 
 and it was alleged that they had thought the organization too formidable to 
 be meddled with, during a season of political transition. It might be so. 
 Certainly, the prudence, quietness, and guarded moderation, of Lord John 
 Russell throughout the whole transaction conveyed an impression that the 
 aifair was, in his view, one of extreme gravity, though he did not say so, but 
 
 Hansard, xxx. rathcT made as light of it as circumstances would permit. He now moved 
 that the debate should be adjourned to the 11th of August — that is, for a 
 week — giving a broad hint to the Duke of Cimiberland to use the time in 
 withdrawing himself from all connexion with the Orange association. 
 
 The Duke of Tlic Dukc did not take the hint. He merely wrote and published a letter 
 
 Annual iipgister, to the Chairman of the Committee, in which he denied havinj^ ever issued 
 warrants to soldiers, or kno^vn of such being issued — declared that he had de- 
 clined sending out military warrants, on the ground of their violation of the 
 general orders of 1822 and 1829 — and intimated that all warrants inconsistent 
 with those orders should be annulled. — How the Duke's denial was regarded 
 by the Committee, we have already seen, in a sentence of their Report. — Lord 
 J. Russell had shown his prudence in the debate of the 4th : now, on the 11th, 
 
 Hansard, xxx. he showed his couragc. He declared his impression that the Duke had not 
 done what the House had a right to expect fi-om him. If the Duke had merely 
 signed blank warrants, and his Orange brethren had betrayed his confidence 
 in filling them up in a manner which he was known to disapprove, the least 
 he could have done would be to withdraw himself at once, and in a conspicu- 
 ous manner, from persons who had so deceived him : but the Duke appeared 
 
 AnnuDs.. TO THE to havc no intention of so withdrawing. Mr. Hume's last Resolution was 
 therefore agreed to, with the omission of the assertion at the end that the war- 
 rants were designed for the establishment of Orange Lodges in the army. — 
 
 Reply. On the 15th, the King's reply was read to the House. It promised the 
 
 Hnns.ird, XXX. , . . , . .... . . . , 
 
 55>). utmost Vigilance and vigour in suppressing political societies m the army. 
 
 On the 19th, the House was informed that Col. Fairman had refused to pro- 
 duce to the Committee a letter-book which he acknowledged to be in his 
 possession, and which was essential to the purposes of the Committee. He 
 Hansard, xxx. was callcd bcforc the House, where he repeated his refusal ; was advised by 
 *" ■ some of the Orange members to yield up the book ; persisted in his refusal ; and 
 
 was admonished by the Speaker that he must obey the orders of the House. — 
 Col. fairmans Oil the 20tli, as it appeared that he was still contumacious, it was ordered 
 H°nlard'"xx. that lic sliould bc committed to Newgate, for a breach of privilege: but by 
 '''■ this time he had disappeared. — The book was really much wanted. It was 
 
 known to contain replies to letters in the hands of the Committee on the 
 establishment of Orange Lodges in certain regiments at Gibraltar and else- 
 where ; and must afford information on the proceedings of the Orange mis- 
 sionary, named Uccalli, who had complained of the difficulty of establishing 
 Hansard, XXX. Orange Lodges among the troops in the Ionian Islands, from the vigilant 
 resistance of Lord Nugent and the other authorities. The Committee 
 earnestly desired to have the book: and it was moved that the House should 
 
 C76.
 
 Chap. V.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 277 
 
 Older Col. Fairman's papers to be searched. It was believed that the House 1835. 
 had this power; but, considering the odium of exercising it, and the proba- '--^•^^-^-^ 
 bility that where Col. Fairman was secreted, there were all his important 
 2)apers likewise, it was thought best not to issue the order. 
 
 Next, it was ascertained, by certain parties determined to carry this matter phoposed phose. 
 through, that the case of the Orange leaders was analogous to that of the 
 Dorsetshire labourers. They had become liable under the same law ; and it 
 was now resolved that, if evidence could be obtained, the Duke of Cumber- 
 land, Lord Kenyon, the Bishop of Salisbury, and others, and Col. Fainnan, 
 should be brought to trial before the Central (himinal Court. The prosecutors 
 got hold of Haywood — the Orangeman who had taken fright at Fainnan's 
 incitements to treason, had made them known, and was prosecuted for libel in 
 consequence. It was clear to the Committee that the evidence bore out 
 Haywood's statements: and those who were about to prosecute the Orange 
 leaders appointed counsel for Haywood's defence — the Counsel retained being i.oncion rc., t. 
 Seijeant \\'ilde, Mr. Charles Austin, and Mr. Charles Buller. — For the prose- ''' 
 cution, the most eminent Counsel were retained : the indictments were diawu 
 (notwithstanding the difficulty of assigning the exact title of the Duke of 
 Cumberland); the e\-idence was marshalled; the original letters were an-anged ; 
 and all was prepared, when two events happened which rendered further pro- 
 ceedings unnecessary. 
 
 Poor Haywood died through apprehension. He felt himself the probable dfvth of iiiv- 
 victim of the great association whose power he well knew, and whose v^Tath 
 he had brought upon himself: and he was not yet aware of the powerful pro- 
 tection to be extended over him, when he broke a blood-vessel, through agita- i>)n<i"n Re"-. '■ 
 tion of mind. It was then too late to save him ; and lie died a few days before 
 the trial was to have come on. — The other cause of delay was a request from 
 Mr. Himie that all proceedings should be stayed till after the debate which he 
 was to bring on in the Commons. It was all-important that that debate PosTPo.\EMt.-<T. 
 should take place : and the House would refuse the opportunity, if the sub- 
 ject was at the same time in course of inquiry in a Criminal Court. 
 
 On the 23rd of February, 183(), Mr. Hume, to whom the country owed 1836 
 more than to any other man in regard to the exposure and annihilation of this 
 great conspiracy, made a complete revelation of the whole matter, ending with 
 a tremendous resolution. This resolution declared the abhoiTence of I'arlia- Hmisaid, xx«i. 
 ment of all such secret political associations, and proposed an address to the 
 King, requesting him to cause the discharge of all Orangemen, and members 
 of any other secret political associations, from all offices, civil and military, 
 unless they should retire from such societies within one month from the pub- 
 lication of a proclamation to that effect. — Lord John llusscll, in a sjicech of 
 as much prudence as manliness, proposed a somewhat milder proceeding; an "^'"■'"'' "*"' 
 address to the King, praying that his ISIajesty would take such measures as adduk,!. to rut 
 should be effectual for the supiiression of the societies in question. The 
 Orangemen in the House were prudent, and offered no opposition. Lord John 
 Russell's resolution was unanimously agiecd to. Two days afterwards, the 
 roval reply, echoina; the resolution, was received. The Home Secretary nipn. 
 transmitted a copy of it to the Duke of Cumberland, as Grand Master of the s-n. 
 Orange association. Tlic Duke of Cumberland inniicdiately sent a vi']>ly. a™"«i K'iix".
 
 278 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book V. 
 
 1835. intimating that, before the last debate in the Commons, he had recommended 
 ^— '"-^"'^ the dissohition of Orange Societies in Ireland, and that he would immediately 
 
 Dissolution OF i. i ni < • t t t r t ii* " 
 
 OKANuEisM. proceed to dissolve all such societies elsewhere. In a few days, the thing was 
 done; and Orangeism became a matter of history. 
 
 The quietness with which it was done at last is one of the most striking 
 foatiu'es of the case. Tlie prudence of all parties now appears something 
 unsurpassed in our history. It is the strongest possible evidence of the uni- 
 versal sense of danger in the leaders of all parties. The Orange chiefs had at 
 last become aware of what they had subjected themselves to. Yet their forces 
 were so great — their physical force, restrained by no principle, no knowledge, 
 and no sense, on the part of the chiefs — that it was not safe to drive them to 
 resentment or despair : and the government had also to consider Ireland, and 
 the supreme importance of leaving a fair field there for trial of their new 
 jiolicy of conciliation under Lord Mulgravc and his coadjutors. The Radical 
 reformers in Parliament felt this as strongly as the Ministers. The gi'eat 
 point of the dissolution of Orange Societies was gained ; and the chiefs of the 
 Radical Reform party contented themselves with holding out emphatic warn- 
 ings to the humbled conspirators whom they held in their power. They let 
 these revolutionary Peers know that there were rumours afloat of the recon- 
 stitution of Orangeism under another name; that the Orangemen were 
 watched ; that the evidence against the leaders was held in readiness for use ; 
 that the law which had transported the Dorsetshire labourers could any day 
 be brought to bear upon tliem ; and that no mercy was to be expected if the 
 public safety should require it to be jnit in operation. 
 
 As for the people at large — the greatness of the aifair was little understood 
 among them, fi'om the quietness with which it was brought to a close. A 
 multitude scarcely heard of it, except as of the ordinary party conflicts of the 
 day. Many more did not, and could not, fully beHeve what was before their 
 eyes. It was like a story of a long-past century ; and now, such persons look 
 upon it, when the facts are revived, as at a new disclosure which fills them 
 with wonder. There were enough, however, sensible and awake to what the 
 kingdom had escaped to understand the comparative smoothness with which 
 afiairs proceeded henceforth in the House of Lords, the sudden silence about 
 reform of that House, and the intense satisfaction with which the departure of 
 the Duke of Cumberland was witnessed, when, in the next year, the accession 
 of a female sovereign to the throne of England sent him away to be Kmg of 
 Hanover.
 
 CiiAp. VI.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 279 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 T T is natural to shrink from the task now before us, of contemplating Ireland 1835 — 40. 
 -*- at tlic commencement and during tlie term of Lord Mulgrave's ^presently ^~——~^~-^-^ 
 Liorcl ^sorraanby s) admiinstration. It is natural now to turn away in heart- 1835— mio. 
 sickness when the records under the eye bring up again the high hopes, and 
 the no less flattering fears, of the time ; when the ear catches again the echoes 
 of the strife and tumult of those few years wlicn bigotry was in terror or de- 
 spair, when the oppressed were uttering blessings, and the advent of hope was 
 like the awakening of the thousand voices of the Spring after wintry tempests 
 were gone, and wlien the loud, clear master-tone of justice made itself heard 
 over all. It is natural to recoil from tlie thought of that critical period, when 
 all, of every party, believed that a new age had set in for Ireland, and that 
 she was henceforth to grow into the likeness of England, from century to cen- 
 tury. Under the hourly pressing sense of what Ireland is now — under the 
 bitter and humbling disappointment of all hopes, and the visitation of new 
 fcius which are but too like despair — it is natural to look into the past witli 
 slirinking and pain. But there is something in the spirit of History as cordial 
 and cheering under passages of humiliation and disappointment as there is ad- 
 monitory and chastening in times of liope and triumph. Stern as is the spirit 
 of History in rebuking presumption, and showing up the worthless character 
 of transient victories, and pointing out the inevitable recurrence of human 
 passion and folly, in high places and in low, with all the mournful conse- 
 quences of such frailty — exactly in the same ])roportion is she genial and con- 
 scding in an adverse season — pointing out the good that underlies all evil, shed- 
 ding hope upon the most ghastly perplexities, and cheei-fully teaching us how 
 to store up all our past experience as material for a deeper knowledge and a 
 wiser action than we were qualified i'or in our time of highest confidence. As 
 a matter of curiosity or recreation, no one \\ould revert to Ireland, between the 
 years 1813.") and ISIO: but when, in the course; of historical survey, it becomes 
 necessary to contemplate this province of our experience, it is found that far 
 healthier and happier feelings arise to succeed and modify those of disappoint- 
 ment and distress. It is true that we look back upon the wisest and most 
 earnest men then active in that field as upt)n children planting and watering, 
 and setting their gardens to rights in a w\\ burst of sunsliine, wliile \\w from 
 the sunniiit of futurity. ])ereeive how tlie watcr-spout is liurrying on wliich is 
 to tear up every tiling, and lea\e all waste : but we see also tlnit the more com- 
 plete is the waste, the more thorough will be tlie renovation ; and that perhaps 
 the giddy and wrangling children may conic baclv to their work witli a belter 
 knowledge, and a more rational expectation. 
 
 When it appeared that Catludic Emancipation had not tran(|uilli/cd Ireland, 
 the o])poncnts of tlial I'.mancipation were occnjjicd with their trium|ih. and
 
 280 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 [Book V. 
 
 TllEitRlK 
 
 Rki.hvIoI's Ran 
 I'Ol'B. 
 
 DlSTRl'ST OF 
 
 Law. 
 
 1835 — 40. ^vitli their preparations to keep down the Catholics by all means, political and 
 social, )-et left in their power : but the advocates of the Emancipation were 
 driven to consider why it was that the measure appeared to have done so little. 
 Presently might be seen a number of men, and of sets of men, each of whom 
 had an idea about the true Irish woe and its remedy. There was much truth 
 in almost every one of tliese ideas ; and great ^\isdoni and virtue in many of 
 the men who acted upon them. But none of them had got to the bottom of 
 the matter : and of the very few men in the kingdom who had insight into 
 the real state of the case, there appears to have been no one who dared openly 
 and emphatically to speak his thought. 
 
 Some thought that Ireland could never prosper while religious rancour pre- 
 vailed as it did ; and that all would be well if this rancour could be gradually 
 discharged from the Irish mind. These advocated the extinction of Tithe, the 
 reduction of the Church, the impartial distribution of office among Catholics 
 and Protestants, the discountenance of Orangeism, and the establishment of 
 the government plan of National Education. There was weighty truth in all 
 this : but when its advocates looked for the redemption of Ireland by these 
 means, they were wrong. 
 
 Some thought that the fatal mischief was the distrust and dislike of the Law 
 among the Irish people ; and these believed the true remedy to lie in winning 
 over O'Connell from his pernicious teachings of illegality and chicanery ; and 
 in appointing a Viceroy and staff of officials, whose first care should be to ad- 
 minister with the strictest justice the ordinary powers of the law ; who should 
 reform the justiciary of all Ireland, and institute that practical education in 
 simple legality in which the Irish people were conspicuously deficient. There 
 was weighty truth in this : but when its advocates looked to such a policy for 
 the redemption of Ireland, they were wrong. 
 
 Some dwelt on the undisputed difterence between the Irish and the English 
 character ; and especially on the constitutional tendency to illegality which 
 they believed they recognised in the Celtic race; and urged that the true 
 method of governing the Irish was not by the English method, but by an af- 
 fectionate despotism. They pointed to O'Connell, as the virtual sovereign of 
 Ireland, and asked what might not be hoped from sending over a popular 
 Viceroy, whose love of the Irish should make his relation to them that of a 
 chieftain to his retainers ; whose em])ire, in short, should be like that of 
 O'Connell in kind, while the safeguards of sincerity and honour should be 
 added to the popular qualifications of the great demagogue. There might be 
 much truth in this, valuable if urged antecedently to the annexation of Ireland, 
 but of no practical avail towards her immediate redemption. 
 
 Some believed gToss political corruption to be the chief curse ; and proposed 
 a registration of voters as a means for the discouragement of political profli- 
 gacy. The men of this one idea pursued it with such energy as to show that 
 they really did expect, from the restriction and regulation, and ascertainment 
 of the franchise, the redemption of Ireland. 
 
 Others believed that political principle and knowledge were to be obtained 
 
 only through political training ; and that the reform of municipal institutions 
 
 was even more important for Ireland than for England and Scotland. They 
 
 miration'' °^^'^' 'l^^lt upon the great truths involved in the recommendation of municipal over 
 
 Principle of 
 Government. 
 
 PoLlTirAl. Cint- 
 
 RIIPIIDN
 
 Chap. VI.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 281 
 
 central government ; and quoted De Tocqueville, where he says, as if he 1835 40. 
 
 were describing the Irish people, " In certain countries of Europe the natives ' — — v— ^^ 
 consider themselves as a kind of settlers: — tlie greatest changes are eifected Am"'rica,7.p"i2C. 
 without their concurrence, and without their knowledge ; nay, more, the citi- 
 zen is unconcerned as to the condition of his village, the police of his street, 
 tlic repairs of the church, or of the parsonage ; for he looks upon all these 
 tilings as unconnected with himself, and as the property of a powerful stranger 
 whom he calls the government. He has only a life interest in these posses- 
 sions, and he entertains no notions of ownership or of improvement. This want 
 of interest in his own affairs goes so far, that if his own safety or that of liis 
 children is endangered, instead of trying to avert the peril, he will fold his 
 arms, and wait till the nation comes to his assistance. This same individual, 
 who has so completely sacrificed his own free-will, had no natural propensity 
 to obedience; he cowers, it is true, before the pettiest officer; but he braves 
 the law with the spirit of a conquered foe, as soon as its superior force is re- 
 moved : his oscillations between servitude and license are perpetual. When a 
 nation has arrived at this state, it must either change its customs and its laws, 
 or perish : the source of public virtue is dry ; and though it may contain sub- 
 jects, the race of citizens is extinct." — " How can a populace, unaccustomed voi.i. p. 132. 
 to freedom in small concerns, learn to use it temperately in gi-eat affairs ? "What 
 resistance can be offered to tyranny in a country where every private individual 
 is impotent, and where the citizens are iniitcd by no common tie ? Those who 
 dread the license of the mob, and those who fear the rule of absolute power, 
 ought alike to desire the progressive growth of provincial liberties." — " Local voLi. p. 73. 
 assemblies of citizens constitute the strength of free nations. Town meetings 
 are to liberty what primary schools are to science : they bring it within the 
 people's reach ; they teach men how to use and enjoy it. A nation may es- 
 tablish a system of free government ; but without the spirit of municipal insti- 
 tutions it cannot have the spuit of liberty." — " Here," said the advocates of 
 Municipal Reform in Ireland — " here we have before us the straight road to 
 the redemption of Ireland. Every one knows that her natural resom-ces are 
 abundant for tlie wants of her inhabitants, if only her inhabitants knew how 
 to use them. This is the way to teach them : — this is the way to call out and 
 increase such jjublic virtue as exists. It is not by an affectionate despotism, 
 but by a training to self-goveniment, that the Irish must be redeemed. Their 
 own affectionate despot himself says, that purified municipal institutions will 
 become ' normal schools of ])eaccful agitation :' we shall find them normal 
 schools of political and social intelligence and virtue ; and by them Ireland 
 may at last be redeemed." In this faith — to a considerable extent justifiable — 
 the advocates of ^Municipal reform worked diligently for the five years which 
 ran their course between the introduction of tlie (juestion and the passage of 
 the mutilated Bill for Irish Corporate lU'form. There was weighty truth in 
 their doctrine ; but when they looked for tlie redemption of Ireland by this 
 means, they were wrong. 
 
 Others saw a necessity underlying even the deepest that have been pointed 
 out : and they thought it might be met by giving every man in Ireland a right 
 to subsistence. The uncertainty of food, and consequent recklessness of temper unce«t»ictv or 
 and habits among the labouring classes; tlie carelessness or rapacity of |,;„j • '"■■"t'''""'=- 
 
 vol.. 11. - o 
 
 t
 
 282 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book V. 
 
 1835 40, laudloixls ; the unprofitable management of the land ; the depraving preva- 
 
 ■ — — -^^ lence of mendicity, and almost all the worst evils of life in Ireland, might, it 
 was said, be met, and in time corrected, by a good Poor Law. This was the 
 one gi'eat measure which would operate beneficially in all directions — would 
 feed the hungry, and clothe the naked, and settle the roving, and restrain the 
 encroachin"-, and employ the idle ; — would bring the unscrupulous landowner 
 to reflection and retribution, enable the good occupier to understand and con- 
 trol his own position— and would, in short, establish natural relations through- 
 out the disorganized society of Ireland. There was weighty truth in all this ; 
 so much truth, and held by so many of the best minds among philosophers, 
 statesmen, and men of business, that few dared to qualify the general expec- 
 tation excited by their confidence : but there were persons who felt and said 
 at the time that all who looked for the redemption of Ireland through an 
 extension of the English Poor Law were wrong. 
 
 Who, then, were right ! Among these many who were wrong, was there 
 no one right? It is surely not to be expected that any one should be wholly 
 right. The proof of the insufficiency of any or all of the above-mentioned 
 theories was not yet extant. The materials for a right judgment were scattered 
 abroad : — one person here and another there obtained a glimpse of true 
 insight; and some declared what they thought and saw. It was a common 
 FimnAMESTAi. thing to bc told that " the land " was at the bottom of the Irish difficultv : 
 
 Difficulty. ^ , _ ..." 
 
 but this might mean, and did mean, several different things. It might mean 
 any one of a dozen prevalent vices and faults in the tenure, or distribution, or 
 cultivation of land; or in the social circumstances which gave land a peculiar 
 value in Ireland. Those who came nearest to the truth, consciously or uncon- 
 sciously, were perhaps the la-s'i'y ers, who told a friend, here and there, in an 
 tnseci niTv OF undertone by the fireside, that there was not a title to land in Ireland that 
 
 TITLE TO Land. .' ^ 
 
 would bear looking into ; that this was a secret known to all who were con- 
 cerned in it ; that it was the true reason of the opposition to a registry of 
 deeds ; the sorest impediment to improvement ; the natural cause of the sin- 
 gular recklessness of Irish landlords ; the sufficient explanation of the silence 
 and apparent apathy of mortgagees and others concerned in the enriching of 
 estates, about all methods of improvement and convenience ; and a powerful 
 instigation to men of various classes to take the law into their own hands, and 
 to nourish those social feuds which might strengthen and protr;ict the local 
 dominion of men, whose title to their land was, or might be foinid, insecure. 
 
 The greater part of Irish landed property had been granted three times over, 
 at least, during the long sequence of troubles in that unhappy coimtry. The 
 descendants of old Irish chieftains still looked on those estates as properly 
 their own which had been the homes of their fathers ; and the posterity of 
 all other dispossessed parties looked on with the same jealous eyes. As for those 
 in actual possession, too many of them conducted themselves and their 
 property in the way which has made the Irish landlord a bye-word and 
 rejnoach. The virtuous administration of their estates was not to such the 
 great duty and object in life that it is usually seen to be in countries where 
 the property is secure, as a matter of course ; where the tenantry and labourers 
 arc regarded by the proprietor as persons to whom he owes serious duties; and 
 where the improvement of the estate for the benefit of heirs is the first con-
 
 Chap. VI.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 263 
 
 sideration in connexion with it. Such is the natural state of things (liowevcr 1,S.35 4(). 
 
 set asi(h! in special cases by the vices of bad landlordsj imder the main con- ' ■ ' 
 
 dition of securitj' of property. The opposite state of affairs was that which 
 naturally appeared in Ireland. Tlie sole object too often was to make the 
 most of the present time, leaving the future to take care of itself. The small- 
 uess of the proprietary body is in itself a serious and portentous evil in Ireland, 
 where the number of holders of land in fee is said not to exceed 8,000. The condiiion and 
 very large estates held by these few persons sink lower in productiveness, in latd, p. i.is. 
 proportion to tlie lapse of time which, instead of giving security, reveals em- 
 barrassments which are evidently insurmountable. Instead of investing 
 caj)ital in the land, for its improvement, the proprietors had split it into small 
 freeliokls, before the disfranchisement of "the Forties;" and the system was 
 not changed after that disfranchisement, because more immediate profit was 
 supposed obtainable from the high rents promised by the numerous tenantry 
 than by improved cultivation. A proprietor, doubtful whether he could sell 
 his land, on account of its questionable title, embarrassed by settlements and 
 mortgages, hopeless of freeing the estate by any effort of his own, naturally 
 does as his father did before him, and as he supposes liis son will do after liim 
 — he gets what he can from year to year, and hopes the sky will not fall in 
 his time. The insecurity extends to the tenantry, who are more numerous 
 than the unimproved land can support. They got their land by bidding 
 against each other: and they know that they cannot have it long — having 
 promised rents which they cannot pay ; so they snatch what they can fi'om the 
 ground and from fate, and make themselves as comfortable as they can till the 
 sky falls. — Such was the state of things, and the cause of that state, known to 
 a few before the experiment of impartial government was tried in Ireland: 
 and if only it had been more widely and thoroughly understood, it seems im- 
 possible that men should have expected so much as they did fi-om reforms 
 which did not touch the radical evil — the insecurity of landed property in 
 Ireland. As we shall see, the remedies referred to above were all tried ; and 
 there is no need to inform any reader tliat Ireland is not yet redeemed. 
 
 1. First : various efforts were made to abate the religious rancour of Irish imp\rtulitvto 
 society. That little could be done through the reduction of the Church and 
 the commutation of tithe, lias been shown. We have seen how hard and pro- 
 tracted was the labour of getting anytlung done about tithe — owing to the 
 very rancour which it was the great object to moderate. We have seen some- 
 thing too of the ainiihilation of Orangeism, as an organization: but it would 
 occupy a volume to tell all that happened between the Irisli government and 
 the Orangemen before the Royal Grand Master dissolved the association. 
 The avowed ])rinciplc of Lord INIulgrave's government was impartiahty; and 
 it appears to liave been firmly adhered to : but so unused was Ireland to im- 
 jKutiality in the government, that both Trotcstants and CathoHcs interpreted 
 the acts of the Viceroy as favour to the Catholics. Investigation was made 
 into the condition of Kibbandism, against which the Protestants declared niiii.Axn.iE.x »si> 
 
 ...... . , OlIXNr.EMEK. 
 
 themselves obliged to organize their Orangeism in self-defence: and, to the 
 surprise of the government no less than others, it was found that scarcely any 
 thing but the name existed. Fre(iuently as tlie world had been, and still was, 
 alarmed by intimations in the newspapers of dreadful Ribband plots, they
 
 284 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 [Book V. 
 
 ' A Voice fro: 
 the North.' 
 
 IjOtidonderry 
 Sentinel, Sep. 
 1835. 
 
 1835 jo. were foimtl, on the most searching inquiry, to be mere bugbears. As there 
 
 ^^^^^^ was nothing to lay hokl of, government could do no more than proscribe 
 Ribbaiidism with all other secret societies, while it was compelled to inflict 
 open shame upon Orangeisra. The Orangemen began their demonstrations 
 early after the arrival of Lord Mulgrave. In consequence of the Recorder of 
 Dublin having denounced the Melbourne administration as " infidels in 
 religion," a public meeting was called in Dublin, to consider of this libel; and 
 Orangemen attended in large bodies — a fight being, as usual, the close of the 
 business. In consequence of a government prohibition of Orange processions 
 in the North, a pamphlet was widely circulated which called on Orangemen 
 to break the law, because government did not punish such breaches of the law 
 as the swarming of Jesuits through the land, and the rearing of the unhal- 
 lowed heads of monasteries. When the Viceroy had returned from his south- 
 em journey, and was about to set out for the North, the Orangemen of 
 Londonderry threatened him through the newspapers with even personal 
 violence. " If he should come among us, he shall see such a display of Orange 
 banners as shall put him into the horrors." They would take care to give 
 such notice of his approach as should secure him a reception which he had better 
 not encounter ; and so forth. While the Viceroy was thus threatened by 
 one party, and affectionately hailed by the other, it was difficult to keep the 
 public mind fixed on the ruling government principle of impartiality. — At the 
 same time, intimation was officially given throughout the constabulary force 
 that a sub-constable in Wexford had been dismissed on proof of his having 
 attended an Orange Lodge ; and a drum-major was tried by Court Martial, 
 and reduced to the ranks, for having played party tunes in the streets of 
 Belfast. — The Viceroy disallowed the election of the Master of an Orange 
 Lodge to the jNIayoralty of Cork, and of two other Orangemen as Sheriffs, in 
 September, 1835. These instances looked like partiality while no Ribband- 
 men were dismissed or otherwise punished. If Ribbandmen could have been 
 found, in office or out of it, they would have been punished: but all endea- 
 vours to detect and punish Ribbandism were in vain. A Catholic policeman 
 endeavoured to join, in order to obtain information : and an inspector of 
 police was sent to England to learn fiom an Irish soldier in a place of safety 
 what he woidd not have told among his acquaintances at home : but all that 
 could be discovered by all the powers of government and the police in five 
 years, supplied ground for only one prosecution; and that broke down. Thus, 
 all the penalties devolved on one party; but it could not be said that that 
 party met only with severity. As soon as the intention of the leaders to dis- 
 solve the Orange Societies was known, the Viceroy liberated all the Orange- 
 men who were ruider arrest for joining prohibited party processions on the 
 12th July preceding 
 
 The Irish Orangemen were, however, less obedient to their chiefs than the 
 English and Scotch. The Dublin Grand Committee met and decided that 
 "the more will of the King was not law," and that their watchword should 
 be "no surrender." Sir Harcourt Lees addressed a letter to the brethren, the 
 last paragraph of which was adopted as the Tory text or watcliword from tliat 
 day forward: — " Orangemen — increase and multiply — be tranquil — be vigilan(. 
 Put your trust in God — still revere yom- King — and keep your powder dry."
 
 Chap. VI.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 285 
 
 This letter was dated February 27th, 1836. On the 7th of April following, 1835 40. 
 
 the Orange idol was rent to pieces in its shrine; the statue of William III. -— — ~— - 
 was blown up on its pedestal in College Green, Dublin. Here was u Catholic spertator, i83«, 
 
 \ , ~ P- ^*>i' 
 
 outrage — an act of Ribband sedition at last. But almost before this was said, 
 men began to smell some of the " dry powder " above referred to in the train 
 which blew up the statue. Government oflered a large reward for the detec- 
 tion of the offender; and the Dublin Corporation offered as much again. 
 The perpetrator was never discovered ; but some incidents of the time caused 
 a general impression that the hand employed was that of a wratliful Orange- 
 man. 
 
 Meantime, the Viceroy and his coadjutors in the government persevered in 
 bestowing office without regard to religious persuasion. They selected the 
 fittest men; and if they inquired whether they were Protestant or Catholic, it 
 was for the purpose of holding the balance as even as they could. The prac- 
 tice of setting aside Roman Catholics as jurors was broken through; and j^'^^'"^;;^' "* ™^ 
 throughout the island, the Protestants, who had always regarded their neigh- 
 bours of another faith as idolators and rebels, saw with amazement and horror 
 that they were trusted to try the accused, to administer the laws, and transact 
 the business of society, as freely as if they hated the Pope and cursed the 
 Jesuists. 
 
 All this was very well : but a more effectual method of ultimately extin- 
 guishing religious rancour was supposed to be by the system of National 
 Education established in Ireland. 
 
 In October, 1831, the first announcement of this scheme was made in a 
 letter fi-om the then Secretary for Ireland, Mr. Stanley, to the Duke of 
 Leinster. The object was not new — the object of diminishing the -sdolence of ^^^,"'"'' '^''"' 
 religious animosities by bringing together the children of Catholic and Pro- 
 testant dally — to sit on the same bench, take an interest in the same ideas, 
 and find by constant experience and sympathy how much they had in com- 
 mon. Tliis object had been aimed at through the organization of the Kildare 
 Street schools ; but the machinery was not of the right kind, thougli con- 
 scientiously worked. — In 1828, a Committee of the House of Commons had 
 recommended the adoption of a system " which should afford, if possible, a 
 combined literary, and separate religious education, and should be capable of 
 being so far adapted to the \iews of the religious persuasions which prevail in 
 Ireland as to render it, in truth, a system of national education for the poorer 
 classes of the community." In order to meet the religious wants and wishes 
 of all parties, certain days in each week were set apart for the religious in- 
 struction of the children by their respective cleigy ; and every encouragement 
 was given to the communication of siu-h instruction daily, before and after 
 school hours. The great difficulty was about the method of giving any 
 religious sanction to the secular teaching in the schools. All desired some 
 such sanction: but the Protestants contended for the whole Bible, spurning 
 the idea of selections being made from it for school reading, as the rankest 
 blasphemy, while the Catholics are not, as every one knows, allowed the fiee 
 use of the Scriptures. Selections from the Bible were made, to the satisfac- 
 tion of many clergy, both Proli'stant and (alholic; ami these have been in 
 use to this day. A brief remark dropped by the Archbishop of Dublin in tin
 
 286 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 [Book V, 
 
 Hansard, sxxvi 
 
 Hansard. 
 1142. 
 
 1835 — 40. debate (Fcbruaiy ;28th, 1837) on the appointnieut of a Committee of Inquiry 
 "~— — '^— - into the Irish School system, conveyed a signiiicant hint and warning to those 
 wlio lu'ard him, and to many out of doors — that nothing could be more 
 perilous than to circulate among the people exaggerated notions of the differ- 
 ences between the several versions of the records of their salvation. Yet, 
 from the Bishop of Exeter in the Lords down to the idlest clergyman without 
 a flock in Ireland, the opposition to the Education Board and its acts, on the 
 ground of the mutilation of the Scriptures, was virulent to a degree incredible 
 in men who call themselves Christians. They could not, however, overthrow 
 the Board, or stop its good woi'ks. Tliey could not even hinder Protestants in 
 Ireland from accepting the benefit of the schools, though hundreds and thou- 
 sands of children were kept away, to be lost in ignorance and superstition, who 
 would otherwise have been rational and enlightened citizens of a country 
 whose main want is of good citizens. The Ai'chbishoi) of Dublin said, on this 
 28th of February, 1837, that " he had ascertained, by examination, that 
 in these schools," (in a particular district,) " extending to between 300 and 
 400, in which it was said there were no Protestants, that about 22,000 Roman 
 Catholic children and 16,000 Protestants had been educated." In the face 
 of every kind of opposition, even of atrocious slanders without any founda- 
 tion whatever, slanders such as bigotry in religion and party spirit in politics 
 could alone generate, the National School system in Ireland continued to 
 expand and flourish during the whole period of the Melbourne administration, 
 tending to humanize every district where it was planted, and preparing, as it 
 was fondly hoped, a brightening prospect of social peace for a future genera- 
 tion. During the eight years from the establishment of the system to the 
 going out of the Whig administration in 1841, we find an annual advance in 
 the number of schools and scholars, in an accelerating ratio, till, since 1834, 
 the number of schools in operation liad increased from 789 to 2,337, and the 
 number of scholars from 107,042 to 281,849. And the Board was then about 
 to aid 382 additional schools, which would add 48,000 to the number of pupils 
 on the rolls. — When hundreds of tliousands of children were thus reared in 
 security from sectarian rancour, it seemed to many that such rancour miglit, 
 and must in time, be discharged from the mind of the Irish people : but, 
 good as was the work, and bright as were the hopes which it yielded, it is not 
 the less clear that those were wrong who looked to this institution for the 
 redemption of Ireland. 
 
 2. Next, we must glance at the policy desired by those who would have 
 won over O'Connell from his practice of teaching dislike and distrust of the 
 law, believing this dislike and distrust of the law to be the one impediment to 
 the redemption of the Irish people. At the same time that O'Connell .was won 
 over to silence, the Irish government was to rule conspicuously by the ordinary 
 powers of the law, to exercise the strictest impartiality, and to compel a similar 
 recognition of equality before the law throughout the country, by a reform of 
 the justiciary. 
 
 The characterizing \'irtue of Lord Mulgrave's administration in Ireland was 
 its reliance on the ordinary powers of the law, and the impartial exercise of 
 them. Extreme as was the consternation of the Cliurch and Tory portion of 
 Irish society at seeing Catholic gentlemen admitted to the magistracy, and 
 
 Prosress of the 
 Nation, Sec. vii, 
 ch. 4. 
 
 Impartiality of 
 Law.
 
 CiiAP. VI.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 287 
 
 Catholic lawyers to office iii Dublin, and Catholic juries sitting to tiy offenders, 1835 — 40. 
 cither Protestant or Catholic, and loud as was the outcry about the return of "-- — - — — ^ 
 the times of James II., and the domination of the Pope in Ireland, the im- tiunrJa^iT'isw.'" 
 provement in social life, and the decrease of crime, soon became unquestionable 
 facts. It was an affecting sight to those who happened to be in Ireland in 
 1837, to see the awakening of the Catholic population to a sense of wliat law 
 and justice were, and to a hope that they might share in the benefit. The 
 Catholic priesthood led the way in trusting the government ; and the people 
 followed. It was a touching sight — that of the melting down of the popular 
 spirit of pride and cunning into gratitude and trust. Hitherto, the pride of the 
 Irish peasant had nourished itself in defiance first, and then evasion of the law, 
 as in defiance and circumvention of an enemy. The chief ground of the popu- 
 lar admiration of O'ConncU was his success in defying and evatUng the law ; 
 and every follower of the Agitator gloried in emulating him, as far as oppor- 
 tunity allowed. Now, for the first time, the idea dawned upon the general 
 Irish mind, that law and justice might ])0ssibly be a benefit, and not an op- 
 pression : and when, fostered by the priests, and justified by the whole course 
 of the government, this idea grew clear and strong, the revulsion of feeling 
 was a truly affecting sight. Criminals l)eeame odious, instead of endeared, by 
 their crimes ; they were informed against, instead of harboured ; and the fiercest 
 wrong-doers felt ashamed of outrages against the public peace, instead of glory- 
 ing in them. If the cause of Irish misery had not lain deeper than was then 
 dreamed of — if all collateral improvements had not been swept away through 
 the absence of tlie only effectual remedy — the training of the Catholic Irish to 
 legality and order in Lord ]Mulgi'ave's time might have proved their permanent 
 redemption from one of their worst national faults. As it was, the remarkable 
 and steady subsidence of crime, during the whole term of the Whig adminis- 
 tration in Ireland, is a suflicient testimony to the wisdom and humanity of the 
 characterizing principle of its rule. 
 
 Sir R. Peel reminded parliament, in 1829, that " for scarcely one year during 
 the period that has elapsed since the Union, has Ireland been governed by the 
 ordinary course of law." Insurrection Acts, Suspension of the Habeas Corpus, 
 and Martial Law, were all familiarly associated in men's minds with the very 
 name of Ireland: and all had been in vain; — so vain, that parliament itself 
 became uneasy and remorseful ; and Lord Grey's government fell on the ques- 
 tion of a ('oercion Bill. Now, for a term of years, the experiment was tried of 
 putting the ordinary law in force without fear or favour; and the result was, irisii crime com. 
 that at the close ot the Viceroys termor government, twenty-seven out ofi^is 
 thirty-two counties in Ireland were perfectly tiancpiil, or eminently tranquil- ciumk. 
 lized, while the remaining five were not worse than they liad always been be- 
 fore : that, while the decrease of crimes proceeded from year to yeai', the pro- 
 jiortion of convictions to connuittals, and of committals to offences, was always 
 on the increase — showing that at length tlie j)eople were taking their part in 
 the administration of justice, for the public good ; that wherever the influence 
 and example of the government could act freely, crime had almost disap- 
 peared — as in the instance of tiie celebrated faction-fights, whidi were now 
 seldom heard of; while the crimes which did continue were those which arose 
 from agrarian discontents — from that great underlying grievance which every 
 
 Ou RRASK OF 
 
 I
 
 288 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 [Book V. 
 
 TnF. Vicp.rdy's 
 
 Cl,EMI->CY. 
 
 Hansard, xxxvi 
 340. 
 
 1835 — 40. government has left untouched : and tinallj% that the decrease of crime, on 
 comparison of the tliree years ending' in lS.'i8 with tlie three years ending in 
 1828, was no less than 10 per cent, of murder and manslaughter — 46 per cent, 
 of shooting and stabbing — 29 per cent, of conspiracy to murder — 56 per cent, 
 of burglary, and 86 per cent, of housebreaking for arms in the night. 
 
 The alarmed I'rotestants in parliament, however, complained that Lord 
 Mulgrave desecrated and annulled the law by his clemency. He had made a 
 circuit through the south first, and then through the north of Ireland, and had 
 visited the jails, and most establishments supported by the public funds. In 
 visiting the jails, he had inquired of three parties concerning the prisoners 
 whose pardon might be desirable ; — of the resident officers about their conduct 
 in prison ; of the medical officers about their health ; and of neiglibouring 
 gentlemen about their previous character, and the probability of their good 
 conduct henceforth. Where necessary, application was made to tlie judges for 
 guidance. Of 800 petitions for pardon, about half had been entertained : of 
 these, only 100 had been favourably answered, on certificates from medical 
 men and others. These (whatever had been said to the contrary) were Pro- 
 testants or Catholics, as might happen ; while the rest, the only class to whom 
 the prison-doors had been thrown open freely, were Orangemen convicted of 
 joining illegal processions. The small proportion of re-commitments among 
 the offenders thus pardoned testified to the discretion of the mercy which had 
 released them at the commencement of a new period in the government of Ire- 
 land ; j'ct the political Protestants, perplexed and dismayed by the new doc- 
 trine and practice of equity before the law, persisted in calling the Viceroy's 
 journeys of inspection "jail-delivery circuits," and concluded that pardon was 
 granted for the sake of the Catholics. 
 
 There was another doctrine, propounded by a member of the govemmeiit at 
 this time, which was offensive to the political " Protestants," as they called 
 themselves, who opposed the acts of the Mulgrave administration. There is 
 no srn-vivor of that administration who will not eagerly assent to the avowal, 
 that that one member, Mr. Drummond, was the mind and soul of it. Mr, 
 Drummond, the military surveyor, the discoverer of the light known by his 
 name, the private secretary of Lord Althorp, by the imited wish of Lord Grey's 
 cabinet, and the Irish Under Secretary under Lords Mulgi-ave and INIorpeth, 
 was a man of great external calmness, of eminent prudence in the ordinary affairs 
 of life, and, till of late years, apparently devoted altogether to scientific pur- 
 suits. His accpiaintances were wont to rally him for his Scotch prudence and 
 caution, and to describe the pleasures and pains of enthusiasm to him, as things 
 that he could not possibly know any thing about. It was his function in Ire- 
 land which revealed him to his friends, if not to himself. His subdued en- 
 thusiasm now manifested itself in a moral force, as lofty and sustained as it 
 was powerful. The cool man of science came out the philanthropist, the phi- 
 losopher, tlie statesman, the virtual preacher — carrying the loftiest spirit of 
 devotedness into each function. He put wisdom into the counsels of the Irish 
 government, and moderation into its demeanour. He put enthusiasm into 
 the justice which he gave impartially to the Irish people ; and he called for 
 justice in the enthusiasms which the observant people paid back to the govern- 
 ment. It was he who repressed crime throughout the nation, and rebirked its 
 
 Thomas Dhum. 
 
 MONO.
 
 Cir.vr. VI.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 289 
 
 passions, and stilled its turbulence, and encouraged its hopes, and stimulated 1835 — 40. 
 its industry, and soothed its sorrows. His sobriety of judgment and calmness 
 of manner never gave way ; but a fervour, like that of renewed j'outh, latterly 
 ])ervadcd his whole mind, animated all his faculties, and deepened his habitual 
 composure, while he was consciously meeting the martyr's doom. He lived 
 too fast, knowingly and willingly, during these few years which he believed 
 to be so critical for Ireland. Under his work, his responsibilities, his throng- 
 ing ideas, his working emotions, liis fi-ame could not hold out long : and he 
 was prostrated at once by an attack of illness in the spring of 1840. " I am 
 dying for Ireland," he said, just at the last. He died for Ireland; and in the 
 contemplation of his death, how do other deaths which bear more of the 
 external marks of martyrdom for Ireland shrink, by comparison, in our esti- 
 mate ! Here was no passion — no insulting speech — no underhand or defiant 
 action — no collision of duties — no forfeiture of good faith — no implication of 
 the helpless in danger — no disturbance of society — no imperilling of any life 
 but his own. No man who courted the bullet or the gibbet ever dared more. 
 No man who organized rebellion in consultations by day and drilhngs at night 
 ever wrought harder. No man who cast liis all into the revolutionary balance 
 was ever more disinterested and devoted. He, a soldier of a sensitive spirit, 
 brought upon himself unmeasured insult, which would elsewhere have been 
 intolerable : but for Ireland's sake he bore it all. He went through endless 
 toils which nobody knew of, who could give him any return of honour. He 
 felt himself sinking, before he had attained the rewards which might once 
 have been alluring to him — before he had attained wealth, or rank, or a post 
 in the world's eye, or the fame of statesmanship : but he toiled on, too busy 
 on Ireland's behalf to have a regret to spare for such things as these. If 
 there are any who cannot reconcile themselves to such an issue, let them 
 remember how noble a way remains to do him honour. Let them name his 
 name when Ireland wants his example. When boasts of martyrdom abound, 
 and blustering patriots would rouse the ignorant and suffering to rash enter- 
 prises, and men who ^vill not work for Ireland talk (jf fighting for her, aiul 
 those who cannot deny their oyvn vanity, or indolence, or worldly care, claim 
 the glory of patriotic agitation, let the name of Thomas Drummond be quietly 
 spoken, and human nature has lost its rectitude and its sensibility if the arro- 
 gance be not shamed, and the vaunt silenced. 
 
 He was a man whom few things could astonish. One of the few things 
 which did astonish him was the effect of certain words of his own which 
 appeared to him as simple and commonplace as anything he ever uttered. It 
 is certainly true, however, that the most commonplace sayings have an effect 
 pvojKUtioned to the moral force of those who utter them : and in this case the 
 words appear — even now, to us — instinct with tlie just and brave spirit of the 
 man. The story was this. In the course of the debate in the Upper House 
 on Lord Roden's motion, towards the close of 1837, it was mentioned by Lord 
 Mulgrave (then become ^Manpiess of Normanby) and by other speakers on 
 the same side, that all inquiry led to the conclusion that the murders and man- 
 slaughter in Ireland were not owing to religious differences or political discon- 
 tents, but almost exclusively to agrarian grievances. This opinion, far from 
 acceptable to listening Orangemen and Irish landlords, was vehemently pro- 
 
 VOI,. II. - 1"
 
 290 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 [Book V. 
 
 1835- 
 
 Haniiaril, x:ixix. 
 262-3. 
 
 Spectator, 1839, 
 p. 94. 
 
 40. tested against, not only by Lord Roden, but by the Duke of Wellington, who 
 quoted the INIarquess Wellesley as an indisputable authority, who had said that 
 the agi-arian disturbances themselves were ascribable to political agitation. 
 From that time, the Lish landlords and political chiefs on the Tory side seem 
 to have taken for granted that the government was a company of declared 
 foes, who would keep watch on the management of their private affairs, and 
 cast upon them the responsibility of all outrages perpetrated on Irish estates. 
 — On the 1st of .January, 1839, Lord Norbury was shot in his own shrubbery, 
 in broad daylight, while pointing out to his steward some trees which he de- 
 stined for removal. The cause of the deed was shrouded in mystery. Lord 
 Norbury was on good terms with his Catholic neighbours and tenants ; and 
 he did not concern himself about politics. The question was naturally asked 
 by everybody whether this was another agrarian outrage. The very words 
 fired the passions of the landlords — before jealous, and now panic-stricken. 
 At a meeting which they held, in the name of the magistrates of King's 
 County at Tullamore, to consider the circumstances of this murder and of the 
 country, they reverted to those few words of Mr. Drummond's which their 
 vehement wrath at once raised into a proverb. These words were found in a 
 letter of Mr. Drummond's, in reply to a request from the magistrates of Tip- 
 perary for an increase of military or police force. The Under-Secretary 
 refused the assistance requested, and gave reasons which induced the receivers 
 of the letter to keep it secret, lest the common people should hear about it, 
 " and be led to think ill of the landlords." The letter was asked for in 
 Parliament, however, and necessarily produced ; and it actually became a 
 parliamentary document before the magistrates of Tipperary had been gene- 
 rally permitted to see it. In this much-canvassed letter occurred the words 
 " Property has its duties as well as its rights." In their fear and grief at the 
 murder of Lord Norbury, possibly through some discontent among his tenantry 
 (though he was a kind landlord), the King's County magistrates reverted to 
 Mr. Drummond's proposition, as a subject on which to vent their passion ; and 
 it shows how wild and desperate must have been their ivrath that tliey could 
 fall out with a proposition so simply indisputable. It was declared that in 
 that letter, the Tipperary magistrates were " bearded and insulted" by Mr. 
 Drummond. A resolution was carried without a division, " that it appears to 
 this meeting that the answer conveyed to the magistrates of Tipperary from 
 Mr. Under-Secretary Drummond has had the unfortunate effect of increasing 
 the animosities entertained against the owners of the soil by the occupants, 
 who now constitute themselves the sole arbiters of the rights as well as the 
 duties of property." Lord Charleville ventured to declare, in moving this 
 resolution, that the saying about property having duties as well as rights, 
 though innocent enough in itself, was felt to be little less than a deliberate 
 and unfeeling insult in the circumstances under which it was offered. When 
 the plainest truths of morals are felt to be personal insults, all men see how 
 the matter stands ; and all men know that those plain truths are then made 
 vital. And so it was in this case. The Tory landlords of Ireland have 
 never forgotten that property has its duties as well as its rights. Eut the 
 annunciation of this truth was fatal to all perception on their part of the 
 impartiaUty of government rtile.
 
 Chap. VI.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 291 
 
 One instance of the impartiality — of the want of respect of persons — exas- 18;J5 — 40. 
 peratcd the " ascendancy" leaders extremely. It was not only poor men — --— — .-^— ^ 
 sub-fonstables and the like — who were dismissed from the government service 
 for Orangeism, but great men also, with equal speed and certainty. Colonel 
 Venier, who represented the Orangemen of the empire in the Commons, 
 during the investigation of the Fairman plot, gave at an election dinner, as a 
 party toast, " the battle of tlie Diamond." Mr. Drummond wrote to inquire Hansard, wxix. 
 whether it could be possible that Colonel Yerner was thus a party to the com- 
 memoration of a lawless and disgraceful conflict. Colonel Yerner's reply first 
 supposed that he could not be expected to condescend to reply, and requested 
 that any future question which the Secretary might be desired to ask, should 
 "be exj)rossed in terms better qualified to invite an answer :" and then refused 
 to answer the inquiry at all. The Chief Secretary, Lord Morpeth, now wrote 
 himself, and, assigning reasons at length for the step taken by the government, 
 signified to Colonel Yerner his removal from the commission of the peace, and 
 from the ofiice of Deputy-Lieutenant of the county of Tyrone. Colonel 
 Yerner brought the matter before Parliament, and thereby did an uninten- 
 tional service to the government by publishing, in the most effectual manner, 
 the evidence of its principles and methods of rule. Among the ignorant and 
 passionate poor, meantime, the repressive and equalizing rule of the govern- 
 ment was extending, without its being felt as pressure. The police force of ^'"'°"" '"'•*^"'' 
 Dublin, and the constabulary throughout the country, were renovated and 
 organized till they became as fine a body of police as exists in any country. 
 Where the justices could not be relied on for repressing political demonstra- 
 tions, stipendiary magistrates were planted, to direct the constabulary: and 0''^'*'"*tr*cy. 
 the quiet which followed suriirised even the authors of it. Many causes of 
 breach of the law were removed by the Tithe Act, and by new provisions and p""!"^"""* "^ 
 arrangements in relation to the collection of rents and the serving of the pro- 
 cesses of the inferior local courts. Collisions between the people and rent- 
 collectors and process-servers were thus almost entirely obviated. — But provision 
 was at the same time made for the more certain and effectual punishment of 
 all who still offended. Government undertook the prosecution of several kepremion of 
 classes of offences which before must be pursued by private parties, who might 
 be accessible to fear or favour. Crown prosecutors appeared at the Quarter 
 Sessions — one for each county — and obtained convictions for a great nimiber 
 of offences which would otherwise, though well known, have gone unpunished 
 — to the disgrace of justice, and the demoralization of the people. Witnesses 
 were protected by government, before and after the trials, and publicly recog- 
 nised as citizens who were doing their duty to society. By a steady use of 
 these methods, more was done to enlighten the Irish as to the true function of 
 law, and to convince them of its being a blessing to every man of them all, 
 tlian could have been supposed possible in so .short a term of years. But the 
 underlying nuschief was not removed nor touched ; and those who looked to 
 the admirable administration of law and justice by Lord Normanby's govern- 
 ment for th(> redemption of Ireland were wrong. 
 
 3. The idea that an affectionate despotism — a government by apostles — oovebnmpnt nv 
 is the only government that will suit the Irish people, unfit as they are thought or «» atoctlb.. 
 to have shown themselves for a share in a representative system, seems almost
 
 >2i)'2 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book V. 
 
 1835 40. too romantic and unpractical for an express mention in our age. But it 
 
 happens, curiously enough, that wc have evidence before our eyes that, suit- 
 able as a government by apostles may be to the Irish mind and temper, it 
 could not avail for the redemption of the country. There has been no want 
 of apostles or of idols in our own time ; and little permanent good has 
 accrued from the action of the very best. Lord Normanby and his coadjutors 
 were truly apostles, on a mission of justice and mercy; yet, after how short a 
 course of years were they compelled to avow that their " policy of concilia- 
 tion was exhausted!" In the latter years of their term, too, they had the 
 
 The QotKN. advantage of speaking in the name of the Queen, who was perfectly idolized 
 throughout the length and breadth of the land. We are assured by those 
 Avho have explored the repository of Irish songs, and collected the political 
 ballads which abound among the peasantry, that in O'Connell's most tri- 
 umphant days, his simplest admu'crs did not di'cam of his title of king interfer- 
 
 umdon and West- {^„ y^,[(\^ [jj^t of the Quceu. Her IMaiesty, we are told, had a perfect host of 
 
 minster Review, G J J ^ ' r 
 
 ixiv. p. 92. volunteer poet laureates ; and the publishers of the popular literature declared 
 
 that the most favourite old national ballads would not sell unless some lines 
 in praise of Victoria were added. In the religious ballads, her Majesty is 
 even more prominent still. The prophecies of this beloved order of poetry, 
 whose tone is prophetic throughout, all point to the restoration of the true 
 Chtnch, and of Irish prosperity in consequence. Always favourites of the 
 Catholic peasantry, from Queen Elizabeth's days to Queen Victoria's, they 
 circulate most diligently in times of discontent and approaching revolt ; and 
 they now, for the first time since the Revolution, expressed trust in a lawful 
 ruler. In Elizabeth's days, the retriever was to be the king of Spain ; then 
 the O'Neill; then the Stuarts, regnant and exiled: then Dan. O'Connell; and, 
 at the time under our notice. Queen Victoria. She is to build up the old 
 Munster Cathedral, and the Catholic Church generally ; and to remedy every 
 evil, gi-eat and small, that afflicts humanity in her Irish dominions. And 
 there is, in the eyes of the singers of these ballads, no unreasonableness in 
 expecting such things from "our noble young Queen:" on the contrary, it 
 would be impious to expect less — Victoria being especially watched over by 
 the Virgin, and aided by St. Francis; and having as supporters Lord Mulgrave 
 on the one hand, and Dan. O'Connell on the other. AVhile the Orangemen 
 of the North were striving to outdo every body in protestations of devotion to 
 the Queen, and she was thus adored by the Catholic peasantry of the south, 
 her representative and ministers had no permanent success in their efforts to 
 " tranquillize Ireland." — Nor, as it appears, would they have succeeded better 
 if the great apostle of all had been at the antipodes. In governing by an 
 affectionate despotism, it would always be a difficulty to make sure of having 
 
 OC..NNELL. ^j^t Qjjg despot at a time. O'Connell, however, though he might at any 
 moment interfere with the course of the Mulgrave or any other administra- 
 tion, was not, in fact, at this period interfering with it. For a short time, he 
 left off calling the government " the base, bloody, and brutal Whigs," and 
 mentioned Repeal only now and then, to keep up the government to its busi- 
 ness, as he thought. He heard with delighted ears, and repeated with an 
 im tiring tongue, tlie declaration of Lord John Russell, in February, 1837, of 
 the principles which the Whigs consulted in their theory of Irish government. 
 
 p. 98,
 
 Chap. VI.J DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 293 
 
 a dcchiratiou which he interpreted as a manifesto in favour of ruling Ireland 1835 — 40. 
 hv nn affectionate despotism. " I will take leave," said Lord John Russell, " — -^-^-^^ 
 in introducing the Irish Municipal Keforni liill, "to quote the principle of-^'u- 
 
 our conduct from the recorded words of a very great man Mr. Fox 
 
 stated, in a very eloquent speech which he delivered in 179T, the principles 
 upon which he conceived the government of Ireland should be conducted. 
 He stated in his usual frank, it might be said incautious, manner, that lie 
 conceived that concessions should be made to the people of Ireland — he said, 
 if he found he had not conceded enough, he would concede more — he said 
 that he thought the only way of governing Ireland was to please the people of 
 Ireland — that he knew no better source of strength to this country — and he 
 declared in one sentence which I will read to the House, his wish with respect 
 to the government of Ireland. ' My wish is,' said Mr. Fox, ' that the whole 
 people of Ireland should have the same principles, the same system, the same 
 operation, of government ; and though it may be a subordinate consideration, 
 that all classes should have an equal chance of emolument ; in other ^^ords, 
 I would have the whole Irish government regulated by Irish notions and 
 Irish prejiulices ; and I firmly believe, according to another Irish expression, 
 the more she is under Irish government, the more will she be bound to 
 English interests.' " This would have been all very well, if the only danger 
 of antagonism had been between Ireland and England ; but the theory was 
 vitiated, fatally, by the antagonism of parties within Ireland herself. How- 
 ever, its enunciation gave sufficient satisfaction to O'Connell to secure his 
 temporary co-operation. He praised the Whigs, dined with the Viceroy, railed 
 at the Opposition in the House of Commons with a coarseness of language 
 and demeanour which confoimdcd the Speaker himself; called upon every 
 peasant in every village to regard himself as a supporter of the government ; 
 but withal kept up his General Association — the successor of the Catholic 
 Association — and gave it the name of the Precursor Society, as a broad hint of 
 the Repeal agitation that would follow, if the government fell below his mark. 
 It was in 1836, when the Lords were throwing out their Municipal Reform 
 Rill, that the organization was restored, for " the rousing of the millions of 
 Ireland." as Mr. Shell said, "and a development of the miifht which slunihers Ammai Rpgutcr, 
 
 1 1^30 D 302 
 
 in her arm." — " Tiie Association, the old Association, Mith its millions for 
 its sustainment, is what we want, and what we needs must have again." And 
 they had it, at its old place of meeting, the Corn Exchange, with its old chair, 
 presented to it by O'Couuell ; its tribute, under the new name of the Justice 
 Rent : its machinery of appeals and of regulation, and of registration, and its 
 old assumption of dictatorial power. It was an affectionate despotism, corro- 
 borative for a time of British government, but ready for opposition at any 
 moment. Its change of title from the General to the Precursor Association, 
 was ominous; and it sounded somewhat like a bull when O'Connell, in 
 1839, at the time of the fiercest parliamentary opposition to the Norinanby 
 administration, called upon his "two millions of Precursors," to rally in 
 defence of the Saxon govenimcnt of the day. How far the mission of the 
 great apostle of all tended to the traiKjuillization of Ireland, it would be a ■ 
 mere mockery to pretend to point out. 
 
 As if to meet the objeclion that the faihiro of bucli a mission is ascribablc to
 
 Father Mathew. 
 
 60. 
 
 294 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book V. 
 
 1835 — 40. the vices of the apostle, auother affectionate despotism, exercised by a blame- 
 less apostle, was now extentUng in Ireland. — In 1829, Ireland spent 6,000,000/. 
 on proof-spirits; and there was not a town where men "beastly drunk" with 
 whiskey were not staggering about the streets, ready for a fight on any pre- 
 tence or none; and not a hamlet in the country where the hovel of the sot 
 might not be seen, bare of comfort and teeming with disease. In the summer 
 of that year, an American gentleman visited a friend at Belfast ; and some 
 
 HaU'siieimid, iii. must liavc aftcrwards thought of that blessing on the hospitable, that they 
 "may entertain angels unawares." Dr. Penny from America found his host. 
 Dr. Edgar, of Belfast, meditating the means of securing the better observance 
 of tlie Sabbath, and a purer social conduct altogether, in the city of his abode. 
 Just before this, all good men in the cities of tlie United States had taken 
 alarm at the spread of intemperance in their prosperous country, and were 
 glad to embrace any method whicH might promise even a temporary check. 
 The wisest of them were far from supposing that moral restraint can be 
 effectually and permanently secured by any mechanical organization ; and 
 there were many who seriously dreaded the consequences of imposing an 
 artificial check which, if it gave way, would plunge the victim into the worse 
 sin of perjury, and utterly degrade him in his own eyes. If the dispossessed 
 devil should return, he would inevitably bring with him others worse than 
 himself. And the testimony of physicians soon proved but too plainly that 
 there were frequent violations of the pledge, and hopeless relapses into intem- 
 perance, now made doubly foul by having become secret and wrapped vip in 
 lies. Still, it was so absolutely necessary that something should be done, 
 that the wisest, with trembling tread, followed where the rash rushed in upon 
 the sacred precincts of conscience, and lent a hand to work the machinery by 
 which its fi-ee action was to be superseded. They thought they must take 
 their chance with the adults for the sake of the young. They must run 
 the risk of betraying the mature sinner into deeper guilt, to save the 
 rising generation from overpowering temptation. They must shut up the 
 spirit-shops and distilleries, and clear the streets of drunken men, and 
 cleanse the private houses of the smell of rum — they must put the sin 
 and its means and incentives out of sight — out of the reach of every sense, 
 that it might occur as little as possible to any mind, and that children might 
 not be infected into the destruction which had overtaken their fathers. Those 
 who were most clearly sensible of the unsoundness of the principle of societies 
 for indi\-idual moral restraint yet dared not refuse to join this movement in a 
 crisis wliich, to use the words of an American clergyman, " threatened to 
 overthrow society, and humanity itself, in the United States." The work was 
 in progress in that simimer when Dr. Penny visited Dr. Edgar at Belfast. 
 From what he heard. Dr. Edgar resolved that his efforts should be made in 
 this direction ; and he jDublished his first Appeal on behalf of Temperance 
 Societies, in August, 1829. In the course of a year, four travelling agents 
 dispersed his tracts all over the island. By keeping the subject constantly 
 before the public eye, he caused knowledge, as well as interest, to spring up 
 in every direction ; and it was not long before thoughtful men in all parts of 
 ■"• Ireland had become aware that four-fifths of the crime brouglit up lor justice, 
 three-fourths of the hopeless beggary, (at that period,) and an immeasurable 
 
 Hall's Ireland, 
 60.
 
 Chap. VI.J DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 25)5 
 
 amount of disease and mental suffering, proceeded from the practice of spirit- 1835 — 40. 
 
 drinking. The Surgeon-General for Ireland testified that, in Dublin, nearly " '^—^ 
 
 one-fourth of the deaths of adults were caused by spirit-drinking: a county 
 magistrate of Antrim furnished a list of forty-eight persons who had perished 
 from the same cause, within two miles of his house, and within his own 
 recollection: and there was abundant proof that in extensive neighbourhoods 
 not one dwelling was pure from the vice. Here was scope for the operations 
 of an affectionate despotism. A fitting apostle came, and the experiment was 
 tried. 
 
 From that summer of 1829, Temperance Societies had been formed here Jiq'JeuenT'' 
 and there — the first being in New Eoss, proposed and opened by the Rev. 
 George Carr, a clergyman of the Established Church. Some inhabitants of 
 Cork — a clergyman, a Quaker, a slater, and a tailor, anxious to accomplish a ^*"'^ ircimJ, i 
 similar object in their city, commended the enterprise to a man, popular above 
 every one in the place, and liberal enough to be on good terms with men of 
 all opinions — a Capuchin friar, and Superior of the order, by name Theobald 
 Mathew. He gave his mind and heart to the work, and became the great 
 moral, as O'Connell was the political, ajrostle of Ireland. 
 
 It must be allowed that somethinsr beyond the morality of the case might sprinos op the 
 
 Movement. 
 
 probably be in the minds of the followers of Father ]\Iathew. Of the two 
 millions whom he had in a few mouths pledged to temperance, there were no 
 doubt many who supposed that some great crisis was at hand which required 
 this act of self-denial from all true Irishmen — that they might be up and 
 awake, have their wits about thorn, and be ready for action — whether Victoria 
 should come to restore the Catholic Church, or the Liberator to be king of 
 Ireland, or Repeal should make every man's plot of ground fruitful in potatoes. 
 It was a prevalent beUef among the peasantry that Father Mathew could work 
 miracles ; and some even declared that he had raised a person from the 
 dead. The terrific zeal with which the people rushed into a condition of tem- 
 perance, shows an extraordinary strength of expectation, whatever the object 
 of it might be ; and there is no question of the fact, that the political leaders 
 in Ireland considered it of importance to organize and train the water-drinkers 
 of Ireland into a force, with its marching companies, its brass bands, and its 
 community of sentiment. These things show, not oidy the blessing that it 
 was to the Irish to have for an apostle a man so disinterested as Father 
 Mathew, but also how insecure and dangerous is government by affectionate 
 des])otism, which may always be liable to be appropriated by the most artful 
 and unscrupulous agitator for his own pinposes. After a year or two from 
 the crowding of the country people into Limerick to take the pledge in such 
 multitudes as to break down iron railings, and cause deaths from trampling Anmini Rrgincr. 
 and pressure — withiu a year or two of tlie time when Fatlier Mathew found it ''""' ' 
 
 necessary to travel among his hundreds of thousands of disciples, because their 
 thronging to him was dangerous to life and limb, it was noticed that the Irish 
 character appeared to have sensibly changed. If, as has been said, the rebel- 
 lion of 1T!)8 was put down by force of whiskey and not of arms, it had now 
 evidently become of first-rate importance that the hosts of sober gi'ave-faced 
 men, who came marching to the Tem])erance field, without fun and frolic, and 
 with no noise but tliat of their practised bands of music, should nut liedriviMi
 
 296 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book V. 
 
 1835 40. or led into rebellion; for it was clear that whiskey would not now put them 
 
 down. It must be hoped that the evil disposed would find it less easy now 
 than formerly to lead or drive tlicm into rebellion, for assuredly rebellion 
 would henceforth be a more formidable thing than it had liitherto been. Here 
 were two millions of men, of a passionate nature — suddenly debarred from 
 an accustomed outlet of passion and animal spirits, and, by the same change, 
 left with a large amount of time on their hands, and with heads cool for 
 thought and device. If they had had more knowledge and a sufficiency of 
 good leaders, this would have been the opportunity — the finest ever offered in 
 the history of their country — for attaching them to the English connexion by 
 showing to them the benefits of that connexion under the Normanby govern- 
 ment, and the far greater blessings which must accrue upon their being merely 
 deserved. Now was tlie golden opportunity for beginning a sound political 
 education, if only the great political apostle had been worthy of the honour 
 of his post. This could not have redeemed Ireland — directly or immediately ; 
 for the great underlying mischief was still untouched : but it might have 
 somewhat softened the horrors of the impending doom of Ireland ; and it 
 would at least have mitigated the pain on every hand, if that doom had over- 
 taken a nation of thoughtful rational men, striving with courageous prudence 
 and energy against their fate, amidst the respect of a sympathizing world, 
 instead of a mass of helpless and heart-wrung sufferers, betrayed by selfish or 
 senseless agitators, and beguiled to the last by visions conceived in nonsense 
 and vanishing in woe. Father Mathew did his work — did it in purity of 
 heart and devotedness of soul. O'Connell perverted it, as we shall hereafter 
 see. He seized upon the new gravity and critical leisure which Father 
 Mathew had evoked — he seized upon the minds all alive with wonder, and 
 the hearts all glowing witli gratitude at the blessed change wrought by a 
 general temperance in health and home, and turned them full into the chan- 
 nel of his repeal agitation. He called, and probably believed, his rule over 
 the Catholic Irish an affectionate despotism : but we can hardly conceive of 
 his influence being more fatal to his trusting countrymen if he had laid waste 
 their fields with actual firebrands instead of with those of the tongue, and 
 driven them from their homes with curses, instead of unsettling their lives 
 with cruel promises of fabulous good. Ireland has been abundantly cursed 
 with barbarous despots ; but it may be doubted whether any one of them, in 
 the long course of centuries, has perpetrated such effectual cruelty as the 
 despot whom his victims called their Liberator, and hoped to sec their 
 king. 
 
 Father Mathew did his work, on the whole, well — unquestionably with as 
 much singleness of aim as devotion of soul. Wherever he had been, blessings 
 sprang up, as if he had indeed been the heaven-sent friend that he was taken 
 
 si'Miiv rtsi LTs. to be. The water springs gave out health and refreshment ; and the daily 
 food had a new relish. The dull eye grew bright ; the mad pulse subsided ; 
 the staggering gait became a manly tread. The cabin roof kept out the rain : 
 the decent table, with decent seats round it, appeared again in the middle of 
 the lately empty room. There was a bed now, inviting to a sleep which had 
 become light and sweet. The chest gradually filled with clothes, and the 
 stocking in the thatch grew heavy with money. The wrangling voice, roaring
 
 Chap. VI.J DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 297 
 
 curses or tipsy songs, gi-ew gentle and cheerful. The very echoes — at least 1835- — 40. 
 
 the celebrated ones — of Killarney and the mountain passes sought by strangers, — ^. ^•^- 
 
 had changed their tone and theme, and now promised coftee instead of whiskey 
 
 to the guides on their return. The distilleries were shut up by dozens ; and 
 
 the little suspicious clouds of blue smoke which used to curl away over the 
 
 heathery knolls in the wilds seemed to have whiffed away altogether. The 
 
 gi'og shops were changed into cofft'e kitchens, and men laid their wits together 
 
 in speculations about the tactics of O'Connell and the fate of Ireland, instead 
 
 of breaking one another's heads in di-unken frays. There was a large increase, 
 
 in the very first year, in the number of depositors in Savings' Banks : at 
 
 the end of two years, when the number of the pledged exceeded two millions 
 
 and a half, no one of the whole host had appeared before judge or jury. 
 
 Ireland had before paid away six millions in one year for proof-spirit: now, 
 
 in two years, the consumption, for all purposes whatever, had lessened to little 
 
 more than one half. The drawback on the satisfaction of all this was, that I'onnr's vngre:-, 
 
 Sc*C*. V, p. .^4. 
 
 the princijde on which the reform proceeded was not altogether sound, and the 
 reform itself could not therefore be permanent in all its entireness. When 
 the superstitious disciple kneeled down before the heaven-sent friar, spoke the 
 oath, received the sign of the cross and the unifonn blessing, and then had 
 the medal and card put into his hand, it was in a firm belief that some tremen- 
 dous plague would come upon him if he broke his pledge ; that Father 
 Mathew knew men's tlKJughts, and had a divine power to heal and to save ; 
 and tliat some divine virtue resided in the medal and card Father ^lathew 
 did not originate the superstitions ; but he thought it hopeless to contend witli 
 them. " If I could prevent them," he said in a letter, " without impeding "'',3*(„';j']'"''' ' 
 the glorious cause, they sliould not have been permitted: but botli are so 
 closely entwined, that the tares cannot be pulled out without plucking up the 
 wheat also. The evil will correct itself; and the good, with the Divine assist- 
 ance, will remain and be permanent." It needs no showing that the tempe- 
 rance movement of Father Mathew is thus reduced from a secure moral reform 
 to a temporary enthusiasm — in as far as the superstitions are included within 
 its scope. It is a rational hope that much seed may have fallen into good 
 gnmnd ; but the sower has grievously erred in consigning some to soil where 
 it cannot take root, but nuist wither away. — It is, liowever, a most impressive 
 fact that, by one of the affectionate despotisms co-existing with Lord ISIul- 
 grave's eminently constitutional rule, two millions and a half of gay or brutal 
 drunkards were turned into a corps of the most thoughtful and emotional men 
 in Ireland. 
 
 4. There were persons and jiarties wlio believed that Ireland would be best '[",;= r"),';;'^';." 
 redeemed by a cure of her notorious political covruptiou ; and that that cure '"""• 
 might be best wrought by such a machinery of supervision as would, in 
 fact, restrict the franchise within what were called safe limits. \\'lien men 
 related to each otlier liow landlords in Irchiiul had cut up their estates to make 
 small freeholds ; what droves of ignorant serfs were carried to tlie ])olling 
 booths to vote in a mass as tlieir landlord bad(> tlieiu ; how these freeholders 
 suddenly passed over from tlie dciminion of tlirir landlords to that of their 
 priests, and how this led to llir di>liaii( liisciiuiit of tlie Forties; they were apt 
 to agi-ee that a state of things so bad as tn have caused lliat disfratichisemcut 
 
 vol.. 11. - "■
 
 298 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book V. 
 
 1835 — 40. must bo most radically cured by an extension of the same process, or of an 
 -^——^ —~ — equivalent safeguard. From such A-iews and consultations issued Lord Stan- 
 ley's Registration Bill for Ireland of 1840. 
 
 There was no disjtutc about the enormity of the abuses of the franchise in 
 Ireland. Lord ^Melbourne's government waited only for a further settlement 
 of the registration machinery of England and Scotland to take in hand the 
 reform of such corruption in Ireland as was practised by meaus of registration 
 certificates. It was not difficult for a man to get registered three or four times 
 over, obtaining a certificate each time ; and of course, it was easy enough to 
 make these certificates passports for fictitious votes. In order to guard against 
 i,oiiiiSr*Ni.EY'.s jj -g (I other abuses. Lord Stanley's measure proposed a method and ma- 
 ?."■■" A 1 ■ r.i chinerv of registration so onerous and irksome as would, in the opinion of 
 
 Eliinsald, lii. 023 .7 o '1 
 
 -ois. government and of a majority in parliament, act as a virtual disfranchisement. 
 
 If every vote might be annually revised, and an appeal on the part of the 
 voter must be made to the judge once a year, it could not be believed that 
 voters circumstanced as multitudes of the Irish tenantry were, would or could 
 luidergo such a discipline for the sake of the privilege of the franchise. — Lord 
 
 Uiinsard, liv. i!02 J Russcll tliought tliis 15111 tile uiost formidable attack yet made on the prin- 
 ciples of the Reform Act. The aim of the Reform legislation was to extend 
 and fiicilitate the exercise of the franchise, while this proposed method of 
 registration threw every possible difficulty and discoinagement in the way. 
 As the case was, however, one which could not be neglected, and a bad mea- 
 sure would be carried if a good one were not proposed, the ^Ministers bestirred 
 themselves to prepare an Irish Registration Bill which should drive out Lord 
 Stanley's. The Ministers did not disguise their apprehensions of the effect of 
 the Opposition measure, if carried, nor that they conceived its operation, if 
 not its intent, to be to counteract the Emancipation measure of 1829 by ren- 
 dering it difficult or impossible for the poorer — that is, the Catholic portion of 
 Ireland — to send their fair share of representatives to parliament. I^ord John 
 Russell pointed to the much-dreaded power of O'Connell in Ireland as little 
 formidable while the Irish should have faith in the justice and good-will of the 
 
 nansaid, liv. 213. British parliament. " That," said he, " I believe to be the state of things 
 now. But let this Bill pass : show that you are detennined, step by step, to 
 take away the franchise from the people of Ireland, to disable them from 
 sending Roman Catholics as members of this House ; obtain that supremacy 
 if you can which you have not had for many years ; indulge in the triumph 
 which the minority would then indulge in over the majority; insult, vilify, and 
 abuse the Roman Catholics ; tell them that the people are ignorant, degraded, 
 and priest-ridden, and speak of those piiests in a tone of contumely and con- 
 tempt ; do all this, and you will have done more for repeal than anything the 
 lion, and learned gentleman has been able to effect by his speeches upon this 
 subject." Such language as this from a member of the Cabinet indicates 
 what was felt of the extremity of the risk. — Lord Stanley and his friends 
 naturally protested against the charge of insidiously contriving to narrow the 
 franchise, and to keep the Catholic representatives out of parliament. Sir R. 
 Peel was among those who thus ])rotested. It is most probable that they 
 meant — as men in parli.iment always do mean — only \\liat tliey considered 
 good ; to cut off abuses, and leave the franchise sound : and if that operation
 
 Chap. VI.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' I'K.\CE. 209 
 
 should issue in giving less power than hefore to the iguoiant Catholic popula- 1830 40. 
 
 tion, they could not pretend to think that cousequonce any great evil. JJut ~ -^—^ 
 
 they, by their very vindication of their intentions, exposed themselves to the 
 charge of not understanding the conditions of the suffrage in the country 
 districts of Ireland, where, whether they knew it or not, this Bill would act 
 as a sweeping di.sfrauchisemeut. If they knew this, they could not quanx-l 
 with the charges of their opponents ; if they did not know it, they ought to 
 have known it. 
 
 The danger was from this state of things being little understood by tlie 
 greater number of members in the House. If the Ministers were alarmed at 
 the outset of Lord Stanley's enterprise, they might well be in a panic as the 
 summer drew on. The second reading of the Bill was carried by a majority 
 of 16 on the 'ifJth of March. On the question of going into committee on ir.n.saiJ, iiii. 157. 
 tlie 2()th of May, there was a majority of three against Ministers. They were Mansard, 111.4.14. 
 beaten in every attempt to throw out their opponents on any point whatever. 
 O'C^onnell grew savage; and the more violent supporters of the Bill exas- 
 perated his passion by insults which no man of flesh and blood could be 
 expected to endure. When, on this first night in committee, he said that 
 this was a Bill for trampling on the liberties of the people of Ireland, several 
 members shouted in his face^whistled in his face — laughed full in his face. 
 At each insult he repeated the words — the inattention of the Chainnan allow- 
 ing the scene to go on : and after the third repetition of the assertion, in his 
 most emphatic manner, Mr. O'Connell brought matters to a crisis by exclaim- Hansnni, liv. 
 
 . I('I3. 
 
 ing, " If you were ten times as beastly in your uproar and bellowing, I should 
 still feel it to be my duty to interpose to 2»"Rvent this injustice." On being 
 called to account, some of his himiour peeped out in his appeal to natural 
 history. " Bellowing" was certainly the right word, he said; and what crea- 
 tures but beasts were able to bellow I The uproar showed the extremity of 
 the hope and fear of parties in one way; and then, the obstructions and 
 struggles in committee showed the same thing in another way. No means 
 and devices were spared to delay the progress of the Bill ; and, on the tith of 
 July, Lord Stanley gave in, for this session. His tone was, -reasonably iiansar.i, iv. 459. 
 enough, one of triumph, while acknowledging the certainty of defeat by 
 delay, if he did not withdraw his measure. He repudiated the censure most 
 prominently put forward about his Bill — that it did not raise any question 
 about the franchise — avowing that the reform of the registration was the aim 
 of the measure. He pointed with pride to the IJOO members who had sus- 
 tained an Opposition Bill against the whole power of the government through 
 ten divisions, in nine of w-hich the Ministers were beaten : and he promised a 
 renewal of the struggle early in the next session. 
 
 In the interval, an association was formed in Ulster, for the object of pro- 
 curing a refonn of the registration ; and Lord Stanley made some few, and 
 not very important changes in his Bill, on their information. He introduced 
 his nu-asure on the 2d of Februarv ; and the government brought in their rival TniriovuhMn.NT 
 liill two days afterwards. There is something painful in the retrospect of this Hmiumi, u. J74. 
 whole transaction. It was now several years since the Refonn Hill had passed, 
 and nothing had been done for electoral improvement in Ireland. The \\ hig 
 government offered reasons and excuses in plenty ; but nothing that they could
 
 300 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book V. 
 
 1335 — 40. say obviated the gciieial impression that that mus't be a government too weak 
 to rule which cannot get its proper business done till it is roused into a spirit 
 of rivalship with the Oi)po.sition. Lord Howick had vtited steadily witli I;ord 
 Stanley on his Registration measure, from the couviction that some reform of 
 the kind was imperatively needed. The Ministers promised a rival measure : 
 the Ulster Association, and their nine defeats on Lord Stanley's move, quick- 
 ened their speed; and tlieir Bill was ready to run a race with Lord Stanley's 
 througli the next session. But they brought dislike and some contempt on 
 their Bill and themselves, by the unstatesmanlikc and somewhat petty method 
 which they adopted now, as too often before, of tacking to their measure — as 
 a sort of postscript — a proposal of vast importance, which seemed to demand 
 previous announcement, and a special and well-prepared discussion. It was 
 one of the most painful signs of the weakness of the successive AVhig minis- 
 tries, that they had recourse to the vulgar expedient of surprises, almost as 
 often as they had any serious work to do. For the moment, it appeared to 
 give them some advantage, by depriving the Opposition of all opportunity for 
 immediate concert, and by exciting afresh an emotion of hope and gratitude 
 among the dissatisfied Liberal party throughout the country : but such 
 emotions grow weaker and less responsive under a series of surprises ; and the 
 Opposition learned by experience how to act in such cases. In the instance of 
 the Reform Bill, when all the world knew that the men came into power for 
 the purpose of doing a particular wolk, it was prudent and eminently bene- 
 ficial to keep secret to the last moment the scope and details of the measure on 
 which every man, in and out of parliament, was speculating. But the per- 
 petual repetition of secrecy and surprising announcements took, after a time, 
 the appearance of a trick ; and especially when, as in the case before us, an 
 essential and wholly unlooked-for change Mas arbitrarily connected with a Bill 
 which professed something quite difierent. The government Bill, after treat- 
 ing of the registration of voters in Ireland, went on to propose a radical change 
 in the franchise — its establishment on "a basis distinct aud independent," 
 and entirely new. The so-called Registration Bill was in fact an unannounced 
 new Reform Bill for Ireland. The valuation under the Poor I^aw (of which 
 Hiuisuni, h.i.-a. we shall presently speak) was to be the entirely new basis: and an occupier 
 of a tenement of the yearly value of £5, under a term of not less than four- 
 teen years, was to enter upon the rights of suffrage hitherto enjoyed by persons 
 having a beneficial interest to the amount of £10. 
 
 Those who most seriously desired the extension of the franchise in Ireland 
 were perhaps the most concerned at this method of proposing it. They felt 
 that a question so great was injured by such treatment of it. The Ministers 
 had no reason to feel elated by the reception of their measure. Lord Howick, 
 and others who had acted with him in the preceding session, now, when they 
 saw the matter really taken in hand, joined the government party again : the 
 debate was full and earnest, extending over four nights ; yet the Ministerial 
 Hansaia, hi 1I2G majority for the second reading w-as only five. Their opponents took for 
 granted that they always knew that they could not carry tlieir Bill. Ther(> is 
 no need to attribute to them such guilt as would be implied in sporting witli 
 the expectations of the disfranchised thousands in Ireland for party purposes : 
 but they cannot be acquitted of the levity or miscalculation (to say the least
 
 Chap. VI.J DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 301 
 
 of it) of bringing fonvard a measure of such tantalizing promise, under circum- 1835—40. 
 
 stances eminently unfavourable to its success. Lord J. Russell's next coiu-se 
 
 was not one which could command the respect of any party. After the division, 
 he announced the desire of the government to lose no time with the Bill, and 
 that he should therefore bring it forward again the next jNIonday. When 
 Monday came, however, he proposed to defer the discussion till after Easter, Hansaid.w. 1153. 
 as he found many members impressed by the proposal of the new franchise, 
 and he wished to obtain more full and accurate information before the matter 
 was further discussed. It is not to be wondered at that this awkward expla- 
 nation was received with " shouts of laughter ;" nor that the Opposition 
 taunted Ministers with having never entertained any expectation of passing 
 the all-important provision of their Bill. They had had the recess in which 
 to prei)are for what they knew must be a critical struggle ; and now, after the 
 second stage of the business, and after many protestations of a desire to lose 
 no time, they asked for a pause, in order to procure information enough to 
 proceed upon in the discussion of their own measure. Tlie postponement 
 proposed was to the 23rd of April; and from Lord (Stanley himself down to Hansard, ivi.n.',o. 
 the lowest Irish newspapers in the Repeal interest, there was one loud pro- 
 testation of belief that the real aim of the ^linisters was to drive Lord Stanley's 
 measure to the end of the session, and not to caiTy their own. Lord .Stanley, 
 meantime, gave early notice that he should contest to the last the proposal of 
 a £5 ([ualitication. The immediate consequence was, that, prior to all dis- 
 cussion, tlie JMinisters raised the qualitication from £5 to £8. 
 
 When the House went into committee on the 26th of April, liOrd Howick 
 moved an amendment on the first clause, designed for the better ascertainment uaiisard, ivii. 
 of that " beneficial interest" of the occupier, which was practically a constant 
 difficulty in the determining of rating and electoral qualification. The amend- 
 ment, in fact, brought before the Committee the question whether the amount 
 of poor-rate paid should be the sole qualification of a voter, whether he had a 
 beneficial interest in his holding or not ; or whether a beneficial interest .shoidd 
 he maintained as a test of the right to vote. Sir R. Peel and others saw that 
 the fate of the amendment would decide that of the Bill. But, when Lord 
 Howick's amendment was carried by a majority of 21, Lord J. Russell pro- iinnsard, ivu. 
 posed delay, to consider whether Ministers must withdraw their measure. They 
 concluded not to withdraw it, as Lord Howick declared that his amendment 
 proposed a mt'rely supplementary ([ualification, and not one which should super- 
 sede that provided in the Bill. Lrom this time, the scene in committee was 
 painful and luunbling: — every I.iiberal member who came forward had something 
 essential to propose about the franchise, different from what any one else had 
 thought of: the government were irresolute and changeable : tlie ()p])0sition 
 laughed and triumphed. The final division took place on the qualification 
 clause, when there was a majority of 11 against INIinisters, supported as they uimsard. kn 
 were by ()'(!ouuell and his infiuence. If all else had been favourable, the 
 vacillation of Ministers among tlie jimpositions of tlieir own supporters was 
 enough to ensure the loss of their Hill. They seemed to be iiiflumccd by the 
 last s]K'aker, after tlie manner of j)ersons ignorant of tiieir business ; and they 
 shifted the amount of rating again and again, as if they did not Know that, 
 with every siuli iIkiii^c. tliey were jiroposjiig to admit or to exelmle half 01
 
 1284 
 
 FAri.t'HB OF BOTH 
 
 Political Ei»l' 
 
 CATION. 
 
 302 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [TiooK V. 
 
 Ig35 40. two-thirds of a constituency with a stroke of the pen. Here, however, was a 
 
 -- — ^.^^ close of the unhappy business. It was impossible to go on ; and Lord J. llus- 
 Hansard, ivii, scU Hioved tluit tile Cliaimiau should quit the chair.— Nor could Lord Stanley's 
 Bill be proceeded with during that session. The whole transaction ended 
 without other results than aggravated provocation of the Lish, who had been 
 tantalized to no purpose — great loss of the time and patience of parliament — 
 and an irrecoverable decline of the Whig administration in the esteem and 
 good-will of their supporters, and the estimation of the nation at large. — Here 
 was an end, too — and this was perhaps no bad result — of all speculation about 
 the cure of political corruption being the true means of the redemption of Ire- 
 land. If Ireland was to wait for this, it would be too late to redeem lier at 
 all ; for it was clear that electoral renovation would not be gi'anted to her while 
 there were two parties in the British parliament. 
 
 5. Some of the most earnest and thoughtful of the friends of Ireland were 
 among the many who looked for her redemption at the other end of the scale 
 from the advocates of an affectionate despotism. Instead of desiring that the 
 people should have every thing done for them, and be kept out of siglit of the 
 law which they hated and distrusted, these friends of the Irish proposed to 
 induce a knowledge and love of the function and prevalence of law by making 
 the inhabitants of Ireland learn self-government by the discipline of good 
 municipal institutions. England was now sprinkled all over with little republics, 
 where her citizens would receive the best political education in the best 
 manner; and it was thought that a similar system would do for Ireland all 
 that she needed, by improving lier people socially and politically, and bringing 
 her into a relation with England which would silence for ever the cry of 
 Repeal. The proposal was a good and great one; and, but for the deep 
 underlying mischief, it might have largely availed, in course of years. But 
 this mischief was exactly in the way, in the present case. It must precisely 
 intercept the beneficial results of municipal reform ; for, among all the curses 
 attributable to the insecurity of title to the possession of land in Ireland, none 
 is more fatal than its prevention of the growth of a middle class. 
 FOHM. There was no question on which the passions of the two gTeat parties in 
 
 Pailiament became more fierce, as the debate was renewed from year to year, 
 than on this— of Municipal Reform in Ireland. There was hardly a man, in 
 or out of Parliament, who did not take a side, with all the decision and 
 certainty, and all the wonder and wrath at his opponents, which attend upon 
 the discussion of vital political questions. It was not only that Lord John 
 209. " ■ ' Russell declared in his place that this was " a vital question to the present 
 administration:" it was also known to be vital to the fate of Ireland — whether 
 she was to be governed on one set of principles or the opposite: — and again, 
 it was felt to be vital to the fate of Great Britain too, as determining whether 
 she was to halt between two ojiinions, or to decide finally for that principle of 
 renovation and progTess of which the policy of her latest years had been the 
 exponent. Considering these things, the strife could not but be fierce — it was 
 hardly possible for individual opponents to be just to each other : and for the 
 respective parties it was quite impossible. We, however, at the distance of 
 ten or twelve years, can see things more plainly than any one saw them then. 
 We have had grave admonition and mournful rebuke about our confident judg-
 
 Chap. VI.J DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 303 
 
 inciit, our positivencss, our presumptuous and shallow censures of public men 1^,35 40. 
 
 and of our own antagonists in arj^^umeut. While still only half-seeing about ^~— -^— -- 
 Ireland — still " sounding on, a dim and perilous way " in investigating the 
 sources of her woes, we are not so dark and insensible as we were ten years 
 ago ; and we are now able to perceive that, if both parties and almost all 
 individual men were wrong, both parties and all leading men were also 
 right. 
 
 The views of the respective parties, as declared by their spokesmen, were 
 these : — 
 
 The Whig Ministers and the Liberal party generally regarded Municipal clp^j'"'*'' ' "'"■ 
 Reform in Ireland as an essential part of the scheme of Institutional Renova- 
 tion which the nation had deliberately adopted. It was the proper and 
 necessary finish of Parliamentary Reform in all the three kingdoms, and 
 Horough Reform in England, Wales, and Scotland. They considered it 
 especially indispensable in regard to Ireland, because Ireland needed, above 
 every other part of the empire, an identification with England in her poHti- 
 cal privileges and fortunes.— They regarded Municipal Reform as more 
 necessary in Ireland than elsewhere, because an abuse existed in Ireland, 
 remediable by these means, perfectly singular in its mischief and intolerable- 
 ness — the injurious distinction of creeds established by the existing Corpora- 
 tion system. In the time of James I., municipal officers who would not i'''i''D";i.ii.3<j2. 
 enforce Protestant modes of worship in their respective towns were ejected, 
 and creatures of the government put in their places : and tlie new holders of 
 oiKce surrendered the rights and privileges of their townsmen into the king's 
 hands, and accepted fresh charters which allowed scarcely any powers to the 
 local residents, and left the nomination to all important offices to the govern- 
 ment. Tlie government nominees had jiower to appoint their successors: and 
 thus, the exclusion of the Catholic majority fi-om local power and privilege 
 was as complete as the Protestant minority chose. In 1672, some relaxation 
 of the Protestant monopoly took place in virtue of the "New Rules" issued 
 by the Irish government. But the Revolution, sixteen years afterwards, anni- 
 hilated the virtue of these rules, and all social advantage derivable from 
 Munici|)al institutions was again monopolized by Protestants. — Within this 
 monopoly, smaller monopolies arose, till, in many Irish towns, tlie corporate 
 bodies had become mere family parties — all offices being held by relations 
 and dependents of the chief member, or of a gi-eat Protestant landlord in the 
 neighbourhood; and even the parliamentary member being nu>rely a nonnnee 
 of these nominees. These usurped powers became actually subjects of pro- 
 prietorship — being transmitted by inheritance, openly sold to competitors, and 
 recognised as a groujul of compensation by the National government when 
 the Union interfered with the right of tliese " patrons" or ])r()i)vietors to send 
 members to parliament. Under such a holding of iiuiui(ii)al power and ]>rivi- 
 lege, there ct)uld of course be no impartial administration of justice. No one 
 can wonder at tlie iirevalont distrust and liaticd of the law in Ireland wlieii it 
 is considered how ho])cless was tlie cliance of tlic Catliolic and the man of 
 liberal ])olitics in a locality wliere justii'c must be sought, if at all, from 
 magistrates, juries, and minor otlieials, who were chosen for their zeal in an 
 adverse religions and political faith. — Then again, a large number — in some
 
 304 HISTOllY OF ENGLAND [Book V. 
 
 1835 40. cases almost the whole body — of burgesses were non-resitleuts, patronized by 
 
 ^— ' the officials, and introduced to borough privileges in swarms, while the inha- 
 bitants were left helpless, to be victimized by their impertinent oppressors. 
 The charity funds, the lands, the borough houses, the water-works — all the 
 property which should have made their towns healthful and handsome, and 
 have relieved their poor, and educated the young, and raised the condition of 
 the whole local population — 'went into the pockets of half a dozen men, or into 
 utter waste and loss. The Commissioners' Reports tell of thousands of acres 
 of land which would, at that date (1833) have readily brought in £1 an acre, 
 being let, on leases of 9i) yeai's, for Is. an acre, or less : of tolls and customs 
 being pocketed, as a matter of course, liy the Mayor and Aldermen, while 
 the streets were unpaved, dark, and never cleaned : of the noble water-Morks 
 of Archbishop Bolton at Cashel being destroyed from utter neglect — miles of 
 undergTOund conduits being clioked up, and the water turned off for the 
 convenience of a miller — the whole being recoverable by an outlay of £500, 
 while the Corporate officers were making presents to one another of many thou- 
 sands annually, by iniquitous leases and bargains. — Here was a case as strong 
 as need be. In desiring to reform it, and in stating the inestimable value of 
 free municipal institutions, the Whig government and the Liberal party were 
 eminently riglit. — Where they were wrong was in assuming too easily that 
 free municipal institutions would answer in Ireland as in England ; in con- 
 cluding that the true reason for the opposition of their antagonists was a fear 
 for the Protestant Church in Ireland, which overpowered all consideration for 
 the good of the majority ; and in unscrupulously charging their adversaries 
 with a predilection for tyranny, in their advocacy of .i centralizing principle 
 of government for Ireland, and with rapacity and corruption in desiring to 
 retain the profits of the old system for their local partisans. 
 
 The Conservatives, on the other hand, seem to have been right in perceiving 
 
 centbiliztnc jIj^j ti^g peculiar condition of society in Ireland must prevent the full and 
 
 Principle. r ^ J i ^ ^ 
 
 free working of popular institutions. They seem to have laid hold of the 
 fearful truth recently expressed by one who loves Ireland too well to be of 
 any party, in regard to her interests. '•' A government based on popular 
 Condition aDd institutions," says Mr. Pim, " fails to secure order, unless it have the support 
 la^d^p? 1^00. of the people. Ireland appears to labour under the difficulty of having aris- 
 tocratic social institutions without an aristocracy ; and the mechanism of a 
 popidar government, inapplicable to its present social condition ; because it 
 does not possess an educated middle class, by whom these popular institutions 
 might be worked." The aim of the Conservatives was to prevent the assign- 
 ment to Ireland of " the mechanism of a popular government, inapplicable to 
 its j)resent social condition." They had a perfect right to prefer a centralizing 
 principle of government for a country in so peculiar a condition ; and the 
 question of their credit should have depended altogether on the merits or 
 demerits of their centralizing scheme. From this point of view, they appear 
 to have been more clear-sighted tlian the Whigs ; while from another, they 
 seem to have committed the grossest error belonging to the time and occa- 
 sion. They adhered, consciously or unconsciously, to the hojjc and expec- 
 tation which founded the Church in Ireland, and has kept it there, ri cf armi's, 
 as a Missionary Establishment. " For tlu> last three centuries," said ii eon-
 
 Cijw. VI.J DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 305 
 
 temporary writer, " Irt'laml has only had a provisional government, constituted 1835 — 40. 
 
 for a state of things dependent on the duration of Popery, which was supposed " — — -— — ' 
 
 to be a temporary evil." To this fatally foolish supposition, the Conservatives oci. isss,*!! loi'. 
 
 ;ulliercd,in their opposition to Municipal Reform — not avowedly, and probably 
 
 not consciously, but all that they proposed, and every step when they opposed, 
 
 was vitiated by a tacit assumption, that, while the Catholics were to be cared 
 
 for, it was as a suffering multitude who were to be Protestants ere long. This 
 
 gave a provisional air to the proposals of the Conservatives, and disabled them 
 
 from appreciating the Whig aim of settling matters on a basis which would 
 
 endure. — Again, it was natural for the Conservatives to remonstrate against 
 
 the rashness (as they thought it) of encouraging the unhappy disposition of 
 
 the Irish to hanker after some vague political remedy for miseries purely social 
 
 or moral. It was natural that they should look upon the Whigs, when holding 
 
 out unreasonable hopes to the Irish from Municipal Reform, as too much 
 
 resembling O'Conuell in his promises of repeal and its blessings. But they 
 
 were felt to be quite as wrong as their adversaries ever were in charging those 
 
 adversaries with vulgar popularity-hunting, with hiding a fear of O'Connell 
 
 vuuler a mask of political action, and with treating Ireland with a stupid and 
 
 insulting good-will, like that of a man who gives a clever child a watch that 
 
 will not go — moreover, at the end of an explanation of the beauty and value 
 
 of watches. 
 
 Both parties desired, earnestly and perhaps equally, the sweeping away of 
 the intolerable abuse of the existing corporations. They differed, broadlv and 
 passionately, as to what the substitute should be : and they resembled one 
 another but too much in the pertinacity with which they affixed discreditable 
 imputations upon each other. 
 
 The history of the five years' struggle to establish "normal schools" of Hirro«Y op tub 
 political education in 71 towns of Ireland, where 900,000 inhabitants might sukb.*^ "' 
 begin their training in free citizenship, was briefly this. 
 
 In 1833, the Irish Cor])oration Commissioners began their work of inquiry. 
 In 183(5, the Royal Speech at the opening of the session expressed a ho])e 1836 
 that parliament would be able to apply a remedy to the abuses of the Irish Hansard, j.-ixi. a. 
 Corporations " founded upon the same jjrinciples" as the Municipal reform 
 Acts for England and Scotland. The Irish Attorney General, Mr. O'Loghlen, 
 early introduced the Ministerial Bill, which was allowed to be read witliout Hansard, xxxi. 
 opposition, a second time, on the 29th of February, as a sort of pledge that all 
 ])arties were disposed to abolish the existing system, whatever they niiglit do 
 towards establishing a better. After this. Sir R. Peel explained his views, 
 which were (in their main points) that, in the existing condition of Ireland, it !i«n»"i._i"i. 
 was hopeless that free institutions would work, for want of the class specially 
 needed to work them : that therefon^ tlie place of the old corporations, now to 
 be abolished, should not be filled by new corporate bodies, which would only 
 introduce new dissension and corruption, but that th(> Sherift's and Recorders 
 should be appointed by tlie Crown, the local aft'aivs of the iuliabitauls being 
 managed by Commissioners, chosen by popular election. He did not conceive 
 it possible to dcjn-ive the body of existing freemen of their rights ; because 
 they had huig ago become propri<'tary and hereditary: and he believed, finally, 
 tliat the only way to preserve any iuipavtialily in the administration of pvoyin- 
 
 \ol,. II. '2 K
 
 306 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 [Book V. 
 
 1835—40, 
 
 H^.nsard, xxxi. 
 1318. 
 
 Hansard, xxxir. 
 
 218. 
 
 Hansard, xxxiv. 
 gU3. 
 
 Hansard, xxxiv. 
 1107. 
 
 1831 
 
 Hansard, xxxvi. 
 667. 
 
 Hansard, xxxvi. 
 
 0.18. 
 
 Hansard, xxxvii. 
 
 1110. 
 
 cial atfiiiis iu Ireland wa.s to vest the principal appointments in the Crown, 
 as, from the great preponderance of Catholics, the exclusion of Protestants 
 now, under a system of popular election, would be as complete and unfair as 
 the exclusion of Catholics had hitherto been, under a system of self-election 
 in the corporations. This last reason was not one which increased the popular 
 opinion of Sir R. Peel's wisdom ; as it was clear that it heirg-ed the question of 
 the impartiality of the Crown, and it could proceed only upon the supposition that 
 the Catholics would have the same confidence as Sir II. Peel himself in that 
 impartiality. Lord F. Egerton moved, in accordance with the views of Sir 
 R. I'eel, the abolition of the old corporations, without the creation of any new ; 
 decreeing the government of towns by officers appointed by the Crowu. He 
 would even have the commissioners for the administration of borough property 
 provided in the same manner. This motion was thrown out by a large nuijority. 
 But its theory met with better success iu the Lords. There, the Bill was 
 " amended" by cutting out of it all the clauses relating to the constitution of 
 new corporate bodies. Out of 140 clauses, lOG had been in substance omitted, 
 while 18 had been added: and, while the " amended Bill" abolished corporate 
 institutions entirely, it actually preserved to many of the officials who profited 
 by the old system the power and emolument of their situations. Of course, 
 this was not to be endured. The Commons rejected the amendments, and 
 sent back the Bill to the Lords in nearly its original state. Lord Melbourne 
 Avas outvoted by a majority of 97 in an attempt to get the Bill reconsidered. 
 It was sent down to the Commons, with a statement of their Lordships' reasons 
 for adhering to their amendments. On the 30th of Juue, Lord John Russell 
 moved that the amendments should be considered that day three months : the 
 House agreed ; and thus the Bill was lost for that session. 
 
 In introducing the Bill again in the next February, Lord J. Russell was 
 understood to intimate that the Melbourne Administration would stand or fall 
 by it. It was, he said, " a vital question to the present administration ;" so 
 the Opposition knew what they had to expect and to do ; and the contention 
 was very fierce. Lord F. Egerton repeated his motion of the preceding year. 
 The debate lasted over three nights, and was of great interest from the clear 
 grounds taken by both parties. The Reformers dwelt upon the sacrifice of all 
 other interests to that of the Church, which they charged upon the Conserva- 
 tives, ru'ging home upon them their fear of the Catholic majority of Ireland ; — 
 a fear which was by no nieans unreasonable, considering the oppression under 
 which the Catholics had suffered, and the possible effects of reaction. Lord 
 Stanley avowed in Committee, that if he saw the Church in a more secure 
 position, some of his strongest objections to the Bill would be removed : but 
 it was not candid to represent this as the only gromid of the Opposition. Their 
 highest and principal ground was the dissimilarity of Irish and English cha- 
 racter and circumstances, which rendered it impossible that the same institu- 
 tions should work alike in the two countries. It was remarked that some of 
 the Opposition speakers, who had done their utmost in debate, were absent 
 from the division. The Ministers had a majority of 80. On the third read- 
 ing, their majority fell to 55. 
 
 The day before the second reading in the House of Lords, a gathering of 
 peers took place at Apsley House, to agree upon what should be done. A
 
 Chap. VI.J DURING THE THIHTY YEARS' PEACE. 307 
 
 considerable number were for thro^ving out the Bill at once, but the Duke of 1835 — 40. 
 Wellington oveiTuled them, with advice wliich, by their account, was highly " — ■~-^- — ' 
 characteristic. He m illed that the Bill should go into Committee : and when 
 asked how he woidd then have it dealt with, he said it would be time enough 
 to think of that when it was there. Before this, a report had got abroad, 
 which was now believed ; that the Conservative leaders would pass a Muni- 
 cipal Reform Bill, if complete security was at the same time afforded to the 
 Church : though it was not easy to see how this could be done, to the satis- 
 faction of the Conservatives, but by still subordinating the Catholic majority 
 to a favoured Protestant minority. The next move of the Duke of ^^'ellington 
 confirmed the rumour. On the 5th of May, he proposed a postponement of 
 the discussion, on the gromid of wishing to see what would be dune in the 
 other House about the Tithe and Poor Law questions ; and he obtained a majo- 
 rity over Ministers of 77. The House of Commons proceeded slowly; and, Hansard, xxxni. 
 when the i)tli of June arrived, the Lords again postponed their debate, leaving 
 the Premier helpless under their majority of 86. The speedy dissolution of Hansard, \xx^:m. 
 parliament, in consequence of the death of the King, stopped the progress of 
 the measure ; and thus again, at the risk of great irritation in the Irish against 
 the peers, it once more stood over to another session. 
 
 This was the date of the famous compromise before related, when Lord J. 1838. 
 Russell consented to the sacrifice of the Appropriation principle for the sake 
 of Sir R. Peel's surrender of his opposition to the Irish Municipal Reform 
 Bill. All went smoothly for some time — the Conservatives fully admitting 
 that, if there were to be Corporations at all, they should be appointed by 
 popular election. But then came the question of the franchise ; and the 
 parties found it impossible to agree on the qualification. Sir R. Peel desired 
 a £10 qualification, with the test of rating. Lord J. Russell would admit 
 either the parliamentary qualification of £10, or the test of rating with a £5 
 qualification. — Sir R. Peel would not yield. The Ministers assembled their 
 supj)orters at one of the goveniment offices, to consult whether they could 
 concede anything further, for the sake of getting the Bill passed. It was de- 
 cided that there should be no further compromise ; and on the 11th of June, Hansard, xihi 
 they carried their point of the qualification by a majority of 20. The Bill 
 passed the Connnons by a majority of 35. — But in the Lords, a modified £10 Hansard, \ii.i. 
 qualification was substituted immediately. Other amendments were intro- 
 duced which it was wholly impossible for the authors of the measure to sanc- 
 tion. The Bill was bandied between the Houses, as it had been two years 
 before, and drui)])ed in exactly the same manner. Hansard, xHt. 
 
 In 1839, the Royal Speech declared the reform and amendment of the ""'1839. 
 Municipal Corporations of Ireland to be essential to the interests of that 
 country ; and in eight days afterwards — on the 14th of February — Lord 
 Morpeth brought forward the subject again — for the fourth year in succession. Hansard, »ir. 3"ki. 
 By this time, the leaders of both parties were ready for further concession. 
 The Ministers proposed an £8 qualification, with the test of rating to the 
 Poor Law. In towns wlure the Poor Law should have boon in ()i)oration for 
 three years, the franchise was to be assimilated to the English. Sir K. Peel 
 and Lord Stanley agreed to this pro]iosal, and rebuked the inveteracy of oppo- 
 sition manifested by some f)f their owti ])arty. This opposition was carried HjnMrd. xiu
 
 308 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book V. 
 
 1835 — 40. into Coinmittec; but the Bill passed the Commons on the 15th of July. — 
 
 ' — ■^-^— ^ The Premier pointed out to the Opposition Lords that by this time tlie Bill 
 was almost their own, it being made up of a series of amendments in the parts 
 which liad been the subject of argument : but Lord I^yndhurst, in his apprc- 
 
 Hansarii, xiix. hcusion that, " cxcept in the northern province of Ireland, there would be in 
 every town a Radical and Roman Catholic Mayor, a Radical and Roman Ca- 
 tholic Town Council, Radical and Roman Catholic magistrates," moved and 
 carried an amendment about the franchise, with several others, Mhich, again, 
 it was impossible for the authors of the measure to submit to. Thus fruit- 
 lessly closed the fourth year of the debate. Lord Lyndhurst could not wonder 
 if he was more unpopular in Ireland than any other man in the empire. 
 jyjO In 1840, the Bill passed rapidly through the Lower House, being supported 
 
 by Sir R. Peel. Lord Lyndhurst was again ready for opposition ; and his 
 
 Hiinsnid, iv. amendments were so many and so injurious to the measure, that it required 
 much command of temper on every hand to bear quietly with so audacious a 
 resistance to the conviction and will of the majority ; of the majority, that is, 
 everywhere but in the House of Lords. There, he carried all before him — 
 carried his provisions for the patronage of the old freemen — his £10 qualifica- 
 tion — his frustration of the appointment of candidates for the shrievalty by 
 the Town Coimcils — and several other points. When the Bill was sent down 
 to the Commons, they demurred at the amendments, held conferences, argued, 
 
 Hansard, iv. 1304. find finally yielded; and the deteriorated and corrupted Bill became law on 
 the 10th of August, 1840. 
 
 r,.iiticai Die- The main provisions of the Bill were these. Ten corporate towns were 
 
 iioiiiiry, 11. 304. continued as corporations under the provisions of the Act — being con- 
 stituted of Mayor, Aldermen, and Burgesses. Thirty-seven smaller corpora- 
 tions were dissolved — nineteen of which possessed corporate funds to the 
 amount of £100 a year and upwards, and eighteen which had coi'jiorate funds 
 to a smaller amount. Any of these boroughs which had a population exceed- 
 ing 3000, might have a Charter on petition of the majority to the Queen in 
 Council. As for the others, their corporate funds were to be vested in Com- 
 missioners, to be applied to public objects. Some towns were already supplied 
 with Commissioners, under a former Act. Those which had not any Commis- 
 sioners were divided into two classes : in the first of which were towns 
 empowered to elect a Board of Commissioners, in the proportion of one Com- 
 missioner to every 500 inhabitants : and in the second were the smaller towns 
 whose corporate funds were to be administered by the poor law guardians of 
 the locality. The way was left open for the smaller towns to rise to the faculty 
 of having Commissioners, and of obtaining a Charter of incorporation, when 
 ready for the privilege. — The franchise was a Household suffrage, with a £10 
 qualification. In other points, the Bill closely resembled the English Act. 
 
 There is no doubt about the beneficial operation of this measure, spoiled as 
 it was. The sweeping away of the old Corporations was a great blessing; 
 and this, and the exclusion of the centralizing principle, reconciled the Liberal 
 party to the passage of the Bill, in preference to waiting longer. How it 
 might have fared with Ireland at this day under the undisturbed operation of 
 the measure, many may dispute, but none can affirm: for the great underlying 
 mischief was about to stir and heave, and overthrow all hope that by Muni-
 
 CnAr. VI. J DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 30<J 
 
 cipal Reform, or any other measure yet attempted, the redemption of Ireland 1835 40. 
 
 was to be achieved. --^.— ^_^,' 
 
 (). As for those who acknowledged a deeper necessity than any of these, cruTAiNTY of 
 
 from having obtained a glimpse of the great underlying mischief, they desired 
 
 a Poor Law for Ireland, and had more to say in favour of their specific than 
 sincere men were willing to controvert. Whether Ireland .should have a Poor 
 Law of the nature of the English one was perhaps, of all the political questions 
 of our time, the most difficult of decision. O'Connell himself, who was un- "'connfli, on 
 doubtedly in earnest on this question, unmingled as it was with any jjarty feel- 
 ings and devices, vacillated for years between the perplexities on either hand. 
 He, for once, took pains to learn and consider the economical considerations of 
 the case ; and when they were fresh in his mind, was full of hope and joy for 
 Ireland, and of gratitude, in which he called on all his countrymen to join, to 
 the Whig ministry which proposed the effectual boon. Then, again, his doubts 
 would recur ; — doid)ts whether the ])auperism of Ireland could be ascertained 
 so far as to justify an invocation to it to come and be fed; doubts whether it 
 might not peril the souls, or at least injure the spiritual interests, of the C'atho- 
 lics, to interfere with their private almsgiving ; doubts whether the mendicancy 
 of the poor had not something holy in it with which it was impious to meddle ; 
 doubts whether the glory and giace of the Irish character would not disa])pear 
 under the operation of sound economical j)rinciples and methods ; and finally, 
 doubts whether the ordinary run of Irish landlords could or would su])p()vt the 
 poor of their own districts. Up to the year 1836, he had constantly o])posed 
 the introduction of any Poor Law system into Ireland ; and it is possible that 
 some of tlie personal motives ascribed to him at the time — the dread of weak- 
 ening the popular dependence upon himself, and of losing his influence by the 
 assimilation of Ireland to England — might have been more or less the cause of 
 his opposition : but, if so, all such considerations gave way before the disclos\ires 
 of the Commission of Inquiry in 1836. It appears probable that the Agitator 
 himself was unaware of the misery of the Irish poor — the abiding, uninter- 
 mitting misery wliidi they had come to regard as the condition of their life. 
 This appears probable from the considerations that his own tenantry were in a 
 very wretched condition under the management of middle-men, over wlioni lie 
 exercised no supervision ; and that he met his countrymen only in tlie aspect 
 of adorers of himself — in worshipping crowds, on days of political business, or 
 groups of watchers on holidays, who cheered on his beagles, and echoed the 
 huntsman's cry, and laughed with delight at seeing the great Liberator enjoy- 
 ing his sport. It is jnobable that the exposures of the Commissioners' I{e])ort 
 were as new and terrific to O'Connell himself as to any member of the govern- 
 ment : and that they overpowered for a time his worst tendencies, and made 
 him, for a short interval, a single-hearted iiatriot. The ])eriod was very short. 
 Under the impression of the dreadful anecdotes of the Report — of men lying 
 for weeks on damp straw in a mud hovel, because they were too weak from 
 hunger to rise and go in search of a better fate ; — of the feeding on " yellow 
 weed" and unri))e potatoes ; — of the artificial spasms and vomitings induced for 
 the sake of getting warmth and shelter in the cholera hospitals ; — while these 
 things were fresh in his imagination, O'Connell wrote to the electors of Kil- 
 kennv on tlie absolute necessity of a Poor \.d\\ for Ireland. He aildeil (o liis
 
 486. 
 
 .'510 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book V. 
 
 1835 — 40. reasons of necessity an offer of one more chance to England of escaping a 
 — - -^ repeal of the Union. If she did not give Ivt'land a good Poor Law, she must 
 undergo Repeal. He still feared mischief fi'oni the Poor Law, hecause he could 
 not — at least he did not — separate the abuses and fatal operation of the cor- 
 rupted Poor Law of Elizabeth from its principle ; and he pointed to the eco- 
 nomical and moral devastation it had caused in England as consequences 
 certain to occur in Ireland : yet, so fearful was the existing wretchedness, that 
 it scared hira from all speculation for the future, and compelled him to call for 
 a system of legal charity, without a moment's delay. — -While it was preparing, 
 he fell back somewhat from his new convictions ; told the Trades Unions that 
 it was bad government that had made beggars ; that good government was 
 the best Poor Law ; that a Poor Law would keep down wages, and increase 
 pauperism ; and that the House of Lords would make this law a means of sub- 
 jecting the people to the great landlords. He should prefer a tax on absentees, 
 to be applied in promoting emigration, and in maintaining asylums for the 
 aged, the infant, and the sick. 
 
 In the session of 1837, when the Irish Poor Law Bill was introduced by the 
 Hansard, xsxvi. govemmcnt, Mr. O'Connell declared that, seeing its necessity, he should not 
 oppose it : but he assailed every important part of the measure, separately, 
 while he declared himself a supporter of the whole. His pleas were curiously 
 contradictory. The Irish would never enter workhouses : yet these houses 
 would maintain men in idleness who ought to be at work upon the land. The 
 land could not maintain the poor — the production being only one-fourth that 
 of England, and one-h;ilf what (considering the inferiority of the soil) it ought 
 to be : yet, this Bill would make the people the slaves of the landlords. The 
 natural Poor Law — of sympathy — was the best ; and Ireland's charity, hitherto 
 the glory of Ireland, would be extinguished by the imposition of a legal 
 charity : yet, he would support asylums, and no other charitable institutions 
 willingly, because asylums for the infirm and sick could not encourage fraud 
 and mendicancy. He declared that a Poor Law would only swell the numbers 
 — then amounting to nearly two millions and a half — of persons absolutely 
 destitute for a large portion of every year : yet he ridiculed the notion of Union 
 Houses, because they would hold only 80,000, and claimed equal assistance for 
 the two millions and a half. "While protesting his belief that the measure 
 would aggravate pauperism, and suddenly extinguish private charity, he pro- 
 tested against the gi-adual introduction and extension of the institution, and 
 claimed immediate and full rescue by means of it for the starving millions of 
 his countrymen. Thus shifting were his views while he declared himself a 
 supporter of the government, and voted for the Bill. He deserved, by his pre- 
 vious conduct, the imputation, that he was taking what could be got from 
 England, while industriously providing for the failure of the measiue by dis- 
 gusting his countrymen with it beforehand : but the impression derived by an 
 impartial reader from his speeches in parliament is, that he really was per- 
 plexed by the difficulties of the case. His intellect had, in fact, by this time, 
 become so injured by his habits of partiality and exaggeration, and tampering 
 with truth for patriotic purposes, that it had really become ii-ksome and diffi- 
 cult to him to entertain any question so serious in his own view as to compel 
 him to balance the evidence of its respective sides. With all his astuteness in
 
 Chap. VI.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 311 
 
 tlio conduct of intrigues, and the management of the Irish mind, lie had l)e- 1835 40. 
 
 come incapable of apprehending distinctions wliich were all-important in tlie ~ ■ ' 
 
 consideration of measures founded on any principle ; as, for instance, in his 
 declaration of the next session, that the " strange distinction " between 
 " poverty" and " destitution" was not practical — was too nice for Ireland — and 
 so forth ; whereas this distinction — the ground-work of the whole Poor Law 
 reform in England, and institution in Ireland — is as broad and palpable as the 
 distinction between a householder and a vagrant. In that next session, of 18158, 
 Mr. O'Connell took his stand decidedly — he said finally — against the measure. Uans.ir<i,xi. !M7. 
 He declared that he had before wanted moral courage to oppose it ; but now 
 he had grown older, and somewhat firmer. The fact probably was, that tlic 
 first agonizing impression of the misery of Ireland had worn off, and his natur:il 
 prepossessions, as an adventurer, as a man of reckless passions, and as a Catho- 
 lic, impressed with the blessedness and holiness of spontaneous almsgiving, 
 now recovered their sway, and led him to oppose the introduction of an insti- 
 tution which was too regular and exact, too legal and impartial, too repressive 
 of wrong, and favourable to homely good, to be otherwise than distasteful and 
 alarming to him. In the final period of legislation, therefore, O'Connell went 
 against the Bill, with all his forces ; and among those forces, he enlisted every 
 truth of political economy which he could apjily against a compulsory charity in 
 general, and such treatment of the misery of Ireland in particular. His last 
 appearance on this question in parliament was in the character of a rigid po- 
 litical economist. 
 
 The case was indeed perplexing enough to sounder thinkers than O'Connell ; «> i ^ti.in m- > 
 and his conduct may be regarded as a mere exaggeration of the thought of the 
 time on this question. The very officials themselves were divided as to whetlii r 
 Ireland should have a Poor Law or not. Some of the Commissioners were in 
 favour of it, and others against it : — their Third Report was against it — tlu" 
 Secretary for it. The greater number of political economists in England were 
 for it ; but a few of the most eminent were against it. 
 
 In an abstract view, the case was clear enough. The mibounded sponta- 
 neous charity of the Irisli, which makes the family that have potatoes for tlie 
 day take in and feed the family that have none, is a fatal encourager of reck- 
 lessness, as the givers expect to be destitute and thus fed, in their turn. A 
 legal charity would act as a check hei'e. Tlie imposition of rates upon the vii-« m a»vo. 
 holders of the land would act as a regulator upon the fatal system of land' 
 letting which prevailed in the south and west of Ireland : a system from which 
 individiuils could extricate themselves only by means of such an arrangement 
 as this. Tlu' landlords must be brought to reason, and thought, and priuci])]e, 
 by tlie obligation to support their own poor. The occupiers would be bene- 
 fitted — their expenses being shared more equally with the landlord ; \vhereas 
 the true incidence of the jnevalent almsgiving was at present ujxin tluin. 
 Instead of this indefinite expenditure, the occupier would nowliave onewhidi 
 he could estimate ; and lie would no doubt prefer laying out his money 
 in imi)ro\ ing his land to suj)i)orting men in idleness ; and thus, further 
 means of prosperity would be continually growing. — If Mr. O'Connell was 
 right in saying that the Irish, witli their love of uncontrolled freedom, would 
 mn'cr enter tlu' workho\ises, well and <;ii()d ; since tlu'y lould keep out ot it
 
 312 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 [Book V. 
 
 View op Opp*»- 
 
 NENTS. 
 
 1835 — 40. only by inaintaiiiiiig themselves. If they did enter the workhouses, and idly 
 
 "" ■■ stay there — well and good too ; for this would relieve the immediate pressure 
 
 of competition for potato grounds, and would afford opjiortunity for nominal 
 rents to come down to the level of real ones, and some honesty might he 
 introduced into transactions between landlord and tenant. A middle class 
 might thus be growing uj) ; — a class of im])roving small farmers, interposed 
 between the landlord and the cottier, for whom there had hitherto a])i)oared 
 no alternative between a precarious and transient occupation of land and 
 mendicancy. With the class of farmers must grow up a class of bona fide 
 labourers. Thus would land and men improve together. There would be 
 increased production from the land — classes of rising men upon it — a check 
 upon the reckless increase of population — an influx of capital, which would 
 cause further production and improvement ; and so on. Such was the expec- 
 tation of the advocates of an extension of tlie English poor law to Ireland : 
 and they added that no country ever aflbrded such favourable circumstances 
 for the establishment of a poor law as Ireland did at that time. 
 
 As for the opponents of the measure — they dwelt upon the peculiarities of 
 the Irish mind, religion, and social state. This was their ground. They would 
 have had Ireland assisted by a legal charity in regard to the sick and infirm, 
 and to a large scheme of emigration. Further than this they believed the sys- 
 tem would not work ; and they declared their expectation that the legal charity 
 would be found not to supersede at all the pious almsgiving which had become 
 the religious habit of the Catholic districts. No one seems to have spoken out 
 about the deep underlying mischief which might too probably frustrate all 
 efforts and mortify all expectations. The land was the broad basis on which this 
 great structure was to be founded : and while the title to, and possession of, that 
 land was insecure, this foundation was no better than a shaking bog. In some 
 districts in the West of Ireland, nine-tenths of the population were without 
 means of living in winter. The expectation was that a poor law would force 
 the landowners to employ the people, in order to escape so enormous a charge 
 as the poor-rate. Landowners elsewhere, whose past and future were ascer- 
 tained and secure, might venture upon such a work, in the strength of un- 
 questionable possession : but not so men who had grown up in the recklessness 
 of insecurity, and to whom the future was merely a scene of chance. It was 
 fearful enough that the proportion of paupers to the rest of society was twice 
 as large as in England, while the pauper maintenance fund was, in proportion, 
 little more than one-third : and when to this grave fact is added the consi- 
 deration of the insecurity of tlie lauded property itself which is the basis of 
 the whole, the wisest men, and most philosophical economists, may he excused 
 for doubting whether the English poor law would work in Ireland. 
 
 When the Board of Commissioners of Inquiry recommended, in their 
 Report of 1836, a legal charity for the support of the sick and infirm, and for 
 tlie promotion of emigration, the British parliament and statesmen were not 
 disposed to agree to the suggestion. To take off the weight of the able- 
 bodied from the fund of voluntary charity was the first object % and, while the 
 land was so badly tilled, it might prove no kindness to Ireland to remove her 
 strong men to the colonies — if even arrangements for the purpose could have 
 been, at that time, made. It was determined by the ^linistcrs to send Mr. 
 
 1836. 
 
 HlSTOKY Oh- THE 
 MEAiiURE.
 
 Chap. VI.] DURIiXG THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 313 
 
 NiclioUs, one of the Poor Law Commissioners, to Ireland, as the man fitted 1835 — 40. 
 above all others to view the state of Irish society with the eye of science as ' — -~-^- — ' 
 well as of compassion. Mr. Nicholls's commission bore date the 22nd of 
 August, 1836 ; and, after an inquiry of little more than six weeks, he prepared 
 a very able Report, which favoured the introduction of the English poor law 
 into Ireland. It is well known that inquiry is immeasurably facilitated by 
 such science and practical habits as Mr. Nicholls carried with him : and less 
 objection was made to his Report, ou account of the haste with which it was 
 produced, than might have been expected. But it is also understood how 
 partial and technical may be the observation and inferences of a man so devoted 
 to a great and successful enterprise as Mr. Nicholls w^as to the administration 
 of the reformed Poor Law in England ; and it was a charge of the day against 
 his Report that it showed him to have carried his conclusions with him, ready 
 for use, if he found them applicable, and that his observation amounted to not 
 much more than seeing what he was looking for. His Report, able as it 
 would have been on an abstract case, able as it was on a partial case, was felt 
 not to make sufficient allowance for so much of the peculiarity of the Irish 
 character as depends on religious faith and guidance, nor to appreciate the 
 hap-hazard character of the proprietorship of Irish estates. His view is 
 derivable from one paragraidi of his Report : — " Ireland is now suffering imder Hansani, xxivi. 
 a circle of evils, producing and reproducing each other — want of capital pro- 
 duces want of employment — want of employment, turbulence and misery — 
 turbulence and misery, insecurity — insecurity prevents the introduction and 
 accumulation of capital — and so on. I'ntil this circle is broken, the evils 
 must continue, and probably augment." The largest omission here is of the 
 niitification that the insecurity is owing to other causes than those specified. 
 The unhinging of society which results from a long course of precarious hold- 
 ing of land is of a kind not to be rectified by a poor law, w^hich proceeds on 
 the supposition that the landlords are the secure owners of the soil, and there- 
 fore able, as well as liable, to support its burdens. — Considering the habit of 
 mendicancy in the country, begging was no test of destitution ; and the work- 
 house test was recommended to be strictly enforced. On a calculation that 
 from eighty to a hundred workhouses would sup])ly the requisite accommoda- 
 tion, the expense was estimated at from £7()(),()00 to £800,000. If this '[^nvard, xxxn. 
 amount were advanced as a loan from the imperial treasury, it might be repaid 
 in annual instalments of 5 per cent, from the rates, with the interest — without 
 any greater burden to the landlords and occujjiors than was now imposed by 
 the voluntary charity which came maiidy out of their pockets at last. The 
 payment of rates was proposed to be divided equally between the landlord and 
 the occupier, by which it was believed -.ind liojied that tlie landlord would find 
 his burden heavier, and the occupier lighter than hitherto. — The new right of 
 supervision over its members which would arise in society by the establish- 
 ment of a right to maintenance was to be first manifested in the ap]>oint- 
 ment of a warden or hcadborough, who would keep watch against tlie increase 
 of destitution through fault, and the spread of mendicancy. Precautions were 
 to be taken against a preponderance of magistrates i\f the Hoards of (Miardians, 
 and no clergyman, of any denomination, was to be con<-erned in poor law 
 administration during the prevalence of religion^ rancour in tlw couiitvy. It 
 
 \()1.. 11. '- s
 
 ;il4 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book V. 
 
 1835 10. was thought best that the English board of Commissioners should extend their 
 
 ^ administration to Ireland, rather than that a separate Board sliould be esta- 
 blished in Dublin ; that the evils of incxj)erience and party suspicion might be 
 avoided, and this new link in the union of Euglaiul and Ireland be made as 
 complete and sound as possible. 
 
 1837. '^^^ royal speech of 1837 recommended to parliament, in regard to Ireland, 
 the consideration of" the difficult, but pressing question, of establishing some 
 
 Hansard,!t.\xvi.4. legal provision for the poor:" and on the 13th of February, Lord J. Russell 
 brought forward the Irish Poor Law Bill. It was founded on Mr. Nicholls's 
 Report; and it was sustained as very few measures of consequence are in the 
 House of Commons. Sir R. Peel and Lord Stanley supported it, in its gene- 
 ral provisions, and scarcely any one was found to object to it as a whole. It 
 was proceeding favourably through Committee when the death of the King 
 deferrv d its passage for another session. — By that time, some change of opinion 
 had taken place, and much more opposition than before was offered by many 
 
 1838. persons besides Mr. O'Connell. Some had fears about the patronage of the 
 Board, in a country so sensitive and on the watch for injury as Ireland now 
 was. Some desired a voluntary assessment by the clergy, for purposes of 
 outdoor relief, in addition to the provisions of the Act. And some brought 
 forward their estimates of the population and of the rental, and of the propor- 
 tion of these in certain districts; and, disbelieving that voluntary charity 
 would cease, showed plainly, as they thought, that Ireland could not support a 
 Poor Law of this nature. The minorities were, however, small. Mr. O'Conncll's 
 question, " Whether English gentlemen would force on the country a measure 
 which the people rejected ?" was answered by a majority of 175 in favour of the 
 
 Hansard, xiii. 7 15. Bill. — In the Lords, the Opposition was strong — in speeches, at least, if not 
 in votes. With people outside, this told rather in favour of the measure than 
 against it, as it seemed to show dread of increased burdens by the landlords. 
 Besides the Londonderrys, Rodens, and Lyndhursts, whose opposition had been 
 expected, there were Lords Fitzwilliam, Clanricarde, and Brougham, who de- 
 clared their expectations of entire failure in the working of the Bill. — The 
 
 Hansard, xiiv. 28. Ministerial majorities were, however, large ; and the Bill became law in July, 
 1838. 
 
 In August, the Commission met, and appointed Mr. NichoUs to carry out 
 the Act in Ireland. He went to Dublin, with sufficient assistance for begin- 
 ning his arduous work. By the 9th of October, the Assistant-Commissioners 
 had returned fi'om their circuits in the provinces, and were joined by more as- 
 sistants from England. They went into deliberation, and arranged their system 
 
 1839. ill ^11 its details. By the 2.5th of March following, twenty-two Unions were 
 Annual Regi^ter, declared ; and in eighteen of these, guardians were appointed. Preparations 
 
 '"'' " for others were in great forwardness; and something more important still was 
 effected. By the spread of the information furnished by the Commissioners, 
 much of the local unpopularity of the measure was converted into support : 
 
 1840. and where support was not given, there was usually acquiescence. ... In the 
 Irs EARLY Ope- coursG of the next year, 127 iniions were declared, and only 3 remained to be 
 
 famed. Foin-teen workhouses were already opened for the reception of 
 ]iaupers ; and the Commissioners declared their confidence that the great 
 scheme would work well for the redemption of Ireland. — Tlie reception of it
 
 Chap. VI.J DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 316 
 
 by the boggars was curious, as might have been expected by those acquainted ls;55 40. 
 
 with Irish mendicancy in its prosperous days, when it was not, as now, the 
 
 outward sign of insufferable misery, but rather bore a gay and convi%ial cha- 
 racter. One beggar proiully told a (Commissioner that he would have little "7"' ' ''''''''"''•' 
 business but for the like of them : — another, unwilling to sun-ender a poor ■:. ■». 
 idiot to legal charity, and fearing to be " lonesome without him," though find- 
 ing him " mighty teazing," thought it a good thing to be an idiot, to enjoy tlie 
 roving freedom of the class : — another, who hated the " new jail," as she ])er- iii '^•'t- 
 sisted in calling the Union house, found her business of mendicancy destroyed 
 by the new agency — would have gone into the house if she could have enjoyei 
 tliere her tea, and whiskey, and tobacco ; but, as she could not, took upon her 
 to despise the house, and declared that she would work rather than enter it. 
 The gi-eat consolation of this class was in finding " the hard man" compelled 
 to contiibute to the support of the poor ; while they felt grief and shame at 
 what they considered the demoralization of the charitable, who now began to 
 incjuire into the case of mendicants, and ask why they did not go into the 
 house. There was a perceptible diminution in the crowds of beggars on the 
 roads, and in the villages; and in the towns, the avowal was made that the '■'■'"■ 
 workhouses had weeded them of very destitute cases. When the " starving- 
 seasons" came round, (the interval between the complete consumption of one 
 ])otato crop and tlie harvest of another,) it was evident that more work had 
 been done, and more providence exercised. The early operation of the Irish 
 I'oor Law was pronoimced to be decidedly successful. But it was too soon yet 
 for the warmest advocates of the measure to pledge themselves that it woidd 
 work the redemption of Ireland. 
 
 The immediate consequence of the debates on the virtues or yaccs of the 
 AVliig administration of Ireland was the resignation of Lord Nonnanby on the i!ur<'u nwiI.nbv. 
 first convenient occasion — in the spring of 1839, when he became Colonial 
 Secretary for a few weeks, and then went to the Home Department. His 
 ])(dicy was continued by his coadjutors, and by Lord Ebrington (soon after Earl 
 Fortescue) who succeeded him in the Yiceroyalty. His retreat fi'om Ireland 
 did not pacify the Opposition. In the session of 1831), the attacks on his 
 go\ernment were renewed in both Houses of I'arliamtmt. In the C'ommons, 
 Lord J. Russell met them by moving a Resolution, on the ISth of April, that it """"■•''■ "I'ii. 1. 
 was expedient to adhere to the princijilcs of government which had been of 
 great recent benefit to Ireland. Sir R. Peel moved antagonist Resolutions, 
 tliat it was inexpedient so to pronounce while the I^ords' Committee of Intpiiry 
 was still engaged upon its work. These last Resolutions were voted down by 
 a majority of 22. In the Upper House, Lord Brougham moved, on the 6th of 
 August, and triumjihantly carried, a set of Resolutions coiulemnatory of tlie 
 Normanby policy — particularly as regarded the administration of justice and 
 the extension of mercy. The Ministers were left in a minority of 3-4, in a House ,"5^™"*' ^''*' 
 of 138. 
 
 The opinion of the country, however, sustained the Irish administration ; at wnn-. <:o>,nN. 
 least, in its general principles. The prevalent impression, throughout the '"^'^"* 
 nation, was, at the time, that the country had lU'ver before been so well 
 governed : and there wire many wlio belicvi^d tjiat the redemption of Ireland 
 liad at length been entered M])()n. If lliis has been disproved by the lights of
 
 ;316 - HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book V. 
 
 1835 — 40. painful experience — if it now appears that the deep underlying mischief was 
 unrecognised as a fatal obstruction — the Whig administration of Ireland may 
 nevertheless have been an inestimable boon. It is the way with human affairs 
 that enterprises often fail of their express aims, but never of producing im- 
 portant collateral effects. The Normanby administration did not redeem Ire- 
 land ; but it proved before the eyes of all men a truth which must be under- 
 stood before Ireland can be redeemed. It proved that no political govern- 
 ment — the justest, the wisest, the most considerate — can rectify evils ^^'hich 
 are social, and not primarily political. The friendly rulers of Ireland, between 
 the years 1835 and 18-40, were not to have the privilege of redeeming her : but 
 they did much to prepare the way ; and they removed a great obstruction in 
 extinguishing all just complaint of Englisli misgovernment. Many other ob- 
 structions remained which rendered the work of effectual renovation impossible 
 till a higher power than lies in human hands had cleared the way in a manner 
 which it makes the stoutest heart tremble merely to contemplate. It is be- 
 cause this has happened — because the wide sweep of misery has left it clear 
 that the maladies of Ireland are social, and not political — because the gi-eat 
 underlying mischief has been heaved up to the surface by the convulsion — be- 
 cause every one now sees what must be done before Ireland can be redeemed — 
 that we may speak of the hopefulness and cheerful composure with which the 
 spirit of history may review the scenes and struggles of the past. The work 
 now lies open ; and the national gaze is beginning to contemplate it. A great 
 work never waits long for the workman ; and a greater work than this never 
 presented itself to the human heart and hand. In an advanced age of the 
 world — in the day of high civilization — here is a nation — full of noble qualities, 
 however corrupted — to be taught how to live ; — taught from the beginning — 
 led up from a condition of passionate and suffering immaturity into the strength 
 of self-disciplined, industrious, healthful, and prosperous manhood. If it be 
 true that a great work never waits long for the workman, the day of the 
 redemption of Ireland cannot be far off.- — 'Wlieu it comes, the nation will not 
 altogether forget " the things that are behind " in " pressing forwards to those 
 that are before." It will not forget that the experiment of a strenuous ad- 
 ministration of justice and mercy was once tried ; and that it afforded the 
 needed proof that any political administration was a means too small for the 
 redemption of Ireland.
 
 CiiM-. VII. ] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 317 
 
 D 
 
 CHAPTER Vll. 
 
 URING the political changes and struggles of the period under review, 1835 — 38. 
 few may liave perceived the close connexion which is now clear to us ^-^^ ' 
 between the disturbed state of the Church and tlie transitional character of |"^^"^" ■*"" 
 the State. The difficulties that successive governments had in dealing with 
 the religious bodies of the empire, appeared to many a mere coincidence with 
 the death-struggles of parties, and not, as they truly were, another aspect of 
 the same conflict. The Ecclesiastical disturbance visible at once in England, 
 Ireland, and Scotland, was as inevitable a sign of the times as the passage of 
 the lleform lUll, or Municipal renovation. It was a misfortinie to all parties 
 concerned, that the rulers of the State — too ill-prepared for action on the sub- 
 jects most prominent in their own eyes — were absolutely incapable of intelli- 
 gent government on ecclesiastical affairs. Their want of knowledge, their 
 inability to comprehend or apply the principles concerned in the ecclesiastical 
 distiu'baiices of the time, were clear enough in the cases which have been 
 already before us ; but the complete exhibition of their incapacity took place in 
 reference to the Church of Scotland. 
 
 As a preparation for the great scene of the disruption of the Church of Scot- 
 land, which will come before us in the final period of this history, we must 
 look into the transactions of Lord Melbourne's government with that Church. 
 We shall see how unaware the Ministers were of what they had to do, and 
 what they were doing ; how little they understood the true importance and 
 real bearings of the case. They took no warning by the refusal of the English 
 Tractarians to acknowledge the control of the government in church matters : 
 they took no warning from the united C17 of the High Churchmen and Dis- 
 senters for a dissolution of the union between Church and State. As Lord 
 Grey had stared with amazement at the Nottingham deputation, so now Lord 
 Melbourne scarcely took pains to observe whether it was the Church or the 
 Dissenters in Scotland who wanted more accommodation and instruction : 
 and neither of these ministers, and no one of the coadjutors of either, seems to 
 have had the remotest idea of its being his business to understand, and de- 
 cide, and act, on a {piestion as imjiortant as any that had risen up since the 
 Rcfonnation. And the English public knew and felt no more llian their 
 rulers. They did not recognise the struggle that now set in, north of the 
 Tweed, as one which will be consjncuous in all future histories of the jn-ogress 
 of Opinion — which now means nothing less than (he history of luimau liber- 
 ties. Even now the greater number of readers and listeners turn away at the 
 first mention of the Scotch Church, in hoi)elessness of understanding the con- 
 troversy, or caring about the parties engaged in it. Those who have, from 
 any cause, been interested in the case, believe that its principal features may
 
 318 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book V. 
 
 1835 — 3,s. bo clearly and rapidly sketched. At all events, the attempt must be made in a 
 ^-— ^ ' history of the period. 
 
 (luniii oKSroT- fjjg Scotch ('hurch appears to be tlie best in which to contemphitc the rise 
 and progress of the conflict between the princi2)les of the connexion or iliscon- 
 uexion of religion with the State, because it has ever been peculiarly hard to 
 Scotch churchmen to admit the idea of dissent, aud to inidergo the ])rocess of 
 severance from the Establishment. The Scotch Church was designed to be a 
 spiritual republic, whose four judicatories, lising one above the other in gra- 
 
 iTsCo-isTin TiuN. dations of power and authority, were still all elective. The Session, the Pres- 
 bytery, the Synod, tlie General Assembly, were all of a representative cha- 
 racter, and were assumed to be chosen by the popular voice. This popular 
 election was for a very short time, if ever, a truth ; and the same may be said 
 
 Its i-iii.ui.ts. jjf (.]jg unity of faith presumed to be secured by the Establishment. While the 
 Elders and landed proprietors were in fact managing the appointments to office 
 in the Church, many pastors were preaching doctrines which would not bear 
 a comparison with the standards of the Establishment. The General Assembly 
 wished for quiet — dealt gently with heresies — and would have been pleased to 
 hear nothing of that great question of Patronage which was, in little more 
 than a hundred years, to explode the Cliiirch as a national establishment. But 
 the people found themselves under a despotism, from the unresisted nomination 
 of the clergy by the patrons. The clergy nominated the elders ; and the flocks 
 had really no part whatever in the spiritual republic, where all were declared 
 to be members of one body. The Assembly would not licar of a word of dis- 
 content, even from their own members : so the natural consequence followed : 
 — the discontented took other measures to make themselves heard. One of 
 them, the courageous Erskine, preached out the state of things from the pulpit 
 — was censured, first by the local Synod, and then by the General Assembly — 
 offered a remonstrance, and was expelled from his pvilpit, as were three other 
 clergymen, who had supported his remonstrance. In a century after, these 
 
 smFHAMENOT fovir ministers had become four hundred. But they and their flocks w'ere not 
 
 Dissent. -j 
 
 Dissenters. They were compelled to separate from the organization of the 
 Establishment ; but they held all its principles — claimed the honour of being 
 the real Cliurch party in the case, and imitated the proceedings of the Esta- 
 blishment wherever they possibly could, without falling into its corruptions. 
 In our own time, these claims have been allowed ; and the Secession has been 
 declared eminently conservative of the veritable Church of Scotland. 
 
 Another body of Seceders, who were driven out also by tyranny, were equally 
 i'ah.onage. far from being dissenters. When a patron nominated for Minister a man un- 
 acceptable to the great body of the congregation, the Presbytery refused to 
 ordain him. This happened so often as to be embarrassing to the General 
 Assembly. The Assembly appointed the celebrated " Galloping Committees," 
 as they were nicknamed ; committees who went about doing the work which 
 the Presbyteries refused. Fired by the ridicule cast upon these committees, 
 and by the taimt tliat the highest power covikl not control the presbyteries, the 
 Assembly determined to try its hand at coercion. The Assembly enjoined 
 obedience : a member of a presbytery, Mr. Gillespie, evaded it : he was de- 
 posed : and he gatliered together, outside the walls of the church from which 
 he was driven, a body of men opposed to the existing despotism in the appoint-
 
 Chap. VII.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. ;;]!) 
 
 meut of Ministers, ami, after 100 years, was recorded as the founder of 120 IS35 g^. 
 
 eonjiregatious, constituting- the Relief body, as it was called— a body claiinino ~ — — ^— — ■ 
 relii'f from the desixHisni of Patronage. These men also were thus not dis- 
 senters. They had no fault to find with the church, but only with the perver- 
 sion of one of her arrangements. — At tlie end of a century, liowever, from 
 the secession of 1734, the two bodies were called by others, and called them- 
 selves Dis senters, their ministers having, for the most part, adopted the volun- nrsscsT. 
 tary principle. The establishment at this time had between 1100 and 1200 i...ndonandWese. 
 churches; a clergy of whom the ^Moderator of the Assembly at that date said .xpni i83:i, p^Vs. 
 that the whole were of Tory politics, except about six ; and lor supporters, 
 it had the great body of the affluent and powerful throughout Scotland. The 
 Dissenters had TOO churches, a clergy of liberal j)olitieal opinions, and for 
 supporters a great body of the labouring and some of the middle classes of 
 society in Scotland. When Scotch Borough reform removed the oppressions 
 under whicli this great body had lain, and oj)encd to them a career of civil 
 equality with the church and Tory party, they bestirred themselves to extend 
 their principles and increase their numbers ; and the newspapers of the time 
 tell of the formation of many associations for the promotion and support of 
 voluntaryism in religion. 
 
 Tlius was the ground of controversy wholly changed. The Secession and Re- 
 lief bodies had complained of tyranny within the pale of the church. Mow, be- 
 come Dissenters, they pronounced against the union of the Church and the State. 
 The church had once ejected discontented members from her own household. 
 Now she felt called upon to wage war with a vast body of Dissenters : and the 
 time was coming when she must sustain such another Secession as must reduce 
 her to a state of forlorn inferiority which she could not at present conceive of. 
 
 What did she do while the Dissenters were associating for the promotion of 
 the \-oluntary principle ? There was no time to lose ; for a petition was sent 0,^',','^',, e'xtb„. 
 up to parliament, in 1837, in favour of a total separation of Church and '""'^■ 
 State, signed in Glasgow by 41,000 people. The church resohcd on church 
 extension ; and that as much of the plan as bore on its opposition to the Dis- 
 senters should be kept in its own hands. It was necessary to request and 
 obtain the assistance of the State, or a troublesome reference might hereafter 
 be made to the sufficiency of voluntary effort on the present occasion : yet, if 
 the matter were left to government, new churches would be built in far-away 
 places, in country districts yet unprovided, and last of all, or never, in streets 
 of towns wliere Dissenters' chapels existed already ; whereas, it was the very 
 thing wanted to plant a church beside every chapel, in order to put down dis- 
 sent. Dr. Chalmers avowed that his demand should not stop short of a church 
 for every 1000 inhabitants, sooner or later ; and he did not promise to stop short 
 of a church for every 700. On this estimate, and by virtue of ignoring dissenting 
 chai)els altogether, and reckoning the Dissenters among the inhabitants desti- 
 tute of religious guidance, a strong case of spiritual destitution was made out, 
 while nothing more was asked of government than to endow the churches 
 which the establishment was willing to build. Tlie consequence of the demand 
 was that the government was at first favourabh', jiartly from ignorance of the 
 state of the case, and partly through dread of the evident extension of tlic 
 doctrine of N'obmiavv i>in ; the Dissenters (piitlcd that quc-tion for a linu\ to
 
 n-io 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 [B. 
 
 V. 
 
 HansarH, xlii. I.tI. 
 
 1835. 
 
 UlSI'nSITloN OF 
 (JoVERNMENT. 
 
 Hansard, xxvi. C7. 
 
 1835 — 38. unite their forces against the imposition of burdens for a cliiireh which they 
 disapproved; and the Church grew prouder than ever in the prospect of 
 success. Her own subscriptions for new churches, subscriptions paid in by 
 all manner of members — from tlu' pm'ely benevoli'nt wlio desired the spiritual 
 benefit of the poor and forsaken, to the haughtiest who could not tolerate the 
 Dissenters — in two years amounted to upwards of 200,000/. 
 
 The successive Ministries of Sir E-. Peel and Lord Melbourne saw nothing 
 in the application, till the excitement they caused all over Scotland told them 
 to the contrary, but a proposal to provide religious guidance for the destitute ; 
 an object which naturally ajjpeared to them unquestionable. In the King's 
 Speech prepared by the Peel Cabinet, in February 1835, we find this para- 
 graph : — " I feel it also inctnnbent upon me to call your earnest attention to 
 the condition of the Church of Scotland, and to the means by which it may 
 be enabled to increase the opportunities of religious worship for the poorer classes 
 of society in that part of the United Kingdom." For two years before this. 
 Lords Melbourne and Brougham (then Lord Chancellor) had given deputations 
 from Scotland to understand that they were favourable to the object of the 
 Church — no question had been raised in the debate on the Address in answer 
 to the Royal Speech — and the Dissenters found it necessary to bestir them- 
 selves to make known the opinion of a vast proportion of Scotchmen that 
 such a grant was needless and dangerous. By the month of May, the Mel- 
 bourne Ministry had learned that the question involved more than people 
 in London had supposed ; the Lord Advocate of Scotland moved for a Com- 
 mission of Inquiry into the need: and on the 1st of July, Lord J. llussell 
 appended a proposal to inquire what funds might exist in connexion with the 
 C'hurch of Scotland which might be rendered available, so as to obviate a 
 donation from tlie public purse for objects which a large body of the contribu- 
 tors to the public purse conscientiously disapproved. In the proposal of a 
 Commission Sir R. Peel acquiesced, on the ground that the session was too 
 far advanced for a parliamentary Committee to effect any thing that year. 
 
 The Commission was sent forth to its work without delay; and great was 
 the clamour about its constitution. All its members but one were Churchmen ; 
 and that one was as obnoxious to the Church party as the others were to the 
 Dissenters. The high oificials of the Church doubted the fealty of some of 
 the Church members in the Commission ; and on the last day of July, the 
 Assembly, by their Committee, addressed a remonstrance to the government 
 on the constitution of the Commission. No answer was returned ; and on 
 the loth of August, 90 out of 03 members of the Assembly, met for the purpose, 
 renewed the remonstrance. When questioned in the House of Lords, Lord 
 Melbourne answered, with his wonted speculative optimism, that a Commis- 
 sion which pleased nobody must be a very good one, in times when party spirit 
 ran high : and that it was a fine thing for men of extreme opinions, like one 
 of the Commissioners, who had written a book against Establishments, to be 
 put upon such work as this, as he was pretty sure of growing wiser, and 
 learning to take more moderate views ; and then, the vigorous talents which 
 s\ich men ordinarily possess would come into action for the public service. — 
 The deepest offence to the Church was (after the proposal to inquire at all) 
 the direction to the Commissioners to inquire into the amount of " unexhausted 
 
 Hansarrl, xxix. 
 l:iH. 
 
 COMMISSIIIN OF 
 lN«l'IltV. 
 
 H.-tnsard, xxx. 
 
 107S. a.
 
 Chap. VIL] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 321 
 
 teinds ;" that is, of tithes possessed by landowners, over and above the amount 1835 — 38. 
 actually expended in their respective neighbourhoods for the support of the ^— ^^— — ^ 
 Church. In 1707, it had been settled, after much controversy, tluit the offi- miniu" ucvicw. 
 cials who administered Church affairs might enlarge stipends, but not erect *""' '"'■ 
 or endow any new parish without the consent of three-fourths (in value) of 
 the landowners. This arrangement was seen at the time to be so far question- 
 able as to cause a provision to be made that parliament might alter it at 
 pleasure. It was now reasonable to inquire into the working of this arrange- 
 ment, if there really was a deficiency of church accoiuinodution throughout 
 the country. But a cry about the intended spoliation of private property was 
 made : a cry so loud as to induce Lord J. Russell to publish, in a letter to the Annual Resutor, 
 
 . . . .... . '835, p. 3'Jl. 
 
 Head Commissioner, I^ord Minto, a disclaimer, in the form of an instruction, 
 not to give occasion for any charge of meddling with private property. Still, 
 the unexhausted teinds had been regarded since 1707 and longer as private 
 property guaranteed by an express law: — the holders foresaw the proposal to 
 repeal the Act of 1707, and exclaimed against the devouring rapacity of the 
 Church — the Dissenters protested loudly against any further endowments from 
 the State, under any pretence whatever ; and denied, in this case, any pre- 
 tence of necessity at all : — the Churchmen were offended that parliament had 
 not made them a grant at once, without dispute ; and they protested against 
 all inquiry into the workings of their Church organization, and the amount of 
 their funds. — There was yet another cause of offence. — The class of tithes 
 called Bisliops' teinds must be dealt with separately. They were appropriated Bisaors- Tusm. 
 by the Crown at the Reformation — bestowed on the bishops while episcopacy 
 existed in Scotland — and resumed by the Crown on its abolition. When sti- 
 pends fell short from the parochial teinds being exhausted, the deficiency was 
 made up from the bishops' teinds ; but in no other way had the Church of 
 Scotland any claim upon that fund. It had now become the property of par- 
 liament, together with the other patrimonial property of the Crown surrendered Hansard, xiii iiu. 
 by William IV. ; and the general public, as well as the Scotch Dissenters, 
 protested against any appropriation of this national fund to purposes of Cliurch 
 extension in Scotland — even before it was ascertained wliether sucli extension 
 was needed. Thus, the Commission was as unpopidar on every haiul as any 
 Connnission could well be. 
 
 In his official letter, Lord John Russell expressed a hope that the greater 
 ])art of the business would be completed within six months ; — that is, in readi- 
 ness for the session of 1836: but this was not possible. In 1837 and 1838, 
 three Reports were befi)re the "overnment — on the religious instruction pro- Rr.i-,)«T» op com. 
 vided for Edinburgh — and for Glasgow — and on teinds. They relate that 
 Dissenters were more numerous than Cluirch members in Edinburgh and 
 Glasgow, and, especially, tlie most earnest and steadfast class — the communi- 
 cants : — tliat the less opulent Dissenters had provided much larger accommo- 
 dation tl\an tlie more opulent Establishment : — tliat the Churcli accommodation 
 in Edinburgh exceeded tlie legal standard : — tliat it fell short of that standard 
 in Glasgow; but still went far beyond the existing need, as there were, as in 
 Edinburgh, 20,000 unlet seats— for the most part of the cheapest order. As 
 f(ir the teinds— some of the unexhausted ones were held by landowners who 
 were Dissenters ; and it must require gieat consideration Iwfore these could 
 
 vn, II 2 T
 
 322 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book V. 
 
 1835 — 38. be taken from the liolders for purposes of cliurch extension. As for the 
 
 ^— ^- ' amount, it fell but little below the sum of the actual stipends ; and it was 
 
 evidently a very serious matter to think of nearly doubling the revenues of the 
 Church by taking funds out of the hands of private holders, some being Dis- 
 senters, to whom they had descended as property guaranteed by law for more 
 than a century. 
 
 Wlien the excitement caused by this inquiry was at the height, the elections 
 1837. of 1S3T occurred. The Cliurch i)arty, animated by the clergy, strained every 
 
 ELFcrio^i srauo. nervc to drive out the ministerial candidates, in hope of giving a finishing 
 blow to the weak and unpopular Whig government, and bringing in men who 
 would give them Church extension and a triumph over the Dissenters. The 
 Dissenters strove as earnestly on the other side ; — not from any call of trust 
 and gratitude for what the Whig government had done, but in the hope that 
 their timely aid now, in conjunction with the information of the Report — so 
 strongly in their favour— would procure serious attention to their case. But 
 for the Dissenters, the Whig candidates would have been excluded fi-om all 
 the principal places in Scotland. It was hoped now that the prodigious 
 excitement manifested during the elections would give the Ministers some 
 hint of the importance of the next move they might make. The evidence was 
 
 rMPOTFNCEoF THE before their eyes that the Scotch Cliurch was a failure in its character of a 
 Missionary Church, and therefore not entitled on that ground to aid from the 
 community generally, or at the expense of the Dissenters, who were doing 
 her missionary work without aid from any quarter. The worst district in 
 
 fHs""^"' °"^'" Edinburgh had, at that date, six times as many ministers as the average of 
 Scotch towns; and yet, out of a population of 25,000, only 1070 church seats 
 were let to the inhabitants of the district. The Report of the City Mission 
 also disclosed appalling facts of the vice and wretchedness of whole districts 
 where the Church was a mere name, and the whole work was left to the zeal 
 and charity of Voluntaries. Yet, in the face of these facts — in full view of 
 the extraordinary excitement which pervaded all Scotland — the vast public 
 meetings, the gatherings of synods and societies for the protection of religious 
 liberty ; — in the full hearing of warnings from all England and from Ireland of 
 the serious consequences of a government pledging itself to Church extension 
 at a period when the final struggle of our Established Churches for existence 
 had manifestly begun— in the midst of circumstances as serious as these. Lord 
 J. Russell confirmed the agitating rumour which had been abroad since the 
 
 GovEnNMENT FA- elcctioiis, tliat the government Avas going to pledge itself to Church extension 
 
 Extension""' iu Scotlaud. Subsequent events proved — what indeed few ever doubted — that 
 the Ministers did not know what they were doing. The universal excitement 
 on ecclesiastical subjects was inexplicable to them. Their training and posi- 
 tion did not enable them to enter into the importance of the question of 
 Church Establishments to the great middle class in both England and Scot- 
 land, who understand the princijile of it perhaps better than any other which 
 ever comes before the government. The Ministers did not see that a second 
 Reformation might be the consequence of even a single ministerial act at 
 such a juncture ; and so they went intrepidly on, plunging into a matter which 
 they did not understand — to the amazement of men on both sides in the 
 quarrel. Such inability of statesmen to enter fully into religious questions —
 
 Chap. VII.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 323 
 
 while not surprising — is a strong argument on the side of the opponents of 1835 38. 
 
 the union of Church and State : and it was so used, at this date, by the Trac- " — — — — ' 
 
 tariaus on the one hand and the Dissenters on the other : and there was nothing 
 
 in the condition of any of the three Establishments to shame the plea. In 
 
 the English Church, the prelates, the clergy generally, and the jjopiilar body 
 
 in the Chmx'h, were parting asunder, with mutual reproaches of tendency to 
 
 schism and unseemly disturbance. The dreadful position and reputation of 
 
 the Protestant Church in Ireland was a subject so familiar as to have become 
 
 wearisome ; and now, the Scotch Church had challenged her adversaries to a 
 
 conflict which was to end in her hopeless humiliation. Yet the Ministers 
 
 remained unconscious of the gravity of the occasion. Lord ^lelbourne and 
 
 Lord J. llussell said irreconcileable things on the same night in the two 
 
 Houses : and, when they had compared notes, and come to an agreement what Hanmard, xu. 
 
 to state, it was that tliey proposed to extend the endowments of tlie Scotch 
 
 Church. For this object, they intended to repeal the Act of 1707, with regard 
 
 to the unexhausted parochial teinds, permitting certain authorities to divide 
 
 the parishes, and give the teinds to Church purposes. At the same time, large 
 
 parishes in the Highlands or elsewhere were to be endowed, from the Bishops' 
 
 teinds or some other dues of the Crown. These teinds were now, as has been 
 
 explained, national property, at the disposal of parliament. On the avowal of 
 
 the Ministerial intention of giving them to the Scotch Church, a general cry 
 
 arose — a question of where government would stop. If such aid was given to 
 
 a (^'hurch which had proved a failure wherever its work should have been most 
 
 vigorous, and whose need of aid was denied by a great majority of its own 
 
 countrymen, what should not be done for England, whose metropolis exhibited 
 
 more spiritual destitution than all Scotland together ? Every one knew that 
 
 if equal measure were dealt to the English Church, or any proposal of the 
 
 kind mentioned, the destruction of the Church was inevitable. 
 
 There was not much in the aspect of parliament to gratify such Scotchmen 1838. 
 as might be present at debates on the gi'eat subject. When Lord Aberdeen p1r'uam">t.^ "' 
 brought the matter forward, on the 30th of March, 1838, we find one speaker 
 after another referring to the extreme thinness of the House ; and Lord 
 Aberdeen actually declaring himself wholly unable to comprehend what the 
 excitement of the Scotch dissenters was aboiit. They were not divided from 
 the church by any disagreement in doctrine, but only by a hair's breadth, as 
 it were, about matters of arrangement, in which he could not see that this 
 question was concerned. " He assured their Lordships that not only had he Hansard, iiii. 112. 
 never known anytliing like the interest which existed on this subject, but he 
 verily believed that never had any question of domestic policy so much agi- 
 tated the people of Scotland .since the union of the two kingdoms." Lord 
 Aberdeen did not see the meaning of the movement, any more than the 
 Ministers. Tlic debate was a melancholy and humbling one — a natural con- 
 secpu-uce of tlie hesitating mind and tentative iiction which the ^linistry had 
 manifested on this most serious s\iliject. Lord Aberdeen's motion was for 
 certain returns relative to the Church of Scotland. He stated the cxpensive- 
 nrss of the Commission, assumed the duty of the government to afford su])- 
 ])lies, through church establisliments, to spiritual destitution, wherever it was 
 liointed out ; protested against tlie apjiropriations aunouTucd by the govern-
 
 324 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book V. 
 
 1835—38. ment, and declared them to be spoliations; and finally, taxed Lord Melbourne 
 with breach of faith in first inducing the church to build places of worship 
 on a pledge that government would endow them ; and then refusing such 
 
 """*"''■ '''"•'^' endowment. Lord Melbourne's reply was indignant: — "I deny, in the 
 strongest manner, in the most decisive terms, and in the most explicit lan- 
 guage in which one gentleman can speak to another, that I ever entered into 
 such an undertaking." And Lord ^lelbourne was clearly right. The churches 
 were built or intended before any commission was issued ; and the commission 
 was one of inquiry into facts. But it was also clear that the Ministers had 
 entered rashly upon a course which pledged them to the principles of Church 
 extension ; and this, in a case of eminently dubious claims : and that Lord 
 Melbourne's sjjeech of this night showed a considerable change and enlarge- 
 ment of view, which came too late. 
 
 This question here merged into the yet more essential one which, in a few ■ 
 years, determined the fate of the Scotch church — the question of Patronage. 
 When we arrive at the date of that story, more will be seen of the disastrous 
 effects of the unconsciousness of statesmen of the vital importance of church 
 conflicts, when the principles of religious liberty are in question. If the case 
 is intricate — as in this instance of the Patronage question — it may be said 
 that statesmen cannot be expected to enter into all its niceties. If so, it is a 
 misfortune that the determination rests with them : for it is precisely upon the 
 niceties of a question of principle that the decision ought to depend. Mean- 
 time, as early as June 1835, Lord J. Russell committed a grave mistake which 
 showed how little he understood of what was involved in the question of 
 Patronage. 
 
 iiiMoDANcEor In May, the landowners of East Kilbride agreed to petition government to 
 
 allow a trial of candidates for their pulpit. On the 14th, and agjiin on the 
 21st, Lord J. Russell promised to consult the wishes of the petitioners. On the 
 6th of June, it appeared that the candidates were six : and this, as was innne- 
 diately notified to Lord J. Russell, called for an interval of six Sundays before 
 the choice was made. But on the 16th, the appointment of one of the can- 
 didates was gazetted ; and it had been previously known in Glasgow. The 
 
 riiasgow Argus, remark of the reforming journal which relates the fact is, "Lord John, like 
 most Englishmen, is ignorant of the peculiar jjosition of the Scottish church, 
 and the feelings of Scotchmen towards it." — The time was, however, approach- 
 ing when the English, if they did not comprehend the church questions of 
 Scotland, were impressively instructed as to the feelings of Scotchmen towards it.
 
 Chap. VIII.J DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 395 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 ^piIE great questions whose history has been detailed left little leisure to 1835 
 -^ parliament for debates on subjects of more ordinary interest. The ses- ^— -^—^-^ 
 siou of 1835 was declared at its close to be ingloriously remarkable for tlio 
 small amount of business transacted : and during the next two, tlic topics 
 wliich are usually brought forward every year in the expectation that they 
 •will be amply debated, wcrq cither omitted, or dismissed with brief notice. — aurki'ltcrai. 
 Tlie subject of agricultural distress is rarely absent from the records of any 
 session; and we find it here, as usual. In May, 1835, the Marquess of uausani, xxviii. 
 Chandos moved for a repeal of the taxes which bore upon the agricultin-al ' 
 interest. Every one admitted the distress — the low or fluctuating jn-iccs of 
 produce — the uncertainty of the farmer's gains while his expenses were fixed, 
 and, under some heads, increased : but the majority of the House agreed with 
 Sir 11. Peel, who doubted whether the best way of assisting the farmer was 
 by reducing direct taxation : and unless this were certain, he thought it wrong 
 to excite hopes which would probably be disaj)pointed. The motion was 
 therefore voted down by a large majority. — At the beginning of the next ses- 
 sion, the complaints continuing, Lord J. Russell moved for a Committee of iians.ini,xxxi. 
 Inquiry, declaring that the long-continued or permanent distress of any inte- 
 rest was a proper subject of investigation ; but he guarded himself from being 
 supposed to promise or to expect relief to the agriculturists from anything 
 that could be done or proposed through such a committee. — During its sitting, co>immiekuk 
 parliament was relieved from the discussion of the subjects usually introduced 
 as the causes of agricultural distress — the currency, local burdens, and the 
 corn laws. Mr. Cayley had rest from the labour of showing how it was the 
 Bill of 1819 which occasioned agricultural distress, and how all would be 
 riglit if we resorted to " a silver standard, or conjoined standard of silver and Himsar.i.xxvUi. 
 gold." The House would not agi'ce to this the year before ; and now the 
 Committee would preclude its being brought forward again. The Marquess 
 of ('liaiulos would be spared his annual S])eech on the burdens on land ; and 
 the enemies of the corn laws could not do better tlian trust the cause of free 
 trade to the evidence brought before the Committee. The continued pressure 
 of agricultural distress was a stronger argument in favour of a repeal of 
 the corn laws than any Avhich could be uttered by the voice of any man : and 
 it was certain to be corroborated by all the evidence wliich the Committee 
 could call for. — The result was remarkable. The Committee " ended in nivir. 
 nothing," as the disappointed said : that is, it presented the evidence, with- 
 out any llej)ort whatever. A Report liad been pr('])arcd ; and it ^^ as dis- 
 t ussed at a meeting of twenty-five of tiie Committee, eighteen of whom called 
 themselves enqdiatically the farmers' friends. These eighteen objected alto- 
 gether to the Report, as certain to iujure tlie caus-e of tlie sutt'eriug party, and
 
 326 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 [Book V. 
 
 1835. 
 
 Hansard, xxxv. 
 382, 384. 
 
 Hansard, xxlx. 
 
 '488. 
 
 insisted upon its suppression. They could not have done better for the objects 
 of the free-traders. The reasons for their venturing thus to disajjpoint tlie 
 expectations of the landed interest were looked for in the evidence, and easily 
 found. The labourer was one part, and the largest, of the agricultural interest: 
 and he was found to be in a state no worse than formerly, but considerably 
 better than of late years. The other two classes, less numerous, united, than 
 that of the labourers, were shown to be victims, not of the pressure of local 
 burdens, but of fluctuations in the price of produce which kept the farmer in 
 perpetual uncertainty about his protits, and the landowner about hi.s rents. 
 The Report would have stated these results : but its suppression, and the pub- 
 lication of the evidence on which it was founded, answered every purpose 
 equally well. Familiar and wearisome as the subject is, it becomes more, 
 instead of less, necessary to record complaints of agricultural distress as every 
 year brings us nearer to the great settlement of the principle of agxicultural " 
 commerce, that it may be clear how that settlement was both occasioned and 
 justified by the sufferings of the landed interest, who might, according to their 
 own annual complaints, gain by a change of system, but could hardly lose. 
 
 The cry for the reduction of taxation was not on behalf of the agriculturists 
 alone. Every year it was demanded ; and every year the Chancellor of the 
 Exchequer replied that government was reducing taxation as fast as it could, 
 without needing the intervention of parliamentary committees, or other 
 stimulus or assistance. — In 1835, there was no surplus, though considerable 
 evidence of prosperity. The great fires in London and Dublin — the destruc- 
 tion of the Houses of Parliament and injury to the Dublin Custom House — 
 occasioned unforeseen expense ; and there were other unexpected charges : 
 but the aspect of affairs was favourable enough to justify the reduction or 
 repeal of a few small taxes ; viz., the duty on flint-glass, now reduced from 
 6d. to 2d. per lb. ; the reduction of the duty on spirit licenses, within a 
 certain limit ; and the repeal of the duty on awards in Ireland, whereby 
 inducement might be oSered to the poorer classes to settle their disputes in a 
 cheaper manner than by going to law. It was found necessary to make an 
 alteration in the tea duty, as well as in that on spirit licenses. Lord Althorp's 
 methods rarely worked well: and in this case it was found necessary very soon 
 to alter the tax on tea. Before the China trade was thrown open, there was 
 a scale of ad valorem tea duties, charged according to tlie prices given at the 
 sales at the India House. When teas might be sold in any shop, government 
 fixed three rates of duty, corresponding with the qualities of teas, in the hope 
 of thus subjecting the purchasers of low-priced teas to a low duty. Besides 
 the temptation to fraud and the infinite trouble sure to be caused by this 
 arrangement, it was soon found that the qualities of teas are not often distinct 
 and distinguishable enough to afford an \inquestionable basis for separate tax- 
 ation. Teas of different value paid the same duty ; and teas of the same 
 value paid a diflTerent duty : the Custom House officers had in their hands, not 
 only an irksome task, but a gi-eater power of oppression than any tax could 
 justify. The House agreed to the proposal of government ; and it was resolved 
 that from the 31st of Jidy, 1830, the discriminatory duty should cease, and be 
 succeeded by one of 2s. Id. on all teas for home consinnption. 
 
 In 1835, an effort was made by Mr. Buhvcr to obtain a repeal of the Stamp
 
 Chap. VIII.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 327 
 
 duty on newspapers. The Chancellor of the Exchequer did not defend the 1835. 
 tax, wliich he admitted to he bad in principle and policy ; but he must satisfy ^— — ^-— ^ 
 himself with pledging his testimony against the tax, and wait for a further srjrp'D'uTv. 
 surplus before he could undertake to repeal it. This was received as a pro- 
 mise to repeal the duty the next year. Between two-thirds and three-fourths 
 of the duty was in fact remitted the next year. The -id. stamp with discount 
 was exchanged for Id. stamp without discount. The reason why the remission JIj^^"'' *^'''''- 
 \vas not complete was that a postage-rate must in that case have been im- 
 posed ; and it was thought more convenient to all parties to retain a small 
 stamp duty. This was a remission of taxation truly honouialde to govern- 
 ment, and beneficial to the people. A vast quantity of trash was immediately 
 driven out of the market, and its place supplied by good newspapers. The 
 lowest order of readers will always prefer what is superior to what is inferior, 
 -in political and social literature, as in every thing else, if both are made 
 equally attainable ; and it presently appeared that unstamped newspapers, got 
 up by adventurers in defiance of law (however faulty the law might be), had 
 DO chance with the least-informed class of readers in the presence of more 
 intelligent journals, now legally made cheap. 
 
 The Report of the Chancellor of the Exchequer was prosperous this year — 183G. 
 1 836 — for the last time for several year.s ; for before the next session, the 
 memorable seven years' distress of the manufacturing classes had given tokens 
 of approach which were not to be mistaken. In 1836, the surplus would have 
 been two millions, but for the payments to the West India planters. As it 
 was, there was a surplus of £662,000, destined in the first place to the re- JJ.™^'"'''' "*'"'• 
 duction of tlie paper duties, which were pernicious in many ways, and espe- paper duties. 
 cially as affording incitement and occasion to extensive frauds. Writing paper 
 had been paying a duty of 25 per cent.; printing paper, from 50 to 60 per cent.; 
 and coarse ])aper, from 70 to 200 per cent. There was now to be a general 
 duty of 1 ;,(/. per lb. on all sorts ; and, as all paper paid duty, the secondary tax 
 on stained paper was remitted altogether. Lord Althorp had repealed the duty 
 on the insiu-ance of farming-stock : and it was now proposed to extend the 
 repeal to tlic insurance duty on farm-buildings. Some smaller ta.xcs went "ansard, jcxini. 
 also, as it was anticipated that there would be a large increase in the con- 
 sumption of paper, and in the s])rcad of newspapers, so as to obviate any ulti- 
 mate loss to the revenue from the rej)eal of tlieir respective duties. — In 1837, 1837. 
 the surjjlus was less than £400,000; and tlie Chancellor of tlie Exchequer bioukt. 
 could onlv declare his own disappointment to be as great as other people's — 
 show that liis former reductions of duty had answered well — declare that the 
 present adversity was owing to tlie commercial panic which had lately pre- 
 vailed — and express his confident hope that the worst was past, and that he 
 should have a more cheering story to tell ne.xt year. 
 
 There was something irritating in the constantly hopeful and satisfied tone ni'Tar^*. 
 of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, whom nothing could discourage or depress 
 so far as to make him evince, at any time, tlie solicitude which seemed natu- 
 rally to belong to his position, in a season of adversity. His poco-ciirantcisw, 
 joined with Lord Melbourne's, was too much for the ])atience of the suffering 
 people (haing the terrible winter of 1836 and 1837. The liarvest had not 
 been a very good one ; and in .Vmerica it was so much worse that there was a 
 
 t
 
 328 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 [Bo 
 
 1837. 
 
 Sppctalor, I83r,, 
 p. [OM. 
 
 JoiNT-SrnrK 
 
 Svamp OIKce 
 Fteturns. 
 
 Porter's ' Pro. 
 press." &c. sec. iii. 
 
 21. 
 
 Tookp's History of 
 Priees, iu 300, 302. 
 
 Annual Ueffister, 
 1837, p. 173. 
 
 large demaiul for wheat from England, exactly at tlie time when tlie money 
 relations of the two countries were in a fearful state. The potato crop had 
 failed at home ; and just when the cold of a severe winter was setting in, 
 there was a complication of distresses which it might appal any minister to 
 face. By the extraordinary action of the American President, General Jack- 
 son, upon the banks, there was a drain for gold from every country that could 
 send away: and the stock in the Bank of England was lower than at any 
 time since the passing of the Bill of 1819, except during the worst of the 
 crisis of 1825. The prices of all articles but food were so low that manu- 
 fiictures seemed likely to stop for the winter ; while, from the insufficient sup- 
 ply of food, and the drain from abroad for wliat there was, tlic price of corn 
 and other provisions was rising from week to week. When tlie Bank took 
 fright, and " put on the screw," the dismay was extreme, and nothing better 
 was looked for than such a winter as that of ten years before. 
 
 During the preceding prosperity — during the three years of fine seasons, 
 abundant harvests at home, and increased production of food in Ireland — 
 speculation had revived, and had shown itself especially in the direction of 
 banking. Now the time had come for looking into the matter — now-, when 
 the Bank of England had restricted her issues, and made the pain or numbness 
 of the operation felt through every nerve of the commercial and manufactin-ing 
 body of the nation. In the first seven years from the institution of Joint-Stock 
 banking, thirty-four joint-stock banks were established. Nearly the same 
 number rose up in the three following years — extending to the end of 1835. 
 The average thus was, for the ten years, three new banks per annum. But in 
 1836, there were forty-two new ones set up, with branches which increased 
 the number to nearly 200. During that year, the issues of joint-stock banks 
 had increased nearly a million and a half. The branches in connexion with the 
 joint-stock banks existing in 1836 were 670 in number ; and the number of 
 partners was upwards of 37,000. Of these banks more than three-fourths 
 issued their own notes ; and those that issued the notes of the Bank of Eng- 
 land, in exchange for flxcilities in the way of discounts, were bound not to send 
 up less than a certain amount of bills for discount ; so that the local issues 
 were thus put by the Bank out of its own power of control. — During the three 
 years of fine harvests, the jirice of wheat had fallen from 55.s. 5d. to 36s. ; the 
 abundance of food more than compensated to the working classes for the rising 
 prices of other articles ; and their condition was one of unusual prosperity. 
 During the latter part of this period, the Bank of England increased its issues 
 by a million, and other banks (in England, Wales, and Ireland) by tlu-ce mil- 
 lions ; and speculation became almost as mad as it had been ten years before. 
 It was not till April, 1836, that the Bank began to contract its issues ; and the 
 drain of gold had already set in so as to induce the Directors to raise the rate 
 of interest on discount to 4^ per cent, in July, and 5 in August. The joint- 
 stock banks did not take the hint, as had been hoped, but actually increased 
 their issues above 50 per cent, in the course of the year, during the greater 
 part of which the Bank had been striving to stop the drain of gold which had 
 reduced the stock of bullion to five millions. The panic which must come was 
 foreseen by men of business through the summer. Its first manifestation was 
 the failm-e of a gi-eat joint -stock bank in Ireland — the Agricultural and Com-
 
 t irip. VIII.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 329 
 
 mercial — whicli, with its thirty branches, came to n stop in November. A 1837. 
 
 genera] run upon joint-stock banks lia*l begun, and in the north of England " ' 
 
 tliere seemed reason to fear a repetition of the miseries of 1826. To avoid 
 tljis, and in fear for its own low stock of bullion, the Bank of England gave 
 ample and rapid assistance — saving first the gi-eat IManchester Joint-Stock 
 T3ank — " the Northern and Central," and its forty branches — and in that, and 
 by subsequent efforts, many otliers. — An untoward accident presently after- 
 wards increased the public distrust in the state of commercial affairs. Wlien 
 the 13ank of England raised the rate of interest on discounts, and had to lend 
 to money-dealers who employed the loans in the discount of goods' bills, there 
 was much surprise at tlie quantity of American paper that came in, disclosing American cbe. 
 the existence of an imsound system of creiUts carried on by .six houses in Lon- 
 don and one in Livei-jiool, whidi made advances on jVmerican account to an 
 amount of not less tlian fifteen or sixteen millions at one time, while the 
 means of meeting their liabilities did not altogether amount to so much as one- 
 sixth of the whole. The Biuik Directors sent orders to their agent at Liver- 
 pool to refuse the paper of certain American houses. By some strange indis- 
 cretion, the names of these firms got abroad. Though they fell into immediate 
 discredit, these films contrived to struggle on till the next March, when three 
 of thein, Avhose outstanding acceptances amounted to five millions and a half, 
 suspended payment. The danger now was that other American houses must 
 stop, wliose liabilities, added to those just mentioned, would have amounted to 
 nearly twelve millions. To avert so fatal a shock, the Bank sustained the 
 three great houses till they had considerably lessened tlie amount of their lia- 
 biUtics. But such transactions did not confirm public confidence in England, 
 and occasioned a further embarrassing reaction from America, wliere the conse- 
 (juence was uothuig less than the knocking up of idl the b;uiks which had 
 cscaj)ed the operations of President Jackson. 
 
 Amidst such a state of affairs, it was not to be wondered at that renewed ,'!""'™,':r^''°' 
 
 ' I tiMMlTTI.r. Or 
 
 parliamentary inquiry into the principles and practice of banking Weas desii-ed. ''^'J'""- 
 
 A committee of inquiry into the operation of joint-stock banks had sat, -v^ith 
 
 Mr. CHay as chairman, in the session of 1836, and had resolved, at tlie close, to 
 
 ])rescnt such evidence as had come before them, without declaring any doctrine 
 
 or recommendation till the subject should have been ])rosecuted further. Tlie 
 
 royal sjieech of the 31st of January, 1837, emphatically recommended the sub- "■">""■'•. "'"i ^. 
 
 jcct to the earnest attention of tlie House of Commons, declaring that, while 
 
 tlie best security against the mismanagement of banking must always be 
 
 foinid in the integrity and ability of the managers, no legislative regulation 
 
 should be omitted which can confirm the security. 
 
 On the (Jtli of Februarv, the Chancellor of the Exchequer moved for the unncnni, jjth. 
 ". . ... I**- 
 
 reni^wal of the late committee ; to which the majority of the House eagerly 
 
 assented. In the course of the debate, there seemed to be an almost universal 
 agreement to express confidence in joint-stock banks, to ])vaise th(>ir manage- 
 ment under late diflicultics, and to blame the Bank for various faults of con- 
 duct. The committee, however, fi)und occasion to recommend large alterations 
 in the arramjrements of joint-stock banks; and these were embodied in an .\(t ' vi.- ■• 73. 
 wliicli became law on the ITlli ol'.Iidy, 1837. l!y this .-Vet, shareholders be- i'^nk act.. 
 I ame liable for only the amount of their shares; and there (unld no luuijei be
 
 330 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book V. 
 
 1837. an unrestricted nominal capital, or an imperfect registration of the names of 
 ' — ""^'•^^ shareholders. — A further regulation was carried out in 184-i, hy an Act which 
 I'oiii iMci i 270 '^^^y ^^ refened to here, as concluding the suhjcct. By this Act, every new 
 company is required to present a petition to the Queen in Council, signed hy 
 at least seven of the .shareholders, praying for a patent of institution, and offer- 
 ing all the necessary details of the persons, the capital, the method of manage- 
 ment, the locality proposed, and so on. The petition is then examined by the 
 Board of Trade, and certified to be in compliance with the law. The deed of 
 partnership is superintended by the Board of Trade. An unauthorized partner 
 can now uo longer bind the rest of the partners to any act ; but only an autho- 
 rized director. Joint-stock banks have now the right of suing and being 
 sued. — The difficulties and dangers of banking are not removed by these Acts; 
 — nor can be by any means whatev€;r till the intricate subject of Currency — 
 which includes many others — is absolutely understood by a few, and compa- 
 ratively well by all parties immediately concerned. Meantime, we see in the 
 records of the time a melancholy picture of popular ignorance extending to 
 high places, while the consequent misery spread down to the lowest. One 
 member of parliament thought that a silver standard would set all right ; — 
 another declared, in allusion to the cheerfulness of the Chancellor of the Ex- 
 chequer, that Ministers were fiddling while the State was burning ; that the 
 distress of 1825-6 was not a millionth part of what existed at present; and 
 that a paper currency, regulated by the demand, was the only cure ; — one was 
 for requiring incessant and minute returns from every banking establishment, 
 for the sake of control by the Bank of England or the government ; and another 
 was opposed to all inquiry whatever till the " infant" joint-stock banks could 
 show what they could do : — some were for making the Bank of England the 
 only bank of issue : — others were for allowing no issues but by a National 
 Bank, which should be responsible to the Crown and to parliament : and others 
 again were for perfect free trade in money. Amidst these differences, men 
 might be advancing towards knowledge; and parliament did something in 
 improving the securities of joint-stock banks : but there was something melan- 
 choly and alarming in the sense and evidence of general ignorance which was 
 pressed upon the thoughtful by the incidents of the time. It was within the 
 period mentioned above that a Currency discussion took place at the Political 
 Economy Club, at which three Cabinet Ministers attended as hearers, and 
 where three or more chiefs of the science propounded their respective doctrines. 
 The matter was gone into with all possible ability, earnestness, and temper ; 
 and no one complained of want of opportunity to state his doctrine fully. No 
 one of these chiefs converted another ; only one, if any, gave a general im- 
 pression of being fully master of his subject ; and no one could be declared to 
 have settled the mind of any hearer. The three Cabinet Ministers listened in 
 earnest silence, and committed themselves to no ojnnion. It is probable that 
 they thought, like other hearers, that the subject, certainly fathomable, is as 
 yet as far from being fathomed as any on which society is under the fiite of 
 proceeding from day to day, without being able to pause for wisdom to choose 
 a path which might guide her clear of some terrible abyss a-head, instead of 
 straigiit into it. We now know, only too feelingly, that the monetary crisis 
 of 1830-7 was not to be the last.
 
 N'atiosai. Re- 
 
 1 GISTItAlIUN. 
 
 Chap. VIII.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 331 
 
 One of the most useful and beneficial acts of legislation of this ici>ni was 1837. 
 that which gave the nation a Registration of Births, Marriages, and Deaths : 
 and the year 1830 was that which introduced it. In noting the year of its ori"in, 
 tlic mind i.3 carried on to contemplate the spread of its consequences, which 
 may indeed he fairly considered incalculable. The most obvious, though tlic 
 lowest, consideration is the security of property given by the existence of an 
 authentic and accessible record of tlie family events which govern the trans- 
 mission of real property. — Another consideration, deeply felt by a large section 
 of the people, was the removal of a tacit disgrace and disability from the Dis- 
 senters ; a disgrace and disability never designed, but growing out of the fact 
 that whatever registration existed was ecclesiastical and not civil. Not births, 
 but baptisms, were, up to this time, registered: — no marriages but those which 
 took place at the church of the Establishment, from which Quakers and Jews 
 were therefore excluded : — no deaths but of persons who were buried by tlie 
 clergy of the Establishment. — Again, here was a means of exploration into 
 the whole of society which miglit answer many beneficent purposes, while it 
 had nothing in it obtrusive or despotic. The nmnbers of the people would be 
 known — their proportion to the means of education — their M'orldly coiulition, 
 as indicated by the proportion of marriages — their sanitary condition, as indi- 
 cated by the proportion of mortality, and the luiturc of the jnaladics whicli 
 carried them oflT: — and, finally, here would be, always at hand, a vast body of 
 statistical facts, out of which social reforms might be constructed, according 
 to tin; speculations of the most thoughtful, and perhaps beyond the dreams of 
 tlie most imaginative. In old times, the registration, being exclusively eccle- 
 siastical, was one of the duties appointed expressly to the clergyman, on his 
 entrance into his function ; but it was used for civil purposes which caused it 
 to be disliked, and consequently evaded, where possible. It was used for 
 taxing purposes, as in the Act of 6 and 7 William III. c. 6, when duties were raii. uiti. ii. oaa. 
 kwied " on IJirths, Marriages, and Burials, and upon bachelors and widowers, 
 for the term of five years, for carrying on the war against France with vigoiu'." 
 The most recent legislation u^wn tlie subject had chiefly provided for tlic 
 security of the records — ordaining that the books should be made of parchment 
 or strong paper, and kept in dry and well-painted iron chests. No c()uce])tioii 
 of the importance of such a measure as a complete civil registration of the 
 life, death, and domestic condition, of the whole ])eople seems to have entered 
 the mind of the nation till our own centvu'y; and that century will hereafter 
 be regarded as honourable in which it was done. 
 
 The improvement in the Marriage law connected with this measure has been MMinnmi. 
 specified before. Sir R. Peel introduced the sound principle of rendering 
 marriage a Civil Contract, only so far obligatory by law, because the civil 
 contract is all that the State has to do with ; and the religious celebration is a 
 matter of private conscience altogetlier. From the time of the passage of this 
 Act, the business lay, as far as the State was concerned, between the Hegistrav 
 and th(! parties intending to marry. The marriage might take i)lace at the 
 oflicre of the Superintendent Registrar, or at any church or cliapel rcgisteretl 
 for the purpose, without ]tublication of hanus, and iu virtue of tlie Registrar's 
 cerliticate that the provisions of the law iiail been (i(inpli(Hl with — the Uegis-
 
 332 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book V; 
 
 1837. trar being present, and the certificate being delivered to the officiating clergy. 
 
 -^^i-^-i«^_ man, or the registering officer in any dissenting chapel or synagogue. If the 
 parties are married at the Superintendent Registrar's office, that officer must 
 be present, and another registrar, and two witnesses ; the hom's and open 
 doors must be the same as in other cases, and also the declarations as to the 
 absence of legal impediment. In the place of the former publication of banns, 
 
 I'liiit. Diet. ii. 323. there was now to be a sufficient previous residence and length of notice — the 
 publication of banns being henceforth confined to the case of members of the 
 Establishment. By this Act, the Dissenters obtained a relief which it will 
 hereafter be astonishing that they could have waited for so long; and the 
 State began to practise the virtuous prudence of making marriage as accessible 
 as it at present knew how, and consonant to the principles and feelings of the 
 conscientious of every way of thinking. 
 
 This marriage business occupied one of the two Bills brought forward by 
 Lord John Ilussell on the 12th of February. The other provided' for the 
 
 iirimis AND registration of Births and Ueaths. The guardians of the poor were to divide 
 
 liy, VTHS. ° , , , ... 
 
 I'oiii. nict. ii. the parishes into districts which should be supplied with a sufficiency of regis- 
 trars. The occupiers of houses were encouraged to give notice, within a 
 certain time, of every birth and death that happened therein, with such parti- 
 culars as the officers were authorized to ask. A fee on registration must be 
 paid, after the lapse of the shortest term specified ; and a heavier fee after 
 further delay. Births and deaths happening at sea were to be registered by 
 the captain of the vessel. Those who gave information of deaths were encou- 
 raged to present a declaration of the cause of death, in the handwriting of 
 the attendant medical man. The registers were to be transmitted to London, 
 to be kept in a central office, where access might be had to them, on payment 
 of a small fee. It may be seen at a glance what a broad ground for sanitary 
 improvement was afforded by this measure ; how immediately the prevalence 
 of certain diseases in ]>articular localities must be made apparent ; and how 
 easy it must become in time to ascertain the most important conditions of life 
 and health from a body of facts so large and so unquestionable as is afforded 
 by a general register. 
 
 riiisiOiEBATiuN. In the first year, the number of deaths registered amounted almost exactly 
 to that which Mr. Finlaison, the actuary, previously said it ought to be. The 
 marriages registered were fewer than could have taken place ; and the births 
 fewer still. The prejudices against the registration of births have been giving 
 way ever since, and the returns are less unsatisfactory every year : but they 
 arc still defective ; the births inu-egistered certainly amounting to some thou- 
 sands every year. This is likely to be the last portion of the scheme which 
 will work as it ought. By the end of 1838, the number of registrars amounted 
 to about 2200 ; nearly half of whom were officers in poor law Unions. Of 
 these, above 400 registered marriages, as well as births and deaths ; and 400 
 more registered marriages only. The superintendent registrars were .about 
 
 iimisaid, xx.li. QQQ rjpj^g total expense was estimated by the Ministers, when Lord Jolin 
 Ilussell introduced the measure, at about £80,000 per annum ; and surely he 
 was right in thinking that the money could not be better spent. This great 
 institution, as it may be called, was one result of the reform of the poor law ;
 
 Chap. VIII.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 333 
 
 and if from it should arise a thoroughly effective scliemc of sanitary adminis- 1837. 
 
 tration, we may see in the New Poor Law a cure for other than " the gi-eat ^ — — ^ 
 
 political gangi-ene of England." 
 
 In the session of 1835, a Bill to abolish Imprisonment for Debt had passed impkisonmect 
 the Commons, but had reached the peers too late for any chance of becoming 
 law that year. In 1836, the Lord Chancellor introduced a similar measure Han^ani, xxxiv. 
 on the 30th of June : but, before the middle of July, when the vote for the 
 second reading was to be taken, the Duke of WeUington settled, for himself 
 and the House, that it was too late to proceed with a matter of such import- 
 ance ; and, though the Premier thought there was plenty of time, the Hill 
 was dropped. — Some success was now, at last, obtained by those who had, for 
 several sessions, attempted to obtain the benefit of counsel for prisoners on J;."^'";;':'- *"" 
 trial for felony. Twice had a Bill to this effect passed the Commons, and 
 been obstructed or dropped in the Lords : but now the Criminal Law Com- 
 missioners had unanimously recommended that prisoners charged with felony 
 should be allowed the advantage of counsel to address the jury in their defence ; 
 and the proposal came before parliament with a new sanction. The marvel 
 of the case now is that there could have been any doubt about the matter : 
 but there were still persons who were misled by the saying that the Judge 
 was the prisoner's counsel — not considering how much there might be in the 
 case which could never come to the knowledge of the Judge. Lawyers of all 
 polities said this ; some knew cases where innocent men had been sacrificed 
 for want of legal aid ; and all seemed to approve the jiriuciplc of the Bill, 
 while a few, as Lord Lyndhurst, objected to certiiin of the details. In treason 
 trials, at one cud of the scale of crime, and in trials for misdemeanour, at the 
 other, prisoners had the benefit of counsel; but not in the intermediate 
 range. No one among the Peers disputed the absurdity of this ; and in 
 Committee, only one amendment was made to which the Commons did not at 
 once agree. But that amendment was of great consequence ; and it seemed 
 at one time likely to throw out the Bill for that year. The Bill gave the pri- 
 soner the last word. His counsel was to reply to the address for the prosecu- 
 tion, after the evidence was done ^vith. Lord Abinger declared that he would {J^*'"'''' ""''• 
 oppose the Bill if this was in all cases allowed. The Lord Cliancellor defended 
 the provision : but was outvoted. The Commons were disturbed, and requested 
 a conference : tlic Lords would not yield their amendments ; and, sooner than 
 lose the Bill altogether, Mr. Ewart, who brought it in, took what he could Hansard, suv. 
 get, announcing that he should try for the rest another year. 
 
 A new statute was passed this session which repealed the obligation to 
 execute murderers the next day but one after conviction, luiless the day should ii.msani, xxw. 
 liap])en to bo Sunday. The same discretion was now left as to the day of exe- 
 cution, as in other cases of cai)ital conviction. — The i)Owers of Coroners were ronoNKns- 
 enlarged, in the same session, by means of a provision for paying the expenses 
 of medical witnesses, and enabling the Coroner to call for additional medical fi«n<i' wm. iv. 
 evidence, when re(piired. 
 
 An interesting item in the business of parliament, since the great fire, had nkv Horsia oi- 
 been the consideration how to ])n)vide a new House for tlie great Council of 
 the nation to meet and work in. On request from pailiument, a royal commis- 
 sion had been appointed in 1835, to receive plans by open competition for the
 
 334 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [BookV. 
 
 1837. rebuilding of the Houses. Out of more than ninety plans, four hiul been 
 selected for further examination ; and to choose among these was the business 
 of the renewed committee of 1836. A debate was raised by Mr. Hume as to 
 whether the site should not be exchanged for a spot more open and elevated 
 — as, perhaps, St. James's Palace and Marlborough House : but, besides that 
 certain conveniences were connected with the old site, much property had been 
 bought, and many houses pulled down, for the purpose of the rebuilding on 
 the same spot. 
 
 The opinion of the Committees of both Houses as to the choice of plan and 
 architect, was made apparent in March by their proposal of an address to the 
 King, to petition him to institute inquiries as to the probable expense of exe- 
 cuting the plan of Mr. Barry. It was considered a • great day for Art in 
 England when such a work as this was thrown open to competition. Here 
 was no despotism of rank or fame, in king or architect, to settle a matter in 
 which the nation should have a share through its representatives ; but, while 
 the tribunal was as good an one as could have been found to meet all the needs 
 of the case, its nature was a sort of invitation to the people to look upon the 
 enterprise as business of their own, and learn from it, as we all do from enter- 
 prises of our own. It was worth the inconvenience and loss from the fire to 
 give the nation such an exercise in Art and the love of it as the erection of 
 the Palace of Parliament. The cost has far exceeded expectation, and is still 
 heavy ; and it has occurred during a long period of distress ; but it is hard to 
 say how the money could have been better spent than on an object so noble, 
 so truly expedient, so plainly extending its beuefi.ts into a far future, as the 
 erection of a building which will be to a future age what our old Abbeys and 
 Cathedrals are to us now. — INIr. Ban-y's plan appears to have put all others out 
 of sight at once — admirable as some of them were declared to be. One of its 
 excellences was that there was a largeness and unity about its exterior plan 
 which admitted of great modifications, according to circumstances and expe- 
 rience, of interior arrangements : but this advantage was not regarded as a 
 merit by disappointed competitors and their advocates, but rather as a gi-ound 
 of complaint about changes and improvements, and departure from original 
 proposals. If it required the courage of a hero to oflTer such a plan to a body 
 so notoriously utilitarian as the British House of Commons, it required further 
 the jjatience of a saint to endure being " hunted and pursued" as Mr. Barry 
 was from the moment of the preference of the Committees being avowed, and 
 with more or less intermission through succeeding years. But a man who 
 works for ten thousand generations cannot expect perfect sympathy from tlie 
 existing one. He ought to be satisfied with so much as enables him to do his 
 work : and j\Ir. Barry has had much more than this. He might be satisfied 
 with looking forward to future centuries, when men of an advanced order of 
 civilization Avill pass through his imposing corridors and pictured halls, and 
 pause before his magnificent tower, and swell with admiration, without any 
 more dreaming of criticism than we do in pacing a cathedral aisle. The 
 criticism appears to be of a more temporary character even than usual in this 
 case — the most vehement being connected with the process of competition — 
 presently done with — and much of the rest being about the proportions of 
 unfinished work. All this will die away in a few years ; and then the general
 
 CirAF. VIII. J DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 335 
 
 appreciation of the achievement will begin. Meantime, the architect has 1337 
 been well sustained by admiration and sympathy. - .- . -. ^ 
 
 The principle of competition is admitted also in regard to the sculpture and 
 paintings to be deposited within. The present will be ever regarded as a 
 memorable period for British sculptors and painters, as well as architects. 
 They have been invited to open competition, so conducted as that every artist 
 can show, before worthy judges, how far he is capable of conceiving and pre- 
 senting the ideas and facts of the destiny and story of his nation. If there is 
 genius among us, undeveloped, it will be brought out ; and that which has 
 already made itself known cannot but be animated by such an incitement. 
 We may hope to see, in the new Houses of Parliament, the mind of our time 
 stamped for the contemplation of the future, in the form of a history of the 
 past : and if this is not done, it must be because we are not able to do it : for 
 tlio oi)portunity lies open. Niches and pedestals are wailing for statues, and 
 pannels for paintings ; and all our artists arc invited to come and try who is 
 most worthy to supply both. If there are men to do it, it will be done : and 
 that the case is such is a noble feature of the time. — A beginning of the great 
 enterprise was made in 1837 by the formation of the embankment along the 
 river side. It was three years more before anything of the character of the 
 work could show itself; and then, when the east end appeared to the height 
 of the first floor, every one was astonished to find how far the apparition tran- 
 scended all expectation of it that could be caused by descriptions and drawings. 
 
 In connexion with this building, an innovation on the proceedings of ])ar- 
 liament was proposed in two successive sessions, and discussed at more length, 
 and in a less creditable tone, than could have been expected. In July, 1835, admission of 
 it Avas ])roposed in the House of Commons that accommodation should be pro- liuiA'TEr 
 vided in the new edifice for the presence of women at the debates. The jn-o- '37'"'"''''"^"" 
 posal was made in a spiiit and in language which went far to place every 
 sensible woman on the same side of the question with Lord J. Russell, when 
 he declared his disinclination to debate the matter, and his intention to oppose 
 the motion. I^ord J. Russell was outvoted, however, and a Committee was 
 a])])ointed to consider the subject. The wliole proceeding had much the air of 
 an ill-bred joke ; — the speech of the mover — the ostentatious eagerness to second 
 it — the coarse mirth — and the large majority. — On the next occasion, iMay 3d, 
 183(3, matters were worse; — the speeches more indecent — the mirth more flip- 
 ])ant and unmanly — the majority larger in proportion. It seemed likely that „„„,.,rj ,„,j|. 
 the women of England might indeed be invited to be present at the delibera- ''•'" 
 tions of legislators whose method of invitation was an insult in itself, and who 
 ]n-ofesscd to wish for the presence of ladies (among other reasons) as a check 
 u])on intoxication and indecency of language. I5ut the affair was lia]i])ily ])ut 
 an end to by means chiefly of a serious and sensible reply from the Speaker, 
 when asked for his o]nnion on occasion 01 a grant for a Ladies Uallery being >""■* 
 proposed. The grant Avas refused by a majority of 42 against 28. — As for the 
 merits of the ((uestion when considered seriously, then? was little diflereuee of 
 opinion. Those who advocated the admission of women in the gallery did 
 not pretend to be thinking of tlie improvement of the women's knowledge, 
 and the cultivation of their interest in subjects which eon<ern e\<'ry member 
 of society — those who are wailinc; for political parlicipaliun. as well as those
 
 336 
 
 HIS1X)RY OF ENGLAND 
 
 [Book V. 
 
 1837. 
 
 Hansard, xliv, 
 779—784. 
 
 PlUVILEGE 01- 
 
 Pauliasient. 
 
 Hansard, sxxvi. 
 133. 
 
 who have it. Every one knew that serious objects like these are best accom- 
 plished at liome, as the speeches of legislators arc certainly much better in the 
 newspapers than as they are spoken. If the proposition of a Ladies' Gallery 
 had been carried, the place woidd have been found to be occupied almost ex- 
 clusively by giddy and frivolous women, fond of novelty, and with plenty of 
 time to lose ; — a nuisance to the Icgislatiu-e, and a serious disadvantage to the 
 wiser of their own sex — inasmuch as these trillers woidd be understood, from 
 their very j^resencc, to be representatives of the English women who take 
 an interest in politics ; while in reality, the latter class would be precisely 
 those who would be reading and tliinking at home. Whenever the time shall 
 arrive wlien the legal position of Woman in England comes fairly mider tlic 
 eye of the Icgislatiu'e — a position so injiuious as to extract from Lord 
 Erougham the confession, in 1838, that the whole of the law was so atrocious 
 as regards Woman, that there is nothin"' to be done but to leave it alone, and 
 keep it out of sight <as long as possible — it would be a serious disadvantage to 
 Englishwomen to be judged of, as they inevitably Avould be, by such a sample 
 as would have attended the debates on such an invitation as that of Mr. Grantloy 
 Berkeley and Mr. VilHers. As it was, the women of England gained some- 
 thing — in the way of warning how far they were from being respected by those 
 who professed most regard for their political improvement : and the House of 
 Commons lost much — in the way of character for sense and refinement. It had 
 often exposed itself by the boyish passion and pot-house manners wliich had 
 occasioned confusion within its walls : but it now outbid all former disgraces, 
 and excited a disgust which was not likely to be forgotten. The simple- 
 minded now knew something of the way in which some gentry talk when they 
 get together — like to like. The simple-minded were shocked ; but they were 
 glad to know the truth, and resolved to bear it in mind. 
 
 Every one admits, as a general declaration, that no subject can be more im- 
 portant, in the deliberations of parliament, than the defence of its own privi- 
 leges ; yet the whole nation dishkes the subject, and is too apt to despise it. 
 A troublesome and protracted and very serious conflict about the privileges of 
 the C'ommons began in 1837. On the 6th of February, a petition was presented 
 from Messrs. Hansard, the printers to the House, who stated, that in course of 
 the ordinary, authorized sale of parliamentary reports and papers to the public, 
 a Prison Report had been sold, in which was contained a statement given in 
 evidence, that certain prisoners were found reading obscene works, issued by a 
 certain publisher, whose name was given — J. J. Stockdale : — that Stockdale 
 had brought an action for libel against Messrs. Hansard in the Court of King's 
 Bench, laying his damages at £20,000 : that Messrs. Hansard had ])lcaded in 
 justification the sanction and authority of the House of Commons : that the 
 Court of King's Bench had ordered the plea to be struck off the record : and 
 that Messrs. Hansard prayed the protection of the House. 
 
 The pri\'ilegc of parliament was not involved in the act of disallowing tlie 
 Hansards' plea ; the disallowance being merely on the ground that the plea 
 was unnecessary for technical reasons : and, on this ojiening occasion, no one 
 dreamed that the privilege of parliament was in question at all. It was on 
 occasion of the trial, the next day, that the controversy was raised. It was 
 raised by Chief Justice Denman, who said that he was not aware that the au-
 
 Hansard, xxxviii. 
 
 1121. 
 
 Hansard, xxxriii. 
 
 1134. 
 
 Weaknf.ss optmr 
 
 dshnistration. 
 
 Cir.vp. VIII.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 3.37 
 
 thority of the House of Commons could justify the puhlieation of ii lilxl. In 1837. 
 his charge to the jury, he repeated his ojiinion ■with stronsf emphasis; and the ^— — .— ^ 
 jury accordingly foimd, tliat though the hook referred to was obscene and dis- 
 gusting, the defendants were guilty of libel on the publisher. Within a -week, 
 the House took up the matter, and appointed a committee to investigate the 
 question of privilege. On the 30th of May, Lord Howick moved Resolutions fn^^"'- ^''''"''• 
 framed on the Report of the Committee, affirming that the House had full 
 power to publish what it chose ; that to bring the privileges of parliament into 
 discussion before any tribunal but parliament itself, is a high breach of privi- 
 lege : and that for any court or tribunal to assume to decide on the privileges 
 of parliament, otherwise than as carrying out the decisions of citlier House 
 thereon, is contrary to the law of parliament, and a breach and contempt of its 
 privileges. Sir R. Peel supported these Resolutions, against a set, of a con- 
 trary purport, proposed by Sir R. Inglis : and those supported by the two par- 
 liamentary leaders were canied by a majority of 90 in a House of 162. 
 
 Here was the Court of King's Bench placed in direct and irreconcilcable 
 opposition to the House of Commons : — Lord Chief Justice Denman to the 
 assembled representatives of the nation. It was no trifle — such a quarrel as 
 this ; and its issue was awaited with great anxiety by all who imderstood its 
 bearings. 
 
 There is nothing more to be said of the action of parliament during the ^ 
 reign. The Whig INIinisters were not nuni of business. They conveyed the 
 impression of doubt about the quality and practicability of their own measiu'es ; 
 and this was, in fact, inviting the obstruction or demolition of those measures. 
 Every session became, to the sensations of those concerned in it, more and more 
 like a troubled dream, wherein the sufferer is for ever struggling to get on, and 
 for ever in vain. By this time, the Ministers themselves had arrived at com- 
 plaining that they could not carry their measures; and this provoked an in- 
 quiry, by no means spoken sufto voce, whether, in that case, they were fit for 
 the very office whose business is to pass measures. They Avere obliged to en- 
 dure, on occasion of the close of the reign, a speech of scornful rejiroach from 
 liOrd I>yndhurst, which they could not repel with answering scorn, because the 
 Houses and the country know that the taunts, though severely expressed, were 
 mainly true. After showing that, at the end of a session of five months, only 
 two measures of original importance had been passed, while seventy-five public 
 
 bills were deiicndin"- in the Commons, he declared, " Never was the state of """*"''> '"^'U' 
 
 ... ... . . '5'<- 
 
 business in the other House of parliament in the situation in which it was at 
 
 present — never did a government so neglect so important a part of its duty, 
 
 that which it had to discharge in parliament, as the government had done 
 
 durinjj the last five months. The noble \'isc()unt and his collcasiies were 
 
 utterly powerless. They were powerless iilikc in tliat and in the other House: 
 
 they were utterly inefficient and incompetent as servants to tin- Crown ; and, 
 
 he must add also, they were ecpially powerless, incapable, and inefficient, as 
 
 regarded the people He could only say that almost every feasible and 
 
 reasonable man had but one ojjinion ;— but one idea was entertained regarding 
 
 their conduct. It elicited tlie ])ity of their friends, aiul ex(it<'d the scorn and 
 
 derision of the enemies of their country. He gave tliein a pictinc ol" tlu' prc- 
 
 VOL. II. 12 X
 
 338 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book V. 
 
 1837. sent — he liad ulso given tliem a pictme of the past. What then were their 
 ho])es for the future ?"' 
 
 Tliere is no need to accept the vaticinations of an enemy as to the future of 
 the ^Mlig Ministry, as events will presently show us what it was. As for 
 Lord Lyndhurst's pictures of the past and present, they were hailed hy some, 
 excited a smile in others, and were openly resented by very few. They were 
 too nearly true to be strongly impugned. The Premier protested vaguely 
 against them, and went home placidly conscious that he Avas no nearer going 
 out of office for any thing that Lord Lyndhurst could say. A new period, 
 affording fresh chances, was now setting in, during which they might show 
 what they could do. The Premier might now have less leisure and license 
 than hitherto for blowing feathers, and nursing sofa cushions, and serenely 
 swearing in the face of deputations : but he was entering on a new term of 
 power, and was safe for the present — whatever sarcastic enemies, and wearied 
 friends, and the indignant people, might say about the incapacity of the Mel- 
 boiu-nc Ministry to carry on the business of the country.
 
 Chap. IX,] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. .3;3<) 
 
 I.NESS OF TUB 
 NO. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 ^pHE liistory of our Whig administrations is almost made up of obstruction 183 
 -*- on the part of their adversaries, and powerlessness on their own ; hut never ^- — - 
 were the Whig rulers reduced to more desperate straits than in the spring of 
 1837. They were supposed to have staked their existence on carrying thciv 
 measures for Ireland ; but they could not carry them. la the House of Lords 
 the Tories cried out that the country was without a government ; and the 
 Radical members in the other House repeated the cry. The Ministers ^\ere 
 believed to desire earnestly the dissolution of the parliament formed during 
 the short Peel administration ; but the King would not hear of it. The King 
 was believed to desire earnestly the resignation of the Ministers ; but the 
 Ministers did not appear to think of giving up. It was a state of things whicli 
 could not endure long. When the change came, it was not exactly in the way 
 that had been looked for. 
 
 The King's health had been better for the seven years since his accession };■ 
 than for a long previous period ; and he enjoyed a remarkable exemption from 
 the annual attack of hay-fever (as it is called) which had before regularly come 
 on in June. At the beginning of 1837, his family had observed that his 
 strength was not what it had been ; but he was upwards of seventy; and some 
 decline might be looked for. When ^May came in, he appeared to be aging 
 rapidly. On the 17th, he was seated at the levee, for the first time, and looked 
 worn and feeble. On returning to Windsor, he had difficulty in mounting tlie 
 stairs, and sat down on the first sofa. He held a drawing-room the next dav; ,\™"'V,"'^r,".'' 
 
 ' ^ ^ -' ' 18.J7, Misc. 370. 
 
 was again seated, and observed to look still worse ; but he was less fatigued in 
 the evening ; and was in high spirits the next day — which was the anniversary 
 of the battle of La Hogue. He talked a gi-eat deal about our naval warfare, 
 and was caiTied away by the favourite subject of our victories at sea din-ing the 
 last century. He was stopped two or three times by difficulty of breathing, but 
 went on again. The next morning, Saturday the 20th, he was much the worse 
 for the exertion — co<ild take no breakfast, and fell back fainting at lunch-tinie 
 — and again at dinner. It was clear that evening that he could not go to town 
 in the morning, to be present at the re-opening of the Chapel Royal. It was 
 ten at night before he gave it up, and he then left the drawing-room, never 
 to enter it again. On ^londay and Tuesday, he saw the Ministers. On Wed- 
 nesday, there was a grand ball at St. James's, given by the King in celebration 
 of the Princess Victoria attaining her majority. The ball was none of tli<' 
 merriest, from the absence of the King and Queen; but the King sent tokens 
 of his kindly sympathy. He presented the Princess with a magnificent i)iano- 
 forto, as his birthday offering. He held a council on the Saturday; but was 
 wheeled in a chair into the council-room, as he could no longer walk. — ^\ hen 
 June arrived, lie and those about him called his illness the old hay-fever. 
 
 c
 
 340 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book V. 
 
 1837. Whatever it was, it ilisappoiuted him of meeting the great parties he had 
 invited for the Eton regatta on the 5th, and Ascot races afterwards. As he 
 sat in his easy eluiir, breatliing with difficulty and sinking in weakness, the 
 kiud-hearted old man thought of various things which might add to the plea- 
 sure and comfort of the Eton lads, and others of his guests below ; and many 
 were the orders he gave. He insisted on the Queen's going to Ascot on the 
 race day, that there might be as little disappointment to the public as possible. 
 She was not gone long ; and when she returned, she observed a considerable 
 change for the worse, in those two hours. — The dinner in St. George's Hall 
 the next day was dull and sad : but there was talk of the King being removed 
 to Brighton in the morning, when perhaps the sea air might revive- him. 
 When the morning came, he was too ill to stir ; and the guests at the Castle 
 all went away after breakfast. An extraordinary stillness prevailed ; and 
 now, the King's danger was freely spoken of there, and in London. Tlie 
 danger was supposed to be extreme ; but he revived a little, and transacted 
 some business with Sir Herbert Taylor the next day (the 9tli), signing papers 
 with much difficulty, but showing all necessary clearness of mind. 
 
 A bulletin was now first issued ; but on the morrow, the King was so 
 much better as to lead even his own attendants to think that the attack might 
 be got over for the time. The improvement was, however, merely owing to 
 medicines which temporarily relieved the breathing. During his severest suf- 
 fering, he was eminently patient, thankful for kind offices, and ever cheerful : 
 and when he was relieved, it became evident liow great had been the suffering 
 which he had borne so quietly. His spirits rose, and lie was full of thanks- 
 giving. He was fully conscious of his danger throughout, and, sincerely 
 believing that, from the youth of the Princess Victoria, it was desirable that 
 he should live some years longer, he prayed for life — not for his own sake, but 
 for that of the country. He had prayers read very frequently ; and they 
 always revived him. — On the 13th, he chose to see the Hanoverian Minister 
 on business ; and, on the l-ltli, the Duke of Cumberland — he and they, no 
 doubt, being fully aware that the connexion between the kingdoms of Hanover 
 and England was hourly dissolving with his failing breath. Possibly, his 
 desire to live ten years longer for the public good might have as much refer- 
 ence to Hanover as to Great Britain. — For a few days more he fluctuated 
 between life and death — now appearing to be breathing his last, and then 
 signing a paper or two as he could rally his strength for the effort. His last 
 act of sovereignty was signing the pardon of a condemned criminal. — On the 
 Sunday, he received the sacrament from the hands of the Archbishop of Can- 
 terbury ; and he appeared to derive so much solace from the mere presence of 
 the Primate, though unable to speak or to listen much, that the Archbishop 
 remained in the room till late into the night. — The anniversary of Waterloo 
 was always a great day with the King. The Duke of Wellington would not 
 have held his usual banquet without complete assurance of the Queen's 
 wishes : but the good old king's thoughtfulness settled the matter, the day 
 before. He sent a message to the Duke, to desire that the dinner might take 
 place as usual, and to wish the host and guests a pleasant day. — On the 19th, 
 he saw all his children, and let them understand how fully aware he Avas that 
 his death was just at hand. His last distinct and deliberate words appear to
 
 I

 
 Chap. IX.J DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. .341 
 
 have been those which he addressed to the Primate at the moment of their 1837. 
 
 final parting: — "Believe me, I am a religious man." He sank during the " — '^^ ' 
 
 night, and died soon after two in the morning. Km'!' '""""'• 
 
 And then took place that inunediate opposite action — that sudden revulsion Mulriss'?'!"'"'' 
 of feeling — which the demise of royalty seems to necessitate, but which can 
 never, under any circumstances, fail to be painful to every reflective person. 
 Three carriages instantly drove up ; and into those carriages went the Primate, 
 the Earl of Albemarle, and Sir Henry Halford, the royal physician. It was 
 not five o'clock when they arrived at Kensington palace. The doors were ■'""""^ Register. 
 
 , , or 1837. C'hron. IJO. 
 
 thrown open before them ; in the morning sunshine stood tlie young Queen accession o.- 
 and her mother, expecting the news, and ready for that day's impressive ^'^^'"''* ^ "■'"""' 
 business — that birth to regality which, like the natural birth, can take place 
 but once. — Having delivered their news, the messengers proceeded to London, 
 to wake up the government and the nation with tidings of the accession of 
 their Queen. 
 
 How widely were those tidings to extend ! In a few hours they would 
 spread in all directions to the sea : in a few days, the Irish on their wild 
 western coast and the fishermen in the straits of the Orkneys would be won- 
 dering how the young girl looked, and what she said when told that she held 
 the highest rank and the largest power on earth. In a few weeks, her subjects 
 in the farthest Canadian provinces of her dominions would be assembling in 
 the clearings of the forest inuler the summer night, or in the broad moonlight 
 on the prairie, to ask if any one knew how the Queen looked and what she 
 said when told the news. In a few months, turbaned messengers would be 
 posting over the plains of India with the tidings ; and in shaded rooms, or 
 under the shelter of tents, people would be speculating in like manner on the 
 first feelings of a young Queen, and soldiers would swear to themselves and to 
 each other to fight and die in her service. Somewhat later, the solitary shep- 
 herd on the Australian plains would bo musing on the news dropped by a pas- 
 senger from the coast, and would, if an exile through poverty, or through 
 crime, speculate on whether want or temjjtation could still oppress men so 
 cruelly, now that a young Queen, with a heart full of mercy, and jiower in her 
 hands to do what she would, was to rule over a devoted people. It was an 
 occasion which appealed to all hearts: — a time when romantic expectation took 
 possession of many who never knew romance before, and some who had 
 believed that they should never know expectation again. What pvery one 
 most wanted to learn was whether such exaltation and such hope were in the 
 bosom of the young sovereign herself. Every movement, every tone, was 
 eagerly and lovingly watched, on this extraordinary day of lier life, and for 
 some time afterwards : and on this day, her demeanour was all that could be 
 wished. 
 
 15y nine o'clock Lord Melbourne was at Kensington, was instantly admitted, 
 and stayed half an hour, arranging for the assembling of the Privy Council at 
 eleven. Before noon, came the Lord Mayor, with aldermen and other mem- 
 bers of the Corporation, to offer their duty on behalf of the city of Loiulon. — 
 Next arrived llie King of Hanover — the Ernest, Duke of Cumberland, whose 
 confidential agent had propounded to the loyal Orangemen the scheme of 
 setting aside this young girl from lici inlieritance because slie was a girl and 
 
 I
 
 3't2 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 [Book V. 
 
 1837. 
 
 Skvehance op 
 Hanovbr prom 
 England. 
 
 Annual Register, 
 1837, p. 237. 
 The CouNcil.. 
 
 Queen's Ad- 
 dress. 
 
 Annual Register, 
 1837, Chron. 62. 
 
 young. Lord Lyndhurst lent him his carriage, that no time might be lost ; 
 but he left the palace in his own state coach — to start, as soon as possible, for 
 his new kingdom, which had presently cause to mourn his arrival much more 
 than England did his departure. There was no word of regret, even in 
 newspapers, for the loss of a collateral kingdom which had formed a part of 
 the British empire for a century and a quarter : and if this arose in part from 
 the indifference of the nation to the possession of profitless foreign territory, it 
 must be ascribed in part also to the general satisfaction at the departure of the 
 Duke of Cumberland, and at the sceptre having passed down to a new^ gene- 
 ration, from which more might be hoped fhan could ever have been derived 
 from that which had given the nation much to bear in many ways since the 
 opening of the century. 
 
 On the meeting of the Princes, Peers, and other Councillors, they signed the 
 oath of allegiance ; and the first name on the list was that of " Ernest," King 
 of Hanover. The Queen caused them all to be sworn in members of her Council, 
 and tlien addressed them : after which they issued orders for the Proclamation 
 of her iMajesty. If the millions who longed to know how the young sovereign 
 looked and felt could have heard her first address, it would have gone far to 
 satisfy them. The address w-as, of course, prepared for her ; but the manner 
 and voice were her own ; and they told much. Her manner was composed, 
 modest, and dignified ; her voice firm and sweet ; her reading, as usual, 
 beautiful. She took the necessary oaths, and received the eager homage of 
 the thronging nobility, without agitation or any kind of awkwardness. Her 
 declaration contained an affectionate reference to the deceased King ; an 
 assertion of her attachment to the constitution of the country, and of her 
 intention to rule in accordance with it ; a grateful allusion to her mother's 
 educational care of her ; an avowal that under circumstances of such eminent 
 responsibility as hers, she relied for support and guidance on Divine Provi- 
 dence ; and a pledge that her life should be devoted to the happmess of her 
 people. — The Ministers returned into her hands, and received again, the seals 
 of their respective offices ; — the stamps in official use were ordered to be 
 altered ; and also the prayers of the Church which related to the royal family : 
 the Proclamation was prepared, and signed by the Privy Councillors ; and the 
 Queen appointed the next day, Wednesday, for the ceremony. The first use 
 of the Great Seal under the new reign was to authenticate the official procla- 
 mation ; Mhich was gazetted the same evening. — During the whole morning, 
 carriages were driving up rapidly, bringing visitors eager to offer their homage. 
 What a day of whirl and fatigue for one in a position so lonely, at such tender 
 years ! How welcome must have been the night, and the quiet of her pillow, 
 whatever might be the thoughts that rested upon it ! The next morning, she 
 appeared " extremely pale and fatigued :" and no wonder ; for she had passed 
 through a day which could never be paralleled. 
 
 While the eagerness of homage and duty was thus suddenly gathering about 
 the Kensington Palace, all was very still at Windsor. While the niece was 
 receiving needful and most cordial assurances and offers of duty and support, 
 the uncle was past all such needs. He had received all kind and dutiful 
 offices with gratitude to the last : and now no one could do any thing more 
 for him, or receive his thanks. An attached wife, and daughters who were
 
 Chap. IX.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 343 
 
 long in recovering from the grief of his loss, were at hand ; and every thing 1837. 
 else was very still. Perhaps there miglit he, amidst the gTief, a calmer sleep — — - — -' 
 in the twilight of sovereignty here than in the bright dawn of it wliich was 
 kindling in the other palace. And how dilFerent was the review of the life 
 which had gone ont from the anticipation of that which was just setting forth 
 
 on a new career 
 
 r! 
 
 William Henry, the third son of George III., was bom in August, 1765, wh-luh iv. 
 and was therefore in his seventy-second year at the time of his death. He 
 was destined for the sea, and became a midshipman at the ag-e of fourteen. It ''™"y '"'''',?,''■• 
 
 ' » 1 O XXTll. 1>. 4UU. 
 
 is amusing to read, at this distance of time, of the distresses of the Admiralty 
 at the insubordination to rules shown by Prince William, when lie had risen 
 high enough in the service to liave a ship of his own to play his pranks with. 
 When he was two or three and twenty, he twice left a foreign station without 
 leave, thus setting an example which might ruin the discipline of the navy, if 
 left unpunished. But how adequately to punish a Prince of the Blood was 
 the perplexity of the Admiralty. They ordered him to remain in harbour at 
 Plymouth for as long a time as he had absented himself from his proper post, 
 and then to return to his foreign station. This was not enough ; but it was 
 thought to be all that could be done in such a case ; and the Prince was witli- 
 drawn from the active exercise of his profession — from that time ascending 
 through the gradations of naval rank as a mere matter of form. For twenty 
 years, he continued thus to rise in naval rank, besides being made Duke oi 
 Clarence, with an allowance from parliament of £12,000 a year. During 
 those twenty years, when he should have been active in his profession, he was 
 living idly on shore, endeavouring after that enjoyment of domestic life for 
 which he was eminently fitted, and from which our princes are so cruelly 
 debarred by the operation of the Royal Marriage Act. The Duke of Clarence 
 was the virtual liusband of ilrs. Jordan, the most bewitching of actresses, and 
 the queen of his heart during the best part of his life. They had ten chil- 
 dren — five sons and five daughters. It is averred by those who understand 
 the matter well that the conduct of the Duke of Clarence in his unfortunate 
 position was as good as the circumstances pennitted : — that lie was as laitliful 
 and generous to Mrs. Jordan as some parties declared him to be otherwise. 
 When men place themselves in such a position, they are boutul to bear all its 
 consequences without complaint ; and it is understood that the Duke of Cla- 
 rence endured much complaint and undeserved imputation with a patience 
 and silence which were truly respectable. His children, the Fitzclarence 
 family, were received in society with a freedom very unusual in England 
 under such circumstances, and certainly, the strict English i)('0])le appeared to 
 be pleased rather than oflcnded that the afiectionate-hearted prince, to wliora 
 no real liberty of marriage had been left, should be surrounded in his old age 
 by children who rc])aid his affection by exemplary duty and care. It this was 
 a spectacle unfit — by tlio very mixture of goodness in it— for the Court ot 
 England, the harm tliat there was in it was ascribed to the position of royalty 
 ratlier than the fault of the juince, while all believed that no reparation to 
 the purity of society could be effectually made by depriving the old man of the 
 comfort of his children's society. Some of the family had occasion to find 
 tli;it forbearance could go even furt]i(>r than this; fur tliey were left uulnut.
 
 344 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. [Book V. 
 
 1837. except by universal censuvc, after their improper niul foolish exertion of 
 
 ^ domestic influences against the lleform Bill and the Grey Administration. 
 
 The King's relatives were ready to be as good-humoured towards the Fitzcla- 
 rences as the public were : and one of the early acts of the young Queen was 
 continuing to them the allowance of £500 a year each which had been granted 
 to them by their father. Most people thought there was a wide difference 
 between their accepting this sum from a father who chanced to be the sove- 
 reign, and from a sovereign who was under no domestic obligation towards 
 them at all : but the Fitzclarences appeared not to perceive this : and when 
 one of them soon after deliberately destroyed himself, he left a letter to the 
 Queen, requesting that this income might be continued to his children ; a 
 request of which it was thought right to take no notice. — After the death of 
 the Princess Charlotte, whcji many royal marriages took place, in competition 
 for the succession, the Duke of Clarence married the eldest daughter of the 
 Uuke of Saxe Meiningen. No issue from tliis marriage survived, though two 
 infants were born only to die. — For a few months, as we have seen, the Duke 
 of Clarence bore the dignity of Lord High Admiral ; and he had previously 
 performed a few holiday services on the sea by escorting and coi^«ying royal 
 visitors and adventurers across the Channel, and up and do.yf^; in it. — In 
 politics, he had through life shown the same changeableness as'iii his conduct 
 on the throne. On scarcely any subject was he firm but in his opposition to 
 the abolition of slavery. He had not mind enough to giasp a i;reat principle 
 and liold to it; and, as he had not the obstinacy of lii5#'ather and elder 
 brothers, he was necessarily infirm of purpose, and as difficult to deal with 
 in state matters as any of his family. What the difficulty amovmted to, 
 the history of the Reform movement shows. In other respects, there was no 
 comparison between the comfort of intercourse with him and with the two 
 preceding sovereigns. He had not the stupid self-will and self-sufficiency of 
 George III., nor the vulgar and libertine selfishness of George IV. He was 
 too harebrained to be relied on with regard to particular measures and opi- 
 nions ; but his benevolent concern for his people, his confiding courtesy to 
 the Ministers who were with him (whoever they might be), and his absence 
 of self-regards, except where his timidity came into i^hiy, made him truly 
 respectable and dear, in comparison with his predecessors. When his weak- 
 ness was made conspicuous by incidents of the time, it seemed a pity tliat he 
 should have been accidentally made a king: but then again some trait of 
 benignity or patience or native humility would change the aspect of the case, 
 and make it a subject of rejoicing that virtues of that class were seen upon 
 the throne, to convince such of the people as might well doubt it that a king 
 may have a heart, and that some of its overflow n\ight be for them. 
 His Fi.NFtiAL. The funeral took place at night on the 8th of July, the Duke of Sussex 
 
 Annual Rptjistpr 
 
 1837. chron. 73'. being Chief Mourner. For the last time, the Royal Crown of Hanover was 
 placed beside the Imperial Crown on the coffin of a king of England. The 
 wife who had so well performed her duties was present. Queen Adelaide, 
 now Queen Dowager, was in the royal closet. When the coffin had been 
 lowered, dust thrown upon it, the blessing pronounced, and the rocket sent up 
 from the portal which was to cause the lowering of tlie flag on the Round 
 Tower, the royal widow left the place, and was followed by the mourners, as
 
 Ciivp. IX.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 31-5 
 
 soon as the style and titles of the now sovereign had been recited. Ther(,' were 1837. 
 
 no January night fogs here, to peril the lives of the mourners ; hut instead, a — 1 — ' 
 
 lieat so stifling as to make the crowd glad to disperse at the first possible 
 moment. — On the 13th, the Queen, accompanied by her mother, left the old 
 home at Kensington, to take possession of Buckingham Palace. It was the 
 middle of the day ; and crowds were waiting to cheer her on her passage to 
 her regal home. She accepted the homage ; but she was pale and grave : and 
 there were none of her subjects who would not rather have seen this paleness 
 and gravity than tokens of a gayer mood. 
 
 To some, it was not very far to look back to the May in which she was born, Qiees victobh. 
 and the month — so soon afterwards — when the newspapers told of the Duke 
 of Kent's illness — how he had come in with wet boots, and, " beguiled by the 
 smiles of his inhmt jmncess," had played with the baby instead of changing 
 his boots, till it was too late, and he had caught the cold of which he died. 
 The course of years now seemed very short during which they had watched 
 the growth and training of the princess ; and here she was — out of her 
 minority the other day, and now sovereign. What they had heard was favour- 
 able. If there had been omissions in her education, there had been no mis- 
 guidance, and no corruption. If the intellect had not been made the most of, 
 tlie morals were pure, and the habits correct. From an early age, the Princess 
 had been seenV^lking in all weathers; — sometimes in winter, with thick shoes 
 and a warm cloak on a windy common. She kept early hours, and was active 
 and scrupulously punctual — apologizing for being half a minute late for an 
 appointment, when that extraordinary circumstance happened once in her life. 
 She had her allowance of money from an early age : her way of spending much 
 of it was known at Tunbridge Wells, and other places of summer sojourn ; but 
 nobody ever heard of her being sixpence in debt for an hour : — on the contrary, 
 when her childish fancy was taken with some article which she wished to buy 
 for a present to a cousin, she was seen to conclude at once that slie must gi\i' 
 it up, because she had not money enough till quarter-day to pay for it. And 
 wlicn it was put by for her — to her great satisfaction— it was as early as seven 
 in the morning of quarter-day that she came down, on her donkey, to secure 
 her purchase. These tilings are no trifles. The energy and conscientiousness 
 brought out by such training are blessings to a Avholc people ; and a multitude 
 of her more elderly subjects, to this day, feel a sort of delighted surprise as 
 every year goes by without any irritation on any hand about regal extrava- 
 gance — ^\-ithout any whispered stories of loans to the sovereign — without any 
 mournful tales of ruined tradesmen and exasperated creditors. At first, the 
 Ouecn was very rich; — many persons thought, much too rich, for a maiden 
 (Jueen, whose calls could as yet be nothing. Ihit in the first year, she paid 
 her father's heavy debts ; — debts contracted before she was born. Next, she 
 paid her mother's debts ; — debts which she knew to be contracted on her ac- 
 count. We have seen what she did for the family of the late sovereign. Next, 
 she married ; and, properly enough, nothing was said about any increase of 
 income. Now, she has a large family of children, and such claims and liabili- 
 ties as grow up out of twelve years of sovereignty ; and still we hear notiiing 
 of any royal needs or debts. She lives on lier income, and pays as she goes; 
 and perhaps she can never know how niucli she gains of the respect and afFcc- 
 
 vor.. II. - ^' 
 
 I
 
 346 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book V. 
 
 1837. tion of her subjects, by a prudence and conscientiousness so unusual in royalty, 
 
 ' — -— --^-^ but as graceful there as in any other station. 
 
 As for the domestic respectability in more important respects •which might 
 now be looked for — it was really refreshing to the heart and soul of the nation. 
 A new generation Mas now on the throne ; and tlicre was no scandal as yet, 
 nor any reason to suppose there ever would be any. Here was no corruption 
 bred of the Royal Marriage law — nothing illicit — nothing questionable ; but 
 instead, a young girl, reared in health and simplicity, who might be expected 
 to marry soon — making her choice for herself, so that there was every hope 
 that she might love her husband, and be a good and happy wife. Thus far, 
 all was sound and rational ; and the event has proved it so. The tnisound and 
 irrational part of the popular joy and expectation was that for which she her- 
 self was in no way responsible, and for the injustice of whicli towards herself 
 lior most truly loyal subjects were the most grieved. She was taken to be, not 
 only more able and wise than she was, but more wise and able than any per- 
 son of her years is ever seen to be ; — not only more powerful than she was, but 
 more so than any English sovereign, under our present constitution, can ever 
 be ; and there was every risk that when disappointment came, as come it must, 
 the innocent sovereign would be punished for the unreasonableness of her 
 adoring subjects. The wise protested against any expectation that a second 
 English queen would have the genius of ElizaDcth, witliout her despotic ten- 
 dencies ; or her royal maternity of feeling towards her people in an age when 
 the function itself is destroyed by the growth of the representative system, and 
 the sovereign is no longer the political ruler of England. The wise might 
 protest; but the people — up to the most enlightened rank of them — expected 
 from Queen Victoria things almost as wonderful as that she should go to the 
 Rock of Cashel, accompanied by the Virgin, St. Francis, Daniel O'Connell, 
 and I-.ord Normanby, and build up the old Munster Cathedral and the Catholic 
 faith. Now that v,c had a virtuous sovereign strong in the energies of youth, 
 all was to go well: — the Lords were to work well with the Commons — the 
 people were to be educated — every body was to have employment and food — 
 all reforms were to be carried through — and she herself Avould never do any 
 thing wrong, or make any mistakes. The few who pointed out that she was 
 human, and royal, and only eighteen ; — that it was an infinite blessing that 
 she was pure and conscientious, and eminently truthful and sincere ; — that it 
 was enough to expect further that she would be seriously willing to learn, 
 careful in the choice of her advisers, and candid in recognising her own mis- 
 takes ; — and that it -was a cruel injustice to require of her what she could never 
 perform, and then visit the disappointment upon her ; — these few were thought 
 cold and grudging in their loyalty, and the gust of national joy swept them out 
 of sight. In truth, they themselves felt the danger of being carried adrift from 
 their justice and prudence when they met their Queen face to face at her pro- 
 
 Q[.EEN pno. clamation. As she stood at the window of St. James's Palace, on the morning- 
 after her accession — at a window where few people knew that she was to ap- 
 pear — her pale face wet with tears, but calm and simply grave — her plain 
 black dress and bands of brown hair giving an air of Quaker-like neatness, 
 which enhanced the gravity — it was scarcely possible not to foim Avild liopes 
 from such an aspect of sedateness — not to forget that, even if imperfection in 
 
 CLAIMED.
 
 Chap. IX.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 347 
 
 the sovereign herself were out of the question, there were limitations in her 1837. 
 position which must make her powerless for the redemption of her people, ox- ---^—^-^-^ 
 copt througli a wise choice of advisers, and the incalculable influence of a 
 virtuous example shining abroad ft-om the pinnacle of society. The comfort 
 was at the moment, and has been more eminently so since, that there is a cor- 
 responding security in the powcrlcssness of British sovereigns. Whenever the 
 " War of Opinion," of which the world had been now and then reminded since 
 Canning's time, should overrun Europe, the danger would be for kings who 
 govern as well as reign ; or for those who really reign instead of occupying the 
 throne through a political fiction. If such an outbreak should occur in the 
 time of Queen Victoria, she would, if personally blameless, be perfectly se- 
 cure ; secure alike in her political sinecurism and her personal blamelessness* 
 This truth, perceived and expressed at the time, has been conflnned by events 
 sooner than some expected. While revolutions have come like whirlwinds to 
 sweep kings from their continental thrones, our sovereign has sat safe in her 
 island, with not a hair of the royal emiine i-aiscd by the blast. If, on the one 
 hand, she has been wholly and necessarily unable to do many things that were 
 expected from her by the unreasonable, who worshipped an idea and not her- 
 self, on the other hand, we have her safe, and need fear no harm to the light- 
 est of her royal sensibilities. If it is no longer the privilege it once was to be 
 a sovereign, it is something of a blessing to have some power of kingly benefi- 
 cence and influence still remaining, without tlie fearful responsibility for a 
 ruling power which is mainly transferred to the people, and for which they 
 must be responsible to each other. 
 
 As we have seen, the Queen rctunied to the late Ministers their seals of ^^■^'^1^^^^<:J^^ 
 office; and it was presently known throughout the country that Lord Melbourne >'i--i'r»v. 
 and his coadjutors were to be allowed another trial whether or not they could 
 govern the country.
 
 us HISTOKY OF ENGLAND ["Book V. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 1837. TN liis speech of reprobation against the Ministers, before quoted, Lord 
 I'A^rTDi^coir^ Lyndhurst said he saw " but one ray of comfort shining upon" the pros- 
 
 ■"^'"'s. ])ects of the country : he augured much from the character of the new sove- 
 
 reign. His party generally saw something brighter in the future — more rays 
 of comfort than one. 
 
 The Melbourne Ministry was reduced to its lowest point of weakness and 
 shame. After the elections of 1831, only six county seats had been held by 
 Tory members, and the Whig government had a majority of 300. That 
 majority had declined to 26; and after the elections on the demise of the 
 Crown it sank again to 12. The Tories thought that a vigorous effort at the 
 beginning of a new reign might give them everytliing ; and they were evi- 
 dently resolved to spare no exertions to unseat six reformers at least, and thus 
 obtain a majority in the House. The case of the Whigs was desperate ; and 
 there is a tone in the political pam])hlets of the time which shows this. The 
 people were weary of the eternal disputes and party conflicts about Irish 
 questions and Church questions, while the great interests that were dear to 
 tlie liberals of England and Scotland stood over for discussion in a future time 
 wliich seemed further off every session. When a Ministry knows what it is 
 about, and sets well about its work, the Opposition helps to govern the 
 country, and does it almost as effectually, by testing and purifying government 
 • measures, as the responsible party itself: but the Melbourne administration 
 was so weak and unskilful as to render the Opposition purely destructive : and 
 this was more than the country would or could bear. No small number of 
 the radical party themselves, and multitudes of the moderates throughout the 
 country, began to declare that they hoped the Tories would get into office, so 
 that the Whigs might recover vigour in Opposition, and that the two reform- 
 ing parties might once more come into union, and the country be, in one way 
 or another, really governed once more. In such a condition of affairs, it was 
 natural that the Conservatives should suppose themselves about to step into 
 the seats of jiower. They were already making declarations, or dropping hints 
 of what they should do in such a case : — they should not repeal the Poor Law, 
 nor interfere with any expressed and fulfilled decision of parliament on any 
 subject; but should preserve the Church from further spoliation; and so 
 forth. 
 
 The alarm of the Whigs in office and their supporters is very evident now, 
 to the reader of the election spoeclies and political pamphlets of 1837. Tlie 
 first thing they did was to assume full and exclusive possession of the young 
 Queen's favour, and to use to the utmost the advantcage of her name in the 
 Iavom!^" ^ elections. Tliere is no doubt tliat the Queen was ready to bestow her favour 
 at once, on the pleasantest set of gentlemen she had ever known. She had
 
 Chap. X.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 349 
 
 seen little society before. Her life was necessarily somewhat monotonous. 1837. 
 Now, she was suddenly introduced into daily official intercourse with half a 
 dozen of the most intelligent and accomplished gentlemen of the aristocracy, 
 who felt a sort of chivalrous interest in her position, who admired her spirit, 
 and were gratified by her confidence, whose instruction and guidance were 
 necessary to her at every turn of her new an<l important life, and whose wives, 
 sisters, and daughters, were planted about her, to worship while they served 
 her. It is no matter of surprise that she allowed the coterie to take complete 
 possession of her confidence and favour, while she yet needed hourly support 
 and guidance, and knew no one beyond themselves. To the thoughtless, and 
 to those inexperienced in political life, it appeared natural enough that the 
 offices about the Queen's person should be filled by ladies of the Ministers' 
 families : but the Ministers were early warned of the inevitable consequences 
 of such an arrangement ; and they should have known them without being 
 warned. If their own position had been less desperate, they might perhaps 
 have paid more attention than they did to the future comfort and dignity of 
 their royal mistress. They were timely warned that the wives, daughters, and 
 sisters, of the present Ministers could not remain about the Queen if the 
 Opposition leaders should come into power ; and reminded that it would be 
 hard upon the Queen to be obliged to dismiss her personal attendants on the 
 first occasion of a change of Ministry. This was openly set forth thus early 
 in the Quarterly Re\'iew, and in various newspapers ; yet Lord jMelbournc 
 took no lieed to the warning : and he and his coadjutors must bear the re- 
 proach of whatever unpopularity the Queen incurred during the first two or 
 three years of her reign, and of the perilous mistake in which she found her- 
 self in the spring of 1839. They had their own share of piniishment in the 
 disgust excited by their selfish use of the power they so eagerly grasped. 
 There was not a child in England, old enough to look at a newspaper, who 
 did not see the unfairness of exclusively appropriating an inexperienced sove- 
 reign as the support of a party in the government which had no other support : 
 and there was not a fine lady, or a footman, or an electioneering partisan, that 
 did not feel the vulgarity of trumpeting the Queen's name on the Whig hustings, 
 and using her favour for the chance of obtaining a majority in parliament, 
 which was otherwise hopeless. — It is easy to enter into the feelings of these 
 Ministers and their families — to conceive of the interest to a sated man like 
 Lord Melbourne of a fresh and singular object of observation and study ; — 
 to one who was wont to despise women as he did, to find a young creature, 
 truthful, conscientious, willing and eager to learn, and naturally led to learn 
 of him, as a tutor or a father, as well as her First Minister. We can easily 
 sympatliize with the excitement and enjoyment to all the rest of alfectionatcly 
 watching over and serving her who was tlien, perhaps, the most interesting 
 perstm in the world. We can conceive of the dismay and heart-sorrow with 
 which they would contemplate such a thing as beiiig severed from her, and 
 yielding up their places to antagonists who were strangers to her, and who 
 would be a complete barrier bc^tween thcTU and her. Such feelings wvto ]->or- 
 fectly natural: so natural that everybody knew (licy nuist exist, and looked to 
 sec how they would be disciplined and controlled by a sense of duty to tlie 
 sovereign and the countrv. They were not so (tixijilined ami ( ontiolled ; iiml
 
 350 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book V. 
 
 1837. no (m6 else had it in liis power to do the Queen so much harm as she suffered 
 
 • ■ from these devoted servants of liers. Lord Melbourne, always ostentatiously 
 
 careless about business, was now for many hours daily at the palace. From 
 the public and private talk of the coterie and their adherents, it was under- 
 stood that the Queen had her partialities among parties at the elections. In 
 a painful and unfortunate mistake made by the young sovereign — a hasty sus- 
 picion touching the reputation of Lady Flora Hastings — two of the matron 
 ladies of the household exercised their influence so incautiously, and the Prime 
 Minister supported the consequent proceedings with so little delicacy to a 
 wounded spirit, that public feeling was deeply offended. Their exclusive pos- 
 session of the palace enabled the impure and disloyal to conceive of scandal, 
 and send forth rumours, which would never have been dreamed of if the royal 
 household had been constituted on the ordinary principle of bringing together 
 persons so impartial in political affairs, or so well balanced against each other, 
 as to be able to retain their places, and give their sovereign the comfort of their 
 customary attendance, through any changes in the Cabinet. It was very well 
 to be prompt in calling the Bradshaws and the Robys to account, from the 
 Home Office and the Horse Guards, for slandering the Queen at public din- 
 ners ; but members of parliament and officers of the army would never have 
 uttered or listened to such slanderers if the guardianship of the Queen's domestic 
 life had not been apjiropriatcd by a coterie. — Yet, with all that their use of 
 the Queen's name at the elections could do, the Whigs found themselves left 
 Mts'rflhe^™^" with a majority of only twelve. A paragraph from a pamphlet of the day 
 Country,' &c. ghows with wliat agonizing earnestness they were driven to sue the Radical 
 reformers for aid. " All parties," says the writer, understood to be official, 
 " those for the Ballot, those for Extended Suffrage, those for the abolition of 
 Church Rates, those for grand plans of Public Education, those for the Appro- 
 priation Clause, those for INIunicipal Institutions in Ireland, those for yielding 
 to Canada a more democratic form of government than at present exists there, 
 should one and all enter the new session with tliis conviction thoroughly im- 
 pressed upon their minds, that there is not one of these questions, no, not one, 
 which is not secondary to the great object of maintaining Lord Melbourne's 
 Cabinet, as the great agent of future improvement, free from every species of 
 present embarrassment." 
 
 It was impossible to read this without amusement. Even the most devoted 
 adherents of Lord Melbourne could not read gi-avely such an imitation of his 
 easy assurance. The writer might have been Lord Melbourne himself for the 
 impudence — (there is no other word — ) with which he connected ideas of "im- 
 provement" and "freedom fi-om embarrassment" with the Melbourne Adminis- 
 tration. — The reply of the Radical reformers to this appeal was characteristic. 
 They showed how the existence of the Melbourne Ministry dejjended on the 
 prosecution of the very questions which it was proposed to put aside for the 
 sake of it. They were willing to uphold the existing Administration with all 
 their forces, if it would mend its ways ; and without that, it could not be 
 helped by any body. They pointed out that, throughout the country, the 
 Moderate Whigs, wearied o\it, were becoming Radicals every day; and inti- 
 mated that if the government would follow the example of these converts, it 
 might be saved from ruin, but not otherwise. It might become Radical, or
 
 Chap. X.l DURING THE THIRTY YEARS" PEACE. 351 
 
 yield its place to the Conservatives : the one thing ccvtain was that it could 1837. 
 not remain what it was ; and that a Tory rule would be better for the coiuitry, " — ~-^— ' 
 by rousing its energies, and testing its condition, than a continuance of a 
 Whig government which was merely a name. 
 
 From the beginning of the Refonn struggle, the number of Radical Reformers n*DicAL reform 
 in the House had never been less than 70 or 80 : and in the last parliament, 
 they had been 150. It was strange that they had not yet been a powerful 
 party; and it would be stranger still if they did not become so now. Now 
 was the time for them to show what they could do, when the Whigs were 
 humbly asking alms of them — petitioning them for ideas, and measures, and 
 the support without which they must sink. These Radical Reform members 
 were men of conscience, of enlightenment, of intellectual ability, and moral ear- 
 nestness, of good station, and, generally speaking, independent fortune. They 
 were so uidike the vulgar Tory representation of them — so fiir from being de- 
 structives and demagogues — that the sober-minded of the community might more 
 reasonably trust them for the conservation of property than either the Conser- 
 vatives or the Whigs. Whig government under Lord Melbourne was a lottery : 
 and all propositions of the time for shaving the fundholder, for tampering 
 with the Debt, for perilling the land by a return to poor-law abuses, for inter- 
 fering with the rights of property in its public investments and private opera- 
 tions, all such destructive schemes proceeded from the rankest Conservatives, 
 and were exhibited in Quarterly Reviews — Tory newspaper articles — Tory 
 sj)(!eches on hustings. Not only in this sense were the Radicals no dema- 
 gogues, and therefore fit to be the guides of the sober middle classes : — they 
 were also no popular orators. They were as far removed from influence over 
 the mob by tlie philosophical steadiness of their individual aims as from influ- 
 ence o\er the aristocracy by the philosophical depth and comprehensiveness of 
 their views. They were as far from sharing the passion of the ignorant as the 
 selfish and shallow nonclialance of the aristocratic. They perceived principles 
 which the untaught could not be made to see ; and they had faith in principles 
 when Lord Grey preached in his place that no one should hold to the impos- 
 sible : and thus, they were cut off from sympathy and its correlative power 
 above and below. The aristocracy called them Destructives ; and the non- 
 electors knew nothing about them. .\11 this should have been another form 
 of appeal to them to make themselves felt in tliis gloomy time of crisis, when 
 the fortiuies of the nation were sinking at home, and storms seemed to be 
 driving up from abroad, and the political virtue of Great Britain was in peril 
 from a selfish powerlessness in high places, and despair in the lowest, and 
 alternate apathy and passion in the regions which lay between. But there 
 were reasons which prevented their making themselves felt. — They were not 
 properly a party, nor ever had been. There was not among them any one 
 nran who could merge the differences of the rest, and combine their working 
 power, in deference to his own supremacy: and neither had they the other 
 requisite — experience in party organization. They might try for it : and now 
 they probably would : but it was not a tiling to be attained in a day, or in a 
 session. It was never attained at all, during this period of our political history. 
 Tlie chiefs moved and spoke ; but they neither regenerated nor superseded the 
 
 * 
 
 I
 
 352 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book V. 
 
 1837 Whigs, nor could keep out the Conservatives, when at hist public necessity 
 . ^^ _| ^ overcame Whig tenacity of office, and the Queen's natural adherence to her 
 first set of Ministers, and brought in a new period marked by a complete 
 dissolution and fresh fusion of parties. There was no other party which, in 
 1837, was known to include such men as Grote, and Moleswortli, and Roe- 
 l,Hck — and Colonel Thompson, and Joseph Hume, and William Ewart ; — and 
 Charles Buller, and Ward, and Villiers, and Bulwer, and Strutt: — such a 
 phalanx of strength as these men, with their philosophy, their science, their 
 readin"-, their experience — the acuteness of some, the doggedness of others — 
 the seriousness of most, and the mirth of a few — might have become, if they 
 could have become a phalanx at all. But nothing was more remarkable 
 about these men than their individuality. Colonel Thompson and Mr. Roe- 
 buck could never be conceived of as combining with any number of persons, 
 for any object whatever : and they have so much to do, each in his individual 
 function, that it would perhaps be an injury to the public service to withdraw 
 them from that function : and when we look at the names of the rest, reasons 
 seem to rise up why they too could not enter into a party organization. 
 Whether they could or not, they did not, conspicuously and effectively. They 
 London and West- ^ycre Called upon, before the opening of the new parliament, to prove betimes 
 
 minster Review, a ^ . j. 
 
 xi. p. 25. tiiat they were not single-subject men — as reformers are pretty sure to be 
 
 considered before they are compacted into a party; — but to show that the 
 principles which animated their prosecution of single reforms were ajiplicable 
 to the whole of legislation. If Mr. Hume still took charge of Finance, and 
 Mr. Grote of the Ballot, and Mr. Roebuck of Canada, and Sir W. Molesworth 
 of Colonization, and ftlr. Ward of the Appropriation principle, they must 
 show that they were as competent to the enterprises of their friends, and of 
 their enemies, as to their own. Many of them did this : but the association 
 of their names with their particular measures might be too strong. They 
 were never more regarded as a party during the period luider our notice : and 
 it may be observed now, though it was not then, that their failing to become 
 a party in such a crisis as the last struggles of the Melbourne Ministry was a 
 prophecy of the disintegration of parties which was at hand, and which is, in 
 its turn, a prophecy of a new age in the political history of England. 
 
 What the Whig estimate of " the crisis" was in the autumn of 1837, we 
 have seen. What the Tory view was appears in the insulting speech of Lord 
 
 London and West- Ly,^^l]j^jj.gt. jjgjg jg jj^p declaration of the Radical Reformers: "To the 
 
 minster Review, J 
 
 xi. p. 26. people, at the present moment, we have but one exhortation to give : let them 
 
 hold themselves in readiness. No one knows what times may be coming : no 
 one knows how soon, or in what cause, his most strenuous exertions may be 
 required. Ireland is already organized. Let England and Scotland be pre- 
 pared at the first summons to start into Political Unions. Let the House of 
 Commons be inundated with petitions on every subject on which Reformers 
 are able to agree. Let Reformers meet, combine, and, above all, register. 
 The time may be close at hand, when the man who has lost a vote, which he 
 might have given for the Ballot, or for some other question of the first magni- 
 tude, will have cause bitterly to repent the negligence and supineness which 
 have deprived him of his part in the struggle. All else may be left till the
 
 Chap. X.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 353 
 
 lioiir of need ; but to secure a vote is a duty for which there is no postpone- 1837. 
 ment. This let the Ileformers do ; ;ind let them then stand at their arms 
 and wait their opportunity." 
 
 This was but a lowering dayspring of regality for the young Queen. Her 
 servants were weak, assailed by vehement foes, and pitied by the supporters of 
 whom they implored help. Every body seemed aware that something fearful 
 was impending; and the Avise uttered cautions, and sent out admonitions, 
 while the sovereign was launching into the pleasures of fi-ecdom and supre- 
 macy. As yet, smiles were on her face, and joy was in her movements, when- 
 ever she was seen in public ; and the most serious and severe of those who 
 watched her hoped that she would not be officiously and too soon alarmed by 
 tidings of the storms that were driving up from afar, and the gloom of distress 
 which was deepening over the people at home. 
 
 VOT,. II. 
 
 2z
 
 354 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 [Book V, 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 1835—38. 
 
 Portents in 
 Europe. 
 
 A^ 
 
 The Represen- 
 
 T.MION. 
 
 S for the state of affairs abroad, on the accession of Victoria to the British 
 throne, it was a subject of anxious contemplation to persons who looked 
 beneath the surface of royal speeches and official summaries, with tlic prophecy 
 of a War of Opinion in Europe full in their minds. As yet, tliere was no 
 threat from any quarter of a dissolution of the great Continental Peace ; and 
 sovereigns congratulated themselves each on his good understanding with other 
 sovereigns : but there Avere movements in several countries which showed to 
 the observant that the opposition of the principles of despotism and liberty — 
 of government for the people and government by the people — was working in 
 the heart of society throughout Western Eurojoe, while the process was keenly 
 watched from the great throne of despotism in the East. Of all the countries 
 in wliich the preparation for a decisive War of Opinion was going on, France 
 was, for various reasons, the most interesting to England. 
 
 The obvious domestic politics of France might have appeared dull and tire- 
 some enough to those who did not know what they signified. It is truly 
 wearisome to look over the debates of the French Chambers, and see how the 
 members were perpetually growing vehement about nothing at all ; and perti- 
 nacious about the wording of a phrase, as if it had been the transfer of a 
 Crown ; and obstructive in so many ways that there was no keeping any 
 Ministry in office. AVe read of new and newly-arranged Cabinets, till it is im- 
 possible to remember their succession, or to report the causes of their changes. 
 As our concern with France on this page is only in her relation to England, 
 there is no need to enter into any detail of her official fluctuations ; but only to 
 point to the conclusion, from the parliamentary records of France din-ing these 
 years, that they inchule more than meets tlie eye. In truth, there was no real 
 parliamentary representation in France ; an uneasy consciousness of the fact 
 was gi'owing daily in the general mind ; and the King was resolved to repress 
 the conviction, and jirevent its being communicated. His M'hole reign was a 
 concealed conflict with the representative system which he liad sworn to main- 
 tain. Not only did he choose to rule instead of reigning ; he chose to rule 
 alone. His jNIinistei'S must be his rivals if they were not his tools : and he 
 "knew how" (using the French phrase) to reduce the representative system 
 to a mere show. While it was thus with him and the nation, much that ap- 
 peared trifling in the debates of the Chambers might be any tiling but trifling — 
 might be symbolical of some great question, or prophetic of some great event. 
 Leaving on one side, therefore, the manoeuvres of Cabinets and Chambers, as 
 giving us little knowledge but of that which may be better learned from events, 
 we have only to take a rapid review of the transactions of the King with the 
 French people, or with those of them who were brought into colUsion with 
 him. 
 
 1
 
 Chap. XL] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 355 
 
 In 1835, a large number of petitions was presented to the Chamber of Depu- 1835 — 38. 
 ties, exposing the deterioration of the representative system, and praying for a 
 reform. As has been shown before, a change in the amount of quuHfication 
 had raised the number of electors from 100,000 or less to 280,000 ; a number 
 so small, in a jjopulation of above 30,000,000, as to make Englishmen wonder 
 how it could afford any pretence of a popular representation at all. Yet it 
 was to complain of the narrowing of even this constituency, that the petitions 
 of 1835 were sent in. The cause of that narrowing was declared to be the 
 law of inheritance, whicli, by continually lowering the incomes of indi\iduals 
 below the qualification point, had already reduced the constituency to 180,000. 
 Whether the cause was correctly stated or not, the fact was clear. And there 
 •were other facts well understood by the constituency, but not of a nature to 
 be petitioned against at the moment; — that by means of the centralizing 
 principle on which French administration proceeds, an amount of official 
 l)atronage was in the hands of the government, by which it could subordinate 
 the electoral colleges to almost any extent. The result of the present petition- 
 ing ^vas satisfactory to the King at the moment ; and he seems to have been 
 as unable to look forward as Charles X. himself, and never to have heard or 
 conceived of a possible War of Opinion in Europe. lie had in tlie Chamber, 
 in this very session, 200 members ^^ holly at his disposal as functionaries of his 
 government : — two-thirds of them removable at pleasure ; and the other third 
 in a position of expectation of the rewards of obedience. The majority of the 
 Chamber found a pretext, without any difficulty, for ignoring the whole mass 
 of petitions. Some petitioners desired such audacious changes as direct elec- 
 tion, or universal suffrage in the primary electors, or abolition of the money 
 qualification, or payment to the deputies : and because of these, the whole 
 question was put aside. The King thought he was governing fii-mly and 
 wisely. As for what the people thought — they remembered that after five 
 years' rule of the Citizen King, they found their constituency reduced more 
 than a third, and the remainder lying within the royal grasp; — and their 
 thoughts of this Citizen King were none of the kindest. 
 
 One victory was gained by the Opposition in the Chamber — much to the 
 chagi'in of the government, which was merely punished for driving too far a 
 profitable monopoly of its own. The government succeeded in obtaining a 
 renewal for five years of its tobacco monopoly; but the Chamber decided, by ^.^"IS/'pp"' 
 a large majority, that a committee of its members sliould sit to inquire into ■iJ— 33. 
 the oi)eration of the monopolv. The introduction of parliamcntarv committees '"'"'t i'»ri.i*- 
 was an annoyance to a government like that of France. M. Salvandy could m'ttce. 
 see no good in it ; and he deprecated such an adoption of the barbarisms of tlie 
 English Constitution. 
 
 One other reference to England at this time is amusing. The financial 
 affairs of France presented a worse aspect every year. Every year there w-as a 
 new deficit instead of a reparation of the last. Something must be done for 
 the revival of commerce. The Minister of Commerce invited the merchants 
 and manufacturers to enter with him into an inquiry into the ])riiici])les of free ''^"|"^^^'i"»*"^ '^ 
 trade, and the operation of the existing restrictions, under w liicb affairs were 
 proceeding so badly. The merchants and manufacturers of France seem to 
 have had at that time as little knowledge and independence as our farmers of
 
 356 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 [Book V. 
 
 Annual Register, 
 la35, p. i'J3. 
 
 1835 38. the same date. They would not have their system touched. Every corps 
 
 stood up for tlie protection of its own article, as a valiant M. P. from the glass 
 districts stood up against Mr. Huskisson in the British House of Commons for 
 the duty on gi-een glass bottles. AVhatever, in the changes of human affairs, 
 might occur — whatever that was hurtful or foolish might be swept away — he 
 owed it to his constituents to stand up to the last for the duty on green glass 
 bottles. With equal valour did a corps of twenty-nine eminent manufacturers 
 of plated goods in France contend for the continuance of the existing pro- 
 hibitory duty on import ; declaring, among other reasons, that the English 
 government paid a large bounty on the exportation of plated goods ;• and that 
 the men of Birmingham could supplant other manufacturers all over the world, 
 because it was common for English lords to be sleeping partners in the Bir- 
 mingham establishments for the manufacture of plated goods. — It is both 
 melancholy and amusing to look over the records of the proceedings of govern- 
 ment and the Chamber about Customs duties during the present and two suc- 
 ceeding years. They wanted to imjjrove the revenue, and yet to keep the old 
 duties ; — they were afraid to change their system at all, and yet could not go 
 on with it as it was : — they talked of removing prohibitions, but laid on pro- 
 hibitory duties, as, for instance, a duty of 70/. on a Turkey carpet fifteen feet 
 square — which they called a relaxation from prohibition. — The government 
 foiuid that it would take half the people to control the smuggling propensities 
 of the other half; and it used its power of lessening duties during the weeks 
 or months when the Chambers were not sitting : and sometimes the Chambers 
 were induced to render such relaxations permanent. But no government is a 
 good man of business about commercial matters. When relief was given in 
 one place, it usually happened to be at the expense of hardship in another : 
 and a temporary lowering of duties by royal ordinance affords little inducement 
 to careful merchants to send goods which may not be sold before a recurrence 
 to the old duties takes place. — It did not mend the condition of the people 
 that a tax was laid on sugar of home production, as soon as it was foinid that 
 the beet-root sugar of France supplied one-third of the national consumption. 
 It was a matter of some deliberation whether to reUeve Ir-om duty the sugar of 
 the colonies, or to tax that of the home producer. The latter course was re- 
 solved on, together with some reduction of the colonial duty; and the con- 
 dition of the people was not to be improved in this direction. The national 
 poverty, previously great, had been deepening since the revolution of 1830. 
 While he had before his eyes an annual deficiency in the revenue, a spreading 
 poverty among the people, and a narrowing of the constituency by which alone 
 they could speak their grievances, and hope to amend their affairs, the Citizen 
 King thought he was governing firmly and well, and bringing the nation into 
 order. He was hoping to keep the kettle bright and undimmed over the fire 
 by stopping the spout after fastening down the lid. 
 
 The King was bent on bringing to trial some hundreds of his subjects 
 accused of republicanism. The Opposition desired an amnesty, and his 
 Ministers were so opposed to his dangerous and foolish design, that they laid 
 down their offices ; and for three weeks France was without a government. 
 The King had his way at last ; the Ministers returned under a new head; and 
 the Chamber of Peers was appointed to conduct the "Monster trial," as it ^^as 
 
 Annuaire Hist. 
 1S37, p.M2. 
 
 Monster Trial.
 
 Ghap. XI.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 357 
 
 called at the time. They examined the case of 1000 prisoners, and selected 1835 — 38. 
 
 1(3-1 for trial. Then followed scandal npon scandal. The Government and — ^- — - 
 
 the Bar fell out ahout the defence of the prisoners ; and a sort of compromise 
 
 was entered into at last, for the sake of safety ; — a compromise which left hoth 
 
 iiartics discontented. — Then the jirisoners would not be defended as iiroposed — Anmiairc Hist. 
 
 1, 1 11 1 • • 1- • PI/-, 11 1 1 1835,1)11.180.231. 
 
 would not acknowledge the jurisdiction oi the Court — would not hear the 
 accusation, and, after a time, would not come to the bar — would not leave 
 their beds, would not rise from the floor of their cells, where some chose to lie 
 without any clothing whatever. Never was such a scene witnessed in any 
 Court of Justice as the demeanour of these prisoners — the whole mob of them 
 jumping, waving their hats, screaming, and defying the Court and all its 
 officers. — Then followed the disposal of them in batches, as there was no other 
 way of managing them : and by that method, the grand plea of the prosecu- 
 tion — of conspiracy among the prisoners generally to establish a republic — 
 was in fact surrendered. One of the accused in complaining of the method 
 of trial, called Louis Philippe a tyrant, and threatened him with the tyrant's 
 fote of exile ; and for this ofiience, so excusable, as many thought, under the 
 circumstances, the man, already on trial for a more serious offence, was con- 
 demned to a heavy fine, and to an imprisonment of five years, with loss of 
 civil rights for that time. — Of the Lyons batch of fifty-eight, nine were A""""'" "'"■ 
 acquitted, and the rest condemned to terms of imprisonment rising from three 
 years to imprisonment for life. As for the Paris batch — they made a hole 
 through the wall of their wine-cellar, and walked out into the garden of a 
 neighbour, and thence, many of them, out of the kingdom. Twenty-eight i»3a"p.'M7."* 
 fugitives from the cellar published a threat that they would come back and 
 compel the Peers to try them when the conditions of a fair trial had been 
 secured for them. Only thirteen were stopped, or afterwards caught. It was 
 naturally said that the escape was probably connived at, to rid the peers and 
 the country of the scandal and perplexity into which the self-will of the King 
 had brought his government. 
 
 It was now no longer possible for the people to think the government of the P"-"^*- 
 Citizen King as good as he thought it himself. If he had been right in sup- 
 posing that such a method of rule as his was the only one suitable to the 
 French people, they could not be expected to agree with him : and, while the 
 virtuous and sober-minded were grieving over their having been deceived and 
 betrayed — finding themselves now, after five years, without a fi'ee press, 
 without popular representation, with an administration of royal tools, with a 
 failing exchequer, and surrounded by a distressed people — it was no wonder that 
 men who were not virtuous, and not sober-minded, should ponder the shortest 
 way of getting rid of such a state of things, and decide upon the murder of 
 the King. There seemed to be no end to the attacks upon his life. Fieschi I^'.Ji'Jua'fi. nat. 
 fired his Infernal Machine, as the royal procession passed, killing and wound- '''^•''•p-'''^- 
 ing between twenty and thirty persons, but not the King, who was saved by 
 the moment of time required by the assasshi for -withdrawing the persian 
 window blind from before his gun barrels. Marshal Mortier, late President 
 of the Council, was killed on tlie spot. — Next, Alibaud made bis attempt — alitimo. 
 coming up to the carriage-door, and resting his weapon on the window while i«3(i, p. iaa' ' 
 lie fired — the wife and sister of the Kiii" being in llie carriage. This lime.
 
 358 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 [Book V. 
 
 Anniiairc Hist. 
 1836, p. 'iTD. 
 
 Champion. 
 Annuaire Hist. 
 1837, p. 95. 
 
 Hubert. 
 Annuaire Hist. 
 1838. Chron. 162, 
 
 1835 — 38. the King was saved by the act of bowing to some National Guauls at the 
 other window. — Next, INleunier made his attempt, shooting at the royal head 
 as the carriage ploughed its way slowly through the snow. The King was 
 untouched ; but his eldest son was cut on the ear by the shivered glass. " I 
 know not," said the King, "how I escaped, as, at the moment, I had my head 
 very much advanced towards the door of the carriage. Nemom's, wlio was 
 also leaning forwards, had his head against the glass." — Within twomonths 
 — in February, 1837, Champion and his accomplices were finishing another 
 Infernal Machine, which they resolved should not fail : but the police found 
 them out, and Champion hung himself in prison. — In the next May there was 
 a review of the National Guards — gloomy enough. Every house that com- 
 manded the ground was searched by the police, and the inhabitants examined ; 
 all the approaches were blockaded, and the ground well selected. — Before the 
 year was out, Hubert and Steuble were engaged on a third infernal machine 
 — "sixteen gun-barrels, in two rows of eight each" — from which the King 
 could by no means escape. But again tlie police found it all out. The public 
 were weary of such stories by this time ; and it seemed that the King could 
 be taken good care of by the police ; so there was an apathy among resjiectable 
 citizens on this last occasion which somewhat shocked the government, and' 
 which was not dispersed even when the traitors became riotous on receiving 
 sentence, and were sustained by the sympathy of the people in court, who 
 hissed, groaned, and cried " murder," till the guards were called in to clear the 
 place. 
 
 A military insurrection was interposed among these attempts at assassina- 
 tion. Napoleon and Josephine planned a marriage between Josephine's 
 daughter Hortense and Napoleon's third brother, Louis, for a time King of 
 Holland : and this marriage was forced on, in defiance of the mutual disin- 
 clination of the parties most concerned. The union was a wretched one — the 
 husband and wife rarely meeting, and being quite nnable to continue together. 
 The only surviving issue of this marriage at the date before us was Prince 
 liOuis Napoleon Bonaparte, tlien a captain of artillery in the Swiss service. 
 He obtained a footing in the garrison of Strasburg ; and on the morning of the 
 30th of October, 1836, showed himself there, in a dress resembling his uncle's, 
 and proposed to call France to arms, to place him on the throne. Some of the 
 men shouted for Napoleon II. ; but presently, while the Prince and some 
 attendants were addressing a few soldiers in a barrack, the gates were shut 
 upon them, and they were arrested. By the end of November, the Prince 
 was half way over the Atlantic, being banished to the LTnited States. His 
 accomplices were actually acquitted, in the face of indisputable evidence of 
 their treason. The crowd, the garrison, and the general ]iopulation, of Stras- 
 burg rejoiced without control, and spent the day as a fete ; and the gloom of 
 the Ministers and dismay of the King were in proportion. — The mother of 
 Prince Louis Napoleon died in the next October, her failing health being 
 broken up by anxiety for her only son. 
 
 Such events as these, bringing after them evidences of an unpopularity of 
 the sovereign extending far beyond the mad conspirators themselves, seem to 
 have merely exasperated tlie self-will and folly of the King : and the most 
 conspicuous proof of this, and of his imfitness for the office of Citizen King, 
 
 Strasburg 1n- 
 suanECTioN. 
 
 Annuaire Hist. 
 183C, p. 244. 
 
 Pkess Law.
 
 Chap. XI.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 359 
 
 appears in his insufforalile repression of the press. Before the end of 1835, 1835 38. 
 
 he was actually holding the position of Charles X. against the press. The -— i^— -^ 
 prosecution of journals, and fining and imprisonment of editors, had gone on 
 till some of the liberal newspapers were ruined. The Tribune gave up, after 
 having been prosecuted 112 times. But this was found insufficient; and new 
 laws were proposed to protect the prosperity of France — " a prosperity of five 
 years intermingled with danger," — by shielding "the King of her choice" 
 against attacks. " Order was not yet completely established :" neither a 
 (y'arlist press nor a republican press could be permitted to exist ; and the law 
 proposed for putting them down equals any Carlist despotism which could be 
 conceived of by a Polignac. Fine and imprisonment were to be the consequence 
 of introducing the King, either directly or indirectly, or by any allusion, into any 
 discussion of the acts of the government : — also of expressing any wish, hope, 
 or threat, in relation to either Carlism or Republicanism. The Bill, with a Ions Annuaire iii*. 
 
 ,. P . . . ■ T , , 1835, P. 303. 
 
 list 01 atrocious provisions, was carried by the power of the Crown and its 
 finictionaries ; the heart-stricken Opposition, who now saw their country and 
 themselves under a precisely similar oppression to that which they had thrown 
 off five years before, giving solemn warning that "laws like the present might 
 afflict, but could not terrify, good men ;" and that tlic matter could not end 
 here. — The condition of the French nation, in regard to its liberties, was even 
 worse than it had been in 1830; for now the blow at fi'eedom of speech was 
 struck not only by King and Ministers, but with the aid of the Chambers. 
 The King had got but too much of the representation into his own grasp ; 
 and the state of the nation was so much worse than it had been in 1830, that 
 good men thought it their duty rather to endure than to resist under circum- 
 stances so perilous to order and freedom. — The King followed up this law 
 with prosecutions of editors for assertions in their newspapers that the 
 Ministers wished to show that they could now do what the Ministers of 
 Charles X. attempted in 1830: and that the army was not favourable to the 
 Aduiinistration, and might be found inclined to a republic, if asked. There 
 was also a creation of thirty new peers, in the King's interest, immediately 
 after the passage of the law which brought offences of the press under the 
 jurisdiction of the Chamber of Peers. — It is merely sickening to go into the 
 details of the press-prosecutions of the period. The government was evidently 
 nervous under the perpetual echoing of its own fears in the popular news- 
 papers—at the Carlist hints and demonstrations which followed on the death 
 of Charles X. in 1830, and the speculations on the disaffection of the army 
 which formed the commentary on the Strasburg affair: — they had gone too far 
 to recede ; and now they found the objectionable matter which formed the 
 material of tlu; prosecutions reproduced in Court, under circumstances of 
 emphasis which made it ten times as pernicious as if it had been let alone. 
 Tiiere were multitudes who nicalled, and repeated to each other, the dying 
 words of Lafayette about their dreadful 'mistake in regard to their Citi/en 
 King: wlrile the few who looked ahead and afar saw how Franco was d;uly 
 losing her chance of assuming her proper place in the array of nations, when- 
 ever the War of Opinion in Europe should arise. 
 
 iSIeantime, the one cheering topic in the King's speeches, in successive Annuni Rpinsicr, 
 years, was his "ood understanding with England. Tiiere had been a narrow kei »tions with
 
 360 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book V. 
 
 1835 — 38. escape from a war with America — an iescape purchased by a somewhat igno- 
 
 ^~— ^— ^-^ miuious concession — by a swallowing of some big, hard words, while paying 
 
 money due to America which ought to have been paid long before. There 
 
 wmiswiTZER. was a "momentary misunderstanding with Switzerland," threatening imme- 
 diate collision — tm-ning upon the question whether an incendiary of the name 
 of Conseil was or was not a spy of the French government. There had been 
 ''painful losses in Africa," which had "deeply afflicted" the King's heart. 
 
 AuiiETis. Algiers was a perpetual and a gi'owing trouble, fi'om its expensiveness and 
 
 unprofitableness; and there were terrible reverses there at this period — the 
 indomitable Abd-el-Kader and the Emperor of Morocco having inflicted rout 
 and disaster which could not be disguised or palliated, even in the King's 
 speech. The fact was, the French held merely their o^vn fortified settlements 
 in that which they called their colony of Algeria. Beyond the defences 
 nothing could be done ; for a vigilant enemy, native to the soil, and animated 
 by the fiercest love of country and religion, was always at hand to cut oft' 
 stragglers, and destroy the processes of industry. From Algeria, nothing was 
 heard of at this time but " painful losses," dismal anticipations, and warnings 
 that the African foe was covertly supported by Turkey. The Princes of the 
 Blood repaired to Africa, to command and fight ; large reinforcements of men 
 and money were sent ; and there was new food for discontent at home, in the 
 alleged misdirection of the civil and military affairs of Algeria, and tliat 
 profitless expense of the settlement, which made it "an affliction to France." 
 There was more unpopularity yet to be incurred by the King. He does not 
 appear to have suflered by liis clemency to the Ministers of Charles X.,whom 
 
 rbi.easeofstate he released on the death of their master, and permitted to reside on their own 
 estates, on parole, except Polignac, who was exiled for twenty years. His 
 o^vn constituent subjects had perhaps lost much of their indignant feeling 
 towards the Polignacs and Peyronnets, now that a stronger indignation had 
 been incurred by the successor of the old Bourbon King: and the sickly 
 prisoners were allowed quietly to come forth from their captivity, and go home, 
 to live there in obscurity. If the King lost nothing by this, neither did he 
 gain much by an act of amnesty which accompanied it. By royal ordinance, 
 
 u3Cv.%v!'' issued in October, 1836, sixty -two political offenders were discharged from 
 further punishment, being merely placed under the surveillance of the police. 
 It was thought that the consequences of political persecution were beginning 
 to be apparent to the King, and that his prudence had taken the alarm : but 
 his warfare with the press did not intermit or slacken, as we have seen. — In 
 his Speech for 1837, he spoke of the Finances as being " in a most prosperous 
 state" — that is, promising a small surplus, in the place of the usual deficit ; 
 and he intimated that a great mass of public works would be undertaken, to 
 give employment to the people. There was some surprise at this tone being 
 taken during a period of grievous commercial and agricultural distress ; but 
 the surprise ceased when it presently appeared that the King meant to ask the 
 Cliambers for money, for family purposes. His children were growing up 
 
 meot" '^'"'"™" ^^^'^ marrying ; and he now wanted a provision for the Due de Nemours, his 
 second son, for whom he asked a gift of two estates, and a marriage portion 
 for his eldest daughter, the Queen of the Belgians. The latter was obtained, 
 after nuich angry debating, and many protests against enriching from the
 
 Chap. XI.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 301 
 
 puWic purse the children of a King who was considered very wealthy in the 1835 38. 
 
 possession of the property of the Crown, the estates of the House of Orleans, ■ — --s^— — ^ 
 and, in the name of one of his sons, the wealth of the House of Conde. The 
 other demand was withdrawn for the present, with much mortification on the 
 part of the government ; but the times were not such as made the people, or 
 the Chambers, willing to endow the Duke de Nemours from the public purse. 
 Another reason was that a fresh call was to be made, on behalf of the eldest 
 son — the Duke of Orleans — who was about to marry the Princess Helena of 
 Mecklenburg Schwerin. The Chamber doubled the Prince's allowance, hi- 
 therto £40,000 — made a present of £40,000 to the bride for her outfit — and 
 fixed her jointure at £12,000. The marriage took place in May, 1837: and Jl,;"!',',*"" Ck 
 in August of the next year was born the infant who was hailed as the heir of *'""^"" h- , 
 
 o .' Animairp Hist. 
 
 the throne of France. There were many who doubted whether such would 's^?, p.scs. 
 
 ever be his position ; for it had long been said by impartial observers that no 
 
 son of the Citizen King would ever be permitted to succeed him : but there 
 
 was probably no one who anticipated the full melancholy of that marriage — 
 
 the domestic uneasiness — the sudden violent death of the Prince in the vigour 
 
 of his years — and the expulsion of his widow and child from the kingdom, and 
 
 from all hope of a throne. The superstition which is so easily excited in the 
 
 French mind had, however, scope on occasion of the marriage — as at the 
 
 bridal of the Dauphin and Marie Antoinette in the last century, and of 
 
 Napoleon and Marie Louise — when fearful accidents happened. When the 
 
 Duke and Duchess of Orleans entered Paris, a few days after their marriage, 
 
 a sudden panic seized the crowds that were closely packed in the Champ de 
 
 Mars. In the rush towards the outlets, nearly thirty persons were trampled 
 
 to death ; and many more were injured. — Another child of the Orleans House op tiik pm.v. km 
 
 was married in the autumn of the same year — the beloved Princess Marie — .\ni.u,-iireHi>L. 
 
 ■' r- 1 • 1 Chiou. 233. 
 
 the darling of her parents' hearts — she who sculptured the Joan of -Vie which 
 is seen in many a house in England, and is carried on the heads of Italian 
 boys, through all the streets of Europe. This richly-endowed young creature 
 became the bride of Prince Alexander of Wirtemberg ; but his happiness was 
 not to last long. He laid his young wife in her grave within fifteen months. 
 Her constitution had been much shaken from her constaut alarms for her 
 father's Hfe. She gave birth to a son in the autumn of 1838, became cousumj)- 
 tive, and died on the 2nd of January, 1839. The day after her death became 
 known in Paris, the Chamber of Deputies rose, as by an impulse, to go and 
 address the King: and this was the most numerous and the most cordial 
 attendance of deputies that he had ever been greeted with. 
 
 "We find no records of financial prosperity elsewhere than in the King's 
 Speech. Every other register tells of distress, embarrassment, fear, and local Disr»r»i. 
 tumults. It was observed by the government, and told in the Chamber, that 
 the number of foreign refugees in France was large, and continually on the 
 increase. The Poles were treated with great favour — being admitted free of 
 cost to educational privileges, and trusted with otiice under government : it 
 was not therefore surprising that there were then nearly (iOOO Poles in France. 
 In this fact perhaps lay the most hopeful indication tluit, in case of a War of 
 Ol)iui()u in Europe, France would be found in front of the western combination 
 which must oppose^ the incursion of dcsi>otisui iVoui the East. Amidst such 
 
 vol.. II. ^ -^
 
 362 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 [Book V 
 
 1835—38. 
 
 Dissolution of 
 
 THE CilA.MUEH. 
 
 Death of Tal. 
 
 LLiYRAM). 
 
 Annual Rpgister, 
 1838, p. 402. 
 
 gloom as has been described— gloom over which the royal weddings of the 
 year shed but a dim and partial light — the Chamber of Deputies Avas dissolved, 
 and men were left in expectation as to what the Citizen King would do with 
 a new parliament, and whether the parliament would prove itself most worthy 
 of King or ])eoplo. 
 
 A man of an older time — a man of various times, and of a flexibility which 
 adapted him to them all — Prince Talleyrand— was about to close his eyes on 
 this new phase of French destiny. He was 84, and it was time for him to be 
 going. There was no further honour for him in the future : lie had had his good 
 things in his life-time : whether they had made him happy or not, he must be 
 satisfied with them now; for there was nothing more for him — not a trace of 
 true honour — not a fragment of esteem — not a movement of affection. He 
 was the marvel of his age for suppleness and prosperity; and he will stand in 
 history as a specimen — dry and curious — but in no way as a vital being, noble, 
 beautifid, or interesting. He knew every body for eighty years — made use of 
 every body — consorted with every body — flattered every body — served any 
 body when there was no politic objection to doing so — and cared for nobody. 
 He preserved to the last his most conspicuous talents, being capable of flattery 
 while almost incapable of speech. On the entrance of the King and his sister, 
 a few hours before the old courtier's death, he exclaimed " This is a great day 
 for our house !" It is possible that, in virtue of his long training in worldli- 
 ness, ho might consider the day as more important to his house from a King's 
 visit than from his own death. Hovi^ever that might be, he died at four, the 
 same afternoon, the 17th of May, 1838. The tidings of his death spread like 
 a whiff of fresh air among those whom he had parched by the atmosphere of 
 his worldliness. Yet the Citizen King is said to have left his chamber in tears. 
 
 In Spain, nothing passed during the period under review that it is either 
 pleasant or profitable to dwell on. The two interests which absorbed the 
 Spanish nation were the Carlist war and the government of the Queen Ilegcnt. 
 The Liberal party throughout the West of Europe — both governments and 
 individuals — were pledged to the maintenance of the infant Queen, Isabella 
 II., upon the throne ; and therefore, the Queen Ilegcnt, her mother, was to 
 govern under a profession of liberalism. It is well known now that she is not 
 a woman who can conceive of the benefits of liberal institutions, or who 
 could be trusted to rule at all. Hard, selfish, intriguing, hopelessly ignorant — 
 she was equally a misfortune, as mother of the little Queen, and Regent of 
 the country. Her daughter received no training which could fit her for her 
 Queen Isabella, regal function ; and the country could learn no other lesson under Christina 
 than to despise its rulers. The young Isabella had but a poor chance at best 
 for health, sense, knowledge, and integrity. As it was, she became a spoiled 
 child of the lowest order — alternately humoured and tyrannized over — flattered 
 and mortified. She ajipeared before the eyes of her subjects as a sickly, fretful, 
 and wilful child — eternally eating sweet-meats, and concocting caprices, and 
 wholly incapable of intellectual entertainment, or moral devotcdness. The 
 public news that reached her was of innmnerable insurrections, in half the 
 towns of her kingdom ; — street fights, up to her palace doors ; — attacks on con- 
 vents, and the murder of ten monks in one place, and twelve in another — 
 seizure of plate from the altar — delivering up of ringleaders by their comrades 
 
 Queen Reqent.
 
 Chap. XI.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 303 
 
 — and the shooting of scores of citizens in a row. Then, there were changes 18.35 38. 
 
 of ?,Iinistry for ever — swearings to Constitutions, one after another, each of ^^^ — ' 
 
 whicli was to last for ever ; — pledges of reforms, pompously announced, and 
 never carried out ; — professions of patriotism and universal benevolence, which 
 were met by imputntions of the vilest political profligacy. Amidst the mani- 
 fold misfortunes of the young Queens of Spain and Portugal, none can be 
 greater than the fearful hollowness by which they have been surrounded since 
 their birth. They had better have been daughters of herdsmen on Etna — out 
 with their distaffs upon the slopes, and feeling the vibration under their feet, 
 and seeing the sulphurous chasms open wherever they tread, and flying from 
 clouds of poisonous ashes — better have lived in honest apprehension like this 
 than have had their cars filled with talk of virtue which, from its staleness, 
 fell dead upon the soul, and have been constantly in the reception of homage 
 so false as to drive them to intrigue or self-will in mere pursuit of a welfare 
 which they could not entrust to any body else. AVhat the young Isabella 
 heard of was valour, devoteduess, martyrdom for freedom, sublime disinterest- 
 edness : — what she knew to be fact was treachery, cruelty, rapacity, selfish 
 ambition, fickleness, and incapacity. As for the reforms proposed from time 
 to time, and discussed by the Cortes, there was no leisure for theu- prose- 
 cution, amidst the perpetual alamis of war, and occurrence of insurrections ; 
 and the state of the finances was too desperate to afl'ord hope of any really 
 good government which did not begin by then- rectification. 
 
 As for the other department of Spanish interests — the war between the 
 Queen and her uncle, Don Carlos — it is too disgusting and terrible to be 
 needlessly contemplated. In 1835, the Carlists encouraged the discontents of <"m'list\v.<[.. 
 the most extravagant of the liberal party, in the hope of profiting by the em- 
 barrassment of the government : and they succeeded. They obtained many 
 advantages in the north of Spain, where the warfare chiefly lay. The cruelty 
 on both sides became so atrocious, that the Duke of \^'ellington sent out Lord 
 Eliot, durins the short Peel administration of that year, to endeavour to bring ^"""^^ Y.T"^"- 
 
 " . , , . , IHJj, p. 440. 
 
 the hostile leaders to an agreement to spare the lives of their prisoners. 1' or a 
 short time, this did good: but in the next year, a circumstance hapjiened 
 which seemed to turn the combatants on both sides into devils ; and it was 
 from that time impossible for human power to soften the diabolism of the war. 
 The mother of Cabrera, the Carlist leader of the hour, had been accused of 
 some traitorous meddling, and, as the Queen's general declared in his own 
 defence, sentenced to death. But she was a ])oor old woman of seventy, whose 
 example, or whose life, could be of no pubhc importance. The governor of 
 Tortosa was required by the Queen's officer to deliver her up for execution in 
 retaliation for some slaughterous deeds of her son's. The governor refused: 
 and apphcation was made to General Mina, the Queen's commander-in-chief, 
 who actually enforced the order, and had the poor creature shot in the public 
 square of Tortosa. Cabrera was driven frantic by tliis act, being " romanti- 
 cally attached" to his mother. He declared that thirty women shoulil sutler 
 a similar fate, as his tribute to his mother's memory. He immediately 
 executed four ladies— wives of officers— whom he had captured— and several 
 more afterwards.— This is enough. We see heie all that is necessary (o our 
 review of the time, and to our appreciation of the part taken in the war by
 
 3G4 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book V. 
 
 1835 — 38. Englishmen. It is not pleasant to have to record that Englishmen had any 
 
 ^— '■•'"■ — share -whatever in a war so harharous as to shed more or less disgi'ace on all who 
 
 voluntarily aided either side ; and so ill-conducted as to cast no reflex glory 
 
 on the act. There is something repugnant to the feelings of Englishmen in 
 
 our present age and state of advancement, in our countrymen going forth as 
 
 Bnirisii Legion, mercenaries, hy their own choice, to fight in a quarrel of succession in any 
 foreign country ; and our inclination leads us to be as cursory as possible in 
 our notice of the British Legion which went to Spain mider General Evans in 
 183.5. 
 
 A\Tien the Queen's government became alarmed by the successes of the 
 Carlists in that year, the Cabinet applied for aid to the three Powers in 
 alliance with Spain — Britain, France, and Portugal. Britain declined to send 
 troops, though she would not object to France doing so : and the arms and 
 ammunition already furnished to the amount of £200,000, were considered 
 sufficient. France followed the example of England — promising, however, 
 that the Pyrenean frontier shoidd be watched, that no assistance might reach 
 the Carlists by that way. Portugal was bound by a recent treaty to send 6000 
 troops when required : but it was found inconvenient and dangerous to do so ; 
 and the Queen broke her engagement — breaking up her Cabinet, and one or 
 two succeeding ones, on the occasion. Failing thus far, the Spanish Cabinet 
 next desired of the King of England that he would suspend the Foreign Enlist- 
 ment Act, that the Spanish government might raise in England a body of 
 
 Jme'ioth^'iMr'' Hj^OO merccnarics. This was done in June, 1835; and during the summer 
 months, the strange spectacle was seen of recruiting through the towns and 
 villages of Great Britain. It is impossible that the merits of the case could 
 have been understood by all those who enlisted. They went out to war 
 as a trade or an adventure, without even the name of a gi-eat popular cause 
 
 AutnbioCTaphy of to inscribe upon their banners. We have an account of the aifair from a 
 
 a \\ orking Mao, ^ 
 
 p. 42'j. volunteer who owns that he anticipated but little fighting, but hoped that the 
 
 mere showing themselves would put force into the Queen's troops, and anni- 
 hilate the Carlists ; and then he intended to write a book about Spain, and 
 publish it when he came home at the end of a year. A melancholy picture 
 might be given from liis pages of the exasperating and humiliating suflferings 
 undergone by the British Legion in Spain, and the insulting ingratitude with 
 which they were treated : but this is needless, as the whole afiair ought to be 
 regarded as a private speculation — no more claiming a place in history than 
 any unfortunate commercial or agiicultural adventure, by sea or land. The 
 soldiers of the Legion were starved, frozen, shot, distrusted, deceived, forsaken, 
 and finally, left unpaid. In the midst of all this, an order issued by General 
 Evans cast a fearful light on the nature of the enterprise which he led. He 
 
 1836"'°' ^sf'*'"' is^^'^'l ^ proclamation in June, 1836, declaring that, as the Legion was now in 
 junction with the British Marines, every Englishman found fighting on the side 
 of Don Carlos would be put to death as a traitor to the King of England. 
 A commander of mercenaries could with an ill gi'ace so threaten mercenaries 
 on the other side — bo the Royal Marines present or absent. If the Foreign 
 Enlistment Act was suspended, it was unreasonable to quarrel with men for 
 using their freedom of enlistment in aid of any cause which might seem good in 
 their eyes. Either way, it appeared that Englishmen were to slay Englishmen
 
 Chap. XL] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 365 
 
 in a cause for which none of them cared. During these years, the Carlists noAV 1835—38. 
 and then swept through Spain and back again to their mountains, as if to prove ^^ — ' 
 that they were not unacceptable to the nation who let them pass, without 
 hindrance and without loss. Now we see them down in the extreme south- c*ki.i»t incur. 
 
 SIONij. 
 
 west — on the very coast — often hemmed in, but always getting out — and 
 dragging two or three royal armies helplessly after them : and again, at the 
 gates of Madrid — the Queen quaking in her palace, or flying by night. In 
 the year 1838, the Carlists received some checks, in alternation with their 
 victories. Don Carlos married in that year — his sister-in-law, the widow of 
 Don Pedro, having crossed France privately to become his bride, under a dis- 
 pensation from the Pope. It was hoped that this lady might bring some 
 humanizing influences iuto his camp, and relieve the horror with which it was 
 regarded by the world. As for the royal cause — the Queen Regent spoke in 
 strong teiTus of the friendship of the Queen of England, and of hope fiom 
 various sources : but her voice and manner were faint and faltering, and no one Annual Register, 
 wondered ; for the state was bankrupt in fact, while pompous in professions ; • p • 
 and the forlorn condition of her little daughter must have struck the Ixegent 
 more forcibly than ever while she was exhibiting the value of the friendship 
 of the Queen of England. 
 
 It seemed somewhat like a mockery of the monarchical system, from one point 
 of view, or an emphatic tribute to it from another, that there should have been 
 at one time three Queens in Europe who came to the throne between the ages TimEK Volnu 
 of three and eighteen : — a mockery, if the mental and moral qualities of two ~ 
 out of the three were regarded, and a tribute to the power of the theory and 
 ideal when it was seen how all were supported in their kingly seat, — whether 
 in consequence or in spite of their personal qualities. The spoiled child in 
 Spahi, and the wilful girl in Portugal, were Queens still, in the midst of state 
 poverty, turbulence, and popular discontents without end — as truly as the 
 intelligent and conscientious Victoria, who had reached womanhood before 
 she became Queen. Isabella was not yet old enough to cause trouble to her 
 ministers by her ovm qualities ; but her neighbour at Lisboii was. The 
 Queen of Portugal was seventeen when she married again in 1835 ; and she i-orih-al. 
 had been for some time out of her minority. She left her ministers no peace. 
 A serious quarrel at this time was about making her now husband Commander- 
 in-Chief She was resolved that it should be so, and had agreed expressly to 
 the an-angement as a part of the marriage stipulations, though her ministers 
 and ])iirliament were pledged by a late decision, made to meet the case, not to 
 permit any foreigner to hold that most responsible office. Ministry and par- 
 liament were broken up in consequence : and in the midst of the confusion, 
 before the new Cortes met, there was a revolution : — the Queen was compidled 
 to accept the Constitution of 1820, and to deprive her husband of his office, 
 because it was incompatible with the working of that Constitution. The assent 
 of the Queen and her friends to the instrument was obtained by mere force- 
 by the mihtary surrounding the palace. From that time incessant fluctuations 
 were taking place — risings, fallings, successes, reverses, of the difterent poli- 
 tical parties in the state, till the mind of the reader becomes confused, and 
 gives up all hope of understanding tlie politics of Tortugal. Two matters, 
 however, stand out clear. An heir to the throne was born in September, 1837, «<»■<» "> »"«
 
 366 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 [Book V. 
 
 MfcTHrEN 
 
 Tbeatv. 
 
 1835 — 88. <intl anotlier son in October, 1838. And the great commercial treaty with 
 Great Britain, the Methuen Treaty, expired, on notice from the Portuguese 
 government. Efforts were made for the renewal of the treaty ; hut the dis- 
 turbed state of public affairs i)revcnted any settlement. This might be of less 
 consequence to England than old-fashioned statesmen might easily suppose. 
 Mr. Clay said to an English traveller at Washington, in 1835, " I cannot but 
 ^Yonder at the anxiety of your ministers about the Methuen Treaty, while 
 they thiidi so little of free-trade with growing nations. In Portugal, you never 
 had, and never will have, any thing but two millions of priests and beggars for 
 customers ; while here you might have sixteen millions at once — likely to 
 double their number in a quarter of a century." Those who saw the matter 
 from j\lr. Clay's point of view cared little for the renewal of any commercial 
 treaty with Portugal, except from a natural tendency to hold to " our old and 
 faithful ally ;" — a description which imports more to an English car than an 
 American can be expected to understand. 
 
 There were other points only too clear in the condition and temper of 
 Portugal. Our " old and faithful ally" was very unhappy, and therefore very 
 English in For- ill-tempered. The Enghsh were treated A\'ith an insolence and malignity 
 which could not have been endured but through a proud compassion. The 
 British auxiliaries were unpaid ; and they received nothing but insult when they 
 applied for their dues. So outrageous was the spirit against the English that 
 their Admiral on the station thought it necessary to issue a general order to 
 his Captains not to visit the palace, or hold any communication with persons 
 in authority, lest the intention of England should be misunderstood. The 
 British were above taking offence — so low was their poor ally sunk : but they 
 endeavoured to avoid all occasion of quarrel. At this time, Portugal was 
 bankrupt, and was in danger of a public announcement of the fact. In the 
 summer of 1838, there was a run on the Banks of Lisbon and Oporto; and 
 the Cortes proposed to declare a national bankruptcy. The Bank of Lisbon 
 and a ^lercantile Company offered a loan to avert this catastrophe ; and after 
 some hesitation and debate, it was accepted. For some time past, there had 
 been no paper and printing allowed for the Acts of the Cortes, from the positive 
 beggary of the treasury. It was clear that the British auxiliaries need not 
 expect their pay. — It was also very clear that, if a War of Opinion in Europe 
 should arise, the western element of constitutional freedom could hardly be 
 reinforced by either Spain or Portugal. 
 
 As for the central countries of Europe, they yielded ample evidence to those 
 who were on the watch that the storm was daily gathering which must burst 
 before a genuine peace could be relied on for Europe. Those couilicts of opinion 
 were going forward which would lead to war, sooner or later ; and in this short 
 period the advance towards a crisis is perceptible enough. The debated ques- 
 tions during the time were religious, political, and commercial — the commer- 
 cial being of importance, chiefly as being in fact political. Another token of 
 preparation for a future general conflict was that political affinities, and no 
 longer territorial relations, began to determine the classification of European 
 parties. The despots of the East and old-fashioned diplomatists talked of 
 geographical alliances as an ordination of nature — as the safe old principle to 
 Avhich the world would return, as soon as demagogues could be silenced : but 
 
 Annual Register, 
 1837, p. 3-24. 
 
 portugi'cse 
 Indigence. 
 
 Central Europe.
 
 Chap. XI.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS* PEACE. 367 
 
 not the less (lid men of a higher sagacity perceive, that all geographical 1835 — 38. 
 alliances must give way before the force of political affinities — that Poland ^ — -^--^ — ' 
 and Hungary could not be kept down, if they chose to be free, however sur- 
 rounded by the despotism of the Eastern section of Europe ; and that Portugal 
 could not enjoy rational liberty at all the more for her position, unless she 
 became capable of freedom within herself. 
 
 This period is remarkable for the formation of the gi'cat Commercial League ''''<»■> vkbe.v. 
 of Germany. The States of Germany had hitherto gone to work, each in its 
 own way, about its Customs Duties — about fixing their amount, and levying 
 them. Each little state had its own complete fence of Custom-houses, and its 
 own scale of duties; and the inconvenience, injury, and ill-humour, caused by 
 such a plan were clear to every body. It was the King of Prussia who 
 exerted himself to substitute a better system ; and his ultimate success was 
 an excellent test of the temper and commercial philosophy of EngUshmen. 
 Many made an outcry that it was the Emperor of llussia who was really the 
 mover — instigating his Prussian friend to an achievement by which he hoped 
 to humble the manufacturing and commercial consequence of Great Pritaia : 
 but the true free-traders of England saw the matter in a happier liglit. They 
 saw that England must make haste to remove what restrictions remained 
 on any branch of her commerce : but, that done, it would be cause of mere 
 rejoicing when restrictions on commerce were done away in any part of the 
 world, since- the natural prosperity of any one part is more or less good for 
 every other. Such observers looked on with deep interest, unmixed witli fear, 
 while State after State joined tlie great League — one being at length persuaded 
 to lower its duties, and another to raise them, till the desired equalization was 
 established, and the countries of Gennany ceased to be foreign to each other. 
 Baden held out long, on accoimt of her nearness to France : but she joined 
 in 1835. Nassau held out one year longer. The free City of Frankfort was 
 kept back by an existing treaty with England which was incompatible with 
 the new arrangement ; but the British government saw how Frankfort w^ould 
 be injured by exclusion from the League, and with her, such British commerce 
 as went forward there; and the treaty was given up. In January, 1836, 
 Frankfort entered the League, and the King of Prussia saw his great work 
 complete — though no one called it faultless. Some of its provisions were seen 
 to be unwise, and others might turn out so in practice : but here was a Com- 
 mercial Union, extending from the Baltic and the Niemen to the Al])s and 
 the Lake of Constance. Old-fashioned politicians regarded with satisfaction 
 what they took for a return to a natural state of territorial sympathy ; while 
 men of the new school saw in the an'angcment an important aid in the pre- 
 servation of Peace, in times of political irritation. A commercial treaty be- aistrian ro*. 
 tween Austria and England was concluded in 1838, by which the Danube was "'"""- 
 freely opened to British vessels, as far as Galatz, and all British ports, with 
 IMalta and Gibraltar, as freely to Austrian vessels. Under the dread of Russia 
 which at this period afflicted a great number of Englishmen to a point beyond 
 all reason and all dignity, this treaty *(vas regarded as a Russian work, as much 
 as the Prussian League : and it was predicted that, by a quiet neglect of shoals 
 and sandbars near the outlets of tlie Danube, Russia would obtain almost 
 exclusive control over the pulsations of that great artery of the life of despotism.
 
 368 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book V. 
 
 1835_3S. Exaggerated and malignant as were the fears of some of our countrymen 
 about Russia, there were few sensible men who thought them wholly base- 
 
 RnssiA. j^^^ -j^^ ^^^^ ^^.j^^ looked forward to an ultimate War of Opinion in Europe 
 
 could fail to see that Russia herself occupied nearly one half of the speculation. 
 She mi'dit be poor, in proportion to licr bulk — ill-compacted, corrupt, slavish, 
 possessed of few of the modern elements of power : but she had the ancient ; and 
 they would tell for much in a struggle to establish ancient principles of domina- 
 tion. She was military throughout her whole organization ; — as completely 
 foi-med for foreign invasion as incapable of domestic prosperity and peace. She 
 sits looking abroad over Europe — the representative there of Asiatic despotism ; 
 and her character does not change as years pass on. While modification pro- 
 ceeds every where else — while Denmark and Prussia were talking of having 
 parliaments, and Austria was penetrated by new ideas, Russia has remained 
 what she was — possessed of the ancient elements of power, and universally 
 supposed to be inclined to use them for the destruction of the modern, which 
 are in her eyes purely a nuisance. She was not inactive, while thus un- 
 changeable. She has her feelers out in all extremities of the earth and bounds 
 of the sea, and every where she silently plants her force while men arc looking 
 another way. Wherever people of any nation go, they find that Russia has 
 been before them. If they go fur-hunting in the northern wilds of America, 
 they come upon a Russian fort. If they wander to an inland sea in Asia, on 
 some commanding promontory they find a Russian fort. Among the swamps 
 of an African delta, or the sands at the mouth of the Red River, they find a 
 Russian fort. If these are not hints of a project of a future universal empire, 
 they are at least a fact which should go for what it is worth, on the face of it. 
 It may be absurd enough to allege — as some wild terrorists have done — that a 
 Britisli statesman has, in our day, been found purchaseable by Russian gold: — 
 it may be fanciful to imagine the voice of Russia to be whispering the terms of 
 every treaty ; and the hand of Russia conducting every transaction throughout 
 the length and breadth of Europe ; but it would be mere carelessness not to watch 
 her movements, and a treachery to the cause of Freedom to forget that from Russia 
 will proceed, sooner or later, the most perilous attacks she has yet to sustain. 
 
 Putting aside the surmises of alarmists, we find the Emperor of Russia lay- 
 ing a heavy hand, here and there, on the destinies of nations. In the autimm 
 of 1835, he met the King of Prussia and the Emperor of Austria, in the course 
 of a join-ney ; but whether the despots had any jnnpose in meeting beyond 
 reviewing their troops, no one knew. On his return, the Emperor of Russia 
 
 Till! Emperor at stopped at Warsaw ; and the violence of his Imperial wrath there expressed 
 went so much beyond what appeared prudent to every body but himself, that 
 it was widely believed that he was mad. He told the authorities of Warsaw 
 
 Ann laire Hist, that hc was Calm, aud spoke without rancour ; and he assured them that if 
 they cherished any illusion of the nationality of Poland, it should he the worse 
 for them: — if they manifested in any way such an idea, he woidd level Warsaw 
 with the gi-ound. He desired that what he said might be fixed in their 
 memories ; and truly, it was not likely to be forgotten. The Speech found its 
 way into a French newspaper ; and thence it spread over the world, greatly 
 reviving popular sympathy with the Polish cause. — This was increased by his 
 audacious act of raising a loan in the name of Poland, which caused the Polish
 
 OF TnB 
 ELLES. 
 
 Chap. XL] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 309 
 
 refugees in all countries to warn the world publicly that Poland disclaimed 183.5 38 
 
 the loan, and considered every man the enemy of that country who contributed 
 by this mode to the increase of its burdens. — As for 'J'urkey, she was wholly 
 in the power of Russia, now that Russia had saved her from Egypt : and she 
 obeyed, when required to promise that no armed vessel should pass from the passage 
 MeditciTanean into the Black Sea, without the express permission of Russia.-^ 
 In the treaty of Adrianople, Circassia had been made over to Russia : but the tmcAssn. 
 Circassians did not acquiesce, and fought a noble battle, from year to year, in 
 resistance to the annexation. The best rulers and soldiers of the East in our 
 time have come from Circassia ; and no one wonders at this who watches the 
 conflict between the exasperation of Russia and the patriotism of Circassia. 
 During the period before us, the Russians made little or no progress — the 
 climate and structure of the country being as fatal to them as favourable to 
 the inhabitants. This war brought England into apparent danger of a col- 
 lision with Russia. An English vessel, the Vixen , landed salt on the coast, 
 at a port which the Circassians had recovered from their foe. A Russian 
 cruizer seized the Vixen on the jilea that she had transgressed some Customs 
 regulations, and also that she had landed ammunition for the benefit of 
 the Circassians. The last allegation was positively denied; and, as for the 
 first, it was declared that Russia had no right to impose Customs regulations 
 at that part of the coast. The legality of the seizure was discussed in parlia- 
 ment and the newspapers, till most people were convinced that the affair was 
 a mere plot of a few factious men to embroil the two countries : and the sub- 
 ject was dropped at last, without any distinct claim of release being made by 
 the British government. The tone of Russia towards the people who were 
 successfully resisting her may be judged of by the wording of a letter from the Annu.;i Resistor, 
 invading general, Williamineff, to the patriot chiefs. Copies were taken ; and ' '' 
 the letter was read with a painful kind of amusement, throughout Europe : — 
 " Are you not aware that, if the heavens should fall, Russia could proj) them 
 with her bayonets ? The English may be good mechanics and artisans, but 
 power dwells only with Russia. No country ever waged successful war against 
 her. Russia is the most powerful of all nations. If you desire peace, you 
 must be convinced that there are but two powers in existence — God in heaven, 
 and the Emperor upon earth." — Meantime, the Emperor began to see his way 
 into Persian politics. He was appointed arbiter about a question of succession 
 to the Persian throne : and though the decision was in this case made prema- '"' ""'* 
 tiu-cly by death — the intended heir having died before his father — the idea of 
 Russian intervention was introduced, and thus — as the enemies of Russia did 
 not fail to observe — a step was gained in the advance upon British India. 
 
 Xo where did the despot's hand press more heavily than upon Cracow. By cimow. 
 the Vienna Congress, Cracow, with its small territory, had been declared a 
 free state, muler the protection of Russia, Austria, and Prussia, who were 
 bound by the strongest terms to respect its independence, while stipulating 
 that deserters and outlaws from their respective countries should be delivered 
 up on demand of the goverinnents. Some Poles and otiier refugees had si'ttled 
 in Cracow: some were married, and had lived there (or several years. On the 
 Emperor's saint's day, expressions were uttered which, reaching his car, did 
 not please him. Ilis wrath, into whieli he drew .\ustria and Prussia, fell like 
 
 vol.. 11. 3 11
 
 370 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 [Book V. 
 
 Ann. Ilistoriiiiip, 
 lyati, p. 317. 
 
 Death of the 
 Kmperor of 
 
 1835—38. a thunderbolt upon the city. A complete clearance of Cracow from all liberal 
 refugees within eight days was ordered ; and, cruel as was the order, it was 
 enforced by the troops of the Three Powers taking possession of the city which 
 they had guaranteed from the entrance of any armed force. The scene of the 
 expulsion w as dreadful : when it was over, 2000 of the Austrian troops re- 
 mained ; and presently, the exemplary and religious guardians of the liberty 
 of Cracow began to remodel its institutions, according to their own notions. 
 They dismissed the militia; excluded foreigners and foreign publications; 
 established a truly Russian censorship of the press ; ordained the support of 
 the Greek church by the state ; and dismissed the Diet — postponing indefi- 
 nitely its next meeting. It is difficult to write these facts without comment : 
 but any comment Avould weaken their operation. It is difficult to endure the 
 sight — through the eye of the mind — of the anguish and rage of the citizens 
 under this oppression of unsurpassed profligacy — without some endeavour to 
 express their feelings for them : but, in the sobriety of the spirit of history, we 
 must let facts speak for themselves that can speak as these do, and thus appoint 
 Nicholas of llussia his own historian. 
 
 It was not the Emperor Francis I. of Austria who acted with Nicholas in 
 this matter. The Emperor Francis — the Good, the Paternal, who stroked the 
 heads of children in the streets, and shut up the noblest men of his dominions 
 at Spielburg, and prayed for them while there, and starved them with cold and 
 hunger, and tortured their feelings, and turned their brains, and was so good 
 as to let this be known by permitting Silvio Pellico to tell his story through 
 the press, in order that foolish and troublesome people might be deterred from 
 a rebellion which would cost them so dear; — this "gospel" ruler died in 
 March, 1835, cifter a reign of forty-three years. It was said that he left his 
 empire as safe and prosperous as he found it. It might be as prosperous ; but 
 time alone could show whether it was as safe. Time has shown that it was 
 not so. The astute Metternich remained at the helm of the state : and it w as 
 thought that the notorious imbecility of the new Emperor would not matter, 
 while his Minister's ability was available. But Metternich was old, and, 
 though able, he was not wise. The wisdom of despots is never more than a 
 temporary shift : and temporary shifts are of very short date indeed in our age 
 of the world, and in prospect of a War of Opinion in Europe. Before three 
 years ■were over, we find Metternich threatening war with Switzerland on ac- 
 count of the refugees harboured in her free states, and provoking a religious 
 quarrel which a really wise statesman would have gone a long way round to 
 avoid. — But of that we shall have to speak briefly under our next head. Mean- 
 time, it may be recorded, that the helpless Austrian Emperor, Ferdinand I., 
 was crowned at Milan, in September, 1838 — the Iron Crown being placed 
 upon his wretched head, on whicli sat the fate which mocked at the temporary 
 shift. There was an astonishing environment of barbaric splendour — such as 
 might catch the eye of the foolish sovereign, and the foolish among his people, 
 and of the Italians, who were not truly his people : but in the midst sat the fate 
 which decreed that the puppet Emperor should be released from his vain show 
 of sovereignty in a few years, when a sovereignty must be either nothing, or 
 something better than a vain show. — There is nothing more to tell of his or 
 any rule in Italy during this period. It was elsewhere that the patriots of Italy 
 
 Coronation of 
 Ferdinand 1. 
 
 Ann. Hist. 1838, 
 Chron. 229.
 
 Chap. XI.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 371 
 
 vrere preparing for their part in the European war of opinion : and on her soil 1 835 — 38. 
 there was nothing more remarkable than the ravages of cholera, and the horrors ^— — v.^^-' 
 wliiih grew out of the ignorant consternation of the people, mIio believed that 
 the plague was the work — or rather the malignant sport — of the doctors and 
 their tools among the tradesmen. 
 
 The new king, Ernest of Hanover, lost no time in proving himself a true handler. 
 brother of the craft of statesmanship, of which Nicholas of Russia was the pre- 
 sent head. He fultilled all the expectations of Col. Fairman and the Oran-'e 
 peers of England and Scotland. During the reigns of his two brothers, it had 
 become a common story in England how well the Hanoverians had gone on 
 under the Duke of Cambridge and others who presided, and how suddenly 
 every thing was tumult when the Duke of Cumberland arrived. And so it 
 was now. In his pure and pathetic love for his people — of which he spoke 
 with tender earnestness on every occasion of oppression — he set them by the 
 ears together in the shortest possible time. He arrived in his capital on the i'ricfedings op 
 28th of June, 1837, and on the 8th of July announced in his Letters Patent 
 his intention of setting aside the constitution of Hanover. He had prorogued 
 the Assembly of Estates — the Hanoverian parliament — immediately on his 
 arrival. In November he dissolved it, and annulled the Constitution, of his Annual Rpsistcr, 
 own will and pleasure, declaring that it had never been valid. — It was not to 
 be expected that every body would agree in this. Among others, seven pro- 
 fessors of the University of Gottingen refused to proceed with the election of a • 
 representative, while the Constitution was suspended. All the seven were im- 
 mediately displaced by the King, and three of them banished. Then followed 
 riots at Gottingen, as might be expected. The students left the lecture-rooms, 
 and escorted their exiled professors over the frontier. The King wanted to 
 make oxit that the seven recusants were condemned by the other authorities of 
 the University ; and immediately six more professors came forward to declare 
 their sympathy with the exiles. The military scoured the streets ; but when 
 they had made all quiet for the moment, the business was not over. The 
 smaller states of Germany were alarmed and angry at the King's proceed- 
 ings. Baden first protested against them, as in violation of the federal league 
 of Germany; and Bavaria and Saxony followed the example of Baden. — 
 The Hanoverians are understood to have agreed to use no violence, and to 
 keep their tempers while guarding their liberties. The King was old, and 
 too bad to mend : — they would keep him in check, and wait for a new reign. 
 So the adverse parties blundered on — the King making no progress with his 
 new constitution, while his people declared the old one to be in force. In June, 
 1838, the Assembly voted down the new constitution, and the King pro- 
 rogued the Assembly.— The affair now came before the Germanic Diet at 
 Frankfort, and was discussed, as a matter affecting every one of them, by 
 various states ; and Wirtemberg declared tliat the act of the King of Hanover 
 affected the legal condition of all Germany. — In the next year. King Ernest 
 declared that lie had withdrawn his proposed constitution, and that that of 
 1819 continued in force : but the Chambers voted down the constitution of 
 1819, and were prorogued for two months. The Germanic Diet, however, 
 voted the validity of that constitution; and thus satisfied all parties as to tlie 
 soinidness of the basis on which affairs rested, wliilu all were deliberating as
 
 372 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book V. 
 
 1835—38. to what should be done next.— In 1840, the King offered a constitution which 
 
 ■ ' ' contained almost every thing specified by the Chambers. A deputation from 
 
 New coNSTiru- ^^^ Asscuibly waitcd on him to express gratitude and joy ; and he declared that 
 f»4u"p. w"'""' their kind words made him feel as if a stone were taken from his heart. He 
 had by this time found that governing people who had their own ideas, as he 
 had his, was a less easy and smooth affair than he and his adherents had 
 imagined when Col. Fairman proposed to include the British Isles imder his 
 sovereignty. 
 denmabk. He must have wondered greatly at the King of Denmark for having spon- 
 
 taneously offered to his people something in the shape of a parliament. The 
 Danes had suffered so much, in ancient times, from the oppressions of the aris- 
 tocracy, that they had, two centuries before, besought their King, Frederick III., 
 to take all power into his own hands ; and Denmark had been under despotic 
 government ever since. Now, in 1835, the King had declared his desire to 
 be assisted by the co-operation of his subjects, and enlightened by a knowledge 
 of their wishes. He did not propose to alter the constitution with which the 
 nation apjjeared to have been satisfied for nearly two centuries; but he pro- 
 posed to add to it some regulations for the advancement of popular interests. 
 Opening OF A Re. Thc pcoplc Were to clect representatives, who should meet at stated periods to 
 Annuairc Hist, discuss affairs, and declare an opinion, for the King's guidance, preparatory to 
 ' ' ' the framing of his decrees. The elections were to be direct ; and the electoral 
 terms were liberal. This movement of the King of Denmark may be regarded 
 as one of the most remarkable signs of the times. 
 Sweden and There was a good deal of disputing, during this period, between the ill- 
 
 NoKWAY. assorted pair — Sweden and Norway. The feudal, aristocratic Sweden was 
 
 haughty, and treated sturdy, democratic Norway in a way she did not choose 
 to put up with. The dispute was about the Norwegian flag, and the commerce 
 which should be conducted under it — Sweden so acting as to give the world 
 to understand that there was no Norwegian flag and commerce except as in- 
 cluded under those of Sweden. In 1838, Norway obtained much of what she 
 desired by a concession of the King's — that her vessels should can-y the 
 Norwegian instead of the Union flag, when south of Cape Finisterre, and in 
 other remote parts. The unfortunate prince, through whose conduct and 
 misfortunes Sweden had lost her provinces of Pomerania and' Finland, and 
 gained her new constitution and peace with Russia, the deposed Gustavus 
 iMvl'chroane'. xVdolphus IV., died in Switzerland, in February, 1837. Anotlier of the de- 
 termined enemies of Napoleon's person and policy was thus withdrawn ; and 
 the great soldier's reign seemed thrown back yet further into the past. It 
 was the horror of Gustavus IV. at the murder of the Duke d'Enghien 
 which mainly determined his own fate, and that of the kingdom of Sweden. 
 His latter days were passed in poverty, as well as exile, from his resolute 
 determination to accept of no assistance from any quarter. 
 
 The disputes between Holland and Belgium, sometimes suspended for a 
 term, were renewed with great vehemence, from the King of Holland having 
 cut some wood in the territory of Luxembourg — the possession of which was 
 now the main cause of dispute. In 1832, Belgium agreed to the terms pro- 
 posed by arbitrators ; but Holland stood out. Now, in 1838, Holland was 
 willing to agree ; but Belgium refused — declaring that a dela)- of six years 
 
 Holland and 
 Belgium.
 
 CHA.P. XI.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 373 
 
 justified a rejection of terms which were agi-eed to only for the sake of imme- 1835—38. 
 diate peace. It was evident, however, that Belgium would have to yield: ^^— ^^^ 
 and meantime, it was both amusing and painful to travellers to see ho^v the 
 village tone of spite and rivaky subsisted, unsoftened by time, among the mer- 
 chants of Rotterdam and Antwerp. In 1835, the Belgian government found 
 itself driven, by popular fears and discontents, to an act of great impolicy, whose 
 utter fruitlessness was presently apparent. The duties on foreign cottons 
 were raised, on the demand of the operatives of Ghent, to a point Mhich 
 encouraged smuggling to a destructive extent. In the next year, au act was 
 passed establishing municipal institutions for all the towns and districts. This 
 was nothing new ; such institutions having subsisted before, but, since the 
 separation from Holland, in a state which required regulation. The new- 
 Act gave more power to the government in the appointment of officers than it 
 had before ; but this loss of some popular rights was felt to be more than compen- 
 sated for by the pro\dsions for the better ascertainment and working of the rest. 
 
 The remaining class of troubles and prognostics is that in which religious "Young ger. 
 liberties are concerned, either alone or in complication with political questions. "*'"'■ 
 The new cluster of associates called, in 1835, " Young Germany" or "Young 
 Literature" was the especial horror of the old-fashioned rulers of Europe. 
 Its members — who were denounced in the established language of reprobation, 
 as deists, atheists, democrats, debauchees — men bent on destroying religion, 
 morality, and society — but who might, if asked, have given a somewhat 
 different account of their views and objects — had withdrawn into France and 
 Belgium, and thence sent forth their writings. All the governments presently 
 agi'eed to use all the means in their power to prevent the publication and 
 circulation of the works of Y'oung Germany : but, as long experience has 
 proved, it is not in the power of governments to coerce the press cflectually ; 
 and the proscribed works continued to be written, printed, and read. The 
 next attempt, in 1836, was to prevent the wTiters passing from one State into 
 another ; and the Germanic Diet adopted resolutions for this object which Annimirc iiisi. 
 brought them into collision with the legislatures of the respective States, as '■'■"'■ 
 unwisely as their previous action against the liberty of the press. The Swiss 
 Directory was peremptorily required to deliver up the members of the Young 
 Germany Clubs, or to coerce them : and a disagreement among the Cantons 
 as to how far they would admit these demands of foreign governments was 
 one cause of the trouble and dissensions which agitated Switzerland during 
 this period. 
 
 The troubles of Switzerland were too many and too intricate to be followed swirztnnsi.. 
 out here. We can do little more than remark that religion was implicated with 
 most of them. One serious quarrel with France was on account of the conduct 
 of the grand council of Basle in breaking through a contract, on the ground of the 
 religion of the purchaser of an estate. A French banker had purchased an 
 estate, and paid for it : but when the Basle authorities heard that he was a 
 Jew, they annulled the contract. France considered this a breach of treaty, Anmiairo ni,. 
 and thrcaten(!d war. Out of this grew more bigotry, and furllier disputes ; 
 and several times it appeared impossible that peace could be preserved. The 
 Catholic and Protestant Cantons were also becoming discontented with each 
 other, and the Protestant and Catholic parties wiiliiu tin particular Cantons.
 
 3T4 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 [Book V. 
 
 Prince Louis 
 Napoleon. 
 
 Annuaire Hist. 
 1 83S, p. 292. 
 
 ZlLLERTIUL 
 
 Protestants. 
 
 1835 — 38. Wlien it became clear tliat something" must be done, opinions were taken as 
 to the policy of revising the federal settlement ; a measure which ^^■as favoured 
 by some and opposed by others. While this was imder discussion, Prince 
 Louis Napoleon returned from America, and pursued other objects than 
 attending the death-bed of his mother. With a selfishness as remarkable as 
 his folly, he at once embroiled Switzerland with France. He had obtained 
 citizenship in Thurgau ; and the inhabitants were therefore implicated in his 
 quarrel, as they could not admit that a citizen of their State could bu ordered 
 away on the command of a foreigii government. The Prince allowed the 
 passions of both parties to become exasperated on his account, and even per- 
 mitted the affair to proceed so far as that the French ambassador was ordered 
 to demand his passports, before he witlubew himself from the hospitality 
 which he was enjoying at the expense of the peace of nations. It remains 
 inexplicable what this Prince imagined he had to give that could compensate 
 to the French people and their neighbours for the mischiefs that he was 
 perpetually devising, and the tumults that he was endeavouring to draw 
 them into. 
 
 The Austrian government in the same year committed a more daring outrage 
 on the rights of conscience than could have been supposed possible in the age 
 in which we live. In the Ziller valley, in the Tyrol, lived some people — 
 under 500 in number — who had become Protestants some dozen years before, 
 and who practised their religion in peace and quiet in their mountain retreat. 
 They were warned by government that they must not stay there, unless they 
 joined the Catholic Church, but they might repair to any Protestant part of 
 the empire. They clung to their mountain home : and a denial of civil rights 
 was next resorted to. They were persecuted with every kind of social vexa- 
 tion that could be inflicted; and forbidden to practise their religion. Their 
 churches were closed, and their every act watched and made painful ; till, 
 worn out at length, they prayed for pemiission to emigrate into Prussia ; 
 which was exactly what Metternich wanted. The Prussian government 
 invited them to settle in Silesia ; and there they went, the exhausted and 
 indignant victims of a religious persecution which has disgraced our age. 
 
 The Prussian government was meantime a sinner in the same direction. 
 The King of Prussia actually attempted to bring together the two fiercely 
 opposed parties in Silesia — the Lutherans and the llefonned — by amalga- 
 mating their modes of worship. The Lutherans objected^ and opposed some 
 of their clergy who would have enforced the union. The government insisted 
 that the union was voluntary : but the people did not find it so in practice. 
 They soon saw their pastors deprived ; and they refused to admit successors. 
 Then ensued a struggle for the pidpits, and the calling in of the soldiery to quell 
 disturbance ; and all the other painfid experience of rulers who try to coerce 
 consciences, ending with an extensive emigration of the Lutherans to Australia 
 and elsewhere. Then, there was the quarrel between the Prussian govern- 
 ment and the Catholic Church — the grave dispute whether, imder the Concordat 
 of 1821, the Church was or was not independent of the government. The occa- 
 sions which Avere sure to arise presented themselves in 1837, and related to 
 Marriages between Catholics and Protestants, and to the doctrines of Professor 
 Hermes. The Catholic clergy were beginning to object to the mixed marriages 
 
 Annual Register, 
 183«, p. 4li9. 
 
 i.itherans of 
 Prussia, 
 
 " Persecution of 
 Lutheran Ciiurcii 
 in Prussia,'' p. 
 112. 
 
 Mixed Marria 
 
 CES.
 
 Chap. XI.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 375 
 
 which they had hitherto sanctioned; and they revived a forgotten decree of 1835 — 38. 
 the Council of Trent as their authority. The Prussian government obtained ^-— — ^^^ - 
 from Pope Pius VIII. a dispensation from this decree ; but so ambiguously 
 worded as to be of little use. The archbishop of Cologne made use of this to 
 set aside the brief, and required a pledge from the parties married that the 
 children should be brought up in the Catliolic faith. The government arrested 
 the archbishop ; the existing Pope, Gregory XVI., supported him ; the clergy Annuaire iiist. 
 supported the archbishop; and the soldiery fulfilled the commands of the 
 King : and Protestants and Catholics went on intermarrying — some Protes- 
 tants pledging themselves that the children should be brought up in the 
 Catholic faith, and others relying on the royal promise of protection against 
 the displeasure of Pope and priest. — The other affair was old-fashioned enough ; 
 the proscription and i^ersecution of a book and its author. The Archbishop 
 required of the clergy to refuse absolution to all who attended the lectures of 
 Professor Hermes and his followers at the university of Bonn ; and the King, 
 who thought this was going too for, required the prelate to abdicate, which 
 ho refused to do. He therefore remained a prisoner of state, and the King of 
 Prussia was left in the midst of an open quarrel with the Pope and the clergy. 
 
 In Hesse Cassel there was a religious disturbance too. The multitude Amiu'Il"I-Sster, 
 were told that the sect of the Pietists were not only opposed to human learning "'^•''' p- ■""• 
 for themselves, but were trying to keep knowledge from the peojjle : and they 
 forthwith broke the windows of the Pietists, and made so much disturbance 
 as to cause the muster of all the forces of the State. It was plain enough that 
 they were in want of more knowledge — whether the Pietists desired or not to 
 keep it from them. 
 
 The Hungarians, whose lot has since become so interesting, were already hi n<;ary. 
 astir. In 1837, District Diets were meeting, to consult about refonms, among 
 which they demanded of the Austrian government the substitution of the 
 Hungarian for the Latin language, in all public acts ; and the removal of iwl'p'.'aiiJ.'* ' 
 the Jesuits from the direction of public instruction. Since that day the 
 Hungarian nation has been industriously preparing itself for that libertj' — 
 that independence of Austria — for which it appealed to arms in 1848. 
 
 It appears from this review that the European War of Opinion had akeady 
 begun in some slight skirmishes, which showed that the forces of the East and 
 the West were mustering on tlie field, or hastening towards it. The young Queen 
 Victoria and her people might be quiet at home ; for no despotism threatened 
 them ; and for them, liberty was achieved to that point which rendered (cer- 
 tain the attainment of more, as it should be wanted. With them, all was as 
 safe as social affairs can be in an age when they are but imperfectly under- 
 stood ; and if the sovereign and nation looked abroad over the great future 
 battle-field, it was for instruction and from sympathy, and not from any 
 reasons of personal hope or fear.
 
 376 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book V. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 1835 40. yr is necessary now to review a portion of our history which all parties 
 
 ■ — — ^ ' -*- might be too happy to pass over, if only it were possible. But it is im- 
 
 ■*' ■^°''' possible — not only because the stern spirit of History will have every thing 
 
 told that is known, but because the retribution for the incapacity, the presump- 
 tion, the disregard of constitutional principle, the ignorance, the passion, the 
 cowardice, which were brought out on the one hand or the other, in relation 
 to the affairs ot Canada, is not yet exhausted. That the Whig Ministers and 
 some members of the Opposition of that time never have recovered, and never 
 can recover, from the disgrace of that group of transactions, is merely a minor 
 consequence of what they did. It is a more serious matter that our Colonial 
 relations received a deeper injury than a long course of excellent government 
 could repair. For various reasons, the story must be told as briefly and as 
 nearly without comment as possible. 
 
 It will be remembered that circumstances arose at the Grey banquet, at Edin- 
 burgh, iu the autumn of 1834, that gave hope to the weary and disappointed 
 Reform party of a revival of their cause. Ijord Brougham there was under- 
 LoBD Di niiAji. stood to preach a halting reform doctrine, bringing out Lord Durham to assert 
 a doctrine of unhalting reform, amidst the cheers of the assemblage, and the 
 thanks and sympathy of such oflicial men as were present. It will be remem- 
 bered that, according to the challenge given by Lord Brougham, the contro- 
 versy was to be renewed in the House of Lords ; and that the prospect of this 
 debate and antagonism was understood to be displeasing, if not alarming, to 
 the King : and the supposition was confirmed by the determined exclusion of 
 Lord Brougham from office — first, by the re-establishment of a Conservative 
 Ministry, and then, ou the return of the Whigs, by the putting the Great 
 Seal in commission — while Lord Durham was sent Ambassador to Russia in 
 time to prevent the proposed encounter, and remained there till the spring of 
 1837. — It will be remembered also with how much difficulty the Radical reform 
 members in the House of Commons continued their support to the Melbourne 
 Ministry, through its never-ending and most humbling displays of incapacity 
 and mifitness for the time. We have seen how, so late as the accession of the 
 Queen, in the summer of 1837 — so late as the termination of the elections 
 consequent on that event, in October of the same year — there was every 
 desire to support any administration which made any profession of reform, if 
 only the government would show enough sincerity to preserve its own exis- 
 tence. The difficult and doubtful alliance was preserved chiefly by the 
 knowledge that such a man as Lord Durham was connected ;vith the govern- 
 ment — a man who had shown something of Avhat he could do in his construc- 
 tion of the Reform Bill, and whose declaration against allowing an hour to 
 pass over recognised abuses without an endeavour to reform them, was still
 
 Chap. XII] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 377 
 
 sounding in the cars of all true rcformevs. Some additional vigour was given 1835 — 40. 
 to the hope of the reformers by the treatment of Lord Durham's name both "— -v^— ^ 
 by the Whigs in power and those dismissed from power. The first spoke of 
 liim as "imprudent" and "impracticable"; supporting the charge only by 
 anecdotes which told simply of frankness, honesty, earnestness, and a thorough 
 understanding of principles : and the others. Lord Brougham and his ad- 
 herents, spoke of Lord Durham with a rancour and vehemently affected 
 contempt which betrayed both fear and jealousy. It was reasonably supposed 
 by those who heard tliis kind of detraction that so perpetual a misconstruction 
 of Lord Durham's words and actions, and so virulent a ridicule of his actual 
 foibles, must proceed from some expectation that Lord Durham was likely to 
 become a man of high importance to that political party which had given up 
 all hope from Lord Brougham. The difficult and doubtful alliance of parties 
 which was, in a manner, preserved over the elections of the autumn of 1837, 
 was, however, dissolved before the expiration of the year. The chief organ of 
 the Eadical Reformers declared in January, 1838, "the Ministers are now London an<nvesu 
 understood. The alliance between them and the Radicals is broken, never ^("p.'sojr'™' 
 more to be re-united." The reason of this was that the affairs of Canada had 
 come to a crisis ; that that all-important colony was now to be lost or won ; 
 and that the Ministers were treating the question with an ignorance, and 
 indifference to the rights of the colonists, and to the principles of political 
 liberty, which drove into opposition all who at once cared for political 
 liberties and understood the circumstances of the case. — The case was briefly 
 tills. 
 
 Canada became a British possession in 1763. Its population then was ^"^""'^"-^yj'' 
 about 70,000. It was governed under old French law, which disappeared in 
 France at the Revolution : and the enjoyment of their customs, as well as 
 their rights, was guaranteed to the people on their becoming British subjects. 
 They fell into some British notions and ways, however, amidst their entire 
 content under British rule ; and by 1774 they were ready for a more regular 
 organization of government. This was effected by the Quebec Act of that Cj^ebec act, 
 year, by which a Council was appointed, to assist the Governor, and to have, 
 with him, legislative powers in all matters exce])t taxation. But, ready as 
 the Canadians were to grow into British ways of thinking and acting, the 
 happy process was stopped by the statesmen at home, who thought that by 
 being kept as French as possible, they might be preserved from striving after 
 that independence for which the American colonies south of the St. Lawrence 
 were struggling. By the Quebec Act, the French civillaw was rc-establislied, 
 and the English criminal law alone remained. For several yeais after this, 
 English merchants and others became residents in Quebec and Montreal, and, 
 towards the end of the century, those emigrants obtained — what the French 
 residents had not thought about — a legislature like tliat at lionie. Tliere was cavm.ian i-rr..*. 
 a House of Representatives, elected by forty-shilling freeholders ; and a 
 Council appointed by the Crown, wherein office was held for life, and nn'ght 
 be made hereditary, at the pleasure of the Crown. Tlie Frencli inhabitants 
 were alarmed at the idea of the power that woidd llius be given to the Britisli 
 residents ; and tliey declared themselves ])erfei'tly hapjiy under the (Quebec 
 Art, and averse to any change. Tlii' dangers lliat tliey pointed out — dangers 
 
 vor,. II. 3 t'
 
 378 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book V. 
 
 1835 — 40. to their religion and to the public peace, iu case of the British getting the 
 upper hand — appeared so probable, that government decided to divide the 
 province, drawing the line along the boundary of the French settlements. 
 The country to the west was to be purely British, while the French were to 
 keep themselves as unchanged as they pleased. The government had no mis- 
 giving about this in 1791, when the thing was done ; but Mr. Fox foresaw 
 the mischief that might arise, and gave emphatic warning of it. For many 
 years, his warnings went for nothing, for the colony was contented, and the 
 scheme of division appeared to work well. The French took little interest in 
 politics, and did not even watch over the liberties given them by their own 
 institutions. Both races were extremely loyal, and they fought well for 
 Britain in the second American war. 
 
 PEicr'""'"^^'"^ It was the era which brought peace to us that introduced the elements of 
 strife into Canada. After the peace of 1815, there was a great cmigiation 
 into Canada. Many thousands of men disengaged from the war having now 
 to settle down in a home, a considerable number went to Canada; and 
 among these were some who were disappointed at finding a less fair field for 
 exertion than they had expected. In Lower Canada, French laws and 
 customs were in their way ; and in the Upper Province, there was a sort of 
 aristocracy of the strong loyalists who hated their neighbours of the United 
 States — having themselves come to Canada, rather than live under the LTnion. 
 On the other hand, these loyalists were not at all pleased at the competition 
 set up by the new comers ; and the French in the Lower Province were 
 alarmed at the arrival of so many British as threatened to swamp their race 
 
 Rise of partjes. gnd interests in no long time. These French formed the first political Oppo- 
 sition ever known in Canada : and in the Upper Province, there was presently 
 an 0])position too ; only, it consisted, not of the old residents, but of the new 
 comers. 
 
 All this was clearly a simple process of advance from colonial infancy to a 
 less dependent and more stirring condition ; and government showed that it 
 thought so by requiring the colony to bear more than hitherto of its expenses. 
 All possible care should have been taken at home to render the long transition 
 which had now begun as easy as it could be made by a spirit of justice and 
 watchful superintending care, while the young colony was trying its powers. 
 Instead of this, and wholly by the fault of the Imperial government, an opposi- 
 
 the Assembly tiou was now permitted to arise between the Executive and Legislature, such as 
 is considered a fatal circumstance at home when it is the work of a Stuart — 
 a circumstance so fatal as to justify the armed resistance of a Hampden and a 
 Cromwell. As long as it was possible, the Canadian Executive went on in 
 its own way, strengthening its power by enlarging its patronage, and disre- 
 garding the fruitless complaints of the Assembly : but when the Assembly 
 proceeded to try whether or not it had any power — whether it was a reality 
 or a mockery — when it began to pass measures to weaken the other branch or 
 to strengthen its own, the government intei^posed with an act worthy only of 
 the Stuarts. The Legislative Council was composed of tories, who would be 
 sure to contravene the proceedings of the Assembly. From that time, the 
 struggle between the branches of the government in C'anada became disgrace- 
 ful to the, mother-country which had pennitted it. Each party was as pro-
 
 CuAP. XII.J DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 379 
 
 yoking as possible to the other : but every one must see that the Assembly 1835 40. 
 
 ■was the party most to be considered and pitied. It represented the large " — — 
 
 majority of the inhabitants of botli Provinces, who found themselves not only 
 excluded from office and influence, but unable to get any good measure passed 
 — as every popular measure was, as a matter of course, thrown out by the 
 Council. — Under these circumstances, the Assembly of the Lower Province 
 stopped tlie supplies for the paj-ment of official salaries in 1833; and the f[.p™^","!j, 
 Upper Province followed the example in 1836. The demands which tliey 
 thus enforced were different in the two Provinces — the Upper requiring that 
 the Executive Coimcil should be made responsible to the Assembly ; and the 
 Lower, that the Legislative Council should be made elective. This last de- 
 mand was in accordance with the opinion of Mr. Fox, given forty years before, 
 in a speech which had prophesied the evils that in fact had arisen: but it was 
 solemnly refused by the Imperial Legislature in the form of an assent, by an 
 overpowering majority, to the Resolutions proposed by Lord John Russell on Canada rbsolu- 
 tlie Gth of March, 1837. The division took place on the 14th of April, when nansaru, xsxvi. 
 the Minister was supported by a majority of 269 to 46. Hansard, xxivh. 
 
 The Lower Canadians were only roused by this. They supposed the 
 British government to be ignorant of the state of the case ; and this ignorance 
 might be dispelled by a troublesome perseverance in demands. At any rate — 
 whatever had been obtained from the government during a long course of 
 years, had been gained by means of incessant demands, and of dogged refusal 
 of every thing that it was in their power to refuse till their demands were 
 granted. Those rulers have much to answer for who teach any people such a 
 lesson as this : yet. Lord John Russell saw so little into the culpability of the 
 government as to declare, in the speech which alienated his best supporters, 
 that the government of Canada had been one long course of concessions. 
 The government of a growing colony ought always to be a long course of con- 
 cessions ; and if the government be bad, the difference is that the concessions 
 are less advantageous, from being extorted, than they would have been if made 
 for better reasons. 
 
 The rage excited in Canada by the news of the decision of the House of 
 Commons was extreme. Threats of armed resistance flew abroad over the 
 country : and with them newspapers filled with seditious articles, expressed 
 with the vehemence common in the political literature of all colonics. Govern- 
 ment did not venture to bring the authors to trial — knowing that the juries 
 would acquit. As far as any body kncAv, nothing was done, from month to 
 month, to redress the grievances complained of by the Assembly ; and the 
 people were exasperated beyond control. Two persons arrested for sedition 
 were rescued, on the impulse of the moment, by some armed peasants. The 
 spark was struck among the gunpowder, and the explosion immediately uddblmos. 
 followed. The French population rose as one man, and in December, 1S37, 
 the news amved in London that Canada was in a state of rebellion. 
 
 The ffovernmcnt insisted that means of redress had been aftbvdcd by ihe <;..si..mnioM.Mis- 
 
 ~ ..... MON. 
 
 sending out, in 1835, of Lord (iosford, with Comnnssioncrs, to inqun-e nito 
 the grievances of the Canadians : but that Commission liad made matters 
 worse instead of better, by baulking the hopes of the pcojilt — by jnomising 
 • neat things, and hintinij of liberal iustructions which came to nothing but
 
 380 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book V;: 
 
 1835 — 40. causing imputations of deception, if not of treachery, against Lord Glenelg, the 
 ~ — >— v^i-^ Colonial Minister. Lord Gosford now, on the breaking out of the rchcUion, 
 came home, resigning the government into the hands of Sir J. Colborne, as a 
 miUtary governor, best suited to the exigency of the time. — Here, then, was 
 the state of things — the Governor and his Council in close union with eacli 
 other, and in liopeless hostility to the popular branch of the legislature : — the 
 legislature retaliating its wrongs, and seeking redress, by refusing the official 
 salaries, and demanding from the Imperial government a necessary amendment 
 of tlie Constitution — and tlie Imperial government refusing the ameudment, 
 and merely proposing to improve the quality of the obnoxious Council, with' 
 out touching its principle. Such was the state of affairs in Lower Canada. 
 In the Upper Province it was much the same[; only, instead of a parliamentary 
 refusal of the popular demand, the same end was gained by the putting forth 
 of such government patronage as made the Assembly its own — a temporary and 
 Louiuii ;imi wesu most daugcrous device of procrastination. The numbers in the legislature 
 
 minster Uuview, -,-,■,{*■, /. /» i • r i t * t^ ~r 
 
 viii. 480. had before been forty reformers and twenty tones : after the elections of June, 
 
 183(3, when the Governor put forth call his power and patronage, the nimibers 
 Avere forty-one tories to twenty reformers — a change which, occuiriug in a time 
 of vehement popular discontent, tells its own tale. 
 
 Constitution of In tliis statc of affairs, wliat the Ministers did was to propose to Parliament 
 
 Lower C.anada . r i r^ • • r t n i mi i i 
 
 sisi'EjiUEi), 1838. a suspension of the Constitution of Lower Canada, ifiey had suspended the 
 Constitution before, in the preceding April, by taking the disposal of their 
 funds out of the hands of the Assembly. This was all they had done ; and 
 now they M'ere for suspending more of the Constitution, when some of the wisest 
 people of every political party in the country considered the cause of the 
 Canadians to be just; their demands such as could not be trifled with; and 
 even the war they were now levying to be defensible as regarded England— 
 though unjustifiable as regarded the neighbours of the insurgents, fi-om its 
 hopelessness and unprepared character. When, in such a state of things, a 
 member of the House of Russell stood forth as a INIinister of the Crown to 
 coerce instead of aiding the injured — to call that treason in them which he 
 lauded as patriotism in analogous instances, the thorough Reformers in Parlia- 
 ment and the country felt that it was time to part company with the nominal 
 Reformers who had been practising a Stuart policy, and were now taking a 
 Stuart view of affairs. Upon this occasion it was that the organ of the 
 Reformers declared, " The Ministers are now understood. The alliance be- 
 tween them and the Radicals is broken, never more to be re-united." 
 
 As for the revolt — it was put down at once, and with little difficulty. In 
 three weeks, all was quiet. It was not long before the friends of good govern- 
 ment, and the advocates of the preservation of our Colonial dominion, began 
 to be glad that the rebellion had happened, as it had certainly roused the 
 government to a sense that something must be done. The tone of Lord John 
 
 H^ins.ini,xi.7-42. Russcll, wlio Icd ill the Comiiions, was hard, prejudiced, despotic — full of the 
 arrogance which those are most apt to parade who have brought on a crisis by 
 ignorance or carelessness. He spoke as if the Canadians were purely wilful 
 and ungrateful : and not at all as if they were suffering under protracted mis- 
 government which they could not get rectified: but he now saw that some- 
 thing must be done. He liad suspended a part of their Constitution before.
 
 Chap. XII.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. gSl 
 
 in defiance, and as a punislmient ; and he suspended the rest now; but it 183 j 40. 
 
 was with a view to something beyond. A full inquiry was to be made into " — -^^—^-^ 
 Canadian affairs on the spot, with a view to practical measures. Under 
 the stimulus of rebellion, it was probable that something would be done. 
 Whether something good would be done, must mainly depend on the choice 
 of the man who was sent. 
 
 It was on the IGth of January that Lord John Russell told the House '^'»"""^"''''«- 
 
 ■^ ^ .MISSIONtH AND 
 
 of Commons who it was that was to be sent. " I think it is most important," "■"''bnor ge- 
 he said, " that the person to be sent from this country should be one wliose "ansard, xi. 3s. 
 conduct and character should be beyond exception — a person conversant not 
 solely with matters of administration, but with the most important affairs 
 which are from time to time brought before the Parliament of this country. 
 I think he should be conversant also with the affairs of the various states of 
 Europe ; and moreover, that it should be implied by his nomination that he 
 was not at all adverse to opinions the most liberal, and that he was favourable 
 to popular feelings and popular rights. Having said this much, I know not 
 why I should refrain from adding that her Majesty has been pleased to entrust 
 the conduct of this affair and these high powers to one whom her advisers 
 tliink in every respect fitted for the charge — namely, the Earl of Durham." — 
 Lord Durham felt " inexpressible reluctance" to the charge. His health was 
 not good ; and no post ever filled by any man more absolutely required the un- 
 flinching energy and strong capacity for labour wdiich cannot be permanently 
 commanded in a state of uncertain health. AVith his well-known pride of 
 family and high spirit, there was united a genuine modesty which prevented 
 his ever over-rating his own powers ; and "a good sense which disclosed to him 
 all the real difficulties of any task which he undertook. It was no wonder 
 therefore that he went reluctantly into a work like this — so critical, so ardu- 
 ous, so incalculably important. Tlie work was nothing less than re-organ- 
 izing society in Canada, and mainly determining the colonial relations of 
 England for all time to cume. His spirit warmed as he dwelt upon the sig- 
 nificance of the eflbrt he was now to make ; and before he left England he 
 was able to preach a cheerful faith to some who saw but too much to apprehend 
 for him. It is very affecting now to read liis appeal to friends and foes, on 
 the annoinicemcnt to the Lords of his acceptance of the mission ; — an appeal 
 which it must be more than affecting to both friends and foes to remember 
 now. " I feel," he said, " that I can accomplish it only by the cordial and H.oMr<i,ii.2i2. 
 energetic support — a support which I am sure I shall obtain — of my noble 
 friends the members of her Majesty's Cabinet, by the co-operation of the 
 Imperial I'arliament, and, permit me to say, by tlie generous forbi'arance of the 
 noble Lords opposite, to whom I have always been politically opposed." lie 
 alluded to the "candour and generosity" of the Duke of Wellington; and on 
 these, he knew he might rely: but, as for " cordial and energetic support" 
 from his friends in the Cabinet, and "generous forbearance" from some who 
 sat opposite — it w-as more worthy of his confiding temper to depend upon 
 them than consistent with their conduct in political affairs to grant tliem. 
 
 Lord Durham's appointment was twofold. He went out as Governor- 
 (ieneral of the five Uritish colonies in North America; and also us Lord High 
 ("ommissioncr, to inquire into, and, if possible, adjust, all questions about civil
 
 382 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book V. 
 
 1835 — 40. government pending in Upper and Lower Canada. His powers were imder- 
 stood to be imlimited; and that of gi-anting a general amnesty, being ex- 
 
 His Powers. pj-gggiy mentioned by Ministers in parliament, was eagerly discussed in 
 Canada, from the first moment that the news could an-ive. By a letter from 
 
 Annual Resister, the Colonial Secretary, dated April 21st, liord Durham was informed that her 
 
 \HiS, p. 255. . 1 • 1 1 - 
 
 Majesty s government were anxious above every thing that tiie prisoners con- 
 cerned in the insurrection, who could not be tried in the ordinary courts of 
 law, because it Avas certain that juries would not convict, should be treated 
 with the utmost possible lenity, compatible with the public safety: and, to 
 secure the immediate settlement of the question which the whole government 
 saw to be "by far the most difficult and dangerous," that of the disposal of 
 the prisoners, the unusual power was given to Lord Durham to bestow abso- 
 lute pardon, in treason cases as in others, without waiting for the ascertain- 
 ment of the royal pleasure. When these powers were bestowed, and sympa- 
 thy and cordial support promised, no doubt the Ministers meant what they 
 said. They were as little able as others to imagine how soon they could be 
 scared into desertion and betrayal of the comrade whom they had entreated to 
 undertake " the most difficult and dangerous" part of their business. 
 
 Before he sailed. Lord Durham had warning how much he had to expect 
 from the " generous forbearance " of political opponents. Owing to some 
 unfortunate delays in the going forth of the expedition, time was given for 
 factious opponents to find means of annoyance. Ridicule was east on I^ord 
 
 I'BEPAEiTioNs. Dm-liam's preparations — even to the packing of his plate, and the number of 
 his grooms ; and jocose warning was conveyed to relatives of gentlemen going 
 out, that the ship of war, the tiastings, would be sunk by the weight of the 
 Governor-General's plate ; and so much noise did this nonsense make, that 
 
 Hansard, xiii.4'22. the Marqucss of Chandos nearly succeeded in throwing over the whole enter- 
 prise, by moving an objection to the expense ; the Governor-General being 
 himself unsalaried. — A serious mistake, made by Lord Durham and the Mi- 
 nisters, afforded advantage to their enemies, both now and hereafter. Two 
 objectionable persons — convicted of crime, one in a court of justice, and the 
 other at the bar of the Lords, some years before — went out with the expedition; 
 — one with an appointment, and the other without ; but with a full under- 
 standing that he was to be employed for the purposes of the mission. The 
 Ministers acquiesced in Mi-. Turton's appointment, before Lord Durham's de- 
 parture, though they were afterwards forward in censuring him for it. The 
 appointment was, in truth, a bad one ; and no eminence of legal ability 
 should have been allowed to cancel the moral disability. 
 
 AiiiuvAi. . The voyage was long; and its leisure was employed by the Governor- 
 
 General and his official companions in diligent study of Canadian questions, 
 and in discussions on the mass of papers relating to those questions that they 
 had brought from the Colonial Office. The Quebec papers which were 
 sent on board at the mouth of the St. Lawrence contained bad news. There 
 were faction and fury in the towns, and an outcry against any despotic 
 Governor-General : the French population were believed to be planning mis- 
 chief; and the American " sympathizers" on the borders were giving more 
 and more trouble. — The first slop \vas to prepare a Proclamation, which was 
 done on board. The next was so characteristic as to be worth mentioning.
 
 Chap. XII.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 383 
 
 It was the custom, on the arriviil of a new Governor, to swear in the old Kx- 1835 — 40. 
 ecutive Council. Lord Durham did not intend to do this, being aware of the -— — '-^ — ' 
 thoroughly party character, and therefore present helplessness, of the late Ex- ca. 
 ecutive Council : but the thing was very nearly done by an audacious attempt 
 of the Clerk of the Council to surprise Lord Durham into swearing in the 
 old members. To break up the notion that office in the Council was for life. 
 Lord Durham selected a few quiet now members, with whom he joined his 
 three secretaries. 
 
 When he landed (on the 29th of May, 1838) the British received him with state of toe 
 eagerness, expecting from his hand the annihilation of the French party. Ihe 
 French were dumb and disaffected, sullenly withholding their confidence from 
 their own priests, because the priests were well affected to the government. 
 Tlie late orticiiil body was quite odious and helpless. Upper Canada was in a 
 most alarming state. Sii- Francis Head, the Governor, and others, had 
 cruelly insulted the Americans ; the American " sympathizers " retaliated by 
 attacking steam-boats, and keeping up a small war along the borders, which 
 the government at Washington was wholly unable to control. From the bad 
 state of municipal arrangements, the towns were in a barbarous condition as 
 to police, paving, and lighting : and nothing could be worse than the state of 
 public feeling about the administration of justice, both on a large and a small 
 scale. From radical faults in the method of selling Crown lands, insuperable 
 impediments existed to the proper settling of the country, and the disti-i- 
 bution of emigrants westwards; a mischief as fatal to the prosperity of the 
 colony as its political troubles. Tlie canals, indispensable for commerce, w liich 
 would other^^ ise find its way through the United States, were left unfinished ; 
 and no representations made to government at home about the necessity of 
 completing them obtained any attention. Some of the old tenures of land 
 were vexatious and detrimental, and there was no registration of land. Edu- 
 cation was in a backward state ; though among the French population, virtu- 
 ous efforts had been made for the instruction of their c4iildren. ^\ hat the 
 spirit of rancour was between the two races and political parties, there is no 
 need to repeat. 
 
 Such was the state of things when Lord Dvndiam landed at Quebec on the 
 29th of May. Within a few weeks there was a great change. It used to be speedy improve- 
 saul of liOrd Durham in his foreign missions, that a week or so was spent first 
 in making potentates understand that he meant exactly what he said, and 
 nothing else ; and that from that time, business proceeded rapidly, smoothly, 
 and safely. He used the same frankness now, .and so did his coadjutors : and 
 it was understood by every bodv but the government at home. Colonel Grey 
 ■went to AVashington ; and immediately all was well there. All danger of why 
 was presently over; and the British and American forces were co-operating on 
 the liouticr. The French population, thus deprived of hope from the Border- 
 ers, settled down in a kind of sullen resignation, and left off pk)tting lebellion. 
 The British were annoyed that the French were kindly treated, and their 
 loyalty became of a soberer kind. In Upper Canada, Lord Durham per- 
 suaded Sir George Arthur to give up all his plans of lianging rebels, and to 
 publish a general amnesty, by which minds were set at rest. Before Jtnie was 
 out, provision was made for paving and lighting, and furnisliing a good police
 
 384 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 [Book V. 
 
 KAL IInION of 
 
 Colonies. 
 
 Hansard, xxsvii 
 1209. 
 
 1835 — 40. to Quebec and ^lontreal. By means of a Land Commission, a path was opened 
 to colonists, and the most abundant of all sources of colonial prosperity was 
 freely oi)cncd up. A good Court of Appeal was constituted of the Judges, 
 with two additional members. By Imjierial Act, the new Executive Council 
 was made the Supreme Appellate tribunal. A Registry of Land-titles was 
 instituted, and a comm\itation of the feudal tenures of Montreal provided for, 
 as a beginning- of a general commutation. An Education Commission saw 
 its way to the establishment of a general system of education by which the 
 adverse races might be united in schools and colleges, so that in another gene- 
 ration their present animosity might have become a tradition. 
 
 These were not small things to have done in the course of a few weeks : but 
 there were two aifairs — one more immediately embarrassing, the other more 
 eminently important, than any of these — which still more deeply engaged the 
 minds of the Governor-General and his coadjutors. Tlie permanently im- 
 scHEME OF fede- povtaut subjcct was the scheme of constituting a Federal Union of the British 
 North American provinces, for the two objects of securing good government 
 for these colonies themselves, and of providing a counterbalance to the increas- 
 ing power of the United States in the western hemisphere. This scheme ap- 
 pears to be one of those whose fulfilment is only a question of time. It has 
 been suggested and re-suggested by statesmen, from Mr. Fox downwards — if 
 not from an earlier date still. Mr. Roebuck introduced it, formally and com- 
 pletely, in the House of Commons, in April, 1837; and Sir R. Peel, Lord 
 Howick, Mr. Ellice, and others, declared their approval of it. Lord Uurham 
 began immediately to inquire and act — conceiving that no surer means of 
 securing peace in the colonies could be found than uniting their legislation in 
 matters of common interest to them all — such as the conduct of their defence 
 in time of war, post-office and currency matters, and others- — while their local 
 affairs were ruled by a legislature in each colony. Sir Charles Grey, who had 
 been one of Lord Gosford's commissioners, had proposed to divide the Canadas 
 into three provinces, with their respective parliaments; by which plan he be- 
 lieved the adverse races would be so separated as to cease to annoy each other, 
 while their representatives might meet in a central parliament, to legislate 
 upon the navigation of the St. Lawrence, their commercial duties, their mone- 
 tary system, their railroads, canals, and internal communications. Lord 
 Durham was disposed in favour of the large federal system, and of also divid- 
 ing the Canadas into three provinces — the westennnost of which would be 
 exclusively British ; the easternmost French , of a very quiet sort ; and the 
 intermediate one containing botli populations, but the French in a small mi- 
 nority. The numbers in the two Canadas were at that time 950,000; of 
 wliich 620,000 were British, and 330,000 were French. By some means or 
 other, the process must be renewed by which the F'rench had been fast be- 
 coming British when the Act of 1791 separated the races again: and the 
 present scheme appeared the most promising, by its operation in concentrat- 
 ing powers, and swamping dissensions, while it left laws and customs un- 
 touched. Lord Durham requested that the colonies luuler his government 
 would send able persons to Quebec to discuss this subject with his Council. 
 On the 12tli of September, some gentlemen arrived from Nova Scotia and 
 Prince Edward's Island; and others soon followed from New Brunswick. 
 
 General Report, 
 pp. 64-5.
 
 CicAr. XII] DURING THE THIRTY YEAR8' PEACE. 385 
 
 These gentlemen were well chosen — intelligent, enlightened, and seriimsly 183.") — JO. 
 
 disposed in favour of the scheme. I5ut events were happening which put an ' • ' 
 
 end to their deliberations. 
 
 The other affair was that which Lord Durham and the Ministers had agreed nis'"'s''i-<"'™E 
 
 ^ PniSONF.llS. 
 
 beforehand was " by far the most difficult and dangerous" — the disposal of 
 
 the rebel prisoners. Their fate ought to have been decided by Sir J. Colborne, 
 
 and not left to he an insuperable embarrassment to the Governor-General. 
 
 But the thing had not been done ; and it must be done now. It was a subject 
 
 of deep thought and long deliberation. The case was this. The rebellion had 
 
 been put down long ago ; and it was imiversally understood that its outbreak 
 
 was by a sort of accident, though its spread was but too well prepared for by 
 
 the violence of previous agitation. The gaols were full ; and the choice of a 
 
 method of clearing them was rendered infinitely more difficult by delay. To 
 
 have military tribunals now was out of the question, after such a lapse of time, 
 
 and in the state of men's minds: and the civil tribunals could not have acted. 
 
 Convictions could not have been obtained but by a packing of the juries by 
 
 government; — a course not to be thought of. Two members of the ('oimcil 
 
 suggested to Lord Durham to punish a few leaders lightly, but steadily, by 
 
 means of an ex post facto law, made to meet the case. T;ord Durham foresaw 
 
 the outcry that would be made ; iind declared that he would not tliink of it 
 
 on any grounds less broad than tlie wish of the leading loyalists, and the 
 
 petition of the prisoners themselves. The leading men among the British 
 
 made known their approval ; and we have the petition of eight rebel leaders, 
 
 dated from Montreal Gaol, June 2.3th, 1838, in which they exhibit their own 
 
 view of the course which would be best for the peace of the country. " We 
 
 professed our willingness to plead guilty," they say, " whereby to avoid the a™"",' .I'.^f '"'"''• 
 
 necessity of a trial, and to give, as far as is in our power, tranquillity to the 
 
 country. . . . We again place ourselves at your Lordship's discretion, and pray 
 
 that the peace of the country may not be endangered by a trial." — Yice- 
 
 Admiral Sir Charles Paget ^^as at Quebec at the time ; and with him the plan 
 
 was discussed and agreed upon. 
 
 On the day of the Queen's coronation, the 28th of June, an Ordinance ap- ^^"ufJ'J^""'" 
 peared, which declared that the eight rebel leaders in the gaol of ^Montreal had Aniiu.ii nonisior, 
 acknowledged their guilt, and submitted themselves to her INIajesty's pleasine : '''^'*' '''"'"' ' 
 that sixteen others, who were named, had fled: that it was hereby enacted, 
 that the eight before-named culprits should be transported to Bermuda, to 
 undergo there such restraints as should be thought fit: and that any of either 
 class of culprits who should return and be found in the province without per- 
 mission, should suffer death. It was to be in the power of any (iovernor to 
 permit any or all of these persons to rctm-n. Another clause excepti-d from 
 mercy persons concerned in two murders connected with the rebellion. With 
 this ordinance was published a proclamation of amnesty for all ])olitical offences, 
 for all persons but those designated in tlie Ordinance. 
 
 The success of this measure was complete and innnediale. Except tliat some 
 of the British at (iuebec were offended at its leniency, there was nothing but 
 exultation on every hand. It produced a strong iiii]iression in the Tnited 
 States; and its instant effect in settling minds, and restoring social confidence 
 in Canada, was very striking. None were better pleased ilian ilie prisoners 
 
 VOT,. II. 
 
 .•5 i>
 
 386 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 [Book V. 
 
 1835—40. 
 
 APPaoVAL AT 
 
 llyME. 
 
 themselves— as might have heen expected. Lord Durham had fears through- 
 out that censure wouhl arise at home : but tliese fears -were dissolved as soon 
 as the mails could cross and recross the Atlantic, by the arrival of a despatch 
 from the Colonial Minister, and an autograph letter from the Queen, approving 
 of the ordinance and proclamation in the strongest terms. 
 
 The -worst seemed now over : the past appeared done with, and the way 
 clear for the completion of the reforms in progress. Lord Durham's health, 
 never good, was somewhat impaired by toil and anxiety ; but he was now 
 cheered, and had no doubt of finishing his great work. But the past was not 
 done Avith ; for he had omitted to send home to the government a statement 
 full enough to produce in parliament, to meet the questionings and cavils of 
 the uninformed and hostile. The Ministers knew enough for their own satis- 
 faction : and he relied on their pledges of cordial support, and on their consci- 
 ousness of his ample powers — given by themselves : but he ought to have fur- 
 nished them with such complete documentary exhibitions of the case as would 
 have made them as strong with parHament as he believed himself to be with 
 them. He did not ; and it ^vas a fatal omission. — Some other matters had not 
 gone smoothly. Lord Melbourne, with all his nonchalance and gaiety, had 
 not spirit, activity, and courage, to stand by an absent friend under attack in 
 the House of Lords ; — and especially when the attack came from Lord 
 Brougham, who now had power at any time to unnerve him. All the Minis- 
 ters were aware of Mr. Turton's intended appointment before he sailed ; yet 
 Lord ]Melbourne gave it up to censure, as if it were a fact new to him, when 
 questioned upon it, on the 2d of July, by Lord Wharnclifte. Lord Durham 
 did not conceal his feelings on this incident, when he next wrote home. — 
 Another attack was made in the Lower House, when Sir Edward Sugden ob- 
 jected to the small number of the Governor-General's Council ; and on this 
 occasion, the arrangement was quietly vindicated by Lord John Russell and 
 the Attorney-General. — The great attack was made on the Tth of August, by 
 Lord Brougham, who not only offered objections which every member of the 
 Legislature had a perfect right, and might consider it his duty to oifcr, but pur- 
 sued his supposed rival in a manner mournful and surprising even to those who 
 knew his temper, and the antecedent circumstances. — About the illegality of 
 that part of the Ordinance which declared the culprits liable to death punish- 
 ment if they returned without leave, there was a widely existing doubt — no 
 trial having taken place : but Lord Brougham also denied that the principal of 
 the eight prisoners had ever acknowledged himself guilty ; he set forth a 
 different policy for Canada as the one which he avouclicd to be right ; and he 
 i,>Rn Brougham's 'brounht in a bill to declare the meaninsr of the Canada Act, under which Lord 
 
 !)FCLAI1AT0KY O _ . ^ . . . 
 
 B '-I-. Durham went out — proposing therein large limitations of the powers of the 
 
 Governor-General — and offering to indemnify, by act of parliament, all per- 
 sons concerned in the issue of the Ordinance of the 28th of June. Lord 
 Brougham's own bill contained errors which exposed him to some retort ; as 
 when it declared the Ordinance to be " so much for the service of the public, 
 that it ought to be justified by act of parliament," while in the same breath 
 Lord Brougham was vehement about its gross and intolerable injustice. The 
 declaration in the Bill was vindication enough of the Ordinance in a moral 
 point of view, as Lord Glenelg declared ; and he avowed his intention of sup- 
 
 Hansard, xUii. 
 
 1167. 
 
 Attacks by 
 Opposition. 
 
 Hansard, xliv. 820 
 
 Hansard, xlir. 
 lOl'J. 
 
 Hansard, xliv. 
 1073.
 
 Chap. XII.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 387 
 
 porting the Ordinance as legal in all its parts but one — meeting the conse- 1835 — 40. 
 quences of that one by instructing the Governor of Bermuda not to detain the "-- — ■ — -^ 
 prisoners if they should choose to depart — which every one knew they would 
 be careful not to attempt. Lord Glenelg also pointed out the novelty, in Lord 
 Brougham's bill, of proposing indemnity for a cunent transaction; — that is, for 
 acts future as well as finished. All the generous-minded men, of any politics, 
 were of one mind about tlie temper showu in the treatment of Lord Durham, 
 and the studious forgetfulness of the singular exigency of his position. Such 
 men felt that after having given Lord Durham powers almost unlimited for 
 the management of a crisis almost unequalled, and encouraged him to rely on 
 their " cordial support" or " generous forbearance," as the case might be, it 
 could not be right to pass now — in regard to his very first act of mercy— a bill, 
 called declaratory, but which should materially limit the powers they had so 
 lately conferred. Such men were for rectifying the one supposed illegality of 
 the Ordinance, wliile supporting its intent, and upholding, wherever it was 
 possible, the authority of the Governor-General, till the organization of Ca- 
 nadian affairs should preclude all doubts as to the field of action for rulers, and 
 release them from the present urgent necessity of support from home. But, if 
 the jNIinisters fully understood the case, they did not show that they did. They 
 could not, unfortunately, interest parliament by the production of any docu- 
 mentary narrative or reasoning from the Canadian government : and Lord 
 Brougham's opposition was more than they had courage to stand. Though 
 Lord Melbourne declared, on the 9th of August, that the House was suffering H.insaad, xiiv. 
 
 . . . . . WM. 
 
 from the narrowing of the mind caused by the pursuit of the legal profession, 
 and that if the Canadas were now lost, through the discrediting and fettering 
 of those who should protect them, it would be by special pleading, he ga^■c way "JmbT^'^'" "'^' 
 in twenty-four hours. The second reading of Lord Brougham's bill was carried 
 by a majority of 54 to 36. After this, all was in confusion. Lord Denman 
 was disposed to believe that Lord Durham had the power of transporting the 
 prisoners to the Bermudas, though every body else had given up tliat point, iiansard, xiiv. 
 It came out that Sir J. Colborne had passed ordinances of attainder more 
 stringent than Lord Durham's, without any question from any quarter : and 
 Lord ]3rou}iham now refused to declare whether he thouaht Sir J. Colborne Fiansani, xiiv. 
 had transcended his powers. Lord Brougham's bill was stripped of all its de- 
 claratory portions, and reduced to a mere enacting of Indemnity, to which again 
 Lord Denman objected, on the part of the prisoners, as a gross violation of the 
 constitution. Amidst this confusion, absurd if it had not been about a matter Ifj''^""^^" "*'" 
 so serious, the only party whose views and facts were not fully explained was 
 Lord Durham. He and his position were sacrificed, while nothing was esta- 
 blished. 
 
 On the 10th of August, Lord Melbourne announced that the Queen's Dism.lowanci; n- 
 
 <^ ' • T 1 '^"*^ Ordinance. 
 
 advisers had counselled the disallowance of the Ordinance. " I cannot but 
 
 say," he declared, "that it is with the deepest regret and alarm that I liave [inn^r.i, xiiv. 
 
 taken this course. I cannot but say that it is not without great appreliensions 
 
 of the consequences that I have taken this course ; and it is not without 
 
 feeling the greatest pain and regret that I have come to tliedeterminatiou." — 
 
 In the Commons, the debates on the subject were animated, and sometimes 
 
 angry ; and the Ministers appeared even more weak than in the Lords. On
 
 388 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book V. 
 
 1835 — 40. Sir Charles Grey declaring that, wliile he disapproved of the Ordinance in 
 
 ■ ■ — ' general, he was eonvineed of the legality of the provision for the transporta- 
 
 "o"''"^'*' '''"■ tion to Bermnda, Dr. Lushington observed that Lord Durham might havc 
 gone further astray if he had had more legal advice, since the Lord Chan- 
 cellor, the Lord Chief Justice, Ex-chancellor Sugden, Sir William FoUett, and 
 Sir Charles Grey, all differed from one another as to the legality of his acts. 
 It Avas now, however, too late to re-consider the matter. The pledge was 
 given to disallow the Ordinance ; and it Avas done in such a hurrv that the 
 Amnesty provision was not remembered : and it must now include all the 
 parties named as excepted in the Ordinance. The step which Lord Durham 
 was compelled instantly to take in consequence of this was converted into 
 another charge against him, as will be seen. — xis Lord Glenelg had emphati- 
 cally ajjproved the Ordinance, in a despatch to the Governor-General, it was 
 KuTiREMENT Oh tliought ncccssary that he should retire when the annulling was decreed. 
 He was got rid of, and was succeeded, as Colonial Secretary, in February, 
 1839, by Lord Normanby. 
 
 It was on a fine September day, on returning from a merry drive, that 
 news^inCanI™'' Lord Durham and his family and advisers received the news of the disallow- 
 ance of the Ordinance. His friend and l)est helper, Mr. Charles BuUer, 
 knew before dinner — knew by his countenance more than by words — that all 
 was over — that their g-reat enterprise was ruined. When they sat down in 
 consultation, that adviser and friend would fain have persuaded himself and 
 others that all was not over. That this was the result of an intrigue was to 
 them clear. The Ministers and Lord Durham had a deadly enemy, who had 
 given notice of what they might expect when he declared that he " hurled 
 defiance" at Lord Melbourne's head: and Lord Melbourne and his comrades 
 dared not withstand this enemy even while the first lawyers in the empire 
 disagreed as to whether the Ordinance of Lord Durham was legal or illegal. 
 What Sir J. Colborne had done was approved or passed over ; and when, in 
 a most critical difficulty which Sir J. Colborne should never have thrown 
 upon him, Lord Durham used powers which Sir J. Colborne had used mthout 
 question, his watchful enemy seized his opportunity to scare his friends from 
 supporting him, as they were pledged to do. Considering all this, and that 
 Lord Durham was to blame in not has'ing furnished the government at home 
 with sufficient documentary material for his defence, Mr. Charles Buller 
 earnestly desired to hold out, for the high prize of success in retrieving the 
 colonjr, and forming a new and sound colonial system. But he soon saw 
 Necessity .vi that Lord Durham Avas right in proposing to return. The Governor-General 
 had not health for such a struggle as this must now have been. Energy and 
 decision were not always to bo commanded in the degree necessary under such 
 unequalled difficulties ; and death in the midst of the work was only too pro- 
 bable. Again — the colony was still in too restive and unsettled a state to be 
 governed by an enfeebled hand ; aiul while unsupported at homo. Lord 
 Durham was a less safe ruler than Sir J. Colborne, whom he would leave in 
 his place. Again — it was now clear that the true battle-field on behalf of 
 Canada was in Parliament. With his jnescnt knowledge in his head, and his 
 matured scheuies in his hand, l-ord Durham could do more for Canada in the 
 House of Lords than kc could do at tiuebec, while the Lords made nightly
 
 Chap. XII.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 389 
 
 attacks which drew rebuke even tioiii the Duke of Wellington, and thwarted 18;3.) 4() 
 
 the policy which they did not understand. Thus, resignation was an act of ^— — ■ 
 
 sad and stern necessity ; but, if not so, it was an act of clear fidelity to Canada. 
 It was hastened by rumours of intended insurrection, which, under the circum- 
 stances, could be dealt with only by Sir J. Colborne. 
 
 And now again came the question, what was to be done with the prisoners I Thi; imuwoveus. 
 The case was at present this. They would return on Lord Durham's resig- 
 nation. Were they to be tried or not.' Having been already more or less 
 punished, were they to be punished over again .' The violent loyalists would 
 have arrested them ; and then would have ensued the very evils, with aggra- 
 vation, that the Ordinance was designed to obviate. The guilt would have 
 been proved ; and acquittal would have followed, in the face of the evidence. 
 There must have been (to avoid such a spectacle as this) a suspension of the 
 Habeas Corpus, or packed juries, or martial law; and if Lord Durham would 
 not introduce such measures for the punishment of the rebels at an earlier 
 date, he would not do it now, to repunish a few of them long after tlie re- 
 bellion had ceased. These men were as yet feeble and insignificant — tlie 
 few against whom there was a sufficiency of evidence : but they would become 
 abundantly formidable if it could once be said in the United States, and 
 around their own homes, that they were persecuted by the British govern- 
 ment. This would be made the pretext of the rebellion then brewing ; which 
 might otherwise be easily dealt with from its want of jn'etext. There was 
 also no time to be lost ; for the men might now arrive any day. Lord Durham 
 was therefore advised to meet the difficult)^ half-way — to speak the first word^ — 
 and to do it by inserting in his needful Proclamation a declaration that there proiuamation. 
 was now nothing to prevent the retin-n of the prisoners. Lord Durham him- 
 self observed that this ^^ ould be regarded at home as a freak of temper : but 
 his Council encouraged him to brave the imputation, and trust to the facts 
 becoming understood in time.- — The act tvas called a freak of temper ; and so 
 was his determination to return ; and so was his Proclamation — which is con- Ammai Hofisier, 
 sidered by impartial observers one of the finest papers of its kind that our p. 311. 
 history can show. It was not a case in which there could be any conceal- 
 ment or shuffling. To enlist the colonists on the side of obedience aud oriler, 
 it was necessary to tell them simply why he must leave them — why the rebels 
 whom he had punished were released by the home government — and how it 
 was that the plans for the welfare of the colony were suddenly stopped. It 
 was necessary, for the same purpose, to keep up their hope and trust in 
 government — to show them that all might yet be well if he went home to 
 explain their case — to lead them to rely on liim still, as resolved in tlieir cause. 
 The Proclamation was issued on the 9th of October; and its innnodiate 
 effect was to soften the grief and wrath of the colony at losing him — to allay 
 excessive agitation — and to prove that he had not miscalculated the resources 
 of the colony, by bringing forward volunteers, in fresh confidence, for the 
 defence of the province. 
 
 He did what he could to obviate to the colony the mischief dcine liy friends 
 and foes at liome ; and he did so inuch tliat he must ever Ik- rcgariled a.s 
 the originator of good government in tlie Colonies. llarely has
 
 390 
 
 HISTOEY OF ENGLAND 
 
 [Book V. 
 
 Rrturn of Tllli 
 Commission. 
 
 1835 — -40. work been done in five mouths than the actual reforms he wrought in 
 Canada : but lie did much more by means of the Rejrort which he delivered 
 after his return. 15y means of this celebrated Report, free and large jjrineiples 
 of colonial government are exhibited in action, and endowed with so commu- 
 nicable a character that there are none of our more thriving colonies that do 
 not owe much of their special prosjjerity to him ; and probably few of the 
 least happy that would not have been in a worse condition if he had not gone 
 to Canada. By the utmost diligence in the completion of his measures 
 during the few weeks that remained — by every effort of self-control, and by 
 the quiet operation of his magnanimity — he averted as much as he could of 
 the mischief done at home ; but one fatal consequence was beyond his powei-. 
 His heart was broken. No malice, no indifference, no levity, can get rid of 
 that fact ; and it is one which should not be hidden. 
 
 He held to his Avork to the last. On the night before his departure, a 
 Proclamation settled the rights of squatters on Crown Lands. As he went 
 down to the harbour, crowds stretched as far as the eye could see— every head 
 uncovered, and not a sound but of the carriages. This deep silence of sym- 
 ])athy moved him strongly ; and he believed that this was bis last sight of an 
 assemblage of men ; for he had no idea that he could reach England alive. 
 As the frigate — the Inconstant — was slowly towed out of harboiu', heavy snow- 
 clouds seemed to sink and settle upon her, while o^er the water came the 
 sound of the cannon which installed his successor. Those of his Council who 
 remained behind, to clear off arrears of business, were alarmed, during their 
 sad and silent dinner, by a report of fire on board the frigate ; and a fire there 
 was; but it was presently extinguished. There was no intermission of storms 
 up to the moment of the landing at Plymouth, on the 1st of December. 
 While the ship was in harbour there, the weather was so boisterous that there 
 was difficulty to the Queen's messengers in finding any seagoers who would 
 undertake to convey on board the Inconstant the packet of orders to land 
 Lord Durham without the honours. It was done by a boat being allowed to 
 drive so that the packet could be thrown on board. He met honours in abun- 
 dance, however, on his landing, and all the way to London — crowded public 
 meetings — addresses — escorts — every token of confidence and attachment that 
 could cheer his heart. There was great joy throughout the liberal party when 
 his first words at the Devonport meeting were known. They referred to his 
 " declarations to the people of Scotland in 1834," as his present creed. But 
 he disappointed the liberals by his magnanimous determination to devote 
 himself to the retrieval of Canada, and to listen to nothing else till that Avas 
 effected. 
 
 Lady Durham immediately on her return resigned her situation in the 
 Queen's household. Great efforts were made to bring about a reconciliation 
 between Lord Durham and the Whig government ; and his generosity aided 
 the attempt. He could afford to do it ; for he had never spoken evil of his 
 enemies. Nothing had throughout been more touching to those who knew 
 him than his slowness to give up hope in Lord Brougham, and his quick- 
 ness in seizing on favourable explanations of doubtful conduct. He now 
 required of his friends silence in both Houses about his quarrel : iind he kept 
 
 The Landing 
 
 Spectator, 1838, 
 p. 1 159.
 
 Chap. XII.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 391 
 
 silence himself.* While the newspapers of all parties were commenting on 1835 — 10. 
 
 the weakness of the Whigs, and declaring that the)- could not remain in power " — 
 
 " beyond Easter at furthest" — (a curious hit as to date) — Lord Durham 
 devoted himself only the more to the support of a ministry which, with all 
 its sins and weaknesses, professed a liberal policy. He was soon joined by 
 his coadjutors from Canada; and they worked together at the ccdebrated 
 Report. Tlicre was more cavil about small circumstances on the publication of 
 the Report — worthy of mention only as showing how he was betrayed when 
 he relied on the "cordial support" of friends and the " generous forbearance" 
 of opponents. Much of his time and labour was devoted to tlie instruction of 
 his successor, Mr. C. Poulett Thomson — afterwards Lord Sydenham - — who 
 wisely resolved to adopt the Durham policy with the utmost completeness. 
 Many hours every day were spent in consultation, and preparation of mea- 
 sures ; and to good purpose. Not only were Lord Durham's plans all adopted 
 by Lord Sydenham, but his own best measures were planned in Lord Dur- 
 ham's house in London, prepared for introduction in Canada, and the agents 
 informed and instructed. These duties done, but few months of life remained 
 to the baffled Statesman. When he could give information about Canadian 
 matters, or vindicate the principles of good government at home, or in the 
 colonies, he was at his post in the House of Lords. But he was visibly 
 sinking. In the summer of 1840, he was ordered to the south of Europe for J;'^".",J^' ""^"' 
 his health ; but he found himself so ill at Dover that he turned aside to 
 Cowes, where he became too weak to leave his couch. Even then, and when 
 he was unable to take any noiuishment but a little fruit, there was so much 
 life and animation in his countenance and conversation, that those who knew 
 him best could not but believe that much work yet lay between him and the 
 ffrave ; but on the 28th of July he sank rapidly, and died in a few hours, his dcath. 
 
 " •' 1 -1 1 1 1- 1 Annual Reeister, 
 
 Lie left his large estates and other property as much as possible at the disposal isw. chmn m. 
 of his devoted wife — the eldest daughter of Earl Grey : but she followed him 
 in a few months, leaving their young son to emulate the virtues of his parents 
 as well as he might after the spectacle of their example was withdrawn. 
 
 Thus were the liberal party in Great Britain deprived of the statesman „ ^ 
 whom they had hoped to make their head. It may be questioned whether 
 his health or his temperament would have ever permitted him to hold a post 
 in the Cabinet for any length of time. He could not under Lord Grey's 
 premiership ; but the short-comings of that administration are quite enough 
 to account for his secession. The halting reformers were no comrades for 
 him : and his directness, frankness, faith, and courage, were altogether over- 
 powering to them. JNIagnaiiimous as his nature was, he had faults of temper 
 which excused some dislike and some ridicule, though that fault was mucli 
 exaggerated by those who, being able to establish no othercharge against him, 
 made, the most of that. He had much to bear from the loss of childien, and 
 his infirm health ; but he never was wanting to the discharge of public duty. 
 
 * It will be evident to the readers of tliis chapter that it is written from private know- 
 ledge, as well as from public documents. After the above notice of Lord Durham's 
 generous silence, it is liardly necessary to say that no statement of the circumstances of his 
 Canada mission was ever made to me by liimself or any of his family.
 
 392 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book V. 
 
 1835 — 40. From the niomont when the young John George Lambton fixed tTic attention 
 ^-^ — ' of the best Opposition men by his maiden speech, to that in whicli ho provided 
 for the estabHshnient of responsible government in Canada, he was the trust 
 and hope of the most highly-principled liberals in the country. He had good 
 working ability — a clear head, an unprejudiced mind, a ceaseless desire to 
 learn of all who had any thing to tell, and a most conscientious induistry. 
 It has been said that he had a genius for truth ; and so he had — both for the 
 perception and the expression of it. He thought nothing of his own power 
 of public speaking ; but some of the best lawyers and literary people in 
 England liked it as well as any election mob that he ever addressed. He 
 died at the age of forty-eight, and left no political successor. If the advent 
 of the Conservatives was before believed to be near, it became pretty certain 
 from the time of Lord Durham's death. There was no longer any thing in 
 connexion with the Whig administration worth contending for. Ijord Dur- 
 ham had upheld it, and thereby enjoined the same conduct on his friends : 
 but when he was gone, no further effort was possible ; and the Melbourne 
 ministry remained dependent on the mere favour of the Queen. 
 Mn.CiiAHLns Jt h^g been mentioned that Mr. Charles BuUer was the nearest friend and 
 
 Bri.i,Eii. , , , , , , , , 
 
 adviser, of Lord Durhani in his Canadian enterprise. He was his chief secre- 
 tary, and a member of his Council ; and it is understood that the merit of the 
 celebrated Report is mainly ascribable to him. He was before a reinatkable 
 member of the House of Commons — remarkable for high political promise, and 
 for a manly amiability which engaged the friendly regard of every man within 
 the four walls. He was one of the leaders of the Radical Reform party; but 
 tliis did not render him an object of suspicion or dislike to the rankest Tory in 
 the House — any more than his ovcrfloAving wit made him feared or avoided. 
 He was but thirty-two when he finished his work at the Canadian Report ; 
 and every one hoped and supposed that a long course of usefulness and honour 
 lay before him. But in ten years, he also was gone, after having risen mucli 
 in the appreciation of those who knew him most and least. In the words of 
 caiiyie, iiiLcntion one wlio kiicw and has described him well, " To a singular extent it can 
 
 Examiner. -i . i /. i • i i i tr i 
 
 be said of him that he was a spontaneous, clear man. Very gentle, too, 
 though full of fire ; simple, brave, graceful. What he did and what he said 
 came from him as light from a limiinous body ; and had thus always in it a 
 high and rare merit, which any of the more discerning could appreciate fully. 
 To many, for a long while, Mr. Buller passed merely for a man of wit ; and 
 certainly his beautiful natural gaiety of character, which by no means meant 
 levity, was commonly thought to mean it, and did, for many years, hinder the 
 recognition of his higher intrinsic qualities. Slowly it began to be discovered 
 that, under all this many-coloured radiancy and corruscation, there burned a 
 most steady light ; a sound penetrating intellect, full of adroit resources, and 
 loyal by nature itself to all that was methodic, manful, true ; in brief, a mildly 
 resolute, chivalrous, and gallant character ; capable of doing much serious 
 service." 
 
 When these men and their coadjutors were turned back from their "serious 
 i.oniiSvnnN!iAM, scrvice " in Canada, the work did not stop. Their successors — Lord Syden- 
 ham and his coadjutors —applied themselves with diligence and devotedness to 
 carry out their policy and their projects. T^ord Sydenham's health wa.s no
 
 Ciivp. Xir.J DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. .-^O.S 
 
 better than his predecessor's ; and he died within two years of his arrival in 183-5—40. 
 
 Canada : but in that brief time, and under that disability, he had done more ~ -^-^ 
 
 than most men would in many years. 
 
 Mr. C. Poulett Thomson, as he still was, went out with the leading points 
 of his mission well fixed in his mind— that the minority was no longer to 
 govern — that the Executive and the Assembly were to be brought into har- RF.spoNsini.E 
 niony, in accordance with what are considered the first principles of govern- 
 ment at home, and with what was called responsible government in Canada: — 
 and that such improvements as he contemplated must be made, not by means 
 of organic changes in the Constitution, but by administering the powers of 
 the government in a just and liberal spirit, so as to attract the sympathies of 
 all to the Executive. He wished to do in Canada what Lord Normanby and 
 his coadjutors had attempted in Ireland ; and it remained to be seen how 
 much resemblance there was between the " Family Compact" in Canada and 
 the "Protestants" iu Ireland — between the "French" in Canada and the 
 Catholics in Ireland. By his earliest declarations after his arrival in different 
 colonies, it was seen that he held two points of doctrine in regard to his o'wn ute of i.oni 
 conduct : — that as the representative of the sovereign, he was responsible to '"'" '""''' 
 the Imperial authorities alone : and that his first obligation was so to form 
 and conduct his government as to ensure its harmony with the majority of the 
 House of Assembly. The question was whether the doctrine was practicable. 
 The proof must be the work of many years, and must include the trial of many 
 governors. In his own short day, he did what he could. — He had the inesti- 
 mable advantage w-hich was denied to his predecessor in the most critical 
 moment of his probation — support from the government at home. The new 
 Colonial Secretary, Lord J. Ilussell, was a sort of idol of his, and afforded him 
 a full requital of support. He had no personal enemy in the House of Lords 
 to scare his friends into desertion. He had every advantage ; and he used his 
 advantages well. 
 
 His chief aim was the legislative re-union of the two provinces, in order to UMo\orTnE 
 
 . . .... Canadas. 
 
 undo, if possible, some of the mischief of their division, and promote the pro- 
 cess of Anglicizing the French. This project he announced in his speech to 
 the Legislatiue, at the end of 1839; and he witnessed the accomplishment of 
 it in little more than a year. The legislative union of the two Cunadas was 
 proclaimed on the 10th of February, 1841 — the Queen's first wedding-day, and ][■' 
 the anniversary also of the conclusion of the treaty of 1TG3, which made Canada 
 a IJritish colony; — and also of an act which it was less conciliatory to re- 
 member — the royal assent to the suspension of the Constitution of Lower 
 Canada. — It needs not be said that the Union was unacceptable to the 
 French population. They struggled hard to return representatives who 
 were opposed to the project ; and there are still many, on both sides the 
 water,- who doubt whether the matter is settled yet. The elections were 
 conducted with much riot and some loss of life ; and the first proceedings 
 of the United Legislature were stormy; but, on the wliole, matters went 
 better than the Governor expected; and in a private letter of the 2Tth of 
 June, a fortnight after the opening, he declared himself at case in regard L'|<;»r^^_'^.,ji 
 
 VOL. IT. 
 
 Sydenham, p. 210. 
 
 3k
 
 Death of Lord 
 Sydenham. 
 
 394 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book V. 
 
 1835 — 40. to the great experiment. So sanguine was he, that he concluded his letter 
 with the following prophecy in regard to a supposed successor : " Such a 
 man — not a soldier, but a statesman — will find no difficulties in his path 
 that he cannot easily sin-mount ; for every thing will be in grooves, running 
 of itself, and only requiring general direction." If this was too much to 
 anticipate, it is certain that the improvements achieved in two years were 
 very remarkable. Men's minds were calmed ; credit was re-established ; 
 public works were in rapid progress ; and confidence in the Imperial rule, 
 and hope from the colonial government, had, in a great degree, superseded 
 hatred and fear. 
 
 Lord Sydenham's health was too much shaken by disease to permit him to 
 sustain any shock of accident; and he died, in September, 1841, from the 
 consequences of his horse falling with him — by which his leg was broken. He 
 gave his attention to public affairs to the last, with great calmness and forti- 
 tude. His age was only forty-two. 
 Ills chabactbr. The first association with the name of Mr. C. Poulett Thomson always was, 
 and is still, of a repeal of the Corn laws. He was the son of a merchant ; and 
 no man in England — not Mr. Huskisson himself — ever had a more thorough 
 understanding of the soundness of the principle of Free Trade. It was to 
 advocate this principle — and especially in regard to Com — that Mr. Thomson 
 was returned by Manchester as her representative. For a time, he did the 
 duty well : and when he became a member of the Whig administration he 
 stipulated for freedom to advocate a repeal of tlie Corn laws. But this soon 
 grew a cold and formal affair : and we know by an extract from his private 
 journal, written on his voyage to Canada, that he was conscious of having lost 
 ground with the Liberal party, and as a speaker — in Manchester, and the 
 House of Commons : " Manchester and the House of Commons are no longer 
 what they were to nic." His office of Chancellor of the Exchequer was so dis- 
 agreeable to him, that he would give up the Cabinet and parliament to avoid 
 it. He was glad to get away to Canada, and do there, by himself, the work 
 that was pressing to be done. He and the political world seem to have been, 
 at that time, in a state of mutual disappointment ; and the reason appears to 
 have been that he was not in himself lofty enough for the position assigned 
 him. He was an able man — had a clear head, and a strong will, and much 
 knowledge : but there was little morally noble in him but his strength of will 
 — shown in his industry and his endurance of pain. He did many useful 
 things at the Board of Trade ; and he found his most favourable position when 
 he went to Canada : but he neither entertained nor inspired political faith, nor 
 drew towards himself any high respect or genial admiration. Though his last 
 scene of action was his greatest and best, he was regarded, and is still, as one 
 of the Whig failures ; — one of the ministers of a critical period, who, while 
 possessed of considerable talents and some good political qualities, have done 
 more than many worse men to shake a nation's faith — if not in the princijiles 
 of politics, at least in those who are the most forward in the profession of 
 them. The professions of Wliig reformers while rehearsing the death-knell of 
 abuses, liave but too often reminded us of Dr. Johnson's knocking and sum- 
 moning ghost — the conclusion in both cases being that — " nothing ensued."
 
 Chap. XII.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 395 
 
 What is due to Mr. C. Poulett Thomson's memoiy is, that he should be re- 1835 — 40. 
 
 garded and remembered as Lord Sydenham, who governed Canada for two ^~— --— ' 
 
 years on the introduction of Lord Durham : and that, if too much self-regard 
 
 mingled (as his journal shows) with his inducements to the work, he still bore 
 
 in mind Lord Silencer's more generous suasestion, that Canada offered " the itfrof Lord 
 
 finest field of exertion for any one, as affording the greatest power of doing 
 
 the greatest good to one's fellow-creatures."
 
 396 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book V. 
 
 Jamaica. 
 
 CHAPTER Xlll. 
 
 1839. /CANADA was not the only British colony which caused embarrassment to 
 ^-^ the Ministry by liostility between the Legislature and the Executive. 
 The affairs of the nation were brought to a crisis in the spring of 1839, by 
 the doubt whether or not the Constitution of Jamaica should be suspended. 
 
 It was then, and it will ever be, a matter of grateful surprise that such an 
 event as the abolition of slavery sbould have taken place amidst such quiet- 
 ness as prevailed throughout the West Indies. The quietness continued in 
 most of the settlements ; and no reasonable person can read the records of the 
 time without emotions of admiration at the temper of the negroes during the 
 critical years which succeeded their emancipation. AVhile their conduct was 
 such as to need no excuse, that of their former masters ought to have every 
 allowance. It is impossible for men (with a few exceptions) who have lived 
 all their lives in the possession of power like that of the slave-owner, to enter 
 at once into a state of fellow-citizenship with their former slaves, and to stand 
 The Plan rcRs, cqual witli them before the law, with a good grace. The Jamaica planters 
 were now to decree in their Assembly, and to live under, a whole set of new 
 laws which had never been necessary when all other men in their island had 
 been their property and not their neighbours ; and it was most diiftcult for 
 them and the imperial government to agree upon those laws. — ^Again, many 
 practices towards their negroes, while still in a state of apprenticeship, which 
 appeared to them necessary and ordinary, could not be allowed under the new 
 system ; and the whipping of women, the cruel use of the treadmill, and many 
 penal usages in prisons, were forbidden by imperial law, which appeared in the 
 eyes of the planters mere favouritism to the negroes and vexatious interference 
 with themselves. Again; they had been reared in a temper of chartered 
 self-will ; and they could not in a moment be expected to feel and sliow the 
 deference, moderation, and good manners, usual among residents under a 
 better social system than theirs. Their conduct was exactly what might have 
 been expected — that of children in a combative mood. The members of 
 Assembly talked big, did provoking things, snubbed successive governors, 
 used insolent language to the Imperial government, endeavoured to trench 
 upon the Abolition Act by provisions in Bills of their own, drew upon them- 
 selves disallowance of their Acts from home, and then refused to provide for 
 the executive wants of the island, and even hustled, and turned out of their 
 house, the oiRcer who came to deliver the Governor's message. After the 
 completion of emancipation, a large proportion of the planters oppressed the 
 patient negroes by arbitrary and illegal exactions of rent, by a misapplication of 
 the Vagrant law, and by all those harassing methods which suggest themselves 
 to persons accustomed to despotism as a natural right, and thrown into ill- 
 humour by a deprivation of that power. That such was the conduct of that
 
 Chap. XIIL] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 397 
 
 section of society repieseuted by the Assembly is established by a mass of 1831). 
 documentary evidence, and by the testimony of all who went fresh to the 
 scene — such as the Stipendiary Magistrates, the Bishop of Jamaica, and 
 observers from various countries travelling in the island. 
 
 On the other hand, the Governors and other agents of the Imperial govern- imi'ekial age.ms 
 ment could not be expected to preserve an immoveable patience — to resist all 
 provocation to antagonism — to see without some emotions of partiality the 
 oppression of the negi-ocs who were free by law but not yet in fact — to hear 
 with perfect composure the scolding which they incurred by encouraging the 
 negro women to decline hard field-work, and by putting the labourers in 
 possession of their own case with regard to wages. It might have been im- 
 possible for the officials to avoid collision with the planters ; but there were 
 faults on their side as well as on the other — as is always the case where 
 quarrels exist. lu 1836, Lord Sligo, the Governor, violated the privileges of 1836. 
 the Assembly by sending down a message that he would not pass a Bill unless ^"'' ''''""'' 
 it were amended as the other House proposed. For this he was rebuked by 
 the Home Government j and it was necessary for him to apologize to the 
 Assembly. He did this on the 24th of May ; but could uot, after such a 
 misadventure, remain in his post with any satisfaction ; and he was succeeded, 
 in the next autumn, by Sir Lionel Smith. 
 
 Sir Lionel Smith was popular at tir.st ; and during 1837, aflairs proceeded 1837. 
 with great smoothness. But the new Governor was soon pronounced guilty **'"'''"■'*''''''*"'''■ 
 of favouritism to the negroes, like every body else who came from the mother 
 country ; and the insolence of the Assembly became more ostentatious than 
 ever. It was prorogued and then dissolved, under a stubborn refusal on its 
 own part to pass the laws necessary for the transaction of the affairs of the 
 Colony. The new Assembly paraded a similar refusal, as soon as it met — in 
 December, 1838. The especial cause of wrath at this time was the passage of 1838. 
 a Bill in the Imperial parliament for the regulation of Prisons in Jamaica ; 
 an Act rendered highly necessary by the cruelties which were perpetrated 
 there, under various licenses and pretences which must be put an end to. 
 Another method by which the Planters evinced theii' wi-ath was by forcible 
 ejectments of the negroes fi-om their habitations, by which distress and serious 
 discontent were occasioned. The Governor reported to the authorities at 
 home that the laws were not clear in regard to the relations between the 
 omplojiug and the labouring classes ; and that a complete new system was 
 required. Under these circumstances — with local legislation at a stand, 
 and a large section of law requiring absolute renovation — Lord Melbourne's 
 government determined to ])roi)osc to iiarliament a susiiension of the con- i'h.iimsid si t 
 stitution 01 Jamaica for five years, duruig which a provisional government c■oN»TlTLTlo^. 
 would administer its affairs, allowing time for an improvement in the temper 
 of all the parties who were in a state of wrath. 
 
 The government miscalculated their strength. It must be a strong govern- 
 ment which can carry a suspension of a constitution of 200 years old under 
 any circumstances but those of an armed rebellion, like that of Canada ; and 
 Lord ilelbourne's government had for some time been the weakest of the 
 weak. It had lost the support of the Radical reform party, and was univer- 
 sally understood to be kept in power by the mere I'avour of tlie young Queen:
 
 398 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 [Book V. 
 
 1839. 
 
 Unpoi'dlarity of 
 LoRi> iMel- 
 
 1839. 
 
 Hansard, slvi. 
 
 1243. 
 
 Debate. 
 
 Hansard, xlvii. 
 >)G7. 
 
 Resignation of 
 Ministers. 
 
 Bedchamber 
 Question. 
 
 and there were circumstances in the demeanour of the Premier Avhicli made 
 that favour more conspicuous than it ought to have been. By this time, it 
 had become the custom of newspapers of various politics to record the visits of 
 Lord Melbourne to the palace, and his attendance on the Queen in her drives 
 and at her frequent parties. All reasonable persons saw how natural it was 
 that a sovereign so young and inexperienced in her difficult duties should 
 desire the daily attendance of a minister so qualified by years and abilities to 
 be her instructor and guide ; and how natural it was that a man of so much 
 worldly experience and so kind a heart should be interested in the task of 
 instruction and guidance. But even the most sensible and genial -minded 
 saw how it was also reasonable that the public in general should be discon- 
 tented at an appearance of pleasure-seeking and idleness in the first minister 
 of an empire, whose work must be such as ought to leave him little leisure for 
 absence from his office during any but the evening hours which are all that 
 busy men usually spare for relaxation. It was in the midst of a prevalent 
 desire for a Prime Minister who should appear sensible of the responsibility of 
 his position, that the Cabinet brought forward a measure which at least was 
 very daring, and on wliich the most conscientious politicians might naturally 
 entertain the gravest doubts. 
 
 When Mr. Labouchere brought forward the motion on the 9th of April, 
 1839, it appeared that, though no one defended the conduct of the Jamaica 
 Assembly, men of all parties saw one way or another by which the dire 
 necessity of suspending the Constitution might be avoided. Some were for 
 treating the Assembly as passionate children, to whom a time for thought 
 and a place for repentance should be pennitted. Some hoped that the cure 
 might be naturally effected by means of the enlargement of the constituency 
 of Jamaica, which must take place henceforth through the admission of 
 black citizens to political rights. And there were many who objected to the 
 assignment in the preamble of the Bill of insufficient grounds, while the real 
 and avowed reason was that the present was a good occasion for that reno- 
 vation of the institutions of Jamaica which was a necessary consequence, 
 sooner or later, of the great social changes introduced by the emancipation of 
 the negroes. The affair was fully debated. Counsel were heard on behalf of 
 the Assembly; and most able and pertinacious was the pleading. The 
 Ministers strained every nerve to carry their measure ; but when the decisive 
 division took place, on the 6th of May, or rather on the morning of the 7th, 
 their majority, in a full house, was only 5. 
 
 On the reassembling of the Houses, the Ministers announced their resigna- 
 tion of office. The reason assigned was, that the Assembly of Jamaica would 
 believe that its insolence was countenanced by the British parliament, and the 
 authority of the Crown would be so much weakened in that and in other colonies, 
 that Lord Melbourne's administration could not imdertake to govern them. 
 This avowal placed the Melbourne Cabinet in a difficulty on its speedy return 
 to office ; but yet it was a fortunate avowal on the whole ; for it saved the 
 Ministers from the very serious imputations which they deserved to incur, on 
 its now appealing that they had brought their young and confiding sovereign, 
 through her very confidence in them, into a position of great perplexity and 
 humiliation. The time liad now come for the fulfilment of the predictions of
 
 Chap. XIII] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 399 
 
 those ivho had given early warning ahout the formation of the Queen's house- 1839. 
 hold. The Whig Ministers, hy surrounding the Queen -with their wives, ^-^~'^—- - 
 sisters, and daughters, exposed her to be stripped of her accustomed atten- 
 dants on a change of ministry, or forced her into an unconstitutional position. 
 They now gave her unconstitutional advice, and upheld her in an unconstitu- 
 tional position. She was gently dealt with by public opinion in this matter, 
 on account of her youth and inexperience ; and also because she was really 
 the chief sufferer on the occasion : but the universal conviction was, that the 
 Ministers had been no true friends to their trusting sovereign. Their enemies 
 concluded, «Trongly but not unnaturally, that the whole affair was deliberately 
 I^launed to give the Whigs a continued hold on office. It was as confuting 
 this charge that Lord John Russell's avowal of inability to govern the 
 colonies, after the late division, was useful to the reputation of the Melbourne 
 Ministry. 
 
 It was on the Tuesday night that the resignations were announced. On "'"^f "'"'■ 
 Wednesday, the 8th of May, at two o'clock. Sir R. Peel waited on the Queen, siii'R.PtEi.sE.NT 
 
 . FOB. 
 
 in answer to her summons. The Queen had sent for the I3uke of Wellington 
 in the first instance ; and the Duke had told her that the chief difficulties of a 
 Conservative Ministry would lie in the House of Commons ; and he therefore 
 advised her to send for Sir R. Peel. The remarkable truthfulness of the 
 Queen's character showed itself at once ; a truthfulness which may occasion- 
 ally annoy or discourage persons who had been accustomed to something 
 different at Coiu-t, but which is au inestimable security to her Ministers hy 
 making always fimr the ground under their feet. After the intrigue and 
 \nitruthfulness of George IV., and the vacillating weakness and senile impres- 
 sibility of William IV., which made their iNIinisters feel the precariousness of 
 the arrangements of everj' day, there was something so delightful to the Queen's 
 first set of Ministers in her steady attachment and perfect ingenuousness, that 
 no one can wonder if their discretion, and even their sense of political honour 
 were laid asleep. Exactly in the same proportion must the same qualities in 
 the sovereign have been embarrassing to her new ^linisters on their first 
 approach. As Sir R. Peel avowed to the House, the Queen greeted him with 
 a spontaneous intimation that she was mucli giieved to part with her late 
 Ministers, whose conduct she entirely approved. This was an awkward 
 beginning : but the negotiation proceeded ; and no difficulty arose as to the 
 formation of the new Cabinet. Nothing had thus far been said abo\it the 
 constitution of the Household : and so little was Sir R. Peel prepared with 
 any complaint or any plan about this, that, as he said, he did not know of what 
 individuals the Household was composed, till, having to talk over the matter 
 with his intended colleagues, he referred to the Red Book, and was struck with Hansard, xini. 
 the completeness of the an-angements for surrounding the Queen with thenearest nonsenoLn ap. 
 
 1 " . 1111 o'T> roLSTMEMS. 
 
 relations of the Whig Ministers. For instance— an mstance adduced hy ^n- K. 
 Peel in the House— the great difficulty of his government was Ireland — the 
 Conservatives being in direct opposition to the policy of Lords Normanby and 
 Morpeth ; and, on referring to the Red ]5ook, he found that the two ladies in 
 the closest attendance upon the Queen were the wife of Lord Normanby and 
 the sister of Lord ]\Iorpeth. Sir R. Peel told his intended colleagiies what 
 he meant to do. He should not projjose any change in the offices below that
 
 400 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 [Book V. 
 
 1830. 
 
 Hansanl, xlvii. 
 1010. 
 
 Hansard, xlrii. 
 !l8fi. 
 
 Hansanl, xlvii 
 1001. 
 
 Hansardj xlvii. 
 985. 
 
 Hansard, xlrii. 
 985. 
 
 of Lady of the Bedchamber. He trusted that the ladies who held the higlicr 
 offices would voluntarily resign. If they did not, lie must propose a change. 
 This was not only reasonable, as requiring the most ordinary and indispensable 
 token of the confidence of the sovereign, but it was a constitutional right. 
 The highest authorities on constitutional points declared tliat the appoint- 
 ments of the Household are State appointments, for which the Minister is 
 responsible. Neither the Queen nor her Ministers, however, knew this. 
 Hitherto, there had been sufficient consideration for the dignity and the feel- 
 ings of the sovereign to keep the constitutional question out of sight. Now that 
 the Melbourne Ministry had rashly brought it forward, it Avas found that Sir 
 R. Peel was right. Though constitutionally right, it was, however, said at 
 the time that he was politicly wrong ; and that he might have known that 
 the ladies in question would certainly resign immediately, and their places be 
 quietly filled up in a prudent manner with persons in a neutral position as to 
 their political connexions. That Sir R. Peel retired upon this difficulty was 
 regarded as a sign that he was not ready for office ; that not only was Ireland 
 his " difficulty," as he said, but that it was so great a difficulty as to indispose 
 him for office. If the Whigs now came in again, they would hold rule at his 
 will and pleasure ; and he could take their places at any time when they had 
 fairly tried, and proved to the world, the issue of tlieir Irish policy. However 
 this might be, what took place about the Household appointments was made 
 known to all the world — the Queen having given permission to Sir R. Peel 
 to tell his part of the story in Parliament. The explanations of the Whig 
 IMinistcrs, and the records of the daily news of the time, supply the rest. 
 
 When Sir R. Peel told the Queen, on the Thursday, what he proposed to 
 do, she misunderstood him, as was afterwards acknowledged, and supposed 
 him to contemplate the removal of all her servants and household friends. 
 This was certainly the impression she had given to the late jNIinistcrs when 
 they agreed in Council on the mistaken advice which they gave the Queen. 
 The Queen stopped Sir R. Peel in his statement of his wish to consult her 
 predilections, by declaring that she would admit no change whatever in the 
 female appointments of her Household. She sent for Lord J. Russell, and 
 expressly put the question to him whether she was not right in this. He 
 replied that she was right : and she then naturally requested him to support 
 her now, as she had before supported her INIinisters. She also appealed to 
 Lord Melbourne, and stated her intentions to the Duke of Wellington. The 
 Duke was of opinion that Sir R. Peel must retire if the Queen's mind was 
 thus made up. Lord Melbourne called his colleagues together, and in 
 Council they advised the Queen to send the following note to Sir R. Peel : 
 " The Queen, having considered the proposal made to her yesterday by Sir R. 
 Peel, to remove the ladies of her bedchamber, cannot consent to adopt a 
 course which she conceives to be contrary to usage, and which is repugnant to 
 her feelings." Thus, the Whig Ministers formally assumed the responsibility 
 of this act. No allusion is made to the constitutional principle of the case : 
 and Lord John Russell's appeal throughout was to " usage." It is strange 
 that he and his colleagues did not see how contrary to usage it was to place 
 the sovereign in the position into which they had brought their Queen. 
 
 In two or three hours Sir R. Peel sent a letter to the Queen, in which he 
 
 ■
 
 Chap. XIII.J DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 401 
 
 carefully related the fticts of the case — an act of justice to himself under the 1839. 
 circumstances. lie had been misapprehended in the highest quarter at first ; ^— "v— i^ — 
 and already reports were flying abroad through Whig households of liis having sTiTt'T-BLL.'' "' 
 desired to separate the Queen from all the friends of her childhood, and to 
 impose upon her an unacceptable set of servants of Tory politics, and so forth. 
 The Queen gave him permission to read her note and his own letter in par. 
 liament, and to set himself right, as far as these went. He was so misrepre- 
 sented, however, by some close connexions of the Whig Ministers — (among 
 others by the Hon. Wm. Cowper, the nephew and private secretary of Lord 
 Melbourne, in an address to the Hertford Electors, for which he afterwards Annual iiegisior, 
 publicly apologized) — that the popularity of the Queen and her Whig Ministers '"*'' '' '■"' 
 suddenly rose for a short time, at the expense of the reputation of the Duke of 
 Wellington and Sir E. Peel for loyalty and good manners ; and the Melbourne 
 IMinistry were thus enabled to return to office with more apparent probability 
 of being able to govern the country than had lately been seen. But mistakes, 
 fostered and spread by party spirit, are not of long duration : and in a few 
 weeks, the noisiest and busiest of agitators and journalists on the side of the 
 Whigs were glad to drop all mention of the Bedchamber question. By that 
 time, her Majesty's advisers had admitted that " her Majesty's position was 
 untenable." 
 
 How far their own restored position was tenable was now the question. ">'•"''«"""'"'' 
 
 ^ ^ , ^ THE WlllO MlNI^ 
 
 What was to be done about Jamaica, which they could govern only by a sus- tkks. 
 pension of the Constitution, which parliament would not effectually support? 
 Lord J. Russell had also declared in resigning, that there were other serious 
 aflfairs which the Melbourne Ministry could not conduct without more of the 
 confidence of parliament than they possessed. Sir R. Peel's statement of what Hansard, xivii. 
 his difficulties would have been afford some insight into those of the restored 
 Whigs : — " The state of India — the state of Jamaica — the state of Canada — 
 would all require my immediate consideration ; and with respect to some of 
 them, the proposal of legislative measures. I considered the internal state of 
 this country — I saw insurrection in the provinces — I saw the letter of the 
 noble lord opposite (Lord J. Russell) inviting the respectable part of the popu- 
 lation of this country to form themselves into armed societies for resisting 
 outrage Let me take that particular question on which my chief diffi- 
 culty would arise. Who can conceal from himself that my difficulties were 
 not Canada ; that my difficulties were not Jamaica ; that my difficulties were 
 Ireland." Here was arduous work enough for any Cabinet : but the most 
 insuperable difficulty in the way of that of Lord Melbourne Avas the Jamaica 
 question. 
 
 On the reconstruction of the Ministry, the first business was to elect a new ELErrioN ..f a 
 Speaker of the Commons. Mr. Abercromby had before wished to resign, on 
 the plea of health. The House was sorry to part with him, for he had dis- 
 charsed his duty well. Mr. Charles Shaw Lefevre was chosen to succeed him 
 by a majority of 18 over Mr. Goulburn, who was proposed by the Conserva- unnwd, xivu. 
 tives. This election took place on the 27th of May : and on tlie 30th, Mr. 
 Laboucliere introduced a new Jamaica Bill. The (^jiposition, under the cir- ni.wJam«i.a 
 cumstances, held the control of this measure, and it was amciuled in the 
 Lords till it became what Sir R. Peel had proposed, li allowed time to the 
 
 VOI,. 11. 3 F
 
 402 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book V. 
 
 1839. Assembly to rc-cnact the annual laws without which the affiiiis of the island 
 
 ■"- — -^ ' could not proceed ; and invested the Governor in Council with power to renew 
 
 those laws, at the expiration of two months after the Assembly should have 
 separated without re-enacting them. This measure, which the Ministers 
 Hansard, xUx.85. declared to be, in their opinion, only better than none, passed its last parlia- 
 mentary stage on the 9th of July. 
 ofpiciai. After the close of the Session, Lord J. Russell became Colonial Secretary in 
 
 the place of Lord Normunby, who had held the office only since the preceding 
 February. Lord Normanby went to the Home Office : and Mr. F. Baring 
 became Chancellor of the Exchequer, in the place of Mr. Spring Rice, who 
 entered the Upper House as Baron Monteagle. Lord Howick left the War 
 Office, and was succeeded by Mr. Macaulay ; and some changes took place in 
 the minor functions of the Administration. 
 
 In the midst of such circumstances as have been exhibited, and of others 
 
 which remain to be detailed — in view of the Colonial difficulties — the 
 
 domestic distress which was now daily darkening over England — the violence 
 
 of the Chartists— the critical state of Ireland — the sudden and portentous 
 
 agitation against the Corn laws — the manifest feebleness of the Ministry — and 
 
 the no less manifest misguidance of the young sovereign by her paternal Prime 
 
 INIinister — there was nothing that was more desired by the nation at large than 
 
 ot'F.EN's Engage, to SCO thcir young Quccn married. Every one knew that her consort — be he 
 
 who he might — would have no concern with politics. It was not that. It 
 
 was that the domestic life of the sovereign might be naturally compacted, and 
 
 that a happy domestic life might be the point of support of her public life. 
 
 Some rabid Tory gentlemen had lately grown insolent, and taken insufferable 
 
 liberties with the royal name. Some mistakes liad been made, in both public 
 
 and private relations : and the natural and the most desirable security against 
 
 other such misadventures seemed to be the placing of the virtuous young 
 
 sovereign under the sanctities of a genuine home. There had been a constant 
 
 succession of royal visitors from the continent — a long array of young princes 
 
 who were called in the newspapers " the royal suitors:" but it was not till the 
 
 beginning of 1839 that any general impression existed as to where the Queen's 
 
 preference rested, or whether she had any. At last, however, it was no great 
 
 surprise to any body when the Queen summoned her Privy Coiuicil to meet 
 
 Annual Register, On the 23rd of November, and then communicated her intention to ally her- 
 
 ' '""■ ■ self in marriage with Prince Albert of Saxe Coburg and Gotha. The Council 
 
 requested her Majesty to allow the news to be made public : and the general 
 
 satisfaction was all that she could have desired. It might have been wished 
 
 that her intended husband should not have been her cousin-german, and that 
 
 he should have been five or seven years older than the Queen, instead of three 
 
 Prince Albert, montlis younger ; but there was every thing in the reputation of the Prince, 
 
 and in the character of his thoughtful and informed mind, to encourage 
 
 the hope that the connexion would be one of permanent satisfaction to the 
 
 nation. 
 
 During the winter, the aspect of public affairs darkened so much that it 
 was the universal wish that the marriage should take place with the least 
 possible delay. The young pair had a far more thorough knowledge of each 
 other than is usual in the case of lovers ; they had been companions in child-
 
 I 
 
 Chap. XIII.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 403 
 
 hood, and friends during their youth — there was nothing to wait for ; and in \H40. 
 a few weeks the j'oung Queen became a wife, to the great joy of those who "^-^ — -^ — • 
 most desired that her life shoukl be serene and happy. Tlie niarria"-e took Q^<'<"''' -'"'n- 
 place on the 10th of February, 1840, amidst titting i)omp and observance in '^"'''""' '^'•P'^'^r, 
 
 .11 i»ci.TiT •. Oil 3 1840, Chron. 16. 
 
 the palace ot bt. James s. It was precisely at a quarter before one o'clock 
 that the firing of cannon announced to the inhabitants of London that the 
 ring was placed on the finger of the bride : and a little before four, the Queen 
 and her husband set out for Windsor, leaving London to the gaiety for which 
 it had little spirits on any meaner occasion of that dark year. For the day 
 all forgot their anxieties and fears in banquets and illuminations. 
 
 A month before the marriage took place, the Queen had declared to j)arlia- 
 ment in the royal Speech her intention of taking Prince Albert for her ""n"^"^''. i'- 1- 
 husband, and her confidence that her subjects would enable her to provide 
 for such an establishment as might appear suitable to the rank of the I'rince, p»i«e albebt's 
 and the dignity of the Crown. These announcements, in themselves as 
 formidably unusual for a young girl to make as could be conceived, were 
 oifered with a simplicity and dignity that won all hearts : and the subsequent 
 awkward conclusion to the discussion on tiie Prince's income was accepted by 
 them both with the best possible grace. 
 
 On the 20th of January, three weeks before their marriage, a bill for the 
 naturalization of Prince Albert was introduced in the Lords, and passed "atios.'*''"'""'^" 
 rapidly, by the suspension of all the standing orders. The only stop in its pro- Hansard, li. 570. 
 gress was owing to the ordinary cause of delay in Whig measures — a mistake 
 which could not be allowed to pass. Precedence next to the Queen « as pro- 
 vided without any safeguard; so that, in case of the Queen's death without 
 heirs, and the consequent accession of the King of Hanover, Prince Albert 
 would have precedence of the then Heir Apparent, the Prince of Wales. The 
 Ministers first amended their Bill by proposing to give precedence next after 
 any Heir Apparent : but again, in order to avoid delay, Lord Melbourne 
 declared his intention of omitting all that part of the Bill which related to 
 the subject of precedence. Thus reduced to a project of simple naturalization, 
 the Bill passed both Houses as rapidly as possible. In discussing the 
 Address, some question had been made in both Houses about the omission of 
 any declaration of Prince Albert being a Protestant— a scruple which was [{™*="'''' "• "> 
 decided to be imnecessary, as, by the Act of Settlement, the Protestantism of 
 the Royal Consort was an indispensable condition. All parties were eager to 
 declare their conviction of the indisputable Protestantism of the Prince, whose 
 family were the first protectors of the Reformation. There were some who 
 could perhaps have told how much of the family pride of the Ducal family of 
 Saxe Coburg and Gotha was invested in its connexion with Luther'; and how 
 in the Prince's portfolio might be seen sketches of the old castle on its lieight, 
 finished with the care which is given to the delineation of sacred places — 
 because there Luther took refuge for a time, and therein are his apartments 
 — his bedstead itself — preserved with reverential care. If the object had been 
 to select for the Queen the most Protestant of the Protestant princes of 
 Germany, the searchers should have gone first to Saxony : and when tlicre, to 
 the old Castle of Coburg ; and there, at Luther's table, or at the foot of Luther's 
 worm-eaten pulpit, they would have found our Prince .\lbert.
 
 404 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 [Book V. 
 
 1840. 
 
 Anniiitv. 
 Hansard, li. 5[>4. 
 
 Hansard, li, Gl\. 
 
 Annual Register, 
 1838, p. 174. 
 
 Annual Register, 
 1838, p. 174. 
 
 Hansard, II. GUI, 
 625. 
 
 Hansard, II. 633. 
 
 As to the annuity to be voted to tlie Prince — Lord J. Russell proposed that 
 it should be, in accordance with precedents which he adduced, £50,000, to be 
 granted out of the Consolidated Fund, to commence on the day of his marriage, 
 and continue for life. After an adjournment from the 24th to the 27th of 
 January, Mr. Hume moved that the amount should be £21,000. This pro- 
 posal was voted down by a large majority. But it was clear that the times 
 were unfavourable for n liberal grant. The distress of the manufacturing 
 classes was becoming fearful — the price of wheat being at that time 81s. while 
 the cotton mills were working short time ; and the prevalent suffering was 
 shown by armed outbreaks of Chartism, and the rapid sinking of the revenue. 
 The Chancellor of the Exchequer was announcing a deficit with every 
 successive Budget. At the close of the session of 1838, parliament, following 
 the lead of the Ministers, had thought it right to refuse an augmentation of 
 income to the Duke of Sussex, though the refusal compelled him to resign 
 his office of President of the Royal Society ; and had also, by a narrow 
 majority, decided against indemnifying their Speaker for the loss of his property 
 by the fire which consumed the Houses of Parliament. The sanguine and 
 Complacent Whig Ministry were now so truly alarmed at the aspect of aflairs, 
 that economy became naturally the ruling idea of the House of Commons. 
 Yet, when the sum of £30,000 per annum was proposed by the Opposition, 
 instead of the £50,000 of the Ministers, Lord J. Russell lost temper, and declared 
 that the amendment was intended as a mark of disrespect to the Queen. For 
 this, he was duly rebuked by Sir J. Graham and Sir R. Peel, who showed 
 reason enough for their advocacy of the smaller sum, independent of the dis- 
 tress of the country, which they did not conceive to be concerned in the 
 question. The majority in favour of the smaller amount was 104 in a House 
 of 420. 
 
 The Prince took all in good part. Kind-hearted and reasonable, he 
 was perhaps really willing to bear his share of the pressure of the times, 
 and ready to suppose that the House of Commons was the best judge of 
 what his income ought to be. If not so, he was too sensible to show any 
 discontent ; and by his good-humour on the occasion he giiincd an esteem 
 which was more worth having than any wealth that parliament could have 
 given him.
 
 Chap. XIV.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 405 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 A LLUSION has beeu made to the darkness of the times in 1839 and 1840. 1840. 
 -^*- Since the Peace, there had hardly been a season so gloomy in fact and ^ 
 in prospect. In looking for the causes of the misery and crime of this period, 
 we find them, as usual, in the state of the crops. There were then, as usual, 
 multitudes of people who did not understand : and the fact and their feilure to 
 understand it together were soon to bring about the greatest social, as Parlia- 
 mentary lleform was the greatest political, event of the century. There were 
 then, as usual, professional men, country gentlemen, and others by hundreds, 
 who said with an air of superiority, that they took no interest in politics : and 
 these were the men wlio concluded that the commotions and outrages of the 
 period were owing to the unfortunate propensity of " the lower classes" to 
 concern themselves with politics. There were then, as usual, clergymen by 
 hundreds, who said with a complacent smile, or an air of pious trust, that since 
 England was England there had always been alarms of bad crops ; but that it 
 always ended in there being a harvest ; these gentlemen not having the re- 
 motest idea of the diflereuces between one group of years and another as to 
 production of food, and never perceiving that it was their especial duty as 
 clergymen to look closely into the causes of want, woe, and crime. They 
 thought that the perverseness of the heart of man was explanation enough of 
 any amount, or capricious accession of guilt ; and, as they could not stoop to 
 politics or political economy, they remained imaware that the average of moral 
 disease might be anticipated as confidently as that of physical disease, from 
 the estimate of the harvests of any group of years. It was no thanks to them 
 that this miserable experiment is now no longer likely to be tried. It is no 
 thanks to them that, by opening to our country an access to the harvests of 
 the world, a prospect lies before us of a more equable supply and price of 
 food, and a cessation of the fluctuations and cruel uncertainties which perilled 
 the fortunes of the well-fed, and wore out the heart and hope of the nuilti- 
 tudcs who had to win their bread from day to day. — Tliere were still hundreds 
 and thousands of men — and the leading politicians of botli parties were among 
 them — who thought that to attack the Corn laws was to attack the constitution 
 of society ; who would no more listen to evidence of the mischief of agricultural 
 protection than they would listen to arguments against the institution of pro- 
 perty. It is worth recording again here that the Prime Minister himself had 
 volunteered his opinion on the matter in the House of Lords, saying that, he 
 had heard of many mad things in his hfe.; but, before God, tlie idea of repeal- 
 ing the Corn laws was the maddest he had ever heard of. Thus it was with 
 Lord Melbourne. Lord J. Russell counselled the House to refuse to hear evi- 
 dence on the operation of the Corn laws. Sir R. Peel was as yet pondering 
 sliding scales, and destined to propose and try another before he should dis-
 
 406 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 [Book V. 
 
 1840. 
 
 Successive Hak- 
 
 VESTS, 
 
 Touke's History 
 of Prices, Con. 
 tinualion, p. 3. 
 
 Toolie's Prices, 
 Con. p. 7. 
 
 cover that this was a matter in which adjustments could be of no possible use, 
 while they were pretty sure to do mischief. To set against all these classes of 
 men, there was another — a little band at first, but soon becoming a host — who 
 understood the matter enough to be sure of attaining a thorough knowledge 
 of it, as soon as they should combine to act upon what they knew. The dark- 
 ening of the times in 1839 determined these men to aim at a repeal of the Corn 
 laws as the first object to their own fortunes, to the actual preservation of the 
 working classes, and to the welfare of the nation at large. 
 
 During the four years from 1832 to 1835 inclusive, more wheat was grown 
 in Great Britain, it is believed, than was ever known before. More wheat was 
 sown ; and the improvements in tillage were by that time so considerable as 
 to jjroduce clear results. But during those four years also the winters had no 
 undue frosts ; the spring rains were enough, and not too much ; and the sum- 
 mer suns were warm enough to harden and ripen the grain. They were ibur 
 noble harvests, as far as wheat was concerned, though barley rose nearly to the 
 price of wheat, and hay and pulse were dear. The farmers suffered, as they 
 were apt to do, under a stringent corn laAv which made them rich in bad sea- 
 sons, and prepared for their impoverishment in abundant years. But while 
 they were in such adversity as that Royal speeches commiserated them, and 
 Parliament discussed their case, every body else was prospering. The very 
 cattle, sheep, and pigs, were eating wheat : brewers and distillers were making 
 beer and spirits from it. The agricultural labourers, though receiving very 
 low wages, were more comfortable than usual, from the cheapness of provisions. 
 They found themselves in easier circumstances with 8s. per week, and wheat at 
 35s., than with 12s. per week, and wheat at 77s. As for all other working- 
 classes of the kingdom, it was a time of high ])rospority for them. All the mines 
 and all the mills were busy, and the tradesmen of the towns were every where 
 prosperous ; for the largest classes of society were employed on full wages ; and 
 bread being cheap, they had money to spare for other objects of purchase. The 
 houses of the operatives filled with furniture ; and their chests with good 
 clothes. The tradesmen rose in proportion, from this increase of custom, and 
 in their turn improved the condition of the manufacturers, who, in conse- 
 quence, kept up or extended their manufacture, to the continued benefit of the 
 operatives. Such was the happy state of things while we were blessed with 
 good harvests : and the prosperity reached its height towards the close of 1835, 
 when wheat was at 35s. 4d. Owing to its cheapness, less was now sown of 
 wheat, and more of other things which had become dear. 
 
 In 1836, the spring was cold and dry; and the summer was imgenial in the 
 north of England and Scotland ; so that the harvest was not well got in. On 
 the whole, there was a considerable falling off from preceding years; but still, 
 more than enough was got in for the wants of the country till the harvest of 
 1837. The crop of 1837 was just sufficient for the wants of the country; but 
 it was inferior to the production of any one of the five preceding seasons. The 
 people were still eating abundantly, as the last few years had accustomed them 
 to do. If now there had been a propitious season, every thing might have 
 gone on smoothly, though food prices were higher than they had been. During 
 the commercial difticultics of the spring of 1837, which have been before ex- 
 hibited, when credit was disturbed by foreign influences, the price of wheat, as
 
 Chap. XIV.] DURING THE THIRTY YE.\RS' PEACE. 407 
 
 of other things, had liscu unduly; but <it the cud of lfs;i7, it was o;J.s\: and at 1840. 
 this price, manufactures, commerce, and the condition of the people, might ^— — .^.^^ 
 have gone on without deterioration. But the weather was now dreadful. In 
 the middle of January an extraordinary frost set in, which lasted so long as to 
 occasion serious fears for the wheat in the ground ; and in February, the price 
 rose to 55s. Sd. In March, it rose further; and again in May, when fi-osts re- 
 curred. In July it was 68s. As harvest prospects did not improve, the price 
 of wheat rose to 77s. in the third week in August. In September, all the 
 bonded wheat in the kingdom was entered for home consumption. Prices fell 
 as a large quantity of foreign corn was thrown into the market in September : 
 but by the next January, wheat was at 81s. Or/. The difference of quantity Tonke-s Prices, 
 home-grown between 1834 and this date was above 7,000,000 of quarters. — "''"''■ 
 At the same time, and in strict connexion with this deficiency, manufactures 
 had fallen off, and the prices of articles in common use among the working 
 classes had risen ; so that those classes found themselves now receiving less 
 wages, and compelled to pay dear for the necessaries of life. The distress was 
 becoming formidable. Yet were hundreds of the clergy smiling over the usual 
 alarms, as they called them, about the harvests; and the gentry who prided 
 themselves on taking no interest in politics, discoursed upon the pcrversencss 
 and wickedness of the human heart, which led men into discontent and rebel- 
 lion, while living in the best country in the world. There was some increase 
 in the wages of agricultural labour ; and this was pointed out as a proof that 
 high prices bring high wages ; whereas, the slight and temporary rise of agri- 
 cultural wages fell far short of the increased expenditure of the laboiu'ers for 
 food. 
 
 In May, 1839, there was snow by day, and frost, of some continuance, by 
 night. So much foreign corn had been let in, that prices had fallen, wheat 
 being at 67s. lOd. in July. More foreign corn was let out of bond ; yet, so bad 
 were the prospects of the harvest, that by the middle of August wheat was 
 again at 72s. Sd. iMorc foreign wheat, dry and sound, was wanted to render 
 our own damp and unripened grain fit for food : and, instead of our importing 
 lai-gely from Ireland, it was necessary to import more dry foreign wheat into 
 Ireland than we could obtain of her damp and unripened grain. Tliere was o°n'''p''iG''"'"' 
 every ground for apprehension that, while the working classes were grievously 
 underfed, there would still be a deficiency of 2,000,000 quarters or more, while 
 waiting for the next harvest. 
 
 During this time, the " landed interest" were watchful over their protecting 
 law, suspecting, reasonably enough, that attempts would be made to relieve 
 the suffering classes from its pressure. The clo.scness of their vigilance was 
 shown by a curious incident which took place in Marcli, 1S38. Colonel Scale 
 proposed in the House, that, to save merchants engaged in foreign trade from ManMmi.xii.107'.>. 
 the necessity of obtaining their ship-supplies of food fi-om the ports of the c.liN'i'N'BoND. 
 Baltic, permission should be given to grind the corn lu'ld in bond in our own 
 ports — security being afforded for the exportation of tlie flour. To many of tlu; 
 most Conservative members in the House, the case appeared so clearly harm- 
 less to the British cidtivator, that the first reading of the Bill was canied by a 
 large majority: but the "landed interest" made so great aii outcry about 
 
 I
 
 408 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 [Book V. 
 
 1840. 
 
 Hansiirdj xlii. 
 1042. 
 
 Dlsro^JTHNTS. 
 
 Spectntor, 1839, 
 p. 1031. 
 
 Traoe Unions. 
 
 Hansard, slii. 
 1368. 
 
 touching the Coin question at all, that on the second reading the Bill -was 
 thrown out by a majority of 220 to 150. 
 
 The natural consequences of popular distress showed themselves exactly as 
 might have been expected ; and with increasing force from year to year. If 
 the' rulers of the country did not understand the causes of the adversity, it was 
 no wonder that the inieducated sufferers did not. While professional men and 
 other gentry ascribed the turbulence of the time to the ingi'atitude of the 
 human heart, the government — the Cabinet, and both Houses of parliament — 
 were sure of nothing so thoroughly as that the Corn laws had nothing to do 
 with the distress, and therefore that their repeal would not cure it : — and the 
 working classes never doubted that the government could cure it if they would, 
 and tliat the manufacturers oppressed them by appropriating an undue share 
 of the proceeds of manufactures. Thus, the clergy obtained no hold over the 
 classes which most needed their counsel and consolations ; or, if they got them 
 into the churches, preached to exasperated hearers, who said on week-days 
 that they would not be put off with promises of bliss hereafter, from claiming 
 the simple recompense of labour in this life. The government sat, in its de- 
 liberations, on the crust of a volcano; and amidst successive warnings, was 
 not half conscious of its danger. When a spurt of flame or a jet of hot stones 
 scared them now and then, they threw cold water into the particular crevice, 
 or blocked it up with rubbish, and supposed the fire was put out. The Whig 
 Attorney-General, Sir John Campbell, declared at a public breakfast at Edin- 
 burgh, in the autumn of 1839, that Chartism was extinct — because Birming- 
 ham and Newcastle had been quieted. — At the same time, the Trade Unions 
 became formidable to the last degree. On the trial of some cotton-spinners at 
 Glasgow, and on inquiry into the trade combinations of Dublin, facts came out 
 which appalled all who heard of the evidence. On no occasion did Mr. O'Con- 
 nell appear to more advantage than in his action on this subject. At the risk 
 of much unpopularity, he denounced these combinations with his whole power 
 of feeling and eloquence ; — combinations, not to obtain certain terms of recom- 
 pense by fair association for an open object, but to ruin capitalists by burning 
 their mills, and to oppress fellow-labourers, by forbidding them to work on 
 terms which they were willing to accept, It came out that threatening letters 
 were sent to masters, and premiums were offered for firing their mills : that 
 working men were beaten, sent away to foreign countries, bvn-ned with vitriol, 
 kept in fear of their lives; and, as there was too much reason to believe, actually 
 murdered. During this acti^aty of the Trades Unions, the impoverishing of 
 the operatives went on at an increased rate ; for they were compelled to pay for 
 the expenses of the combination while they had any funds left. The Chan- 
 cellor of the Exchequer noticed in the House, in May, 1838, the remarkable 
 diminution of the deposits in Savings Banks. This brought the operative class 
 all the sooner upon the funds of the capitalists. From working the mills short 
 time, in order to prolong the prospect of any work at all, the mill-owners were 
 soon working even the short time at a loss, rather than turn the poor people 
 adrift entirely ; and their capital was melting away from week to week — given to 
 feed the poor as truly as if it had been paid as poor-rate. — ^leantime. Lord 
 Ashley was regarding this class of men as oppressors who wrung their wealth
 
 Ckap. XIV.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 409 
 
 out of the sinews of children; and every session renewed his motion for tlie 1840. 
 
 protection of factory children ; -while the Ministers, who evidently did not "^— ' 
 
 iniderstand the case, paltered with it in a way which drew on them a severe f.o"°^' ^"^'' 
 rehuke from Sir 11. Peel : " For the government to sav," were his words, " ses- Hansard, xiin. 
 sion after session, that it would bring m a bill on the subject ; for the govern- 
 ment, session after session, to abandon the bills they introduce, without per- 
 mitting others to be brought in by individuals in their stead — is like applying 
 a perpetual blister to the sides of the country, and keeping up the fever and 
 
 irritation of a dangerous sore It is because I cannot fail to perceive the 
 
 competition with w^hich this country is threatened — it is because I see that 
 the interests of humanity, in the large view of the question, are likely to be less 
 consulted by the short-sighted restriction of labour, than they are by its per- 
 fect freedom — it is because the fact is unquestionable, that though you may 
 exempt the child from fatigue, you also deprive it of jn-ospcctive employment, 
 by driving the manufacturers to seek elsewhere that protection which is denied 
 them at home — it is for these reasons that I implore parliament to decide the 
 question this night, whether it will legislate or not." — It was not decided that 
 night, nor for some years afterwards. After that session, Mr. Poulett Thom- 
 son, who understood the matter, appeared no more in the House : and when 
 he was gone, the other Whig ministers appeared unable to hold the convic- 
 tions they occasionally expressed against legislative interference with factory 
 labour. Thus was the irritation of this " perpetual blister " added to the 
 many others under w-hich employers and labourers were suffering. The mill- 
 owners resented this interference with the management of their affairs, which 
 operated as a reduction of the value of the machinery which they had put up 
 in the expectation of freedom in making their arrangements — seeing, all the 
 time, how fruitless must be all attempts to legislate between parents and 
 children, and how manufactures must droop under aibitraiy restrictions im- 
 posed by the legislature. The operatives were kept in a state of agitation, 
 whatever might be their opinions on the subject. Some fretted at the refusal 
 of the legislature to let Lord Ashley take care of their children ; while those 
 of an opposite way of thinking declared it no time to be preventing their fami- 
 lies from earning all they could, and resented this interference with their only 
 possession, their labour, as the most flagrant attack yet attempted on the rights 
 of the poor. All this did not tend to the tranquillization of the country. 
 
 During tlie latter part of 1838, when Chartist meetings were held fi-cquently, chartism. 
 and with a formidable aspect throughout the north of England, the Home 
 Secretary, Lord John Russell, had shown a humane anxiety to bring the 
 ignorant crowd to their senses, and within the limits of order, without visiting 
 their guilty leaders with any treatment which could be construed as perse- 
 cution, and be made to yield the ordinary fruits of persecution. Many com- 
 plaints were made of want of vigour in this method of proceeding ; but there 
 appears every reason to believe that the disorder of the time would have been 
 more violent if severity had been used, instead of being extinguished. I'ndcr 
 a Sidmouth rule at the Home Office, we might have seen all the north of 
 England in a blaze of rebellion before the end of 1S38. As it was, matters 
 grew too threatening to be left to take their course without check. CJreat 
 allowance wfis to be made for the irritation of the I^ancashire operatives, froni 
 
 vol.. 11. 3 G
 
 410 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 [Book V. 
 
 1840. 
 
 Spectator, 1838, 
 p. 1155. 
 
 ToRCn-LICHT 
 
 Meetings. 
 
 Spectator, 1838, 
 p. 1173. 
 
 National Ccn'-' 
 
 VENTION, 
 
 suffoviiig of body and mind : but, in tlic month of November, the torch-light 
 meetings became formidable enough to alarm the inhabitants at large, to whom 
 protection was due. On the 22nd of that month, the Home Secretary sent a 
 letter to the Lancashire magistrates, requesting them to make public notifi- 
 cation of the illegality of torch-light meetings of the kind then in fashion, and 
 to declare their intention of preventing or dispersing such meetings. This was 
 followed up, in the middle of December, by a Royal Proclamation, which en- 
 joined all persons to desist from holding torch-light meetings. — It was time 
 to put some restraint on the leaders and orators of these meetings ; for now the 
 ^Eev. J. Stephens, the chief orator, had denounced a mill-owner at Ashton- 
 under-Lyne as " a devil's magistrate," and had prophesied that " his house 
 would soon bo too hot to hold him;" and this gentleman's factory was fired one 
 night soon after, while Stephens was holding forth to a torch-light assemblage. 
 Stephens was arrested before the end of the month, but admitted to bail, while 
 awaiting his trial at the Liverpool assizes. While out on bail, he preached to 
 crowded congregations, with a violence of language which looked like in- 
 sanity. Some of the witnesses agsiinst him were resjiectable Wesleyaus, who 
 had sat under his fother's ministry, and were most reluctant to appear against 
 the agitator : but they knew so much of the sharpening of pikes and prepa- 
 ration of fire-arms, and were so alarmed and distressed at the spread of a spirit 
 of murderous rebellion in a neighbourhood generally quiet, that they could not 
 doubt their obligation to get Mr. Stephens silenced by the law. He was sen- 
 tenced to an imprisonment of a year and a half in Knutsford gaol. — A far more 
 respectable and reasonable man was chairman of some of the earlier meetings 
 — among others, at the great Kersal Moor meeting at Manchester, when not 
 fewer than 200,000 persons are said to have been congregated — Mr. Fielden, 
 the member for Oldham — the great promoter, under Lord Ashley, of the Ten 
 Hour measure. Mr. Fielden was a man of great benevolence, and of a dis- 
 interestedness which gave him an influence among men better informed tlian 
 himself, which he had not judgment or knowledge to command. He was too 
 good for such work as the grosser kind of Chartist agitation, when he once saw 
 what it was becoming ; but his early sanction of torch-light meetings was a 
 mistake to be regretted. The other leaders at this period were Richard Oastler, 
 of Leeds, whose complacent ignorance unfitted him for any task of political 
 guidance ; and Feargus O'Connor, whose only escape from a charge of cruel 
 fraud on his followers for a course of years is in an admission of such senseless- 
 ness and ignorance as have made him the worst enemy of those whom he pro- 
 fessed to serve. It is very probable that from the moment when Feargus 
 O'Connor first placed himself at the head of a Chartist procession to the last 
 stoppage of his Land-scheme, he may have fancied himself a sort of Saviour of 
 the working classes ; but if so, he must bear the contempt and compassionate 
 disapproval of all men of ordinary sense and knowledge, as the only alter- 
 native from their utter reprobation. 
 
 After 1839 came in, new leaders and new mobs arose, and also a more re- 
 spectable association, which deserved better than to be connected in name and 
 reputation with the Chartism of the Stcphenscs and Oastlers, and the torch- 
 bearers who fired factories. Delegates were sent from the working classes to 
 form a convention in London, for the promotion of the rights of the Commons
 
 CiiAp. XIV.] DURINTG THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 411 
 
 of England, and especially for calling the Commons House to account for its 1840. 
 
 neglect of the interests of the working classes. This National Convention ^— ^^ 
 
 could not effect much, from the want of intellectual discipline, political know- 
 ledge, and business habits, among the members : but it was so clear in its 
 reprobation of physical force for the attainment of its objects, so free from 
 rapacity in its aims, and so earnest in its pursuit of rights and privileges which 
 are legitimate and virtuous objects of desire, that it was regarded with kind- 
 ness by all good-hearted and unprejudiced men, however little hope or fear 
 they might feel from its proceedings. Tliis kindly feeling was very evident on 
 the presentation of the National Petition prepared by the Convention, and car- national teti- 
 ried into the House of Commons on the 14th of June. It was a wonderful spc'cturr, i839, 
 document: " a cylinder of parchment about the diameter of a coach-wheel — ■ "" 
 literally rolled into the House ;" — and signed by upwards of 1,200,000 persons. 
 The ordinary rule of permitting no speech on the presentation of a petition 
 was disregarded on this occasion ; and when a member desired, in insolent 
 language, to stop the business, he was resisted by the feeling of the House and 
 the indulgent disposition of the Speaker. So JNIr. Attwood was allowed, by a 
 listening House, to advocate the plea of the petitioners for the " recovery of 
 those ancient privileges" which were "the original and constitutional rights 
 of the Commons of England." The temper of the House showed that the 
 effort was not altogether in vain, thovigh no legislative consequences could be 
 expected to ensue. No persons in England better deserved a respectful hear- 
 ing than this million of petitioners : and there is reason to believe that no 
 persons in England more sincerely mourned the outbreaks of the physical-force 
 Chartists during this ^ear than the leaders of the National Convention. Tlie 
 Petition occasioned a good deal of discussion in the House, when, on the 1:2th 
 of July, a committee was moved for to consider the Five Points of the petition I'^t points. 
 — Universal Suffrage, Vote by Ballot, Annual Parliaments, Remuneration of 
 Members, and Abolition of the Property Qualification; — but the committee 
 was refused by a majoiity of 189 in a House of 281. ^t"""^' "''"• 
 
 The Home Secretary remained on the watch during the first half of the 
 year — till assured by the Attorney-General that Chartism was extinct. Iii 
 February, he called to account a magistrate of the borough of Newport, in 
 Monmouthshire, a Mr. Frost, for violent language at a public meeting. ^Mr. f«»st. 
 Frost's replies were insolent in the extreme ; but, as there had been at the out- f,™""J^JJ,2''.^!;.''' 
 set one of the ordinary AVhig mistakes, in supposing him a magistrate of the 
 county instead of the borough, and as Mr. Frost disclaimed a part of the charge, 
 he was not at once removed. This was a stretch of forbearance much censured 
 when the event showed Mr. Frost's unworthiness of it : but he soon provoked 
 his removal ; and it does not appear that the gentleness used towards him in 
 the first instance had any effect in promoting the subsequent rcb.llion ; while 
 it was valuable as proving the disposition of the government to lenity in a time 
 of popular suffering. In April, there was a Chartist riot at Devizes ; or rather, n|;>T. y d^,,zes. 
 a rising of the people of Devizes, under Tory leadership, against the Cliartist i^a;.. chro„.49. 
 assemblage of labourers who came, a thoiisand strong, armed with bludgeons, 
 to hold a meeting in the market-place. — In July, Birmingham was kept in a at nii,«iv;™M. 
 state of disturbance for many days by Chartist turbulence. Sixty policemen is'rVhr'm.'i'oi. 
 were sent to Birmingham, on application Cn-ni llic authorities of the town;'"^-
 
 412 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book V. 
 
 1840. and a collision ensued between the police and the mob, which was ended only 
 ^-— ^-^•^-^ by the appearance of a troop of cavalry, after some stabs and many blows had 
 been iriven. The interference was resented by some of the better order of 
 Chartist leaders, in published resolutions, for the seditious character of which the 
 authors suffered trial and imprisonment. The riot took place on Thursday, the 
 4th of July. On the Sunday evening, a mob stopped the service at St. Philip's 
 Church. On Monday, the poUce and military again dispersed a meeting. On 
 Tuesday, the Chartists, having been denied the use of the Town Hall, met in 
 an open space. The Rifles were called to disperse the assemblage, but wore 
 so assailed that they were ordered to load and make ready. Before they fired, 
 a troop of Dragoons came down upon the mob, who then fled. The inhabit- 
 Annuai ReRister, auts hopcd that tlie miscliicf was over: but on the 15th, a far worse outbreak 
 183!!^ _chrcn. 109 ^^^^^ pi;ice. First, windows and street lamps were smashed ; then iron pali- 
 sades were torn up; houses were forced, warehouses pillaged, and bonfires 
 made of the contents; lights put out in the streets, and finally, houses 
 burned down. It was by the military that the outbreak was overcome at 
 last : and it was some days before the orderly classes of the town could take 
 any rest. By that time they were very weary and very wrathful ; weary 
 with patrolling the streets, and keeping watch against incendiary fires ; and 
 angry with that most painful sort of wrath which has in it a mixture of fear. 
 Some of the best workmen in Birmingham were Chartists. Some of tlie 
 most indispensable men in the town had become insufterably insolent to their 
 employers, without the excuse of hunger which was admissible in the case of 
 too many of the Lancashire malcontents. j\Iany of the Birmingham Chartists 
 mio-ht have been teu^pouud householders, and in possession of all the sub- 
 stantial comforts of life, if they had been capable of the prudence and self- 
 denial which had raised some of their employers from a position like their 
 own : and it was exasperating to their employers to be insulted in their own 
 manufactories, and their business put to hazard, by men whom they could not 
 well dismiss, but by whom they were told that all capitalists were tyr-ants, born 
 with a silver spoon in their mouths, and so on. The evil here was clearly 
 not political. It was social — the master evil of popular ignorance, under 
 which it appeared but too j)robable that society must be dissolved, sooner or 
 later, if popular enlightenment could not be achieved. Yet Birmingham is 
 one of the best of our towns, in regard to means of popular instruction. 
 At siiiiFnixD. Sheffield is another ; but in Sheffield, matters were even worse. Besides the 
 usual manoeuvres of breaking windows, extinguishing the street lights, and 
 pelting the soldiery, the malcontents planned the murder of some of the best 
 At NEWCASTLE, and kindest-hearted gentlemen of the place. At Newcastle-upon-Tyne, at 
 Stockport, at Manchester, as well as in the neighbourhood of London, 
 assemblages were attempted for purposes of intimidation, and dispersed with 
 more or less of difficulty. One of the most painful incidents was the 
 extortion of money or goods from shopkeepers, under intimidation ; a practice 
 Annual Register, whicli Called fortli a letter from the Home Secretary to the magistrates of 
 )83D. chron. 133. Manchester, encouraging them to use the most vigorous means to put down 
 this method of pillage. Many who leaned towards the Chartists before, in 
 sympathy if not in conviction, gave them up altogether on the .appearance of 
 this symptom of the agitation. One of the strange caprices of the malcontents 
 
 &c.
 
 CuAP. XIV.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 413 
 
 was attending the cathedrals and other churches in overwhelming numbers, 1840. 
 
 and wearing some sort of badge. Five hundred of them went in procession to ~ — — ~— — ' 
 
 St. Paul's, in August. At first, most of them insisted on wearing their hats ; 
 
 but they yielded the point to the verger, and behaved very quietly. On the 
 
 next Sunday, Norwich cathedral was crowded to the last foot-hold by the 
 
 Chartists of the city ; to w hom the Bishop in his sermon offered a strong but 
 
 kind remonstrance. At the Old Church at Manchester, there was a singular 
 
 scene, if the record of the time be true. The Chartists quitted the church on 
 
 the giving out of the text of the sermon : and the reason is said to be that, 
 
 instead of accepting the scripture verse prescribed beforehand by his Chartist 
 
 hearers, the preacher chose " My house is the house of prayer ; but yo have fssgl^'chTOirlsi. 
 
 made it a den of thieves." For the preacher's sake, we must hope that 
 
 the choice of his text had no reference to the Chartists. This mode of action 
 
 — by filling the churches — was soon given up, as it evidently did not aid the 
 
 Cliartist cause, and was wisely passed over in quietness : and it had ceased 
 
 before the avitumn, with those other demonstrations, whose discontinuance 
 
 had persuaded the Attorney-General himself that Chartism was extinct. 
 
 It was only a lull: and that Edinburgh declaration was mischievous during 
 the ensuing weeks, as showing that the Ministers were ofl' their guard — to say 
 nothing of its tone of triumph, which was any thing but conciliatory. Mr. Frost 
 was awake and active, and far from grateful for the leniency whicli had afforded 
 him an opportunity for remaining in the magistracy at the beginning of the 
 year. On the 3rd of November, which was on Sunday, his brother magis- 
 trates at Newport had information that he was marching down large bodies at Newport. 
 of armed men from the hills upon the town. The attack upon the town was 
 to have been made in the night : but the weather was bad ; and the malcon- 
 tents did not muster in sufficient force till the morning, when, at about ten 
 o'clock, they entered the town. They attacked the hotel where the military 
 were stationed, and provoked the destruction of more than twenty of their 
 number. The magistrates acted with eminent discretion and courage ; the 
 mayor, especially, so distinguishing himself that he was afterwards knighted 
 at Windsor Castle. Frost's followers amounted to upwards of 7000 when 
 within the town, and there were very many more upon the hills. 
 
 The conspiracy, frustrated by bad weather, and the good conduct of the 
 Newport authorities, was found to be a truly fomiidable one, from its orderly 
 arrangements, the number of persons in the district involved in the scheme, 
 and its connexion with the Chartists of Biraiingham and other places. Two 
 other leaders, Jones and Williams, were arrested and tried with Frost. There frost, willmm.., 
 could be no doubt of the enormity of their crime in leading this rebellion ; and 
 it was not easy to see on what plea their pardon could be asked. It was 
 asked, however — even demanded, from time to time, for some years ; but it 
 was enough that theii' lives were spared. If their punishment of transportation 
 were remitted, it is difficult to sec who should be punished. Many who 
 lamented the transportation of the Dorsetshire labourers could see no excuse 
 for Frost, Williams, and Jones. 
 
 The state of tilings was verv fearful. The great unsolved question of the origin or tiir ■ 
 rights of labour lay at the bottom of these ])erplcxities and prevalent discon- Lea<.ii!. 
 tents; and nobody saw it — nobody who could obtain a hearing, or in any way
 
 414 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book V. 
 
 1840. exhibit the facts. Those who saw any thiilg of the truth were precisely those 
 -^"^^ ™~- — to whom a hearing was denied — the more enlightened of the manufacturing and 
 trading chu-s who were turned back from the doors of the legislature when tliey 
 asked the Commons to listen to proof of the disorganizing tendency of the Corn 
 laws. The Chartists understood nothing of the operation of the Corn laws against 
 their interests : and they were so far from comprehending their own existing 
 rights, while demanding others, that they permitted pretended friends to urge 
 the legislature to take from them the command of their only possession — their 
 labour. Tory agitators Avent among them to incite them to demand Ten 
 Hour bills, and to alienate them from asking a free supply of food. To obtain 
 a free admission of food was only a part of the satisfaction of the great 
 difficulty — of the rights of labour; bvit it was a very important part — at the 
 time, the chief and most immediately pressing consideration : but the govern- 
 ment did not see it ; neither House of the legislature saw it, any more tlian 
 the Chartists ; and they believed that the men who had begun to agitate for it 
 were disturbing an old system, the radical policy of the empire, for the sake 
 of enlarging the margin of manufticturing profits, and putting more money 
 into their own pockets, without giving the operatives their share. All this 
 was mournful blindness and folly ; but the final action against the Corn laws 
 had fairly begun ; and those who were engaged in it knew that their end was 
 secure. If the great labour question could remain a matter of controversy till 
 the corn question should be settled, instead of becoming one of revolution, all 
 might yet be well : and to accomplish this, the anti-corn-law agitators set to 
 work with a zeal, a knowledge, a pertinacity, and a spirit of self-sacrifice, 
 probably unequalled in the history of peaceful agitation. AVhen their work 
 was done, and they looked back upon its beginning, they were surprised to 
 find how little they tliemselves knew when they first devoted themselves to 
 the cause. The deepest of them had scarcely an idea how closely the interests 
 of the agricultural classes were involved in the establishment of a free trade in 
 food, and how society was injured through all its ramifications by an artificial 
 restriction in the first article of human necessity : but what they did know 
 was clear; as far as they reasoned, their reasoning was sound; and if one part of 
 their view was more clear and sound than another, it was that of the implica- 
 tion of this question with the larger and deeper one of the rights of labour, 
 which was elsewhere causing only that perilous agitation that must issue 
 either in suppression by force on the one hand, or in revolution on the other. 
 The an ti -corn-law agitators were, at this period, the only true conservatives in 
 the whole range of our society. 
 
 On the 18th of September, 1838, a public dinner was given to Dr. Bowring 
 at Manchester, when the persons present (between fifty and sixty) agreed to 
 form themselves into an association for the promotion of the principles of free 
 trade. They 'soon organized their force, settled their scheme of public instruc- 
 tion and political movement, raised subscriptions, were sanctioned by the 
 Manchester Chamber of Commerce, and made known tlieir existence to tlie 
 large towns of England and Scotland by recommending similar associations in 
 them all. This was the origin of the Anti-Corn-Law League. 
 
 At the beginning of 1839, we find assembled in London a large body of 
 Spectator, 1839, delegates from Manchester, Birmingham, and Glasgow, and the great niium-
 
 Chap. XIV.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 41-5 
 
 factining towns, wliosc business it was to examine and analyze the House of 1840. 
 Commons, in regard to the Corn law qnestioii — to watch over its a.ction on 
 that qnestion, and see how far professions were supported by knowledge and 
 sincerity on either side ; and to challenge the House, collectively and indivi- 
 dually, by offering to prove at its bar all the allegations they had made 
 against the operation of the Corn laws. Wc find the metropolitan boroughs 
 holding meetings to appoint delegates on their own behalf, and passing reso- i)ti.Eo»TE5. 
 lutions of discontent at the omission of the topic of the Corn laws from the spcctaior, 1839, 
 Queen's speech. On the 7th of February, when Mr. Villiers had given notice 
 of a motion that evidence on the operation of the Corn laws should be heard 
 at the bar, Lord J. Russell made a little speech which caused a stronger sen- the Ministers. 
 sation than some of the longest he had ever delivered. It was copied into 
 the newspapers with a declaration that it made one's blood boil ; and the 
 universal impression, among men of all parties, seems to have been, that it 
 proved him so unaware of the existing circumstances and temper of the nation 
 as to injure his immediate reputation and influence, and to ^veakcn him, 
 unaccountably to himself, in every one of the various positions in regard to 
 the Corn law question, in which he afterwards endeavoured to establish 
 himself. He said " the impression on his mind was that it would he his duty n.m'^ard, xiv. \m. 
 to oppose the motion as to hearing evidence at the bar. He had not as yet 
 found sufficient reasons or precedents to induce him to adopt that course. At 
 the same time he must say, that as there would he a great deal of discussion 
 relating to facts, when a mode was proposed which he thought was conform- 
 able to precedent, and not inconvenient to the House, by which these facts 
 could be ascertained, he should be willing, although not ready to propose it 
 liimself, to support a motion so to ascertain the facts." This might have 
 been taken as a matter of course from Sir E,. Peel in those days — this speech 
 about propriety and precedent, and the convenience of the House, in regiird to 
 a matter about which 3,000,000 of the best subjects in the empire had sent 
 up representatives to London, and a message to parliament. Such a speech 
 would have suited Sir R. Peel's then position and views with regard to the 
 Corn laws. Uut Lord J. Russell had declared to his Stroud constituents that 
 the existing Corn laws were indefensible ; and he declared on this very niglit 
 that he believed the time to be come for a change. The delegates who were 
 analyzing the House now knew where to place Lord J. Russell on their lists. 
 He disapproved the Corn laws in the abstract— just as the Carolina planters 
 disapprove slavery in the abstract. In both cases, when an oi)portunity for 
 acting from that disapprobation occurs, the action goes over to the oflier side. 
 This was proved on the 18th of the same month, when, the Cabinet being 
 divided on Mr. Villicrs's motion, Lord J. Russell voted against it, with ^';;^,'^^/^"'' 
 Lord Ilowick, Lord Palmerston, Mr. Spring Rice, and some minor oflicials, 
 while Mr. Poulett Thomson, in this his last session in parliament, and 
 Sir J. C. Ilobhouse, voted for inquiry. Mr. Villiers's speech that night 
 was not lost. It was a statement of singular force and clearness ; and the 
 occasion Avas destined to great celebrity. Of all the many weak and hhiul 
 acts of the Whig Ministers, none was more memorable than this refusal to 
 hear evidence on a subject whose importance tliey ])rofessed to admit ; and 
 Mr. Villiers's position was conspicuous in proportion to their fall. On thai
 
 416 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 [Book V. 
 
 1840. 
 
 Hansard, xlv. G'.ll 
 Refused. 
 
 Consequences. 
 
 Spectator, 183!i, 
 p. 178. 
 
 Attacks on the 
 
 QCEEN. 
 
 night he assumed his post undisputed as the head authority in the legislature 
 on the subject of the Corn laws ; and from that night the Whig jMinisters who 
 opposed his motion lost all chance of being generally trusted in any popular 
 action on that subject. If they had understood this as others understood it, 
 their exit from power two years afterwards would have been made in another 
 manner than it was. The majority of the Commons against inquiry was 361 
 to 172. As for the Peers, they would not entertain the subject at all. Lord 
 Brougham laid the case before them in a strong and able statement : but they 
 negatived it without a division. 
 
 The delegates met, and passed votes of thanks to Lord Brougham and Mr. 
 Villiers. Among the hopeful speakers was llichard Cobden. There was no 
 cause for despondency, he said, because tlie House over tlie way had refused to 
 hear them. They vrere the representatives of three millions of people — they 
 were the evidence that the ffi'eat towns had banded themselves together, and 
 their alliance would be a Hanseatic League against their feudal Corn law 
 plunderers. The castles which crowned the rocks along the Rhine, the 
 Danube, and the Elbe, had once been the stronghold of feudal oppressors ; but 
 they had been dismantled by a League ; and they now only adorned the 
 landscape as picturesque memorials of the past, while the people below had lost 
 all fear of plunder, and tilled their vineyards in peace. A public dinner at one 
 of the theatres was offered to the delegates ; but they were leaving town. 
 They made no secret of why they were leaving to'^vn : — it was to meet again at 
 Manchester. The upholders of the Corn laws were quite at ease wlien they 
 no longer saw the train of delegates going down to the House. Yet there 
 were not wanting voices of warning whicli told them that the matter was not 
 over. While one register of the time tells, with easy satisfaction, that the 
 vote of the Commons " had the effect of putting the question to rest, and no 
 more was heard of it — during the remainder of the session," another is found 
 giving warning that the departure of the delegates Avas like the breaking-up of 
 a Mahratta camp — the war Mas not over, but only the mode of attack about to be 
 changed. There was no secrecy about the new mode of attack. The delegates 
 had offered to instruct the House ; the House had refused to be instructed ; 
 the House must be instructed ; and the way now contemplated was the 
 grandest, and most unexceptionable and effectual — it was to be by instructing 
 the nation. The delegates were to meet again at Manchester in a fortnight, 
 to devise their method of general instruction, which, in its seven years' opera- 
 tion, approached more nearly to a genuine National Education than any 
 scheme elsewhere at work. By the Auti-corn-law League the people at large 
 were better trained to thought and its communication, to the recognition of 
 principles, the obtaining of facts, and the application of the same faculties and 
 the same interest to their public as to tlieir private affairs, than by any 
 methods of intellectual development yet tried under the name of Education. 
 
 The present was a time when minds were feverish, and disposed to undue 
 alarm from any untoward circumstance : and the Queen was made to bear her 
 share of the uneasy excitement of the period. It was no wonder that, as all 
 eminent persons are likely to occujjy the visions of infirna minds, a young 
 Queen should be especially liable to the intrusions of the insane. It was no 
 wonder to any body that one lunatic, having crept up to the garden steps of
 
 Chap. XIV.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 417 
 
 Buckingham palace, should threaten her Majesty because no Protestant 1840. 
 should occupy the throne of England ; nor that another, having leaped the •^— ^.^^ — ' 
 enclosures at Windsor, should demand admittance to the Castle as King of i8'3'r''chnfn! 79'. 
 England ; and so forth. But tliere were worse alarms than these, for two or i83"."''c-hma aTe. 
 three years. At first, there really Avas ten-or when a pistol was fired near the 
 royal carriage, in the coiu-se of the Queen's drives. Her j)opularity was by no 
 means what it had been. Sometimes silence, and sometimes disagreeable 
 cries in the streets and the theatres, indicated this. The disheartened and 
 suffering people could not understand how the Prime Minister could properly 
 conduct the public business while seen daily with the Queen or heard of at her 
 parties ; nor how so much money could be properly spent upon the Queen's 
 banquets and balls while so many poor were starving; nor how the Queen 
 could enjoy festivities for six days in the week while there was so much 
 mourning in the land. When one pistol shot after another was directed 
 at the Queen's carriage within two or three years, it was clearly proved in 
 each case that there was no conspiracy, and no immediate working of po- 
 litical discontent ; yet the general impression was that the odious act might 
 not have been attempted in a season of prosperity and satisfaction. The first 
 case, which occurred on the 10th of June, 1840, was a type of the rest, and 
 may serve for a notice of them all. A youth of eighteen or nineteen, named 
 Oxford, who was foolish, if not insane, fired two pistol shots at the Queen in 
 her phaeton on Constitution Hill. He was poor and ignorant ; and it was so Annual Register, 
 impossible to find any cause for the act, that he was pronounced insane, and p 215. 
 given over to a lunatic asylum for life. On this first occasion, the excitement 
 was so strong — " members of parliament applying for locks of Oxford's hair 
 when it was cut off" — the whole aristocratic crowd in the Parks escorting 
 the Queen home with cheers, and the afiair appearing in capital letters in the 
 newspapers for weeks, that it is not surprising that an ignorant person here 
 and there, with a morbid longing for notoriety, should try to get it by shooting 
 at the Queen. This became so well understood after a time, and it was clear 
 that the risk to the Queen was, at the same time, so nearly nothing, that such 
 affairs were treated as they should be — as nuisances which might best be i)ut 
 a stop to by contempt and an ignominious punishment : and, during the next 
 period, an act passed by which such a prank was punished by whipping, 
 accompanying imprisonment or transportation. The most abiding incident 
 connected with this first attack is one which it is now — and was yet more at 
 the time — pleasant to note. At the top of Constitution Hill, the Queen spoke 
 to her husband, and the carriage, at his order, turned from the Hyde Park 
 entrance down Grosvenor Place. The Queen had thought of her mother, and 
 went to her that the Duchess of Kent might see that her daughter was safe before 
 any other notice of the attack reached her. Of such attacks no more mention 
 will be made. The Queen has no enemies among her people. Sovereigns 
 who lead innocent lives and have no political power have no enemies among 
 their people ; and the pointing of a pistol at the royal carriage— a pistol now 
 without a bullet, and now without a lock— by some poor creature wlio courts 
 arrest, is an incident of which this cursory notice is sullicient. The first 
 occurrence of the kind, however, certainly did uot tend to relieve the depres- 
 sion of the period. 
 
 VOL. II. ^ '^
 
 418 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book V. 
 
 1840. Some accidents went to increase the gloom. There were several dockyard fires 
 
 " "-'"■ ' happening so near together, and so mysteriously, as to excite fears of treachery : 
 
 Dockyard Fires, j^^jj qj^^ provcd to bc from spontancous combustion, and another from an accident. 
 
 Storms. 'j'jjg gtorms Were severe and disastrous ; and one in the winter of 1839 was 
 
 more like a tropical hurricane than a mere winter storm in our own seas. 
 
 Twenty jiersons were killed in Liverpool streets, and a hundred drowned 
 
 on the neighbouring shores. Dublin was like a sacked city — some houses 
 
 compn, to Alma- imroofcd, and others burnin<j from the flight of sparks and brands. The 
 
 nac, 1840. p. 256. ^ . . f'. . " <• • i i 
 
 Repeal agita- Repeal agitation was advancing m Ireland so formidably, that the Lord 
 Compn. to Alma- Licutcnant publicly declared at this time, that he should oppose to it the 
 
 nac, 1841, p. 256. n i i- i 
 
 whole power of tlie government ; and that all countenance ot the government 
 should be withheld from those who took part in it. There had been a new, 
 though futile rebelUon in Canada. As for the East — it required some courage 
 
 ^n/f, vol. 1. p. jq Iqq]^ ^Ijjj^ way. What a thoughtful man had been saying for years, that we 
 should be compelled to conquer China, was now coming true. In the next 
 period of our History we shall have to tell of the Chinese war which was now 
 
 Troubles IN THE beginning. In India, matters were in a more fearfid state still. The blow had 
 not fallen yet — the blow which annihilated an Indian army ; but it was felt 
 that something terrible was impending ; and in fact, some very bad news was 
 on the way. Under such accumulated gloom, destined yet to deepen for some 
 time, it was a thought of comfort to the nation that the Queen was safe in 
 
 btrthofthe the honour and repose of a home: and it was a matter of general rejoicing 
 
 AnnuaTR^Bu'tcr,' whcu tlic blcssings of that home were enriched by the birth of a daughter on 
 
 1840. chron. no, ^Ijj, 21st of November, 1840. 
 
 i
 
 Chap. XV.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 419 
 
 I 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 ^OME beneficent legislation took place during this period, three instances 18,37 40. 
 
 ^ of which were of such strong popular interest as to requii'e notice in some ■ ^ — • 
 
 detail. 
 
 Up to this time, the Criminal Law of the country had not been accessible criminal Law 
 
 1 1T1111 1. . COMMISSlOEf. 
 
 to those who hved under that law ; and it was no easy matter tor professional 
 men to attain any competent knowledge of it. The Criminal Law of England 
 was contained in an immense and confused mass of documents ; — statutes, 
 ancient and modern records, reported decisions of the judges, and text books. 
 If the mind of every individual lawyer was required to deduce tlie law from 
 all these repositories, it was clear that the vast work would not really be done ; 
 and if the profession proceeded on tradition or in conventional agreement with 
 regard to the most commonly occurring cases, it docs not appeal* that the depo- 
 sited law was of much practical use. It ill befitted a civilized state and aii 
 enlightened age that the criminal law should not be clearly ascertained, and 
 laid down in some depository accessible to all. This gi'eat work was appointed, 
 in 1833, to a royal commission, whose business it was to inquire how far it 
 might be expedient to reduce the Avhole criminal law of the country, written 
 and unwritten, into one digest ; and to report on the best manner of doing it. 
 In 1834, the Commissioners reported in favour of the object ; and they forth- 
 with proceeded with the work. One of the immediate results of the labours of 
 the Commissioners was the Bill passed in ISoG for allowing tlie assistance of 
 counsel to prisoners in criminal cases. In 1837, a far more important ameliora- roiiiicai Dicuon- 
 
 ^ aiy, i. p.;oo. 
 
 tion was achieved. 
 
 For some years past, public opinion had tended more and more towards tlie urstriction op 
 abolition of the punishment of death. From the time when Sir Samuel oi Death. 
 Ilomilly began his disclosures of the effects of severity of punishment, there 
 had been a growing conviction that severity of punishment tends to the in- 
 crease of crime. Whatever other objections to the punishment of deatli might 
 exist — some denying the right to take away human life at all — some denounc- 
 ing the cruelty of cutting off a man at the moment of his being laden with 
 crime — others pointing to the cases of innocent persons who had been hanged 
 ■ — the broad ground of the impolicy of the penalty lay open to its opponents 
 of every class. It had been found, as often as tried, that the average of par- 
 ticular crimes lessened after the remission of the death-penalty, while the 
 number of convictions increased largely in proportion. Prosecutors and juries 
 would do their duty to society, when tliat duty no longer required of them 
 what they considered the murder of the individual culprit. .Justice became 
 more certain ; and with certainty in the administration of justice comes in- 
 variably decrease of crime. Those who knew these things liad amved at 
 advocating a total abolition of the punishment of deatli : and the facts and
 
 420 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book V. 
 
 1837 — 40. figures tliey exhibited certainly appeared to leave no doubt as to the past 
 operation of the principle of leniency, and no reasonable ground for question 
 of its having tlie same effect in the future. The Government and the Crimi- 
 nal Law Commissioners^ who were not prepared for such a change as society at 
 large now seemed to desire, pleaded that there might be a danger of revulsion 
 to a vindictive system, if, by any accident, grave crimes should increase soon 
 after the abolition of the death-penalty — a plea which might as well have been 
 urged against any remission whatever, and which took for granted the almost 
 impossible supposition that society can go back to a barbarous system, after 
 having achieved emancipation from it. Lord John Russell, especially, fell 
 into his usual apprehension of " going too fast," in his usual forgetfulness that 
 it is impossible to go too fast towards any object, unless there is some reason 
 for going slower. — It is probable, however, that there were unavowed reasons 
 for going slower. It is probable that those reasons lay in the difficulty of 
 knowing what to do with tlie criminals now cleared off by the halter. Our 
 system of secondary punishments is so imperfect — our methods are so desul- 
 tory and vacillating, and our failures have been of such serious import, that 
 any government might feel perplexed about the disposal of a new and more 
 desperate class of felons which would be brought under its care by the aboli- 
 tion of the piHiishment of death. If they had ventured to state this as their 
 difficulty, instead of bringing forward pleas which every body saw to be un- 
 tenable, the enemies of deatli-punishment Mould have perceived at once that 
 the direct way to their object was by taking in hand the subject of secondary 
 punishments. But such an avowal — that men must be hanged because we 
 did not know what else to do with them — could not be made by any govern- 
 ment — either in decency, or because no man could be hanged after such an 
 avowal. So the Commissioners and the Government contented themselves 
 with giving reasons which nobody believed in for limiting instead of abolisli- 
 ing the jjunishment of death. It is possible that they might have remitted 
 more, or the whole, if they had been as well aware as every government ought 
 to be of the state of public opinion and feeling on a matter of which every 
 man and every woman was capable of judging. 
 
 There can be no doubt that the courage and enterprise of the Ministers and 
 the Commissioners were much stimulated by the exertions of Mr. Ewart in 
 Parliament, and of many sensible men and able lawyers elsewhere, to concen- 
 trate the prevalent feeling and opinion against death-punishment altogether ; 
 or in all cases but murder. In 183T, the Commissioners recommended the 
 remission of the death-penalty in twenty-one out of thirty-one cases in which 
 the liability had hitherto existed. They thought this extremely bold — feared 
 they were going faster and further than Government would approve — and did 
 not know what Lord John Russell would think of so sweeping a change. 
 Lord John Russell thought it bold, but enjoyed the prospect of throwing so 
 great a boon into the lap of the nation and its representatives. On the morning 
 of the day of debate, one of the Commissioners went to prepare Lord John 
 Russell for the occasion, by putting him in possession of the knowledge and 
 the proposals of the Commissioners. A friend begged him to tell the Minister 
 that some people thought the House and the nation more ready than he was 
 aware of for the abolition of the death-penalty, and that he must not be sur- 
 
 1
 
 Chap. XV.J DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 421 
 
 prised if he found it so. From the Minister's surprise at the result of that 1837 40. 
 
 night's debate, it was clear that he had had no warning. -— -^-v^.^ — - 
 
 On tlie 23rd of March, Lord John Russell had asked leave to brins; in a Hansard, xxwii. 
 Bill — the first of tlie series which was to reduce the number of capital offences. 
 On the 19th of ^May, the Order of the Day for the necessary Committee was 
 read. The Ministerial proposition was to remit the death-penalty in 21 cases; 
 and to restrict it considerably in some of the 10 which remained. Mr. Ewart 
 moved an amendment, confining the penalty of death to the one case of delibe- 
 rate murder — scarcely disguising, in Lord John Russell's opinion, his object 
 of obtaining an abolition of the punishment as soon after as possible. The 
 Minister declared himself extremely surprised at the turn tlie debate had taken Hansard, xxxsm. 
 before the division. Instead of rejoicing in the great boon which he was 
 offering, and which he had supposed might be thought too daring, the House 
 treated him as if he had been proposing to make the law more instead of less 
 stringent. The Ministerial adherents took the alarm ; and it was understood 
 that the Whig whipper-in strained every nerve to rally members for a division 
 which they had concluded to be perfectly safe without them. The result of 
 these exertions was a Ministerial majority of 1. — The Bills passed the Lords Hansard, xxxviii. 
 on the 1-ith of July, Lord Brougham observing that nothing but the pressure Hansard. x.xxviii. 
 of time prevented his endeavouring to amend these measures, by making the 
 remission of the death-penalty extend to all crimes, except that of murder ; 
 and he did not know that he should venture to except that — so convinced was 
 he that capital punishment tended to the increase of crime and the impairing 
 of justice. 
 
 The Criminal Law Commission continued its labours till 1845, when it 
 expired ; but revived, with an addition to its numbers, for the further prosecu- 
 tion of its objects. The Commissioners had then presented eight Reports — rfsilts of the 
 
 ^ , , / o 1 Commission. 
 
 of high value. Besides the subjects already mentioned, they reported on the Political Diction. 
 treatment of juvenile offenders, and upon the consolidation of the general 
 statute law. Their digest of our Criminal Law, entitled "The Act of Crimes 
 and Punishments," is considered to have fulfilled the purpose of their ajipoint- 
 ment, and to be a national benefit too great to be fully appreciated but through 
 lapse of time. The new Commission of 1845, whicli included the members 
 of the former one, was appointed for the revision of this Act of Crimes and 
 Punishments, in preparation for its being made the law of the land. A sub- 
 sequent Report, by the members of the old Commission, on the law of proce- 
 dure as regards indictable offences, was likewise given to the new Commission 
 for revision, in the hope of its also becoming law. These preparations for ren- 
 dering the Criminal Law of England clear, intelligible, and accessible in its 
 statement to all, and the prosecution of offences sini])le, direct, and certain, 
 are an honourable sigu of the times, and a credit to the admiuistration of tlie 
 period. 
 
 The session of 1839 was a memorable one to at least half the nation for ^^^t'^^",';'''- 
 yielding the first act of what must become a comse of legislation on behalf of 
 the rights of women, who are in so many ways oppressed by the laws of Eng- 
 land that Lord Brougham's objection to the measure was based on his fear 
 to touch a mass of laws so cruel and indefensible as that all must come down 
 if any part were brought into question. The object now was to obtain for
 
 422 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book V. 
 
 1837. — 40. mothers of irreproachable conduct who should be separated from their hus- 
 ^— — ^^ bands, access to their young children by petition to the Judges, in whose 
 power it was to regulate the terms of that access. When this was clearly 
 stated in the House in 1838 — when it was declared that by the law of 
 England a husband of the most profligate character had the power of pre- 
 venting his virtuous wife from ever seeing her children — that it was on behalf 
 only of mothers irreproachable in the eye of the law that access to their 
 children was asked for — and that this access was to be obtained only by 
 permission of the Equity Judges, — the object sought appeared so mere a fraction 
 of what was due to domestic claims, so small a restitution of natural rights 
 profusely stolen by a barbarous law, that the Bill — called the Custody of 
 Infants' Eill — was passed by the Commons rapidly, and by large majorities. 
 In the Lords, however, there was opposition ; and Lord Brougham recorded 
 his views in a speech which ought to be preserved as a specimen of the morality 
 IJrofessed in high places in the 19th century. In Hansard, the speech stands 
 Hansard, xiiv. 779 cntirc, for the usc of future historians, and the amazement of future moralists. 
 "'"*■ What we have to do with here is the statement of the spirit and structm-e of 
 
 the Man-iage law as regards the rights of the wife, at the date of the contro- 
 versy about the Custody of the children. 
 Lord brolgham " He was ready to admit — that the law was liarsh and cruel in its operation 
 OF Wives. ou those cases which had been stated ; and also that their small number was 
 
 no guarantee that many more did not exist wliich had never seen the light. 
 His noble friend had stated the evils of the present state of the law ; he had 
 shown how mijust tlie law >vas with regard to the treatment and the custody 
 of the offspring of the wife by her husband; he had shown how it had 
 operated harshly on the wife ; and ho had pointed out instances in which that 
 law might have entailed evil on the children; and then he contended tliat his 
 Bill must be accepted as a remedy, because it would be a less evil than the 
 evils pointed out. But there were many evils wliich the Bill did not profess 
 to remedy. Could any thing be more harsh or cruel than that the wife's 
 goods and chattels should be at the mercy of the husband, and that she might 
 work and labour, and toil for an unkind father to suj)port his family and 
 children, while the husband repaid her with harslmess and brutality, he all 
 the time rioting and revelling in extravagance and dissipation, and squander- 
 ing in the company of guilty paramours the produce of her industry ? The 
 law was silent to the complaints of such a woman; or, if not silent, all it said 
 was that in the sweat of her brow she should eat her bread : and not only so ; 
 but that in the sweat of her brow her husband should eat his bread, and spend 
 the produce of her industry in insulting her by lavishuig her property on his 
 paramours. He knew that there were anomalies and a thousand contradic- 
 tions in the Marriage law ; but the existence of those anomalies and con- 
 tradictions should operate as so many warnings against the introduction of 
 
 new anomalies and changes in that Marriage law In that action" (an 
 
 action for damages against an alleged paramour) " the character of a woman 
 was sworn away. Instances were known in which by collusion between the 
 husband and a pretended paramour, the character of the wife had been 
 destroyed. All this could take place, and yet the wife liad no defence. She 
 was excluded from Westminster Hall ; and, beliind her back, by the principles
 
 Chap. XV.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 423 
 
 of our jurisprudence, her character was tried batween the husband and the 1837 40. 
 
 man called her paramour. But what was the case when the man was the ^-^ — - 
 guilty party ? What legislation was there in favour of the wife ? Was it just 
 that in lier sufferings she should have no remedy, no sufficient remedy ; but 
 rather be left to the mockery and insult of her husband ? The husband might 
 pursue his course : he might refuse to live with his wife, unless she went to 
 Doctors' Commons, and demanded a restitution of conjugal rights, which no 
 woman of delicacy could well do. A wife had the greatest difficulty to obtain a 
 separation in the case of adultery. There had been two cases only before that 
 House in which such relief had been granted ; the one being a case in which 
 incest had been proved. The present state of the law was such as to bring 
 out a passive resistance on the part of the sex, which felt that they were not 
 properly represented in the legislature. Having shown that the law was not 
 more oppressive to the wife in this than in other cases, he now came to consider 
 whether the remedy proposed for the alleged evil was appropriate." 
 
 Lord Brougham's conclusion was adverse to the Bill: but that was of little 
 moment in view of the service he rendered to the oppressed by his exposure of 
 the position of married women in England. As he said, " they were not 
 properly represented in the legislature." They were not represented at all. 
 Tlie party supposed, in works of political philosophy, to represent them are 
 precisely those against whom legislation is needed for their protection. In the 
 case before us, it was, as was openly declared at the time, precisel)- the men 
 ■who despised and distrusted women, and had no conception of such an ideal 
 as the virtuous matronage of England, who exerted themselves to prevent the 
 passage of the law which should permit a blameless mother occasionally to see 
 her children, by an order from the Equity Judges. On that night, when Lord 
 Brougham made his remarkable speecli, the division was as remarkable as 
 any thing that took place. Two tales were told in the course of the debates 
 on the Bill which melted the hearts of those who beard them. This was 
 one source of interest. Another was the dread on the part of certain peers 
 that this Bill would grant too much liberty to Englishwomen, and that they 
 would be encouraged to elope, if they had hope of any laws being made in 
 their favour — though it was only women who had not eloped who were the 
 objects of this Bill. The result was, in the words of Hansard, " The House Hinsini, xiir. 
 divided: contents): not content 11: majority 2. Bill thrown out." There DmsroN is the 
 follows, however, a sensible Protest against this rejection of the Bill, signed '"""■ 
 by Lords Holland and Lyndhurst and the Duke of Sutherland. 
 
 The question was sure to come ion again. When the position of motliers 
 had once been argued, the nation which had sent out Protectors of slaves, 
 and which was striving to put an end to one-sided and tyrannical legislation 
 in Jamaica, was not likely to neglect the suffering women at home wliom 
 tyranny had bereaved of their children. In the next session the Bill was 
 passed. 
 
 There were circumstances connected with the final effort wliich can never bhi. ok n.w. 
 be forgotten by the lawyers who prepared the Bill, the members of jiarliament 
 who supported it, or any women who licard of them ; for all tlie women of 
 Great Britain were insulted by the methods pursued to defeat the Bill. The 
 case stands out clear from the Law Magazines and the reviews of tlu^ time.
 
 Hansard, xlix. 
 
 4:i2. 
 
 424 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book V. 
 
 1837 — 40. First, attacks were made on the motives and characters of the originators and 
 
 "~— ~- piomoters of the Bill ; and this was made less difficult and more inmianly by 
 
 the fact being well known that it was at the instance of a bereaved mother 
 that redress was sought ; as it is always at the instance of sufferers that remedial 
 legislation is achieved. Next, an article appeared in the British and Foreign 
 Quarterly Review, ■which was intended to operate against the Bill, but which 
 jirobably wrought the other way. This article proceeded on the supposition 
 that all women are bent on mischief; and that the only way to manage them 
 is to place them under the absolute despotism of their husbands. In the 
 course of the argument or exposition, several of the most eminent ladies in 
 Great Britain were insulted by name, and every woman in the world by im- 
 plication. This article, or the substance of it, was rejirinted in pamphlet 
 form; and a copy of it was put into the hands of the peers as they entered 
 the House, by Lord Wynford, the chief agitator against the Bill. It did not 
 answer its pmpose with those peers who really knew any thing of the matron- 
 age of England. The Bill was read a first time in the Commons on the 30th 
 
 H^mard, xiviii. ^f -^i^^. ^ ^^^^ j|jg ^^^^ ^^^^ ^^ (.|^g 28th of Juuc. The will of the Commons 
 
 had been sufficiently shown the year before. When the second reading in 
 the Lords took place. Lord Wynford observed : " His noble and learned friend 
 had truly said that the custody of the children belonged by law to the father. 
 That was a wise law, for the father was responsible for the rearing up of the 
 children ; but when unhappy differences separated the father and mother, to 
 give the custody of the child to the father, and to allow access to it by the 
 mother, was to injure the child ; for it was natural to expect that the mother 
 would not instil into the child any respect for the husband whom she might 
 hate or despise. The effects of such a system would be most mischievous to 
 the child, and would prevent its being properly brought up." Lord Wynford 
 did not go on to say whether he thought it would be good for the child, in the 
 custody of a profligate father, to hear that father's way of speaking of the irre- 
 proachable mother ; — a way of speaking determined by the old rule that men 
 Hansard, xiix.ws. hate tliose whoui they have injured. — Lord Denman thotight that "some 
 alteration, and that of a sweeping character, was absolutely necessary to the 
 due administration of justice, and for the prevention of the frightful injuries 
 
 to society which the present system gave birth to In the case of ' The 
 
 King V. Grecnhill,' which had been decided in 1836, before himself and the 
 rest of the judges of the Court of King's Bench, he believed that there was not 
 one judge who had not felt ashamed of the state of the law; and that it was 
 such as to render it odious in the eyes of the country. The effect in that case 
 was to enable the father to take his children from his young and blameless 
 wife, and place them in the charge of a woman with whom he then cohabited. 
 The present law was cruel to the wife, debasing to the husband, and danger- 
 ous, and probably ruinous, to the health and morals of the children, who could 
 not have any such sure guarantee against corruption, under the tutelage of a 
 profligate father, as the occasional care of a mother." Lord Denman emf)hati- 
 cally warned the liOrds of the grave responsibility they would incur, both as 
 regarded the morals of society, and their relation to the other House of parlia- 
 ment, if they threw out this Bill, sent up now for the third time by such large 
 majorities of the Commons. Lord Wynford's postponing amendment was
 
 Chap. XV.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 425 
 
 negatived -without a division ; the Bill was read a third time on the 2d, and 1837 — 40. 
 received the Royal Assent on the 17th, of August. If the Queen understood " — -^'— ~-^ 
 the full significance of this Bill, as the first blow struck at the oppression of Hansard i. scd. 
 English legislation in relation to women, it must have been with singular 
 pleasiu'e that she made the Bill law. 
 
 Another piece of beneficent legislation of this period was highly conserva- 
 tive of the domestic purity and happiness of Great Britain. 
 
 Mr. Rowland Hill, when a young man, was walking throuKh the Lake dis- PosT-Ofpice 
 
 J cy ■> o o System. 
 
 trict, when he one day saw the postman deliver a letter to a woman at a cot- 
 tage door. The woman turned it over and examined it, and then returned it, 
 saying that she could not pay the postage, which was a shilHng. Hearing 
 that the letter was from her brother, Mr. Hill paid the postage, in spite of the 
 manifest unwillingness of the woman. As soon as the postman was out of 
 sight, she showed j\Ir. Hill how his money had been wasted, as far as she was 
 concerned. The sheet was blank. There was an agreement between her brother 
 and herself, that as long as all went well with him, he should send a blank 
 sheet in this way once a quarter ; and she thus had tidings of him without 
 expense of postage. Most people would have remembered this incident as 
 a curious story to tell : but Mr. Hill's was a mind which wakened up at once 
 to a sense of the significance of the fact.' There must be something wrong in 
 a system which drove a brother and sister to cheating, in order to gratify their 
 desire to hear of one another's welfare. It was easy enough in those days for 
 any one whose attention was turned towards the subject, to collect a mass of 
 anecdotes of such cheatinfr. Parents and children, brothers and sisters, lovers Domestic ope. 
 
 . . 1 1 1 1 • RATION. 
 
 and friends, must have tidings of each other, where there is any possibility of 
 obtaining them ; and those who had not shillings to spend in postage — who 
 could no more spend shillings in postage than the class above them could 
 spend hundreds of pounds on pictures — would resort to any device of com- 
 munication, without thinking there was any harm in such cheating, because 
 no money was kept back from government which could have been paid. There 
 was curious dotting in newspapers, by which messages might be spelled out. 
 Newspapers being franked by writing on the covers the names of members of 
 parliament, a set of signals was arranged, by which the names selected were 
 made to serve as a bulletin. Men of business so wrote letters as that several 
 might go on one sheet, which was to be cut up and distributed. The smug- 
 gling of letters by carriers was enormous. After all expenditure of time and 
 ingenuity, there remained, however, a terrible blank of enforced silence. We 
 look back now with a sort of amazed compassion to the old crusading times, 
 when warrior-husbands and their wives, grey-headed parents and their brave 
 sons, parted with the knowledge that it must be months or years before they 
 could hear even of one another's existence. AVe wonder how they bore the 
 depth of silence. And we feel the same now about the families of I'olar 
 voyagers. But, till a dozen years ago, it did not occur to many of us how like 
 this was the fate of the largest classes in our own country. The fact is, there 
 was no full and free epistolary intercourse in the country, except between 
 those who had the command of franks. There were few families in the wide 
 middle class who did not feel the cost of postage a lieavy item in their ex- 
 penditure ; and if the young people sent letters home only once a fortnight,
 
 426 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book V. 
 
 1837 — 40. the amount at the year's end was a rather serious matter. But it was the vast 
 ^— ^^^-— ' multitude of the lower orders who suffered like the crusading families of old, 
 and the geographical discoverers of all time. When once their families parted 
 off from home, it was a separation almost like that of death. The hundreds of 
 thousands of aiiprentices, of shopmen, of governesses, of domestic servants, 
 were cut off from family relations as if seas or deserts lay between them and 
 home. If the shilling for each letter could be saved by the economy of weeks 
 or months at first, the rarity of the correspondence went to increase the rarity : 
 new interests hastened the dying out of old ones ; and the ancient domestic 
 affections were but too apt to wither away, till the wish for intercourse was 
 gone. The young girl could not ease her heart by pouring out her cares and 
 difficulties to her mother before she slept, as she can now, when the penny and 
 the sheet of paper are the only condition of the correspondence. The young 
 lad felt that a letter home was a somewhat serious and formal matter, when it 
 must cost his parents more than any indulgence they ever thought of for 
 themselves ; and the old fun and light-heartedness were dropped from such 
 domestic intercourse as there was. The effect upon morals of this kind of 
 restraint is proved beyond a doubt by the evidence afforded in the army. It 
 was a well-known fact, that in regiments where the commanding officer was 
 kind and courteous about franking letters for the privates, and encouraged 
 them to write as often as they pleased, the soldiers were more sober and 
 maidy, more virtuous and domestic in their affections, than where difficulty 
 was made by the indolence or stiffness of the franking officer. To some per- 
 sons, this aspect has ever appeared the most important of the various interest- 
 Other Effects jjjg aspects of the postage reform achieved by Mr. Rowland Hill. As for others, 
 it is impossible to estimate the advantages of the change. In reading Cowper's 
 Life, how strange now seems his expenditure of time, thought, and trouble, 
 about obtaining franks for the MS. and proofs of his Homer; — now, when 
 every maQ carries packets between authors, printers, and pubUshers, for a few 
 pence, without any teazing solicitation for franks, or dependence ujion any 
 body's good offices ! What a mass of tradesmen's patterns and samples, of 
 trade circulars, of bills and small sunrs of money, of music and books, of seeds 
 and flowers, of small merchandize and friendly gifts, of curious specimens pass- 
 ing between men of science, of bulletins of health to satisfy anxious hearts, is 
 every day sent abroad over the land — and now spreading over wide oceans and 
 across continents, through Rowland Hill's discovery of a way to throw down 
 the old barriers, and break through the ancient silence ! It was truly a benefi- 
 cent legislation which made this change. 
 
 It was not easy, however, to make the change. Long after the case was 
 rendered clear — long after the old evils and the new possibility were made as 
 evident as facts and figures can make any proposition — there was difficulty — 
 vexatious, even exasperating difficulty — in carrying the reform. One great 
 obstacle at the outset was, that the Post Office has, through all time, declared 
 itself perfect. As the Duke of Wellington declared of our representative system, 
 that it could not be improved, while the grass and trees of Old Sanim were 
 sending two members to parliament, so the Post Office declared itself perfect 
 when carts and saddle-horses carried its bags ; and again, when Mr. Palmer's 
 mail-coaches (declared an impossible creation in 1797) brought the Bath let-
 
 Chap. XV.J DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 42'; 
 
 tcrs to London in eighteen hours, and could take no notice of out-of-the-way 1837 40. 
 
 towns and small villages ; and again, when a letter from Uxbridge, posted on ^— — ^ ' 
 
 Friday night, could not reach Gravesend till Tuesday morning ; and finally, 
 when the state of postal communication in Great Britain was what has been 
 indicated above. No postal reforms of a comprehensive character have ever 
 originated in the Post Office itself. This is natural ; because its officers are 
 Avholly occupied with its interior affairs, and cannot look abroad so as to com- 
 pare its provisions with the growing needs of society. It required a pedestrian Rowland Hili.. 
 traveller in the Lake district, making his way-side observations^an investi- 
 gator who could ascertain something of the extent of smuggling of letters — a 
 man of an open heart, who could enter into family sympathies — a man of philo- 
 sophical ingenuity, who could devise a remedial scheme — and a man of busi- 
 ness, who could fortify such a scheme with an impregnable accuracy — to 
 achieve such a reform. The man was among us, and the thing is done. 
 
 Mr. Hill ascertained that "the cost of mere transit incurred upon a letter hi3 facts. 
 sent from London to Edinburgh, a distance of 4(T0 miles, is not more than one P"st.09icc uo. 
 
 c< ? ? form, p. 14, ^3d 
 
 thirty-sixth part of a penny." When this was once made clearly known to <■''■'■) 
 the people of London and Edinburgh, it was not likely that they would be long 
 content to pay a shilling or upwards. It was not likely that rich merchants 
 would be content ; and much less the multitude to whom a shilling was a pro- 
 hibitory duty on correspondence. It would strike them all that if government 
 received such a profit as this on the transmission of letters, the government 
 must be getting much too rich at the expense of letter-writers, and to the 
 injury of persons who would fain write letters if they could. If it appeared, 
 however, that the revenue from the Post Office was unaccountably small — that 
 it was diminishiug in actual amount, instead of increasing with the spread of 
 population — it was clear that the Post Office could not be so perfect as it 
 thought itself — that it was not answering its purpose — that, whatever might 
 be its mismanagement, and consequent expensiveness, there must also be an 
 enormous amount of smuggling of letters. And the facts were so. Between 
 the Years 1815 and 1835, the Post Office annual revenue had declined; while, rost.officeRo. 
 
 1.^1-1 form, p. 2. 
 
 on its own existing terms, it ought, from the increase of population, to have 
 risen £507,700 : — from the mere increase of population it ought to have risen 
 thus much, without regard to the improvement of education, and the s])read of 
 commerce, which had taken place in those twenty years. 
 
 The way to deal with smuggling is now very well understood. To ex- 
 tinguish smuggling, it is necessary to lower duties to the point Avhich makes 
 smuggling not worth while. In some of the most populous districts of Eng- 
 land, it was believed that the number of letters illegally conveyed by earners, 
 and delivered in an awkward and irregular sort of way at the cost of a penny 
 each, far exceeded that of the letters sent through the I'ost Office. The 
 penny posts established in towns were found to answer well. Putting to- 
 gether these and a hundred other facts with that of the actual cost of trans- 
 mission of an Edinburgh letter, INlr. Hill iJioposed to reduce the cost of all ii.v PKorojAi. 
 letters not exceeding half an ounce in weight to a i)cniiy. The shock to the 
 Post Office of such an audacious i)ro])osal was extreme ; and so was tlie amaze- 
 ment of the public at the opening of such n ])rospc(t. As the actual cost of 
 transmission to any part of the kingdom reached by the mail was less than a
 
 428 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book V. 
 
 1837 — 40. farthing, tlie penny rate might be made imiform — to the saving of a world of 
 ^~-'"~"'~" — ' time and trouble — and still the profit or tax would be 200 per cent. Mr. Hill's 
 calculation was, that if the postage could be paid in advance, so as to save time 
 and labour in delivery, and other facilities of communication be established, which 
 he pointed out, and the postage be reduced to a penny for half-ounce letters, 
 the increase in the number of letters, by the stoppage of smuggling and the 
 new cheapness, must soon be four-fold. When it became four-fold, the net 
 revenue, after defraying the expense of conveying franks and newspapers, 
 form,T2o."'' '''fould amount to £1,278,000 per annum: a sum only £280,000 less than the 
 existing revenue. As no one supposed that the increase would ultimately be 
 so little as four-fold, there was every prospect that the Post OiSce revenue 
 would, in a few years, recover its then present amount directly ; while it was 
 certain that, under other heads, the revenue must be largely increased through 
 the stimulus given to commerce by improved commiuiication. Lord Lowther, 
 the Post-Master-General, had already proposed the cheap transmission of prices 
 current, as important to tht interests of trade : and if the same advantage 
 could be extended to all papers connected with commerce, there was no saying 
 how great ^vould be the stimulus communicated to business of every kind. 
 When Mr. Hill proposed his plan, the revenue was in a flourishing state ; in a 
 state which would justify such an experiment as this for such ends. It is well 
 that none foreknew the reverse which was at hand, and the long depression 
 which must ensue ; for none might have had courage to go into the enter- 
 prise : but that reverse served admirably as a test of the reform ; and through 
 the long depression which ensued, Mr. Hill's plan, though cruelly maimed, 
 and allowed at first no fair chance, worked well while every thing else was 
 working ill. The revenue from the Post Office went on steadily increas- 
 ing, while every other branch of the national income was declining or 
 stationary. 
 
 Some years before this time, Mr. Charles Knight had suggested that the 
 best way of collecting a penny postage on newspapers would be by the iise of 
 stamped covers. Mr. Hill now availed himself of this idea, acknowledging its 
 origin. By means of a penny letter stamp, the Post Office might be saved all 
 the trouble of collecting postage, and the delivery be immensely accelerated. 
 If residents in towns would have generally adopted his suggestion of having 
 letter-boxes, with a slit, affixed to the inside of their street-doors, it would 
 have been a further important saving of time — the postman having only to 
 drop the letters into the box, knock at the door, and run on, instead of having 
 to wait for the answer to his knock. This piece of justice to the scheme is 
 not yet practised nearly to the extent that it ought to be : but, notwithstanding 
 this, and many other needless impediments to the transaction of Post Office 
 business, the quantity of work done without increase of the staff is prodigious. 
 The MovE,MENT. Mr. Hill had to endure something of the bitter disappointment which is the 
 usual portion of great social reformers ; but, from the enlightenment of the 
 age, his mortifications were neither so complete nor so durable as those of 
 Poiit. Die, ii. many benefactors of society. He first proffered his plan privately to the govern- 
 ment. Next, he published his first pamphlet on Post Office Reform, when the 
 commercial world became interested at once, and forced the scheme on tlie in- 
 different and indolent administration. Mr. Wallace moved, but without avail, 
 
 5113.
 
 Chap. XV.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 409 
 
 for a select committee of the Commons, to investigate and report upon the ^^37 40. 
 
 phin, in Februar), 1838 ; the government declaring, in both Houses, that the v.— v-i — ' 
 matter was under their consideration. Petitions came up to parliament from Hansard.-xxxviii. 
 Chambers of Commerce, the Common Council of London, the merchants and 
 bankers of London, literary societies, and other bodies, which indicated to the 
 Ministers that this was not a matter to be trifled with. They showed their 
 interest in a way which amused their friends and enemies alike — by proposing 
 little schemes, and alterations, and devices of their own, which proved only 
 that they were very courageous in one direction, if not in another. They feared 
 endangering the revenue ; but they did not fear to place themselves and their 
 little notions side by side with the man and the scheme in whom and in which 
 the nation placed confidence. Neither they nor the administration who suc- 
 ceeded them, could see that the plan was a grand whole, which demanded to 
 be left entire, and to be worked by him who had devised it ; and both cabinets 
 were for pulling it in pieces, themselves, or by permission to the old Post 
 Office to do it — being ready, all the time, to make its author responsible for 
 the disasters that might happen through the very mutilation of the scheme. 
 Mr. Spring Rice won for himself the title of " The Footman's Friend," given 
 by a merry newspaper when he proflered his own little scheme of a new post- 
 age which should save flunkies the trouble of carrying ladies' notes. AVhcn 
 the special committee was granted, and up to nearly the close of its labours, 
 in August, 1838, the chairman, a goveniment official, and otlier members of his 
 way of thinking, declared to their friends in the clubs and in drawing-rooms, 
 that the present agitation would probably induce a considerable reduction of 
 the rate of postage ; but, as to the adoption of Mr. Hill's plan, it was the most 
 absurd idea that any one could entertain ; — too absurd to be worth a reply. 
 Some of these gentlemen continued to say the same thing till within six weeks 
 of the introduction of Mr. Hill's measure into the House of Commons by the 
 Chancellor of the Exchequer, on July 5, 1839. The evidence obtained in com- nansar.i, xivi.i. 
 mittee was irresistible : the demand of a trial of the plan by the commercial 
 world and the general public was irresistible : the pressure of reason and will 
 together was in-esistible ; and the plan was affirmed by a majority of 102 in "'^'^''•''''^•'''^• 
 the Commons, and made law on the 17th of August following. thk kf.f.irm 
 
 For a few weeks, a uniform four-penny rate was charged, that the I'ost "^'^"„„^„|'4te 
 Office might not be overwhelmed at once by a deluge of penny letters, before m^-moo. 
 its officials had become accustomed to the new method of charging by weight: 
 but on the 10th of January, 1840, the real scheme was tried. The inland rate iuai, s<.hemk 
 was now a penny for every pre-paid packet not exceednig | oz. in weight, 
 and Id. for every such packet not paid in advance : double the rate for packets 
 above | oz. and under 1 oz. ; and 2d. more if pre-paid, 4f/. if unpaid, for 
 every oz. or fraction of an oz. beyond. There was much amusing excitement 
 every where about putting the plan into practice — some (but not enough) 
 affixing of letter-boxes to house-doors — some mistakes, such as forgetting to 
 pre-pay fat which correspondents were wrathful)— or slipping a letter and 
 a penny together into the box at the post office — a great stinnilus to the 
 manufacture of frank weights, and a great fertility of invention al)out enve- 
 lopes, stamps, paper that could not be imitated, and gums that wi-re warranted 
 harmless and seemly. Mubeady furnished a design for an envelope which
 
 430 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book V. 
 
 1837 — 40. had much merit — hut two gicat defects : — it did not leave space for a long 
 ■ — ■'^^^•^-^ address, or one made long by the scrawling of the illiterate ; and it rendered 
 stale some signs of emotion which should never be made irreverentl}' familiar 
 — as the uplifted hands and eyes of the widowed mother who is receiving a 
 letter fiom an absent son. That envelope was soon laid aside, and the more 
 convenient stamp introduced, of the Queen's head in one corner. "When this 
 stamp became proem-able either separately or on the envelope, and when its 
 being on a blue gi-ound came to denote its being a 2d. stamp, the machinery 
 of convenience was at length complete to the public, as far as letters were con- 
 cerned. The stamps came into use on the 6th of May. Franking entirely 
 ceased on the day when the penny rate was introduced ; and the people were 
 amused with the idea that the Queen herself was paying postage. This 
 abolition of the franking privilege was declared by those who had previously 
 been free from postage charges to be more felt by them than they could have 
 supposed possible. They found their postage expenditure to be mounting up 
 to many pounds in the year; and a multitude of them who had not before 
 considered the matter now saw how right it was that the aristocracy should 
 pay their share towards a tax which had hitherto never touched them, while 
 it bore hardly upon the poorest in the land who could read and write. 
 Immediate fhc rcsults of the plan after a year's adoption were as encovu'agins as could 
 
 Uesults. J- . . . 
 
 be at all expected under the vmfavourable circumstances of commercial distress 
 and of the plan being tried by halves. The red\iction of postage was tried, 
 without the accompanying condition of improved facilities in the transmission 
 and delivery of letters ; and large expenses were incurred which had nothing 
 to do with the new plan, but -which went into the general account of the 
 Post Office. The increase in the number of chargeable letters was two and 
 Resuiuof the^New g, half fold : and these yielded more than half the former gross revenue of 
 
 Postage, p. 13. ' •' ... 
 
 the Post Office : the increase of expense in connexion with the plan was about 
 £44,000 : and the actual net revenue was £465,000 — a falling-oif of nearly 
 three-fourths from the former net revenue. Mr. Hill had predicted a state of 
 things somewhat less favourable than this as the result of the first year's 
 experiment, under these particular heads : but he had hoijed that the profit- 
 able parts of his plan would have been tried, as Avell as those which must 
 bring present loss. Those who miderstood the matter, however, had now no 
 further doubt of ultimate success, even in regard to the pecuniary returns of 
 the Post Office, while the increased facilities for business, for the promotion of 
 science and the arts, and for family intercourse, were felt and acknowledged 
 in the remotest corners of the British islands. As Mr. Hill had himself the 
 pleasure of knowing, " tlie postman had now to make long rounds through 
 humble districts where, heretofore, his knock was seldom heard." As for the 
 number of letters sent by jjost, it appears to have been at this time more than 
 Results, &c. p. 7. double what it was before the reduction of postage. There was reason to 
 suppose that, if the plan was fairly tried, five years would suffice to restore the 
 gross revenue of the Post Office, while the advantages to other branches of the 
 revenue would be meantime perpetually on the increase. The proportion of 
 pre-paid letters was continiially on the increase as people learned to manage 
 their own share of the plan ; and this incessantly diminished the labour of the 
 Post Office. The transmission of small sums of money by post office orders
 
 Chap. XV.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 431 
 
 was becoming more and more common, not only aiding tlic transaction of 1837 — 40. 
 business, but carrying comfort into thousands of bumble homes. The stamps '^-— -— ~— -' 
 themselves became a convenient fonn of small currency. The illicit con- 
 veyance of letters ceased at once, when the Post Office became the cheapest 
 means of conveyance. Thus the prospect was cheering in every May but one. 
 The one drawback was that the plan was not fairly worked. The Post Office 
 authorities were hostile to the change ; and neither the existing government 
 nor that which succeeded it supported ^Ir. Hill. Even while he was engaged 
 under the Melbourne ^linistry, to superintend the working of his own plan, 
 it was adopted only by halves : and immediately on the succession of the Peel 
 administration, he was dismissed, and the scheme left, as far as the public 
 would allow it, to the mercy of the hostile post-office authorities. 
 
 At the end of three years, no part of Mr. Hill's plan had been fully tried fiitrer 
 l)ut that of the reduction of postage. Little was done towards the simplifica- 
 tion of arrangements or tlie introduction of economy : and almost nothing in 
 regard to increased speed in the delivery, or facility for the despatch, of letters. 
 The times were fearfully bad ; yet, according to a retimi made to the House 
 of Lords, the results were that the gross revenue had reached two-thirds of its Mr. hui's Petition 
 old amount ; and that the net revenue of the Post Office was increasing from April u\ \m3.' 
 year to year, while every other branch of revenue was decreasing. But Mr. 
 Hill was only for a time cast out and discouraged. All parties became 
 convinced at last, as the public at large were throughout, that he was 
 essential to the working of his own plan ; and he was solicited to return to 
 his task of superintendence in the Post Office. Since that time, various 
 reforms and beneficial arrangements have been introduced ; and even his 
 ultimate scheme of a parcel-post is in partial operation. In time, the nation 
 will have the wliole. 
 
 Meanwhile it hardly needs to be pointed out, that though the fiscal results 
 of the plan are those which must be first considered by parliament and other 
 branches of the government, they are not those which are most important to 
 the nation at large. It is all very well that the revenue should rise to what it 
 ^vas before, and that increase should be perceptible in other branches of tin; 
 revenue from the stimulus of aid afforded to commerce : but the nation is far 
 more deeply interested in the operation of the scheme on the promotion of 
 science, on the daily convenience to millions of persons, and especially on the 
 domestic morals of the people. The blessings which have thus accrued are 
 too vast for estimate. It is believed most firmly by those who know best — by 
 those whose walk is among the great middle and greater lower classes of 
 society — that no one has done so much as Mr. Rowland HiU in our time in 
 drawing closer the domestic ties of the nation, and extending the influences 
 of home over the wide-spreading, stirring, and most diverse interests of social 
 life in our own country. And from our own country, the blessing is reaching 
 many more ; and cheap postage is becoming established in one nation after 
 anotiicr, extending the benefits of the invention among myriads of men who 
 have not yet heard the name of its author. The neighbourly shilling given in 
 the Lake district was well laid out.
 
 432 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book V. 
 
 CHAPTEU XVI. 
 
 1836 — 41. /^NE of the last subjects of iiuportance discussed in parliament before the 
 ' — -^-—^-^ yy IVIelbournc Ministry went out of power was the Privilege question, the 
 Parliament. Origin of whicli lias been related. On account of some amusing incidents which 
 attended the discussion, and of the intricacy of the question, the press and the 
 public treated the matter with a levity or an indifference which appear 
 much out of place amidst the seriousness of an historical review. The grave 
 truth of the case was that an apparent incompatibility had arisen between the 
 privileges of the Commons and the rights of the subject; and the Court of 
 Queen's Bench and Parliament were directly at issue. The affair had become 
 what is called a dead lock. No one could see how a step could bo taken in 
 any direction but into deadly mischief; and yet it was necessary that some- 
 thing should be done. 
 
 1836. In November, 1836, Chief-Justice Dcnman had declared from the Bench his 
 ^TATE OF Ti opinion that the authority of the House of Commons could not justify the publi- 
 cation of a libel : whereas the House and its officers maintained that the pub- 
 lisher of their Reports was not subject to action for libel, as he published under 
 the authority of the parliament ; and the question of the powers and privileges 
 of parliament could not be brought into discussion or decision before any 
 other court or tribunal than parliament itself, without subjecting the parties 
 concerned to the displeasure and the penalties of parliament for a high breach 
 of its privileges. This was the decision arrived at by the Special Committee 
 
 1837. which reported on the subject in May, 1837. 
 
 The case now stood thus. Messrs. Hansard, the parliamentary printers, 
 had published certain Reports on Prisons, in one of Avhich a book, published 
 by J. J. Stockdale, was called " obscene and disgusting in the extreme." 
 Stockdale prosecuted the Hansards for a libel. The Hansards pleaded the 
 authority of parliament. The judge, C'hief-.Justice Denman, declared that 
 parliament could not authorize the publication of libels on individuals. 
 Parliament not only insisted that it could publish what it pleased, but that 
 itself was the sole judge of its own powers and privileges, and that for any 
 person to call them in question in any Court was a high breach of privilege. 
 Both parties supposed themselves engaged in vindicating the liberty of the 
 subject — Lord Denman believing that he was saving individuals from being 
 oppressed by the most powerful body in the realm ; and the House of 
 Commons believing that the liberty of the subject was essentially involved in 
 the liberties of the representative and legislative body. 
 
 Stockdale continued his prosecution of the Hansards. The Hansards, who 
 put themselves under the protection of the House, were directed to plead. 
 The verdict was given against them, and damages were assessed, which the
 
 Chap. XVI.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 433 
 
 House directed the Hansards to pay ; because, having pleaded, they could not 1836 11. 
 
 repudiate the result of the trial. — — ^^— 
 
 On the 31st of July, 1839, the Hansards infonncd the House that they 
 were threatened with a similar action by another person, in relation to another 
 Report. They were this time desired to take no notice, to make no preparations, Hanwird, xiis. 
 as the action threatened would be regarded by the House as a breach of its 
 privileges, and punished accordingly. The matter was supposed to be settled 
 by the person said to be aggi-ievcd in the Report declaring that he had never 
 had any intention of prosecuting the printers. But Stockdalc was not quiet 
 yet. Before August was out, he brought a third action for the same libel — 
 the sale of every fresh Copy being considered in law a separate publication of 
 the libel. The Hansards were directed by the Speaker to let matters take 
 their course : and they merely served Stockdale with a formal notice of the 
 resolutions of the House of Commons of May, 1837, and August, 1831). 
 The damages were laid at £50,000. As the Hansards would not plead, 
 judgment went against them by default; and a jury in the Sheriff's court 
 assessed the damages at £600. 
 
 Tlie Sherifts were brought into the affair sorely against their will : and it T"i: snuRins. 
 was their embarrassing predicament which xaused the mirth of the newspapers 
 throughout the rest of tlie transaction. The Sheriffs of London (together 
 constituting one Sheriff of ■Middlesex) were Messrs. William Evans and John 
 Wheelton. Frrst, they jjetitioned the Courts to allow time, before tlie assess- 
 ing of the damages, that parliament might be in session : but no delay was 
 permitted, and they were obliged to proceed to the assessment on the I'ith of 
 November. Stockdale then pressed them on, and thev were compelled to Anmmi Register, 
 
 ^. . • ^ 18'UI, p. 2(1. 
 
 seize the printing office, premises, and stock in trade, of the Hansards. On 
 
 their reporting on the 29th of November that they had done so, Stockdale 
 
 served them with an order to sell the jiroperty, that he might obtain his 
 
 damages. The Sheriffs were thus placed between two fires of wrath. The 
 
 House of Commons was pledged to punish them, on the one hand, for daring 
 
 to meddle with its printer; and the Court of Queen's Bench would punisli 
 
 them, on the other hand, if they refused to levy the money. Either tli(; 
 
 Speaker would send them to Newgate, or Chief-Justice Denman would send 
 
 them to the Marshalsea. Again they asked for time ; and some delay was 
 
 granted — until the 19th of December — for making their return. The sale was 
 
 fixed for the ITth: but, to avoid the scandal and other evils of the spectacle, 
 
 the money was paid into the Sheriff's court on the night of tlie 16th. To i)ut 
 
 off extremities as long as possible, the Sheriffs delayed paying the money to 
 
 Stockdale. The Court of Queen's Bench granted a rule, calling upon them 
 
 to show cause, on the ITth of .Tanunry, why they did not pay tlie money. 
 
 ISIeantime parliament assembled; and on the Kitli, Lord J. Russell laid the 
 
 whole case before the House, and pressed for an immediate decision of this nan«ir.i.ii.ti.<n. 
 
 perplexing and dangerous matter. 
 
 The House might now either follow its ancient method of asserting its privi- Ti.t.!!"'"- 
 lege by committing those who had violated it — in which case, it must commit 
 not only Stockdale and his attorney Howard, but the Sheriffs and their 
 officers, and the Clhief-Justice and his coadjutors — or it miglit yield its privileges 
 so far as to let the Hansards plead, and so ])irinii the question of Privilege to 
 
 \oi.. 11. 3 K
 
 434 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 [Book V. 
 
 Hansard, li. 101. 
 
 Hansard, li. 190. 
 
 The Sheriffs at 
 THE Bak. 
 Hansard, li. 204. 
 
 183G 41. come before the Courts — or it might yield another of its privileges, by con- 
 
 -.— -^— i^ fining the circulation of its lleports among its own members; or it might 
 
 now pass a bill to authorize sucli a publication of their Reports as had been 
 made by Messrs. Hansard. The one thing that was impossible was that the 
 House could allow matters to remain as they were. It had unfortunately 
 vacillated in its course, by authorizing the Hansards to plead in one case, and 
 forbidding them to do so in the next — and now it must repair the mischief of 
 its own vacillation. 
 
 The House decided on asserting its privileges. For the sake of decency, or 
 what was called public convenience, it would refrain from calling the Judges 
 to its bar, though it had indubitable power to do so. It would endeavour to 
 stop the assaults upon its privileges by laying hold of the inferior officers who 
 were acting in contempt. The Sheriffs were therefore, as it was decided by a 
 large majority, to appear at the bar of the House, bringing with them all the 
 documents and authorities under which they had acted. 
 
 On the next night, January ITth, it was decided that Stockdale should be 
 committed under the Speaker's warrant, for breach of privilege. On the ISth, 
 the Slieriffs were brought up to the bar of the House. They admitted that 
 the money was still in their agent's hands. They were ordered to attend 
 again on Monday the 20th. By that day it became known that the Court of 
 Queen's Bench would the next morning be moved to compel the Sheriffs to 
 pay the anoney to Stockdale : and the House must therefore act vigorously 
 this night. It decided to order the Sheriffs to refund the money. The 
 Sheriffs were summoned to the bar, and appeared in their scarlet robes, when 
 the Speaker informed them of the order of the House that they should refund 
 the money, and invited them to speak, if they had any thing to say. They 
 bowed in silence and withdrew. I-ord J. Russell then moved the commitment 
 of the Sheriffs for contempt : but the subject was left over to the next day, 
 when two petitions were presented from the Sheriffs, praying that they might 
 not be punished for endeavouring to do their duty under the orders of tlie 
 Court of Queen's Bench. Their petitions were not received, and they were 
 committed to the custody of the Sergeant-at-anns. Stockdale's attorney, 
 Howard, was called in; and, as he expressed sorrow at having offended the 
 House, he was merely reprimanded and discharged. 
 
 Three days afterwards, the Sergeant-at-arms came to the bar of the House 
 to know what he was to do. He had been served with a writ of Habeas 
 Corpus from the Court of Queen's Bench commanding him to produce the 
 Sheriffs in that Court. The House directed him to inform the Court that he 
 held them in custody for breach of the privileges of the House. He took 
 them to the Court accordingly, to make this declaration. It was a remarkable 
 scene ; and one which would not safely bear a repetition. As the Sheriffs in 
 their robes passed along in custody, from their apartments under the House 
 to the Court, they were loudly cheered ; and the lawyers in the Court made 
 no secret of their sympathy being with the prisoners. Every body, of all 
 parties, pitied them as victims in a quarrel about which it was no business of 
 theirs to decide. The Court declared the reasons of tlie Sergeant-at-arms to 
 be good and sufficient ; and he took away his prisoners as he had brought 
 them. 
 
 Hansard, li. 344, 
 
 Hansard, li. 359. 
 
 The Sheriffs in 
 
 CnSTODV. 
 
 Hansard, li. .'iW. 
 The CovmT of 
 Qiieen's Ben'ch.
 
 Chap. XVI.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 435 
 
 Oil the same day, the 25tli of January, Stockdale, though in prison, com- 1836 — 41. 
 menccd a new action against the Hansards, his agent heing the same Howard " — ■•^■^~-^ 
 who had just expressed his sorrow for having offended the House. Howard 
 ■was ordered up again, -on the 27th, when the affair was next discussed : but 
 Howard was not to be found. A warrant for his arrest was issued on the 1th 
 of February ; and on the Gth he was brought up in custody, and committed to 
 Newgate. The House had now two sets of prisoners in different places of 
 confincinent : and nobody coukl conceive what was to be done with them, or 
 how any end of this embarrassing matter was to be reached. The House was 
 so unpopular that it was clear that the general public did not at all compre- 
 hend the nature and extent of the dispute. By some. Lord Deninan was 
 regarded as an audacious judge, setting up his judgment and his Court 
 against the mighty popular body of the Commons ; while by others, he was 
 lauded as a defender of the rights of the subject against an overbearing parlia- 
 ment. Every body pitied the Sheriffs, and every body quizzed them. The 
 print-shops were full of caricatures of them — sitting in their well-warmed 
 apartment, with a smoking dinner on the table, or in court dresses with a 
 circle of admiring sympathizers pressing consolation upon them. Meantime, 
 here, on the 7th of February, were matters as before at a dead lock. 
 
 Sir R. Peel said that the time was now come for the Ministers to propose Hmsard, in. ct. 
 some comprehensive course for extricating the House from its difficulty. 
 Lord J. llussell was responsible for the peace of the country : and if he could 
 say that he hoped to pass a Bill which should make the powers of the House 
 certain and complete, he would undoubtedly have the support of the House. 
 On being called to a division, the members decided not to release the Sheriffs. Hansard, lii. cd. 
 On the 12th, however, it was certified by the medical attendant of one of the 
 Sheriffs, Mr. Wheelton, that his patient's life would be endangered by a longer 
 confinement: and Mr. Wheelton was released, without payment of his fees. Reiewfofshe. 
 An attempt to procure Mr. Evans s discharge, on a plea of health, failed, two Hansard, ih. i56. 
 days, and again a fortnight, afterwards. Then, on the 17tli of February, there 
 was notice of a fifth action of Stockdale against the Hansards ; and the House 
 passed a vote of censure and threat. There were more arrests ; and the odium uansimi, ui. 320. 
 excited by these proceedings, while no progi'ess was apparently made towards 
 a conclusion, was so great that the affair was now truly an alarming one. ^^"'^Y^'^Y-^^^"^ 
 The time of the House was occupied, night after night, to the injury of public 
 business : placards met the eye on the walls of London at every turn, all 
 denouncing the tyranny of the House : and in the country, the health of the 
 Sheriffs was drunk at public dinners with three times three. Every body 
 could sec the tyrannical aspect of the affair, while few understood the supreme 
 importance of the privileges of parliament : and there were not many news- 
 papers wise enough to give the information. By this time, the public were 
 saying, and hoping, that parliament would be beaten at last ; and this hastened 
 the action of the House. Sir R. Peel was of opinion that it would be expedient 
 now to resort to enactment, the House reserving to itself the power to act 
 without it if the process of legislation should fail. This was done. Lord J. 
 llussell brought in a Bill on the 5tli of March, by which it was enacted that """-"r.i. ui. nis 
 
 , „ 1' , , ,, !• ■ " 1- . .1 lllll. OF E>*CT. 
 
 the Courts should stay all proceedings against any pailiaiiicntary papers, on t lie mwkt. 
 production of a certificate signed by either the Lord Cliancellor or the Speaker,
 
 •136 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book V 
 
 1836 — 41. that such papers were printed by order of parliament. A clause in this Bill 
 
 ^— ^"--~'— ^ put a stop to the proceedings against the Hansards. The motion to bring in 
 
 Hansard, lii. 1020. the Bill was Carried by a maioritv of 149 in a House of 257. On the same 
 
 Releasi! ok J O ^ J 
 
 Sheriff Evans, evening the House dccidcd to discharge Mr. Sheriff Evans, under an injunc- 
 tion to attend the House on the 6th of April. 
 
 Then tlie indefatigable Mr. Howard, Stockdale's attorney, instituted a pro- 
 
 Hansaid, liii. 288. sccution agaiust the officers of the House, for trespass in entering and search- 
 ing his dwelling, when they were in search of liimself. The Attorney-General 
 was for allowing this action to proceed, as the question turned on the fact 
 whether the officers had exceeded their duty or not. The House agreed with 
 
 Hansard, liii. 29 i hijn, by a majority of 91, though the Solicitor-General and other eminent 
 members were in opposition. 
 
 In the Upper House, some of the peers, besides Lord Denman, wished so to 
 amend the Bill now sent up to them as to restrict tlie power of publishing 
 libels, and prevent the House of Commons from being the only authorized 
 libeller in the country : but the majority saw that, if this were to be done, the 
 present was not the moment for doing it. Such a provision, made now, 
 would be a confession of wrong, and a surrender on the part of parliament 
 
 Bill becomes wliicli neither fact nor policy would allow. The Bill became law on the 14th 
 
 Hallsard.iiii.iosi. of April. On the 15th, Mr. Sheriff Evans was released from his obligation to 
 appear, and some of the minor recusants were discharged from custody. But the 
 
 Hansard, liii. 1133 Housc rcfusod to rclcasc either Howard or Stockdale. On the 14th of May, 
 
 Hansard, liv. 117. ■ however, tlic Housc agrccd, On the motion of Mr. Dunconibe, to let them go. 
 
 peisonei™'"^ And thus the matter was said to be concluded. 
 
 UNSATisFACTonY Everv one felt that it was not a satisfactory — not a genuine conclusion. 
 
 Conclusion. '' , .... i ^-i 
 
 The privilege of parliament was not vindicated, nor the Court of Queen s 
 Bench either justified or condemned. The particular case about publishing 
 Reports was doubtfully provided for in the futiu'e by a present act of com- 
 promise : but nothing was settled about the right of any party to discuss the 
 privilege of parliament before the Courts. Many openings were left for 
 renewals of this painful and undignified kind of controversy : and perhaps the 
 most important result was the warning given of this danger, and the hint to 
 avoid, if possible, by the exercise of careful skill, temper, ami knowledge, all 
 occasion of collision between parliament with its privileges and the Courts 
 which protect the liberty of the subject. 
 1841. When parliament met for the session of 1841, there was some curiosity to 
 
 iMBEciu-noFTHE]jj^ow what tliB Ministers would do. Weak as they had long been, they were 
 
 AD.MINISTIIATION. ■' I'liii 
 
 known to be weaker than ever, through some losses which had happened 
 during the recess. They had now so often shown that they could adhere to 
 office under circumstances apparently hopeless — it was so evident that their 
 fixed idea was that it was they who must govern the country, and that they 
 relied on royal favour to the utmost extent to which it could go — that a kind 
 of wonder had grown up whether any thing could dislodge them, short of a 
 dangerous manifestation of popular discontent ; and it had become a matter 
 of calculation how that discontent could be manifested in a manner least 
 inconsistent with the public peace. The Ministers themselves were now soon 
 to point out the way. 
 Pimsardlvi.^i"' ^hc Speccli was SO framed as to make the Address a matter of safe discus-
 
 Chap. XVI.l DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 437 
 
 sion. It was on domestic subjects that antagonism was most likely to arise ; 183(5 41. 
 
 and the Speech was coniined to topics of foreign policy. The most prominent ^— ^^— ^ 
 subject of the session was the renewal of the powers of the Poor Law C'ommis- 
 sioners for five years. After long debates and much wearisome and intricate 
 discussion, the Ministers obtained a maioritv ; but the measure was dropped, J!™^'!'''.'-.'':^'- 
 
 ' ^ , 11' Hansard, Iviii. 708. 
 
 with some others of importance, in the prospect of the dissolution of parliament 
 which presently ensued. An alteration in the Declaration taken by munici])al 
 officers, intended to open a way for Jews into corporation offices, was carried in 
 the Commons, but thrown out by the Peers. When various measures had Hansard, ivui. 
 l)eeu brought forward by various parties, only to be ni'gatived or thrown out, 
 the time was come — the 30th of April — for the Chancellor of the Exchequer to i-i.vance. 
 make his financial statement ; and this, it was believed, would be the occasion 
 which should decide the fate of the Ministry. It was known that the state- 
 ment would be a melancholy one; and while the country was speculating on 
 how the government would get over this crowning difficulty, it was entertained 
 — really amused — with one of the Whig surprises, whicli had by this time 
 failed to do more than amuse or excite contempt — by Lord J. Russell giving 
 notice that on the 31st of May he should move for a Committee of the whole Hansar.i, ivii. 
 House, to consider the acts of parliament relating to the trade in Com. 
 
 No stronger indication of desperation could be given than this. The Anti- l»st re.subt. 
 Corn-Law League was becoming strong, and cai-rying the people with it exactly 
 in proportion as it spread knowledge of the case among them. This novel 
 policy of the Cabinet was obviously a desperate snatch at a popular interest ; 
 a last effort to recover popular support. The social determination to have a 
 free trade in com was growing in strength from year to year : but the question 
 was too important to be delivered into the charge of the Melbourne Ministry. 
 There was as yet no such pressure from without as would make them eamest, 
 and keep them steady, in the conduct of a refomi so important. That the 
 members of the Cabinet should all be tme converts already, was wholly 
 incredible ; while it was only too credible that they would grasp at any means 
 of popular support which should enable them to remain in office. If they, 
 whose whole pretension was that of being refonners, had not throughout seen 
 the tmth in regard to the Corn laws, they saw it now too late for their 
 respectability. A conversion w hich might have been truly respectable in a Con- 
 servative Ministry placed under new lights, was in the highest degi-ee sus- 
 picious in a Reform Administration which had been for several years in the 
 illuminated position. The elections were soon to show what tlie people 
 thought of this demonstration ; and meantime the House was in a state of 
 high excitement. 
 
 The Chancellor of the Exchequer had to announce a deficiency of nearly Hansard, i.,,. 
 two millions. Mr. Baring went back to Lord Althorp's propositions about the T"-^ «'^'«"- 
 timber and sugar duties, by changes in which he hoped to secure an increase ^^^'^''■ 
 of £1,300,000. For the other £400,000 required, he looked to tlie result of 
 Lord J. Russell's motion on the Com laws. The existing deficiency was to 
 be made up by an issue of Exchequer Bills, and a resort to Savings B;uik 
 funds. It did not strengthen popular confidence in the Ministry that the 
 revenue was now deficient, year by year: and that, instead of a remedy, loans 
 were resorted to in time of peace. There was a prevalent discontent at Whig
 
 438 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book V. 
 
 1836 — 41. management of financial affairs; a prevalent conviction that the Whig 
 
 • ' Ministry co\ild not manage financial affairs ; and a prevalent indignation that 
 
 they kept in their own hands a husiness of such transcendent importance 
 which they were incompetent to manage. During the month which was 
 appointed to intervene between the introduction of the Budget and of Lord 
 J. Russell's propositions to alter the Corn laws, there was great agitation in 
 the country. The Ministers hoped, of course, to appropriate the aid of the 
 whole anti-corn-law party, and thus gave them time to organize their support: 
 but there was as much commotion on the other side: a commotion which 
 extended itself into the House of Lords, where the Prime Minister was brought 
 Hansard, ivii. ^Q ackuowledge that he had changed his views, declaring that his former 
 opinion was grounded on purely temporary circumstances ; a limitation which 
 he had certainly not been aware of when he declared, not long before, that the 
 maddest of all the mad things he had ever heard of was the idea of giving up 
 the Corn laws.— Lord J.Russell found it best not to delay his announcement 
 Hansard, iviii. iG. of the temis of his motion beyond the 7th of JNIay. On that night, he declared 
 Fixed coun-dutt bis intention of proposing a fixed duty of 8s. per quarter on wheat, of 5s. on 
 
 rye, of 4s. 6d. on barley, and of 3s. 4d. on oats. 
 Defeat ON THE The debate on the Sugar duties had to be gone through first. It lasted 
 HMsard,iviii."i;(i7. eight nights, and ended in the defeat of Ministers by a majority of 36 in a 
 House of 598. It was universally concluded that no^v the Ministers would 
 resign; and the House was divided between indignation and amusement when 
 the Chancellor of the Exchequer rose in his place, the next niglit of meeting, 
 Hansard, iviii.ii-ii. aud gavo uotice, as if nothing unusiuil had occurred, that on the Monday 
 following, he should move the usual annual sugar duties. Lord J. Russell 
 then moved that the House should adjourn to that Monday. While the 
 Ministers were receiving the taunts of the Opposition amidst the silence of 
 the reformers present, the news spread along the crowded avenues of the 
 House, together with the intimation that the Corn question ^vas to be brought 
 forward on the 4th of June. The policy of the Ministers was now supposed 
 to be to endure any amount of defeat previous to the Corn debate, and then to 
 dissolve the House, in order to throw themselv^es upon the country as Free- 
 traders, when the agitation should be at its height. The whole country was 
 immediately busy preparing for the elections ; and Lord J. Russell indicated 
 this as his reason for dropping the Poor Law Bill, saying that he would not 
 give occasion for speeches in parliament intended for the hustings. — The 
 Haiisarj.iviii.Tin annual sugar duties were agreed to ; Sir R. Peel declaring that the proper 
 opportunity for defeating Ministers was not on that occasion, but in the form 
 of a regular vote of want of confidence. This vote he obtained on the 4th of 
 Hansard, Iviii. June, by a majority of one, in a House of 623 members. His resolution was, 
 Hansard,iviii.7nr.. "That licr Majcsty's Ministers do not sufficiently possess the confidence of 
 Vote of Want of j^j^g House of Commons to enable them to carry through the House measures 
 
 Confidence. _ ^ . 
 
 which they deem of essential importance to the public welfare ; and that their 
 continuance in office under such circumstances is at variance with the spirit of 
 the Constitution." Lord J. Russell promised to make known on the next 
 INIonday the intentions of government : and on that day the avenues to the 
 House were crowded as before. 
 Hansard, Iviii. The Alinistcrs, or a majority of them, had agreed that their best course
 
 Chap. XVI.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 439 
 
 would be to relinquish all discussion of the Com laws for the present; to take 1836 41. 
 
 a vote of supply for the exigencies of the public service for some months to 
 come ; and then, as they could rely upon no more majorities in that House, to 
 dissolve parliament, and appeal to the country. They had tendered their ad- 
 vice to the Crown to lose no time in dissolving parliament, and summoning a HaiKard, wii. 
 new one, in order to ascertain the opinion of the nation. 
 
 As might be expected, the House emptied rapidly after this explanation; 
 and members dispersed themselves over the country, to manage their elections. 
 It was universally understood that this election was of the last importance. 
 In 1835, Sir R. Peel's fine statesmanship failed, because parties were yet too 
 strong for him — too strong yet from the forces of the Reform movement. His 
 short administration had been of use in proving the increased liberality of his 
 tendencies, and his good faith in purposing to maintain reforms actually and 
 deliberately achieved. Since then, the Whigs had declined in power and 
 repute ; and they now held no jdace at all in popular expectation. It remained 
 to be seen whether the popular choice of future rule would turn towards him 
 or them ; — whether it might not appear to the nation at large, as it did to 
 many individual observers, as probable that Sir R. Peel would prove truly a 
 popular leader, as it was now clearly impossible that the AVhig ministry 
 should ever be so again. 
 
 A small number of members remained in London to complete some necessary 
 legislation ; but various measures of importance were dropped. — On the 22nd 
 of June, parliament was prorogued by the Queen in person to the 29th of the n.-msard. iriii. 
 same month : and on the 23rd, a royal proclamation declared the parliament j„ssoi.rTioN or 
 dissolved. The writs now issued were made returnable on the 19th of ''*'"-'**"^'""- 
 August. 
 
 Such were the circumstances under which the thirteenth parliament was 
 dissolved, after a duration of four sessions, and nearly four years. How the 
 nation would declare its opinions in the choice of the next was felt to be a 
 matter of the deepest interest to the Sovereign, the Ministers, the land-owning 
 Peers, and the suffering people.
 
 440 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book V. 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 1835 — 41. /^NE of the strongest and most genial interests of the period now closing 
 ^"-^■""■' ^ ^-^ was the young Queen. If the kindliness and open heart of WilHam lY. 
 
 The Queen. Jj^j^ been refreshing after the temper and manners of his predecessor, the youth- 
 fulness and gaiety of the new Sovereign were now really exhilarating after the 
 spectacle of so many years — of a feeble old man in the royal carriage. At first, 
 the Queen was in high spirits — liking to see and be seen — driving in the parks 
 when they were most thronged; dining at Guildhall; and saying, as she went 
 down to open the parliament, " Let my people see me." There were smiles on 
 her face, and she met nothing but smiles and acclamations. — On that 9th of 
 
 At Gi'iiDUALi,. November, when she went to dine at Guildhall, London did not look like 
 itself, with its gravelled streets, and avenues of green boughs and flags ; and the 
 old Hall itself, usually so dingy and dirty, seemed to have grown young for 
 the occasion — brilliant as it was with decorations — with crimson cloth and 
 silk, with flags and banners, and armour glittering among the innumerable 
 lights. Under the magnificent canopy, in the gorgeous chair of state, was seen 
 no portly elderly gentleman, fatigued almost before the festivities had begun ; 
 but the slight figure of the young girl, all health and sjiirits, ■who half rose 
 and bowed round to her relations— her mother, her uncles, aunts, and cousins — 
 Avhen the health of the royal family was proposed. — There wore reviews in the 
 parks, whore fill London seemed to have poured out to see the Queen, who, as 
 was always said, " looked remarkably well," and enjoyed the greetings of her 
 
 The coBoNATioN. subjccts. — Then there was the Coronation — that bright day when there was 
 not staTiding-room left for another spectator any where within view of any part 
 of the pageant, and yet no accident of the smallest consequence happened from 
 morning till night : — an early morning and a late night ; for the first rays of 
 the Midsummer sun that slanted down through the high windows of West- 
 minster Abbey shone upon the jewels of whole rows of peeresses, and upon 
 scarlet uniforms scattered among court dresses, and chinxh A^estments, and 
 sjjlendid female array: and the illuminations of that night were not out when 
 the next sun rose. It was a day of great fatigue and excitement ; but all present 
 in the Abbey defied fatigue, for all hoped that this might be the last coronation 
 they might ever have the opportunity of seeing. The Sovereign herself was 
 nearly the youngest person present ; and the general hope was that she might 
 live to be as old as any one there. The sensation on her entering was a 
 wonderful moment. Before, a painful sleepiness had oppressed those who had 
 sat so many hours in that strangest of positions— idle, full-dressed, under bright 
 sunshine, in a vast crowd : but the burst of music, rushing among the arches 
 and ringing from the roof, wakened up the senses and the soul in a moment ; 
 and all rose by one impulse to their feet, to see the small figures that passed in 
 procession below, and the slightest of all, on which every eye was fixed. With 
 
 I
 
 Chap. XVII. j DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 441 
 
 all the support that loyal sympathy could give, it seemed as if the sovereignty 1835—41. 
 
 must be cruelly oppressive ; for here the antique conception of British regality ^— --• ' 
 
 pervaded the entire ceremonial ; — a regality which had immeasurably more of 
 power and personalty in it than is true in our day. Tlie service, if it had not 
 been antique in its cast, would have been shocking, with its mixing up of 
 worship to God with homage to the sovereign, savouring of the old belief of 
 divine right. The ancient Edward's mantle of cloth of gold looked cumbrous 
 and oppressive, and the sceptre and orb too heavy; and it was a relief to re- 
 member that the regal power was not now what these symbols represented, and 
 that the responsibility w^is lightened in proportion. Such as it remained, there 
 was every indication this day that, under this lessened responsibility, all sup- 
 port would be given that the aftection of the people could yield. 
 
 Soon followed events which must have made these shows — even the greatest 
 of them — appear trivial to the Sovereign. Her marriage ensued; and we find ^'Y^'* ^'»"- 
 in the registers of the time, notices of Prince Albert's name being inserted, by 
 command of the Queen in Council, " in all the prayers, liturgies, and collects 
 for the royal family ;" and of the Prince becoming a citizen of London in Guild- 
 hall ; and next, of the registrar of the IJelgrave district being summoned to 
 Buckinglianr palace, to enter on the registration books of St. George's, Hanover- 
 square, the birth of a royal infant. The christening ensued; but not next in 
 order; for, the day before, Prince Albert, wliile skating in the presence of the 
 Queen and one lady of the Court, ran some risk from the breaking of the ice. 
 He could not have got out by himself; but the ladies kept their presence of 
 mind, and saved him. — In another year, on the 9th of November, 1841, the Bmniui iiim. 
 heir to the throne was born. Amidst the general joy and congratulations, 
 there were many who thought of the new-born child with pity and sohcitnde, 
 feeling that it is in our days no privileged lot to be born to a throne, even in 
 England, -where the limitation of the kingly power makes the throne safer 
 than elsewhere. In a century overclouded by the approach of a War of Opinion 
 in Europe, princes are born to a life of toil and solicitude if they are to be made 
 equal to their station, and to real evils (for toil and solicitude are in themselves 
 no evils) if they are not made equal to their station. But here was the gi'cat 
 immediate blessing that the Queen had a son ; and all were ready to rejoice 
 with her. 
 
 As for the state of the people — their condition had been declining almost f."];^ °'' ^"^ 
 from the beginning of this period to the end ; and it was too clear that they 
 were sinking still. The operatives were first employed half-time : then they 
 had no work, and were known to be living upon their savings: then tliere were 
 ptiblic meetings, to consider what could be done, and public subscriptions 
 which came to an end while still no prospect opened: and then there were a 
 thousand operatives employed on tlie roads in one place, and 5000, 10,000 
 1-4,000 seemed to be merely waiting for alms or death in others. As usual, 
 crime began to abound. The murders came in batches; — horrible poisonings, f«'>'E. 
 Combination murders, murders for purposes of theft, from tlie nobleman in liis 
 bed to the sawyer in his pit, abound in the chronicles of the period. New 
 crimes arose, not bearing an immediate relation to the distress, as a vitiated 
 atmosphere produces not only one friglitful epidemic, but new or aggi-avafcd 
 disease of other kinds. Ships w^re cast aw ay, one after another, from wretches 
 
 vol.. u. «J '-
 
 442 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Bo ok V. 
 
 1835 — 41. boring holes to sink them, in order to obtain the insurance.— A plot for the 
 commission of extensive forgery was matured and put in action on the Conti- 
 nent, by a few scamps, hitherto culled noblemen and gentlemen — some Scotch 
 — some foreign — whose object was to defraud several European banks to a large 
 amount, by forging the circular letters of credit of a London bank, and present- 
 ing the supposed letters of credit in various continental cities on the same day, 
 or before commvmication could be established. The Times newspaper, having 
 received early information of the plot, ran the risk of action for libel and other 
 consequences, in order to put the commercial world upon its guard. It suc- 
 ceeded in this object, was prosecuted for libel, and condemned in damages of 
 One Farthing. Its bold course, both in giving warning, and afterwards in 
 pleading justification of the libel, won for its proprietors the public admiration 
 and gratitude, which were expressed in the form of a handsome subscription 
 
 Times testi- for a testimonial. The proprietors declined the testimonial for themselves, and 
 
 Annual Register, rcqucstcd that the moncy might be spent for the public benefit. After two 
 
 1841, chron. 363. ^^blets, recording the facts, had been put up in the Royal Exchange and the 
 office of the Times, the fund was devoted to the establishment of two scholar- 
 ships, to be given to youths elected from London schools to the Universities. — 
 
 Game Laws. As might bc expcctcd, the game-law murders of the period were many and 
 shocking. In the best times, there are hungerers enough in the rural districts 
 to make it dangerous for gentlemen to preserve game at the cost of a vast 
 amount of human food, consumed by hares and birds before the eyes of starv- 
 ing men: and in a season of distress, the sight is one not to be endiu-ed. We 
 find accordingly a long list of poachings and the consequent murders; and at 
 the same time the most effective enemy of the game-laws in their strong-hold, 
 the House of Lords, died — too soon for this as for many another good cause — 
 
 Loud surriDLD. Lord SuiRcld, wlio died in the summer of 1835, in his fifty-fourth year. Per- 
 haps, if he had lived to this time, we might have been released from the game- 
 laws, which are a disgrace to our law books, to our practice of professing reform 
 of abuses, and to the praise we utter in our churches of justice and mercy, and 
 cai'e lest we cause our brother to offend. — Even these things are, however, less 
 fearful than one manifestation of the time, which tells as much as the new 
 practice of poisoning for the sake of payments from burial clubs. 
 
 Opium Eating. While tlic Temperance cause seemed to be advancing every where, and tea- 
 drinkings with speeches, and dances with music and lemonade, were noticed 
 in newspapers, almost from day to day, certain disclosures were made at a 
 meeting of the Westminster Medical Society in 1839, which appalled the few 
 who heard or attended to the information. The increase of the consumption 
 of opium in England had led to inquiry. It was found that the abjuration of 
 intoxicating drinks was little more than a set-off against the increased con- 
 
 Annuai Register, siimption of opium. The insurauce offices were consulting how to defend their 
 interests under this new peril to human life: — they could guard against liability 
 from ojiium eating in future policies of insurance ; but they foinid their capital 
 in danger from the intemperance of persons already insured. It was not only, 
 nor chiefly, in the insrn'ing class of society that the practice existed. It spread 
 far more fearfully among the hvnigry. In the large manufacturing towns, the 
 druggists now employed their spare minutes throughout the week in making 
 up penny or twopenny packets of opium for sale on Saturdays, when hundreds 
 
 1839, Chron. 272.
 
 Chap. XVII.] DURING THE THIRTY YE.\RS' PEACE. 443 
 
 of poor creatures would come to receive from the long rows on the counter the 183-5 41. 
 
 packet which was to give them stupor till the miserable Jlonday moruiii". ■ — ->^ ' 
 
 The churches were active, as if trying all this time to heal these social woes, cm ncii-BtiLD. 
 There was much building of new churches in London and elsewhere ; ai^d, »""»<■'•'«• 
 while the desperate poor were emigrating in shoals — getting away at all hazards 
 from the sickening scene at home — exertions were made by bishops and reli- 
 gious societies to provide for the endowment of bishoprics in the colonies. 
 INIuch zeal Mas shown by the three great Church Societies for Missionary ob- 
 jects, during the whole of this period, and noble sums of money were raised. 
 But the misery and crime to be dealt with were not of a kind to be remedied 
 by a provision for worship ; and it was observable, that while the existing 
 churches bore a very small proportion to the population of their districts, they 
 yielded more room than was occupied. Churches come of religion; but religion 
 does not come of chin-ches. — An obstacle to " the operation of religion on the 
 masses" was the intolerance of spirit which yet remained from the critical ""•"■'""'" '"■ 
 period which has been before described. The Peterborough bishop. Dr. Her- 
 bert Marsh, whose Eighty-seven Questions had first occasioned the open 
 divisions in the Church, died at this time, in 1839, leaving the religious world 
 yet heaving with the tempest, of which he furnished the first squall. The sects 
 within and without the Church were yet quarrelling ; the Catholics were in- 
 creasing in numbers, founding new institutes, and building new chapels : Pro- 
 testant clergjmen were not only declaring at public meetings against grants to 
 
 Maynooth, but detailiim- every instance of superstition they met with amonsr Annual Register. 
 T-111- IT -1 i»;o, chron.73. 
 
 poor Irish and other ignorant Catholics, to excite hatred against the priests. 
 
 Here and there, Dissenters were carried to prison for refusal to pay church- 
 rates which they were assured by lawyers could not be legally levied, while a 
 pious ship-agent (who was happily defeated in the Courts) was endeavouring 
 to make deductions from the wages of the Catholic and Presbyterian among 
 the crew, because they obiccted to attend the Church service on board ship; ^"''"';!,''''*'''I"- 
 and a clergyman here and there was refusing burial to persons baptized by lay 
 preachers out of the Church, or by Dissenting clergy. And, as an illusfralion 
 of the need there now is of provision for liberty of conscience in regard to oaths, 
 a case occurred which did not tend to interest the poor and sufiering in favour ,'^n3™ci,ro'^|',7- 
 of religion, when an insolvent, a man "of good moral character," entitled 
 otherwise to his discharge, was sent back to prison, and kept from working 
 to maintain his " starving' children and unhappy wife," because the Com- 
 missioner could not administer the necessary oath to a person who, like this 
 man, did not believe in a future life. The fault was not in the Commissioner; 
 nor yet in the man : for, if he had been capable of dishonesty, he would have 
 professed (he belief required for his enlargement. The fault was in the impo- 
 sition of penalties for opinion; and it was one likely, as fir as it was known, 
 to operate in alienating the ignorant and the careless alike from the religion 
 in whose name such things were done. 
 
 An incident was in the mean time happening which preached a softening ""*" "'""^°- 
 and sanctifying lesson, uninterrupted by theological jars and social bigotry. 
 In a light-house on the coast of Northumberland, witliin view of the Pern 
 Islands, lived a family of the name of Darling. The night of the (ifh of Sep- 
 tember, 1838, was stormy: and (lie Forfarshire steam-ho;it. wliosc boiler was
 
 444 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book V. 
 
 1335 41. in Inicl order, struck on one of the Fern Islands, and parted in two. Darling, 
 
 ^— — ■»— ^-^ becoming aware of the wreck, at three in tlic morning, desired to put off in his 
 boat, to render assistance ; and his daughter Grace, a simple-hearted girl of 
 twenty-two, prepared, as a matter of course, to go with him. The wife and 
 mother, seeing how stormy the sea was, opposed their purpose, and at last con- 
 sented only on the condition that she might share tlieir peril. When they were 
 stepping into the boat, her husband represented to her that, by occupying a 
 place in the boat, she would deprive one passenger of a chance for life, where- 
 as, by remaining at home, she might be of use in making fires, and preparing 
 blankets, and clothes, and food, for those whom he might bring. She con- 
 sented, and passed an agonizing hour while they were gone. By Darling's 
 prudence, decision, and authoritative tone to the half- frantic survivors on a 
 ledge of rock, he and his daughter accomplished the saving of nine lives- 
 Grace thought nothing of her share in the deed, and never could understand 
 the sensation that it caused throughout the kingdom. She always said, and 
 truly, that there were girls all along the coast who would and did accompany 
 their fathers and brothers to sea in storms, when they were called on to pre- 
 serve life: and it is the noblest part of the noble lesson afforded by this event 
 that we are reminded of the virtue which lives and acts in quietness while the 
 turbulent elements of human life and society are making tempests upon the 
 surface. An event like this discloses to us occasionally the moral riches which 
 shine in our depths; and then the fate of the unconscious revealer is some- 
 thing like that of Grace Darling. Her name flew abroad over the world. As 
 she sat at her sewing in the little room in the light-house, the world came to 
 pay her homage. The rich, the high-born, and the good, visited her. Those 
 who could not come sent poems, or books, or money. The protection of her 
 father was not enough under the pressure of suitors and worshippers; and the 
 Duke of Northumberland made himself her guardian, took care of her money, 
 kept an eye upon her lovers, and promoted, as far as he could, the quietness 
 she longed for. But there was no more quietness for her. Her life had lost 
 its simplicity, though her mind and manners never did. Her health gave way 
 under the impossibility of repose ; and she died in a few years — as much a 
 martyr to her own deed as if the boat had been swamped in its passage to the 
 rock. Seldom has so tender a sonow spread through the heart of the nation as 
 when the newspapers told of the death of Grace Darling. She had found quiet, 
 however; and a more intense image of repose can scarcely be presented than 
 her moumnent, where she lies with her oar resting on her arm. That monu- 
 ment will preach a lesson of self-sacrifice, and rouse a spirit of heroic good-will, 
 long after the sectarian strifes of the time shall have been forgotten. 
 AGRICULTURAL "Wc pcrcelvc, during this period, preparations making for the future 
 
 welfare of the great mass of the nation, which are perhaps all the more 
 hopeful for not contemplating so much as they will effect. While a terror 
 of Socialism and Communism was spreading among the aristocracy — while 
 there were debates in parliament upon Socialism in England, as if it were 
 an aggression, and not a social symptom, and while thoughtful men, and 
 those who had correspondence with the continent, were privately telling 
 each other how Communism was spreading inider tlie surface all through 
 France and Germany, some of the English aristocracy were instituting
 
 Chap. XVII.J DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 445 
 
 an Association from which more might be hoped than from perhaps any 1835—41. 
 
 other institution whatever but a general system of Education. The Agri- ' 
 
 cultural Societies which came into action about this time may, however, 
 be regarded as educational. While providing for the increased production 
 of food, they provide also for the exercise of the faculties of the most 
 ignorant and inert part of our population — the agricultural labourers. The 
 Anti-Corn-Law League was already educating a considerable portion of the 
 people by rousing them to thought and sound knowledge on a matter which 
 closely concerned them, and by teaching them to apply to the management of 
 their public interests the same qualities with which they conduct their private 
 affairs : and now, the institution of Agricultural Associations promised to work 
 in a somewhat similar manner on another portion of the people. The League 
 disclaimed a party character altogether ; and, in fact, though originated and 
 chiefly sustained by Reformers, it included many Conservatives, and men of all 
 shades of opinion in politics, as in every thing else outside the question of a 
 supply of food. The Agricultural Associations, in like manner, proscribed 
 political subjects at their meetings. There were men of all political parties 
 .who saw that, of all branches of industry in our country, agriculture was the 
 most backward. They saw a whole world of science, chemical and meteoro- 
 logical, opening which, in its application to agricultiu'e, might mark a new era 
 in oiu- social destiny. They saw that no society can long hold together in 
 which industry fails, as with us, to obtain a sufficiency of the comforts of life ; 
 and they believed that time might be gained for the consideration of our 
 difficulty, if the difficulty itself could not be solved, by a largely increased 
 production of food on our own soil. They believed that there was no surplus 
 of labour within our bounds ; but rather that, if science and good management 
 were applied to agricultural as to manufiicturing processes, the hands woiild 
 be found too few for the work, and each part of the work would produce a 
 larger proportion of food. If so, such Socialists, Communists, and Chartists, 
 as might still be bent on trying new principles and methods of society, would 
 discuss the matter more coolly, more amiably, and much more cautiously, 
 while feeling every year, in their state of improved welfare, that they had 
 more to lose and less to gain by a fundamental change. Those who thus 
 thought hailed with a very serious delight the first and second annual meet- 
 ings of the Royal Agricultural Society of England, which happened during 
 this period — the first being in 1839. Minor societies had existed for some 
 time before. It was cheering to see, at these meetings, the Duke of Richmond 
 and Lord Spencer walking in to dinner together, and high tory and deep 
 radical chemists helping out one another's information about soils and manures 
 and food for stock : and the rush to the ploughing matches, and tlie stock- 
 yards, and the implement sheds ; and even the road, " resembling the route 
 from London to Epsom on a race day." " Such societies," as an observer spccmior, ihjo, 
 remarked in a contemporary newspaper, " supjily to the farmer what Mecha- 
 nics' Institutes have supplied to the better sort of working men — a stimulus 
 to inquiry, a desire for information, and a disposition to contribute from their 
 own experience to any topic of the day. The farmers have been long enough 
 blamed as isolated men, as enemies of educatimi, and as tiie repusitorifs of 
 pri'judicc: what is better calculated to renovate them than -Vgricultural
 
 446 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 [Book. V. 
 
 India Cotton. 
 
 Niger Expedi 
 
 TION. 
 
 1835 — 41. Societies?" And if these societies should so improve the production of food 
 as to afford to a single generation, before it is too late, the leisure of comfort 
 to consider impartially their own condition and the prospects of their child- 
 ren, they will assuredly take rank among the chief blessings of the time. 
 They may be considered as one of the results of the Peace : for they originated 
 in the improvement of chemical science, and the knowledge that a high order 
 of agriculture existed abroad ; both derived from free intercourse with the 
 philosophers and cultivators of the continent. 
 
 By the attention given to the growth of cotton in India, a prospect of mani- 
 fold good was opened — to this country, its operatives, its manufacturers, and its 
 consumers, from our dependence on more regions than one for a supply of cotton : 
 ■ — to the inhabitants of India, from the establishment of a new branch of pro- 
 duction — and to the negro race, from American slavery becoming improiitable 
 when opposed to free labour. The East India Directors, the Manchester 
 Chamber of Commerce, some machinists, some private capitalists, and even 
 the Governor- General of India, were at this time consulting and experimenting 
 on the growth and preparation of cotton in India, and already the mountain 
 roads were reported to be blackened with bullocks bringing the produce down 
 to the coast. Much remained to be done ; and much still remains to be 
 done : but the conditions are more and more understood, and the purpose 
 holds. 
 
 A more ambitious and direct attempt on behalf of the negro race, made at 
 the end of this period, failed — owing to the proiul and headstrong character of 
 the benevolence which prompted it. It has never been questioned of late 
 years that a principal method of supplanting slavery is by civilizing the 
 Africans, and making an innocent commerce more acceptable to them than 
 the trade in slaves. A few Liverpool merchants had for some years acted on 
 this sound view, and had established a certain amount of commerce on the 
 Niger — conducting it with the caution and prudence which belong to private 
 enterprises — sending crews of seasoned whites and trained negroes, and 
 appearing in a commercial character alone. Most unhappily, the idea was 
 seized by some who were ill-qualified to conduct such a scheme. Sir Thomas 
 Fowell Buxton — so efficient, so successful, so thoroughly in his place in par- 
 liament — went astray in this new enterprise ; and its failure broke his heart. 
 He put in action all his great social power, and we read in the chronicles of 
 ^'in"?!.,''''*^'^'^.''.! the time of public meetings, with Prince Albert in the Chair, so crowded that 
 
 1840. Chron. p.52. i o ' ^ 
 
 persons were carried out fainting ; of the gratulations and mutual praises of 
 statesmen and prelates, of grand subscriptions and yet grander hopes. Bul- 
 letins of the progress of equipment were published, and the names of officers 
 and crews, and programmes of proceedings, and vivid descriptions of the 
 model farm, and the other monuments of the expedition, which were to arise 
 on the banks of the Niger. All this time, the voice of warning did not cease : 
 but those who should have been their guides in an enterprise which nobody 
 else understood were slighted, and even insulted with insinuations that their 
 oppo.sition proceeded from sordid selfishness — from a fear that their trade would 
 be interfered with. Some of them would not be driven back from their object 
 of saving as much misery as possible of all that they foresaw from the rashness 
 and ignorance of the scheme as planned in London ; and it was a steam-boat
 
 Chap. XVII.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 447 
 
 of theirs which was hovering about the mouths of the Niger (plying up and 1835 4J 
 
 down the river for the purpose) which saved the few survivors. The fever ^^i-v— 1 - 
 
 swept awaj- the greater number of those who were sent fortli to their death, 
 or vohxnteered for it : the model-farm was deserted ; and, worst of all, pledges 
 made in the name of our Queen and country were necessarily left unredeeiued, 
 and remain so to this day. No one can say how far the civilization of Africa 
 has been set back by the spectacle of our weakness and apparent bad faith, in 
 a region where we should have gone in assured power or not at all. ^fr. 
 Jamicson was one of the Liverpool merchants whose warnings were loudest and 
 truest ; and his steamer it was that saved the remnant of the expedition. His 
 information was mainly derived from Mr. Becroft, who ^A^as familiar with the 
 region : and it was Mr. Becroft who commanded the rescuing boat. The 
 Niger Association did not at once dissolve. It had no more gifts of public 
 money, and its subscriptions dwindled. When, at the meeting of 1842, Sir T. 
 Fowell Buxton sent a letter and £50 instead of appearing, some taunts were 
 uttered ; but they were unjust. He was too ill to appear. By his Life, 
 we learn that he strove hard for comfort in regarding the catastrophe as a 
 niysterious dispensation, overlooking the grave faults Avhich had made the 
 issue anything but mysterious to others : but he cou Id not get over the shock. 
 He never again held up his head. And he died in 1845, in the 60th year of 
 his age. 
 
 The period exhibits more than usual disaster. In 1839, we read of the 
 christenine: of the President Steam Ship, the most magnificent vessel of her pbfsidfnt 
 kind ever seen in England. At that time "several thousand persons" went 
 in a day to Limehouse, to examine and admire. A year and a half afterwards, 
 she did not return from an American voyage when expected : and nothing has 
 ever been heard about her. For many weeks, the families of those on board 
 were tantalized and tortured by floating rumours of her safety or of her fate : 
 but in two months, they put on mourning, and declared that they would hope 
 no more. — The fires that happened within these few years seem now, in the fires. 
 retrospect, to have been strangely destructive. In the dry season of 1835, a 
 gipsying party who had made their tea among the underwood on "Wanstead 
 Flats, neglected to put out the fire; and the consequence was a conflagration 
 which laid waste 20 acres of jiasturage. It required the digging of a deep Annual Reeisior. 
 trench by a company of sappers and miners from Woolwich to stop the mis- 
 chief at last. Two or three weeks afterwards the same misfortune happened 
 on Clapham Common, where the villas of the neighbourhood were for some 
 time in "-reat dano-er. Two acres of bruslnvood and furze \\ere in this case 
 laid bare! In 1838, while the destruction of the Houses of Parliament was i*^™"\«;';;;'7- 
 still'fresh in men's minds, the Royal Exchange was burned down. It was n^^^^^ 
 night before the fire, wliich must have been burning for some time, was 
 discovered ; it was a bitterly cold night (the 10th of January) with a north- 
 cast wind ; and it took some time to tliaw the hose of the engines when they 
 arrived; so the flames spread and rose, illuminating the Hank, and other 
 buildings near, till they seized upon the tower of the Exchange. The bells 
 began to chime as stones and timber began to fall ; and of all airs, the one 
 they chimed was " There 's nae luck about tlie house." They were chiming 
 "God save the Queen" when one after another of the eight gave over ami 
 
 hxCHANr.E.
 
 448 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 [Book. V. 
 
 Annual Register, 
 183». Chron. '.'K, 
 Fire in tub 
 Temple. 
 
 1835 — 41. fell. The groat City seal was found by searching among the ruins. Serious 
 as were the consequences to the merchants of London, the loss which was 
 most mourned was that of the old statue of Sir Thomas Gresham, which had 
 escaped the great Fire of London. Only small fragments remained of it now. 
 The grasshopper-vane was saved, and was reserved from the sale of remains 
 which took place three months after the fire, when various curiosities, which 
 could not come into use for the new Exchange, were bought up at high prices. 
 In March of the same year, happened the most mischievous fire for its extent 
 that can be conceived. A lawyer of the Inner Temple came home from his 
 club at two in the morning, and left a candle burning near some papers. The 
 papers must have caught ; for from that spot spread a fire which consumed a 
 mass of deeds and other documents, some of which will be missed for centuries 
 to come. The Attorney-General suffered grievously. His library was worth 
 3000 guineas ; but that was not the greatest part of his loss. Upwards of 
 eighty chambers, with nearly the whole of their contents, were destroyed. 
 In May, 1840, York Minster was on fire again — by some carelessness of work- 
 men, it was supposed. The next morning the nave was roofless, the belfry 
 reduced to a mere shell, and the bells lying below, having burst through the 
 floors in their tall. At the beginning of the next year, the Old Church at 
 Camberwell was destroyed by fire — nothing being left but the bare walls : and 
 in a fortnight after, the princely residence of the Marquess of Londonden)' — 
 AVynyard in Durham. The loss of pictures and antiquities was a matter of 
 general concern. In Dundee, there was a fire which destroyed three churches ; 
 and the inhabitants, and half Scotland, mourned over the wreck of its old 
 cathedral. In June, Astley's Amphitheatre was burned down. As no one 
 was aware that a life was lost — a servant girl having perished — the interest of 
 the spectators was about the saving of the stud — Ducrow's famous stud. The 
 horses were bent upon going into the ring, as usual ; and it required no little 
 gallantry and skill to save as many of them as escaped. The loss cost poor 
 Ducrow his reason and his life. 
 
 Some less fatal shows oflered themselves, meanwhile. There was a passion 
 for balloons; and in November, 1836, three gentlemen enjoyed a glorious 
 flight, from London to a village in Nassau — 480 miles in 17 hours. The 
 passage over the dark sea, and the Belgian district of furnaces — the sea of 
 mist below in the morning, with the rustling of forests coming up like the 
 sound of waves on the beach, the paling of the stars, and the gorgeous sunrise 
 shedding its colours over the vast heavens, and the earth retired below, are 
 described as inexpressibly solemn and beautiful. The next year, a foolish 
 attempt to descend by a parachute from a balloon ended fatally ; and the year 
 after, a more scientific attempt succeeded — the voyager floating downwards for 
 thirteen minutes after cutting the single cord that suspended him from the 
 balloon. 
 
 There was a grand spectacle on the Thames, almost from end to end, in 
 1838, when the Lord Mayor, as Conservator of the Thames, explored its 
 course and condition in state barges. The agitation against the defilement of 
 the Thames by the filth of London had not then begun; and the processions, 
 and gratulations, and strewing of flowers, and feastings, belonging to " the 
 business of the conservancy of the Thames," went on tlirougli six days, as if the 
 
 York Minster. 
 Annual Register, 
 1 8 10. Chron. 18. 
 
 Camberwell 
 Church. 
 Annual Register, 
 1K41. Cliron. •>•_>. 
 Annu.il Register, 
 1841. Chron. 28. 
 Wynyard. 
 
 At Dundee. 
 Annual Register, 
 18-11. Chron. 3. 
 
 AsTLEY'fl 
 Theatre. 
 
 Balloons. 
 
 Annual Register, 
 1836. Chron. IJO- 
 
 Thames Conser- 
 vancy. 
 
 Annual Register, 
 1839. Chron. 119,
 
 CuAp. XVri.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 449 
 
 Thames were really preserved in good order. The civic ideas of this duty will 1835 — 41. 
 probably have changed, before the next pageant of the kind is seen at Henley. '--"■^^-^—^ 
 — A piece of aristocratic pastime, " which had been two years in preparation," 
 took place at Eglintoun Castle, in August 1839, under the name of the the eol.ntou.v 
 Eglintoun tournament. It was an imitation of the ancient tournaments : and ^''^"•■"'*"^''''- 
 no expense was spared to make it as like as possible to the old shows of arms. 
 But such attempts never fully succeed — never succeed in being more than 
 child's play, like the " dressing up" in the nursery — except in virtue of being 
 a regularly perpetuated custom. The real antiquity which resides in such 
 custom renders venerable the appearance of the Champion at the Coronation ; 
 and even endeared the grotesque devices and corporation practices which 
 lasted in English towns till the Municipal Bill swept them all away. But in 
 the Eglintoun fete there was no such sanction ; and, in spite of the host's 
 expenditure of £40,000, the crowds who came — some from a distance of 400 
 miles — the personal charms of the Queen of Beauty, the valour and skill of the 
 jousting knights, and the desire of every one to be pleased, there seems to have 
 been a universal sense of foilure. The weather was bad, and " the feudal Annual Register, 
 appearance of the display was sadly marred by thousands of umhrellas : . . . the 
 Queen of Beauty and her ladies, instead of mounting their palfreys, were con- 
 fined within their carriages." If ever mailed knight swore at the envious 
 clouds, it must have been the young carl of Eglintoun on these critical days. — 
 A more genuine piece of antiquity was presented in the case of an inquest held iiv mmy inqpiwt. 
 in Ireland on a body found in a bog. The bones powdered under ihi; touch, 
 while the muscles were so hard that the body bore the weight of a man, and 
 substances rebounded from striking the limbs. Our mummy, it is true, could 
 reckon only 100 years to every 1000 of an Egyptian : but there was something 
 affecting in its being on our own ground ; and yet more in an inquest being 
 held on a being so mysterious, of whose ways and thoughts, and goings and 
 comings, no man could tell any thing. There was a tradition of a suicide 
 having been buried thereabouts, some hundreds of years before ; but no one 
 could say whether this were he. 
 
 If the Eglintoun tournament was not regarded Avith popular respect, much 
 less was the other lordly show of this period — the trial of Lord Cardigan, for tkhloi a perr. 
 duelling offences, in the House of Lords. There is little in the affair that any 
 one would wish to dwell upon, or that needs be dwelt upon ; though a cursory 
 notice is necessary. Lord Cardigan, formerly Lord Brudenell, was from time 
 to time coming before the public as the aggressor in some quarrel — the public 
 seeing that his antagonists in these quarrels were usually mild and genllemanly 
 men, of rank lower than his own in life and in the service. He was known to 
 have connexions at Court, and interest at the Horse Guards ; and no one could 
 avoid the conviction that, for these reasons, an amount of social misbehaviour 
 was passed over in him which would have immediately ruined almost every 
 other officer in the array. After sundry adventures with his officers, in whicli 
 theit pride was wounded, their feelings exasperated, and their prospects ruined, 
 by mess-room quarrels, tyranny on parade, and courts-martial, now on himself 
 and now on an antagonist, Lord Cardigan fought a duel with a Captain Harvey fg^^V'i'.S'.'w. 
 Tiickctt, and wounded him. As he was arrested, there was no choice but to 
 try him; and he was tried by his peers amidst a parade and expense of which, 
 
 vol.. II. 3 M
 
 450 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 [Book V 
 
 1835—41. 
 
 Corapn. to the 
 Almanac, 1842, p. 
 175. 
 
 SlIICinESFROMTHI 
 
 Monument, 
 
 Annual Register, 
 1839. Chron. ICo. 
 905. 
 
 India Mails. 
 
 Annual Register, 
 183.5. Chron. 18. 
 
 Annual Register, 
 1841. Chron. 12. 
 
 according to universal opinion, tlie occasion was not worthy. Every one 
 knew that Lord Cardigan would come off safe — duelling heing regarded as it 
 still is in our country; and Lord Cardigan's interest having already borne 
 him safely through worse perils : but no one could have anticipated such an 
 audacious evasion of justice as actually took place. It was admitted that 
 certain parts of the evidence related to Captain Harvey Tuckett, and that the 
 person in Court called by that name was rightly so called ; but whether the 
 one and the other was the same Captain Harvey Tuckett was professed to be 
 doubtful, and supposed to be purposely left so. And thus the prosecution fell 
 to the ground. It was not without its results, however. The mockery of 
 justice, the lavish expenditure which thus became an insult to the nation, and 
 the additional presumption now afforded that Lord Cardigan could not be 
 thrown off by society, however he might oppress it, all went to deteriorate the 
 position of the peers in respect of the people, and turned the grand antique 
 show of the trial into a very coarse modern offence. The Duke of Cleveland's 
 reply was not forgotten, when, instead of using the established form, " Not 
 guilty, ujionmy honour," he said "Not guilty, Icgallij, upon my honour." Its 
 significance was appreciated, though it did not go so far as the popular 
 sentiment. 
 
 If any country cousin of the next generation should observe that the summit 
 of the London Monument does not correspond with the old pictures of it, he 
 may learn that the grating which by no means adorns the pillar, was put on in 
 1839, in consequence of two suicides having taken place in that year, within a 
 few weeks of each other — a young girl, first, and then a boy of fifteen having 
 thrown themselves over. As fantastic suicides have an infectious character, it 
 "was suggested by some persons on the first occasion to obviate the possibility 
 of another such act : and after the second suicide, no time was lost in making 
 all safe. 
 
 Since the establishment of steam transit in the Eastern seas, great atten- 
 tion had been devoted to the improvement of India Mail communication. 
 Many experiments of different routes were proposed, and some tried. Among 
 others, there was an exploratory expedition to survey the Euphrates, in the 
 hope that steamers might carry the mails by that river as far as Beles, 100 
 miles from Antioch, whence the way would be clear and easy enough. Two 
 steamers were sent out in frame from Liverpool, with all needful materials and 
 stores, and a picked company of officers and men ; the whole being conveyed 
 by the George Canning to the coast of Syria. All went well ; the vessels in 
 frame were transhipped and carried in boats up the Orontes, and then over the 
 desert, and then put together and floated on the Euphrates ; and the river 
 itself had been to some extent explored, when a tremendous hurricane capsized 
 one of the vessels — the Tigris — drowning fifteen of her men, and some natives. 
 The survivors returned, impressed with the importance of establishing a free 
 communication in those regions, by moans of the great rivers, both for the 
 transmission of the mails, and the opening of a profitable trade. They did not 
 foresee how soon European travellers would be stumbling upon old Nineveh, 
 and laying open treasures of antiquity, in whose presence people would forget 
 that they came to see about India mails and the introduction of commerce. 
 In 1840, the India papers told some striking facts about the consequences of
 
 Chap. XVII.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 451 
 
 improved communication with home, by steam or otherwise. Within five 1835 41. 
 
 years, the number of hitters had doubled, though the inland rate of postage was ^ — -"■- ' 
 
 still very high. The largest proiiortion of letters had before been sent through 
 Calcutta ; now Bombay was the letter-depot : but the decrease at Calcutta was 
 only 33 per cent., while the increase at Bombay was 500 per cent. 
 
 These changes may appear small in comparison with the improvements that 
 have taken place since : but their importance was inestimable. If our route 
 had been for ever by the Cape, the prospects of India — of the raising of the 
 condition of the millions of her natives — would have been far inferior to what 
 they are now ; and on the elevation of those Indian millions — on the develop- 
 ment of their free labour by their social progression, the fate of Africa and much 
 of America appears to depend. It has been said before, but it can hardly be 
 said too often, that the abolition of negro slavery every where, and the 
 civilization of Africa, depend, to all appearance, on the kindly devcloj)ment of 
 the resources of India. 
 
 Among the scientific facts put forward during this period, there is one acaris crum.i. 
 which must obtain emphatic notice, whenever and wherever it might occur. 
 For a long time, some men eminent in science had occasionally avowed that 
 they found great difficulty in refusing evidence of the production of animal life 
 by chemical agencies. It was no new thing for men who knew what they were 
 saying, to declare a belief that animalcules were absolutely originated without 
 any parents, in both liquids and solids, under certain coiulitions. In 1830, a 
 philosopher was startled by an appearance which compelled attention to the 
 inquiry whether such things could be. Mr. Crosse, whose name has been given 
 to the acarus produced under the conditions detailed by him at a meeting of 
 the British Scientific Association, " was looking for siliceous formations, when 
 animal matter appeared instead." In the midst of elements fatal to animal 
 life, under the surface of a caustic fluid, within an enclosure from which the 
 atmosphere had been driven out, and where there was no possibility that ova 
 could have been deposited, or could have escaped destruction if deposited, 
 insects appeared, after an electric current had been established for a suffi- 
 cient number of months. Without the electricity, and without some other 
 conditions, the insects have failed to appear. With those conditions, they 
 have been produced again and again from that day to the present. If allowed 
 to remain in the enclosure, they perish. If let out as soon as they appear, 
 they feed, reproduce their kind, and live till the first frost, which is always 
 fatal to them. At a lecture at the Royal Institution, in 1837, Mr. Faraday (^^"''[.n;;!;;"^;; 
 avowed his full belief of the facts stated by Mr. Crosse, similar appearances 
 having presented themselves to him, in the course of his electrical experi- 
 ments": but he left it doubtful whether it was a case of production or revi\ id- 
 eation. This all-important point was investigated by Mr. Weekes, of Sand- 
 wich, and again and again by Mr. Crosse, who is ]ni-parcd ^^•ith eWdence 
 regarding the formation of these animals, which cannot but command the 
 att'ention of men of science, whenever they shall have left off attributing to 
 him theories which he disavows, and opinions and seiitimonts which he never 
 entertained. When the contempt and prejudice with which great discoveries 
 are always received shall have subsided, it will be admitted that Mr. Crosse 
 has merely made known, in the simplest manner, nppcaranc.-s whi.h presented
 
 452 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 [Book V. 
 
 Vestipps of Cre- 
 ation, p. IbD. ^Ist 
 edit.) 
 
 1835 — 41. themselves to him, pvopounding no theory, drawing no inferences, and attack- 
 ing no cstahHslied belief. Wliilc, for thirteen years, too many who might have 
 tested his assertions have been merely expressing contempt of them, he and 
 one or two more have been diversifying their experiments as much as they 
 could, and found themselves occasionally rewarded by the appearance of acari. 
 Mr. Weekes baked the frame of his apparatus in a powerful heat, distilled the 
 water, excluded the atmosphere by fumes constantly rising in a bell glass, and 
 subjected the silicate employed to a white heat. Under these safeguards 
 against the previous existence of animal life, he saw the liquid in his vessel 
 grow turbid — he saw the gelatinous matter collect round the negative wire of 
 his battery, which was immersed in the fluid ; and he next saw one of the new 
 insects emerge from the gelatine, and run off to a corner of the apparatus. 
 Under the same electrical conditions, Mr. Weekes employed different sub- 
 stances, on account of one containing more carbon than another ; and he then 
 found, as he had ventured to hope, that more insects were produced when there 
 was more carbon, and fewer when there was less. Mr. Crosse has persevered 
 in his experiments,* and has detected the formation of the acarus from the first 
 appearance of a minute white speck, through its gradual enlargement, till it puts 
 forth the little waving lines which are to become legs, through its first indi- 
 cations of life, and its growth to that maturity which enables it to leave its 
 birth-place, shift for itself, and propagate its kind. In connexion with this, 
 he has assured himself of the significant fact of the similarity of the first stages 
 of the production of acari, and of certain mineral crystallizations, electrically 
 produced. He finds the appearances of the white speck the same through the 
 processes of enlargement and of putting out lateral filaments : but then, accord- 
 ing to diversities of treatment, these filaments become, in the case of the 
 mineral, rigid, shining, transparent, six-sided prisms, and in that of the animal, 
 limbs of a body endowed with vitality. — These are results too serious and sig- 
 nificant to be treated with either levity or anger : yet have they been received 
 with too much of both. The objections made have been mostly of the a jiriori 
 sort : and it is needless to say that they cannot withstand the evidence of ex- 
 periment. Mr. Crosse's invitation to the scientific part of society is to join him 
 in ascertaining, by every possible variety and patience of experiment, what is 
 the truth of the matter ; and, till this is done, his infonnation remains the 
 best that can be had on a subject of unbounded philosophical significance. As 
 such, its first proposal for attestation is an incident worthy of special notice in 
 a history of the time. 
 
 Several men of science died during this period. First, Captain Kater, who 
 had borne an important part in the trigonometrical survey of India, and had 
 lost his health in the work. After his return, he earned, by many scientific 
 services, his admission into almost all the learned societies in Europe, and died 
 in 1835, aged fifty-eight. — The greatest of mathematical and astronomical 
 edw.Troughton- instrument makers, Edward Troughton, died in the same year, possessed of the 
 
 Deaths. 
 Captain Kateh. 
 
 * The following statements, wliich are but a small portion of a most interesting expo- 
 sition, are given, by permssion, from a letter of Mr. Crosse to the author, bearing date 
 August, 1840.
 
 , Sir ANTno.w 
 
 AULI^LE. 
 
 Chap. XVII.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 453 
 
 gratitude of tlie first philosophers of his age, who could not have effected their 1835 — 41. 
 discoveries without the aid of his wonderful instruments. — Pond, the astro- ^— p-^— ' 
 nomer, died in 1836. — In 1838, Dr. Olintlius Gregory, Professor of Mathe- Dil'.oi."N"T!ius 
 matics at Woolwich, Avas compelled to resign his chair — his health being de- *'"'''"""• 
 stroyed by excessive study; and he died in 18-11. He Avas knoAvn throughout 
 the Avorld of science by many pubhcations ; and he had the honour of being 
 one of the twelve founders of the Astronomical Society of London. — In 1836, 
 died Mr. M' Adam, the reformer of roads, whose name Avas familiar to every j.l. m'auam, 
 ear in England, till raihvays extinguished all interest in every other kind of 
 road. Mr. M'Adam was a striking instance of the mental activity Avhich is 
 always ready to respond to opportunity. There have been many county 
 magistrates and trustees of roads in our time ; yet no one but Mr. M'Adam 
 Avas effectually impressed by the want of scientific principles sIioaati in the con- 
 struction of roads. Once so impressed, this Ayrshire magistrate dcA'Oted his 
 mind to the subject, and in his 60th year gave forth his plan, which was in use 
 almost all over the country before his death — in his 81st year. — Two great 
 surgeons died in 1840 and 1841 ; Sir Anthony Carlisle, and Sir Astlcy P.Cooper. 
 Sir A. Carlisle introduced some new surgical instruments of gi-eat value : he ^'"^ 
 laboured usefully in the field of comparative anatomy, aided by the sympathy 
 and knowledge of his friend. Sir Joseph Banks : and he Avas the best fi-iend 
 and supporter of the Westminster Hospital, of Avhich he Avas senior surgeon 
 Avhen he died, at the age of 72. — Sir Astley P. Cooper's face and figure are sm a.p.cooilu. 
 fiimiliar to all, through Sir Thos. LaAVTcnce's fine portrait of him : and his Avas 
 a face not to be forgotten Avhon once seen. It indicated the poAver of intellect 
 and kindness of heart which made him the greatest and most popular surgeon 
 of his time. Great as was his fame as an operator, he perhaps did more good 
 by his professional writings. When loaded Avith honours, rich, and grooving 
 old, he retired to the country, in pursuit of repose : but it Avould not do : he 
 Avanted some interests more stirring than those afforded by his library; and 
 returned to London and to practice. Pie Avas still busy Avhen death overtook 
 him in his 73rd year. When, in middle life, he removed from the City to 
 the Avcst end of London, his income was the largest ever heard of in the pro- 
 fession — £21,000 a year. George IV. made him a baronet at his coronation, 
 in 1821. 
 
 James Weddell, Avho in 1825, reached the highest latitude known in the J*"" ^''="""'" 
 South polar regions, died in ten years after his great feat, aged only 46. — A 
 North polar Avanderer perished miserably in 1840, at a yet earlier age. Mr. simpson. 
 Simpson, an officer of the Hudson's Bay Company, added many items to our 
 knoAvledge of the polar coast of North America. He Avas retin-niug from one 
 of his expeditions Avhen, as is supposed, his reason Avas overthrown by anxiety 
 and fatigue, and he destroyed liimself, after liaAing shot two of his compa- 
 nions. If he had lived, there is every probability that he would have effected 
 more in completing the discovery of a'North-west passage than any other man : 
 and an appointment was on the Avay to him a\ hieli woidd have afforded him 
 every facility. His loss is one of the most painful in the list of polar dis- 
 coverers Avho have died in the search. — Captain Gerard, the India surveyor cai-taik ocbabd. 
 and scientific traveller, returned home, as sucli men do, wiili hciillh much 
 impaired : but he had Avondcrful things to tell of the untrodden passes, and
 
 454 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 [Book V- 
 
 Lady Hesteb 
 Stanhope. 
 
 1835 — 41. inaccessible heights of the Himalayas — many of which, however, he had 
 contrived to explore, looking into Thibet on the one hand, and British India 
 on the other. He resided for some years in Chinese Tartary, while engaged 
 in surveying : and he obtained large information about the tribes, whose race 
 and ways it is highly inn3ortant to us to understand. But Captain Gerard did 
 not tell us so much as he might have done of his eastern experiences, though 
 it is understood that he left a store of manuscript materials behind him. He 
 died in 1839. — Another African traveller perished in the attempt to reach 
 Timbuctoo, during this period — Davidson, who had made exploratory journeys 
 in all the four quarters of the world, and desired to crown his enterprises with 
 a feat more difficult than any he had yet accomplished. He had measured 
 the pyramids, both of Egypt and of Yucatan, and could instruct painters in 
 their painting of panoramas of Madras, Thebes, Jerusalem, and Mexico : but 
 he had further set his mind upon reporting of Timbuctoo. He was murdered 
 by Arabs when about 25 days' journey from his object. He is remembered in 
 London by his lectures at the lloyal Institution on Egypt and Palestine. — The 
 traveller on the Lebanon sometimes turns aside to visit a desolate grave in a 
 garden, eight miles from Sidon — the grave of Lady Hester Stanhope, com- 
 monly called "the eccentric." She was a niece of William Pitt, and lived in 
 his house for some years ; but the greater part of her life was sjient in the 
 East, where she went in a spirit of pride, where she gained at first wonderful 
 influence by her imposing pride, and whence she had too much pride to 
 return, after she had discovered the hoUowness of her authority. In an age 
 of improved science, hers would have been a less unhappy lot than it was. 
 It appears that her case was one of those, now known to be far from rare, 
 where those faculties operate naturally which are usually put in action by 
 Animal Magnetism. She and her adherents knew nothing about this, and 
 she had just enough power of insight and foresight to suggest some idea of 
 her being inspired, and to keep herself and her servants in a constant and 
 painful state of doubt Avhether she was inspired or not. She saw and knew 
 some things which others could not see or know : she had curious glimpses of 
 prescience : but she could not depend upon her powers, nor always separate 
 (any more than others of her class) realities from mere dreams. So, some 
 called her a prophetess, and others called her mad, and others believed her 
 merely ill-humoured. She did not know herself what she was, except that, 
 as must be feared, she was helpless and miserable. She passed her latter 
 years in seclusion, in a house she had built on one of the spurs of Lebanon — 
 distrusting her neighbours and servants, partly feared and partly disliked 
 by them, and deserted when sick and dying. An interest attaches to her from 
 the contrast of her early and later life, from the adventures she had gone 
 through, as a kind of chieftainess of the Arabs, and from the peculiarities of 
 her powers and temper — an interest which she did not win through the 
 aifections. But there was a sense of relief when her death was announced in 
 England — a sense of comfort that that restless and mysterious mind was asleep, 
 and past the power of annoyance from without and misgiving from within. — 
 Sir Sidney Smith. Sir Sidney Smith's name is associated with the East in most men's minds, 
 from his command having lain repeatedly in the ]\Ieditcrrancan, from his 
 operations in Egypt, and from his great feat of saving Acre when Napoleon
 
 Chap. XVII. J DURING TIIK THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 455 
 
 marched into Syria. He was a great man in his profession — the first in fame of 1835 — 41 . 
 
 livlnw British admirals at the time of his death: hut there are some who remem- ■ • 
 
 her him for something else than this — for his attempt to obtain fi-oni the Vienna 
 Congiess in 1814, the aboUtion of the slave trade, and the disarming of the 
 piratical states of Barbarj'. He died at Paris, in his 77th year, in May, 1840. 
 
 If we look at the political department of society, we shall see that Death 
 grouped his victims strangely at this time. 
 
 Some were as usual called away who appeared to belong wholly to a former pbincess 
 period. The Princess Augusta died in 1840, in the same year with her 
 brother's favourite, Beau Brummell, who had once made such a noise in the beau brimmeli.. 
 world, but who died abroad, destitute and drivelling — another added to the 
 long list of warnings of the fate of Court favourites. This was an extreme 
 case — both the sovereign and the favourite being steeped in the vulgarity 
 which belongs to frivolity and sensualism in an age of enlightenment and a jiost 
 of high duty. But, vulgar as were the pair, the one did make the other the 
 fashion, and the author of fashion, and then cast him off; or, as some say, 
 compelled Beau Brummell to cast him off. The favotuite's last triumph was 
 " cutting the Prince." Having done this, he retired to insignificance and 
 poverty, sinking gradually into idiotcy and death. When his death was 
 announced in England, people turned their eyes towards the Court as it is 
 now, with its centre and heart of simple domestic life, and were glad that the 
 old Court dandies were gone, and that the national offence and disgrace of 
 Court dandyism was buried with them. — Another favourite of the same Prince 
 — his Avife, as she was considered by all who looked at the matter in any other 
 light than that of the Royal Marriage Act — Mrs. Fitzherbert went too, at the Mks.fitiiieb. 
 age of 80. She was married to the prince by the rites of the Catholic Church; 
 and she was regarded vrith entire respect by the royal family, and therefore by 
 the rest of society, till the day of her death. It must have been with a strange 
 mixture of painful feelings that she watched from her retirement the fortunes 
 of her husband, in his marriage, his conjugal discontents, and his fatal error in 
 brinfins his Queen to trial. When she had watched them both to their 
 graves, her own early life must have appeared like a former state of existence. 
 
 After the idols of Power went those of Wealth. The richest man and the 
 richest woman in the world died in 1836 and 1837— Mr. Rothschild, and the KoTusrimn. 
 Duchess of St. Alban's. Mr. Rothschild, " the greatest millionaire of the 
 present or probably any other age," met with no more homage than might 
 fairly be his due. He obtained his wealth by the exercise of faculties respect- 
 able in their way; the political power he held was a quid pro quo — a natural 
 exchange for financial services ; and he spent his money generously and with 
 discrimination. Such deference as waited upon him, he might naturally have 
 enjoyed in any other period of society in which he could have gained his 
 wealth by commerce, and lent it to government. It was in the other case 
 that the offensive and humbling English worshi]) of wealth was most broadly 
 exhibited. The Duchess of St. Alban's would never have been noticed in di-ciimsofsi-. 
 
 . , 1 • 1 Aldan's. 
 
 society but for her wealth. Her early lilc, when she was a third-rate actress, 
 and in no way distinguished by beauty, talents, or conduct, would have pre- 
 vented her being heard of if she had not, by marrying a rich banker, become 
 the wealthiest woman of her time. She next married a foolish young peer.
 
 456 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 [Book V. 
 
 1835—41, 
 
 Duke of Bed- 
 ford. 
 
 Lord Holland. 
 
 The Marquess 
 Camdev. 
 
 His raok gave licr no dignity, and her wealth could bring upon him nothing 
 but contempt : yet do the newspapers of the time record all the proceedings of 
 the pair ; and the nobles of the land competed for the privilege of their visits. 
 There was much hollowncss in it. We know by some things that passed at 
 Abbotsford that the Duchess was made to feel that she Mas ridiculed and 
 despised ; but this makes the mammon- worship more, and not less oifensivc, 
 by showing that the worship itself was thought a fitting subject for hypocrisy. 
 This woman — for, though a Duchess, she could not be called a lady — had 
 qualities which might have made herself and others happy under more favour- 
 able circumstances. She was truly good-natured, and had abundance of 
 energy. Her munificence when she was wealthy was made honourable and 
 trustworthy by the fact, that when she was a very poor actress she had shared 
 all she had with those who were in yet greater need. She had made cheap 
 baby-linen with her own hands to lend because she could not afford to give. 
 This early beneficence communicated its grace to that of an after-time when, 
 having given away in every direction that could be thought of, she still laid 
 by £40,000 a year. 
 
 One pair of friends who went nearly together were the old Whig comrades, 
 the Duke of Bedford and Lord Holland. The Duke of Bedford did great 
 good by his liberal encouragement of art and the arts; and his memory will 
 be preserved by the Bedford drainage, the rebuilding of Covent Garden Market, 
 and Woburn church tower, and the Sculpture Gallery at Wobum Abbey ; but 
 a far higher respect attends upon his surrender of borough property and influ- 
 ence, by his promotion of Parliamentary Reform. — Lord Holland was the most 
 accomplished of the Whig politicians of his time. None of them iraderstood 
 the principles of reform, or could conceive of fully carrying out as much as they 
 knew; and he was of the number of halting reformers. But he was, of all the 
 statesmen of his time, the most distinguished vindicator of religious liberty. 
 He had self-knowledge enough to be aware that even on this, his strongest 
 point, he needed instruction and guidance : and he sought them : and when 
 his grasp of any principle was once fixed, it was an unrelaxing one. On every 
 occasion on which the rights of religious opinion came into question, his vote 
 and his testimony are found on the side of equal liberty; and when he could 
 do no more, he recorded protests which are worthy of study for their clearness, 
 temperance, and conclusiveness. He was in his 6Tth year when he died ; and 
 the Duke of Bedford in his 74th. — The Marquess Camden died a few days be- 
 fore Lord Holland — revered for an act as patriotic as the Duke of Bedford's 
 surrender of borough property. Lord Camden filled several state offices re- 
 spectably; but all his other honours pale before that of his having surrendered 
 emoluments from a sinecure office, to 'the amount of a quarter of a million. 
 There are, doubtless, many men in England capable of a sacrifice like this, and 
 of making it with the grace of quietness and simplicity, as Lord Camden did : 
 but those men are not ordinarily found in the class of aristocratic politicians. 
 To aristocratic politicians it usually appears a matter of course that offices and 
 emoluments exist for their acceptance and benefit. To Lord Camden it ap- 
 peared that, whatever others might do, he could not feel easy to receive emolu- 
 ments from the office of Teller of the Exchequer, without doing any work ; and 
 he paid the proceeds into the Treasury for a long course of years.
 
 Chap. XVII.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 457 
 
 Two restless men — Henry Hunt and William Cobbctt — would henceforth 1335 4^ 
 
 agitate no more. They died in 1835, and the world was the quieter for their v.— „-^_^" 
 departure. It is usual to mention them together, because tliey pursued the "•'i^ujMC^L'"'" 
 same calling of political agitation at the same time : but there was little re- '"^"' 
 semblance in the men. Hunt had not Cobbett's ability; — he had not cither 
 Cobbett's clearness of thouglit, or weight of matter, or power of delivery. Hunt 
 was a mere demagogue : Cobbett was that, and a man of genius too. As for 
 the integrity, and disinterestedness, and truthfulness, of either of them, there is 
 nothing to be said. They were undisguised self-seekers in the midst of their 
 complaints on behalf of the human race, and ostentatiously violent and ex- 
 aggerated in their statements. The difference is, that Hunt gave us nothing 
 more, Avhile Cobbett gave us clear ^-iews on many things, strong stimuhis to 
 thought and action, and endless amusement, if the painful sense of his un- 
 trustworthincss left any power of enjoying it. Hunt was 62 at the time of his 
 death ; and Cobbett 73. — One of Hunt's victims, Watson the elder, died in james watsox, 
 America soon afterwards. He w^as a weak man, who would never have gone 
 into the Spa Fields riot, nor any other, but for Hunt's seduction ; and he seems 
 to have had no more power than inclination to lead others astray, except under 
 such instigation. After his acquittal at the treason trials of 1817, he attended 
 Hunt's meetings in a quiet way, till the disclosure of the Cato-street con- 
 spiracy, wlien he went to America — not because he was at all implicated in np.vxoi.ns the 
 that plot, but because he probably had liad enough of unavailing sedition. — ' 
 With one more name, we seem to dismiss the period of sedition, as connected 
 with the spy system. Sedition we have, and shall have, while the groat labour 
 and food question remains unsolved ; but if the ferocity on the one side re- 
 mains, the cruel meanness on the other — the employment of government spies, 
 who must always be tempted to create the treason by which they are to profit — 
 does seem to be over. Unless we arc yet to be depraved, and re-barbarized by 
 a long war, it is not to be supposed that a spy system can ever again be dreamed 
 of by any Minister, because it 'would not be] for' a moment tolerated by the 
 nation. Reynolds, the United Irishman, who betrayed the Dublin conspira- 
 tors of 1798, died at Paris in 1836. — One survived hinx who could look back o,.,. uonniTsov. 
 a good deal further, to a time of yet more fearful commotion ; — a ploughnum 
 M'ho was ploughing a field at Culloden when the Pretender marched by to tlie 
 battle. When llobertson saw Prince Charlie, he must luive been twenty jears 
 old, as he was 114 at the time of his deatli in 1831). — By his side, old Lady i,v„vr<'»K. 
 Cork, who died the next year, must have appeared young and sprightly. Slu' 
 was "the lively Miss Monckton" whom we read of in IJoswcU's Life of John- 
 son : and lively she was to the end. — It was time now that we were letting tlio 
 last century go. Wliile younger men were passing away, leaving, however, 
 finished works for their moiunnents, some of tlie busy men of the last century 
 had lingered till now; and tliey were dropping oft' at last. Among the younger 
 men who were yet, however, far from youthful, were Sir Robert Grant, twin sirRo 
 brother of Lord Glcnelg, who, after some useful service at liome, became 
 Governor of Bombay, and died there in 1838; and Lord M'illiam Bentinck, '■->"" Wmim 
 who was Governor-General of India for ten years, and did nuich for the civili- 
 zation of the natives, by the discom-agement of the Suttee, and infanticide, and 
 other barbarisms : and Sir AN'ilnuii lldrlou. wlio made sonic iinprovements in ^''» ^^'n-" ^ »..«. 
 voT.. ir. o s 
 
 itOIIRRT 
 
 (-Jhant.
 
 458 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 [Book V. 
 
 Lord Henley 
 Mr. Barber 
 
 BEAt'UONT. 
 
 Sir John Soane. 
 
 Lord Sto\\tll 
 Lord Eldon. 
 
 1835 — 41. colonial administration wliile Governor of Ceylon : and Lord Henley, -who was 
 tlie first in the field of Church Reform in the crisis of 1832 : and Mr. Barber 
 Beaumont, who in 1806 established the first Savings Bank, from mIucIi (then 
 called the Provident Institution) the whole Savings Bank system has arisen. — 
 Of the aged, the remains of the last century, two passed away, with whom 
 seemed to be buried the very life of their time ; — and also. Sir John Soane, who, 
 as architect, built the Bank and the College of Surgeons ; and as patriot, left 
 his art-collection to the nation — the gift being confirmed by Act of Parliament. 
 The two eminent above all these, old or young, were the fortimate brothers 
 Lord S to well and Lord Eldon. 
 
 These fortunate and united, and yet not happy brothers, were sons of a New- 
 castle tradesman, of the name of Scott. They were destined to find and ap- 
 propriate all that life could give of advancement, professional honours, enormous 
 wealth, and influence proportioned to their powers and success together : and 
 they were destined to find that these things do not make men happy. A more 
 impressive revelation can hardly be presented than in the life of Lord Eldon, 
 of the suffering of a narrow and timid mind, with a presumptuous and jealous 
 temper. An experience of this kind is no surprise in the absence of such re- 
 markable intellectual ability, and such decent morals, as distingiushed these 
 brothers. The impressiveness of the lesson consists in the evidence given 
 of the insufficiency of these things for wisdom and peace, when compre- 
 hensiveness of views, liberality of principles, and generosity of temper, are 
 absent. Once introduced in London, William, the elder, then Dr. Scott, 
 Carried all before him in his profession. He was called to the Bar in 1780, 
 and in ten years held, or had passed through, half a dozen high legal offices. 
 In the Commons, he was a valued government member ; and he was to have 
 been raised to the peerage in 1805 ; but some intrigue came in the way, and 
 kept him a commoner for another sixteen years. He had been made Judge of 
 the High Court 'of Admiralty in 1798; and he remained on the Bench thirty 
 years. His only son died two months before him : but the old man was beyond 
 the reach of any other affliction than his own imbecility. He was 90 when he 
 died, in 1836. He had had many good things in life, and tasted of intellectual 
 pleasure in a high degree : but there is no evidence of his having even con- 
 ceived of the loftier satisfactions, which are the gift of faith, hope, and charity. 
 Like his brother, whom he brought into his own path of the law, he had no 
 conception of human progress — no hope but of keeping things as they were — 
 (a hope which every day of his later life disappointed) — and none of that en- 
 larged charity which is unsuspicious of evil, and forgetful of self. — Of profes- 
 sional success. Lord S to well deserved all that he obtained. He is considered 
 the highest English authority in the departments of ecclesiastical law and the 
 law of nations. His expositions of intricate questions of large compass were 
 so luminous and complete, as to give to his statements the character of reve- 
 lations of the law, and to his judgments the dignity of oracles. He appears 
 not to have been troubled with his younger brotlier's infirmity of indecision : 
 and when excuse is made for Lord Eldon's delays of justice on the ground of 
 the comprehensiveness of his views. Lord Stowell's example may be quoted in 
 proof that sagacity and largeness of view may be combined with decision and 
 efficiency.
 
 Chap. XVII.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 459 
 
 As for Lord Eldon's delays, there is no doubt tliat they were made the most 1835 — 41. 
 of by political opponents, by the sufferers under those delays, and by popular 
 rumour, which sprang from these sources. There is no doubt, also, that Lord 
 Eldou was right in his allegations, and correct in his proofs, that by means of 
 his long and cautious study and deliberation, estates had been preserved or 
 restored to their right owners, which would have been given to the wrong 
 ].iarty by a more hasty judge, on a more superficial review of the case. But it 
 is also impossible to deny that there was a large over-balance of evil on the 
 other side — a vast destruction of property, and infliction of misery, from the 
 protraction of Chancery suits, and an engendering of a contempt and dislike 
 of the law far more revolutionary than any of the acts of reform which Lord 
 Eldon held in such painful dread. There can be no doubt to those who read 
 his life, that the action of his mind was much impeded and deranged by his 
 self-regards — ^his cowardly anxiety about other people's opinions of him, his 
 jealousy of his friends, and his fears of his enemies ; while his insolent mis- 
 judgment of the people at large was perpetually throwing him out in the 
 exercise of his judgment. His legal learning was never surpassed, if it Mas 
 ever equalled ; and his judgments may be all the more valuable for being so 
 long waited for. Such benefits as he left behind him in this form are no more 
 than a compensation for the mischief he did in his political capacity. Through- 
 out a long life, he was the great obstructive — the grand impediment in the 
 way of improvement — the heavy drag upon social happiness in the country 
 which he professed to love so well. It was a national misfortune that political 
 power should rest in the hands of one whose mind was so narrow, whose 
 temper was at once timid and insolent, and whose heart, if ever he had one, 
 had wasted and withered early in life. He was always fumbling for his heart 
 and his concience, as if to make sure that they were safe ; and he chuckled 
 over them as a miser over the gold pieces he can jingle in his fob : but tlie 
 more he chuckled over his hoarded heart and conscience, the less use they were 
 of to any body else ; till at last the world doubted whether he had either. The 
 memoirs of his life present him as the prince of egotists ; and as he had lived 
 the life, he died the death, of the egotist. As he more and more viewed all 
 things in their relation to his personal complacency, and as the world did not 
 slacken its course as age and infirmity withdrew him from its activity, he 
 suffered more and more from jealousy and discontent. There was less of his 
 graceful playfulness, and more of watchfulness, fewer jokes, and more sus- 
 picions and pets, till even his vigilant life could keep awake no longer ; and lie 
 had to leave his fields and his woods, and the fame and authority he had so 
 long and tenaciously vindicated, and content himself with those deserts which 
 he estimated so highly, and those pleasures of conscience which he had inces- 
 santly spoken of as of a kind of special grant from Providence to himself. 
 When he was gone, the nation anxiously acquitted itself of its obligations to 
 him; the kingdom echoed with acknowledgments of his ability and learning, 
 and praise of his political consistency: his pale face and feeble form were 
 missed in the House of Lords, and in the Law Courts his name was ushered in 
 Avith compliments : but there is no doubt that, if it had been possible, every 
 body would liave been as sorry to see him back again as to witness a revival of 
 the times of which he was tlie animating spirit. The posthumous homag
 
 460 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book V. 
 
 1835—41. was not hypocritical: it sprang from the uneasy desire to do justice all the 
 
 ^— ■'-'•^-^ more conscientiously, because the heart gives no help. Lord Eldon died in 
 
 Loud siDMoiTH. January, 1838, in the 87 th year of his age. — His old comrade, Lord Sidmouth, 
 was almost as old — past 80 when Lord Eldon died. He was gradually declin- 
 ing in health, though not in clearness of mind. He was always an amiable 
 man, even when spending his days in setting traps for conspirators, and hunt- 
 ing traitors. He did those things as an indubitable professional duty. When 
 lie had done, he enjoyed a serene conscience, free from misgivings as to his 
 deaUngs with the ignorant, the hungering, and the exasperated. His business 
 was with the Throne, and not with the people. He thought his successors 
 unaccountably rash and supine in ceasing to coerce the people, and therein to 
 guard the Throne : but he had done with business, and it was their affair. 
 So he resigned himself gently to infirmity and decline, looked upon Lord 
 Eldon's departure as a reminder that he must soon follow ; and died, when he 
 had reached Lord Eldon's age, in February, 1844 — twenty years after his re- 
 tirement from oiRcial life. 
 
 zacuabv Macau. Zacliary JNIacaulay died during the period under review, one of the most 
 strenuous labourers of the friendly company who toiled so hard for the aboli- 
 
 chames Simeon, tion of Slavery ; — and his and Wilberforce's friend, Mr. Simeon, the originator 
 of the Evangelical movement at Cambridge, by which so much was done in 
 the way of the purchase of advowsons, to fill the pulpits of the Establishment 
 with men who should revive the spirit of religion in the lukewarm Church. 
 Mr. Simeon held the same hving at Cambridge for fifty-three years ; and saw 
 before his death (in his 78th year) such a revival in the Church as he luid 
 little anticipated — a revival — partly incited by his own — of the High Church 
 spirit which has always hitherto been found incompatible with human liberty, 
 and hostile to peace on earth, and good-will to men. At Mr. Simeon's funeral, 
 2000 mourners followed the coffin, and his departure was regarded by liis 
 
 JosEPu Lancasteh. adherents almost that of an apostle. — Joseph Lancaster, who invented and 
 tried the method of mutual instruction in schools before Ur. Bell — though the 
 system is usually named after Dr. Bell — died by an accident in the year 1838 
 — being run over in the streets of New York. Both men should have the 
 credit, such as it is, of the system, which they appeared to have invented 
 independently. 
 
 R. Stevens. From the musical world we lost at this time, in 1837, Stevens, whose glees 
 
 are sung every where, from concerts at Windsor to little gatherings in work- 
 
 samuel Wesley, sliops and watcr-partics : and in the same year,'another of the Wesleys, now 
 fast dropping away from us. — Samuel Wesley, nephew of John, and brother to 
 the musical genius Charles, had the true Wesley organization, disposing him 
 to a life of piety expressed in music. It was this nephew of whom John 
 Wesley said, when it was believed that popish music had made him a Catholic, 
 "he may indeed roll a few years in purging 'fire, but he will siu-ely go to 
 heaven at last." His life on earth was a purgatory. His head was injured 
 by a fall in his early manhood ; and from that time he was subject to long 
 visitations of religious melancholy. INIusic was his solace : and he has left 
 some which may beguile others of the sorrow of which he knew so much. — 
 
 attwwd. Thomas Attwood, Mozart's pupil, died in 1838, leaving two coronation 
 
 anthems, and a mass of other comjiositions by which to be commemorated.
 
 Chap. XVII.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 461 
 
 He -was organist of St. Paul's for many years : and afterwards, for a short time 1835 41. 
 
 before his deatli, organist of the chapels royal. He was chorister of the ^— ^-— — ' 
 chapel royal, when his ability drew the attention of the Prince of Wales, who 
 bore the expense of his musical education on the continent, in the comsc of 
 "which he formed his intimacy with jNIozart. 
 
 Wilkins, the architect, who built the University Club-house, St. George's wh-liam 
 Hospital, and the National Gallery, in London, and collegiate buildings at ^^"■'"''"" 
 Cambridge and Haileybury, died in 1839; and in the next year. Sir Jeffrey snu. wyat. 
 Wyatville, whose father and two miclcs ^\ere architects of the name of Wyatt. '"'''''' 
 The change of name was a device of George IV th, to distinguish his favourite 
 from his uncles. The renovation and improvement of Windsor Castle are his 
 great deed, and that with which his name will ever be associated ; but he left 
 works also in 35 out of the 40 English counties, and 4 out of the 12 AVelsh. 
 Though much might be said of these if AVindsor Castle was out of sight, they 
 are almost lost in the presence of that noble achievement, which is justly a 
 cause of pride to the nation. The architect reached his 74th year. His 
 likeness remains, not only in Sir Thomas Lawrence's portrait, but in a bust in 
 the long gallery at Windsor, where he, if any man, deserves a place. 
 
 William IIoll, the historical and portrait engraver, died in 1838 ; and wiuniM holl. 
 Eeu-ick's apprentice, Nesbitt, whose wood-engravings did ample honour to his ciiahi.6»xesuitt. 
 master. — Hilton, who succeeded Fuseli in the charge of the Royal Academy, w. huton. 
 and who was eminently beloved and respected by the pupils there, died in 
 1839. And in the same year, Turncrclli, the sculptor, who gave us tlie cele- tchndbehi. 
 brated figure of Burns at his plough, for the poet's monument at Dumfries. — 
 And we lost Daniell, to whom the untravelled owe so much of their conception wn lum 
 of Indian scenery — and Stuart Newton, who brought his talent from his liome (i!*STi aht 
 in Nova Scotia, and cultivated it in Italy, and was rapidly maturing it in ' ^'^^°^' 
 London when insanity overtook him, and broke up all the purposes of his Hfc, 
 and at length his life also. He recovered his reason when his strengtli was 
 too far gone to admit of his rallying. He was in his 40th year. — Westall, «i<"i«i> 
 second only to Stothard in fame aud employment as an illustrator of books, 
 died in 1837; and in 1839, Sir W. Bcechey, who was old enough to have sm w. bkechkv 
 been the favourite portrait-painter of George III. and his queen, and to have 
 enjoyed a great range of aristocratic practice before the uprising of Sir Thomas 
 Lawrence. — Another aged artist died, in 1840 — Alexander Nasmyth, the Ai.KXAvnp.R 
 
 Nasu\th. 
 
 father of the Scottish school of landscape painting. Besides his landscapes, 
 
 however, he has given us something of great value, in his portrait of his friend 
 
 Burns, of whom we should otherwise have no good picture. — His countryman, 
 
 David Wilkie, died, too soon, in the same year. It may be that we had had haud wilme. 
 
 the best of Wilkie, and that no new style that he could ever attempt could 
 
 yield such results as that which he had forsaken — that of his best years, and 
 
 by which he is best known: but still his death at fifty-six, on his return 
 
 voyage from the East, when his mind was full of ideas and images of which wo 
 
 were to have had the benefit, Mas felt to be a national misfortune ; and the 
 
 mourning, within and without the world of Art, was wide-spread and sincere. 
 
 The gioups round print-shop windows, in all the towns of the kingdom, ]irovcd 
 
 tliat it was not necessary to belong to the world of art to enjoy Wilkie's 
 
 pictures. His Village Politicians, liis Rent Day, his Cut Finger, and Rabbit
 
 4@i 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 [Book V. 
 
 1835 41, on the Wall, his Reading of the Will, and many others, are as well kno^Ti to 
 
 hundreds of errand-boys, and homely tradesmeji, and persons who were school 
 children in his best time, as to the owners of the pictures themselves. Wilkie 
 was the son of an humble Scotch clergyman. He had travelled in the East 
 during the year before his death — sank suddenly under a feverish attack, after 
 leaving Gibraltar, on his return, and was buried at sea. 
 
 Of the Actors who were favourites in the last century there were few 
 
 Blanchard. 
 Bannistkb. 
 
 remaining- now ; and death was fast making them fewer. Blanchard died in 
 
 colman the 
 Younger. 
 
 James Boadgn. 
 
 Charles 
 
 Mathews. 
 
 1835; and in the next year, Jack Bannister, of whom Garrick predicted great 
 things as a painter, but who changed his style of art from motives of filial 
 duty, and became an actor — not thereby losing Garrick's friendship, but 
 gaining instruction from him. There was much regret among play-goers 
 when Jack Bannister took leave of the stage in 1815 ; and some of this feeling 
 remained to do him honour when, after twenty years more, his death was 
 announced. It was Bannister who recommended Fawcett to Colman as his 
 successor ; and Colman thought that in Dr. Pangloss, in Colman's own play 
 of the Heir at Law, Fawcett excelled Bannister. And now Fawcett, Colman, 
 and Bannister, all left the world within half a year. — Colman vn-ote for ]Mrs. 
 
 Mrs. Bland. Bland, in all his musical dramas, if indeed his musical dramas were not 
 ■\%Titteu for Mrs. Bland; and now, she went too — at the beginning of 1838. — 
 Tlio writer of several favourite pieces played in the days of this group of actors 
 and ever since — A Cure for the Heart-ache, Speed the Plough,' and others — 
 
 Thomas Morton. Thomas Morton, the dramatist, died at the same time with his old friends ; 
 and he was presently followed by another dramatist, popular in his day — 
 Boaden, the biographer of the Kembles. — Charles Mathews had ventured upon 
 the stage before the last century was out ; but it was in his boyhood, and 
 without his father's knowledge. As an established actor, he belonged to our 
 century, his first decided success being subsequent to 1810. Being lamed by 
 an accident, and finding his wonderful imitative faculty more genially and 
 freely exercised in such entertainments as those called " Mathews at Home," 
 than in regular acting, he became the kind of performer that we all remember. 
 Probably no man called out more mirth in any nation than Mathews among 
 lis, who do not laugh enough ; or among the Americans, who laugh more than 
 we do, but still not enough. Mathews could make all hearts merry but his 
 own. His health was bad ; and visitations of epilepsy in his early life left him 
 subject to depression of spirits which nothing could clear. While imitating 
 all he saw and heard, wherever he went, as if the spirit of fun was always 
 overflowing, his heart lay heavy within him. No one knew better than he 
 that, while the wit of one man is related to the mirth of another, the two 
 capacities are not necessarily connected in the same individual. As a man 
 may be mirthful without wit or fun, so a man may have wit and fun without 
 mirth : and poor Mathews would often, like many other wits, have been glad 
 to exchange his mirth-exciting powers for the mirth he excited. He died on 
 his 59tli birthday. — When the elder generation is boasting of the dramatic 
 favourites of the last century, the young people are usually deciding within 
 themselves that the favourite of their own day could never have been surpassed : 
 and at the time before us, the young lovers of the musical stage were content 
 to hear of the pets of their parents while they could go and listen to Malibran. 
 
 Maliuran.
 
 Cn.vp. XVII.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 463 
 
 She Mas not English by birth; but she became EugUsh by education and 1835 11. 
 
 through her hearty adoption by the EngUsh people. Her childhood was hard -— ^ ' 
 
 and laborious ; and her genius broke forth in wildness of exertion and of mirth 
 by turns. She hardly knew what repose was ; and she died of exhaustion at 
 the age of 28. She was a wonderful creature ; able to achieve whatever she 
 att(;mpted, and able to aspire to more than most people could conceive. The 
 unhappincss of her life no doubt stimulated her professional cxertion-s, and 
 helped to wear out her frame. She allowed herself to be wedded, when very 
 young, to an elderly French merchant at New York, M. Mahbran, who soon 
 afterwards went to prison for debt. She believed herself deceived, gave up her 
 marriage settlement to his creditors, and returned to Europe, where in 1836, 
 at Paris, she obtained a divorce which set her free to marry again — which she 
 did at once. In six months afterwards, she was dead ; and in two montlis 
 more died her first husband. Her labours, and the wearing kind of toil con- 
 sequent upon fame, had long been undermining her strength ; and at the 
 Manchester Musical Festival of September, 1836, she sank, after having 
 thrilled the souls of the audience with her last strain, " Sing ye to the Lord." 
 Her voice, and the mind that it carried, thrills yet, and ever will, in the hearts 
 of those who heard her most worthily : and the youngest of these will boast of 
 her to their grand-children as old men now magnify the Siddons and (in the 
 dearth of opera) the Catalani of their day. 
 
 When a man of business is a man of letters and finds himself equally at '*""*"" ■'^"*"'■■ 
 home in London drawing-rooms and in the counting-house, he conti'ibutes a 
 large portion to the respectability of his country, where such an union of 
 pursuits is not so common as it ought to be. Richard Sharp, commonly known 
 as Conversation Sharp, was a man of this order. He was partly occupied with 
 commercial concerns, and left behind him upwards of £250,000 : yet Sir 
 James Mackintosh declared him the best critic he had ever known. He 
 published Letters and Essays which justified his position as a man of letters ; 
 he had a seat in parliament for several years, and was the associate of the most 
 eminent literary men of his time. He died, in old age, in 1835. — Alexander j^,';"*^™* 
 Chalmers died at this time — the indefatigable editor of a host of works, and 
 writer of the greater part of the Biographical Dictionary wliich goes by liis 
 name. He is remarkable for literary industry rather than for any other merit 
 in his contributions to literature. — A cpiiet, modest, but most eminent pubUc 
 bencfiictor who died at this time was Robert Lemon, of the State Paper Office, robbrt i.hmum. 
 Every body knows how, in rummaging among dusty and neglected papers, lie 
 found jNlilton's MS. : but few know how much else he found among tlie 
 cobwebs. To his industry and sagacity we owe the rescue from rot and obli- 
 vion of a mass of valuable materials for history ; and also such a reform of our 
 care of State papers as may save us from quenching the liistorical lights for 
 which we are answerable to future generations. The India Company was at 
 one time veiT near purchasing the services of ^[r. T,emoii from th(> State Paper 
 Office; but Lord Sidniouth, made aware of liis vahu' by his superiors in oHice, 
 increased his salary to an amount on ■^^■hich he might live decently : and 
 perhaps the future Histories of England may be of a far liighcr, and those of 
 British India of a somewhat lower cliavacter, for this approjiriation of £200 
 per annum. It was Mr. Lemon's labours that suggested to Sir R. Peel the
 
 464 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 [Book V. 
 
 Sm Wm. Cell. 
 
 Dr. Carey. 
 Dii. Morrison 
 
 1835 — 41. appointment of Commissioners to examine and publish such State Papers 
 as were lying neglected ; and Mr. Lemon was the Secretary of the Commis- 
 sion thus obtained. The first publications were of the documents of the 
 reign of Henry VIII. — Sir William Gell, the classical antiquary, who opened 
 to us so much topographical illustration of ancient historical scenes or fictions, 
 died in 183G, at Naples. 
 
 Death swept away, during this period, a whole group of distinguished 
 orientalists. Dr. Carey, the Missionary, died in 1834, at Serampore ; and a 
 few weeks after him, Dr. Morrison the eminent Chinese scholar at Canton. 
 The lapse of time lessens our confidence in the results of missions to the East, 
 and of negotiations with oriental powers, by revealing more and more of the 
 difficulty of rapidly acquiring the oriental languages so as to be able to employ 
 them in such serious affairs as the uprooting of old religions, and the ne- 
 gotiation of political or commercial alliances. It is now well known to many 
 that shocking errors have existed throughout in our translations of the Scrip- 
 tures into eastern languages, and that it is difficult for a missionary preacher 
 to utter a discourse without conveying something that it woidd make his hair 
 stand on end to be aware of: and it is well known that miserable misunder- 
 standings from English blunders about Chinese proclamations precipitated, if 
 they did not cause, the Chinese war. When, therefore, we read of Dr. Carey's 
 success in giving the Scriptures to forty nations or tribes, each in their own 
 tongue, we may well doubt hoAV far they really were the Christian Scriptures 
 that were given them; and, in the case of Dr. Morrison's catechisms and 
 tracts, how far his ideas could be communicated to the Chinese. But begin- 
 nings must be made. The zeal and benevolence of both men were unquestion- 
 able ; and their learning was no doubt as reliable as the times permitted, and 
 certainly greater than that of any other men known among us. One important 
 part of their work was the establishment of colleges and other institutions, by 
 which preparation is made for a more real and less dangerous intercourse with 
 the oriental mind hereafter. Dr. Carey reached an advanced age. Dr. Morrison 
 died in his 53rd year, from the consequences of exposure on the Canton river, 
 Avhile acting as interpreter to Lord Napier amidst the disastrous transactions 
 which will have to be presently related. — Sir Charles Wilkins was one of the 
 first English students of Sanskrit : and he it was who originated our Bengalee 
 and Persian publications by his ingenuity and skill in preparing the requisite 
 types, with his own hands. This was in the last century, for he was 85 when 
 he died in London, in 1836. — His son-in-law, Mr. Marsden, also a great ori- 
 entalist, followed in the next year, leaving us much new knowledge about 
 Simiatra and the Malayan Archipelago, several dictionaries and grammars of 
 eastern languages, and a singular collection of oriental coins, which he pre- 
 sented to the British Museum. He was but Httle yovniger than his father-in- 
 law, ha^^ng attained the age of 81. He presented his noble library to King's Col- 
 lege, London ; and resigned, because he did not want it, his rewarding pension of 
 £1500 a year. This was an honourable life of industry, usefulness, and tUs- 
 interestedness. — The most eminent Chinese scholar left after these losses, 
 Thomas Manning, departed also, in 1840. The mystery which hung about 
 China when he was young, so completely took possession of his imagination, 
 
 Sin r. Wilkin^- 
 
 Wm. Marsden. 
 
 Tugs. Mannish. 
 
 that he could attend to nothins: at home but the 
 
 studies which might fit liim
 
 Chap. XVII.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 465 
 
 for exploring the forbidden land. He qualified himself as highly as was 1835 41. 
 
 then possible, went out to the east, and tried long and often, and always "— ^^ ' 
 
 in vain, to penetrate China, either by Canton or through Thibet. He got in 
 at last, in the train of Lord Amherst, in 1816. His first publication, when 
 he was quite young, was on algebra ; and he would have been eminent as a 
 mathematician, if China had not come in the way. The readers of Charles 
 Lamb's letters know how jealous he was of the China — the umcpayiug 
 China — which deprived him of Manning's society for so many of the best years 
 of their lives. 
 
 Charles Lamb had already been some time gone when Manning died. That cnARLEsLAMn. 
 gentle genius, heroic and genial, enjoying and suffering, at once — sportful and 
 enduring— noble and frail — loving others as an angel might, and himself be- 
 loved as an infant and a sage in one — departed while he could yet ill be spared, 
 before he had passed his 60th year. He was one who could never, at any age, 
 have been willingly spared while his mind could work and play, and his hesi- 
 tating speech could convey its burden of thought, and pathos, and wild w it : 
 but his special work in life — the guardianship of his accomplished, but infirm 
 and dependent sister — was not done when an accident — a fall whose conse- 
 quences were fatal — disposed of the matter, and gave a new tenderness to the 
 pathos, and a solemnity to the wit, of the Essays of Elia, which had been read 
 before under a hope that, while Elia lived, we might have more. Charles 
 liamb was an exquisite ornament of his time — as he would have been of any 
 time : and he was its serious benefactor too, in as far as he called out and 
 fostered the spirit of geniality, in which, above every thing, our time is defi- 
 cient. There seems to be a prevalent impression that he was of greater mark 
 than his writings will account for ; and this is probably owing to the spirit of 
 those writings being fiu- higher than their pretensions ; — that they y\eie so 
 instinct with genius, that their form, and even their amount, is a matter of 
 little concern. — An aged lady died in 1838, whose name should not be omitted, 
 though it belongs only to the lightest order of literature, and had long lost the mbs.gr^nt. 
 great distinction it had once enjoyed ; — Mrs. Grant, of Laggan. Her Memoirs 
 of an American Lady were interesting before the United States were as fa- 
 miliar to us as they are now; and her Letters from the Mountains are a good 
 example of the epistolary style in literature. She lived to feel extreme sur- 
 prise at the American colonists for daring to desire a separation from England, 
 and at the seditious tendencies of English society which could countenance the 
 presumption. She lived, as was natural, in the scenes of her youth, as regarded 
 both America and Scotland, and her readers dwelt upon the achievements of 
 her youth, in acknowledging their obligations to her. She w^as 81 when she 
 died. 
 
 Her countryman, John Gait, was, like herself, a highly popular writer in his john Oalt. 
 day, and, like her, could not reconcile himself to the state of things on the other 
 side the Atlantic. He lived for some time in Canada, but was involved in 
 such disputes as he was too apt to find grow up about him ; and he is most 
 pleasantly remembered by his Scotch novels — the Ayrshire Legatees, the Ainials 
 of the Parish, the Entail, and others. He died in 18.39. — The Irish novelist, 
 Gerald Griffin, died in the next year — young, but having ceased to write ornun gdiffin. 
 
 VOL. II. 3 ()
 
 466 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book V. 
 
 1835 — 41. novels. After giving us the Collegians, and Tales of the Munster Festivals, 
 -— ■^^ — ^- he retired to a monastery, and devoted himself to religious observances for the 
 short remainder of his days. — In the same year went the most popular of female 
 Mme. d'abbuv. noveUsts, however we may wonder at the fact. Fanny Bui'ney happened to 
 reach her prime at that period of the last century when conventionalism had 
 touched its last limit of excess. She was herself full of life, and of what 
 would have been naturalness at any other time than that in wliich she lived. 
 She was too full of vigour and abihty to be silent ; and the result is, that she 
 has given us full and faithful pictin'es of the conventional life which to her 
 appeared natural. It is now scarcely possible to read her Evelina and Cecilia, 
 with all their elaborate delicate distresses, which could never have happened 
 to ingenuous people, and which a breath of good sense and sincerity would at 
 any time blow away in a moment : but the enthusiasm about these novels in 
 their day proves that they were true to their time, and that they ought so far 
 to have value with us. In her youth, Fanny Burney was evidently charming — 
 with her heart, and her Avit, and the touch of the hoyden mixing curiously 
 with her imiocent and conscientious prudery. But, at last, her fame was too 
 much for her. It led her into the service of royalty, which is not a natural 
 consequence of literary fame ; and she was not suited to the position, nor the 
 position to her. The artificial part of her character overgrew the natural ; and 
 her later writings are unreadable from their affectations. Her precious heart 
 must have become sadly impoverished before she could employ herself, as she 
 did in her latter days, in revising for the press the affectionate family and 
 friendly letters which had passed between herself and persons long dead, and 
 in arranging, while on the very verge of the grave in which we look to bury 
 our vanities, the records of the interminable and extravagant compliments 
 jiaid to her half a century before, by kind-hearted great men, whose follies of 
 the moment should have perished with the moment. We owe to her, how- 
 ever, in these Memoirs, gratitude for a great service. Her gossiping volumes 
 are full of interest, of unconscious revelations of herself, far more charming 
 than all her consciousness, and of historical material, from her familiarity with 
 the Court, and with most of the eminent persons of her day. Miss Burney 
 married, at forty, an emigrant artillery officer, being sure at any time of large 
 sums of money for any novel she chose to write, and actually receiving 5000 
 guineas for the first she wrote after her marriage — Camilla. She survived 
 her husband and only son, and died in her 88th year. 
 Mrs.iiemans Two popular female poets departed untimely during this period; — Mrs. He- 
 
 an,.m.ssLandon. ^^^^^^ ^^^ ^yj^g jj^ jjpj. 42„a year; and Miss Landon, known in the world of 
 
 letters as L. E. L. Mrs. Hemans died in Dublin, in 1835, after a long ill- 
 ness, and after a separation of many years from her husband, who left chiefly 
 to her the charge of their five sons. — Miss Landon married, and went out to 
 Cape Coast — some'VA'hat wilfully, but under a sense of duty, and died there 
 suddenly, a few weeks after her arrival at the Castle — as was supposed, by 
 taking an over-dose of some deleterious medicine. A more mournful story than 
 hers is seldom heard — illustrative as it is of the perils, snares, and sufferings 
 of a literary life, where the responsibility of the vocation is not felt with the 
 seriousness which shames cupidity, and silences flattery. People inferior to
 
 E MTMiiMo 
 
 ^£4</i^ -^i 
 
 ''A't- //>j^^'-'^y. 
 
 /p.^^^^'fj-
 
 Chap. XVII.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE, 4G7 
 
 herself made money and amusement out of her talent and herself; and she 1835—41. 
 permitted them to do it — partly out of careless generosity, and partly because ^— ^^— ^ 
 she was too little aware of the responsibility of genius. Carefully cultivated, 
 her genius might have accomplished great things. As it was, her early and 
 wonderful facility is nearly all that remains for admiration. By her personal 
 friends she is remembered with an affection which has nothing to do with her 
 writings ; and by those who did not know her, her writings are regarded with 
 an indifference almost as great as her own. — ^Irs. Hemans's poetry was of a 
 far higher order. It was deformed by a mannerism of that degi-ee which is 
 fatal to pei-manence of popularity j and there is not much substance of thought. 
 But the sentiment is commonly as true and natural as the expression of it is 
 otherwise ; and of a de2>th wliich always ensures its freshness. The substantial 
 power of Mrs. Hemans is, perhaps, best shown in her choice of the subjects of 
 her smaller pieces, which is so rich in suggestion, and so full of the keen and 
 sagacious apprehension that belongs to genius, that it is almost a gi-eater treat 
 to look over the table of contents of her minor poems, than to read the poems 
 themselves. Her fame — a genuine and reasonable fame, dejjending upon her 
 qualities, and not upon any accident of the time — had spread widely over the 
 European and American continents, many years before her death ; and there 
 are thousands living to whom the slightest casual recollection of some of her 
 poems will be, to the day of their death, like the singing of a dirge in tlie re- 
 cesses of their hearts. — Thomas Haynes Bayly, whose songs were sung in the t. havnu 
 streets, and who was therefore a public benefactor, died, in his 42nd year, in 
 1839: and, in full age, Hogg, the Ettrick Shepherd — a man of stubborn pur- James Houc. 
 pose and graceful imagination — of unscrup\ilous mamiers and delicate senti- 
 ment ; — a man who taught himself to write with such labour, that he began 
 his task by taking off his coat and waistcoat, but who produced his songs witli 
 such facility, that they seem to have presented themselves to him like a group 
 of sun-touches on the prominences of his native valleys and hill-sides. His life 
 was one of painful vicissitudes, from his want of prudence, and of kno\\kdge 
 of the world. The Queen's Wake is the poem which established his fame, 
 and by which he is best remembered : but perhaps a stronger interest attaclies 
 to him from his intimacy with Walter Scott, and a far stronger still froni the 
 circumstances of liis origin and rise in life, to a high place among the authors 
 of his time. 
 
 INIr. Lodge, who contributed by liis famous Portraits, and other works of auti- edmunh i.ui. 
 quarian biography, to future achievements in the department of Histor)', died 
 in 1839, holding the office of Clarenceux king of arms. — Dr. Gillies, who gave un. cmru. 
 us a liistory of Greece, and translations of much Greek oratory and philosophy, 
 had ceased his labours for many years, and now, in 183(5, died in liis 90tli 
 year. — In the same year, we lost James Mill, best known as the liistorian of JiMt, m u 
 British India, but also celebrated as the 'chief follower of Bentham, and the 
 author of works on Mental Philosophy and Political Economy. His History 
 of India is the work by which he will be longest and best ri'membercd. He 
 held an office in the India House which affiarded him access to a great wealth 
 of materials ; and he so wrought his mind into liis task as to have strengthened 
 and illuminated his narrative witli priiiciplos nf legislation, and views of social 
 organization wliich give his work a value tlial iiotliing can supersede. Wc
 
 468 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book V. 
 
 1835—41. may and must have others, written by men who have seen India, and who 
 ^— ■-— ^ can contribute much that did not lie in Mr. Mill's way : but nothing can now 
 prevent liis being the History which first presented the gi-eat subject of India 
 to the best part of the mind of England, and largely influenced the adminis- 
 tration of that great dependency. It is a well-known virtue of the India 
 Company that they discover, and employ, and reward, the best men, in a 
 way that administrative bodies very rarely do. In this case, as in others, 
 their generous prudence was richly rewarded : for Mr. Mill was able to do 
 more for their empire than they, with all power and willingness, could do for 
 him. 
 Mil malthis. A man of gi-eat celebrity died at the close of 1834 — of a celebrity out of all 
 
 proportion to the knowledge of his works. Mr. Malthus was perhaps the 
 most abused man of his time ; but he was so well aware that the abuse never 
 proceeded from those who had read his writings, tljat it did not trouble him, 
 nor in the least impair the sweetness of his temper, or the quiet cheerfulness 
 of his mamiers. It was he who first placed clearly and by elaborate state- 
 ment before society the all-important fact which lies at the bottom of the 
 poverty of society — that the nvmibcr of consumers naturally presses upon the 
 means of subsistence ; and that while the numbers and the means of subsis- 
 tence are not proportioned to each other by the exercise of enlightened 
 prudence, poverty and misery must always exist. The illustration of the 
 doctrine is simply this : that a piece of land which will exactly support a 
 family of four or five persons will not support the spreading families of those 
 four or five persons ; and the moral inference from this is, that forethought 
 ought to be exercised about the future subsistence of such families, or their 
 numbers will be reduced by hunger or disease. Any illustrations or amplifi- 
 cations of these simple facts which may be found in Mr. Malthus's works, and 
 which may be misunderstood or disliked, cannot impair the great service he 
 rendered in pointing out the fact which lies at the bottom of social destitution; 
 nor can any discoveries or recognition of means of increasing food by im- 
 proving the productiveness of land at home, or drawing from a larger area 
 abroad, touch his theory more or less. Whatever blessings, whatever inter- 
 missions of anxiety, Ave may obtain by such methods, the fact remains that 
 human families expand in numbers while corn-fields do not expand in size, 
 nor, by any means discovered or conceivable, in a pi'oductivcncss which can 
 keep pace with human increase. ]\Ir. Malthus's simple humanity was shown 
 in the readiness and plainness with which he made known this essential 
 truth. The hardness and cruelty would have been in concealing it after it 
 once became apparent to his mind. As for the foolish and disagreeable 
 notions which are too commonly associated with his name and theory — such as 
 that he desired that poor people shoidd not marry — they may be regarded as 
 mere unfounded imputations, cast upon his works by careless rumour ; in 
 spreading which, however, those are not guiltless who have the opportunity of 
 seeing for themselves what Malthus did think and say. His works will pro- 
 bably be little read henceforth ; for the first and chief, his Essay on Population, 
 has answered its purpose. All who turn their thoughts towards political 
 economy at all are aware that a determinate stock of food which is just suffi- 
 cient for a certain number must be insufficient for any greater number ;
 
 Chap. XVII.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 469 
 
 and that, while we have among us so much destitution as we sec, it must 18.35 11. 
 
 he a consideration of the first moment so to educate the rising generation, 
 and so to arrange the inducements of their life, as to train them to prudence 
 for their own comfort, and humanity towards their children. The service 
 which Mr. Malthus did to society was in fixing its attention upon the 
 laws of increase of eaters and of food, and on the morality — a cheei-ful 
 and genial morality, opposed only to license — which is indicated by those 
 natural laws. Mr. Malthus was a clergyman, and professor of History 
 and Political Economy at the East India College at Haileyhury. His life 
 was useful and innocent, serene and cheerful — supported and graced by 
 universal respect and love among those M'ho knew him. He reached his 
 69th year. 
 
 An old antagonist of liis — a man who was in a state of antagonism ^aiuM 
 
 ° D Godwin. 
 
 to much that is in the world — William Godwin — died in April, 1836. 
 Godwin was a man of gi-eat powers, insuiRciently balanced ; and, as the 
 European world was, in his youth, a mighty conflict of great powers insufficiently 
 balanced, he was just the man to make an impression of vast force on the 
 society of his day. Soon after his PoUtical Justice was published, working 
 men were seen to club their earnings to buy it, and to meet under a tree or 
 in an alehouse to read it. It wrought so violently that Godwin saw there 
 must be unsoundness in it ; and he modified it considerably before he reissued 
 it. His mind was acute, and, tlirough the generosity of his heart, profound ; 
 but it was one-sided. AVith us, society and government had been one-sided in 
 the opposite direction, and it was a benefit to us all that, when driven 
 from the purely conventional view of things, society fell in with a Godwin 
 who presented, in the broadest manner, the natural. He suffered, individually, 
 from the antagonism, and so did many of his disciples ; but it was the safest 
 thing for society at large, in that crisis, to have the M'hole material of social 
 philosophy, the whole choice of social organization, exhibited before it at once. 
 There can be no doubt that government and society in England at this day 
 are the better for the astuteness and the audacity, the truth and the enor, the 
 depth and the shallows, the generosity and^the injustice, of Godwin, as mani- 
 fested in his Pohtical Justice : and thus he was one — though perhaps tlie 
 most unpalatable — of the benefactors of his age. Many who do not regard 
 him from this point of view are grateful for his wonderful novels — Caleb 
 Williams and St. Leon. These are but a small portion of his works ; hut 
 they are those by which he is best known. He controverted Malthus — he 
 wrote a History of the Commonwealth, and a series of historical books for 
 children ; and in short was busy with liis pen tlirough the greater part of a 
 long life. He was the husband of Mary Wollstonecraft, whom he lost a few 
 months after th(>ir marriage. In his old age, a small sinecure office was given 
 him by the Grey Ministry, with rooms in connexion with the House of 
 Commons ; and there he loved to show the old Star Chamber which was so 
 soon to be destroyed before his face ; and to exhibit the tallies, the burning of 
 which was to occasion the destruction. On the night of the fire, he was at 
 the theatre ; and, when it became clear that his chambers were in danger, his 
 strong-minded old wife would not have him alarmed by a message, but
 
 470 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book V. 
 
 1835 — 41. managed to remove lils property before he returned to bo amazed at the sight. 
 He was saved the worst part of the shock, and lived for nearly a year and a 
 half afterwards, when he quietly sank out of the life he loved so well, in the 
 81st year of his age. 
 
 The interests of the period now closing were so various, so widely spread, 
 and, through the weakness of the government, so desultory, that it has been a 
 task of no slight difficulty to bring them together, and present them in any 
 effectual sequence and natural connexion. We have now before us the closing 
 period of this History, in which the events seem to draw together in their very 
 magnitude, and to prescribe their own order, which will be interrupted only 
 by some necessary retrospect here and there. 
 
 END OF BOOK V.
 
 Chap. I.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 471 
 
 BOOK VI 
 
 T 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 HE general election of 1841 was one of extiaoidinary importance. It was i q ,, 
 not that any one great question was now, as in 1831, to be settled by a ^___L-_1. 
 House of Commons which should be, in fact, an assemblage of delcirates : but "«~" «*'• 
 that something yet more important stiould be done. Tlie Ministers hoped, 
 and apparently believed, that the country would support them on the Free- 
 trade question as it had done on the Parliamentary Reform question ; and tliey 
 calculated on beginning a new career in virtue of their proposal of a tixed 
 duty on Corn. But in this they were three times mistaken. The people 
 Averc not yet ready for such a struggle on this question as they had gone 
 tlirough ten years before for a gi'eater : — if they had been ready, the Free- 
 traders could not have carried their point under those oppressive provisions of 
 the Reform bill which secured the preponderance of the landed interest in the 
 representation : — and again, they had not that confidence in the government 
 which could stimulate them to any eifectual effort on behalf of the government 
 proposition. Nothing had happened for some years to give them any confidence 
 in the Whig administration ; and much had happened every year to prevent their 
 trusting Lord IMelbourne and his colleagues witli the subject of the Corn laws. 
 The Ministers who carried the Reform Bill had advocated Parliamentary 
 Reform for a long course of years — had seen the truth, and sjioken for it, and 
 were fit to act in its behalf when the season came : but the men who now assumed 
 to be reformers on the Corn question had, both in and out of office, steadily 
 resisted this very reform, while in possession of precisely the same means of 
 information which they had at present. The Premier liad pronounced the 
 proposal of Corn law reform mad: and Lord J. Russell had called it mis- 
 chievous, absurd, impracticable, and unnecessary. He had resisted such pro- 
 posals ever since he came into office — at first contcmi)tu()usly, and tlien 
 vehemently : and when he, at last and somewhat suddenly, declared himself 
 in favour of a moderate Fixed Duty, he had no right to expect the sujjport of 
 the nation. The Ministers had no right even to resent i)()])iilav do\ilits of their 
 sincerity : but there were thousands who declined entering upon tlic iiKiuirj' 
 as to the sincerity of Ministers who yet positively denied their trustworthi- 
 ness. The question was too important to be committed to the management of 
 men who had, for nine out of ten years of office, acted strongly on the wrong
 
 472 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book VI. 
 
 1841 ^^^^^ '■ ^^^ ^^'^° ^^^' ^^^ several sessions past, shown that they could not con- 
 duct any important business whatever. The Corn law question was not 
 therefore that on which the elections proceeded, on the whole, though the 
 Conservatives and the immediate adherents of the Whig government agi-eed in 
 putting it forward as the ground of their conflict. The government cancU- 
 dates shouted forth Lord J. Russell's fixed duty as their election cry ; but they 
 met with little response from the people. The people at large felt that a more 
 important consideration than even C'orn law Reform was pressing. 
 
 The more sagacious and better educated among them put their conviction 
 into words ; but many thousands felt and acted upon the conviction who could 
 not put it into words. They felt that the very heart of our political virtue and 
 honour was eaten out by the incompetence, moral and official, of the Whig 
 administration. During their protracted decline in power, in reputation, and 
 in character, they had dragged down with them the aspiration, the earnest- 
 ness, and the hope, of the people : and the political deterioration must be 
 endured no longer. Not only had parliamentary reform become almost a cant 
 term under their ineffectual and unprincipled rule ; but the very virtue which 
 had achieved that reform was starved out by the same sponsors who had 
 offered themselves before the congregation of the world to cherish it. The 
 indifferent had, under Whig rule, become more indifferent ; the sceptical, 
 more doubting ; the timid, more disheartened ; the earnest, more angry from 
 year to year, till they were now exasperated into an opposition as fierce as 
 could be offered by the most antiquated or selfish of the landed interest. It 
 would be no small gain, in displacing the Whigs, to be relieved about the 
 transaction of the daily business of the nation — to know that the government 
 was in the hands of men who could prepare acts of parliament, and obtain 
 accurate information, and procure good servants, to do their work without 
 blunders and delay. It would be a yet greater gain to obtain relief of mind 
 about our financial affairs — to feel that the money matters of the State were iir 
 able hands, and that the immoral and destructive process was stopped of 
 sinking deeper into debt every year, finding the annual deficit in no degree 
 repaired, but only met by loans, and covered over with explanations, and 
 smiles and promises. Greater still would be the gain of having any set of men 
 in power who would cause political action in the people. There was no 
 apprehension that the old Tory rule would ever be revived. From the day 
 when the Duke of Wellington and Sir R. Peel had stood forth as reformers in 
 any department of principle, all possibility of rank Tory rule was over. The 
 question now was only of degrees and modes of reform ; and if men of any 
 party were once in place who had any power to govern, and any political 
 honour to guard, the people might and must co-operate with them, either in 
 the way of support or opposition ; and that political life would revive within 
 the heart of the nation which had well nigh died out under the chill of hopeless- 
 ness on the one part, and the poison of contempt on the other. The extra- 
 ordinary importance of the elections of 1841 lay — not in any pretence of 
 settling the Corn question — but in the opportunity afforded of dislodging the 
 tenacious tenants of the public offices. Notices to quit had been in vain ; and 
 twice had the day of reckoning been got over by an exercise of royal favom-.
 
 Chap. I.J DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 473 
 
 Now the time was come for taking off the roof, if the people so pleased. They 1341 
 did so please ; and very thoroughly they did the work. v_.-.^,-._-' 
 
 Throughout the elections, the support of the government was made a Con- 
 fidence question. Fatal as was this method of appeal, the "Whig government 
 had no other. And it was on the ground of promises only that they could ask 
 for confidence. The appeal on the ground of their services in canj-ing Par- 
 liamentary Reform had been so long worn out that the elections of 1837 had 
 been caiTied by the free use of the Queen's name ; and notliing had happened 
 since to justify an appeal to any thi"ng in the past. They now asked for con- 
 fidence on the ground of what they intended to do : but this is an appeal ill- 
 becoming any INIinistry at the end of ten years (almost uninterrupted) of 
 power; and it was wholly inadmissible fi-om an Administration wliicli had 
 once assumed the title of Reforming, but had long since fallen back under its 
 old title of Whig. The people refused the great Confidence vote on their 
 wide floor within the four seas ; and prepared for the refusal of the smaller 
 Confidence vote which was to be asked for within the four walls of their House 
 of Parliament. 
 
 Lord J. Russell stood for the City of London, and was returned by a 
 majority of only 7 over the fifth candidate, who was a Conservative. Two 
 Conservatives and one Liberal were above him on the poll. Some mirth was 
 excited by the zeal of certain of the government party who commemorated 
 this victory, as they called it— though two Conservatives were let in — by a 
 medal, showiner on its reverse side a wreath of wheat-ears, and the motto spectator, i84i. 
 
 (J8G. 
 
 " Free Trade," with the additional words " per mare per terram," which were 
 translated " one foot on sea and another on shore," (" to one thing constant 
 never.") The few victories of this kind gained by the Ministers were as fatal 
 as their defeats ; for they could not afford to have their great towns neutraUzed 
 while the counties were returning Conservatives in overwhelming numbers. 
 Lord Howick was rejected in Northumberland, and Lords jNIorpeth and 
 Milton by the West Riding of Yorkshire. While free-trade professions were 
 vague and faint, declarations of want of confidence were loud and clear in 
 some of the largest towns. Complaints — no doubt just — were made on 
 every hand, of corruption : and it was believed that such an amount of 
 bribery had seldom, if ever before, been known ; but no one coidd say 
 that the one party was more guilty than the other. It was alleged, and 
 truly, that the Conservatives had been more attentive to the registration 
 than the Reformers ; and this was one of the most mortifying tokens of 
 the popular indifference to tlie Wliig government. The result was, a Whig 
 majority of 9 in Scotland, and 19 in Ireland; and a Conservative majority f ™"p' f;?'""' 
 of 104 in England and Wales. In the elections of 1837, the government 
 majority had laUen to 16, according to some authorities; 12, according to 
 others. Now, the government was in a minority of 76; and this great 
 Conservative majority was sure to be largely increased, as soon as power 
 should pass from the AVhigs to the Opposition — there being always in par- 
 liament a considerable body of men disposed to support the government, 
 whatever it may be. 
 
 Tlie end was known to be near. The Queen and her Household had 
 learned their part in the ensuing changes by painful experience. The ladies 
 
 VOL. II. 3 r
 
 474 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 [Book VI. 
 
 Nrw Paklia- 
 
 MENr. 
 
 Hansard, lix. 8. 
 
 Hansard, lix. 16. 
 
 1841. prepared to resign their offices in good time, and the Queen prepared herself to 
 accept their resignation without objection. The new parliament assembled on 
 the 19th of August, Lord J. Russell and Sir R. Peel meeting at the bar, and 
 shaking hands " very cordially." Mr. Lefevre was re-chosen Speaker with 
 the smoothest unanimity : and then every body waited for the royal Speech. 
 Next, there was much comment on the Speech being delivered by commission, 
 while the Queen was in good health, the weather fine, and her Majesty known 
 to be usually disposed to enjoy these public occasions. It was alleged that 
 the Queen's physician had advised her Majesty to stay at home ; and this 
 again fixed expectation on the Speech. It was natural that the sovereign 
 should feel some emotion on meeting a parliament elected for the very purpose 
 of overthrowing an Administration to which she was attached by all the asso- 
 ciations of her accession to the throne, cand by ties of confidence and custom : 
 Queen's Speech, but further rcasons for her absence appeared when the Speech was read. It 
 was singularly controversial in its tone, and was therefore far fi-om being the 
 kind of Address which it suited the dignity of a Sovereign, or her relations 
 with her parliament, to deliver by word of mouth. Not only were the Lords 
 and Gentlemen in parliament requested to consider the Corn laws, but they 
 were to determine whether those laws did not produce this and that and the 
 other bad consequence. It is inconceivable that the Ministers should not have 
 foreseen the embarrassment in which they would have placed their Royal 
 Mistress, if parliament should "determine" that the Corn laws did not produce 
 these bad consequences ; a determination far more probable than an agreement 
 of the majority of this particular parliament with the opinion of the Queen. 
 This singularity in the Speech pointed to the necessity of a dissolution of this 
 parliament, unless the existing INIinistry should be displaced before any debate 
 on the Corn laws came on : and it rendered indispensable a protest on the 
 part of certain members against the unconstitutional aspect given to the 
 Speech by the sovereign being brought forward to make the first move in a 
 great controversy. A few nights afterwards, Lord J. Russell was so appealed 
 Hansard, lix. 483. to by Lord Stanley as to be forced to an earnest declaration that the Speech 
 expressed the sentiments of the Ministers, and that they alone were responsi- 
 ble for any thing that it contained. 
 
 The Address was moved in the Upper House by Lord Spencer and seconded 
 by Lord Clanricarde ; and both speakers openly and at length condemned the 
 existing Corn laws. It was impossible to enter into controversy on this point 
 in preparing an answer to the Speech in which the Sovereign's opinion 
 appeared to be declared : and the amendment moved by Lord Ripon therefore 
 took another ground. It expressed the alarm of parliament at the con- 
 tinued excess of expenditure over income — promised careful consideration 
 of the interests commended to them — but declared that nothingr could be 
 done while the government did not possess the confidence of the House or of 
 the country, and that her Majesty's present Ministers did not possess that con- 
 Hansard, lis. loG. fidence. This amendment was carried by a majority of 72 on the night of the 
 24th of August. A similar amendment to the Address in the Commons was 
 proposed by Mr. Stuart Wortley, who had succeeded Lord ^lorpeth in the 
 representation of the West Riding of Yorkshire : and it was carried by a 
 
 The Address 
 Amended.
 
 Chap. I.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 475 
 
 majority of 91. The last acts of the Whig government deepened their unpo- 
 pularity with their best remaining supporters — those who had yet hoped to 
 carry some goodly measure of free trade by their means. These were dis- 
 pleased that the Corn law question should liave been so mixed up with the 
 personal interests of the Ministers as to share in tlieir personal discredit. 
 They, liowever, voted in favour of the Ministerial Address, for the sake of the 
 free trade principle. Yet was the majority against Ministers in both Houses 
 as overwhelming as has been seen. It only remained for the Sovereign to 
 communicate her Reply, and for the Ministers to resign. The Reply was 
 dignified. The Queen expressed her satisfaction at the spirit in which I'arlia- 
 ment proposed to deliberate on the matters she had recommended to them, 
 and declared, in conclusion, "Ever anxious to listen to the advice of my Hansard, lis. 47g. 
 Parliament, I will take immediate measures for the formation of a new Admi- 
 nistration." This message reached the Commons on Monday, August 3()th : 
 and on Thursday, September 2nd, the Queen spent her last evening with the 
 Household whom she had declared to be so dear to her. Scarcely a word was Qhben-s Hopse- 
 spoken at the dinner table ; and when she was with her ladies afterwards, tears 
 and regrets broke forth with little restraint. They were natural and amiabl(>. 
 It was no fault of hers — nor of theirs — that their connexion was made depen- 
 dent on the state of political parties. Tlie blame rested clsewliere, tliough 
 the suffering was with them. Every body pitied the young sovereign, and 
 saw and felt the hardship ; but there were many who looked forward cheer- 
 fully to an approaching time when she would know a new satisfaction in 
 reposing upon an Administration really strong, efficient, and supported by the 
 country, and on a Household composed of persons among whom she could 
 make friends, without the fear of their removal from any other cause than her 
 wish or their own. 
 
 On the night of Monday, August 30th, Lord Melbourne in the one House, Hansard, us. 473. 
 and Lord J. Russell in the other, declared that, in consequence of the votes '*"' 
 of both Houses on the Address, the Ministers had resigned their offices, hrsitoation op 
 and now continued in their places only till their successors should be 
 appointed. 
 
 Thus was the Melbourne Administration out at last. Men had ^vaitcd Ions, 
 if not patiently, for this issue ; and the general satisfaction was evident 
 enough. Perhaps it was worth waiting so long to see the exhaustion so com- 
 plete. It afforded every needful advantage to the incoming administration : 
 ^ud it yielded a striking lesson to all governments and their constituents. No 
 government had a fairer chance than that of the N\ liigs from popular and 
 royal favour — no government had a clearer task to ])erform, or more aids 
 and supjiorts and stimulus in the performance ; and, wlu>n it became apparent 
 where the want of strength and clearness lay — tliat their ])rinciples were 
 weak, their views obscure, their purposes fluctuating, their knowledge defi- 
 cient, and their political honour relaxed — no ministry of .such ]K)pular juoniiso 
 ever sank so low. It was well for the political morality of tlu- country tliat 
 th(! case was so clear — made so clear at last by the suicidal ajqieal to the 
 couutvv in the elections. This clear exi)osition of the case might afford some 
 r(|)aniliou — the only reparation possible — for the mischief of a long retention
 
 ■176 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book VI. 
 
 1841. of office by men who could not, with all means of power in their hands, govern 
 the country. The people, who had for years been divided between apathy 
 and fretfulness mider a tenacious but helpless administration, might now 
 hope to enjoy the repose of confidence in the midst of activity in obtaining 
 reforms. They would now have able men, in an united Cabinet, to deal with ; 
 and it would depend much on themselves what the direction should be that 
 the ability of the Ministry should take. If the Peel Cabinet should prove a 
 reforming one, that wordd be the best thing that could happen. It it should 
 prove still too conservative, there was now a fair field of Opposition open, in 
 wliich the political life of the country could exercise itself, and ascertain how 
 much energy it could still command. 
 
 I
 
 Chap. II.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 4-7 
 
 New Admi.nis- 
 
 TR.4TI0N. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 ''PHE distribution of office was watched with great eagerness by the whole 1841 
 -*- country. The first great hope was, that Sir Robert Peel would unite 
 the offices of First Lord of the Treasury and Chancellor of the Exchequer. The ?■ 
 most pressing evil was the state of our finances. The people were becoming 
 fretted and alamied at the annual deficit, for the cure of which no vigorous 
 measures were taken : and the distress had now, for a long time, been such as 
 to pull down the national courage, and press the working classes into depths 
 of hopelessness. If any power could redeem us from this distress and debt, it 
 was Peel ; for we had no other such financier. There was some regi-et, there- 
 fore, when it was known that Mr. Goulburn was made Chancellor of the Ex- 
 chequer; but still it was considered certain that Peel's mind would preside in 
 that department, and that all its action would proceed upon liis views. 
 
 The next most interesting point was, who was to be Foreign Secretary, and 
 who at the Board of Control. Next to retrieving our aifairs at home, was the Lonu Aui:ni>ttN. 
 consideration of keeping the peace in Europe and America, and returning to a 
 state of peace in Asia. Our accord with the United States was in peril from 
 Boundai-y questions which we shall have to review, and from the Right-of- 
 Search question, which threatened also to embroil us with powers nearer home. 
 Our " good understanding" with France was far from being what it was ; and 
 the Right of Search, and some Spanish difficulties, made our peace with the 
 French very precarious ; while the sagacious saw that the great Continental 
 struggle, so sure to happen, miglit henceforth begin on any occasion of provo- 
 cation, however slight. And we were now, as will presently be seen, actually 
 at war mth China, and suffering under an accumulation of disasters in India. 
 After twenty-six years of peace, we were apparently in imminent danger of 
 war, at a time when every thing was going wrong at home ; — when agriculture 
 was moaning with himger, and manufactures seemed dying, and commerce 
 was well nigh bankrupt ; when Ireland was stirring in rebellion, and the work- 
 ing classes in England and Scotland were growing desperate, and debt was 
 stealing upon us, and the nerves of the stoutest were beginning to be sliaken, 
 from the yoxmg Sovereign in her palace, to the field-labourer in his damp hovel, 
 and the gaunt weaver chafing beside his empty loom. It was no time for war; 
 and great was the importance of appointing men in connexion with foreign 
 affiiirs, and with the India House, who should be tnistworthy for prudence 
 and a quiet dcmcanoin-, and averse from meddling and noise, sliowiiig their 
 sense of their coimtry's dignity and honour by taking them for granted, and 
 relying upon them. Lord Ellenborough was at the Board of Control ; and 
 people thought this a very doubtful appointment. It did not mend the matter 
 that he soon went out to India as Governor-General. It was impossible to 
 suppose him the right man for such offices at such a time. The appointment
 
 478 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 [Book VI. 
 
 1841. 
 
 Sir J.Graham. 
 
 Lord Stanley. 
 
 of Lord Aberdeen as Foreign Secretary was more fortunate. It was soon evi- 
 dent that tlic honour of England and her peace with the world were safe in his 
 liands. " It seems strange/' observed an eminent American statesman to an 
 English traveller, " that we Republicans should be glad when your Tories 
 come into power. One would think that our sympathies should be with your 
 reform governments. But the truth is, we cannot get on with your Whig 
 ministers. They do not understand business, and they do not understand 
 official good manners. Your Tory ministers are able, and attentive, and courte- 
 ous ; and when we do not agree, we are not likely to quarrel. But with the 
 AVhigs, we have to forbear, and nothing goes smoothly." This feeling being 
 shared by other governments, the chances of peace were much improved by the 
 retirement of an unpopular Foreign Minister, and the appearance in his stead 
 of one of such weight of character, and quiet dignity of temper, as Lord Aber- 
 deen. — Another thoroughly satisfactory appointment was that of Sir James 
 Graham as Home Secretary. His quality had been proved by the good work 
 he had done at the Admiralty. — Lord Ripon was not thought strong enough 
 for his post at the Board of Trade. — Lord Stanley was unhappily made Colonial 
 Minister ; — an office for which superhuman powers and angelic attributes of 
 temper are requisite ; and in whicli his superficial cleverness, and his insolent 
 and irritable temper, might work more mischief in five years than a century 
 could cure. — Another objectionable appointment was that of the Duke of 
 Buckingham to be Lord Privy Seal : but the displeasure at this was soon put 
 an end to by the Duke's retirement from office, on his discovery that he was a 
 member of a reforming administration. — 'Another who had no business in such 
 a ministry, was Sir Edward KnatchbuU : but he was only Paymaster of the 
 Forces, and Naval Treasurer, and not a man of any ability ; so that his power 
 for mischief was small. — Lord Lyndhurst was, of course. Lord Chancellor. — 
 Lord "NVharncliffe, President of the Council, perhaps, proved as agreeable a 
 surprise to the nation as any one of his colleagues. Amidst some old Tory 
 tendencies to regard office too much as a personal and family privilege, and 
 too little as a trust, he manifested throughout his term of occupancy, such au 
 earnest desire for the promotion of popular education, such liberality of views, 
 such sagacity and diligence in business, as made him one of the most valued 
 members of the government. 
 
 Out of the Cabinet, the most notable man was, perhaps, Mr. W. E. Glad- 
 Ma. Gladstone, stouc, who was Vice-Prcsident of the Board of Trade, and Master of the Mint. 
 The character of his mind was not very clearly understood ; and the prevalent 
 doubt was whether he understood it himself; but enough was known of his 
 seriousness, his thoughtfulness, and his conscientiousness, to cause him to be 
 regarded with emphatic respect and hope, at a time when earnest men were to 
 be prized above all others. Some other young men came into minor offices, 
 from whom much was expected by the few who already knew them — as Lord 
 Lincoln, heir of the Duke of Newcastle, and the Hon. Sidney Herbert ; — Lord 
 Lincoln going to the Woods and Forests department, and Mr. Sidney Herbert 
 being Secretary to the Admiralty. Lord Lowther was Postmaster-General ; 
 Lord G. Somerset, Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, — and Sir George 
 Murray, Master-General of the Ordnance. 
 
 The day after the mournful dining of the Court, when the Queen and her 
 
 Lord Wharn- 
 CLIFFE.
 
 CriAP. II.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 479 
 
 Household were about to part — to undergo a separation far more complete 1841 
 
 than would have been necessary if they had not been at once near relations ■ 
 
 of the late Ministers and her Majesty's domestic companions — the 'Queen 
 had to go through much painful business. On that Friday morning, Sept. 3, 
 crowds thronged the approaches of Claremont, where the Court was stay- 
 ing. It was not like an ordinaiy change of Ministry. The exhaustion of 
 the Whigs was so complete, that men knew that a fonner period of national 
 history was closing, and another coming in : and the crowd was on the watch, 
 that grey autumnal morning, not only for the old jMinisters and the new, but 
 for every incident which might be construed as an omen. — The old Ministers 'nmcs No»spapor, 
 drove up first — in plain clothes — were admitted to the royal presence, and de- '*'"" ' ^^ ' 
 livered up the seals of office. Meantime, the new jNIinisters arrived, in Couit 
 dresses; and "the first sunburst" occurred as Sir R. Peel drove in at the 
 gates. He was warmly cheered, as was the Duke of Wellington ; and both 
 looked very well pleased, the people said. When the ex-]Ministers departed. 
 Sir R. Peel had audience of the Queen, to kiss hands on his appointment; 
 and after him, the Duke of Wellington, and three or four more. Then the 
 Queen and Prince Albert repaired to the corridor, and held a Privy Council, 
 the Queen declaring Lord Wharnclifte its President. The swearing-in of new 
 members was got over quickly — the whole business, with luncheon, occupying 
 only half an hour. By half-past two, the anxious young Sovereign was left to 
 make domestic acquaintance with her ne^v household, and to miss the familiar 
 friends under whose guidance she had been accustomed to do her share of 
 state business. She was probably little aware how soon she could repose entire 
 confidence in her First Minister, and feel a new kind of ease about the conduct 
 of public affairs. 
 
 The next amusement for observers was seeing the eminent men of the p"'„*^,^j^',;"" '" 
 country change places, on the re-assembling of parliament on the IGth of Sep- 
 tember. The new Ministers had lost no seats in the process of their re-election; 
 and they therefore assembled their whole number. Some of the Liberals went 
 over, and occupied the front benches of Ojiposition ; some seemed at a loss 
 where to place themselves, after having sat in the same seats for ten years, with 
 only a short interval. One or two members, too Radical to belong to any party, 
 would not move, but sat composedly among the Tories. — The next interest for 
 those who saw how serious was our condition, was in hearing the Minister's 
 statement as to how Government meant to proceed. — The Chancellor of the ""l!^!^; ''^' 
 Exchequer must ask a vote of £2,000,000 ; and he would then slate how he 
 proposed temporarily to meet the existing deficiency. At the beginning of the 
 next session. Ministers would declare by what large measures they proposed to 
 rectify the finances of the country, and equalize the revenue and the expendi- 
 ture; an object of the very first importance in their eyes. — Lord J. Russell 
 made captious and taunting speeches, finding fault with this delay, and calling J|'i"'^j;f; "" 
 for an exposition of the goverinnent policy in regard to the Corn trade, within 
 a month ; and this provoked a retort from the INIinister, in the form of a 
 question why the late government had deferred for five years of power a 
 question which they would not now allow a new Ministry five months to con- 
 sider and mature : and thus it was immediately evident that there was to be "»»■«'•".»«■•'• «• 
 parliamentary strife between the late and present leaders in the Commons.
 
 480 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book YI. 
 
 18-11. It was harrowing to tlie feelings of men of all parties to hear the statements 
 ' — ^^■^— ^1 made of the intense suffering of the operative classes from hunger, and tlie 
 frequent declarations of their representatives that many of them could not live 
 to learn what measures government would propose for their relief: and to the 
 Minister it must have been wearing to be appealed to, night after night, to 
 declare what he proposed to do for the relief of the starving, and reproached in 
 advance as purposing to keep up the price of food, and to sacrifice the lives of 
 the poor to the purses of the aristocracy. These things seem foolish now — 
 hasty, pettish, and unreasonable : but we must remember that Sir R. Peel and 
 his Cabinet were, as yet, believers in the Sliding-scale ; that, while exposing 
 the bad qualities of Lord J. Russell's 8s. fixed duty, they had not yet given 
 the slightest intimation that they had any thing better to propose ; and that 
 tlieir opponents were truly heart-stricken at the spectacle of the misery of the 
 manufacturing districts ; while, fiom long habit, they regarded the Peel ad- 
 ministration as purely aristocratic in its temper and principles. The Premier's 
 replies were uniformly calm and quiet. He would not be forced to any dis- 
 closures before his colleagues and he were prepared with their plans. No one 
 could grieve more deeply and sincerely for the distress of ^ the people; but, tlie 
 deeper that distress, the more careful should government be to avoid rashness 
 in legislation, and in promise. He would not countenance the delusion that 
 it was possible to relieve the popular distress immediately by any parliamentary 
 measure whatever. The only thing that legislation coukl do M'as to remove 
 obstruction, to lay the foundation of improvement, and work a gradual ameli- 
 oration in the condition of society. Those who heard him, and those who read 
 his speeches under the prejudice of his former Toryism, told the peojjle that, 
 having the powers of government in his hand, he now refused to do the first 
 duty of the government — to employ and feed the people. This is worth not- 
 ing in evidence of the retribution which Sir R. Peel had to undergo for his 
 ancient opinions or party connexions, and of the ignorance in regard to the 
 functions of a representative government which existed, nine years after the 
 passage of the Refoiin Bill, among a considerable number of the men who had 
 caused that Bill to pass. 
 
 H.insar<i,iu.iiio. The Minister's difficulties were increased by an unfortunate declaration of 
 the Duke of Wellington's in the House of Lords— that there was no deficiency 
 of corn in the country; that the distress had nothing to do with the food 
 question ; that it was owing to want of work and of wages, and other causes ; 
 but that he never heard how parliament could do any thing in such a case. 
 Probably, no one expected the Duke of Wellington ever to come out as a 
 political economist, or supposed that, at his years, he could be taken in hand 
 as a pupil by Sir R. Peel : but it reflected some discredit on the government, 
 and confirmed certain despairing statements of Opposition members, when so 
 eminent a member of the new government could see no connexion between 
 food and work — food and wages ; and no evidence that the food question was 
 concerned in the existing intolerable distress. 
 
 The Chancellor of the Exchequer early proposed to provide for the £2,500,000 
 (nearly) which was required for the public service, by selling stock for the 
 
 Hansard, lix. 835. emergency — declaring liis dislike of increasing the Debt, and his intention of 
 proposing, in the next session, comprehensive and permanent methods of pro-
 
 Chap. II.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 481 
 
 vision for the public service. There was much natural repining at any increase lo41 
 of the Debt, and much denunciation of the method, as if the need had been the 
 work of the new government : but the tiling was agreed to, because, in fact, 
 nobody saw any thing else that could be done. — The Poor Law Commissioners' 
 jjowers were renewed for six months, that the relief of pauperism might not 
 stop till the subject of the Poor Law could be reviewed in parliament. The 
 opposition to this brief and indispensable renewal showed how serious a 
 matter the review of the law would be, and indicated that the question of 
 pauperism would be one of the most pressing " difficulties " of this, as of every 
 administration. — These, and some other matters being temporarily arranged, 
 parliament was prorogued by Commission on the Tth of October. The Speech 
 did not, this time, express any opinions on the Corn laws, but declared that 
 the attention of parliament would have to be given, as soon as possible, to the 
 means of equalizing the national income and expenditure, and of providing 
 against the recurrence of the terrible distress which had for long prevailed in 
 the manufacturing districts — a distress for which her Majesty expressed the 
 deepest concern. 
 
 The prorogation was to the 11th of November. Meantime, the Speech was 
 a riddle for the politicians and the sufferers of the countiy to ponder ; and the 
 Ministers had enough to do in considering and settling their plans for the 
 retrieval of our affairs in the far East, and about our own doors. The news 
 which arrived from the one and the other region was enough to try the courage 
 of a AVellington, and exhaust the resources of a Peel. 
 
 Prorogation. 
 Hansard, iix. Il:i4. 
 
 V(.L. II. 3U
 
 482 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book VI 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 1R''4_44 TT'OR more than a century past — ever since our relations Avitli India became 
 ^J^-„.^_^ J- a matter of popular interest — it has been a subject of speculation_^or 
 roLicv oi c.MNA. observation why there was so little war in the heart of Asia, among those 
 steppes which, according to all analogy, Avould be supposed likely to be the 
 scene of constant or ever-renewed warfare. While, in the centre of every other 
 PTcat continent, there are interminable feuds, apparently necessitated by geo- 
 graphical conditions, the interior of Asia, where the same geographical condi- 
 tions exist, has, for above a century, been as quiet as if it had been a maritime 
 territory. The great table-lands are there, rising shelf above shelf, till it 
 dizzies the imagination to mount the vast stair, from the steaming plains of 
 the Ganges and the Camboja up from height to height of the Himalayas and 
 the Snowy Mountains, finding at the top but little descent on the other side, 
 but again, range above range of table land, still rising till that deep interior 
 is reached which no stranger may penetrate, except some wandering Russian 
 trader, or adventurous pilgrim, who once in a century or two may get in, if he 
 cannot get across. The ordinary and necessary population of such lands is 
 there — the Thibetian and Mongolian ; apparently so apt, and once so ready, 
 for war : yet, as we know from the facts of surrounding countries, no warfare 
 has been carried on in those wild regions for above a centiuy. 
 
 The reason is that a policy of peace has been the deliberate choice of the 
 empire of China. There is no chance in the matter: if there were, the chances 
 for war would be overwhelming. It is an affair of deliberate choice and fixed 
 principle, in regard to which the whole arrangements of the empire have been 
 made. There is no regular army in China — not because the Chinese are 
 ignorant of armies and war policy, but because they dread a military sove- 
 reignty, and military contests for the throne. The statesmen of China are ready 
 to explain, when they can find foreigners able to understand their language, 
 and willing to know their minds, that they abjure conquest for the same 
 reasons which make them avoid danger of a military despotism ; because they 
 desire a settled and industrial mode of life for iheir people, and to restrain the 
 tribes of the interior by an immutable course of policy, rather than by force of 
 arms. Tliis method is partly suggested, and altogether favoured, by the 
 natural defences of the country. If war can be prevented fiom springing up 
 in the great interior plains, their bounding mountains may keep the empire 
 pretty safe from foreign invasion. All along the vast Siberian frontier, and 
 that of Independent Tartary, and along the northern spurs of the Himalayas, 
 there is a militia — Mandchou, INIongolian, and Tliibetian — whose rough organ- 
 ization is of a feudal character, and which serves as a sufficient defence of the 
 empire without any trained army. As for the seaboard— till lately, the 
 Chinese had no foe to contend with but pirates ; and their rude vessels are
 
 Chap. III.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 483 
 
 able to cope with that enemy. When the possibility of assaults from Europe lS3-t 44. 
 
 and America presented itself to them, they declare that they weighed the com- — 
 
 parative merits of two plans ; and here again deliberately made their choice— in^heTin^Ijuir 
 
 to abide by their peace policy. If they set to work to raise a navy, they must "°"'' '"^^' 
 
 be taught, aided, and officered, by foreigners ; and from that moment, both 
 
 their objects — civil sovereignty and unbroken peace — would be in peril ; the 
 
 other plan was therefore chosen; and, on demand, commercial advantages 
 
 were granted to Europeans and Americans, as far as this could be done without 
 
 breach of the exclusive policy of the empire, and only as a less evil than war. 
 
 In both its aims, the Chinese empire succeeded for a longer period than it is 
 
 usual to see empires pursue definite aims. There have been no conflicts 
 
 between the throne and the army, or between the throne and the people, or 
 
 by the throne and army together against the people, such as have, through all 
 
 time, ravaged empires in certain stages of civilization. The few divisions of 
 
 trained soldiery which guard the capital are scattered, as garrisons, among the 
 
 large towns, are not an army, and could hardly form even the nucleus of one: 
 
 and where there is no army, there can be no real poUtical relations with any 
 
 foreign country. The Americans have long vmderstood all this, and ha^-e 
 
 acted upon their knowledge — seeking no political relations with China before 
 
 the British compelled them to do so, but carrying on a most lucrative trade, 
 
 and maintaining the most friendly private relations with the Chinese, by 
 
 means of merchant vessels, without a hint of naval armaments, and through 
 
 the agency of supercargoes, witliout any mention of ambassadors. 
 
 The principle of Chinese policy may be judged by nations or individuals — 
 it may be admired, excused, criticized, wondered at, pitied, or laughed at: but 
 it is a principle — entitled to the respect due to principles wherever they are 
 found. It may be that the immutable policy of China itself must be proved, 
 like all work of men's brains and hands, subject to mutation under the opera- 
 tion of time. It may be that, to Europeans and Americans, such a policy 
 may appear not only blind and weak, but morally indefensible : but not the 
 less is it a very serious thing to explode a system so ancient, so full of purpose, 
 and so energetically preserved. If tlie exploding process is begun in ignorance 
 and self-interest, and carried on in ignorance and a spirit of scorn, it is a more 
 than serious — it is a sad and solemn matter. This process took place under 
 the successive Whig Administrations, from the fonnation of the Cabinet of 
 Lord Grey to the dissolution of that of Lord ilclbourne : but it was not tho 
 Whig Ministers alone who were responsible in the matter. The melancholy 
 ignorance and scorn which led us into what will ever be called tlie Opium 
 War were shared by the Opposition, and by the great body of tlie nation. 
 What faults of management there were must be imputed to the :Ministers of 
 the day and their supporters in this affair among the Opposition ; but if here^ 
 after the Opium War with China appears in the eyes of the liistorian and tho 
 moralist a disgrace, it will be as a national disgrace; for the people put no 
 effectual check upon the government, but rather stimulated its action, by 
 sharing its ignorance and vying with its spirit of scorn. There was scarcely a 
 schoolboy on the American seaboard who could not have justly rcl)ukcd our 
 (;ity electors, our newspaper editors, and our statesmen of every party, about 
 our Opium War.
 
 484 HISTORY OF ENGLAND ("Boos VI. 
 
 1834 — 44. It is probable mat this war would never have taken place if our knowledge 
 • ■ ' of the Chinese had been sufficient to allay our spirit of scorn. The popular 
 
 usiicEvF^cmsx. English notion of the Chinese seems to have been held by the government, 
 and the agents they sent out, who might have learned better by seeking in- 
 formation from merchants resident many years in the country. The general 
 notion of China was and is, of a country dreadfully over -peopled, so that mul- 
 titudes are compelled to live in boats, floating about to pick up dead dogs for 
 food : that they are tyrannized over by a Tartar government which they would 
 fain be rid of, and by an aristocracy which will permit no middle class : that 
 they call foreigners " barbarians," and designate Euro])cans by foul epithets 
 instead of their proper names ; and that their sole endeavour in regard to 
 foreigners is to insult and mock them. Merchants of any nation who have lived 
 long enough in the neighbourhood of the Chinese to be qualified to speak of them 
 
 State or China, givc a Very different account from this. They declare that the government is 
 on the whole favourable to the industry and comfort of the people : that the 
 people are easy and contented: that the rights of property are respected, and 
 that there is a large and wealthy middle class ; that literature is the highest 
 pursuit ; that the Chinese possess a greater body of literature than Europe can 
 show ; and that nothing is known among us of its quality, as it remains wholly 
 unexplored ; that the notion of insulting epithets being applied to our agents 
 in lieu of their own names is an utter delusion arising from ignorance of the 
 
 Westminster Re- fact that the Chinese, having no alphabet, are obliged to express new names by 
 ' ■ "' the words in their language which approach nearest in sound. Thus, when 
 Lord Napier fired wp at being written down " laboriously vile," Mr. jMorrison 
 was written down "a polite horse," and another resident at Macao, "a cvvt. of 
 hemp." Such misconceptions of Chinese character and condition, together 
 with our bigoted persistance in conducting intercourse with a singular State 
 according to our own customary methods and forms, and not theirs, were a 
 bad preparation for the management of difliculties, if such should arise : and 
 the event was painful and discreditable accordingly. 
 
 The Opium One of the great branches of the trade of the East India Company was in 
 
 opium with China : and when the Company's Charter expired in 1834, the 
 trade was vigorously pushed by private merchants, who purchased the article 
 from the Company. The Chinese government had long desired and endea- 
 voured to stop the opium trade, as purely mischievous to the people. Whether 
 the motives of the government were philanthropic or politic — whether it 
 mourned over the popular intemperance in Opium smoking, or feared the 
 effects of a constant and increasing drain of its silver currency, does not affect 
 the question : nor is it of any consequence to us, in regard to the controversy, 
 whether the political economy of the Chinese government in interfering with 
 trade was good or bad. The facts were that all traffic in opium was expressly 
 forbidden ; that British merchants nevertheless carried on a profitable com- 
 merce in opium — not only smuggling it in as our smugglers bring in brandy 
 and gin, but making a lodgment in the country, for the article and its sale, 
 under shelter of the arrangements for a general trade at Macao and Canton : — 
 that the government was, for a course of years, supine in trusting the enforce- 
 ments of its prohibition to its provincial authorities ; that it roused itself 
 gradually, repeating the prohibition, with warnings more and more emphatic; 
 
 QUESTION.
 
 Chap. III.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 485 
 
 tliat tlie prohibition and warnings were whoUy neglected, and it became neces- 1834- 
 sary to make the matter — or let it be made — a cause of war. As the Colonial 
 Gazette^ pointed out — it is as if (the growth of tobacco being prohibited in the Ufo. i»th, mo. 
 British Islands) the merchants of France should steal into our county of 
 Kent, establish tobacco-growing, sell the produce freely among our people, 
 and fix an agent at Dover, to superintend the affair. In such a case we 
 should hardly offer so many warnings as the Chinese government did, before 
 putting the agent into confinement, while the tobacco plants were destroyed. 
 
 This opium trade proceeded under the eyes of the superintendents appointed 1834. 
 by the British government to manage our commercial affairs in China, after 
 the throwing open of the trade in 1834. The appointment of these super- «»'t«" sh-ek. 
 intendents as political agents, was a melancholy mistake which coidd not have 
 been committed by any government aware of the inability or indisi)osition of 
 the Chinese to enter into any political relations whatever. Lord Napier was lord n-apirb. 
 the first Chief Superintendent sent out ; and some glimpse of the truth, as to 
 what our intercourse with China ought to be, appears in Lord Palmerston's 
 instructions to Lord Napier, not to pass the Boca Tigris (at the enti-ance of the spectator, i840. 
 Canton river) in a ship of war, as " the Chinese authorities have invariably 
 made a marked distinction between ships of war and merchantmen, in regard 
 to the privilege of intercourse." Lord Napier, however, took his own way, 
 against this and every other warning. Up to the time of his arrival at Macao, 
 on the 15th of July, 1834, the Chinese had heard nothing of any appointment 
 of superintendents : and great was their perturbation at the pomp and bustle 
 in which they found themselves implicated. Mr. (now Sir John) Davis, was 
 the second superintendent, and Sir George Robinson, who understood the case 
 better, and acted more sensibly, than any body else, was the third. Lord Napier 
 was expressly directed to annoinice his arrival at Canton by a letter to the 
 Viceroy. He did so ; and he went up the river in an armed vessel. From 
 this first moment, all went wrong. The letter was declined, because, by the 
 customs of the country, the agent's arrival must be notified to the government 
 before any intercourse could be established ; and Lord Napier had already 
 broken through all rules in coming up the river in defiance of a direction to 
 wait at Macao for a pass. He was told that the Hong merchants were tlie 
 party through whom communications like his were to be forwarded ; as only 
 memorials and petitions were received through the channel that he liad at- 
 tempted : and two Hong merchants, bearing credentials, waited upon him, to ^y<'f 
 hear what he had to say. Lord Napier, however, dismissed them courteously, 
 insisted on seeing the Viceroy, or writing to him ; and at last, in order to get 
 a letter into his hands, wrote upon it the word "pin," or "petition." It does 
 not seem to have occurred to him that jnovincial authorities had no jiower to 
 alter in his favour the established forms of the government: and he regarded 
 as a personal insult every impediment to the transaction of his business. 
 
 It was at this stage that he took offence at the writing of liis name — " la- 
 boriously vile," as he was assured it meant. His letter did not succeed. 
 Next, he had an interview with three eminent mandarins of the province ; but 
 he hurt their feelings by insisting on their chairs of ceremony being jihiet^d 
 according to his ideas, and not according to custom : .so they referred him 
 back to the Hong merchants. He refused to see them. He was ordered 
 
 ostminster Rr- 
 1840, p. 282.
 
 486 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book VI. 
 
 1834 — 44. down the river. Instead of going, he summoned two men-of-war into the 
 
 " "^"^ river. The alarmed and pcri)lexed authorities declared trade suspended ; and 
 
 Lord Napier replied hy a proclamation to the Chinese merchants, in which he 
 complained of the ignorance and obstinacy of the Viceroy. It was not 
 possible for the Chinese to bear this : and, as Lord Napier would not depart as 
 desired, he was dislodged by such methods as the inhabitants could command : 
 they placed a guard round his residence, who kept away his native servants, 
 Annual RcBister, ^■^^^[ ,,vevented the carrying in of provisions. — Meantime, the two frigates were 
 
 1840. p. 243. 1 J ^ i ,,. ,-. 
 
 working their way up the river, tired upon from the batteries on shore, losing 
 two or three men, but doing more damage than they received, till the anxious 
 authorities, still awaiting instructions from government, offered to let trade 
 proceed if Lord Najner would withdraw to Macao. He had also written to 
 his own government for instructions : but it would be so long before he could 
 receive an answer, his situation was so embarrassing, his nerves were so fretted 
 with anxiety, and his frame so fevered with heat and incessant worry, that he 
 
 Napier*"^ ^''"'' Sank Under his sufferings. Though siuTOunded by his family, and supplied 
 with excellent medical assistance, he died shortly after his return to Macao. — 
 
 Westminster Re- Xlic Diore moumful this death, the more evident is the iustice of the Chinese 
 
 view, 1840, p. 283- . i . , . mi /-<i ■ • i • i 
 
 Viceroy's argument in his proclamation : " The Chinese nation has its laws. 
 It is so eveiywhere. England has its laws ; and how much more so the Ce- 
 lestial Empire ! The said foreign minister having crossed a sea of many 
 thousand miles to inquire into, and take the superintendence of, commercial 
 affairs, ought to be a person acquainted with the principles of government, 
 and with the forms essential to its dignity." Acquaintance with the language 
 ought to be added. Not only did Lord Napier bitterly complain of the terms 
 "barbarian" and " barbarian eye" being applied to him, but it was urged 
 upon Lord Palmerston from other quarters to insist on the omission of such 
 terms from all future instruments of negotiation : whereas, it turns out that 
 Westminster Re- 110 ofFciice wliatcvcr Hes ill the terms — the true translation of" barbarian eye" 
 Irn!' '"''" ' being " Head of the southern people" — or " Foreigners from the south." The 
 Chinese may need improvement in their geography; but they so far under- 
 stand courtesy as to use the proverb—" He that spits dirt first defiles his own 
 mouth." 
 
 The Viceroy, meantime, requested the British to appoint a commercial 
 superintendent, who should control the smuggling of opium. The practice 
 had now become too open and extended to escape the attention of the govern- 
 ment at Pekin — nearly forty opium vessels being then anchored at Lintiu. 
 The Chinese official at the same time expressed a desire that a commercial 
 chief should be sent out from England, who should not be a King's officer. 
 No notice was taken of these demands — the hope being that the Chinese would 
 in time be driven by embarrassment to admit the agency of political officials. 
 1835. After January, 1835, matters went on smoothly for two years, owing to the good 
 
 Political Re- scusc of Sir Georgc B. Robiusoii, thcii Chief Superintendent, in consequence 
 LAT^o.vs .N ABE.- ^jf ^Yie death of Lord Napier, and Mr. Davis's return to England. Captain 
 Elliot, R. N., who had been secretary to the commission, was now a super- 
 intendent. Sir G. B. Robinson sent home agreeable accounts of " a quiet and 
 prosperous routine of trade," owing to his pursuing " a perfectly quiescent line 
 of policy." He wrote these words on the 16th of October, 1835 ; and we find
 
 Ciivp. III.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 481 
 
 liim declaiing, move tlian tliiiteen months afterwards, on the 28th of November, 1834_44 
 
 1S36, that he has received no despatches " conveying his Lordship's sentiments • -' 
 
 or instructions relative to the quiescent course of policy he had deemed it his **p^^','""^ '*<"• 
 duty to persevere in;" — this quiescent policy not meaning idleness on his own 
 part, as he was all the while performing duties " of a consular nature." lie had 
 not now to wait long for an answer. His salary of £6000 a year was not to 
 be paid for quiescence ; and we find him, on the 14th of December, acknow- 
 ledging the arrival of an intimation that his office was abolished. Yet, Lord 
 Palmerstou wrote, within five weeks before, to C^aptain Elliot, that a deputy 
 superintendent had been appointed " to act as assistant to the Chief Super- 
 intendent ;" and Captain ElUot immediately assumed the title laid down by 
 Sir G. B. Robinson. The inevitable impression on the minds of observers was, 
 that the " quiescent " agent was dismissed to make room for one who ^^•ould 
 make more noise in the Chinese seas. 
 
 In 1838, the opium smuggling had reached such a pass, tliat the govern- ohum pro. 
 ment at Pekin evinced an intention of abolishing the traffic at last. Our own '""""'' 
 government had been repeatedly advised of the growing danger by CJajitain j^x""""' .',','y'""' 
 Elliot, who, in November, 1837, foretold that the authorities would be driven 1837. 
 to some violent measures, from the injui-ious audacity of Europeans,who actually 
 carried opium up the Canton river in their own boats. He advised that a special 
 commissioner should be sent out to Chusan, or some other eastern port of 
 China, to settle this bad business in a fresh scene, at a distance from the em- 
 barrassments which now attended all negotiations at Canton. The govern- 
 ment declined taking any steps of the kind. 
 
 Captain Elliot's position was now as difficult as could well be conceived ; 
 and in judging of his conduct of affivirs, it should ever be borne in mind that 
 he was left cruelly destitute of guidance from home. Some of the gravest spectator, i8io, 
 letters he wrote, the most pressing and anxious, were received m Downing- N-tciiuiiNrp. at 
 street on the 17th of July; yet Lord Palmerston sent no reply whatever till """'^• 
 the 2nd of November. Among the items of information thus treated was one 
 of the last importance; that a high official had sent a memorial to the Emperor 
 at Pekin, advising that the sale of opium should be legalized, under a duty of 
 seven dollars per chest. The banishment of this adviser to Tartary was an 
 indication of vigorous resolution to put down the sale of opium, which should 
 have roused our government to immediate activity in stopping the illicit trade, 
 instead of waiting nearly four months without even answering Captain Elliot's 
 letters. The answers at last conveyed no instructions or guidance to the 
 anxious superintendent ; and seven months more passed before Lord Palmer- 
 ston wrote again ; — the date of the next despatch from Downing-street being the 
 loth of June, 1838. At last, some decision had been come to by the govern- 1838. 
 ment : and it was one very embarrassing to Captain Elliot, from being so long 
 delayed. The government resolved, very properly, to leave the oi)ium-smug- 
 glers to meet the consequences of their ventures, in the loss of their property, 
 if the Chinese government chose to decree its forfeiture. If this had been 
 made known at the proper time, neither the merchants nor the superintendent 
 -would have had any cause of complaint. 
 
 Before the end of the year, a seizure of o])iam, tlie jjropcrtv of a British 
 
 ■^ 11 I'll It* W\ttMNr.STO 
 
 trader, was made at Canton ; and the man, and llie slnj) that orougut his smiuolkh-.
 
 488 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 [Book VI. 
 
 Annual Uopistor, 
 1840, p. 2)-). 
 
 1839. 
 
 Commissioner 
 Lin. 
 
 1834 44. mcichandise, were ordered out of the river. Yet more, the Ilong merchant 
 
 Avho secured the ship and cargo was punished with the severe punishment 
 of the Wooden Collar, though he had nothing whatever to do with the oifence. 
 The decision of the question was evidently coming on. 
 
 In January, 1839, proclamation was made in Canton of the approach of the 
 Imperial C^ommissioner Lin, whose business was to abolish the opium traffic, 
 and who came furnished witli summary powers for the purpose. Just before 
 the great man appeared, a native opium-smuggler was brought into the square 
 before the foreign factories, and publicly strangled, amidst much pomp of 
 military array. — As soon as he arrived. Commissioner Lin issued his edict, 
 requiring the foreigners to deliver up to him all the opium on the coast, in 
 order to its being destroyed by burning : that a bond should be entered into 
 that ships should bring no more opium : and that if any were brought after 
 this, it should be forfeited, and the bringers put to death without controversy. 
 The edict intimated that the foreigners had every thing to hope if they obeyed, 
 and every thing to fear if they were negligent or hostile. At the same time, 
 Lin required the presence before his tribunal of Mr. Dent, one of the most 
 respectable of the English merchants ; and to this Captain Elliot consented, 
 on condition that Mr. Dent should be permitted to remain by his side, and not 
 taken out of his sight for a moment. On the same night the factories were 
 blockaded by boats on the river, and soldiery in front and rear : the servants 
 were called out, and provisions prevented from going in. Captain Elliot saw 
 no alternative but delivering up all the opium on the coast of China : he 
 issued an order which summoned all the ships below the Boca Tigris, where 
 20,283 chests of opium were landed, and delivered over to the Chinese autho- 
 rities. When the transfer was completed, and not before, the blockade was 
 broken up, and the foreigners set free. Sixteen only were detained at the 
 factories ; and after a time they were pemiitted to depart, under an injunction 
 never to return. Captain Elliot wrote urgently to the Governor-General of 
 India, Lord Auckland, in complaint — a complaint which sounds rather 
 strangely to those who understand the nature of the traffic, and the warnings 
 so amply furnished to the traffickers — of that " course of violence and spolia- 
 tion which had broken up the foundations of this great trade, as far as Canton 
 is concerned, perhaps for ever :" and he requested as many ships of war and 
 anned vessels for the defence of life and property, as could be spared from 
 India. 
 
 This seems to have been the last point at which a turn might have been 
 made towards the right, and peace have been preserved by an act of simple 
 
 Hansard, ixxi. 273. intpgjity^ T}jg home government had declared " her Majesty's government 
 cannot interfere for the purpose of enabling British subjects to violate the 
 laws of the country to which they trade. Any loss, therefore, which such 
 persons may suffer in consequence of the more effectual execution of the 
 Chinese laws on this subject, must be borne by the parties who have brought 
 that loss on themselves by their own acts." This is clear enough ; and it can 
 never be too deeply lamented that Captain Elliot departed from the whole 
 spirit and purpose of these, his latest instructions, by identifying himself and 
 the imperial authority which he held with the opium smuggling, on suppressing 
 which the Chinese government had now staked its power and its character. 
 
 Annual Register, 
 lS4n, 247.
 
 C iiAP. III.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 489 
 
 If he could not help doing this — if he was pledged by any former acts to stand 1834 — 44. 
 
 by the smugglers — the en-or is only set back to an earlier date. The thing ~ — --^ ' 
 
 was now done : Captain Elliot was pledged on behalf of the vicious trade, 
 and had sent to India for as many vessels of war as could be spared. 
 
 From this time, there was no more peace. From August 1839, there were 
 affrays between our sailors and the villagers on the coasts ; thwarting and 
 misunderstandings between the Chinese authorities and British officers ; a 
 cutting-off of provisions, and prohibition to trade. Captain Elliot petitioned 
 Commissioner Lin for the restoration of trade, in accordance with the laws of 
 both countries, till he could receive tidings from home : but his petition was 
 contemptuously rejected. Commissioner Lin declared that no intercourse 
 should take place between the two nations till the British sailor who had 
 killed a Chinaman in a fray should be given up. However, the authorities 
 relented so far as to permit trading to go on below the Boca Tigi-is; and 
 vessels might even have gone up to Canton if the captains would have signed a 
 bond agreeing that any introducer of Opium should be punished according to 
 the laws of China. In Captain Elliot's eyes, such a concession was wholly 
 out of the question, as signing the bond was, in fact, giving over English 
 opium smugglers to capital punishment at the discretion of the mandarins, 
 whoso strictness about evideuce might not equal our own. A Mr. Warner, .\nnuai nops\<T, 
 
 1 K 10 D 24^ 
 
 master of the ship " Thomas Coutts," did, however, sign this bond, without 
 consulting any body, greatly to the annoyance of the superintendent and the 
 British merchants. Commissioner Lin was delighted with him, and forthwith 
 insisted that all British vessels should enter as the " Thomas Coutts" had 
 done, or depart within three days. The Biitish believed they saw signs of the 
 Chinese intending to attack their ships ; and of course they prepared for battle. 
 The Chinese war-junks anchored near the British ships on the 3rd of November, 
 and the English were required to deliver up the offender who had been so 
 often demanded. In reply, the British vessels poured a destructive fire into 
 those of the enemy; and the war was begun. The poor unaccustomed 
 Chinese suffered terribly, and were presently disabled ; but they rallied their 
 spirits when they saw the foreign ships retreating to Macao, and supjioscd 
 that the enemy was as wretched as themselves; whereas the retreat to :Macao 
 was merely for the protection of the merchants, and to aid the embarkation of 
 the British residents. 
 
 By the next June, an imposing array of British men of war, with attendant 
 steamers and transports, was seen off the coasts of China; and the injured 
 Chinese were doomed. They made what efforts they could to get rid of the 
 encroaching and insolent strangers, who had violated their laws, to make profit 
 of the intemperance of their people. It is said that they poisoned a boat-load 
 of tea, for the use of the British sailors, but that it missed its way, being 
 taken by pirates, so that the wrong party suffered by the device. Itiscertaui 
 that they made many attempts to burn our ships by fire-rafts ; and that, ni 
 their simplicity, they advertised rewards to persons wlio should capture 
 Englishmen (warning them to be particularly careful not to take Portuguese or 
 others), and no less a sum than 20,000 dollars to any one who shouUl secure 
 one of our men of war, carrying not less than 80 great guns, and deliver it to 
 the mandarins. With all this simplicity about war, its horrors were never 
 
 vol.. 11. '^ "
 
 490 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book VI. 
 
 1834—44. met or endured by braver men. About this, the testimony is absolutely uni- 
 ~— — — -^ versal. The most perverse of our countrymen who defend this war at home 
 or on the spot — who call it "a just, necessary, and honourable war," who are 
 not afraid to pray for the aid of Heaven against those whom we have op- 
 pressed, or to return thanks for victory, or who profess to regard the affair in a 
 missionary light, and talk of bringing the Chinese to the knowledge and love 
 of that Christianity which we have so disgraced in their eyes — all agree that 
 a nobler courage and constancy were never manifested than by the Chinese 
 M ho fell in the iield, or before their little forts, or on the threshold of their 
 homes, which they had thought safe from invasion for ever, because their own 
 policy was one of peace. British officers might laugh when they saw paste- 
 board defences, pasteboard men and wooden cannon mixed in among the 
 troops, to make a show and terrify the foreigners ; and British sailors, little 
 knowing the mental torture they were inflicting, might jokingly secure their 
 • prisoners by tying them together in sixes by their tails : but there was no man, 
 we are told, from the highest officer to the lowest subordinate, who was not 
 touched by the spectacles of devotedness that he saw when citizens cut the 
 throats of wife and children, and then their own, rather than yield to the 
 terrible foreigners : and when officers in the field sought death with des- 
 peration when all chance of victory was over. They no doubt agreed with 
 Annual iiogistev, tlio sayiug of their Emperor, " It is no longer possible to bear with the English. 
 " '"'■ ' Gods and men are indignant at their conduct:" and when they found these 
 hated strangers victorious, they could no longer endure life. As they heard, 
 after tlie first British conquest, that the enemy had pushed their opium trade 
 vigorously, selling 400 chests at very high prices, they might agree with their 
 Emperor's public declaration that it was worth every effort in war and watch- 
 fulness, to prevent the ingress of that depraving religion called Christianity. 
 They could hardly hold any other view when the only Christians they knew 
 were the opium smugglers, and the officials who conducted war in their 
 defence. They fought, indeed, with as hearty a hatred of the invaders as ever 
 the Saxons felt towards the Normans of old, or the Mexicans against the 
 army of the United States in our day ; and no one can deny that they had 
 cause. 
 1840. The narrative of the war may be briefly given. The first conquest was of 
 
 the island of Chusan, which lies about midway on the east coast of China 
 Proper. The Chinese admiral, who was also governor of the group of CJiusau 
 islands, was startled by the appearance of a British fleet on the 4th of July, 
 1840, when he was wholly unprepared for resistance. He went on board the 
 Wellesley, with two mandarins, when he admitted his weakness, and endea- 
 voured, by various devices, to gain time : but he well understood, when he left 
 the ship, that if he was not prepared to yield up the island by day-break, it 
 would be taken from him. In the morning, however, a great array of troops 
 was seen, on the shore, in and about the chief city of the island, and in the 
 war-junks which had been brought up. Fighting went on all day, and up to 
 midnight, with little or no damage to the invaders. During the night, the 
 British placed ten guns vrithin 400 yards of the city. At day-break, the flags 
 were flying from the walls as before ; but all was quiet within. Only a few 
 unarmed Chinamen were left, who held up a placard on the walls — " Save us 
 
 Cmlsan taken.
 
 Chap. III.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 49I 
 
 for the sake of our wives and children." The British flag was hoisted ; and 1834—44. 
 news of this, our first conquest, was despatched to India and home. It was a 
 disastrous conquest for us. The troops drank largely of spirit made from rice • 
 the salt provisions from India Mere bad, and scarcely any fresh could be 
 obtained. The men were mutinous and sick ; and fever so prevailed as to 
 obtain for Chusan the name of our Eastern Walchcren. In a very shoi t 
 time, of above 3,600 soldiers left in Chusan, more than a third were unfit for 
 duty. 
 
 On the 9th of August, Admiral Elliot, who had sailed northwards with a An 
 
 \DMII1AL 
 
 part of the squadron, arrived in the bay into which the Peho (or river of PekinJ '='•"'"'''*''""'■ 
 
 flows. Captain Elliot, who accompanied the Admiral, went up the river with 
 
 armed boats, and obtained an interview with the third man in the empire, 
 
 Keshen, who was appointed by the Emperor to negotiate. The Emperor first 
 
 obtained delay — during which the ships laid in supplies of provisions and 
 
 water — and then, by some unaccountable means, induced the Admiral to 
 
 transfer the negotiations once more to Canton. The error of leavin<j- the 
 
 .... ~ 
 
 vicinity of the capital, to go and treat in that distant spot where negotiation 
 
 had always hitherto been in vain, was severely blamed at home. The matter 
 was not, however, to be again discussed with Commissioner Lin. He was 
 disgraced, and Keshen sent to occupy his post. Admiral Elliot threw up his 
 appointment on the ground of illness. 
 
 Keshen's policy was delay. He protracted the negotiations in order to ])ro- commissionge 
 vide defences for the Canton river so far superior to any yet encountered by 
 our troops as to prove that even the Chinese could become warlike by practice 
 and experience. When Captain Elliot was worn out by delay, he turned the 
 affair over to Commodore Sir Gordon Bremer, who had no notion of waitinji 
 any longer. He opened his fire upon the forts from the river, on the 
 7th of January, 1841, and took two of them. A flag of truce, and promises of 1841. 
 greater speed arrived the next morning; and on the 20th, the superintendent 
 issued a Circular announcing the settlement of the preliminaries of a treaty. 
 The treaty contained no mention whatever of the Opium traffic, the sole occa- Annual Register, 
 siou of the war ; and it was otherwise so unsatisfactory that the ^linistors scutcation. 
 announced in Parliament, on its arrival, that it was to be disallowed ; that Hanwrd.ivii 1191. 
 Captain Elliot was recalled : and that Sir Henry Pottlnger was going out to 
 assume his office. Meantime, Sir Gordon Bremer, never doubting the fulfil- 
 ment of the treaty, sent orders to the British in Chusan to evacuate the island ; 
 and he took possession, in the name of the Queen, of the island of Hong-Kong, 
 off the mouth of the Canton river — this island being given to us by the treaty. 
 On the lOtli of February, the war was renewed by a shot being fired from one 
 of the islands at a British boat. Our vessels and troops went up the river w,nK,»L. 
 again on the 2Cth, and carried all before them — knocking 'over the forts, 
 killing several eminent men among the foe, and taking many hundreds of pri- 
 soners. By the beginning of March, Keshen had been degraded, and when, 
 on the 5th, the British ships were visible from the walls of Canton, there was 
 no dignitary in the city who was empowered to treat with us. The naval and 
 military commanders would have proceeded to take every tiling into their own 
 hands ; but Captain Elliot requested tliem to wait till it should appear how 
 the provincial authorities were disposed. Sir Le Fleming Senhouse, who had
 
 492 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book VI. 
 
 1834_44. led the Avay in the late attacks, chafed under this delay ; and Sir Gordon 
 
 ' ]3remer wrote home his fears that the lenity would be misunderstood. Attacks 
 
 and retaliation were renewed ; and before the end of the month, the Chinese 
 flotilla was destroyed, and the Union Jack was flying from the walls of the 
 British Factory at Canton. It then appeared that Keshen had been waiting 
 for the sanction of the treaty by the Imperial government, and that his govern- 
 ment liked the terms no better than ours did. The Emperor rejected the 
 treaty, and resolved on war. Sir Gordon Bremer immediately started for 
 Calcutta, to obtain reinforcements; and Admiral Senhouse assumed the 
 command in China. 
 
 The next movement was an attack by the British, no otherwise provoked 
 than by the spectacle of increasing arrivals of Tartar troops at Canton during 
 six weeks of truce and partial trading. This attack took place on the 24th of 
 May. In two days, Canton was all but taken. It lay completely in the power 
 of the British, and Sir Hugh Gough, and Admiral Senhouse, who accompanied 
 him into the field, were in high hope of presently announcing the capture of 
 the city, when the superintendent again interfered, and desired them to wait 
 while another treaty was negotiated. Sir H. Gough never concealed his mortifi- 
 DEATii or admi- cation ; and Sir I^e Fleming Senhouse retired to his ship fevered with disap- 
 TnDurReKL'ter pointuient, and died heart-broken on the 14th of June. — Four days after this 
 i«ii,chron. 2oy. j^iournful death. Sir Gordon Bremer returned; and he was announced to the 
 c APT. Elliot Cliincse as joint-commissioncr with Captain Elliot. But their task was taken 
 out of their hands by the arrival of Sir Henry Pottinger, on the 9th of August 
 — presently after which the displaced superintendent sailed for Bombay. 
 siB H.PoTTiNGEii. Sir Henry Pottinger made a spirited announcement of his intention of clos- 
 ing the war at once, regardless of all mercantile and^ other retarding consi- 
 derations, and devoting himself to compel the Chinese to conclude a peace 
 honourable to England. No time, indeed, was lost. Before the end of the 
 month, the city of Amoy was taken, and a garrison was left in an island in the 
 harbour. When the mandarin who was second in command saw that all was 
 over, he rushed into the sea, and drowned himself; and another cut his throat 
 Annual Register, upon the field. — Early in September, Chusan and its city were again taken, 
 though they were now much better defended than formerly. The large city of 
 Capture of Ningpo, fifteen milcs inland, fell vmdefended into the hands of the invaders ; 
 and wherever the British now appeared, little or no resistance was made. — 
 An interval of some months, however, revived the courage of the inhabitants ; 
 and in March, a great body of Chinese came over the walls of Ningpo early in 
 the morning, to recover the place. The British saw them, and took no notice 
 till the market-place was full of them, when our troojjs brought up some guns, 
 and made such slaughter, that 250 bodies were left upon the place. There is 
 little record of any loss on our part, though the despatches tell here and there 
 of " severe loss," " a heavy fire," and so on. We re.ad of battles and sieges 
 with a loss, in one place of fifteen lives, in another of two, in another of none ; 
 only " a few casualties from the arrows of the Chinese." 
 1842. Month after month passed away, and Sir H. Pottinger had not compelled a 
 
 peace, though the forces took cities, and destroyed barracks, magazines, and 
 fortifications, wherever they chose to turn. The appearance of the troops be- 
 fore Nankin settled matters at last, in the summer of 1842. It was the 26th
 
 Chap. III.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 493 
 
 of August, more than a )"ear after Sir H. Pottinger's anival, when the treaty 1834 44. 
 
 of peace was finally concluded on between three Chinese and the British Com- ^-^ ' 
 
 missioner. 
 
 By this treaty, the British were authorized to trade freely at four ports be- tfikatvok peace. 
 sides Canton, and to establish consuls there. The island of Hong-Kong was f»"°"p. 27?.'""' 
 ceded to them ; and they were to hold Chusan and another island till all the 
 conditions of the treaty were fultillcd. Correspondence between officials of 
 the two governments was henceforth to be conducted on equal tenns. The 
 Chinese M'ere to pay to the British the sumof 21,000,000of dollars(£4,375,000j 
 by instalments, in addition to 6,000,000 (£1,250,000) already paid by the 
 authorities at Canton as compensation for the opium destroyed. The instal- 
 ments of Chinese silver continued to arrive in England, at intervals, till all 
 was paid ; and thoughtless people in the roads and streets walked beside the 
 heavy waggons with complacency ; and others, present at the opening of the 
 chests, looked at the curious coin with amusement and pride. They were led 
 into this by members of the government and of parliament, who called this "a 
 just, and necessary, and honourable war," and by the common rini of news- 
 papers, which detailed every fault in the circumstances and civilization of the 
 Chinese, as if we were called as missionaries or liberators to set things right ; 
 or imputed bad motives to the Emperor in interdicting opium ; or applied 
 droll epithets to the Chinese in contempt, and offered literal translations of 
 documents which would not bear a literal translation from even any European 
 language ; or related how it took several hours to convey to an educated 
 Chinese the meaning of three linos and a half of an English newspaper — not 
 perceiving the inference that we had probably been misunderstanding the 
 Chinese as thoroughly as they were incapable of understanding us. Insolence 
 and folly like this are very excusable in the ordinary run of untravelled 
 English who met the waggons of treasure from China — who conceive of 
 nothing beyond England, and have not any living idea of difference of race, 
 and of mental and political constitution. The disgrace of the levity and 
 insolence rests with the members of parliament, the popular orators, and the 
 editors of newspapers, who, if they spoke at all, should have sjioken with a 
 better knowledge, and more sense of justice and generosity. They should have • 
 asked themselves first, under a knowledge of the facts, whether, if they could 
 suppose the English to be right in this quarrel, they could venture to pro- 
 nounce the Chinese wrong. 
 
 It cannot be without much pain and sorrow that, in a History of the Thirty 
 Years' Peace, the narrative can be offered of this Chinese war. It is impossible 
 not to see the insolence of the very term ; for, if the Chinese had not been too 
 pacific and helpless to withstand our injuries, we should not have had thirty 
 years of peace even to talk about. It is a yet more serious consideration, that 
 if we had not involved ourselves in wrong, we .'should not have been under the 
 temptation of shirking the name of war, calling it " operations in Cliiua," when 
 we went into the reality. Whichever way we look at this aff"air, there is no 
 comfort — at least for those who cannot be comforted with dollars, or pride in 
 our warlike resources and experience. Wc arc hated in China, not only as 
 their conquerors, but for our forcing upon their society the contraband drug 
 which they would have kept out of the reach of the intemperate of their people
 
 494 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 [Book VI. 
 
 1834—44. 
 
 1843. 
 
 Arrival of 
 Tkeasure. 
 
 Annual Register, 
 1843. Chron. 23. 
 
 Chinesb Phe- 
 
 SENTS. 
 
 Annual Register, 
 1843. Chroa 63. 
 
 PAHLIAMENTAnV 
 
 Vote of thanks. 
 Hansard, Ixxxvi. 
 536, 570. 
 
 1844. 
 
 Governor- 
 General SENT. 
 
 Opium Compen- 
 sation. 
 
 Spectator, 1843, 
 p. 639. 
 
 — by means which we may lavigh at, but which they had a right to adopt. It 
 is an humbling- story ; and the wonder to a future generation will be, how we 
 bear the shame of it so easily as we do. 
 
 It was on the 3rd of March, 1843, that the first instalment of the Chinese 
 treasure arrived at the Mint;— an amount of £1,000,000 sterling, conveyed in 
 five waggons, and escorted by soldiers. By the bursting of one of the boxes, it 
 was seen that the silver pieces were like the half of an egg ; and the spectacle 
 so exhilarated the spirits of the " immense crowd" that followed the waggons, 
 that they gave three cheers, after the gates of the Mint were closed. — In May 
 an-ived the presents which the grieving Emperor of China sent to the victo- 
 rious Queen of England; a golden bedstead, ear-tU-ops worth £1000 each; a 
 shawl, on which was wrought in needlework (as if it were a sail for Noah's 
 Ark) everj' kind of beast known to the Chinese ; some rare silks, jewellery, 
 and much besides. — It was in the session of this year that parliament voted 
 thanks, and government appropriated honours, to the officers and men employed 
 in " the late operations" in China, by whose valour and skill " a series of 
 brilliant and imvaricd successes" was given to England to boast of It was 
 too like praising the skill and valour of a soldier in assaulting a quaker, even 
 though the resolutions were moved by the Duke of Wellington in the one 
 House, and the high-spirited Lord Stanley in the other. — The next year, 1844, 
 a Governor-General over our acquisitions in China was appointed ; and the 
 choice of the Ministers settled on Mr., now Sir John Davis, who arrived at 
 Hong-Kong, the seat of his government, on the 7th of May. In the course 
 of the summer, Sir Henry Pottinger, who made the treaty, sailed for England. 
 
 The question of compensation to the Opium traders long remained a diffi- 
 culty. The growers of the opium were chiefly the East India Company, mIio 
 hold the monopoly in India, among their territorial privileges. They had sold 
 it to the Canton merchants ; and their being paid depended on these merchants 
 being compensated by government for the loss of their 20,000 chests of opium. 
 The Governor-General of India was earnest with government to pay the 
 merchants ; and Sir Henry Pottinger officially published his intention of 
 lu-ging their " claims" upon government. " Claims" was certainly the right 
 word, after government had identified itself with the contraband interest in 
 the Chinese war ; but the disgi-ace of countenancing the smugglers, after 
 Lord Palmerston's declaration that they must take the consequences of 
 having violated the laws of China, is one which any Ministry might shrink 
 from encountering. The government, by the mouth of Sir R. Peel, pro- 
 nounced in favoiu- of adhering to Lord Palmerston's declaration of 183S, so 
 far as to take its own method of deciding how much it would pay, while the 
 owners pleaded that their representatives at Canton gave up the opium to 
 Captain Elliot, on his requisition "for her Majesty's service," and on his 
 express pledge that they should be repaid the " value" of it ; an expression 
 which he at the time explained to mean the " invoice price." The claim of 
 the merchants was eventually for the invoice price, with charges for interest 
 and other specified matters of ITJ per cent. The government would not hear 
 of this, but had difficulty in naming the amount for itself Once it oflered to 
 divide among the merchants the 6,000,000 of dollars paid under the treaty as 
 Opium compensation ; but the claimants spurned it. The issue was, that
 
 Chap. III.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 495 
 
 "whereas, taking the price of opium at the lowest (lunn<T the sca.'ion of the 1834 — i4. 
 
 seizure, the value of the 20,000 chests was £2,042,000, the government ^"^^- ' 
 
 offered and paid out of the Consohdatcd Fund less than £1,250,000. The 
 House of Commons assented, and took its share of the discrcditahle course of Hansard,iixi.29G. 
 action of the government in first admitting the liability of government after 
 Captain Elliot's pledge — then offering little more than half the value of the 
 article surrendered — and demanding from the owners an immediate acquit- 
 tance in full as a condition of receiving any thing at all. 
 
 Some troubles had occurred in the intercourse of the Chinese and British 
 before Sir Henry Pottinger left China : but his tone, on his return to Enffland, **'" henry Pot- 
 
 •J <J ' ... TiNGEtt o.\ China. 
 
 was one of strong hope and confidence. In the manufacturing districts and 
 elsewhere, public dinners in his honour gave him the opportunity of declaring 
 his views. He bore the most emphatic testimony to the high qualities of the 
 Chinese, some of whose statesmen could not be surpassed by any in the world. 
 He plainly told the English that they knew nothing about the Chinese, and 
 were never more wrong than in despising them, or in being careless about 
 violating their customs and hurting their feelings. He trusted that perfect 
 freedom of trade was provided for in that region, if only the British would 
 act with propriety and intelligent consideration. Sir Henry Pottinger was 
 just and generous ; but he was over sanguine in his expectations ; as was 
 natural enough in a man of his temperament, who had just succeeded in his 
 aims. Our troubles with China are not over. They are thickening at this 
 day ; and a future generation may learn how much of the virtue of Free trade 
 itself may be lost when it is introduced through a process of -NVTong and 
 violence, under whatever name.
 
 495. HISTORY OF ENGLAND URook VI. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 1837 — 4(3. A MONG the difficulties to which Sir Robert Peel's government succeeded, 
 ' -^— ' -^^ none was more conspicuous in the eyes of the world than our atFairs in 
 
 India. India. It was not that misfortunes had happened, such as must be looked 
 
 for, from time to time, in all dependencies ; — a scarcity in one region — a case 
 of disputed succession in another — a discontented border neighbour else- 
 where : — there was quite enough of this kind of difficulty. But a far more 
 important embarrassment was that, under their own Governor-General, Lord 
 Auckland, and by his guidance, the Melbourne Administration had involved 
 themselves in a course of policy which, at the time of Sir R. Peel's accession 
 to the premiership, was actually swamped by disaster. 
 
 In 1837, many troubles occupied the attention of the Governor-General of 
 India. In the hot plains which stretch south of the Himalayas, and through 
 
 Famine. wliich the great rivers take their course, famine prevailed to such a degree 
 
 that — to use the most forcible illustration offered at the time — the British 
 residents at Agra and Cawnpoor were compelled to forego their evening drive, 
 from the air being poisoned with the smell of unburied corpses. The famine 
 was occasioned by drought, and it was followed by diseases as ravaging as 
 itself; — by cholera and small-pox, which swept away thousands whom hunger 
 
 ocnp. had spared. — There was insurrection and fighting in Oude, about the succes- 
 
 sion to the throne : and the British took charge of the defeated pretender — a 
 boy — and his grandmother, as prisoners, and imposed on the new sovereign 
 conditions of absolute obedience to the suggestions of the British govern- 
 
 nepaci.. ment. — The mountaineer population of Nepaul are never long quiet : and at 
 
 this time (1837) they showed themselves disposed to pick a quarrel with us, 
 and rendered it necessary to guard our north-east frontier, in preparation for 
 a rupture. — Further round to the east, a potentate whom we had supposed a 
 friend was showing himself hostile. The Burmese emperor, Tharawaddee, 
 
 '*"■ who had deposed and succeeded an insane brother, had been well thought of 
 
 till power came into his hands ; when he began to oppress his people, and 
 insult the British, and threaten prodigious things : moreover, he made such 
 preparations for assembling his barbaric rabble, and marching them to the 
 frontier, that we had to provide for the defence of that border too. — l)ut even 
 these interests were trifles in comparison with that which carries our view to 
 
 I'RovTi'irii.'''^ the north-west fi-ontiers of British India. 
 
 At this date our frontier was determined by the gi'eat sandy desert, extend- 
 ing from the jungles on the Gorra in the Hill States of Ghurwal to the sea. 
 Beyond this desert, to the north-west, lay the Punjaub, with its five great 
 rivers — of which Runjeet Singh was the sovereign. Beyond the Punjatib, 
 and west of it, lay the region, perhaps the most interesting in Asia, which 
 has, through all known time, served as the highway between eastern and
 
 Chap. IV.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 497 
 
 western Asia. This region lies south of Independent Tartaiy, which is some- 1837 — 40. 
 what too savage and inclement a region to serve as such a highway. Tlie ^— -v— i- — ' 
 region in question, now called Cauhool or Affghanistan, lies directly between affguanistan. 
 the Punjaub and Persia ; and all the great conquerors who have penetrated 
 to India from the Caspian, the Black Sea, or the Mediterranean, have done 
 so by crossing the plains and practicable mountain passes of Cauhool. There 
 is an ancient proverb that no one can be King of Hindostan without being 
 first lord of Cauhool. Alexander the Great went by those plains into India, 
 after taking Herat, at the foot of the mountains, near the borders of Persia. 
 Tamerlane conquered the region on his way to the Ganges : and so did Baber, 
 the founder of the Mogul dynasty, before setting up his empire at Delhi. It 
 was from Ghuznee, in that region, that the great enterprise of carrying the 
 Mohammedan religion into India was accomplished by Mahmoud, the founder 
 of the Mohammedan empire in India. There can be no question of the interest 
 and importance of this great district of Asia. The question is what we had 
 to do with it, and why we did not confine our Indian empire, at least while 
 the Punjaub was still quiet, within the natural frontier (as it had hitherto 
 been considered) of the Sandy Desert south-east of the Punjaub. To future 
 readers of history it will probably appear that in the precipitancy of fear, and 
 the confidence of ignorance, the British government rushed into vast imme- 
 diate peril and disaster, to avoid a far distant and exceedingly doubtful evil. 
 Forecast in territorial rule is all very well : but we have arrived at an age of 
 the world when forecast avails less than fonnerly, from the more general 
 diffusion of knowledge and prevalent excitement of the human mind : and it 
 is no longer governments that are capable of the wisest forecast. AVe have 
 had many broad hints of this within our own century ; and no rebuke of such 
 presumption, and of the policy of rushing into a quarrel to preserve future 
 peace, has been more emphatic than that conveyed in the results of Lord Auck- 
 land's Indian policy. 
 
 It has been mentioned that Russia had obtained a footing in Persia, as r'""""'"'^'"- 
 was shown by the emperor being appointed guardian of the succession to tlie 
 throne, though the arrangement was frustrated by an unexpected deatli. 
 When Mr. ElUs, our Envoy, arrived in Persia in 1835, he found the Russian 1835. 
 alliance more prized by the young Shah than the British, and that the 
 Emperor's influence was paramount, though it was by means of EIlgli!^Il 
 money, and the assistance of British officers, that the Shah was seated peace- 
 ably on the Persian throne. Such intelligence, arriN-ing in England when 
 the fashion of the time was to fear the power and craft of Russia, re\ivi'd tlie 
 old apprehension that Russia might, sooner or later, begin in earnest her work 
 of conquering Great Britain by getting possession of her Indian territories. 
 Once in close alliance with Persia, and excluding England from friendship 
 and influence there, the Emperor would find only Cauhool and the Punjaub 
 lying between his armies and our possessions.— The matter was made worse— 
 the case more alarming— by the tact that the Shah was at that time, 1835, 
 preparing to make war on the ruler of Herat, and thus to get a foot nig in the 
 ten-itory of Cauhool. In the opinion of the British envoy, there really was 
 eood cause for the expedition against Herat ; but the Ministers of the Shah 
 did not conceal from Mr. Ellis that they had no id... of stopping short at that »r,,-.N.or 
 
 3 s 
 
 VOT,. II.
 
 498 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book VI 
 
 1837 — 46. point, but intended to claim sovereignty for Persia over Ghuznee and Can- 
 daliar ; — that is, almost as far as the frontier of the Punjaub. — In our existing 
 treaty with Persia, bearing date from 1814, it was provided that Great Britain 
 should take no part whatever, unless as a mediator for peace-making pur- 
 poses, by request of both parties, in any war between Persia and Affghanistan. 
 This clause rendered it impossible for us to interfere on tlie present occasion ; 
 though the Russian ambassador to Persia evidently supposed that we should — 
 tlie desire of England being well known to be that the quarrels among the 
 rulers of Affghanistan should be healed, and the country made strong by the 
 concentration of its districts under one ruler. It seemed to be fear of British 
 interference with the claims of Persia over the great cities of Affghanistan 
 that made the Russian ambassador so eager for the reduction of Herat as to 
 offer his own military services in the expedition. 
 
 Mr. Ellis warned the Persian government of the extreme displeasure with 
 which Great Britain would regard any attempt of Persia over Aflghanistan, 
 beyond that of settling its quarrel at Herat ; and he proposed that that dispute 
 should be disposed of by negotiation, rather than by war. The Persian 
 Ministers appeared to agree to this at first, but soon evaded his offer to send a 
 British officer to Herat for the purpose of settling the affair ; Mr. Ellis daily 
 seeing the probability draw nearer of Russian Consular agents being esta- 
 blished in the great towns up to the very borders of the Punjaub. Under such 
 circumstances, Persia would no longer be an outwork for the defence of India, 
 as she had hitherto been considered, but rather must be watched as an advanced 
 post of the enemy. 
 
 There were endless quarrels among the rulers of different cities and dis- 
 tricts of the Caubool territory, whether of the same or different families. It 
 would merely confuse our narrative to go at length into these. It is sufficient 
 to say here that the ruler of Herat was the only prince in the country of the 
 race of the founder of the Affghan empire. The rulers of Caubool and Can- 
 dahar were usurpers ; and they were derived on one side of their house from 
 the Persians through the Kuzzilbashes — the tribe of descendants of the 
 Persian soldiers who were stationed in the mountains north of the city of 
 Caubool. There being thus some ground of alliance between these princes 
 and the Shah, Mr. Ellis was further alarmed by their offering to support the 
 Shah against the ruler of Herat, if he would aid them on the side of the 
 Punjaub, where they were in fear of the power of Runjeet Singh. A similar 
 application was made, at the same time, to the Court of Russia. It appeared 
 as if every thing was conspiring to bring Russia, Persia, and the rulers of 
 Affghanistan at once, in armed alliance, within a stone's cast of our Indian 
 fnmtier. It thus became all-important, in the view of the British officials at 
 the Persian Court, to secure the independence of Herat : and when temis of 
 reconciliation were offered by the ruler of Herat, the Shah was advised by 
 the British envoy to accept them, and warned that, if he did not, he would lie 
 under the suspicion, with the British government, of having ulterior objects 
 in his warlike preparations. He chose to proceed, however, and set out for 
 Herat at the end of July — the Russian government at St. Petersburg declaring 
 that this was against advice from Russia, which had counselled delay and 
 negotiation, in order to avoid war. Much of the mischief now brewing arose 
 
 RCLERS OF AFF. 
 l;HANIS'i AN.
 
 Chap. IV.] DURING THE THIRTY YE.\RS' PEACE. 499 
 
 from the impossibility of knowing what was true about the conduct of Russia. 1837— 4G. 
 
 While professions of peaceable counsel were made at St. Petersburg, British -' 
 
 officers in the interior of Asia were reporting of the appearance of Russian 
 agents, who made large promises of support against Herat, and oifered news 
 of a great Russian army on its march. There is no saying M-hat was true, 
 and what was not : but it is too plain that British officers forgot how strong our 
 forces would prove themselves on our own territory, and how much Russia 
 must go through before she could show herself there. A mere glance at the 
 map might have made them asliamed of tlieir panic ; and they must have 
 known much more than the map can tell of the difficulties of the march of an 
 army from Russia to the Desert below the Gorra ;— of the snows and the 
 sands, the heats and the frosts, the rocky defiles and the barren plains, 
 which a wearied army must pass, and know to be in tlieir rear, be- 
 fore they could get a sight of our territory and opposing forces. By sucli 
 panic on the part of British officers, it was decided to save Russia a large 
 part of these dangers, by plunging into them ourselves, in order to meet her 
 half way. 
 
 The ruler of Caubool, Dost Mohammed, in his fear of attack from the nmyisii agency 
 Punjaub, applied not only to Russia and Persia for help, but to the Governor- "' 
 General of India. Lord Auckland, in reply, sent Captain Burnes on a com- Annual Register, 
 mercial mission to Caubool, where he arrived in September, 1837, while the '"■'''•''• ^-•'' 
 Shah of Persia was slowly making his way from his own capital in the 
 direction of Herat. Before his arrival, a Persian agent had settled at Caiida- 
 liar ; and the Persian was for ever busy showing the AfFghan rulers how much 
 more advantageous the Russian and Persian alliance would be to them than 
 the British. Captain Burnes represented to his government that ho was 
 somewhat coolly treated; and in consequence, he was invested with political 
 attributes not at all contemplated in the first instance. From this moment. 
 Lord Auckland entered upon that course of supposed competition witli Russia 
 in the East which led to disasters greater than Russia could ever have infiicted 
 upon us, if we had remained quiet within our own frontier. The ensuing 
 months were spent in efforts of the Russian and British agents to outwit and 
 countermine each other at Caubool. It will be evident that here every thing 
 depended on the sincerity of Dost Mohammed and the judgment of Captain t'^'-N hi-km--.- 
 Burnes — about both of which different opinions existed at the time. Subse- 
 quent events have thrown light on the character of Captain Barnes's mind. 
 The goodness of his heart and of his purposes is not doubted ; but it appears 
 thathe was confident in pursuing a policy of over-caution, and credulous while 
 following up a track of suspicion. We do not know, and can never know, how 
 far his being possessed with a set of ideas coloured to liim tlie facts before his 
 eye$ ; nor do we know any thing of the worth of his authorities. Our confidence, 
 however, is not increased by the fact that he' was vehemently hated by the 
 chiefs. He acted much on reports of private interviews and conversations, as 
 well as written correspondence. Of course lie vouclied for the goodness of his 
 information : but he was equally confident on that last fixtal morning when ho 
 sat down to breakfast in his house at Caubool wliile his murderers were 
 o-athering in the street. He continued to send cominunications of a "startling 
 natin-o," and Lord Auckland continued to be startled, in apparent blindness
 
 500 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book VI. 
 
 1837 — 46. to the impracticability, or, to 6ay the least, the extreme wildness of the entcr- 
 
 --^-^^-— . — prises imputed to Russia. 
 
 heuat. Meantime, Herat held out, month after month, against 40,000 men and 80 
 
 pieces of cannon ; and its protracted defence was mainly owing to the skill of 
 
 Edinburgh Be. an Eughsh officer, Lieut. Pottinger, within the walls, in contravention of the 
 
 vicw,^ uy, 84 , g^jij ^£ lluissian officers who directed the siege without. The lapse of time 
 made the defence of Herat of more importance continually, as insults were 
 heaped upon the British more abundantly, and as it became more evident that 
 the independence of Aifghanistan depended on that of Herat, whose former 
 offence against the Shah was considered by our Envoys to be fully expiated 
 by repeated reasonable offers to treat. In the course of 1838, our envoy in 
 Persia had set out for the Turkish frontier on his way home, and five British 
 
 Annual ncgistcr, sliips of War wcrc in the Persian gulf, having landed troops in the island of 
 ^ II, p. d . Karrak : — the treaty between Candahar and Persia was made and signed, 
 under the superintendence of a Russian agent, and Captain Burnes had been 
 advised to leave Caubool. It was believed that Dost Mohammed and the 
 Russian agents were tampering with the rulers of Scinde, to induce them to 
 trouble British India through all its western provinces ; and it was feared that 
 news had spread up to the mountain tops of Nepaul and down the remotest 
 branches of the Ganges, that a great trial of power was taking place between 
 Russia and England at Herat, and would soon be witnessed in the British 
 Indian territories. It is a curious incident in the midst of these alarms, and 
 one which, as it appears, should have brought the alarmists to some reflection, 
 that Herat did not fall. The Persian army, backed by all the power of 
 Russia, as was said, could not take this one city, defended for ten months 
 under the direction of Lieutenant Pottinger. On the 9th of September, 1838, 
 the Shah broke up his camp, and set forth homewards, having gained no suc- 
 cesses, but lost many men, and wasted much treasure. At the same time, the 
 Russian government plainly denied, when called to account, having ever 
 di'canied of disturbing our eastern possessions ; declared that it had never 
 ceased to protest against the siege of Herat ; and that, when the Shah persisted 
 in that war, it had stipulated that Herat, if captured, should be annexed to 
 Candahar, that the integrity of Affghanistan might be preserved. Among 
 these contradictory accounts, it has never been settled what was really true — 
 whether the Russians moving about in Affghanistan were political adventurers 
 on their own account, as well as commercial government agents : whether the 
 British agents were justified in their suspicions, or were deceived — and whether 
 Russia was betrayed by her own servants, or foully attempted to betray us. 
 However this was, preparations were already making by the Indian govern- 
 ment for the invasion of Affghanistan : and, at the very time, Russia was re- 
 calling both her agents, sending to Persia an' envoy more acceptable to England, 
 and to Candahar an agent expressly charged to enter upon none but commer- 
 
 Noie, Deer. 20th, cial negotiations. With these arrangements, our Foreign Minister declared 
 himself abundantly satisfied : and it shows how intense and unreasonable was 
 the fear of Russia in some minds at that time, that for this our Foreign 
 Minister was actually believed by certain persons to be in the interest — even 
 in the pay — of Russia. To most, however, it was enough that Lord Durham 
 first, and Lord Clanricarde afterwards, at St. Petersburg, were satisfied with 
 
 Explanations of 
 Russia.
 
 Chap. IV.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 501 
 
 the declarations of Russia; and Lord Palmerston at home with the explana- 1S37 40. 
 
 tions of the Russian ambassador ; while the Russian agents in the East were " '^—^ 
 
 changed on our complaint ; and; above all, Herat was not taken. But our 
 Political Agents in India appear still to have been possessed of the idea which 
 led the British so far beyond their own frontier, and the ordinary range of their 
 concerns. 
 
 The most decided act of interference in affairs beyond the province of the i-"- aiiklaxu-s 
 
 -n • • 1 • ^ r-* r~i n i • /. i l)n-x,An\TloN ill* 
 
 British was in the (jrovernor-General s proclamation of the 11th of October, w^.. 
 
 10 1T11 1 -n IT*' *•! .■! t -r j^nnitil KcKistcr, 
 
 iooo, published to the Bengal division oi the army at Simla, on the Jumna, inaa, p. 33'j. 
 This Manifesto relates the particulars of our disagreement with Persia, exhibits 
 the unfriendly dealings of Dost ^Mohammed of Caubool towards our ally of the 
 Punjaub, Runjeet Singh, and his evident disinclination to have dealings with 
 the British ; and declares that, as there could be little hope of tranquillity for 
 our North-western provinces in such a state of things, it was detemiined to 
 depose the rulers of Caubool and Candahar, who were of an usurping race, 
 and to place Shah Soojah on the throne. It had often been said before this 
 time — and it has been earnestly repeated since — that the way to have jieace in 
 India is to send out soldiers, rather than civilians, to be Governors-General : 
 and certainly this declaration of war goes far to confirm the saying. It is 
 scarcely conceivable that a great military ruler could have done an act so rash 
 as Lord Auckland did in thus proclaiming war. He was no doubt wrought 
 upon by military advisers in a way that a military Governor-General would 
 not have been : he knew less than a soldier would have done what such a war 
 imports ; and no soldier could easily have proved himself less of a statesman 
 than the whole conception of this AiFghan war proved its responsible author. 
 
 In England, and half over India, people asked who was Shah Soojah I His ^''''^■"^'' 
 story was this. The descendants of Ahmed Shah, the founder of the Affghan 
 empire, were driven out of its eastern portion by means of an able minister of 
 one of them, who, being of another tribe, divided the governments of Caubool, 
 Peshawur, and Candahar, among his brothers, who left only Herat (as has 
 been said) to the old reigning fixmily. The Prince whose Minister thus en- 
 croached upon his power was called Mahmoud : and this ^Nlahmoud had him- 
 self deposed his half-brother, who reigned at Caubool. This half-brother was 
 Shah Soojah. Thus, Shah Soojah belonged to the original riding family: he siiaiis,huvu. 
 was deposed by Mahmoud, his half-brother: it was Mahnioud's Minister who 
 provided for- the expulsion of the family ; and it was one of this Minister's 
 fiimily, Uost Mohammed, who now ruled at Caubool, and whom Lord Aiick- d.^tMohammu.. 
 land had resolved to depose. It may be mentioned that the usurping family 
 had once set about restoring Shah Soojah to his throne, after his escape from 
 captivity in the Punjaub: but he offended them; and they transferred their 
 nominal favour to his brother Eyoob. But they in fact reigned witliout inter- 
 ruption—setting aside the claims of even the son of their eldest brother, who 
 died after seeing his fine province of Cashmere annexed to the Punjaub, and 
 Peshawur reduced to the condition of a vassal city ; and Balkli incorporated 
 with Bokhara; and the Ameers of Scinde declaring themselves independent. 
 Thus, the Affghan emjiire was much weakened at the time when Lord .Viick- 
 land declared war against it, for the sake of setting up in it a sovereign who 
 would keep the peaCe As-ith us. 
 
 The plan was that the British, Runjeet Singh, and Shah Soojah, should eo-
 
 SlIlF.MF. OF 
 
 Alliance. 
 
 SclNDfi. 
 
 502 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book VI. 
 
 1837 — 46. operate, for the objects of all three. The new AfFghan ruler was to enter upon 
 his dominion surrounded by his own troops, and supported by the British, who 
 should retire, and leave the country altogether when the restoration should be 
 fully accomplished. Herat was to be left as it was ; and a guaranteed inde- 
 pendence was to be oiFered to the Ameers of Scinde. 
 
 Ameers op These Ameers of Scinde were a family of ten or twelve brothers and cousins, 
 
 sons of the four Ameers, brothers, who had ruled Scinde in peace with each other. 
 The fathers of the present Ameers had released themselves from their half- 
 yearly tribute to the Affghan rulers ; and now, Runjeet Singh was demanding 
 a large tribute. It was from these tributes that Scinde was released by the 
 
 Treaty.Mnr. I uh, present treaty. The Ameers were to permit the British to march through 
 
 '"^^ their country ; and the force from Bombay went up through the heart of it, 
 
 on the Indus, while some of the Bengal troops crossed the northern portion. 
 The army was, however, so ill-treated in the Ameers' country, and the Princes 
 were themselves so evidently hostile, that it was necessary to bring a second 
 force from Bombay, to keep Scinde quiet in our rear ; and then again, to 
 compel the Ameers to permit us to keep an army permanently in their country, 
 on the west side of the Indus— three of the Ameers paying £30,000 a year 
 for the maintenance of these troops. Thus were our operations and our 
 embarrassments extending, when we had once put our hand over our own 
 fi'ontier ; and thus did one act of interference necessitate more. It was for 
 less than two years that Scinde remained even manageably tranquil under 
 this last arrangement. 
 
 At the end of November, 1838, Runjeet Singh and Lord Auckland met at 
 Ferozepore, the last of our settlements in the North West, and, of course, the 
 nearest to the Punjaub. The meeting and greeting of the rulers, their reti- 
 nues and armies, was a very splendid sight. Sir Alexander (late Capt.) Burnes 
 was sent on in advance of the expeditioH, and the army that followed was 
 much reduced, in consequence of the news having arrived of the retreat of the 
 
 ai-VghTniI^ian Sli'ih of Persia to his own dominions. It was believed that, in the present 
 state of affairs, a very easy task lay before the British forces. 
 
 The most direct road for the invaders would have been to have crossed the 
 Punjaub from Ferozepore, in the direction of Peshawur ; but, as we have said, 
 the Bombay troops had a troublesome passage through Scinde. In fact, they 
 had to fight their way up, taking cities along their course. The Bengal force 
 therefore went down to the south-west to meet them ; and the junction ■was 
 effected at Shikarpore, within the boundaries of Scinde, near the Affghan 
 frontier. The command of the expedition was given to Sir John Keane, the 
 Bombay commander-in-chief The meeting was not a very cheering one. 
 Shah Soojah was there, with his troops, who formed the centre of the army. 
 The British forces had suffered much from the fatigues of the way, and yet 
 more from the attacks of the Beloochees, who by no means approved this in- 
 vasion of the state which adjoined theirs on the north, by means of humbling 
 that which lay on the east. The army was already ipore reduced than by a 
 great battle. But the worst was before them. It was March ; and the heat 
 in the jungles was overpowering, while in the mountain passes snow drove in 
 the soldiers' faces. The Beloochees were always like a whirlwind in flank and 
 rear (never in fi-ont) — catching up every straggler, and sweeping off camels, 
 pi-ovisions, and baggage. The enemy dammed up the rivers, so as to flood the
 
 MP. ROLAN 
 
 Pass. 
 
 Chap. IV.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 503 
 
 plains ; and the force had to wade, for miles together, hetween dyke and dyke, 1837 46. 
 
 ■with only the jungle in alternation. The days of their going through the 
 
 Bolan pass were great days for the banditti of the region, and for their chief, J"J; 
 
 the holder of the strong fortress of Klielat, who was now negotiating with the 
 
 British political agent on the one hand, wliilc, on the other, he was sending 
 
 out his robber force to strip the army in the Bolan pass. The tents tliat were 
 
 left among the rocks and snow, the camels and their loads, were the booty of 
 
 the Beloochees ; and the troops emerged from the Bolan pass, liungry and 
 
 destitute — the soldiers put on lialf-rations, and the camp-followers fighting for 
 
 the remains of the horses that fell dead upon the road. Shah Soojah's force 
 
 was reduced from 6000 to 1500 men ; and the British officers wrote home that Annual no»isi<T, 
 
 183'J, p..'i4i. 
 
 the march had no parallel but in the retreat of the French from ^Moscow. 
 
 Candahar was undefended — its prince having repaired to his brother. Dost 
 IMohammed, at Caubool. The aged Shah Soojah entered Candaliar on the cashuiab. 
 24tli of April, and was there crowned in May, amidst loud expressions of joy, 
 with which the angry people covered their discontent for the present. — After a 
 few weeks, spent in recruiting the strength of the army, and collecting pro- 
 visions, Sir J. Keane proceeded to attack Ghuznec — one of the strongest for- 
 tresses of that strongly-fortified country. The journey was difficult and tedious: 
 but the siege and storming of Ghuznce were admirably managed. The son of ''""""=''■ 
 Dost Mohammed was taken prisoner ; and the Dost himself, ou hearing the 
 news, dispersed his force, and left Caubool to Shah Soojah, who entered it on 
 the 7th of August. 
 
 The British now supposed that all was done. Dost Mohammed was known 
 to have fled into Bokhara ; new governors were appointed in the place of such 
 chiefs as would not acknowledge the restored sovereign ; and the bandit for- 
 tress of Khclat was taken by General Willshire. The invaders rejoiced as if Km ..at. 
 there were nothing hollow in this sudden conquest ; — as if the Dost was not to 
 come back — nor the Gliilzee chiefs to rise — nor Khelat to be taken from us; — 
 all of which happened very soon. Sir J. Keane left at Caubool a force much 
 too small for a position so dubious : and while there were too few men, there 
 were far too many women and children. The slightest knowledge of tlie 
 character of the people ought to have shown the managers of the invasion that 
 this was no place yet for the residence of English ladies and young children, 
 or for thousands of helpless camp-followers hanging about the soldiery, whose 
 utmost effbrts might be required at any moment. In the rash confidence which 
 marked the whole series of transactions, Sir Alexander Burnes encoiiraged any 
 and every body to sit down beside him in Caubool, wlicre he cultivated his 
 garden, wrote gladsome letters to Scotland, and praised the people by whom he 
 was soon to be murdered: and Mr. jM'Naghten, appointed Political R.'sidcnt, 
 never doubted about settling his wife in the same place : and other olficers sk™^;^"-^" " 
 naturally shared in the confidence of these leaders. No less naturally did the 
 government at home share that confidence ; and with a haste which now looks 
 like a satire on the wisdom of tlie ministry and parliament of the time.lionours Jia^if^ji. 
 were lavishly decreed. Mr. M'Nagh ten and Col. Pottinger were made baronets; 
 Sir J. Keane was raised to the peerage, and Lord Auckland was made an carl- 
 By the Governor-General's order, the troops were not only well rewarded with
 
 504 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 [Book VI. 
 
 AnniKil Keg 
 IHIO, p. •i-AK 
 
 Annual Register, 
 1840, p. 231. 
 
 1837 46_ pay, but tliey were to bear on their regimental colours the word " Affghanistan." 
 
 ■ ' Another bitter satire ! 
 
 In October, the army returned to India, — one portion to Bengal, under Lord 
 Keane ; the other, through the Bolan pass, to the Indus, and thence to Bom- 
 bay. The very insufficient force left behind was placed under two commands ; 
 General Nott having charge of C'andahar and the southern region as far as 
 the Bolan pass ; and Col. Sale the northern, firom Ghuznee to Caubool and 
 Jellalabad. The British army had scarcely disappeared before it became plain 
 that Shah Soojah was hated with a hatred too strong for concealment ; — hated 
 as being as much worse than the British, as a domestic traitor is worse than a 
 foreio'n foe. He was looked upon as having sold his country to the infidels ; 
 and iDefore the year was out, he received intimations that some who had sworn 
 allegiance to him under British compulsion were on the look-out for the Rus- 
 sians, whom they would immediately join. It really seemed as if we had been 
 helping the Russians, instead of raising any barrier against them. 
 
 Meantime, it seemed to the alarmists, who managed political affairs in this 
 quarter, as if Russia were really coming to India. She was, in fact, aiming 
 towards the north-west corner of Bokhara, where Khiva extends ; a district 
 which lies between the Caspian, Persia, and the Oxus, and whose inhabitants 
 Avere declared to have incurred the wrath of the Russian government by an- 
 noying such of their neighbours as were Russian subjects, exacting tribute 
 from Russian caravans, and interrupting the regular trade of Central Asia. 
 Such, whether true or not, were the allegations of the Russian government. A 
 more prominent charge still, and that which occasioned a formal declaration of 
 war in December, 1839, was, that the Khiva people made slaves of all the 
 Russians they could lay their hands on. The fisherman on the Caspian was 
 carried away from his nets, and the travelling merchant from liis goods. Khiva 
 merchants had been detained as prisoners in Russia, till the slaves should be 
 set free : but only 100 had been restored, while 200 were in course of capture 
 on the shores of the Caspian alone. So the Emperor threatened vengeance on 
 Khiva. But the elements were too strong for even the wrath of a Czar. The 
 soft-falling snow — silent and persevering — stopped the echoes of his royal 
 thunder, and stifled his complaints, and barred his progress, and buried some 
 of his men and horses, and turned back the rest. Little Khiva defied great 
 Russia, as little Circassia had long been doing. Here was another lesson for 
 us on our haste in making war for the sake of future peace ; — on our rashness 
 in invading neighbours as a precaution against a far-distant enemy, who might 
 never be able to get at us, even if he wished it. He would certainly not come 
 down upon us through Khiva. And now, our experience of army travelling 
 in Affghanistan might well abate our apprehension that Russia could meet us 
 in the field, after a prodigious journey, of which such a country as this was the 
 last stage. 
 KirFni LOST. In 18-10, Khelat was taken from us again: the little garrisons and detach- 
 
 ments scattered through the country were harassed by tlie incessant watchful- 
 ness rendered necessary by the hostility of the tribes in their neighbourhood : 
 Colonel Sir Robert Sale found that treaties and agreements with the chiefs of 
 the mountain district of Kohistan, which was under his charge, were abso-
 
 Chap. IV.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 605 
 
 lutely vain — the inhabitants thinking bad faith a ■sdrtue in such a cause. 1837 46. 
 
 Tliey harboured the Dost, and played tricks for him, and fought with him : ^^ — .-^,— ^ 
 but the gallant Sale jjut them down — finally, as every body thought, on the 2nd bS'i'tish!^ °' ^"' 
 of November — little dreaming what was to happen on that day twelvemonths. 
 Dost Mohammed walked through the British camp, with a single follower "ost mouammed 
 
 ^ . ' TAKEN. 
 
 actually unobserved, entered Caubool, and surrendered himself. He was sent Annual Register, 
 to Calcutta, and finally permitted to settle at Loodeeana, at the extremity of •''• • 
 our territory, and on the frontier of the Punjaub. He was a captive whom it 
 gratified the complacency of the authorities to receive and have under their 
 eyes : for, the more doubtful a policy, the more precious are its incidental 
 fi-uits. Dost Mohammed had polite and cheerful manners ; and he was enter- 
 tained with delighted hospitality. London people heard of him at the time as 
 being at the Governor-General's parties, and playing chess wdth the Governor- 
 General's sister. As he was fingering the pieces, no one knew better than he 
 what a game was meditated, and actually begmi in his own liome beyond the 
 Punjaub; — what cheeks and overthrow were prepared for those who were 
 smiling upon him as the pledge of their being sure of their game. 
 
 In April, 1841, Major-General Elphinstone assumed the command of the ^^1.,!^'^™"'" 
 troops in AfFghanistan. This officer had w^on reputation in the Peninsular 
 war ; but he was now old, in bad health, and, as soon appeared, so weakened 
 in mind as to be unfit for any military duty whatever. In INIay, ^lajor Pot- 
 tin ger arrived from Calcutta, having been appointed political agent for Ko- 
 histan. The moment he arrived, ho saw — and said in proper quarters — that PoBTF.N-re. 
 the force left was altogether insufficient for the need ; and that it was necessary 
 to prepare for risings of the Ghilzee chiefs at any moment. Sir William 
 M'Naghten, usually as sanguine as his comrades, admitted that there might 
 be some truth in this— Lord Auckland having forced upon him a reduction of ^>|;:'' •'""""''• 
 the allowances to the chiefs, at the very moment when their good-will was 
 most indispensable. The enmity of the Ghilzees had been, in fact, exasperated 
 beyond hope of accommodation, by a mistake committed a few months before, 
 when a British officer had slaughtered a small garrison friendly to the Shah, 
 on the supposition of their being foes. A chief was among the victims, to 
 avenge whom 5000 Ghilzees took up arms; and during the first months of Annu.M nogistor. 
 1841, they were watching only for an opportunity. 
 
 During this season of suspeuse, there were changes going on behind them 
 which would have materially altered the position and prospects of the British 
 at Caubool, if a speedy fate had not been preparing for them on the sjiot. Tlie 
 Punjaub was in a hopeless state of disturbance. Kunjeet Singh, " our faitliful 
 and highly-valued ally," as the government proclamation styled him, liad died; 
 and the two next heirs were already suntched away— in the course of :i few- 
 mouths. The new rajah was believed to have boon poisoned. His son and 
 successor, returning from the funeral, was struck by a beam A;hich fell from a 
 gateway upon his elephant, and died in a few hours, at the age of twenty-two. 
 The disputes about the succession which now took place between the widow ol 
 the elder deceased rajah and an illegitimate sonof Runjeet Singh, let loose all 
 the passions of the turbulent Siklis : and th(- Punjaub could no longer bo re- 
 garded as a friendly and safe country, iiiiniediately in tlie rear of llie C^aubool 
 force, into which they might retreat if pressed by misfortune.— Another event 
 
 voT,. n "^ '^ 
 
 Tin: Pl-njaiu.
 
 506 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 [Book YI. 
 
 1837—46. 
 
 Recall of Lord 
 Alxkland. 
 
 Annual Register, 
 1841, Chron. 130. 
 
 Ix)RD Ellbn- 
 Bonoi'Gii. 
 
 BniTisn AT Cm' 
 
 IIOOL. 
 
 Eyre's .Tournal, 
 ISIap. 
 
 Evre's Journal, 
 p. 165. 
 
 of material importance was the recall of Lord Auckland by the new government 
 at home, who sent out Lord Ellenhorough in his stead. How far the invasion 
 of Affghanistan would be sanctioned and supported by the new Governor- 
 General, would soon appear. jNIeantime, those who approved the late policy 
 were sorry that the ruler who was re.sponsible for it was withdrawn'; while those 
 who saw in this policy the operation of irresponsible military counsels through 
 the inexperience and ignorance of a civil ruler, were sorry that another civilian 
 was sent out instead of one of our great soldiers, who might not only look to 
 the proper conduct of our new war, but, from his experience of the evils of M'ar, 
 might save us from going further in our course of aggression in Asia. 
 
 It was an anxious summer for the British at Caubool. They were living in 
 cantonments, near the city. Their position was so arranged as that they were 
 a mile and a half from the citadel — the Bala Hissar — where Shah Soojah re- 
 sided; and a river lay between; all the four corners of the cantonments, where 
 there were defences, were commanded by hills or AfFghan forts ; and their pro- 
 visions were actually stored in a fort at some distance from cantonments. 
 General Elphinstone became more and more helpless ; and he called in, as his 
 adviser, an oiScer whose solo thought was to get back to India, and who there- 
 fore discouraged every effort to strengthen the position of the Caubool force. 
 From the moment that a force knows itself to be ill commanded, its heart and 
 soul die out ; <ind so it was nOAV. The officers grew moody and disheartened, 
 as they saw their situation becoming dangerous, while it seemed too plain that 
 they would neither be allowed to prepare for defence now, nor to fight here- 
 after. The men were worn and weary with incessant watching, with bearing 
 the insults of the natives, and with receiving frequent tidings of their comrades 
 being picked off by roving enemies, as often as opportunity offered. The ladies 
 occupied themselves with their gardens, which, in that temperate climate, re- 
 warded all the pains taken. Sir Alexander Burnes gloried in his, which was 
 attached to his house in the city: and during these last months of his life, he 
 was as confident and gay as ever. He had real friends among the Affghans ; 
 and these friends warned him again and again of danger — told him that he 
 was deceived — that the ground was mined beneath his feet — and that he must * 
 save himself now, or not at all. He did not believe a word of it. He kept 
 his fears for Russia, and was perfectly satisfied about Affghanistan. The en- 
 voy. Sir William M'Naghten, was less happy. One of the last things he said 
 — in the next December — was, that a thousand deaths were better than the 
 hell of suspense he had lived in for six weeks ; and already, he was having 
 some foretaste of that bitter suffering. The aged Shah Soojah could do nothing. 
 He Avas merely a puppet prince set up by us, in the absence of any real call to 
 the throne. He remained retired in the Bala Hissar, hated by the people, and 
 pitied by the Britisli for his contemptible position — some few, the while, 
 strongly doubting his fidelity. We find throughout the narratives of this Avar 
 a painful suggestion throAvn in here and there, that this or that incident makes 
 for or against the supposition of Shah Soojah's fidelity. — For some months, 
 there Avas hope that General Nott Avas coming on from Candahar, with a clear 
 head upon his shoulders, a cheerful spirit in his breast, and a Avell-disciplined 
 force at his heels. But he did not appear ; and then it became knoAvn that he 
 could not come at all at present. He had quite enough on his hands beloAv.
 
 Chap. IV.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 507 
 
 Early in September, there were small treasons and skirmishes in the moun- 1837 4(5. 
 
 tains north of Caubool, when parties were out collecting the revenue. Later ^-- — ~- — • 
 
 in September, Major Pottinger came to Caubool with fresh information, which 
 
 so far convinced Sir William M'Naghten of the probability of a rising in Ko- 
 
 histan, that he resolved to detain as hostages the sons of the great chiefs. — 
 
 Early in October, the second son of Uost Mohanmied — that Akber Khan in 
 
 whose hand the fate of the British in Affghanistan was henceforth to lie — came 
 
 down from the north, and posted himself in the Khoord Caubool j)ass — ten 
 
 miles from the city; — that pass being the only way back to Hindostan. General 
 
 Sale, who would have been in his winter quarters at Jellalabad before this, but 
 
 for the treasons and skirmishes in the mountains, now set forth, to clear this ■ 
 
 pass. His troops might force it, but they could not clear it. The foe was 
 
 perched on the rocks, where no guns could be brought to bear upon tliem ; 
 
 and the British had to run the gauntlet througli the whole pass. Gen. Sale 
 
 was himself wounded. 
 
 Akber Khan now had command of the British communications. It is pite- 
 ous to read of the suspense at tlie cantonments after this. There were rumoins 
 of battles, with great slaughter of the British on the road to Jellalabad, and 
 no letters came to clear up the matter. Sometimes, a messenger arrived ; but 
 he brought only newsi^apers — not a written line for even the General. Some- 
 times, a letter or two came with a forged seal — sometimes a letter which itself 
 appeared to be forged. On the 31st of October, "no despatches for the General," 
 nor private letters : but further accounts hoped for to-morrow. On that morrow, Lady saic'. 
 
 1 ... Journal, p. 31. 
 
 "no letters from camp, which has caused both surprise and anxiety." Tliis was 
 an easy foretaste of the horrors of the next day— November 2nd. On this night, 
 once more and for the last time, Sir Alexander Burnes's Aifghan friends came to 
 him with warnings : and this once more in vain. He was as confident as ever. 
 The next morning, while he and his brother and Captain Broadfoot were at [ij'i'jj^^*^ 
 breakfast, the street filled, and the cries of the crowd told too well what they 
 came for. Burnes was sure it was only a riot, and sprang into the balcony to 
 address the people. The enemy burst in. Broadfoot killed six with liis own 
 hand before he fell. All three were murdered on the spot, tlioiigh Shall Soojah 
 sent word, some hours after, to Sir W. jM'Naghten that all was well with 
 Burnes. Shah Soojah also said that if the robelUon was not over that night, 
 he would burn the city the next day : but he neitlier did that nor any thing 
 else, but order the guns of the citadel to fire— which they did all day, without 
 any apparent effect. 
 
 For two months after this, all was unmitigated wretchedness. General .'ii'8rE>.E. 
 Sale was hoped for — looked for — but he did not come. He could not : and 
 his wife and comrades were told it was because his soldiers had forsaken luiii. 
 General Nott never came — also because he still could not. Animunitioii 
 failed; and, what was if possible worse, food failed. The Commissariat fort, 
 which stood detached, as has been said, was taken, through sheer inertness 
 and mismanagement of the authorities. There had been tliree possible courses 
 for the British :— to go back to India ; to remain in cantonments, in a state of 
 defence, till aid should arrive ; or to go to the Bala Ilissar, and crowd in tliere, 
 sacrificing the horses, but securing human life at least, till reiiifoicements 
 should come. All these were diflicult and dangerous; and each entailed
 
 508 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book VI. 
 
 1837 — 46. great sacrifices; but a vigorous adoption of any one would have left some 
 chance to somebody. But there was no vigour, no concert — the few who 
 were fit to command, and the many who were ready to act, were paralyzed by 
 neglect and prohibitions. The insulting enemy hovered round, and picked off 
 every straggler, and especially, all the messengers whom they could hit. 
 
 MiBDEH oFTBB Tlicu, there was talk of treaties ; and the Avretched Envoy — the most re- 
 sponsible man, and yet disabled by the imbecility of the General — caught at 
 every false hope thus held out. Rather than endure the daily sight of the 
 perishing force, he went out to treat — even falling into the snare of negotiat- 
 ing an underhand treaty which no man in any but a desperate condition would 
 have believed attainable — and thus losing something of his honour in the eyes 
 of the enemy. He went out to treat, saying to his companions what has been 
 quoted of the horrors of the last six weeks, and was seized by Akber Khan 
 himself, aud murdered on the spot. Those who saw the two faces, tell of them 
 as what can never be forgotten : — Akber Khan's charged with " diabolical 
 ferocity," — Sir W. M'Naghten's with "horror and astonishment." The 
 Aifghans made a plaything of his head, with its green spectacles, and held up 
 one of his severed hands at the prison window of the officers who had been 
 rescued by the intervention of Affghan chiefs. Captain Trevor, whose wife 
 and seven children were with the force, was murdered with the Envoy. This 
 
 Lariy Sale's dccisivc cvent hajipened on the 23rd of December. 
 
 The British were now " advised" by the enemy to go back to India : and 
 they were so nearly starved that they agreed to do so : though some of the 
 officers were still of opinion that they should fight their way for the mile and 
 a half which lay between the cantonments and the citadel, and take refuge 
 there — trusting to the interest of the country people to supply them with food. 
 
 Bums" "'' ^"^ They set out, however, some of them knowing that the Aifghan chiefs Mere 
 saying that they would allow only one man to live : that they would cut off 
 his limbs, and set him down at the entrance of the Khyber pass, with a letter 
 between his teeth warning the British to meddle no more with Affghanistan. 
 Many set forth, believing this boast to be not unreasonable : and it was too true 
 that only one man reached Jellalabad. Those who gave themselves up as 
 prisoners and hostages were saved — such of them as did not die of fever and 
 hardship — but only one man performed the march'from Caubool to Jellalabad. 
 The doom of the force was clear at the end of five miles. Four thousand five 
 hundred fighting men, and twelve thousand camp-followers, besides women 
 and children, set forth from Caubool on the 6th of January. The distance 
 traversed that day was only five miles ; yet it was two o'clock in the morning 
 before the last of the force came up. The glare from the burning cantonments 
 was visible to the fugitives as they sat in the snow, and heard what had been 
 the destruction aheady, and knew what a road lay before them. Officers and 
 soldiers lay dead in the bloody snow, all the way back to Caubool ; baggage 
 was abandoned at the very gates of the cantonments ; the ladies had only what 
 they wore, and some of them, hm-ried away or sick, wore only night-clothes. 
 Each day was worse than the last. One lady had her youngest boy snatched 
 from her arms by an Affghan ; and another saw her eldest girl put into a sack, 
 and carried off. The camp-followers, whose fiost-bittcn feet would carry them 
 no further, died by hundreds along the road-side, or crawled in among the
 
 Chap. IV.J DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. -509 
 
 rocks, without food or prospect of any. On the fourth day only 270 soldiers 1837 — 46. 
 
 were left. On the fifth, the loss altogether was 12,000 out of 17,000 men. On -— ^- ' 
 
 the sixth day there were hut 20 to make a stand against the still-tormenting foe. 
 Twelve escaped from a barrier which detained them cruelly long under the 
 enemy's fire : and of these twelve, six dropped before reaching the last town 
 to be passed. Near this town, some peasants offered bread to the remaining 
 six, who were famishing. They stayed a few moments only ; hut in those few 
 moments the inhabitants were arming. Two Avere immediately cut down. 
 The other four fled as men may do who have death at their heels, and safety 
 almost within sight : but three of the four were overtaken and slaughtered 
 within four miles of Jellalabad, and Dr. Brydon arrived alone. He was seen 
 from the fort stooping over his jaded pony, evidently wounded — looking as 
 forlorn in his approach as could be imagined. He was supposed to be a 
 messenger, and the gate was opened in readiness to admit him : but his only 
 message was such an one as perhaps no other man has ever had to deliver — 
 that he was the sole remnant of an army. Except the buiying of Cambyses' 
 army in the African desert, such a destruction has perhaps never been heard 
 of in the world. 
 
 There were more saved, however, than Dr. Brydon knew of. The omni- Pn's.«i:ns sweo. 
 present Akber Khan, who had proposed to escort the force to Jellalabad, and 
 then declared that he could not protect them, offered to save the ladies and 
 children if the married and wounded officers were delivered, with their fami- 
 lies, into his hands. These prisoners were carried about from fort to fort till 
 the next summer, when they were released in consequence of the advance of 
 fresh British troops. General Elphinstone was among the prisoners. He 
 died — greatly to the relief of all to whom his fame, and the respect due to 
 grey hairs, were dear — in the course of this captivity. His case was clear, 
 and government was saved the pain of calling him to account. — Among the 
 captives was the remarkable woman to whom we owe much of our knowledge 
 of the incidents of this terrible history — the wife of General Sale. Her narra- i,adv sale. 
 tive shows her a true soldier, and one of the bravest. If, in reading her nar- 
 rative, we almost recoil from the hardiliood which could sustain itself in that 
 inaction which is often fatal to high courage, we cannot but fervently admire 
 it in the form of cheerful patience under protracted personal suffering, and 
 inconceivable discomforts. Her husband met her and their widowed daughter, 
 with her new-born infant, and the other prisoners, on the 20th of September, 
 1842, nearly nine months after the march from Caubool.— When General 
 Elphinstone wrote to General Sale, at that disastrous time, to leave Jellalabad, cbmraisai,-.. 
 and return to India, the General resolved to hold his post at all risks j and it 
 is said that his captive wife urged him by letter to do so, regardless of the 
 consequences to herself. If so, this meeting of the 20th of September might 
 well be a happy one ; for General Sale had held his post till relieved on the 
 16th of April. 
 
 Up to the moment of Lord Ellenborough's arrival, in February, 1842, Lord 
 Auckland had done every thing in his power for the rescue of the force so 
 rashly left in Aflghanistan. Troops were sent in abundance ; but the dilficulty 
 Avas to get them through the defiles by whicli the country must be entered. 
 No man yet had ever traversed the Khybcr pass in the fucc of an enemy — Nadir
 
 510 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 [Book VI. 
 
 1837—46. 
 
 Uei.ief from 
 Lnuia. 
 
 Murder of Suah 
 
 SOOJAH. 
 
 Caubool 
 destroy eo. 
 Annual Register, 
 1842, p. 256. 
 
 Ghiiznee 
 destroyed. 
 
 Evacuation of 
 Affghanistan. 
 Annual Register, 
 1842, p. 254. 
 
 Shah himself having purchased a passage from the tribes which guard it : but 
 General Pollock now achieved it, with extreme difficulty and risk, and by 
 means of a strong excitement of the valour of the troops. On the 16th of 
 April, the exhausted garrison of Jellalabad saw the reinforcements coming 
 up J and vast was the cheering and firing of cannon. General Sale had done 
 marvels during the intervening mouths in repairing his wretched fortifications, 
 procurin<T food, and keeping off the enemy : and when an earthquake overthrew 
 most of his defences in the middle of February, he set to work again mth 
 midiminished spirit. The earthquake brought up Akbcr Klian, 'who had 
 finished every thing elsewhere, and now came to drive out the last of the infi- 
 dels. He was fought with incessantly till the 7th of April, when the hope of 
 the approach of General Pollock justified a decisive attack on the Affglians. 
 The British triuniplied, recovered some of the guns lost by their dead comrades 
 in the vrinter, and burned Akber's camp. — It was in this month of April that 
 General Elphinstone died ; and also Shah Soojah. Whether this Prince re- 
 mained faithful to us or turned treacherous, is not understood to this day. It 
 is known only that he was murdered near Caubool in the midst of some dispute 
 about an expedition against Jellalabad. Great confusion ensued upon his 
 death : and the course of affairs is wholly obscure till we see Dost Mohammed 
 once more in power. 
 
 Sickness and other difficulties detained the British forces at Jellalabad till 
 the end of August. A great number died, and the rest were not in the best 
 condition for forcing the passes to Caubool. It was done, however, and admi- 
 rably, and the army encamped, on the l'5th of September, on the race ground of 
 Caubool. The British standard was hoisted on the Bala Hissar. The Kuzzil- 
 bashes, before mentioned as of Persian descent, and hostile to Dost Mohammed 
 and his tribe, were our best friends throughout ; and it was by their aid that 
 the prisoners were brought back, when actually on their way to hopeless cap- 
 tivity beyond the Oxus. The Kuzzilbash quarter was therefore spared, in the 
 destruction of Caubool ; and so was the Bala Hissar. The rest was laid in 
 ruins ; and the first part that was blown up was the bazaar, built in the reign 
 of Aurungzebe. General Nott came up from Candahar, victorious — though 
 the reinforcements sent to him from Scinde could not reach him, but 
 were actually obliged to turn back after having traversed the Bolan Pass. 
 Ghuznee had fallen from us too, and its name had lost the glory it had had 
 when it gave his honours to Lord Koane. General Nott, after having evacu- 
 ated Candahar, fought the Affglians near Ghuznee, and beat them, and was 
 ready to attack the fortress, when it was found that the enemy had retired. 
 The city and fortress were immediately and totally destroyed ; and General 
 Nott moved on, fighting one more battle by the way, to join the forces already 
 at Caubool. 
 
 The new Governor-General had meantime, by proclamation, ordered the 
 British forces to evacuate Affghanistan. This proclamation declares it con- 
 trary to British policy and ideas to force a sovereign on a reluctant people (a 
 declaration which must have astonished the Affghans) ; and, adverting to the 
 death of Shah Soojah, promises to recognise any ruler whom the Aft'ghans 
 shall choose, with any prospect of peace for their country. In the beginning 
 of November, the British troops left the country which they should never
 
 Chap. IV.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. .511 
 
 have entered, and \yliere some of them finally disgraced our military rcpnta- 1837 — 46. 
 tion by acts of rapine and cruelty, in an expedition in Kohistan, whicli the "~ — -^-^ 
 AfFghans themselves could never have surpassed. It was a fitting end of one 
 of the most iniquitous wars on record. — Tlie public despatches and private 
 journals of the time speak, in set terms, of the honour of our arms being 
 avenged, stains wiped out, and so forth : but this is cant. The honour of our 
 arms, among the Asiatic nations as every where else, is absolutely implicated 
 with the goodness of our cause. It is questionable whether, in their barbaric 
 view, our cause had ever before been thoroughly bad — indefensible as have 
 been some of our wars there in the eyes of Christian nations. But in this 
 case, we were wholly wrong; and our honour cannot be now — never can be — 
 retrieved in the estimation of the^\iFghans. For purposes of our own — foolish 
 purposes, as it happens — we invaded their country, forced on them a sovereign 
 whom they hated, and who had actually no party among them — invited 
 aggression fi'om them by our weakness and supineness — melted away under 
 theii- aggression — and at last poured in upon them with overwhelming 
 forces — blew up theii- strongholds, razed their cities, hunted their mountain 
 population " like vermin," burning, slaying, and ravaging — and then with- 
 drew, giving them leave to place upon the throne the very ruler we had come 
 to depose. We may deceive oiusclves with vainglory about oin- honour ; 
 but, as long as tradition lasts in Afighanistan, our name ^\-ill be a mark for 
 hatred and scorn. The men are gone who did this ;— Bumes, M'Xaghten, 
 the military advisers mIio left their bones in the passes beyond the runjaub, 
 and Lord Auckland himself. But it does not become those at home who 
 were misled by them — it does not become the most ii-responsiblc of us — 
 to forget this great folly and crime, or to attempt to cover it over with cant 
 about the glory of our arms. 
 
 When the British force had evacuated Aifghanistan, Lord Ellenborough Jf "" .^K':'"'" 
 addressed a Proclamation to the rulers and peoples of India, which soon be- J^'^';,\,^^ K"Ji"J'er, 
 came very celebrated. It is always a mistake to address people of another '"".p-s?- 
 race, and faith, and language, than our own, in what is supposed to be their 
 way ; — to use big metaphors, and fervent exclamations, and make references 
 in a supposed religious tone to things which to the writer are not holy. "We 
 all saw the folly and bad taste of this in Napoleon's proclamations, and never 
 believed that they would go do^mi with the INIohammedans and others to whom 
 they were addressed : and now the Governor-General of India made the same 
 mistake at a serious crisis of our aft'airs in India, when earnestness and sim- 
 plicity were more than ever necessary in our transactions. The honor excited 
 at home by the apparent sanction given to idolatry in this Proclamation might 
 be exaggerated : but it is certain that affectation, in every way pernicious in 
 so high a functionary, is most eminently so in regard to the most serious of all 
 affairs— matters of religious faith. In 1S31, when Shah Soojah wanted aid 
 fi-om Runjeet Singh, the aid was promised on three conditions, one of ^\llich 
 was that the sandal-wood gates of the great temple of .Juggernaut, which hud sdmsaith Gate«. 
 been carried to Ghuznee, should be restored. The Shah refused this con- 
 dition, while agreeing to the others, in a way wliicli sliow(vl the point to be 
 of some importance ; but whether political, military, or religious, we know too 
 little of the native mind to be certain. I>ord Ellenborough however ventured
 
 512 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book VI. 
 
 Ig^-j 4g to use, in this Proclamation, big words of exultation and congratulation about 
 
 the gates of the temple of Sumnauth being brought back from Ghuznee ; 
 and the outcry was great, both on the spot and at home ; — some fearing that 
 the o-overnment would appear to patronize idolatry, and others showing how 
 the congratulation insulted one part of the inhabitants while coaxing another. 
 The matter was largely discussed in parliament in the session of 1843; and 
 due attention was paid to other acts of coxcombry which seemed to show at 
 once that Lord EUenliorough, with all his heartiness and goodwill and 
 activity and diligence, had not the sobriety of judgment and dignity of man- 
 ners indispensable in his position. He fraternized ^vith the military in a way 
 very extraordinary in a civilian, and published his military sjTiipathies, so as 
 to give more ofi'ence to one set of men than gratification to another. He 
 made sho'o'y progresses : and acted out vehemently his idea of Indian govern- 
 ment — a government of coaxing and demonstration, rather than of business- 
 like gra\dty and silent energy. Tlie East India Directors, who held the 
 opposite idea of government, used their power — a power adverted to so rarely 
 
 Recall of Loitn as to liavc been nearly forgotten— of recalling the Governor-General, without 
 the acquiescence of the Administration. The Ministers admitted in parlia- 
 
 Hansard, ixxiv. mcnt that they had remonstrated strongly against this exercise of the 
 
 ^■"'' Directors' privilege ; and it was plam that they were extremely annoyed by it. 
 
 Though the vote was unanimous, they considered it as great an " indiscretion" 
 as any known in history. It was certainly a serious matter to bring forward 
 the anomaly of the double authority at home : but all anomalies must come 
 into notice sooner or later ; and the question was, whether the present occa- 
 sion was a sufficient jvistification. The Directors thought it was : the govern- 
 ment thought not. As for parliament and the people, they dwelt most on the 
 satisfaction of the recall of Lord Ellenborough. The appointment of liis 
 
 sm Henry Hah- succcssor was admirable. It united all suffrages of opinion. Sir Heniy 
 Hardinge was a soldier, whose military qualifications were indisputable. 
 But he was even better known as a man of a calm, earnest, grave disposition, 
 sound sagacity and conscientious thoughtfulness, excellent habits of business, 
 and most genial and benevolent temper. In him the qualifications of the 
 civil and military ruler seemed to be so singularly united that he appeared to 
 have been in trauiing all liis life for the office he was now to fiU. It was on 
 the 21st of April, 1844, that Sir R. Peel announced in parliament the recall 
 of Lord Ellenborough; and Sii' Henry Hardinge arrived in India in the 
 follomng July. 
 
 Scinde had been annexed to om- dominions during Lord Ellenborough's 
 term of office. The agreements we had made with the Ameers, at the com- 
 mencement of our Affghan enterprise, were not likely to last; and by 1842, 
 we find the Governor-General threatening one of the older generation of the 
 Ameers vdth deposition if he did not pay up his tribute, and j^rove himself 
 faithful to the British. There was reason to suspect the Ameers of corre- 
 spondence with our enemies ; and their tribute had fallen into arrear. Sir 
 Charles Napier, who commanded the troops in Scinde, was aiithorized by the 
 Governor-General to make a new treaty with the Ameers, by wliicli the 
 British authorities believed that equivalent advantages were seemed to the 
 two parties. The Ameers, however, thought other^vise, — estimating the pri- 
 
 DINGE GOVERNOR- 
 
 SCINDE IN 1842.
 
 Cnxv. IV.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 513 
 
 vileges of their hunting grounds along the Indus more highly than the British 1837 — 46. 
 ruler conceived of when he stipulated that we should have liberty to cut wood , r~"'T~~' 
 
 11. hdinhur^h Rev. 
 
 for our steamers along the whole line of the river banks. The treaty was forced Aprii,;i8ii.p.49o. 
 
 upon them ; they were irritated ; their Beloochee followers were furious, and 
 
 di'ove out the Resident who had negotiated the treaty and his few followers 
 
 from their fort, compelling them to take refuge on board a steamer in the river. 
 
 The attack was made on the 15th of February. The next day. Sir C. Napier 
 
 went after the Ameers, to see what they were about, and found them encamped 
 
 with 22,000 men — seven times the amoimt of his own force. Early in the 
 
 morning, he brouglit his small force to bear upon their gi-eat army, routed it, jieVmb?' 
 
 and captured all the enemy's artillery and ammunition, their standards, and 
 
 their camp, with all that it contained. The Ameers yielded up their swords ; 
 
 and after another victory, Scinde was ours. — Sir C. Napier has never concealed 
 
 the fact, however, that his conquest of Scinde was determined on before the iMini'urgh hct. 
 
 . ■*■ . , April, 1814, p.4!*5. 
 
 attack on the Resident, and would have taken place just the same if that had 
 never happened. Tlie battle of jMeanec was a great one, valorously and skil- 
 fully conducted ; and the thanks of parliament were voted to Sir C. Napier and 
 his coadjutors in consideration of it : but we feel no more moral satisfaction in 
 the contemplation of these events, and the thoughts of our new territory, than 
 in considering our Affghan campaign. We have no business in Scinde : and 
 it is a matter for the inhabitants, and not for us, to decide upon, whether 
 they prefer the government of the Ameers, or the "mild sway" which we 
 recommend to them as that of the British government. Probably the Beloo- 
 chees know too much of our invasion of Affghanistan, and of the condition in 
 which we left it, to have much belief in the mildness and justice of our sway. 
 Meantime,"a residence in Scinde is a sort of purgatory to Anglo-Indians. The 
 people are manifestly hostile, and the soil and atmosphere most unfavourable to 
 health. Mutiny, the most dreaded of all events in India, was occasioned in 
 18-li, by the mere order to march to Scinde ; and a regiment was ignomini- 
 ously broken up, on account of its refusal. 
 
 We have not done yet with these melancholy Indian victories, and the 
 questionable rejoicings over them at home. The people of Gwalior, in the Gwaliob. 
 Sindia dominion, in the heart of our north-western possessions, were disturbed 
 and riotous. We were bound by treaty to give aid in such a case, uiuler certain 
 requisitions :— we now interfered without such requisition, on the assumption 
 that it would have been made if a young prince had been old enough ; and 
 entered the territory, "not as an enemy, but as a friend to the ;\laharaja." ^"^'J^-f '"''•• 
 We established " a strong government," according to British ideas, and were 
 about to depart : but the Mahrattas were not disposed to let us march off so 
 quietly. They challenged us to two great battles, in which the British were 
 victors ; and Lord EUcnborough, ■s\ ho was near or on the spot, taking the inte- 
 rest of a strong partisan in the conflict, issued more high-sounding procla- 
 mations about the glory of British arms on the plains of Sindia, and the bless- 
 ings of British intervention within the walls of Gwalior. 
 
 One melancholy department of the history of the Russian alarmists in India 
 is the fete of tlie officers who were employed iu anti-Russian missions. Lieu- wvr. rd. 
 tenant Wyburd, a young officer of spirit and enterprise, who was sent on a 
 secret mission to Khiva in 1835, was not heard of again till Col. Stoddart. as 
 
 vol,. II. '' '
 
 514 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 [Book VI. 
 
 SldDDAUT. 
 
 Hansard, Ixxvi. 
 104. 
 
 CONOLLY. 
 
 Evre's Journal 
 p. 325. 
 
 1837_4G. reported by Dr. Wolff, learned at Bokhara that he had been early murdered.— 
 Col. Stoddart himself was sent on a government mission to Bokhara, and 
 Capt. Conolly, in the place of Lieut. Wyburd, to Khiva and Khohan, with in- 
 structions to repair to Bokhara, if sent for by Col. Stoddart. He was so sent 
 for; and there they were executed together, in July, 1843, after long suffering 
 from loathsome imprisonment, and the besetting sense of the precariousncss of 
 their life. Those who knew the open-faced, handsome Charles Stoddart, the 
 spirited schoolboy, who counted the days till he could begin being a hero, 
 suffered much under the obscure rumours that floated home from time to time 
 — that he was imprisoned in a well, swarming with reptiles — that he was in 
 high favour, and a professed Mohammedan — that he had been buried alive — 
 that he had been beheaded — that he was still pining in misery. — And those 
 ■who knew the Conolly family now mourn the death of three brothers, at the 
 outset of a career which was full of promise. Arthur, Edward, and John 
 Conolly marched with Sir J. Keane into Affghanistan in 1839. One died of 
 fever, a captive at Caubool, only six weeks before the release of his fellow- 
 prisoners ; — another was shot through the heart in the storming of a fort in 
 the moim tains ; — and eleven months afterwards, in July, 1843, the last remain- 
 ing one was executed with Col. Stoddart at Bokhara. These young men were 
 relatives of Sir W. M'Naghten, whose WTetched fate has been already before 
 us. The truth was not known, with regard to the Bokhara agents, till 1844, 
 when Dr. Wolff offered his services to go in search of them to Bokhara. From 
 thence he -wiote, by order and under the inspection of the Khan, an account 
 of the execution of these officers, for such reasons as such a potentate would 
 be likely to give. It appeared that Stoddart had made a temporary and merely 
 verbal profession of iMohammcdauism ; but that, unable to live under a mask, 
 even in such a place, he had followed it up with an open avowal of his Christian 
 belief. The reports of the miseries of his imprisonment were but too true. 
 
 It is a relief to turn from the dreary scenes in the interior of the Asiatic 
 Continent to a far brighter one in its Malayan Archipelago. In the young 
 days of the existing generation, boys and girls were taught at school that 
 Borneo was the largest island in the world — Australia then being not fully 
 ascertained to be an island. Among the boys so taught might have been 
 James Brooke, whose imagination, as he grew up, dwelt in the Malayan seas. 
 At length, the time came when he found himself sailing in those seas, and 
 thinking what could be done with the piracy there, which so abounds, and is 
 so cruel in its character, as to put a stop to a commerce of extraordinary pro- 
 mise, and to keep the population of the archipelago in a lamentable state of 
 barbarism. James Brooke saw that Borneo produced material for an unlimited 
 commerce : " Within the same given space there are not to be found equal 
 mineral and vegetable riches in any land in the world." He saw tliat 
 the people, from being barbarous and in a precarious condition as to life 
 and welfare, might be civilized and Christianized. To this enterprise he 
 his life and all his resources. In 1838, he went forth, in a schooner 
 of his own, on a voyage of preliminary exploration. In August 1839, he was 
 well received by the Rajah of Sarawak (on the North-west point of Borneo) 
 — this Rajah being the uncle and deputy of the Sultaun of Borneo. In return 
 for aid against rebels, the Rajah offered him the government of Sarawak — 
 
 Srrctator, 1844, 
 p. 731. 
 
 J\MEs Brooke. 
 
 Brnokc's Journal 
 i. l'J4. 
 
 Brooke's Journals dcVOtcd 
 by fliundy.
 
 Chap. IV.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 516 
 
 thus funiisliing him with the opportunity he desired ou behalf of his scheme. 1837 — 46. 
 
 We next see him Rajah of Sarawak, happy in witnessing the striking im- " ' 
 
 provement of the peopk^ under his sway in character and fortunes. The great 
 drawback was the pirates, who swarm in all the intricate passages of those 
 seas. The value of Rajah Brooke was by this time seen; and views began to 
 open upon government and every body who knew the story, of his importance 
 in our national history, as the discloser of a vast new commerce, and the 
 simple-minded regenerator of barbaric populations. At the close of the 
 Chinese war, the Dido, and afterwards the Samarung, were ordered forth Ji»'*vin 
 against the pirates, and broke up several of their strongholds. ilr. Brooke 
 accompanied these expeditions ; and in 18-15, a further proof in the eyes of the 
 Sultaun of his credit with the British government was given in his appoint- 
 ment to be the agent of his sovereign in Borneo. The Sultaun besought our 
 assistance for the further suppression of piracy, and ceded to us the little i.ibian <nuei. 
 
 TO Britain 
 
 island of Labuan, not fiir from the Bornean capital, as a naval station, on the 
 way between India and China. The Sultaun however was as weak and un- 
 trustworthy as such potentates are apt to be. He was won over from the 
 British by intrigue — slew those of his relations who were favourable to them — 
 and countenanced the piratical acts of his own subjects. When he was pro- 
 ceeded against with them, in 1846, he fled into the interior of the island, and 
 would not return. The British officers therefore left with the people a state- 
 ment of the facts of the case, and of the reasons of theii- conduct, to be shown 
 to the Sultaun, whenever he should reappear. In all these proceedings, there 
 has been no pretence of conquest for selfish purposes : and thus iar, the 
 presence of the British appears to be a pure blessing to the people of Borneo. 
 Rajah Sir James Brooke has since been in England, receiving honours from 
 Queen and people : and he has gone to the East again, unspoiled by homage, 
 and unrelaxing in his energy, to accomplish, as Rajah of Sarawak and 
 Governor of Labuan, the objects which he proposed when plain James Brooke, 
 with no other outward resources than his own little schooner, and the means 
 of negotiating for a cargo of antimony. There is more satisfaction in record- 
 ing an enterprise so innocent in its conduct and so virtuous in its aim than in 
 making out a long list of Affghan and Scindian victories, with the thanks of 
 sovereign and parliament for a commentary.
 
 .516 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book VI. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 184:2-43. "ITTHEN the Ministers met Parliament in the beginning of 1842, their 
 ^"""^"^■"^ ' ' party-strength appeared to be greater than that of any administration 
 
 Condition and 
 
 Fate of i^ibties. for a long course of years. Judging by the numbers in the House of Com- 
 mons, the invariable preponderance of the Conservative interest in the House 
 of Lords, and the satisfaction throughout the country at the accession of a 
 strong government which imderstoQd its work, there was nothing that the 
 Minister could not do ; — no reason why he should not play the Dictator — only 
 keeping within the customary forms of Ministerial conduct. But there was 
 something at work stronger than jiarty support and national acquiescence. 
 There was something at work inwardly, in the Minister's own mind, and out- 
 wardly among the elements which create human food, that was aboixt to frus- 
 trate all calculations, and break up a state of things which appeared to have 
 just settled into permanence. The disintegration of parties which some men 
 had foreseen must happen sooner or later, was now presently to begin. The 
 Whig party was gone — never to be revived. There was no general Reform 
 section to take its place ; but the Anti-Corn-law League was now so active, 
 and so considerable in the nation's eye, that any one might see that a Free- 
 trade party would soon take the lead on the Liberal side. On the other side 
 stood the vast Conservative body — apparently all-powerful, but in fact power- 
 ful only precisely so f\ir as it had accepted and assimilated liberal principles. 
 Sir Robert Peel and his immediate coadjutors had accejited and assimilated 
 most of these liberal principles ; and in them therefore lay the main strength 
 of the party. Wlien they emerged as Liberals from the Conservative host, the 
 rest had but little force, and scarcely any princijjle of cohesion. The strongest 
 and most imited portion of them came into natural antagonism with the Free- 
 trade party, and have struggled on, under perpetual failure, with the title of 
 Protectionists, to this day. The adherents of the Minister composed a sort of 
 party, for as long as the discussion of a free trade policy enabled them to 
 remain separate from the Free traders : but, of course, when the Minister had 
 carried his free trade measures, and taken leave of power, his temporary party 
 could no more maintam an independent existence than a military company, 
 employed on a particular service, can constitute a separate body when the 
 achievement is completed, and they have returned to the main body of the 
 army. To be a Peelite was a most significant position for five years ; but 
 when the Minister had accomplished his work of free trade, and retired from 
 power for ever, his staff necessarily dispersed, and no vestige of their separate 
 aggregation remained. 
 
 It was a serious thing to be the man by wliom the disintegration of parties 
 was to be apparently caused. That such a dissolution should take place, 
 sooner or later, was inevitable — whoever might live or die, or rule or retire ;
 
 Chap. V.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 517 
 
 and that it should take place within a certain limit of time or circinnstance 1842-43. 
 ■was a necessary consequence of the Peace. When Peace was concluded and 
 when, afterwards. Canning was devoting himself to preserve it, preparation 
 was in fact made for that dissolution of parties which was now to be attributed 
 solely to the action of Canning's political heir. It is because War is retarda- 
 tion that parties live as long as it lasts. It is because Peace is progress that 
 peace is the death-warrant of parties. In a condition of peace, when new 
 questions and progressive policies arise, and arts and inventions flourish which 
 change the condition and relations of whole classes of men, political interests 
 must be subject to renovation, like every thing else ; and political representa- 
 tives will band themselves together in new combinations, and old organizations 
 will dissolve. Seen in advance, this reconstitution of parties for express aims 
 appears a good : — looked back upon from a far future time, it is clearly seen to 
 be a great good : — but at the time, the preliminary dissolution is a "rave evil • 
 and it is a serious thing to be the man by whom it is effected. It is a "rave 
 evil that the business of the country is ill done, or remains undone, for want 
 of united action in parliament. It is a graver evil that men think ill of each 
 other, as they almost unavoidably do while each is following his own notions', 
 and therefore appearing to be straying wide of any " principle." Oppositions 
 of opinion are respectable in the eyes of antagonists while the opposition is 
 single, and has a centre, round which men gather : but men lose their libe- 
 rality when they see their neighbours, late comrades of their own, wandering 
 into this or that field of opinion, or forming new conjunctions with old oppo- 
 nents. Then imputations fly abroad, not only of intellectual weakness, but 
 of political dishonour. Mutual confidence is gone ; and temper and manners 
 follow. Party violence is bad ; but it is nothing to the violence which succeeds 
 a dissolution of parties. — Grave as are these evils, there is yet a graver. In 
 the intei-val — usually an interval of years — between the disintegration of old 
 parties and the constitution of new ones, while a tentative or accidental fusion 
 takes place here and there, now and then, which gives way again, and proves 
 that such associations cannot be arbitrarily formed, but must grow out of some 
 living principle ; — during such an interval, the country is certain to be badly 
 governed. A principled government — a government which had a policy — 
 w ould inevitably and instantly create parties. The non-existence of parties is 
 an infallible indication that the government is a desultory and not a princii)led 
 one : and of all misfortunes that can befall a nation, none can be graver than 
 this. Such a government cannot endure for many years, even in the absence 
 of all organized opposition, and in the enjoyment of that self-confidence and 
 apparent strength wliich arise from its having all its own way, through tlie 
 unwillingness of political men to displace it till they are provided with a ]iarty 
 and a policy, or their inabiUty to displace it by a merely desultory opposition. 
 l)ut, while it lasts, it is a moral curse. During such a term of rule, tlie poli- 
 tical life of the nation languishes — its vital strength oozes away — its able men 
 lose much of their capability — and the ideal of the people sinks from day to 
 day. Their ideal of the statesman sinks to that of the clerk. Instead of 
 principles and enterprises of progress, they learn to look for mere routine, or 
 ingenuity in expedients. They are like the man who has lapsed from his 
 ideal and purpose of self-perfection, and lets himself cbift among the chances
 
 518 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book YI. 
 
 1842-43. of life. Such, being the natural order of events, has been our experience. 
 
 •^ -—-^ After tlie collapse of the Whigs, Sir R. Peel came in, to govern with power, 
 
 skill, and the wisdom aptest for the time ; — with realities for his mate- 
 rials, and the faculties within him, the reputation around him, and the fates 
 above him, for his agents. But the most serious part of his work was that 
 which he did not appoint to himself, and which he would no doubt have 
 gladly avoided — that of destroying the power amidst which he dwelt and 
 acted by his own explosive force — scattering his own vast party in fragments 
 which could never re-unite. — Upon this has followed the remaining disastrous 
 consequence indicated above — the intervention of a IMinistry whicli could not 
 have held office under the old existence of parties ; and which cannot hold it 
 under any parliamentary organization yet to succeed. — It is necessary to look 
 forward thus far, to understand what Sir R. Peel's position was when he met 
 parliament in February, 1842. He then knew no more of his own destiny 
 than others knew. He did not then dream to what an extent he was to be 
 the destroyer of parties by the act of being the achiever of a policy. 
 
 The necessity which ordained this destiny for him suspended tlie utter dis- 
 integration of parties, in order to give him all needful provisional supports. 
 free-tbaders There was the Free-trade party — strong and conspicuous, but necessarily only 
 isTs. \ ' ' provisional, because the Free-trade question is exhaustible. When trade is 
 made free in all departments, there is an end. For the same reason the Protec- 
 tionist party is necessarily a temporary one. It is, from the moment its policy 
 is broken in upon, a mere protesting party, advocating a negation or mere pas- 
 siveness. The haymaker can protest against a thunder shower only for a time. 
 When the shower is over, there is no more room for protest. — The most clear 
 and serious and significant intimation of a present dissolution and future new 
 constitution of parties arose from that operation of Sir Robert Peel's policy, 
 which must, without leave asked of him or of any body else, abolish the old 
 antagonism between the landed and commercial interests of our countiy. 
 From the earliest days, these two interests have been supposed to be antago- 
 nistic by their very nature. We have seen how an opportunity was lost, at 
 the time of Municipal Reform, of reconciling the two interests so far as to 
 bring the rural districts under a government as good and free as that of the 
 towns. We shall see, throughout this final period of our history, how in- 
 cessantly and completely parliament took it for granted that the landed and 
 commercial interests always must be in opposition because they always have 
 been. But we shall also see something else. We shall see how the Anti-Corn- 
 law League demonstrated a unity of interests between the agricultural and 
 manufacturing populations ; and how the crowning measures of this period 
 provide for their future union, and therefore for the abolition of those party 
 distinctions which have, through our whole parliamentary history, been 
 founded on their division. By the crowning acts of this period, provision is 
 made for the application of science, skill, and economy, in the manufac- 
 ture of food, just like that which takes place in the manufacture of cloth- 
 ing and utensils. By them, provision is made for a vast increase in the 
 stationary or dwindling agricultural population — an increase which will be 
 the natural consequence of an improved provision of work and demand for 
 labour, as science and skill augment the productiveness and production of the 
 soil. As this goes on — as the increase of (he agricultural population once 
 
 Approxfmation 
 
 OF AGRICtlLTU- 
 
 RAL AND Commer- 
 cial INTERESTS.
 
 Chap. V.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 519 
 
 more competes with that of the mamifactuiiiig, and thereby recovers some- 1842-43. 
 thing of its popular dignity ; and as both populations see more and move that 
 their interests are identical and not opposite — that they live under the same 
 great natural laws of society, and flourish most as they are equally regarded 
 by the parliamentary laws of Great Britain — there must be less and less dis- 
 cussion of " the preponderance of the lauded interest in parliament " (at least, 
 in the House of Commons), less and less jealousy about class legislation — 
 not only more equality before the law, but more unity under the policy of a 
 future day. There will be then no place for political distinctions on the 
 ground of the opposition between the agricultural and the commercial interests, 
 and whatever may be the vital principles of parties in that day, they will 
 certainly be something quite unconnected with the old antagonism which re- 
 ceived its death-sentence in the repeal of the coni-laws. 
 
 A little party arose during this period which Avould, if it could, have pro- "Voi-NnENo- 
 tracted this antagonism — both directly, by its agricultural predilections, and 
 indirectly, by perpetuating a social state which had reached its term, or even 
 reviving one which had passed away. No one could wonder that when the 
 great " stream of tendency " was showing its full rapidity, there were many 
 who, rather than trust themselves to it, put back into some little cove, not 
 only to protest at leisure against the sweeping tide, but to gather together on 
 the banks sticks and sti-aws, and meadow-garlands, to make and deck a weir. 
 This was natural ; and men did not wonder at it : but it could not be successful ; 
 and the " Young England" party therefore did not enable the landed interest 
 to retain its special protection and ancient prerogative for a single hour. The 
 idea of the Young England party, in regard to the condition of the people, 
 was that all would be well if the ancient relation between the rich and tlie 
 poor could be restored — if the rich could, as fonnerly, take charge of the poor 
 with a protecting benevolence, and the poor depend upon the rich in a spirit 
 of trust and obedience. What the Tractarian priesthood were at this time 
 requiring of their flocks, the "Young England" politicians were striving for witli 
 the working classes ; and the spectacle was seen of Sunday sports encouraged, 
 as in the old catholic times ; and popular festivals revived, at which young 
 lords and members of parliament pulled off their coats, to play cricket witli 
 the labourers, or moved abotit among the crowd in the park or on the green, in 
 the style of the feudal superior of old. This was amiable and well-intended ; 
 but it did not avail in the face of the stern truth that the great natural laws 
 of society have dissolved the old relations between the endowed and the ^vorking 
 classes, and brought up a wholly new order of affairs. The landed proprietor 
 is no longer the social parent of the population on his estates — bound to 
 supply them with a certain quantity of food and clothing, and empowered to 
 command a certain amount of labour in return : and much less is the tOT^-n 
 capitalist responsible for the maintenance of his neighbours. Tlie tlieory of 
 society now is that the labouring classes are as independent as any others ; 
 that their labour is their own disposable property, by which they may make 
 their subsistence in any way that they may think best. At the time we 
 speak of there were two obstacles in the way of the hajipy realization of this 
 theory, neither of which was recognised by the Young England gentry— one 
 was, that bread and other ordinary provisions were taxed, and the supply of 
 corn restricted by pernicious laws : the other was that, owing to waul of
 
 520 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 CBooK VI. 
 
 1842-43. 
 
 Spectator, 1813, 
 p. 680. 
 
 educational enlightenment and training on the part of the working classes, they 
 hrought an undue number to share the wages of labour, so that most or all 
 had too little ; and thus their theoretical independence vanished under the 
 pressure of actual want. We shall see how the first obstacle was removed 
 during the period under notice : and we shall see how some attempts to 
 advance the education of the people were frustrated, about the same time. 
 Meanwhile, nothing can be clearer than that the view of the Young England 
 partly was fallacious, in as far as it proposed to improve substantially the con- 
 dition of the people. It was beneficial and engaging to see the more educated 
 take an interest in the advancement of the less-educated ; to see men of plea- 
 sure brightening the rare holidays of the men of toil : but it was merely 
 pernicious to hold out false hopes to the suffering, from an impracticable 
 notion of restoring old conditions of protection and dependence, when the one 
 essential thing that it is now necessary for the working-classes to understand 
 is, that (food and labour being released from legal restriction) their condition 
 is in their own hands. As truly as the Reformation took men from under the 
 dictation of the priests, and gave every man's conscience into his own charge, 
 had the growing up of manufactures in our country taken the working classes 
 from under the no longer practicable protection of the landed and moneyed 
 capitalists, and compelled them to protect themselves or perish. If they have 
 enhghtenment enough to see and rule their own destiny, they are raised to a 
 condition far above that of the serf-like working-men of old. If they have 
 not that enlightenment, they perish. In this critical period of the history of 
 their class, they were deriving no effectual help from the Young England 
 party of their friends. As for the parliamentary action of the Young 
 Englanders, it was in accordance mth the hustings declaration of one of them 
 — Mr. Smythe, the member for Canterbury — that the principles advocated by 
 the " old Tory party" of a century back were still the soundest principles of 
 
 The Distress. 
 
 Spectator, IK42, 
 p. 27. 
 
 Spectator, 1842, 
 p. 32. 
 
 Sperlntnr, 1842, 
 p. oM, 
 
 Serious as was the task of the IMinister in every view, the most immediate 
 sympathy was felt for him on account of the fearful state of the people. The 
 distress had now so deepened in the manufacturing districts as to render it 
 clearly inevitable that many must die, and a multitude be lowered to a state 
 of sickness and irritability from want of food ; while there seemed no chance 
 of any member of the manufacturing classes coming out of the struggle at 
 last with a vestige of property, wherewith to begin the world again. The 
 pressure had long extended beyond the interests first affected ; and, when the 
 new Ministry came into power, there seemed to be no class that was not 
 threatened with ruin. In Carlisle, the Committee of Inquiry reported that a 
 fourth of the population was in a state bordering on starvation — actually cer- 
 tain to die of famine, unless relieved by extraordinary exertions. In the 
 woollen districts of Wiltshire, the allowance to the independent labourer was 
 not two-thirds of the minimum in the workhouse ; and the large existing 
 population consumed only a fourth of tlie bread and meat required by the 
 much smaller population of 1820. In Stockport, more than half the master 
 spimicrs had failed before the close of 1842 : dwelling-houses, to the number 
 ot 3,000, were shut up ; and the occupiers of many hundreds more were imable 
 to pay rates at all. Five thousand persons were walking the streets in
 
 Chap. V.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 521 
 
 compulsory idleness : and the Burnley guardians wrote to the Secretary of 1842-43. 
 State that the distress was far beyond their management : so that a govern- ' — — ^— ^' 
 ment Commissioner and government funds were sent down without delay. 
 At a meeting at Manchester, where humble shop-keepers were the speakers, sppotaior, isi2, 
 anecdotes were related which told more than declamation. Rent-collectors ''^'**'' 
 were afraid to meet their principals, as no money could be collected. Provi- 
 sion-dealers were subject to incursions from a wolfish man, prowling for food 
 for his children, or from a half-frantic woman with her dying baby at her 
 breast; or from parties of ten or a dozen desperate wretches, who were le^-^inf 
 contributions along the street. The linen-draper told how new clothes had 
 become out of the question among Iris customers, and they bought only rem- 
 nants and patches, to mend the old ones. The baker was more and more 
 surprised at the number of people who bought half-pennyworths of 
 bread. A provision-dealer used to throw away outside scraps of bacon ; but 
 now, respectable customers of twenty years' standing bought them in jienny- 
 worths, to moisten their potatoes. These shop-keepers contemplated nothing spoctator, 1812. 
 but ruin, from the impoverished condition of their customers. While rales 
 were increasing beyond all precedent, their trade was only one-half or one- 
 third, or even one-tenth, what it had been three years before. In^^that neigh- 
 bourhood, a gentleman who had retired from business in 1833, leaving a pro- 
 perty worth £60,000 to his sons, and \\ ho had, early in the distress, become 
 security for them, was showing the works, for the benefit of the creditors, at 
 a salary of £1 a week. In families where the father had hitherto earned £2 
 per week, and laid by a portion weekly, and where all was now gone but the 
 sacks of shavings they slept on, exertions were made to get " blue milk" for 
 the children to moisten their oatmeal with ; but soon they could have it only 
 on alternate days ; and soon water must do. At Leeds, the pauper stone-heap p'r^^'"''- ^^"' 
 amounted to 150,000 tons; and the guardians offered the paupers 6s. per 
 week for doing nothing, rather than 7s. 6cl. per week for stone-breaking. Tlie 
 millwrights and other trades were offering a premium on emigration, to induce 
 their " hands" to go away. At Hinckley, one-third of the inhabitants were sp^^«i«r. 'siJ, 
 paupers: more than a fifth of the houses stood empty; and there was not 
 work enough in the place to employ properly one-third of the weavei-s. In 
 Dorsetshire, a man and his wife had for wages 2s. 6f/. per week and three 
 loaves : and the ablest labourers had 6s. or 7s. In Wiltshire, the poor peasants 
 held open air meetings after work — which was necessarily after dark. There, 
 by the light of one or two flaring tallow candles, the man or the -vvomaii who 
 had a story to tell stood on a chair, and related how their children were fed 
 and clothed in old times — poorly enough, but still, so as to keep boily and soul 
 together ; and now how they could no how manage to do it. The bare details 
 of the ages of their children, and what the little things could do, aiul of tlio 
 prices of bacon and bread, and calico and coals, had more pathos in them than 
 any oratory heard elsewhere. 
 
 As for how this misery was borne — it was, on the whole, endured with an 
 incredible and inexplicable patience. The most comforting truth yielded by 
 this dr(\adful trial was that large numbers of th(> manufacturing class of 
 labourers had learned thoroughly something that it much concerned them to 
 kjiow— that there was no sucli thing in existence as an luilimited wages' 
 
 3 X 
 
 VOT,. II.
 
 522 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 [Book VI. 
 
 1842-43 
 
 Spectator, 1R42, 
 p, 779. 
 
 Spectator, IS 12, 
 J), 800. 
 
 fund which was intercepted by the cruelty of capitalists. The gi-eat majority 
 of Lancashire operatives showed, for instance, that they knew that their em- 
 ployers were sinking into ruin, and had nothing to give, but out of their 
 dwindling capital. But hunger is maddening — not only by the bitter thoughts 
 that it calls up, but by tlie actual irritation of the brain tliat it causes ; and 
 among the hundreds of thousands of famishing men, and women, and children, 
 some disorder and rebellion could not but arise. Owing to the incomparable 
 management of the Home Secretary, Sir James Graham, the evil and danger 
 were reduced to the smallest possible amount : but there was enough to keep 
 the Ministry in a state of jJerpetual anxiety, and to make the Queen's heart 
 sink within her, in the security of her palace. What the larger measures of 
 the government were, we shall presently see. From the Home Office inform- 
 ation the most extensive and accurate was gathered ; aid was administered, 
 where it could really avail, with the utmost quietness ; preparation was made 
 for the instant repression of violence where it was likely to arise ; and the 
 proper distinction was made between those who suifered the most severely and 
 patiently, and those Chartists who were, at this time, very troublesome. They 
 had got into the hands of protectionist guides or agents, and broke in upon 
 free trade meetings, and denounced free trade in corn, and stirred up precisely 
 those among the working classes who were suffering least — the pitmen of the 
 coal districts, and the Welsh miners. There were riots of nailers and miners 
 at Dudley and Stourbridge, and tumult over the whole district, requiring the 
 active services of the military. The rioters resisted a reduction of wages, and 
 hustled some of the masters ; as did other rioters in Wales, where a gentleman 
 of property had a narrow escape with his life. In the Potteries, a force of 
 6000 malcontents, spread over an extent of seven miles, and occasionally com- 
 mitting violence on recusant masters or men, kept Staffordshire in alarm. 
 Troops were encamped on the Pottery race-course, and magistrates tried to 
 conciliate and mediate ; but with little effect. In Manchester, the influx of 
 malcontents became alarming in August, 1842. Mills were stopped, and, in 
 some, the windows broken, and machinery injured. The Riot Act was read 
 four times in one day, and prisoners were taken by scores at once. A large 
 attendance of military was necessary, as there were threats of tearing up the 
 railways, and cutting the gas pipes. At one time, all the chief manufacturing 
 towns in the district seemed to be in the hands of the mob. Presently a royal 
 proclamation came from London, and troops from London and from Ireland ; 
 and then it appeared that Chartists from a distance were at the bottom of the 
 disturbances. It was well understood afterwards that these risings were a 
 great affliction to the best informed of the suffering operatives, who were aware 
 that their misery had no immediately political origin, and could not he remedied 
 by political movements. 
 
 The rioters sent bodies of their men to the Yorkshire to^^^ls ; and sometimes 
 letters — laconic and significant — detailing progress, and one ending with 
 " We get plenty to eat : the shops are open : they give us what we want." 
 Some disturbances ensued ; but nothing so formidable as in Lancashire, and 
 in the Potteries, where now the malcontents were gutting and burning dwell- 
 ing-houses. In the midst of their violence, they gave a lame clergyman " ten 
 minutes' law" to walk away, but refused the entreaties of a lady that they would
 
 Chap. V.J DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 523 
 
 spare the house, leaving her to ho thankful for personal safety. Three men 1842-4.3. 
 
 were shot dead by the soldiery at Burslcm, and several wounded. Lady Peel '^ '^— -^ 
 
 was assured by an anonjinous correspondeut that Drayton Manor would be cie^ugust.^sw. 
 burned down. A guard was procured ; but no attack was made. A clergy- 
 man at Leeds was warned by ajipvoaching rioters that they meant to sleep in 
 his church on a certain night ; he intimated his intention of preaching to 
 them all night ; and they did not appear. In a very short time, the Chartist Au^'tfisl?.' 
 strangers — men whom nobody knew, dropping in from a distance — showed a 
 depth of design and an extent of rapacity which disgusted the Lancashire 
 operatives ; and the disorder subsided gradually through tlie last weeks of 
 August and the beginning of September. 
 
 To these succeeded the strangest series of riots that has occun-cd in our '.V "'y''.*. "" 
 time. This was a season for teaching the mischievous lesson, that insuiTCc- 
 tionary violence would obtain redress of grievances to which no other motliod 
 of complaint could draw attention. Urgent comidaints had long been made 
 by the inhabitants of the rural districts of Wales of their road-taxes. After 
 having paid rates, they had again to pay heavy tolls on the by-roads — so heavy 
 as sometimes to absorb the profit of the small produce the humble farmers 
 were carrying to market, and to make their manure more costly than it was 
 worth. In 1839, a particularly unpopular set of gates, which the people 
 believed to be illegally erected, were pulled down, on the borders of Caermar- 
 thenshire and Pembrokeshire. The Magistrates declared their intention of 
 over-ruling the trustees about the re-erection of these gates ; some of them 
 became trustees for the purpose ; and the gates were never put up again. 
 This victory dwelt on the minds of the rude and primitive people of the dis- 
 trict, who had notions of their own, knew little of the world outside, and 
 spoke nothing but Welsh. They held meetings in bycomers, or remote 
 places of their wild district, and organized their remarkable conspiracy. 
 They resolved to destroy all gates and toll-houses that they considered ob- 
 jectionable, and to persist till the trustees could not afford to put up any 
 more. Their first enterprise had been a sort of frolic — the gates having been 
 pulled down in open day, by a mob with uncovered laces. They would be 
 more serious and cautious henceforth. Out of the many texts of Scripture 
 which mention a gate — the oriental gate whose significance was not dreamed 
 of by these simple Welshmen— they chose. Gen. xxiv. 60 : " And they S^/Jir'"' 
 blessed Rebekah, and said unto her — Let thy seed possess the gate of those 
 which hate them." They chose a chief, dressed him in woman's clothes, put 
 a laro-e, disguising bonnet on his head, and named him Rebecca, calling his 
 followers Rebecca's daughters. The Rebecca, stalking about in petticoats, or 
 riding astride w4th streaming cloak or shawl, was so ubiquitous, that there 
 could be little doubt of the name being given to any leader of an exjiedition 
 against the gates. In the winter of 1842 and 1843, Rebecca and lier daughters Annual n^uicr. 
 began their work; and that winter will never be forgotten while tradition 
 endures in Wales. P.y day, all was quiet enough. The most \-ig:ilant of the 
 constabulary could see nothing but the ordinary sights of the roads and fields 
 —no groups in consultation, no mysterious looks— nothing but jogging riders 
 who duly paid their tolls, and people about their i)roper business in their fields 
 or their home. If there was a suspicion of an intended attack on any parti-
 
 524 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book VI. 
 
 18-12-43. cular gato, that gate was sure to bo left in peace ; and while it was watched, 
 half a dozen were levelled at some opposite point of the country ; in one case, 
 within a quarter of a mile of the assembled magistrates. If the toll-keepers 
 looked out apprehensively, they were sure not to see any approaching light 
 or other token. If they went outside to listen, nobody came near. Eut, 
 wlien they were forgetful or asleep, they were roused by the blare of a multi- 
 tude of cow-liorns, and the popping of a dozen guns : their door was burst 
 open, and they saw a crowd, some on horses, and some on foot — some in 
 women's clothes, and others with veiled faces — with the flaring torches, 
 and the flittering saws and hatchets. The toll-takers must move out their 
 furniture or lose it; and strong hands helped to carry bed and table and 
 utensils into the field or the dry ditch, while others were sawing ofi' tlxe gate- 
 posts close to the ground, and chopping up the gate. Then off came the roof of 
 the toll-house, and down came the walls, and up came the flags of the very floor; 
 the road was made clear for passengers ; and then the uncouth creatures leaped 
 on their horses again, hallooed, blew their horns, fired their guns, and galloped 
 off" to some distant point, which they would approach in dead stillness, as in this 
 case. The toll-taker and his wife usually found themselves left alone under the 
 stars in a very few minutes after their first start in bed, or by their warm fire- 
 side. Latterly, it was usual for the soldiers to come galloping up, as soon as 
 Rebecca and her children were completely out of sight and hearing. After 
 an instant's pause, to learn which way the rioters were gone, the soldiers 
 would be ofl' at full speed, arriving perhaps to find another toll-keeper and his 
 wife under the stars, and Rebecca just out of sight again. Or, more pro- 
 bably, they missed their way ; for the peasantry competed with each other in 
 misdirecting the dragoons. Thus, in the county of Caermarthen, nearly 80 
 gates were destroyed; and in Pembrokeshire and Cardiganshire few remained. 
 Those few were the old-established gates, which were not meddled with. 
 Those which were most zealously destroyed were the new gates put up on by- 
 roads leading to lime-kilns. The small farmers burned their own lime for 
 
 Times Reporter, manurc ; and since the new contractors for the tolls had insisted on putting 
 up gates on the way to the kilns, the farmers had to pay Is. for then- load of 
 stone, another for their load of coal, and again another for their lime wlieu 
 they brought it away from the kiln. Their little farming could not be made 
 to answer in this way. For some time, tliis seemed to be all, and probably 
 was all, that was comprehended in the movement. 
 
 C111HT.9T Inter- jjyt -wlieu risings were taking; place elsewhere. Chartist agitators went into 
 South Wales, to see whether they could not make comrades of Rebecca and 
 her children. The aspect of the movement presently changed. The police 
 were surrounded and disarmed, and in one case marched to a magistrate's 
 house, and compelled to pull down a wall. Threatening letters were distri- 
 buted, declaring that Rebecca meant to aboUsh justice fees and tithes ; and 
 to i)ull down the workhouses, and to compel a reduction of rents. The 
 alarmed and perplexed magistrates besought aid from government ; and 
 strong body of troops, and anotlier of police, were sent down. But 
 both troops and police were baffled at every turn. Magistrates' liouses 
 were fired into ; and Caermarthen workhouse was half-destroyed, jjrecisely 
 according to previous threats. The mob marched into the town, to the num- 
 
 June, la43. 
 
 VENTIUN.
 
 (llAkiSM. 
 
 Sppcutor, 18J3. 
 
 Chap. V.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS" PEACE. 535 
 
 ber of some thousands, the flaunting Rebecca being conspicuous among them. 1842-43 
 
 Among the insignia carried were bioonis, wherewith to swoop the foundations ^-— -ii— ^ 
 
 of the workhouses and toll-houses. The mob had burst the gates, and were '^I'f <""'. '»". 
 
 gutting the house — the governor clanging the alarm-bell — when the soldiers 
 
 arrived— two of their horses dropping dead from fatigue. Several hundreds of 
 
 the rioters were captured ; and a few slightly wounded. From the time that 
 
 the Chartist emissaries directed Rebecca's movements, nothing went well with 
 
 her. At the meetings in the hollows of the hills, tlie Chartist toryism came 
 
 out. One speaker denounced the poor law, saying it was the proper fruit of 
 
 the foolish and mischievous Reform Bill ; and here, as every where else, the 
 
 tory-chartists opposed free trade, and announced the ruin of all farmers if the 
 
 corn laws were repealed. All now went wrong. One night, Rebecca's horse 
 
 was shot, and her gun was wrested out of her hand. She galloped 100 vards, 
 
 when her horse fell dead, and in the darkness of the night she escaped : but at 
 
 last two of her " children" were captured in the act of assaulting a toll-house. 
 
 They were young farm labourers. The gate was, on this occasion, saved. 
 
 This was on the 24th of August. On the 6th of September, Rebecca's liorse 
 
 was again shot (after the destruction of the gate), and six of her followers 
 
 captured, two of whom were severely wounded. Before the month was out, 
 
 incendiarism began. A band of armed and disguised men went from farm to inchn 
 
 farm of an active magistrate, and burned his stacks — being lighted across pI'sou'.'svV 
 
 the fields by the fires they had kindled behind them. Another magisti-ate, 
 
 coming home at night, found his stacks burning, tlie wood full of amied men, 
 
 and the plugs of his fish-ponds drawn, so that no water could be had. — Next 
 
 came murder. — There was a time in the movement when Rebecca was genial, 
 
 with some little mirth ui her mood, and much kindness. In the spring she 
 
 had lot a toll-house stand, because there was a sick child within. Now, in the 
 
 autumn, she was grown diabolical — so diabolical, that men lost their manliood 
 
 under the dread of her enmity. — Aji old woman, above 70, kept a gate which M„„nEii. 
 
 she knew to be doomed. She had been warned to leave it ; and at three in the 
 
 morning, one Sunday, she was awakened by the burning of her thatch. She 
 
 ran to a cottage near, to ask the stout fellow who lived there to come and 
 
 put out the fire ; — " There was not much," she said. He dared not jnit his 
 
 head out ; but asked her in. She ran back to save her furniture. Rebecca's 
 
 children came up, and fired the thatch again. The old creature called out 
 
 that she knew them : and they shot her dead. "What followed made some 
 
 people talk of leaving the country, and others of the advantage of martial 
 
 law. The coroner's jury, privately owning themselves afraid to do their duty, 
 
 returned a verdict " That the deceased died from the effusion of blood into Annmu Hntbiw, 
 
 the chest, wliich occasioned sufibcation. But from what cause is to this jury '*'•'• p-''- 
 
 unknowu." 
 
 This was not to be borne. A Royal Proclanration called on all men to do sit.ialcommis- 
 their dutv. A Special Coiinnissiou was sent down to try the prisoners ; and, 
 better than either of these, another Commission was appointed to incpiiro into 
 the oTievances of the malcontents. Both connnissions were conducted in the 
 best spirit. The addresses of the judge, Baron Giuiiey, are like the admoni- 
 tory rebukes of a parent to children hard driven into fault: and indeed, there 
 was pity in all minds towards the culprits — tlie opinion of the other connni^ion
 
 526 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 [Book VI. 
 
 1842-43. 
 
 Spectator, 1813, 
 p. 103B. 
 
 C4JM MISSION OF 
 
 iNguiRV. 
 
 South Wales 
 TuBNPiKii Act, 
 
 Hansard, Ixsvi. 
 1914. 
 
 TllOl'BLES IN 
 
 Ireland. 
 
 Till-: Court. 
 
 already getting known — tliat poverty and hardship were at the bottom of the 
 llebccca riots. Three men sentenced to transportation issued a penitent ad- 
 monitory address to their countrymen ; and their relations and intimate friends 
 offered themselves for special constables. The light sentences of imprison- 
 ment on others of the rioters, and the discharge without trial of many more, 
 were believed to be owing, not only to many pleading Guilty, but to an un- 
 derstanding that the peace was to be kept henceforth. 
 
 The Commission of Inquiry held sittings from place to place ; and every- 
 where the inhabitants showed themselves eager to state their grievances. The 
 conclusions of the Commissioners were that the hardships under the existing 
 turnpike-system were real and intolerable ; and that the outbreak was imme- 
 diately occasioned by their pressure on the farmers who were already in diffi- 
 culties from a succession of bad harvests. From other causes, there was more 
 hardship than usual — the long-continued distress having extended its effects 
 into the remotest corners of the principality. — In the next Session of Parlia- 
 ment, a Bill, framed on the Report of the Conmiissioners, passed both Houses 
 without controversy — the leading principle of which was the consolidation of 
 Turnpike Trusts in South Wales. The constitution of the new Executive 
 Board, and the arrangements for clearing off the debts under the old system, 
 were everywhere approved ; and Rebecca's insurrection ended in complete 
 success as to its original objects. While all minds were soothed and pleased 
 by the fine temper shown in the trials, all felt that the utmost leniency was 
 absolutely indispensable, while the government Commissioners were discover- 
 ing the grievances of the people to be real and intolerable, and to have been 
 complained of in vain for many years. 
 
 Of the excited state of Scotland during this period of dread and disorder, 
 some account must be given hereafter. And also of Ireland, where O'ConncU 
 was triumphing and boasting the more offensively, the more distress and dis- 
 aster spread in England and AVales. — He avowed the " sentiment," that 
 " England's adversity is Ireland's opportunity." Opportunity for what ? was the 
 question asked by a multitude ; but a larger midtitude on Irish ground did 
 not think of asking the question. If the demand of O'Connell and Ireland 
 had been for any definable reform or measure or gi-ant, long asked and denied, 
 the declaration might have been excusable, like the action of Rebecca and her 
 children. But it was not so ; and a subsequent chai^ter will show the full 
 iniquity of O'Connell's present proceedings, and of the motto which he caused 
 to be heard in the drawing-rooms at Windsor Castle, and under the thatch of 
 the meanest Irish cabin. 
 
 And how was it at Windsor and in London during this dreary and tedious 
 season of adversity.' When the distress set in, the Queen and her Court 
 were engaged in a perpetual roiuid of gaieties. Some newspapers, which had 
 a wide circulation among the working classes, now began the practice of 
 printing in parallel columns the descriptions of fancy dresses at the Queen's 
 balls, and accounts of royal purchases, banquets, and pleasm-es, on the one 
 band ; and the coroners' inquests on starved persons, reports from the distressed 
 districts, returns of mortality, and the like, on the other. The device ■(>Tonght 
 powerfully ; and some portentous symptoms of a new royal inipopularity ap- 
 peared. It is believed that Sir R. Peel did the dutv of a faithful Minister ;
 
 Chap. V.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 527 
 
 not rousing or augmenting the fears of the Queen, but giving the counsel 1842-43. 
 which the time required. In the midst of mag-nificent preparations for the ^— — ^-^— ^ 
 christening of the Prince of W<ales, it is believed that the Minister gave the 
 advice to make haste, and to retrench. The King of Prussia presently 
 anived : the Queen and Court appeared in Paisley and other home manufac- 
 tures ; and, as soon as the christening was over, a comparative sobriety settled 
 down over the Court, and not even the most querulous had any future cause 
 to blame the amount or the nature of the royal expenditure. 
 
 In such times it is — if they last long enough to wear our faith and patience — alarms. 
 that we see most curiously revealed the " fears of the brave and follies of the 
 wise." Accidents always intervene to aggravate the fear ; and the undue fear 
 perverts the wisdom of the wisest. It was during this season that two of the 
 pistol shots which have been mentioned before, were fired at the Queen. Both 
 were pranks of ignorant and foolish youths, and appear to have had no imme- 
 diate connexion with the discontents of the time. But they went to enhance 
 the impression of dread ; and it was understood that the ladies of the Court — 
 and pcrliaps not only the ladies — were living in a painful state of api)rehen- 
 sion of coming evils. While all was gloomiest, in January, 1843, an event 
 happened which might almost iustify any increase of panic. Sir R. Peel's mubdeb of mb. 
 private secretary, Mr. Edward Urummond, was shot in the street, and died of 
 the wound. It was at first supposed that he was mistaken for the Premier ; 
 and, in a season such as this, which was manifestly unsettling weak wits, it 
 was some time before Sir R. Peel was considered safe. Two policemen in 
 plain clothes followed him in the streets ; and the newspapers, which were all 
 aware of the fact, considerately forbore (all but one) to notice the fact. Mr. 
 Drummond's murderer, however, was proved a lunatic, and lodged for life in 
 an asylum. ITct, there was mischief in the occurrence. Drunken men were 
 heard to threaten the Queen and the Minister ; and infirm brains began to 
 work in that direction, as we see by the Police reports of the time. 
 
 Something worse than the "fears of the brave" were "the follies of the 
 wise." Grave statesmen, honourable gentlemen, benevolent Christians, began 
 to conceive of conduct in their adversaries, and to utter imputatious, which 
 could never have come into their heads at an ordinary time. The Anti-Corn- 
 law League had not yet had time to win the respect and command the defer- 
 ence which it was soon to enjoy: but it was known to be organized and led by 
 men of station, character, and substance— men of enlarged education, and of 
 that virtuous and decorous conduct which distinguishes the middle class of 
 England. Yet it was believed —believed by men of education, by men in par- 
 liament, by men in attendance on the government — that the Anti-Coni-law 
 I^eague sanctioned assassination, and did not object to carry its aims by means 
 of it. This is, perhaps, the strongest manifestation of the tribulation of tlie 
 time. In the midst of it a strange and mournful scene took place in the House 
 of Commons — a scene which would willingly be forgotten, but that the Spirit 
 of History must forget nothing which indicates or affects the course of events. 
 Sir R. Peel was ill, harassed with public anxieties, and deeply wounded in his 
 private feelings, by the murder of his secretary, who was also his intimate 
 friend. Mr. Cobden was then little known— at least, by his opponents. He 
 was known as the chief man of the League ; and the League was believed to
 
 52S ■• HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book VI. 
 
 1842-43 P'ltronize assassination. In the heat of debate, at two hours past midnight of 
 the I7th of February, the Premier charged Mr. Cobden with exposing him to 
 fatal consequences, by dechuiug him "personally responsible" for the misery 
 of the people. Mr. Cobden was so confounded by the outrageous charge, and 
 so borne down by the passionate and insulting clamour- of the majority of the 
 House, that he could not do himself justice. Some years afterwards, the two 
 great men came to an understanding, and did themselves and one another 
 justice. But that such an incident could have occurred shows that it was no 
 time lor judging the greatest men too strictly. If it was a time when a gaunt 
 workman miglit be lightly dealt with for snatching a loaf, and a Welsh pea- 
 sant for sawing off a gate-post, it was also one which bespoke consideration for 
 perplexed and anxious statesmen. 
 
 Such was the period that was setting in — such were the storms that were 
 chiving up— when the Peel ministry had to come forward with measures of 
 relief for the finances of the counti-y.
 
 Chap. VI.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 529 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 rpiIE new Administration insisted, as we have seen, on taking the recess for 1842. 
 -*- the consideration of the financial affiiirs of the nation, instead of declar- "~— ^ ^^--^ 
 
 ,.,. 'I* 1 1 •• 111 -1 OPKNINO OF THE 
 
 ing then' pohcy within a month, as the ex-mimstcrs would have taunted them sessiox. 
 into doing. The present ministers were men of business, disposed and able 
 to make their measures thorough and complete of their kind — fit to be offered 
 to parliament — fit to pass through parliament — fit to work in practice after- 
 wards : and the interval between September and February was short enough 
 for the preparation of such a group of measures as was now to be set up 
 against the debts and distresses of the country. There was much specula- 
 tion and conjecture <as to the purposes of ministers during this interval ; but 
 ministers were profoundly secret : and none were further from anticipating 
 what was coming than the heads of the AVhig party. At a dinner in London 
 in November, where all the guests but two were personal friends and adher- 
 ents of the late ministers, one of the two (who was not a party man at all) 
 was asked what he supposed Peel and Goulburn would do. The reply Mas, 
 " Why, Peel has told you two things wliich, put together, show you wliat he 
 means to do. He says he is not going to repeal the corn laws ; and he says he 
 will put an end to our sinking into debt. Therefore, he must be going to 
 lay on an income tax." The uproar of ridicule was loud ; and the guest was 
 told on all hands that he was talking nonsense, and that he little knew Peel 
 if he supposed him to have the "courage" to lay on an income tax. His 
 answer was, " You asked my opinion, and you have it. Time will show if I 
 am wrong." It seems surprising now that so few should have anticipated a 
 positive policy — a set of broad measures, which should be at once remedial 
 and progressive : but too many minds had become weak and superficial about 
 political affiiirs, under the incapable rule of the Whigs ; and those who went 
 into society found little but a vague expectation of some relief from shiftings 
 and changes under the heads of the debt, and some putting on and taking off 
 among the taxes. — Meantime, nothing occurred in the way of disclosure till 
 January — a short time before parliament met, when the Duke of Ihuking- 
 ham seceded from the ministrv. This was understood as a sign that some- srcfssion of thi! 
 
 .• , 1 T\ 1 !■ 11 1 • 1 Ul KK OF BllK. 
 
 thing was going to be done witli the corn laws that the Duke ot iiucUingham ivcium. 
 did not like. The farmers were uneasy. The Whigs were deliglited — lioj)ing 
 that there was already a division in the cabinet. Tiie Speech was eagerly 
 listened to, at the opening of parliament on the 3rd of February. The 
 numbers who thronged the House of Lords were unusually great, because of 
 the new interest wliieli surrounded the Queen after tlie recent birth of the 
 Prince of Wales, and because the King of Prussia was present, and the cere 
 mony was conducted willi unusunl spliMulnur : but there wns more eagerness 
 
 VOT,. IT. 3 Y
 
 530 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 [Book VI. 
 
 1842. 
 
 The Qi'een's 
 Speech. 
 Hansard, Ix. 4. 
 
 Hansard, Ix. SP. 
 Hansard, Ix. 20. 
 
 The Coon Ques 
 iriuN. 
 
 Spectator, 18-12, 
 p. 151. 
 
 The Mi.Nisrtr.i. 
 Scheme. 
 
 still to hear how the appalling distresses of the country wonltl bo noticed, 
 and our financial difficulties be met. 
 
 In the Speech, the recognition of the distress was emphatic ; and so was 
 that of " the exemplary patience and fortitude " of the sufferers. The evil of 
 the annual deficit, now become so familiar, was pointed out as one which 
 must immediately be jjut an end to ; and the tone of decision about this 
 showed that some practical method of recovery was about to be proposed. 
 Parliament was also requested to attend to the laws affecting the importation 
 of corn, and of other articles of foreign production. — What " other articles ?" 
 people asked each other, and how many of them ? Was there to be an exten- 
 sion of free trade ? Could any considerable sacrifice of import duties be con- 
 templated at a time when the first consideration was how to deal with our 
 annual deficit ? The debate on the Address did not detain men long from the 
 answers to these questions. There was a seriousness and business-like cha- 
 racter about the Speech, and the demeanour of Ministers in meeting parlia- 
 ment, which rebuked captiousness, and put a check upon waste of time in 
 party recrimination. The Whig leaders were more amiable than they had 
 been in the autumn ; and some taunting observations from I^ord John Russell, 
 easily answered, and a curious piece of abuse of the Sliding Scale from Lord 
 Melbourne — as free and easy as if he had never deprecated attacks upon 
 it — were the only hostile manifestations on the part of the Whigs. The 
 Address echoed the Speech, and passed quickly. The Premier gave notice 
 that the Budget would be brought forward early. Ministers were ready with 
 it now; but they thought it due to the country to go into the Corn question 
 first, with which their remaining measures would be connected, as speedily as 
 possible. The Corn question was to come on on the next Wednesday, 
 February 9th. 
 
 All that day, the avenues to the House were thronged ; and the moment 
 the doors were opened, there was a rush which filled the strangers' gallery. 
 As the Horse Guards' clock struck four, the head of a remarkable procession 
 appeared from the Strand. Six hundred Anti-corn-law delegates were march- 
 ing down to the House, where they demanded admission to the lobby, and 
 were refused, on the ground of the obstruction that would thus bo caused to 
 the entrance of members. Wliile the members were entering, therefore, the 
 strangers lined the way in Palace-yard, and greeted each member as he passed 
 with a hint or exhortation about the repeal of the Corn laws. They felt their 
 full importance : and it was really great. Already, since the meeting of 
 parliament, 994 petitions for the repeal of the Corn laws had been presented : 
 and these delegates were the representatives of some millions of the Queen's 
 best subjects. When they had duly impressed themselves on the passing 
 members, they marched back again up Parliament-street, and, at Privy 
 Gardens, they met Sir R. Peel in his carriage, on his way to the House. He 
 looked very grave; and his countenance did not relax when he heard 
 the cries all round him for the downfall of the bread tax. This was an 
 anxious day for the Minister — the last great occasion of his speaking from a 
 false position — from too dubious and unsatisfied a mind within to enable him 
 ^ cheerfully to brave unpopularity without. 
 
 He rose to speak about five o'clock. The Duke of Cambridge and many
 
 Chap. VI.J DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 
 
 531 
 
 other peers were present, and the House was crowded throughout, and yet par- 184'> 
 
 ticularly still till towards the close of the speech, when the Minister had to ask ' 
 
 for the attention of his hearers. There was no confidence in his manner: it was pI'uS'"''' '*"' 
 nervous and uneasy. There was no argument in his speech ; it was mainly one 
 of clear exposition of the government proposals, and vague deprecation of " re- 
 liance on foreigners" for the food of the nation. He even condescended to 
 the statement that in ordinary years the nation had enough, or nearly cnou<di, 
 of home-grown corn for its consumption, and that it was therefore only on Hansard, ix. 214. 
 extraordinary occasions that we need to resort to foreigners for any consider- 
 able quantity of food. In a little Avhile, he was to see, as clearly as any man, 
 that it was not for him or any one to say when the people had enough, or how 
 long our annual produce would servo our increasing numbers ; and that the 
 occasional character of our demand for foreign corn was preciselv that wliicli 
 made the commerce an evil instead of a good. But now his mind was enter- 
 ing upon its final transition stage — something of the bitterness of which he 
 had known before. The joy of the agricultural party at finding that they 
 were not to be bereft of their Sliding Scale could give him no pleasure in the 
 present state of his mind. The derisive cheers of the Opposition were cla- 
 morous when it appeared that nothing more was proposed than a reduction of 
 duty, and to make the Sliding Scale really slide instead of jumping: and the 
 Whigs were delighted to find that the Minister had failed to come up to their 
 own point — of an 8s. fixed duty. Their cheers were caught up by the Anti- 
 Corn-law crowd without : and the Minister, supposed to be the strongest since 
 the Peace, found himself almost overwhelmed on the announcement of the 
 first of his schemes. 
 
 The Ministerial plan proposed to preserve the principle of the corn duty Tiin corn bul 
 varying inversely with the price of corn in the market : and the existing Hansard,!!, sis- 
 system of averages was to be retained — if for no other reason, because it was 
 the basis of the recent Tithe Commutation scheme. But some security was 
 pro\ided by changes in the mode and instrumentality of procuring the aver- 
 ages, and yet more by extending the area from which the averages were to be 
 derived. Instead of the 150 towns named in the Corn bill, many of wliich 
 Avere insignificant in comparison with new towns that had risen up, e\ery 
 considerable town which had a corn market was to be named in the new Act, 
 to contribute to the averages. — As for the main point — the reduction of duties — 
 much fraud and other evil had been found to arise from the suddenness of the 
 reduction of duty when corn was at the dearest. Thus, when wheat was at 
 70s. the duty was 13s. Sd. ; and it fell to 10s. 8d. when wheat was only Is. 
 dearer. Yet worse, when wheat was again Is. dearer, the duty sank 4s., so 
 as to be iis. 8d. at 72s., and 2s. 8f/. at 73s. ; and above that, only Is. The 
 inducement to corn merchants to hold back corn, in order to enhance its price, 
 and escape all but the lightest duties, was thus very strong ; and tlie injury 
 was great to the government, which lost much duty; to the home-grower, by 
 causiu"' an over-supply in the market precisely when prices reached their 
 highest point ; and above all, to the consumer, who had to pay the high prices 
 thus artificially caused. This was the evil to be redressed. In coming to the 
 mode of redress, Sir 11. Peel made the agricultural faces in the House very 
 orave by saying that he did not believe it to be for the interest of the farmer
 
 532 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 [Book VI. 
 
 It» Rbccption. 
 
 1842. that prices should reach higher than the range from 54s. to 58s. The manu- 
 
 — > ' facturing interest were not surprised at his seeing no good in prices being 
 
 lower than that rano-e : and he made both classes understand that he was as 
 far as possible from supposing that the price of home-giown corn could be 
 fixed, or even indicated, by any thing that could be done in parliament. This 
 beino- understood, it was now proposed that the duty should never exceed 20s., 
 and that this duty should remain till the price of wheat passed 50s. When 
 it was 51s. the duty was to be 19s. Then it was to be 18s. while the price 
 mounted through three shillings — that is, till wheat was at 55s., when the 
 duty would be ITs. This " rest" in the slide was to be repeated when the 
 price was 66s. and the duty 6s. The price must be 69s. before the duty sank 
 to 5s. — Such was the scheme, proposing a very considerable reduction of 
 duties, and of " protection" to the home-grower ; but somewhat easing the 
 reduction by amending in his favour the action of the scale. It was in itself 
 no great matter : it did not touch the vices of the sjstem, or introduce any 
 remedial principle : but it told plainly enough, to all that had ears to hear, 
 that the Corn laws were doomed. The dubious countenances of land-owners 
 in both Houses said so. The shakes of the head at market tables said so. 
 The embarrassed bearing of the Minister said so, to those who saw his posi- 
 tion and his course more clearly than he did himself Tlie cheers of the 
 Delegates, outside the House, before assembling to concert new measures 
 of agitation, said so : and, as for the newspapers, some of them said so very 
 plainly. 
 
 It was the 7th of April before the Bill passed the Commons : and great was 
 the excitement in the interval. The farmers were at first disposed to be as 
 angry as the manufacturers ; but they were advised by their friends in both 
 Houses to be quiet, as it was certain that they could get nothing better than 
 this Bill by opposition, and they might get something worse. The League called 
 meetings in London, and all the large provincial towns, where the imposition 
 of any tax whatever on food was denounced, and declared to be doomed 
 to extinction. At these meetings. Lord John Russell's proposed policy made 
 no progress. A fixed duty was scouted as emphatically as any moveable duty. 
 Annual Register, jn gomc manufacturing towns. Sir R. Peel was burned in effigy- He had 
 
 1842. D. 53. ^ ^•' 
 
 gratified nobody — satisfied very few, and offended a vast majority of the 
 nation : so he might well look grave by anticipation, when he met the dele- 
 gates by his own gate as he was going down to the House. 
 
 The first thing the House did was to sanction the principle of the Sliding 
 Scale, by rejecting Lord John Russell's resolution against it, by a majority of 
 123 in a House of 575 members, after a debate of four nights. Yet Mr. Villiers 
 brought forward his promised motion against any corn duty whatever ; and this 
 w-as debated for five nights more, and lost by a majority of 393 to 90. A scale 
 of duties proposed by ]Mr. Christopher, as superior to the Ministerial one, was 
 Hansard, ix.iiiM.i-ejectg(\ iu Committee by a majority of 306 to 104. Lord Ebrington opposed 
 the second reading on the 8th of ^March, but was outvoted by a large majority. 
 The debates had now become languid and wearisome. Every body knew what 
 would be said on all hands, and that the Bill could not but pass, after the 
 rejection of Lord John Russell's resolution : and it was an universal relief when 
 
 1842, p. 53. 
 
 Amendment 
 
 IlEJECTEK. 
 
 Uansurd, 1,\. G'.;0. 
 
 Hansard, Ix. 10s2
 
 Chap. VI.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 533 
 
 the Corn bill of 1842 — the last defiance of the great natural lawsof societj-, in 1842. 
 the shajje of a sliding scale of food duties — was scut up to the other House. ^"^^ ' 
 
 There Lord Melbourne foUowed the course of Lord John Russell in the Com- "*"'""'■ ^'- "' 
 mons — but in his own characteristic manner. He declared that all soimd "'^"''' '^"- '-^■ 
 argument, all good sense, all clear reason, all the well-understood interests of 
 mankind, were on the side of free trade ; but that all usage, all prejudices, and 
 nearly all feelings, were in favour of protective duties. He therefore dissented 
 from Lord Brougham's jiroposed resolutions in favour of a perfectly free trade 
 in corn, and moved a declaration in favour of a fixed duty on its importation. 
 This was negatived by a majority of 117 to 49: and Lord Brougham's, in a thin 
 House, by 87 to 6. Lord Stanhope, on the other, the ultra-protectionist, side, Hansard, i.iii.8o-i. 
 would have had the Bill read that day six months : but the day of his party bill becohes 
 was OTer ; and the Bill became law on the 29th of April. uan.'ard, ixw. : 
 
 In the meantime, the all-important statement had been made — the 
 statement of the measures by which Ministers proposed to retrieve the 
 financial affairs of the nation, to arrest its course into annually-dcei)ening 
 debt, and give a new and healthy stimulus to manufactures and commerce. 
 The statement took the House aiul the people by surprise — not after the man- men't.'^ 
 ner which had become a Whig device, but by the breadth and comprehensive- 
 ness of the measures proposed. It was remembered that measures proposed 
 by a Peel Cabinet were always fit to be carried, as far as their preparation was 
 concerned : so that, if passed at all, they would be passed complete ; and men 
 saw their whole prospect when the Ministerial proposals were laid before them. 
 It is seldom that so wide and new a prospect is opened before a people as on 
 the present occasion : and it was indeed time that the most vigorous and 
 effectual efforts were made for the redemption of our sinking state. It was at 
 this date that it became clear that the Chinese war was not over ; and our 
 deadly misfortunes in India were beginning to open upon minds at home. 
 Though the East India Company bore the expenses of wars which concerned 
 their own territorj-, it w-as impossible to say what might not be the drain upon 
 the national treasiu-y in consequence of the vVfFghan enterprise. 
 
 We have seen something of the daily - deepening distress and trouble 
 throughout our own islands; and, of all disheartening things, the Minister 
 had to begin his government under a certain deficiency of two millions and a Hansard, ixl 430. 
 half for the year, and upwards of ten millions for the last six years. The 
 excuse of the Whigs for leaving affairs in this condition was, that they could 
 not help it. They declared that, from tliis consideration, and a principle of 
 religious submission to misfortunes sent by Providence, their minds were 
 calm, and their consciences clear. Such was their declaration. It is well for 
 the British nation that Sir R. Peel's was somewhat different — in spirit as in 
 terms. Which was the nobler, the more religious, and the more bene^■olent, 
 the event soon showed. Sir R. Peel's declaration was as follows ; and it aided 
 his after-work, by spreading stimulus and hope over the country, and rousing 
 the best spirit of the nation. On the 11th of March it was that, before open- 
 ing his scheme, he intimated the spirit in which it was prepared. 
 
 " Xo one," he said, "can feel more than 1 do the imi)ortance and the Hansard, Ui. 423. 
 extent of the duty that devolves on me. No one can be more conscious tlian
 
 — 166. 
 
 534 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book VI. 
 
 1842. I am how disproportionate are my intellectual powers to the proper perfonn- 
 ance of my task ; hut, Sir, I should be unworthy of the trust committed to me 
 — I should he unfit to stand here in my place as the Minister of the British 
 Crown — if I could feel disheartened or discouraged — if I could entertain any 
 thing but composure and contentedness of mind — any thing, I may say, but 
 that buoyancy and alacrity of spirit which ought to sustain every public man 
 when entering upon the discharge of a great public duty ; conscious that he is 
 actuated by no motives that are not honourable and just, and feeling a deep 
 and intimate conviction that, according to the best conclusion of his imperfect 
 and fallible judgment, that which he intends to propose will be conducive to 
 the welfare, I may say, essential to the prosperity, of the country." So much 
 for his own state of mind. As for that which he confidently anticipated fi-om 
 the nation, his own intimation of what it ought to be, at the conclusion of his 
 speech, was enough to call it into life, if it was not akeady existing. No 
 History of the Thirty Years' Peace would be complete which did not embody 
 the views of the Patriotism of Peace, in analogy with that of War, which were 
 this night offered, amidst the deep silence of a listening parliament, by the 
 First Minister of the Crown : — 
 Hansard, ui. 464 " I liavc givcu you," Said Sir R. Peel, " a fiill, an explicit, an unreserved, 
 but, I .hope, an unexaggerated Statement of the financial embarrassments in 
 which we are placed. There are occasions when a Minister of the Crown 
 may, consistently with honour and mth good policy, pause before he presses 
 upon the Legislature the adoption of measures which he believes to be ab- 
 stractedly right But there are occasions, and this is one of them, 
 
 upon which a government can make no compromise — there are occasions, and 
 this is one of them, upon which it is the boimden duty of a government to give 
 that counsel to the Legislature which it believes to be right — to undertake the 
 responsibility of proposing those measures which it believes to be for the public 
 advantage, and to devolve upon the Legislatiu'e the responsibility of adopting 
 or rejecting those measures. I have performed, on the part of her Majesty's 
 government, my duty. I have proposed, with the full weight and authority 
 of the government, that which I believe to be conducive to the public welfare. 
 I now devolve upon you the duty, which properly belongs to you, of maturely 
 considering, and finally deciding on, the adoption or rejection of the measures 
 I propose. We live in an important era of human affairs. There may be a 
 natural tendency to overrate the magnitude of the crisis in which Ave live, or 
 those particular events with which we are ourselves conversant ; but I think 
 it is impossible to deny that the period in which our lot and the lot of our 
 fathers has been cast — the period which has elapsed since the first outbreak of 
 the first French Revolution — has been one of the most memorable periods 
 that the history of the world will aiFord. The course which England has 
 pursued during that period will attract for ages to come the contemplation, 
 and, I trust, the admiration, of posterity. That period may be divided into 
 two parts of almost equal duration ; a period of twenty-five years of continued 
 conflict — the most momentous which ever ensfagred the energies of a nation — 
 and twenty-five years, in which most of us have lived, of profound European 
 peace, produced by the sacrifices made during the years of war. There will 
 be a time when those countless millions that are sjirung from our loins.
 
 Chap. VI.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 535 
 
 occupying many parts of the globe, living under institutions derived from ours, 1842. 
 speaking the same language in which we convey our thoughts and feelings — 
 for such will be the ultimate results of our wide-spread colonization — the time 
 will come when those countless millions will view with pride and admiration 
 the example of constancy and fortitude which our fathers set during the mo- 
 mentous period of war. They will view with admiration our previous 
 achievements by land and sea, our determination to uphold the public credit, 
 and all those qualities by the exhibition of which we were enabled ultimately, 
 by the example we set to foreign nations, to ensure the deliverance of Europe. 
 In the review of the period, the conduct of our fathers during the years of war 
 will be brought into close contrast with the conduct of those of us who have 
 lived only during the years of peace. I am now addressing you after the 
 duration of peace for twenty-five years. I am now exhibiting to you the 
 financial difficulties and embarrassments in which you are placed ; and my 
 confident hope and belief is that, following the example of those who preceded 
 you, you will look those difficulties in the face, and not refuse to make similar 
 sacrifices to those which your fathers made for the purpose of upholding public 
 cretlit. You will bear in mind that this is no casual and occasional difficulty. 
 You Avill bear in mind that there are indications amoiig all the upper classes 
 of society of increased comfort and enjoyment — of increased prosperity and 
 wealth, and that, concvm-ently with these indications, there exists a mighty 
 evil which has been growing up for the last seven years, and which you are 
 now called upon to meet. If you have, as I believe you have, the fortitude 
 and constancy of which you have been set the example, you will not consent 
 with folded arms to view the annual growth of this mighty evil. You will 
 not reconcile it to your consciences to liope for relief from diminished taxation. 
 You will not adopt the miserable expedient of adding, during peace, and in the 
 midst of those indications of wealth and of increasing prosperitv, to the 
 burdens which posterity will be called upon to bear. You will not permit this 
 evil to gain such gigantic growth as ultimately to place it fixr beyond your ])ower 
 to check or control. If you do permit this evil to continue, you must expect the 
 severe but just judgment of a reflecting and retrospective posterity. Your 
 conduct will be contrasted with the conduct of your fathers, under difficulties 
 infinitely less pressing than theirs. Your conduct will be contrasted with that 
 of your fathers, who, with a mutiny at the Nore, a rebelHon in Ireland, and 
 disaster abroad, yet submitted with buoyant vigour and universal applause (with 
 the funds as low as 52) to a property tax of 10 per cent. I believe that you will 
 not subject yourselves to an injurious or unworthy contrast. It is my firm belief 
 that you will feel the necessity of preserving inviolate the pubhc credit — that you 
 will not throw away the means of maintaining the public credit by reducing in 
 the most legitimate manner the burden of tlu- public debt, ^[y confident 
 liope and belief is that now, when I devolve tlie resi)onsibility uiion you. you 
 will prove yourselves worthy of your mission — of your mission as the repi-c- 
 sentatives of a mighty people ; <and tliat you will not tarnish the fame which 
 it is your duty to cherish as the most glorious inheritance — that yi)u will not 
 impair the character for fortitiule, for good faitli, which, in proportion as the 
 empire of opinion supersedes and predominates over the emjnre of ])hysical 
 force, constitutes for every people, but above all for the peo])le of England
 
 536 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book VI. 
 
 1842. — I speak of reputation and character— the main instrument by which a 
 ' — — -'^-^ powerful people can repel hostile aggressions, and maintain extended empii-e." 
 The Minister continued to do his own part, by a bearing of unflinching 
 iirmness and patient courage. On the night of the 11th of March, while the 
 House was waiting for his statement, he had had the painful duty of commu- 
 nicatin"- to it the news of the murder of Sir William M'Naghten, and of the 
 calamities of the Caubool force : and for many nights afterwards, his atten- 
 dance in the House was a sort of running the gauntlet of inquiries and 
 objections about his scheme, which was too large to be at once compre- 
 hended, and too vigorous to be at once estimated by the existing House of 
 Commons. 
 Financial The Scheme was this. — Here was a large deficiency to be met ; and such a 
 
 surplus to be provided as would prevent the recurrence of a deficiency. It was 
 too great a need to be met by a tax on a commodity here and a commodity 
 there, at a time when too many commodities were going out of use through 
 the poverty of the people. The appeal must be made directly to Property : 
 Income Tax. ■ and the first proposition was of an Income tax, not to exceed Id. in the pound, 
 or nearly 3 per cent., for a limited period. Such a tax, besides filling up the 
 deficit, would yield a surplus that would justify a vast reduction of commer- 
 cial taxation : and the confident expectation of the Minister was, that so much 
 relief would be felt from these reductions — from the improvement in trade 
 and in comfort that must follow — that the payment of the Income tax would 
 be rendered very easy. He believed that when almost the whole mass of 
 commercial duties was removed, the diff'erence to individuals, from the relief, 
 would be worth fully the £2 18s. 4f/. in every £100 of their incomes that the 
 Income tax would take from them. From this tax, all incomes below £150 
 were to be exempted. This was very well. But it was not so well that income 
 from all sources was to be treated alike ; — that the receiver of a temporary 
 annuity of £200 from the funds, for instance, should pay £5 16s. Sd. out of 
 it, in the very last year, while the receiver of £200 per annum from landed 
 property paid only the same sum : — and, again, that the professional man — 
 the sm-geon or lawyer — who, in the decline of life, was beginning to earn £1000 
 per annum, but who had not made a provision for the family who would lose 
 their income at his death — should pay the same amount of tax as the proprietor 
 M'ho would transmit a rental of £1000 to his children. This was regarded at 
 the time, and has been regarded more and more since, as the great imperfec- 
 tion of the ministerial scheme. It was allowed to pass at first, because the 
 tax was proposed as a temporary one ; and it was felt that the vast labour and 
 difficulty of making arrangements for the ascertainment of the sources of 
 income and the apportionment of the tax could hardly be got through before 
 the term of its imposition would have arrived. But arrangements should have 
 been made for the prosecution of this task from the moment it was supposed 
 that a renewal of the tax would be necessary. It has been twice renewed, 
 with the entire approbation of the majority of clear-headed and public-spirited 
 men in the country, many of whom would be glad to see it increased to 10 
 per cent, for the sake of the abolition of all other taxes : and yet nothing is 
 done or promised, about proportioning the tax to the saleable value of incomes. 
 After deducting the incomes under £150 (which would have yielded a quarter
 
 Chap. VI.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 637 
 
 of the whole amount) the impost was expected to afford something above three 1842. 
 
 millions and a half. As for its duration, five years would have been proposed ■ ' 
 
 unconditionally, but for the chance of one of those turns of commercial pros- 
 perity which might render its continuance unnecessary. It was, therefore, 
 to cease at the end of three years, or go on to five, as parliament sliould at the 
 time see fit. Ireland was exempted from the tax, not only on account of her 
 poverty, but because, not being subject to assessed taxes, she had no machinerj 
 for the collection of this duty ; and the consequences of setting up such a 
 machinery, in the existing state of Ireland, required the gravest consideration. 
 It was proposed to levy an equivalent amoimt of tax in Ireland by increased 
 duties on spirits (the consumption of which was again on the increase, fiom 
 the decline of the Temperance movement) and by equahzing the Stamp duties 
 in England and Ireland. Absentees, residing in England fi-om choice and not 
 public duty, would be subject to the Income tax, as English residents. One 
 other measure for increasing the revenue was proposed, — the extension of the 
 4s. duty on the export of coal, hitherto partial, to all exportation of that 
 article. — Here would be a revenue, it was supposed, of £4,380,000, from 
 these new sources. After supplying the deficit, what was to be done with 
 the surplus ? 
 
 It was to be applied in the largest reduction of commercial taxation ever new ta»ipf. 
 contemplated by Cabinet or parliament. Out of 1200 articles subject to 
 Customs duties, 750 were to be reduced. The first principle was, the Minis- Hansard, w. 450. 
 ter said, to remove prohibition ; and the next, to reduce duties on the raw 
 materials of manufactures to 5 per cent, or less. On articles partially manu- 
 factured, the duty would now never exceed 12 per cent. ; nor, on articles 
 wholly manufactured, 20 per cent. The loss by these 750 reductions would 
 not, he believed, exceed £270,000 ; — a small sum for which to have borne so 
 vexatious a taxation for so long! The new Tariff was all readj' — divided 
 under twenty heads — laid on the table this Friday night, so as to be read by 
 every tradesman in Great Britain on jMonday morning, and talked over in 
 every Monday club. As Sir R. Peel took the document from tlie hands of ]Mr. 
 Gladstone, loud cheers arose from every part of the House ; and every one 
 probably felt that it was worth waiting through the recess for a hope of rescue 
 like this at the end of it. 
 
 The late ministers very properly excused themselves from siviu"; an imme- coNmcr of o^ 
 diate opinion with regard to a scheme so vast as to require much consider- 
 ation : and I,ord J. Russell satisfied himself with making some small objec- 
 tions which occurred to him at the moment. These gentlemen now found 
 that Sir R. Peel had " courage" to propose an Income tax ; and tliose who 
 were familiar with their social and domestic intercourses, knew that they 
 were penetrated witli admiration at the statesmanship now before tlicni ; and 
 that the generosity of the most captious among them was roused for the time, 
 and the evil spirit of jealousy laid asleep. But it was for only too short a 
 time ; — only for three days or so. Tlien tlie evil awoke, as rancorous as ever, 
 and stung the ex-ministers into acts of opposition, which showed most meanly 
 on the broad back-ground of the government ])olicy. Wlien Lord .1. Russell, 
 aware of the desjierate state of our financial management, asked in regard to 
 the Income tax, ""What will France say ?" it was felt tliat tlie meanness of 
 
 VOL. 11. 3 7.
 
 538 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book VI. 
 
 TION, 
 
 1842. opposition could go no further. The reply of the Minister was, " The noble 
 
 ■ — ' Lord says, ' Do not impose the Income tax, because you will show foreign 
 
 Hansard, ixi. 907. ^^j^^j^,^^ ^]^^^ j|^g rcsourccs of this couutry are exhausted.' I say, never mind 
 Avhat may be the impression on foreign countries. Do that which you believe 
 to be just — that which you think consistent with sound policy— and let 
 foreign nations think what they will." Lord John Russell, however, avow- 
 Hansar,i,ixi.943. ing tliis to bc his Strongest ground of objection against the tax, declared his 
 determination to oppose it in every stage of discussion — on the Resolutions, 
 on the Report, the first reading, the second reading, and the third reading. — 
 The Minister was anxious to have the decision of the House before the Easter 
 holidays ; and some of the leading members of the Opposition endeavoured 
 to protect him from the abuse of the power of obtaining adjournments : but 
 a small minority baffled them all, and deferred the decisive consideration of 
 the measure till after the 4th of April. 
 PoprLAR HccEP- The object was, of course, to rouse popular feeling against the Bill. There 
 could hardly be a more promising occasion; for, while every tax is disagree- 
 able, and every heavy tax eminently so, there is something transcendently 
 disgusting in an Income tax, which not only takes a substantial sum immedi- 
 ately out of a man's pocket, but compels him to expose his affairs to a party 
 that he would by no means choose for a confidant. The vexation and grum- 
 bling were great at the time, and have been so ever since. In the books at 
 the Bank of England may be seen parenthetical exclamations, such as " Damn 
 Sir Robert Peel and all his crew!" and the like — so numerous that the book- 
 keepers found it in vain to oppose such a method of pronouncing on the 
 measure. Merchants old enough to remember the war property tax antici- 
 pated surcharges, and the return of all the injured and angry feelings under 
 which they used to suffer without redress. The young professional man 
 quaked at the necessity he saw before him of either owning himself to be 
 earning less than £150 a year, or paying a tax out of his bare means of bread 
 to keep up his professional credit. There was no lack of discontent and 
 apprehension ; and this the Minister surely anticipated : but he anticipated 
 no less confidently, and no less correctly, that the discontent and apprehension 
 would be less powerful than the desire for financial release and security. Men 
 would rather submit to the most disagreeable of taxes than go on as the 
 nation had been doing for the last six years. They responded to the call of 
 the government to rouse themselves to a great efi'ort, to recover a position of 
 safety and honour : and all attempts to excite them to opposition during the 
 Easter recess completely failed. — After the House met, there was a debate of 
 four nights on an amendment, condemnatory of the tax, of Lord J. Russell's ; 
 but it merely exhibited the fact that the choice lay between an Income tax 
 (including a Property tax) and loans ; — the last being more eminently than a 
 property tax a resource proper to war-time, being indeed a disgrace in time of 
 peace. The popular confidence in the new Ministry had raised the funds ; 
 and some Whig leaders showed what an advantageous time this would be for 
 Hansaid.ixii.irn. aloan; and it was this which occasioned the energetic passage of the debate 
 which, gi-eeted with cheers and counter cheers and laughter in the House, met 
 with the same reception every where, and became at once celebrated. " I 
 call upon you," said Sir R. Peel, in reply to Lord J. Russell's suggestion of a
 
 Chap. VI.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 539 
 
 new loan, " I call upon you to make great exertion ; and the first step you 18-12. 
 
 take towards recovery — the first demonstration of your ^'illingness — will be '— — • ' 
 
 half the victory. If you are afraid to submit to sacrifices — if you paiut iu 
 glowing colours the miserable condition of those who are to pay taxes — if you 
 say it is better to go ou on the present system, increasing the debt a lit tie more, 
 funding at 91 — why are the 3 per cents, at 91 ? Who has made them 91 ;■ 
 Public credit is high — the funds have risen — and say you, ' You can have a 
 loan easily now !' O ! you miserable financiers ! (Laughter and cheers.) I 
 beg pardon if, in the heat of debate, I have used a word that may give ofience. 
 But the funds are high because you have shown a disposition not to resort to 
 a system of loans in time of peace." Lord J. Russell's amendment was re- 
 jected by a vote of 308 to 202, ou the 13th of April: and another amendment, iKmsara, uii.«4. 
 proposing the reading of the Bill on that day six months, was thrown out on 
 the 18th by a vote of 285 to 188. — The progi-ess of the Bill through Committee Hamasd, i.iii.-io. 
 was rapid. After the rejection of a few amendments, little further opposition 
 was made. Eighty clauses were disposed of on the night of the 2nd of Jlay ; 
 and on the 30th of May, the third reading was carried by a majority of 130, 
 and the Bill passed the Commons. — In the Lords, there was no debate till the 
 third reading; and what there was did not prevent the Bill from passing the 
 same evening, by a majority of 71. 
 
 The speech which appears to have most truly represented the predominant jiajsarii.Kii.ssj 
 opinion and sentiment in regard to the Income tax, was that of Mr. Raikes ~* 
 Currie, a member who had been in parliament since 1837, but had hardly 
 opened liis lips till now, when he did it to more purpose than any body else. 
 He avowed that he came into parliament in the hope of aiding in a large and 
 secure extension and protection of the sufiiage : but that that hope had been 
 baulked by Lord John Russell's declaration that he considered the Reform 
 bill a final measure, and that it was by a detenninate pm-jjose that the pre- 
 ponderance of the landed interest in parliament was provided for. Under 
 this preponderance of monopolists, all efforts of the liberal party against mono- 
 polies must be hopeless ; and especially while, as at present, there was no 
 appearance of popular support of the Whigs. "\Mien Lord John Russell had 
 "slammed the door of the constitution in the face of the unrepresented," he 
 was surely bound to ofltr no factious opposition to measures in which liberal 
 principles were embodied. The only hope left Avas in the canying of liberal 
 measures by those who had power to carry them. He considered himself at 
 full liberty to consider separately, and in entire independence of party, tlie 
 measures brought forward which contained any popular promise : and ho 
 certainly considered the proposal of the Income tax as full of such promise. 
 He was aware of all the evils of that tax — from those on the surface to those 
 in its depths: but it had the great virtue whicli could cover even that amount 
 of evils — that it spared the poor, and laid the burden of taxation where it 
 could best be borne. He saw the beginning of a new era in this ajipeal to the 
 moneyed classes of the nation to restore the national resources: and, approving 
 the measure, he felt himself bound over to candour towards its originator. 
 He saw no use in driA-ing the Minister (if that were possible) into tlie arms of 
 ultra-protectionists by persecution. He remembered that Minister's declara- 
 tion that he considered the prosperity of the manufacturing classes of more
 
 540 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book VI. 
 
 1842. consequence to the landed interest than any protective laws : and he consi- 
 
 ■ dered this a sufficient ground for giving him fair play — even if he had not 
 
 been now the only hope of popular progress. This statement, remarkable and 
 much remarked on at the time, is even more valuable now. It then served as 
 an exposition of a widely spread view, and as a guide to some who were still 
 perplexed what to think and do : but now its political truth is so verified 
 that the speech reads rather as a commentary on Sir E.. Peel's course, 
 and the state of parties during his term of office, than as a piece of reflec- 
 tion at the outset. The operation of the Income tax commenced from the 5th 
 of April, 1842. 
 NEwTAfiEFFiN It has been mentioned that a copy of the proposed Tariff had been laid 
 before parliament, and printed off for the benefit of the country. This first 
 copy could not be the working one. As the Minister explained, it was 
 necessary, in preparing the measure, to avoid communication with persons 
 actually interested in the supposed protection of particular articles ; but it was 
 next necessary to allow such persons time and opportunity to state their views 
 on their own behalf. The changes made in consequence of such representa- 
 tions were not such as to occasion much delay ; and by the 5th of May, the 
 amended copy of the proposed tariff was on the table of the House. It may 
 be questioned whether any measure connected with finance, brought forward 
 in parliament at any former time, ever caused such deep and glowing satisfac- 
 tion throughout the educated classes of this country as this new tariff. When 
 it was considered that the Minister's business was — not that of the amateur 
 financier — to make out a perfect scheme, but to propose a reform that would 
 work, it was felt that this was the soundest and most remarkable Budget ever 
 brought forward — the soundest in its principle, and the most remarkable in 
 its courage and comprehensiveness. 
 
 As the Incomel[tax was intended to tax wealth, the new tariff was mainly 
 designed to relieve manufacturing industry. The prospects now opened were 
 very cheering. Owing to the high duties on foreign woods, we had not hitherto 
 been able to keep those woods, and make them into furniture at home, but had 
 been obliged to let them go to France and Germany, to employ the cabinet- 
 makers there, and then to import the furniture. Now, the cabinet trade was 
 to be so relieved, that jthere was hope that we might export furniture. — The 
 free command of dye-woods, again, was highly important to our manufactures. 
 As for ores, copper had hitherto been smelted in bond, and actually sent away 
 on account of the duties, while we had to import from France and Belgium 
 copper smelted with our own coal. — Oils and extracts, indispensable in many 
 manufactures, were made freely accessible by reduction of duty. And above 
 all these benefits was that of the change in the timber duties. Colonial timber 
 was to be admitted duty-free ; and this would enable parliament to diminish 
 the duties on Baltic timber, to the lowest point consistent with good faith to- 
 wards Canada. The greatest authority on free-trade subjects, Mr. Deacon 
 Hume, had said, that if we had ruitaxed timber as we had untaxed coal and 
 untaxed iron, yyc should be provided with the three great primary raw 
 materials of employment and consumption. This we were henceforth to have. 
 We should have better ship-building, and more of it. Our fisheries would 
 extend, from the superior character of fishing-boats. The quality of oui- dwell-
 
 CuAP. VI.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 541 
 
 ing-houses, bridges, and utensils of various kinds, could not but be greatly ini- 1842. 
 proved. ^-.^.^^ 
 
 Among the most interesting of the proposed changes, were those relating to 
 food. The agiiculturists would benefit'by the introduction of clover and other 
 seeds, which had hitherto paid a high duty. The formers liked this very well ; 
 but they were dreadfully alarmed at what was to be done about cattle, salt 
 meat, and fish. There was no reason to apprehend that the British nation 
 could be fed in independence of the British farmer and grazier : but it really 
 seemed as if some people thought such a thing might happen. It was well 
 that there were wide differences of opinion on each head. While some feared 
 for our graziers from the introduction of cattle from the Continent, others 
 thought that the graziers would profit largely by the fattening of the lean 
 beasts which would be imported ; for there never was a doubt (unhappily) that 
 the consumption of meat in England ought to be very much larger indeed than 
 it had been any time within this century. The consumption of meat was no- 
 where on the increase in any proportion to the increase of numbers ; and in 
 too many localities it was known that meat-eating was becoming confined to a 
 higher and a higher class in society. The ^Minister, for one, therefore, had no 
 apprehension of the ruin of the graziers from the alteration ; and he proposed 
 to admit cattle, fresh and salted meat, hams, lard, salmon, and herrings, at 
 duties considerably reduced. The immediate panic, among the ignorant agri- 
 cultural class, was great ; and there were, as usual, adventurers ready to make 
 their market of it. Butchers' meat from Hamburgh M'as advertised at 3(/. 
 per lb., while the people of Hamburgh were themselves paying Gd. Numbers 
 of graziers and farmers sold off their cattle for whatever they could get, and 
 said that Sii' E. Peel's tariff was ruining them. Every horned head seen on 
 deck on the arrival of vessels at Hull or Harwich counted for a dozen to 
 alarmed imaginations ; and the pigs reported were innumerable. But these 
 were mistakes sure of speedy correction ; and in a few months, some people 
 laughed, and others sighed, on finding how far the supply of animal food fell 
 short of the national want. 
 
 The Minister found some difficulty in carr} ing out the true prijiciple of re- 
 ducing duties to the point which should obviate sniuggUng. On this principle 
 the duty on straw plat had been reduced from ITs. per lb. to 5s. : but tlie stii- 
 made was so great, and apparently so charitable towards the poor women and 
 children in country districts, whose employment was supposed to be at stake, 
 that the point was yielded so far as to raise the 5s. to 7s. 6(1. But the Minister 
 pointed out the mistake in parliament, producing, to the great amusement of 
 the House, and no doubt of the smuggling portion of society, an ordinary 
 looking bundle of straw for platting, in the centre of which was concealed a 
 small roll of straw plat, such as it would still be wortli while to smuggle, if 
 the duty was higher than 5s. per lb. — Some opposition was made to the new 
 duties on swine, and fish, and ap])lcs, and butter, and otlier articles : but large 
 majorities in every case affirmed the government duties. The M'hitsuntide 
 holidays had allowed time for consultation and reflection : the panic about the 
 importation of cattle had ceased already, and mutton was again ~d., and even 
 8(1. per lb. ; so that all was fair fi)r carrying tlie new tariff. The objections of 
 opposition related to the omission of sugar from the tariff reductions, and the
 
 542 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 [Book VI. 
 
 1842. 
 
 Hansard, Ixiv. 
 737. 
 
 Hansard, Ixiv. 
 712. 
 
 l.N THE Lords. 
 
 Passage of the 
 Bill. 
 
 Hansard, Ixiv. 
 1168. 
 
 Sugar Duties. 
 
 Tor. DOMESTIC 
 
 treatment of corn, and the difference between the duties on colonial and on 
 foreign productions. The replies were, that the reduction of the corn duties 
 was considerable enough for the present ; that the case of sugar was an ex- 
 ceptional one ; and that government Had done all it could in freeing colonial 
 produce, thus preparing for negotiation about foreign produce, and setting an 
 example of fearless freedom of trade to other countries. — On the whole, there 
 was a more general assent than usual to the measure, and less party recrimi- 
 nation. The ex-Ministers told of what they had intended to do in the same 
 direction, if they had not been stopped by their failure in the treatment of the 
 two first articles — corn and sugar. Here was the thing done — every one feel- 
 ing that the corn question was as truly a merely deferred one as the sugar. 
 Both these remained to be dealt with hereafter ; and meantime, here was a 
 provision for the extension of manufactures and commerce, the increase of 
 food, and such a reduction in the general cost of living as would go far to 
 enable the people to pay their new Income tax, and perhaps compensate for it. 
 Men might differ, and did differ, as to whether this new tariff was valuable 
 only as a move in the right direction, or whether it would also achieve what 
 its authors hoped, in the extension of trade, and the improvement of comfort : 
 but none — unless it were a few bigots in and out of parliament — doubted the 
 Customs Acts reform to be a good thing. One gentleman would have free 
 trade in every thing but herrings ; another in every thing but straw plat; and 
 Sir R. Peel and Lord J. Russell in every thing but corn : but these separate 
 opinions merged in general satisfaction that, out of 1200 articles that 2>aid 
 Customs duties, 750 were to be reduced ; — and a large majority of these to a 
 merely nominal amount. — The Bill passed the Commons, amidst loud cheer- 
 ing, on the 28th of June. 
 
 In the other House, Lord Stanhope prophesied that the measure would be 
 fatal to the power and reputation of the minister who brought it forward, and 
 that we should end by having our navy and many other classes fed by foreigners 
 instead of by British farmers. Lord Colchester thought he might vote for this 
 Bill without advocating the general principles of free trade, and merely as an 
 improvement in Customs management. Lord Stanhope laboured hard with 
 amendments in committee, and against the third reading ; but in vain ; and 
 Lord Radnor was as energetic in opposition for the reason that the Bill did 
 not go far enough. But those two were joined by only seven more on the last 
 decisive occasion, when the Bill passed by a vote of 52 to 9 on the 8th of 
 July. 
 
 The article of sugar was not passed over this session because it did not stand 
 in the tariff. It had a debate to itself The subject was becoming a difficult 
 one ; and men were growing positive and peremptory as usual, in proportion 
 to the difficulty. No difficulties, in all our mortal experience, are so formid- 
 able as those which — the result of wrong-doing — attend the transition from 
 wrong to right-doing ; and the perplexities about slave-produce were now 
 showing themselves to be in proportion to the moral mistake and offence of 
 slavery. Amidst the never-ending complexities of the subject, and entangle- 
 ments of the yearly debates, we may single out the two most important 
 aspects of the question, and show how they appeared at tliis time. 
 
 On the one hand, the West India planters urged that their lives had grown
 
 Chap. VI.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 543 
 
 up, and tlieir property been employed, under the legal institution of negi-o 18-t2. 
 slavery, and a system of protective duties on sugar — now, slavery was abolished 
 in their islands, but not in other sugar-producing countries : and they claimed 
 the continuance of high sugar duties, both as a carrying out of the sy.stem 
 under which tliey had invested their fortunes in the West Indies, and as a 
 necessary condition of their competing with countries where slave-labour was 
 at command. On the other hand, the friends of the poor in England showed 
 how sugar had become truly a necessary of life, when it was needful for the 
 infants' food in the cottage, and for the temperate man's meal of tea or coffee 
 — which were largely superseding intoxicating drinks — and for the use of 
 many articles of food which could not be eaten without it. They showed the 
 hardship and (as they considered) the iniquity of making the British labourer, 
 who had already paid so much to the planters as compensation for the loss of 
 slave property, now go without sugar, or pay double for it, to bolster up the 
 fortunes which had been invested under a bad system ; a system whose bad- 
 ness ensured its overthrow. Somebody must suffer — as is always the case 
 where a social sin has been committed : and that somebody ought to be any- 
 body rather than the British labourer. Then, reasons were alleged why it 
 ought to be, and must be, the planter-class that should suffer — that a system 
 requiring high duties cannot, in our age of the world, exist for any length of 
 time : that the withdrawal of protection would compel the planters to better 
 methods of cultivation — to more agi-icultural skill and improved management : 
 and that, if estates could not be made to answer under sucli improved methods, 
 they were not worth sustaining at all. — This was one aspect of the contro- 
 versy. 
 
 The other related to the condition of the institution of slavery in the world J^. 
 — to our relation to it — and to the effect upon it of our rate of sugar duty. 
 The controversy here was as to whether we had so pledged ourselves to the 
 cause of human liberty as to make it supersede the interests of our planters in 
 the West Indies, and our labourers at home ; whether, in short, it wa.s a case 
 in which we were unreservedly to sacrifice the interests of individuals to the 
 maintenance of a great principle of social morals all over the world. In con- 
 nexion with this was the question whether, as a matter of fiict, slavery was 
 restrained by our high sugar-duties and other arrangements, and whether it 
 would be aggravated by admitting free-trade principles into this department 
 of international traffic. On the one hand, it was proved that the slave trade 
 was constantly on the increase, in spite of all arrangements, if not in conse- 
 quence of them ; and it was argued that the strongest political gi-ound for the 
 abolition of slavery was the superior value of free over slave labour : wliile, on 
 the other liand, it was protested that the peculiarity of the case took it out of 
 the category of free trade ; and that if slave-grown sugar were admitted to our 
 markets under any duties which would leave it within reach of popular con- 
 sumption, a great stimulus would be given to slave cultivation, and a new 
 lease of life given to the criminal institution. 
 
 From year to year were these opposing views brought forward, and sup- 
 ported by their respective arguments. On the ])resent occasion, the explana- 
 tions of tlie government were looked forward to witli impatience, from the 
 increased eagerness of the friends of the people that they should have cheap 
 
 rue Avn.Si.«. 
 
 HY VIRW.
 
 544 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 [Boois VI. 
 
 Hansard, Ixiii. 
 11 5 j. 
 
 Hansard, Ixiii 
 I17S, 1233. 
 
 Poor Law Re. 
 NEWAL Act. 
 
 1842. sugar while enjoying so many other relaxations, and bccansc the late ministers 
 insisted on a rednction of the sugar duties, as next in importance to their eight- 
 shilling corn duty. On the 3rd of June, the CJhancellor of the Exchequer 
 declared the inability of the government to reduce the sugar duties that year, 
 well-pleased as they would be to do it. To reduce the colonial sugar, and not 
 the foreign, would be to forfeit some revenue without effectually diminishing 
 the cost to the consumer; and there were two objections to reducing the 
 foreign sugar duty ; the loss to the revenue, which would be greater than could 
 be adventured in the same year with the tariff reduction ; and the delay of 
 foreign powers in affording a sufficient guarantee against slavery and the slave 
 trade. An anti-slavery sentiment was springing u^p in slave-holding commu- 
 nities, and it might be eminently mischievous to the anti-slavery cause to 
 throw open our markets at that juncture to slave-grown sugar. The govern- 
 ment therefore could offer no change this year, and the reductions proposed 
 by opposition members were rejected by large majorities. — In the session of 
 1843, the same process was gone through ; the ministers proposed no change, 
 and gave the same reasons ; and they were met by the same arguments and 
 some fruitless amendments from the opposition. 
 
 There was not time, towards the close of the busy and profitable session, for 
 a full discussion of the Poor-law Bill — so deeply as the question of pauper re- 
 lief was affected by the urgent distress of the times. Many members had 
 much to say against the existing law, and new arrangements to propose : and 
 it was absolutely necessary to do something ; for the Commission had been re- 
 newed, by a vote in the preceding session, 'for one year ; and there must be a 
 provision made against the expiration of the term. With some trouble and 
 difficulty, the Home Secretary obtained a renewal of the term of the Commis- 
 sion for five years, and a settling of some indispensable practical points. A 
 strong effort was made by Mr. Escott to procure permission for magistrates to 
 administer out-door relief at their discretion ; but under no pressure of haste, or 
 alarm at the prevailing distress, could the House be so mad as to vote away the 
 essential principle of the great Poor-law reform, though there seemed, at one 
 moment, some fear that it might. Mr. Escott's motion in favour of out-door 
 Hansard, ixv. 377. j-eUgf ^j (^]jg discrctiou of tlic magistrates, was rejected by a majority of 90 
 to 55 ; and the Commission was renewed for five years, under a promise from 
 Sir James Graham that he would introduce a new Bill early in the next ses- 
 sion, in which some needful reforms should be proposed. 
 
 This year, 1842, settled the law of Literary Property, as it at present stands, 
 and as it will stand for a long time to come. — Before the days of Queen Anne, 
 it was concluded, as a matter of course, that any book or other literary pro- 
 duction, was the property of its author; and the old registers of the Stationers' 
 Company show that some thousands of books, even as early as the times of 
 Elizabeth, passed from owner to owner, by descent or sale, like any other 
 property. Acts of Parliament, and Star-chamber decrees also afford evidence 
 that political and legal authorities considered literary works to be the exclu- 
 sive property of their authors. — At no time does any one appear to have 
 doubted the author's exclusive right over his production while it remained in 
 MS. The doubt, when it arose, related to his ownership when, by act of 
 publication, he had made his ideas general property. The doubt seems to 
 
 Hansard, Ixv. 35G. 
 
 Law of Literahy 
 Property. 
 
 Political Diction- 
 ary, i. p. 63;i.
 
 Chap. VI.J DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 545 
 
 exhibit a mere confusion between the ideas and the vehicle in which they are 18-12. 
 
 communicated ; — between plasiiarism and piracy. The people of the United 
 
 States appear to be still unable to make the distinction. Because they can 
 
 derive and reproduce ideas from an English book, they cannot see why they 
 
 should not lay hands on the work itself, reprint it, pocket the proceeds of 
 
 the sale without consideration of the author, and, as long as our own laws 
 
 allowed the practice, send tlieir cheap copies to Europe, and sell them under 
 
 the author's own eye. Yet more ; — they cannot see why they shoidd not take 
 
 a work by an English author whose name will secure a sale, cut out some 
 
 portions of the book, alter the title, make it such as the author would not 
 
 acknowledge, put his name to it, profit by that name, and send him no share 
 
 of the proceeds. They cannot see why they should not put the author's name 
 
 to a work which he has chosen to publish anonymously. Barbarous and base 
 
 as this ignorance and cupidity ajjpear, unable as such agents show themselves 
 
 to be to conceive of a book as a work of art which must no more be tampered 
 
 with than a statue or a picture, it but little exceeds our own barbarism on 
 
 this subject a century and a half ago, or even that which might be found 
 
 among the unreflecting and unintellectual up to the period of the passage of 
 
 the Copyright Act of 1842. 
 
 If books were, before the 18th century, considered as of course the property actoiitih. 
 of their authors, the supposition is now held to have been put an end to by 
 the passage of a law^ which secured to authors and their heirs the property in 
 their works for a term of years — which was in ftict taking the pro]5crty from 
 them after the expiration of that term of years. The Act was passed in 1710 ; 
 and the term fixed was t%venty-one years from the day of publication for works J"""'-"',"'"'""" 
 already in print : and fourteen years for all works to be henceforward jjub- 
 lished ; — the latter term being once renewable, if the author should be still 
 living at the end of the first fourteen years. More than half a century after- 
 wards, however. Lord Mansfield and other authorities settled, as they thought, 
 that the perpetual right of the author over his work was not put an end to by 
 tlie statute of ITIO; but again, five years afterwards. Lord Mansfield and 
 those wlio agreed with him (the Judges being in fact equally divided) were 
 overruled ; and it was decided, from 1774 onwards, that perpetual copyright 
 was put an end to by the intervention of statutes. — In 1814, the term was actopisu. 
 extended in favour of authors, it being now fixed at twenty-eiglit years for the 
 author and liis assigns, and furthermore for the term of the author's life, if he 
 should survive the twenty-eight years' term. 
 
 The mischiefs of these restrictions were found to be such as had not been 
 dreamed of by law-makers who believed tliey were granting a boon to authors : 
 and by this time, some of these evils were becoming evident to the most care- 
 less and uninterested. Tlie family of Sir Walter Scott, stripped by his great Mo^MrN-r ,v 
 losses, might be supposed to have an lionourablc provision in his splendid 
 array of works, which the world was still buying, as eagerly as ever : but the 
 term of copyright of " Waverley" was about to exiiire ; and there was no one 
 who could not see the injustice of traiist'erriiig to tlie public a property so 
 evidently sacred to heirs.— Again, the iniet Wordsworth was now an aged 
 man. His was a reiuitation which it had taken half a century to bring out 
 clear from the prejudices and false tastes of society in his c.nly day. If hu 
 
 vol.. II. ^ ^
 
 54G 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 [Book VI. 
 
 1842. 
 
 Petitions. 
 
 London Exa- 
 miner, April 7, 
 1839. 
 
 were to die now, his family Avould be deprived of all benefit from the sale of 
 his works. — Again, Southey came forward to declare that he had been pre- 
 vented by the existing copyright law from undertaking works of weight, 
 research, and permanent value, from inability to undertake labours whose 
 fruits would be taken from him and his heirs just when the world was begin- 
 nin"- to find the value of his books and to buy them. It was clear that the 
 operation of the law was to discourage the preparation of solid works, requir- 
 ing research and the expenses which belong to it, and yielding pecuniary 
 recompense only slowly and tardily, while it encouraged a flashy light litera- 
 ture, such as might command an immediate, though temporary sale. Probably 
 the attention of the careless was fixed on this question of literary property 
 by the petitions sent up to parliament by various authors about this time ; 
 and by none more than by the Petition of Thomas C'arlyle, which bears date 
 in the spring of 1839. This petition is a remarkable document, which may 
 well find its place here from its including considerations of greater depth, and 
 more importance to social philosophy and morals, than some matters to which 
 a greater space has necessarily been given. 
 
 " To the Honourable the Commons of England in Parliament assembled, the petition of 
 Thomas Carltle, a writer of books, 
 " Humbly showeth, 
 " That your petitioner has written certain books, being incited thereto by various innocent 
 or laudable considerations, chiefly by the thought that said books might in the end be found 
 to be worth something. That your petitioner had not the happiness to receive from Mr. 
 Thomas Tegg, or any publisher, re-publisher, printer, bookseller, bookbuyer, or other the like 
 man or body of men, any encouragement or countenance in writing of said books, or to dis- 
 cern any chance of receiving such: but wrote them by eflbrtof his own and the favour of Hea- 
 ven. That all useful labour is worthy of recompense : that all honest labour is worthy of the 
 chance of recompense : that the giving and assuring to each man what recompense his labour 
 has actually merited may be said to be the business of all Legislation, Polity, Government, and 
 Social Arrangement whatever among men — a business indispensable to attempt, impossible to 
 accomplish accurately, difficult to accomplish without inaccuracies, that become enormous, 
 unsuppovtable, and the parent of social confusions which never altogether end. That your 
 petitioner does not undertake to say what recompense in money this labovir of his may deserve : 
 whether it deserve any recompense in money, or whether money in any quantity could hire 
 him to do the like. That this his labour has found hitherto, in money or money's worth, 
 small recompense or none : that he is bj' no means sure of its ever finding recompense . but 
 thinks that, if so, it will be at a distant time, when he, the labourer, will probably no longer 
 be in need of money, and those dear to him will still be in need of it. That the law does at 
 least protect all persons in selling the production of their labour at what they can get for it, 
 in all market-places to all lengths of time. Much more than this the law does to many, but 
 so much it does to all, and less than this to none. That your petitioner cannot discover him- 
 self to have done unlawfully in this his said labour of writing books, or to have become cri- 
 minal, or have forfeited the law's protection thereby. Contrariwise your petitioner believes 
 firmly that he is innocent in said labour ; that if he be found in the long run to have written 
 a genuine enduring book, his merit therein, and desert towards England and English and 
 other men, will be considerable, and not easily estimable in money ; that, on the other hand, 
 if his book prove false and ephemeral, he and it will be abolished and forgotten, and no hai-m 
 done. That, in this manner, your petitioner plays no unfair game against the world ; his 
 stake being life itself, so to speak (for the penalty is death by starvation), and the world's 
 stake nothing till once it see the dice thrown ; so that in any case the world cannot lose. 
 That in the happy and long-doubtful event of the game's going in his favour, your petitioner 
 submits that the small winnings thereof do belong to him or his, and that no other mortal has 
 justly either part or lot in them at all, now, henceforth, or for ever. May it therefore please
 
 Chap. VI.] DURING THE TIIIIiTY YEARS' PEACE. 547 
 
 your Honourable House to protect him in said happy and long-doubtfid event; and (by pass- 1 S4'> 
 ing your Copyright Bill) forbid all Thomas Teggs, and other extraneous persons, entirely , 
 
 unconcerned in this adventure of his, to steal from him his small winnings, for a space of 
 sixty years at the shortest. After si.xty years, unless your Honourable House provide other- 
 wise, they may begin to steal. 
 
 " And your petitioner will ever pray. 
 
 " Thomas Cabltle." 
 
 The sixty years here mentioned were the term proposed by the mover for a p»otosed Bills, 
 new Copyright Act — Mr. Serjeant Talfourd — in three successive sessions. 
 In 1841, his Bill was thrown out, mainly through the influence of a speech of 
 Mr. Macaulay's, which aflbrdcd an hunilding proof of the carelessness of the 
 House on subjects which had not been long rendered familiar by discussion. 
 As for the riddle how an able literary man could utter such a speech, and 
 venture to offer it to the House, the answer given at the time M-as that there 
 must be reasons behind — some cause wliich could not be alleged — for such a 
 man exposing himself in a speech unsound in its whole argimieut, and for the 
 House acting upon it. The reason most commonly supposed was tliat the 
 Bill before the House was badly drawn, and could not have been worked: — 
 if so, it might have been better to have pointed this out. But it does not 
 matter much what the real reason was; for j\Ir. Macaulay himself wrought 
 on tlie other side in the next session, when Serjeant Talfourd was no longer 
 in the House. Lord Mahon brought forward the subject, proposing an exten- lobo Mahon-s 
 sion of twenty-five years in the term of literary proprietorship. Mr. Macau- Himiird, ix. 1429. 
 lay proposed a term of forty-two years, on which the House decided. Jlorc- Hansard, ui. 
 over, the House accepted another amendment brought forward by Lord Mahon 
 and opposed by Mr. ^lacaulay, which gave to the heirs a further term of 
 seven years from the death of the author. Under the somewhat sudden zcid 
 for the rights of authors, therefore, shown by parliament in 18-42, the law copvri.m.t law 
 awarded to authors the sole property of their works for Kfe, and to their heirs I'-oiltlcai Dkiiun. 
 for seven years more. If those seven years should expire before tlie end of '"■*''• "^'' 
 forty-two years from the time of publication, then the right was to run througli 
 the forty-two years. This was something gained in the direction of justice : 
 and few now doubt that it will be found possible so to make arrangements for 
 the preparation of Cyclopaedias and other compilations as in time to allow to 
 authors and their heirs their literary property in perpetuity ; as every argu- 
 ment for such a product being property at all is adverse to its ceasing to be so 
 at any particular date. If the institution of property is to stand, it is hardly 
 possible that this kind— of so special and high an order — should remain ])re- 
 carious and transitory, in comparison with all else. 
 
 As the elections of 1841 had been a last struggle for and against the main- ^;;^^^_^"'' 
 tenance of the Whig government, it was natural that bribery— always too 
 common at a general election— should abound ; and it was behcved that on 
 this occasion the profligacy had exceeded all ordinary limits. Several casi-s 
 had been brought before election Committees in the Commons for investiga- 
 tion ; and the termination of some of these inipiiries was so strange as to 
 attract suspicion, and cause uneasiness, both in and out of the House. The 
 rcturn of tlie Members for Reading was objected to, on the ground of bribery; 
 evidence was produced before the Conimiltee, which went to substantiate the
 
 548 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book VI. 
 
 1842. charges; and in tlic midst of the business, the Committee was suddenly 
 ^-'-^-^■~^ informed that the petition was withdrawn. There was nothing to be done 
 but for the Committee to declare the sitting members duly elected : but every 
 one suspected that this was not the end of the matter. Presently it was an- 
 nounced that one of the members for Reading was about to accept the Chiltern 
 Hundreds. A similar proceeding followed in a second case, and a third, and 
 a fourth : and, where the seat was not immediately vacated, or declared to be 
 held only till next month, it was rumoured and believed that the resignation 
 would take place at the end of the session. This was a degree of corruption 
 not to be endured : and on the 5th of May, Mr. Roebuck gave notice that, on 
 the next evening, he should put a question to the member for Heading, and 
 other members whom he named. 
 Mn. uotButK. Qj^ j-]jg (3f]j^ ^ singular scene took place in the House — a scene very instruc- 
 
 tive to those who witnessed it, and to those who afterwards read of it. ]\Ir. 
 Roebuck was universally regarded as an upright man and independent 
 member, who had the fullest right that uprightness and independence could 
 give to watch over the purity of the representation, and rebuke every act of 
 corruption. But he was also felt to be fully conscious of his position, and not 
 at all too modest in the exhibition of it. He was considered rather too apt to 
 assume the office of censor on occasions which were hardly worth the unpopu- 
 larity he attracted to himself by it ; and, by long tenure of this office, his 
 speaking had verged more and more towards lecturing — towards admonition 
 — in an assemblage where such a tone is least admissible. After he had 
 announced that he had a question to ask of the member for Reading and other 
 members, there was much eagerness for the sport. Every one knew that Mr. 
 Roebuck would be in the right, and his victims most miserably embarrassed 
 by the wrong of their position ; and the scene was likely to be a curious one, 
 between the haughty purism of the censor on the one hand, and the impotent 
 anger of the compromised members on the other. The scene was a curious 
 one, but not through any frailties of Mr. Roebuck's. According to all 
 accounts, he was quiet and courteous in manner, said nothing more than the 
 occasion justified, and made only such inquiry as it was incumbent on any 
 member to make who had at heart the honour of parliament and the in- 
 tegrity of the representation. 
 Hansard, ijiii.20D. Mr. Rocbuck, addrcssiug himself to Lord Chelsea, one of the members 
 for Reading, said he had heard and believed that the inquiry before the 
 Committee had been put an end to by a compromise, in which one, if not 
 both, of the members for Reading was concerned ; a bond having been entered 
 into with their knowledge, if not in their names, to the effect that one or both 
 of them shoidd vacate his seat by accepting the Chiltern Hundreds. Such a 
 transaction was a breach of the privileges of the House ; and he was therefore 
 entitled to ask, which he did with the most perfect respect for Lord Chelsea, 
 . whether he was cognizant of any such arrangement. The same question was 
 afterwards put, with the same deliberation and courtesy, to the members for 
 Nottingham, Lewes, Penryn, and Harwich. — ]\Iost of the members appealed 
 to made the weakest possible reply. They assumed an air of indignation, and 
 refused to answer impertinent questions about their private affairs and per- 
 sonal arrangements. As the question was based on the strong ground of the
 
 Chap. VI.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. .549 
 
 privilege of parliament, this futile reply was equivalent to an admission of 1842. 
 
 inability to make a better ; and it was thus received — INIr. Roebuck thanking ^— — ' 
 
 each gentleman significantly for his answer, and the House listening in 
 mingled anxiety €and amusement. One member, Mr. Elphinstonc, avowed H-'"Si"-<>, '>■'"• 
 that an objectionable compromise had been agreed upon ; that he was no party 
 to it ; and that he was not going to vacate his seat — a welcome piece of frank- 
 ness and manliness in the midst of the strange scene. Captain Plumridge, 
 who sat for Penryn, was no less intrepid. He said he knew nothing of the Hai^sani.ixm. 
 compromise till it was made ; and he disapproved of the arrangement when he " " 
 was told of it, and did so still. But he afterwards drew upon himself a rebuke 
 from Mr. Roebuck by declaring, in terms which made the lax assemblage 
 laugh uj)roariously, that he retired because he had " made a bad bargain." In ii„nsar.i, i.iui. 
 the midst of the questioning scene, the Chancellor of the Exchequer endea- 
 voured to break in, and call the attention of the House to a discussion on the 
 Income tax : but the inclination of the House was to see this business to an 
 end; and it did so. After all the impugned members had answered, or 
 declined to answer, the discussion was adjom-ned to the next Monday. It 
 then appeared how awakening was the impression made on the House, and 
 how useless were all attempts to stifle Mr. Roebuck's inquiry. A Committee 
 of investigation was appointed ; and it was clear that, though the work of that 
 Committee might be impeded, and the express aims of its author thwarted by 
 technical devices, the honoiu- of the House Avas really appealed to, and some 
 check was put upon corruption. One striking incident was the refusal of the 
 appointment of Steward of the Chiltcrn Hundieds by the Chancellor of the 
 Exchequer. — There was, once upon a time, such an ofiice in reality — the sruMARnMiip «► 
 business of the Steward being to Avatch over the safety of that district of hindbeds. 
 Buckiuffhamshire called the Chiltern Hundreds, when its woods were infested 
 with banditti, who were a perpetual trouble to the rural inhabitants. The 
 office had long been merely nominal ; but it served, under the description of 
 " a place of honour and profit under the CroAAni," as a means of vacating a 
 seat in parliament, which cannot be resigned under any other plea than having 
 accepted such an office. The office is resigned as soon as the parliamentary 
 seat is vacated, that it may bo ready for the next applicant. On the present 
 occasion, the apphcation of one of the members for Reading was met by the 
 followiu"- reply fi'om the Chancellor of the ExcluHiuer: "Under ordinary ivankai niciwn- 
 circumstances, 1 should not leel justified m avaunig myseli ot tlie discretion 
 vested in me in order to refuse or delay the appointment for wliich you have 
 applied, when sought for with a view to the resignation of a scat in parliament. 
 But after the disclosures which have taken place with rcsjiect to certain 
 boroughs, of which Reading is one, and after the admission of the facts by 
 the parties interested, I consider that by lending my assistance to tlie fulfil- 
 ment of any engagement which may have been entered into as arising out of 
 any such compromise, I should, in some sort, make myself a party to transac- 
 tions which I do not approve, and of which the House of Commons has implied 
 its condemnation. I feel, moreover, that by a refusal ou my part of the means 
 by which alone such engagements can be fulfilled, I afford the most effectual 
 discouragement to the entering into similar compromises in future, and thus 
 promolCj so far as is in my power, the iutentiou? of the House of Commons."
 
 550 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 [Book VI. 
 
 1842. 
 
 ritOCElClllNC. 
 
 THE House. 
 
 IIjYtisard, Ixv. 
 1109. 
 
 Mr. lloebuck moved for and obtained a Committee, of Investigation into 
 the cases before the House. He moved for and obtained a Bill of Indemnity 
 to Witnesses ; and the inquiry was conducted with closed doors. The Com- 
 mittee reported, towards the cud of July; and it was this Report which 
 decided Mr. Goulburn to refuse the Chiltern Hundreds to I-ord Chelsea. 
 On the refusal being canvassed in the House, the Premier avowed that Mr. 
 Goulburn had acted with the concurrence of the whole Cabinet. Mr. Roe- 
 buck's resolutions, founded on the Report of the Committee, against issuing 
 writs for the compromised boroughs till parliament had provided some security 
 Hansard, ixv. 833. against clcction bribery, were negatived; but every one felt that the Report, 
 with its disclosures and dispassionate comments, could not be ino])erative. — 
 Lord John Russell introduced a Bill whose chief objects were to facilitate the 
 disclosure of bribery committed, rather than to visit it with new penalties ; 
 and to prevent such compromises as had lately disgraced the House. The 
 Bill passed both Houses before the conclusion of the session, and became law 
 on the 10th of August. 
 
 There was something really refreshing to the country, in the midst of its 
 distresses, in the character and action of this session of parliament. At the 
 beginning, the Opposition was hostile, saucy, active, and united : and it was 
 curious to see how it changed under the eye of a minister who could frame 
 measures first, and then carry them. Some of his measures were as unaccept- 
 able to classes and parties as any that had been brought forward for some 
 years ; yet their progress, from their first conception to their becoming the 
 law of the land, was never delayed. The nation saw and felt that its business 
 was understood and accomplished, and the House of Commons was no longer 
 like a sleeper under nightmare. The long session was a busy one. The 
 Queen wore a cheerful air when she thanked her parliament for their ciffectual 
 labours. The Opposition was no longer such as could impede the operations 
 of the next session. The condition of the country was fearful enough ; but 
 something was done for its future improvement, and the way was now shown 
 to be open for further beneficent legislation. The solitary circumstance of 
 congratulation, in regard to the condition of the people, was that there was 
 once more a good harvest. 
 
 Hansard, Ixv. 
 1214. 
 
 Character of 
 
 THE Session.
 
 Chap. VII.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. ryrA 
 
 w 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 HEN parliament reassemhlpd on tlic 2(1 of Febniavy, there was no 1843. 
 increased hopefulness in any quarter. The distress had deepened ; the 
 
 revenue returns indicated a lessened consumption of articles of popular com- ok uebate."""^" 
 fort : and the agricultural interests were almost as depressed and alarmed as 
 the manufacturins and commercial classes. Some said the tariff had done no 
 good — forgetting that, as much of it did not come into use till (October, it Avas 
 too soon yet to form a judgment. Some said the tariff caused the distress ; 
 and this was so far true that the ignorant among the agiicultural body 
 did fall into a panic about the importation of food, and incur great losses by 
 selling off stock, and spreading their own fears over their own class. Some 
 apprehended another change in the Corn law ; and all felt that they were not 
 settling down with any confidence under the new Sliding Scale, while the 
 League was so growing in numbers and dignity as to appear very like a new 
 power in the State. Under these circumstances, the character of the session 
 of 1843 could be easily anticipated. It was chiefly occupied with the con- 
 dition of the industrial classes. 
 
 And here must arise the old difficulty — the difficulty which is yet unsolved, 
 and which must remain unsolved while our representative system continues 
 imperfect — the difficulty of determining the true province of legislation in re- 
 gard to the interests of the industrial classes. This was in fact, though not 
 in words, the one great controversy of the session of 1843, as it may yet be of 
 futiu'e sessions. There were not many men in the House, though there were 
 too many men in the country, who were heard to say that it is the business of 
 the government to find employment and food for the people : but there were 
 men of opposite extremes in politics, who contended that it was tlie duty of 
 government to regulate the interests of the poor, and determine the circum- 
 stances of their lives by law. Some high Conservatives contended for this on 
 the gi-ouud of the supposed parental character of government which should 
 watch over the members of the State as the Church watches over the members 
 of its own communion. As the liigh-clnn-ehmen claimed dominion, under a 
 metaphor, for Mother Church, while the churcli was in fact imijcisonal, con- 
 sisting of an aggregate of believers, so our high-statesmen claimed dominion, 
 imder a metaphor, for the State as a parent, while the State is, in fact, imper- 
 sonal, consisting of an aggregate of persons, agreeing, or destined by circum- 
 stances, to live under a particular fonn of government, laws, and customs. 
 With these high Conservatives were joined those members of the Commons 
 who verged most towards democracy — who claimed a special protection for 
 the poor from government because the poor A\(ve unrepresented in the legisla- 
 ture. A future Peer and the Chartist chairman who had conducted torch- 
 lio-ht meetings on a Lancashire moor, were seen advocating together a legal
 
 552 IIISTOUY OF ENGLAND [DoaK VI. 
 
 1843. regulation of tho poor man's labour ; while men of intermediate parties advo- 
 
 • -■ cated the poor man's cause in a directly opposite manner ; by contending that 
 
 his labour is his only property ; and that to interfere with it — to restrict its 
 sale by law — is to iniiinge fatally on the poor man's rights. — The truth was 
 (and it is the truth still) there is much to be said on both sides ; for the rela- 
 tion between the State and the working classes in our country is not settled in 
 tlieory, any more than in practice. It is not only true that the working 
 ■, classes are unrepresented in the legislature ; but the circulation of labour and 
 
 I tlie supply of food fnow at last free) were so restricted by law as to depress 
 
 / tlie poor below the level of comfort, and the means of education. Tlie church 
 
 failed in her duty of educating the people ; and the State placed them at dis- 
 advantage by restrictive laws. In consequence, a population has grown up, 
 special in its ignorance, its sufferings, and its needs, which must be specially 
 dealt with, if at all. It is impossible to admit that, under a representative 
 system, it is the proper business of the government to regulate tlie private 
 i interests of any class whatever. It is impossible, under the far higher constitu- 
 
 tion of humanity, to refuse attention to the case of the depressed, ignorant, and 
 suffering, of our people. The only course seems to be to admit that, as we 
 have not been true to our representative system (being at this day far from 
 having carried it out), we cannot be harshly true to its theory. Having per- 
 mitted a special misery and need to grow up, we must meet it with a sjiecial 
 ! solace and aid. As to how the solace and aid are to he given — this is the 
 
 i point of difficulty. In the absence of all theory which can command agree- 
 
 i ment, men must bring themselves into agreement as well as they can under 
 
 i the one guiding principle that nothing must be done to impair any one's 
 
 rights as a citizen inider a representative system. Every man who is now 
 practically excluded from the beneiits of the representative system is to be re- 
 garded as destined to inclusion under them ; and nothing that is done for his 
 mind or his fortunes by the grace of the state is to lower him from his posi- 
 tion of theoretical citizenship under a constitution which presumes every 
 man's condition and interests to be in his own hands. — Whatever names and 
 aspects the debates and legislation of 1843 might assume, they were almost 
 all, in fact, a study of the serious problem of the relation of the State to the 
 poor. 
 i.osn HovricK's Lord Ilowick began, on the 13th of February, with a motion for the ap- 
 Hansani, ixvi. poiutuicnt of a Committcc of the whole House to consider the distress of the 
 country. He believed, with Dr. Arnold, that the mass of men rai-ely feel 
 political uneasiness and discontent except under pressure of personal want. 
 He believed that this pressure had now become so terrible and so extensive 
 as to peril our institutions ; and he called upon the House to consider and 
 decide wliethcr it was not time for government to interfere. The mode of 
 interference which he desired was the repeal of all restrictions on importation; 
 and especially on that of corn — it being understood, however, that the nrover 
 desired the imposition of the S.s. fixed duty. The real interest of the motion 
 and the debate lay in the certainty that it must elicit from the ministers some 
 declaration of their intentions about the Com laws : and in the course of it. 
 Sir R. reel declared that no proposition about the Corn laws would be brought 
 forward this session. But i\Ir. Gladstone saved the agricultural interest froni 
 
 ■lis
 
 Chap. VII.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE, 
 
 any false reliance on the stability of the Com law, by admitting that the 
 
 whole question of restriction lay in the extent to which the country was able 
 
 to bear the appUcation of the principles of free trade. The opposition mem- Iw?""'''' '""' 
 
 bars now began, with good reason, to treat the Corn law as a " temporary " 
 
 expedient, and everything the minister said about it as a " temporary " 
 
 answer. This was felt by all the Anti-Com-law members to be true ; and 
 
 they, by saying so, not only prepared the way for the total repeal of the Com 
 
 law, but prepared the agricultural party to expect it. — Lord Howick's motion 
 
 could not succeed, because it was yet too soon to learn the effects of the great 
 
 measures of the preceding year. No one could say yet what the Income 
 
 tax would yield, nor how the timber trade and other great departments of 
 
 commerce might be stimulated by the relaxation of duties which had taken 
 
 place only since October. The majority against the appointment of the Hamai-a, uvi. 
 
 Committee was 115 in a House of 497. ""'■ 
 
 The next approach to the great problem was made by Lord Ashley, wlio i""" ashi.i v. 
 moved, on the 28tli of February, an Address to the Sovereign, praying that 7^ "'''"' 
 she would immediately and seriously consider what could be done for the re- 
 ligious and moral education of the working classes. — In addition to the diffi- 
 culties always attending the education question — (difficulties which have been 
 exhibited at a prior period of our history) — there was now one in connexion 
 with the peculiar reputation of the mover — both in and out of the House. It 
 had by this time become a sort of custom in parliament to praise Lord Ashley's 
 philanthropy, and declare expressly a belief that it was unquestionably sin- 
 cere — a practice which gave an impression of its being questioned by some- 
 body. The cause of this was, not that Lord Ashley was not a humane man ; 
 not that he spared time and effort to aid the suffering ; but that the direction 
 of his philanthropy was strange and questionable. His residence was in an 
 agricultural county where the labourers were reduced to the lowest condition 
 then known to Englishmen. It was so on his father's estates ; on the estates 
 to which, in the course of nature, he was to succeed : yet he did not take 
 under his protection his nearest neighbours, with whose needs he was, or 
 ought to be, best acquainted ; but constituted himself the champion of the 
 Lancashire operatives, whose families had been earning 3^. per week, while 
 the peasant families, his neighbours, were earning from 8,s'. to 10.s'. per week, 
 living on food too mean and scanty to support strength, and sleeping under 
 rotten thatch which let in the rain. Lord Ashley was agitating for the perso- 
 nal safety and for the education of the class which was actually the most 
 enlightened, and the best able to take care of itself, of any working-class in 
 England, while the agricultural labom-ers of his own county were in a state 
 of desperate ignorance and reckless despair, which demanded nil his efforts to 
 redress. Knowing nothing of " the manufacturing system," as it was called, 
 he had to depend for information on persons from Lancashire and other mill- 
 districts : and it was notorious that his informants were not always respiituble, 
 and that he was largely duped ; while ho need but have gone into the liovels 
 of his father's peasantry to have seen misery, and mental and uioral destitu- 
 tion, which could not be matched in the worst retreats of the manufacturing 
 j>opulation. Proof's came to liglit, from time to time, of the bad cliavatfcr and 
 unjustifiable procedure of Lord Ashley's correspondents and \isitors from 
 vol.. II. -1 "
 
 554 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book VI. 
 
 1843. Lancasliire ; and it was these things that cast a doubt — not on the sincerity 
 ^— — — — ' of his benevolence — but on his right to assume the position of patron of the 
 operatives in parUament. Amidst all the protestations and complaints which 
 were lavished there, there was a general persuasion of something unsound ; 
 that Lord Ashley mistook the character of the manufacturing class ; that he 
 confounded two orders of social evils — town evils and factory evils ; and that 
 he had much underrated the intelligence and the resources of the factory 
 population. This partly accounts for the uncertain action of the House gene- 
 rally on Lord Ashley's enterprises ; while, it need not be said, he was disliked 
 and slightly regarded by the manufacturing interest in the House, as a man 
 who meddled with what he did not understand, and who strove to set aside 
 the gi'eat natural laws of society, for the sake of favouring a class who were, 
 above all others of their rank, able to take care of themselves. One anecdote 
 will suffice to indicate the state of feeling which must have existed between 
 Lord Ashley and the Economist section of the House. While the final struggle 
 about the Corn law was going forward, a letter was picked up at Lord Ashley's 
 club, which was evidently drojjpcd from his pocket — it being open and 
 addressed to him. The waiter who picked it up enclosed it in an envelope, 
 and sent it to the office of the Anti-Corn-law League, where it was opened 
 and read as a matter of business, without any suspicion of what it was about. 
 The letter was from a Lancashire correspondent of Lord Ashley's, who wrote 
 that there was no hope of carrying Lord Ashley's measure of that session but 
 by blackening the character of four mill firms, whose names were given. 
 These mill-owners happened to be of the very first order — men who had pro- 
 vided schools for the children of their operatives, who had built model houses 
 for their people, opened lecture and reading rooms, and baths, and places of 
 recreation ; who had spontaneously spent many thousands of pounds in the 
 largest liberality towards their industrial neighbours, and were ordinarily on 
 terms of strong good-will with them. This letter was discussed by the 
 Council of the League ; and the question Avas debated whether Mr. Hume, or 
 Mr. Villiers, should not be requested to produce this letter in' the House as a 
 specimen of the quality of Lord Ashley's informants from the factory districts. 
 On the whole, it was thought better simply to return the letter to its owner, 
 because, though the League Council had come into possession of the docu- 
 ment quite innocently, the trick of the club-house waiter might be charged 
 upon them ; and the effect of the letter might be destroyed by any disgrace 
 attaching to the act of its production. How Lord Ashley regarded the letter, 
 there was no evidence to show. The proof amounted merely to his being in 
 correspondence with a disreputable informant. But the story discloses the 
 state of feeling existing between him and the Economist section of the House, 
 who certainly felt tnemselvcs justified in calling upon him to do one of two 
 things — to apply himself to the redress of the ignorance and woes of the agri- 
 cultural population, whose abodes lay round about his own, and whose case 
 he could investigate for himself; or to turn over his championship of the fac- 
 tory classes to some member of the House who had that knowledge of the 
 manufacturing districts in which he was deficient. 
 me"b';k:Tct:'" ^" ^^^^' L°i''i Ashley had brought forward a Bill on behalf of a set of 
 people who really appeared to have been neglected by all mankind, and whose
 
 Chap. VII.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 555 
 
 case, when exposed by Lord Ashley, startled parliament and the country. 1843. 
 People who move about above ground, in the face of day, may exhibit their ^— — s^. — ' 
 own case, and hope to have it considered by those -who look on ; but it now 
 appeared that there was a class moving about underground, in the mines and 
 coal pits of England and Scothmd, whose condition of suffering and brutali- 
 zation exceeded all that had ever been known, or could be believed. A Com- 
 mission of Inquiry, obtained by Lord Ashley, laid open a scene which shocked 
 the whole country. Women were employed as beasts of burden : children 
 were stunted and diseased, beaten, overworked, oppressed in every way : both 
 women and children made to crawl on all fours in the passages of the pits, 
 dragging carts by a chain passing from the waist between the legs : and all 
 lived in an atmosphere of filth and profligacy which could hardly leave a 
 thought or feeling untainted by vice. This was seen at once to be a special, 
 as well as an extreme case ; and a Bill for the relief of the women and 
 children of the colliery population was passed with a rapidity which somewhat 
 injured its quality. It was known that a strong opposition would be raised 
 if the thing were not done at once. It was certain that a multitude of women 
 and children would be thrown out of employment after the passage of the liill: 
 and not a few persons declared the Commissioners' Report to be full of ex- 
 aggeration : and the great permanent objection remained, of the disastrous 
 consequences of interfering with the labour market. The great majority of 
 the nation however felt that it was better to have a large burden thrown on 
 the parishes for a time than to let such abuses continue : that, making every 
 allowance for exaggeration, the facts were horrible : and that, the labour mar- 
 ket being already interfered with by Factory Bills, this was not the point to 
 stop at. So the Bill passed, with some amendments which Lord Ashley sub- iiamard, uv. 
 mitted to, rather than wait. — By this Bill, women were excluded from mining 
 and colliery labour altogether. Boys were not to be employed under the age 
 of ten years : and the term of apprenticeship) was limited. The Secretary of 
 State was empowered to appoint Inspectors of Mines and Collieries, to see that 
 the provisions of the Bill wore carried out. — The new law took effect after 
 nine months from its date. The operation has, from time to time, been re- 
 ported as beneficial ; and, though it has been fo\uid difficult to prevent women 
 from getting down to work in the pits after the habits of a life had made 
 other employment unsuitable or impossible to them, the pressure upon parish 
 or other charity funds turned out to be less than had been anticipated. It 
 was a great thing to have put a stop to the employment of women in toil 
 wholly imsuitcd to their frame and their natural duties ; ;uul to have broken 
 in upon a system of child-slavery which could never have existed so long in 
 our country, if it had not been hidden in tlic cliambers of the earth. 
 
 It was between the passage of this Act and its coming into operation that 
 Lord Ashley moved to address the Queen on the subject of a religious educa- 
 tion for the working classes : and this brought out from Sir James Graham a 
 statement of a government scheme t)f education, wliicli was to be engrafted upon c.ovkksvkst 
 a Factory Bill of Lord Ashley's order of legislation— a law which should con- l'i'„',^d' ulu. 
 trol the destinies of the manufacturing population, without touching the more '-""• 
 depressed order of agricultural labourers. It was i)rol)ably owing in part to 
 this, and to the prevalent belief that the governmen 1 hail been stimulated in
 
 556 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book VI. 
 
 1843. its action by n fear of Lord Ashley's activity and pertinacity, insufficiently 
 -~— -^-^ enlightened by philosophy and experience, that the education clauses of Sir 
 James Graham's Factory Bill failed as they did, and that the Dissenters com- 
 mitted themselves against it in a spirit of enmity -which lowered their posi- 
 tion more than anything they had done and suffered for a century before. 
 Education In Order to judge of the government scheme and the opposition to it, it 
 
 must be remembered with what difficulty any beginning whatever had been 
 made ; how jealous was the Church of any admission of Dissenters to the 
 public funds for educational purposes ; and how unacceptable to the Dissenters 
 was the idea of compulsory education at all. The difficulty now was that the 
 proposed compulsory education was to be provided for that class — for the 
 children of the manufacturing districts — where the interest of the Dissenters 
 was strongest ; while the agricultural classes — the neglected charge of the 
 Church — were left over for a future measure. It ought to be acknowledged 
 on every hand that here was a call for magnanimity all round. It was an occa- 
 sion for the Church to acknowledge her neglect, and hasten to repair it. It was 
 an occasion for the Dissenters to be modest about their much greater exertions 
 for the education of their own members in the large towns, in consideration of 
 the vast deal which it was not in their power to do. It was an occasion for 
 all parties bravely to face the fearful truth of the amount of popular ignorance, 
 and to decide deliberately whether it was best for all to yield some of their 
 desires about doctrinal religious instruction, or for hundreds of thousands of 
 children to pass off into utter darkness — ignorant not only of all religious 
 doctrine whatever, but of the plainest truths and practices of morals. The 
 Chm-ch was more equal to the occasion than the Dissenters. The Church 
 yielded more than she had ever offered before to the consciences of Dissenters ; 
 and, when the Dissenters threw out the educational part of the government 
 scheme, the Church set vigorously to work to raise funds by voluntary suhscrip- 
 tions, for the extension and improvement of the National Church Schools. 
 Whatever may be thought of the quality of the education given in those 
 schools, indisputahle proof was afforded in the exertions of the Church during 
 184.3, of the earnestness of the desire of the Church for the education of the 
 people, as she conceived of education. The Dissenters at the same time 
 appear to have erred — naturally, perhaps, but widely and fatally. In their 
 fear of " compromise " — a fear usually so honourable and so wise — they forgot 
 that this was a case in which loss of time was fatal. They had been right 
 hitherto in rejecting measures of religious liberty which had anything un- 
 sound in them — in waiting from year to year for a perfect Marriage Bill, for 
 instance, rather than put up with a partial one : but in the present case, every 
 year of delay removed thousands of children beyond the reach of education, 
 and thus consigned them to risks and injury immeasurably more fatal than 
 any kind or degTce of religious error could possibly have been. Some of the 
 Dissenters saw and felt this, and perceived it to he their duty to take the most 
 liberal scheme they could obtain in the first place ; try to enlarge it after- 
 wards ; and continue to prosecute their voluntary efforts as before, so as to 
 make the government measure a su]3plemcnt to their own exertions, instead 
 of a substitute for them. This, however, required a magnanimity of which all 
 were not capable : and the large majority of the Dissenters were led away to 
 overrate the extent and quality of the education they could impart ; to over-
 
 Chap. VII.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 557 
 
 look tlie large area where they could not -work at all; and to disregard or 1843. 
 
 deny the gi-eat truth that the voluntary princiijle is inapplicable to education " ' 
 
 because it is precisely those who need education mo.st that are least capable of 
 demanding it, desiring it, and even conceiving of it. The opposition of 
 the Dissenters prevailed. The opportunity was lost of taking the Church in 
 a genial and liberal mood, and of providing for the children of various sects 
 being reared as brethren, while instructed each in the doctrine of his omii 
 communion. All that was possible was done for the perpetuating of sectarian 
 rancour, and for hounding on ignorance and bigotry to new assaults on the 
 innocence and peace of society. By this mistake, it is now pretty well under- 
 stood that the Dissenters lost more in character and influence than they can 
 regain in a long course of years : and, with all their large promises, sincere 
 but rash, they have done notliiug eflfectual in the way of substitution for the 
 measure they rejected. 
 
 The outline of the government measure was this. Factory children had J.'^'^''''' **'"• 
 been legislated for before, as we have seen : and, as was anticipated, such 
 legislation had been inoperative. It was now proposed that factory children 
 between the ages of eight and thirteen should not work for more than six 
 hours and a half per day : that they should be obliged to attend schools pro- 
 vided for the purpose ; the children of churchmen, catholics, and dissenters, 
 being committed, for certain appointed hours in every week, to the charge of 
 their respective pastors for ireligious instruction according to the creed of their 
 parents. The measure was enlarged so as to include all pauper children in the 
 towns, and all other children whose parents would consent to their entering 
 the schools. Thus the larger proportion of children then uneducated was 
 provided for ; and a promise was held out of an extension of the system to 
 include the neglected part of the agricultural population, in a short time. As 
 there was nothing here which need interfere with any existing schools, and as 
 the most careful provision was made for the equality within the schools of 
 children of all sects, there would really have been nothing for the dissenters 
 to protest against if it had not been for the trusteeship provision. There were 
 to be seven trustees to each school inider the Act ; four of whom were to be 
 elective, but the other three must be the clergyman of the district and two 
 churchwardens. This would almost necessarily yield a majority of Church 
 trustees over dissenters ; but, as it is difficult to see how any freer arrange- 
 ment could be offered in a society where an Established Church exists at all, 
 the ojjposltion to it amounted to a declaration that there should be no general 
 scheme of education in coexistence with an Establishment ; and the j)rospcct 
 of Popular Iklucation was postponed to the day when the Church should be 
 overthrown as an Establishment. 
 
 Within the House, all went well. Lord J. Russell, while offering some few 
 objections, gave the scheme his hearty support as a whole : and men of all 
 faiths and parties showed themselves disposed to concede what was necessary 
 to the accomplishment of the object. The Queen's reply to the Address was llan^Jml, uui. 
 cordial. But presently the Dissenters were up and stiixing in opposition ; 
 and their speeches at public nu'etings and the language of some of their 
 petitions evinced a misconception of the nica.^iire wliich showed that it was 
 doomed. The remainder of the Session would not sullice for disabusing those
 
 558 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 [Book VI. 
 
 1843. 
 
 Hansard, Ixviii. 
 1103. 
 
 Educational 
 
 CLAISFS WITll- 
 URAWV. 
 
 Hansard, Ixix. 
 1568. 
 
 New Bill. 
 Hansard, Ixxii. 
 277. 
 
 Hansard, Ixxiii. 
 1073—1101. 
 
 Hansard, Ixxiii. 
 1101—1110. 
 
 who had been so unaccountably nnsled about the facts of the measure. An 
 inquirer here and there had the curiosity to ascertain ho^v many, of all the 
 alarmed dissenters he was acquainted with, had seen the Bill, or learned for 
 themselves what its provisions really were : and scarcely an instance was found 
 of any one having obtained his information at first hand. It was a case of 
 panic ; and the result was shown in circulars full of misstatements, in public 
 mectino-s full of violence, and in the presentation of such a mass of petitions 
 a'^aiust the Bill as had never been seen in modern times. — On the 1st of 
 May, Sir James Graham brought forward explanations and some important 
 amendments, enlarging the number of trustees, and so altering the wording of 
 the Bill as to make clear the entire independence of the children of different 
 sects, in regard to religious instruction and worship. But it was useless to 
 explain and concede. Nearly 200 petitions against the Bill were presented by 
 one member in one day ; and Lord J. Russell was charged with one from the 
 city of London, signed by 55,000 persons. On the 15th of June, Sir James 
 Graham announced, with deep regiet, that the government felt itself com- 
 pelled to give up the Educational clauses of the Bill : and on the 19th, he 
 proposed to carry forward the rest of the measure. 
 
 At the beginning of the next Session, accordingly. Sir James Graham intro- 
 duced a Factory Bill, divested of the Education clauses ; and it was the fate 
 of this Bill which indicated the uncertain mind and temper of the House in 
 regard to Lord Ashley's philanthropic enterprises. When this Bill went into 
 Committee, Lord Ashley moved a clause by which the working day for women 
 and young persons was reduced from twelve to ten hours. In the course of 
 his speech, he made statements which showed that he did not understand the 
 nature of the labour employed in the cotton manufacture any more than the 
 great natural laws which regulate labour and production. In this speech, he 
 went too far for the government, as well as the Economist party, though he 
 was supported by the many who indulge feeling at the expense of reason, and 
 in indolence of thought ; — by the same sort of men as formerly strove to regu- 
 late wages, food, and dress, by Act of Parliament. Sir James Graham opposed 
 him with pain, seeing how the very subsistence of two millions of people was 
 concerned in any legislation which should tamper with the cotton manufacture 
 — that great branch of industry which had been introduced under a system of 
 fi'eedom from parliamentary interference. Sir James Graham not only saw 
 this as an Economist, but he felt his responsibility, as Secretary for the Home 
 Department, in regard to any legislative interference which might affect the 
 maintenance of two millions of people. He saw the consequences of abridg- 
 ing " by one-sixth the whole period allowed for the replacement of capital 
 and the production of profit :" and he would not venture the risk of a corre- 
 sponding reduction of the wages of the workpeople. The men mugt stop work 
 ■when the women and boys stopped ; and such a legislative interference with 
 the natural course of manufacture was not to be adventured for any reasons 
 which had been alleged. The thing to be done was clear to his mind — to 
 educate the people, so as to enable them to take care of their one great pro- 
 perty — their labour, and not to deprive them by law of the disposal of that, 
 their only property. To provide by law leisure and opportunity for children 
 to be educated was one thing : — to stop the labour of working men by restrict-
 
 Chap. VII] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 5.59 
 
 ing tlie labour of their wives was another, ami he must oppose all interfercuce 18-43. 
 which was, in fact, tyranny under the name of humanity. These were also -— — — — ^ 
 the views of Sir R. Peel ; and the government was considered so far pledged 
 against Lord Ashley's motion as that the majority of nine which he obtained {'j^^"''' '""'''■ 
 at first was considered a serious defeat. 
 
 There was a hope still. When the eighth clause came to be discussed. 
 Lord Ashley would have to move the substitution of ten hours for twelve ; 
 and government would proceed that far with the Bill, in hope that the House 
 would reconsider this important matter. When the time came, the House VAniLATioxoF 
 voted in a way which showed that it did not vmderstand the business before inmsard, ixxiii. 
 it. lliere was a majority ot three agauist the proposal ot twelve hours ; and 
 then, immediately after, a majority of seven against ten hours. Sir James 
 Graham said that as the House would not consent to the term of either ten 
 or twelve hours, the government must take time to consider what could be 
 done nest. — The result was that Lord Ashley gave way — permitting govern- 
 ment to withdraw the Bill, and bring in another, which was the same in all 
 respects, except that it contained no clause specifying the hours of labour. 
 On the third reading of the new Bill, Lord Ashley moved that the hours of iiansar.i, isiiv. 
 labour should be restricted to eleven per day for three years from the next 
 October, and to ten from that time forward. The debate reads strangely to 
 any one familiar with the life and lot of the working classes. A multitude of 
 the operatives who had petitioned for a Ten Hour Bill had been tempted by 
 the placards which were seen all over Manchester ; " Less work. More wages. 
 Sign for Ten Hours." But now, the Ten Hour men in the House talked 
 glibly of the way in which the inevitable reduction of wages would be com- 
 pensated by moral advantages; and of the ease with which parliament 
 could retrace its steps, if the reduction should be found to go too far. The 
 opponents of this rash and meddling legislation declared themselves appalled 
 at the prospect of diminished wages of which their opponents talked so 
 lightly, and about which they desired to leave the working class no choice: 
 and it was pointed out that if the step was retraced, it would be on account of 
 the fatality — which would then have become irreparable— of the loss of our 
 foreign trade. Sooner than this could happen, however, as experienced men 
 felt and said, the law would be evaded, and, by some means or other, practi- 
 cally set aside : for no law could work in defiance of the needs of capitalists 
 and labourers ; and then we should have perpetrated the unspeakable mischief 
 of breaking a solemn promise to the people, and teaching them to despise the 
 law and distrust the law-makers. The debate ended in a majority of 138 .»;;^',J.';n,';^^™" 
 against the Ten Hour limitation ; and the Bill was passed by the Commons c.^^^^ ^^^.^ 
 with only seven dissentient voices. It was not much discussed in the Lords ; uoi. 
 and it presently became law. 
 
 In the next session, 1845, Lord Ashley introduced two BUls, which were ^^^^Y^^^^.Ysk 
 taken up and carried by the government : one bringing young people em- ' ' 
 ployed in print-works under the protection of the Factoiy measure ; and the 
 other, providing for the better care of lunatics. This last was a good step 
 taken in an unquestionable cause. As for the Factoiy legislation, it is almost 
 as melancholy to witness the efforts made to cure the evils of our overwrought 
 competitive system as to contemplate the evils themselves. First, we ha\e
 
 560 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 [Book VI. 
 
 1S4;]. 
 
 Debatr on Colo- 
 
 MZAllON. 
 
 Hiinsard, Ixviii. 
 
 Early Ci.iising 
 Movemi;n r. 
 
 Casi! of Gover- 
 nesses. 
 
 allo^^-ctl our operative population to grow up— in less ignorance than some 
 other classes, it is true, hut with a wholly insufficient knowledge of their own 
 condition and liahilities. They have overcrowded the labour-market, so as to 
 be compelled to work harder— not than other classes of labourers who earn 
 smaller wages, but than is good for anybody to labour : and then we try to 
 mend the matter by forbidding them to sell more than a given amount of 
 their laI)our. It is not thus that the excessive competition which is the cause 
 of the mischief can be reduced ; and the true friends of the working freeman 
 felt that he lost nothing, while he retained his liberty, by tlie failure of Lord 
 Ashley's Ten Hour measures of 18-14. 
 
 Lord Ashley wrought in a better direction wlien he heartily seconded 
 Mr. Charles Buller's motion (in the session of 1843) in favour of extensive 
 and systematic Colonization, as a means of lessening the excessive competition 
 in the labour market at home, and of opening new fields of subsistence and of 
 commerce, to the mutual advantage of the colonists and of the stayers at 
 home. Though the discussion did not lead to any immediate practical result, it 
 was eminently useful in directing attention to the true principles of relief, and 
 iiffording large information as to our colonizing prospects. We shall hereafter 
 see what was doing in this field. 
 
 While Parliament was thus almost exclusively occupied with beneficent 
 legislation, and what was intended as such — thus indicating the peculiar pres- 
 sure of the time — society out of doors was following in the same track. We 
 see, with great satisfaction, about this time, a rising movement in favour of 
 shortening the hours of trading in shops. Here, where exchange and not 
 production is concerned, there can be no reasonable objection to bringing the 
 exhausting laboiu' of shop attendance within endurable limits. As long as 
 the fair convenience of purchasers is considered, and the shops are kept open 
 for the length of an average working day, a timely closing of the shops is a 
 benefit to the tradesman and his assistants in every way. The one thing to 
 be done was to induce tlie tradesmen in the same line to agree to close their 
 shops at the same hour : and this has been found not difficult, on the whole. 
 The early closing movement began to bo talked about at this time ; and a 
 prospect was opening to the shopman and sliopwoman of evening reading, or 
 social converse, or rest, or (if their fatigue permitted it) a breath of fresh air 
 at other times than on Sundays. — And we note, also, the commencement of 
 the movement on behalf of one of the most suffering classes of society — the 
 Governesses. The position of this unfortunate class is so anomalous, so un- 
 natural, and, at our own particular period, so depressed, that the efforts of all 
 the benevolent among us could do but little for relief. But, fi-om this time, it 
 was at least certain that the neglect of society was at an end ; and this was 
 the clear beginning of the end which must one day arrive. From this time, 
 some few of the suffering multitude of female educators would be sheltered in 
 their latter years, and tended in sickness, and aided to provide resources 
 against a season of age and sickness. We were to have among us asylums 
 for aged governesses, and homes for such as were uneniployed ; and methods 
 of insurance or deposit for annuities for svich as were earning salaries ; and, 
 better than all these, an a^vakening of society to the inquiry why this class is 
 one which suffers so bitterly ; and whether it can be justifiable to have among
 
 CuAP. VII.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. uGl 
 
 us a class so indispensable, and yet so unhappy. It may be hoped that there 1843. 
 
 were employers of governesses who were now moved to consider whether they ~ -— ' 
 
 could not afford some solace of sympathy, and respect, and social converse, 
 and improvement, and amusement, to the inmate of their house whose position 
 was one of utter loneliness in the midst of numbers. 
 
 We notice at this time also projects for improving the dwellings of the imi-hovemext op 
 poor. We read of Model Lodging Houses ; of mansions for families where, at 
 a less cost than had been paid for the most wretched roosting-places, poor 
 families might be provided with clean and airy rooms, with a supply of water, 
 light, and warmth. Suggestions were even made of a common kitchen, wash- 
 house and bakehouse, and other devices of domestic socialism which made the 
 timid look to see whether the principle of Communism was gaining ground in 
 England, as it was reported to be in France, Germany, and Italy. The gi'eater 
 number felt, however, that it mattered little what name such projects were 
 called by, if they supplied the necessaries and comforts of life, on a principle 
 independent of alms-giving, to those who could enjoy them only by means 
 of the economy of Association. x 
 
 The Queen's Letter was still looked to as a means of relief for the still starv- Tnr qieen's 
 
 I-KITl.lt. 
 
 ing people in the manufacturing districts. This royal letter was prepared by 
 the advice, and under the eye, of the Privy Council. It was addressed to the 
 Archbishop of Canterbury ; and it directed that the Bishops shoidd see that it n.insara, ixiii. 
 was read on an appointed Sunday, in all tlie Churches, that the people might 
 be moved to charitable contribution for the relief of the distress ; their con- 
 tributions to be collected from house to house in the course of the week follow- 
 ing the publication of the letter. The transaction, which began in ^lay, 
 1842, was spread over some months — Lord Wharncliife declaring, in the next 
 session, that the sum raised under this letter amounted to about 75,000/. iiamani, ixvi. 
 which was expended in the most distressed manufacturing counties. It was 
 thought to be a mistake at the time to have recourse to so extreme a method 
 of appeal in a season when all hearts that could be so readied were already 
 opened and softened by the indications of unequalled distress on every hand ; 
 and the smallness of the sum raised in response to the royal invitation in pro- 
 portion to those provided by private subscription seems to show that there was 
 a failure of judgment and taste in the act. But it combines with other inci- 
 dents of the time to show that the great social tendency of the day was to 
 consider the poor. This consideration occupied almost all the time of parlia- 
 ment, and was most prominent in the thought of the country — eminently 
 combining with and stimulating the action of the most powerful body in tlic 
 rommunitv at that time — the Anti-Corn-Law Ticague. 
 
 vol.. U. 
 
 4c
 
 S02 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 [Book VI. 
 
 CHAPTER YIII. 
 
 Movements in 
 
 IHEI.WD. 
 
 Spectator, 181}, 
 p. 3. 
 
 2g^j 4P, TN January, 1841, Mr. O'Connell said, at a meeting of the Repeal Associa- 
 
 J- tion of Dublin, " I sliall, for my part, vote for the Whigs on all party 
 questions, in order to keep them in : but I tell thenr honestly and openly, 
 that they have lost altogether the hearts of the Irish people ; and nothing 
 
 but the loud cry for Repeal shall henceforth be heard among us I did 
 
 not resume the Repeal agitation till I saw how utterly unable the Whigs were 
 to effect anything." It might be asked why Mr. O'Connell desired to keep 
 in the Whigs if they had lost the hearts of the Irish people, and were utterly 
 powerless. It appears that he really did suppose that a Conservative INlinis- 
 ti-y — such as the Peel administration was by anticipation supposed to be — 
 would treat Ireland as the rank old Orangemen of the north would have her 
 treated ; and that the alternative was merely between nothing being done for 
 Ireland and her being cruelly oppressed. Just before the Bed-chamber dis- 
 pute, when it was known that Sir R. Peel might come in at any moment if 
 he would, and that it was the " Irish difficulty " which prevented his doing 
 so, Mr. O'Connell was looking round anxiously for every means of making 
 the Irish question popular in England — even requesting an English author, 
 whom he thought likely to be listened to, to travel in Ireland, under facilities 
 provided by himself, in order to report upon the condition of the country. 
 His apprehension of insufferable coercion from a Conservative government was 
 probably real : and it led him, from this date, into that monstrous agitation 
 for the Repeal of the Union which M'as as fatal to himself as to his unhappy 
 country. From this time, he began to reap his retribution for his rash, un- 
 principled, and most mischievous political conduct. From this time, lie drew 
 down upon himself a burden of embarrassment and irksome responsibility, 
 under which, after long perplexity and anguish of mind, he sank spirit- 
 broken and terror-stricken, leaving a name which was soon to be cursed by 
 his countrymen as fervently as it had ever been blessed. — Probably, no one 
 now supposes him to have been sincere in any expectation or desire to obtain 
 a Repeal of the Union ; for nothing can be more futile, or more audacious in 
 absurdity, than his replies to Lord Charlemont and others wlio objected to the 
 efficacy of Repeal, and showed that if it was obtained to-morrow, the redemp- 
 tion of Ireland would remain to be achieved, with less chance of unity of 
 councils and dispassionateness of action than under the Imperial connexion : 
 but he was probably of opinion that the best means of making Ireland at- 
 tended to and cared for was by making her feared ; and that the best way of 
 making her feared was by pushing the Repeal agitation. 
 
 In this year, we find him waging war against British manufacturers. "His 
 pantaloons, waistcoat, and coat, were Irish He considered the plea- 
 sure of giv-ing employment to Irish hands part of the value of the price he 
 
 Spt-otntor, 1111, 
 p. 28. 
 
 1841. 
 
 0'Cu\NEI.T.'s 
 
 Procledings.
 
 Chap. VIII.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 563 
 
 gave for any thing." He might speak for himself; but he coukl not expect 1841 4(5. 
 
 poorer Irishmen to indulge themselves in this sort of luxury ; and the effort to ^-^^-•^•^ — 
 exclude English manufactures failed, though O'Connell passed a law to that 
 effect, and even attempted to enforce it, in opposition to the Dublin magis- spccuior, iwi, 
 tracy. — Mr. O'Counell made journeys, and attended dinners, for the further- "" ' ' 
 ance of Repeal ; and in February, we find him declaring that he had been "''''• p- '-'• 
 refused post-horses, through Orange intimidation ; from which fact he drew 
 the conviction, that if he had travelled on the day first fixed, his carriage would 
 have certainly been destroyed, and himself probably murdered. — In INIarch, at 
 a meeting on the Curragh of Kildare, he protested against a published calcu- "''di'-272- 
 lation of the length of his agitation, from his age being sixty-five. " Ten or 
 eleven of his uncles and aunts lived to be above ninety ;" and the jirospect of 
 his scope of agitation was indefinite, as he " could make as much of three years 
 as most men could of thirty." In April, we find him holding forth on the 
 grievous subject of rents, and proposing plans, procured from a committee of "^''' i' '"■ 
 his own, for securing a tenancy of not less than twenty years for every man on 
 the land, with power to all to purchase small farms, paying for them by in- 
 stalments, M'ith the ent. At the same date, he admitted the difficulty of en- 
 forcing his order to exclude British manufactures, and accounted for it by 
 audaciously declaring that it was owing to an influx of English workmen, 
 " who had come over to keep down the wages of the Irish operative." — 
 In the same month, certain American sympathizers sent over some hundreds "''''• i'- '^2. 
 of pounds for the furtherance of the Repeal cause ; and O'Connell declared 
 that the Irish parliament was not dead — only slept — and wovdd be awakened 
 now by the crowing of the American cocks across the Atlantic. He took oc- 
 casion to stimulate the Repeal wardens to augment their funds, saying that 
 two millions of Repealers — and he could not do with less than two millions of 
 Repealers — would yield, at Is. per man, £100,000. — By this time, O'Connell's 
 " Board of Trade" had discovered that it would be necessary to supersede the 
 Dublin shop-keepers by "marts for the exclusive sale of Irish commodities," 
 as the shop-keepers would not join in the movement to exclude British manu- 
 factures. — By the middle of May it had become clear that Sir R. Peel was 
 coming into power ; and O'Connell proposed a simultaneous meeting on a 
 Sunday, of all the parishes of Ireland, in order to implore the Queen " not to ibid. p. icg. 
 receive into her confidence the bitter and malignant ancient enemies of her 
 faithful Irish people." Before this month was over, the Repeal meetings in 
 the provinces were becoming grand shows; one on the Hill of Kilnoe, in 
 Clare, consisting of 100,000 men ; and another at Ardsullas, leading the way 
 in that organization which afterwards gave their formidable character to such 
 meetings. The people came in companies, led by their priests from distances n.id. p. 552. 
 of ten or fifteen miles, with Temi)erance bands playing before them. A bed- 
 ridden old woman was carried fen miles to see tlic preparations made " for the 
 salvation of her country." During the absorption of the passions of the people 
 in the growing agitation, the diminution of crime appears remarkable. While 
 there was " but one voice upon the breeze of heaven — Hurrah for Rojieal !" — 
 and the shout arose "from the Giants' Causeway to Cape Clear— from Conne- 
 mara to the Hill of llowth," tlie judges were congratulating the juries on
 
 564 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book VI. 
 
 1841—4(3. there being few prisoners for trial, or " the dock was empty."— In August, the 
 ■ — --.-— Liberator's speeches contain a . curious medley ; announcing his intended 
 
 spectator, 1841, measure for securing to every man a long or perpetual holding of the land he 
 
 *"■ '* ■ lives on ; desiring the people not to rebel as long as they could help it ; inti- 
 
 mating that steam-boats could bring aid fi-om America in ten days ; and long- 
 ing for the hour which he declared might soon arrive when the Queen, flyiiig 
 from the Tory enemies of her throne, should take refuge in the arms of her 
 faithful Irish. To these he added two curious declarations; that he had always 
 been opposed to the introduction of a Poor law into Ireland ; and that he had 
 arranged to introduce hand-loom weaving into Ireland, trusting to achieve an 
 exclusion of the productions of British power-looms. By this time, the Re- 
 peal meetings were " immense ;" and the priests of one diocese which contained 
 105 had all joined but one. A member was now added to the Associatior, 
 whose accession was uproariously hailed — Mr. O'Connell's latest grandchild, 
 aged four days. Nothing was omitted which could amuse or gratify the 
 people. — In October, the government papers in London intimated plainly that 
 the Cabinet intended to take no notice of any nonsense in Ireland ; but that 
 any acts obviously dangerous to the general peace would be put down with 
 the strong hand ; and an appeal was made to the newspaper press on the Con- 
 servative side not to record the boasts and menaces of the Repealers, as nothing 
 but neglect seemed to be necessary to empty the benches at Repeal meetings. 
 This declaration of the Standard, in October, 1841, was regarded as an indi- 
 cation of the policy of the new Administration in regard to the Repeal move- 
 ment. — Mr. O'Conncll had before declined the office of Lord Mayor of Dublin. 
 He now changed his mind, and accepted the dignity, for the facilities it would 
 
 Ibid. p. HOD. afford for extending the Repeal cause. — In November, the movement had 
 become important enough to be visited with opposition and defection. A pro- 
 minent memher withdrew, convinced by the arguments of opponents that Ire- 
 land wanted peace and quiet more than political changes ; and an intrepid 
 parish priest refused to collect Repeal Rent from his flock, because they were 
 already under the pressure of poverty. By this time, the new census was out : 
 and Mr. O'Connell made use of it to charge upon the British government a 
 " wholesale extermination of the Irish people " — " a frightful slaughter of 
 human beings," — because the population had increased at a considerably slower 
 rate din-ing the last than the preceding ten years. At every meeting in Dublin 
 now contributions from the United States were handed in, amounting by this 
 time to many hundreds of pounds. The O'Connell rent was also swelling — 
 the sum collected in the Dublin district alone this year exceeding £2,000.— 
 In a month, it became clear how the new Lord Mayor meant to use his office 
 
 Ibid. p. 1167. for the benefit of the Repeal cause. In one hour and a half he admitted 
 seventy-three new freemen— all of them having avouched themselves Catho- 
 lics, and " of the light sort." The dignitary declared the business to be " go- 
 ing on swimmingly;" and that there would be no need for him to be made 
 permanent Lord Mayor by perpetual re-election, because he could put things 
 in train during this year, and get a sound coadjutor appointed to succeed him, 
 who would do the same in his turn. Such avowals appear to have created no 
 disgust among his followers, amidst their loud talk of political right and justice.
 
 Chap. VIII.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 5G5 
 
 All means to their end seem to have beeu, not only fan-, but laudable in their 1841 — 46. 
 
 eyes. These preparations indieate what might be expected from a subsequent " ' 
 
 time. 
 
 In 1842, however, there was something like a suspension of tlie Repeal agi- 1842. 
 tation. The harvest having been bad, the people suffered cruelly, in many of 
 the rural districts. Food riots and agrarian disturbances fill the foreground of 
 the picture during that year ; — ^attacks ujjon flour-mills ; people roaming the 
 streets in the towns of Galway, and collecting before every potato storehouse ; 
 lives lost at Ennis ; and a special commission sent down to scenes of distin-b- 
 ance. The next year was that in which the Repeal agitation reached its 
 height. 
 
 It is at this time that we begin to see mention of " Monster Meetings." 1843. 
 Early in January, Mr. O'Connell announced the Repeal of the Union to be " all '_'^^'_,",';^" r meet. 
 but immediate," if the clergy and laity would unite in their overwhelming 
 majority: and he added, " 1843 is and shall be the Repeal year." A remark- spocuior, i843, 
 able step, and one wliich created great excitement in Dublin, was that Mr. 
 O'Connell carried a Repeal petition to parliament by an overwhelming ma- 
 jority in the Corporation of Dublin. This was in March ; and presently 
 occurred the Monster INIeeting at Trim, where 30,000 people were present. At 
 the dinner which succeeded the meeting, the Agitator ventured upon his 
 boldest lansruase — talked of the scaffold, victory or the grave, and dared the .Annual Register, 
 
 ° " -^ . . , 1843, li.rj". 
 
 young men to say whether they would be slaves, or shed their blood in the 
 field. — At the Mullingar meeting, on the 14th of May, it appeared that every 
 Catholic bishop in Ireland was a Repealer. To this meeting the peasantry 
 thronged, even from a di.stancc of forty miles ; and the numbers were some- 
 where between 100,000 and 130,000. By this time, all pretence of assembling 
 to petition parliament was laid aside ; and parliament was spoken of with mere 
 contempt. As the government did not interfere, the Agitator grew bolder and 
 more threatening in his language, and more jilainly invited his followers to 
 wrest Repeal from the hand of Imperial tyranny. The government still ])ro- 
 fessed its intention of relying on the ordinary powers of the law, except with 
 regard to the holding of arms, about which a keenly-contested Bill passed 
 through parliament during the summer. The Chancellor of Ireland, Sir 
 Edward Hugden, removed from the Commission of the Peace Ijord Ffrcncli 
 and several other magistrates who had taken part in Repeal demonstrations: 
 but this act, however much questioned in the House of Commons, was one 
 which lay within the ordinary powers of the law. 
 
 It appears as if the first serious fears of the government were excited by the iara Mkivtinu. 
 Monster Meeting at Tara, on tlie 15th of August, where O'Connell, who pro- 
 voked the old association of ideas about the bully and tlie coward, bragged more 
 grandly than ever, because it seemed that the government would give him 
 nothing to fear. He declared that he had been laughed at for saying in f ^l"*' "f"'"- 
 Jaiuiary that this was the Repeal year ; but it was his turn to laugh now ; for 
 it was certain that before twelve months more, the parliament would be in 
 College Green, Dublin. He believed he was "able to announce" to his 
 heavers that not twelve months could possibly elapse, without hurrahs for the 
 Irish parliament in College Green being heard over the land. He opened 
 glimpses of his plan for extorting permission from the Queen for Ireland to
 
 566 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 [BcoK VI. 
 
 Abhi rriATioN 
 C'oliRlb. 
 
 1841_46. govern herself; and these words were addressed to an assemblage estimated by 
 
 .^ ,-.^, various reporters at from 500,000 to 2,000,000 of i^ersons. The Hill of Tara 
 
 spoctaior, 1813, was Hkc a hugc encampment. Some persons arrived over-night ; others flocked 
 "'""■ in from the break of day: and after ten o'clock, imposing processions, with 
 
 music and banners, converged from various points. The spot was chosen for 
 its revolutionary associations ; the old kings of Ireland having been elected on 
 the Ilillj and the rebels of 1798 having there sustained a defeat. Ahead- 
 ornament, half cap, half crown, was prepared, wherewith to crown the Libe- 
 rator ; and there can be no doubt that the peasant multitude believed the day 
 to be come when they were to be freed from a foreign domination, and restored 
 to national grandeur, and miiversal comfort and '»\ell-being. — This appears to 
 have been the occasion — at the dinner after the meeting — when the scheme of 
 establishing Arbitration Courts was first recommended. The people were ad- 
 vised to desert and ignore the courts of law ; and the magistrates who were 
 dismissed from the Commission of the Peace on account of their Repeal opi- 
 nions, were to serve as O'Connell's justices, and decide on all disputes brought 
 before them. These Arbitration Courts did actually, for a considerable time, 
 almost supersede the regular tribunals. Of coiirse, the plan could not work 
 long; and tliere was, perhaps, no part of the Repeal agitation, except the 
 Temperance, that the friends of the Irish liked so well. It encouraged peace 
 and courtesy — checked the litigious — and would probably act in the very bene- 
 ficial direction of giving the people some better notion than they had before of 
 the use and value of law. As the decisions of O'Connell's justices were not 
 legal, their courts could not long exist ; and the practice of arbitration died 
 out, like all the Liberator's arrangements. 
 
 On Sunday, the 20th of August, another Monster Meeting was held at Ros- 
 common — less numerous than it would have been if the tenantry of some 
 landlords had not complained to their landlords that their attendance would be 
 compulsory if they had not protection in staying away. Troops and police 
 were stationed within call, but out of sight. The Agitator's tone was very war- 
 like. After calling " Tee-totalism the finest effluence of human virtue," he 
 said that, "if he had to go tobattle,"he should have the Tee-totalers with him; 
 and there was not an army in the world that he would not fight with them. — 
 Ibid. p. 800. Two days afterwards, a scheme was produced which amused and occupied the 
 Repealers, and made them think that something was doing : — a plan of O'Con- 
 nell's proposed Irish parliament. In this, there was an elaborate-looking 
 detail of the populations of Irish towns and counties, with an apportionment 
 of representatives ; and there was something for the people to do in studying 
 this : but there was no hint given as to how this parliament was to be pro- 
 cured. When pressed on that point, the Agitator declared that the Queen 
 would grant this parliament by proclamation ; and then the parliament would 
 " legalize every thing." This is all. The most careful search into the records 
 of the time yields nothing more ; — not a trace of a practical plan, political or 
 military ; — not a particle of evidence that O'Connell was really seeking a Re- 
 peal of the Union. Unwilling as every one must be to suppose that a man so 
 able and powerful was in fact hoaxing an anxious and suffering people for a 
 course of years — diverting them from the benefits of the Imperial connexion 
 to follow false lights — seducing them from peaceful industry, to rove the 
 
 Spectator, 1843 
 p. 801.
 
 Chap. VIII.J DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 5(57 
 
 country in a bitter holiday fashion — it is impossible for the careful inquirer to 1841 — 46. 
 avoiil the conviction that O'ConncU knew that there -svould be no Repeal of ^— — ^^ — - 
 the Union. We find marchings hither and thither, Temperance bands, Tara 
 crowns, "purple robes with fur" — all regal — oaths and pledges, flattery of the 
 worst parts of the Irish character, pernicious excitement of hatreds of race, 
 paper schemes and impromptu laws, and an ardent and unremitting pushing 
 of the demand for money ; but, with all this, no word spoken or written, no 
 act done, no purpose peeping out, which shows any practical intent of pro- 
 curing Repeal. 
 
 At this harvest-time, a new method of aiding the cause began to be prac- an^tnukntMovf, 
 tised. On O'Connell promising fixity of tenure — virtual possession — to every 
 holder of land, in case of an Iiish parliament once assembling in Dublin, the 
 Catholic Bishop of Armagh and other priests began to give "warning" that 
 the people would sooner or later refuse to pay their rents. The warning was •'^p^j^'""'. '*"• 
 precisely one which was likely to work its own fulfilment : and we find the 
 priests here and there preaching to their flocks that they should gather in their 
 harvest, lay by what they wanted for themselves, and then, if any was left, 
 they might pay it over for rent. As an improvement upon this, bands of 
 strangers now appeared from a distance — 200 of one party on a Sunday morn- 
 ing — and cut and carried the produce of small farms, bringing cars with them 
 for the purpose, and leaving the tenant to show his landlord his bare fields as 
 excuse for non-payment of his rent. These collusive thefts, perpetrated in 
 open day, and amidst the sympathy of the neighbourhood, are among the 
 worst features of the time. — Another was the coercion used to raise money for 
 the cause — the reapers at this harvest being required to produce their Repeal 
 tickets (receipts for a shilling) before they could obtain work. " If O'Connell 
 knew," said one of these reapers, who was walking back from Meath to 
 Drogheda, with blistered feet, to fetch his Repeal ticket—" if O'Connell knew 
 what a comfort a shilling is to our families, he would let us alone." This was 
 said just at the time when the Queen, in the House of Lords, was expressing Hansnr,!, ux, 
 her sorrow for the injury caused to the Irish people by the seditious efforts of 
 the agitators of the day. She was resolved to sustain the Union, and was en- 
 deavouring to preserve the tranquillity of Ireland by the use of the ordinary 
 powers of the law, being unwilling to resort to measures of coercion, and feel- 
 inw assured that she might rely on the co-operation of a multitude of faithful 
 subjects in Ireland. Mr. O'Connell pronounced this Speech to be " an excess 
 of impudence and stupidity combined :" but, perhaps aware that it might 
 appear ludicrous for an O'Connell to accuse Queen Victoria of " impudence," 
 he laid all the blame on her Majesty's Ministers. The Ministers had carried one 
 coercive measure during the session— the Irish .\rms Act— by ^vhich the pos- ims,, arms act. 
 sessors of arms were obliged to register them, to have them branded by the 
 appointed government officer, and take out a license for holding them. This 
 Act was brought forward at the request of a large number of orderly in- 
 habitants of Ireland, who were compelled by the state of the times to keep 
 arms enough for their own defence, but dreaded a seizure of them. There was 
 little difference between this Bill and many ^\ hich had been passed for a long 
 course of years — even up to the date of Lord ^lorpeth's 15ill of 1838 : but it 
 was made the ground of party conflict in the House. The debates were long
 
 568 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 [Book VI. 
 
 1841- 
 
 Hansard, Ixxi 
 470. 
 
 Northern Whig, 
 on. 1.S43. 
 
 46. and ano-ry ; and every conceivable Irish topic was brouglit into them. The 
 Bill, which had been first debated on the 29th of May, did not leave the Com- 
 mons till the 9th of August. The Lords passed it rapidly ; and it became law 
 on the 22ud of the same month. It afforded a great subject to the Agitator at 
 
 the meetings. 
 
 But, by this time, two sorts of narratives of those meetings were getting 
 abroad. According to the Ilepealers themselves, the whole country was up, 
 in one flame of patriotism, on occasion of a monster meeting ; — decorating 
 liouses and roads, carrying the crown-cap of the Liberator, marching with 
 solemn determination, as to a battle-field, bearing banners which demanded 
 " Repeal or Blood," and swearing on the ground to lay down their lives for 
 the cause, in response to O'Connell's voice, which was heard to the bounds of 
 tlie asseinbla"-e. On tlie other hand, it was pointed out that no human voice 
 could make its utterance heard by 100,000 people ; the decorations were denied; 
 the banners had not been seen ; the people went to the stubble field or hill 
 smiling and chatting, as to a mere sight ; and when there, they waited only 
 for the arrival of O'Connell, when, having nothing more to stay for, they 
 poured ofi" in all directions, leaving a few hundreds within reach of the voices 
 from the platform, to do the business of listening, feeling, and responding by 
 cheers. There were, besides. Conservative reports which treated the move- 
 ment with a contempt as absurd and forced as the exaggerations of the Ile- 
 pealers. The government acted on the statements of the Repealers them- 
 selves, who now talked of marshalling their " troops," and of their " Repeal 
 cavalry;" and issued "regulations," in order to " muster-march, and parade." 
 A Monster Meeting was appointed to be held at Clontarf, three miles from 
 Dublin, on Sunday, the 8th of October ; and the preparations assumed such a 
 ;^!;™^"" """- miUtary air, tiiat the government thouglit it time to interfere. On the 7th, 
 Annual Register, about the middle of the day, a proclamation by the Viceroy and Privy Council 
 was issued, which declared the public peace to be endangered by such practices 
 as had taken place at late Repeal meetings, and were contemplated now ; 
 warned all persons to abstain from attendance at the Clontarf meeting ; and 
 enjoined all official persons to bo aiding in the suppression of the meeting. — ■ 
 The Agitator called together Ids Council, spoke " witli marked calmness," an- 
 nounced that in consequence of the proceedings of the government, there 
 would be no meeting the next day, and entreated all persons to use their influ- 
 ence in preventing any assemblage. The Association issued a proclamation, 
 desiring the people to stay at home ; and a large number of members volun- 
 teered to station themselves on the approaches to Clontarf, to turn back all 
 comers. — Early in the morning, the main strength of the garrison of Dublin 
 was so placed on the field, as that all who arrived found themselves in a narrow 
 lane between soldiers, and compelled to pass on by the pressure from behind. 
 Nobody could find out where the hustings were. They had been removed in 
 the night. Nobody could see O'Connell. He stayed away. Instead of him, 
 there was seen Thomas Steele, " the Head Pacificator of Ireland," waving a 
 green bough of Peace, and moving over the ground, crying, " Home — home — 
 home !" 
 
 Of course, O'Connell declared now that this Clontarf meeting was to liave 
 been the last ; and of course this was not believed by those who had charge of 
 
 1813, p. 234.
 
 CriAP. VIII] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 569 
 
 the public peace. Not only was there no reason why the Agitator should stop 1841 46. 
 
 at this particular meeting, but the government had sound reasons for thinking • 
 
 that he would not. It now appears that he was in a difficulty which had 
 begun to weigh upon him, and under -which he afterwards lost spirits and 
 courage. He had called out the people, and now did not know what to do 
 with them. He had accustomed them to political demonstrations as shows ; 
 and he must devise novelties to keep them amused and peaceable. It was 
 probably an act of mercy in the government to stop him at this point of em- 
 ban-assment. It is certain that his anxiety about keeping the peace was not 
 surpassed by their own, when the affair had reached its present critical stage. 
 Amidst the sudden hush of dismay, caused by the Clontarf proclamation 
 throughout Dublm, O'Connell went about with an air of extreme calmness, 
 and with an expression of countenance which, in rmguarded moments, showed 
 that his mind was now really harassed — no doubt by the pressing necessity of 
 immediately striking out a new course. 
 
 In England, almost every body was relieved and pleased that government 
 had at last interfered with a procedure which was wholly incompatible with 
 public peace and order under an established government. It had been ob- 
 served that Cabinet meetings had become frequent within a week ; and that 
 the Viceroy, Lord de Grey, had repaired hastily to Dublin from London, in- 
 stead of travelling into Yorkshire as had been planned. It had long been a 
 question among men of all parties why O'Connell remained unchecked ; and 
 now that he proposed to muster his "Repeal Cavalry " within three miles of the 
 Irish capital, no one could say that the time for a check had not fully come. 
 Why the thing was done hastily at last, so that the notice against assembling- 
 was perilously short, appears never to hiive been fully explained. It is pro- 
 bable that some secret information reached the government which precipitated 
 their measures. 
 
 On tlie ^londay, O'Connell's words were watched for at the meeting of 
 the Repeal Association. One of his topics was the cruelty of government in 
 keeping the soldiers standing all day at Clontarf for nothing. He quizzed 
 the Viceroy, and complimented the soldiery and the people. He talked of ^''^^^'"'"'' '"•'• 
 simultaneous meetings all over Ireland, and of plans for buying up debts on 
 Irish estates by an association of gentlemen ; but these things were to be done 
 hereafter, at some distant and unfixed time ; and no indication appears of his 
 having decided on any immediate course. He spoke of laying before the 
 House of Commons, in the first week of the session, his scheme for an Irish 
 parliament, but made no reference to his late declaration that 1843 was the 
 great Repeal year. It was now the 9th of October, and no progress had been 
 made. There had been nothing but talk and show ; and the educated people 
 of Ireland, the great middle class, were as hostile as ever to Repeal. The 
 peasantry were the Repeal host. They. were truly formidable, on account of 
 their sanguinary notions about slaying all the soldiers in the barracks, and 
 massacreing all the Saxons in the island, so that every true Irishman should 
 " have wheaten bread next year :" but they could not assist in the first step 
 — forming a plan for obtaining Repeal. 
 
 For a few days, Dublin was full of rumours of the arrest of O'Connell, i')^""^,^^,"!'^"'' 
 though his portly form was daily seen in the streets. On the 14th, the rumour j^^™'"' Si^'"'"' 
 
 vol,. II. -1 f>
 
 570 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book VI. 
 
 jgj.! 4(3 was true. lie, liis son, and eight of their coadjutors, were arrested on charges 
 
 . -. — _- of conspiracy, sedition, and unlawful assembling. They were admitted to 
 
 hail. This was the turning point of O'Connell's life. It was at once ob- 
 served that his anxiety for the public peace was extreme. His language 
 became moderate ; or, whenever it swelled into vehemence, it was from an 
 evident agony of apprehension lest the multitude whom he had inflamed 
 should break out into the violence which he had before indicated to them. 
 Those who should know best have since declared that from this time his 
 health began to fail ; and that the word " prison " caused him an anguish 
 which he could not conceal. He issued the most imploring and incessant 
 
 Annual Register, entrcatics to thc pcoplc to keep perfectly quiet ; and declared that he woidd 
 never again use the term " Saxon," as he found that it gave offence. He 
 caught at an offer from Mr. Joseph Sturge, of Birmingham, to aid the Repeal 
 cause, if he would confine his demand to a local legislature for merely local 
 purposes, and would unite the British demand for universal suffrage with his 
 own objects. 
 
 THE TniALs. The proceedings began on the 2nd of November, in the Court of Queen's 
 
 Bench in Dublin. From the first hour, it was evident that obstruction and 
 delay were the policy of the accused. It was not till the 8th that the jury 
 
 1S43, p. 24(1 ' found the indictment " a true bill:" and the trial was by various devices put 
 1844. off till the 15th of January. An unfortunate and disgraceful error occurred 
 in the preparation of the jury lists, two slips of the lists having been lost, and 
 C3 names thus dropped by the way. There was much controversy as to 
 whether this accident would prove fatal to the prosecutions ; and there were 
 disputes and delays about the exclusion of certain Catholics from the jury, 
 and about every point that could be raised. If it was difficult to conduct 
 jury-trial in Ireland in all party cases, it might be anticipated that it would 
 be almost impossible in this critical instance, where it was difficult in the ex- 
 treme to secure a fair jury. The practice of smuggling a jury on the one 
 hand and packing it on the other was familiar to every man's expectation : 
 and few or none believed it possible to find, in all Dublin, twelve dispassion- 
 ate and impartial men on a question in which llepeal was concerned. The 
 community was sharply divided between those who adored, and those who 
 hated, O'Connell. On the important 15th of January, when O'Connell and 
 his son arrived at the Four Courts, conducted by the Lord Mayor in his state 
 carriage, and escorted by twenty-three other carriages, the jurors drew back on 
 various pleas — ill-health — mistakes in the setting down of their Christian 
 names — and other excuses. All but one paid the fine of 50/. ; and he was 
 excused on presenting an affidavit of ill-health. One rheumatic old gentle- 
 man of 72 was compelled to serve; and it was noticed that great efforts were 
 made by the lawyers of the accused to keep on as many invalids as j)ossible, 
 evidently in the hope that some attack of illness might frustrate the trial. — 
 Then, two of the accused were absent ; and tlic excuse presented for one of 
 them was, that he lived four miles from town. When the Court had waited 
 long enough, and was about to Torfeit his recognizances, he appeared, and 
 every body laughed. 
 
 There were few to laugh, however, when the Irish Attorney-General made 
 his statement. Though every body had read about the Repeal movement in 
 the newspapers, for months past, every body seemed no->v struck by the story
 
 Chap. VIII.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 571 
 
 as if it was new. It was a fearful story; and it left the impression on all 18-11 — 4G. 
 minds that a rebellion like that of 1798 was impending. Those who did ~ — ■ — • — ^ — ' 
 laugh as the trial proceeded were moved to it by the extraordinary character 
 of the scene — the impudence, the recklessness, the buffoonery, which can 
 hardly be conceived of by those who are accustomed to the gravity of an 
 English Court of Justice. The case for the prosecution occupied eleven days ; 
 and after that, the aim of the accused, to wear out the jury, became even 
 more evident than before. — At length, on the twenty-fourth day, which was 
 Saturday, February 10th, there was every expectation that the verdict of the 
 jury would be delivered before night. At seven o'clock, the Chief Justice 
 closed his charge, which produced a startling effect in Court, from the group- 
 ing together of O'Connell's speeches of incitement, and of the threatenings of 
 the Repeal newspapers. The jury inquired whether it was necessary for them 
 to proceed that night : they were extremely fatigued. They were not let off; 
 and at half-past seven they retired. A little before eleven, they returned a 
 verdict imperfect in form, and were sent back. At a quarter past twelve, 
 they were called in, and informed that they must be locked up till Monday. 
 
 When the impei-fect verdict was proffered, a vast crowd was assembled 
 outside the Courts ; and the news that the accused were all found more or less 
 guilty was received with a terrific yell, which must have told on the nerves of 
 some of the worn-out jurymen. A woman had that day entered the shop of 
 one of them, and offered to sell his wife a widow's cap, saying that it would 
 be needed, if the verdict was against O'Connell. Between one and two 
 o'clock in the morning, a company paraded the streets, apparently with a 
 view to create a disturbance : but Dublin was full of soldiery, and all was 
 kept quiet. A crowd gathered on Sunday morning, to sec the jury go to 
 church ; but it was thought more prudent to have divine service performed 
 for them in their retreat. At nine o'clock on Monday morning, the Court 
 assembled. j\Ir. O'Connell was attended by a gentleman whose accession to 
 the Repeal cause was at that time hailed as one of its chief triumphs. Mr. w.s.o'b.... .. 
 
 William Smith O'Brien Avas a gentleman of ancient family, high respecta- 
 bility of character, amiable temper, and sufficient ability to have made a con- 
 siderable impression in the House of Connnons (where he sat as Member for 
 Limerick), by his speeches on the subject of Ireland ; and especially by one, 
 eminently rational and moderate, in the preceding session. It is no wonder 
 that when he chose the moment of O'Connell's danger, and that of the cause, 
 forjoining it— before his fatal faults of mind and temper had been brought 
 out by circumstances— his junction with the Repealers was hailed by them 
 with enthusiasm, and regarded by their opponents with feelings of apprehen- 
 sion which are now looked back upon with a melancholy smile. As he 
 entered the Court \yiih the accused, this critical morning, no doubt his heart 
 glowed with generous emotions, and he believed he was serving Ireland. 
 None but those who knew him best could have believed, if it had been fore- 
 told to them, how his vanity would henceforth swell to bursting, and his 
 small powers of judgment collapse, till he should close the new course on 
 which he was now entering by plunging his poor countrymen into the miseries 
 of abortive rebellion, and subjecting himself to the punishment of the felon, 
 rendered more bitter bv his own keen sense of what he must call the ingrati-
 
 572 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 TBooK VI. 
 
 1841—46. 
 
 Annual Register, 
 1841. Trials, ^35. 
 'I'uK Veudict. 
 
 Spectator, 18U, 
 p. 154. 
 
 Annual Register, 
 1S44. Trials, 337. 
 Tub Sentence. 
 
 Appeal to the 
 
 LOUDS. 
 
 tilde of Irislunea. He now sat by O'Conncll's side when, at ten o'clock, the 
 jury entered with their verdict. 
 
 There were eleven counts in the indictment; and O'Connell was found 
 Guilty on them all ; and, with the exception of some clauses here and there, 
 so were all the accused, except the Eev. Mr. Tierney, the priest, who escaped 
 lightly. O'Connell immediately issued an address to the people of Ireland, in 
 Avhich he assured them that the event of his conviction would prove wholly 
 favourable to the Repeal cause, and concluded with the words, " Keep the 
 peace for six months, or at the most twelve months longer, and you shall have 
 the jjarHament in College Green again." Scarcely credible as it appears, it is 
 true that multitudes even yet believed the promise. — The news of O'Connell's 
 conviction flew, like the winds, over all Ireland ; and in Tipperary, the winter 
 night was lighted up with signal fires on the hills. 
 
 It was the 30th of May before sentence was pronounced. Mr. Tierney es- 
 caped altogether. O'Connell was sentenced to a year's imprisonment, and a 
 fine of £2000, and was bound in high recognizances to keep the peace for 
 seven years. The others Avere sentenced, each to nine months' imprisonment, 
 a fine of £50, and to find high security for future peaceable conduct. — The 
 lenity of this sentence probably took every body by surprise. No one could 
 say there was any vindictiveness in it ; and merely as discipline, it was gentle. 
 The best part of it — tlic binding over to keep the peace for seven years — the 
 part wliich could not be openly complained of, was the most irksome : but no 
 one could dispute its being necessary, if the proceedings were in any sense 
 justifiable. The judge. Burton, who pronounced sentence, was so much affected 
 as to be scarcely able to do his duty. Mr. O'Connell briefly protested that he 
 was guiltless of conspiracy, and that justice had not been done. He was al- 
 lowed to choose his place of imprisonment ; and he chose the Richmond Peni- 
 tentiary, in Dublin : and there he was conveyed. Proceedings were taken for 
 a reversal of the sentence, and the writ of error immediately transmitted to 
 London. In the prison, Mr. O'Connell was permitted to receive his friends ; 
 but their names were not allowed to be WTitten down for publication ; nor 
 were deputations admitted to address the Liberator. Mr. Smith O'Brien ex- 
 erted himself to get this restriction removed ; but the matter rested with the 
 Board of Superintendents of the prison ; and they did not yield ; so the long 
 trains of carriages rolled away from the gates as they came. The number of 
 visitors Avas so great as to be fatiguing to the prisoner ; but it was observed 
 that his health improved from week to week ; and it was clear that his mind 
 was relieved in his present inaction, under his temporary release from the 
 fearful responsibility which he had taken upon himself, and which had latterly 
 been too much for him. These were his last days of repose and peace of 
 mind. 
 
 On the 12th of July, Lord Heytesbury was gazetted as Lord-Lieutenant of 
 Ireland; Lord De Grey's feeble health incapacitating him for an office so 
 arduous. When the new Viceroy landed, and was presented with the keys of 
 the city, it was observed that the ribbons were not, as hitherto, of party-colours, 
 but " sky-blue and white— emblems of peace, harmony, and love," as a local 
 paper interpreted them. The preceding Sunday was the day appointed for 
 putting up a prayer for O'Connell in all the Catholic chapels : but there was
 
 Chap. VIII. ] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 573 
 
 an ominous diiFerence among the priestly authorities about it. The Catholic 1841 — 46. 
 Archbishop of Dublin interdicted the act, and was only partially obeyed. "~"^ — 
 Meantime, the appeal of the prisoners was before the Lords. By the Lords 
 its points were referred to the twelve judges for their opinion. All the judges p^Ti^'""' '*"" 
 pronounced six of the eleven counts to be bad or informal, chiefly through the 
 splitting of the charges by the jury in their verdict, in their anxious desire to 
 be precise and accurate. They had, in fact, set up distinctions in the kinds of 
 conspiracy which were not distinguished in the indictment. These six counts 
 were declared unexceptionable by the Lish judges, and untenable by the Eng- 
 lish : a result which would scarcely improve the popular estimate of the ad- 
 ministration of law in Ireland. Seven of the judges next opined that the 
 judgment and sentence must stand, notwithstanding, as the Irish judges must 
 know best upon how much of the verdict they grounded their judgment : and 
 there was enough that was sound to justify the sentence. Two English judges 
 dissented from this view : and the Peers were now to decide between the opi- 
 nions of the seven and the minority. Every body seems to have taken for 
 granted that the House of Lords would avail itself of every opportunity to 
 confirm the sentence, and keep the Agitator laid up. The Repealers pro- 
 tested that they did not care ; and such friends as they had in London began 
 to despise the Lords beforehand for their anticipated judgment. — On the 6th of 
 September, immediately before the prorogation of parliament, the Law Lords 
 delivered their opinions. Some of the Peers, seeing the decision likely to go 
 in favour of O'Connell, were eager to vote, instead of leaving the matter, as 
 was just and decorous in an intricate question of legality, to the Law Lords : 
 but Lord Wharncliffe interposed to support the dignity of the House as a Court "''<'• p- *•"• 
 of Appeal, and induced the lay Lords to retire without voting. The Earl of 
 Verulam was the first Avho retired behind the Woolsack ; and all the lay Lords 
 present followed. Four Peers remained. Lord Denman, Lord Cottenham, and 
 Lord Campbell, voted that the jiulgmcnt of the Court below should be reversed. ^^'[,'"|f'''' "'" 
 Lord Brougham voted the other way. 
 
 The news of the reversal of the judgment, and the victory of O'Connell, 
 Avas received by multitudes in England with a sort of consternation. But the 
 most calm and clear-minded saw the matter at once as all learned by experi- 
 ence to regard it. It was not only that they kept in view the supreme im- 
 portance of an impartial administration of the law. That would have been 
 enough : but they also saw that this decision deprived O'Connell of his great 
 theme — the injustice and oppression of " the Saxon," and the enslavement of 
 the Irish under the Imperial connexion. It was by the Imperial parliament 
 that his appeal was justified, and his sentence dissolved : and it was the liand 
 of benign justice herself that now heaped coals of fire on his head. Time con- 
 firmed this view. It was his release that broke the already anxious spirit of effrct o.\ o'Con- 
 the Agitator. If a shadow of doubt liad rested on the strict legal justice of his ""'''" 
 punishment, he would have come out from his prison at the year's end, strongly 
 armed in injury, to lay waste the country under a new term of agitation. As 
 it was, he came out — however boastful and clamorous — in reality perplexed, 
 anxious, and feeble. He never was like himself again, except on some single 
 occasions. He was, and he felt himself, half-way down a precipice, uncertain
 
 574 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 [Book VI. 
 
 1844, Chron. 95. 
 
 Demonstrations 
 
 1841 46. whether to go up or down — unable to do either. His career was now virtually 
 
 ^~— -^'— -^ over. 
 
 Yet there was an external gi-andeiir about his release. On the notification 
 Annual Register, of his freedom being given him, he left the prison on foot, with his sons and a 
 few friends. He was recognised in the street, and escorted home by a crowd, 
 whom he dismissed with a short speech from his balcony. The next morning 
 early he went back to his prison, to be carried home in triumph. The whole 
 city was abroad to see ; and it was two hours from the time when the pro- 
 cession began to leave the gates, before the car could be brought up. The 
 car — often used before, and now recognised M'ith transport by the people — 
 lifted him a dozen feet over the heads of the crowd. He stood at his full 
 height, and was crowned with the Repeal cap. He was portly, and apparently 
 in good health ; but his countenance wore the anxious expression which was 
 now becoming habitual to it. As for the rest, the show was vulgar enough ; — 
 the grandsons of the Agitator being on the lower platform of the car, in 
 " green velvet tunics, and caps with white feathers." The best feature was 
 perhaps the coach in which were the lawyers in the cause, carrying the 
 " Monster Indictment." Mr. O'Connell closed the proceedings by an address 
 from his balcony, in which he " hoped it would not be necessary to hold the 
 Clontarf meeting," the principle of which was vindicated by the trials. He 
 promised to open out his further plans at the Repeal Hall — whimsically 
 called Conciliation Hall — on the next INIonday. — At that meeting, Avhich 
 was crowded and triumphant, Mr. W. Smith O'Brien " rushed to the front 
 of the platform, seized the Liberator's hand, and shook it vigorously for 
 some moments." In return. Smith O'Brien's hand Mas pressed to the heart 
 of the Liberator ; and the cheering and stamping were such that " the 
 very building quaked and trembled." How soon was all this to appear a 
 mockery ! These fervent friends were soon to stand before the world as ene- 
 mies — O'Brien striving to be a rival sun in the same hemisphere — O'Con- 
 nell heaping contempt and foul names on O'Brien ! O'Connell kept his 
 promise of announcing " plans " at Conciliation Hall. From this time, he 
 was more fertile in '•' plans " than ever : he was incessantly changing them. 
 His language grew, if possible, bigger, his demonstrations more vulgar — with 
 more green velvet, feathers, harps, wreaths, and old Irish costumes — and his 
 Monster Meetings more enormous. He was invited to England, and feted 
 there, and made use of for the Anti-Corn-Law cause. But he was never 
 really formidable again, and he knew it. He had no policy — no principle — 
 nothing to repose upon ; and only his ingenuity and audacity for a resource. 
 A severe blow was struck at him towards the close of 1845 — and his extreme 
 violence showed how it told upon his heart — by an exposure of his deficien- 
 cies as a landlord. It became known — not by any hostile gossip, but by 
 means of a full and authorized investigation into the facts — that this Liberator, 
 whose heart Avas wrung by the woes of Ireland, whose life was devoted to her 
 redemption, was a Middleman, pocketing three times as much rent drawn from 
 a squalid peasantry, as he paid to the head landlord ; while also his own 
 tenantry were in " a lost, wretched, and neglected condition." While hold- 
 ing forth patriotically against opi»ession, hundreds of miles from home, and 
 
 0'c0nnf.ll as a 
 Lanhlord. 
 
 Letters of the 
 ' Times ' Commis- 
 sioner, p. 530.
 
 Chap. VIII.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 67.5 
 
 drawing away the peasantry from honest industry to hear his vapourings 1841 46. 
 
 about freedom and prosperity, and pay their only shilling in an imaginary ^— — ■ ' 
 
 cause, he was receiving rent from squalid wretches who wallowed with the 
 pig, and were chilled under his roofs by the wintry wind, and would fain have 
 shared the food of his beagles. He was furious at this exposure ; but his 
 hard words mattered little while hard facts were against him. — Then he was 
 seen in London streets, walking slowly and stooping, while supported by two oconsell-s de. 
 of his sons ; and members of the House complained that they could not hear 
 his now short speeches, because of the feebleness of his voice. — Then rumours 
 arose of approaching famine in Ireland, and his sinkingheart could not bear them. 
 He w-as disturbed at the rise of the " Y^ouug Ireland " party — the new section 
 of Repealers and Liberators w-ho were impatient for war, while he no longer 
 talked of battle fields, but grew more timid and perplexed from day to day. 
 WJien the ^Miigs succeeded to the Peel government in 1846, and he was re- 
 instated in the Commission of the Peace, and supported the Russell ministry, 
 he was harassed and shaken by the scorn and enmity of "Young Ireland," 
 who taunted him with having "surrendered." As the famine was seen sui'ely 
 to approach, all political action became out of the question. His physicians 
 said he must be removed from the sight and hearing of whatever would dis- 
 turb him : and, if the later portraits of him are to be trusted, this was highly 
 necessary. It is affecting to look on the hea\'y eye, and the mournfid and 
 wistful expression of countenance. He went to Hastings ; and he did not 
 mend, tliough the newspapers had paragraphs about his improving health, 
 or health which needed no improvement. He desired that the newspapers 
 might be kept from him, and all tidings of Ireland. No one was to be ad- 
 mitted who would speak of Ireland. He so watched the countenance of his 
 physician when looking at his tongue, and was so alarmed by any gravity 
 of countenance at the moment, that his physician had to remember to 
 look cheerful and pleased. Next, he went abroad, hoping to reach Rome, and 
 die under the blessing of the Pope. But he sank too rapidly for tliis. He 
 was carried to Paris, Marseilles, Genoa ; and then he could go no furtlior. 
 The final symptoms conseqticnt on a long decay of the digestive fimctions 
 came on, in May, 18-17: and on the 1.5th of that month, he died, his latest hisdiath. 
 
 ../.,. -._ , . lA'ttors from 
 
 anxieties being lest he should be buried alive. He gave repeated warnings to <ion<.a, mhv ir.ni. 
 his physicians and servant against this danger. His melancholy deepened to 
 the last ; and his only interest seemed to be in dependence on his confessor, 
 and in repeating the prayers enjoined. On examination, the state of the brain 
 explained his later moods. It was extensively diseased; and the disease, both 
 there and elsewhere, must have been of long standing. This was a natural 
 close of the life he had led — a life of strong passions, and intense and unre- 
 mitted excitement, without the repose of a simple integrity : but it is not the 
 less profoundly melancholy. Those who could least pretend to lament his 
 disappearance from his mischievous position in Ireland, could not see without 
 emotion the progi-ess of the old triumphal car through the streets of Dublin, 
 bearing the silent remains of him whom muUitudes still called by the name 
 of Liberator. The name has died already, and will be henceforth met with 
 only in the chronicles of a past time. It is difficult now to find an 
 educated Irishman who speaks of O'Coiinell with respect, or who denies that 
 he set back Ireland half a cenlury by bis political action after 1820. But liis
 
 576 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book YI. 
 
 1841_46. name was a spell upon the Catholic peasantry ; and when the charm was dis- 
 
 solved, and the idol broken, there was no heart that was not aware of the 
 
 melancholy which always attends the breaking of idols. 
 
 During the years when the Repeal agitation was strongest, there were 
 things doing in and for Ireland which afforded some hope on her behalf, even 
 to those who saw most clearly the mischiefs of O'Connell's course, and were 
 most indignant at them. The most essential good that could be rendered to 
 Ireland— that which at least must precede every other — was an exposure of 
 the fact that her miseries proceeded from moral and social, and not political 
 causes. The famine was coming which was to do this good work in a harsh 
 manner. While the famine was not foreseen, there was something extremely 
 disheartening in O'Connell's pernicious mode of action, and in the rise of 
 Young Ireland, with its political ignorance, its slaughter-house talk, and its 
 bullying boasts — all so vulgar in the presence of the mournful greatness of 
 the cause it professed to monopolize. But violence and ignorance and folly 
 are, in their own nature, short-lived ; and there was a lasting Kfe in some in- 
 stitutions and methods and proposals on behalf of Ireland which were not 
 extinguished by the Repeal agitation. 
 Improving aobi- The couuty of Derry was showing, according to its wont, what could be 
 done by the application of industry and capital, among a mixed population of 
 Catholics and Protestants, and under the much-abused Union. On the 
 Letters of 'Times' estatcs of the Loudou Companies, were seen "good farm-houses, large squared 
 p. 151. ' fields, good fences, and abundant crops," at the same date when, under an 
 Letters of 'Times' invited visitation, an inquirer was compelled to report, "in no part of tlio 
 p. 529. ' United Kingdom is such neglected wretchedness — such filth, such squalor, 
 such misery of every kind — to be seen, as I saw that day on Mr. O'Con- 
 nell's estate, in the presence of Mr. Maurice O'Connell." At the same date, 
 Industrial Re- j)j._ K^^e was askiiig whence such contrasts arise : and avowing: " the fault is 
 
 sources oi Ireland, o ' O 
 
 P- '"^- not in the country, but in ourselves:" and he adds, " we do not want activity ; 
 
 we are not deficient in mental power, but we want special industrial know- 
 
 agricultubai. ledge." This want was considered and met in the introduction of Agricultu- 
 
 SCHOOLS. 1 C< 1 1 1 1 .^ 1 ■ 
 
 ral Dchools, whose benefits would be sjireading over the land when the Union 
 was no more talked of than it is in Scotland now. From the Templemoyle 
 Seminary, for one, young men were going forth every year, to reclaim or im- 
 prove the land about their homes, and command good labour, and train to 
 good habits, and produce conspicuous crops, and occupy the minds of the 
 peasantry round them with something better than showy processions, and 
 visions of battle fields that would never be fought. It was already apparent 
 that where these young men settled down, the quality of labour and of pro- 
 duce improved, the peasantry were better fed and lodged, and crime so dimi- 
 nished as that the police and soldiery went almost out of sight. — Then there 
 
 Asfo'r.ATloNs*."' ^^^'^ Agricultural Associations which kept up the interest of the gentry, tliough 
 they never sufiiciently engaged the attention of the farmers. There was also 
 the Irish Waste Land Improvement Society, which did more good to the 
 peasantry, by compelling patient improvement of the soil, and patient learning 
 how to improve it. 
 
 Quus"™ AcT.^^ _ An important measure— a measure calculated to heal religious dissen- 
 sions, and redress Catholic grievances — passed the legislature in the session
 
 CuAP. VIII.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 577 
 
 of 1844 — a measure for the better security and administration of Charitable 1841 16. 
 
 and Religious Trusts. It was introduced in the Lords, where it met with no ^- — 
 
 obstruction. In the Commons, it was disputed, chiefly by the hot-headed 
 Irish repeal members, who talked as usual of " insult " and " injustice " to 
 Ireland ; while their calmer comrades, and every body else, saw that it was 
 conceived and framed in a just and kind spirit, and must work benignly. At 
 the beginning of the century, a Uoard was appointed to administer Charita- Hansard, ixxvi. 
 ble Trusts ; and the members were almost exclusively Protestants, while "*'"' 
 nearly three-fourths of the bequests placed under its jurisdiction were Roman 
 Catholic endowments. By the new Bill, three members of the Board were to 
 be dignitaries of the law, two of whom might be Catholics : and ten more 
 Commissioners were to be appointed by the Crown, five of whom were to be 
 Protestants, and five Catholics. 'S'arious imperfections of the existing law 
 were so redressed as to give a preponderance at the Board to the Catholic 
 section where Catholic bequests were concerned. Mr. O'Connell injured him- 
 self much with the most enlightened part of his Catholic countrymen by his 
 opposition to this Bill, an ojiposition which he grounded on his fears of the spec'uior, is44. 
 consequences of sending Catholics to the Castle, and of sanctioning a connex- 
 ion of the Catholic Churcli with the State. On occasion of the third readinsr. 
 Mr. Maurice J. O'Connell said, that " he was bound to express his conviction Hansard, ixjm. 
 that when the present heats had subsided, the Bill would be found a substan- 
 tial benefit to the people of Ireland, raising the condition of their clergymen, 
 witliout shackling the influence exercised by them over their flocks." In 
 August, Mr. O'Connell declared that all befitting means should be taken to 
 prevent the Act going into execution, and intimated that it could never take sprctawr. 1844, 
 effect if Roman Catholics refused the ofiice of Commissioners ; yet, on the 
 21st of November, the Dublin Evening Freeman announced " the first blow 
 at the independence of the Catholic Church ;" the rumour that Catholic 
 Prelates and laymen of respectability had consented to become Commissioners. 
 It was even so. The Catholic Primate of Ireland, the Catholic Archbishop of 
 Dublin, and three more Catholics "of resi)ectabilitv," were gazetted as Com- nnWin fiaione, 
 missioners in December, together with four prelates and laymen of the "*■•■'• 
 Established Church, and one Presbyterian divine. The success of this heal- 
 ing measure, which brought the heads of the two churches together to watch 
 over the interests of religion and charity, was a sore addition to Mr. O'Con- 
 nell's perplexities, and a severe blow to his influence, by forcing him into 
 collision with the chief priests of his own communion. 
 
 During the same session, the Lord Chancellor united with a Catholic Peer, pcxai. acts bb- 
 Lord Beaumont, in obtaining the abolition of various penal Acts against the uan^rd, ixwi. 
 Romanists, which, though obsolete, were an oft'ence as they stood in the 
 statute book. The abolition of the office of Lord Lieutenant was proposed, um^^rd. is^ 
 as a means of bringing Ireland into the same close union as exists between ' 
 Eno-land and Scotland. Mr. Hume had striven for this object twenty years 
 before, and he was as fully convinced as ever that the assignment of a viceregal virpnovAiTv 
 o-overnment to Ireland gave that country a colonial appearance wliich wiis "'^" "*■""• 
 iii'Thly disadvantageous. The frequent changes of administration in Dublin 
 were a serious drawback upon good government. Instead of a responsihle 
 minister of the Crown residing in London, there had been sixteen Chief Secre- 
 
 4i-: 
 
 sal. 
 
 VOL. II.
 
 .■lO. 
 
 g-jg HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book VI. 
 
 1841— 4(). tiivics for Iirlaml in the iiist tliiity years affer the Union. A smaller con- 
 sideration, but not an iiniiiipovtant one, was the economy of the change. j\Ir. 
 Hume moved an address to the Queen, requesting her to consider of the 
 abolition of the Viceroyalty. The answer of Lord Eliot, the Irish Secretary, 
 was that the change would be inconvenient ; that the Irish people did not 
 desire it ; and that the office was six hundred years old, whereas none such 
 Hansajd, ixsiv. ^^^^^ cxistcd in Scotliud. Lord John Russell, upon this, pointed out that it 
 had been in contemplation to appoint a separate Council for Scotland ; but 
 that Lord Somers had maintained that such a Council* would prevent the 
 Union from ever being complete. There was opposition enough to induce 
 Mr. Hume to withdraw his motion. His object will probably be carried out 
 in an easy and natural manner — by such improvements in science and the 
 arts as are already bridging the narrow sea, and bringing London and Dublin 
 within easy hail of each other. When the English, from the Queen to the 
 commercial traveller, can visit Ireland as easily as Scotland, iind London news 
 can be heard as soon in Dublin as in Edinburgh, and a Secretary of State in 
 London ;:3;. ivern and protect the one as well as the other, it is pretty cer- 
 tain that the whole apparatus of the Viceroyalty, about which the affections 
 of the Catholic Irish certainly do not cling, will be swept away ; and there 
 will be one reminder the less of the tenure of conquest xnider which this 
 special machinery of government was set down in the midst of the Irish 
 people. 
 Endowment np The subjcct of cndowing the Roman Catholic clergy was much discussed 
 throughout the country at this time. Loud and vehement declarations were 
 uttered by the Irish political leaders in the name of the priests, and by many 
 of the priests themselves, that nothing would ever induce them to accept of a 
 shilling of endowment from Protestant hands : but numbers of thoughtful 
 men believed then, as numbers of thoughtful men believe at this day, that, 
 with time and patience, such a scheme would work. The Protestant Church 
 in Ireland is felt to be an intolerable grievance, in its existing preponderance. 
 All attempts to reduce it to its fair proportions, and settle it in its true func- 
 tion, have fiiiled : and the easiest way now seems to be to raise the depressed 
 Church of the majority into a greater fitness for its function. As a Mission- 
 ary Church, the Establishment has failed, and will evidently continue to fail. 
 If the Catholic majority of the Irish people do not, and will not, enter it, the 
 way which remains to enlighten and improve them is to elevate and improve 
 the quality of thpir priesthood ; a priestliood hitherto kept ignorant and de- 
 pendent by the meagreness of their means of education, and by their absolute 
 dependence on their flocks for subsistence. If a provision were once made for 
 them by law, and the arrangement placed beyond dispute — if an annual sum 
 for every priest were known to be lying at the banker's — it was the belief of 
 the advocates of the endowment that the priests would take it ; and there 
 could be nothing in receiving a provision thus which could subject the reci- 
 pients to any dangers of dependence comparable to those amidst which they 
 were actually living. The example of foreign countries showed tli: t there is 
 no abstract objection in the minds of a Catholic priesthood to endowment by 
 a Protestant State. The difficulty in the Irish case was purely political ; and 
 therefore likely to give way under a liberal and kindly political numagr r.^rTit. 
 
 ('AnioLic Clergy. ,
 
 Chap. VIII.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PE.-^^i:.. 579 
 
 Tlie proposal of an increased gi'aiit to M ay nooth College was regarded bv l^s41 — -IG. 
 
 many as a first step towards the object, tliougli it might perfectly well stand "^^^ — ■ ' 
 
 bv itself, as having important merits of its own. It was a "leat thins; to pro- i^oio. 
 vide for the improved education of the priesthood, whether or not this advan- 
 tage was to be followed np by making them less dependent for subsistence on 
 their peasant flocks. It was a great thing to raise them by education above 
 the wish for vulgar and dangerous power over the people, whether or not the 
 sordid part of the temptation was to be afterwards obviated. Sir R. Peel liad 
 the courage to propose, on the 3rd of April, 1845, that the parliamentary grant 
 to Maynooth College should be enlarged so as, in some degree, to bear out the 
 ])urpose of making any grant at all. The institution had always been most 
 meagrely supplied with comforts, and even ^vith the necessaries of life ; the 
 professors were paid less than counting-house clerks ; and at present the dis- 
 tress of the times had materially reduced the contributions of the middle 
 classes, who paid for the education of their sons. It would be better to with- 
 draw all pretence of government support than to let the College go on in this 
 way : and it was a question how money could be better spent than in really 
 educating the students who were to be rwhether well or ill-qualifiedj the 
 future guides and guardians of the Catholic population of Ireland. It seems 
 as if no great courage could be required to propose such an augmentation of 
 the annual grant to Maynooth as to make it worth while to award any grant 
 at all. But it did require great courage ; and there was scarcely any act of 
 his bold adniinistration for which the Premier was more vituperated than for 
 this. It was the great political controversy of the year — the subject on which 
 society seemed to be going mad. It was not the extent of the grant that was 
 deprecated; but the advance in that direction at all. Hitherto, the grant had iian^.rd. ixxix 
 been 9,000/.; and the trustees had been authorized to hold land to the amount 
 of 1,000/. per annum: but this could never be done, because the trustees were 
 never incorporated. They were now to be incorporated, and permitted to hold 
 land to the amount of 3000/. per annum. The sum of 6000/. was to be granted 
 for professors' salaries, which would henceforth be large enough to yield com- 
 fort and respectability, and therefore to secure a higher order of qualification 
 than could hitherto be commanded. At present, the number of students wiis 
 440. It was proposed to make adequate allowances to 500 students. The 
 annual grant would thus be raised from 9,000/. to 26,360/. As it would be 
 necessary to enlarge the College, and it was most desirable to render it mon; 
 comfortable and cheerful than at present, the sum of 30,000/. was asked for, as 
 a special grant — the needful repairs being henceforth provided for by an 
 annual vote. — There was nothing in this that ought to have alarmed a people 
 and parliament accustomed to make an annual grant to iNlaynooth. It seems 
 a matter of mere prudence to provide thus iar for the decent education and 
 bare comfort of a body of 500 priests who were certain to have more influence 
 over the Irish people than all other persons together. Yet the public conster- 
 nation was excessive. The Dissenters pushed an opposition almost as loud 
 and formidable as on the Factory Education clauses. Public meetings to re- 
 monstrate against the meas\ire were held over the whole kingdom — a vkiIchI 
 one at the London Tavern leading tlie way. ri)wards of 100 ,.f the mcr.
 
 580 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 QBooK VI. 
 
 1841—46. 
 
 Daily Papers, 
 April 15th, 1845, 
 
 HausaiJ, Ixsxi. 
 594. 
 
 New Colleges. 
 
 chants, bankers, and traders of London signed the requisition for this meeting. 
 The first resolution declared the proposed grant to be a renunciation of the 
 Protestantism under which the empire had flourished : and the mover took 
 upon him to declare that the grant was " directly opposed to the revealed will 
 of the Creator." The Dublin Protestant Operative Association demanded the 
 impeachment of the Prime Minister. Some members of parliament were 
 called on by their constituents to resign their seats : and the table of the 
 House groaned under the mass of petitions against the measure. The truth 
 was, this measure was an express discountenancing of the " Protestant ascen- 
 dancy " in Ireland ; while in England it at once provoked the fears of the 
 vast body of Dissenters about the spread of the Romish faith, and their 
 jealousy about government endowments of religion. Not a few advocates of 
 the measure were heard to say that it was now becoming necessary to endow 
 all ministers of every faith and denomination. The external agitation was 
 reflected within the walls of parliament in a debate of three nights in the 
 Lords, and six in the Commons, on the second reading of the Bill. It passed, 
 however, on the 16th of June, amidst protests from five Bishops and three 
 lay Peers, who objected to it on the grounds that it provided for the mainte- 
 nance of religious error, and for opposition to the Reformation ; and that it 
 countenanced the notion that religious truth was a matter of indifference to 
 the State. 
 
 A more important measure tending to the great object of abating religious 
 rancour in Ireland met with resistance from an opposite quarter. In the 
 Haiisar<i,ixxvii.4. Royal Speecli at the opening of the session, the Sovereign recommended to 
 the best consideration of parliament " the policy of imjjroving and extending 
 the opportunities for academical education in Ireland." The Ministers were 
 prepared with their plan, which was brought forward by Sir James Graham, 
 on the 9th of May. The National Education system in Ireland was working 
 well; but its host of 400,000 pupils included only children, and, as yet, 
 children of the poorer classes, though it was extending upwards. It was de- 
 sirable to enable those who had sat side by side on the school-benches, as yet 
 untouched by the religious bigotry which was the curse of the country, to 
 continue the education which had begun so favourably ; and also to provide 
 for the same harmony being extended to all classes of society. The govern- 
 ment therefore proposed the establishment of three Colleges, in the north, 
 west, and south of Ireland, in which a liberal and comprehensive academical 
 education should be opened to young men of every religious denomination, 
 without distinction. There could, of course, be no theological professorships 
 founded by the government : but every facility was afforded for the voluntary 
 establishment of such, in connexion with the colleges. As for the question 
 whether these new colleges should be incorporated into a new University, or 
 whether Trinity College, Dublin, should, without invasion of her present 
 Protestant rights, be enabled to admit the new colleges into incorporation 
 with her as an University— this was for parliament to decide upon. After 
 much debate, earnest but less violent than that on the Maynooth question, 
 Har,..nKUx.M,. the mcasure was carried, by a vote of 177 to 26 in the Commons, and without 
 a division hi the Lords— the question of the llniversitv arrangements being 
 
 Hansard, Ixxs. 
 3-43-3GG.
 
 Chap. VIII.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 5Sl 
 
 left over till the views of the governing powers of all the colleges could he 1841 — 4(>. 
 
 ohtained. The higots among the Catholic clergy were the foes in this case. " ~- ' 
 
 The cry about " godless " education was loud and has been long. 
 
 The new institutions have ever since gone by the name of the " godless " 
 colleges among the fanatics of the Romish faith, and some few of the Pro- 
 testant church : and, by much painstakijig, and prodigious misrepresentation, 
 the less enlightened of the Catholic priesthood at length obtained from the 
 conscientious but weak Pope, Pius IX., a rescript against these colleges, as 
 places of education of the Catholic youth of Ireland. The measure was, and 
 is, however, all-important as throwing the onus of religious exclusiveness on 
 the Catholic portion of society in Ireland ; and as a distinct pledge that the 
 Imperial government was at last exercising an impartial sway over its subjects 
 of differing faiths. The sum proposed for the erection of the three colleges was 
 £100,000 ; for their maintenance — that is, the salaries of officers, and the prizes 
 for the encouragement of learning — £18,000 per annum. In each college 
 there was to be a Principal, with a salary of £1000, and ten or twelve Pro- 
 fessors, with salaries of £300 a year. Residences were not provided ; but the 
 Principal of each college would live within the walls ; and the modes of resi- 
 dence of the students were to be under safe regulation, under the Act. The 
 power of appointment and removal of the professors was to rest with the 
 Crown, as was obviously fitting in a case which involved party feelings to so 
 great an extent. The pre))arations for these new institutions were immedi- 
 ately begun. It must be left for time to show how they work. 
 
 In February of this year, a Report was presented by the Commissioners of i^'i"""l.J,'^°'y^^l' 
 Inquiry, sent out in 1843, to investigate the law and practice in respect to the p ^■'^• 
 occupation of land in Ireland. i\Iuch expectation was excited by the appoint- mission 
 ment of the Devon Commission (as it was called, from the Earl of Devon being 
 at the head of it) : and the expectation was kept up by the eagerness of multi- 
 tudes of persons connected with the proprietorship and occupation of land in 
 Ireland, to give evidence before the Commission. They came in cro^yds to tell 
 what they knew, and thought, and felt ; and it was hoped that now, at last, 
 light would be obtained as to what was to be hoped and feared, and what 
 could be done. The information obtained was extensive and valuable : and 
 large practical use might soon have been made of it, in the form of proposed 
 legislation, but that the famine was apjiroaching, which put aside all consider- 
 ations but how to prevent the whole rural population from dying of hunger. 
 Though the time has not arrived for making use of the disclosures of this Re- 
 port, and though much of it may be actually superseded by the operations of 
 calamity, it lemains a token of solicitude for the regeneration of Ireland on 
 the part of tlie Ministers in office during its preparation. 
 
 During the decline of Mr. O'Connell's power, and the rising conflict between 1840. 
 his Repeal i)arty and that which was to be headed by j\Ir. W. Smith O'Urien, 
 while want was becoming aggravated, and famine was approaching, the amount 
 of outrage in Ireland increased so grievously, that Ministers introduced a Co- 
 ercion Bill early in the session of 184(5. Tlie IJill was framed strictly for the y"^-";,";'',"'^';. 
 protection of quiet members of society— permitting the Viceroy to award com- uw. 
 pensation to the maimed, and t<i llie families of tlie nundered, under the attacks 
 at which the measure was aimed. Under il, distiubed districts might be _
 
 582 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book VI. 
 
 1841 — 46. proclaimed, and night-mcctings within them ]irevcnted. The Bill passed tlie 
 
 -- — ■ ' Lords easily, hut was vehemently disputed, and at last lost, in the Commons, 
 
 where party feeling ran high amidst the final agitation ahout the Corn laws, 
 and the hopes and fears about the going out of the Peel ministry. It \vas 
 generally understood that the defeat of Ministers on this Coercion Bill— so 
 mild of its class — Mas occasioned by a combination of parties ; and the speeches 
 of Lord G. Bentinck and Mr. d'Israeli, universally reprobated for their spirit, 
 were regarded as manifestations of the real reasons of the result. At the 
 moment when the Corn-law Repeal Bill was passing the Lords, the second 
 ... reading of the government Bill for Ireland was refused by a majority of 
 1027. ' 292 to 219, after a delay of five months, which would have been seriously in- 
 
 billLost. jmious to the operation of the Bill, if it had passed. The division took place 
 on the 26th of June — three days before the announcement of the retirement 
 of the Peel administration ; — a retirement which might have been rendered 
 necessary by the failure of this measure, if it had not been, as was well known, 
 determined beforehand, as a natural consequence of the carrying of the measure 
 for which Sir R. Peel had returned to power — the repeal of the Corn laws. 
 
 We must look further back for the deciding cause of the retirement of the 
 Peel administration. Before the end of 1845, it was clear that the potato-crop 
 in Ireland was likely to be utterly destroyed by blight. Men whose vision was 
 bounded by j)olitical party spirit endeavoured to persuade others as well as 
 themselves, that the avowed alarm of the Cabinet for the food of half a nation 
 ■was little more than a device to get the Corn laws repealed with the least 
 possible difficulty ; but men of more enlightenment and a more simple con- 
 science had faith in the earnestness of the Minister, in the reality of his so- 
 lemnity, in the sincerity of the solicitude which marked his countenance and 
 his voice, and in the truth of the abundant evidence which he laid before par- 
 liament of the probable extent of the approaching calamity. It was all too 
 true. The work of preparation for a new age for Ireland was taken out of 
 human hands ; and a terrible clearance of the field of Irish soil and society was 
 about to be made for the efforts of future apostles, and the wisdom of future 
 legislators. The virtues of two parties of rulers were not, however, to be in vain. 
 Under them the great truth had appeared that the causes of Irish misery were 
 not political, but social ; and both had done what they could to purge out the 
 spirit of religious and political rancour Avhich liad hitherto poisoned every public 
 benefit, and aggravated every social woe, of that unhappy country. 
 
 Threateninc.s of 
 Famine.
 
 Chap. IX.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 583 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 rpilE Ecclesiastical disturbances, whose beginnings have been noticed, were 1839 — 43. 
 
 J- by this time becoming of the gravest import. Scotland was aftbrding " ' 
 
 as complete an exemplification as the world has seen of the perplexities at- ^"e'I.Vsc "° mJ 
 tendant on an alliance between the Church and the State. At the date before 
 lis, events were occurring which tested the merits of a scheme concocted by 
 Harley, Bolingbroke, and Swift, in the palace of Queen Ajine. By an Act of 
 1711, the power of free choice, the libcrum arhitrium, as to the appointment 
 of pastors in the Scotch Church, was taken from the Church Courts, by sub- 
 jecting the power of the Presbytery to the interpretation, and even control, of 
 the Civil Courts. The minority of the General Assembly of that time ap- 
 proved of the Act, which fulfilled their idea of the connexion of C^iurch and 
 State. The majority protested against it, from year to year ; but the protest, 
 being of no avail, at length became little more than a form. The leading 
 men of the time, the philosophers and men of letters, who represented Scot- 
 land to English eyes, were not earnest Churchmen — not earnest about religion 
 at all; and the arrangement of 1711 suited their views very well, as being 
 moderate, decorous, and tending to peace. They did not see what was going 
 on, wherever a pastor whom the flock did not like was forced upon them. In 
 a multitude of parishes, the patron nominated the minister: if the Presbytery 
 found him unexceptionable in " life, literature, and doctrine," they were then 
 obliged to appoint him, however unacceptable he might be to tlie flock. There 
 Avere many ways in which a minister, with whose " life, literature, and doc- 
 trine," no fault could be found, might be unfit for the care of a particular 
 parish. He might liavc a weak voice, or too much scholarsliip for a rustic 
 congregation, or he might have town ways and ideas, or lie might not speak 
 Gaelic where the people understood little English. In such cases, the peo])le 
 would turn to the Voluntaries, and become dissenters. We have before seen 
 how dissent abounded in Scotland at the period of the Melbourne ministry, 
 and how virulently the high-churchmen of the Kirk regarded the Voluntaries 
 who claimed to be, and were, considerably more than half the nation. In 1834, ■■ Qf> , 
 an ctFort had been made to recover the power which liad been taken iiom the cordon's Memo- 
 Church by the Ace of 1711: and apparently it succeeded. But the power of p. i". 
 the State was not to be cast out from the Church so easily as at first apjieared ; 
 and the Church found itself compelled to advance, or assert new claims. In 
 the quarrel about these, the Establishment was rent in twain, and the Church 
 of Scotland became a warning and a sign of the fate of all cliurches wliich 
 have made the eifort to maintain at once an alliance with the State and the 
 principles of the Reformation. 
 
 The progress of dissent was so rajiid after 181^0 that the earnest members |'"*"^„*''p,'^"" 
 of the Kirk took it much to heart. Wherever they turned, in hope of bring- *'^'''-
 
 584 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 [Book VI. 
 
 1839—43. 
 
 lMeniorinl,&c.p.; 
 
 Tm; \'r,Tii \,\\\. 
 
 Memorial, 
 p. U. 
 
 1839. 
 
 The AnctiTKR- 
 Altijici; Casi:. 
 
 Westminster Re- 
 view, 1810, p. 475 
 
 ing hack the Voluntaries to the Church, they were met by the objection that 
 the people preferred choosing their own pastors to having tlieni nominated, in 
 a compulsory way, by a lay patron, who might or might not, according to his 
 temper, listen to any objections on the part of his flock to his nominee. The 
 earnest Cliurchmen saw that this lay-patronage must be got rid of; and peti- 
 tions for its abolition so poured in upon parliament, that a Select Conmiittee 
 of the Commons was appointed in 1834 to consider the subject. The same 
 agitation wrought in another direction — giving a large majority of Non-intru- 
 sion members to the General Assembly, in wliich they had hitherto been the 
 minority. While the Committee of the Commons was sitting, the General 
 Assembly passed an enactment, containing a Declaration and a Rule. Tlie 
 Declaration was that it was a " fundamental law" of the Clmrcli that no pastor 
 should be intruded on any congregation, contrary to the will of the people : 
 and a Rule was prescribed, by which the will of the people might be ascer- 
 tained and manifested. A Veto on the nomination was afforded to them. 
 This is the celebrated Veto Act. Those who passed it professed to believe it 
 to be perfectly compatible with the Act of 1711 : it was also declared to be so 
 by the law-ofBcers of tlie Crown, and emphatically praised by the Lord Chan- 
 cellor, who pronounced it to be " in every respect more desirable than any 
 other course that could have been taken." For five years, the Veto Act worked 
 so well that it is no wonder if those who devised and passed it supposed that 
 the matter was settled, and that the Church had indeed recovered her powers. 
 When the minority in the Assembly saw liow acceptable a body of INIinisters — 
 250 in the five years — was settled under this Act, they first learned to approve 
 it, and then to avow their approbation. The tendency to dissent was supposed 
 to be subsiding, and the Scotch clergy instituted the movement for Chxirch 
 extension which was described in a former chapter of our History. 
 
 There were secular persons, however, who were not satisfied to see the 
 power of appointment to parishes dependent on the pleasure of the majority 
 of the comnuinicants. This dependence lessened the value of patronage, and, 
 as these persons thought, its dignity; and they were by no means clear that 
 the power given to the communicants by the Veto Act was compatible with 
 the Act of Queen Anne. They were disposed to try the fact ; and occasions 
 for such an inquisition soon ofiered. 
 
 Lord Kinnoul presented a iMr. Young to the parish of Auchterarder. The 
 heads of families in the congregation did not like the appointment, and vetoed 
 it. The presbytery were ordered to take him on trial. They refused to do 
 so, on the plea that he could not be ordained because the ecclesiastical condi- 
 tions relating to his call by the people had not been fulfilled. Mr. Young 
 applied to the Court of Session and the House of Lords to grant him both the 
 civil benefice and the cme of souls. The decision of the Civil Courts was, 
 that the presbytery must take him on trial, as he was competent in the three 
 prescribed conditions— of life, literature, and doctrine ; and the acts of the 
 Kuk were not binding upon them. The Assembly did not contest this deci- 
 sion, as far as its civil relations went. They surrendered the stipend, liouse, 
 and external privileges, to the patron and his nominee. This was in May, 1839. 
 
 The Clnirch thus found that there really was an incompatibility between 
 the Act of 1711 and their Veto Law of 1834. The thing to be done now was
 
 CiiAr. IX.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 585 
 
 to maintain the principle of Non-intrusion, and endeavour to induce the legis- 1839 43. 
 
 latuve to modify the statute so as to bring the civil law into accordance with ^^^-— — ' 
 the conscience of the Church. While requesting this reform from the legisla- p. "iT"' ' 
 ture, the Church acted mildly iu regard to the Veto Law, suspending operations 
 under it till the difficulty should have been accommodated. For two or three 
 years no progress whatever was made ; and through this delay circumstances 
 arose which induced a more serious claim on behalf of the Church, and con- 
 verted the whole affair into one of vital opposition. 
 
 When the judgment in the Auchterarder case went against the Church, and 
 in favour of the lav patron, no demand was made on the presbytery and the ^ i. 
 
 •1' _ .. The Strathbogic 
 
 people to receive 'Sir. Young. When the fruits of the benefice were given up '>«''- 
 to him, they were left unmolested, and not required to surrender the spiritual 
 freedom they held of declining the services of an unacceptable pastor. But, 
 as there had been parties who had instituted a trial of the question thus far, 
 so there were other parties who now resolved to push the experiment further, 
 and ascertain what the connexion between the Church and the State really 
 was. The Presbytery of Strathbogie had of old been celebrated for its zeal 
 for the ci\'il power, its loyalty to the Sovereign, and its leaning towards Epis- 
 copacy : and now it was the scene of the decisive struggle between the powers 
 of the Chmch and the State.— In the parish of jNIarnoch, a Mr. Edwards had ^^J^^l^i'lt!,'';;.';;;. 
 been assistant to the minister for three years, and was then nominated for 
 minister, on the pulpit becoming vacant. He was so unacceptable, that the 
 Call (the forms of which were preserved all this time) was signed by only one 
 parishioner, while 261 out of 300 heads of families on the roll of communi- 
 cants dissented. The one parishioner who sigiied the call was a publican ; 
 and he lost his business immediately. The Court next above the Presbytery — 
 the Synod of Moray — directed the Presbytery to reject INIr. Edwards ; but 
 they did not do so till ordered by the highest authority of all — the General 
 Assembly. When they had done it, an acceptable minister was presented. 
 But jNIr. Edwards obtained an interdict from tlie Court of Session against the 
 settlement of the second nominee, and a declaration that the Presbytery were 
 bound to take Mi: Edwards himself on trials. The members of the Presby- 
 tery were now in the painful position of being under contradictory orders from 
 the General Assembly and the Court of Session— from the Church and flu; 
 State. The General Assembly and its adherents took for granted that the 
 members of the ■ Presbytery ought to consult their spiritual superiors how to 
 proceed : but such a consultation would have been of itself a surrender of the 
 question. The seven members of the Presbytery determined for themselves 
 to obey the civil power; and they admit fed Edwards to trials. — They were 
 brought to the bar of the General Assembly, where Dr. Chalmers mov(Hl for 
 their deposition fiom the holy ministry. Dr. Cook, the leader of the State 
 party in the Church—" the Moderates" as they were called— moved that the 
 seven ministers at the bar should be dismissed, and confirmed in their present 
 rank in the Church. Dr. Chalmers obtained a majority of 97 in an assembly A„m.»i nefWor. 
 of 34T ; and the Strathbogie ministers were sentenced to deposition. Then- 
 parishes were declared vacant ; and :\[r. Edwards was to be deprived of his 
 license as a minister of the Church. 
 
 The seven deposed ministers appealed to parliament ; and tlu-ir case was 
 
 vol.. II. ^ ''
 
 586 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 [Book VI. 
 
 1841. 
 
 Hansard, Iviii, 
 1607. 
 
 1839_43 brought forward by Lord Aberdeen on the 15th of June, 1841. Lord Mel- 
 bourne let every body see that he did not understand the matter :— he had 
 promised, certainly, to maintain the law, and he had no doubt the Lord Advo- 
 cate would see that it was done .-—these were very difficult questions, but they 
 seemed to him to lie within the Church entirely:— and then he spoke so of the 
 arrogance of the Church of Scotland, as to set the Lords laughing. Lord Had- 
 ding'ton rebuked the vacillation and indifference of the Premier, declaring that 
 it was owing to the weakness of the government — its carelessness, or hesi- 
 tation—that the divisions in the Scotch Church had become what they were. 
 The concluding statement of the Premier was that the government really 
 meant to execute the law ; and that the best way of doing that was to leave 
 the law to execute itself. For want of a few words of earnest declaration of 
 the intentions of government, however, the impression was very general that 
 the Ministry were somewhat daunted by the imposing attitude of the ecclesi- 
 astical chiefs in Scotland, and disposed to leave the affair as much as possible 
 to be managed in the Scotch Courts. 
 
 The deposed Ministers obtained an interdict forbidding all ])reachers of the 
 Kirk from entering their pulpits. The Assembly forthwith deputed one of their 
 chief members to go and preach there, and encouraged various ministers to 
 officiate in those parishes regularly and perseveringly : thus compelling their 
 licentiates to break the civil law, because their predecessors had broken their 
 ecclesiastical law. Penalties hung over the heads of the preaching substitutes> 
 find penalties had been imposed on those whom they superseded. This state 
 of things could not last, or be endured. The number of public meetings 
 which took place all over Scotland, and the vehemence of the speakers on both 
 sides began to be a significant warning to parliament, that talking and laugh- 
 ing, and even wrangling, were no longer serious enough for the occasion. In 
 truth, the reader of the newspapers of that time feels little inclination to smile, 
 even in the midst of the extreme wonder which he feels at the point which 
 party spirit can reach. The evidences of wrath and hatred are too strong, and 
 the mutual imputations too shocking, to leave room for any amusement. To an 
 impartial reader it appears that there never was a case in which men might 
 more reasonably hold opposite ojjinions. The case was one of difficult decision 
 to the wisest ; for the perplexity lay deep in an abyss of compromise, and by 
 no means within the grasp of passion and partisanship. The language used 
 in regard to the Church leaders, on the oho hand, and Mr. .Edwards and the 
 seven Strathbogie ministers, on the other, was, however, as violent as can ever 
 have been used about monsters of vice. Such language led, as was natural, to 
 ■violence of another kind. The pious attendants at church on critical occa- 
 sions, and at public meetings, pelted one another with snow and with stones ; 
 and here and there, there was fighting enough to call for the interference of 
 the police. The gravest thinkers, and men of the highest conscientiousness, 
 saw more clearly, from month to month, that there was no alternative for the 
 Church party but to withdraw from their connexion with the State. The 
 choice lay merely between this and the surrender of the spiritual powers of 
 the Church. They had staked every thing on their position, that the provid- 
 ing ministers for the people was a spiritual concern, though the disposal of the 
 emoluments was a secular one. The State would not recede from its legal 
 
 PcDMC Excite- 
 ment. 
 
 PosmnN OF THE 
 
 CHt'lirH PAnn'.
 
 Chap. IX.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 587 
 
 function of svipporting patronage ; and the ecclesiastical party must therefore 1839—43. 
 
 separate its function from its partnership with the civil la^v. v..^i_.^_ . 
 
 When this result was evidently becoming necessary, Lord Aberdeen , a member 1843. 
 of the Peel ministry, which was now in power, made one last cflbrt to preserve the 
 unity of the Scotch Church by a Bill, intended to remove doubts respecting the b°"l° ■^°""^"'"* 
 admission of ministers to benefices in Scotland. A similar Bill, about which 
 Lord Aberdeen and Dr. Chalmers had misunderstood one another, liad been 
 proposed, and withdrawn in 1840. It was not Ukely now, after three years of 
 strong warfare, to be well received by Dr. Chalmers and his followers ; and it 
 was hardly intended for them, but rather for the large body of clergy who were 
 unwilling to leave the Establishment, and yet must have a clear settlement of 
 their consciences, by a distinct knowledge of their case, if they were to remain. 
 In 1840, 400 ministers and 2,000 elders had declared in favour of the Bill : 
 but now, thougli it passed through parliament, it was too late to affect materi- 
 ally the condition of the Church. It provided that the Presbytery to which j*,™"*' i',\f'^'"' 
 any case of unacceptable nomination should be referred, should have power to 
 inquire into the circumstances of the parish, and the number and character of 
 objectors ; and, if the objectors should appear to be in the right, the Presbytery 
 had power to refuse to admit the nominee, being obliged, however, to specify 
 the grounds of their decision. Next, the veto was abolished, being rendered 
 unnecessary by the foregoing provision. In regard to tlie qualifications of a 
 candidate, the appeal must lie to the Chiu'ch Courts alone, as the Civil Courts 
 could not have any concern with such a matter. The civil courts were, how- 
 ever, to hold themselves in readiness to interfere, in case of any excess of juris- 
 diction on the part of the church courts. — It was clear to all who saw how far 
 the controversy now transcended the veto question, that Lord Aberdeen's Bill 
 was no longer what the limes required. It did nothing towards determining 
 the province of civil and ecclesiastical jurisdiction on any ground of principle. 
 Several of the Lords objected that it pronounced virtually against the decision 
 in the Auchterarder case, and that it was inconsistent with the existing law of 
 Scotland. The pleas in its favour all related to the necessity of allaying ex- 
 citement in Scotland ; and high legal authorities were adduced, which declared 
 the Bill to be strictly in accordance with the law of Scotland, and with the de- 
 cision upon the Auchterarder case : and thus was there as much to be said on 
 both sides among the lawyers as among the excited population in the north. — 
 It was the last day of July before the Bill was discussed in the Commons, after 
 its passage through the Lords' House. The thinness of the House showed 
 that even yet the full importance of the subject was not understood. ]Mr. Fox 
 Maule, who ought to know, said that the Church party, now called the Se- """^"'' '"'• ■*'• 
 ceders, took scarcely any interest whatever in the Bill : and when Sir R. Peel 
 resorted to quotations from speeches in the Assembly about reliance on the 
 government for interference for the settlement of consciences, he Mas describ- 
 ing a time long gone by, and a state of affairs which could never be renewed. 
 It mattered little now, as regarded the immediate difficulty, whether the Bill 
 passed or not. It became law on the ITth of August. n»nsa.a,ix.^i.s9r. 
 
 We have said that the Church party were now called the Secedcrs. Tlie 
 time had indeed come. The Scotch Church was divided into irreconcilable 
 parties. The incidents which led on to the secession were these.
 
 588 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 [Book VI. 
 
 1839—43. 
 
 The Geneual 
 assejiuly. 
 
 Its Memorial. 
 
 Annual Register, 
 1843, p. -241. 
 Reply or Govern. 
 
 WENT. 
 
 Qnoad Sai ra 
 
 MlNISTE[L3. 
 
 Annual Register, 
 1843, p. 245. 
 
 Petition of the 
 Assembly. 
 
 Hansard, Ixvii. 
 510. 
 
 At the last meeting of the General Assembly in 1842, two Addresses to the 
 Crown had been proposed and agreed upon ; one of which invited the atten- 
 tion of het Majesty to the encroachments of the Court of Session on the 
 spiritual jurisdiction of the Church; and the other prayed that the Sovereign 
 would order measures towards the abolition of Church patronage in Scotland. 
 A memorial to the Cabinet was also prepared ; to which Sir James Graham 
 replied iu a letter issued on the 4th of January, 1843. This was a letter of 
 reasoning comment on the memorial sent in to ministers : and it presents a 
 clear account of the government view — the view of "the Moderates," — of the 
 whole case. It occasioned much anger, and was spoken of with scorn — this 
 " chopping of logic while the Church was falling in pieces " — this fiddling 
 while the burning was going on: but it is evident that the party would have 
 been more angry, and with better cause, if Sir James Graham had given 
 a peremptory and unreasoned reply. The document ended with a clear decla- 
 ration of government intentions. Government had been willing to attempt 
 legislation, in a hope of a settlement : but " the acts of the General Assembly 
 have unhappily diminished, so far at least as the Church is con- 
 cerned, these reasonable hopes; and her ^Majesty's Ministers, now imderstand- 
 ing that nothing less than the total abrogation of the rights of the Crown 
 and of other patrons will satisfy the Church, are bound with firmness to de- 
 clare that they cannot advise her Majesty to consent to the grant of any such 
 demand." — This letter must be answered ; and circumstances occurred in the 
 Assembly which allowed the Church party to have all their own way in 
 answermg it. It was a matter of contention in the Assembly, and also before 
 the Civil Courts, whether a certain class of the elergy, called quoad sacra 
 ministers — being the incumbents of non-parochial churches — should have the 
 position and privileges of parochial ministers. As the Judges differed on this 
 point, it was no wonder that the Assembly divided eagerly upon it. Five of 
 the Judges sanctioned the claim of the quoad sacra ministers, and eight re- 
 jected it. Their opinion was declared on the 20th of January. On the 31st, 
 the Assembly, constituting itself a commission, was to resolve on a reply to 
 Sir James Graham. Dr. Cook, the leader of the Moderates, moved the ex- 
 clusion of the quoad sacra ministers who were jiresent, as disqualified by law 
 from sharing in the business. Dr. Cook's motion was negatived by a majo- 
 rity of 92 : and the mover, with his minority, retired from tlie meeting whose 
 proceedings could not be legal. A committee was formed by those who re- 
 mained, for the purpose of preparing a petition to parliament, which was pre- 
 sented by Mr. Fox Maule, in the Commons, on the Tth of i\Iarch. The 
 House, after a debate of two nights, decided by a vast majority — 211 to 76 — 
 against appointing a committee to consider the petition. Not only the result, 
 but the tone of the debate showed the Church party that they had nothing 
 more to hope for from parliament. Every body spoke respectfully and decor- 
 ously of the Church of Scotland ; but nobody, except the members of the 
 government and a few other speakers, seemed to know or care what tlie con- 
 troversy was about. The House was quiet, but indifferent. jNIcmbers were 
 conscious of their ignorance, and had no hope of clearing up their minds by means 
 of a single debate ; so they sat still, and probably wished the matter over. 
 One keen disappointment to the Church party was that Lord John Russell
 
 Chap. IX.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 
 
 589 
 
 went against tliem on this occasion, after having seemed to admit their claims 1x39 43. 
 
 in a letter to his Scotch constituents of the City of London. It was not likely ^ ^- 
 
 that the Whigs, who never showed themselves clear or decided on the question 
 when they were in power, should have mastered the subject now: but the 
 Church party attributed the change in Lord J. Russell's tone to his having wesiminsicr Re- 
 received false information about the spirit and purposes of the Church party. """'''■''■ 
 It was believed that he was misled by some " Scotch Liberals " who declared, 
 only one week before the secession, that the number of ministers who would 
 give up their endo'^nncnts would not exceed six. 
 
 Far indeed was this from the truth, as was seen when the memorable LSth 
 of May, 1843, arrived. From the hour when the decision of parliament be- pkepik'tions 
 
 ■1 foR Secession. 
 
 came known, the non-intrusion party pushed their preparations vigorously. 
 Lecturers traversed all Scotland, canvassing for support for the Free I'resby- 
 terian Church, about to take its place in opposition to the Church of Scotland. 
 — A fund was to bo raised for the erection of churches and the support of minis- 
 ters. Missionary objects were naturally united with the primary aim of pro- 
 testing against the usurpation of the State over the Church. " We shall in- 
 deed," said Dr. Candlish on the 21st of March, "cultivate our own districts; sp«-taior,i8i3, 
 we shall have stated congregations, with stated elders and ministers ; but we ''' ^''' 
 shall have our tours of preaching too— our visits to all comers of the land ; 
 and I believe that yet, by God's blessing on our free and faithful preachings, 
 in the highways and hedges, in barns and stables, in saw-pits and tents, we 
 shall yet regenerate Scotland, and have multitudes of those who are noAV 
 perishing for lack of knowledge to listen to the glad tidings of salvation." 
 Though the season was one of severe commercial distress, 300,000^. were sub- 
 scribed in a few months for the support of the Free Church. 
 
 The next important matter was the election of commissioners to the General 
 Assembly. The quoad sacra ministers had but little chance of election after 
 the decision of the majority of the Judges on their claims. A persuasion pre- 
 vailed that the ^Moderates would have all their own Avay in the Assembly. 
 The ISth of May would show. 
 
 The windows along the way were crowded on that day; and so was the the secession. 
 gallery of St. Andrew's Church, where the Assembly held its sittings. The 
 non-intrusion members were cheered as they entered. One of their leaders. 
 Dr. Welsh, Moderator of the former Assembly, took the chair. After prayer, 
 he did not, as is usual, proceed to make up the roll, but instead, read the Ammai iicBisier. 
 
 ' '1 ' . 1813, p. 217. 
 
 Protest in wliich the non-intrusion members had recorded the giounds of their 
 secession from the Assembly, and from alliance with the State. It was an act 
 of excellent temper, taste, and prudence, in the seceders then to withdraw, 
 without seeking controversy. To the number of Ki!) they took their hats, 
 and walked out of the Church. As the foremost of them appeared at the door, 
 the crowd in the streets set up a cheer ; and the cheering continued, with few 
 jiauses, and only the disturbance of a few hisses, all the way to a hall at 
 Canon-mills, where 300 more seceding clergy and a large and sympathizing 
 auditory awaited them. In Dr. Chalmers's ensuing address, he took thepain.s 
 which might be expected from him to explain that the seceders Avere not 
 Dissenters. They left a vitiated establishment, but adhered to the Church, and 
 claimed to be a more real Church than thai which remained established. This
 
 590 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 [Book VI. 
 
 Cot -vrBR PfiiJ- 
 
 CF.F.nlNCJS. 
 
 Annual Register 
 IS43, p. 253. 
 
 Act of SuPAitA- 
 
 TION. 
 
 1839_4,3 was true now, as it had been true in regavd to ancient secessions : and, as in 
 their case, the matter will probably end, after a few years of protests against 
 Voluntaryism, in the Free Churchmen being numbered among the Voluntaries 
 of Scotland. 
 
 On the 20th, there was a demonstration which somewhat derogates from 
 the dignity of the occasion. The Marchioness of Bveadalbane was received 
 in thellall with loud cheers. In the course of proceedings this day, com- 
 plaints were made that great landed proprietors would not grant the smallest 
 portion of ground for new churches : but the zealous leaders declared that an 
 old vessel here and there, moored along the shore, and tents that could be 
 carried from place to place, would serve their needs. On the next day, Sun- 
 day, the first Secession Church, which had been built in six weeks, was 
 opened ; and neither it, nor the Hall, where Dr. Chalmers preached, nor the 
 Church attended by the Queen's High Commissioner, could contain the eager 
 crowds that resorted to them.— On the next day, the 22nd, the General 
 Assembly made haste to undo the acts of the seceders — excluding the quoad 
 sacra ministers (though with kindly wishes for their admission under a paro- 
 chial right) and reinstating the seven Strathbogie ministers. Then followed 
 the deposition of the seceders, and the declaration that their parishes were 
 vacant. On the same day, the seceders, formed into an Assembly of their 
 own, renounced their brethren of the Establishment in much the same mode. 
 An Act of Separation was decreed ; and on the next day, it was produced for 
 signature, previous to its being transmitted to the Assembly. Prayer pre- 
 ceded and followed the signing of the Act — four hours being 'occupied in 
 aihxing the signatures. An Address to the Queen was passed, and much 
 business in connexion with their new position transacted ; and then, having 
 agreed to hold another Assembly in October, at Glasgow, the meetings dis- 
 solved. The General Assembly was also dissolved on the 29tli — a day on 
 which many a heart throbbed, and many an eye was moistened, at the thought 
 that all was now over, and the beloved and venerated old Kirk of Scotland 
 rent in twain. 
 
 The noble and animating featin-e of this ecclesiastical revolution is that 
 which is found on all such occasions — the disinterestedness of the movers. Of 
 that heroic disinterestedness there never was, or could be, any question. The 
 Seceders were violent in their partisanship, and unjust in their judgments of 
 those whom they left behind ; — they had the faults of a revolutionary era ; but 
 their earnestness and their spirit of self-sacrifice were siiblime. As early as 
 that memorable May week, there were 500 clergy, who had left home, neigh- 
 bours, station, and competence, and thrown themselves into a position where 
 they might have to endure poverty for the rest of their lives, and could not 
 escape much tribulation and toil. And they were well supported by a host as 
 earnest as themselves ; — by men and women who were ready to spend and bo 
 spent in the cause. While the difficulties remained Avhich were occasioned by the 
 refusal of landowners to grant sites for churches, aged men and tender women 
 attended worship, like the old Covenanters, in frost and rain — under the tem- 
 pests and heats of summer, and the blasts and snows of winter, on the sea- 
 shore, in the wild ravine, and on the exposed hill-side. Several of the large 
 proprietors held out for a long time, naturally doubting whether they ought to 
 
 Spirit of thk 
 Movement.
 
 Chap. IX.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 591 
 
 grant aid of any kind to parties who had, as they supposed, set up against the 1839 — 13. 
 government and the hiw courts. But these not only became better aware of ' — -^-^-^-^ 
 what is due to religious liberty, but took warning from the frequent rising up 
 of the question, what right any man could have to hold land so as to keep hack 
 God's earth, to the last corner, frona worshippers who wanted merely space to 
 kneel on. When it was seen that this high-church movement might generate 
 an agrarian agitation, the Seceders were indulged with a choice of sites for 
 their churches. 
 
 Thus did Scotland lead the way in proving the principle of Church esta- 
 blishments, in alliance with the State. There is a general feeling that the affair 
 is not over — that the Establishment in Scotland now remains a mere temporary 
 arrangement ; and that the Establishment in England and Ireland must sooner 
 or later come into question in somewhat a similar way. 
 
 In the English Establishment, the disturbances whose first outbreak has the REi.ir.iors 
 been described, became more threatening and more painful from year to year, land.' 
 It could not be otherwise ; for the differences between the three parties in the 
 Church were fundamental ; and tlieir controversies must be brought to an 
 issue before unity and tranquillity could be restored. One of the most signifi- 
 cant circumstances in connexion with the religious state of the nation is that 
 Dissent appears to have gained nothing by the divisions in the Establishment, chirchmks. 
 While the High Churchmen were mourning over the certain destruction of 
 the Church from the interference of the government with it ; and Mhile the 
 Low Church party M'ere denouncing the influence of the world, and struggling 
 to revive religion by building churches — as if the spirit could be created by 
 forms, instead of forms being the manifestation of the spirit ; and while Dr. 
 Arnold was writing " I groan over the divisions of the Church .... I begin 
 now to think that things must be worse before they are better, and that 
 nothing but some great pressure fi-om without will make Christians cast away 
 their idols of sectarianism ; the worst and most mischievous by which Christ's 
 church has ever been plagued ;" — while such were the lamentations of Church- 
 men of every order, we find the Dissenters stating, with solemn grief, in their uissenteiis. 
 annual Reports, that their numbers and their zeal were fearfully declining. 
 At the Wesleyau Conference in 1845, the decrease of members was declared 
 to exceed 5,000. The New Connexion of Wesleyans announced a decrease 
 also, and directed an inquiry into the causes, and " a prayerful consideration" 
 of them. " The event," they declared, " ought to be regarded as a source of 
 deep abasement and sorrow before God." In the same year, the Committee 
 of the Baptist Union announced that the condition of their churches was, 
 where not stationary, retrograde. Of their 507 churches, 142 had " suffered a 
 clear diminution :" " a fact which is fitted," they say, " to give rise to serious 
 and salutary reflection." At the meeting of the CongTcgational Union, the 
 denomination was announced to be " diminishing ratlicr than increasing." 
 The same appears to have been true about some of the smaller sects. The 
 Quakers had, some time before this, released their young people, by an act of 
 their Yearly iNIoeting, from the obligation to wear tlie dress, and use the jiecu- 
 liar speech, of their sect. Their leaders mourned the necessity, but declared 
 that the preservation of these observances was now found to cost more than 
 they were worth. Discontent and resentment had become common among
 
 692 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book VI. 
 
 1839 43 the young who found " their cross" too hard to hear ; and they would break 
 
 ~ . bounds, and desert their sect, if this much indulgence were not granted them. 
 
 So, from this time it must become more and more uncommon to see young 
 faces under the neat drab boniiei: and tlie broad brim, and it seemed probable 
 that in two or three more generations the Quaker garb would be seen only in 
 old prints. — The Catholics alone appear to have been decidedly increasing in 
 numbers during this season of discouragement to Protestant sects : and their 
 further increase was provided for by the going over of a considerable number 
 of the High Church party into their communion. 
 
 The records of tlic time show how the contending religions parties strove to 
 gain upon each other by bearing to the utmost upon those points of doubt 
 and compromise which in ordinary times are approached fearfully and tenderly. 
 The Church rate struggle went on : and we find an unusual number of refusals 
 
 Tnoi'BiEs IN THE to marry and to bury, on account of supposed non-compliance with the condi- 
 tions of the Church. In 1841, a suit was brought against a Lincolnshire 
 
 Law^cLe^^^sM clergyman by parents whose child he had refused to bury; the refusal being- 
 based on the ground that the child was really unbaptized, having been bap- 
 tized only by a Wesleyan minister. The judgment, which was given against 
 the clergyman, proceeded on the ground that lay-baptism was not denounced 
 as a corruption at the Reformation, when an enumeration of corruptions was 
 made ; and no clergyman could take upon himself to pronounce any baptism 
 invalid which was not declared so by the framers of the rubric. The clergy- 
 man appealed ; but this judgment was affirmed ; and the Tractarians did not 
 think the better of Protestantism for such a result. — The Bishop of Exeter was 
 one of the most conspicuous movers during the period of Church disturbance. 
 We find him, in 1844:, suspending one of his clergy for a term, for having 
 omitted some words of Christian assurance in the burial service, when inter- 
 
 Annuai Register, ring a man sui)posed to have died in a state of intoxication. The supposition 
 
 1844. Chron. 83.''.^^ . 
 
 was a mistake ; but the Bishop declared that if it had not been so, the liberty 
 taken would have been no less reprehensible. This is very well, as discoun- 
 tenancing the notion that any man can imdertake to condcunn the dead ; and 
 the moral mischief of promising future bliss alike to the good and bad remains 
 chargeable upon the appointment of an inflexible ritual. — From this time, the 
 Bishop seems to have held his power of ecclesiastical censure always in his 
 hand, ready for use ; and his clergy and their flocks were thus stimulated to a 
 contention which soon became a scandal too gross to be endured. He took 
 occasion by one of these quarrels to draw up and promidgatc an order of 
 Annual Register, obscrvancc of doctriue and ritual, consisting of ten points, which certainly did 
 
 1814, p. 125. 'or' J 
 
 not conduce to the restoration of peace in the Church. He laid down the law 
 about preaching in the surplice, about postures and forms, and goings out and 
 comings in, and refusal of burial and of the sacraments, in a fashion which 
 irresistibly reminds the reader of the most emphatic descriptions of Pharisaic 
 observances in the gospels : and no one out of the diocese was surprised to 
 hear in a few weeks of actual riots in the churches and streets of Exeter. — 
 The clergy began to baptize in the midst of the service : and this seems to 
 have been unresisted: but when they appeared in the surplice to preach, those 
 , „ . liearers who feared the introduction of popish forms left the churches, Sunday 
 
 Annual Register, ft- C A Til i 
 
 1844, p. 1411. alter bunday. — ihe clergy persevered : the people held parish meetings, whore
 
 Chap. IX] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 593 
 
 they proposed to appeal to the body of prelates, and to the Queen iu Council, 1839—43. 
 " for a settlement of this uncalled-for disturbance." The clergy were hooted ~ — '^'^ — ' 
 in the streets ; and the interior of the churches presented a spectacle very un- 
 like that of devotional tranquillity. During January, 1845, the evil in- 
 creased so that the Bishop and the most obstinate of his clergy were compelled 
 to yield. The church of St. Sidwell's was so noisy, that prayers could not be 
 heard : the congregation rose in a body on the appearance of the surplice, and 
 miany went out. Two thousand people were collected outside to hoot the 
 pastor : and it was with difficulty that a strong body of police protected him 
 to his lodgings. It will be seen at once that the contention was not, in fact, 
 about vestments and forms, but about something far more serious; the question, 
 namely, whether the compromises of the composite Protestant Church should 
 be respected, as allowing such liberty of expansion, and difference of views and 
 observance, as are rendered necessary by change of times, or whether the fonns 
 of a past century should be adhered to with a rigidity which must compel either 
 a rupture of the Protestant, or a return to the Catholic church. A truce was 
 obtained in Exeter by the Bishojo yielding, and instructing his clergy to yield, 
 for the sake of peace. 
 
 Forcibly as such proceedings pressed themselves on public attention, the at oxpo.id. 
 strongest interest of the crisis lay at Oxford, where matters could no longer go 
 on as they had done for some years. The Bishops seemed no nearer than 
 ever to agreement among themselves, nor to fitness to deal with the con- 
 troversy of the time. One recommended peace ; as if peace or truce were 
 possible after the appeal had once been made to principle and conscience. 
 Others strove hard to take no notice. Others left their clergy to act, each on 
 his own conscience. No one of them can be found to have made anywhere a 
 plain statement of the controversy, as between the Tractarian party and the 
 other two Church sects, or as between the Church of Rome and that of Eng- 
 land, together with a declaration on the one side or the other. The Bishop of 
 Oxford interfered to prohibit the issue of the Tracts, after the appearance of 
 No. XC, which contained doctrine too nearly approaching to Romanism in 
 the matter of private judgment to be allowed to pass under the eye of a Pro- 
 testant bishop. From this time, the Tractarian leaders were regarded ^^•itll a 
 disapprobation, on the part of all single-minded persons, which must compel 
 their speedy retreat from the position they held as (in Dr. Arnold's words). Life, ii. p. 2-9. 
 " Roman Catholics at Oxford instead of at Oscott — Roman Catholics signing 
 the articles of a Protestant church, and holding offices in its ministry." From 
 this time (1841) they were sure to be keenly watched, and every opportunity 
 seized for dislodging them fi-om a position which they ^vcre conceived to hold 
 treacherously. Tliose who wished \vcll to the Church \vould have been glad 
 to see something else done, besides this necessary but low and disagreeable 
 work : but they were obliged to be contented with witnessing the Tractarians 
 compelled to see and acknowledge that they were Romanists ; and with dis- 
 covering that, when they were gone, a "reaction" must ensue, as injurious to 
 the integrity, and reputation, and usefiduess, of the Church, as any of the 
 changes that had occurred. 
 
 Dr. Pusey was the first of the scut chosen for punishment. Being called on "«• i"'"', 
 to preach before the University in the spring of 1843, he discoursed ou the 
 
 vol,. 11. i G
 
 59-1 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 [Book VI. 
 
 1839—43 
 
 Annual Register, 
 1813, Chron.07. 
 Dr. Hampden. 
 
 Annual Kegister, 
 1S14, thron. 3. 
 
 Annual Register, 
 1845, Chron. 31. 
 Mr. Oakelev. 
 
 Annual Register, 
 1846, Chron. 95. 
 
 Annual Register, 
 1843,Chron. 159. 
 
 Eucharist, and was considered by some of his hearers to utter Romish doctrine 
 . about Transubstantlation and the Mass. The subject was brought before a 
 Board of Convocation ; and their report was such as to compel the Vice- 
 Chancellor to suspend Dr. Pusey from preaching within the precincts of the 
 University for two years. The accused demanded a hearing, and liberty of 
 aro'uing the matter ; without which he declared the sentence to be " unstatut- 
 able, as well as unjust." His protest was, of course, disregarded. — Dr. Hamp- 
 den, himself a sufferer not long before, from inquisition into his opinions, did 
 now what lie could, as Regius Professor of Divinity, to guard the Church from 
 false doctrine. He proposed to a candidate for the degree of Bachelor of Di- 
 vinity subjects for exercises which must test his opinions on Transubstantiation 
 and the authority of Tradition. The candidate refused to write on these sub- 
 jects, and claimed the right to select his own. Dr. Hampden prevented his 
 obtaining his degree. The candidate sued liim in the Vice-Chancellor's Court, 
 but failed in his suit. Much regret was caused by this proceeding ; for it was 
 dangerous. It led too surely to a recognition of the incompatibility between 
 the service of the Church and the right of private judgment. — In the same year, 
 a Mr. Ward, a clergyman, published a book, called " The Ideal of a Christian 
 Church Considered," some of which was declared to be inconsistent with the 
 Thirty-nine Articles ; and he was called before Convocation to answer for his 
 work. The remarkable scene of his degradation took place on the 13th of 
 February, when several bishops, and lay lords and commoners conspicuous in 
 the religious world, crowded into Oxford, and intermingled with above a 
 thousand clergymen in the Hall. Mr. Ward's argument was that the Articles 
 could not be conscientiously signed by any considerable number of persons, if 
 they were taken in " a natural sense ;" and he therefore contended for " a non- 
 natural sense," as the only method of meeting an inevitable difference of views. 
 Mr. Ward's degi-adation was carried by a small majority; the numbers being 
 569 to 511. — Beside Mr. Ward stood the Rev. F. Oakeley, a fellow of the same 
 college, and minister of the Margaret-street chapel. He dared the Bishop of 
 London to move in accordance with Oxford, by writing to him an avowal that 
 he believed, though he did not teach, several of the doctrines of the Romish 
 church, and that he claimed liberty to hold his own opinions, while not injur- 
 ing the church which he desired to serve. He challenged the bishop to insti- 
 tute proceedings against him for subscribing the Aiticles in the same sense as 
 Mr. Ward. The bishop instituted proceedings in the Court of Arches. Mr. 
 Oakeley declined to defend himself in that court : and, on the other hand, the 
 bishop declined to accept his resignation while the suit was pending. The 
 judge decided that Mr. Oakeley had rendered himself liable to ecclesiastical 
 censure. He was deprived of his license, forbidden to preach till he should 
 have retracted his eiTors, and condemned to pay costs. 
 
 These unseemly and jiainful transactions excited a spirit of jealous watch- 
 fulness elsewhere. A book published by a clergyman was the occasion of a 
 charge of unfaithfulness to the Book of Common Prayer ; and the author was 
 reprimanded by the judge in the Arches Court, and suspended for three years. 
 And next we find the churchwardens of Richmond complaining to the arch- 
 deacon of the officiating pastors ; that, under the sanction of the bishop of the 
 diocese, and on the plea of custom, they failed to observe some of the particulars
 
 Chap. IX.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 595 
 
 of the Rubric. To those who had read history, and understood the laws of 1839 43. 
 
 opinion, it was clear that the Chvirch was far fi-om being served by proceedings ' — — - 
 
 which drove men back upon the principles of private judgment ; and they saw 
 
 that whenever the Tractarians should have quitted Oxford for Rome, they 
 
 would leave behind them no small number who, perceix-ing the impossibility 
 
 of establishing uniformity of belief, would be as willing to hold station and 
 
 maintenance in the Church, without holding its doctrines, as the men who had 
 
 been driven out. — The process of going over to Rome now began in earnest. 
 
 Many became Catholic priests before Mr. NeA\Tnan himself, who had long been 
 
 a Romanist in every thing but profession. When he resigned his Protestant tractarun se- 
 
 holdings, he was followed by a crowd. Here and there a beneficed clergyman, 
 
 and a host of curates, and laymen of all ranks, with their families, took the 
 
 decisive step, and told their friends, or late parishioners, that they had found 
 
 " the Church" — had been received into "the Church," — and could look with 
 
 compassion on the members of a schismatical and pretended church, which 
 
 merely deluded its adherents to perdition. 
 
 After this riddance, it was hoped that the Church would revive and spread. 
 But it did not. The events of late years had greatly stimulated the clergy, 
 and improved the character of their ministrations. But the complaint still 
 was, and is, that the people do not enter the Church, and find in it the life 
 that it assumes to be able to give. Time will show whether this is owing to the 
 reaction following upon the Catholic movement, or whether lapse of centuries 
 and change of circumstances have made the Church, as now constituted, un- 
 suitable to the needs of those to whom, distinctively, the gospel was preached 
 in its first days. Great efforts were made by the zealous and the opulent to 
 propagate Christianity abroad, and to establish churches in our foreign depen- 
 dencies, and to build new churches and send out more clergy at home ; the 
 number of new churches built during the movement— not a few by the bene- 
 ficence of individuals— is indeed remarkable ; but the old edifices were left as 
 empty as before, and no evidences have appeared of any redemption of the 
 mass of the people from ignorance and indifference. While thus tlie failure 
 of the Church to perform its work was clearly not owing to any lack of zeal 
 and generosity in the upper classes, it seems that Lord Henley and Dr. Arnold 
 and other Church reformers must have been right in supposing that the old 
 structure was no longer suited to the needs of the time, but must be extensively 
 altered and enlarged. 
 
 Just when government was taking to heart this state of things, and was n^"^!, w ^^ 
 about to propose to amend it. Dr. Arnold was called away. It was in the 
 midst of the dissensions and the weakness of the Church— dissensions and 
 weakness which had caused him the severest pain of his life— that he was 
 suddenly withdrawn from the scene in which he had wrought so actively. 
 His desires for reform had caused him to be hold in fear and hatred by the 
 High Church party ; and his language in regard to the Evangelical party was 
 never such as to conciliate their good-will At the same time, he was too 
 much of a churchman, and had tampered too nmch with his own mind in 
 early Ufe with regard to subscription to the Articles, to have any power of 
 appreciating the principles and position of the Dissenters. It was therefore 
 only with the T\lod(M-ate (Uiurch that he could be in cordial comuiunu)n ; and,
 
 596 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book VI. 
 
 1839—43. owing to the independence of his views, and the peremptory manner in which 
 
 ' ^^-^ he issued them, he was feared and disliked by many of his own Church party, 
 
 as strongly as he was honoured and adored by others. It is on other grounds 
 than his relation to the Church that his posthumous reputation rests. He 
 was the most earnest public man of his time — of a time when earnestness 
 was supremely needed and was sadly deficient. He presented the spectacle 
 of a man of not only blameless, but exalted and holy life, who lived wholly 
 and solely for what seemed to him truth and good. It was and is felt to be a 
 pity that his views of truth and good were impaired by narrowness of view 
 and of experience, and by a want of knowledge of men and affairs ; so that 
 his earnestness led him to devise and judge and insist on matters, and for per- 
 sons and classes, which he did not understand — as when he would have made 
 a declaration of Christian belief an indispensable requisite to the full enjoy- 
 ment of political and social rights ; a method which would have acted as a 
 premium on hypocrisy, and have done violence to some of the best consciences 
 in the community : but such defects did not neutralize the value of his earnest- 
 ness and transparent sincerity, conspicuous as they were in the midst of the 
 indifference or the formalism and insincerity of the time. And he communi- 
 cated this earnestness and sincerity to a large number of those who are becom- 
 ing the men of a later time. As an educator, he put his heart into his work, 
 and laboured there as elsewhere, for truth and good. The views Avhich he 
 considered invaluable may not be in every case held by those whom he trained 
 to hold ideas on conviction only ; points which he insisted on as indispensable 
 may appear otherwise to his pupils in their maturity ; but they owe to him 
 the power and the conscience to think for themselves, and the earnest habit of 
 mind which makes their conviction a part of their life. By this exalted view 
 find method as an educator. Dr. Arnold did more for education than even by 
 his express and unintermitting assertion of the importance of the function — 
 powerful as his testimony was. At the head of Rugby School, he had large 
 opportunities both for testimony and action ; and what he did will never be 
 forgotten. His life was a public blessing while it lasted ; and it has become 
 more so since his death ; for his virtues and his toils .are not now, as when he 
 lived, obscured by the local and temporary strifes which always prevent men 
 from doing justice to each other, and vitiate the noblest pei'spective of charac- 
 ter, rendering prominent what need be scarcely seen, and hiding the grandest 
 features behind mere magnified accidents. The horror with which he and the 
 Tractarian leaders spoke of each other is forgotten now. Those leaders have 
 found their Church ; and lie is seen to have been the man required in his place 
 by the moral wants of the age ; as conspicuously a public benefactor as worthy 
 of the love and reverence which w^aited upon his private life. He died in 
 1842, the day before the completion of his 47th year. 
 Smith. ' ' lu the midst of the government action for bringing the Church and the 
 
 people together, another clergyman died, whose view of Church matters was 
 more secular than any held by the ecclesiastical reformers of the time. It 
 seems strange that Sydney Smith should ever have been in the Church ; and 
 it is far from strange that earnest ecclesiastics should have been scandalized at 
 his method of treatment of some matters which were to them as solemn and 
 serious as the gospel. He was, in truth, a moralist and not a religious guide:
 
 Chap. IX.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 597 
 
 and he could as little conceive of a spiritual call to the clerical office as his 1839 43 
 
 enemies could give him credit for earnestness about the matters which ap- ■ 
 
 pcared to him most serious. In his letters about the Ecclesiastical Commission, 
 he speaks throughout of the " prizes " in the Church as the inducement to 
 men to go into it : and he never appears to conceive of any higher impulsion : 
 but perhaps few of the most spiritual and devoted ministers of the Churcli 
 have so fervently, constantly, and powerfully, advocated the interests of duty, 
 and shown the beauty of the things that are honest, pure, lovely, and of good 
 report. It docs not follow that because he was the greatest wit of his time, 
 and of strong social inclinations, he was spoiled. He could admonish and 
 satirize the great, as well as the lowly; and his sympathies were always on the 
 side of the suffering and oppressed. His advocacy was always on behalf of 
 the liberal and progressive side of the questions of the day. He quizzed 
 Dissenters and Churchmen all round, exhibiting fanaticism, worldliness, 
 bigotry, and all manner of foibles, wherever he saw them, but always aitling 
 the claimants of freedom of opinion. He quizzed all the parties concerned 
 about Catholic emancipation : but he did more for the Catholics than perhaps 
 any divine ever did before for a body under disqualification for religious opi- 
 nion. He felt too strongly about negro slavery to quiz the parties in that case; 
 but his wit there took the form of a branding indignation, an impassioned 
 irony, which might pierce the brain and marrow of the oppressor. That his 
 name was always connected with the Edinburgh Review, of which he was 
 one of the founders, shows that his position in the Chui'ch was that of alli- 
 ance with the government ; and he openly regarded the Church as an institu- 
 tion for the teaching and training of the people in Christian morality, with 
 the support, and under the sanction, of the government. His views appear to 
 have prompted him to the duty of a good pastor in his country residence ; for, 
 while he was eagerly sought in London society, and his writings keenly read 
 wherever they could make their way, he was welcomed on his return home by 
 the humblest of his neighbours — the old men and women to whom, as he said, 
 he gave good things for their rheumatism, without any mixture of the Thirty- 
 nine Articles. If it be granted that he was a moralist, and by no means a 
 divine, it may be considered a matter of congratulation that the Church had, 
 in a season of great peculiarity, a minister who waged eftcctual war against 
 cant and fanaticism, and who, closely connected with ruling statesmen, lifted 
 up his voice, without fear or favour, for justice and reasonableness on every 
 hand. He rebuked Whig statesmen, when he thought them tampering witli 
 the property of the clergy, as soundly as any AVesleyan fanatic or Tractarian 
 formalist ; and one such plain-speaking logician and wit might be welcomed 
 to a place in the ranks of the clergy ; especially under the certainty that such 
 another would never appear in one age. He held a living of moderate value 
 in Somersetshire, and was made a Canon Residentiary of St. Paul's in 1831, 
 when he was already gi'owing old. He died in the T7th year of his age, in 
 February, 184o, while contemplating, witli some amusement, and something of 
 the contemptwith which old age views new enterprises, the attempts of govern- 
 ment and zealous members of the Church to bring the Establishment more 
 effectually within reach of the popular need. 
 
 On the 5th of May, 1843, Sir 11. Peel offered a project to parliament of Arr.MENTAnoN •
 
 598 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book VI. 
 
 1839—43 which he said as follows : " The advantage I anticipate is, that by this pro- 
 ^-^i^-^^ ' ceeding I shall place the Chinch of England in a favourable light before the 
 Hamard, ixviii.; pgQpjg ^f jj^jg country ; and conciliate towards it that favour and affection to 
 which I beUeve it to be justly entitled, and lay the foundation of extended 
 usefulness. Those foundations must be widened. It is in vain that you have 
 splendid cathedrals, and bishops highly endowed ; in vain you have digni- 
 taries and splendid edifices, if you fail to impress on the people the con- 
 viction that great practical advantages are to be derived from them. Unless 
 in populous districts you bring the ministrations of the Church within the 
 reach of the people, it is in vain that you support its dignitaries, for the 
 polished columns of the temple will not be secure, unless you widen the basis 
 on which they rest. Here is the point in which the Church of England is 
 wantin"- at present : her parochial constitution was made in other times, and 
 suited to other states of the people : you must divide parishes, and bring 
 ministers into them, and you will thus add at once to the respectability, to the 
 influence, and to the property, of the Church, by applying her present property 
 to strengthen her position, and increase her influence." All that could be 
 done by preparation and arrangement was to be attempted now. The body 
 was to be made ready, if the spirit would but come. Thus much it was right 
 to do, that, if the Church should finally fail to redeem the masses of the 
 people, the failure might be through no neglect of their rulers. And the 
 proposal of the Minister was so well received as to obviate all difiiculty and 
 all waste of time. "My examination into the management of Church 
 property," he said, on this occasion, " leads me to think that there may be 
 very material improvements in its administration." The proposal was to bring 
 into combined operation the Boards of Ecclesiastical Commissioners and of 
 Queen Anne's Bounty, by a method which would largely increase the means 
 of augmenting small livings, and afford funds for providing a considerable 
 addition to the numbers of the clergy. The Minister did not propose to spend 
 any of the money on new churches, as the last few years had shown how much 
 could be done by the zeal of individuals and private society. To follow up 
 the recent church-building by making permanent endowments for ministers 
 was the object. The House agreed unanimously to the project. 
 Colonial Bishop- It was uot Only at liome that chuich-exteusion was to be promoted. In 
 """*• 1841, the Prelates of England and Ireland agreed on an appeal to the religious 
 
 public for the raising of a fund for founding Colonial Bishoprics : and in the next 
 Annual Register, year, the Bisliop of Loudon directed his clergy, in a Pastoral Letter, to have 
 1842: chron. 39. (joUections made in their churches for tlic purpose, recommending the ancient 
 method, now revived by the Tractarian clergy, of making these offerings a 
 part of the service. In August of the same year (1842) five Colonial Bishops 
 were consecrated in Westminster Abbey — their sees being that of Barbadoes 
 (not new) and the four new ones of Antigua, Guiana, Gibraltar, and Tas- 
 mania (Van Diemen's Land). The Bishop of New Zealand had already 
 sailed for his distant diocese. — A bishopric had been established at Jerusalem, 
 in 1841, under the joint auspices of Prussia and England — a scheme of much 
 less promise than the formation of colonial sees. British subjects residing in 
 British territory have a clear right of access to the services of the national 
 Church : but it is quite a different thing to plant a missionary Church in a 
 country where the Christian religion is despised by inhabitants of two races
 
 Chap. IX.J DURING THE THIRTY YEARS" PEACE. 599 
 
 ■who have each a faith of their own which they value as highly as the stiano-er 1839 43 
 
 can value his. By the very nature of the Mohammedan and Jewish faiths, -— ,^-- 
 their sincere and enlightened votaries cannot undergo conversion : and the 
 scheme has, thus far, had no success which can justify its continuance. The 
 institution of the Jerusalem mission stands as a curious instance of zeal for 
 Chui-ch-extension abroad at a time when the Church was practically in a state 
 of painful and depressing feebleness at home. 
 
 The plan of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners to constitute bishoprics at consolidation ok 
 Ripon and Manchester by consolidating the sees of Bristol and Gloucester, ^'"^' 
 and of St. Asaph and Bangor, met with a revived opposition in 1843. Every 
 one agreed that the establishment of the see of Eipon was a public benefit ; 
 and every one desired to see a Bishop of Manchester. But there were three 
 objections, moved by different parties, to the carrying out of the plan. The 
 Earl of Powis, who brought forward the subject in the House of Lords, insisted Hamard, i^ix. 
 that the Welsh bishoprics were wanted, with all their revenues, for the Welsh. 
 The High Chiuxh party continued their protests against the government and 
 its Commission touching any of the ancient bishoprics at all ; but the greatest 
 difficulty, that which was admitted in the debates to be at the bottom of the 
 opposition, was the proposal that any English bishop should be inadmissible to 
 the House of Lords. The Duke of Wellington manfully avowed that any 
 increase in the number of bishops in the House would excite great jealousy 
 throughout the country: and the Archbishop of Canterbury advocated the 
 plan of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners : but the Bishop of London adverted 
 to the fact that all bishops sit in parliament in virtue of their baronies, and 
 dreaded lest the omission of any of them should in time generate a desire to 
 dispense with the parliamentary duty of the bishops altogether. The Bishop 
 of Exeter wished for more bishops, both in the country and in the House, but 
 suggested that a parliamentary attendance by rotation, as in the case of the 
 Irish prelates, might be arranged. Among the other bishops there was a / 
 
 remarkable variety of opinions ; and the result of the discussion was that 
 Lord Powis withdrew his Bill, with a promise to bring it forward again next 
 session. 
 
 Before the next session, the Welsh disturbances had occurred; and this 1844. 
 gave an advantage to the parties for whom the Earl of Powis was spokesman. 
 There had before been many petitions against the union of the sees ; and now 
 there were more still — from the clergy throughout the country, and from all 
 classes in Wales — no doubt under the influence of their clergy. In parliament, 
 the ground of debate still was the increase or diminution of the number of 
 bishops in the House, the Bishop of Bangor actually venturing to remind the ''^"d. '">• 
 nation that there was a time when forty bishops sat with a small number of 
 lay peers, thirty or forty mitred abbots having seats in the House. That, 
 however, was before INIanchester, and the two millions who now needed a 
 bishop there, existed : and the Archbishop of Canterbury still thouglit that 
 those two millions ought to be considered before the 350,000 Welsh who were 
 now divided between two sees : and the four archdeacons to be given to Wales 
 would amply suffice, with one bishop. The second reading of Lord Powis's 
 bill for repealing the arrangement of the Connnission was carried : but its 
 progress was then stopped by a very unusual proceeding. On the 1st of July,
 
 GOO HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book VI. 
 
 1839 43. the Uuke of Wellington declared that the Bill touched the prerogative of the 
 
 ■ Crown, and that he was not authorized to give the consent of the sovereign to 
 
 goIS'hIot AND its further discussion. A Committee, appointed to search for precedents, 
 Hansard, ixxvi. reported that the fact was indeed as the Duke of Wellington had stated : and 
 '"^' Lord Powis therefore withdrew his Bill, declaring that the matter could not 
 
 rest here. This was indeed e^ddent enough : for the question was assuming 
 the aspect of a contest between the government and the Church ; such a con- 
 test as was becoming more significant and moi'e dangerous Avith every new 
 dispute. Before the debate was closed on the present occasion, it was care- 
 fully made known by the law lords that the sovereign had no power to stop 
 discussion in either House of parliament ; and that the intimation just made 
 was to be understood as a timely hint that the royal assent would not be given 
 to any measure wliich might result from the debate. In the next session, the 
 Bill of Lord Powis was thrown out by a large majority on the first division. 
 18-45. In the session of 1846, the oiJposition of the Crown was withdrawn, and the 
 Hansard, ixx.tviii. Bill passed the Lords ; but it was dropped in the Lower House, on a promise 
 fi-om the new Minister, Lord John Russell, that the government Avould con- 
 sider the subject before another session. In due time, the new see of Manches- 
 ter was provided with a bishop ; and then the sees of Bangor and St. Asaph 
 were allowed to remain apart. But the contest between the government and 
 the Church was renewed on a more perilous gTOund — that of the appointment 
 of a bishop to the see of Hereford. One of the compromises involved in the union 
 of the Church and State was in question in this case; and the Minister, Lord 
 J. Russell, apparently unaware of the peril of the part he took, cast aside the 
 delicacy usually observed by statesmen in approaching that particular com- 
 promise, and pushed the claim of the royal prerogative to an extent most 
 galling and oifensive to the Church in insisting on the election of Dr. 
 Hampden to the see of Hereford. This is the latest instance of Church and 
 State conflict : but every one knows that it cannot be the last. While waiting 
 for the next occasion, our statesmen have the warning of the Church of 
 Scotland before them ; — a warning against bearing hard on old compromises 
 imless they are prepared for a new revolution ; a warning of what men will 
 do and sacrifice for principle when their religious powers and privileges are 
 believed by them to be in danger ; a warning against the notion that the bulk 
 of any nation can regard the church of its faith as an instrument of mere 
 religious police under the direction of the government. A Church must be more 
 than this, or it must presently be nothing : and, because it must be more than 
 this if any thing, it is clear that its alliance with the State can subsist only 
 as long as a spirit of benevolent moderation is devoutly cherished on both 
 sides. 
 
 A singidar incident which occurred during this critical period is an illustra- 
 tion of such a spirit exercised by a High Churchman of eminence. Dr. Hook, 
 Vicar of Leeds, honourably distinguished by a vast sacrifice of patronage to 
 the interests of the Church, was brought into close connexion with the Chartists 
 of the town by the determination of that body to elect churchwardens from 
 their own body. They did so in 1842, and when the election of 1843 was to 
 fsirch^onil"; ^^^^ 5'^^^^°' ^''- Hook declared on the spot that he must say that they were 
 the only body of Churchwardens who had conducted themselves in an honour-
 
 HAP. IX.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 601 
 
 able, straightforward, and gentlemanly manner. They told him fairly that 1839 — 43. 
 
 they differed from him on many points : but declared that, if they undertook 
 
 the office, they would conscientiously strive to discharge its duties. They had 
 
 done so ; and he could not therefore w-ish for better churchwardens, unless 
 
 the persons assembled would let him have some from among the members 
 
 of the Established Church. "Would they do so .' The meeting answered in 
 
 the negative : and when the Vicar read over a list of names, those of the 
 
 Chartists were carried with acclamation : and their election was received with 
 
 a good grace. It must have been a singular scene. 
 
 During this period occasion arose for testing the principles of the Adminis- ?'*-"^'''^'^K'i. 
 tration in regard to religious liberty : an occasion which involved a question 
 of great nicety, and therefore a test of unusual decisiveness. The excitement 
 throughout the kingdom was very strong ; and indeed the controversy about 
 Dissenters' endowments was the prominent one, in connexion with parliament, 
 of 184-i. It was scarcely possible that the Ministers could have foreseen 
 how their proposition would become the basis of a religious movement : but 
 when it did, and when the movement assumed all the violence which belongs 
 to religious movements in critical times, they held their ground calmly and 
 firmly, as protectors of justice, showing throughout a sensibility to religious 
 liberty which won for them such esteem from the enlightened portion of the 
 people as abundantly compensated for the loss of support from the bigotted and 
 the half-informed who made up the Opposition. It was, in fact, a case in 
 which there could not be two opinions among honest men fidly informed of 
 the facts. But a multitude of honest zealots were not fully informed of the 
 facts ; and they carried on a most formidable resistance under a wrong im- 
 pression. The story was this. 
 
 In the reign of Charles II. a certain Lady Hewley left certain manors 
 in York in trust to support " godly preachers of Christ's Holy Gospel." The 
 lady herself had, of course, no idea that a doubt would ever arise as to what 
 sort of " preachers" her bequest was intended to benefit. They must be 
 dissenters ; for the clergy of the Romish and English Churches were never 
 called " preachers" in her time ; and she was well known to be herself a 
 dissenter, and devoted to dissenting interests. Unitarians were not heard of • 
 in her day ; and, if heard of, they would have been called, by Lady Hewley 
 among other Trinitarians, blasphemers, or any thing rather than " godly 
 preachers of Christ's Holy Gospel." But the religious body to which Lady 
 Hewley belonged was that which has since become, by gradual change, the 
 Unitarian body of the present day. Naturally and necessarily, they have 
 baptized their infants and buried their dead in the chapels endowed by Lady 
 Ilewley's fund ; and that fund naturally and inevitably contributed to the 
 support of the young ministers who went forth from the congregations wor- 
 shipping in those chapels. Of late years, however, dissenters sjjrung from a 
 sect to which Lady Hewley did not belong, but wlio conceived tlu^mselves to 
 hold the opinions professed by her when she made her will, thought that their 
 ministers and congi-egations ought to be the recipients of her bequest, and 
 that the Unitarians had forfeited their right to hold it when they relinquished 
 the doctrine which she considered that of "Christ's Holy Gospel." A Ucport 
 of the Charity Commissioners sanctioned the inquiry ; and a bill was filed in 
 
 VOL. II. ^ "
 
 602 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book YI. 
 
 1839—43. Chancery to dispossess the Unitarians. The Judges of the Court decided 
 
 against the Unitarians, who appealed fo the Lords. The Lords required tlie 
 
 opinion of tlie twelve Judges. With the exception of one of their number. 
 
 Annual Rogister, Maule, the Judges were unanimous in their opinion (delivered in June, 1842) 
 
 1812. chion.108. ^^^^^ ^^^^ Unitarians were excluded from the bequest, and that the property 
 
 ought to belong to the Trinitarian Trotestant Dissenters. The Lords, of 
 
 course, afEnned the judgment of the Court of Chancery. After a litigation 
 
 Annual RoKistor. of fourtecu ycars, this decision was pronounced in August 1842. After all 
 
 1S12. thiun. 135. jj, ggjfigd nothing but the exclusion of the Unitarians, and left the property 
 
 unappropriated. 
 
 The difficulties of this case were produced by lapse of time and consequent 
 changes of opinion, and not by fault on any hand : but they were ditficulties 
 of so serious a kind that the government saw the necessity of preventing their 
 perpetual recurrence by an Act which should forbid the unsettlemeut of ancient 
 property, and disorganizing quarrels about such property, on every material 
 change of opinion in religious sects. It was a bad thing that an interest in pro- 
 perty should be directly implicated with particular opinions. It was a bad thing 
 that any sect should be under temptation to covet the property of another. 
 It was a bad thing that an honest change of opinion should involve the penalty 
 of surrendering the graves of ancestors, the old places of family worshii), and 
 all the religious haunts which are at least as dear to nonconformists, whose 
 fathers have suffered for their faith, as the most solemn cathedral and the most 
 venerable ivied church in the country can be to those who worship there. It is 
 bad that, as in the Hewley case, years of litigation should consume funds and irri- 
 tate tempers, and leave a painful doubt at last whether justice can ever be done ; 
 whether, if the holders cannot be said to have a right to the property, it can ever 
 be certainly decided, by any judges on earth, that it ought to be given to any body 
 else. To obviate such mischiefs as these, the government brought a Bill before 
 parliament which should confirm to all religious bodies the possession of the pro- 
 perty which they had held for the preceding twenty years. The Lord Chancellor 
 brought in this Bill ; and though it was opposed by a few Bishops and Lay 
 Hancard, ixxiv. Lords, it passcd tlic Upper House by a considerable majority. During the 
 . debate, however, an agitation had been begun which soon extended to almost 
 every town in England, convoked ]5ublic meetings where violent resolutions 
 were carried, and loaded the table of the House of Commons with as many 
 petitions as had gone up against Sir James Graham's Educational clauses. 
 The reason of the violence was that the Bill was supposed to be devised for 
 the benefit of the Unitarians. The supposition was a mistake : but it was 
 natural enough in persons who were not well informed in regard to some pre- 
 ceding legislation. 
 
 It was not only that Lady Hewley's case had furnished the warning and 
 suggestion on which the Ministerial bill proceeded. The first clause had a 
 special bearing on Unitarian property. In 1813, the exceptions in the Act of 
 Toleration — exceptions which aftected the Unitarians exclusively — were 
 repealed ; and from that time, the Unitarians were as firmly assured in the 
 possession of rehgious trust property as any other sect. But, by an omission, 
 the Act had not been made retrospective ; and therefore, though the property 
 of Unitarians instituted since 1813, was safe, they were at the mercy of litiga-
 
 Chap. IX.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 603 
 
 tion for all that had been iu their hands from an earlier date. The first clause 1839 — 43. 
 of the present Bill went merely to repair this omission : hut the Dissenting ' — — ^^ — ' 
 sects which contemplated cLiimiiig Unitarian property, as in the Ilewley case, 
 made an outcry that government was intercepting property which should soon 
 become theirs, and settling it in preference upon the Unitarians. The matter was 
 clearly explained by the Attorney General, when he introduced the Bill in the y2"fu: '""' 
 Commons on the 6th of June. He showed how, in the case of the Roman 
 Catholics, similar assurance had been made retrospective, as a matter of course; 
 and declared that the present Bill was prepared on the recommendation of the 
 Ecclesiastical Commissioners, and had been supported by all the legal autho- 
 rities in the House of Lords. The Prime Minister's speech was as frank and 
 manly on behalf of justice as the action of his government on the occasion. 
 He had not based his proceeding, he said, on the legal doctrines or historical Hansard, imt. 
 truths brought forward so abundantly in the debate. His feeling was that, 
 if any legal doctrine existed by which chapels held by any class of Dissenters 
 could be taken from them, and given away elsewhere, the first thing to be done 
 was to amend such a legal rule. 
 
 While the clamour was loud throughout the " religious world," as the pe- 
 titioners called themselves, outside the walls of parliament, there was a re- 
 markable preponderance of argument, ability, and political character, within 
 the House in favour of the government Bill ; a preponderance so remarkable 
 as to be observed upon as unexampled by both Sir 11. 1'eel and Lord J. Russell. 
 The votes went with the argument, the majority for the third reading being Hans:ird,ixivi. 
 120 in a House of 282. — Some slight amendments having been made in com- 
 mittee, the Bill was returned to the Lords, when the Bishop of London made 
 another cftbrt to renew the dispute, on the ground that the House of Connuons 
 did not represent the religious opinion of the nation. He did not perceive the 
 danger of his own blindness to the fact, that this was not a question of religious 
 opinion, but of security of property — wliich no one could deny to be the proper 
 business of the House of Commons. Though his endeavour to throw out the 
 Bill was zealously supported by a few peers who shared the miscon- 
 ceptions prevalent out of doors, it was negatived by a majority of Kil in a Hansard, imi. 
 House of 243 ; and the Bill presently became law. From this time, places of 
 worship which were not by the terms of the trust destined unmistakcably for 
 a particular sect, were to remain the property of the body which had held tliera 
 for twenty preceding years : a settlement as conducive to social peace as conso- 
 nant to justice. What the consequences would have been if the Bill had been 
 surrendered to popular clamour, and a mass of dissenting property had been, 
 in effect, thrown to the religious multitude to be scrambled for, iu virtue oi 
 omissions and short-comings of the law, some of the speakers ventured to hint, 
 but none professed to describe. 
 
 Another act of the period, promotive of justice and of social peace, was the R21 iff to j^wj. 
 relief of Jews from municipal disabilities. This relief was the direct act of 
 the govenmient. The Lord Chancellor brought in a Bill, early in the session 
 of 1845, for removing certain tests by which Jews were excluded from some 
 municipal offices, while others remained open to them. Five Jewish gentle- 
 men were at that time magistrates ; some for several counties ; some were 
 deputy-lieutenants, and all miglit be high-sheriff. If they refused to serve the
 
 G04 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book VI. 
 
 1839 — 43. office of sheriff in London, they were subject to a fine : yet they were excluded 
 ""— ^'■^'— ^ from the office of alderman, (which is considered the compensation or rcAvard 
 for having discharged the onerous duties of the shrievalty,) by a clause in the 
 declaration which could be subscribed to only by a Christian ; this clause itself 
 dating only from 1828. In some towns the disability was evaded by manage- 
 ment and subterfuge ; but this did not mend the case. It is scarcely credible 
 how much could be found to be said against a relief so reasonable and necessary 
 as the one proposed ; but the measure was earned with ease, being, as a 
 fanatical member of the Commons House observed, in a state of panic, " com- 
 pletely of a piece with several other measures which had passed the House 
 during the last two sessions." The last two sessions had indeed proved that 
 the existing Administration was inferior to none that had jDreceded it in its 
 enlightened regard for religious liberty.
 
 Chap.X.] :DURING the thirty YEARS' PEACE. G05 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 ■\rEAE. by year the prospect was opening to the British nation of a sufficient 1842—45. 
 
 -*- supply of food ; or, at least, of a supply not artificially restricted. The ' — -^ ' 
 
 harvest of 1842 was abundant. The newspapers, during September of that ockmun.""^ 
 year, tell of " immense quantities " of corn gatlaered in, and of a proportionate 
 production on the continent : and in October, there was a special thanksgiving 
 in all places of worship, thi-oughout the kingdom. But there was an event of 
 even happier promise than the abundant harvest. A letter from Lord Stanley Annual Roidsicr. 
 to the Governor-General of Canada, dated in ^Nlarch of this year, shows that 
 the earnest petitions of the Canadians for the free admission of their com into 
 Great Britain were favourably regarded by the government. The Colonial 
 Secretary granted assent to all the pleas in favour of free trade between Canada 
 and the mother country ; but pointed out that unless Canada chose to impose 
 a duty on the importation of wheat and flour from the United States, Great 
 Britain would in fact be supplied from the United States, via Canada, and 
 the British com laws would become a mere sham. The Channel Islands had 
 been all along permitted to send their agricultural produce free to England, 
 with permission to buy for themselves wherever they could buy cheapest : but 
 they owed this privilege to their small area of production ; and the landed 
 interest would not permit the extension of the liberty to so important a colony 
 as Canada. Such were the explanations with which Lord Stanley accom- 
 panied his news that government was about to lower the duty on Canadian 
 wheat, and to permit the importation of Canadian flour into Ireland. 
 
 The broad hint given in this letter was immediately taken. The Canadians 
 saw that the government at home did not choose to impose new duties on 
 United States' produce imported into Canada ; but that, if the colony herself 
 chose to do so, she might consider the British government pledged to admit 
 her wheat and flour free, or under a merely nominal duty: and a law was 
 passed by the Canadian legislature, without delay, by which American wheat 
 was charged, fi-om the 5th of July, 1843, with a duty of 3s. per quarter. 
 
 So far, all was easy. But the affair was no sooner known in England, than 
 " the landed interest " became extremely restless and anxious. At market- 
 tables, at agricultural meetings, and wherever landlords and famiers met, it 
 was hinted or proclaimed that Ministers were about to let in foreign corn by a 
 back-door, and to sink the corn laws into an empty name. County members 
 were instructed to be on the watch, and to put no lilind trust in the Ministry, 
 till it was seen how this matter would end. The dissatisfaction was so strong 
 as to make the Ministers regret, as the Colonial Secretary avowed, that they 
 had no choice of time about introducing their plan to parliament. As their 
 promise to Canada bound tliem to jjropose their resolutions as early as possiWe, 
 Lord Stanley could only deprecate the agitation, and explain away as much as uanwr.i.Uu.i.;;
 
 G06 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 [Book VI. 
 
 18i2 —45. 
 
 Confusion of 
 Faaties. 
 
 he could of the alarm. No wheat from the United States was to be admitted — 
 only flour made from it ; which Avas as truly a Canadian manufacture as ostrich 
 feathers were a French manufacture. Tlie Canadians might live on United 
 States' wheat, and send us all theirs ; but so they might, at any time for fifteen 
 years — the only difference being that the duty was imposed now on the Ameri- 
 can frontier, instead of on our own shores. If we retained a duty of Is. on 
 Canadian wheat, and the Canadians paid a 3s. duty on United States' wheat, 
 English wheat was still protected by a 4s. duty, which government believed 
 would be an eifectual protection. The change was proposed purely for the 
 benefit of the Canadians, now settling down into a state of peaceful industry; 
 and by no means for any advantage to the British consumer, as against the 
 agriculturist at home. Though this was said very earnestly and ably, and 
 though Lord Stanley had a high character as a protectionist, the British con- 
 sumer did believe that he should be the better for the change, and the British 
 fanner did fear that he should be driven into a competition with the Ameri- 
 cans. The news, with its attendant surmises, crept through the land, kindling 
 hopeful smiles beside many a loom, and within the walls of many a cottage in 
 town and country ; and calling up dread in the mind of many a farmer who 
 pondered how he could pay his rent if he was to be undersold in a shabby way, 
 by an act of the same government which had already altered the Sliding Scale 
 in a spirit of favouritism to the consumer. 
 
 When Lord Stanley proposed his resolutions, he was opposed by some 
 members of the liberal party on the ground that he was establishing a new 
 protection in Canada, and supported by others on the ground that the Cana- 
 dians should be allowed to obtain all the corn they could get. There is no 
 doubt that many votes were secured to the government by the prevalent con- 
 viction of the danger of hurting and irritating the Canadians by annulling 
 one of the first acts of their imited legislature : and, if Lord Stanley's Reso- 
 lutions had been rejected, the necessary consequence would have been the 
 refusal of the Royal Assent to the Canadian Bill. The Resolutions were 
 affirmed by a large majority. The debates in Committee were chiefly remark- 
 able for a confusion of parties such as indicated to impartial persons that a 
 crisis was approaching. As usually happens when such confusion of parties 
 takes place, there was violent recrimination. The Anti-Corn-law Leaguers 
 looked on with deep interest, and perceived that their cause was making rapid 
 advances. In the Upper House, there were also opposite allegations against 
 the measure. It introduced the practice of protection into the Colonies, and 
 must therefore be opposed : and again, it must be opposed because it nullified 
 the Protectionist arrangements of the preceding year. Lord Stanhope de- 
 . clared that these measures were only stepping stones to the general adoption 
 of free-trade principles, which Ministers had consistently avowed ; and others 
 supported or denounced the measure as a recession from free-trade principles. 
 Tiip, HILL PASSED Amidst these contradictions, the Colonial Secretary's Bill passed the stage of 
 Hansard, IXX.G08 debate in the Lords by a majority of 32 in a House of 82, and became law 
 ' without delay. 
 
 By this time, there were large numbers of persons in a state of hope or fear 
 from the conviction that the existing government " had never attempted to 
 conceal," as Lord Stanhope said, " their advance towards the full adoption of 
 
 Hansard, Ixix. 
 747. 
 
 Hansard, Ixx. 57S. 
 
 CouN-L.vw De- 
 bates.
 
 Chap. X.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. G07 
 
 free-trade principles." Throughout the country, the preparations for the crisis 1842 45. 
 
 were proceeding. Everj- parliamentary seat that became vacant was contested ^ ' 
 
 by the Corn-law repealers ; and every word that fell from Ministers and their 
 adherents in either House was watched and pondered. This state of expec- 
 tation gave an interest to the Corn-law debates which would otherwise have 
 been utterly wearisome, from the lack of novelty, and the preponderance of 
 argument on one side. In Marcli, Mr. Ward moved, unsuccessfully, for a "■•"■^''rd, ixvh 
 committee to inquire whether there were any peculiar burdens on land, and if 
 so, what they were : and in May, Mr. Villiers brought forward liis annual 
 motion for a Committee of the whole House, to consider the operation of the 
 corn-importation duties, with a view to their immediate abolition. The iiansani, i.vix. 
 government declined further change while their last Slidingscale was new and ' ~ '"' 
 untried ; the Whig leaders and their adherents desired a fixed duty ; and the 
 Protectionists were awake and active in opposition to the motion, yet the ma- 
 jority by which it was rejected was much less than in the preceding year ; 
 the numbers being in 1842, 393 to 90; and now, 381 to 125. In 1844, the 
 majority on the same occasion again sank to 204; and the Protectionists began H^msani, ixxr. 
 to calculate how long their Corn law could be preserved if their majority con- 
 tinued to sink at the rate of 50 in a year. The Ministers, this time as before, 
 said that their new scale was not yet proved a failure, and that, till it was, 
 ihey would countenance no change. Sir R. Peel said that as he had before nansani, ixxr. 
 declared, so he would declare still, that the government had not contemplated, '''""'" 
 and did not now contemplate, any change in that Corn law which wassettledtwo 
 years since : but now, as before, he guarded himself against being understood 
 to mean that he would at all times, and under all circumstances, resist change ; 
 because that was a thing which no man ought to say on any matter of the 
 kind. Lord J. Russell declined voting, on the ground that he was equally 
 unwilling to have things go on as they were, and to throw ojien the trade in 
 corn. Adhering to his own proposal of a fixed duty of 8s. he would not vote 
 for anv alternative. He was deserted now, however, by Lord Howick, who 
 avowed himself an advocate of immediate repeal, as compromise was no lonarer Hansard, ix^v. 
 possible. He saw that industry was inadequately rewarded — that both wages 
 and profits were low — and that these results were mainly owing to restrictions 
 on the importation of food. This was a remarkable fact ; and there were 
 other remarkable facts connected with this debate ; but none of them, sepa- 
 rately or collectively, were so notable as the line of defence taken by the Pro- 
 tectionists. Their speeches were almost wholly occupied by complaints or 
 denunciations of the Anti-Corn-law League. 
 
 The change within three years was indeed great. On the 25th of August, 1841. 
 1841, after the general election, and a few days before the resignation of the 
 Whig Cabinet, in the course of the debate on the Address, in answer to the 
 Queen's Speech, the People's tale was for the first time fully and properly told 
 in parliament. Mr. C^obden had been sent up to the House as representative Kui.ai... v.mmH 
 of the bread-winners of the kingdom ; and, on the first occasion of liis rising, 
 he told the story in a way which fixed the attention of every thoughtful ob- 
 server of the times. When the daily pa]iers of the 26th of August had 
 reached their destinations throughout the island, there were meditative stu- 
 dents, anxious invalids in their sick-chambers, watchful philosophers, and
 
 608 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book VI. 
 
 240. 
 
 1842—45. a host of sufFereis from want, who felt that a new era in the liistory of 
 England liad opened, now that the People's tale had at last heen told in the 
 People's House of Parliament. Such observers as these, and multitudes more, 
 asked of all who could tell them who this Richard Cohden was, and what he 
 was like : and the answer was that he was a member of a calico-printing finn 
 in Manchester ; that it was supposed that he would be an opulent man if he pro- 
 secuted business as men of business usually do; but that he gallantly sacrificed 
 the pursuit of his own fortune, and his partners gallantly spared him to the 
 public, for the sake of the great cause of Coru-law repeal— his experience, his 
 liberal education, and his remarkable powers, all indicating hun as a fitting 
 leader in the enterprise. It was added that his countenance was grave, his 
 manner simple and earnest, his eloquence plain, ready, and forcible, of a kind 
 eminently suited to his time and his function, and wholly new in the House 
 of Commons. It was at once remarked that he was not treated in the House 
 Avith the courtesy usually accorded to a new member : and it was perceived 
 that he did not need such observance. However agreeable it might have been 
 to him, he did not expect it from an assemblage proud of " the preponderance 
 of the landed interest" within it; and he could do without it. Some who 
 had least knowledge of the operative classes, and the least sympathy for them, 
 were touched by the simplicity and manliness with which the new member 
 received the jeers which followed his detailed statements of the proportion of 
 the bread duty paid by men who must support their families on 10s. a-week. 
 
 Hansard. Ux. 23(5, " He did not know," he said, " whether it was the monstrous injustice of 
 the case, or the humble individual wlio stated it, that excited this manifesta- 
 tion of feeling, but still, he did state that the nobleman's family paid to this 
 bread-tax but one half-penny in every 100/. as income-tax, while the efiect 
 of the tax upon the labouring man's family was 20 per cent ....... 
 
 He had lately had an opportunity of seeing a report of the state of our labour- 
 ing population in all parts of the country. Probably Honourable Gentlemen 
 were aware that a very important meeting had been lately held at Manchester : 
 he alluded to the meeting of ministers of religion. (A laugh.) He understood 
 that laugh ; but he should not pause in his statement of facts, but might 
 perhaps notice it before concluding. He had seen a body of ministers of reli- 
 gion of all denominations — 650 (and not thirty) in number — assembled from 
 all parts of the country, at an expense of from three to four thousand pounds, 
 paid by their congregations. At that meeting most important statements of 
 facts were made relating to the conchtion of the labouring classes. He would 
 not trouble the House by reading those statements ; but they showed that in 
 every district of the country . . . the condition of the great body of lier Majesty's 
 labouring population had deteriorated wofuUy within the last ten years, and 
 more especially within the last three years ; and that in proportion as the 
 price of food increased, in the same proportion the comforts of the working classes 
 had diminished. One word with respect to the manner in which his allusion to 
 this meeting was received. He did not come there to vindicate the conduct of 
 these Christian men in having assembled in order to take this subject into 
 consideration. The parties Avho had to judge them were their own congrega- 
 tions. There were at that meeting members of the Established Church, of 
 the Church of Rome, Independents, Baptists, members of the Church of Scot-
 
 Chap. X.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 609 
 
 land, and of the Secession Church, Methodists, and indeed ministers of evciy 1842 45. 
 
 other denomination ; and if he were disposed to impugn the character of those 
 divines, he felt he should be casting a stigma and a reproach upon the great 
 body of professing Clmstians in this country. He happened to be the only 
 member of tlie House present at that meeting ; and he might be allowed to 
 state that when he heard the talcs of misery there described, when he heard 
 these jSlinisters declare that members of their congregations were kept away 
 from places of worship during the morning service, and only crept out under 
 cover of the darkness of night — when they described others as unfit to receive 
 spiritual consolation, because they were sunk so low in physical destitution 
 — that the attendance at Sunday schools was falling off — when he heard these 
 and such like statements — when he who believed that the Corn laws, the 
 jjrovision monoijoly, was at the bottom of all that was endured, heard those 
 statements, and from such authority, he must say that he rejoiced to see gen- 
 tlemen of such cliaracter come forward, and like Nathan, when he addressed 
 tlie owner of flocks and herds wlio had plundered the poor man of his only 
 lamb, say unto the doer of injustice, whoever he might be, ' Thou art the 
 man.' The people, through their Ministers, had protested against the Corn 
 laws. Those laws had been tested by the immutable morality of Scripture. 
 Those Reverend Gentlemen had prepared and signed a petition, in which they 
 prayed the removal of those laws — laws which, they stated, violated the 
 Scriptures, and prevented famishing children from having a portion of those 
 fatherly bounties which were intended for all people ; and he would remind 
 Honourable Gentlemen that, besides these 650 ministers, there were 1500 
 others from whom letters had been received, offering up their prayers in their 
 several localities to incline the will of Him who ruled princes and potentates 
 to turn your hearts to justice and mercy. When they found so many ministers 
 of religion, without any sectarian differences, joining heart and hand in a 
 
 gi-eat cause, there could be no doubt of their earnestness Englishmen had 
 
 a respect for rank, for wealth, perhaps too much ; they felt an attachment to 
 the laws of their country ; but there was another attribute in the minds of 
 Englishmen — there was a permanent veneration for sacred things ; and where 
 their sympathy and respect and deference were enlisted in what they believed 
 to be a sacred cause, 'you and yours,' declared the speaker, addressing the pro- 
 tectionists, ' will vanish like chaff before the whirlwind.' " Much of this speech 
 relating to the great meeting of religious ministers at ]Manchester, and its 
 tone being determined accordingly, some of the laughing members of the 
 House called IMr. Cobden a Methodist parson, and were astonished afterwards 
 to find what his abilities ^^'ere in widely different directions. Some regarded him 
 as a pledged radical in politics, and were surprised to see him afterwards veri- 
 fying the assurances he gave this niglit — that he belonged to no party, and, as 
 a simple free-trader, would support either the Whigs or Sir 11. Peel, whichever 
 of them should go furthest in repealing the restrictions on food. Almost every 
 body regarded him as a representative of the Manchester manufacturers, as an 
 embodiment of cotton-spinning, and therefore as the sworn foe of the landed 
 interest: but it appeared in due course that he was the son of a Sussex 
 farmer ; that he understood and had at heart the interests of agriculture ; and 
 that he could enlighten and guide and aid the farming class and their labourers 
 VOL. II. "^ '
 
 TiiG Leaoue. 
 
 ei2. 
 
 610 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book VI. 
 
 1842 — 45. fill- better than those wlio assumed to be their special friends and protectors. 
 In proportion as Mr. Cobden's influence rose and spread in the League and in 
 the country, the agitation against the Corn laws included more and more of 
 the landed interest, and was less and less distinctive of the manufacturing 
 districts and poprdation. Meantime, from this 25th of August, 1841, there 
 wore members of the landed aristocracy who watched Mr. Cobden's course 
 with an interest beyond that of curiosity, declaring that this, his first address 
 to the House — an address which he supposed to be the simplest possible state- 
 ment of a very simple matter — was " a great speech." 
 1843. By the spring of 1843, how changed was the tone of the House! There was 
 
 no laughing now at or about the Lancashire leaguers : but instead, a rueful 
 complaint from IMr. Bankes, as spokesman for " the landed interest," of their 
 activity and power in the country. " As to matters affecting those who, like 
 
 Hansard, ixvii. himsolf," Said Mr. Bankes, " desired to live quietly and safely among their 
 tenantry in the country, the Ministry had not the power of knowing, as he and 
 other gentlemen in the country had, the enormous extent of mischief which 
 might be produced — which was attempted to be produced — at this present time, 
 
 by the emissaries of this League He had no reason to seek for any 
 
 ministerial support in the county which he represented ; but he looked to 
 Ministers for the peace of his private life — for the comfort, happiness, and 
 welfare, of the peasantry who lived around him. He looked to them to drive 
 away, by some means or other, this new mode of sending emissaries through- 
 out the country — paid emissaries ; for such were avowed and boasted of by 
 the Honourable IMcmber for Stockport (]Mr. Cobden). It was of this he 
 complained ; and it was from this he entreated the government to protect the 
 country ; as one of their foUow-citizens, as a faithful and dutiful subject of the 
 Crown, he asked, he besought, he demanded, this at the hands of her Majesty's 
 Ministers." 
 
 It need not be said that Mr. Bankes's demand was in vain. Ours is not a 
 country, nor an age, in which government can stop inquiries into the rate of 
 Avages and the condition of the labom'er, or interfere with the publication of 
 the results. As is always the case when monopolies are about to be destroyed, 
 the advocates of monopoly in this instance mistook the movement for an 
 attack upon their fortunes, and an interference with their private affairs. 
 The League leaders were always anxious to learn — ready to receive sug- 
 gestions and instructions from their foes ; and from this it was that their 
 agents were abroad at this time, in the agricidtural counties. At first, the 
 movement was regarded as one of the manufacturers exclusively ; and at first 
 perhaps it was so. It was originated in Lancashire — its head-quarters were 
 at Manchester— and its funds were mainly supplied by " the cotton lords" of 
 the district. They were taunted with a sordid regard to their own interest, 
 and charged with a desire to sacrifice the peasantry of the country to their 
 own ends. Their daily-improving knowledge of the operation of the Corn 
 laws was rapidly teaching them much more than they had ever dreamed of, 
 of the fatal influence of those laws on the condition of the agricultural 
 labourer: and they now resolved to ascertain the facts of the state of the 
 peasantry in the southeni counties, and to publish them, week by week, in 
 their newspaper. Though they, and all other political economists knew, as
 
 Chap. X] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. CU 
 
 the very alphabet of their science, that the employers of labour do not fix the lSi2— 45. 
 wages of labour, they were aware that their opponents did not yet understand 
 this ; and they therefore lost no opportunity of saying t"\ ery where, from the 
 House of Commons down to the Iiumblest open air gathering, that it was 
 tire Corn laws and other irresistible influences, and not the landowners, that 
 made wages so low. Yet, every gentleman on the Protectionist side, whose 
 labourers were starving on 7s. or Ss. per week, resented the publication of 
 the fact, as an imputation on his humanity. It was not this that was the 
 gToimd of imputation ; but the carelessness, or prejudice, or neglect of duty, 
 which made these gentry extol the condition of their wretched dependents, 
 and resent all inquiry into it, and all efforts to improve it. There is material 
 in that singular newspaper, the ' League,' which can be found no where else, 
 for a history of the condition of the people prior to the release of agriculture 
 from so-called Protection. Agents of good business-habits, knowledge, and 
 power of observation, were sent on journeys through counties where they 
 paused at every step, noted the condition of every field, fence, farm-yard, and 
 cottage, for miles together ; and the evidence thus afforded of bad tillage, and 
 every kind of waste, of overweening rents, uncertain profits, and wages 
 reduced below the point of possible maintenance, is such as a future genera- 
 tion could not believe, if offered in a less unquestionable fonn. On one 
 nobleman's estate, the poor labourers were punished by being turned to road- 
 labour for having answered the questions of a League agent, and admitted 
 him into tlieir hovels, where he noted the holes in the thatch, and the puddles 
 in the floor, and witnessed the destitution of food. The League, from that 
 moment, changed its method of procuring the same kind of information — 
 publishing the fact that in no case detailed by them was the information 
 obtained from the sufferers themselves ; and on they went with their disclo- 
 sures. The further they proceeded, the more they confirmed the statements 
 of the 2000 ministers of religion who prayed in their churches and chapels 
 for equal laws and daily bread for all. 
 
 But the League leaders not only sent agents through the agricultural dis- 
 tricts : they went there themselves. As soon as the House rose, jMr. Cobden 
 was down upon the southern and midland counties, holding meetings on 
 market-days, and arguing the question against all comers with singular success. 
 We find, in glancing over the newsi)apcrs of the time, that his opponents 
 were usually elaborately prepared — their loudest speakers put forward — 
 their resolutions or amendments well pondered — their posse of supporters well 
 placed on the gTound ; but too often, we find them, when bafliled, and perceiv- 
 ing the audience going against them, losing temper, seizing the waggons, or 
 drowning the voices of the speakers by clamour. Rapidly, there was an ac- 
 cession of farmers to the League ; and some of them became League speakers. 
 More rapidly than ever before, intelligence began to spread among the dull 
 and de]nossed labouring class. They found light cast upon their condition; 
 they heard reasonings which they understood ; they found that what they had 
 suspected was really true— that their interests were not identical with those of 
 the receivers of rent, though it was true that they ought to be. They under- 
 stood that they and their em])l()yers, the farmers, were the " agricultural 
 interest" which the League desired to restore to prosperity ; and not the land-
 
 612 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book VI. 
 
 1842 — 45. owners; the lancloAvners being, as Mr. Cobden told them, no more agiicultur- 
 
 " ""~ — ists than shipowners were sailors. By means of exercising the minds of the 
 
 labouring classes on affairs interesting to them, and within their compre- 
 hension, the League leaders did more for popular education than has, as yet, 
 been achieved by any other means. A circumstance less worthy of note is 
 that, as the weeks and months passed on, we see more and more of county 
 magistrates, of landowners, of noblemen, and members of parliament, attend- 
 ing on the hustings, and joining their efforts with those of the League leaders. 
 — And next, we arrive at notices of meetings of agricultural associations, and 
 other bodies, where members of the government are found speaking. Their 
 theme is always the backward state of agriculture, and the necessity of ad- 
 vancing it, in order to enable the country to produce its own food, and be inde- 
 pendent of the foreigner. The hearers regularly appear anxious to be told 
 about tenures — to know what their rulers thought about leases — about the se- 
 curity the tenant might hope for, if he should be willing to lay out capital in 
 the improvement of his laud : and as regularly tliey appear to have been dis- 
 appointed. Amidst a great deal that is very interesting about drainiijg and 
 fencing, and an improved farming economy in every way, notliing seems to 
 have been ever said about rents and leases. Yet, it was unwise to leave these 
 topics to be dealt with exclusively by the League. It was natural that men 
 should watch the movements of the Prime Minister in relation to such mat- 
 ters at such a time ; and a speech of his at the Tamworth town-hall, at the 
 meeting of a farmers' club, in October, 1843, was read and commented on all 
 
 Spectator, 1843, ovcr the couutry. It spoke of leases. After urging on the farmers to improve 
 tlieir knowledge and skill, and offering to procure them means of information. 
 Sir R. Peel avowed his willingness to grant leases to any tenant of his own who 
 should desire one, and could show that he was able and willing to improve the 
 land. The speech conveyed everywhere a strong impression that it was spoken 
 with the earnestness belonging to a critical season; that the speaker believed 
 the improvement of agriculture to be the only ground of hope of better times 
 for the landed interests. But there was a paragraph at the end which fixed 
 attention more than all the rest. The vicinity of Birmingham was pointed out 
 as a capital advantage to the Leicestershire f;irmers, as affording a market for 
 their produce ; and notliing could be more clear than the assertion of the 
 Prime Minister, that the interests of agi-iculture and manufactures are insepa- 
 rably united, and that whatever supports the vigour of manufactures must open 
 markets, and keep up the demand for agricultural produce. This doctrine is 
 simple and clear enough ; but it was then League doctrine, and absolutely 
 opposite to that taken for granted by the Protectionists ; and it excited a 
 proportionate sensation when given forth by the head of the Adminis- 
 tration. 
 
 A month after this, the League met in Manchester, to offer evidence of 
 much-increased boldness and power. Last year, they had easily raised 50,000^., 
 to be employed in the diffusion of knowledge in relation to the corn laws : 
 
 ibij. p. 1083 they now resolved to raise 100,000/. ; and six persons stepped forwards in- 
 stantly to offer 500/. each, and forty-two gave, on the spot, sums between that 
 amount and 100/. Before the meeting closed, nearly 13,000/. were subscribed. 
 The money was needed for other purposes than the diffusion of information. 
 
 i
 
 613 
 
 Chap. X.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE, 
 
 For five years, the League had petitioned the Sovereign and the parliament : 1842- 
 
 and now the}- thought it time to address themselves to those who made the " ' 
 
 parliament. They turned to the electors, and pledged themselves to be pre- 
 sent and active at every election, and to contest every borough, till a parlia- 
 ment should be obtained which should repeal the corn laivs. They had good 
 reason for confidence in this course ; for they had just carried the City of Lon- lomios elec 
 don. Mr. Baring had been rejected for Mr. Pattison, the free-trade candidate ; """' 
 and an analysis of the votes had clearly shown that it was the casting vote of 
 the League (between the Conservatives and the Whigs) which had decided the 
 election. . And herein lay another evidence of the readiness of the Lea-'ue to 
 take advice from its enemies, and profit by their taunts. Li parliament, from 
 the time the League was first mentioned there, till the thing could be said no 
 longer, we find speaker after speaker saying that the League had no influence 
 in London, and could make no impression there. The League admitted to 
 itself that it had far too little influence in Loudon ; and it resolved to try whe- 
 ther it could make an impression in that stronghold of monopoly. Tlie West 
 India interest was there : the Canada interest was there ; and the Shipping 
 interest, and every thing that shrank from thorough-going free trade. These 
 made London very difficult to gain : but, till London was gained, the aim 
 could not be accomplished. 
 
 Associations were formed there, and district meetings held : but the area was 
 too large to be conquered by such a method of attack. Weekly meetings of 
 the aggregate London societies were held at the Crown and Anchor : but pre- 
 sently the Crown and Anchor would not hold half that came ; and the re- 
 markable step was taken of engaging Drury Lane theatre for the Wednesday 
 evening meetings. The first was held there on the 15th of March, 1843. The spci.itor, isia, 
 tickets were all gone on the Tuesday afternoon ; and the theatre was crowded 
 in every part. Probably, London will never witness a stranger spectacle 
 than that which might now, for above two years, be seen ; of one or other 
 of the great theatres crowded from the floor to the roof by a multitude 
 who came, week by week, to hear, for many hours together, nothing but po- 
 litical economy, all bearing on one point — the repeal of an obnoxious law. 
 The interest, the emotion, the passion, aroused and demonstrated equalled, 
 and even transcended, all that had ever been manifested, when poetry, 
 instead of dry science, occupied the scene. It is true, the speaking was 
 most able and very various ; and no deeper tragedies were ever presented 
 there than some which wore related as happening close at hand and every day, 
 through an artificial restriction of food : but still, the audience Mont to hear 
 political economy and statistics ; and were so roused by appeals based on facts 
 and figures that the cheering was at times almost maddening. None could 
 mock and deride who had ever been there ; but many did — even the Prime 
 Minister himself — wliile the thing was new, and regarded as a dap-trap, in- 
 stead of what it really was — the most effectual way of rapidly diffusing infor- 
 mation, and exciting the spirit of enterprise needed for the proposed refonn. 
 The result appeared in the City election of the next November : and from 
 that time, we read of fewer jests, and of more appeals to government to " put 
 down the League." It is needless to say that an association organized to
 
 614 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 [Book VI. 
 
 1842 — 45. ottain the repeal of an Act of Parliament, by means of a diffusion of infor- 
 
 ' ■ ' mation among electors especially, and every body else afterwards, could not 
 
 be /'put down:" and, from the time that the City of London elected a 
 League candidate, and such landowners and agriculturists as Lord Fitzwilliam 
 and Lord Spencer avowed themselves converts to League doctrines — all of 
 which happened before the end of 1843 — no Minister could listen for a mo- 
 ment to the frantic entreaties of the Protectionists that their enemy might 
 be crushed before their eyes. Like Mr. Bankes, they " asked " they " besought," 
 they "demanded," this of Ministers; but Ministers could only be silent, and 
 leave the great Association to pursue its strictly legal course. And among the 
 Leaguers might now be found a man whose name was enough to make the 
 owners of property pause before they assailed the Association of which he 
 had become a member. Mr. Samuel Jones Loyd, the banker, who had more 
 interest in the security of property, and more knowledge how to secure it, 
 than almost any other man in the City of London, had, in October, sent a 
 
 Spectator, 1843, 
 II. <J8G. 
 
 Annual Register, 
 1843, Chrun. 53. 
 
 Spci-tator, 1843, 
 pp. 0, 30. 
 
 letter to the League Council, 
 
 in which he intimated that he felt it right to 
 
 overcome his reluctance to join any public body for whose acts he could not 
 be responsible : " The time is now arrived," he wrote, " when this must be 
 over-ruled by other considerations of overwhelming importance. The great 
 question of free trade is now fairly at issue ; and the bold, manly and effectual 
 efforts which have been made by the League in its support command at once 
 my admii-ation and my concurrence." 
 
 An incident is related in the Chronicles of the year which, as it strongly 
 excited curiosity within the Cabinet, as well as elsewhere, may be hoped to 
 have led to some consideration of the effect upon conscience of laws too bad 
 to be observed. LTnder the head " Remarkable case of Conscience," we find 
 that a man who had given in an honest return of the profits of his regular 
 business, in paying his income tax, had become conscience-stricken afterwards 
 at having paid no tax on his income from smuggling ; and that he therefore 
 sent to the Chancellor of the Exchequer 1 4,000/. as due on three years' profits. 
 There is no appearance of his having any pain of conscience about smuggling, 
 even to the enormous amount thus indicated, while so sensitive about paying 
 a tax of which his mind approved. The most searching inquiries failed to 
 discover who was the owner of a conscience in so instructive a condition : and 
 the Ministers were left with a lesson which some of them were beginning 
 hardly to need. — A more trifling anecdote evidences the feverishness of the 
 time about the opinions of the Premier on trade in corn. A Manchester manu- 
 facturer sent to Sir R. Peel two pieces of velveteen of a new and beautiful 
 fabric, the device on which ^\as " a stalk and ear of wheat, grouped, or rather 
 thrown together very tastefully, with a small scroll peeping from beneath, 
 bearing the word 'free.'" Sir R. Peel sent "a handsome letter" of thanks 
 and acceptance. 'The Times' related the transaction: the 'Standard' did 
 the same, omitting all about the wheat ears and the scroll. The ' Morning 
 Post ' was scandalized at both, and the Minister's acceptance of the gift. 
 The quarrel attracted the Minister's eye afresh to the velveteen, when he saw 
 the scroll, and immediately returned the present, with an explanation that he 
 had been unaware that " any matters which were the subject of public con- 
 troversy " were concerned in the transaction. The manufacturer, on his part.
 
 Chap. X.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS" PEACE. 615 
 
 disclaimed any intention of embarrassing the Minister, and imblished the cor- 1842—45. 
 respondence, to allay the jealousy which liad been excited. ' 
 
 In 1844, the efforts of the League became more distasteful than ever to their 1844. 
 opponents. They took the registration in hand ; and were soon able to give rnlrZ''^""- 
 a precise account of 140 boroughs. No one could reasonably object to this 
 part of the enterprise, as it was a method open to every party. It was made 
 known to the hearers at the League meetings that there was no occasion ever 
 to despair of the regeneration of any borough ; and that it would be wrong to 
 regard any as in a fixed condition of opinion. The constituency was renewed 
 at the rate of from 10 to 15 per cent, annually, and was w^holly changed in 
 ten years. There was, therefore, every encouragement to strive to enhghten 
 and inspirit the constituencies. It was by this time certain that a great acces- 
 sion of free-traders would be found in the House after the next election ; and 
 this, joined to the ftict of the great changes within the House, shown by the 
 decrease of the majorities against Mr. Villiers's annual motion, indicated that 
 the final struggle could not be very far off. But prospects of hifinitely greater 
 importance were now opening — prospects of such vastness that the Leaguers 
 themselves did not (as they have since saidj by any means perceive the extent 
 of their new enterprise. Their study of tlie boroughs led them to the con- 
 templation of the counties, where their foes' chief strength lay; and that con- 
 templation led Mr. Cobden to the discovery of a remedy for the false represen- 
 tation, or the non-representation of the bulk of the nation, by which the jjolity 
 of Groat Britain will be affected, probably down to the remotest posterity. 
 
 The operation of the Reform Bill was injured, and well nigli ruined, freehold laxu 
 by the Chandos clause. By this clause, which favoured the landowners by *'""'"'^' 
 admitting their tenants-at-will on easy terms to the franchise, a great number 
 of votes could be fabricated, by the putting together many partners in a tenaucj-- 
 at-\vill. Brothers, sons, uncles, and every kind of relative, were made partners, 
 and had votes under this clause : and thus, in the agricrdtnral districts, the voters 
 weva one in twenty-two; and "the landed interest" gained the counties, while 
 in the manufacturing districts of Ijancashire, the voters were only one in eighty 
 of the inhabitants. In West Surrey, the voters were one to 26 : and in Mid- 
 dlesex, one to 115. In considering how to lessen this prodigious inequality, and 
 give a fair share of the representation to South Lancashire and the manufac- 
 turing districts of Yorkshire, ]SIr. Cobden found that the requisite power lay 
 in the Reform Bill itself — in the Forty-shilling freehold clause. Upon inquiry, 
 it appeared that a house, tlie possession of which wordd confer the francliise, 
 might be had for from 30/. to 40/. : and it was clear that a world of difliculty 
 and expense might be saved by the League undertaking all tlie part of the 
 business which the artisan can least manage for himself If the Ivcague opened 
 books for the registration of land and houses on sale, surveyed the property, 
 prepared the conveyance deeds, and, in short, left to the purchaser nothing to 
 do but to choose his property, pay for it, and take possession, there could be 
 no doubt of the readiness of a host of artisans and operatives to invest their 
 savings in this secure and honourable kind of property, rather than in any 
 other mode. The plan was innnediately set on foot : and before the year was 
 out, the spectacle might be seen, so ardently desired by many philanthropists, 
 of numbers of the working class in possession of a plot of land and a house of
 
 G16 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book YI. 
 
 1842 — 45. tlieir ovv'ii ; — having, as conservative politicians have been wont to say, "a stake 
 ■'"^■^"'^ in the country." It was well to provide for coming county elections ; it was 
 
 well to neutralize the vicious operation of the Chandos clause : but it was a far 
 greater thing to have recurred to the benefit of making our working classes 
 citizens indeed by giving them the power of holding house or land by means 
 of theii' own earnings : and to do this by a method suited to the time, and to 
 the existing state of our civilization — not by tempting them to depend on the 
 land for subsistence ; but only as an investment for their savings, after main- 
 taining themselves by the species of labour which the time rcquii^es. A natural 
 apprehension was widely expressed at first that the landowners would cut up 
 their estates, as the Irish landlords had formerly done, and that the county 
 constituencies would thus become depraved by the admission of mere creatures 
 of the proprietors to the suffrage : but, as Mr. Villiers was at pains to explain, 
 it was now too late for tliis to be done to any great extent. The landowners 
 had already done their utmost ; and in a very large proportion of cases, the 
 land which was nominally tlieir om'u was not really so. They had ^v•orked the 
 Chandos clause of the Reform Bill to the utmost ; and now they must leave 
 to others the working of the Forty-shilling freehold clause. The event, as far 
 as it can be judged of at tliis day, seems to have proved that the Leaguers 
 were right. They soon turned the scale in some of the counties ; and the 
 operation has been continued, with still increasing vigour, to this hour. The 
 working men of the Midland Counties, who had nothing to do with the 
 League in its day, have learned from it to invest their savings in the best 
 way, and obtain political privileges at the same time; and the prodigious 
 extent of tlieir associations for the purpose enables them to conduct the 
 business, and acquire their freeholds, at a less cost than ]\Ir. Cobden himself 
 could have dreamed of Avheu he propounded his plan. Freeholds are now 
 obtained by thousands at the rate of 19/. each : and the working men of the 
 midland towns who can invest this sum from their earnings, to obtain political 
 privileges, are a class of the constituency that every true statesman and lover 
 of his country will welcome to the exercise of their rights. 
 Tme Game Jjj jj^g (.Q^-gg q£ ilieiv iuquirics and action, the Leaguers discovered that the 
 
 Game laws were of more importance, and more deadly injury, than even the 
 best-informed of them had been at all aware. They found that the law, 
 which bears an appearance of impartiality — the law that the game on any 
 land is the property of the occupier, unless he chooses to part with it — is 
 utterly unavailing under the existing competition for farms. The competing 
 farmers allowed the landlords to make any arrangement they pleased about 
 the game, hoping that the hares and pheasants would, accoi'ding to the pro- 
 mise of the landlord, not be allowed to increase to an injurious extent : a trust 
 which was almost invariably found to be misplaced. The distress from this 
 cause which came to their knowledge ; — the discovery that throughout the 
 agricultural counties the expenditure of the peasantry was certainly larger than 
 their apparent receipts, indicating a prevalence of poaching ; — the spectacle 
 of jails over-crowded with prisoners, of whom the largest proportion were there 
 for game offences ; — and the actual sight of hundreds of acres of produce 
 destroyed by game ; — these things pointed out the Game laws as a subject of 
 1845. attack to the League; and Mr. Bright obtained, in 1845, a Committee which
 
 Chap. X.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. (JlT 
 
 sat in two sessions. The sporting interest is too strong in parliament to 1842—45. 
 
 permit the dne results to follow from the evidence obtained : but the informa- "-^- ' 
 
 tion was not lost. Its purport was terrible beyond all expectation. It told 
 that the direct waste of food through the ravages of game was equal in amount 
 to the Income tax. It told of distress caused to the farmers in all degrees, 
 from an irritating diminution of profits down to causing utter ruin, as in the 
 ease of an honest farmer (an example of a common case), who was thus 
 reduced, in spite of the most strenuous efforts, from being a capitalist, down, 
 by niournful degrees, to the station of a labourer at 10-s. a week. It told of 
 oppression on the part of sporting magistrates, and of unlimited opportunity 
 for such oppression. It told of fearful demoralization in town as well as coun- 
 try, from the transactions connected with the sale of game. It told of tlie 
 rousing of social and political discontents, in places where the hungering poor 
 saw how much human food was devoured by hai-es and birds, and who felt 
 how irreconcileable were the interests ot the peasantry and the magistracy in 
 regard to game. There was no need that it should tell of murders ; for the 
 newspapers of the day made known that part of the horror of the case. In 
 January, 1844, a gamekeeper of Lord Grantley's, the father of seven children. Annual Re- st<T, 
 was lound murdered by poachers. In March, a man named Lowther had a iwi chron.:i. 
 double certificate fine upon him, and thought, in his diificulty, of taking some 
 of Lord Normanby's pheasants, wherewith to pay his fine. Being met, he 
 shot Lord Normanby's keeper : and being tried, he was found guilty of murder. 
 But these, and all lesser cases of injury, were unhappily of too common an 
 order to produce much effect on the public mind. The event of the year, in 
 regard to game catastrophes, was one which found its way to the hearts, and 
 troubled the minds, even of some parliamentary sportsmen. The Earl of 
 Stradbroke was well known as a strict game-preserver ; and his conspicuous 
 advocacy of all stringent game-law provisions in the House of Lords prevented 
 
 anv nristake about his views. We find him, in June of this ve<iv, m-gins iimsard, Isxt. 
 
 . . ° ijj. 
 
 amendments on the Bill for the Preservation of Game by night — provisions 
 
 for making more stringent a law already intolerably oppressive ; and in 
 August, the kingdom was shocked by the news that two of Lord Stradbroke's *''"^""^' '^■'^• 
 gamekeepers had committed suicide, on two successive days. From the evi- 
 dence on the inquest it appeared that the poachers had done much mischief in 
 the preserves, and that Easy, the first suicide, fell into despondency, on hearing 
 that Lord Stradbroke was coming down for the 1st of September. On the 
 eve of that day, he shot himself through the mouth. The superintendent 
 keeper, Cucksey, was supposed to take alarm lest he should be discovered to 
 have removed pheasants' eggs from Easy's portion of the preserves, to make a 
 better appearance in his own ; and he shot himself the next day. Some little 
 difference of tone is to be observed among legislators after this occurrence ; a 
 somewhat less stern assertion that the game Mas theirs, and that they would 
 do what they chose with their own ; — a somewhat less virulent denunciation 
 of the peasantry for helping themselves to wild creatures which they can 
 never be made to regard as property, and for yielding to a temptation too 
 strong for flesh and blood. — For some time past, it had been rumoiu'cd that 
 the Home Secretary was looking closely into the commitments for poaching 
 voT.. II. 4 k
 
 1642 
 
 618 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book VI. 
 
 1842—40. offences, all over the country, to ascertain their legality; and some persons 
 
 ■ ' even ventured to anticipate a proposal from the government for the complete 
 
 Hansard, ixxvL rcvision of the game laws. — In August, we find Lord Lilford saying in the 
 Upper House that much observation had been occasioned by the Home Secre- 
 tary having required from the governor of Northampton jail a return of sum- 
 mary convictions under the Game Act in that county; and Lord Lilford 
 inquired of Lord Wharncliffe whether it was intended to cast any imputation 
 on the magistrates of the shire. The reply was that every county had been 
 visited with the same requisition, because it was known to government that 
 o-reat irregularities had occurred in the management of such cases. The evi- 
 dence of the Under Secretary for the Home Department, before Mr. Bright's 
 Committee in the next spring, disclosed such abundant reason for this inquiry 
 that we do not wonder at hearing of no more resentment on behalf of magis- 
 trates. So many of the mere commitments were illegal that the Home Secre- 
 tarv made a jail-delivery of game offenders, extensive enough to render it 
 prudent for tlie magistrates and their champions to drop the subject. When- 
 ever the administration of justice in rural districts becomes a subject for legis- 
 lation, as Municipal Reform has been in our time, the evidence of Mr. S. 
 March Phillips, Under Secretary for the Home Department, before Mr. Bright's 
 Game Law Committee, will suffice to show what that administration was up 
 to 1845. 
 
 In the same August which brought the siibject of the Game laws so often 
 before the public, the ' jNIorning Herald' announced that Ministers were fully 
 aware of the pernicious operation of the Game laws, and were contemplating 
 a complete revision and large modification of them. It declared that the 
 Home Secretary had kept a vigilant eye on the rural magistracy, ever since 
 his entrance upon office, and had investigated every case of alleged severity; 
 and it intimated that another session would hardly pass without a change of 
 system. The next session brought about no change ; nor has any subsequent 
 session ; except that hares are now deprived of some of the protection of sacred 
 game. But public opinion has effected something of what legislation should 
 long ago have done. Several noblemen and gentlemen — and in the first rank 
 of these, the Duke of Bedford — have thrown open their preserves ; and many 
 more have given permission to their tenants to destroy hares and rabbits to any 
 amount they please. A strong feeling of disgust at battue-shooting is sjiread- 
 ing through all ranks, till, we may hope, it must reach the highest : and when 
 battue-shooting comes to an end, the overthrow of the game law tyranny is 
 nigh. The genuine game law system, derived from feudal times, and endeared 
 to the aristocracy by feudal associations, was destroyed by the Act which 
 legalized the sale of game. The sport, thus degenerated into preserving game 
 for battue-shooting, cannot long hold its ground against the indignities which 
 now beset it, the wrongs of a suffering peasantry, and the spirit of agricultural 
 improvement. Already our sportsmen are finding their way to the wilds of 
 Norway and other countries, in pursuit of a truer sport than any that can now 
 be procured at home. The Scotch moors also will be open for a long time to 
 come. With these sporting fields elsewhere, and the example of such land- 
 lords as the Duke of Bedford at hand, we may hope that the gentry who
 
 CiiA-P. X.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 
 
 619 
 
 uphold in"'parUament a game law which must make every statesman blush 1.S42- 
 will grow ashamed of insisting on theii- privilege and amusement, at the 
 expense of ruin to the farmers, and corruption among the peasantrv. 
 
 Between 1833 ahd 1S4;4, there were 41 inquests on slain o-amekeepers ; ''°'''.'5='' °'"'<"^ 
 and in 26 of these cases, verdicts of wilful murder were returned. In some of 
 the rural counties, nearly half of the total commitments to jail were "-ame 
 cases ; and the maintenance of the families of poachers, and the necessary 
 enlargements of the jails, and employment of a numerous police, were heavy 
 burdens to the occupiers of land — already much injured by the partial destruc- 
 tion of their crops. The convictions in England and Wales for breach of the 
 game laws for the year 1843 alone were 4,529. It is computed that the 
 expenditure occasioned by the game laws (independent of the waste of food) 
 amounts to more than that of the poor law system. '•' Within the last fifty 
 years," says our calm and judicial-minded expositor of the Political Dictionary, 
 " game has been preserved to an excess which was previously unknown. !Most 
 of the laws relating to game which have been passed within this period have 
 been to enable game preservers to indulge in this taste ; and to visit with 
 greater severity those who are tempted by the abundance of game to become 
 poachers. The accumulation of game in preserves, watched and guarded by 
 numerous]^keepers, has led to changes in the mode of sporting. The sports- 
 man of the old school was contented with a little spoil, but found enjoyment 
 in healthful recreation and exercise, and was aided by the sagacity of his 
 dogs. In the modern system of battue-shooting, the woods and plantations 
 are beaten by men and boys ; attendants load the sportsmen's guns, and the 
 game is driven within reach of gunshot, and many hundred heads of game 
 are slaughtered in a few hours. The true sportsman would as soon think of 
 
 spoiling a poultry yard The eifect of protecting game by oppressive 
 
 laws is, perhaps, more injurious to the morals of the rural population tiian 
 any other single cause. The gentry of England are distinguislied by many 
 "ood qualities ; but the manner in which many of them uphold tlieir amuse- 
 ments at the cost of filling the jails with their poor neighbours, who acquire 
 those habits which lead to the ruin of themselves and their families, is a blot 
 on their character which has yet to be wiped oif." We must leave it to a future 
 historian to assign the date of its obliteration.
 
 620 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 [Book \'I. 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 1843-44. 
 
 Financial State. 
 
 MENT. 
 
 Hansard, Ixviii, 
 1391. 
 
 Hansard, IxxL 
 647. 
 
 1844. 
 
 THE financial statement for 1843 was looked for -witli some dread by all 
 parties. It could not be otherwise than unfavourable. The long 
 distress was not yet over ; the Income tax could have yielded nothing yet ; 
 and the prodigious reduction of Import duties consequent on the alteration 
 of the tariff must have operated immediately, and presented its worst aspect 
 first. 
 
 On the 8th of May, Mr. Goulburn made his statement. Under some heads, 
 there liad been disappointment. Others indicated an improvement in manu- 
 factures and in the condition of the people. The deficiency was about 
 2,000,000/. : but the Income tax was certain to be more productive than had 
 been supposed. The net revenue from it was likely to be about 5,100,000/. 
 On the whole, a small deficiency was left : but it was so evident that the worst 
 was over with the Customs, and that the produce of that department must increase 
 as the benefits of a free trade were experienced, that the surplus of a future 
 time might be confidently reckoned on to pay up the present small deficiency. 
 Two heavy charges of unusual character — for Opium compensation, and to 
 reimburse the East India Company for the Chinese War — might be paid out 
 of the Chinese money to come in hereafter : but meantime, the sums must be 
 advanced. No remission of taxation could be looked for under these circum- 
 stances ; and the most vehement objectors to the Income tax had now nothing 
 to say when asked Avhat we should have done without it. The deficiency was 
 owing chiefly to a falling off in the wine, spirits, and malt duties, from causes 
 which could not have been anticipated — the expiration of the Methuen treaty 
 with Portugal, the spread of tlie Temperance movement, and the badness 
 of the malting season. One free trade deed was done by Parliament, this 
 session, at the instance of Ministers. The law was repealed which prohibited 
 the exportation of Machinery. This law had long been practically inopera- 
 tive ; as there is no machinery which cannot be sent abroad in portions under 
 cover : and the only effect of the law, of late years, had been to make British 
 machinery dearer on the continent than it need be, so as to enable the Belgian 
 
 manufacturers to undersell the English. 
 
 The English would henceforth have 
 
 Financial State- 
 
 HfvNT. 
 
 Hansard, Ixxiv, 
 301—385. 
 
 a fairer chance. 
 
 The financial statement of 1844 showed that the Minister had been quite 
 right in anticipating a revival of prosperity, and a surplus, larger or smaller. 
 The surplus was large beyond every one's expectation, amounting to 2,700,000/. 
 It was clear that the Distress Avas over for this time, and that all the great 
 interests of the country were rapidly rising. The Chancellor of the Exchequer 
 was pressed with proposals on every hand for the reduction of taxes : but he 
 had to consider that the Income tax was, as yet, the only resource to fall back 
 upon ; and that its continuance beyond the next year had still to be debated. 
 Bearing this in mind, he was disposed to apply the present surplus to the
 
 Chap. XL] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 621 
 
 augmeutatiou of the balance in the Exchequer, ouly remittmg duties on a few 1843-44. 
 
 articles to the extent of 387,000/. a year. Some amendments on Mr. Goul- --^^-^ ' 
 
 burn's proposals were moved, but not canied. The great conflict of parties was 
 on the Sugar duties ; and the struggle was, this year, a remarkable one ; and no 
 less beneficial than remarkable in one of its consequences — proving the strict- 
 ness of principle and clear insight of the League leaders. 
 
 Year by year, the free trade party in the House of Commons protested sioiu ditim. 
 against the preference shown to colonial above foreign sugars : and JMr. Cob- 
 den moved a Resolution, in June 1843, against the differential Sugar duty. 
 The state of the revenue at that time furnished Mr. Goulburn with a suffi- 
 cient plea for not then altering the duties ; and he did not conceal that he was 
 glad to avoid the risk of letting in slave-grown produce by a reduction of duty 
 on foreign sugars. In the present year, however, the plea of a deficient revenue 
 was taken away ; and not only so ; but the improved condition and habits of 
 the peo])le, who were becoming consumers of tea and coffee at a perpetually 
 increasing rate, required, Mr. Goulburn said, that provision should be made uansard.ixxr. 
 for a larger supply of sugar. Before negro emancipation, our "West India ^'*~ 
 colonies produced about one-third more sugar than was wanted at home : but 
 after that date, while the production had diminished, the demand had largely 
 increased. Some of the need had been supplied by parliament having brought 
 East and West India sugars nearer, in regard to duty : but the price had risen 
 2s. per cwt. in the year that was gone ; and the demand was certain still to 
 increase. While the Legislature was about the work of altering the duties, it 
 might as well provide some surplus of supply for a future rise of demand. 
 Mr. Goulburn proposed to do this in a way which, as government believed, 
 would reconcile an enlai'gement of the supply of sugar with fidelity to their 
 anti-slavery principles. He brought forward two Resolutions, by which, first. 
 Sugar certified to be the growth of China, Java, Manilla, or other countries 
 where no slave- labour was employed, should be admitted at a duty of 34«., the 
 colonial duty remaining as before at 24,?. ; and, secondly, the Queen should 
 be authorized, at the same date, to proceed upon any existing ti-eaties by 
 which she was bound to admit the sugars of any foreign country on the same 
 footing as that of the most favoured nation. This resolution related to Brazil, 
 whose treaty with us would expire at that date. 
 
 By these propositions, the government separated itself from both the parties 
 regularly opposed to each other on the sugar question — the West India 
 interest and the free-traders : and hard work it was for Mr. Goulburn to 
 maintain any thing like a secure footing between them. The West India 
 interest pleaded, as usual, the peculiarity and hardship of their case as a 
 reason against any enlargement of the area of supply. Tliey considered them- 
 selves entitled to the benefit of any rise of price that miglit take place from 
 the increased demand. The free-traders pointed out that, as our consump- 
 tion increased, sla've-gi-own sugar would find its way somewhere — if not to us, 
 to the countries that supplied us ; and that our discountenance of slave-grown 
 sugar would thus be reduced to a mere sham. Lord John Russell's amend- 
 ment in favour of admitting all foreign sugars at 34*. was rejected by a 
 majority of 69; and Mr. Goulburn brought in his Bill, which was read twice iran«r,i, nx'. 
 without debate. The 14th of June was the day when tlic House went into "
 
 G22 
 
 1843-44. 
 
 Mit. MiLEs's Mo- 
 
 ■llON. 
 
 Hansard, Ixxv. 
 920. 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 [Book VI. 
 
 Hansard, Ixxv, 
 
 Committee upon it. On that clay, Mr. Miles moved as it had been decided by 
 the West India body in the City that he should. There had been a meeting 
 of that body in the morning ; and they had agreed that Mr. Miles should pro- 
 pose a lowering of the duty on Colonial and East India Sugar to 20s. instead 
 of the 24.V. proposed by government ; and the raising of the duty on " White 
 Clayed, or equivalent to white clayed" (partially refined) Sugar of foreign free- 
 labour production, to 34s. — the duty on brown or clayed being 30s. Mr. 
 Goulburn objected that the leaving a differential duty of IDs. gave only 
 precisely the same protection to colonial interest as he had proposed, while the 
 loss of the 4s. on each sort would make a disastrous difference to the revenue. 
 Not a few free-traders were caught by the temptation of an apparent reduction 
 of 4s. on Colonial Sugars : but the better men-of-business of that party saw 
 that Mr. Miles's proposition, if carried, would in efiect merely establish a 
 differential duty of 14s. between Colonial and other sugar ; put the 4s. per 
 cwt. into the pockets of the West India planters ; and cause a serious diminu- 
 tion in the revenue. They would not couiatenance this; nor express any 
 such acquiescence in any differential duty. They would rather wait till the 
 next year, w'hen the whole subject nuist come under revision and re-arrange- 
 ment, and when their present resistance to the bait of the Protectionists would 
 give them a title to deference. Other people, however, were less clear- 
 sighted or less virtuous. It was evident that here was an opportunity for 
 trying with advantage whether the government could not be upset. Lord 
 John Russell with bis whig tail went out into the lobby mixed up with 
 Lord John Manners and his " Young England,"— a good many wondering 
 free-traders swelling the numbers. Tliese free-traders wondered to find 
 themselves in such company, and yet, to think that they should have left 
 Cobden and Ricardo, and Thornely and Warburton, behind. By means of this 
 curious coalition and confusion. Ministers were outvoted by a majority of 
 20. Mr. Cobden and the League immediately lost much popularity. It 
 was only for a short time, and with people who coidd not see why he should 
 prefer a duty of 24s. to one of 20s., or why he should refuse his help towards 
 overthrowing the Administration, to bring in Lord J. Russell, with his 8s. 
 fixed corn duty. But it soon came to be understood, first, that Mr. Cobden 
 and the League were sincere in their constant disclaimer of party purposes 
 and party temper : and next, that the restoration of the Whigs to power could 
 have brought us no nearer to free trade. The Whigs could not have held 
 power for many days at that time : the existing government had a majority of 
 90 on all party divisions ; and there could be no question among political 
 economists, of Peel and his comrades understanding free trade better than the 
 Whigs, as well as being more able to give it. When these things became 
 clear, Mr. Cobden and the League stood higher than ever. 
 
 It was on a Friday night, or rather, Saturday morning, that the important 
 di\ision took place, which gave a majority of 20 against Ministers. On Sun- 
 day morning, a Cabinet Council was held; and at its close. Sir R. Peel went 
 to Buckingham palace, where he was detained to dinner. It was every where 
 rumoured that the Queen, then near her confinement, was strongly opposed 
 to his resigning. On Monday, there was another Cabinet Council, Avhile 
 people out of doors were settling whether the Minister would go out, or
 
 Chap. XI.J DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 623 
 
 would propose, as the Whigs had done, under a much more significant dis- 1843-44. 
 comfiture, the continuance of the existing sugar duties for another year. All ^— — — —^ 
 da)', lists of new ministries were made out, to pass the time till evening ; and 
 every conservative who left his card at Sir II. Peel's door was noted and 
 reported. The house was very full — many sick members having made an 
 effort to come. It was evident that all parties had mustered their forces 
 diligently. A dead silence prevailed when the I'remier rose to speak. His 
 speech could hardly be an effective one, or delivered in his best manner, on 
 an occasion so mortifying, and a subject so perplexed, and implicating so 
 much unsoimdness. He neither offered to retire, nor proposed the continu- 
 ance of the existing sugar duties. He declared his intention of adhering to ,''^||^"1,''''"^' 
 the ministerial measure, exposed the difficulty of arranging the processes of 
 government in regard to the sugar duties, from the fact that the existing 
 treaty with Brazil would expire on the 10th of November next, after which 
 that country must be admitted on the same footing as the most favoured 
 nation ; while the expiration of the existing duties rendered it impossible to 
 wait, and every one knew that the whole subject must imdergo revision in the 
 next session before it could be determined whether or not to renew the Income 
 tax. The rival motion was not one of opposition of principle : it only proposed 
 different amounts, and not a different proportion of duty ; and there would 
 therefore be no disgrace to the House if, on surveying the peculiarities of the 
 case, it should reconsider its vote. If parliament had confidence enough in 
 the existing administration to countenance and support its general principle 
 of relaxing duties in ways which appeared safe and gradual, it might be ex- 
 pected not to thwart the government in regard to details of particular 
 measures ; and on this ground he asked for a reconsideration of the late em- 
 barrassing vote. This was gi-anted him. In a Committee of 488, Mr. Miles's 
 proposition was rejected by a majority of 22. Two lasting consequences of Hansard, inr. 
 this speech and division were, that the extreme Protectionists from that day 
 drew off from Sir R. Peel, and hoped notning more from him ; and that his 
 followers saw that there must be no faltering among them. The Minister 
 had a policy in view, clear and well-defined ; and he must cany it through, 
 without being subject to misadventures through any instability of theirs. 
 Now had been the moment for deciding whether he should be authorized to 
 carry out his policy. It had been decided that he was : and now, they were 
 to support him without flinching or vacillation. The next year must be a 
 great one, in regard to affairs of Commerce and Finance ; and this was the 
 preparation for it. The Ministerial Bill, after some further discussion in both 
 Houses, stopping short of the point of endangering it, became law on the 4th "^^"'"J. i^''"- 
 of July. 
 As the prosneritv of the kinsdom advanced, and capital abounded, a7ul the KKmrTiov of 
 
 . I i - " ' , THE 3j PES Crvre. 
 
 price of Stocks rose, the holders of the 3^ per cent, consols became aware tliat 
 they might soon expect to hear of a government plan for the reduction in that 
 Stock. Every body said that such a reduction was a fair and projicr means of 
 diminishing the burdens of the country— the interest of capital being now 
 very low, and likely to remain so. The anxiety was as to how it would be 
 done. Mr. Goulburn brought forward his plan on the 8th of ^March. 1844. 
 The occasion was an important one ; for the sum to be dealt with was larger
 
 624 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book VI. 
 
 1843.44. than had ever before been taken iu hand for regulation by the government, 
 
 ■ ' being little less than 250,000,000/. of money. The plan of the Chancellor was 
 
 received with the utmost good-will and satisfaction ; and no difficulty subse- 
 Hansard ixxiii. qucutly occurred. He proposed to deal with all the Stock now comprehended 
 ,29—748. under the Sj per cent., except that constituted in 1818, which enjoyed some 
 
 peculiar protections originally guaranteed to it. With regard to all but this, 
 he proposed that the 3^ should be exchanged for 3j per cent, for 10 years; and 
 be reduced to 3 per cent, in 1854, being guaranteed against any further reduc- 
 tion for twenty years from that date. By this plan, the immediate saving 
 would be 625,000/. per annum for ten years ; and after that, 1,250,000/. per 
 annum. The time allowed for dissent on the part of the holders was a 
 fortnight for persons in England, three months for persons on the Continent, 
 and eleven months for every body further off. The speech of the Chancellor 
 of the Exchequer was cheered at intervals as it proceeded, and vehemently at 
 the end ; and a variety of speakers offered him compliments and congratula- 
 tions afterwards. The resolutions proposed were passed unanimously, and the 
 Bill founded on them left the Lords on the 19th of the same month. The 
 dissentients were extremely few, and the affair went off with unexampled 
 smoothness. Mr. Goulburn took advantage of the occasion to remedy the 
 inequality of pa)Tnents in the different quarters of the year. All the interest 
 due on the 3^ per cents, would be paid up to the 10th of October; so that a 
 new start would be made from that day, and a nearly equal issue would be 
 made in the summer and winter, as in the spring and autumn quarters — to 
 the easing of currency and commerce. — The reason of the fervour with which 
 the plan was hailed Avas that Mr. Goulburn had resisted the temptation of add- 
 ing to the debt while obtaining present relief. He might have made a grander 
 looking measure by increasing the burdens of posterity : but the scheme he 
 proposed would benefit a future, even more than the present generation : and 
 generous acknowledgments of this merit were made on every hand. 
 i!vnkActof1844. It will be remembered that when a new Charter was granted to the 
 Bank of England in 1833, it was provided that, though it was a Charter 
 for twenty-one years, it might be modified at the end of ten years, on 
 six months' notice being given by parliantent. The ten years were now 
 (in 184:4) about to expire ; and it was the Minister's desire that the 
 Charter should be modified. It was the desire of the country at large 
 that changes should be made ; for the last few years had wrought deeply on 
 the public mind in regard to currency matters. The fever of Joint Stock 
 Bank speculation had subsided. Opinions of Mr. S. Jones Loyd and Mr. 
 Norman, opinions clearly propounded before a parliamentary committee in 
 1840, in favour of a single source of issue of money, had become widely 
 known, and intelligently embraced by a large majority of thinking persons : 
 while, on the other hand, an extensive agitation had gone forward in favour 
 of such an " expansion of the currency " in all times of pressure as might buy 
 off the pressure, and spread ease through the field of commerce. The intricate 
 and abstract subject of currency had become so interesting to the many, that 
 pamphlets advocating every view appeared in abundance ; and not a few, both 
 of the wise and the foolish, went through several editions. It is easy to un- 
 derstand how some of the most unwise became the most popular. When the
 
 Chap. XL] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 625 
 
 small traders and artisans of the great towns were told that trade was always 18-1.3-44. 
 
 good when paper money abounded, that a new issue of paper money had re- --^^ ^ 
 
 lieved commercial distress as often as it had been tried, and that hardship and 
 misery always attended a contraction of the currency, it was not surprisiuf 
 that tliey should read with avidity publications which described the bliss of an 
 abundance of money, and partly consoled them for past misfortunes by appear- 
 ing to point out the cause of them. Publications more intelligent and more 
 intelligible were read as eagerly as any novel by men of business who were 
 aware that the wisest of us have only too little knowledge and insight on a 
 subject of central interest and importance — a subject on which every man of 
 business would gladly have a clear opinion if he could. — On the whole, 
 though the confusion of views was gi-eat, and the stragglers were so manv as 
 almost to defy classification, it may be said that there were three parties await- 
 ing the exposition of the Minister's views on Currency and Banking in 1844; 
 — the advocates of an inconvertible currency — of a paper circulation open to 
 all comers whenever desired ; — the advocates of a legal declaration that paper 
 money was convertible, without other safeguard than legal penalties in 
 case of mischievous transgression ; — and the advocates of a real security 
 for such convertibility — security in the form of precious metal actually laid by 
 under the same roof from which its representative bank note goes forth. This 
 last party were pretty generally aware beforehand that Sir E,. Peel was about to 
 declare in their favour, and that his measure would appear to be nearly what 
 would have been recommended by Sir. Loyd and Mr. Norman. The country 
 bankers were so alarmed lest their privileges should be interfered with, that 
 they held meetings and issued warnings, and strove to interest members of 
 parliament in their case, that any proposal of restricting issues to a single 
 body might be resisted at once. But their apprehensions on this point were 
 premature. The Minister believed that he could secure his end without going 
 so far at present. All existing issues were to be allowed to go on; but no 
 additions or sirccessors were to be permitted. When this was once understood, 
 the Minister was able to obtain a more patient hearing for his scheme. It 
 was on the 6tli of ilay that he made his exposition, in a lucid and interesting Hansani.Kxiv. 
 S})eech of three hours long. It was received, not only with the deference com- '-""'■'■"• 
 manded by the supremacy of the speaker on financial subjects, but with much 
 complacency, on account of the simplicity of the plan which was to effect 
 changes of deep import without any of that monetary disturbance which liail 
 been dreaded as unavoidable. INIen would have submitted to much in the 
 hope of securing a sound system ; but to have an ap})arcntly sound system 
 offered to them, unaccompanied by temporary mischief, was beyond their hopes ; 
 and they were gracious accordingly. Their apprehensions never, however, had 
 gone so far as to affect the price of Stocks— the funds standing precisely the siwt.nor. isit.p. 
 same the day before and the day after the delivery of Sir R. Peel's speech. 
 
 The view which can be taken here is briefly this : — 
 
 If our commercial transactions were all confined within our own island, we si'B»r,\%<-K of 
 
 . , . , . . TUB Hll.l.. 
 
 should want no other basis for our paper cuculation than national securities, 
 such as Stock and Exchequer Bills. The amount in circulation on these 
 securities was supposed to be, as Sir R. Peel declared, about 22,000,000/. 
 The issue of these 22,000,000/. was proposed to be divided between the Bank 
 
 VOL. 11 ^ ^'
 
 626 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book VI. 
 
 18-13-4-4. of England and the country banks in the proportion of 1-4,000,000/. by the 
 " — ~^ — Bank of England, and 8,000,000/. by the conntry banks ; such issue being 
 upon other security than gold, as it was most improbable that gold would 
 ever be demanded for notes so issued. — But the circulation of the coiuiti-y is 
 not 22,000,000/. but oO,()00,000/.: and this last item of 8,000,000/. is the 
 difficulty to be dealt with. It is the portion of our currency which is or may 
 be concerned in our foreign commerce — in a department wlicre our national 
 securities are of no use, and a security must be provided which is of rniivcrsal 
 value — i. e. gold. The gold wanted for the conduct of affairs in connexion 
 with foreign trade was assumed to be, at the utmost, 8,000,000/. ; for before 
 any thing like that quantity could have been drained out of the country, 
 prices would have fallen so low as to induce a large exportation of goods, and 
 the return of the gold. It was now provided that gold sliould always be in 
 store to the amount of all paper issues beyond the 22,000,000/. based on 
 national seciuities; and there could be no fluctuation in the amount of paper 
 money, otherwise than in proportion to the gold offered to the Bank of Eng- 
 land. The Bank was bound to buy with its notes all the bullion that was 
 brought, at a trifle below Mint price. Thus, the gold brought in would 
 surely be replaced by an equal amount of paper. When gold was, on the 
 other hand, drawn out, the paper that came in was to be cancelled — a new 
 safeguard, and a most necessary one, as the Bank had, up to this time, often 
 reissued immediately the notes brought in, thus providing for a further drain 
 of its gold at the very moment that it was draining out of itself. — In case of 
 Joint-Stock or other country banks closing from any cause, it was provided 
 that government might authorize the Bank of England to issue, on securities, 
 notes to the same amount as the closed bank had out, the expense and pos- 
 sible profit of the transaction being set do^^Ti to the public. 
 PHomBLE The hope from this scheme was that a perfect correspondence betw-een 
 
 Mill's Pi'in. of paper issues and securities would be established. But there is an element 
 -202. ' ' involved in the case which introduces some confusion — the deposits in the 
 hands of bankers. In quiescent times, the correspondence may be practically 
 complete. But in times of speculation, when the stage of transactions by 
 cheques and book-credits is past, when manufacturers have to extend their 
 operations, and to obtain accommodation from bankers, notes get out through 
 the wages of workmen, and raise prices. Prior to 1844, the employers, in 
 their desire to hold on, obtained more and more ai<l from bankers, all the 
 deposits coming forth, and raising prices, till nothing was left but sudden 
 contraction, and the perils and miseries that attend it. Some check, it is 
 true, had been imposed by the prohibition of notes inider the value of;")/. : but 
 this w'ent but a short way: and the present measure Avas proposed mainly for 
 the sake of obviating the protraction of the sti'uggle after an access of sjiecu- 
 lation, and stopping the drain of gold in good time. It is believed to have 
 answered this purpose to a great extent ; but here the baffling influence of 
 such an incalculable element as the deposits is perceived. They can still pro- 
 tract the struggle which tlie operation of the Act of 1844 would otherwise 
 bring to an end. As they do not yield loanable ca])ital at such a time, the 
 rise of interest may still act as if they had not come forth ; may still act 
 as a timely check by inducing foreigners to leave their gold witli us, or to send
 
 Chap. XI.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. QOT 
 
 ill more : but the issue of the deposits does intercept the other timely check of 1843-44. 
 
 a fall of prices, such as would induce exportation, and bring back gold. This ---^^.^ ' 
 
 is a case which the Act of 1844 does not meet; and its action is somewhat 
 interfered with by it. Still, the gain, through that Act, in shortening the 
 struggle at the turning point from speculation to collapse is indisputably great; 
 and the Minister, in his expository speech, claimed sympathy from thinking 
 men in his hope and expectation that it would be so. 
 
 The resolutions on which the Bill was founded were brought in on the 20th passagmoi- tejb 
 of May, and agreed to after some debate ; and thus parliament first declared H.n.Jaid, ixxiv. 
 in favour of the great change of separating the business of the Bank of 
 England into two distinct departments — the one for the issue of notes ; the 
 other for the transaction of the ordinary banking function — -a near approach to 
 the adoption of a single bank of issue. There was at no stage opposition 
 enough to endanger the Bill. By the great majority of members of all parties 
 it was earnestly supported ; and when some few objected that it would not 
 obviate commercial crises, they were met by the question whether any legisla- 
 tion could neutralize an evil which would occasionally arise while men continue 
 greedy after gain. If its tendency was to check and alleviate such crises, that 
 was all that could be expected from any legislative provision. The Bill be- H:u>s;mi, ixxvi. 
 came law on the 19th of July. 
 
 Some economists doubted at the time whether the unquestionable ad van- sn-posun aciual 
 tages obtained by this Bill might not prove to be too dearly purchased: and 
 since the stringent test to which the law Avas subjected in 1847, there have 
 been more who have published an opinion that they are so. Men of such 
 high authority as Mill, Tooke, and FuUarton, have said so, while expressing 
 themselves with the moderation — not to say hesitation — which the imperfec- 
 tion of our knowledge and experience on this difficult subject demands. Mr. 
 Mill points out that extension of credit by bankers is a great benefit in a season principles of p..ii. 
 of collapse; and the aid formerly yielded by the Bank, at whatever cost "(a-fS.'"""*'"' 
 afforded, was salvation itself in such a crisis as that of 1825-G :— tliat the 
 notes thus issued in aid do not circulate, but go where they are wanted, or lie 
 by, or come back again immediately as deposits : — that the new law docs not 
 allow expansion till gold comes for it, when the worst of the crisis is over;— 
 and that, as banks must be the source of aid in crises, such an Act as tliat of 
 IS44 must, in such a season, be either repealed or suspended. — The expcnience 
 of 1847 susaests to Mr. Mill a yet worse objection. There are nuiuy causes iTimii.ios ..nv.ii- 
 
 ~" '' • ,* T Tt • • 1 tiral Economy, ii, 
 
 of high prices besides that of undue expansion ot credit. 1 rices may rise Dy 20(i--2i(i. 
 war expenditure, or expenditure for critical political objects; — by foreign 
 investments, in mines or in loans ;— by the failure of cotton crops or other 
 raw material from abroad ; and by an extraordinary importation of food from 
 bad harvests at home. In these cases, the gold would not be drawn from the 
 circulation, but from hoards and bank reserves; and in this case, the IJaiik 
 reserve is in effect a hoard. But the arrangement of the Act for the securing 
 of convertibility is aimed at a state of high ])rices from undue expansion of 
 credit, and from no other cause. The result is that the paper currency is 
 contracted on occasion of every drain, iVom any cause whatever, and not 
 merely when the gold is withdrawn fioni the circuhilion : and thus a crisis is, 
 and must bo, occasioned by every derangement of the exchange, or, at least,
 
 SI UN 
 
 628 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book VI. 
 
 1843-44 whomever there is pressure in the money market. Before the crisis of 1847, 
 there had been no speculation which couUl account for so terrible a collapse as 
 took place in that year. The railway speculation of the time raised the rate 
 of interest, but could not affect the exchange. The drain of gold was caused 
 by the failure of the potato crop at home, and the partial failure of the cotton 
 crop abroad; circumstances of great financial inconvenience, but not adequate 
 to occasion such a collapse of commercial credit as ensued. The Act of 1844 
 could not operate beneficially here, but, on the contrary, it wrought injuriously 
 by compelling all who M'nnted gold for exportation to draw it from the deposits, 
 at the very time that interest was highest, and the loanable ;capital of the 
 country most deficient. If the Bank might then, before there was any collapse 
 of credit, have lent its notes, there would have been no crisis — only a season 
 of pressure. As it was, it was necessary to suspend the Act of 1844; and 
 IMv. JNIill, in conducting his review of the measure and its operation, of its 
 advantages and disadvantages, avows that, in his opinion, " the disadvantages 
 greatly preponderate." Much as thinking men may have learned on the 
 subject of Currency within a few years, it is evident that more knowledge and 
 experience are needed yet to bring us into a state of security. 
 Railway exten. Allusion has been made to an excess of railway speculation. Ten years 
 before our present date, there was one railway in England — the Liverpool and 
 Manchester — and in Scotland an awkward one of seven miles long. In these 
 ten years, the system had extended to a magnitiule which made it one of the 
 chief boasts, and perhaps the most perplexing difficulty, of the time. Land- 
 owners were groaning over the S23oliation of their estates, for which no pecu- 
 niary award could be any compensation. Their ])ark walls were cut through — 
 their " dingles and bosky dells" were cut through — and their choicest turf, 
 and their secluded flower-gardens. A serious conflict took place in November, 
 in Lord Harborough's park in Leicestershire, between his lordship's tenantry 
 and the railway surveyors, with the force they assembled. Railways were to 
 run, not only along the southern margin of the island and round the bases of 
 the misty Scottish mountains, but through the vale in which Fmness Abbey 
 had hitherto stood shrouded ; and among old cathedrals of which the traveller 
 Spectator, 1844, might soon see half a dozen in a day. It was on Easter Monday, 1844, that 
 excursion-trips with return tickets are first heard of. Here began the benefits 
 of cheap pleasure journeys to the hardworkcrs of the nation. The fares were 
 much lowered ; yet the extra receipts on the Dover line for three days were 
 £700, and on the Brighton line £1,943. The process had begun from which 
 incalculable blessings were to accrue to the mind, morals, and manners, of the 
 nation. From this time, the exclusive class was to meet the hiunbler classes 
 face to face. The peer and the manufacturer and the farmer were henceforth 
 to meet and talk in the railway carriage, and have a chance of understanding 
 each other. The proud were to part with some of their prejudice, and the igno- 
 rant with some of their ignorance ; and other walls of partition than park 
 enclosures were to be broken down. The operative was to see new sights, 
 hitherto quite out of his reach ; — the ocean, the mountain and lake, and old 
 ruins and new inventions : and the London artisan was to live by and by 
 within sight of trees and green fields, and yet go to his work every day. As 
 unwholesome old streets in London were pulled down, hamlets Mould rise up 
 
 . 3LI7
 
 Chap. XI.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 629 
 
 in the country where he could live out of working hours, his railway fare to 18-13-44. 
 and from business being included in the rent of his cottage. The diet of mil- 
 lions was to be improved — fish and foreign fruits being conveyed into the 
 country, and milk, butter, and vegetables, fresh from the country, to be carried 
 into the towns. Every body's wants and wishes would become known by the 
 general communication about to be established ; and the supjjly would reach 
 the want and the wish. The change was vast, and the prospect magnificent : 
 but this change, like every other, had to pass at its outset through a wilderness 
 of difficulty. 
 
 A rage for railway-making took possession of minds prone to speculative 
 folly. Jealousy and competitive zeal sprang up; and lines were planned 
 whose chief purpose seemed to be to injure each other. Rashness and knavery 
 were all abroad ; and the foolish and the ignorant were on the highway to 
 ruin, as the prey of the rapacious, or in company with them. There was 
 every probability that capital would be withdrawn to a fatal extent from the 
 manufactures of the country, to be invested in railways which could only bury 
 it at first, however productively it might reappear. Moreover, a jirodigious 
 power was now put into the hands of men and companies as yet irresponsible 
 for their use of it. The public had no longer any option how to travel. In a 
 little while, they must go nowhere or be carried by rail — however such a 
 mode of travelling might disagree with their health or their inclination. This 
 in itself was not an obstructive objection to a system fraught with general 
 advantage : but as yet no provision was made against the abuse of the necessity 
 which had arisen. Not only was every body compelled to travel by rail, but 
 the mode and the cost were at the pleasure of the railway proprietors, who 
 might charge what fares they dared, and provide as they thought proper for 
 the accommodation of passengers ; no competition could be brought to bear 
 upon the proprietors ; and their treatment of the public was regulated by 
 the accident of their own feelings, the tempers of their agents, or their 
 immediate view of their own interests. The question arose what was to 
 be done. There was much argument as to whether railways were or were 
 not a monopoly: but there was a pretty wide agreement that the great new 
 power which had arisen in the midst of us was too formidable to be left with- 
 out legislative control. Early in the session of 1844, a Select Committee of ski.e(t 
 the Commons sat to consider the best means of adapting the growing railway 
 system to the exigencies of the country. 
 
 The Committee recommended a reduction of the deposit required by parlia- 
 ment to be made before introducing a railway. From one-tenth it was to be 
 one-twentieth. Competing lines were the great difficulty. As the most pro- 
 minent districts of the country had been first appropriated, almost every new 
 line must be more or less a competing line. It was recommended that a Com- iinnMrd. ixxm. 
 mittee should be appointed to settle which were competing lines and which ""^" 
 were not : and then, any competing lines were to be refen-ed to one Com- 
 mittee, whose members must sign a declaration that neither they nor their 
 constituents had any interest which could bias their minds in favour of either 
 line. A Bill was founded on the Reports of the Railway Committee which Tntmiiai. 
 was passed before the end of the session, after an amount of debate which 
 was natural imdcr the novelty of tlic circumstances. There was mucli to be 
 
 COMMITTKB.
 
 630 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book VI. 
 
 1843-44. said in censure of the interference of parliament with commercial enterprises, 
 ■""^■"^^ ' with the regulation of fares, and with the construction of carriages. Men who 
 hekl it a duty to interfere with manufacturers with regard to the construction of 
 their mills, and the working of their machinery, and the hours of factory labour, 
 objected to interference with the great railway power, which held in its hand 
 the locomotion of the nation : while again, some who protested against 
 factory legislation called for legislative support of the claim of the public, 
 and especially the poorer classes, to safe and comfortable, as well as cheap, 
 travelling. 
 
 comp.to Almanac, The Act empowered the Lords of the Treasury to reduce fares, after a lapse 
 of years, if the profits of any railway were found permanently to exceed 10 
 per cent., witli a guarantee for the continuance, for a term, of that rate of 
 profit. It provided for the purchase by government, under certain circum- 
 stances, of any future railway, under an Act of Parliament to be obtained for 
 the purpose. It 2)rovidcd for the frequent running of third-class carriages; 
 for their being provided with seats and covered from tlie weather; for their 
 speed and convenient stoppages, and the amount of luggage and of charge — 
 the charge being Id. per mile, and the train being exempt from taxation. It 
 provided for the conveyance of the mails, and of military and police forces, at 
 certain charges, and for the establishment of electric telegraphs under proper 
 conditions. Such, with numerous regulations of detail, were the provisions of 
 the Railway Act of 1844. By an arrangement made in pursuance of a recom- 
 mendation of the Committee, the Board of Trade was cliarged with the new 
 and onerous duty of overlooking the Railway system, both as to law and 
 practice. Its business would be to examine and keep watch over all prepara- 
 tions for new railways, and all fresh schemes ; to watch over tlic safety and the 
 interests of the public, and to select from among rival plans. Wlicn it 
 appeared that the amount of railway bills was likely to obstruct, if not to 
 drive out, all other business from the House of Commons, and that 800 miles 
 of railway were sanctioned in this session, besides all the proposals that fell 
 through, from one cause or another, people began to ask how the Board of 
 Trade for Railways could possibly manage its responsibilities. When it came 
 
 comp.toAimanac, out that the estimated cost (usually less than half of the actual cost) was 1400/. 
 
 184-1, p. 101. *! /. . . . 
 
 per mile for the 800 miles just sanctioned by parliament, the graver question 
 arose, how the manufactures and commerce of the country were to sustain 
 this vast abstraction of capital. While sanguine speculators Avere saying 
 that the doings of this year were a trifle compared with what would be 
 done next, the threatened absorption of capital caused serious alarm to 
 the more enlightened, who better understood what proportion the impor- 
 tance of railroads bore to that of maintainins: the nanufactures of the 
 country. Such persons foresaw that the new Bank Act would not wait long 
 to be put to a stringent test. 
 
 The doings of the year ivcre a trifle compared with those of the next. 
 There was a want of harmony between the Railway Officers of the Board of 
 Trade and the Committee of the House of Commons. Railways recommended 
 by the one were rejected by the other ; and many which were condemned at 
 the Board of Trade were successfully pushed in the House. The Railway 
 department of the Board of Trade was therefore completely remodelled in
 
 Chap. XL] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 
 
 681 
 
 July, 1845. No Reports on the merits of projected lines were henceforward I843.44 
 
 to bo offerofl ; but it was requested of parliament that the Board mifrht be ■ — ^ 
 
 furnished with the fuUest information about all railway schemes, including " ' 184.5. 
 sketches, plans and sections of the lines, in order to a due supervision of tlie iH«,''p.°o'3'.'"''"""' 
 system and its details. As for the House of Commons — it was obli"-ed to set 
 aside the standing orders about its Railway Committees, and to take the 
 projects in groups, which were arranged by a new Classification Committee. 
 The Committees sat almost constantly — even during adjournments of the 
 House— yet they failed to get througli nearly all tlie business offered them. 
 Some schemes could not obtain a hearing at all ; others which had been con- 
 sidered safe, were left over to the next session, under a special provision that 
 such business should be taken up where it was now left. Other delays were 
 occasioned by the requisition of the Board of Trade of more plans and state- 
 ments. While such was the condition of things in connexion with the House, 
 the excitement elscwliere was prodigious. Newspapers for railway topics were 
 springing up in considerable numbers ; and the ' Railway Times ' for Sep- 
 tember 2Tth, had nearly 80 quarto pages filled with advertisements. The jour- 
 nals of the time tell that 332 new schemes were proposed before the month of 
 October in this year, involving a capital of £270,950,000, and for which 
 upwards of £23,000,000 would have to be deposited before an Act could be 
 applied for. A multitude of other schemes were in an incipient state ; and 
 there were 66 foreign railway projects in the English market. It was believed 
 that altogether the number of plans which would be brought to the door of 
 the Board of Trade by the expiration of the closing day would be 815. The Annua iHegisicr, 
 number which succeeded in obtaining admission was above 600. The closing "*"-*^'>"'°- '"• 
 day was the 30tli of November. 
 
 As the Summer closed and the Autumn wore on, the most desperate efforts deuvehy or 
 were made to get ready these plans. One lithographic printer brougiit over ^^'"'^■ 
 four hundred lithographers from Belgium ; and yet could not get his engage- 
 ments fulfilled. The draughtsmen and printers in the litliographic establish- 
 ments lived there, snatching two or three hours' sleep on the floor, or on 
 benches, and then going dizzily to work again. Much work w^as executed 
 imperfectly ; and much was thrown over altogether. Horses were liired at 
 gi-eat cost, and kept under lock and key, to bring to town at the last moment 
 plans prepared in the country. Express trains were engaged for the same 
 purpose ; and there were cases in which railway directors refused sucli 
 accommodation to rival projectors, obliging the clerks in charge of the plans 
 to hasten round some other way, with every risk of being too late. At the 
 Board of Trade, every ))reparation was made for the ])ressure of the closing spooiMor, im-s, 
 day. The day was Sunday — a circumstance wliich had been overlooked 
 when the date was fixed. A large establishment of clerks was in readiness; 
 and the work went on with some quietness till eleven at niglit. It had been 
 settled that all applicants who were actually in the Hall before the clock 
 struck twelve should be considered to be in time ; and during the last liotir, 
 the crowd became inconvenient, and the registering could by no diligence 
 keep pace with the aj)plications. The calling of the agents' names, as a sum- 
 mons to the inner office, was listened to with nervous agitation by the ex- 
 pectants in the lobby; and there was a large crowd outside which iimuscd
 
 632 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book VI. 
 
 1843-44. itself freely with the bustle of the arrivals, and the masses of papers that were 
 
 .-—^ carried in. Twelve o'clock began to strike, and the doors were closing, when 
 
 an agent pushed his way in. As the clock had not done striking when he 
 aiTived, he was, after some parley, admitted. No more came for a few 
 minutes ; but before the quarter had struck, a post-chaise, with four reeking 
 horses, dashed up : three gentlemen rushed out, each loaded with a mass of 
 papers, and found the door at the end of the passage closed. The crowd 
 shouted to them to ring the bell ; and one of them did so. A police inspector 
 opened the door ; and as soon as it appeared that he was not going to admit 
 them, the agents threw their papers into the hall, breaking the lamp that was 
 burning there. The papers were thrown out again ; and once more in and 
 out, when the door was opened. One of the agents told his story to the 
 crowd, who laughed heartily at it. The post-boy did not know London 
 streets, and could not find the Board of Trade. He had been driving the 
 agents about the streets of Pimlico ever since half-past ten. This was a 
 comic ending, in the eyes of the thoughtless, of the competitive railway strug- 
 gle of 1845 : but all thoughtful persons felt very gravely about it. If this 
 mass of railways could be constructed, the operation would be fearful upon 
 the manufacturing interests of the country : and if not, what loss must befal 
 a host of ignorant and unwary speculators ! It would be the scene of 1825-6 
 over again. If the promoters of these projects believed that they could suc- 
 ceed, it was a serious thing to have among us so many men of education so 
 ignorant of political economy, and so senseless about social affairs. If they 
 did not so believe, but hoped to profit by the ruin of their neighbours, it was 
 a serious thing to have among us so many men of education of a morality so 
 loose and low. It was a painful exhibition, whichever way it was looked at. 
 
 Gauge Question, ^^ijg Great Wcstcrn Railway had been constructed on a broader gauge than 
 others, and the disputes about the comparative merits of the broad and narrow 
 gauge ran high. There could be no dispute, however, about the mischief of 
 the co-existence of the two. Goods sent from Birmingham and other places 
 were stopped on reaching the Great Western at Gloucester, and had to be 
 shifted into another train. ' The delay and injury thus caused were great ; 
 and there was a loud demand that the Great Western, which had at work 
 only 274 miles of length, while there were 1901 miles of the narrow gauge, 
 
 Hansard, isxxi. sliould couform to the ffaug-c of other railways. In Jvme, 1845, Mr. Cobden 
 
 1183. o rt ^ J ^ ' ^ 
 
 moved for an Address to the Sovereign, praying for the appointment of a 
 Royal Commission, to inquire into the merits of the broad and narrow gauge, 
 and into the best method of getting rid of the evil of " the break of gauge," 
 and of securing uniformity henceforth. The Commission asked for was 
 appointed, and made a long Report the next year. The Commission reported, 
 on the whole, in favour of the narrow gauge, and recommended that the Great 
 Western should be accommodated to it ; a change which would cost only 
 Comp.to Almanac, about £1,000,000. The Railway Board framed a Bill which departed from 
 the recommendation of this Report. It recognised the narrow as the national 
 gauge henceforth ; but did not projjose to alter the Great Western. On the 
 contrary, it proposed to construct various branches of that line on the broad 
 gauge also. Their Bill, which was passed, disappointed the commercial 
 pubUc, and every body else who saw that uniformity of gauge must be secured
 
 Chap. XL] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 633 
 
 sooner or later ; and that the longer it was put off, the greater would he the 1843-44. 
 difficulty, while serious injury was meantime daily inflicted. ■ — — .— — - 
 
 It was related, in our narrative of the preparation of the Poor Law, that mSts.'"'^"^*""'" 
 some discontent was occasioned by that clause of the amended law by which '^"'''' '"'"'■ 
 the maintenance of illegitimate children was thrown upon the mothers : that 
 the effect of this provision was manifestly and immediately good ; but that 
 a mistaken sentiment, injiu-ious to the true interests of woman, caused a modi- 
 fication of the law in 1839, by which it was rendered more easy to reach the 
 putative father, and compel him to bear the burden. A further change was 
 made this year, in consequence chiefly of the discontent existing among the 
 Welsh peasantry on account of the bastardy law. Rebecca and her daughters 
 insisted upon tliis as one of their chief grievances ; and the Commissioners of 
 Inquiry into the state of Wales reported the complaint emphatically. The 
 consequence was that a Bill was framed and passed by which the mother was poiuicai Diction- 
 enabled to make application against the father, instead of its being made by '"''' '' '^^' 
 parish officers ; and a stronger compulsion was brought to bear upon the 
 father. — The same Act made some alterations in the proportion between rates 
 and rateable value ; empowered some large towns to provide asylums for the 
 houseless poor; and enabled the Commissioners to combine parishes and 
 unions in their several districts into school district ^i ; and also into districts for 
 the audit of accounts. 
 
 On the 14th of June, which was Friday, the House of Commons was postoffick 
 Startled by the presentation of a petition, the news of which produced strong 
 excitement in London and the country during the non-parliamentary days of 
 Saturday and Sunday. Four persons, of whom two were foreigners and two 
 Chartists, sent up a petition, by the hands of Mr. Duncombe, complaining that Hansard, lur. 
 letters which they had posted within the last month had been detained, broken 
 open and read, by certain of the authorities belonging to Her Majesty's Post 
 Office. The petitioners declared, " That they considered such a practice, intro- 
 ducing as it did the spy system of foreign States, as repugnant to every prin- 
 ciple of the British Constitution, and subversive of tlie public confidence, 
 which was so essential to a commercial country." They begged for a Com- 
 mission of Inquiry, which should afford redress to themselves, and future 
 security to all letter-writers. Mr. Duncombe desired an explanation, as he 
 had warned the Home Secretary that he should do. Sir James Graham 
 refused to explain more than that the allegations in the petition were in part 
 untrue— the letters of three of the signers having never, to the best of his 
 belief, been meddled with : that, with regard to the fourth, he had acted in 
 accordance with a law which had been renewed so recently as 1837 : that, by 
 that law, the Secretaries of State had the power of opening and detaining 
 letters : and that, under this sanction, he had issued a warrant, since destroyed, 
 for opening the letters of one of the petitioners. He would not say which of 
 the four it was ; but Joseph Mazzini was universally understood to be the 
 
 one. 
 
 Sir James Graham himself, as a true Englishman, could hardly quarrel with 
 the excitement caused in the House and the country by this disclosure, though 
 the popular indignation was directed against himsc If. It was a case in which 
 the national heart and mind might well be excused for pronouncing judgment 
 
 4 it 
 
 VOL. II.
 
 634 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND " [Book VI. 
 
 1843-44. prior to the production of evidence. The evidence must now come out ; and 
 the Home Secretary knew how it would at last modify opinions about himself, 
 and set him right with the nation : but meantime, though he had to run the 
 gauntlet through a long and bitter infliction of insults, he would, as a bene- 
 volent statesman, rather endure this than have seen the people apathetic or 
 capable of levity about such a matter as the violation of epistolary confidence. 
 His probation was terrible. The most cool and cautious newspapers gave out 
 their cool and cautious reprobation of the act ; and there was hardly a public 
 print, a public speaker, or perhaps a private family, that did not heap insults 
 or expressions of disgust upon his name. Advertisements of secure envelopes 
 met the eye every where, and Anti-Graham wafers were shed abroad. Cari- 
 catures represented the Home Secretary as the spy of foreign potentates, and 
 the tool of his brother Secretary for Foreign Affairs. Hundreds of people began 
 to be sure that their letters had been tampered with. Testimonies to Mazzini's 
 virtues appeared in the London Journals; and obscure individuals rashly 
 offered themselves as the medium of the con-espondence of foreigners hence- 
 forth, under the impression that we were living under a spy system, which 
 would not allow the exile to pour out his heart to his nearest relations till the 
 government had first heard what he had to say. Here and there, an honour- 
 able and trusted person — as Mr. Warburton — defended Sir James Graham : 
 but this only deepened the astonishment. Here and there, some rational 
 person, as much a lover of liberty as the petitioners themselves, pointed out 
 that we have no passport system, and now no stringent ahen-supervision : and 
 that such a power of letter-opening as the law gave to the Secretaries of State 
 was absolutely necessary for the frustration of conspiracy at home, and to 
 prevent our country from becoming a nest of conspiracy against foreign 
 governments in alliance with us : but such explanations excited little but 
 indignation. And this was very well. It not only evidenced the honest and 
 generous feeling of Englishmen on a matter of high morality : it enhanced the 
 merit of the support given to Sir James Graham by other and rival statesmen 
 when the right time came, and the impressiveness of his justification when the 
 Committees of Inquiry presented their Report. 
 
 There was a Committee of each House — secret, of course, but composed of 
 
 men who commanded universal confidence. Their Reports were in the hands 
 
 of the public in August ; and they settled the question, without any alteration 
 
 of the law. It appeared (to the astonishment of the nation, which had lost 
 
 all remembrance of the fact) that the Post Office was established on the express 
 
 condition, notified in the preambles of the Acts, that the government should 
 
 be entitled to inspect any letters that it chose. In the old, half-barbarous 
 
 times, the people were willing to have their letters conveyed speedily and 
 
 safely on that condition. The power had since been revised and confirmed ; 
 
 and, at the last date, in the year of Queen Victoria's accession. There was 
 
 no doubt about the law of the case ; and indeed there had been none, since ex 
 
 ministers of all parties had got up, one after another, in parliament, to avow 
 
 Hansard, uxT. that tlicy had used the power. Lord Tankerville testified to the existence of 
 
 a warrant signed by Mr. Fox, in 1782, ordering the detention and opening of 
 
 all letters addressed to Foreign IMinisters : and of another warrant, directing 
 
 that all letters addressed to Lord George Gordon should be opened. Lord 
 
 1330.
 
 Chap. XI.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 
 
 635 
 
 Normanby had used the power in Ireland, for the detection of " low ribbon- 1843-44. 
 
 ism which could not be ferretted out by other means." Lord J. Russell had ' ' 
 
 held Sir J. Graham's office in the full conviction that the law gave him the l\T'"'^' ^^^^^ 
 power under investigation, and that the sole question was how it was used. fS!"""' '"''' 
 On this point, the Report of the Committee was eminently satisfactory with 
 regard to the conduct of Sir James Graham. He had not only done nothing 
 more than had been done by all liis predecessors, but he had been more scru- 
 pulous and more careful. He had seen the warrants destroyed at the first 
 possible moment; whereas other Ministers had been careless in allowin"- them 
 to remain in existence. The specification of the number of warrants issued 
 during a long course of years effectually calmed the public mind. From 179!) 
 to 1844, the number of warrants issued was 372 ; that is, a fraction above 
 eight in a year : but, when it is considered that the average is so greatly ex- 
 ceeded in years of alarm as to amount to 28 in 1812, 20 in 1842, 17 in 1831, 
 16 in 1839, and so on, the Post Office may be considered practically inviolate; 
 and it has since been so considered. The conclusion drawn from the whole 
 inquiry was, that it would not be desirable to deprive the government of tliis 
 power of frustrating conspiracy, in extraordinary cases ; nor yet to surround 
 the power with new legal restrictions which would raise it into a fresh and 
 pernicious importance in the eyes both of rulers and the people. No steps, 
 therefore, were taken in consequence of the Reports, which had answered 
 their purpose in bringing out a knowledge of the law and the facts of the 
 case, for the benefit of all parties. 
 
 One reason for the vehemence of indignation displayed on this occasion was 
 that a rumour prevailed that Signer Mazzini's letters had been examined at 
 the desire of the Sardinian Minister, w^ho thus made the British Cabinet a tool 
 of foreign despotism. This was put an end to by a few words from the Duke Hansard, ixxv. 
 of Wellington : " He was enabled to state that there was no foundation what- 
 ever for these rumours." 
 
 The new Alien Act of this session, its enlarged scope, and the perfect indif- ahen act. 
 ference with which it was received, show that Great Britain had no particular 
 sympathy with the jealousies and fears of foreign despots. For some years 
 past, the registration provisions of our Alien law had been practically useless. 
 The Act contained no provision for enforcing any penalty on the omission to 
 register: and foreigners omitted it whenever it suited them. In 1842, out of Poiiticni niction- 
 11,600 foreigners officially known to have landed, only 6,084 registered under ' ' ' 
 the Act. Out of 794 who landed at Hull in that year, only one registered : 
 at Southampton, out of 1,174, not one: and at Liverpool, no account what- 
 ever was kept of the foreigners who arrived. The time was clearly come for 
 removing all impediments, real or nominal, to the settlement of foreigners in 
 England. It would have been done very long before, but for the perpetual 
 opposition of popular prejudice. The popular prejudice against aliens now 
 seemed to be worn out ; and the thing was done — liberally and thoroughly. — 
 Without delay, and at a trifling cost, foreigners could now secxn-e the privileges 
 of native subjects. They could secure from the Secretary of State a charter 
 of naturalization more liberal than parliament could formerly confer. The 
 only exclusion was from parliament and the Council Board : and even this 
 exclusion might be cancelled, througli an appeal to parliament. The new
 
 p. 723. 
 
 636 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book VI. 
 
 1843-44. privileges were to extend, as of course, to aliens already resident in the 
 ^-— '■--^— ^ country; and all women married to British subjects were naturalized dc facto. 
 Spectator, 1844, Such was the scope of the measure of which Mr. Hutt, the mover, said, " He 
 believed it would be productive of much real practical advantage, and that it 
 would conduce to the reputation of the country. He had to express his 
 acknowledgments to Sir E.. Peel for much kindness and encouragement. In 
 other times, attempts to settle this question on a sound and liberal basis had 
 more than once convulsed the whole nation, and proved fatal to the existence 
 of governments. To have been permitted to bring such a question to a final 
 and peaceful conclusion, was very gratifying to his feelings." 
 
 So far was this measure from convidsing the nation and perilling its rulers 
 now, that we fiudthe ' Spectator ' observing, the week after its passage, that it 
 had " escaped the notice of the newspapers." Such was one of the effects of 
 the enlightening and tranquillizing influences of long-continued Peace.
 
 Chap. XII.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 637 
 
 Ant.\c;oni3M in 
 KuaopE. 
 
 SSI A. 
 
 uslino's Russia, 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 THE mere existence of tlie rumour that the Sardinian government was 1841 — 64, 
 jealoirs of the residence of Signor Mazzini in England points to a popular 
 expectation of troubles in Italy, and, as a consequence, among the despotisms 
 of Eiu'ope. It was so. Signs of approaching struggle multiplied to watchful 
 eyes : and while Eastern despotism and the claims of Western civilization were 
 falling into a position of antagonism more distinct every day, the free nations 
 of Western Europe, who must form the main strength on one side when the 
 War of Opinion should at length break out, were grievously disposed to 
 quarrel among themselves. 
 
 A traveller in Russia reports a certain Prince K. to have pointed out to J!'^ 
 him that Russia is now only 400 years distant from the invasion of barbarians ; •• p- '"■ 
 wlule Western Eiuope boasts an interval of 1400 ; and that an additional civi- 
 lization of 1000 years makes an immeasurable change in the mind and manners 
 of a people. The conviction was now spreading every where that peoples 
 separated by the civilization of a thousand years could not much longer live 
 in alliance and apparent peace : and that henceforth the more civilized party 
 would have no release from watching the other till the outbreak should happen 
 that must decide which of them should prevail. In Western Europe, govern- 
 ment had for many centuries been a piu-ely political institution, constantly 
 admitting more and more of the democratic principle. In Russia, which is 
 even now more Asiatic than European, government is a religious institution : 
 the Emperor stands before the eyes of his people as their Priest, and in their 
 catechism as a god. In proportion as commimication of persons and of 
 ideas increases, such differences as these must come into colHsion. If the Czar 
 means to keep the mind of Russia from encroachment first, and revolution 
 afterwards, it is necessary for him to guard his frontier well, and to uphold, as 
 his outer defences, all existing despotisms. Whenever, therefore, these exist- 
 in"' despotisms were peiilled from within or from without, peace with Russia 
 became more precarious, and the eventual outbreak was felt to bo drawing on. 
 The Emperor was, and is, in the habit of saying that nothing is further from 
 his thoughts than conquest : that ho has as much territory as any man can 
 possibly wish for ; and that he has enough to do to cherish and improve his 
 Russian subjects. Supposing this to be perfectly sincere, it may become 
 necessary, according to his views — indispensable to the cherishing of his nati\'e 
 subjects — to extinguish communities which hold dangerous ideas. If that 
 extinction should be tried where the work is easy — this is a sufficient reason 
 for watchfulness on the part of the AVestern peoples. If it should be ditficult, 
 the struggle would be precisely that War of Opinion for which the western 
 peoples were Avarned by political philosophers to prepare. 
 
 What vigilant eyes could see was this. Tiic Emperor lost no opportunity of
 
 638 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 [Book VI. 
 
 GnEF.CE. 
 Annual Registt* 
 1843, p. 3U. 
 
 Animal Register, 
 1814, p. 278. 
 
 1841—46. insulting the King of tlic Frencli. Since the revolution of 1830, he had 
 behaved with increasing rudeness ; and now his temper was becoming as bitter 
 as it had always been overbearing. In August, 1842, the King of Prussia 
 had issued an Ordinance calling together the elements of a popular represen- 
 tation : and from that moment, Russian relations with Prussia became cool, 
 distant, and threatening. In September, 1843, there was a revolution in 
 Greece ; a revolution so needed, and so universally desired, that the people 
 obtained a Constitution without any struggle ; and England and France, and 
 even Austria, uttered not one word of rebuke or remonstrance : but, when the 
 Greek Assembly began its sittings, an armed Russian steamer appeared at the 
 Piraeus ; the Russian ambassador was summoned on board ; and he was carried 
 off without being even allowed to land. He was dismissed with disgrace 
 from the service of the Emperor, and his papers seized. At the same time, 
 the brightness of Russian favour shone on the Court at Vienna during a con- 
 ference which was held there — a conference ill suited to the date of 1844. 
 Plenipotentiaries from the German States met Prince Metternich at Vienna to 
 hear from him liow perilous was the popular desire for an extension of the 
 powers of the Chambers. " It perverts youth," said the grey-headed Minis- 
 ter, " and seduces even men of mature age." It was settled at this Confer- 
 ence that any extension of the rights of the Chambers was a direct injury to 
 the rights of the Crown ; that, in case of any appeal by the Chambers to the 
 Constitution, the govcrinncnt alone should be the interpreter of the Constitu- 
 tion ; that the acts of the Chambers, while legal, should stand, as far as the 
 government should thinJi proper; and so on, through a series of twenty Reso- 
 lutions, all consonant to the Czar's modes of thinking, and certain to ensure 
 that brilliant favour with which he was now regarding the Austrian Court. 
 In the Caucasus, the Emperor was pushing the war with the desperation of 
 despotic M'rath. In one season, the fever cut off 5000 of his soldiers ; and his 
 forces were surrounded by fire in the forests, obstructed by barricades at all 
 openings, and crushed in the passes by rocks rolled from above : — 2000 officers 
 were slain in one campaign, and the General-in-Chief, Woronzow, appeared 
 with a countenance of deep melancholy at its close ; melancholy on account 
 of slain comrades and his suffering forces ; yet was every officer disgraced who 
 made any failure in any expedition against the Circassians ; and the Circassian 
 patriots were spoken of and treated as vermin, fit only to be exterminated. — 
 In Servia again, he appeared as an avenging despot, after having declared 
 himself, in the Treaty of Adrianople, the Protector of Servia, granting certain 
 rights and liberties to the Servians. The Servians expelled a Prince whom 
 they detested, and elected one whom they loved. Turkey let them alone: but 
 Russia interfered, proscribing, banishing, insisting on new elections, terrifying 
 the people into submission, but by no means increasing their love for Russian 
 protection, or their desire for Russian intercourses. We are told by an autho- 
 rity worthy of all respect, that since the strange accidents which caused the 
 Russian army to be encamped at Paris, not only has Russia declared lierself 
 the protector of the cause of monarchy in Europe, but her people have become 
 fully persuaded that, as other states fixU to pieces under the explosive force of 
 the democratic principle, Russia is to put them together again, and dispose of 
 them at her pleasure. Absurd as this notion appears to us, it is sedulously 
 
 The Caucasus. 
 Annual Register, 
 184.i. Chron. 1.13. 
 
 SEttVIA. 
 
 Annuaire Hist. 
 1844, p. 404. 
 
 Edinburgh Re- 
 view, IxxU. p. 388.
 
 Chap. XII.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 639 
 
 declared wherever Russia has partisans; and especially in Germany. It 1841 46. 
 
 appears to have been in tlie discharge of his assumed vocation that the Czar - ,- 
 
 achieved the last act of despotic meddling which falls within the period of our 
 history — the extinction of the independence of Cracow, in 1846. It has been craco«. 
 related how Cracow was insulted and overborne, in 1836; in February, 1846, 
 the Austrians, who held the city, were driven out by those who conceived Annual Regi.tfr. 
 themselves the proper inhabitants, and who were exasperated into the adven- "*^'''' ••■ ^°^- 
 ture of striking one more blow for the liberties of Poland. They were sup- 
 ported by an extensive insurrection in Silesia, and for a time held their ground 
 wonderfully. But they could not long resist the pressure of the three great Powers 
 who now united to overthrow for ever the independence they had bound them- 
 selves by treaties to protect. The Austrian forces took the town of Podgorze, 
 which commands Cracow from the opposite bank of the \'istula : the Prussian 
 general, De Felden, invested Cracow, and the Russian troops marched into 
 the city, without opposition. Without opposition, because all the inhabitants 
 had fled except the aged and children. — The three Protecting Powers pre- 
 sently settled the case of Cracow among themselves. As the treaties of 1815 
 were entered into among themselves, they could not see that the rest of the 
 world had any thing to do with the fate of Cracow, except to hear the news : 
 and in November, therefore, they merely announced, with a condescending j^™""' jiJ'f '""'■• 
 exhibition of reasons, that the Republic of Cracow was no more; that the 
 treaties were revoked ; and that the city and territory of Cracow were annexed 
 to, and for ever incorjDorated with, the Austrian monarchy. 
 
 As he held his position by a religious, as well as political tenure, it was iussmn Juw-s. 
 impossible for the Czar to tolerate varieties of religious faith. The Jews were 
 made to feel this in 1843. By an Ukase issued in that year, allJews residing fii"3"p"^j9'5""' 
 within fifteen leagues of the frontier were compelled to sell their goods on the 
 instant, and repair to the interior of the empire. All who could not convince 
 the government that they held a position of which government was to be the 
 judge, were sentenced to banishment to the steppes. The Jews were to be 
 subject henceforth to recruiting for military service ; and their children were 
 held at the disposal of the Emperor for the naval service. — For some time, the 
 Pope and his Church had met with insolent treatment from the great poten- tub c^ab and 
 tate of the Greek Church ; and by this time it was clear that the Pope was '"'"' 
 growing submissi\'« tlirough long-continued alarm. As his tone became 
 subdued, that of the Czar grew gracious ; and in 1844, he restored his sus- 
 pended diplomatic relations with Rome, by sending thither one of his ablest 
 Ministers from Constantinople. The chief ground of quarrel was supposed to 
 be the persecution of the Poles by the Emperor, on account of their faith, mid 
 his oppressive attempts to bring them over to the Greek Church. A\ lien 
 there was reason to believe that the aged and timid Pontiff was willing to 
 listen submissively, the Czar discovered that the air of I'alermo would bo good 
 for the health of his Empress ; and he was presently standing before the old 
 Pope in the Vatican, giving an account of his treatment of the liatin Church 
 in Poland, and listening to a more spirited remonstrance than it was at alibis 
 custom to hear. He wore a respectful air, knowing that the Pontiff', then in 
 his 80th year, could not live long, and tliat it was inconceivable that tlie next 
 Pope could have equal zeal for the Church, while events were showing tliat
 
 640 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 nDooK VI. 
 
 1841— 4G. 
 
 Orkgouv XVI 
 
 was in preparation. And the Pope did 
 an inheritance of hopeless trouble to his 
 
 Annuairo Hist, 
 1340, p. 423. 
 
 civil disturbance of every kind 
 die in the next year, leaving 
 successor. 
 
 Pope Gregory XVI. had been Pontiff since February 1831. Able as a 
 propagandist, he was wholly unfit for civil rule ; and the abuses of his realm 
 were unreforraed in his time, and so aggravated as to keep his subjects in a 
 restive state, and all the despotic monarchs of Europe in a condition of per- 
 petual alarm. AVith certain of the sovereigns he was on strange terms. Wc 
 have seen something of his relations with the Czar. He granted to France, 
 most unwillingly, the liberty of dealing harshly with the Jesuits; and he 
 enjoyed as his recompense, the friendship of the Orleans family and Cabinet. 
 His feud with Prussia about the affair of the Archbishop of Cologne was most 
 serious ; — serious enough, if the world had been three centuries younger, to 
 have plunged all Europe in war. A more perplexing close of the controversy 
 was avoided by the prudence of the new sovereign of Prussia. Frederick 
 William III. died in June 1840. His son declared an amnesty, which included 
 the religious disputants among others. Then followed words of peace on both 
 sides — conciliatory charges on the part of the prelates — declarations of satis- 
 faction on the part of the King. The pope yielded nothing which the most 
 zealous churchman could reproach him for ; and the new King of Prussia 
 evaded a perilous controversy with the Papacy. In his civil government, 
 Gregory XVI. was eminently unsuccessful. When the outcry about Signer 
 Mazzini's letters being opened was raised in England, there was a universal 
 presentiment that popular risings in Italy might be expected. The Pope had 
 broken his promises of reform : his Cardinals had governed with cruelty, as 
 well as with their usual want of sense andknowledgeof themen of their century; 
 and the year before his death was embittered to the old Pontifi" by fierce 
 
 is""""' .5-'?'*""^' ii^surrections throughout his dominions. The manifesto of the insurgents, 
 exhibiting his broken promises and his acts of tyranny, must have struck 
 upon his heart ; and for a few days, there seemed reason to suppose that the 
 revolutionary party might succeed. Town after town declared against the 
 ancient tyranny ; and the papal troops went over to the liberals. But a 
 battle at Ravenna closed the struggle, by defeating and dispersing the insur- 
 gents. All was over for this time ; but every body was aware that it was only 
 for a time. Italy was, of all the countries of Europe, the choicest skirmishing 
 ground for the coming War of Opinion ; and the Papal realm, again, the 
 choicest within the bounds of Italy. — It was no great gain to set against these 
 perils that Home was once more on good terms with Portugal, and was about 
 to be so with Spain. The frequent revolutions in these countries, and the 
 constant state of turbulence, in which the clergy suffered dreadfully, had long 
 ago alienated the Holy See. By the mediation of Austria, Portugal was re- 
 conciled with Rome ; and in 1846, it was a topic of wfirm discussion in the 
 
 Spain. Cortcs whether Spain, already in friendly negotiation for the same object, 
 
 might enter into a state of perfect affiliation, if the mediation of England were 
 sought rather than that of France accepted. It was very well that there should 
 be peace among those Courts ; but all three were so profoundly weak 
 that it mattered little to the welfare of any but themselves what terms they 
 were on.
 
 Chap. XII.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 641 
 
 In Smtzerland there was much confusion dnring this period ; warfare be- 1841 46. 
 
 tween the aristocratic and the democratic principles, and between the Catholic ' ■ ' 
 
 and Protestant faiths. It was not conceivable that the conflict of opinion should 
 be brought to a close there when it was kindling in other parts of Europe. — In 
 Hanover, the king was growing tired of hearing of poor officers' widows ; and hanoveb. 
 he issued an Ordinance regulating the love-affairs of all the officers of the fslG^^chron!'".' 
 Hanoverian army. They were not to betroth themselves without his per- 
 mission ; and the requisite permission was to be obtained by methods of appli- 
 cation which it is astonishing that the most antique despot of our time should 
 have dreamed of proposing to any body of men whatever. Tlio Ordinance can 
 be regarded only as a decree for the increase of invalid manriages. — Meantime, Sweden. ■ . 
 old Bernadotte, the most successful of Napoleon's generals and monarchs, was 
 gone. He came out of the Pyrenees as a private soldier, though a man of 
 education. He died, in peace and beloved, the King of Sweden and Norway, 
 leaving a son to succeed him who was more ready than he had proved himself 
 to reform some of the grossest social and political abuses of the old feudal king- 
 dom of Sweden, while cordially respecting the more democratic constitution 
 of Norway. Charles John XIV. of Sweden died in March, 1844, on his Aimu»ireHist. 
 
 •' . ' ' 1SI4, p. 3'J5. 
 
 81st birthday, after a reign of 26 years. 
 
 Thus far, tlie movements and events that we have briefly detailed have 
 been those in which Great Britain was not immediately concerned. Every, 
 incident, in a time wlien trouble and turbulence are on the increase from year 
 to year — even from month to month — must concern every nation in the world ; 
 but our country had only to look on in regard to the events which have been 
 related ; whereas in others she had to judge and act. 
 
 In pursuance of their object of keeping Russia in check by preserving tirkey and 
 Turkey, the governments of England and France exerted themselves vigo- 
 rously in 1839 to prevent the threatened war between Turkey and Egypt. If, 
 as seemed very possible, the Sultaun should be beaten by his powerful vassal, 
 the Czar might send his ships into the Bosphorus. The thing to be done was 
 to prevent Turkey from being so weakened as to afford a pretext for this 
 dangerous aid. The Pasha of Egypt declared himself ready for an accommo- 
 dation: but the Sultaun was too highly offended by the haughty assumptions 
 of his vassal to give up the hope of punishing him ; and he declared this war 
 to be a duty required of him by his function of high-priest of Islamism. War 
 was proclaimed — the Pasha and his son declared to be deposed — and the fleet 
 ready for sailing, early in June 1839. Syria was the field of conflict ; and 
 every thing seemed to depend on whether the Syrian population would or 
 would not rise against the Egyptians. Some observers declared that the 
 Syrians hated the Egyptians : others that they favoured them. The truth 
 appears to have been that their taxation irader Egyptian rule was very oppres- 
 sive : but that other causes swayed the likings of large bodies of the pcoj)le ; 
 as, for instance, the toleration afforded to the Christians by Egypt — a tolera- 
 tion never to be expected from the Porte. On the first meeting of the amiies, 
 Ibraheem, the heir of the Egyptian Viceroyalty, won a splendid victory. Before 
 the news of the defeat of the Turks could reach Constantinople, the Sultaun 
 was dead. — His son and successor was only 17 years of age. Ilis accession An™i necisier, 
 afforded an opportunity for a change of policy. He changed his Ministers 
 
 VOL. n. 4 N
 
 042 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book VI. 
 
 1841—46. and his Ambassadors at the European Courts; and then offered to Moham- 
 
 ^- -^ — med Alee pardon and the perpetual succession of his family to power in 
 
 Egypt, if he would submit and be at peace. The Pasha declared himself 
 willing to do so if the dominion over Syria and Candia were secured to his 
 family, as well as that of Egypt. 
 
 The Five Powers — England, France, Russia, Prussia, and Austria — here 
 assumed the management of the affair. While their envoys consulted in 
 London, the French and English fleets cruised in the Levant to keep the 
 truce. The case was now much perplexed by the Turkish admiral having 
 carried his ships to Alexandria, and put them into the power of the Pasha. 
 A suspicion was abroad that the French government encouraged the Pasha to re- 
 tain this fleet, when he would otherwise have given it up : and at the same time, 
 it was whispered in London, and thence spread into other countries, that three 
 of the Five Powers would make the restitution of the fleet and the surrender 
 of Sjria indisfjensable conditions of the Pasha's retaining even the hereditary 
 dominion over Egypt. However this might be, the old Viceroy was active in 
 raising troops, drilling the navy, and preparing for decisive war. The Five 
 Powers were, however, so long over their work, that all the world grew tired ; 
 and especially Turkey — the party most interested. The Turks began to 
 tliink that they could come to an understanding with the Pasha, if they were 
 let alone : and, as the Pasha had repeatedly declared that the Prime Minister 
 at the Porte, Khosrew Pasha, was the mischief-maker who prevented an ac- 
 commodation, the Turks deposed Khosrew Pasha, in June, 1840. The fleet 
 was not, however, rendered up by the time four of the Five Powers (France 
 being omitted) signed a convention, on the 15th of Jidy. The Pasha delayed 
 about accepting the terms offered. The Sultaun grew angry, and declared 
 him deposed ; and then, very naturally, the Pasha concluded that all was 
 over, and prepared for the worst. Then the British vessels in the Levant 
 blockaded Alexandria and the Syrian ports ; and in September, they bom- 
 Annuai Register, bardcd Beirout. The Egyptians lost ground every where : and in November 
 
 1840 p. 191. . . J ^ 
 
 Acre fell before the attacks of the allied squadrons. Jerusalem retinned to 
 its allegiance to the Porte ; and the Egyptians had no other hope than tliat of 
 getting back to the Nile, with a remnant of their force. When assured that 
 he would be secured in the Viceroyalty of Egypt, if he delivered up the 
 Turkish fleet and evacuated Syria, Mohammed Alee did so ; and in return, 
 received the firman which gave the dominion of Egypt to himself and his 
 heirs. 
 
 Some weeks afterwards, however, the Porte sought to impose the disagree- 
 able condition that the Sidtami should choose among the heirs, at the time of 
 the death of any Viceroy, the one he should prefer. The Five Powers pro- 
 tected the Pasha from this encroachment, and his affairs were at last con- 
 sidered settled. From that time to the day of his death, he was wont to 
 taunt European travellers with the state of Syria, and ask tliem if tliey did 
 not wish it back in his hands. And it was quite true that, under his rule, the 
 roads were as safe for travellers as he had made his great highway of the Nile ; 
 while in Syria there was nothing that could be called government ; and the 
 roads were infested with marauders. The Christians of the Lebanon would 
 not settle under Turkish rule. Some heavy taxes and the conscription were
 
 Chap. XII.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 643 
 
 gone ; but now there was no security for life and property. The most curious 1841—46. 
 
 circumstance is that different tribes of Clhristians in the Lebanon, wlio had " ' 
 
 for some time been at war with each other, were believed by the European 
 officers stationed in Syria to be fighting out the quarrels which had risen up 
 between England, France, and Russia, in the course of their conference on 
 eastern affairs — the Maronites being supposed to be in the interest of Frauce, 
 the Druses of England, and the Greek Christians of Russia. A charge had 
 before been brought against the British government of raising the tril)es of the 
 Lebanon against the Pasha's rule; a charge emphatically denied by Lord 
 Palmerston: and now, in 1841, the jealousies between the French and English 
 in Syria and Egypt were becoming as absurdly bitter as such jealousies are 
 when indulged in so far from home, and amidst the ennui of a foreign 
 station. 
 
 Before entering upon the controversies which arose among the Five Powers, RolTETol^DIA. 
 we must point out to notice the remarkable self-command of the Pasha in 
 opposing no difficulty to the passage of the English through Egypt, en route 
 for India. The injury to Great 13ritain would have been enormous, if this 
 route had been closed, and she had been forced back upon her old track by 
 the Cape. However certain it might be that Mohammed Alee would even- 
 tually have suffered by any vindictive use of his power over this passage to 
 India, it must be regarded as a proof of a wisdom and self-command astonish- 
 ing in a man of his origin and circumstances, that he never spoke a word nor 
 lifted a finger in obstruction, but allowed the English to pass to the Red Sea 
 as freely as if no mortal controversy were pending. 
 
 Towards the end of 1840, a leading Journal at Paris is found saying, " We France. 
 have confided for ten years in the alliance of England ; we confide in it no 
 more. We stand alone, and alone are prepared to maintain, if need be, the 
 balance of power, and independence of Europe. Paris, without defence, in- 
 volves the safety of the whole country; Paris, fortified, will prove its bulwark." 
 — Here was the subject of the fortifications revived. The occasion, or the wab spirit. 
 pretext, for resuming the works was the expectation of war with England : 
 and the occasion, or the pretext, for expecting a war with England was the 
 difference that had arisen about the Eastern question. France believed that Jioraof i^rd 
 the safety of Turkey would be best secured by putting Syria under the rule of 3i, is lo. 
 the Pasha ; and that the Pasha would prove quiet and trustworthy when once 
 settled in his guaranteed dominion. The other Four Powers believed that 
 the ambition of the Pasha would keep him always restless, and that if he was 
 not now kept in bounds, there might be no end to the disturbance he might 
 cause, and the incursions he would make. Meanwhile, time pressed. The 
 risings in the Lebanon stimulated the members of the convention. If Frauce 
 could not come over to their view, neither could they wait : and thus it was 
 that the treaty of July loth was signed by Four Powers, to the exclusion of 
 France. France was jealous, and remonstrated through her Minister, M. ^I'^'^jJ^^.^J-f^'^l' 
 Guizot ; and next, she became quick-sighted to see " concealed menaces "in 
 the Declaration of the Convention for the pacification of the Levant. She 
 next saw, in imagination, the combined finces of the Four Powers— or at least 
 the armies of England— marching into France ; and hence the renewed cry 
 for the fortification of Paris.— In October, the French really believed \\ ar willi
 
 644 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book VI 
 
 1841 46. England to be inevitable. M. Thiers, the Prime Minister of France, had in- 
 
 -- — ■ ' structed M. Guizot to say that France would consider it a cause of war if 
 
 Mohammed Alee should be driven from Egypt as British and Turkish cannon 
 were driving him out of Syria ; and just after, the young Sultaun committed 
 that foolish act of haste — declaring the deposition of jNIohammed Alee. When 
 the news reached France, the politicians and journalists of France declared 
 that a true casus belli had now occurred. It was not so ; for England could and 
 did imjnediately prove that she was resolved to secure to the Pasha the 
 dominion of Egypt : but the war spirit did not decline in France, in conse- 
 quence of this or of any other explanation that could be aiforded. The King 
 was known to be as earnestly in favour of peace as his Minister, M. Thiers, was 
 disposed for war. Men were speculating on which would prevail when occa- 
 sion arrived for deciding the matter for the moment. The King and his 
 Minister could not agree about the speech to be delivered at the opening of 
 the Chambers. The Minister desired to announce a vast new levy of troops : 
 the King would not hear of it, and the Minister resigned, with all his col- 
 leagues. In Queen Victoria's Speech at the end of the preceding session, 
 France had not been mentioned at all, though a notification had been given 
 of the Convention for the Pacification of the Levant ; and the French had 
 complained bitterly of this as a slight. In the Speech of the King of the 
 French, no such slight was offered in return ; for the mention of the Four 
 Powers was serious enough. Amidst the deep silence of a listening auditory, 
 Annuaire Hist, as nimicrous as the Chambers could contain, the King announced that the 
 1840, p. 310. Convention and its Declaration imposed grave duties on him : that he prized 
 the dignity of France as much as its tranquillity : that the reasons for the ex- 
 traordinary credits wliich had been opened would be readily understood : and 
 that he hoped, after all, that peace would be preserved. 
 
 There was no reason, indeed, why it should not. The affairs of the East 
 were soon considered settled : " it takes two to make a quarrel ;" and none of 
 the Four Powers had any present cause of war against France. If there was 
 to be a war, France must begin. She did not begin ; and all the world knew 
 that a warlike ^linistry had been dismissed for a pacific one. — In a little 
 while, the chances of peace were further improved by Lord Aberdeen's 
 entrance upon the Foreign Office in London, in the place of Lord Palmerston. 
 Rightly or wrongly. Lord Palmerston was supposed to have an extraordinary 
 talent for creating uncomfortable feelings in Foreign Allies, and for bringing 
 on awkward and critical events. He was regarded as a busy, clever, im- 
 perious man, very trying to have to do with ; while Lord Aberdeen was foimd 
 to be the high-bred gentleman of the diplomatic world ; liberal, quiet, not 
 apt to interfere, but frank when actually engaged in affairs, as watchful as 
 inofiensivc, and, without supineness, disposed to put a good construction on 
 the acts of allies, and to make allowance for the mere harmless irritability of 
 weak and harassed rulers of any country less happy than our own. It was 
 well that the ministers on both sides of the Channel were, in 1841, men of 
 peace ; for the war party in Franco, which was noisy beyond all proportion to 
 its numbers, and which had actually obtained possession of too much of the 
 journalism of the time, was insane enough to laud a speech of a turbulent 
 deputy, in favour of an alliance with Russia against England, and to raise
 
 Ghap. XII.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 645 
 
 this into a temporary popular demand. If such a thing could have been, the 1841 — 46. 
 
 War of Opinion would have presented a curious aspect indeed. Meantime, ~— — ^^ ' 
 
 money for fortifications was voted — the wall and the detached forts were to 
 be carried on together and with vigour — and the ministers procured for the 
 government the right of con.structing the works in any way it pleased ; a 
 privilege against which M. Odillon Barrot protested in a manner which now 
 appears very significant — lest those fortifications should hereafter be used to 
 overawe and injure the people of Paris. It was on the 1st of April that the 
 final vote was taken. ^™'"'"?"'''- 
 
 1841, p. GG. 
 
 At the end of the year a treaty was signed which occasioned new trouble right or keabch. 
 
 hereafter. By this treaty, signed in London on the 20th of December, France, fs"'i"'p. mI!'"'^' 
 Austria, Russia, and Prussia, agreed with England to adopt her laws in regard 
 to the slave trade. Hence arose the subsequent difficulties and disputes 
 about the Right of Search. As the slave trade was declared to be piracy, and 
 those who carried it on to be guilty of felony, it naturally followed that these 
 Five Powers conceded to each other the right of searching all vessels carrying 
 their respective flags, which were under suspicion of having slaves on board. 
 The vigilant war-party immediately declared an apprehension that the inde- 
 pendence of the French flag might suffer ; and they actually carried in the 
 Chamber of Deputies an admonitory resolution, in favour of which the whole 
 Chamber voted, except the five ministers who sat there. The fact was, some 
 difficulties had occurred with American vessels on the high seas, and some 
 consequent dispute with the United States government about the Right of 
 Search ; and some mistakes in practice had been made, owing, as the French 
 ministers emphatically declared, not to the treaty of 1841, or any other treaty, 
 but to instructions to cruisers, issued by Lord Palmerston ; and these things 
 suggested to the war-party the cry about the honour of the French flag. 
 The debates about this question in the French Chambers, on occasion of the 
 Address, in the session of 1842, merged into discussion of the value of the 
 English alliance; when the ministers, Guizot and Soult especially, spoke so 
 manfully in the cause of peace, reasonableness, and the English alliance, that 
 the Opposition interrupted them with cries that theirs were English speeches. 
 Two particulars are memorable, in regard to the debate. It was declared, Annual ncgistcr, 
 without contradiction, that all practical annoyance under the provision for 
 Seai-ch, had occurred during Lord Palmerston's term of office ; and tliat, 
 since Lord Aberdeen succeeded him, there had been none. And M. Guizot 
 avowed that the chances of peace were improving every day ; that a more just A^nnuai uogisicr, 
 feeling towards England was beginning to prevail ; and that the moderation 
 and patience of the Cabinet of London, as well as that of Paris, was constantly 
 imparting solidity to the relations of the two countries. And yet, this was 
 at a time when the warfare of the press was the most violent. The French 
 journals were emulated in their spirit of animosity and their jiower of pro- 
 voking by a London paper, the 'Morning Chronicle'; whose tone was 
 resented by the English public as a disgrace in which the national character 
 ought not to be implicated. The general impression, at home and in France, 
 was that the war articles in the ' :\Iorning Chronicle' were Lord Palmerston's. 
 Whether they were his or another's, they were as mischievous as they were 
 otherwise indefensible.
 
 646 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 [Book VI. 
 
 AnnuaireHis., 
 1849, p. 9. 
 
 DEATn OF THE 
 DUKR OF 
 OULEANS. 
 
 1841—46. In the sessions of 1843 and 44, the French legislators had resolved that the 
 commerce of the country should he replaced under the sole surveillance of the 
 national flag : in 1845, M. Guizot avowed that the provisions of the treaty 
 against the slave trade had lost much of their force, and tended to impair 
 the amity of the two nations: and that he hoped that the desired eiul 
 might yet he reached by means perfectly safe. In truth, the Right of Search 
 question was by this time put out of sight by new quaiTels of so fierce a cha- 
 racter, that the King declared, in his speech before the Chambers, that the 
 good understanding of his government with England had at one time appeared 
 in imminent danger of fatal interruption. 
 
 And yet, events had happened which seemed almost inevitably to preclude 
 hostile feelings, and the superficial irritability of minds not sufficiently occu- 
 pied. The interest of our Queen, and of every member of her government, 
 and of every good heart every where, was engaged on behalf of the unhappy 
 King of the French and of his family, by an event which occurred in July, 
 1842. The Duke of Orleans, the heir of the French throne, was thrown out 
 of a carriage and killed. The deep grief of the aged father and of the fond 
 mother was respected throughout Europe ; and all hard thoughts must have 
 been dismissed during the mournful period when the question of the regency 
 was in course of settlement. The Duke de Nemours, the next brother of the 
 Duke of Orleans, was to be regent during the minority of the Count de Paris. 
 This settled, the King prosecuted other plans for the security of the throne 
 from which his family was so soon to pass. In 1843, two more of his children 
 married ; — the Princess Clementine being united to Prince Augustus of 8axe 
 Coburg, and the Duke de Joinville to a Brazilian Princess, sister of the 
 KovjL Visits.:; I Euiperor of the Brazils and of the Queen of Portugal. In September of the 
 same year, Queeu Victoria and her husband visited the King and Queen of the 
 French at their country seat, the Chateau d'Eu ; and the warmth of their 
 demonstrations of friendship, and the fervour witli which the people cheered 
 our young sovereign Avhcrever she appeared, seemed to indicate that the war 
 spirit had either never been widely prevalent or had died out. The visit was 
 returned in the autinnn of the next year, when Louis Philippe was received 
 with a welcome as hearty as his people had oflered to our Queen. The King 
 lost no opportunity of saying — and it was as late as the 13th of October 
 when he finally spoke the words with emphasis — tliat the aim and object of 
 his policy had ever been a cordial amity with Great Britain : yet, in the royal 
 Speech of the 26th of December, the King admitted that difficulties which 
 might have become of the most serious importance had risen up between the 
 British government and his own. Discussions had been entered into which 
 appeared to endanger the relations of the two states. These were gentle 
 words indicating a perilous quarrel. 
 
 The island once called Otaheite, and thus so well known to the readers of 
 Cook's Voyages, and now called Tahiti, liad for some years been a British 
 missionary station ; and the Queen of the island, named Pomare, had been a 
 religious pupil of our missionaries tliere. In September, 1842, Queen Pomare 
 placed her dominions under the protection of France, by a treaty dated on the 
 9th of that mouth. Her subjects were not pleased. Some said she had been 
 coerced to do the deed, througli fear of the French admiral, Dupetit Thouars, 
 
 Annual Register, 
 1844, Chron. 119 
 
 Annuaire His. 
 1H45, p. 3.
 
 Chap. XII.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 647 
 
 who hovered about her dominions. However this might be, the natives I841 4(]. 
 
 were vexed, and showed hostility to the French ; and the French naturally ^— •— -^ 
 and immediately concluded that English intrigue was at the bottom of the 
 discontent. The Admiral appcar-ed off the island in November 1843, and 
 required Queen Pomare to hoist the French flag over her ovn^, or instead of 
 itj and, on her refusal to do so, he landed troops, hauled do-\\ni her flag, and 
 made proclamation that the island belonged to France. Of the indefensible 
 character of this act there can be no doubt : and the French government lost 
 no time in disowning it. There was, however, a party in the Chamber, as 
 Vfell as outside, who, in the heat of animosity against England, declared that 51. camc.Fcb. 20. 
 French honour would be wounded by the removal of the national flag set up 
 by the Admiral ; while others alluded to the utility of having a piece of 
 French territory in that part of the world. In the debate brought on by this 
 party, M. Guizot defended the conduct of Queen Pomare, declared that of 
 . England to be blameless and pacific, and severely censured the French 
 admiral. When the English Ministers were questioned in parliament about 
 the French treaty with Pomare, they had always said that they had nothing to Hansard, ixvui. 
 object to it ; that perfect religious liberty was assured by the treaty, and that the 
 arrangement might probably be for the benefit of the inhabitants of the whole 
 group of islands. Lord Aberdeen had obtained from Paris assurances that the 
 British missionaries would meet with all possible protection and encourage- 
 ment. When the news of the aggression of the French admiral arrived, 
 there was hardly time for any speculation before the disavowal of the French 
 government was communicated. But, on the 29th of July, 1844, news was 
 received which brought out stronger language from Sir R. Peel and Lord 
 Aberdeen than they had often iised in parliament. 
 
 A missionary, named Pritchard, had become British Consul at Tahiti, some 
 time before the arrival of Admiral Dupetit Thouars. When Queen Pomare 
 was deposed, Mr. Pritchard resigned his office ; but there had not yet been time 
 for his resignation to be accepted ; and he acted as Consul till a reply arrived 
 from England. He was supposed by the French to have fostered the discon- 
 tents of the natives; and he was outraged accordingly by the leading com- 
 manders on the station. A French sentinel having been attacked and 
 disarmed by the natives on the night of the 2nd of March, J\lr. Pritchard was 
 seized " in reprisal," imprisoned, and released only on condition of his leaving a™|>»i l^^"'^'- 
 the Pacific. He was carried away, without having seen his family, and 
 reached England by way of Valparaiso. The British Ministers d(-clared in 
 parliament that the account was scarcely credible— so impossible did it seem ■^p^,^',"'""'-"''^- 
 that such an outrage shoidd have been offered under the circumstances : but 
 the reply of the French government to ihe remonstrances of England would 
 soon arrive, when, no doubt, it would appear that the French King and his 
 Ministers would he as eager to disavow this act as that of dethroning the 
 Queen of Tahiti. After some little delay, the Ministers announced, on the sp^woM^^'.p- 
 last day of the session, September Oth, that the afi'air was satisfactorily settled 
 — the French government being willing to make pecuniary recompense to Mr. 
 Pritchard for the wrongs he had suffered. It would have been well if all had 
 followed the lead of Sir R. Peel in declining to discuss the merits or demerits 
 of Mr. Pritchard. Whatever his conduct might have been, whether wise or
 
 648 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 [Book VI. 
 
 1841- 
 
 Spanish 
 Question. 
 
 Annuaire Hist, 
 1841, p. 4. 
 
 -4G. foolish, peaceable or irritating, the only question was wliether he, as a British 
 subject, had been outraged. He had ; and reparation was made. But there 
 were citizens in England and France who tried to make a cause of quarrel out 
 of the demeanour of the man ; with regard to which there could be no impar- 
 tial evidence, and which had nothing to do with the affair. And again, the 
 persons who thought France would be dishonoured by the removal of a flag 
 which should never have been set up, were very capable of saying that French 
 honour would suffer by making reparation to a man who was now doubly dis- 
 liked because he had been injured. Thus, the state of feeling during the 
 latter months of 1844 was such as to warrant the expressions of the King's 
 speech in December. 
 
 Already other storm clouds were showing themselves on the horizon. — Ever 
 since the accession of the young Queen Isabella, there had been a rivalship 
 between French and English influence in Spain. The Regent Christina was 
 a relation of the Orleans family, and some jealousy was excited by their 
 friendly manners towards her. When she abdicated the regency in the 
 autumn of 1840, leaving her daughter in the care of Espartero, she fled into 
 France, repairing first to Marseilles, as if on her way to Naples, but jiresently 
 turning her face towards Paris, after receiving letters thence. She was met 
 by the King himself outside the city, and received with military honours ; 
 and almost every newspaper in Europe detailed the particulars of a reception 
 which was supposed to signify so much : and in the French Chambers the 
 government was called to account for permitting a course of action which 
 would throw Spain into the arms of England. M. Guizot replied that France 
 would faithfully support, if necessary, the throne of Isabella II., but would 
 have nothing to do with the intestinal quarrels of Spain, and would receive 
 any refugees in the way she thought proper. — It was from Paris that Queen 
 Christina wrote, in the ensuing summer, to claim the guardianship of her 
 children, when the Cortes were in the act of appointing guardians. She had 
 said, in a Manifesto from Marseilles, " I have laid down my sceptre, and given 
 up my daughters :" and the after-thought by which she revoked these words 
 was believed every where to be a suggestion of King Louis Philippe's. That 
 after-thought was the cause of various risings in Spain. The Madrid insur- 
 rection terrified the poor children almost to death. They were on their knees 
 in the innermost chamber of the palace while it was besieged by night, and 
 nothing but the bravery of the halberdiers prevented the royal children from 
 being seized. The insurgents used the name of Christina : she at first denied 
 their right to do so, and then prevaricated to a degree which induced a general 
 belief that she was employing her position at Paris to overthrow the existing 
 regency of Spain : a belief which, of course, set the English government 
 closely on the watch. 
 
 In 1843, the Regent Espartero and his party fell into adversity, amidst the 
 changing fortunes of civil war. Espartero and his family escaped to England, 
 where their welcome was cordial. The Lord Mayor and Corporation of 
 London invited the Regent to a public dinner at the Mansion House. The 
 King of the French did not appear to resent this. In his Speech at the close 
 is43"p 29I'""' °^ ^^^^ y^^^'t he expressed his deep interest in the young Queen of Spain, on 
 occasion of her having been declared of age while yet only 13 years old ; 
 
 Annual Register, 
 1811, p. 204.
 
 Chap. XII.] DURIlVG THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. G49 
 
 expressed hojje that Spain would be in a more tranquil condition henceforward ; 1841 — 46. 
 
 and avowed that this hope was much strengthened by the perfect understand- ' ■ ' 
 
 ing which subsisted between the Queen of England and himself. 
 
 In January, 1844, M. Guizot made disclosures of great importance in regard 
 to the relations between France and England. After showing that during a 
 recent visit of the Duke de Bourdeaux to London, under the name of the 
 Comte de Chambord, no manifestations had been made in the least unfriendly 
 to the existing government of France, he turned to the subject of Spain. He 
 avowed that an honest and friendly apjieal had been made to the English ^"2™*"* "'*'' 
 government, which had been responded to in a manner no less honest and 
 friendly ; — an appeal as to whether there was really any occasion for the rival- 
 ship of tlie two interests on the soil of Spain ; whether there was any substan- 
 tial ground for such rivalship ; whether it was not in truth a struggle kept up 
 merely as a matter of custom and tradition. This being admitted, an agree- 
 ment had ensued that all considerations should henceforth give way before 
 the great object of securing the tranquillization and prosperity of Spain. — The 
 two Cabinets had gone further still in their discussions and agreements. 
 They had treated of the marriage of Isabella II. ; and England had consented 
 that no Prince whose connexion with the Spanish throne could be injurious 
 to France should be permitted to marry the young Queen. 
 
 The first mention we meet with of the marriage of Isabella II. is in 1843, spaxishMar- 
 in the foiin of a disclaimer by the government which drove out Esijartero of Annual Rppisu-r. 
 
 , . , \Mi, 11.301. 
 
 any intention of carrying the Queen towards the Portuguese frontier, as had 
 been reported, for the sake of marrying her to a Prince of the family of Saxe 
 Coburg Cohary, then on a visit to Lisbon. From the time of AL Guizot's 
 speech of January, 1844, the Queen's marriage was the prominent point of all 
 discussions on Spain. In March, Christina returned to Spain, and was met 
 by her daughters on the road to Madrid. On the 23rd, they all entered 
 Madrid in state. A vulture had hovered over the head of Espartero, it was ^pJJ^""- '*** 
 said, when he last quitted it. Now, when Christina was re-entering it, a dove 
 flew into the carriage, and was taken to her bosom by the little Queen. Sub- 
 sequent events sadly discredited the omen. In October, when a Bill for 
 retrenching the chief safeguards and most liberal provisions of the Constitution 
 was brought forward, a clause was found in it which authorized the Queen to 
 marry without the consent of the Cortes : and at the same time, rumours went 
 forth, assuming to be from authority, that it had been settled among the royal 
 family of Spain, that the Queen should marry the Prince of Asturias, the son 
 of Don Carlos. — At the same time, again (on the 13th of October), Cliristijia 
 married the man whose mistress she bad been for seven years, and by whom 
 she had several children. Her marriage now involved questions, both iiolitical 
 and pecuniary, of great consequence ; questions as to the date at which, by 
 this connexion, she had forfeited her office of regent, and her annual allowance 
 from the State, and her title of Queen Mother. The money and the title were 
 now secured to her by special grants and decrees. But the question remained 
 how the consent of the Pope to this mamage had boon obtained ; and whether, 
 in fact, it had been obtained at all. While all this was discussed, the new 
 Ministers were frightened into altering their Bill so ftu as to continue the 
 exclusion of the family of Don Carlos from connexion with thi^ thvoiu' i)t 
 vol,. II. -i "
 
 G50 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book VI. 
 
 1841 — 4G. Spain : but this act was again neutralized by what the Pope had done. It 
 " '^^ came out that he had permitted the marriage of Christina on certain condi- 
 
 p. \o38. ' ' tions, one of which was that all laws and decrees should be annulled which 
 excluded the family of Don Carlos ; and another, that Queen Isabella should 
 marry the Prince of Asturias. — In six months more, Don Carlos had resigned 
 all claims to the Crown, in favour of his son. But this had no effect in for- 
 Avarding any views as to the marriage of the Prince with the Queen : for, 
 before the end of the year, all the world had heard that negotiations were 
 proceeding for a marriage of the Queen with the Prince de Trappani, brother 
 to the King of Naples and Christina, and therefore uncle to the Queen. But 
 it soon appeared that nobody desired this marriage. The young girl herself 
 disliked the Prince ; her mother opposed his pretensions ; and there was no 
 strong feeling abroad in the nation on his behalf. It was conjectured that the 
 Queen would herself have chosen her cousin Don Enrique, the second son of 
 Don Francisco de Paula — a spirited young naval officer : but, when the Prime 
 Minister, General Narvaez, was questioned in the Cortes, in January, 1846, 
 he declared that the Queen appeared to have no wish to marry, and that the 
 subject had not come under the consideration of the government at all. — Other 
 governments were more anxious : and none involved itself so deeply as that of 
 France. 
 
 Annual Roeistcr, A dcspatch of M. Guizot's, written in 1842, was in existence, which declared 
 
 IS46, p. 283. '^ . . 
 
 that all that France desired, in regard to the marriage of the Queen of Spain, 
 was that she should take a husband from the House of Bourbon. The French 
 princes might be set aside and welcome : an ample choice would remain 
 among the families of the King of Naples, of Don Francisco de Paula, and 
 Don Carlos. Only let it be a Bourbon : and that was enough. In February, 
 1846, however, we find the same INIinister speaking in a very different tone to 
 Lord Aberdeen, through the French Minister in London. ]M. Guizot now 
 Annual Register, declared that, for reasons assigned, no prince of the above-mentioned families 
 could be the choice of the parties concerned ; and he intimated that any intrigue 
 to marry the Queen to a Prince of the House of Saxe Coburg would be resisted 
 by France. There was a Prince of that House whom the French government 
 supposed that England was plotting to get married to the Queen : and hence- 
 forth the relations between France and England became so unfriendly as to 
 threaten war more seriously than at any time since the Peace. Lord Palmer- 
 ston returned to the Foreign Office in the summer ; and from that moment, 
 the controversy became painful and disgusting. It is not necessary for us to 
 go through the disagreeable narrative, as our History closes at the date of the 
 retirement of Lord Aberdeen. Suffice it that, blind to coming events which 
 were soon to sweep away all the plans, and dissolve all the visions, of ambi- 
 tion, the French King and his Ministers made a bold push to place one of 
 their own princes in close proximity to the Spanish throne, for the chance of 
 his issue succeeding to it, while the wretched young Queen was forced into a 
 marriage with the elder brother of the Don Enrique whom she was supposed 
 to favour. Her younger sister, aged 14, was married on the same day to the 
 Duke de Montpensier, the youngest son of the King of the French. The 
 English newspapers were furious in their wrath, as well as strong in their 
 indignation, at the part acted by France. The fear was lest the crowns of
 
 Chap. XII.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. G51 
 
 France and Spain should ever be found on the same head. But tliis couUl 1841 4(5. 
 
 not liajjpeu by any chance short of the death of all the Duke de ISIontpensier's "^ ■ ' 
 
 elder brothers and their children, together with failure of issue from the Queen 
 of Spain. Events have since happened which solemnly rebuke so presump- 
 tuous a forecast into the future, by removing the young bridegroom's family 
 from the throne of France. The fury of dissension which prevailed during 
 the controversy looks now childish enough. The true cause for regret is the 
 paltering and shabbiness exhibited on the part of the French government in 
 the conduct of the business, and the fidgettiness and heat of the British Minister 
 (Lord Palmerston), about an affair which was not worth contesting at the risk 
 of war between the two countries to whose keeping are confided the liberties 
 of Europe. No possible question about the future descent of the Spanish 
 crown can be worth the discord of free States, on the verge of the outbreak of 
 the War of Opinion in Europe. It was understood that the compulsion brought 
 to hear on the young Queen by her mother, under French encouragement, was 
 very cruel ; and the marriage presently appeared before the world as an unhappy 
 one. The two weddings took place on the 10th of October, 1846; and at the 
 end of the month, the French King received at his palace his little daughter- 
 in-law — -the Spanish princess whom he had won into his family at the expense 
 of the friendship of the Queen and people of England. " Men say," declared 
 a newspaper of that date, " that Louis I'hiUppe has sown the wind : time will NeTsp!ipJ?,T»io. 
 show whether he or his successor will reap the revolutionary \\hirlwind." p-32o.. 
 
 During the period before us, changes had taken place among the royal races 
 of France, while the people were carried on by the action of the government, 
 slowly but surely, towards that revolutionary struggle which has since abased 
 some of them, and exalted another, and created some new hope in a third 
 party. The Duke d'Angoul^me, who had for a large portion of his life ex- JJ^*^"„?^™^,, 
 pected to reign over France, died in 1844, and left his nephew, the Duke de 'emk. 
 Bordeaux, the sole representative of the claims of the elder Bourbons. The 
 Prince who had before troubled France with unsupported pretensions to the 
 throne, as nephew of the Emperor — Prince Louis Napoleon — made a descent 
 on Boulogne in August, 1840, even more absurd than the Strasburg attempt ; "^--ognk ima. 
 and received, as his retribution for his contemptible invasion of a kingdom, an Anm.i.iro^Hist. 
 imprisonment in the fortress of Ham, whence he escaped, after a seclusion of 
 six years, in the dress of a workman. Though no wisdom had thus far marked 
 his proceedings, it may finally be proved of some importance to France that 
 his life was not taken on an occasion which would have justified the sentence 
 in the eyes of the world.— In the same year, the remains of his uncle, the ^f;,^;;"'"''^ '''^- 
 Emperor, were brought from St. Helena, under the care of one of the Orleans 
 princes, and solemnly buried in the Hotel des Invalides, in the presence of all ;^,';s;'X'„''^;,-, 
 Paris— the Orleans family paying all the honours personally. 
 
 The African conquests of France still yielded more trouble and cost than algeb,*. 
 glory or gain : and to the dark side of the account was now to be aiUled sliamc, 
 deep and ineffaceable. The native Arabs and Moors were no nearer being 
 conquered than ever; and the noble defender of his race and religion, the 
 Emir Abd-el-Kader, a hero worthy of any country and any age, was still the 
 invincible foe of the invaders. In the belief that he was countenanced by the 
 Emperor of Morocco, the French made war upon that potentate, and the
 
 652 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 [Book. VI. 
 
 1841—46. 
 
 Annuaire Hist. 
 1840, p. 252. 
 
 M. GUIZOT IN 
 1842. 
 
 Annuaire Hist. 
 1-.42, p. 17. 
 
 Prince de Joinville bombarded Tangier on the 6tli of Augxist, 1844, in spite of 
 the jjreventive efforts of Mr. Hay, the British Charge d'Affaires in that place. 
 No results of importance ensued ; for which various causes were assigned by 
 French writers : but all agree that England interfered to promote peace, on 
 terms as favourable to Morocco as could be obtained. — Abd-el-Kader mean- 
 time was as restless as ever, incessantly harassing the French force, without 
 receiving any injury in return. Perhaps the exasperation of the French com- 
 manders in Algeria from this cause might be the influence which so turned the 
 brain of one of them as to induce him to stain the glory of the French ai-ms 
 by an act of atrocity imequalled in modern times. There was a tribe of 
 Kabyle Arabs which had never been conquered, because they retired upon a 
 rocky district perforated with caverns. Colonel Pelissier roasted and suffocated 
 this tribe in their retreat by kindling fires at the entrance. When escape was 
 first offered them, on condition of surrender, they refused ; and such of the 
 women as attempted to fly were shot by their husbands, who considered it a 
 case of martyrdom for religion. They, and their famiUes, and their cattle — 
 500 human beings found dead, and more who died when taken out — were 
 roasted or suffocated. But Europe found a voice on their behalf. A cry of 
 reprobation ran over all civilized countries. In France, however, the (Chroni- 
 cler of the times offers only a very brief comment. " Such," he says, " are 
 the necessary consequences of a war incessantly rekindled by fanaticism." 
 
 In seeking to detennine the position held by France in regard to the con- 
 flict now beginning between the Eastern despotic, and the ^Yestern self- 
 governing principle, it is indispensable to consider the view propounded by 
 the Foreign IMinister of France in the critical period of 1842. However M. 
 Guizot may have afterwards stooped from his declared position, and lost sight 
 of a broad theory of European policy in a low pursuit of selfish and fantastical 
 national ambition, at the bidding of a man unworthy to be obeyed by such an one 
 as he, he spoke in 1842 from his own mind and heart — and his view ought to 
 remain on record. France had come out of the isolation in which she stood at 
 the time of the Brunow Convention, and was again placed in friendly rela- 
 tions with the other Four Powers, when, on the 19th of January, 1842, IM. 
 Guizot said in the Chamber of Deputies, " Some are alarmed at the words 
 ' European concert.' But do those words mean that the Holy Alliance is re- 
 vived ? No. That which is called European concert is simply the spirit of 
 peace among the great Powers. It is the manifestation of that accordant mind 
 which, in case of any critical event occurring, would endeavour to understand 
 and resolve the great political question, before having recourse to the chances 
 of war. — It is to this policy that, for more than twenty years, Europe has been 
 indebted for peace. It is to this policy that Greece and Belgium owe their 
 existence. Never before were mighty events accomplished so pacifically, and 
 conducted so regularly, by negotiation alone, under the influence of European 
 good sense. — There are but three political systems possible for any country : 
 alliance, isolation, or independence in the midst of good understanding. For 
 intimate alliances, the time is passed. As for the policy of isolation, it is a 
 transitory policy which is connected with a position more or less critical and 
 revolutionaiy. It is necessarily adopted on occasion, but should never be 
 reduced into a system. Besides, an intimate alliance between France and
 
 Chap. XII.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 
 
 653 
 
 England involves the inconvenience of cementing the alliance between the 1841— 4G. 
 
 Three great continental Powers. The policy of isolation involves the yet " ' 
 
 greater inconvenience of inducing the alliance of the Four great Powers. 
 There remains then the policy of independence in the midst of amity— and 
 this is the policy upon which France has entered." 
 
 In another view, France left herself free to form alliances hereafter as future 
 events might indicate. 
 
 The relations of England with the United States were as precarious as those amehicas rela. 
 with France, during this period. — First, there was a dispute arising out of the ™''^' 
 Canadian troubles of 1837. A steam-boat, the Caroline, belonging to an 
 American owner, had conveyed arms and stores to a party of Canadian insur- 
 gents on Navy Island. Some loyalists seized the vessel, and sent her down 
 the Falls of Niagara ; and, in the scuffle, an American citizen was killed, the FEomiEn. 
 One McLeod, a British subject, was arrested when transacting business in the 
 State of New York, charged with participation in the destruction of the 
 Caroline, and in the murder of Durfee, the slain man. The British Minister 
 protested against the process, declaring the act to have been done in obedience 
 to the Colonial authorities, and therefore to be a subject for explanation be- 
 tween the two governments, and not for the trial of an individual in the Courts 
 of Law. The British government did fully assume the responsibility of the Mr. foi-s Note of 
 act of destroying the Caroline : but not for this would the American authorities ' ^^'^ 
 liberate McLeod. A popular assemblage overawed the magistrates when they 
 were about to release him on bail : and this complicated the affiiir perilously. 
 So did the Report of a Committee of Congress on the question, which was 
 little short of a declaration of war ; but it was presently understood that the 
 Report had had the concurrence of a bare majority in Committee. — The next 
 difficulty was that the State of New York claimed to try the prisoner for 
 offences committed against the State citizens, instead of those of the Union ; 
 and thus, the question, as between the two governments, was evaded. McLeod 
 was tried, at Utica in the State of New York. Fortunately, there was lui- 
 questionable evidence of McLeod's absence from the scene of the destruction 
 of the Caroline. The plea of an alibi was too strong to be withstood ; the 
 jury returned a verdict of acquittal, and the danger was over for the time. — 
 Some foolish Canadians, however, did what they could to embroil us afresh. 
 Thev made an incursion into the United States' territory, and seized a Colonel Annual Repswr, 
 
 1 /■ • • 1 1 /-I • 1841, p. 317. 
 
 Grogan, whom they accused of incendiary outrage : but the Canadian autho- 
 rities ordered the instant discharge of Colonel Grogan ; and no more was 
 heard of the matter. It remained a subject of serious uneasiness to both 
 governments, however, that outrages were perpetually taking place on the 
 frontier. The Canadian loyalists were insulting and violent; the Ameritau 
 adventm-ers who infested the boundary delighted in raids and skirmishes ; and 
 the federal government had not power to restrain them — owing to certain 
 limitations of its functions, and a partition of power between itself and tlie 
 States along the frontier. Every one was aware that, under the difficulties of 
 the case, much would depend on the character and temper of the I'rcsident oi ^^^'^^^'^'' T'e- 
 the republic. General Harrison entered upon the office in March of tliis year, 
 1841 ; but, before any clear anticipation could be formed of his temper and 
 policy, he died ; only four weeks after his entrance upon office. — By tlie re- om','°',3j*""'''
 
 654 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 [Be OK VI. 
 
 Annual Register, 
 1812, p. 309. 
 
 Annual Register, 
 1843, p. 318. 
 
 1841 — 46. gulation provided for such a possible case, lio was succeeded in his function 
 by the Vice-President, Mr. Tyler; and it remained to be seen how the atfaiis 
 of the States would go on under the rule (for the first time) of a President 
 who had not been elected to that office by the people. 
 Right OF Search. xiic Eight of Search qucstioii was becoming a cause of controversy before 
 the McLeod affair was settled : and now the controversy was fast growing into 
 a quarrel. The American Minister in London maintained that the right 
 existed only under certain treaties; and that countries which, like the United 
 States, had refused participation in such treaties, could not permit their vessels 
 to be searched for evidence of traffic in slaves, or on any other pretence. Lord 
 Palmerston had, before going out of office, admitted this, but shown that the 
 difficulty arose from slavers hoisting, unauthorized, any flag that might suit their 
 purpose best. All that was claimed was — not a riglit to search American 
 merchantmen, but merely to examine their ships' papers, to ascertain whether 
 they really were American vessels. Without this, there could he no security 
 against the slave-traffic of the world being carried on under the flags of those 
 countries wliich did not participate in the treaties. It will be seen what a wide 
 field of international law was extended for argumentation when Lord Aber- 
 deen came into office. — In the following December, Lord Aberdeen communi- 
 cated to the American Minister the nature of the instructions given to British 
 cruisers ; and the frank and temperate explanations of the two Ministers led 
 to happy results. The President said of them, in a message to the Represen- 
 tatives, " These declarations may well lead us to doubt whether the apparent 
 difference between the two governments is not rather one of definition than 
 of principle." And again, " It seems obvious to remark, that a right which 
 is only to be exercised under such restrictions and precautions, and risk, in 
 case of any assignable damage to be followed by the consequences of a trespass, 
 can scarcely be considered any thing more than a privilege asked for, and either 
 conceded or withheld on the usual principles of international comity." The 
 President's lead was followed by Congress. Congress agreed that the honour 
 of the American flag " demanded that it should not be used by others to 
 cover an iniquitous traffic :" and, like the President, Congress "chose to make 
 a practical settlement of the question." And thus, without any concession 
 being made on the side of Great Britain, but only by means of her object 
 becoming better understood, it was settled that, on any fair occasion of sus- 
 picion whether the United States' flag was shown rightfully or as a pretence, 
 she might require the production of the ship's pajiers, under the liability of 
 making reparation for damage or delay, if the vessel should be found to be 
 really American. The Americans also agreed to keep a squadron off the coast 
 of Africa, to guard against abuse of the American flag. And thus, in tlie 
 spring of 1843, was the Right of Search question settled with the United 
 States. 
 afpmrop"The Some comiilications had occurred in the course of the controversy which 
 Spectator, 1842, threatened to prevent its amicable adjustment. A Virginian brig, called the 
 Creole, was on its way to New Orleans in October, 1841, when some slaves, 
 who formed part of the cargo, obtained possession of the ship, wounded the 
 captain and some of the crew, killed a passenger who was the owner of some 
 of their number, and then carried the vessel to Nassau, in New Providence, 
 
 p. 49.
 
 Chap. XII.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 655 
 
 one of the YV'est India islands. On the requisition of the American Consul, 1841— ■!(). 
 
 the magistrates of Nassau detained and imprisoned nineteen negi-oes who were " -^ ' 
 
 charged with participation in the mutiny and murder. The rest, 114 in num- 
 ber, against whom there was no charge, were allowed to go where they would, 
 under the British law that every slave becomes free on touching British soil. 
 The Governor of the Bahamas refused to detain them, and also to forward the 
 nineteen to America till he recei\ed directions from home. The law officers 
 and law peers of England gave an unanimous opinion that there was no law Har.sani, ix.32(i. 
 of the empire under which the persons charged could be tried or even detained ; 
 and the Governor of Nassau was therefore instructed to release the nineteen 
 negroes, unless there was any ])ccidiar colonial law under which they could 
 be tried. The wrath of some of .the Slave States was loud ; and there was 
 talk of bloody consequences : but our newspapers said throughout, " we 
 shall not need to go to war about the Creole :" and so it proved. The American 
 requisition was withdrawn, and the slave-holders gTew tired, at last, of 
 charging Great Britain with abetting piracy and murder. 
 
 There was much ruffling of temper on other subjects. A great number of hfpfal 
 Americans, who did not understand our politics, " sympathized" with the Irish 
 repealers, sent money, promised men, and avowed themselves ready to abet 
 treason on behalf of Ireland to any extent. On the other hand, a great num- 
 ber of Englishmen, who did not understand American afiairs, grossly insulted 
 the whole American nation on account of the delinquencj^ of a very small 
 number in the semi-barbarous States, about their State finances. Three of '''""" '■^""'• 
 these semi-barbarous States repudiated their public debts : and Pennsylvania 
 and one more delayed the payment of their dividends. Pennsylvania never 
 repudiated, though, following a mistake of Sydney Smith's, people in London 
 supposed and said that she did. Such persons knew nothing of the peculiari- 
 ties of the half-German population of Pennsylvania, ignorant and slow; and 
 forgot the unequalled pressure and perplexity she had been subjected to by the 
 action of President Jackson on the Banks, and the consequent extinction of 
 her currency for a time. They knew nothing of the miseries of the iidia- 
 bitants, when reduced to a state of barter: and in this condition of ignorance 
 they charged her with a " repudiation" which her subsequent payments have 
 shown her not to have contemplated. If it is said that people in London 
 could not be expected to know these things, the answer is plain ; — that they 
 should not invest their money in foreign funds without understanding the cir- 
 cumstances of the case ; nor accept extraordinary interest for their investment 
 without being prepared for a corresponding risk. The New EnghiTid States, 
 which head the Union, have ever preserved an unblemished honour ; and so 
 have most of the rest. The few which have not were unfit to be trusted, and 
 mi^ht have been known to be so by any one who understood what the border 
 States are, with the institution of Slavery on the one hand, and the wilds of 
 the ^Mississippi on the other; and within them, a population largely composed 
 of persons who prefer a semi-barbarous to a highly civilized state of society. 
 But, in the wrath of British claimants on certain State funds at the fiiilure of 
 their dividends, the thirty States and the whole American nation were mixed 
 up tO"-ethcr under a charge of cool knavery ; and the temper of both nations 
 was any thing but ameliorated. Some men who ought to have known better
 
 656 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book VI. 
 
 1841 4G. were for petitioning Congress about, an afFair of State debts, with which 
 
 . Congress liad no more concern than the parhament of any other country : and 
 
 it couhl not be very soothing to the temper of the Americans to find that our 
 clergymen, members of parhament, and merchants, did not take the trouble to 
 learn even the outlines of the American Constitution. 
 Texas AND Thcu, iu 1843 and 184:4, public sentiment in England was awake and alive 
 
 Mexico. ' ..,.i» • • i« ■ c 
 
 on the subject which was dividing the American nation — the Annexation oi 
 Texas, followed by the invasion of Mexico. Dr. Channing was revered in 
 England ; his words went far and sank deep ; and his reprobation of the an- 
 nexation of Texas obtained a response from end to end of Great Britain. The 
 noblest part of the American nation rejoiced in our sympathy, and in our per- 
 ception that the action of their country u^on Texas and Mexico was purely 
 for the extension of Slavery ; a safeguard for the institution now so shaken 
 towards the north ; and a new field for its support, in preparation for its 
 abolition in the States which it had exhausted and impoverished. But the 
 noble are always the few ; and every expression of censure or disgust at the 
 game that was playing against the interests of humanity kindled wrath among 
 the majority in the States who were eager for the excitement of war, and the 
 glory of territorial aggrandisement. 
 BouNnAHY While such was the temper of the two peoples towards each other, a ques- 
 
 QuESTioN. ^j^j^ ^^ more difficulty and more importance than any yet discussed had arisen 
 
 between the two governments. It has been noticed before how surely trouble 
 springs up, sooner or later, from the ignorance of geography which prevails 
 when the boundaries of new countries are assigned. The frontier line between 
 the State of Maine and Canada could not be agreed upon by the British and 
 the Americans, when the region became settled. It was a matter of high im- 
 portance to the residents of the debated ground whether they lived under 
 British or American government and laws ; and in the existing temper of the 
 two nations, it appeared too probable that not only skirmishes would take 
 place along the frontier, but that a national war might ensue. Sober people 
 in England, now quieted and made reasonable by a quarter of a century of 
 peace, could hardly conceive of such a thing as a national war for such a 
 cause : but it appears that the statesmen on both sides the Atlantic really ap- 
 Hansarj, ixiii. preliendcd such an issue. In 1839, Lord Palmerston had sent out Commis- 
 sioners to explore the line claimed by the British, and see whether it accorded 
 with the features of the country: and, after these Commissioners had reported, 
 two more were sent out to make a similar investigation into the line claimed 
 by the Americans. Their Report, in 1841, was adverse to the American 
 claim. Arbitration had before been tried, and had failed. The King of the 
 Netherlands had pronounced on two points out of three, and declared the 
 other impossible to settle. He had determined that the British were right as 
 to which was the true river-head specified, and what the proper parallel of 
 latitude : but as to which of two ranges of Highlands was intended, there 
 was no evidence to show. After some confusion, both parties declined the 
 award. And thus, there was no reason to hope any thing from arbitration. 
 In this perplexity, Sir R. Peel's government chose the fittest man in Great 
 Britain for the business, and sent him out as a special ambassador to Washing- 
 ton, fully empowered to settle all matters in dispute between the two govern- 
 
 564
 
 Chap. XII.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. G57 
 
 ments. Lord Ashburton, late Mr. Baring, a thorough Englishman in miud and 1841 46 
 
 manners, was yet so connected with America by commercial and family rela- - . . -._ ■- 
 
 tious as to have much sympathy with American feelings, and full knowledge \ll\ y^H^a^, 
 
 of American institutions, customs, and modes of thought. He went out in 
 
 February 1842, was courteously and even joyfully received, and brought 
 
 matters round presently. A treaty which settled the Boundary question was 
 
 signed on the 9th of August following. It was not to be supposed that every 
 
 body was satisfied. Lord Palmerston, for one, was sure to be displeased ; and 
 
 his prophecies of the dissatisfaction that would be felt, and the mischiefs that 
 
 would arise, were very strong. But no difficulties have as yet been heard of; 
 
 and the inestimable good of peace and national amity appears to have been 
 
 obtained without sacrifice. The agreement gave 7-12ths of the disputed 
 
 ground, and the British settlement of Madawaska to the United States, and 
 
 only 5-12ths of the ground to Britain : but it secured a better military 
 
 frontier to England, and it included heights commanding the St. Lawrence Hansard, ixvir. 
 
 which the award of the King of Holland had assigned to the Americans. 
 
 The best testimony to the equality of the arrangements was the amount of 
 
 discontent among American politicians being about equivalent to that declared 
 
 in England. But in both countries, the vast majority were satisfied and 
 
 gratified; and the chances against war appeared to be stronger than for 
 
 several years past. Lord Ashburton, after having been honoured throughout 
 
 every step of his travels in the United States, received the thanks of Parlia- H^'isard, Lxvui. 
 
 luent on his return home. 
 
 All danger was not over, however. It has been mentioned before that in ohegon qup.s. 
 1822 Lord Castlereagh told Mr. Rush that such was the condition of the -■''"'•. '-^n. 
 Oregon question between England and the United States, that war could be 
 produced by holding up a finger. Now, after tlie lapse of twenty years, the 
 question was as unsettled, and almost as perilous, as ever. It may be remem- 
 bered that an agreement was made in the treaty 1818-1819, that for a 
 period of ten years the Oregon territory should be open to occupation by 
 settlers from both countries. The period was afterwards indefinitely ex- 
 tended. In 1843, the American President announced that he was going to 
 negotiate with Great Britain for the final settlement of their claims to the 
 Oregon territory. A push was immediately made in Congress to get Oregon 
 occupied and put under military organization, as territory belonging to the 
 United States ; and the restless among the vivacious American nation began 
 to form and equip caravans for the long and dreary passage to Oregon, over 
 and beyond the Rocky Mountains. They acted as if their national existence 
 depended on their appropriating the whole available coast of the Pacific, and 
 as if there were no rashness in tempting a crowd of emigrants to cross a 
 desert continent, among myriads of buftaloes and through tribes of hostile 
 Indians, to take possession of a district whose capabilities and conveniences 
 were little known, and which might prove to be the property of a foreign 
 power. Such rashness and indecent haste made the question of settlement 
 more difficult, — British statesmen being disgusted, and American statesmen 
 ashamed, without being able freely to say so. In the course of several con- 
 ferences between the negotiators on each side in 1844, it was understood that 
 the matter should be settled by compromise, — by dividing the tenitory lying 
 
 VOL. 11. "^ ^
 
 G58 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 [Book VI. 
 
 1841— 4G. along the Columbia river. The new President, Mr. Polk, avowed his dislike 
 to any surrender whatever of the American claim ; hut declared that it was 
 too late when he entered upon office to draw back from the compromise prin- 
 ciple ; a declaration which made the majority on both sides of the Atlantic 
 rejoice that ,that much was agreed upon before INIr. 
 TlirouQ-hout the session of 18-15 the debates in Co; 
 
 Throughout 
 
 Annual Register, 
 1846, p. 3-20. 
 
 Polk became President, 
 the session of 1845 the debates in l,;ongress on the subject of 
 Oregon were so conducted as apparently to impair grievously the chances of 
 peara. But it is probable that their very violence wrought in the other direc- 
 tion. Statesmen (worthy of the name) on both sides were better aware what 
 they were about than boastful and quarrelsome orators ; and the more arro- 
 gance and rancour that were expressed, the more were the negotiators stimu- 
 lated to find a basis of agreement. 
 
 In his Message of December, 1845, the American President used language 
 of dogmatism, if not defiance, which some members of the Senate declared 
 themselves unable to agree to. In the next month. Queen Victoria said, in 
 Hansard, ixxxiii. her Spccch to Parliament, that she regretted the unsettled state of the Oregon 
 ^' question, and that no effort consistent with national honour should be wanting 
 
 on her part to bring the controversy to an early and peaceful termination. 
 With these speeches before them, the American Houses of Congress went into 
 debate. The debates were protracted through three months, ending on the 
 23rd of April, with a signal and somewhat unexpected victory of the moderate 
 party. With a view to driving on the matter to a decision by force, the war 
 party had carried Resolutions that notice of the cessation of a joint occupancy 
 of Oregon should be given to Great Britain. After a conference, it was 
 settled that the Resolution about such notice should stand, being accompanied 
 by a declaration that it was for the purpose of inducing a speedy amicable 
 settlement of the dispute, on the ground of an equitable compromise. As 
 soon as the news of this Resolution arrived in England, Lord Aberdeen sent out 
 a new proposal of compromise to our minister at Washington. The President 
 submitted the proposal to the Senate, who approved it by a large majority. The 
 President then accepted the terms ; and in June, the treaty was signed which 
 settled at last the Oregon question. Vancouver's Island remained to Great 
 Britain, and the free navigation of the Columbia ; and the territory in dispute 
 was divided in a way which appears likely to be permanently satisfactory to 
 both parties. Mr. Webster, indeed, avows his anticipation that the combined 
 population of Americans and British, similar in race and separated only by 
 national distribution, will set up for themselves ere long, and form a Republic 
 on the Pacific. However that may be, they are no longer at war, or in 
 anticipation of it. This happy act of reconciliation was one of the last to be 
 perfected by Sir R. Peel's government, and the ultimate success of Lord 
 Aberdeen's mild and discreet administration of our foreign afiairs. 
 
 Annual Rccister 
 1846, p. 327.
 
 Chap. XIII.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 653 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 TN the records of Indian affairs during this period we find a curious ming- 1845-46. 
 
 -■- ling of notices ; — the formation of companies for the construction and ' ' ' 
 
 management of railways, which are to encourage commerce and extend peace 
 
 over the whole of those vast regions ; and hints that the British may soon be 
 
 compelled to interfere in the Punjaub, from the excesses that were perpetrated 
 
 there against one after another of the rulers who succeeded llunjcet Singh. 
 
 In 1845, we find the India Company addressing the Governor-General, Sir 
 
 Henry Hardinge, on the subject of railways, in the evident anticipation that 
 
 the peninsula may in time be intersected with them, so as completely to change 
 
 its financial condition, and perhaps the character of its population ; and in the 
 
 same year — towards its close — we see our territory invaded in the north-west, 
 
 by an army of Sikhs crossing the Sutlej ; whether with or without the sanction sikm invasion. 
 
 of the existing government at Lahore, was not immediately known. The 
 
 Governor-General was in the north-west at the time, having had reason to 
 
 expect some trouble there: and it was on the loth of December that tlie 
 
 decisive news reached him that a Sikh army had crossed the Sutlej. On the 
 
 18th, the battle of Moodkee was fought, under Sir Plugh Gough, when the 
 
 Sikhs were beaten, but not effectually discomfited. In this battle fell Sir 
 
 Robert Sale, the hero of Jellalabad ; a man whom the whole nation would 
 
 have been delighted to see enjoying his old age in England, after his long 
 
 toils and sufferings in the East. Here, however, his left thigh was sliattorcd 
 
 by a ball, and he soon died of the wound. The next battle, that of Feroze- 
 
 shah, was rendered remarkable by the circumstance of the Governor-General 
 
 offering his services to Sir Hugh Gough as second in command ; and he 
 
 actually remained in action in that capacity, conspicuously througlioiit the 
 
 day. The foe proved more formidable than had been expected — their skill 
 
 appearing to equal their hardihood. It was no easy matter to vanquish tliem ; 
 
 but after the battles on the 21st and 22nd, they were routed, and their gims 
 
 captured. Our loss was heavy; and even those who beUeved that the 
 
 Punjaub was now quieted, and the Sikhs silenced for ever, felt that these 
 
 results were obtained at a severe cost. But there were not a feu- who foresaw 
 
 what has since happened, — new conflicts, and the sad necessity of annexing 
 
 the Punjaub to our territory, for the sake of peace, and of the safety of the 
 
 inhabitants of the north-western provinces. 
 
 One more battle— that of Aliwal, fought on the 28th of January, 1840— 
 drove the Sikhs from our territory, and impelled them to take refuge in their 
 last stronghold on the left bank of tlie Sutlej. From this position they were 
 driven by the battle of Sobraon, on the 10th of February, when the (iovornm- 
 General was again present under Sir IT. Gough. The slaughter on our side 
 was terrible enough ; but that of the Sikhs was sickening to hear of. They
 
 660 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 [Book VI. 
 
 The S.\ndi>ic« 
 Islands. 
 
 1845-46 '*^'*^i'o drowned in slioals in the river, and shot by hundreds as they attempted 
 to escape into their own territory. They were followed by the British army; 
 and the Governor-General undertook the arrangement of the affairs of the 
 Punjaub. He believed that, by the establishment of a Protectorate, he had 
 avoided the evil of the annexation of the territory. But time has proved him 
 mistaken. The Sikhs have since risen again, and have again been chastised, 
 almost to the point of destruction ; and the Punjaub is now British territory. 
 A part of the work of the last parliamentary session we have to record was 
 voting thanks and welcoming honours to the heroes of the Sikh war — one of 
 the briefest of our Indian wars, but one of the most brilliant. There was 
 much heartiness of admiration on the occasion, but very little joy: — rather, 
 there was so much regret that it was evident that thirty years of European 
 peace had humanized the English mind, and raised it to a point of feeling 
 which becomes a civilized nation compelled to enter the lists of brute conflict 
 wdth a half-barbarous people. — Sir Henry Hardinge and Sir Hugh Gough 
 were raised to the peerage ; and when they and other heroes of the war re- 
 turned to England, the national welcome a^vaited them wherever they went. 
 
 In 1843, the Sandwich islands — the Hawaiian islands, or old Owhyhee — 
 were ceded by their king, Kamehameha, to Great Britain, because the poor 
 sovereign found himself embarrassed by claims of reparation for injury done to 
 British subjects. The cession was not accepted ; but our protection was pro- 
 mised to the islands as forming an independent state. It is amusing to find 
 these poor people beginning at once with constitutional government. Their 
 two Houses of parliament — the House of Nobles and House of Representa- 
 tives — met on the 20th of May, 1845, and the King delivered a speech, the 
 tone of which is ludicrously like such as are delivered in London and Paris. 
 The peculiarities of it are a provision for ascertaining whether the number of 
 the people is increasing or diminishing ; and a declaration that it is the pos- 
 session of the Word of God which has introduced their people into the family 
 of independent nations. The first vote of the Nobles was one of thanks to 
 Great Britain, France, Belgium, and the United States, for recognising the 
 : independence of the Hawaiian kingdom. This done, " the Ministers pre- 
 
 sented their reports and estimates, and the ordinary business of the session 
 commenced." We have been accustomed to think that constitutional sovern- 
 ment is a gi-adual and late growth of civilization — a thing impossible to im- 
 pose, and of which some old European nations are not yet capable. It can 
 hardly be supposed that the Sandwich islanders can maintain it pure : but 
 they will probably be happier than under the despotic rule of an irresponsible 
 king. 
 
 The desire for representative government was spreading among our own 
 
 Hansard,ixxxviii. colouics. In 1846, ten of them had made application for the boon. There 
 had been much misgovernment ; or the colonists thought so. Taxes trebled 
 at a stroke, favouritism towards ])ublic officers, or ill-usage of them, quarrels 
 between governors and their coadjutors, tricks with the cmrency, executive 
 extravagance — such grievances as these in colonies where the inhabitants now 
 amounted to tens of thousands, made the residents desire to try whether they 
 could not govern themselves better than they were governed by tlie Colonial 
 
 VJ.N D,E,.E.N-, Office. In Van Diemen's Land, abuses of various kinds had reached such a 
 
 Annual Register, 
 1845, p.;i54.
 
 CnAP. XIII.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE, GGl 
 
 pass, that the prosperity of the colony had stopped : and it was sinking into 1845-46. 
 debt, though the taxes had been trebled in one day : and yet there -were 35,000 --^^^— ^-' 
 free colonists who were without representation, while several western colonies 
 had a representation before their numbers had reached a sixth part of this. A 
 new governor was sent out to Van Diemen's Land ; and it was recommended H^sa'd, ix.iiviii. 
 tliat the civil officers who had resigned in despair should be restored : but it 
 remains a disgrace to successive governments that the desire of our colonies for 
 participation in the best privileges of the British Constitution can scarcely 
 obtain any attention. Next to Ireland, our colonics continue to be the ojipro- 
 brium of our empire. In 1846, at the close of the period now under review, 
 our colonies were forty-two, containing a population of 4,674,000. Twenty-five 
 of the forty-two had representation ; but most of these had a much smaller 
 jiopulation than several colonies which were cruelly oppressed by the arbitrary 
 rule of incapable governors : and the difficulty these had in making their com- 
 plaints heard by the public at home, and attended to by the government, was 
 such as to bring upon the Colonial Office heavy, but just, imputations of rash- 
 ness and tyranny. But for the occurrence of some outrageous case now and 
 then, some abuse too gross to be covered up, there was, and still is, little hope 
 of the colonies being so treated as to preserve their affection for the mother 
 country. For whatever reason it is so — whether the business of the Colonial 
 Office has outgrown its machinery, or bad traditions remain in force within it, 
 or the frequent change of Colonial Ministers is fatal to consistent government, 
 or the choice of those Ministers has been eminently unfortunate — whether 
 these or other mischiefs be the cause, it certainly appears that the misgovem- 
 ment of our colonies has long been so intolerable, that we cannot expect to 
 retain them, unless some speedy and comprehensive reform is carried out. 
 
 One flagrant case of misgovernment, whose excess was of service, was that 5""" '^'^'- 
 of South Australia under Governor Gawler, whose extravagant expenditure 
 involved the colony so deeply that it was scarcely hoiked that it could ever 
 revive. In 1841, an advance was made from the Treasury at home of no Hansard. ixiv. 092. 
 less than £155,000; and the governor was desired to draw no more. lie 
 did not obey : his bills were dishonoured : he was removed from office ; and 
 his successor, Captain Grey, found that the annual expenditure of the colony 
 was £150,000, while its revenue was only £30,000. The needful sudden 
 reduction of such an expenditure (which Governor Grey soon brought down 
 to £35,000) occasioned great distress in the settlement; and society had 
 almost to be organized afresh. The Treasury at home had to pay £400,000 
 for the relief of this unfortunate colony.— Some advance towards giving a 
 power of self-government to this colony and that of New South Wales was 
 made in 1842, by an enactment that their Legislative Council should consist J^^* s vic. c. 76. 
 partly of members elected by the people ; and that, under Eoyal sanction, a 
 general Assembly, chosen by popular election, might be convened. — South 
 AustraUa was not a convict colony; but Sydney and Van Diemen's I-and were ; 
 and they therefore afforded an unsatisfactory ground of argument about colo- 
 nial government. Claims of a representative system ^\cxc easily met by 
 displays of the diflficulty of popular election in a community consisting largely 
 of criminals : and arbitrary measures are easily and fairly justified on the plea 
 of the untrustworthy character of a large clement of the local society. But
 
 (362 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book VI. 
 
 1845-46. there is a colony of ours, lying alone in the sea, unconnected even in idea 
 with the transportation system, and with every pre-requisite for a perfect colo- 
 nial experiment, whose fate shows something of what our colonial govern- 
 ment is. 
 
 New Zealand. file Ncw Zealand islands have a climate and soil which point them out for 
 occupancy by Britisli colonists. British emigrants were willing to go ; and the 
 inhabitants of New Zealand were eager to have them. The public at home 
 showed an unusual desire to colonize these islands ; and a Company was 
 formed for the purpose, in the face of the reluctance of the government which 
 threw every obstacle in the way. The main object of the Company was 
 to make trial of Mr. Wakefield's plan of self-supporting colonization. By this 
 plan, the proceeds of the sale of land are applied to the bringing out labour, 
 in a regulated proportion to the land ; and the land and labour are sufficiently 
 concentrated, so as to prevent the ruinous dispersion of inhabitants, and isola- 
 lation of settlements, which makes colonization mere squatting, as to its social 
 effects, when individuals are allowed to purchase more land than they can use, 
 or to wander away beyond the reach of co-operation. The government adopted 
 no steady principle about claiming the territory; and neither furnished the 
 original colonists with a government, nor allowed them to govern themselves 
 till they codld be legislated for. The Governor sent out, Ciovernor Hobson, 
 seemed to think it the main business of himself and his officials to thwart 
 and humble the officers of the Company ; and the most flourishing of the young 
 colonies of England was damaged in every way by his influence ; — in inter- 
 course with the natives, in financial management, and in the spirits and temper 
 of the settlers. In the summer of 1842, charges against Governor Hobson 
 
 56. ' ' were transmitted by the colonists to the home government — charges of ruinous 
 extravagance, of permitting his official servants to make unfair selections of 
 land, and of applying £40,000 received for land sales to other purposes than 
 the prescribed one of bringing out labour. Before iiupiiry could be made. 
 Governor Hobson died, having saddled this colony, meant to be self-support- 
 ing, with a debt of £68,000. — Captain Fitzroy was the next governor, and, if 
 possible, a worse than his predecessor. He found he could not keep the 
 expenditure of the colony down to £20,000 a year, though the pojjulation was 
 
 Hansard, ixxxi. Only 15,000: aud he resorted to a system oi assignats. He issued what he 
 
 '^^' called " dcbentin-es" to the amount of £15,000 — promissory notes down to 
 
 the value of 2s. Complaining that they became " unduly depreciated," he 
 made them a legal tender. While thus tampering with the currency of the 
 colony, he had seriously shaken the security of the landed projierty of the 
 emigrants by unsettling the terms of their land-purchases from the natives, 
 after the payment had long been made ; and further, he proffered a most 
 untimely and pernicious conciliation and sympathy to a party of the natives 
 who had massacred nine of our countrymen in cold blood — tomahawking them 
 after they had laid down their arms ; at the same time forbearing to avenge 
 the cutting down of the British flag at the Custom House. Captain Fitzroy 
 
 Hansard, uxxi. was recalled ; but not before such a cataloirue of offences from ignorance, con- 
 
 eOj— 726. ■ 1 -11 1 
 
 ceit, and ill-humour, had been recorded against him in the Debates and Com- 
 mittee of Parliament, as makes it a matter of speculation on what principle 
 colonial governors are appointed. After the New Zealand Company, ^\hich
 
 Chap. XIII.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS" PEACE. (503 
 
 was held in universal respect, had expended £300,000 of its own capital, and 1845-46. 
 £300,000 more raised on credit, it had not obtained possession of a single acre 
 of its lands : emigrants, who had paid cash for their land in England, conld 
 not obtain access to it in the colony, from Captain Fitzioy's refusal to fulfil 
 conditionally an agreement between the government and the Company, in reli- 
 ance on which the settlers had made tlieir purchases. The Parliamentary 
 Committee of Inquiry reported that the settlers had a clear right, as against 
 tlie Crown lands, to the fulfilment of this agreement : but they could not get 
 their rights; and, ruined and forlorn, they were taking ship, as they could get 
 a passage, to New South Wales, or Australia, or back to England, to begin 
 the world again without means. Some of those who remained had their houses 
 pulled down and their crops burned by the natives ; and the governor did not 
 speak or stir in their behalf, but gave to the aggressors, encouraged by himself, 
 such sympathy as he had. He suppressed the volunteer force raised by the 
 settlers for their own protection, and offered them, in compensation, fifty sol- 
 diers to protect a region of 200 miles long, and inhabited by 10,000 persons. — 
 The reserves of land made by the Company for the natives were left unpro- 
 ductive, and nothing done of wliat would have been done by the Company for 
 their religious improvement and secular instruction ; while the governor 
 assumed to take their part against the Company. Some of the worst acts of 
 Captain Fitzroy were approved by the Colonial Office, and others were not 
 rebuked : and it was therefore against the Colonial Secretary, I^ord Stanley, 
 and his Office, that the complainants in-ged their case. " It is, in truth," said 
 Mr. C. Buller, " the history of the war which the Colonial Office has carried 
 on against the colony of New Zealand. Is this an exaggerated expression ? 
 What enemy of the British name and race could — what civilized enemy would — 
 have brought such ruin on a British colony? .... A great colonial wrong is 
 before you ; and indifferent as in general you naturally are to the fortunes of 
 colonists of whom you see nothing, now that such a matter is brought to your 
 attention, show the Colonial Office that it is not wholly uncontrolled, and will 
 not always be allowed to sport with the interests of our countrymen in the 
 colonies." 
 
 Not even such treatment as has been detailed could ruin settlements of such 
 natural advantages as those of New Zealand. Governor Grey, who had 
 already won a high character as successor to Governor Gawler, came from 
 Adelaide to try what could be done in New Zealand. He at once repressed and 
 protected the natives, retrenched the expenditure, vindicated the honour of 
 the British flag, and left the settlers as free as possible, to manngc their 
 private affairs, and prosper in their own way. And thus, though tlie colony 
 may not be all that it might have been long ago— all that was hoped wlien 
 the first ship sailed from our shores for the new land, when a crowd of the 
 foremost men in England gave a parting cheer to the anxious but hopeful 
 emigrants, and when some of the emigrants themselves were from among the 
 first men in England— it is at least a colony of irrepressible and rising fortunes. 
 Its original peculiarity was that it represented a complete and higlily-civilized 
 society, a proportion from all ranks, from the kindred of nobles and tlic l)ishop 
 down to the hedger and ditcher. Thus is its intellectual and moral welfare 
 secured, as well as its material prosperity. New Zealand is, after all. jjcrhaps, 
 the most promising of British colonies.
 
 664 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND" 
 
 [Book VI. 
 
 1845-46. 
 
 Canai».\, 
 Sir Ciiaules 
 Bagot. 
 
 Compensation 
 Question. 
 Spectator, 1849, 
 p. 297. 
 
 Sir Charles T. 
 
 Metcalfe. 
 Annual Register, 
 1843, p. 3,-i7. 
 
 In Canada, Lord Sydenham was succeeded by Sir Charles Bagot, who opened 
 the second Session of the united Canadian parHament on the 8th of September, 
 1842. He did not find, as Lord Sydenham had anticipated, that every thing 
 was now so settled that affairs would run in grooves, with only a very gentle 
 force to push them. He was obliged to make an immediate choice between 
 two great difficulties ; and a source of disturbance was opened up during his 
 short administration which makes our relations with Canada at this day as 
 doubtful as they have ever been. 
 
 Two leaders who had been in Opposition in Lord Sydenham's time now 
 found themselves stronger than the government in the Assembly. Mr. 
 Baldwin, the leader of a small liberal party in what was lately Upper Canada, 
 and Mr. Lafontaine, the leader of the French party in what had been liOwer 
 Canada, found a large majority to their hand in the Assembly. The 
 Governor-General must now choose between sanctioning the preponderance 
 of this radical party, and governing by the support of the minority in the 
 Assembly. It being now the principle of Canadian government to rule in 
 accordance with the majority of the representatives, he did the thing 
 tlioroughly, making Baldwin and Lafontaine his ^Ministers. He joined with 
 them a cautious and sensible man from Lord Durham's coadjutors — Mr. 
 Daly, whose presence in the Cabinet might be hoped to act as a restraint on 
 any political intemperance. The difficulty which would have embarrassed 
 the administration of Sir C. Bagot, if he had remained in his office, related to 
 compensation for losses sustained in the rebellions. A Bill for compensation 
 for losses suffered by loyalists was so altered in the Assembly as to include 
 losses suffered at the hands of the loyalists — that is, the soldiery, volunteers, 
 and others. Mr. Baldwin proposed and carried this alteration. The sum 
 voted was 40,000/. ; but no means of raising it were provided. This very 
 important amendment caused little discussion and no apprehension at the 
 time, though it has since appeared too like the running of a mine under the 
 new Canadian constitution which may blow it to pieces. The loyalists of 
 Canada West wanted to have their compensation paid out of the general 
 revenue of the Union: but the now dominant party objected to this, and gave 
 notice that claims on the same fund would be made by sufferers in Canada 
 East. This was so alarming, that the loyalists dropped the subject for the 
 present, and the other party had no wish to re\ive it — perceiving doubtless 
 how its discussion must renew the conflict of races. Sir Charles Bagot's 
 health presently gave way. Before the end of the year, he was too ill to 
 remain ; and he died soon after his return to England. 
 
 Sir Charles T. Metcalfe succeeded him, in February 1843. The same 
 policy was carried on, and the same Ministry remained in power. The fine 
 qualities of this excellent ruler were known through his government of 
 Jamaica, where he had been sent by Lord Melbourne's Ministry in 1839. 
 For a few months, all appeared to go well ; but in the autumn, disputes 
 arose out of a claim made by his Ministry to be consulted about appointments 
 to office, which all agi-eed to be the prerogative of the crown. The Ministry 
 resigned, in consequence of the refusal of Sir C. Metcalfe to admit their right 
 to be consulted ; and the session closed hastily before its business was 
 finished. For some time, there was no Ministry: and when there was, it was 
 a moderate " English" ministry — Mr. Daly and Air. Draper being the leading
 
 Chap. XIII.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 
 
 665 
 
 representatives in it of the two sections of country. The French party were now 1845-46. 
 
 in Opposition for nearly four years ; and now therefore was the time for settling ^^-^-«_^ 
 
 the affair of the 40,000Z. The Governor-General and his Cabinet admitted 
 
 the justice of giving compensation to sufferers of both parties: but the doing 
 
 it was diificult in the extreme. Instead of charging the money for Canada 
 
 West on the general revenue, they appropriated to the purpose two local funds 
 
 which were paid almost entirely by the English in the western province. So 
 
 far all went well. The trouble was with the other province. A Commissioner 
 
 was appointed to manage the business, with regard to Canada East: — to 
 
 manage it, every body thought : but it soon appeared that they had power 
 
 only to receive claims, and not to decide upon them. The Commissioners 
 
 applied to the Executive to know how they were to distinguish between 
 
 claims from rebels, and those proffered by persons not actually involved in the 
 
 rebellion. The answer was that none were to be excluded but those who had 
 
 been convicted by law ; and when one of the leaders, exiled to Bermuda 
 
 under Lord Durham's Ordinance, applied personally to the Governor-General Masson's Letter to 
 
 to know what he ought to do, the Governor-General desired him to send in 1849. 
 
 his account, reminding him A^-ith a smile that he had not been convicted by 
 
 law, the Ordinance under which he was sent to Bermuda being declared 
 
 illegal. Still no disturbance arose. But Sir Charles Metcalfe (now made 
 
 Lord ^letcalfe) fell ill, and after fearful sufferings, nobly borne for many 
 
 months, was compelled to relinquish his government ; and he returned to 
 
 England at the close of 1845, not with the slightest hope of relief, but to 
 
 make way for a successor adequate to the public service. Honours were 
 
 showered on him on his return ; and, in the midst of the anguish of disease, 
 
 such a heart as his must have enjoyed the demonstrations of sympathy and 
 
 respect which met him every where. But, as he said in one of his last replies to 
 
 addresses, the grave was open at his feet : and he sank into it in the next MCTjALrB.^"" 
 
 September, mourned by all parties in Canada, and by the whole poHtical iVr'^'cwSi. 
 
 world at home. Lord Cathcart administered the government for nearly a 
 
 year, till Lord Elgin went out as Governor-General, a few months after tlie 
 
 date which closes our History, 
 
 The Lafontaine INIinistry was restored — the " Daly Draper Cabinet" having 
 fallen into a minority in the Assembly, and made matters worse by an experi- 
 ment of a general election. The restored Ministry proceeded in the compen- 
 sation matter, bringing into the Assembly a Bill by which compensation was 
 to be given to all who were not formally convicted of high treason ; and the 
 charo-e would fall on the general revenues of Canada. Now, by far the 
 laro-er part of the taxes is paid by others than the French — the French making spootator, m9, 
 for themselves the greater number of the commodities which others import — 
 such as sugar, tobacco, and material for clothing. Thus the British party see 
 that taxes paid by themselves, and not by the jiarty claiming comiiensatiou, 
 will go to build up the fortunes of those whom they call rebels. Unhappily, 
 there is a wide diversity of opinion as to whether this is an Imperial or a local 
 question. Some say that it is an Imperial question, because it is of the same 
 bearing as a question of amnesty after robellion. Others look at it as a local 
 quarrel about a matter of finance and party ascendancy. It does not lie 
 within our bounds to discuss this controversy. It is scarcely necessary even to 
 
 4 Q 
 
 VOL. II.
 
 666 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book VI. 
 
 1845-46. say, that it has kindled a war of opiiiioBS in Canada which seems but too 
 
 ' -••^— ' likely to revive the war of races, and endanger the permanence of the policy 
 
 cemented with the hearts' blood of a succession of devoted rulers. 
 Fires AT Quebec. In 1845, misfortunes befel the city of Quebec by which it was reduced to 
 1845, 346-^8? "' nearly the size that it was when Wolfe fell before it. More than two-thirds 
 of the city were destroyed by fire in the months of May and .Tune. These 
 large fires seldom leave much cause for regret to a subsequent century ; 
 as it is usually the primitive, ill-built, unwholesome part of a great city which 
 is devoured by the flames. In this case, it was the wooden part of Quebec 
 that was destroyed — the narrow streets between the river and the rock, where 
 was found most that was foul and disreputable. Much else went also — 
 churches, wharves, ship-yards, and a hospital full of sick persons, many of 
 whom perished in the flames : and the immediate distress amidst the enormous 
 destruction of property, and crowding of houseless thousands, was very terrible; 
 and, when the fire of June drove them forth a second time, almost overwhelm- 
 ing. But the Quebec of a century hence will be all the better for the accident. 
 Generous help was sent from far and near, and the citizens have probably 
 already learned to look back without much regret to the Great Fires of 
 1845. 
 
 There seems to have been a fatality about fires during this period. Just a 
 At St John's, year after the second Quebec fire, the city of St. John's, Newformdland, was 
 
 \nnua1 Register, •' 'J •' __ •' 
 
 .846. chron.85. almost dcstroycd. Scarcely a fourth part remained. The houses here were 
 
 built of wood ; and the stores in the warehouses were chiefly oil and blubber, 
 
 and other combustible substances. A complete sweep seems to have been 
 
 made of the Churches, and the government and other public offices. During 
 
 the summer months, the greater part of the inhabitants were living in tents, 
 
 provided from the army stores. 
 
 "t^aiRe'ilter ^^ 1842, there had been such a fire at Hamburg that the people thought 
 
 1842. chion. 84. thc day of Judgment was come. Churches were falling like ricks in the 
 
 flame. Carts were on fire in the squares, and boats on the river. Terrified 
 
 horses strove to plunge into the Alster. Amidst blinding showers of ashes, 
 
 those who were driven beyond their wits sank on their knees, screaming, 
 
 weeping, and praying ; and hardy thieves pillaged the houses that stood open. 
 
 2000 houses were destroyed ; 30,000 persons were left homeless ; and the loss 
 
 of property was computed at 7,000,000/. Liberal aid was sent from this 
 
 '\nifuai'Re*'ster ^°^*"*'7' ^^ from othcrs. — The greater part of Smyrna was burnt down in 
 
 1845. chron.97,98. July 1845, 4000 houscs and many public buildings being destroyed. — In Cuba, 
 
 the richest part of the rich city of Matanzas perished in like manner : and 
 
 again, in the same month, July 1845 — bringing five of the greatest fires of 
 
 modem times ^vithin the compass of two months — occurred the last fearful 
 
 atNewYobk. New York conflagration, in which 302 dwellings were destroyed, and above 
 
 Annual Register, ^ /\/\n aaa7 r n •/ 
 
 1845. chron.103. z,UUU,UUO/. 01 property. It seems impossible that some lessons should not be 
 derived by the world fi-om such spectacles as these as to the construction of 
 dwellings, if not as to the guardianship of such a power as fire. Meantime, it 
 is as well to admit the purification that it brings, through however hard an 
 experience.
 
 Chap. XIV.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 667 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 A T the opening of the session of 1845, there seemed to be but one trouble- 1845. 
 •^*- some controversy agitating the community. The harvest of 1844 had ' '"'^ ' 
 been good ; and therefore provisions were moderate in price, trade was brisk, 
 the operative classes were contented, the revenue was steadily rising, and even 
 Ireland was quieter than usual. The one troublesome controversy was — as 
 need hardly be said — about the Corn Laws. nus. 
 
 The "landed interest" was restless and uneasy. The League was as busy 
 as ever, and visibly growing more powerful in this season of prosperity, though 
 it had been widely said that its influence had been wholly due to the distress 
 of 1840 — 43. It was also evident, though the truth was admitted with the 
 utmost reluctance, that Sir R. Peel was rising yearly in the favour of the 
 manufacturing and commercial classes, by whom he was regarded as so de- 
 cided a free-trader, that everything might be hoped from him, as time ojjened 
 to him opportunities for carrying out his principles, in regard to other food 
 than meat and fish, and garden vegetables. Few, perhaps, put this antici- 
 pation into words ; but there were many land-owners and many farmers who 
 let it lie in their minds to be revolved in solitary rides and walks, and com- 
 pared with what they heard among their neighbours : and there were a multi- 
 tude of commercial men who, practised in discerning the course of commercial 
 events, and of politics in connexion with them, foresaw that the first pressure 
 upon the j^food-market must occasion a repeal of the corn laws, and that Sir 
 R. Peel was more likely to efiect the change than any other man, because he 
 knew and had done most about free trade, and because he was the only man 
 we had who could govern under difficulties. The Whigs were pledged to a 
 fixed duty, which the free-traders were resolved not to accept. Sir R. Peel 
 and his government were pledged to nothing but to do what events might re- 
 quire. They had stood by their Sliding Scale for two years, because, as they 
 declared, they saw no reason for repealing it till it had had a full trial : but 
 they had not said that it would prove equal to any trial : much less had they 
 refused to withdraw it if it should be found to fail. It is a proof of the 
 power of educational and class prejudice that they and the "Wliigs could so 
 long cling to the proved mischief of agricultural protection : but the minds 
 of the Peel INIinistry were now avowedly open to evidence as to whether all 
 agricultural protection was more of an evil than a good, and whether, if an 
 evil, it was a removable one. On this ground alone, the Ministry was regarded 
 as in any way unstable, at the commencement of the session of 1845. On 
 this, the manufacturing and commercial classes were watchful, while the 
 agricultural interest was suspicious. About cv(>ry thing else, every body was 
 better satisfied than usual, except the late Wiiig Ministers, and some of their 
 
 adherents.
 
 668 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 [;Book VI. 
 
 1845. 
 
 Hansard, Ixxvii. I. 
 
 Mr. Gladstone's 
 
 liETIREMENT. 
 
 Hansard, Ixxvii. 
 
 78. 
 
 Financial State- 
 ment. 
 
 Hansard, Ixxrli. 
 
 455 -497. 
 
 -Sugar DuiiEa. 
 
 Export Duties 
 abolished. 
 
 It must now be decided whether the Income Tax should be removed or 
 continued. The Royal Speech, on the 4th of February, showed that the 
 government desired its continuance. Other objects indicated in the Speech 
 were the estabUshment of the new Irish colleges, and a sanitary system, in 
 pursuance of the Report of the Sanitary Commission, which had just pub- 
 lished the results of its inquiries. The proposals about the Irish colleges 
 deprived the Ministers of the companionship of Mr. Gladstone, who conceived 
 himself to be deprived of liberty to proceed by certain opinions which he had 
 published before he came into oiRce, concerning the relations between a 
 Christian Church and State. Mr. Gladstone carefully explained that he had 
 no thought of casting censiu'e on his colleagues, or of deciding what ought to 
 be done under the peculiar circumstances of any society. He acted with a 
 view to the preservation of his own consistency, after having addressed the 
 world in a published treatise. This explanation extinguished the reports 
 which were prevalent of critical and dangerous measures to be proposed by 
 the Ministry which had so alarmed Mr. Gladstone as to cause his retirement. 
 Every body Avas sorry to lose him ; and the general impression seemed to be 
 that he was more scrupulous than was necessary. But recent experience of 
 Whig tenacity of office had disposed men to value even an undue delicacy. 
 
 According to Sir R. Peel's new and advantageous plan of bringing forward 
 the financial statement at the earliest possible time, the discussion on the 
 Income Tax was entered upon on the 14th of February. Much had been 
 expected from the Premier on the occasion ; but his speech surpassed antici- 
 pation ; being indeed one of the finest of his many fine financial expositions. 
 He was in excellent spirits ; and with good reason. The improvement in the 
 revenue was such that a surplus of £5,000,000 at the least would be found in 
 the Exchequer in the next April. But our rapidly extending commerce 
 required increased naval guardianship ; and he intended to propose an increased 
 naval expenditure of £1,000,000. There were to be new naval stations in 
 the Chinese seas, in the Pacific, and on the coast of Africa. If the Income tax 
 were abolished, there might be no deficiency the next year ; but there would 
 the year after. To the Minister it appeared wiser to continue the Income 
 Tax, and use the opportunity of the surplus to reduce more Customs duties. — 
 First, he took the Sugar duties. He proposed to reduce the duty on unre- 
 fined sugar from the West Indies and the Mauritius from 25s. 3d. to 14s., and 
 that on East India to 18s. 8c?., in order to preserve the existing proportions. 
 The protective duty on foreign free-labour sugar was to be reduced to 9s. 4d., 
 so that duty on such foreign sugar would now be 23s. 2d. The partially- 
 refined sugars of British production were reduced from 25s. Sd. to 16s. 4d. ; 
 that from India to 21s. 9f/.; and that on fi-ee-labour foreign to 28s. Thus, 
 while the protecting duty on unrefined sugar was lowered to 9s. -id., that on 
 partially-refined was increased by lis. 4c?. The prohibitory duty on refined 
 sugar was exchanged, as regarded British produce, for one of 18s. 8d. on 
 refined, and 21s. on double-refined sugar. It was expected that these changes 
 would reduce the price of sugar to the consumer at least 1 jc?. per pound ; 
 more probably l^d. The loss to the revenue in the first year was calculated 
 at £1,. 300,000. — Next, all the export duties which remained on the list were 
 to be abolished. Among these, was that on coal ; and the Minister declared
 
 Chap. XIV.] DURIXG THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 669 
 
 his expectation that the coal-owners would give to the consumer the henefit of 1845. 
 
 the release ; and that no more would be heard of combinations to restrict the ~ ' 
 
 supply of coal, and to enhance its price. The loss from the abolition of the 
 coal duty was estimated at £120,000. — Next, it was proposed to abolish the 
 duties on 430 out of 813 articles of raw material of manufactures ; — a change cities on baw 
 which woiild extinguish the troublesome and burdensome warehousing system. 
 This would release the raw material of silk, hemp, and flax ; certain yarns ; 
 furniture woods ; animal and vegetable manures ; and a great nimiber of ores, 
 drugs, and dye-stuffs. Staves for coopers' work were another exempted article, 
 on which alone the loss to the Treasury would be £30,000. The loss on the 430 
 articles was estimated at £320,000 j a sum well worth supplying in another 
 way, in consideration of such a disburdening of manufactures as was proposed. 
 A more important article of raw material than any of these was cotton-wool. 
 Though it yielded a revenue more than double the whole 430 — viz., £680,000 — 
 the Minister proposed to sweep away the duty altogether. So much for the 
 Customs duties. As for the Excise, the Auction duty was to be abolished, excise dcties. : 
 and some alteration to be made in auctioneers' licenses. The Glass duty had 
 amounted to 200 and even 300 per cent, on its manufactiire. It was now to 
 be remitted. The exciseman was now no longer to intrude his mischievous 
 and vexatious presence in glass-houses : and the people might enjoy the 
 envied privilege of some other countries in having various articles of domestic 
 convenience made of the cleanly and beautiful material of glass. But there 
 Avould be something better than the comfort of having milk -pans, handles of 
 doors and drawers, lamps, and candlesticks, &c. of glass ; something better 
 than rivalling the splendid Bohemian glass to be found in oin- drawing-rooms ; 
 something better than the spread of plate-glass windows : — Sir R. Peel ex- 
 plained to the House that the balance spring of a chronometer he held in his 
 hand, made of glass, was more to be relied on amidst extreme changes of 
 temperature than one of metal : and thus tlie purj)oses of science would be 
 promoted ; as they must be by the removal of every impediment in the way of 
 the improvement of lenses and the perfecting of light-houses, and of optical 
 instruments of every kind. In the opinion of the Sanitary Commissioners, 
 and of all who knew most of the state of Ireland, the removal of the glass 
 duty was Ukely to prove of more advantage to the health and comfort of the 
 poor than even the repeal of the window duty. This important article, 
 charged with duty two or three times exceeding its natural cost, had yielded 
 £642,000 ; — a sum little worth the social mischief of the tax. — The total loss 
 by these reductions would be about £3,338,000 ; — nearly amounting to the 
 estimated surplus of April twelvcmontlis — supposing the naval expenditure to 
 be increased as proposed. This was without reckoning the decrease in the 
 public establishments which would follow upon so vast a reduction of taxation. 
 The experiment would be called a bold one ; and so it was : but the results of 
 the former great experiment of the same kind were very encouraging. The 
 Income tax had not caused any visible reduction in other branches of revenue ; 
 while the losses in the Customs branch were in course of being rapidly filled 
 up. The term for which the continuance of the Income tax was proposed 
 was, again, three years. As no one could foresee the approaching potato-rot,
 
 670 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 [Book "VI. 
 
 Hansard, Ixxvii 
 634. 
 
 Hansard, Ixxx. 
 
 277. 
 
 Agricultural 
 
 Interests. 
 
 1845. there was every reason to anticipate that, in April 1848, the tax might be 
 removed ; and this was the hope held out by the Minister. 
 
 The most obvious thing about this scheme was that there was no popularity- 
 seeking in it. There had been no agitation against the taxes now repealed, 
 while there could be no doubt of the delight of the nation if the Income tax 
 had been abolished. With such a surplus, a less far-sighted Minister would 
 have abolished it. Sir E.. Peel, instead of giving this immediate delight, 
 jjreferred using the opportunity of prosperity to strengtlien and deepen the 
 foundations of our industrial and commercial welfare. The obvious greatness 
 of tliis policy secured respect for his scheme, even from those who most opposed 
 particular portions of it. 
 
 When the discussion came on, on the 17th, it appeared that many members 
 entertained objections to one or another portion of the scheme ; but the con- 
 tinuance of the Income tax was — to the great satisfaction of the country at 
 large, who by this time understood their own interest in its continuance till 
 free trade should be fully obtained — voted by a majority of 208 in a House of 
 318. — The strongest opposition, because the best grovmded in principle, was 
 against the sugar duties, Mr. Milncr Gibson moving a resolution against 
 differential duties. But Ministers were too strong to be effectually opposed 
 on any part of their measure ; and their Bills became law on the 8th of May. 
 At the close of the session it appeared to observers as if scarcely any thing 
 but the Corn laws had been talked of, Avhen once the business of the budget 
 had been settled. Whatever subject was introduced, that of the Corn Laws 
 presently appeared and swallowed it up. The farmers' friends were complain- 
 ing that wheat was at 45*. in spite of the new Sliding Scale ; and the farmer's 
 other kind of friends, the fi'ee-traders, were complaining on his behalf that he 
 could not make his land answer, on account of legal restriction under the name 
 of protection. The new manure, called Guano, was brought at vast expense, 
 from a distance of almost half the world, when the farmer might obtain a far 
 better manure, and more of it, on his land, if he might only import provender 
 for a sufficient proportion of stock. The land was not half cultivated; and the 
 peasantry were consequently insufficiently employed, and the labouring classes 
 insufficiently fed. Other speakers had compassion for the landlords ; and 
 others again for the labourers. From whatever point the question was looked 
 at, it was clear that all the three classes who, however opposed in reality, were 
 included together under the designation of " the agricultural interest," were 
 in a low and discontented state — and while it was so, the question of the Corn 
 laws must of necessity be always coming uppermost. Mr. Cobden moved for 
 a Committee of Inquiry into the existing agricultural distress and its causes, 
 Hansard, lxxtiil g^,^j ggj. q^^ what lie wanted to say before he was defeated by a majority of 92 
 in a House of 334. The answer of the government, by the mouth of Mr. 
 Sidney Herbert, was that such Committees were never of any use — that 
 knowledge enough had been obtained already — and that the sensitive agricul- 
 tural interest would be alarmed, and suppose that government contemplated 
 the withdrawal of their protection. Whatever he said in evidence of the im- 
 proving condition of agriculture was overthrown by the counter statements of 
 Conservatives as well as Free-traders, who brought proof, from the votes of 
 agricultural bodies in various parts of England, that the distress was not light
 
 Chap. XIV.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. C7I 
 
 • and partial, but general and very severe. There wore a few unguarded word.s, 1845. 
 
 however, in Mr. Herbert's speech which did more good to the free trade cause ' ' 
 
 than all the feeble things he said — not in favour of the principle of protection, ^°""'"- 
 for he said nothing of the sort — but against immediate change. Mr. Sidney 
 Herbert was a young man, and ardent, as young men in or out of the govern- 
 ment usually are, in political discussion. His ardour found little scope in a 
 negative and halting speech like that which he had to make in reply to Mr. 
 Cobden ; and it broke out in a sentence, one of whose phrases was never again 
 dropped while the controversy lasted : " He must add further, as the repre- Hansard, ixxviii. 
 sentative of an agricultural constituency, that it would be distasteful to the *"' 
 agriculturists to come whining to Parliament at every period of temporary dis- 
 tress ; nor would they do so. Parliament have accorded to the agriculturists 
 a certain amount of reduced protection. With that they are content ; and in 
 adverse circumstances, such as failure of crop and the like, they would meet 
 
 them manfully, and put their shoulders to the wheel He was of 
 
 opinion that they could not do better than to follow the excellent advice .... 
 to expend capital on their farms and in improvements of the land, and so by 
 their own efforts restore prosperity. The government had no wish to maintain 
 a high monopoly without alteration, as it had proved ; nor had it made any 
 promises to the agriculturists of certain prices in corn, which they knew that 
 no law could give." — Such language as this from a representative of an agri- 
 cultural constituency, was received with dismay by the farmers all over Eng- 
 land. They complained of the mockery of exhorting them to put capital into 
 their land when their capital was all gone; they were shocked at the avowal 
 that prices could not be regulated by law ; they were assured at last, in the 
 roughest way, that they were to have no more aid from the government ; but 
 the insuiferable insult was the phrase about coming "whining" for protection. 
 The free-traders thanked the young statesman for that word : and they made 
 good use 'of it as long as it was wanted. From that night too they looked 
 upon him, and therefore upon his colleagues, as their own. Whatever Mr. 
 Herbert and his colleagues might themselves think of their position and pros- 
 pects, it was clear to the free-traders every where that they wanted only a little 
 more enlightenment— a little further disentanglement from the prejudices of a 
 life — to join heartily in sweeping away the mischief of protection to agricul- 
 ture. There Avas now no difference of principle between the ministry and the 
 free-traders. It had become a mere question of prudence. In a narrow sense 
 it was called a question of good faith : but those who most strongly insisted 
 that all actual pledges must be kept, perceived that the time must be near 
 when conviction of the truth on the part of the farmers themselves must bring 
 on an absolution on every hand. 
 
 A few nights after the vote on JNIr. Cobden's motion, the cause of the free- 
 traders was well pleaded by an antagonist. Mr. Miles moved that the surplus Hansard. uxTiii. 
 revenue of the time should be applied to the relief of the agricultural interest; 
 and he made bitter complaints of the last Sliding Scale, as wholly ineffectual 
 for the relief of the farmers. His speech was one long complaint of the 
 plenty that overspread the land— the abundance of corn and the cheapness of 
 meat. He laid himself open to the admonitory reply that it was impossible to 
 set about making food scarce and dear: and that the proper course evidently
 
 672 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 TBooK VI. 
 
 1845. 
 
 Hansard, Ixxviii. 
 985. 
 
 Hansard, Ixxviii. 
 
 1028. 
 
 Hansard, Ixxx. 
 1423. 
 
 Hansard, Ixxxi. 
 3ao. 
 
 Hansard, Ixxx. 
 
 870. 
 
 was for the farmers to studyHiow to produce the requisite abundance at home 
 by improved cultivation, without which it must assuredly be obtained fi-om 
 abroad. As Sir James Graham observed (premising that he considered pro- 
 tection to agriculture just and necessary) Mr. Miles's statements required 
 rather a repeal of the Corn laws and of what remained of the tariif than so 
 small a measure as he proposed : but Sir James Graham did not admit the 
 facts with regard to the severity and prevalence of agricultural distress. 
 Before the debate closed, some words were uttered by an enemy of the govern- 
 ment which, read after the event, prove what expectations were abroad. The 
 rancour and levity of Mr. D'israeli's speeches prevent their being relied on for 
 accuracy of statement : but, like all other speeches, they make unconscious 
 revelations of fact which are valuable in the retrospect. On this occasion, 
 while the tone of insult goes for nothing, the prophecy is a fact of some weight. 
 After saying that Sir R. Peel " sends down his valet, who says in the genteel- 
 est manner, ' We can have no whining here,' " Mr. D'israeli proceeded, " Pro- 
 tection appears to be in about the same condition that Protestantism was in 
 1828. The country will draw its moral. For my part, if we are to have free 
 trade, I, who honour genius, prefer that such measures should be proposed by 
 the lion, member for Stockport (]Mr. Cobden) than by one who, through skil- 
 ful parliamentary mana-uvres, has tampered with the generous confidence of a 
 great people and of a great party. For myself, I care not what may be the 
 result. Dissolve, if you please, the parliament you have betrayed, and appeal 
 to the people who, I believe, mistrust you. For me there remains this at least 
 — the opportunity of expressing thus publicly my belief that a Conservative 
 government is an organized hypocrisy." 
 
 Mr. Miles's motion being negatived, two more debates on the great subject 
 remained. On the 3rd of June, Mr. Ward moved for a Committee of Inquiry 
 on the burdens and exemptions of the landed interest : and on the 10th, Mr. 
 Villiers brought forward his annual motion on the Corn laws. On Mr. 
 Ward's motion, the protectionists' majority was 182 to 109; and on Mr. 
 Villiers's, 254 to 122. These debates showed a marked advance in the 
 question. Sir James Graham repeated with increased emphasis his conviction 
 that the prosperity of the landed interest was dependent on that of other 
 classes ; and that a gradual repeal of protection would prove to be necessary 
 for agriculture, as for every other interest. He only protested against sudden- 
 ness. Another significant fact was that Lord J. Russell, in bringing forward 
 a set of Resolutions on the condition of the labouring classes, declared that 
 he could not now recommend the fixed duty of 8s. which he had proposed in 
 1841. He supposed no one would propose a smaller duty than 4s. : and he, 
 if it was his affair, should propose one of 4s., 5s., or 6s. The cause was now 
 felt to be won. It was universally understood that Lord J. Russell never 
 went before public opinion, and that he rarely if ever knew the extent and 
 bearing of public opinion. If he, then, admitted that four years had autho- 
 rized him to reduce his fixed duty one half (for he invited pressure to make it 
 4s.) it became almost a calculable matter how soon the Whig leader would 
 admit that the other half of his fixed duty was indefensible. And the amusing 
 looseness of his terms of proposal — the offered choice of four, five, or six 
 shillings — gave the strongest impression of a temporary playing with the
 
 Chap. XIV.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 073 
 
 subject, in preparation for working it seriously. From this night, it was 1845. 
 taken for granted every where that the Whig leaders were in competition with ^-^-^^—-^ 
 the existing jMiui.stry for the repeal of the Corn laws : and even the question 
 of time was brought within a narrow compass. 
 
 The Royal Speech on the prorogation of Parliament, on the 9tli of August, 
 was the last thoroughly cheerful Speech which the nation was to enjoy for 
 some time. In the account given to her Majesty, through the Speaker, of 
 the work of the session, we find that, besides the business already noted — 
 Irish Education, British Railways, and fiscal improvements — the parliament 
 had amended the law of Scotland in regard to the relief of the poor, pro- 
 moted the Drainage of Land, and Enclosure of Commons, and extended the 
 provisions of the Bank Act of last year, with some modifications, to the Banks 
 of Scotland and Ireland. The prevailing impression of those who watched 
 the course of parliamentary affairs was, that the disintegi'ation of parties wa.s 
 proceeding more and more rapidly ; as the commercial element rose above the 
 agricultural ; and that from this change there could be no rest or pause till 
 the agi-icultural interest had obtained that freedom, and consequent stimulus 
 and intelligence, which had caused the expansion of interests tliat were 
 erroneously considered to be antagonistic. 
 
 Meantime, it had begun to rain. It began to rain, after a cold and late bad wi:»tiieii. 
 spring, at the beginning of the summer ; and it seemed as if it was never 
 going to leave ofl" again. In some parts of the country, the sun was scarcely 
 seen from the month of May till the next spring. Those who first marked 
 the perseverance of the soft-falling rain thought of the budding and blossom- 
 ing promised in Scripture, where the snow and rain are shown forth as 
 illustrations of the fertilizing influences of Providence ; and thus far, there 
 was nothing but hope of good. Then, as the fall went on, with less softness, 
 and more chill, and fewer interaiissions, men began to fear for the harvest, 
 and to calculate that much dry foreign wheat would be necessary to mix 
 with our own damp and unripened grain. Then arose the fear tliat oiu- own 
 inferior grain would not keep,— so thoroughly ready for sprouting would 
 some of it appear to be ; and, in the midst of this, it became clear that 
 throughout Europe, with a few local exceptions, the harvest would prove a 
 deficient one ; so that, unless there was unusual abundance in America, the 
 prospect was a fearful one. Still, the most sagacious and the most timid 
 were far fi-ora conceiving what the rain was doing by its persevering continual 
 soaking into the ground. First, a market-gardener here and there, a farmer, p.n-iTo rot. 
 an Irish cottier, saw a brown spot appear on the margin of the leaf of 
 the potato, and did not remember ever to have seen such a thing before. 
 The brown spot grew black and spread, and covered the stalk, till a whole 
 potato field looked as if a scorching wind had passed over it. Yet, perhaps, 
 the roots might appear to be in a good state ; and one man would let the 
 plants alone, while anothtn- would mow off the tops, and wait to see what 
 happened. Tlie stealthy rain had, by some means yet as mysterious as ever, 
 generated some minute plague— of what nature nobody yet knows, if indeed 
 Ft is certain that the rain was the instrument ;— a plague so minute that no 
 microscope has yet convicted it, yet so powerful that it was soon to overthrow 
 ffovernments, and derange commerce, and affect for all time to ronu tlie 
 
 4 R 
 
 VOL. II.
 
 674 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book VI. 
 
 1845. political fate of England, and settle the question of the regeneration or the 
 
 > ^ destruction of Ireland. The minute plague spread and spread, till it hlack- 
 
 ened thousands of acres, and destroyed the food of millions of men. In some 
 wholesome regions, the last to he affected, the inhabitants would hardly 
 believe what they heard and read. The newspajjers were exaggerating 
 shamefully for some political object ; the League was trading on the rain, 
 and fiightening the public : private correspondents were credulous, and too 
 fond of excitement : their own potatoes, and most of their neighbours', looked 
 very well: and the clergy were again ready with rebuke of anxiety and doubt, 
 saying that there had always been talk of bad weather, but that, somehow or 
 other, there was always a harvest. 'When, in such a favoured region, two or 
 three benevolent gentry stored up their own sound potatoes for the use of the 
 sick and the aged in case of need, and laid in rice and macaroni and other 
 substitutes for winter use at their own tables, their neighbours for a time 
 laughed at the precaution, and said that potatoes were abundant and exces- 
 sively cheap in the markets. But soon the change appeared even in these 
 healthiest districts. A man might exhibit his green and flourishing crop to a 
 stranger, and say that he should take it up on Monday : on that night woidd 
 come a thunder-storm ; and the next morning, if the owner stirred the soil of 
 his blackened field with a pitchfork, up came such a steaming stench as 
 showed him that his field was turned putrid. And then it became known 
 why potatoes were abiuidant and cheap in the markets. Everj' body was 
 eager to sell before his potatoes had time to rot. What was to become of the 
 poor Irish if this went on, was now the most anxious question of the time. 
 Tub leai;i.i!. As for tlic Lcaguc, it was busy enough during the rain ; but not more than 
 
 It had been before. The Agricultural Protection Society, which had risen up 
 in opposition to it, declared in the preceding December, that the League had 
 ceased its missionary efforts, and become a mere registration club, while it 
 had itself circulated 30,000 copies of an address in favour of protection. The 
 League registration went on quite as diligently as was alleged ; but in another 
 A°inmnac""B46*'^ mouth — Jauuary, 18-15 — it appeared that 150 meetings in parliamentary 
 V- 254- boroughs, and fifty elsewhere, had been held in little more than two years ; 
 
 that 15,000 copies of the 'liCague' newspaper were weekly distributed; and 
 that 2,000,000 copies of other publications had been sent abroad. Of letters, 
 30,000 had been received during the year, and 300,000 sent out. The next 
 May showed that the League "was something more than a registration club. 
 Covent Garden Theatre was fitted up with great skill and taste for a Bazaar ; 
 and the show was sometlung quite unlike any thing ever seen before in our 
 iB^'-^chron^ «: country. In the great Gothic Hall into which the theatre was transformed, 
 there was a display of manufactures — freely presented in aid of the League 
 Fund — which sold for £25,000, besides leaving a sufficient quantity to make 
 another large bazaar at Manchester. It was open from the 5th to the 29th 
 of May ; and 125,000 persons paid for admission within that time. Four 
 hundred ladies conducted the sales ; and, generally speaking, each con- 
 tributing town had a stall, with its name, and sometimes its civic arms, 
 painted above. The porcelain and cutlery exhibitions, the mirrors and grind- 
 stones, the dolls and the wheat sacks, shoes and statuettes, antiquities and the 
 last fashion of coloured muslins, flannels and plated goods, and anatomical
 
 Chap. XIV.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 675 
 
 preparations, laces and books, made a curious and wondeiful display, \\liich 1845 
 was thought to produce more effect on some parHamentary minds than all ~-^-v— i-^ 
 the eloquence yet uttered in the Commons. Yet, after all this, the Leao-ue 
 had greater things to do. We find it decreeing the levy of £250,000 for "the 
 promotion of free trade ; and, in December, there was a meeting at Man- Annual noeister. 
 Chester, at which one member subscribed £1500,- twenty-two subscribed 
 £1000 each ; one £700 ; and eighteen £500. The enthusiasm had risen as the 
 crisis drew on ; and the sum of £62,000 was presently obtained within the 
 room, while the zeal elsewhere was such that there was no doubt of the 
 realization of the whole quarter of a million, if it should be wanted. And all 
 this was after £122,508 had been raised by previous subscriptions. 
 
 By this time, however, there were many who doubted whether either money Mobb Pourtxr.. 
 or effort would be required much longer. The rain having gone on, people 
 began inquiring in September whether the ports were to be opened; and 
 next, whether we could be sure of supplies, at short notice and in a prevalent 
 bad season, if the ports were opened to-morrow. Then some jaeople who had 
 before talked without thinking began to see how dangerous such precarious- 
 ness was, and how much more secure against famine we should be if forei-'n 
 countries should raise corn for us every year, instead of being called upon to 
 supply us out of their own stock, or from an accidental surplus. On the 10th 
 of October, Lord Ashley addressed a letter to the electors of Dorsetshire, which 
 was eagerly read all over the kingdom. He declared his con\iction that tlie 
 destiny of the Corn laws was fixed, and that " the leading men of the gi-eat 
 parties in the legislature are by no means disinclined to their eventual aboli- 
 tion." In the beginning of November, Cabinet Councils were frequent ; and 
 rumours were abroad that extensive inquiries had been for some time making 
 by the Minister about the results of the harvest. Rumour spoke also of dis- 
 agreements in the Cabinet ; but these were sujjposcd to relate merely to the 
 question of opening the ports. — At this time. Lord Morpeth, a late Whig 
 Minister, joined the League, and sent a letter with his contribution, in which 
 he declared, " I wish to record in the most emphatic way I can my conviction spwtaior, isis, 
 that the time is come for a total repeal of the corn laws, and my protest against 
 the continued inaction of the State in the present emergency." Lord Morpeth 
 declared that he wrote this letter " without concert or consultation with any one 
 else :" and events proved that he wrote it without any more insight than 
 people in general had into what " the State" — that is, the Cabinet — was 
 about. — Lord John Russell presently showed himself determined not to share 
 the " inaction of the State." He addressed to the electors of London a letter lo«i>joii.-< uu. 
 
 SF.I-I. S I.tlTTKIt. 
 
 from Edinburgh, dated November 22nd, 18-45, which he declared to be occa- *'p'^'^''<°'..'*". 
 sioned by the separating of the Ministers without apparent result, after their 
 frequent Cabinet meetings. After confessing his changes of opinion during 
 the last twenty years, and relating the stages of his advocacy of a continually 
 lessening amount of fixed duty. Lord J. Russell declared, " It is no longer 
 
 worth while to contend for a fixed duty The struggle to make bread 
 
 scarce and dear, when it is clear tliat part, at least, of the additioual price goes 
 to increase rent, is a struggle deeply injurious to an aristocracy which (this 
 (piarrel once removed) is strong in property, strong in the construction of o\u- 
 le 'islature, strong in opinion, strong iu ancient associations and the memory
 
 (676 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book VI. 
 
 1845. of immortal services. — Let us then unite to put an end to a system which has 
 proved to be the blight of commerce, the bane of agriculture, the source of 
 bitter divisions among classes, the cause of penury, fever, mortality, and 
 crime, among the people." — This invitation -was valuable as a preparation for 
 the deed to be done by other hands. But it was too late as regarded Lord 
 J. Russell himself. It met with no hearty response. His position would now 
 have been a glorious one if he had ever before advocated perfect freedom of 
 th'e corn trade ; and he would have been trusted if he had been a Conservative 
 leader, like his rival ; — a Conservative leader convinced and converted by the 
 stringency of circumstances : but, as an avowed leader of a liberal party, 
 converted only at the moment when he should have been attaining the 
 aim of many years — at the moment when his Conservative rival was under- 
 going the agony of conversion — he ■was not trusted ; and it was impossible 
 that he should be. This letter, on which he clearly founded great hopes, did 
 him no good ; the Conservative convert was appointed to the work. When 
 the time came for explanations in parliament, Lord J. Russell made complaints 
 of his Letter being regarded as a party move — as a bid for office ; but there 
 was one feature in the Letter which deprived him of all right to resent such 
 an interpretation — it abounded in taunts and expressions of spleen towards 
 Sir R. Peel. The whole composition has the air of being aimed at the 
 Minister. 
 
 It is known by means of JMinisterial explanations afterwards, what took 
 place during this period when all the world was on the watch, and no one 
 (Aui.NBT couN- could learn any thing. The Cabinet Councils held between the 1st and the 
 illmsard, ixxxiii. 6tli of November were for the purpose of considering the information sent in 
 from Ireland about the potato crop, and from the whole kingdom about the 
 general crop. As regarded Ireland, the reports were alarming beyond descrip- 
 tion. The Ministers could deliberate upon them without disturbance from 
 without ; for as yet there was no agitation about opening the ports which 
 could affect the action of the government ; — no petitions, no urgency from 
 public meetings or in the newsjmpers. The desire of Sir R. Peel at that time 
 was to throw open the ports by an Order in Council, or by calling parliament 
 together immediately for the purpose : but only three of his colleagues agreed 
 with him ; and the Ministers separated, on the understanding that they should 
 reassemble at the call of the Premier. His hope was that the growing alarm 
 would presently convince all his colleagues of the necessity of opening the 
 ports. Commissions were organized for the prevention of a sudden pressure 
 of extreme distress, especially in Ireland: and on the 25th of November, the 
 IMinisters again met, to prepare instructions for these Commissions. The 
 instructions were agreed on : but then it appeared to the Premier that these 
 instructions were inconsistent with the maintenance of the Com laws in their 
 existing state. He reserved to himself the power of ensuring a free supply 
 from abroad ; and now his colleagues had become so impressed by the daily 
 increasing alarm as to afford a hope that they would withdraw the opposition 
 with which they before met the proposal. But Lord Stanley could not yield ; 
 nor could one or two others. If the opening of the ports had taken place at 
 the beginning of November, it would have been done with a strong hand : 
 but the delay had admitted of the appearance of Lord J. Russell's Letter; and 
 
 nLs. 
 
 Ha 
 
 8t).
 
 Chap. XIV.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 677 
 
 now, if the Cabinet was not absolutely united — if a single resignation took 1845. 
 
 place — it would appear as if the Letter of a rival had deteimined the Muiis- ■ ^ — ' 
 
 ter's views, and his acts would have lost all their moral weight. 
 
 It was in the midst of the second series of consultations that an incident 
 occurred which startled the whole kingdom, and gave the newspapers plenty 
 to say. On the 4th of December, the ' Times' announced that it was the ^/"he'-ximk^ 
 intention of government to repeal the Corn laws, and to call parliament 
 together in January for the purpose. Some ministerial papers doubted and 
 then indignantly denied this. Some journals said that it could not be known 
 to the ' Times,' because the fact could transpire only through the breach of 
 the Cabinet oath. Others said that it might fairly be a matter of inference 
 from the general policy being understood : but to this there was the objec- 
 tion that the ' Times' asserted that its news was not a matter of inference, but 
 of fact; and the ordinary government papers persevered in denying the truth 
 of the news altogether. The ' Times' was scolded, insulted, jeered at, lectured ; 
 and every body was warned not to mind the ' Times :' but every body did 
 mind it ; and the ' Times ' persevered, day after day, week after week, in 
 haughtily asserting that its intelligence would be found correct within an 
 assigned period. Meantime, the general conviction was complete that the 
 'Times' had some peculiar means of information. One report was that the 
 Duke of Wellington had come down to the Horse Guards in great wrath, 
 swearing as he threw himself from his horse, at the pass things had come to 
 when the Corn laws were to be given up : but, besides that svich a freak was 
 not very like the shrewd and loyal Duke of Wellington, there was no reason 
 here why the ' Times' should be exclusively in possession of the information. 
 There are some, of course, who know, and many more who believe they know^ 
 how the thing happened : but it is not fitting to record in a permanent form 
 the chit-chat of London about any but the historical bearings of an incident 
 like this. The ' Times ' had true information : and that is all that is impor- 
 tant to the narrative. As Ave have said, the announcement was made on the 
 4th of December. On the 5th, the 'Standard' exhibited a conspicuous title 
 to a counter-statement : " Atrocious fabrication by the ' Times:' " but mean- 
 while, " the effect of the announcement by the ' Times ' at tlie Corn Exchange 
 was immense surprise, not so much displeasure as might have been expected, 
 and an instant downward tendency in the price of grain." So said otlier 
 papers. " We adhere to our original announcement," said the ' Times ' of 
 December 6th, " that parliament will meet early in January, and that a repeal 
 of the Corn laws will be proposed in one House by Sir R. Peel, and in the 
 other by the Duke of Wellington." The free-traders so far gave weight to the 
 assertion as to announce every where with diligence that they would accept 
 of " nothing short of total repeal : not a shiUing, nor a farthing, of duty should 
 be imposed without souud reason shown." 
 
 For a few days after this, the League was at the height of its glory. The 
 aoriculturists were cowed, and could only gioan and nnn-mur : men were 
 out all day in the streets, to learn the opinions of their neighbours, and above 
 all, the expectations of Leaguers. On Sunday the 7th, it was understood tliat 
 the Duke of Wellington had certainly, though most reluctantly, yielded. On 
 Mondav, it was observed that he did not attend the Council: on Tuesday, it
 
 678 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book VI. 
 
 1845. was believed that he would not act with his colleagues on this subject, and, by 
 
 " — " refusing to do so, had virtually withdrawn his assent. On Wednesday, there 
 
 was a Privy Council : on Thursday morning, it was understood that the 
 meeting of parliament was somewhat deferred, as if to gain time to settle 
 some difficulty. Throughout the day, the rumours of dissensions in the 
 Cabinet grew stronger : and at night, it was made known, all over London, 
 
 RFsi.iNATioNop that the Ministry had resigned. 
 
 It may truly be said that the intelligence was received throughout the 
 country with dismay. The full value of Sir R. Peel was not yet known— the 
 value of his moral earnestness when at last freed from the shackles of educa- 
 tional prejudice and party intimacies — but the value of his administration was 
 every where felt. For above four years now the nation had reposed upon his 
 Avise government — reposed on his safe and skilful financial management, and 
 thorough efficiency in all the business of governing : and he and his colleagues 
 had moreover carried us through a period of deep depression and fearful dis- 
 order ; replenished the sources of our manufactures and commerce ; reinstated 
 our finances ; given benefits to Ireland ; sanctioned the principle and practice 
 of religious liberty ; and strengthened and settled the whole fabric of our 
 polity, as far as the vigorous and skilful administration of the national affairs 
 for nearly five years could do so. And now, just when the most important of 
 all existing questions had to be conducted to an issue, he was to step aside for 
 those who had no more right than he, on any gi'ound, to the management of 
 the business, and far less poAver of every kind. The regi-et was but temporary, 
 however, for the Peel Ministry was presently restored. 
 
 Hansard, ixxxiii. gii- R,. Peel thought it duc to the magnitude of the interest at stake to try 
 no experiment which might fail. When assured, therefore, of the dissent of 
 his colleagues, he immediately resigned. Lord Stanley and the other dissen- 
 tients would not undertake to form a government : and the Queen,of her own 
 
 neootiatuw choice, sent for Lord J. Russell. Lord J. Russell was at Edinburgh. The 
 
 Russell. ' royal summoiis reached him at night on the 8th of December. As there 
 was then no railway to London, it was the 10th before he arrived in town ; 
 and the 11th before he appeared in the Queen's presence at Osborne, in 
 
 Hansard, ixxxiii. the Islc of Wight. He had made up his mind that, if asked to undertake the 
 formation of a Ministry, be must decline, because his party were in a minority 
 in the Commons of from 90 to 100. This was his answer when the Queen 
 made the expected request : but Sir R. Peel had left with the Queen a paper 
 in which, after declaring the reasons of his resignation, he avowed his readi- 
 ness "in his private capacity, to aid and give every support to the new 
 Minister whom her Majesty might select to effect a settlement of the question 
 of the Corn laws." This wholly changed the state and prospect of the case. 
 Lord J. Russell returned to London to consult such of his friends as were 
 within reach. Through Sir J. Graham, Lord J. Russell was put in posses- 
 sion of all the infoi-mation on which the late Ministers had proceeded; but not 
 of the details of their proposed measures. It was no time for a general 
 election. None but a rash Minister would dream of requiring it while the 
 country was in strong excitement, and under the visible doom of a great 
 calamity. Instead of this, the thing to be done was to frame such a measure 
 of Corn law repeal as would secure the support of Sir R. Peel and the
 
 Chap. XIV.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 
 
 679 
 
 colleagues who had adhered to him. After a good deal of correspondence, 1845. 
 
 through the Queen, of difficult transaction by statesmen so delicately placed ■ ' 
 
 with regard to each other. Lord J. Russell conceived himself justified in "T'x'^ """""■ 
 
 attempting to form an administration; and he communicated ■\\-ith the 
 
 sovereign to that effect on the 18th of December. But, next morning, an 
 
 insuperable difficulty arose. One of the friends on whom lie had confidently 
 
 reckoned as a coadjutor declined to enter the Cabinet. This was Lord 
 
 Grey. Highly as Lord J. Eussell valued him, he would at any other time 
 
 have endeavoured to fonn a Cabinet without him, at his own desire : but the 
 
 position of the Whigs was now too critical — or, at least, their leader thought 
 
 so — to admit the risk of such speculation as would be excited by the exclusion 
 
 of Lord Grey. On the 20th, therefore, the Queen was finally infonned Hansard, ixxjiii. 
 
 that Lord John Russell found it impossible to form an administration. 
 
 Among the newspaper reports of the public talk during this interval, we i^uu ohey. 
 find a few words in italics about the popular surprise at there being " no men- 
 tion of Lord Grey " in the list of Whig conferences; and close beside tliis, we 
 meet with notice of the " alarm " excited by the consideration that Lord Pal- 
 merston must have some office, and most probably the Foreign Department. 
 Our foreign relations were now in a critical state, as our history of the French 
 and American questions will have shown : and there were many who stood in 
 fear of Lord Palmerston's " talent of keeping perpetually open all vital ques- spectator, lus, 
 tions and dangerous controversies." It was well understood that Lord Grey '"' 
 thought it unsafe to make Lord Palmerston Foreign Minister at such a junc- 
 ture ; and that he declined to act inconsistently with his own long-avowed 
 principles of peace by sitting in the Cabinet with a Minister who had done 
 more than any other man to foster the war-spirit in 1840 and 1841. The dis- 
 appointed Whig party bitterly comi^lained that " Lord Grey had done it all :" 
 but with the country at large Lord Grey lost notliing by this difficult act of 
 self-exclusion, or by his honourable silence in the midst of the censure which 
 was abundantly poured out upon him. 
 
 On Friday the 19th, the Queen intimated to SirR. Peel that, as their politi- nimsard, luxiu. 
 cal relation was about to terminate, she wished to see him the next day, to bid 
 him farewell. Before he went to Windsor on the Saturday, he was informed 
 by Lord John Russell of the failure of his enterprise : and when he entered 
 the Queen's presence, he was told that, so far from taking leave, he must pre- 
 pare for the resumption of office. He returned to town as Minister of the "lEixuivwEKl'" 
 Crown, and found no difficulty in reconstructing his Cabinet. Lord Stanley 
 of course retired. All the others remained — all but one who had died suddenly 
 from the anxiety of the crisis. Lord Wharncliffe had been sufiering from gout ; 
 but no danger was apprehended. He was, however, in no state to bear the 
 turmoil of the time; and he suddenly saidv on the 19th of December, in the dkath or L..iin 
 70th year of his age. As President of the Council, lie had iiroved himselt a Ammai Hopisior, 
 
 ■' " ■ n i^iT 1815: Chron. 3il'. 
 
 zealous and effective Minister ; and his earnestness in fulfilling to tlie utmost 
 such provisions for education as had been obtained secured him much gratitude 
 from society. It was an untoward time for a West Riding election : but this 
 elevation of Mr. Stuart A^'ortley to the peerage rendered it necessary; and 
 Lord Morpeth was returned to his old seat without opposition. Mr. Gladstone fj"""''[";j["^"j
 
 680 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 [Book VI. 
 
 1845. 
 
 Sir R. Peel's 
 rosiTloN. 
 
 The Duke of 
 Wellington's 
 position. 
 
 Hansard, Ixxxiii. 
 170. 
 
 became Colonial Secretary, instead of Lord Stanley ; and the Duke of 13 uc- 
 cleuch succeeded Lord WharncliiFe as President of the Council. 
 
 And now, once more, all was going well — well for the people ; and, in a 
 large view, well for the Minister. His position was at once an humbling and a 
 glorious one ; his course a hard and yet a straight one. He had to stand up 
 in the face of the world, and say that he had been in error all his life, and that 
 he foimd himself compelled now to achieve that which he had all his life 
 opposed. This was the hard part — accompanied as it must be by the rage of 
 disapjjointed partisans, the indignant grief of old friends, and perhaps the in- 
 temperate triumph of old enemies. But his position was a glorious one, if he 
 could but show himself equal to it. If, instead of making this the .beginning 
 of a new career, as some anticipated, he settled it with himself that this should 
 be his last scene of power, and he could endiu'e calmly what he must go 
 through as a necessary retribution for previous error, and close his career with 
 giving to the nation the benefit it most wanted in the best possible manner, 
 this last scene of his administration might be the noblest. — His course must 
 be hard ; for there were teiTible storms ready to burst in parliament ; and, 
 when he had, by a stern and self-forgetting rule, held his party together for 
 the passage of the single great measui'e now in his hand, his party would fall 
 to pieces, and he might be left alone in his place in the legislature, after a life 
 of industry and eminent political prosperity. But not the less was his coin-se 
 clear. He must propose and carry through a total repeal of the Corn laws, 
 whatever became of himself. This must be his single and his final aim ; and 
 those who knew anything of the " alacrity of spirit " with which a strong and 
 honourable mind enters on a great work of reparation, self-sacrifice, and 
 general justice, believed that Sir R. Peel would now make manifest to the 
 utmost the nobleness of his position and the singleness of his aim. 
 
 As for the Duke of Wellington, the peremptory and inflexible, who had 
 gone through so many changes, and must now go through one more — every 
 body knew, by dint of repetition, what he would say. He wonld say that he 
 could not desert his sovereign. And this is what he did say. " At all events," 
 he declared, " whatever that measure may be, I must say this ; that, situated 
 as I am in this country — highly rewarded as I have been by the Sovereign and 
 the people of England — I could not refuse that Sovereign to aid her, when 
 called upon, to form a government, in order to enable her Majesty to meet her 
 parliament, and to carry on the business of the country. Upon that ground, 
 my Lords, I present myself to your Lordships."
 
 fiiAP. XV.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 
 
 G81 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 mHE Royal Speech, delivered by the Queeu in person on the 19th of January, ^^^C>- 
 
 -*- expressed satisfaction in the results of the repeal of Customs duties, as far ' "^^^ 
 
 as they had yet gone, and recommended to parliament the consideration ?;*"'^- , 
 
 T 1 -, ^ r ' • • 1 Hansanl.lx.wnul. 
 
 whether the repeal ot restrictions might not be carried yet further ; whether 
 there might not still be a remission " of the existing duties upon many 
 articles, the produce or manufacture of other countries." 
 
 The remission took place on several articles of the tariff without much op- 1 1 aniEB rr-us. 
 position. Almost the only raw materials still subject to duty were taUow and "'""'" 
 timber ; and these were to be extensively reduced. In consideration of the 
 release of so much raw material, the manufacturers were expected to acquiesce 
 in the reduction of some remaining articles of manufacture ; and this they 
 showed all willingness to do. And well they niiglit ; for the Minister's exposi- ."f"^/"*- 1*^"'" 
 tion proved the vast increase of the silk manufocture in England, in propor- 
 tion to the removal of duties. There was to be a considerable reduction of 
 the duty on silk manufactures, with more certamty of levy : and the duties on 
 cotton and woollen fabrics were removed or lessened one half — Tlie differen- 
 tial duties on free-labour sugar were reduced — the higher from lis. 8d. to 8s. ; 
 and the lower from 9s. Acl. to 5s. lOf/. — On brandy and foreign spirits, the 
 duty was brought down nearer to the point which might obviate smuggling : 
 that is, from 22*'. \0d. per gallon to 15s. Animal food and vegetables M-ere 
 to be admitted duty free ; and butter, cheese, hops, and cured fish, reduced one 
 half. Live animals were freed from duty ; and a considerable number of 
 minor and " unenumerated articles." The Minister was strengthened by the 
 successes of former years ; and by the absorbing of men's mind in the corn 
 subject; and these remissions passed without any effectual opposition. The 
 sugar duties, however, were left over for subsequent consideration. 
 
 The revenue showed indisputably the results of former remissions. There '''"'■ "i^vexif 
 was this year a clear surplus of £2,380,600. There was a considerable in- """'""'■ '='•■""'• 
 crease in the consumption of those exciseable commodities which are con- 
 nected with the comfort of the mass of the people ; more money was in the 
 Savings' Banks : and there was something better still — a more significant and 
 more blessed token of prosperity than any other — there Mas a marked decrease 
 of crime. But for the impending famine, there could be no doubt that our 
 country was on the way to a prosperity which must for ever have settled 
 opinions about the policy of free trade. 
 
 It was on the 27th of January that the above tariff reductions were pro- 
 posed, in the same speech that was to announce the ministerial plan about the 
 Corn laws. " Every crevice " into which a stranger could tlirust himself was 
 occupied : and hundreds who held tickets were obliged to remain in tlie 
 streets. Prince Albert and the Duke of Cambridge sat below the bar. Tlie 
 
 vf)i.. u. 4 s
 
 682 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 [Book VI. 
 
 1846. 
 
 The Corn Duties 
 Hansard, Ixxxiii. 
 2S6. 
 
 Hansard, Ixxxui. 
 203. 
 
 Relitf to Far- 
 MEHS. 
 
 Hansard, Ixxxiv. 
 349. 
 
 Hansard, Ixxjivl. 
 7-Jl. 
 
 Minister's speech lasted four hours. It was listened to for the most part in 
 quietness ; but some paragraphs were vehemently cheered by the Opposition. 
 All agricultural produce which serves as cattle-food, such as buckwheat 
 and Indian corn, was to be admitted duty free. It was this provision which 
 wrought better than any other precaution whatever to reduce the pressure of 
 the subsequent famine in Ireland ; for Indian meal is a good article of human 
 food— far superior to potatoes. All Colonial grain was to bear a merely nominal 
 duty. This would be good news in our Australian colonies, whenever the 
 tidings could reach so far. As for other grain, all protection was to cease in 
 three years ; and that time was allowed for the farmers to accommodate them- 
 selves to the change. In the interval, the duties were to be considerably 
 reduced. When wheat was under 48s. per quarter, the duty was to be 10s. 
 When at a shilling higher, the duty was to be a shilling lower, till wheat 
 should be at 54s. and the duty at 4s., after which the duty should not further 
 change. The same principle and proportion were to apply to other kinds of 
 grain. The immediate effect M'ould be to reduce the duty, at the existing 
 price of wheat, from 16s. to 4s.— It was proposed to afford some important 
 relief to the farmers, otherwise than by laying burdens on other classes. 
 Loans of public money were to be attainable by persons contemplating agricul- 
 tural improvements. The law of settlement was to be so altered as to pre- 
 vent country parishes from being burdened with labourers when adversity 
 pressed on tlic manufacturing districts. Five years' industrial residence was 
 henceforth to constitute a settlement. The cost of prisoners Avas to be taken 
 off the county rates. By a consolidation of the highway departments — a con- 
 solidation Avhich would reduce the Boards from 16,000 to about 600 — a vast 
 relief from waste and mismanagement would be obtained. Such were the 
 main features of the scheme. Objections naturally sprang up on all sides. 
 The Protectionists Avere, of course, furious : and their antagonists were sorry — 
 and especially on account of the farmers themselves — that there was to be an 
 interval of three years before the corn trade was free. The farmers' friends 
 looked on the accompanying provisions of relief as a mere mockery ; and some 
 derided the multifarious character of the scheme. But, after all objections 
 were made, there remained the grand and simple fact that in three years the 
 Corn laws would be no more. The manufacturers threw away with joy such 
 remaining duties as had been called a protection to them ; and the League 
 leaders, who had invariably declared that they would support any man of any 
 party who would obtain the repeal of the Corn laws, now gave their whole 
 strength to the Minister and his scheme. 
 
 The debate began on the 9th of February, and extended over twelve nights 
 between that and the 27th, when there was a decision in favour of the govern- 
 ment by a majority of 97 in a House of 577. On the 2d of March, the House 
 went into Committee, when four nights more were filled with debate, before 
 the second reading was carried by a majority of 88. A last effort was made, 
 in a debate of three nights, to prevent a third reading ; but it was carried, at 
 four in the morning of the 16th of May, by a majority of 98 in a House of 
 556 members. 
 
 In the Lords, the majority in favour of the second reading was 47 in a full 
 House — a more easy passage than could have been anticipated. The few
 
 Chap. XV.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. G83 
 
 amendments that were proposed were negatived; the Bill passed on the 22iul 1846. 
 of June, and became law on the 26th of the same month. ^— i— ^-. — 
 
 During this long series of debates, every consideration that had ever been "l^^^' •'"»'■''• 
 urged, for or against a repeal of the Corn laws, was brought up again. There 
 is no need to repeat any of them here. Every personality that could pass the 
 lips of educated men and gentlemen in our period of civilization was uttered 
 by angry antagonists : and not a few which it is surprising that educated men 
 and gentlemen could listen to without discountenance and rebuke. It would 
 do no good to repeat any of them here. The principal new points, not mere 
 personality, were the extraordinary denial, on the part of the Protectionists, 
 of the existence or probability of famine in Ireland, though such an amount 
 of evidence was laid before the House as might have been expected to bear 
 down all party rancour, and all pride of opinion, and to induce sympathy with 
 the administration in the most prejudiced man in the House. On this, also, 
 there is no occasion to enlarge. Time has shown what the condition of Ire- 
 land was, and was to be ; and the keenest Protectionist is now probably 
 astonished that he could ever doubt it, after listening to the evidence offered 
 by Sir Robert Peel and Lord Lincoln. — On the soundness of that evidence, tuf. minister. 
 however, rested so much of the Minister's case that any appreciation of him- 
 self and his position was impossible while his detail of facts was denied. His 
 position during the session was therefore hard beyond all parallel. His temper 
 and conduct were worthy of it. He made at first such ample confession of the 
 error of a life; maintained so simply the duty and dignity of avowing error in- 
 stead of being obstinate and silent ; bore so magnanimously the reproaches which 
 were the natural retribution of the mistake which he had held in common with 
 almost the whole of the legislature and the aristocracy during the greater 
 part of his life ; and was so sustained under his personal trials by a moral 
 enthusiasm sufficiently rare at all times in the House of Commons, and little 
 expected from him, that before his retirement, he was looked up to witli new 
 feelings by generous-minded men of all parties. His own words will best 
 explain his position and his -views. " You have a right, I admit," he said, in _H,-.iuv;r<i, iiaxvi. 
 his final speech on the Bill, " to taunt me with any change of opinion on the ' ' ' 
 Corn laws ; but when you say that by my adoption of the principles of free 
 trade, I have acted in contradiction to those principles which I have always 
 avowed during my wliole life, that charge, at least, I say, is destitute of foun- 
 dation. Sir, 1 will not enter at this late hour into the discussion of any 
 other topic. I foresaw the consequences that have resulted from the measures 
 which I thought it my duty to propose. We were charged with the heavy 
 responsibility of taking security against a great calamity in Ireland. Wc 
 did not act lightly. We did not form our opinion upon merely local 
 information— the information of local authorities likely to be influenced by 
 an undue alarm. Before I, and those who agreed with me, came to that 
 conclusion, we had adopted every means— by local inquiry, and by sending 
 perfectly disinterested persons of authority to Ireland— to form a just and cor- 
 rect opinion. Whether we were mistaken or not— I believe we were not 
 mistaken- but, even if we were mistaken, a generous construction should be 
 put upon the inotives and conduct of those who are charged with the respon- 
 sibility of protecting millions of subjects of the Queen from the consequences
 
 684 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book VI. 
 
 1846. of scarcity and famine. Sir, whatever may be the result of these discussions, 
 I feci severely the loss of the confidence of those from almost all of whom I 
 heretofore received a most generous support. So far from expecting them, as 
 some have said, to adopt my opinions, I perfectly recognise the sincerity with 
 which they adhere to their own. I recognise their perfect right, on account 
 of the admitted failure of my speculation, to withdraw from me their confi- 
 dence. I honour their motives, but I claim, and I always will claim, while 
 entrusted with such powers, and subject to such responsibility as the Minister 
 of this great country is entrusted with and is subject to — I always will assert 
 the right to give that advice which I conscientiously believe to be conducive 
 to the general well-being. I was not considering, according to the language 
 of the honourable Member for Shrewsbury, what was the best bargain to make 
 for a party. I was considering first what were the best measures to avert a great 
 calamity, and, as a secondary consideration, to relieve that interest which I 
 was bound to protect from the odium of refusing to acquiesce in measures 
 which I thought to be necessary for the purpose of averting that calamity. 
 Sir, I cannot charge myself or my colleagues with having been unfaithful to 
 
 the trust committed to us If I look to the prerogative of the Crown — if 
 
 I look to the position of the Church — if I look to the influence of the aristo- 
 cracy — I cannot charge myself with having taken any course inconsistent with 
 Conservative principles, calculated to endanger the privileges of any branch of 
 the legislature, or of any institutions of the country. My earnest wish has 
 been, during my tenure of power, to impress the people of this country with a 
 belief that the legislature was animated by a sincere desire to frame its legisla- 
 tion upon the principles of equity and justice. I have a strong belief that the 
 greatest object which we or any other government can contemplate should be 
 to elevate the social condition of that class of the people with whom we are 
 brought into no direct relation by the exercise of the elective franchise. I 
 wish to convince them that our object has been so to apportion taxation, that 
 we shall relieve industry and labour from any undue burden, and transfer it, 
 so far as is consistent with the public good, to those who are better enabled to 
 bear it. I look to the present peace of this country ; I look to the absence of 
 all disturbance — to the non-existence of any commitment for a seditious offence; 
 I look to the calm that prevails in the public mind ; I look to the absence of 
 all disaffection ; I look to the increased and growing public confidence on 
 account of the course you have taken in relieving trade from restrictions, and 
 industry from unjust burdens ; and where there was dissatisfaction, I see con- 
 tentment ; where there was turbulence, I see there is peace ; where there was 
 disloyalty, I see there is loyalty ; I see a disposition to confide in you, and not 
 to agitate questions that are at the foundations of your institutions." 
 
 In a later speech, the very last which he delivered before quitting office, he 
 again recurred to the great consolatory ground of the improved condition of 
 ■ those who can least help themselves. He relinquished power, to use his own 
 words, " mth a more lively recollection of the support and confidence I have 
 received during several years, than of the opposition which, during a recent 
 period, I have encoimtered. In relinquishing power, I shall leave a name, 
 severely censured, I fear, by many who, on public grounds, deeply regret the 
 severance of party ties — deeply regret that severance, not from interested or 
 
 Hans.-ird 
 p. 1054.
 
 Chap. XV.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 685 
 
 personal motives, but from the firm conviction that fidelity to party en"-awe- 1846. 
 ments — the existence and maintenance of a great party — constitutes a power- ^~— >'-—-' 
 ful instrument of government : I shall surrender power severely censured also 
 by others who, from no interested motive, adhere to the principle of protection, 
 considering the maintenance of it to be essential to the welfare and interests 
 of the country : I shall leave a name execrated by every monopolist who, from 
 less honourable motives, clamours for protection because it conduces to his o^vn 
 individual benefit : but it may be that I shall leave a name sometimes remem- 
 bered wth expressions of good-will in the abodes of those whose lot it is to 
 labour, and to earn their daily bread by the sweat of their brow, when they 
 shall recruit their exhausted strength with abundant and untaxed food, the 
 sweeter because it is no longer leavened with a sense of injustice." 
 
 It was quite true that there was a popular disposition " not to agitate ques- 
 tions that are at the foundation of our institutions." The great reform of '^''tireofthk 
 
 Keforu. 
 
 policy^of procedure — which had now taken place had excluded all present 
 thoughts of organic change from the mind of the people. Inferior in import- 
 ance as the late enterprise was to that of Reform of Parliament — inferior in its 
 order, and in its import — it was yet great enough to absorb for the time the 
 political energy of the nation. To arrest the sinking of the agricultural inte- 
 rests of the country, and remove the impediments to a free supply of food, 
 were objects inferior only to any enterprise of organic change : but they were 
 inferior. It does not follow, however, that organic change may not arise from 
 an inferior order of reform ; and in this case it was clear to those who were 
 aware of the facts that the power under the Reform Bill discovered by Mr. 
 Cobden of renovating county constituencies must, sooner or later, bring forth 
 vast political results. The system of forty-shilling freehold purchase and 
 registration, begun under the League organization, did not stop when the 
 League dissolved itself. It proceeds, and at an accelerated rate. 
 
 On the 2nd of July, the League was "conditionally dissolved," by the una- Dissoutiosof 
 iiimous vote of a great meeting of the leaders at Manchester. The body was spwtutor, imc, 
 virtually dissolved ; but the Executive Council had power to call it again into 
 existence, if occasion should arise ; — that is, if attempts should be made to 
 revive agricultural protection. Mr. Cobden here joyfully closed his seven 
 years' task, which he had prosecuted at the expense of healtli, fortune, domes- 
 tic comfort, and the sacrifice of his own tastes in every way. Sir R. Peel had 
 said of him, in his closing speech, that to one man was the great work of 
 repeal owing ; and that that man was Richard Cobden : and Mr. Cobden now 
 declared at Manchester that if Sir R. Peel had lost office, he had gained a 
 country. The Leaguers were not called on for more than the first instalment 
 of the quarter of a million they had resolved to raise: and out of that sum, 
 they voted £10,000 (in his absence) to their Chainnan, Mr. James ^^■ilson.— 
 Mr. Cobden had sacrificed at least £20,000 in the cause. The country now, 
 at the call of the other chief Leaguers, presented him with above £80,000 — 
 not only for the purpose of acknowledging liis sacrifices, but also to set him 
 free for life for the political service of his country. 
 
 Early in tlie session, (he Ministers had introduced a bill for the Protection h,m. i.tl n.i.. . 
 of Life in Ireland, where the practice of night-assassination was again partially 
 prevailing. Tlic i)()litical jealously of the time was exercised upon this bill ;
 
 686 ■ HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book VI. 
 
 1846. and it was opposed by a curious medley of members in the Commons, after an 
 ~ — — --— — ' easy passage in the Lords. It was thrown out in the Commons, on the same 
 
 Hansard, ixxxvii. night (Juue 26th) when the Corn law Bill passed the Lords. The majority 
 against the ministers was 73. Every one knew that the Peel Administration 
 was going out, as soon as the repeal of the Corn laws was achieved ; but 
 
 hesignatios of perhaps this defeat settled the moment. On the 29th, the Duke of Wellington 
 
 Hmsardl'ixxxvii. took Icavc of powcr in the one House, and Sir R. Peel in the other, in an- 
 
 1039, 1040. nouncing their resignation of office. 
 
 In one sense. Sir R. Peel might be said to take leave of power : but his 
 moral power was destined yet to grow stronger. An old and faithful member 
 
 Hansard, ixxxvii. of Oppositiou, Mr. Humc, said of him, on this last evening, " That no one ever 
 
 '°^*' left power carrying with him so much of the sympathy of the people :" and 
 
 there were multitudes who could not endure the thought of losing him, at 
 the very moment of his discovering himself to the nation in his greatest 
 aspect. As he left the House on the night of the 29th, leaning on the arm of 
 Sir George Clerk, he was awaited by a quiet multitude outside, who bared 
 their heads at the sight of him, and escorted him to his house. Some of 
 these probably hoped to hail him as Minister again some day ; for it was a 
 common idea throughout the country that, if there was only one man who 
 could govern the country, that man would have to govern the country, whether 
 he would or no. But he knew better. He knew that his last words were a 
 real farewell. 
 
 TtiE nuTiRiNG That which he did not and could not know was the full nobleness of the 
 
 position which he Avould henceforth hold. He had nothing more to attain. 
 His wealth had always been great ; and it was not in the power even of the 
 sovereign to ennoble him. His honours are of a higher order than those ot 
 
 o 
 
 the peerage, and would be rather impaired than enhanced by his removal 
 from among the Commons. In the Commons he has no party, because there 
 is no party there : and if there were, he has withdrawn from party conflict. 
 He speaks as from his own mind ; and his words have singular weight. He 
 sits in the legislature, a man free from personal aims of every kind, at full 
 leisure, and in full freedom to cast light where it is wanted on any hand, to 
 give guidance and sanction, and material for speculation and action in future 
 years, when he will be no more seen in his place. Men of all parties seem to 
 agree upon one point in regard to Sir R. Peel ; — that his latest position in the 
 British Legislature is the noblest that, in our period of time, can be held by 
 any man.
 
 Chap. XVI.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE 
 
 687 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 TI^ITH the charm of a youthful sovereign and a fresh royal generation 1842—46 
 ^^ came, necessarily, the mournfulness of seeing the old drop off;— the -— -C-^^' 
 old princes and statesmen and warriors, whose names had been familiar to us 
 all our lives. The Duke of Sussex, the most popular of the sons of George EcirorsJ^Ex. 
 the Third — the amiable man, the lover of books and of philosophy, the hero 
 of a love-story in the last century, when he married Lady Augusta Murray — 
 died in April, 1843, in the 72nd year of his age : and his cousin, the Princess 
 Sophia of Gloucester, followed him in November of the next vear, at the ao-e rBixcHss.sopniA 
 ot Jl. At the time they died, the reading world was learning, by the Diary 
 of IMadame D'Arblay, how these affectionate cousins looked, and what they 
 said, in the days of their early youth, when she was brilliantly handsome, and 
 he full of grace and kindness to every body in his father's court. They had 
 since had much pain and uneasiness in their lives ; and it was time that they 
 were at rest.^The illustrious family of the WeUesleys was breaking up. The 
 Marquess Wellcsley, who had ruled India when his brother Arthur won Maroixss 
 his first successes there, died in 1842, in his 83rd year ; and his younger LoKD''MiKM.va. 
 brother — but still some years older than the Duke of Wellington and Lord ^"^' 
 Cowley — Lord Mornington, followed in 1845. Lord Mornington was Sir R. 
 Peel's predecessor in his early office of Secretary for Ireland. The offices 
 which he subsequently filled were unimportant, except that of Post Master 
 General, which he held during the short Peel administration of 1835. Lord 
 Wellesley was a much more important man to the nation, not only by 
 his Indian administration, but by his strenuous support of his warrior 
 brother during the Peninsular war, when he had to contend with the 
 timidity and carelessness of the government at home even more painfully 
 than with the French forces abroad. What his government was in Ireland in 
 1822, and how his liberality excited the \vrath of the Ascendancy party there, 
 we have seen. His old age was embittered by pecuniary difficulties, such as 
 he had contrived to trouble himself with all his life. Tlie East India 
 Company made liberal gifts to him, in acknowledgment of former services ; 
 and after this, his few remaining days slipped away quietly, amidst the solace 
 of books and old friendships ; though the wording of some provisions in his 
 will seems to show that he regarded the Administration of Lord ISIelboume Annuni Ronisior, 
 with no more tranquillity than his friend. Lord Brougham, to whose charge he 
 left the vindication of his memory, " confiding in his justice and honour." — 
 An old friend and comrade of the WeUesleys, Lord Hill, died in 1842. He losdHhi.. 
 had won glory in Spain, Portugal, and Franco, and finally at Waterloo : and 
 he earned civic gratitude by his admirable administration of the army (which 
 may be called a civic service) between the years 1828 and 1842. No private 
 interest or political bias ever was seen to affect his distribution of patronage —
 
 688 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 [Book VI. 
 
 Sir Hudson j 
 Lowe. 
 
 Lord Canter- 
 
 BUUY. 
 
 Lord Wallace. 
 
 1842 46. keen as was the watch kept upon him by the opponents of the successive 
 
 Ministries under which he served. He was 70 when he died. — In the gi'oup 
 of old and dying men associated in our minds with our last wars, we may note 
 Lieutenant-General Sir Hudson Lowe — perhaps the most abused man of his 
 time. He had the misfortune to be appointed gaoler to Napoleon at St. 
 Helena. No man could have occupied that post under any circumstances 
 without undergoing cruel anxiety, and perpetual embarrassment : but Sir 
 Hudson Lowe had not that support from the government at home which he 
 had a right to expect ; and they allowed him to be victimized by calumny, 
 while the fault was theirs, if indeed the fallen Emperor's lot was less easy 
 than it might have been made. Sir H. Lowe appears to have done all that 
 he could — without thanks, without support, without guidance — under inces- 
 sant misconstruction from the world, and intolerable^ insult from his captive. 
 If there was fault, it appears to have been merely of nerve : and the wonder would 
 have been if he could have maintained nerve and judgment under the daily 
 irritation of his position. — Of the old statesmen and poUticians, more dropped 
 during^this period. Lord Grey, after a sick retirement of a few years, died in 
 his 82nd year, in July, 1845 ; and in the same month Lord Canterbury, the 
 Speaker of the Commons for so many years, under the name of Sir Charles 
 Manners Sutton. His age was 65. — Lord Wallace, the early friend of 
 Jenkinson and Canning, and a holder of office under Mr. Pitt, died in 1844, 
 with the reputation of a liberal rather than a conservative, and mourned by 
 the friends of the liberal measures of the day. He was the predecessor of Mr. 
 Huskisson at the Board of Trade, and had the same clear views of the advan- 
 tages of free trade. While Master of the ]Mint, he greatly improved the coin- 
 age. He was one of the very few men who rendered substantial service in 
 office and in parliament without exciting party feelings in other.s — probably 
 because he was able to rise above them himself. — Of the liberal party, several 
 
 Lord coNOLEToN. leaders were lost at this time. Sir Henry Parnell, become Lord Congleton, 
 who did as much as a Member of Parliament well could do towards financial 
 reform, died by his own hand in a state of nervous disease, in 1842. He was 
 Secretary at War in the early days of Lord Grey's Administration : but he did 
 not like the financial proceedings of the "Whigs, and he resigned in a few 
 nionths — a measure absolutely necessary, if he objected to Lord Althorp's 
 projects being attributed to his own principles. As we have befoi'e seen, he 
 disclaimed all participation in Lord Althorp's budgets ; and it was necessary 
 that he should resign, to do this. Under Lord Melbourne, he was Paymaster 
 of the Forces. As a leading member of the Excise Commission, he rendered 
 important service. Lord Congleton had nearly completed his 66th year at the 
 time of his unhappy death. His place in the House of Lords remains unoc- 
 cupied, his son and heir being a member of the community of Plymouth 
 Brethren. 
 
 The staunch old liberal. Alderman Wood, of late Sir Matthew Wood, so 
 well remembered as the brave host of Queen Caroline, at the most critical 
 turn of her fortunes, died in a good old age, in 1843. — And in the next year 
 the once famous Radical, Sir Francis Burdett. He was no longer a Radical : 
 and it was a misfortune to the liberal cause that he had ever been one. He 
 was a weak and vain man — fond of notoriety and scenes, capable of going to 
 
 Sib Matthew 
 Wood. 
 
 Sir Francis 
 
 Bl'RDETT.
 
 Chap. XVI.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 689 
 
 prison for libel amidst popular sympathy, and of being found teaching his sou 1842—46 
 to read Magna Charta, when called on by the officers of justice on that errand j ^.^^-i^ -' 
 but he was not capable of the silent self-denial, the long perseverance, the 
 patient labour and good-temper, necessary to the support and furtherance of 
 the cause in adverse times, and up to the moment of success. He fell back ; 
 and, falling back, was rejected by Westminster in 1837 ; and from that time, 
 he became an avowed Conservative, sitting for North ^^'iltshire on that 
 interest. He had many requisites for popularity ; and he long enjoyed it: but 
 it did not cheer the end of his life ; for the mode of his political change was 
 not one wliich could be regarded with respect by either old or new allies. He 
 died a few days after his wife, in January, 1844, in the T4tli year of his age. 
 — Sir R. Peel's Attorney-General, Sir William W. FoUett, a man who wanted sib wilfoilctt. 
 only health to have raised him to the highest legal and pohtical honours, died 
 in office in 1845 — the* Ministers attending his funeral. He was only 46. — 
 One of the heroes of our late Indian wars, Major-General Sir William Nott, S'" ^^^- '^'^■ 
 died very soon after attaining the honours and rewards assigned him for his 
 share in redeeming the disgrace of the Affghan war. The Queen gave him 
 honours; parliament voted him thanks; and the East India Company pre- 
 sented him with lODO/. a year for his hfe. He returned ill in health; 
 and it is supposed that the excitement of his welcome, especially in his 
 native town of Carmarthen, was too much for him ; for he presently 
 sank under disease of the heart. He had reached his 63rd year. 
 
 A few centuries earlier. Sir Robert Ker Porter would have been a hero of |om"°."^ ^"'' 
 Romance : and, as it was, his history has more of the heroic and romantic 
 about it than we look for in our time. His destiny seems to have been 
 determined by no less romantic a person than Flora Macdonald, who fixed his 
 attention on a battle-jjiece in her house, and explained to him that it was one 
 of the battles of 1745. He was made to be a painter ; and this incident, 
 occurring when he was only nine or ten years old, made him the painter of 
 that picture, the storming of Seringapatam, which set all artists ■\\ondcring 
 what lot could be in store for the youth who, at nineteen, could achieve such 
 a work in less time than most men would require to plan it. Tlie picture 
 was destroyed in a fire; but the sketches remained ; and many other battle- 
 pieces by the same hand. Young Porter spent much of his life in Russia, 
 and married a Russian princess. He travelled over the most interesting 
 parts of Asia, and made the world the wiser for what he saw. He was 
 next painting sacred subjects for altar-pieces at Venezuela, where he was 
 British Consul ; and, after seeing what he could of South America, he died at 
 last at St. Petersburg, of apoplexy brought on by the Russian cold, after the 
 heats of Venezuela. He was the brother of the novelists, Jane and Anna 
 Maria Porter. His death took place on the 4th of May, 1842, in the G3rd 
 year of his age. 
 
 Lord Elgin, who gave us the marbles in the British IMuseum, died in 1841. LordEloi.x. 
 While our Ambassador at the Porte, he employed his time and efforts in 
 securing Greek sculptures and medals, in obtaining plans, measurements 
 and elevations of. buildings, moulds and casts; and in 1810 the House of 
 Commons decided to purchase the lilgin marbles for £35,000. Lord Elgin 
 lived to be 74, and to see something of the benefit the nation derived from liis 
 
 VOL. n. 4 T
 
 690 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book VI 
 
 1842 — 46. labours in Greece. INIany natural regrets have been expressed by travellers 
 
 ■ ■ at the removal of the sculptures from their own place : but subsequent 
 
 events have made it clear that if they had not been secured, nothing but 
 their fragments would have been left by this time. Their removal has 
 made the Greek wars of recent years one degree less disastrous. 
 
 Sir F. chanthev. It is a well-kuown anecdote of Nollekens, that when, in the Exhibition of 
 1806, his eye fell on a bust sent in by a novice, he said, " It is a splendid 
 work. Let the man be known. Remove one of my busts, and put this in its 
 place." The man was Chautrey — then 24 years old. From that time he 
 was abundantly known, and uniformly successful. He never had any 
 struggles against fortune to tell of, his only cross in life being that his father 
 had wished to make him an attorney when he desired to be " a carver." The 
 two works by which he is perhaps best known, the statue of Lady Louisa 
 Russell, and the Sleeping Children in Lichfield Catheclral, were from designs 
 by Stothard. He had not poetic faculty for such designs; but he excelled in 
 monumental sculpture of a simply grave order — as his statues of Watt, and 
 Horner, and Canning, and many more are proofs. Having no near relations, 
 Chantrey left the reversion of his property, after its use by his widow, for the 
 encouragement of Art in Great Britain. When he was •building a mausoleum 
 for himself, he said to his friend and assistant, Allan Cunningham, that it 
 should be made large enough to hold them both : but Allan had no mind for 
 this. " No," said he, "I should not like, even when I ,im dead, to be so shut 
 up. I would far rather rest where the daisies would grow over my head." 
 They departed within a year of each other, Chantrey going first, and leaving 
 a generous provision for Cunningham — to whose poetical mind he owed more 
 than even to his zealous attachment. Chantrey died suddenly, of heart- 
 
 ALiAN CUN.MNG. discasc, on the 25th of November, 1841 ; and Cunningham on the 5th of the 
 
 a*M. ' ' o 
 
 next November. The sculptor was 59 years of age ; the poet, 56. It is as a 
 poet, and especially as a song-writer, that Allan Cunningham's name will 
 live. He attempted various walks of literature, and is well known by his 
 lives of British Painters ; but his fame rests more securely on his ballads 
 and songs. AVe shall not forget " It's hame and it's hame ;" or, " A wet sheet 
 and a flowing sea." 
 
 theHoflanu3. There was a great sweep among the painters during this period. Hofland, 
 the landscape painter, was husband to the Mrs. Hofland, whose tales for 
 children were so unboundedly popular for some time after their appearance. 
 The Edgeworths testified to their great value in Ireland; and Queen Charlotte 
 patronized them in England. The husband, too, was favoured by the old 
 King ; yet the Hoflands suffered cruelly from embarrassments, caused by 
 an unfortunate contract with the Duke of Marlborough, the heavy expenses of 
 which fell, not on the peer but the artist. Both worked hard, as long as years 
 and health would allow- — the husband in teaching as well as painting, and the 
 wife in literature and in domestic cares. Mr. Hofland died in January, 1843, 
 
 Nicholson and his wifc iu November, 1844. — In 1844, we lost the aged Nicholson, one 
 
 of the founders of the Society of Painters in Water Colours, whose last effort, 
 when dying at the age of 91, was to have himself lifted up, to brighten a 
 
 gbddes. ^ark cloud in a picture of a shipwreck : — and Geddcs, the portrait painter 
 
 and Associate of the Royal Academy, best known, perhaps, by his pictme of
 
 Chap. XVI.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 691 
 
 the discovery of tlie Regalia of Scotland, with a portrait of Scott :— and Grieve, 1842—46. 
 
 the first Scene-painter of his time, who raised that khid of work into a de- ^•^- 
 
 partment of Art : — and, to the regret of all England, Callcott, the respected and s'lu'A.CALLcorr. 
 beloved. He was early destined to music, with and by his elder brother : but he 
 turned to painting ; and, at first, to portraits, under the teaching of Hoppner. 
 After 1803, however, he devoted himself to landscape painting, and earned 
 the title of the Enghsh Claude. He married the well-known writer, Maria 
 Graham, whose health was undermined before this second marriage. His 
 devoted watching over her destroyed his health, and impaired in proportion his 
 professional eff'orts; and when she died, in 1842, he was more like a man of 
 80 than of 63 ; and he was no longer able to paint. In 1844, the Queen 
 made him Conservator of the Royal pictures ; an office which was valuable 
 to him, not only for its honour and profit, but because it aflTorded liim occupa- 
 tion and interest which were not too great for his strength. Up to the last 
 week of his life, he exerted himself to complete an improved catalogue of the 
 Queen's pictures, and then died, on the 23rd of November, after a decline 
 of at least six years. His serene expanses, wide horizons, melting distances, 
 rippling waters, and lucid Dutch river scenes, will always refresh and gratify 
 the eye, through all changes of taste in Art, 
 
 The year 1845 was a sad one too. In January, died the aged painter sihbkr. 
 Smirke, the father of the two architects of well-known name, and a Royal 
 Academician from the year of Sir Joshua Reynolds's death, 1792 : — and Phil- ''"■■•'"■» 
 lips, also a Royal Academician, and one of the most eminent of English por- 
 trait painters. He succeeded Euscli in 1824 in the professorship of Painting 
 in the Royal Academy, delivering ten lectures which have a good reputation : 
 and he wrote a good deal on painting in Rees's Cyclopaedia : but his fame 
 rests on his portraits. He established something better than fame in the 
 hearts of brother artists, and of all who know what he did for tlie protection 
 and benefit of the profession. — In the same year died, aged only 33, a man 
 from whom great things Avere hoped — William John ^liiller, a landscape and muli.eb. 
 costume painter of high excellence. He followed his art into the wildest 
 recesses of Greece, and high up towards the sources of the Nile. At a great 
 sacrifice of connexion, money, and time, he accompanied, at his own request. 
 Sir Charles Fellows's last expedition to Lycia, and brought back sketches of 
 extraordinary value, which sold for above £4,000 after his death. Some 
 pictures, fi'om which he hoped every thing that could compensate him for his 
 sacrifices, were so hung in the Exhibition of 1845 as to be unnoticed. The 
 disappointment preyed on his mind, and prostrated his strength, ^^hcther 
 disease had before fixed itself fatally in his frame, there is no saying now: but 
 he pined and sank, dying of enlargement of the heart, on the Sth of September 
 follomng his disappointment. — A sadder event than even this gave a shock hatdon. 
 to the whole nation a few months afterwards. In June, 1846, our Historical 
 Painter, Haydon, destroyed himself, in anguish under ])ovcrty and mortifica- 
 tion. He was a man of temperate habits, but incapable of prudence and skill 
 in the management of affairs. He was in debt almost all his life : and he 
 discouraged his patrons by making his pictures too large to be hung, and by 
 other perversities which another kind of man weuld have avoided without 
 injury to his artistical aim. It is not difficult to account for his misfortunes :
 
 692 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book VI. 
 
 1842 — 4:6. but there is no one who does not deeply mourn them. There is no one who 
 
 ■ ' cannot feel what must have been the anguish of a man so sensitive when no 
 
 commissions came in, when his exhibition in April so failed as that only four 
 persons came the first day, while crowds were struggling for entrance to see 
 Tom Thumb. " How different it would have been twenty-six years ago !" he 
 wrote in his Diary. He became gi-ave and silent in his family, and supersti- 
 tious in his entries in his Diary. In one week, he noted down the visitors to 
 his exhibition as ISSj, while 12,000 went to see Tom Thumb — not asking 
 himself, unhappily, how few of the 12,000 he would have cared to see in his 
 room. On the 16th of June, he wrote to the Prime Minister and two others, 
 stating that he had a heavy sum to pay. " Tormented by DTsraeli, harassed 
 by public business," as the grateful artist wrote, " Sir R. Peel was the only 
 one who replied :" and the reply was instant and kind, enclosing £50. Six 
 days afterwards, occurs the last entry — Lear's w'ords, " Stretch mc no longer 
 on this rough world :" and before the ink was dry, the overwrought sufferer 
 had shot himself. His family were taken immediate care of by the Queen, 
 the Minister, and the friends of Art and artists. Haydon did what he could 
 to raise the ideal and practice of historical painting in England. He lectured, 
 and wrote, and taught, and discoursed. But he was not one who could be 
 made secure and happy by any thing that he could do for Art, or any thing 
 that men could do for him, in a state of society like our own. If he could ever 
 have fitted any time, it was certainly not our own. He saw historical painting 
 more likely to thrive in England than ever before, and knew that it was partly 
 by his own efforts : yet there seemed no room for hope that any picture of his 
 would appear on the walls of the new Houses of Parliament. The Fine Arts 
 Commission took no notice of him : and when, by opening his exhibition, he 
 invited the public to judge his claims, the public took no heed ; and his heart 
 was broken. His most appreciated work appears to have been " Christ enter- 
 ing Jerusalem," which he exhibited in 1820. Another which, through the 
 engraving, roused a wide popular sympathy, was " Napoleon at St. Helena." 
 Benjamin Robert Haydon was 60 years old. — Of musicians, there died during 
 niAzziNciii. the period, Joseph Count Mazzinghi, at the age of 80, who had actually been 
 chosen Director at the Opera House at the age of 19, and who continued a 
 popular composer during his long life : — and of actors, the great laugh-maker, 
 LisTos. Liston. Of all things in the world, Liston was, first, usher in a school : and 
 
 when he took a fancy for the stage, it was for tragedy. Nevertheless, it was 
 reserved for him to make £100 per week in comedy ; and to make it fairly, for, 
 while he was yet receiving only £60 per week, as Paul Pry, the manager cleared 
 £7,000 in the season. In the provinces, he often received from £250 to £350 
 per week ; an indication of the English being a laughter-loving people, after 
 all that can be said of their tendency to solicitude and solemnity. Liston was 
 truly an artist, amidst all his license to take liberties with the public mirth. 
 He studied his most gi-otesque characters as carefully as if they had been 
 tragic. He was a man of domestic habits and irreproachable character ; and 
 he reached the age of 69 amidst the serious respect of his friends, as well as 
 the delight of a laughing nation. He died in March, 1846, in the 70th year 
 LoiDo.v. of his age. — Mr. Loudon's name seems to belong to the list of artists, so artis- 
 
 tically did he instruct the public taste in gardening, planting, and rural archi-
 
 Chap. XVI.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 
 
 693 
 
 tecture. He was a native of Lanarkshire, and came to England in 1803, to 1842— 4G. 
 
 practise as a landscape gardener, when he was only 20 years old. He travelled ' ' 
 
 abroad to obtain information, and on his return published one after another of 
 that long series of works, of which the Encyclopaedia of Gardening is best 
 known ; and next to that, perhaps, his Encyclopedia of Cottage, Fai-m, and 
 Village Architecture. One of his great works, the Arboretum Britannicum, 
 involved him in difficulties which he wore himself out to surmount. His 
 sufferings of body were of the severest kind ; but his energy of mind was indo- 
 mitable. His spirit of enthusiasm must have lightened and sweetened his life 
 more than any pecuniary prosperity could have done. Among his achieve- 
 ments, one of the best known is the laying out of the Derby Aj-boretum— the 
 great Garden presented to the people of Derby by their generous townsman, Mr. 
 Joseph Strutt. Mr. Loudon was 50 years old when he died, in December, 1843. 
 In 1842 occurred one of the greatest losses to the scientific world that the 
 century has to show. But that vast discoveries become more common with 
 every centm-y, ours would be as much signalized by the fame of Sir Charles si" iMAiii,rs 
 Bell, as the seventeenth is by that of Harvey. Harvey proved the circulation 
 of the blood, and was believed by no physician in Europe who was above forty 
 at the time of his death. Sir Charles Bell discovered the diversities which 
 exist in the structure and functions of the nerves ; and his demonstrations of 
 the facts were so clear, and the consciousness of ignorance has so far extended 
 in our more enlightened age, that the only dispute which occurred was as to 
 who ought to appropriate the honour of the discovery. It is settled, past all 
 controversy, that the honour belongs to Sir Charles Bell. He has pointed out 
 to us that we have, bound up in the same sheath, nerves of sensation and nerves 
 of motion ; and, as he believed, nerves for other functions also : and it would 
 be a bold thing to say that any discovery in connexion with our mysterious 
 human frame was ever more important in itself, or more fraught with future 
 significance. Sir Charles Bell did many more things, during his active and 
 devoted life ; but it is this which gives him a high place in the history of his 
 country. He was the youiigest of the four eminent brothers Bell ; — Robert, 
 the Edinburgh lawyer; the great surgeon, John; and George Joseph, the law 
 professor in Edinburgh University, being his elder brothers. Sir Charles Bell 
 died suddenly, but not to the surprise of his friends, of angina pectoris — a 
 disease of some standing — on the 27th of May, 1842, aged 68. He was 
 knighted by William IV. on his accession, together with Ilerschel, Brewster, 
 Ivory, and other men of science. His private life was simple, serene, and 
 happy ; but he suffered much anxiety of mind about professional matters ; and 
 latterly especially about the relation of his profession to the law : and these 
 anxieties are believed to have hastened his death. — It was a disease of the 
 heart which, in the next year, carried off Mr. Kemp, the Chemical Lecturer in KtMr. 
 the Edinburgh University, who laid the world under obligations to him before 
 his departure at the age of 36. It was he who introduced anuilgamated zinc 
 plates into galvanic batteries. " Let us never forget," wrote an eminent man, 
 after his death, " to whom we owe this discovery, which of itself enables gal- 
 vanic batteries to bo used in the arts. Ages to come will, perhaps, have to 
 thank the inventor, whom we are too apt to forget: yet, the obligatii)n from
 
 694 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book VI. 
 
 J 842 46. the public to Mr. Kemp is the same." He distinguished himself before the 
 
 ■ ^ — - British Association, at Edinburgh, in 1836, by his display of the results of his 
 
 bold investigations. He died in December, 1843. — In August, 1844, died the 
 
 Francis Bwr.v. President of the Astronomical Society, Mr. Francis Baily. He left the Stock 
 Exchange, where he had made an ample fortune, in 1825, and devoted him- 
 self to philosophical pursuits for the rest of his life — nearly 20 years. He 
 organized the Astronomical Society ; improved the Nautical Almanac ; stimu- 
 lated the new series of Pendulum experiments which exposed so many reasons 
 for new care ; aided the Commission of Weights and Measures j aided the 
 Astronomical Catalogue of the British Association ; gave to the world the 
 correspondence and catalogues of Flamsteed ; and WTOte the best treatise that 
 exists on Life Annuities and Insurance. It is a pleasure to record such in- 
 stances as these of the use which English men of business make of their wealth 
 and leisure, when they have had enough of money-getting, and have preserved 
 a taste for higher things. — An aged man died in the same summer, whose 
 
 dalton. name will never be lost from the records of science — Dr. Dalton. Dalton was 
 
 an usher in north country schools till he was seven-and-twcnty, when he was 
 recommended to the chair of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy at the New 
 College, Manchester. This was in 1T93; and at Manchester he lived for the 
 rest of liis days, dying there in July 1844, in the 78th year of his age. He 
 saw Paris, and went to London occasionally; and was every where received 
 with honour ; for his discoveries were known all over the world ; and it was 
 pure pleasure to pay homage to one so simple and benign. His body lay in 
 state in the Town-hall of Manchester, and was visited by more than 40,000 
 persons in one day. His Atomic Theory, the discovery of which he entered 
 upon in 1803, is considered, at present, probably the most important contribu- 
 tion ever made to Chemistry. Dr. Thomas Thomson first understood and 
 made known the scope of it : AVollaston instantly apprehended it : and Davy 
 followed, after an interval of resistance and ridicule. By the application of 
 mathematics to chemistry, and Dalton's subsequent efforts to bring chemical 
 analysis nearer to a chance of correctness, the knowledge of chemical combi- 
 nations has been marvellously simplified, and the j)rocesses of chemical analy- 
 sis have been raised from a looseness too like hap-hazard to something ap- 
 proaching to mathematical precision. Such precision extends from scientific 
 discovery to the arts of life ; and manufacturers are benefitted at the same time 
 with the experiments of the laboratory. This discovery of Dalton's is some- 
 times called by the name he chose— the Atomic Theory ; sometimes by Wol- 
 laston's — the theory of Chemical Equivalents ; sometimes by Davy's — the 
 theory of Chemical Proportions : but, under every name, the laws of relative 
 proportion laid down by Dalton are confirmed by every improvement in the 
 practice of chemical analysis. He has been called the legislator of his science, 
 which was before merely empirical. He was framed for scientific despotism, 
 by his sagacity, his simplicity, and his self-reliance. He was a Quaker ; and 
 no member of his sect led a life more regular and innocent — without austerity, 
 dulness, vanity, or spiritual pride. In face, he was like Newton ; and, like 
 Newton, he was never married. He did not overwork his brain. His brain 
 was strong, and his nervous system good : and he recreated himself with a
 
 Chap. XVI.] DURIXG THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 695 
 
 game at bowls every Thursday, and with a sight of his native Cumbcrhmd IS 12 —46. 
 
 mountains every summer. Long before his death, he was a member of almost ' -^ 
 
 every Royal Academy and Scientific Institute in Europe. 
 
 Among the literary men who died during this period, the most difficult to Theodore e. 
 class is Theodore E. Hook, so various in character are his works. He began °° 
 with the drama, and gave several comedies and forces to the stage before he 
 was twenty-three. Then he turned to novel writing ; and then, as Editor of 
 the John Bull, to politics, or what he called such. Then he wrote novels 
 again, and biography ; his lives of Kelly, and of Sir David Baird, and his 
 ' Sayings and Doings,' ' Love and Pride,' and ' Gilbert Gurney,' being per- 
 haps the best known of his later works. Theodore Hook's life was a merry, 
 but not a happy one. He was disgraced through carelessness in his office of 
 Accountant-General at the Mamitius, by which there was a deficiency in the 
 Treasury. He made enemies on every hand by the libellous tone of his news- 
 paper ; and he was perpetually overwrought by toil while wasting his resources 
 of purse, health, and time, in dissipation. He was, however, the leadin"- wit 
 of his time in the old-fashioned method of London dissipation : and in his 
 career we seem to see revived, with little alteration, the raking poor autlior of 
 each former century. Theodore Hook was only 52 when he died, in August, 
 1841. — Maturin, an Irish clergyman, who wrote two novels in a Byronic style matu»iv. 
 which became popular, ' Bertram ' and ' Melmoth the Wanderer,' died in 
 1842 : — and in the same year, died another Irish novelist of fur higher merit, 
 John Banim, author of the ' O'llara Tales,' ' The Boyne Water,' ' Father •'*'•"'■ 
 Connell,' and others. It was Banim who first opened up those aspects of 
 Irish life which have since been exhibited by Clarleton, Griffin, and others ; 
 and which are as unlike the pictures of the Edgeworths and the Morgans, as 
 Fielding is unlike Richardson. The tragedy of humble life was Banim's de- 
 partment ; and he wrought in it with great power. He had himself but too 
 much experience of the tragic side of human life. He attempted editorship 
 at 17 years old — married at 20 — suffered from sickness and poverty for many 
 years — a poverty which seemed scarcely reduced by a pension granted him in 
 1837 ; and died in his 42nd year. — Captain Hamilton ranks among the novel- c«"*"'' ">""- 
 ists for his ' Cyril Thornton :' but he is no less known by his contributions 
 to Blackwood's Magazine, and his ' Men and Manners in America.' He 
 was a soldier, filling up his leisure after the peace with literary occupa- 
 tion. His works show a highly trained ability ; and his calm temj)er and 
 judgment and admirable manners, appearing through his writings to those 
 who never saw his face, gave a weight to what he said, wliich is sometimes 
 desired in vain by men of greater power. — In curious companionship with the 
 poor novelists of the time, the Hooks, and Banims, aiul Hoods, we find Mr. 
 Beckford's name — the Wm. Beckford who was born to £100,000 a year. His BECKFORn. 
 true monument is his novel '^'athek,' though he sjient enormous amounts of 
 money in building his wonderful edifice of Fonthill. His great tower, 300 feet 
 high, fell down — was rebuilt — and fell again: but'Vathek' remains. The 
 nine days' wonder of Mr Beckford's eccentricities and the Fonthill sale has 
 long been forgotten ; but the vivacity and power of his ' Letters on Italy, 
 Spain, and Portugal,' are as keen as ever. Mr. Beckford was the son and heir 
 of the Alderman Beckford, whose c:elebrated extempore speech to George the
 
 696 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book VI. 
 
 1842 46. Third is engraved on his monument in Guildhall. The production of 
 
 — - ' Vathek' seems to have been an instance of impromptu ability quite as re- 
 markable. Mr. Beckford used to declare that it was written at one sitting, — 
 that is, iu three days and two nights, during which he never took off his 
 clothes. It was written in French, and afterwards translated without his 
 kuowledo-e, and with little skill. Byron used to think it the best attempt at 
 the oriental style of fiction ever made by an European. It appeared first at 
 Lausanne, in 1784. This carries us very far back : but Mr. Beckford was 
 then 24 years of age. He lived sixty years longer, dying at Bath in May, 
 
 Thomas noon. 1844. — Tliomas Hood, tlic autlior of ' Tylney Hall,' was classed among the 
 novelists on that account: but he belongs to other departments too. He was 
 a wit, as every page of every one of his -writings may show ; and we have the 
 ' Plea of the Midsummer Fairies,' and ' Eugene Aram's Dream,' and the 
 ' Song of the Shirt,' to prove him a poet. He was an editor of Annuals and 
 of Magazines : but our interest in him is from the remarkable union, in his 
 genius, of wit, sense, and pathos. It is true that we never see real mt apart 
 from sound sense, and rarely from pathos : but iu Hood, all so abounded to- 
 gether, and in the strictest union, as to give almost an impression of a fresh 
 order of genius. He was one of the sufierers of his order — a sufferer from 
 sickness and poverty : and he was in the depths of these troubles, when he 
 had cause, like poor Haydon, to wonder how the Prime Minister, in the midst 
 of harassing cares and a load of business, could attend to his interests, and 
 consult his feelings with all the nicety of leisure. The letter of Sir R. Peel 
 to Hood, announcing the grant of a pension, remains one of the chief honours 
 of the great statesman. Poor Hood died soon after ; the pension was granted 
 to his widow ; and in a few months she also died. The children were taken 
 care of; as it was indispensable to the conscience of society that they should 
 be ; for their father was truly a social benefactor. He was always on the 
 right side in matters of morals and of feeling — full of faith in good, and sym- 
 pathy in all that was generous and true. His satire was directed upon what- 
 ever was foul, false, and selfish. He was 47 when he died in May, 1845. 
 
 In the same year, a few weeks earlier, died imtimely a man who Avas held 
 in warm regard by his friends, and iu respect by those of the public who 
 
 BLANciiAnn. knew what his services were ; Laman Blanchard, who edited, in his time, 
 three newspapers, and the Monthly Magazine, and contributed largely to 
 periodicals. His consistent and enlightened political opinions and conduct 
 were of service to the public morality of his time ; and his early loss was 
 deplored for other reasons than the sadness of the mode iu which it happened. 
 The illness and death of his wife had so worn him that brain-seizures came 
 on ; and after one of these, in a state of nervous prostration, he destroyed 
 himself His orphans, too, found protection from society. — Under the date 
 
 wm'hJ'ne.'"' 1817, our history has exhibited the narrative and indicated the effects of the 
 trials of William Hone for blasphemy and libel. It was pointed out that we 
 owe to those trials the vast improvement in our libel law, and in its appli- 
 cation. William Hone wrought well in literatine after those days, giving us 
 the volumes that Southey'and other men of curious knowledge have praised so 
 highly;— the 'Every Day Book,' the 'Table Book,' and the 'Year Book.' 
 Mr. Hone was in his 64th year when he died in 1842. — In the same year we
 
 Chap. XVI.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PE.\CE. 
 
 697 
 
 lost Robert Miidie, whose works on Natural History are true poems. He was 1842—46. 
 
 a self-educated Scotchman ; and when he wrote about things that he under- ' ■ — 
 
 stood, as in his ' Feathered Tribes of the British Islands,' he plunged his "°°'" ''™"- 
 readers into the depths of Nature as the true poet alone can do. He is 
 another example, as White of Selborne and Audubon were before him, of the 
 indissoluble connexion between a nice and appreciative observation of nature 
 and the kindling of a spirit of poetry. 
 
 Perhaps the most successful essayist of his time was the Rev. John Foster, John fostco. 
 last of Bristol. His 'Essays' passed through eighteen editions during his 
 life; and they are still spreading. There is uo great precision in the 
 thoughts : but the tone of morality is pure, and the views are original and 
 broad, while the style is eminently interesting. The volume was one which 
 met the wants of the time ; and if some of the matter is vague, and the views 
 narrow, theywere a welcome escape from the shallow prosings which they 
 superseded. Mr. Foster published one other voUune — on ' The Evils of 
 Popular Ignorance,' and a mass of contributions to the ' EclecticReview.' He 
 died in 1843, in the 74th year of his age. — Henry Nelson Coleridge, nephew heskyNeisos 
 of the poet, and editor of his ' Literary Remains,' died in middle age in 1843. 
 He published an ' Introduction to the Study of the Greek Classic Poets :' but 
 he is more widely known by a wliimsical volume, full of beauty of descrip- 
 tion — ' Six Months in the West Indies.' 
 
 The year after, in February, 1844, died a Mr. John Wright, who would John wuk^mt. 
 have remained obscure, in spite of much literary eflbrt, but for his sagacity 
 and industry in regard to a single enterprise. The Thirteenth Parliament of 
 Great Britain is commonly called the Unreported Parliament ; but was saved 
 from being wholly dumb to a future generation by Sir Henry Cavendish 
 having diligently reported its debates to the best of his ability. Sir Henry 
 Cavendish's notes, ■wTitten in short-hand, were found among the Bridgewater 
 MSS. in the British Museum : and Mr. Wright made the key to the short- 
 hand, transcribed the debates, and was printing them, with illustrations of the 
 parliamentary proceedings of the time, when the useful work was stopped by 
 his death, at the age of 73. — Henry F. Cary, the translator of Dante, and also •'"• ^*'"- 
 of 'The Birds' of Aristophanes, and of ' Pindar's Odes,' died in 1844. His 
 Dante was little noticed till Coleridge made it known ; after which it re- 
 mained the standard translation. Dr. Cary was a most industrious man of 
 letters, both in his office of assistant-librarian at the British Museum, and in 
 his favourite labour of editing our native poets and writing their lives, in 
 continuation of Johnson's Biographies. 
 
 The poets Southey and Campbell died during this period; men as opposite 
 in their natures and modes of living as poets can be conceived to be. It will 
 probably be undisputed that Campbell was the greater poet, and Southey the 
 nobler man. While our language lasts, Campbell's lyrics -n-ill make music in Thomas c*mi-- 
 it. While Great Britain has mariners, his ' Mariners of England' will kindle 
 a glow in the nation's heart : and scores of lines from his most successful 
 poem, the ' Pleasures of Hope,' have become so hackneyed that few people, on 
 hearing them, know where they come from, or fail to suppose they must be 
 Shakspere's. He was known all over the world as the Author of the ' Plea- 
 sures of Hope ;' and used to complain of it as the introduction to every act 
 
 VOL. II. 4 1
 
 698 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book VI. 
 
 1842— 4(). of his social life. He could not be born as the Author of the Pleasures of 
 " ' Hope ; but he was so announced ou his marriage, on his travels, on his intro- 
 duction to great personages, on every reappearance before the world as an 
 author : and a friend who had heard him thus complain, tells us that it was 
 with a sort of mournful amusement that, looking into the grave in Westmin- 
 ster Abbey at the last moment, he saw on the coffin-plate, " Thomas Campbell, 
 Author of the Pleasures of Hope," &c., &c. Campbell's own favourite among 
 his poems was ' Gertrude of Wyoming :' but, well as the public liked it, his 
 fame still rested on his earlier productions. Campbell's constitution and tem- 
 perament were not favourable to the conditions of a happy life. He sometimes 
 enjoyed greatly ; he often suffered bitterly ; and he was unable to merge his 
 self-regards either in sustained industry or in the interests of others. With 
 many generous impulses, and strong claims to respect in his relations of son 
 and brother, he was not a serene or happy man. After a life of strong ex- 
 citements and conflicting sensibilities, he died on the 15th of June, 1844, at 
 Boulogne, where he had settled a year before. He was in his 68th year. His 
 funeral in Westminster Abbey was attended with all the pomp which could 
 RoBEBTSoiiriiEV. niark the national gratitude to a great poet. — \'ery unlike this was Southey's 
 genius and Southey's career. His life was one of purity and virtue almost 
 austere. His domestic affections were warm ; his domestic temper venerable 
 and sweet ; his self-denial and benevolence for the sake of the erring and the 
 helpless, were a life-long protest against the injurious laxity which enters into 
 our estimate of the morals of genius. He was eminently happy in his life- 
 long toils. He loved labour for itself; and he loved the subjects on which he 
 toiled : and his conscience, nice as it was, could not but be satisfied and 
 gratified at the spectacle of the aid and solace which, by his labours, he was 
 able to give beyond his own family, to some who had no natural claim on 
 him for support. In the spectacle of his social and domestic virtues, all 
 remembrance of a bitter political and religious spirit may well be sunk. He 
 was not a man qualified to have opinions, strictly so called. He could not 
 sympathize in any views but those immediately held by himself; and the 
 views which he most quarrelled with Mere usually those which had been, no 
 long time before, virulently held by himself. He wrote a vast quantity ; 
 and never with carelessness or haste. Of his poems, 'Thalaba' is, no doubt, 
 the greatest blessing to his most youthful readers, to whom its pure sweetness 
 of morals and oriental imagery are most attractive: and 'Roderick' is 
 perhaps decided to be of the highest order. He was a graceful essayist and 
 critic, as is shown in his contributions to the 'Quarterly Review:' a spirited 
 biographer, as his popular 'Life of Nelson' may show: and a painstaking 
 and elegant historian, as we see in his ' History of the Peninsular War.' His 
 Essays and Histories were vitally injured by his imperfections as a thinker, 
 and his tendency to prejudice and intellectual passion : but he was always 
 earnest and sincere — always kindly in act when most intolerant in thought. 
 He suffered bitterly from the illness and death of his first wife: and so bitterly 
 as never to recover his power of mind. He formed a second marriage while 
 already sinking in health ; and became lost in mind, through pressure on the 
 brain, three years before his death, which took place on the 21st of March, 
 1843. He had been Poet Laureate since 1813, and was succeeded in the
 
 Chap. XVI.J DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 699 
 
 office by Mr. Wordswoith, who holds it now.— Bt-t'oie quitting tlie review 18-12 i(). 
 
 of the literary men who died during the period before us, we must name — 
 
 with them the publisher who was the friend of all literary men. John Juu.v m. «kav. 
 Murray, the prince of publishers, introduced Scott and Byron to each other's 
 acquaintance ; and Southey and Crabbe ; and Scott and Wilkie. He was a 
 man of a noble heart in regard to literature and authors ; and happily, a noble 
 prosperity enabled him to gi'atify his generous dispositions. His pride was in 
 giving great gifts of literature to the world, and of solace to their authors. It 
 was he who presented us with the 'Quarterly Review,' and most of the greatest 
 works of the greatest men during the present century ; for he began business 
 when he came of age in 1T99, and carried it on in full vigour till his death 
 in 1843. His first highly successful enterprise was Mrs. Rundell's ' Cookery 
 Book;' and the next the 'Quarterly Review,' which he set up in 1809, and 
 which remains the property of his house. When, in after times, men read of 
 the generous and enlightened publishers who first succeeded to the patrons 
 of authors, it will not be forgotten that our age had a John Murray. 
 
 Of other benefactors of the century, we find that Dr. Birkbeck, the founder du. BinKHErK. 
 of Mechanics' Institutes, died in 1841, in the 66th year of his age. When 
 the departure of this excellent man was known, there was sorrow over all the 
 land where the working-men met for self and mutual inttruction. — Another 
 eminent friend of popular enlightenment was William Allen, who aided in willi«»i ailes. 
 founding the British and Foreign School Society, and in seeing what could be 
 done by the Lancasterian Schools. He was also one of the most active of the 
 indefatigable Abolitionists, and aided first in the extinction of the British 
 slave trade, and then in the overthrow of Colonial Slavery. He was a man 
 of science too, the friend of Davy, and for many years Lecturer on Chemistry 
 and Natural Philosophy at Guy's Hospital and the Royal Institution. After 
 a life of varied good works, the enlightened and benevolent William Allen, 
 whom the Fiiends had the honour of including in their sect, died in the 74th 
 year of his age, at the close of 1843. — Two of his friends and fellow-labourers 
 soon followed him — Mrs. Fr-y in 1845, in her 65th year; and Thomas Clark- ehzabk™ rnv 
 son in 1846, in the 86th year of his age. If it be true, as we are wont to say, (LinKsu.N.*' 
 that the distinctive social efiect of Christianity is its inducing the care of the 
 helpless who were before left to perish, the existence of such persons as these 
 three — Allen, Clarkson, and ^Irs. Fry — at one time, and in close companion- 
 ship — marks our age as a Christian one, after all its drawbacks. The ignorant, 
 the guilty, and the enslaved, were the chief care in life to these friends, who 
 might have passed their years in ease, and indolence, or the gratification of 
 merely intellectual tastes : but it suited their noble natures better to go out on 
 the highways of the sea and land, and search through dark alleys, and disgust- 
 ing prisons, and helhsh slave-ships, to seek and save that Avhich was lost. 
 They sustained, moreover, the most irksome and dispiiiting toil, the most 
 disheartening disappointment— a long and painful probation of heart and 
 mind— in pursuit of their objects ; and they died, all faithful to the aims of 
 their life. When Mrs. Fry entered the room in Newgate where 160 guilty 
 and ignorant wretches were shut up, and in her serene and noble countenance 
 brought them the hope which they had believed to be for ever shut out, she 
 began that reform in the treatment of moral disease which, however tentative
 
 700 HISTORY OF ENGLAND QBook VI. 
 
 1842 46. and vague at present, can never now stop short of completion. And when 
 
 ■ .- ' Clarkson sat down, his heart throbbing with his new knowledge of the WTongs 
 
 of the negro, and resolved to devote his life to the redemption of that helpless 
 race, the greatest step was taken ever known to have been taken by any man 
 for the assertion and establishment of human rights. And Clarkson was not 
 one to forsake an aim. He lived for the cause to the very last, and drew in 
 others to live for it. Mistakes were made by his coadjutors and himself; for, 
 in enterprises so new and vast, the agents have to learn as they go : but the 
 national conscience was roused, the principles of human liberty Avere asserted, 
 the national testimony was transferred to the side of right, and the emancipa- 
 tion of .ill races of men was made a question merely of time. As it was Clark- 
 son who began, and who stimulated Wilberforce and all other good men to 
 carry on the work, whom could we place higher than Clarkson on our list of 
 benefactors ? Wilberforce and all other good men assigned him the first 
 place ; and there he remains and will remain. 
 
 Mis3 Flaherty. A Romau CathoKc lady, well educated, and deeply impressed with the 
 advantages of education, was living in the neighbourhood of London during 
 the whole of the period of our History, watching the results of the efforts made 
 by Lord Brougham and others for the extension and improvement of education 
 in England. Her name was Flaherty. She was not rich ; but she was 
 unmarried, and free to live as she chose, and dispose of her income as she 
 would. She chose to live frugally, and to ride in an omnibus instead of a 
 better carriage, that she might have means to aid the extension of Education. 
 In 1836, she presented to the Council of University College, the sum of 
 £5,000 in the 3\ per Cents., out of which scholarships have been foimded. 
 This lady has shown us that there is nothing in our modern civilization — our 
 omnibuses and unsectarian schools — which can preclude the antique spirit and 
 practice of love and good works : and in this the admirable Mary Flaherty has 
 perhaps left us as true a benefit as in the scholarships which bear her name. 
 She died in 1845, aged 84. 
 
 The creation of wealth, and consequently of human life, by means of the 
 Cotton manufacture is pointed out as one of the leading social events of the 
 last century. It is reckoned that the cotton manufacture has added perma- 
 nently 2.000,000 to our population. Something analogous, on a smaller,f_but 
 still on a great scale, has been effected in our own time by the agricultural im- 
 
 Mr. Coke. provemcuts of one man — Mr. Coke, of Norfolk, who died Earl of Leicester. By 
 
 the simple and virtuous method of devoting his mind and life to the improve- 
 ment of the land, Mr. Coke caused a vast permanent increase of wealth, and 
 therefore of labour and subsistence, and therefore of human life. In a single 
 village, where he fovrad 162 inhabitants when he entered on his property, he 
 left 1,000 : and for many miles round, a country before poor and almost barren 
 was left by him fruitful and well-peopled. He found his own rental increased 
 from £2,200 to above £20,000 : but that was of small account in his eyes, in 
 comparison with the stimulus given to agricultural improvement by his exam- 
 ple. The Holkham Sheep-shearing, at which Mr. Coke annually entertained 
 300 guests for several days, roused a fine spirit among the landed proprietors 
 of England and the farmers of Norfolk, and caused Mr. Coke to be looked 
 upon as one of the chief social benefactors of his time. While in the House
 
 Chap. XVI.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 701 
 
 of Commons, he was a sturdy Liberal. When the Reform Bill passed, he 1842—46. 
 thought he might be spared from the political world, aged as he then was. -— ^ — ^-^ 
 He was always called " the first Commoner of England ;" but, in 1837, when 
 85 years of age, he was made Earl of Leicester. He reached the age of 90, 
 dying in June, 1842.— There were benefactors of Mrs. Flaherty's order in the 
 cause of agricultural improvements during this period. Dr. Swiney, resident Dn. swi«v. 
 in Camden Town, an eccentric gentleman in some respects, did an act of sober 
 goodness in leaving £5,000 to the trustees of the British Museum, for the 
 establishment of a lectureship on Geology ; and another £5,000 to the Society 
 of Arts, to provide once in every five years, 100 guineas, to be presented, in a 
 goblet of equal value, to the British freeholder who should reclaim the largest 
 extent of waste lands. Dr. Swiney died in 1844. — In 1846, died Mr. Peter peter purchl. 
 Purcell of Dublin, who was mainly instrumental in forming the Royal Agri- 
 cultural Improvement Society, and who did in Ireland, on a smaller scale, 
 what Mr. Coke was doing in England. He became wealthy through the 
 improvement of land — caring less for his wealth for its own sake than as a 
 proof open to all eyes of the direction in which the welfare of Ireland lay. 
 He withdrew from politics, in which he had once been as much involved as 
 any man, and engaged as many of his neighbours as lie could in tlie interests 
 of improved husbandry. More and more laboiu-ers were employed ; the political 
 temper of his neighbours improved ; he grew wealthy ; and when he was 
 gone, all men saw what a benefactor he had been. — When Mr. Coke was called 
 the first Commoner of Ensland, the Marquess of Westminster was believed to jurqiebsof 
 
 ~ ^ ^ . . WtsmiMiriu. 
 
 be " the richest subject in the empire." His importance in our eyes arises, 
 not from the amount of his wealth, but from the mode in which its increase 
 was provided for during this period. The Pimlico estate, before considered a 
 vast property, now has upon it the new squares of Belgrave and Eaton, with 
 Eccleston Street, Wilton Place, and all the new city of jialaces which foreigners 
 now look upon as one of the marvels of London. The ultimate rental of this 
 district is scarcely calculable. The Marquess of Westminster had besides a 
 noble library, including a mass of valuable ancient MSS. and one of the finest 
 picture galleries in the kingdom, which was liberally opened to the public. 
 The Marquess of Westminster was a steady Whig for the last forty years of 
 his life, after having entered the political world under the auspices of Mr. 
 Pitt. He was raised from his earldom to his Marquisate by William IV. But 
 among all of cither title by whom he was preceded or may be followed, he will 
 ever be distinguished by his creations on his Pimlico estate. 
 
 ' Throughout our History, some grateful mention has been made of the bene- 
 factors that society has lost during our period of thirty years. It is unnatural 
 to conclude without some grateful mention of those mIio remained among us 
 at the close of the period. Yet how little can be said while they yet live ! 
 How presumptuous it seems to suppose that wc can estimate their influence on 
 society, or set forth what they have done ! It is only with regard to a very lew 
 that even a word can yet be ventured — a few whose social influence was as 
 unquestionable in 1846 as it can ever be to another generation. To a future 
 generation must be left the duty and privilege of honouring a hundred more.
 
 702 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 [Booic VI. 
 
 18-12- 
 
 George STEPHEN' 
 
 SON. 
 
 WoRnSWORTH 
 
 Joanna Baillie 
 
 .\LFREI> TeNNY 
 SON. 
 
 46. We have seen something of what railways are likely to do in changing and 
 advancing our civilization. It is to the greatest of our engineers, George 
 Stephenson, who was living at the expiration of this period, that this change 
 is owing, more than to any other man. His achievement lies, too, exactly 
 within our period ; for it was in 1816 that Mr. Stephenson took out a patent, 
 in conjunction with Mr. Dodd and Mr. Losh, under which locomotives were 
 set forth upon colliery railways near Newcastle-upon-Tyne. Between that 
 date and the close of our history, Mr. Stephenson's plans and works have 
 spread over the land, till there is probably hardly an individual in the king- 
 dom whose existence is not in some way affected by what has been done. — 
 Then, we have, instead of the Cathedral of old, a Palace of National Council, 
 which is the truest and fittest direction for the spirit of Architecture to take 
 in our age, and under our political constitution : and Mr. Barry is our archi- 
 tect. In our splendid Houses of Parliament he has built his own monument ; 
 and if, as one of the Arts of Peace, architecture has risen and improved during 
 the period, Mr. Barry has been, by many other works scattered through our 
 towns, the chief educator of the public taste. — In a widely different depart- 
 ment of training, we have had a guide whose name should be remembered by 
 the countrymen of Shakspere. Mr. Macready has led the nation back again 
 from some foolish wanderings to the real Shakspere. The Keinblesjiresentcd 
 the chief characters of Shakspere with a glory which could not be surpassed : 
 but Mr. Macready has evidenced a faith in the popular mind for which the 
 popular heart should be grateful. He has not only presented many characters 
 in his own person with extreme intellectual power and skill, but he has 
 brought these immortal plays before the public eye in their integrity, and 
 trusted to the general mind to prefer them to meaner things. — In painting we 
 have Turner whose life has been a plea for the study of Nature instead of 
 merely the old Masters : and we have his works to show how ever new Nature 
 is, when contemplated by a mind which owes its training to Art but not its 
 conceptions. 
 
 May it not be said that this is the service which, in another department, 
 has been rendered us by Wordsworth ? We have a great gift in his lofty 
 eloquence, and in his vindication of all human sympathies : but it appears 
 probable that a future generation will be most grateful to him for having 
 brought us up out of a misleading conventionalism in poetry to a recognition 
 and contemplation of Nature in subject and in expression. It was long before 
 the critical world could be disabused ; but the effort was met by popular sym- 
 pathy, wherever it could be reached, from the beginning ; and the popular 
 sympathy long ago rose above all tlie opposition of an outworn criticism. — It 
 was before our period that Joanna Baillie wrote the plays which turned the 
 heads of the reading world ; but she is among us still, more honoured than 
 ever, if less worshipped. — And we have still her aged friend, Mr. Rogers, 
 whose chief poem stimulated Campbell to write his ' Pleasures of Hope.' The 
 quiet gentle beauty of Mr. Rogers's chief poem, the ' Pleasures of Memory,' 
 made its way to the general heart : and its early fame has not been obscured 
 by other good deeds of Mr. Rogers, in the advancement of Art, and in gene 
 rous aid to intellectual aspirants of every class. — One poet we have of such 
 signal and peculiar power that his mind cannot but modify that of a future
 
 Chap. XVI.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 703 
 
 generation. The poems of Alfred Tennyson have certainly much of the beauty 1842 46. 
 
 of a long-past time : but they have also a life so vivid, a truth so lucid, and a ■ ' 
 
 melody so inexhaustible, as to mark him the poet that cannot die. 
 
 John Wilson must unite the classes of poets and of essayists ; for he is so wilmx. 
 entirely both that it is impossible to separate him from either. Before he was 
 known as (Christopher North, he was known as a poet : and assuredly he is 
 much more of a poet since he has written in prose. In our periodical litera- 
 ture he stands alone, giving us in the form of essays and dialogues, drama, 
 criticism, poetry, natural history, and infinite mirth, all blended together and 
 harmonized by a spirit of inexhaustible kindliness, which renders him truly a 
 benefactor to an age that is held to need softening and cheering even more 
 than expanding. If any one questions whether Sir Roger de Coverley has 
 been a blessing to men for above a century, such an one, but no other, may 
 doubt whether Christopher North will be a blessing to men of another time. 
 
 Among the Essayists, Francis Jeffrey has ever been acknowledged supreme : jFFFRin-. 
 and his Review, though instituted long before the period of our history, must 
 be regarded as one of the most powerful influences of the time. No one 
 supposes the influence to have been altogether for good ; or the principle of 
 reviewing to be, on the whole, defensible (as authors must generally be bet- 
 ter informed on the subjects they write on than their self-constituted judges): 
 nor can it be said that the spirit of the Edinburgh Review was in its early 
 days as generous, or at any time as earnest, as could be wished : but, with all 
 these drawbacks, it was of eminent service in opening a wide range of sub- 
 jects to middle-class readers, and in advocating liberal political principles. 
 Francis Jeffrey's articles were the gems of the publication — full, clear, sensible, 
 here and there deep, and always elegant — they make one wonder why the 
 fame of the Essayists of a century earlier should have so far transcended that of 
 the best of our Edinburgh reviewers. — Of a later time is Macaulay, who began t. >ia( ali.»v. 
 his striking series of review articles when Jeffrey was retiring amidst the well- 
 earned honours of his old age. Rapid, brilliant, crowded with powers and 
 with beauties, Mr. Macaulay's Essays have roused and animated and gratified 
 the minds of a multitude of readers who would have required more than was 
 reasonable if they had asked also for soundness of inference, completeness of 
 statement, and repose of manner. Mr. INIacaulay's influence as a historian is 
 for a future generation to jiulge of; for his efforts in that direction have been 
 entered upon since the close of our Thirty Years. — Another eminent Essayist 
 is Walter Savage Landor : but his exquisite writings, full of thought, fresh Lohoh. 
 and deep, and of feeling, sound and heroic, with the charm of antique learning 
 spread over all, are the luxury of the few, and not even likely to leaven the 
 mind of the many through those few. — Among the men of erudition who have 
 made their generation the better for their learning, Mr. Hallam is prominent, h*"*^ 
 His review of the Middle Ages, and his History of Literature, are among the 
 benefits of the time ; but his gi-eatest gift is his Constitutional History, 
 the value of which, with its singular impartiality and dispassionateness, may 
 have been inestimable in a transitional political period. — One remains who Carltik. 
 must stand alone in our view, as he does in his life, and his modes of thought, 
 and in the character of his writings. Whatever place we assign him, and by 
 whatever name we call him, Thomas Carlyle appears to be the man who
 
 704 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 [Book VI. 
 
 Maria 
 
 EnoEwiUiTli. 
 
 184,2 46. has most essentially modified the mind of his time. Nothing like his mind 
 
 was ever Jieard or dreamed of in our literature before j nothing like his 
 mournful, grotesque, and bitterly earnest writing ever seen. Yet his writings, 
 though widely are not universally read : and he has long wrought where 
 his works have never appeared, and his name been barely heard. His cry of 
 sympathetic suffering has entei'ed into the heart of legislators ; his scornful 
 rebuke of injustice has opened the eyes of the class-blinded: his bitter 
 ridicule of cant and factitious emotion has confounded the sectarianism and 
 fashionable humanity of the day ; and his broad and bold and incessant im- 
 plication of human equality in all essential matters (if the skin be but white) 
 has roused the clergy, and other orders of guides and instructors, to a sense 
 of the claims of their clients. If we find, as we certainly do every where 
 in our land, a nobler moral ideal in society, a deeper sjTnpathy, a stronger 
 earnestness, and some partial deliverance from factitious and conventional 
 morals and manners, it is unquestionably traceable to Carlyle. His mournful 
 and protesting voice is heard sounding through our more serious parliamen- 
 tary debates ; and it is the glance of his eye that has directed other eyes to the 
 depths of social misery and wrong. Whether we call him philosopher, poet, 
 or moralist, he is the first teacher of our generation. 
 
 At the close of our period, Maria Edgeworth was living. She it was who 
 early and eftectually interested her century in the character and lot of the 
 Irish : and she did much besides to raise the character of fiction, and to 
 gratify the popular mind before Scott, and Bulwer, and Dickens, occupied 
 that field of literature. It was as the friend of little children, however, that 
 Miss Edgeworth is most beloved, and will be most gratefully remembered. 
 Her delectable Rosamond is worth a score of famed novel-heroes, and is surely 
 destined to everlasting youth, with an ingenuousness that can never be sullied, 
 and a vivacity that can never be chilled. — Our restless and indefatigable 
 Bulwer came next ; and wherever English books are read his novels are 
 found, and men and women are disputing whether they are harmless or much 
 to be feared. His mind is evidently of so impressible and so eclectic a 
 character as to prevent its productions having a vital influence ; and therefore 
 it seems as if they need not be feared ; while there is great value in his 
 wonderful analyses and specimens of the mind of the time ; — the politic, the 
 worldly, the sceptical, the artistical, the literary, the self-observant, the 
 would-be philosophical ; — nearly all, perhaps, but the simple, the religious, or 
 the truly philosophical. Bulwer has given us popular dramas too ; and 
 successful political pamphlets, and volumes of poems, and essays. Succeeding 
 more or less in every walk, his best achievement, as many good judges think, 
 is in his early series of Essays republished under the title of 'The Student.' 
 However opinions may vary about the claims of particular works, there can 
 be no doubt that Bulwer has largely occupied the mind and leisure of the 
 public of his day. — Last and greatest among the Novelists comes Charles 
 Dickens — the Boz, who rose up in the midst of us like a Jin with his magic 
 glass among some eastern people, showing forth what was doing in the regions 
 of darkness, and in odd places where nobody ever thought of going to look. 
 It is scarcely conceivable that any one should, in our age of the world, exert a 
 stronger social influence than Mr. Dickens has in his power. His sympathies
 
 Chap. XVI.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE, 7O5 
 
 are on the side of the suffering and the frail; and this makes him the idol of 1,S42 4G 
 
 those who suffer, from whatever cause. We may wish that he had a sounder 
 social philosophy, and that he could suggest a loftier moral to sufferers ;— 
 could lead them to see that "man does not live by bread alone," and that his 
 best liappiness lies in those parts of his nature which are only animated and 
 exalted by suffering, if it does not proceed too far ; — could show us something 
 of the necessity and blessedness of homely and incessant self-discipline, and 
 dwell a little less fondly on the grosser indulgences and commoner bene- 
 ficence which are pleasant enough in their own place, but which can never 
 make a man and society so happy as he desires them to become. We may 
 Avish for these things ; and we may shrink from the exhibition of human 
 miseries as an artistical study ; but, these great drawbacks once admitted, we 
 shall be eager to acknowledge that we have in Charles Dickens a man of 
 a genius which cannot but mark the time, and accelerate or retard its 
 tendencies. In as far as its tendencies are to " consider the poor," and to 
 strip off the disguises of cant, he is vastly accelerating them. As to whether 
 his delineations are true to broad daylight English life, tliat may be for some 
 time to come a matter of opinion on which men will differ. That they are, 
 one and all, true to the ideal in the author's mind, is a matter on which none 
 differ ; while the inexhaustible humour, the unbounded power of observation, 
 the exquisite occasional pathos, and the geniality of spirit throughout, 
 carry all readers far away from critical thoughts, and give to the author 
 the whole range of influence, from the palace library to the penny book- 
 club. 
 
 It is something new in England to see a satirical periodical — a farcical f' ■^•'■"■ 
 exposure of the sins and follies of the time. We have one now. Some of the 
 wits of London, with Douglas Jerrold at their head, set up a Weekly Com- 
 mentary on the doings of London as seen by Puncli : and there is no corner 
 of the kingdom to whicli Punch's criticisms have not penetrated. The work 
 has been very useful, as well as abundantly amusing ; it has had its faults 
 and follies, and has dropped some of them ; and now, its objects of satire are 
 xisually as legitimate as its satire is pungent and well-tempered. It is some- 
 thing that the grave English have a droll periodical to make them laugh 
 every week; and it is something more that the laugh is not at the expense of 
 wisdom. 
 
 In the solemn and innnortal labours of the Laboratory and the Observatory """"' 
 we have Faraday and Herschel yet busy. It is not for us to speak of the 
 secrets of Nature which they are laying open ; and it is not for any one to 
 compute what they have done, or to anticipate what they may do. Of one 
 work of Sir J. Herschel's we may form some estimate— his ' rvcliminary 
 Discourse on Natural Philosophy.' That treatise is enough to make any nian 
 with a mind and heart long to devote himself to the pursuit of Physical 
 Science, as the high road to wisdom, from that mojncnt onwards. His own 
 devotion to it is an example and inducement to all who can follow. lie went 
 to the Cape, to set up his observatory— leaving behind all considerations but 
 that of the advancement of science : and every step of his pilgrimngo has set 
 its mark on a future age.— As for Faraday, we dare say only that he is penc- iA».nA. 
 trating into mysteries of existence of which his own vast faculties can hardly 
 
 4 X 
 
 VOL. II.
 
 706 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book VI. 
 
 1842 — 46. bear the contemplation, and which will therefore become fully comprehensible 
 —— ^^ ^-^ — only to a future generation. Under his gaze and his touch, the solid material of 
 the universe is all melting away — matter (according to the old and now vulgar 
 idea of it) is dissolving itself into forces ; and our feeble insight into nature 
 would be blinded, and our weak grasp of reliance would be all cast loose, but 
 for the great truth which presents itself more clearly through all changes — 
 that immutable Law rules every Avhere, all-sufficing for our intellectual sup- 
 port and our- ease of heart. If we cannot compute what has been done by the 
 researches and discoveries of Faraday for the period through Avhich we have 
 passed, we can say nothing of how they will influence the next. We can 
 only feel certain that, in as far as they must change the aspect of the uni- 
 verse, and give a new command over the conditions of organized life, they 
 must largely affect the destiny of man, both in his intellectual progress and 
 his social relations. It will be for the men of that future time to assign to 
 Faraday his ])lace in the history of his country and of his kind. 
 
 'o'
 
 Chap. XVII. J DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 707 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 TN taking a review of any jjeriod within our own experience, every one of 1815— 46. 
 
 -*- us i.s apt to exaggerate the gains of tlie time — its gains in knowledge, .' ' 
 
 arts, and moral views. This arises in part from our confounding change or .ADVA>xEMt.M. 
 expansion in our own ideas with change in the world about us. Therefore, 
 we are liable to be struck by an opposite view upon occasion ; and, in con- 
 templating the best things in the old world — not its arts and science, but the 
 wisdom of its sages, and the mental condition and communion of its people — 
 to doubt whether, after all, the human race has got on so very much as is 
 commonly said. If we endeavour to keep our view extended, we shall not 
 suppose that any critical or decisive advance can have been made by any 
 section of the human race in a period of thirty years : and we shall look 
 without pride or vanity, it may be hoped, upon such improvements as may be 
 recognised; Avhile the review of such improvements may be thoroughly de- 
 lightful as convincing us of that rapid partial advance towards the grand slow 
 general advance which we humbly but firmly trust to be the destination of 
 the human race. 
 
 To look first to the lowest class of improvements — the Arts of Life : we find 
 many of recent origin, which promote the general convenience and comfort. 
 The Electric Telegraph is a marvel of the time which our minds arc even vet ?.':f';^'"' 
 
 ^ J. "^ X £LbGlt A I'll . 
 
 hardly able to familiarize themselves with : and yet, while amazed at what we 
 see, we have a clear persuasion that this is but the opening of a scries of dis- 
 coveries and inventions. News is transmitted as by a lightning flash ; mes- 
 sages are exchanged, police and soldiery may be summoned on an emergency, 
 criminals are captured, scientific observations at distant points may become 
 all but simultaneous, and there is a strengthening expectation that distant 
 countries may communicate, not by the sea, slowly and hazardously, as hitherto, 
 but through the sea, with the rapidity of thought. And still, when we look 
 at the natural facts that have manifested themselves in the course of recent 
 experiments, we are aware that much more remains to be revealed. — Then, 
 ao-aiu, we have discovered the wonderful fact of sun-painting. Not only arc si'n-i>«imim;. 
 our portraits taken (with a harshness at present which will soon, no doubt, be 
 softened down by art) — portraits about whose likeness there can be no dis- 
 pute — but a world of toil and error is certain to be saved in coast-surveying, 
 architectural portraiture, and delineation in natural history. Every fibre of 
 a flower, every stone of a building, every feature of any scene, is fixed in a 
 moment in its true proportions, to last for ever. There need no more be con- 
 troversy in future centuries about the aspects of perished cities, or speculation 
 about the faces of the illustrious dead. Each age may leave to the future a 
 nicture sallerv of its whole outer life. — Then, again, there is a telescope !...»" u..,m \ 
 
 1 O J _ • 1 r 1 1 ItLI-lhlOI'ii. 
 
 existing, of such power, that every rock in our side ot the moon, as large as
 
 708 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book VI. 
 
 1815_46. a cliiuch, is visible. We do not hear much of this marvel yet, because it is 
 
 v^ ,— -^ not yet so manageable as it will be ; and errors derived from its use are as 
 
 enormous as its powers. But it is a vast new opening into science, through 
 which wise meu are learning to look, and which may hereafter stand wide to 
 the peasant and the child. — Of steam and railways enough has been said. 
 Every body knows more than could be told here of what they do in super- 
 seding toil, in setting human hands free for skilled labour, in bringing men 
 face to face with each other and with nature and novelty ; — the peer lace to 
 face with the farmer and the merchant, and the mechanic face to face with 
 mountain and forest and sea. — Then again, we have new explosive sub- 
 
 Gu.N Cotton. stauccs wliich first connect themselves in our thoughts with war — as the Gun 
 Cotton of recent invention, but which will doubtless be used to lay open 
 secrets of nature, and help us in our application of the arts when the nations 
 shall not learn war any more. — In an humbler way, but by no means a con- 
 temptible one, we have now means of obtaining fire in a moment, every 
 wlieie. Not only in the cottage but in every house the tiresome tinder-box, 
 with its slowness and uncertainty, was the only way to get fire twenty years 
 ago, except in the chemist's laboratory, where phosphorus matches were a 
 sort of terror to the commonalty. Now the penny box of lucifers is in every 
 cottage, where it saves the burning of the rushlight for the baby's sake. We 
 have had some rick and shed burning in consequence ; but that evil was sure 
 to follow any great facility in obtaining fire. — In waterproof clothing, the poor 
 have obtained a great benefit. Large classes of labourers may soon be better 
 protected from wet at their out-door work than are the policemen of the present 
 day. — The Thames Tunnel may at first appear purely a work of human head 
 and hands ; a piece of boring and building : but it could not have been 
 achieved in an age of science inferior to our own. Mention has been made 
 before of the strong and wide interest which existed about this work when it 
 was brought to a stop, and shut up for some years. The sanguine were jus- 
 
 i»i™''throi%''3 ''ifi^'l ill their prophecies that it would be opened again. In December, 18-tI, 
 the works reached the shaft at Wapping : and on the 24th, an opening was 
 made in the brickwork of the shaft ; and a large party of gentlemen — all the 
 Directors and several original subscribers — walked through, being the first 
 persons who had ever passed under the river from shore to shore. In March, 
 
 Annual ResiM. r, 1843, it was opeucd to foot passcugers, a grand procession with music passing 
 
 1843 : Chron. 311. . I_0'bl I O 
 
 through one side and returning by the other. While this modern mermaid 
 music was going on lower than the fishes could dive, there was some grief and 
 mourning above — such as always makes the drawback on new appliances of 
 civilization. A black flag was hung out at the Tunnel pier, to show the dis- 
 pleasure of the watermen at such a supersession of their Rcdriffe ferry. In 
 the next .July, the Queen and Prince Albert went to see the Tunnel : and in 
 the following March, at the end of the first year, upwards of 2,000,000 of foot 
 passengers had paid toll. To this day, it is the first object of curiosity to 
 foreigners visiting London. 
 
 It must be in another kind of history than this, that the progress of Science 
 
 during the last thirty years should be recorded. Here, we can only point out 
 
 &"™t''f,c ^^^"^ ^"^^^^ apparatus provided for that end in the British Association for the 
 
 Association. Advancement of Science. This Association has continued to hold its meetings 
 
 ThkTiiamus 
 
 TU.NNliL.
 
 Srr.fnunl If e.£ /Ti^-f. 
 
 JJAMES •WATT 
 
 <///// A 
 
 '/ ///// /■// I 
 
 .y^' / 
 
 '■•- ' /,.: 
 
 'f/yw// /-y 
 
 /■■•n,/<vi. yW.//.7/,., 
 
 ' udjitif Strfft
 
 CHiP. XVII.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. ^ 709 
 
 from year to year; and, admitting all that has been said, and all that can be 1815_4G 
 
 said, of its drawbacks— of the waste of time by the talking of egotists, and the - ^ 
 
 levity and vanity of many who congregate there for excitement or display — 
 there remains a large amount of practical service to human interests. There 
 arc men watching the tides on the shores of all seas ; and we are likely to 
 know in time the levels of all the waters of the globe. Observatories — 
 Russian, French, American, British, and others — are set up in every zone. 
 One m.'tn comes with proof in his hand of tlie existence of an unseen heavenly 
 body, which others begin to look for; and something, whether it or another, 
 is found. Others come from searching in the opposite direction, and bring oeologv. 
 up almost incredible knowledge from the bowels of the earth. The most 
 obvious result, perhaps, to common eyes, of these scientific gatherings is the 
 wide spread of geological knowledge; or, at least, of ideas related to such 
 knowledge. It is a good thing that men should have some notion of tlie 
 structure of the globe : it is better that their minds should open to the con- 
 ception of vast spaces of time, and of huge revolutions of nature ; and of that 
 order of appearance of all living things which is so unlike previous concep- 
 tion : but it must surely be a nobler thing still that men sliould learn the 
 relation they bear to their place of abode ; should get to know how the human 
 mind and life take their character from the geological formation of the region 
 tliey dwell in. If they perceive how the dwellers in the desert must neces- 
 sarily be one sort of men, and the dwellers in pasture lands another ; how 
 thoughts and desires and ways, and therefore physical structure itself, are 
 modified by men living in a mineral, or a pastoral, or an agricultural district, 
 they have obtained a grasp of some of the grandest conditions of human life, 
 from which must arise, in time, some determining power over the human lot. 
 It is not to be wondered at, considering how the Science of Geology interests 
 at once the reasoning and the observing faculties, the imagination (both anti- 
 quarian and speculative) and the humanity which dwells more or less in every 
 one, that its spread among the people should be one of the most noticeable 
 facts of our time. 
 
 Then, there is some advance made towards a real science of Medicine. It iikd 
 cannot be said that we have yet any science of medicine, properly so called: 
 and the ablest physicians are the most ready and anxious to make the decla- 
 ration. But there are, or seem to be, now clear openings to a knowledge of 
 the [nature of disease, and not only to that of symptoms of disease. As a 
 philosopher of our day is wont to say, we are now presented, as it were, with 
 the fragmentary parts of some great general law of the human frame, wliicli 
 we seem to be on the verge of discovering. Since the peace, the physicians of 
 Europe have com nninicated more freely than before; thougli still, the sj)irit of 
 the profession hinders their commimicating enough, or in the best manner. 
 The hitherto universal empirical method of producing by drugs and otherwise 
 one set of symptoms of disease to drive out anotlier, lias already given way, in 
 many directions, to the trial of more natvual methods, based on new observa- 
 tions. Dr. Hahnemann's opposite method, based on a theory yet dim and 
 imperfect, but more philosophical on tlie face of it, prevails widely in schools 
 of medicine abroad, and in private practice in Knglaiid, so as to liave remark- 
 ably diminished the application of drugs, and the creation of artificial 
 
 EDICI.Nf.
 
 710 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 [Book VI. 
 
 1815— 40. 
 
 Sanitary Im- 
 
 I'ltOVEME.NT. 
 
 Dll. Anduew 
 Combe. 
 
 Mr. Chauwick. 
 
 ailments. The Water System, with all its abuse and extravagance, has been 
 useful in putting a check upon the worse empiricism which preceded it ; and 
 we have considerably advanced in our insight into some prodigious mysteries 
 of the human frame, which rebuke alike the levity of ignorance and the 
 solemnity of professional dogmatism. Our knowledge is as yet little enough ; 
 but it is more than it was ; and one consequence of the research, and of im- 
 proved intercourse with the Continent — a consequence open to universal 
 observation — is that physicians give fewer and fewer drugs, and admit more 
 and more freely that a scientific basis for their profession remains to be found. 
 — As might be expected, the knowledge of anatomy and physiology, and the art 
 of surgery, have advanced at a far more rapid rate ; and in this way the 
 chances of alleviation of human suffering are improving every day. 
 
 And here we slide into the department of social interests. The attention 
 given to Sanitary improvement is a leading feature of om- time. Thirty 
 years ago, scarcely anybody thought of pure air, good drainage, a sufficient 
 supply of water, or even cleanliness of person, as we all think of them now. 
 In the greatest houses, there was little or no thought about what kind of soil 
 the house was built on, or where the drains emptied themselves, or where the 
 used-up air of the apartments went to, or, perhaps, of the necessity of thorough 
 daily ablution : yet now these things are coming into consideration on behalf 
 of the very poorest. There was, thirty years ago, more spirit-and-water drink- 
 ing among the middle classes, more tight-lacing among women, more physick- 
 ing of children, more close rooms, a more imperfect washing of clothes, less 
 exercise and cold water in general use, less horror at close alleys, and large 
 cities without airing grounds. Now we have People's Parks, here and there ; 
 we have Baths and Washhouses for the poor — and not as charity, but as a pur- 
 chaseable convenience for those who live in small houses or few rooms. We 
 have not yet achieved the wholesome and profitable drainage of towns, and 
 ventilation of the houses therein, and the abol'tion of burial of the dead 
 among the homes of the living ; but we have a firm hold of the idea and the 
 purpose; and the great work is therefore sure to be done. Among many 
 benefactors in this direction, we must mention first Dr. Andrew Combe, the 
 kindly Edinburgh physician, who tinned his own loss of health to the pur- 
 pose of improving the liealth of others. He made himself a subject of cool 
 philosophical observation, and giive us the benefit, in some popular works on 
 physiological subjects which have diffused a useful knowledge of the condi- 
 tions of health, and a wholesome observance of them, wherever they have 
 spread — that is, almost all over Great Britain and the United States ; and 
 probably much further. In these works, whose views are to a great degree the 
 reflection of the sufferings of the author, there is no trace of egotism, or of any 
 tiling else that is morbid. Dr. Combe unconsciously gives us in them a moral 
 instruction not less valuable than the sanitary. — Mr. Chadwick has no doubt 
 done more than any one other man in direct furtherance of the general health. 
 lie has looked at the subject on every side, and exhibited it in every light. 
 He has insisted, not only on the cruelty of condemning a multitude of our 
 citizens to disease and premature death, but on the sin of encouraging crime 
 by discomfort, and the folly of expending more money on the burial of the 
 dead, and the support of the widows and orphans that they leave, than ^vould
 
 AsSOCIATInNs. 
 
 Chap. XVII.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 711 
 
 keep the community in health. Mr. Chadwick's connexion with the fiist 1815 — 46. 
 Commission of the New Poor Law afforded him opportunity for obtaining an 
 extraordinary amount of information on sanitary subjects ; and he has so 
 strenuously worked the enterprise of reform, that its completion is, amidst many 
 discouragements and difficulties, natural in such a case, merely a question of 
 time. Before the history of another period shall be written by some one of 
 the next generation, we may hope that the Thames will have ceased to receive 
 the filth of London and of other towns ; that the sewers will answer their 
 proper purpose ; that every house will be supplied with pure water ; that the 
 dead will be buried in country cemeteries ; that every stagnant ditch and 
 dunghill will be treated as a public oflPence ; and that the causes of fever will 
 be destroyed wherever it is possible to detect them. 
 
 The pursuit of this inquiry has cut out work for the Agricultural Associations AGRiccLTrB\ 
 of the kingdom. It is now known that the proper application of the filth that 
 destroys life by fever, would support, in the form of wholesome food, a vastly 
 increased amount of human life. The science of agricultural chemistry has 
 advanced materially within thirty years — partly in consequence of our im- 
 proved intercourse with the Continent. And our agricultural associations 
 have sjirung up within a much shorter date. The Board of Agiiculture, the 
 pet project of George III., was supported by an annual parliamentary grant. 
 It had no real life in it ; and it expired when the parliamentary grant was 
 withdrawn in 1817. After that, we had in England nothing corresponding to 
 the great and useful Highland Society of Scotland. Scotch fanning improved 
 continually. In England, farming could hardly grow worse than it had been ; 
 but it did not improve. Mr. William Shaw understood something of tlie 
 magnitude of the need. In 1834, and subsequent years, he urged continu- 
 ally, in agricultural periodicals, the formation of a national Society for the ad- 
 vancement of practical agriculture. At the dinner of the Smithficld Chib, on 
 the 11th of December, 1837, Lord Spencer proposed the formation of such a 
 society ; and the thing was done. From the knowledge since obtained, and 
 the results already exhibited, it appears that if we understood our position and 
 our business, there need be no more fear of an insufficiency of work or of food 
 for the people. If all refuse were used as manure, and all the laud now under 
 cultivation were properly tilled, Ave should hear no more in our time of sur- 
 plus population, of wages falling below 8*-., of fanners having cause to dread 
 the importation of foreign wlicat, or of the consumption of meat being con- 
 fined to classes who by no means want it most. As the development of Manu- 
 factures was the grand economical feature of the last century, that of Agri- 
 culture appears likely to become the distinctive feature of the present. The 
 pernicious spell of Protection is dissolved ; something like a scientific edu- 
 cation is now to be obtained by the next generation of farmers; and our sani- 
 tary researches are about to provide an ample supply of the first requisite of 
 increased production. Wc may hope soon to see the agricultural population 
 once more gaining u])on the manufacturing, and the rural labouring class 
 ceasing to be the opprobrium of our polity. — We have sliown that tlie preser- c.*meLa«s. 
 vation of Game is giving way, and must give way still further. — We arc in rmw™ managf. 
 coiu'se of improvement witli regard to our Prison management. Tliere is 
 nothing to boast about yet, when we look at our convicts as victims of moral
 
 712 
 
 HISTOEA' OF ENGLAND 
 
 [Book VI. 
 
 ext[nctio\ of 
 Slavery. 
 
 1815 — 46. disease induced by ignorance and social neglect; but there is no comparison 
 between the state of our prisons now and thirty years since. Since that time 
 Mrs. Fry and her coadjutors have done their benevolent work ; and it has been 
 followed up by government and local authorities to such a point as to leave 
 no doubt of a thorough reform in time. The main existing difficulty arises 
 from the want of an ascertained basis of action. We have not settled yet what 
 to do witli our convicts. There is a clear expectation everywhere that the 
 punishment of death will soon be abolished. There is, at the same time, 
 iilmost universal discontent with our transportation system ; and the widest 
 diversity of views as to how convicts are to be managed and disposed of. It is 
 not for us to prophecy what the result will be. It is enough to record that 
 the question is before the national mind. It is enough that justice and mercy 
 are invoked ; for there never yet was any difficulty which, once appealed to, 
 they refused to solve. 
 
 We have seen how essentially our Criminal Law has been improved since 
 the days when Romilly laboured on amidst discouragement of every kind. 
 We have seen how our nation has been relieved jfiom the disgrace of Slave- 
 holding. We have failed in our efforts to stop the slave trade ; and we appear- 
 slow to learn that the slave trade can come to an end only by being super- 
 seded, and not by being checked by force of arms. By encoiu-aging the pro- 
 duction of cotton, sugar, and coffee by free labour, by fostering innocent 
 commerce in Africa, and, not least, by sympathizing with the peaceful 
 efforts of abolitionists wherever they arc striving against the curse of slavery, 
 Ave can do more for the extinction of the helHsh traffic than by any armed 
 force that can be sent out upon the sea. As the nation first in economic rank 
 among the peoples of the world, it seems as if it must be our business to put 
 down slavery by exhibiting its inferiority to free labour, while not the less 
 insisting on its moral odiousness. 
 
 We have witnessed the rise and progress of Mechanics' Institutes. We 
 have seen a small beginning made of a State Education of children. A very 
 small beginning it is — the whole sum of Parliamentary giants not yet 
 reaching half a million. There has been a great amount of virtuous volun- 
 tary effort, among Churchmen, Dissenters, Chartists, employers of laboin-, 
 and a multitude who were ready to aid : but there are bounds to the ability 
 of individuals ; and it cannot, in the nature of things, go on expanding in 
 proportion to the ever-growing need. Again, the quality of the education 
 given by private efforts is a very uncertain matter. It can rarely be so good 
 as that which is planned from the united wisdom of a people: and it is 
 apt to be of a very low order. The sectarian spirit which is the curse of 
 English society has thus far condemned the children of the nation to a 
 defective education, or to total ignorai^ce. While in no department of 
 benevolent action has there been more energy and good-will tliun in extend- 
 ing Education, in none arc we more behind the needs of the time. We 
 shall not be safe, morally, politically, or economically, till we join in agieeing 
 that, as each church cannot have its own way, nor any one, even though 
 it be the Established Church, we must meet the evil of ignorance in the 
 largest class of the people by throwing ojjcn to all means of sound moral 
 and intellectual education, leaving the rehgious instruction and training
 
 Chap. XVII.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 713 
 
 to the pastors or guardians of the pupils. In indirect ways, meanwhile, 1815 46. 
 
 the Education of the people has been going on. We have seen that much ^— — ^-^ — - 
 was done for the intellects of large numbers by the action of the Auti-Corn- 
 law League. Much, again, has been done by the vast spread of cheap 
 literature, inducing, among other benefits, the formation of penny-a-week 
 book-clubs. And then there is that animating feature of the time, the populai. Mt.s.< , 
 introduction of Music as a popular pursuit. For this, we are obviously 
 indebted to the Peace.' It is from Germany that this remarkable benefit 
 has come. In 1842, we find the first performance of Mr. Hullah's musical 
 classes to have taken place, in the presence of Prince Albert, in Exeter 
 Hall. The classes were fomied under the sanction of the government 
 Council of Education. Here, on the very first public trial, 1500 novices Amuai nc^istrr, 
 sang, without the guidance of any instrument, psalms, hj-mus, and a 
 madrigfil, in a manner which made some hearers look upon Mr. Hullah 
 as a sort of magician, who could convert a crowd of untuned English adults, 
 hitherto almost unconscious what m.usic was, into a vast organ endowed 
 with soul. Since that date, music has been a beloved and joyful pursuit in 
 many a little back-parlour in Wliitechapel and the suburbs of London, in 
 many a workshop in provincial towns, and at evening gatherings in remote 
 villages where some pupil of Hullah or Mainzer may have settled. There is 
 now glee-singing to be heard among apprentices in north country villages 
 which could hardly have been surpassed, a quarter of a century ago, in our 
 cathedral towTis. — In another branch of art, how has the popular taste been 
 improved by the immigration of foreigners ! Before 1815, our artisan classes populab abt. 
 saw an exhibition of wax- work occasionally, and could buy for their mantel- 
 shelf blue and green plaster parrots, and brown and white plaster cats. Now, 
 we find in cottages the Princess Marie's Joan of Arc, and Canova's gi-oups, or 
 our own Shakspere and Milton — cheap and somewliat coarse, but better than 
 parrots and cats. It is sui'prising now to go into remote corners of the coun- 
 try, where Italian boys have not penetrated, and see there what ornaments our 
 people admired before the peace. This is a benefit not confined to large 
 towns. In large towns we find something more. We find Museums and gal- 
 leries of Art, and exhibitions of manufactures opened to the multitude. The 
 British Museum admits, on Easter Monday, more than the total population of 
 a provincial city : and there are hundreds of artisans in London who can now 
 tell their brother workmen about the gods and heroes of Egyptian temples and 
 tombs, and the monuments of Assyrian monarchs mentioned in the Bible. 
 
 Amidst these processes of virtual education, we find the function of the 
 Educator somewhat more respected than it used to be. There are still sub- the edic.t.r 
 urban villages where the inhabitants are too genteel to admit persons engaged 
 in education to their book-clubs : but this is laughed at by the wiser majority 
 of the middle class. Some of the efforts to exalt the position of the Educator 
 have been fantastic enough, and unsuccessful accordingly: for it is a thing 
 which cannot be arbitrarily done. When education is duly improved, the 
 Educator will be duly honoured ; and not till then : and for the sound reason 
 that not till then will the Educator be worthy of his pretensions. IMcantimc, 
 the tutor and the governess are more humanely considered than they us<'d to 
 be, in regard to their sufferings and their needs, and more sure of appreciation 
 
 VOL. II. ^ "*
 
 714 
 
 HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
 
 [Book VI. 
 
 Methous op 
 
 CllAIUlV. 
 
 X815 4(3. when they merit it. The.main evil still is in the middle elass poverty which 
 
 makes tutors and governesses of many hundreds who would fain ohtain their 
 bread in some other way, and who are thus not in a position to require more 
 than a mere rescue from present poverty. Associations for the relief and care 
 of governesses are benevolent in aim, and afford subsistence and solace to the 
 worn-out and helpless to a certain extent : but it is obvious that this is not an 
 aoency which can elevate a class, or modify an institution. If governesses are 
 to rise to honour and independence, it must be by their being educated to 
 sustain an honourable and indispensable function. They must have profes- 
 sional requisites to obtain professional dues. Hitherto, their position has been 
 partly one of service, partly a professional one, without express training for 
 either. 
 
 There can be no question of our methods of charity having improved since 
 the publication of the Reports on which the reform of the Poor Law was 
 ibunded. There was always plenty of alms-giving ; — proneness enough to 
 relieve the misery which met the eye. Now, there is more searching into the 
 causes of misery, and a more widely spread knowledge that social misery 
 cannot be cured, but is usually aggravated, by alms-giving. — The remaining 
 grand feature of a renewed social temper is the spread of a spirit of peace — 
 of a disincUnation, that is, for brute violence. The diminution of the practice 
 
 DUEU.1SG. yf Duelling is remarkable. In 1843, after the public had been shocked by 
 
 the occurrence of a fatal duel which in former times would have merely fur- 
 nished forth the gossip of tlic day, an association was formed which would 
 
 iM™''ciuou.'G?." ""t in old times have been dreamed of; — an Anti-duelling Association, con- 
 sisting of 326 members, so many of whom were of the two services, or noble- 
 men, baronets, and members of parliament, that they fairly conceived them- 
 selves strong enough in their union to lead public opinion in the matter of 
 personal honour. Their first act was to denounce duelUng, as contrary to the 
 laws of God and man, and eminently irrational as well as sinful, and to pledge 
 themselves to discountenance by influence and example the practice which 
 they condemned. — In the next year, some amended articles relating to duelling 
 Mere issued from the War Office, by order of the Queen ; and in these articles 
 duelling was prohibited, on the representation that honourable men are ready 
 to apologize for offence given in mistake or haste ; and that a reference to 
 friends, or, if that will not do, to the commanding officer on the spot, ouglit to 
 suffice for all jjurposes of personal justification. There were exhortations and 
 provisions in regard to the seconds, and an assertion of true principles of 
 honour in words of the Duke of Wellington's of old date. It was not to be 
 supposed that a practice so grounded in self-regards as that of duelhng could 
 be put an end to by an ordinance like this : but it was a useful declaration at 
 a particular juncture ; and there can be no doubt of the great abatement of 
 the barbarous practice during the lust years of this period. 
 
 Finally, if we review for a moment the political morality of the period, we 
 shall see, not only an improvement, but an essential change. The old Torvism 
 is gone. We never hear of it now, even from the most antique members of the 
 House of Peers. Our present Conservatism may admit under its term much 
 that is selfish, corrupt, and requiring strenuous opposition : but its idea is 
 indispensable under a representative system; and its requisitions are not at
 
 Chap. XVII.] DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. 715 
 
 present offensive; or, it may be, they are not strongly enough urged to be in- ISlo 4(3. 
 
 jurious to the pubhc welfare. The doctrines of Bentham, so much discussed "■ --^- 
 
 in the early part of the century, and now so seldom heard of, were operative 
 to the extent in which they were wanted. In as far as they were shallow, 
 pedantic, and inadequate to the mind of Man, and the needs of a State, they 
 are forgotten : — in as far as they are rational, and benevolent, and genial, tliey 
 still work. "The greatest happiness of the greatest number" is not now 
 talked of as the profession of a school : but the idea is in the mind of poli- 
 ticians, and shapes their aims. The truest welfare of the largest classes has 
 been the plea for much of our legislation ; and especially for the whole grand 
 achievement of the completion of free trade. No statesman would now dream 
 of conducting the government on any other avowed principle than consulting 
 the w"elf;ire of the greatest number in preference to that of any smaller chws. 
 Another remarkable advance, which needs only to be indicated, is that in the 
 direction of Religious Liberty. The emancipation of the Catholics might still Hi-;i.uii„. s 
 be regarded as an act oi mere pressing necessity : but the preponderance oi 
 opinion in favour of religious liberty — a preponderance in every political party, 
 and in a case where there was nothing but the principle at stake — on the oc- 
 casion, that is, of the Dissenters' Chapels Bill — showed a prodigious advance 
 since the time when the repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts was refused, 
 with levity, or with silly solemnity, from session to session. The spirit of re- 
 ligious liberty may now be considered to dwell in every man among us worthy 
 to be called a statesman. 
 
 While all this is done — so much progress achieved that appears to be whituhmin-.. 
 incontrovertible — what remains to be done ? — Something greater than all -that 
 has been achieved. The tremendous Labour Question remains absolutely J'"" Laeouu 
 initouched — the question whether the toil ot a life is not to provide a 
 sufficiency of bread. No thoughtful man can for a moment suppose that this 
 question can be put aside. No man with a head and a heart can suppose that 
 any considerable class of a nation mil submit for ever to toil incessantly for bare 
 necessaries— without comfort, ease, or luxury, now— without prospect for their 
 children, and without a hope for their own old age. A social idea or system 
 which compels such a state of things as this must be, in so far, worn out. In 
 ours, it is clear that some renovation is wanted, and must be found. ] We see ' 
 celibacy so extending in our middle class as that hardly half of them marry 
 before they arc elderly, while the poor and pauper class marry as befoix-, 
 and thus provide for a vast preponderance of the democratic element in 
 our society in the course of another generation. And this is a serious 
 matter for the statesman to ponder. It arises from a diminution of means in 
 the middle class, and the recklessness of poverty in the very lowest. Such is 
 its origin : but what will be its issue? While the statesman is pondering this, 
 the moraUst will mourn over the vice which is the inevitable consequence of 
 the restriction of maniage in the middle class. And what can the moralist 
 say to the extraordinary increase of the crime of domestic poisoning among our 
 poor ? That a mother should, unconscious of wrong, have poisoned eight inftvnts 
 in succession by putting arsenic on her breasts, is a fact which (strengthened 
 by the occurrence of similar deeds about the same time) makes us fancy \\o 
 are dreaming about living in an age of improved civilization and humanity.
 
 716 HISTORY OF ENGLAND [Book VI 
 
 1815—46. If it be true, as some of us say, that the labourer's life-long toil demands a 
 return, not only of sufficient food, and a domestic shelter for his old age, but 
 of intellectual and spiritual culture, what can we say to the intellectual and 
 spiritual state of the lower portion of our working classes ? How much is 
 there of the intellectual pride of ignorance and misinformation, and of that 
 worst infidelity which grows out of a sense of injustice! If we hear com- 
 plaints of the irreligion of the poor, and of the growth of that irreligion, we 
 ought to put ourselves in their place, and observe how the religion of the rich 
 must appear to them thei-e : and then we shall understand how suspicious 
 they must be of promises of unseen and future good when it is offered as 
 better than the substantial good which they see others enjoying, and feel to 
 be their due. When a man sees his children sinking in body for want of 
 food, and in mind for want of instruction, can he be content with the prospect 
 held out by the well-fed and learned of a happiness which he cannot now un- 
 derstand, and is not sure that he could ever enjoy ? j Men so placed are like 
 children. They must have justice before they can humbly and magnani- 
 mously forego justice. Before they can enter into a state of religious content- 
 ment, they must see why they should be content ; and they ought to decline 
 being content before they see reason for it. Thus it is that, in spite of 
 church-building, and missionary effort, and extensive charity, there is so 
 much proud and hard irreligion among the poor of our nation. If it be said 
 that they are improvident, and that a multitude who are in poverty need not 
 be so, the answer again is plain. They know no better ; and that they know 
 no better is caused by social neglect. They are not comfortable : they feel 
 that while they work, they ought to be comfortable ; and they will not acqui- 
 esce while they see that those who work less are more comfortable, and they 
 M \are not told why. This is what remains for us to do ; — to find out the why, 
 i\ land to make everybody understand it. 
 
 ^ The material for working out a better state is before us ; and the question 
 of the Rights of Labour is pressing upon us. We have science brightening 
 around us, which may teach us to increase indefinitely our supply of food. We 
 have labourers everywhere who arc as capable as any men above them of do- 
 mestic solicitude, and who will not be more reckless about a provision for their 
 families than gentlemen ai'e, when once the natural affections of the citizen- 
 parent are alloAved free scope. We have now (by the recent repeal of the 
 remnant of the Navigation laws) complete liberty of commerce. We have 
 now the best heads and hearts occiipied about this great question of the Rights 
 of Labour, with impressive warnings presented to us from abroad, that it can- 
 not be neglected under a lighter penalty than ruin to all. Is it possible that 
 the solution should not be found ? This solution may probably be the central 
 fact of the next period of British history ; and then, better than now, it may 
 be seen that in preparation for it lies the chief interest of the preceding Thirty 
 Years' Peace. 
 
 THE END.
 
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