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 In the original book set, consisting of four volumes, the master index was in Volume 4. In this set of e-books, the index has been duplicated into each of the other volumes, with its first page re-numbered as necessary, and an Index item added to each volume's Table of Contents. 

A HISTORY OF THE FOUR GEORGES

AND OF WILLIAM IV. 

by

JUSTIN MCCARTHY

and

JUSTIN HUNTLY MCCARTHY

In Four Volumes

VOL. IV. 

Harper & Brothers PublishersNew York and London1901

Copyright, 1901, by Harper & Brothers. All rights reserved. 

CONTENTS OF THE FOURTH VOLUME. 

CHAPTER PAGE

 LXIII. "OPENS AMID ILL OMENS" . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 LXIV. POPULAR ALARMS--ROYAL EXCURSIONS . . . . . . . . 15 LXV. GEORGE CANNING . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 LXVI. THE CLOSE OF CANNING'S CAREER . . . . . . . . . 46 LXVII. "THE CHAINS OF THE CATHOLIC" . . . . . . . . . . 65 LXVIII. THE LAST OF THE GEORGES . . . . . . . . . . . . 80 LXIX. KING WILLIAM THE FOURTH . . . . . . . . . . . . 96 LXX. LE ROI D'YVETOT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114 LXXI. REFORM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122 LXXII. THE GREAT DEBATE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144 LXXIII. THE TRIUMPH OF REFORM . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159 LXXIV. THE EMANCIPATION OF LABOUR . . . . . . . . . . . 188 LXXV. THE STATE CHURCH IN IRELAND . . . . . . . . . . 205 LXXVI. "ONLY A PAUPER" . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 221 LXXVII. PEEL'S FORLORN HOPE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 233 LXXVIII. STILL THE REIGN OF REFORM . . . . . . . . . . . 261 LXXIX. THE CLOSE OF A REIGN AND THE OPENING OF AN ERA 280 INDEX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 295

{1}

A HISTORY OF THE FOUR GEORGES. 

CHAPTER LXIII. 

"OPENS AMID ILL OMENS. "

The closest student of history would find it hard indeed to turn to theaccount of any other royal reign which opened under conditions sopeculiar and so unpropitious as those which accompanied the successionof George the Fourth to the English throne. Even in the pages ofGibbon one might look in vain for the story of a reign thus singularlydarkened in its earliest chapters. George the Fourth had hardly gonethrough the State ceremonials which asserted his royal position when hewas seized by a sudden illness so severe that, for a while, the nervesof the country were strained by the alarm which seemed to tell that agrave would have to be dug for the new King before the body of the latesovereign had grown quite cold in the royal vault. It would be idle, at this time of day, to affect any serious belief that the grief of theBritish people at this sudden taking off, had it come to pass, wouldhave exceeded any possibility of consolation. George the Fourth was anelderly personage when he came to the throne, he had been known to hissubjects as a deputy King for many years, his mode of living had longbeen a familiar subject of scandal among all classes of his people, andno one could have supposed that the prosperity of the country {2}depended to any measurable extent on the continuance of his life. 

[Sidenote: 1820--Lord Liverpool's Administration]

George, however, recovered. His illness proved therefore to be onlyone among the unpropitious conditions which accompanied the dawn of hisreign. Almost the next thing that was heard of him by the outer worldwas that he had inaugurated his work of government by calling on hisministers to assist him in obtaining a divorce from his wife. Notoften, it must be admitted, has a sovereign just succeeding to a thronethus celebrated his attainment of regal rank. Then, again, thebeginning of George the Fourth's reign was immediately followed by theexplosion of a conspiracy belonging to an order uncommon indeed in theEngland of those days, almost wholly unknown to the England of our owntime, and resembling in its principal characteristics some of theNihilist or Anarchist enterprises common even still in certain parts ofthe European continent. Thus opened the first chapter of the reign ofKing George the Fourth. We shall have to go more fully into details, and we only print these few lines as what used to be called in formerdays the argument of our first chapters. 

George was too unwell to stand by his father's bedside when the poorold King was passing, at last, out of that life which had so long beenone of utter darkness to him. George, the son, had taken cold in hisbeloved pavilion at Brighton, and the cold soon developed into anillness so serious that for some days it was believed the now King wasdestined to succeed his father in the grave almost as soon as he hadsucceeded him in the sovereignty. George's life of excesses had not, however, completely worn out the fine constitution with which naturehad originally endowed him, and despite the kind of medical treatmentfavored at that time, the old familiar panacea, which consisted mainlyin incessant bleeding, the King recovered. He was soon able to receivethe official addresses of loyalty, to despatch to Louis the Eighteenthand other European sovereigns his formal announcement of the fact thathe had succeeded to the throne, his formal expressions of grief at {3}the loss of his beloved father, and his formal assurances of hisresolve to do all he could to maintain harmonious relations with therulers of foreign States. He retained the ministers whom he had foundin office, and who were, of course, his own ministers. Lord Liverpoolwas Prime Minister, Lord Eldon was Lord Chancellor, Lord Palmerston wasone of the younger members of the administration. 

The times were troublous. Lord Liverpool's long tenure of office hadbeen marked, so far as foreign affairs were concerned, by a resolutehostility to every policy and all movements which tended in arevolutionary direction, and to Lord Liverpool and his closestcolleagues the whole principle of popular liberty was merely theprinciple of revolution. In home affairs Lord Liverpool had alwaysidentified himself with systems of political repression, systems whichwere established on the theory that whenever there was any talk ofpopular grievance the only wise and just course was to put in prisonthe men from whose mouths such talk came forth. On financial questionsLord Liverpool appears to have entertained some enlightened views, views that were certainly in advance of the political economy professedby most of his colleagues, but where distinctly political controversycame up he may be taken as a fair illustration of the old-fashionedTory statesmanship. Eldon, the Lord Chancellor, had a great deal ofshrewdness in his mental constitution, a shrewdness which very oftentook the form of selfishness; and although he exhibited himself for themost part as a genuine Tory, one is inclined to doubt whether he didnot now and then indulge in a secret chuckle at the expense of thoseamong his colleagues who really believed that the principles ofold-fashioned Toryism were the only sound principles of government. 

The first business of State into which the new sovereign threw hiswhole heart and soul was the endeavor to solemnize the opening of hisreign by obtaining a divorce from his wife. He went to work at oncewith the set purpose of inducing his ministers to lend him their aid inthe {4} attainment of this great object. Lord Eldon was moreespecially in his confidence, and with him George had many privateinterviews and much exchange of letters on the subject which thenengrossed his attention. He accomplished his object so far that it wasarranged to leave the name of his wife out of the Royal Liturgy. Buteven to set on foot the formal proceedings for a divorce proved a muchmore difficult piece of business. Pliant as the ministers were, inclined to be abject as some of them were in their anxiety to pleasetheir royal master, yet the men with whom George especially consultedcould not shrink from impressing on his notice some of the obstacleswhich stood in the way of his obtaining his heart's desire. One of themain difficulties consisted in the fact that a great part of theevidence given against George's unhappy consort during the formerinvestigations had been given by a class of witnesses upon whosestatement it would be impossible for any regularly constituted court oflaw to place much reliance. Again and again in the correspondencewhich passed between the King and some of his ministers this weaknessof his case is pointed out, and it is somewhat curious to find socomplete a recognition of it by his advisers when we bear in mind whatthey had sanctioned before and were to sanction later on. 

[Sidenote: 1820--Queen Caroline]

The Queen herself was on the Continent, and was threatening herimmediate return to her husband's country unless some settlement wasmade with her which should secure her ample means of living and allowher to be formally recognized abroad as the wife of King George. HenryBrougham was acting as the Queen's principal adviser at home, and wasdoing his best to bring about some sort of compromise which mightresult in the Queen's accepting a quiet and informal separation on fairand reasonable terms. George, however, was not inclined to listen toconditions of compromise. He wanted to get rid of his Queen once forall, to be publicly and completely divorced from her, to be free fromeven a nominal association with her; and he was not inclined to acceptany terms which merely secured him against the chance of her {5} everagain appearing within his sight. Brougham was disposed, and evendetermined, to do all he could for the unhappy Caroline, although nowand then in one of his characteristic bursts of ill-temper he used torail against the trouble she gave him by her impatient desire to rushback to England and make her appeal to public opinion there. There wasa great deal of negotiation between the advisers on both sides, and thefinal offer made on the part of the King was that the Queen should havean allowance of 52, 000 pounds a year--not, one would have thought, avery illiberal allowance for the daughter of a small German prince--andthat she should be allowed to retain her titles, and should beauthorized to use them at foreign courts, but that her name was not toappear in the Liturgy, and that she was not to appear officially inEngland as the wife of the sovereign. These terms were offered muchagainst the will of the King himself, who still yearned for thedivorce, the whole divorce, and nothing but the divorce. Georgeyielded, however, to the urgent advice of his ministers, with thestrong hope and belief still in his own heart that Caroline would notaccept the conditions, and would insist upon presenting herself inEngland and asserting her position as Queen. 

The Queen, meanwhile, had left Rome, where she had been staying forsome time and where she complained of the want of deference shown toher by the Papal authorities. She was hurrying back to England, andhad written to Brougham requesting him to meet her at Saint Omer, andthere accordingly Brougham met her. Whether he was very urgent in hisadvice to her to accept the terms it is not easy to know; but, at allevents, it is quite certain that she refused point-blank to make anyconcessions, that she left Brougham with positive abruptness, andhastened on her way to England. Among her most confidential adviserswas Alderman Wood, the head of a great firm in the City of London, aleading man in the corporation of the City, and a member of the Houseof Commons. Many eminent Englishmen--among whom were Wilberforce, Canning, and Denman, afterwards Lord Chief Justice--were {6} were warmsupporters of her cause, for the good reason that they sincerelybelieved her to be innocent of the more serious charges against her anddeeply wronged by the conduct of the King. Even her most resoluteenemies had to admit that whether her conduct in thus rushing back toEngland and forcing herself on public notice were wise or unwise, fromthe worldly point of view, it certainly seemed at least like theconduct of a woman proudly conscious of her own innocence, anddetermined to accept no compromise which might put her in the positionof a pardoned sinner. The nearer she came to England the more cordialwere the expressions of sympathy she received, and from the moment shelanded on English shores her way to London became like a triumphalprocession. 

[Sidenote: 1820--The King's divorce proceedings]

In the mean time the King and his ministers had come to an agreementwhich was exactly what the King had struggled for from the first, anagreement that steps should be taken in the ordinary way, according tothe legal conditions then existing, for the purpose of obtaining adivorce. The course to be adopted was to bring in a Divorce Bill, andendeavor to have it passed through both Houses of Parliament. Theproceedings were to open in the House of Lords, and the Queen's leadingdefenders--for her cause was of course to be defended by counsel as inan ordinary court of law--were Brougham and Denman. The Queen'sarrival in London was a signal for the most tumultuous demonstrationsof popular devotion and favor towards her, and popular anger, and evenfury, against all who were supposed to be her enemies. The house inwhich she took up her abode was constantly surrounded by vast throngsof her sympathizers, and she used to have to make her appearance at thewindows at frequent intervals and bow her acknowledgments to the crowdsbelow. Sometimes the zeal of her admirers found a different way ofexpressing itself, and the window-panes of many houses were brokenbecause the residents were known to be on the side of the King and notof the Queen. Conspicuous public men who were known, or were believed, to have taken part against her were mobbed in the streets, and even theDuke {7} of Wellington himself was more than once the object of ahostile demonstration. So widely spread, so deeply penetrating was thefeeling in favor of the Queen that it was said to have found its wayeven into the ranks of the army, and it was believed that some soldiersof regiments quartered in London itself were to be found carousing tothe health of Queen Caroline. A crowd of Italian witnesses had beenbrought over to bear evidence against the Queen, and these foreigninvaders, nearly all of humble rank, had to be sheltered in buildingsspecially erected for their protection in the near neighborhood ofWestminster Hall, and had to be immured and guarded as if they weremalefactors awaiting trial and likely to escape, in order that theymight be safe from the outbreaks of popular indignation. 

It told heavily for the case of the Queen, in the minds of allreasonable and impartial people, that while the King's foreignwitnesses were drawn for the most part from a class of persons whomight be supposed easily open to subornation and corruption, a greatnumber of distinguished men and women came from various parts of Europein which the Queen had resided to give evidence in her favor, and tospeak highly of her character and her conduct. The manner in which theproceedings against the Queen were pressed on by the Ministry had oneimmediate result to their disadvantage by depriving them of theservices of George Canning, then one of the most rising of Europeanstatesmen. Canning was strongly impressed with a belief in the Queen'sinnocence and he could not consent to become one of her formal publicaccusers, which he must have done were he to remain a member of theadministration. Canning, therefore, after a time, gave up his place asa member of the Government, and he left the work of the prosecution, asit may be called, to be carried on by men less chivalrous and lessscrupulous. It is not necessary to go at any length into the story ofthe proceedings before the House of Lords. These proceedings wouldhave been made memorable, if there were nothing else to make them so, by the speeches which Brougham and {8} Denman delivered in defence ofthe Queen. Never perhaps in the course of history have the ears of amonarch's advisers been made to tingle by such sentences of magnificentand scathing denunciation poured out in arraignment of the monarch'spersonal conduct. Denman, indeed, incurred the implacable hostility ofGeorge because, in the course of his speech, he introduced a famouscitation from Roman history which, although intended to tell heavilyagainst the King, was mistakenly believed by some of the King's friendsto convey a much darker and deeper imputation on the sovereign thanthat which was really in Denman's mind. 

[Sidenote: 1821--Queen Caroline and the King's coronation]

The case may be briefly said to have broken down. In the House ofLords, where the friends of the sovereign were most powerful, there wasonly a majority of nine for the third reading of the Bill of Divorce, and the Bill if persevered in would yet have to encounter the House ofCommons. The Government, therefore, made up their minds to abandon theproceedings, and thereupon the friends of the Queen exultedtumultuously over the victory they had won. But the struggle was notby any means at an end. The royal coronation had yet to come, and theKing was anxious that the ceremonial should be got through at as earlya date as possible. The Queen announced her determination to presentherself on the Day of Coronation and claim her right to be crowned asQueen Consort of George the Fourth. Then the advisers on both sideswent to work anew with the vain hope of bringing about something like acompromise which might save the sovereign, the Court, and the countryfrom scandalous and tumultuous scenes. Again the Queen was offered theallowance which had been tendered to her before, on the old conditionsthat she would behave quietly and keep herself out of sight. Again sheinsisted that her name must be included in the Royal Liturgy, and againthe King announced his resolve to make no such concession. Then theQueen once more made it known that her resolve was final, and that shewould present herself at Westminster Abbey on the Coronation Day. George had been advised {9} that all historical precedents warrantedhim in maintaining that the King had an absolute right to direct theforms of the ceremonial to be used on such an occasion, and he declaredthat he would not allow the Queen to take any part in the solemnity oreven to be present during its performance. The Queen wrote letters tothe King which she sent to him through his Prime Minister, LordLiverpool. George sent back the letters unopened to Lord Liverpool, with the announcement that the King would read no letter addressed tohim by the Queen, and would only communicate with her through theordinary official medium of one of his ministers. 

The letters thus written on both sides have long since been published, and the perusal of them will probably impress most readers with theidea of a certain sincerity on the part of both the principal writers, the King and Queen. Let us speak as harshly and as justly as we may ofthe King's general conduct, of his mode of living, and of the manner inwhich he had always treated the Queen, we shall find it hard not tobelieve that there was in the depth of George's mind a fixed convictionthat he had real cause of complaint against his unhappy wife. Let us, on the other hand, give the fullest recognition to the fact thatalthough the scandalous levities in the conduct of the Queen abroadtold heavily against her, we are none the less compelled to admit thather letters to the King, and her demand to be included in theCoronation ceremonies, seemed to be part of the conduct of a woman whowill not and cannot admit that she has done anything to forfeit herplace at her husband's side. 

The whole story seems now so preposterously out of keeping with all theassociations of a modern Court that it startles our sense of historicalcredibility when we find by the actual dates that men and women arestill living who might have been carried by their nurses to see thecrowds round Westminster Abbey on the Coronation Day of King George theFourth. The Coronation took place on July 19, 1821, and the wholeceremony was got up in the most costly, the most gorgeous, and, as itwould seem now {10} to a calm and critical reader of history, in themost theatrical style. The poor Queen did, indeed, make an attempt totake the place which she claimed in the performances at WestminsterAbbey. "It was natural, " says Miss Martineau, "that one so long anoutcast and at length borne back into social life by the sympathies ofa nation should expect too much from these sympathies and fail to stopat the right point in her demands. " Miss Martineau adds, however, andher words will carry with them the feelings of every reader now, "Itwould have been well if the Queen had retired into silence after thegrant of her annuity and the final refusal to insert her name in theLiturgy. " The Queen, of course, failed to obtain an entrance toWestminster Abbey. It had been arranged by orders of the King that noone was to be allowed admission, even to look on at the ceremonial, without a ticket officially issued and properly accredited with thename of the bearer. The Queen, therefore, was allowed to pass throughthe crowded streets, but when she came to the doors of the Abbey thesoldiers on guard asked for her ticket of admission, and of course shehad none to present. Some of the friends who accompanied herindignantly asked the soldiers whether they did not recognize theirQueen, the Queen of England; but the officers in command replied thattheir orders were strict, and the unhappy Caroline Amelia was literallyturned away from the Abbey door. The King had accomplished his object. 

[Sidenote: 1821--Death of Queen Caroline]

The poor woman's story comes to an end very soon. On August 2, only afew days after the Coronation, it was made known to the public that theQueen was seriously ill. She was suffering, it appears, from internalinflammation, and the anxieties, the excitements, the heart burnings, the various agonies of emotion she had lately been undergoing must haveleft her poorly prepared. On August 7 her condition became so alarmingto those around her that it was thought right to warn her of herdanger. She quietly said that she had no wish to live, that she hopednot to suffer much bodily pain in dying, but that she could leave lifewithout the least regret. She {11} died that day, having lived morethan fifty-two years. It was her singular fate, however, that even inher death, which otherwise must have brought so much relief, she becamea new source of trouble to her royal husband. George had made up hismind to pay a visit after his coronation to his subjects in Ireland, to"the long cherished isle which he loved, " as Byron says, "like hisbride. " He had got as far as Holyhead on his way when the news reachedhim of the Queen's illness, and he thought that it would be hardlybecoming for him to make his first public appearance in Ireland at sucha moment, and to run the risk, perhaps, of having his royal entranceinto Dublin accompanied by the news that his Queen had just died. Then, when the news of her death did actually reach him, it was stillnecessary to make some little delay--joy bells and funeral bells do notring well together--and thus George, even as a widower, found his wifestill a little in the way. The remains of Caroline Amelia were carriedback to her native Brunswick, and there ended her melancholy story. Itis impossible not to regard this unhappy woman as the victim, in greatmeasure, of the customs which so often compel princes and princesses toleave reciprocal love out of the conditions of marriage. "The birdswhich live in the air, " says Webster's immortal "Duchess of Malfi, "

 On the wild benefit of nature, live Happier than we, for they can choose their mates. 

Other women, indeed, might have struggled far better against theadverse conditions of an unsuitable marriage and have borne themselvesfar better amid its worst trials than the clever, impulsive, light-hearted, light-headed Caroline Amelia was able to do. Thereseems no reason to doubt that she had a good heart, a loving nature, and the wish to lead a pure and honorable life. But she was too oftenthoughtless, careless, wilful, and headstrong, and, like many otherswho might have done well under fair conditions, she allowed the worstqualities of her nature to take the command just at the very momentwhen there {12} was most need for the exercise of all that was best inher. Even with regard to George himself, it seems only fair andreasonable to assume that he, too, might have done better if hismarriage had not been merely an arrangement of State. Perhaps thewhole history of State marriages contains no chapter at once morefantastic and more tragic than that which closed with the death ofCaroline Amelia, wife of George the Fourth. 

[Sidenote: Death of Napoleon Bonaparte]

While the joy-bells of London were already chiming for the coronationof George the Fourth, the most powerful enemy George's country had everhad was passing quietly away in St. Helena. On May 5, 1821, theEmperor Napoleon died in his island exile. No words could exaggeratethe sensation produced through the whole world by the close of thismarvellous career. He was unquestionably one of the greatest figuresin history. As a conquering soldier he has no rival in the modernworld, and indeed all the history we know of, ancient or modern, cangive but very few names which may bear comparison with his. UnlikeCaesar and Alexander, he had made his way from the humble obscurity ofcommon life, and, unlike Caesar, he did not seem to have had in him theintellectual greatness which must have made him, under any conditions, a master of men and of hemispheres. So far as mere dramatic effect isconcerned, he was less fortunate than Caesar in his disappearance fromthe world's stage. Napoleon was doomed to pine and wither away on alonely island in the South Atlantic for years and years, and there wassomething like an anticlimax in the closing scenes of that marvellouslife-drama. It is pitiful and saddening now to read of the trumperyannoyances and humiliations to which his days of exile were subjected, and to read, too, of the unceasing complaints with which he resentedwhat he regarded as the insults offered to him by his jailers. Therewas, indeed, much that was ignoble in the manner of his treatment bythose who had him in charge, in the paltry indignities which he had toendure, and which he could not endure in the patient dignity ofsilence. The mere refusal to allow to him his title of Emperor, and toinsist {13} that he should only be addressed as General Bonaparte, wasas illogical as it was ungenerous; for if revolutionary France had notthe right to make him an Emperor, she certainly could not have had theright to make him a General. Every movement he made and every movementmade by any of his friends on the island was watched as jealously andas closely as if he had been some vulgar Jack Sheppard plotting withhis pals for an escape through the windows or the cellars of his prison. 

One cannot but regret that Napoleon could not have folded himself inthe majestic mantle of his dignity and his fame, could not even, if itwere needed, have eaten out his own heart in silence, and left hiscaptors to work their worst upon him without giving them thesatisfaction of extorting a word of querulous remonstrance. Hiscaptors, no doubt, were perpetually haunted by the dread that he mightsomehow contrive to make his escape, and that if he once got away fromSt. Helena the whole struggle might have to begin all over again. Nodoubt, too, his captors would have said, speaking in the spirit of thetimes, that Napoleon was not to be trusted like an honorable prisoneron parole, and that there was no way of securing the peace of the worldbut by holding him under close and constant guard. The whole story ofthose years of captivity is profoundly sad, and is one which mayprobably be read with less pain even by Frenchmen than by high-mindedEnglishmen. There has lately been given to the world in the pages ofan American magazine, _The Century_, a continuation of the record oncemade by Dr. Barry E. O'Meara of his conversations with Napoleon duringNapoleon's exile in St. Helena. Dr. O'Meara was a surgeon in theEnglish navy, and was serving in the _Bellerophon_ when Napoleon cameon board. He was allowed to take care of Napoleon by the BritishGovernment, and, as he was an Irishman, he felt a certain sympathy withNapoleon and came to be treated by the fallen Emperor as a friend. Hepublished a volume called "A Voice from St. Helena, " in which he gave adetailed account of his talks with the great Emperor. The book wasmuch read {14} at the time of its publication, and created a deepinterest wherever it was read. From this work O'Meara left out many ofthe memoranda he had written down, probably because he thought theymight give offence needlessly to living persons; but the withheldmemoranda were all carefully preserved and passed into the hands ofsome of his descendants in New Jersey, and have after this long lapseof time been published at last. They tell us with painful accuracy ofthe petty annoyances constantly inflicted upon Napoleon, and of theimpatience and fretfulness with which, day after day, he resented themand complained of them. We seem to live with the great dethronedEmperor in his hours of homeliest complainings, when every littlegrievance that burns in his heart finds repeated expression on hislips. Few chapters in the history of fallen greatness can be moretouching than these pages. 

Not all that Napoleon said about England, however, was mere complaintand disparagement. The world of London may be interested in learningfrom these reminiscences how Napoleon told Dr. Barry O'Meara that ifhe, Napoleon, had had any authority over the English Metropolis, hewould have long ago taken measures for constructing an embankment onboth sides of the Thames as it passed between Middlesex and Surrey. IfDr. O'Meara had embodied this suggestion in his public volume, Napoleonmight unconsciously have become the projector of the Thames Embankment. _Fas est ab hoste_--the proverb is somewhat musty. 

{15}

CHAPTER LXIV. 

POPULAR ALARMS--ROYAL EXCURSIONS. 

[Sidenote: 1820--The Cato Street conspiracy]

The plot which has been already mentioned as one of the unpropitiousevents that marked the opening of George the Fourth's reign was thefamous Cato Street conspiracy. The conspiracy was nothing less than aplot for the assassination, all at once, of the whole of his Majesty'sministers. The principal conspirator was a man named Thistlewood, acompound of half-crazy fanaticism and desperate villany--a creature whobelieved that he had private vengeance to satisfy, and who had, at thesame time, persuaded himself that no good could come to the people ofEngland until an example had been made of the King's official advisersby the avenging hand of the lover of liberty. The novelty as well asthe audacity of the plot created a perfect consternation all throughEngland, and it became, for a while, the sincere conviction of a vastnumber of reasonable Englishmen that the whole political and socialsystem of the kingdom was undermined by such plots, and that only themost strenuous exertions made by the champions of law and order couldprotect the realm from an outbreak of horrors far transcending any ofthose that had convulsed France during the worst days of theRevolution. It was soon made clear enough that Thistlewood's plot wasa conspiracy which included only a very small number of men, and it hasnever been quite certain whether it was not originally put in motion bythe machination of some of the paid spies and informers whom it wasbelieved, at that time, to be the duty of the Ministry to keep in itsservice for the detection and the frustration of revolutionaryconspiracy. It was the common practice of spies and informers, inthose days, to go {16} about secretly in quarters where revolutionaryconspiracy was believed to be in existence, to represent themselves tosome of the suspected plotters as fellow-revolutionists andbrother-conspirators, and thus to get into their confidence, and evento suggest to them some new form of conspiracy, in order that theirwillingness to accept the suggestion might mark them out as propersubjects for a Government prosecution and obtain for the informers thecredit of the detection. 

[Sidenote: 1820--Origin of the conspiracy]

Thistlewood had been engaged in popular agitation for some sort ofreconstitution of political society, and he had been once put on histrial for some alleged offence arising out of such an agitation. Morelucky than many other of his contemporaries under similar conditions, he was brought before a jury who found him not guilty of the chargemade against him. Now, if Thistlewood had been a sane member of evenan Anarchist organization, he might have been softened in his feelingstowards the existing order of things by finding that a jury hadactually recognized the possibility of his being formally charged withan offence against the Crown and yet not being guilty. But Thistlewoodregarded the bare fact that a charge had been made against him as acrime calling out for vengeance, and in his frenzy he got the idea intohis head that Lord Sidmouth, the Home Secretary, was the person on whomhe was bound to take revenge. Accordingly, the unfortunate creatureactually sent a challenge to Lord Sidmouth, inviting and defying him tomortal combat. Perhaps Lord Sidmouth would have acted wisely if he hadtaken no notice whatever of this preposterous challenge, but, at thesame time, it is only fair to remember that Lord Sidmouth might thinkit dangerous to the public peace to allow a person to go unrebuked whohad sent a challenge to a Minister of the Crown. Criminal proceedingswere, therefore, taken against Thistlewood, and, instead of beingcommitted to the protection of a lunatic asylum, the author of thechallenge was sentenced to a year's imprisonment. When his prison timewas over, Thistlewood came out a man inflamed with a desire forvengeance on all the ruling classes {17} in general, and on Ministersof the Crown in particular. Like the murderer in "Macbeth, " he thoughthimself one whom the vile blows and buffets of the world had soincensed that he was reckless what he did to spite the world. He soongot around him a small gang of agitators as ignorant and almost ascrazy as himself, and he initiated them into a grand scheme for dealinga death-blow to all the ministers at once, and then seizing on theBank, Mansion House, and Tower of London, and from these strongholdsproclaiming the existence of a provisional government. 

Now the whole notion of such a plot as this, and any possible successcoming out of it, may seem, at first sight, too crazy to be accepted byany set of men, however ignorant or however wicked, who were notdownright lunatics. But it is certain that Thistlewood did find asmall number of men who were not actually lunatics, and who yet wereready to join with him and to risk their lives in his enterprise. Thefirst act in the plot was to be the assassination of the King'sministers. One of the professional spies in the employment of theauthorities, a man named Edwards, was already in communication withThistlewood and his friends. The plot had been for a considerable timein preparation, and it was put off for a while because of the death ofGeorge the Third, and the hopes entertained by the conspirators thatthe new King might go back to the political principles of his earlieryears, discard Lord Liverpool, Lord Sidmouth, and his other Toryadvisers, and thus render it unnecessary for patriotic men to put themto death in order to save the country. 

When, however, it became apparent that George the Fourth was to keeparound him the ministers who had served him when he was Prince Regent, it was determined that the work must go on. Edwards, the spy, was ableto make it known to Thistlewood that there was to be a dinner of themembers of the Cabinet on February 23, 1820, and the opportunity wasthought to be placed by a kindly fate in the hands of the conspirators. Meanwhile the minister at whose house the dinner was to take place, Lord {18} Harrowby, was kept fully informed of all that was going on, and he wisely resolved to take no public notice of the scheme until theday for the dinner should arrive, when the instruments of the wholesalemurder-plot could be suddenly arrested at the moment of their attemptto carry out their design. Thistlewood and most of his companions hadtheir headquarters in the garrets of a house in Cato Street, EdgwareRoad, and there it was arranged among them that they should remainuntil one or two of their accomplices, who were kept at watch for thepurpose, should come to them and report that the doomed dinner-guestshad assembled. Then the conspirators were to repair to theneighborhood of Lord Harrowby's house in Grosvenor Square. One of theoutpost men was to knock at Lord Harrowby's door, and the moment thedoor was opened all the gang were to rush in and put the ministers todeath. Lord Harrowby took good care not to have any guests thatevening, but the outpost men of the conspiracy were deceived by thefact that a dinner-party was actually going on at the house of theArchbishop of York next door, and when they saw carriages arrivingthere they felt sure this was the dinner-party for which they werewaiting. They waited there until the last of the guests appeared tohave arrived, and then set out to give notice to Thistlewood and hiscompanions. Before the outpost men had got back to Cato Street thepolice were already there, and an attempt was made to arrest the wholeof the conspirators. A scuffle took place, in which Thistlewoodstabbed one of the policemen to the heart. The constituted authoritieshad contrived to make almost as much of a bungle as the conspiratorshad done; the military force did not arrive in time, and Thistlewoodand some of his accomplices succeeded, for the moment, in making theirescape. It was only for the moment. Thistlewood was arrested nextday. There was nothing heroic or dramatic about the manner of hiscapture. He had sought refuge at the house of a friend in Moorfields, and he was comfortably asleep in bed when the house was surrounded andhe was made prisoner. He was put on trial soon after, and, {19} withfour of his accomplices, was sentenced to death, and on May 1 the fivewere executed. 

[Sidenote: 1820--The government and the conspiracy]

The evidence at the trial made it clear to any reasonable mind that theplot was confined altogether to the small knot of ignorant desperadoeswho held their councils in Cato Street, and to the informer Edwards, who had been in communication with them. The public were never allowedto know what had become of this man Edwards. Had he been pensioned bythe Government and been allowed to pass into honorable and comfortableretirement, or was he to be arrested and put on his trial like otherconspirators? Several attempts were made to get at the truth by meansof questions to the ministers in the House of Commons, but nosatisfactory reply could be extracted or extorted. Indeed, it seemedquite probable that the general feeling among the ruling classes at thetime would have been that the Government had done a very good thing byemploying a man to help in working up murderous conspiracies in orderthat such conspiracies should be frightened out of existence, and thatit was quite right to protect and reward the emissaries who hadrendered such faithful service. For a time there was a widespread andsincere belief that the Cato Street conspiracy was only one in a vastnetwork of conspiracies from which nothing but the severest measures ofrepression could save England. The King himself in his royal messageto Parliament was careful to make use of the Cato Street conspiracy asanother and a crowning evidence of the necessity which existed for thewholesale application of the criminal law in order to save the Statefrom the triumph of anarchy. A season of absolute panic set in and themost trivial political disturbance arising in any part of the countrywas magnified into another attempt of the emissaries of revolution toupset the Throne, pull down the Church, and turn the State into therepublic of a rabble. 

It is quite clear now to all readers of history that such attempts asthose planned by the Cato Street conspirators can only exist at a timewhen stern and savage restrictions are set upon all efforts to obtain afree public hearing for {20} the discussion of political and socialgrievances. Where political wrongs can be arraigned in the open day, there is no occasion for the work of the midnight conspirator. Alreadyin England public men were coming forward who were filled with thenoble and patriotic desire to give the philosophy of history some sharein the guidance of political life. Popular education had been totallyneglected in England, and, indeed, the too common impression among theruling classes was that the lower orders of the people could never bekept in due obedience to their superiors if they were permitted to makethemselves unfit for their station by learning how to read and write. Even the criminal laws themselves bore terrible testimony to theprevailing ideas, by the fact that property was proclaimed as sacred apossession as life itself. 

[Sidenote: 1820--Offences that entailed the death penalty]

In the early days of George the Fourth's reign Sir James Mackintosh, the famous historian, philosopher, and philanthropist, brought into theHouse of Commons a measure for abolishing the punishment of death incases of the stealing of property to the value of five shillings, andhe succeeded in carrying his measure through Parliament. Up to thattime men and women had been executed, year after year, for stealingfrom a shop any goods of the value of five shillings, were the goodsbut a few loaves of high-priced bread carried off for the purpose ofrelieving the sufferings of a hungry family. Sir James Mackintosh'smeasure aimed at the abolition of the death penalty in a large numberof other minor offences, but he only succeeded in robbing the gallowsof its victims in two other classes of small offences as well as thatwhich has just been mentioned. 

At this time of day one reads with amazement the arguments which menlike Lord Chancellor Eldon directed against the humane measuresintroduced by Sir James Mackintosh. Parliament and the country weresolemnly warned that if such relaxation of the death punishment weresanctioned by law, the smaller class of tradesmen would have to give uptheir shops and their business altogether, because it would be utterlyimpossible for them {21} to keep any goods in their windows or on theirshelves if the punishment of death were not maintained for the theft ofa shawl or a snuff-box. At the same time it was well known toeverybody who had eyes to see or ears to hear that numbers ofshoplifters escaped punishment altogether because humane juriesrefused, even on the plainest evidence, to find a verdict of guiltywhere such a verdict would send the prisoner from the dock to thegallows. Many a jury, too, when it was impossible to doubt that atheft had been committed, acted on the ingenious plan of declaring intheir verdict that the articles stolen, whatever their obvious marketworth, were under the value of five shillings, thereby saving theoffender from the doom of death. Thus the repressive power of the lawwas necessarily diminished by the uncertainty which common humanity putin the way of its regular enforcement, and that very barbarity ofpunishment which was intended to keep men back from crime by its mereterrors gave to the criminal only another chance of escape. 

Sir James Mackintosh had brought in his measures as successor, in thatline of philanthropic reform, to the lamented Sir Samuel Romilly, whosemelancholy death, already referred to, had created a profound sensationthroughout England and abroad towards the close of the late reign. About the time when Mackintosh was thus making his partly successfulattempt to put some check on the application of the death penalty, Henry Brougham was arousing the attention of Parliament and the countryto the lamentable and disgraceful absence of anything like a system ofnational education. On June 28, 1820, Brougham brought forward thefirst definite proposal submitted to the House of Commons for a schemeof national education designed to apply to England and Wales. Aparliamentary committee had been sitting for some time to makeinquiries and receive evidence as to the state of education in thepoorer districts of the land. This, too, was owing almost altogetherto the energy and the efforts of Brougham, but the inquiries of thecommittee were resulting in nothing very practical, and Broughamtherefore {22} went a step further than he had previously gone andbrought forward his definite scheme for national education. It ishardly necessary to say that he did not succeed in carrying hismeasure, and that generations had yet to pass away before any real andcomprehensive effort wag made by the State to establish such a systemof popular education in these countries as had been known to Prussiaand other European nations almost for time out of mind. But Broughamhad at least started the question, and he never ceased to keep itmoving during his long life. Other reformers, too, as well asMackintosh and Brougham, were making their voices heard above, or atall events through, the din and clamor of the controversy between thefriends of the King and the champions of the Queen. Lord John Russellmay be said to have then begun his noble career as reformer of thesystem of parliamentary representation, and Mr. Lambton, afterwards tobe better known as Lord Durham, made more than one bold effort in thesame direction. 

[Sidenote: 1821--George the Fourth visits Ireland]

Russell and Lambton were both unsuccessful just then. The time had notyet come when the question of parliamentary reform was to break upministries, set the country aflame with agitation, and put athick-witted Sovereign to the necessity of choosing between submissionto the popular demand or facing the risk of revolution. But it mighthave been clear to reflective men that the days of unconditionalloyalty to the will of a monarch had nearly run their course inEngland, and that the demand for a reform in the criminal law, arelaxation of the repression of free speech, the establishment of somesystem of popular education, and the adoption of a reallyrepresentative principle in the construction of Parliament was destinedbefore long to prove irresistible. The case of the reformers wasemphasized by the widespread agricultural distress from which thecountry had long been suffering. The inevitable reaction had set in, too, after the spasmodic inflation of trade and commerce which hadaccompanied the long period of war. Even if the governing system ofEngland had been as wise and humane as it was {23} unenlightened andharsh, the condition of the country would, of itself, have favoredalmost any demand for reform. As the Government system actually was, only a national prosperity of universal and impossible sleekness couldhave kept the people of England much longer indifferent to thenecessity for reform in almost every department of the political andsocial system. 

Meanwhile the new King was paying his round of State visits to Ireland, to Hanover, and to Scotland. We have seen already how the royalprogress to Ireland was delayed by the inconvenient occurrence of theQueen's death. George soon, however, felt it proper to put away allaffectation of grief, and to pay his visit to Ireland. Great hopeswere entertained there for the beneficent results of the royal visit. George had been during his earlier days in political sympathy as wellas boon companionship with Fox and with Sheridan. Fox had always shownhimself a true friend to Ireland. The Irish national poet, ThomasMoore, had, in one of his songs, described the Banshee as wailing overthe grave of him "on whose burning tongue truth, peace, and freedomhung. " It was fondly believed in Ireland that the King was returningto the sympathies of his earlier days, and that his coming to theisland must bring blessings with it. Daniel O'Connell, the orator andtribune of the Irish people, appears to have been thoroughly impressedwith the same hopes and the same conviction, and he brought on himselfsome satirical lines from Byron in scorn of his credulity and hisconfidence. We shall soon have occasion to see what return O'Connellgot for his loyalty and his devotion. 

The last of the great Irish patriots of the past age, Henry Grattan, had been buried in Westminster Abbey the year before George's visit toIreland. It was well that so pure-minded and austere a lover of hiscountry should have been spared the necessity of taking any part in theceremonials of welcome which attended the arrival of the new Sovereignin Ireland. George undoubtedly received what seemed to be a thoroughlynational welcome, for it was fully believed all through the countrythat his visit was {24} to open a new era of peace, prosperity, andwell-merited loyalty to Ireland. King George threw himself thoroughlyinto the spirit of the occasion. He acted his part with admirableeffect. He was sympathetic, he was convivial, he was pathetic, he wasboisterous, exactly as the theatrical effect of the moment seemed tocall for the display of this or that emotion. In truth, the characterof George the Fourth never can be thoroughly understood unless we areable to see how much of the artistic, in a certain sense, there was inhis temperament. He had that peculiar gift which has lately come to becalled "artistic"--sincerely by some critics, satirically byothers--the gift which enables a man to throw his whole soul and spiritinto any part which the occasion calls on him to act. George wasalmost always playing a part, but it was his artistic temperament whichenabled him to believe that he actually felt at the moment the veryemotions which he tried to express. The favorite dramatic type of theconscious hypocrite and the deliberate self-recognized deceiver is muchless common in real life than it was believed to be at one period ofour literary history. We may take it for granted that George fullybelieved himself to be acting with perfect sincerity on most of theoccasions in his life when he had to utter eloquent sentimentsappropriate to the scene and the hour, or to fling himself into thedifferent humors of those whom, at different times, he was anxious toplease. 

[Sidenote: 1821--The King's reception in Ireland]

During his public performances--for thus they may properly becalled--in Ireland, George was sometimes grave, sometimes gay; shedtears in some places, indulged in touches of buffoonery in others; andwherever he went seemed to be giving to those around him only the mostsincere outpouring of his own humor and of his own heart. He appearsthoroughly to have enjoyed his popularity, and to have regardedhimself, for the hour, as the justly idolized hero of the land which hehad come to redeem and to bless. The harbor where he first landed inIreland, which was called Dunleary then, has been called Kingstown eversince, for its name was changed in honor of the monarch's {25} visit tohis Irish subjects. The tourist who has just arrived at Kingstown bythe steamer from Holyhead, and who takes his seat in the train forDublin, may see from the window of the railway carriage an obelisk, notvery imposing either in its height or in its sculptured form, whichseems a little out of place amid the ordinary accessories of a railwayand steamboat station. This is the monument which the gratefulauthorities of the Irish capital erected to commemorate the spot onwhich George the Fourth had set his august feet when he landed on theshores of Ireland. Except for the obelisk and the change of name therewas not much done to keep the memory of the King green in therecollections of the Irish people. 

On August 12 George landed at Dunleary, where anxious and enthusiasticcrowds had long been waiting to welcome him. He was received withuniversal cries of "The King! God bless him!" to which he replied bywaving the foraging-cap which he had been wearing, and crying out, "Godbless you all; I thank you from my heart. " Then he got into hiscarriage, and with a cavalcade of his attendants and a concourse ofadmiring followers he drove to the Viceregal Lodge in Phoenix Park, some eight or nine miles' distance. When he arrived at the Lodge healighted from the carriage and proclaimed to the crowd, "In addressingyou I conceive that I am addressing the nobility, gentry, and yeomen ofIreland. This is one of the happiest moments of my life. I feelpleased being the first of my family that set foot on Irish ground. Early in my life I loved Ireland, and I rejoice at being among mybeloved Irish friends. I always considered them such, and this dayproves to me I am beloved by them. " Then he went on to say that"circumstances of a delicate nature, " to which it was needless toadvert, had prevented him from visiting them earlier. Rank, station, and honor were nothing to him, but "to feel that I live in the heartsof my Irish subjects is to me the most exalted happiness. " He wound upwith the touching words, "I assure you, my dear friends, I have anIrish heart, and will this night give a proof of my affection towardsyou, as I am sure you will towards {26} me, by drinking your health ina bumper of whiskey punch. "

[Sidenote: 1821--The King and the Primacy of all Ireland]

This speech may be taken as the keynote of George's behavior throughoutthe entire visit. On the 17th of the month he made his grand stateentrance into Dublin in an open carriage drawn by eight horses, and hewore in his hat an enormous bunch of shamrocks, to which, by repeatedgestures, he kept incessantly calling the attention of the crowd. Morethan once as he gazed upon his admiring followers he was observed toshed tears. Afterwards he attended reviews, showed himself at thetheatre, was present at a great ball at the Mansion House, received anentertainment at Trinity College, and visited the residences of some ofthe Irish nobility. He talked to everybody, and sometimes in hisconversation showed much of the good sense and shrewdness which reallybelonged to him, but in his demeanor towards the general multitude healways enacted the part of an enthusiastic Sovereign whose enthusiasmsometimes showed itself in the form of what might have been called, ifhe were not a Sovereign, outrageous mountebankcry. On Monday, September 3, he quitted the shores of Ireland. Just before hisdeparture he received a deputation headed by Daniel O'Connell, who fellupon his knees, and in that attitude of loyal devotion presented hisMajesty with a laurel crown. The King was particularly gracious toO'Connell, shook him warmly by the hand, and accepted gratefully thegift offered to him, and, for the time, O'Connell divided the applauseof the crowd with the monarch. There was a renewed interchange of goodwishes and blessings, and then the King got into his barge to beconveyed to the steamer, and several loyal Irishmen, in theirenthusiasm, rushing to see the last of him, tumbled into the sea, andwith some difficulty rescued themselves, or were rescued, from drowning. 

This may be said to have ended the royal visit so far as history isconcerned, for, although the King's return to England was delayed forseveral days by contrary winds, he had nothing more to do with hisIrish subjects. Byron {27} wrote some satirical verses, which heprefaced with the words of Curran, the great Irish advocate and orator, describing Ireland like "a bastinadoed elephant kneeling to receive thepaltry rider, " and in which he made mockery of O'Connell's loyalty, paid a just and generous tribute to Grattan, and proclaimed sincerelyhis own love for Ireland and his thorough appreciation of her nationalcause. Then the royal visit was over, and the Irish people were soonto learn the value of the King's profession of sympathy with the wishesand the wants of his devoted Irish subjects. A curious illustration ofthe sincerity of these royal sentiments may be found in a letterwritten by the King not very long after to his Prime Minister, LordLiverpool, and marked "Most secret and confidential. " The letter hadreference to the appointment of a new occupant to the exalted office ofPrimate of All Ireland, and the King says, "I do not like, I cannotreconcile myself to have the Primacy of Ireland filled by an Irishman. "The King, when writing this letter, appears to have been in one of hisdeeply religious moods. "I am too far advanced in life, " he says, "notto give subjects of this description the most serious and attentiveconsideration. It is, alas! but too true that policy is too oftenobliged to interfere with our best intentions, but I do think where thehead of the Church is concerned, especially at such a moment, we oughtalone to be influenced by religious duty. Do not be surprised at thisscrupulous language, for I am quite sincere. " Very likely King Georgewas quite sincere in this momentary burst of religious emotion. It wasa part of his artistic nature to be able thus to fill himself with anyemotion which helped out the performance he had in hand; but it is atleast an odd comment on his recent emotions of love for the Irishpeople and absolute trust in their loyal devotion, that he could notreconcile himself to the idea of allowing any Irishman to occupy theposition of Primate of All Ireland. There was no question in this ofProtestant against Roman Catholic, and that Coronation Oath, which hadin the former reign proved so formidable an obstacle to the recognitionof any Catholic {28} claims, was in no wise brought into question. Nobody suggested that a Roman Catholic bishop should be made Primate ofAll Ireland, but it was strange that soon after George's reiteratedprofessions of love for his Irish people, and absolute trust in them, he could not reconcile himself to the idea of any Protestant bishop, however meritorious, being raised to such an office if the Protestantbishop happened to be an Irishman. 

[Sidenote: 1822--George the Fourth visits Scotland]

King George had to leave his capital again in order to visit otherlands where he had subjects to gratify with the pleasure of hispresence. He paid a visit to Hanover, and then to Scotland. George, it need hardly be said, was King of Hanover as well as of England, andhe thought it right that he should illumine the Hanoverians with thelight of his royal countenance. So he made his way to Hanover, takingBrussels in his course. He was accompanied thus far by the Duke ofWellington and other eminent persons, and he took the opportunity ofsurveying the field of Waterloo, and having all the striking points ofthe battle-field pointed out and explained to him by the Duke ofWellington. It would appear that the sovereign's personal survey ofthe field on which Napoleon's last great battle had been fought onlyserved to strengthen the impression on his mind that he had himselftaken a part, and even a distinguished and heroic part, in thatimmortal struggle. Here again the artistic nature asserted itself. Nodoubt it had long seemed to George that the heir to the English throneought to have taken a leading part in a battle which was aturning-point in the history of England, and by degrees he hadcontrived to persuade himself into the belief that he had actually donethe deeds required by the dramatic fitness of things, for it was wellknown that, at certain seasons of inspiration, he had described himselfas leading a desperate charge at Waterloo. Then he pursued his way toHanover, and he made much the same demonstrations of deep emotion asthose which had delighted the crowds at Dunleary and in Dublin. Againand again he protested his love and his devotion for his Hanoveriansubjects, again and again he accompanied {29} with voice and withgesture the singing of patriotic hymns, and on more than one occasionthe royal eyes were seen to be streaming over with sympathetic tears. 

All this, however, did not prevent him from sometimes making it knownto the more intimate companions of his journey that he was greatlybored by the Germans in general, and that he was particularly disgustedwith the Hanoverians. George had always some chosen favorite holdingimportant personal office in his courtly retinue, and to him, inmoments of relaxation, he occasionally let out his real feelings withregard to the ceremonial performances which he believed it his duty toget through. Then he visited Scotland, and was welcomed byenthusiastic crowds at Leith and in Edinburgh. While he was still onboard the royal vessel at Leith he was waited on by severaldistinguished representatives of Scottish feeling, and among others byno less a personage than Sir Walter Scott. George was very gracious inhis reception of the great novelist, and assured Sir Walter that he wasthe one man in Scotland whom he most wished to see. As had been thefashion during his visit to Ireland, there was a good deal ofspirit-drinking when the King came to testify his gratitude for theloyal welcome given to him by his Scottish subjects. His Majestypoured out with his own hand some cherry brandy into a glass, which hetendered to Sir Walter Scott, and Sir Walter not merely drank off theliquid thus commended to him, but asked permission to keep the glass asa perpetual relic of the royal giver and of the august occasion. Thackeray tells the story of the incident in his lecture on George theFourth, and we cannot do better than describe it in his own words:"When George the Fourth came to Edinburgh, " says Thackeray, "a betterman than he went on board the royal yacht to welcome the King to hiskingdom of Scotland, seized a goblet from which his Majesty had justdrunk, vowed it should remain forever as an heirloom in his family, clapped the precious glass in his pocket, and sat down on it and brokeit when he got home. " One can easily imagine how the sudden fate ofthe precious relic must have amused {30} and delighted the satiricalgenius of Thackeray, who could not quite forgive even Sir Walter Scottfor having lent himself to the fulsome adulation which it was thoughtproper to offer to George the Fourth on the occasion of his visit tohis kingdom of Scotland. 

Thackeray, indeed, seems to have been a little too hard upon George, and to have regarded him merely as a worthless profligate and buffoon, who never really felt any of the generous emotions which the sovereignfound it convenient to summon up at the appropriate seasons. Our ownstudy of the character leads us to the opinion already expressed, thatGeorge did actually believe for the time in the full sincerity of thefeelings he thought proper to call into action on the occasion of animportant ceremonial, and that the feelings were no less genuine at themoment than those which came on him when the performance was over, andhe had an opportunity of showing the new state of his mind in thereaction of weariness caused by the whole tiresome proceedings. Georgewent through the usual rounds of visits in Scotland, and put on anappearance of absolute enjoyment during the public entertainments andpopular acclamations which he had brought upon himself. He displayedhimself frequently in a suit of Stuart tartan when he did not arrayhimself in his costume as a field-marshal. We read that during thesinging of royal songs he not only beat time to the chorus, butactually accompanied it with his voice. His parting words when he wasleaving the shores of Scotland were the deep-toned and thrillingbenediction, "God bless you all!" The loyal chroniclers of the timeproclaimed that the visit to Scotland was a perfect success, and if theloyal chroniclers at the time were not in a position to know, how canwe of a later date, who had not the advantage of being present at thescene, or even of being alive at the time, pretend to dispute theaccuracy of their estimate?

{31}

CHAPTER LXV. 

GEORGE CANNING. 

[Sidenote: 1720-87--Canning and the King]

[Transcriber's note: the above dates are what were in the book, but1820-37 would seem more logical. ]

We have seen how the course of the proceedings taken against the Queendeprived the Liverpool Ministry of the services of its most brilliantmember, George Canning. Canning had made up his mind from the beginningthat he could not appear as one of the Queen's accusers, although he hadconsented, as a compromise, to the omission of her name from the RoyalLiturgy. He had consented to this compromise because, although he didnot believe in the worst of the charges against the Queen, he could nothelp admitting that there was much in her conduct which rendered herunsuitable as the reigning consort of the King; and at the time he didnot understand that the King's disapproval of her actions was to take theform of a prosecution and a demand for divorce. He had applied to theKing for leave to resign his office in the Ministry, and had only beeninduced to remain on the understanding that he was not expected to takeany part in the public proceedings against the unhappy Caroline. When, however, it became evident that the whole question would be raised in theHouse of Commons, and that he must either give a silent assent to thecourse taken by the King's advisers or publicly condemn it there, he feltit his duty to send in his resignation of his place in the Ministry andto stand by his resolve. Canning withdrew from office and became, forthe time, merely a private member of the House of Commons. King Georgegot it into his mind that his former minister had deserted his cause atan anxious and critical moment, and the King, who was flighty enough inmost of his purposes, seldom forgot what he regarded as an injury. Henever forgave Canning, {32} although the time was now coming when hardlyany choice was left him but to take Canning back into his service again, and under conditions that gave Canning a greater influence over publicaffairs than he had ever had before. 

[Sidenote: 1720-87--The early life of Canning]

[Transcriber's note: see the note on page 31. ]

After the group of illustrious men, which included the elder and theyounger Pitt, Fox, Burke, and Sheridan, had disappeared from Englishpublic life, Canning was through the whole of his career the greatestParliamentary orator and leader in England. Up to the time at which wehave now arrived, he had not yet won his highest reputation as astatesman. He was born under conditions which might have been depressingand disheartening to one of different mould. His father was a man of oldfamily and well connected, who had in his earlier years developed sometaste for literature, and was regarded by most of his relatives as onewho merely brought discredit on his kindred by his mean ambition todevote himself to the profession of letters. The elder Canning does notseem, however, to have had a capacity for making a real success in thatway, and, indeed, it would appear as if he had too much of the oftenfatal gift of the amateur in his composition to allow him to concentratehis energies on any one pursuit. He sought for success in various fieldsand never found it, and he died soon after his son, George Canning, wasborn. The mother of the future statesman was thus left a widow while shewas still young, and, as she had great beauty and believed that she had avocation for the stage, she did her best to make a living for herself andher child by becoming a professional actress. She was not much of anactress, however, and, being unable to make any mark in London, shepassed for a time into the provinces, and at last married an actor anddisappeared from historical notice. 

Meanwhile, the education of George Canning the son had been provided forby his uncle, a wealthy merchant and banker, Stratford Canning, whose sonwas afterwards famous as Lord Stratford de Redcliffe, the "great Elchi"of Kinglake. This uncle seemed anxious to make reparation for the mannerin which his dead brother had been {33} treated by the family in general. The young Canning was sent to Eton and to Oxford, and began to study forthe bar, but he displayed such distinct talents for literature and forpolitics that there seemed little likelihood of his devoting himself tothe business of law. He soon became known at Oxford as a charming poet, a keen and brilliant satirist, and a public speaker endowed with a voiceof marvellous intonation and an exquisite choice of words. He made theacquaintance of Sheridan and of Burke; by Burke he was introduced toPitt, and by Sheridan to Fox, and it is believed to have been on thesuggestion of Pitt that he resolved to devote himself to a Parliamentarycareer. He married a woman who had a large fortune, and he obtained aseat in the House of Commons. In that House he remained silent for awhole session after his election, and devoted himself to a close study ofthe rules, the usages, and the manners of the representative chamber. Inthose far-off days it was considered becoming on the part of a youngmember of the House to observe a modest silence for a great part of hisfirst session, and to make himself familiar with the assembly before heventured on any public display of his eloquence. The time had not yetcome when it was considered humanly possible for a member of Parliamentto make his first speech on the very day of his first introduction to theHouse of Commons. 

Canning's first speech was a distinct success. He was thought by somecritics to have imitated too closely the magnificent rhetorical style ofBurke, but the exquisite voice and the noble elocution of Canning wereall his own and certainly could not have been improved by any imitationof the voice and manner of Burke. Many of Canning's friends took it forgranted that the young member would ally himself with the WhigOpposition, but Canning at once presented himself as the devoted followerof Pitt. Canning was afterwards the foremost among the creators of the_Anti-Jacobin_, a famous satirical periodical set up to throw ridicule onthe principles and sentiments of the French Revolution, and of all thosewho encouraged its levelling theories or who aped its exalted professionsof {34} humanity and of universal brotherhood. Canning made his wayrapidly in public life, and became an Under-Secretary of State threeyears after his election to the House of Commons. His next appointmentwas that of Treasurer to the Navy, and in 1807 he became Secretary ofState for Foreign Affairs. A quarrel began between him and LordCastlereagh, one of his colleagues, arising out of the unfortunateWalcheren expedition, and the quarrel resulted in a duel, after thefashion of the day, in which Canning received a wound. 

[Sidenote: 1822--Canning and the governorship of India]

The policy of Castlereagh made as strong a contrast with the policy ofCanning as even the contrast which was brought under the notice of everylistener by the Parliamentary speeches of the two men. Canning wasmaster of a polished eloquence which, at the time, had no rival in eitherHouse of Parliament. Castlereagh was one of the most singular andstriking illustrations of the fact that a man may sometimes become apower in the House of Commons without the slightest gift of eloquence. Canning was a master of phrase, tone, and gesture. Castlereagh'slanguage was commonplace, uncouth, and sometimes even ridiculous, and ithappened only too often that in his anxiety to get his words out hebecame positively inarticulate. His policy represented the ideas of theHoly Alliance in their narrowest and most reactionary meaning; whileCanning, although entirely opposed to the principles of mere revolution, had an utter contempt for the notion that a conclave of Europeansovereigns could lay down limits and laws for the growth and thegovernment of all the European nationalities. The policy of Castlereaghhas long since ceased to have any believers even among the advisers ofautocratic sovereigns, while the policy of Canning is the recognizedcreed of statesmanship all over the civilized world. 

Canning resigned his office as Foreign Secretary in 1809, and was for ashort time sent on a special embassy to the Court of Lisbon. Then hebecame President of the Board of Control, which may be said to havedivided at that time the management of our Indian possessions with theEast {35} India Company, and he held this important office for about fouryears. Meanwhile he had resigned his seat for Newport, in the Isle ofWight, and had been elected as representative of the great and growingport of Liverpool in the House of Commons. The visitor to Liverpool atthe present day can hardly go far through the great city without meetingsome memorial of the veneration in which the illustrious name of Canningis held by the dwellers on the Mersey. A vacancy arose in the office ofGovernor-General of India, and the directors of the East India Companyinvited Canning to accept the splendid and commanding position. Canningat once made up his mind to close with the offer. The position would inmany ways have suited his genius, his deep interest in the government ofstates, and the freshness of his ideas on all subjects connected with thegrowth of the Empire. Moreover, he knew that he had offended the King, and that George was not a man likely to forgive such an offence, and hethought he had reason to believe that, for the present at least, therewas not much prospect for him of advancement in English political life. Many of his friends endeavored to persuade him against accepting aposition which would make him an exile from England at a time whenEngland's interests on the European continent required just such a geniusas his to guide her foreign policy, and they felt sure that the timecould not be far distant when he must be invited to resume his formerplace in the Administration. Canning, however, held to his purpose, accepted the offer of the East India Company, and went to Liverpool inorder to take farewell of his constituency before setting out on hisvoyage to the scene of his new duties. 

He stayed while in Liverpool at Seaforth House, the residence of Mr. JohnGladstone, one of the merchant princes of Liverpool, whose son WilliamEwart Gladstone was afterwards to make the name of the family famous inhistory. During his stay at Seaforth House, Canning used to spend muchof his time gazing out upon the sea, while the little boy William EwartGladstone played on the lawn near him. It was here that Canning heardthe news {36} which led to an entire change in his purpose, and openedthe way to his greatest success. His late colleague, his late rival, Castlereagh, was dead--had died by his own hand. Castlereagh had latelysucceeded to his father's title, and had become Marquis of Londonderry;but as the marquisate was only an Irish peerage, he could still sit inthe House of Commons as the chosen representative of an Englishconstituency. His mind had seemed, for some time, to be darkened bytroubles of which he gave no account to his friends, and he suddenlycommitted suicide. There are many conjectures and suggested explanationsas to the immediate cause of the act, but all we know for certain is thatthe strong mind seemed suddenly to give way, and that Castlereagh couldendure life no longer. Seldom, indeed, has the death of a public man inmodern times been received with any such demonstrations as those which inmany places followed the news that Castlereagh had done himself to death. In every community all over the country, and indeed all over Europe andthe civilized world, there were those who proclaimed that the death ofsuch a man was a positive blessing to the human race. Wherever men werestruggling against despotism and suffering from tyranny, there were thosewho felt and who declared that the departure of Castlereagh from thisworld was a benefit to humanity at large. 

[Sidenote: 1822--Canning as Foreign Secretary]

Yet the man himself had not a cruel or an ignoble nature. He had throughall his life friends who loved him, and whose love his private characterand conduct had well deserved. But he had made himself the Englishrepresentative of the policy of the Holy Alliance at a time when everylover of liberty, and every believer in the development of freeinstitutions and the beneficent results of their working, must have feltthat even the excesses of the French Revolution gave no excuse for thedeliberate setting-up of the doctrine of combined despotism. Men ofliberal opinions were in an especially angry mood just then becauseEngland seemed to have gone in deliberately for the policy whichauthorized the "crowned conspirators, " as Sydney Smith called them, toimpose their edicts {37} on the whole continent of Europe. Thiscondition of things may help to explain the cry of rejoicing with whichthe news of Castlereagh's suicide was received in so many places. TheLondon crowd who followed the funeral procession to Westminster Abbeygreeted the removal of the coffin with yells of execration. Byron wroteverses of savage bitterness about the dead man and his deed ofself-murder--wrote some verses which no English publisher now would putinto print. 

The death of Castlereagh became a turning-point in the career of Canning. The whole voice of Liberal public opinion at once proclaimed that Canningwas the only man left in the country who was capable of redeemingEngland's foreign policy from the discredit and disgrace brought upon itby Castlereagh's Administration. Even Lord Liverpool himself soon cameto see that there was no other course left to him than to recommend theKing to offer to Canning the place of Foreign Secretary. The King atfirst fought hard against the advice of his Prime Minister. The letterswhich passed between him and Lord Liverpool are a curiosity in their way. George had evidently persuaded himself that Canning was a monster ofingratitude, who had committed a positively unpardonable offence againsthis lord and master. Indeed, it was only by playing upon the King'spersonal vanity that Lord Liverpool at last brought him to accept thewholesome advice tendered to him. Lord Liverpool reminded George againand again that one of the noblest of a monarch's prerogatives was hispower to grant forgiveness to any repentant sinner. George was probablybeginning to be weary of the discussion, and perhaps had naturalshrewdness enough to see that it could only end in one way. He thereforeseemed to be taken by the appeal made to his generosity for pardon to apenitent offender, and he consented to make approaches to Canning withregard to the office of Foreign Secretary. At first, however, the Kingmade so ostentatious a profession of his magnanimous desire to pardon theremorseful wrong-doer that Canning could not bring himself to accept theabject position which {38} his sovereign was arranging for him. Hetherefore declined at first to take any office under such conditions, andthe King had to come down from his high horse and treat with his subjectin less arrogant fashion. The King, at last, so far modified hislanguage as to leave the prerogative of mercy out of the question, andCanning, by the advice of all his friends and supporters, consented tobecome once more a member of the Administration and to undertake theduties of Foreign Secretary. 

[Sidenote: 1822-27--Canning's fitness for Foreign Minister]

This, we have said, was the turning-point in the career of Canning. Itwas also a turning-point in the modern history of England. The violenceof the reaction against the principles of the French Revolution had spentitself, and the public mind of this country was beginning to see that theturbulence of democracy was not likely to be safely dealt with by thesetting-up of despotism. Canning himself was a living illustration ofthe manner in which many great intellects had been affected by the courseof events between the fall of Napoleon and the death of Castlereagh. Canning in his earlier days was in sympathy with the theories anddoctrines of popular liberty, and we have seen that up to the time of hisactually entering Parliament it was generally believed he would rankhimself with the Whig Opposition. But, like many other men who lovedliberty too, he had been alarmed by the aggressive policy of Napoleon, and he believed that the position of England was best guaranteed by thelater policy of Pitt. Then came the Congress of Vienna, and thedeliberate attempt to reconstruct the map of continental Europe, and todecree the destinies of nations according to the despotic principles ofthe Holy Alliance. 

Canning soon recognized the fact, obvious enough, one might have thought, even to a man of intellect far lower than that of Canning, that thetraditions, the instincts, and the feelings of a people must count forsomething in the form and manner of their government, and that there areforces at work in the hearts and minds of peoples which can no more begoverned by imperial and royal decrees than can the forces of physicalnature itself. He {39} had unconsciously anticipated in his own mindthat doctrine of nationalities which afterwards came to play so momentousand so clearly recognized a part in the politics of the world. He sawhow the policy of Castlereagh had made England the recognized ally of allthe old-world theories of divine right and unconditional loyalty, and hadmade her a fellow-worker with the sovereigns of the Holy Alliance for therestoration of tyranny all over the European continent. He understoodthe nature and the meaning of the new forces which were coming up inpolitical life; he saw that the French Revolution was not destined to endin the mere restoration of mediaeval despotism. He saw that the AmericanRevolution had opened a new chapter in the history of the modern world, and that no man, whether he called himself Tory or Whig, was fit to beintrusted with the administration of England's foreign policy who had notlearned the lessons taught by the closing years of the eighteenth and theopening years of the nineteenth century. Canning had much of thatimaginative faculty without which there can hardly be any realstatesmanship. Even his gift of humor helped him in this way. He wasable to understand the feelings, the tempers, and the conditions of menwith whom he had little opportunity of personal contact. He could bringhimself into sympathy with the aspirations of peoples who were whollyforeign in race to him, and who would have been mere foreigners andnothing else in the eyes of many of his political colleagues. 

If Lord Londonderry had lived and had continued, as no doubt he wouldhave done, to hold the Foreign Office, he would have been England'srepresentative at the Congress of Verona. The new chances opened by hisdeath inspired that demand for the services of Canning which compelledthe King at last to yield and invite Canning back to his old place. TheCongress of Verona was in fact a reassembling of the Holy Alliance forthe purpose of taking once more into consideration the disturbed state ofEurope, and laying down once more the lines of the only policy which, according to the judgment of the despotic {40} sovereigns and theirministers, could restore peace to the Continent. The disturbances arosesimply from the fact that some of the European populations were rising upagainst the policy of the Holy Alliance, and were agitating for theprinciples of constitutional government. The immediate and ostensibleobject for the summoning of the Congress was the fact that Greece hadbeen trying to throw off the yoke of Turkey, and that the leading membersof the Holy Alliance believed it was their business and their right tosay what was to be done with Greece, and whether or not it was for theirconvenience that she should be held in perpetual bondage. 

[Sidenote: 1822-27--England and the Congress of Verona]

But there were troubles also in Spain, because the Spanish sovereign hadbeen giving way to the desire of his people for a system ofconstitutional government and for the recognition of the principle that apeople has something to do with the making as well as with the obeying oflaws. The restored Bourbon Government in France declared that it sawdangers to its own rights and its own security in these concessions topopular demand, made in a country which was only divided from Frenchterritory by the barrier of the Pyrenees. It was intimated in theclearest manner that the Bourbon Government of France would be prepared, if necessary, to undertake armed intervention in the affairs of Spain inorder to prevent the Spaniards from thus setting a bad example to thesubjects of the Bourbon dynasty. Then the condition of Poland was givingsome alarm to the despotic monarchs of the Continent everywhere; for, ifPoland were to rise and were allowed to assert its liberty, who couldtell on what soil, sacred to despotism, other rebellious movements mightnot also break out. Therefore, the monarchs of the Holy Alliance weremuch perturbed, and came to the conclusion that, as the Congress ofVienna had not succeeded in enforcing all its edicts, the only wise thingwould be to call together another Congress, to be held this time atVerona, and there go over all the work again with greater vigor anddetermination. 

Now it was unavoidable that England should be invited {41} to take partin this Congress, seeing that, but for the assistance given by England, there would never have been a chance for even the Congress of Vienna tomake any attempt at the regulation of Europe. Besides, it was well knownthat Lord Londonderry had been a main instrument in the formation andexecution of the plans laid down by the Congress of Vienna, and althoughEngland, on that occasion, had not been able to go quite as far as herallies would have wished her to accompany them, yet it was not thoughtpossible to leave England without an invitation to be represented at theCongress of Verona. On the death of Lord Londonderry it was resolved bythe English Government to send the Duke of Wellington to Verona. TheDuke had never professed any particular ideas of his own with regard toforeign policy, but he was the most loyal of men in obeying theinstructions of those who were properly authorized to direct hismovements, and in whom he could place his confidence. When Canningconsented to accept office the Duke at once put himself intocommunication with the new Foreign Secretary, and wrote to him from Parisinforming Canning of his belief that the Spanish question would bebrought, in some shape or other, under the consideration of the Congress, and asking Canning for instructions as to the course which he ought toadopt. Canning despatched a reply to the Duke, one passage of which maybe regarded as a full illustration of the new principle which he haddetermined to establish in England's foreign policy. The words of thegreat statesman cannot be read with too close an attention. Canningdeclares that, "If there be a determined project to interfere by force orby menace in the present struggle in Spain, so convinced are hisMajesty's Government of the uselessness and danger of any suchinterference, so objectionable does it appear to them in principle aswell as in practical execution, that when the necessity arises--or, Iwould rather say, when the opportunity offers--I am to instruct yourGrace at once frankly and peremptorily to declare that to any suchinterference, come what may, his Majesty will not be a party. "

{42}

[Sidenote: 1822-27--Canning and the Bourbons]

The Duke of Wellington faithfully obeyed the instructions which had beengiven to him. He made it clear to the Congress of Verona that Englandwould not sanction any project for the interference of foreign sovereignswith the domestic affairs of Spain. When the Duke found that hisarguments and his remonstrances were of no avail, he withdrew from theCongress altogether and left the members of the Holy Alliance to take onthemselves the full responsibility of their own policy. Now it would behardly possible to overrate the importance of the step thus taken byEngland at a great crisis in the public affairs of Europe. The reign ofGeorge the Fourth would be memorable in history if it had beenconsecrated by nothing but this event. The utter disruption between theold state policy and the new was proclaimed by the instructions whichCanning sent to the Duke of Wellington, and which were faithfully carriedout by the Duke. No English Government has, in later days, ventured toprofess openly any other foreign policy than that announced by Canning. Other ministers in later times may have attempted, now and then, toswerve from it in this direction and in that, and to cover their evasionof it by specious pleas, but the new doctrine set up by Canning has neversince his time found avowed apostates among English statesmen. It wouldhave been well if such a principle could have inspired the foreign policyof England in the days when the French Revolution broke out, and ifEngland had then proclaimed that she would be no party to any attemptmade by foreign States to prevent the people of France from settlingtheir own systems of government for themselves. Europe might have beensaved a series of disastrous wars. France might have been relieved fromcounter-revolutions, seasons of anarchy, and seasons of militarydespotism. England might long have had friendly neighbors where even yetshe has perhaps only concealed enemies. 

The designs of the Holy Alliance soon made themselves manifest. TheFrench Government had brought so much pressure to bear on the feeble Kingof Spain that he revoked the Constitution which, at a better moment, hehad {43} granted to his people. There was an attempt at revolution inSpain, and the attempt was put down by the strong hand with theassistance of France, and the leading rebels were at once conducted tothe scaffold. Portugal still kept those free institutions which Englandhad enabled her to preserve, and still retained her sympathy withfreedom. Canning soon saw that a part of the policy of the FrenchGovernment was to bring Portugal also into subjection, and against thisdanger he provided by a bold announcement of policy. He declared in theHouse of Commons that if Portugal were, of her own accord, to engageherself in a war with France, the English Government would not feel boundto take any active part in the struggle, but that if the King of Spainwere to accept or call in the assistance of the King of France tosuppress Portugal, the Government of England would put its armies intothe field to maintain its ancient ally. Then there arose a greatquestion concerning the Spanish colonies and possessions across theAtlantic. The policy of France was to enable Spain to reconquer some ofher American colonies which had long been withdrawing themselves fromtheir condition of subjection, and the scheme of French statesmenevidently was that Spain would hand over some of her American possessionsas a tribute of gratitude to France for the services she had rendered tothe cause of absolutism in Spain. 

On this question, too, Canning announced to the House of Commons adetermination on the part of the English Government which put aneffectual stop to this audacious policy. Canning declared that, althoughSpain had long since lost any real control over her transatlanticcolonies, yet if she were to attempt their actual reconquest for herselfEngland, however little in sympathy with such a purpose, might not feelthat it was any part of her business to interfere by force of arms. Buthe went on to tell the House that, if Spain should claim the right tohand over any of those colonies to France as a part of the policyarranged between France and Spain, the English Government would thenintervene directly and at once on behalf {44} of the Spanish-Americancolonies. This was the course of action which Canning described to theHouse of Commons in an immortal phrase when he told the House "that hehad called in the New World to redress the balance of the Old. " No wordsemployed by an English minister during the last century have been moreoften quoted, and none have ever more thoroughly justified themselves inhistory. The schemes of the French and the Spanish Bourbons wereblighted in the bud by Canning's memorable declaration. 

[Sidenote: 1822-27--The Monroe Doctrine]

Canning had indeed called in the New World to redress the balance of theOld in a sense more complete than the accepted meaning of his words, atthe time, appeared to signify. He had secured for his policy the moralco-operation of the New World's greatest power--the Republic of theUnited States. It was on the inspiration of Canning that the Presidentof the United States embodied in a message to Congress that declarationof principle which has ever since been known as the Monroe doctrine. President Monroe, who knew well that he was proclaiming no doctrine whichhis influence and his authority with his country would not enable him tocarry out, made known to Congress that it was his intention to warnEuropean sovereigns against the danger of setting up their systems in anypart of the New World. The United States, according to PresidentMonroe's declaration, had no idea of interfering with existing systems, but if European sovereigns were to set up governments of their own on anyother part of the American continents and against the wishes of thepopulations, the United States must regard any such attempt as a menaceand a danger to the American Republic. This is in substance the meaningof that Monroe doctrine which has often been criticised unfairly orignorantly on this side of the Atlantic, and its proclamation wasundoubtedly due, at the time, to the advice which came from GeorgeCanning. President Monroe never meant to say that the Government of theUnited States had any idea of interfering with British North America orwith the Empire of Brazil. The {45} Canadian provinces of Great Britainwere, of course, perfectly free to remain a loyal part of the BritishEmpire so long as it suited the interests and the inclinations of theCanadians. If the people of Brazil chose to be governed by an emperor, the United States Government did not assert any right to interfere withtheir choice. But what the Monroe doctrine did declare was that if anyforeign sovereigns attempted to bring liberated American colonies againunder their sway, or to set up by force new subject colonies on Americanshores against the wishes of the populations concerned, the United Statesmust regard such action as a menace and a danger to the AmericanRepublic, and must not be expected to look quietly on without any attemptat intervention. This was, in the truest sense, the announcement of apolicy of peace, for it frankly made known to the despotic rulers of theOld World what their risk must be if they ventured on the futileexperiment of setting up despotic states on the shores of the New World. 

It would have been well indeed if European monarchs at a later day hadalways remembered the warning and rightly estimated its weight. It wouldhave been well for Louis Napoleon if at the zenith of his imperialsuccess he had studied that message of President Monroe and properlyinterpreted its meaning. Such a course would have prevented him frommaking his ill-starred attempt to set up a Mexican Empire by the force ofFrench arms on the ruins of a subjugated Mexican Republic. It would havesaved him from defeat and disaster, and would have saved the unhappy, ill-advised, and gallant Maximilian, his puppet emperor, from a tragicfate. The attempt to retrieve the disgrace of his enforced withdrawalfrom Mexico led Louis Napoleon into that policy of the desperategambler's last throw which ended in the occupation of Paris and the fallof the Second Empire. 

Meanwhile the policy of Canning had accomplished its purpose. TheCongress of Verona had been an idle piece of business, the sovereigns ofthe Holy Alliance had found that their day was done, and the New Worldhad been successfully called in to redress the balance of the Old. 

{46}

CHAPTER LXVI. 

THE CLOSE OF CANNING'S CAREER. 

[Sidenote: 1820-30--Sir William Knighton]

The King was at first disposed to show some alarm at the bold policy ofCanning. George, to do him justice, was in general a lover of peace, and for a while he did not see how the declarations of his ForeignMinister could lead to anything less than an outbreak of war on thepart of the Continental sovereigns, who thus seemed to be challenged toassert what they believed to be their rights. His doubt and dread tookthe form of more or less concealed grumblings against Canning, andefforts to induce his other ministers to make a common cause with himagainst the adventurous Foreign Minister. Canning, however, saw thatthe crisis which he had to face was one which makes a bold and resolutepolicy, frankly avowed on the part of a strong Government, the best orthe only means of securing peace. He was able, after a while, toimpress his royal master with the justice of his belief, and the Kinggraciously received the envoy accredited to his Court on behalf of oneof the new American Republics. Then the rest of the work went onsmoothly, the lines of the new policy were laid down, and thesovereigns of the Holy Alliance did not venture to transgress them. 

The King was, at all times, much in the habit of attempting to makeencroachments on the proper domain of any minister who had the courageand the strength to oppose him, and Canning had to endure a good dealof interference of this kind. The Foreign Minister patiently andsteadfastly held his own, and George did not see his way to come to anyopen rupture. The King found it hard to make up his mind to settledown to the part of a purely constitutional sovereign. Perhaps thepart had not yet {47} been clearly enough evolved from the conditionsof the time, and George, even when he had the best intentions, wasalways lapsing back into the way of his predecessors. George was agreat letter-writer. To adopt a modern phrase, he "fancied himself" asa composer of State papers. It seems marvellous now that a man so lazyby nature should have found the time to pen so many documents of thekind. Perhaps even in the most commonplace ways of life we are oftencompelled to wonder at the amount of work a man habitually lazy cansometimes contrive to cram into his day's doings. George was now asmuch addicted to indolence, to mere amusement, and to pleasures as hehad been during earlier seasons of his career. He was just as fond ofthe society of his intimates and of all the pastimes and socialenjoyments in which he and they delighted. He had not reformed any ofhis habits, and his growing years did not bring him any steady resolveto apply himself to the actual business of his position. Yet he seemedto be frequently inspired by fitful desires to display himself as thegenuine ruler of a State and to let his ministers know they must notattempt to do without him. 

One of the King's prime favorites was Sir William Knighton, who hadbegun by being a physician, had made his way into Court circles, andbecome the private and confidential adviser of the King. Sir WilliamKnighton had been appointed to the office of Keeper of the Royal Purse, and in that capacity he had rendered much service to George byendeavoring with skill and pertinacity to keep income and expenditureon something more nearly approaching to a balance than had been the wayin former days. Knighton's was not exactly a State office and it gavehim no position among ministers, but the King constantly used him as ago-between when he desired to have private dealings with any of hisrecognized advisers, and Knighton was the recipient of his mostconfidential communications. From the letters and memoranda whichbelong to this time we are enabled to learn much of the real feelingsof King George towards some of his ministers, and to {48} understandthe difficulties with which Canning had to deal while endeavoring tomake his enlightened policy the accepted and recognized policy ofEngland. 

[Sidenote: 1822-27--The war of Greek independence]

The condition of Greece began to be a serious trouble to the statesmenof Europe. Greece was under the sway of the Sultan of Turkey, and itspeople may fairly be described as in a state of chronic insurrection. The Greeks, even in their lowest degree of national decadence, were fartoo intelligent, too ready-witted, and too persevering ever to becomethe mere slaves of an Ottoman ruler. There was somethinginextinguishable in the national life of the country, and it seemed asif no pressure of tyranny, no amount of humiliation, could make theGreeks forget the history of their glorious days and the deeds of theirancestry, or compel them to stifle, even for a season, their hopes ofnational independence. A great struggle broke out against the Ottomanrule, and it roused the passionate sympathy of the lovers of freedomall over the world. Byron threw his whole soul into the cause, andstirred the hearts of his countrymen by his appeals on behalf of theGreek struggle for independence. Numbers of brave Englishmen gladlyrisked their lives to help the Greeks. Lord Cochrane, who wasafterwards described as the last of the English sea-kings, rushed overto Greece to give his genius and his daring to the help of the Greeksin their struggle against overwhelming odds. A speech of Lord JohnRussell's which he delivered in the House of Commons within the hearingof living men described with admirable effect the enthusiasm which wasaroused in England for the cause of Greece and the efforts which wereopenly made even by members of the ruling class to raise money and tosend out soldiers and sailors to enable the Greeks to hold their ownagainst the Ottoman enemy. Many Englishmen bearing historic namesjoined with Byron and Cochrane in giving their personal help to thestruggling Greeks, and indeed from every civilized country in the worldsuch volunteers poured in to stand by Bozzaris and Kanaris in theirdesperate fight for the rescue of Greece. The odds, however, wereheavily against the Greeks. Their {49} supply of arms, ammunition, andgeneral commissariat for the field was poor and inadequate, and theywere sadly wanting in drill and organization. Splendid feats ofbravery were displayed on land and on sea, but it seemed only toocertain that if the Greeks were left to their own resources, or even ifthey were not sustained by the open support of some great foreignState, the Ottoman Power must triumph before long. 

The best part of the war on the side of Turkey was carried on byIbrahim Pasha, the adopted son of Mehemet Ali, who ruled over Egypt asa vassal sovereign to the Sultan of Turkey. Ibrahim Pasha had greatmilitary capacity; he was full of energy, resource, and perseverance, and the Turkish Sultan could not have had a better man to undertake thetask of conducting the campaign. The sympathies of Russia wentstrongly with the Greeks, or perhaps it might be more correct to saythat the policy of Russia was directed against the Turks. At thattime, as in later days, the public opinion of Western Europe was notalways certain whether the movements of Russian statesmanship weregoverned more by the desire to strengthen Greece or by the desire toweaken Turkey. Canning had always been a sympathizer with the cause ofGreece. In his early days his sympathy had taken poetic form, and nowat last it had an opportunity of assuming a more practical shape. Hewould have wished well to any effort made by Russia for theemancipation of Greece, but he feared that if the effort were to beleft to Russia alone the result might be a great European war, and hispolicy was above all things a policy of peace. His idea was to form analliance which should exercise so commanding an influence as to renderany prolonged resistance impossible. He succeeded in impressing hisideas and his arguments so effectively upon the Governments of Franceand Russia as to induce them to enter into a treaty with England forthe avowed purpose of watching events in Eastern Europe, endeavoring tokeep the conduct of the war within the limits of humanity, and bringingit to as early a close as possible. 

{50}

[Sidenote: 1824--Death of Lord Byron]

The combined fleets of the three Powers were sent into theMediterranean for the purpose of watching the movements of the Turkishand Egyptian fleets, which were threatening the shores of Greece. SirEdward Codrington, the British Admiral, was in command of theexpedition, and his instructions enjoined on him, in the usual officialway, the necessity of caution and circumspection in all his movements. Something happened which brought the policy of caution to a speedy end. A report, which found some credit at the time, gave out that Sir EdwardCodrington had received an unofficial hint that there was no necessityfor carrying caution too far; but, however the event may have beenbrought about, it is certain that a collision did take place betweenthe allied fleets and those which were championing the authority of theSultan, and the result was that the Turkish and Egyptian war vesselswere destroyed. This was the battle of Navarino, which was afterwardsdescribed in the language of British authority as "an untoward event. "Untoward, in fact, it was not, for the purposes which Canning had inview, because it put an end to all the resistance of the Ottoman Power, and the independence of Greece as a self-governing nation wasestablished, and recognized. We have been somewhat anticipating eventsin order not to break up the story of the Greek struggle forindependence, but it has to be said that Canning did not live to seethe success of his own policy. Before the battle of Navarino had beenfought, the career of the great statesman had come to an end. We shallhave to retrace our steps, for there is much still left untold in thestory of Canning's career. 

That struggle for Greek independence will always be remembered in thehistory of English literature. It cost England the life of one of hergreatest modern poets. Lord Byron died of fever in the swamps ofMissolonghi on April 19, 1824, not long after he had left the GreekIslands to conduct his part of the campaign on the mainland of Greece. It was not his good fortune to die sword in hand fighting on thebattle-field for the cause which he loved so well. It was not his goodfortune even to have had a {51} chance of doing much of a soldier'swork in that cause. There can be no doubt that if he had been gracedwith opportunity he would have shown that he had a leader's capacity aswell as a soldier's courage--that, as Fortinbras says of Hamlet, "Hewas likely had he been put on to have proved most royally. " He hadonly completed his thirty-sixth year shortly before his death, and thepoem in which he commemorated his birthday can never be read withoutfeelings of genuine emotion. His death created a profound sensation, not only in England, but all through the civilized world. Not longsince we were all favored with an opportunity of hearing how the boy, afterwards to be famous as Alfred Tennyson, was thrilled by the news ofByron's death, and how it seemed to him to be like the ending of theworld. The passion of partisanship for and against Byron as a poet andas a man has long since died away, and indeed it might perhaps be saidthat the reaction which, for a time, followed the outburst of his famehas spent itself as well. It may be taken now as the common judgmentof the world that Byron was one of the great forces of modern poetry, and that his political sympathies sometimes had, as well as his poeticefforts, the inspiration of genius to guide them. 

We must now return to the career of Canning as we left it at the timewhen he had made his great declaration of policy with regard to therevolted colonies of Spain on the American shores, and when he was asyet engaged in shaping the policy which was destined to end in theemancipation of Greece. There were questions of home government comingmore and more to the front every day, which much disturbed the mind ofKing George, and made the business of keeping an Administrationtogether more and more difficult for his advisers. The financialpolicy of the country had been gradually undergoing a change, owing tothe foresight and enlightenment of some few among English statesmen. Lord Liverpool, to do him justice, was always a man of somewhatadvanced views on questions of finance, although an inveterate Tory inall that related to popular representation and freedom of speech. Canning and his {52} friend William Huskisson were leading the way inthe movement towards an enlightened financial system. Huskisson haddone more than any other man, with the exception of Canning himself, toimprove the systems of taxation. What may perhaps be called thescientific principle in the raising of revenue was only in process ofdevelopment, and to many statesmen no better idea of increasingsupplies seemed to have occurred than the simple plan of increasing therate of custom or excise duty on the first article of generalconsumption which came under notice. Huskisson represented the newideas, and put them into action whenever he was allowed a fair chanceof making such an experiment. He had often held administrative office, had been Secretary of the Treasury, President of the Board of Trade, and Secretary for the Colonies, and had accomplished the removal ofmany restrictions on the commercial dealings of the colonies withforeign countries and the reduction of many antiquated and embarrassingimport duties. 

[Sidenote: 1770-1830--Daniel O'Connell]

Canning and Huskisson were always close friends and often ministerialcolleagues, and they two may be said to have led the way towards thesystem of free trade to which the time had not yet come for Robert Peelto give his complete adhesion. The great question of electoral reformwas coming up, and Charles Grey and Henry Brougham were among its mostconspicuous leaders. Canning did not take to Parliamentary reform, although he was what might be described as an advanced Liberal on mostother questions of national importance. The Duke of Wellington wasstrongly opposed to any proposals for a change in the Parliamentarysystem, and this was one of the few great questions on which Canningand he were in habitual agreement. Then there was the still morepressing question of political equality for the Catholics of the threekingdoms. Lord John Russell succeeded later on in carrying the repealof the Test and Corporation Acts which precluded Protestant Dissentersfrom holding political or municipal office, but the attempt to obtainthe rights of equal citizenship for subjects of the King who belonged{53} to the Church of Rome had to encounter much greater difficulties. 

As might easily be expected, Ireland became the main battle-field ofthis struggle. We have already recorded the fact that Pitt had beengreatly assisted in passing the Act of Union between Great Britain andIreland and abolishing Grattan's Parliament by the hopes which he heldout that the union of the legislatures would be followed by a completemeasure of Catholic emancipation. George the Third refused point-blankto give his assent to any such measure, or even to listen to anyproposal for its introduction, declaring again and again that hiscoronation oath absolutely forbade him to entertain an idea of thekind. In the end, as we have seen, Pitt gave in and undertook neveragain to worry the mind of his conscientious sovereign by any talkabout relief to George the Third's Roman Catholic subjects. But itsoon became evident that in this as in other instances the resolve ofthe most headstrong monarch, and the promise of the most yielding PrimeMinister, cannot always induce a population to put up passively with amanifest grievance. In Ireland, where six out of every seven of thepeople belonged to the Church of Rome, and where the demand forCatholic Emancipation had long been championed by the greatest and themost patriotic of Protestant Irishmen, it was utterly impossible thatany King and any minister could impose submission on such a question. By the time at which we have now arrived the Catholics of Ireland hadfound a political leader of their own faith. 

Daniel O'Connell was undoubtedly one of the greatest advocates apopular cause has ever had in modern times. He was an Irishman who hadbecome one of the most successful advocates in the Irish law courts, and as a popular orator he had no rival in his own country. He hadmade himself the leader in Ireland of the movement for CatholicEmancipation, and he had kindled an enthusiasm there which any Englishstatesman of ordinary intelligence and foresight might easily have seenit would be impossible to extinguish so long as there was a struggle tobe fought. {54} Canning had always been in favor of CatholicEmancipation. Lord Liverpool was, of course, entirely opposed to it, and almost until the last the Duke of Wellington held out against it. George the Fourth, for all his earlier associations with Fox andSheridan, declared himself now to have inherited to the full hisfather's indomitable conscientious objection to any measure of CatholicEmancipation. George seemed, in fact, to have suddenly become filledwith a passionate fervor of Protestant piety when any one talked to himabout political equality for his Catholic subjects. He declared againand again that no earthly consideration could induce him to fall awayfrom the religious convictions of his father on this subject, and thecoronation oath had again become, to use Erskine's satirical phrase, "one of the four orders of the State. " When reading some of George'sletters and discourses on the subject, it is almost impossible not tobelieve that he really must have fancied himself in earnest when hemade such protestations. In private life he frequently delivered longspeeches, sometimes with astonishing fluency, sometimes with occasionalinterruptions of stammering, in vindication of his hostility to anyproposal for Catholic Emancipation. 

[Sidenote: 1827--Lord Liverpool's successor]

In the common language of the political world of that time the membersof a Government who opposed the Catholic claims were called Protestantministers, and the members in favor of the Catholic claims weredescribed as Catholic ministers. In fact, it has had to be explained, for the sake of clearness, by some recent writers, that the word"Catholic" was constantly used in George the Fourth's time merely tosignify pro-Catholic. When Canning was spoken of as a Catholicstatesman there was not the least idea of describing him as a member ofthe Church of Rome, and, indeed, the words "Roman Catholic" hardly comeup in the controversies of those days. When Mr. Lecky spoke during arecent Parliamentary debate of Catholics and Protestants, he wasgravely rebuked by some divines of the Established Church who wereunder the impression that he was in some way or other truckling to the{55} claims of the Papacy when he used the word "Catholic" to describethe worshippers in the Church of Rome. Mr. Lecky was put to thetrouble of explaining that he used the words "Protestant" and"Catholic" in the ordinary significance given to them during longgenerations of political controversy. 

A crisis was suddenly brought about by the illness of Lord Liverpool. The Protestant statesman was stricken down by an attack which for atime deprived him of consciousness, and even after his partial recoveryleft him in a state which made it clear to all his friends that hiswork as an administrator was done. There was no hope whatever of hisresuming official work, and the question which mainly occupied the mindof the King and of those around him was not what was to become of LordLiverpool, but whom it would be most convenient for the King to appointas his successor. Naturally every eye was turned on Canning, whetherin hope or in fear. As Lord Palmerston said of himself many yearslater, so it might be said of Canning, he was the "inevitable man. "The whole civilized world was filled with his fame. His course ofpolicy had made England stronger than she had ever been since the deathof the younger Pitt. Even King George could not venture to believe inthe possibility of passing him over, and King George's chief objectionto him was found in the fact that Canning was in favor of the Catholicclaims. George thought the matter over a few days, consulted LordEldon and other advisers, and found that nobody could inspire him withany real hope of being able to form an enduring Ministry withoutCanning. 

Then the King sent for Canning, and Canning made his own course quiteclear. He came to the point at once. He assumed that the greatdifficulty was to be found in the pressure of the Catholic question, and he advised the King to form a Ministry of his own way of thinkingon that subject and to do the best he could. The King, however, explained that it would be futile for him to think that any Ministry socomposed could carry on the work of administration just then, and hegave Canning many {56} assurances of his own entire approval of hisforeign policy, and declared that no one knew better than he did howmuch the power of England had increased with Continental States sinceCanning had obtained the conduct of her foreign affairs. Thus urged, Canning consented to undertake the formation of a Ministry, but he didso on the express condition that he should not only have the King'sfull confidence and be free to take his own course, but that he shouldbe known to hold such a position and to have the absolute authority ofthe sovereign to sustain him. Canning's mind was, in fact, clearlymade up. He would either be a real Prime Minister, or he would have noplace in the new Administration, and would become once again anindependent member. There was nothing else to be done, and the Kinggave Canning full authority to make his own arrangements. 

[Sidenote: 1827--Defection among Canning's supporters]

The task which Canning had nominally undertaken was the reconstructionof the Ministry, but no one knew better than he did that it reallyamounted to the formation of a new Ministry. Canning was well awarethat the Duke of Wellington and Sir Robert Peel would not consent toserve under him in any Administration. The Duke of Wellington was atthis time entirely opposed to any recognition of the Catholic claims, and, more than that, he had never been in favor of the principles offoreign policy adopted and proclaimed by Canning. Between the two men, indeed, there was very little political sympathy, and Canning had gotit into his mind, rightly or wrongly, that the Duke of Wellington haddone his best to disparage him and to weaken his authority as ForeignMinister. Sir Robert Peel occupied a somewhat different position. He, too, was opposed to the Catholic claims; but he was a statesman of afar higher order than the Duke of Wellington, and it might alwayssafely be assumed of him that he would rightly estimate the force ofpublic opinion, and that when a great movement of political reform hadproved itself to be irresistible Peel would never encourage a policy offutile resistance. 

Peel's attitude is well described in the admirable life of {57} GeorgeCanning published by Mr. Frank Harrison Hill in 1887. "Peel, " says Mr. Hill, "did not believe in governing against Parliamentary and publicopinion. " "To him the art of government was the measurement of socialforces, and the adaptation of policy to their direction and intensity. When it was clear to him that a thing must be done, and that his helpwas essential to the doing of it, his duty was plainly marked out. " Upto this time, however, Peel did not see that the Catholic question hadreached such a stage, and he probably did not believe that it wouldever reach such a stage. He had opposed Catholic claims thus farwhenever the opportunity arose, and he could not undertake to serveunder a Prime Minister who was openly in favor of recognizing thoseclaims. We shall have to tell, before long, in the course of thishistory, how Peel came to see that Canning was right in his policy, andhow he came to be the Prime Minister by whom it was carried to success, and how he brought the Duke of Wellington along with him. But at thetime which we have now reached Peel still believed his own policy onthe subject of Roman Catholic Emancipation to be the rightful policyfor the guidance of the sovereign and the State, and he therefore foundit impossible to serve in the new Administration. Five other membersof the existing Government, besides Sir Robert Peel, resigned theirplaces on the same grounds. One was, of course, the Duke ofWellington, and another was Lord Chancellor Eldon. Some influentialpeers who were not members of the Government made it known that theycould not give their support to any Administration which admitted thepossibility of recognizing the Catholic claims. 

Canning's heart might well have sunk within him for a time when hefound himself abandoned by such colleagues and thrown over by suchsupporters. He actually waited upon the King, and asked his permissionto give up the undertaking for the formation of a new Ministry. TheKing, however, probably felt that he had gone too far in his support ofCanning to draw back at such a moment. It is very likely that he wasdispleased by the pertinacity of {58} the resistance which men likeWellington and Peel and Eldon offered to any act of policy approved byhim, and he had undoubtedly by this time come to have a strong faith, not only in Canning's capacity, but also in Canning's good fortune. Whatever may have been his chief inspiration, he certainly had anopportune season of enlightenment, and he refused to allow Canning towithdraw from the task assigned to him. Accordingly Canning becamePrime Minister, and united in his own person the offices of First Lordof the Treasury and Chancellor of the Exchequer. 

[Sidenote: 1827--Canning and Lord Grey]

Sir John Copley, raised to the peerage under the title of LordLyndhurst, became Lord Chancellor in succession to Lord Eldon, and theHouse of Lords thus obtained a member who was destined to be one of itsforemost orators, to maintain a rivalry in Parliamentary debate withBrougham and the great Tory orator and leader, Lord Derby, and to belistened to with admiration by men still living, who are proud toremember that they heard some of his great speeches. It may beobserved that Lord Eldon, whose retirement made way for Lord Lyndhurst, had been Lord Chancellor for twenty-six years, with the exception ofone year when he was out of office. Huskisson became Treasurer of theNavy and President of the Board of Trade in the new Administration. Lord Palmerston was Secretary at War, and Frederick Robinson, now madeLord Goderich, who was in thorough sympathy with Canning and Huskissonon questions of financial policy, was Colonial and War Secretary, thelatter office according to the arrangements of that time a positionhaving quite different functions from those of the Secretary of War. The arrangements for the new Ministry were completed in April, 1827. Canning had now reached the highest point of his career. His policyhad already been marked out for him, for England, and for Europe. Thetreaty between England, France, and Russia for the protection ofGreece, which became a formal instrument after his accession to theoffice of Prime Minister, was the result of the efforts which he hadmade before Lord Liverpool's sudden illness {59} led to the break-up ofthe Liverpool Administration. Canning had little time left him to turnhis new and great position to account. Fame, as Mr. Hill well says, was a sucked orange to George Canning when he accepted the office ofPrime Minister. 

The difficulties against which the new Ministry had to contend weremany and great. Canning had the support of such Whigs as Brougham inthe House of Commons, but in the House of Lords he had many powerfulopponents, and the influence of the House of Lords then counted formore than it does at present. In the House of Lords, too, Lord Greybitterly and pertinaciously opposed him. Grey was then one of theleading advocates of Parliamentary reform, and Canning could not seehis way to ally himself with the Parliamentary reformers. Lord Grey, moreover, seems to have distrusted the sincerity of Canning's supportof Catholic emancipation, a distrust for which no possible reason canbe suggested; and, indeed, Grey would appear to have had a feeling ofpersonal dislike to the great statesman. Accordingly he made severalattacks on Canning and Canning's policy in the House of Lords, and Greywas an eloquent speaker, whose style as well as his character carriedcommand with it. Canning was a man of singularly sensitive nature. Like many other brilliant humorists and satirists, he was somewhatthin-skinned and very quick of temper. He could bear a brilliant andeven a splendid part in the Parliamentary battle, but it was a pain tohim to endure in silence when he had no chance of making a retort. Theattacks of Lord Grey exasperated him beyond measure, and it is believedthat he had at one time a strong inclination to accept a peerage andtake a seat in the House of Lords, thereby withdrawing forever from theinspiriting battle-ground of the House of Commons for the mere sake ofhaving an opportunity of replying to the attacks of Lord Grey, andmeasuring his strength against that of the great Whig leader. Thefates, however, denied to Canning any chance of making this curiousanticlimax in his great political career. His health had always beenmore or less delicate, and he was {60} never very careful or sparing inthe use of his physical powers. He was intensely nervous byconstitution, and was liable to all manner of nervous seizures andmaladies. In the early days of 1827 he caught a severe cold whileattending the public funeral of the Duke of York in the Chapel Royal, Windsor. 

[Sidenote: 1827--Death of Canning]

The Duke of York was the second son of George the Third, and for sometime had been regarded as heir-presumptive to the crown. The Duke'spublic career was in almost every way ignoble. He had proved himselfan utterly incapable commander, although a good War Officeadministrator, and his personal character was about on a level with hismilitary capacity. His death in January, 1827, may be said to have hadtwo serious consequences at least--it made the Duke of Clarence thenext heir to the crown, and it brought on Canning the severe cold fromwhich he never recovered. It may be mentioned here, although the factis of little political importance, that Canning when he became PrimeMinister made the Duke of Clarence Lord High Admiral. The office wasprobably bestowed as a token of Canning's gratitude to the King who hadstood by him, not indeed to the last, but at the last. It certainlycould not have been given because of any conviction in Canning's mindthat the Duke of Clarence was likely to render signal benefit to theroyal navy, to the State, or to the country by his services in such anoffice. 

Canning seemed for a while to rally from the cold which he had caughtat the Duke of York's funeral, but the months of incessant anxietywhich followed cast too heavy a burden on his shattered nerves andfeeble physical frame. It was hoped by his friends that theadjournment of the Houses of Parliament, which took place after theMinistry had been formed, might give him rest enough from official workto allow him to repair his strength. But Canning's was not a naturewhich admitted of rest. The happy faculty which he had once possessedof getting easily to sleep when the day's work was done had long sincedeserted him, and of late he took his official cares to bed with him, and they kept him long awake. The early {61} summer of 1827 broughthim no improvement, and his friends already began to fear for theworst. He suffered from intense agonies of nervous pain, and theagonies seemed to grow worse and worse with each return. The Duke ofDevonshire offered him the use of a summer residence which he had atChiswick, and Canning gladly accepted the offer. It was remarked atthe time by some of his friends that an evil omen hung over this summerretreat. The former Duke of Devonshire, father of Canning's friend, had offered the same villa as a temporary retreat to Charles James Fox;the offer was accepted by him, and Fox actually died in the bedroomwhich was now occupied by Canning. 

The omen soon made good its warning. Canning gradually sank under theinfluence of his fatal illness. He said to a friend that during threedays he had suffered more pain than all that had been compressed intohis life up to that time, and we know that his was a frame which wasalways liable to acute pain. He sank and sank, and on August 7 hetalked for the last time coherently and composedly to those who werearound him. Then he met his approaching death with a resigned andcheerful spirit, and his latest words showed that he knew where torepose his trust for the great change which was so near. Shortlybefore four o'clock on the morning of August 8, 1827, the struggle wasover and the great statesman was at rest. Even at that early hour thevilla was surrounded by a large crowd of anxious watchers, who couldnot leave the grounds until they heard the last tidings that were tocome from the sick-chamber. The funeral of Canning in WestminsterAbbey, although it was in name a private ceremonial, was followed by athrong of sorrowing admirers, among whom were princes and nobles, statesmen and prelates, politicians of all orders, and men and women ofall ranks down to the very poorest, who thus bore their spontaneoustribute to the services and the memory of the great Prime Minister, andexpressed in the only way left to them their sense of the loss whichhis country and the cause of peace and freedom had sustained by hisdeath. 

{62}

[Sidenote: 1827--Canning and the English ministers]

Canning had only just completed his fifty-seventh year when his careercame to a close. He died before his old friend and colleague whosesudden illness had left open to him the place of Prime Minister, forLord Liverpool did not die until December 4 of the following year. Theplace of Canning in English history is more clear to us now than it wasto the world even when the anxious crowd was watching round the villaat Chiswick and when the throng followed his remains to WestminsterAbbey. He was, as we have already said, the founder of that system offoreign policy which English statesmanship has professed ever since histime. His was that doctrine of conditional non-intervention for which, in later days, men like John Stuart Mill contended as the doctrinewhich ought to be the governing principle of a great council ofEuropean States, if such could be established. Canning's idea was notthat England should proclaim such a principle of non-intervention asthat which Cobden and Bright, and other men equally sincere andpatriotic, endeavored to impress on public opinion at a later day. Canning's principle was that England should not intervene even on theright side of any Continental struggle in which she had no directconcern, unless some other State equally free from any direct share inthe controversy were making preparation to intervene on the wrong side. Then, according to his doctrine, England was bound to say to theinterposing State: "If you, an outsider to this controversy, are makingup your mind to intervene on what we believe to be the wrong side, thenit may become our duty to intervene on what we believe to be the rightside. " It was in accordance with this principle that Canning prevailedupon the Governments of France and Russia to enter into that engagementwith England which secured the independence of Greece, as it was inaccordance with this principle that he had made the proclamation ofpolicy which secured the independence of the Spanish-American colonies, and thus called in the New World to redress the balance of the Old. 

Canning must, on the whole, be ranked among great Liberal statesmen, although there were some passages in {63} his career which showed thathe had not advanced quite so far in Liberal principles as some of thestatesmen of his own day. It is hard now to understand how such a mancould have stood out against the principle of Parliamentary reform andpopular suffrage, and could have resisted the efforts to give fullrights of citizenship to the members of dissenting denominations. Itis especially hard to understand why a man who was in favor ofabolishing religious disqualifications in the case of Roman Catholicsshould have thought it right to maintain them in the case of ProtestantDissenters. The explanation of this latter inconsistency may be found, perhaps, in the assumption that when Canning thought of the grievanceto Roman Catholics he had in his mind the grievances to the RomanCatholics of Ireland, a separate country with a nationality andtraditions of her own, and a country in which the vast majority of thepopulation belonged to the one religious faith. He may have thoughtthat the English Protestant Dissenters who did not see their way toclass themselves with the Protestants of the English State Church hadnot so distinct a claim to the recognition of their grievance. It mayseem strange that a mind like Canning's could have been beguiled fromthe acceptance of a great principle by a curious distinction of thiskind, but it must be remembered that down to a much later day many ofthe professed supporters of religious equality contended for somelimitation of the principle where political privileges were concerned, and that only in our own time has admission to the House of Commonsbeen left open to the professors of every religious faith, and even tothose who profess no religious faith at all. So far as Parliamentaryreform in the ordinary sense of the words is concerned, we may feelquite sure that if Canning had lived a few years longer his mind wouldhave accepted the growth of public opinion and the evidences whichjustified that growth, and he would not have been found among theunteachable opponents of popular suffrage and a well-adjustedParliamentary representation. 

As a financial reformer he was distinctly in advance of {64} his time, and even such men as Sir Robert Peel only followed slowly in the pathwhich Canning and Huskisson had opened. Canning's fame as aParliamentary orator is now well assured. He has been unduly praised, and he has been unduly disparaged. He has been described as thegreatest Parliamentary orator since the days of Bolingbroke, and he hasbeen described as a brilliant and theatric declaimer who never rose tothe height of genuine political oratory. The common judgment ofeducated men now regards him as only inferior, if inferior at all, tothe two Pitts and Fox among great Parliamentary orators, and the rivalof any others belonging to his own, or an earlier, or a later day inthe history of the English Parliament. Of him it may fairly be saidthat his career made an era in England's political life, and that thegreat principles which he asserted are still guiding the country evenat this hour. 

{65}

CHAPTER LXVII. 

"THE CHAINS OF THE CATHOLIC. "

[Sidenote: 1827--Lord Goderich]

During the closing days of Canning's life he was speaking to SirWilliam Knighton of the approaching end, and he said, quietly: "Thismay be hard upon me, but it is still harder upon the King. " There wassomething characteristic in the saying. Canning had been greatlytouched by the manner in which the King had, at last, come round to himand stood by him against all who endeavored to interpose between himand his sovereign; and to a man of Canning's half-poetic temperamentthe sovereign typified the State and the people, to whom the PrimeMinister was but a devoted servant. It was certainly hard upon theKing, at least for the time. George must have had moments of betterfeelings and better inspirations than those which governed the ordinarycourse of his life, and he had lately come to realize the value of theservices which Canning had rendered to England. We shall see, beforelong, that a secession of Canning's followers from the party in powertook place, and that the seceding men were called, and calledthemselves, the "Canningites. " George already appears to have become aCanningite. 

The King had a good deal of trouble in forming an Administration. LordGoderich became Prime Minister, with Lyndhurst again as LordChancellor, and Huskisson in Goderich's former place at the War andColonial Office. Lord Goderich, as we have seen, had been sent intothe House of Lords when Canning became Prime Minister. Up to that timehe was Mr. Frederick John Robinson, generally known by the nickname of"Prosperity Robinson. " This satirical designation he obtained from thefact that while he was President of the Board of Trade, and {66} stilllater when he was Chancellor of the Exchequer, he had always made ithis business in each session to describe the country as in a conditionof unparalleled prosperity. More than that, he always insisted ondeclaring that the particular schemes of taxation that he broughtforward were destined, beyond all possibility of doubt, to increasestill further that hitherto unexampled prosperity. It had been hisfortune, in his early official career, to propose and carry someschemes of taxation which met with such passionate opposition in someparts of the country as to lead to serious rioting and even to loss oflife. But all the time he saw only prosperity as the result of hisfinancial enterprises, and hence the nickname, which is stillremembered in England's Parliamentary history. 

[Sidenote: 1828--The struggle for religious equality]

Lord Goderich was not a man of remarkable political capacity, and hewas a poor, ineffective, and even uninteresting speaker, except whenthe audacity of his statements, and his prophecies, and the tumult ofinterruptions and laughter that they created, lent a certainParliamentary interest to his orations. He had an immense amount ofthat sort of courage which, in the colloquial language of our times, would probably be described as bumptiousness. He had an unlimitedfaith in his own capacity, and he saw nothing but success, personal andnational, where observers in general could discern only failure. Hewas one of a class of men who are to be found at all times ofParliamentary history, and who manage somehow, nobody quite knows how, to make themselves appear indispensable to their political party. Hewas not, however, without any faculty for improvement, and of lateyears he had derived some instruction from Canning's teaching andexample in politics and in finance. Such as he was, his appointment asPrime Minister in succession to Canning seemed about the safestcompromise the King could make under all the existing conditions. Hisposition as a stop-gap was maintained but a very short time. Duringhis Administration, or perhaps it ought rather to be called his nominalAdministration, the substantial result of Canning's recent foreignpolicy was seen in the destruction {67} of the Turkish and Egyptianfleets at the battle of Navarino, which led almost immediately to theSultan's acknowledgment of the independence of Greece. 

Some differences of opinion on financial questions soon broke out inthe Cabinet, and Huskisson and certain of his colleagues threatened toresign; and Lord Goderich, seeing little or no chance of maintaininghimself long in his position, got out of the difficulty by tenderinghis own resignation. The King accepted the resignation, and there wasthen really only one man, the Duke of Wellington, to whom George couldlook for the construction of a Government. Accordingly, the Dukebecame First Lord of the Treasury, and Huskisson retained, for thetime, his former position. During this Administration Lord JohnRussell brought forward his motion for the repeal of the Test andCorporation Acts; the object of the motion being to abolish all theconditions which rendered it impossible for the members of anyProtestant dissenting denomination to hold State or municipal office, unless they were willing to accept a test-oath, which acknowledged thespiritual supremacy of the Church of England. Lord John Russell'smotion was carried in the House of Commons by a majority of 237 to 193, and a Bill founded on the principle of the motion was passed throughboth Houses of Parliament. This may be described as the first of thegreat measures accepted by Parliament for the purpose of establishingthe principle of religious equality, in admission to the rights ofcitizenship, among the inhabitants of these countries. Of course, theestablishment of religious equality was yet a good long way off, and itis a curious fact that the measure that was founded on Lord JohnRussell's motion did something very distinct in itself to make newbattle-grounds for those who advocated the full recognition of theprinciple. 

The new measure proposed to admit the members of all recognizedProtestant denominations, whether inside or outside the Church ofEngland, to the rights of citizenship, but it took good care to affirmthat it had no intention of admitting any one else. The Act providedthat all {68} persons presenting themselves as candidates for electionto political or municipal office should subscribe a declaration "on thetrue faith of a Christian. " This, of course, excluded Jews andFreethinkers, while the Roman Catholics were shut out by a specialoath, directed exclusively against themselves, and to which it wasimpossible that any professing Catholic could subscribe. Lord JohnRussell, however, had begun his great career well when he carried theLegislature with him, even thus far, on the way to religious equality, although he was not himself destined to see the last fight which had tobe fought before the principle had been completely established. It isalmost needless to say that the new form of pledge introduced by themeasure was no part of Lord John Russell's plan, but he accepted theBill as amended in the House of Lords rather than sacrifice, for thetime, the whole purpose of his motion. The motion, it may be added, was strongly opposed in the House of Commons, not only by Robert Peel, but by Huskisson. Peel's opposition is easily to be understood, because up to this time he had not risen above the convictions withwhich he started in public life in favor of the general practice ofmaking the political and civic rights of citizenship conditional uponwhat he believed to be religious orthodoxy. In the case of Huskisson, who was a strong supporter of the admission of Roman Catholics to fullequality of political and civic rights with the members of the StateChurch, the explanation probably was that he feared if the Dissentersreceived their rights in advance they might become less zealous thanmany of them had been for the full recognition of the Catholic claims. Some of the archbishops and bishops in the House of Lords were liberalenough to give their support to the Bill, much to the consternation ofLord Eldon, who could not understand how any prelate of the StateChurch could be so far led away from the sacred duties of his positionas to lend any countenance to a measure admitting the unorthodox to theplace in society which ought to be the right only of orthodox believers. 

[Sidenote: 1828--The Catholic Association]

It is interesting to notice that a protest was entered {69} against theintroduction of the words "on the true faith of a Christian" by LordHolland, who represented the principles of Charles James Fox. Thepeers, it should be said, enjoy the privilege, which is not allowed tomembers of the representative chamber, of recording their formalprotest on the books of their House against any motion or measure whichhas been carried in spite of their opposition, and of setting forthreasons on which their objection is founded. Many of the protests thusrecorded form important contributions to political history. LordHolland vindicates his protest in words which are well worth quoting:"Because the introduction of the words 'upon the true faith of aChristian' implies an opinion in which I cannot conscientiously concur, namely, that a particular faith in matters of religion is necessary tothe proper discharge of duties purely political or temporal. " LordEldon strongly condemned the action of the prelates who had voted infavor of the measure, and he used some words which showed that, howeverobtuse his bigotry may have been, he clearly saw what must inevitablycome from the concession to religious liberty which was made by thepassing of such a measure. "Sooner or later, " he said, "perhaps inthis very year, almost certainly in the next, the concessions to theDissenters must be followed by the like concessions to the RomanCatholics. " The Roman Catholic claims were already assertingthemselves with a force which appealed irresistibly to the minds of allenlightened men. 

The Catholic Association had been formed in Ireland for the purpose ofadvocating the claims of the vast majority of the Irish people, and ithad found for its leader a man who must have made a great figure in thepolitical life of any era, and who was especially qualified to take aleading place in such an agitation. Daniel O'Connell was one of themost remarkable men of his time. He was the first Irish politicalleader of modern days who professed the faith which may be called thenational creed of his people. The leaders of great Irish movementsjust before his time--the Fitzgeralds, the Tones, and the Emmets--had{70} had been, like Grattan himself, members of the Established Church. O'Connell had, moreover, no sympathy whatever with the sentiments ofthe French Revolution. He had passed a few of his early years inFrance, he had seen some of the later excesses of the revolutionaryperiod, and he had been inspired with a horror as great as that felt byEdmund Burke for the extravagances of the revolutionary era. Hebelonged to the landlord class, but his sympathies had always been withthe popular and national movements of his countrymen. He had practisedat the Irish bar, and had become the greatest advocate in the Irish lawcourts, and was thus enabled to combine with all the fire and energy ofa born popular leader the subtlety and craft of a trained and practisedlawyer. O'Connell was one of the greatest orators of a day whenpolitical oratory could display some of its most splendidillustrations. He had a commanding presence, indeed a colossal form, and a voice which was marvellous alike for the strength and the musicof its varied intonations. Such men as Disraeli and Bulwer Lytton haveborne enthusiastic tribute to the magic of that voice, and havedeclared it to be unrivalled in the political eloquence of the time. O'Connell made his voice heard at many great public meetings in Englandand in Scotland, as well as in Ireland, and his political views had, indeed, much in common with those of English and Scottish advancedLiberals. 

[Sidenote: O'Connell and the Parliamentary Oath]

The Catholic Association was made, at one period of its career, thesubject of an Act of Parliament which declared it to be, for a certaintime, an illegal organization, and the period was now approaching whenthe prohibitory Act would have to be renewed or allowed to drop out ofexistence. In consequence of some ministerial rearrangements a vacancyhad arisen in the Parliamentary representation of the county of Clarein Ireland, and O'Connell resolved on taking a bold and what thenseemed to many a positively desperate step. He announced himself as acandidate for the vacancy in opposition to its former occupant, who, having been appointed to ministerial office, was compelled to resignhis place in the House of {71} Commons and offer himself to his formerconstituents for re-election. O'Connell was not disqualified bypositive enactment from becoming a candidate for a seat in Parliament;that is to say, there was no law actually declaring that a RomanCatholic, as such, could not enter the House of Commons. But, as wehave explained already, it was the law of the land that no man couldtake his seat in that House until he had subscribed an oath which itwas perfectly impossible for any Roman Catholic to accept, an oathdisavowing and denouncing the very opinions which are an essential partof the Roman Catholic's faith. O'Connell, therefore, could not beprevented from becoming a candidate for the representation of Clare, and when the contest came on it ended in his being triumphantlyreturned by an overwhelming majority. O'Connell presented himself atthe table of the House of Commons, and was called upon to subscribe theusual oath, which, of course, he absolutely refused to do. He was thenordered to withdraw, and he did withdraw, and the seat was declaredvacant. O'Connell returned to Clare, again offered himself ascandidate, and was again elected by a triumphant majority. Then, indeed, men like Lord Eldon must have begun to think that the old worldwas really coming to an end. King George and the Government foundthemselves face to face with a crisis to which there had been noparallel in the memory of living statesmen. 

The progress of events was, meanwhile, making a deep impression on thereceptive mind of Sir Robert Peel, now Home Secretary, and by far themost rising and powerful member of the Administration. Huskisson, itshould be said, had by this time ceased to belong to the Duke ofWellington's Government. There had been some misunderstanding betweenhim and the Duke, arising out of a speech made by Huskisson inLiverpool, which was understood to contain a declaration that Huskissonhad only accepted office on the express understanding that the policyof the Duke's Government was to be the policy of Canning. The Duketook exception to this, and declared that he had entered into nounderstanding as to his general {72} policy, but that what Huskissonprobably had said was that he had accepted the composition of theGovernment as a guarantee in itself that a sound national policy was tobe carried out. 

[Sidenote: 1828--Demand for Catholic emancipation]

Huskisson accepted the explanation, and explained that this was what hereally had said, and no doubt this was really the purpose of thatpassage in his speech; but the incident led to some friction betweenthe two men, and was the beginning of other misunderstandings. Somedifference of opinion afterwards arose on minor questions of policy, and Huskisson sent to the Duke a somewhat hasty letter announcing hisresignation. The letter was intended to be only a conditionalintimation of his purpose, but the Duke took it as positive and final, and announced it as such to the King. There was no course left open toHuskisson but to resign. The incident created much talk at the time, and gave rise to a good deal of satirical comment. Several othermembers of the Government, among whom was Lord Palmerston, resignedalong with Huskisson, and they formed themselves into an independentparty, bearing the name of the Canningites. It is curious to noticethat the reconstructions caused in the Government by theseresignations, and the new appointments which had to be made, led tothat vacancy in the county of Clare which gave O'Connell an opportunityof coming forward as a candidate for the seat and being elected. 

Peel saw that the Duke of Wellington's Government had lost some of itsmost influential members. Other events, too, had been turning hisattention towards the growth of the agitation in Ireland. The Marquisof Wellesley, elder brother of the Duke of Wellington, had been Viceroyof Ireland. Wellesley had been a distinguished statesman, and asViceroy of India had conducted to a successful issue, with the help ofhis younger brother, the great Mahratta war. When he became Viceroy ofIreland he had gone over to that country as a strong opponent of theCatholic claims, but his experience there soon convinced him that itwould be impossible to resist those claims much longer, and at the sametime {73} to keep Ireland in tranquillity. Therefore, when the Duke ofWellington, on coming into office as Prime Minister, refused torecognize the Catholic claims, Lord Wellesley resigned his place. Hewas succeeded by the Marquis of Anglesey, a soldier who had donebrilliant service in the wars against Napoleon, and was well known as adetermined opponent of the demands made by the advocates of Catholicemancipation. Lord Anglesey, too, became satisfied during his time ofoffice in Ireland that there was no alternative between emancipationand an armed rebellion among the Irish Catholics, a large number ofwhom were actually serving in the ranks of the army. His opinions wereagain and again impressed on the Government, and the course he tookonly led to his recall from the Viceroyalty. 

In the House of Commons an event took place which had a great effect onthe mind of Peel. Early in 1828 Sir Francis Burdett, who held a veryprominent place among the more advanced reformers of the time, and whorepresented Westminster in the House of Commons, brought forward aresolution inviting the House to consider the state of the lawsaffecting the Roman Catholics of the two islands, "with a view to sucha final and conciliatory settlement as may be conducive to the peaceand strength of the United Kingdom, to the stability of the ProtestantEstablishment, and to the general satisfaction and concord of allclasses of his Majesty's subjects. " The resolution was supported by apowerful speech from Brougham, in which he dwelt on the fact that notone of those who opposed the motion had expressed any conviction thatthe existing state of things could long continue, and that it wasimpossible to overlook or deny the great advance which the movement forCatholic Emancipation had been making in and out of Parliament. Peelwas greatly impressed by this argument, and also by the fact that themen who supported Burdett and Brougham in the House of Commonsrepresented the best part of the intellect and statesmanship of thatHouse. The resolution was carried by 272 votes against 266 on theother side, a small majority, {74} indeed, but a majority that at sucha time was large enough to show a man of Peel's intellect the practicalprogress which the demand for Catholic Emancipation had already made. 

[Sidenote: 1828--Peel and Catholic emancipation]

We find in Peel's own correspondence the most interesting evidences ofthe influence which all these events were making on his clear andthoughtful mind. The man whom O'Connell had defeated in Clare, Mr. Vesey Fitzgerald, had represented the constituency for many years, hadalways supported by speeches and votes the claims of the Catholics, andwas the son of one who had stood by the side of Grattan and Sir JohnParnell in resisting the Act of Union. No one could have been morepopular up to that time among Irishmen, and the election of O'Connellwas obviously due to the fact that O'Connell had made himself theleader of a movement which had for its object to bring about a greatcrisis, and to compel the Parliament and the Government to surrender atonce or encounter a civil war. Peel asked himself--we quote his ownwords--"whether it may not be possible that the fever of political andreligious excitement which was quickening the pulse and fluttering thebosom of the whole Catholic population--which had inspired the serf ofClare with the resolution and the energy of a free man--which had inthe twinkling of an eye made all considerations of personal gratitude, ancient family connections, local preferences, the fear of worldlyinjury, the hope of worldly advantage subordinate to the one absorbingsense of religious obligation and public duty--whether, I say, it mightnot be possible that the contagion of that feverish excitement mightspread beyond the barriers which under ordinary circumstances thehabits of military obedience and the strictness of military disciplineopposed to all such external influences?"

Peel became gradually convinced that the Marquis of Anglesey was rightin his views, and that there was no choice between a recognition of theCatholic claims and the outbreak of a civil war in Ireland. The morehe thought over the question, the more he became convinced that itwould not be possible to rely on the loyalty of all {75} the Catholicsoldiers in the ranks of the army in Ireland if they were called uponto join in shooting down their own brothers and friends because thesehad risen in rebellion against the oppressive laws which excluded aCatholic from the full rights of citizenship. Peel was not aphilosopher or a dreamer, but above all things a practical statesman, and when he had to choose between civil war and the concession of aclaim which was admitted to be right and just by some of the mostenlightened Englishmen and Scotchmen who sat near him on the benches ofthe House of Commons, and by some of the most enlightened Englishmenand Scotchmen outside the House, he could not bring himself to believethat claims thus advocated could be so essentially unjust orunreasonable as to make their continued refusal worth the cost of soterrible a struggle. 

Peel made up his mind to the fact that Catholic Emancipation must, assoon as possible, become the work of Parliament. But he did not yetbelieve that he was the right man to undertake the task. It seemed tohim that one who had always been regarded as the determined opponent ofEmancipation would not be likely to win over many supporters among hisTory friends for such a sudden change of policy. He did not thinkhimself well suited, and he was not inclined, to conduct thenegotiations which would be necessary between any Government attemptingsuch a task and the Irish advocates of Emancipation. His idea was thatLord Grey, as the head of the reforming party, would be the statesmanbest qualified to undertake such an enterprise and most likely to carryit to an early success. His first business, however, would clearly beto convince the Duke of Wellington that Catholic Emancipation wasinevitable, and this work he at once set himself to accomplish. He hadsome trouble in bringing the Duke over to his own opinions, but theDuke became convinced in the end, and, indeed, both at that time andafter, the Duke was always inclined to follow Peel's guidance, on theplain, practical, soldierly principle that Peel understood politicalaffairs much better than he did, {76} and that Peel's advice was alwayssure to be sound and safe. So the Duke, too, became convinced thatCatholic Emancipation must be accepted as inevitable, and that thesooner it was carried through the better. But Wellington was stronglyopposed to the idea of handing over the work to Lord Grey. He showedthat it would be hardly possible to induce King George to accept theservices of Lord Grey for such a purpose. The King was known todislike Lord Grey, whose stern, unbending manners could not be welcometo a sovereign unaccustomed to the dictation of so uncourtierlike anadviser as the leader of the Whig party. 

[Sidenote: 1828--The Oath of Supremacy]

Wellington's idea was that, as the thing had to be done, it had betterbe done by Peel and himself, and he almost implored Peel not to deserthim at such a crisis. Peel could not resist the personal and brotherlyappeal thus made to him by one for whom he had so profound a respect, and the result was that the two agreed to work together as they hadbeen doing, and to make Catholic Emancipation the business of theirGovernment. But then the King had to be won over, and nobody knewbetter than Wellington did how difficult this task must be. Yet he didnot despair. He had had some experience of the King's resistance andthe only means by which it could be got over. Again and again he hadhad occasion to urge on the sovereign the adoption of some course towhich George, at first, was obstinately opposed, and he knew that quietpersistence was the only way of carrying his point. His plan was toavoid argument as much as possible, to state his case concisely to theKing, and allow the King to take his full time in pouring forth hisprotestations that he never could and never would consent to such apolicy. The King was very fond of hearing himself talk, and loved onsuch occasions to display all that eloquence which he fully believedhimself to possess, and which he had no opportunity of letting out onany Parliamentary or public platform. Then, when the King hadexhausted himself in repeating over and over again his reasons forrefusing the demands made upon him, Wellington would quietly return tothe fact that there was no practical way out of the difficulty but toassent to {77} the proposition. The King usually gave way, and theinterview had a satisfactory close. The King was appeased by the soundof his own eloquence, and the taciturn minister had his way. 

This course of policy Wellington resolved to adopt with regard to thequestion of Catholic Emancipation. He listened to all the talk aboutthe coronation oath and the declaration that George would rather retireto his kingdom of Hanover, abdicate the throne of England, and leavethe English people to find a Catholic--that is, a pro-Catholic--king inthe Duke of Clarence, and then merely pointed out to the sovereign thatsomething had to be done, and that his Majesty's advisers could thinkof nothing else but the course which they proposed for his acceptance. The King gave way to a certain extent, but he put his foot down, as themodern phrase goes, on the maintenance of the Oath of Supremacy in itsexisting form. 

There is an interesting account given of the final interview which theDuke of Wellington, Lord Lyndhurst, and Robert Peel had with theirroyal master on this subject. Without an alteration in the terms ofthe Oath of Supremacy it was absolutely impossible that Roman Catholicscould enter the House of Commons, for the oath contained the very wordsno Catholic could possibly consent to utter or subscribe. The Kingabsolutely and vehemently refused to give his consent to any alterationof the oath, and he then asked his three ministers what, under thecircumstances, they proposed to do. The ministers informed thesovereign that they proposed to ask his permission for them to makeannouncement in the two Houses of Parliament that they had ceased tohold office and were no longer responsible for the work ofadministration. George took the announcement at first with graciouscomposure, and told them he supposed he could not find any fault withthem for their act of resignation. He carried his kindness evenfurther, for, as we learn on the authority of one of the threeministers, "the King took leave of us with great composure and greatkindness, gave to each of us a salute on each cheek, and accepted ourresignation of office. "

{78} Thackeray, in his lecture on George the Fourth, turned this recordto most amusing account, and delighted his audience by a comicaldescription of the King's paternal benediction imprinted in kisses onthe cheeks of Wellington, Lyndhurst, and Peel. But when the kissingwas over and the three statesmen had departed, the King began to findthat he was left practically without a Government. What was to bedone? It would be impossible to form a Government after his own heartwithout such men as Wellington, Lyndhurst, and Peel, and even if hecould have got over his own personal dislike to Lord Grey, it wasimpossible to suppose that Lord Grey would become the head of anyGovernment which did not undertake Catholic Emancipation. The Kingfound himself in the awkward position of having either to announce tohis subjects that he intended to govern without any ministers, and todirect the affairs of the State entirely out of his own head, or tocall back to office the men whom he had kissed and sent away. EvenGeorge the Fourth could not hesitate when such a choice was forced uponhim. He wrote to the Duke of Wellington, telling him that he must oncemore put himself in the hands of the Duke and his colleagues, and letthem deal as they thought best with Catholic Emancipation. 

[Sidenote: 1829--The Forty-shilling Freeholders]

The Catholic Relief Bill was at once brought in, and consisted insubstance of the enactment of a new oath, which admitted RomanCatholics to Parliament and to all political and civil officesexcepting merely those of Regent, Lord Chancellor, and Lord Lieutenantof Ireland. The Bill was passed rapidly through both Houses ofParliament. The third reading was carried in the House of Commons by320 votes to 142, and in the House of Lords by 213 to 109, and thegreat controversy was happily at an end. The settlement, however, wasnot effected with as complete and liberal a spirit as Peel wouldcertainly have infused into it if he could have had his way. 

O'Connell, who had been twice elected for Clare, was not allowed totake his seat under the new measure until he had returned to hisconstituents and submitted himself for {79} re-election--a ceremonialabsolutely unnecessary, and only impressing the civilized world as anevidence of the ungenerous and ungracious manner in which theinevitable had been accepted. Then, again, an Act of Parliament waspassed disfranchising the class of voters in Ireland who were calledthe Forty-shilling Freeholders, who formed a large proportion ofO'Connell's constituents. This was done no doubt to put someobstacles, at all events, in the way of the Irish Catholic populationif they should hope ever again to make the representation of anynational claims as effective as they had done in the Clare election. It may be taken for granted that Peel would not have marred the effectof an act of mere justice by niggardly qualifications of any kind, buthe knew he had to deal with a Tory House of Lords, and was content toaccept some compromise as long as he could carry the main object of hispolicy. The first great chapter in the modern history of politicalreform had come to a thrilling close. 

{80}

CHAPTER LXVIII. 

THE LAST OF THE GEORGES. 

[Sidenote: 1829--Wellington fights Lord Winchilsea]

One incident connected more or less directly with the CatholicEmancipation question deserves historical record, if only for the curiouslight it throws upon the contrast between the manners of that day and themanners of more recent times. Shortly before the passing of the CatholicRelief Bill, the Earl of Winchilsea wrote a letter which was published inone of the newspapers strongly denouncing the conduct of the Duke ofWellington, and declaring him guilty of having joined in a conspiracy tooverthrow the Church and the Constitution of England under falsepretences. This letter was addressed to the secretary of a committeeformed for the establishment of King's College in London, and LordWinchilsea had apparently assumed that the subject under considerationwarranted him in expressing his views with regard to the conduct of thePrime Minister on the Catholic relief question. In more recent times, ofcourse, such a letter might have been written by anybody, whether peer orcommoner, and published in all the newspapers of the country withoutcalling for the slightest notice on the part of a Prime Minister. TheDuke of Wellington, however, lived at a time when a different code ofhonor and etiquette prevailed. He wrote to Lord Winchilsea a letter, theprincipal passage of which is worth quoting to illustrate the peculiarsense of duty which could, at the time, direct the conduct of a man likethe Duke of Wellington. "The question for me now to decide is this: Is agentleman who happens to be the King's Minister to submit to be insultedby any gentleman who thinks proper to attribute to him disgraceful orcriminal motives for his conduct as an individual? I cannot {81} doubtof the decision which I ought to make on this question. Your Lordship isalone responsible for the consequences. " This was, of course, achallenge to Lord Winchilsea to withdraw his accusation or to fight aduel forthwith. 

Now, to the cool, philosophic mind, at least in later times, it mightwell seem obvious that whether Lord Winchilsea's charge against the Dukeof Wellington was just or unjust, its justice or injustice could not inany way be made clear by the discharge of bullets from the pistols of thechallenger and the challenged. The cool, philosophic observer of a latertime might wonder also how the Duke's sense of public responsibilitycould allow him to peril a life which he must have known to be of thehighest value to his country, for the sake of taking part in a combatwith an antagonist whose personal opinion of the Duke and of the Duke'sconduct could not be of the slightest importance to the vast majority ofthe Duke's countrymen. But the Duke of Wellington was not in any case acool, philosophic observer, and he lived at a time when the establishedor tolerated code of what was called personal honor seemed to havenothing to do either with Christian morals, with political expediency, orwith ordinary common-sense. Wellington accepted without question thedictates of the supposed code of honor, and he sent his challenge. LordWinchilsea, it will be seen, did not intend to stand by his gross andpreposterous charge against the Duke, but he did not think that the codeof honor allowed him to say so like a man, and tender an apology likewhat we should now call a gentleman, without first subjecting himself tothe fire of his wrongfully accused antagonist. So the Duke and the Earlwent out with their seconds and met at Wimbledon. The victor of Waterloowas not destined to kill or be killed in this absurd contest. When theparties to the duel were placed on the ground and the word was given. Lord Winchilsea reserved his fire, the bullet from the Duke's pistolpassed him without doing any harm, and Lord Winchilsea then dischargedhis pistol in the air, and authorized his second to make known hisretraction of his {82} charge against the Duke, and his apology forhaving made such a charge. The retraction and the apology were publishedin the newspapers, and there, to use a form of words which was verycommon at the time after such an incident, the affair ended with equalhonor to both parties. 

[Sidenote: 1829--Comments upon Wellington's duel]

It seems hard now to understand how any man, in the position and with theresponsibilities of the Duke of Wellington, could bring himself to thinkthat he was called upon to risk his life for the mere sake of resentingan imputation which no rational man in his senses could possibly haveregarded as of any consequence to the Duke's public or private character. The whole incident seems to us now one more properly belonging to comicopera than to serious political life. We can hardly conceive thepossibility of the Marquis of Salisbury insisting on fighting a duel withsome hot-headed member of the House of Lords who had chosen to describehim as a conspirator against the Constitution and the Church of England. The Duke of Wellington, however, must be judged according to the ways ofhis own time, and the code of political and personal honor in which hehad been nurtured. There has not been in modern political history a moreconscientious and high-minded statesman than Robert Peel, and yet notvery long before the Winchilsea business Robert Peel had only beenprevented by the interference of the law from going out to fight a duelwith Daniel O'Connell, and O'Connell himself had killed his man inanother affair of honor, as it was called. We who live in these islandsat the present time may be excused if we indulge in a certain feeling ofself-complacency when we contemplate the advance towards a better code ofpersonal honor and a better recognition of the teachings of Christianitywhich has been made here since the days when the Duke of Wellingtonthought that for him, as a gentleman, there was no other course to takethan to risk his life because an insignificant person had made aridiculous charge against him. 

Still, it is something to know that there were cool observers even at thetime who thought the Duke of Wellington had done wrong. CharlesGreville, in commenting on {83} the duel, says that "everybody, ofcourse, sees the matter in a different light; all blame Lord Winchilsea, but they are divided as to whether the Duke ought to have fought or not. ""Lord Winchilsea is such a maniac, and has so lost his head, thateverybody imagined the Duke would treat what he said with silentcontempt. " Greville utterly condemns Lord Winchilsea for having made theattack on the Duke, and for not having sent an apology when it was firstrequired of him, but he adds: "I think, having committed the folly ofwriting so outrageous a letter, he did the only thing a man of honorcould do in going out and receiving a shot and then making an apology, which he was all this time prepared to do, for he had it ready written inhis pocket. " Most of us at this time of day would be inclined to thinkthat if Lord Winchilsea was willing to make the apology and had it readywritten in his pocket, he might have acted according to a better code ofhonor by not exposing the Duke to the chance of killing him. However, wemust not expect too much from Greville, and it is well to know, as hisfinal verdict on the whole affair, that "I think the Duke ought not tohave challenged him; it was very juvenile, and he stands in far too higha position, and his life is so much _publica cura_ that he should havetreated him and his letter with the contempt they merited. " The King, itseems, approved of the Duke of Wellington's conduct in making the letterthe subject of a challenge and meeting his opponent in a duel. Grevillegoes on to remark that somebody said "the King would be wanting to fighta duel himself, " whereupon some one else observed, "He will be sure tothink that he has fought one. "

The Duke of Wellington had a great deal to trouble him after the passingof the Catholic Relief Bill. There was great distress all over thecountry, and the discontent was naturally in proportion to the distress. Wellington had lost much of his popularity with the more extreme membersof his own party, who could not lift their minds to an understanding ofthe reasons which had compelled him to change his old opinions on theCatholic question. It cannot be doubted, too, that he sometimes feltdisappointed {84} with the results which were following from his policytowards Ireland. Members of his own party were continually dinning intohis ears their declaration that the measure passed in favor of the RomanCatholics had not put a stop to agitation in Ireland, and that, on thecontrary, O'Connell was now beginning to agitate for a repeal of the Actof Union. At that time, as at all times, the opponents of any great actof justice were eager to make out that its concession must have been anutter failure, because instead of satisfying everybody forever it hadonly led other people to demand that other acts of justice should also bedone. Some members of Wellington's own party were now inclined for thefirst time to become advocates of Parliamentary reform, on the groundthat nothing but a reduced franchise in England could save the StateChurch from being overthrown by the emancipated Roman Catholics. Thosewho had trembled before at the possibility of revolutionary sentimentsleading to the subversion of the throne, now declared themselves interror lest the spread of Roman Catholic doctrine should lead to thesubversion of the Protestant altar. The truth is, and it is a truth ofwhich governments have to be reminded even in our own times, that thelong delay of justice was alone answerable for any alarm which might havebeen caused by its sudden concession. The arguments in favor of CatholicEmancipation were just as strong, and ought to have been just as clear, to all rational men before it became evident to Wellington and Peel thatthere was no choice but between emancipation and civil war. The plainduty of a civilized government is to redress injustice at the earliestpossible moment, and not to wait idly or ignorantly until the danger of apopular uprising makes instant redress inevitable. 

[Sidenote: 1829--Need for radical reforms]

The great distress in many parts of the country was in the mean timeleading to new forms of crime. The burning of corn-ricks and farm-houseswas becoming in many districts the terrible form in which hunger and wantof work made wild war against property. The Game Laws, which were thenat their highest pitch of severity, led to {85} ferocious and frequentstruggles between the patrons and the enemies of legalized monopoly. Poachers were killed by game preservers, and game preservers were killedby poachers. Every assize court told this same story. An entirely newform of crime broke out in the murders which were committed for the sakeof obtaining bodies to be sold for the purposes of dissection. The priceof food was often made enormously high by the purely artificialrestrictions imposed upon its importation, and even in some cases on itsmere production, and in ordinary human society increase of poverty alwaysmeans increase of crime. A large proportion of the population was sunkin absolute ignorance, and as yet no systematic attempt whatever was madeto establish any form of national education. The luxury and theextravagance of the rich were enormous, and were greatly stimulated bythe example of the sovereign and the Court. Under the influence of thespasmodic and unreal impulse given to commercial activity by the latewars the rich seemed to be growing richer, while by the increasedtaxation which was the result of these wars the poor were certainly madeto grow poorer. The demand for Parliamentary reform was beginning toexpress itself in systematic movements. Lord John Russell and HenryBrougham made their voices heard in the House of Commons and throughoutthe country. Daniel O'Connell went so far as to declare that nothingwould satisfy him short of universal suffrage--manhood suffrage, that isto say--vote by ballot, and triennial Parliaments. This was thought atthe time by most people to be the mere raving of a madman or the wildoutcry of a revolutionary demagogue. We are not very far from the fullaccomplishment of the programme just now. The agitation against slaveryand the slave trade was becoming an important movement. The time, infact, was one of storm and high pressure. The shapes of great comingchanges were daily seen upon the horizon, and part of the communityregarded as the portents of coming national destruction what otherswelcomed as the bright signs of approaching prosperity, education, andpeace. 

{86}

[Sidenote: 1830--Death of George the Fourth]

One coming change all men looked forward to with the conviction that itwas near. The end of the reign was close at hand. The King's health andstrength had wholly given way of late years, and it was beyond the reachof medical science to do much for the prolongation of his life, even ifGeorge had been the sort of man to give medical science any chance ofdoing much for him. Preparations, however, were still being made for hisbirthday celebration in April, and nothing was done by any officialannouncement to give strength to the general prevailing impression thatthe end was near at hand. When, on April 15, a bulletin was at lastissued, it merely announced that the King was suffering from a biliousattack accompanied by a slight difficulty in breathing, but nothing wassaid to intimate that the King's physicians were in any alarm for theresult. The royal physicians still kept issuing bulletins, but they wereso vague in their terms that it is impossible to believe they were notmade purposely deceptive. It would appear that King George, like manybraver and better men, had a nervous objection to any admission byhimself or on his behalf that there was the slightest reason for alarm asto the state of his health. Greville, who was then in Rome, notes on May12 that: "Everybody here is in great alarm about the King, who I have nodoubt is very ill. " Then Greville adds, in characteristic fashion: "I amafraid he will die before I get home, and I should like to be in at thedeath, and see all the proceedings of a new reign. " But he makes up hismind that he must not hurry his departure on the ground that "I shallprobably never see Rome again, and I have a good chance of seeing atleast one king more leave us. "

Days and days went on and the public were still kept in doubt, until onMay 24 a message was sent in the King's name to both Houses of Parliamentto say that the King no longer found it convenient to sign State paperswith his own hand, and hoped some means might be found for relieving himfrom the necessity of making any attempt to discharge the painful duty. This announcement made it clear enough to everybody that the King was ina very {87} weak condition, but there was naturally some difficulty aboutdevising an entirely satisfactory method of dispensing him from the dutyof appending his sign-manual to important documents. Not a very longtime had passed away since the throne of England was nominally occupiedby an insane sovereign. It was thought quite possible that insanitymight show itself in the present King, and it was absolutely necessarythat the utmost care should be taken to provide against any chance of theroyal authority being misused by those who surrounded the sovereign. Itwas arranged, therefore, that the sign-manual should be affixed in theKing's presence, and in obedience to his order given by word of mouth, and that the document thus stamped must be endorsed by three members ofthe Privy Council. All this was to be provided for by an Act ofParliament, and the Act was only to be in operation during the sessionthen going on, in order that if the King's malady should last the renewalof the regular authority must be formally sought from the Legislature. The Bill for this purpose became law on May 28, and it remained inoperation but for a very short time. On June 26, about three in themorning, the reign of George the Fourth came to an end. The death wassudden, even when we consider that there had been for some time no hopeleft of the King's recovery. George was sitting up in bed, and to alloutward appearance was not any worse than he had been for some daysbefore, when suddenly a startled expression came over his face, he leanedhis head on the shoulder of one of his attendants, was heard to say, "OGod, this is death, " and then all was over. 

The rupture of a blood-vessel proved to have been the immediate cause ofdeath, but ossification of some of the vessels near the heart had begunyears before and a complication of disorders had been gradually settingin. The King's mode of life was not one which gave him any chance ofrallying against such disorders. He was reckless in his food and drink, and had long been in the way of cheering and stimulating himself byglasses of cherry-brandy taken at any moment of the day when the impulsecame upon {88} him. Shortly before his death George made an earnestrequest to the Duke of Wellington, who was in constant attendance, thathe should be buried in the night-shirt which he was wearing at the time. The Duke was somewhat surprised at this request, for one reason amongothers that the garment in question did not seem likely to commend itselfas a shroud even to a sovereign less particular as to costume than Georgethe Fourth had been. During his later years, however, as we learn fromthe testimony of Wellington himself, the King, who used to be the veryprince of dandies where his outer garments were concerned, had got intothe way of sleeping in uncleanly nightshirts and particularly dirtynight-caps. When the King was dead, Wellington noticed that there was ared silk ribbon round his neck beneath the shirt. The ribbon was foundto have attached to it a locket containing a tiny portrait of Mrs. Fitzherbert, perhaps the one only woman he had ever loved, perhaps, too, the woman he had most deeply wronged. It seemed that at one period oftheir love story the King and Mrs. Fitzherbert had exchanged smallportraits, each covered by half a cut diamond, and no doubt there was anunderstanding that each should rest forever on the breast of its wearer. 

[Sidenote: 1830--The character of George the Fourth]

Nothing in the story of George the Fourth's worthless and erring life ismore discreditable and dishonorable to him than the manner in which hebehaved to Mrs. Fitzherbert, and the utter falsehood of the denial whichhe had given to the reports that a marriage ceremony had taken placebetween them--a falsehood which, be it remembered, he had declared toCharles Fox upon his honor to be a truthful statement. The moralist maybe a little puzzled how to make up his mind as to the bearing of thisincident upon the character of George the Fourth. Does it relieve themurky gloom of George's life by one streak of light if we find that, after all, he did love Mrs. Fitzherbert to the last, and that in hisdying moments he wished her portrait to go with him to the tomb? Or doesit darken the stain upon the man's life to know that he really did lovethe woman whom nevertheless he could deliberately consign {89} to aninfamous imputation? We do not know whether any writer of romance hasventured to introduce into his pages an incident and a problem such asthose which are thus associated with the death-bed of George the Fourth. It is something to know that the King's brother, the Duke of Clarence, whom that death-bed had made King of England, was kind and generous toMrs. Fitzherbert, and did all in his power to atone to her for the trialswhich her love and her royal lover had brought upon her life. 

George was in his sixty-eighth year when he died. It would not be easyto find anywhere the story of a life which left so little of good to beremembered. George seems to have had some generous impulses now andthen, and he probably did some kindly acts which could be set off againsthis many errors, imperfections, ignoble selfishnesses, and graveoffences. But the record of his career as history gives it to us is thatof a life almost absolutely surrendered to self-indulgence. It is onlyfair to remember when we consider all the unworthy acts of his manhoodthat the unwise and harsh restraints imposed upon him in his early yearsare accountable, at least to a certain extent, for the follies and thevices to which he yielded himself up when he became, as Byron says of oneof his characters, "Lord of himself, that heritage of woe. " Heritage ofwoe it certainly was in the case of George the Fourth. In his earlymanhood he appears to have had the gift of forming close friendships withmen of genius and of noble impulse, but their example never told uponhim, and as one cause or other removed them from his side his career borewith it no trace of their influence or their inspiration. No one everseems to have loved him except Mrs. Fitzherbert alone, and we have seenhow that love was repaid. Even those who were most devoted to him in hislater years, because of their devotion to the royal house and to theState of which he was the representative, found themselves compelled tobear the heaviest testimony against his levity, his selfishness, his lackof conscience, his utter indifference to all the higher objects andpurposes of life. 

George must have had some natural talents and some {90} gifts ofintellect, for he would otherwise not have chosen such friends as thosewhom in his better days he chose out and brought around him. We are toldthat he had marvellous powers of conversation, that he had a ready wit, and a keen insight into the humors and the weaknesses of those with whomhe was compelled to associate. We are told that he could compete inrepartee with the recognized wits of his time, and that he could shine asa talker even among men whose names still live in history because oftheir reputations as talkers. Of course it will naturally occur to themind that the guests of the Prince Regent might be easily inclined todiscover genuine wit in any repartee which came from the Prince Regent, but it is certain that some at least of the men who surrounded him werenot likely to have been betrayed into admiration merely because of therank of their royal entertainer. Burke was held to have spokendisparagingly of George when he described him as "brilliant butsuperficial. " To one of Burke's deep thought and wide information a manmight well have seemed superficial in whom others nevertheless believedthat they saw evidences of intellect and understanding, but if Burkethought a man brilliant it is only reasonable to assume that that man'sconversation must have had frequent flashes of brilliancy. 

[Sidenote: 1830--The Third and Fourth Georges contrasted]

Undoubtedly George was capable sometimes of appreciating thoroughly thequalities of greatness in other men, but the appreciation never left anyabiding influence upon his character or his career. He certainly did notmake himself the cause of so much injury to the best interests of theState as George the Third had done, but it has also to be observed thatwhen George the Third went wrong and obstinately maintained a wrongfulcourse he was acting in dogged obedience to what he believed to be hisconscience and the teachings of his creed. George the Fourth hadabsolutely no conscience and no law of life, and when he talked mostvehemently and loudly about his coronation oath those who were accustomedto deal with him knew quite well from experience that when he hadexhausted his humor by a {91} sufficient outpouring of eloquence he wouldbe sure to take the advice given to him and to trouble himself no moreabout the question of conscience. In this way, of course, George theFourth did less harm to the State than his father had done, but when wecome to compare the moral character of the two men we must admit that theobstinacy of the father deserves the recognition which we cannot give tothe spasmodic and ephemeral self-assertion of the son. Nobody for amoment believed that George the Fourth had the slightest idea of actuallyabdicating his royal position in England and betaking himself toperpetual boredom in Hanover rather than consent to the passing ofCatholic Emancipation. But at times of trial those who were aroundGeorge the Third had good reason to believe that if he were driven tochoose between his throne and his conscience he would have come downdeliberately from the throne and followed his conscience whithersoever itmight lead him. With George the Fourth the only question was how long hewould stand the wear and tear of having to defend his position, and howsoon he would begin to feel that the inconvenience of giving in would beless troublesome than the inconvenience of holding out. Even the mostcourtly historian would be hard put to it if he were set to find out anypassage in the whole of George the Fourth's matured life which compelsadmiration. 

George seems to have been an absolutely self-centred man. He was to allappearance constitutionally unable to import into his mind anyconsiderations but those which affected his own personal comforts andlikings and indulgences and occasional love of display. There were timeswhen he evidently thought he was acting a great part, and when it filledhim with joy to believe that he was thus making himself an object ofpublic admiration; but no higher consideration, no thought beyond him andthe applause he believed himself to be winning, appear to have enteredhis mind even at such moments of exaltation. We read in history ofprinces who believed themselves qualified by nature to be great actors orgreat singers, and who made absurd exhibitions of themselves accordinglyand accepted {92} the courtly and venal applause as genuine tributes toartistic genius. In the same way, and only in the same way, George theFourth sometimes believed himself to be playing a great part, and itgratified his vanity to act the part out until it became tiresome to himand he found it a relief to go back to the ordinary delights of his easy, lazy, and sensuous nature. Perhaps the best that can be said of him isthat he had possibly some gifts which under other conditions might havebeen turned to better account. Perhaps if he had had to work for aliving, to make a career in life for himself, to depend for his successentirely on the steady use of his own best qualities, and to avoid theidleness and self-indulgence which would have condemned him to perpetualstint and poverty, he might have made a respectable name in some careerwhere intelligence and application count for much. But a hard fortunehad condemned him to be a king, and to begin by being the son of a king, and thus to find as the years went on increasing opportunity ofgratifying all his meanest tastes and finding always around him the readyhomage which accords its applause to the most ignoble caprices and themost wanton self-indulgence. The reign of George the Fourth saw greatdeeds and great men; it could have seen few men in all his realm lessdeserving a word of praise than George the Fourth. 

[Sidenote: 1830--Events in the reign of George the Fourth]

The reign saw the beginning of many great enterprises in practicalscience, the uprising of many philanthropic combinations, and the firstmovements of political and social reform. It saw the earliest attemptsmade in a systematic way towards the spread of education among themultitude, and the close of many a bright career in literature and thearts. Bishop Heber died in 1826. The death of Byron has already beenrecorded in these pages, and at even an earlier period of the reign twoother stars of the first magnitude in the firmament of literature ceasedto shine upon the earth in bodily presence with the deaths of Keats andShelley. John Kemble, probably the greatest English tragic actor fromthe days of Garrick to the uprising of Edmund Kean, died while George theFourth was {93} King. Sir Thomas Lawrence, Flaxman, Fuseli, andNollekens ceased to work for art. Sir Humphry Davy, Dugald Stewart, andPestalozzi were lost to science. The reign saw the foundation of theRoyal Society of Literature, which, to do him justice, George the Fourthhelped to establish; the beginning of Mechanics' Institute, and theopening of some new parks and the Zoological Gardens. It is doubtful ifthe Thames Tunnel can be described as a really valuable addition to thetriumphs of engineering, and it will perhaps be generally admitted thatBuckingham Palace was not an artistic addition to the architecturalornaments of the metropolis. The Society for the Diffusion of UsefulKnowledge was set on foot owing chiefly to the energy and the instinctsof Henry Brougham. 

We have seen how the foreign policy of Canning opened a distinctly newchapter in English history, and it may be observed that owing to theinfluence of that policy the principle of neutrality was maintained underdifficult conditions, and even where the general sympathy of England wentdistinctly with one of the parties to a foreign dispute. This policymight well have been followed with credit and advantage to England onmore than one critical occasion at a much later time. The reign saw thebeginning of the movement towards free trade as a distinct internationalpolicy, and saw the removal of some of the most cramping and antiquatedrestrictions on the commerce of the kingdom and the colonies. Thecrusade against slavery and the slave-trade may be said to have begun itsmarch in anything like organized form during this reign. The politicalprinciples which we now describe as Liberal became a new force in theState during the same time. The idea that even beneficent despotism canbe counted on as an enduring or an endurable form of government began todie out, and the principle came to be more and more distinctly and loudlyproclaimed that the best form of government must be not only for, but by, the people. 

These things are in themselves enough to show that in the sphere ofpolitical and social reform as well as in that {94} of practical sciencethe reign of George the Fourth was at least a reign of great beginnings. The student of history may perhaps draw an instructive and a moral lessonfrom the knowledge forced upon him of the fact which seems lamentable initself that to the ruler of the State little or nothing was due for theachievements which give the reign its best claim to be honored inhistory. The reign of George the Fourth teaches us that in a countrylike modern England, while a good sovereign may do much to forward theintellectual, political, and social progress of the people, even theworst sovereign could no longer do much to retard it. 

[Sidenote: 1830: The Georges and the Stuarts]

The Four Georges had come and gone. A famous epoch in English historyhad ended. Four princes of the same race, of the same name, had ruled insuccession over the English people. Practically, the reigns of the fournamesakes may be said to coincide with, to comprehend, and to representthe history of the eighteenth century in England. The reign of Georgethe Fourth may be regarded as a survival from the eighteenth into thenineteenth century, as the reign of Anne was a survival from theseventeenth into the eighteenth century. In all the changes of that longand eventful age one change is very memorable and significant. Theposition of the dynasty was very different when George the Fourth diedfrom what it was when his great-great-grandfather came over unwillinglyfrom Germany to grasp the sceptre. When the Elector of Hanover becameKing of England, the Stuart party was still a power in political life andthe Stuart cause the dearest hope of a very large number of devotedEnglishmen. It might well be hard for men to realize in the days ofGeorge the Fourth that in the reign of the first George and in the reignof the second George the throne reeled beneath the blows which the armedadherents of the exiled Stuart princes struck at the supremacy of thesovereigns of the House of Brunswick. Even when the third George came tothe throne there were still desperate dreamers who hoped against hopethat something, anything, might happen which would allow the King--theKing over the {95} water--to enjoy his own again. When the last of theGeorges passed away, the Stuart cause had been buried for nearly half acentury in that grave in Rome which encloses the remains of the last andperhaps the most unhappy of the Stuart princes. 

{96}

WILLIAM THE FOURTH. 

CHAPTER LXIX. 

KING WILLIAM THE FOURTH. 

[Sidenote: 1830--The career of William the Fourth]

William the Fourth, as the Duke of Clarence had now become, was nearingthe completion of his sixty-fifth year when the death of his brotherraised him to the throne. He had surely had full time in which toprepare himself for the business of a monarch, for during a long periodit was well known that nothing was likely to stand between him and thesuccession except the life of his elder brother, the Duke of York. ButWilliam's tastes did not allure him to any study of the duties whichbelonged to a throne. The Navy was assigned to him as a profession, and he actually saw some service in America and in the West Indies, buthe obtained his promotion as a matter of course until he reached theposition of Lord High Admiral, which may be described as the main-topof his naval career. The story is told of him, and will probably, whether it be accurate or not, be told as long as his history comesunder public recollection, that he had something to do with thepromotion of the great naval battle of Navarino, which led to theemancipation of Greece. The combined fleets of England, France, andRussia, under command of Admiral Sir Edward Codrington, were watchingthe Turkish and Egyptian fleets, in order to protect Greece againstthem. But the actual course to be taken by the allies was supposed todepend upon many serious political considerations. The BritishAdmiralty issued a solemn official despatch to Sir Edward Codrington, enjoining on him the necessity of great care and caution in any actionhe might take. This {97} document was forwarded in due course by theLord High Admiral, and the story goes that the Duke of Clarencescribbled at the end of it in his own hand the encouraging words, "Goit, Ned. " Whether it was fought under this inspiration or not, it iscertain that the battle was fought, that the Turkish and Egyptianfleets were destroyed, and that the independence of Greece was won. 

The English public generally would have been none the less inclined towelcome the accession of the Duke of Clarence as William the Fourtheven although it had been part of authentic history that the new Kinghad lately borne an important, if an underhand, part in the rescue ofGreece from Ottoman oppression. But there was little else in thecareer of the Duke of Clarence to command popular respect or affection. He had lived openly, or almost openly, for many years with thecelebrated actress Mrs. Jordan, who had borne him ten children, andthis connection had been made the subject of free and frank allusion insome of the verses of Robert Burns. The British public, however, wereinclined, as Robert Burns was, to look forgivingly on the doings of thePrince, for he was still a young man when his acquaintance with Mrs. Jordan began. The British public liked him because he was a sailor, iffor nothing else, and men's eyes turned hopefully to him when it becameapparent that not much good was any longer to be looked for from Georgethe Fourth. In 1818 William married the eldest daughter of the Duke ofSaxe-Meiningen, and had two daughters, both of whom died in theirinfancy. The Duke of Clarence had been noted, during the greater partof his career, for his roughness of manner, and many anecdotes of himwere spread about which might have suited well the fun of somehistorian belonging to the school of Brantôme, or some compiler ofmemoirs after the fashion of Saint-Simon. Still he was the SailorKing, and England had always, and naturally, loved sailors; and "go tothen, " as might have been said in the days of Shakespeare, what furtherexplanation could be needed of the fact that William the Fourth openedhis career of royalty under favoring {98} auspices? It might seem tothe mind of some philosophical observer rather hard to get intotransports of enthusiasm about a new monarch aged sixty-five who duringall his previous career had done nothing of which to be particularlyproud, and had done many things of which a respectable person inprivate life would have felt heartily ashamed. Still, the Duke ofClarence had become William the Fourth, and was on the throne, andgreat things might possibly be expected from him even yet, although hewas pretty well stricken in years. At all events, he was not Georgethe Fourth. So the public of these countries was in the mood to makethe best of him, and give him a loyal welcome, and wait for events withthe comfortable faith that even at sixty-five a man may begin a newlife, and find time and heart and intellect to do things of which nopromise whatever had been given during all his earlier years. 

[Sidenote: 1830--The pocket boroughs]

William had been supposed up to the time of his accession to leantowards the Whig, or what we should now call the Liberal party. Hismanners were frank, familiar, and even rough. He cared little forCourt ceremonial of any kind, and was in the habit of walking about thestreets with his umbrella tucked under his arm, like any ordinaryLondoner. All this told rather in his favor, so far as the outerpublic were concerned. There was supposed to be something ratherEnglish, something rather typical of John Bull in the easy-goingmanners of the new sovereign, which gave people an additional reasonfor welcoming him. The new sovereign, however, had come in for timesof popular excitement, and even of trouble. There came a newrevolution in France--only a dynastic revolution, to be sure, and not anational upheaval, but still it was a change which dethroned the newlyrestored legitimate line of sovereigns. The elder branch of theBourbons was torn away and flung aside. There were to be no more kingsof France, but only kings of the French. Charles the Tenth wasdeposed, and Louis Philippe, son of Philippe Egalité, was placed on thethrone. Charles the Tenth was the last of the legitimate kings ofFrance so far, and there does not {99} seem much chance in theimmediate future for any restoration of the fallen dynasty. 

The overthrow of legitimacy in France had a strong effect on popularopinion in England. It was plain that Charles the Tenth and his systemhad come to ruin because the sovereign and his ministers would not movewith the common movement of the times over the greater part of theEuropean continent, and popular reformers in England took care that thelesson should not be thrown away over here. Great changes had beenaccomplished by popular movements even during the enfeebling anddisheartening reign of George the Fourth. Great progress had been madetowards the establishment of religious equality, or at all eventstowards the removal of religious disqualifications among the Dissentersand the Roman Catholics. There was a loud cry almost everywhere forsome measure of political reform. The conditions of the country hadbeen gradually undergoing a great change. England had been becomingless and less dependent for her prosperity on her mere agriculturalresources, and had been growing more and more into a greatmanufacturing community. Huge towns like Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds, Birmingham, and Sheffield were arising in the Northern and Midlandregions. Liverpool was superseding Bristol as the great seaport ofcommercial traffic. Yet in most cases the old-fashioned principlestill prevailed which in practice confined the Parliamentaryrepresentation of the country to the members who sat for the counties, and for what were called the pocket boroughs. The theory of theConstitution, as it was understood, held that the sovereign summoned athis own discretion and pleasure the persons whom he thought bestqualified to form a House of Commons, to consult with him as to thegovernment of the empire. The sovereign for this purpose conferred theright of representation on this or that town, or district, or county, according as he thought fit, and this arrangement had gone on fromgeneration to generation. Now it sometimes happened that a place thathad been comparatively popular and prosperous at the period when itobtained the {100} right of representation had seen its prosperity andits population gradually ebb away from it, and leave it little betterthan a bare hill-side, and yet the bare hill-side retained the right ofrepresentation, and its owner could send any one he pleased into theHouse of Commons. There were numberless illustrations of this curiousanomaly all over the country. The great families of landed proprietorsnaturally monopolized among them the representation of the counties, and many of them enjoyed also the ownership of the small decaying ortotally decayed boroughs which still retained the right of returningmembers to Parliament. On the other hand, the development ofmanufacturing energy had caused the growth of great and populous townsand cities, and most of these towns and cities were actually withoutrepresentation or the right of representation in the House of Commons. Thus a condition of things had arisen which was certain to prove itselfincompatible with the spread of education and the growth of publicinterest in all great questions of domestic reform. 

[Sidenote: 1830--The Princess Victoria]

We have already seen in this history how the Whig party in Parliament, and the popular agitators out of Parliament, had long been rousing thenational intelligence and the national conscience to a sense of thegrowing necessity for some complete change in all that concerned therepresentation of the people. The Duke of Wellington was at the headof the Administration when George the Fourth died and William came tothe throne. The new King, as has been said, was supposed to haveLiberal inclinations as regarded political questions, and there was acommon expectation that he might begin his reign by summoning a new setof ministers. The King, however, did nothing of the kind. He sentmessages to the Duke of Wellington telling him, in his usual familiarand uncouth way, that he had always liked the Duke uncommonly well, anddid not see any reason why he should not keep him on as his PrimeMinister. This was, to begin with, a disappointment to the majority ofthe public. The first royal speech from the throne contained othermatter of disappointment. There was great distress all over the {101}country. The enormous expense of the long wars was still making itselffelt in huge taxation. The condition of agriculture was low, and manydistricts were threatened with something like famine. Trade wassuffering from the reaction which always follows a long and exhaustingwar. It was confidently expected that the royal speech would take someaccount of the widespread national distress and would foreshadow somemeasures to deal with it. The speech, however, said nothing on thesubject. Then there was another omission which created muchdissatisfaction and even some alarm. The speech made no mention of anymeasures to be taken for the establishment of a regency in the event ofthe King's death. The King was sixty-five years old, and had led alife which even the most loyal and hopeful of his subjects could notregard with confidence as likely to give promise of a long reign. Nowthe heir-presumptive to the throne was the Princess AlexandrinaVictoria, a child then only eleven years old. The Princess Victoria, as she was commonly called, was the daughter of the Duke of Kent, thefourth son of George the Third. Any attack of illness, any seriousaccident, might bring the life of King William to a sudden close, andthen if no previous arrangement had been made for a regency Parliamentand the country might be involved in some confusion. 

There was one very grave and even ominous condition which had to betaken into account. If the King were to die suddenly, and with noprovision made for a regency, the girl, perhaps the child, whosucceeded him would in the ordinary course of things be left under theguardianship of her eldest uncle, the Duke of Cumberland. Now it isonly stating a simple fact to say that the Duke of Cumberland was thenthe most unpopular man in England. He was not merely unpopular, he wasan object of common dread and detestation. He was regarded as areckless profligate and an unprincipled schemer. There must have beenmuch exaggeration about some of the tales that were told and acceptedconcerning him, for it is hard to believe that at a time so near to ourown a prince of {102} the Royal House of England could have lived alife the story of which might seem to have belonged to the worst daysof the Lower Empire. But, whatever allowance be made for exaggeration, it is certain that the Duke of Cumberland was almost universally hated, and that many people seriously considered him quite capable of any plotor any crime which might secure his own advancement to the throne. Sanguine persons, indeed, saw a gleam of hope in the fact that the Dukeof Cumberland was in any case the heir to the crown of Hanover. In theHouse of Hanover the succession is confined to the male line, and thePrincess Victoria had nothing to do with it. The hope, therefore, wasthat the Duke of Cumberland would be content with the prospect of hissuccession to the throne of Hanover, and that when the time arrived forhim to become King of Hanover he would betake himself to his newkingdom and trouble England no more. Still the fact remained that justas yet he was not King of Hanover, and that if no proper provisionswere made against a contingency he might become the guardian of thegirl, or the child, who was to succeed William the Fourth on theEnglish throne. 

[Sidenote: 1830--The death of Huskisson]

King William, however, did not trouble himself much about all theseconsiderations. He did not see any reason why people should expect himto die all of a sudden, and he could hardly be got to give any seriousattention to the question of a regency. It was then part of theconstitutional practice of the monarchy that a dissolution ofParliament should take place when a new sovereign had come to thethrone. The practice has since ceased to be a part of ourconstitutional usages, but in the days when William the Fourth came tothe throne it was a matter of course. The King, for some reason orother, was anxious that a dissolution should take place as soon aspossible. It may be that he was merely desirous to find out how farthe existing Ministry had the support of the country, although it doesnot seem quite likely that William's intelligence could have carriedhim so near to the level of statesmanship as to make this elementaryquestion a {103} matter of consideration in his mind. The King'sprincipal ministers were the Duke of Wellington and Sir Robert Peel. The most powerful among the leaders of Opposition were Charles, EarlGrey, in the House of Lords and Henry Brougham and Lord John Russell inthe House of Commons. There was some doubt as to the position whichmight be taken up by Canning and Huskisson and their friends. Some ofthe Tories believed that they might be won over to support the Duke ofWellington, in order to assist him in counteracting the efforts of themore ardent and liberal reformers, like Grey and Brougham and Russell. Fate soon settled the question so far at least as Huskisson wasconcerned. The opening of the line of railway from Liverpool toManchester, the first line of any considerable length completed inEngland, took place on September 15, 1830. The Duke of Wellington, SirRobert Peel, and Huskisson were among the distinguished visitors whowere present at the opening of the railway. The friends alike of thePrime Minister and of the great expert in finance were anxious that thetwo should come together on this occasion, and make a personal if not apolitical reconciliation. The train stopped at a station; the Duke andHuskisson both got out, and were approaching to meet each other, theDuke holding out his hand, when an alarm was raised about the approachof a locomotive. A rush was made for the carriages, and in theconfusion Huskisson was struck down by an open door in the movingtrain, and suffered such injuries that his death almost immediatelyfollowed. Huskisson was, beyond doubt, one of the most enlightenedstatesmen of his time in all that concerned the financial arrangementsof the country. He might have been called a Liberal, just as we mightcall Canning a Liberal, when we think of the general direction taken bythe policy of either man. 

The dissatisfaction with which the speech from the throne was receivedfound its expression in no severer form, so far at least as Parliamentwas concerned, than a motion by Lord Grey in the one House, and LordAlthorp in the other, for a short delay to enable both Houses to {104}consider the address in reply to the royal speech. It was made evidentthat the delay sought for had to do with the question of a regency, concerning which, as has been said, the King had not troubled himselfto make any announcement. Now the constitutional system of England hadtaken no account, except through the provision of a regency, of thefact that a child might become sovereign of the realm. Therefore, ifParliament did not establish a regency during the lifetime of KingWilliam, and if the King were soon to die through any accident ormalady, the child Princess would come to the throne under no furtherconstitutional restraints than those which belonged to the position ofa full-grown sovereign. There was another trouble, however, and one ofstill graver political importance, awaiting the Ministry of the Duke ofWellington. 

[Sidenote: 1830--Brougham and Reform]

Henry Brougham gave notice in the House of Commons that on an early dayhe would bring forward a motion to raise the whole question of reformin the representative system of the country. Brougham, at this time, was regarded as the most strenuous and powerful champion of reform inthe House of Commons. Lord John Russell had not yet had an opportunityof proving how steadfast were his principles as a reformer, and howgreat were the Parliamentary gifts which he had brought to the mainpurpose of his life. Moreover, Lord John Russell never had any of thekind of eloquence which made Brougham so powerful in and out ofParliament. Brougham on a popular platform could outdo the most stormymob orator of the time. He was impassioned, boisterous, overwhelmingto a degree of which we can find no adequate illustration even in themost tumultuous Trafalgar Square demonstrations of our later days. Even in the House of Commons, and afterwards in what might be regardedas the deadening atmosphere of the House of Lords, Brougham wasaccustomed to shout and storm and gesticulate, to shake his fist andstamp, after a fashion which was startling even in those days, and ofwhich now we have no living illustration. Brougham was at this timealmost at the very zenith of his popularity among the reformers allover the country, {105} and more especially in the North of England. When, therefore, Brougham announced that he was determined at theearliest opportunity to raise the whole question of reform in the Houseof Commons it became evident that the new reign was destined to openwith a momentous and long constitutional struggle, a struggle thatmight be counted upon to mark an epoch in the history of England. Thenews that the French legitimate monarchy had fallen and that LouisPhilippe reigned as King of the French--King of the barricades he wascommonly called--came in time to quicken men's hopes and animate theirpassions for the approaching trial of strength between the old formsand the new spirit. 

The Government refused to agree to the one day's delay which was askedfor by the leaders of Opposition. On a division being taken there wasa majority for Ministers in both Houses, and the Duke of Wellington hadscored thus far. He had shown that he was personally determined not toconcede any point to the Opposition, and he had secured a victory. Parliament was dissolved within a few days and the country was plungedinto a general election. At that time, it should be remembered, anelection was a very different sort of event from that which bears thesame name at the present day. An election contest could then, according to the extent and nature of the constituency, run on for atime not exceeding fifteen days, and it was accompanied by a practiceof bribery, lavish, open, shameless, and profligate, such as is totallyunknown to our more modern times, and such as our habits and feelings, no more than our laws, would tolerate. Intimidation and violence werealso parts of every fiercely contested election, and those whom the lawexcluded from any part in the struggle as electors were apt to find, inthat very exclusion, only another reason for taking part in it by theuse of physical force. Just at the time which we are now describingthere are many conditions which made a general election likely to beespecially stormy and turbulent. 

The distress which prevailed throughout the country had in manydistricts called up a spirit of something like {106} desperation, whichexhibited itself in a crime of almost entire novelty, the burning ofhayricks on farms. This offence became so widespread throughout largeparts of the country that it gave rise to theories about an organizedconspiracy against property which was supposed to be, in some vaguesort of way, an outcome of the socialistic excesses which had takenplace during the French Revolution and had been revived by the morerecent commotions in France. The probability is that the rick-burningoffences were, in the first instance, the outcome of sheer despairseeking vengeance anywhere and anyhow for its own sufferings, and thenof the mere passion for imitation in crime which finds some manner ofillustration here and there at all periods of history. However thatmay be, it is certain that the offences became very common, that theywere punished with merciless severity, and that the gallows was kept inconstant operation. 

[Sidenote: 1830--A change in constitutional systems]

Now, it may be taken almost as a political axiom that whenever there isgreat distress at the time of a general election it is certain to giverise to some feeling of hostility against a Ministry, especially if theMinistry had been for any length of time in power. A considerableportion of the Tories had been turned against the Duke of Wellingtonbecause, under the advice of Sir Robert Peel, he had yielded at last tothe demand for Catholic Emancipation, even although, as Peel and theDuke himself declared, the concession had been made merely as a choicebetween Catholic Emancipation and civil war. Some influential Toriesall over the country were asking whether Ireland had been pacified orhad shown herself in the least degree grateful because an instalment ofreligious freedom had been granted to the Roman Catholics, and theyinsisted that the Duke had surrendered the supremacy of the EstablishedChurch to no purpose. It was certain, indeed, that O'Connell had not, in the slightest degree, slackened the energy of his political movementbecause the emancipating Act had been passed. Among the opponents ofreform, at all times, there are some who seem to hold that the grantingof one reform ought to be enough to put a stop to all demands for any{107} other, and that it is mere ingratitude on the part of a man whohas just obtained permission to follow his own form of worship if hewants also to be put on an equality with his neighbors as regards theassertion of his political opinions. Therefore, the Ministry found, asthe elections went on, that they had not merely all the reformersagainst them, but that a certain proportion of those who, in theordinary condition of things, would have been their supporters wereestranged from them merely because they had, under whatever pressure, consented to introduce any manner of reform. 

When the elections were over it seemed to reasonable observers verydoubtful indeed whether King William, however well inclined, would beable to retain for any length of time the Duke of Wellington and SirRobert Peel as the leading advisers of the Crown. The country justthen may be described as in a state of transition from oneconstitutional system to another. It was growing more clear, day byday, that the time had gone by when the sovereign could hold to any oneparticular minister, or set of ministers, in defiance of the majorityin the representative chamber and the strength of public opinionout-of-doors. On the other hand, the time had not yet arrived when thesystem introduced and established by the present reign could be reliedupon as part of the Constitution, and the sovereign could be trusted toaccept, without demur, the judgment of the House of Commons as to thechoice of his ministers. The new Parliament was opened on November 5, and the Royal Speech gave but little satisfaction to reformers of anyclass. It contained no recommendation of constitutional reform, andindeed congratulated the whole population on having the advantage ofliving under so faultless a political system. It concerned itself inno wise about the distress that existed in the country, except that itexpressed much satisfaction at the manner in which the criminal lawshad been called into severe action for the repression of offencesagainst property. 

The King conceded so much to public opinion as to recommend theappointment of a regency, in order to {108} make provision for thepossibility of his life being cut short; but even this was only done ina fashion that seemed to say, "If you really will have it that I amlikely to die soon you may humor yourselves by taking any course thatseems to satisfy your scruples--it is not worth my while to interferewith your whims. " The reformers therefore had clearly nothing toexpect so far as the Royal Speech could deal with expectations. Butthey found that they had still less to expect from the intentions ofthe Ministry. 

[Sidenote: 1830--Wellington as a politician]

In the debate on the address, in reply to the speech from the throne, Lord Grey took occasion to ask for some exposition of Ministerialpolicy with regard to reform of the representative system. Then theDuke of Wellington delivered a speech which may be described as uniquein its way. It would be impossible to put into words any statementmore frankly opposed to all Parliamentary reform. The greatest oratorthat ever lived, the profoundest judge who ever laid down the law to ajury, could not have prepared a statement more comprehensive and moreexact as a condemnation of all reform than that which the victor ofWaterloo was able to enunciate with all confidence and satisfaction. He laid it down that it would be utterly beyond the power of the wisestpolitical philosopher to devise a Constitution so near to absoluteperfection as that with which Englishmen living in the reign of hispresent Majesty, William the Fourth, had been endowed by the wisdom oftheir ancestors. He affirmed that he had never heard any suggestionwhich contained the slightest promise of an improvement on thatConstitution. He repeated, in various forms of repetition, thatEnglishmen already possessed all the freedom that it was good for mento have, that the rights of all classes were equally maintained, thatthe happiness of every one was secured, so far as law could secure it, and that the only thing for reasonable Englishmen to do was to opentheir eyes and recognize the advantages conferred upon them by theConstitution under which they were happy enough to live. 

The Duke of Wellington probably knew nothing of {109} Voltaire'sphilosopher who maintained that everything was for the best in thisbest of all possible worlds, but he seemed to be pervaded by the samesentiment of complete satisfaction when he contemplated the BritishConstitution. Finally, he declared that, so far from having anyintention to touch with irreverent hand that sacred political structurefor the vain purpose of improvement, he was determined to resist to theuttermost of his power every effort to interfere with theconstitutional arrangements which had done so much for the prosperityand the glory of the empire. We do not quote the exact words of theDuke of Wellington's speech, but we feel sure we are giving a faithfulversion of the meaning which he intended to convey and succeeded veryclearly in conveying. The Duke of Wellington was undoubtedly one ofthe greatest soldiers the world has ever seen. As a soldier ofconquest he was not indeed to be compared with an Alexander, a Caesar, or a Napoleon, but as a soldier of defence he has probably never had asuperior. As an administrator, too, he had shown immense capacity bothin India and in Europe, and had more than once brought what seemedabsolute chaos into order and shape. But he had no gift for theunderstanding of politics, and it was happy for him, at more than onecrisis of his career, that he was quite aware of his own politicalincapacity and was ready to defer to the judgment of other men whounderstood such things better than he did. We have already seen how heaccepted the guidance of Peel when it became necessary to yield theclaim for Catholic Emancipation, and he was commonly in the habit ofsaying that Peel understood all such matters better than he couldpretend to. He was not, therefore, the minister who would ruin a Stateor bring a State into revolution by obstinate adhesion to his own viewsin despite of every advice and every warning, and no doubt when he wasdelivering his harangue against all possible schemes of reform he feltstill convinced that he was merely expressing the unalterable opinionof Peel and every other loyal subject whose judgment ought to prevailwith a law-abiding people. 

{110}

In the House of Commons Brougham gave notice that on an early day hewould bring forward a motion on the subject of political reform. Thus, therefore, the trumpet of battle was sounded on both sides. Thestruggle must now be fought out to the end. Nothing, however, could bedone until the Ministry had been driven from office, and it was not byany means certain that in the House of Commons, as it was thenconstituted, a direct vote on the question of reform would end in adefeat of the Duke of Wellington's Government. Something that seemedalmost like an accident brought about a crisis sooner than had beenanticipated. Sir Henry Parnell brought forward a motion for theappointment of a select committee to inquire into, and report upon, theestimates and amounts submitted by his Majesty with regard to the civilservice. This motion had the support of the Liberal leaders and wasstrongly opposed by the Government. No one could have been surprisedat the opposition offered by the Government, for Sir Henry Parnell'swas just the sort of motion which every Ministry is sure to oppose. Agovernment prepares its own estimates, and is not apt to be in favor ofthe appointment of an outside committee to inquire into their amountand their appropriation. Still, the whole question was not one to beregarded as of capital importance in ordinary times, and therefore, although the debate was one of great interest both inside and outsidethe House of Commons, it did not seem likely to lead to any momentousand immediate consequences. 

[Sidenote: 1830--Ministerial resignations]

Sir Henry Parnell was a man of ability and character, and was regardedin the House as an authority on financial questions. He belonged tothe family of Parnell the poet, the friend of Swift and Pope, and heafterwards became the first Lord Congleton, taking his title from thatpart of Cheshire where the poet and his ancestors had lived. In years, much later years, that belonged to our own times another member of theParnell family made for himself a conspicuous place in the House ofCommons and in Imperial politics, the late Charles Stewart Parnell, thefamous leader of the Irish National party. Sir Henry {111} Parnellcarried his motion by a majority of twenty-nine in the House of Commons. 

Now in the ordinary course of things there was nothing in such an eventto compel the resignation of a Ministry. It would have been quitereasonable for any Government to express a willingness to meet thewishes of the House on such a subject, to agree to the appointment of acommittee, and then go on as if nothing particular had occurred. Butit sometimes happens that a Government is willing, or even anxious, toaccept defeat on a side issue, although of minor importance, in orderto escape from, or at all events to postpone, a decision on somequestion of vital import. Sometimes, too, there are reasons, wellknown to all members of a Government but not yet in the knowledge ofthe public, which incline a Ministry to find a reason for resigningoffice in the result of some casual division which cannot be said toamount to a vote of want of confidence. Not many years have passedsince a Liberal Government, which might have seemed to ordinaryobservers to be secure in its position, thought it well to accept avote on the supply of cordite in the army stores as a vote of want ofconfidence, and accordingly went out of office. The Duke of Wellingtonand Sir Robert Peel appear to have come to the conclusion that thesuccess of Sir Henry Parnell's motion would furnish them with aplausible excuse for withdrawing at a convenient moment from anunpromising position. Henry Brougham, as we have already said, hadgiven formal notice in the House of Commons that he would bring forwarda motion for leave to introduce a definite scheme of Parliamentaryreform. Now everybody knew that Brougham was at that time thoroughlyearnest on the subject of reform, and that he had, during the recentgeneral election, the best possible reasons for knowing that the greatmajority in the North of England, at all events, was behind him. Onthe other hand, ministers themselves had had ample opportunities offinding out, during the elections, that a large number of those whom atother times they might have regarded as their own supporters wereestranged from them or had actually turned {112} against them. TheDuke of Wellington and Sir Robert Peel probably thought that theirwisest course would be to let Lord Grey and Brougham and their friendstry what they could do with the monstrous spectre of reform which theyhad conjured up, and wait till the country had recovered its sensesbefore again undertaking to act as ministers of the Crown. 

[Sidenote: 1830--Wellington and Peel resign]

An odd and rather absurd incident, which created much scandal and alarmat the time, and soon passed out of public recollection, had helped nodoubt to bring the Duke of Wellington and Peel to their decision. TheKing and Queen had been invited to dine with the Lord Mayor and theCorporation at the Guildhall on November 9, and had accepted theinvitation. The Duke of Wellington and the other ministers were to beamong the guests. 

Shortly before the appointed day the Duke of Wellington got a letterfrom the Lord Mayor-elect, telling him that he had received privateinformation about some mysterious organized attempt to be made againstthe Duke himself on the occasion of his visit to the City, and urgingthe Duke to have the streets well guarded with soldiers, in order toprevent the success of any such lawless and atrocious enterprise. Nowthe Duke was not a man to care much, personally, about an alarm of thiskind, but he thought it would be rather an unseemly spectacle if thestreets of the City had to be guarded by troops when the new sovereignwent to be the guest of the Lord Mayor at the Guildhall. The attempt, to be sure, was said to be directed against the Duke himself and notagainst the King; but still it would hardly do, it would scarcely havea happy effect on public opinion at home and abroad, if the first visitof the Sailor King, the popular William, to the City were to be madethe occasion of a murderous attack on the King's Prime Minister. Itmight get into the public mind that what had happened in Paris waslikely to happen in London, and the effect on Europe might be mostdamaging to the credit of the country. So the banquet was put off; thesovereign and his Prime Minister did not visit the City. A vague panicraged everywhere, {113} and the Funds went alarmingly down. The storywhich had impressed the Lord Mayor-elect was in all likelihood only amere scare. But it had, no doubt, some effect in deciding the actionof the Ministry. At all events, the Duke of Wellington and hiscolleagues determined to try what strength the reformers had behindthem. They tendered their resignation; the King was prevailed upon toaccept it, and it was announced to Parliament and the public that theDuke of Wellington and Sir Robert Peel were no longer in office. 

{114}

CHAPTER LXX. 

LE ROI D'YVETOT. 

[Sidenote: 1830-37--Eccentricities of William the Fourth]

We may turn for a moment from the path of politics to mention a factthat is worth mentioning, if only because of the immense differencebetween the accepted usages of that time and any usages that would bepossible in our days. King William shortly after his accession createdhis eldest son Earl of Munster, and conferred upon all his other sonsand daughters the rank that belongs to the younger children of amarquis. The King's living children, as has been said before, were allillegitimate. In raising them to the rank of the peerage King Williamwas only following the example of many or most of his predecessors. People thought none the less of him, at the time, because he hadbestowed such honor upon his progeny. Charles Greville, the famousClerk of the Council to George the Fourth and William the Fourth, describes the new sovereign with characteristic frankness and lack ofreverence. "Altogether, " says Greville, writing about a fortnightafter the King's accession, "he seems a kind-hearted, well-meaning, notstupid, burlesque, bustling old fellow, and if he doesn't go mad maymake a very decent king, but he exhibits oddities. "

The early bringing-up of the new King had certainly not tended much tofill him with the highest aspirations or to qualify him for the mostdignified duties of royalty. "Never, " says Greville, "was elevationlike that of King William the Fourth. His life has hitherto beenpassed in obscurity and neglect, in miserable poverty, surrounded by anumerous progeny of bastards, without consideration or friends, and hewas ridiculous from his grotesque ways and little, meddling curiosity. "

{115}

He appears to have been a man of rather kindly, and certainly notungenerous, disposition, and it is decidedly to his credit, in onesense, that the expectations of most of the Whigs were disappointedwhen he came to the throne. During his career in the Navy he had a wayof disregarding orders, and when in command of a squadron wouldsometimes take his own vessel on an expedition according to his ownfancy, and leave the remainder of the vessels under his charge to do aswell as they could without him until it pleased him to return. Some ofhis later exploits in this way drew down on him a marked expression ofdisapproval from the Duke of Wellington, then at the head of theGovernment, and for this reason it was thought by many, when Williamcame to the throne, that he would be sure to dismiss from his servicethe Prime Minister who once had offended him so deeply. A man with amore malevolent turn of mind would very likely have acted as publicexpectation seemed to foreshadow, but William, as we have seen, soonmade it clear that he had no fault to find with the Duke of Wellington, that he cherished no ill-will and was quite ready to let bygones bebygones. There can be no doubt that William, although he had no greatdefects of any deep or serious nature, no defects at least which arenot common enough among the sovereigns of his time, was yet asundignified a figure for a throne as even the modern comic opera itselfcould imagine. 

He was eccentric to a degree that sometimes seemed to suggest a lurkingtendency to insanity. He was fussy, garrulous, excitable, noisy, overbearing, apt to take strong likes and dislikes and to express hislikings and his dislikings with an utter disregard for the acceptedconventionalities of social life. 

He could explode at a moment's notice into a burst of rage whichsometimes made itself felt for hours, and perhaps when the next daycame he had forgotten all about it and greeted those who were itsespecial objects with hilarious good-humor. There were many anecdotestold about him in the days not long before his accession to the thronewhich were commonly believed by those who knew him, {116} and which itwould not be possible to reproduce in the modest pages suitable to ourown times. 

[Sidenote: 1830-37--Some strange doings of the King]

Now it would certainly be most unfair to accept every story told bygossip about some exalted personage as a story worthy of credit andqualified to take its place in authentic history, but, at the sametime, it is quite fair and reasonable when forming an estimate of theexalted personage's character to take some account of the sayings ofcontemporary gossip. We may be sure that there were stories told aboutthe father of Frederick the Great, about Catherine of Russia, about alate King of Bavaria, which were not true, but none the less thehistorian is undoubtedly helped to form an estimate of the ways anddoings of these exalted personages by the collective testimony of thestories that are told about them and believed in their own time. William the Fourth could not, when he ascended the throne, suddenlyshake off all the rough manners and odd ways which he had allowedhimself to foster during his long career as a Prince of the BloodRoyal, as a sailor, and as a man much given to the full indulgence ofhis humors, whatever they might happen to be. 

After he had become King, and it was part of his royal duty to givegreat State dinners, it was sometimes his way to behave himself on theoccasions of those festivities after a fashion which even W. S. Gilbertnever could have caricatured in any "Mikado" or other such piece ofdelightful burlesque. The King was fond of making speeches at hisState dinners, and it was his way to ramble along on all manner ofsubjects in the same oration. Whatever idea happened to come uppermostin his mind he usually blurted out, without the slightest regard fortime, place, or company. This habit of his became very embarrassingnow and then when some of the ambassadors of great European Stateshappened to be guests at his dinner-table. In the presence of theFrench Ambassador, for instance, the King, while delivering hisafter-dinner speech, would suddenly recall some of his recollections ofthe days when the great Napoleon held the Imperial throne of France, and he would then, perhaps, close a sentence {117} with an exultantreference to the glorious triumphs we had obtained over our enemies theFrench. 

On one occasion when Leopold, King of the Belgians, was dining with himthe King suddenly observed that his royal guest was drinking water, andhe called to him with an oath and demanded what he was drinking thatsort of stuff for; and not content with the poor King's plea that hedrank water because he liked it better than wine, William insistedthat, in his house at least, his royal brother must swallow the juiceof the grape. One day when Talleyrand was among his guests KingWilliam favored the company with a very peculiar sort of speech, and heconcluded the speech by proposing a toast which is described by thosewho heard it as utterly unsuited for publication. One of the guestswas Charles Greville. He was anxious to know what impression thisextraordinary performance had made upon Talleyrand. He askedTalleyrand in a whisper if he had ever heard anything like that before. But Talleyrand, who had listened to the oration and the toast withunmoved composure, was not to be thrown off his balance or drawn intoany expression of opinion by an indiscreet question. He merelyanswered that it was certainly "bien remarquable. "

The Duchess of Kent and the young Princess Victoria were dining withthe King one day, and some of the guests, although not all, were wellaware that there had been differences of opinion lately between Williamand his sister-in-law. The guests, however, were amazed indeed whenthe King rose and delivered a speech in which he raked up all his oldgrievances against the Duchess of Kent, and complained of her anddenounced her as if he were the barrister, the hero of the old familiarstory, who, having no case, is advised to abuse the plaintiff'sattorney. The child Princess Victoria is said to have been sodistressed by some parts of this unexpected oration that she burst intotears; but the Duchess, her mother, retained self-control, and sat ascomposedly silent as if the King had been taking his part in somedignified State ceremonial. 

{118}

King William sometimes broke the conventionalities of royal deportmentin a quite different sort of way, in a way which undoubtedly shockedthe traditional sensibilities of the older officials of the Court, butwith which the lovers of modern and more simple manners are inclinedsometimes, perhaps, to have a sort of wilful sympathy. He wouldsometimes insist on dropping some great royal visitor from abroad atthe door of his hotel, just as if he were an ordinary London residentgiving a lift in his carriage to a friend from the country. At themost solemn State ceremonial he would bustle about irresponsibly, andtalk in a loud voice to any one who might seem to him at the moment tobe an attractive person with whom to have a pleasant chat. It mighthappen that some great State functionary or some dignified ambassadorfrom a foreign capital, who ought to have been spoken to long before, was kept waiting until the unconcerned sovereign had had his talk outwith some comparatively insignificant personage who had been known tothe King in former days, and whose appearance brought with it certainearly and jovial associations. Many of the King's minor offences inthis way seem now to the unconcerned reader about as venial as that bywhich Marie Antoinette in her early Court days broke through theestablished rules of etiquette among the ladies of her bedchamber bysnatching her chemise one morning with her own hands instead ofallowing it to pass in its regular order from the lowest to the highestdegree of the attendant women. But it certainly was perhaps a littletoo much of a departure from the usages of a Court when the monarch, about to sign an important document in the presence of his StateCouncil, flung down the quill with which he had begun to write andproclaimed it to be a damned bad pen. 

[Sidenote: 1830-37--Béranger's King of Yvetot]

Every day the King was sure to astonish those around him by some breachof Court conventionality, little or great. He was liable to stronglikings and dislikings, and he took no pains to conceal his sentimentsin either case. He seems to have had an affectionate regard for hisyoung niece, the Princess Victoria, and a strong dislike to her {119}mother. The Duchess of Kent would appear to have had no particularliking for him, and she very much objected to be brought into familiarassociation with the sons and daughters of the eccentric sovereign. Perhaps it is not to William's discredit that he always treated thesechildren as if they were his legitimate descendants. It was no faultof theirs if the ceremony of marriage had not preceded their cominginto the world, and the King apparently did not see why even the mostrighteous person should feel any objection to their frequent presence. But one can understand that the Duchess of Kent must have often wishedthat the sense of public decorum, which was even already growing up inEnglish society, should not be shocked by the too frequent reminderthat the King had several children who were not born in wedlock. Béranger, the once popular French lyric poet, satirized a certain royalpersonage, a contemporary of William the Fourth, as the King of Yvetot. There was a French legend which told of the conditions under which thedescendants of a certain lord of the manor in Brittany had been createdby Clotaire kings of Yvetot. Béranger's monarch is described by him asone having made little mark of his own in history, who could live verycomfortably without troubling himself about glory, and who liked to becrowned with a simple cotton nightcap. This monarch, the poet tellsus, could enjoy his four meals a day, and liked very often to lift hisglass to his lips. 

There are many reasons, we are told, why some of his subjects mighthave called him a father to his people, but the name was not applied bythe poet in the ordinary metaphorical sense of the word. He neverdesired to trouble his neighbors, and never disturbed his mind with anyprojects for the increase of his dominions, and, like a true model toall potentates, found his ambition quite satisfied in the indulgence ofhis own pleasures while desiring as little as possible to interferewith the pastimes of his people. Every verse of the ballad ends bytelling us what a good little king was this sovereign of Yvetot. Withcertain slight alterations Béranger's satirical verses might {120} haveserved as a picture of William the Fourth. But our good little King ofYvetot was not destined altogether to have quite an easy time of it, although he was more successful in that way than the monarch for whomBéranger intended his satire. William had come in for the age ofreform. The whole course of English history hardly tells us of anyreign, of anything like equal length, into which so many reforms werecrowded. William the Fourth, we may be sure, would never have troubledhimself or any of his subjects about any projects of improvement in thepolitical or social conditions of his realm. He would have been quitecontent to let things go on just as they had been going in the daysbefore he came to the throne, and would probably have asked no highertitle of affection from the loyalty of his subjects than the familiarname that they gave him of the Sailor King. When for a while he beganto be called the Patriot King he must have associated the title with asense of all the worry and trouble brought upon him by the incessantpreparation of patriotic projects for the improvement of everything allover the country. 

[Sidenote: 1830-37--Lord Grey and William the Fourth]

It seems like a curious freak of fate that such a sovereign, at such atime, should have had to get rid of the Duke of Wellington and acceptLord Grey as his Prime Minister. The Duke of Wellington was himselfsimple, plain, and occasionally rough in manners, with little taste forCourt ceremonial and little inclination for the exchange of statelyphrase and inflated language. There are many anecdotes told ofWellington which show that he had no more liking or aptitude for theways dear to a Court functionary than King William himself had. LordGrey was a man of the most stately bearing and the most refined style. His manner was courtly without the slightest affectation; he wascourtly by nature, and dignity was an element of his every-daydemeanor. He had been in constant companionship with some of thegreatest statesmen and orators of his time, but even his devotion toCharles James Fox had never beguiled him into any of Fox's careless, free-and-easy ways. He was sorely tried, as all {121} contemporaryaccounts tell us, by the abrupt and overbearing manners of hisson-in-law, Lord Durham, but he always contrived, in public at least, to bear Durham's eccentricities with unruffled temper and undisturbeddignity. Such a statesman must have had a hard time of it with KingWilliam of Yvetot; but let it be freely admitted that King William ofYvetot must have had a hard time of it with such a minister as LordGrey. William would probably, if left to his own inclinations, havemade up his mind to hold on to the Duke of Wellington, join with theDuke in opposing all schemes of reform, and face the music, if we mayadopt a familiar modern phrase. But there was good sense enough inWilliam's head, for all his odd ways and his unkingly humors, to teachhim that he had better not begin his reign by setting himself againstthe public opinion of the great majority of his subjects, and thereforeour good King of Yvetot consented to become, if not the head, at leastthe figure-head of a great historical movement. 

{122}

CHAPTER LXXI. 

REFORM. 

[Sidenote: 1830--Brougham and the ministry]

The King had no other course left open to him than to send for LordGrey and invite him to form an Administration. Lord Grey was quiteready for the task, and must, for some time back, have had his mindconstantly occupied with plans for such an arrangement. About some ofthe appointments there was no difficulty whatever. It was obvious thatLord Melbourne, Lord Althorp, and Lord John Russell would be invited totake office, but there was a certain difficulty about Brougham. Thedifficulty, however, was not about offering a place to Brougham; theonly trouble was to find the place which would suit him, and hisacceptance of which would also suit his leaders and his colleagues. Nothing could be more certain than the fact that Brougham must beinvited to a place in the new Administration. He was a strong man withthe country, and he now had a distinct following of his own. 

Among the yet unenfranchised districts, especially in the North ofEngland, Brougham probably counted for more, so far as the question ofreform was concerned, than all the other reformers in Parliament puttogether. It would be idle to think of creating a Reform Ministry justthen without Henry Brougham. The new Administration could not possiblyget on without him. But then it was by no means certain that the newAdministration could get on with him, and no one could understand thisdifficulty better than the stately and aristocratic Lord Grey. Greyhad simply to choose between encountering an uncertainty or undertakingan impossibility, and of course he chose the former alternative. Hehad to invite Brougham to take office, but the question was what officeit was {123} most advisable to ask him to take. Brougham was offeredthe position of Attorney-General, the acceptance of which allows a manto retain his seat in the House of Commons, while it puts him directlyon the way to a high promotion to the judicial bench. Brougham flatlydeclined the offer, and seemed to be somewhat offended that it shouldhave been made to him. Then Lord Grey thought of offering him thedignified position of Master of the Rolls, coupled with the exceptionalarrangement that he was still to retain his seat in the House ofCommons. Lord Grey was naturally very anxious to conciliate Brougham, and looked with much dread to the prospect of Brougham breaking offfrom the negotiations altogether and retaining his seat in the House asan independent critic of the Ministry. Nothing could well be morealarming to the head of the new Administration than the thought ofBrougham thus sitting as an independent critic, prepared at any minuteto come down with the force and fury of his eloquence on this or thatsection of the new Reform Bill, and to denounce it to the country asutterly inadequate to satisfy the just demands of the people. TheKing, however, suggested, with some good sense, that Brougham as adissatisfied Master of the Rolls still sitting in the House of Commonsmight prove an inconvenient and dangerous colleague. 

Lord Grey thought the matter over once more, and began to see anotherway of getting out of the difficulty. Why not give to Brougham thehighest legal appointment in the service of the Crown, and thus promotehim completely out of the House of Commons? Why not make him LordChancellor at once? This offer could not but satisfy even Brougham'swell-known self-conceit, and it would transplant his eloquence to thequieter atmosphere of the House of Lords, where little harm could bedone to the surrounding vegetation by its too luxuriant growth. Inplain words, it might be taken for granted that the House of Lordswould reject any reform measure, however moderate, when it was firstintroduced to the notice of the peers, and therefore no particular harmcould come from Brougham's presence in the hereditary assembly. But{124} Brougham in the House of Commons might, at any time, be so farcarried away by his own emotions, and his own eloquence, and his ownmasterful temperament as to bring his colleagues into many adifficulty, and force on them the unpleasant alternative of having tochoose between going further than they had intended to go or failing tokeep up with Brougham as the accredited and popular promoter of reform. 

[Sidenote: 1830--Brougham as Lord Chancellor]

When Lord Grey next conferred with the King he was not a littlesurprised to hear from the sovereign's own lips a suggestion thatBrougham might be offered the position of Lord Chancellor. Grey toldthe King that he had been almost afraid to start such a proposition, inasmuch as William had discouraged the idea of making Brougham Masterof the Rolls; but the King with shrewd good sense directed Grey'sattention to the fact, which had been already an operative force inGrey's own mind, that to make Brougham Master of the Rolls, and yetkeep him in the House of Commons, might still leave him a verydangerous colleague, while by making him Lord Chancellor the King andhis Prime Minister could get him practically out of the way altogether. 

So it was agreed between the King and his Prime Minister that LordBrougham should be made Lord Chancellor, and thus forfeit his right tosit in the House of Commons. If we speak with literal accuracy it isnot quite correct to say that a man by becoming Lord Chancellor becomesnecessarily, and at once, a member of the House of Lords. The LordChancellor of course presides over the sittings of the House of Lords, but he is not necessarily, from the first, a member of the hereditaryassembly. He sits on the woolsack, which, though actually in the Houseof Lords, is not technically to be described as occupying such aposition. If a Lord Chancellor who is actually a peer desires to takepart in a debate he has to leave the woolsack and stand on some part ofthe floor which is technically within the Chamber. On more than onehistoric occasion some inconvenience has arisen from the fact that anewly created Lord Chancellor had not yet been {125} made a peer, andtherefore was not entitled to take part in a debate, or even to speakfor some ceremonial purpose within the Chamber on behalf of the Houseof Lords. Brougham as a matter of fact was not made a peer until alittle time after he had become Lord Chancellor. 

All this, however, is only mentioned here as a matter of curious andtechnical interest to the reader of Parliamentary history. Broughamwas made a peer soon enough for all purposes, and in the mean time hewas removed altogether from the House of Commons. Brougham did notaccept his new position without some grumbling. Probably he had theidea that Lord Grey and others of his colleagues were glad to have himsafely provided for out of the range of the representative assembly, where his eloquence might now and then become an inconvenientinfluence. He accepted the position, however, and became a member ofthe House of Lords. From that time his real influence over the countrymay be said to have come to an end. After he ceased to be LordChancellor he remained simply an eloquent, overbearing member of theHouse of Lords, often delighting the galleries and the public with hismeteoric flashes of eloquence; but his power as a reformer was gone, and for the greater part of his remaining career, when one or twoimportant questions to which he was pledged had been disposed of, hetook little interest in any movement of reform. 

Lord Althorp became Chancellor of the Exchequer. Lord Althorp, who wasleader of the House of Commons as well as Chancellor of the Exchequer, was an influential person in those days, but is almost forgotten in ourtime. He was a model country gentleman, devoted to the duties and thedelights of such a position; had a natural gift for farming and nonatural inclination whatever for politics. Not merely did he make nopretensions to oratory, but, even for a country gentleman, he could notbe regarded as a particularly good speaker. Yet he undoubtedly was aman of much weight in the Parliamentary life of his time. He wasthoroughly straightforward and disinterested; he was absolutelytruthful and honorable; his word was his bond, {126} and the House ofCommons and the country in general could always feel sure that anyadvice given by Lord Althorp was guided by the light of his ownjudgment and his own conscience, and that he was never unduly swayed byfear, favor, or affection, whether towards sovereign or party. LordMelbourne was Home Secretary. 

[Sidenote: 1830--The Reform Administration]

If we glance down the list of this Reform Administration to-day weshall all probably be struck by the fact that the men who were regardedas juniors and something like beginners have come to occupy, in manycases, a higher position in political history than their elders andleaders. Lord John Russell, for instance, was not a member of LordGrey's Cabinet; he only held the office of Paymaster of the Forces. From his first entrance into the House of Commons Lord John Russell haddistinguished himself as a reformer. In 1819 he had brought forward amotion for a reform in the Parliamentary system, and he had renewed themotion in almost every succeeding year. He had been a steady supporterof the movement for the repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts, whichimposed an unjust and utterly irrational disqualification onDissenters, and had been a zealous advocate of the measures for theemancipation of Roman Catholics. All his early life had been atraining for statesmanship. He had been associated with scholars andthinkers, with poets and historians. He had gone through Spain whilethe war with Napoleon was still going on, and had been welcomed by theDuke of Wellington in his camp. He had visited Napoleon at Elba, andhad talked over politics and war with the fallen Emperor. As Disraelisaid of him many years later, he had sat at the feet of Fox and hadmeasured swords with Canning. Lord Palmerston became for the firsttime Foreign Secretary in the Grey Administration. He had been ajunior Lord of the Admiralty in a former Government, and he had morelately been Secretary at War; but at the time that he first becameForeign Secretary under Lord Grey few indeed could have anticipatedthat he was destined to become one of the most powerful Englishstatesmen known to the century. Sir James Graham became First Lord ofthe Admiralty, and {127} some of us can still remember him as one ofthe foremost debaters in the House of Commons. Lord Durham, Grey'sson-in-law, accepted what may almost be called the nominal office ofLord Privy Seal. 

At that time Durham was regarded as a brilliant, eccentric sort of man, a perfervid reformer on whose perseverance or consistency no one couldreckon for a moment--perhaps the comet of a season, but if so thensurely a comet of a season only. We now recognize Durham as the man ofstatesmanlike foresight and genius who converted, at a great crisis, aCanada burning with internal hatred between race and sect, and the onecommon hatred of Imperial rule, into the Canada which we now know asone of the most peaceful, prosperous, and loyal parts of the BritishEmpire. Mr. Stanley, afterwards Lord Derby, the famous "Rupert ofdebate, " became Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland. Grey appointed Lord Plunket Lord Chancellor for Ireland, and the nameof Lord Plunket will always be remembered as that of one of thegreatest Parliamentary orators known to modern times. 

The new Ministry was, therefore, well prepared to carry on the battleof reform. Lord Grey had made up his mind that Lord John Russell, although not in the Cabinet, was the most fitting member of theAdministration to conduct the Reform Bill through the House of Commons. As soon as Grey had completed his arrangements for the construction ofa Ministry, Lord Durham put himself into communication with Lord JohnRussell. Durham told Lord John Russell that Lord Grey wished him toconsult with Russell as to the formation of a small private committeewhose task should be to create and put into shape some definite schemeas the foundation of the great constitutional change which the newGovernment had been called into power to establish. Lord John Russellof course accepted the suggestion, and after some consideration it wasagreed by Lord Durham and himself that Sir James Graham and LordDuncannon, then Commissioner of Woods and Forests, should be invited tojoin them, and make a committee of four for the purpose of devising a{128} comprehensive and practicable measure of reform. Durham thenasked Lord John to put on paper at once his own idea with regard to theoutlines of such a plan, so that it might be taken into considerationby the committee at their earliest meeting. 

[Sidenote: 1830--The Reform Bill]

Lord John Russell's book, "The English Government and Constitution, "tells us all what was the central idea in his mind when he set himselfto construct the groundwork of a Reform Bill. He tells us, alluding tothe task assigned to him, "It was not my duty to cut the body of ourold parent into pieces, and to throw it into a Medea's caldron, withthe hope of reviving the vigor of youth. " He thought it his duty notto turn aside "from the track of the Constitution into the maze offancy or the wilderness of abstract rights. " "It was desirable, inshort, as it appeared to me, while sweeping away gross abuses, to availourselves, as far as possible, of the existing frame and body of ourConstitution. Thus, if the due weight and influence of property couldbe maintained, by preserving the representation of a proportion of thesmall boroughs with an improved franchise, it was desirable rather tobuild on the old foundations than to indulge our fancy or our conceitin choosing a new site and erecting on new soil--perhaps on sand--anedifice entirely different from all that had hitherto existed. "

No Reformer who understood the general character of the English people, and who had studied the development of political growth in England, could have gone more prudently and wisely about the work of bringingthe existing Constitution into harmony with the altering conditions, and removing out of its way all difficulties that might interfere withits gradual and safe development in the future. But Russell wasclearly of opinion, and in this he was entirely in accordance with LordGrey, that nothing but a large and comprehensive measure would be ofany real use, and that "to nibble at disfranchisement and cramp reformby pedantic adherence to existing rights would be to deceiveexpectation, to whet appetite, and to bring about that revolution whichit was our object to {129} avert. " Russell drew up a sketch of hisproposed Reform Bill, which he submitted to Lord Durham, and on thedraft of the measure thus submitted to him Lord Durham offered somesuggestions and alterations of his own. Russell's speech was writtenon a single piece of letter-paper, and is reproduced with Lord Durham'snotes in Russell's book, "The English Government and Constitution. "The opening paragraph proposes that "the fifty boroughs having thesmallest population according to the latest census should bedisfranchised altogether. " This proposal had Lord Durham's fullapproval, and he noted the fact that according to his calculation itwould disfranchise all boroughs having a population of not more than1400. The second paragraph proposed that fifty other boroughs of theleast considerable population, above the line already drawn, should beallowed to send only one member each to the House of Commons. Thisproposal also had the approval of Lord Durham, and he notes it wouldapply to boroughs not having more than 3000 inhabitants each. 

Then came a paragraph which proposed that all persons qualified toserve on juries should have the right of voting, and to this clauseLord Durham objected, regarding it probably as an embodiment of theprinciple of what were called in later days "fancy franchises. " Thefourth paragraph recommended that no person should be entitled to votein cities or boroughs, except in the City of London, in Westminster, and in Southwark, unless he were a householder rated at ten pounds ayear, and unless, moreover, he had paid his parochial taxes for threeyears, within three months after they became due, and had lived in theconstituency for six months previous to the election at which heclaimed to vote. The fifth clause proposed that the unrepresentedparts of London should have among them four or six additional members, that eighteen large towns should have representation--and let thereader try to realize for himself what the supposed representation ofthe country could have been when at least eighteen large towns were, upto that time, wholly unrepresented--and that twenty counties shouldsend two additional members {130} each to the House of Commons. Another paragraph limited the right of voting in the newly enfranchisedtowns to householders rated at ten pounds a year or persons qualifiedto serve on juries. Lord Durham approved of the rating qualification, but, consistently with his objection already mentioned, struck out thewords which connected the right to vote with the right to serve on ajury. It is not necessary to go through the whole list of theproposals set out in the sketch drawn up by Lord John Russell. Thosewhich we have already mentioned possess a peculiar historical interestand illustrate in the most precise and effective manner the wholenature of the system which, up to that time, had passed off asconstitutional government. 

[Sidenote: 1831--Vote by ballot]

It will be seen that, on the whole, Lord Durham was a more advancedreformer than even Lord John Russell. The entire scheme, as drawn outby Russell, consisted of ten paragraphs or clauses, and it was at oncesubmitted to the consideration of the four men who formed thecommittee. There was much discussion as to the borough qualificationfor voters, and the committee finally agreed to recommend that itshould be uniform, and thus get rid of what were called the freemen andthe scot-and-lot voters, a class of persons endowed with antiquated andeccentric qualifications which possibly might have had some meaning inthem and some justification under the conditions of a much earlier day, but which had since grown into a system enabling wealthier men tocreate in constituencies a body of thoroughly dependent or positivelycorrupt voters. The desire of the committee was to extend the votingprivilege as far as possible consistently with due regard for theprinciple that the voters ought to be men of substance enough to insuretheir independence. This security they believed they could attain byestablishing the ten-pound franchise. This seems, no doubt, to moderneyes a somewhat eccentric and haphazard line of demarkation; but itmust be remembered that even until much later days the ten poundsrating principle in boroughs held its own, and was believed to beabsolutely essential to the {131} maintenance of an independent andupright body of voters, and to the securing of such a body against thedanger of being "swamped, " according to the once familiar word, by thevotes of the dependent and the corrupt. 

There were some slight differences of opinion between Lord John Russelland Lord Durham as to the extent to which the total or partialdisfranchisement of the small boroughs ought to go, but the scheme, asfinally shaped, had on the whole the thorough approval of thecommittee. One important proposal, brought forward, it was understood, by Lord Durham, was agreed to and formally adopted by the committee, but not without strong opposition on the part of Lord John Russell. This was the proposal for the introduction of the vote by ballot. WhenLord Grey's Cabinet came to consider the draft scheme the proposal forthe introduction of the vote by ballot was struck out altogether. Thetime, in fact, had not come for the adoption of so great a reform. Forty years had to pass before the mind of the English public could bebrought to recognize the necessity for such a change. Statesmanshiphad still to learn how much the value of a popular suffrage wasdiminished or disparaged by the system which left the voter at theabsolute mercy of some landlord or some patron who desired that thevote should be given for the candidate whom he favored. The balloteven then was demanded by the whole body of the Chartists. OratorHunt, one of the most popular heroes of the Chartist agitation, hadonly just defeated Mr. Stanley at Preston. Daniel O'Connell was infavor of the ballot, because he saw that without its protection theIrish tenant farmer would have to vote for his landlord's candidate orwould be turned out of his farm. But the general feeling amongstatesmen, as well as among the outer public, was that there wassomething un-English about the ballot system, and it was contended thatthe true Englishman ought to have the courage of his opinion and tovote as his conscience told him, without caring whom he offended. Edmund Burke in one of his speeches tells us that the system which isfounded on the heroic virtues is sure to have its {132} superstructurein failure and disappointment, meaning thereby that every system isdoomed to failure which assumes as its principle the idea that all mencan at all times be up to the level of the heroic mood. Some of us canwell remember the days when English statesmen still declared that thecompulsion of education was un-English, and that it ought to be left tothe free choice of the English parent whether he would have hischildren taught or leave them untaught. 

[Sidenote: 1831--Lord John Russell and the Reform Bill]

Lord Grey's Cabinet would have nothing to do with the ballot. Withthis exception the draft scheme as submitted by Lord John Russell wasaccepted by Lord Grey and his colleagues. Then it was laid before theKing, and the King, according to Lord John Russell, gave it his readyand cheerful sanction. There were indeed some observers at the timewho believed that the King had cheerfully sanctioned the whole schemeof reform as proposed, because he still confidently believed thatnothing but the wreck of the Ministry was to come of it. However thatmay have been, it is certain that the King did give his full sanctionto the measure, and the Government prepared to introduce the firstReform Bill. 

It was arranged that the conduct of the Bill in the House of Commonsshould be placed in the hands of Lord John Russell. This arrangementcreated, when the Bill was actually brought forward, a good deal ofadverse criticism in the House and in the country. Some prominentmembers of the Opposition in the House of Commons persuaded themselves, and tried to persuade their listeners, that Lord Grey's Cabinet, byadopting such an arrangement, showed that there was no sincerity in theprofessed desire for reform. If the members of the Cabinet, it wasargued, are such believers in the virtue of reform, why do they notselect one of their own body to introduce the measure? Lord JohnRussell was only Paymaster of the Forces, and had not a seat in theCabinet, and if he was taken out of his place and put into the mostprominent position it could only be because no member of the Cabinetcould be found who was willing to undertake the task. {133} The answerwas very clear, even at the time, and it is obvious indeed to thegenerations that had an opportunity of knowing how eminently Lord JohnRussell was qualified for the work which had been entrusted to hishands. He was a member of one of the greatest aristocratic families inthe land, and one of the practical dangers threatening the Reform Billwas the alarm that might spread among the wealthier classes at thethought of a wild democratic movement upsetting the whole principle ofaristocratic predominance in the English constitutional system. Stillmore important was the fact that Lord John Russell, who haddistinguished himself already as the most devoted promoter ofconstitutional reform, was a man peculiarly qualified by intellect andby his skill in exposition to pilot such a measure through the House ofCommons. 

Lord John Russell had not yet won reputation as a great Parliamentaryorator; nor did he, during the whole of his long career, succeed inacquiring such a fame. But he was a master of the art which consistsin making a perfectly clear statement of the most complicated case, andin defending his measure point by point with never-failing readinessand skill throughout the most perplexing series of debates. It waspointed out also, at the time, that if Lord John Russell was selectedto introduce the Reform Bill, although he was only Paymaster of theForces and had not a seat in the Cabinet, thus too had Edmund Burkebeen selected to introduce the East India Bill, although he, like LordJohn Russell, was only Paymaster of the Forces and had not a seat inthe Cabinet. Indeed, to us, who now look back on the events from along distance of time, the impression would rather be that Lord Greyhad little or no choice in the matter. He was not himself a member ofthe House of Commons, and therefore could not introduce the Bill there. Brougham had ceased to be a member of the House of Commons, and wastherefore out of the question. Lord Althorp, who had not yet succeededto the peerage, and had a seat in the representative chamber, was, aswe have already said, the poorest of {134} speakers, and utterlyunsuited for the difficult task of steering so important a measurethrough the troublous sea of Parliamentary debate. Lord Grey, ofcourse, was thoroughly well acquainted with Russell's great abilitiesand his peculiar fitness for the task assigned to him, and could, underno circumstances, have made a better choice. But our only possibledifficulty now would be to say what other choice, under the existingconditions, he could possibly have made. 

[Sidenote: 1831--Need for secrecy about the Reform Bill]

Tuesday, March 1, 1831, was the day fixed for the introduction of theReform Bill in the House of Commons. In the mean time, as we learnfrom all who can be considered authorities on the subject, the natureand the plan of the proposed reforms were kept a profound secret, notonly from the public at large, but even from members of the House ofCommons itself, with the exception of those who belonged to theAdministration. Ministerial secrets, it is only fair to say, aregenerally well kept in England, but instances have undoubtedly occurredin which the nature of some approaching measure, which ought to havebeen held in the profoundest secrecy until the time came for itsofficial revelation, has leaked out and become fully known to thepublic in advance. There is, of course, great difficulty in preventingsome inkling of the truth getting prematurely out. Cabinet Ministersgenerally have wives, and there are stories of such wives having caughtstray words from their husbands which put them on a track of discovery, and not having the grace to keep strictly to themselves the discoverywhen made. No such mischance, however, appears to have attended thepreparation of the Reform Bill. It is said that there must have beenmore than thirty persons who had official knowledge of the Ministerialplans, and yet it does not appear that any definite idea as to theirnature was obtained by the public. 

It may perhaps be asked whether there was any solid reason forattaching so much importance to the keeping of a secret which on acertain fixed and near-approaching day must, as a matter of fact, be asecret no more. Of course the imperative necessity of secrecy would beobvious {135} in all cases where some policy was in preparation whichmight directly affect the interests of foreign States. In such a caseit is clear that it might be of essential importance to a Governmentnot to let its plans become known to the world before it had put itselfinto a condition to maintain its policy. In measures that had to dowith commercial and financial interests it might often be of paramountimportance that no false alarm or false expectations of any kind shouldbe allowed to disturb the business of the country before the fittingtime came for a full declaration. But in the case of such a measure asthe Reform Bill it may be asked if any great advantage was to be gainedby keeping the nature of the measure a complete secret until the hourcame for its full and official explanation. With regard to this ReformBill there were many good reasons for maintaining the profoundestpossible secrecy. If any premature reports got out at all they wouldbe sure to be imperfect reports, indiscreet or haphazard revelations ofthis or that particular part of the Bill, utterly wanting in balance, symmetry, and comprehensiveness. The whole thing was new to thecountry, and there would have been much danger in fixing publicattention upon some one part of the proposed reform until the publiccould be in a position to judge the scheme as a complete measure. 

Lord Grey's Government had to deal with two classes of men who werenaturally and almost relentlessly opposed to each other--the moreclamorous reformers and the enemies of all reform. It was of immenseimportance that the latter class should, if possible, be prevailed uponto see--at least the more intelligent and reasonable among them--thatthe Government had not gone so far in the direction of reform as tomake it seem a threatened revolution. It was, on the other hand, ofimmense importance to prevail upon the former class to see that theGovernment had not so stunted and dwarfed its proposed reform as torender it incapable of anything like a political and constitutionalrevolution. Any sudden explosion of feeling on either side broughtabout by some premature {136} and imperfect revelation might havecaused the most serious trouble in the country. 

[Sidenote: 1831--Introduction of the Reform Bill]

Moreover, none of the ministers could possibly profess to be quitecertain as to the genuine wishes and purposes of his Majesty KingWilliam the Fourth with regard to the Reform Bill. The King was notalways in the same mood on the same subject for any two days insuccession, or indeed for any two hours of the same day. If theopponents of all reform were to get a knowledge of the clauses in theBill least favorable to their own ideas as to their interests, and wereto make a commotion among the owners of the soil, the immediate effectmight be to discourage the King altogether, to fill his mind with astrong desire for escape from the uncongenial part of a reformer and anovermastering anxiety to get rid of his reforming Ministry. If, on theother hand, the Peterloo men, the Chartists generally, and thepopulations of the northern towns were to get into their minds throughsome imperfect revelation that the Ministerial Bill was not intended todo half so much for them as they were demanding, and if in consequencethere were to be a stormy agitation throughout the country, then it wasquite possible that the King might take alarm and tell his ministersthat it was hopeless to think of conciliating such agitators, and thatthe safety of the State, and especially of the monarchy, could only beprovided for by postponing reform until some more favorableopportunity. For all these reasons, and many others, the leaders ofthe Government had their hearts set on keeping well their secret untilthe right hour should come for its official disclosure, and it is afact of some historical interest, even to readers of the present day, that the secret was faithfully kept. 

The 1st of March, 1831, was a day of intense excitement and even tumultin and around the House of Commons. We are told that never before inthat generation had there been so great a crowd of persons strugglingfor seats in the galleries of the House of Commons. It is recorded, asan illustration of this intense eagerness on the part of the public, that every available seat in the House {137} was occupied for hoursbefore the business of the day began. This, however, is not astatement that could fill with surprise any reader of the present day. We have been accustomed lately to read of occasions when not merelycrowds of strangers anxious to obtain seats, but crowds of memberspositively entitled to get seats, have had to take their stand at theouter gates of the House of Commons hours before daybreak on themorning of the day when some great measure was to be introduced, thatthey might get a reasonable chance of a place, in order to hear aspeech which could not possibly begin before four o'clock in theafternoon. Certainly the House of Commons did not then consist ofnearly as many members as it has at present, and the reformed House ofCommons has not even yet been so reformed as to impress it with theidea that there ought to be so many seats for so many members. Howeverthat may be, it is quite certain that there was intense interestmanifested by the public on the day when the Reform Bill was to beintroduced; that immense crowds of people made for the Parliamentbuildings, and that the approaches to the House of Commons werebesieged by an excited and tumultuous crowd. There was, in fact, sucha rush made to secure the seats in the galleries available for thepublic, so much noisy struggling and quarrelling for seats, that theSpeaker was at last compelled to intervene and to declare that if quietwas not at once restored it would be his duty to have the House clearedof all strangers. Order was thus restored after a time, and at lastthe moment arrived for Lord John Russell to introduce the Reform Bill. That was indeed a moment of genuine historical interest. 

The descriptions given at the time by listeners tell us that Russellbegan his speech in tones which were unusually quiet, low, and reservedeven for him. It may be said at once that throughout his whole careerin Parliament Russell's manner had been peculiarly quiet and repressed, and that his eloquence seldom had any fervor in it. That he was a manof deep feeling and warm emotions is certain, but both in public andprivate life there {138} was a coldness about him which often ledstrangers into the quite erroneous belief that he kept apart from thecrowd because he was filled with a sense of his aristocratic positionand wished to hold himself aloof from contact with ordinary mortals. As a Parliamentary debater he was singularly clear, concise, andunaffected. He was a great master of phrases, and some oddepigrammatic sentences of his still live in our common speech, and arequoted almost every day by persons who have not the least idea as tothe source from which they come. His speech on the introduction of theReform Bill was even for him peculiarly calm, deliberate, andrestrained. It contained some passages which will always live in ourhistory, and will illustrate to the reader, more effectively than amass of statistics or political tracts might do, the nature andproportions of the absurd anomalies which Russell was endeavoring toabolish. It may be well to mention the fact that it was this speechwhich, for the first time, introduced and adopted the word "Reformer"as the title of the genuine Whig, and applied the term "Conservative, "in no unfriendly sense, to the Tory party. 

[Sidenote: 1831--Lord John Russell's speech]

Lord John Russell opened his speech by a vindication of therepresentative principle as the first condition of the Englishconstitutional system. He made it clear that in the early days of ourParliaments this principle had been distinctly acknowledged, and, to acertain extent, had been carried out in practice. Then he showed howthe principle had come to be less and less recognized in thearrangement of our constituencies and the allotment of representatives, until at last there had ceased to be any manner of proportion betweenrepresentatives and population or any practical acknowledgment of themain purpose for which representatives were to be selected. Everythinghad tended, in the mean time, to make the owners of the soil also theowners and masters of the representation. Lord John Russell employed aseries of illustrations, at once simple and striking, to impress uponhis audience a due understanding of the extraordinary manner in whichthe whole principle of representation had been diverted. {139} fromits original purpose. He assumed the case of some inquiring andintelligent foreigner, a stranger to our institutions but anxious tolearn all about them, who had come to England for the purpose ofobtaining information on the spot. The stranger has the nature and thepurpose of our Parliamentary system explained to him, and he is assuredthat it rests on the representative principle. He is told that theHouse of Commons is assembled for the purpose of enabling the sovereignto collect the best advice that can be given to him as to thecondition, the wants, and the wishes of his subjects. 

The House of Commons is to be in that sense representative; it is to bethe interpreter to the King of all that his people wish him to know. Then the stranger is naturally anxious to learn how the constituenciesare formed, by whose selection the representatives are sent toParliament, in order to render to the King a faithful message from hispeople. The stranger is taken to a grassy mound, let us say, in themidst of an expanse of silent, unpeopled fields, and he is told thatthat grassy mound sends two members to the House of Commons. He isshown a stone wall with three niches in it, and he is informed thatthose three niches are privileged to contribute two members to therepresentative assembly. Lord John Russell described with force andmasterly humor a variety of such sights which were pointed out to thestranger, each description being an accurate picture of some placewhich long since had lost all population, but still continued to havethe privilege of sending representatives to Parliament. Then Lord JohnRussell changed his form of illustration. He took his stranger to someof the great manufacturing and commercial cities and towns of England, and described the admiration and the wonder with which the intelligentforeigner regarded these living evidences of the growth and thegreatness of the nation. Here then, no doubt, the stranger begins atlast to think that he can really understand the practical value of therepresentative principle. Thus far he has only been bewildered by whathe has seen and heard of the empty stretches of land which are {140}endowed with a right to have representatives in the House of Commons, but now he begins to acknowledge to himself that a people with suchgreat manufacturing communities can send up to London representativesenough from their own centres to constitute a Parliament capable ofadvising with any monarch. Then, to his utter amazement, thedistracted foreigner learns that these great cities and towns have noright whatever to representation in the House of Commons, and havenothing whatever to do with the election of members. 

[Sidenote: 1831--The proposed reforms]

The imaginary foreigner who knew nothing about the principle of theworkings of our Constitution before his arrival in the country mightwell have been amazed and confounded, and might have fancied, if he hadbeen a reader of English literature, that he had lost his way somehow, and instead of arriving in England had stumbled into the State ofLaputa. He might well indeed be excused for such bewilderment, seeingthat an English student of the present day finds it hard to realize inhis mind the possibility and the reality of the condition of thingswhich existed in this country within the lifetime of men still living. Lord John Russell then went on to describe the manner in which theGovernment proposed to deal with the existing defects of the wholeParliamentary system. He laid it down as the main principle of thereforms he was prepared to introduce that a free citizen should not becompelled to pay taxes in the imposition and levying of which he wasallowed to have no voice. The vast majority of free citizens could inany case only express their opinions as to this or that financialimpost through their representatives in the House of Commons. Thisprinciple had of late been allowed to fail so grossly and so widely inits application that the House of Commons had almost entirely ceased torepresent the will of the people. 

Lord John Russell explained that the chief evils with which theGovernment had to deal were three in number. The first was thenomination of members of Parliament by individual patrons. The secondwas the nomination of members by close corporations. The third was the{141} enormous expense of elections, which was principally caused bythe open bribery and corruption which had almost become a recognizedaccompaniment of every contest. He proposed to deal with the firstevil by abolishing altogether the representation of the nominalconstituencies, the constituencies that had no resident inhabitant, theboroughs which at some distant time had had houses and inmates, but ofwhich now only the faintest traces were visible to the eye of thetraveller--like, for instance, the extinct communities of whoseexistence some faint memorial evidence might be traced on SalisburyPlain. The Census last taken, that of 1821, the Government hadresolved to accept as a basis of operations, and Lord John Russellproposed that every borough which, at that date, had less than 3000inhabitants should cease any longer to send a member to the House ofCommons. All boroughs that had not more than 4000 inhabitants shouldsend in future only one member each to Parliament. The principle ofnomination by individuals or by corporations was to come to an end. The "fancy franchises" were to be got rid of altogether. In theboroughs every householder paying rates on houses of the yearly valueof ten pounds and upwards was entitled to have a vote. 

The Government, however, proposed to deal mercifully, so far aspossible, with the existing interests of voters, although the processof extinction was summary and complete with regard to the so-calledrights of patrons and of corporations. For instance, resident voters, under the old qualifications, were to be allowed to retain their rightduring their lives, but with the lapse of each life the qualificationexpired and the owner of such a vote could have no successor. Whendealing with the counties Lord John Russell announced that copyholdersto the value of ten pounds a year and leaseholders for not less thantwenty-one years at an annual rent of fifty pounds and upwards were tohave the franchise. The abolition of the small boroughs and theuninhabited constituencies would reduce the number of members in theHouse of Commons by 168, and Lord John Russell explained that theGovernment did not {142} propose to fill up all these vacancies, beingof opinion that the House was already rather overflowing in its numbersand had a good deal too many members for the proper discharge of itsbusiness. 

[Sidenote: 1831--The principles of the Reform Bill]

Some of the vacant seats were, however, to be assigned to the citiesand towns which were then actually unrepresented in the House ofCommons. Seven of these towns were to have two representatives each, and twenty smaller but still goodly towns were to have onerepresentative each. Even at this day it may still come as a matter ofsurprise to some readers to learn that the seven towns which in 1831were wholly unrepresented, and to which the Bill proposed to give twomembers each, were Manchester, which was to include Salford;Birmingham, Leeds, Greenwich, Wolverhampton, Sheffield, and Sunderland. The Government proposed to give eight additional members to themetropolis itself--that is to say, two members each to the TowerHamlets, Holborn, Finsbury, and Lambeth. The three Ridings ofYorkshire were to have two members each, and twenty-six countiesalready represented, and in each of which there were more than 150, 000inhabitants, were each to have two additional members. It is notnecessary to go more fully into the details of the scheme which LordJohn Russell expounded elaborately to the House of Commons. 

In Ireland and in Scotland there were some slight differences as to thescale of the qualification from those that were proposed for England;but in the three countries the principle was the same, and the right tovote was associated with a certain occupation of land or payment ofhousehold rating, and new constituencies were created where towns, unrepresented before, had grown up into recognized importance. By thechanges that the Bill proposed to make no less than half a million ofnew voters were to be created throughout Great Britain and Ireland. For the purpose of diminishing the enormous expense of elections it wasproposed that the poll should be taken at the same time in separatedistricts, so that no voter should have to travel more than fifteenmiles in order to record his vote, and {143} that the time over whichan election contest could be spread should be greatly reduced, andreduced in proportion to the size of the constituency. It is as wellto say at once that that part of the Reform Bill which aimed at the duereduction of election expenses to their legitimate and necessaryproportions proved an utter failure. No reduction in the amount ofwhat may be called working expenses could have diminished, to anysatisfactory degree, the evil from which the country was suffering atthat time, and from which it continued to suffer for more than anothergeneration. Bribery and corruption were the evils which had to bedealt with, and the Reform Bill of 1831 left these evils as it hadfound them. The Bill, however, did, in its other provisions, do muchto establish a genuine principle of Parliamentary representation. 

To begin with, it proclaimed the principle of representation as thelegal basis of the whole Parliamentary system. It abolished thenomination of members, whether by individual persons or bycorporations. It laid down as law that representation must bear someproportion to the numbers represented. It made actual, or at leastoccasional, residence a qualification for a voter. These were the mainprinciples of the measure. The attention of readers will presently bedrawn to the manner in which the Bill failed to answer some of thedemands made upon the Government by the spreading intelligence of thecountry, and left these demands to be more adequately answered by thestatesmen of a later generation. Enough to say that with all itsdefects the Bill, as Lord John Russell explained it, was, for its time, a bold and broad measure of reform, and that it laid down the linesalong which, as far as human foresight can discern, the movement ofprogress in England's political history will make its way. 

{144}

CHAPTER LXXII. 

THE GREAT DEBATE. 

[Sidenote: 1831--Sir Robert Inglis and Reform]

The debate which followed Lord John Russell's motion for leave to bringin the Bill contained, as well might be expected, some very remarkablespeeches. Three of these deserve the special attention of the studentof history. The first illustrated the views of the extreme Tory ofthat day, and is indeed a political curiosity which ought never to beconsigned to utter oblivion. This speech was made by Sir Robert HarryInglis, who represented the University of Oxford. Sir Robert Ingliswas a living embodiment of the spirit of old-world Toryism as it hadcome down to his day, Toryism which had in it little or nothing of thepicturesque, half poetic sentiment belonging to the earlier wearers ofthe rebel rose, the flower symbolic of the Stuart dynasty. Sir RobertInglis was a man of education, of intelligence, and of high principle. His sincerity was unquestioned, and his opinion would probably be wellworth having on any question which was not concerned with theantagonism between Whig and Tory. Sir Robert argued boldly in hisspeech that the principle of representation had never been recognizedby the Constitution as the Parliamentary system of England. Heinsisted that the sovereign had a perfect right to choose anyrepresentative he pleased from any constituency which it suited him tocreate. The King could delegate to any nobleman or gentleman his rightof nominating a representative. Sir Robert scouted the idea that alarge, prosperous, and populous town had any better claim to berepresented in the House of Commons than the smallest village in thecountry. It was all a matter for the sovereign, and if the sovereignthought fit he had as good a right to invite any one he {145} pleasedto represent an unpeopled plain as to represent Manchester, Leeds, orSheffield. He denounced Russell's proposal to disfranchise the smallnomination boroughs, and he used an argument which was employed in thesame debate and by much wiser men than he in defence of the pocketboroughs and the whole system of nomination. Some of the mostbrilliant, gifted members of the House of Commons, he contended, hadbeen sent into that House by the patrons and owners of such boroughs, and otherwise never could have got into Parliament at all, for theycould not have borne the enormous expense of a county contest. 

We have heard that argument over and over again in days much morerecent. It would, of course, have been hard to dispose of itcompletely if it could be shown that there was no possible way by whichthe expenses of elections could be reduced to a reasonable amount; ifit could be shown that there was any human system so bad as to have nocompensating advantages whatever; and finally if it could be shown thatwith the spread of education and the growth of popular intelligence aman of great and commanding ability without money would not have a muchbetter chance of election at the hands of a large constituency than bythe mere favor of some discerning patron. Sir Robert Inglis also usedan argument which is even still not unfamiliar in political debate, whether inside or outside Parliament. He contended not merely that theEnglish population had no real grievances to complain of, but that noneamong the English population would have fancied that they weresuffering from grievances if it had not been for the evil advice andturbulent agitation of mob orators. To these wicked persons, the moborators, Sir Robert ascribed all the disturbances which were settingthe country in commotion. If only these mob orators could be kept fromspouting everything would go well and no subject of the sovereign wouldever get it into his head that he was suffering from the slightestgrievance. 

This is an argument which had just been used with regard to CatholicEmancipation; which was afterwards to {146} be used with regard tofree-trade and the introduction of the ballot and household suffrage;and which will probably be used again and again so long as any sort ofreform is demanded. Of course it need hardly be said that when SirRobert Inglis referred to mob orators he used the phrase as a term ofcontempt applying to all speakers who advocated principles which werenot the principles represented by the Tory aristocracy. A Torylandlord spouting any kind of nonsense to the most ignorant crowd wouldnot have been, according to this definition, a mob orator; he wouldhave been a high-bred Englishman, instructing his humbler brethren asto the way they ought to go. Sir Robert also indulged in the mostgloomy prophecies about the evils which must come upon England as thedirect result of the Reform Bill if that Bill were to be passed intolaw. The influence of rank and property would suddenly and completelycease to prevail; education would lose its power to teach and to guide;the House of Commons would no longer be the place for men of rank, culture, and statesmanship, but would be occupied only by mob orators. Art after art would go out and all would be night, if we may adopt thefamous line of Pope's which Sir Robert somehow failed to introduce. 

[Sidenote: 1831--Peel's speech on the Reform Bill]

The second speech in the debate to which we may refer was that of SirRobert Peel. It was a necessity of Peel's position just then, and ofthe stage of political development which his mind had reached, that heshould oppose the Reform Bill. But in the work of opposition he had toundertake a task far more difficult to him in the artistic sense thanthe task which the destinies had appointed for Sir Robert Inglis toattempt. Inglis, although a man of ability and education, ascollegiate education then went, was so thorough a Tory of the oldschool that the most extravagant arguments he used came as naturallyand clearly to his mind as if they had been dictated to him byinspiration. But a man of Peel's high order of intellect, a man whohad been gifted by nature with the mind of a statesman, must sometimeshave found it hard indeed to convince himself that some of thearguments he used against reform {147} were arguments which the historyof the future would be likely to maintain. Peel's genius, however, wasnot one which readily adopted conclusions, especially when theseconclusions involved a change in the seeming order of things. We haveseen already that he was quite capable of taking a bold decision andaccepting its responsibilities when the movement of events seemed tosatisfy him that a choice one way or the other could no longer bepostponed. 

The whole story of his subsequent career bears evidence of the sameeffect. His genius guided him rightly when the fateful moment arrivedat which a decision had to be made, but when left to himself hisinclinations always were to let things go on in their old way. He hadnot yet seen any necessity for a complete system of Parliamentaryreform, nor was he likely, in any case, to have approved of some of theproposals contained in the Bill brought in by Lord John Russell. Thespeech he delivered appears, by all the accounts which reach us, tohave been a genuine piece of Parliamentary eloquence. Peel did not, asmay well be imagined, commit himself to some of the extravagances whichwere poured forth in absolute good faith by Sir Robert Inglis. But thevery nature of his task compelled him sometimes to have recourse toarguments which, although put forward with more discretion and moredexterity than Inglis had shown, seemed nevertheless to belong to thesame order of political reasoning. 

It is not, perhaps, surprising that Peel should have found much to sayfor the existence of the small nomination boroughs, seeing that thesame arguments were made use of a whole generation afterwards by noless a person than Mr. Gladstone. These arguments, we need hardly say, were founded on the familiar assumption that a Burke or a Sheridan, aCanning or a Plunket, would have no chance whatever of getting into theHouse of Commons if some appreciative patron did not generously put aborough at his disposal. In our own days we have seen, again andagain, that a man of high political character and commanding eloquence, but having no money or other such influence to back him, would have afar better chance at {148} the hands of a great popular constituencythan he would be likely to have in some small borough, where localinterests might easily be brought to conspire against him. But at thetime when Peel was making his speech against the Reform project thepatronage system still prevailed in politics, if no longer in letters, and the unendowed child of genius would have little chance indeed if hewere to try to get into Parliament on his own mere merits. On thewhole, it must be owned that Sir Robert Peel made as good a caseagainst the Bill as could have been made from the Conservative point ofview, and it may be added that an equally ingenious case might havebeen made out by a man of his capacity against any change whatever inany system. 

[Sidenote: 1831--The second reading of the Reform Bill]

The third speech to which we think it necessary to refer was thatdelivered by the Irish orator and agitator, Daniel O'Connell. O'Connell promised the Bill all the support in his power, but he tookcare to explain that he supported it only because he believed it wasthe best Bill he could obtain from any Government at that moment. Hedescribed clearly and impressively the faults which he found with LordJohn Russell's measure; and it has to be noticed that the objectionswhich he raised were absolutely confirmed by our subsequent politicalhistory. He found fault with the Bill because it did not go nearly asfar as such a measure ought to go in the direction of manhood suffrage, or, at all events, of household suffrage. He contended that no ReformBill could really fulfil the best purposes for which it was designedwithout the adoption of the ballot system in the voting at popularelections. He advocated shorter Parliaments and much morecomprehensive and strenuous legislation for the prevention of briberyand corruption. In short, O'Connell made a speech which might havebeen spoken with perfect appropriateness by an English Radical of thehighest political order at any time during some succeeding generations. O'Connell's opinions seem to have been at that time, save on onepolitical question alone--the question of Repeal of the Union--exactlyin accord with those of the Radical party down to the days of Cobdenand Bright. 

{149}

It may be mentioned, as a matter of some historical interest, that, vindicating the true theory of popular representation, he complainedthat successive English Governments had abandoned the constitutionalposition taken up by the glorious Revolution of 1688. Readers of thepresent day may be inclined to think, not without good reason for thethought, that statesmanship in the days of Lord Grey's first ReformBill, and for many years after, might have had less trouble withIreland if it had taken better account of the opinions and theinfluence of O'Connell. 

The debate on the motion for leave to bring in the Bill lasted severaldays. In accordance, however, with the usual practice of the House ofCommons, no division was taken and the Bill was read a first time. Inthe House of Commons it is not usual to have a long debate on themotion for leave to bring in a Bill, which amounts in substance to amotion that the Bill be read for the first time. When, however, ameasure of great importance is introduced there is sometimes alengthened and very often a discursive debate or conversation on themotion; but it is rarely so long and so earnest a discussion as thatwhich took place when Lord John Russell brought in the Reform Bill. One result of the length of the debate which preceded the first readingwas that when the motion for the second reading came on the leadingmembers of the Opposition were found to have expressed fully theiropinions already, and the discussion seemed little better than theretelling of an old story. 

When the motion for the second reading came to be put to the vote itwas found that the Opposition had got together a very full gathering oftheir numbers, and the second reading was only carried by a majority ofone. The hearts of many of the reformers sank within them for themoment, and the hopes of the Tories were revived in an equal degree. Even already it seemed clear to all of Lord Grey's colleagues that ameasure carried on its second reading by such a bare majority had notthe slightest chance of forcing its way through the House of Lords, even if it should be fortunate enough to pass without serious {150}damage through the House of Commons. Lord Grey and his colleagues werealready beginning to think that nothing worth accomplishing was likelyto be achieved until a general election should have greatlystrengthened the Reform party in Parliament. The movement for reformhad of late been growing steadily in most parts of the country. Someof the more recent elections had shown that the reform spirit wasobtaining the mastery in constituencies from which nothing of the kindhad been expected a short time before, and it seemed to most of theWhig leaders that the existing Parliament was the last bulwark againstthe progress of reform. When the time came for the motion to enablethe Bill to get into committee--that is, to be discussed point by pointin all its clauses by the House, with full liberty to every member tospeak as many times as he pleased--General Gascoigne, one of therepresentatives of Liverpool, proposed an amendment to the effect thatit was not expedient, at such a time, to reduce the numbers of knights, citizens, and burgesses constituting the House of Commons, and thisamendment was carried by a majority of eight. Now the carrying of thisamendment could not possibly have been considered as the destruction ofany vital part of the Bill. 

[Sidenote: 1831--William the Fourth and Reform]

Lord John Russell had argued for the reduction of the numbers in theHouse as a matter of convenience and expediency; but he had not givenit to be understood that the Government felt itself pledged to thatparticular proposition, and had made up his mind not to accept anymodification in that part of the plan. The authors of the Reform Bill, however, read very wisely in the success of General Gascoigne'samendment the lesson that in the existing Parliament the Tories wouldbe able to take the conduct of the measure out of the hands of theGovernment during its progress through committee, and to mar andmutilate it, so as to render it entirely unsuited to its originalpurposes. Therefore Lord Grey and the other members of his Cabinetmade up their minds that the best course they could take would be toaccept the vote of the House of Commons as a distinct defeat, and tomake an {151} appeal to the decision of the constituencies by aninstant dissolution of Parliament. 

One important question had yet to be settled. Would the King give hisassent to the dissolution? No one could have supposed that the Kingwas really at heart a reformer, and the general conviction was that ifWilliam cared anything at all about the matter his personal inclinationwould be in favor of good old Toryism, or that, at the very least, hisinclination would be for allowing things to go on in the old way. Atthat time the principle had not yet been set up as a part of ourconstitutional system that the sovereign was bound to submit his ownwill and pleasure to the advice of his ministers. It would have beenquite in accordance with recognized precedents since the House ofHanover came to the throne if the King were to proclaim hisdetermination to act upon his own judgment and let his ministers eitherput up with his decision or resign their offices. 

For some time, indeed, it appeared as if the King was likely to asserthis prerogative, according to the old fashion. The disagreeable andalmost hazardous task of endeavoring to persuade the King intocompliance with the desire of his Ministry was entrusted to LordBrougham, who was supposed, as Lord Chancellor, to be keeper of thesovereign's conscience. Brougham was not a man who could be describedas gifted with the bland powers of persuasion, but at all events he didnot want courage for the task he had to undertake. William appears atfirst to have refused flatly his consent to the wishes of the Ministry, to have blustered a good deal in his usual unkingly, not to sayungainly, fashion, and to have replied to Brougham's intimation thatthe ministers might have to resign, with words to the effect thatministers, if they liked, might resign and be--ministers no more. TheKing, however, was at last prevailed upon to give his assent, but thena fresh trouble arose when he found that Lord Grey and Lord Brougham, presuming on his ultimate compliance, had already taken steps to makepreparations for the ceremonials preceding dissolution. As the {152}Ministry thought it necessary that there should be no delay whatever inthe steps required to dissolve Parliament, a message had been sent inorder that the Life Guards should be ready, according to the usualcustom when the King went to Westminster for such a purpose. Williamfound in this act on the part of the Ministry a new reason for anoutburst of wrath. He stormed at Brougham; he declared that it was anact of high-treason to call out the Life Guards without the expressauthority of the King, and he raged in a manner which seemed to implythat only the mercy of the sovereign could save Grey and Brougham fromthe axe on Tower Hill. 

[Sidenote: 1831--The second Reform Bill]

Perhaps it was fortunate on the whole for the peaceful settlement ofthe controversy that the King should have found this new and unexpectedstimulant to his anger; for when his wrath had completely exploded overit, and when Brougham had been able to explain, again and again, thatno act of high-treason had been contemplated or committed, the royalfury had spent itself; the King's good-humor had returned; and in thereaction William had forgotten most of his objections to the originalproposal. It was arranged, then, that the dissolution should takeplace at once. As a matter of fact, Sir Robert Peel, in the House ofCommons, was actually declaiming, in his finest manner, and with avoice that Disraeli afterwards described as the best ever heard in theHouse, excepting indeed "the thrilling tones of O'Connell, " against thewhole scheme of reform, when the Usher of the Black Rod was heardknocking at the doors of the Chamber to summon its members to attend atthe bar of the House of Lords, in order to receive the commands of hisMajesty the King. The commands of his Majesty the King were in factthe announcement that Parliament was dissolved, and that an appeal tothe country for the election of a new Parliament was to take place atonce. 

The news was received by Reformers all over the country with the mostexuberant demonstrations of enthusiasm. In London most of the housesthroughout the principal streets were illuminated, and many windowswhich showed {153} no lights were instantly broken by the exultingcrowds that swarmed everywhere. The Duke of Wellington received markedtokens of the unpopularity which his uncompromising declaration againstall manner of reform had brought upon him. Some of the windows atApsley House, his town residence--the windows that looked into thePark--were broken by an impassioned mob, and for years afterwards thesewindows were always kept shuttered, as a sign--so at least the popularfaith assumed it to be--that the Duke could not forgive or forget thisevidence of public ingratitude to the conqueror of Waterloo. The King, on the other hand, had grown suddenly into immense popularity. Thefavorite title given to him at the time of his accession was that ofthe "Sailor King. " Now he was hailed everywhere in the streets as the"Patriot King. " Wherever his carriage made its public appearance itwas sure to be followed by an admiring and acclaiming crowd. Theelections came on at once, and it has to be noted that the amount ofmoney spent on both sides was something astonishing even for those daysof reckless expenditure in political contests. Neither side could makeany boast of political purity, and indeed neither side seemed to havethe slightest inclination to set up such a claim. The only rivalry wasin the spending of money in unrestricted and shameless bribery andcorruption. The more modern sense of revolt against the wholeprinciple of bribery was little thought of in those days. There weremen, indeed, on both sides of the political field who would never havestooped to offer a bribe if left to the impulses of their own honor andtheir own conscience. But the ordinary man of the world, and moreespecially of the political world, felt that if he himself did not givethe bribe his rival would be certain to give it, and that nobody at hisclub or in society would think any the worse of him because it wasunderstood that he had bought himself into the House of Commons. Whenthe elections were over the prevalent opinion as to their result wasalmost everywhere that the numbers of the Reform party in the House ofCommons would be much greater than it had been in the {154} House solately dissolved. When the new Parliament was opened, Lord JohnRussell and Mr. Stanley appeared as members of the Cabinet. The newParliament was opened by King William on June 21. If William reallyenjoyed the consciousness of popularity, as there is every reason tobelieve he did, he must have felt a very proud and popular sovereignthat day. His carriage as he drove to the entrance of the House ofLords was surrounded and followed by an immense crowd, which cheereditself hoarse in its demonstrations of loyalty. On June 24 Lord JohnRussell introduced his second Reform Bill. It is not necessary to gothrough the details of the new measure. The second Reform Bill was insubstance very much the same as its predecessor had been, but of courseits principle was debated on the motion of the second reading with asmuch heat, although not at such great length, as in the case of thefirst Reform Bill a few weeks before. Nothing new came out in thissecond argument, and the debate on the second reading, which began onJuly 4, occupied only three nights, a fact which made some members ofthe Opposition think themselves entitled to the compliments of thecountry. The Parliamentary opponents of the Reform Bill were, however, soon to make it evident that they had more practical and moreperplexing ways of delaying its progress through the House of Commonsthan by the delivery of long orations on the elementary principle ofreform. The second reading of the Bill was carried by 367 votes in itsfavor and 231 votes against it--that is to say, by a majority of 136for the Bill. Therefore everybody saw that, as far as the House ofCommons in the new Parliament was concerned, there was a large majorityin support of the measure brought forward by the Government. 

[Sidenote: 1831--William Cobbett]

It was morning, and not very early morning, when the House divided, andthe Attorney-General had not much time to spare for rest before settingoff for one of the law courts to conduct a prosecution which theGovernment had thought it well to institute against a man who held amost prominent position in England at that time, and whose name, it issafe to say, will be remembered as long as good {155} English prose isstudied. This man was William Cobbett, and he had just aroused theanger of the Government by a published article in which he vindicatedthe conduct of those who had set fire to hayricks and destroyed farmbuildings in various parts of the country. William Cobbett had begunlife as the son of a small farmer, who was himself the son of a daylaborer. He had lived a strange and varied life. In his boyish dayshe had run away from a little farm in Surrey and had flung himself uponthe world of London. He had found employment, for a while, in thehumblest kind of drudgery as a junior copying clerk in an attorney'soffice, and then he had enlisted in a regiment of foot. He wasquartered for a year at Chatham, and he devoted all his leisure momentsto reading, for which he had a passion which lasted him all hislifetime. He is said to have exhausted the whole contents of a lendinglibrary in the neighborhood, for he preferred reading anything toreading nothing. He was especially fond of historical and scientificstudies, but he had a love for literature of a less severe kind also, and he studied with intense eagerness the works of Swift, on whosestyle he seems to have moulded his own with much success and withoutany servile imitation. Then he was quartered with his regiment forsome time in New Brunswick, and after various vicissitudes he made hisway to Philadelphia. During his stay in New Brunswick he had studiedFrench, and had many opportunities of conversing in it withFrench-Canadians, and when settled for a time in Philadelphia heoccupied himself by teaching English to some refugees from France. Nowand again he went backward and forward between America and England, butit was in Philadelphia that he was first known as a writer. Under thesignature of Peter Porcupine he published the "Porcupine Papers, " whichwere chiefly made up of sarcastic and vehement attacks upon public men. Cobbett had begun as a sort of Tory, or, at all events, as a professedenemy of all Radical agitators, but he gradually became a Radicalagitator himself, and when he finally settled in England he soon beganto be recognized as one of the most powerful {156} advocates of theRadical cause in or out of Parliament. He wrote a strong, simpleAnglo-Saxon style, and indeed it is not too much to say that, afterSwift himself, no man ever wrote clearer English prose than that ofWilliam Cobbett. He had tried to get into Parliament twice withoutsuccess; but at last he succeeded in obtaining a seat as therepresentative of the borough of Oldham, a place which he representeduntil the time of his death, and which was represented by members ofhis family in the memory of the present generation. He had started apaper called _The Weekly Political Register_, and in this he championedthe Radical cause with an energy and ability which made him one of themost conspicuous men of the time. 

[Sidenote: 1831--The prosecution of Cobbett]

Lord Grey's Government was probably not very anxious to prosecuteCobbett, if a prosecution could have been avoided, but it was feared, perhaps, by the members of the Cabinet that some of his writings wouldbe used by the opponents of reform as an illustration of the principleson which reform was founded, and the practices which it would encourageif the Government failed to take some decided action. It was thereforedecided to institute the prosecution for the article which had beenpublished in the previous December. The Guildhall, where the case wasto be tried, was crowded to excess, and the prisoner was loudlyapplauded when he stood in the court. He was one of the heroes of thehour with large numbers of the people everywhere, and the court wouldhave been crowded this day in any case; but additional interest wasgiven to the sitting by the fact that Cobbett had summoned forwitnesses for his defence Lord Grey, Lord Brougham, Lord Althorp, andLord Durham. The summoning of these witnesses was one of Cobbett'soriginal and audacious strokes of humor and of cleverness, and hisobject was, in fact, to make it out that the leading members of hisMajesty's Government were just as much inclined to countenance violenceas he was when such a piece of work might happen to suit theirpolitical purposes. The stroke, however, did not produce much effectin this case, for Lord Brougham's evidence, which in any case wouldhave been {157} unimportant to the question at issue, would have beenrather to the disadvantage than advantage of the prisoner if it hadbeen fully gone into, and Cobbett relieved Brougham from furtherattendance; while Chief Justice Tenterden, the presiding judge, decidedthat the testimony which Cobbett said he intended to draw from theother noble witnesses had nothing to do with the case before the jury. The whole question, in fact, was as to the nature of the article in the_Political Register_. The jury could not agree upon their verdict, andafter they had been locked up for fifteen hours, and there seemed nochance of their coming to an understanding, the jurors were dischargedand there was an end of the case. When the result was announcedCobbett received tumultuous applause from a large number of the crowdin court and from throngs of people outside. He left the court evenmore of a popular hero than he had been when he entered it. 

Now, in studying the article itself as a mere historical document, thereader who belongs to the present generation would probably be disposedto come to the conclusion that, while it was indeed something like adirect incentive to violence, it also pointed to evils and to dangerswhich the wisdom of statesmanship would then have done well to fear. For the main purpose of the article was to emphasize the fact that, inthe existing conditions of things, nothing was ever likely to be donefor the relief of the hungry sufferers from bad laws and bad socialconditions, unless some deeds of violence were employed to startle thepublic into the knowledge that the sufferings existed and would not beendured in patience any longer. It is unfortunately only too truethat, at all periods of history, even the most recent history of themost civilized countries, there are evils that legislation will nottrouble itself to deal with until legislators have been made to know bysome deeds of violence that if relief will not come, civil disturbancemust come. The whole story of the reign of William the Fourth is thestory of an age of reform, although no particular credit can be givento the monarch himself for that splendid fact. It is a melancholytruth {158} that not one of these reforms would have been effected atthe time or for long after if those who suffered most cruelly fromexisting wrongs had always been content to suffer in law-abidingpeacefulness, and to allow the justice of their cause to prove itselfby patient argument addressed to the reason, the sympathy, and theconscience of the ruling orders. 

{159}

CHAPTER LXXIII. 

THE TRIUMPH OF REFORM. 

[Sidenote: 1831--Obstructive tactics in the Commons]

The Reform Bill was, then, clearly on its way to success. It hadpassed its second reading in the House of Commons by a large, and whatmight well be called a triumphant, majority. Now, when a great measurereaches that stage in the modern history of our Constitution, we canall venture to forecast, with some certainty, its ultimate fate. Weare speaking, it need hardly be said, of reform measures which aremoved by a clear principle and have a strong and resolute band offollowers. Such measures may be defeated once and again by the Houseof Lords, and may be delayed in either or both Houses for aconsiderable time; but it only needs perseverance to carry them in theend. Some of the more enlightened and intelligent Conservatives musthave begun already to feel that the ultimate triumph of the reformmeasure was only a question of time; but then those who were opposed toevery such reform were determined that, at all events, the triumphshould be put off as long as possible. The House of Lords would, nodoubt, throw out the Bill when it came for the first time within therange of their power; but it was resolved, meanwhile, to keep the Billas long as possible in the House of Commons. Therefore there now setin a Parliamentary campaign of a kind which was almost quite new tothose days, but has become familiar to our later times--a campaign ofobstruction. After the second reading of the new Reform Bill there setin that first great systematic performance of obstruction which hasbeen the inspiration, the lesson, and the model to all the obstructivesof later years. The rules and the practices of the House of Commonsoffered in those times, and, {160} indeed, for long after, the mosttempting opportunities to any body of members who were anxious toprolong debate for the mere purpose of preventing legislation. Forexample, it was understood until quite lately that any motion made inthe House, even the most formal and technical, might be opposed, and, if opposed, might be debated for any length of time, without theSpeaker having the power to intervene and cut short the most barren andmeaningless discussion. 

[Sidenote: 1831--Parliamentary procedure]

When the House goes into committee, according to the formalParliamentary phrase, the temptation to obstruct becomes indefinitelymultiplied, for in committee a member can speak as often as he thinksfit on the subject--or, at least, such was his privilege before thealterations adopted in very recent years. It may be well to explain tothe general reader the meaning of what takes place when the House goesinto committee. When a Bill has passed through its first and secondreading it is understood that the main principles of the measure havebeen agreed upon, and that it only remains for the House to go intocommittee for the purpose of considering every clause and every minutedetail of the Bill before it comes up to the House again for its thirdand final reading. Now the House, when it goes into committee, isstill just the same House of Commons as before, except that the Speakerleaves the chair and the assembly is presided over by the Chairman ofCommittees, who sits not in the Speaker's throne-like chair, but in anordinary seat at the table in front of it. There is, however, theimportant difference that, while in the House itself, presided over bythe Speaker, a member can only speak once on each motion, in thecommittee he can speak as often as he thinks fit, and for the obviousreason that, where mere details are under consideration, it was notthought expedient to limit the number of practical suggestions whichany member might desire to offer as the discussion of each clausesuggested new possibilities of improvement. By the alterationseffected recently in the rules of procedure the Speaker of the House, or the Chairman of Committees, obtains a {161} certain control overmembers who are evidently talking against time and for the sake ofwilful obstruction; but in the days of Lord John Russell's Reform Billno such authority had been given to the presiding officer. 

The very motion--in ordinary times a purely formal motion--which had tobe passed in order that the House might get into committee, gave to theopponents of reform their first opportunity of obstruction. The motionwas that the Speaker do now leave the chair, and the moment that motionwas put it was immediately met by an amendment. A Tory member raisedthe question that there was a mistake in one of the returns ofpopulation in the constituency which he represented, and he proposedthat his constituent should be allowed to show cause in person or bycounsel at the bar of the House for a rectification of the error. LordJohn Russell admitted that there appeared to have been some mistake inthe return, but he contended that the motion to enable the House to gointo committee was not the proper time at which such a question couldbe raised. Every one in the House knew perfectly well the motive forraising the question just then, and after some time had been wasted inabsolutely unnecessary discussion the obstructive amendment wasdefeated by a majority of 97. That, however, did not help matters verymuch, for the House had still to divide upon the question that theSpeaker do now leave the chair. This was met by repeated motions foradjournment, and on every one of these motions a long discussion waskept up by some leading members of the Opposition and by their faithfulfollowers. The reader will remember that until the motion had beencarried for the Speaker to leave the chair it was still the House, andnot the committee, that was sitting, and therefore no member couldspeak more than once on the same subject. But then this fact did notsecure even that particular stage of the debate against obstruction, for there were several different forms in which the motion foradjournment might be made, and on each of these several proposals amember was entitled to speak even although he had already spoken oneach motion previously proposed {162} to the same practical effect. Perhaps it may be as well to bring the condition of things more clearlyand more practically within the understanding of the general reader, seeing that the Parliamentary obstruction which may be said to havebegun with the Reform Bill became afterwards so important an instrumentfor good or for evil in our legislative system. The motion then ismade that Mr. Speaker do now leave the chair. Thereupon Mr. Brown, Tory member, moves as an amendment that the House do now adjourn, andMr. Brown sets forth in a lengthened speech his reasons for thinkingthat the House ought not to sit any longer that night. Some member ofthe Ministry rises and gives his reason for urging that the Speakershould be allowed to leave the chair at once, and that the House gointo committee in order to consider the details of the measure. Thereupon several of Mr. Brown's friends arise, and one after anotherexpound, at great length, their reason for supporting Mr. Brown. Theministers, by this time, have made up their minds that the best coursethey can follow is to let Mr. Brown's friends have all the talk tothemselves, but some independent members on the side of the Governmentare sure to be provoked into making speeches denouncing theobstructives and thereby only helping to obstruct. At length, when allMr. Brown's friends have had their say--and Mr. Brown, it will beremembered, cannot speak again on this particular question--a divisionis taken on his amendment, and the amendment is lost. Then thequestion is put once more for the Speaker to leave the chair, andinstantly Mr. Jones, another Tory member, springs to his feet and movesas an amendment, not that the House do now adjourn, but that thisdebate be now adjourned, which, as every one must see, is quite adifferent proposition. On this new amendment Mr. Brown is quiteentitled to speak, and he does speak accordingly, and so do all hisfriends, and at last a division is taken and the amendment of Mr. Joneshas the same fate as the amendment of Mr. Brown, and is defeated by alarge majority. Up comes the question once more about the Speakerleaving the chair, and up gets Mr. Robinson, {163} another Tory member, and moves that the House do now adjourn, which motion is strictly inorder, for it is quite clear that the House might with perfectconsistency refuse to adjourn at midnight and yet might be quitewilling to adjourn at four o'clock in the morning. On the amendment ofMr. Robinson his friends Brown and Jones are of course entitled tospeak, and so are all their colleagues in the previous discussions, andwhen this amendment too is defeated, then Mr. Smith, yet another Torymember, rises in his place, as the familiar Parliamentary phrase goes, and moves that this debate be now adjourned. This is really a fairsummary of the events which took place in the House of Commons on thisfirst grand opportunity of obstruction, the motion to enable the Houseto get into committee on the details of the Reform Bill. 

[Sidenote: 1831--The Reform Bill in committee]

It was half-past seven in the morning when the out-wearied Houseconsented to adjourn, and the story was told, at the time, that whenSir Charles Wetherell was leaving Westminster Hall with some of hisTory colleagues he observed that a heavy rain was pouring down, and hedeclared with a vigorous oath that if he had known of that in time hewould have treated the Government to a few more divisions before givingthem a chance of getting to their homes. The Bill, however, did getinto committee at last, and then the work of obstruction began againand was carried on after the most systematic fashion. In committee theopportunities were ample, for the case of each constituency which itwas proposed to disfranchise, or each constituency the number of whosemembers it was proposed to lessen, had to be discussed separately, and, of course, gave rise to an unlimited number of speeches. A committeewas actually formed to prepare, organize, and apply the methods ofobstruction, and of this committee no less a person than Sir RobertPeel, then one of England's most rising statesmen, afterwards to be oneof her greatest statesmen, was the president. Sir Robert Peel washimself one of the most frequent speakers in the obstructive debates, and among his rivals were Sir Charles Wetherell and Mr. John WilsonCroker, a man who has {164} been consigned to a sort of immortality bya famous essay of Macaulay's and by Disraeli's satirical picture of himas Mr. Rigby in "Coningsby. " The committee of Tory members which hasbeen already mentioned arranged carefully, in advance, the obstructionthat was to be carried on in the case of each particular constituency, and planned out in advance how each discussion was to be conducted andwho were to take the leading parts in it. 

[Sidenote: 1831--Determination to pass the Bill]

Meanwhile popular feeling was rising more and more strongly as each dayof debate dragged on. Some of the largest constituencies were mostactive and energetic in their appeals to the Government to hold out tothe very last and not yield an inch to the obstructionists. A fearbegan to spread abroad that Lord Grey and his colleagues might endeavorto save some of the main provisions of their Bill by surrendering otherparts of it to the Opposition. This alarm found expression in the crywhich soon began to be heard all over the country, and became in factthe battle-cry of Reformers everywhere--the Bill, the whole Bill, andnothing but the Bill. Great public meetings were held in all parts forthe purpose of urging the Government to make no concessions to thepolitical enemy. During the summer a meeting of the most influentialsupporters of the Government was held in the Foreign Office, and atthat meeting Lord Althorp, Chancellor of the Exchequer, announced thatLord Grey and his colleagues were perfectly determined not to give way, and he declared that the Government were resolved to keep the House ofCommons sitting until December, or, if necessary, until the followingDecember, in order to pass the Bill before the rising of the House forits recess. Naturally this firm declaration had some effect on theobstructionists, especially on the rank and file of theobstructionists. Nothing discourages and disheartens obstruction somuch, in the House of Commons, as a resolute announcement on the partof the Ministry that the House is to be kept together until the measureunder debate, whatever it may be, is disposed of. It is a hard task, at any time, to keep the House of Commons together after the regularseason for its {165} holiday has come on; and if the rank and file ofOpposition can once be brought to believe that a certain measure is tobe passed no matter what number of weeks or months it may occupy, therank and file is very apt to make up its mind that there is no use inthrowing good months after bad, and that it might be as well to get thething done, since it has to be done, without unlimited sacrifice ofpersonal comfort. Still, the leaders of the Tory Opposition were notdeterred by Lord Althorp's proclamation from maintaining their work ofobstruction for some time yet. The impatience and anger of the countryrose higher and higher. A reforming member of the House was in anunlucky plight indeed if he happened to be caught by one of theamendments proposed from the benches of Opposition and, believing thatit had something reasonable in it, allowed his too sensitive conscienceto persuade him into supporting it by his vote. Into such a plightfell a worthy alderman of the City of London--who had been sent intothe House of Commons as a Radical reformer. This well-meaning personhad permitted himself to become satisfied that there was something tobe said for one of the Opposition amendments, and in a moment of rashingenuousness he voted for it. He was immediately afterwards formallycensured by his constituents and by the body to which he officiallybelonged. He was informed by solemn resolutions that he had been sentinto the House of Commons to help the Government in passing the ReformBill, and it was more or less plainly intimated to him that he had nomore right to the exercise of his independent opinion on any of thedetails of the measure than a private soldier on a battle-field wouldhave to exercise his individual judgment as to the propriety of obeyingor disobeying the order of his commanding officer. The poor man had tomake the most fervid assurances that he had meant no harm in voting forthe Opposition amendment, that he was thoroughly devoted to the causeof reform, and to the particular measure then before the House ofCommons, and that never again was he to be induced by any arguments togive a vote against the Government on any {166} section or sentence orline of Lord John Russell's Bill. Then, and not until then, he wastaken back into favor. 

[Sidenote: 1831--The Reform Bill passes the Commons]

The Bill, however, did get through committee at last. The Governmentcontrived by determined resistance and untiring patience to get theirscheme of reform out of committee in substantially the condition theywished it to have. Then came the third reading. It was confidentlyassumed on both sides of the House that there would be a long debate onthe motion that the Bill be now read a third time. In the House ofCommons, however, it often happens that the assumption of a forthcomingdebate as a certainty is itself the one cause which prevents thedebates from being long. So it happened on this important occasion. Every Tory took it for granted that his brother Tories would keep thedebate going for an indefinite time, and in this fond faith a good manyTories felt themselves in no hurry to get to the House, and werewilling to leave the first hour or two at the disposal of theircolleagues. When the sitting began, and, indeed, when the motion forthe third reading came on, there were comparatively few Tories in theHouse, and the great leaders of Opposition were not present. There wasconfusion in the ranks of the Tories, and the crowded benches of theReformers thundered with clamorous shouts of "Divide! Divide!" Now, it takes a very heroic orator indeed to continue declaiming for a longtime when a great majority of the members present are bellowing at himand are drowning, by their united voices, the sounds of the words whichhe is trying to articulate. The members of Opposition in the Housefound this fact brought home to them, and, being further bewildered bythe fortuitous absence of their leaders, soon gave up the struggle, andthe debate collapsed, and the third reading was carried by a largemajority before Sir Robert Peel, Sir Charles Wetherell, and others camein leisurely fashion into the House, filled with the assumption thatthere would be ample opportunity for them to carry on the debate. Evenyet, however, all was not over. According to the procedure of theHouse, it was not enough that the motion for the third reading of the{167} Bill should be carried. It was still necessary to propose themotion that the Bill do now pass. The moment this motion was proposedthe torrent of opposition, frozen up for a too-short interval, began toflow again in full volume. The nature of the formal motion gaveopportunity for renewed attacks on the whole purpose of the Bill, andall the old, familiar, outworn arguments were repeated by orator afterorator from the Tory benches. But this, too, had to come to an end. The House was no longer in committee, and each member could only speakonce on this final motion. Of course, there could be motions foradjournment, and on each such motion, put as an amendment, there wouldbe opportunity for a fresh debate; but the leaders of the Oppositionwere beginning to see that there was nothing of much account to be doneany longer in the House of Commons, and that their hopes of resistingthe progress of reform must turn to the House of Lords. So the ReformBill passed at last through the House of Commons, and then all over thecountry was raised the cry, "What will the Lords do with it?"

Soon the temper of the more advanced Reformers throughout the countrybegan to change its tone, and the question eagerly put was not so oftenwhat will the Lords do with the Bill? but what shall we do with theHouse of Lords? At every great popular meeting held throughout theconstituencies an outcry was raised against the House of Lords as apart of the constitutional system, and no speaker was more welcome on apublic platform than the orator who called for the abolition of thehereditary principle in the formation of legislators. One might havethought that the agitation which broke out all over the country, andthe manner in which almost all Reformers seemed to have taken it forgranted that the hereditary Chamber must be the enemy of all reform, might have put the peers on their guard and taught them the unwisdom ofaccepting the imputation against them, and thus proving that they hadno sympathy with the cause of the people. But the great majority ofthe Tory peers of that day had not yet risen to the idea that therecould be any {168} wisdom in any demand made by men who had nouniversity education, who had not what was then described as a stake inthe country. The voice of the people was simply regarded as the voiceof the rabble, and the Tory peers had no notion of allowing themselvesto be guided by any appeal coming from such a quarter. 

[Sidenote: 1831--The Reform Bill in the Lords]

The agitation of which we are speaking had been going on during thelong reign of obstruction in the Commons, and there was no time lost bythe Government between the passing of the Bill in the representativeChamber and its introduction in the House of Lords. On the evening ofthe day when the Bill was passed by the Commons, September 23, 1831, itwas formally brought into the House of Lords and read a first time. Ithas already been explained that, according to Parliamentary usage, thefirst reading of any Bill is taken in the House of Lords as a matter ofright and without a division. The second reading of the Bill was takenon October 3. Lord Grey, who had charge of the measure in that House, delivered one of the most impressive and commanding speeches which hadever come from his eloquent lips, not merely in recommendation of themeasure itself, but in solemn warning to the peers in general, and tothe bishops and archbishops in particular, to pause and considercarefully all the possible consequences before committing themselves tothe rejection of a demand which was made by the vast majority of theEnglish people. 

Lord Grey was a noble illustration of what may be described as thestately order of Parliamentary eloquence. He had not the fire and thepassion of Fox; he had not the thrilling genius of Pitt; and, ofcourse, his style of speech had none of the passionate and sometimesthe extravagant declamation of which Brougham was a leading master. Hehad a dignified presence, a calm, clear, and penetrating voice, a stylethat was always exquisitely finished and nobly adapted to its purpose. It would not be too much to say for Earl Grey that he might have beenthe ideal orator for an ideal House of Lords, if we assume the idealHouse of Lords to be an assembly in which appeal {169} was always madeto high principle, to reason, and to justice, not to passion, toprejudice, or to party. Lord Grey, so far as we can judge fromcontemporary accounts, never spoke better than in the debate on thesecond reading of the Reform Bill, and it was evident that he spokewith all the sincere emotion of one whose mind and heart alike werefilled with the cause for which he pleaded. But the House of Lordsjust then was not in a mood to be swayed greatly by argument or byeloquence. Lord Wharncliffe moved an amendment to the effect that theBill be read a second time this day six months. This, at least, wasthe shape that the motion took after some discussion, because LordWharncliffe, in the first instance, had concluded his speech againstthe second reading by the blunt motion that the Bill be rejected; andit was only when it had been pressed upon his attention that such amethod of disposing of the measure would be a downright insult to theCommons that he consented to modify his proposal into the formal andfamiliar amendment that the Bill be read a second time this day sixmonths. The effect would be just the same in either case, for noMinistry would think of retaining office if the discussion of its mostimportant measure were postponed in the House of Lords for a period ofsix months. During the debate which followed, the Duke of Wellingtonspoke strongly against the Bill. On the morning of October 8 thedivision was taken. There were 199 votes for the amendment and 158against it, or, in other words, for the second reading of the Bill. The second reading was therefore rejected by a majority of 41. Thewhole work of legislation during all the previous part of the year hadthus been reduced to nothing, and the House of Lords had shown what itwould do with the Bill by contemptuously rejecting it, and thus biddingdefiance to the demand unquestionably made by the vast majority of thepeople of England, Scotland, and Ireland. 

Parliament was at once prorogued, and the members who were in favor ofreform hurried off to address great meetings of their constituents, andto denounce the action of the House of Lords. Popular enthusiasm wasaroused {170} more than ever in favor of the Reform Bill, and popularpassion was stirred in many places to positive fury against theprincipal opponents of the Bill. In London several public men who wereconspicuous for their opposition to the Bill were surrounded in theircarriages as they drove through the streets by suddenly collectedcrowds, who hooted and hissed them, and would have gone much furtherthan hooting and hissing in their way of expressing condemnation butfor the energetic intervention of the newly created police force. Insome of the provincial towns, and here and there throughout thecountry, the most serious riots broke out. In Derby there weredisturbances which lasted for several days, and consisted of attacks onunpopular persons and of fierce fights with the police. Nottingham wasthe centre of rioting even more serious. Nottingham Castle, the seatof the Duke of Newcastle, was attacked by a furious mob and actuallyburned to the ground. In the immediate neighborhood was the estate ofMr. Musters, which was invaded by an excited mob. The dwelling-housewas set on fire, and, although the conflagration was not allowed tospread far, yet it ended in a tragedy which must always have a peculiarinterest for the lovers of poetry and romance. The wife of Mr. Musterswas the Mary Chaworth made famous by Lord Byron in his poem of the"Dream, " and other poems as well--the Mary Chaworth who was his firstlove, and whom, at one time, he believed destined to be his last lovealso. Mary Chaworth does not seem to have taken the poet's adorationvery seriously--at all events, she married Mr. Musters, a countrygentleman of good position. Mrs. Musters was in her house on the nightwhen it was attacked by the mob, and when the fire broke out she fledinto the open park and sought shelter there among the trees. The mobwas dispersed and Mrs. Musters, after a while, was able to return toher home; but she was in somewhat delicate health, the exposure to thecold night air of winter proved too much for her, and she became one ofthe most innocent victims to the popular passion aroused by theopposition to the Reform Bill. 

{171}

[Sidenote: 1831--The Reform riots]

Bristol was the scene of the most formidable riots during all thatperiod of disturbance. Sir Charles Wetherell, who had made himselfconspicuous as an opponent of reform, was the Recorder as well as therepresentative of Bristol, and his return to the city after the Lordshad thrown out the Bill became the signal for an outbreak of popularfury. Houses were wrecked in various parts of the city; street fightstook place between the mob and the military, day after day; the MansionHouse, where Sir Charles Wetherell was supposed to have taken refuge, was besieged, attacked, and almost demolished, and Sir CharlesWetherell himself was rescued, more than once, with the utmostdifficulty from hostile crowds who seemed thirsting for his blood. Allthese riots were atoned for dearly soon after by some who had takenpart in them. The stroke of the law was heavy and sharp in those days, and many of the rioters in Derby, Nottingham, and Bristol, and otherplaces expiated on the scaffold their offences against peace and order. Some of the cathedral cities became scenes of especial disturbancebecause of the part so many of the prelates who were members of theHouse of Lords had taken against the Reform Bill. The direct appealwhich Earl Grey had made to the archbishops and bishops in the House ofLords to think long and well before opposing the Reform Bill wasdelivered with the highest and sincerest motive, with the desire thatthe Church should keep itself in harmony with the people; but the merefact that the appeal was made, and made in vain, seems to have arousedin many parts of the country, and especially in the cathedral cities, astronger conviction than ever that the prelates were, for the mostpart, the enemies of popular rights. Then, again, there was a more orless general impression that the King himself, in his heart, was not infavor of reform and would be glad to get rid of it if he could. DanielO'Connell, addressing a great popular meeting at Charing Cross inLondon, pointed with his outstretched right arm towards Whitehall, andawakened a tremendous outburst of applause from the vast crowd bytelling them that it was there Charles I. Had lost his head {172}because he had submitted to the dictation of his foreign wife. Therewas a popular belief at the time that Queen Adelaide, the wife of KingWilliam, cherished a strong hatred against reform such as Lord Grey andhis colleagues were pressing on, and that she was secretly influencingthe mind of her husband her own way, and so it was that O'Connell'sallusion got home to the feelings and the passions of the multitude wholistened to his words. Never, in the nineteenth century, had Englandgone through such a period of internal storm. All over the Continentobservers were beginning to ask themselves whether the monarchy inEngland was not on the verge of such a crisis as had just overtaken themonarchy in France. 

[Sidenote: 1832--The third Reform Bill]

Lord Grey and his ministers still, however, held firmly to theirpurpose, and the King, much as he may have disliked the whole reformbusiness, and gladly as he would have got rid of it, if it were to begot rid of by any possible means, had still wit enough to see that ifhe were to give his support to the House of Lords something even morethan the House of Lords might be in danger. Parliament was thereforecalled together again in December, and the Royal Speech from the Thronecommended to both Houses the urgent necessity of passing into law asquickly as possible the ministerial measure of reform. Lord JohnRussell brought in his third Reform Bill for England and Wales, a Billthat was, in purpose and in substance, much the same as the twomeasures that had preceded it, and this third Reform Bill passed byslow degrees through its several stages in the House of Commons. Thenagain came up the portentous question, "What will the Lords do withit?" There could not be the least doubt in the mind of anybody as towhat the majority of the House of Lords would be glad to do with theBill if they only felt sure that they could work their will upon itwithout danger to their own order. There, however, the seriousdifficulty arose. The more reasonable among the peers did not attemptto disguise from themselves that another rejection of the Bill mightlead to the most serious disturbances, and even possibly to civil war, and they were not {173} prepared to indulge their hostility to reformat so reckless an expense. The greater number of the Tory peers, however, acted on the assumption, familiar at all times among certainparties of politicians, that the more loudly people demanded a reformthe more resolutely the reform ought to be withheld from them, andthat, if the people attempted to rise up, the only proper policy was toput the people down by force. The opinions and sentiments of the lessheadlong among the Conservative peers had led to the formation of aparty, more or less loosely put together, who were called at that timethe "Waverers, " just as a political combination of an earlier dayobtained the title of the "Trimmers. " The Waverers were made up of themen who held that their best and most patriotic policy was to regardeach portion of the Bill brought before them on its own merits, and notto resist out of hand any proposition which seemed harmless in itselfsimply because it formed part of the whole odious policy of reform. King William is believed, at one time, to have set hopes on the effortsof the Waverers, and to have cherished a gladsome belief that theymight get him out of his difficulties about the Reform Bill; as indeedit will be seen they did in the end, though not quite in the way whichhe would have desired. 

Lord Grey introduced the third Reform Bill on March 27, 1832. Thefirst reading passed, as a matter of course, but when the division onthe motion for the second reading came on on April 14, there was only amajority of 9 votes for the Bill: 184 peers voted for it and 175against it. Of course Lord Grey and his colleagues saw, at once, thatunless the conditions were to be completely altered there would be nochance whatever in the House of Lords for a measure of reform which hadpassed its second reading by a majority of only 9. The moment the Billgot into committee there would be endless opportunities afforded forits mutilation, and if it were to get through the House at all, itwould be only in such a form as to render it wholly useless for theobjects which its promoters desired it to accomplish. This dismalconviction was very speedily {174} verified. When the Bill got intocommittee, Lord Lyndhurst moved an amendment to the effect that thequestion of enfranchisement should precede that of disfranchisement. Now this proposal was not in itself one necessarily hostile to theprinciple of the Bill. It is quite easy to understand that a sincerefriend to reform might have, under certain conditions, adopted theviews that Lord Lyndhurst professed to advocate. But the Ministry knewvery well that the adoption of such a proposal would mean simply thatthe whole conduct of the measure was to be taken out of their hands andput into unfriendly hands--in other words, that it would be utterlyfutile to go any further with the measure if the hostile majority werethus allowed to deal with it according to their own designs and theirown class interest. 

[Sidenote: 1832--The Peers and the third Reform Bill]

Lord Lyndhurst was a man of great ability, eloquence, and astuteness. He was one of the comparatively few men in our modern history who havemade a mark in the Law Courts and in Parliament. As a Parliamentaryorator he was the rival of Brougham, and the rivalry was all the moreexciting to the observers because it was a rivalry of styles as well asof capacities. Lyndhurst was always polished, smooth, refined, endowedwith a gift of argumentative eloquence, which appealed to the intellectrather than to the feelings, was seldom impassioned, and even whenimpassioned kept his passion well within conventional bounds. Broughamwas thrilling, impetuous, overwhelming, often extravagant, scorningconventionality of phrase or manner, revelling in his own exuberantstrength and plunging at opponents as a bull might do in a Spanisharena. Lyndhurst's amendment was one especially suited to bring to hisside the majority of the Waverers. It was plausible enough in itself, and gave to many a Waverer, who must have had in his mind a very clearperception of its real object, some excuse for persuading himself that, in voting for it, he was not voting against the principle of reform. When the division came to be taken on May 7, 151 peers voted for theamendment and 116 against it, thus showing a majority of 35 against{175} the Government, by whom of course the amendment had beenunreservedly opposed. 

The country saw that a new crisis had come, and a crisis more seriousthan any which had gone before. There was only one constitutionalcourse by which the difficulty could be got over, and that was by theKing giving his consent to the creation of a number of new peers largeenough to carry the Reform Bill through all its subsequent stages inthe House of Lords. Other outlet of safety through peaceful meansthere was none. Lord Grey's Ministry could not possibly remain inoffice and see the measure, on which they believed the peace andprosperity of the country to depend, left at the mercy of anirresponsible majority of Tory peers. The King was most unwilling tohelp his ministers out of the trouble, especially by such a process asthey had suggested, and in his heart would have been very glad to berid of them and the Reform Bill at the same time. Charles Greville inhis Memoirs makes several allusions to the King's well-known dislikefor the Whig ministers and his anxiety to get the Duke of Wellingtonback again. Lord Grey and his colleagues, finding it hard to get theKing to recognize the gravity of the situation, and to adopt the advicethey had offered to him, felt that there was nothing left for them butto resign office. And the King was delighted to have a chance ofrecalling the Duke of Wellington to the position of Prime Minister. Under the date of May 17, 1832, Greville has some notes which welldeserve quotation: "The joy of the King at what he thought to be hisdeliverance from the Whigs was unbounded. He lost no time in puttingthe Duke of Wellington in possession of everything which had takenplace between him and them upon the subject of reform and with regardto the creation of peers, admitting that he had consented, but sayinghe had been subjected to every species of persecution. His ignoranceand levity put him in a miserable light and proved him to be one of thesilliest old gentlemen in his dominions. " Greville goes on to say:"But I believe he is mad, for yesterday he gave a dinner to the JockeyClub, {176} at which, notwithstanding his cares, he seemed to be inexcellent spirits, and after dinner he made a number of speeches soridiculous and nonsensical beyond all belief but to those who heardthem, rambling from one subject to another, repeating the same thingover and over again, and altogether such a mass of confusion, trash, and imbecility, as made one laugh and blush at the same time. "

[Sidenote: 1832--The King seeks a Prime Minister]

The poor muddled-headed old King in fact could not understand that thequestion submitted to him allowed of no middle course of compromise. He seemed to think he had gone far enough in the way of conciliationwhen he offered to allow his ministers to create a certain number ofpeers. No concession, however, could be of the slightest use to theMinistry unless the power were conceded to them to create as many newpeers as might be necessary to overbear all opposition to the ReformBill. The struggle was in fact between the existing House of Lords andthe vast majority of the nation. One or other must conquer. The onlyconstitutional way in which the existing opposition of the House ofLords could be overborne was by the creation of a number of new peersgreat enough to turn the majority of the House of Lords into a minority. 

Lord Grey and Lord Althorp were not, it is hardly necessary to say, menwho shared in the popular sentiment, which would, if it could, haveabolished altogether the hereditary principle in legislation. But LordGrey and Lord Althorp read the signs of the times, and saw clearlyenough that if the House of Lords were allowed to stand much longer inthe way of the Reform Bill the result would be probably a politicalrevolution which would abolish the House of Lords altogether. Therefore the ministers could make no terms with the King short ofthose which they had offered, and as the King did not see his way toaccept their conditions there was nothing left for them but to resignoffice. Accordingly Lord Grey tendered his resignation and that of hiscolleagues, and the King, after much indecision and mental flurry, thought he could do nothing better than to accept the resignation, andtry to find a set of ministers more suitable to his {177} inclinations. He sent for Lord Lyndhurst and entered into conversation with thatastute lawyer and politician, and Lord Lyndhurst advised him to sendfor the Duke of Wellington. The Duke was sent for, but the Duke hadnot much to say which could lend any help to the King in hisdifficulties. Wellington saw distinctly enough that there was noalternative but that which lay in the choice between reform and somesort of popular revolution. We have seen already in these volumes howWellington preferred to accept Catholic Emancipation rather than takethe risk of plunging the country into civil war. In the case of theReform Bill he would have acted, no doubt, upon the same principle ifdriven to the choice, but after the repeated and energeticdenunciations of reform which he had delivered in the House of Lords hedid not think that it would be a fitting part for him, even for thesake of helping the sovereign out of his constitutional trouble, to bethe Prime Minister by whom any manner of Reform Bill should beintroduced. Wellington therefore strongly urged the King to send forSir Robert Peel, and declared that he himself would lend all thesupport he possibly could to a Peel Administration. Peel was sent foraccordingly, but Peel was too far-seeing a statesman to believe that hecould possibly hold office for many weeks unless he yielded to the fulldemands of the country, and his political principles would not haveallowed him to go so far as that. He did his best to make it clear tothe King that no administration but a reform administration couldstand, and that, if a reform administration had to be accepted, therewas nothing better to be done than to invite Lord Grey and Lord JohnRussell back again to office. 

Meanwhile the country was aroused to a fervor of enthusiasm in favor ofreform, which seemed only to increase with every delay and to growstronger with every opposition. Public meetings were held inBirmingham of larger size than had ever been gathered together inEngland before, and resolutions were passed by acclamation which werealmost revolutionary in their character. In many cities and townsappeals were made for a run on the {178} bank, a run for gold, andthere were alarming signs that the advice was likely to be followed tosuch a degree as to bring about utter confusion in the money market. In the City of London an immense meeting was held, at which resolutionswere passed calling on the House of Commons to stop the supplies unlessthe King accepted the councils of the Whig statesmen and gave themauthority for the election of new peers. The overwhelming strength ofthe demand for reform may be easily estimated when it is rememberedthat the majority in the great cities and towns, and also in thecounties, were for once of the same opinion. In more than one greatpolitical controversy of modern times, as in the free-trade agitationfor example, it has happened that the town population were of oneopinion and the county population of another. But at the time which weare now describing the great cities and towns were all nearlyunrepresented, and in their demand for representation they were of onemind and one spirit with the county populations, which called out for areal and not a sham representation. There will probably always be aquestion of curious speculation and deep interest to the students ofhistory as to the possibility of a great revolution in England if theKing had made up his mind to hold out against the advice of the Whigstatesmen and to try the last chance. It is certain that the leadingWhig nobles were considering, with profound earnestness, what course itmight be necessary for them to take if the King were absolutely torefuse all concession and to stand by what he believed to be hissovereign right to set up his own authority as supreme. If the choiceshould be forced on them, would these Whig nobles stand by theobstinate King or throw in their lot with the people? This gravequestion must have been considered again and again in all its bearingsby the Whig leaders during that time of terrible national crisis. 

[Sidenote: 1832--The Whig nobles and the military]

It would seem to be beyond all question that some, at least, of theWhig nobles were contemplating the possibility of their having tochoose between the King and the people, and that their minds were madeup, should the worst come {179} to the worst, to side with the people. Many years afterwards, during the State trials at Clonmel whichfollowed the Young Ireland rebellion of 1848, evidence was broughtforward by the counsel for the defence of Mr. Smith O'Brien and hisfellow-prisoners to prove that the Whig nobles during the reform crisisin England had been in communication with Sir Charles Napier, the greatsoldier, for the purpose of ascertaining how the army would act ifthere should come to be a struggle between the sovereign claimingdespotic rights and the people standing up for constitutionalgovernment. All this, however, is now merely a question of interestinghistorical speculation. The King had tried Wellington, had tried Peel, had sent for Wellington a second time, and found that Wellington, though he dared do all that might become a man, saw nothing to begained for sovereign or State by an attempt to accomplish theimpossible, and William at last gave way. It was about time that hedid so. William was becoming utterly unpopular with the great mass ofhis subjects. He who had been endowed with the title of the PatriotKing was now to be an object of hatred and contempt to the crowds inthe streets with whom from day to day he could not avoid being broughtinto contact. When his carriage appeared in one of the great Londonthoroughfares it was followed again and again by jeering and furiousmobs, who hissed and groaned at him, and it was always necessary forhis protection that a strong escort of cavalry should interpose betweenhim and his subjects. Even in the London newspapers of the day, thoseat least that were in favor of reform, and which constituted the largemajority, language was sometimes used about the King which it would beimpossible to use in our days about some unpopular Lord Mayor or memberfor the City. 

All this told heavily upon poor King William, who was a good-naturedsort of man in his own way if his ministers and others would only lethim alone, and who rather fancied himself in the light of a popularsovereign. He therefore made up his mind at last to accept the advice{180} of his Whig ministers and grant them the power of creating asmany new peers as they thought fit, for the purpose of passing theirimportunate Reform Bill. The consent was given at an interview whichthe King had with Lord Grey and Lord Brougham, Lord Brougham as keeperof the royal conscience taking the principal conduct of thenegotiations on behalf of the Government. The King, as usual on suchoccasions, was flurried, awkward, and hot-tempered, and when he hadmade up his mind to yield to the advice of his ministers he could notso far master his temper as to make his decision seem a gracefulconcession. Even when he announced that the concession was to be madethe trouble was not yet quite over. Lord Brougham thought it necessaryto ask the King for his consent in writing to the creation of the newpeers, and hereupon the wrath of the sovereign blazed out afresh. TheKing seemed to think that such a demand showed a want of confidence inhim which amounted to something like an insult, and he fretted andstormed for a while as though he had been like Petruchio "aboardcarousing to his mates. " After a while, however, he came into a betterhumor, and perhaps saw the reasonableness of the plea that Lord Greyand Lord Brougham could not undertake the task now confided to themwithout the written warrant of the King's authority. William thereforeturned away and scratched off at once a brief declaration conferring onhis ministers the power to create the necessary number of peers, qualifying it merely with the condition that the sons of living peerswere to be called upon in the first instance. The meaning of thiscondition was obvious, and its object was not unreasonable from theKing's point of view, or, indeed, from the point of view of anystatesman who was anxious that the House of Lords should be kept aslong as possible in its existing form. Nobody certainly wanted toincrease the number of peers to any great extent, and if only theeldest sons of the living peers were to be called to the House of Lordseach would succeed in process of time to his father's title and theroll of the peerage would become once again as it had been before. 

{181}

[Sidenote: 1832--Passage of the third Reform Bill]

The political crisis was over now. When once the royal authority hadbeen given for the unlimited creation of new peers there was an end ofall the trouble. Of course, there was no necessity to manufacture anynew batches of peers. As the Reform Bill was to be carried one way orthe other, whether with the aid of new peers or without it, the Torymembers of the House of Lords could not see any possible advantage intaking steps which must only end in filling their crimson benches withnew men who might outvote them on all future occasions. The ReformBill passed through all its stages in the House of Lords, not withoutsome angry and vehement discussions, during which personalrecriminations were made that would have been considered disorderly atthe meeting of a parish vestry. One noble lord denounced the conductof Lord Grey as atrocious, and even the stately Lord Grey was roused toso much anger by this expression that he forgot his habitualself-control and dignity and replied that he flung back the noblelord's atrocious words with the utmost scorn and contempt. 

The Bill passed its third reading in the House of Lords on June 4, 1832, and received the royal assent on June 7. The royal assent, however, was somewhat ungraciously given. King William declined togive his assent in person, a performance which, at the time, seemed tobe expected from him, and it was signified only by the medium of aformal committee. The Bill, however, was passed, the third Reform Billthat had been introduced since Lord Grey had come into office. TheReform Bills for Ireland and Scotland which had gone through theirstages in the House of Commons immediately after the Bills relating toEngland and Wales were then carried through the House of Lords. Thegreat triumph was accomplished. 

It is not without historical interest to notice the fact that a longdiscussion sprang up at this time and was revived again and again, during many successive years, with regard to certain words used by LordJohn Russell in expressing his satisfaction at the passing of theReform Bill. He was endeavoring to calm the apprehensions of timid{182} people throughout the country who feared that the whole time ofParliament would thenceforward be taken up with the passing of new andnewer Reform Bills, and he declared that the Government of which he wasa member had no intention but that the Reform Act should be a finalmeasure. It might have seemed clear to any reasonable mind that LordJohn had no idea of proclaiming his faith in the absolute finality ofany measure passed, or to be passed, by human statesmanship, but wasmerely expressing the confident belief of his colleagues and himselfthat the Bill they had passed would satisfy the needs and the demandsof the existing generation. At the time, however, a storm ofremonstrance from the more advanced Liberals broke around Lord JohnRussell's head, and he was charged with having declared that the ReformAct was meant to be a measure for all times, and that he and hiscolleagues would never more set their hands to any measure intended tobroaden or deepen its influence. There were indeed popular caricaturesof Lord John to be seen in which he was exhibited with the title of"Finality Jack. " Lord John's public career proved many times, in laterdays, how completely his meaning had been misunderstood by some ofthose whose cause he had been espousing, for all through his honoredlife he continued to be a leader of reform. But the commonmisunderstanding of the phrase was in itself significant, for it seemedto foretell the fact that the Bill, with all the great changes it hadintroduced and the new foundations it had laid for the future system ofconstitutional government, was in itself indeed far from being a finalmeasure. The authors of the Reform Bill had left what might now becalled "the masses" almost altogether out of their calculations. Therate at which the franchise was fixed for town and country rendered itpractically impossible that the artisan in the town or the laborer inthe country could have any chance whatever of obtaining a vote. 

[Sidenote: 1832--Some defects in the Reform Bill]

This was the one great defect of the Reform Bill introduced by LordGrey and Lord John Russell. Perhaps it would not have been prudent forthese statesmen, at that {183} time, to enter on the introduction of amore comprehensive measure. Perhaps Lord Grey and Lord John Russellwould have preferred of their own judgment not to introduce toocomprehensive a reform measure all at once, and to allow the franchiseto broaden slowly down. But it is certain that almost immediatelyafter the passing of the Reform Bill a profound feeling ofdisappointment began to grow and spread among the classes who foundthemselves excluded from any of its benefits, and who believed, withgood reason, that they had rendered much practical service in thecarrying of the measure. The feeling prevailed especially among theartisans in the cities and towns. In some of the towns the Reform Billhad distinctly operated as a measure of disfranchisement rather than ofenfranchisement. In Preston, for instance, there had been so large anumber of what we have called, adopting a more modern phrase, "fancyfranchises" that something not very far removed from universal suffragewas attainable by the male population. These fancy franchises couldnot be justified on any principle commending itself to rational minds, and it was, moreover, an obvious absurdity to have one system of votingprevailing in this constituency and a totally different systemprevailing in another. Therefore Lord Grey and Lord John Russellcannot be censured for their resolve to abolish the fancy franchisesaltogether. They were introducing an entirely new constitutionalsystem, and it was evident that in the new system there must be someuniform principle as to the franchise. But it is none the less certainthat the men who were disfranchised by an Act professedly brought in toextend the suffrage must have felt that they had good reason tocomplain of its direct effect upon themselves and upon what theybelieved to be their rights. Nearly forty years of agitation had yetto be gone through before the principal deficiencies in the Reform Actof 1833 were supplied by Liberal and Tory legislation. 

Before closing this chapter of history it is fitting to take notice ofthe fact that the debates on the Reform Bill gave opportunity for thepublic opening of a great career in {184} politics and inliterature--the career of Lord Macaulay. [Sidenote: 1832--ThomasBabington Macaulay] Thomas Babington Macaulay was a new member of theHouse of Commons when the first Reform Bill was introduced by Lord JohnRussell. He was the son of Zachary Macaulay, who was famous in hisday, and will always be remembered as the high-minded philanthropistand the energetic and consistent opponent of slavery and the slavetrade. Macaulay the son had, from his earliest years, given evidenceof precocious and extraordinary intelligence and versatility. When heentered Parliament he found that his fame had gone before him, but hisfriends were not quite certain whether he was to be poet, essayist, historian, or political orator. As years went on, he proved that hecould write brilliant and captivating poems; that he could turn outessays which had a greater fascination for the public than many of thecleverest novels; that he could write history which set criticsdisputing, but which everybody had to read; and that he could deliverpolitical speeches in the House of Commons which, when correctlyreproduced from the newspapers, appeared to belong to the highest classof Parliamentary eloquence. It may well be questioned whether any mancould possibly attain supreme success in the four fields in which, fromtime to time, Macaulay appeared to be successful. At present we areonly concerned with the speeches which he delivered in the House ofCommons during the debates on the Reform Bills. Macaulay's appearancewas not impressive, and he had a gift of fluency, a rapidity ofutterance which continued, from first to last, to be a most seriousdifficulty in the way of his success as a Parliamentary orator. Heappears to have committed his speeches to memory, and his memory wasone of the most amazing of all his gifts; and when he rose to deliveran oration he rattled it off at such a rate of speed that the senseached in trying to follow him, and the reporters for the newspapersfound it almost impossible to get a full note of what he said. Thiswas all the more embarrassing because his speeches abounded inillustrations and citations from all manner of authorities, authors, and historical incidents, and the bewildered {185} reporter foundhimself entangled in proper names which shorthand in the pre-phoneticdays could but slowly reproduce. The speeches, when revised by theauthor, were read with intense delight by the educated public, and withall the defects of the orator's utterance he soon acquired such a famein the House of Commons that no one ever attracted a more crowded andeager audience than he did when it became known that he was about tomake a speech. We may quote here a characteristic description given byGreville of his first meeting with Macaulay in the early February of1833, while the struggle over Lord Russell's third Reform Bill wasstill going on. "Dined yesterday, " says Greville, "with Lord Holland;came very late and found a vacant place between Sir George Robinson anda common-looking man in black. As soon as I had time to look at myneighbor, I began to speculate, as one usually does, as to who he mightbe, and as he did not for some time open his lips except to eat, Isettled that he was some obscure man of letters, or of medicine, perhaps a cholera doctor. In a short time the conversation turned onearly and late education, and Lord Holland said he had always remarkedthat self-educated men were peculiarly conceited and arrogant, and aptto look down on the generality of mankind from their being ignorant ofhow much other people knew; not having been at public schools, they areuninformed of the course of general education. My neighbor observedthat he thought the most remarkable example of self-education that ofAlfieri, who had reached the age of thirty without having acquired anyaccomplishment save that of driving, and who was so ignorant of his ownlanguage that he had to learn it like a child, beginning withelementary books. Lord Holland quoted Julius Caesar and Scaliger asexamples of late education, said that the latter had been wounded, andthat he had been married and commenced learning Greek the same day, when my neighbor remarked 'that he supposed his learning Greek was notan instantaneous act like his marriage. ' This remark and the manner ofit gave me the notion that he was a dull fellow, for it came out in a{186} way which bordered on the ridiculous so as to excite somethinglike a sneer. I was a little surprised to hear him continue the threadof conversation, from Scaliger's wound, and talk of Loyola having beenwounded at Pampeluna. I wondered how he happened to know anythingabout Loyola's wound. Having thus settled my opinion I went on eatingmy dinner, when Auckland, who was sitting opposite to me, addressed myneighbor: 'Mr. Macaulay, will you drink a glass of wine?' I thought Ishould have dropped off my chair. It was Macaulay, the man I had beenso long most curious to see and to hear, whose genius, eloquence, astonishing knowledge, and diversified talents have excited my wonderand admiration for such a length of time, and here I had been sittingnext to him, hearing him talk, and setting him down for a dull fellow. "We are here only at the opening of Macaulay's great career. Even atthis time the world seemed to have made up its mind that Macaulay had agreat career before him. At the present day, when more than fortyyears have passed over his tomb in Westminster Abbey, it is a questionstill keenly contested every now and then, whether Macaulay fullyrealized or barely failed to realize the expectations which men wereforming of him on that day when Charles Greville met him for the firsttime, and was amazed to find, as the conversation went on, that he wassitting next to Macaulay. 

[Sidenote: 1832--Death of Sir Walter Scott]

The year of the Reform Bill was marked by an event forever memorable inthe history of literature. That event was the death of Sir WalterScott. The later years of Scott's life, as we all know, had beendarkened by the failure of his publishers, by the money troubles inwhich that failure had involved him, by the exhausting efforts he hadto make to force his wearied mind into redoubled literary exertion, and, more than all, by the loss of the wife who had been his devotedcompanion for so many years. No words could be more sorrowful and moretouching in their simplicity than those in which Scott declared thatafter his wife's death he never knew what to do with that large shareof his thoughts which always, in other {187} days, used to be given toher. He had gone out to Italy, obeying the advice of his friends, inthe hope of recovering his health under warmer skies than those of hisnative land, but the effort was futile. It was of no use his trying toshake off his malady of heart and body by a change of air. He carriedhis giant about with him, if we may apply to his condition theexpressive and melancholy words which Emerson used with a differentapplication. Scott was little over sixty years of age when he died--atime of life at which, according to our ideas of longevity at thepresent day, we should regard a man as having hardly passed the zenithof his powers and his possibilities. He had added a new chapter to ahistory of the world's literature. He had opened a new school ofromance which soon found brilliant pupils in all countries whereromance could charm. There have been many revolutions in literaryrulership since his time, but Walter Scott has not been dethroned. 

{188}

CHAPTER LXXIV. 

THE EMANCIPATION OF LABOR. 

[Sidenote: 1832--The slave trade]

The statesmen who had carried the Reform Bill soon found that they hadtaken upon themselves a vast responsibility. They had accomplished sogreat a triumph that most men assumed them to be capable of anytriumph. It has to be remembered that they had succeeded inestablishing one principle which, up to that time, had never beenrecognized, the principle that a constitutional sovereign in thesecountries cannot any longer set up his own authority and his own willin opposition to the advice of his ministers. Up to the days ofWilliam the Fourth, the ministers always had to give way to thesovereign at the last moment, if the sovereign insisted on maintaininghis dictatorial authority. We have seen how one of the greatest ofEnglish statesmen, the younger Pitt, had bowed his judgment and evencoerced into silence the remonstrances of his own heart and his ownconscience, rather than dispute the authority of an obstinate and astupid King. Lord Grey and his colleagues had compelled their King tolisten to reason, and probably not even they knew at the time the fullimportance of the constitutional principle which they had thusestablished. In our own days, and under the rule of the first reallyconstitutional sovereign who ever reigned in these countries, we seemto have almost forgotten that there ever was a time when the occupantof the throne was understood to have a right to govern the peopleaccording to royalty's own inclination or royalty's own notion ofstatesmanship. When the passing of the Reform Bill was yet the latestevent in history, the people of these countries commonly, and veryjustly, regarded this assertion of the right of a representativeMinistry to exact support from {189} the sovereign as one of thegreatest triumphs accomplished by Lord Grey's Administration. Thenatural feeling therefore was to assume that the men who had done thesegreat things could do greater things still, and from all parts of therealm eyes were turned upon them, full of confidence in their desireand their capacity to accomplish new reforms in every department of ourconstitutional and our social system. 

The time was one especially favorable for such hopes and for suchachievements. A new era had opened on the civilized world. New ideaswere coming up regarding the value and the validity of many of ourconstitutional and social arrangements which had formerly beenconsidered as inspired and sanctified forever by that mysteriousinfluence, the wisdom of our ancestors. If education had not yet mademuch way among the masses of the people, at least the belief in populareducation was becoming a quickening force in the minds of allintelligent men. Then, as ever since, the agitation for each great newreform began outside the walls of Parliament, and had to take anorganized shape before it became a question for the House of Commons. The first great work to which the reformed Parliament applied itself, after the conditions of Lord Grey's Act had been allowed to take effectin remoulding the constituencies, was the abolition of negro slavery inthe colonies of Great Britain. Domestic slavery and the slave tradehad already been abolished, but in the minds of a great number ofwell-meaning, well-informed, and by no means hard-hearted men slaveryin our colonies was a very different sort of institution from slaveryin our own islands, or from the actual trade in slaves. The ordinaryEnglishman, when he troubled himself to consider such questions at all, had settled it in his own mind that slavery in England, or in any partof the British Isles, was incompatible with the free constitution ofthe realm, and that the forcible abduction of men and women fromAfrican sea-shores in order to sell them into slavery was an offenceagainst civilization and Christianity. But this average Englishman didnot see that there was anything like the same {190} reason forinterfering with the system of slave labor as we had found itestablished, for instance, in our West Indian colonies. "We did notintroduce the system there, " it was argued; "we found it establishedthere; we inherited it; and its continuance is declared, by all thosewho know, to be absolutely essential to the production of the sugarwhich is the source of profit and the means of living to the islandsthemselves, and an indispensable comfort, a harmless and healthfulluxury, to millions of civilized beings who never stood under atropical sky. " The mind of the average Englishman, however, had been, for some time, much disturbed by the arguments, the pleadings, and theagitation of a small number of enlightened Reformers, at first much inadvance of their time, who were making a pertinacious crusade againstthe whole system of colonial slavery. Some of these men have won nameswhich will always be honored in our history. Zachary Macaulay was oneof these. He was the father of the Macaulay whom we have just heard ofas seated side by side with Charles Greville at Lord Holland'sdinner-table. Zachary Macaulay had been the manager of a great WestIndian estate, but he had given up the position because his consciencewould not allow him to have anything to do with the system of slavery, and he had come home to devote his time, his abilities, and hisearnestness to the generous task of rousing up his countrymen to a fullsense of the horrors which were inseparable from the system. He wasable to supply men like Brougham, like Fowell Buxton, and likeWhitbread with practical facts beyond dispute to establish therealities of slavery in the West Indian colonies. Among the moreobvious, although not perhaps even the most odious, accompaniments ofthe system were the frightful cruelties practised on the slaves, theflogging, the mutilation, and the branding of men, women, and childrenwhich formed part of the ordinary conditions of a plantation worked byslave labor. Over and over again it had been denied by men whoprofessed to know all about the subject and to be authorities upon itthat any such cruelties were practised on a well-regulated plantationbelonging to a {191} civilized owner. It was constantly argued, withself-complacency, that the planter's own interests would not allow himthus to mar the efficiency of the human animals who had to do his work, and that even if the planter had no pity for them, he was sure to havea wholesome and restraining consideration for the physical value of hisown living property. 

[Sidenote: 1832--The horrors of the slave trade]

Zachary Macaulay and the Buxtons, the Wilberforces and the Whitbreads, were able to give innumerable and overwhelming proofs that the systemevery day was working such evils as any system might be expected towork which left one set of human beings absolutely at the mercy ofanother set of human beings. Many years after this great controversyhad won its complete success for the English colonies, a chief justiceof the Supreme Court of the United States laid it down as law that aslave had no rights which his owner was bound to respect. Up to thetime of which we are now writing, it was certainly assumed, in our WestIndian colonies, as a self-evident doctrine, utterly beyond dispute orquestion, that a slave had no rights which his owner was bound torespect. The band of resolute philanthropists who had taken up thesubject in England were able to show that frequent flogging of men andwomen was a regular part of the day's incidents of every plantation, and that branding was constantly used, not merely as a means ofpunishment, but also as a means of identification. It was a commonpractice when a female slave attempted to escape for her owner to haveher branded on the breast with red-hot iron as an easy means of provingher identity if she were to succeed for a time in getting out of hisreach. Numbers of advertisements were produced in which the owners, seeking through the newspapers for the recovery of some of their womenslaves, proclaimed the important fact that the fugitive women werebranded on both breasts, and that thus there could be no difficultyabout their identification. We need not go further into the details ofthe subject, but it may be as well to mention that we have not touchedat all upon the most revolting evidences of the horrors which seemed to{192} be the inevitable accompaniment of the slave system. Broughamwas one of the first among leading Englishmen who threw his heart andsoul into the agitation against colonial slavery. Long before thatagitation approached to anything like success he had brought forward amotion in the House of Commons, directing attention to the evils andthe horrors of the system, and calling for its abolition. For a time, successive Governments did not see their way to go any further than toendeavor to bring about or to enforce better regulations for the use ofslave labor on the colonial plantations. Even these modest measures ofreform had many difficulties to encounter. Some of the colonies wereunder the direct dominion of the Crown, were governed, in fact, asCrown colonies, but others had legislative chambers of their own, andrefused to submit to the dictation of the authorities at home. Theselegislative chambers in most cases resented the interference of thehome Government when it attempted to introduce new rules for thetreatment of negro slaves, and the whole plantation interest rallied insupport of the great principle that every owner of slaves had anabsolute right to deal with them according to his own will and pleasure. 

[Sidenote: 1832--Anti-slavery agitation]

It was loudly asserted by the planters and by the friends of theplanters--and of course the planters had friends everywhere inEngland--that the sugar-growing business could not be carried on withany profit except by means of slave labor, and that the slaves couldnot be got to work except by the occasional use of flogging or othersuch needful stimulant. The negroes, it was loudly declared, wouldrise in rebellion if once it became known to them that the EnglishParliament was encouraging them to consider themselves as slaves nolonger, and their mode of rising in rebellion would simply be asimultaneous massacre of all the planters and their wives and children. "See what you are doing!" many a voice cried out to the anti-slaveryagitators; "you are preaching a crusade which will not merely end inthe utter bankruptcy of the West Indian Islands, but in the massacre ofall the planters, their wives, and their children. " The agitators, however, were neither {193} dismayed nor disheartened. It would havetaken a good deal of sophistry to confuse the conscience of ZacharyMacaulay or Wilberforce. It would have taken a good deal of bellowingto frighten Brougham. The agitation went on with increasing force, andBrougham continued to denounce "the wild and guilty phantasy" that manhas property in man. 

In Jamaica the colonial legislature, pressed hard by the Government athome, passed an Act with the avowed purpose of mitigating the severityof the punishments inflicted on slave laborers. The Act, however, was, even on the face of it, absurdly inadequate for any humane purpose. The home Government had demanded, among other reforms, the entirediscontinuance of the flogging of women. The colonial Act allowed theflogging of women to go on just as it had done before. The Jamaicaplanters were indignant at the course taken by the home authorities, and raved as if they were on the verge of rebellion against the Crown, and the well-meant interference of the Government at home seemed infact to have done more harm than good. In Demerara, which was theCrown colony, some of the more intelligent among the negro slaves hadheard scraps of talk which led them to believe that the King of Englandand his Government were about to confer freedom upon the colored race, and these reports spread and magnified throughout certain plantations, and the slaves on one estate refused to work. Their refusal wasregarded as an insurrection and was treated accordingly. The mostsavage measures were employed to crush the so-called insurrection, justas in more recent, and what ought to have been more enlightened, dayssome local disturbances in Jamaica were magnified into a general risingof the blacks against the whites, and the horrors perpetrated in thename of repression startled the whole civilized world. In Demerara anEnglish dissenting missionary, the Rev. John Smith, who had been knownas a most kindly friend of the negroes, was formally charged withhaving encouraged and assisted the slaves to rise in revolt againsttheir masters. He was flung into prison, was treated with barbarous{194} rigors such as might have seemed in keeping with some story ofSiberia; he was put through the hurried process of a sham trial inwhich the very forms of law were disregarded, and he was sentenced todeath. Even at Demerara and at such a time the court-martial which hadcondemned the missionary as guilty of the offence with which he wascharged had accompanied its verdict with a recommendation to mercy onaccount of the prisoner's previous good character. But before it couldbe decided whether or not the recommendation was to have any effect, the unfortunate man died of the treatment he had received. 

[Sidenote: 1830--Parliamentary action against slavery]

The story of the accusation, the trial, and the death created animmense sensation in England. Brougham, Buxton, Sir James Mackintosh, the historian and scholar, and many others aroused the publicindignation by their rightful denunciations of the trial and theverdict. The Government condemned and reversed the proceedings at thetrial, and when Brougham brought on a motion in the House of Commons, publicly branding with just severity the whole conduct of the Demeraraauthorities, his motion was only defeated by a small majority. Meanwhile, the agitation against the whole system of colonial slaverywas receiving new impulse and new strength from the teaching of newevents in the colonies, and in May, 1830, a great meeting was held inLondon to demand, not the mitigation, but the total abolition ofslavery in every land over which the flag of England floated. Thismeeting was presided over by the great abolitionist, WilliamWilberforce, who had been out of public life for some time owing tosevere ill-health, and who believed that he could not more fitlycelebrate his return to the active work of philanthropy than by takingthe chair at such a demonstration. Mr. Buxton proposed a resolutioncalling on the country to agitate for the total abolition of slavery inthe colonies, and to be content with nothing else, and the resolutionwas carried by enthusiastic acclamation. Brougham at once became thechampion of the great London meeting by a motion which he broughtforward in the House of Commons. One of the greatest speeches of hislifetime {195} was made in justifying his appeal to the House for thetotal abolition of a system which admitted of nothing like partial, orwhat is called moderate, reform, and must either be swept out ofexistence altogether or remain a curse to those who enforce it as wellas to those against whom it is enforced. Brougham's motion wasdefeated, of course. We say of course because it was only a motionmade by an independent member, as the phrase goes, and was not proposedby the leader of a strong Government, determined to stake its existenceon the carrying of its proposition. Every great reform, it may almostliterally be said, is heralded in Parliament by the motions ofindependent members, who are sure to be defeated, but whose determinedefforts have success enough to make the leader of the Government, orthe leader of the Opposition, feel that the time is near at hand whenthe cause must be taken up by one or other of the great parties in theState. 

Buxton raised the whole question in the following session; and thenLord Althorp, speaking for the Government, went so far as to offer asort of compromise by suggesting that the colonies which in the futureshould give evidence of their sincere resolve to make distinctimprovement in the condition of their slaves should be rewarded andencouraged by a permission to send their sugar into English ports at areduced rate of duty. The country, however, had long outgrown thecondition of mind in which this feeble and ridiculous proposition couldbe regarded as worthy of serious consideration. The notion ofsacrificing any part of the country's revenues for the purpose ofbribing the planters to deal a little less severely with their slaveswas not likely to find much favor among the men who had thus farconducted the great agitation against slavery. The object of reformerssuch as Clarkson, Wilberforce, Buxton, Brougham, and Mackintosh was notmerely that the negroes should be flogged less often, or that the negrowomen should not be flogged at all, but that the whole abominablesystem which made men, women, and children the absolute property oftheir owners should be brought to an end forever. 

{196}

[Sidenote: 1833--A plan for the abolition of slavery]

At last it became evident to the Whig Ministry that something definitemust be done, and that nothing would be considered definite by thecountry which did not aim at the total abolition of slavery. The hourhad come, and the man who could best turn it to account in the House ofCommons was already in his place. Lord Stanley, who had joined theReform Ministry as Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, hadsince that time been moved to the higher position of ColonialSecretary, and to him was appropriately confided the task ofintroducing the measures which the Government had determined to take. The Lord Stanley of those days was in after years the Earl of Derby, whom some of us can still call to mind as one of the most brilliantorators in the House of Lords at a time when Brougham and Lyndhurstmaintained the character of that assembly for parliamentary eloquence. Those among us who remember the eloquent Lord Derby, the Rupert ofdebate, remember him as a Tory Prime Minister or the Tory leader ofOpposition in the House of Lords. But he began his great Parliamentarycareer as a Whig and as a Reformer, and he was one of the most zealousof Lord Grey's colleagues in pressing forward the great measure whichwas carried to success in 1832. Among those who can remember him thereis only one opinion about the high order of his Parliamentaryeloquence, and that opinion is that he was a worthy rival of Gladstoneand of Bright. To him as Colonial Secretary was entrusted the task ofbringing forward, in the House of Commons, the measures of theGovernment for dealing with the question of slavery in the Britishcolonies. Stanley's speech was such a magnificent blending of reasonand emotion, so close and so powerful in its arguments, so thrilling inits eloquence, that many of those who heard the speech naturallyexpected that it was destined to announce a bold and a comprehensivepolicy. A certain feeling of disappointment came up among theabolitionists when the measures were described which the Government hadresolved to submit to the House of Commons. What Stanley had topropose was not a complete measure, but a {197} series of resolutionsembodying the purposes of the Government's policy. It is enough to saythat the Government proposed a plan which amounted to a scheme ofabolition by stages. There was to be a certain period ofapprenticeship, a term of fifteen years, during which the slaves, menand women, were to continue to work for their masters as before, underconditions gradually relaxing as the slave drew nearer to the time ofemancipation, and then when that hour at length arrived the slave wasto be free forever. This principle, however, was not to apply tochildren under six years old at the time of the passing of the measure, or to any children born after that time. The idea on which the wholescheme was founded was the notion, very common at that time and since, that the sudden emancipation of any set of human beings could only tendto bewilder them, and to prevent them from making a proper use of thefreedom thus abruptly thrust upon them. "The fool in the fable, " saidMacaulay, when dealing with a somewhat similar question, "declared thatno man ought to go into the water until he had learned to swim. " LordGrey's Ministry had apparently much the same idea about the perils ofemancipation. Another part of the scheme proposed that fifteenmillions should be advanced by the Government as a loan to the WestIndian planters in order to help them over the diminution of incomewhich might be expected to follow any interference with the conditionsof slave labor. 

The resolutions put forward by the Government were regarded as highlyunsatisfactory by most of the leading abolitionists. Macaulay indeedargued with all his usual eloquence and skill in favor of the principleof gradual abolition, and it is hardly necessary to say that it was notin that speech he made use of the pithy sentence which we have alreadyquoted. Buxton proposed an amendment to the resolution, an amendmentin fact calling for immediate abolition, and the amendment was secondedby Daniel O'Connell. Buxton, however, was prevailed upon not to presshis amendment on the ground that the Government were as eager foremancipation as any one could {198} be, and that Lord Grey and hiscolleagues were only anxious to bring forward such a measure as mightat once secure the support of the majority and prevent further delay, while securing, at the same time, the ultimate and not distantsettlement of the whole question. O'Connell stood firm, arguedstrongly against the proposed compromise, refused to accept it, andactually pressed Buxton's amendment to a division. Of course he wasdefeated by a large majority, but he carried a respectable minorityalong with him; and few now can doubt that the amendment which hepressed forward, even after its proposer had abandoned it, was right inits principle, and that the Government, if forced to it, could havecarried a plan for immediate abolition with little more difficulty thanwas found in carrying the scheme of compromise. As the discussion wenton the Government made some further concessions to the abolitionists, by reducing the time and modifying the terms of the apprenticeshipsystem, and the abolitionists in general believed it their wisestpolicy to accept the modified arrangement and thus avoid any furtherdelay. Another alteration of great importance was made by theGovernment in favor of the planters, and was finally accepted by theabolitionists and by the country in general. The friends of theplanters made strong representations to the effect that the profferedloan would be of no use whatever to the owners of slaves whose propertywas so soon to pass from their hands into freedom, and that there wasnot the slightest chance of the planters being able to pay back to theEnglish exchequer the amount that the Government was willing toadvance. It was urged, too, with some show of reason, that theplanters were not themselves responsible for the existence of slavelabor, that generations of planters had grown up under the system andhad made a profit by it during the days when civilization had not, anywhere, set its face against slavery, and that it was hard, therefore, to make them suffer in pocket for the recent development inthe feelings of humanity. The offer of a loan was abandoned by theGovernment, and it was proposed instead that a gift of twenty millionssterling should {199} be tendered as compensation for the losses thatthe planters would be likely to undergo. This proposal, at first, metwith some opposition, and by many indeed was looked upon as anextravagant freak of generosity; but some of the leading abolitionistswere willing to make allowance for the condition of the planters, andmost, or all, of them were prepared to make a large sacrifice for thesake of carrying some measure which promised, even by gradual advances, the final abolition of the slave system. We may condense into a verybrief space the remainder of the story, and merely record the fact thatthe Government carried their amended measure of emancipation with itsliberal grant to the West Indian planters through both Houses ofParliament, and that it obtained the royal assent. 

[Sidenote: 1833--Slavery abolished in British colonies]

It may easily be imagined that poor King William must have had somemental struggles before he found himself quite in a mood to grant thatassent. If the King ever had any clear and enduring opinion in hismind, it probably was the opinion, which he had often expressedalready, against the abolition of slavery. He had, of course, ageneral objection to reform of any kind, but his objection to anyreform which threatened the endurance of the slave system must havebeen an article of faith with him. It was the fate of King William theFourth to live in a reign of reforms, not one of which would appear tohave touched his heart or been in accordance with his personaljudgment. The highest praise that history can give him is that he didnot at least, as one of his predecessors had done, set his own judgmentand his own inclination determinedly and irrevocably against the adviceof the statesmen whom he had called in to carry on the work ofadministration. The King gave his assent to the amended Bill for theabolition of slavery, including the generous gift to the planters, andthe measure became law on August 27, 1833. Some of the colonies hadthe sense and spirit to discard the apprenticeship system altogether, and to date the emancipation of their slaves from the day when themeasure became an Act of Parliament. In no colony did the setting freeof the negroes bring about any of the troubles and turmoils, the {200}lawless outbreaks of blacks against whites, the massacres of theinnocents, which had been so long and so often pictured as theinevitable consequences of the legislation demanded by the Clarksons, the Wilberforces, the Buxtons, and the Broughams. It seems to us allnow so much a matter of course for a civilized and enlightened State todecree the extinction of slavery within its limits, that we find ithard to appreciate at its true value the difficulty and the splendor ofthe achievement which was accomplished by the Grey Ministry. It has tobe said, however, that the Ministry and the Parliament were, in thisinstance, only the instruments by which the great charge was wrought. The movement carried on out-of-doors, the movement set going by theleading abolitionists and supported by the people, deserves the chiefhonor of the victory. All the countries that make up the kingdom, England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales, sent their authorized speakersto sustain the cause of freedom for the slaves. The gift, which on therecommendation of Lord Grey's Ministry was placed at the disposal ofthe West Indian planters, was indeed a lavish gift; but the public ingeneral made little complaint on the score of its lavishness, and didnot calculate too jealously the value of the sacrifice which the Statewas invited to make for the purchase of negro emancipation. Thirtyyears and more had to pass before the great American republic was ableto free itself from the curse of slavery, and even then the latedeliverance was only accomplished at the cost of a war which threatenedfor the season a permanent division of the States. 

[Sidenote: 1833--Labor legislation]

The same year which saw the passing of the measure for the abolition ofslavery in the colonies saw also the passing of an Act which interferedseriously, for the first time, with something which might almost becalled a system of domestic slavery. We are speaking now of themeasure which dealt with the conditions of factory labor in thesecountries. Factory labor, as it was known in the early days of Williamthe Fourth, was the growth of modern civilization. England had foundthat her main business in life was not the conquest and the subjectionof foreign races, {201} or the building or the navigating of ships, orthe cultivation of land, or the growth of corn, but the manufacture ofgoods for her own domestic use and for export all over the world. Great manufacturing cities and towns were growing up everywhere, and, while the workers on the land were becoming fewer and fewer, theworkers in the city factories were multiplying every day, so that anentirely new laboring population was coming up to claim the attentionof the State. Since the old days, when the whole social organizationwas conducted according to the dictates of some centralized authority, there had been growing up, as one of the inevitable reactions whichcivilization brings with it at its successive stages, a sort of vaguelyexpressed doctrine that the State has no right to interfere betweencapital and labor, between the employer and the employed. This theorynaturally grew and grew with the growth of the capital invested inmanufactures and the increase in the number of employers, and it wasfound in later years than those at which we have now arrived, that thecourse of agitation that Lord Ashley may be said to have begun wasopposed mainly in its progress by the capitalists and the employers oflabor, many of whom were thoroughly humane men, anxious to do the verybest they could for the health and the comfort of those whom theyemployed, but who sincerely believed that the civil law had no right tointerfere with them and those who worked for them, and that the civillaw could do only harm and no good by its best-intentioned interference. 

The whole controversy has now been long settled, and it is a distinctlyunderstood condition of our social system that the State has a right tointerfere between employer and employed when the condition of things issuch that the employed is not always able to protect himself. At thetime when Lord Ashley started on his long and beneficent career therewas practically no law which regulated the hours and the conditions oflabor in the great factories. The whole factory system, the modernfactory system as we understand it, was then quite a new part of oursocial organization. The factory, with its little army of workers, {202} men, women, and children, was managed according to the will andjudgment of the owner, unless in the rare cases where the demand forlabor far exceeded the supply. In most places the supply exceeded thedemand, and the master was therefore free to make any conditions hepleased with his workers. If the master were a humane man, a just man, or even a far-seeing man, he took care that those who worked for himshould be fairly treated, and should not be compelled to work underconditions dangerous to their health and destructive of their comfort. But if he were a selfish man, or a careless man, the workers were usedmerely as instruments of profit by him, or by those immediately underhim; and it did not matter how soon they were used up, for there couldalways be found numbers enough who were eager to take their places, andwere willing to undertake any task on any terms, for the sake ofsecuring a bare living. Lord Ashley raised the whole question in theHouse of Commons, and brought forward a motion which ended in theappointment of a commission to inquire into the condition of the men, women, and children who worked in the factories. The commission wasnot long in collecting a vast amount of information as to the evils, moral and physical, brought about by the overworking of women andchildren in the factories. The general concurrence of public opinion, even among those who supported Lord Ashley's movement, did not seem togo beyond the protection of women and children. The adult male, it wasconsidered, might perhaps safely be left to make the best terms hecould for himself; but the inquiries of the commission left littledoubt among unprejudiced minds that something must be done to securewomen and children from the evils of overwork. Lord Ashley succeededin forcing the whole question on the attention of Parliament, and anAct was passed in 1833 which did not indeed go nearly as far as LordAshley would have carried his principle, but which at least establishedthe right of legislative interference for the protection of childrenand young persons of both sexes. The Act limited the work of childrento eight hours a day and {203} that of young persons under eighteen tosixty-nine hours a week. This Act may be regarded as the beginning ofthat legislative interference which has gone on advancing beneficiallyfrom that time down to our own, and is likely still to keep on itsforward movement. 

[Sidenote: Lord Shaftesbury]

Lord Ashley, whom many of us can well remember as Lord Shaftesbury, maybe said to have given up the whole of his life to the general purposewith which he began his public career--the object of endeavoring tomitigate the toils and sufferings of those who have to work hard inorder to provide for others the comforts and the luxuries of life. Hisprinciple was that the State has always a right to interfere for theprotection of those who cannot protect themselves. He was not a man ofgreat statesmanlike ability, he was not a man of extensive or variedinformation, he was not a scholar, he was not an orator, he was not inthe ordinary sense of the word a thinker, but he was a man who had, bya kind of philanthropic instinct, got hold of an idea which men of fargreater intellect had not, up to his time, shown themselves able tograsp. The story of his life is part of the whole story of theindustrial development of modern civilization. Again and again heworked with success in movement after movement, initiated mainly byhimself, for the protection and the education of those who toil in ourfactories and in our mines. Some day no doubt Parliament may have todevise legislation which shall do for the women and children employedin field labor something like that which Lord Ashley did for the womenand children employed in factories and in mines. We have seen thatalready efforts are made in every session of Parliament to extend theprinciple of the factory legislation into various industrialoccupations which are common to city life. For the present, however, we have only to deal with the fact that one of the first laborsaccomplished by the Reformed Parliament was the establishment of thatlegislative principle with which Lord Ashley's name will always beassociated. 

Let it be added that, with the establishment of that principle, camealso the introduction of two innovations in our {204} factory systemwhich lent inestimable value to the whole measure. One of these wasthe appointment of a number of factory inspectors, who were authorizedto see that the purposes of the Act were properly carried out by theemployers, and to report to the Government as to the working of thewhole system and the necessity for further improvements. The other wasthe arrangement by which a portion of the time of all the youngerworkers in the factories was set apart for educational purposes, sothat children should no longer be treated as mere machines for themaking of goods and the earning of wages, but should be enabled andcompelled to have their faculties developed by the instruction suitedto their years. This provision in the Factories Act may be regarded asthe first step towards that system of national education which it tookso much trouble and so many years to establish in these countries. Lord Ashley had great work still to accomplish; but even if his noblecareer had closed with the passing of the Factories Act in 1833, hisname would always be remembered as that of a man who, more than anyother, helped to turn the first Reformed Parliament to the work ofemancipating the English laboring classes in cities and towns from aservitude hardly less in conflict with the best interests of humanitythan that which up to the same year had prevailed on the plantations ofJamaica and Demerara. The Reformed Parliament had still much difficultwork to call out its best energies and to employ its new resources, butit had begun its tasks well, and had already given the country goodearnest of its splendid future. 

{205}

CHAPTER LXXV. 

THE STATE CHURCH IN IRELAND. 

[Sidenote: 1832--"Dark Rosaleen"]

A saying which has been ascribed to a well-known living Englishman, whohas made a name for himself in letters as well as in politics, may beused as the introduction to this chapter. The saying was that no manshould ever be sent as Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant ofIreland who could not prove that he had thoroughly mastered the meaningof the noble Irish poem rendered by Clarence Mangan as "Dark Rosaleen. "The author and statesman to whom we refer used to point the moral ofhis observation, sometimes, by declaring that many or most of thepolitical colleagues for whose benefit he had spoken had never heardeither of Clarence Mangan or of "Dark Rosaleen. " Now, as it is barelypossible that some of the readers of this volume may be in a conditionof similar ignorance, it is well to mention that Clarence Mangan was anIrish poet who was dear to the generation which saw the rise of theYoung Ireland movement during O'Connell's later years, and that thedark Rosaleen whom Mangan found in the earlier poet's ballad issupposed to typify his native country. The idea of the author andstatesman was that no Englishman who had not studied this poem, and gotat the heart of its mystery, so far as to be able to realize the deeppoetic, pathetic love of the Celtic heart for the soil, the traditions, and the ways of the Celtic island, could attempt with any success toundertake the government of the country. We have now come to a periodin this history when the Irish question, as it is called, came up onceagain, and in a new form, to try the statesmanship of English rulers. We have told the story of '98, and how the rebellion ended in completedefeat and disaster. Up to the {206} time at which we have now arrivedthere was no more talk of rebellion in the field, but in the sullenheart of Irish discontent there still lived all the emotions which hadanimated Lord Edward Fitzgerald, Wolfe Tone, and Robert Emmet. 

[Sidenote: 1832--The tithe question in Ireland]

When the rebellion was put down the Government of King George the Thirdabolished the Irish Parliament, and then all loyal and sensible personsin Westminster assumed, of course, that there was an end of the matter. The rebellion had been put down, the principal rebels had been done todeath, Grattan's troublesome and tiresome Parliament had beenextinguished, Ireland had been merged into complete identification withEngland, and surely nothing would be heard of the Irish question anymore. Yet the Irish question seemed to come up again and again, and topress for answer just as if answer enough had not been given already. There was a clamor about Catholic Emancipation, and at last the IrishCatholics had to be emancipated from complete politicaldisqualification, and their spokesman O'Connell had been allowed totake his place in the House of Commons. Sir Robert Peel had carriedCatholic Emancipation, for, although a Tory in many of his ways ofthinking, he was a statesman and a man of genius; and now Lord Grey, the head of the Whig Government, had no sooner passed the Reform Billthan he found himself confronted with the Irish question in a newshape. We could hardly wonder that Sir Robert Peel or Lord Grey didnot try to inform their minds as to Irish national feeling through astudy of "Dark Rosaleen, " for the good reason that no such poem had yetbeen given to the world. But neither Peel nor Grey was a type of theaverage Englishman of the times, and each had gradually borne in uponhim, by a study of realities if not of poetic fancies, that thenational sentiment of the Irishman was not to be eradicated by any Actof Parliament for his denationalization. Lord Grey, as the friend andpupil of Fox, who had always been the friend of Ireland, must haveacquired, as a part of his early political training, the knowledge thatIreland's grievances were not all {207} sentimental, and that if theywere to be dealt with by Acts of Parliament these Acts must take thepart of relief and not of repression. It may well be questionedwhether any population is disturbed for very long by mere sentimentalgrievances, and it may be doubted also whether the true instinct ofstatesmanship does not always regard the existence of what is called asentimental grievance as the best reason for trying to find out whetherthere is not some practical evil at the root of the complaint. Certainly, in Lord Grey's time, the grievances were open and palpableenough to have attracted the attention of any man whose mind was not aswell contented with the wisdom of his ancestors as that of King Williamhimself. 

Just at this time, as we have seen, a school of Englishmen wasspringing up: Englishmen whose minds were filled with new ideas, andwho thoroughly understood the tendencies of the reforming age to whichthey belonged. The Irish tithe question had come up for settlement. The Irish tithe question was only a part of the Irish State Churchquestion. The Irish State Church was an institution bestowed uponIreland by her conquerors. Five-sixths, at least, of the population ofIreland belonged to the Church of Rome and were devoted to the religionof that Church. The island was nevertheless compelled to maintain theState Church, which did not even represent the religious belief of theone-sixth of the population that was not Roman Catholic. One of theprivileges of the State Church was to exact tithes from all the farmersof the country for the maintenance of its clergymen. Ireland wasalmost altogether an agricultural country, and had but little to dowith manufacturing industry, and in three out of the four provinces ofIreland the farmers, almost to a man, held to the religion of theirCatholic forefathers and worshipped only at the altars of their faith. It would be seen, therefore, that the imposition of tithes for thesupport of the State Church ministers was not merely a sentimentalgrievance, but a very practical grievance as well. It was practicalbecause it exacted the payment of a tribute which the farmer believedhe ought not to be called {208} upon to pay, and it was sentimentalbecause, while it extorted the money from the farmer's pocket, it alsoinsulted his nationality and his faith. 

[Sidenote: 1832--Difficulty in collecting the tithes]

The result was that a sort of civil war was perpetually going on inIreland between those who strove to collect the tithes and those fromwhom the tithes were to be collected. The resistance was sometimes ofthe fiercest character; the farmers and their friends resisted theforces sent by the Government to seize the cattle of those who refusedto pay, as if they were resisting an army of foreign invaders. Bloodwas shed freely and lavishly in these struggles, and the shedding ofblood became so common that for a while it almost ceased to be a matterof public scandal. Sydney Smith declared that the collection of tithesin Ireland must have cost in all probability about one million oflives. Police, infantry, and dragoons were kept thus in constantoccupation, and yet it could not possibly be contended that those whoclaimed the tithes were very much the better for all the blood that wasshed on their behalf. For when a farmer's cattle had been seized bythe police after an obstinate fight with the farmers and their friends, and when the cattle had been driven off under the escort of infantryand cavalry soldiers, the clergyman who claimed the tithes was notalways any nearer to the getting of that which the law declared to behis own. The familiar proverbial saying about the ease with which ahorse may be brought to the water and the difficulty there may be ingetting him to drink when he has been brought there was illustratedaptly and oddly enough in the difference between seizure of thefarmer's cattle and the means of raising any money on them when theyhad been seized. The captured cattle could not in themselves be ofmuch use to the clergyman who claimed the tithes, and they wouldnaturally have to be sold in order that he might get his due, and thequestion arose who was to bid for them. All the farmers and thepeasantry of the country were on the one side, and on the other werethe incumbent, a few of his friends, and the military and police. Itwas certain that the soldiers and the policemen would not bid for thecattle, and probably {209} could not pay for them, and the populationof the district would have made the place very uncomfortable for any ofthe clergymen's friends who showed an anxiety to buy up the impoundedbeasts. In some cases when cattle were sold by public auction nobidder ventured to come forward but the farmer himself who owned thecattle, and they had to be knocked down to him at a purely nominalprice because there was no possible competitor. The farmer drove homehis beasts amid the exultation of the whole neighborhood, and theclergymen was as far off his tithes as ever. The passive resistance infact was harder to deal with, as far as practical results went, thaneven the resistance that was active. Summon together by lawfulauthority a number of soldiers and police, and it is easy to shoot downa few unarmed peasants, and to dispose for the hour of popularresistance in this prompt and peremptory way. But what is to be donewhen the resistance takes the form of a resolute organized refusal topay up the amounts claimed or to offer any price for the cattle seizedin default of payment? There were in every district numbers of quietCatholic parishioners who would much rather have paid their share ofthe tithes to the Protestant clergymen than become drawn into quarrelsand local disturbances and confusion. But such men soon found that ifthey paid their tithes they put themselves in direct antagonism to thewhole mass of their Catholic neighbors. Intimidation of the mostserious kind was sometimes brought to bear upon them, and in any casethere was that very powerful kind of intimidation which consists inmaking the offender feel that he has brought on himself the contemptand the hatred of nearly all his fellow-parishioners and hisfellow-religionists. In those days it was not lawful to hold a publicpolitical meeting in Ireland, but there were anti-tithe demonstrationsgot up, nevertheless, over three parts of Ireland. Thesedemonstrations took the outward form of what were called hurlingmatches, great rivalries of combatants, in a peculiar Irish game ofball. Each of these demonstrations was made to be, and was known tobe, a practical protest against the collection of the tithes. {210}Whenever it became certain that the recusant farmer's cattle were to beseized, a great hurling match was announced to be held in the immediatevicinity, and the local magistrates, who perhaps had at their disposalonly a few handfuls of police or soldiery, were not much inclined toorder the seizure in the presence of such a cloud of witnesses. Norwould any Catholic parishioner who had quietly paid up his titheswithout resistance have felt very comfortable if he had happened tocome near the hurling field that day, and to hear the loudly expressedcomments of his neighbors on his line of conduct. To make the troublesstill deeper, it often happened that the claimant of the tithes was anabsentee--the incumbent of many a parish in Ireland left his curate tolook after his flock and his tithes alike--and the absentee was almostas much hated in Ireland as the tithe-collector. 

[Sidenote: 1832--The tithe question in Parliament]

Now it must not be supposed that there were not many of the Protestantclergy in Ireland who utterly disapproved of the tithe system. OneProtestant clergyman in England, from whom we have just quoted, theRev. Sydney Smith, had denounced the system over and over again inlanguage the most indignant and the most scornful that even hisscathing humor could command. But there were numbers of Protestantclergymen in Ireland who saw and proclaimed its injustice and itsfutility. The Archbishop of Dublin declared that no Government couldever accomplish the collection of tithes in Ireland otherwise than atthe point of the bayonet. Protestant country clergy often found thatthe very attempts to collect the tithes only brought increased distressand hardship upon themselves. 

Many a poor Protestant clergyman saw the utter injustice of the system, and disliked and detested it almost as much as the Roman Catholicsthemselves could have done. There were many such men, too, who put upwith miserable poverty rather than make any attempt to recover such anincome by force. Great English speakers and writers were beginning todenounce the whole system. Macaulay stigmatized it as severely asSydney Smith had done. George {211} Grote, the historian of Greece, who had then a seat in the House of Commons, had not only condemned it, but had condemned the whole State Church system of which it was only apart. In our own days the ordinary English reader finds it hard tounderstand how any such system could have been carried on under acivilized European Government. Such a reader will readily admit thatSydney Smith had not gone beyond the limits of sober assertion when hedeclared that "there is no abuse like it in all Europe, in all Asia, inall the discovered parts of Africa, and in all we have ever heard ofTimbuctoo. " The subject had been brought up in Parliament by some ofthe advanced reformers of the day, and, indeed, it was bringing itselfbefore the notice of Parliament every week through the official reportsof the disturbances which were taking place in various parts of Ireland. 

The House of Lords had appointed a committee to inquire into the wholesubject. The committee reported that a complete extinction of thetithe system was demanded, not only in the interests of Ireland but inthe interests of the State Church itself, and suggested, as a means ofgetting out of the difficulty, that the tithes might be commuted for acharge upon land or by an exchange for an investment in land. Thismeant, in other words, that the collection of tithes should be devolvedupon the landlord, leaving him to repay himself by a correspondingaddition to the rent which he asked from his tenants. The House ofCommons also appointed a committee to inquire into the subject, and therecommendation of that committee was in substance very much the same asthe recommendation made by the committee appointed by the House ofLords. 

The Government then took up the question, and in 1832 Lord Althorpannounced that it was the intention of ministers to submit to the Houseof Commons a scheme of their own as a temporary settlement of the Irishtithe question, and out of which was to be developed, in time, ameasure for the complete removal of the difficulty. A very briefdescription will serve to explain the nature of {212} this measure. The Government proposed to advance a certain sum of money for therelief of the tithe-owners who had not been able to recover what thelaw held to be their due, and in the meantime to apply themselves tothe preparation of some scheme which might transfer the tithe burdenfrom the occupiers to the owners of the land. The Government thusadmitted that at the moment they did not see their way altogether outof the tithe difficulty, but promised to apply their minds to thediscovery of some final and satisfactory settlement, and undertookuntil then to pay to incumbents the arrears of tithes, and to collectthe money as well as they could from the indebted occupiers. In pointof fact, Lord Althorp and his colleagues proposed to become thetithe-collectors themselves and to let any loss that might be incurredfall, for the time, upon the State and the national taxpayers. Theplan was tried for a while, and we need hardly say that it provedaltogether unsatisfactory. The Government had no better means ofcompelling the farmers to pay the tithes than those means which theyhad already vainly put at the disposal of the tithe-owners. The farmerwho could not be coerced by the police and the military into settlinghis accounts with the incumbent was not likely to be any the more readyto pay up because the demand for payment was made by theLord-Lieutenant. 

[Sidenote: 1834--Henry Ward and the Irish Church]

It was becoming more and more evident every day that the wholeconditions of the State Church in Ireland were responsible for thetrouble of which the tithes difficulty was only an incident. Already aparty was forming itself in the House of Commons composed ofintellectual and far-seeing men who recognized the fact that the IrishState Church was in its very principles an anomaly and an anachronism. On May 27, 1834, a debate on the whole question of the Irish StateChurch and its revenues was raised in the House of Commons by Mr. HenryWard, one of the most advanced reformers and thoughtful politicianswhom the new conditions of the franchise had brought into Parliament. Henry Ward was a son of that Plumer Ward who was at one time famous asthe author of a novel {213} called "Tremaine. " If any memory of"Tremaine" lingers in the minds of readers who belong to the presentgeneration, the lingering recollection is probably only due to the factthat in Disraeli's "Vivian Grey" there is an amusing scene in which thehero makes audacious use of an extemporized passage, which he professesto find in Plumer Ward's novel. Henry Ward, the son, afterwards wonsome distinction by his administration of the Ionian Islands while theislands were under the charge of Great Britain. In our Parliamentaryhistory, however, he will always be remembered as the author of thefirst serious attempt to obtain a national recognition of the principlewhich, within our own times, secured its final acknowledgment by thedisestablishment of the Irish Church. The resolution which wasproposed merely declared that the Protestant Episcopal Establishment inIreland exceeded the wants of the Protestant population, and that, itbeing the right of the State to regulate the distribution of Churchproperty in such manner as Parliament might determine, it was theopinion of the House that the temporal possessions of the State Churchin Ireland ought to be reduced. This resolution went no further inwords, as it will be seen, than to ask for a reduction of the revenuesof that Church on the ground that it had already more funds than wererequired for the full discharge of its duties among those who attendedits ministrations. But then the resolution also assumed the right ofthe State to institute an inquiry into the application of the revenuesand the needs of the surrounding population, and would necessarilycarry with it the assertion of the principle that the Irish StateChurch existed only to minister to the wants of the Protestants ofIreland. It is clear that if once this principle were recognized bythe State the whole theory of the Established Church in Ireland couldno longer be maintained. That theory was that the State had a right touphold and a duty to perform in the maintenance of a ProtestantEstablishment in Ireland for the purpose of converting to its doctrinesthat vast majority of the Irish population who could not be driven, even at the bayonet's point, to attend the {214} services conducted bya Protestant pastor. Only a few years after this time the greatstatesman who was afterwards to obtain from Parliament thedisestablishment of the Irish Church was arguing, in his earliestpublished work, that the fewer the Protestants in Ireland the greaterwas the necessity for the State to be lavish of its money with theobject of converting the outer population of Ireland to the establishedreligion. Mr. Ward, in his speech, set himself to make it clear to theHouse of Commons that the collection of tithes in Ireland was, at thattime, the principal cause of the disturbance and disaffection whichbrought so much calamity on the unhappy island, and prevented anypossibility of its becoming a loyal part of the British dominions. Heshowed by facts and figures that the opposition to the collection oftithes was not any longer confined to the Catholic population alone, but had spread among the Protestants of dissenting denominations, andwas showing itself in the North of Ireland, as well as in the provincesof the South and the West and the Midlands. He pointed to the factthat it was found necessary to maintain in Ireland, for the purpose ofcollecting the tithes, an army larger than that which England neededfor the maintenance of her Indian Empire, and that, nevertheless, itwas found impossible to collect the tithes in Ireland, and that theGovernment could suggest nothing better than a project for the paymentof the tithes out of the pockets of the national taxpayer. Mr. Wardmade it clear to the House of Commons that the revenues of the StateChurch in Ireland were not distributed with anything like a view to thefair and equal remuneration of its clergy. In numbers of cases theclergy of the higher ranks had enormous incomes, quite out of allproportion to any duties they were even supposed to perform, while theclergymen who actually did the work were, as a general rule, screweddown to a pitiful rate of payment which hardly kept soul and bodytogether. Twenty pounds a year was not an uncommon stipend among thecurates who did the hard work, while an annual revenue of sixty poundswas regarded as something like opulence. Where the curate received histhirty {215} or forty pounds a year or less, the incumbent usually hadhis two thousand a year, and in many instances much more. As we saidbefore, the incumbent deriving a rich revenue from his office was oftenhabitually an absentee, who left the whole of his work to be performed, as best it might be done, by the curate, half starving on a miserablepittance. Mr. Ward made out a case which must have produced someimpression on any Parliamentary assembly, and could hardly fail to findattentive listeners and ready sympathy among the members of the firstreformed House of Commons. 

[Sidenote: 1834--George Grote]

The motion was seconded by a remarkable man in a remarkable speech. Mr. George Grote, afterwards famous as the historian of Greece, was oneof the new members of Parliament. He was a man of a peculiar type, ofan intellectual order which we do not usually associate with themovement of the political world, but which is, nevertheless, seldomwithout its representative in the House of Commons. Grote was one ofthe small group of men who were, at that time, described as thephilosophical Radicals. He acknowledged the influence of Bentham; hewas a friend and associate of the elder and the younger Mill; he was abanker by occupation, a scholar and an author by vocation; a member ofParliament from a sense of duty. Grote, no doubt, was sometimesmistaken in the political conclusions at which he arrived, but hedeserved the praise which Macaulay has justly given to Burke, that hewas always right in his point of view. With Grote a political measurewas right or wrong only as it helped or hindered the spread ofeducation, human happiness, and peace. He was one of the earliest andmost persevering advocates of the ballot system at elections, andduring his short Parliamentary career he made the ballot the subject ofan annual motion. Some of us can still well remember George Grote inhis much later days, and can bear testimony to the fact that, to quotethe thrilling words of Schiller, he reverenced in his manhood thedreams of his youth. We can remember how steady an opponent he was ofslavery, and how his sympathies went with the cause of the North duringthe {216} great American civil war. One can hardly suppose thatGrote's style as a speaker was well suited to the ways of the House ofCommons, but it is certain that whenever he spoke he always made adistinct impression on the House. Some of us who can remember JohnStuart Mill addressing that same assembly at a later day, can probablyform an idea of the influence exercised on the House by the man whoseemed to be thinking his thoughts aloud rather than trying to win overvotes or to catch encouraging applause. Grote's speech on Ward'smotion brought up one view of the Irish Church which especiallydeserved consideration. Grote dealt with the alarms and theconvictions of those who were insisting that to acknowledge any rightof Parliament to interfere with the Irish State Church would be tosound in advance the doom of the English State Church as well. Hepointed out that, whatever difference of opinion there might be as tothe general principle of a State Establishment, the case of the twoChurches, the English and the Irish, must be argued upon grounds whichhad nothing in common. Every argument which could be used, and must beused, for the State Church of England was an argument against the StateChurch in Ireland. The State Church of England was the Church to whichthe vast majority of the English people belonged. It ministered totheir spiritual needs, it was associated with their ways, their hopes, their past, and their future. If an overwhelming majority in anycountry could claim the right, by virtue of their majority, to set upand maintain any institution, the Protestant population of Englandcould claim a right to set up a State Church. But every word thatcould be said in support of the English State Church was a word ofcondemnation and of sentence on the State Church in Ireland. The IrishState Church was the Church of so small a minority that, when allowancehad been made for the numbers of dissenting Protestants in Ireland, itwas doubtful whether one in every twelve of the whole population couldbe claimed as a worshipper in the temples maintained and endowed bylaw. Moreover, the Irish State Church was a badge of conquest, and was{217} regarded as such by the whole Celtic population of the island. The tithe exacted from the Irish Catholic farmer was not merely atribute exacted by the conqueror, but was also a brand of degradationon the faith and on the nationality of the Irish Celt who was calledupon to meet the demand. The student of history will note with someinterest that, at a day much nearer to our own, the Lord Stanley whosename we shall presently have to bring up in connection with this debateon Mr. Ward's motion made use, in the House of Lords, of an appealwhich suggested the idea that he had not heard or had forgotten GeorgeGrote's speech on which we have just been making comment. Not verylong before his death Lord Derby, as he had then become, was declaimingin the House of Lords against the proposal to disestablish the IrishState Church, and he warned the House that if the fabric of the IrishChurch were to be touched by a destroying hand it would be in vain tohope that the destruction of the English State Church could long beaverted. [Sidenote: 1834--Lord Derby] Lord Derby had always a veryhappy gift of quotation, and he made on this occasion a strikingallusion. He reminded the House of that thrilling scene in Scott's"Guy Mannering" where the gypsy woman suddenly presents herself on theroadside to the elder, the Laird of Ellangowan and some of his friends, and, complaining of the eviction of her own people from theirhomesteads, bids the gentlefolk take care that their own roof-trees arenot put in danger by what they had done. Lord Derby made use of thispassage as a warning to the prelates and peers of England that, if theyallowed the Irish State Church to be disestablished, the statelierfabric of their own Church in England might suffer by the example. Itwas pointed out at the time, by some of those who commented on LordDerby's speech, that George Grote had answered this argument byunconscious anticipation, and had shown that the best security of theEnglish State Church was the fact that it rested on a foundationtotally different from that of the State Church in Ireland. 

The Government were greatly embarrassed by all this {218} discussion asto the condition, the work, and the character of the Establishment inIreland. Lord Grey, whose whole nature inclined him to move along thepath of progress with slow, steady, and stately steps, began to chafeagainst the eagerness with which the more Radical reformers wereendeavoring to hurry on the political movement. It was necessary thatthe Government should announce a purpose of one kind or another--shouldeither give a general sanction to the inquiry into the claims andmerits of the Irish Church, or declare themselves against any movementof reform in that direction. It was found hardly possible for theGovernment to ally themselves with the followers of old-fashionedToryism, and it soon began to be rumored that Lord Grey could only keepon the reforming path at the cost of losing some of his most capablecolleagues. Before long it was made publicly known that the rumorswere well founded. Lord Stanley and Sir James Graham resigned theirplaces in the Ministry. Graham afterwards held office in more than oneAdministration that might well be called Liberal, but Lord Stanleypassed the greater part of his Parliamentary life in the ranks ofuncompromising Toryism. He had begun his public career as anenthusiastic champion of Parliamentary reform, and he was thefigure-head of reform again at a much later date, but on all otherquestions he remained a steadfast and a most eloquent advocate ofgenuine Tory principles. It may fittingly be mentioned here that theexistence of the Radical party, recognized as such and regarded asdistinct from the ordinary Liberals, began with the debates on theState Church in Ireland. The passing of the Reform Bill divided theWhigs and Tories into Liberals and Conservatives, and the discussionson the Irish Church divided those who had once been Whigs into Liberalsand Radicals. 

[Sidenote: 1834--King William and the Irish State Church]

Meanwhile poor old King William was greatly concerned by the attackswhich were made upon the State Church in Ireland. William the Fourthhad a simple sort of piety of his own, and was perhaps somewhat likethe man whom Doctor Johnson commended because, whatever {219} folliesor offences he might have committed, he never passed a church withouttaking off his hat. The King knew little or nothing, we may wellsuppose, about the Irish Church and the way in which it fulfilled, orhad any chance of fulfilling, its sacred office. But he took off hishat to it as a Church, and, more than that, he shed tears andpositively blubbered over its hard fate in having to stand so manyattacks from its enemies. The King received, on one of his birthdays, a delegation from the prelates of the Irish Church, and to them hepoured out his assurances that nothing should ever induce him toabandon that Church to its ungodly foes. He reminded the prelates thathe was growing an old man, that his departure from this world must benear at hand, that he had nothing left now to live for but the rightfuldischarge of his duties as a Protestant sovereign, and he bade them tobelieve that the tears which were bedewing his countenance were thetears of heartfelt sympathy and sorrow. The King nevertheless did notget into any quarrel with his ministers on the subject of the IrishChurch, and when any documents bearing on the question were presentedto him for signature he ended by affixing his name and did not allowhis tears to fall upon it and blot it out. The Duke of Cumberland, too, stood by the Irish Church to the best of his power. A member ofthe House of Lords has a privilege which is not accorded to a member ofthe House of Commons--he can enter on the books of the House hiswritten protest against the passing of any measure which he has notbeen able to keep out of legislation. The Duke of Cumberland enteredhis protest against some of the resolutions taken with regard to theIrish State Church, and he declared that the sovereign who affirmedsuch resolves must do so in defiance of the coronation oath. Thatcoronation oath had not been brought into much prominence since thedays of George the Third, when it used to be relied upon as animpassable barrier to many a great measure of political justice andmercy. The Duke of Cumberland was not exactly the sort of man whocould quicken it anew into an animating influence, and King {220}William did what his ministers advised him to do, and the world went onits way. The King, however, liked his ministers none the more becausehe did not see his way to quarrel with them when they advised him tomake some concessions to public feeling on the subject of the Irishtithes. Thus far, indeed, the concessions were not very great, and theimportant fact for this part of our history is only that the tithequestion brought up the far more momentous question which called intodoubt the right to existence of the Irish State Church itself. TheGovernment went no farther, for the time, than to offer the appointmentof a commission to inquire into the incidence and the levying of thetithes, and endeavored to evade the question of appropriation, that is, the question as to the right of Parliament to decide the manner inwhich the revenues of the Irish State Church ought to be employed. Thetithe question itself was finally settled for England before it came tobe finally settled for Ireland. But its settlement involved no suchconsequences to the English State Church as it did to the State Churchin Ireland. For our present purposes it is enough to record the factthat the earliest clear indications of the national policy, which in alater generation disestablished the Irish State Church, were given bythe first Reform Parliament. Meanwhile the controversy raised as tothe position of the Irish Establishment had had the effect ofdisturbing Lord Grey, who did not like to be driven too rapidly alongthe path of reform; of greatly angering the sovereign, who grumbled allthe more because he could not openly resist; and of dissatisfying menlike Ward and Grote and Lord Durham, and even members of the Cabinetlike Lord John Russell, who could not regard mere slowness as a virtuewhen there was an obvious wrong to be redressed. 

{221}

CHAPTER LXXVI. 

"ONLY A PAUPER. "

[Sidenote: 1832--The poor-law system]

The spirit of reform was impelling Lord Grey's Government in otherdirections as well as in those which led to the abolition of slavery inthe Colonies, the improved conditions of the factory works and theintroduction of some better method for the collecting of tithes. Thestate of the poor laws all over the country had long been attracting theattention of thoughtful, philanthropic, and at the same time practicalmen. The administration of relief to the poor was still conducted, up toLord Grey's reforming Administration, on the same general principle asthat which had been embodied in the famous statute of Queen Elizabeth. The manner in which that principle had been working during theintervening centuries was only another illustration of Burke's maximabout systems founded on the heroic virtues to which we have lately madereference in this volume. The statute of Elizabeth was based on theprinciple that the State, or at least the local authorities, ought tofind relief for all the deserving poor. The duty of making provision forthe deserving poor was left in the hands of those who managed the affairsof the parishes, of whom the local clergy and magistrates were theprincipal personages. The means had to be furnished by the taxpayers, and the influential men of each parish were left to decide as to theclaims and the deserts of the applicants. There was no regular bodyanswerable to public opinion, nor was there indeed any practical way inwhich the public of a district could very effectively express itself. Nothing could be better arranged for the development of that benevolentspirit which Sydney Smith describes as common to all humanity, and {222}under the influence of which no sooner does A hear that B is in distressthan he thinks C ought at once to relieve him. Men and women had only togo and say that they were in distress, and some influential persons inthe neighborhood were sure to find that the easiest way of doing abenevolent act was to provide them with orders for parochial reliefinside or outside the workhouse. There seemed to be a sort of easy-goingimpression prevailing everywhere that when a man or a woman or a familyhad once been set down for relief from the rates the enrolment ought toendure as a kind of property for life, and even as an inheritance forfuture generations. The grant of parish relief under the old ways hasbeen humorously likened to a State pension, which, when it has once beengiven, is never supposed to be revoked during the lifetime of theprivileged pensioner. But the presumption in the case of those relievedby the parish had a still more abiding efficacy, for it was assumed thatif a man got parish relief for himself and his family the beneficentendowment was to pass onward from generation to generation. It is quitecertain that whole races of paupers began to grow up in the country, onefamily depending on the rates engendering another family, who werelikewise to be dependent on the rates. Thus the vice of lazy andshiftless poverty was bequeathed from pauper sire to son. In the case ofthe ordinary man or woman there was no incitement to industry andperseverance. The idle pauper would be fed in any case, and no matterhow hard he worked at the ordinary labor within his reach he could onlyhope to be poorly fed. Indeed, even the man who had an honestinclination for honest labor was very much in the condition of the Irishcottier tenant, described many years afterwards by John Stuart Mill asone who could neither benefit by his industry nor suffer by hisimprovidence. 

[Sidenote: 1832--Some defects in the poor-law system]

The system may be said without exaggeration to have put a positivepremium on immorality among the poorer class of women in a district, foran unmarried girl who had pauper offspring to show was sure to receivethe liberal benefit of parochial relief. Pity was easily aroused for{223} her youth, her fall, her deserted condition when her lover orbetrayer had taken himself off to some other district. Any tale ofdeceived innocence was readily believed, and so far as physical comfortsgo the unmarried mother was generally better off than the poor toilingand virtuous wife of the hard-worked laborer who found her family growingand her husband's wages without any increase. Then, of course, there wasall manner of jobbery, and a certain kind of corruption among parishofficials and the local tradesmen and employers of labor generally, whichgrew to be an almost recognized incident of the local institutions. Labor could be got on cheaper terms than the ordinary market rates if theemployers could have men or women at certain seasons of the year whom theparish was willing to maintain in idleness for the rest of the time. Small contracts of all kinds were commonly made, in this sort of fashion, between parish officials and local employers, and the whole system ofrelief seemed to become converted into a corrupting influence, pervadingthe social life and showing its effects in idleness, immorality, and aninfectious disease of pauperism. Owing to the many misinterpretations ofthe laws of settlement it was often easy for a rich and populous districtto fling much of its floating pauperism on some poorer region, and thusit frequently happened that the more poverty-stricken the parish thegreater was the proportion of unsettled pauperism for which it had toprovide. In many districts the poorer classes of ratepayers werescarcely a degree better off than the actual paupers whom they were taxedto support. Thus many a struggling family became pauperized in the endbecause of the increase in the rates which the head of the family couldno longer pay, and the exhausted breadwinner, having done his best tokeep himself and his family independent, had at last to eat the bread ofidleness from parish relief, or to starve with his family by theroad-side. 

Things had come to such a pass indeed that many earnest and capableobservers, like Lord Brougham, Mr. Nassau Senior, and Miss Martineau, were beginning to advocate the doctrine that no remedy could be found for{224} the system of legalized poor relief short of its total abolition. It was gravely contended by many reformers, whose guiding spirit was purelove of humanity, that the best course for the Government to take wouldbe to abolish the poor-relief system altogether, and leave the reallydeserving poor to the mercy of private benevolence. By such a measure, it was contended, private charity would be left to find out its own, andwould, before long, find out its own, and the charity thus given wouldcarry with it no demoralizing effect, but would be bestowed, as all truecharity is bestowed, with the object of enabling those whom it helped tohelp themselves after a while. The owner of an estate, it was argued, can easily find out where there is genuine distress among those whodepend upon him, and can sustain them through their time of need, so thatwhen their hour of sickness or enforced idleness is over they may be ableto begin again with renewed energy, and work with the honest purpose ofmaking themselves independent. It was urged that the operation of thelegalized poor law relief could only create new pauperism wherever itsunwholesome touch was felt. It would impress on the well-inclined andthe industrious the futility of honest and persevering endeavor, inasmuchas idleness could get itself better cared for than laborious poverty. Idleness and immorality, it was argued, were well housed and fed, whilehonest independence and virtue were left outside in cold and hunger. 

[Sidenote: 1832-33--A commission on poor-law relief]

The study of political economy was even already beginning to be a part ofthe education of most men who took any guiding place or even anyobservant interest in the national life. Writers who dealt with suchsubjects were beginning to find readers among the general public. Someof the members of Lord Grey's own Administration had taken a closeinterest in such questions. The whole subject of poor relief and itsdistribution was one of the earliest which came under the considerationof the Liberal Government after the passing of the Reform Bill. It wasclear that something would soon have to be done, and, as the Whigministers had a good deal of other work on their {225} hands, the naturalcourse, at such a time, was to appoint a commission which should inquireinto the whole system of poor-law relief, and report to the Government asto the best means for its reorganization. Such a commission wasappointed and set at once to its work. Among the commissioners and theassistant-commissioners nominated for the purpose were some men whosenames are well remembered in our own days. One of those was Mr. NassauSenior, a man of great ability and wide practical information, whodistinguished himself in many other fields of literary work, as well asthat which belonged to what may be called the literature of pureeconomics. Another was Mr. Edwin (afterwards Sir Edwin) Chadwick, whowas a living and an active presence, until a very short time ago, amongthose who devoted themselves to the study and the propagation of what arecalled social science principles, and whose work was highly valued by sowell qualified a critic as John Stuart Mill. The commission made carefulinquiry into the operation of the poor-law relief system, and presented areport which marked an epoch in our social history, and might well have adeep interest even for the casual student of to-day. The result of theinquiries made was such as to satisfy the commissioners that theadministration of the poor law had increased the evils of pauperism, wherever it found them already in existence, and had created and fosteredevils of the same kind, even in regions which had not known them beforethey were touched by its contagion. The report of the commissionerspronounced that the existing system of poor law was "destructive to theindustry and honesty and forethought of the laborers, to the wealth andmorality of the employers of labor and the owners of property, and to themutual good-will and happiness of all. " This may be thought a verysweeping condemnation, but the more closely the evidence is studied themore clearly it will be seen that where the poor-relief system had anyeffect worth taking into calculation this was the sort of effect itproduced. The real objects of the legalized poor-law relief system werewell and even liberally described in the report of the {226}commissioners. The object of poor relief, as the commissioners definedit, should be to make provision for that proportion, to be found inalmost every community, which is plunged into such a condition ofdistress that it never can hope to be self-supporting again, and for thatmore fluctuating proportion made up of those who at the time are unableto support themselves, but whom some temporary relief may enable toreturn to their former condition of independence. In each class of casesit ought to be made equally clear, before public relief were called in, that those in distress, continuous or temporary, had no near relatives ina condition to afford them reasonable assistance without undue sacrifice. Of course it was understood that these conditions included the men andwomen who, owing to some temporary lack of employment, were actuallyunable to find the means of living by their own honest labor. The ideasof the commissioners were not pedantically economical in their range, nordid they insist that public relief must be given only as the reward ofpersonal integrity when visited by undeserved misfortune. It was freelyadmitted that even where men and women had allowed themselves, byidleness or carelessness, to sink into actual poverty, it was better togive them temporary relief at the public expense than allow them to takeup with the ways of crime, or leave them to pay the penalty of theirwrongdoings by death from starvation. But it was strictly laid down thata healthy system of public relief was to help men and women for a time, in order that they might be able to help themselves once again, as soonas possible, and to make provision for those who had done their work andcould do no more, and who had no near relatives in a condition to keepthem from starvation. The report of the commissioners pointed out thatthe existing system "collects and chains down the laborers in masses, without any reference to the demand for their labor; that, while itincreases their numbers, it impairs the means by which the fund for theirsubsistence is to be reproduced, and impairs the motives for using thosemeans which it suffers to exist; and that every year and every day theseevils are becoming {227} more overwhelming in magnitude and lesssusceptible of cure. "

[Sidenote: 1833--Plans to improve the relief system]

The passages which we have quoted are taken from the recommendations ofMr. Chadwick. He goes on to say that, "of those evils, that whichconsists merely in the amount of the rates--an evil great when consideredby itself, but trifling when compared with the moral effects which I amdeploring--might be much diminished by the combination of workhouses, andby substituting a rigid administration and contract management for theexisting scenes of neglect, extravagance, jobbery, and fraud. " Mr. Chadwick points out that "if no relief were allowed to be given to theable-bodied or to their families, except in return for adequate labor orin a well-regulated workhouse, the worst of the existing sources ofevil--the allowance system--would immediately disappear; a broad linewould be drawn between the independent laborers and the paupers; thenumbers of paupers would be immediately diminished, in consequence of thereluctance to accept relief on such terms, and would be still furtherdiminished in consequence of the increased fund for the payment of wagesoccasioned by the diminution of rates; and would ultimately, instead offorming a constantly increasing proportion of our whole population, become a small, well-defined part of it, capable of being provided for atan expense less than one-half of the present poor rates. " And finally itwas urged that "it is essential to every one of these improvements thatthe administration of the poor laws should be intrusted, as to theirgeneral superintendence, to one central authority with extensive powers;and, as to their details, to paid officers, acting under theconsciousness of constant superintendence and strict responsibility. " Onthese reports and recommendations the new measure for the reorganizationof the poor-law system was founded. The main objects of the measure wereto divide these countries, for poor-relief purposes, into areas ofregular and, in a certain sense, of equal proportions, so that the wholeburden of poverty should not be cast for relief on one particulardistrict, while a neighboring and much richer {228} district was able toescape from its fair measure of liability; to have the reliefadministered not by local justices, or parish clergymen, but byrepresentative bodies duly elected and responsible to public opinion; andby the creation of one great central board charged with the duty ofseeing to the proper administration of the whole system. Thus, it willbe observed that the main principle of the Reform Bill, the principle ofrepresentation, had been already accepted by statesmanship as the centralidea of a department of State which had nothing to do with the strugglesof political parties. 

[Sidenote: 1834--Passage of the Poor-law Bill]

The measure when it came before Parliament met, of course, with strongopposition, first in the House of Commons and then in the House of Lords. Much of the opposition came, no doubt, from men of old-fashioned ways, who dreaded and hated any changes in any institutions to which they hadbeen accustomed, and who held that even pauperism itself acquired acertain sanctity from the fact that it had been fostered and encouragedby the wisdom of so many succeeding generations. Some of the opposition, however, was inspired by feelings of a more purely sentimental, andtherefore perhaps of a more respectable order. It was urged that the newsystem, if carried into law, would bear hardly on the deserving as wellas the undeserving people; that the workhouse test would separate thehusband from wife, and the father from the children; and, above all, thatcertain clauses of the new measure would leave the once innocent girl whohad been led astray by some vile tempter to bear the whole legalresponsibility as well as the public shame of her sin. It is notnecessary for us now to go over at any length the long arguments whichwere brought up on both sides of the controversy. Many capable andhigh-minded observers were carried away by what may be called thesentimental side of the question, and forgot the enormous extent of thealmost national corruption which the measure was striving to remove, intheir repugnance to some of the evils which it did not indeed create, butwhich it failed to abolish. One weakness common to nearly all thearguments employed against the {229} measure came from the facility therewas for putting out of sight altogether, during such a process ofreasoning, the fact that the daily and hourly effect of the existingsystem was to force the deserving and hard-working poor to sink into thatvery pauperism which it was the object of all law-makers to diminish, orto abolish altogether. The wit of man could not devise any system ofpoor relief which should never go wrong in its application, should neverbear harshly on men and women who deserved, and were striving for, anhonest and independent subsistence. 

The Bill, however, was passed in the House of Commons by a largemajority. It was carried after a hard fight through the House of Lords, and received the royal assent in August, 1834. It should be said thatthe Duke of Wellington, although usually strong and resolute as a partyman, had good sense and fair spirit enough to make him a warm supporterof the measure, despite the vehement protestations of many of his ownhabitual supporters. Since that time it seems to be admitted by commonconsent that the measure has accomplished all the beneficial resultswhich its promoters anticipated from it, and has, in many of itsprovisions, worked even better than some of its supporters had expected. Of course, our poor-law system has since that time been always undergoingmodifications of one kind or another, and public criticism is continuallypointing to the necessity for further improvement. We hear every now andthen of cases in which, owing to local maladministration, some deservingmen and women, honestly struggling to keep their heads above pauperism, are left to perish of hunger or cold. We read well-authenticated, onlytoo well-authenticated, instances of actual starvation taking place insome wealthy district of a great city. We hear of parochial fundssquandered and muddled away; of the ratepayers' money wasted inextravagance, and worse than extravagance; of miserable courts and alleyswhere the deserving and undeserving poor are alike neglected and uncaredfor. But it would be utterly impossible that some such defects as theseshould not be found in the management of any system worked by {230} humanmechanism for such a purpose as the relief of a great nation's poverty. The predominant fact is that we have a system which is based on therepresentative principle, which is open to the inspection and thecriticism of the whole country, and which frankly declares itself theenemy of professional beggary and the helper of the poverty which ishonestly striving to help itself. Much remains yet to be done for theimprovement of our national system of poor relief, but it has, at least, to be said that the reformed Parliament did actually establish a systemfounded on just principles and responsible to public judgment. 

[Sidenote: 1833--The East India Company's charter]

Another of the great reforms which was accomplished in this age of reformfound its occasion when the time came for the renewal of the East IndiaCompany's charter. The Government and the Houses of Parliament had todeal with the future administration of one of the greatest empires theworld had ever seen, brought together by events and forces the like ofwhich had not been at work in any previous chapter of the world'shistory. We have already traced, in this book, the growth of the EastIndia Company's possessions, a growth brought about by a combination ofthe qualities which belonged to the Alexanders and the Caesars, and ofthe qualities also which go to the expansion of peaceful commerce and theopening up of markets for purely industrial enterprise. The charter ofthe Company had been renewed by legislation at long intervals, and thefirst reformed Parliament now found itself compelled to settle theconditions under which the charter should be renewed for another periodof twenty years. Mr. Molesworth justly remarks that "it was a fortunatecircumstance that the Reform Bill had passed, and a Reform Parliamentbeen elected, before the question of the renewal of the Company's charterwas decided; for otherwise the directors of this great Company and otherpersons interested in the maintenance of the monopolies and abusesconnected with it would in all probability have returned to Parliament, by means of rotten boroughs, a party of adherents sufficiently large tohave effectually prevented the Government and the House of Commons fromdealing with {231} this great question in the manner in which theinterests of England and India alike demanded that it should be dealtwith. "

Up to the time at which we have now arrived the East India Company had analmost absolute monopoly of the whole Chinese trade, as well as theIndian trade, and a control over the administration of India such asmight well have gratified the ambition of a despotic monarch. The lastrenewal of the Company's charter had been in 1813, and it was to run fortwenty years, so that Lord Grey's Government found themselves chargedwith the task of making arrangements for its continuance, or itsmodifications, or its abolition. Some distinction had already beeneffected between the powers of the Company as the ruler of a vast Empireunder the suzerainty of England, and its powers as a huge commercialcorporation, or what we should now call a syndicate, but the companystill retained its monopoly of the India and China trade. In the meantime, however, the principles of political economy had been asserting agrowing influence over the public intelligence, and the question wascoming to be asked, more and more earnestly, why a private company shouldbe allowed the exclusive right of conducting the trade between Englandand India and China. An agitation against the monopoly began, as was butnatural, among the great manufacturing and commercial towns in the Northof England. Miss Martineau, in her "History of the Thirty Years' Peace, "ascribes the beginning of this movement to a once well-known merchant andphilanthropist of Liverpool, the late Mr. William Rathbone, whom some ofus can still remember having known in our earlier years. Miss Martineauhad probably good reasons for making such a statement, and, at allevents, nothing is more likely than that such a movement began inLiverpool, and began with such a man. In London the directors andsupporters of the East India Company were too powerful to give muchchance to a hostile movement begun in the metropolis, and it needed theenergy, the commercial independence, and the advanced opinions of thenorthern cities to give it an effective start. 

{232}

When the time came for the renewal of the Company's charter, theGovernment had made up their mind that the renewal should be conditionalon the abolition of the commercial monopoly, and that the trade betweenthe dominions of King William and the Eastern populations should bethrown open to all the King's subjects. The measure passed through bothHouses of Parliament with but little opposition. Mr. Molesworth isperfectly right in his remarks as to the different sort of receptionwhich would have been given to such a measure if the charter had come upfor renewal before the Act of Reform had abolished the nominationboroughs and the various other sham constituencies. But it is a strikingproof of the hold which the representative principle and the doctrines offree-trade were already beginning to have on public opinion that themonopoly of the East India Company should not have been able to make aharder fight for its existence. The wonder which a modern reader will belikely to feel as he studies the subject now is, not that the monopolyshould have been abolished with so little trouble, but that rational menshould have admitted so long the possibility of any justification for itsexistence. 

The renewal of the Charter of the Bank of England gave an opportunity, during the same session, for an alteration in the conditions under whichthe Bank maintains its legalized position and its relations with theState, and for a further reorganization of those conditions, which was initself a distinct advance in the commercial arrangements of the Empire. Other modifications have taken place from time to time since those days, and it is enough to say here that the alterations made by the firstreformed Parliament, at the impulse of Lord Grey and his colleagues, werein keeping with the movement of the commercial spirit and went along thepath illumined by the growing light of a sound political economy. 

{233}

CHAPTER LXXVII. 

PEEL'S FORLORN HOPE. 

[Sidenote: 1834--Retirement of Lord Grey]

Lord Grey was growing tired of the work of that Administration. It hadbeen incessant work, and its great successes of later years had beencheckered by some disappointments, which, although not deep-reaching, were irritating and disturbing. Some of his most capable colleagueshad broken away from him, and he probably began to feel that thereformers all over the country expected more of him than he saw his wayto accomplish. In 1834 he asked to be relieved from the duties of hisoffice, and the King consented, probably with greater good-will than hehad felt in acceding to some of Lord Grey's previous requests, andaccordingly Lord Grey ceased to be Prime Minister. With hisresignation of office Lord Grey passes out of this history and takes anabiding place in the Parliamentary history of his country. He canhardly be called a great statesman, for he had been mainly instrumentalin bringing to success and putting into legislative form the ideas ofgreater men, but his must be regarded as a distinguished and noblefigure among England's Parliamentary leaders. He was especially suitedfor the work which it was his proud fortune to accomplish at the zenithof his power, for no one could be better fitted than he for the task ofdiscountenancing the wild alarms which were felt by so many belongingto what were called the privileged classes at the thought of anymeasures of reform which might disturb the existing order of things, and lead to red ruin and the breaking-up of laws. On Lord Grey'sretirement he was succeeded as Prime Minister by Lord Melbourne, whohad previously been Home Secretary. Lord Melbourne might have beenthought just the sort of {234} person with whom King William couldeasily get on, because such a Prime Minister was not likely to vex hissovereign's unwilling ear by too many demands for rapid andfar-reaching reform. Melbourne was a thoroughly easy, not to say lazy, man. He was certainly not wanting in intellect, he had some culture, he was a great reader of books and a great lover of books, and he wasoften only too glad to escape into literary talk and literary gossipfrom discussions on political questions and measures to be introducedinto Parliament. He was fond of society, made himself generallyagreeable to women, and was usually well acquainted with the passingscandals of high social life. 

[Sidenote: 1834--Peel to be Premier]

One might, indeed, have thought that such a man was just the ministerin whom King William would find a congenial companion and adviser. Butthe truth was that the King had grown tired of the Whig statesmen, andhad long been looking out for an opportunity to get rid of them on easyterms. Perhaps he did not quite like the idea of telling a man of LordGrey's stately demeanor that he wished to dispense with his servicesand saw in Lord Melbourne a minister who could be approached on anysubject without much sensation of awe. However that may be, the Kingsoon found what seemed to him a satisfactory opportunity for riddinghimself of the presence of his Whig advisers. Lord Althorp wassuddenly raised to the House of Lords by the death of his father. EarlSpencer, and of course some rearrangement of the Ministry becamenecessary, as it would not be possible that the Chancellor of theExchequer should have a ministerial place anywhere but in the Housewhich has the levying of the taxes and the spending of the money. WhenLord Melbourne came to advise with his sovereign on the subject theKing informed him, in the most direct and off-hand manner, that hecontemplated a much more complete rearrangement than Lord Melbourne hadsuggested, and, in fact, that he had made up his mind to get rid of thepresent Government altogether. Lord Melbourne, of course, bowed to thewill of his master, and, indeed, was not the sort of man to take a{235} dismissal from office greatly to heart, believing it, no doubt, quite likely that some restoration to office might await him, andpossibly feeling that life had some enjoyments left for him even thoughhe were never again to be Prime Minister. 

The King determined to send for Sir Robert Peel and intrust him withthe task of forming an Administration. William had, as might naturallybe expected of him, consulted in the first instance with the Duke ofWellington. Wellington, with the practical good sense which was a partof his character, had told the sovereign that at such a time it wasfutile to think of calling upon any one to become Prime Minister whohad not a seat in the House of Commons. As the King was resolved tohave a new Administration, Peel was obviously the man to be intrustedwith the task of forming it, and therefore the King sent for him atonce. But Peel was not in England; he had gone with his wife to Italy, and, as we know from his own published letters, he had not entered intoany communication, even with the Duke of Wellington, as to the probablemovements of political affairs in his absence, not supposing for amoment that any emergency could arise at home which might make itnecessary for him to cut short his holiday and return to the workingground of Westminster. A special messenger had to be sent off at onceto convey to Peel the wishes of his sovereign, and one has to stop andthink over things a little before he can quite realize what it meant inthose days, which seem so near our own, to send a special message fromLondon to the heart of Italy. Peel was at Rome, and had just returnedwith his wife one night from a great ball given by a celebrated ItalianPrincess, when he received the letter which urged him to come back andbecome for the first time Prime Minister of England. Peel's mind wasat once made up. That sense of duty which always guided his movementsdictated his reply. There was for him no question of personal pride orambition to be gratified, or of any graceful effort to affect the waysof one who modestly shrinks from a task beyond his power. He saw thathis sovereign needed {236} his immediate services, and that was enoughfor him. He and his wife were just on the eve of what had promised tobe a delightful visit to Naples, but the visit to Naples was put offwithout a second thought to the indefinite future, and the statesmanand his wife set out at once on their journey to London. Thepreparations for such a journey at that time were such as might givepause even to an experienced explorer in our own easy-going andluxurious age. Sir Robert Peel, of course, had to travel by privatecarriage. He had to traverse more than one State in order to reach thesea at Calais. The roads were dangerous in many places, and Peel hadto take some well-armed servants with him. He had to go well providedwith the most elaborate official passports. He had even to obtain aspecial passport for himself, lest, in the event of his wife findingthe constant travel too much for her, she might have to take rest atsome town on the way, and Peel, if he attempted to continue hisjourney, might be stopped somewhere until he had satisfactorilyaccounted for the disappearance of the lady who was described in theoriginal passports as his travelling companion and his wife. Thejourney was interrupted by unforeseen obstacles in several places. Atone spot the rising of a river relentlessly barricaded the progress ofthe travellers for many hours. At another point a bridge was brokendown. In France, Peel and his wife were brought to a stand at the cityof Lyons because that city happened just then to be in a state ofsiege, and the travellers had to furnish satisfactory evidence thatthey were not emissaries of some revolutionary propaganda. It tooktwelve days to cover the distance from Rome to Dover, and, except forsuch delays as have just been mentioned, our travellers had gone onnight and day without stopping. Even when they arrived at Dover, Peeltook no thought about rest, but journeyed on all night until he reachedLondon. 

[Sidenote: 1834--The difficulties that beset Peel]

Peel himself tells us in his memoirs that the long travel had at leastthe advantage of giving him time enough to think out his course ofaction and the best way of serving his sovereign and his country. Thejourney, he says, {237} allowed him to do this coolly and withoutinterruption. He certainly had time enough for the purpose, but itmust have needed all Peel's strength of character to enable him to givehis mind up to such considerations during a course so toilsome, sorugged, so dangerous, and often so rudely interrupted. He arrived inLondon at an early hour on the morning of December 9, 1834, and he setoff at once to present himself to the King, by whom, it need hardly besaid, he was very cordially welcomed. The welcome became all the morewarm because he was willing to accept the important task which the Kingdesired to intrust to him, and would enter without delay on the work ofendeavoring to form a Ministry. Now, in order to do justice to Peel'spatriotic purpose in undertaking this difficult task, we have to bearin mind that he did not personally approve of the King's action inbreaking up the Melbourne Administration, or even of the manner inwhich it had been broken up. He knew well enough that the King hadgrown tired of the Whig Ministry, but he did not think the King'spersonal feelings were a complete justification for William's dismissalof a set of men whom he had consented to place in power. Peel did notregard the mere necessity for a rearrangement consequent on LordAlthorp's removal to the House of Lords as anything like a fittingexcuse for the break-up of the whole Government. More than that, Peelhad no confidence in the chances of a new Conservative Administrationjust then. It was not encouraging to a statesman about to form hisfirst Cabinet to have to believe, as Peel did, that such a Governmentwould be left very much at the mercy of the Opposition, and in morethan one important or even impending question might at any time beoutvoted in the House of Commons. None the less, however, was Peelresolved to stand by his sovereign, who appeared to be in a difficulty. The same sense of public duty, according to his conception of publicduty, which guided him at every great crisis of his political careerdecided his action in this instance. He set himself to the work offorming an Administration in which he proposed to take under his owncharge the functions of {238} Prime Minister and the office ofChancellor of the Exchequer. He knew that he could count on thesupport of the Duke of Wellington, and to Wellington he offered thepost of Secretary for Foreign Affairs, which was at once accepted. Then he wrote to Sir James Graham and to Lord Stanley. Both refused. Sir James Graham, although he declined to accept office, promised Peelall the support he could give consistently with his own judgment andhis own political views. Lord Stanley wrote a letter to Peel which haseven still both historical and personal interest. Its historicalinterest consists in the clear exposition it contains of the variousquestions which then divided the two great parties in the State. Itspersonal interest is found in the fact that it shows Lord Stanley asthe convinced reformer, who sees no possibility of his joining anAdministration about to be created by a statesman whose whole careerhas been antagonistic to political reform. Those of us who rememberthe brilliant orator Lord Derby, by whom the office of Prime Ministerwas three times held, find it hard to think of him as anything but asteady-going Conservative at heart, and may be excused a shock ofsurprise when they are bidden to remember that in 1834 the same man, then Lord Stanley, declared that he could not serve under Peel becausePeel was not reformer enough all round to secure his co-operation. Lord Stanley pointed out, in his letter, that between Peel and himselfthere had been a complete difference of opinion on almost every greatpublic question except that which concerned the State Church, and hereminded Peel that so lately as on the occasion of Lord Grey'sretirement from office the Duke of Wellington had seized theopportunity of publicly condemning the whole policy of the WhigAdministration. Under these circumstances Lord Stanley declared that, in his opinion, it would be injurious to his own character andinjurious to the new Government as well if he were to accept the offerof a place in such an Administration. He had left Lord Grey'sGovernment because he differed with Lord Grey on one question alone, which then had to be dealt with, and he could not join a Government ofwhich {239} Peel and Wellington were to be the leaders, from whom hehad differed on almost every great political question that had engagedthe attention of the country during his time. 

[Sidenote: 1834--Peel forms his Ministry]

Peel had nothing for it but to go on with his task and form the bestAdministration he could. Lord Lyndhurst was once again to be LordChancellor, and in such a man Peel certainly found a colleague who hadno superior either as a lawyer or a debater in the House of Lords. Some of us who can still remember having heard Lord Lyndhurst deliverlong and powerful speeches in the House of Lords, compelling theattention and the admiration of every listener when the orator himselfhad long left his eightieth year behind him, will feel sure that SirRobert Peel's first Administration was adequately represented in thehereditary chamber. It is not necessary to introduce here a full listof the new Ministry, but there are three names which call for specialmention. These are the names of three young men who then enteredministerial office for the first time, and with whom the worldafterwards became well acquainted, each according to his different way. One was William Ewart Gladstone, who became Junior Lord of theTreasury, and whom the world has long since recognized as the greateststatesman and the greatest master of the House of Commons known to thereign of Queen Victoria. The second was Sidney Herbert, who was formany years one of the most ready, accomplished, and brilliant debatersin that House, and whose premature death cut short a career that hadseemed to be steadily rising from day to day. The third was a manwhose political life has long since been forgotten, but whose name iswell remembered because of his success in quite a differentfield--Winthrop Mackworth Praed, the charming author of delightfulverses, the founder of that English school of minstrelsy which singsfor the drawing-room and the club-room, the feasts and the fashions, the joys and the well-ordered troubles of the West-End. Sidney Herbertand Praed were made joint Secretaries to the Board of Control, thedepartment established by Pitt for directing the Government of India. 

{240}

The new Prime Minister believed that it would be in every way moresuitable to the convenience of the country that he and his colleaguesshould submit their political claims and purposes to the judgment ofthe constituencies by means of a general election. A dissolutionaccordingly took place, and Peel issued an address to the electors ofTamworth, which will always be regarded as an important politicaldocument. Although Peel had been an opponent of the principlesembodied in the Reform Bill, no reformer in the country understoodbetter than he did the impossibility, at such a time, of carrying onthe work of the Government without a thorough understanding between theMinistry and the Parliament, between the Parliament and the publicout-of-doors. No one knew better than Peel that the time had gone by, never to return, when an English minister could rule as an Englishminister even so lately as in the days of Pitt had done, merely by theapproval and the support of a monarch without the approval and supportof a majority of the electors. When, therefore, Peel prepared hisaddress to his Tamworth constituents he knew perfectly well that hiswords were meant, not merely for the friendly ears of the littleconstituency, but for the consideration of the whole country. The samefeeling actuated the great statesman during the entire course of hissubsequent career, and the constituency of Tamworth had therefore theadvantage of being favored from time to time with election addresseswhich form chapters of the highest interest and importance in thehistorical literature of the country. The address which he issued tohis constituents before the general election in December, 1834, proclaimed, in fact, the opening of a new political era in England. 

[Sidenote: 1834-34--Peel's Tamworth address]

Peel made frank announcement that, so far as he and his friends wereconcerned, the controversy about Parliamentary reform had come to anend. By him and by them the decision of Parliament, which sanctionedthe introduction of the Reform Bill of 1832, was accepted as a finalsettlement of the question. Peel declared that he regarded it as "asettlement which no friend to the peace {241} of the country wouldattempt to disturb, either by direct or by insidious means. " Of courseit was not to be understood that Peel had any intention of describingthe Reform Act of 1832 as the last word of the Reformers' creed, andthe close of all possible controversy with regard to the constructionof the whole Parliamentary system. Peel no more meant to convey anyidea of this kind than did Lord John Russell, when he used the wordfinality in connection with the Reform Act, mean to convey the ideathat, according to his conviction, Parliament was never again to beinvited to extend the electoral franchise or to modify the conditionsunder which the votes of the electors were to be given. Theannouncement which Peel made to the electors of Tamworth, and to theworld in general, was that he and his friends recognized theestablishment of the representative principle in English politicallife, accepted the new order of things as a result of a lawful decree, and separated themselves altogether from the antiquated Toryism whichenshrined the old ideas of government as a religious faith, and reveredthe memory of the nomination boroughs, as the Jacobites revered thememory of the Stuarts. With the issue of Peel's Tamworth address inthe December of 1834, the antique Tory, the Tory who made Toryism ofthe ante-reform days a creed and a cult, may be said to disappearaltogether from the ranks of practical English politicians. The Toryof the old school appears, no doubt, here and there through allParliamentary days down to our own time. We saw him in both Houses ofParliament as a heroic, unteachable opponent of Peel himself, of Brightand Cobden, of Gladstone, and sometimes even of Lord Derby and of LordSalisbury, but he was merely a living protest against the succession ofnew ideas, and was no longer to be counted as a practical politician. 

Sir Robert Peel soon saw that he had not gained much by his appeal tothe constituencies. The results of the general election showed thatthe Conservatives had made a considerable addition to their numbers inthe House of Commons, but showed also that they were still in adisheartening minority. The return of the first Reform {242}Parliament had, indeed, exhibited them for the time as completely downin the dust, for there was a majority of more than three hundredagainst them, and now the Liberal majority was hardly more than onehundred. A very hopeful Conservative, or a Conservative who had aprofound faith in the principles of antique Toryism, might fill himselfwith the fond belief that this increase in the Conservative voteforetold a gradual return to the good old days. But Peel was toopractical a statesman to be touched for a moment by any such illusion. He had fully expected some increase in the Tory vote. He knew, as wellas anybody could know, that there had been some disappointment amongthe more advanced and impatient reformers all over the country with theachievements of the first reformed Parliament, and, indeed, with theAct of Reform itself. After victory in a long-contested politicalbattle there comes, almost as a matter of course, a season of relaxedeffort among the ranks of the victors, for which allowance would haveto be made in the mind of such a statesman as Peel, and, in thisinstance, allowance also had to be made for a falling off in theenthusiasm of those who had helped to carry the Reform movement tosuccess, and found themselves in the end left out of all its directadvantages. 

[Sidenote: 1835--The Office of Speaker]

Peel saw at once that his Government must be absolutely at the mercy ofthe Opposition when any question arose on which it suited the purposesof the Opposition leaders to rally their whole forces around them andtake a party division. So far as the ordinary business of the sessionwas concerned, the Ministry might get on well enough, for there musthave been a considerable amount of routine work which would not provokethe Opposition to a trial of strength; but if chance or hostilestrategy should bring about at any moment a controversy which calledfor a strictly party division, then the Government must go down. Nothing can be more trying to a proud-spirited statesman in office thanthe knowledge that he can only maintain his Government, from day today, because, for one reason or another, it does not suit theconvenience of the Opposition to press some vote which must leave himand his colleagues {243} in a distinct minority. Peel had not long towait before he found substantial evidence to justify his most gloomyforebodings. 

The new Parliament met on February 19, 1835. The first trial ofstrength was on the election of a new Speaker. The former occupant ofthe office having been put forward for re-election, the Government werebeaten by a majority of ten. Now this was a very damaging event forthe ministers, and also an event somewhat unusual in the House ofCommons. There is generally a sort of understanding, more or lessdistinctly expressed, that the candidate put forward by the Governmentfor the office of Speaker is to be a man on whom both sides of theHouse can agree. It is obviously undesirable that there should be aparty struggle over the appointment of the official who is assumed tohold an absolutely impartial position and is not supposed to be themere favorite of either side of the House. In later years there hasoften been a distinct arrangement, or, at all events, a clearunderstanding, between the Government and the Opposition on thissubject, and a candidate is not put forward unless there is good reasonto assume that he will be acceptable to the two great politicalparties. In this instance no such understanding existed, or had beensought for. The Opposition set up a candidate of their own, and thenominee of the Government was defeated. There was, however, onecondition in this defeat which, although it did not take away from theominous character of the event, might, to a certain extent, haverelieved Peel from the necessity of regarding it as an absolute partydefeat. The majority had been obtained for the Opposition by thesupport of the Irish members who followed the leadership of DanielO'Connell, and thus Sir Robert Peel saw himself outvoted by acombination of two parties, one of them regarded with peculiar disfavorby the majority of the English public on both sides of the politicalfield. It was something for the followers of the Government to be ableto say that their Liberal opponents had only been able to score asuccess by the help of the unpopular Irish vote, and it became, infact, a new accusation against the {244} Liberals that they had tradedon the favor of O'Connell and his Irish followers. From about thistime the Irish vote has always played an important part in all thestruggles of parties in the House of Commons; and it will be observedthat the English Party, whether Liberal or Tory, against which thatvote is directed is always ready with epithets of scorn and anger forthe English Party for whom that vote has been given. 

[Sidenote: 1835--Peel and the Opposition]

Several other humiliations awaited Peel as the session went on. Sometimes he was saved from defeat on a question of finance by the helpof the more advanced Liberals, who came to his assistance when certainof his own Tory followers were prepared to desert him because his viewson some question of taxation were much too new-fashioned for their ownold-fashioned notions. Every one who has paid any attention toParliamentary history can understand how distressing is the position ofa minister who has no absolute majority at his command, and how moredistressing still is the position of a minister who can only look tochance disruptions and combinations of parties for any possiblemajority. Peel bore himself throughout all the trials of that mosttrying time with indomitable courage and with unfailing skill. Neverduring his whole career did he prove himself more brilliant and morefull of resource than as the leader of what might be called an utterlyhopeless struggle. The highest tribute has been paid to hisnever-failing tact and temper during that trying ordeal by hisprincipal opponent in the House of Commons, Lord John Russell. Russellwas now the leader of the Liberal Opposition in the House of Commons, and the struggle of parties was once again illustrated by a sort ofcontinuous Parliamentary duel between two rival leaders. The samephenomenon had been seen, from time to time, in the days of Queen Anneand in the days of the Georges; and it was seen again, at intervals, during some of the most vivid and fascinating passages of Parliamentaryhistory in the reign of Queen Victoria. 

The crisis, however, came soon to this first Ministry of Sir RobertPeel. Peel had announced, in a reasonable and {245} manful spirit, considering how the task of holding together a Ministry had beenimposed on him and the temptation which it afforded for the attacks ofirresponsible enemies, that he would not resign office on any sideissue or question of purely factitious importance, and that he wouldhold his place unless defeated by a vote of want of confidence or avote of censure. He challenged the leader of the Opposition to testthe feeling of the House by a division on a question of that nature. Lord John Russell refused to take any such course, declaring that hebelieved it his duty to wait and see what might be the nature of themeasures of reform which the Government had promised to introducebefore inviting the House to say whether the Government deserved or didnot deserve its confidence. Some of the measures announced by theGovernment had to do with the reform of the ecclesiastical courts andthe maintenance of Church discipline, and Sir Robert Peel had himselfgiven notice of a measure to deal with the Irish tithe system, theprincipal object of which was understood to be the transfer of theliability of the payment of tithes from the shoulders of the tenant tothe shoulders of the landlord. It was not unreasonable that theOpposition should proclaim it their policy to wait and see what theTory ministers really proposed to do before assailing them with adirect and general vote of want of confidence. Even, however, if theOpposition had been inclined to linger before inviting a real trial ofstrength, there was a feeling growing up all over the country whichseemed impatient of mere episodical encounters leading to nothing inparticular. The leaders of the Opposition had a very distinct policyin their minds, and on March 30, 1835, it found its formal expression. 

Lord John Russell moved a resolution which called upon the House toresolve itself into a committee "in order to consider the present stateof the Church established in Ireland, with the view of applying anysurplus of revenues not required for the spiritual care of its membersto the general education of all classes of the people withoutdistinction of religious persuasion. " Now here, it will be seen, {246}was the battle-ground distinctly marked out on which the two politicalparties must come, sooner or later, to a decisive struggle. About thecollection of tithes, about the imposition of tithes, about the classof the community on whom the direct responsibility for the payment oftithes ought to fall, there might possibly be a basis of agreementfound between Tories and Whigs. But when there arose a question as tothe appropriation of the Church revenues, there the old doctrines andthe new, the old Tories and the new Reformers, came into irreconcilableantagonism. The creed of the Tories was that the revenues of theChurch belonged to the Church itself, and that if the Church had asurplus of funds here or there for any one particular purpose thatsurplus could be applied by it to some of its other purposes, but thatno legislature had any right to say to the Church, "You have more moneyhere than is needed for your own rights, and we have a right to takepart of it away from you and apply it for the uses of the generalpublic. " The Government, therefore, accepted Lord John Russell'sresolution as a distinct challenge to a trial of strength on anessential question of policy. 

[Sidenote: 1835--William Ewart Gladstone]

The debate which followed lasted through four days, and all the membersof the House on both sides took part in it. The reports of thatmomentous debate may be read with the deepest interest even at thisday, when some of the prophecies intended as terrible warnings by someof the Conservative orators have long since been verified as facts, andare calmly accepted by all parties as the inevitable results ofrational legislation. Sir Robert Peel, Lord Stanley, Sir James Graham, and most others who spoke on the Ministerial side spoke with one voice, in warning the House of Commons that if it claimed a right to touch anyof the revenues of the Irish State Church in order to appropriate themfor the general education of the Irish people, the result must be thatthe time would come when the Irish Church itself would no longer beheld sacred against the desecrating hand of the modern reformer, wouldbe treated as no longer necessary to the welfare of the Irish people, and would be severed from the State and left upon a level {247} withthe Roman Catholic Church and the various dissenting denominations. 

One appeal which may be said to run through the whole of the speecheson the side of the Government is familiar to the readers and theaudiences of all political debates, whore any manner of Reform is underdiscussion. "You are asked"--so runs the argument--"to adopt this sortof policy in order to satisfy the demands of a certain class of thepopulation; but how do you know, what guarantee can you give us, thatwhen we have granted these demands they will be content and will notimmediately begin to ask for more? We granted Catholic Emancipation inorder to satisfy Ireland, and now is Ireland satisfied? It was onlythe other day we granted Catholic Emancipation, and now already Irelanddeclares, through her representatives, that she ought to have part ofthe revenues of the Irish State Church taken away from that Church andapplied to the common uses of the Irish people. If she gets even that, will Ireland be contented? Will she not go on to demand repeal of theUnion?" We turn with peculiar interest to the speech of a young Torymember which was listened to with great attention during the debate, and was believed to contain unmistakable promise of an importantpolitical career. So indeed it did, although the promise that careeractually realized was not altogether of the kind which most of itsaudience were led to anticipate. It was the speech of Mr. WilliamEwart Gladstone. "The present motion, " said Mr. Gladstone, "opens aboundless road--it will lead to measure after measure, to expedientafter expedient, till we come to the recognition of the Roman Catholicreligion as the national one. In principle, we propose to give up theProtestant Establishment. If so, why not abandon the politicalgovernment of Ireland and concede the repeal of the legislative union. ""There is no principle, " he went on to say, "on which the ProtestantChurch can be permanently upheld, but that it is the Church whichteaches the truth. " That, he insisted, was the position which theHouse ought to maintain without allowing its decision to be affected bythe mere {248} assertion, even if the assertion were capable of proof, that the revenues of the State Church in Ireland were entirely out ofproportion to the spiritual needs of the Protestant population. Mr. Gladstone, however, had the mind of the financier even in those earlydays of his career, and he was at some pains to argue that thedisproportion between the numbers of the Protestant and the Catholicpopulations in Ireland was not so great as Lord John Russell hadasserted. He made out this part of his case ingeniously enough byincluding in the Protestant population in Ireland all the variousmembers of the dissenting denominations, many or most of whom were aslittle likely to attend the administrations of the Established Churchas the Roman Catholics themselves. 

[Sidenote: 1835--Defeat of Peel's Ministry]

Gladstone's speech was thoroughly consistent in its opposition to LordJohn Russell's resolution on the ground that that resolution, ifpressed to its legitimate conclusion, assailed the whole principle onwhich the State Church in Ireland was founded. "I hope, " he said, "Ishall never live to see the day when such a system shall be adopted inthis country, for the consequences of it to public men will belamentable beyond all description. If those individuals who are calledon to fulfil the high function of administering public affairs shouldbe compelled to exclude from their consideration the elements of truereligion, and to view various strange and conflicting doctrines in thesame light, instead of administering those noble functions, they willbecome helots and slaves. " The weakness of Mr. Gladstone's case wasfound in the fact that he insisted on regarding the State Church inIreland as resting on precisely the same foundations as those whichupheld the State Church in England. The truth was afterwards broughthome to him that every argument which could be fairly used to justifythe maintenance of the State Church in England was but another argumentfor the abolition of the State Church in Ireland--a work which itbecame at last his duty to accomplish. "I shall content myself, " saidDaniel O'Connell in his speech in the debate, "with laying down thebroad principle that the {249} emoluments of a Church ought not to beraised from a people who do not belong to it. Ireland does not ask fora Catholic Establishment. The Irish desire political equality in everyrespect, except that they would not accept a single shilling for theirChurch. "

Sir Robert Peel made a speech which was at once very powerful and veryplausible. It was not, perhaps, pitched in a very exalted key, but itwas full of argument, at once subtle and telling. He challenged theaccuracy of Lord John Russell's figures, and declaimed against theinjustice of inviting the House to pass a resolution founded onstatistics which it had as yet no possible opportunity of verifying oreven of examining. He pointed out that the Government had alreadygiven notice of their intention to bring in measures to deal with thevery question concerned in Lord John Russell's resolution; and he askedwhat sincerity there could be in the purposes of men who professed adesire to amend as quickly as possible the tithe system in Ireland, andwho yet were eager to deprive the Government of any chance of bringingforward the measures which they had prepared in order to accomplishthat very object. The main argument of the speech was directed not somuch against the policy embodied in the resolution of Lord JohnRussell, as against the manner in which it was proposed to carry outthat policy. Sir Robert Peel declared that the object of theOpposition was not to effect any improvement in the relations of theState Church of Ireland and the people of Ireland, but simply andsolely to turn out the Government. Why not, he asked, come to thepoint boldly and at once? Why not bring forward a vote of censure onthe Government, or a vote of want of confidence in the Government, andthus compel them, if defeated, to go out of office, instead ofendeavoring to enforce on them the adoption of a resolution dealingwith questions which the Government had already promised to make thesubject of legislation, and without waiting to hear what manner oflegislation they were prepared to introduce?

There was an eloquent defiance in the closing words of Peel's speech. The great minister knew that defeat was {250} awaiting him, and heshowed himself resolved to meet it half way. At three o'clock on themorning of April 3 the division on the resolution of Lord John Russelltook place. There were 322 votes for the resolution and 289 againstit. The resolution was therefore carried by a majority of 33. Thestudent of history will observe with interest that the abolition of theIrish State Church was the result of a series of resolutions carried byMr. Gladstone in the House of Commons in 1868, and afterwards embodiedin an act of legislation. 

[Sidenote: 1835--Melbourne and Brougham]

The debate on Lord John Russell's resolution was carried on for a fewdays longer, but it was chiefly concerned with mere questions as to theform in which the Ministry were called upon to give effect to the wishof the majority, and submit the resolution to the King. There was noheart or practical purpose in these debates, for everybody already knewwhat the end must be. On April 8 Sir Robert Peel announced to theHouse that he could not take any part in giving effect to theresolution, and that, therefore, he and his colleagues had determinedon resigning their offices. The course taken by Peel was thoroughlyhonest, consistent, and upright, and Lord John Russell bore prompt andwilling testimony to the constitutional propriety of the retiring PrimeMinister's resolve. The Peel Ministry had come to its end. Thecountry had been put to the trouble and expense of a general election, valuable time had been wasted, legislative preparations had been thrownaway, and everything was now back again in just the same condition aswhen the King made up his mind to dismiss the Melbourne Administration. The whole blame for the muddle rested on the King, who now foundhimself compelled to take up again with Lord Melbourne just as ifnothing had happened. The King, indeed, made an attempt to induce LordGrey to come out of his retirement and form another Ministry; but LordGrey was not to be prevailed upon to accept such an invitation, andWilliam had to gulp down his personal objections and invite LordMelbourne to come back once more and take charge of the Government ofthe country. 

{251}

Lord Melbourne had no difficulty in forming an Administration, and itwas on the whole very much the same in its composition as that whichKing William had so rudely dismissed only a few months before. Butthere were some new names in the list, and there was one veryremarkable omission. Lord Brougham was not one of the members of thenew Government. Lord Melbourne had made up his mind that if, perhaps, there could be no living without such a colleague, there certainlycould be no living with him, and he preferred the chance to thecertainty. The greatest sensation was produced all over the countrywhen it was found that Lord Brougham was to have nothing to do with thenew Administration. In and out of Parliament the question became asubject of keen and vehement discussion. The energy and the eloquenceof Brougham had held a commanding place among the forces by whichParliamentary reform had been effected, and the wonder was how anyReform Ministry could venture to carry on the work of government, notmerely without the co-operation of such a man, but with everylikelihood of his active and bitter hostility. At one time the reportwent abroad, and found many ready believers, that there were periods inBrougham's life when his great intellect became clouded, as Chatham'shad been at one time, and that the Liberal Ministry found it thereforeimpossible to avail themselves of his fitful services. Lord Melbournehimself once made an emphatic appeal to his audience in the House ofLords, after Lord Brougham had delivered a speech there ofcharacteristic power and eloquence. Melbourne invited the House toconsider calmly how overmastering must have been the reasons whichcompelled any body of rational statesmen to deprive themselves of sucha man's co-operation. It would appear, however, that the reasons whichinfluenced Melbourne and his colleagues were given by Brougham's ownpassionate and ungovernable temper, his impatience of all discipline, his sudden changes of mood and purpose, his overmastering egotism, andhis frequent impulse to strike out for himself and to disregard allconsiderations of convenience or compromise, all {252} calculations asto the effect of an individual movement on the policy of anAdministration. 

[Sidenote: 1835--Melbourne and the Irish Members]

From that time Brougham had nothing more to do with ministerial work. He became merely an independent, a very independent, member of theHouse of Lords. To the close of his long career he was a commandingfigure in the House and in the country, but it was an individualfigure, an eccentric figure, whose movements must always exciteinterest, must often excite admiration, but from whom guidance andinspiration were never to be expected. Even on some of the greatquestions with which the brightest part of his career had beenespecially associated he often failed to exercise the influence whichmight have been expected from a man of such gifts and suchachievements. Through the remainder of his life he could always arousethe attention of the country, and indeed of the civilized world, whenhe so willed, but his work as a political leader was done. 

The office of Lord Chancellor was left for a while vacant, or, todescribe the fact in more technical language, was put into commission. The commission was made up of the Master of the Rolls, theVice-Chancellor, and one of the Judges. After a time Lord Cottenhamwas made Lord Chancellor. Lord John Russell became Home Secretary, andLord Palmerston was Foreign Secretary. Among the new names on the listof the Administration was that of Sir Henry Parnell, who becamePaymaster-General and Paymaster of the Navy, and that of Sir GeorgeGrey, who was Under-Secretary of the Colonies, and afterwards rose tohold high office in many a Government, and had at one time the somewhatundesirable reputation of being the rapidest speaker in the House ofCommons. 

King William must have put a strong constraint upon himself when hefound that he had to receive, on terms at least of civility, so many ofthe men, as ministers, whom he had abruptly dismissed from his servicenot long before. For a considerable time he put up with them ratherthan received them, and maintained a merely official relationship withthem so far even as not to invite them to dinner. {253} After a time, however, his Majesty somewhat softened in temper; the relations betweenhim and his advisers became less strained; and he even went so far asto invite the members of the Cabinet to dinner, and expressed in hisinvitation the characteristic wish that each guest would drink at leasttwo bottles of wine. When the construction of the new Ministry hadbeen completed, Parliament reassembled on April 18; but that meetingwas little more than of formal character, as the Houses had again toadjourn in order to enable the new members who were members of theHouse of Commons to resign and seek, according to constitutional usage, for re-election at the hands of their constituents. The only publicinterest attaching to the meeting of Parliament on April 18 was foundin an attempt, made by two Tory peers, to extract from Lord Melbournesome public explanation as to his dealings with O'Connell and the Irishparty. Lord Melbourne was quite equal to the occasion, and nothingcould be drawn from him further than the declaration that he hadentered into no arrangements whatever with O'Connell; that if the Irishmembers should, on any occasion, give him their support, he should behappy to receive it, but that he had not taken and did not mean to takeany steps to secure it. The incident is worth noting because it servesto illustrate, once again, the effect of the new condition which hadbeen introduced into the struggles of the two great political partiesby the passing of the Catholic Emancipation Act, and the consequentadmission of Irish Catholic members into the House of Commons. 

Some of the members of the new Administration were not successful whenthey made their appeal to their old constituencies. Lord John Russell, for instance, was beaten in South Devonshire by a Tory antagonist, anda vacancy had to be made for him in the little borough of Stroud, therepresentative of which withdrew in order to oblige the leaders of hisparty, and obtained, in return for his act of self-sacrifice, an officeunder Government. Lord Palmerston was placed in a difficulty of thesame kind, and a vacancy was made for him in the borough of {254}Tiverton by the good-nature and the public spirit of its sittingrepresentative, and from that time to the end of his long career LordPalmerston continued to be the member for Tiverton, which indeed won, by that fact alone, a conspicuous place in Parliamentary history. There were other disturbances of the same kind in the relations of themembers of the new Government and their former constituents, and it wasclear enough that a certain reaction was still working against thepolitical impulse which had carried the Reform measures to success. Still, it was clear that the new Government had come into power as aGovernment of reformers, and Lord Melbourne found himself compelled togo on with the work of reform. Nothing could be less in keeping withhis habits and the inclinations of his easy-going nature. It used tobe said of him that whenever he was urged to set about any work of thekind his instinctive impulse always was to meet the suggestion with thequestion: "Why can't you let it alone?" Now, however, he had in hisCabinet some men, like Lord John Russell, whose earnestness in thecause of Reform was genuine and unconquerable; and if Lord Melbournewas too indolent to press forward reforms on his own account, he wasalso too indolent to resist such a pressure when put on him by others. 

[Sidenote: 1835--Foundation of municipal bodies]

There was one great pressing and obvious reform which remained to beaccomplished and ought naturally to follow on the reorganization of theParliamentary system. That was the reorganization of the municipalsystem. The municipal work of the country, the management of all thevarious and complicated relations which concerned the local affairs ofthe whole community, had become a mere chaos of anomalies, anachronisms, and, in too many instances, of reckless mismanagement anddownright corruption. If the sort of so-called representation whichprevailed in the Parliamentary constituencies was, up to 1832, anabsurdity and a fraud, it was not perhaps on the whole quite so absurdor altogether so fraudulent as that which set itself up for arepresentative system in the arrangements of the municipalcorporations. As in the case of the {255} Parliamentary system, so inthe case of the municipal system, the organization had begun with anintelligible principle to guide it; but, during the lapse of years andeven of centuries, the original purpose had been swamped by the gradualand always increasing growth of confusion and corruption. Themunicipal arrangements of England had begun as a practical protestagainst the feudal system. While the feudal laws or customs stillprevailed, the greater proportion of the working-classes were reallylittle better than serfs at the absolute control of their feudal lordsand masters. The comparatively small proportion of men who formed thetrading class of the community found themselves compelled to devisesome kind of arrangement for the security of themselves, their traffic, and their property against the dominion of the ruling class. It waspractically impossible that a mere serf could devote his energies to acraft or trade with any hope of independence for himself or any chanceof contributing to the prosperity of his working and trading neighbors. The trading, manufacturing, and commercial classes in each localitybegan to form themselves into groups, or what might be called guilds, of their own, with the object of common protection, in order to securean opening for their traffic and their industry, and for thepreservation of the earnings and the profits which came of their skilland energy. These trading groups asserted for themselves their rightto free action in all that regarded the regulation of their work andthe secure disposal of their profits, and thus they became what mightbe called governing bodies in each separate locality. One commonprinciple of these governing bodies was that no one should be allowedto become a craftsman or trader in any district if he were a serf, andthey claimed, and gradually came to maintain, the right to investothers with the title and privileges of freemen. This right offreemanship soon became hereditary, and the male children of a freemanwere to be freemen themselves. In many communities the man who marrieda freeman's daughter acquired, if he had not been free before, theright of freemanship. No qualification of residence was necessary to{256} enable a man thus to become free. The self-organized community, whatever it might be, had the right of creating any stranger a freemanaccording as it thought fit. 

[Sidenote: 1835--Reform of municipal corporations]

We find this ancient system still in harmless and graceful illustrationwhen a public man who has distinguished himself in the service of thecountry is honored by admission to the freedom of some ancient city. But in the far-off days, when the system was in practical operation, the unlimited right of creating freemen came to mean that in manycities, towns, and localities of all descriptions a number of outsiderswho had no connection by residence, property, or local interest of anykind with the district, and who were wholly irresponsible to the publicopinion of the local community, had the right to interfere in themanagement of its affairs and to become members of its municipal body. For the local traders soon began to form themselves into councils orcommittees for the management of the local affairs, and, in fact, became what might be described as self-elected municipal corporations;trustees who had assumed the trust for themselves; local law-makerswhose term of office was lifelong, and against whose decision there wasno available court of appeal. In some cases these local bodiesactually arrogated to themselves the right of passing penal laws, andtrying cases and awarding punishments. The local municipalitiessometimes exercised the power of appointing Recorders to preside overtheir courts of law, and it happened in many instances that themunicipal body made no condition as to the Recorder being a member ofany branch of the legal profession. It is hardly necessary to pointout some of the inevitable consequences of such a system. Themunicipal bodies voted what salaries they pleased out of the localfunds, and named according to their pleasure the persons to receive thesalaries. They disposed of the corporate revenues in any way theythought fit--and, indeed, in many cases they claimed and annexed ascorporate property possessions that had always, up to the time of theannexation, been supposed to belong to the public at large. Theyusurped for themselves all manner of privileges and {257} so-calledrights, and, if they thought fit, offered them for purchase to thehighest bidder. The whole governing body often consisted of a verysmall number of residents who had elected themselves to office, and asthey had the power of making themselves very disagreeable to disputantsthey did not often find individuals public spirited enough to challengetheir right of local control. It happened much more frequently that ifany man were strong enough to make his opposition inconvenient oruncomfortable for the local rulers, they got over the trouble byprevailing on him to become one of themselves, to share theirprivileges and profits, and to strengthen their authority. A localmagnate, the head of some great family, a peer of old descent, wasoften thus "nobbled"--to use a modern colloquialism--and was allowed tomake as many freemen as he pleased and to take whatever part he wouldin the control of municipal affairs. 

It would be superfluous to say that the municipalities became aconstantly working instrument in the hands of this or that politicalparty. Wherever the Whigs or the Tories were strong, there theconstituencies, such as they were, could always be placed at theabsolute disposal of some local magnate. Even in the districts wherethere was but little actual corruption there was often the mostextravagant waste of the public funds and public property, and the mostutter neglect of all the ordinary ways of business and of economy. Fora long time the increasing evils of the system had been attracting theattention and arousing the alarm of enlightened and public-spirited menall over the country, and of course when the great measure of reformhad dealt with the political system, it was obvious that the reforminghand must before long touch the municipal system as well. Shortlyafter the passing of the Reform Bill Lord Althorp had appointed acommission to inquire into the whole history, growth, and working ofthe municipal corporations, and the report had brought out an immenseamount of systematized information on which the Liberal statesmen, nowonce again in office, were determined to act. Lord Melbourne intrustedthe task of {258} preparing and conducting through the House of Commonsa measure for this purpose to the capable hands of Lord John Russell, who was now the leader of the Government in that House. Lord JohnRussell's measure was, in fact, the foundation of the whole municipalsystem which we see spread over the country in our times. It proposedto begin by abolishing altogether the freeman system and placing theelection of local governing bodies in the hands of residents who paid acertain amount of taxation. In fact, it made the municipal bodiesrepresentative in just the same sense as the Parliamentaryconstituencies had been made representative by the Reform Act. Itremodelled altogether the local law courts and legal arrangements ofthe municipalities, and ordered that the appointment of Recordersshould be in the hands of the Crown, that each Recorder was to be abarrister of a certain standing, and that a Recorder should benominated for every borough which undertook to provide a suitablesalary for the occupant of the office. Provision was also made for theproper management of charitable trusts and funds. 

[Sidenote: 1835--The Municipal Reform Bill]

The measure was to apply to 183 boroughs, not including the metropolis, with an average of 11, 000 persons to each borough. Some of the largerboroughs were to be divided into wards, and in most cases the intentionof the measure was that the boundaries of the Parliamentary boroughshould be the boundaries of the municipal borough as well. Thegoverning body of each municipality was to consist of a Mayor andCouncillors, the Councillors to be elected by resident ratepayers. Itwas proposed that the rights of living freemen were to be maintained, but as each life lapsed the right was to be extinguished, and thus thewhole freeman system was to die out and all exclusive tradingprivileges were to be abolished. The Bill, as introduced by Lord JohnRussell, only applied to England and Wales; but O'Connell demanded thatIreland should also be included in the reform, and it was finallyagreed that a Bill of the same nature should be brought in for Ireland, and that arrangements should be made with the Scottish representativesto have the provisions of the {259} measure applied also to Scotland sofar as might be consistent with the usages and the desire of theScottish people. 

Sir Robert Peel did not offer any direct opposition to the measure, although he criticised it severely enough in some of its provisions. His speech, however, was distinctly a declaration in favor of somecomprehensive scheme of municipal reform, and might fairly have beenregarded rather as a help than as a hinderance to the purposes of theGovernment. The example set by Sir Robert Peel had naturally muchinfluence over the greater number of the Conservative party, and onlysome very old-fashioned Conservatives seemed inclined to make a standagainst the measure. Mr. Grote seized the opportunity to introduce amotion for the adoption of the ballot in municipal elections, but it ishardly necessary to say that he did not secure support enough on eitherside of the House to win success for his proposition. The Bill passedthrough the House of Commons without any important change in itscharacter, but it met with very serious maltreatment in the House ofLords. The majority of the peers did not see their way to compass theactual rejection of the Bill, especially after the liberal andstatesmanlike spirit in which Sir Robert Peel had dealt with it; butthey set themselves to work with the object of rendering it as nearlyuseless as they could for the purposes which its promoters had in view. Lord Lyndhurst led the opposition to the Bill, and he could, when he sopleased, become the very narrowest of Tories, while he had ability andplausibility not included in the intellectual stock of any other Torythen in the House of Lords. Under this leadership the Tory peers sodisfigured and mangled the Bill that before long its own authors couldhardly have recognized it as the work of their hands. The peers notonly restored all, or nearly all, the abuses and anomalies which themeasure as it left the House of Commons had marked for utter abolition, but they even went so far as to introduce into their version of theBill some entirely new and original suggestions for the creation ofabuses up to that time unknown to the existing municipal system. 

{260}

The Bill thus diversified had, of course, to go back to the House ofCommons, and it is hardly necessary to say that the House of Commonscould not, as the Parliamentary phrase goes, agree with the Lords'amendments. Peel once again took a statesmanlike course, and stronglyadvised the House of Lords not to press their absurd and objectionablealterations. In the House of Lords itself the Duke of Wellington, acting as he almost always did under the influence of Peel, recommendedthe Tory peers not to carry their opposition too far, and before longLord Lyndhurst, who was by temperament and intellect a very shrewd andpractical man, with little of the visionary or the fanatic about him, thought it well to accept Wellington's advice, and to urge itsacceptance on his brother Conservatives. Lord John Russell recommendedthe House of Commons to accept a compromise on a few insignificantdetails in no wise affecting the general purposes of the measure, inorder to soothe the wounded feelings of the peers and enable them toyield with the comforting belief that after all their resistance hadnot been wholly in vain. The struggle was over, and on September 7, 1835, the measure became law in the same shape, to all practicalpurposes, as that which it wore when it left the House of Commons afterits third reading there, and thus secured for Great Britain and Irelandthe system of municipal government which has been working to this day. 

{261}

CHAPTER LXXVIII. 

STILL THE REIGN OF REFORM. 

[Sidenote: 1836--The Universities of London]

The movement for the diffusion of education among the people had beenmaking steady progress during the reign of William the Fourth, and someof the most distinct and lasting memorials of that movement have cometo be associated with the history of the reign. One of these was thegranting of a charter for the establishment of a great university whichwas to bear the name of the capital, and was to confer its degrees, itshonors, and its offices without any conditions as to the religiousprofession of those whom it educated, and whom it taught and qualifiedby appointment to conduct the education of others. The oldUniversities of Oxford and Cambridge were then directly associated withthe State Church, and only gave the stamp of their approval and theright to teach to those who professed the religion established by law. There had been growing up, for some time, a feeling in the communitythat there was need for a system of university teaching which should beopen alike to the members of all creeds and denominations, and even tothose who did not profess to subscribe to the doctrines of anyparticular creed, or to enroll themselves in the ranks of anyparticular denomination. The institutions which are now known asUniversity College, London, and the University of London are among themost remarkable growths of this movement. After years of effort thecharters for these institutions were granted by King William in 1836, and it is needless to say that University College has played a greatpart in the spreading of education among the middle and poorer classesthroughout the country. Henry Brougham was one of the most activepromoters of the effort to bring the higher education and {262} itshonors within the reach of all classes and creeds, and his name willalways be distinctly associated with the rapid progress made in thespread of knowledge during the earlier part of the nineteenth century. Brougham was one of the founders and promoters of the "PennyCyclopaedia for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, " which delightedsome of our grandfathers, amazed and bewildered others, and filled yetothers with a holy horror at the daring effort to upset all thewholesome distinctions of ranks and classes by cramming the lowerorders with an amount of knowledge wholly unsuited to their subordinatecondition, and unfitting them for the proper discharge of the dutiesassociated with that station in life to which it had pleased Providenceto call them. 

Brougham also took a leading part in the founding of the BritishAssociation for the Advancement of Science, which was established bySir David Brewster, Sir Roderick Murchison, and many other men famousin science and in letters in 1831. It has been holding its annualmeetings in all the great cities and towns of these islands ever since, and is not likely to be interrupted in the continuance of its work. The British Association was the subject of a good deal of cheapridicule in its early days, and caricaturists, most of them long sinceforgotten, delighted in humorous illustrations of the oddities by whichsocial life was to be profusely diversified when science was taught atpopular meetings, and not merely men, but even women and young women, could sit in the public hall and listen to great professors discoursingon the construction of the earth and the laws which regulate themovements of the heavenly bodies. The present generation has almostcompletely forgotten even the fact that the British Association wasonce a familiar and favorite subject for the pen and pencil ofsatirists. "The schoolmaster is abroad" was an expression used byBrougham to illustrate the educational movement which was going on inhis time, and which he did as much as any man could have done to setand to keep in motion. King William himself, we may be sure, took onlya very moderate interest in all these goings {263} on, but, at allevents, he did not stand in the way of the general educationalmovement; and indeed he gave it a kindly word of patronage andencouragement whenever it seemed a part of his State functions tosanction the progress of science by his royal recognition. 

[Sidenote: 1831--The press-gang]

Among the many reforms accomplished in this reign of reform was thatwhich effected the practical abolition of the system of impressment forthe Navy, that system which had so long worked its purposes through theaction of what was familiarly known as the press-gang. The press-gangsystem had been in force from very remote days indeed, for it is shownby statute and by record to have been in operation before 1378. In1641 the practice was declared illegal by Parliament; but Parliamentmight just as well not have troubled itself upon the subject, for theimpressment of seamen went on just as if nothing had happened. Whenever seamen were required to man the royal fleet in time of war, the press-gang instantly came into operation. Its mode of action wassimple and straight-forward, and consisted of the forcible arrest andcomplete capture of merchant seamen and fishermen, or stalwart youngmen of any kind, in seaport towns, who looked as if they had seenservice on some kind of sailing craft. The ordinary practice was thatan officer and a party of seamen and marines landed from some ships ofwar in the harbor, and seized and carried off any number of men whoseemed to them suitable for their purpose, and dragged them asprisoners on board war vessels, where they were compelled to serveuntil such time as their help might be no longer needed. 

The literature of England, almost down to our own times, is diversifiedhere and there by illustrations of the scenes which were created in ourseaport towns by this practice. Smollett has more than one animatedpicture of this kind. The sea stories of Captain Marryat's days aboundin such illustrations, and even romance of the higher order, and poetryitself, have found subjects for picturesque and pathetic narrative inthe stories of young men thus torn from their families without amoment's {264} notice, and compelled to go on a ship of war and fightthe foreign enemy at sea. The pay of an able seaman in a ship of warwas, in those times, very poor; the life was one of hardship, and therewas little to tempt a young man of ordinary ways and temperament toenter the naval service of his sovereign. The seaport towns and thetowns on the great rivers were called upon by royal authority to supplya certain proportionate number of men for service in the Navy, and thelocal governing bodies did their best, we may be sure, by the offer ofbounties and other encouragements, to induce young men to volunteer forthe sea. In times of war, however, when sudden demands were made onthe part of the Crown for the efficient manning of the Navy, theseencouragements and temptations often failed to procure anything likethe required amount of voluntary service, and then it was that thepress-gang came into work to meet the demand by force. 

[Sidenote: 1835--Resisting the press-gang]

During the long wars which followed the outbreak of the FrenchRevolution the press-gang had a busy time of it. Vessels of war werein the constant habit of summoning merchant vessels to hand over acertain number of their seamen, and the merchant vessels were broughtto just as if they had been the cruisers of the enemy, and were boardedby force, whenever force seemed necessary, and compelled to supply therequisite number. It sometimes happened that the captain of a vesselfailed to understand the meaning of the peremptory summons issued tohim, and he was then promptly brought to an understanding of thesituation by the shot of the war vessel and the appearance of an armedboarding party on his own decks. Nor was it even a very unusual eventfor the captain of the merchant vessel to offer a resistance, and thenthere was a regular sea-fight between the British war ship and theBritish merchantman, in which, of course, the latter was very sooncompelled to acknowledge the validity of the royal warrant. 

In the ordinary course of things, however, the captain of the warvessel sent an officer and a party of men on shore, and their businesswas to make any captures they {265} pleased, in that part of the townwhere men fit for service at sea were most likely to be found. Thereare stories told, and told on historic evidence as truth, about younghusbands thus captured and thrown into prison to await their removal tosome war vessel off the coast, and whose wives or mothers could deviseno better means for their rescue than to obtain an interview with themin the prison, and there contrive so to mutilate the hands of thecaptives through the bars of the cell as to render them unfit forservice in the Royal Navy. Sometimes, when it became known that thepress-gang was about to visit that part of the town where seafaring menwere likely to be found, the population of the quarter rallied indefence of their townsmen, and offered just such resistance to theemissaries of the naval authorities as they would have offered to aninvading enemy. Streets were barricaded; from the high windows ofhouses stones were hurled down and volleys of musketry were fired;crowds of armed men, and even sometimes of armed women, met theinvaders in the street itself and disputed their progress inch by inch. 

In the lower quarters of Portsmouth and other seaport towns such sceneswere of frequent occurrence. The whole system had among its otherharmful effects a very damaging influence on the Navy itself and on itsdiscipline. The press-gang was not very choice in making up itscontributions of recruits for the fleet. No great pains were takenwith a view to obtain certificates as to character and conduct. Thosewho formed the recruiting expedition were only too ready to seize anystrapping young men whom they found loitering about the streets andlanes of the lower quarters in a seaport town. These strapping youngmen often turned out to be rising young men of the criminal classes, but their limbs and muscles made them like some of Falstaff's recruits, "good enough to toss--food for powder, " and they were promptly swoopedupon and carried off to serve in his Majesty's Navy. Such captives asthese, when put on board a vessel of war and compelled to serve asseamen there, had the influence which might have been expected fromthem over the habits of the whole crew. {266} The severest and eventhe most savage methods of discipline were often found necessary toforce such men into habits of obedience and into anything like decentconduct. Flogging then, and for long after, prevailed in the Navy andin the Army, and one of the most familiar arguments in favor of keepingup that form of discipline was found in the fact that in many cases thenew recruits might have corrupted the habits of a whole ship's companyif they had not been compelled by frequent floggings to obey orders, submit themselves to rules, and conduct themselves with decency. 

For a long time a strong feeling had been growing up amongphilanthropists and reformers of all kinds against the practice ofimpressment and against the discipline of the "cat, " as the flogginginstrument was commonly termed. The philanthropists and the reformersgenerally were met by the old sort of familiar argument. They weretold that it would be utterly impossible to man a navy if thepress-gang were to be abolished, and equally impossible to keep theNavy up to its work and in decent condition if seamen were no longerliable to the punishment of the lash. The innovators were askedwhether they knew better how to raise and maintain an efficient Navythan did the naval authorities, on whose shoulders rested theresponsibility of defending the shores of England from foreigninvasion. Those who made themselves conspicuous by their advocacy ofwhat were then beginning to be called humanitarian principles wereroundly accused of want of patriotism, and it was often suggested thatthey were anti-English in their sentiments and their instincts, andwere persons who would probably, on the whole, rather welcome theforeign invader than lend a hand to drive him back. The spirit ofhumanity and of reform was in the air, however, and in the reformedParliament there were many men who had as good a gift of eloquence asthe best of their opponents, and who could not be frightened out of anypurpose on which they had set their minds and hearts. In 1835 theGovernment of Lord Melbourne brought in a measure for the abolition ofthe press-gang {267} system and for limitation of compulsory service inthe Navy to a period of five years. This measure not only had its owndirect and immediate beneficial effects, but it also did much toprepare the way for the abolition of flogging. Many years, indeed, hadto pass before this latter reform could be accomplished, but it wasclear that, when the manning of the Navy no longer brought with it itscaptures from the criminal classes, the time was coming for the gradualadoption of a system of discipline more in accordance with theprinciples of humanity and the character of a noble service. As wehave seen in all previous experiences of reform, the forebodings of theanti-reformers proved to be utterly false alarms in regard to themanning and the discipline of the Navy. We have seen some foreign warssince the days of William the Fourth, and we have heard alarms offoreign invasion again and again. But the Navy, under its improvedconditions, has never been in want of volunteers to man it, and thegreatest lovers of peace have always proclaimed it to be the surest andbest defence of the country. There were many leading men in the Houseof Commons since those days who persistently demanded a reduction inthe Army on the very ground that England could safely defy any foreignfoe so long as she had the bulwark of such a Navy. 

[Sidenote: 1840--The new Houses of Parliament]

One great, solid, and picturesque memorial is destined to associate thereign of William the Fourth with the history of English architecture. We speak of the Houses of Parliament which stand on the banks of theriver, and thus have the Thames on one side and Westminster Abbey onthe other. The great range of halls, towers, and terraces, arches, squares, and court-yards, which, until comparatively recent days, wereoften described in common phrase as the New Houses of Parliament, owetheir origin and their plan, although not their complete construction, to the reign of William the Fourth. On the evening of October 16, 1834, the old buildings in which the Lords and the Commons used toassemble were completely destroyed by fire. The fire broke out sosuddenly on that evening and spread with such extraordinary rapiditythat many of those {268} who were engaged in occupations of one kind oranother in various parts of the buildings had much difficulty inescaping with their lives. The flames spread so fast that in an almostincredibly short space of time the two Houses of Parliament, and almostall the offices, residences, and other buildings attached to them, wereseen to be devoted to hopeless ruin. For a while it seemed almostcertain that Westminster Hall itself must be involved in the commondestruction, and even the noble Abbey, with its priceless memorialtreasures, appeared destined to become a mere ruin of shattered stones. The arrangements for the extinguishing of fires were rude and poor andinefficient in those days when compared with the systematized servicewhich is employed in our own, and for a considerable time those whohurried to the spot, charged with the duty of combating theconflagration, appeared to do little better than get in each other'sway and only give new chances to each fresh eruption. The tide in theriver was very low, too, when the destroying work began, and it washard indeed to bring any great body of water to bear upon the flames. As the tide rose, however, it became easy to make more effectiveefforts. At last it was found that Westminster Abbey might beconsidered perfectly safe. So was Westminster Hall, that noblehistorical enclosure, the Hall which saw the trial of William Wallace, of Charles the First, of Somers, and of Warren Hastings, the hall whichcelebrated the coronation of so many kings, which boasts of being theoldest chamber in Europe held in continuous occupation up to thepresent day, the largest hall in Europe unsupported by pillars. It waspreserved, to be the grand entrance and vestibule to both the Houses ofParliament. But the chambers in which, up to that day, the Lords andCommons had conducted their legislative work were utterly destroyed. 

[Sidenote: 1834--Burning of the old Parliament Houses]

At first it was assumed, as is almost always the assumption in the caseof any great conflagration, that the work of destruction had been theoutcome of an incendiary plot, and for a while a wild idea spreadabroad that some modern Guy Fawkes had succeeded where his predecessorhad {269} completely failed. But it was soon made clear and certainthat the whole calamity, if indeed it can be called much of a calamity, had been the result of a mere accident. A careless workman, aspiringto nothing more than a quick release from his labor, and not destinedto the fame of the aspiring youth who fired the Ephesian dome, hadbrought about the ruin which bequeathed to England and to the world thevast and noble structure of Westminster Palace. The workman wasengaged in burning up a number of the old, disused wooden tallies whichonce used to be employed in the Court of Exchequer, and he heaped toolarge a bundle of them on the fire. At an unlucky moment a flamesuddenly blazed up which caught hold of the furniture in the room, andin another moment set the whole building on fire, and then created thevast conflagration which wrought so much destruction. 

We have expressed a certain doubt as to whether the burning of the oldHouses of Parliament is really to be regarded as a national calamity, and the doubt is founded partly on the admitted fact that the chamberswhich existed before the fire were quite unequal in size and inaccommodation to the purposes for which they were designed, and partlyon the architectural magnificence of the buildings which succeededthem. The Lords and Commons found accommodation where they could whilepreparations were in progress for the building of new and betterchambers, and a Parliamentary committee was soon appointed to considerand report upon the best means of providing the country with morecommodious and more stately Houses of Parliament. The committeeventured on a recommendation which was considered, at the time, a mostdaring piece of advice. The recommendation was that the contract forthe erection of the new Houses of Parliament should be thrownabsolutely open to public competition. Nothing like that proposal hadever been heard of under similar conditions in English affairs up tothat time. What seemed to most persons the most natural and properplan--the seemly, becoming, and orderly plan--would have been to allowthe sovereign or some great State {270} personage to select the Courtarchitect who might be thought most fitting to be intrusted with sogreat a task, and let him work out, as best he could, the pleasure ofhis illustrious patron. The committee, however, were able to carrytheir point, and the contract for the great work was thrown open tounrestricted competition. Out of a vast number of designs submittedfor approval, the committee selected the design sent in by Mr. Barry(afterwards Sir Charles Barry), the famous architect, who has left manyother monuments of his genius to the nation, but whose most conspicuousmonument, assuredly, is found in the pile of buildings which ornamentthe Thames at Westminster. 

[Sidenote: 1840--The seating capacity of the Commons]

Only the mere fact that the selection of the design for the newbuilding was made during the lifetime of William the Fourth connectsthe reign of that monarch with the history of Westminster Palace. Itwas not until the reign of Queen Victoria had made some way that thetowers of the palace began to show themselves above the river; but thenew principle which offered the design for the work to publiccompetition, and the fact that Mr. Barry's design was chosen from allothers, oblige us to associate the building of the new chambers withthe reign of a sovereign whose name otherwise was not likely to beidentified with any triumph of artistic genius. We must not set downto any defects in the architect's constructive skill the fact that thenew House of Commons was almost as inadequate to the properaccommodation of its members as the old House had been. The presentHouse of Commons does not provide sitting accommodation for anythinglike the number of members who are entitled to have seats on itsbenches. Even if the galleries set apart for the use of members only, galleries that are practically useless for the purposes of debate, wereto be filled to their utmost, there still would not be room for nearlyall the members of the House of Commons. But at the time when the newHouse was built, the general impression of statesmen on both sidesseemed to be that, if the chamber were made spacious enough to give aseat to every member, the result would be {271} that the room would betoo large for anything like practical, easy, and satisfactorydiscussion, and that the chamber would become a mere hall ofdeclamation. 

At that time almost all the business of the House, even to its mostminute details of legislation, was done in the debating-chamber itself. The scheme which was adopted a great many years later, and by means ofwhich the shaping of the details of legislative measures is commonlyrelegated to Grand Committees, as the Parliamentary phrase goes, hadnot then found any favor with statesmen. The daily work of the Housewas left, for the most part, in the hands of the members of theAdministration and the leading members of the Opposition, or, in caseswhere the interests of a particular class, or trade, or district wereconcerned, to the men who had special knowledge of each subject oflegislation. It was therefore argued, and with much plausibility, thatto construct a chamber large enough to hold seats for all the memberswould be to impose an insupportable, and at the same time a quiteunnecessary, strain upon the energies and the lungs of thecomparatively small number of men by whom the actual business of theHouse had to be carried on. This argument was used with much effect, not many years before his death, by Mr. Gladstone himself, and therecan be no doubt that it maintained itself against the many successiveproposals which have been made from time to time for the enlargement ofthe representative chamber. In most other legislative halls, on theContinent or in the United States or in Canada, each member has his ownseat, and finds it ready for his occupation at any time; but in theHouse of Commons on great occasions the ordinary member has to come tothe House at the earliest moment when its doors are open, hours andhours before the business begins, in order to have even a chance ofobtaining a seat during the debate, and a large number of members arefated, whatever their energy and their early rising, to sigh for a seatin vain. The question has been raised again and again in the House ofCommons, and all manner of propositions have been brought forward andplans suggested for the {272} enlargement of the debating-chamber, butup to the present the condition of things remains just as it was whenthe new Houses of Parliament were opened in the reign of Queen Victoria. 

[Sidenote: 1840--Ladies in the House of Commons]

Sir Charles Barry's design has the great advantage that it renders anincrease in the size of the House of Commons possible and practicablewithout a complete reconstruction of all that part of the vast buildingwhich belongs to the representative chamber and its various offices. In the opinion of many leading members of the House of Commons thenumber of representatives is needlessly large for the purposes demandedby an adequate and proportionate system of representation, and it isnot difficult to foresee changes which might lead, with universalsatisfaction, to a reduction in the number of members in the House ofCommons. It may also be anticipated that the system that relegates thedetails of legislative measures to the consideration of GrandCommittees may be gradually extended as time goes on, and that thus thecommittee work of the House of Commons itself may grow less and less bydegrees. In either case, or in both cases together, it might easilycome to pass that the present debating-chamber would supply amplesitting room to all its members on every ordinary occasion, although itis hardly possible to understand how, on a night of great debate, witha momentous division impending, the present chamber could be expectedto accommodate the full number of members entitled to claim seatsthere. At all events, it is hardly possible to imagine any conditionof things arising which could call for any alteration in theconstruction of the representative chamber which would be likely toaffect, in the slightest degree, the general character of that palaceof legislation which was planned and founded during the reign ofWilliam the Fourth, was opened in the reign of Queen Victoria, and willbear down to posterity the name of its architect, Sir Charles Barry. 

Before leaving this subject it is of interest to note that the questionof providing accommodation for ladies desiring to listen to the debatesin the House of Commons {273} was brought up more than once during thereign of William the Fourth. Miss Martineau, in her "History of theThirty Years' Peace, " makes grave complaint of the manner in which theproposal for the admission of ladies to hear the debates was treatedalike by the legislators who favored and by those who resisted theproposition. The whole subject, she appears to think, was treated as ahuge joke. One set of members advocated the admission of ladies on theground, among other reasons, that their presence in the House ofCommons would tend to keep the legislators sober, and prevent them fromgarnishing their speeches with unseemly expressions. Another set stoodout against the proposal on the ground that if ladies were allowed tosit in a gallery in sight of the members, the result would be that therepresentatives would cease to pay any real attention to the businessof debate, and would occupy themselves chiefly in studying the facesand the dresses of the fair visitors, and trying to interchange glanceswith the newly admitted spectators. 

The conditions under which ladies may be permitted to listen to thedebates in the House of Commons form a subject of something likeperiodical discussion up to the present day. There is, as everybodyknows, a certain number of seats set apart behind the Press gallery inthe House of Commons for the accommodation of women, who are admittedby orders which members can obtain who are successful in a ballotingprocess which takes place a week in advance. About twenty members onlyout of more than six hundred can win two seats each for any one sittingof the House, and no member can approach the ballot for at least a weekafter he has accomplished a success. The Ladies' Gallery holds only avery small number of women, and it is jealously screened by a gildedgrating something like that through which the women of an Easternpotentate's household are permitted to gaze upon the stage from theirbox in the theatre. 

It will perhaps be news to some readers to hear that this ladies'gallery, such as it is, is technically not within the precincts of theHouse of Commons at all. It is not an {274} institution of the House, nor does it come under the rules of the House, nor is it recognized bythe authorities of the House. It is there, as a matter of fact, but itis not supposed to be there, and the Speaker of the House, who isomnipotent over all other parts of the chamber, has no control over theoccupants of that gilded cage, and is technically assumed to beignorant of their presence. The Speaker can, on proper occasions, order strangers "to withdraw" from all the other galleries set apartfor the use of outsiders, but he has no power over the ladies who sitin the gallery high above his chair. It has even happened that whensubjects had, as a matter of necessity, to be discussed in the House ofCommons which the Speaker did not consider quite suitable for anaudience of both sexes, he has sent a private and unofficial intimationto the Ladies' Gallery that it would, in his opinion, be more seemly ifits occupants were to withdraw. But on some occasions a few of theladies declined to withdraw, and the Speaker had no power to enforcehis advice, seeing that, technically, there was no Ladies' Gallerywithin his jurisdiction. Some time, no doubt, the House of Commonswill adopt more reasonable regulations, and will recognize the right ofwomen to be treated as rational creatures, as members of the community, as citizens, and allowed to sit, as men do, in an open gallery, andlisten to the debates which must always more or less concern their owninterests. It is a curious fact that the galleries and other parts ofthe House of Lords to which women have admission are open to the publicgaze just as are those parts of the House in which male strangers arepermitted to listen to the debates of the peers. 

[Sidenote: 1835--The Orange Associations]

In the year 1835 the public mind of these countries was much surprised, and even startled, by the discovery, or what at least seemed to be thediscovery, of a great and portentous plot against the established orderof succession to the throne. This plot was declared to be carried onby the Orange societies which had for many years been growing up inGreat Britain and Ireland, and throughout many of the colonies anddependencies. This Orange {275} organization began in the North ofIreland, and was originally intended to crush out the Catholicassociations which were then coming into existence all over Ireland forthe political and religious emancipation of the Roman Catholics, andfor strengthening the national cause in the Irish Parliament. There isso little to be said in defence, or even in excuse, of the Orangeorganization in its earlier years that it seems only fair to admit thepossibility of its having been seriously intended, in the beginning, for the defence of Great Britain against an Irish rebellion fomentedand supported by France. 

The Orange associations took their title from the name of the royalhouse which had given William the Third as a sovereign to England, andthe name of Orange was understood to illustrate its hostility to allJacobite plots and schemes, which were naturally assumed to have thecountenance and the favor of England's foreign enemies. We have seenalready, in the course of this history, how the Orange societies actedbefore the rebellion of '98 in Ireland, and how orange and green becamethe rival colors of those who denounced and those who supported everyIrish national movement. When the rebellion was suppressed, andGrattan's Parliament was extinguished, the Orange associations were notin the least disposed to admit that their work had been accomplishedand that there was no further need for their active existence. On thecontrary, they increased their efforts to spread their power all overthe country, and, claiming for themselves the credit of having been amain influence in the suppression of the Irish rebellion, they appealedfor the support of all loyal Englishmen to increase their numbers andstrengthen their hands. Orangeism, which had at first only been knownin Ireland, began to spread widely throughout Great Britain. OrangeLodges were everywhere formed; Orange Grand Masters were appointed; awhole vocabulary of Orange titles, passwords, and phrases was invented;a complete hierarchy of Orange officialism was created, and aninvisible network of Orangeism held the members of the organizationtogether. The Orange conspiracy, if {276} we may call it so, had beenspreading its ramifications energetically during the later years ofGeorge the Fourth's reign, and had succeeded in obtaining thecountenance, and indeed the active support, of many peers, of at leastsome bishops, and even of certain members of the royal family. TheDuke of York, who at that time stood nearest in the succession to thethrone, was a patron of the societies, and was invited to become GrandMaster of the whole organization. The invitation would in allprobability have been accepted if the Duke had not been assured, on themost authoritative advice, that a secret organization of such a naturewas distinctly an illegal body. When the Duke died, and it seemed allbut certain that the next King of England must be his brother William, Duke of Clarence, the Orange lodges transferred their allegiance to theDuke of Cumberland, who consented to become their Grand Master. 

[Sidenote: 1835--Wellington and the British Crown]

The Duke of Cumberland, as we have already seen, was a Tory of the mostextreme order; an inveterate enemy to every kind of reform and everyprogressive movement, a man who was not merely unpopular but thoroughlydetested among all classes who valued political freedom, religiousliberty, and the spread of education. Soon after William the Fourth'saccession to the throne a new impulse was given to Orangeism by theKing's yielding to the demand for popular reform, and by the measuresand the movements which began to follow the passing of Lord Grey'sReform Bill. The Orangemen all over these countries then began to lookupon the Duke of Cumberland as their natural leader, and there can belittle doubt that in the minds of many of them, in the minds of some ofthe most influential among them, there was growing up the wild hopethat the Duke of Cumberland might become King of England. The Orangelodges became a vast secret organization with signs and passwords, amysterious political confraternity, the Grand Master of which was asort of head centre, to adopt a phrase belonging to a more modernconspiracy, and performing, indeed, something like the part whichContinental Freemasonry at one time {277} aspired to play. The Orangelodges in Great Britain and Ireland swelled in numbers until they hadmore than three hundred thousand members solemnly and secretly sworn toobey all the orders of the leaders. More than that, the emissaries ofthe Orange lodges contrived to make their influence widely felt in theArmy, and it became clear afterwards that a large number of soldierswere sworn confederates of the association. 

Some of the explanations which were afterwards given to account for thesudden spread of Orangeism might well appear incredible at first to anintelligent reader of our day not acquainted with this singular chapterof history. But it was afterwards made perfectly certain that a largenumber of credulous persons were prevailed upon to join the Orangeranks by the positive assurance that the Duke of Wellington had formedthe determination to seize the crown of England and to put it on hisown head, and that the Duke of Cumberland was the only man who couldsave the realm from this treasonable enterprise. It seems hardlypossible now to understand that there could have been one humancreature in England silly and ignorant enough to believe the Duke ofWellington capable of so preposterous and so wicked a scheme. LordJohn Russell has left it on record that when he visited Napoleon in hisexile at Elba, the fallen Emperor, during the course of a longconversation, expressed his strong belief that Wellington would seizethe crown of England. Lord John endeavored to convince him that suchan idea went entirely outside the limits of sober reality; but Napoleonrefused to be convinced, and blandly put the question aside with themanner of one who knows better but does not particularly care toimpress his opinion on unwilling ears. One can easily understand howsuch an idea might come into the mind of Napoleon, who knew little ornothing about the actual conditions of English political and sociallife, and who had experience of his own to demonstrate the possibilityof a great military conqueror becoming at once the ruler of a State. But it seems hard indeed to understand how any sane Englishman couldhave believed that {278} the simple, loyal, unselfish Duke ofWellington could allow such an idea to enter his mind for a moment, orcould see his way to make it a reality even if he did entertain it. Yet it cannot be doubted that numbers of Englishmen were induced tojoin Orange lodges by the positive assurance that thus only could theysave the State from Wellington's daring ambition. 

[Sidenote: 1836--Dissolution of the Orange lodges]

One of the principal instruments of the Orange organization was acertain Colonel Fairman, who held an important position in what may becalled its military hierarchy, and was undoubtedly at one timeintrusted by the Duke of Cumberland with the fullest authority to actas the emissary of the Grand Master to make known his will and conveyhis orders. Whether the Duke of Cumberland ever really entertained theproject ascribed to him of seizing the crown for himself and shuttingout the Princess Victoria can, in all probability, never be known as acertainty; but there can be no question that his actions oftenjustified such a belief, and that many of his most devoted Orangefollowers looked up to him as the resolute hero of such a project tosave England from Whigs and Liberals, and Roman Catholics, and moborators, and petticoat government, and all other such enemies to thegood old state of things as established by the wisdom of our ancestorsand the Act of Settlement. The whole question was raised in the Houseof Commons during the session of 1835 by Joseph Hume, the consistentand persevering advocate of sound economic doctrine, of politicalfreedom, of peace, retrenchment, and reform. Hume obtained theappointment of a committee to inquire into the whole subject, and thecommittee had no great difficulty in finding out that Colonel Fairmanhad been carrying on, with or without the consent or authority of hisGrand Master the Duke of Cumberland, what must be called a treasonableconspiracy through the Orange lodges and even through Orangemen whowere actually serving in the King's Army. In 1836 Hume brought up thequestion once again and obtained so much support from Lord JohnRussell, then acting as Leader of the Government in the House ofCommons, that {279} an address was unanimously voted to the Kingcalling on him to proclaim the condemnation of the Orange conspiracy. The Duke of Cumberland disclaimed all treasonable purposes, anddeclared that many of the steps taken by Fairman and other Orangeemissaries had been taken without his orders and even without hisknowledge. Fairman disappeared from the scene when the crisis seemedto become too serious for his personal convenience, and one of theOrange emissaries, against whom a prosecution was to be instituted, wasremoved by a sudden death from the reach of the criminal law. The Dukeof Cumberland announced that he had already, of his own inspiration, ordered the dissolution of the Orange lodges. The King, in his replyto the address in the House of Commons, declared himself entirely inaccordance with the resolutions of the House, and thus the wholeconspiracy came to an end, and the Government thought it well to allowthe subject to pass into obscurity without further action. 

This was the end of the Orange organization, as it was known in thedays of William the Fourth. At a later date Orangeism was againrevived, but only in the form which it still maintains, by which it isnow known to us all as a political association, openly avowinglegitimate opinions and purposes, and as fairly entitled to existenceas any political club or other such organization recognized in themovements of modern life. The treasonable conspiracy, like manyanother evil, died when it was compelled to endure the light of day. 

{280}

CHAPTER LXXIX. 

THE CLOSE OF A REIGN AND THE OPENING OF AN ERA. 

[Sidenote: 1748-1832--Mackintosh, Malthus, and Mill]

Many lives that now belong to history had faded into history during thereign of William the Fourth. William Wilberforce, the great champion ofevery noble and philanthropic movement known to his times, had passedfrom the living world which he had done so much to improve. Wilberforcelived to see the triumph of that movement against slavery and theslave-trade which he, more than any other of his time, had inspired andpromoted. He had been compelled by ill-health to give up his position inParliament for several years before his death, but he had never withdrawnhis watchful sympathy and such co-operation as it was in his power togive from any cause to which he had consecrated his life. His name willalways be illustrious in English history as that of one who loved hisfellow-men and who gave expression to that love in every act and effortof his public and private career. Jeremy Bentham, one of the greatest ofmodern thinkers, the founder of more than one school of political andeconomic doctrine, a man whose influence on human thought is never likelyto pass altogether away, died in June, 1832. Bentham's principle, thegreatest happiness of the greatest number, has often been narrowly andunfairly judged, but it may be doubted whether a sounder theory ofpolitical and social government has ever come out of the mere wisdom ofman. The phrase utilitarianism, which came into use as the summary ofhis teaching, has often been misunderstood and misapplied, and perhapssome excuse was found for the misinterpretation of his meaning in hisdecision that his dead body should be given up for the purpose of anatomyand not buried in earth to be of service {281} only to the worms. Manyof us have seen the skeleton of Jeremy Bentham clothed in his habit as helived in a room of that University College which he helped to make asuccess. 

Sir James Mackintosh brought his noble career to a close during thisreign. Mackintosh had been historian, philosopher, and politician, and, like Macaulay, he had rendered great services in India as well as inEngland. Like Macaulay also, he had been listened to with the deepestinterest whenever he addressed the House of Commons, although his giftsand his temperament seemed suited rather for the study than forParliamentary life. Another man whose death belongs to the reign ofWilliam the Fourth, whose teachings were at one time the occasion forincessant controversy--and indeed caused most controversy where they wereleast understood--was Thomas Robert Malthus. In many classes of readersthe name of Malthus came to be associated for a while with the idea ofsome strange and cruel doctrine which taught that wars and pestilencesand other calamities that have the effect of sweeping redundantpopulations off the world are really good things in themselves, to beencouraged by beneficent legislation. It is hardly necessary to say nowthat nothing could be more narrow and even more perverse than thisinterpretation of Malthus's philosophy. Another of the teaching mindswhich passed from the contemplation of earthly subjects during the reignwas that of James Mill, the historian of British India and thepromulgator of great doctrines in political economy. James Mill, likeEdmund Burke, had studied India thoroughly, and come to understand it asfew men had done who had lived there for years and years, although, likeBurke, he had never been within sight of the shores of Hindustan. Milldivined India as Talleyrand said that Alexander Hamilton, the Americanstatesman and companion of George Washington, had divined Europe. Charles Greville, writing in November, 1830, speaks of meeting atbreakfast "young Mill, a political economist, " and adds that "young Millis the son of Mill who wrote the 'History of British India, ' {282} andsaid to be cleverer than his father. " The elder Mill would no doubt havegladly endorsed the saying, and it may be assumed that history has givenits judgment in the same way, but history will certainly maintain thefame of the father as well as the fame of the son. A man of a verydifferent order from any of these we have just mentioned, but who hasmade a reputation of his own in literature as well as in politics, closedhis career within the same reign. We have already spoken in this volumeof William Cobbett's command of simple, strong English, which made hisprose style hardly inferior to that of Swift himself. Indeed, one of themost distinguished authors of the present day, a man who has made a namein political life as well as in literature, has been heard to contendwith earnestness that, as a writer of pure, strong, idiomatic English, Cobbett might be accounted the rival of Swift. The great engineer, Telford, and the really gifted and genuine, although eccentric andopinionated, physician, Dr. Abernethy, were among the celebrities whosedeaths rather than their works belong to the time when William the Fourthwas King. 

[Sidenote: 1754-1834--Coleridge and Hannah More]

Poetry, romance, and art suffered many heavy losses during the same time. We have already chronicled the death of Walter Scott. One who had knownhim and had been kindly welcomed by him, James Hogg, the EttrickShepherd, died three years after Scott in 1835. The death of GeorgeCrabbe was one of the memorable events of the reign. Crabbe might wellbe described in the words which a later singer set out for his ownepitaph, as "the poet of the poor. " Crabbe pictured the struggles, thesufferings, the occasional gleams of happiness which are common to thelives of the poor with a realism as vigorous and as vivid as the prose ofCharles Dickens himself could show, and he had touches here and there ofexquisitely tender poetic feeling which were not unworthy of Keats orWordsworth. Nothing was nobler in the life of Burke than his earlyappreciation and generous support of Crabbe. Hannah More died in 1833. The fame of this remarkable woman has somewhat faded of late years, andeven the {283} most successful of her writings find probably but fewreaders among the general public. She has, however, won for herself adistinct place in history, not less by her life itself than by her workin various fields of literature. In her early days she had been anassociate of Samuel Johnson, Burke, and Goldsmith, and Reynolds, and shehad known Macaulay from his childhood. She was always a writer with apurpose, whether she wrote a religious tract or an ethical essay, atragedy or a novel. She always strove to be a teacher, and theintellectual gifts with which she had been endowed were only valued byher in so far as they enabled her to serve the education and the moralprogress of humanity. "The rapt One of the godlike forehead, theheaven-eyed creature, " as Wordsworth described Samuel Taylor Coleridge, died in 1834. Coleridge belonged to an order of intellect far higherthan that to which Crabbe or Hannah More had any claim. He was indeed aman of genius in all but the very highest meaning of the word. He waspoet, philosopher, teacher, and critic, and in each department, had heworked in that alone, he must have won renown. Perhaps if he had notworked in so many fields he might have obtained even a more exaltedposition than that which history must assuredly assign to him. Hisinfluence as a philosopher is probably fading now, although heunquestionably inspired whole schools of philosophic thought, and theworld remembers him rather as the author of "The Ancient Mariner" than asthe metaphysical student and teacher. As a critic, in the highest senseof the word, he will always have the praise that should belong to thefirst who aroused the attention of Englishmen to the great new school ofthoughtful criticism which was growing up in Germany under the influenceof Lessing and of Goethe. He would have deserved fame if only for histranslations of some of Schiller's noblest dramas. It has been justlysaid that Coleridge by his successful efforts to spread over England theinfluence of the higher German criticism did much to restore Shakespeareto that position as head of the world's modern literature from whichEnglish {284} criticism and English tastes had done so much to displacehim since the days of Dryden. 

[Sidenote: 1775-1836--Mrs. Siddons and Edmund Kean]

The death of Coleridge was soon followed by that of Charles Lamb, and, indeed, Coleridge's death may have had some effect in hastening that ofhis dear and devoted friend. In the same poem from which we have justquoted the lines that picture Coleridge, Wordsworth tells how "Lamb, thefrolic and the gentle, has vanished from his lonely hearth. " Lamb wasthe most exquisite of essayists and letter-writers, a man whose delicatehumor, playful irony, and happy gift of picturesque phrase claim for himtrue poetic genius. The present generation has probably but a faintmemory of Felicia Hemans, whose verse had at one time an immensepopularity among all readers with whom sweetness of sentiment, musicalease, fluency of verse, and simple tenderness of feeling were enough toconstitute poetic art. She, too, died not long before the close of thereign. Many men who had won wide fame as pulpit orators and as religiousteachers of various orders marked by their deaths as well as by theirlives this chapter of history. Rowland Hill was one of these, the greatpopular preacher, who flung aside conventionalities, and was ready topreach anywhere if he had hope of gathering an audience around him whomhe could move and teach, whether he spoke from the pulpit of a church ora chapel, or from a platform in the open air, or in the midst of a crowdwith no platform at all. Another was Robert Hall, admittedly one of themost eloquent preachers of modern times. Yet another was Adam Clarke, the author of the celebrated "Commentary on the Holy Scriptures. " Ofcourse the fame of these men and women does not belong in the fullersense to the reign of William the Fourth. Some of them had wellnigh donetheir work before the reign began, none of them can be said to have wonany new celebrity during the reign. Their names are introduced herebecause their deaths were events of the moment and lend, in that way, additional importance to the reign's history. 

The fame of Mrs. Siddons can hardly be said to belong in any sense to thedays when William the Fourth sat on {285} the English throne, for she hadretired from the stage many years before his accession, and only appearedin public on rare occasions and for some charitable object; but she diedwithin the reign, and it must therefore find another distinction by itsassociation with her name. Two years later died Edmund Kean, who alsomay be said to have closed his career as an actor before the reign hadbegun. Of the fame that is won on the boards of a theatre posterity canonly judge by hearsay. The poet, the novelist, the historian, thephilosopher, the painter, the sculptor, leave their works always livingbehind them, and the later generation has the same materials on which toform its judgment as were open to the world when the author or artist hadjust completed his work. Even the orator can bequeath to all ages thewords he has spoken, although they are no longer to be accompanied by theemphasis of his gesture and accentuated by the music of his voice. Ofthe actor and the actress who have long passed away we can know nothingbut what their contemporaries have told us, and can form no judgment ofour own. We can hardly be wrong, however, in regarding Mrs. Siddons asby far the greatest tragic actress who has ever appeared on the Englishstage, and Edmund Kean as the greatest actor of Shakespearian tragedywhom England has seen since the days of Garrick. In mentioning these twonames, we must also be reminded of the name of Charles Mathews the elder, an actor of extraordinary versatility and genuine dramatic power, who is, however, best remembered as the originator of the style of theatricalentertainment which may be described as the "At Home" performance, inwhich he probably never had a rival. Many of us can still remember hisyet more gifted son, the younger Charles Mathews, the incomparable lightcomedian of a later day. 

We have told thus far, in this chapter, only of lights going out inliterature, art, philosophy, theology, and science. Let us relieve thepicture by recording that one rising star of the first magnitude inliterature cast its earliest rays over these latest years of William theFourth. Early in 1836 the "Sketches by Boz" were published in a {286}collected form, and a little later in the same year appeared the firstnumber of "The Pickwick Papers. " Then the world began to know that a manof thoroughly original genius had arisen, and before the reign was outthe young author, Charles Dickens, was accorded by all those whosejudgment was worth having that place among the foremost English novelistswhich he has ever since retained and is ever likely to retain. "ThePickwick Papers" opened a new era in the history of Englishnovel-writing. By a curious coincidence, the proposal of a young artstudent to furnish illustrations for Dickens's books being declined bythe author, led the young art student to believe that he had mistaken hisvocation in trying to illustrate the works of other men, and he turnedhis attention to literature, and afterwards became the one great rival ofDickens, and will be known to all time as the author of "Vanity Fair" and"The Newcomes. " None of the writings which made Thackeray's fameappeared during the time of William the Fourth, but his name may beassociated with the close of the reign by the incident which brought himinto an acquaintanceship with Dickens, and which led to his abandoningthe pencil for the pen. 

[Sidenote: 1772-1834--The impositions of Princess Olivia]

Towards the close of the reign died one of the most audacious andastonishing impostors known to modern times. Even the Tichborne claimantof the reign that followed makes but a poor show for inventiveness andenterprise when compared with the woman who described herself as thePrincess Olivia of Cumberland, and who claimed to be the daughter of KingWilliam's brother. This woman was the daughter of a house painter namedWilmot, and was educated under the care of her uncle, the Rector of aparish in Warwickshire. She received a good education, and even in heryoung days seemed to have a desire to exhibit herself as the heroine ofstrange adventures. At an early age she was married to John Serres, aman distinguished in his art, who obtained the position of painter to theKing and the Duke of Clarence, afterwards William the Fourth, and it wasprobably this association with the surroundings of greater personagesthat inspired {287} her with some of her bold conceptions. Her husbandand she did not get on very well together, and a separation took place;after which for a while Mrs. Serres appeared on the stage, and then tookto the art of painting on her own account, and actually succeeded ingetting herself appointed landscape painter to the Prince of Wales. Hernext attempt was at novel-writing, and she also published a volume ofpoems and even ventured on the composition of an opera. Later still shemade herself conspicuous by writing a volume to prove that her uncle, theRev. James Wilmot, was the actual author of the letters of Junius. Thatwas only a beginning, for she soon after proclaimed herself thelegitimate daughter, by a secret marriage, of the Duke of Cumberland. She made her claims known to the Prince Regent and all the other membersof the royal family, and demanded a formal hearing in order that shemight prove her right to rank as one of them. She was so far successfulthat her claim was actually taken up by a member of the House of Commons, who moved for the appointment of a Committee of the House to give it afull investigation. Sir Robert Peel promptly settled the question, sofar as regarded the appointment of a committee, by announcing that heheld in his hand a manifesto of the Princess Olivia, addressed to thehigh powers of the kingdom of Poland, in which she claimed to be thedescendant of Stanislaus Augustus. Sir Robert Peel urged that as the twoclaims were practically irreconcilable and were both made by the sameclaimant, the House of Commons might consider itself relieved from thenecessity of appointing a Committee of Inquiry, and the House acceptedhis advice. Still, it is almost needless to say that many persons werefound quite willing to believe in the genuineness of the PrincessOlivia's claim, and even in the genuineness of both her claims, and shehad indeed, for a time, a party of faithful and credulous followers asstrong as that which backed up the pretensions of the adventurer fromWapping who proclaimed himself to be Sir Roger Tichborne. The lateryears of the self-created Princess Olivia were spent in poverty, and shedied within the rules of the {288} King's Bench. Even in much laterdays, however, her name was not wholly forgotten. 

A few lines may be spared to describe the career of a man who died notlong after the death of the Princess Olivia, and who belonged to thatclass which used to be described as wonderful characters. This was a mannamed James Norris, who came of a family of good position having propertynear Devizes. Norris received a good education, and at one time promisedto make a name for himself as a student of natural history. He isdescribed as "handsome in person and elegant in manners, " and we are toldthat "he possessed a highly cultivated mind which seemed to promise inearly life eminence in society, and that he would rise to be an ornamentto the age in which he lived. " At a comparatively early age he hadoutlived all his family, and thus became the owner of large landedproperty. He suddenly became a prey to strange, overmastering habits ofindolence, apathy, and shyness, which gradually estranged him from allsociety. He neglected his property, allowed his rents to remain foryears and years in the hands of his steward, without troubling himselfabout them, and allowed his dividends to grow up in the hands of hisbankers without concerning himself as to their amount, or even openingany letters which might be addressed to him on the subject. He gave upshaving and allowed his hair and board to grow as they would; he neverchanged his clothing or his linen until they became worn to rags; he layin bed for the greater part of the day, took his principal meal aboutmidnight, then had a lonely ramble, and returned to bed as the morningdrew near. He was hardly ever seen by anybody but his servants, anddeclined any communication even with his nearest neighbors. When anoccasion arose which actually compelled him to communicate with any onefrom the outer world, he would only consent to speak with a door, or atleast a screen, between him and the other party to the conversation. Allthe time he does not seem to have been engaged in any manner of study orwork, and he appears to have simply devoted himself to the fullindulgence of his {289} passion for solitude. His figure, or some sketchsuggested by it, has been made use of more than once by writers offiction, but the man himself was a living figure in the reign of Williamthe Fourth, and died not long before its close. 

Under the date of March 31, 1837, Charles Greville writes: "Among themany old people who have been cut off by this severe weather, one of themost remarkable is Mrs. Fitzherbert, who died at Brighton at above eightyyears of age. She was not a clever woman, but of a very noble spirit, disinterested, generous, honest, and affectionate, greatly beloved by herfriends and relations, popular in the world, and treated with uniformdistinction and respect by the Royal Family. " The death of thiscelebrated woman recalls to memory one of the saddest and most shamefulchapters in the whole sad and shameful story of the utterly worthlessPrince who became George the Fourth. 

[Sidenote: 1756-1837--Illness of William the Fourth]

Meanwhile the reign of William the Fourth was hastening to its close. The King had had several attacks of illness, and more than once, beforethe end was yet quite near, his physical condition went down so low thatthose around him believed it impossible for him to rise again. Herallied, however, more than once, and regained his good spirits and gavehope to those who had any real wish for his recovery that the reign hadnot yet quite come to an end. In some of his better moods he showedglimpses of that higher nature which was wont to assert itself fitfullynow and then at many periods of his career. More than once he prayedfervently in these later days that his life might be spared until thePrincess Victoria should come of age. Almost to the end the usualfestivities were kept up at Windsor Castle, and the Queen, by his wish, visited the race-course at Ascot a few days before the end came; but itis recorded that she only remained an hour on the ground. The formalannouncement that the King was seriously ill was not made until within afew days of the sovereign's death. Even when regular bulletins began tobe issued, they were so sparing of their information, and {290} socarefully guarded against any suggestion of alarm, that the outer publichad really very little to go upon, except the bare fact that the King wasgrowing to be an old man, and that he was liable to fits of illness justas he had been for years before. It would appear that it was William'swhim to dictate the bulletins himself, and that he was very anxious notto allow a word to go forth which might convey a knowledge of his actualcondition. The poor old sovereign was apparently inspired by the fullconviction that the prolongation of his life was of the utmost importanceto the welfare of his people, and it may be fully believed that hisunwillingness to admit the imminence of danger to his life came from anhonest sort of public purpose. He gave his attention to the business ofthe State almost to the very last. All the time those who wereimmediately around the sinking sovereign knew quite well that the end wasclose at hand, and were already consulting earnestly and constantly as tothe steps which ought to be taken to prepare for the new reign, even asto the matter of mere ceremonials which were to accompany the accessionof a woman as sovereign. On June 16 Greville says: "Met Sir Robert Peelin the Park, and talked with him about the beginning of the new reign. He said that it was very desirable that the young Queen should appear asmuch as possible emancipated from all restraint, and exhibit a capacityfor the discharge of her high functions. That the most probable as wellas the most expedient course she could adopt would be to rely entirely onthe advice of Melbourne, and she might with great propriety say that shethought it incumbent on her to follow the example which had been set byher two uncles, her predecessors, George the Fourth and William theFourth. " Each of these had retained the ministers whom he found inoffice, although not quite of his own pattern. There were some fears, atthe time, that Leopold, King of the Belgians, might hasten over toEngland, and might exercise, or at least be suspected of exercising, anundue influence over the young Princess Victoria. Headers at the presentday will notice, perhaps with peculiar interest, the observation made by{291} Greville that "Lord Durham is on his way home, and his return isregarded with no little curiosity, because he may endeavor to play agreat political part, and materially to influence the opinions, or atleast the councils, of the Queen. " Lord Durham, up to this time, wasregarded by most people merely as a Radical of a very advanced order, burning with strong political ambitions, fitfully impelled withpassionate likings and dislikings, and capable of proving a serioustrouble to the quiet of the new reign. We know now that Durham was soondrawn away almost altogether from home politics, disappointing therebymany of his Radical admirers, and that he found a new field of success, and established for himself an abiding-place in history as the statesmanto whose courage, energy, and genius is owing the foundation of theself-governing, prosperous, peaceful, and loyal Dominion of Canada, whichhas again and again proved itself in recent times an important part ofthe empire's strength. 

[Sidenote: 1837--The Princess Victoria]

Writing of the Princess Victoria, Greville goes on to say: "What rendersspeculation so easy, and events uncertain, is the absolute ignorance ofeverybody, without exception, of the character, disposition, and capacityof the Princess. She has been kept in such jealous seclusion by hermother (never having slept out of her bedroom, nor been alone withanybody but herself and the Baroness Lehzen), that not one of heracquaintance, none of the attendants at Kensington, not even the Duchessof Northumberland, her governess, have any idea what she is or what shepromises to be. " Greville tells us that "the Tories are in greatconsternation at the King's approaching death, " because they fear thatthe new sovereign is not likely to make any advances to them, while "theWhigs, to do them justice, behave with great decency; whatever they mayreally feel, they express a very proper concern, and I have no doubtMelbourne really feels the concern he expresses. " Then Grevilledismisses, for the moment, the whole subject with the words: "The publicin general don't seem to care much, and only wonder what will happen. "The chronicler no doubt expressed very correctly the {292} publicfeeling. Of course, there is nothing surprising in the fact that whilethe poor King lay dying those who had any official relations with theCourt or with Parliament were occupying themselves, during the greaterpart of the time, with speculations as to the immediate changes which hisdeath would bring about, and with discussions and disputations as to theproper arrangements and ceremonials to accompany and to follow hispassing away from this world. Something of the same kind must havehappened in the case of any Windsor shopkeeper whose family and friendswere in hourly expectation of his death, and it is only when suchdiscussions and arrangements come to be recorded as a part of the historyof a reign that we are likely to feel impressed by the difference betweenthe prosaic, practical details of the business of this world and thesacred solemnity of the event that is supposed already to cast its shadowbefore. 

[Sidenote: 1837--Death of William the Fourth]

There appears to have been some dispute between the authorities of Churchand State as to the offering up of prayers in the churches for therecovery of the King. William was anxious that the prayers should beoffered at once, and the Privy Council assembled to make the order; butthe Bishop of London raised an objection, not to the offering of theprayers, but to the suggestion that the prayers were to be offered inobedience to an order coming from the Lords in Council. The Bishopmaintained that the Lords had no power to make any such order. In thediscussion which took place it appears that some eminent lawyers were ofopinion that even the King himself had no power to order the use of anyparticular prayers, or, at all events, that even if he had any such powerit was in virtue of his position as head of the Church and not as head ofthe State. This was indeed to raise what the late Baron Bramwell oncehumorously described as "a most delightful point of law. " The difficultyappears to have been got over by a sort of compromise, the Archbishop ofCanterbury undertaking to order, on his own authority, that prayersshould be offered up in all churches for the King's recovery, and theorder was no {293} doubt dutifully obeyed. To complete the satiricalhumor of the situation King William ought actually to have died while thedispute was still going on as to the precise authority by which prayerswere to be offered up for his recovery, but some sort of effectivearrangement was made during the monarch's few remaining hours of life, and the appeal on his behalf was duly made. 

On June 19 the King was found to be falling deeper and deeper intoweakness, which seemed to put all chance of his recovery out ofreasonable consideration, and the Sacrament was administered to him bythe Archbishop of Canterbury. One of the King's last utterances may beset down as in the best sense characteristic--it illustrated, that is tosay, the best side of his character. "Believe me, " were the words of thedying King, "that I have always been a religious man. " It may beadmitted, in justice to William, that according to his generally dull andoften confused and hazy lights he did always recognize the standard, higher than that of mere expediency, or political compromise, or personalconvenience, set up to regulate the conduct even of princes. 

The reign came to an end on June 30, 1837. Shortly after two o'clockthat morning King William passed away. He died calmly and without astruggle. The closing hours of his life had a resignation and a dignityabout them which might well have fitted the end of one whose wholecareer, public and private, had been more dignified and more noble thanthat of the poor, eccentric, restless, illiterate personage who succeededthe last of the Georges on the throne of England. It must be owned that, whatever the personal defects and disadvantages of the sovereign, thereign of King William the Fourth had been more beneficent in politicsthan that of any of his predecessors since the days of Queen Anne. Forthe first time in the modern history of England the voice of the peoplehad been authorized by legislation to have some influence over thedirection of national affairs. The passing of the great Reform measure, and the rush of other reforms which followed it, opened the way for a newsystem of {294} administration, the beneficial effects of which in thepolitical and social life of the empire have been expanding ever since. With the reign of William the Fourth the principle of personal rule, orrule by the mere decree and will of the sovereign, came to an end. Ifthe reign is to be judged by the work it accomplished, it cannot but beset down in history as a great reign. Perhaps there were few men inEngland of whatever class, high or low, who had less of the quality ofpersonal greatness than William the Fourth. He had greatness thrust uponhim by the mere fact that fate would have him King. He contributednothing towards the accomplishment of the many important works which arethe best monuments of his reign, except by the negative merit of havingat least not done anything to prevent their being accomplished. Eventhis, however, is a claim to the respect of posterity which must bedenied to some of his nearest predecessors. He ruled over a greatcountry without acquiring during his course any quality of greatness forhimself. He was like the glass of the window, which admits the light ofthe sun without any light-creating power of its own. 

{295}

INDEX. 

 Abernethy, Dr. , death, iv. 282. Act for better securing the Dependency of Ireland, i. 177. Act of Settlement, i. 4. Act of Union passed, iii. 327, 330. Acts of Trade, iii. 82, 84, 86, 105. Adams, John: Conduct towards Colonel Preston, iii. 152. Opposes dominion of England, iii. 85. Adams, Samuel, protests against Stamp Act, iii. 90. Addington, Henry, Viscount Sidmouth, Prime Minister, iii. 337. Addison, Joseph: M. P. For Malmesbury, i. 52. Secretary of State; circular letter to English Ministers, ii. 109. Sketch of, i. 37, 180. Address (1715), i. 102. Adelaide of Saxe-Meiningen, wife of William IV. , iv. 97. Supposed attitude towards Reform, iv. 172. Agrarian crime, iv. 84, 106. Agriculture in Scotland (1714), i. 87, 89. Agriculture in 1721, i. 229. Aislabie, John: Chancellor of Exchequer, i. 188, 190. Committed to Tower, i. 199. Impeaches Lord Strafford, i. 109, 110. Treasurer of Navy, i. 105. Aix-la-Chapelle, Treaty of, ii. 260, 280. Akerman, Keeper of Newgate, attitude towards mob, iii. 203. Albany, Countess of, wife of Charles Stuart, ii. 233. Alberoni, Giulio: Policy, i. 159. Sketch of, i. 158. Ale-tax in Scotland, i. 249. Ali Vardi Khan, death of, ii. 265. Allan, killed in riot (1768), iii. 120. Allen, Ethan, iii. 179. Almanza, battle of, ii. 35. Althorp, Lord (_see_ Spencer, John Charles, Earl). Amelia, daughter of George III. , death of, iii. 341. Amelia, Princess (_see_ Emily, Princess). American Colonies: Discontent in, iii. 147 _seqq. _ Grievances, iii. 82. Proclaim their Independence, iii. 183. Report on, i. 310. Sketch of history, iii. 74. Systems of governing, i. 310. American Republic acknowledged, iii. 184. Influence on France, iii. 290, 292. American War of Independence, iii. 173 _seqq. _ American War, Second, iii. 344. Amherst, Jeffrey, Baron: Commander-in-Chief, iii. 207. Commands troops in Canada, ii. 287. Amhurst, Nicholas (Caleb d'Anvers), edits _Craftsman_, i. 261. Anaverdi Khan, Nabob of Carnatic, ii. 201. André, Major, death as spy, iii. 184. Anglesey, Marquis of, Viceroy of Ireland, attitude towards Catholic Emancipation, iv. 73, 74. Anne, Princess of Orange, ii. 38. Illness, ii. 71, 76. Marriage, ii. 42. Anne, Queen: Character, i. 1, 13. Death, i. 47. Declining health, i. 1. Scheme to reduce expenses, i. 281. "Annual Register": Description of mob in London, iii. 205. Founded by Edmund Burke, iii. 99. Anti-Irish riots, ii. 45. "Anti-Jacobin, " iv. 33. Arbuthnot, John: History of John Bull, i. 97. Sketch of, ii. 20. Arcot, Siege of, ii. 263. Arden, Richard Pepper, iii. 236. Argyll, John Campbell, Duke of, i. 42. Commander-in-Chief for Scotland, i. 98, 123. Sketch of, i. 44. Speech on Convention, ii. 166. Aristotle on administration, ii. 246. Arnold, Benedict, iii. 179. Treason, iii. 184. Ashe, Bishop of Clogher, ii. 293. Ashley, Lord (_see_ Shaftesbury, Earl of). Association of United Irishmen, iii. 309, 313, 319. Atterbury, Francis, Bishop of Rochester, i. 48. Arrested and committed to Tower, i. 212. Banished, i. 222. Evidence against, i. 219, 220, 222. On condition of church, ii. 129. Opposes Septennial Act, i. 146. Sketch of, i. 214. _Auditor_, iii. 15, 55. Augusta, Princess of Saxe-Gotha, wife of Frederick, Prince of Wales, ii. 46, 47; iii. 6, 7. Birth of first child, ii. 104-107. Regency Bill and, iii. 73. Augustus, Elector of Saxony, ii. 23. Augustus II. Of Poland, ii. 23. Aurungzebe, Empire on death of, ii. 257. Austerlitz, Battle of, iii. 338, 339. Austria in 1716, i. 154. 

 Bailly, Mayor of Paris, iii. 298. Ballot system, iv. 131. Balmerino, Lord, trial, ii. 228. Bank of England: Attacked by rioters, iii. 207. Charter renewed, iv. 232. Imitates South Sea Company, i. 189. Barber, John: Letter to Swift, i. 48. On Arbuthnot, ii. 20. Barnard, Sir John: Abandons seceders, ii. 174. On Convention, ii. 162. On grievances against Spaniards, ii. 154, 157. On Walpole's Excise scheme, i. 315. Barré, Colonel, iii. 131, 133, 136. Barry, Richard, Lord Barrymore, iii. 244. Supports Young Pretender, ii. 221. Barry, Sir Charles, designs new Houses of Parliament, iv. 270, 272. Bartholomew Fair, i. 73. Barwell, Richard, iii. 260. Supports Hastings, iii. 260, 261, 264. Bastile captured, iii. 294. Bath in 1714, i. 79. Bathurst, Lord, demands prosecution of rioters, iii. 201. Beaconsfield, Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of: On Lord John Russell, iv. 126. Philippics against Sir Robert Peel, i. 287. Beaux and requisites, i. 76. Bedford, Duke of: Opposes Pitt, iii. 26. Patron of Rigby, iii. 37. Presents petition against Convention, ii. 164. Bellingham, John, shot Spencer Perceval, iii. 341. Benares annexed, iii. 258. Benares, Chait Singh, Rajah of, iii. 269. Bentham, Jeremy, theories of, iv. 281. Béranger, "King of Yvetot, " iv. 119. Berkeley, George Bishop: Character, ii. 296. Lives in Rhode Island, ii. 295. Scheme of Settlement in Bermuda, ii. 294. Sketch of, ii. 292. Berkeley, Lord, of Stratton, describes duel between Colonel Chudleigh and Charles Aldworth, i. 58. Bermuda, Scheme for Settlement in, ii. 294. Bernard, Francis, Governor of Massachusetts, iii. 106, 148. Dissolves Massachusetts Legislature, iii. 150. Recalled, iii. 151. Berwick, James FitzJames, Duke of: Sketch of, ii. 34. Takes Kehl, ii. 24. Bill for Catholic Relief, iii. 190, 191. Bill for Princess Anne's dowry, ii. 43. Bill for strengthening Protestant interest, i. 171, 172. Bill of Rights, i. 3. Bill to adjust affairs of South Sea Company, i. 203, 205. Bill to suspend Habeas Corpus Act, i. 213. Birmingham, iv. 99. Bismarck, Prince, Peace policy, ii. 147. Black Hole of Calcutta, ii. 266, 267; iii. 249. Blackstone, Speech on Middlesex Election Petition, iii. 131. Bland-Burges Papers, ii. 217. Bland-Burges, Sir James, defends Warren Hastings, iii. 277, 278. Bloomfield, patronized by Duke of Grafton, iii. 35. Bolingbroke, Henry St. John, Viscount, i. 22, 115. Advises secession from Commons, ii. 172. Alliance with Pulteney, i. 260; ii. 17. At St. Germains, i. 116. Attitude towards restoration of Stuarts, i. 39, 48, 107. Character, i. 116; ii. 18, 279. Correspondence with James Stuart, ii. 18. Dismissed by James, i. 131. Dreams of Coalition Ministry, ii. 194. Flight, i. 103. Impeached of high treason, i. 108, 110. Inspires _Craftsman_, i. 290. Leaves England for France, ii. 17, 18. Letter to Swift, i. 47. Name erased from roll of peers, i. 114. On Duke of Berwick, ii. 34. On Duke of Shrewsbury, i. 42. On Wyndham's death, ii. 179. Petition to Lords, i. 258. Removed from Secretaryship of State, i. 101. Returns to England, i. 222, 258. Scheme of Opposition, i. 287. Sketch of, i. 26; later life, i. 133; ii. 278, 279. Style as speaker and writer, i. 27. Walpole's portrait of, ii. 15, 16. Bombay, dower of Catherine of Braganza, iii. 248. Boston: Evacuated, iii. 182. Hostile to British, iii. 151. Invested, iii. 175, 181. Life in 1765, iii. 77. Massacre, iii. 151. Protests against Stamp Act, iii. 90. Tea thrown into harbor, ii. 43; iii. 160. Boston, Lord, in hands of mob, iii. 197. Boston Port Bill, iii. 163; copies circulated, iii. 165. Boswell, James: Johnson and, iii. 44. On Alexander Wedderburn, iii. 158. Bourbon family: Aims of, ii. 28. Compacts, ii. 26. Bourne, Vincent, at Westminster School, iii. 53. Braddock, General, defeat and death, ii. 286; iii. 79, 180. Bradley on reform of Calendar, ii. 275. Breed Hill battle, iii. 176. Bremen ceded to Hanover, i. 160, 161. Brewster, Sir David: British Association and, iv. 262. On Newton, i. 273. Bright, John, doctrine of non-intervention, iv. 62. Bristol: Growth of, i. 78. Reform riot at, iv. 171. British Admirals of Eighteenth Century, iii. 336. British Association founded, iv. 262. British garrison proposed for America, iii. 84, 86. British sailor (1797), iii. 334. _Briton_, iii. 51, 55. "Broad-bottomed Ministry, " ii. 245, 246. Bromley, William, motion on Septennial Act, ii. 10, 12. "Brothers" Club, i. 74. Brougham, Henry, Lord Brougham and Vaux: Advice to Queen Caroline, iv. 5. Attitude towards electoral reform, iv. 52. Attitude towards Poor Relief, iv. 223. Attitude towards West Indian Slavery, iv. 192, 193. British Association and, iv. 262. Character, iv. 251. Defends Queen Caroline, iv. 6, 8. Evidence in Cobbett's prosecution, iv. 156. Leader of Opposition, iv. 103. Lord Chancellor, iv. 124. Motion on Reform, iv. 104, 110, 111. Motions against Slavery, iv. 194, 195. Negotiates with King on creation of new peers, iv. 180. On Parliamentary Reform, iv. 85. Oratory, iv. 104, 174. "Penny Cyclopaedia" and, iv. 262. Persuades William IV. To dissolve Parliament, iv. 151. Power as Reformer, iv. 122, 125. Retires from Ministerial life, iv. 251. Scheme for national education, iv. 22. Speech on Catholic Emancipation, iv. 74. Brunswick family, i. 5. Buchanan, messenger of Young Pretender, ii. 205. Buckingham, Earl of, iii. 338. Buckingham House, i. 66. Buckingham Palace, iv. 93. Bunbury, Sir Thomas Charles, marries Lady Sarah Lennox, iii. 10. Burdett, Sir Francis, resolution on Catholic Emancipation, iv. 73. Burgoyne at Boston, iii. 175, 182. Burgoyne surrenders at Saratoga, iii. 183. Burke, Edmund: Alliance with Fox and North, iii. 226. Attitude on American Independence, iii. 87. Attitude towards French Revolution, iii. 285. Career, iii. 96 _seqq. _ Character, iii. 227. Crusade against French Revolution, iii. 296, 298. Denunciation of French Revolution, i. 96. "Essay on the Sublime and Beautiful, " iii. 98. Friend of Goldsmith, iii. 168. Impeaches Warren Hastings, iii. 281, 285. Indian policy, iii. 273. Influence on generation, iii. 96, 100. Maiden speech, iii. 100. Marriage, iii. 98. On Ballot system, iv. 131. Boston exploit, iii. 161. Chesterfield's rule in Ireland, ii. 251. Ministry and Wilkes's riots, iii. 121, 122. Townshend, iii. 111. Walpole's opposition to war party, ii. 181. War with Spain, ii. 184. Warren Hastings, iii. 258, 259. Wilkes's reception in London, iii. 116; in Middlesex, iii. 117. Opinion of George IV. , iv. 90. Oratory, iii. 100. Passion for justice, iii. 272. Paymaster-General, iii. 224, 228. Praises of Pitt, iii. 223. Private Secretary to Lord Rockingham, iii. 99. Reproves Charles James Fox, iii. 141. Speech against American war, iii. 188. Speech on Middlesex Election Petition, iii. 132. Vindication of Natural Society, iii. 98. Burke, William, iii. 99. Burnet, Bishop, on: Condition of Church, ii. 129. Duke of Marlborough, i. 23. High and Low Church, i. 17. Queen Anne, i. 2. Burney, Miss, in Burke's arraignment of Hastings, iii. 286. Burns, Robert, on William IV. And Mrs. Jordan, iv. 97. Bury Street, price of lodgings in, in 1714, i. 70. Bute, Lord: Bribery under, iii. 28, 30. Cabals against Pitt, iii. 26. Character, iii. 7, 28. Foreign policy, iii. 28, 29. House besieged, iii. 117. Influence over Princess of Wales and her son, iii. 8. Prime Minister, iii. 28. Proposes cider tax, iii. 30, 32. Resigns office, iii. 32. Secretary of State, iii. 8. Sketch of, iii. 7. Unpopular, iii. 28, 32. Buxton, Fowell, West Indian slavery and, iv. 190, 191, 194, 195. Byng, Admiral: Fails to relieve Minorca, ii. 297. Tried and shot, ii. 298. Byrne, Miles: Career, iii. 321. Memoirs, iii. 321. Byron, Lord: Assists Greeks, iv. 48. Death at Missolonghi, iv. 50. On George IV. , iii. 242. On Grattan, iii. 307. Scorn of O'Connell's loyalty, iv. 23, 27. Verses on Castlereagh's death, iv. 37. 

 Cabot, John and Sebastian, discover Canada, ii. 283. Calder, Admiral Sir Robert, iii. 336. Calendar, reform of, ii. 275. Campbell, John, Baron, on Lord Harcourt, i. 51. Campeachy logwood question, i. 294, 295; ii. 160. Camperdown, battle of, iii. 318, 336. Canada: French and English colonies in, ii. 283, 284. Sketch of history, ii. 283 _seqq. _ "Canter of Coltbrigg, " ii. 213-215. Canterbury, Archbishop of, attends Queen Caroline, ii. 121. Canning, George: Accepts Governor-Generalship of India, iv. 35. Attitude towards Free Trade and Parliamentary reform, iv. 52, 62. Character, iv. 60, 65. Death, iv. 61. Duel with Lord Castlereagh, iv. 34. Foreign Secretary, iv. 38. Funeral in Westminster Abbey, iv. 62. Monroe doctrine and, iv. 44. Opponents in House of Lords, iv. 59. Oratory, iv. 33, 34, 64. Policy, iv. 34, 38, 41, 42, 43, 52, 55. Summary of, iv. 62. Prime Minister, iv. 55, 58. Resigns office, iv. 7, 31, 34. Sketch of career, iv. 31 _seqq. _, 62. Supports Queen Caroline, iv. 5, 7. Sympathy with Greece, iv. 49, 52. Canning, Stratford, iv. 32. "Canningites, " iv. 65, 72. Carew, Sir George, builds Chichester House, Dublin, i. 80. Caricature in political controversy, i. 52. Caricatures during Hastings's trial, iii. 288. Caricatures of Napoleon Bonaparte, iii. 333. Carnwath, Earl of, a prisoner, i. 137, 138. Caroline, Amelia Elizabeth, Princess of Brunswick, wife of George IV. , iii. 244. Character, iv. 11. Demands to be crowned, iv. 8, 10. Divorce bill, iv. 6; abandoned, iv. 8. Illness and death, iv. 10, 11. Italian witnesses against, iv. 7. Returns to England on accession of George IV. , iv. 5, 6. Caroline, Princess, ii. 38, 71, 79, 105. Attends on Queen, ii. 118, 124. Dislikes Walpole, ii. 126. Caroline, Wilhelmina Dorothea, wife of George II. , i. 303. Action towards Porteous, ii. 62, 66. Acts as Regent, ii. 49. Alarmed for King's safety, ii. 71, 72. Character, i. 276; ii. 77. Death-bed, ii. 114 _seqq. _ Family, ii. 38. Godmother to her granddaughter, ii. 108. Hates Prince of Wales, ii. 40, 50, 71, 76, 118. Lampoons on, ii. 102. Carteret, John, Earl of Granville: Attacks Ministry and Convention, ii. 165. Character, ii. 240, 241; iii. 38. Death, iii. 38. Denounces Convention, ii. 163. Enmity to Walpole, ii. 159, 160, 185. Foreign Policy, ii. 177, 240, 241. Hatred of Pulteney, ii. 192. Knowledge of German, i. 235. Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, i. 239; iii. 38. Motion on Petition against Convention, ii. 164. Moves motion for removal of Walpole, ii. 185. Proclamation against "Drapier's Letters, " i. 247. Proposes address on Prince of Wales's allowance, ii. 89. Resigns, ii. 244. Secretary of State, ii. 191. Sketch of career, i. 233. Speech on Salt Tax, i. 314. Cartier, Jacques, ascends St. Lawrence, ii. 283. Castlereagh, Viscount (Marquis of Londonderry): Character, iv. 36. Death, iv. 36. Duel with Canning, iv. 34. Policy, iv. 34, 39, 41. Catalans and Peace of Utrecht, i. 94. "Catholic" and "Protestant" Ministers, iv. 54. Catholic Association formed, iv. 21. Catholic disabilities, iii. 307. Catholic emancipation question, iv. 52, 67 _seqq. _ Catholic Relief Bill passed, iv. 78. Catholics, feeling against, i. 143. Catholics, penalty against, i. 216. Cato Street Conspiracy, iv. 2, 15. Censorship for stage and press discussed, ii. 96 _seqq. _ Chadwick, Sir Edwin, on Poor Law Commission, iv. 225, 227. Chait Singh, Rajah of Benares, and Warren Hastings, ii. 269. Chambord, Count de, i. 40. Charing Cross in 1714, i. 68. Charles II. Of Spain: Character, i. 61. Will of, ii. 27. Charles VI. , Emperor, ii. 23. Death, ii. 182. Denounces Walpole, ii. 25. Pragmatic sanction, i. 228. Charles X. Deposed, iv. 98. Charles XII. Of Sweden: Action in Poland, ii. 23. Sketch of, i. 160, 162. Charles River, English fleet in, iii. 173, 182. Charleston in 1765, iii. 77. Charleston, tea landed at, iii. 161. Charlotte, Princess: Death, iii. 348. Marries Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg, iii. 348. Charlotte Sophia of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, wife of George III. , iii. 10. Character and personal appearance, iii. 12, 14. Death, iii. 348. Chartists demand vote by ballot, iv. 131. Chaworth, Mary, Mrs. Musters, iv. 170. Chesterfield, Philip Dormer Stanhope, Earl of: Administration in Ireland, ii. 249. Advice to Prince of Wales, ii. 78. Attitude on Penal Laws, ii. 249. Character, ii. 6. Conduct to Johnson, iii. 44. Enmity to Walpole, ii. 159, 160, 185. Irish policy, ii. 7. Moves address on Accession of George II. , ii. 7. On Bolingbroke, i. 117. Bute's nationality, iii. 30. Carteret, i. 235. Lord Cowper, i. 98. Recalled from Ireland, ii. 252. Retires from public life, ii. 274. Secretary of State, ii. 252. Sketch of, ii. 4 _seqq. _ Speech on Convention, ii. 164. Speech on Playhouse Bill, ii. 100. Speech on Reform of Calendar, ii. 275. Viceroy of Ireland, ii. 246, 247. Chichester, Sir Arthur, i. 80. China trade and East India Company, iv. 231. Chippenham election petition, ii. 189, 190. Chiswick, Mr. , sends Warren Hastings to Calcutta, iii. 247. Cholmondeley, Earl of, moves address on Convention, ii. 164. Chudleigh, Colonel, quarrels with Charles Aldworth, i. 58. Chunar fortress, iii. 270. Chunda Sahib: Besieges Trichinopoly, ii. 262. Captured and put to death, ii. 264. Invades Carnatic, ii. 261. Church of England, condition in 1738, ii. 129, 132. Churchill, Charles: Character, iii. 52. Death, iii. 69. Denunciation of Hogarth, iii. 63. Flight, iii. 59. "Rosciad, " iii. 54. Satires, iv. 69. Wilkes and, iii. 55. Cider tax proposed, iii. 30. Claimants to throne (1714), i. 3 _seqq. _ Clare Election (1828), iv. 70, 78. Clarence, Duke of (_see_ William IV. ). Clarendon, Lord, bears tidings of Queen Anne's death to George, i. 56. Clarke, Adam, death, iv. 284. Clarke, George, killed in riot, iii. 129. Clarkson, Thomas, West Indian Slavery and, iv. 195, 200. Clavering, General Francis, iii. 260, 261. Death, iii. 264. Clement, Pope, interview with Charles Stuart, ii. 202. Clerk, Lord Justice, i. 130. Clerkenwell Prison broken open, iii. 203. Cleveland, Duchess of, i. 23. Clifton, engagement at, ii. 223. Clinton at Boston, iii. 175. Clive, Richard, ii. 254. Clive, Robert, ii. 253. Advances against Suraj ud Dowlah, ii. 268. Captures Arcot, ii. 262. Character, ii. 255. Discerns Warren Hastings's talent, iii. 250, 252. Escapes from Madras, ii. 260. Forges Admiral Watson's signature, ii. 270. Governor of Fort St. David, ii. 265. Marries, ii. 264. Negotiates with Suraj ud Dowlah, ii. 269. Protests against Indian Administration, iii. 251. Returns to England, ii. 264, 273. Returns to India, iii. 253. Sketch of career, ii. 256 _seqq. _ Clonmel, State trials at, iv. 179. Clubs in 1714, i. 73. Coalition Ministry (1783), iii. 225, 229 Fall of, iii. 235, 237. Cobbett, William: Death, iv. 282. Prosecution, iv. 154. Sketch of career, iv. 155. Cobden, R. , doctrine of non-intervention, iv. 62. Cochrane, Thomas, Earl of Dundonald, assists Greeks, iv. 48. "Cocoa Tree" coffee-house, i. 76. Code Napoléon, iii. 332. Codrington, Sir Edward, commands at Navarino, iv. 50, 96. Coffee-houses, i. 75, 76. Coke's description of Raleigh, iii. 286. Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, death, iv. 283. Colonial Administration System (1765), iii. 80. Committee of Secrecy, i. 104, 168. Compton, Sir Spencer, Lord Wilmington, ii. 107, 189. Character, i. 275. Death, ii. 240. Prime Minister, ii. 191. Speaker of House of Commons, i. 212. Concord, battle and retreat from, iii. 174. Congress of Verona and Vienna (_see_ Verona and Vienna Congress). Congreve, William, sketch of, i. 299. Coningsby, Lord, i. 105. Impeaches Oxford, i. 108. Convention between England and Spain (1739), ii. 161, 168. Petition against, ii. 163. Conway, Circular letter to governors of colonies, iii. 105. Cooke, George, Tory candidate for Middlesex, iii. 117. Death, iii. 124. Coote, Major Eyre, ii. 272. Cope, Sir John, Scottish Commander-in-Chief, ii. 210. Defeated at Preston Pans, ii. 214, 215. Copley, Sir John (_see_ Lyndhurst, Baron). Cork Hill, Dublin, i. 82. Cork in 1714, i. 83. Cornwallis, Charles, Marquis: Commands royal troops in Ireland, iii. 323. Surrenders at Yorktown, iii. 184. Corporation Act repealed, iv. 52, 67. Corstorphine, Dragoons at, ii. 212. Cottenham, Lord Chancellor, iv. 252. Court Street Conspiracy, iii. 160. Covent Garden in 1714, i. 68. Cowper, Spencer, i. 105. Cowper, William, Earl, Lord Chancellor: Condemns South Sea Bill, i. 190. Evidence against, i. 219. Opposes taxing Catholics, i. 216. Sketch of, i. 98. Coxe, Archdeacon, on: Division on Prince of Wales's allowance, ii. 88. Duke of Newcastle, ii. 33. Crabbe, George: Account of taking of Newgate, iii. 203. Death, iv. 282. _Craftsman_: Objects of, i. 290, 291. On Walpole's excise scheme, i. 318. Picture of Walpole, ii. 14. "Sedition and defamation displayed, " i. 306. Series of pamphlets, i. 286. Started, i. 260. Craggs, Father and Son, i. 197. Crawford, Earl of, on Princess Anne's dowry, ii. 44. Croix, Petit de la, Persian Tales, iii. 254. Croker, John Wilson, ii. 107. Obstructs Reform Bill, iv. 163. Cromarty, Lord, trial, ii. 228. Cromwell, Elizabeth, death, ii. 3. Cruden, Alexander, dislike to Wilkes, iii. 135. Culloden, Battle of, ii. 224. Prisoners, ii. 232. Cumberland, Ernest Augustus, Duke of: Orange Association and, iv. 276, 278. Supports Irish Church, iv. 219. Unpopularity, iv. 102. Cumberland, William Augustus, Duke of (Butcher), ii. 38. Army at Stafford, ii. 217. Character, ii. 223. Commands English troops at Lauffeld, ii. 239. Conduct after Culloden, ii. 226. Invites Pitt to return to office, iii. 73, 93. Queen Caroline's advice to, ii. 118. Curran, John Philpot: Appeal on behalf of Wolfe Tone, iii. 326. Description of Ireland, iv. 27. Curran, Sarah, and Robert Emmet, iii. 329. 

 "Daily Advertiser, " iii. 128. _Daily Post_, iii. 128. Dalton, Sir Charles, Gentleman Usher of Black Rod, i. 278. Dashwood, Francis, Lord Le Despencer, iii. 33, 65. Chancellor of Exchequer, iii. 48. Founds brotherhood of Medmenham, iii. 46. Davy, Sir Humphry, iv. 93. Dawson, James, supports Young Pretender, ii. 221, 229. Dawson Street, Dublin, i. 81. Daylesford Manor, Worcestershire, iii. 245, 247. D'Espremesnil, Duval, Governor of Madras, ii. 261. De Launay decapitated, iii. 294. De Quincey, iii. 44. Deccan, Nizam of, sends diamond to George III. , iii. 281. Declaration of Rights, Philadelphia, iii. 173. Declaratory Act, iii. 104, 105. Defoe, Daniel, "Robinson Crusoe, " ii. 1. Demerara, "Insurrection" of slaves, iv. 193. Denman, Thomas, Lord Chief Justice: Defends Queen Caroline, iv. 6, 7, 8. Denmark, King of: Character, i. 3. Treaty with George I. , i. 161. Treaty with George II. , ii. 176. Derby, Edward Geoffrey Smith Stanley, Earl of: Letter to Peel declining office, iv. 238. Political principles, iv. 217. Secretary to Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, iv. 127. Speech on Emancipation of Slaves, iv. 196. Speech on Irish State Church, iv. 217, 246. Derby, Reform riot at, iv. 170. Derwentwater, Earl of, i. 137. Executed, i. 142. Dettingen, battle of, ii. 182. Devonshire, Duke of, Premier of Coalition Ministry, ii. 298. D'Iberville on Whigs, i. 18. Dickens, Charles, iv. 286. Dinner hour, changes in, iii. 18. Dinwiddie, Governor of Virginia, ii. 285. Disarmament of clans, ii. 208, 232. Disarming Act (1716), result of, ii. 209. Disraeli (_see_ Beaconsfield, Lord). Divorce Bill (1820), iv. 6. Abandoned, iv. 8. Don Carlos: Compact to protect (1733), ii. 26. Heir to Parma and Placentia, ii. 28. Dorset, Duke of, English ambassador to France, iii. 295. Drake, Governor, in Fulta Island, iii. 249. Draper, Sir William, replies to letters of Junius, iii. 129. Drapier's letters, i. 240, 242. Drummond, Lord James, supports Young Pretender, ii. 221. Dublin coffee-houses, i. 82. Dublin in 1714, i. 80. Dubois, Abbé, Sketch of, i. 155. Duddington, Lieutenant, Commands "Gaspee, " iii. 152. Dumouriez and Duke of Wellington, i. 129. Duncan, Admiral (Lord Camperdown): Deserted by squadron, iii. 335. Victory of Camperdown, iii. 318, 336. Duncannon, Lord, Commissioner of Woods and Forests, iv. 127. Dundas, Henry, Viscount Melville: Catholic Relief Bill for Scotland, iii. 195. Fall of, iii. 338. Sketch of, iii. 232. Dundonald, Admiral, last of sea-kings, iii. 336. Dunleary (_see_ Kingstown). Dunoyer, dancing-master and spy, ii. 106. Dupleix, Governor of S. India, ii. 261. Dreams of French empire in India, ii. 258. Founds Chandernagor, ii. 258. Indian policy, iii. 249. Recalled to France, ii. 262. Refuses to ratify Convention and pillages Madras, ii. 259. Duplicity universal, i. 30. Durham, Earl of, iv. 291. Efforts for Parliamentary reform, iv. 22. Lord Privy Seal, iv. 127. Manners, iv. 121. Sketch of, iv. 127. Suggestions on Reform Bill, iv. 129. Dutch (Batavian) expedition to Ireland, iii. 317. Dymoke, King's champion, iii. 13. 

 East India Companies, ii. 254, 260. East India Company: Charter renewed, iv. 230, 232. Clamors for revenge, iii. 163. Forces tea on America, iii. 161. Policy, iii. 248 _seqq. _ Semi-regal authority, iii. 230. Edgeworth, Talbot, i. 82. Edinburgh: Bill, ii. 66, 68. City guard, ii. 60. Condition in 1745, ii. 210. In 1714, i. 84. Life in, i. 85. Edinburgh Castle: Jacobite plan to capture, i. 129. Reduction abandoned by Young Pretender, ii. 216. Edwards, spy in Cato Street conspiracy, iv. 17, 19. Effingham, Lord, Earl Marshal, iii. 13. Egremont, Lord, iii. 59, 63. House besieged, iii. 117. Wilkes before, iii. 60. Elcho, Lord, ii. 227. Eldon, Earl of, Lord Chancellor, iv. 3. Attitude on Catholic Emancipation, iv. 69. Attitude towards death penalty for stealing, iv. 21. Resigns office, iv. 57. Toryism, iv. 3. Elizabeth, Electress Palatine of the Rhine, i. 5. Elizabeth of Parma, wife of Philip V. , ii. 28. Ellis, relations with Nawab Mir Kasim, iii. 251. Emerson prophesies rise of Orientalism in England, iii. 254. Emily, Princess: At her father's death-bed, ii. 304. Attends on Queen, ii. 117, 122, 123. Dislikes Walpole, ii. 126. Emmet, Robert, iii. 313, 314; iv. 206. Projects for Independence of Ireland, iii. 327. Emmet, Thomas Addis, iii. 313, 314. England: American Colonies and Advantages of union between, iii. 80. Declares war against Spain, ii. 178. Politics of Continent, and, i. 154, 225. Protests against War of Independence, iii. 183, 184. Recuperates, iii. 187. Spain and, trade disputes, ii. 150. English Copper Company and South Sea Company, i. 193. English Protestant Association, iii. 192, 195. Meeting in St. George's Fields, iii. 169. English substituted for Latin in indictments, etc. , i. 302. Entinck, John, Editor of _Monitor_, iii. 51. Eon, Chevalier d', present to Wilkes, iii. 134. Erskine, Thomas, Lord: Defends Lord George Gordon, iii. 210. On Coronation oath, iv. 54. Eugene, Prince, of Savoy, ii. 24, 35. Excise Bill (1733), i. 317. Abandoned, i. 320. Excise Reform, i. 311. Exeter in 1714, i. 79. 

 Factories Act (1833), iv. 202, 204. Factory labor and State, iv. 201, 202. Fairman, Colonel, Orange lodges and, iv. 278. Falkirk, Hawley defeated at, ii. 223. "Family compacts, " ii. 26; iii. 27. Famines in Scotland, i. 89. "Fancy Franchises, " iv. 183. Fane, British Envoy at Florence, ii. 202. Fashions in 1760, iii. 16. Ferguson, on Edinburgh City Guard, ii. 60. Fielding, Henry: On mob in London, iii. 123. Satires on Pretender, ii. 219. Fielding, Sir John, house sacked, iii. 203. Finch, Lord, presents Bolingbroke's petition to Lords, i. 258. Fitzgerald, Lord Edward, iii. 309, 314; iv. 206. Death, iii. 323. Marriage, iii. 220. Sketch of career, iii. 312. Withdraws from Dublin Parliament, iii. 319. Fitzgerald, Vesey, defeated by O'Connell, iv. 74. Fitzherbert, Mrs. : Death, iv. 289. George IV. And, iii. 242; iv. 88. Fitzwilliam, Earl, Viceroy of Ireland, iii. 308. Flaxman, John, iv. 93. Fleet ditch, i. 72. Fleet marriages, ii. 279. Fleming, Sir Michael, and Lord George Gordon, iii. 199. Fletcher, Andrew, in Edinburgh in 1745, ii. 211. Fleury, Cardinal, Prime Minister of France, i. 264, 291. Florida and Carolina, dispute as to boundaries, ii. 160. Fontenoy, Battle of, ii. 210. Foote, on Alexander Wedderburn, iii. 158. Forbes, Duncan, in Edinburgh in 1745, ii. 62. Foreign aid for America, iii. 183. Forster, Thomas: Escapes, i. 142. In Newgate, i. 137. Fort Duquesne built, ii. 286. Fort Duquesne taken, iii. 180. Fort St. David, Olive at, ii. 260, 263. Fort Ticonderoga taken, iii. 79. "Forty-five, " Account of Rebellion, ii. 203 _seqq. _ Forty-shilling freeholders, iv. 179. Fowke, charged with conspiracy, iii. 261. Fox, Charles James, i. 28. Acquainted with Paris, iii. 293. Antagonism to Pitt, iii. 225. As Leader of Opposition, i. 287. Attitude on Regency, iii. 243. Attitude towards French Revolution, iii. 296, 299. Attitude towards Pitt, iii. 339. Character, iii. 227. Coalition with North, iii. 225. Contracted with Pitt, iii. 212 Death, iii. 340; iv. 61. Early life, iii. 142. Foreign Secretary and Leader of Commons, iii. 340. Friend to Ireland, iii. 319; iv. 23. India Bill, iii. 230 _seqq. _ On Henry Grattan, iii. 307. Parliamentary career, iii. 141, 143. Praises of Pitt, iii. 223. Prince of Wales's conduct to, iii. 243. Resigns office, iii. 225. Scholarship, iii. 143. Secretary of State, iii. 224. Speech on Middlesex Election Petition, iii. 132. Fox, Henry (_see_ Holland, Lord). Fox's Martyrs, iii. 237. France: Acknowledges independence of America, iii. 183. Condition before Revolution, iii. 291. Declares war (1793), iii. 303. In 1716, i. 154, 155. Spain and, Alliance between, ii. 25, 26, 182. Spanish policy, iv. 42. Francis, Philip: Character, iii. 260. Duel with Hastings, iii. 267. Hostile to Hastings, iii. 280. Probable author of "Letters of Junius, " iii. 39. Franklin, Benjamin: At Bar of House, iii. 103, 156. Gala suit, iii. 156, 184. Letters of Hutchinson and Oliver and, iii. 153, 155. On Whitefield's eloquence, ii. 139. On Wilkes's candidature for Parliament, iii. 116, 132. Signs Peace in Paris, iii. 184. Sketch of, iii. 102. Frazer, Under Secretary of State, iii. 235. Frederick Lewis, Prince of Wales, ii. 38. Attempts to see his mother, ii. 118. Banished from King's palaces, ii. 108. Bids for popularity, ii. 71. Carries off his wife to London, ii. 106. Character, ii. 71, 72, 74, 77. Claims independent allowance, ii. 77. Conduct on declaration of war, ii. 178. Death, ii. 276. Epitaphs, ii. 276. Income, ii. 87. Marries Princess Augusta, ii. 47. Patriots and, ii. 50, 108, 110. Relations with George II. , ii. 39, 50, 76, 91, 104. Sketch of, ii. 39. Votes against address on Convention, ii. 169. Frederick II. Of Prussia (the Great), ii. 280. Account of abandonment of Excise Bill, i. 320. Description of George I. , i. 270. Occupies Silesia, ii. 182. Frederick William, King of Prussia, and George II. , ii. 45. Free Trade, movement towards, iv. 93. Free Trade, Walpole and, i. 317. Freedom of City, origin of, iv. 256. French aims in America, ii. 285. French expeditions to Ireland, iii. 315, 323, 325. French in Canada, ii. 283. French Revolution, iii. 284, 293 _seqq. _ Condition of France before, iii. 291. England and, iii. 302, 306. French Revolution of 1830, iv. 98. Fuseli, Henry, iv. 93. 

 Gage, General: Arrives in Massachusetts, iii. 165. Raid upon stores in Concord, iii. 174. Galland, version of "Arabian Nights, " iii. 254. Game Laws, severity of, iv. 84. Garrick, David, and Samuel Johnson, iii. 42. Gascoigne, General, amendment to Reform Bill, iv. 150. "Gaspee, " iii. 152. Gates, General Horatio, iii. 179. Traitor, iii. 184. Gay, John; "Beggar's Opera, " i. 302; ii. 95. Lampoons, ii. 102. "Polly, " ii. 95. Secretary to Lord Clarendon, i. 38. Sketch of, ii. 3. _Gazetteer and New Daily Advertiser_, iii. 128. George I. (George Louis, Elector of Hanover): Attitude towards Prince of Wales, i. 153, 256, 274. Character, i. 6, 8, 58, 91, 269. Conduct during 1715, i. 136. Coronation, i. 101. Death, i. 266. Descent, i. 6. Directions about Czar, i. 163. Distrusts Marlborough, i. 54. Entry into London, i. 58. Extent of Empire, i. 89. Journey to England, i. 56. Letter to King of Spain on Gibraltar, i. 296. New Lords Justices, i. 54. Principles of government, i. 91. Proclaimed King, i. 47, 49. Project for kidnapping Prince of Wales, ii. 109, 110. Stories of later years, i. 266. Treatment of Oxford and Bolingbroke, i. 101. Visits Hanover, i. 152, 236, 265. Will, i. 269. George II. : At Dettingen, ii. 182. Character, i. 274; ii. 46, 48, 76, 117, 123, 304. Consults Walpole, ii. 195. Death, ii. 303. Godfather to his grand-daughter, ii. 108. Guardian of the Realm and Lieutenant, i. 153. His family, ii. 38. In danger through storms, ii. 69. Income, ii. 89. Letter to Queen, ii. 76. On Handel, ii. 52. Opens Parliament (1728), i. 282. Negotiates with Carteret and Pulteney, ii. 244. Party when Prince of Wales, i. 257. Proposes allowance to Prince of Wales, ii. 81, 86. Proposes duel with Frederick William of Prussia, ii. 46. Relations with George I. , i. 153, 256, 274; ii. 109. Relations with Prince of Wales, ii. 40, 50, 76, 104 _seqq. _, 118. Royal speech (1727), i. 278. Speech from throne (1735), ii. 22. Sympathy with his mother, i. 153. Unpopular, ii. 69. Visits Hanover, ii. 47, 49, 210. George III. : Accession, iii. 2. Attitude towards Catholic Emancipation, iv. 53. Attitude towards French Revolution, iii. 301. Attitude towards Wilkes, iii. 17, 119, 132. Birth, ii. 278. Character, iii. 4, 241; iv. 91. Coronation, iii. 12. Courage during Gordon riots, iii. 206. Death, iii. 348. Dislikes Fox and North, iii. 225. Dislikes Pitt, iii. 3, 26. Dismisses Fox and North, iii. 235. Grenville and, iii. 71, 72, 93. Ideal of governing, iii. 23, 25, 80. Illnesses, iii. 72, 243, 341. Improvements during reign, iii. 349. Letter to Temple on India Bills, iii. 234. Ministry of all the talents and, iii. 340. Personal appearance, iii. 3. Policy towards American colonies, iii. 78, 79, 153, 164. Private life, iii. 19. Speech from throne (1760), iii. 22. George IV. (Augustus Frederick): Accession and illness, iv. 1. Attitude towards Canning, iv. 31, 37, 46, 48, 55, 65. Attitude towards Catholic Emancipation, iv. 54, 55, 76. Attitude towards Lord Grey, iv. 76. Character, iii. 241; iv. 24, 28, 30, 89 _seqq. _ Coronation, iv. 9. Death, iv. 87. Endeavors to obtain divorce, iv. 3, 4, 6, 8. Friend of Fox and Sheridan, iii. 242; iv. 23. Illness, iv. 86. In opposition, iii. 242. Interview with Wellington, Lyndhurst, and Peel, iv. 77. Letters to Lord Liverpool, iv. 27, 37. Marries Princess Caroline of Brunswick, iii. 244. Mrs. Fitzherbert and, iii. 242; iv. 88. Regent, iii. 341. Visits Hanover, iv. 28. Visits Ireland, iv. 23 _seqq. _ Visits Scotland, iv. 29. Georgia, John Wesley visits, ii. 127, 134. Georgian drama, ii. 94. Georgian literature, iii. 171. Gheriah, Pirate stronghold, ii. 265. Gibbon on Gordon riots, iii. 196. Gibraltar: Besieged (1727), i. 228. Debate on restitution of, i. 296. Gin riots, ii. 56. Gladsmuir (_see_ Preston Pans, battle of). Gladstone, John, entertains George Canning, iv. 35. Gladstone, William Ewart, iv. 35. Junior Lord of Treasury, iv. 239. On "Drapier's Letters, " i. 245. Speech on Irish Church revenues, iv. 247. Glasgow in 1714, i. 86. Gloucester, Duke of, death, i. 3. Glynn, Serjeant, M. P. For Middlesex, iii. 124. Goderich, Viscount: Colonial and War Secretary, iv. 58. Prime Minister, iv. 65. "Prosperity Robinson, " iv. 65. Resigns office, iv. 67. Sketch of, iv. 65. Godolphin, Countess of, i. 210. Godolphin, Earl of, Lord Privy Seal, ii. 107. Goethe, referred to, iii. 144, 145. "Sorrows of Werther, " iii. 167. Goldsmith, Oliver: Plays, iii. 170. Sketch of career and writings, iii. 167, 171. Gordon, Colonel, threatens rioters, iii. 199. Gordon, Elizabeth, Duchess of, improves Scotch agriculture, i. 88. Gordon, Lord George: Acquitted, iii. 210. Arrested, iii. 209. Death in Newgate, iii. 210. Denounces Burke, iii. 199. Presents petition to Commons, iii. 198. Sketch of, iii. 192. Gordon riots, iii. 196 _seqq. _ Gordon, Sir John, ii. 223. Government by party, i. 284. Graeme, Colonel, mission, iii. 11. Grafton, Duke of (I. ), killed in Cork, i. 83. Grafton, Duke of (II. ), Bill to suspend Habeas Corpus Act, i. 213. Grafton (Augustus Henry Fitzroy), Duke of (III. ): Junius's indictment of, iii. 129. Resigns place in Rockingham ministry, iii. 108. Sketch of, iii. 35. Graham, Sir James: First Lord of Admiralty, iv. 127. Refuses office in Peel's ministry, iv. 238. Resigns office, iv. 218. Speech on Irish Church revenues, iv. 246. Granard, Lord, tells King James of conspiracy, i. 24. Grant, Sir Archibald, interest in road-making, i. 88. Granville, Earl of (_see_ Carteret, John). Grattan, Henry: Buried in Westminster Abbey, iv. 23. Leader of Irish, iii. 307. Withdraws from Dublin Parliament, iii. 319. Gray, "Elegy in a Country Church-yard, " ii. 289. Great Seal stolen, iii. 237. "Grecian" coffee-house, i. 76. Greece: struggle for independence, iv. 40, 48. Green, J. B. , on "Family Compact, " ii. 31. Greene, Nathaniel, iii. 176, 179. Gregory XIII. Reforms calendar, ii. 275. Grenville, George, iii. 26, 57. Colonial policy, iii. 84, 87. Prime minister, iii. 72. Proposes tax to maintain garrison in America, iii. 87. Regency Bill and, iii. 72. Sketch of, iii. 31. Speech on Middlesex election petition, iii. 131. Stamp Act, iii. 87, 90. Grenville, James, iii. 26. Grenville, William Wyndham, Lord, Ministry of all the talents, iii. 340. Greville, Charles, on: Duel between Wellington and Winchilsea, iv. 83. Edmund Burke, iii. 96. George IV. 's illness, iv. 86. James and John Stuart Mill, iv. 281. Meeting Macaulay, iv. 185. Princess Victoria, iv. 290, 291. William IV. , iv. 114, 115. William IV. And Whig ministers, iv. 175. Grey, Charles, Earl: Appeal to archbishops and bishops on Reform Bill, iv. 171. Appeals to country, iv. 152. Attacks Canning, iv. 59. Attitude towards electoral reform, iv. 52, 59. Attitude towards Irish State Church, iv. 218, 220. Catholic Emancipation and, iv. 76. Character, iv. 120. Introduces third Reform Bill, iv. 173. Irish grievances and, iv. 207. Leader of Opposition, iv. 103. Motion on speech from throne, iv. 104. Prime Minister, iv. 122. Resigns office, iv. 233. Scheme for creating new peers, iv. 176, 180. Speech on reform, iv. 108. Speech on Reform Bill (second), iv. 168. Grey, Earl: Committed to Tower, i. 214. Condemns South Sea Bill, i. 190. Grey, Sir George, Under-Secretary of Colonies, iv. 252. Grosvenor, Sir Richard, names squares and streets, i. 68. Grote, George: On Irish State Church system, iv. 210. Motion for ballot in municipal elections, iv. 259. Sketch of, iv. 215. Speech on Ward's motion on Irish Church, iv. 216, 217. Guelf, history of family, i. 5. Guildhall banquet rumors, iv. 112. 

 Haddington, Lord, introduces sowing grass seeds, i. 88. Haidar: Grudge against English, iii. 265. Sketch of career, iii. 265. Halhed, friend of Sheridan, iii. 217, 218. Halifax, Lord, iii. 59. Wilkes before, iii. 60. Halkett, Sir P. K. , warns General Braddock, ii. 286. Hall, Robert, death, iv. 284. Hamilton, James, Duke of, killed in duel, i. 122. Hamilton, Lady Archibald, accompanies Prince and Princess of Wales to London, ii. 107. Hamilton (Single-speech), Secretary to Halifax, iii. 99. Hampden, John, and ship money, i. 247. Hampden, Richard, i. 105. Hampton Court Palace, Royal Family in, ii. 105, 106. Handel: Reception of "Messiah, " ii. 51. Royal Family and, ii. 51. Hanger, George, iii. 244. Hanover: Lady Mary Wortley Montagu's account of, i. 152. Separation from English Crown proposed, ii. 105. Sketch of House of, i. 5. Thackeray's description of, i. 55. Treaty of, i. 295. Hanoverian dynasty, position of, iv. 94. Harcourt, Simon, Lord Chancellor: Motion on Oxford's impeachment, i. 169. Sketch of career, i. 49. Hardwicke, Philip Yorke, Lord Chancellor, ii. 9, 192. Heads deputation to Prince of Wales, ii. 81. On declaration of war, ii. 177. Opposes Pitt, iii. 26. Passes Marriage Act, ii. 279. Harley, Robert (_see_ Oxford, Earl of). Harley, Thomas, arrest ordered, i. 106. Harrington, Lord, Secretary of State, i. 304. Harrison, Audrey, marries third Marquis Townshend, iii. 110. Harrowby, Lord, and Cato Street conspiracy, iv. 18. Harvard College, places in lists, iii. 77. Hastings, Howard, assists his nephew, iii. 246. Hastings, Lady Elizabeth, Essays by Congreve and Steele on, i. 301. Hastings, Pynaston, iii. 245. Hastings, Warren: Acquitted, iii. 285. Advice on quarrel of Nawab and Ellis, iii. 252. At Bar of House, iii. 276, 289. Attempts literature, iii. 253. Benares expedition, iii. 269. Buys Dalesford, iii. 276. Charges against, iii. 258. Company's representative at Murshidabad, iii. 250. Defence at Bar of House, iii. 276. Duel with Francis, iii. 267. Enemies, iii. 260, 264, 265. Evidence before House of Commons' Committee, iii. 253. Friendship for Sir James Bland-Burges, iii. 278. Governor-General, iii. 260; his Council, iii. 260 _seqq. _ Governor of Bengal, iii. 257. Impeached, iii. 281. Indian policy, iii. 273. Life at Daylesford, iii. 288. Marriage, iii. 250, 256. Oriental diplomacy, iii. 249. Oriental studies, iii. 254. Presents Deccan diamond to king, iii. 281. Reforms needed and carried out, iii. 257, 258. Relations with Impey, iii. 267, 268. Resignation accepted, iii. 264. Returns to England, iii. 253. Returns to India, iii. 255. Scheme for Supreme Court and Council, iii. 267. Sketch of career, iii. 245 _seqq. _ State of India on his arrival, iii. 249. Trial, iii. 281 _seqq. _ Work accomplished, iii. 258. Hatzfeldt, Count, mobbed, iii. 118. Hawley, defeated at Falkirk, ii. 223. Hazlitt on Steele and Addison, i. 300, 301. Heath, --, iii. 179. Heber, Bishop, death, iv. 92. Heights of Abraham, ii. 288, 289. Hell-Fire Club, iii. 47. Hemans, Felicia, death, iv. 284. Henry IV. Becomes a Catholic, i. 13. Henry, Patrick, speech against Stamp Act, iii. 90. Hepburn, James, of Keith, ii. 214. Herbert, Colonel (Lord Carnarvon), Treatment of Lord George Gordon, iii. 202. Herbert, Sidney, as debater, iv. 239. Herrenhausen, i. 55. Herschel, Sir John, on Newton, i. 273. Hertford, Lord, preparations against insurgents, iii. 205. Hervey, James, author of "Meditations, " ii. 128. Hervey, John, Lord, Baron Hervy of Ickworth: Appeal on Convention, ii. 163. Attends dying Queen, ii. 118, 123. Compares Chesterfield with Scarborough and Carteret, ii. 5. Interviews with Walpole on Queen's death, ii. 120, 125. Lampoons, ii. 102. Memoirs of Reign of George II. , i. 306, 308. On Duke of Argyll, i. 44. On Frederick, Prince of Wales, ii. 39, 105. On George II. 's danger, ii. 69. On George II. 's illness, ii. 303. On Handel and Royal Family, ii. 51. On Hardwicke and Talbot, ii. 10. On letters between George I. And Prince of Wales, ii. 109. On Princess Caroline, ii. 38. On Princess Emily, ii. 38. On Sir William Wyndham, i. 288. On Walpole being indispensable, ii. 91. Sedition and Defamation displayed, i. 306. Sketch of, i. 306. Supports Walpole's policy, ii. 160, 168. Takes news of Prince of Wales's claim to Queen, ii. 78, 79. Hessian mercenaries, i. 291, 292. For America, iii. 183. In Ireland, iii. 322. Highlands, modern prosperity of, ii. 233. Highlands, pacification after Culloden, ii. 227. Hill, Frank H. , quoted on: Fame and George Canning, iv. 59. Peel and art of government, iv. 57. Hill, Rowland, death, iv. 284. Hill, Sir George, recognizes Wolfe Tone, iii. 325. Hillsborough, Lord, Secretary of State, iii. 147. Colonial policy, iii. 147, 148, 150, 152. Hoadley, Dr. , Bishop of Winchester, opposed to Test Act, ii. 110, 111. Hoche, General: Commands expedition to Ireland, iii. 315. Death, iii. 318. Hogarth, William: Caricature of Churchill, iii. 63. Caricature of Wilkes, iii. 61. Death, iii. 68. "March to Finchley, " ii. 231. Pictures of London, i. 64, 65. "Polling Day, " ii. 188. Portrait of Lord Lovat, ii. 230. Sketch of career, ii. 230. Hogg, James, death, iv. 282. Holland, Henry Fox, Lord: As Administrator and Debater, ii. 274. Asked to support Prince of Wales's claim, ii. 78. Character, iii. 33, 141. Forms Opposition to Pitt, iii. 26. Macaulay and C. Greville dine with, iv. 185. Paymaster, ii. 298. Protests against words "On the true faith of a Christian, " iv. 69. Secretary at War, ii. 296. Holroyd, Colonel, threatens Lord George Gordon, iii. 199. Holwell, on Black Hole of Calcutta, ii. 267. Holy Alliance and Congress of Verona, iv. 39, 42, 45. Horne-Tooke, John, Rector of Brentford: Candidate for Westminster, iii. 139. Quarrels with Wilkes, iii. 136. Supports Wilkes, iii. 117. Horneck, Mary, "Jessamy Bride, " iii. 169. Houghton, Walpole at, i. 196. House of Commons: Chairman of Committee, iv. 160. Commencement of Party organization, i. 256. Committee on Convention, ii. 171. Debates on: Allowance for Prince of Wales, ii. 82, 88. American Colonies, iii. 162. Middlesex Election, iii. 131. Restitution of Gibraltar, i. 297. Supply to George II. , i. 280. Election Petitions, ii. 189. Gordon presents petition to, iii. 198. Growth of, i. 32. In Committee, iv. 160. Inadequate accommodation, iv. 270, 271. Ladies' Gallery, iv. 272. Numbers in 1714, i. 51. Obstruction in, iv. 159, 160 _seqq. _ Petition of merchants against Spaniards, ii. 153. Petitions against Spaniards, i. 294. Secession from, ii. 172, 174. Subsidies for foreign mercenaries, i. 293. House of Lords: Agitation against, iv. 167. Debates on: Bill for Princess Anne's dowry, ii. 43. Convention, ii. 164, 168. Prince of Wales's allowance, ii. 89. India Bills rejected, iii. 235. Numbers in 1714, i. 51. Protest against Address on Prince of Wales's allowance, ii. 90. Reform and, iv. 169, 173, 176. Scene during Gordon Riot, iii. 197, 201. Walpole and, ii. 159. Houses of Parliament (old), i. 64. Destroyed by fire, iv. 267. Houses of Parliament, design for new, iv. 269, 270. Howe, Admiral Richard, Viscount, Mutiny at Spithead and, iii. 335. Howe, William, Viscount, iii. 182. Commands at Breed Hill, iii. 176. Humbert, General, commands expedition to Ireland, iii. 323. Hume, David, on Whitefield's eloquence, ii. 139. Hume, Joseph, Committee on Orangeism, iv. 387. Hungerford speaks for Bolingbroke, i. 108. Hunt, Leigh, on: George IV. , iii. 242. William Congreve, i. 301. Hunt, Orator, defeats Stanley at Preston, iv. 131. Huskisson, William: Attitude on Catholic Emancipation, iv. 68. Colonial and War Secretary, iv. 65, 67. Death, iv. 103. Resigns office, iv. 72. Sketch of career, iv. 52. Treasurer of Navy and President of Board of Trade, iv. 58. Hutchinson, Governor-General of Massachusetts: House in Boston ransacked, iii. 91. Letters to Whately, iii. 153. Hyde Park, camp in, i. 121. 

 Ibraham Pasha, military capacity, iv. 49. Imhoff, Baroness von, and Warren Hastings, iii. 255. Impey, Elijah, Chief Justice, iii. 261, 268. Impressment for Navy abolished, iv. 263, 267. India Bills: Fox's, iii. 230 _seqq. _ Pitt's, iii. 237, 238. Indian Empire, ii. 257. Condition in 1707, ii. 257. Three Presidencies, ii. 253. Inglis, Sir Robert Harry, speech on Reform Bill, iv. 144. Insurrection of 1715, i. 118 _seqq. _ Conditions of success, i. 118. Intrigues in Cabinet, i. 251. Ireland: Agitation in 1724, i. 240. Condition in 1797, iii. 318. Grievances, iii. 306. In 1714, i. 80. New copper coinage, i. 240. Irish and English Parliaments, i. 179. Irish Brigade at Fontenoy and Lauffeld, ii. 239. Irish clergy, ii. 130. Irish House of Lords, i. 178. Irish Parliament, i. 80; iii. 307. Abolished, iv. 206. Irish, Penal Laws against, ii. 248. Irish Rebellion of '98, iii. 313, 314 _seqq. _; iv. 206. Irish State Church question, tithes, iv. 207 _seqq. _ Debate on, iv. 212. (_See also_ Tithe question, Ireland. ) Irish vote, iv. 244. Irving, Washington, essay on Robert Emmet, iii. 329. Isla, Earl of, i. 250. Italy in 1716, i. 154. 

 Jacobite demonstration in England, i. 121, 135. Jacobitism and Tory cause, iii. 24. Jamaica: Act to mitigate punishment of slaves, iv. 193. Jekyll, Sir Joseph, Gin Act, ii. 56. Jenkins, Captain, story of his ear, ii. 158. Johnson, Samuel: English dictionary, ii. 299. Epitaph on Goldsmith, iii. 171. Friend of Goldsmith, iii. 169. Interview with Wilkes, iii. 138. On acquittal of Lord George Gordon, iii. 210. On Alexander Wedderburn, iii. 158. On authorship of _Letters of Junius_, iii. 131. On state of Irish, ii. 248. On taking of Newgate, iii. 203. Opinion of Thomas Sheridan, iii. 217. Receives pension, iii. 55. Regard for Warren Hastings, iii. 255. Sketch of, iii. 39 _seqq. _ Visits Paris, iii. 293. Jones, Inigo, lays out Covent Garden, i. 68. Jones, Paul, commands "Le Bonhomme Richard, " iii. 183. Jones, Sir William, Persian grammar, iii. 254. Jonson, Ben, Comedies, i. 299. Jordan, Mrs. , and William IV. , iv. 97. Julius Caesar regulates calendar, ii. 275. _Junius's Letters in Public Advertiser_, iii. 128. 

 Kazim Bazar Settlement, iii. 249. Keats, John, death, iv. 92. Kean, Edmund, death, iv. 285. Kelly supports Young Pretender, ii. 205. Kemble, John, death, iv. 92. Kendal, Mlle. Schulemberg, Duchess of, i. 7, 241, 266. Bribed by Bolingbroke, i. 267. Death, i. 266. Kenmure, Viscount, i. 137. Executed, i. 142. Kennett, Lord Mayor of London, iii. 201. Kent, Edward, Duke of, death, iii. 348. Kent, Duchess of, and William IV. , iv. 117. Kenyon defends Lord George Gordon, iii. 210. Ker, Lord Mark, reception of Cope, ii. 215. Kilmansegge, Mme. (Countess of Darlington), i. 7. Kilmarnock, Lord, trial of, ii. 228, 229. Kilwarden, Lord Chief Justice: Action respecting Wolfe Tone, iii. 326. Murdered, iii. 328. King's Evil, iii. 39. King's friends, iii. 108. Kingstown, origin of name, iv. 25. Kinnison, David, iii. 161. "Kit-Kat" Club, i. 74. Kneller: portrait of Queen Anne, i. 2. Knighton, Sir William, sketch of, iv. 47. Königsmark, Aurora, mother of Maurice de Saxe, i. 8. Königsmark, Charles John, i. 7. Murders Lord Thynne, i. 8. Königsmark, Philip Christof, assassinated, i. 7. Kosciusko in America, iii. 183. 

 La Bourdonnais: Besieges and takes Madras, ii. 259. Founds colonies of Ile de France and Bourbon, ii. 258. Sent to France under arrest, ii. 259. La Vendée, Royalist revolt in, iii. 303. La Vrilličre, Mme. , i. 237. Lade, Sir John, iii. 244. Lafayette: Demands revival of States-General, iii. 293. In America, iii. 183. Lamb, Charles: Death, iv. 284. On "Robinson Crusoe, " ii. 2. Lambton, J. G. (_see_ Durham, Earl of). Lampooners, ii. 102. Landor, Walter Savage: Epigram on the Four Georges, iii. 242. On George I. And George II. , i. 273. Langdale, distilleries fired by mob, iii. 207. Lauderdale, Lord, attitude towards French Revolution, iii. 301. Lauffeld, battle of, ii. 239. Law, defends Warren Hastings, iii. 285. Law, John, forms Mississippi Company, i. 184. Law, William, "Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life, " ii. 133. Lawrence, Major, commands in S. India (1751), ii. 264. Lawrence, Sir Thomas, iv. 93. Layer, Christopher: Arrested, i. 219. Hanged, i. 221. Lecky, William E. H. , on: Catholics and Protestants, iv. 55. Shrewsbury as Lord High Treasurer, i. 46. Lee, Richard Henry, on George Washington, iii. 189. Lee, General Charles, iii. 179. Traitor, iii. 184. Leeds, iv. 99. Leeds, Duke of, protests against Act for Dependency of Ireland, i. 178. Leibnitz on Electress Sophia, i. 4. Lennox, Lady Sarah, sketch of, iii. 9. Leopold, King of the Belgians, iv. 117, 290. Lepell, Mary, Lady Hervey, i. 307, 308. Lessing, "Laocoon, " iii. 98. Referred to, iii. 145. Leszczynski, Stanislaus, King of Poland, sketch of, ii. 23. _Letters of Junius_ in _Public Advertiser_, iii. 128. Authorship, iii. 130. Lewis, Sir George Cornewall, i. 290. Lexington, battle at, ii. 43; iii. 174. Liberal political principles, rise of, iv. 94. Lightfoot, Hannah, iii. 8. Limerick invested by William III. , i. 83. Limerick, Treaty of, i. 83. Linley, Elizabeth (Mrs. Richard B. Sheridan), iii. 218. Liverpool: As commercial port, iv. 99. In 1714, i. 79. Memorials of Canning, iv. 34. Liverpool and Manchester Railway opened, iv. 103. Liverpool, Robert Banks Jenkinson, Earl of: Attitude towards Catholic Emancipation, iv. 34. Attitude towards popular liberty, iv. 3. Character, iii. 345. Death, iv. 62. Illness, iv. 55, 58. Prime Minister, iv. 3. Recommends Canning as Foreign Secretary, iv. 37. Lloyd, Dr. , at Westminster School, iii. 54. Logwood Trade on Campeachy Bay, i. 294, 295. London: In panic, iii. 204. In 1714, i. 63. In 1760, iii. 15. Penny Post, i. 78. Poverty in, ii. 89. State during '45, ii. 218. London University Charter, iv. 261. Londonderry, Marquis of (_see_ Castlereagh, Viscount). Lord High Treasurer, office of, i. 46. Lord Mayor of London committed to Tower, iii. 135. Lord Mayor of London presents addresses to King, iii. 133. Lord Treasurership in Commission, i. 97. "Lords of Trade, " iii. 80. Louis XIV. And Stuart cause, i. 117. Louis XV. Places Stanislaus Leszczynski on throne of Poland, ii. 23. Louis XVI. : Character, iii. 295. Executed, iii. 300, 303. Louis Napoleon, Emperor, demeanor, i. 127. Louis Napoleon, Prince, i. 10. Louis Philippe, King of the French, iv. 98, 105. Louisiana, ii. 283. Lovat, Simon Fraser, Lord, sketch of, ii. 229. Lowe, Sir Hudson, and Napoleon Bonaparte, iii. 344. Lowland Agriculture, i. 87. Loyalty in 1714, i. 59. Luttrell, Colonel: Opposes Wilkes, iii. 126. Petition against, iii. 132. Lyall, Sir Alfred, on Hastings's application for annuity for his wife, iii. 289. Lyndhurst, John Singleton Copley, Baron, iv. 58, 65. Amendment on Reform Bill (third), iv. 174. Interview with King on Catholic emancipation, iv. 77. Lord Chancellor, iv. 239. Opposes Municipal Bill, iv. 259. Oratory, iv. 174. Lyons rises against Paris, iii. 303. Lyttelton in politics and literature, ii. 274. 

 Maberly, house sacked, iii. 201. Macartney, General, returns to England, i. 122. Macartney, Lord, governor of Madras, iii. 266. Macaulay, Thomas Babington, Lord: On Arbuthnot, ii. 21. On Irish tithe question, iv. 210. On Warren Hastings, iii. 258. Sketch of, iv. 184. Macaulay, Zachary, West Indian Slavery and, iv. 190. Macclesfield, Thomas Parker, Earl of: Impeached, i. 262. On reform of calendar, ii. 275. M'Cullock, Lieutenant, suggests scaling Heights of Abraham, ii. 288. Macdonald, Aeneas, evidence on '45, ii. 205, 227. Macdonald of Barrisdale, ii. 227. Macdonald of Sleat refuses to support Young Pretender, ii. 205. Macdonald, Sir John, supports Young Pretender, ii. 205, Macdonalds' conduct at Culloden, ii. 225. Mackintosh, Brigadier, escapes from Newgate, i. 142. Mackintosh, Sir James: Bill to abolish death penalty for minor offences, iv. 20. Death, iv. 281. Denounces trial of Rev. John Smith, iv. 194. M'Laurin improves fortifications of Edinburgh, ii. 211. Maclean, Donald, tried for murdering Allan, iii. 120. Macleod of Macleod refuses to support Young Pretender, ii. 205. M'Quirk, Edward, tried for murder of George Clarke, iii. 129. Madras: Besieged by Le Bourdonnais, ii. 259. Restored to England, ii. 260. Madras expedition, iii. 250. Mahon, Lord, iii. 186. Mahratta States and Nizam of Deccan, iii. 265, 266. Malleson, Colonel, on Suraj ud Dowlah, ii. 267. Malthus, Thomas Robert, iv. 281. Manchester, iv. 99. In 1714, i. 79. Mangan, Clarence, "Dark Rosaleen, " iv. 205. Manley, Isaac, Postmaster-General, Dublin, i. 82. Mansfield, Murray, Lord, ii. 274. Attorney-General, ii. 296. Demeanor during Gordon riot, iii. 197. House sacked, iii. 203. Mar, John Erskine, Earl of, i. 39. Leader of insurrection, 1715, i. 123. Letter to Bolingbroke, i. 120. Sketch of, i. 123. March Club, i. 74. Maria Theresa, Queen of Hungary, British troops support, ii. 182. Marie Antoinette executed, iii. 300. Markham arrests Rajah of Benares, iii. 269. Marlborough House, i. 69. Marlborough, John Churchill, Duke of, i. 2, 54. Advice on rebellion of 1715, i. 128. Advice to Bolingbroke, i. 104. Character, i. 22, 24, 210. Charges against, i. 94. Closing days, i. 208. Funeral, i. 211. Member of Privy Council, i. 100. Return to England, i. 16, 52. Marlborough, Sarah, Duchess of, i. 208. Advice to Duke, i. 100. Character, i. 25. Marriage Act, ii. 279. Marseilles rises against Paris, iii. 303. Martin challenges Wilkes, iii. 66. Martineau, H. : Attitude towards Poor Relief, iv. 224. On admission of ladies to hear debates in House, iv. 272. On movement against monopoly of East India Company, iv. 232. On Queen Caroline, iv. 10. Masham, created peer, i. 174. Masham, Mrs. , i. 2. Letter to Swift, i. 36. Result of influence with Queen, i. 94. Massachusetts: Memorial from, ii. 42. Mutiny Act and, iii. 150. Petition for recall of Hutchinson and Oliver, iii. 155. Protests against Stamp Act, iii. 90. Punishment of, iii. 164. Mathews, Charles, Sen. , "At Home" performance, iv. 285. Maximilian, Emperor, iv. 45. Mayfair, i. 72. Mechanics' Institutes, iv. 93. Mecklenburg-Strelitz, Duchy of, iii. 11. Medmenham-on-Thames, iii. 46. Meer Jaffier conspires against Suraj ud Dowlah, ii. 269, 270, 271, 272. Melbourne, William Lamb, Viscount: Attitude towards reforms, iv. 254. Character, iv. 234. Home Secretary, iv. 126. Irish Members and, iv. 253. Prime Minister, iv. 233, 250. Meredith, George, "Ironic procession, " iii. 2. Methodism (_see_ Wesleyan Movement). Methuen, Sir Paul, Treasurer of Household, i. 279. Opposes Bolingbroke's pardon, i. 259. Mexican Empire, iv. 45. Middlesex election (1768), iii. 117. Debate on petition, iii. 131. Mill, James, historian of British India, iv. 281. Mill, John Stuart: Doctrine of non-intervention, iv. 62. On Irish cottier tenant, iv. 222. Mills, Mrs. , friend of Lady Nithisdale, i. 139. Ministry of All the Talents, iii. 340. Ministry of 1714, i. 97. Ministry of 1742, ii. 192. Minorca, i. 296, 298. Captured by French, ii. 297. Mir Jaffier, iii. 250, 253. Intrigues, iii. 250. Mir Kasim, Nawab, and Ellis, iii. 251. Mirzapha Jung claims Deccan Vice-royalty, ii. 261. Death, ii. 262. Mississippi scheme, i. 184 _seqq. _ Mitchel, John, on Chesterfield's rule in Ireland, ii. 250. Mob law in London, iii. 122. Mob orators, Sir Robert Inglis on, iv. 145. Mohun, Lord, i. 74. Killed in duel, i. 122. Moira, Lady Elizabeth, letter on French expedition to Ireland, iii. 315. Molesworth: on renewal of East India Company's Charter, iv. 230, 232. Monarchy under Hanoverians, ii. 74. _Monitor_ edited by John Entinck, iii. 51, 52, 55. Monopolies, petitions for, i. 191. Monroe doctrine, iv. 44. Monson, Colonel, iii. 260, 261. Death, iii. 264. Montagu, Edward Wortley, i. 105. Ambassador to Constantinople, i. 148. Montagu, Lady Mary Wortley: Letters, i. 148, 149, 152, 157. Sketch of, i. 148, 149, 150. Montcalm, Louis, Marquis de: Killed at Quebec, ii. 290. Monument, ii. 290. Montesquieu, on Duke of Berwick, ii. 34. Montgomery, --, iii. 179. Moore, Thomas: Lines on Robert Emmet, iii. 329. On George IV. , iii. 242. Quoted, iv. 23. Moravian sect, ii. 134. More, Hannah: Death, iv. 282. On Lord George Gordon, iii. 193. Morgan, Mrs. , friend of Lady Nithisdale, i. 139. Morris, Charles, iii. 244. Mostyn, Sir Thomas, iii. 338. "Mug houses, " i. 75. Municipal Corporation Bill for Ireland, iv. 258. Municipal Corporations Commission and Bill, iv. 257, 258. Municipal system, reorganization of, iv. 254 _seqq. _ Munster, Earl of, iv. 114. Murari Rao offers to assist English, ii. 263. Murchison, Sir Roderick, and British Association, iv. 262. Murger, Henri, "bohemianiam, " iii. 310. Murphy, Father John: And _Auditor_, iii. 51. Conduct in '98, iii. 320. Murray, James (Earl of Dunbar), Secretary to James Stuart, ii. 18. Murray, John, of Broughton, ii. 227. Murray, tutor to Charles Edward, Young Pretender, ii. 202. Murray (_see_ Mansfield, Lord). Musters, Mr. , house set fire to, iv. 170. Mutiny Act and New York, iii. 149. 

 Nairn, Lord, a prisoner, i. 137, 138. Nand Kumar (Nuncomar), iii. 258, 259. Accusations against Hastings, iii. 261. Charged with conspiracy, iii. 261. Charged with forgery, iii. 261. Tried and hanged, iii. 262. Napier, Hon. George, marries Lady Sarah Bunbury, iii. 10. Napier, Sir Charles, iii. 10; iv. 179. Napier, Sir William, iii. 10. Napoleon I. (Bonaparte): Close of career, iv. 12. On Romilly's suicide, iii. 347. On Thames Embankment, iv. 14. On Wellington seizing English crown, iv. 277. Scheme for invasion of Ireland and, iii. 312, 314. Sketch of career, iii. 331 _seqq. _, 344. Wins Toulon, iii. 304. Napoleon III. (Charles Louis), Policy, iv. 45. National Assembly, declaration of war and, iii. 302, 303. National Crisis (1832), iv. 178. National Debt (1714), i. 93. Pitt's plan for redemption of, iii. 239. National distress in 1830, iv. 100, 105. Navarino, battle of, iv. 50, 67, 96. Navy, press-gang system abolished, iv. 263, 266. Nelson, Horatio, Viscount, iii. 337. Receives freedom of London, iii. 139. Nepean, Under-Secretary of State, iii. 235. New England Colonies, iii. 75. New York: Congress of 1765, iii. 91. In 1765, iii. 77. Mutiny Act and, iii. 149. Newbottle, Lord, and Lady Sarah Lennox, iii. 9, 10. Newcastle, Duke of: Appeal to Lords on declaration of war, ii. 177. Bribery under, iii. 25. Family influence, ii. 243. Jealous of Pulteney, ii. 192. Leader of Administration, ii. 210, 296. On Bill for Princess Anne's dowry, ii. 44. On "Briton, " iii. 23. On "Family Compact, " ii. 33. Resigns office, ii. 298. Sacrifices Byng, ii. 298. Secretary for Foreign Affairs, ii. 160. Secretary of State, ii. 192. Traitor to Walpole, ii. 160, 189. Warns Rockingham against Burke, iii. 100. Newfoundland, French fishing-stations on, iii. 78. Newgate taken by rioters, iii. 203. Newton, Sir Isaac: Death, i. 272. Opinion on Irish coins, i. 241. Neyoe, Irish priest: Arrested, i. 219. Drowned, i. 221. Nile, battle of the, iii. 337. Nithisdale, Countess of: Effects Earl's escape, i. 140. Petition to King, i. 139. Nithisdale, William Maxwell, Earl of: Condemnation and escape, i. 138. Nizam-Al-Mulk, Viceroy of Deccan, death of, ii. 261. Nizam of Deccan and Mahratta States, iii. 265, 266. Nollekens, Joseph, iv. 93. Nootka Sound, English settlement at, iii. 302. Norbury, Baron, tries Robert Emmet, iii. 329. Nore, mutiny at, iii. 335. Norfolk, Duke of: Committed to Tower, i. 214. Discharged, i. 215. Norris, James, sketch of, iv. 288. _North Briton_, iii. 51, 52, 155. Churchill writes on, iii. 55. No. 45 on King's Speech, iii. 57, 60. Ordered to be burned, iii. 67. Warrant for arrest of authors, printers, and publishers, iii. 58. North, Frederick, Lord: Attitude during Wedderburn's attack on Franklin, iii. 156. Bill to close Port of Boston, iii. 163. Chancellor of Exchequer, iii. 113. Coalition with Fox, iii. 225. Colonial policy, iii. 152. Fall of Ministry, iii. 223. Finances and, iii. 239. Makes peace with America, iii. 184. Moves repeal of American duties except tea tax, iii. 151. Regulates Act of 1773, iii. 260. North, Lord: Committed to Tower, i. 214. Discharged, i. 215. Condemns South Sea Bill, i. 190. Northcote, James, on Queen Charlotte, iii. 12. Northumberland, Duchess of: Governess to Princess Victoria, iv. 291. Northumberland, Duke of, forced to toast Wilkes, iii. 118. Norton, Fletcher, speech on Middlesex election petition, iii. 131. Norwich in 1714, i. 79. Nottingham Castle burned, iv. 170. Nunjeraj, Vizier of Rajah of Mysore, iii. 265. 

 Oates, Titus, on term "Tory, " i. 17. O'Brien, Smith, iv. 179. O'Connell, Daniel: Demands municipal reform for Ireland, iv. 258. Elected for Clare, iv. 71, 78. In favor of ballot, iv. 131. Loyalty, iv. 23, 27. On Universal Suffrage, iv. 85. Oratory, iv. 70. Seconds amendment on Emancipation of Slaves, iv. 197. Sketch of, iv. 53, 69. Speech on Irish Church Revenues, iv. 248, 249. Speeches on Reform Bill, iv. 148, 172. O'Connor, Arthur, iii. 313, 314. Withdraws from Dublin Parliament, iii. 319. October Club, i. 74. Oglethorpe, General, invites John Wesley to Georgia, ii. 134. Ohio, English and French on, ii. 285. Oliver, Alderman, committed to Tower, iii. 135. Oliver, Andrew, collector of stamp taxes at Boston, iii. 91. Oliver, Lieutenant-Governor of Massachusetts: Letters to Whately, iii. 153. O'Meara, Dr. Barry E. , conversations with Napoleon, iv. 13. Omichund: Death, ii. 273. Plots against English and Suraj ud Dowlah, ii. 269, 270. Onslow, Arthur, Speaker of House of Commons: On Sir William Wyndham, i. 288. Opposes Bolingbroke's pardon, i. 259. Re-elected Speaker, ii. 22, 186. Sketch of, i. 282. Onslow, Sir Richard, i. 105. Orange Associations, iv. 274 _seqq. _ Orange, Prince of, marries Princess Anne, ii. 41. Order of Bath revived, i. 252. Orleans, Louis Philippe, Duke of (Egalité), iii. 293. Orleans, Philippe, Duke of (Regent), i. 117. Death, i. 238. Overtures to George I. , i. 156, 181. Sketch of, i. 155. Ormond, Duke of: Flight, i. 111. Heads Spanish Jacobite expedition, i. 162. Impeached, i. 109, 110. In Paris, i. 119, 120. Name razed from roll of Peers, i. 114. Warden of Cinque Ports, i. 39. Orrery, Earl of: Committed to Tower, i. 214. Discharged, i. 215. Otis, James, denounces Writs of Assistance, iii. 84. Oude subjected, iii. 258. Oude, Vizier of, and Begums, iii. 271. Oxford in '45, ii. 220. Oxford, Robert Harley, Earl of, i. 26, 29. Acquitted, i. 111, 170. Attitude towards Restoration of Stuarts, i. 107. Character, i. 113. Committed to Tower, i. 112. Establishes South Sea Company, i. 187. Impeached of high treason, i. 109, 110, 112, 168. Petition to House of Lords, i. 168. Reception by George I. , i. 101. Sketch of, i. 30. Ozinda's chocolate-house, i. 76. 

 Paine, Thomas, iii. 312. Pakenham, Hon. Catherine, Duchess of Wellington, iii. 334. Palmerston, Viscount: Foreign Secretary, iv. 126, 252. Member for Tiverton, iv. 254. Member of Liverpool Administration, iv. 3. On the "Inevitable Man, " iv. 55. Resigns office, iv. 72. Secretary at War, iv. 58. Pamela, wife of Lord Edward Fitzgerald, iii. 313. Paradis defeats Nabob of Carnatic at St. Thome, ii. 261. Parker heads mutiny at Nore, iii. 335. Parliament: Annual, i. 146. Dissolved (1831), iv. 143. Election of 1734, ii. 19. Election of 1830, iv. 105. Irish and English, i. 179. Language of sycophancy, ii. 85. Motions for removal of Walpole, ii. 185. Of 1722, i. 206, 213. Prorogued (1727), Royal Speech, i. 278. Septennial Act, i. 146. Short, ii. 11. Speech from Throne (1739), ii. 162; (1741), ii. 186; (1765), iii. 88. Triennial Acts, i. 145. (_See also_ House of Lords and House of Commons. ) Parliamentary Opposition, system of, i. 285 _seqq. _ Parma, Duke of, i. 158. Parnell, Sir Henry: Motion on Civil Service Estimates, iv. 110. Paymaster-General, iv. 252. Parr, Dr. , opinion of Sheridan, iii. 217. Patents, petitions for, i. 190. "Patriots, " i. 288, 296, 298. Frederick, Prince of Wales, and, ii. 50, 108, 110. In Opposition and power, ii. 242. Oppose borrowing from Sinking Fund, i. 309. Raise war cry, ii. 149, 157. Return to Commons, ii. 178. Secede from Commons, ii. 172. Struggle against Walpole, ii. 11. Patten, Rev. Robert, as King's evidence, i. 137. Peel, Sir Robert: At opening of Liverpool and Manchester railway, iv. 103. Attitude towards Catholic Emancipation, iv. 57, 68, 74, 75. Attitude towards Reform, iv. 152, 163. Declines to form Ministry, iv. 177. Free Trade and, iv. 52. Home Secretary, iv. 71, 103. Interview with King on Catholic emancipation, iv. 77. Measure on Irish Tithe System, iv. 245; Speech on, iv. 249. On claims of "Princess" Olivia, iv. 287. Prime Minister and Chancellor of Exchequer, iv. 238. Resigns office, iv. 113, 250. Speech on municipal reform, iv. 259, 260. Speech on Reform Bill, iv. 146. Summoned to form Ministry, iv. 235. Tamworth Address, iv. 240. Peerage Bill, object of, i. 174. Peers, creation of new, iv. 180. Pelham, Henry: Death, ii. 296. Letter to Duke of Cumberland, ii. 239. Paymaster, ii. 192. Prime Minister, ii. 244, 245. Pelham Ministry: Resign, ii. 244. Return to power, ii. 245. Penn, William, death, i. 179. Penny Post, London, i. 78. Pepys quoted on Duchess of Cleveland, i. 23. Perceval, Spencer: Chancellor of Exchequer, iii. 341. Death, iii. 341. Regency Bill, iii. 341. Percy, Lord, commands reinforcements from Boston, iii. 174. Perry, presents petition of merchants against Spaniards, ii. 153. Perth, Duke of, ii. 223. Appeal to Macdonalds, ii. 225. Death, ii. 232. Perth, Jacobites retreat from, i. 128. Pestolozzi, Johann H. , iv. 93. Peter the Great, character, i. 162. Peterborough, Lord, anecdote of, ii. 167. Philadelphia: Congress draws up Declaration of Rights, iii. 173. Evacuated, iii. 183. In hands of British, iii. 183. In 1765, iii. 77. Tea-ship at, iii. 161. Philip V. Of Spain, ii. 28. Renounces French throne, i. 157. Phipps, Sir Constantine, removed from office of Chancellor, i. 98. Pitt diamond, ii. 54. Pitt Ministry (1766), members of, iii. 108. Pitt, Thomas, i. 105. M. P. For Okehampton, ii. 54. Pitt, William, Earl of Chatham: Accepts pension and barony for his wife, iii. 27. Advice to Prince of Wales, ii. 78. As War Minister, ii. 299; iii. 2, 27, 29. Character, iii. 186. Coalition against, iii. 26. Death, iii. 186. Denunciation of Walpole and Carteret, ii. 245. Illness, iii. 73, 108, 109. In House of Peers, iii. 109. Maiden speech, ii. 52, 55. On action of Boston people, iii. 161, 163. Paymaster-General, ii. 296. Protests against war with America, iii. 185. Quarrels with Temple, iii. 108. Refuses office, iii. 73, 93. Resigns office, iii. 27. Sketch of, ii. 54. Speech on Convention, ii. 171. Takes news of accession to George III. , iii. 2. Takes office, ii. 274; iii. 108. Wilkes and, iii. 57. Pitt, William (the younger), iii. 211. Antagonism to Fox, iii. 225. Attacks Fox's India Bill, iii. 232. Attitude on Regency, iii. 243. Attitude towards Catholic Emancipation, iii. 308; iv. 53. Challenge to Ministry on Eastern possessions, iii. 230. Chancellor of Exchequer, iii. 225. Closing hours, iii. 338. Coalition against, iii. 26, 225. Contrasted with Fox, iii. 212. Death, iii. 339. Declines Vice-Treasurership of Ireland, iii. 224. Difficulties of Administration, iii. 240. Financial measures, iii. 239. First Lord of Treasury and Chancellor of Exchequer, iii. 236. Foreign policy, iii. 302. French policy, iii. 301. India Bill, iii. 237, 238. Irish policy, iii. 319, 327. Makes name in Commons, iii. 223. Plan of Parliamentary reform, iii. 229, 240. Refuses to appeal for payment of Prince of Wales's debts, iii. 242. Resigns office, iii. 337. Sketch of, iii. 214. Speech on Benares vote, iii. 277, 279. Speech on Trafalgar, iii. 339. Struggle with Napoleon Bonaparte, iii. 332, 337. Supports Dundas, iii. 338. Plassey (Palasi), Battle of, ii. 271, 272. Playhouse Bill, ii. 96, 99. Plunket, Lord, Lord Chancellor for Ireland, iv. 127. Pocket boroughs, iv. 99, 147. Poland, condition of, iv. 40. Poland, election of king, ii. 23. Political freedom in 1716, i. 144. Political life in 1742, ii. 239. Political parties in 1728, i. 287, 288. Pomeroy, General, iii. 176, 179. Pontiac conspiracy, iii. 79. Population of Great Britain (1714), i. 63. Poor Laws, iv. 221 _seqq. _ Commission, iv. 225. Bill, iv. 228, 229. Pope, Alexander: "Dunciad, " i. 301. Epitaph on James Craggs, i. 198. Epitaph on Sir Isaac Newton, i. 272. Lampoons, ii. 102, 103. Loses money in South Sea stock, i. 22. On Argyll, Duke of, i. 44. On Bacon, i. 22. On Bolingbroke, i. 29. On Oxford, i. 29, 31. Place in literature, ii. 197. Sketch of, ii. 197. Popham, Major, defeats Rajah's troops, iii. 270. "Porcupine Papers, " iv. 155. Porteous, Captain John: Death, ii. 64. Sentence on, ii. 62. Sketch of, ii. 58. Porteous riots, ii. 58 _seqq. _ Portland, William Cavendish Bentinck, Duke of: Prime Minister, iii. 340. Supports Wilkes, iii. 116. Portsmouth, press-gang in, iv. 265. Portugal: free institutions, iv. 43. Potter, Thomas, iii. 48, 65. Vice-Treasurer for Ireland, iii. 49. Praed, Winthrop Mackworth, iv. 239. Pratt, Justice, Lord Camden, iii. 109. Discharges Wilkes, iii. 60, 67. Predestination, Wesley and Whitefield dispute on, ii. 139. Prescott, hero of Breed Hill, iii. 179. Preston: "Fancy franchises, " iv. 183. Jacobites defeated at, i. 128. Preston, Colonel, commands British troops at Boston, iii. 151. Preston, General, in Edinburgh Castle, ii. 215. Preston Pans, Battle of, ii. 214, 215. Prideaux, --, in Canada, ii. 287. Primacy of Ireland and George IV. , iv. 27. Prior, Matthew, i. 38. Arrested, i. 106. M. P. For East Grinstead, i. 52. Prisoners in 1715, i. 136. Privy Council, July 30, 1714, i. 40, 45, 46. Proctor, Sir W. Beauchamp, Whig candidate for Middlesex, iii. 117. "Protestant" and "Catholic" Ministers, iv. 54. Prussia, position at end of Seven Years' War, iii. 29. _Public Advertiser, Letters of Junius_ in, iii. 128. Pulteney, William (Earl of Bath), i. 105. Accepts Peerage, ii. 192. Advice to Prince of Wales, ii. 78. Alliance with Bolingbroke, i. 260; ii. 17. Attacks Convention and Ministers, ii. 156, 172. Declines office, ii. 191. Duel with Hervey, i. 306. Founder of Parliamentary Opposition, i. 225, 284, 288; ii. 195. Leader of discontented Whigs, i. 287. Letters to Pope, i. 305. Letter to Swift, i. 306. Motion on papers concerning war, ii. 187. On Arbuthnot, ii. 20. On grievances against Spain, ii. 154, 156. On Walpole's excise scheme, i. 315. Opposes Playhouse Bill, ii. 99. Proposes allowance for Prince of Wales, ii. 82. Sketch of, i. 98, 253, 286. Speech on salt tax, i. 313. Speech on Secession, ii. 178. Tribune of Commons, ii. 192, 194. Puritanism in Boston, iii. 76. Purkitt, Henry, iii. 161. Putnam, Israel, iii. 176, 179. 

 Quadruple Alliance, i. 161. Principle of, i. 295. Quebec: Attacked by Wolfe, ii. 287. Described, ii. 287, 291. Founded, ii. 283. Queen Anne's Bounty, i. 280. Queen Anne's houses, i. 69. Queensberry, Duke of, iii. 244. 

 Radcliffe, Charles, escapes from Newgate, i. 142. Radical party, i. 20. Rise of, iv. 218. Rae, Fraser, on elections of Lord Mayor, iii. 137. "Rainbow" Coffee-house, i. 75. Rainsforth, house sacked, iii. 201. Rajah Dulab Ram, ii. 272. Rajah Sahib: Besieges Arcot, ii. 263. Defeated, ii. 263. Ramnagar stronghold, iii. 270. Rathbone, William, and movement against monopoly of East India Company, iv. 231. Ray, Miss, murdered by Hickman, iii. 50. "Rebecca and Her Daughters, " ii. 56. Rebellion of 1745, ii. 203 _seqq. _ Reform Bill (First): Committee, iv. 127. Debate on, iv. 144, 149. Introduced in Commons, iv. 134, 137. General Gascoigne's amendment, iv. 150. Principles of, iv. 143. Redistribution, iv. 142. Scheme for, iv. 129, 132. Second Reading, iv. 149. Reform Bill (Second), iv. 154. Introduced into House of Lords, iv. 168. Rejected, iv. 169. Second Reading, iv. 154, 159. Third Reading, iv. 166. Obstructed, iv. 161, 163. Reform Bill (Third), iv. 172. Defect in, iv. 182. Passed, iv. 181. Political Parties and, iv. 218. Reform Bills for Ireland and Scotland, iv. 181. Reform Meetings, iv. 177. Reform Parliament (First), iv. 172, 204, 241. Reform Riots, iv. 170. Regency Bill, iii. 72. Regency Question (1830), iv. 101, 104, 107. Religious equality and Parliament, iv. 67, 99. Restoration dramatists, character of, ii. 93. Revere, Paul, iii. 174. Reynolds, Sir Joshua: Friend of Goldsmith, iii. 169. Portrait of Wilkes, iii. 68. Richelieu, Duc de, captures Minorca, ii. 297. Richmond, Duke of: On "Our Army, " iii. 183. Speech on Annual Parliaments, iii. 197. Richter, Jean Paul, on: Eloquence, ii. 135. Laurence Sterne, ii. 302. Rigby, Richard, sketch of, iii. 36. Riot in St. George's Fields, iii. 120, 124. Rioters killed, wounded, and executed, iii. 209. Ripon, Earl of (_see_ Goderich, Viscount). Ripperda, Duke of, i. 264. Rob Roy at Sheriffmuir, i. 126. Robertson, Dr. , threatened, iii. 195. Robertson, George, and Porteous riots, ii. 58. Robinson, Dr. John, Bishop of London, i. 109. Robinson, Frederick (_see_ Goderich, Viscount). Robinson, Sir Thomas, ii. 297. Rockingham, Charles Watson Wentworth, Marquis of: Character, iii. 94. Dismissed from office, iii. 108. Prime Minister, iii. 94. Repeals Stamp Act, iii. 104. Second Ministry, iii. 223. Rohilla War, iii. 258. Roman Catholics (_see_ Catholics). Romilly, Sir Samuel: Death and character, iii. 346. Philanthropic reforms, iv. 21. Rosebery, Lord, on Pitt's position, iii. 240. Ross, General: Captures Washington, iii. 346. Speaks for Bolingbroke, i. 108. Rousseau, on "Robinson Crusoe, " ii. 1. Rowe, Nicholas, i. 38. Roxburgh, Duke of, attitude towards Walpole, i. 250. Royal Society of Literature founded, iv. 93. Royal Standard set up at Glenfinnan, ii. 206, 210. Russell, Lord John: As reformer, iv. 104, 126, 127. As speaker, iv. 133. Beaten in S. Devonshire, iv. 253. Carries repeal of Test and Corporation Acts, iv. 52, 67. "English Government and Constitution, " iv. 128, 129. Home Secretary, iv. 252. Interview with Napoleon in Elba, iv. 277. Leader of Opposition, iv. 103. Municipal Bill, iv. 257, 260. On Parliamentary Reform, iv. 85. Reforms Parliamentary representation, iv. 22. Resolution on Irish Church revenues, iv. 246, 250. Second Reform Bill, iv. 154. Sketch of proposed Reform Bill, iv. 128, 132. Speech on Greek cause, iv. 48. Speech on Reform Bill, iv. 137 _seqq. _ Statement on Reform Act, iv. 182. Rupert, Prince, sketch of, i. 6. Russia in 1716, i. 154. Russia: policy towards Greece and Turkey, iv. 49. 

 Sacheverell, Dr. , impeached, i. 34. St. James's, i. 65. St. James's coffee-house, i. 75. _St. James's Chronicle_, iii. 124. St. James's Square, i. 67. St. James's Street, i. 66. St. John, Henry, Viscount (_see_ Bolingbroke). St. Helena, Island of, iii. 344. St. Margaret's Lane, London, i. 64. St. Patrick's Well, Dublin, i. 81. St. Simon on Mississippi scheme, i. 185. St. Thome, Nabob of Carnatic defeated at, ii. 261. Sala, George Augustus, picture of London in '45, ii. 219. Salt tax, i. 313. Sandwich, Earl of, iii. 48, 49. Denounces Wilkes, and "Essay on Woman, " iii. 65. First Lord of Admiralty, iii. 48. "Jemmy Twitcher, " iii. 68. Mobbed, iii. 202. Sandys, Samuel, Chancellor of Exchequer, ii. 192. Motions against Walpole, ii. 185, 186. Saratoga, Burgoyne surrenders at, iii. 183. Sarsfield defends Limerick, i. 83. "Saturday" Club, i. 74. Savile, Sir George: Bill for Catholic Relief, iii. 190, 191. House sacked, iii. 201. Sketch of, iii. 190. Saxe, Maurice de: Commands at Fontenoy and Lauffeld, ii. 239. Parentage, i. 8. Sayer, James, caricature of Fox, iii. 233. Scarborough, Lord: Character, ii. 5. On Declaration of War, ii. 178. Schaub, Sir Luke, Ambassador at Paris, i. 237. Recalled, i. 239. Schleswig-Holstein, seized by King of Denmark, i. 161. Schomberg, Duke of, opinion of Marlborough, i. 24. Scotch Judges at Bar of House of Lords, ii. 66, 67. Scotland: Condition in 1745, ii. 208. Fanaticism in, iii. 194. Riots in, i. 249. Scott, Captain, commands Scots Royal, ii. 206. Scott, Dr. , iii. 203. Scott, Major, defends Hastings, iii. 274, 276, 282. Scott, Sir Walter: Interview with George IV. , iv. 29. Later years and death, iv. 187. Sketch of John, Duke of Argyll, i. 44. Scottish Highlands and Lowlands, i. 87. Scratton, represents Company at Murshidabad, iii. 250. "Scriblerus" Club, i. 73. Secession from House of Commons, ii. 172, 175. Secretary of State, two departments, ii. 192. Seeley, Professor, on "Family Compact, " ii. 31, 33. Selwyn, George, attachment to Fox, iii. 214. Senior, Nassau: Attitude towards Poor Relief, iv. 223. On Poor Law Committee, iv. 225. Septennial Act, i. 146, 147. Debate on repealing, ii. 10. Serres, Olivia Wilmot, sketch of, iv. 286. Servants in 1714, i. 77. Seven Men of Moidart, ii. 205. Seven Years' War, ii. 297; iii. 29. Close of, iii. 79. Sévigné, Mme. De, ii. 35. Seville, Treaty of, i. 297. Trade disputes and, ii. 150. Shackleton, Richard, schoolmaster of Edmund Burke, iii. 97. Shaftesbury, Anthony Ashley Cooper, Earl of: Factory labor and, iv. 200 _seqq. _ Sketch of, iv. 203. Shah Alum, enterprise against Meer Jaffier, ii. 273. Sheffield, iv. 99. Shelburne, William Petty, Earl of: Opposes calling out military, iii. 198. Passed over by Pitt, iii. 236. Secretary of State, iii. 109. Sketch of, iii. 223, 224. Shelley, Percy Bysshe, death, iv. 92. Sherbrooke, Robert Lowe, Lord, i. 290. Sheridan, Charles, iii. 218. Sheridan, Mrs. , opinion of her boys, iii. 217. Sheridan, Richard Brinsley, iii. 211. Attitude towards French Revolution, iii. 296. Begum speech, iii. 280. Duel with Matthews, iii. 219. Funeral in Westminster Abbey, iii. 346. M. P. For Stamford, iii. 221. Marriage, iii. 220, 222. "School for Scandal, " "Critic, " iii. 221. Sketch of, iii. 216. Speeches during Hastings's trial, iii. 280, 286. "The Rivals, " iii. 221. Under-Secretary of State, iii. 224. Sheridan (Dr. ), Thomas, friend of Swift, iii. 216. Sheridan (Sir), Thomas: Death, ii. 232. Tutor to Charles Stuart, ii. 205. Sheriffmuir, battle of, i. 125. Shippen: Amendment on Supply (1727), i. 280. Leader of Jacobites, i. 287. Opposes Septennial Bill, i. 146. Sketch of, i. 289. Shrewsbury, Charles Talbot, Duke of, i. 41. Death, i. 179. Lord High Treasurer, i. 45. Resigns offices, i. 97. Sketch of career, i. 41. Shrewsbury, Duke of, killed by Duke of Buckingham, i. 41. Shrewsbury in 1714, i. 79. Siddons, Mrs. , death, iv. 285. Sidmouth, Viscount, Home Secretary: Challenged by Thistlewood, iv. 16. Signs in streets, i. 70. Sinking Fund, borrowing from, i. 309. Slaughter's coffee-house, i. 75. Slave Trade, Fox and, iii. 340. Slavery, iv. 189 _seqq. _ Crusade against, iv. 93. (_See also_ West Indies, slavery in. ) Smith, Rev. John, sentenced to death, iv. 194. Smith, Sydney, on: Collection of tithes in Ireland, iv. 208, 210, 211. Spencer Perceval, iii. 341. "Smock races, " i. 72. Smollett and _Briton_, iii. 51. Smuggling in American colonies, iii. 83. Sobieski, Clementine, wife of James Stuart, ii. 199. Retires to convent, ii. 200. Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge founded, iv. 93. Somers, John, Lord, i. 47, 54. Accomplishes Union of England and Scotland, i. 84. Approves Septennial Bill, i. 147. Member of New Council, i. 101. Sketch of career, i. 147. Somerset, Charles Seymour, Duke of: sketch of, i. 42. Somerset, Charlotte, Duchess of, i. 42. Somerset, Elizabeth, Duchess of, i. 43. Somerville, Dr. Thomas, _History of Reign of Queen Anne_, i. 13. Somerville, Lord, house molested, ii. 217. Sophia Dorothea, wife of George I. , i. 6, 153. Banished to Castle of Ahlden, i. 7. Death, i. 267. Will, i. 269. Sophia, Electress of Hanover, i. 4, 5. South Sea Bill, i. 189, 190. South Sea Company, i. 187, 193; ii. 150. Petitions for relief, i. 194. Principle of, i. 194. Reconstituted, ii. 167. South Sea House, i. 186. South Sea victims, i. 194, 204. Spain: Claims Right of Search, ii. 151, 163, 245. Complaints against, i. 294. Demands constitutional government, iv. 40, 43. England and, trade disputes, ii. 150. In 1716, i. 154, 155. Portugal and, dispute between, ii. 35. Treaty of Utrecht and, i. 227. War declared against, ii. 178. Spean's Bridge, brush at, ii. 206. Spencer, John Charles, Earl, iv. 234. As Speaker, iv. 133. Chancellor of Exchequer, iv. 125. Declaration on Reform Bill, iv. 164. Motion on speech from Throne, iv. 104. On Government measure for Irish Tithe Question, iv. 211. On slavery in Colonies, iv. 195. Sketch of, iv. 125. Spies in Ireland in '98, iii. 314. Spithead, mutiny at, iii. 335. Stage Censorship, ii. 96 _seqq. _ Stair, John Dalrymple, Earl of: Character, i. 120, 225. Commands British troops, ii. 182. Recalled from French Court, i. 225. Stamp Act, iii. 87, 88. Repealed, iii. 103. Stanhope, Charles, and South Sea Company, i. 197, 200. Stanhope, Colonel (_see_ Harrington, Lord). Stanhope, James, Earl, iii. 339. Attitude towards French Revolution, iii. 302. Death, i. 173. First Lord of Treasury and Chancellor of Exchequer, i. 165. Impeaches Duke of Ormond, i. 109. Mission to Vienna, i. 152. On funds and Queen Anne's health, i. 2. On Irish clergy, ii. 130. On Oxford, Earl of, i. 31. Recognized religious equality, i. 173. Second Secretary of State, i. 97, 99. Sketch of, i. 100. Stanhope, Lady Hester, iii. 339. Stanley, Lord (_see_ Derby, Earl of). States-General convoked, iii. 293. Steele, Sir Richard: Career, i. 38. Compared with Addison, i. 300. Death, i. 299. M. P. For Stockbridge, i. 52. On Somers, i. 147. On Whig and Tory, i. 17. Petition in favor of rebels, i. 137, 138. Tribute to Atterbury, i. 214. Stephen, Sir James, "Story of Nuncomar, " iii. 263. Sterne, Laurence, "Tristram Shandy, " ii. 299, 301. Sterne, Roger, ii. 299. Death, ii. 300. Stevenson, Dr. , keeps guard at Netherbow Gate, ii. 212. Stewart, Dugald, iv. 93. Stoke Pogis church-yard, ii. 289. Stow, "Survey of London" quoted on penny post, i. 78. Strafford, Lord, charges against, i. 109. Stratford de Redcliffe, Viscount, iv. 32. Streets of London in 1714, i. 70. Strickland, Francis, supports Young Pretender, ii. 205. Stuart, Cardinal Henry, death, ii. 234. Stuart, Charles Edward, Young Pretender: Advantages on his side, ii. 208, 209, 218, 221. Adventures after Culloden, ii. 226. At siege of Gaeta, ii. 29, 201, 203. Birth, ii. 199. Education, ii. 201, 202. Enters Holyrood, ii. 214. Humanity during campaign, ii. 215, 217. In London, iii. 14. Later career, ii. 233, 234. March into England, ii. 217. Marches on Edinburgh, ii. 210, 213. Proclamation, ii. 206. Rebellion of 1745, ii. 204 _seqq. _ Retreats, ii. 223. Wishes to advance on London, ii. 222. Stuart influence on literature, ii. 234. Stuart, James Francis Edward (Old Pretender), i. 4. Character, i. 126. Dismisses Bolingbroke, i. 131. Embarks for Scotland, i. 120. Life of exile, ii. 199, 201. On South Sea scheme, i. 200. Proclaimed in Dundee, i. 123. Rebellion in favor of, i. 118. Returns to France, i. 128. Rumors of, i. 264. Sketch of, i. 9 _seqq. _ Stuart standard set up at Braemer, i. 121, 123. Sugar Act of 1733, iii. 83. Sullivan, iii. 179. Sully, advice to Henry IV. , i. 13. Sumner, Dr. , Head-master of Harrow, iii. 217. Sunderland, Charles, Earl of, i. 54. Accusations against Townshend and Walpole, i. 164. Death, i. 206. Motion implicating him in South Sea scheme, i. 199. Plot against Walpole, i. 207. Speech in favor of South Sea Bill, i. 191. Viceroy of Ireland, i. 97. Suraj ud Dowlah: Black Hole of Calcutta, ii. 266. Captured and killed, ii. 273. Character, ii. 266. Death, iii. 250. Declares war against English, iii. 249. Swetenham, Captain, ii. 207. Swift, Jonathan, Dean of St. Patrick's: Attitude towards Irish, i. 243. Character, ii. 237. Death, ii. 236. Defends Treaty of Utrecht, i. 96. Dialogue between Whig and Tory, i. 219. "Drapier's Letters, " i. 240, 242, 247. "Gulliver's Travels, " i. 302. Lampoons, ii. 102. Letter to Lord Peterborough, i. 36. Letter to Sheridan on Walpole, i. 306. On Arbuthnot, ii. 21. On Bolingbroke, i. 26, 28. On Condition of Church, ii. 129. On Marlborough, i. 24. On Oxford, Earl of, i. 31, 168. On Queen Anne's health, i. 1, 36. On Somerset, Duke of, i. 43. On William Congreve, i. 299. Patron of Berkeley, ii. 293. Poems on South Sea mania, i. 202. Reception of Carteret, i. 235. Sketch of, i. 35. Stella and, ii. 236. Swinburne, "A Jacobite's Exile, " ii. 235. 

 Talbot, Charles, Lord Chancellor, ii. 9, 81. Talleyrand: Dines with William IV. , iv. 117. On Alexander Hamilton, ii. 248; iv. 281. Tea tax introduced by Townshend, iii. 113. Telford, Thomas, death, iv. 282. Temple, John, iii. 155. Temple, Richard Grenville, Earl, iii. 26. Action on India Bill, iii. 234. Persuades Pitt to refuse office, iii. 73, 93. Removed from Lord-Lieutenancy, iii. 64. Resigns office, iii. 236. Shows King's speech to Wilkes, iii. 57. Supports Wilkes, iii. 116. Ten-pound franchise, iv. 130. Tenterden, Chief Justice, decision in Cobbett prosecution, iv. 157. Test Act: Debate on proposed repeal, ii. 176. Repeal proposed, ii. 110. Repealed, iv. 52, 67. Thackeray, W. M. , iv. 286. Description of Hanover, i. 55. On George IV. , iii. 242. On interview of George IV. And Sir Walter Scott, iv. 29. On interview of George IV. With Wellington, Lyndhurst, and Peel, iv. 78. On Laurence Sterne, ii. 302. On Swift's character, ii. 237, 238. Thames frozen (1716), i. 154. Thames Tunnel, iv. 93. Thistlewood, plots to assassinate Ministers, iv. 15. Thomas, --, iii. 179. Thornhill, Sir James, i. 68. Thurlow, Lord, iii. 228. Thynne, Thomas, Lord, i. 8. Tippu, English make treaty with, iii. 266. Tithe question, Ireland, iv. 207 _seqq. _, 216, 220. Government proposal on, iv. 211, 245. Tobacco, excise duty on, i. 316. Tolbooth fired, ii. 64. Tone, Matthew, fights under Humbert, iii. 324. Tone, Theobald Wolfe, iv. 206. Death, iii. 327. Letter to his wife, iii. 324. Marriage, iii. 311. Project for colony in South Sea island, iii. 310. Scheme for French invasion of Ireland, iii. 311. Sketch of, iii. 309 _seqq. _ Tonson, Jacob, Secretary to Kit-Kat Club, i. 74. Torcy, Marquis de, Secretary of State, France, i. 110. Tories: Attitude towards restoration of Stuarts, i. 16, 19. Doctrines, i. 17 _seqq. _ Jacobitism and, iii. 24. Old school of, iv. 241. Origin of name, i. 17. Peace of Utrecht and, i. 92. Toulon: Retaken by French, iii. 304. Welcomes English fleet, iii. 303. Townshend, Alderman, opposes Wilkes, iii. 136. Townshend, Audrey, Marchioness of, iii. 110. Townshend, Charles ("Weathercock"), i. 99. Chancellor of Exchequer, iii. 109. Character, iii. 110. Death, iii. 113. Introduces tea tax for America, iii. 113. Townshend, Charles, Viscount: Accompanies King to Hanover, i. 237. Dismissed, i. 164. President of Council, i. 182. Resigns office, i. 304. Secretary of State, i. 97, 278. Sketch of, i. 99. Trading Guilds, origin of, iv. 255. Trafalgar, battle of, iii. 337. Traill, H. D. , on Laurence Sterne, ii. 302. Treaties (_see_ under various titles). Trichinopoly: Besieged, ii. 262. Relieved, ii. 264. Triennial Parliament Acts, i. 145. Triple Alliance, i. 161, 163. Tucker, Dean, on mutinous colonies, iii. 163. Tullibardine: Dies in Tower, ii. 232. Supports Young Pretender, ii. 205, 206. Turkey in 1716, i. 154. 

 Ulm, capitulation of, iii. 338. Union, Scotland's attitude towards, i. 83. University College Charter, iv. 261. University of London, Charter, iv. 261. Upper Ossory, John, Earl of, iii. 36. Utrecht, Treaty of, i. 95, 157, 227, 263. Campeachy logwood question and, i. 295. Tories and, i. 92. Trade disputes and, ii. 150. Will of Charles II. And, ii. 27. 

 Valley Forge, iii. 183. Vanhomrigh, Esther (Vanessa), i. 36. Alters her will, ii. 294. Vansittart, Governor of East India Company, iii. 251. Advice on quarrel of Nawab and Ellis, iii. 252. Vendôme, Duc de, i. 100. Character, i. 158. Verazani forms settlement in Canada, ii. 283. Verden ceded to Hanover, i. 161. Verona Congress and Holy Alliance, iv. 39, 42, 45. Victoria, Princess Alexandrina: Birth, iii. 348. Heir-presumptive, iv. 101. William IV, and, iv. 117, 118. Vienna, Congress of, iv. 38. Vienna, Treaty of, i. 295; ii. 30. Virginia protests against Stamp Act, iii. 90. Voltaire, epigram on Byng, ii. 298. Von Steuben in America, iii. 183. Vote by ballot proposed, iv. 131. 

 Wade, General, clans surrender arms to, ii. 209. Wales, Prince of (_see_ Frederick Lewis, Prince of Wales, and George IV. ). Walkenshaw, Miss, ii. 233. Walmoden, Mme. , ii. 48, 76, 304. Walpole, Baron, i. 224. Walpole, Horace, Earl of Orford: Account of his father (1742), ii. 189. Acquainted with Paris, iii. 293. Contrasts Townshend with Burke, iii. 112. Description of George I. , i. 58. Description of Lord Hillsborough, iii. 148. Description of Mme. Kilmansegge, i. 7. Eulogy of Queen Charlotte, iii. 12. Maiden speech in defence of his father, ii. 195. On Bute's Administration, iii. 28. On Carteret, i. 235. On Chesterfield's speeches, ii. 5. On Coronation of George III. , iii. 12. On dinner hour, iii. 18. On James Stuart, i. 11. On Lord George Gordon, iii. 193. On Whitefield's eloquence, ii. 139. On Wilkes's career, iii. 137. Walpole, Horatio, Lord: Ambassador to Paris, i. 237, 238, 291. Moves Address on Convention, ii. 171. Recalled from Paris, i. 304. Walpole, Sir Robert, Earl of Orford: Accepts war policy, ii. 180. Administration, i. 224 _seqq. _, 305. Address to George II. , i. 280. Advice to Princesses, ii. 126. At Houghton, i. 196; ii. 195. At Queen Caroline's death-bed, ii. 119. Attacks Peerage Bill, i. 176. Attempts to get influence of James Stuart, ii. 186. Attitude towards financial reform, ii. 36. Bill to adjust affairs of South Sea Company, i. 203, 205. Chairman of Committee of Secrecy, i. 105, 106, 168. Character, i. 165; ii. 8, 18, 196. Charges against, ii. 187, 195. Conduct on Prince of Wales's allowance, ii. 80. Correspondence with Townshend, i. 252. Corruption under, i. 231; ii. 13, 19, 90, 195; iii. 25. Created Earl of Orford, ii. 190. Death, ii. 196. First great finance minister, i. 229. Fiscal policy, i. 230, 309, 311 _seqq. _ Foreign policy, i. 229, 236, 292, 305; ii. 24, 31, 149. Hails George II. King, i. 275. Health in 1742, ii. 188. Made K. B. , i. 252. Made K. G. , i. 252. Masterly inactivity, ii. 24, 31, 36. Moves Address (1715), i. 103. On Frederick, Prince of Wales, ii. 71. On Queen's illness, ii. 115. On Royal family, ii. 74. On South Sea Company, i. 188, 196. Paymaster-General, i. 97, 181. Pleads against war with Spain, ii. 155, 159. Quarrel with Townshend, i. 304. Relations with stage, ii. 95. Resigns office, i. 164; ii. 190. Restored to office, i. 278. Secretary of State for Scotland, i. 250. Settles dispute between Spain and Portugal, ii. 35. Sketch of career, i. 32; ii. 196. Speech on Bolingbroke, ii. 15. Speech on Prince of Wales's allowance, ii. 86. Speech on secession from Commons, ii. 174. War declared against Spain, ii. 178. Results of, ii. 183. War of Independence, ii. 43. War of Polish Succession, ii. 23 _seqq. _ War of the Succession, purpose of, i. 92. War passion, ii. 148. War with Spain, iii. 29. Ward, Artemus, iii. 179. Ward, Henry, resolution on Irish State Church, iv. 212, 213, 214. Ward, Ned, ballad on Marlborough's return to England, i. 53. Ward, Plumer, author of "Tremaine, " iv. 213. Ward, Sir John, petition on South Sea Company, i. 203. Wardle, Colonel, iii. 338. Warren, General, iii. 176. Washington, George: Character, iii. 188. Commands Continental army, iii. 181. Disapproves of Boston exploit, iii. 161, 163. Fires first shot against enemy, ii. 285. First President of American Republic, iii. 189. Sketch of career, iii. 180. Watson, Admiral, commands fleet against Suraj ud Dowlah, ii. 269. "Waverers, " iv. 173. Webster, "Duchess of Malfi" quoted, iv. 11. Wedderburn, Alexander, Solicitor-General, iii. 149. Denounces Franklin, iii. 156, 157. On using military against mob, iii. 207. Sketch of, iii. 158. Speech on Middlesex election petition, iii. 131. "Weekly Political Register, " Cobbett's article in, iv. 156, 157. Wellesley, Arthur (_see_ Wellington, Duke of). Wellesley, Garret, Earl of Mornington, iii. 341. Wellesley, Richard C. , Marquis of: Resigns Vice-royalty of Ireland, iv. 73. Sketch of career, iv. 72. Wellington, Arthur Wellesley, Duke of: Accompanies George IV. To Waterloo, iv. 28. At opening of Liverpool and Manchester railway, iv. 103. Attitude towards Catholic Emancipation, iv. 54, 56, 75, 106. Attitude towards Municipal Bill, iv. 260. Attitude towards Parliamentary reform, iv. 52. Attitude towards Queen Caroline, iv. 7. Character, iv. 120. Declines to form ministry, iv. 177. Duel with Lord Winchilsea, iv. 81. Interview with King on Catholic emancipation, iv. 77. Prime Minister, iv. 67, 100. Represents England at Congress of Verona, iv. 41, 42. Resigns office, iv. 113. Secretary for Foreign Affairs, iv. 238. Sketch of, iii. 341 _seqq. _ Speech against Reform Bill, iv. 169. Speech on Parliamentary reform, iv. 108. Supports Poor Law Bill, iv. 229. Unpopular, iv. 153. Welsh Copper and Lead Company, and South Sea Company, i. 193. Wentworth, Lady, describes house in Golden Square, i. 70. Wesley, Charles, ii. 128, 137, 145. Accompanies John to Georgia, ii. 134. On Revivalist meetings, ii. 139. Wesley, John: Breaks away from Moravians, ii. 140. Breaks from discipline of Church of England, ii. 142. Character, ii. 134, 135, 137, 142. Dispute with Whitefield, ii. 139. Marriage, ii. 137. Organization, ii. 140. Sketch of, ii. 127 _seqq. _ Visits Georgia, ii. 127. Wesleyan Movement, account of, ii. 127 _seqq. _ In United States, ii. 144. Revivalist meetings, ii. 138. West Indian Planters, grant to, iv. 198, 200. West Indies, slavery in, iv. 190 _seqq. _ Abolished, iv. 199, 200. Westminster Hall, iv. 268. Booths in, i. 64. Explosion in, ii. 45. Wetherell, Sir Charles, obstructs Reform Bill, iv. 163. Rescued from rioters, iv. 197. Weymouth, Lord, letter to magistrate in case of riot, iii. 120, 124. Wharncliffe, Lord, amendment to Reform Bill, iv. 169. Wharton, Duke of: Character, i. 264. Condemns South Sea Bill, i. 191, 198. Whately, --, private secretary to George Grenville, iii. 153. Whately, William, iii. 155. Wheler, appointed Governor-General, iii. 264. Whigs: Ascendency, iii. 24. Attitude towards Hanoverian Succession, i. 16. Doctrines, i. 17 _seqq. _ Foreign policy (1716), i. 157. Nobles and Reform Bill, iv. 178. Origin of name, i. 17. Whitbread, efforts to inquire into troubles in Ireland, iii. 319. Whitefield, George, ii. 128, 137, 145. Disputes with Wesley, ii. 139. Oratory, ii. 139. White's chocolate-house, i. 76. Widdrington, Lord, a prisoner, i. 137, 138. Wilberforce, William: Later years, iv. 280. Supports Queen Caroline, iv. 6. Votes against Dundas, iii. 338. West-Indian Slavery and, iv. 191, 193, 194. Wilkes, John: Arrested, iii. 59. At King's Bench, iii. 119. Attack on, iii. 64, 66. Brings actions against Lord Halifax and Wood, iii. 63. Candidate for Parliament, iii. 116, 117, 126, 137. Catholic Relief for Scotland and, iii. 195. Churchill and, iii. 55. Committed to Tower, iii. 60. Death, iii. 139. Duel with Martin, iii. 66. Elected Alderman for Farringdon Without, iii. 134. Elected Lord Mayor, iii. 137. Elected Sheriff, iii. 136. Expelled from House, iii. 130. Interview with Johnson, iii. 138. Later life, iii. 137. Liberated from prison, iii. 135. Literary executor to Churchill, iii. 69. M. P. For Aylesbury, iii. 49, 51. _North Briton_ and, iii. 52, 55, 57. On rioters, iii. 209. Outlawed, iii. 68. Released by Judge Pratt, iii. 60, 63. Sketch of, iii. 48 _seqq. _ Summoned before Commons, iii. 135. William III. , opinion of Duke of Marlborough, i. 24. William IV. : Accession, iv. 96. Assents to Bill for Abolition of Slavery, iv. 199. Attitude towards Duke of Wellington, iv. 115. Attitude towards Irish State Church, iv. 219. Attitude towards Ministry (1831), iv. 151. Attitude towards Reform, iv. 172, 173, 175, 179, 181. Character, iv. 98, 114, 115, 120, 293. Conduct as admiral, iv. 115. Conduct to Mrs. Fitzherbert, iv. 88. Death, iv. 293. Dismisses Whig Government and sends for Sir Robert Peel, iv. 235. Illness, iv. 289. Lord High Admiral, iv. 60, 96. Marries Adelaide of Saxe-Meiningen, iv. 97. Mrs. Jordan and, iv. 97. Opens Parliament (1831), iv. 154. Orangeism and, iv. 279. Popular, iv. 153, 154. Prayers for, iv. 292. Raises his children to Peerage, iv. 114. Sanctions Reform Bill, iv. 132. Speech from Throne (1830), iv. 100, 103, 108. Speech from Throne (1831), iv. 172. Speeches at state dinners, iv. 116, 117. Unconventionalities, iv. 118. Unpopular, iv. 179. Williamson, Dr. Hugh, iii. 154. Will's coffee-house, i. 75. Wilmington, Lord (_see_ Compton, Sir Spencer). Wilmot, Olivia, sketch of, iv. 286. Wilmot, Robert, on grievances against Spaniards, ii. 154. Wilson, Alexander, Lord Provost of Edinburgh, Bill against, ii. 66, 68. Wilson's execution and Porteous riots, ii. 60, 61. Winchilsea, Earl of: Duel with Duke of Wellington, iv. 81. On Princess Anne's Dowry, ii. 44, 45. Letter on Duke of Wellington and Catholic Emancipation, iv. 80. Window tax, iii. 239. Wine-drinking in Georgian era, iii. 20. Wintoun, Earl of, a prisoner, i. 137. Escapes, i. 142. Witherington, Matilda, wife of Wolfe Tone, iii. 311, 329. Wolfe, James: At Culloden, ii. 227, 282. Character, ii. 282. Death, ii. 290. Monument, ii. 290. Wood, Alderman, supports Queen Caroline, iv. 5. Wood, William, patent for copper coins, i. 164, 241, 244. Withdrawn, i. 248. Wooster, --, iii. 179. Wray, Sir Cecil, opponent of Fox at Westminster, iii. 238. Writs of Assistance, iii. 84, 86. Wyndham, Sir William: Announces secession from Commons, ii. 173. Death, ii. 179. Leader of Tories, i. 287. On grievances against Spaniards, ii. 156. On Salt Tax, i. 313. Sketch of, i. 288; ii. 179. Speech on repeal of Septennial Act, ii. 12. Wynn, Sir Walter Williams, supports Young Pretender, ii. 221. Wynn, Watkin Williams, argument against long Parliaments, ii. 12. 

 Yale College, places in lists, iii. 77. York, Frederick Augustus, Duke of: Death, iv. 60. Public career, iv. 60. York in 1714, i. 79. Yorktown, Cornwallis surrenders at, iii. 184. Young, Arthur, travels in France, iii. 293. 

 Zinzendorf, Count von, founds Moravian sect, ii. 134. Zoological Gardens opened, iv. 93.