THE

CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY

OF

ENGLAND

from 1760 to 1860

BY CHARLES DUKE YONGE, M. A. REGIUS PROFESSOR OF MODERN HISTORY, QUEEN'S COLLEGE, BELFASTAND AUTHOR OF "THE HISTORY OF THE BRITISH NAVY""THE LIFE OF MARIE ANTOINETTE" ETC. 

1882

PREFACE. 

Mr. Hallam's "Constitutional History" closes, as is well known, with thedeath of George II. The Reformation, the great Rebellion, and theRevolution, all of which are embraced in the period of which it treats, are events of such surpassing importance, and such all-pervading andlasting influence, that no subsequent transactions can ever attractentirely equal attention. Yet the century which has elapsed since theaccession of George III. Has also witnessed occurrences not only full ofexciting interest at the moment, but calculated to affect the policy ofthe kingdom and the condition of the people, for all future time, in adegree only second to the Revolution itself. Indeed, the change in someleading features and principles of the constitution wrought by theReform Bill of 1832, exceeds any that were enacted by the Bill of Rightsor the Act of Settlement. The only absolutely new principle introducedin 1688 was that establishment of Protestant ascendency which wascontained in the clause which disabled any Roman Catholic from wearingthe crown. In other respects, those great statutes were not so much theintroduction of new principles, as a recognition of privileges of thepeople which had been long established, but which, in too manyinstances, had been disregarded and violated. 

But the Reform Bill conferred political power on classes which had neverbefore been admitted to be entitled to it; and their enfranchisementcould not fail to give a wholly new and democratic tinge to thegovernment, which has been visible in its effect on the policy of allsubsequent administrations. 

And, besides this great measure, the passing of which has often beencalled a new Revolution, and the other reforms, municipal andecclesiastical, which were its immediate and almost inevitable fruits, the century which followed the accession of George III. Was also markedby the Irish Union, the abolition of slavery, the establishment of theprinciple of universal religious toleration; the loss of one greatcollection of colonies, the plantation of and grant of constitutions toothers of not inferior magnitude, which had not even come into existenceat its commencement; the growth of our wondrous dominion in India, withits eventual transfer of all authority in that country to the crown;with a host of minor transactions and enactments, which must all beregarded as, more or less, so many changes in or developments of theconstitution, as it was regarded and understood by the statesmen of theseventeenth century. 

It has seemed, therefore, to the compiler of this volume, that anarrative of these transactions in their historical sequence, so as toexhibit the connection which has frequently existed between them; toshow, for instance, how the repeal of Poynings' Act, and the RegencyBill of 1788, necessitated the Irish Union; how Catholic Emancipationbrought after it Parliamentary Reform, and how that led to municipal andecclesiastical reforms, might not be without interest and use at thepresent time. And the modern fulness of our parliamentary reports(itself one not unimportant reform and novelty), since the accession ofGeorge III. , has enabled him to give the inducements or the objectionsto the different enactments in the very words of the legislators whoproposed them or resisted them, as often as it seemed desirable to doso. 

CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER I. 

Mr. Hallam's View of the Development of the Constitution. --Symptoms ofapproaching Constitutional Changes. --State of the Kingdom at theAccession of George III. --Improvement of the Law affecting theCommissions of the Judges. --Restoration of Peace. --Lord Bute becomesMinister. --The Case of Wilkes. --Mr. Luttrell is Seated for Middlesex bythe House of Commons. --Growth of Parliamentary Reporting. --Mr. Grenville's Act for trying Election Petitions. --Disfranchisement ofCorrupt Voters at New Shoreham. 

CHAPTER II. 

The Regency Bill. --The Ministry of 1766 lay an Embargo on Corn. --An Actof Indemnity is Passed. --The _Nullum Tempus_ Act concerning CrownProperty; it is sought to Extend it to Church Property, but the Attemptfails. --The Royal Marriage Act. --The Lords amend a Bill imposing ExportDuties, etc. , on Corn. 

CHAPTER III. 

Mr. Grenville imposes a Duty on Stamps in the North AmericanColonies. --Examination of Dr. Franklin. --Lord Rockingham's MinistryRepeals the Duty. --Lord Mansfield affirms a Virtual Representation inthe Colonies. --Mr. C. Townsend imposes Import Duties in America. --Aftersome Years, the Civil War breaks out. --Hanoverian Troops are sent toGibraltar. --The Employment of Hanoverian Regiments at Gibraltar andMinorca. --End of the War. --Colonial Policy of the PresentReign. --Complaints of the Undue Influence of the Crown. --Motions forParliamentary Reform. --Mr. Burke's Bill for Economical Reform. --Mr. Dunning's Resolution on the Influence of the Crown. --Rights of the Lordson Money-bills. --The Gordon Riots. 

CHAPTER IV. 

Changes of Administration. --The Coalition Ministry. --The Establishmentof the Prince of Wales. --Fox's India Bill. --The King Defeats it by theAgency of Lord Temple. --The Ministry is Dismissed, and Succeeded by Mr. Pitt's Administration. --Opposition to the New Ministry in the House ofCommons. --Merits of the Contest between the Old and the NewMinistry. --Power of Pitt. --Pitt's India Bill. --Bill for the Governmentof Canada. --The Marriage of the Prince of Wales to Mrs. Fitzherbert. --The King becomes Deranged. --Proposal of aRegency. --Opinions of Various Writers on the Course adopted. --Spread ofRevolutionary Societies and Opinions. --Bills for the Repression ofSedition and Treason. --The Alien Act. --The Traitorous CorrespondenceAct. --Treason and Sedition Bills. --Failure of some Prosecutions underthem. 

CHAPTER V. 

The Affairs of Ireland. --Condition of the Irish Parliament. --TheOctennial Bill. --The Penal Laws. --Non-residence of the Lord-lieutenant. --Influence of the American War on Ireland. --Enrolment of theVolunteers. --Concession of all the Demands of Ireland. --Violence of theVolunteers. --Their Convention. --Violence of the Opposition inParliament: Mr. Brownlow, Mr. Grattan, Mr. Flood. --Pitt's PropositionsFail. --Fitzgibbon's Conspiracy Bill. --Regency Question. --Recovery of theKing. --Question of a Legislative Union. --Establishment of MaynoothCollege. --Lord Edward Fitzgerald. --Arguments for and against theUnion. --It passes the Irish Parliament. --Details of the Measure. --General Character of the Union. --Circumstances which Preventedits Completeness. 

CHAPTER VI. 

A Census is Ordered. --Dissolution of Pitt's Administration. --Impeachmentof Lord Melville. --Introduction of Lord Ellenborough into theCabinet. --Abolition of the Slave-trade. --Mr. Windham's CompulsoryTraining Bill. --Illness of the King, and Regency. --Recurrence to thePrecedent of 1788-'89. --Death of Mr. Perceval. --Lord Liverpool becomesPrime-minister. --Question of Appointments in the Household. --Appointmentof a Prime-minister. 

CHAPTER VII. 

The Toleration Act. --Impropriety of making Catholic Emancipation (or anyother Important Matter) an Open Question. --Joint Responsibility of allthe Ministers. --Detention of Napoleon at St. Helena. --Question whetherthe Regent could Give Evidence in a Court of Law in a CivilAction. --Agitation for Reform. --Public Meetings. --The ManchesterMeeting. --The Seditious Meetings Prevention Bill. --Lord Sidmouth's SixActs. 

CHAPTER VIII. 

Survey of the Reign of George III. --The Cato Street Conspiracy. --TheQueen's Return to England, and the Proceedings against her. --The KingVisits Ireland and Scotland. --Reform of the Criminal Code. --Freedom ofTrade. --Death of Lord Liverpool. --The Duke of Wellington becomesPrime-minister. --Repeal of the Test and Corporation Act. --O'Connell isElected for Clare. --Peel Resigns his Seat for Oxford. --CatholicEmancipation. --Question of the Endowment of the Roman CatholicClergy. --Constitutional Character of the Emancipation. --The Propriety ofMr. Peel's Resignation of his Seat for Oxford Questioned. 

CHAPTER IX. 

Demand for Parliamentary Reform. --Death of George IV. , and Accession ofWilliam IV. --French Revolution of 1830. --Growing Feeling in Favor ofReform. --Duke of Wellington's Declaration against Reform. --HisResignation: Lord Grey becomes Prime-minister. --Introduction of theReform Bill. --Its Details. --Riots at Bristol and Nottingham. --ProposedCreation of Peers. --The King's Message to the Peers. --Character andConsequences of the Reform Bill. --Appointment of a Regency. --Re-arrangement of the Civil List. 

CHAPTER X. 

Abolition of Slavery. --Abridgment of the Apprenticeship. --The East IndiaCompany's Trade is Thrown Open. --Commencement of EcclesiasticalReforms. --The New Poor-law. --State of Ireland. --Agitation againstTithes. --Coercion Bill. --Beginning of Church Reform. --Sir Robert Peelbecomes Prime-minister. --Variety of Offices held Provisionally by theDuke of Wellington. --Sir Robert Peel Retires, and Lord Melbourne Resumesthe Government. --Sir Robert Peel Proposes a Measure of ChurchReform. --Municipal Reform. --Measures of Ecclesiastical Reform. 

CHAPTER XI. 

Death of William IV. , and Accession of Queen Victoria. --Rise of theChartists. --Resignation of Lord Melbourne in 1839, and his Resumption ofOffice. --Marriage of the Queen, and Consequent Arrangements. --ThePrecedence of the Prince, etc. --Post-office Reform. --War inAfghanistan. --Discontent in Jamaica. --Insurrection in Canada. --NewConstitution for Canada and other Colonies. --Case of Stockdale andHansard. 

CHAPTER XII. 

Sir Robert Peel becomes Prime-minister. --CommercialReforms. --Free-trade. --Religious Toleration. --Maynooth. --The Queen'sUniversity. --Post-office Regulations. --The Opening of Letters. --Naturalization of Aliens. --Recall of Lord Ellenborough. --Reversal of theVote on the Sugar Duties. --Refusal of the Crown to Sanction a Bill. --TheQuestion of Increase in the Number of Spiritual Peers. --Repeal of theCorn-laws. --Revolution in France, and Agitation on the Continent. --Deathof Sir Robert Peel. --Indifference of the Country to Reform. --Repeal ofthe Navigation Laws. --Resolutions in Favor of Free-trade. --The GreatExhibition of 1851. 

CHAPTER XIII. 

Dismissal of Lord Palmerston. --Theory of the Relation between theSovereign and the Cabinet. --Correspondence of the Sovereign with FrenchPrinces. --Russian War. --Abolition of the Tax on Newspapers. --LifePeerages. --Resignation of two Bishops. --Indian Mutiny. --Abolition of theSovereign Power of the Company. --Visit of the Prince of Wales toIndia. --Conspiracy Bill. --Rise of the Volunteers. --NationalFortifications. --The Lords Reject the Measure for the Repeal of thePaper-duties. --Lord Palmerston's Resolutions. --Character of the Changesduring the last Century. 

INDEX. 

CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 

CHAPTER I. 

Mr. Hallam's View of the Development of the Constitution. --Symptoms ofapproaching Constitutional Changes. --State of the Kingdom at theAccession of George III. --Improvement of the Law affecting theCommissions of the Judges. --Restoration of Peace. --Lord Bute becomesMinister. --The Case of Wilkes. --Mr. Luttrell is Seated for Middlesex bythe House of Commons. --Growth of Parliamentary Reporting. --Mr. Grenville's Act for trying Election Petitions. --Disfranchisement ofCorrupt Voters at New Shoreham. 

The learned and judicious writer to whom is due the first idea of a"Constitutional History of England, " and of whose admirable work I hereventure to offer a continuation, regards "the spirit of the government"as having been "almost wholly monarchical till the Revolution of 1688, "and in the four subsequent reigns, with the last of which his volumesclose, as "having turned chiefly to an aristocracy. "[1] And it may beconsidered as having generally preserved that character through the longand eventful reign of George III. But, even while he was writing, achange was already preparing, of which more than one recent occurrencehad given unmistakable warning. A borough had been disfranchised forinveterate corruption in the first Parliament of George IV. [2] Beforeits dissolution, the same House of Commons had sanctioned the principleof a state endowment of the Roman Catholic clergy in Ireland, and hadgiven a third reading to a bill for the abolition of all civilrestrictions affecting members of that religion. It was impossible toavoid foreseeing that the Parliamentary Reform inaugurated by thedisfranchisement of Grampound would soon be carried farther, or that theemancipation, as it was termed, of all Christian sects was at leastequally certain not to be long delayed. And it will be denied by no onethat those measures, which had no very obscure or doubtful connectionwith each other, have gradually imparted to the constitution a far moredemocratic tinge than would have been willingly accepted by even themost liberal statesman of the preceding century, or than, in the days ofthe Tudors or of the Stuarts, would have been thought compatible withthe maintenance of the monarchy. 

When George III. Came to the throne, he found the nation engaged in awar which was occupying its arms not only on the Continent of Europe, but in India and America also, and was extending her glory and hersubstantial power in both hemispheres. _Inter arma silent leges_. And, while the contest lasted, neither legislators in Parliament nor thepeople outside had much attention to spare for matters of domesticpolicy. Yet the first year of the new reign was not suffered to passwithout the introduction of one measure limiting the royal prerogativein a matter of paramount importance to the liberty of the people, theindependence of the judges. The rule of making the commissions of thejudges depend on their good conduct instead of on the pleasure of thecrown had, indeed, been established at the Revolution; but it was stillheld that these commissions expired with the life of the sovereign whohad granted them; and, at the accession of Anne, as also at that ofGeorge II. , a renewal of their commissions had been withheld from somemembers of the judicial bench. But now, even before the dissolution ofthe existing Parliament, the new King recommended to it such a change inthe law as should "secure the judges in the enjoyment of their officesduring their good behavior, notwithstanding any demise of the crown;"giving the proposal, which was understood to have been originallysuggested by himself, additional weight by the very unusual step ofmaking it the subject of a speech to the two Houses in the middle of thesession. A bill to give effect to it was at once brought in, and, thoughthe Houses sat only a fortnight longer, was carried before thedissolution. 

The close of the year 1762, however, saw the restoration of peace; andthe circumstances connected with the treaty which re-established it gavebirth to a degree of political and constitutional excitement such as hadnot agitated the kingdom for more than half a century. That treaty hadnot been concluded by the minister who had conducted the war. WhenGeorge III. Came to the throne he found the Duke of Newcastle presidingat the Treasury, but the seals of one Secretary of State in the hands ofMr. Pitt, who was universally regarded as the guiding genius of theministry. The other Secretary of State was Lord Holdernesse. But, in thespring of 1761, as soon as the Parliament was dissolved, [3] thatstatesman retired from office, and was succeeded by the Earl of Bute, aScotch nobleman, who stood high in the favor of the King's mother, thePrincess Dowager of Wales, but who had not till very recently beensupposed to be actuated by political ambition, and who was still lesssuspected of any statesman-like ability to qualify him for the office towhich he was thus promoted. It was presently seen, however, that heaspired to even higher dignity. He at once set himself to oppose Pitt'swarlike policy; and, on the question of declaring war against Spain, hewas so successful in inducing the rest of the cabinet to reject Pitt'sproposals, that that statesman resigned his office in unconcealedindignation. Having got rid of the real master of the ministry, Bute'snext step was to get rid of its nominal chief, and in the spring of 1762he managed to drive the Duke of Newcastle from the Treasury, and washimself placed by the King at the head of the administration. So rapidan elevation of a man previously unknown as a politician could hardlyfail to create very widespread dissatisfaction, which was in some degreeaugmented by the nationality of the new minister. Lord Bute was aScotchman, and Englishmen had not wholly forgiven or forgotten theScotch invasion of 1745. Since that time the Scotch had been regardedwith general disfavor; Scotch poverty and Scotch greediness for the goodthings of England had furnished constant topics for raillery andsarcasm; and more than one demagogue and political writer had soughtpopularity by pandering to the prevailing taste for attacks on the wholenation. Foremost among these was Mr. John Wilkes, member for Aylesbury, a man of broken fortunes and still more damaged character, but of a witand hardihood that made his society acceptable to some of high rank andlax morality, and caused his political alliance to be courted by somewho desired to be regarded as leaders of a party; many of thetransactions of the late reign having, unfortunately, not been favorableto the maintenance of any high standard of either public or privatevirtue. On Lord Bute's accession to office, Wilkes had set up aperiodical paper, whose object and character were sufficiently indicatedby its title, _The North Briton_, and in which the diligence of LordBute in distributing places among his kinsmen and countrymen furnishedthe staple of almost every number; while in many the Princess of Walesherself was not spared, as the cause, for motives not obscurely hintedat, of his sudden elevation. So pertinacious and virulent were theattacks thus launched at him, coinciding as they did, at least in onepoint, with the prejudices of the multitude, that they were commonlybelieved to have had some share in driving Lord Bute from office, which, in the spring of 1763, he suddenly resigned, hoping, as it might almostseem, thus to throw on his successor the burden of defending hismeasures. The most important of these measures had been the conclusionof the Treaty of Versailles, which, when it was first announced toParliament, had been vehemently attacked in both Houses by Pitt and hisfollowers, but had been approved by large majorities. Wilkes, however, not without reason, believed it to be still unpopular with the nation atlarge, and, flushed with his supposed victory over Lord Bute, waswatching eagerly for some occasion of re-opening the question, when suchan opportunity was afforded him by the King's speech at the prorogationof the Parliament, which took place a few days after Lord Bute'sresignation. 

Lord Bute had been succeeded by Mr. George Grenville, who had for a timebeen one of his colleagues as Secretary of State; and on him, therefore, the duty devolved of framing the royal speech the opening sentences ofwhich referred to "the re-establishment of peace" in terms of warmself-congratulation, as having been effected "upon conditions honorableto the crown and beneficial to the people. " Wilkes at once caught atthis panegyric, as affording him just such an opportunity as he had beenseeking of renewing his attacks on the government, which he regarded aschanged in nothing but the name of the Prime-minister. [4] And, four daysafter the prorogation, [5] he accordingly issued a new number of _TheNorth Briton_ (No. 45), in which he heaped unmeasured sarcasm andinvective on the peace itself, on the royal speech, and on the ministerwho had composed it. As if conscious that Mr. Grenville was lessinclined by temper than Lord Bute to suffer such attacks withoutendeavoring to retaliate, he took especial pains to keep within the lawin his strictures, and, accordingly, carefully avoided saying adisrespectful word of the King himself, whom he described as "a princeof many great and amiable qualities, " "ever renowned for truth, honor, and unsullied virtue. " But he claimed a right to canvass the speech"with the utmost freedom, " since "it had always been considered by theLegislature and by the public at large as the speech of the minister. "And he kept this distinction carefully in view through the whole number. The speech he denounced with bitter vehemence, as "an abandoned instanceof ministerial effrontery, " as containing "the most unjustifiable publicdeclarations" and "infamous fallacies. " The peace he affirmed to be"such as had drawn down the contempt of mankind on our wretchednegotiators. " And he described the present minister as a mere tool of"the favorite, " by whom "he still meditated to rule the kingdom with arod of iron. " But in the whole number there was but one sentence whichcould be represented as implying the very slightest censure on the Kinghimself, and even that was qualified by a personal eulogy. "The King ofEngland, " it said, "is not only the first magistrate of the country, butis invested by the law with the whole executive power. He is, however, responsible to his people for the due execution of the royal functionsin the choice of ministers, etc. , equally with the meanest of hissubjects in his particular duty. The personal character of our presentamiable sovereign makes us easy and happy that so great a power islodged in such hands; but the favorite has given too just cause for himto escape the general odium. The prerogative of the crown is to exertthe constitutional power intrusted to it in such a way, not of blindfavor and partiality, but of wisdom and judgment. This is the spirit ofour constitution. The people, too, have their prerogative; and I hopethe fine words of Dryden will be engraven on our hearts, 'Freedom is theEnglish subject's prerogative. '"

These were the last sentences of No. 45. And in the present day it willhardly be thought that, however severe or even violent some of theepithets with which certain sentences of the royal speech were assailedmay have been, the language exceeds the bounds of allowable politicalcriticism. With respect to the King, indeed, however accompanied withpersonal compliments to himself those strictures may have been, it maybe admitted that in asserting any responsibility whatever to the peopleon the part of the sovereign, even for the choice of his ministers, asbeing bound to exercise that choice "with wisdom and judgment, " it goessomewhat beyond the strict theory of the constitution. Undoubtedly thattheory is, that the minister chosen by the King is himself responsiblefor every circumstance or act which led to his appointment. Thisprinciple was established in the fullest manner in 1834, when, as willbe seen hereafter, Sir Robert Peel admitted his entire responsibilityfor the dismissal of Lord Melbourne by King William IV. , though it wasnotorious that he was in Italy at the time, and had not been consultedon the matter. But as yet such questions had not been as accuratelyexamined as subsequent events caused them to be; and Wilkes's assertionof royal responsibility to this extent probably coincided with thegeneral feeling on the subject. [6] At all events, the error contained init, and the insinuation that due wisdom and judgment had not beendisplayed in the appointment of Mr. G. Grenville to the Treasury, werenot so derogatory to the legitimate authority and dignity of the crownas to make the writer a fit subject for a criminal prosecution. But Mr. Grenville was of a bitter temper, never inclined to tolerate anystrictures on his own judgment or capacity, and fully imbued with theconviction that the first duty of an English minister is to uphold thesupreme authority of the Parliament, and to chastise any one who daresto call in question the wisdom of any one of its resolutions. But _TheNorth Briton_ had done this, and more. No. 45 had not only denounced thetreaty which both Houses had approved, but had insinuated inunmistakable language that their approval had been purchased by grosscorruption (a fact which was, indeed, sufficiently notorious). And, consequently, Mr. Grenville determined to treat the number whichcontained the denunciation as a seditious libel, the publication ofwhich was a criminal offence; and, by his direction, Lord Halifax, asSecretary of State, issued what was termed a general warrant--a warrant, that is, which did not name the person or persons against whom it wasdirected, but which commanded the apprehension of "the authors, printers, and publishers" of the offending paper, leaving the officerswho were charged with its execution to decide who came under thatdescription, or, in other words, who were guilty of the act charged, before they had been brought before any tribunal. The warrant wasexecuted. Wilkes and some printers were apprehended; Wilkes himself, asif the minister's design had been to make the charge ridiculous byexaggeration, being consigned to the great state-prison of the Tower, such a use of which was generally limited to those impeached ofhigh-treason. And, indeed, the commitment did declare that No. 45 of_The North Briton_ was "a libel tending to alienate the affections ofthe people from his Majesty, and to excite them to traitorousinsurrections against the government. " Wilkes instantly sued out a writof _habeas corpus_, and was without hesitation released by the Court ofCommon Pleas, on the legal ground that, "as a member of the House ofCommons, he was protected from arrest in all cases except treason, felony, or a breach of the peace;" a decision which, in the next sessionof Parliament, the minister endeavored to overbear by inducing bothHouses to concur in a resolution that "privilege of Parliament did notextend to the case of publishing seditious libels. "

In his life of Lord Camden, [7] who was Chief-justice of the Common Pleasat the time, Lord Campbell expresses a warm approval of this resolution, as one "which would now be considered conclusive evidence of the law. "But, with all respect to the memory of a writer who was himself aChief-justice, we suspect that in this case he was advancing a positionas an author engaged in the discussion of what had become a partyquestion, which he would not have laid down from the Bench. [8] Theresolution certainly did not make it law, since it was not confirmed byany royal assent; and to interpret the law is not within the province ofthe House of Commons, nor, except when sitting as a Court of Appeal, ofthe House of Lords. We may, however, fully agree with the principlewhich Lord Campbell at the same time lays down, that "privilege ofParliament should not be permitted to interfere with the execution ofthe criminal law of the country. " And this doctrine has been so fullyacquiesced in since, that members of both Houses have in more than oneinstance been imprisoned on conviction for libel. 

The legality of the species of warrant under which Wilkes had beenarrested was, however, a question of far greater importance; and on thatno formal decision was pronounced on this occasion, the Lieutenant ofthe Tower, in his return to the writ of _habeas corpus_, and the counselemployed on both sides, equally avoiding all mention of the character ofthe warrant. But it was indirectly determined shortly afterward. Theleaders of the Opposition would fain have had the point settled by what, in truth, would not have settled it--another resolution of the House ofCommons. But, though it was discussed in several warm debates, Grenvillealways contrived to baffle his adversaries, though on one occasion hismajority dwindled to fourteen. [9] What, however, the House of Commonsabstained from affirming was distinctly, though somewhatextra-judicially, asserted by Lord Camden, as Chief-justice of theCommon Pleas. Wilkes, with some of the printers and others who had beenarrested, had brought actions for false imprisonment, which came to betried in his court; and they obtained such heavy damages that theofficials who had been mulcted applied for new trials, on the plea oftheir being excessive. But the Chief-justice refused the applications, and upheld the verdict, on the ground that the juries, in theirassessment of damages, had been "influenced by a righteous indignationat the conduct of those who sought to exercise arbitrary power over allthe King's subjects, to violate Magna Charta, and to destroy the libertyof the kingdom, by insisting on the legality of this general warrant. "Such a justification would hardly be admitted now. But, in a subsequenttrial, a still higher authority, the Chief-justice of the King's Bench, Lord Mansfield, held language so similar, that, once more to quote thewords of Lord Campbell, "without any formal judgment, general warrantshave ever since been considered illegal. "

However, the release of Wilkes on the ground of his parliamentaryprivilege gave him but a momentary triumph, or rather respite. Theprosecution was not abated by the decision that he could not beimprisoned before trial; while one effect of his liberation was tostimulate the minister to add another count to the indictment preferredagainst him, on which he might be expected to find it less easy toexcite the sympathy of any party. Wilkes had not always confined hisliterary efforts to political pamphlets. There was a club named theFranciscans (in compliment to Sir Francis Dashwood, Lord Bute'sChancellor of the Exchequer, who, as well as Lord Sandwich, the FirstLord of the Admiralty, was one of its members), which met at MedmenhamAbbey, on the banks of the Thames, and there held revels whose licenserecalled the worst excesses of the preceding century. To this clubWilkes also belonged; and, in indulgence of tastes in harmony with sucha brotherhood, he had composed a blasphemous and indecent parody onPope's "Essay on Man, " which he entitled "An Essay on Woman, " and towhich he appended a body of burlesque notes purporting to be thecomposition of Pope's latest commentator, the celebrated Dr. Warburton, Bishop of Gloucester. He had never published it (indeed, it may bedoubted whether, even in that not very delicate age, any publisher couldhave been found to run the risk of issuing so scandalous a work), but hehad printed a few copies in his own house, of which he designed to makepresents to such friends as he expected to appreciate it. He had not, however, so far as it appears, given away a single copy, when, on thevery first day of the next session of Parliament, Lord Sandwich himselfbrought the parody under the notice of the House of Lords. If there wasa single member of the House whose delicacy was not likely to beshocked, and whose morals could not be injured by such a composition, itwas certainly Lord Sandwich himself; but his zeal as a minister tosupport his chief kindled in him a sudden enthusiasm for the support ofvirtue and decency also; and, having obtained a copy by somesurreptitious means, he now made a formal complaint of it to the House, contending that the use of the name of the Bishop of Gloucester asauthor of the notes constituted a breach of the privileges of the House. And he was seconded by the bishop himself, whose temper and judgmentwere, unhappily, very inferior to his learning and piety. It is recordedthat he actually compared Wilkes to the devil, and then apologized toSatan for the comparison. But the Lords were in a humor to regard noviolence against Wilkes as excessive; and, submitting to the guidance ofthe minister and the prelate, resolved that the "Essay on Woman, "[10] asalso another poem by the same writer, a paraphrase of the "VeniCreator, " was "a most scandalous, obscene, and impious libel, " andpresented an address to the King, requesting his Majesty "to give themost effectual orders for the immediate prosecution of the author. " And, in the course of the next few weeks, the House of Commons outran thepeers themselves in violence and manifest unfairness. They concurredwith the Lords in ordering No. 45 of _The North Briton_ to be burnt bythe common hangman, an order which was not carried out without greatopposition on the part of the London populace, who made it the occasionof a very formidable riot, in which the sheriffs themselves incurred nolittle danger; and, by another resolution, they ordered Wilkes to attendin his place to answer the charge of having published the two works. Butat the time when they made this order it was well known that he couldnot obey it. A few days before he had been challenged by a Mr. Martin, who till very recently had been one of the Secretaries of the Treasury, and who was generally believed to have prepared himself for the conflictby diligent practice with a pistol; and in the duel which ensued Wilkeshad been severely wounded. It was not only notorious that he had beenthus disabled, but he sent a physician and surgeon of admitted eminencein their profession, and of unquestioned honor, to testify to the factat the bar of the House; and subsequently he forwarded writtencertificates to the same purport from some French doctors who hadspecial knowledge of gunshot wounds. But the Commons declined to acceptthis evidence as sufficient, and directed two other doctors to examinehim. Wilkes, however, refused to admit them: his refusal was treated asa sufficient ground for pronouncing him "guilty of a contempt of theauthority of the House, " and for deciding on his case in his absence;and, on the 19th of January, before the case had come on for trial, aresolution was carried that "Mr. Wilkes was guilty of writing andpublishing _The North Briton_ (No. 45), which this House had voted to bea false, scandalous, and seditious libel, and that, for the saidoffence, he be expelled the House. " At a later period of the year, hewas tried on the two charges of publishing No. 45 and the "Essay onWoman, " was found guilty of both, and, as he did not appear to receivejudgment, in November, 1764, he was outlawed. 

So far, it may be said to have been a drawn battle. If, on the one hand, the minister had procured the expulsion of Wilkes, on the other handWilkes had gained great notoriety and a certain amount of sympathy, andhad, moreover, enriched himself by considerable damages; and again, ifthe nation at large was a gainer by the condemnation of generalwarrants, even that advantage might be thought to be dearly gained bythe discredit into which the Parliament had fallen through itsintemperance. But the contest between Wilkes and the ministry was onlyclosed for a time; and when it was revived, a singular freak of fortunecaused the very minister who had led the proceedings against him on thisoccasion to appear as his advocate. To avoid the consequences of hisoutlawry, he had taken up his abode in Paris, waiting for a change ofministry, which, as he hoped, might bring into power some to whom hemight look for greater favor. But when, though in the course of the nexttwo years two fresh administrations were formed, it was seen thatneither Lord Rockingham, the head of the first, nor the Duke of Graftonand Mr. Pitt (promoted to the Earldom of Chatham), the heads of thesecond, had any greater sympathy with him than Mr. Grenville, he becamedesperate, and looked out for some opportunity of giving effect to hisdiscontent. He found it in the dissolution of Parliament, which tookplace in the spring of 1768. In spite of his outlawry, he instantlyreturned to England, and offered himself as a candidate for London. There, indeed, he did not succeed, though the populace was uproarious inhis support, and drew his carriage through the streets as if in triumph. But, before the end of the month, he was returned at the head of thepoll for Middlesex, when the mob celebrated his victory by great riotand outrages, breaking the windows of Lord Bute, as his old enemy, andof the Lord Mayor, as the representative of the City of London, whichhad rejected him, and insulting, and even in some instances beating, passers-by who refused to join in their cheers for "Wilkes and Liberty. "

He had already pledged himself to take the necessary steps to procurethe reversal of his outlawry; and, in pursuance of his promise, hesurrendered in the Court of King's Bench. But his removal to prisoncaused a renewal of the tumults with greater violence than before. Themob even rescued him from the officers who had him in custody; and when, having escaped from his deliverers, he, with a parade of obedience tothe law, again surrendered himself voluntarily at the gate of the King'sBench Prison, they threatened to attack the jail itself, kindled a fireunder its walls, which was not extinguished without some danger, and dayafter day assembled in such tumultuous and menacing crowds, that at lastLord Weymouth, the Secretary of State, wrote a letter to the Surreymagistrates, enjoining them to abstain from no measures which might seemnecessary for the preservation of peace, even if that could only beeffected by the employment of the soldiery. The riots grew more and moreformidable, till at last the magistrates had no resource but to call outthe troops, who, on one occasion, after they had been pelted with largestones, and in many instances severely injured, fired, killing orwounding several of the foremost rioters. So tragical an event seemed toWilkes to furnish him with exactly such an opportunity as he desired topush himself into farther notoriety. He at once printed Lord Weymouth'sletter, and circulated it, with an inflammatory comment, in which hedescribed it as a composition having for its fruit "a horrid massacre, the consummation of a hellish plot deliberately planned. " Too angry tobe prudent, Lord Weymouth complained to the House of Lords of thispublication as a breach of privilege, and the Lords formally representedit to the House of Commons as an insult deliberately offered to them byone of its members. There could be no doubt that such language as Wilkeshad used was libellous. In its imputation of designs of deliberatewickedness, it very far exceeded the bitterest passages of _The NorthBriton_; and Lord Weymouth's colleagues, therefore, thought they mightsafely follow the precedent set in 1764, of branding the publication asa libel, and again procuring the expulsion of the libeller from theHouse of Commons. There were circumstances in the present case, such asthe difference between the constituencies of Aylesbury and Middlesex, and the enthusiastic fervor in the offender's cause which the populaceof the City had displayed, which made it very doubtful whether theprecedent of 1764 were quite a safe one to follow; but the ministers notonly disregarded every such consideration, but, as if they had wantonlydesigned to give their measure a bad appearance, and to furnish itsopponents with the strongest additional argument against it, they mixedup with their present complaint a reference to former misdeeds of Wilkeswith which it had no connection. On receiving the message of the Lords, they had summoned him to appear at the bar of the House of Commons, thathe might be examined on the subject; but this proceeding was so far fromintimidating him, that he not only avowed the publication of his commenton Lord Weymouth's letter, but gloried in it, asserting that he deservedthe thanks of the people for bringing to light the true character of"that bloody scroll. " Such language was regarded as an aggravation ofhis offence, and the Attorney-general moved that his comment on theletter "was an insolent, scandalous, and seditious libel;" and, whenthat motion had been carried, Lord Barrington followed it up withanother, to the effect that "John Wilkes, Esq. , a member of this House, who hath at the bar of this House confessed himself to be the author andpublisher of what the House has resolved to be an insolent, scandalous, and seditious libel, and who has been convicted in the Court of King'sBench of having printed and published a seditious libel, and three[11]obscene and impious libels, and by the judgment of the said Court hasbeen sentenced to undergo twenty-two months' imprisonment, and is now inexecution under the said judgment, be expelled this House. " This motionencountered a vigorous opposition, not only from Mr. Burke and theprincipal members of the Rockingham party, which now formed the regularOpposition, but also from Mr. Grenville, the former Prime-minister, whoon the former occasion, in 1764, had himself moved the expulsion of thesame offender. His speech on this occasion is the only one which isfully reported; and it deserved the distinction from the exhaustive wayin which it dealt with every part of the question. It displayed noinclination to extenuate Wilkes's present offence, but it pointed outwith great force the circumstance that the supporters of the motion werefar from agreement as to the reasons by which they were guided; thatsome members of the greatest authority in the House, while they hadavowed their intention of voting for the expulsion, had at the same timebeen careful to explain that the comment on Lord Weymouth's letter wasnot the ground of their vote; that so great a lawyer as Mr. Blackstonehad asserted that that comment "had not been properly and regularlybrought before the House, " but had founded his intention to vote for theexpulsion solely "upon that article of the charge which related to thethree obscene and impious libels mentioned in it, disavowing in the mostdirect terms all the other articles. " That, on the other hand, othermembers of deserved weight and influence, such as Lord Palmerston andLord F. Campbell, had disdained the idea of regarding "the article ofthe three obscene and impious libels as affording any ground for theirproceeding. " So practised a debater as Mr. Grenville had but littledifficulty, therefore, in arguing against the advocates of expulsion, when they were so divided that one portion of them did, in fact, replyto the other. But it would be superfluous here to enter into thearguments employed on either side to justify the expulsion, or to proveit to be unjustifiable, from a consideration of the character of eitherWilkes or his publication. The strength and importance of Mr. Grenville's speech lay in the constitutional points which it raised. 

Some supporters of the ministers had dwelt upon the former expulsion, insisting that "a man who had been expelled by a former House of Commonscould not possibly be deemed a proper person to sit in the presentParliament, unless he had some pardon to plead, or some merit to cancelhis former offences. " By a reference to the case of Sir R. Walpole, Mr. Grenville proved that this had not been the opinion of formerParliaments; and he contended, with unanswerable logic, that it would bevery mischievous to the nation if such a principle should be now actedon, and such a precedent established, since, though employed in thefirst instance against the odious and the guilty, it might, when onceestablished, be easily applied to, and made use of against, themeritorious and the innocent; and so the most eminent and deservingmembers of the state, under the color of such an example, by onearbitrary and discretionary vote of one House of Parliament, the worstspecies of ostracism, might be excluded from the public councils, cutoff and proscribed from the rights of every subject of the realm, notfor a term of years alone, but forever. He quoted from "L'Esprit desLois" an assertion of Montesquieu, that "one of the excellences of theEnglish constitution was, that the judicial power was separated from thelegislative, and that there would be no liberty if they were blendedtogether; the power over the life and liberty of the citizens would thenbe arbitrary, for the judge would be the legislator. " And, having thusproved that it would be a violation of the recognized constitution tofound a second expulsion on the first, he proceeded to argue that toexpel him for this new offence would be impolitic and inexpedient, as astep which would inevitably lead to a contest with the constituencywhich he represented, since, "in the present disposition of the countyof Middlesex, no one could entertain a doubt that Wilkes would bere-elected. The House would then probably think itself under a necessityof again expelling him, and he would as certainly be again re-elected. The House might, indeed, refuse to issue a new writ, which would be todeprive the freeholders of Middlesex of the right of choosing any otherrepresentative; but he could not believe that the House would think itfit to inflict such a punishment on the electors of a great county. Should it not do so, the other alternative would be to bring into theHouse as representative and knight of the shire for Middlesex a manchosen by a few voters only, in contradiction to the declared sense of agreat majority of the freeholders on the face of the poll, upon thesupposition that all the votes of the latter were forfeited and thrownaway on account of the expulsion of Mr. Wilkes. " It seemed premature todiscuss that point before it arose, and therefore the Speaker contentedhimself for the present with saying that "he believed there was noexample of such a proceeding; and that, if it should appear to be newand unfounded as the law of the land, or even if any reasonable doubtcould be entertained of its legality, the attempt to forfeit thefreeholders' votes in such a manner would be highly alarming anddangerous. "

Few prophecies have been more exactly fulfilled. The House did expel Mr. Wilkes; he did offer himself for re-election, and was re-elected; andthe minister, in consequence, moved and carried a resolution that "JohnWilkes, Esq. , having been, in this session of Parliament, expelled thisHouse, was and is incapable of being elected a member to serve in thispresent Parliament. " And, in pursuance of this vote, a writ was againissued. At the end of another month the proceeding required to berepeated. Wilkes had again offered himself for re-election. No othercandidate had presented himself, and, in answer to an inquiry, theunder-sheriff reported that "no other candidate had been proposed butJohn Wilkes, Esq. , and that no elector had given or tendered his votefor any other person. " Once more the House resolved that he was"incapable of being elected, " and issued a new writ. But on this secondoccasion the ministry had provided a rival candidate in the person ofthe Honorable H. K. Luttrell. He was duly proposed and seconded; a pollwas taken and kept open for several days, and, as it appeared at theclose that 1143 votes had been given for Wilkes and 296 for Mr. Luttrell, the sheriff again returned Wilkes as duly elected. 

A debate of singularly angry excitement arose on the reception of thisreturn. Even lawyers, such as Mr. De Grey, the Attorney-general, and SirFletcher Norton, who had been Attorney-general, were not ashamed todenounce the conduct of the sheriff in returning Mr. Wilkes as "highlyimproper and indecent, " as "a flying in the face of a resolution of theHouse of Commons;" and Sir Fletcher even ventured to advance theproposition that, "as the Commons were acting in a judicial capacity, their resolutions were equal to law. " Lord North, too, the Chancellor ofthe Exchequer, as we learn from the "Parliamentary History, " "spokelong, but chiefly to the passions. He described Mr. Wilkes and hisactions in a lively manner; showed the variety of troubles which he hadgiven the ministry; and that unless, by voting in Mr. Luttrell, an endwere put to this debate, the whole kingdom would be in confusion; thoughhe owned that he did not think that measure would put an end to thedistractions. He spoke much more to the expediency than to the legalityof the measure proposed. "

On the other side, it was contended by several members, Burke and Mr. Grenville being of the number, that "the House of Commons alone couldnot make a law binding any body but themselves. That, if they coulddisqualify one person, they could disqualify as many as they pleased, and thus get into their own hands the whole power of the government;"and precedents were produced to prove that votes of the House of Lords, and also of the House of Commons, regarding their own members, had beendisregarded by the judges of the Court of King's Bench as being contraryto law. But the minister was secure of the steadiness of his adherents, and a majority of 221 to 152 declared that Mr. Luttrell had been dulyelected. 

But Lord North was correct in his anticipation that their vote would notput an end to the agitation on the question, and it was renewed in thenext session in a manner which at one time threatened to produce abreach between the two Houses. 

The "Parliamentary History" closes its report of the debate on theresolution by which Mr. Luttrell was seated with a summary of thearguments used in it, taken from the "Annual Register, " which, as isuniversally known, was at this time edited by Mr. Burke. It is a veryfair and candid abstract, which, in fact, puts the whole question on onesingle issue, "that the House of Commons is the sole court of judicaturein all cases of election, and that this authority is derived from thefirst principles of our government, viz. , the necessary independence ofthe three branches of the Legislature. " But, though that doctrine wasfully admitted by the Opposition, they made "that very admission aground for reviving the question in the next session, by moving for aresolution which should declare that, 'being a Court of Judicature, theHouse of Commons, in deciding matters of election, was bound to judgeaccording to the law of the land, and the known and established law ofParliament, which was part thereof. '" It was understood that thisresolution, if carried, was intended as a stepping-stone to others whichshould condemn the decision of the previous session; yet it seemed sucha truism that even the ministers could not venture to deny it; but theyproposed to defeat the object of its framers by adding to it adeclaration that the late decision was "agreeable to the said law of theland. " And we might pass on to the subsequent debate, in which theconstitutional correctness of that addition was distinctly challenged, did it not seem desirable to notice two arguments which were broughtforward against the motion, one by an independent member, Mr. Ongley, the other by the Attorney-general. Mr. Ongley contended that "a power ofpreserving order and decency is essentially necessary to every aggregatebody; and, with respect to this House, if it had not power over itsparticular members, they would be subject to no control at all. " Theanswer to this argument is obvious: that a right on the part of theHouse to control the conduct of its members is a wholly different thingfrom a right to determine who are or ought to be members; and that forthe House to claim this latter right, except on grounds of qualificationor disqualification legally proved, would be to repeat one of the mostmonstrous of all Cromwell's acts of tyranny, when, in 1656, he placedguards at the door of the House, with orders to refuse admission to allthose members whom, however lawfully elected, he did not expect to findsufficiently compliant for his purposes. Mr. De Grey's argument was of adifferent character, being based on what he foretold would be thepractical result of a decision that expulsion did not involve anincapacity to be re-elected. If it did not involve such incapacity, andif, in consequence, Mr. Wilkes should be re-elected, he considered thatthe House would naturally feel it its duty to re-expel him as often asthe constituency re-elected him. But one answer given to this argumentwas, that to expel a second time would be to punish twice for oneoffence, a proceeding at variance not only with English law but withevery idea of justice. Another, and one which has obtained greateracceptance, was, that the legitimate doctrine was, that the issue of anew writ gave the expelled member an appeal from the House to theconstituency, and that the constituency had a constitutional right tooverrule the judgment of the House, and to determine whether it stillregarded the candidate as its most suitable representative. 

The ministers, however, were, as before, strong enough in the House tocarry their resolution. But the Opposition returned to the charge, taking up an entirely different though equally general position, "That, by the law of the land and the known law and usage of Parliament, noperson eligible by common right can be incapacitated by vote orresolution of this House, but by act of Parliament only. " It isremarkable that, in the debate which ensued, two members whosuccessively rose to the dignity of Lord Chancellor, Mr. Thurlow and Mr. Wedderburn, took different sides; but nothing could shake theministerial majority. The resolution was rejected. And when LordRockingham proposed the same resolution in the House of Lords, though itwas supported by all the eloquence of Lord Chatham, he was beaten by amajority of more than two to one, and the ministers even carried aresolution declaring "that any interference of the House of Lords withany judgment of the House of Commons, in matters of election, would be aviolation of the constitutional rights of the Commons. "

Even these decisive defeats of the Opposition did not finally terminatethe struggle. The notoriety which Wilkes had gained had answered hispurpose to no slight extent. The City had adopted his cause withcontinually increasing earnestness and effect. It had made him Sheriff, Alderman, Lord Mayor, and had enriched him with the lucrative office ofCity Chamberlain; and, as one of the City magistrates, he subsequentlywon the good opinion of many who had previously condemned him, by hisconduct during the Gordon Riots, in which he exerted his authority withgreat intrepidity to check and punish the violence of the rioters. Andwhen, in 1782, Lord Rockingham became, for the second time, Prime-minister, he thought he might well avail himself of the favor hehad thus acquired, and of the accession to office of those whom the linewhich they had formerly taken bound to countenance him, to bring forwarda motion for the expunction of the resolutions against him which hadbeen passed in 1770. It was carried by a largo majority; and though thiswas as evidently a party division as those had been by which he had beendefeated twelve years before, still, as the last resolution on thesubject, it must be regarded as decisive of the law and practice ofParliament, and as having settled the doctrine that expulsion does notincapacitate a member who has been expelled from immediatere-election. [12]

The establishment of this rule, and the abolition of general warrants, were, however, not the only nor the most important result of theseproceedings. They led indirectly to an innovation which, it is hardlytoo much to say, has had a greater influence on the character andconduct of Parliament, and indeed on the whole subsequent legislation ofthe country, than can be attributed to any other single cause. Hithertothe bulk of the people had enjoyed but very scanty and occasional meansof acquiring political education. At times of vehement politicalexcitement, or any special party conflict, pamphlets and periodicalessays had enlightened their readers--necessarily a select and smallbody--on particular topics. But standing orders of both Houses, oftenrenewed, strictly forbade all publication of the debates which tookplace in either. To a certain extent, these orders had come to bedisregarded and evaded. Almost ever since the accession of the House ofBrunswick, a London publisher had given to the world an annual accountof the Parliamentary proceedings and most interesting discussions of theyear; and before the middle of the reign of George II, two monthlymagazines had given sketches of speeches made by leading members of eachparty. The reporters, however, did not venture to give the names of thespeakers at full length, but either disguised them under some generaldescription, or at most gave their initials; and sometimes found thateven this profession of deference to the standing orders did not insurethem impunity. As late as the year 1747, Cave, the proprietor and editorof the _Gentleman's Magazine_, was brought to the bar of the House ofCommons for publishing an account of a recent debate, and only obtainedhis release by expressions of humble submission and the payment of heavyfees. The awe, however, which his humiliation and peril had beenintended to diffuse gradually wore off; the keen interest which wasawakened by the ministerial changes at the beginning of the reign ofGeorge III. , which have been already mentioned, naturally prompted avariety of efforts to gratify it by a revelation of the languageconcerning them which was held by statesmen of different parties; andthese revelations were no longer confined to yearly or monthlypublications. More than one newspaper had of late adopted the practiceof publishing what it affirmed to be a correct report of the debates ofthe previous day, though, in fact, each journal garbled them to suit theviews of the party to which it belonged, and, to quote the words of thehistorian of the period, "misrepresented the language and arguments ofthe speakers in a manner which could hardly be consideredaccidental. "[13] The speakers on the ministerial side in the debates onthe Middlesex election had been especial objects of thesemisrepresentations; and, at the beginning of 1771, one of that party, Colonel Onslow, M. P. For Guilford, brought the subject before the House, complaining that many speeches, and his own among them, had beenmisrepresented by two newspapers which he named, and that "the practicehad got to an infamous height, so that it had become absolutelynecessary either to punish the offenders or to revise the standingorders. "[14] And he accordingly moved "that the publication of thenewspapers of which he complained was a contempt of the orders and abreach of the privileges of the House, and that the printers be orderedto attend the House at its next sitting. " The habitual unfairness of thereports was admitted by the Opposition; but the publishers complained ofevidently felt assured of their sympathy (which, indeed, wassufficiently, and not very decorously, shown by its leaders inflictingon the House no fewer than twenty-three divisions in a single night), and, relying on their countenance, they paid no attention to the orderof the House. A fresh order for their arrest having been issued, theSergeant-at-arms reported that he had been unable to execute it, byreason of their absence from their homes; on which the House, notdisposed to allow itself to be thus trifled with, now addressed hisMajesty with a request that he would issue his royal proclamation fortheir apprehension. And Colonel Onslow made a fresh motion, with asimilar complaint of the publishers of six more newspapers--"threebrace, " as he described them in language more sportsman like thanparliamentary. Similar orders for their appearance and, when these weredisregarded, for their apprehension, were issued. And at last one ofthose who had been mentioned in the royal proclamation, Mr. Wheble, printer of the _Middlesex Journal_, was apprehended by an officer namedCarpenter, and carried before the sitting magistrate at Guildhall, who, by a somewhat whimsical coincidence, happened to be Alderman Wilkes. Wilkes not only discharged him, on the ground that there was "no legalcause of complaint against him, " but when Wheble, in retaliation, made aformal complaint of the assault committed on him by Carpenter inarresting him, bound Wheble over to prosecute, and Carpenter to answerthe complaint, at the next quarter sessions, and then reported what hehad done in an official Letter to the Secretary of State. Thomson, another printer, was in like manner arrested; and, when brought beforeMr. Oliver, another alderman, was discharged by him. And when, a day ortwo afterward, a third (Mr. Miller) was apprehended by Whetham, amessenger of the House of Commons, Mr. Brass Crosby, the Lord Mayor, andthe two Aldermen, signed a warrant committing Whetham to prison forassaulting Miller. Whetham was bailed by the Sergeant-at-arms, whoreported what had occurred to the House; and the House, as the LordMayor and Alderman Oliver were members of it, as representatives forLondon and Honiton, ordered that they should attend the House in theirplaces, to explain their conduct, and that Mr. Wilkes should attend atthe bar of the House. Wilkes, declining to recognize the validity of theresolutions which had seated Colonel Luttrell for Middlesex, refusedcompliance with such an order, writing a letter to the Speaker, in whichhe "observed that no notice was taken of him as a member of the House;and that the Speaker's order did not require him to attend in hisplace. " And he "demanded his seat in Parliament, and promised, when hehad been admitted to his seat, to give the House a most exact detail ofhis conduct. " But the Lord Mayor pleaded the charters of the City as ajustification of his act in releasing a citizen of London who had beenarrested on a warrant which had not been backed by a City magistrate, and demanded to be heard by counsel in support of his plea. His demand, however, was refused, and he and Alderman Oliver were committed to theTower; but, as if the ministers were afraid of re-opening the questionof Colonel Luttrell's election for Middlesex, they evaded taking noticeof Wilkes's disobedience to their order by a singularly undignifiedexpedient, issuing a fresh order for his appearance on the 8th of April, and adjourning till the 9th. 

The ministers now moved the appointment of a select committee toinvestigate the whole affair; and the committee, before the end of themonth, made an elaborate report, which, however, abstained from allmention of the offence committed by the printers, and confined itself toan assertion that "the power and authority of the House to compel theattendance of any commoner had ever extended as well to the City ofLondon, without exception on account of charters from the crown or anypretence of separate jurisdiction, as to every other part of the realm. "And this assertion may be regarded as having been uphold by the refusalof the judges to release the Lord Mayor and Alderman when they sued outwrits of _habeas corpus_; and they consequently remained prisoners inthe Tower till they were released by the prorogation. 

But with this report of the committee the matter was suffered to drop. The transaction had caused almost unprecedented excitement, which wasnot confined to the City, for the grand-juries of many English countiesand a committee of the Dublin merchants showed their sympathy with theOpposition by sending up addresses to the imprisoned City magistrates;and the ministers had a prudent fear of keeping alive an agitation whichhad not been always free from danger to the public tranquillity. [15] Ineffect, the victory remained with the Opposition. No farther attempt wasmade to punish any of the printers; and, though the standing orderswhich forbid such publication have never been formally repealed, eversince that time the publishers of newspapers and other periodicals havebeen in the constant habit of giving regular details of the proceedingsof both Houses of Parliament. And one enterprising publisher, Mr. Hansard, has for many years published a complete record of the debatesin both Houses, which is continually appealed to in the Housesthemselves, by members of both parties, as a manual of political andparliamentary history. 

The practice, as it now prevails, is one of the many instances of thepractical wisdom with which this nation often deals with difficultsubjects. The standing order is retained as an instrument which, incertain cases, it may possibly be expedient to employ; as, in fact, ithas been employed in one or two instances in the present reign, whenmatters have been under consideration which, however necessary to bediscussed, were of such a nature that the publication of the detailsinto which some speakers deemed it desirable to go was regarded byothers as calculated to be offensive to the taste, if not injurious tothe morals, of the community at large. But the very fact of such anoccasional enforcement of the standing orders under very peculiarcircumstances implies a recognition of the propriety of its moreordinary violation; of the principle that publication ought to be thegeneral rule, and secrecy the unusual exception. And, indeed, it is, probably, no exaggeration to say that such publication is not onlyvaluable, as the best and chief means of the political education of thepeople out-of-doors, but is indispensable to the working of ourparliamentary system such as it has now become. The successive ReformBills, which have placed the electoral power in the hands of so vast abody of constituents as was never imagined in the last century, haveevidently regarded the possession by the electors of a perfect knowledgeof the language held and the votes given by their representatives asindispensable to the proper exercise of the franchises which they haveconferred. And, even if there had previously been no means provided fortheir acquisition of such information, it is certain that the electorswould never have consented to be long kept in the dark on subjects ofsuch interest. In another point of view, the publication of the debatesis equally desirable, in the interest of the members themselves, whetherleaders or followers of the different parties. Not to mention thestimulus that it affords to the cultivation of eloquence--an incentiveto which even those least inclined or accustomed to put themselvesforward are not entirely insensible--it enables the ministers tovindicate their measures to the nation at large, the leaders of theOpposition to explain their objections or resistance to those measuresin their own persons, and not through the hired agency of pamphleteers, and each humbler member to prove to his constituents the fidelity withwhich he has acted up to the principles his assertion of which inducedthem to confide their interests and those of the kingdom to his judgmentand integrity. Secrecy and mystery may serve, or be supposed to serve, the interests of arbitrary rulers; perfect openness is the onlyprinciple on which a free constitution can be maintained and a freepeople governed. 

It seems convenient to take all the measures which, in this firstportion of the reign before us, affected the proceedings or constitutionof Parliament together; and, indeed, one enactment of great importance, which was passed in 1770, it is hardly unreasonable to connect in somedegree with the decision of the House which adjudged the seat forMiddlesex to Colonel Luttrell. Ever since the year 1704 it had beenregarded as a settled point that the House of Commons had the exclusiveright of determining every question concerning the election of itsmembers. But it was equally notorious that it had exercised that rightin a manner which violated every principle of justice and even ofdecency. Election petitions were decided by the entire House, and werealmost invariably treated as party questions, in which impartiality wasnot even professed. Thirty years before, the Prime-minister himself (SirRobert Walpole) had given notice to his supporters that "no quarter wasto be given in election petitions;" and it was a division on onepetition which eventually drove him from office. There was not even apretence made of deciding according to evidence, for few of the memberstook the trouble to hear it. A few years after the time of which we arespeaking, Lord George Germaine thus described the mode of proceedingwhich had previously prevailed: "The managers of petitions did not askthose on whose support they calculated to attend at the examination ofwitnesses, but only to let them know where they might be found when thequestion was going to be put, that they might be able to send them wordin time for the division. " The practice had become a public scandal, bywhich the constituencies and the House itself suffered equally--theconstituencies, inasmuch as they were liable to be represented by onewho was in fact only the representative of a minority; the House itself, since its title to public confidence could have no solid or justfoundation but such as was derived from its members being in everyinstance the choice of the majority. Yet, so long as petitions werejudged by the whole House, there seemed no chance of the abuse beingremoved, the number of judges conferring the immunity of shamelessnesson each individual. To remedy such a state of things, in the spring of1770 Mr. G. Grenville brought in a bill which provided for the futuretrial of all such petitions by a select committee of fifteen members, thirteen of whom should be chosen by ballot, one by the sitting memberwhose seat was petitioned against, and one by the petitioner. Themembers of the committee were to take an oath to do justice similar tothat taken by jurymen in the courts of law; and the committee was tohave power to compel the attendance of witnesses, to examine them onoath, and to enforce the production of all necessary papers; it was alsoto commence its sittings within twenty-four hours of its appointment, and to sit from day to day till it should be prepared to present itsreport. It was not to the credit of the ministers that they made thepassing of such a bill a party question. The abuse which it was designedto remedy was notorious, and Mr. Grenville did not exaggerate itsmagnitude when he declared that, "if it were not checked, it must end inthe ruin of public liberty. " He was supported by Burke, and by twolawyers, Mr. Dunning and Mr. Wedderburn, both destined to rise to someof the highest offices in their profession; but he was opposed by theAttorney-general, by Lord North, as leader of the House, and by Mr. Fox--not yet turned into a patriot by Lord North's dismissal of him fromoffice. The debates, both in the whole House and in committee, were longand earnest. Some of the ministerial underlings were not ashamed to denythe necessity of any alteration in the existing practice; but their morefavorite argument was founded on the impropriety of the House"delegating its authority to a committee, " which was asserted to be "anessential alteration of the constitution of the House of Commons. " LordNorth himself had too keen an instinct of propriety to deny theexistence of a great evil, and contented himself with pleading for timefor farther consideration; while the Attorney-general confined hisobjections to some details of the bill, which it would be easy to amend. Others, with too accurate a foresight, doubted the efficacy of themeasure, and prophesied that the additional sanction of the oath, bywhich its framer hoped to bind the committees to a just and honestdecision, would, "like oaths of office and Custom-house oaths, soon fallinto matters of form, and lose all sanction, and so make bad worse. " Onthe other hand, besides the arguments founded on the admitted greatnessof the evil to be remedied, it was shown that the institution ofcommittees, such as the bill proposed the appointment of, was sanctionedby numerous precedents; and though the committees--sometimes consistingof as many as two hundred members--were by far too large to make itprobable that all would bestow a careful attention on the whole case, there was "nothing in the journals of the House to show that theirdecisions were not regarded as final, or as requiring no subsequentconfirmation from the whole House. " Generally speaking, Lord North couldtrust the steadiness of his majority; but, to his great surprise, onthis occasion he found himself deserted by the country gentlemen, whovoted in a body for the bill, although their spokesman, Sir W. Bagot, had been in no slight degree offended by some remarks of Burke, who, with a strange imprudence, had claimed a monopoly of the title of"friends of the constitution" for himself and his party, and had sneeredat the country gentlemen, as "statesmen of a very different description, though, by a late description given of them, a Tory was now the bestspecies of Whig. " And the union of the two bodies proved irresistible;the bill was carried by a majority of sixty-two, and the government didnot venture to carry on their resistance to it in the House of Lords, any interference by which would, indeed, have been resented by theCommons, as a violation of their privileges. 

At first the duration of the bill was limited to seven years; but in1774 it was made perpetual by a still larger majority, the experience ofits working having converted many who had at first opposed it, but whonow bore willing testimony to its efficacy. Unhappily, though the Housecould make the bill perpetual, at least till formally repealed, it couldnot invest its good effects with equal durability. After a time, thesame complaints were advanced against the decision of electioncommittees that had formerly been employed to discredit the judgments ofthe whole House. The success or failure of a petition again became aparty question; and as in a committee of an odd number theministerialists or the Opposition must inevitably have a majority of atleast one member, before the end of the reign it had become as easy toforetell the result of a petition from the composition of the committeeas it had been in the time of Walpole. And it was with the approval ofalmost all parties--an approval extorted only by the absolute necessityof the case--that, after one or two modifications of Mr. Grenville's acthad been tried, Mr. Disraeli induced the House to surrender altogetherits privilege of judging of elections, and to submit the investigationsof petitions on such subjects to the only tribunal sufficiently abovesuspicion to command and retain the confidence of the nation, the judgesof the high courts of law. 

We shall probably be doing the House of Commons of the day no injustice, if we surmise that the degree in which public attention had recentlybeen directed to the representation, and the interest which the peoplewere beginning to show in the purity of elections, as the principle onthe maintenance of which the very liberties of all might depend, hadsome share in leading the House to establish the wholly new, though mostnecessary, precedent of punishing a constituency for habitual andinveterate corruption. It may be called the first fruits of Mr. Grenville's act. At the end of the same year in which that statute hadbeen passed, a select committee had sat to try the merits of a petitionwhich complained of an undue return for the borough of New Shoreham. Andits report brought to light an organized system of corruption, whichthere was too much reason to fear was but a specimen of that whichprevailed in many other boroughs as yet undetected. It appeared from thereport, founded as it was on the evidence and confession of many of thepersons inculpated, that a society had long existed in New Shoreham, entitled the Christian Club, which, under this specious name, wasinstituted, as they frankly acknowledged, for the express purpose ofgetting as much money as possible at every election from the candidatesthey brought in. The members of the club were under an oath and bond of£500 not to divulge the secrets of the club, and to be bound by themajority. On every election, a committee of five persons was nominatedby the club to treat with the candidates for as much money as they couldget. And, in pursuance of this system, when, on the death of Sir StephenCornish, one of the members for the borough, five candidates offeredthemselves to supply the vacancy, this committee of five openednegotiations with them all. The offers of the rival purchasers wereliberal enough. One (General Smith) proposed to buy the entire club inthe lump for £3000, adding a promise to build 600 tons of shipping inthe town. A second (a Mr. Rumbold) was willing to give every freeman£35; and his offer was accepted by the committee, who, however, cautioned him that no freeman was entitled to the money who was not amember of the Christian Club. He willingly agreed to this limitation ofhis expenditure, and both he and the club regarded the matter assettled. He paid every freeman who belonged to the club his stipulatedbribe, and on the polling day they tendered eighty-seven votes in hisfavor, the entire constituency being something under one hundred andfifty. The general, finding his £3000 declined, did not go to the poll;but a Mr. Purling and Mr. James did, the latter polling only four votes, the former only thirty-seven. What bribe Mr. Purling had given was neverrevealed; but by some means or other he had contrived to render himselfthe most acceptable of all the candidates to Mr. Roberts, the returningofficer. Roberts had himself been a member of the Christian Club, buthad quarrelled with it, and on the day of the election, as Rumbold'svoters came up, he administered to each of them the oath againstbribery. They took it without scruple; but he took it on himself topronounce seventy-six of them disqualified, and to refuse their votes;and, having thus reduced Mr. Rumbold's voters to eleven, he returned Mr. Purling as duly elected. 

Mr. Rumbold, not unnaturally, petitioned against such a return; when Mr. Roberts admitted the facts alleged against him, but pleaded that he hadacted under the advice of counsel, who had assured him that it waswithin his own discretion to admit or to refuse any votes that might betendered, and that he might lawfully refuse any "which in his own mindhe thought illegal. " It is a striking proof of the laxity whichprevailed on every quarter in electioneering practices, that the House, to a great extent, admitted his justification or excuse as valid. By astrange stretch of lenity, they gave him credit for an honest intention, and contented themselves with ordering him to be reprimanded by theSpeaker. But the case of the bribed freemen and of the borough generallywas too gross to be screened by any party. All agreed that the boroughmust be regarded as incurably corrupt, and deserving of heavypunishment. The Attorney-general was ordered to prosecute the fivemembers of the managing committee for "an illegal and corruptconspiracy;" and a bill was brought in to disfranchise and declareforever incapable of voting at any election eighty-one freemen who hadbeen proved to have received bribes, and to punish the borough itself, by extending the right of voting at future elections to all thefreeholders in the rape of Bramber, the district of Sussex in which NewShoreham lies, an arrangement which reduced the borough itself tocomparative insignificance. Mr. Fox opposed the bill, on the ground thatthe offence committed could be sufficiently punished by the ordinarycourts of law. But he stood alone in his resistance; the bill waspassed, and a salutary precedent was established; the penalty inflictedon New Shoreham being for many years regarded as the most properpunishment for all boroughs in which similar practices were proved toprevail. 

And it might have continued to be thought so, had corruption beenconfined to the smaller boroughs; but there was no doubt that in manylarge towns corruption was equally prevalent and inveterate, while therewere also many counties in which the cost of a contest was by far toolarge to be accounted for by any legitimate causes of expenditure. Andconsequently, as time wore on, severer measures were considerednecessary. Some boroughs were deprived of the right of electionaltogether; in others, whose population or constituency was too numerousto make their permanent disfranchisement advisable, the writ wassuspended for a time, that its suspension might serve both as apunishment and as a warning, a practice which is still not unfrequentlyadopted. But no plan could be devised for dealing with the evil incounties, till what seemed hopeless to achieve by direct legislationwas, in a great degree, effected by the indirect operation of the ReformBill of 1832. The shortening of the duration of an election, which washenceforth concluded in a single day, and the multiplication of pollingplaces, which rendered it impossible to ascertain the progress of thedifferent candidates till the close of the poll, were provisions havingan inevitable and most salutary effect in diminishing alike thetemptation to bribe on the part of the candidate, and the opportunity ofenhancing the value of his vote by the elector. The vast increase ofnewspapers, by diffusing political education and stimulating politicaldiscussion, has had, perhaps, a still greater influence in the samedirection. And, as bribery could only be brought to bear on electors tooignorant to estimate the importance of the exercise of the franchise byany higher test than the personal advantage it might bring tothemselves, it is to the general diffusion of education among the poorerclasses, and their gradually improved and improving intelligence that acomplete eradication of electoral corruption can alone be looked for. 

Notes:

[Footnote 1: "Constitutional History, " vol. Iii. , p. 380; ed. 3, 1832. The first edition was published in 1827. ]

[Footnote 2: Grampound. Corrupt voters had been disfranchised in NewShoreham as early as 1771, and the franchise of the borough of Crickladehad been transferred to the adjoining hundreds in 1782. ]

[Footnote 3: Parliament was dissolved March 19. Lord Bute succeeded LordHoldernesse March 25. ]

[Footnote 4: The greater part of Lord Bute's colleagues did, in fact, retain their offices. Lord Egremont and Lord Halifax continued to beSecretaries of State; Lord Henley (afterward Lord Northington) retainedthe Great Seal; Lord North and Sir John Turner remained as Lords of theTreasury; and Mr. Yorke and Sir Fletcher Norton were still Attorney andSolicitor General. ]

[Footnote 5: Parliament was prorogued April 19, and _The North Briton_(No. 45) was published April 23. ]

[Footnote 6: A letter of the Prince Consort examines the principle ofministerial responsibility with so remarkable a clearness of perceptionand distinctness of explanation, that we may be excused for quoting itat length: "The notion that the responsibility of his advisers impairsthe monarch's dignity and importance is a complete mistake. Here we haveno law of ministerial responsibility, for the simple reason that we haveno written constitution; but this responsibility flows as a logicalnecessity from the dignity of the crown and of the sovereign. 'The Kingcan do no wrong, ' says the legal axiom, and hence it follows thatsomebody must be responsible for his measures, if these be contrary tolaw or injurious to the country's welfare. Ministers here are notresponsible _quâ_ ministers, that is, _quâ_ officials (as such they areresponsible to the crown), but they are responsible to Parliament andthe people, or the country, as 'advisers of the crown. ' Any one of themmay advise the crown, and whoever does so is responsible to the countryfor the advice he has given. The so-called accountability of ministersto Parliament does not arise out of an abstract principle ofresponsibility, but out of the practical necessity which they are underof obtaining the consent of Parliament to legislation and the voting oftaxes, and, as an essential to this end, of securing its confidence. Inpractice, ministers are liable to account for the way and manner inwhich they have administered the laws which they, conjointly with theParliament, have made, and for the way they have expended the moneysthat have been voted for definite objects. They are bound to furnishexplanations, to justify their proceedings, to satisfy reasonablescruples, and the answer, 'We have, as dutiful subjects, obeyed thesovereign, ' will not be accepted. 'Have you acted upon conviction, orhave you not?' is the question. 'If you have not, then you are civilservants of the crown, who counsel and do what you consider wrong orunjust, with a view to retain your snug places or to win the favor ofthe sovereign. ' And this being so, Parliament withdraws its confidencefrom them. Herein, too, lies that ministerial power of which sovereignsare so much afraid. They can say, 'We will not do this or that which thesovereign wishes, because we cannot be responsible for it. ' But whyshould a sovereign see anything here to be afraid of? To him it is, intruth, the best of safeguards. A really loyal servant should do nothingfor which he is not prepared to answer, even though his master desiresit. This practical responsibility is of the utmost advantage to thesovereign. Make independence, not subservience, the essential ofservice, and you compel the minister to keep his soul free toward thesovereign, you ennoble his advice, you make him staunch and patriotic, while time-servers, the submissive instruments of a monarch's extremewishes and commands, may lead, and often have led, him to destruction. 

"But to revert to the law of responsibility. This ought not to be ineffect a safeguard for law itself. As such, it is superfluous in thiscountry, where law reigns, and where it would never occur to any onethat this could be otherwise. But upon the Continent it is of thehighest importance; as, where the government is an outgrowth of arelation of supremacy and subordination between sovereign and subject, and the servant, trained in ideas natural to this relation, does notknow which to obey, the law of the sovereign, the existence of such alaw would deprive him of the excuse which, should he offend the law, andso be guilty of a crime, is ready to his hand in the phrase, 'Thesovereign ordered it so, I have merely obeyed, ' while it would be aprotection to the sovereign that his servants, if guilty of a crime, should not be able to saddle him with the blame of it. "--_Life of thePrince Consort_, v. , 262. ]

[Footnote 7: "Lives of the Lord Chancellors, " c. Cxliii. ]

[Footnote 8: Indeed, the opinion which Lord Campbell thus expresses ismanifestly at variance with that which he had previously pronounced inhis life of Lord Northington, where he praised the House of Lords for"very properly rejecting the bill passed by the Commons declaringgeneral warrants to be illegal, leaving this question to be decided (asit was, satisfactorily) by the Courts of Common Law. "]

[Footnote 9: From a speech of Mr. Grenville delivered at a later period(February 3, 1769, "Parliamentary History, " xvi. , 548), it appears thatthe Secretaries of State who signed this general warrant did so againsttheir own judgment. "They repeatedly proposed to have Wilkes's nameinserted in the warrant of apprehension, but were overruled by thelawyers and clerks of the office, who insisted that they could notdepart from the long-established precedents and course of proceeding. "And in one of these debates, Mr. Pitt, while denouncing with greatseverity Grenville's conduct in procuring the issue of this particularwarrant, was driven to a strange confession of his own inconsistency, since he was forced to admit that, while Secretary of State, he hadissued more than one general warrant in exactly similar form. ]

[Footnote 10: Strange to say, it does not seem absolutely certain thatWilkes was the author of the "Essay on Woman. " Horace Walpole eventuallylearned, or believed that he had learned, that the author was a Mr. Thomas Potter. (See Walpole's "George III. , " i. , 310; and Cunningham's"Note on his Correspondence, " iv. , 126. )]

[Footnote 11: These are the words of the resolution. --_ParliamentaryHistory_, xvi. , 537. But it does not appear what the three libels were. The "Essay on Woman" was one, the paraphrase of "Veni Creator" was asecond; no third of that character is mentioned. ]

[Footnote 12: The last resolution is approved by Mr. Hallam. "If a fewprecedents were to determine all controversies of constitutional law, itis plain enough from the journals that the House has assumed the powerof incapacitation. But as such authority is highly dangerous andunnecessary for any good purpose, and as, according to all legal rules, so extraordinary a power could not be supported except by a sort ofprescription that cannot be shown, the final resolution of the House ofCommons, which condemned the votes passed in times of great excitement, appears far more consonant to first principles. "--_ConstitutionalHistory_, iii. , 357. ]

[Footnote 13: Adolphus, "History of England, " i. , 484. ]

[Footnote 14: An idea of the license which the newspapers complained ofhad permitted themselves at this time may be derived from the manner inwhich one of them had introduced a speech of Mr. Jeremiah Dyson, M. P. For Weymouth, and a Commissioner of the Treasury: "Jeremiah Weymouth, the d----n of the kingdom, spoke as follows. " And it may seem that theOpposition (for the affair was made a party question) can hardly beacquitted of a discreditable indifference to the dignity of the House insupporting a resolution of Colonel Barré, that "Jeremiah Weymouth, thed----n of this kingdom, is not a member of this House. " On which theprevious question was moved by the ministers, and carried by 120 to38. --_Parliamentary History_, xvii. , 78. And an instance of rather theopposite kind, of the guarded way in which the most respectablepublications were as yet accustomed to relate the transactions ofParliament, may be gathered from the account of the proceedings in thecase of Wilkes, given in the "Annual Register" for 1770--drawn up, probably, by Burke himself--in which Lord Camden is only mentioned as "agreat law lord;" Lord Chatham as "Lord C----m;" Lord Rockingham as "anoble Marquis who lately presided at the head of public affairs;" theKing as "the K----;" Parliament as "P. ;" and the House of Commons as the"H. Of C. "--_Annual Register_, 1770, pp. 59-67. ]

[Footnote 15: On more than one occasion there had been disturbances inthe City, and in the streets adjacent to the Houses of Parliament, whichwere little short of riot. One day the mob paraded effigies of theprincipal ministers, which, after hanging and beheading them, theycommitted to the flames with great uproar. On another day Mr. CharlesFox (as yet a vehement Tory) complained to the House that the mob inPalace Yard had insulted him, breaking the glasses of his chariot, andpelting him with oranges, stones, etc. --_Parliamentary History_, xvii. , 163. ]

CHAPTER II. 

The Regency Bill. --The Ministry of 1766 lay an Embargo on Corn. --An Actof Indemnity is Passed. --The _Nullum Tempus_ Act concerning CrownProperty; it is sought to Extend it to Church Property, but the Attemptfails. --The Royal Marriage Act. --The Lords amend a Bill imposing ExportDuties, etc. , on Corn. 

The prosecution of Wilkes was not the only act of Mr. Grenville'sadministration which excited both the Parliament and the people. In 1764the King was attacked by a serious illness, and, as the Prince of Waleswas an infant scarcely two years old, it was manifestly necessary tomake arrangements for a Regency, in the event of the throne becomingvacant while the heir was still a minor. A similar necessity had arisenin the preceding reign on the death of the present King's father, and abill had accordingly been introduced by Mr. Pelham, the minister of theday, which, in the event of the reigning sovereign dying during theminority of the boy who had now become the immediate heir to the throne, vested both the guardianship of his person and the Regency of thekingdom in his mother, the Princess Dowager of Wales, who, however, inthe latter capacity, was only to act with the advice of a council, composed of her brother-in-law, the Duke of Cumberland, and nineprincipal officers of state. It was not concealed by either the King orthe Duke that they would have preferred a different arrangement, onewhich would have conferred an uncontrolled Regency on the Duke himself;but the bill was passed by great majorities in both Houses, and servedin some respects as a model for that which was now to be broughtforward, the difference being that the Regent was not to be expresslynamed in it. To quote the words of the royal speech, the King "proposedto the consideration of the two Houses whether, under the presentcircumstances, it would not be expedient to vest in him the power ofappointing from time to time, by instrument in writing under hissign-manual, either the Queen or any other member of the royal familyusually residing in Great Britain, to be the guardian of the person ofhis successor, and the Regent of these kingdoms, until such successorshould attain the age of eighteen years, subject to such restrictionsand regulations as were specified and contained in an act passed on asimilar occasion in the fourteenth year of the late King; the Regent soappointed to be assisted by a council, composed of the several personswho, by reason of their dignities and offices, were constituted membersof the council established by that act, together with those whom theParliament might think proper to leave to his nomination. "

It may be doubted whether such a power as his Majesty desired was quiteconsistent with the principles of the constitution. Parliament had, indeed, granted Henry VIII. The still greater power of nominating aseries of successors; but the appointment which he consequently made bywill was eventually superseded, when, on the failure of his immediatedescendants, the representative of his elder sister, whom he had passedover, was seated on the throne, to the exclusion of the descendants ofhis younger sister, to whom he had given the preference. In France, thelast two kings, Louis XIII. And XIV. , had both, when on theirdeath-beds, assumed the right of making the arrangements for the Regencywhich would become necessary, the heir to the throne being in each casea minor; but in each instance the arrangements which they had made weredisregarded. 

However, on the present occasion the minister (who must be taken to haveframed the King's speech) and the Parliament agreed in the propriety ofconferring the nomination of the Regent on the King himself;[16] and thebill might have passed almost without notice, had it not been for astrange display of the Prime-minister's ill-temper and mismanagement. Mr. Grenville was at all times uncourtly and dictatorial in his manner, even to the King himself; he was also of a suspicious disposition; andthough he was universally believed to have owed his promotion to hispresent office to the recommendation of Lord Bute, [17] he was extremelyjealous of his predecessor. He professed to believe, and probably didbelieve, that the King was still greatly under Lord Bute's influence(though, in fact, they had never met since that minister had quitted theTreasury), that Lord Bute was still as closely connected with thePrincess of Wales as scandal had formerly reported him to be, and thatGeorge III. , under the pressure of their combined influence, would beinduced to name his mother rather than his wife as the future Regent. And he was so entirely swayed by this ridiculous and wholly groundlessfear, that, when the bill to give effect to the royal recommendation wasintroduced into the House of Lords, he instigated one of his friends toraise the question who were included in the general term "the royalfamily, " which Lord Halifax, as Secretary of State, answered by sayingthat he regarded it as meaning "those only who were in order ofsuccession to the throne. " Such a definition would have excluded theQueen as effectually as the Princess Dowager; and when Mr. Grenvillefound the peers reluctant to accept this view (which, indeed, his ownLord Chancellor pronounced untenable), he then sent another of hiscolleagues to represent to the King that his mother was so unpopularthat, even if the Lords should pass the bill in such a form as renderedher eligible for nomination, the Commons would introduce a clause toexclude her by name. With great unwillingness, and, it is said, notwithout tears, George III. Consented to the bill being so drawn as toexclude her, and it passed the Lords in such a form. But when it reachedthe Commons it was found that if the leaders of the Opposition hatedBute much, they hated Grenville more. They moved the insertion of thename of the Princess Dowager as one of the members of the royal familywhom the King might nominate Regent, if it should please him. EvenGrenville had not the boldness publicly to disparage his royal master'sroyal mother; the Princess's name was inserted by a unanimous vote inthe list of those from whom the King was empowered to select the Regent, and the amendment was gladly accepted by the House of Lords. [18]

In spite, however, of the unanimity of the two Houses on the question, it will probably be thought that the authors of the amendment, by whichit was proposed to address the King with an entreaty to name in the billthe person to whom he desired to intrust the Regency, acted more in thespirit of the constitution than those who were contented that the nameshould be omitted; indeed, that statesmen of the present century agreein holding that an arrangement of such importance should be made by theHouses of Parliament, in concurrence with the sovereign, and not by thesovereign alone, is shown by the steps taken to provide for a Regency inthe event of the demise of the reigning sovereign while the heir was aminor, in the last and in the present reign, the second bill (that of1840) being in this respect of the greater authority, since LordMelbourne, the Prime-minister, did not propose it without previouslysecuring the approval of the Duke of Wellington, in his character ofleader of the Opposition. 

We pass over for a moment the administration of Lord Rockingham, as wehave already passed over the taxation of our North American Colonies byMr. Grenville, because it will be more convenient to take all thetransactions relating to that subject together when we arrive at thetime when the troubles arising out of the policy of the differentadministrations toward those Colonies were brought to a head by thebreaking out of civil war. Lord Rockingham's ministry, which succeededMr. Grenville's, had, as is well known, but a brief existence, and wasreplaced by the cabinet so whimsically composed by Mr. Pitt, whoreserved to himself the office of Privy Seal, with the Earldom ofChatham; the Duke of Grafton being the nominal head of the Treasury, butthe direction of affairs being wholly in the hands of the new Earl, tillthe failure of his health compelled his temporary retirement from publiclife. Lord Chatham was brother-in-law to Mr. Grenville, to whom in theoccasional arrogance and arbitrariness of his disposition he bore someresemblance; and one of the earliest acts of his administration, whencoupled with the language which he held on the subject in the House ofLords, displayed that side of his character in a very conspicuous light. 

The summer of 1766 had been unusually wet and cold, both at home andabroad, and the harvest had, in consequence, been so deficient as tocause a very general apprehension of scarcity, while rumors were spreadthat the high prices which the shortness of the crops could not fail toproduce were artificially raised by the selfish covetousness of some ofthe principal corn-dealers, who were buying up all the grain which cameinto the market, and storing it, with the object of making an exorbitantprofit out of the necessities of the consumer, not only at home butabroad. The poorer classes, seeing themselves, as they believed, threatened with famine, rose in riotous crowds, in some places attackingthe barns in which the corn was stored, and threatening destruction toboth the storehouses and the owners. The ministry first tried to repressthe discontent by the issue of a proclamation against "forestallers andregraters, " framed in the language and spirit of the Middle Ages; and, when that proved ineffectual to restore confidence, they issued an Orderin Council absolutely prohibiting the exportation of any kind of grain, and authorizing the detention of any vessels lying in any British harborwhich might be loaded with such a cargo. Our annals furnished noinstance of such an embargo having been laid on any article of commercein time of peace; but the crisis was difficult, the danger to thetranquillity of the kingdom was great and undeniable, the necessity forinstant action seemed urgent, and probably few would have been inclinedto cavil at Lord Chatham's assertion, that the embargo "was an act ofpower which, during the recess of Parliament, was justifiable on theground of necessity, " had the ministry at once called Parliamenttogether to sanction the measure by an act of indemnity. But LordChatham was at all times inclined to carry matters with a high hand, andwillingly adopted the opinion advanced by the Chancellor (LordNorthington), that "the measure was strictly legal, and that noindemnity was necessary. " Lord Northington's language on the subjectLord Campbell describes as "exhibiting his characteristic rashness andrecklessness, which seemed to be aggravated by age and experience, "[19]and the censure does not seem too severe, since he presently "went sofar as to maintain that the crown had a right to interfere, even againsta positive act of parliament, and that proof of the necessity amountedto a legal justification. " But, however ill-considered his language mayhave been, Lord Chatham adopted it, and acted on it so far as to declinecalling the Parliament together before the appointed time, though, whenthe Houses did meet, he allowed General Conway, as Secretary of State, to introduce a bill of indemnity in the House of Commons. It was warmlyopposed in that House, partly on the ground that, if such a measure asthe embargo had been necessary, it would have been easy to haveassembled Parliament before the Order in Council was issued (for, infact, the proclamation against forestallers and regraters had beenissued on the 10th of September, when Parliament, if not fartherprorogued, would have met within a week). But on that same dayParliament was farther prorogued from the 16th of September till the11th of November, [20] and it was not till after that prorogation, on the24th of September, that the Order in Council was issued. 

In the House of Lords it seems to have been admitted that the embargowas, under all the circumstances, not only desirable, but "indispensablynecessary. "[21] But the Opposition in that House, being led by a greatlawyer (Chief-justice Lord Mansfield), took a wider view of the wholecase; and, after denouncing the long prorogation of Parliament as havingbeen so culpably advised that there was no way left of meeting theemergency but by an interposition of the royal power, directed theprincipal weight of their argument against the doctrine of the existenceof any dispensing power. It was urged that the late Order in Councilcould only be justified by "the general proposition that of any, and, ifof any, of every, act of parliament the King, with the advice of thePrivy Council, may suspend the execution and effect whenever hisMajesty, so advised, judges it necessary for the immediate safety of thepeople. " And this proposition was denounced as utterly inconsistent withthe principles of the Revolution, which had been "nothing but a mostlawless and wicked invasion of the rights of the crown, " if such adispensing power were really one of the lawful prerogatives of thesovereign. Reference was made to the powers in more than one instance, and especially in the case of ship-money claimed and exercised byCharles I. ; and it was affirmed that "the dispensing and suspendingpower, and that of raising money without the consent of Parliament, wereprecisely alike, and stood on the very same ground. They were borntwins; they lived together, and together were buried in the same graveat the Revolution, past all power of resurrection. " It was even arguedthat the dispensing or suspending power was yet more dangerous than thatof raising money without a Parliamentary vote, since it was a powerwhich might do the most mischief, and with the greatest speed, so manywere the subjects which it included. It would be a return to the maximsof the idolators of prerogative as understood in those earlier days, that is, of absolute and arbitrary power, _a Deo Rex, a Rege Lex_. Itwas farther argued that, unless it could be said that the momentParliament breaks up the King stands in its place, and that thecontinuance of acts is consigned into his hands, he cannot of rightsuspend any more than he can make laws, both acts requiring the samepower. The law is above the King, and the crown as well as the subjectis bound by it as much during the recess as in the session ofParliament; and therefore the wisdom of the constitution has excludedevery discretion in the crown over a positive statute, and hasemancipated Parliament from the royal prerogative, leaving the power ofsuspension, which is but another name for a temporary repeal, to residewhere the legislative power is lodged--that is, in King, Lords, andCommons, who together constitute the only supreme authority of thisgovernment. Precedents were cited to prove that in former timesdifferent ministries had avoided thus taking the law into their ownhands, as when, in 1709 and again in 1756, there was a similarapprehension of scarcity, even though both those years were years ofwar. And the Bill of Rights was quoted as the statute in which everysort of dispensing power was condemned, though, as exercised by JamesII. , it had only been exerted in dispensing with penal laws andremitting penalties. 

"Finally, " said one speaker, who perhaps was Lord Mansfield himself, "heis not a moderate minister who would rashly decide in favor ofprerogative in a question where the rights of Parliament are involved, nor a prudent minister who, even in a doubtful case, commits theprerogative, by a wanton experiment, to what degree the people will bearthe extent of it. The opposite course was that by which a minister wouldconsult the best interests of the crown, as well as of the people. Thesafety of the crown, as well as the security of the subject, requiresthe closing up of every avenue that can lead to tyranny. "[22]

These arguments prevailed, and the indemnity bill was passed, to quotethe words of the "Annual Register"--at that time written by Burke--"verymuch to the satisfaction of the public. " And that it should have been soaccepted is creditable to the good-sense of both parties. The precedentwhich was thus established does, indeed, seem to rest on a principleindispensable to the proper working of a constitutional government. Inso extensive an empire as ours, it is scarcely possible that suddenemergencies, requiring the instant application of some remedy, shouldnot at times arise; and, unless Parliament be sitting at the time, suchcan only be adequately dealt with if the ministers of the crown have thecourage to take such steps as are necessary, whether by the suspensionof a law or by any other expedient, on their own responsibility, trusting in their ability to satisfy the Parliament, instantly convokedto receive their explanation, of the necessity or wisdom of theirproceedings; and in the candor of the Parliament to recognize, if notthe judiciousness of their action, at all events the good faith in whichit has been taken, and the honest, patriotic intention which hasdictated it. The establishment of the obligation instantly to submit thequestion to the judgment of Parliament will hardly be denied to be asufficient safeguard against the ministerial abuse of such a power; andthe instances in which such a power has since been exercised, coupledwith the sanction of such exercise by Parliament, are a practicalapproval and ratification by subsequent Parliaments of the course thatwas now adopted. [23]

The next year a not very creditable job of the ministry led to theenactment of a statute of great importance to all holders of propertywhich had ever belonged to the crown. In the twenty-first year of JamesI. A bill had been passed giving a secure tenure of their estates to allgrantees of crown lands whose possession of them had lasted sixty years. The Houses had desired to make the enactment extend to all future aswell as to all previous grants. But to this James had refused toconsent; and, telling the Houses that "beggars must not be choosers, " hehad compelled them to content themselves with a retrospective statute. Since his time, and especially in the reigns of Charles II. And WilliamIII. , the crown had been more lavish and unscrupulous than at any formerperiod in granting away its lands and estates to favorites. And no onehad been so largely enriched by its prodigality as the most grasping ofWilliam's Dutch followers, Bentinck, the founder of the English house ofPortland. Among the estates which he had obtained from his royalmaster's favor was one which went by the name of the Honor of Penrith. Subsequent administrations had augmented the dignities and importance ofhis family. Their Earldom had been exchanged for a Dukedom; but theexisting Duke was an opponent of the present ministry, who, to punishhim, suggested to Sir James Lowther, a baronet of ancient family, and oflarge property in the North of England, the idea of applying to thecrown for a grant of the forest of Inglewood, and of the manor ofCarlisle, which hitherto had been held by Portland as belonging to theHonor of Penrith, but which, not having been expressly mentioned in theoriginal grant by William III. , it was now said had been regarded asincluded in the honor only by mistake. It was not denied that Portlandhad enjoyed the ownership of these lands for upward of seventy yearswithout dispute; and, had the statute of James been one of continualoperation, it would have been impossible to deprive him of them. But, asmatters stood, the Lords of the Treasury willingly listened to theapplication of Sir James Lowther; they even refused permission to theDuke to examine the original deed and the other documents in the officeof the surveyor, on which he professed to rely for the establishment ofhis right; and they granted to Sir James the lands he prayed for at arent which could only be regarded as nominal. The injustice of theproceeding was so flagrant, that in the beginning of 1768 Sir GeorgeSavile brought in a bill to prevent any repetition of such an act bymaking the statute of James I. Perpetual, so that for the future apossession for sixty years should confer an indisputable andindefeasible title. The ministers opposed it with great vehemence, eventaking some credit to themselves for their moderation in not requiringfrom the Duke a repayment of the proceeds of the lands in question forthe seventy years during which he had held them. But the case was so badthat they could only defeat Sir George Savile by a side-wind and ascanty majority, carrying an amendment to defer any decision of thematter till the next session. Sir George, however, was not discouraged;he renewed his motion in 1769, when it was carried by a large majority, with an additional clause extending its operation to the Colonies inNorth America; and thus, in respect of its territorial rights, the crownwas placed on the same footing as any private individual, and the samelength of tenure which enabled a possessor to hold a property againstanother subject henceforth equally enabled him to hold it against thecrown. The policy not less than the justice of such an enactment mighthave been thought to commend it to every thinking man as soon as theheat engendered by a party debate had passed away. It had merely placedthe sovereign and the subject on the same footing in respect of thesecurity which prescription gave to possession. And it might, therefore, have been thought that the vote of 1769 had settled the point in everycase; since what was the law between one private individual and another, and between the sovereign and a subject, might well have been taken tobe of universal application. But the ministry were strangely unwillingto recognize such a universal character in the late act, and found inthe peculiar character of ecclesiastical bodies and ecclesiasticalproperty a pretext for weakening the force of the late enactment, bydenying the applicability of the principle to the claims ofecclesiastical chapters. In 1772 Mr. Henry Seymour, one of the membersfor Huntingdon, moved for leave to bring in a bill, which he describedas one "for quieting the subjects of the realm against the dormantclaims of the Church;" or, in other words, for putting the Church on thesame footing with respect to property which had passed out of itspossession as the crown had been placed in by the act of 1769. Hecontended that such a bill ought to be passed, not only on the generalprinciple that possessors who derived their property from one sourceought not to be less secure than they who derived it from another, butalso on the grounds that, as ecclesiastical bodies occasionally usedtheir power, "length of possession, which fortified and strengthenedlegal right and just title in every other case, did in this alone renderthem more weak and uncertain, " from the difficulty which often occurredin finding documentary proof of very ancient titles; and that this wasnot an imaginary danger, since a member of the House then present hadrecently lost £120, 000 by a bishop reviving a claim to an estate afterthe gentleman's family had been in undisturbed possession of it above ahundred years. The defence of the Church, however, was taken up by Mr. Skinner, Attorney-general for the Duchy of Lancaster, who argued thatthough, in the case of the crown, the _nullum tempus_ which it hadformerly claimed, and which had been put an end to in 1769, was "anengine in the hands of the strong to oppress the weak, the _nullumtempus_ of the Church was a defence to the weak against the strong, " asits best if not its sole security "against the encroachment of thelaity. " The "Parliamentary History" records that in the course of a longdebate Lord North opposed the bringing in of the bill, as did "theLord-advocate of Scotland, who gave as a reason in favor of the bill, though he voted against it, that a law of similar nature had passed inScotland, and that the whole kingdom, clergy as well as laity, found thevery best effects from it. "[24] Burke argued in favor of the bill withgreat force, declaring that in so doing "he did not mean anythingagainst the Church, her dignities, her honor, her privileges, or herpossessions; he should wish even to enlarge them all; but this bill wasto take nothing from her but the power of making herself odious. " Butthe ministerial majority was too well disciplined to be broken, and Mr. Seymour could not even obtain leave to bring in the bill. 

The year 1772 was marked by the discussion of a measure which the Kingseems to have regarded as one of private interest only, affecting hispersonal rights over his own family. But it is impossible to regardtransactions which may affect the right of succession to the throne asmatters of only private interest. And indeed the bill was treated as oneinvolving a constitutional question by both sides of both Houses, and assuch was discussed with remarkable earnestness, and with vehemenceequalling that of any other debate which had as yet taken place sincethe commencement of the reign. The bill had its origin in the personalfeelings of the King himself, who had been greatly annoyed at theconduct of his brother, the Duke of Cumberland, in marrying a widow ofthe name of Horton, daughter of Lord Irnham, and sister of the ColonelLuttrell whom the vote of the House of Commons had seated as member forMiddlesex; and perhaps still more at the discovery that his otherbrother, the Duke of Gloucester, to whom he was greatly attached, hadmarried another subject, the widowed Lady Waldegrave. His Majesty'sdissatisfaction was, perhaps, heightened by the recollection that hehimself, in early manhood, had also been strongly attracted by thecharms of another subject, and had sacrificed his own inclinations tothe combined considerations of pride of birth and the interests of hiskingdom. And, though there was a manifest difference between theimportance of the marriage of the sovereign himself and that of princeswho were never likely to become sovereigns, he thought it notunreasonable that he should be empowered to exercise such a generalguardianship over the entire family, of which he was the head, as mightenable him to control its members in such arrangements, by making hisformal sanction indispensable to the validity of any matrimonialalliances which they might desire to contract. A somewhat similarquestion had been raised in 1717, when George I. , having quarrelled withthe Prince of Wales (afterward George II. ), asserted a claim to controland direct the education of all the Prince's children, and, when theyshould be of marriageable age, to arrange their marriages. The Prince, on the other hand, insisted on his natural and inalienable right, astheir father, to have the entire government of his own offspring, aright which, as he contended, no royal prerogative could be enabled orpermitted to override. That question was not, however, brought beforeParliament, to which, at that time, the King could, probably, not havetrusted for any leanings in his favor; but he referred it, in aninformal way, to the Lord Chancellor (Lord Cowper) and the Common-lawJudges. They investigated it with great minuteness. A number ofprecedents were adduced for the marriage and education of the members ofthe royal family being regulated by the sovereign, beginning with HenryIII. , who gave his daughter Joan, without her own consent, in marriageto the King of Scotland, and coming down to the preceding century, atthe commencement of which the Council of James I. Committed the LadyArabella Stuart and Mr. Seymour to the Tower for contracting a secretmarriage without the King's permission, and at the end of which KingWilliam exercised the right of selecting a tutor for the Duke ofGloucester, the son of the Princess Anne, without any consultation withthe Princess herself; and finally the judges, with only two dissentingvoices, expressed their conviction that the King was entitled to theprerogative which he claimed. The case does not, however, seem to havebeen regularly argued before them; there is no trace of their havingbeen assisted in their deliberations by counsel on either side, andtheir extra-judicial opinion was clearly destitute of any formalauthority;[25] so that it came before Parliament in some degree as a newquestion. 

But George III. Was not of a disposition to allow such matters to remainin doubt, and, in compliance with his desire, a bill was, in 1772, introduced by Lord Rochfort, as Secretary of State, which proposed toenact that no descendants of the late King, being children orgrandchildren, and presumptive heirs of the sovereign, male or female, other than the issue of princesses who might be married into foreignfamilies, should be capable of contracting a valid marriage without theprevious consent of the reigning sovereign, signified under hissign-manual, and that any marriage contracted without such consentshould be null and void. The King or the ministers apparently doubtedwhether Parliament could be prevailed on to make such a prohibitionlife-long, and therefore a clause was added which provided that if anyprince or princess above the age of twenty-five years should determineto contract a marriage without such consent of the sovereign, he or shemight do so on giving twelve months' notice to the Privy Council; andsuch marriage should be good and valid, unless, before the expiration ofthe twelve months, both Houses of Parliament should declare theirdisapproval of the marriage. The concluding clause of the bill made itfelony "to presume to solemnize, or to assist, or to be present, at thecelebration of any such marriage without such consent being firstobtained. "

The bill was stoutly resisted in both Houses at every stage, both on theground of usage and of general principle. It was positively denied thatthe "sovereign's right of approving of all marriages in the royalfamily, " which was asserted in the preamble of the bill, was eitherfounded in law, or established by precedent, or warranted by the opinionof the judges. And it was contended that there never had been a timewhen the possession of royal rank had been considered necessary toqualify any one to become consort of an English prince or princess. Ithad not even been regarded as a necessary qualification for a queen. Three of the wives of Henry VIII. Had been English subjects whollyunconnected with the royal family; nor had the Parliament nor the peoplein general complained of any one of those marriages; moreover, two ofhis children, who had in their turn succeeded to the crown, had been theoffspring of two of those wives; and in the last century James II. , while Duke of York, had married the daughter of an English gentleman;and, though it had not been without notorious reluctance that his royalbrother had sanctioned that connection, it was well known that CharlesII. Himself had proposed to marry the niece of Cardinal Mazarin. In theHouse of Peers, Lord Camden especially objected to the clause annullinga marriage between persons of full age; and in the Commons, Mr. Dowdeswell, who had been Chancellor of the Exchequer in LordRockingham's administration, dwelt with especial vigor on theunreasonableness of the clause which fixed twenty-five as the age beforewhich no prince or princess could marry without the King's consent. "Law, positive law, " he argued, "and not the arbitrary will of anindividual, should be the only restraint. Men who are by law allowed attwenty-one[26] to be fit for governing the realm may well be supposedcapable of choosing and governing a wife. "[27] Lord Folkestone condemnedwith great earnestness the expression in the preamble that the bill wasdictated "by the royal concern for the honor and dignity of the crown, "as implying a doctrine that an alliance of a subject with a branch ofthe royal family is dishonorable to the crown--a doctrine which hedenounced as "an oblique insult" to the whole people, and which, assuch, "the representatives of the people were bound to oppose. " And healso objected to the "vindicatory part, " as he termed the clause whichdeclared those who might assist, or even be present, at a marriagecontracted without the royal permission guilty of felony. [28]

The ministry, however, had a decided majority in both Houses, and thebill became and remains the law of the land, though fourteen peers, including one bishop, entered a protest against it on nine differentgrounds, one of which condemned it as "an extension of the royalprerogative for which the great majority of the judges found noauthority;" while another, with something of prophetic sagacity, urgedthat the bill "was pregnant with civil discord and confusion, and had anatural tendency to produce a disputed title to the crown. "

It may be doubted whether the circumstances which had induced GeorgeIII. To demand such a power as that with which the bill invested himjustified its enactment. He was already the father of a family sonumerous as to render it highly improbable that either of his brothersor any of their children would ever come to the throne; while, as apreviously existing law barred any prince or princess who might marry aRoman Catholic from the succession, the additional restraint imposed bythe new statute practically limited their choice to an inconvenientlysmall number of foreign royal houses, many of which, to say the least, are not superior in importance or purity of blood to many of our ownnobles. 

Nor can it be said to have been successful in accomplishing hisMajesty's object. It is notorious that two of his sons, and verygenerally believed that one of his daughters, married subjects; thePrince of Wales having chosen a wife who was not only inferior in rankand social position to Lady Waldegrave or Mrs. Horton, but was moreovera Roman Catholic; and that another of his sons petitioned more than oncefor permission to marry an English heiress of ancient family. And ourpresent sovereign may be thought to have pronounced her opinion that theact goes too far, when she gave one of her younger daughters in marriageto a nobleman who, however high in rank, has no royal blood in hisveins. The political inconvenience which might arise from thecircumstance of the reigning sovereign being connected by near andintimate relationship with a family of his British subjects will, probably, always be thought to render it desirable that some restrictionshould be placed on the marriage of the heir-apparent; but where thesovereign is blessed with a numerous offspring, there seems nosufficient reason for sending the younger branches of the royal house toseek wives or husbands in foreign countries. And as the precedent set inthe case of the Princess Louise has been generally approved, it isprobable that in similar circumstances it may be followed, and that suchoccasional relaxation of the act of 1772 will be regarded as justifiedby and consistent with the requirements of public policy as well as bythe laws of nature. [29] Generally speaking, the two Houses agreed intheir support of the ministerial policy both at home and abroad; but, inspite of this political harmony, a certain degree of bad feeling existedbetween them, which on one occasion led to a somewhat singular scene inthe House of Commons. The Commons imputed its origin to the discourtesyof the Lords, who, when members of the Commons were ordered by theirHouse to carry its bills up to the peers, sometimes kept them "waitingthree hours in the lobby among their lordships' footmen before theyadmitted them. " Burke affirmed that this had happened to himself, andthat he "spoke of it, not out of any personal pride, nor as an indignityto himself, but as a flagrant disgrace to the House of Commons, which, he apprehended, was not inferior in rank to any other branch of theLegislature, but co-ordinate with them. " And the irritation which suchtreatment excited led the Commons, perhaps not very unnaturally, to seeksome opportunity to vindicate their dignity. They found it in anamendment which the Lords made on a corn bill. In the middle of April, 1772, resolutions had been passed by the Commons, in a committee of thewhole House, imposing certain duties on the importation of wheat[30] andother grain when they were at a certain price, which was fixed at 48s. , and granting bounties on exportation when the price fell below 44s. TheLords made several amendments on the bill, and, among others, one tostrike out the clause which granted bounties. But when the bill thusamended came back to the Commons, even those who disliked the principleof bounties resented this act of the Lords in meddling with thatquestion, which they regarded as a violation of their peculiar and mostcherished privilege, the exclusive right of dealing with questions oftaxation. Governor Pownall, who had charge of the bill, declared thatthe Lords had forgotten their duty when they interfered in raising moneyby the insertion of a clause that "no bounty should be paid uponexported corn. " And on this ground he moved the rejection of thebill. [31] In the last chapter of this volume, a more fitting occasionfor examining the rights and usages of the House of Lords with respectto money-bills will be furnished by a series of resolutions on thesubject, moved by the Prime-minister of the day. It is sufficient hereto say that the power of rejection is manifestly so different from thatof originating grants--which is admitted to belong exclusively to theCommons--and that there were so many precedents for the Lords havingexerted this power of rejection in the course of the preceding century, that they probably never conceived that in so doing now they werecommitting any encroachment on the constitutional rights and privilegesof the Lower House. But on this occasion the ill-feeling previouslyexisting between the two Houses may be thought to have predisposed theCommons to seek opportunity for a quarrel. And there never was a case inwhich both parties in the House were more unanimous. Governor Pownallcalled the rejection of the clause by the Lords "a flagrant encroachmentupon the privileges of the House, " and affirmed that the Lords had"forgotten their duty. " Burke termed it "a proof that the Lords did notunderstand the principles of the constitution, an invasion of a knownand avowed right inherent in the House as the representatives of thepeople, " and expressed a hope that "they were not yet so infamous andabandoned as to relinquish this essential right, " or to submit to "theannihilation of all their authority. " Others called it "an affront whichthe House was bound to resent, and the more imperatively in consequenceof the absence of a good understanding between the two Houses. " And theSpeaker, Sir John Cust, went beyond all his brother members in violence, declaring that "he would do his part in the business, and toss the billover the table. " The bill was rejected _nem. Con. _, and the Speakertossed it over the table, several of the members on both sides of thequestion kicking it as they went out;[32] and to such a pitch ofexasperation had they worked themselves up, that "the Game Bill, inwhich the Lords had made alterations, was served in a similar manner, "though those alterations only referred to the penalties to be imposedfor violations of the Game-law, and could by no stretch of ingenuity beconnected with any question of taxation. 

Notes:

[Footnote 16: A motion was, indeed, made (but the "ParliamentaryHistory, " xvi. , 55, omits to state by whom) that the House should"humbly entreat his Majesty, out of his tender and paternal regard forhis people, that he would be graciously pleased to name the person orpersons whom, in his royal wisdom, he shall think fit to propose to theconsideration of Parliament for the execution of those high trusts, thisHouse apprehending it not warranted by precedent nor agreeable to theprinciples of this free constitution to vest in any person or personsnot particularly named and approved of in Parliament the importantoffices of Regent of these kingdoms and guardian of the royal offspringheirs to the crown. " But "it passed in the negative, " probably, if wemay judge by other divisions on motions made by the same party, by anoverwhelming majority. ]

[Footnote 17: No one doubted that this choice had been made under theinfluence of Lord Bute, and was designed for the preservation of thatinfluence. --Lord Stanhope, _History of England_, v. , 41. ]

[Footnote 18: In his speech in the House of Lords on the Regency Bill of1840, the Duke of Sussex stated that George III. Had nominated the Queenas Regent in the first instance, and, in the event of her death, thePrincess Dowager. ]

[Footnote 19: "Lives of the Chancellors, " c. Cxli. ]

[Footnote 20: It appears from these dates that it was not yet understoodthat Parliament could not be prorogued for a longer period than fortydays. ]

[Footnote 21: These words occur in a speech attributed to LordMansfield. There is no detailed account of the debates on this subjectin either House. All that exists in the "Parliamentary History" is avery brief abstract of the discussion in the Commons, and a documentoccupying above sixty pages of the same work (pp. 251-314), entitled "ASpeech on behalf of the Constitution against the Suspending andDispensing Prerogative, " etc. , with a foot-note explaining that "thisspeech was supposed to be penned by Lord Mansfield, but was, in fact, written by Mr. Macintosh, assisted by Lord Temple and Lord Lyttleton. "It certainly seems to contain internal evidence that it was not writtenby any lawyer, from the sneers at and denunciations of lawyers which itcontains, as a class of men who "have often appeared to be the worstguardians of the constitution, and too frequently the wickedest enemiesto, and most treacherous betrayers of, the liberties of their country. "But, by whomsoever it was "penned" and published, the arguments which itcontains against the dispensing power were, probably, those which hadbeen urged by the great Chief-justice, and as such I have ventured tocite them here. ]

[Footnote 22: In his "Lives of the Chief-justices" (c. Xxxvi. , life ofLord Mansfield), Lord Campbell says, with reference to this case: "TheChief-justice's only considerable public exhibition during this periodwas his attack on the unconstitutional assertion of Lord Chatham andLord Camden, that, in a case of great public emergency, the crown couldby law dispense with an act of parliament. The question arising from theembargo on the exportation of corn, in consequence of apprehendedfamine, he proved triumphantly that, although the measure was expedientand proper, it was a violation of law, and required to be sanctioned byan act of indemnity. " And Lord Campbell adds, in a note: "This doctrine, acted upon in 1827, during the administration of Mr. Canning, and onseveral subsequent occasions, is now universally taken forconstitutional law" (ii. , 468). ]

[Footnote 23: To adduce a single instance, worthy of remark as affectingthe personal liberty of the subject, in 1818 a bill of indemnity waspassed to sanction the action of the ministry in arresting and detainingin prison, without bringing them to trial, several persons accused ofbeing implicated in seditious proceedings (_vide infra_). ]

[Footnote 24: Vol. Xvii. , 304. ]

[Footnote 25: The case is mentioned by Lord Campbell in his "Lives ofthe Chancellors, " c. Cxxi. (life of Lord Macclesfield) and c. Cxxiv. (life of Lord Chancellor King). ]

[Footnote 26: In fact, however, the age at which a young prince wasconsidered competent to exercise the royal authority in person had beenfixed at eighteen; and it is so stated in the speech in which the King, in 1765, recommended the appointment of a Regent to Parliament. --_Parliamentary History_, xvi. , 52. ]

[Footnote 27: This idea was expanded into an epigram, which appeared inmost of the daily papers, and has been thought worthy of being preservedin the "Parliamentary History, " xvii. , 401 (note):

 "Quoth Dick to Tom, 'This act appears Absurd, as I'm alive, To take the crown at eighteen years, A wife at twenty-five. The mystery how shall we explain? For sure, as Dowdeswell said, Thus early if they're fit to _reign_, They must be fit to _wed_. ' Quoth Tom to Dick, 'Thou art a fool, And nothing know'st of life; Alas! it's easier far to rule A kingdom than a wife. '"]

[Footnote 28: It is remarkable that this clause on one occasion provedan obstacle to the punishment of the abettors of such a marriage. In1793 the Duke of Sussex married Lady Augusta Murray, first at Rome, andafterward, by banns, at St. George's, Hanover Square. And when theaffair came to be investigated by the Privy Council, Lord Thurlowdenounced the conduct of the pair in violent terms, and angrily askedthe Attorney-general, Sir John Scott, why he had not prosecuted all theparties concerned in this abominable marriage. Sir John's reply, as hereported it himself, was sufficiently conclusive: "I answered that itwas a very difficult business to prosecute; that the act, it wasunderstood, had been drawn by Lord Mansfield, the Attorney-generalThurlow, and the Solicitor-general Wedderburn, who, unluckily, had madeall persons present at the marriage guilty of felony. And as nobodycould prove the marriage except a person who had been present at it, there could be no prosecution, because nobody present could be compelledto be a witness. "--THORP'S _Life of Eldon_, i. , 235. ]

[Footnote 29: A protest against the bill, entered by fourteen peers, including one bishop (of Bangor), denounced it, among other objections, as "contrary to the original inherent rights of human nature ... Exceeding the power permitted by Divine Providence to human legislation... And shaking many of the foundations of law, religion, and publicsecurity. "--_Parliamentary History_, xvii. , 391. ]

[Footnote 30: The import duty on wheat was fixed at 6_d_. A quarter ongrain, and 2_d_. Per cwt. On flour, when the price of wheat in thekingdom should be at or above 48s. ; when it was at or above 44s. , theexportation was to be altogether prohibited. --_Parliamentary History_, xvii. , 476. ]

[Footnote 31: See Hallam, "Constitutional History, " iii. , 38-46, ed. 1833, where, as far as the imperfection of our early Parliamentaryrecords allows, he traces the origin of the assertion of this peculiarprivilege by the Commons, especially referring to a discussion of theproper limits of this privilege in several conferences between the twoHouses; where, as on some other occasions, he sees, in the assertion oftheir alleged rights by the Commons, "more disposition to makeencroachments than to guard against those of others. " A few years before(in 1763), the House of Lords showed that they had no doubt of theirright to reject a money-bill, since they divided on the Cider Bill, which came under that description. As, however, the bill was passed, that division was not brought under the notice of the House. But in1783, in the time of the Coalition Ministry, the peers having madeamendments on the American Intercourse Bill, "the Speaker observed that, as the bill empowered the crown to impose duties, it was, strictlyspeaking, a money-bill, and therefore the House could not, consistentlywith its own orders, suffer the Lords to make any amendments on it, andhe recommended that the consideration of their amendments should bepostponed for three months, and in the mean time a new bill framedaccording to the Lords' amendments should be passed. " The recommendationwas approved by Mr. Pitt, as leader of the Opposition, and approved andacted on by Mr. Fox, as leader of the ministry in that House. But, atthe same time, Mr. Fox fully admitted the right of the Lords to discusssuch questions, "for it would be very absurd indeed to send a loan billto the Lords for their concurrence, and at the same time deprive them ofthe right of deliberation. To lay down plans and schemes for loansbelonged solely to the Commons; and he was willing, therefore, that theamended bill should be rejected, though he was of opinion that the orderof the House respecting money-bills was often too strictly construed. "And he immediately moved for leave to bring in a new bill, which wasverbatim the same with the amended bill sent down by theLords. --_Parliamentary History_, xxiii. , 895. The question was revivedin the present reign, on the refusal of the Lords to concur in theabolition of the duty on paper, when the whole subject was discussedwith such elaborate minuteness, and with so much more command of temperthan was shown on the present occasion, that it will be better to deferthe examination of the principle involved till we come to the history ofthat transaction. ]

[Footnote 32: "Parliamentary History, " xvii. , 515. ]

CHAPTER III. 

Mr. Grenville imposes a Duty on Stamps in the North AmericanColonies. --Examination of Dr. Franklin. --Lord Rockingham's MinistryRepeals the Duty. --Lord Mansfield affirms a Virtual Representation inthe Colonies. --Mr. C. Townsend imposes Import Duties in America. --Aftersome Years, the Civil War breaks out. --Hanoverian Troops are sent toGibraltar. --The Employment of Hanoverian Regiments at Gibraltar andMinorca. --End of the War. --Colonial Policy of the PresentReign. --Complaints of the Undue Influence of the Crown. --Motions forParliamentary Reform. --Mr. Burke's Bill for Economical Reform. --Mr. Dunning's Resolution on the Influence of the Crown. --Rights of the Lordson Money-bills. --The Gordon Riots. 

But during these years another matter had been gradually forcing its wayto the front, which, though at first it attracted but comparativelyslight notice, when it came to a head, absorbed for several years thewhole attention, not only of these kingdoms, but of foreign countriesalso. It was originally--in appearance, at least--merely a disputebetween Great Britain and her Colonies in North America on the mode ofobtaining a small revenue from them. But, in its progress, it eventuallyinvolved us in a foreign war of great magnitude, and thus became the onesubject of supreme interest to every statesman in Europe. England hadnot borne her share in the seven years' war without a considerableaugmentation of the national debt, and a corresponding increase in theamount of yearly revenue which it had become necessary to raise;[33] andMr. Grenville, as Chancellor of the Exchequer, had to devise the meansof meeting the demand. A year before, he had supported with great warmththe proposal of Sir Francis Dashwood, his predecessor at the Exchequer, to lay a new tax upon cider. Now that he himself had succeeded to thatoffice, he cast his eyes across the Atlantic, and, on the plea that thelate war had to a certain extent been undertaken for the defence of theColonies in North America, he proposed to make them bear a share in theburden caused by enterprises from which they had profited. Accordingly, in March, 1764, he proposed a series of resolutions imposing a varietyof import duties on different articles of foreign produce imported into"the British Colonies and plantations in America, " and also exportduties on a few articles of American growth when "exported or conveyedto any other place except to Great Britain. " Another resolution affirmed"that, toward defraying the said expense, it might be proper to chargecertain stamp-duties in the said Colonies and plantations. "

The resolutions imposing import and export duties were passed by bothHouses almost without comment. That relating to a stamp-duty he did notpress at the moment, announcing that he postponed it for a year, inorder to ascertain in what light it would be regarded by the Coloniststhemselves; and as most, if not all, of the Colonies had a residentagent in London, he called them together, explained to them the objectand anticipated result of the new imposition (for such he admitted it tobe), and requested them to communicate his views to their constituents, adding an offer that, if they should prefer any other tax likely to beequally productive, he should be desirous to consult their wishes in thematter. 

He probably regarded such language on his part as a somewhat superfluousexercise of courtesy or conciliation, so entire was his conviction ofthe omnipotence of Parliament, and of the impossibility of any loyal manor body of men calling its power in question. But he was greatlydeceived. His message was received in America with universaldissatisfaction. Of the thirteen States which made up the body ofColonies, there was scarcely one whose Assembly did not present apetition against the proposed measure, and against any other which mightbe considered as an alternative. Grenville, however, was not a man to bemoved by petitions or remonstrances. He was rather one whom oppositionof any kind hardened in his purpose; and, as no substitute had beensuggested, at the opening of the session of 1765 he proposed a series ofresolutions requisite to give effect to the vote of the previous year, and imposing "certain stamp-duties and other duties" on the settlementsin America, perhaps thinking to render his disregard of the objectionswhich had been made less unpalatable by the insertion of words bindingthe government to apply the sums to be thus raised to "the expenses ofdefending, protecting, and securing" the Colonies themselves. Theresolutions were passed, as the "Parliamentary History" records, "almostwithout debate, " on the 6th of March. [34] But the intelligence wasreceived in every part of the Colonies with an indignantdissatisfaction, which astonished even their own agents in England. [35]Formidable riots broke out in several provinces. In Massachusetts theman who had been appointed Distributor of Stamps was burnt in effigy;the house of the Lieutenant-governor was attacked by a furious mob, whoavowed their determination to murder him if he fell into their hands;and resolutions were passed by the Assemblies of the different States toconvene a General Congress at New York in the autumn, to organize aresistance to the tax, and to take the general state of affairs intoconsideration. 

Before, however, that time came, a series of events having no connectionwith these transactions had led to a change of ministry in England, andthe new cabinet was less inclined to carry matters with a high hand. Indeed, even the boldest statesman could hardly have learned the stateof feeling which had been excited in America without apprehension, andthose who had the chief weight in the new administration were not men toimperil the state by an insistance on abstract theories of right andprerogative. Accordingly, when, after Lord Rockingham had becomePrime-minister, Parliament met in December, 1765, the royal speechrecommended the state of affairs in America to the consideration ofParliament (a recommendation which manifestly implied a disposition onthe part of the King's advisers to induce the House of Commons toretrace its steps), papers were laid before Parliament, and witnessesfrom America were examined, and among them a man who had already won ahigh reputation by his scientific acquirements, but who had not beenpreviously prominent as a politician, Dr. Benjamin Franklin. He had comeover to England as agent for Pennsylvania, and his examination, aspreserved in the "Parliamentary History, " may be taken as a completestatement of the matter in dispute from the American point of view, andof the justification which the Colonists conceived themselves to havefor refusing to submit to pay such a tax as had now been imposed uponthem. At a later day he was one of the most zealous, as he was probablyone of the earliest, advocates of separation from England; but as yetneither his language nor his actions afforded any trace of such afeeling. 

He affirmed[36] the general temper of the Colonists toward Great Britainto have been, till this act was passed, the best in the world. Theyconsidered themselves as a part of the British empire, and as having onecommon interest with it. They did not consider themselves as foreigners. They were jealous for the honor and prosperity of this nation, andalways were, and always would be, ready to support it as far as theirlittle power went. They considered the Parliament of Great Britain asthe great bulwark and security of their liberties and privileges, andalways spoke of it with the utmost respect and veneration. They hadgiven a practical proof of their goodwill by having raised, clothed, andpaid during the last war nearly 25, 000 men, and spent many millions; norhad any Assembly of any Colony ever refused duly to support thegovernment by proper allowances from time to time to public officers. They had always been ready, and were ready now, to tax themselves. TheColonies had Assemblies of their own, which were their Parliaments. Theywere, in that respect, in the same situation as Ireland. TheirAssemblies had a right to levy money on the subject, then to grant tothe crown, and, indeed, had constantly done so; and he himself wasspecially instructed by the Assembly of his own State to assure theministry that, as they always had done, so they should always think ittheir duty to grant such aids to the crown as were suitable to theircircumstances and abilities, whenever called upon for the purpose in aconstitutional manner; and that instruction he had communicated to theministry. But the Colonies objected to Parliament laying on them such atax as that imposed by the Stamp Act. Some duties, they admitted, theParliament had a right to impose, but he drew a distinction between"those duties which were meant to regulate commerce and internal taxes. "The authority of Parliament to regulate commerce had never been disputedby the Colonists. The sea belonged to Britain. She maintained by herfleets the safety of navigation on it; she kept it clear of pirates; shemight, therefore, have a natural and equitable right to some toll orduty, on merchandise carried through that part of her dominions, towarddefraying the expenses she was at in ships to maintain the safety ofthat carriage. But the case of imposition of internal taxes was whollydifferent from this. The Colonists held that, by the charters which atdifferent times had been granted to the different States, they wereentitled to all the privileges and liberties of Englishmen. They foundin the Great Charters, and the Petition and Declarations of Right, thatone of the privileges of English subjects is that they are not to betaxed but by their common consent; and these rights and privileges hadbeen confirmed by the charters which at different times had been grantedto the different States. In reply to a question put to him, he allowedthat in the Pennsylvania charter there was a clause by which the Kinggranted that he would levy no taxes on the inhabitants unless it werewith the consent of the Colonial Assembly, or by an act of Parliament;words which certainly seemed to reserve a right of taxation to theBritish Parliament; but he also demonstrated that, in point of fact, thelatter part of the clause had never been acted on, and the Colonistshad, therefore, relied on it, from the first settlement of the province, that the Parliament never would nor could, by the color of that clausein the charter, assume a right of taxing them till it had qualifieditself to exercise such right by admitting representatives from thepeople to be taxed. And, in addition to objections on principle, heurged some that he regarded as of great force as to the working of thisparticular tax imposed by the Stamp Act. It was not an equal tax, as thegreater part of the revenue derived from it must arise from lawsuits forthe recovery of debts, and be paid by the lower sort of people; it was aheavy tax on the poor, and a tax on them for being poor. In the backsettlements, where the population was very thin, the inhabitants wouldoften be unable to get stamps without taking a long journey for thepurpose. The scarcity of specie, too, in the country would cause thepressure to be felt with great severity, as, in his opinion, there wasnot gold and silver enough in the Colonies to pay the stamp-duty for asingle year. In reply to another question, whether the Colonists wouldbe satisfied with a repeal of the Stamp Act without a formalrenunciation of the abstract right of Parliament to impose it, hereplied that he believed they would be satisfied. He thought theresolutions of right would give them very little concern, if they werenever attempted to be carried into practice. The Colonies would probablyconsider themselves in the same situation in that respect as Ireland. They knew that the English Parliament claimed the same right with regardto Ireland, but that it never exercised it; and they might believe thatthey would never exercise it in the Colonies any more than in Ireland. Indeed, they would think that it never could exercise such a right tillrepresentatives from the Colonies should be admitted into Parliament, and that whenever an occasion arose to make Parliament regard thetaxation of the Colonies as indispensable, representatives would beordered. 

This last question put to the witness, like several others in the courseof his examination, had been framed with the express purpose ofeliciting an answer to justify the determination on the subject to whichLord Rockingham and his colleagues had come. It could not be denied thatthe government was placed in a situation of extreme difficulty--difficulty created, in part, by the conduct of the Colonists themselves. That, as even their most uncompromising advocate, Mr. Pitt, admitted, had been imprudent and intemperate, though it was the imprudence of menwho "had been driven to madness by injustice. " On the one hand, torepeal an act the opposition to which had been marked by fierce riots, such as those of Boston, and even in the Assemblies of some of theStates by language scarcely short of treason, [37] seemed a concession tointimidation scarcely compatible with the maintenance of the dignity ofthe crown or the legitimate authority of Parliament. On the other hand, to persist in the retention of a tax which the whole population affectedby it was evidently determined to resist to the uttermost, was to incurthe still greater danger of rebellion and civil war. In this dilemma, the ministers resolved on a course calculated, as they conceived, toavoid both evils, by combining a satisfaction of the complaints of theColonists with an assertion of the absolute supremacy of the Britishcrown and Parliament for every purpose. And on February 24, 1766, theSecretary of State brought in a bill which, after declaring, in itsfirst clause, "that the King's Majesty, by and with the consent of theLords spiritual and temporal, and Commons of Great Britain, inParliament assembled, had, hath, and of right ought to have, full powerand authority to make laws and statutes of sufficient force and validityto bind the Colonists and people of America, subjects of the crown ofGreat Britain, in all cases whatsoever, " proceeded to repeal the StampAct, giving a strong proof of the sincerity of the desire to conciliatethe Colonists by the unusual step of fixing the second reading of thebill for the next day. 

But in its different clauses it encountered a twofold opposition, whichhe had, probably, not anticipated. It is unnecessary to notice thatwhich rested solely on the inexpediency of repealing the Stamp Act, "thecompulsory enforcement of which was required by the honor and dignity ofthe kingdom. " But the first clause was even more strenuously resisted, on grounds which its opponents affirmed to rest on the fundamentalprinciples of the constitution. It was urged in the House of Commons byMr. Pitt that, "as the Colonies were not represented in Parliament, Great Britain had no legal right nor power to lay a tax upon them--thattaxation is no part of the governing or legislative power. Taxes, " saidthe great orator, "are the voluntary gift and grant of the Commonsalone. In legislation the three estates of the realm are alikeconcerned; but the concurrence of the peers and the crown to a tax isonly necessary to clothe it with the form of a law; the gift and grantis in the Commons alone.... The distinction between legislation andtaxation is essentially necessary to liberty. "

Mr. Pitt had no claim to be considered as a great authority in theprinciples of constitutional law. George II. , slight as was hispolitical knowledge or wisdom, complained on one occasion of theignorance of a Secretary of State who had never read Vattel; and in thisvery debate he even boasted of his ignorance of "law-cases and acts ofParliament. " But his coadjutor in the House of Lords (Lord Camden, atthis time Chief-justice of the Common Pleas) owed the chief part of therespect in which he was held to his supposed excellence as aconstitutional lawyer, and he fully endorsed and expanded Pitt'sarguments when the bill came up to the House of Lords. He affirmed thathe spoke as "the defender of the law and the constitution; that, as theaffair was of the greatest consequence, and in its consequences mightinvolve the fate of kingdoms, he had taken the strictest review of hisarguments, he had examined and re-examined all his authorities; and thathis searches had more and more convinced him that the British Parliamenthad no right to tax the Americans. The Stamp Act was absolutely illegal, contrary to the fundamental laws of nature, contrary to the fundamentallaws of this constitution--a constitution governed on the eternal andimmutable laws of nature. The doctrine which he was asserting was notnew; it was as old as the constitution; it grew up with it; indeed, itwas its support. Taxation and representation are inseparably united. Godhath joined them; no British government can put them asunder. Toendeavor to do so is to stab our very vitals. " And he objected to thefirst clause (that which declared the power and right to tax), on theground that if the ministers "wantonly pressed this declaration, although they were now repealing the Stamp Act, they might pass it againin a month. " He even argued that "they must have future taxation inview, or they would hardly assert their right to enjoy the pleasure ofoffering an insult. " He was answered by Lord Northington (theChancellor) and by Lord Mansfield (the Chief-justice), both of whomsupported the motion to repeal the tax, but who also agreed in denyingthe soundness of his doctrine that, as far as the power was concerned, there was any distinction between a law to tax and a law for any otherpurpose; and Lord Mansfield farther denied the validity of the argumentwhich it had been attempted to found on the circumstance that theColonies were not represented in Parliament, propounding, on thecontrary, what Lord Campbell calls "his doctrine of virtualrepresentation. " "There can, " said he, "be no doubt but that theinhabitants of the Colonies are represented in Parliament, as thegreatest part of the people of England are represented, among ninemillions of whom there are eight who have no votes in electing membersof Parliament. Every objection, therefore, to the dependency of theColonies upon Parliament which arises upon the ground of representationgoes to the whole present constitution of Great Britain.... For whatpurpose, then, are arguments drawn from a distinction in which there isno real difference of a virtual and an actual representation? A memberof Parliament chosen for any borough represents not only theconstituents and inhabitants of that particular place, but he representsthe inhabitants of every other borough in Great Britain. He representsthe City of London and all the other Commons of the land, and theinhabitants of all the colonies and dominions of Great Britain, and isin duty and conscience bound to take care of their interests. "

Lord Mansfield's doctrine of a virtual representation of the Coloniesmust be admitted to be overstrained. The analogy between the case ofcolonists in a country from no part of which representatives are sent toParliament, and that of a borough or county where some classes of thepopulation which may, in a sense, be regarded as spokesmen or agents ofthe rest form a constituency and return members, must be allowed tofail; yet the last sentences of this extract are worth preserving, aslaying down the important constitutional principle, subsequentlyexpanded and enforced with irresistible learning and power of argumentby Burke, that a member of the House of Commons is not a delegate, bound, under all circumstances, to follow the opinions or submit to thedictation of his constituents, but that from the moment of his electionhe is a councillor of the whole kingdom, bound to exercise anindependent judgment for the interests of the whole people, rather thanto guide himself by the capricious or partial judgments of a smallsection of it. But in its more immediate objects--that of establishingthe two principles, that the constitution knows of no limitation to theauthority of Parliament, and of no distinction between the power oftaxation and that of any other kind of legislation--Lord Mansfield'sspeech is now universally admitted to have been unanswerable. [38]

The abstract right was unquestionably on the side of the minister andthe Parliament who had imposed the tax. But he is not worthy of the nameof statesman who conceives absolute rights and metaphysical distinctionsto be the proper foundation for measures of government, and pays noregard to custom, to precedent, to the habits and feelings of the peopleto be governed; who, disregarding the old and most true adage, _summumjus summa injuria_, omits to take into his calculations the expediencyof his actions when legislating for a nation which he is in the dailyhabit of weighing in his private affairs. The art or science ofgovernment are phrases in common use; but they would be void of meaningif all that is requisite be to ascertain the strict right or power, andthen unswervingly to act upon it in all its rigor. And, therefore, whileit must be admitted that the character of the power vested in King, Lords, and Commons assembled in Parliament is unlimited and illimitable, and that the legal competency to enact a statute depends in no degreewhatever on the wisdom or folly, the justice or wickedness, of thestatute, the advice given to a constitutional sovereign by his advisersmust be guided by other considerations. To quote by anticipation thelanguage addressed to the Commons on this subject by Burke eight yearsafterward, the proper policy was "to leave the Americans as theyanciently stood ... To be content to bind America by laws of trade. Parliament had always done it. And this should be the reason for bindingtheir trade. Not to burden them by taxes; Parliament was not used to doso from the beginning; and this should be the reason for not taxing. These are the arguments of states and kingdoms. "[39]

The ministry were strong enough to carry their resolutions through bothHouses. Their measure was divided into two acts, one known as theDeclaratory Act, asserting the absolute and universal authority ofParliament; the other repealing the Stamp Act of the preceding year. Andboth were passed without alteration, though the Lords divided againstthem on both the second and third readings of the bill for repealfounded on them, [40] some of them entering long protests in the journalsof the House. The right to tax was asserted, but the tax itself wasrepealed. And Franklin's estimate of the feelings on the subjectentertained by his countrymen was fully verified by the reception whichthe intelligence met with in the Colonies. To quote the description ofLord Stanhope: "In America the repeal of the Stamp Act was received withuniversal joy and acclamation. Fireworks and festivals celebrated thegood news, while addresses and thanks to the King were voted by all theAssemblies.... The words of the Declaratory Act, indeed, gave theAmericans slight concern. They fully believed that no practicalgrievance could arise from it. They looked upon it merely as a salve tothe wounded pride of England; as only that 'bridge of gold' which, according to the old French saying, should always be allowed to aretreating assailant. "[41]

A recent writer, however, has condemned the addition of the declarationof the abstract right to tax with great vehemence. "Nothing, " says LordCampbell, [42] "could exceed the folly of accompanying the repeal of theStamp Act with the statutable declaration of the abstract right to tax. "But it does not seem difficult to justify the conduct of the ministry inthis particular. For, besides the great weight deservedly attached toFranklin's assurance that the declaration would not be objected to bythe Colonists, and besides the consideration that, on a general view, itwas desirable, if not indispensable, to impress on all classes ofsubjects, whether at home or abroad, the constitutional doctrine of theomnipotence of Parliament, the line of argument adopted by Mr. Pitt andLord Camden, in denying that omnipotence, left the ministers noalternative but that of asserting it, unless they were prepared tobetray their trust as guardians of the constitution. Forbearance toinsist on the Declaratory Act could not fail to have been regarded as anacquiescence on their part in a doctrine which Lord Campbell in the samebreath admits to be false. It may be added, as a consideration of nosmall practical weight, that, without such a Declaratory Act, the Kingwould have been very reluctant to consent to the other and moreimportant Repealing Act. And, on the whole, the conduct of the ministrymay, we think, be regarded as the wisest settlement both of the law andof the practice. It asserted the law in a manner which offended no one;and it made a precedent for placing the spirit of statesmanship abovethe letter of the law, and for forbearing to put forth in its fullstrength the prerogatives whose character was not fully understood bythose who might be affected by them, and also could plead thatParliament itself had contributed to lead them to misunderstand it byits own conduct in never before exerting it. 

For the moment, then, contentment and tranquillity were restored in theColonies. Unhappily, they were not lasting. The same year which saw thetriumph of the Rockingham administration in the repeal of the Stamp Act, witnessed also its fall before a discreditable intrigue. And theministry which succeeded it had not been a year in office before the newChancellor of the Exchequer, Charles Townsend, revived the discontentsin America which Lord Rockingham had appeased. It cannot be said, however, that the blame should all belong to him; or that the Rockinghamparty in the House of Commons were entirely free from a share in it. They were--not unnaturally, perhaps--greatly irritated at the intrigueby which Lord Chatham had superseded them, and were not disinclined tothrow difficulties in the way of their successors, for which the eventsof the next year afforded more than one opportunity. Lord Chatham, ashas been mentioned, was universally recognized as the chief of the newministry, though he abstained from taking the usual office of First Lordof the Treasury, and contented himself with the Privy Seal; but he hadconstructed it of such discordant elements[43] that no influence but hisown could preserve consistency in its acts or harmony among its members, as nothing but his name could give it consideration either in Parliamentor in the country. In the first months of the next year, 1767, he wasattacked with an illness which for a time disabled him from attendingthe cabinet, being, apparently, the forerunner of that more seriousmalady which, before the end of the summer, compelled his longretirement from public life; and the Opposition took advantage of thestate of disorganization and weakness which his illness caused among hiscolleagues, to defeat them on the Budget in the House of Commons, by anamendment to reduce the land-tax, which caused a deficiency in thesupplies of half a million. This deficiency it, of course, becamenecessary to meet by some fresh tax; and Townsend--who, though endowedwith great richness of eloquence, was of an imprudent, not to say rash, temper, and was possessed of too thorough a confidence in his owningenuity and fertility of resource ever to be inclined to take intoconsideration any objections to which his schemes might beliable--proposed to raise a portion of the money which was needed bytaxes on glass, paper, tea, and one or two other articles, to be paid asimport duties in the American Colonies. His colleagues, and especiallythe Duke of Grafton himself, the First Lord of the Treasury, and as suchthe nominal Prime-minister, having been also, as Secretary of State, amember of Lord Rockingham's ministry, which had repealed the formertaxes, did not consent to the measure without great and avowedreluctance; but yielded their own judgment to the strong feeling in itsfavor which notoriously existed in the House of Commons. [44] Indeed, that House passed the clauses imposing these import duties withouthesitation, being, probably, influenced in no small degree by theevidence given in the preceding year by Dr. Franklin, who, as has beenalready seen, had explained that the Colonists drew a distinctionbetween what he called "internal taxes" and import duties "intended toregulate commerce, " and that to the latter class they were not inclinedto object. And a second consideration was, that these new duties wereaccompanied and counterbalanced by a reduction of some other taxes; sothat the ministry contended that the effect of these financial measures, taken altogether, would be to lower to the Colonists the price of thearticles affected by them rather than to raise it. But one of theresolutions adopted provided that the whole of the money to be raisedfrom these taxes should not be spent in America, but that, after makingprovision for certain Colonial objects specified, "the residue of suchduties should be paid into the receipt of his Majesty's Exchequer, andthere reserved, to be from time to time disposed of by Parliament towarddefraying the necessary expenses of defending, protecting, and securingthe said Colonies and plantations. " And this clause seems to have beenunderstood as designed to provide means for augmenting the number ofregular troops to be maintained in the Colonies, whose employment in therecent disturbances had made them more unpopular than formerly. [45]

At all events, the intelligence of these new taxes, though only importduties, found the Colonists in a humor to resist any addition of anykind to their financial burdens. The events of the last two years hadtaught them their strength. It was undeniable that the repeal of theStamp Act had been extorted by the riots in Boston and other places, andthe success of this system of intimidation could not fail to encourageits repetition. Accordingly, the news of this fresh attempt at taxationwas met by a unanimous determination to resist it. Newspaper writers andpamphleteers denounced not only the duties but the ministry whichimposed them. Petitions from almost every State were sent over toEngland, addressed to the King and to the Parliament; but the violenttemper of the leaders of the populace was not content to wait foranswers to them. Associations were at once formed in Boston and one ortwo other cities, where resolutions were adopted in the spirit ofretaliation (as their framers avowed), to desist from the importation ofany articles of British commerce, and to rely for the future on Americanmanufactures. The principal Custom-house officers at Boston were badlybeaten, and others were compelled to seek refuge in a man-of-war whichhappened to be in the harbor. 

It would be painful, and at the present day useless, to trace the stepsby which these local disturbances gradually grew into one generalinsurrection. The spirit of resistance was undoubtedly fanned by a partywhich from the first contemplated a total separation from England as itsultimate result, [46] if, indeed, they had not conceived the design evenbefore Grenville had given the first provocation to discontent. But theColonists were not without advocates in England, even among the membersof the government. The Duke of Grafton, while he remainedPrime-minister, was eager to withdraw all the duties of which theycomplained; but he was overruled by the majority of his colleagues. Heprevailed, however, so far that Lord Hillsborough, the Secretary ofState, was authorized to write a circular-letter to the governors of thedifferent provinces, in which he disowned, in the most distinct languagepossible, "a design to propose to Parliament to lay any farther taxesupon America for the purpose of raising a revenue, " and promised for thenext session a repeal of all the taxes except that on tea; and when theDuke retired from the Treasury, and was succeeded by Lord North, thatstatesman himself brought forward the promised repeal in an elaboratespeech, [47] in which he explained that the duty on tea, which he aloneproposed to retain, had been originally a boon to the Americans ratherthan an injury, as being accompanied by the removal of a far heaviertax. But he admitted that even that consideration was not the one whichinfluenced him in his opinion that that duty should be maintained, sogreatly was the perception that the real object of those who complainedof it was, not the redress of a grievance, but the extinction of a rightwhich was an essential part of "the controlling supremacy of England. "The fact that the right to tax had been denied made it a positive dutyon the part of the English minister to exert that right. "To temporizewould be to yield, and the authority of the mother country, if nowunsupported, would be relinquished forever. " And he avowed his idea ofthe policy proper to be pursued to be "to retain the right of taxingAmerica, but to give it every relief that might be consistent with thewelfare of the mother country. " He carried his resolution, though theminority--which on this occasion was led by Mr. Pownall, who had himselfbeen Governor of Massachusetts, and who moved an amendment to includetea in the list of taxes proposed to be repealed--was stronger thanusual. [48] But the concession failed to conciliate a single Colonist; ithad become, as Burke said four years afterward, a matter of feeling, [49]and the irritation fed on itself, till, in 1773, a fresh act, empoweringthe East India Company to export tea to the Colonies direct from theirown warehouses without its being subject to any duty in England--whichLord North undoubtedly intended as a boon to the Colonists--onlyincreased the exasperation. The ships which brought the tea to Bostonwere boarded and seized by a formidable body of rioters disguised asnative savages, and the tea was thrown into the sea. The intelligencewas received in England with very different feelings by the differentparties in the state. The ministers conceived themselves forced toassert the dignity of the crown, and proposed bills to inflict severepunishment on both the City of Boston and the whole Province ofMassachusetts. The Opposition insisted on removing the cause of thesedisturbances by a total repeal of the tea-duty. The minister prevailedby a far larger majority than before, but his success only increased theexasperation in the Colonies; and it was an evil omen for peace that theleaders of the resistance began to search the records of the EnglishLong Parliament "for the revolutionary precedents and forms of thePuritans of that day. "[50] The next year saw fresh attempts to procurethe repeal of the obnoxious tax rejected by the House of Commons; but, before the news of this division reached America, blood had already beenshed. [51] Civil war began. The next year the Colonies, now united in onesolid body, asserted their Independence, taking the title of the UnitedStates; and, though the government at home made more than one effort torecall the Colonists to their allegiance, and sent out commissioners ofhigh rank, with large powers of concession; and though in one remarkableinstance the mission of Mr. Penn, in the summer of 1775, with thepetition to the King known as "the Olive Branch, " seemed to show adesire for a maintenance of the union on the part of the ColonialCongress, [52] from the moment that the sword was drawn all hope ofpreserving the connection of the Colonies must have been seen by allreasonable men to be at an end. 

It is beside our present purpose to recapitulate the military operationsof the war, though they verified another of Burke's warnings, that, supposing all moral difficulties to be got over, the oceanremained--that could not be dried up; and, as long as it continued inits present bed, so long all the causes which weakened authority bydistance must continue. In fact, distance from England was one of themain circumstances which decided the contest. The slowness ofcommunication--almost inconceivable to the present generation--renderedimpossible that regularity in the transport of re-enforcements andsupplies which was indispensable to success; and, added to the strangeabsence of military skill shown by every one of the British generals, soon placed the eventual issue of the war beyond a doubt. But onemeasure by which Lord North's government endeavored to provide for thestrengthening of the army employed in America was so warmly challengedon constitutional grounds, that, though the fortunate separation ofHanover from Great Britain has prevented the possibility of anyrecurrence of such a proceeding, it would be improper to pass it over. 

In his speech at the opening of the autumnal session of 1775, the Kingannounced to the Houses that, in order to leave a larger portion of theestablished forces of the kingdom available for service in NorthAmerica, he "had sent a part of his Electoral troops to the garrisons ofGibraltar and Port Mahon. " And the announcement aroused a vehementspirit of opposition, which found vent in the debates of both Houses onthe address, and in two substantive motions condemning the measure as aviolation of the constitution as established by the Bill of Rights andthe Act of Settlement. It was strenuously maintained that both thesestatutes forbade the raising or keeping on foot a standing army in thekingdom in time of peace, and also the introduction of foreign troopsinto this kingdom, without the previous consent of Parliament, on anypretence whatever; and that "the fact that Gibraltar and Minorca weredetached from these islands did not exclude them from the character offorming a part of the British dominion. " And on these grounds LordShelburne, who supported Lord Rockingham on an amendment to the address, did not hesitate to denounce this employment of the Hanoverianregiments, as "fundamentally infringing the first principles of ourgovernment, " and to declare it "high-treason against the constitution. "He asked, "if there were a settled plan to subdue the liberties of thiscountry, what surer means could be adopted than those of arming RomanCatholics and introducing foreign troops?"[53] and compared the measureunder discussion to the case of the Dutch regiments of William III. , "which the Parliament wisely refused to allow him to retain. " In theHouse of Commons, the Opposition was led by Sir James Lowther andGovernor Johnstone, the latter of whom "appealed to the clause in theAct of Settlement which enacted that no person born of other thanEnglish parents should enjoy any office or place of trust, civil ormilitary, within the kingdom;" and argued that to employ foreignofficers in the protection of a British fortress was to place them in an"office of great military trust. "

The discussion brought to light strange divisions and weakness in theministry. The ministerial lawyers differed on the grounds on which theyrelied, the Attorney-general, Thurlow, denying that the expression "thiskingdom" in the Bill of Rights included the foreign dependencies of thecrown[54] (a narrowing of its force which the Chancellor, Lord Bathurst, wholly repudiated), while the argument on which he himself insisted moststrongly, that the existence of rebellion in America put end to allconditions which supposed the kingdom to be at peace, could not obtainthe support of any one of his colleagues. But a plea urged by anindependent member, Lord Denbigh, was regarded by some of the speakerswith greater favor; his contention being that neither the Bill of Rightsnor the Act of Settlement had been violated, since both those greatstatutes must be interpreted with reference to the time at which theywere framed, and to the recent acts of James II. And William III. , therecurrence of which they had been designed to prevent, acts to which thepresent proceeding bore no resemblance. 

A stronger justification, however, might have been found in very recentprecedents. In 1745 the ministers had brought over six thousand Dutchtroops to re-enforce the army of the Duke of Cumberland, and their acthad been subsequently approved by Parliament. And in 1756, at thecommencement of the seven years' war, when the loss of Minorca had ledto such a distrust of our fleets that a French invasion was verygenerally apprehended, both Houses presented addresses to George II. , begging him to bring over some Hanoverian regiments; and, in the courseof the next year, other addresses to thank him for compliance with theirentreaty. 

Looking at the strict law of the question, few lawyers doubt that theexpression "this kingdom" in the Bill of Rights includes the entiredominions of the crown, or that that great statute was undoubtedlyintended to protect the privileges of all their inhabitants, whetherwithin the four seas or in foreign settlements. But it also seems thatthe clause against raising and keeping on foot a standing army withoutthe consent of Parliament was not more violated by keeping a mixedgarrison in Gibraltar and Port Mahon than garrisons consisting of nativesoldiers only; and undoubtedly the keeping of an armed force in boththese fortresses had been sanctioned by Parliament. Nor could thecolonel of a foreign regiment in garrison under the command of a Britishgovernor be fairly said to be in an office of great military trust. Sofar, therefore, the charge against the ministry may be thought to havefailed. But the accusation of having transgressed the clause whichprohibits "the introduction of foreign troops into this kingdom withoutthe previous consent of Parliament on any pretence whatever, " must, onthe other hand, be regarded as proved. And, indeed, Lord North himselfmay be taken to have shown some consciousness that it was so, since hejustified his conduct in omitting to procure that previous consent bythe necessity of the case, by the plea that, as Parliament was invacation, the time which would have been consumed in waiting for itssanction would have neutralized the advantage desired from theemployment of the Hanoverians, since the regiments which they were toreplace at Gibraltar and Port Mahon could not, after such delay, havereached America in time to be of service; and since he also consentedeventually to ask Parliament for an Act of Indemnity, the preamble ofwhich affirmed the existence of doubts as to the legality of the stepwhich had been taken. And the fate of this act afforded a still morestriking proof of the divisions in the ministry, since, after Lord Northhimself had proposed it in the House of Commons, and it had been passedthere by a large majority, it was rejected in the House of Lords, wherehis own colleagues, Lord Gower, Lord Suffolk, and Lord Weymouth, spokeand voted against it as needless, because, in their judgment, no doubtof the state of the law on the subject could exist. 

From a statesman-like point of view, the employment of the Hanoveriansseems abundantly defensible, if force were still to be employed to bringback the Colonists to their obedience. The circumstance of their beingsubjects of our sovereign in his other character of Elector of Hanover, clearly distinguished it from the hiring of the Hessian and Brunswickmercenaries, which has been deservedly condemned. And, as the entirenumber fell short of two thousand, [55] Lord Shelburne's expression offear for the liberties and religion of Englishmen was an absurdexaggeration. Moreover, the warm approval which, less than twenty yearsbefore, Parliament had given to the introduction of a far larger body ofthe same troops into England itself, justified the anticipation that asimilar sanction would now be cheerfully given. That sanction--which, indeed, might have been thought to be invited by the announcement of themeasure in the King's speech--was undoubtedly requisite. And, if it was, a Bill of Indemnity for having acted without it was equally necessary. But, as has been seen in the last chapter, for an administration, onurgent occasions, to take action on its own responsibility, and then toapply for indemnity, is a course in strict harmony with the practice ofthe constitution; and if in this instance the ministers are in anyrespect blamable, their error would seem to have been limited to theirabstaining from instantly calling Parliament together to sanction theiract, and being contented to wait for the ordinary time of the Housesmeeting. 

The war, therefore, went on. The assertion of their independence by theColonies divided, and, so far, weakened, the advocates of their cause inParliament, one section of whom, led by Lord Chatham, regarded anydiminution of our dominion as not only treasonable, but ruinous; on theother hand, it procured them the alliance of France and Spain. But itcannot be said that either of these incidents produced any practicaleffect on the result of the war. Lord Chatham's refusal to contemplatetheir independence could not retard its establishment; and the allianceof France and Spain, which brought nothing but disaster to thosecountries, could not accelerate it by a single moment. For nearly sixyears the war continued with alternations of success, the victoriesgained by the British arms being the more numerous, the triumphs of theAmericans being incomparably the more important, involving as they didthe surrender of two entire armies, the latter of which, that of LordCornwallis, in 1781, did, in fact, terminate the war, and with the warthe existence of the ministry which had conducted it. A singularly rapidsuccession of new administrations ensued--so rapid that the negotiationsfor peace which the first, that of Lord Rockingham, opened, were notformally completed till the third, [56] known as the Coalition Ministry, was on the point of dismissal. It would be beside our purpose to enterinto the details of the treaty which constituted the United States, asthey were now called, a nation by our formal recognition of theirindependence. Even in that recognition, which was the most importantarticle of the treaty, no constitutional principle was involved, thoughit affords the only instance in our history which can seem to throw adoubt on our inheritance of that capacity for government which the Romanpoet claimed as, in ancient times, the peculiar attribute of his owncountrymen. It presents the only instance of a loss of territory peopledby men who came of our blood, and who still spoke our language. It was astern and severe lesson; and yet, fraught with discredit and disaster asit was, it nevertheless bore fruit in a later age which we may beexcused for regarding as an example of the generally predominatinginfluence of sober practical sense in our countrymen, when not led awayby the temporary excitement of passion, as shown in our capacity to takehome to ourselves and profit by the teachings of experience. The loss ofthe American Colonies was caused by the submission of the Parliament andnation to men of theory rather than of practice; ideologists, asNapoleon called them; doctrinaires, to use the modern expression; menwho, because Parliament had an abstract right of universal legislation, regarded it as a full justification for insisting on its exercise, without giving a thought to the feelings, or prejudices, or habits ofthose who might be affected by their measures. Abstractedly considered, Lord Chatham and Lord Camden were undoubtedly wrong in denying the powerof Parliament to tax the Colonies; but there was better judgment intheir counsels, though founded on false premises, than in those ofGrenville and Townsend, though theirs was the more correct view of theconstitutional power of legislation. The two peers were wrong in theirprinciple; the two Chancellors of the Exchequer were unwise in theirapplication of their principle; and the practical error was the moredisastrous one. 

It is now generally admitted that the true statesman-like course towardthe Colonies was that adopted by Lord Rockingham and his colleagues in1765--to avoid weakening the supreme power of Parliament by anydisavowal of the right to tax but to avoid imperilling the sovereignauthority of the King by a novel exertion of it. As much of our commonEnglish law is made up of precedent, so, in a still greater degree, areour feelings and ideas of our rights and privileges regulated byprecedent. And we lost America because in 1764 and 1767 neither ministernor Parliament took men's feelings and prejudices into account. The lossof the United States, therefore, was a lesson not undeserved; and by ourstatesmen since that day it has been taken in the right spirit ofprofiting by its teaching as a guide to their own conduct. Since thatday the enterprise of our people has planted our flag in regions farmore distant, and has extended the dominion of our sovereign overprovinces far more extensive than those which we then lost. And on someof the administrations of the present reign the duty has fallen offraming schemes of government for those new acquisitions, as also forsome of those previously possessed. In how different a spirit from thatwhich actuated the early ministers of George III. [57] those to whom thetask was committed by Queen Victoria applied themselves to their taskmay be seen in a maxim laid down by the present Lord Grey, when hepresided at the Colonial Office (1846-1852), that "the success of freeinstitutions in any country depends far less upon the particular form ofthose institutions than upon the character of the people on whom theyare conferred. " But how he and others in the same office carried outthat principle must be reserved for a later chapter. 

Besides the numerous motions which were brought forward by theOpposition respecting the continuance and conduct of the war, there wereseveral also which were indirectly prompted by it. The Oppositionclaimed to be on this subject not only the champions of the realinterests of the nation, but also its spokesmen, who expressed theopinions and feelings of all the thinking and independent portion of thepeople. That their efforts were overborne they attributed to thesubservience of the Parliament to the ministers, and of the ministers tothe crown. [58] And consequently several motions were made by members ofthat party, the object of which was, in one way or another, to diminishwhat they regarded as the undue influence of the crown. In one instance, and that the most successful, a direct denunciation of that influencewas employed, but the earlier and more frequent proposals were directedto the purification of the House of Commons, and to the strengthening ofits independence. It is remarkable that of these the two which relatedto a subject of which the Commons are usually most especially and mostrightly jealous, the interference of peers in elections, had the worstfortune. In 1780 complaints were made and substantiated that the Duke ofBolton and the Duke of Chandos (who was also Lord-lieutenant of thecounty) had exerted themselves actively in the last election forHampshire. And, in support of motions that these peers "had been guiltyof a breach of the privileges of the House, and an infringement of theliberties and privileges of the Commons of Great Britain, " a case wasadduced in which Queen Anne had dismissed the Bishop of Worcester fromthe office of Almoner for similar interference. Nor did Lord Nugent, arelative of the Duke of Chandos, deny the facts alleged; on thecontrary, he avowed them, and adopted a line of defence which many musthave thought an aggravation of the charge, since it asserted that toprevent such interference was impossible, and therefore the House wouldbut waste its time in trying. However, on this occasion the House tookthe view which he thus suggested to it, postponing all fartherconsideration of the matter for four months; and the charge the Duke ofBolton was shelved in a somewhat similar manner. 

Even had these peers and such practices been censured with the verygreatest severity, the censures could have had but a very limitedeffect. But it was on measures of a wider scope, embracing what began tobe called a Reform of Parliament, that the more zealous members of theOpposition placed their chief reliance. As far as our records of thedebates can be trusted, Lord Chatham, ten years before, had given thefirst hint of the desirableness of some alteration of the existingsystem. On one occasion he denounced the small boroughs as "the rottenpart of the constitution, " thus originating the epithet by which they intime came to be generally described; but more usually he disavowed allidea of disfranchising them, propounding rather a scheme for diminishingtheir importance by a large addition to the county members. However, henever took any steps to carry out his views, thinking, perhaps, that itwas not in the Upper House that such a subject should be first broached. But he had not been long in the grave, when a formal motion for a reformof a different kind was brought forward by one of the members for theCity of London, Alderman Sawbridge, [59] who, in May, 1780, applied forleave to bring in "a bill for shortening the duration of Parliaments. "His own preference he avowed to be for annual Parliaments; but hissuspicion that the House would think such a measure too sweeping hadinduced him to resolve to content himself with aiming at triennialParliaments. As leave was refused, the bill proposed to be introducedmay, perhaps, be thought disentitled to mention here, were it not thatthe circumstance that proposals for shortening the duration ofParliaments are still occasionally brought forward seems to warrant anaccount of a few of the arguments by which those who took the leadingparts in the debate which ensued resisted it. The minister, Lord North, declared that the Alderman had misunderstood the views of our ancestorson the subject; as their desire had been, not that Parliament should beelected annually, but that it should sit every year, an end which hadnow been attained. Fox, on the other hand, while avowing that hithertohe had always opposed similar motions, declared his wish now to see notonly triennial but annual Parliaments, as the sole means of lesseningthe influence of the crown. "If any of his constituents were to ask himto what our present misfortunes were ascribable, he should say the firstcause was the influence of the crown; the second, the influence of thecrown; and the third, the influence of the crown. " But it was replied byBurke, who usually exhausted every question he took in hand, that such abill would rather tend to augment that influence, since "the crown, byits constant stated power, influence, and revenue, would be able to wearout all opposition at elections; that it would not abate the interest orinclination of ministers to apply that interest to the electors; on thecontrary, it would render it more necessary to them, if they desired tohave a majority in Parliament, to increase the means of that influence, to redouble their diligence, and to sharpen dexterity in theapplication. The whole effect of the bill would, therefore, be to removethe application of some part of that influence from the elected to theelectors, and farther to strengthen and extend a court interest alreadygreat and powerful in boroughs. It must greatly increase the cost of aseat in Parliament; and, if contests were frequent, to many they wouldbecome a matter of expense totally ruinous, which no fortunes couldbear. The expense of the last general election was estimated at£1, 500, 000; and he remembered well that several agents for boroughs saidto candidates, 'Sir, your election will cost you £3000 if you areindependent; but, if the ministry supports you, it may be done for£2000, and even less. '" And he adduced the case of Ireland, whereformerly, when "a Parliament sat for the King's life, the ordinarycharge for a seat was £1500; but now, when it sat for eight years, foursessions, the charge was £2500 and upward. " Such a change as wasproposed would cause "triennial corruption, triennial drunkenness, triennial idleness, etc. , and invigorate personal hatreds that wouldnever be allowed to soften. It would even make the member himself morecorrupt, by increasing his dependence on those who could best supporthim at elections. It would wreck the fortunes of those who stood ontheir own private means. It would make the electors more venal, andinjure the whole body of the people who, whether they have votes or not, are concerned in elections. " Finally, it would greatly impair the properauthority of the House itself. "It would deprive it of all power anddignity; and a House of Commons without power and without dignity, either in itself or its members, is no House of Commons for thisconstitution. "

The applicability of some of his arguments--those founded on thedisorders at times of election--has been greatly diminished, if notdestroyed, at the present day, by the limitation of the polling to asingle day. The disfranchisement of the smaller boroughs has neutralizedothers; but the expense of a general election is not believed to havediminished, and that alone seems a strong objection to a system whichwould render them more frequent than they are at present. Mr. Sawbridgecould not obtain the support of a third of his hearers. [60] But hisnotions had partisans in the other House who were not discouraged bysuch a division; and three weeks later the Duke of Richmond broughtforward a Reform Bill on so large a scale that, as the "ParliamentaryHistory" records, "it took him an hour and a half to read it, " and whichcontained provisions for annual Parliaments and universal suffrage. Buthe met with even less favor than the Alderman, and his bill was rejectedwithout a division. 

Still the subject was not allowed to rest. Even after Lord North hadbeen replaced by Lord Rockingham, the demand for Parliamentary Reformwas continued; the young Mr. Pitt making himself the mouth-piece of theReformers, and founding a motion which he made in May, 1782, on "thecorrupt influence of the crown; an influence which has been pointed atin every period as the fertile source of all our miseries; an influencewhich has been substituted in the room of wisdom, of activity, ofexertion, and of success; an influence which has grown up with ourgrowth and strengthened with our strength, but which, unhappily, has notdiminished with our diminution, nor decayed with our decay. " He broughtforward no specific plan, but denounced the close boroughs, and askedemphatically whether it were "representation" for "some decayedvillages, almost destitute of population, to send members to Parliamentunder the control of the Treasury, or at the bidding of some great lordor commoner. " He, however, was defeated, though by the small majority oftwenty. And it is remarkable that when, the next year, he revived thesubject, developing a more precise scheme--akin to that which his fatherhad suggested, of increasing the number of county members, and includingprovisions for the disfranchisement of boroughs which had been convictedof systematic corruption--he was beaten by a far larger majority, [61]the distinctness of his plan only serving to increase the numbers of hisadversaries. A kinsman of Pitt's, Lord Mahon, made an equally futileattempt to diminish the expenses of elections, partly by inflicting veryheavy penalties on parties guilty of either giving or receivingbribes, [62] and partly by prohibiting candidates from providingconveyances for electors; and more than one bill for disfranchisingrevenue-officers, as being specially liable to pressure from thegovernment, and to prevent contractors from sitting in Parliament, wasbrought forward, but was lost, the smallness of the divisions in theirfavor being not the least remarkable circumstance in the early historyof Reform. It was made still more evident that as yet the zeal forReform was confined to a few, when, two years afterward, Pitt, thoughnow invested with all the power of a Prime-minister, was as unable aswhen in opposition to carry a Reform Bill, which in more than one pointforeshadowed the measure of 1832; proposing, as it did, thedisfranchisement of thirty-six small boroughs, which were to bepurchased of their proprietors nearly on the principle adopted in theIrish Union Act, and on the other hand the enfranchisement ofcopyholders; but it differed from Lord Grey's act in that it distributedall the seats thus to be obtained among the counties, with the exceptionof a small addition to the representatives of London and Westminster. However, his supporters very little exceeded the number who had dividedwith him in 1783, and Lord North, who led the Opposition in a speechdenouncing any change, had a majority of seventy-four. After this seconddefeat, Pitt abandoned the question, at all events for the time; beingconvinced, to quote Earl Stanhope's description of his opinion on thesubject, "that nothing but the pressure of the strongest popularfeeling, such as did not then exist, could induce many members to voteagainst their own tenure of Parliament, or in fact againstthemselves. "[63] What, perhaps, weighed with him more, on deciding toacquiesce in this vote as final, was the perception that as yet thequestion excited no strong interest out-of-doors; and when, a few yearslater, some who sought to become leaders of the people endeavored toraise an agitation on the subject, their teachings were too deeplyinfected with the contagion of the French Revolution to allow a wiseruler to think it consistent with his duty to meet them with anythingbut the most resolute discouragement. 

But, concurrently with the first of these motions for ParliamentaryReform, two more direct attacks on the royal influence, and on what wasalleged to be the undue exertion of it, were made in the session of1780. The first was made by Burke, who brought forward a measure ofeconomical reform, demonstrating, in a speech of extraordinary power, avast mass of abuses, arising from corrupt waste in almost everydepartment of the state, and in every department of the royal household, without exception, and proposing a most extensive plan of reform, whichdealt with royal dignities, such as the Duchy of Lancaster and the otherprincipalities annexed to the crown; with the crown-lands, a greatportion of which he proposed to sell; with the offices of the royalhousehold, a sufficient specimen of the abuses on which was furnished bythe statement, that the turnspit in the King's kitchen was a member ofParliament; and with many departments of state, such as the Board ofWorks and the Pay-office, etc. He was studiously cautious in hislanguage, urging, indeed, that his scheme of reform would "extinguishsecret corruption almost to the possibility of its existence, and woulddestroy direct and visible influence equal to the offices of at leastfifty members of Parliament, " but carefully guarding against anyexpressions imputing this secret corruption, this influence which it wasso desirable to destroy, to the crown. But his supporters were lessmoderate; and Mr. Thomas Townsend declared that facts which he mentioned"contained the most unquestionable presumptive evidence of the influenceof the crown; he meant the diverting of its revenues to purposes whichdared not be avowed, in corrupting and influencing the members of bothHouses of Parliament;" and he asserted that "the principle and objectsof the bill were the reduction of the influence of the crown. " The billwas not opposed by the ministers on its principle; but Lord North, evenwhile consenting to its introduction, "did not pledge himself not tooppose it in some or other of its subsequent stages;" and, in fact, hissupporters resisted it in almost every detail, some of them utterlydenying the right of the House to interfere at all with the expenditureof the civil list; others contesting the propriety of alienating thecrown-lands; and a still greater number objecting to the abolition ofsome of the offices which it was proposed to sweep away, such as that ofthe "third Secretary of State, or Secretary for the Colonies, " that of"Treasurer of the Chamber, " and others of a similar character. And, asthe minister succeeded in defeating him on several, though by no meansall, of these points, Burke at last gave up the bill, Fox warning theHouse at the same time that it should be renewed session after session, and boasting that even the scanty success which it had met with had beenworth the struggle. 

The other direct attack was made by Mr. Dunning, who, perhaps, did notthen foresee that he himself was destined soon to fill one of theoffices which had come under the lash of Burke's sarcasm, and who a fewdays afterward, in moving that it was necessary to declare "that theinfluence of the crown had increased, was increasing, and ought to bediminished" rested no small portion of his argument on the treatmentthat Burke's bill had received. He affirmed that, though Lord North haddeclared that "the influence of the crown was not too great, " thedivisions on that bill, and on many other measures which had been underdiscussion, were irrefragable proofs of the contrary. He quoted Hume andJudge Blackstone as testifying to the existence and steady increase ofthat influence, and "could affirm of his own knowledge, and pledge hishonor to the truth of the assertion, that he knew upward of fiftymembers in that House who always voted in the train of the noble lord inthe blue ribbon, [64] but who reprobated and condemned, out of the House, the measures they had supported and voted for in it. " Mr. T. Pitt eveninstanced "the present possession of office by Lord North as anindubitable proof of the enormous influence of the crown. "

It was not strange that Lord North opposed a resolution supported bysuch arguments with all the power of the government, basing his ownopposition chiefly on the wisdom "of maintaining the rule long sinceestablished by Parliament, never to vote abstract propositions. " But hepresently saw that he was in a minority, and was forced to be contentwith adopting and carrying an amendment of Mr. Dundas, one of themembers for Edinburgh, who flattered himself that by the insertion of_now_ he converted a general assertion into a temporary declaration, which might at a future time be disavowed as no longer applicable. Amajority of eighteen[65] affirmed the resolution; and when the moverfollowed it up by a second, declaring that "it is competent to thisHouse to examine into and to correct abuses in the expenditure of thecivil list revenues, as well as in every other branch of the publicrevenue, whenever it shall seem expedient to the wisdom of this House todo so, " though the minister, with what was almost an appeal _admisericordiam_, "implored the House not to proceed, " he did not ventureto take a division, and that resolution also, with one or two othersdesigned to give instant effect to them, were adopted and reported bythe committee to the House in a single evening. [66] The first resolutiondid, in fact, embody a complaint, or at least an assertion, which theRockingham party had constantly made ever since the close of theMarquis's first administration. In a speech which he had made only a fewweeks before, [67] Lord Rockingham himself had declared that "it wasearly in the present reign promulgated as a court axiom that the powerand influence of the crown alone was sufficient to support any set ofmen his Majesty might think proper to call to his councils. " And Burke, in his "short account" of his administration of 1765, had not onlyimputed both its formation and its dismissal to the "express request"and "express command of their royal master, " but in the sentence, "theydiscountenanced and, it is to be hoped, forever abolished, the dangerousand unconstitutional practice of removing military officers for theirvotes in Parliament, " condemned with unmistakable plainness some acts ofthe preceding ministry which were universally understood to have beenforced upon it by the King himself. General Conway had been deprived ofthe colonelcy of his regiment; Lord Rockingham himself, with severalother peers, had been dismissed from Lord-lieutenancies, as a punishmentfor voting against the ministry; such dismissals being a flagrantattempt to put down all freedom of debate in Parliament, which of allits privileges is the one most essential to its usefulness, if not toits very existence. But, as Burke said, the practice had been abandoned, and the first resolution, therefore, as Lord North said, involved nopractical result. It is the second resolution that confers aconstitutional character and importance on this debate. And it is nottoo much to say that no vote of greater value had been come to for manyyears. It might have been considered almost as the assertion of a truismincluded in the power of granting supplies, to declare that theParliament has the right and authority to examine into and correctabuses in the expenditure, if it had not been denied by more than onespeaker on the ministerial side, though not by the Prime-ministerhimself. But that denial made the assertion of the right an imperativeduty; for certainly the exclusive right of authorizing a levy of moneywould lose half its value, if unaccompanied by the other right ofpreventing the waste of the revenue thus raised. 

It may likewise be said that another principle of the parliamentaryconstitution is, by implication, contained in Mr. Dunning's secondresolution, and that the words, "it is competent to this House toexamine into and to correct abuses in the expenditure, " were meant toimply a denial of the competency of the other House to institute, oreven to share in, such an examination. Even if that were the object ofits framer, it only coincided with the view of the peers themselves, avery considerable majority[68] of whom had, a few weeks before, rejecteda motion made by Lord Shelburne for the appointment of "a committee ofmembers of both Houses to examine without delay into the publicexpenditure, " principally on the ground urged by the Secretary of State, Lord Stormont, and by several other peers, that "to inquire into, reform, and control the public expenditure" would be an improperinterference with the privileges of the Commons; the Chief-justice, LordMansfield, even going the length of warning his brother peers that suchinterference might probably lead the Commons "to dispute in their turnthe power of judicature in the last resort exercised by the peers. " LordCamden, on the contrary, affirmed, as a proposition which "no noble lordpresent would deny, that that House had a right to inquire so far as thedisposal of public moneys came under their cognizance as a deliberativebody. " And in the Lower House itself, Burke, in his speech in favor ofhis Bill for Economical Reform, went even farther than Lord Camden, andblamed the House of Lords for rejecting Lord Shelburne's motion on sucha ground. "They had gone, " he said, "farther in self-denial than theutmost jealousy of the Commons could have required. A power of examiningaccounts, of censuring, correcting, and punishing the Commons had never, that he knew of, thought of denying to the Lords. It was something morethan a century ago that the Commons had voted the Lords a useless body. They had now voted themselves so. " And it would seem that the Lordsthemselves, to a certain extent, retracted this, their self-denyingvote, when, before the end of the same session, they discussed Burke'sBill for Economical Reform, and passed it, though it was a money-bill, "containing extraneous enactments, " and as such contravened one of theirown standing orders which had been passed in the beginning of QueenAnne's reign, when the system of "tacking, " as it was called, hadexcited great discontent, which was not confined to themselves. Thepropriety of rejecting the bill on that ground was vigorously urged bythe only two lawyers who took part in the debate, the Chancellor, LordThurlow, and Lord Loughborough, whose object was avowedly thus to give apractical proof that the Lords "had not voted themselves useless. " Buteven those who disregarded their advice fully asserted the right of thepeers "to exercise their discretion as legislators. " We have noticedthis matter on a previous occasion. The privilege claimed by theCommons, both as to its origin and its principle, has been carefullyexamined by Hallam, who has pointed out that in its full exclusivenessit is not older than Charles II. , since the Convention Parliament of1660 "made several alterations in undoubted money-bills, to which theCommons did not object. "[69] And, though his attachment to Whigprinciples might have inclined him to take their part in any dispute onthe subject, he nevertheless thinks that they have strained both"precedent and constitutional analogy" in their assertion of thisprivilege, which is "an anomaly that can hardly rest on any other groundof defence than such a series of precedents as establish aconstitutional usage. " The usage which for two centuries was establishedin this case by the good-sense of both parties clearly was, that theLords could never originate a money-bill, nor insert any clause in oneincreasing or even altering the burden laid by one on the people, butthat they were within their right in absolutely rejecting one. But sucha right has a tendency to lapse through defect of exercise; and we shallhereafter see that "the disposition to make encroachments, " which inthis matter Hallam imputes to the Commons, has led them in the presentreign to carry their pretensions to a height which at a former periodhad been practically ignored by the one House, and formally disclaimedby the other. 

It may be remarked that Mr. Dunning's success in carrying his firstresolution did in itself, to a certain extent, disprove the truth ofthat resolution, since, if the influence of the crown had been such ashe represented it, it must have been sufficient to insure its rejection. But that resolution, and a new statute, of which in a previous sessionhe had been one of the principal promoters, are reckoned by LordStanhope as among the chief causes of the disgraceful riots of 1780. Inthe summer of 1778 he had seconded and supported with great eloquencethe repeal of some of the penal statutes against the Roman Catholicswhich had been passed in the reign of William III. It was the first blowat that system of religious intolerance which for nearly a century hadbeen one of the leading principles, as it had been also the chiefdisgrace, of the constitution; and it was passed with scarcely anyopposition by both Houses. As, however, the statute which it repealedhad been enacted before the Scotch Union, the repeal did not extend toScotland, and it was necessary, therefore, to bring in a separatemeasure for that kingdom. But the intelligence that such a proceedingwas in contemplation excited great wrath among the Scotch Presbyterians, who, in the hope of defeating it, established a Protestant Associationfor the defence of what they called the Protestant interest, and electedas its president Lord George Gordon, a young nobleman whose acts on morethan one occasion gave reason to doubt the soundness of his intellect. Against any relaxation whatever of the restrictions on the RomanCatholics the Association sent up petitions to the House and to theKing, couched in language the wildness of which was hardly consistentwith the respect due to Parliament or to the sovereign. Apparently inthe hope of mitigating its opposition, the Houses the next year passedan act, similar in principle, to relax some of the restrictions stillimposed on Protestant dissenting ministers by some of the subscriptionswhich were required of them. But, as in the reign of Charles II. , thePresbyterian hatred of the Roman Catholics was too uncompromising to beappeased in such a manner. And when Lord George found the House ofCommons itself acknowledging the danger with which the constitution wasthreatened by the influence of the crown, he saw in their vote ajustification for all his alarms, since he had adopted as one of hismost settled opinions the belief that George III. Was himself a Papistat heart; and, under the influence of this strange idea, he drew up apetition to Parliament which he invited all the members of theAssociation to accompany him to present. His summons was received withenthusiasm by his followers. The number who, in obedience to it, mustered in St. George's Fields, which he had appointed as the place ofrendezvous, was not reckoned by any one at less than fifty thousand, andsome calculations even doubled that estimate. Whatever the number mayoriginally have been, it was speedily swelled by the junction of largebands of the worst characters in the metropolis, who soon began todisplay their strength by every kind of outrage. They commenced byattacking some of the Roman Catholic chapels, which they burnt; and, their audacity increasing at the sight of their exploits, they proceededto assault the houses of different members of Parliament who had votedfor the measures which had offended them. Because the Chief-justice, Lord Mansfield, had lately presided at a trial where a Roman Catholichad been acquitted, they sacked and burnt his house, and tried to murderhimself. The magistrates, afraid of exposing themselves to the fury ofsuch a mob, kept for the most part out of the way; and though the troopshad been put under arms, and several regiments from the rural districtshad been brought up to London in haste, the military officers wereafraid to act without orders. Left to work their pleasure almost withoutresistance, the rioters attacked the different prisons, burnt Newgateand released all the prisoners, and made more than one attack on theBank of England, where, however, fortunately the guard was strong enoughto repel them. But still no active measures were taken to crush theriot. The belief was general that the soldiers might not act at all, or, at all events, not fire on rioters, till an hour after the Riot Act hadbeen read and the mob had been warned to disperse; and no magistratecould be found to brave its fury by reading it. There seemed no obstacleto prevent the rioters from making themselves masters of the wholecapital, had it not been for the firmness of the King himself, who, whenall the proper authorities failed, showed himself in fact as well as inname the Chief Magistrate of the kingdom. [70] He summoned a PrivyCouncil, and urged the members to adopt instant measures of repression;and, when some of the ministers seemed to waver, he put the questionhimself to the Attorney-general whether the interpretation put on theRiot Act, which seemed to him inconsistent with common-sense, werejustified by the law. Wedderburn unhesitatingly replied that it was not;that "if a mob were committing a felony, as by burning dwelling-houses, and could not be prevented by other means, the military, according tothe law of England, might and ought to be immediately ordered to fireupon them, the reading of the Riot Act being wholly unnecessary undersuch circumstances. "[71] The King insisted on this opinion beinginstantly acted on; a proclamation was issued, and orders were sent fromthe Adjutant-general's office that the soldiers were to act at oncewithout waiting for directions from the civil magistrates. A few hoursnow sufficed to restore tranquillity. The Chief-justice, in his place inthe House of Lords, subsequently declared Wedderburn's opinion, and theorders given in reliance upon it, to be in strict conformity with thecommon law, laying down, as the principle on which such aninterpretation of the law rested, the doctrine that in such a case themilitary were acting, "not as soldiers, but as citizens; no matterwhether their coats were red or brown, they were legally employed inpreserving the laws and the constitution;"[72] and Wedderburn, whobefore the end of the year became Chief-justice of the Common Pleas, repeated the doctrine more elaborately in a charge from the Bench. Itwas a lesson of value to the whole community. It was quite true that theconstitution placed the army in a state of dependence on the civilpower. But, when that doctrine was so misunderstood as to be supposed togive temporary immunity to outrage, it was most important that such amisconstruction should be corrected, and that it should be universallyknown that military discipline does not require the soldier to abstainfrom the performance of the duty incumbent on every citizen, theprevention of crime. 

Notes:

[Footnote 33: It is worth while to preserve the amount, if for no otherreason, for the contrast that the expenditure and resources of thekingdom a hundred years ago present to those of the present day. Thesupply required in 1764 was in round numbers £7, 712, 000; in 1755, beforethe war broke out, £4, 073, 000, and even that included a million for theaugmentation of the army and navy. In 1761, when the war was at itsheight, the sum voted was £19, 616, 000. ]

[Footnote 34: The report in the "Parliamentary History, " xvi. , 37, says:"This act (the Stamp Act) passed the Commons almost without debate; twoor three members spoke against it, but without force or apparentinterest, except a vehement harangue from Colonel Barré (date, March 6, 1765). "]

[Footnote 35: Lord Stanhope ("History of England, " v. , 131) quotes aletter of Dr. Franklin to one of his friends in America, in which, afterdeploring the impossibility of preventing the act from being passed, heexpresses a hope that "frugality and industry will go a great way towardindemnifying us. " And he complied with Mr. Grenville's request to selecta person to act as Distributor of Stamps in Pennsylvania whom he thoughtlikely to be generally acceptable. ]

[Footnote 36: These statements and arguments of Franklin are taken fromdifferent parts of his examination before the House of Commons, aspreserved in the "Parliamentary History, " xvi. , 137-160. ]

[Footnote 37: In the Assembly of Virginia, one of the members--PatrickHenry--after declaiming with bitterness against the supposed arbitrarymeasures of the present reign, exclaimed, "Caesar had his Brutus, Charles I. His Oliver Cromwell, and George III. --" A cry of "Treason!"was uttered. The Speaker called Mr. Henry to order, and declared hewould quit the chair unless he were supported by the House inrestraining such intemperate speeches. --Adolphus, _History of England_, i. , 188. ]

[Footnote 38: On this point the law has been affirmed by a judge of highreputation to be still what Lord Rockingham and his colleagues asserted. In 1868, on the trial of Governor Eyre for an indictment arising out ofdisturbances in Jamaica, Judge Blackburne laid it down "that, althoughthe general rule is that the Legislative Assembly has the sole right ofimposing taxes in the colony, yet, when the Imperial Legislature choosesto impose taxes, according to the rule of English law they have a_right_ to do it. "]

[Footnote 39: See his speech on American taxation in April, 1774. ]

[Footnote 40: The chief divisions were: in the Commons, 275 to 167; inthe Lords, 105 to 71. ]

[Footnote 41: "History of England, " vol. V. , c. Xlv. , p. 218, ed. 1862. ]

[Footnote 42: "Lives of the Chancellors, " c. Cxliii. , life of LordCamden. ]

[Footnote 43: Every political student will recollect Burke's descriptionof it as "a cabinet so variously inlaid, such a piece of diversifiedmosaic, such a tessellated pavement without cement--here a bit of blackstone, there a bit of white--patriots and courtiers, King's friends andrepublicans, Whigs and Tories, treacherous friends and open enemies, "etc. --_Speech on American Taxation_. ]

[Footnote 44: In a debate in the year 1776, on some measures adopted forthe conduct of the war, the Duke of Grafton said: "In that year (1767), when the extraordinary expenses incurred on account of America were laidbefore the House of Commons, the House rose as one man and insisted thatthat country should contribute to the burdens brought on by the militaryestablishment there, and a motion was made for bringing in a bill forthat purpose. I strenuously opposed the measure, as big with theconsequences it has since, unfortunately, produced. I spoke to myfriends upon the occasion, but they all united in the opinion that thetide was too strong to expect either to stem or turn it, so as toprevent whatever might be offered in that shape from passing into a law. Finding that all my efforts would be vain, I was compelled to submit, but was resolved, as far as lay in my power, to prevent the effect; and, while I gave way, to do it in such a manner as would cause the leastharm. I accordingly proposed the tea-duty as the most palatable;because, though it answered the main purpose of those with whom taxationwas a favorite measure, it was doing America an immediate benefit, for Iprocured the shilling a pound duty to be taken off, and threepence to belaid on in lieu thereof; so that, in fact, it was ninepence a poundsaved to America. However, the attempt was received in America as Iexpected it would be--it immediately caused disturbances and universaldissatisfaction. "--_Parliamentary History_, xviii. , 134. ]

[Footnote 45: This unpopularity had been aggravated by another measurewhich was among the last acts of Mr. Grenville's ministry. The MutinyAct in the Colonies was renewed for two years at a time, and, at itsrenewal in the spring of 1765, a clause was added which required theColonists to furnish the troops with "fire, candles, vinegar, salt, bedding, utensils for cooking, and liquors, such as beer, cider, andrum. " The Assemblies of several States passed resolutions stronglycondemning this new imposition; but, as the dissatisfaction did not leadto any overt acts of disturbance, it seems to have been unnoticed inEngland at the time, or the clause would probably have been repealed byLord Rockingham; and eventually the Assembly of New York seems to havewithdrawn its objections to it, presenting an address to Sir H. Moore, the Governor, in which "they declared their intention of making therequired provision for the troops. "--Lord E. Fitzmaurice, _Life of LordShelburne_, ii. , 61. ]

[Footnote 46: The "Memoirs of Judge Livingstone" record his expressionof opinion as early as 1773, that "it was intolerable that a continentlike America should be governed by a little island three thousand milesdistant. " "America, " said he, "must and will be independent. " And in the"Memoirs of General Lee" we find him speaking to Mr. Patrick Henry, whoin 1766 had been one of the most violent of all the denouncers of theEnglish policy (see _ante_, p. 63), of "independence" as "a goldencastle in the air which he had long dreamed of. "]

[Footnote 47: See the whole speech, "Parliamentary History, " xvi. , 853. Many of the taxes he denounced as so injurious to the Britishmanufacturers, "that it must astonish any reasonable man to think how sopreposterous a law could originally obtain existence from a BritishLegislature. "]

[Footnote 48: The division was: for the amendment, 142; against it, 204. ]

[Footnote 49: The words of the "preamble, " on which Burke dwelt in 1774, were: "Whereas it is expedient that a revenue should be raised in yourMajesty's dominions in America for making a more certain and adequateprovision for defraying the charge of the administration of justice andsupport of civil government in such provinces where it shall be foundnecessary, and toward farther defraying the expenses of defending, protecting, and securing: the said dominions, be it enacted, " etc. ]

[Footnote 50: "Memoirs and Correspondence of Jefferson. " Quoted by LordStanhope, "History of England, " vi. , 14. ]

[Footnote 51: At Lexington, April 19, 1775. ]

[Footnote 52: Lord Stanhope, however, has reason on his side when hecalls the words of this petition "vague and general, " though "kindly andrespectful;" and when he points to the language of extreme bitternessagainst England indulged in by Franklin at the very time that thispetition was voted. He, however, expresses a belief that even then "theprogress of civil war might have been arrested, " which seems doubtful. But it is impossible not to agree with his lordship in condemning therefusal by the ministry to take any notice of the petition, on theground that the Congress was a self-constituted body, with no claim toauthority or recognition, and one which had already sanctioned thetaking up arms against the King. --_History of England_, vi. , 93, 95, 105. ]

[Footnote 53: It is probable, however, that the greater part of theHanoverian soldiers were Protestants. ]

[Footnote 54: Lord Campbell, who, in his "Life of Lord Bathurst, "asserts that the legality of the measure turns upon the justconstruction of the Act of Settlement, adduces Thurlow's language onthis subject as "a proof that he considered that he had the privilegewhich has been practised by other Attorney-generals and Chancellors too, in debate, of laying down for law what best suited his purpose at themoment. " It does not seem quite certain that the noble and learnedbiographer has not more than once in these biographies allowed himself asimilar license in the description of questions of party politics. ]

[Footnote 55: In the debates on the subject it was stated that thenumber of Hanoverians quartered in the two fortresses was nineteenhundred, and the number of British troops left in them was two thousand. Moreover, as has been already remarked, though Lord Shelburne spoke ofarming Roman Catholics, it is probable that the Hanoverians were mostlyProtestants. ]

[Footnote 56: The Preliminary or Provisional Articles, as they werecalled, of which the Definitive Treaty was but a copy, were signed atParis, November 30, 1782, during Lord Shelburne's administration. Butthe Definitive Treaty was not signed till the 3d of September of thefollowing year, under the Coalition Ministry, which was turned out a fewweeks afterward. ]

[Footnote 57: We shall see in a subsequent chapter that even in thisreign of George III. Pitt laid down the true principles of ourlegislation for the colonies in his bill for the better government ofCanada. ]

[Footnote 58: An admirably reasoned passage on the influence of thecrown, especially in the reigns of the two first Hanoverian Kings, willbe found in Hallam, "Constitutional History, " c. Xvi. , vol. Iii. , p. 392, ed. 1832. ]

[Footnote 59: The "Parliamentary History" shows that he had broughtforward the same motion before 1780; since Lord Nugent, who replied tohim, said "the same motion had been made for some years past, and hadbeen silently decided on. " From which it seems that it was neverdiscussed at any length till May 8, 1780. ]

[Footnote 60: On the division the numbers were: for the motion, 90;against it, 182. ]

[Footnote 61: The division in 1782 was: 161 to 141; in 1783, 293 to149. ]

[Footnote 62: How systematic and open bribery was at this time is shownby an account of Sheridan's expenses at Stafford in 1784, of which thefirst item is--248 burgesses, paid £5 5s. Each, £1302. --Moore's _Life ofSheridan_, i. , 405. ]

[Footnote 63: "Life of Pitt, " i. , 359. ]

[Footnote 64: Lord North was a Knight of the Garter, the only commoner, except Sir R. Walpole, who received that distinction in the lastcentury, and the latest, with the exception of Lord Castlereagh. On whomit has been conferred. ]

[Footnote 65: 233 to 315. ]

[Footnote 66: It is perhaps worth pointing out, as a specimen of thepractical manner in which parliamentary business was transacted at thattime, that this great debate--in which (the House being in committee)Mr. Dunning himself spoke three times, and Lord North, Mr. T. Pitt, Mr. Fox, the Speaker (Sir F. Norton), the Attorney-general, General Conway, Governor Pownall, the Lord-advocate, and several other members tookpart--was concluded by twelve o'clock. ]

[Footnote 67: February 8, 1780, on Lord Shelburne's motion for aninquiry into the public expenditure. --_Parliamentary History_, xx. , 1346. ]

[Footnote 68: 101 to 55. ]

[Footnote 69: "Constitutional History, " iii. , 43. ]

[Footnote 70: His language is said to have been that "there was at allevents one Magistrate in the kingdom who would do his duty. "--LordStanhope, _History of England_, vii. , 48. ]

[Footnote 71: "Lives of the Lord Chancellors, " c. Clxvii. ]

[Footnote 72: Lord Stanhope's "History of England, " vii, 56. ]

CHAPTER IV. 

Changes of Administration. --The Coalition Ministry. --The Establishmentof the Prince of Wales. --Fox's India Bill. --The King Defeats it by theAgency of Lord Temple. --The Ministry is Dismissed, and Succeeded by Mr. Pitt's Administration. --Opposition to the New Ministry in the House ofCommons. --Merits of the Contest between the Old and the NewMinistry. --Power of Pitt. --Pitt's India Bill. --Bill for the Governmentof Canada. --The Marriage of the Prince of Wales to Mrs. Fitzherbert. --The King becomes Deranged. --Proposal of aRegency. --Opinions of Various Writers on the Course adopted. --Spread ofRevolutionary Societies and Opinions. --Bills for the Repression ofSedition and Treason. --The Alien Act. --The Traitorous CorrespondenceAct. --Treason and Sedition Bills. --Failure of some Prosecutions underthem. 

The occurrences of the next year brought the question of the influenceof the crown into greater prominence. Lord Rockingham's administration, unfortunately, came to a premature termination by his death at thebeginning of July. With a strange arrogance, Fox claimed the right ofdictating the choice of his successor to the King, making hispretensions the more unwarrantable by the character of the person whomhe desired to nominate, the Duke of Portland, who, though a man of vastproperty and considerable borough influence, was destitute of ability ofany kind, and had not even any of that official experience which in somesituations may at times compensate or conceal the want of talent. [73]The King preferred Lord Shelburne, a statesman whose capacity wasconfessedly of a very high order, who had more than once been Secretaryof State, [74] and who had been recognized as the leader of what wassometimes called the Chatham section of the Whigs, ever since the deathof the great Earl. Indeed, if George III. Had been guided by his ownwishes and judgment alone, he would have placed him at the Treasury, inpreference to Lord Rockingham, three months before. But, during the lastthree months, jealousies had arisen between him and Fox, his colleaguein office, who charged him with concealing from him the knowledge ofvarious circumstances, the communication of which he had a right torequire. It was more certain that on one or two points connected withthe negotiations with the United States there had been divisions betweenthem, and that the majority of the cabinet had agreed with LordShelburne. Lord Shelburne, therefore, became Prime-minister, [75] andFox, with some of his friends, resigned; Fox indemnifying himself by aviolent philippic against "those men who were now to direct the counselsof the country, " and whom he proceeded to describe as "men whom neitherpromises could bind nor principles of honor could secure; who wouldabandon fifty principles for the sake of power, and forget fiftypromises when they were no longer necessary to their ends; who, he hadno doubt, to secure themselves in the power which they had by the laborof others obtained, would strive to strengthen it by any means whichcorruption could procure. "[76]

Fox at once went into what even those most disposed to cherish hismemory admit to have been a factious opposition. He caballed with thevery men to whom he had hitherto been most vehemently opposed for thesole object of expelling Lord Shelburne from office. And when, at thebeginning of the session of 1783, the merits of the preliminary articlesof peace which had been provisionally concluded with the United Statescame under discussion, though the peers approved of them, in the Houseof Commons he defeated the ministers in two separate divisions, [77] andthus rendered their retention of office impossible. He had gained thisvictory by uniting with Lord North and a portion of the Tory party whom, ever since his dismissal from office in 1774, he had been unwearied indenouncing, threatening Lord North himself with impeachment. And he nowused it to compel the King to intrust the chief office in the governmentto the very man whom his Majesty had refused to employ in such an officesix months before. 

The transactions of the next twelve months exhibit in a striking lightmore than one part of the practical working of our monarchical andparliamentary constitution, not only in its correspondence with, but, what is more important to notice, in its occasional partial deviationsfrom, strict theory. The theory has sometimes been expressed in theformula, "The King reigns, but does not govern. " But, like many anotherterse apophthegm, it conveys an idea which requires some modificationbefore it can be regarded as an entirely correct representation of thefact; and the King himself, especially if endowed with fair capacity andforce of character, imbued with earnest convictions, and animated by agenuine zeal for the honor and welfare of his kingdom, will be likely todwell more on the possible modifications than on the rigid theory. Eventhose who insist most on the letter of the theory will not deny that, ifthe King has not actual power, he has at least great influence; and theline between authority and influence is hard to draw. One of George theThird's earliest ministers had explained to his Majesty that theprinciple of the constitution was, "that the crown had an undoubtedright to choose its ministers, and that it was the duty of subjects tosupport them, unless there were some very strong and urgent reasons tothe contrary. "[78] And such a doctrine was too much in harmony with thefeelings of George III. Himself not to be cordially accepted. For GeorgeIII. Was by no means inclined to be a _Roi fainéant_. No sovereign wasever penetrated with a more conscientious desire to do his duty to hispeople. Conscious, perhaps, that his capacity was rather solid thanbrilliant, he gave unremitting attention to the affairs of the nation inevery department of the government; and, perhaps not very unnaturally, conceived that his doing so justified him, as far as he might be able, in putting a constraint on his ministers to carry out his views. Thus, he had notoriously induced Lord North to persevere in the late civil warin America long after that minister had seen the hopelessness of thecontest; and it was, probably, only the knowledge of the strength of hisfeelings on that subject, and of his warm attachment to that minister, that caused the Parliament so long to withstand all the eloquence of theadvocates of peace, and the still stronger arguments of circumstances. He might fairly think that he had now greater reason to adhere to hisown judgment; for Fox's recommendation of the Duke of Portland inpreference to Lord Shelburne was an act not only of unwarrantablepresumption, but of inconceivable folly, since there was no comparisonbetween the qualifications of the two men; and the coalition by which, six months afterward, he had, as it were, revenged himself for therebuff, and had driven Lord Shelburne from office, was, as the King wellknew, and as even Fox's own friends did not conceal from themselves, almost universally condemned out-of-doors. [79] To this combination, therefore, his Majesty tried every expedient to escape from yielding. And when Pitt's well-considered and judicious refusal of the governmentleft him no alternative but that of submission to Fox's dictation, itwould hardly have been very unnatural if his disposition and attitudetoward a ministry which had thus forced itself upon him had been thoseattributed to him by Lord John Russell, of "an enemy constantly on thewatch against it. "[80] But for some time that was not the impression ofthe ministers themselves. In July, when they had been in office morethan three months, Fox admitted that he had never behaved toward them asif he were displeased with them, and that he had no project ofsubstituting any other administration for the present one. [81] And histemperate treatment of them was the more remarkable, because a flagrantblunder of Burke (who filled the post of Paymaster), in reinstating someclerks who had been dismissed by his predecessor for dishonesty, hadmanifestly weakened the ministry in the House of Commons;[82] while inanother case, in which the King had clearly in no slight degree apersonal right to have his opinion consulted and his wishes accepted bythem as the guide for their conduct, the establishment to be arrangedfor the Prince of Wales, whose twenty-first birthday was approaching, Fox persuaded the Parliament to settle on the young Prince an allowanceof so large an amount that some even of his own colleagues disliked itas extravagant;[83] while the King himself reasonably disapproved bothof the amount and of the mode of giving it, the amount being largebeyond all precedent, and the fact of its being given by Parliamentrendering the Prince entirely independent of his parental control, ofwhich his conduct had given abundant proof that he stood greatly inneed. 

That he presently changed his line of behavior toward them was caused bytheir introduction of a bill which he regarded as aimed in no smalldegree at his own prerogative and independence--the celebrated IndiaBill, by which, in the November session, Fox proposed to abrogate allthe charters which different sovereigns had granted to the East IndiaCompany, to abolish all vested rights of either the Company orindividuals, and to confer on a board of seven persons, to be named byParliament, the entire administration of all the territories in any wayoccupied by the Company. It was at once objected to by the Opposition inthe House of Commons, now led by Mr. Pitt, as a measure thoroughlyunconstitutional, on the twofold ground that such an abrogation offormally granted charters, and such an extinction of vested rights, wasabsolutely without precedent; and also that one real, if concealed, object of the bill was to confer on the ministers who had framed andintroduced it so vast an amount of patronage as would render themabsolute masters of the House of Commons, and indirectly, therefore, ofthe King himself, who would be practically disabled from ever dismissingthem. That such a revocation of ancient charters, and such an immovableestablishment of an administration, were inconsistent with theprinciples of the constitution, was not a position taken up by Pitt inthe heat of debate, but was his deliberate opinion, as may be fairlyinferred from his assertion of it in a private letter[84] to his friendthe Duke of Rutland. It may, however, be doubted whether the epithet"unconstitutional" could be properly applied to the bill on eitherground. There is, indeed, a certain vagueness in the meaning, or at allevents in the frequent use of this adjective. Sometimes it is used toimply a violation of the provisions of the Great Charter, or of itslater development, the Bill of Rights; sometimes to impute some imagineddeparture from the principles which guided the framers of thoseenactments. But in neither sense does it seem applicable to this bill. To designate the infringement or revocation of a charter by such adescription would be to affirm the existence of a right in the sovereignto invest a charter, from whatever motive it may originally have beengranted, with such a character of inviolability or perpetuity that noParliament should, on ever such strong grounds of public good, have thepower of interfering with it. And to attribute such a power to the crownappears less consistent with the limitations affixed to the royalprerogative by the constitution, than to regard all trusts created bythe crown as subject to parliamentary revision in the interests of theentire nation. On the second ground the description seems even lessapplicable. An arrangement of patronage is a mere matter of detail, notof principle. For the minister to propose such an arrangement as shouldsecure for himself and his party a perpetual monopoly of power andoffice might be grasping and arrogant; for Parliament (and Parliamentconsists of the sovereign and the peers, as well as of the House ofCommons) to assent to such an arrangement might be short-sighted andimpolitic; but it is not clear that either the minister in proposingsuch an enactment, or the Parliament in adopting it, would be violatingeither the letter or the spirit of the constitution. Every member of theGoverning Board was to be appointed by the Parliament itself; and, though unquestionably Fox would have the nomination, and though he couldreckon on the support of the majority in the House of Commons for thosewhom he might select, still it was a strictly constitutional machinerythat he was putting in motion. 

A measure, however, may be very objectionable without beingunconstitutional, and such a view of the India Bill the progress of thedebates in the House of Commons disposed the King to take of it. In theHouse of Peers Lord Thurlow described the bill as one to take the crownoff his head and place it on that of Mr. Fox; and, even without adoptingthat description to its full extent, the King might easily regard thebill as a very unscrupulous attempt to curtail his legitimate authorityand influence. He became most anxious to prevent the bill from beingpresented to him for his royal assent. And it was presently representedto him that the knowledge of his desire would probably induce the Lordsto reject it. Among the peers who had attacked the bill on its firstintroduction into their House was Earl Temple, whose father had taken soprominent a part in the negotiations for the formation of a new ministryin 1765, and who had himself been Lord-lieutenant of Ireland under LordShelburne's administration. But he had not thought it prudent to dividethe House against its first reading, and felt great doubts as to hissuccess in a division on the second, unless he could fortify hisopposition by some arguments as yet untried. He had no difficulty infinding a willing and effective coadjutor. Since the retirement of LordBute from court, no peer had made himself so personally acceptable tothe King as Lord Thurlow, who had been Lord Chancellor during the lastfour years of Lord North's administration, and, in consequence, as itwas generally understood, of the earnest request of George III. , hadbeen allowed to retain the seals by Lord Rockingham, and afterward byLord Shelburne. What special attraction drew the King toward him, unlessit were some idea of his honesty and attachment to the King himself--onboth of which points subsequent events proved his Majesty to be whollymistaken--it is not very easy to divine; but his interest with the Kingat this time was notorious, and equally notorious was the deepresentment which he cherished against Fox and Lord North, of whom, as healleged, the former had proscribed and the latter had betrayed him. Tohim, therefore, Lord Temple now applied for advice as to the best modeof working on the King's mind, and, with his assistance, drew up amemorial on the character of the India Bill, on its inevitable fruits ifit should pass (which it described as an extinction of "more than halfof the royal power, and a consequent disabling of his Majesty for therest of his reign"), and on the most effectual plan for defeating it;for which end it was suggested that his Majesty should authorize someone to make some of the Lords "acquainted with his wishes" that the billshould be rejected. [85]

George III. Eagerly adopted the suggestion, and drew up a brief note, which he intrusted to Lord Temple himself, and which stated that "hisMajesty allowed Earl Temple to say that whoever voted for the India Billwas not only not his friend, but would be considered by him as hisenemy. And, if these words were not strong enough, Earl Temple mightwhatever words he might deem stronger and more to the purpose. "[86]

Lord Temple lost no time in availing himself of the permission thusgranted him; and, as it was by no means his object to keep thetransaction secret, his conduct was made the subject of severe commentby the Prime-minister himself the next time that the bill was mentionedin the Upper House. The Duke of Portland, indeed, professed to havelearned it only from common report, and to hope that the report wasunfounded, since, were it true, "he should be wanting in the duty heowed to the public as a minister if he did not take the opportunity ofproposing a measure upon it to their lordships that would prove thatthey felt the same jealousy, the same detestation, the same desire tomark and stigmatize every attempt to violate the constitution as hedid. " Lord Temple, in reply, abstained from introducing any mention ofthe King's opinions or wishes, but avowed plainly that he had used hisprivilege as a peer to solicit an interview with his Majesty, and thatat that interview "he had given his advice. What that advice had been hewould not then say; it was lodged in the breast of his Majesty, norwould he declare the purport of it without the royal consent, or till hesaw a proper occasion. But, though he would not declare affirmativelywhat his advice to his sovereign was, he would tell their lordshipsnegatively what it was not. It was not friendly to the principle andobjects of the bill. "[87] The debate lasted till near midnight. Of thespeakers, a great majority declared against the bill; and, on thedivision, it was rejected by a majority of nineteen. [88] This took placeon the 15th of December. On the 18th, as the ministers had notresigned--not regarding a single defeat in the Upper House as anecessary cause for such a step--the King sent messengers to them todemand their resignation, and the next day it was publicly announced inthe House of Commons that Pitt had accepted the office ofPrime-minister. 

But Fox, who had anticipated the dismissal of himself and hiscolleagues, was by no means inclined to acquiesce in it, or to yieldwithout a struggle; and on the 17th one of his partisans in the House ofCommons, Mr. Baker, one of the members for Hertfordshire, broughtforward some resolutions on the subject of the late division in theHouse of Lords. He professed to rest them solely on rumors, but he urgedthat "it was the duty of that House to express its abhorrence even ofthat rumor, " since by such an action as was alleged "that responsibilityof ministers which was the life of the constitution would be taken away, and with it the principal check that the public had upon the crown. " Andhe urged "the members of that House, as the guardians of theconstitution, to stand forward and preserve it from ruin, to maintainthat equilibrium between the three branches of the Legislature, and thatindependence without which the constitution could no longer exist, " andwith this view to resolve "that to report any opinion, or pretendedopinion, of his Majesty upon any bill or other proceeding depending ineither House of Parliament, with a view to influence the votes of themembers, is a high crime and misdemeanor, derogatory to the honor of thecrown, a breach of the fundamental privileges of Parliament, andsubversive of the constitution of the country. " It was opposed by Pitt, chiefly on the ground that Mr. Baker only based the necessity for such aresolution on common report, which he, fairly enough, denied to be asufficient justification of it; and partly on the undoubted and"inalienable right of peers, either individually or collectively, toadvise his Majesty, whenever they thought the situation of publicaffairs made such a step an essential part of their duty. " But it wassupported by Lord North as "necessary on constitutional principles, "since the acts so generally reported and believed "affected the freedomof debate;" and by Fox, who declared that the action which was reported, if true, "struck at the great bulwark of our liberties, and went to theabsolute annihilation, not of our chartered rights only, but of thoseradical and fundamental ones which are paramount to all charters, whichwere consigned to our care by the sovereign disposition of Nature, whichwe cannot relinquish without violating the most sacred of allobligations, to which we are entitled, not as members of society, but asindividuals and as men; the right of adhering steadily and uniformly tothe great and supreme laws of conscience and duty; of preferring, at allhazards and without equivocation, those general and substantialinterests which members have sworn to prefer; of acquitting themselveshonorably to their constituents, to their friends, to their own minds, and to that public whose trustees they were, and for whom they acted. "He avowed his conviction that rumor in this instance spoke truth, and, affirming that "the responsibility of ministers is the only pledge andsecurity the people of England possesses against the infinite abuses sonatural to the exercise of royal powers, " argued that, if "this greatbulwark of the constitution were once removed, the people would becomein every respect the slaves and property of despotism. This must be thenecessary consequence of secret influence. " He argued that the soledistinction between an absolute and a limited monarchy was that thesovereign in one is a despot, and may do as he pleases, but that in theother he is himself subjected to the laws, and consequently is not atliberty to advise with any one in public affairs who is not responsiblefor that advice, and that the constitution has clearly directed hisnegative to operate under the same wise restrictions. Mr. Baker'sresolution was carried by a large majority; but, as we have seen, didnot deter the King from dismissing the ministry. 

The conduct of George III. In this transaction has been discussed bywriters of both parties with such candor that the Tory historian, LordStanhope, while evidently desirous to defend it by implication, passes aslight censure on it in the phrase that "the course pursued by the Kingwas most unusual, and most extreme, and most undesirable to establish asa precedent;"[89] while, on the other hand, so rigid a Whig as LordCampbell urges in his favor "that if it be ever excusable in a King ofEngland to cabal against his ministers, George III. May well be defendedfor the course he now took, for they had been forced upon him by afactious intrigue, and public opinion was decidedly in his favor. "[90]But to those who regard not the excuse which previous provocation may beconceived in some degree to furnish to human infirmity, but only thestrict theory and principle of the constitution on which the doctrine ofthe responsibility of the ministers and the consequent irresponsibilityof the sovereign rests, Lord Campbell's conditional justification forthe communication made through Lord Temple will hardly appearadmissible. We cannot be sure how far Mr. Grenville's "Diary" is to betrusted for transactions in which he was not personally concerned, orfor conversations at which he was not present; but in giving anaccount[91] of some of the occurrences of the spring of 1766, while LordRockingham was Prime-minister, we find him relating a conversationbetween the King and Lord Mansfield on the ministerial measure forconciliating the American Colonies by the repeal of the Stamp Act, combined, however, with an assertion of the _right_ to tax. "He (LordMansfield) took notice of the King's name having been bandied about in avery improper manner; to which the King assented, saying he had beenvery much displeased at it, as thinking it unconstitutional to have hisname mentioned as a means to sway any man's opinion in any businesswhich was before Parliament; and that all those who approached him knewthat to be his sentiment. Lord Mansfield said he differed from hisMajesty in that opinion, for that, though it would be unconstitutionalto endeavor by his Majesty's name to carry questions in Parliament, yetwhere the lawful rights of the King and Parliament were to be assertedand maintained, he thought the making his Majesty's opinion in supportof those rights to be known was very fit and becoming. " The line herealleged to have been drawn by the great Chief-justice, betweenproclaiming the King's opinion in support of rights, but withholding itin the case of measures, is, perhaps, too fine to be perceptible byordinary intellects. But however the King may have understood the judge, it is clear that the doctrine thus asserted does not justify, butcondemns, such an act as the communication of the King's opinion andwishes in the case under consideration. If it "would be unconstitutionalto endeavor by his Majesty's name to carry questions in Parliament, " itmust be at least equally so to use his name to defeat them. And the caseis infinitely stronger, if the measure to be defeated be one which hasbeen introduced by his ministers. For there can be no doubt whateverthat, so long as they are his ministers, they are entitled to his fulland complete support on every question; alike in their general policyand on each separate measure. When he can no longer give them thatsupport, which the very act of conferring their offices on them promisedthem, his only legitimate and becoming course is to dismiss them fromtheir offices, and to abide the judgment of Parliament and the nation onthat act. Thus William IV. Acted in the autumn of 1834; and thus GeorgeIII. Himself acted at the end of the month of which we are speaking. Butto retain them in their offices, and to employ an unofficial declarationof his dissent from them to defeat their policy, is neither consistentwith the straightforward conduct due from one gentleman to another, norwith the principle on which the system of administration, such asprevails in this country, is founded. 

As has been already mentioned, the King at once dismissed the CoalitionMinistry. Mr. Pitt accepted the conduct of affairs, and by so doingaccepted the responsibility for all the acts of the King which hadconduced to his appointment. Lord John Russell, who in his "Memorialsand Correspondence of Fox" has related and examined the wholetransaction at considerable though not superfluous length, while blamingthe prudence, and in some points the propriety, of Fox's conduct, at thesame time severely censures Pitt as "committing a great fault inaccepting office as the price of an unworthy intrigue, " and affirms that"he and his colleagues who accepted office upon the success of thisintrigue placed themselves in an unconstitutional position. "[92] Thisseems to be a charge which can hardly be borne out. In dismissing hisformer ministry, the King was clearly acting within his right; and, ifso, Pitt was equally within his in undertaking the government. The truerdoctrine would seem to be, that, in so undertaking it, he assumed theentire responsibility for the dismissal of his predecessors, [93] andleft it to the people at large, by the votes of their representatives, to decide whether that dismissal were justified, and whether, as itsinevitable consequence, his acceptance of office were also justified ornot. The entire series of transactions, from the meeting of Parliamentin November, 1783, to its dissolution in the following March, may beconstitutionally regarded as an appeal by the King from the existingHouse of Commons to the entire nation, as represented by theconstituencies; and their verdict, as is well known, ratified in themost emphatic manner all that had been done. And we may assert thiswithout implying that, if the single act of empowering Lord Temple toinfluence the peers by the declaration of the King's private feeling hadbeen submitted by itself to the electors, they would have justifiedthat. The stirring excitement of the three months' contest between thegreat rivals led them to pronounce upon the transaction as a whole, andto leave unnoticed what seemed for the moment to be the minorissues--the moves, if we may borrow a metaphor from the chess-table, which opened the game; and it may be observed that, though, on the 17thof December, Pitt resisted Mr. Baker's resolution with his utmostenergy, in the numerous debates which ensued he carefully avoided allallusion to Lord Temple's conduct, or to the measure which had led tothe dismissal of his predecessors, farther than was necessary for theexplanation of the principles of his own India Bill. It may even besurmised that, if he had been inclined to recognize Lord Temple'sinterference as warrantable, the breach between that peer and himself, which occurred before the end of the week, would not have taken place, since it seems nearly certain that the cause of that breach was arefusal on the part of Pitt to recommend his cousin for promotion in thepeerage, a step which, at such a moment, would have had the appearanceof an approval of his most recent deed, [94] but which he could hardlyhave refused, if it had been done with his privity. The battle, as needhardly be told, was first fought among the representatives of the peoplein the House of Commons; for there was only one occasion on which theopinion of the Lords was invited, when they declared in favor of Pitt bya decisive majority. [95] But in the Lower House the contest was carriedon for more than two months with extraordinary activity and ability, bya series of resolutions and motions brought forward by the partisans ofthe coalition, and contested by the youthful minister. In one respectthe war was waged on very unequal terms, Pitt, who had been but threeyears in Parliament, and whose official experience could as yet only becounted by months, having to contend almost single-handed against thecombined experience and eloquence of Lord North, Fox, and Burke. Fortunately, however, for him, their own mismanagement soon turned theadvantage to his side. They were too angry and too confident to beskilful, or even ordinarily cautious. The leaders on both sides madeprofessions in one respect similar; they both alike denied that a desireof office influenced either their conduct or their language (a denialfor which Pitt's refusal of the Treasury, a year before, gained him morecredit than could be expected by Fox after his coalition with LordNorth), and both alike professed to be struggling for the constitutionalone, for some fundamental principle which each charged his antagonistwith violating; Fox on one occasion even going so far as, in somedegree, to involve the King himself in his censures, declaring not onlythat "the struggle was, in fact, one between Pitt himself and theconstitution, " but that it was also one "between liberty and theinfluence of the crown, " and "between prerogative and the constitution;"and that "Pitt had been brought into power by means absolutelysubversive of the constitution. "[96] But no act of which he thus accusedthe minister or the King showed such a disregard of the fundamentalprinciple of the constitution of Parliament as was exhibited by Foxhimself when, in the very first debate after the Christmas recess, hecalled in question that most undoubted prerogative of the crown todissolve the Parliament, and, drawing a distinction which had certainlynever been heard of before, declared that, though the King had anincontestable right to dissolve the Parliament after the close of asession, "many great lawyers" doubted whether he had such a right in themiddle of a session, a dissolution at such a period being "a penal" one. Professing to believe that an immediate dissolution was intended, heeven threatened to propose to the House of Commons "measures to guardagainst a step so inimical to the true interests of the country, " andmade a more direct attack than ever on the King himself, by theassertion of a probability that, even if Pitt did not contemplate adissolution, his royal master might employ "secret influence" tooverrule him, and might dissolve in spite of him, [97] an imputationwhich Lord North, with a strange departure from his customarygood-humor, condescended to endorse. [98] There could be no doubt thatboth the doubt and the menace were of themselves distinct attacks on theconstitution; and they were, moreover, singularly impolitic andinconsistent with others of the speaker's arguments, since, if thenation at large approved of his views and conduct, a dissolution--whichwould have placed the decision in its hands--would have been the verything he should most have desired. On another evening, though headmitted as a principle that the sovereign had the prerogative ofchoosing his ministers, he not only sought to narrow the effect of thatadmission by the assertion that "to exercise that prerogative inopposition to the House of Commons would be a measure as unsafe asunjustifiable, "[99] but to confine the right of deciding the title ofthe ministers to confidence to the existing House of Commons. He accusedPitt of "courting the affection of the people, and on this foundationwishing to support himself in opposition to the repeated resolutions ofthe House passed in the last three weeks. " Had he confined himself tourging the necessity of the ministers and the House of Commons being inharmony, even though such a mention of the House of Commons by itselfwere to a certain extent an ignoring of the weight of the other branchesof the Legislature, he would have only been advancing a doctrine whichis practically established at the present day, since there has beencertainly more than one instance in which a ministry has retired whichenjoyed the confidence of both the sovereign and the House of Lords, because it was not supported by a majority in the House of Commons. Butwhen he proceeded to make it a charge against the minister that hetrusted to the good-will of the people to enable him to disregard theverdict of the House of Commons, he forgot that it was only asrepresenting the people that the House had any right to pronounce averdict; and that, if it were true that the judgment of the people wasmore favorable to the minister than that of the House of Commons, thedifference which thus existed was a condemnation of the existing House, and an irresistible reason for calling on the constituencies to electanother. 

Pitt, therefore, had no slight advantage in defending himself against sorash an assailant. "He did not shrink, " he said, "from avowing himselfthe friend of the King's just prerogative, " and in doing so hemaintained that he had a title to be regarded as the champion of thepeople not less than of the crown. "Prerogative had been justly called apart of the rights of the people, and he was sure it was a part of theirrights which they were never more inclined to defend, of which they werenever more jealous, than at that hour. "[100] And he contended that Fox'sobjections to a dissolution betrayed a consciousness that he had not theconfidence of the nation. At last, when the contest had lasted nearlytwo months, Fox took the matter into his own hands, and, no longerputting his partisans in the front of the battle, on the 1st of March hehimself moved for an address to the King, the most essential clause ofwhich "submitted to his Majesty's royal consideration that thecontinuance of an administration which did not possess the confidence ofthe representatives of the people must be injurious to the publicservice. " ... And, therefore, that "his Majesty's faithful Commons didfind themselves obliged again to beseech his Majesty that he would begraciously pleased to lay the foundation of a strong and stablegovernment by the previous removal of his present ministers. " In thespeech with which he introduced this address he put himself forward asespecially the champion of the House of Commons. He charged thePrime-minister with an express design "to reduce the House toinsignificance, to render it a mere appendage to the court, anappurtenance to the administration. " He asserted the existence of asystematic "design to degrade the House, after which there was notanother step necessary to complete the catastrophe of the constitution. "And on this occasion he distinguished the feelings of the King fromthose which influenced the minister, affirming his confidence "that theKing's heart had no share in the present business. "[101]

Pitt, on the other hand, in reply, affirmed that he was called on byduty "to defend the rights of the other branches of the Legislature; thejust and constitutional prerogative of the sovereign, " upon which theOpposition was seeking to encroach, without even having shown a singlereason to justify such invasion. He freely admitted that, if the Houseof Commons or either of the other branches of the Legislature"disapproved of an administration on proper grounds, it would not bewell for that administration to retain office. " But in the presentinstance he contended that "no ground for disapprobation had beenshown. " The existing administration "had, in fact, by an unaccountableobstinacy and untowardness of circumstances, been deprived of allopportunity" of showing its capacity or its intentions. "If anyaccusations should be made and proved against it, if any charges shouldbe substantiated, it would, indeed be proper for the ministers toresign; and if, in such a case he were afterward to continue in office, he would suffer himself to be stigmatized as the champion ofprerogative, and the unconstitutional supporter of the usurpation of thecrown. But till this period arrived, he should reckon it his duty toadhere to the principles of the constitution, as delivered to us by ourancestors; to defend them against innovation and encroachment, and tomaintain them with firmness. " "The constitution of this country, " hepresently added, "is its glory; but in what a nice adjustment does itsexcellence consist! Equally free from the distractions of democracy andthe tyranny of monarchy, its happiness is to be found in its mixture ofparts. It was this mixed government which the prudence of our ancestorsdevised, and which it will be our wisdom to support. They experiencedall the vicissitudes and distractions of a republic; they felt all thevassalage and despotism of a simple monarchy. They abandoned both; and, by blending each together, extracted a system which has been the envyand admiration of the world. This system it is the object of the presentaddress to defeat and destroy. It is the intention of this address toarrogate a power which does not belong to the House of Commons; to placea negative on the exercise of the prerogative, and to destroy thebalance of power in the government as it was settled at the Revolution. "

Fox had urged that our history afforded no example of a ministryretaining office after the House of Commons had passed a resolutioncondemning it. Pitt, in reply, urged that our history equally failed tofurnish any instance of a ministry having been called on to retirewithout any misconduct being alleged against them. And the result of thedivision showed that his arguments and his firmness were producing animpression on the House, for, though he was again defeated, the majorityagainst him (only twelve) was far smaller than on any previousdivision. [102] A week later, this feeling in his favor was shown stillmore decidedly, when Fox, on moving for a fresh address, or, as hetermed it, a representation to the King that the House had received hisMajesty's reply to their address "with surprise and affliction, " hecould only carry it by a single vote. [103] And this division closed thestruggle. Fox made no farther effort. Before the end of the month theParliament was dissolved, and the general election which ensued sent tothe House a majority to support the ministers which Pitt was fairlywarranted in claiming as the full justification of the course which hehad pursued. 

On a review of the whole of this extraordinary transaction, or series oftransactions, it is impossible to avoid regarding the issue of thestruggle as an all-important element in the case, and a test almostdecisive of the correctness of conduct of the rival leaders. We mayleave out of the question the action of the King in his communication toLord Temple, which, although sanctioned by the great legal authority ofLord Thurlow, we are, for reasons already given, compelled to regard asunconstitutional, but for which Mr. Pitt was only technicallyresponsible; having, indeed, made himself so by his subsequentacceptance of office, but having had no previous suspicion of the royalintentions. Similarly, we may dismiss from our consideration the meritsor demerits of Fox's India Bill, the designs which were imputed to itsframers, or the consequences which, whether intended or not by them, were predicted as certain to flow from it. And we may confine ourselvesto the question whether, in the great Parliamentary struggle whichensued, and which lasted for more than three months, [104] the doctrinesadvanced by Mr. Fox, and the conduct pursued by him, were more or lessin accordance with the admitted rules and principles of theconstitution. 

These doctrines may be reduced to two: the first a declaration that nominister is justified in retaining office any longer than he issustained in it by the favorable judgment of the representatives of thepeople. Taken by itself, this, but for one consideration, might bepronounced the superfluous assertion of a truism; superfluous, becauseit is obvious that a House of Commons hostile to a minister can compelhis resignation by obstructing all his measures. And Pitt himselfrecognized this as fully as Fox, though we may hardly agree with himthat the Opposition was bound to allow him time to develop his policy, and to bring forward his various measures, before it pronounced anopinion adverse to them. In 1835, when Sir R. Peel first met Parliamentafter his acceptance of office, consequent on the King's dismissal ofLord Melbourne's ministry, the Opposition encountered and defeated himtwice in the first week of the session--on the choice of a Speaker, andon the address, though the latter had been framed with the most skilfulcare to avoid any necessity for objection; but no attempt was made byhim to call in question the perfect right of Lord J. Russell and hisfollowers in the House to choose their own time and field of battle. Butthere is one farther consideration, that the authority belonging to thejudgment of the House of Commons depends on that judgment being notsolely its own, but the judgment also of the constituencies which havereturned it, and whose mouth-piece it is; and also that the House is notimmortal, but is liable to be sent back to those constituencies, to seewhether they will ratify the judgment which their representatives haveexpressed; whether, in other words, their judgment be the judgment ofthe nation also. This farther consideration was, in fact, Pitt's pleafor resisting the majorities which, through January and February, sorepeatedly pronounced against him. And in determining to appeal to theconstituencies, as the court of ultimate resort, he was clearly withinthe lines of the constitution. 

It follows that Fox, in protesting against a dissolution, in threateningeven to take steps to prevent it, was acting in self-evident violationof all constitutional principle and precedent. He was denying one of themost universally acknowledged of the royal prerogatives. The distinctionwhich he endeavored to draw between a dissolution at the close of asession and one in the middle of it, had manifestly no validity in lawor in common-sense. The minister had a clear right to appeal from theHouse of Commons to the people, and one equally clear to choose his owntime for making that appeal. The appeal was made, the judgment of thenation was pronounced, and its pronouncement may be, and indeed must be, accepted as a sufficient justification, in a constitutional point ofview, of Pitt's conduct both in accepting and retaining office. If heretained it for three months, in opposition to the voice of the existingHouse of Commons, he could certainly allege that he was retaining it inaccordance with the deliberate judgment of the nation. 

And this is the verdict of a modern statesman, a very careful student ofthe theory of our Parliamentary constitution, and one whom partyconnection would notoriously have inclined to defend the line taken byMr. Fox, had it been possible to do so. Indeed, he may be said to showhis bias in that statesman's favor when he affirms that he would havebeen right in moving a resolution of censure on Pitt for "his acceptanceof office, " which he presently calls the result of "the success of acourt intrigue, "[105] and, without a particle of evidence to justify theimputation, affirms to "have been prepared beforehand with much art andcombination. " But _amicus Fox, sed magis arnica veritas_; and though hethus passes censure on Pitt, where the facts on which he bases it are atleast unproved, on those points as to which the facts are clear andcertain he condemns Fox altogether, affirming that his "attempt to showthat the crown had not the prerogative of dissolving Parliament in themiddle of a session had neither law nor precedent in its support. "[106]And he proceeds to lay down, with great clearness and accuracy, "thepractice as well as the theory of our mixed government, " which is, that"when two of the powers of the state cannot" agree, and the business ofthe state is stopped, the only appeal is to the people at large. Thus, when in the reign of Queen Anne the House of Lords and the House ofCommons fulminated resolutions at each other, a dissolution cleared theair and restored serenity. If no case had occurred since the Revolutionof a quarrel between the crown and the House of Commons, the cause is tobe sought in the prudence with which every sovereign who had reignedsince that event had wielded his constitutional authority. If GeorgeIII. Had been wanting in that prudence, it did not follow that he wasdebarred from the right of appealing to the people. Any other doctrinewould invest the House of Commons, elected for the ordinary business ofthe state, with a supreme power over every branch of it. This supremepower must rest somewhere; according to our constitution it rests in thecommon assent of the realm, signified by the persons duly qualified toelect the members of the House of Commons; and Lord Russell, in thusexpounding his ideas on this subject, was undoubtedly expressing theview that ever since the transactions of which we have been speaking hasbeen taken of the point chiefly in dispute. Since that day there hasbeen more than one instance of Parliament being dissolved in the middleof a session; but, though the prudence of the different ministers whoadvised such dissolutions may, perhaps, have been questioned--nay, though in one memorable instance it was undoubtedly a penal dissolutionin the fullest sense of the word[107]--no one has ever accused thesovereign's advisers of seducing him into an unconstitutional exerciseof his prerogative. 

Pitt was now Prime-minister, with a degree of power in Parliament and ofpopularity out-of-doors that no former minister, not even his ownfather, had ever enjoyed. As such, by the confession of one who wascertainly no friendly critic, [108] "he became the greatest master ofParliamentary government that has ever existed. " His administration maybe regarded as a fresh starting-point in the history of the country, asthe inauguration of the principle of steady amendment, improvement, andprogress, in place of the maxims which had guided all his predecessorssince the Revolution, of regarding every thing as permanently settled bythe arrangements made at that time, and their own duty, consequently, asbinding them to keep everything in its existing condition. But, of allthe ministers recorded in our annals, there is not one so greatly inadvance of his time as Pitt; and from the very outset of his ministerialcareer he applied himself, not only to the removal or correction ofadmitted abuses or defects, but, in cases where the fault, being in ourgeneral system of policy, had been less conspicuous, to theestablishment of new principles of action which have been the rules ofall succeeding statesmen. He was not, indeed, the first raiser of thequestion of Parliamentary Reform, but he was the first to produce anelaborate scheme with that object, parts of which, such as thesuppression of the smaller boroughs and the enfranchisement of placeswhich had gradually become more important, have been leading features ofevery subsequent bill on the subject. He was the first to propose theremoval of those political disabilities under which the Roman Catholicslabored, which no one before him had regarded as consistent with thesafety of the state, and to which he sacrificed office. He was the firstto conceive the idea of developing our national industries and resourcesby commercial treaties with other nations, even choosing for hisessay-piece a treaty with a country with which our relations for nearlyfive hundred years had been almost uninterruptedly hostile, and whichFox, in the heat of his opposition, objected even to consider in anyother light than that of an enemy. He laid the foundation for allsubsequent legislation connected with our colonies in his Bill for theGovernment of Canada; and he established a system for the government ofour Indian dependencies on so statesman-like a principle, that allsubsequent administrations concurred in upholding it, till subsequentevents compelled the abolition of all the share in the government of thecountry previously possessed by the Company. 

A great writer of the past generation, [109] who in some respects hasdone full justice to his genius and political virtue, has, however(partly, it can hardly be doubted, from regarding himself as a followerof his great rival, Fox), contrasted his capacity as a War-minister withthat of his father, drawing a comparison on this point verydisadvantageous to the son. We need not stop to examine how far thepraises which he bestows on Lord Chatham's talents as a planner ofmilitary operations are deserved; but it may very fairly be contendedthat the disparaging views of Pitt's military policy which he hasadvanced are founded solely on what is in this as well as in many otherinstances a most delusive criterion, success. It is true, unquestionably, that in the campaigns of 1793-4-5 against the Frenchrevolutionists, while he took upon this country the entire burden of thenaval war, on land he contented himself with playing a secondary part, and employing a comparatively small force (which, however, doubled thatwhich his father had sent to Minden), [110] for the success of themilitary operations trusting chiefly to the far stronger Austrian andPrussian divisions, under the command of Prince Coburg and the Duke ofBrunswick, to which the British regiments were but auxiliaries. It istrue, also, that the result of their operations was unfortunate, andthat the German generals proved wholly unable to contend with the fieryand more skilful impetuosity of Jourdan and Pichégru. But the questionis not whether Pitt's confidence in the prowess of his allies wasmisplaced, but whether he had not abundant reason to justify him inentertaining it. And, to judge fairly on this point, we must recollectthe reputation which for the last forty years the Austrian and Prussianarmies had enjoyed. The result of the seven years' war had establishedthe renown of the Prussians, and the Duke of Brunswick was understood tobe a favorite pupil of the Great Frederic. The same war had shown thatthe Austrians were not very unequal to the Prussians; while thereputation of the French troops had fallen to the lowest ebb, the mostmemorable event in their annals during the same war being the rout ofRosbach, when 60, 000 of them fled before Frederic and 22, 000. At thebreaking out of the Revolution, it might be said that De Bouille was theonly French general of the slightest reputation, and since the sadjourney to Varennes he had been an exile from his country. And, thoughagain in 1803 Pitt once more trusted for success on land to Continentalalliances, not only does he deserve admiration for the diplomatic talentwith which he united Austria, Prussia, and Russia against France, but itcan hardly be doubted that confederacy would have been triumphant, hadnot the incompetent vanity of Alexander ruined all its prospects by hisrash disregard at Austerlitz of the experienced warnings of his ownstaff. [111]

The new form of government which he established for India, and to whichallusion has been made, has lost the greater part of its importance inthe eyes of the present generation, from the more-recent abolition ofthe political authority of the East India Company, though of some of theprinciples which he avowed he had taken for his guides it is worth whileto preserve the record; with such clearness, as well as statesman-likewisdom, do they affirm the objects which every one should keep in viewwho applies himself to legislation for distant dependencies where theprivileges and interests of foreign fellow-subjects are to be regardedwith as jealous a solicitude as those of our own countrymen. Theseobjects may be briefly described as being the reconciling the vested andchartered interests of the Company with the legitimate authority of theKing's government; for, though Pitt admitted that "state necessity"might occasionally be allowed as a valid reason for the abrogation of acharter, he affirmed that nothing short of such absolute necessity couldexcuse such a measure, and he relied on the previous history of theCompany to prove the fallacy of an observation that had sometimes beenmade, that commercial companies could not govern empires. There werethree interests to be considered: that of the native Indians, that ofthe Company, and that of this country; and the problem to be solved was, "how to do the most good to India and to the East India Company with theleast injury to our constitution. " Some of his remarks containedunavoidable allusions to Fox's bill of the previous year, since some ofthe provisions of his bill were entirely opposite to those which Fox hadframed, the most material point of difference being the character of theBoard of Control which he proposed to establish. Fox, as has been seen, had proposed to make the commissioners to be appointed under his billirremovable for several years, whatever changes might take place in thehome government; an arrangement which the opposers of the bill suspectedof being designed to prevent any change in the home government fromtaking place. Pitt, on the other hand, laid down as one of his leadingprinciples that "the board could not be permanent, that it must besubordinate to the administration of the day, and that permanency wouldbe in itself a deviation from the principles of the constitution, andwould involve the board in contradictions to the executive governmentthat could not fail to be attended with great public inconvenience. Aninstitution to control the government of India must be either totallyindependent of the government of this country or subordinate to it. ""The board was to consist of none but privy councillors, " and instead ofthe vast amount of patronage which was to have been created by the billof 1783, this board was "to create no increase of officers nor to imposeany new burdens. " ... "The first and leading ideas would be, to limitthe subsisting patronage;" ... And so little was Pitt covetous toengross that which did and must continue to subsist, that he left even"the officers of the government of Bengal to the nomination of the Courtof Directors, subject only to the negative of the crown; and the Courtof Directors was also to have the nomination of the officers of all thesubordinate governments, except only of the commander-in-chief, who, forvarious reasons, must remain to be appointed by the crown. " Another veryimportant part of the arrangement was, that "gradation and successionwere to be the general rule of promotion, " a regulation which of itselfwould be "a forcible check upon patronage, and tend greatly to itsreduction. " The governor of Bengal was to be the governor-general of thewhole country, the governors of Madras and Bombay being subordinate tohim; and each governor was to be assisted by a council of three members, of whom the commander of the forces was to be one. 

The spirit in which a law or a government is administered is commonly ofgreater practical importance than the words in which the regulation orthe system is framed or defined; and Pitt, therefore, concluded hisspeech by laying down a few "clear and simple principles as those fromwhich alone a good government could arise. The first and principalobject would be to take care to prevent the government from beingambitious and bent on conquest. Commerce was our object, and, with aview to its extension, a pacific system should prevail, and a system ofdefence and conciliation. The government there ought, therefore, in anespecial manner, to avoid wars, or entering into alliances likely tocreate wars. " It was not to forget "to pay a due regard to self-defence, or to guard against sudden hostilities from neighboring powers, and, whenever there was reason to apprehend attack, to be in a state ofpreparation. This was indispensably necessary; but whenever suchcircumstances occurred, the executive government in India was not tocontent itself with acting there as the circumstances of the case mightrequire; it was also to send immediate advice home of what had happened, of what measures had been taken in consequence, and what farthermeasures were intended to be pursued; and a tribunal was to beestablished to take cognizance of such matters. " The system of takingpresents from the natives was to be absolutely prohibited, a regulationwhich he hoped would "tend effectually to check private corruption;"and, lastly, it was proposed to establish a court of criminal judicaturefor the trial in England of certain classes of delinquents after theirreturn from India. The Judges of the court were to be men of the highestcharacter; they were to be chosen by ballot, some being taken from thebench of judges, some from each House of Parliament. And they were "notto be tied down to strict rules of evidence, but to be upon their oathsto give their judgments conscientiously, and to pronounce such judgmentas the common law would warrant. " Such a tribunal he admitted to be aninnovation; but, "unless some new process were instituted, offencesshocking to humanity, opposite to justice, and contrary to everyprinciple of religion and morality, must continue to prevail, unchecked, uncontrolled, and unrestrained, and the necessity of the case outweighedthe risk and the hazard of the innovation. "

These were the general outlines of the constitution which in 1784 theParliament established for India, and the skill with which it wasadapted to the very peculiar character of the settlements to be governedis sufficiently proved by the fact that it was maintained with verylittle alteration equally by Whig and Tory administrations forthree-quarters of a century, till the great convulsion of the Mutinycompelled an entire alteration in the system, and the abolition of thegoverning powers of the Company, as we shall have occasion to relate ina subsequent chapter. The principles which Pitt had laid down as theguiding maxims for the governors; the avoidance of ambitious views ofconquest, the preservation of peace, and the limitation of the aims ofthe government to the encouragement and extension of commerce, were notequally adhered to. Undoubtedly, in some instances, the wars in which, even during Pitt's too short lifetime, the Indian government wasengaged, came under his description of wars which were justifiable onthe ground of self-defence--wars undertaken for the preservation of whathad been previously won or purchased, rather than for the acquisition ofnew territories at the expense of chiefs who had given us noprovocation. But for others, though professedly undertaken with a viewonly of anticipating hostile intentions, the development of which mightpossibly be reserved for a distant future, it is not easy to find asimilar justification; and it may be feared that in more than one casegovernors-general, conscious of great abilities, have been too muchinclined to adopt the pernicious maxim of Louis XIV. , that theaggrandizement and extension of his dominions is the noblest objectwhich a ruler of nations can have in view. Yet, though unable onstrictly moral grounds to justify all the warlike enterprises which makeup so large a part of our subsequent Indian history, it is impossible, probably, for even the most rigid moralist to avoid some feelings ofnational pride in the genius of our countrymen, who in the short spaceof a single century have built up an empire of a magnitude unequalledeven by the Caesars, and have governed and still are governing it in sowise and beneficent a spirit, and with such a display of administrativecapacity, that our rule is recognized as a blessing by the greatmajority of the nations themselves, as a protection from ceaselessintestine war, from rapine, and that worst of tyrannies, anarchy, whichwas their normal condition before Clive established our supremacy atPlassy, and into which they would surely and speedily fall back, if ourcontrolling authority were to be withdrawn. 

India was not the only British settlement for which the growth of ourempire compelled Pitt to devise a constitution. The year which saw hisbirth had also seen the conquest of Canada from the French; and in 1774a system of government for the new province had been established whichit is sufficient here to describe as one, which differed but little froma pure despotism, the administration being vested in a governor andLegislative Council, every member of which was to be nominated by thecrown. But the working of this act had from the first proved veryunsatisfactory, and had become more so as the population increased bythe influx of fresh settlers from Great Britain, and also from theUnited States, here many of those who in the recent civil war hadadhered the connection with the mother country had been exposed toconstant malice and ill-treatment, and had preferred crossing the borderand obtaining lands in Canada to returning to England. Pitt recognizedthe evil, and undertook to remedy it and in 1791 he introduced a bill toestablish a constitution for Canada, which a recent historian describesas "remarkable, as recognizing for the first time the wise and generousprinciple of independent colonial institutions, which has since beenfully developed in every dependency of the British crown capable oflocal self-government. "[112] One peculiar difficulty in framing such aconstitution arose from the circumstance of the old French colonists, who greatly outnumbered the settlers of British blood, being attached tothe Roman Catholic religion; while the British settlers were nearly, orperhaps all, Protestant, though of different denominations. Thedifficulty was, indeed, lessened by the circumstance that the Frenchdwelt in Quebec and the district between that city and the mouth of theSt. Lawrence, and that the English had for the most part betakenthemselves to the more inland region. And this local separation of thetwo races the minister now took for his guide in the arrangement whichhe devised. The most important feature in it was the division of theprovince into two parts, as Upper and Lower Canada, and theestablishment of a distinct local Legislature for each division, a Houseof Assembly being created in each, and a Council, so as, in Pitt'swords, "to give both divisions the full advantages of the Britishconstitution. " The Assemblies were to have the power of taxation (sothat there was no room left for such perverse legislation by a BritishParliament as had lately cost its sovereign the United States). The actof _habeas corpus_ was extended to the province (a privilege which noone of French blood had ever enjoyed before); the tenure of land was tobe the socage[113] tenure so long and happily established in England. Complete religious toleration was established, and a certain proportionof land was allotted in Upper Canada, as a provision for a Protestantclergy, and the foundation of an ecclesiastical establishment. So greatwas Pitt's desire to complete the resemblance between the colony andGreat Britain, that he even contemplated the creation of an aristocracy, by the introduction of a provision enabling the King to grant hereditarycolonial titles, the possession of which should include hereditary seatsin the provincial Council. The two latter clauses were opposed by Fox, and the latter of them, though sanctioned by Parliament, was nevercarried out in practice. But Fox, bitter as he was at this time in hisgeneral opposition to the government, agreed cordially in the generalprinciples of the bill, avowing his conviction that "the only method ofretaining distant colonies with advantage is to enable them to governthemselves, " so that each party in the British Parliament is entitled toa share of the credit for this pattern of all subsequent colonialconstitutions--Pitt for the original genius for organization which hiscontrivance of all the complicated details of the measure displayed, andFox for his frank adoption of the general principle inculcated by hisrival, even while differing as to some of the minor details of themeasure. During these years the country was increasing in prosperity, and the minister was daily rising in credit; more powerful and morepopular than the most successful or the most brilliant of hispredecessors. But during these same years two great constitutionaldifficulties had arisen, one of which, indeed, the deep sense which bothparties felt of the danger of investigating it shelved almost as soon asit was seen; but the other of which, besides the importance which itderived from the degree in which it involved the principle of thesupreme authority of Parliament, and brought under discussion even thatwhich regulates the succession to the crown, imperilled the existence ofthe ministry, and threatened a total change in both the domestic andforeign policy of the nation. 

The Prince of Wales, who had come of age in the summer of 1783, had atonce begun to make himself notorious for the violence of his oppositionto his father's ministers, carrying the openness of his hostility so faras, during the Westminster election to drive about the streets with acarriage and all his servants profusely decorated with Fox's colors;and, still more discreditably, by most unmeasured profligacy of allkinds. The consequence was that he soon became deeply involved in debt, so deeply that, in 1787, a member of Fox's party gave notice of hisintention to move that the Parliament should pay his debts and increasehis income. Pitt, without specifying his reasons, avowed that he shouldfeel it his duty to oppose any grant of such a character; but anothermember of Parliament, Mr. Rolle, one of the members for Devonshire, being trammelled by no such feeling of responsibility, expressed asimilar resolution in language which contained an allusion perfectlyunderstood on both sides of the House. He said that "the question thusproposed to be brought forward went immediately to affect ourconstitution in Church and State. " And every one knew that he wasreferring to a report which had recently become general, that the Princewas married to a Roman Catholic lady of the name of Fitzherbert. Nodirect notice was taken of this allusion at the moment, Fox himself, whohad the chief share of the Prince's confidence, being accidentallyabsent; but a day or two afterward he referred to Rolle's speech withgreat indignation, declaring that it referred to a "low, maliciouscalumny" which had no foundation whatever, and "was only fit to imposeon the lowest order of persons. " Being pressed as to the precise forceof his assertion, and being asked whether it meant more than that underthe existing laws, such as the Royal Marriage Act, there had been nomarriage, because there could have been no _legal_ marriage, he declaredthat he meant no such evasion, but that no marriage ceremony, legal orillegal, had ever taken place; and farther, that in saying this he wasspeaking on the direct authority of the Prince himself. No moredegrading act stains the annals of British royalty. For the fact wastrue--the very next evening Fox learned the deceit which the Prince hadpractised on him from a gentleman who had been one of the witnesses tothe marriage, which had been solemnized by a Protestant clergymanfifteen months before. [114] And his indignation was such that for sometime afterward he abstained from all interference in the Prince'saffairs; while the language held by the Prince's other confidant, Mr. Sheridan, was so evasive as to betray a consciousness that whatever hadoccurred would not bear the light of day; so that there were very few towhom the truth or falsehood of the report was a subject of interest whofelt any uncertainty on the subject. 

It may, probably, be regarded as fortunate for the peace of the kingdomthat the Prince, who eventually became King George IV. , left behind himno issue from his marriage with the Princess, the failure of heirs ofhis body thus removing any temptation to raise the question whether hehad not himself forfeited all right to succeed to the throne by hisprevious marriage to a Roman Catholic. A clause of the Bill of Rightsprovides that any member of the royal family who should marry a RomanCatholic (with the exception of the issue of princesses who may be thewives of foreign princes) shall by that marriage be rendered incapableof inheriting the crown of England. And though the Royal Marriage Act(which, as we have seen, had been recently passed) had enacted that nomarriage of any member of the royal family contracted without theconsent of the reigning sovereign should be valid, it by no meansfollows that an invalidity so created would exempt the contractor of amarriage with a Roman Catholic, which as an honorable man he must besupposed to have intended to make valid, from the penalties enacted bythe Bill of Rights. It is a point on which the most eminent lawyers ofthe present day are by no means agreed. The spirit of the clause in thatbill undoubtedly was, that no apparent or presumptive heirs to the crownshould form a matrimonial connection with any one who should ownallegiance to a foreign power, and that spirit was manifestlydisregarded if a prince married a Roman Catholic lady, even though asubsequent law had enacted a conditional invalidity of such a marriage. We may find an analogy to such a case in instances where a man hasabducted a minor, and induced her to contract a marriage with himself. The lady may not have been reluctant; but the marriage has beenannulled, and the husband has been criminally prosecuted, the nullity ofthe marriage not availing to save him from conviction and punishment. Abigamous marriage is invalid, but the bigamist is punished. And, apartfrom any purely legal consideration, it may be thought that publicpolicy forbids such a construction of law as would make the illegalityor invalidity of an act (and all illegal acts must be more or lessinvalid) such a protection to the wrong-doer as would screen him frompunishment. 

Whatever may be the judgment formed on the legal aspect and merits ofthe case, the conduct of the Prince could not fail to give the greatbody of the people, justly jealous at all times of their nationaladherence to truthfulness and honesty, a most unfavorable impression ofhis character. As has been already mentioned, Fox was so indignant athaving been made the instrument to assure the Parliament and the nationof a falsehood, that he for a time broke off all communication withhim. [115] Yet a singular caprice of fortune, or, it would be more properto say, a melancholy visitation of Providence, before the end of thefollowing year led Fox to carry his championship of the same Prince whohad so abused his confidence to the length of pronouncing the mostextravagant eulogies on his principles, and on his right to theconfidence and respect of the nation at large. In the autumn of 1788 theKing fell into a state of bad health, which in no long time affected hismind, and, by the middle of November, had so deranged his faculties asto render him incapable of attending to his royal duties, or, in fact, transacting any business whatever. Parliament was not sitting, but itsre-assembling had been fixed for the 4th of December, and before thatday arrived the King's illness had assumed so alarming a character, andit appeared so unsafe to calculate on his immediate recovery, that theminister summoned a Privy Council, the summons being addressed to themembers of the Opposition as well as to his own followers, to receivethe opinions of the physicians in attendance on his Majesty, as anecessary foundation for the measures which he conceived it to be hisduty to propose to Parliament. Those opinions were, that it was almostcertain that the disease would not be permanent, though no one couldundertake to fix its duration with the least appearance of probability. And, as the royal authority could not be left in abeyance, as it were, for an uncertain period, it was indispensable to appoint a Regent toconduct the affairs of the kingdom till the King should, happily, beonce more in a condition to resume his functions. 

In considering the line of conduct adopted in this emergency by Pitt andhis great rival Fox, Pitt has one manifest advantage on his side, thatit is impossible to attribute the course which he took to any personalmotive, or any desire for the retention of official power; while it isequally impossible to doubt that Fox was in no slight degree, [116] andthat Lord Loughborough, the prince's chief adviser on points of law, waswholly influenced by the hope of supplanting the ministry. Pitt hadnever the least doubt that on the establishment of the Regency he shouldbe dismissed, and was prepared to return to the Bar. But his knowledgeof the preference which the Prince entertained for his rival did notlead him to hesitate for a single moment as to the propriety of placinghim in a situation to exercise that preference. On the reassembling ofParliament, he at once took what he conceived to be the properparliamentary course of proceeding; at his suggestion committees in bothHouses were appointed to take a formal examination of the royalphysicians; and, when those committees had reported that the King wasfor the present incapable of discharging his royal functions, thoughlikely at some future period to be able to resume them, he moved theHouse of Commons to appoint another committee, to search for "precedentsof such proceedings as might have been taken in the case of the personalexercise of the royal authority being prevented or interrupted byinfancy, sickness, or infirmity, with a view to provide for the same. "Such a search for precedents was no novelty, and may be thought to havebeen especially proper in such a case as this, since history recordedthe appointment of several regencies, one under circumstances strikinglyresembling those now existing, when, in 1454, Henry VI. Had fallen intoa state of imbecility, and the Parliament appointed the Duke of YorkProtector[117] of the kingdom. 

But Fox instantly opposed it with extreme vehemence, declaring that theappointment of such a committee would be a pure waste of time. It wasnotorious, he affirmed, that no precedent existed which could have anybearing on the present case, since there was in existence a person suchas had never been found on any previous occasion, an heir-apparent offull age and capacity to exercise the royal authority; and he declaredit to be his deliberate opinion that the Prince of Wales had "as clearand express a right to assume the reins of government, and to exerciseall the powers of sovereignty, during the illness and incapacity of thesovereign, as if that sovereign were actually deceased. " Such anassertion of indefeasible right was so totally at variance with the Whigdoctrines which Pitt, equally with Fox, regarded as the true principlesof the constitution, that Pitt at once perceived the advantage which itgave him, by enabling him to stand forward as the supporter of thesupreme authority of Parliament, which Fox had by implication denied. Heinstantly replied that to assert an inherent indefeasible right in thePrince of Wales, or any one else, independently of the decision of thetwo Houses, fell little short of treason to the constitution; but, atthe same time, to prevent any one pretending to misconceive hisintentions, he allowed it to be seen with sufficient plainness that, when once the right of Parliament to appoint the Regent had beenestablished, he should agree in the propriety of conferring that officeon the Prince of Wales. The committee was appointed; but, even before itcould report the result of its investigations, the doctrine advanced byFox had been the subject of discussion in the House of Lords, where LordCamden, who had presided over the meeting of the Privy Council a fewdays before, on moving for the appointment of a similar committee ofpeers, had taken occasion to declare that, if Fox had made such anassertion as rumor imputed to him, it was one which had no foundation in"the common law of the kingdom. " He had never read nor heard of such adoctrine. Its assertors might raise expectations not easily laid, andmight involve the country in confusion. And he contended, as Pitt haddone in the Commons, that its assertion was a strong argument in favorof the appointment of a committee, that it might be at once seen whetherit were warranted by any precedent whatever. The reports of the twocommittees bore out Fox's statement, that no precedent entirelyapplicable to the case before them had ever occurred. But by this timeFox had learned that the argument which he had founded on it was in thehighest degree unpalatable both to Parliament and to the nation; and fora moment he sought to modify it by an explanation that, though he hadclaimed for the Prince "the naked right, he had not by that expressionintended to maintain that that right could be reduced into possessionwithout the consent of Parliament;" an explanation not very reconcilableto common sense, since, if a right were inherent and indefeasible, Parliament could not, without absolute tyranny, refuse to sanction itsexercise; and, in fact, his coadjutor, Sheridan, on the very sameevening, re-asserted his original doctrine in, if possible, still moreexplicit terms, warning the minister "of the danger of provoking thePrince to assert his right, " while a still greater man (Burke) declaredthat "the minister had taken up an attitude on the question tantamountto that of setting himself up as a competitor to the Prince. " Suchinconsiderate violence gave a great advantage to Pitt, one of whose mostuseful characteristics as a debater was a readiness and presence of mindthat nothing could discompose. He repelled such menaces and imputationswith an equally lofty scorn, and, after a few necessary preliminaries, brought forward a series of resolutions, one of which declared the factof the sovereign's illness, and consequent incapacity; a second affirmedit to be the right and duty of the two Houses of Parliament to providethe means for supplying the defect in the royal authority; and a thirdimposed on the Houses the task of deciding on the mode in which theroyal assent necessary to give their resolutions the authority of lawshould be signified. It was impossible to object to the first; but thesecond was stubbornly contested by the Opposition, the chiefs of theCoalition Ministry once more fighting side by side; though Lord Northcontented himself with arguing that the affirmation of the right andduty of Parliament was a needless raising of a disputable point, andmoving, therefore, that the committee should report progress, as therecognized mode of shelving it. Fox, however, carried away by the heatof debate, returned to the assertion of the doctrine of absolute right, overlooking his subsequent modification of it, and again gave Pitt theadvantage, by condescending to impugn his motives for proposing theresolution, as being inspired, not by a zeal for the constitution, butby a consciousness that he did not deserve the confidence of the Prince, and, therefore, anticipated his instant dismissal by the Regent. There-affirmation of the Prince's inherent right was, indeed, necessary toFox as the foundation for the objections which he took to other parts ofPitt's scheme. For the minister, while admitting to its full extent theirresistible claim which the Prince of Wales possessed to the preferenceof Parliament for the Regency, proposed at the same time to imposecertain limitations on his exercise of the authority, so long as therewas a reasonable hope of his royal father's recovery. He was not to havethe power to create peerages, nor to alienate the property of the crown, nor to grant offices in reversion; and, as the Queen was to have thecare of his Majesty's person, she also was to have the appointment ofall the offices in the royal household. Fox, on the other hand, objectedwith extreme earnestness to the impropriety of imposing any limitationswhatever on the power of the Regent; and then the question whether thePrince was to derive his right to the Regency from the authority ofParliament, or from his natural position and inalienable preceding rightas his father's heir, became one of practical importance. If theParliament had the right to confer authority, it had clearly the rightto limit the authority it conferred. If the Prince had an indefeasibleright to the Regency, independently of the will of Parliament, thenParliament could have no pretence to limit or restrain the exercise ofan authority which in no degree flowed from itself. Fox, indeed, tookanother objection to the imposing of limitations to the authority to beintrusted to the Regent, contending that this would be to create a powerunknown to the constitution--a person in the situation of King withoutregal power. But, not to mention precedents drawn from the reigns ofEdward III. , Richard II. , and Henry VI. , in the twenty-fourth year ofthe very last reign, George II. , on the death of his son, the father ofthe present King, had enjoined the Parliament to provide for thegovernment, in the case of his own death, while the heir was still aminor, recommending to them the appointment of the Princess Dowager ofWales as Regent, "with such powers and limitations as might appearexpedient. " And, in conformity with his desire, the Parliament hadappointed the Princess Regent, with a Council of Regency to assist her;and had enacted that "several portions of the regal power" should bewithheld from the Regent, if she could not obtain the consent of theCouncil thus appointed. [118]

This part of the case was so plain, that when, after the differentresolutions proposed by Pitt had been adopted in both Houses, Foxinsisted that, instead of proceeding by a bill to create a Regency, andto appoint the Prince of Wales Regent, the only course which could beadopted with propriety would be to present an address to the Prince, toentreat him to assume the government, he failed to induce the House toagree with him; and finally, as if he were determined to find abattle-field in every clause, he made a vigorous resistance to theexpedient by which Pitt proposed that the formal royal assent which wasnecessary to make the bill law should be given. Fox, on one occasion, had gone the length of denying that the two Houses had any right to beregarded as a Parliament while the King, an essential part ofParliament, was incapacitated. But such an objection could have had noforce, even in the mind of him who raised it, since the proceedings ofthe two Convention Parliaments of 1660 and 1689 labored under a similardefect; and yet their acts had been recognized as valid, and ratified bysubsequent Parliaments. And now, in reference to the expedient proposedby the minister, that the two Houses should empower and authorize theLord Chancellor to affix the Great Seal to the bill, Burke, with great, but for him not unusual, violence, denounced both the proposal and theChancellor, declaring that such a step would be the setting up of aphantom of sovereignty, a puppet, an idol, an idiot, to which hedisclaimed all allegiance. A more perilous amendment was one proposed toanother clause by Mr. Rolle, enacting that if the Regent should marry aRoman Catholic his authority should cease. Since the Bill of Rights, aswe have seen, forbade a sovereign to marry a Roman Catholic withoutincurring the forfeiture of his crown, it was evidently reasonable thatthe same restriction should be imposed on every Regent; but it was hardat the moment altogether to dissociate such a clause from thediscussions of the preceding year; and Mr. Rolle endeavored to give theclause a more pointed meaning by an amendment to enact that theforfeiture should be incurred by the mere celebration of any marriageceremony, whether the marriage thus performed were legal and valid ornot. His amendment, however, was unanimously rejected. The bill waspassed without alteration by the House of Commons; the Prince, whileprotesting in an elaborate and most able letter, drawn up for him byBurke, against the restrictions imposed by the bill, neverthelessconsented to sacrifice his own judgment to the general good of thekingdom, and to accept the authority, limited as it was. And by themiddle of February the bill was sent up to the House of Lords. ThereLord Camden had charge of it, and his position as a former Chancellorgave irresistible weight to his opinion that the mode proposed to givethe final sanction to the bill was strictly in accordance with thespirit and practice of the constitution. The point with which he dealtwas the previous one, how Parliament, which was to pass the bill, was tobe opened, for, "circumstanced as it was, Parliament could not atpresent take a single step. " The law, as he put it, declared that theKing must be present, either in person or by a representative. When hecould not attend personally, the legal and constitutional process was toissue letters-patent under the Great Seal. In the present dilemma, therefore, he recommended that the two Houses should directletters-patent to be issued under the Great Seal, authorizingcommissioners to open Parliament in the name of his Majesty. He "mustuse the liberty to say that those who treated this proposal withridicule were ignorant of the laws of their country. A fiction it mightbe termed, but it was a fiction admirably calculated to preserve theconstitution, and, by adopting its forms, to preserve its substance. "The authority of the Great Seal he explained to be such that, "even ifthe Lord Chancellor, by caprice, put it to any commission, it could notafterward be questioned;" and he adduced a precedent of a very similarcharacter to the course now proposed, which occurred "at thecommencement of the reign of Henry VI. , when, the sovereign being aninfant of nine months old, the Great Seal was placed in his hand, and itwas supposed to be given to him by the Master of the Rolls, whereuponmany commissions were sealed by it, and the government was carried onunder its authority. " That precedent, he reminded the peers, had beenfollowed as recently as the year 1754, when, during an illness of GeorgeII. , Lord Chancellor Hardwicke affixed the Great Seal to a commissionfor opening a session of Parliament. And, finally, he concluded bymoving, "That it is expedient and necessary that letters-patent foropening the Parliament should pass under the Great Seal. "[119] Themotion was carried, and Parliament was opened in accordance with it;and, if it had been necessary, the same expedient would have sufficed togive the requisite assent to the Regency Bill, a necessity which wasescaped by the fortunate recovery of the royal patient, which wasannounced by his medical advisers a day or two before that fixed for thethird reading of the bill in the House of Lords. 

Though the question was thus left undetermined for the moment, it wasrevived twenty-two years afterward, when the same sovereign was attackedby a recurrence of the same disease, and the existing ministry, thenpresided over by Mr. Perceval, brought forward a Regency Bill almostidentical with that which on this occasion had been framed by Mr. Pitt;and the Opposition, led by Lord Grey and Sir Samuel Romilly, raised asnearly as possible the same objections to it which were now urged by Foxand his adherents. The ministerial measure was, however, again supportedby considerable majorities; so that the course proposed by Mr. Pitt onthis occasion may be said to have received the sanction of twoParliaments assembled and sitting under widely different circumstances;and may, therefore, be taken as having established the rule which willbe adopted if such an emergency should, unfortunately, arise hereafter. And indeed, though the propriety of Pitt's proposals has, as wasnatural, been discussed by every historical and political writer who hasdealt with the history of that time, there has been a generalconcurrence of opinion in favor of that statesman's measure. Lord JohnRussell, while giving a document, entitled "Materials for a Pamphlet, "in which he recognizes the handwriting of Lord Loughborough, and which"contains the grounds of the opinion advanced by him, and adopted by Mr. Fox, that, from the moment the two Houses of Parliament declared theKing unable to exercise his royal authority, a right to exercise thatauthority attached to the Prince of Wales, " does not suppress his ownopinion of the "erroneousness of this or any other doctrine thatattributes to any individual or any constituted authority existing inthe state a strict or legal right to claim or to dispose of the royalauthority while the King is alive, but incapable of exercising it. "[120]

The only writer, as far as I am aware, who advocates the opposite viewis Lord Campbell, who, after quoting the speech of Lord Camden, fromwhich extracts have been made, comments on it, and on the wholetransaction, in the following terms: "From the course then adopted andcarried through, I presume it is now to be considered part of ourconstitution that if ever, during the natural life of the sovereign, heis unable by mental disease personally to exercise the royal functions, the deficiency is to be supplied by the two Houses of Parliament, who, in their _discretion_, will probably elect the heir-apparent Regent, under such restrictions as they may please to propose, but who mayprefer the head of the ruling faction, and at once vest in him all theprerogatives of the crown. On the two occasions referred to in the reignof George III. , the next heir being at enmity with the King and hisministers, this was considered the loyal and courtly doctrine; and, fromits apparent advancement of the rights of Parliament, there was nodifficulty in casting odium on those who opposed it. But I must avowthat my deliberate opinion coincides with that of Burke, Fox, andErskine, who pronounced it to be unsupported by any precedent, and to bein accordance with the principles of the Polish, not the English, monarchy. The two Houses of Parliament would be the proper tribunal topronounce that the sovereign is unable to act; but then, as if he werenaturally as well as civilly dead, the next heir ought of right toassume the government as Regent, ever ready to lay it down on thesovereign's restoration to reason, in the same way as our Lady Victoriawould have returned to a private station if, after her accession, therehad appeared posthumous issue of William IV. By his queen. It is easy topoint out possible abuses by the next heir as Regent, to the prejudiceof the living sovereign; but there may be greater abuses of the power ofelection imputed to the two Houses, whereby a change of dynasty might beeffected. I conceive, therefore, that the Irish Parliament[121] in 1789acted more constitutionally in acknowledging the _right_ of the nextheir, in scouting the fiction of a commission or royal assent from theinsane sovereign, and in addressing the Prince of Wales to take onhimself the government as Regent. "

Though the sneers at the possibility of Parliament preferring "the headof the ruling faction" to the heir-apparent be hardly consistent withthe impartial candor which is one of the most imperative duties of anhistorical critic, and though the allusion to the principles of thePolish monarchy be not very intelligible, yet no one will refuse toattach due weight to the deliberate opinion of one who won for himselfso high a professional reputation as Lord Campbell. But, with allrespect to his legal rank, we may venture to doubt whether he has notlaid down as law, speaking as a literary man and an historian, adoctrine which he would not have entertained as a judge. For, if weconsider the common law of the kingdom, it is certain that, in the caseof subjects, if a man becomes deranged, his next heir does not at onceenter on his property "as if he were naturally as well as civilly dead. "And if, as in such cases is notoriously the practice, the Court ofChancery appoints a guardian of the lunatic's property, analogy wouldseem to require that the Houses of Parliament, as the only body whichcan possibly claim authority in such a matter, should exercise a similarpower in providing for the proper management of the government to thatwhich the law court would exercise in providing for the propermanagement of an estate; and that, therefore, the principles ofconstitutional[122] statesmanship, which is deeply interested inupholding the predominant authority of Parliament, must justify theassertion of the ministers that the two Houses had the entire and soleright to make regulations for the government of the kingdom during theincapacity of the sovereign; and that the next heir, even when a son offull age, can have no more right to succeed to his father's royalauthority in his lifetime than, if that father were a subject, he wouldhave to succeed to his estate. 

The opposite doctrine would seem to impugn the legality of the wholeseries of transactions which placed William and Mary on the throne. Theadmission of an indefeasible right of the heir-apparent would have bornea perilous resemblance to a recognition of that divine right, everypretension to which the Revolution of 1688 had extinguished. If, again, as Fox and his followers at one time endeavored to argue, the Houses in1789 had no right to the name or power of a Parliament, because the Kinghad no part in their meetings, the convention that sat a century before(as, indeed, was admitted) was certainly far less entitled to that nameor power, for it had not only never been called into existence by aKing, but was assembled in direct defiance of the King. Similarly, it isadmitted that the body which invited Charles II. To return and resumehis authority was equally destitute of the validity which could only begiven by a royal summons. Yet both these bodies had performed actions ofgreater importance than that which was looked for from this Parliament. The one had abolished the existing and usurping government, and restoredto his kingdom a King who had been long an exile. The other had, as itwere, passed sentence on the existing sovereign, on grounds whichconfessedly will not bear a strict examination, and had conferred thecrown on a prince who had no hereditary claim to the title. Thejustification of both acts was necessity. _Salus regni suprema Lex_. Andthe necessity was clearly more urgent in the present case than in eitherof the preceding instances. For, unless the Parliament interfered tocreate an authority, there was absolutely none in existence which wascapable of acting. It should also be remembered that this Parliament of1789, though not opened for the session by the King, had been originallyelected in obedience to his order, and had been prorogued by hisproclamation to the day of meeting;[123] and, though the opening of asession by a speech from the throne is the usual form for thecommencement of its proceedings, it may be doubted whether it be soindispensable a part of them that none of their acts are valid withoutit. 

The breaking out of the French Revolution, and the degree in which, inspite of all its atrocities and horrors, the revolutionary spirit for atime infected a large party in England, prevented Pitt from reviving theplan of Reform which he had framed with such care and genius fororganization, and in which, though defeated in Parliament, both beforeand after he became minister, he had hitherto continued to cherish thehope of eventually succeeding. But when clubs and societies, where themost revolutionary and seditious doctrines were openly broached, werespringing up in London and other large towns, and unscrupulousdemagogues by speeches and pamphlets were busily disseminating theorieswhich tended to the subversion of all legitimate authority, he notunnaturally thought it no longer seasonable to invite a discussion ofschemes which would be supported in many quarters only, to quote his ownwords, "as a stepping-stone to ulterior objects, which they dared notavow till their power of carrying them into effect should be by thisfirst acquisition secured. " But the alarm which the spread ofrevolutionary ideas excited in his mind was displayed, not onlypassively in this abstention from the advocacy of measures theexpediency of which must at all times in some degree depend on the toneof their introduction, but also in active measures of repression, someof which were not, indeed, unwarranted by precedent, but others of whichcan hardly be denied to have been serious inroads on the constitution, infringements of the freedom of opinion and discussion to which allEnglishmen are entitled, and one of which was, to say the least, a veryperilous extension of a law already sufficiently severe, the statute oftreason. If the French had been content with the overthrow of their owngovernment and institutions, much as we should have lamented theindiscriminate rashness and abhorred the atrocities with which theirdesign was carried out, we should still have adhered to theunquestionable maxim, that no nation is justified in interfering in theinternal affairs of another. But the Jacobin and Girondin demagogues, who had now the undisputed sway in Paris, did not limit their views totheir own country, but openly declared themselves the enemies of allestablished governments in every country; and the Convention passed aformal resolution in which they proffered "fraternity and assistance" toevery people which might be inclined to rise against their governments. Their resolutions were officially communicated to the sympathizingsocieties in England, and emissaries were secretly encouraged to crossthe Channel in the hope of gaining converts. Nor were their exertionsbarren. Two men were convicted in Scotland of a plot to seize EdinburghCastle, to massacre the garrison, to imprison the judges, and to rise inarms to compel the government to a change of policy. In London the Kingwas fired at on his way to open Parliament, and on his return hiscarriage was attacked by a furious mob, and was only protected fromserious injury by a troop of the Life Guards. Such outrages proved theexistence of a new danger, against which no previous government had everbeen called on to provide, and such as, in the opinion of the cabinet, could only be met by novel measures of precaution. 

The first was directed against the foreign propagators of revolution. The resolutions of the Convention had been promulgated in November, 1792; and at the meeting of Parliament in December, Lord Grenville, asForeign Secretary of State, introduced in the House of Lords an alienbill, to enable the government to deal in a summary manner with anyforeign visitors whose conduct or character might seem to call for itsinterference. It provided that all foreigners who had arrived in thekingdom since the preceding January should give in a statement of theirnames and residences; that any one who should arrive in future shouldfurnish an account of his name, his station in life, and his object invisiting England; that the King, by proclamation, order in Council, orsign-manual, might direct all foreigners to reside in such districts asmight be thought suitable; that no one might quit the residence in whichhe first settled without a passport; and that the Secretary of Statemight order any suspected foreigner to quit the kingdom instantly. 

The act was to be in operation for twelve months, and Lord Grenville, inintroducing it, though he admitted it to be a measure of "rather a novelnature, " explained at the same time that it was so far from being new inthe powers which it gave, that Magna Charta distinctly recognized "thepower and right of the crown to prevent foreigners from entering orresiding within the realm. " All that was really new was the defining ofthe manner in which that power should be exercised, since it had been sorarely needed that doubts might exist as to the proper mode of puttingit in action. The bill, which was adopted in both Houses by largemajorities, is remarkable, among other circumstances, from the fact thatits discussion furnished the first instance of a public display of thedifference between the two sections of the Opposition, subsequentlydescribed by Burke in one of his most celebrated pamphlets as the Oldand New Whigs; those whom he called the Old Whigs (the Duke of Portland, Sir Gilbert Elliott, Mr. Windham, not to mention Burke himself)earnestly supporting it, while Lord Lansdowne, Mr. Fox, Mr. Sheridan, and Mr. Grey resisted it with equal zeal. Lord Lansdowne took the groundthat it was a suspension of the _Habeas Corpus_ Act; while Fox and Greydenounced it, in more general terms, as a measure "utterlyirreconcilable with the principles of the constitution, " Mr. Greyapparently referring chiefly to the power given by the bill to theSecretary of State to send any foreigners from the country, which hedescribed as "making the bill a measure of oppression, giving power forthe exercise of which no man was responsible. " Sir Gilbert Elliott'sanswer was singularly ingenious. He did not deny that the bill conferredadditional power on the crown, though not more than was justified byexisting circumstances; but he maintained that the right of givingextraordinary powers to the crown on occasions was so far from beinginconsistent with the principles of the constitution, that to grantextraordinary powers in extraordinary emergencies was a part of itessential to the character of a free government. If such powers were atall times possessed by the crown, its authority would be too great for afree government to co-exist with it; but if such could not be at timesconferred on the crown, its authority would be too small for its ownsafety or that of the people. 

The arguments of the ministers were, no doubt, greatly recommended, bothto the Parliament and the people in general, by the notoriety of thefact that foreign agents were in many of our large towns busily, and notunsuccessfully, engaged in propagating what were known as Jacobindoctrines. But, even without that aid, it was clear that everygovernment must, for the common good of all, be at times ofextraordinary emergency invested with the power of suspending laws madefor ordinary circumstances. And what would be an intolerable evil, ifthe supreme magistrate took upon himself to exercise it, ceases to beone when the right to exercise it is conferred by the nation itself inParliament. If the bill did, as was argued, suspend the _Habeas Corpus_Act, that statute had been enacted by Parliament, and therefore forParliament, in a case of necessity, to suspend its operation was clearlywithin the spirit of the constitution. 

The bills affecting our own fellow-subjects were still more warmlycontested. One was known as the Traitorous Correspondence Bill, which, according to Lord Campbell, was suggested by Lord Loughborough, who hadlately become Lord Chancellor. The old law of high-treason, enacted inthe reign of Edward III. , had been in effect greatly mitigated by laterstatutes, which had made acts to which that character was imputed moredifficult of proof, by a stricter definition of what was admissibleevidence, and other safeguards; and the practice of the courts had bydegrees practically reduced the list of treasons enumerated in the oldlaw, indictments for many of the offences contained in it forbearing toassert that the persons accused had incurred the penalty ofhigh-treason. But this new bill greatly enlarged the catalogue. It madeit high-treason to hold any correspondence with the French, or to enterinto any agreement to supply them with commodities of any kind, evensuch as were not munitions of war, but articles of ordinary merchandise, or to invest any money in the French Funds; and it enacted farther thatany person who, by "any writing, preaching, or malicious and advisedspeaking, " should encourage such designs as the old statute of Edwardmade treasonable, should be liable to the penalties of high-treason. 

Another bill was designed to check the growing custom of holding publicmeetings, by providing that no meeting, the object of which was toconsider any petition to the King or Parliament, or to deliberate on anyalleged grievance, should be held without those who convened it, and whomust be householders, giving previous notice of it by publicadvertisement; and empowering any two justices of the peace, at theirown discretion, to declare any such meeting an unlawful assembly, and todisperse it by force, if, from the subjects discussed, the languageheld, or any special circumstances, they should regard it as dangerous. 

Fox, and those who still adhered to him, resisted almost every clause ofthese different bills. They maintained that one of the most fundamentalmaxims of law "in every country calling itself free was, that propertywas in the highest degree entitled to the protection of the law; and, ifso, that the right of disposing of it or investing it in any manner mustbe considered under the same protection;" that any interference "withordinary commercial transactions was equally repugnant to the spirit ofthe constitution;" and, taking a practical view of the question, theywarned the minister that such rigorous enactments imposing such extremepenalties would defeat their own end; for "it was a general and truemaxim, that excess of punishment for a crime brings impunity along withit; and that no jury would ever find a verdict which would doom afellow-creature to death for selling a yard of cloth and sending it toFrance. " They protested, too, against inflicting on words, whetherwritten or spoken, penalties which had hitherto been confined to overtacts. And the clauses conferring power on magistrates to prevent ordisperse public meetings encountered still more vehement opposition; Foxinsisting, with great eloquence, that "public meetings for thediscussion of public subjects were not only lawful, but agreeable to thevery essence of the constitution; that, indeed, to them, under thatconstitution, most of the liberties which Englishmen now enjoyed wereparticularly owing. " The people, he maintained, had a right to discusstheir grievances. "They had an inalienable right to complain bypetition, and to remonstrate to either House of Parliament, or to theKing; and to make two magistrates, who might be strong partisans, irresponsible judges whether anything said or done at a meeting had atendency to encourage sedition, was to say that a free constitution wasno longer suitable to us. " Pitt justified these measures, partly on theground of the special and unprecedented danger of the times, as provedby the late attempt on the King's life, and partly by the open avowal ofrepublican doctrines made at the meetings of different societies;partly, also, on the temporary character of the measures, since in eachbill a period was fixed after which its operation should expire. And heargued, farther, that, as many of the actions specified in these billsas seditious or treasonable were by many lawyers considered capable ofbeing reached by statutes already existing, though not universallyunderstood, it was "humane, not cruel, to remove doubts, and to preventmen from being ensnared by the ambiguity of old laws. "

And in May, 1794, he brought in another bill, founded on the report of asecret committee which, in compliance with a royal message, the House ofCommons had appointed to investigate the proceedings and objects ofcertain societies which were known to exist in different parts of thekingdom. In obedience to a Secretary of State's warrant, founded onsworn informations, their books and papers had been seized, and, havingbeen sealed up, were now laid before the House, with the report of thecommittee that they proved that several of the societies which theynamed had, ever since the end of the year 1791, been uniformly pursuinga settled design for the subversion of the constitution; one society, inparticular, having approved a plan for assembling a Convention, inimitation of the French Assembly sitting under that title, in order tooverturn the established government, and to wrest from the Parliamentthe power which the constitution placed in its hands. 

To prevent the dissemination of such principles, and to defeat suchschemes, Pitt now asked leave to bring in a bill to empower hisMajesty--acting, of course, through the Secretary of State--to secureand detain such persons as he should suspect of conspiring against theKing's person and government. He admitted that the power which he thusproposed to confer amounted to a suspension of the _Habeas Corpus_ Actin every part of the United Kingdom; nor did he deny that it was anunusually strong measure, but he contended that it was one justified byabsolute necessity, by the manifest danger of such a conspiracy as thecommittee had affirmed to exist to the tranquillity of the nation andthe safety of the government. 

Fox, it may almost be said as a matter of course, opposed theintroduction of any such measure; but his opposition was hardly markedby his usual force of argument. He was hampered by the impossibility ofdenying either the existence of the societies which the committee andthe minister had mentioned, or the dangerous character of some of theirdesigns; but he objected to the measures of repression which wereproposed, partly on the absence of all attempts at concealment on thepart of the promoters of these societies, partly on the contemptiblecharacter of the Convention which it was designed to summon, and theimpossibility that such an assembly should have the slightest influence. He even made their avowed hostility to the constitution a plea for apanegyric on that constitution, and on the loyal attachment to itevinced by the vast majority of the people; and from that he proceededto found a fresh argument against the proposed measure, contending thatit made a fatal inroad on that very constitution which was so highlyvalued by the whole nation. He described it as a measure "of infinitelygreater mischief than that which it proposed to remedy, since it wouldgive the executive authority absolute power over the personal liberty ofevery individual in the kingdom. " He did not deny that a similar measurehad been enacted under William III. , again in 1715, and again in 1745;but he contended that "the present peril bore no resemblance to thedangers of those times. This measure went to overturn the verycorner-stone of the constitution, and if it passed, there was an end ofthe constitution of England. " The bill was passed in both Houses by verylarge majorities. [124] It was originally enacted for six months only, but was from time to time renewed till the end of the century. 

If we take a general survey of all these measures together, as parts ofone great defensive scheme for the preservation of the publictranquillity and the general safety of the empire, it may, probably, bethought that, though undoubtedly suspensions of the constitution, theyare not open to the charge of being unconstitutional, since they wereenacted, not only for the welfare of the people, but with their consentand concurrence, legitimately signified by their representatives inParliament. It is scarcely consistent with sound reason to contend thatthe _habeas corpus_, which had been enacted by Parliament, could not besuspended by the authority which had enacted it; that the constitution, which exists for the benefit of the people, could not be suspended bythe people; or to deny, if it was in appearance transgressed by theseenactments, that it was yet transgressed by strictly constitutionalacts, by the decision of the Parliament, to whose power the constitutionprescribes no limits. 

But it is not sufficient that in this point of view these measures mayhave been defensible. In judging of their statesmanship, it is almostequally to be considered whether they were expedient and politic, whether the emergency or necessity were such as to justify such rigorousmethods of repression. It was fairly open to doubt whether some of them, and especially the Traitorous Correspondence and the Seditious MeetingsBills, did not treat as treasonable acts which did not go beyondsedition, and whether so to treat them were not to invest them with animportance which did not belong to them. And on this part of thequestion the general judgment has, we think, been unfavorable to thegovernment; and it has been commonly allowed that the Chancellor, whoseadvice on legal subjects the Prime-minister naturally took for hisguide, gave him impolitic counsel. In fact, it is well known that thesetwo acts, to a great extent, failed in their object through theirexcessive severity, several juries having refused to convict persons whowere prosecuted for treason, who would certainly not have escaped hadthey only been indicted for sedition; and it is deserving of remark thatthese two bills were not regarded with favor by the King himself, if theanecdote--which seems to rest on undeniable authority--be true, that heexpressed satisfaction at the acquittal of some prisoners, on the groundthat almost any evil would be more tolerable than that of putting men todeath "for constructive treason. " It must therefore, probably, beaffirmed that these two acts, the Treason Act and the Seditious MeetingsAct, went beyond the necessity of the case; that they were not onlyviolations of the constitution--which, when the measures are temporary, as these were, are not always indefensible--but that they weresuperfluous, unjust, and impolitic; superfluous, when they proposed todeal with acts already visitable with punishment by the ancient laws ofthe kingdom; unjust, when they created new classes of offences; andimpolitic, as exciting that kind of disapproval of the acts ofgovernment which in many minds has a tendency to excite a spirit ofdiscontent with and resistance to legitimate authority. And, indeed, itmust be inferred that such was the light in which these measures wereregarded by a statesman who in his general policy was proud toacknowledge himself Mr. Pitt's pupil, as he was also the most skilfuland successful of his more immediate successors. Twenty-five yearsafterward the distress caused by the reaction inevitably consequent onthe termination of twenty years of war produced a political excitementscarcely inferior to that with which Pitt had now to deal, and seditioussocieties and meetings scarcely less formidable; but, as we shall see, Lord Liverpool, taking warning, perhaps, from the mistake into which Mr. Pitt was led on this occasion, though compelled to bring forward new andstern measures of repression, and even to suspend the _Habeas Corpus_Act for a time, kept strictly within the lines of constitutionalprecedent, and was careful to avoid confounding sedition with treason. 

Notes:

[Footnote 73: He had been Lord-chamberlain in Lord Rockingham'sadministration of 1765. He was now Lord-lieutenant of Ireland. ]

[Footnote 74: In Lord Chatham's or the Duke of Grafton's ministry of1766, and in the later administration of Lord Rockingham. ]

[Footnote 75: It may be convenient to take this opportunity of pointingout that, in this administration, Lord Shelburne altered the old, mostunreasonable, and inconvenient arrangement by which the departments ofthe two Secretaries of State were distinguished by the latitude, andcalled Northern and Southern. By a new division, one took charge of thehome affairs, the other of the foreign affairs. And in 1794 a thirdSecretary was added for War, who, by a very singular arrangement, whichcontinued till very recently, had charge also of the colonies. But, inthe year 1855, the Colonial-office was intrusted to a separate minister;and in 1858 a fifth Secretary of State, that for India, was added, onthe transfer of the government of that country from the East IndiaCompany to the Crown. When there were only two Secretaries of State, therule was that one should sit in each House. At present it is not_necessary_ that more than one should be a peer, though it is more usualfor two to be members of the Upper House. And it is usual also for theUnder-secretaries to be members of the House to which theChief-secretaries do not belong, though this rule is not invariablyobserved. ]

[Footnote 76: "Parliamentary History, " xxiii. , 163. ]

[Footnote 77: The divisions were: 224 to 208, and 207 to 190. ]

[Footnote 78: Lord Stanhope, quoting from an unpublished "Life of LordBarrington, " compiled by the Bishop of Durham (meaning, I suppose, Bishop Shute Barrington). --_History of England_, v. , 174. ]

[Footnote 79: Even with the first flush of triumph, the night after thesecond defeat of Lord Shelburne in the House of Commons, Fox's greatfriend, Mr. Fitzpatrick, writes to his brother, Lord Ossory: "To theadministration it is _cila mors_, but not _victoria loeta_ to us. Theapparent juncture with Lord North is universally cried outagainst. "--Lord J. Russell's _Memorials and Correspondence of C. J. Fox_, ii. , 18. ]

[Footnote 80: Lord J. Russell's "Memorials and Correspondence of C. J. Fox, " ii. , 90. ]

[Footnote 81: _Ibid_. , p. 118. ]

[Footnote 82: In one division (161 to 137) they had only a majority oftwenty-four. ]

[Footnote 83: In a letter to Lord Northington (Lord-lieutenant ofIreland), dated July 17, Fox himself mentions that not one of hiscolleagues, except the Duke of Portland and Lord Keppel (First Lord ofthe Admiralty), approved of it. --_Memoirs of Fox_, ii. , 116. ]

[Footnote 84: November 22 he writes to the Duke of Rutland: "The bill... Is, I really think, the boldest and most unconstitutional measureever attempted, transferring at one stroke, in spite of all charters andcompacts, the immense patronage and influence of the East to CharlesFox, in or out of office. "--Stanhope's _Life of Pitt_, i. , 140. ]

[Footnote 85: The whole paper is given by the Duke of Buckingham, "Courts and Cabinets of George III, " i. , 288, and quoted by Lord Russellin his "Memorials and Correspondence of C. J. Fox, " ii. , 251. It isendorsed, "Delivered by Lord Thurlow, December 1, 1783. Nugent Temple. "]

[Footnote 86: "Life of Pitt, " i. , 148. Lord Stanhope does not pledgehimself to these being "the exact words of this commission, but as toits purport and meaning there is no doubt. " They are, however, the exactwords quoted by Fox in his speech in support of Mr. Baker's resolutionson the 17th. --_Parliamentary History_, xxiv. , 207. ]

[Footnote 87: "Parliamentary History, " xxiv. , 151-154. ]

[Footnote 88: 95 to 76. "Strange to say, one of the cabinet ministers, Lord Stormont, president of the council, formed part of the finalmajority against the bill. "--_Life of Pitt_, ii. , 154. ]

[Footnote 89: "Life of Pitt, " i. , 155. ]

[Footnote 90: "Lives of the Chancellors, " c. Clix. Lord Thurlow. ]

[Footnote 91: "The Grenville Papers, " iii. , 374. It may, however, beremarked, as tending to throw some doubt on Mr. Grenville's statement, that Lord Campbell asserts that "Lord Mansfield, without entering intosystematic opposition, had been much alienated from the court duringLord Rockingham's first administration. "--_Lives of the Chief-justices_, ii. , 468. ]

[Footnote 92: Vol. Ii. , pp. 229-232. ]

[Footnote 93: It will be seen hereafter that this doctrine was admittedin the fullest degree by Sir Robert Peel in the winter of 1884, when headmitted that his acceptance of office made him alone responsible forthe dismissal of Lord Melbourne, though, in fact, he was taken entirelyby surprise by the King's act, being in Italy at the time. ]

[Footnote 94: Lord John Russell, in his "Memorials of Fox" (ii. , 253), affirms that "Lord Temple's act was probably known to Pitt;" but LordMacaulay, in his "Essay on Pitt" (p. 326), fully acquits Pitt of suchknowledge, saying that "he could declare, with perfect truth, that, ifunconstitutional machinations had been employed, he was no party tothem. "]

[Footnote 95: On Lord Effingham's motion, in condemnation of some of theproceedings of the Commons, which was carried February 4, 1784, by 100to 53. ]

[Footnote 96: "Parliamentary History, " xxiv. , 383-385--debate of January20, 1784. ]

[Footnote 97: _Ibid_, p. 283--January 12. ]

[Footnote 98: _Ibid_. , pp. 251-257. ]

[Footnote 99: "Parliamentary History, " xxiv. , 478--February 2. ]

[Footnote 100: _Ibid_. , p. 663. ]

[Footnote 101: "Parliamentary History, " xxiv. , 687, 695, 699. ]

[Footnote 102: The numbers were 201 to 189. The week before, on Mr. Powys's motion for a united and efficient administration, the majorityhad been 20--197 to 177. On a motion made by Mr. Coke, February 3, themajority had been 24--211 to 187. At the beginning of the struggle themajorities had been far larger--232 to 143 on Fox's motion for acommittee on the state of the nation, January 12. ]

[Footnote 103: 191 to 190. ]

[Footnote 104: From December 19, when Pitt accepted office, to March 24, when the Parliament was dissolved. ]

[Footnote 105: "Memorials and Correspondence of C. J. Fox, " by EarlRussell, ii. , 229, 248. ]

[Footnote 106: _Ibid_. , p. 280. ]

[Footnote 107: That of April, 1831, after the defeat of the Governmenton General Gascoyne's amendment]

[Footnote 108: Lord Macaulay, "Miscellaneous Essays, " ii. , 330. ]

[Footnote 109: Lord Macaulay, essay on William Pitt. ]

[Footnote 110: Alison ("History of Europe, " xiii. , 971) states theEnglish force in the Netherlands in 1794 at 85, 000 men. Lord Stanhopecalls the English at Minden 10, 000 or 12, 000. ]

[Footnote 111: An eminent living writer (Mr. Leeky, "History ofEngland, " ii. , 474) quotes with apparent approval another comparisonbetween the father and son, made by Grattan, in the following words:"The father was not, perhaps, so good a debater as his son, but was amuch better orator, a greater scholar, and a far greater man. " The firsttwo phrases in this eulogy may, perhaps, balance one another; though, when Mr. Lecky admits that "Lord Chatham's taste was far from pure, andthat there was much in his speeches that was florid and meretricious, and not a little that would have appeared absurd bombast but for theamazing power of his delivery, " he makes a serious deduction from hisclaim to the best style of eloquence which no one ever made from thespeeches of his son. But Grattan's assertion that the man who, as hissister said of him, knew but two books, the "Ĉneid" and the "FaerieQueene, " was superior in scholarship to one who, with the exception ofhis rival, Fox, had probably no equal for knowledge of the great authorsof antiquity in either House of Parliament, is little short of apalpable absurdity. We may, however, suspect that Grattan's estimate ofthe two men was in some degree colored by his personal feelings. WithLord Chatham he had never been in antagonism. On one great subject, thedispute with America, he had been his follower and ally, advocating inthe Irish House of Commons the same course which Chatham upheld in theEnglish House of Peers. But to Pitt he had been almost constantlyopposed. By Pitt he and his party, whether in the English, or, so longas it lasted, in the Irish Parliament, had been repeatedly defeated. TheUnion, of which he had been the indefatigable opponent, and to which hewas never entirely reconciled, had been carried in his despite; and itwas hardly unnatural that the recollection of his long and unsuccessfulwarfare should in some degree bias his judgment, and prompt him to anundeserved disparagement of the minister by whose wisdom and firmness hehad been so often overborne. ]

[Footnote 112: Massey's "History of England, " iii. , 447; _confer_ alsoGreen's "History of the English People, " vol. Iv. ]

[Footnote 113: Hallam ("Middle Ages, " ii. , 386, 481), extolling thecondition of "the free socage tenants, or English yeomanry, as the classwhose independence has stamped with peculiar features both ourconstitution and our national character, " gives two derivations for thename; one "the Saxon _soe_, which signifies a franchise, especially oneof jurisdiction;" and the other, that adopted by Bracton, and which hehimself prefers, "the French word _soc_, a ploughshare. "]

[Footnote 114: Lord Colchester's "Diary, " i. , 68, mentions that theofficiating clergyman was Mr. Burt, of Twickenham, who received £500 forhis services. Lord John Russell ("Memorials and Correspondence of Fox, "ii. , 284-389) agrees in stating that the marriage was performed in themanner prescribed by the Common Prayer-book. Mr. Jesse, in his "Life ofGeorge III. , " ii. , 506, gathering, as the present writer can say frompersonal knowledge, his information from some papers left behind him bythe late J. W. Croker, says: "The ceremony was performed by a Protestantclergyman, though in part, apparently, according to the rites of theRoman Catholic Church. " Lord John Russell avoids discussing the questionwhether the marriage involved the forfeiture of the inheritance of thecrown, an avoidance which many will interpret as a proof that in hisopinion it did. Mr. Massey's language ("History of England, " iii. , 327)clearly intimates that he holds the same opinion. ]

[Footnote 115: Russell's "Life of Fox, " ii. , 187. ]

[Footnote 116: Fox's private correspondence is full of anticipationsthat the Regent's first act will be to dismiss Pitt, and to make himminister. In a letter of December 15 he even fixes a fortnight as thetime by which he expects to be installed; while Lord Loughborough, whowas eager to possess himself of the Great Seal--an expectation in which, though well-founded, he would, as it proved, have found himselfdisappointed--was led by his hopes to give the Prince counsel of soextraordinary a nature that it is said that the ministers, to whoseknowledge it had come, were prepared, if any attempt had been made toact upon it, or even openly to avow it, to send the learned lord to theTower. ("Diary of Lord Colchester, " i. , 28. ) In an elaborate paper whichhe drew up and read to the Prince at Windsor, he assured his RoyalHighness, speaking as a lawyer, that "the administration of governmentdevolved to him of right. He was bound by every duty to assume it, andhis character would be lessened in the public estimation, if he took iton any other ground but right, or on any sort of compromise. Theauthority of Parliament, as the great council of the nation, would beinterposed, not to confer but to declare the right. The mode ofproceeding should be that in a short time his Royal Highness shouldsignify his intention to act by directing a meeting of the PrivyCouncil, when he should declare his intention to take upon himself thecare of the state, and should at the same time signify his desire tohave the advice of Parliament, and order it by proclamation to meetearly for the despatch of business.... It is of vast importance in theoutset that he should appear to act entirely of himself, and, in theconferences he must necessarily have, not to consult, but to listen anddirect. " The entire paper is given by Lord Campbell ("Lives of theChancellors, " c. Clxx. ). ]

[Footnote 117: Hume's account of this transaction is, that the Duke"desired that it might be recorded in Parliament that this authority wasconferred on him from their own free motion, without any application onhis part; ... And he required that all the powers of his office shouldbe specified and defined by Parliament. "]

[Footnote 118: "Parliamentary History, " xxvii. , 803--speech of Mr. Hardinge, one of the Welsh judges, and M. P. For Old Sarum. ]

[Footnote 119: I take this report, or abstract, of Lord Camden's speechfrom the "Lives of the Chancellors, " c. Cxlvii. ]

[Footnote 120: "Memorials of Fox, " ii. , 292. ]

[Footnote 121: The proceedings of the Irish Parliament on this occasionwill be mentioned in the next chapter. ]

[Footnote 122: Mr. Hallam (iii. , 144, ed. 1832) gives a definition ofthe term "unconstitutional" which seems rather singular: "Byunconstitutional, as distinguished from 'illegal, ' I mean a novelty ofmuch importance, tending to endanger the established laws. " May not theterm rather be regarded as referring to a distinct class of acts--tothose at variance with the recognized _spirit_ of the constitution orprinciples of government, with the preservation of the liberties of thepeople, as expressed or implied in the various charters, etc. , but notforbidden by the express terms of any statute?]

[Footnote 123: The entry in the "Parliamentary History, " November 20, 1788, is: "Both Houses met pursuant to the last prorogation. Latermeetings were in consequence of successive adjournments. "]

[Footnote 124: In the Commons by 183 to 33; in the Lords by 119 to 11. ]

CHAPTER V. 

The Affairs of Ireland. --Condition of the Irish Parliament. --TheOctennial Bill. --The Penal Laws. --Non-residence of the Lord-lieutenant. --Influence of the American War on Ireland. --Enrolment of theVolunteers. --Concession of all the Demands of Ireland. --Violence of theVolunteers. --Their Convention. --Violence of the Opposition inParliament: Mr. Brownlow, Mr. Grattan, Mr. Flood. --Pitt's PropositionsFail. --Fitzgibbon's Conspiracy Bill. --Regency Question. --Recovery of theKing. --Question of a Legislative Union. --Establishment of MaynoothCollege. --Lord Edward Fitzgerald. --Arguments for and against theUnion. --It passes the Irish Parliament. --Details of the Measure. --General Character of the Union. --Circumstances which Preventedits Completeness. 

In describing the condition of Ireland and the feelings of its people, in the latter years of the reign of George II. , Mr. Hallam has fixed onthe year 1753 as that in which the Irish Parliament first began to givevent to aspirations for equality with the English Parliament in audiblecomplaints; and the Irish House of Commons, finding the kingdom in thealmost unprecedented condition of having "a surplus revenue after thepayment of all charges, " took steps to vindicate that equality by a sortof appropriation bill. 

There were, however, three fundamental differences between theParliaments of the two countries, which, above all others, stood in theway of such equality as the Irish patriots desired: the first, that by alaw as old as the time of Henry VII. , and called sometimes the Statuteof Drogheda, from the name of the town in which it was firstpromulgated, and sometimes Poynings' Act, from the name of Sir HenryPoynings, the Lord-deputy at the time, no bill could be introduced intothe Irish Parliament till it had received the sanction of the King andPrivy Council in England; the second, that the Parliament lasted for theentire life of the King who had summoned it--a regulation which caused aseat in the House of Commons to be regarded almost as a possession forlife, and consequently enormously increased the influence of the patronsof boroughs, some of whom could return a number of members such as themightiest borough monger in England could never aspire to equal. [125]The third difference, of scarcely inferior importance, was, that theParliament only sat in alternate years. But, though these arrangementssuited the patrons and the members of the House of Commons, it was notstrange that the constituencies, whose power over their representativeswas almost extinguished by them, regarded them with less complacency, and, at the general election which was the consequence of the accessionof George III. , pledges were very generally exacted from the candidatesthat, if elected, they would endeavor to procure the passing of aseptennial act like that which had been the law in England ever sincethe early years of George I. A bill with that object was introduced in1761, and reported on not unfavorably as to its principle by the Englishlaw advisers to whom the Privy Council referred it. But, as if it hadbeen designed to exemplify in the strongest possible manner the nationalpropensity for making blunders, it contained one clause which renderedit not only impracticable but ridiculous. The clause provided that nomember should take his seat or vote till his qualification had beenproved before the Speaker in a full house. But the Speaker could not bechosen till the members had established their right of voting, so thatthe whole was brought to a dead-lock, and the bill, if passed, couldnever have been carried out. 

In the ministry of 1767, however--that of the Duke of Grafton and LordChatham--Lord Halifax was replaced at Dublin Castle by Lord Townsend, who, among his other good qualities, deserves specially honorablemention as the first Lord-lieutenant who made residence in Dublin hisrule on principle; for till very lately non-residence had been the ruleand residence the exception, a fact which is of itself a melancholy butall-sufficient proof of the absolute indifference to Irish interestsshown by all classes of English statesmen. And under his government abill for shortening Parliaments was passed, though it fixed the possibleduration of each Parliament at eight years instead of seven, thevariation being made to prevent a general election from being held atthe same time in both countries, but, according to common belief, solelyin order to keep up a mark of difference between the Irish and EnglishParliaments. And those who entertained this suspicion fancied they saw aconfirmation of it in the retention of the regulation that the IrishParliament should only sit in alternate years, a practice whollyinconsistent with any proper idea of the duties and privileges of aParliament such as prevailed on this side of the Channel; since aParliament whose sessions were thus intermittent could not possiblyexercise that degree of supervision over the revenue, either in itscollection or its expenditure, which is among its most important duties. And the continued maintenance of this practice must be regarded fartheras a proof that the English legislators had not yet learned to considerIreland as an integral part of the kingdom, entitled in every particularto equal rights with England and Scotland. Indeed, it is impossible forany Englishman to contemplate the history of the treatment of Ireland bythe English legislators, whether Kings, ministers, or Parliaments, formore than a century and a half, without equal feelings of shame at theinjustice and wonder at the folly of their conduct. Not only was Irelanddenied freedom of trade with England (a denial as inconsistent not onlywith equity but also with common-sense as if Windsor had been refusedfree trade with London), [126] but Irish manufactures were deliberatelychecked and suppressed to gratify the jealous selfishness of the Englishmanufacturers. Macaulay, in his zeal for the memory of William III. , hasnot scrupled to apologize for, if not to justify, the measuresdeliberately sanctioned by that sovereign for the extinction of theIrish woollen manufactures, on the ground that Ireland was not a sisterkingdom, but a colony; that "the general rule is, that the EnglishParliament is competent to legislate for all colonies planted by Englishsubjects, and that no reason existed for considering the case of thecolony in Ireland as an exception. "[127] There is, perhaps, no passagein his whole work less to his credit. But, if such was the spirit inwhich an English historian could write of Ireland in the latter half ofthis present century, it may, perhaps, diminish our wonder at theconduct of our legislators in an earlier generation. 

The penal laws on the subject of religion were also conceived andcarried out in a spirit of extraordinary rigor and injustice. By far thelarger portion of the Irish population still adhered to the RomanCatholic faith; but, as far as the negative punishment of restrictionsand disabilities could go, its profession was visited as one of the mostunpardonable of offences. No Roman Catholic could hold a commission inthe army, nor be called to the Bar, nor practise as an attorney; andwhen it was found that a desire to devote themselves to the study of thelaw had led many gentlemen to acknowledge a conversion to Protestantism, a statute was actually passed to require them to prove their sincerityby five years' adherence to their new form of religion before they couldbe regarded as having washed off the defilement of their old heresysufficiently to be thought worthy to wear a gown in the Four Courts. NoRoman Catholic might keep a school; while a strange refinement ofintolerance had added a statute prohibiting parents from sending theirchildren to Roman Catholic Schools in a foreign country. 

And the manner in which the government was carried on was, if possible, worse even than the principle. The almost continual absence of theLord-lieutenant inevitably left the chief management of the details inthe hands of underlings, and the favor of the Castle was only to beacquired by the lowest time-serving, of which those who could influenceelections, wealthy and high-born as they for the most part were, werenot more innocent than the representatives. No support to governmentcould be looked for from either peer or commoner unless it werepurchased by bribes more or less open, which it was equallydiscreditable to ask and to grant; for one of the worst fruits of thesystem which had so long reigned throughout the island was the generaldemoralization of all classes. Mr. Fronde gives George III. Himself thecredit of being the first person who resolutely desired to see a changeof the system, and to "try the experiment whether Ireland might not bemanaged by open rectitude and real integrity. "[128] But his firstefforts were baffled by the carelessness or incompetency of theViceroys, since it was difficult to find any man of ability who wouldundertake the office. And for some years things went on with very littlechange, great lords of different ranks having equally no object but thatof controlling the Castle and engrossing the patronage of thegovernment, and in not a few instances of also procuring large grants orpensions for themselves, each seeking to build up an individualinfluence which no Viceroy could ever have withstood, had they beenunited instead of being separated by mutual jealousies, which enabledhim from time to time to play off one against the other. 

But the war with the North American Colonies, which broke out in 1774, by some of its indirect consequences brought about a great change in theaffairs of Ireland. The demand for re-enforcements to the armies engagedin America could only be met by denuding the British islands themselvesof their necessary garrisons. No part of them was left so undefended asthe Irish coast; and, after a time, the captains of some of the Americanprivateers, learning how little resistance they had to fear, venturedinto St. George's Channel, penetrated even into the inland waters, andthreatened Carrickfergus and Belfast. In matters of domestic policy itwas possible to procrastinate, to defer deciding on relaxations of thepenal laws or the removal of trade restrictions, but to delay puttingthe country into a state of defence against an armed enemy for a singlemoment was not to be thought of; yet the government was powerless. Ofthe regular army almost every available man was in, or on his way to, America, and the most absolute necessity, therefore, compelled the Irishto consider themselves as left to their own resources for defence. Itwas as impossible to levy a force of militia as one of regular troops, for the militia could not be embodied without great expense; and thefinances of the whole kingdom had been so mismanaged that money was ashard to procure as men. In this emergency several gentlemen proposed tothe Lord-lieutenant to raise bodies of volunteers. The government, though reluctant to sanction the movement, could see no alternative, since the presence of an armed force of some kind was indispensable forthe safety of the island. The movement grew rapidly; by the summer of1779 several thousand men were not only under arms, but were beingrapidly drilled into a state of efficiency, and had even establishedsuch a reputation for strength, that, when in the autumn the sameprivateers that had been so bold in Belfast Lough the year beforereached the Irish coast, in the hope of plundering Limerick or Galway, they found the inhabitants of the district well prepared to receivethem, and did not venture to attempt a descent on any part of theisland. And, when the Parliament met in October, some of the members, who saw in the success that could not be denied to have attended theirexertions an irresistible means of strengthening the rising pretensionsof Ireland to an equality of laws and freedom with England, moved votesof thanks in both Houses to the whole body of Volunteers. They werecarried by acclamation, and the Volunteers of the metropolis lined thestreets between the Parliament House and the Castle when, according tocustom, the members of the two Houses marched in procession to presenttheir addresses to the Lord-lieutenant. Such a recognition of the powerof this new force stimulated those members who claimed in a specialdegree the title of Friends of Ireland to greater exertion. A wisergovernment than that of Lord North would have avoided giving occasionfor the existence of a force which the utter absence of any other hadmade masters of the situation. The Volunteers even boasted that they hadbeen called into existence by English misgovernment. In the words of oneof their most eloquent advocates, "England had sown her laws likedragons' teeth, and they had sprung up as armed men. "

Ireland began to feel that she was strong, and, not unnaturally desiredto avail herself of that strength, which England now could not question, to put forward demands for concessions which in common fairness couldnot well be denied. In 1778, when Lord North, in the hope of recoveringthe allegiance of the North American Colonies, brought forward what hetermed his conciliatory propositions, the Irish members began to presstheir demand that the advantages thus offered to the Americans should beextended to their own countrymen also; that the fact of the Irish nothaving rebelled should not be made a plea for treating them worse thanthose who had; and in the front of all their requests was one for theabolition of those unjust and vexatious duties which shackled theirtrade and manufactures. But the jealousy of the English and Scotchmanufacturers was still as bitter, and, unhappily, still as influential, as it had proved in the time of William III. And, to humor the graspingselfishness of Manchester and Glasgow, Lord North met the demands of theIrish with a refusal of which every word of his speech on thepropositions to America was the severest condemnation, and which hesought to mitigate by some new regulations in favor of the linen trade, to which the English and Scotch manufacturers made no objection, sincethey had no linen factories. The Irish, in despair, had recourse tonon-importation agreements, of which the Americans had set the example, binding themselves not to import nor to use any articles of English orScotch manufacture with which they could possibly dispense. And theresult was, that Lord North yielded to fear what he had refused tojustice, and the next year brought in bills to grant the Irish thecommercial equality which they demanded. Some of the most oppressive andvexatious of the penal laws were also relaxed; and some restrictionswhich the Navigation Act imposed on commerce with the West Indies wererepealed. But, strange to say, the English ministers still clung to onegrievance of monstrous injustice, and steadily refused to allow judicialappointments to be placed on the same footing as in England, and to makethe seat of a judge on the bench depend on his own good conduct, insteadof on the caprice of a king or a minister. 

But the manifest reluctance with which the English government hadgranted this partial relief encouraged the demand for fartherconcessions. The Irish members, rarely deficient in eloquence orfertility of resource, had been lately re-enforced by a recruit ofpre-eminent powers, whom Lord Charlemont had returned for his borough ofMoy, Henry Grattan; and, led by him, began to insist that the remaininggrievances, to the removal of which the nation had a right, would neverbe extinguished so long as the supreme power of legislation for thecountry rested with the English and Scotch Parliament; and that the trueremedy was only to be found in the restoration to the Irish Parliamentof that independence of which it had been deprived ever since the timeof Henry VII. They were encouraged by the visibly increasing weakness ofLord North's administration. Throughout the year 1781 it was evidentlytottering to its fall. And on the 22d of February, 1782, Grattan broughtforward in the Irish House of Commons a resolution, intended, ifcarried, to lay the foundation of a bill, "that a claim of any body ofmen other than the King, Lords, and Commons of Ireland to bind thiskingdom is unconstitutional, illegal, and a grievance. " This resolutionaimed at the abolition of Poynings' Act. Other resolutions demanded theabolition of the "powers exercised by the Privy Council under color ofPoynings' Act, " and a farther relaxation of the penal laws. So helplessdid the government by this time feel itself, that the Attorney-general, who was its spokesman on this occasion, could not venture to resist theprinciple of these resolutions, but was contented to elude them for thetime by objections taken to some of the details; and Grattan gave noticeof another motion to bring the question to a more definite decision, which he fixed for the 16th of April. 

Before that day came Lord North's government had ceased to exist, andhad been replaced by Lord Rockingham's, one most influential member ofwhich was the most distinguished of living Irishmen, Mr. Burke, who, while in opposition, had always shown himself a warm supporter of theclaims of his countrymen, and was not likely to have his ardor in thecause damped by being placed in a situation where he could procure afriendly hearing to his counsels. Once more they had increased theirdemands, requiring, besides the removal of the purely politicalgrievances, a surrender of the right of appeal from the Irish to theEnglish courts of law. But their new masters were inclined to granteverything which seemed requisite to the establishment of completeequality between the two kingdoms; and though the new ministry wasdissolved in a few months by the premature death of its chief, he livedlong enough to carry the repeal of Poynings' Act, the retention of whichwas now admitted to be not only senseless but mischievous, since theexistence of a body invested with nominal dignity, but practicallypowerless, was calculated not only to provoke discontent, but to furnisha lever for agitation. 

The repeal was, however, nothing less than the establishment of anentirely new constitution in Ireland. The Irish Parliament, the meetingsof which had hitherto been a mere form and farce, was installed in aposition of absolute independence, to grant money or to make laws, subject to no other condition than that their legislation should be of acharacter to entitle it to the royal assent, a condition to which everyact of the British Parliament was likewise and equally liable. "Unhappily, as an Irish patriotic writer exclaims on this occasion, itwas written in the book of fate that the felicity of Ireland should beshort-lived. "[129] And a similar shortness of existence was to be thelot of the separate independence of her Parliament. Even while framinginstructions for the Lord-lieutenant, in his honest desire to inauguratea system of just government for Ireland, George III. Had warned him onno account to "summon a Parliament without his special command. "[130]And, regarded by the light of subsequent events, it can hardly be deniedthat the prohibition displayed an accurate insight into the realdifficulties of the country, and also into the character of the peoplethemselves as the source of at least some of those difficulties. Weought not to judge its leaders too severely. A nation which has beenlong kept in bondage, and is suddenly presented with liberty, is hardlymore able to bear the change than a man immured for years in a darkdungeon can at once endure the unveiled light of the sun; andindependence had been granted to the Irish too suddenly for it to beprobable that they would at once and in every instance exercise itwisely. 

All parties were to blame in different degrees. The first danger camefrom the Volunteers, who, flushed with self-importance, from the beliefthat it was the imposing show of their strength which had enabled theParliament to extort Lord Rockingham's concession from the EnglishHouses, now claimed to be masters of the Parliament itself. With thetermination of the American war, and the consequent return of theEnglish army to Europe, the reason for their existence had passed away. But they refused to be disbanded, and established a convention of armeddelegates, to sit in Dublin during the session of Parliament, and tooverawe the Houses into passing a series of measures which theyprescribed, and which included a Parliamentary Reform Bill of a mostsweeping character. On this occasion, however, the House of Commonsacted with laudable firmness. Led by Mr. Fitzgibbon, a man of greatpowers, and above all suspicion of corruptibility, it spurned thedictation of an unauthorized body, and rejected the Reform Bill, avowedly on the ground of its being presented to it "under the mandateof a military congress;" and the Convention, finding itself powerless toenforce its mandates, dissolved. 

But the difficulties of the government were not over with thesuppression of the Volunteer Convention. The Lord-lieutenant had aharder, because a more enduring, contest to encounter with theParliament and the patrons of the boroughs. A single act of Parliamentmay substitute a new law for an old one; but no one resolution or billhas a magical power to extinguish long habits of jobbery and corruption. Members and patrons alike seemed to regard the late concessions aschiefly valuable on account of the increased value which it enabled themto place on their services to the government; and one cannot readwithout a feeling of shame that one or two of the bishops who were wontto be regarded as the proprietors of the seats for their diocesancities, were not behind the most nameless lay boroughmongers in theresolution they evinced make a market of their support of thegovernment. The consequence was that the government was unable to feelconfident of its power to carry any measure except at a price that itwas degrading to pay; while of those few members who were above allsuspicion of personal corruption, many were so utterly wrong-headed, andhad their minds so filled with unreasonable jealousy for what theycalled the honor and dignity of Ireland, and with a consequent distrustof England and of all Englishmen, that their honest folly was even agreater obstacle to wise and good government than the mean cunning ofthe others. There can hardly be a more striking proof of thedifficulties to be overcome by a minister than is furnished by a speechmade by a gentleman of the highest character, and of deservedly wideinfluence in the Northern counties, Mr. Brownlow, of Lurgan, one of themembers for Armagh, which is quoted by Mr. Froude. [131]

Pitt was painfully conscious of the commercial injustice with whichhitherto Ireland had always been treated, and in the very first year ofhis administration he applied himself to the removal of the mostmischievous of the grievances of which the Irish merchants complained, adopting to a great extent a scheme which had been put before him by oneof the most considerable gentlemen of that body, which was based on theprinciple of equalization of duties in both countries. It is unnecessaryhere to enter into the details of the measure which he introduced intothe House of Commons. He avowed it to be the commencement of a newsystem of government for Ireland, "a system of a participation andcommunity of benefits, a system of equality and fairness, which, withouttending to aggrandize one portion of the empire or to depress the other, should seek the aggregate interest of the whole; it was a substitute forthe system which had hitherto been adopted of making the smaller countrycompletely subordinate to and subservient to the greater, of making thesmaller and poorer country a mere instrument for the advantage of thegreater and wealthier one. He, therefore, proposed now to create asituation of perfect commercial equality, in which there was to be acommunity of benefits, and also to some extent a community of burdens. "And he urged the House to "adopt that system of trade with Ireland thatwould tend to enrich one part of the empire without impoverishing theother, while it would give strength to both; that, like mercy, thefavorite attribute of Heaven, "'Is twice blessed-- It blesseth him that gives and him that takes. '"

It might, he said, be regarded as "a treaty with Ireland by which thatcountry would be put on a fair, equal, and impartial footing with GreatBritain, in point of commerce, with respect to foreign countries and ourcolonies. " The community of burdens which his measure would impose onIreland was this: that whenever the gross hereditary revenue of Irelandshould exceed £650, 000 (an amount considerably in excess of anything ithad ever yet reached), the excess should be applied to the support ofthe fleet of the United Kingdom. It was, in fact, a burden that couldhave no existence at all until the Irish trade had become far moreflourishing and productive than as yet it had ever been. Yet a measureconceived in such a spirit of liberality, and framed with such carefulattention to the minutest interests of Irish trade, Mr. Brownlow did nothesitate to denounce as one "tending to make Ireland a tributary nationto Great Britain. The same terms, " he declared, "had been held out toAmerica, and Ireland had equal spirit with America to reject them. " Heeven declared that "it was happy for Mr. Orde" (the Chief Secretary, whohad introduced the measure into the Irish House of Commons) "that he wasin a country remarkable for humanity. Had he proposed such a measure ina Polish Diet, he would not have lived to carry back an answer to hismaster. If, " he concluded, "the gifts of Britain are to be accompaniedwith the slavery of Ireland, I will never be a slave to pay tribute; Iwill hurl back her gifts with scorn. " Baffled by such frantic andsenseless opposition, Pitt condescended to remodel his measure. In itsnew form it was not so greatly for the advantage of Ireland. He had beenconstrained to admit some limitation of his original liberality by theopposition which, it had met with in England also where Fox, at alltimes an avowed enemy of freedom of trade, had made himself themouth-piece of the London and Liverpool merchants, who could not see, without the most narrow-minded apprehension, the monopoly of the tradewith India and the West Indies, which they had hitherto enjoyed, threatened by the admission of Ireland to its benefits. And now a clausein the second bill, binding the Irish Parliament to reenact theNavigation Laws existing in England, called up an opposition fromGrattan[132] as furious as that with which Mr. Brownlow had denouncedthe original measure. To demand the enactment of the English NavigationLaw, he declared, was "a revocation of the constitution;" and his rival, Flood, in his zeal to emulate his popularity with the mob, surpassinghim in vehemence, inveighed against the clause, as one intended to makethe Irish Parliament a mere register of the English Parliament, "whichit should never become". All the arguments brought forward in favor ofthe measure by the supporters of the government--arguments which, probably, no one would now be found to deny to have beenunanswerable--failed to make the slightest impression on a House inwhich the chief object of each opponent of the ministry seemed to be tooutrun his fellows in violence; and eventually the measure fell to theground, and for fifteen years more Ireland was deprived of theadvantages which had been intended for her. 

And even yet the danger from the Volunteers was not wholly extinguished. Though their Convention had been suppressed, its leaders had onlychanged their tactics. Under the guidance of a Dublin ironmonger, namedNapper Tandy, they now proposed to convene a Congress, to consist, not, as before, of delegates from the Volunteer body, but of persons whoshould be representatives of the entire nation; and Tandy had even theaudacity to issue circulars to the sheriffs of the different counties, to require them, in their official capacity, to summon the people toreturn representatives to this Congress. The Sheriff of Dublin, a man ofthe name of O'Reilly, obeyed the requisition; but Fitzgibbon, who, luckily, was now Attorney-general, instantly prosecuted him for abuse ofhis office. He was convicted, fined, and imprisoned, and his punishmentdeterred others from following his example. And a rigorous example hadbecome indispensable, since it was known to the government that Tandyand some of his followers were acting in connection with Frenchemissaries, and that their object was the separation of Ireland fromEngland, and, in the minds of some of them, certainly the annexation ofthe country to France; indeed, on one occasion Fitzgibbon asserted inthe House of Commons that he had seen resolutions inviting the Frenchinto the country. The government would gladly have established a militiato supersede the Volunteers, but the temper of the Irish Parliament, inits newly-acquired independence, rendered any such attempt hopeless; andMr. Grattan, with a perversity of judgment which his warmest admirersmust find it difficult to reconcile with statesmanship, if not withpatriotism, even opposed with extreme bitterness a bill for theestablishment of a police for Dublin, though he could not deny thatthere existed in the city an organized body of ruffians, who made notonly the streets but even the dwelling-houses of the more orderlycitizens unsafe, by outrages of the worst kind, committed on the largestscale--assaults, plunderings, ravishments, and murders. In the ruraldistricts of the South the disturbances were so criminally violent, andso incessant, that the Lord-lieutenant was compelled to request thepresence of some additional regiments from England, as the sole means ofpreserving any kind of respect for the law; and more than once the mobsof rioters showed themselves so bold and formidable, that the soldierswere compelled to fire in self-defence, and order was not restored butat the cost of many lives. 

Presently a Conspiracy Bill was passed, and gradually the firmness ofthe government re-established a certain amount of internal tranquillity. But shortly afterward a crisis arose which, more than the debates on thecommercial propositions, or on the Volunteers, or on the police, showedhow over-liberal had been the confidence of the English minister who hadrepealed Poynings' Act, and had bestowed independent authority on theIrish Parliament before the members had learned how to use it. We haveseen how keen a contest was excited in the English Parliament by thederanged condition of the King's health in 1788, and the necessity whichconsequently arose for the appointment of a Regency. Grattan was inLondon at the time, where he had contracted a personal intimacy withFox, and had been presented by him to the Prince of Wales, whosegraciousness of manner, and profession of adherence to the Whig systemof politics, secured his attachment to that party. Grattan was easilyindoctrinated by Fox with his theory of the indefeasible claim of thePrince to the Regency as his birthright, and is understood to havepromised that the Irish Parliament should adopt that view. The case wasone which seemed unprovided for. There was no question but that the lawenacted that the sovereign of England should also be the sovereign ofIreland. But no express law of either country contained any suchstipulation respecting a Regent; and Grattan conceived that, in theabsence of any pre-existing ordinance, it would be easy to contend thatthe Irish Parliament was the sole judge who the Regent should be, and onwhat terms he should exercise the royal authority. 

The Irish Parliament had been prorogued in 1787 to the 5th of February, 1789, the same day on which, after numerous examinations of thephysicians in attendance on the royal patient, and after the passing ofa series of resolutions enunciating the principles on which thegovernment was proceeding, Pitt introduced the Regency Bill into theEnglish House of Commons, being prepared to conduct it through bothHouses with all the despatch that might be consistent with a dueobservance of all the forms of deliberation. Grattan's object was toanticipate the decision of the English Parliament, so as to avoid everyappearance that the Irish Parliament was only following it; and hetherefore proposed that the House of Commons should instantly vote anaddress to the Prince, requesting him to take upon himself the Regencyof the kingdom of Ireland, by his own natural right as the heir of thecrown; making sure not only that his advice would be taken by those whomhe was addressing, but that the House of Lords would not venture todissent from it. 

Fitzgibbon, as Attorney-general and spokesman of the government in theCommons, as a matter of course opposed such precipitate action, not onlywarning his hearers of the folly and danger of taking a step "whichmight dissolve the single tie which now connected Ireland with GreatBritain, " but explaining also the whole principle of the constitution ofthe two kingdoms, so far as it was a joint constitution, in terms whichgive his speech a permanent value as a summary of its principle and itscharacter. He recalled to the recollection of the House the act ofWilliam and Mary, which declares "the kingdom of Ireland to be annexedto the imperial crown of England, and the sovereign of England to be byundoubted right sovereign of Ireland also;" and argued from this thatMr. Grattan's proposal was contrary to the laws of the realm andcriminal in the extreme. "The crown of Ireland, " as he told his hearers, "and the crown of England are inseparably united, and the IrishParliament is totally independent of the British Parliament. The firstof these positions is your security, the second your freedom, and anyother language tends to the separation of the crowns or the subjectionof your Parliament. The only security of your liberty is the connectionwith Great Britain; and gentlemen who risk breaking the connection mustmake up their minds to a union. God forbid I should ever see that day;but, if the day comes on which a separation shall be attempted, I shallnot hesitate to embrace a union rather than a separation. "

He proceeded to show that, as the Irish Parliament had itself enactedthat all bills which passed their two Houses should require the sanctionof the Great Seal of England, they actually had no legal power to conferon the Prince of Wales such authority as Grattan advised his beinginvested with, whatever might be the form of words in which theirresolution was couched. He pointed out, also, that if the IrishParliament should insist on appointing the Prince of Wales Regent beforeit was known whether he would accept the Regency of England, it wasmanifestly not impossible "that they might be appointing a Regent forIreland being a different person from the Regent of England; and in thatcase the moment a Regent was appointed in Great Britain, he might send acommission under the Great Seal appointing a Lord-lieutenant of Ireland, and to that commission the Regent of Ireland would be bound to payobedience. Another objection of great force to his mind was, that thecourse recommended by Grattan would be a formal appeal from theParliament of England to that of Ireland. It would sow the seeds ofdissension between the Parliaments of the two countries. And, indeed, those who were professing themselves advocates for the independence ofthe Irish crown were advocates for its separation from England. "

But the House was too entirely under the influence of Grattan'simpassioned eloquence for Fitzgibbon's more sober arguments to belistened to. The address proposed by Grattan was carried by acclamation;and the peers were scarcely less unanimous in its favor, one of thearchbishops even dilating on "the duty of availing themselves of theopportunity of asserting the total independence of Ireland. " Even when, on a second discussion as to the mode in which the address was to bepresented to the Prince, Fitzgibbon reported that he had consulted theChancellor and all the judges, and that they were unanimously of opinionthat, till the Regency Bill should be passed in England, the address wasnot only improper but treasonable, he found his warning equallydisregarded. And when the Lord-lieutenant refused to transmit theaddress to England, on the avowed ground of its illegality, Grattanproposed and carried three resolutions: the first, that the address wasnot illegal, but that, in addressing the Prince to take on himself theRegency, the Parliament of Ireland had exercised an undoubted right; thesecond, that the Lord-lieutenant's refusal to transmit the address tohis Royal Highness was ill-advised and unconstitutional; the third, thata deputation from the two Houses should go to London, to present theaddress to the Prince. Mr. Fronde affirms that the deputation, even whenpreparing to sail for England, was very irresolute and undecided whetherto present the address or not, from a reasonable fear of incurring thepenalties of treason, to which the lawyers pronounced those who shouldpresent it liable. But their courage was not put to the test. As hasbeen already seen, before the end of the month the King's recovery wasannounced, and the question of a Regency did not occur again till theIrish Parliament had been united to the English. 

Since Lord Rockingham's concessions, in 1782, the project of alegislative union between the two countries, resembling that whichunited Scotland to England, had more than once been broached. We haveseen it alluded to by Fitzgibbon in the course of these discussions, andit was no new idea. It had been discussed even before the union withScotland was completed, and had then been regarded in Ireland withfeelings very different from those which prevailed at a later period. Ten years after the time of which we are speaking, Grattan denounced thescheme with almost frantic violence. Fitzgibbon (though after theRebellion he recommended it as indispensable) as yet regarded it only asan alternative which, though he might eventually embrace it, he shouldnot accept without extreme reluctance. But at the beginning of thecentury all parties among the Protestant Irish had been eager for it, and even the leading Roman Catholics had been not unwilling to acquiescein it. Unluckily, the English ministers were unable to shake off theinfluence of the English manufacturers; and they, in another developmentof the selfish and wicked jealousy which had led them in William's reignto require the suppression of the Irish woollen manufacture, now, inAnne's, rose against the proposal of a legislative union. [133] Inblindness which was not only fatal but suicidal also, "they persuadedthemselves that the union would make Ireland rich, and that England'sinterest was to keep her poor;" as if it had been possible for oneportion of the kingdom to increase in prosperity without every otherportion benefiting also by the improvement. 

However, in the reign of Anne the union was a question only ofexpediency or of wisdom. The wide divergence of the two Parliaments onthis question of the Regency transformed it into a question ofnecessity. The King might have a relapse; the Irish Parliament, on arecurrence of the crisis, might re-affirm its late resolutions; mightframe another address to the Prince of Wales; and there might be noalternative between seeing two different persons Regents of England andIreland, or, what would be nearly the same thing, seeing the same personRegent of the two countries on different grounds, and exercising adifferent authority. 

And if these proceedings of the Irish Parliament had wrought in the mindof the great English minister a conviction of the absolute necessity ofpreventing a recurrence of such dangers by the only practicable meansopen to him--the fusion of it into one body with the English Parliamentby a legislative union--the occurrences of the ensuing ten yearsenforced that conviction with a weight still more irresistible. It hasbeen seen how stirring an influence the revolutionary fever engenderedby the overthrow of the French monarchy for a time exerted even over thecalmer temper of Englishmen. In Ireland, where, ever since Sarsfield andhis brave garrison enlisted under the banner of Louis XIV. , a connectionmore or less intimate with France had been constantly kept up, theevents in Paris had produced a far deeper and wider effect. More thanone demagogue among the Volunteers had avowed a desire to see the wholecountry transfer its allegiance from the English to the Frenchsovereign; and this preference was more pronounced after the triumph ofdemocracy in the French capital. For the leaders of the movement, themselves nearly all men of the lowest degree, denounced the Irishnobles with almost as much vehemence as the English connection. 

Yet Pitt's policy, dictated partly by a spirit of conciliation, andstill more by feelings of justice, was gradually removing many of thegrievances of which the Irish had real reason to complain. Next to therestrictions on trade, nothing had made such an impression on his mindas the iniquity of the penal laws; and those he proceeded to repeal, encouraging the introduction of bills to throw open the profession ofthe law to Roman Catholics, to allow them seats on the magistrates'bench and commissions in the army, and to grant them the electoralfranchise, a concession which he himself would willingly have extendedby admitting them to Parliament itself. But these relaxations of the oldPenal Code, important as they were, only conciliated the higher classesof the Roman Catholics. Most of the Roman Catholic prelates, and most ofthe Roman Catholic lay nobles, proclaimed their satisfaction at what hadbeen done, and their good-will toward the minister who had done it; butthe professional agitators were exasperated rather than conciliated atfinding so much of the ground on which they had rested cut from beneaththeir feet. So desirous was Pitt to carry conciliation to the greatestlength that could be consistent with safety, that he held more than oneconference with Grattan himself; but he found that great orator not verymanageable, partly, as it may seem from some of Mr. Windham's letters, through jealousy of Fitzgibbon, who was now the Irish Chancellor, [134]and still more from a desire to propitiate the Roman Catholics, for whomhe demanded complete and immediate Emancipation; while Pitt, who was, probably, already resolved on accomplishing a legislative Union, thought, as far as we can judge, that Emancipation should follow, notprecede, the Union, lest, if it should precede it, it might prove rathera stumbling-block in the way than a stepping-stone to the still moreimportant measure. 

It is not very easy to determine what influence the "Emancipation, " asit was rather absurdly called, [135] if it had been granted at that time, might have had in quieting the prevailing discontent. With one largeparty it would probably have increased it, for there was quite as greatan inclination to insurrection in Ulster as in Leinster or Munster; andwith the Northern Presbyterians animosity to Popery was at least aspowerful a feeling as sympathy with the French Republicans. A subsequentchapter, however, will afford a more fitting opportunity for discussingthe arguments in favor of or against Emancipation. What seems certainis, that a large party among the Roman Catholics of the lower classvalued Emancipation itself principally as a measure to another end--aseparation from England. Pitt, meanwhile, hopeless of reconciling theleaders of the different parties--the impulsive enthusiasm of Grattanwith the sober, practical wisdom of Fitzgibbon--pursued his own policyof conciliation united with vigor; and one of the measures which he nowcarried subsists, unaltered in its principle, to the present day. 

There was no part of the penal laws of which the folly and iniquity weremore intolerable than the restrictions which they imposed on education. To a certain extent, they defeated themselves. The clause whichsubjected to severe penalties a Roman Catholic parent who sent his childabroad to enjoy the benefits of an education which he was not allowed toreceive at home, was manifestly almost incapable of enforcement, and theyouths designed for orders in the Romish Church had been invariably sentto foreign colleges--some to Douai or St. Omer, in France; some to therenowned Spanish University of Salamanca. But the French colleges hadbeen swept away by the Revolution, which also made a passage to Spain(the greater expense of which had at all times confined that resource toa small number of students) more difficult; and the consequence was, that in 1794 the Roman Catholic Primate, Dr. Troy, petitioned thegovernment to grant a royal license for the endowment of a college inIreland. Justice and policy were equally in favor of the grant of such arequest. For the sake of the whole kingdom, and even for that ofProtestantism itself, it was better that the Roman Catholic priesthoodshould be an educated rather than an ignorant body of men; and, in thetemper which at that time prevailed over the western countries of theContinent, it was at least equally desirable that the rising generationshould be preserved from the contagion of the revolutionary principleswhich the present rulers of France were so industrious to propagate. Pitt at once embraced the idea, and in the spring of the next year abill was introduced into the Irish Parliament by the Chief Secretary, authorizing the foundation and endowment of a college at Maynooth, inthe neighborhood of Dublin, for the education of Roman Catholicsgenerally, whether destined for the Church or for lay professions. It isa singular circumstance that the only opposition to the measure camefrom Grattan and his party, who urged that, as the Roman Catholics hadrecently been allowed to matriculate and take degrees at TrinityCollege, though not to share in the endowments of that wealthyinstitution, the endowment of another college, to be exclusivelyconfined to Roman Catholics, would be a retrograde step, undoing thebenefits of the recent concession of the authorities of Trinity; wouldbe "a revival and re-enactment of the principles of separation andexclusion, " and an injury to the whole community. For, as he wiselycontended, nothing was so important to the well-doing of the entirepeople as the extinction of the religious animosities which had hithertoembittered the feelings of each Church toward the other, and nothingcould so surely tend to that extinction as the uniting the members ofboth from their earliest youth, in the pursuit both of knowledge andamusement, as school-fellows and playmates. If Mr. Froude'sinterpretation of the motives of those who influenced Grattan on thisoccasion be correct, he was unconsciously made a tool of by those whosereal object was a separation from England, of the attainment of whichthey despaired, unless they could unite Protestants and Roman Catholicsin its prosecution. The bill, however, was passed by a very largemajority, and £9000 a year was appropriated to the endowment of thecollege. Half a century afterward, as will be seen, that endowment wasenlarged, and placed on a more solid and permanent footing, by one ofthe ablest of Pitt's successors. It was a wise and just measure; and ifits success has not entirely answered the expectations of the ministerwho granted it, its comparative failure has been owing to circumstanceswhich the acutest judgment could not have foreseen. 

But it seems certain that neither the concession nor the refusal of anydemands put forward by any party in Ireland could have prevented theinsurrection which broke out shortly afterward. There were two partiesamong the disaffected Irish--or it should, perhaps, rather be said thattwo different objects were kept in view by them--one of which, theestablishment of a republic, was dearer to one section of themalcontents; separation from England, with the contingency of annexationto France, was the more immediate aim of the other, though the presentexistence of a republican form of government in France to a great extentunited the two. As has been mentioned before, the original movers in theconspiracy were of low extraction, Dublin tradesmen in a small way ofbusiness. Napper Tandy was an ironmonger, Wolfe Tone was the son of acoach-maker. But they had obtained a recruit of a very different class, a younger son of the Duke of Leinster, Lord Edward Fitzgerald, a man ofvery slender capacity, who, at his first entrance into Parliament, whenscarcely more than of age, had made himself remarkable by a furiousdenunciation of Pitt's Irish propositions; had married a naturaldaughter of the Duke of Orleans, a prince, in spite of his royal birth, one of the most profligate and ferocious of the French Jacobins; and hadcaught the revolutionary mania to such a degree that he abjured hisnobility, and substituted for the appellation which marked his rank thetitle of "Citizen Fitzgerald. " He had enrolled himself in a societyknown as the United Irishmen, and had gone to France, as itsplenipotentiary, to arrange with Hoche, one of the most brilliant andpopular of the French generals, a scheme for the invasion of Ireland, inwhich he promised him that, on his landing, he should be joined by tensof thousands of armed Irishmen. Hoche entered warmly into the plan, wasfurnished with a splendid army by the Directors, and in December, 1796, set sail for Ireland; but the fleet which carried him was dispersed in astorm; many of the ships were wrecked, others were captured by theBritish cruisers, and the remnant of the fleet, sadly crippled, was gladto regain its harbors. Two years afterward another invading expeditionhad still worse fortune. General Humbert, who in 1796 had been one ofHoche's officers, did succeed in effecting a landing at Killala Bay, inMayo; but he and the whole of his force was speedily surrounded, andcompelled to surrender; and a month afterward a large squadron, with amore powerful division of troops, under General Hardy, on board, founditself unable to effect a landing, but fell in with a squadron under SirJohn Warren, who captured every ship but two; Wolfe Tone, who was onboard one of them, being taken prisoner, and only escaping the gallowsby suicide. 

This happened in October, 1798. But it is difficult to conceive withwhat object these last expeditions had been despatched from France atall; for in the preceding summer the rebellion of the Irish had brokenout, and had been totally crushed in a few weeks;[136] not withoutterrible loss of life on both sides, nor without the insurgentleaders--though many of them were gentlemen of good birth, fortune, andeducation, and still more were clergy--showing a ferocity and ingenuityin cruelty which the worst of the French Jacobins had scarcely exceeded;one of the saddest circumstances of the whole rebellion being, that theinsurgents, who had burnt men, women, and children alive, who haddeliberately hacked others to pieces against whom they did not professto have a single ground of complaint beyond the fact that they wereEnglish and Protestant, found advocates in both Houses of the EnglishParliament, who declared that the rebellion was owing to the severity ofthe Irish Viceroy and his chief councillors, who denied that the rebelshad solicited French aid, and who even voted against granting to thegovernment the re-enforcements necessary to prevent a revival of thetreason. 

The rebellion was crushed with such celerity as might have convinced themost disaffected of the insanity of defying the power of Great Britain;but it was certain that the spirit which prompted the rebellion was notextinguished, and that, as it had been fed before, so it would continueto be fed by the factious spirit of members of the Irish House ofCommons, and of those who could return members, [137] so long as Irelandhad a separate Parliament. Not, indeed, that Pitt required the argumentin favor of a Union which was thus furnished. The course adopted by theIrish Parliament on the Regency question was quite sufficient to showhow great a mistake had been made by the repeal of Poynings' Act. Butwhat the rebellion proved was, that the Union would not admit of aninstant's delay; and Pitt at once applied himself to the task of framinga measure which, while it should strengthen England, by the removal ofthe necessity for a constant watchfulness over every transaction andmovement in Ireland, should at the same time confer on and secure toIreland substantial advantages, such as, without a Union, the EnglishParliament could scarcely be induced to contemplate. 

Mr. Hallam, in one of the last chapters of his work, [138] while showingby unanswerable arguments the advantages which Scotland has derived fromher Union with England, has also enumerated some of the causes whichimpeded the minister of the day in his endeavors to render it acceptableto the Scotch members to whom it was proposed. The most apparentlysubstantial of these was the unprecedented character of the measure. Nopast "experience of history was favorable to the absorption of a lesserstate, at least where the government partook so much of the republicanform, in one of superior power and ancient rivalry. " But, in the case ofthe present measure, what had thus been a difficulty in the Scotch Unionmight have been expected to be regarded as an argument in its favor, since the keenest patriots among the Scotch had long been convinced thatthe Union had brought a vast increase of prosperity and importance totheir country, and what was now confessed to have proved advantageous toScotland might naturally be expected to be equally beneficial toIreland. Another obstacle had been the fear of the danger to which thePresbyterian Church might be "exposed, when brought thus within thepower of a Legislature so frequently influenced by one which held her, not as a sister, but rather a bastard usurper to a sister'sinheritance. " But here again experience might give her testimony infavor of an Irish Union, since it was incontestable that thoseapprehensions--which, no doubt, many earnest Scotchmen had sincerelyentertained--had not been realized, but that since the Union thePresbyterian Church had enjoyed as great security, as completeindependence, and as absolute an authority over its members as in thepreceding century; that the Parliament had never attempted the slightestinterference with its exercise of its privileges, and that the Church ofEngland had been equally free from the exhibition of any desire tostimulate the Parliament to such action; while the Roman CatholicChurch, which had many more adherents in England than the PresbyterianChurch had ever had, was quite powerful enough to exact for itself themaintenance of its rights, and the minister was quite willing to grantequal securities to those which, at the beginning of the century, hadbeen thought sufficient for the Church of Scotland. A third reason whichour great historical critic puts forward for the disfavor with which theUnion was at the time regarded by many high-minded Scotchmen, he findsin "the gross prostitution with which a majority sold themselves to thesurrender of their own legislative existence. " That similar means wereto some extent employed to win over opponents of the government inIreland cannot, it must be confessed, be denied, though the temptationsheld out to converts oftener took the shape of titles, promotions, appointments, and court favors than of actual money. The most recenthistorian of this period--who, to say the least, is not biassed in favorof either the English or Irish government of the period--pronounces ashis opinion, formed after the most careful research, that the briberywas on the other side. "Cornwallis and Castlereagh" (the Lord-lieutenantand the Chief Secretary) "both declared it to be within their knowledgethat the Opposition offered four thousand pounds, ready money, for avote. But they name only one man who was purchased, and his vote wasobtained for four thousand pounds. From the language of Lord Cornwallis, it is certain that if money was spent by the government in this way itwas without his knowledge; but many things may have been done by theinferior agents of the government, and possibly by Castlereagh himself, which they would not venture to lay before the Lord-lieutenant. Itappears, however, from the papers which have recently come to light, that the prevalent belief of the Union having been mainly effected by alavish expenditure of money is not well-founded; still it is certainthat some money was expended in this way. " Besides actual payment forvotes, he adds that a very large sum--a hundred thousand pounds--is saidto have been expended in the purchase of seats, the holders of whichwere, of course, to vote against the measure; and names Lord Downshireas subscribing £5000, Lord Lismore and Mr. White £3000 each, while thegovernment funds were chiefly expended "in engaging[139] youngbarristers of the Four Courts to write for the Union. " But, even if itwere true that corruption was employed to the very utmost extent thatwas ever alleged by the most vehement opponent of the measure and of thegovernment, it may be feared that very few of the last century Irishmenwould have been so shocked at it as to consider that fact an objectionto the Union, especially, it is sad and shameful to say, among the upperclasses. The poorer classes, those who could render no political serviceto a minister, as being consequently beneath official notice, wereunassailed by his temptations; but the demoralization of the men of rankand property was almost universal, and few seats were disposed of, fewvotes were given, except in return for favors granted, or out ofdiscontent at favors refused. And it cannot be denied that the tendencyto political jobbery had not been diminished by the concessions of 1782, if, indeed, it may not be said that the increased importance which thoseconcessions had given to the Irish Parliament had led the members ofboth Houses to place an increased value on their services. Certainly noprevious Lord-lieutenant had given such descriptions of the universalityof the demands made on him as were forwarded to the English governmentby those who held that office in the sixteen years preceding theoutbreak of the Rebellion. 

It is remarkable that the transaction which, as has been said before, may be conceived to have first forced on Pitt's mind the conviction ofthe absolute necessity of the Union--namely, the course pursued by theIrish Parliament on the Regency Bill--bore a close resemblance to thatwhich, above all other considerations, had made the Scotch Unionindispensable, namely, the Act of Security passed by the ScottishEstates in 1703, which actually provided that, on the decease of QueenAnne without issue, the Estates "should name her successor, but shouldbe debarred from choosing the admitted successor to the crown ofEngland, unless such forms of government were settled as should fullysecure the religion, freedom, and trade of the Scottish nation. "[140]The Scotch Estates, therefore, had absolutely regarded the possibleseparation of the two kingdoms as a contingency which might become notundesirable; and, though it was too ticklish an argument to bringforward, it may very possibly have occurred to Pitt that a similar voteof the Irish Parliament was not impossible. The claim which Grattan, following Fox, had set up on behalf of the Prince of Wales, was one ofan indefeasible right to the Regency; and, as far as right byinheritance went, his claim to the crown, if, or whenever, a vacancyshould occur, was far less disputable. But, as has been mentioned in thelast chapter, a question had already been raised whether his RoyalHighness had not forfeited his right to the succession, and it was quitepossible that that question might be renewed. The fact of the Prince'smarriage to a Roman Catholic was by this time generally accepted ascertain; the birth of the Princess Charlotte gave greater importance tothe circumstance than it seemed to have while the Prince remainedchildless; and, if the performance of the marriage ceremony should belegally proved, and the English law courts should pronounce that thelegal invalidity of the marriage did not protect the Prince from thepenalty of forfeiture, it was highly probable that the Irish Parliamentwould take a different view--would refuse, in spite of the Bill ofRights, to regard marriage with a Roman Catholic as a disqualification, but would recognize the Prince of Wales as King of Ireland. 

Several minor considerations, such as the desirableness of uniformity inthe proceedings of the two countries with respect to Money Bills, theMutiny Act, and other arrangements of parliamentary detail, all pointedthe same way; and, on the whole, it may be said that scarcely any of theopponents of the government measure were found to deny its expediency, especially as regarded the interests of Great Britain. The objectionswhich were made were urged on different grounds. In the Irish House ofCommons, a member who, though a young man, had already established avery high reputation for professional skill as a barrister, foreloquence equally suited to the Bar and to the Senate, and for sincereand incorruptible patriotism, Mr. Plunkett, took upon himself to denythe competency of the Irish Parliament to pass a bill not only toextinguish its own existence, but to prevent the birth of any futureParliament, and to declare that the act, if it "should be passed, " wouldbe a mere nullity, and that no man in "Ireland would be bound to obeyit. " And, in the English House of Commons, Mr. Grey may be thought tohave adopted something of the same view, when he proposed an amendment"to suspend all proceedings on the subject till the sentiments of thepeople of Ireland respecting that measure could be ascertained. " He didnot, of course, deny (he was speaking on the 21st of April, 1800) thatthe bill had been passed by both Houses of the Irish Parliament byconsiderable majorities. [141] But he contended that that Parliament didnot speak the sentiments of the people; and, that being the case, thatits voice was of no authority. It is evident that all arguments foundedon a denial of the omnipotence of a Parliament, whether English orIrish, are invalid. The question of that omnipotence, as has been seenin a former chapter, had been fully discussed when Mr. Pitt's fatherdenied the power of Parliament to tax the American Colonies; and thatquestion may fairly be regarded as having been settled at that time. Itis equally clear that the denial that, on any question whatever, theHouse of Commons must be taken to speak the sentiments of theconstituencies, whether the proposal of such question had beencontemplated at the time of their election or not, is the advancement ofa doctrine wholly inconsistent with our parliamentary constitution, andone which would practically be the parent of endless agitation andmischief. To expect that the members could pronounce on no new questionwithout a fresh reference to their constituents, would be to reduce themfrom the position of representatives to that of delegates; such as thatof the members of the old States-general, in France, whose early decayis attributed by the ablest political writers in no small degree to thedependence of the members on their constituents for preciseinstructions. Another argument on which Mr. Grey insisted with greatearnestness is worth preserving, though subsequent inventions havedestroyed its force; he contended that the example of the Scotch Uniondid not, when properly considered, afford any argument in favor of anIrish Union, from the difference of situation of the two countries. Scotland was a part of the same island as England; "there was nophysical impediment to rapid and constant communication; the relativesituation of the two countries was such that the King himself couldadminister the executive government in both, and there was no occasionfor a separate establishment being kept up in each. " But the sea laybetween England and Ireland, and the delays and sometimes difficultieswhich were thus interposed rendered it "necessary that Ireland shouldhave a separate government;" and he affirmed that "this was aninsuperable bar to a beneficial Union, " quoting a saying of Lord Somers, that "if it were necessary to preserve a separate executive governmentat Edinburgh after the Union, he would abandon the measure. " Mr. Greyeven denied that the prosperity of Scotland since the Union was mainlyattributable to that measure. "It was not the Union; it was the adoptionof a liberal policy, the application of a proper remedy to theparticular evils under which the country labored, that removed thecauses which had impeded the prosperity of Scotland. " But this argumentwas clearly open to the reply that the adoption of that liberal policyhad been a direct effect of the Union, and would have been impracticablewithout it, and was, therefore, a strong inducement to the adoption of asimilar Union with Ireland, where the existing evils were at least asgreat as those which, a century before, had kept down Scotland. Anotherof his arguments has been remarkably falsified by the event. With aboldness in putting forward what was manifestly, indeed avowedly, aparty objection, and which, as such, must be looked upon as somewhatsingular, he found a reason for resisting the addition of a hundredIrish members to the British House of Commons in the probability thatthey would, as a general rule, be subservient to the minister. Heinstanced "the uniform support which the members for Scotland had givento every act of ministers, " and saw in that example "reason to apprehendthat the Irish members would become a no less regular band ofministerial adherents. " It would be superfluous to point out howentirely contrary the result has been to the prediction. 

It is, however, beside the purpose of this work to dwell on thearguments by which the minister supported his proposal, or on those withwhich the Opposition resisted it, whether apparently founded onpractical considerations, such as those brought forward by Mr. Grey, orthose of a more sentimental character, which rested on the loss ofnational "dignity and honor, " which, it was assumed, would be theconsequence of the measure. It seems desirable rather to explain theprincipal conditions on which the Union was to be effected, as Pittexplained it to the House of Commons in April, 1800. In the precedingyear he had confined himself to moving a series of resolutions in favorof the principle, which, though they were adopted by both Houses inEngland, he did not at that time endeavor to carry farther, since in theIrish House of Commons the utmost exertions of the government could onlyprevail by a single vote;[142] and he naturally thought such a majorityfar too slender to justify his relying on it so far as to proceedfarther with a measure of such vast importance. But, during the recess, he had introduced some modifications into his original draft of themeasure, which, though slight, were sufficient to conciliate muchadditional support; and the consequence was, that in February of thisyear both the Irish Houses accepted it by sufficient majorities;[143]and, therefore, he now felt able to lay the details of the measurebefore the English Parliament. To take them in the order in which heenumerated them, that which had appeared to the Irish Parliament "thefirst and most important, was the share which the Irish constituenciesought to have in the representation of the House of Commons. " On thispoint, "the Parliament of Ireland was of opinion that the number ofrepresentatives for Ireland ought to be one hundred. " And he was notdisposed to differ from the conclusion to which it had come. He regardedit, indeed, as "a matter of but small importance whether the number ofrepresentatives from one part of the united empire were greater or less. If they were enough to make known the local wants, to state theinterests and convey the sentiments of the part of the empire theyrepresented, it would produce that degree of general security whichwould be wanting in any vain attempt to obtain that degree oftheoretical perfection about which in modern times they had heard somuch. " He approved of "the principle which had been laid down upon thispart of the subject in the Parliament of Ireland--a reference to thesupposed population of the two countries, and to the proposed rate ofcontribution. The proportion of contribution proposed to be establishedwas seven and a half for Great Britain, and one for Ireland; while inthe proportion of population Great Britain was to Ireland as two and ahalf or three to one;[144] so that the result, on a combination of thesetwo calculations, would be something more than five to one in favor ofGreat Britain, which was about the proportion which it was proposed toestablish between the representation of the two countries. " Theprinciple of selection of the constituencies which had been adopted helikewise considered most "equitable and satisfactory for Ireland. Theplan proposed was, that the members of the counties and the principalcommercial cities should remain entire.... The remaining members were tobe selected from those places which were the most considerable in pointof population and wealth.... This was the only plan which could beadopted without trenching on the constitution; it introduced notheoretical reforms in the constitution or in the representation of thiscountry; it made no distinction between different parliamentary rights, nor any alteration, even the slightest, in the internal forms ofParliament. "

Another consideration which he had kept in mind in framing this measurewas this: "By the laws of England care had been taken to prevent theinfluence of the crown from becoming too great by too many offices beingheld by members of Parliament. " And Pitt had no doubt that there wouldbe a general feeling "that some provision ought to be made on thissubject" in the arrangements for the new Parliament. At present, amongthe representatives of the counties and great commercial towns, whoseseats were to be preserved in the new united Parliament, there were notabove five or six who held offices; and, though it was impossible toestimate the possible number of place-holders with precision, he thoughtwhat would he most fair for him to propose would be, that "no more thantwenty of the Irish members should hold places, and that if it shouldhappen that a greater number did hold places during pleasure, then thosewho had last accepted them should vacate their seats. "

In the House of Peers he proposed that twenty-eight lords temporal ofIreland should have seats in the united Parliament, who should beelected for life by the Peers of Ireland--an arrangement which differedfrom that which, at the beginning of the century, had been adopted forthe representative Peers of Scotland; but he argued, and surely withgreat reason, that "the choice of Peers to represent the Irish nobilityfor life was a mode that was more congenial to the general spirit andsystem of a Peerage than that of their being septennially elected, asthe nobility of Scotland were. " Of the spiritual Peers, four were to sitin rotation; to the lay Peers a farther privilege was given, which theminister regarded as of considerable, and even constitutionalimportance. By the articles of the Scotch Union, a Peer, if not chosenas a representative of the Peerage, was not eligible as a candidate forthe House of Commons in either England or Scotland. But this bill"reserved a right to the Peers of Ireland who should not be elected torepresent their own Peerage, to be elected members of the House ofCommons of the united Parliament of Great Britain;" and Pitt urged thatthis was "a far better mode of treatment than had been adopted for thenobility of Scotland; so that a nobleman of Ireland, if not representinghis own order, might be chosen as a legislator by a class of inferiorrank, which he was so far from regarding as improper, that he deemed itin a high degree advantageous to the empire, analogous to the practiceas well as friendly to the spirit of the British constitution. " And heenforced his argument by pointing out with honest pride the advantagewhich in that respect the spirit and practice of our constitution gaveto our nobility over the nobles of other countries. "We know full well, "he continued, "the advantage we have experienced from having in thisHouse those who, in the course of descent, as well as in hopes of merit, have had a prospect of sitting in our House of Peers. Those, therefore, who object to this part of the arrangement" (for, as he had previouslymentioned, it had been made a subject not only of objection, but ofridicule) "can only do so from the want of due attention to the truecharacter of our constitution, one of the great leading advantages ofwhich is, that a person may for a long time be a member of one branch ofthe Legislature, and have it in view to become a member of anotherbranch of it. This it is which constitutes the leading differencebetween the nobility of Great Britain and those of other countries. Withus they are permitted to have legislative power before they arrive attheir higher stations; and as they are, like all the rest of mankind, tobe improved by experience in the science of legislation as well as inevery other science, our constitution affords them that opportunity bytheir being eligible to seats in this House from the time of theirmajority. This is one of those circumstances which arise frequently inpractice, but the advantages of which do not appear in theory tillchance happens to cast them before us, and makes them subjects ofdiscussion. These are the shades of the British constitution in whichits latent beauties consist;" and he affirmed his conviction that thisprivilege would prove "an advantage to the nobility of Ireland, and animprovement in the system of representation in the House. "

It will hardly be denied that the arrangement that the representativePeers of Ireland should enjoy their seats for life did make it desirablethat those who were not so elected to the Upper House should be eligibleas candidates for a place in the Lower House. Otherwise, those who werenot chosen as representatives of the peerage would have been placed inthe anomalous and unfair position of being the only persons in thekingdom possessed of the requisite property qualification, and notdisqualified by sex or profession, who were absolutely excluded from theopportunity of distinguishing themselves and serving their country inParliament. How great the practical benefit to the House of Commons andthe country the clause he was recommending was calculated to confer, wasshown in a remarkable manner the very year of his death, when an IrishPeer was returned to the House of Commons, who, retaining his seat fornearly sixty years as the representative of different constituencies, the University of Cambridge being among the number, during the course ofthat period rose through a variety of offices to that of Prime-minister, and, as is admitted even by those who dissented most widely from some ofhis opinions and actions, earned for himself an honorable reputation, asone who had rendered faithful services to the crown, and on more thanone occasion had conferred substantial benefits on the country. 

The arrangements proposed with respect to the Peers were not opposed. But Mr. Grey--generally acting as the spokesman of the Opposition onthis question--raised an objection to making so large an addition asthat of one hundred new members to the British House of Commons. Herepeated his prophecy, made on a previous occasion, of the subserviencyto the minister which the Irish members might be expected to exhibit, and therefore moved an amendment to reduce the number of Irishrepresentatives to eighty-five; but, to obviate the discontent whichsuch a reduction might be expected to excite in Ireland, he proposed todiminish the number of English members also, by disfranchising forty "ofthe most decayed boroughs, " a step which would leave the number ofmembers in the new united Parliament as nearly as possible the same asit was before. He found, however, very few to agree with him; hisamendment was rejected by 176 to 34; and the minister's proposal wasadopted in all its details. 

Mr. Pitt touched lightly on the next article, which limited the royalprerogative of creating Peers by a provision that the King should neverconfer any fresh Irish peerage till three peerages should have becomeextinct. This, again, was a point of difference between the conditionsof the Scotch and Irish Unions; since by the terms of the Scotch Unionthe King was forever debarred from creating any new Scotch peerages. Butit was pointed out that the greater antiquity of the Scotch peerages, and the circumstance that in Scotland the titles descended to collateralbranches, were calculated to make the extinction of a Scotch peerage anevent of very rare occurrence; while the comparative newness (with veryfew exceptions) of Irish peerages, and the rule by which they are"confined to immediate male descendants, " rendered the entire extinctionof the Irish peerage probable, "if the power of adding to or making upthe number were not given to the crown. "

Recent legislation has given such importance to the next resolution, that it will be well to quote his precise words:

"5. That it would be fit to propose, as the fifth article of union, thatthe Churches of that part of Great Britain called England and of Irelandshall be united into one Church; and that when his Majesty shall summona Convocation, the archbishops, bishops, and clergy of the severalprovinces in Ireland shall be respectively summoned to and sit in theConvocation of the united Church, in the like manner and subject to thesame regulations as to election and qualification as are at present bylaw established with respect to the like orders of the Church ofEngland; and that the doctrine, worship, discipline, and government ofthe said united Church shall be preserved as now by law established forthe Church of England, saving to the Church of Ireland all the rights, privileges, and jurisdictions now thereunto belonging; and that thedoctrine, worship, discipline, and government of the Church of Scotlandshall likewise be preserved as now by law, and by the Act of Unionestablished for the Church of Scotland; and that the continuance andpreservation forever of the said united Church, as the EstablishedChurch, of that part of the said United Kingdom called England andIreland, shall be deemed and taken to be an essential and fundamentalarticle and condition of the Union. "

Pitt's comment on this article was so brief as to show that he regardedits justice as well as its importance too obvious to need any elaboratejustification. He pointed out that that portion of it which related toConvocation had been added by the Irish Parliament, and "would only sayon so interesting a subject that the prosperity of the Irish Churchcould never be permanent, unless it were a part of the Union, to leaveas a guard a power to the United Parliament to make some provision inthis respect as a fence beyond any act of their own that could atpresent be agreed on. " But, while he thus showed his conviction that thepermanent prosperity of the Irish Church was essential to the welfare ofthe kingdom, he was by no means insensible to the claims of the RomanCatholic Church (as founded not more in policy than in justice) to beplaced in some degree on a footing of equality with it; not only by arecognition of the dignity of its ministers, but also by an endowmentwhich should be proportioned to their requirements, and should placethem in a position of worldly competence and comfort for which hithertothey had been dependent on their flocks. [145] To use the expression of amodern statesman, he contemplated "levelling up, " not "levelling down. "Perhaps it may be said that he contemplated levelling up, as the surestand most permanent obstacle to any proposal of levelling down. 

At the same time it is fair to remark, that the argument which on arecent occasion was so strongly pressed by the champions of the Church, that it was beyond the power of Parliament to repeal what was heredeclared to be "an essential and fundamental article and condition ofthe Union, " is untenable, on every consideration of the power ofParliament, and, indeed, of common-sense; since it would be anintolerable evil, and one productive of the worst consequences, if thedoctrine were admitted that any Parliament could make an unchangeablelaw and bind its successors forever; and, moreover, since the very wordsof this article do clearly imply the power of Parliament over theChurch, the power asserted, to "make some provision for the permanenceof its prosperity, " clearly involving a power to make provisions of anopposite character. The expediency or impolicy, the propriety orunrighteousness, of a measure must always depend on the merits of thequestion itself at the time, and not on the judgment or intentions oflegislators of an earlier generation. And advocates weaken instead ofstrengthening their case when they put forward arguments which, howeverplausible or acceptable to their own partisans, are, nevertheless, capable of refutation. 

The next article related to a question of paramount practicalimportance, and of special interest, since, as has been seen before, there was no subject on which the past legislation of the EnglishParliament had been so discreditable. But the jealousy of Englishmanufacturers, though it had prevailed over the indifference of WilliamIII. , who reserved all his solicitude for matters of foreign diplomacy, could find no echo in the large mind and sound commercial and financialknowledge of the modern statesman. He laid it down as the principle ofhis legislation on this subject--a principle which "he was sure thatevery gentleman in the House was ready to admit--that the consequence ofthe Union ought to be a perfect freedom of trade, whether of produce ormanufacture, without exception, if possible; that a deviation from thatprinciple ought to be made only when adhering to it might possibly shakesome large capital, or materially diminish the effect of the labor ofthe inhabitants, or suddenly and violently shock the received opinion orpopular prejudices of a large portion of the people; but that, on thewhole, the communication between the two kingdoms should in spirit befree; that no jealousy should be attempted to be created between themanufacturers of one place or the other upon the subject of 'rawmaterials' or any other article; for it would surely be considered verynarrow policy, and as such would be treated with derision, were anattempt made to create a jealousy between Devonshire and Cornwall, between Lancashire and Durham.... He said, then, that the principle ofthe Union on this head should be liberal and free, and that no departurefrom it should ever take place but upon some point of presentunavoidable necessity. " He was even able to add (and he must have feltpeculiar satisfaction in making the statement, since the change in thefeelings of the English manufacturers on the subject must have beenmainly the fruit of his own teaching, and was a practical recognition ofthe benefits which they had derived from his commercial policy taken asa whole), that "the English manufacturers did not wish for anyprotective duties; all they desired was free intercourse with all theworld; and, though the want of protective duties might occasion thempartial loss, they thought it amply compensated by the generaladvantage. " He even thought the arrangements now to be made "wouldencourage the growth of wool in Ireland, and that England would be ableto draw supplies of it from thence; and he did not fear that there wouldbe trade enough for both countries in the markets of the world, and inthe market which each country would afford to the other. " The Englishmanufacturers did not, however, acquiesce very cheerfully in every partof his commercial arrangements. On the contrary, against the clausewhich repealed all prohibitions of or bounties on exportation ofdifferent articles grown or manufactured in either country, theypetitioned, and even set up a claim, which was granted, to be heard bycounsel and to produce witnesses. But Pitt steadily refused the leastmodification of this part of his measure, not merely on account of itsintrinsic reasonableness and justice, but because there was scarcely anycondition to which the Irish themselves attached greater importance. 

An equally important and more difficult matter to adjust to thesatisfaction of both Parliaments was the apportionment of the financialburdens between the two nations. It would be tiresome as well assuperfluous to enter into minute details; the more so as the arrangementproposed was of a temporary character. After a long and minutediscussion, Pitt's appraisement was admitted to come as near to strictfairness and equity as any that could be made; the separate discharge ofits public debt already incurred was left to each kingdom; and it wasfarther settled that for twenty years fifteen parts of the expense ofthe nation out of seventeen should be borne by Great Britain and two byIreland. 

Other articles provided that the laws and courts of both kingdoms, civiland ecclesiastical, should remain in their existing condition, subject, of course, to such alterations as the united Legislature might hereafterdeem desirable. 

The resolutions, when adopted--as they speedily were--were embodied in abill, which passed through the last stage by receiving the royal assentat the beginning of July. The state of public feeling in Ireland was notyet sufficiently calmed down after the Rebellion for it to be prudent toventure on a general election, and it was, consequently, ordained thatthe members for the Irish counties and for those Irish boroughs whichhad been selected for the retention of representation should take theirseats in the united Parliament on its next meeting. On the 22d ofJanuary, 1801, the united, or, to give it its more proper designation, the Imperial Parliament held its first meeting, being, although in itssixth session, so far regarded as a new Parliament, that the Kingdirected a fresh election of a Speaker. 

The Union, as thus effected, was so far a vital change in theconstitution of both Great Britain and Ireland, that it greatly alteredthe situation in which each kingdom had previously stood to the other. Till 1782 the position of Ireland toward England had been one of entirepolitical subordination; and, though that had in appearance beenmodified by the repeal of Poynings' Act, yet no one doubted or coulddoubt that, whenever the resolutions of the two Parliaments came intoconflict, the Irish Parliament would find submission unavoidable. But bythe Union that subordination was terminated forever. The character ofthe Union--of the conditions, that is, on which the two countries wereunited--was one of perfect and complete equality on all importantpoints, indeed, in all matters whatever, except one or two of minorconsequence, where some irremovable difference between them compelledsome trifling variations. It was not a connection of domination on theone side and subordination on the other, where every concomitantcircumstance might tempt the one to overbearing arrogance, while theother could not escape a feeling of humiliation. It was rather--to quotethe eloquent peroration of Pitt, when, in the preceding year, he firstintroduced the subject to the consideration of the House of Commons--"afree and voluntary association of two great countries, joining for theircommon benefit in one empire, where each retained its proportionateweight and importance, under the security of equal laws, reciprocalaffection, and inseparable interests; and which wanted nothing but thatindissoluble connection to render both invincible. "

On that occasion Pitt had argued, from the great subsequent increase inthe population and wealth of Edinburgh and Glasgow, and in theprosperity of the whole country of Scotland, that a similar result mightbe looked for in Ireland. And the general trade of Ireland, andespecially the linen manufacture, within a very few years began torealize his prediction. So that it is strange to find Fox, on the greatminister's death, five years afterward, reiterating his disapproval ofthe Union as a plea for refusing him the appellation of a greatstatesman. [146] In one point alone the intrigues of a colleagueprevented Pitt from carrying out to the full his liberal and enlightenedviews, and compelled him to leave the Union incomplete in a matter ofsuch pre-eminent importance, that it may be said that all the subsequentdisquietudes which have prevented Ireland from reaping the full benefithe desired from the Union are traceable to his disappointment on thatsubject. [147] We have seen that he contemplated, as a natural andnecessary consequence or even part of the Union, an extensive reform ofthe laws affecting the Roman Catholics. Indeed, the understanding thathe was prepared to introduce a measure with that object had no smallweight in conciliating in some quarters support to the Act of Union. Accordingly, when describing the arrangements which he had in view forthe Church of Ireland, he indicated his intention with sufficientplainness by the statement, that "it might be proper to leave toParliament an opportunity of considering what might be fit to be donefor his Majesty's Catholic subjects;" words which were generallyunderstood to express his feeling, that both justice and policy requiredthe removal of the restrictions which debarred the Roman Catholics fromthe complete enjoyment of political privileges. But the history anddifferent bearings of that question it will be more convenient todiscuss in a subsequent chapter, when we shall have arrived at the timewhen it was partially dealt with by the ministry of the Duke ofWellington. 

Notes:

[Footnote 125: Mr. Froude says four great families--the Fitzgeralds ofKildare, the Boyles, the Ponsonbys, and the Beresfords--returned amajority of the House of Commons ("English in Ireland, " ii. , 5); andbesides those peers, the arrangement for the Union proved that theinfluence of the Loftuses and the Hills fell little short of them. ]

[Footnote 126: Such a system actually had existed in France, wherearticles of ordinary trade could not be transported from one province toanother without payment of a heavy duty; but Colbert had abolished thatsystem in France above one hundred years before the time of which we arespeaking. ]

[Footnote 127: "History of England, " vol. V. , c. Xxiii. , p. 57. ]

[Footnote 128: "The English in Ireland, " ii. , 39. ]

[Footnote 129: Fronde's "English in Ireland, " ii. , 345. He does not namethe author whom he quotes. ]

[Footnote 130: _Ibid_. , ii, 42. ]

[Footnote 131: See p. 164. ]

[Footnote 132: Mr. Froude imputes to Grattan a singularly base object. "Far from Grattan was a desire to heal the real sores of the country forwhich he was so zealous. These wild, disordered elements suited betterfor the campaign in which he engaged of renovating an Irishnationality. "--_English in Ireland_, ii. , 448. But, however on manypoints we may see reason to agree with Mr. Froude's estimate of thesuperior wisdom of Fitzgibbon, we conceive that this opinion is quiteconsistent with our acquittal of the other of the meanness ofdeliberately aiming at a continuance of evils, in order to find in themfood for a continuance of agitation. ]

[Footnote 133: Froude, "English in Ireland, " i. , 304. ]

[Footnote 134: See especially a letter of Mr. Windham's. Quoted by LordStanhope ("Life of Pitt, " ii. , 288). ]

[Footnote 135: Mr. Archdall, in his place in Parliament, denounced theterm as utterly inapplicable. "Emancipation meant that a slave was setfree. The Catholics were not slaves. Nothing more absurd had ever beensaid since language was first abused for the delusion of mankind. "]

[Footnote 136: The first beginning of the insurrection was atProsperous, County Kildare, May 24. General Lake dealt it the final blowon Vinegar Hill, June 21. ]

[Footnote 137: Mr. Sheridan, Mr. Tierney, and Lord William Russell ledthe denunciations of the government in the English House of Commons. Aprotest against Pitt's refusal to dismiss the Lord-lieutenant, LordCamden, the Chancellor Fitzgibbon, and the Commander-in-chief, LordCarhampton, was signed by the Dukes of Norfolk, Devonshire, andLeinster; Lords Fitzwilliam, Moira, and Ponsonby, "two of them Irishabsentees, who were discharging thus their duties to the poor countrywhich supported their idle magnificence. "--_The English in Ireland_, iii. , 454. ]

[Footnote 138: "Constitutional History, " iii. , 451 seq. ]

[Footnote 139: Massey's "History of England, " iv. , 397 (quoting theCornwallis correspondence). ]

[Footnote 140: Lord Stanhope's "Reign of Queen Anne, " p. 89. ]

[Footnote 141: In the House of Commons by 158 to 115; in the House ofLords, February 10, by 75 to 26. ]

[Footnote 142: An amendment pledging the House to maintain "anindependent Legislature, as established in 1782, " was only defeated by106 to 105. ]

[Footnote 143: In the House of Commons the majority was 158 to 115; inthe House of Lords, 75 to 26. ]

[Footnote 144: This estimate, which was but a guess, proved veryinaccurate. The first census for the United Kingdom, which was taken thenext year (1801), showed that Ireland was considerably more populousthan its own representatives had imagined. The numbers returned (asgiven by Alison, "History of Europe, " ii. , 335, c. Ix. , sec. 8) were:

 England..................................... 8, 382, 484 Wales....................................... 547, 346 Scotland.................................... 1, 599, 068 Army, Navy, etc............................. 470, 586 ---------- Total................................... 10, 999, 434 Ireland..................................... 5, 396, 436

So that the proportion of population in Great Britain, as compared withthat of Ireland, only exceeded two to one by an insignificant fraction. ]

[Footnote 145: See his letter to the King, dated January 31, 1801, quoted by Lord Stanhope in the appendix to vol. Iii. Of his "Life ofPitt, " p. 25. ]

[Footnote 146: Mr. Fox, called on by Mr. Alexander to explain hisexpressions (in the debate relative to Mr. Pitt's funeral), by which hehad declared his disapprobation of the Union, and his concurrence inopinion with Mr. O'Hara that it ought to be rescinded. Mr. Fox repeatedhis disapprobation, but disclaimed ever having expressed an opinion orentertained a thought of proposing its repeal, that being nowimpracticable, though he regretted its ever having beeneffected. --_Diary of Lord Colchester_, February 17, 1806, ii. , 39. ]

[Footnote 147: It may be remarked that in another respect also politicalcritics have pronounced the Union defective. Archbishop Whately, whoselong tenure of office in Ireland, as well as the acuteness and candorwhich he brought to bear on every subject he discussed, entitle hisopinions to most respectful consideration, held this view very strongly. In several conversations which he held with Mr. W. N. Senior, in 1858 and1862, he condemned the retention of the Lord-lieutenancy as "a halfmeasure, " which, however unavoidable at the time when "no ship could becertain of getting from Holyhead to Dublin in less than three weeks, " hepronounced "inconsistent with the fusion of the two peoples, which wasthe object of the Union, " and wholly indefeasible "in an age ofsteam-vessels and telegraphs. " And, besides its theoreticalinconsistency, he insisted that it produced many great and practicalmischiefs, among which he placed in the front "the keeping up inpeople's minds the notion of a separate kingdom; the affording a hotbedof faction and intrigue; the presenting an image of Majesty so faint andso feeble as to be laughed at and scorned. Disaffection to the EnglishLieutenancy is cheaply shown, and it paves the way toward disaffectionto the English crown. " And he imputed its continued retention to "theignorance which prevails in England of the state of feeling inIreland. "--_Journals and Conversations Relating to Ireland_, by W. N. Senior, ii. , 130, 251, and _passim_. And it is worthy of observationthat a similar view is expressed by a Scotch writer of great ability, who, contrasting the mode in which Scotland is governed with that whichprevails In Ireland, farther denounces the Viceroyalty "as a distinctmark that Ireland is not directly under the sovereignty of GreatBritain, but rather a dependency, like India or the Isle ofMan. "--_Ireland_, by J. B. Kinnear, quoted in the _Fortnightly Review_, April 1, 1881. It is remarkable that in 1850 a bill for the abolition ofthe office was passed in the House of Commons by a large majority (295to 70), but was dropped in the House of Lords, chiefly on account of theopposition of the Duke of Wellington. But it is, at all events, plainthat the reasons, arising from the difficulty and uncertainty ofcommunication, which made its abolition impossible at the beginning ofthe century, have passed away with the introduction of steam-vessels andtelegraphs. Communication of London with Dublin is now as rapid ascommunication with Edinburgh, and, that being the case, it is not easyto see how an establishment which has never been thought of for Scotlandcan be desirable for Ireland. ]

CHAPTER VI. 

A Census is Ordered. --Dissolution of Pitt's Administration. --Impeachmentof Lord Melville. --Introduction of Lord Ellenborough into theCabinet. --Abolition of the Slave-trade. --Mr. Windham's CompulsoryTraining Bill. --Illness of the King, and Regency. --Recurrence to thePrecedent of 1788-'89. --Death of Mr. Perceval. --Lord Liverpool becomesPrime-minister. --Question of Appointments in the Household. --Appointmentof a Prime-minister. 

The Union with Ireland was the last great work of Pitt's firstadministration, and a noble close to the legislation of the eighteenthcentury. But the last months of the year were also signalized by anotherenactment, which, though it cannot be said to have anything of acharacter strictly entitled to the name of constitutional, neverthelessestablished a practice so valuable as the foundation of a great part ofour domestic legislation, that it will, perhaps, hardly be consideredforeign to the scope and purpose of this volume to record itscommencement. In November, 1800, Mr. Abbott, the member for Helstone, brought in a bill to take a census of the people of the United Kingdom, pointing out not only the general importance of a knowledge of thepopulation of a country in its entire amount and its different classesto every government, but also its special bearing on agriculture and onthe means requisite to provide subsistence for the people, on trade andmanufactures, and on our resources for war. Such a census as he proposedhad been more than once taken in Holland, Sweden, Spain, and even in theUnited States, young as was their separate national existence; it hadbeen taken once--nearly fifty years previous--in Scotland; and somethinglike one had been furnished in England in the reign of Edward III. By asubsidy roll, and in that of Elizabeth by diocesan returns furnished bythe Bishops to the Privy Council. [148] He farther argued for thenecessity of such a proceeding from the different notions entertained bymen of sanguine or desponding tempers as to the increase or diminutionof the population. "Some desponding men had asserted that the populationhad decreased by a million and a half between the Revolution and Peaceof Paris, in 1763; others (of whom the speaker himself was one) believedthat, on the contrary, it had increased in that interval by twomillions. " His motion was unanimously adopted by both Houses; and whenthe census was taken, its real result furnished as strong a proof of itsusefulness as any of the mover's arguments, by the extent of theprevailing miscalculations which it detected. For Mr. Abbott, who hadspared no pains to arrive at a correct estimate, while he mentioned thatsome persons reckoned the population of England and Wales at 8, 000, 000, pronounced that, according to other statements, formed on a moreextensive investigation, and, as it seemed to him, on a more correcttrain of reasoning, the total number could not be less than 11, 000, 000. In point of fact, excluding those employed in the army and navy, whowere nearly half a million, the number for England and Wales fell shortof nine millions. [149] It would be quite superfluous to dilate on thevalue of the information thus supplied, without which, indeed, much ofour subsequent legislation on poor-laws, corn-laws, and all mattersrelating to rating and taxation, would have been impracticable or themerest guesswork. 

As was mentioned in the preceding chapter, Pitt found himself unable tofulfil the hopes which, in his negotiations with different parties inIreland, he had led the Roman Catholics to entertain of the removal oftheir civil and political disabilities. So rigorous were thoserestrictions, both in England and Ireland, that a Roman Catholic couldnot serve even as a private in the militia; and a motion made in 1797 byMr. Wilberforce--a man who could certainly not be suspected of anyleaning to Roman Catholic doctrine--to render them admissible to thatservice, though it was adopted in the House of Commons, was rejected bythe House of Lords. But Pitt, who on that occasion had supportedWilberforce, did not confine his views to the removal of a single pettydisability, but proposed to put the whole body of Roman Catholics on afooting of perfect equality with Protestants in respect of theireligibility to every kind of office, with one or two exceptions. Andduring the autumn of 1800 he was busily engaged in framing the detailsof his measure, in order to submit it to his royal master in itsentirety, and so to avoid disquieting him with a repetition ofdiscussions on the subject, which he knew to be distasteful to him. For, five years before, George III. Had consulted the Chief-justice, LordKenyon, and the Attorney-general, Sir John Scott (afterward Lord Eldon), on the question whether some proposed concessions to Dissenters, Protestant as well as Roman Catholic, did not "militate against thecoronation oath and many existing statutes;" and had received theirlegal opinion that the tests enacted in the reign of Charles II. , "though wise laws, and in policy not to be departed from, might berepealed or altered without any breach of the coronation oath or Act ofUnion" (with Scotland). [150] Their opinions on the point were the morevaluable, since they were notoriously opposed to their politicalconvictions, and might be supposed to have carried sufficient convictionto the royal mind. But his Majesty's scruples were now, unfortunately, revived by the Lord Chancellor, who, strange to say, was himself aPresbyterian; and who treacherously availed himself of his knowledge ofwhat was in contemplation to anticipate the Prime-minister's intendedexplanations to the King. He fully succeeded in his object of fixing theKing's resolution to refuse his assent to the contemplated concessions(which, by a curious confusion of ideas, his Majesty even characterizedas "Jacobinical"[151]), though not in the object which he had still moreat heart, of inducing the King to regard him as the statesman in thewhole kingdom the most deserving of his confidence. The merits of thequestion will be more appropriately examined hereafter. It is sufficientto say here that Pitt, conceiving himself bound by personal honor aswell as by statesman-like duty to persevere in his intended measure, orto retire from an office which no man is justified in holding unless hecan discharge its functions in accordance with his own judgment of whatis required by the best interests of the state, resigned his post, andwas succeeded by Mr. Addington. 

Addington's ministry was made memorable by the formation of the NorthernConfederacy against us, and its immediate and total overthrow byNelson's cannon; and for the Peace of Amiens, severely criticised inParliament, as that of Utrecht and every subsequent treaty with asimilar object had been, but defensible both on grounds of domesticpolicy, as well as on that of affording us a much-needed respite fromthe strain of war; though it proved to be only a respite, and a feverishone, since at the end of two years the war was renewed, to be waged withgreater fury than ever. But it was too short-lived for anyconstitutional questions to arise in it. And when, in 1804, Pitt resumedthe government, his attention was too completely engrossed by thediplomatic arrangements by which he hoped to unite all the nations eastof the Rhine in resistance to a power whose ever aggressive ambition wasa standing menace to every Continental kingdom, for him to be able tospare time for the consideration of measures of domestic policy, exceptsuch as were of a financial character. But, though his premature deathrendered his second administration shorter than even Addington's, it wasnot wholly unproductive of questions of constitutional interest. Itwitnessed a recurrence to that which cannot but be regarded as among themost important privileges of the House of Commons, the right ofimpeaching a minister for maladministration. A report of a commissionappointed for the investigation of the naval affairs of the kingdom hadrevealed to Parliament a gross misapplication of the public moneycommitted by the Paymaster of the Navy. And, as that officer could nothave offended as he had done without either gross carelessness orculpable connivance on the part of the Treasurer of the Navy, LordMelville, who had since been promoted to the post of First Lord of theAdmiralty, the House of Commons ordered his impeachment at the Bar ofthe House of Lords; the vote being passed in 1805, during Pitt'sadministration, though the trial did not take place till the yearfollowing. In reality, the charge did not impugn Lord Melville'spersonal honor, on which at first sight it appeared to press hardly, Mr. Whitbread himself, the member for Bedford, who was the chief promoterand manager of the impeachment, admitting that he never imputed to LordMelville "any participation in the plunder of the public;" and, as LordMelville was acquitted on every one of the charges brought against him, the case might have been passed over here with the barest mention of it, were it not that Lord Campbell has pointed out the mode of procedure asdiffering from that adopted in the great trial of Warren Hastings, twenty years before; and, by reason of that difference, forming a modelfor future proceedings of the same kind, if, unhappily, there shouldever be occasion given for a similar prosecution. The credit of thedifference Lord Campbell gives to the Chancellor, Lord Erskine, who, "instead of allowing the House of Lords to sit to hear the case a fewdays in a year, and, when sitting, being converted from a court ofjustice into a theatre for rhetorical display, insisted that it shouldsit, like every other criminal tribunal, _de die in diem_, till theverdict was delivered. And he enforced both upon the managers of theHouse of Commons and on the counsel for the defendant the wholesomerules of procedure established for the detection of crime and theprotection of innocence. "[152] It is well known that on the trial ofHastings the managers of that impeachment, and most especially Burke, claimed a right of giving evidence such as no court of law would haveadmitted, and set up what they entitled "a usage of Parliamentindependent of and contradistinguished from the common law. "[153] But onthat occasion Lord Thurlow, then Chancellor, utterly denied theexistence of any such usage--a usage which, "in times of barbarism, whento impeach a man was to ruin him by the strong hand of power, was quotedin order to justify the most arbitrary proceedings. " He instanced thetrial of Lord Stafford, as one which "was from beginning to end markedby violence and injustice, " and expressed a "hope that in theseenlightened days no man would be tried but by the law of the land. " Wemay fairly agree with Lord Campbell, that it is to be hoped that thecourse adopted by Lord Erskine in this case has settled the principleand mode of procedure for all future time; since certainly theimportance of an impeachment, both as to the state interests involved init, and the high position and authority of the defendant, ought to beconsidered as reasons for adhering with the greatest closeness to thestrict rules of law, rather than for relaxing them in any particular. 

But, as was natural, the public could spare little attention foranything except the war, and the arrangements made by the minister forengaging in it with effect; the interest which such a state of thingsalways kindles being in this instance greatly inflamed by Napoleon'savowal of a design to invade the kingdom, though it is now known thatthe preparations of which he made such a parade were merely a feint tothrow Austria off her guard. [154] During Addington's administration Pitthad spoken warmly in favor of giving every possible encouragement to theVolunteer movement, and also in support of a proposal made by anindependent member, Colonel Crawford, to fortify London; and one of hisfirst measures after his resumption of office was a measure, known asthe Additional Force Bill, to transfer a large portion of the militia tothe regular army. It was so purely a measure of detail, that it wouldhardly have been necessary to mention it, had it not been for anobjection made to it by the Prime-minister's former colleague, LordGrenville, and for the reply with which that objection was encounteredby the Chief-justice, Lord Ellenborough; the former denouncing it asunconstitutional, since, he declared, it tended to establish a largestanding army in time of peace; and Lord Ellenborough, on the otherhand, declaring the right of the crown to call out the whole populationin arms for the defence of the realm to be so "radical, essential, andhitherto never questioned part of the royal prerogative, that, even insuch an age of adventurous propositions, he had not expected that anylord would have ventured to question it. "[155]

Pitt died in the beginning of 1806, and was succeeded by anadministration of which his great rival, Fox, was the guiding spiritwhile he lived, though Lord Grenville was First Lord of the Treasury, and, after Fox's death, which took place in September, the undisputedPrime-minister. But the formation of the administration was notcompleted without a step which was at once strongly denounced, not onlyby the regular Opposition, but by several members of politicalmoderation, as a violation, if not of the letter, at least of thespirit, of the constitution, the introduction of the Lord Chief-justice, Lord Ellenborough, into the cabinet. It was notorious that he wasinvited to a seat among that body as the representative of a smallparty, the personal friends of Lord Sidmouth. For the ministry wasformed in some degree on the principle of a coalition; Lord Grenvillehimself having been a colleague of Pitt throughout the greater part ofthat statesman's first ministry, and as such having been always opposedto Fox; while Lord Ellenborough had been Attorney-general in Addington'sadministration, which avowedly only differed from Pitt on the singlesubject of the Catholic question. 

The appointment was at once made the subject of motions in both Housesof Parliament. In the House of Lords, Lord Bristol, who brought thequestion forward, denounced "this identification of a judge with theexecutive government as injurious to the judicial character, subversiveof the liberty of the people, and having a direct and alarming tendencyto blend and amalgamate those great elementary principles of politicalpower which it is the very object of a free constitution to keepseparate and distinct. " In the House of Commons, Mr. Canning took asimilar objection; and, though he admitted that a precedent for the actmight be found in the case of Lord Mansfield who, while Chief-justice, had also been a cabinet minister in the administration of 1757, heargued forcibly that that precedent turned against the ministry and thepresent appointment, because Lord Mansfield himself had subsequentlyadmitted that "he had infringed the principles of the constitution byacting as a cabinet minister and Chief-justice at the same time. " Fox, in reply, relied principally on two arguments. The first was, that "hehad never heard of such a thing as the cabinet council becoming thesubject of a debate in that House. He had never known of the exercise ofthe King's prerogative in the appointment of his ministers being broughtinto question on such grounds as had now been alleged. " The second, that"in point of fact there is nothing in the constitution that recognizesany such institution as a cabinet council; that it is a body unknown tothe law, and one which has in no instance whatever been recognized byParliament. " He farther urged that as Lord Ellenborough was a privycouncillor, and as the cabinet is only a select committee of the PrivyCouncil, he was, "in fact, as liable to be summoned to attend thecabinet, as a privy councillor, as he was in his present situation. "

The last argument was beneath the speaker to use, since not one of hishearers was ignorant that no member of the Privy Council unconnectedwith the government ever is summoned to the deliberations of thecabinet; and though, as he correctly stated, "there is no legal recordof the members comprising any cabinet, " it may safely be affirmed thatsince July, 1714, when the Duke of Argyll and the Duke of Somersetclaimed admission to the deliberations of the ministers, on account ofthe danger in which the Queen lay, though they admitted that they hadreceived no summons to attend, [156] there has been no instance of anyprivy councillor attending without a summons; nor, except at theaccession of a new sovereign, of summonses being sent to any members ofthe council except the actual ministers. The second argument was evenworse, as being still more sophistical. It might be true that no law norstatute recognized the cabinet as a body distinct from the PrivyCouncil, but it was at least equally true that there was no one who wasignorant of the distinction; that it was, in truth, one without which itwould be difficult to understand the organization or working of anyministry. The indispensable function and privilege of a ministry is, todeliberate in concert and in private on the measures to be taken for thewelfare of the state; but there could be little chance of concert, andcertainly none of privacy, if every one who has ever been sworn a memberof the Privy Council had a right to attend all its deliberations. Again, to say that the King's prerogative, as exercised in the choice of hisadvisers, is a thing so sacred that no abuse of it, or want of judgmentshown in its exercise, can warrant a complaint, is inconsistent withevery principle of constitutional government, and with every conceivableidea of the privileges of Parliament. In fact, Parliament has claimed aright to interfere in matters apparently touching more nearly the royalprerogative, and it is only in the reign preceding the present reignthat hostile comments have been made in Parliament on the appointment ofa particular person as ambassador to a foreign power. Yet the post ofambassador is one which might have been supposed to have been fartherremoved from the supervision of Parliament than that of a minister, anambassador being in a special degree the personal representative of thesovereign, and the sovereign therefore, having, it might be supposed, aright to a most unfettered choice in such a matter. 

Stripped of all technicalities, and even of all reference to themanifest possibility of such a circumstance arising as that theChief-justice, if a member of a cabinet, may have a share in orderingthe institution of a prosecution which, as a judge, it may be his lot totry, one consideration which is undeniable is, that a member of acabinet is of necessity, and by the very nature of his position in it, aparty man, and that it is of preeminent importance to the impartialityof the judicial bench, and to the confidence of the people in thepurity, integrity, and freedom from political bias of their decisions, that the judges should be exempt from all suspicion of party connection. Lord Campbell even goes the length of saying, what was not urged oneither side of either House in these debates, that it was alleged by atleast one contemporary writer that Lord Mansfield's position in thecabinet did perceptibly influence some of his views and measuresrespecting the Press;[157] and, though in both Houses the ministry had amajority on the question of the propriety of the appointment, he recordshis own opinion[158] that "the argument was all on the losing side;" andthat Mr. Fox showed his consciousness that it was so by his "concessionthat the Chief-justice should absent himself from the cabinet when theexpediency of commencing prosecutions for treason or sedition was to bediscussed. " He adds, also, that "it is said that Lord Ellenboroughhimself ere long changed his opinion, and, to his intimate friends, expressed deep regret that he had ever been prevailed upon to enter thecabinet. "

But, if the composition of the cabinet of 1806 has in this respect beengenerally condemned, on the other hand the annals of that ministry, short-lived as it was, are marked by the enactment of one great measurewhich has been stamped with universal approbation. It may, perhaps, besaid that the existence, promotion, discouragement, or suppression of abranch of trade has no title to be regarded as a constitutionalquestion. But the course which the British Parliament, after a longperiod of hesitation, has adopted respecting, not only the slave-trade, but the employment of slave-labor in any part of the British dominions, is so intimately connected with the great constitutional principle, thatevery man, whatever be his race or nation or previous condition, whosefoot is once planted on British soil, is free from that moment, that itcannot be accounted a digression to mention the subject here. To ourstatesmen of Queen Anne's time traffic in slaves was so far from beingconsidered discreditable, that the ministry of that reign pridedthemselves greatly on what was called the Assiento Treaty with Spain, bywhich they secured for the British merchants and ship-owners theprivilege of supplying the West India Islands with several thousandslaves a year. In 1748 the ministers of George II were equally jealousof the credit of renewing it. It had even on one occasion been decidedin the Court of Common Pleas that an action of trover could bemaintained for a negro, "because negroes are heathens;" thoughChief-justice Holt scouted the idea of being bound by a precedent whichwould put "a human being on the same footing as an ox or an ass, " anddeclared that "in England there was no such thing as a slave. "Subsequent decisions, however, of two Lord Chancellors--Lord Talbot andLord Hardwicke--were not wholly consistent with the doctrine thus laiddown by Holt; and the question could not be regarded as finally settledtill 1772, when a slave named Somersett was brought over to England fromJamaica by his master, and on his arrival in the Thames claimed hisfreedom, and under a writ of _habeas corpus_ had his claim allowed byLord Mansfield. The master's counsel contended that slavery was not acondition unsanctioned by English law, for villeinage was slavery, andno statute had ever abolished villeinage. But the Chief-justice, in thefirst place, denied that villeinage had ever been slavery such asexisted in the West Indies; and, in the second place, he pronouncedthat, whether it had been or not, it had, at all events, long ceased inEngland, and could not be revived. "The air of England has long been toopure for a slave, and every man is free who breathes it. Every man whocomes into England is entitled to the protection of English law. "[159]But this freedom was as yet held to be only co-extensive with theseislands. And for sixty years more our West India Islands continued to becultivated by the labor of slaves, some of whom were the offspring ofslaves previously employed, though by far the greater part were importedyearly from the western coast of Africa. The supply from that countryseemed inexhaustible. The native chiefs in time of war gladly sold theirprisoners to the captains of British vessels; in time of peace they soldthem their own subjects; and, if at any time these modes of obtainingslaves slackened, the captains would land at night, and, attacking thevillages on the coast sweep off the inhabitants on board their ships, and at once set sail with their booty. The sufferings of these unhappycaptives in what was called the "middle passage"--the passage betweentheir native land and the West India Islands--were for a long timeunknown or disregarded, till, early in Pitt's first ministry, theyattracted the notice of some of our naval officers who were stationed inthe West Indies, and who, on their return to England, related thehorrors which they had witnessed or heard of--how, between decks too lowto admit of a full-grown man standing upright, the wretched victims, chained to the sides of the ships, lay squeezed together in suchnumbers, though the whole voyage was within the tropics, that, from theoverpowering heat and scantiness of food, it was estimated thattwo-thirds of each cargo died on the passage. Most fortunately for thecredit of England, the fearful trade was brought under the notice of ayoung member of Parliament singularly zealous in the cause of humanityand religion, endowed with untiring industry and powerful eloquence, andconnected by the closest ties of personal intimacy with Mr. Pitt. Tohear of such a system of organized murder, as the British officersdescribed the slave-trade to be, was quite sufficient to induce Mr. Wilberforce to resolve to devote himself to its suppression. He laid thecase in all its horrors before his friend the Prime-minister, a man asready as himself to grapple with and extinguish all proved abuses; andPitt at once promised him all the support which he could give. It was noeasy task that he had taken on himself. A year or two before, Burke hadapplied himself to frame some regulations which he hoped might graduallyremove the evil; but, little as he was moved by considerations ofpopularity or daunted by difficulty, he had abandoned the attempt, asone which would meet with a resistance too powerful to be overcome. Wilberforce was not a bolder man than Burke, but he had no other objectto divide his attention, and, therefore, to this one he devoted all hisfaculties and energies, enlisting supporters in every quarter, seekingeven the co-operation of the French government, and opening acorrespondence with the French Secretary of State, M. Montmorin, astatesman of great capacity, and, what was far rarer in France, ofincorruptible honesty. M. Montmorin, however, though alive to thecruelty of the traffic, was unable to promise him any aid, alleging thefears of the French planters that its abolition "would ruin the Frenchislands. He said that it was one of those subjects upon which theinterests of men and their sentiments were so much at variance, that itwas difficult to learn what was practicable. "[160]

Wilberforce had already found that the English merchants were still lessmanageable. Pitt had entered so fully into his views, that in 1788 hehimself moved and carried a resolution pledging the House of Commons totake the slave-trade into consideration in the next session. And anotherfriend of the cause, Sir W. Dobben, brought in a bill to diminish thehorrors of the middle passage by proportioning the number of slaves whomight be conveyed in one ship to the tonnage of the vessel. But thoseconcerned in the West India trade rose up in arms against even somoderate a measure, and one so clearly demanded by the most ordinaryhumanity as this. The Liverpool merchants declared that the absence ofrestrictions on the slave-trade had been the chief cause of theprosperity and opulence of their town, and obtained leave to be heard bycounsel against the bill. But Fox united with Pitt on this subject, andthe bill was carried. But this was all the practical success which theefforts of the "Abolitionists, " as they began to be called, achieved formany years. And even that was not won without extreme difficulty; LordChancellor Thurlow opposing it with great vehemence in the House ofLords, as the fruit of a "five days' fit of philanthropy which had justsprung up, " and pointing to the conduct of the French government, which, as he asserted, had offered premiums to encourage the trade, as anexample that we should do well to follow. It was even said that he hadcontrived to incline the King himself to the same view; to havepersuaded him that the trade was indispensable to the prosperity of ourmanufacturers, and, in the Chancellor's words, "that it was his royalduty to show some humanity to the whites as well as to the negroes. " Andmore than once, when bills to limit or wholly suppress the trade hadbeen passed by the Commons, the same mischievous influence defeated themin the Lords. The last years of Pitt's first administration were toofully occupied with the affairs of Ireland, negotiations with foreignpowers, and the great war with France, to enable him to keep pace withhis friend's zeal on the subject. But in his second administration, occupied though he was with a recurrence of the same causes, he foundtime to prepare and issue an Order in Council prohibiting theimportation of slaves into our fresh colonial acquisitions, and theemployment of British ships to supply the Dutch, French, and Spanishislands. 

And this Order in Council paved the way for the total abolition. One ofthe earliest proceedings of the new ministry was the introduction by theAttorney-general, Sir Arthur Pigott, of a bill to extend and make itperpetual; to forbid "the importation of African negroes by Britishships into the colonies conquered by or ceded to us in war; or into thecolonies of any neutral state in the West Indies. For at present everystate that had colonies in America or the West Indies, and that was notactually at war with us, availed itself of the opportunity of Britishshipping to carry on the trade. " It was resisted as vehemently as anyformer measure with the same object, and partly on the new ground thatit would in no degree stop the trade or diminish the sufferings of theAfricans, but would merely rob our ship-owners of their profits toenrich the Americans. Mr. Rose, the member for Christchurch, whoadvanced this argument, had been a friend of Pitt; yet, though he quotedan instance of a single vessel having buried one hundred and fifty-twoslaves on one voyage, he was not ashamed to deprecate the bill, on theplea that "the manufacturers of Manchester, Stockport, and Paisley wouldbe going about naked and starving, and thus, by attending to a supposedclaim for relief from a distant quarter, we should give existence tomuch more severe distress at home. " The bill, however, was carried inboth Houses, and received the royal assent. And Fox, who supported itwarmly in his speech on the third reading (one of the last speecheswhich he ever addressed to the House), invited Wilberforce to regard itas a stepping-stone to the total abolition of the trade, and as anencouragement to renew his motion for that object; and, though he couldnot promise him the support of the government as a government, he "couldanswer for himself and many of his friends who held the highest and mostdignified stations in the other House of Parliament. They still felt thequestion of the total abolition as one involving the dearest interestsof humanity, and as one which, should they be successful in effectingit, would entail more true glory upon their administration, and morehonor upon their country, than any other transaction in which they couldbe engaged. "

Mr. Fox did not live to see the opening of another session; but, whenthat time came, the position which he had taken up, that the measure ofwhich he had thus promoted the passing was an encouragement to do more, was adopted to its full extent by the chief of his colleagues, LordGrenville, who, in February, 1807, himself brought forward a motion forthe entire abolition of the trade. Though he was Prime-minister, hecould not introduce it as a government measure, since two of hiscolleagues--Lord Sidmouth, the President of the Council, and Mr. Windham, the Secretary of State for the Colonies--opposed it; though theformer professed a desire to see the trade abolished, but would havepreferred to attain that end by imposing such a tax on every slaveimported as should render the trade unprofitable. He had anotherobstacle also to encounter, in the vehement opposition of some of theprinces of the royal family, the Dukes of Clarence and Sussex moreespecially, who were known to be canvassing against the bill, and weregenerally understood, in so doing, to be acting in accordance with theviews of their elder brothers. But he was confident that by this timethe feeling of the whole country was with him on the subject. He wasresolved to rest his case on its justice, and therefore consented thatthe House should hear counsel on the subject, though he resisted theirdemand to be allowed to call witnesses. Accordingly, counsel were heardfor the whole body of West India planters, and for those of one or twoseparate islands, such as Jamaica and Trinidad; for the Liverpoolmerchants, and even for the trustees of the Liverpool Docks. But some oftheir reasonings he even turned against themselves, refusing for amoment to admit "that the profits obtained by robbery could be urged asan argument for the continuance of robbery. " He denounced the trade as"the most criminal that any country could be engaged in, " and as onethat led to other crimes in the treatment of the slaves after theyreached the West Indies. He instanced "three most horrible and dreadfulmurders of slaves" that had been committed in Barbadoes, and quoted thereport of Lord Seaforth, governor of the island, who, on investigation, had found that by the law of the colony the punishment affixed to suchmurders was a fine of eleven pounds. He was opposed by the Duke ofClarence, who directed his remarks chiefly to a defence of the generalhumanity of the planters; and by Lord Westmoreland, who, in a speech ofsingular intemperance, denounced the principle of the measure, as oneafter the passing of which "no property could be rendered safe whichcould fall within the power of the Legislature. " He even made it anargument against the bill that its principle, if carried to itslegitimate logical end, must tend to the abolition of slavery as well asof the slave-trade. He objected especially to the assertion in thepreamble that the trade was "contrary to justice and humanity, "declaring that those words were only inserted in the hope that by them"foreign powers might be humbugged into a concurrence with theabolition, " and wound up his harangue by a declaration that, though heshould "see the Presbyterian and the prelate, the Methodist andpew-preacher, the Jacobin and the murderer, unite in support of it, hewould still raise his voice against it. " It must have been more painfulto the minister to be opposed by so distinguished an officer as Lord St. Vincent, who resisted the bill chiefly on the ground that "its effectwould be to transfer British capital to other countries, which would notbe disposed to abandon so productive a trade, " and declared that hecould only account for Lord Grenville's advocacy of it "by supposingthat some Obi man had cast his spell upon him. " But the case was toostrong for any arguments to prevail which were based solely on theprofits of a trade which no one pretended to justify. The bill passedthe Lords by a majority of nearly three to one; in the House of Commons, where the opposition was much feebler, by one infinitely larger;[161]and, by a somewhat remarkable coincidence, it received the royal assenton the same day on which Lord Grenville announced to his brother peersthat his administration was at an end. 

Even before the abolition had thus become law, the member forNorthumberland, Earl Percy, endeavored to give practical effect to LordWestmoreland's view, that emancipation of the slaves was its inevitablecorollary, by moving for leave to bring in a bill for the gradualabolition of slavery in the British settlements of the West Indies. Buthe was opposed by Lord Howick, [162] though he had been among the earnestadvocates of abolition, partly for the sake of the negroes themselves, and partly on the ground that the Legislature had no "right to interferewith the property of the colonists;" little foreseeing that the measurewhich he now opposed was reserved for his own administration, and thatits accomplishment would be one of its chief titles to the respectfulrecollection of posterity. And, as the House was presently counted out, the discussion would not have been worth recording, were it not for theopportunity which it gave of displaying the practical and moderatewisdom of Wilberforce himself, who joined in the opposition to LordPercy's motion. "The enemies of abolition had, " he said, "alwaysconfounded abolition with emancipation. He and his friends had alwaysdistinguished between them; and not only abstained from proposingemancipation, but were ready to reject it when proposed by others. Howmuch soever he looked forward with anxious expectation to the periodwhen the negroes might with safety be liberated, he knew too well theeffect which the long continuance of abject slavery produced upon thehuman mind to think of their immediate emancipation, a measure which atthe present moment would be injurious both to them and to the colonies. He and those who acted with him were satisfied with having gained anobject which was safely attainable. "

And they had reason to be satisfied. For the good work thus done was notlimited by the extent of the British dominions, vast as they are. Theexample of the homage thus paid by the Parliament and the nation tojustice and humanity was contagious; the principle on which the bill wasfounded and was carried being such that, for mere shame, foreigncountries could hardly persist in maintaining a traffic which those whohad derived the greatest profit from it had on such grounds renounced;though our ministers did not trust to their spontaneous sympathies, butmade the abolition of the traffic by our various allies, or those whowished to become so, a constant object of diplomatic negotiations, evenpurchasing the co-operation of some by important concessions, in oneinstance by the payment of a large sum of money. The conferences andcongresses which took place on the re-establishment of peace gave themgreat facilities for pressing their views on the different governments. And Lord Liverpool's instructions to Lord Castlereagh and the Duke ofWellington, as plenipotentiaries of our government, [163] show the keeninterest which he took in the matter, and the skilful manner in which hesought to avail himself of the predominant influence which the exertionsand triumphs of this country had given her with every foreign cabinet. Though Portugal was an ally to whom we regarded ourselves as bound byspecial ties, as well as by the great benefits we had conferred on her, yet, as she clung with the greatest pertinacity to the trade, he did notscruple to endeavor to put a constraint upon her which should compel hersubmission, and instructed Lord Castlereagh "to induce the Congress totake the best means in their power to enforce it by the adoption of alaw, on the part of the several states, to exclude the colonial produceof those countries who should refuse to comply with this system ofabolition. "

And exertions so resolutely put forward were so successful, that thetrade was avowedly proscribed by every European nation, thoughunquestionably it was still carried on by stealth by merchants andship-owners of more than one country--not, if the suspicions of ourstatesmen were well founded, without some connivance on the part oftheir governments. Nor were our efforts in the cause the fitful displayof impulsive excitement. We have continued them and widened their sphereas occasions have presented themselves, exerting a successful influenceeven over unchristian and semi-civilized governments, of which aninstance has very recently been furnished, in the assurances given bythe Khedive of Egypt to our minister residing at his court, that he istaking vigorous measures to suppress the slave-trade, which is stillcarried on in the interior of Africa; and that we may believe hispromise that he will not relax his exertions till it is extinguished, atleast in the region on the north of the equator. 

Individuals, as a rule, are slow to take warning from the experience ofothers; slower, perhaps, to follow their example in well-doing. Nationsare slower still. When such an example is followed, still more when itis adopted by a general imitation, it will usually be found not onlythat the good is of a very unusual standard of excellence, but that heor they who have set the example are endowed with a force of characterthat predisposes others to submit to their influence. And credit of thiskind England may fairly claim for the general abolition of theslave-trade; for the condemnation and abolition of the slave-trade hadthis distinguishing feature, that the idea of such a policy was ofexclusively British origin. No nation had ever before conceived thenotion that to make a man a slave was a crime. On the contrary, therewere not wanting those who, from the recognition of such a condition inthe Bible, argued that it was a divine institution. And they whodenounced it, and labored for its suppression, had not only inveterateprejudice and long custom to contend with, but found arrayed againstthem many of the strongest passions that animate mankind. The naturaldesire for gain united merchants, ship-owners, and planters in unanimousresistance to a measure calculated to cut off from them one large sourceof profit. Patriotism, which, however misguided, was sincere and freefrom all taint of personal covetousness, induced many, who wore whollyunconnected either with commerce or with the West Indies, to look withdisfavor on a change which not only imperilled the interests of suchimportant bodies of men, but which they were assured by those concerned, must render the future cultivation of estates in the West Indiesimpracticable; while such a result would not only ruin those valuablecolonies, but would also extinguish that great nursery for our navywhich was furnished by the vessels at present engaged in the West Indiatrade. To disregard such substantial considerations to risk a loss ofrevenue, a diminution of our colonial greatness, and a weakening of ourmaritime power, even while engaged in a formidable war, under no otherpressure but that of a respect for humanity and justice, was certainly ahomage to those virtues, and also an act of self-denying courage, ofwhich the previous history of the world had furnished no similarexample; and it is one of which, in one point of view, the nation may bemore justly proud than of the achievements of its wisest statesmen, orthe exploits of its most invincible warriors. For it was the act of thenation itself. No previous sentiment of the people paved the way forPitt's triumphs in finance, for Nelson's or Wellington's victories bysea and land; but the slave-trade could never have been abolished by anyparliamentary leader, had not the nation as a whole become convinced ofits wickedness, and, when once so convinced, resolved to braveeverything rather than persist in it. The merit of having impressed itwith this conviction belongs to Mr. Wilberforce, whose untiring, unswerving devotion of brilliant eloquence and practical ability to theone holy object, and whose ultimate success, give him a just claim to bereckoned among the great men of a generation than which the world hasseen none more prolific of every kind of greatness. But the nationitself is also entitled to no slight credit for having so rapidlyappreciated the force of his teaching, and for having encouraged itsrepresentatives to listen to his voice, by the knowledge that byadopting his measures they would be carrying out the wish anddetermination of the whole people. 

A measure for the strengthening of the army, introduced by the Secretaryof State for War, Mr. Windham, though not one of perpetual force, sinceit required to be renewed every year, claims a brief mention, from theextent to which one of its clauses trenched on the freedom of thesubject, by making every man of military age (from sixteen yearsold[164] to forty) liable to be compelled to submit to military trainingfor a certain period of each year. "Nothing, " to quote the Secretary'swords, "was to exempt any man from the general training but his becominga volunteer at his own expense, the advantage of which would be that hecould train himself if he chose, and fight, if occasion required it, inthe corps to which he should belong, instead of being liable to fall inamong the regulars.... As out of the immense mass of the population someselection must be made, those called on to be trained were to beselected by lot, and he would have the people divided into threeclasses, between the ages of sixteen and forty: the first class tocomprehend all from sixteen to twenty-four; the second, those betweentwenty-four and thirty-two; and the third, all from thirty-two to forty. The number of days for training he proposed to limit to twenty-six, withan allowance of a shilling a day for each man. " The result aimed at bythis part of his measure was the creation of a force different from andunconnected with the militia; and he did not conceal his hope that themilitary habits which it would implant in a large portion of thepopulation would lead many of those thus about to be trained to enlistin the regular army. To the militia itself he paid a high but notundeserved compliment, declaring it "for home service certainly equal toany part of our regular forces, with the single exception that it hadnever seen actual service. " But the militia could not be called on toserve out of the kingdom; and his object was to increase the forceavailable for foreign service--"to see the great mass of the populationof the country so far trained as to be able to recruit immediatelywhatever losses the regular army might sustain in action. " As yet, thenumber of men yearly obtained by recruiting fell far short of therequirements of the service. Wellington had not yet begun that career ofvictory which created a national enthusiasm for war, and filled ourranks with willing soldiers. And another clause of the same bill wasframed in the hope of making the service more acceptable to thepeasantry, by limiting the time for which recruits were to be enlisted, and entering men, at first, in the infantry for seven years, or in thecavalry (as that branch of the service required a longer apprenticeship)for ten; then allowing them the option of renewing their engagement fortwo periods--in the infantry of seven years each, in the cavalry of sixand five, with increased pay during each of the two periods, and a smallpension for life, if the soldier retired after the second period; and"the full allowance of Chelsea, " which was to be farther raised to ashilling a day, for those who elected to serve the whole twenty-oneyears. This principle the present reign has seen carried to a muchgreater extent, but the change is too recent for even the mostexperienced officers to be agreed on its effects. And it is only becauseof this recent extension of it that this clause is mentioned here. Butthe enactment of a law of compulsory service was clearly an inroad onthe great constitutional right of every man to choose his ownemployment. At the same time, it is equally clear that it was only suchan inroad as under the circumstances, was fully justifiable. It is truethat all danger of French invasion had passed away with Trafalgar; butthe kingdom was still engaged in a gigantic war, and the necessity ofthe case--always the supreme law--was so little denied by theOpposition, that their objections to the bill were directed entirelyagainst the clause for limited enlistment, and not against that whichabridged the subject's liberty, by compelling him to learn to serve hiscountry in war. 

The reign of George III. , which had now lasted fifty years, was drawingpractically to a close. The excitement caused by the ministerial changesin 1801 had already brought on one relapse, though fortunately a verybrief one, of the King's malady of 1788; and in the autumn of 1810 thedeath of the daughter who was supposed to be his especial favorite, thePrincess Amelia, produced a recurrence of it, which, though at first thephysicians entertained more sanguine hopes of his speedy recovery thanon any former occasion, he never shook off. More than one change ofministry had recently taken place. In 1807 Lord Grenville had beencompelled, as Pitt had been in 1801, to choose between yielding hisopinions on the Catholic question or resigning his office, and hadchosen the latter alternative. He had been succeeded for two years bythe Duke of Portland; but in 1809 that nobleman had also retired, andhad been succeeded by his Attorney-general, Mr. Perceval, the onlypractising barrister who had ever been so promoted. And he now beingPrime-minister, and, as such, forced to make arrangements for carryingon the government during the illness of his sovereign, naturallyregarded the course pursued in 1789 as the precedent to be followed. Accordingly, on the 20th of December he proposed for the adoption of theHouse of Commons the same resolutions which Pitt had carried twenty-twoyears before--that the King was prevented by indisposition fromattending to public business; that it was the duty of Parliament toprovide means for supplying the defect of the personal exercise of theroyal authority, and its duty also to determine the mode in which theroyal assent to the measures necessary could be signified. And he alsofollowed Pitt's example in expressing by letter to the Prince of Waleshis conviction that his Royal Highness was a person most proper to beappointed Regent, and explaining at the same time the restrictions whichseemed proper to be imposed on his immediate exercise of the completesovereign authority; though the advanced age at which the King had nowarrived made it reasonable that those restrictions should now be limitedto a single year. The Prince, on his part, showed that time had in nodegree abated his repugnance to those restrictions, and he answered theminister's letter by referring him to that which he had addressed toPitt on the same subject in 1788. And he induced all his brothers toaddress to Perceval a formal protest against "the establishment of arestricted Regency, " which they proceeded to describe as perfectlyunconstitutional, as being contrary to and subversive of the principleswhich seated their family upon the throne of this realm. [165]

Perceval, however, with Pitt's example before him, had no doubt of thecourse which it was his duty to pursue; and the Opposition also, for themost part, followed the tactics of 1789; the line of argument nowadopted by each party being so nearly identical with that employed onthe former occasion, that it is needless to recapitulate the topics onwhich the different speakers insisted; though it is worth remarking thatLord Holland, who, as the nephew of Fox, thought it incumbent on him tofollow his uncle's guidance, did on one point practically depart fromit. As his uncle had done, he denied the right of the Houses to imposeany restrictions on the Prince's exercise of the royal authority; but, at the same time, he consented to put what may be called a morallimitation on that exercise, by adding to an amendment which he proposedto the resolution proposed by the minister an expression of "the fartheropinion of the House that it will be expedient to abstain from theexercise of all such powers as the immediate exigencies of the stateshall not call into action, until Parliament shall have passed a bill orbills for the future care of his Majesty's royal person during hisMajesty's present indisposition. "

It is remarkable that the leaders of the Opposition were in a greatdegree stimulated in the line they took by the very same hopes which hadanimated Fox and his followers in 1789--the expectation that theRegent's first act would be to discard the existing ministry, and toplace them in office. But again they were disappointed in theiranticipations, of the realization of which they had made so sure thatthey had taken no pains to keep them secret. They even betrayed theirmortification to the world when the Prince's intentions on the subjectof the administration became known by the violence of their language inParliament, some of their party denouncing the employment of the GreatSeal to give the royal assent to the bill as "fraud and forgery. " Nor, indeed, could the Regent himself, even while expressing his intention tomake no change in the administration, lest "any act of his might in thesmallest degree have the effect of interfering with the progress of hissovereign's recovery, " suppress an expression of dissatisfaction at therecent arrangements, which he considered had placed him in "a situationof unexampled embarrassment, " and had created "a state of affairs illcalculated, as he feared, to sustain the interests of the United Kingdomin this awful and perilous crisis, and most difficult to be reconciledto the general principles of the British constitution. "[166] There wereat this time general and apparently well-founded hopes of the King'srecovery. For at intervals during the whole of January thePrime-minister had interviews with his Majesty; and, on the very day onwhich the bill became law, the King himself mentioned it to Lord Eldon, the Chancellor, and said that he acquiesced in it from perfectconfidence in the advice of his physicians, and on the sound judgmentand personal attachment of his ministers. 

For the present, therefore, no change was made in the administration;but when, in the spring of the following year, Mr. Perceval wasmurdered, the necessity for a new arrangement which this strange andcalamitous atrocity forced upon the Regent--who by this time had comeinto possession of his full authority--led to his making offers of theconduct of affairs to more than one prominent statesman, all of them, asis somewhat remarkable, being peers. And, though the proposalseventually came to nothing, and the negotiations terminated in there-establishment of the former ministry, with Lord Liverpool at itshead, yet some of the causes to which their failure was publicly orgenerally attributed seem desirable to be recorded, because the first, and that most openly avowed, bears a not very distant resemblance to thecomplication which baffled Sir Robert Peel's endeavors to form anadministration in 1839; and another corresponds precisely to a proposalwhich, in 1827, the Regent--then King George IV. --did himself make tothe Duke of Wellington. It is unnecessary to dwell on the singularmanner in which the Regent first professed to give his confidence toLord Wellesley, then transferred it to Lord Moira, [167] and then to acertain extent included Lord Grey and Lord Grenville in it. Nor would itbe profitable to discuss the correctness or incorrectness of thesuspicion expressed by Mr. Moore, in his "Life of Sheridan"--who wasevidently at this time as fully in the Regent's confidence as any oneelse--that "at the bottom of all these evolutions of negotiation therewas anything but a sincere wish, that the object to which they relatedshould be accomplished. "[168] The reason avowed by Lord Grey and LordGrenville for refusing a share in the projected administration was therefusal of Lord Moira, who had been employed by the Prince to treat withthem on the subject, to allow them to make a power of removing theofficers at present filling "the great offices of the household"[169] anexpress condition of their acceptance of ministerial office. Theyaffirmed that a "liberty to make new appointments" to these offices hadusually been given on every change of administration. But Lord Moira, while admitting that "the Prince had laid no restriction on him in thatrespect, " declared that "it would be impossible for him to concur inmaking the exercise of this power positive and indispensable in theformation of the administration, because he should deem it on publicgrounds peculiarly objectionable. " Such an answer certainly gives agreat color to Moore's suspicion, since it is hardly possible toconceive that Lord Moira took on himself the responsibility of giving itwithout a previous knowledge that it would be approved by his royalmaster. In a constitutional point of view, there can, it will probablybe felt, be no doubt that the two lords had a right to the liberty theyrequired. And the very men concerned, the great officers of thehousehold, were evidently of the same opinion, since the chief, LordYarmouth, informed Sheridan that they intended to resign, in order thathe might communicate that intention to Lord Grey; and Sheridan, whoconcealed the intelligence from Lord Grey, can hardly be supposed, anymore than Lord Moira, to have acted in a manner which he did not expectto be agreeable to the Prince. But, in Canning's opinion, this questionof the household was only the ostensible pretext, and not the realcause, of those two lords rejecting the Regent's offers; the real causebeing, as he believed, that the Prince himself had already named LordWellesley as Prime-minister, and that they were resolved to insist onthe right of the Whig party to dictate on that point to the Regent, [170]just as, in 1782, Fox had endeavored to force the Duke of Portland onthe King, when his Majesty preferred Lord Shelburne. As has beenintimated in a former page, it will be seen hereafter that in 1839 asimilar claim to be allowed to remove some of the ladies of the royalhousehold, and the rejection of that claim by the sovereign, preventedSir R. Peel from forming an administration. And, as that transaction wasdiscussed at some length in Parliament, it will afford a betteropportunity for examining the principle on which the claim and practice(for of the practice there is no doubt) rest. For the present it issufficient to point out the resemblance between the cases. 

But it is remarkable that, unwarrantable as the pretension of the Whigleaders was to dictate to the Regent to whom he should confide the leadof the government (if, indeed, Canning be correct in his opinion), yetit was not one to which the Regent felt any repugnance, since, in 1827, when Lord Liverpool's illness again left the Treasury vacant, he, beingthen on the throne as George IV. , proposed to the Duke of Wellington todesire the remaining members of the administration themselves to selecta chief under whom they would be willing to continue in his service; butthe Duke told him that the plan of allowing them to choose their ownleader would be most derogatory to his position; that the choice of thePrime-minister was an act which ought to be entirely his own, for that, in fact under the British constitution, it was the only personal act ofgovernment which the King of Great Britain had to perform. [171] Thoughnot generally a great authority on constitutional points, we apprehendthat the Duke was clearly correct in this view, which, indeed, has beenso invariably carried out in practice, that the King's suggestion wouldnot have deserved mention had it not been a king's. So far from itbelonging to any individual subject or to any party to name thePrime-minister, to do so is even beyond the province of the Parliament. Parliament decides whether it will give its confidence to anadministration of one party or the other; but not only has no vote everbeen given on the question whether one member of the dominant party befitter or not than another to be its head, but we do not remember asingle instance of any member of either House expressing an opinion onthe subject in his place in Parliament. To do so would be felt by everymember of experience to be an infringement on the prerogative of hissovereign; and it may be added that a contrary practice would certainlyopen the door to intrigue, or, what would be equally bad, a suspicion ofintrigue, and would thus inevitably diminish the weight which even theOpposition desire to see a Prime-minister possess both in Parliament andin the country. 

Notes:

[Footnote 148: It is somewhat remarkable that Lord Macaulay, in hisendeavors to estimate the population in 1685, takes no notice of any ofthese details mentioned by Mr. Abbott. ]

[Footnote 149: The details of this census of 1801 are given in a note inthe preceding chapter (see page 185), from which it appears that theentire population of the United Kingdom was in that year 16, 395, 870. SirA. Alison, in different chapters of the second part of his "History ofEurope, " gives returns of subsequent censuses, from the last of which(c. Lvi. , s. 34, note), it appears that in 1851 the population amountedto 27, 511, 862. An increase of 11, 116, 792 in half a century. ]

[Footnote 150: "Lives of the Chief-justices, " by Lord Campbell, iii. , 87, life of Lord Kenyon. ]

[Footnote 151: "What is this, " said George III. To Mr. Dundas, "whichthis young lord (Castlereagh) has brought over, which they are going tothrow at my head? The most Jacobinical thing I ever heard of! I shallreckon any man my personal enemy who proposes any such measure. "--_Lifeof Pitt_, iii. , 274. ]

[Footnote 152: "Lives of the Chancellors, " c. Clxxxiv. , life of LordErskine. ]

[Footnote 153: "Lives of the Chancellors, " c. Clix. , life of LordThurlow. ]

[Footnote 154: See "Memoires de M. De Metternich, " ii. , 156. ]

[Footnote 155: "Lives of the Chief-justices, " iii. , 175. ]

[Footnote 156: Lord Stanhope, "History of England, " i. , 133. ]

[Footnote 157: "Lives of the Chief-justices, " ii. , 451. He is quoting H. Walpole. ]

[Footnote 158: Ibid. , iii. , 187. ]

[Footnote 159: Campbell's "Lives of the Chief-justices, " II. , 139, lifeof Chief-justice Holt; and p. 418, life of Lord Mansfield. ]

[Footnote 160: "Life of Wilberforce, " i. , 158. ]

[Footnote 161: The division in the Lords was 100 to 36; in the Commons, 283 to 16. ]

[Footnote 162: Afterward the Earl Grey of 1831. ]

[Footnote 163: See especially his "Letters to Lord Castlereagh, " p. 814;and "Life of Lord Liverpool, " i. , 512; ii. , 35, 49, 127. ]

[Footnote 164: Lord Colchester's "Diary, " ii. , 49, dated April 3, 1806, says eighteen years. But Mr. Windham's speech, as reported in the"Parliamentary History, " second series, vi. , 685, says sixteen years;and as he divides the ages into three classes, the two latter of which, from twenty-four to thirty-two, and from thirty-two to forty, are ofeight years each, it is probable that the younger class was of the sameduration, i. E. , from sixteen to twenty-four. ]

[Footnote 165: Lord Colchester's "Diary, " ii. , 300. ]

[Footnote 166: See "Diary of Lord Colchester" (Speaker at the time), c. Xxxvi. , p. 316. He gives the whole of the Prince's letter to Perceval(which had been composed by Sheridan), and of Perceval's reply. TheRegency Bill became law February 5, 1811. ]

[Footnote 167: A letter of Lord Wellesley to Lord Grey, June 4 (given byPearce, "Life of Lord Wellesley, " iii. , 270), shows that Lord Moira hadbeen in communication with Lord Grey and Lord Grenville before LordWellesley had given up the idea of forming a ministry. And though LordGrey in his reply (p. 272) expresses his conviction that Lord Moira'sletter was not "an authorized communication, " but only "a privatecommunication, " it is clear that it could not have been written withoutthe privity of the Regent. ]

[Footnote 168: "Life of Sheridan, " ii. , 425. ]

[Footnote 169: Pearce's "Life of Lord Wellesley, " iii. , 276. All theletters which passed between Lord Grey, Lord Grenville, Lord Moira, andLord Wellesley himself are given at full length by Mr. Pearce in thatchapter. ]

[Footnote 170: Stapleton's "George Canning and his Times, " p. 202. ]

[Footnote 171: Mr. Stapleton affirms that his Royal Highness actuallydid adopt this plan on this occasion: "His Royal Highness adopted theunprecedented course of commanding his servants to elect theFirst-minister. Their choice fell on Lord Liverpool. "--_George Canningand his Times_, p. 208. Mr. Stapleton, however, gives no authority forthis assertion, and he was probably mistaken, since Lord Liverpool'spapers afford no corroboration of it, but rather tend to disprove it. ]

CHAPTER VII. 

The Toleration Act. --Impropriety of making Catholic Emancipation (or anyother Important Matter) an Open Question. --Joint Responsibility of allthe Ministers. --Detention of Napoleon at St. Helena. --Question whetherthe Regent could Give Evidence in a Court of Law in a CivilAction. --Agitation for Reform. --Public Meetings. --The ManchesterMeeting. --The Seditious Meetings Prevention Bill. --Lord Sidmouth's SixActs. 

The war was daily becoming of more exciting interest, and, so far as ourarmies were concerned, was rapidly assuming greater proportions. Whilethe Duke of Portland was still at the head of affairs, Napoleon, by hisunprovoked attacks on both the Peninsular kingdoms, had at last opened afield of action to our armies, in which even the most sanguine of thosewho placed a loyal confidence in the old invincibility of Englishprowess could not have anticipated the unbroken series of glories whichwere to reward their efforts. For four years Lord Wellington hadcontended against all the most renowned marshals of the Empire, [172]driving them back from impregnable lines of defence, defeating them inpitched battles, storming their strongest fortresses, without evergiving them room to boast of even the most momentary advantage obtainedover himself; and he was now on the eve of achieving still morebrilliant and decisive triumphs, which were never to cease till he hadcarried his victorious march far into the heart of France itself. 

At such a time it may well be supposed that the attention of the newministry was too fully occupied with measures necessary for the conductof the war to leave it much time for domestic legislation. Yet even itsfirst session was not entirely barren. 

In the first excitement of the Restoration, when the nation was stillexasperated at the recollection of what it had suffered under thetriumphant domination of the Puritans, two laws had been framed tochastise them, conceived in a spirit as intolerant and persecuting ashad dictated the very worst of their own. One, which was called theConventicle Act, inflicted on all persons above the age of sixteen, whoshould be present at any religious service performed in any mannerdifferently from the service of the Church of England, in anymeeting-house, where more than five persons besides the occupiers of thehouse should be present, severe penalties, rising gradually totransportation; and gave a single magistrate authority to convict and topass sentence on the offenders. The other, commonly known as the FiveMile Act, forbade all ministers, of any sect, who did not subscribe tothe Act of Uniformity, and who refused to swear to their belief in thedoctrine of passive obedience, from teaching in any school, and fromcoming within five miles of any city, corporate town, or borough sendingmembers to Parliament, or any town or village in which they themselveshad resided as ministers. The latter statute had fallen into completedisuse, and many of the provisions of the former had been relaxed, though magistrates in general construed the relaxing enactments asleaving the relaxations wholly at their discretion to grant or towithhold, and were very much in the habit of withholding or abridgingthem. Other statutes, such as the Test Act, had subsequently been passedagainst every sect of Dissenters, though they had only imposed civildisabilities, and had not inflicted penalties. But the newPrime-minister was a man to whose disposition anything resemblingpersecution was foreign and repugnant. Before his predecessor's unhappydeath he had already discussed with him the propriety of abolishing lawsconceived in such a spirit; and he no sooner found himself at the headof the government than he prepared a bill to carry out his views. Hedrew a distinction between the acts inflicting penalties and those whichonly imposed disabilities. With these latter he did not propose tointerfere; but, in July, his colleague, Lord Castlereagh, introducedinto the House of Commons a bill to repeal the Conventicle Act and theFive Mile Act altogether, and, when it had passed the Commons, hehimself moved its adoption by the Lords, enforcing his recommendation bythe argument, that "an enlarged and liberal toleration was the bestsecurity to the Established Church, a Church not founded on theexclusion of religious discussion, but, in its homilies, its canons, andall the principles on which it rested, courting the investigation of theScriptures, upon which it founded its doctrines. " At the same time, while urging the repeal of acts which he truly branded as a disgrace tothe statute-book, he was not blind to the duty imposed on him, asresponsible for the public tranquillity, of taking care that meetingsheld ostensibly for purposes of devotion should not be perverted to thedesigns of political agitators; and therefore he provided in the billfor the registration of all places appropriated to religious worship, and for the exaction from "the preachers and teachers in those meetingsof some test or security in the oaths to be taken by them. " He hadalready secured the acquiescence of the bishops, and he was equallysuccessful now in winning the assent of the House. The conditions, suchas they were, did not prevent the bill from being entirely acceptable tothe Non-conformists; and though their spokesman in the House of Commons, Mr. W. Smith, member for Norwich, confessed a wish "that it had gone alittle farther, and had granted complete religious liberty, " he at thesame time expressed sincere gratitude on the part of the Non-conformistsfor what was thus done for them; and declared that, "as an act oftoleration, it certainly was the most complete which had hitherto beenpassed in this country. " It was, in fact, the beginning of theabandonment of that system of discouragement of and hostility to allsects except the Established Church, which had hitherto been regarded bya large party as one of the most essential principles of theconstitution. And as such it makes the year 1812 in some respects alandmark in our constitutional history. 

Mr. Smith had referred to an omission which prevented him from speakingof the bill as complete. He was alluding to the Test and CorporationActs, which had been passed ten years later than the Conventicle Act, inthe same reign of Charles II. , and which many of the Non-conformists, and especially the Unitarians, had urged Lord Liverpool to include inthis measure of repeal, but which he decided on retaining. As has beensaid above, he drew a distinction between acts inflicting penalties andthose which went no farther than imposing political disabilities, feeling that any relief of Protestant Dissenters from such disabilitiesmust inevitably lead to the concession of a similar indulgence to RomanCatholics, and not being as yet prepared to admit to Parliament themembers of a Church which recognized the duty of obedience in any matterto a foreign sovereign; for, as the disabilities had been originallyimposed on the Roman Catholics, so they were now maintained onpolitical, not religious, grounds; and even those most opposed to arelaxation of them were careful to explain their resistance to be onewhich time and a change of circumstances might mitigate. [173]

As a fitter opportunity for discussing the question will be afforded bythe Duke of Wellington's bill, in 1829, we should not have mentioned itat all in this place, had not Lord Liverpool, in arranging hisadministration, adopted a mode of dealing with it which, though rather aparliamentary or departmental than a constitutional innovation, was, nevertheless, one of so strange a character as to seem to call forexamination. Ever since the formation of Walpole's ministry it had beenthe invariable rule and practice for all the members of the cabinet toact in concert on all measures of importance, or, indeed it may be said, on all measures on which a Parliamentary vote was taken. But, inarranging his administration after Mr. Perceval's death, Lord Liverpoolfound it absolutely impossible to form one satisfactory either to thenation or to himself if it were to be confined to members in perfectagreement with himself on the subject of the retention of thedisabilities affecting the Roman Catholics; and therefore, in order tobe able to form a ministry generally strong and respected, he adoptedthe strange expedient of allowing every member of it to actindependently on this one question. He made it what was called an openquestion. The arrangement, as explained to the House of Commons by LordCastlereagh, the ministerial leader of that assembly, was that, "insubmission to the growing change of public opinion in favor of thoseclaims (the Roman Catholic claims), and the real sentiments of certainmembers of the government, it had been resolved upon, as a principle, that the discussion of this question should be left free from allinterference on the part of the government, and that every member ofthat government should in it be left to the free and unbiassedsuggestions of his own conscientious discretion. "

It was an arrangement which secured the Prime-minister the co-operationof Lord Castlereagh himself, and eventually of Mr. Canning; but itfailed to propitiate the Opposition, the leader of which in the House ofCommons, Mr. Ponsonby, turned it into open ridicule, affirming that"nothing could be more absurd than a cabinet professing to have noopinion on such an important subject. " And it must be confessed that Mr. Ponsonby's language on the subject seems the language of common-sense. So far from the importance of a question justifying such an arrangement, that importance appears rather to increase, if possible, the necessityfor absolute unanimity in the administration than to diminish it; and ona grave and momentous subject to leave each member of a ministry free topronounce a separate and different judgment, so that one may resist whathis colleague advocates, is to abdicate the functions of governmentaltogether. To permit such liberty was either a proof that the ministrywas weak altogether--which it was not--or that its conduct on thisquestion was weak. In either case, it was a mischievous precedent thatwas thus set;[174] and the fact that it has since been followed in morethan one instance, is so far from being any justification of it, that itrather supplies an additional reason for condemning it, as being thecause of wider mischief than if it had been confined to one singlequestion, or had influenced the conduct of one cabinet only. It hasoften been said that the name "cabinet" is unknown to the law, and thatwhat we call the cabinet is, in fact, only a committee of the PrivyCouncil. As a statement of law the assertion may be correct, but it iscertain that for more than a century and a half the constitution hasadopted the principle that the cabinet consists of the holders of acertain, to some extent a fluctuating, number of the principal stateofficers; and, recognizing the responsibility of all for the actions ofeach member of it, does by that recognition sanction an expectation thaton all questions, or at all events on all but those of the most trivialcharacter, they will speak and act with that unanimity which isindispensable, not only to the strength of the government itself, but toits being held in respect by the people; such respect being, indeed, among the most essential elements of its strength. 

The incidents of the war itself do not belong to a work such as this;but, tantalizing as it must be to an historian of any class to pass overthe brilliant series of achievements which gave Britain the glory ofbeing twice[175] the principal agent in the deliverance of ContinentalEurope, the glories of Salamanca, Victoria, Orthes, and Waterloo must beleft to other writers, who, it is not unpatriotic to hope, may neveragain have similar cause for exulting descriptions. But out of thecrowning triumph of Waterloo a difficulty arose which, though it may bedifficult to characterize the principle on which it was settled, sinceit was not strictly a question of constitutional, international, ormilitary law; and though the circumstances were so peculiar that theconclusion adopted is never likely to be referred to as a precedent, seems still deserving of a brief mention, especially as an act ofParliament was passed to sanction the decision of the cabinet. Baffledby the vigilance of our cruisers in every attempt to escape from one ofthe western ports of France to America, Napoleon was at last compelledto surrender himself to a British squadron. But, though he was ourprisoner, the Prime-minister considered us, in all our dealings withhim, as so bound by engagements to our allies, that he was to beregarded as "the common prisoner of all, so far that we should not givehim up or release him without the joint consent of all. " The questionwas full of difficulty. There were, probably, very few persons in thisor any other country who did not coincide in the impropriety ofreleasing him, and so putting it in his power once more to rekindle awar in Europe. But it was a political view of the case, founded on aconsideration of what was required by the tranquillity of Europe; and itwas not easy to lay down any legal ground to justify the determination. Some regarded him as a French subject, and, if that view were correct, he could hardly be detained by us as a prisoner of war after we hadconcluded a treaty of peace with France. But, again, it seemed to some, the Lord Chancellor being among them, a questionable point whether inthe last campaign we had been at war with France; whether, on thecontrary, we had not assumed the character of an ally of France againsthim. And, on the supposition that we had been at war with France, asecond question was raised by Lord Ellenborough, the Chief-justice, "what rights result on principle from a state of war, as against all theindividuals of the belligerent nations--rights, whatever they may be, seldom, if ever, enforced against individuals, because individualshardly ever make war but as part of an aggregate nation. " Thequestion--as, after consultation with Lord Ellenborough and his ownbrother, Sir William Scott, it finally appeared to Lord Eldon, on whomthe Prime-minister naturally depended, as his chief legal counsellor, though in its political aspect he judged for himself--was, firstly, "whether it could possibly be inconsistent with justice or the law ofnations that, till some peace were made by treaty with some personconsidered as Napoleon's sovereign, or till some peace were made withhimself, we should keep him imprisoned in some part of our King'sdominions. " And, secondly, "whether there were any person who couldpossibly be considered his sovereign, after the treaty of 1814 hadclothed him with the character of Emperor of Elba, with imperial dignityand imperial revenue. " Lord Liverpool himself, however, raised anotherquestion: whether, by his invasion of France, he had not forfeited hisright to be regarded as an independent sovereign; resting this doubt ona suggestion which, among others, he proposed to the Lord Chancellor, that "at Elba he enjoyed only a limited and conditional sovereignty, which ceased when the condition on which he held it was violated. "

This last suggestion, it must be confessed, appears untenable, astotally inconsistent with the language of the Treaty of Fontainebleau, under the provisions of which Napoleon became sovereign of Elba, andwhich does not contain a single article which bears out the opinion thathis sovereignty was limited or conditional. On the contrary, the wordsof the treaty expressly agree that "Elba should form during his life aseparate principality, which should be possessed by him in fullsovereignty and property. "

There is no need to discuss the views of Blucher. On the news ofNapoleon's landing at Frejus reaching the plenipotentiaries assembled atthe Congress of Vienna, they at once issued a declaration that, "inbreaking the convention which had established him at Elba, Buonaparte"(for they refused him his imperial appellation of Napoleon) "haddestroyed the only legal title on which his existence depended.... Hehad placed himself out of the pale of civil and social relations, and, as the enemy and disturber of the peace of the world, he was deliveredover to public justice. " And the old Prussian, burning with a desire toavenge the indignities and injuries which he had inflicted on Prussia, avowed his determination to execute him as an outlaw, if he should fallinto his hands. And it is still less worthwhile to inquire--though LordHolland in his place in Parliament did desire the House to consult thejudges on the point--whether, if Napoleon were a prisoner of war, he"were not entitled to his _habeas corpus_, if detained after thesignature of a treaty of peace with all the powers, or any of which hecould be considered as the subject. "

On the whole, the simplest view of the position and of our detention ofhim, the view most reconcilable with the principles which regulate thewaging and the relinquishing a state of war, seems to be to considerthat Napoleon was a sovereign with whom we were at war; that that warcould only be terminated by a treaty of peace between ourselves and him;that it rested with us to conclude, or to abstain from concluding, anysuch treaty; and that, till we should conclude it, we had clearly aright to detain him as a prisoner of war. It must, at the same time, beadmitted that modern history afforded no precedent for the detention ofa prisoner for his whole life (unless, indeed, Elizabeth's imprisonmentof the Queen of Scots may be considered as one), and that the most solidjustification for it was necessity. To quote the language of Lord Eldon, "I believe it will turn out that, if you can't make this a _casusexceptionis_ or _omissus_ in the law of nations, founded upon necessity, you will not really know what to say upon it. _Salus Reipublicae supremalex_, as to one state; _Salus omnium Rerumpublicarum_ must be the_suprema lex_ as to this case. "[176]

In the course of the year 1818 a somewhat singular question as to theposition of the Regent was raised by a claim advanced by ColonelBerkeley to produce his Royal Highness as a witness in a court of law. The Prince consulted the Prime-minister, and the Prime-minister referredit to the Attorney and Solicitor General, not concealing his ownimpression that it could not be consistent with his constitutionalposition and prerogative for the King to appear as a witness to besubjected to examination and cross-examination. [177] They, in theirstatement of opinion, assumed it to be an undeniable principle of theconstitution that the sovereign, "by reason of his royal character, could not give testimony. " And therefore they had no doubt that theRegent, exercising his authority, was equally prevented from so doing. Colonel Berkeley's counsel had urged that, even if he could not appearin open court and be sworn, he had the privilege of communicating hisevidence in a peculiar mode, by certificate under the Sign Manual orGreat Seal. But the Attorney and Solicitor General professed that theycould not discover whence this last privilege was derived; they urged, as an insurmountable objection to such a contrivance, that "allinstruments under the Sign Manual or Great Seal must, in point of form, be in the name of and on behalf of the King, which would manifestly beincongruous when the evidence certified was not that of the King, but ofthe Regent himself. " And they quoted a case in which Lord Chief-justiceWilles had said "that the certificate of the King, under his SignManual, of a fact (except in an old case in Chancery) had always beenrefused. " As it had been urged also, on Colonel Berkeley's behalf, thatthe Prince had formerly "joined in proving the will of the Duke ofBrunswick, " his brother-in-law, they farther expressed an opinion that"he ought not to have done so, but should have left it to the otherexecutors. "

On the point whether "the King himself could give evidence orally or inany other manner, " their opinion expressed very plainly the principle onwhich they maintained that he could not. "That he was not compellable todo so; that he could not be sworn (there being no power capable ofadministering an oath to him in a court of justice). That, whether histestimony be given _vivâ voce_ or otherwise, no question in chief or oncross-examination could be proposed to him, was admitted by ColonelBerkeley's counsel. And that his testimony must be conclusive as to thefacts stated by him, appeared necessarily to follow from the perfectionascribed by law to his royal character. For such remarkable exceptions, therefore, to the case of all other witnesses they could not but thinkthat strong and decisive authority ought to be produced; while thesilence of text-writers on the subject, so far from being favorable tothe notion that the King can give evidence, appeared to afford adirectly contrary inference. " And they summed up their opinion in a fewwords: "that his Royal Highness the Prince Regent, while in the personalexercise of the royal authority, was in the situation of the King inthis respect, and that the King could not by any mode give evidence as awitness in a civil suit. "

It is very improbable that Colonel Berkeley should have made theapplication without previously ascertaining the willingness of thePrince to give evidence, could such a course be permitted. And as hisRoyal Highness, on receiving this opinion of the law-officers of thecrown, did not come forward as a witness, that opinion may be held tohave settled the question. And, apart from the constitutional objectionsrelied on by those able lawyers, it is evident that there would beserious practical objections to the sovereign being made a witness. Itwould be derogatory to his royal character to put himself in a positionwhere comments could be made, either by the opposing barrister or by thepublic outside, on his evidence. And, on the other hand, it would beperilously unfair to one litigant for his adversary to be able toproduce a witness who was not subject to cross-examination, nor toremarks upon his testimony. 

The reign of George III. Was now drawing to its close, and, if itproduced no legislation affecting the principles of the constitution (itwill presently be seen that it did produce one measure which itsopponents branded as a violation of these principles), yet in its lastyears it witnessed the revival of an agitation which was kept up withvarying animation till it was temporarily quieted by the concession ofits demands. We have seen that one of Pitt's earliest efforts atlegislation had been directed to a reform in Parliament, an object whichto the end of his life he considered of great importance, though therevolutionary spirit aroused by the troubles in France, and the opensympathy with the French Jacobins and Republicans avowed by a partyamong ourselves--which, if numerically weak, was sufficiently loud andactive to be dangerous--prevented him from ever re-opening the subject. But, though the French Revolution in this way proved for the time aninsurmountable obstacle to the success of the reformers, in another wayit insured the revival of the question, by the general spirit of inquirywhich it awakened among the population at large, and which soon wentbeyond the investigation of any single abuse or anomaly. For even lessfar-sighted statesmen than Pitt confessed the existence of much that wasnot only theoretically indefensible, but practically mischievous. Theperiod, little short of a century, which elapsed between the death ofWilliam III. And Pitt's accession to office had been one of almostcomplete stagnation and apathy. The Scotch Union, the Septennial Bill, the establishment of a militia, and the Place Bill of 1743 were the onlyinstances of any legislation deserving the name of constitutional whichmade the reigns of Anne and the first two Georges memorable. And in thevery nature of things it was impossible that, after so long a slumber, there should not be much to do, and many, whether capable or incapable, eager to bear a share in the work. The sudden cessation of theexcitement of war had begotten a restless craving for some otherexcitement to take its place, and none seemed so creditable as energyand acuteness in the discovery and removal of abuses. Complaints weremade, and not without reason, of the working of the poor-law; of theterrible severity of our criminal code; of the hardships and sufferingsof the younger members of the working classes, especially in thefactories; of the ignorance of a large portion of the people, in itselfas prolific a cause of mischief and crime as any other. But, thoughcommittees and commissions were appointed by Parliament to investigatethe condition of the kingdom in respect of these matters, a feeling wasgrowing up that no effectual remedy would be applied till theconstitution of the House of Commons itself were reformed, so as to makeit a more real representation of the people than it could as yet beconsidered. And a farther stimulus to this wish for such a Parliamentaryreform was supplied by the distress which a combination of circumstancesspread among almost all classes in the years immediately following theconclusion of the second treaty of peace. [178] The harvests of the years1816 and 1817 were unusually deficient, and this pressed heavily on thefarmers and landed proprietors. The merchants and manufacturers, who, while every part of the Continent was disturbed or threatened by theoperations of contending armies, had practically enjoyed almost amonopoly of the trade of the world, found their profits reduced, by thenew competition to which the re-establishment of peace exposed them, toa point which compelled them to a severe reduction of expenditure. Theuncertainty felt as to the results to be brought about by the inevitablerepeal of the Bank Act of 1797, and the return to cash payments--resultswhich it was impossible to estimate correctly beforehand--had a tendencyto augment the distress, by the general feeling of uneasiness anddistrust which it created. And the employers of labor could not sufferwithout those who depended on them for employment suffering still moreseverely. The consequence was, that there was a general stagnation oftrade; numbers of artisans and laborers of every kind were thrown out ofwork, and their enforced idleness and poverty, which was its result, made them ready to become the tools of demagogues such as are neverwanting in the hour of distress and perplexity. Meetings were convened, ostensibly to petition for reform, but in reality to affordopportunities for mob-orators, eager for notoriety, to denounce thegovernment and those whom they styled the "ruling classes, " as thecauses of the present and past evils. From these meetings multitudesissued forth ripe for mischief. In some places they rose against themanufacturers, and destroyed their machines, to the recent introductionof which they attributed their want of employment. In others, still moresenselessly, they even set fire to the stores of grain in thecorn-dealers' warehouses, aggravating by their destruction the mostpainful of their own sufferings. On one occasion, a mob which hadassembled in one of the eastern districts of London, on pretence offraming a petition to be presented to the Prince Regent, at the close ofthe meeting paraded the streets with a tricolor flag, the emblem of theFrench Revolutionists, and pillaged a number of shops, especially thoseof the gun-makers, spreading terror through all that side of themetropolis. In at least one instance the violence of the rioters rose tothe height of treason. Assassins fired at the Regent in the Park as hewas returning from the House of Lords, whither he had been to openParliament; and when it was found that they had missed their aim, themob attacked the royal carriage, pelting it with large stones, andbreaking the windows; nor was it without some difficulty that the escortof troops cleared a path for him through the mob, and enabled him toreach Carlton House in safety. 

The first effect of these outrages was to damage the cause of Reformitself, even such uncompromising reformers as Lord Grey denouncing"meetings at which extensive schemes of Reform were submitted toindividuals incapable of judging of their propriety. " The secondconsequence was to compel the ministers to take steps to prevent arecurrence of such tumults and crimes. At first they were contented witha temporary suspension of the _Habeas Corpus_ Act; but, even while thatsuspension was in force, it did not entirely prevent meetings, at someof which the language of the speakers certainly bordered on sedition;and when the suspension was taken off, fresh meetings on a larger scale, and of a more tumultuous character than ever, were held in more than onerural district; finally, in July of 1819, the whole kingdom was throwninto a violent state of excitement by a meeting held at Birmingham, atwhich the leaders, assuming the newly-invented party name of Radicals, not only demanded the remodelling of the whole system of government, but, because Birmingham as yet sent no members to the House of Commons, took it upon themselves to elect Sir Charles Wolseley, a baronet ofrespectable family, as their representative to the Parliament, andcharged him to claim a place in the House of Commons in the nextsession, by the side of those elected in obedience to the royal writs. Sir Charles was at once arrested on the charge of having at this meetingused seditious language calculated to lead to a breach of the peace; butthe Radical leaders, far from being intimidated by this demonstration ofvigor on the part of the government, immediately summoned a similarmeeting in Manchester, announcing their intention to elect arepresentative of that great town likewise, which, though the largest ofall the manufacturing towns, was also unrepresented in the ImperialParliament. The magistrates prohibited the meeting. It was onlypostponed for a week, when the people assembled in such formidablenumbers (no estimate reckoned them at fewer than 60, 000), that theordinary civil authorities deemed themselves unequal to dealing with it, and called in the aid first of the Yeomanry and then of a hussarregiment. The soldiers behaved with great forbearance, as soldiersalways do behave on such occasions; but they were bound to execute theorders which were given them to arrest some of the leaders, and, in thetumult which was the inevitable consequence of their attempt to force away through so dense a crowd, three or four lives were, unfortunately, lost. 

So unusual a catastrophe called out the energies of both parties. TheRadical leaders published manifestoes declaring the people had been"massacred" by the soldiers by the orders of the government. Meetingswere held to denounce the conduct of the ministers, one being evenpromoted by Lord Fitzwilliam, as Lord-lieutenant of Yorkshire, a dignityof which he was instantly deprived; while, on the other hand, thegrand-juries of Cheshire and Lancashire made reports of the condition ofthose counties to the Secretary of State, which showed that a mostalarming spirit prevailed over the greater part of the district. "Themost inflammatory publications had been issued in the principal towns, at a price which put them within the reach of the poorest classes ofsociety. The training and military drilling of large bodies of men underregular leaders had been carried on to a great extent for some time, chiefly by night; and there was no doubt that an extensive manufactureof arms was going on. " What was a hardly inferior symptom of danger wasa system of intimidation which prevailed to a most serious degree. Manymagistrates had received notices threatening their lives, andcombinations had been formed to withhold custom from publicans andshopkeepers who had come forward to support the civil power. In manyparts of the two counties the grand-juries declared "that no warrant ofarrest or other legal process could be executed; the payment of taxeshad ceased, and the landlords were threatened with the discontinuance oftheir rents. "

It was admitted that the spirit of disaffection was local, confined tothree or four counties; but those counties were, next to Middlesexitself, the most populous and among the most important in the kingdom, and there was danger lest the feeling, if not checked, might spread. Thecrisis seemed so momentous, that some even of the Opposition leadersvolunteered their counsels and aid to the ministers in dealing with it. And the ministers, after long deliberation, decided on callingParliament together in November, and introducing some bills which theyconceived necessary to enable them to restore and preserve tranquillity. They were six in number; and--perhaps, with some sarcastic reference toGardiner's Six Acts in the sixteenth century--they were very commonlyspoken of as Lord Sidmouth's Six Acts, that noble lord being theHome-secretary, to whose department they belonged. It is not necessaryhere to do more than mention the general purport of five of them. Oneprohibited military training without the sanction of the government;another empowered magistrates to search for arms which they had reasonto believe were collected for illegal purposes; the third authorized theseizure of seditious and blasphemous libels; the fourth subjectedpublications below a certain size to the same stamp as that required fora newspaper; the fifth regulated the mode of proceeding in trials formisdemeanor of a political character. But these enactments were regardedas little more than arrangements of detail or procedure involving noprinciples, and some of them were admitted even by the most steadfastopponents of the ministers to be necessary. But the sixth, designed torestrain the practice of holding large open-air meetings--not, indeed, forever, but for a certain period, fixed at five years--was stronglyresisted by the greater portion of the Whig party in both Houses, as adenial to the people of one of their most ancient and constitutionalrights. [179]

Its principal clauses enacted that "no meeting exceeding the number offifty persons (except a meeting of any county or division of any county, called by the Lord-lieutenant or sheriff of such county, etc. , or byfive or more acting justices of the peace for such county, or by themajor part of the grand-jury; or any meeting of any city, borough, etc. , called by the mayor or other head officer of such city, etc. ) should beholden for the purpose or on the pretext of deliberating upon any publicgrievance, or upon any matter relating to any trade, manufacture, etc. , or upon any matter of Church or State, or of considering, proposing, oragreeing to any petition, address, etc. , etc. , unless in the parish ortownship within which the persons calling any such meeting usuallydwell;" and it required six days' notice of the intention to hold suchmeetings, with their time, place, and object, to be given to amagistrate. It empowered the magistrate to whom such notice was given toalter the time and place. It forbade adjournments intended to evadethese prohibitions. It forbade any one to attend such meetings exceptfreeholders of the county, or parishioners of the parish, or members ofthe corporation of the city or borough in which they were held, ormembers of the House of Commons for such places. It empoweredmagistrates to proceed to the places where such meetings were beingheld, and, if they thought it necessary, to require the aid ofconstables. It enacted that any meeting, the tendency of which should be"to incite or stir up the people to hatred and contempt of the person ofhis Majesty, his heirs and successors, or of the government orconstitution of this country as by law established, should be deemed anunlawful assembly. " It empowered one or more justices of the peace, inthe event of any meeting being held contrary to the provisions of thisact, to warn every one present, in the King's name, to depart; and madethose who did not depart in obedience to such warning liable toprosecution for felony, and, if convicted, to seven years'transportation. It forbade the display of flags, banners, or ensigns atany meeting, and the employment of any drum, or military or other music;but it excepted from its operation "any meeting or assembly which shouldbe wholly holden in any room. "

There was one peculiarity in the line taken by the opponents of thebill, that they did not deny that the meetings which had induced theministers to propose it were an evil, dangerous to the generaltranquillity; but it was strongly urged by Lord Erskine and others thatthe existing laws were quite strong enough to deal with them, so that anew enactment was superfluous; and by others, in both Houses, that suchmeetings were "an ancient and constitutional mode of discussing abusesor petitioning Parliament, " any interference with which was a greaterevil than the meetings themselves, as being a violation of theconstitution. Mr. Brougham in particular admitted, to the full extent ofthe assertions of the ministers themselves, "the wickedness and folly ofmany of the speeches" made at the recent meetings. He expressed withgreat force his entire disapproval of the system on which these meetingshad been conducted, and admitted that the martial array which had beenexhibited, and the vastness of the numbers of those who had attended, were of themselves calculated to excite alarm; but he declared that "hecould not on that account acquiesce in a total subversion of a popularright. " On the other hand, the ministers themselves did not deny "thegeneral right of the people to petition the Legislature, or to carrytheir addresses to the foot of the throne. And therefore (as LordHarrowby, the President of the Council, admitted) there could be nodoubt of their right to assemble, so far as was necessary to agree totheir petitions or addresses. It was a right that did not depend on theBill of Rights, on which it was usually grounded, but had existed longbefore. But this bill, " he contended, "imposed no restrictions on thelegitimate enjoyment of that privilege; it only regulated the meetingsat which it was to be exercised. " And Lord Liverpool affirmed that thebill was not only "consistent with the existing laws and principles ofthe constitution, but was even proposed in furtherance of thoseprinciples, and for the purpose of protecting the people of this countryagainst a series of evils which, if not checked, must subvert their lawsand liberties. "

In attempting to form a correct judgment on the question whether thisbill were constitutional or unconstitutional, it must, I think, beadmitted that, as has been remarked before, the terms "constitutional"and "unconstitutional" are somewhat vague and elastic. There is no onedocument--not Magna Charta, nor the Petition of Eight, nor the Bill ofRights--which can be said to contain the whole of the Britishconstitution. Its spirit and principles are, indeed, to be found in allthe laws, to which they give animation and life, but not in any one law. And among its leading principles are those which embrace the right ofevery individual to freedom of action and freedom of speech, so long ashe does not commit any crime himself, nor tempt others to do so. Yet itdoes not follow that a new enactment which for a while abridges orsuspends that freedom of action or speech is inconsistent with thoseconstitutional principles. 

Ministers, to whom the government of a country is intrusted, do wrong ifthey limit their operations to the punishment of offences which havebeen committed. It is at least equally their duty, as far as possible, to prevent their commission; to take precautionary measures, especiallyat times when there is notorious danger of offences being committed. Atthe same time they are bound not to legislate under the influence ofpanic; not to yield to fears having no substantial ground. And in theirmeasures of precaution they are farther bound to depart from or overstepthe ordinary law as little as is compatible with the attainment of theirobject. In all such cases each action of theirs must stand or fall byits own merits; by the greatness of the emergency which has caused it, and by its sufficiency for its end. For as no law, except such asforbids moral crimes, is invariable, so even the dearest privileges ofeach subject, being his for the common good, are liable to temporarysuspension for that common good. But the burden of justification lies onthose who propose that suspension. 

Now, that this bill was such a suspension of the long-established rightsof the subject, and so far an overstepping of the principles of theconstitution, is admitted by the very fact of its framers only proposingfor it a temporary authority. Had it not invaded a valuable and realright, it might have been made of perpetual obligation. But it is noteasy to see how it can be denied that the dangers against which it wasintended to guard were also real. It was certain that itinerantdemagogues were visiting districts with which they had no connection, for the sole purpose of stirring up political agitation. It was clearthat such meetings as they convened, where those assembled could only becounted by tens of thousands, were too large for deliberation, and wereonly meant for intimidation; and equally clear that, though the existinglaws may have armed the magistrate with authority to disperse suchmeetings, they did not furnish him with the means of doing so without atleast the risk of bloodshed (for such a risk must be involved in the actof putting soldiers in motion), and still less did they invest him withthe desirable power of preventing such meetings. It was necessary, therefore, to go back to the original principles and objects of everyconstitution, the tranquillity, safety, and welfare of the nation atlarge. And it does not appear that this bill went beyond what wasnecessary for that object. Indeed, though party divisions are not alwaystrustworthy tests of the wisdom or propriety of a measure, the unusualmagnitude of the majorities by which on this occasion the minister wassupported in both Houses may fairly be regarded as a testimony to thenecessity of the bill, [180] while its sufficiency was proved by theabandonment of all such meetings, and the general freedom from agitationin every part Of the country which prevailed in the following year, though its most remarkable incident was one of which demagogues mightwell have taken advantage, if they had not had so convincing a proof ofthe power of government, and of the resolution of the ministers to exertit. [181]

Notes:

[Footnote 172: Against Junot, at Vimiera and Rolica, in 1808; Soult, atOporto, and Victor, at Talavera, in 1809; Massena and Ney, at Busaco andTorres Vedras, in 1810; Masséna and Bessiéres, at Fuentes d'Onor, in1811. Ciudad Rodrigo and Badajoz had been taken in 1812, in spite of theneighborhood of Soult and Marmont. In July, 1813, a month after theformation of Lord Liverpool's ministry, he routed Marmont at Salamanca;in 1813 he took Madrid, and routed Jourdain at Vittoria; and, havingsubsequently defeated Soult at Sauroren, he crossed the French frontierin October. ]

[Footnote 173: A resolution, moved by Mr. Canning, to take the claims ofthe Roman Catholics into consideration in the next session had beencarried in June by the large majority of 129; and when Lord Wellesleybrought forward a similar motion in the House of Lords, not only didLord Liverpool "protest against its being inferred from any declarationof his that it was, or ever had been, his opinion that under nocircumstances would it be possible to make any alteration in the lawsrespecting the Roman Catholics, " but the Chancellor, Lord Eldon, who wasgenerally regarded as the stoutest champion of the existing law, restedhis opposition entirely on political grounds, explaining carefully thathe opposed the motion, "not because he quarrelled with the religion ofthe Roman Catholics, but because their religious opinions operated ontheir political principles in such a way as to render it necessary toadopt some defence against them, " and met the motion by moving theprevious question, avowedly because "he did not wish, at once andforever, to shut the door of conciliation;" and the previous questionwas only carried by a single vote--126 to 125. ]

[Footnote 174: "It (difference on the Catholic question) was an evilsubmitted to by the government, of which Mr. Fox, Lord Grenville, andLord Grey were members, in the years 1806, 1807, as well as by thegovernments of Mr. Perceval, Lord Liverpool, and the Duke ofWellington. "--_Peel's Memoirs_, i. , 62. This passage would seem to implythat Peel believed the Catholic question to have been left "open" in1806; but there is not, so far as the present writer is aware, any traceof such an arrangement on record, and Lord Liverpool's letter to theKing, of November 10, 1826 ("Life, " iii. , 436), shows clearly that hewas not aware of such a precedent for the arrangement which, in 1812, "he and others advised his Majesty" to consent to. Moreover, thecondemnation passed on it by Mr. Ponsonby, who had been Chancellor ofIreland in 1806 and 1807, seems a clear proof that he knew nothing ofit, though it is hardly possible that he should have been ignorant of itif it had existed. ]

[Footnote 175: To whom the chief glory of the Waterloo campaign belongsthere can, of course, be no doubt; and though the Austrians andPrussians put forward a claim to an equal share, and Russia even to apreponderating one, in the first deposition of Napoleon, he himselfconstantly attributed his fall more to the Peninsular contest than toany of his wars east of the Rhine. And, indeed, it is superfluous topoint out that almost to the last he gained occasional victories overthe Continental armies, but that he never gained one advantage over theBritish force; and that Wellington invaded France the first week ofOctober, 1813--nearly three months before a single Russian or Germansoldier crossed the Rhine. ]

[Footnote 176: Letter to Sir W. Scott, Twiss's "Life of Lord Eldon, "ii. , 272. It is remarkable that in his "Life of Lord Ellenborough" LordCampbell takes no notice of this case. ]

[Footnote 177: The opinion of the Attorney and Solicitor General, Sir S. Shepperd and Sir R. Gifford, is given at length in the author's "Life ofLord Liverpool, " ii. , 373. ]

[Footnote 178: It is a shrewd observation of Sully, that it is never anyabstract desire for theoretical reforms, or even for increasedprivileges, which excites in lower classes to discontent and outrage, but only impatience under actual suffering. ]

[Footnote 179: The bill (entitled "The Seditious Meetings PreventionBill"), 60 George III. , c. 6, is given at full length in Hansard's"Parliamentary Debates, " series 1. , vol. Xli. , p. 1655. ]

[Footnote 180: In the House of Lords the majority was 135 to 38; in theHouse of Commons, 851 to 128. And even of this minority, many would havesupported the bill, if the ministers would have consented to adopt anamendment proposed by Lord Althorp, to limit its operation to a few ofthe northern and midland counties, in which alone, as he contended, anyspirit of dangerous disaffection had been exhibited. ]

[Footnote 181: It may be as well to mention that these pages werewritten in the autumn of 1880. ]

CHAPTER VIII. 

Survey of the Reign of George III. --The Cato Street Conspiracy. --TheQueen's Return to England, and the Proceedings against her. --The KingVisits Ireland and Scotland. --Reform of the Criminal Code. --Freedom ofTrade. --Death of Lord Liverpool. --The Duke of Wellington becomesPrime-minister. --Repeal of the Test and Corporation Act. --O'Connell isElected for Clare. --Peel Resigns his Seat for Oxford. --CatholicEmancipation. --Question of the Endowment of the Roman CatholicClergy. --Constitutional Character of the Emancipation. --The Propriety ofMr. Peel's Resignation of his Seat for Oxford Questioned. 

In the first month of 1820 George III. Died. His had been an eventfulreign, strangely checkered with disaster and glory; but, if we compareits close with its commencement, it was still more remarkablydistinguished by a development of the resources and an increase in thewealth and power of the nation, to which the history of no other countryin the same space of time affords any parallel. 

Regarded from the first point of view, our successes greatly outweighedour disasters. The loss of our North American Colonies, the only eventwhich can be so described, was far more than counterbalanced by our vastacquisitions in India, at the Cape of Good Hope, and Malta; while to ourmaritime supremacy, in the complete establishment of which Rodney andNelson had crowned the work of Anson and Hawke, was now added a splendorof military renown far surpassing that achieved by any other of thenations which had borne their share in the overthrow of Napoleon. 

The increase of our resources is sufficiently shown by a single fact. Athis accession George III. Found the kingdom engaged in the great sevenyears' war; one British army employed beyond the Rhine, another inIndia; fleets traversing the seas in every direction, capturing theHavana, in the West Indies; Manilla, in the East; and routing Frenchsquadrons in sight of their own harbors. While, to maintain these variedarmaments, supplies were voted by Parliament in 1761 to what LordStanhope calls "the unprecedented amount of almost twenty millions. " In1813 the supplies reached nearly six times that amount, [182] and thatprodigious sum was raised with greater ease than the revenue of 1761, the interest on the necessary loans being also lower than it had been onthe former occasion. 

The philosophical man of science will point with at least equalexultation to the great discoveries in art and science; to theachievements of the mechanic, the engineer, and the chemist; to thelabors of Brindley and Arkwright and Watts, to which, indeed, this greatexpansion of the resources and growth of the wealth of the country isprincipally owing. 

While, as the preceding chapters of this work have been designed toshow, our political progress and advancement had been no less steady orvaluable; yet, important from a constitutional point of view as weremany of the labors of our legislators in these sixty years, they aresurpassed in their influence on the future history of the nation, aswell as in the reality and greatness of the changes which were producedby them in the constitution, by the transactions of the reigns of thenext two sovereigns, though the two united scarcely equalled in theirduration a quarter of that of their venerable father. 

It has been seen how Pitt was baffled in his efforts to remodel theHouse of Commons, and to remove the disabilities under which the RomanCatholics labored, the reasons for which, even granting that they hadbeen sufficient to justify their original imposition, had, in hisjudgment, long passed away. His pursuit of the other great object of hisdomestic policy, the emancipation of trade from the shackles whichimpeded its universal development, was rudely interrupted by thepressure of the war forced upon him by that very nation which he haddesired to make the first partner, if one may use such an expression, inthe prosperity which he hoped to diffuse by his commercial treaty withher. But, as in the case of other men in advance of their age, theprinciples which he had asserted were destined to bear fruit at a laterperiod. And the mere fact of a change in the person of the sovereignseemed to make a change in the policy hitherto pursued less unnatural. 

Yet, memorable as the reforms which it witnessed were destined to makeit, no reign ever commenced with more sinister omens than that at whichwe have now arrived. The new King had not been on the throne a month, when a conspiracy was discovered, surpassing in its treasonable atrocityany that had been heard of in the kingdom since the days of theGunpowder Plot; and, even before those concerned in that foul crime hadbeen brought to punishment, the public mind was yet more generally andprofoundly agitated by a scandal which, in one point of view, was stillmore painful, as in some degree involving the whole kingdom in itsdisgrace. 

The marriage of the present sovereign to Mrs. Fitzherbert has alreadybeen mentioned. A few years afterward, in the year 1795, regarding thatmarriage as illegal, he had contracted a second with his cousin, thePrincess Caroline of Brunswick. But, even in royal families, a moreunfortunate alliance had never taken place. They had never met till shearrived in England for the wedding; and, as he had never professed anyother motive for consenting to the match than a desire to obtain thepayment of his debts, he did not think it necessary to disguise hisfeelings, or to change his habits, or even to treat her with decency fora single day. On his very first introduction to her he behaved to herwith marked discourtesy. [183] Shortly after the marriage he formallyseparated himself from her, and, both before and after the separation, lived in undisguised licentiousness. She, on her part, indignant at hisneglect and infidelity, and exasperated at the restrictions which hepresently placed on her intercourse with their only child, made nosecret of her feelings, and on many occasions displayed such disregardof the ordinary rules of prudence and propriety, that he had some colorfor charges of infidelity to her marriage vows which, after a few years, he brought against her. The King, her uncle, could not refuse to appointa commission to investigate the truth of the accusation; but thecommissioners unanimously acquitted her of any graver fault thanimprudence. She was again received at court, from which she had beenexcluded while the inquiry was pending; but her husband's animositytoward her was not appeased. As time wore on, and as the King'sderangement deprived her of her only protector, it even seemed as if hedesired to give it all the notoriety possible, till at last, wearied outby his implacable persecution, she sought and obtained his permission toquit the country and take up her abode abroad. It was a most unfortunateresolution on her part. She fixed her residence in Italy, where shegradually learned to neglect the caution which she had observed inEngland, till, after a year or two, reports arose of her intimacy with aservant whom she had raised from a menial situation to that of the chiefofficer of her household, and whom she admitted to a familiarity ofintercourse which others besides her husband thought quite incompatiblewith innocence. He sent agents into Italy to inquire into the truth ofthose rumors; and their report so greatly confirmed them that, evenbefore the King's death, he laid it before the Prime-minister, with ademand that he should at once take steps to procure him a divorce, inwhich he professed to believe that the Princess herself would willinglyacquiesce. He was so far correct, that her legal advisers were willingto advise her to consent to "a formal separation, to be ratified by anact of Parliament. " But such an arrangement fell far short of thePrince's wishes. The Princess Charlotte, the heiress to his throne, haddied in childbirth two years before, and he was anxious to be set freeto marry again. The ministers were placed in a situation of painfulembarrassment. There was an obvious difficulty in pointing out to onewho already stood toward them in the character of their sovereign, andwho must inevitably soon become so, that his own conduct made theprospect of obtaining a divorce from the Ecclesiastical Courts hopeless;and the only other expedients calculated to attain his end, "a directapplication to Parliament for relief, founded upon the specialcircumstances of the case, " or "a proceeding against the Princess forhigh-treason, " were but little more promising. Indeed, it was afterwardascertained to be the unanimous opinion of the judges that the charge ofhigh-treason could not be legally sustained, since the individual whowas alleged to be the partner in the criminality imputed to her was aforeigner, and therefore, "owing no allegiance to the crown, " could notbe said to have violated it. [184]

He chafed under their resistance to his wish, and would have deprivedthem of their offices, could he have relied on any successors whom hemight give them proving more complaisant; but, before he could make uphis mind, the death of George III. Forced upon both him and them theconsideration of his and his wife's position, since it made it necessaryto remodel the prayer for the royal family, and instantly to decidewhether her name and title as Queen were to be inserted in it. He wasdetermined that they should not be mentioned; and, as the practice ofpraying for a Queen Consort by name appeared not to have beeninvariable, they were willing to gratify him on this point, though itwas evidently highly probable that she would consider this as a freshinsult, sufficient to justify her in carrying out a threat, which shehad recently held out, of returning to England. Her ablest advisers didnot, indeed, regard it in this light, since the prayer as now framedimplored the Divine protection for "all the royal family" in generalterms, in which she might be supposed to be included, and made noseparate mention of any member of the family. [185] But, unfortunately, she was much more under the influence of counsellors who were neitherlawyers nor statesmen, but who only desired to use her as a tool toobtain notoriety for themselves. A long negotiation ensued. It wasinevitable that some application should be made to Parliament inconnection with her affairs, since the annuity which had been settledupon her by Parliament in 1814, on the occasion of her departure fromEngland, had expired with the life of the late King. And the ministersproposed that that annuity should now be raised from £35, 000 to £50, 000, on condition of her remaining abroad, having, by their positive refusalto concur in any proceedings against her while she remained abroad, extorted the King's acquiescence in this proposal, though he called it a"great and painful sacrifice of his personal feelings. " They sought toconciliate her acceptance of it by mentioning her in it by her title of"Queen, " and by coupling with it a sanction to her appointment of herlaw-officers, an Attorney and Solicitor General, an act which could onlybe exercised by a Queen. And, though a part of the condition of herresidence abroad required that she should do so under some other title, that seemed only a conforming to an ordinary practice of royal princeson their travels. At the same time, the ministers stated frankly to Mr. Brougham, a lawyer of the highest reputation as an advocate, whom shehad appointed her Attorney-general, that, if she should reject theoffer, and come to England, as she had already announced her intentionof doing, such a course would leave them no alternative, but wouldcompel them to institute proceedings against her. 

Eventually she preferred the advice of others to that of Mr. Brougham, or, as it may, perhaps, be more consistent with the real fact to say, she yielded to her own feelings of hatred of her husband, which, it mustbe confessed, were far from unnatural. She believed, or professed tobelieve, that he had more to dread from an exposure of his conduct thanshe had from any revelations of her actions; and, under this impression, in the spring she crossed the Channel and took up her residence inLondon. It was a step which seemed to Lord Liverpool to leave him noalternative, and, in consequence, he at once took the course which hehad from the beginning conceived her arrival would render indispensable. He brought down to Parliament a royal message from the King, announcingthat her return to England had made it necessary to communicate to theHouses documents relating to her conduct since her departure from thekingdom, which he recommended to their immediate and serious attention. He proposed the appointment by ballot of a committee of the House ofLords to examine those documents; and when the committee had reportedthat the documents containing "allegations deeply affecting the honor ofthe Queen, etc. , ... Appeared to the committee calculated to affect notonly the honor of the Queen, but also the dignity of the crown and themoral feelings and honor of the country, so that in their opinion, theyshould become the subject of a solemn inquiry, which might be besteffected in the course of a legislative proceeding, " he introduced a"Bill of Pains and Penalties" to deprive her of her title of Queen, andto annul her marriage. 

No one would willingly dwell on so melancholy and disgraceful a subject. As far as the Queen was concerned, a protracted investigation, duringwhich a number of witnesses, favorable and unfavorable, were examined, left no doubt on the mind of almost all dispassionate people that themisconduct alleged against her had been abundantly proved. At the sametime there was a feeling equally general that the King's treatment ofher from the very beginning of their married life had disentitled him toany kind of relief; and this sentiment was so strongly shown by thegradual diminution of the majority in favor of the bill, as it proceededthrough its several stages, that Lord Liverpool, who had alreadyabandoned the clause annulling the marriage, eventually withdrew thewhole bill, perceiving the impossibility of inducing the House ofCommons to pass it when it should go down to that House. 

No act of Lord Liverpool's ministry has been attacked with greaterbitterness than that of allowing any proceedings whatever to be takenagainst the Queen, partly on the ground that, however profligate herconduct had been, it had certainly not been more gross than that of herhusband, which had provoked and given opportunity for her errors; partlybecause a great scandal was thus published to the world, and a shock wasgiven to the national decency and morality which the ministers, aboveall men, were bound to avoid; partly, also, because the mode ofproceeding adopted was alleged to be wholly unprecedented; and because, as was contended, the power of Parliament ought not to be invoked toinflict penalties which, if deserved, should have been left to thecourts of law. It cannot be denied that there is weight in theseobjections; but, in estimating their force, it must be considered thatevery part of the conduct of the ministers showed that their motive wasnot the gratification of the King's private feelings, whether directedto the object of indulging his enmity against his wife or to that ofobtaining freedom to contract a second marriage; on the contrary, solong as the Queen remained abroad, no language could be more distinct, consistently with the respect due to his royal dignity, than that inwhich they expressed to him their insurmountable objection to every modeof proceeding against her which he had suggested, founded almost equallyon considerations of "the interests of his Majesty and of themonarchy, "[186] and "the painful obligation" under which they conceivedthemselves to lie "of postponing their regard for his Majesty's feelingsto great public interests. "

But when the Queen came to England the case was greatly altered. Thequestion now forced on the consideration of the cabinet was, not themode of avoiding an intolerable scandal, but the choice between twoscandals, both of the gravest character. The scandal to be dreaded fromthe revelations of the conduct of both King and Queen, that could notfail to result from the investigation which, in justice, must precedeany attempt to legislate on the subject, was, indeed, as great as ever;but it had now to be compared with the alternative scandal of allowing awoman lying under such grievous imputations to preside over the Britishcourt, as, if resident in England, and in undisturbed possession of herroyal rank, she of necessity must preside. The consequence wouldevidently have been that the court would have been deserted by all whocould give lustre and dignity to it by their position and character;and, in the slights thus offered to her, royalty and the monarchythemselves would seem to be brought into contempt. The latter scandal, too, would be the more permanent. Grievous and shameful as might be thedisclosures which must be anticipated from an investigation in which theperson accused must be permitted the employment of every means ofdefence, including recrimination, the scandal was yet one which would, to a certain extent, pass away with the close of the inquiry. But, ifshe were left undisturbed in the enjoyment of her royal rank, and ofprivileges which could not be separated from it, that scandal would lastas long as her life--longer, in all probability, than the reign. It ishardly too much to say that the monarchy itself might have beenendangered by the spectacle of such a King and such a Queen; and theministers might fairly contend that, of two great dangers and evils, they had, on the whole, chosen the least. 

Lastly, if the Queen's conduct was to be investigated, though the modeadopted was denounced as unconstitutional by the Opposition (for, notgreatly to their credit, the leading Whigs made her guilt or innocence aparty question), it does not seem to deserve the epithet, though it maybe confessed to have been unsupported by any direct precedent. Isabella, the faithless wife of Edward II. , had, indeed, been condemned by "theLords" to the forfeiture of many of the estates which she had illegallyappropriated; but it does not appear that her violation of her marriagevows, or even her probable share or acquiescence in her husband'smurder, formed any portion of the grounds of her deprivation. And theParliament which attainted Catherine Howard proceeded solely on herconfession of ante-nuptial licentiousness, without giving her anyopportunity of answering or disproving the other charges which werebrought against her. Unprecedented, therefore, the course now adoptedmay be admitted to have been. But it was the only practicable one. Thedifferent minutes of the cabinet, which the Prime-minister laid beforethe King, established most conclusively the correctness of their opinionthat no impeachment for high-treason could lie against her. She couldnot be an accomplice in such an offence of one who, being a foreigner, could not have committed it. It was equally impossible for the King tosue for a divorce, as one of his subjects might have done; because itwas the established practice of Parliament not to entertain a bill ofdivorce without the judgment of the Ecclesiastical Court beingpreviously obtained and produced. And, under the circumstances, toobtain from the Ecclesiastical Court such a sentence as could alone laythe foundation for a bill of divorce was clearly out of the question. 

The case was a new and extraordinary one, and, being such, could only bedealt with in some new and extraordinary manner. And in all such casesan appeal to Parliament seems the most, if not the only, constitutionalmode of solving the difficulty. Where the existing laws are silent orinapplicable, the most natural resource clearly is, to go back to thefountain of all law; that is, to the Parliament, which alone iscompetent to make a new law. In one point of view the question may seemunimportant, since we may well hope that no similar case will ever ariseto require the precedent now set to be appealed to; but not unimportant, if it in any way or degree contributes to establish the great principle, that the solution of all matters of moment to the state belongs to theParliament alone: a principle which, in its legitimate completeness, carries with it a condemnation of many a modern association whoseobject, whether avowed or disguised, is clearly to supersede where itfails to intimidate the sole constitutional Legislature. 

The abandonment of the bill was naturally hailed as a triumph by theQueen and her partisans; but with the excitement of the struggle againstthe government the interest taken in her case died away. The next year, when she demanded to be crowned with her husband, his refusal to admither claim elicited scarcely any sympathy for her under this renewedgrievance; in truth, it was one as to which precedent was unfavorable toher demand. And the mortification at finding herself already almostforgotten contributed to bring on an illness of which she died in lessthan a year after the termination of what was called her trial; and in ashort time both she and it were forgotten. 

For the next few years the history of the kingdom is one of progressivecorrection of abuses or defects. The King paid visits to Ireland andScotland, parts of his dominions which his father had never oncevisited, and in both was received with the most exultant and apparentlysincere acclamations. And, though one great calamity fell on theministry in the loss of Lord Castlereagh--who, in a fit of derangement, brought on by the excitement of overwork, unhappily laid violent handson himself--his death, sad as it was, could not be said to weaken or toaffect the general policy of the cabinet. Indeed, as he was replaced atthe Foreign Office by his old colleague and rival, Mr. Canning, in onepoint of view the administration may be said to have been strengthenedby the change, since, as an orator, Canning had confessedly no equal ineither House of Parliament. Another change was productive of still morepractical advantage. Lord Sidmouth retired from the Home Office, and wassucceeded by Mr. Peel, previously Secretary for Ireland; and thetransfer of that statesman to an English office facilitated reforms, some of which were as yet little anticipated even by the new Secretaryhimself. The earliest of them, and one not the least important in itsbearing on the well-doing of society, the mitigation of the severity ofour Criminal Code, was, indeed, but the following up of a series ofmeasures in the same direction which had been commenced in the time ofthe Duke of Portland's second administration, and, it must be added, inspite of its resistance. The influence of various trades, and of theowners of different kinds of property, pressing in turns upon ourlegislators, had rendered our code the most sanguinary that had, probably, ever existed in Christendom. Each class of proprietor regardedonly the preservation of his own property, and had no belief in theefficacy of any kind of protection for it, except such as arose from thefear of death; nor any doubt that he was justified in procuring theinfliction of that penalty to avert the slightest loss to himself. Theconsequence was that, at the beginning of the present century, therewere above two hundred offences the perpetrators of which were liable tocapital punishment, some of a very trivial character, such as cuttingdown a hop-vine in a Kentish hop-garden, robbing a rabbit-warren or afish-pond, personating an out-pensioner of Greenwich Hospital, or evenbeing found on a high-road with a blackened face, the intention tocommit a crime being inferred from the disguise, even though no overtact had been committed. An act of Elizabeth made picking a pocket acapital offence; another, passed as late as the reign of William III. , affixed the same penalty to shop-lifting, even when the article stolenmight not exceed the value of five shillings. And the fault of theseenactments was not confined to their unreasonable cruelty; they were asmischievous even to those whom they were designed to protect as theywere absurd, as some owners began to perceive. In the list of capitaloffences was that of stealing linen from a bleaching-ground. And a largebody of bleachers presented a petition to Parliament entreating therepeal of the statute which made it such on the ground that, practically, it had been found not to strike terror into the thieves, but almost to secure them impunity from the reluctance of juries to finda verdict which would sentence a fellow-creature to the gallows for suchan offence. 

Nor was this by any means the only instance in which the barbarity ofthe law defeated its object. And its combined impolicy and inhumanityhad some years before attracted the notice of Sir Samuel Romilly, whohad been Solicitor-general in the administration of 1806, and who, shortly after its dissolution, began to apply himself to the benevolentobject of procuring the repeal of many of the statutes in question, andin the course of a few years did succeed in obtaining the substitutionof milder penalties for several of the less flagitious offences. He diedin 1818; but the work which he had began was continued by Sir JamesMackintosh, a man of even more conspicuous ability, and one who couldadduce his own experience in favor of the changes which he recommendedto the Parliament, since he had filled the office of Recorder of Bombayfor eight years, and had discharged his duties with a most diligent andconsistent avoidance of capital punishment, which he had never inflictedexcept for murder; his lenity, previously unexampled in that land, having been attended with a marked diminution of crime. He procured thesubstitution of milder penalties in several additional cases; and atlast, in 1822, he carried a resolution engaging the House of Commons"the next session to take into its serious consideration the means ofincreasing the efficacy of the criminal law by abating its undue rigor. "And this success had the effect of inducing the new minister to take thequestion into his own hands. Peel saw that it was one which, if it wereto be dealt with at all, ought to be regulated by the government itself, and not be left to independent members, who could not settle it withsatisfactory completeness; and therefore, in 1823, he introduced aseries of bills to carry out the principle implied in Mackintosh'sresolution of the preceding year, not only simplifying the law, butabolishing the infliction of capital punishment in above a hundredcases. He was unable to carry out his principle as fully as he couldhave desired. The prejudice in favor of still retaining death as apunishment for forgery was too strong for even his resolution as yet tooverbear, though many private bankers supplied him with the samearguments against it in their case which had formerly been alleged bythe bleachers. But the example which he now set, enforced as it was withall the authority of the government, was followed in many subsequentsessions, till at last our code, instead of the most severe, has becomethe most humane in Europe, and death is now never inflicted except formurder, or crimes intended or calculated to lead to murder. It is worthremarking, however, that neither Romilly, Mackintosh, nor Peel everentertained the slightest doubt of the right of a government to inflictcapital punishment. In the last address which Mackintosh delivered tothe grand-jury at Bombay he had said: "I have no doubt of the right ofsociety to inflict the punishment of death on enormous crimes, whereveran inferior punishment is not sufficient. I consider it as a meremodification of the right of self-defence, which may as justly beexercised in deterring from attack as in repelling it. "[187] And in hisdiary, when speaking of a death-warrant which he had just signed, hesays: "I never signed a paper with more perfect tranquillity of mind. Ifelt agitation in pronouncing the sentence, but none in subscribing thewarrant; I had no scruple of conscience on either occasion. "

And it seems that his position is unassailable. The party whose interestis to be kept in view by the Legislature in imposing punishments onoffences is society, the people at large, not the offender. The mainobject of punishment is to deter rather than to reform; to preventcrime, not to take vengeance on the criminal. And, if crime be moreeffectually prevented by moderate than by severe punishments, societyhas a right to demand, for its own security (as a matter of policy, notof justice), that the moderate punishment shall, on that ground, bepreferred. That punishments disproportioned in their severity to themagnitude of the offence often defeated their object was certain. Notonly had jurymen been known to confess that they had preferred violatingtheir oaths to doing still greater violence to their consciences, bysending a man to the gallows for a deed which, in their opinion, did notdeserve it, but the very persons who had been injured by thefts orforgeries were often deterred from prosecution of the guilty by theknowledge that the forfeiture of their lives must follow theirconviction. It was almost equally certain that criminals calculatedbeforehand on the chance of impunity which the known prevalence of thesefeelings afforded them. Wherever the sympathy of the public does not goalong with the law, it must, to a great extent, fail; and that theterrible frequency of sanguinary punishment had failed in all itsobjects, was proved by the fact that, in spite of the numerousexecutions which took place, crimes increased in a still greaterproportion than the population. Under the reformed system, now firstinaugurated on an extensive scale, crimes have become rarer, detectionand punishment more certain--a combination of results which must be theobject equally of the law-giver and the philanthropist. 

It is not quite foreign to this subject to relate that, a year or twobefore, a mode of trial had been abolished which, though long disused, by some curious oversight had still been allowed to remain on thestatute-book. In the feudal times either the prosecutor or the prisoner, in cases of felony, had a right to claim that the cause should bedecided by "wager of battle;" but it was an ordeal which, with oneexception in the reign of George II. , had not been mentioned forcenturies. In 1817, however, the relatives of a woman who had beenmurdered, being dissatisfied with the acquittal of a man who had beenindicted as her murderer, sued out "an appeal of murder" against him, onwhich he claimed to have the appeal decided by "wager of battle, " andthrew down a glove on the floor of the court to make good his challenge. The claim was protested against by the prosecutor; but LordEllenborough, the Chief-justice, pronounced judgment that, "trial bybattle having been demanded, it was the legal and constitutional mode oftrial, and must be awarded. It was the duty of the judges to pronouncethe law as it was, and not as they might wish it to be. "[188] He gavesentence accordingly; and, had the two parties been of equal stature andstrength, the Judges of the Common Pleas might have been seen, in theirrobes, presiding from sunrise till sunset over a combat to be fought, asthe law prescribed, with stout staves and leathern shields, till oneshould cry "Craven, " and yield up the field. Fortunately for them, thealleged murderer was so superior in bodily strength to his adversary, that the latter declined the contest. But the public advancement of theclaim for such a mode of decision was fatal to any subsequent exerciseof it; and, in spite of the Common Council of London, who, confiding, perhaps, in the formidable appearance presented by some of the CityChampions on Lord Mayor's Day, petitioned Parliament to preserve it, thenext year the Attorney-general brought in a bill to abolish it, and thejudges were no longer compelled to pronounce an absurd sentence inobedience to an obsolete law, framed at a time when personal prowess wasa virtue to cover a multitude of sins, and might was the only rightgenerally acknowledged. 

The foundation, too, was laid for other reforms. Lord Liverpool was morethoroughly versed than any of his predecessors, except Pitt, in thesoundest principles of political economy; and in one of the firstspeeches which he made in the new reign he expressed a decidedcondemnation, not only of any regulations which were designed to favorone trade or one interest at the expense of another, but generally ofthe whole system and theory of protection; and one of his last measuresmade an alteration in the manner of taxing corn imported from foreigncountries, which was greatly to the advantage of the consumer. It wasknown as the "sliding-scale, " the tax on imported corn varying with theprice in the market, rising when the price fell, and falling when itrose; the design with which it was framed being to keep the price to theconsumer at all times as nearly equal as possible. At first, however, itwas vehemently denounced by the bulk of the agriculturists, who werere-enforced on this occasion by a large party from among the Whigs, andespecially by some of those connected with Ireland. But a more suitableperiod for discussing the establishment of Free-trade as the rulingprinciple of our financial policy will occur hereafter. 

The introduction of the sliding-scale was almost the last act of LordLiverpool's ministry. At the beginning of 1827 he was preparing a freshmeasure on the same subject, the effect of which was intended todiminish still farther the protection which the former act had given, and which was in consequence denounced by many landholders of greatwealth and influence, led, on this subject, by the King's favoritebrother, the Duke of York. [189] But, a few days after the meeting ofParliament, he was struck down by an attack of paralysis, from which henever recovered. 

In his post as Prime-minister he was succeeded by Canning, not withoutgreat reluctance on the part of the King; not, probably, so much becausehe feared to find in him any desire to depart from the policy of LordLiverpool, except on the Catholic question (for even on matters offoreign policy, on which Canning had always been supposed most to fixhis attention, he had adopted the line which Lord Liverpool had laiddown for the cabinet with evident sincerity), [190] as because hisMajesty had never wholly forgiven him for the attitude which he hadtaken, differing on one or two points from that of his colleagues on theQueen's case. And, as has been mentioned in a former chapter, he even, with the object of evading the necessity of appointing him, suggested tothe Duke of Wellington the singular scheme of allowing the remainingmembers of Lord Liverpool's cabinet to select their own chief, [191]which the Duke, though coinciding with him in his dislike of Canning, ofwhom he entertained a very causeless suspicion, rejected withouthesitation, as an abandonment of the royal prerogative in one of itsmost essential duties or privileges. Another of his Majesty's notions, if it had been carried out, would have been one of the strangestviolations of constitutional principle and practice which it is possibleto conceive. The Duke of York, who had for many years beenCommander-in-chief, died in January of the same year, and on his deaththe King actually proposed to take that office on himself. For themoment Lord Liverpool was able to induce him to abandon the idea, and toconfer the post on the Duke of Wellington. But it had taken suchpossession of his mind that he recurred to it again when, on Canningbecoming Prime-minister, the Duke resigned the office; and he pressed iton the Cabinet with singular pertinacity till, on Canning's death, theDuke was prevailed on to resume the command. It is evident that noarrangement could possibly be more inconsistent with every principle ofthe constitution. The very foundation of parliamentary government is, that every officer of every department is responsible to Parliament forthe proper discharge of his duties. But the investiture of the sovereignwith ministerial office of any kind must involve either the entirewithdrawal of that department from parliamentary control, or theexposure of the sovereign to constant criticism, which, howeveressential to the efficiency of the department, and consequently to thepublic service, would be wholly inconsistent with the respect due to thecrown. The first alternative it is certain that no Parliament wouldendure for a moment; the second, by impairing the dignity of themonarch, could scarcely fail in some degree to threaten the stability ofthe monarchy itself. 

Canning's ministry was too brief to give time for any transaction ofinternal importance. That of Lord Goderich, who succeeded him, thoughlonger by the almanac, was practically briefer still, since it never metParliament at all, but was formed and fell to pieces between theprorogation and the next meeting of the Houses. But that which followed, under the presidency of the Duke of Wellington, though after a fewmonths its composition became entirely Tory, is memorable for the firstgreat departure from those maxims of the constitution which had beenreckoned among its most essential principles ever since the Revolution. Of the measures which bear that character, one was carried against theresistance of the ministry, the other by the ministers themselves. Andit may at first sight appear singular that the larger measure of the twowas proposed by the Duke after those members of his cabinet who hadoriginally been supposed to give it something of a Liberal complexionhad quitted it. The Reform Bill of 1832--to which we shall come in thenext chapter--has been often called a peaceful revolution. TheToleration Acts, as we may call the bills of 1828 and 1829, are scarcelyless deserving of that character. 

The constitution, as it had existed for the last hundred and fortyyears, had been not only a Protestant but a Church of Englandconstitution. Not only all Roman Catholics, but all members ofProtestant Non-conforming sects, all who refused to sign a declarationagainst the doctrine of Transubstantiation, and also to take theSacrament according to the rites of the one Established Church, weredisqualified for any appointment of trust. That the object with whichthe Test Act had been framed and supported was rather political thanreligious is notorious; indeed, it was supported by the ProtestantDissenters, though they themselves were to suffer by its operation, sogreatly at that time did the dread of Popery and the French Kingoverpower every other consideration. [192] On the Roman Catholics, afterthe reign of James II. Had increased that apprehension, the restrictionswere tightened. But those which inflicted disabilities on the ProtestantNon-conformists had been gradually relaxed. The repeal of two, the FiveMile and the Conventicle Acts, had, as we have seen in the last chapter, been recent measures of Lord Liverpool. But the Test Act still remained, though it had long been practically a dead letter. The Union withScotland, where the majority of the population was Presbyterian, hadrendered it almost impossible to maintain the exclusion of Englishmenresembling the Scotch in their religious tenets from preferments, andeven from seats in the House of Commons, to which Scotchmen wereadmissible. And though one Prime-minister (Stanhope) failed in hisattempt to induce Parliament to repeal the Test Act, and his successor(Walpole) refused his countenance to any repetition of the proposal, even he did not reject such a compromise as was devised to evade it; andin the first year of George II. 's reign (by which time it was notoriousthat many Protestant Non-conformists had obtained seats in municipalcorporations, and even in the House of Commons, who yet had neverqualified themselves by compliance with the act of 1673) a bill ofindemnity was introduced by the minister, with at least the tacitconsent of the English bishops, to protect all such persons from thepenalties which they had incurred. And the bill, which was only annualin its operation, was renewed almost every year, till, in respect of allsuch places or dignities (if a seat in the House of Commons can bedescribed by either of those names), no one thought of inquiring whethera man, so long as he were a Protestant, adhered to the EstablishedChurch or not; members of the House of Commons even openly avowing theirnonconformity, and at times founding arguments on the fact. 

The practical nullification of the Test Act by these periodical bills ofindemnity had been for some time used by two opposite parties--both thatwhich regarded the maintenance of the exclusive connection of theconstitution with the Church of England as of vital importance to bothChurch and constitution, and that which was opposed to all restrictionsor disqualiflcations on religious grounds--as an argument in theirfavor. The one contended that there could be no sufficient reason forrepealing a law from which no one suffered; the other, that it was aneedless provocation of ill-feeling to retain a law which no one everdreamed of enforcing. Hitherto the latter had been the weaker party. Oneor two motions for the repeal of the Test Act, which had been made informer years, [193] had been defeated without attracting any greatnotice; but in the spring of 1828 Lord John Russel, then acomparatively young member, but rapidly rising into influence with hisparty, carried a motion in the House of Commons for leave to bring in abill to repeal the act, so far as it concerned the ProtestantNon-conformists, by a very decisive majority, [194] in spite of all theefforts of Peel and his colleagues. 

The ministry was placed in a difficult position by his success, sincethe usual practice for a cabinet defeated on a question of principle wasto resign; and it is probable that they would not have departed fromthat rule now, had not this defeat occurred so early in their officiallife. But on this occasion it seemed to them that other questions had tobe considered besides the constitutional doctrine of submission on thepart of a ministry to the judgment of the Parliament. [195] Theirs wasnow the fourth administration that had held office within twelve months;and their resignation, which would compel the construction of a fifth, could hardly fail not only to embarrass the sovereign, but to shakepublic confidence in government generally. It was also certain that theycould rely on a division in the House of Lords being favorable to them, if they chose to appeal from one House to the other. Under thesecircumstances, they had to consider what their line of conduct shouldbe, and there never were two ministers better suited to deal with anembarrassment of that kind than the Duke of Wellington and Mr. Peel. TheDuke's doctrine of government was that "the country was never governedin practice according to the extreme principles of any partywhatever;"[196] while Peel's disposition at all times inclined him tocompromise. He was quite aware that on this and similar questions publicfeeling had undergone great alteration since the beginning of thecentury. There was a large and increasing party, numbering in its ranksmany men of deep religious feeling, and many firm supporters of theprinciple of an Established Church, being also sincere believers in thepre-eminent excellence of the Church of England, who had a conscientiousrepugnance to the employment of the most solemn ordinance of a religionas a mere political test of a person's qualifications for the dischargeof civil duties. In the opinion of the Bishop of Oxford (Dr. Lloyd), this was the feeling of "a very large majority of the Church itself, "and of the University. [197] Peel, therefore, came to the conclusion--towhich he had no difficulty in bringing his colleague, thePrime-minister--that "it might be more for the real interests of theChurch and of religion to consent to an alteration in the law" than totrust to the result of the debate in the House of Lords to maintain theexisting state of things. Accordingly, after several conferences withthe most influential members of the Episcopal Bench, he framed adeclaration to be substituted for the Sacramental test, binding all whoshould be required to subscribe it--a description which included all whoshould be appointed to a civil or corporate office--never to exert anypower or influence which they might thus acquire to subvert, or toendeavor to subvert, the Protestant Church of England, Scotland, orIreland, as by law established. The declaration was amended in the Houseof Lords by the addition of the statement, that this declaration wassubscribed "on the true faith of a Christian, " introduced at theinstigation of Lord Eldon, who had not held the Great Seal since thedissolution of Lord Liverpool's administration, but who was still lookedup to by a numerous party as the foremost champion of soundProtestantism in either House. 

Not that the addition of these words at all diminished thedissatisfaction with which the great lawyer regarded the bill. On thecontrary, he believed it to be not only a weapon wilfully put into thehands of the enemies of the Established Church, but a violation of theconstitution, of which, as he regarded it "the existing securities werea part. " He pointed out that "the King himself was obliged to take thesacrament at his coronation;" and he argued from this and other groundsthat "the Church of England, combined with the state, formed togetherthe constitution of Great Britain; and that the acts now to be repealedwere necessary to the preservation of that constitution. "

With every respect for that great lawyer, his argument on this pointdoes not appear sustainable. For the bill in question did not sweep awaysecurities for the Established Church, but merely substituted, for onewhich long disuse and indemnity had rendered wholly inoperative, a freshsecurity, which, as it would be steadily put in force, might fairly beexpected to prove far more efficacious. And it can hardly be contendedthat it was not within the province of the Legislature to modify anexisting law in this spirit and with this object, however importantmight be the purpose for which that law had originally been framed. Nay, it might fairly be argued that the more important that object was, themore were they who strengthened the means of attaining that objectentitled to be regarded as faithful servants and supporters of theprinciple of the constitution. 

The measure, however, relieved the Protestant Dissenters alone. Not onlydid Lord Eldon's amendment preserve the Christian character of theLegislature, but the requirement to sign the declaration againstTransubstantiation, which was unrepealed, left the Roman Catholics stillunder the same disqualifications as before. But the days of thosedisqualifications were manifestly numbered. Indeed, many of those whohad followed the ministers in their original resistance to the repeal ofthe Test Act had been avowedly influenced by the conviction that itcould not fail to draw after it the removal of the disabilitiesaffecting the Roman Catholics. As has been said before, the disabilitiesin question had originally been imposed on the Roman Catholics onpolitical rather than on religious grounds. And the political reasonsfor them had been greatly weakened, if not wholly swept away, by theextinction of the Stuart line of princes. Their retention or removalhad, therefore, now become almost wholly a religious question; and thelate bill had clearly established as a principle that, though the statehad a right to require of members of other religious sects that theyshould not abuse the power which might arise from any positions oremployments to which they might be admitted, to the subversion or injuryof the Established Church of England, yet, when security for theirinnocuousness in this respect was provided, it was not justified ininquiring into the details of their faith. And if this were to be therule of government for the future, the conclusion was irresistible thata similar security was all that the state was justified in demandingfrom Roman Catholics, and that it could have no warrant forinvestigating their opinion on Transubstantiation, or any other purelytheological tenet. There could be no doubt that the feelings of thepublic had been gradually and steadily coming round to this view of thequestion. The last House of Commons had not only passed a bill to removeRoman Catholic disabilities (which was afterward thrown out in the Houseof Lords), but had also passed, by a still larger majority, aresolution, moved by Lord Francis Leveson Gower (who was now theSecretary for Ireland), in favor of endowing the Roman Catholic priestsin Ireland. And at the late general election the opinions of thecandidates on what was commonly called Catholic Emancipation had beenthe great cardinal question with a great number, probably a majority, ofthe constituencies. 

It may be remarked that it was not the Test Act which excluded RomanCatholics from Parliament, but a bill which, fifteen years later, hadbeen passed (probably under the influence of Lord Shaftesbury) at thetime when the whole kingdom was excited by the daily expandingrevelations of the Popish Plot. [198] And this bill had a loop-hole whichwas never discovered till now but the discovery of which totally changedthe whole aspect of the question. Even before the bill repealing theTest Act had passed through all its stages, Sir Francis Burdett hadagain induced the House of Commons to pass a resolution condemning thecontinuance of the Roman Catholic disabilities; to which, however, thepeers, by a far larger majority, refused their concurrence. [199] But, within a month of this division, the aspect of the whole question waschanged by the shrewdness of an Irish barrister, who had discovered theloop-hole or flaw in the bill of 1678 already alluded to, and by theenergy and promptitude with which he availed himself of his discovery. Mr. O'Connell had a professional reputation scarcely surpassed by anymember of the Irish Bar. He was also a man of ancient family in thecounty of Kerry. And, being a Roman Catholic, he had for several yearsbeen the spokesman of his brother Roman Catholics on most publicoccasions. He now, on examination of the bill of 1678, perceived that, though it forbade any Roman Catholic from taking a seat in either Houseof Parliament, it contained no prohibition to prevent any constituencyfrom electing him its representative. And when, on the occasion of somechanges which were made in the cabinet, the representation of the CountyClare was vacated by its member, Mr. Vesey Fitzgerald, accepting theoffice of President of the Board of Trade, O'Connell instantly offeredhimself as a candidate in opposition to the new minister, who, ofcourse, sought re-election. 

Mr. Fitzgerald was a man who had always supported the demands of theRoman Catholics; he was also personally popular, and had the undividedsupport of nearly all the gentlemen and principal land-owners of thecounty, in which he himself had large property. But O'Connell's causewas taken up by the entire Roman Catholic priesthood; addresses in hisfavor were read at the altars of the different churches; and, after fivedays' polling, Mr. Fitzgerald withdrew from the contest. The Sheriff, ingreat perplexity, made a special return, reporting that "Mr. Fitzgeraldwas proposed, being a Protestant, as a fit person to represent thecounty in Parliament; that Mr. O'Connell, a Roman Catholic, was alsoproposed; that he, Mr. O'Connell, had declared before the Sheriff thathe was a Roman Catholic, and intended to continue a Roman Catholic; andthat a protest had been made by several electors against his return. "

It was accepted as a return of O'Connell, who, however, made no attemptto take his seat, though when he first stood he had assured the electorsthat there was no law to prevent him from doing so; but the importanceof his success was not to be measured by his actual presence or absencein the House of Commons for the remainder of a session. It had made itabsolutely impossible to continue the maintenance of the disabilities;what one Irish constituency had done, other Irish constituencies mightbe depended on to do. [200] And it was quite certain that, as opportunityoffered, almost every constituency in Munster and Connaught, and many inLeinster, would follow the example of Clare, and return Roman Catholicrepresentatives; while to retain a law which prevented forty or fiftymen duly elected by Irish constituencies from taking their seats musthave appeared impossible to all but a few, whom respect for theundoubted sincerity of their attachment to their own religion and to theconstitution, as they understood it, is the only consideration which cansave them from being regarded as dangerous fanatics. At all events, theministers were not among them. And the Duke of Wellington, though he hadpreviously hoped, by postponing the farther consideration of thequestion for a year or two, to gain time for a calmer examination of itwhen the existing excitement had cooled down, [201] at once admitted theconviction that the result of the Clare election had rendered fartherdelay impossible. In his view, and that of those of his colleagues whosejudgment he estimated most highly, the Irish constituencies and theirprobable action at future elections were not the only parties whoseopinions or feelings must be regarded by a responsible statesman; but tothem must be added the constituencies of the larger island also, since, while, to quote the language of Mr. Peel, "the general election of 1826had taken place under circumstances especially calculated to call forththe manifestation of Protestant feeling throughout the country, " theyhad returned a majority of members in favor of concession, as was provedby the recent division on Sir F. Burdett's motion. Moreover, apart fromthe merits or demerits of concession, taken by itself, there was amanifest danger that the keeping up of the excitement on the subject bya continued adherence to the policy of restriction might, especiallyamong such a people as the Irish, so impulsive, and, in the lowerclasses, so absolutely under the dominion of the priests, kindle anexcitement on other subjects also, still more difficult to deal with. Itwas even already certain that the Roman Catholic priests wereendeavoring to tamper with the loyalty of the soldiers of theirpersuasion. Nor was it clerical influence alone that the government hadto dread. A year or two before a Catholic Association had been formed, which included among its members all the wealthiest and ablest of theRoman Catholic laymen, noblemen, squires, and barristers. Itsorganization had been so skilfully conducted, and all its measures hadbeen so carefully kept within the requirements of the law, that thecrown lawyers, on being consulted, pronounced it impossible to interferewith it; and, by what may be called a peaceful agitation, it hadattained such extraordinary power over the minds of the bulk of theRoman Catholics, that the Lord-lieutenant reported that "he was quitecertain that they could lead on the people to open rebellion at amoment's notice, and that their organization was such that, in the handsof desperate and intelligent leaders, they would be extremelyformidable[202]. "

Under all these circumstances, the Duke had no hesitation in decidingthat it had become absolutely necessary to concede the demands of theRoman Catholics and their supporters for a removal of their politicaldisabilities. And it was equally obvious that, the more promptly theconcession was made, the more gracious it would seem, and the greaterwas the probability of its having the conciliatory and tranquillizingeffect the hope of which made it so desirable. He was not a man to losetime when he had once made up his mind. It was already too late in thesession for anything to be done in 1828; but the Parliament had scarcelybeen prorogued before he put his views on the subject before the King, and began, in concert with the Home-secretary, to frame a bill such ashe hoped might settle the long-agitated question, without doing moreviolence than was necessary to the feelings of those whose opposition orreluctance he was aware he should have to encounter: among whom was theKing himself, who, though thirty years before he had, with anostentation rather unbecoming, considering his position, put himselfforward as an advocate of Emancipation, had subsequently changed hisopinion, and had recently taken more than one occasion to declare thathe had never doubted that, as the head and protector of the Protestantreligion, he was bound to refuse his assent to any relaxation of theexisting law. [203] The Duke, however, was too well acquainted with hisroyal master's character to apprehend any real firmness of resistancefrom him; but he knew that a great majority of the clergy, and no smallportion of the country gentlemen, were conscientiously and immovablyfixed in opposition to any concession at all, some refusing to regardthe question in any but a purely religious light, and objecting toassociate in the task of legislation for those whom they regarded asadherents of an idolatrous superstition; while those who mingledpolitical reasoning with that founded on theology dwelt also on thedanger to be apprehended to the state, if political power were given tothose whose allegiance to the King was divided with another allegiancewhich they acknowledged to a foreign prelate. And he had presently anunmistakable proof afforded him how great was the strength of this partyin the country. Peel was one of the representatives of the University ofOxford; and, as from his earliest enjoyment of a seat in Parliament hehad been a prominent opponent of the Roman Catholic claims, heconsidered that it was to that maintenance of a policy identified intheir eyes with that Protestant ascendency which his supporters took tobe both the chief bulwark and one of the most essential parts of theconstitution that he owed his position as their member. With aconscientiousness which was rather overstrained, and not quiteconsistent with the legitimate position of a member of the House ofCommons as a representative, and not a delegate, he now conceived thathis change of view on the subject made it proper for him to give hisconstituents an opportunity of making choice of some one else who shouldmore faithfully represent them. He accordingly resigned his seat, offering himself at the same time for re-election. But he was defeatedby a very large majority, though his competitor was one who could notpossibly be put on a level with him either for university distinction orfor parliamentary eminence. 

Not the less, however, for all their difficulties and discouragements, did the ministers proceed in the course on which they had resolved. Theyinserted in the speech with which the King opened the session of 1829 arecommendation to the Houses "to take into consideration the wholecondition of Ireland, and to review the laws which imposed civildisabilities on his Majesty's Roman Catholic subjects. " And with aslittle delay as possible they introduced a bill to remove thosedisabilities. But there was another measure which they felt it to beindispensable should precede it. A previous sentence of the royal speechhad described the Catholic Association as one "dangerous to the publicpeace, and inconsistent with the spirit of the constitution, keepingalive discord and ill-will among his Majesty's subjects, and one whichmust, if permitted to continue, effectually obstruct every effortpermanently to improve the condition of Ireland. " And the ministersnaturally regarded it as their first duty to suppress a body which coulddeserve to be so described. They felt, too, that the large measure ofconcession and conciliation which they were about to announce would losehalf its grace, and more than half its effect, if it could possibly berepresented as a submission to an agitation and intimidation which theyhad not the power nor the courage to resist. They determined, therefore, to render such an imputation impossible, by previously suppressing theAssociation. It was evident that it could not be extinguished by anymeans short of an act of Parliament. And the course pursued, with thediscussions which took place respecting it, show in a very clear andinstructive manner the view taken by statesmen of the difference betweenwhat is loyal or illegal, constitutional or unconstitutional; theirapprehension that conduct may be entirely legal, that is to say, withinthe letter of the law, but at the same time perfectly unconstitutional, outside of and adverse to the whole spirit of the constitution. Theroyal speech had not ventured to describe the Association as illegal. The Duke of Wellington expressly admitted that "in the originalinstitution and formation of the society there was nothing strictlyillegal. "[204] And its founder and chief, Mr. O'Connell, had been at alltimes careful to inculcate on his followers the necessity of avoidingany violation of the law. But the speech had also declared theassociation to be "inconsistent with the spirit of the constitution. "And its acts, as the Duke proceeded to describe them, certainly bore outthat declaration. "Those acts consisted principally in levying a taxupon certain of his Majesty's subjects called Catholic rent, and this bymeans and acts of extreme violence; by appointing persons to collectthese rents; and farther by adopting measures to organize the Catholicpopulation; by appointing persons to superintend that organization; andby assuming to themselves the government of the country; and, stillmore, affecting to assume it. Besides, they expended this rent in amanner contrary to, and utterly inconsistent with, all law and order andthe constitution of the country. " No member of either House denied theaccuracy of this description of the Association's proceedings. And if itwere correct, it was incontrovertible that the denunciation of it as anutterly unconstitutional body was not too strong. Indeed, the fact ofits "levying a tax" upon a portion of the King's subjects (to saynothing of the intimidation, amounting to compulsion, by which, as wasnotorious, it was in many instances exacted) was the assumption of oneof the most important functions of the Imperial Parliament; it was theerection of an _imperium in imperio_, which no statesmen intrusted withthe government of a country can be justified in tolerating. And this wasfelt by the Opposition as well as by the ministers; by the Whigs asfully as by the Tories. The most eloquent of the Whig party, Mr. Stanley, was as decided as Mr. Peel himself in affirming that theexistence of the Association was "inconsistent with the spirit of theconstitution, " and that it was "dangerous that the people of a countryshould look up to any public body distinct from the government, opposedto the government, and monopolizing their attachment andobedience. "[205]

It was, therefore, with the almost unanimous approval of both partiesthat the bill framed for the suppression of the Association wasreceived. The framing of such a bill was not unattended by difficulties, as Peel acknowledged, [206] since "no one wished to declare that everypolitical meeting was illegal;" while at the same time it was necessaryto guard against "having its enactments evaded, since a more dangerousprecedent than the successful evasion of acts of the Legislature couldscarcely be conceived. " But the measure, as it was proposed, skilfullysteered clear of these difficulties. It met them by intrusting "theenforcement of the law to be enacted to one person alone. " The billproposed "to give to the Lord-lieutenant, and to him alone, the power ofsuppressing any association or meeting which he might think dangerous tothe public peace, or inconsistent with the due administration of thelaw; together with power to interdict the assembly of any meeting ofwhich previous notice should have been given, and which he should thinklikely to endanger the public peace, or to prove inconsistent with thedue administration of the law. " And farther, "to interdict any meetingor association which might be interdicted from assembling, or whichmight be suppressed under this act, from receiving and placing at theircontrol any moneys by the name of rent, or any other name. " But the actwas not to be one of perpetual duration. It could not be concealed thatsuch a prohibition or limitation of the general right of public meetingand public discussion was a suspension of a part of the constitution;and therefore the ministers were content to limit its operation "to oneyear and the end of the then next session of Parliament, " feeling"satisfied that there would be no objection to continue it, if thereshould be any necessity for its continuance. " And this limitation was asubstantial mitigation of its severity. It made the bill, as Mr. Stanleycorrectly described it, "not a permanent infringement on theconstitution, but a temporary deviation from it, giving those powerswhich were necessary at the moment, " but not maintaining them an hourlonger than they were necessary. 

And this seems to be the course most in accordance with the spirit ofthe constitution, with former practice, with common-sense. Deeds whichviolate the letter of the law can be dealt with by the law. But actionsor courses of action which, even if they may be thought to overstep thelaw, transgress it so narrowly as to elude conviction, can only bereached by enactments which also go in some degree beyond the ordinarylaw; and, so going beyond it, are to that extent encroachments on theordinary privileges and rights of the subject, and suspensions of theconstitution. But the very term "suspension" shows that the powerconferred is but temporary, otherwise it would be synonymous withabrogation. And all parties may wisely agree, as they did in thisinstance, to a temporary suspension of the people's rights, though therewould be none to whom their permanent abrogation would not beintolerable. 

The bill, then, for the suppression of the Association passed withuniversal approval, and it may be regarded as furnishing a model fordealing with similar associations, if ever they should arise. And assoon as it was passed Mr. Peel introduced the greater measure, that forthe repeal of the disabilities. In drawing the necessary bill theministers had had two questions of special importance to consider:firstly, whether it should be unlimited concession which should begranted, such as would throw open to the Roman Catholics every kind ofcivil office; and, secondly, whether it should be accompanied by anyother measure, which might render it more palatable to its adversaries, as diminishing a portion at least of the dangers which those whoregarded the question in a purely political light most apprehended. Onthe first point it was determined that, with the exception of threecivil offices, those of the Lord Chancellors of England and Ireland andthe Lord-lieutenant of Ireland, [207] and some of a purely ecclesiasticalcharacter, such as the Judge of the Court of Arches, every kind ofpreferment should be opened to the Roman Catholics. [208] The declarationagainst Transubstantiation and the oath of supremacy, certainexpressions in which were the obstacles which had hitherto kept theRoman Catholics out of office and out of Parliament, were to berepealed, and another to be substituted for them which should merelybind him who took it to defend the King, to maintain the Protestantsuccession, and to declare that "it was not an article of his faith, andthat he renounced, rejected, and abjured the opinion, that princesexcommunicated or deposed by the Pope might be deposed and murdered; andthat he disclaimed, disavowed, and solemnly abjured any intention tosubvert the present Church Establishment as settled by law within thisrealm, and that he would never exercise any privilege to which he was ormight become entitled to disturb or weaken the Protestant religion orProtestant government in this kingdom. "[209]

The second question was, it will probably be confessed, even moreimportant. Pitt, who had always contemplated, and had encouraged theIrish Roman Catholics to contemplate, the abolition of their politicaldisabilities as an indispensable appendage to, or, it may be said, partof the Union, had designed, farther, not to confine his benefits to thelaymen, but to endow the Roman Catholic clergy with adequate stipends, aproposal which was received with the greatest thankfulness, not only bythe Irish prelates and clergy themselves, but also by the heads of theirChurch at Rome, who were willing, in return, to give the crown a veto onall the ecclesiastical appointments of their Church in the twoislands. [210] The justice of granting such an endowment could hardly becontested. The Reformation in Ireland, if what had taken place therecould be called a reformation at all, had been wholly different from themovement which had almost extinguished Popery in England. The greatmajority of the Irish people had never ceased to adhere to the Romishforms, and the Reformation there had been simply a transfer of theproperty of the Romish Church to the Church of England, unaccompanied byany corresponding change of belief in the people, who had an undeniableright to claim that the state, while making this transfer, should notdeprive of all provision the clergy to whose ministrations they stillclung with a zeal and steadiness augmented rather than diminished by thediscouragements under which they adhered to them. 

The policy of granting such endowment was equally conspicuous. Nomeasure could so bind the clergy to the government; and no such securityfor the loyalty and peaceful, orderly behavior of the poorer classescould be provided, as might be expected from the attachment to thegovernment of those who had over them an influence so powerful in itscharacter and so unbounded in its strength as their priests. And theDuke of Wellington, who had at one time been himself the IrishSecretary, and, as an intimate friend of Lord Castlereagh, who held thatoffice at the time of the Union, had a perfect knowledge of what hadbeen intended at that time--and who was, of course, aware of the verydecided favor which the House of Commons had so lately shown to theproject--proposed to follow out Pitt's plan in that particular, and toconnect a provision[211] for the Roman Catholic clergy with the removalof their political disabilities from the laymen. Unluckily, Peel, who, throughout the whole transaction, was, of all the cabinet, thecounsellor on whose judgment he most relied, took a different view ofthe expediency of making such a provision, having, indeed, "no objectionto it in point of principle. " But he saw many practical difficulties, which he pressed on the Duke with great earnestness. He argued that forthe government "to apply a sum of money to the payment of the ministersof the Church of Rome in Ireland, granting a license for the performanceof their spiritual functions, would be a virtual and completesupersession, if not repeal, of the laws which prohibit intercourse withRome;" and asked, "Could the state affect to be ignorant that the bishopwhom it paid derived his right to be a bishop from the See of Rome?"Another difficulty he found in the apprehension that "the admission ofthe right of the Roman Catholic clergy to an endowment might producesimilar claims on the part of the Dissenters in England, who contributein like manner to the support of their own religion and of theestablished religion also. " He suggested, farther, that, if the RomanCatholic priest were allowed, in addition to his stipend, "to receivedues, Easter offerings, etc. , from his parishioners, his condition wouldthen be better than that of the ministers of the Established Church inmany of the parishes in Ireland. " And, finally, he urged the practicalobjection, that the endowment would greatly strengthen the opposition tothe whole measure, by the reluctance which, "on purely religiousgrounds, " many would feel to the endowment of the Roman Catholic faith, who would yet be inclined to acquiesce in the removal of thedisabilities, "on grounds rather political than religious. " He was "notinsensible to the importance of establishing some bond of connectionbetween the Roman Catholic clergy and the state;" but he believed thatthe omission of a provision for their endowment "was important to theultimate success of the government in proposing the measure beforethem. "

It is not probable that the Duke was greatly influenced by the first, orwhat may be called the constitutional, objection--that any concert withthe Papal Court with respect to the appointments or endowments of itsclergy would be a violation of the act which prohibited any intercoursewith Rome. The removal of the disabilities required the repeal of oneact of Parliament; and, if the holding communications with Rome on thesubject of clerical appointments should be so construed as to requirethe repeal of another, it would hardly seem that there could be anygreater violation of or departure from the principles of theconstitution in repealing two acts than in repealing one. As to thesecond of Peel's objections, the English Dissenters could not possiblybe said to stand on the same ground as the Irish Roman Catholics, sincetheir ministers had certainly never been deprived by any act of thestate of any provision which they had previously enjoyed; but theirposition as unendowed ministers was clearly one of their own making. Thepossible inferiority in point of emolument of some of the Protestantcures in Ireland to that which might be enjoyed by some of the RomanCatholic clergy could hardly be regarded as the foundation of anyargument at all, since no law had ever undertaken, or ever couldundertake, to give at all times and under all circumstances equalremuneration to equal labors. But the consideration last suggested wasexactly the one to influence such a mind as that of the Duke ofWellington, generally contented to deal with a present difficulty. Hewas determined to carry Emancipation, because he saw that the Clareelection had made it impossible to withhold or even to delay it; and, being so determined, he was desirous to avoid encumbering it with anyaddition which might increase the opposition to it. At the same time hewas far from being sanguine of its effect, "with whatever guards orsecurities it might be accompanied, to pacify the country or to avertrebellion, "[212] which, in his apprehension, was undoubtedly impending;and, under the influence of these combined feelings, he eventuallywithdrew that clause from the bill. It was accompanied by another bill, disfranchising the forty-shilling freeholders in Ireland. They were aclass of voters sunk in the deepest poverty, and such as certainly couldnot well be supposed capable of forming, much less of exercising, anindependent judgment on political matters. Yet this bill is remarkableas having been the only enactment passed since the Revolution to narrowthe franchise. It had no opposition to anticipate from English or Scotchmembers, and was accepted by the Irish members as the price ofEmancipation. 

No measure that had ever been framed since the Revolution had causedsuch excitement in the country; but the preponderance of feeling in itsfavor was equally marked in both Houses of Parliament. In the House ofCommons 320 supported it, while only 142 could be marshalled against it. In the House of Lords 213 divided for it against 109. And in April itreceived the royal assent. 

The general policy of removing the disabilities it is not necessary todiscuss here. It is quite clear that the Clare election had rendered itimpossible to maintain them. And if some of those who judge of measuressolely by their effects still denounce this act, as one which has failedin its object of tranquillizing Ireland, many of those who admit thefailure ascribe it to the omission to accompany it by one securing astate endowment for the Roman Catholic clergy, pronouncing it, withoutthat appendage, a half measure, such as rarely succeeds, and neverdeserves success. However that may be, it is certain that the measure, coupled with the repeal of the Test Act of the previous year, was onewhich made a great and permanent change in the practical working of theconstitution of the kingdom, as it had been interpreted for the last onehundred and fifty years. Of that constitution one of the leadingfeatures, ever since the Restoration, had been understood to be theestablishment and maintenance of the political as well as theecclesiastical ascendency of the Church of England. On that ascendencythe repeal of the Test Act in 1828 had made the first, and that a great, inroad, and the present statute entirely abolished it as a principle ofgovernment. So far as political privileges went, every Christian sectwas now placed on a footing of complete equality. But so to place themmay fairly be regarded as having been required not only by justice andexpediency, but by reasons drawn from the history of the nation and fromthe circumstances under which these disabilities had been imposed. Before the Rebellion no one was excluded from the English Parliament onaccount of his religion, whether he was a Roman Catholic, aPresbyterian, or a member of any other of the various sects which weregradually arising in the country. It was not till after the Restorationthat a recollection of the crimes of the Puritans, when they had got theupper-hand, and the fear of machinations and intrigues, incompatiblewith the freedom and independence of the people, which were imputed tothe Roman Catholics, gave birth to the statutes depriving bothProtestant and Roman Catholic Non-conformists of all legislative andpolitical power. The restrictions thus imposed on the Presbyterians andother Protestant sects had, as we have seen, been gradually relaxed by aperiodical act of indemnity. Indeed, after the Union with Scotland, itwas impossible with any show of consistency to maintain them, since, asit has been already pointed out, after Presbyterianism had beenrecognized as the established religion of Scotland, it would have seemedstrangely unreasonable to regard it as a disqualification on thesouthern side of the Border. But, as long as the Stuart princes werefrom time to time disquieting the government by their open invasions orsecret intrigues, no such relaxation could with safety be granted to theRoman Catholics, since it could hardly be expected that they wouldforbear to employ any power which they might acquire for the service ofa prince of their own religion. That danger, however, which ever since1745 had been a very shadowy one, had wholly passed away with the lifeof the last Stuart lay prince, Charles Edward; and his death left therulers of the kingdom and advisers of the sovereign free to take adifferent and larger view of their duty to the nation as a whole. 

It was notorious that the number of Non-conformists was large. In themiddle of the last century it had received a considerable accessionthrough the institution of the new sect of Wesleyan Methodists; which, through the supineness of the clergy of the Established Church in thatgeneration, had gradually increased, till it was estimated that thevarious Dissenting sects in England equalled at least half the number ofthe members of the Established Church. In Wales they were believed toform the majority. In Scotland three-fourths of the people werePresbyterians; and in Ireland the Roman Catholics outnumbered theProtestants in nearly the same proportion. Taking England, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland together, a calculation which reckoned thedifferent sects of Protestant and Roman Catholic Non-conformists unitedat half the entire population would probably not have erred very widelyfrom the truth. 

It must have been the aim of every statesman deserving of the name toweld these different religious parties into one harmonious whole, as faras their civil position went. And measures which had that tendency couldnot be foreign to the constitution, properly understood. A constitutionwhich confines its benefits to one-half of a nation hardly merits thetitle of a constitution at all. For every constitution ought to extendits protection and its privileges equally to every portion of thepeople, unless there be some peculiarity in the principles or habits ofany one portion which makes its participation in them dangerous to therest. It had undoubtedly been the doctrine of Pitt, and of the greaterpart of those who since his time had held the reins of government, thatif any portion of the King's subjects did cherish a temper dangerous tothe rest, it was because they were debarred from privileges to whichthey conceived themselves to have a just right, and that theirdiscontent and turbulence were the fruit of the restrictions imposed onthem. In proposing to remove such a grievance Pitt certainly conceivedhimself to be acting in accordance with the strictest principles of theconstitution, and not so much innovating upon it as restoring it to itsoriginal comprehensiveness. And so of the measure, as it was nowcarried, it will apparently be correct to say that, though it did makean important change in the practical working of the constitution, itmade it only by reverting to the fundamental principles of civil andreligious liberty, to which every subject had a right; which had onlybeen temporarily restrained under the apprehension of danger to thestate, and which the cessation of that apprehension made it a duty tore-establish in all their fulness. 

But it is by no means clear that in the conduct of the measure theconstitution was not violated in one very important point, the properrelation subsisting between a constituency and its representative, byMr. Peel's resignation of his seat for the University of Oxford. That hewas sensible that the act stood in need of explanation is proved by thecareful statement of the motives and considerations that determined himto it, which he drew up twenty years afterward. They were of a twofoldcharacter. To quote his own words: "When I resolved to advise, and topromote to the utmost of my power, the settlement of that question, Iresolved at the same time to relinquish, not only my officialstation, [213] but the representation of the University of Oxford. Ithought that such decisive proofs that I could have no object, politicalor personal, in taking a course different from that which I hadpreviously taken, would add to my influence and authority, so far, atleast, as the adjustment of the particular question at issue wasconcerned. " "I cannot deny that in vacating my seat I was acting uponthe impulse of private feelings, rather than upon a dispassionateconsideration of the constitutional relations between a representativeand his constituents. I will not seek to defend the resolution to whichI came by arguments drawn from the peculiar character of the academicbody, or from the special nature of the trust confided to its members;still less will I contend that my example ought to be followed by othersto whom may be offered the same painful alternative of disregarding thedictates of their own consciences, or of acting in opposition to theopinions and disappointing the expectations of their constituents. Iwill say no more than that my position was a very peculiar one, that Ihad many painful sacrifices to make, and that it would have been a greataggravation of them, if it could have said with truth that I wasexercising an authority derived from the confidence of the University topromote measures injurious, in her deliberate judgment, either to herown interests or to those of the Church. "

No one would willingly censure too severely an act dictated by a senseof honor, even if somewhat overstrained and too scrupulously delicate;but when Mr. Peel speaks of "defending" or not defending his deed, heclearly admits it to be one open to impeachment. And when he forbears to"contend that his example ought to be followed, " he seems practically toconfess a consciousness that any defence against such impeachment mustfail; while the last sentence quoted above involves an assertion that aconstituency (in this instance one of the two most importantconstituencies in the kingdom) could be justified in regarding a measurerequired by the safety, or at least by the welfare, of the state, asinjurious to its own interests; and so far admits a possible severancebetween the interests of a particular class or body and those of thewhole community, which can have no real existence. That, however, is notthe point to be investigated here. The charge, as it seems, to which Mr. Peel's deed lays him open is, that by it he lowered the position andcharacter of a member of Parliament from those of a representative tothose of a delegate. It was an adoption of the principle laid down forhis own guidance by a colleague of Mr. Burke above fifty years before, and indignantly repudiated by that great political philosopher, asproceeding from an entire misapprehension of the rights of aconstituency and of a member[214] of Parliament. He told the electors ofBristol that "when they had chosen their member, he was not a member ofBristol, but a member of Parliament; and that if the local constituentshould have an interest, or should form an opinion, evidently oppositeto the real good of the rest of the community, the member for that placeought to be as far as any other from any endeavor to give it effect;"that a representative "owes to his constituents, not his industry only, but his judgment, and betrays instead of serving them, if he sacrificesit to their opinion. " And in so saying he carried with him theconcurrence and approval of all his contemporaries whose sentiments onsuch a question were entitled to weight. 

In the States-general of France each member was, by the originalconstitution of that body, a delegate, and not a representative. Hecould not even remonstrate against the most oppressive grievance ofwhich the previous instructions of the constituent body had notinstructed him to complain; and this limitation of his duties and powerswas, undoubtedly, one very principal cause which led to theStates-general so rapidly falling into utter disrepute. It was no lightthing to take a step which had a tendency to bring down the BritishParliament to the level of the despised and long-disused States-general. And it is the more necessary to put the case in a clear and true light, because at the present day there is an evident disposition on the partof constituencies to avail themselves of Peel's conduct in this instanceas a precedent, in spite of his protest against its being so regarded, and to fetter their representatives with precise instructions; and acorresponding willingness on the part of candidates to purchase supportat elections by a submissive giving of pledges on a variety of subjects, so numerous as to leave themselves no freedom of judgment at all. On thegreat majority of subjects which come before Parliament, a member ofParliament, if he be a sensible and an honest man, has a far betteropportunity of obtaining correct information and forming a sound opinionthan can be within reach of any constituency, whose proneness tomisjudge is usually in exact proportion to the magnitude of its numbers. Every elector justifiably may, and naturally will, seek to ascertainthat between the candidate whom he supports and himself there is ageneral conformity of opinion; an absolute identity he will never find, and he has no right to ask. [215]

Notes:

[Footnote 182: £118, 776, 000. Alison, c. Lxxvi. ]

[Footnote 183: See Lord Malmesbury's account of their firstinterview. --_Diaries of Lord Malmesbury_, iii. , 218. ]

[Footnote 184: "Parliamentary Debates, " series 2, ii. , 632. ]

[Footnote 185: Mr. Brougham gave his opinion that if the Duke of York, or any other member of the royal family, had been named, it would havebeen offensive to the Queen; but the measure adopted he regarded as of aneutral character. (Mentioned by Lord Liverpool, "Life of LordLiverpool, " iii. , 55. )]

[Footnote 186: "Minutes of Cabinet, " dated 10th and 14th February, 1820, forwarded the King by Lord Liverpool ("Life of Lord Liverpool, " iii. , 35-88). ]

[Footnote 187: "Life of Sir J. Mackintosh, " by R. J. Mackintosh, ii. , 110, 116. ]

[Footnote 188: "Lives of the Chief-justices, " iii. , 171. ]

[Footnote 189: In a letter on the subject to Lord Liverpool, the Dukegoes the length of calling the proposed bill "an experiment which, should it fail, must entail the dreadful alternative of the entire ruinof the landed interests of the empire, with which he is decidedly ofopinion that the nation must stand or fall. "--_Life of Lord Liverpool_, iii. , 434. ]

[Footnote 190: At one time it was the fashion with writers of theLiberal party to represent Lord Liverpool as led by Lord Castlereagh inthe earlier, and by Canning in the later, part of his administration;but Lord Liverpool's correspondence with both these ministers showsclearly that on every subject of foreign as well as of home policy hewas the real guide and ruler of his cabinet. Even the recognition of theindependence of the South American provinces of Spain--which is so oftenrepresented as exclusively the work of Canning--the memorandum on thesubject which Lord Liverpool drew up for the cabinet proves that thepolicy adopted was entirely his own, and that as such he adhered to itresolutely, in spite of the avowed disapproval of the Duke of Wellingtonand the known unwillingness of the King to sanction it; and it may beremarked (as he and Lord Castlereagh have sometime been described asfavoring the Holy Alliance), that the concluding sentence of his letterto the Duke on the subject expresses his hostility, not only to thatcelebrated treaty, but to the policy which dictated and was embodied init. (See Lord Liverpool's memorandum for the cabinet and letter to theDuke of Wellington, December 8, 1824. )--_Life of Lord Liverpool_, iii. , 297-305. ]

[Footnote 191: See ante, p. 222. ]

[Footnote 192: "With much prudence or laudable disinterestedness, " saysHallam ("Constitutional History, " ii. , 532). ]

[Footnote 193: The last time had been in 1790, when there had been amajority of 187 against it. --_Peel's Memoirs_, i. , 99. ]

[Footnote 194: 237 to 193. ]

[Footnote 195: "Peel's Memoirs, " i. , 68. ]

[Footnote 196: "Wellington's Civil Despatches, " iv. , 453. ]

[Footnote 197: See his letter to Peel, March 23 ("Peel's Memoirs, " i. , 92-100). ]

[Footnote 198: The entry of this bill in Cobbett's "ParliamentaryHistory" is: "The House of Commons testified a very extraordinary zealin unravelling the Popish Plot, and, to prevent mischief in theinterval, passed a bill to disable Papists from sitting in either Houseof Parliament, " to which the Lords, when the bill came up to theirHouse, added a proviso exempting the Duke of York from its operation. An. 1678; October 26 to November 21. ---_Parliamentary History_, iv. , 1024-1039. ]

[Footnote 199: In the House of Commons the majority for Sir F. Burdett'sresolution was six--372 to 266. But, in the House of Lords, LordLansdowne, moving the same resolution, was defeated by forty-five--182to 137. ]

[Footnote 200: See Fitzgerald's letter to Peel ("Peel's Memoirs, " i. , 114). ]

[Footnote 201: "Peel's Memoirs, " i. , 121. ]

[Footnote 202: See "Lord Anglesey's Letters, " _ibid. _, pp. 126, 147. ]

[Footnote 203: As early as the year 1812, on the negotiations (mentionedin a former chapter) for the entrance of Lord Grenville and Lord Greyinto the ministry, the Duke of York mentioned to both those noblementhat the Regent had an insuperable objection to the concession ofEmancipation. And it seems probable that it was the knowledge of hissentiments on that point that greatly influenced the course which LordLiverpool subsequently pursued in regard to that question. --See _Life ofLord Liverpool_, i, 381. ]

[Footnote 204: Speech on moving the second reading of the bill in theHouse of Lords, February 19, 1829 ("Hansard, " xx. , 389). ]

[Footnote 205: Speech on the first reading of the bill, February 10("Hansard, " xx. , 208). ]

[Footnote 206: Speech on the first reading ("Hansard, " xx. , 198). ]

[Footnote 207: An amendment was proposed by Lord Chandos to add theoffice of Prime-minister to these three, on the ground that if a RomanCatholic were Prime-minister "he might have the disposal of all thepatronage of the state and the Church vested in his hands. " But Mr. Peelpointed out that the law of England "never recognized any such office asthat of Prime-minister. In the eyes of the law the ministers were all onan equality. " And the position, such as it was, being a conventionalone, was not necessarily connected with the office of First Lord of theTreasury. "In a recent instance his late right honorable friend, Mr. Canning, had determined to hold the office of Prime-minister with thatof Secretary of State. And when Lord Chatham was Prime-minister, he didnot hold the office of First Lord of the Treasury. " At the same time heexplained that the impropriety of intrusting a Roman Catholic withChurch patronage was already guarded against in the bill, a clause ofwhich provided that "it should not be lawful for any person professingthe Roman Catholic religion directly or indirectly to advise the crownin any appointment to or disposal of any office or preferment, lay orecclesiastical, in the united Church of England and Ireland, or of theChurch of Scotland. "--_Hansard_, xx. , 1425. ]

[Footnote 208: Many years afterward the restriction as to the LordChancellorship of Ireland was abolished. ]

[Footnote 209: The plan which Pitt had intended to propose was tosubstitute in lieu of the Sacramental test a political test, to beimposed indiscriminately on all persons sitting in Parliament, orholding state or corporation offices, and also on all ministers ofreligion, of whatever description, etc. , etc. This test was to disclaimin express terms the sovereignty of the people, and was to contain anoath of allegiance and "fidelity to the King's government of the realm, and to the established constitutions of Church and state. "--Letter ofLord Grenville, given in _Courts and Cabinets of George III. _, andquoted by Lord Stanhope, _Life of Pitt_, iii. , 270. This plan seems verypreferable to that now adopted, since it removed every appearance ofmaking a distinction between the professors of the different creeds, when the same oath was to be taken by all indifferently. ]

[Footnote 210: The question had been discussed with the highest Papalauthorities more than once since the beginning of the century. In 1812Mgr. Quarantotti, the prelate who, during the detention of the Pope inFrance by Napoleon, was invested with the chief authority inecclesiastical affairs at Rome, in a letter to the Vicar-apostolic, Dr. Poynter, formally announced the consent of the Papal See to give theKing a veto on all ecclesiastical appointments within the UnitedKingdom; and, after his return to Rome, Pio VII. Himself confirmed theformer title by a second addressed, by his instructions, to the same Dr. Poynter, which letter, in 1816, was read by Mr. Grattan in the House ofCommons, it being throughout understood that this concession of the vetoto the King was conditional on the abolition of the disabilities and theendowment of the priesthood. And in 1825, after Lord Francis Egerton'sresolution had been carried in the House of Commons, Dr. Doyle, one ofthe most eminent of the Roman Catholic bishops in Ireland, in anexamination before a committee of the House of Lords, expressed thewillingness of the Roman Catholic clergy to accept a state provision, ifit were permanently annexed to each benefice, and accompanied with aconcession of an equality of civil rights to the Roman Catholiclaity. --See _Life of Lord Liverpool_, ii, 145; _Diary of LordColchester, March_ 17, 1835, iii. , 373; _Peel's Memoirs_, i. , 306, 333_seq. _]

[Footnote 211: The sum to be thus employed seems to have been intendedto be £300, 000 a year. --_Peel's Memoirs_, i. , 197. On the whole questionof the payment and Peel's objections to it, see _ibid. _, pp. 197, 306. ]

[Footnote 212: See his "Civil Despatches, " iv. , 570. In February, 1829, he said to Lord Sidmouth, "It is a bad business, but we are aground. ""Does your Grace think, then, " asked Lord Sidmouth, "that thisconcession will tranquillize Ireland?" "I can't tell; I hope it will, "answered the Duke, who shortly discovered, and had the magnanimity toadmit, his mistake. --_Life of Lord Sidmouth_, iii. , 453. It isremarkable that the question of endowing the Roman Catholic clergy wasagain considered by Lord John Russell's ministry in 1848. A letter ofPrince Albert in October of that year says, with reference to it: "Thebishops have protested against Church endowment, being themselves welloff; but the clergy would gratefully accept it if offered, but dare notavow this. "--_Life of the Prince Consort_, ii. , 186. ]

[Footnote 213: This first extract refers in part to the proposal whichhe made to the Duke to resign his office as Secretary of State, and tosupport the Emancipation as a private member, a design which he onlyrelinquished at the Duke's earnest entreaty. The second extract refersto the seat in Parliament alone. --See _Peel's Memoirs_, i. , 310, 312. ]

[Footnote 214: Speech to the electors of Bristol on being declared bythe sheriffs duly elected member for that city, November 3, 1774. --_Burke's Works_, iii. , 11, ed 1803. ]

[Footnote 215: It is worth pointing out, however, that, as if it wereone of the natural fruits of the Reform Bill, the Liberal Committee ofthe Livery of London in 1832 passed a series of resolutions assertingthe principle of delegation without the slightest modification; oneresolution affirming "that members chosen to be representatives inParliament ought to do such things as their constituents wish and directthem to do;" another, "that a signed engagement should be exacted fromevery member that he would at all times and in all things actconformably to the wishes of a majority of his constituents, or would attheir request resign the trust with which they had honoredhim. "--_Annual Register_, 1832, p. 300; _quoted by Alison_, 2d series, v. , 355. ]

CHAPTER IX. 

Demand for Parliamentary Reform. --Death of George IV. , and Accession ofWilliam IV. --French Revolution of 1830. --Growing Feeling in Favor ofReform. --Duke of Wellington's Declaration against Reform. --HisResignation: Lord Grey becomes Prime-minister. --Introduction of theReform Bill. --Its Details. --Riots at Bristol and Nottingham. --ProposedCreation of Peers. --The King's Message to the Peers. --Character andConsequences of the Reform Bill. --Appointment of a Regency. --Re-arrangement of the Civil List. 

One of Pitt's great measures of domestic, apart from financial orcommercial, policy having become law, it seemed in some degree naturalto look for the accomplishment of the other, a reform of the House ofCommons, which, indeed, after the conclusion of the war, had been madeat times the subject of earnest petition, being one in which a fargreater number of people had a lively interest than that excited byCatholic Emancipation. The Englishmen who had advocated that measure hadbeen striving for the adoption of a principle rather than for aconcession from which they could expect any personal benefit, since veryfew in any English or Scotch constituency were Roman Catholics, ordesired to return a Roman Catholic representative. But thousands inevery county, including the whole body of citizens of some of thelargest and most flourishing towns, felt a personal concern in theattainment of Parliamentary Reform, as the measure which would givethem, and which could alone give them, that voice in the affairs of thekingdom to which they felt themselves entitled, but which they had neveryet enjoyed. 

And before the end of the next session the prospect of the early successof their aspirations was greatly increased by the death of the King. George IV. , who in his early manhood had attached himself to the Whigswith an ardor and ostentation altogether unbecoming his position as heirto the throne, had formally separated himself from them after the deathof Fox in 1806, and had gradually come to regard their adversaries witha favor as exclusive as he had formerly shown to themselves. But theDuke of Clarence, who now succeeded to the throne, had always shown aleaning toward the Whigs, who of late had been commonly regarded as thereforming party. While the war lasted, and during the few remainingyears of the reign of George III. , no active steps toward Reform weretaken in Parliament; but under George IV. More than one boroughconvicted of gross and habitual corruption, as has been mentioned, wasdisfranchised. Grampound was so punished in the time of Lord Liverpool, and its members were transferred to Yorkshire, so as to give thatlargest of the counties four representatives; and it may be remarkedthat this arrangement caused the Prime-minister to suggest animprovement in the details of an election--which was afterwarduniversally adopted--when, in reply to a remark on the greatinconvenience that was found to exist in taking the poll at once in solarge a county as Yorkshire, he hinted at the possibility of obviatingthat difficulty by allowing polls to be taken in different parts of thecounty. And, since the Duke had been in office, two more boroughs, Penrhyn and East Retford, had also been disfranchised; though theReformers failed in their endeavor to get the seats thus vacatedtransferred to Manchester and Birmingham. With the accession of the newsovereign, however, they became more active. They found encouragement inother circumstances also. Many of those who were commonly called theUltra Tories had been so alienated from the Duke's government by theEmancipation Act, that they were known to be ready to coalesce withalmost any party for the sake of overturning his administration. Moreover, as forty years before, the French Revolution of 1789 hadcaused great political excitement in England, so now the new Frenchrevolution of July acted as a strong stimulus on the movement party inthis as well as in other countries; and altogether there was a verygeneral feeling that the time for important changes had come. The Dukeof Wellington was not blind to the prevalence of the idea; and, being byno means willing to admit that his own policy of the preceding year hadin the least contributed to strengthen it, he conceived it to be hisduty to discountenance it by every means in his power; but the stepswhich he took with that object only invigorated and inflamed it. AsPrime-minister, he inserted in the speech with which the new sovereignopened his first Parliament in the autumn after his accession a generalpanegyric on that "happy form of government under which, through thefavor of Divine Providence, this country had enjoyed for a longsuccession of years a greater share of internal peace, of commercialprosperity, of true liberty, of all that constitutes social happiness, than had fallen to the lot of any other country of the world. " And inhis own character, a few nights afterward, he added a practicalcommentary on those sentences of the royal speech, when, in allusion toLord Grey's expression of a hope that the ministers would prepare "toredress the grievances of the people by a reform of the Parliament, " herepudiated the suggestion altogether, avowing that the government werecontemplating no such measure, and adding that "he would go farther, andsay that he had never read or heard of any measure up to that momentwhich in any degree satisfied his mind that the state of therepresentation could be improved or rendered more satisfactory to thecountry at large than at that moment. He was fully convinced that thecountry possessed at that moment a Legislature which answered all goodpurposes of legislation to a greater degree than any Legislature hadever answered them in any country whatever.... And he would at oncedeclare that, as far as he was concerned, as long as he held any stationin the government of the country, he should always feel it his duty toresist any measure of Reform when proposed by others. "

Such uncompromising language was, not unnaturally, regarded by theOpposition in both Houses as a direct defiance, and the challenge waspromptly taken up both in and out of Parliament. It happened that atthis moment the ministry was extremely unpopular in the City; not, indeed, on account of his hostility to Reform, but in consequence of therecent introduction by the Home-secretary of a police force in London, on the model of one which the Duke himself, when Irish Secretary, hadestablished in Dublin. The old watchmen had been so notoriouslyinefficient that it might have been expected that the change would havebeen hailed with universal approval and gratitude, but it met with avery different reception. Many of the newspapers which had not yetforgiven the passing of Catholic Emancipation made it a ground for thestrongest imputations on the Duke himself, some of them even going thelength of affirming that he aimed at the throne, and that theorganization of this new force was the means on which he reckoned forthe attainment of his object. No story is too gross for the credulity ofthe populace. To hear of such a plot was to believe it; to believe itwas to resolve to defeat it; and at the beginning of November thegovernment received several warnings that a plan was in agitation toraise a formidable riot on Lord Mayor's Day, when the King and the Dukehimself were expected to dine with the Lord Mayor. The Lord Mayor evenwrote to the Duke to suggest the prudence of his coming "strongly andsufficiently guarded, " and the result of this advice was certainlystrange. The Duke cared little enough about personal danger to himself, but he regarded himself as specially bound by his office to watch overthe public tranquillity, and to do nothing that might be expected toendanger it. He was at least equally solicitous that a new reign shouldnot open with a tumult which could in any way be regarded as an insultto the King; and, under the influence of these feelings, he took theresponsibility of giving the King the unprecedented advice of abandoninghis intention of being present at the Guildhall banquet. Such a step hadan inevitable tendency to weaken the ministry still farther by thecomments which it provoked. Even his own brother, Lord Wellesley, didnot spare his sarcasms, pronouncing it "the boldest act of cowardice hehad ever heard of;" while the Reformers ascribed the unpopularity whichit confessed to the Duke's declaration against any kind or degree ofReform; and, to test the correctness of this opinion, Mr. Brougham, who, in the House of Commons, was the most eloquent champion of Reform, gavenotice of a motion on the subject for the 16th of November. Before thatday came, however, the ministry had ceased to exist. On the precedingevening it had been defeated on a proposal to refer to a selectcommittee the consideration of the Civil List, a new settlement of whichwas indispensable at the beginning of a new reign, and on the morning ofthe 16th the Duke resigned, not only advising the King to intrust theformation of the new cabinet to Lord Grey--who was universallyrecognized as the head of the Whig party--but recommending his Majestyalso to be prepared to consent to a measure of moderate Reform, which, though he could not bring himself to co-operate in it, he was satisfiedthat the temper of the House of Commons, if not of the peopleout-of-doors also, rendered unavoidable. [216] The advice was taken. LordGrey had no difficulty in forming a ministry in which the Whigs wereaided by the junction of several of the more moderate Tories, who hadregarded Canning as their leader; and from the very beginningParliamentary Reform was proclaimed to be the one great object of hisgovernment. It would be more correct to call it a Reform of the House ofCommons, since there was no idea of interfering with the House of Lords, even in those parts of it which were of a representative character, theScotch and Irish peers. But, by whatever title the ministerial policywas designated, no one misunderstood what was intended; and asParliament was, after a few days, adjourned over the Christmas holidays, the recess was spent by a sub-committee of the cabinet in framing ameasure. 

The great extension of our trade, which was the fruit partly of his wisecommercial policy, and partly of the long war; the rapid and prodigiousgrowth of our manufactures, developed by the inventive ingenuity of ourmechanics and engineers, had given a consideration and influence to thecommercial, manufacturing, and moneyed classes which could not bedisregarded. The land-owners, who had previously almost monopolized therepresentation, no longer constituted the wealthiest class of thecommunity. Pitt himself had raised a banker to the peerage. Morerecently, men closely connected with the commercial classes had becomecabinet ministers, one of whom had even subsequently sacrificed officeto his feeling of the propriety of enfranchising a single town, Birmingham. But there were other towns at least equal in importance toBirmingham which were unrepresented, and it was clearly impossible tomaintain a system which gave representatives to boroughs like Gatton, Old Sarum, or Corfe Castle--where the electors scarcely outnumbered themembers whom they elected--and withheld them from large and opulentmanufacturing centres like Manchester, Leeds, and Sheffield. Theenfranchisement, therefore, of these towns, and of others whosepopulation and consequent importance, though inferior to theirs, wasstill vastly superior to those of many which had hitherto returnedrepresentatives, was so manifestly reasonable and consistent with theprinciples of our parliamentary constitution, that it was impossible toobject to it. And their enfranchisement unavoidably led to thedisfranchisement of the smaller boroughs, unless the House of Commonswere to be enlarged to a number which was not likely to tend to thefacilitation of business. Indeed, in the opinion of the framers of thebill, the House was _already too large_, and they proposed to reduce itsnumber by upward of sixty--a step to which it is probable that many ofthose whose opposition contributed to defeat it subsequently repented oftheir resistance. Nevertheless, the line adopted by the Duke ofWellington's ministry showed that there was still a large party to whomreform on a large scale was altogether distasteful; and accordingly thebill which, under the influence of these considerations, Lord Grey'sadministration brought forward in the spring of 1831, gave rise to thefiercest struggles in both Houses of Parliament that had been witnessedfor many generations. One Parliament was dissolved; two sessions of thatwhich followed were opened in a single year; once the ministry itselfwas dissolved, though speedily reconstructed; and three bills wereframed, each in some degree differing from its predecessor in some ofits details, though all preserved the same leading principles ofdisfranchising wholly or partially the smaller boroughs; ofenfranchising several large and growing towns; of increasing the numberof county representatives; and of enfranchising also some classes whichpreviously had had no right of voting. It would be a waste of time tospecify the variations in the three bills. It is sufficient to confineour attention to that which eventually became law. Fifty-six boroughswere wholly disfranchised; those in which the population fell short of acertain number (2000), and where the amount of assessed taxes paid bythe inhabitants was correspondingly small. Thirty more were deprived ofone of their members, being those in which the population was between2000 and 4000. And the seats thus vacated were divided between the townswhich since the Revolution had gradually grown into importance, thesuburbs of the metropolis, and the counties, the majority of which werenow divided into two halves, each half returning two members, as many ashad previously represented the whole. The boundaries of the boroughs, too, were in most cases extended. 

More important, perhaps, in its influence on subsequent legislation wasthe alteration made in the qualifications which constituted an elector. Hitherto the franchise, the right of voting at elections, had been basedon property. The principle had not, indeed, been uniformly adhered to inthe boroughs, where, as Lord John Russell, in the speech with which heintroduced the bill, pointed out, a curious variety of courses had beenadopted. "In some, " as he described the existing practice, "thefranchise was exercised by 'a select corporation;' that is to say, itwas in the possession of a small number of persons, to the exclusion ofthe great body of the inhabitants who had property and interest in theplace represented. In ancient times, he believed, every freeman, beingan inhabitant householder resident in the borough, was competent tovote. As, however, this arrangement excluded villeins and strangers, thefranchise always belonged to a particular body in every town--a bodyundoubtedly possessed of property, for they bore the charges of theirmembers, and on them were assessed the subsidies and taxes voted byParliament. But when villeinage ceased, various and opposite coursesseemed to have been pursued in different boroughs. In some, adopting theliberal principle that all freemen were to be admitted, householders ofall kinds, down to the lowest degree, and even sometimes beyond, wereadmitted. In others, adopting the exclusive principle that villeins andstrangers were no part of the burgesses, new corporations were erected, and the elective franchise was more or less confined to a select body. "But all these diversities and varieties were now swept away, and auniform franchise was established, all tenants whose rent amounted to£10 receiving the franchise in boroughs, while by a kindred amendment, which was forced on the ministers at a very early stage of the measure, tenants at will whose tent amounted to £50 became entitled to vote inthe counties. 

The arrangements for taking the poll were also greatly changed. Insteadof the fifteen days which had of late been allowed for a countyelection, two were now thought sufficient. [217] In boroughs the time wasabridged in a similar proportion, and the arrangement was facilitated bya division of counties into several convenient polling districts, sothat no elector should require to travel more than a few miles to recordhis vote. 

This last change was universally accepted as a great practicalimprovement, from its tendency to lessen the expense of electioncontests, which had risen to an enormous and ruinous height. But everyother part of the scheme was viewed with the greatest repugnance, not tosay dread, by the Opposition; and every one of the bills was fought stepby step in the House of Commons. The first bill was only carried by amajority of one; the second was absolutely rejected by the House ofLords; and on the third the ministers, after carrying it triumphantlythrough the Lower House, were defeated in the Upper House on a point ofdetail, which, though of no great importance in itself, they regarded asan indication that the peers, though they had consented to read it asecond time, would insist on remodelling it to a great degree, and, ifthey were not allowed to do so, would again reject it altogether. 

Meanwhile, the people were wrought up to a pitch of frenzy absolutelyunprecedented. Never had agitators, among whom some of the ministersthemselves were not ashamed to appear, been so unscrupulous in theirendeavors to excite discontent. One cabinet minister wrote inflammatoryarticles in the newspapers; another publicly called the legitimateopposition of the peers "the whisper of a faction. " And their exertionssoon bore fearful fruit. In London some of the peers who had been mostprominent in their objections to the bill were hooted and pelted, andone, Lord Londonderry, was nearly murdered. The King and Queen wereinsulted by mobs in the Park, some of the rioters even openlythreatening the Queen with death, because she was believed to befavorable to the anti-Reformers. In some of the most importantprovincial towns the discontent broke out into actual insurrection. AtBristol a tumultuous mob, whose numbers were swelled by crowds of theworst ruffians of the metropolis, sought to murder the Recorder, SirCharles Wetherall, when he came down to that city to hold thequarter-sessions; and, when defeated in their attack on him, stormed theMansion House, and set it, with the Bishop's Palace and other publicbuildings, and scores of private houses, on fire, several of the riotersthemselves, who had got drunk, perishing in the flames. A similar mobrose in arms at Derby, but did less mischief, as there the magistratesknew their duty better. But Nottingham almost equalled Bristol in itshorrors. Because the Duke of Newcastle was a resolute anti-Reformer, aferocious gang attacked and set on fire the fine old Castle; and, notcontent with committing fearful ravages in the town, roamed over theadjacent district, attacked the houses of many of the leading countrygentlemen, plundering and burning the dwellings, and in more than oneinstance murdering some of the inhabitants. 

The King had hitherto borne himself between the contending parties inthe state with scrupulous fairness to both. Though, he had, probably, been taken by surprise by the sweeping character of the changes hisministers had proposed, he had given them a frank support, consenting, even at a moment's notice, to dissolve the Parliament after theunfavorable division in the House of Commons on the first bill; but hehad, at the same time, warned them that he would never consent to employany means of coercion to overbear the free decision of the House ofLords. And he had more than once rejected as unconstitutional theirsolicitations to allow them to make peers with that object. At last theyendeavored to compel his consent by resigning their offices, though theground for so decided a step can hardly be deemed sufficient, since theprovocation which they alleged was only Lord Lyndhurst's success incarrying an amendment to take the enfranchising clauses of the billbefore those of disfranchisement, so as to give the latter a moregracious appearance, as if the boroughs to be extinguished were made tosuffer, not so much for their own positive unworthiness as in order tomake room for others which had become of undeniably greater importance. The King took the strictly constitutional line of accepting theirresignation and intrusting the Duke of Wellington with the task offorming a new administration, warning the Duke, at the same time, thathe considered himself now pledged to grant a large measure of Reform;but the Duke found the task impracticable, and then, as the only meansof averting farther insurrectionary tumults, which bore no slightresemblance to civil war, and might not impossibly end in it, the Kingdid at last consent to permit the creation of a sufficient number ofpeers to insure the passing of the bill. But he could not overcome hisrepugnance to the measure as a severe blow to the constitution--onewhich would in effect be tantamount to the extinction of theindependence of the Upper House as a legislative body; and, thinking nomeans unjustifiable that would avert the necessity of such a creation, he conceived the idea of authorizing his private secretary, Sir HerbertTaylor, to request the chief peers on the Opposition side to absentthemselves from the division on the third reading. It seemed to him, andindeed to many of them, the only thing that could be done. Theirjudgment of the character and eventual consequences of the ministerialbill was unaltered; but they saw the violence of the public feeling onthe subject, and the danger to the state of too stubborn anduncompromising a resistance to it, and, yielding loyal obedience totheir royal master's wish, they retired from the House without voting. Those who remained passed the bill, and in the beginning of June, 1832, it became law. 

We have ventured in a previous chapter to call in question the proprietyof the conduct of the King's father, George III. , in using his personalentreaties to influence the House of Lords against the India Bill of Mr. Fox. The transaction which has been related here is the second and onlyother instance since the Revolution of a sovereign having recourse tosuch a device to sway the votes of members of either House. But thecircumstances were so entirely different, nay, so diametricallyopposite, that an opinion of the impropriety of the sovereign's deed inthe former case imposes no obligation on the ground of consistency tocensure it in the later instance. The interference of George III. Wasdesigned to thwart and defeat his ministers on a measure of which he hadnot previously intimated any disapproval. William IV. , on the otherhand, was exerting himself to support his ministers, not, as it seemsprobable, without some sacrifice of his own judgment. His father actedas he did to avert an inroad on his prerogative and independence, whichhe had been persuaded to apprehend, but the danger of which can hardlybe said to have been proved beyond all question; so that even those whothink the result of his action fortunate for the nation cannot defendthe action as one that on any constitutional principle can be justified. The son, at a far more critical moment, adopted the course which he didadopt as the only means which he saw of extricating the state and thenation from an alternative of great calamities: the extinction of, or atleast a deep wound to, the legislative independence of the House ofLords, by the following of a single precedent[218] which had ever sincebeen universally condemned; or, on the other hand, a continuance ofoutrages and tumults which had already disgraced the nation in the eyesof the world, and which, if renewed and continued, could not fail toimperil the safety of the state. Such a motive may certainly be allowedto excuse the irregularity of the act. 

When, however, we come to consider the proposal to create peers, whichdrove the King to take such a step, that is a question on which, whileit is still more important, it is also more difficult to form asatisfactory judgment. It was denounced by the Duke of Wellington andother peers as utterly unconstitutional and revolutionary; as adestruction of the great principle of the equality of the two Houses; asa denial to the peers of their right to form and act upon their owndeliberate judgment; and as a reduction of their position to that of abody existing merely to register the decrees of the other House. Indeed, that it had this character was admitted by Lord Grey himself, with noabatement beyond such mitigation as might be found in the idea that itwas only intended to affect their decision on a single question. So farit may be said that even while defending it he condemned it; _Habemusconfitentem reum_. But the task of a ruler or legislator is often but achoice between difficulties, or even between manifest evils. And, evenif an act or course be admitted to be intrinsically evil, taken byitself, yet, if the evil which it is calculated or designed to avert bea greater evil still, the defence is complete, or, at all events, sufficient. And this, in fact, is the principle of the justificationwhich Lord Grey alleged. He was, perhaps, unconsciously referring to apassage in Mr. Hallam's great work on "Constitutional History" (thenvery recently published), in which, while discussing Sunderland'sPeerage Bill, and admitting that "the unlimited prerogative ofaugmenting the peerage is liable to such abuses, at least in theory, asmight overthrow our form of government, " he proceeds to point out thatin the exercise of this, as of every other power, "the crown has beencarefully restrained by statutes, and by the responsibility of itsadvisers;" but that, while "the Commons, if they transgress theirboundaries, are annihilated by a proclamation" (that is, by adissolution) "against the ambition, or, what is much more likely, theperverse haughtiness of the aristocracy, the constitution has notfurnished such direct securities.... The resource of subduing anaristocratical faction by the creation of new peers could never beconstitutionally employed, except in the case of a nearly equal balance;but it might usefully hang over the heads of the whole body, and deterthem from any gross excesses of faction or oligarchical spirit. Thenature of our government requires a general harmony between the twoHouses of Parliament. "[219] In the present case no one could impute thedifference between the two Houses to any "perverse haughtiness" on thepart of the peers. But the difference existed, and was too deeplyfounded on the cautious principles of the Tory party to be surmountableby ordinary means. It was certain also that the Commons would not giveway; that, without danger to the public peace, they could not give way. And this was, in fact, Lord Grey's contention: that a crisis had arisenin which compulsion must be exercised on one or other of the disagreeingparties; and that coercion of the peers by an augmentation of theirnumber, or a threat of it, was the only compulsion practicable. Inupholding this position, however, it must be remarked that he wasbetrayed into the use of language which was as great a violation ofconstitutional and parliamentary principle and usage as the action whichhe was recommending; language, too, which was quite unnecessary tostrengthen his argument. He accused the Lords of "opposing the declaredand decided wishes both of the crown and the people;" of "actingadversely to the crown;" and this introduction of the sovereign's nameto overawe the assembly was unconstitutional in the highest degree. For, constitutionally, the sovereign has no right to signify his opinion, nor, indeed, any recognized means of signifying it but by giving orwithholding his royal assent to measures which the two Houses havepassed. On any bill which has not yet been passed by them he has, as hasbeen already implied, no legitimate means whatever of expressing hisjudgment. The time has not come for him to do so. Moreover, thestatement was, probably, not believed by any one to be strictly true, for it was pretty generally understood that the King would havepreferred a far more moderate measure. But, indeed, in the very speechin which the Prime-minister made this use of the King's name hepresently added an observation which was a sufficient condemnation ofhis previous language. For, in denouncing the "vile attacks which hadbeen made on his Majesty in the public press, " and disclaiming all sharein them (a disclaimer which however true of himself, could not, it isbelieved, have been uttered with equal truth by all his colleagues), hepointed out that "it ought always to be recollected that it is contraryto the principles of the constitution to arraign the personal conduct ofthe sovereign. " It follows, as a matter of course, that it is equallycontrary to those principles to allege his personal opinions in eitherHouse on any measure before it, since, if alleged, they must be open tocriticism; unless, indeed, the mere allegation of the royal sentimentswere to be taken as decisive of the question, in which case all freedomof discussion would be at once extinguished. 

But this irregularity, into which the Prime minister was apparentlybetrayed by his desire of victory, must not be allowed to affect ourverdict on the main question; and, now that the lapse of time hasenabled us to contemplate dispassionately the case on which he had todecide, it will, probably, be thought that his justification of hisconduct in recommending a creation of peers is fairly made out. That, under any pressure short of that, the peers would have again rejectedthe Reform Bill, or at least would have pared it down to much smallerproportions than would have satisfied the popular demand for Reform, maybe regarded as certain; and equally certain that such a line of conductwould have led to a renewal of disgraceful and dangerous tumults. Theminister, therefore, as has been said before, had to choose between twoevils. It was a grievous dilemma; but those who had to deal with it(even while it may be admitted that they cannot be held wholly free fromblame, as having themselves contributed by their own language to thepopular excitement and irritation)[220] may be excused for thinking thewound inflicted on the constitution, by thus overbearing the voice ofone House of Parliament on a single occasion, less formidable in itsimmediate fruit, and more capable of being remedied and retrieved, thanthat which would have followed from a renewal of insurrectionarytumults, even if they should have come short of actual civil war. 

One critic of these transactions[221] whose experience and highreputation entitle his opinion to respectful consideration, afterreminding his readers that, "although Parliament is said to bedissolved, a dissolution extends, in fact, no farther than to theCommons, and that the Peers are not affected by it; no change can takeplace in the constitution of their body, except as to a small number ofScotch representative peers, " proceeds to argue that, "so far as theHouse of Peers is concerned, a creation of peers by the crown onextraordinary occasions is the only equivalent which the constitutionhas provided for the change and renovation of the House of Commons by adissolution. In no other way can the opinions of the House of Lords bebrought into harmony with those of the people. " But it may be fearedthat this comparison is rather ingenious than solid. Indeed, the writerhimself limits such an expedient as a creation of peers to insure thepassing of a particular measure to "extraordinary occasions. " But adissolution of the House of Commons is so far from being so limited, that it is the natural and inevitable end of every House of Commonsafter an existence which cannot exceed seven years, and which is veryrarely so protracted. And though it may be, and probably has been, thecase that a House of Commons has passed measures to which it had nogreat inclination, lest it should provoke a minister to a prematuredissolution, yet no submission on its part can long postpone it; and athreat or apprehension of a dissolution would certainly fail to overcomethe opposition of the House of Commons, or of a party within it, if themeasure before them seemed open to serious objection. The presumed orpresumable immortality of the one body, and the limited existence of theother, seem to constitute so essential a difference between them as mustprevent the measures adopted toward one being fairly regarded as anyguide to a justification of those employed in the case of the other. 

The Reform Bill of 1832 has sometimes been called a new Revolution, andto some extent it deserved the name; for it was not, like the CatholicEmancipation Act, a mere restoration of privileges to any class orclasses of the people which had once been enjoyed by them, and hadsubsequently been withdrawn, but it was a grant of a wholly newprivilege to places and to classes which had never enjoyed it; while itwas manifest that the political power thus conferred on these classesinvolved a corresponding diminution of the powers of those who hadhitherto monopolized it. It was also the introduction of a newprinciple. The old doctrine of the constitution had been, that thepossession of freehold property, as the only permanent stake in thecountry, was the only qualification which could entitle a subject to avoice in the government and legislation of the kingdom. The new doctrinewas that, as others besides owners of land contributed to the revenue bythe payment of taxes, those who did so contribute to a sufficient amounthad a right to a voice, however indirect or feeble, in the granting ofthose taxes; and so far it was the extension and application to subjectsat home of the principle for which Lord Chatham and Burke had contendedsixty years before in the case of the American Colonies, that taxationand a right to representation went together; a principle which, manyages before, had been laid down by the greatest of our early kings asthe foundation of our parliamentary constitution and rights. But thisprinciple, however generally it may have been asserted, had hithertobeen but very partially carried out in practice, and the old boroughsystem had been skilfully devised by successive kings and ministers tokeep the political power in the hands of the crown and the aristocracy. It was with that object that most of the boroughs which were firstallowed to return members under the Tudors had been enfranchised, [222] agreat noble or landholder, whose affection to the government could notbe doubted, being often able to obtain the promotion of some village orpetty town in the neighborhood of his estates to the dignity of aparliamentary borough, and thus acquiring a great addition to hispolitical and social importance by his power of influencing theelection. No one could deny that the existence of such boroughs was anabuse, or at least an anomaly, rendered the more conspicuous as timewent on by the denial of representatives to towns which contained asmany thousands of citizens as they could boast single burgesses. At thesame time it was equally undeniable that the aristocracy, generallyspeaking, exerted their influence advantageously for the state. A peeror great squire who could return the members for a borough took a worthypride in the abilities and reputation of those whom he thus sent toParliament; especially the leaders of the two parties sought outpromising young men for their seats; and it has often been pointed outthat, of the men who in the House of Commons had risen to eminence inthe country before the Reform Bill, there was scarcely one who had notowed his introduction to Parliament to the patron of one of thoseboroughs which were now wholly or partially disfranchised; while on oneor two occasions these "rotten boroughs, " as, since Lord Chatham's time, they were often derisively called, had proved equally useful inproviding seats for distinguished statesmen who, for some reason orother, had lost the confidence of their former constituents. So, whenBristol had disgraced itself by the rejection of Burke, Malton hadaverted the loss with which Parliament and the country were threatenedby again, through the influence of Lord Rockingham, returning the greatstatesman as their representative. So, to take a later instance, Westbury, under the influence of Sir Manasseh Lopes, had provided arefuge for Sir Robert Peel, when the course which he had taken onCatholic Emancipation had cost him his seat for Oxford. And thesepractical uses of these small boroughs--anomalies in a representativesystem, as they were called in the debates on the subject, and as theymust be confessed to have been--were so important, that some even ofthose who felt compelled by their principles to vote for theirparliamentary extinction have, nevertheless, confessed a regret for thesacrifice, lamenting especially that it has, in a great degree, closedthe doors of the House of Commons against a class whose admission to itis on every account most desirable, the promising young men of bothparties. 

In one point of great importance the framers of the Reform Bill of 1832proved to be mistaken. They justified the very comprehensive or sweepingrange which they had given it by their wish to make it a finalsettlement of the question, and by the expression of their convictionthat the completeness with which it had satisfied all reasonableexpectations had effectually prevented any necessity for ever re-openingthe question. Their anticipations on this head were not shared by theiropponents, who, on the contrary, foretold that the very greatness of thechanges now effected would only whet the appetite for a fartherextension of them; nor by a growing party, now beginning to own thetitle of Radicals, which till very recently had only been regarded as areproach, and who, even before the bill passed, [223] expressed theirdiscontent that it did not go farther, but accepted it as an instalmentof what was required, and as an instrument for securing "a more completeimprovement. " And their expectations have been verified by subsequentevents. Indeed, it may easily be seen that the principles on which oneportion of the bill--that which enfranchised new classes of voters--wasframed were such as, in shrewd hands, might easily be adduced asarguments in favor of the necessity of reconsideration of the questionfrom time to time. So long as the right of voting was confined to ownersof property, or members of corporate bodies, the line thus laid down wasone which was not liable to be crossed. But the moment that tenancy wasadded to ownership, and a line was drawn distinguishing electors fromnon-electors, not by the nature of their qualifications, but by theamount of their rent, detail was substituted for principle; and theproposer or maintainer of the rule that the qualification should be ayearly rental of £10 might be called on to explain why, if £10 were amore reasonable limit than £15, £8 were not fairer than £10. Or again, if the original argument were, that a line must of necessity be drawnsomewhere, and that £10 was the lowest qualification which seemed toguarantee such an amount of educated intelligence in the voter as wouldenable him to exercise the franchise conferred on him judiciously andhonestly, such reasoning would from time to time invite the contentionthat the spread of education had rendered £8 tenants now as enlightenedas £10 tenants had been some years before. And thus the measure of 1832, instead of forever silencing the demand for Reform by the completenessof its concessions, did in fact lay the foundation for future agitation, which has been farther encouraged and fed by farther submission to it, and which its leaders, who have so far triumphed, show no purpose todiscontinue. To discuss whether such extensions of the franchise as havealready been adopted, and those farther steps in the same directionwhich are generally understood to be impending, will eventually be foundcompatible with the preservation of our ancient monarchicalconstitution, is a fitting task for the statesmen and senators whoseduty it is to examine in all their bearings the probable effects of themeasures which may be proposed. But the historian's business is rather"to compile the records of the past" than to speculate on thefuture. [224] And the course which was too perilous or difficult for Mr. Hallam to undertake we will follow his example in avoiding. But itcannot be denied that, if the Reform Bill of 1832 transferred the chiefpolitical power of the state from the aristocracy to the middle classes, a farther lowering of the qualification for the exercise of thefranchise must transfer it from the middle to the lower classes; andthat those who view such transfer with alarm, and deprecate it asfraught with peril to all our ancient institutions, maintain theiropinions by arguments as old, indeed, as the days of the Romanrepublic, [225] but which have not lost strength by lapse of time, ifindeed, they have not been fortified by events in the history of morethan one modern nation. 

Even before the introduction of the first Reform Bill one measure hadbeen passed of constitutional importance, though the concurrence of bothparties in its principle and details prevented it from attracting muchnotice. Two daughters who had been born to the King and Queen had diedin their infancy, and the royal pair were now childless; and, as someyears had elapsed since the birth of the last, it was probable that theymight remain so. The presumptive heiress to the throne was, therefore, the daughter of the deceased Duke of Kent, the Princess Victoria, ourpresent most gracious sovereign, and, as she was as yet only elevenyears of age, it was evidently necessary to provide for the contingencyof the death of the King before she should attain her majority. ARegency Bill for that purpose had, therefore, been prepared by the Dukeof Wellington's cabinet, and had been introduced by Lord ChancellorLyndhurst in the House of Lords before the resignation of the ministry. It could not be so simple in its arrangements as such bills hadsometimes been, since there was more than one contingency possible, forwhich it was requisite to provide. It was possible not only that WilliamIV. Might die within the next seven years, but also that at his death hemight leave a child, or his widow in a state which warranted theexpectation of one, the latter case being the more difficult to decideupon, since no previous Regency Bill furnished any precedent for theministers' guidance. 

The first point, however, to be settled was, who was the most properperson to administer the affairs of the kingdom as Regent, in the eventof the heiress to the crown being still a minor at the King's death. Itwas a question on which it was evidently most desirable that nodifference of opinion should be expressed. And, in fact, no differenceexisted. The leaders of both parties--the Duke and his colleagues, whohad framed the bill, and Lord Grey, with his colleagues, who adoptedit--agreed that the mother of the young sovereign would be the fittestperson to exercise the royal authority during the minority; and, farther, that she should neither be fettered by any limitations to thatauthority, nor by any councillors appointed by Parliament nominally toadvise and assist, but practically to control her. It was felt that aRegent acting for a youthful daughter would need all the power whichcould be given her; while, as she could never herself succeed to thethrone, she could be under no temptation, from views of personalambition, to misuse the power intrusted to her. 

At first sight it seemed a more difficult and delicate question whatcourse should be pursued with reference to the possible event of theKing dying while the Queen, his widow, was expecting to become a mother. As has been said above, no precedent was to be found in any former bill;yet it seemed to be determined by the old constitutional maxim, that theKing never dies. Not even for a moment could the throne be treated asvacant, and, therefore, it was proposed and determined that in such acase the Princess Victoria must instantly be proclaimed Queen, and theDuchess of Kent must instantly assume the authority of Regent; but that, on the birth of a posthumous child to the Queen Dowager, the Princessand the Duchess, as a matter of course, should resume their previousrank, and Queen Adelaide become Regent, and govern in the name of hernew-born infant and sovereign. The strict constitutional correctness ofthe principle elaborately and eloquently expounded to the peers by LordLyndhurst was unanimously admitted, and the precedent now set wasfollowed, with the needful modification, when, ten years afterward, itbecame necessary to provide for the possibility of Queen Victoria dyingduring the minority of her heir. The parent of the infant sovereign, Prince Albert, was appointed Regent, with the cordial approval of thenation; the dissent of the Queen's uncle, the Duke of Sussex who, with avery misplaced ambition, urged instead the appointment of a Council ofRegency, of which he hoped to become the most influential member, onlyserving to make the unanimity of the rest of the Parliament moreconspicuous. 

A somewhat kindred question, inasmuch as it affected the personalarrangements, if they may be so termed, of the sovereign, was settled inthe same session, and on a new principle. What was called the Civil Listhad hitherto been placed on a footing which was at once unintelligibleand misleading. The expression was first used at the Revolution, and wasapplied not only to that portion of the revenue which was devoted to thepersonal expenses of the sovereign, but also to many branches of thecivil expenditure of the state, with which, in fact, he had no concernwhatever. Not only the salaries of the great officers of the household, but those also of the ministers, ambassadors, and of the judges, werepaid out of it, as well as those of many place-holders of variousclasses, and pensions to a large amount. Amounts embracing such avariety of miscellaneous and unconnected expenses could hardly beexpected to be kept with regularity, and there was lavish waste in everydepartment. Burke's bill had rectified some of the abuses, and had alsopointed out the way to some other reforms which were gradually adopted;but still numbers of charges were left untouched, and there was scarcelyany one subject which afforded more topics to unscrupulous demagoguesthan the amount of the Civil List, which the ignorant multitude wereconstantly assured that the King enjoyed to squander on his ownpleasures, though, in fact, the greater part of it was expended in theservice of the state, and was entirely free from his control. Only aportion of the sum which went under this name was voted annually by theParliament. A portion was derived from the Crown Lands, from dutiesknown as Droits of the Crown and Droits of the Admiralty, etc. , theamount of which fluctuated, and with which Parliament was admitted tohave no right to interfere. But the working of the whole wassatisfactory to no one--neither to the King himself, nor to those whoupheld the right of the Parliament to have a predominant control ofevery branch of expenditure of the public money. The feeling that thewhole of the royal income and expenditure should be placed on adifferent footing was general, and the fall of the Duke of Wellington'sministry had been immediately caused by the success of a proposal that, before fixing the new sovereign's Civil List, Parliament should referthe matter to a committee, that inquiry might be made into every part ofit. Lord Grey's ministry were bound to act in conformity with aresolution on which they had, as it were, ridden into office; and thearrangement which they ultimately effected was one in which common-senseand the royal convenience and comfort were alike consulted. That portionof the Civil List of his predecessor which was voted by Parliamentamounted to nearly £850, 000 a year; but, besides that sum, George IV. Enjoyed the income already mentioned as derived from Crown Lands, Droits, etc. , while a farther large sum was furnished by the ancientrevenue of the crown of Scotland, and another was received from Ireland. The ministers now proposed that all these sources of income should behanded over to the Treasury, and that the Civil List should henceforwardbe fixed at £510, 000, being at the same time relieved from all theforeign and extraneous charges on it which had invidiously swelled thegross amount, without being in any way under the control of thesovereign, or in any way ministering to his requirements, either forpersonal indulgence or for the maintenance of the state and magnificenceimposed on him by his position. 

Such a change was on every ground most desirable. It was clearly inaccordance with our parliamentary constitution that grants of money madeby the Parliament should express distinctly and unmistakably the objectsto which they were really to be applied; and that the charges ofdepartments connected with the government, the administration ofjustice, or the foreign service of the country, should not be mixed upwith others of a wholly different character, so as to make what was, infact, the expenditure of the nation wear the appearance of being theexpenditure of the sovereign. Moreover, the assignment of many of thecharges to the Civil List even gave a false character to theappointments themselves. If a sovereign was to pay ambassadors andjudges out of what seemed to be his private income, the logicalconclusion could hardly be avoided that he had a right to lower thosesalaries, or even to diminish the number of those appointments. And itmay even be said that the less any real danger of such a right being soexercised was to be apprehended, the more unadvisable was it to retainan arrangement which in theory could be described as liable to such anabuse. 

Notes:

[Footnote 216: But it may be remarked that till very recently the peopleout-of-doors had ceased to show any great anxiety about Reform. Two orthree years before, Lord Althorp, who, in Lord Grey's ministry, wasChancellor of the Exchequer and leader of the House of Commons, toldPeel that the people had become so indifferent to it, that he nevermeant to bring forward the question again, and in the last seven yearsonly fourteen petitions had been presented to Parliament in favor of it. In reality, such a feeling in the people would have been eminentlyfavorable to a calm framing of a Moderate measure; but this indifferencewas soon changed into a more violent and widely diffused excitement thanthere was any record of since the days of the Popish Plot; thatexcitement, however, according to the confession of the historian of theWhig ministry and the Reform Bill, himself an ardent reformer, being "nospontaneous result of popular feeling, but being brought about by theincessant labors of a few shrewd and industrious partisans forming asecret, but very active and efficient, committee in London. "--Roebuck's_History of the Whig Ministry_, etc. , ii. , 309. ]

[Footnote 217: In 1835 the two days were reduced to one. ]

[Footnote 218: The creation of twelve peers, in the reign of Queen Anne, to secure a majority in favor of the Peace of Utrecht. ]

[Footnote 219: "Constitutional History, " iii. , 331. See the wholepassage. ]

[Footnote 220: Lord John Russell had publicly described the language ofthe Tory Peers in the debate on Lord Lyndhurst's amendment as "thewhisper of a faction. " And many articles of most extreme violence whichappeared in the _Times_ about the same time were generally believed tohave been written (in part at least) by the Lord Chancellor, LordBrougham. ]

[Footnote 221: "Constitutional History of England, " by Sir J. E. May, 1. , 262. ]

[Footnote 222: Elizabeth enfranchised no fewer than sixty-two in thecourse of her reign, "a very large proportion of them petty boroughs, evidently under the influence of the crown or the peerage. "--Hallam, _Constitutional History_ i. , 360. ]

[Footnote 223: Sir A. Alison, "History of Europe, " xxiii. , 55, quotes aparagraph from the _Examiner_ newspaper, which says: "The ground, limited as it is, which it is proposed to clear and open to the popularinfluence, will suffice as the spot desired by Archimedes for the plantof the power which must ultimately govern the whole system. Withoutreform, convulsion is inevitable. Upon any reform farther reform isinevitably consequent, and the settlement of the constitution on thedemocratic basis certain. "]

[Footnote 224: Hallam, "Constitutional History, " c. Xvi. , _in fin. _]

[Footnote 225: "Semper in republicâ timendum est ne plurimum valeantplurinn. "--Cicero. ]

CHAPTER X. 

Abolition of Slavery. --Abridgment of the Apprenticeship. --The East IndiaCompany's Trade is Thrown Open. --Commencement of EcclesiasticalReforms. --The New Poor-law. --State of Ireland. --Agitation againstTithes. --Coercion Bill. --Beginning of Church Reform. --Sir Robert Peelbecomes Prime-minister. --Variety of Offices held Provisionally by theDuke of Wellington. --Sir Robert Peel Retires, and Lord Melbourne Resumesthe Government. --Sir Robert Peel Proposes a Measure of ChurchReform. --Municipal Reform. --Measures of Ecclesiastical Reform. 

Apart from the consideration of the abstract principle, on which theadvocates of Parliamentary Reform had insisted, of the light of manyclasses hitherto unrepresented to representation, they had also dwelt onthe practical advantage which might be expected to ensue from thegreater degree in which public opinion would henceforth be brought tobear on the action of the Houses, and, by a natural consequence, on theadministrative government also. And the bill had hardly passed when thisresult began to show itself, not only in transactions of domesticlegislation, but in others which affected our most remote dependencies, both in the East and West. We have seen in a previous chapter howWilberforce, after twenty years of labor and anxiety, reaped the rewardof his virtuous exertions in the abolition of the slave-trade. But hehad not ventured to grapple with the institution which gave birth tothat trade, the employment of slaves in our West India Islands. Yet itwas an evil indefensible on every ground that could possibly be alleged. It was not only a crime and an injustice, but it was an anomaly, and aglaring inconsistency, in any British settlement. The law, as we haveseen, had been laid down as absolutely settled, that no man within theprecincts of the United Kingdom could be a slave; that, even had suchbeen his previous condition, the moment his foot touched English soil hebecame a free man. By what process of reasoning, then, could it becontended that his right to liberty according to English law depended onwhat portion of the British dominion he was in--that what wasincompatible with his claims as a human being in Kent ceased to be so inJamaica? The sentiment that what was just or unjust in one place wasjust or unjust in every place; that a man's right to freedom did notdepend on the country of his birth or the color of his skin, hadnaturally and logically been widely diffused and fostered by theabolition of the slave-trade. It was but a small step from admittingthat there could be no justification for making a man a slave, toasserting that there was an equal violation of all justice in keepingone in slavery; and this conclusion was strengthened by tales, whichwere continually reaching those most interested in the subject, ofoppression and cruelty practised by the masters, or oftener by theiragents and overseers, on the unfortunate beings over whom they claimedpower and right as absolute as any owner could pretend to over anydescription of property. They made so general an impression that, tenyears before the time at which we have now arrived, a society had beenformed in London whose object was the immediate extinction of slavery inevery British settlement; and Canning, then Secretary of State, hadentered warmly into the general object of the society; not, indeed, thinking the instant abolition practicable, but inducing Parliament topass a body of resolutions in favor of at once improving the conditionof the slaves, as the best and necessary preparation for their entireenfranchisement;[226] and the next year, 1824, the subject wasrecommended to the attention of the Houses in the King's speech, and anOrder in Council was issued enjoining the adoption of a series ofmeasures conceived in the spirit of those resolutions, among which onewas evidently meant as a precursor of the slaves' entire emancipation, since it gave the "negro who had acquired sufficient property" a title"to purchase his own freedom and that of his wife and family. " And itwas, probably, from regarding it in this light that the planters (as theowners of estates in the West Indies were generally called) selectedthat provision as the object of their most vehement remonstrances. But, though they were not so open in their remonstrances against the otherclauses of the order, they did worse, they disregarded them; and thestories of the ill-treatment of the slaves were neither less frequentnor less revolting than before. 

Fresh Orders in Council, avowedly designed as the stepping-stones toeventual emancipation, were issued; and one which reached the WestIndies at the end of 1831 was, unhappily, so misconstrued by the slavesin Jamaica, who regarded it as recognizing their right to instantliberation, that, when their masters refused to treat it as doing so, they broke out into a formidable insurrection, which was not quelledwithout great loss of life and destruction of property. The planterswere panic-stricken; many of them, indeed, were almost ruined. Thecolonial Legislatures, [227] which had been established in the greaterpart of the islands, addressed the ministers with strong protestsagainst the last Order in Council; and the mischief which hadconfessedly been already done, and the farther mischief which was notunreasonably dreaded, were so great that the cabinet consented tosuspend it for a while; and the House of Commons made a practicalconfession that the planters were entitled to sympathy as well as theslaves, by voting nearly a million of money to compensate those ofJamaica for their recent losses. 

But out-of-doors the feeling rather was that the insurrection had beencaused, not by the unreasoning though natural impatience for freedomentertained by the negro--whom Canning had truly described as"possessing the form and strength of a man, but the intellect of achild"--but by the slackness and supineness of the local Legislature, too much under the influence of the timid clamors of the planters tolisten to the voice of justice and humanity, which demanded to the fullas emphatically, if somewhat less vociferously, the immediatedeliverance of the slave. The object, however, thus desired was not sofree from difficulty as it seemed to those zealous but irresponsibleadvocates of universal freedom; for, in the first place the slaves werenot the only persons to be considered; the planters also had anundoubted right to have their interests protected, since, howeverillegitimate property in human beings might be, it was certain that itsexistence in that portion of the King's dominions had been recognized byParliament and courts of justice for many generations, and that suddenlyto withdraw a sanction and abrogate a custom thus established, and, asit might fairly be believed, almost legalized by time, would be not onlyruinous to the planters, who would have no other means of cultivatingtheir lands, but, as being ruinous to them, would also manifestly bemost unjust. Even in the interests of the slaves themselves, instantemancipation before they were fit for it might prove to them a verydoubtful blessing. The state, too, and the general interests of thekingdom had to be considered, for the shipping employed in the WestIndia trade, and the revenue derived by the Imperial Exchequer from it, were both of great amount. It was a very complicated question, andrequired very cautious handling; but it was plain that the people weregreatly excited on the subject. One or two of the ministers themselveshad deeply pledged themselves to their constituents to labor for thecessation of slavery; and eventually, though by no means blind to thedifficulty of arriving at a thoroughly safe solution of the question, the ministry decided that "delay was more perilous than decision, " andthey brought in a bill, in which they endeavored to combine the threegreat objects--justice to the slave, by conferring on him that freedomto which he, in common with all mankind, had an inviolable right;justice to the slave-owner, by compensating him fairly for the loss ofwhat (however originally vicious the practice may have been) he wasentitled by long usage and more than one positive law to regard asproperty; and a farther justice to the slave, that justice whichconsists in being careful so to confer benefits as to do the greatestamount of good to the recipient. The first object was attained byenacting that those who had hitherto been slaves should be free; thethird was arrived at by making the freedom thus given, notinstantaneous, but by leading them to it, and preparing them for itsproper and useful enjoyment, by a system of apprenticeship. The slavewas to be apprenticed to his master for seven years, receiving, partlyin money and partly in kind, a certain fair amount of wages, and havingalso one-fourth of his time absolutely at his own disposal. And thesecond was secured by granting the planters the magnificent sum oftwenty millions of money, as compensation for the injury done to them;or, in other words, as purchase-money for the property they werecompelled to surrender. The apprenticeship system did not whollysucceed. The slaves were not sufficiently enlightened to appreciate thecharacter of the new arrangement; and, as the light in which it appearedto them was rather that of deferring than of securing theiremancipation, it made them impatient rather than thankful. In themajority of cases it proved difficult to induce them to work eventhree-fourths of their time, and eventually the planters themselves weredriven to the conclusion that it was best to abridge the period ofapprenticeship. By the act of the colonial Legislatures themselves itwas shortened by two years, and the emancipation was completed on the1st of August, 1838. 

Still, though on this single point the success of the scheme did notfully correspond to the hopes of those who had framed it, it was onewhich did great honor to their ingenuity as well as to theirphilanthropy (Lord Stanley, as Colonial Secretary, being the minister towhose department it belonged). And the nation itself is fairly entitledto no small credit for its cordial, ungrudging approval of a measure ofsuch unprecedented liberality. Indeed, the credit deserved was franklyallowed it by foreign countries. To quote the language of an eloquenthistorian of the period, "the generous acquiescence of the people underthis prodigious increase of their burdens has caused the moralists ofother nations to declare that the British Act of Emancipation standsalone for moral grandeur in the history of the world. "[228] And, inrespect of the personal liberty of the subject, it may be said to havecompleted the British constitution; establishing the glorious principle, that freedom is not limited to one part of our sovereign's dominions, tothese islands alone, but that in no part of the world in which theBritish flag is erected can any sort of slavery exist for a singlemoment. 

The abolition of the political authority of the East India Company, which took place some years after the time at which we have arrived, andwhich will be mentioned in a subsequent chapter, would make itunnecessary to mention the renewal of its charter, which took place atthis time, were it not that the force of public opinion again madeitself felt in some important limitations of its previous rights. Themonopoly of the trade with China which the Company had hitherto enjoyedwas resented as an injustice by the great body of our merchants andship-owners, who contended that all British subjects had an equal rightto share in advantages which had been won by British arms. Thegovernment and Parliament adopted their view, and the renewed charterextinguished not only that monopoly, but even the Company's exclusivetrading privileges in India itself, though these, like the rights of theWest India planters over their slaves, were purchased of it by anannuity for forty years, which was estimated as an equivalent for theloss of profit which must result to the proprietors of the Company'sstock from the sudden alteration. It cannot be said that anyconstitutional principle was involved in what was merely a commercialregulation, or relaxation of such regulations. Yet it may not be thoughtinopportune to mention the transaction thus briefly, as one importantstep toward the establishment of free-trade, which, at the end of fiftyyears from the time when Pitt first laid the foundation of it, wasgradually forcing itself on all our statesmen, as the only soundprinciple of commercial intercourse between nations. The laborioushistorian of Europe during these years finds fault with the arrangementsnow made, but only on the ground that they did not go far enough in thatdirection; that, while "everything was done to promote the commercialand manufacturing interests of England, nothing was done for those ofHindostan;"[229] that, "while English cotton goods were admitted for anominal duty into India, there was no corresponding advantage thought ofto the industry of India in supplying the markets of the country. " Theobjection was not unfounded; but the system of which it complains wastoo one-sided to be long maintained, and in less than ten years a greatfinancial reform had swept away the great mass of import duties, and sofar had placed the Indian manufacturer on the same level with hisfellow-subjects of English blood. 

The disturbances which agitated the first years of the reign of WilliamIV. Were not caused solely by the excitement attendant on the passing ofthe Reform Bill. There had been extensive agricultural distress inEngland, which had shown itself in an outbreak of new crimes, theburning of ricks in the farm-yards, and the destruction of machinery, towhich the peasantry were persuaded by designing demagogues to attributethe scarcity of employment. But statesmen of both parties were agreed inbelieving that a great deal of the poverty which, especially in theagricultural counties, had become the normal condition of the laborer, might be ascribed to the pernicious working of the Poor-law, whichsubsisted with scarcely any alteration as it had been originally enactedin the reign of Elizabeth. There was even reason to doubt whether theslight changes which had been made had been improvements. If they hadbeen in the direction of increased liberality to the poor man who neededparish relief, and had to some extent lessened his discomforts, they hadat the same time tended greatly to demoralize both him and his employer, by introducing a system of out-door relief, which, coupled with thepractice of regarding such relief as a legitimate addition to wages, ledthe former to feel no shame at underpaying his workmen, and the workmanto feel no shame at depending on the parish for a portion of his meansof subsistence. It was not to be wondered at that under such a systemthe poor-rates gradually rose to the prodigious amount of seven millionsand a quarter of money; or that the rate-payers began to clamor againstsuch a state of things, as imposing on them a burden beyond their powerto bear. It was evident that it was an evil which imperatively demandeda remedy; and accordingly one of the first objects to which Lord Grey'sCabinet turned its attention after the completion of the Reform Bill wasthe amendment of the Poor-law. 

The scheme which in the spring of 1834 they introduced to Parliament wasthe first instance of the adoption in this country of that system ofcentralization which has long been a favorite with some of theContinental statesmen, but which is not equally in harmony with theinstincts of our people, generally more attached to local government. But, if ever centralization could commend itself to the English mind, itmight well be when a new law and a new principle of action were to beintroduced, in the carrying out of which uniformity of practice over thewhole kingdom was especially desirable. Accordingly, the government billproposed the establishment of a Board of Commissioners to whom thegeneral administration of the Poor-laws over the whole kingdom was to beintrusted. They were to have power to make rules and regulations as tothe mode or modes of relief to be given, subject to the approval of theSecretary of State, that thus the establishment of one uniform systemover the whole country might be secured. Power was to be given to uniteseveral parishes into one union, and to erect large workhouses for theseveral parishes thus massed together;[230] and every union was to beunder the management of boards of guardians, elected by the rate-payersof the different parishes, with the addition of the resident magistratesas ex officio guardians. Lord Althorp, who introduced the bill, admittedthat such extensive powers as he proposed to confer on the Board ofCommissioners were "an anomaly in the constitution, " but pleaded thenecessity of the case as their justification, since it was indispensableto vest a discretionary power somewhere, and the government was toofully occupied with the business of the nation, while the localmagistrates would be destitute of the sources of information requisiteto form a proper opinion on the subject. The commissioners alone, beingexclusively devoted to the subject, and being alone in possession of allthe information that could be collected, were really the only body whocould fairly be trusted to form correct opinions on it. [231] The fact ofthe creation of such a board being "an anomaly, " or, as it might ratherhave been called, a novelty in the constitution, does not seem aninsuperable objection, unless it were also inconsistent or at variancewith the fundamental principles of the constitution, and that can hardlybe alleged in this instance. It is true that local management, whetherits range were wide or narrow, whether covering the business of a countyor limited to a single parish, had been the general rule; but, likeevery other arrangement for the conduct of affairs of any kind, thatlocal management was inherently subject to the supreme authority andinterference of Parliament. Nor, as the maintenance of thisParliamentary authority, as the supreme referee in the last resource, was provided for by the subordination of the commissioners for theapproval of their regulations to the Secretary of State, does it seemthat the arrangement now proposed and adopted can be said to have beeninconsistent with constitutional principle. And the necessity for somechange of that nature was clearly made out by the abuses which, undeniably, had been suffered to grow up under the old system. 

If the habitual condition of the Irish peasant were to be taken intoaccount, it would be correct to say that there was less distress at thistime in England than in Ireland; but there was still greater discontent, and infinitely more of dangerous disturbance. Catholic Emancipation hadstimulated the agitators, not pacified them; they regarded it as atriumph over the English government; and, being so, as at once a reasonfor demanding, and a means of extorting, farther concessions. But thisnotion of theirs, when inculcated on the peasantry, bore terrible fruit, in such an increase of crime as had probably never been known in anycountry in the world. In the provinces of Leinster, Munster, andConnaught murders, deeds of arson, and rapine were of far more thandaily occurrence. [232] Lord Althorp asserted in the House of Commonsthat more lives had been sacrificed in Ireland by murder in thepreceding year than in one of Wellington's victories. And what was, ifpossible, a still worse symptom of the disposition of the common people, was exhibited in the impossibility of bringing the criminals, even whenwell known, to justice. Jurors held back from the assizes, witnesses whohad seen murders committed refused to give evidence. The Roman Catholicprelates, and the higher class of the Roman Catholic clergy--most ofwhom, greatly to their credit, exerted themselves to check this fearfulprogress of wickedness--found their denunciations unheeded; whileO'Connell, in his place in the House of Commons, used language which toan ignorant and ferocious peasantry looked almost like a justificationof it, affirming it to be caused wholly by the "unjust and ruinouspolicy of the government" in refusing to abolish tithes. It was not thefirst time that the existence of tithe had been alleged as an Irishgrievance. In the three southern provinces by far the greater portion ofthe tenantry were Roman Catholics, and they had long been complainingthat they were forced to pay for the support of the Protestant clergymanof their parish, whose ministrations they could not attend, as well asfor the maintenance of their own priest, whose livelihood depended ontheir contributions. According to strict political economy, there couldbe no doubt that the burden of the tithe fell, not on the tenant, but onthe landlord, in the calculation of whose rent the amount of tithe towhich each holding was liable was always taken into consideration; andthat being the true doctrine, it was equally plain that in reality theProtestant clergy were paid, not by Roman Catholics, but by Protestants, since it was not disputed that by far the greater part of theland-owners in every province were Protestants. [233] But an ignorantpeasant is no student of political economy or of logic; and the factthat the payment of the tithe passed through his hands was in his eyes, an incontrovertible proof that it came out of his pocket. The discontenthad gradually begotten an organized resistance to the payment, and themischief of allowing the continuance of such a state of feeling andconduct, which was manifestly likely to impair the respect for all law, made such an impression on the government that, in the royal speech withwhich he opened the session of 1832, the King recommended the wholesubject to the consideration of Parliament, urging the Houses to inquire"whether it might not be possible to effect improvements in the lawsrespecting this subject. "

In compliance with this recommendation, committees were appointed byboth Houses; and the result of their investigations was a recommendationthat a new arrangement should be made, under which the tithe should becommuted to a rent-charge. Accordingly, the next year the ministersproceeded to give effect to this recommendation. But they reasonablyjudged that an alteration of a particular law in compliance with theclamor raised against it would be a concession pregnant with mischief tothe principle of all government, if it were not accompanied, or ratherpreceded, by a vindication of the majesty of all law; and therefore thefirst measure affecting Ireland, which they brought in in 1833, was a"Coercion Bill, " which empowered the Lord-lieutenant not only tosuppress the meetings of any assembly or association which he mightconsider dangerous to the public peace, but also to declare byproclamation any district in which tumults and outrages were rife to be"in a disturbed state;" and in districts thus proclaimed no person wasto be permitted to be absent from his house from an hour after sunset tosunrise. Houses might be searched for arms, martial law was to beestablished, and courts-martial held for the trial of all offencesexcept felonies; and the _Habeas Corpus_ Act was suspended for threemonths. O'Connell and his party protested with great vehemence againstsuch an enactment, as a violation of every right secured to the subjectby the constitution. And a bill which suspended the ordinary courts ofjustice must be admitted to have been incompatible with the constitutionas commonly understood and enjoyed. But if the measure thus proposed wasextraordinary, the state of affairs which had led to its proposal was soalso in a far greater degree. The records of no nation had everpresented such a fearful catalogue of crimes as was now laid before theParliament, and at such a crisis the statesmen to whom the tranquillityof the country and the safety of the citizens were intrusted wereundoubtedly called upon to go back from the letter of the constitutionto that which is the primary object of every constitution--the safety ofthose who live under it. _Salus populi suprema lex_. And the argument ofnecessity was regarded, and rightly regarded, by both Houses ofParliament as a sufficient and complete justification of even soexceptional an enactment. 

And concurrently with this enactment, which, however indispensable forthe repression of crime, no one could deny to be severe, the ministersendeavored also to remove the causes of discontent by a large measure ofChurch reform, not confining their aim to settling the tithe question, but dealing with the whole question of the Irish Church in such a way asto lay down, as an undoubted principle of the constitution, the doctrinethat the Church existed for the benefit of the nation; that its propertywas bestowed on it for the same object; and that, consequently, thenation, or in other words the Parliament, had a perfect right to dealwith its property and endowments of all kinds, always keeping the sameend in view, the general advantage of the whole nation. Proceeding onthese maxims, they introduced a Church Reform Bill, in which, perhaps, the most remarkable circumstance of all was, that the evil which hadbeen the original cause of their taking up the subject at all was thelast thing settled, not, indeed, being finally arranged for four years;while the principal detail in the way of reform which was completed inthis first session was one which, however reasonable, had hithertoreceived but little attention, and had certainly provoked no greatoutcry. It could not be denied that the Episcopal Establishment inIreland was out of all proportion to the extent of the country and thenumber of the Protestant population, or of the parishes. The entirepopulation in communion with the Church fell short of 900, 000. Thenumber of parishes scarcely exceeded 1400. But over this comparativelyscanty flock were set no fewer than eighteen bishops and fourarchbishops; while England, with 12, 000 parishes, was contented withtwenty-four bishops and two archbishops. It was proposed to consolidatethese bishoprics into ten, the archbishoprics into two, a reductionwhich could hardly fail to commend itself to all. But with thisreduction was combined a variety of other details relating to theEpiscopal revenues, to the right of the bishops to grant leases, andother matters of finance, which the ministers proposed so to remodel asto create a very large fund to be at the disposal of the state. On thispoint the greater part of the ministerial scheme was wrecked for thetime. They succeeded in carrying that part of it which consolidated thebishoprics, and in inducing the House of Commons to grant, first as aloan, which was originally turned into a gift, a million of money to bedivided among the incumbents of the different parishes, who were reducedto the greatest distress by the inability to procure payment of theirtithes, the arrears of which amounted to a far larger sum. 

But the assertion that any surplus fund arising from redistribution ofthe Episcopal revenues ought to belong to the state, not only calledforth a vigorous resistance from the whole of the Tory party at itsfirst promulgation, but, when the subject was revived the next year, andone of the supporters of the ministry, Mr. Ward, proposed a resolutionthat any such surplus might be legitimately applied to secular purposes, it produced a schism in the ministry itself. The resolution wascordially accepted by Lord John Russell, but was so offensive to four ofhis colleagues, Mr. Stanley and Sir James Graham being among the number, that they at once resigned their offices. The breach thus made was noteasily healed; and before the end of the session other dissensions of amore vexatious and mortifying character led to the retirement of thePrime-minister himself. All attempts to deal with the tithe questionfailed for the time, four more years elapsing before it was finallysettled. But, curtailed as it was, the bill of 1833 still deserves to beremembered as a landmark in constitutional legislation, since itafforded the first instance of Parliament affirming a right to deal withecclesiastical dignities and endowments, thus setting a precedent which, in the next reign, was followed with regard to the Church of England. 

Lord Melbourne succeeded Lord Grey at the Treasury; but every one sawthat the ministry was greatly weakened. The King, too, had becomegreatly dissatisfied both with their general policy, especially inregard to the Irish Church--which he took an opportunity of assuring theIrish bishops he was unalterably resolved to uphold--and also with thelanguage and conduct of one or two individual ministers, to which it isnot necessary to refer more particularly; and when, on the death of LordSpencer, father of Lord Althorp, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, whichtook place in November, 1834, it became necessary for Lord Melbourne topropose to him a re-arrangement of some of the cabinet offices, he atonce dismissed the whole body of the ministers. It was a somewhatsingular step to take, for they had not been defeated in Parliament, andhe did not himself allege any special dissatisfaction with anythingwhich they had yet done, though he did apprehend that some of them wouldpress upon him measures disadvantageous to "the clergy of the Church ofEngland in Ireland, " to which he had an insuperable objection; and, moreover, that the subject would cause fresh divisions in the ministry, and the resignation of one or two more of its most important members. Hehad, indeed, six months before, given a practical proof of his distrustof the ability of Lord Melbourne and the colleagues who remained to himto carry on the government of the kingdom satisfactorily, by desiringthe new Prime-minister to enter into communication with the leaders ofthe Opposition, "to endeavor at this crisis to prevail upon them toafford their aid and co-operation toward the formation of anadministration upon an enlarged basis, combining the services of themost able and efficient members of each" party. [234] Nor had herelinquished the idea of bringing about such a coalition, till helearned that both Lord Melbourne and Sir Robert Peel considered thedifferences which divided them to be too deeply founded on principle torender their union in one administration either beneficial to the stateor creditable to themselves. And it may be said that the letter in whichLord Melbourne had in November announced to his Majesty the death ofLord Spencer, and the necessity for new arrangements which that eventhad created, by the expression that "in these new and alteredcircumstances it was for his Majesty to consider whether it were hispleasure to authorize Viscount Melbourne to attempt to make such fresharrangements as might enable his present servants to continue to conductthe affairs of the country, or whether his Majesty deemed it advisableto adopt any other course, " and that "Lord Melbourne earnestly entreatedthat no personal consideration for him might prevent his Majesty fromtaking any measures or seeking any other advice which he might thinkmore likely to conduce to his service and to the advantage of thecountry, " did not only contemplate, but to a certain degree evensuggested, the possibility of his Majesty's preferring to have recourseto fresh advisers. 

The King's subsequent acts and their result, however, certainly took thekingdom by surprise. He applied to the Duke of Wellington to undertakethe formation of a new ministry; and the Duke, explaining to the Kingthat "the difficulty of the task consisted in the state of the House ofCommons, earnestly recommended him to choose a minister in the House ofCommons, " and named Sir Robert Peel as the fittest object for hisMajesty's choice. Sir Robert was in Italy at the time; but, on receivingthe royal summons, he at once hastened to England, the Duke ofWellington in the mean time accepting the offices of First Lord of theTreasury and Secretary of State, as a provisional arrangement, till heshould arrive in London. 

Sir Robert reached England early in December; and though, if "he hadbeen consulted beforehand, he would have been inclined to dissuade thedismissal of the last ministry as premature and impolitic, " he did notconsider it compatible "with his sense of duty" to decline the chargewhich the King laid upon him, and at once accepted the office ofPrime-minister, being fully aware that by so doing he "becametechnically, if not morally, responsible for the dissolution of thepreceding government, though he had not had the remotest concern init. "[235] In the formation of his ministry he so far endeavored to carryout the views which the King had suggested to Lord Melbourne in thesummer as to invite the co-operation of Mr. Stanley (who, by the deathof his grandfather, had recently become Lord Stanley) and Sir J. Graham, who, as has been mentioned before, had retired from Lord Grey's cabinet. A new name, that of "Conservative, " had recently been invented for themore moderate section of the old Tory party; and it was one which, though Lord Grey had taunted them with it, as betraying a sense of shameat adhering to their old colors, Peel was inclined to adopt for himself, as characteristic of his feelings and future objects; and perhaps hethought it might help to smooth the way for a junction with him of thosewho would flinch from proclaiming so decided a change in their opinionsas would be implied by their becoming colleagues of one who stillcherished the name of Tory. But they declined his offers; andconsequently he was forced to select his cabinet entirely from the partyof anti-Reformers. He dissolved Parliament, a step as to which it seemedto him that the universal expectations of, and even preparation for, adissolution, left him practically scarcely any option;[236] but he soonfound, as, indeed, he had feared he should find, the attempt toestablish a Conservative government premature. The party of the lateministry, following the example set by Mr. Fox in 1784 with betterfortune, divided against him in the House of Commons on every occasion, defeating him in every division; and at the beginning of April heretired, and Lord Melbourne and his former colleagues resumed theiroffices with very little change. 

They had, as was natural, not been contented with opposing theConservative ministry in its general policy, but in both Houses they hadattacked it with great energy. They had begun the battle in both Housesin the debate on the address, in which they selected three points in therecent transactions for special condemnation, affirming that in everyone of them the royal prerogative had been unconstitutionallyexercised--the dismissal of the late ministry, the dissolution ofParliament, and the appointment of the Duke of Wellington to a varietyof offices. In the House of Commons the attack was led by Lord Morpethand Lord John Russell; in the House of Lords by Lord Melbourne himself. It was urged that, though the prerogative of the sovereign to dismisshis ministers was undoubted and inalienable, yet the Houses had a clearright to sit in judgment on any particular exercise of it; and that thecircumstances of the late ministry having been but recently formed, ofits possessing in a conspicuous degree the confidence of the greatmajority of the House of Commons, and of its being occupied at themoment of its dismissal with matters of high national concern, justifiedthe House in calling on the new ministers to show valid reasons for itssudden dismissal. As to the dissolution, it was asked what misdemeanorthe late House of Commons had committed? No difference had occurredbetween it and the other House of Parliament. It had passed no hostilevote against any administration. It had been in existence but a veryshort time. All these circumstances, they affirmed, made it reasonablefor the Houses to express to his Majesty their disapprobation of thedissolution. Lord Morpeth argued, moreover, that the right of the Houseof Commons to inquire into such an exercise of the royal prerogative wasproved by the example of Mr. Pitt, who, in 1784, had introduced into thespeech from the throne a paragraph inviting Parliament to approve of therecent dissolution; and what Parliament could be asked to approve of, itmanifestly had an equal right to censure. But the most vehement of thecensures of the Opposition were directed against what Lord Morpethcalled "the most unseemly huddling of offices in the single person ofthe Duke of Wellington; an unconstitutional concentration ofresponsibility and power, at which there was hardly an old Whig of theRockingham school whose hair did not stand on end. " He admitted that inthe present instance the arrangement had only been provisional andtemporary, and that "no harm had been done;" but, he asked, "what harmmight not have been done? If the country had been suddenly obliged to goto war, who would have been responsible for the Foreign Department? Ifan insurrection of the negroes had occurred, who was responsible for theColonial Office? If in Ireland any tithe dispute had arisen, who wasresponsible as Home-secretary?" And Lord Melbourne, though a speakergenerally remarkable for moderation, on this subject went much farther;and, after urging that, "if one person held the situation of First Lordof the Treasury, and also that of Secretary of State for the HomeDepartment, it would not only place in his hands without any control theappointment to every great office in the state, but a person so situatedwould also have the pecuniary resources of the state at his disposalwithout check or investigation, " he proceeded to assert that "anintention to exercise those offices would amount to a treasonablemisdemeanor. " He did not, indeed, go so far as his lateAttorney-general, Sir J. Campbell, who, in vexation at his loss ofoffice, had even threatened the Duke with impeachment; but, though headmitted that the Duke had been free from the guilty intention ofexercising the authority of these offices, he suggested that "the Lordsought to pass some resolution calculated to prevent so great a breach ofthe constitution from being drawn into a precedent. "

On the first point thus raised, for the dismissal of the late ministrywithout any such cause as is usually furnished by an adverse vote of oneof the Houses of Parliament, Peel frankly admitted that his acceptanceof office rendered him constitutionally responsible, though, as he alsosaid, it was notorious that in fact he had, and could have had, noprevious knowledge of it; but he denied that any constitutional questionwhatever was involved in it, since the King's right was denied by noone; and he could, therefore, only consent to discuss it as a questionof policy and expediency. And, looking at it in this light, he regardedhis defence as easy and complete. He contended that the events of thepast year, the resignation of several of the subordinate ministers, andfinally of Lord Grey himself, and the proposal which had been made tohim (Peel) and several of his friends to coalesce with Lord Melbourne, rendered the act by which the late government had been removed perfectlyjustifiable on the part both of the King and of himself; that the Kingwas justified in thinking a wholly fresh arrangement preferable to are-arrangement of Lord Melbourne's cabinet; and he himself in obeyinghis sovereign's commands to form a new administration. 

The wisdom and propriety of the dissolution, too, could only be examinedas a question of expediency; but in this instance every considerationnot only recommended but compelled it. "When he undertook the arduousduties now imposed upon him, he did determine that he would leave noconstitutional effort untried to enable him satisfactorily to dischargethe trust imposed in him. He did fear that if he had met the lateParliament he should have been obstructed in his course, and obstructedin a manner and at a season which might have precluded an appeal to thepeople. It was the constant boast of the late government that the lateParliament had unbounded confidence in them. And, if that Parliamentwas, as had been constantly asserted, relied upon as ready to condemnhim without a hearing, could any one be surprised at his appeal to thejudgment of another, a higher and a fairer tribunal, the public sense ofthe people?" Precedent, too, was in his favor on this point, since, "whenever an extensive change of government had occurred, a dissolutionof Parliament had followed;" and he referred to the year 1784, and to1806, when the administration of which Lord Grey was the leading memberat once dissolved the existing Parliament on coming into office; thoughhe believed "the present to be the first occasion on which a House ofCommons had been invited to express its dissatisfaction at the exerciseof the prerogative of dissolution. "

To the strictures of Lord Melbourne and Lord Morpeth on the Duke ofWellington's temporary assumption of a combination of offices, it wasreplied by Sir Robert and the Duke that, though there might beinconvenience from the assumption of all those powers by one individual, it was so far from being unconstitutional, that it was a common practicefor the Secretary for one department to act for another during intervalsof recreation, or periods of ill-health; that there was ample precedentfor such a proceeding. In the last week of the life of Queen Anne, theDuke of Shrewsbury had united three of the greatest posts of thekingdom, those of Lord Treasurer, Lord Chamberlain, and Lord-lieutenantof Ireland, with the sanction of that great constitutional lawyer, LordSomers. And in 1827 Mr. Canning had retained the seals of the ForeignOffice for some weeks after his appointment as First Lord of theTreasury. Moreover, there was actually a law which provided that whenthe office of Chancellor of the Exchequer is vacant the seals of thatoffice shall be delivered to the Chief-justice; and under this rule, inthe latter part of the reign of George II. , Chief-justice Lord Mansfieldhad continued finance-minister for above three months. And, as to thepractical result of what had been done in the present instance, the Dukeaffirmed, what, indeed, was universally admitted, that the arrangementhad from the first been understood to be merely temporary; that noinconvenience had resulted from it; indeed, that "not a single act hadbeen done in any one of the offices which had not been essentiallynecessary for the service of the country. "

The first two points on which the ministry was assailed it seemssuperfluous to examine, since it is clear that the position taken up bySir Robert Peel is impregnable: that, on every view of the principlesand practice of the constitution, there was no doubt of the right of thesovereign to dismiss his ministers or to dissolve the Parliament at hispleasure; and that those acts can only be judged of by a considerationof their expediency. Inexpedient, indeed, the dismissal of the precedingministry is generally considered to have been, even in the interest ofthe Conservatives themselves. But inexpedient the dissolution can hardlybe pronounced to have been, since, though the new election failed togive them a majority in the House of Commons, it beyond all doubtgreatly strengthened their minority. On the other hand, though it cannotbe denied that the House of Commons has a perfect right to express itsdisapproval of any or every act of the minister, it is not so clear thatLord Morpeth's invitation to it to express its dissatisfaction with thisparticular act of dissolution was, on general principles, expedient orsafe; since such a vote is making a perilous approach to claiming forthe House the right of being asked for its consent to its owndissolution, a claim the admission of which had been one of the mostfatal, if not the most fatal, of all the concessions of Charles I. 

As to the Duke of Wellington's assumption of a variety of offices, it isprobable that when he first proposed to the King to confer them on him, he anticipated no objection whatever from any quarter, since he had solittle idea of there being any impropriety in holding two offices, werethey ever so apparently incongruous, if his Majesty should have directedhim to do so, that seven years before, when he became Prime-minister, hehad at first designed permanently to retain the command of the army inconjunction with the Treasury, and had only been induced to abandon theintention by the urgent remonstrance of Sir Robert Peel; and, constitutionally, there does not seem to be any limitation of thesovereign's power to confer offices, to unite or to divide them. Indeed, the different Secretary-ships of State seem to owe their existenceentirely to his will, and not to any act of Parliament. He can diminishthe number, if he should think fit, as he did in 1782, when, on thetermination of the American war, he forbore to appoint a successor toLord George Germaine, in Lord Rockingham's administration; or he canincrease the numbers, as he did in 1794, when he revived the thirdSecretaryship, which he had suppressed twelve years before, without anyact of Parliament being passed to direct either the suspension or therevival. He can even leave the most important offices vacant, andintrust the performance of their duties to a commission, as was done inthis very year 1835, when the Great Seal was put in commission, and theduties, for above two years, were performed by commissioners, who hadother duties also to discharge; and these instances may, perhaps, warrant the conclusion that the distribution of the different posts inwhat is generally known as the cabinet is dictated by considerations ofwhat is practicable and expedient rather than by any positive andinvariable rule or principle. 

Yet it does not follow that, because the constitution was not violatedor endangered by such an arrangement, the leaders of the Opposition didother than their duty in calling attention to it. Unquestionably, it ishistorically true that the liberties of the people owe theirpreservation, growth, and vigor to the jealous watchfulness to check thefirst and slightest appearance of any attempt to encroach upon them, which has been constantly exercised from the very earliest times by analmost unbroken series of fearless and independent patriots. And in thisinstance the very novelty of such an arrangement as had taken place didof itself make criticism a duty; though it may also be thought that thecritics acted wisely in contenting themselves with calling notice to it, and abstaining from asking Parliament to pronounce a formal judgment onit, since any express censure would have been unwarranted either by thefacts of the case or by any inference to be drawn from previous usage, while an approval of it would wear the appearance not only ofsanctioning, but even of inviting a repetition of an arrangement which, if ever attempted to be carried out in actual practice, must tend tograve inconvenience, if not to discredit. 

Lord Melbourne resumed office, and, being strengthened by the manifestinability of the opposite party to command the confidence of the Houseof Commons, began to apply himself with vigor to the carrying out ofseveral measures of internal reform, some of which involved not only theproperty but the long-established rights of very considerable bodies, and, as so doing, have an importance in a constitutional point of view, besides that arising from their immediate effects. Peel had been equallyalive to the desirableness, so cogent as almost to amount to a moralnecessity, of introducing reforms into more than one old institution, such as should bring them more into harmony with the spirit of the age, remodelling or terminating some arrangements which were manifest abuses, and others which, though, if dispassionately examined and properlyunderstood, they, perhaps, were not really grievances, yet in theiroperation caused such discontent and heart-burnings that they were asmischievous as many others far more indefensible in theory. And, short-lived as his administration had been, he had found time to frameand introduce an extensive measure of Church reform, not only dealingwith the question of tithes, the levy and collection of which in some oftheir details had long been made subjects of bitter complaints by thefarmers, but including also provision for the creation of two newbishoprics, those of Ripon and Manchester. No part of his measure wasmore imperatively called for by the present circumstances of the nation, or of greater importance in its future operation. There had been noincrease in the number of bishops since the reign of Elizabeth; butsince her time not only had the population of the entire kingdom beenquadrupled, but some districts which had then been very scantily peopledhad become exceedingly populous. These districts had hitherto beenalmost destitute of Episcopal supervision, which now was thus to besupplied to them. But the new legislation did more. It might be expectedthat the growth of the population would continue, and would in timerequire a farther and corresponding increase of the Episcopate; and theerection of these new dioceses was, therefore, not only the supplying ofa present want, but the foundation of a system for increasing theefficiency of the Church which should be capable of gradual progressiveexpansion, as the growth of the population in various districts might befound to require additional facilities for supervision. And the judgmentwith which the new arrangement met the requirements of the community maybe regarded as proved by the circumstance that now, after the lapse ofnearly half a century, it is maintained in active operation, and isadmitted by all parties not only to be of the greatest practicalbenefit, but also to have a moral effect scarcely less valuable in thedegree in which it has stimulated the application of private munificenceto the great work of Church extension. 

But before Lord Grey quitted office his government had also called theattention of Parliament to the necessity of a large municipal reform, which, indeed, it seemed to them that the Reform Bill had bound them, inall consistency, to introduce. In the speech with which the King hadclosed the session of 1833, he had informed the Houses that he had"directed commissions to be issued for investigating the state of themunicipal corporations throughout the United Kingdom, the result ofwhose inquiries would enable them to mature some measure which mightseem best fitted to place the internal government of corporate citiesand towns upon a solid foundation in respect of their finances, theirjudicature, and their police. " He reminded them that they had recentlypassed acts "for giving constitutions upon sound principles to the royaland parliamentary boroughs of Scotland, " and warned them that "theirattention would hereafter be called to the expediency of extendingsimilar advantages to the unincorporated towns in England which had nowacquired the right of returning members to Parliament. " The commissionof which his Majesty thus spoke had now presented its report, stronglycondemnatory of the existing system in almost every point of view; ofthe constitution and mode of election of the existing corporations, andof their government of the towns over which they presided. It declaredthat "even where they existed in their least imperfect form, and weremost rightfully administered, they were inadequate to the wants of thepresent state of society. " But they charged them also with positiveoffences of no venial kind. "They had perverted their powers topolitical ends, sacrificing local interests to party purposes. They haddiverted from their legitimate use revenues which ought to have beenapplied for the public advantage, wasting them in many instances for thebenefit of individuals; sometimes even employing for purposes ofcorruption funds originally intended for charitable uses. " And theyasserted that this too common misconduct of these bodies had engendered"among a great majority of the inhabitants of the incorporated towns ageneral and just dissatisfaction with their municipal institutions, adistrust of the self-elected municipal councils, and of the municipalmagistracy, tainting with suspicion the local administration ofjustice. " And therefore they "felt it their duty to represent to hisMajesty that the existing municipal corporations of England and Walesneither possessed nor deserved the confidence and respect of hisMajesty's subjects; and that a thorough reform must be effected beforethey could become what they ought to be, useful and efficientinstruments of local government. "

It would be superfluous here to repeat the story of the rise of theboroughs, whose gradual acquisition of charters, with privileges andpowers of various degrees, has been sufficiently investigated byHallam. [237] What the Parliament had now to deal with was the way inwhich the system worked in the nineteenth century; and here it must beconfessed that the report of the commissioners, severe as it was, did inno degree exaggerate the prevailing evils. The corporations hadgradually become self-elected oligarchies of the worst kind. It must beadmitted that, in perverting their authority to political purposes, theymight plead the excuse that they were but following the example set themby the ministers of William III. , who introduced into their bill forrestoring the corporations which James II. Had suppressed clausesmanifestly intended to preserve the ascendency of the Whig party, "bykeeping the Church or Tory faction out of"[238] them. But no suchpalliation (if, indeed, that had any right to be called a palliation)could be alleged for their abuse of the trusts committed to them; abusewhich, if committed by single individuals, would have been branded, andperhaps punished, as malversation and fraud of the deepest dye. Asufficient specimen of the kind and extent of their misdeeds in onebranch of their duties was afforded by a single paragraph of Lord JohnRussell's speech, in which he affirmed that, in some of the reports oftheir management of charitable estates committed to their care, it wasproved that "the property, instead of being employed for the generalbenefit of the town, had been consumed for the partial benefit of a fewindividuals, and not unfrequently in the feastings and entertainments inwhich the mayor and other corporators had been in the habit ofindulging. In some not very large boroughs these expenses had amountedto £500 and £600 a year; and the enjoyment had been confined to freemenof only one party. " And the perpetuity of this mismanagement was in mostinstances secured by the members of the corporation themselves electingtheir new colleagues on the occasion of any vacancy. 

To put an end to this discreditable state of affairs, the government hadprepared a very sweeping scheme of reform, though that it was not toosweeping was proved by the approval with which not only its principlebut most of its details were received by the greater part of theOpposition; the leading principle being, to quote the words of theminister in introducing the bill, "that there should be one uniformgovernment instituted, applicable to all; one uniform franchise for thepurpose of election; and a like description of officers in each, withthe exception of some of the larger places, in which there would be arecorder, or some other such magistrate. The first thing to be amendedwas the mode of election to the corporation, which was now to beintrusted to all such rate-payers in each borough as had paid poor-ratesfor three years, and resided within seven miles of the place. " Lord JohnRussell had considered, he said, "whether this franchise should belimited to those paying a certain amount of rates; to the ten-poundhouseholders, for instance, to whom the parliamentary franchise wasconfined;" but he decided on proposing to extend it to _all_rate-payers, because, according to the established principle, to theknown and recognized principle of the constitution, it is right thatthose who contribute their money should have a voice in the election ofthe persons by whom the money is expended. The old modes of acquiringthe freedom of a corporation, such as birth, apprenticeship, etc. , wereto be abolished, as also were all exclusive rights of trade, vestedrights, however, being preserved. The next point to be decided was thecomposition of the corporation which these rate-payers were to elect, and the ministerial proposal was that each corporation should consist ofa mayor, aldermen, and councillors, possessing a certain amount ofproperty as a qualification, and varying in number according to thepopulation of the borough; the larger towns being also divided intowards, with a certain number of common-councilmen and aldermen to bechosen in each ward. The mayor was to be a yearly officer; of thealdermen and councillors a certain number were to retire each year, being, however, capable of re-election. The mayor was to be elected bythe councils, and was to be a magistrate during his year of office. Andthe body thus constituted was to have the entire government of theborough; of its police, its charities, and generally, and mostespecially, of the raising and expenditure of its funds, [239] which hadbeen too often dealt with in a manner not only wasteful, but profligate. Cases had been brought forward in which "corporations had been incurringdebts year by year, while the members were actually dividing amongthemselves the proceeds of the loans they raised. " The revenue derivedfrom charitable estates had been "no less scandalously mismanaged. " Andthe bill provided for the appointment of finance committees, trustees, auditors, and a regular publication of all the accounts, as the onlyefficient remedy and preventive of such abuses. The whole police of thetown and administration of justice was also to be completely under thecontrol of the council; and for the appointment of magistrates thecouncil was to have the power of recommending to the crown those whomthey thought fit to receive the commission of the peace; and in thelarge towns it should have power also to provide a salary forstipendiary magistrates. Another clause provided that towns which couldnot as yet be included in the bill, since they had never beenincorporated, might obtain charters of incorporation by petition to thePrivy Council. 

Such were the general provisions of this great measure of reform; a billsimilar in principle having already been enacted for Scotland, andanother being shortly after passed, with such variations of detail asthe differences in the circumstances of the country required, forIreland. Some of the clauses, especially those which preserved thevested rights of freemen and their families, and which required acertain amount of property or rating qualifications in the towncouncillors, were not originally included in the bill, but were insertedas amendments in the House of Lords; and it may be remarked that theresult of the discussion in that House afforded a proof of the sagacityof those peers who, though conscientiously opposed to the Reform Bill, preferred allowing it to pass by their own retirement from the finaldivisions to driving the minister to carry his point by a creation ofpeers, since the avoidance of such an addition to their numbers as hadbeen threatened enabled them now to force the adoption of theseamendments on a reluctant minister. And it seems difficult to deny thatthe first was required by justice, and that the second was mostdesirable in the interests of the measure itself. Without it the towncouncillors, from among whom the mayor was to be chosen, might have beenselected from the poorest, the least educated, and least independentclass of the rate-payers. In some boroughs, or in some wards of manyboroughs, it may be regarded as certain that they would have been sochosen; and such an admixture of unfit persons would have tended tobring some degree of discredit on the whole council, while to thesuccessful inauguration of a new system the establishment of a generalfeeling of respect for it and confidence in it was of primaryimportance. The danger, too, of so ill-judged a selection would havebeen greatest in the larger boroughs, those being, at the same time, thevery places in which the occasional difficulty of maintaining order andtranquillity made it even more necessary than in smaller towns that thecouncil should enjoy the esteem and confidence of their fellow-citizens. 

The principle that every man who contributed to the rates had a right toclaim a voice in the election of those who were to expend them, whichthe minister laid down as the justification of the clause conferring themunicipal franchise on all the rate-payers, was strongly contested bySir Robert Peel, though neither he nor those of his party in the UpperHouse proposed any alteration of the bill in this respect; but hepointed out that, though Lord John affirmed it to be the known andrecognized principle of the constitution, he had not acted on it in theReform Bill; and it is certainly open to question whether the adoptionof some limitation would not have been an improvement on the presentmeasure. The doctrine established in this instance by Lord John gave apreponderance at every municipal election to mere numbers, since thepoorest class is everywhere the most numerous, and its admission ledalmost inevitably to a reduction of the parliamentary franchise at somefuture day, though certainly at this time, and for many years afterward, Lord John was far from contemplating any alteration of the Reform Bill, but, on the contrary, took every opportunity of proclaiming hisadherence to it as a final solution of the question. 

But though in this particular it is possible that the bill might havebeen improved, it must be allowed to have been a measure very creditableto its framers. Few reforms have been conceived in a more judicious andmore moderate spirit; few have been so carefully limited to the removalof real and proved abuses, and the prevention of their recurrence, whileavoiding any concessions to the insidious demands of revolutionists, orthe ill-regulated fancies of metaphysical theorists. It was a reformstrictly in accordance with some of the most important principles of theconstitution, as they have been gradually developed by the practicalexperience of successive generations. It combined with felicitous skillrepresentative with local government; it secured uniformity in working, and that peculiarly English principle of publicity, without which thebest-devised system cannot long be preserved from degeneracy. 

The Church reforms in England and Ireland, which were carried out aboutthe same time, cannot be said to have involved any constitutionalprinciple, though one of them greatly extended the principle ofreligious toleration and indulgence to the Dissenters of various sects. No alteration had been made in the Marriage Act of 1754, which declaredit indispensable to the validity of a marriage that it should beperformed in a church and by a clergyman of the Established Church. Andit was not strange that this should be felt as a grievance by those whowere not in communion with that Church. But some of the Dissenting sectshad an additional cause of discontent in the words of the marriageservice, which gave a religious character to the ceremony, while theyregarded it as a civil contract. In his short administration Sir RobertPeel had recognized the validity of the arguments against the unmodifiedmaintenance of the existing law, and had framed a measure calculated, inhis view, to give the Dissenters the relief their title to which couldnot be denied. But his bill had been extinguished by his retirement. AndLord John Russell now availed himself of the machinery of anothermeasure, which he introduced at the same time, to make the reliefsomewhat wider and more effective. 

Hitherto there was no record of births and marriages beyond that whichwas preserved in the registers of different parishes, which in formeryears had in many instances been carelessly and inaccurately kept. Butat the beginning of 1836, the ministers, justly urging that it wasimportant, in a national point of view, both with regard to the securityof titles to property, and to that knowledge of the state of populationthe value of which was recognized by the establishment of the practiceof taking a decennial census, that there should be a general register ofall such occurrences, introduced a bill to establish a registry andregistrar in every Poor-law union, with a farther registry for eachcounty, and a chief or still more general one in London for the wholekingdom, subject to the authority of the Poor-law Commissioners. And bya second bill they farther proposed that the registries to be thusestablished should be offices at which those who desired to do so mightcontract purely civil marriages. Previous clauses in it provided thatmembers of any sect of Protestant Dissenters might be married in theirown chapels, and by ministers of their own persuasion. After enactmentsremoving all the civil disabilities under which Nonconformists hadlabored for one hundred and fifty years had been placed on thestatute-book, it was clearly inconsistent in the highest degree toretain still more offensive and unreasonable religious disabilities, andto deny to them the right of being married by their own ministers, according to the rites most agreeable to their consciences orprejudices. And though some of the details of the ministerial measurewere objected to and slightly altered in its passage through Parliament, the general principle was admitted by the warmest friends and mostrecognized champions of the Established Church, who wisely felt that abulwark which is too ill-placed or too unsubstantial to be defended, isoften a treacherous source of weakness rather than strength, and that atemperate recognition of the validity of claims founded on justice wasthe best protection against others which had no such foundation, andthat measures such as these adopted in a spirit of generous conciliationcould only strengthen the Church by taking at least one weapon from thehands of its enemies. 

Another of the measures relating to the Church, of which Peel hadprepared a sketch, had for its object the removal of a grievance ofwhich the members of the Church itself had long been complaining, themode of the collection of tithe. It would be superfluous here toendeavor to trace the origin of tithes, or the purposes beyond thesustentation of the clergymen to which they were originallyapplied. [240] They had undoubtedly been established in England some timebefore the Conquest, and the principle that the land should support theNational Church was admitted by a large majority of the population; itmay probably be said with something nearly approaching unanimity on thepart of those who really paid it, namely, the land-owners. The objectionto the tithe system was founded rather on the way in which it worked, operating, as Lord John Russell described it, as "a discouragement toindustry; a penalty on agricultural skill; a heavy mulct on those whoexpended the most capital and displayed the greatest skill in thecultivation of the land. " The present mode of levying the tithes forcedthe clergy to forbearance at the expense of what they deemed to be theirrights, or led them to enforce them at the expense of the influencewhich they ought to possess with their parishioners, compelling them tolose either their income by their indulgence, or their proper weight andpopularity in the parish by the exaction of what the law gave them for"the support of themselves and their families. " And this dilemma wasfelt so keenly by the clergy themselves, that it had become a verygeneral feeling with them that, "if any sort of commutation could bedevised, they would be delighted to be delivered from this objectionablemode of payment. " Indeed, Sir Robert Peel, whose measure of thepreceding year had been chiefly directed to the encouragement ofvoluntary commutations, had stated to the House that there were alreadytwo thousand parishes in the kingdom in which a commutation between theclergyman and his parishioners had been agreed upon, and established asa durable settlement by separate acts of Parliament. Indeed, arrangements of this kind existed very generally; the parishes in whichthe tithe was taken in kind being comparatively few, and the planusually adopted being for the occupier of land to pay the incumbent afixed annual sum bearing a certain proportion to his rent. Butarrangements which were optional were, of course, liable to berescinded; and Peel desired to establish a system which should beuniversal and permanent. And with this view he had designed theappointment of a temporary commission, one member of which should benominated by the Primate, as the representative of the Church, underwhose supervision the tithes of every parish in the kingdom should becommuted into a rent-charge, regulated partly by the composition whichhad hitherto been paid, and partly by the average price of grain--wheat, barley, and oats. It was no new idea, since as far back as 1791 Pitt hadproposed a general commutation of tithes for a corn rent, and hadsubmitted a plan with that object to the Primate, though circumstancesof which we have no accurate knowledge prevented him from proceedingwith it. [241] Objections[242] were taken to this last part of thearrangement, chiefly because it would render perpetual the terms ofexisting compositions, the extreme augmentation of them which wasprovided for in the bill being only ten per cent. , while it wasnotorious that the majority of incumbents had shown such liberality inthese matters that the compositions rarely amounted to two-thirds of thesum to which they were legally entitled. And it was hardly denied thatthe measure did involve some sacrifice of the extreme legal rights ofthe clergy; but it was urged and generally felt by the most judiciousfriends of the Church that the peace and harmony which might be expectedto be the fruit of the measure was worth some sacrifice, and the billwas passed with very general approval; a bill on similar principles, with such variations as were required by the differences between the twocountries, being also passed for Ireland. 

The last measure on ecclesiastical subjects was also chiefly of afinancial character, though its details were calculated, some directly, others indirectly, to produce benefits of a still more important nature. The condition of the property of the bishops and the ecclesiasticalchapters had long been a subject of censorious remark. The variousdioceses differed greatly in extent, as did, therefore, the labors ofthe diocesans. Some sees contained above 1000, one (London) even above1200 parishes; others contained under 150. The revenues of some werevery large, in one or two instances approaching £20, 000 a year, whilethose of others scarcely exceeded £1000 or £1500 a year, thus affordingincomes palpably inadequate to the support of the Episcopal dignity; soinadequate, indeed, that they were generally supplemented by theaddition of some better endowed deanery or canonry. It was universallyfelt that such a deficiency and such a mode of supplying it were inthemselves a scandal, which was greatly augmented by the system oftranslations to which it had given birth. The poorer bishoprics wouldhardly have been accepted at all had they not been regarded asstepping-stones to others of greater value; and the hope of suchpromotion had in some cases the not unnatural, however deplorable, effect of making the bishop anxious to please the minister of the day, to whom alone he could look for translation, by parliamentarysubservience; and the still more mischievous result (if possible) ofrendering the whole Bench liable to the same degrading suspicion; whilethe canonries and prebends in the different chapters, whose revenuesalso varied greatly, were in every diocese so numerous that they hadbecome nearly sinecures, the duties rarely exceeding residence for amonth, or, at the outside, six weeks in a year. 

These abuses (for such they could not be denied to be) had attracted theattention of Sir Robert Peel, who had appointed a commission, of whichmany of the highest dignitaries of the Church were members, and who, after very careful investigation and deliberation, presented a series ofreports on which the ministry framed its measure. They proposed, as hasalready been mentioned in connection with the labors of Sir Robert Peel, an amalgamation of four of the smaller bishoprics at their next vacancy, in order hereafter to provide for the addition of two new ones atManchester, or Lancaster, and Ripon, without augmenting the number ofbishops. Lord Melbourne apparently feared to provoke the hostility ofsome of the extreme Reformers, who had recently proposed to deprive thebishops of their seats in the House of Lords, if he should attempt toincrease the number of the spiritual peers; though, as their number hadbeen stationary ever since the Reformation, while that of the lay peershad been quadrupled, such an objection hardly seemed entitled to so muchconsideration. Another clause was directed toward the establishment ofgreater equality between the revenues of the different bishoprics, astep which, besides its inherent reasonableness and equity, wouldextinguish the desire of promotion by translation, except in a fewspecified instances. Various reasons, sufficiently obvious andnotorious, rendered the two archbishoprics, and the bishoprics ofLondon, Durham, and Winchester, more costly to the occupants than theother dioceses; and these were, therefore, left in possession of largerrevenues than the rest, proportionate to their wider duties or heaviercharges. But all the others were to be nearly equal, none exceeding£5500, and none falling below £4500; while the five richer sees werealso the only ones to which a prelate could be translated from anotherdiocese. It followed, almost as a matter of course, that the practice ofallowing a bishop to hold any other preferment was to cease with thecessation of the cause that had led to such an abuse. 

Another part of the bill provided for the suppression of such canonriesor prebends as might fairly be considered superfluous. Four wereconsidered sufficient for the proper performance of the duties of eachcathedral; and the extinction (after the lives of the present holders)of the rest was designed to form a large fund, to be at the disposal ofthe Ecclesiastical Commissioners, [243] and to be applied by them chieflyto meet the wants of the more populous parishes in different largetowns, for which it had hitherto been difficult to make anyprovision, [244] by contributing to the erection of additional churches, by increasing the incomes of the incumbents in cases where it wasinsufficient, or in any other way which the practical experience of themembers of the commission might suggest. One very important reform of adifferent kind was also provided for in the abolition of pluralities, the bill prohibiting the holding of two livings by the same personexcept they were within ten miles of each other. The measure wasobjected to by Sir Robert Inglis, who had represented Oxford as thepeculiar champion of Protestant and Church principles ever since 1829, and by a party which shared his views, as one calculated to be "fatal tothe best interests of the Church. " They looked on the property of theChurch and everything connected with it as invested with so peculiar acharacter, that they not only contested the right of Parliament to takeany step to diminish its revenues or to change the employment of them, but they even "disputed its right to deprive one class of the clergy ofany portion of their revenues for the purpose of distributing it amonganother. " But the distinction thus made between Church property and thatof any other public body seems one which can hardly be supported. Thepurposes for which ecclesiastical chapters or officials have beenendowed with possessions and revenues are undoubtedly of a more sacredcharacter than the duties imposed on lay corporations; but thatconsideration cannot be regarded as affecting the tenure of thosepossessions, or as inconsistent with the doctrine that they are nationalproperty, bestowed by the nation on the Church for the service andadvantage of the people; deeply interested not only in the maintenanceof an Established Church, but in that Church being in the highestpossible degree efficient for its holy objects. Being so bestowed andappropriated, that property must, on every principle of theconstitution, be subject to the control of the national Parliament. Andsurely that control could never be more legitimately exerted than incarrying out the recommendations of a commission which numbered amongits members several of the prelates of the Church, whose profession andposition were a guarantee for their anxiety to preserve all the rightsof the Church which contributed to its credit or efficiency; while theirmatured experience enabled them better than any other men to judge howto reconcile the maintenance of its dignity with the extension of itsusefulness. 

Notes:

[Footnote 226: The second resolution affirmed that "this House looksforward to a progressive improvement in the character of the slavepopulation, such as may prepare them for a participation in those civilrights and privileges which are enjoyed by other classes of hisMajesty's subjects. " (Stapleton's "Life of Canning, " iii. , 98, wherealso large extracts from the minister's speech are given. )]

[Footnote 227: Trinidad, St. Lucia, and Demerara were the only Britishislands which had not separate Legislatures. ]

[Footnote 228: Miss Martineau. "History of the Thirty Years' Peace, "book iv. , c. Viii. ]

[Footnote 229: Alison, "History of Europe, " 2d series, c. Xxxi. , sec. 74. ]

[Footnote 230: In the debate on the Registration Bill, in 1836, LordJohn Russell stated that two hundred and twenty eight unions had alreadybeen formed in England and Wales, and that it might be calculated thatwhen the whole country was divided into unions the entire number wouldamount to something more than eight hundred. ]

[Footnote 231: See Lord Althorp's speech, of parts of which an abstractis given in the text. --_Parliamentary Debates_, xxii. , April 17. ]

[Footnote 232: Lord Althorp made the following frightful statement ofthe crimes committed in the province of Leinster alone in the last threemonths of 1832 and the first three of 1833: 207 murders, 271 cases ofarson. The assaults attended with grievous personal injury were above1000; burglaries and robberies, above 3000. ]

[Footnote 233: It was often asserted that fourteen-fifteenths of theland in Ireland belonged to Protestants, but this estimate was, probably, an exaggeration. ]

[Footnote 234: "Memoirs of Sir Robert Peel, " ii. , 3, 19. ]

[Footnote 235: "Memoirs of Sir Robert Peel, " pp. 31, 32. ]

[Footnote 236: "One important question I found practically, and perhapsunavoidably, decided before my arrival, namely, the dissolution of theexisting Parliament. Every one seemed to have taken it for granted thatthe Parliament must be dissolved, and preparations had accordingly beenmade almost universally for the coming contest. "--_Peel's Memoirs_, ii. , 43. ]

[Footnote 237: "Middle Ages, " ii. , 31 _seq_. See also Stubbs, "Constitutional History, " i. , 82-92 _et seq. _]

[Footnote 238: See Hallam's "Constitutional History, " ii. , 155. ]

[Footnote 239: This was a matter of no small importance. The number ofboroughs included in the bill was 183, having a population of about twomillions. Their annual income was stated by Lord John Russell to be asnearly as possible £2000 a year for each, being £367, 000; but theirannual expenditure exceeded that amount by £10, 000, being £377, 000;"besides which there was a debt of £2, 000, 000 owing by these bodies. "]

[Footnote 240: See Hallam, "Middle Ages, " ii. , 205-207. ]

[Footnote 241: "Life of Pitt, " ii. , 131. Lord Stanhope imagines that theplan was relinquished in consequence of discouraging comments by theArchbishop (Dr. Moore). ]

[Footnote 242: These objections were founded on the followingcalculations, or something similar to them. The tithe was the tenth ofthe produce. In letting estates it was estimated that a farm ought toproduce three rents; in other words, that a farm let at £1 an acre oughtto produce yearly £3 an acre. One-tenth of three pounds, or 6s. , therefore, was what the clergyman was entitled to claim. Out of this, however, he had to defray the cost of collection, which might, perhaps, be one shilling, leaving him five shillings. But the average ofcompositions over the whole kingdom was under 2s. 9d. , oreleven-twentieths of what he was entitled to; and if augmented by tenper cent. , it would not exceed three shillings. ]

[Footnote 243: The fund so created was expected to amount to £130, 000 ayear. ]

[Footnote 244: As instances of the want of church-room in such towns, Lord John cited the dioceses of London, Chester, York, Lichfield, andCoventry, containing a population of 2, 590, 000 persons, with churchaccommodation for only 276, 000, or one-ninth of the population; theCommissioners, from whose report he was quoting, reckoning thatchurch-room ought to be provided for one-third. ]

CHAPTER XI. 

Death of William IV. , and Accession of Queen Victoria. --Rise of theChartists. --Resignation of Lord Melbourne in 1839, and his Resumption ofOffice. --Marriage of the Queen, and Consequent Arrangements. --ThePrecedence of the Prince, etc. --Post-office Reform. --War inAfghanistan. --Discontent in Jamaica. --Insurrection in Canada. --NewConstitution for Canada and other Colonies. --Case of Stockdale andHansard. 

The reforms mentioned in the preceding chapter were the last measures ofthe reign of William IV. In the summer of the next year, 1837, he died, and was succeeded in his British, though not in his Hanoverian, dominions by our present gracious sovereign, who had only just arrivedat the age which entitled her to exercise the full authority of thecrown. The change was calculated to strengthen the crown, by enlistingthe chivalrous feelings of all that was best in the nation in thesupport of a youthful Queen, and in a lesser degree it for a timestrengthened the ministry also; but, with respect to the latter, thefeeling did not last long. For the next three years the summers werevery unfavorable to the farmer; the harvests were bad; the inevitableaccompaniment of a rise in prices had caused severe and generaldistress, and distress had produced clamorous discontent, and in somedistricts formidable riots. It had been greatly aggravated in themanufacturing counties by the operations of the trades-unions, which hadgradually put forth pretensions to regulate the wages and otherconditions of work, and had enforced them with such tyrannical violence, not flinching from the foulest crimes, that in many instances they haddriven the masters to close their factories rather than submit to theirmandates; and in others had compelled the workmen themselves todiscontinue their labors, thus spreading destitution among thousandswhose earnings, if they had been allowed to consult their own wishes, would have been amply sufficient for the support of their families;[245]and the evil had grown to such a height, that in 1838 a committee wasappointed by the House of Commons to investigate the whole subject oftrade combinations. But the turbulent spirit excited by this distressdid not now confine itself to single outbreaks of violence, but, underthe guidance of some demagogues of a more methodical turn of mind thanusual, developed itself in a systematic organization having for itsobject what they called "the people's charter, " which aimed at a totalrevolution of the existing parliamentary system, with the avowed designthat, when adopted, it should eventually lead to an entirereconstruction of the government. The Chartists, as they calledthemselves, had advocates even in Parliament, who presented theirpetitions to the House of Commons, and tried, though unsuccessfully, togive them importance by the appointment of a committee to investigatethe character of the reforms which they demanded. They were not, however, contented with peaceful modes of pressing their demands, but, in the course of the summer of 1839, broke out in formidable riots indifferent parts of the country. At Birmingham they set fire to differentparts of the town, carrying on their work of pillage and destruction tosuch a pitch that the Duke of Wellington compared the condition of thetown to one taken by storm in regular warfare; and at Newport, inMonmouthshire, they even planned and carried out an attack on the troopsquartered in the district. But this violence led for a time to thesuppression of the movement, the leaders in the Newport riots beingconvicted of high-treason; and, though the government forbore to put theextreme severities of the law in force against them, those who remainedunconvicted had been taught by their example the danger which theyincurred by such proceedings; and some years elapsed before a series ofrevolutionary troubles on the Continent again gave a momentaryencouragement to those in this country who sympathized with therevolutionists, and prompted them to another attempt to force theirviews upon the government and the people. 

It had nearly, however, been another ministry on whom the task ofquelling these riots had fallen. Though, as has been already said, LordMelbourne's cabinet derived a momentary strength from the accession of ayoung Queen, the support it thus acquired did not last; and in May, 1839, having been defeated on a measure of colonial policy, which willbe mentioned hereafter, the cabinet resigned. The Queen intrusted thetask of forming a new administration to Sir Robert Peel, who undertookit with a reasonable confidence that he should be able to hold hisground better than formerly, now that the retirement of his predecessorswas their own act, and admitted by them to have been caused by aconsciousness of the divisions among their supporters and their ownconsequent weakness. He had the greater reason for such confidence, since two of the colleagues of Lord Grey who had refused his offers in1834, Lord Stanley and Sir James Graham, were now willing to unite withhim; and he had almost completed his arrangements, when he was stoppedby an unexpected, though not altogether unprecedented, impediment. Itwill be recollected that, in 1812, some of the arrangements for theformation of a new administration on the death of Mr. Perceval wereimpeded by a doubt which was felt in some quarters whether the newministers would be allowed to remove one or two officers of thehousehold, to whom the Regent was generally understood to be greatlyattached, but who were hostile to the party which hoped to come intopower, though it was afterward known that these officers had feltthemselves bound to retire as soon as the arrangements in contemplationshould be completed. [246] Sir Robert Peel was now met by a difficulty ofthe same kind, but one which the retiring ministers had the address toconvert into a real obstacle. The Queen, who had warm affections, butwho could not possibly have yet acquired any great knowledge ofbusiness, had become attached to the ladies whom Lord Melbourne hadappointed to the chief places in her household. It had never occurred toher to regard their offices in a political light; and, consequently, when she found that Sir Robert considered it indispensable that somechanges should be made in those appointments, she at once refused herconsent, terming his proposal one "contrary to usage and repugnant toher feelings. " Sir Robert, however, felt bound to adhere to his requestfor the removal of some of the ladies in question; for, in fact, theywere the wives and sisters of his predecessors, and a continuance oftheir daily intercourse with the Queen might reasonably be expected tohave some influence over her Majesty's judgment of the measures which hemight feel it his duty to propose. Such a difficulty could not havearisen under a male sovereign; but Lord Melbourne himself had departedfrom the ordinary practice when he surrounded his royal mistress withladies so closely identified with his cabinet. It is very possible thathe had originally made the appointments without any such design, fromthe careless indifference which was his most marked characteristic; buthe cannot be so easily acquitted when, in reply to the Queen'sapplication to him for advice on the subject, he, being joined in hisassertion by Lord John Russell, assured her that Sir Robert Peel'sdemand was unjustifiable and unprecedented. Supported by the positivedictum of the ministers on whose judgment she had hitherto been bound torely, the Queen naturally adhered to her decision of refusing to permitthe removal of the ladies in question, and the result was that SirRobert Peel declined to take office under circumstances of difficultybeyond those to which every new minister must of necessity be exposed, and Lord Melbourne and his colleagues resumed their posts. Thetransaction was, of course, canvassed in both Houses of Parliament. SirRobert Peel and the Duke of Wellington, who was the spokesman of theparty in the House of Lords, defended their refusal to undertake thegovernment on any other condition than that for which they hadstipulated, on the ground that the authority to make such changes in thehousehold as they had proposed was indispensable, as a proof of theirpossession of her Majesty's confidence; while Lord Melbourne, with astrange exaggeration, defended the advice which he had given her Majestyby the assertion that to have complied with Sir Robert Peel's proposalwould have been "inconsistent with her personal honor. " Other argumentson the same side were based on the alleged cruelty of separating herMajesty "from the society of her earliest friends, her old and constantcompanions;" an argument which was disposed of by Lord Brougham'sremark, that till she had become Queen (not yet two years before) shehad had no acquaintance with them whatever. [247]

But it is needless to dwell at any length on the case, in which allsubsequent historians and political critics, however generallyprepossessed in favor of the Liberal ministers, have given up theirposition as untenable. Her Majesty herself kept strictly on the path ofthe constitution in guiding herself by the counsels of those who, tilltheir successors were appointed, were still her responsible advisers. But the course which they recommended was absolutely irreconcilable withone fundamental principle of the constitution--the universalresponsibility of the ministers. In denying the right of the incomingministers to remodel the household (or any other body of offices) inwhatever degree they might consider requisite, they were clearlylimiting the ministerial authority. To limit the ministerial authorityis to limit the ministerial responsibility; to limit the ministerialresponsibility is to impose some portion of responsibility (that portionfrom which it relieves the minister) on the sovereign himself, adangerous consequence from which the constitution most carefullyprotects him. In fact, that the advice Lord Melbourne gave wasindefensible was tacitly confessed by himself, when, on the recurrenceof the same emergency two years later, he was compelled to recommend adifferent course;[248] and the ladies whom Sir Robert had considered itnecessary to remove anticipated their dismissal by voluntaryresignation. It may be added that, at the close of this same year, LordMelbourne himself insisted on nominating the private secretary to thePrince whom the Queen was about to marry, though no one could pretendthat offices in his household were as important as those in that of thesovereign; and though, if there was any post in which the Prince mighthave been supposed to have a right to an unfettered choice, that mighthave been supposed to have been the office of his privatesecretary. [249]

Her Majesty's marriage with Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg, her firstcousin--one tending as greatly to the happiness of herself and theadvantage of the nation as any royal marriage recorded in history--tookplace in the beginning of 1840; and in the preparatory arrangements--matters of far greater consequence to the Queen's feelings than anyappointments in the household--the ministry, by singular mismanagement, contrived to force the consideration of other constitutional questionson Parliament in such a way that the conclusions which were adopted, however inevitable, could hardly fail to be mortifying and vexatious toher Majesty, in whose cup of happiness at such a moment special careought rather to have been taken to prevent the admixture of any suchalloy. In the matter of the annuity to be settled on the young Prince, the Opposition must, indeed, share the blame with the minister. If itwas unpardonable carelessness in the latter to omit the usual practiceof previously consulting the leaders of the Opposition on the amount ofthe grant to be proposed, it was not the less impolitic and unworthy ofsuch men as the Duke and Sir Robert Peel to show their disapproval ofthe inattention by a curtailment of the grant. The sum proposed, £50, 000a year, was fairly justified by the fact of its being the same whichtwenty-four years before had been settled on the Prince's uncle, Leopold, on his marriage with the Princess Charlotte. Indeed, if therewere to be any difference, the circumstances might have been regarded aswarranting an increase rather than a diminution of it. Money wascertainly more plentiful in 1840 than in 1816, and the husband of anactual Queen occupied, beyond all question, a higher position than thehusband of the heiress-presumptive, who might never become Queen, andwho, in fact, never did. We cannot think, therefore, that the reductionof £20, 000, which Sir Robert Peel proposed and carried, was reasonableor becoming, but regard it as neither called for by the circumstances ofthe kingdom, nor as befitting its liberality, nor as in harmony with itspractice. 

But on the two other questions--one immediately affecting theconstitution, and the other not absolutely unconnected with it--nodefence of the minister seems available. At the opening of Parliament in1840, her Majesty commenced her speech by the announcement of herintended marriage, describing the bridegroom simply as "the Prince ofSaxe-Coburg and Gotha, " the same expression which she had used inaddressing the Privy Council a few weeks before. That description of himhad at once struck her uncle, Leopold--who, since the death of hisEnglish wife, the Princess Charlotte, had become King of Belgium--as soimperfect and insufficient, that, on reading her address to the PrivyCouncil, he at once wrote to her to point out that it would have beendesirable to mention the fact of the Prince being a Protestant, [250] andthat the omission would inevitably cause discontent. But, in spite ofthis warning, Lord Melbourne refused to advise the Queen to insert astatement of the Prince's religion in her speech, though it was by nomeans superfluous on such an occasion, since, if he were a RomanCatholic, a marriage with him would have incurred a forfeiture of thecrown. The Duke of Wellington, on the other hand, regarded it as apositive duty to require that the fact of the Prince being a Protestantshould be mentioned, so as to show the care of Parliament to prevent anyconstitutional precautions from being overlooked, such statement having, indeed, been usually made on similar occasions. When he, therefore, moved an amendment to insert the word "Protestant" in the description ofthe Prince, Lord Melbourne did not venture to divide the House againstit; but still his management gave an ungracious appearance to thetransaction, as if there had been in any quarter an unwillingness torecognize the fact of the Prince's Protestantism till the recognitionwas forced on the government by the action of the Parliament. 

The third question, as affecting the relative ranks and positions of thedifferent members of the royal family, cannot be said to have beenwholly unconnected with the provisions of the constitution; and themismanagement of the minister was, perhaps, even more sure to attractnotice in this case than in the other, since to introduce into a bill aclause which had no connection whatever with its title had something ofthe appearance of a deliberate slight to the two Houses. A bill tonaturalize the Prince was, of course, indispensable. But into it theministers, without any notice, had introduced a clause enabling him"during his life to take precedence in rank after her Majesty inParliament and elsewhere as her Majesty might think fit and proper, anylaw, statute, or custom to the contrary notwithstanding. " It wasadmitted that no such precedence had been given to Prince George ofDenmark, nor to Prince Leopold. And there were obvious difficulties inthe way of conferring such a life-long precedence, because, as LordBrougham had pointed out, it was possible that the Queen might diewithout issue, in which case the King of Hanover would become King ofEngland also, and his son the Prince of Wales; and it would have been aninconceivable anomaly that a foreign naturalized prince should takeprecedence of the Prince of Wales, whose special rank and importance wasrecognized in many acts of Parliament. This objection was so clearlyinsuperable, that Lord Melbourne consented to alter the clause so as togive the Prince precedence only "after the heir-apparent. " But even thisconcession failed to satisfy the objectors, the King of Hanover, amongothers, positively refusing to waive his precedence over any foreignprince. And eventually the minister withdrew the clause altogether, andthe bill, as it was passed, was confined to the naturalization of thePrince. Lord Melbourne had thus contrived to make the Queen and Princeappear as if they were desirous to induce the two Houses by a sort oftrick to confer on the Prince a precedence and dignity to which he wasnot entitled, and to render the refusal of Parliament to be so cajoled afresh cause of mortification to the royal pair. The course that waseventually adopted is understood to have been suggested by the Duke ofWellington--to withdraw the affair altogether from the cognizance ofParliament, and to leave it to the Queen to confer on the Princewhatever precedence she might choose, as it was certainly within herright to do. And so, a few days after the bill had passed, she did byletters-patent give him precedence next to herself "on all occasions andin all meetings, except when otherwise provided by act of Parliament, "as, seventeen years later, she, in the same way, with the cordialapproval of the whole nation, conferred on him the title of PrinceConsort. And apart from its convenience, as avoiding all unseemlydiscussions, this would seem to have been the most natural and propermode of settling such a matter. The Queen is the fountain of honor inthis kingdom, and at her own court she can certainly confer on any ofher own subjects whatever precedence she may think fit, while it may bedoubted whether any act of a British Parliament could give precedence ata foreign court. It was, probably, not in his character of Duke ofCumberland, but as an independent sovereign, that the King of Hanovermaintained his claim to superior precedence; and it was plain that themost illustrious subject could not possibly at any court be allowed torank above a king. With reference to its possible effect on thesubsequent relations of Peel and his followers with the court, it was, perhaps, well that a few months later they had the opportunity ofproving that no personal objection to the Prince himself had influencedtheir course in these transactions, by giving a cordial assent to theministerial proposal of conferring the Regency on him in the event ofthe Queen giving an heir to the throne, and dying while he was still aminor. The principle was the same as that which had guided thearrangements for a Regency ten years before; but it was notinconceivable that Parliament might have hesitated to intrust so largean authority to so very young a man, and him a comparative stranger, such as the Prince still was, had the leaders of the Opposition giventhe slightest countenance to such an objection. 

Lord Melbourne's ministry was hardly strengthened by the circumstancesunder which it resumed office. Yet the close of the same year witnesseda reform of which it is hardly too much to say that no single measure ofthis century has contributed more to the comfort of the whole mass ofthe people, with which it has also combined solid commercial benefits. Hitherto the Post-office had been managed in a singular manner, and theprofit derived from it had been treated as something distinct from theordinary revenue of the kingdom. In the reign of Charles II. It had beengiven to the Duke of York, and the grant was regarded as conferring onhim such extensive rights, that when, some years afterward, anenterprising citizen set up a penny post for the delivery of letters inthe City and its precincts, the Duke complained of the scheme as aninfraction of his monopoly, and the courts of law decided in his favor. That grant ceased, as a matter of course, on the Duke's accession to thethrone; and in the reign of Queen Anne a portion of the Post-officeproceeds was appropriated, with the general consent of a gratefulcountry, to reward the great achievements of the Duke of Malborough, aperpetual charge on it of £5000 a year being annexed to the dukedom. Inthose days the postage of a letter was twopence for short distances, andthreepence for any distance beyond eighty miles. [251] But those chargeshad been gradually increased; about the middle of the century the lowestcharge was fixed at fourpence, rising in proportion to the distance, till the conveyance of a single letter from one extremity of the kingdomto the other cost eighteen-pence. Such a rate could not fail to be veryprofitable; and by the beginning of the present reign the yearly profitexceeded a million and a half of money. The heaviness of the charge, however, had latterly attracted attention, and had been the cause ofmany complaints, as being a great discouragement, and, in the case ofthe poorer classes, a complete obstacle to communication. However, neither the ministers nor the Parliament had succeeded in devising anyremedy, since a system affording so large a return was not a thinglightly to tamper with, when those who complained suddenly found apractical leader in Mr. Rowland Hill, who published a pamphlet on thesubject, in which he affirmed the cost of the conveyance of each lettereven for such a distance as from London to Edinburgh to be infinitelyless than a farthing; and that, consequently, all the rest of thepostage was a tax for the purposes of revenue. When this fact was onceestablished, it needed no argument to prove that to increase the taxpaid by each recipient of a letter in proportion to the distance atwhich he lived from the writer was an indefensible unfairness; and, after much investigation and discussion, Mr. Hill succeeded inconverting the ministers to his view. Accordingly, the Budget for 1839, introduced by Mr. Spring Rice, then Chancellor of the Exchequer, contained a clause which reduced the postage for every letter weighingless than an ounce to a uniform charge of a penny, to be prepaid bymeans of a stamp to be affixed to each letter by the sender. It was notwithout plainly-expressed reluctance that the scheme was consented to bythe Opposition; nor can their hesitation be considered as unreasonable, in the very unsatisfactory condition of the finances of the kingdom atthe time. The balance-sheet of the preceding year showed a considerabledeficiency. There was a large unfunded debt; and even Mr. Hill's mostsanguine calculations admitted a probable loss to the Post-office of£1, 200, 000 for the first year or two; though he expressed his confidencethat eventually the correspondence of the kingdom would be found toincrease so largely as to make up for the greater part, if not thewhole, of the deficiency. His anticipations were far outran by thereality. 

In 1839 the Postmaster-general estimated the number of letters sentyearly by the post at less than twenty-five millions. They are nowupward of a thousand millions, a number the conveyance of which (withthe addition of newspapers, whose circulation had also been greatlyaugmented by a recent reduction of the tax to a penny) would haveseverely taxed the whole carrying power of the kingdom before theintroduction of railroads. Nor have the benefits of the new system beenconfined to ourselves. Foreign nations have followed our example, thoughnot quite in the same degree, till an international postage is at lengthestablished throughout the whole of the civilized world. And it has notbeen only the happiness of private individuals that has been augmentedby this facility of communication. In its gradual development it haslargely promoted the extension of trade of every kind, and, byfacilitating a commercial intercourse between nations, it cannot butcontribute to the maintenance of friendship and peace. 

The full advantages of this reform could not be seen at first; but, evenhad it been appreciated as fully as we appreciate it now, no approval ofit could have counterbalanced the general dissatisfaction with which theministry was regarded. At home the finances were falling into greatdisorder, the expenditure of the year greatly exceeding the income;while the feeling that their Irish policy was dictated by a wish topurchase at any price the support of O'Connell, was still more injuriousto them, for he was already beginning to renew agitation in Ireland, inaugurating a new association, which, though its purposes were faintlyveiled for a time under the title of the Precursor Association, wasunderstood to point at a repeal of the Union; while the ministers, though they denounced such a measure as ruinous to every part of thekingdom, seemed willing to give it practical encouragement by a billwhich they introduced, which bore the name of a Registration Act forIreland, but which was not confined to that object. On the contrary, itcontained a provision for lowering the qualification for the franchiseby one-half; so that it was, in fact, a new Reform Bill forIreland, [252] calculated greatly to increase his influence by the numberof voters of the poorer classes whom it would create. The bill wasdefeated, but the odium of having proposed it remained. 

But, besides these home difficulties, there were troubles abroad, bothin the East and in the West. In the East, the complications inseparablefrom a dominion like that of ours in India, where constant expansionseemed to have become a law of its existence, had involved us in a warwith a new enemy, the warlike Afghan nation; in the West, both Jamaicaand Canada were in a state threatening insurrection. Indeed, thetroubles in Jamaica had been the immediate cause of that resignation ofthe ministry in 1839 which has already been mentioned. Measures adoptedin the English Parliament with reference to the termination of thatapprenticeship system which, as we have seen, formed a part of the billfor the abolition of slavery, and another for the regulation of theprisons in the island, had given such offence to the colonial Assembly, never very manageable, that the members passed a resolution that theirlegislative rights had been violated, and that they would abstain fromall exercise of their legislative functions, except such as might benecessary "to preserve inviolate the faith of the island with the publiccreditor, until" (by the rescinding of the resolutions, etc. , of whichthey complained) "they should be left to the free exercise of theirinherent rights as British subjects. " And this resolution was secondedby an insulting protest, in which they drew an offensive comparisonbetween the state of crime in the island and that which prevailed inGreat Britain, taunting the British Parliament with the murders and actsof incendiarism which terrified Ireland night and day, with the murdersof Burke and Hare in Scotland, with the law of divorce and _crim. Con. _trials in England, and "a Poor-law which has taken millions from thenecessities of the destitute to add to the luxuries of the wealthy. " TheGovernor dissolved the Assembly, but that which succeeded re-adopted theresolutions of its predecessor, and the ministers, in consequence, brought in a bill "to suspend the existing constitution of the islandfor a limited number of years, and to provide that during that intervalits legislative functions should not be exercised by a Governor, aCouncil, and a House of Assembly, but should reside in the Governor andCouncil alone. " The emergency was too great and undeniable, the remedyproposed was also too unprecedented in its stringency, to be dealt withwithout the gravest deliberation; and the House of Commons accordinglygave the matter the patient consideration which became both it andthemselves. They allowed the island to appear by counsel against thebill, and listened for many hours to an elaborate defence of the conductof the Assembly, which if it failed to change the intention of theministers, convinced Sir Robert Peel and his party that their measurewas doubtful in its justification and impolitic in its severity. Hepointed out that "the bill was neither more nor less than one for theestablishment of a complete despotism--one which would establish themost unqualified, unchecked, unmitigated power that was ever yet appliedto the government of any community, in place of that liberal systemwhich had prevailed for upward of one hundred and fifty years. " And, though he did not for a moment question the power of Parliament to passsuch a measure, he greatly doubted the policy of such an exertion of it. A somewhat similar measure affecting Canada they had been compelled toenact in the preceding year, and he feared lest "it might seem to becoming to be a practice of Parliament to suspend a constitution everysession. " And he quoted a speech of Canning, delivered fifteen yearsbefore, in which that eloquent statesman, a man by no means inclined toa timorous policy, had declared that "no feeling of wounded pride, nomotive of questionable expediency, nothing short of real anddemonstrable necessity, should ever induce him to moot the awfulquestion of the transcendental power of Parliament over every dependencyof the British crown. That transcendental power was an ordinance ofempire, which ought to be kept back within the penetralia of theconstitution. It exists, but it should be veiled. It should not beproduced on trifling occasions, or in cases of petty refractoriness ortemporary misconduct. "

And Sir Robert, "looking at all the papers before the House, could notsay that there was here any vindication for bringing forward thistranscendental power. " He asked whether "they had ever treated with somuch severity a conquered colony amid the first heat of animosity afterthe contest. " And he traced the history of our government of the islandback to the time of Charles II. , pointing out (as Burke had formerlyargued with respect to our Colonies in North America) that "Jamaica owedits colonization by British subjects to the conquest that was made of itby the arms of Cromwell; that its first English population was composedof those who, disgusted with the excesses of the civil wars, there founda refuge, " and who had carried with them that attachment to libertywhich, as early as 1678, had led them successfully to repel the attacksmade on the privileges of their House of Assembly by the ministers ofCharles II. He warned the House, also, that if this measure were passed, "a sympathy for the people of Jamaica would be excited throughout theother West Indian possessions of the crown. " And, while fully admittingthat the conduct of the Assembly had been "foolish and unjustifiable, "he still recommended that it should be treated in a conciliatory spirit, which as yet had not been shown toward it. 

The government carried their proposal by a majority of no more than fivein a very full house, a success which they regarded as a defeat, and, ashas been already mentioned, resigned. But as the state of the questionand of the island did not admit of delay, on their resumption of theiroffices they introduced a fresh measure, which the Conservatives againcurtailed of its most severe clauses, and which, in the form in which itwas eventually passed, gave the Assembly time to reconsider its conduct, and, without the humiliation of confessing itself guilty, to give apractical recantation of their offensive resolutions, by resuming itswork of legislation, any farther delay of which would on many subjectsbe very mischievous to the island itself. The distinct assertion by bothparties of the power of the Parliament to inflict even the severestpenalty enabled the Houses to take this conciliatory course without lossof dignity; while the stern disapproval of the conduct of the Assemblywhich the Conservative leader had expressed, even when pleading for amilder treatment of it, convinced the colonists that any protractedcontumacy would be dangerous, and would deprive them for the future ofall title to even the modified protection which on this occasion hadsaved them. 

In the discussion of these transactions, Peel, as we have seen, hadalluded to the affairs of Canada, which had been of a still more seriouscomplexion; since there the discontent of the colonists in the LowerProvince had developed into armed insurrection. We have seen that, fromthe first moment after the country had passed into our possession, therehad been almost constant dissensions between the old French colonistsand the English immigrants who crossed over both from England and fromthe colonies on the southern side of the St. Lawrence in the early partof the reign of George III. The desire of terminating these divisions, which had their root in a difference of religion as well as of race, theFrench settlers being Roman Catholics, had been one of the chief motiveswhich had led Pitt in 1791 to divide the country into twoprovinces. [253] And for many years the scheme was fairly successful;but, toward the end of the reign of George IV. , the political excitementcaused by the agitation in England of the question of CatholicEmancipation, and subsequently of Reform, spread across the Atlantic tothe Canadas; and the French portion of the colonists, who almostmonopolized the representation in Lower Canada, began to urge theadoption of changes utterly inconsistent with the existing constitutionof the colony. In the hope of compelling the compliance of the homegovernment with their demands, in 1832 and the following years theyrefused to vote the necessary supplies; and, gaining courage, as itwere, from the contemplation of their own violence, and under theguidance of a leader of French extraction, a M. Papineau, who scarcelyconcealed his hope of effecting the complete severance of the LowerProvince from the British dominion, they proceeded to put forth fartherdemands, which they regarded as plausible from the apparent resemblanceof the changes which they required to the system of the Englishconstitution, but which, to use the words in which Sir Robert Peeldescribed them, would have established "a French republic. " The mostimportant of them were that the Upper or Legislative Council should, like the Assembly, be rendered elective, instead of, as had hithertobeen the case, being nominated by the crown. And another asked that theExecutive Council should be made responsible to the Assembly, in thesame manner as in England the ministers of the crown were responsible toParliament. As it was at once shown that the ministry at home had nointention of granting these demands, Papineau collected a band ofmalcontents in arms, with whom he took possession of one or two smalltowns, and ventured even to measure his strength with theCommander-in-chief of the province, Sir John Colborne, one of the mostdistinguished of Wellington's comrades and pupils. His force was utterlyrouted, and he himself fled across the frontier to New York. A similaroutbreak, excited in the Upper Province by a newspaper editor, wascrushed with equal ease and rapidity. [254] And the next year, 1838, LordJohn Russell brought forward a bill to suspend the constitution of thecolony, and to confer on a new Governor, who was at once to proceedthither, very ample powers for remodelling the government of theprovince, subject, of course, to the sanction of the home government. Inthe previous year he had succeeded in carrying some resolutionsannouncing the determination of Parliament not to concede the demands ofthe Assembly of the Lower Province, which have been already mentioned. And the reasons which he gave for this course are worth preserving, asexpressing the view recognized by Parliament of the relations properlyexisting between the mother country and a colony. It was on a properunderstanding of them that he based his refusal to make the ExecutiveCouncil in Canada responsible to the Assembly. He held such a step to be"entirely incompatible with those relations. Those relations requirethat his Majesty should be represented, not by a person removable by theHouse of Assembly, but by a Governor sent out by the King, responsibleto the King, and responsible to the Parliament of Great Britain. This isthe necessary constitution of a colony; and if we have not theserelations existing between the mother country and the colony, we shallsoon have an end of these relations altogether. " And he pointed out thepractical difficulties which might reasonably be apprehended if such achange as was asked were conceded. "The person sent out by the King asGovernor, and those ministers in whom the Assembly confided, mightdiffer in opinion, and there would be at once a collision between themeasures of the King and the conduct of the representatives of thecolony. "

The plan of sending out a new Governor free from any previousassociation with either of the parties, or any of the recenttransactions in the colony, was, probably, the wisest that could havebeen adopted. Unfortunately, it was in some degree marred by the choiceof the statesman sent out, Lord Durham, a man of unquestioned ability, but of an extraordinarily self-willed and overbearing temper. He drew upa most able report of the state of the provinces, combined withrecommendations of the course to be pursued toward them in future, sojudicious that subsequent ministers, though widely differing from hisviews of general politics, saw no better plan than that which he hadsuggested; but, unhappily, the measures which he himself adopted, especially with respect to the treatment of those who had been leadersin the late rebellion, were such manifest violations of law, that thegovernment at home had no alternative but that of disallowing some ofthem, and carrying a bill of indemnity for others. He took such offenceat their treatment of him, though it was quite inevitable, that he atonce resigned his appointment and returned home. But the next year theQueen sent down a message to the Houses recommending a union of the twoprovinces (a measure which had been the most important, and the veryfoundation, of his suggestions), and Lord John Russell introduced a billwhich, as he described its object, he hoped would "lay the foundation ofa permanent settlement of the affairs of the entire colony. " The mainfeature of the government policy was the formation of "a legislativeunion of the two provinces on the principles of a free andrepresentative government, " and the establishment of such a system oflocal government as amounted to a practical recognition of the principleso earnestly repudiated, as we have seen, by Lord John Russell a year ortwo before. It was not, perhaps, fully carried out at first. LordSydenham, who had succeeded Lord Durham, reported to the homegovernment, as the result of a tour which he had taken through a greatpart of the country, that in the whole of the Upper Province, and amongthe British settlers of the Lower Province, "an excellent spiritprevailed, and that he had found everywhere a determination to forgetpast differences, and to unite in an endeavor to obtain under the unionthose practical measures for the improvement of the country which hadbeen too long neglected in the struggle for party and personal objects. "But of the French Canadians he could not give so favorable a report. Efforts were still made by some of the old Papineau party to mislead thepeople; but he was satisfied they would not again be able to induce thepeasantry to support any attempt at disturbance. It was natural thatthat party should still feel some soreness at the utter failure of theirrecent attempts and the disappointment of their hopes; and affairs tookthe longer time in being brought into perfect order and harmony througha strange mortality which took place among the first Governors-general. Lord Sydenham died the next year of lockjaw, brought on by a fall fromhis horse; Sir Charles Bagot was forced to retire in a state of hopelessbad health after an administration equally brief; two years later, SirCharles Metcalfe, who succeeded him, returned home only to die; and itwas not till a fourth Governor, Lord Elgin, succeeded to the governmentthat it could be said that the new system, though established five yearsbefore, had a fair trial. 

Fortunately, he was a man admirably qualified by largeness ofstatesman-like views and a most conciliatory disposition for such a postat such a time; and he strictly carried out the scheme which was impliedby the bill of Lord John Russell, and to a certain extent inaugurated byLord Sydenham, selecting his advisers from the party which had theconfidence of the Legislative Assembly, and generally directing hispolicy in harmony with their counsels; so that under his government theworking of the colonial constitution was a nearly faithful reproductionof the parliamentary constitution at home. Such a policy was in realityonly a development of the principle laid down by Pitt half a centurybefore, and warmly approved by his great rival, that "the only method ofretaining distant colonies with advantage is to enable them to governthemselves. "[255] And since that day similar constitutions have beenestablished in our other distant dependencies as they have become ripefor them--in New Zealand, the Cape, and the Australian colonies--almostthe only powers reserved to the home government in those colonies inwhich such constitutions have been established being that of appointingthe governors; that of ratifying or, if necessary, disallowing measuresadopted by the colonial government; and, in cases of necessity, that ofprescribing measures for the adoption of the local Legislatures, andeven of compelling such adoption, in the event of any perseveringopposition. The act of 1850, which established a constitution inVictoria, went even farther in the privileges it conferred on thecolonists, inasmuch as it gave power to the Legislative Council to altersome of its provisions, and even to remodel the Legislative Council andAssembly. It may be doubted whether this last concession did not go toofar, since in more than one important instance the government of thatgreat colony has availed itself of it so liberally as to render itnecessary to pass a fresh act of Parliament to enable her Majesty togive her royal assent to some of the changes which the Assembly hadenacted. [256] Indeed, it cannot be said that the system has worked inevery part or on every occasion quite as well as might have been hoped;nor can it be denied that the colonies have occasionally claimed a powerof independent action in opposition to the home Parliament in a way totry severely the patience of the home government. After the BritishParliament had adopted the policy and system of free-trade, the CanadianAssembly adhered to the doctrine of protection so obstinately that itactually established a tariff of import duties injurious to the commerceof the mother country, and apparently intended as a condemnation of itsprinciples. But its contumacy showed how wholly different was the spiritof the British government from that which had prevailed in the lastcentury; for though the home government had unquestionably the right ofdisallowing the offensive tariff, it forbore to exercise it; and, probably, by this striking proof that it considered a completerecognition of the principle of local self-government more importantthan any trifling financial or commercial advantage, contributed greatlyto implant in Canada and all the colonies that confidence in theaffectionate moderation of the home government which must be thestrongest, if not the only indissoluble, bond of union. 

On the whole, it is hardly too much to say that no more statesman-like, and (if sentiment may be allowed a share in influencing the conduct ofgovernments) no more amiable spirit animates any act of our modernlegislation than is displayed in these arrangements for the managementof our colonies. They are a practical exemplification of the ideaembodied in the expression, "the mother country. " A hundred years ago, Burke sought to impress on the existing ministers and Parliament theconviction that, "so long as our Colonies kept the idea of their civilrights associated with our government, they would cling and grapple tous, and no force under heaven would be of power to tear them from theirallegiance. " In the case of which he was speaking his warning, as wehave seen, fell on deaf ears; but the policy of the present reign is awilling and full adoption of them, on a far larger scale than even hisfarseeing vision could then contemplate. Within the century which haselapsed since his time the enterprise of Britain has sent forth her sonsto people another hemisphere; and they, her children still, cling to theparent state with filial affection, because they feel that, thoughparted from her by thousands of miles and more than one ocean, they arestill indissolubly united to her by their participation in all theblessings of her constitution, her generous toleration, her equal laws, her universal freedom. 

On one transaction of these years the leaders of the Opposition werefound acting in close agreement with the ministers. We have seen how, inthe early part of the reign of George III. , the House of Commons threwthe sheriffs of London into prison, on account of their performance ofwhat they conceived to be their duty as magistrates; and in 1840 itsubjected the same officials to the same treatment on a question of thesame character--the extent of the privilege of the House of Commons tooverrule the authority of the courts of law. The question was inappearance complicated by the institution of several suits at law, andby the fact that the House was not consistent in its conduct, butallowed its servants to plead to the first action, and refused the samepermission in the second, when the result of the first trial had provedadverse to them. The case was this: some inspectors of prisons haspresented a report to Parliament, in which they alleged that they hadfound in Newgate a book of disgusting and obscene character, publishedby a London publisher named Stockdale. The House of Commons had orderedthe report to be printed and sold by Messrs. Hansard, the Parliamentarypublishers, and Stockdale brought an action against Messrs. Hansard forlibel. Chief-justice Denman charged the jury that "the fact of the Houseof Commons having directed Messrs. Hansard to publish their reports wasno justification to them for publishing a Parliamentary reportcontaining a libel;" and Stockdale obtained damages, which were dulypaid. Stockdale, encouraged by this success, when, in spite of theresult of the late trial, Hansard continued to sell the report, broughta fresh action; but now the House forbade the publishers to plead to it;and, as they obeyed the prohibition, and forbore to plead, the caseeventually came before the Sheriff's Court; fresh damages were given, and, in obedience to the writ of the Queen's Bench, the sheriffs seizedHansard's goods, and sold them to satisfy the judgment. Lord JohnRussell, as leader of the House, moved to bring to the Bar of the Houseall the parties concerned in the action--the plaintiff, his attorney, the sheriffs, and the under-sheriffs. He was opposed by nearly all thelegal members of the House except the crown lawyers, Sir Edward Sugdenespecially warning the House that "a resolution of the House was of noavail in a court of justice;" while others taunted the House with wantof courage in not proceeding against the judges themselves, rather thanagainst their officers, which in this case the sheriffs were. 

There could be no doubt of the importance of the question, since it wasno less, as the Attorney-general, Sir J. Campbell, put it, than aquestion whether Parliament or the courts of law had the superiority;and now Sir Robert Peel, as leader of the Opposition, came to thesupport of Lord John Russell, declaring his opinion to be, first, that"the House possessed every privilege necessary for the proper andeffectual discharge of its functions;" secondly, that "the publicationof evidence which had led the House to adopt any course was frequentlyessential to justify that course to the nation;" and thirdly, that "tojudge of the extent of their privileges, and to vindicate them by theirown laws, belonged to the House alone. " And he pressed strongly on theHouse that it was "the duty of the House to fight the battle to thelast, " though he confessed that "it was with pain that he had come tothe determination of entering into a contest with the courts of law. " Onone point the judges agreed with the House of Commons. The Housecommitted the sheriffs; but, when they sued out their _habeas corpus_, the judges decided that the return of the Sergeant-at-arms that theywere committed by the House for breach of privilege was a sufficientreturn. Stockdale brought fresh actions. But meantime the case wasarousing a strong excitement in the country. [257] The singular hardshipof the position of the sheriffs excited general sympathy: if they obeyedthe House of Commons, which prohibited them from paying over toStockdale the damages which they had received for him, the Court ofQueen's Bench would be bound to attach them for disobedience to itsorder. If they obeyed the Queen's Bench, the House would imprison themfor breach of privilege. And the national feeling is always in favor ofthe strictly defined authority of the courts of law, rather than of thesomewhat indefinite claims of Parliament to interpret, and even to make, privilege. Another consideration, probably, weighed a little with thechampions of the House--that their power of imprisonment ended with thesession. As matters went on, it was found that even the Attorney andSolicitor-general differed as to the course to be pursued; andeventually Lord John Russell consented to adopt the advice which hadbeen given by a former Attorney-general, Sir F. Pollock, and to bring ina bill to legalize all similar proceedings of Parliament in future, byenacting that a certificate that the publication of any document hadbeen ordered by either House should be a sufficient defence against anyaction. The introduction of such a bill was in some degree anacknowledgment of defeat; but it can hardly be denied to have been notonly a judicious step, but the only one practicable, if the contestbetween Parliament and the courts of law were not to be everlasting; andit met with general approval. If it was a compromise, it was one thatsatisfied both parties and both ends. It upheld the authority of thecourts of law, and at the same time it practically asserted thereasonableness of the claim advanced by the House of Commons, by givingit for the future the power which it had claimed. Nor were people inthis day inclined to be jealous of the privileges of Parliament, so longas they were accurately defined. They felt that it was for the advantageand dignity of the nation that its powers and privileges should belarge; what they regarded with distrust was, a claim of power of whichno one knew the precise bounds, and which might, therefore, be expandedas the occasion served. 

Notes:

[Footnote 245: Fifty-two mills and 30, 000 persons were thrown out ofemployment for ten weeks at Ashton in 1830 by the turning out of 3000"coarse spinners, " who could clear at the time from 28s. To 31s. Perweek. The following passage is extracted from an oath said to have beenadministered by the combined spinners in Scotland in 1823: "I, A B, dovoluntarily swear, in the awful presence of God Almighty, and beforethese witnesses, that I will execute with zeal and alacrity, as far asin me lies, every task or injunction which the majority of my brethrenshall impose upon me in furtherance of our common welfare, as thechastisement of _knobs_, the assassination of oppressive and tyrannicalmasters, or the demolition of shops that shall be deemedincorrigible. "--_Annual Register_, 1838, pp. 204-207. ]

[Footnote 246: See page 221. ]

[Footnote 247: The question was examined with great minuteness by LordBrougham a fortnight after the ministerial explanation. See"Parliamentary Debates, " 3d series, xlvii. , 1164. ]

[Footnote 248: It is stated on good authority that Lord Melbourne, inprivate conversation, justified or explained the line he had taken byhis consideration for his friends, scores of whom would have had theirhopes blighted by his retirement. ]

[Footnote 249: See "Life of the Prince Consort, " i. , 55. ]

[Footnote 250: "Life of the Prince Consort, " i. , 57. ]

[Footnote 251: Macaulay's "History of England, " i. , 386. ]

[Footnote 252: This is the name which the Liberal historian of the time, Miss Martineau, gives it. "The so-called Registration Bill was, in fact, an unannounced new Reform Bill for Ireland. "--_History of the Peace_, book v. , c. Vi. ]

[Footnote 253: See _ante_, p. 127. ]

[Footnote 254: In one instance the rebels were aided by a party ofcitizens of the United States, who, without any sanction from their owngovernment, seized an island on the St. Lawrence belonging to us, andattacked some of the Canadian villages. And this led to the discussionof a question of international combined with constitutional law, whichLord Campbell thus describes: "'Whether, if the subjects or citizens ofa foreign state with which we are at peace, without commission orauthority from their own or any other government, invade the Englishterritory in a hostile manner, and levy war against the Queen in herrealm, we are entitled to treat them as traitors?' The Canadian courtsheld that we could not, as they had never acknowledged even a temporaryallegiance to our sovereign. And of this opinion was Sir WilliamFollett. But, after reading all that is to be found on the subject, Icome to the conclusion that they owed allegiance when, as privateindividuals, they voluntarily crossed the English frontier; that it wasno defence for them to say that they then had arms in their hands andintended to murder the Queen's subjects. "--_Life of Lord Campbell_, ii. , 119. It certainly would have been no _defence_; but would it nothave taken their conduct from under the definition of _treason_, andmade it an act of _piracy_?]

[Footnote 255: See Fox's words, quoted by Lord Stanhope. --_Life ofPitt_, ii. , 90. ]

[Footnote 256: A couple of years after the period which is the boundaryof the present work, this Canadian constitution of 1841 was supersededby a measure uniting Canada, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick in onefederal government, with, as the act recites, "a constitution similar inprinciple to that of the United Kingdom. " The act farther provided forthe admission of other dependencies of the crown in North America, Newfoundland, Prince Edward Island, British Columbia, and Rupert's Landinto the union, and established as the constitution of the whole onescarcely differing from that of 1841, with the exception that both theHouses of the Legislature--called in the act the Senate and the House ofCommons--were to be representative bodies, and that powers wereconferred on them so absolutely free and independent, that it wasthought necessary to add a clause providing that their "privileges, immunities, and powers were never to exceed those at the passing of theact held, enjoyed, and exercised by the Commons House of Parliament ofthe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and by the membersthereof. "]

[Footnote 257: Lord Campbell, in his autobiography, puts thetransaction, in the phase at which it had now arrived, in a very seriouslight: "Next came a proceeding which placed me in a most difficultposition; and the public never knew the danger which then existed of aconvulsion unexampled in our history. The sheriffs sued out a writ of_habeas corpus_, directed to the Sergeant-at-arms, commanding him toproduce before the Court of Queen's Bench the sheriffs of Middlesex, alleged to be illegally in custody, with the cause of their detention. Wilde, the Solicitor-general, was strong for refusing to make any returnto the writ, and for setting the Court of Queen's Bench at defiance. HadI concurred in this opinion it would certainty have been acted on. Theconsequences would have been that the Sergeant-at-arms, even with themace in his hand, would have been sent to Newgate by the Court ofQueen's Bench. The House must have retaliated by committing the judges. The crown would then have had to determine on which side the army shouldbe employed, and for a time we must have lived under a militarygovernment" (ii. , 129). The noble and learned autobiographer does notexplain why it should have been indispensable to employ the army oneither side. ]

CHAPTER XII. 

Sir Robert Peel becomes Prime-minister. --Commercial Reforms. --Free-trade. --Religious Toleration. --Maynooth. --The Queen'sUniversity. --Post-office Regulations. --The Opening of Letters. --Naturalization of Aliens. --Recall of Lord Ellenborough. --Reversal of theVote on the Sugar Duties. --Refusal of the Crown to Sanction a Bill. --TheQuestion of Increase in the Number of Spiritual Peers. --Repeal of theCorn-laws. --Revolution in France, and Agitation on the Continent. --Deathof Sir Robert Peel. --Indifference of the Country to Reform. --Repeal ofthe Navigation Laws. --Resolutions in Favor of Free-trade. --The GreatExhibition of 1851. 

The transactions mentioned in the last chapter were among the lastevents of Lord Melbourne's ministry. He had for some time been aware ofhis impending defeat in the House of Commons, and, greatly to hiscredit, had endeavored to make the return to office easier to hissuccessors by the friendly counsels he had given to the Queen on thesubject. [258] A dissolution of Parliament in the summer of 1841 onlyweakened his party, and in September he resigned, and was succeeded bySir Robert Peel, who, comparatively short as was his tenure ofoffice, [259] found it long enough to establish for himself a reputationas the greatest financier of Europe since the days of Pitt. It may beworth remarking that, in the "Memoirs of the Prince Consort, " it ismentioned that in the course of his administration Peel found reason tochange his judgment on the question of which House of Parliament it wasthe more desirable for the Prime-minister to be a member. Canning hadmore than once asserted his conviction that the public business would bemore satisfactorily conducted when the Prime-minister was a commoner, founding his opinion chiefly on the paramount importance of financialquestions, the discussion of which is almost confined to the House ofCommons, and conceiving it to be supported by the history of theadministration of Pitt, from whom, indeed, he had imbibed the idea; andin former years Peel had more than once expressed his concurrence withthat view of the subject. But, from papers which were intrusted to himfor the execution of his great work, Sir Theodore Martin learned thatPeel had subsequently found reason to come to the opposite conclusion, not from any change in his view of the relative importance of thedifferent departments of administration, but solely because "the amountof work imposed upon the first minister in the House of Commons, inaddition to what he had to go through elsewhere, was too great for anyhuman strength. In the House of Lords the Prime-minister would escapethe necessity for being in a position to vindicate all the details ofadministration, and to answer the multiplicity of questions on all sortsof subjects, the putting of which has almost degenerated into a vice. Hehad, therefore, come to the conclusion that it was there he ought tobe. "[260] And, indeed, the subjects which demanded the care of theminister, and attracted the attention of Parliament, were constantlyincreasing in number, variety, and importance to the very end of hisadministration. Not only were the financial difficulties of the country, the depressed state of agriculture and commerce (the result of asuccession of bad harvests), sufficient causes for grave anxiety, butthe terrible war, of which mention has already been made, which we hadnow been carrying on for nearly three years in Afghanistan, and which, before the end of this very year, was about to be signalized by adisaster such as had never before befallen a British army, threatened tokindle the flames of war in Europe also, from the share which theintrigues of Russia had had in fomenting the quarrel; and the samedanger was more than once in the course of the next five years imminent, from the irritation with which France regarded us, and which, commencingin Syria, while Lord Melbourne was still at the helm, lost noopportunity of displaying itself, whether in transactions in the remotePacific Ocean or the old battle-field of the two nations, the Spanishpeninsula; and finally, these embarrassing perplexities were crowned bythe appalling visitation of famine, which, at the end of the fourth yearof the administration, fell upon Ireland with a severity surpassing anysimilar event in modern history. 

With all these multiform difficulties the new minister grappled withunflinching courage, and with conspicuous success. Peace was preservedabroad, and financial prosperity was restored at home. Into the detailsof his measures devised for this last-mentioned object, though theleading features of his administration, and those on which his famechiefly rests, it would be beside the purpose of the present work toenter. It is sufficient to say here that, in the spirit of Pitt's greatfinancial reform of 1787, he revised the whole of the import duties ofour commercial tariff, especially reducing the duties on rawmaterial;[261] making up the deficiency so caused by an income tax, which he described as a temporary imposition, since he doubted not thatthe great increase of lawful trade, which would be the consequence ofthe reduction of duties, would soon enable the revenue to dispense witha tax to the objections of which he was not blind. In recommending thisgreat change to the House, he laid down as the soundest maxim offinancial legislation, in which "all were now agreed, the principle thatwe should buy in the cheapest market and sell in the dearest, " adoctrine which, when more fully carried out, as it was sure to be, ledalmost inevitably to the great measure for which his administration ismost celebrated, the repeal of the Corn-laws. There could be no doubtthat, in the most modified application of it, it struck at the root ofthe principle of protection, which had hitherto been the fundamentalprinciple of our finance, and made a farther extension of it inevitable. 

And, as he had been one of the leading members of the ministry whichcarried Catholic Emancipation, so he now proceeded on the same path ofreligious toleration; and, in the session of 1844, successfullyrecommended to the House of Commons a bill which had already been passedby the Lords, repealing a number of penal acts affecting the RomanCatholics, which, though they had long been practically obsolete, stillencumbered, and it may be said disgraced, the statute book, and were, soto say, a standing degradation of and insult to the Roman Catholic body. One of them, passed in the reign of William and Mary, still forbade anyRoman Catholic to come within ten miles of London, to have either swordor pistol in his house, or to possess a horse worth more than fivepounds. Another, enacted under Elizabeth, still made every RomanCatholic who omitted to take certain oaths guilty of high-treason, though no attempt to administer those oaths had been made since theRevolution. Another, of the time of Charles I. , deprived any RomanCatholic who should send his son to a foreign school of all protectionof the law; he could neither sue nor defend an action. It may fairly besaid that the credit of Parliament and of the nation was concerned inthe abrogation of laws so ridiculously oppressive, and not the lessobnoxious for being practically invalid. And in the same spirit anothermeasure was framed and carried by the Lord Chancellor, whose object wasthe confirmation of religious endowments belonging to different sects ofProtestant Dissenters, and their protection from vexatious and unjustlitigation, by making a continued possession of any kind of endowment orproperty for twenty years a valid title. 

These enactments may be regarded as indispensable supplements to therepeal of the Test Act and Catholic Emancipation. They were thecoping-stone of the great edifice of religious toleration, of which theformer acts had laid the foundation. And the next year Peel carried outstill farther the same principle, by a measure which could not fail tobe regarded as an especial boon in Ireland, since the great majority ofthe population of that kingdom were of the Roman Catholic persuasion. Ithas been seen that when the troubled state into which the Continent wasthrown by the French Revolution threw hinderances in the way of theIrish students designed for the Roman Catholic priesthood going to oneof the great Continental colleges, such as St. Omer or Salamanca, fortheir education, Pitt established for them a college at Maynooth, forthe endowment of which Parliament was annually asked for a grant ofabout £9000. The sum had long been felt to be altogether inadequate tothe requirements of the foundation. As early as the year 1807, LordLiverpool, then Home-secretary, had contemplated a large increase of thegrant, though the weakness of the government, then presided over by theDuke of Portland, prevented him from carrying out that and othermeasures which he had conceived in a kindred spirit. Moreover, the grantwas rarely proposed without giving rise to a warm debate raised by aparty whose too tender consciences forbade them to sanction any measureappearing to foster a religion from which they dissented. And to remedythe two evils (the one arising from the want of a sufficient provision, the other from the spirit of religious controversy, for which the Houseof Commons was certainly very ill-calculated), Peel, in 1845, proposedto treble the grant, so as to put the college on a more satisfactoryfooting, by providing sufficient incomes for the professors, and arevenue adequate to the respectable maintenance of an increased numberof pupils; and also to place the charge for the future on theConsolidated Fund, by which step its yearly discussion in Parliamentwould be altogether avoided. The measure was vigorously resisted, partlyon the religious ground already mentioned, and partly by an argument, urged with some plausibility, that the design with which the college hadoriginally been founded had not been realized; that, in fact, it had notproved a benefit to the country, but rather the reverse, by temptinginto the service of the Roman Catholic Church a humbler and poorer classof students than could devote themselves to it when the preliminaryeducation involved the expense of a protracted residence in a foreigncountry. But the obvious advantages of the change prevailed over theseconsiderations, and the bill was carried by large majorities. [262]

And now that the long cessation of controversy on the subject--which, indeed, has been not the least beneficial fruit of this bill of1845--permits a candid consideration of it in all its bearings, it willprobably be thought that Parliament had not often come to a wiserdecision, one more dictated by judicious liberality of sentiment, andmore imperatively required on every ground of statesman-like policy. Ifthe countervailing objections and advantages be calmly weighed, it mayalmost be said that there was no alternative between enlarging theendowment and putting it on a new footing, or suppressing the collegealtogether. In its existing condition it was notoriously inadequate tofulfil the design of its founder; and any establishment visiblyinadequate to its design tends to bring the design itself into somedegree of contempt. Yet even if it should be granted that there mighthave been no fair ground of complaint if the college had never beenfounded, to close it after its benefits, however scanty, had beenenjoyed for half a century, could not fail to have been regarded as anunpardonable injustice and injury. The other alternative, therefore, waspractically the only one that remained; and in embracing it Peel was butcarrying out the original principle on which the college was founded. Ithad been intended to be efficient; through lack of means it had provedinefficient. The obvious and just remedy was to supply such increasedmeans as to create or bestow the efficiency originally aimed at. And itwas a felicitous idea to place the charge for the future on such afooting as to combine with such an increase an avoidance of theirritation which its yearly discussion had never failed to excite. 

And at the same time, to carry still farther the principle of religioustoleration, or rather of religious equality, he induced the Parliamentto found a new university, consisting of three colleges, one in each ofthe three provinces of Ulster, Munster and Connaught (Leinster, ashaving Trinity College and Maynooth, being regarded as alreadysufficiently provided with university education), which should be opento students of every religious denomination, and at which, while everykind of secular education, both literary and scientific, should begiven, the stirring up of religious controversy and animosity should beguarded against, by the absence of any theological professorships. Hedid not, indeed, design that the still greater benefits of religiouseducation should be withheld from the pupils, but he proposed to providefor that object by confiding their religious education to the care ofthe clergy of each persuasion, some of whom in each town which was theseat of a college--Belfast, Cork, and Galway--might be trusted forwillingness to superintend it. It was hoped that one fruit of thisscheme, and that by no means its least valuable result, would be thatthe association of pupils of various creeds in their studies andamusements from an early age would lead them to maintain, in their moremature years, the harmony of which the foundation had thus been laid intheir youth; and that thus the religious animosities which were theprincipal obstacle to the prosperity of the country would be softened, and in time extinguished. And this object has been achieved to a greatextent, though the disfavor with which the Roman Catholic Church regardsany educational system which is not under the superintendence of itspriesthood has prevented the scheme from attaining the full developmentwhich was hoped for. The number of students of each of the principalsects--the Church of Ireland, the Roman Catholics, and thePresbyterians--steadily increases. [263] Members of each religious bodyare among the professors in each college, and all accounts represent themost perfect harmony and cordiality as existing throughout the wholebody. 

Yet, important as was the principle contained in these measures, none ofthem, perhaps, caused such excitement at the moment as an exercise bythe government of what was, in point of fact, one of its most ancient, as well as most essential, powers: the occasional opening of letterswhich passed through the post, in compliance with a warrant of theSecretary of State. England had at all times been the refuge of thoseunquiet spirits who, in pursuit of their schemes of rebellion andrevolution, had incurred the displeasure of their own governments, andhad too easily found accomplices here. And in the course of the summersome notorious offenders of this class found a member of the House ofCommons to present a petition, in which they complained that someletters which they had posted had been stopped and opened by theofficers of the Post-office. The member who presented the petitionappears to have fancied it an unprecedented and wholly unlawful exerciseof authority; but Sir James Graham, the Home-secretary, not only at onceavowed that the statement was true, and that he had issued his warrantfor the opening of the letters mentioned, but also showed that the powerto issue such an order was reserved to the Secretary of State in all thestatutes which regulated the proceedings of the Post-office. The clausein the act which conferred the power had been originally framed by LordSomers, a statesman certainly as little open as any of his time to thesuspicion of desiring to encroach on the rightful liberty of thesubject; and it had been exercised from time to time in every reignsince the Revolution. It was a power intrusted to the Secretaries ofState for the public safety, and exercised by them on their ownresponsibility. The practice and its justification were assailed in bothHouses of Parliament by members of the extreme Liberal party; but, though no distinct motion on the subject was made, the general feelingof both Houses was plainly evinced, that it was a power which might attimes be highly useful for the prevention of crime, or for thehinderance of conspiracies which might be dangerous to the generalwelfare and tranquillity, and that the constitutional responsibilityattaching to every minister for every official act was a sufficientsecurity against its being improperly used. [264]

And it will, probably, be generally admitted that this was thestatesman-like view of the subject. There is no doubt that the practicein question does infringe the great constitutional right of everyindividual in these kingdoms to absolute freedom of communication withhis friends. But the most important and the most cherishedconstitutional rights must possess something of elasticity. It must benecessary at times to go back to the original object for which thoserights have been conferred and secured. That original object is thesafety and welfare of the whole body corporate--of the entire nation. And if that safety and welfare at times require the sacrifice, a wiseruler will not hesitate to demand it of the people, or to impose it onthem for their own good. So another principle of the constitution is theabsolute freedom of action for all the subjects of the sovereign; yetthat principle is infringed by more than one statute: Factory Acts, which limit the hours of even voluntary labor; Education Acts, whichcompel the parent to a certain line of conduct toward his children; eachin their way substitute another rule for that entire freedom of actionwhich, as has been said before, is the fundamental principle of theconstitution; but they make the substitution on the reasonable groundthat the course of action which they compel is for the benefit, not onlyof the individual constrained, but of the whole community of which he isa member, and for whose welfare all laws and constitutions exist. 

One of the grounds of complaint against the exercise of this power, which had been alleged by some of the opponents of the government, hadbeen that Sir James Graham's conduct had been dictated by an unworthysubservience to some of the despotic sovereigns of the Continent. Thefact was indignantly denied in the House of Lords by the Duke ofWellington; and in the course of the session a remarkable proof wasafforded how little influence such motives had on the decisions of ourgovernment, when they acquiesced in the passing of a bill which was avirtual repeal of the Alien Act, which had existed for more than half acentury, and of which more than one Continental sovereign wouldcertainly have desired the retention. Of late, indeed, it had been somodified, that practically it had become little more than a dead letter;and now, in 1844, without being formally repealed, it was virtuallyabrogated by an act which enabled all foreigners to obtain letters ofnaturalization, which conferred on them every right of British subjects, except those of becoming members of Parliament, [265] or of the PrivyCouncil. 

Generally speaking, few governments had enjoyed more of the confidenceof the nation than Peel's did in 1844; yet in this year it was exposedto two remarkable mortifications. The charter of the East India Company, as framed by Pitt in subsequent events, which has led to the entireextinction of the political power of the Company, makes anything beyondthis brief mention of the transaction superfluous at the present time. 

The other mortification of the ministry to which allusion has been madefell upon it at home in the Parliamentary discussion of thePrime-minister's financial measures, on which his judgment was usuallyregarded as pre-eminent, and on which a large majority of the House wasgenerally disposed implicitly to follow his guidance. Sir Robert wasnot, indeed, himself Chancellor of the Exchequer, that office beingfilled by Mr. Goulburn, but it was certain that the Budget was inspiredby a deference to the Prime-minister's views. And, among thearrangements which it proposed, one consisted of a relaxation of thesugar-duties, which was regarded with dread by those interested in theWest Indies, as a farther step in the direction of free-trade, and asdepriving them of the modified protection which they were as yetenjoying. To preserve that protection to them, Mr. Miles, the member forBristol, proposed an amendment which, after an animated debate, wascarried by a majority of twenty. Three months before, on the FactoryBill and the question whether the hours of labor should be limited toten or to twelve, the minister had also found himself defeated, thoughby a much smaller majority; but in that case the defeat had been theless pronounced from the inconsistency of the votes on the differentlimits. [266] And he extricated himself from that difficulty byabandoning the bill altogether, and introducing a new one, not withoutangry resistance on the part of Lord John Russell and other members ofthe Opposition. They denounced such a manoeuvre as alikeunconstitutional and unparliamentary; while he, on the contrary, insisted that the House had always jealously retained the right ofreconsidering its own decisions. In that instance, however, theintroduction of a new bill might have been regarded as the simplest modeof harmonizing the variety of views which had been represented by thediscussion of and votes on the ministerial proposal and the amendments;but no such expedient was practicable in this case, that of thesugar-duties. A defeat on an important clause in the Budget by amajority of twenty was a far more serious matter; it was such a blow ashad generally been reckoned sufficient to require a resignation of aministry. But on this occasion Peel did not feel himself called on totake that step; nor was he inclined to dissolve Parliament, which someregarded as his only legitimate alternative, though he had little doubtthat, if he did so, he should be supported by the confidence of thecountry. After careful reflection, the course on which he eventuallydecided was to adhere to the principle of a relaxation of duties, but toconsent to a moderate variation from his original proposal as to theamount. And in pursuit of this plan, on the next discussion of theBudget, he proposed an amendment to that effect, making the adoption ofit by the House a test of its confidence in the administration. LordJohn Russell opposed the amendment with great vehemence, pronouncing theacceptance of it, if it should be accepted, and the House should thusconsent "to retract its previous vote, a lamentable proof ofsubserviency, which would disgrace it with the country. " What Sir Robertnow asked was, substantially, that they should now declare that to beexpedient which they had declared to be inexpedient only three nightsago; and Lord Palmerston insisted that the proper course to be taken bythe government was to resign; while Mr. Labouchere, who had also been amember of Lord Melbourne's cabinet, [267] though he admitted that theremight be "circumstances under which a minister might without improprietyask the House to reconsider a vote, " denied that the present was such acase, and especially denounced the importation of the question ofconfidence or no confidence in the ministry into the discussion as"dangerous and unconstitutional. " Another section of the Oppositionagreed in taking the same line; Mr. Disraeli (then beginning to lay thefoundations of his reputation and influence) strongly denouncing theconduct of the minister, as degrading both to his own supporters andstill more to the whole House, and recommending him to say frankly toboth, "We have gauged your independence, and you may have a semblance ofparliamentary freedom as far as this point, but the moment you gofarther, you must either submit to public disgrace, or we must submit toprivate life. " The end of the discussion was, that the ministerprevailed by a majority a trifle larger than that which had defeated himbefore. This is not the place to discuss the difference between oneprinciple of taxation and another; but the question whether a ministerwhen defeated is justified in asking either House of Parliament toreconsider its vote, seems one that could only have been raised in aHouse under the influence of unusual excitement of some kind. The chargethat such a request was unconstitutional only serves to show how looselythe words "constitution" and "unconstitutional" are often used even bythose from whom precision of language might most be expected; for SirRobert Peel's proposal that the House should retract its vote was notunprecedented, the very same demand having been made in 1833 by LordAlthorp, then Chancellor of the Exchequer of Lord Grey's ministry, ofwhich those very men were members who were now loudest in denouncing theconduct of the present government. And on that occasion it is worthremarking that, though Lord Althorp's demand was resisted in one or twoquarters, he was vigorously supported by Sir Robert Peel, on the groundthat, though to rescind one night a vote passed on a former one might benot altogether free from objection, it would be a far greater evil thatquestions of importance should be held to be in all cases finallydecided by a single vote, passed, it might be, in a thin House, or inobedience to some sudden impulse. 

And this seems to be the view of the case commended not only byconstitutional and parliamentary practice, but by common-sense. It wouldbe strange, indeed, when the questions submitted to the BritishParliament and the decisions of that Parliament on them are so often ofparamount importance to the whole world, if the Parliament should be theonly body in the world denied the right of revising its own judgments, the only one whose first resolution is so irrevocable that even itselfmay not change or modify it. To rescind a recent vote is, no doubt, asSir Robert Peel said, a step not wholly free from objection. It shouldbe an exceptional act, as one which, if often repeated, would give anappearance of capricious fickleness and instability to the opinions ofParliament, calculated to impair that respect for it which the wholestate and nation are deeply concerned in upholding; but to refuse, underany circumstances, to confess a change of judgment, would lay theParliament open to an imputation at least equally dangerous to thatrespect--that of an obstinacy which refuses to confess the possibilityof being mistaken, or to hear reason. It would not be well, therefore, that the abrogation of a previous vote should become an ordinarypractice; but it would be equally undesirable that any fixed orunchangeable rule should be interposed to prevent a second discussion ofan important question, with the possibility of its leading to a reversalof the opinion first expressed. 

In the same year (1844) the ministers felt compelled to raise aconstitutional point of singular refinement, which had the effect ofarresting the progress of a bill, in which one part of the kingdom tooka lively interest, which a division in its favor proved to be fullyshared by the House of Lords. [268] It has been already mentioned that inthe last year of the preceding reign a bill had passed for creating, when opportunity offered by the sees affected becoming vacant, two newbishoprics at Ripon and Manchester, the incomes of which were to beprovided by the union of some of the smaller existing bishoprics, Gloucester with Bristol, St. Asaph with Bangor. But the Welsh regardedwith great disapproval any reduction of the number of bishoprics in theprincipality, and Lord Powis now brought in a bill to repeal so much ofthe act as provided for the union of two Welsh sees, urging not onlytheir great extent, which he stated at 3000 square miles of verymountainous country, but the fact that the population of North Wales wassteadily and largely increasing. The bill, as has been intimated, wasfavorably received by the Lords, who passed the second reading by amajority of twelve; but, before it could be read a third time, the Dukeof Wellington, as leader of the ministry in that House, announced thatthe bill was one which touched the prerogative of the crown, andtherefore could not be proceeded with without the consent of herMajesty, which he was not authorized to express. 

As the matter was explained by the Chancellor, Lord Lyndhurst, themanner in which the bill touched the royal prerogative was this: as, during the vacancy of any see, its temporalities belonged to the crown, any alterations in a see affected the direct pecuniary interests of thecrown, and he, as Speaker of the House, doubted whether he should bejustified in putting a question which so touched the royal prerogativewithout the sovereign's consent. A committee which was appointed toinvestigate the case fully confirmed the view thus taken by theministers, and the bill was dropped. 

It was, however, an exercise of the royal prerogative which was receivedby the House in general with great dissatisfaction. Certainly, since theCivil List and royal income had been placed on their present footing, itwas only by a very forced construction that the pecuniary interests ofthe sovereign could be said to be affected. And it seemed a veryinsufficient plea for evoking the exercise of a power which, as it wassaid, had certainly never been exerted before since the accession of theHanoverian dynasty. Nor was it made more acceptable by the explanationof Lord Brougham, who on this occasion came to the support of theminister, that the refusal of the crown's consent at this stage was "awarning, as it were, a polite and courteous communication between thesovereign, as guardian of the privileges of the crown, and the twoHouses of Parliament, that if they passed a certain bill it would notreceive the royal assent;" for, though the right to refuse the royalassent to any bill was incontestable, it had not been exercised sincethe time of William III. , and to put it in force for the protection ofan imaginary interest of the crown itself would have been so unpopularan exercise of it that no administration could have ventured to adviseit. 

One of the arguments which the Duke of Wellington brought forward in thediscussion, and which, probably, contributed to induce him thus tostrangle Lord Powis's bill, has had an influence on subsequentlegislation. He urged that its adoption--since the resolution toestablish bishoprics at Manchester and Ripon was one which every onedesired to carry out--would increase the number of bishops, "and thusmake an organic change in the constitution of the House of Lords. " It isnot very clear how the addition of a single spiritual peer could havethat effect. But the Duke had dwelt upon the same argument before in thedebate on the proposed union of the sees affected, urging that there wassuch a jealousy of the Church in many quarters, and especially in someof the large towns, that it would be very undesirable to pass anymeasure the effect of which would be to increase the number of Episcopalpeers. Even if there was any general reluctance at that time to see suchan increase (a fact which was by no means ascertained), it may bedoubted whether it was founded on any sufficient reason. It is not easyto see why, when there is no limit to the augmentation of the number oflay peers, it should be judged impolitic or unjust to make even so smallan addition to the number of spiritual peers. At the Restoration thespiritual peers were, probably, more than a fifth of the entire House. From the great number of subsequent creations of lay peers they were nowless than a sixteenth, so that there could be no ground for apprehendingthat a slight re-enforcement of the Episcopal bench would disturb thebalance, or give the Church an undue preponderating weight in thedecisions of the House. The difficulty, however, such as it appeared tothe Duke then, has had such weight with subsequent administrations, thata new principle has been established of creating bishoprics which shallnot at first confer seats in the Upper House till their holders becomeentitled to them by seniority. As they are peers from the moment oftheir consecration, it may be doubted whether this creation of peers, without seats in Parliament, does not deserve the name of "an organicchange in the constitution, " far more than the addition of one or twoecclesiastical peers to the Episcopal bench; and also whether it has notestablished a dangerous principle and precedent; the disconnection ofbishoprics from seats in Parliament, in even a single instance, seemingto furnish an argument in favor of the exclusion of the whole order, ameasure which, if unjust and injurious to the Church, would be at leastequally injurious to Parliament itself, and to the whole state. 

But all questions of this kind were presently lost sight of in theexcitement produced by the measure which more than any other has stampedSir Robert Peel's administration with a lasting character, the repeal ofthe Corn-laws. Many statesmen, even of those who were most in favor offree-trade in other articles of commerce, made an exception in the caseof corn, partly from a feeling of the necessity of encouragingagriculture, and partly from a conviction of the danger of in any waycontributing to create or increase a dependence on foreign countries forthe food of the people. Both Whigs and Tories were generally thus agreedon the necessity of maintaining the principle of protection; the disputebetween the two parties being whether it were best achieved by a fixedduty on imported corn, or by what was commonly known as a sliding scale:a scale, that is, which varied inversely with the price of the grainitself, rising as the price in the home market fell, and falling as itrose. In the manufacturing districts a different feeling had prevailedfor some years. In the first years of the present reign severe distressin Manchester and others of the chief manufacturing towns had led to theformation of an association whose chief object was sufficientlyindicated by its title of the Anti-Corn-law League. At first Mr. Villiers, the member for Wolverhampton, was its principal spokesman inthe House of Commons, but at subsequent elections two manufacturers ofgreat eloquence obtained seats, and year after year urged the entirerepeal of all duties on corn with great earnestness, though for sometime their arguments made but little impression on the House. Theirmotions were rejected in 1842 by a majority of 300; in 1843 by oneexceeding 250; in 1844 by above 200; and in 1845 by one of more than 130in a much smaller House. But this last division had scarcely been takenwhen an unprecedented calamity--the almost entire failure of the potatocrop, which was attacked in nearly every part of both islands by a newdisease, the cause of which is not to this day fully ascertained--suddenly changed the aspect of the subject. To the English farmer andlaborer it was a severe loss; to the Irish farmer it was ruin; to theIrish peasant famine. The grain harvest, too, was generally deficient. And it was evident that rigorous measures, promptly taken, wereindispensable, if a large portion of the peasantry in the southern andwestern provinces of Ireland were not to be left to perish of actualstarvation. In the face of so terrible an emergency Peel acted withgreat decision. On his own responsibility he authorized the purchase ofa large supply of Indian corn from the United States, hoping, amongother indirect effects of such a step, to accustom the Irish to the useof other kinds of food besides the root on which hitherto they had tooexclusively relied. [269] And he laid before his colleagues in thecabinet a proposal to suspend the existing Corn-law "for a limitedperiod, " a measure which all saw must lead to its eventual repeal. Itwould be superfluous now to recapitulate the discussions which tookplace, the various alternative proposals which were suggested, or thedissensions in the cabinet to which his proposal gave birth; theresignation of the ministry, and its subsequent resumption of office, when Lord Stanley and Lord John Russell had found it impossible to forman administration. It is sufficient to say that, as soon as Parliamentmet, Sir Robert brought forward a bill to reduce the duty on corn tofour shillings, a price only half of the lowest fixed duty that had everbeen proposed before, that reduction, too, being a stepping-stone to theabolition of all duties, at the end of three years, beyond a shilling aquarter, which was to be retained, in order to acquire an accurateknowledge of the quantity of grain imported. The diminution, however, ofthis duty was not the whole object of his new measure. It included otherarrangements which would serve as a compensation to the agriculturists, by relieving them from some of the peculiar burdens to which the landwas subjected; and it contained, farther, a reduction or abolition ofimport duties hitherto levied on many other articles, especially on suchas "formed the clothing of the country, " on the fair ground that if theremoval of protection from the agriculturist were "a sacrifice for thecommon good, " the commercial and manufacturing interests might justly berequired to make a similar sacrifice for the same patriotic object. 

Though opposed in both Houses with unusual bitterness, the ministrycarried their measure, which, indeed, in all probability, even if thedestruction of the potato crop had not come to accelerate the movement, could not have been long delayed, the continual and rapid increase ofthe population adding yearly strength to the arguments of those whodenounced the imposition of any tax which had the effect of increasingthe price of the people's food. But, however inevitable it may havebeen, we are not the less compelled to regard it as indirectly bringingabout a great constitutional change, or rather as consummating thatwhich had been commenced by the Reform Bill. Till the year 1832 theterritorial aristocracy had exerted a predominating influence in thegovernment of the state. The Reform Bill, which deprived the wealthierland-owners of the greater part of their power at elections, struck thefirst blow at that influence. The abolition of the Corn-laws inflictedon it a still more decisive wound, by its extinction of the doctrinethat there was any such peculiar sacredness about the land and itsproduce as entitled them to protection beyond that enjoyed by otherkinds of property. Placing in that respect the commercial andmanufacturing interest on a level with the landed interest, it made us, in a farther and a somewhat different sense from that in which Napoleonhad used the phrase, a nation of shopkeepers. [270]

The repeal of the Corn-laws had another result: it divided theConservative party, and, as a necessary consequence, led to the downfallof the ministry. The same session which witnessed its success incarrying that repeal witnessed also its defeat on a coercion bill, whichthey regarded as indispensable for the "protection of life in Ireland, "where actual murders had reached the appalling amount of nearly threehundred in two years. The ministry at once resigned, and Lord JohnRussell had no difficulty in forming an administration, now that thequestion of the Corn-laws was finally settled. It was, however, no bedof roses to which the new ministry succeeded; the famine in Irelandexceeded the worst anticipations; and, though prodigious efforts weremade by the government and Parliament to relieve it, though large sumswere placed at the disposal of the Lord-lieutenant, aided bycontributions from private sources in England to an enormous amount;though the small remnant of the import duty on corn which had been lefton it by the measure of the preceding year was taken off, and thenavigation laws suspended, in order that no obstacle interposed to theacquisition of food from every available quarter, it was estimated thatmore than half a million of people perished through actual famine or thediseases which scarcity brought in its train. [271] A severe monetarycrisis was one not unnatural result of this distress, so severe that theFunds fell to a price below any that had been quoted for many years, andthe reserve in the Bank of England to an amount lower than it had beenat any period since 1828. And these difficulties had hardly beensurmounted when a new revolution in France overturned the dynasty ofLouis Philippe and established a republic. The revolutionary contagionspread to Italy, where, indeed, the movement had begun. The Pope--PiusIX. --who had but lately succeeded to the tiara, was forced to flee fromRome in the disguise of a foreign courier, after his Prime-minister hadbeen murdered by the mob. Germany was scarcely less disturbed. Theadministration of Metternich, who had governed Austria with authoritylittle less than absolute for nearly forty years, was overthrown in atumult in which he himself escaped with difficulty from the violence ofthe populace; dangerous riots took place at Munich, at Berlin, and atthe capitals of most of the smaller principalities, and for some timeeverything seemed to portend the outbreak of a general war, likely to bethe more formidable as being a war of the revolutionary and republicanagainst the monarchical principle. Happily, that danger was averted. Theonly war which broke out between different nations was a brief contestin the north of Italy, which the superior numbers of the Austrian armiesand the skill of Marshal Radetsky, a veteran who had learned the art ofwar under Suvarof nearly sixty years before, decided in favor ofAustria, and which in the spring of 1849 was terminated by a peace onless unfavorable terms to Sardinia than she could well have expected. And in the same season tranquillity was re-established even at Rome, which, from the peculiar character of the Papal power, contained specialelements of provocation and danger. 

But, though peace was thus generally maintained, these various eventshad produced a ferment of spirits which required some time to calm down, and so greatly embarrassed the government, that in the spring of 1852Lord John Russell's administration was dissolved, and a new ministry wasformed by Lord Derby[272]. But the causes which had overthrown hispredecessor remained to weaken him; so that for some time it seemedimpossible to form a ministry which afforded any promise of stability. Such a rapid succession of changes as ensued had had no parallel sincethe first years of George III. Between February, 1852, and February, 1855, the country had no fewer than four different Prime-ministers, afact which was at once both the proof and the parent of weakness inevery administration. Lord John Russell had attempted to procure afactitious support in the country by stimulating a fresh demand forparliamentary reform. A year or two before, he had provoked thedissatisfaction of the "Advanced Liberals, " as they called themselves, by insisting on the finality of the Reform Bill of 1832, and by advisinghis followers "to rest and be thankful" for what had been then obtained. But now he began to advance an opinion that that act required "someamendments to carry into more complete effect the principles on which itwas founded. " He inserted an intimation of that doctrine in the Queen'sspeech; and endeavored to give effect to it by bringing in a bill tolower the franchise, having, it seems, persuaded himself that afive-pound franchise would create a more Conservative class ofvoters. [273] He had scarcely introduced it when the fall of his ministryled to its abandonment; but, though it was coldly received by the Houseof Commons, the idea was taken up by the other political parties, whocan hardly be acquitted of having used the question merely as aninstrument of party warfare, trying, with an unstatesmanlikeindifference to the danger of re-awakening the old frenzy on thesubject, to rouse the nation to take an interest in it; but trying invain. The nation was no longer in the same temper as it had displayedtwenty years before. The Reform Bill of 1832 had been demanded andcarried with a frantic vehemence of enthusiasm such as could only havebeen excited by real defects and grievances. But those grievances hadbeen removed and redressed. And the bulk of the people could take nointerest in schemes whose sole end seemed to be either to satisfy thetheories of some political doctrinaires or to embarrass an adversary;till at last, as Reform Bill after Reform Bill was framed, brought in, and defeated, or dropped, it became plain, "as the Prince Consort notedin a private memorandum at the end of 1859, that what the countrywanted, in fact, was not reform, but a bill to stop the question ofReform. "[274] And, at last, the prevalence of this feeling Lord JohnRussell could not conceal even from himself, but confessed to LordPalmerston, then Prime-minister, who had always silently discouraged themovement, that "the apathy of the country was undeniable; nor was it atransient humor. It seemed rather a confirmed habit of mind. Four ReformBills had been introduced of late years by four different governments, and for not one of them had there been the least enthusiasm. Theconclusion to which he had come was, that the advisers of the crown ofall parties having offered to the country various measures of reform, and the country having shown itself indifferent to them all, the bestcourse which could now be taken was to wait till the country should showa manifest desire for an amendment of the representation. "[275]

There was, however, in these years one subject in which the country didtake a real interest; that was the development and extension of theprinciples of free-trade. On that the national view had become sodecided that in 1848 the Parliament even abolished the navigation laws, which had subsisted so long, the first act on the subject dating fromthe reign of Richard II. , that the adherence to the principle containedin them of confining both the export and the import trade of thekingdom, with but few exceptions, to British shipping, seemed almost anessential article of the constitution. It was the dearer, too, to thenational prejudices, from the sense universally entertained of theparamount importance of maintaining the pre-eminence of our navy, andfrom the belief that the commercial marine was a nursery for the royalfleets, with which they could not dispense. But latterly the laws hadbecome unpopular even with some of those who had formerly been supposedto derive the greatest benefit from them. Many of our colonies hadcomplained of their operation, and several of the ablest of our colonialgovernors had recommended their repeal. They had been found, too, topresent frequent and considerable difficulties in our commercialnegotiations with other countries, and many naval officers of largeexperience and sound judgment expressed a decided belief that they wereof no practical use to the naval service. The result of a long and abledebate was that the laws were repealed, with the exception of thatportion of them which preserved the monopoly of the coasting trade toour own seamen and vessels, that exception being chiefly dictated byconsiderations connected with the prevention of smuggling. 

The ground on which the ministers relied in proposing this repeal oflaws so ancient was that, when protection had been removed from everyother trade, those concerned in these different trades had anirresistible claim for its removal from the shipping. And on generalprinciples, both of commerce and statesmanship, the claim was, as theyurged, irresistible, unless some object of greater importance still thanuniformity of legislation--namely, the national safety, bound up as itunquestionably was in the perpetual pre-eminence of the nationalnavy--required an exception to be made. But for the maintenance of ourmaritime supremacy it was, as Burke had preached three-quarters of acentury before, better to trust to the spirit of the people, to theirattachment to their government, and to their innate aptitude forseamanship, which they seem to have inherited from the hardy rovers ofthe dark ages, and which no other nation shares with them in an equaldegree. And if that may safely be trusted, as undoubtedly it may, tomaintain the supremacy of our warlike fleets, the preponderance ofargument seemed greatly on the side of those who contended that ourcommercial fleets needed no such protection; to which it may be addedthat exceptions to a general rule and principle are in themselves soquestionable, that the burden of proof seems to lie upon those who wouldestablish or maintain them. But the advocates of free-trade were notcontent even with this triumph, though it might have been thought acrowning one, and in the course of the next year they succeeded incarrying a resolution which (though Lord Derby and the opponents of theact of 1846 were now in office) was not resisted even by the ministry, being, in fact, the result of a compromise between the differentparties; and which asserted that "the improved condition of the country, and especially of the industrious classes, was mainly the result ofrecent legislation, which had established the principle of unrestrictedcompetition, ... And that it was the opinion of the House that thispolicy, firmly maintained and prudently extended, would, withoutinflicting injury on any important interest, best enable the industry ofthe country to bear its own burdens, and would thereby most surelypromote the welfare and contentment of the people. " Such a resolutionwas, in fact, the adoption of free-trade as the permanent rulingprinciple of all future commercial legislation. And even before theadoption of this resolution, the feeling in favor of free-trade had beengreatly strengthened by the Great Exhibition, which not only delightedthe world for six months with a spectacle of such varied and surpassingbeauty as even its original projector, the Prince Consort, had notpictured to himself, but which had also the farther and more importanteffect of instructing the British workman in every branch ofmanufacture, by bringing before his eyes the workmanship of othernations; and, as we may well believe (though such a result is not soeasily tested), of improving the mutual good-will between rival nations, from the respect for each which the experience of their skill andusefulness could not fail to excite. 

Notes:

[Footnote 258: On the 20th of February, 1840, Baron Stockmar writes:"Melbourne told me that he had already expressed his opinion to thePrince that the Court ought to take advantage of the present movement totreat all parties, especially the Tories, in the spirit of a generalamnesty. " To the Queen his language was the same: "You should now holdout the olive-branch a little. "--_Life of the Prince Consort_, i. , 83. ]

[Footnote 259: He became Prime-minister in September, 1841, and retiredin June, 1846--four years and three-quarters afterward. ]

[Footnote 260: "Life of the Prince Consort, " i. , 266. It may be remarkedthat, in spite of the opinion thus expressed by Sir Robert Peel, ofthose who, since his retirement in 1846, have held the same office, themajority have been members of the House of Commons. The peers who havesince been Prime-ministers have been Lord Aberdeen and Lord Derby; themembers of the House of Commons have been Lord John Russell, LordPalmerston, Mr. Disraeli, and Mr. Gladstone; though it may be thoughtthat in his second ministry Mr. Disraeli showed his concurrence in SirRobert Peel's latest view, by becoming a peer in the third year of hisadministration. ]

[Footnote 261: Lord Stanhope tells us "the remedial resolutions moved byPitt in the House of Commons, as abolishing the old duties andsubstituting new ones in a simpler form, amounted in number to no lessthan 2537. "--_Life of Pitt_, i. , 330. Peel, in his speech, March 21, 1842, states that he reduces or takes off altogether (wherever the dutyis trifling, but is practicable) the duty on 750 articles of import. ]

[Footnote 262: In the Commons by 307 to 184; in the Lords by 226 to 69. ]

[Footnote 263: The following statements of the members of colleges andof the three denominations for 1879, 1874, and 1869 appear in the last_Queen's University Calendar_:

 1879. 1874. 1869. Church of Ireland ....... 201 189 211Roman Catholics ....... 223 188 161Presbyterians .......... 388 249 227Other denominations...... 88 87 83 --- --- --- 900 713 682]

[Footnote 264: In the course of the session, in order to tranquillizethe public mind on the subject, secret committees were appointed by bothHouses of Parliament to investigate the subject, from whose inquiries itappeared that, since the days when the government was endangered by theplots of the Jacobites, the power had been very sparingly used. The mostconspicuous instance of its employment had been in the case of BishopAtterbury, several of whose letters had been opened, and were producedin Parliament to justify the bill of "pains and penalties" which waspassed against him. The power had been confined to Great Britain tillthe latter part of the last century, when it was judged desirable toextend it also to the Lord-lieutenant of Ireland. But, since the Peaceof Amiens, the number of letters opened in a year had not, on anaverage, exceeded eight; nor was there the least ground for suspectingthat a single one had been opened except on such information as fullywarranted suspicion. 

The practice, however, was not confined to our own government. In thesecond volume of the "Life of Bishop Wilberforce" a page is given of hisdiary, dated July 18, 1854, which records a conversation in which theDuke of Newcastle and Lord John Russell took part, and in which it ismentioned that the French government, under the administration of M. Guizot, opened letters, and that the practice was not confined tomonarchical or absolute governments, for "the American government opensmost freely all letters. " And, with reference to this particular case, the Duke of Newcastle said that "Sir James Graham really openedMazzini's letters on information which led to a belief that a great actof violence and bloodshed might be prevented by it. "--_Life of BishopWilberforce_, ii. , 247. ]

[Footnote 265: A subsequent act, passed since the date at which thepresent history closes, has repealed even this exception. By the 33dVictoria, c. 14 ("Law Reports, " p. 169), it is enacted that "an alien, to whom a certificate of naturalization is granted, shall in the UnitedKingdom be entitled to all political and other rights, powers, andprivileges, and be subject to all obligations to which a natural bornBritish subject is entitled as subject in the United Kingdom, " etc. ; andat the general election of 1880 the Baron de Ferrieres, a Belgiannobleman, who had been naturalized in 1867, was elected M. P. ForCheltenham. ]

[Footnote 266: In one instance--on the question whether twelve should bethe number of hours, as proposed by the Government--the majority againstthat number was 186 to 183. But immediately afterward a majority of 188to 184 decided against Lord Ashley's alternative proposal of ten hours. ]

[Footnote 267: As President of the Board of Trade. He afterward wasraised to the Peerage as Lord Taunton. ]

[Footnote 268: The second reading was carried in the House of Lords by49 to 37. ]

[Footnote 269: See "Peel's Memoirs, " ii. , 173. ]

[Footnote 270: It has been observed that till the Corn-laws wererepealed there had been no instance whatever of any person who had beenengaged in trade becoming a cabinet minister. Since that time there havebeen several, some of whom only relinquished their share in houses ofbusiness on receiving their appointments, and some who are generallyunderstood to have continued to participate in the profits of tradewhile members of an administration. ]

[Footnote 271: Alison, quoting the General Report of the CensusCommissioners, estimates the deaths caused by famine and the diseasesengendered by it at the appalling number of 590, 000, and states the sumsadvanced under different acts of Parliament to meet the emergency at£7, 132, 268. --_History of Europe_, vii. , 274, 276, 2d series. ]

[Footnote 272: The same statesman who has previously been mentioned asLord Stanley, and whom the death of his father had recently raised tothe House of Peers. ]

[Footnote 273: In 1853 he said to Lord Clarendon, speaking of a new billwhich he was pressing on Lord Aberdeen, then Prime-minister, "I am formaking it as Conservative as possible, and that by a large extension ofthe suffrage. The Radicals are the ten-pound holders. The five-poundholders will be Conservative, as they are more easily actedupon. "--_Life of the Prince Consort_, ii. , 503. It was the same ideathat inspired some of the details of the Reform Bill subsequently passedby Lord Derby's third ministry. ]

[Footnote 274: "Life of the Prince Consort, " iv. , 395. ]

[Footnote 275: "Life of the Prince Consort, " v. , 56. ]

CHAPTER XIII. 

Dismissal of Lord Palmerston. --Theory of the Relation between theSovereign and the Cabinet. --Correspondence of the Sovereign with FrenchPrinces. --Russian War. --Abolition of the Tax on Newspapers. --LifePeerages. --Resignation of two Bishops. --Indian Mutiny. --Abolition of theSovereign Power of the Company. --Visit of the Prince of Wales toIndia. --Conspiracy Bill. --Rise of the Volunteers. --NationalFortifications. --The Lords Reject the Measure for the Repeal of thePaper-duties. --Lord Palmerston's Resolutions. --Character of the Changesduring the last Century. 

The frequency of ministerial changes at this time has already beenmentioned, and the first of them took place at the beginning of 1852, under circumstances which throw some light on a question which has neverbeen exactly defined--the duty of the different members of a cabinet toone another, to the Prime-minister, and to the sovereign. 

Queen Victoria had a high idea of her duties and responsibilities. Fromany legal responsibility she was aware that she was exempt; but she didnot the less consider that a moral responsibility rested on her not tobe content to give her royal sanction as a mere matter of form to everyscheme or measure which might be submitted to her, but to examine everycase for herself, to form her own opinion, and, if it differed from thatof her ministers, to lay her objections and views fairly before them, though prepared, as the constitution required, to act on their decisionrather than on her own, if, in spite of her arguments, they adhered totheir judgment. And in carrying out this notion of her duty she wassingularly aided by the Prince, her husband, a man of perfectly uprightcharacter, of great general ability, and who, from the first moment ofhis married life, regulated his views of every question, domestic andforeign, by its bearing on English interests and English feelings, towhich he early acclimatized himself with a remarkable readiness ofappreciation. 

In the administration of Lord John Russell, Lord Palmerston was ForeignSecretary, and during its latter years foreign affairs occupied more ofthe attention of the country than matters of domestic policy. 

The revolution of 1848, which overthrew the Orleans dynasty, hadproduced in France a state of affairs but little removed from anarchy, which was scarcely mitigated by the election of Prince Louis Napoleon tothe Presidency of the new republic for four years, so constant was theopposition which the Republican party in the Assembly offered to everypart of his policy. They even carried their opposition so far as to forma deliberate plan for the impeachment of his minister and himself, andfor his arrest and imprisonment at Vincennes. But he was well-informedof all these dangers, and on the morning of the 2d of December, 1851(the day, as was commonly believed, having been selected by him as beingthe anniversary of his uncle's great victory of Austerlitz), heanticipated them by the arrest of all the leading malcontents in theirbeds; which he followed up by an appeal to the people to adopt a newconstitution which he set before them, the chief article of which wasthe appointment of a President for ten years. 

No one could avoid seeing that what was aimed at was there-establishment of the Empire in his own person. And so arbitrary adeed, as was inevitable, produced great excitement in England andanxious deliberations in the cabinet. Their decision, in strictuniformity with the principle that rules our conduct toward foreignnations, was to instruct our ambassador in Paris, Lord Normanby, toavoid any act or word which could wear the appearance of an act ofinterference of any kind in the internal affairs of France. But, on LordNormanby reporting these instructions to the French Foreign Secretary, M. Guizot, he learned, to his surprise and perplexity, that LordPalmerston had interfered already by expressing to the French ambassadorin London, M. De Walewski, his warm approval of the President'sconduct;[276] and Lord Normanby, greatly annoyed at being directed tohold one language in Paris, while the head of his department was takinga widely different tone in Downing Street--a complication whichinevitably "subjected him to misrepresentation and suspicion"--naturallycomplained to the Prime-minister of being placed in so embarrassing asituation. 

Both the Queen and the Prime-minister had for some time beendiscontented at the independent manner in which Lord Palmerstonapparently considered himself entitled to transact the business of hisdepartment, carrying it so far as even to claim a right to send outdespatches without giving them any intimation of either their contentsor their objects. And the Queen, in consequence, above a yearbefore, [277] had drawn up a memorandum, in which she expressed withgreat distinctness her desire to have every step which the ForeignSecretary might recommend to be taken laid clearly before her, withsufficient time for consideration, "that she might know distinctly towhat she had given her royal sanction;" and "to be kept informed of whatpassed between him and the Foreign Ministers before important decisionsare taken, " etc. , etc. And, after such an intimation of her wish, shenot unnaturally felt great annoyance at learning that in a transactionso important as this coup d'etat (to give it the name by which from thefirst it was described in every country) Lord Palmerston had taken uponhimself to hold language to the French Ambassador "in completecontradiction to the line of strict neutrality and passiveness which shehad expressed her desire to see followed with regard to the lateconvulsions at Paris, and which was approved by the cabinet. "[278] ThePrime-minister seems to have taken the same view of the act, andremonstrated with Lord Palmerston, who treated the matter very lightly, and justified his right to hold such a conversation, which hecharacterized as "unofficial, " in such a tone and on such grounds thatLord John considered he left him no alternative "but to advise the Queento place the Foreign Office in other hands. "

A careful and generally impartial political critic has recentlyexpressed an opinion "that Lord Palmerston made good his case;"[279] buthis argument on the transaction seems to overlook the most materialpoint in it. Lord Palmerston's own defence of his conduct was, that "hisconversation with Walewski was of an unofficial description; that he hadsaid nothing to him which would in any degree or way fetter the actionof the government; and that, if it was to be held that a Secretary ofState could never express any opinion to a foreign minister on passingevents except as the organ of a previously consulted cabinet, therewould be an end of that easy and familiar intercourse which tendsessentially to promote good understanding between ministers andgovernment;" and he even added, as a personal justification of himselfas against the Prime-minister, that three days afterward Lord JohnRussell himself, Lord Lansdowne (the President of the Council), and SirCharles Wood (the Chancellor of the Exchequer) had all discussed thetransaction with M. De Walewski at a dinner-party, "and their opinionswere, if anything, rather more strongly favorable than his had been. "

This personal aspect of the case it is impossible to discuss, sincethere are no means of knowing whether the ministers mentioned would haveadmitted the correctness of this report of their language. If it wereconfessed to be accurate, it would only show them to have been guilty ofequal impropriety, and to a great extent justify him as against thePrime-minister, whose condemnation of his language, if he were consciousthat he had held the same himself, would be inexplicable. But itcertainly does not justify him in respect of her Majesty or the cabinetcollectively, since the Queen's complaint was, not that he heldunofficial conversations as a private individual, and not as "the organof a previously consulted cabinet, " but that the tenor of theconversation which he had held was in direct contradiction to the tonewhich the cabinet had decided should be taken on the subject; that hislanguage was calculated to draw the government into a course of actionwhich it had been deliberately resolved to avoid. And, in spite of thedeference due to Lord Palmerston's great experience, it is hard to seehow a conversation between our Foreign Secretary and the FrenchAmbassador on an action, the result of which is as yet undecided, can bewholly unofficial, in the sense of having no influence on the conduct ofaffairs, or, as he expressed it, "in no degree or way fettering theaction of the government. "

The result was, as has been mentioned before, that the Prime-ministerrecommended the removal of Lord Palmerston from his office, and that hewas removed accordingly. And this conclusion of the case seems to showthat the statement of the position of the Prime-minister in the cabinetis rather understated by Mr. Gladstone in one of his essays, [280] wherehe says: "The head of the British government is not a Grand Vizier. Hehas no powers, properly so called, over his colleagues; on the rareoccasions when a cabinet determines its course by the votes of itsmembers, his vote only counts as one of theirs. " He admits at the sametime that "they are appointed and dismissed by the sovereign on hisadvice. " And surely to have the right of giving this advice is to havethe greatest possible power over his colleagues; not power, perhaps, tochange their opinions (though it possibly at times has had power toprevent the expression of them), but power to compass their immediateremoval from the administration, as was exercised in this instance, andas had been exercised by Pitt with regard to Lord Thurlow. That adifference of opinion, even on an important subject, is not alwaysregarded as a sufficient cause for such a dismissal; that aPrime-minister, especially if conscious of his strength, occasionallyconsents to retain colleagues who differ from him on some one subject, the same work to which we are partly indebted for our knowledge of thedetails of this affair--the "Life of the Prince Consort"--furnishes tworemarkable instances in which the Prime-minister, then Lord Palmerstonhimself, submitted to be overruled. We read there that on one occasion, when "Count Persigny sought the active intervention of England by theway of 'moral support' to a demand" which France proposed to address toAustria, "Lord Palmerston and Lord John Russell (then Foreign Secretary)were disposed to accede; but a different view was taken both by herMajesty and by the cabinet, and Count Persigny's request was accordinglydeclined. "[281] On this occasion, it is true, he was yielding to anoverwhelming majority of his colleagues (her Majesty's approval must, ofcourse, have been expressed subsequently to their decision). But inanother instance we find the same Prime-minister consenting to theintroduction of a bill by one of his colleagues, Mr. Gladstone, thenChancellor of the Exchequer, of which he disapproved so highly that, after it had been passed by a very slender majority of the House ofCommons, [282] he expressed to the Queen a hope that the closeness of thedivision "might encourage the House of Lords to throw out the bill whenit should come to their House, and that he was bound in duty to saythat, if they should do so, they would perform a good public service;"and after they had rejected it by a majority of eighty-nine, hepronounced that "they had done a right and useful thing, " reporting toher Majesty, as a corroboration of this opinion, and as a proof that itwas largely shared by the public out-of-doors, that "the people in thegallery of the House of Lords are said to have joined in the cheerswhich broke out when the numbers of the division were announced. "[283]And on a third occasion also he bore with the same colleague'sopposition to a measure which he and all the rest of the cabinet justlythought of vital importance to the best interests of the country, thefortification of our great seaports, allowing him to object for a timein private, and even to threaten public opposition to it the next year, since he felt assured that his opposition, if carried out, which hedoubted, would be wholly ineffectual. [284]

The personal interest in politics which this laudable habit of judgingof everything for herself naturally engendered in the Queen's mind led, however, to the adoption by her Majesty, in more than one instance, of acourse at variance not only with all historical precedent, but, withdeference be it said, with constitutional principle, sanctioned thoughit was by more than one ministry. When the First Napoleon, after hiselevation to the head of the French government as First Consul, proposed, by an autograph letter to George III. , to treat with thatsovereign for the conclusion of peace between the two nations, Pitt, towhom his Majesty communicated the letter, had no difficulty in decidingthat it would be unseasonable for the King "to depart from the formslong established in Europe for transacting business with foreignstates, "[285] and, under his guidance, the cabinet instructed LordGrenville, as Foreign Secretary, to address the reply to the FirstConsul's letter to the French Foreign Secretary, M. De Talleyrand. 

But this reign has witnessed several departures from the old andconvenient rule. Its violation was not begun by her Majesty, but by theEmperor Nicholas of Russia in the year preceding the Crimean war. Hewrote to the Queen herself to discuss some of the points in dispute, andshe answered his letter with her own hand. [286] The outbreak of warwhich soon ensued prevented any continuation of that correspondence; butthe close alliance which that war for a time produced between Englandand France, strengthened as it was by an interchange of visits betweenthe royal and imperial families, which led to the establishment of astrong mutual friendliness and regard, led also to an occasionalinterchange of letters on some of the gravest questions affecting thepolicy of the two nations. The correspondence was sanctioned bysuccessive English cabinets, every letter which the Queen eitherreceived from, or sent to, any foreign prince on political affairs beinginvariably communicated by her either to the Prime-minister or to theForeign Secretary; and they, in one instance, even suggesting to herMajesty to write to Louis Napoleon[287] with an object so delicate asthat of influencing the language with which he was about to open hisChambers. 

But we must think the line recommended by Pitt to George III. Both moreconstitutional and more safe. A letter from one sovereign to another onpolitical subjects cannot be divested of the character of a state-paper, and for every state-paper some one must be responsible. The sovereigncannot be, but for every one of his actions the ministers are. And itfollows, therefore, that they are thus made responsible for documents ofwhich they have not been the original authors; of which, were it not forthe courtesy of the sovereign, they might by possibility be whollyignorant; and with parts of which, even with the knowledge which thatcourtesy has afforded them, they may not fully coincide, since theycould hardly venture to subject a composition of their royal mistress toa vigorous criticism. Such a correspondence, therefore, places them sofar in a false position, and it runs the risk of placing the sovereignhimself in one equally false and unpleasant, since, if the opinionsexpressed or the advice given fail of their effect, the adviser is sofar lowered in the eyes of his correspondent and of the world. 

As has been incidentally mentioned, in the spring of 1854 war broke outwith Russia, nominally on account of the Sultan's refusal to concedesome of the Czar's demands concerning the condition of the Greek Churchin Palestine, but more really because, believing the Turkish empire tobe in the last stage of decay, he hoped by hastening its destruction toobtain the lion's share of its spoils. And for the first time for twocenturies an English and French army stood together in a field of battleas allies. In the field our armies were invariably victorious, inflicting severe defeats on the enemy at Alma and Inkerman, andwresting from them the mighty fortress of Sebastopol, in the Crimea, which hitherto they had believed to be absolutely impregnable. Our fleetwas, if possible, still more triumphant, destroying Bomarsund andSweaborg, in the Baltic, without the Russian ships daring to fire asingle gun in their defence, while their Black Sea fleet was even sunkby its own admiral, as the only expedient to save it from capture. Andin the spring of 1856 the war was terminated by a treaty of peace, inwhich, for the first time since the days of Peter the Great, Russia wascompelled to submit to a cession of territory. But (it may almost besaid) to the credit of the nation these successes, glorious andsubstantial as they were, made at the time scarcely so great animpression on the people as the hardships which, in the first winter ofthe war, our troops suffered from the defective organization of ourcommissariat. Want of shelter and want of food proved more destructivethan the Russian cannon; presently our gallant soldiers were reported tobe perishing by hundreds for lack of common necessaries; and the newsawakened so clamorous a discontent throughout the whole of the UnitedKingdom as led to another change of ministry, and Lord Aberdeen wassucceeded by Lord Palmerston. While a war on so large a scale was beingwaged there was but little time to spare for the work of the legislator, though it is not foreign to our subject to relate that in 1855 the lastof those taxes which the political economists denounced as taxes onknowledge, the tax on newspapers, was abolished. Originally it had beenfourpence; in 1836 Mr. Spring Rice, Chancellor of the Exchequer in LordMelbourne's ministry, had reduced it to a penny; and now, with a verygeneral acquiescence, it was abolished altogether. 

The entire abolition of a tax is not properly to be called a financialmeasure, that epithet belonging rather to those which aim at anaugmentation of revenue by an increase in the number of contributors toa tax, while lessening the amount paid by each. But the abandonment ofthe tax in question should rather be regarded as a sacrifice of revenuefor the instruction of the people in political knowledge; a price paidto enable and induce the poorer classes to take a well-instructedinterest in the affairs of the state and the general condition of thecountry. And, viewed in this light, the abolition of this tax must beallowed to have been a political measure of great importance, and tohave contributed greatly to the end which was aimed at. Till 1836 adaily paper, costing sevenpence, was the luxury of the few; and the saleeven of those which had the largest circulation was necessarily limited. But the removal of the tax at once gave birth to a host of pennynewspapers, conducted for the most part with great ability, and soonattaining a circulation which reached down to all but the very poorestclass; so that the working-man has now an opportunity of seeing the mostimportant questions of the day discussed from every point of view, andof thus acquiring information and forming a judgment on them which thesubsequent extension of the franchise makes it more than ever desirablethat he should be able to form for himself. Every movement in thatdirection renders it the more necessary to raise the intelligence of thegreat mass of the people to a level which may enable them to make a safeand salutary use of the power placed in their hands. And no mode ofimplanting a wholesome political feeling in the masses can equal candidpolitical discussion: discussion one ruling principle of which shall beto teach that the greatest differences of opinion may be honestlyentertained; that, with scarcely an exception, the leading men of eachparty, those who have any title to the name of statesman, are animatedwith an honest, patriotic desire to promote the best interests of thenation; and that the elucidation of truth is not aided by unreasoninginvective and the undeserved imputation of base motives. 

One of the last topics discussed by Mr. Hallam was the introduction of abill to limit for the future the prerogative of the crown in a field inwhich its exercise had previously been unrestrained, the creation ofpeers;[288] and among the last which we shall have to examine was one ofan exactly opposite character, though relating to the same subject, thecreation of a life peerage. In the winter of 1855 Sir James Parke, oneof the Barons of the Exchequer, was created Lord Wenslydale, byletters-patent which conferred the title limiting it also to the newpeer's own life. The professed object of the measure was to strengthenthe judicial power of the House of Lords. But it was not denied that thelimitation of the peerage conferred on him for his own life (alimitation which made no practical difference to Sir James himself, since he had no children) was intended to raise the question whether thecrown could or could not create a life peerage with a seat in the Houseof Lords. A creation so limited was so novel, or at all events so longdisused a proceeding, that it inevitably provoked examination anddiscussion. And, as it was found that the lawyers in general regarded itas indefensible, at the beginning of the session of 1856 Lord Lyndhurstbrought the matter before the House of Lords by a motion for theappointment of a committee of privileges to investigate and report uponit. There were two aspects of the case which naturally came to beconsidered in the debates on it which ensued: the advantages ordisadvantages, in other words, the political expediency, of such a formof letters-patent, and their legal or constitutional propriety. It was, of course, with the latter alone that the committee of privileges had todeal. And this part of the question was examined with great legal andantiquarian learning, though, as was almost inevitable, it was argued asa party question, except, indeed, by the lawyers. They, with theexception of the Chancellor, Lord Cranworth, who had advised themeasure, were unanimous in their condemnation of it; the Whig peers, Lord Brougham and Lord Campbell, then Chief-justice, being as positivein their denial of the right so to exercise the prerogative as those onthe Opposition side of the House, Lord Lyndhurst or Lord St. Leonards. [289]

The arguments against the measure were chiefly these: The objectors drewa distinction between what was legal according to the strict letter ofthe law, and what was constitutional; contending that there might beexercises of the prerogative which could not be affirmed to be illegal, but which no one would deny to be altogether inconsistent with theprinciples and practice of the constitution, since a great part of theconstitution rested on unwritten law, on long-continued usage, _Lex etconsuetudo Parliamenti_. And they affirmed that this measure was soopposed to that usage, that "no instance had occurred within a period offour hundred years in which a commoner had been raised to a seat in theHouse of Lords by a patent of peerage containing only an estate forlife;"[290] one most essential, if not the most essential character ofthe peerage being that it was an hereditary dignity, and one whichcombined with its rank an hereditary seat in the House of Lords. Thatone or two instances of life peerages were to be found in the annals ofthe Plantagenet kings was not denied, though none exactly similar incharacter. [291] But Lord Lyndhurst argued that precedents which hadoccurred "at a time when the constitution of the country was neitherunderstood nor fully formed" were entitled to but little respect; andLord Derby, limiting the age of valid precedents a little more strictly, "said frankly that he had no respect for any precedent affecting theprerogatives of the crown that dated farther back than the year 1688. "And since that time, or indeed since the time of Henry VIII. , it wascertain that no life peerage had ever been granted, except by CharlesII. , James II. , and George I. And II. , to some of their mistresses, instances wholly beside the present case, since, of course, none ofthose ladies could claim seats in the House of Lords. Indeed, it wasbelieved that both Mr. Pitt, at the time of the Union, and Lord Grey, in1832, had considered the question, and had both decided against thepropriety of advising a creation of life peerages. 

In defence of the measure Lord Granville refused to admit thedistinction between what was legal and what was constitutional; if ameasure were both legal, that is, warranted by the letter of the law, and also expedient, these two concurrent qualities, he contended, madeit constitutional. He denied, also, that any legal prerogatives of thecrown could be held to have lapsed through disuse; _nullum tempusoccurrit Regi_; and he challenged any peer to assert that the sovereignhad lost the right of refusing his royal assent to a measure passed bythe two Houses, merely because no sovereign since William III. Had soexercised his royal prerogative. And against the authority of Mr. Pittand Lord Grey he quoted that of Lord John Russell, who, in 1851, hadoffered a life peerage to an eminent judge, who, though he had declinedthe offer, had been influenced in his refusal by no doubt of the rightof the crown to make it. 

On the expediency of the measure its opponents had urged that it wouldeffect a remodelling of the House of Peers, a total change of itsconstitution, by the introduction of a second and distinct class ofpeerages; and Lord Campbell, with a not unbecoming jealousy for what heregarded as the interests of his brother lawyers, argued that it would"henceforth prevent any lawyer, however eminent he might have been as anadvocate, whatever services he might have rendered to the state in theHouse of Commons, whatever fame or fortune he might have acquired, fromaspiring to an hereditary peerage, or to becoming the founder of afamily, since, to make a distinction between the Chancellor and theChief-justice, between one Chancellor or Chief-justice and another, whencoming into the Upper House, as to the tenure of their honors, would beintolerable; all must be under the same rule, 'no son of theirssucceeding. '" And Lord Lyndhurst closed his argument by drawing acomparison between the House of Lords and the French Senate: "It was buta few weeks since he had read an official comment in the _Moniteur_, coming from the highest source, on the inefficiency, the want ofpatriotism, energy, and the backwardness to fulfil the high destinies towhich they were called, that characterized that illustrious body, theSenate of France. He had no disposition to cut down our tribunal to thatlife interest on which the Senate of France is based, as he believed thehereditary character of the House of Lords to be one from which greatand important advantages are derived.... The hereditary principle, " headded, "is intwined in every part of our constitution; we in this Houseenjoy our hereditary rights in common with the crown; we mutuallysupport and assist each other, and we form a barrier and defence toprotect both those branches of the constitution against any by whom theymay be assailed. "

As Lord Granville had made the expediency of any measure the qualitywhich, combined with legality, was sufficient to establish itsconstitutional character, he naturally labored this point with especialdiligence. He dwelt upon the great importance of strengthening thejudicial element in the House, since it was the great ultimate court ofappeal. He produced a letter of the great Chancellor, Lord Eldon, whichquoted instances in which various administrations had found difficultiesin the way of introducing eminent lawyers into the House, because theirwant of adequate fortune to support the rank had disinclined them toencumber their descendants with an hereditary peerage. He showed alsothat that difficulty had made so great an impression on their ownChairman of Committees, Lord Redesdale, that on one occasion he hadintimated a feeling in favor of allowing "the Law, in the same way asthe Church, to be, to a certain extent, represented in the House by theholders of certain offices, who should be admitted to that House asPeers of Parliament during the continuance of holding such office" (towhich argument Earl Grey added another, that the instance of bishops, who were but life peers, proved that the holders of life peerages werenot considered inferior to hereditary peers). 

He dwelt, too, on the evil consequence of the Lords "placing themselvesbefore the country as seeking to limit the prerogative of the crown, when that prerogative was exercised with a view to remedy something thatwas weak, and to remove a certain imminent danger. " What the danger washe certainly did not explain. But Lord Grey, in supporting him, tookwider ground, and, applying the argument derived from Lord Eldon'sletter to other professions, extolled the idea of instituting lifepeerages as one whose effect would be "more easily to open the doors ofthe House to men whom it was desirable should be admitted--todistinguished officers; to eminent writers; to members of the House ofCommons, who in their different lines might have rendered good serviceto the state, but who, though possessing means amply sufficient tosupport their rank during their own life, yet, from having only a lifeincome, or a numerous family to be provided for, might be unable toaccept an hereditary peerage without injury to their family. In suchinstances, " he contended, "it would be most desirable to grant peeragesfor life only. Such a proceeding would, he was convinced, by no meansdisincline others in different circumstances to accept hereditarytitles, nor indispose the ministry to confer them. Nor did he see anyreason for fearing that the practice of creating life peerages would bemore likely to be abused for the purpose of increasing the power of theminister than the creation of hereditary peerages. "

The committee of privileges was appointed, and reported it as theopinion of the members that "neither the letters-patent by themselves, or with, the addition of the usual writ of summons, could entitle thegrantee to sit and vote in Parliament. " And the House, by a majority ofninety-two to fifty-seven, adopted their report. The ministers yieldedto its judgment, and ennobled Lord Wenslydale by a new patent in theusual form, as Lord Derby had suggested. But Lord Derby desired to showthat his objection had been founded on principle only; and, as he waswilling to admit that, apart from the principle involved, "someadvantages in certain cases, and under certain modifications, mightarise from peerages for life, " he proposed the appointment of a selectcommittee "to consider the expediency of making provision for the moreefficient discharge of the duties of the House as a court of appeal. "The committee was appointed, and, after careful consideration, recommended the creation of two new offices, to be held by two lawlords, as "Deputy Speakers of the House of Lords, " who should be judgesof at least five years' standing, and should be enabled "by authority ofParliament to sit and vote in the House, and enjoy all the rights andprivileges of a peer of Parliament under a patent conferring a peeragefor life only, if the crown may have granted or shall grant the same tosuch persons in preference to an hereditary peerage, provided alwaysthat not more than four persons shall have seats in the House at onetime as peers for life. " Such an arrangement would have introduced a newpractice, but not a new principle, since the annexation of a seat in theHouse of Lords to certain offices had existed from time immemorial inthe case of the bishops. And the bill was carried in the House of Lords, but defeated in the Commons by a motion to refer it to a committee, which was adopted by a small majority, in a not very full House, [292]toward the end of the session. 

Those who look at the question apart from all preference of one ministeror one party to another will, probably, be of opinion that the decisionof the committee, that a life peerage thus created by the crown couldnot confer a seat in Parliament, was conformable to the most legitimateview of the constitution. It was, indeed, matter of history that in theMiddle Ages the crown had exercised its prerogative in many ways whichit had since abandoned. Boroughs had been enfranchised, and againdisfranchised, apparently from no motive but pure caprice; writs ofsummons had been withheld from peers. [293] But no one would havejustified the repetition of such acts now. And common-sense, as well asrecognized usage, favored the doctrine that long disuse was a sufficientand lawful barrier against their revival. That the power of conferringlife peerages with a seat in Parliament--of which, perhaps, the onlyundeniable instances were the cases of the brothers of Henry V. , whoseroyal blood would in those days, probably, have been held to warrant anexception in their favor--had not been exercised for full four hundredyears, was admitted; and the assumption that so long a disuse of a powerwas tantamount to a tacit renunciation of it, is quite compatible with aloyal and due zeal for the maintenance of other parts of the prerogativewhich have suffered no such abatement. 

If, however, we consider the expediency of the measure, or, in otherwords, the possible advantage that might ensue from the existence of apower to create life peerages with a seat in Parliament, opinions willprobably be more divided. We have seen that Lord Derby allowed thatthere might be advantages in such an exercise of power under certainlimitations; and the existing system does, undoubtedly, appear open toimprovement in certain cases. At present the only mode of rewardingnaval or military commanders who have performed brilliant and usefulservice, or a Speaker of the House of Commons, whose public career, though less showy and glorious, may at times have been scarcely lessvaluable, and has certainly been by far more irksome, is the grant of apeerage with a pension for lives. Without the peerage they cannot havethe pension. [294] And, consequently, many most distinguished officers, whose conspicuous merits well deserved conspicuous honors, have goneunrewarded except by some promotion of knighthood, which carries with itno substantial benefit; while the descendants of some of those who havebeen ennobled have openly lamented that the only mode which could befound of honoring their fathers proves a punishment to their heirs, byencumbering them with an empty title, which they are unable adequatelyto support, and practically closing against them avenues to possiblewealth and distinction which custom pronounces derogatory to their rank. So, not to mention the names of living worthies, no reward could befound for Sir W. Parker, that brave and skilful seaman who conducted aBritish fleet two hundred miles up a Chinese river, and crowned hisexploits by the capture of a mighty city, which had never before behelda European flag; nor for Inglis, who, when the safety of our IndianEmpire hung upon his gallantry, successfully sustained a siege whosehardships and dangers are surpassed by none in ancient or modernhistory. Many will, probably, be of opinion that it is not for the honorof England that such services should want due recognition; and that formen like those life peerages with liberal pensions would be anappropriate recompense. It would, of course, be impossible to limit thenumber of them beforehand, but it would also be needless, since thenature of the services by which alone they could be deserved would actof itself as a sufficient limitation. 

One of the expedients which had been mentioned in this discussion hadbeen the annexation of peerages to certain offices, to which it had beenregarded as an unanswerable objection that this would be the creation ofan absolutely unheard-of tenure, the peer thus created being able atpleasure to lay down his peerage, or even, it might be, being removable. But before the end of the session an emergency arose which inducedParliament to sanction the principle, novel though it was, that anofficial peerage, if a bishopric may be so called, might be laid downwith the sanction of Parliament when the holder was no longer able todischarge its duties. Two of the most eminent members of the Episcopalbench, Dr. Blomfield, Bishop of London, and Dr. Maltby, Bishop ofDurham, had become wholly incapable of discharging their duties, the onehaving been struck down by paralysis, and the other being almost blind. And they now proposed to the Prime-minister that he should make somearrangement by which they might be allowed to relinquish their offices, retaining a certain portion of the income of their sees as a retiringpension. There was no precedent for such an arrangement, but thenecessity of the two cases was so manifest, the injury which the Churchmust suffer if the superintendence of two such important dioceses wereto be neglected, was so palpable, and the conditions of the retiringpensions asked were so moderate and equitable, that Lord Palmerston hadno hesitation in sanctioning the introduction of a bill to give effectto the arrangement proposed. 

It did not pass without vigorous resistance from more than one quarter. The Bishop of Exeter complained of it as incompatible with the greatChurch principle, that a bishop could only resign his office to thearchbishop of his province; others opposed it as a violation of thecommon law, which forbids any bargain being made for the resignation ofan office; while some, referring to the prohibition of simony (a word, perhaps, as much misunderstood and as often misapplied as any in thelanguage), denounced the arrangement that the retiring prelates were tohave pensions as simoniacal. [295] The most reasonable objection made tothe proceeding was, that such exceptional legislation to meet anisolated case tended to establish a dangerous precedent, and that, asthere were other men of great age on the bench, it would be better toeffect the end now aimed at by a large general measure providing meansfor the retirement of all clergymen, those of inferior rank as well asbishops, whom age or infirmity might incapacitate. But the generalfeeling was against delay. The bill passed, and served in some degree asa model for that general measure which was soon afterward introduced, and which, as was suggested on this occasion, provided for anarrangement similar in principle being carried out whenever a priestholding any kind of ecclesiastical preferment should become disabled forthe performance of its duties. 

There can be no doubt that such legislation was absolutely necessary inthe interests of the Church, taking that expression to include, not theclergy alone, but the whole congregation of Churchmen. But it introduceda remarkable change into the system of ecclesiastical peerages, and, sofar, into the constitution of the House of Lords. What was resigned bythe two prelates was not the peerage (they had still the right to bestyled "my lord"), but the seat in the House of Lords, which was a part, and which had hitherto been regarded as an inseparable part of it, or, at least (as it should, perhaps, rather be said, since the recentregulation that the junior bishop should not have a seat was a clearviolation of that principle), which hitherto no one had been able todissociate from the peerage after it had been once enjoyed. 

The treaties which terminated the war with Russia were not concludedtill the spring of 1856; and it was well, indeed, that the country hadno longer a foreign war on her hands, for a twelvemonth had scarcelyelapsed when the very continuation of her existence as a great Easternpower was suddenly imperilled by what, regarded in one aspect, was amutiny of her troops on a most extensive scale; in another, a civil war, waged by a combination of native princes, Hindoo as well asMohammedan, [296] for the total extinction of our power, and theexpulsion of the British race from Bengal. As early as the first week ofFebruary several commanders of regiments and other authorities receivedwarnings of the organization of a wide conspiracy against our power; andin the second week of May the troops at Meerut broke into open mutiny, set fire to the public buildings, murdered their officers, and eventheir wives and children, and then marched off to Delhi, where thegarrison was prepared to receive them with open arms, and to imitatetheir atrocities. The contagion spread, and in a few weeks nearly allBengal was in arms. In one or two instances the native chiefs stood byus, but the greater number joined the insurgents, some from the desireto throw off our yoke, but others, probably, from constraint and throughfear. Whatever were their motives, before the end of June nearly all theprincipal cities and fortresses of Bengal, up to the very gates ofCalcutta, were in the hands of the insurgents, the chief exception beingat the great city of Lucknow, where, though the mutineers got possessionof the city, a British garrison held the Residency, in the centre; and, maintaining themselves with heroic fortitude, unsurpassed in all thehistory of war, for nearly nine months, contributed more than any otherbody of men to the final suppression of the revolt. It would be besideour purpose here to dwell upon the great deeds by which in that terribleyear our army, in all its branches, maintained its old renown; upon therecapture of Delhi; the deliverance of the incomparable defenders andpreservers of Lucknow; the exploits of Lawrence, and Inglis, andHavelock, and Outram, and Peel, and Campbell; and, if we are forced todeny ourselves the proud gratification of dwelling on their combinedheroism and wisdom, we may for the same reason be spared the pain ofrecounting the horrid cruelties wreaked in too many instances not onlyon the officers who fell into the rebels' hands, and on the civilmagistrates, but on the helpless women and children. In the firstexcitement of fear and horror those cruelties were, no doubt, greatlyexaggerated, but still enough remains proved to stamp the insurrectionas one branding with the foulest disgrace the race which perpetrated andexulted in them. 

It was not till the last week of 1858 that the last sparks of rebellionwere finally extinguished by the defeat in Oude of the last body ofrebels who remained in arms, and the flight of the remnant of theirforce across the frontier of Nepaul; but, even before that day came, theministry at home had been led to see the necessity of putting thegovernment of the country for the future on a different footing. Itcould hardly be doubted that the prompt suppression of a revolt of sounprecedented a magnitude, and the proof given in the course of ouroperations that the British soldier still maintained the samesuperiority over the native trooper as in the days of Clive, hadheightened our reputation and the belief of our power among the nativetribes. But, speedily and decisively crushed though it had been, therevolt had given too terrible a proof of the inconstancy and treacheryof the native tribes not to act as a warning to our statesmen; and thereflection that was thus forced upon them showed that a company ofmerchants, however distinguished by general courage and sagacity theyhad shown themselves, was no longer qualified to exercise imperialdominion over a territory which now extended over more than a million ofsquare miles, and more than a hundred and fifty millions of nativesubjects. 

Accordingly, in the first week of the session of 1858, Lord Palmerston, as Prime-minister, introduced a bill to transfer the government ofBritish India from the East India Company to the crown. It was naturalthat the principle of such a measure should be opposed by the Directorsof the Company, though it was supported by more than one person who hadheld high civil office in India; and equally natural that thearrangement of its details should call forth a minute and rigorousexamination, and on many points a very determined opposition. We neednot, however, say more about this bill, since circumstances preventedits being proceeded with; and the history of those which succeeded it isnow only worth referring to as showing the extreme difficulty of thetask of framing a government on new principles for a dependency of suchvast magnitude and importance. [297]

Lord Palmerston's bill was dropped, in consequence of the fall of hisministry, before the time came for its second reading; but thediscussion on it had to some extent smoothed the way for that of hissuccessor, Lord Derby. A great impression on the Parliament, and on thecountry in general, had been made by a very able speech of Sir G. C. Lewis, Chancellor of the Exchequer. He traced the whole history of theIndian government from the day of Plassy, and substantiated the right ofthe home government and Parliament to remodel it as they might judgebest, by proving that ever since the passing of Pitt's first bill, in1784, the Company had been constantly subject to Parliamentary control. He showed, too, most convincingly, that a petition which the Company hadpresented to the House of Commons, deprecating any change in theexisting system which should tend to diminish the authority of theDirectors, was based on one great fallacy--speaking, as it did, of theCompany as one and indivisible, and unchanged in character, functions, and influence, down to the date of the last renewal of its charter, onlyfive years previously; whereas the truth was, that in the one hundredyears since Plassy the system had undergone as many changes as theEnglish constitution between the Heptarchy and the reign of QueenVictoria. 

He had thus removed some of the obstacles out of the way of the measureof the new government, though Lord Derby would have preferred postponingit till tranquillity should have been restored to the country by thecomplete suppression of the revolt, had not the large majority[298]which had sanctioned the introduction of Lord Palmerston's bill, in hisopinion, "placed the Company in such a situation that they could nolonger command the same amount of public confidence and public supportas they were entitled to receive previously to that vote of the House ofCommons. " It may be added that the first bill on the subject which wasintroduced by his government bore evident marks of the difficultiesunder which it was framed--difficulties existing from the unexpectedsuddenness of his accession to office; so that, after a not very shortdiscussion, it was eventually withdrawn, and it was not till the end ofJune that the measure which was finally adopted was introduced. 

The leading enactments of the measure[299] provided that for the futurethe government of India, described as having been hitherto vested in, orexercised by, the Company in trust for her Majesty, should be vested inher Majesty, and exercised in her name; that one of her Majesty'sprincipal Secretaries of State should have and perform all such powersand duties relating to the government or revenues of India as hadformerly belonged to the Court of Directors, as the Court of Proprietorsof the Company; that a Council of the Governor-general should beestablished, consisting of fifteen members, seven of whom should beappointed by the Court of Directors, being persons who were, or hadformerly been, Directors of the Company, and eight should be nominatedby the crown. And as to both classes, it was provided that the majorityshould consist of persons who had served or resided in India for tenyears at the least, and should not have left India more than ten yearswhen appointed. They were to hold their offices during good behavior, toreceive salaries, and to be entitled to retiring pensions, but to beincapable of sitting in Parliament. The appointment of Governor-generaland Governor of each Presidency was to belong to the crown. Theexpenditure of the revenues of India, both in India and elsewhere, wasto be subject to the control of the Secretary of State in Council; otherclauses provided for the dividends of the Company, for the admission ofpersons into the civil service; and, with reference to existingestablishments, one clause provided that "the Indian military and navalforces should remain under existing conditions of service. "

This last clause was strongly objected to by the Queen, [300] as"inconsistent with her constitutional position as head of the army, which required that the Commander-in-chief should be put incommunication with the new Secretary of State for India, in the samemanner in which he is placed with regard to the troops at home or in thecolonies toward the Secretary of State for War.... With regard to thewhole army, whether English or Indian, there could, with due regard tothe public interest, be only one head and one general command. " Sheyielded her opinion, however, to the resolute objections of thePrime-minister, with whom on this point his predecessor, [301] LordPalmerston, agreed; but the result proved the superior soundness of herMajesty's view. It was not only a most anomalous arrangement, since thesupreme control of all the warlike forces was one of the mostinalienable prerogatives of the crown, but it had the strange fault ofpreserving the double government in the case in which, above all others, unity of system and unity of command were most indispensable. And, whatweighed more than either consideration with the generally practicalviews of English statesmen, it was from the beginning found to workbadly, creating, as it did, great and mischievous jealousies between thetwo divisions, the Royal and the Indian army. It was found that all thegenerals then in the highest commands in India--Lord Clyde (Sir ColinCampbell having been ennobled by that title), Sir Hugh Rose, and SirWilliam Mansfield--strongly disapproved of it, and recommended a change;and consequently, in the summer of 1860, Lord Palmerston, who in themean while had returned to the Treasury, came round to the Queen's viewof the subject, and a new act was passed which amalgamated the twoarmies into one Imperial army, taking its turn of duty throughout allparts of the British empire. [302]

A letter addressed by Lord Palmerston to the Queen in the autumn of1857, which appears to have been his first statement to her Majesty ofthe opinion which he had formed of the necessity of abolishing thegoverning authority of the Company, states the principal arguments infavor of such a measure with great clearness, as arising from "theinconvenience and difficulty of administering the government of a vastcountry on the other side of the globe by means of two cabinets, the oneresponsible to the crown and Parliament, the other only responsible tothe holders of Indian stock, meeting for a few hours three or four timesa year, which had been shown by the events of the year to be no longertolerable. " His disapproval of parts of Lord Ellenborough's policyprobably prevented him from alluding to his recall from India by theDirectors, in direct defiance of the opinion of the government, [303]though that strange step can hardly have been absent from his mind. But, in fact, the case for taking the whole rule of so vast a dominion whollyinto the hands of the Queen's government at home was so irresistible, that it did not require to be strengthened by reference to anyindividual instances of inconvenience. When the double government wasoriginally established, the English in India were still but a smallmercantile community, with very little territory beyond that in theimmediate neighborhood of its three chief cities. Of the conduct of theaffairs of such a body, still almost confined to commerce, the chiefshare might not unreasonably be left to the merchants themselves, subject to such supervision on the part of the government at home as wasimplied in the very name of the department invested with thatsupervision, the Board of Control, which, as Pitt explained the name, was meant to show that it was not to be, like the measure proposed bythe Coalition Ministry, a board of political influence. [304] But thecase was wholly altered when British India reached from Point de Galleto the Himalayas, and spread beyond the Ganges on the east, to beyondthe Indus on the west; when the policy adopted in India often influencedour dealings with European states, and when the force required for theprotection of those vast interests exceeded the numbers of the royalarmy. India, too, is a country the climate of which prevents ourcountrymen from emigrating to it as settlers, as they do to Canada orAustralia, and where, consequently, the English residents are, andalways must be, a mere handful in comparison with the millions ofnatives. In such a case their government must at all times rest mainlyon opinion, on the belief in the pre-eminent power of the ruler; and itwas obvious that that belief would be greatly fortified by the sovereignof Britain becoming that ruler. [305] The great rajahs cordiallyrecognized the value of the transfer of power considered in this light, and felt their own dignity enhanced by becoming the vassals of thesovereign herself. 

Turning to French affairs, a brilliant French writer has remarked, thathis countrymen are, of all peoples, the least suited to be conspirators, since none of them can ever keep a secret. But it was the ill-fortune ofLouis Napoleon that he had provoked enmities, not only among his owncountrymen, but among the republican fanatics of other nations also, whosaw in his zeal for absolute authority the greatest obstacle to theirdesigns, which aimed at the overthrow of every established government onthe Continent, and shrunk from no crimes which they conceived to becalculated to promote their object. To free themselves from such anantagonist, the most wholesale murders seemed by no means too large aprice. And in the middle of January, as the Emperor and Empress weregoing to the Opera, a prodigious explosion took place almost beneath thewheels of their carriage, from the effect of which they themselves had amost narrow escape, both being struck in the face by splinters, theaide-de-camp in their carriage also being severely wounded on the head;while their escort and attendants were struck down on all sides, tenbeing killed and above one hundred and fifty wounded. [306] It was soonfound out that the authors of this atrocious crime were four Italians, of whom a man named Orsini was the chief, and that he, who had butrecently escaped from a prison in Mantua, had fled from that town toEngland, and had there concocted all the details of his plot, and hadprocured the shells which had been his instruments. 

It was not unnatural that so atrocious a crime, causing such wide-spreaddestruction, should awaken great excitement in France, and in manyquarters violent reclamations against England and her laws, whichenabled foreign plotters to make her a starting-place for theirnefarious schemes. Even in the French Chambers very bitter language wasused on the subject by some of the most influential Deputies, for whichour ministers were disposed to make allowance, Lord Clarendon, theForeign Secretary, writing to the Prince Consort that "it was not to beexpected that foreigners, who see that assassins go and come here asthey please, and that conspiracies may be hatched in England withimpunity, should think our laws and policy friendly to other countries, or appreciate the extreme difficulty of making any change in oursystem. "[307]

But a different feeling was roused by a despatch of the French Secretaryof State to the ambassador here, which seemed to impute to this countrythat it deliberately sheltered and countenanced men by whose writings"assassination was elevated into a doctrine openly preached, and carriedinto practice by reiterated attacks" upon the person of the Frenchsovereign, and asked, in language which had rather an imperious tone, "Ought the English Legislature to contribute to the designs of men whowere not mere fugitives, but assassins, and continue to shelter personswho place themselves beyond the pale of common right, and under the banof humanity? Her Britannic Majesty's Government can assist us inaverting a repetition of such guilty enterprises, by affording us aguarantee of security which no state can refuse to a neighboring state, and which we are justified in expecting from an ally. Fully relying, moreover, on the profound sagacity of the English Cabinet, we refrainfrom indicating in any way the measures which it may seem fit to take inorder to comply with this wish. We confidently leave it to decide on thecourse which it shall deem best fitted to the end in view. " Still, though the charge that our Legislature contributed to the designs ofassassins was some departure from the measured language more usual indiplomatic communications between friendly powers, under thecircumstances this remonstrance might have been borne with. Unluckily, it was not all, nor the worst, that we were called upon to bear. A fewdays afterward some addresses to the Emperor from different militarycorps were published in the _Moniteur_, which not only poured forthbitter reproaches against the whole English nation, but demanded to beled to an invasion of the country, "as an infamous haunt for thecarrying out of infernal machinations. " Political addresses seem to ourideas inconsistent with military discipline; but the army had beenpermitted, and even encouraged, to make them ever since the days of theConsulate, though such addresses never received the recognition of apublication in the official journal till they had been subjected tocareful revision, and, if necessary, expurgation. On this occasion, however, that supervision had been carelessly performed, and theoffensive passages were left standing, though, when the Emperor learnedthe indignation which they had excited even among his well-wishers inEngland, he instructed his ambassador to apologize for their retentionand publication, as an act of inadvertence on the part of the officialswhose duty it had been to revise such documents. So far all was well. And had the English ministers replied to the despatch of M. De Persignyin firm and temperate language, they would have escaped the difficultieswhich eventually overthrew them. There was no doubt that, according todiplomatic usage, a written despatch formally communicated to theSecretary of State required a written reply. 

Unfortunately, a written reply was not given. Lord Clarendon was tooapprehensive of the mischief which might possibly arise from aprotracted discussion, leading, perhaps, to an angry controversy; andunder the influence of this feeling contented himself, when the despatchwas presented, with giving the ambassador a verbal answer, that "noconsideration on earth would induce Parliament to pass a measure for theextradition of foreign political refugees; that our asylum could not beinfringed, and that we adhered to certain principles on that subjectwhich were so old and so sacred that they could not be touched;"[308]adding, however, at the same time an assurance that the Attorney-generalwas already, at his request, examining our law of conspiracy, to seewhether it was sufficiently comprehensive or stringent. The purport ofthis answer was all that could have been desired; but there was a verygeneral impression that the omission to reply by a written despatch wasa sacrifice of the national dignity, if not an unworthy submission toscarcely disguised menace; though at the same time there was also afeeling among both parties in Parliament that our laws with respect tothe conduct of foreigners residing among us were, perhaps, susceptibleof improvement. On the very first night of the session, in allusion tothe attack on the French Emperor, Lord Derby had said that "he couldwish to hear the opinion of the ministers whether the existing laws ofthis country were adequate to afford security for the lives of foreignprinces against plots contrived in this country; and, if they were not, whether they might not be amended, so as to meet the case of such crimesas had recently been perpetrated, which were so heinous and revolting toevery feeling of humanity. " And even before that speech the ministershad applied themselves to frame a measure to amend the law, which in thesecond week of February the Prime-minister himself introduced to theHouse of Commons. 

It was read a first time, though not without some opposition; but beforeit arrived at the second reading, though only a week afterward, thefeeling of the country, reflected in this instance by the House, hadbecome so inflamed, that the measure was not discussed on its ownmerits, but on the point whether, since no other answer had been givento the French despatch, this must not be regarded as the ministerialanswer, and therefore whether it were such an answer as it befittedEngland to send. Had it been examined on its own merits solely, it couldhardly have provoked much adverse criticism. It was entitled, "A bill toamend the law with relation to the crime of conspiracy to commitmurder, " and it merely proposed to establish in England a law which hadlong existed in Ireland. Hitherto, as Lord Palmerston explained thematter, England had treated conspiracy to murder as a misdemeanor, punishable with fine and imprisonment. In Ireland it had long been acapital crime; and, though he did not propose to assimilate the Englishto the Irish statute in all its severity, he proposed to enact thatconspiracy to murder should be a felony, punishable with penalservitude, by whomsoever the conspiracy might be concocted, or whereverthe crime might be designed to be committed. 

The principle of such a law, supported as it was by the precedent ofIreland, could hardly be resisted. And Mr. Walpole, who had beenHome-secretary in Lord Derby's ministry, avowed his determination tosupport the bill, "as being right in principle. " But even he limited hispromise of support by a condition "that the honor of England should bepreviously vindicated;" arguing that the French despatch bore thecharacter of a demand, based upon allegations which were contrary totruth, and which, therefore, the ministers were bound to repudiate; andthat to pass such a bill without putting on record a formal denial ofthose allegations would, in the general view of Europe, imply aconfession that to them we had no answer to give. And it was thisconsideration which eventually determined the decision of the House, Mr. Disraeli, who closed the debate on his side, condemning the conduct ofthe ministers as "perplexed, timid, confused, wanting in dignity andself-respect. In not replying to the despatch, they had lost a greatopportunity of asserting the principles of public law. " The House, taking his view of their conduct, threw out the bill by a majority ofnineteen;[309] and the ministry resigned, and was succeeded by one underthe presidency of Lord Derby. 

Many of those who on this occasion combined to form the majority haddenounced the bill, as an infringement of the principles of ourconstitution. It is, however, evident that, had it passed, it would nothave deserved such a description. It would in no degree whatever havedeprived a foreign resident of safety and the protection of English law, so long as he should obey that law; and that is all the indulgence thatthe constitution ever gave or ought to give. Foreigners had always beenamenable to our courts of justice for any violation of the law. And LordPalmerston's bill not only went no farther than removing a certain classof offences from the category of misdemeanors to that of felonies, butit also imposed no liability in that respect on foreigners which it didnot at the same time impose on all the Queen's subjects. Indeed, thebill was so moderate, and the improvement it proposed so desirable, that, in a subsequent discussion in the House of Lords, Lord Campbell, the Chief-justice, expressed a hope that Lord Derby's government wouldtake it up; though Lord Derby, in view of the existing feeling of thecountry on the subject, prudently forbore to act on that suggestion. But, as one of Orsini's most guilty accomplices, a man named Bernard, was still in London, he caused him to be indicted for murder, as havingincurred that guilt as accessary to the death of some whom the explosionhad killed. The excitement on the question had, however, not died awaywhen the trial came on; and, though it will, probably, be generallyadmitted that the evidence was sufficiently clear, Bernard wasacquitted. 

Lord Derby, however, did not long retain his office. Indeed, the Earlwas so conscious that, on questions of general policy, the House ofCommons was inclined to views differing from his own, that he would havepreferred declining the task of forming a ministry, had he not conceivedthat, in the difficulty in which the Queen was placed by recentcircumstances, he was bound by his duty to make the attempt, even if theresult of it were merely to obtain a kind of respite for his sovereignand the country, which might give time for the present excitement offeeling to calm down. He was not deceived in his forebodings of hisinability to maintain his position. In the course of the next spring hewas twice defeated in the House of Commons--once by the House which hefound in existence, and a second time in one which was the fruit of ageneral election. And in the summer of 1859 Lord Palmerston returned tooffice, with power increased by the junction of many of those who hadhelped to overthrow him in 1858, but who now combined with him to strikea similar blow at his Conservative successor. 

Yet, brief as was Lord Derby's tenure of power, it was made memorable bythe commencement of a movement which cannot be regarded as devoid ofconstitutional importance, since, though originally it was only designedto supply a temporary re-enforcement to our ancient constitutionalforces, the regular army and the militia, it has eventually created aforce which, to the great honor of those who constitute it, has become apermanent addition to them. In the great war against RevolutionaryFrance, when it was generally believed that those who held rule in Pariswere contemplating an invasion of these islands, Pitt, as we have seen, had encouraged the formation of corps of volunteers, which continued tobe of great use till the very end of the war, by performing, inconjunction with the militia, a great portion of the home duties whichmust otherwise have fallen on the line regiments, and thus disengagingthe regular army for service on the Continent. There was now no suchformidable enemy to be dreaded as the first Napoleon, but in every partof Europe affairs were in a state so unquiet that every kingdom seemedat times on the very brink of war; and since, if it should once breakout, no one could feel confident that we should not be involved in it, or, if we should be, who would be our allies or our enemies, measures ofprecaution and self-defence seemed as needful now as they had been sixtyyears before. Our boldest statesmen were disquieted and anxious; and thenation at large, sharing their uneasiness, kindled with the feeling thatit was a time to show that the present generation inherited theself-denying patriotism of their fathers. Leaders were not wanting againto prompt the formation of a volunteer force. The government at once sawthe value of the scheme. Fortunately, the Secretary for War, ColonelPeel, happened to be an old soldier, a veteran who had learned the artof war under Wellington himself; and he, having great talents fororganization, placed the force from its infancy on a sound footing. Howthoroughly the movement harmonized with the martial spirit of thenation--to which, indeed, it owed its birth--is shown by the history ofthe force, which now, above twenty years after its original formation, maintains its full numbers and yearly improves its efficiency. Thoughthere has not for many years been any apprehension of war, above onehundred and twenty thousand men still annually devote no small portionof their time to the acquisition of military discipline and science, andthat so successfully, that, by the testimony of the most experiencedjudges, they have attained a degree of efficiency which, if thenecessity for their services should ever arise, would render themvaluable and worthy comrades to the more regularly trained army. LordDerby retired from office while the force was still in its infancy; butLord Palmerston was equally sensible of its value, and gave a fartherproof of his appreciation of the vast importance of measures of nationaldefence by the vigor with which he carried out the recommendations of aroyal commission which had been appointed by the preceding ministry toinvestigate the condition of our national defences. Its report hadpointed out the absolute necessity of an improved system of protectionfor our great dockyards and arsenals, which, from their position on thecoast, were more liable to attack than inland fortresses would havebeen, had we had such. And, in accordance with that warning, in thesummer of 1860, Lord Palmerston proposed the grant of a large sum ofmoney for the fortification of our chief dockyards. It was opposed on astrange variety of grounds; some arguing that the proposedfortifications were superfluous, because our navy was the defence towhich the nation was wont deservedly to trust; some that they wereneedless, because no other nation was in a condition to attack us;others that they were disgraceful, because it was un-English and mean toskulk behind stone walls, and because Lycurgus had refused to trust tostone walls for the safety of Sparta; and one member, the chiefspokesman of a new and small party, commonly known as the"peace-at-any-price party, " boldly denounced the members of thecommission as a set of "lunatics" for framing such a report, and theministers as guilty of "contemptible cowardice" for suggesting to thenation that there was any danger in being undefended. But the ministryprevailed by a large majority;[310] the money was voted, and the nationin general warmly approved of the measure. As Lord Palmerstonsubsequently expressed it, "the government, the Parliament, and thenation acted in harmonious concert"[311] on the subject. 

One of the arguments against it which the objectors had brought forwardwas, that the ministry was not unanimous in the conviction of thenecessity; and we learn from the "Life of the Prince Consort"[312] thatMr. Gladstone, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, was vehement in hisresistance to it, threatening even to carry his opposition so far as toresign his office, if it were persevered in. And, as has been intimatedon a previous page, this was not the only question on which in thecourse of this year the Prime-minister did in his heart differ from hisChancellor of the Exchequer, though he did not think it expedient torefuse his sanction to his proposals on a matter belonging to his owndepartment, the Exchequer. The subject on which he secretly doubted hiscolleague's judgment was one of the proposals made in the Budget of theyear. As has already been mentioned, the transaction throws a rathercurious light on the occasional working of our ministerial system; andthe fate of the measure in the two Houses of Parliament is alsodeserving of remark and recollection, as re-opening the question, whichhad not been agitated for nearly a century, as to the extent of thepower of the House of Lords with respect to votes of money. In a formerchapter[313] we have had occasion to mention the angry feeling on thepart of the House of Commons which, in the year 1772, had been evoked bythe act of the House of Lords, in making some amendments on a billrelating to the exportation of corn which had come up to them from theCommons. A somewhat similar act had, as we have also seen, revived thediscussion a few years later, when the minister of the day had shown amore temperate feeling on the subject. On neither occasion, however, hadthe question of the privileges of the Lords been definitively settled;and no occasion had since arisen for any consideration of the subject. But the Budget of 1860 contained a clause which, in spite of thedeserved reputation of the Chancellor of the Exchequer as a skilfulfinancier, was not regarded with general favor. There was a largedeficiency in the revenue for the year; but while, among his expedientsfor meeting it, Mr. Gladstone proposed an augmentation of theincome-tax, he proposed also to repeal the excise duty on paper, whichproduced about a million and a quarter. It is now known that thePrime-minister himself highly disapproved of the sacrifice at such atime of so productive a tax. [314] And, if that had been suspected at thetime, the House of Commons would certainly not have consented to it;even when the ministry was supposed to be unanimous in its approval ofit, it was only carried by a majority of nine; and, when the billembodying it came before the House of Lords, a Whig peer, who hadhimself been formerly Chancellor of the Exchequer in Lord Melbourne'sadministration, moved its rejection, and it was rejected by a majorityof eighty-nine. 

The rejection of a measure relating to taxation caused great excitementamong a large party in the House of Commons--so violent, indeed, thatthe only expedient that presented itself to the Prime-minister, if hewould prevent the proposal of some step of an extreme and mischievouscharacter, was to take the matter into his own hands. Had he been ableto act entirely on his own judgment, it may, perhaps, be thought that, with his sentiments on the inexpediency of the measure which had beenrejected, he would have preferred a silent acquiescence in the vote ofthe Lords; but he would have been quite unable to induce the majority ofhis own supporters, and even some of his own colleagues, to adopt somoderate a course; and accordingly he moved the appointment of acommittee to examine and report on the practice of Parliament in regardto bills for imposing or repealing taxes. And when it had made itsreport, which was purely of an historical character, setting forth theprecedents bearing on the subject, he proposed three resolutions, asserting "that the right of granting aids and supplies to the crown isin the Commons alone, as an essential part of their constitution, etc. ;that, although the Lords had exercised the power of rejecting bills ofseveral descriptions relating to taxation by negativing the whole, yetthe exercise of that power by them had not been frequent, and was justlyregarded by the Commons with peculiar jealousy, as affecting theirrights, etc. ; and that, to guard for the future against an undueexercise of that power by the Lords, and to secure to the Commons theirrightful control over taxation and supply, the Commons had it in theirpower so to impose and remit taxes, and to frame bills of supply, thattheir right, etc. , might be maintained inviolate. "

In the debate which ensued his chief opponents came from his own party, and even his own colleague, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, displayed afundamental difference of feeling from his on the subject, a differencewhich was expressed by one of the most eloquent supporters of theresolutions, Mr. Horsman, M. P. For Stroud, saying that "Lord Palmerstonwished to make the independence of the House of Lords a reality, whileMr. Gladstone seemed to desire that it should be a fiction. " LordPalmerston, indeed, showed the feeling thus attributed to him in astatesman-like declaration that, if "this nation had enjoyed a greateramount of civil, political, social, and religious liberty than, as hebelieved, any other people in the world, that result had beenaccomplished, not by vesting in either of the three estates, the Crown, the Lords, or the Commons, exclusive or overruling power over theothers, but by maintaining for each its own separate and independentauthority, and also by the three powers combining together to bear andforbear, endeavoring by harmonious concert with each other to avoidthose conflicts and clashings which must have arisen if independentauthority and independent action had been exerted by each or by all. " Heentered into the history of the question, explaining that, though "eachbranch of the Legislature retained its respective power of rejecting anymeasure, the Commons had claimed from time immemorial particularprivileges in regard to particular measures, and especially theexclusive right of determining matters connected with the taxation ofthe people. They claimed for themselves, and denied to the Lords, theright of originating, altering, or amending such measures; but, as longago as 1671, the Attorney-general, in a memorable conference between thetwo Houses, had admitted that the Lords, though they could not originateor amend, had, nevertheless, power to reject money-bills;" and thisadmission he regarded as consistent with common-sense, for "it was wellknown that, though the Commons contended for the right of originatingmeasures for the grant of supply, and of framing bills with that object, according to their belief of what was best for the public interest, yetsuch bills could not pass into law without the assent of the Lords; andit was clear that an authority whose assent was necessary to give aproposal the force of law, must, by the very nature of things, be atliberty to dissent and refuse its sanction. "

The committee had enumerated a large number of precedents (above thirty)in which, since that conference, the Lords had rejected such bills; butthe cases were not in general exactly similar to that now underconsideration, since the bills which they had rejected had commonly, ifnot in every case, been for the imposition and not for the repeal of atax; and in most cases some question of national policy had beeninvolved which had influenced their vote. But the view which LordPalmerston pressed on the House was that the present was "a case inwhich party feelings ought to be cast aside. It was one in which higherand larger interests than those of party were concerned, and in whichthe course that the House now took would be a precedent to guide futureParliaments. " He pointed out, moreover, that the smallness of themajority in the House of Commons had been to the Lords "someencouragement to take this particular step, " and that "he was himselfled to think that they had taken it, not from any intention to step outof their province, and to depart from the line of constitutional rightwhich the history of the country has assigned them, but from motives ofpolicy dependent on the circumstances of the moment; and therefore hethought it would be wise if the Commons forbore to enter into a conflictwith the Lords on a ground which might really not exist, but satisfiedthemselves with a declaration of what were their own constitutionalpowers and privileges. It was of the utmost importance in a constitutionlike ours, where there are different branches, independent of eachother, each with powers of its own, and where cordial and harmoniousaction is necessary, that care should be taken to avoid the commencementof an unnecessary quarrel, and the party that acted otherwise wouldincur a grave responsibility. "

Mr. Gladstone, however, though he ended by expressing his concurrence inthe resolution proposed by his chief, used very different languagerespecting the vote of the House of Lords, characterizing it as "agigantic innovation, the most gigantic and the most dangerous that hadbeen attempted in our time, " since "the origination of a bill for theimposition of a tax, or the amendment of a money-bill, was a slightthing compared with the claim to prevent the repeal of a tax;" and, dealing with assertions which he had heard, that in this instance "theHouse of Commons had been very foolish and the House of Lords verywise, " he asked whether that really described the constitution underwhich we live. The House of Commons could not be infallible in mattersof finance more than in other matters. It might make errors, but hedemanded to know whether those errors in finance were or were not liableto correction by the House of Lords. If they were, "what became of theprivileges of the Commons?" On the other hand, Mr. Disraeli, as leaderof the Opposition or Conservative party, supported the resolutions, andapplauded the speech of the Prime-minister, as "a wise, calm, and ampledeclaration of a cabinet that had carefully and deliberately consideredthis important subject. It had acknowledged that the conduct of theLords was justified by law and precedent, and sanctioned by policy, " andhe maintained that it showed that "the charge made by the Chancellor ofthe Exchequer was utterly untenable, and had no foundation. " And Mr. Horsman, taking a large general view of the legitimate working of theparliamentary constitution, argued that, while it was an undoubted rulethat "all taxes should originate with the Commons, as that elective andmore immediately responsible assembly that is constantly referred backto the constituencies, the reviewing power of a permanent andindependent chamber was no less essential;" and that, considering that"the Reform Bill of 1832 had given a preponderance of powers to theCommons, and that the tendency of any farther Reform Act must be in thesame direction, so far from narrowing the field of action for the peers, the wiser alternative might be to adopt a generous construction of theirpowers, with a view to preserving the equilibrium that is held to beessential to the safety and well-working of the constitution. The Houseof Commons, " he concluded, "is perpetually assuming fresh powers andestablishing new precedents. Virtually all bills now originate with theCommons; but this is not the consequence of any aggressive spirit inthem, but is the necessary and inevitable result of the historic workingof the constitution; and so this act of the Lords was but the naturalworking of the constitution to meet a definite emergency. " Theresolutions were passed, the first and third without a division; thesecond, to which an amendment had been proposed, designed to limit theforce of the precedents alleged as justifying the act of the Lords, by amajority of nearly four hundred. [315] In their form and language theresolutions cannot be said to have greatly affected the power claimed bythe Lords, and exercised by them in this instance. The first two weresimply declaratory of acknowledged principles or facts, and the thirdintimated no desire to guard against anything but an undue exertion bythe Lords of the right which they were admitted to possess. But it canhardly be doubted that the intention even of Lord Palmerston, dictatedby the strong feeling which he perceived to prevail in the House ofCommons on the subject, was to deter the Lords from any future exerciseof their powers of review and rejection of measures relating totaxation, when, perhaps, the Commons might be under less prudentguidance; nor that the effect of the resolutions will correspond withthe design rather than with the language of the mover, and will preventthe Lords, unless under the pressure of some overpowering necessity, from again interfering to control the Commons in such matters. At thesame time it seems superfluous to point out that one claim advanced bythe Chancellor of the Exchequer, who was apparently carried beyond hisusual discretion by his parental fondness for the rejected bill, isutterly unreconcileable with the maintenance of any constitution at allthat can deserve the name. When there are three bodies so concerned inthe legislation that the united consent of all is indispensable to givevalidity to any act, to claim for any one of them so paramount anauthority that, even if it should adopt a manifestly mischievous course, neither of the others should have the right to control or check orcorrect the error, would be to make that body the irresponsible masterof the whole government and nation; to invest it with that "overrulingpower" which Lord Palmerston with such force of reasoning haddeprecated; and to substitute for that harmonious concert of all towhich, in his view, the perfection of our liberties was owing, asubmission to one, and that the one most liable to be acted upon by theviolence or caprice of the populace. He was a wise man who said that helooked on the tyranny of one man as an evil, but on the tyranny of athousand as a thousand times worse. And for this reason also theresolutions which were now adopted seem to have been conceived in aspirit of judicious moderation, since, while rendering it highlyimprobable that the Lords would again reject a measure relating totaxation, it avoided absolutely to extinguish their power to do so. LordPalmerston, it may be thought, foresaw the possibility of an occasionarising when the notoriety that such a power still existed might serveas a check to prevent its exercise from being required. In the very casewhich had given rise to this discussion he regarded it as certain thatthe feeling of the majority of the nation approved of the action of thepeers; and, as what had occurred once might occur again, it wascertainly within the region of possibility that another such emergencymight arise, when the Lords might interfere with salutary effect to savethe country from the evil result of ill-considered legislation; financebeing, above all others, the subject on which a rash or unscrupulousminister may find the greatest facility for exciting the people byplausible delusions. There is, moreover, another reason why it would notonly be impolitic, but absolutely unfair, to deprive the Lordsaltogether of their power of rejection even in cases of taxation;namely, that the Commons, when imposing taxes, are taxing the Lordsthemselves, as well as the other classes of the community; while theLords alone of the whole nation are absolutely unrepresented in theHouse of Commons. There is a frequent cry for a graduated income-tax;and surely if an unscrupulous demagogue in office were to contrive sucha graduation as would subject a peer to three times the income-tax borneby a commoner, it would be a monstrous iniquity if the peers were tohave no power of protecting themselves in their own House. 

In the last sentence of his speech the Chancellor of the Exchequer had"respectfully reserved to himself the freedom of acting in such a way asshould appear to offer any hope of success in giving effect by apractical measure to the principle contained in the first resolution. "And it was, probably, an exemplification of the power of which he thusbespoke the use that he the next year struck out a scheme for insuringthe repeal of the paper-duties, including it in one bill with all hisother financial propositions, instead of dividing them in the ordinaryway in several distinct bills. It was a manoeuvre which too muchresembled the system of "tacking, " which had been so justly denounced asone of the most unseemly manoeuvres of faction in the previouscentury. [316] But, as some of the principal reasons which in thepreceding year had led the Lords to condemn the repeal had ceased toexist, and the deficiency of the revenue had been converted into asurplus, they thought it wiser to prove their superiority of wisdom tothe House of Commons by showing a more conciliatory spirit, and passedthe bill; though the course adopted, which had the effect of deprivingthe Lords of that power of examination of the details of the financialscheme of the government which they had hitherto enjoyed without anyquestion or dispute, was strongly protested against in both Houses, andby some members who were not generally unfriendly to the administration. 

A hundred years had now elapsed since George III. Ascended the throne. It had been a period full of transactions of great importance, developing the constitution in such a manner and to such an extent as tomake a change in its character but little inferior to those which hadbeen produced by the contests of the preceding century. One principalresult of the Revolution of 1688 has been described as having been theplacing of the political power of the state chiefly in the hands of thearistocracy. The Reform Bill of 1832, which has been sometimes called a"second Revolution, " transferred that power to the middle classes. [317]And what may be called the logical sequence of the later measures is thecontrary of that which was designed to flow from the earlier ones. Thechanges which were effected in 1688 were intended to promote, and werebelieved to have insured, stability; to have established institutions ofa permanent character, as far as human affairs can be invested withpermanency. And down to the death of George II. The policy of succeedingministers, of whom Walpole may be taken as the type, as he wasunquestionably the most able, aimed chiefly at keeping things as theywere. _Quieta non movere_. The Peerage Bill, proposed by aPrime-minister thirty years after the Revolution, was but an exaggeratedinstance of the perseverance with which that object was kept in view. But the Reform Bill of 1832, like the Emancipation Act which precededit, on the contrary, contained in itself, in its very principle, theseeds and elements of farther change. 

The Emancipation Act, following and combined with the repeal of the TestAct, rendered it almost inevitable that religious toleration would intime be extended to all persuasions, even to those adverse toChristianity. And the Reform Bill, as has been already pointed out, bythe principles on which it based its limitations of the franchise, laidthe foundation for farther and repeated revision and modification. [318]The consequence is, that the aim of statesmen of the present day differsfrom that which was pursued by their predecessors. The statesman of thepresent day can no longer hope to avoid farther changes, and must, therefore, be content to direct his energies to the more difficult taskof making them moderate and safe, consistent with the preservation ofthat balance of powers to which the country owes the liberty andhappiness which it has hitherto enjoyed. 

It is in this point of view that the diffusion of education, beyond theblessing which it confers on the individual, is of especial importanceto the state. Political theorists affirm that all men have an equalright to political power--to that amount, at least, of political powerwhich is conferred by a vote at elections. Men of practical common-senseaffirm that no one has a right to power of any kind, unless he can betrusted to forbear employing it to the injury of his fellow-creatures orof himself. And the only safeguard and security for the proper exerciseof political power is sound and enlightened education. It is unnecessaryto dwell on this point, because our statesmen of both parties (to theirhonor) give constant proof of their deep conviction of its importance. 

But, in closing our remarks, it may be allowable to point out thepolitical lesson which, above all others, the teachers of the massesshould seek to inculcate on their pupils. The art of government, andeach measure of government, is, above all other things, the two-sidedshield. There are so many plausible arguments which may be advanced oneach side of almost every question of policy, that no candid man willseverely condemn him who in such disputable matters forms an opiniondifferent from his own. Age and experience are worse than valueless ifthey do not teach a man to think better of his kind; and the history ofthe period which we have been considering teaches no lesson moreforcibly than this, that the great majority of educated men, andespecially of our leading statesmen, are actuated by honest andpatriotic motives. And we would presume to urge that more important thana correct estimate of any one transaction of the past, or even of anyone measure to influence the future, is the habit of putting a candid, and therefore a favorable, construction on the characters and intentionsof those to whom from time to time the conduct of the affairs of thenation is intrusted. 

Notes:

[Footnote 276: "Life of Palmerston, " vol. I. , c. Vii. ]

[Footnote 277: "Life of the Prince Consort, " ii, 303. ]

[Footnote 278: _Ibid_. , p. 412. ]

[Footnote 279: Amos, "Fifty Years of the English Constitution, " p. 289. ]

[Footnote 280: "Past Gleanings, " i. , 242. ]

[Footnote 281: "Life of the Prince Consort, " iv. , 458. ]

[Footnote 282: 219 to 210. ]

[Footnote 283: "Life of the Prince Consort, " v. , 100. ]

[Footnote 284: _Ibid_. , p. 148. ]

[Footnote 285: "Life of Pitt, " by Earl Stanhope, iii. , 210. ]

[Footnote 286: "Life of the Prince Consort, " iv. , 329. ]

[Footnote 287: _Ibid. _, p. 366. ]

[Footnote 288: "Constitutional History, " iii. , 319, 3d edition. ]

[Footnote 289: It should be added that, on a subsequent occasion, Mr. Roundell Palmer, member for Plymouth (now Lord Chancellor Selborne, andeven then in the enjoyment of the highest professional reputation), declared his opinion to be in favor of the legality and constitutionalpropriety of the proceeding. ]

[Footnote 290: To illustrate this position, Lord Lyndhurst said: "Thesovereign may by his prerogative, if he thinks proper, create a hundredpeers with descendible qualities in the course of a day. That would beconsistent with the prerogative, and would be perfectly legal; buteverybody must feel, and everybody must know, that such an exercise ofthe undoubted prerogative of the crown would be a flagrant violation ofthe principles of the constitution. In the same manner the sovereignmight place the Great Seal in the hands of a layman wholly unacquaintedwith the laws of the country. That also would be a flagrant violation ofthe constitution of this country. "--Hansard's _Parliamentary Debates_, cxl. , February 7, 1856. In the same debate Lord Derby defined"prerogative" as "the power of doing that which is beside the law. "Hallam, in discussing the prosecution of Sir Edward Hales, fullyrecognizes the principle contended for by Lord Lyndhurst, saying that"it is by no means evident that the decision of the judges" in that case"was against law, " but proceeding to show that "the unadvised assertionin a court of law" of such an exercise of the prerogative "may be saidto have sealed the condemnation of the house of Stuart. "--_Constitutional History_, vol. Iii. , c. Xiv. , p. 86. ]

[Footnote 291: In the reign of Richard II. The Earl of Oxford had beenmade Marquis of Dublin for life, but he already had a seat in the Houseas Earl. Henry V. Had originally made the peerages of his brothers, theDukes of Bedford and Gloucester, life peerages; but these were afterwardsurrendered and regranted "in the usual descendible form, " so that theyrather made against the present case than for it. Henry VIII. Hadcreated the Prince of Thomond Earl of Thomond for his life, but he hadat the same time granted him the barony of Inchiquin "for himself andhis heirs forever. " It was also alleged that these life peerages had notbeen conferred by the King alone, but by the King with the authority andconsent of Parliament, "these significant words being found in thepatents. "]

[Footnote 292: The division was 153 to 133. Some years afterward, however, a clause in the act, which created a new appellatejurisdiction, empowered the sovereign to create peerages of this limitedcharacter, one of the clauses providing that "every Lord of Appeal inOrdinary should be entitled during his life to rank as a Baron by suchstyle as her Majesty may be pleased to appoint, and shall during thetime that he continues in office as a Lord of Appeal in Ordinary, and nolonger be entitled to a writ of summons to attend, sit, and vote in theHouse of Lords. His dignity as a Lord of Parliament shall not descend tohis heirs. " As this act was passed long after the period at which thepresent volume closes, it does not belong to the writer to examine howfar this act, in providing that every Lord of Appeal shall for the timerank as a Baron (the Lords of Appeal being, of course, appointed by thecrown), is entitled to be spoken of as introducing a greatconstitutional innovation, big with future consequences, as it has beendescribed by some writers. ]

[Footnote 293: In one notorious instance, that of the Earl of Bristol(_confer_ Hallam, i. , 518), in the time of Charles I. , the House ofLords had interfered and compelled the issue of the writ; their actionforming a precedent for their right of interference in such matters, which in the present case the Lord Chancellor denied. ]

[Footnote 294: The grant of a pension of £1000 a year, with a baronetcy, to General Havelock, and more recently to Sir F. Roberts, are, it isbelieved, the only exceptions to this rule. ]

[Footnote 295: Bishop Lonsdale, of Lichfield, in reference to SimonMagus, from whose offer of money to the Apostles the offence derives itsname, denying that there was any similarity between his sin and the actof purchasing an advowson or presentation, remarked that it might justas fitly be called magic as simony. ]

[Footnote 296: It has been, and will probably continue to be, a matterof dispute whether the first conception and plan of the insurrectionoriginated with the restless boldness of the Mohammedans or the deeperfanaticism of the Hindoos. It is notorious that the prophecy that acentury had been assigned by the Almighty as the allotted period of oursupremacy in India had for many years been circulated among both; and, though the conspiracy was at first generally attributed to theMohammedans, the argument that the period from the battle of Plassy, in1757, to the outbreak in 1857, though an exact century according to theHindoo calendar, is three years longer according to the Mohammedancomputation, seems an almost irresistible proof that the Brahmins wereits original authors. Sir John Kaye, in his "History of the Sepoy War, "at the end of book iii. , c. Iii. , prints the following note, asfurnished to him by Mr. E. A. Reade, a gentleman of long experience inIndia: "I do not think I ever met one man in a hundred that did not givethe Mohammedans credit for this prediction. I fully believe that thenotion of change after a century of tenure was general, and I cantestify, with others, to have heard of the prediction at least a quarterof a century previously. But, call it a prediction or a superstition, the credit of it must, I think, be given to the Hindoos. If we take theHejira calendar, 1757 A. D. Corresponds with 1171 Hejira; 1857 A. D. With1274 Hejira; whereas, by the lunisolar year of the Sumbut, 1757 is 1814Sumhut, and 1857 is 1914 Sumbut. "]

[Footnote 297: It is worthy of remark that, as early as 1829, the Earlof Ellenborough, then President of the Board of Control, had come to theconclusion that the Company was no longer competent to govern so vast adominion as that of British India had gradually become. In his Diary, recently published (ii. , 131), he expresses his firm conviction that, "in substituting the King's government for that of the Company, we shallbe conferring a great benefit on India, and effecting the measure whichis most likely to retain for England the possession of India;" and fromthe same work (ii. , 61) we learn that Mr. Mountstuart Elphinstone, oneof the ablest servants of whom the Company could boast, and who hadrecently been Governor of Bombay, even while confessing himselfprejudiced in favor "of the existing system, under which he had beeneducated and lived, " admitted that "the administration of the governmentin the King's name would be agreeable to the civil and militaryservices, and to people in England. He doubted whether, as regarded theprinces of India, it would signify much, as they now pretty wellunderstood us. " See also _ibid_. , p. 414. ]

[Footnote 298: 318 to 173. ]

[Footnote 299: The whole bill is given in the "Annual Register" for theyear 1858, p. 226. ]

[Footnote 300: See her letter to Lord Derby on the subject, given in the"Life of the Prince Consort, " iv. , 308; _confer_ also a memorandum ofthe Prince Consort, _ibid. _, p. 310. ]

[Footnote 301: _Ibid. _, p. 106. ]

[Footnote 302: It should be remarked that the arrangement originallycarried out awoke among the European troops of the Company so deep andgeneral a spirit of discontent as at one time threatened to break out inopen mutiny; the ground of their dissatisfaction being "the transfer oftheir services in virtue of an act of Parliament, but without theirconsent. " Accordingly, "on the announcement of the proclamationtransferring the possessions of the East India Company to the crown, some of the soldiers of the Company's European force set up a claim fora free discharge or a bounty on re-enlistment. " Lord Clyde'srecommendation "that a concession should be made" was overruled by thegovernment of India, and "pronounced inadmissible by the law-officers ofthe crown" in England. The dissatisfaction was allayed for the time bythe judicious measures, equally conciliatory and firm, adopted by LordClyde, in whom all ranks of both armies felt equal confidence; buteventually the government became convinced of the necessity of grantingdischarges to every man who wished for one, provided he had notmisconducted himself. --Shadwell's _Life of Lord Clyde_, ii. , 407-416. ]

[Footnote 303: See _ante_, p. 385. ]

[Footnote 304: Stanhope's "Life of Pitt, " i. , 173. ]

[Footnote 305: Sir Theodore Martin quotes a passage from a letter of the_Times_ correspondent, giving a report of the effect of the proclamationon the natives: "Genuineness of Asiatic feeling is always a problem, butI have little doubt it is in this instance literally sincere. The peopleunderstand an Empress, and did not understand the Company. Moreover, they (I am speaking of the masses) have a very decided notion that theQueen has hanged the Company for offences 'which must have been verygreat, ' and that fact gives hope of future justice. "--_Life of thePrince Consort_, iv. , 337. ]

[Footnote 306: The "Annual Register" says that "neither the Emperor northe Empress was touched;" but Sir Theodore Martin ("Life of the PrinceConsort, " iv. , 155) says that "the Emperor's nose was grazed, and thatthe Empress received a blow on the left eye which affected it for sometime. "]

[Footnote 307: "Life of the Prince Consort, " iv. , 156. ]

[Footnote 308: Speech of Lord Palmerston, February 19. ]

[Footnote 309: It is remarkable that it was not a very full House, thenumbers of the division being only 234 to 215. Many members absentedthemselves, being equally unwilling to condemn the bill or to approvethe silence of the ministry. ]

[Footnote 310: 268 to 39. ]

[Footnote 311: "Life of the Prince Consort, " v. , 131. ]

[Footnote 312: "Life of the Prince Consort, " i. , 99. ]

[Footnote 313: Chapter II. , p. 54. ]

[Footnote 314: It is known, from two letters from Lord Palmerston to theQueen, published in the "Life of the Prince Consort, " v. , 100--in one, written before the debate in the House of Lords, he expresses a hopethat the smallness of the majority in the House of Commons willencourage the Lords to throw it out, and he "is bound in duty to saythat, if they do so, they will perform a good public service;" and inanother, the day after the division in the Lords, he writes again "thatthey have done a right and useful thing, " adding that the feeling of thepublic was so strong against the measure, that those in the gallery ofthe House are said to have joined in the cheers which broke out when thenumbers were announced. ]

[Footnote 315: 433 to 36. ]

[Footnote 316: See the proceedings of 1700 (Macaulay, "History ofEngland, " v. , 278; and of 1704, Lord Stanhope's "Reign of Queen Anne, "p. 168). The Whig and the Tory writer equally condemn the "Tackers. "]

[Footnote 317: In the debate on life peerages ("Parliamentary History, "cxl. , 356), Lord Grey spoke of "that great transfer of political powerfrom one class to another which was accomplished by the Reform Bill" AndLord Campbell, speaking of Lord Grey himself in connection with thatmeasure, says: "His Reform Bill ought to place him in a temple ofBritish worthies by the side of Lord Somers, for it wisely remodelledthe constitution, and it is hardly less important than the Bill ofRights. "--_Life of Lord Campbell_, ii. , 201. ]

[Footnote 318: A recent writer, professedly belonging to the Radicalparty, claims for it the credit of "being the legitimate issue of theReform Bill of 1832. " ("The State of Parties, " by J. E. Kebbel, _Nineteenth Century_, March, 1881, p. 497. )]

INDEX. 

ABBOTT, Mr. , proposes a census. Addington, Mr. , becomes Prime-minister, See Sidmouth. Additional Force Bill. Albert, Prince, marries Queen Victoria. Alien' Act, the. Althorp, Lord, introduces a bill for the reform of the Poor-laws; his speech on the condition of Ireland; invites the House of Commons to rescind a vote. Amelia, Princess, death of. Archdall, Mr. , on Catholic Emancipation, note. Association, Catholic, suppression of. 

BAKER, Mr. , moves a resolution on the dismissal of the Coalition Ministry. Barrington, Lord, moves the expulsion of Wilkes. Battle, wager of, abolished. Bernard, trial of, as accomplice of Orsini. Bishoprics, provision for the increase of; exclusion of the occupants of the junior bishoprics from the House of Peers; resignation of, by aged bishops. Blucher, Field-marshal, proposes to put Napoleon to death. Boston, United States, tea ships at, boarded by rioters, and the cargo thrown into the sea. Bristol, Lord, denounces the appointment of the Chief-justice to a seat in the cabinet. Brougham, Mr. , afterward Lord Chancellor, the chief adviser of the Queen; defends the ministry for stopping Lord Powis's bill. Brownlow, Mr. , opposes Pitt's commercial reforms. Buonaparte, Napoleon, detention of. Burdett, Sir F. , carries a motion for repeal of Roman Catholic disabilities. Burke, Mr. B. , opposes the expulsion of Wilkes; supports Mr. Grenville's act; complains of the insolence of the House of Peers; supports the repeal of the bill for taxing the American Colonies; on annual Parliaments; brings in a bill for economical reform; his "short account of a late administration"; asserts the right of the House of Peers to examine the public accounts; his violent language on the Regency Bill; member of Lord Rockingham's second ministry; his view of the attachment of the Colonies to England. Bute, Earl of, Prime-minister in 1762; resigns office. 

CABINET, character of. Camden, Earl of, approves the resolution of the House of Commons; opposes the Royal Marriage Act; supports Lord Chatham's views on the American question; moves the Regency bill of 1788. Campbell, Lord, his "Lives of the Chancellors" referred to; his denunciation of the Declaratory Act; and of the Regency bill; on the Chief-justice in the cabinet. Canada, disquietude in; union of the two provinces. Canning, Lord, grants the right of adoption to the Hindoo feudatories. Canning, Mr. G. , attacks the appointment of the Chief-justice to a seat in the cabinet; becomes Prime-minister; dies; his opinion on the question in which House of Parliament the Prime-minister should be. Caroline, Princess of Brunswick, marries the Prince of Wales; investigations into her conduct; she dies. Cave, Mr. , punished for publishing reports of debates. Census established. Charlotte, Princess, birth of. Chartists, rise of; outrages of, at Birmingham and Newport. Chatham, Earl of, Secretary of State in 1760; Lord Privy Seal in 1767; supports Lord Rockingham's resolution on the expulsion of Wilkes; denies the power of the Parliament to tax America. Church reform, sketched out by Sir Robert Peel; earned by Lord Melbourne's ministry. Clarence, Duke of, opposes the abolition of the slave trade; his leaning toward the Whigs. Clarendon, Earl of, omits to reply to the despatch of the French minister. Clergy, Roman Catholic, question of endowing the. Colborne, Sir John crushes the insurrection in Canada. Colonies, general grant of constitutions to, in New Zealand, the Cape, and Australia. Commons, House of privileges of, with respect to money bills. Conventicle Act, repeal of. Conway, General, Secretary of State, introduces a bill of indemnity. Cornwallis, Lord, surrenders in America. Corporations, reform of. Crosby, Brass, Mr, Lord Mayor, commits a messenger of the House of Commons, and is himself committed to the Tower. Cumberland, Duke of, marries Mrs Horton. Cust, Sir J, Speaker of the House of Commons. 

DASHWOOD, Sir F. , his revels at Medmenham Abbey. Declaratory Act. De Grey, Mr, Attorney-general, supports the resolutions against Wilkes. Denbigh, Lord, defends the employment of Hanoverian troops at Gibraltar. Denman, Lord Chief justice, his charge to the jury in the case of Stockdale v. Hansard. Disraeli, Mr B, his act for the trial of election petitions; he denounces Sir Robert Peel for not resigning when defeated on the sugar-duties; condemns Lord Clarendon's omission to reply to the French despatch; supports the House of Lords on the paper duties. Dowdeswell, Mr, opposes the Royal Marriage Act. Dundas, Mr, moves an amendment to Mr Dunning's resolution. Dunning, Mr, afterward Lord Ashburton, supports Mr Glenvilles act; criticizes a resolution on the influence of the crown. Dunham, Lord, Governor of Canada. 

EDUCATION, influence of the penal laws on in Ireland. Eldon, Lord, on the coronation oath in connection with the Catholic question; on the detention of Napoleon; on life peerages. Elgin, Lord, Governor general of Canada. Ellenborough, Lord, supports the Additional Force Bill; becomes a member of the Cabinet; is recalled from the government of India by the Company. Emancipation of Roman Catholics designed by Pitt; concurred by the Duke of Wellington. Erskine, Lord, as Chancellor, presides over the impeachment of Lord Melville; resists Lord Sidmouth's Six Acts. 

FITZGERALD, LORD E. , opposes the English government. Fitzgerald, Mr Vesey, is defeated in Clare. Fitzgibbon, Mr (afterward Lord Clare), opposes the convention of delegates in Dublin; Attorney-general in Ireland, prosecutes the sheriff of Dublin; supports the Regency bill. Fitzwilliam, Earl, is dismissed from the Lord-lieutenancy of Yorkshire. Five Mile Act repealed. Fox, Mr C. , opposes Mr Grenville's act; on the privileges claimed by the House of Commons respecting money-bills; _note_, on Parliamentary reform and annual Parliaments; urges the appointment as Prime-Minister of the Duke of Portland; resigns office; becomes Secretary of State; his India Bill; violence of his attacks on Pitt at the beginning of his ministry; his opinions on Colonial policy; denies the Prince's marriage; opposes the Regency bill; opposes the Alien Act and other bills; opposes Pitt's commercial reforms; becomes Secretary of State; supports the abolition of the slave trade; dies. France, new revolution in 1848. Franklin, Dr, is examined by the House of Commons on Mr Glenville's measures of taxation. 

GEORGE III. , state of affairs at the accession of; illness of in 1764; firmness in the Gordon riots; becomes deranged; is attacked on the street; resists the relaxation of Catholic restrictions; becomes permanently deranged; dies; character of his reign. George IV. Succeeds to the throne. Gladstone, Mr W. E. , opposes the fortification of the dockyards; proposes to repeal the paper-duties; carries the repeal of the paper-duties; desires to weaken the power of the House of Lords. Gloucester, Duke of, marries Lady Waldegrave. Gordon, Lord George, the Gordon riots. Goulburn, Mr. H, is Chancellor of the Exchequer. Grafton, Duke of, Prime-minister in 1767; disapproves of American taxation. Graham, Sir J. , as Home-secretary, orders the opening of letters. Grampound disfranchised. Granville, Earl, defends life peerages. Grattan, Mr. H. , moves the repeal of Poynings' Act; opposes Pitt's commercial reforms; opposes Pitt's Regency bill. Grenville, Mr. G. , becomes Prime minister; opposes the expulsion of Wilkes; brings in a bill for the investigation of election petitions; imposes taxes on the North American Colonies. Grenville, Lord, introduces the Alien Bill; opposes the Additional Force Bill; brings in a bill for the abolition of the slave trade; refuses a seat in the cabinet in 1812. Grey, Mr. (afterward Earl), opposes the Regency bill; opposes the Alien Act; opposes the union with Ireland; proposes to diminish the number of members of the House of Commons; opposes the abolition of slavery; refuses a seat in the cabinet in 1812; becomes Prime minister; his ministry brings in Reform Bill; defends a proposed creation of peers; mentions the sovereign's opinion unconstitutionally; letters from office. Grey, Earl (son of the preceding), his doctrine on the true principles of colonial government; on life peerages. Gower, Lord F. L. , carries a resolution for the endowment of the Roman Catholic clergy. Girizot, M. , Foreign Secretary in France. 

HALIFAX, Earl of, issues a general warrant against the publishers, etc. , of _The North Briton_. Hanoverian troops, employment of, at Gibraltar. Hansard, Mr. , publishes the Parliamentary debates. Hardy, General, taken prisoner by Sir J. Warren. Hill, Mr. Roland, proposes a reform of the Post-office. Hillsborough, Lord, writes a circular letter to the North American Colonies. Hoche, General, sails for Ireland. Holdernesse, Earl of, Secretary of State in 1760. Holland, Lord, opposes the Regency Bill. Holt, Chief justice, his decision on the question of slavery. Holsmann, Mr. , supports the House of Lords on the paper duties. Humbert, General, taken prisoner in Mayo. 

INDIA, Fox's India Bill; Pitt's India Bill; Mutiny in; transfer of the authority of the Company to the crown; establishment of the Order of the Star of India; is visited by the Prince of Wales. Ireland, affairs of; connection with France; rebellion in. 

JAMAICA, planters in, compensated for the diminution of the value of their property by the abolition of slavery; disturbances in; its constitution is suspended. Judges, new tenure of their office. 

KING, the, cannot be a witness in any legal proceeding. 

LABOUCHERE, Mr. H. , reproaches Sir Robert Peel for not resigning. Leopold, King of Belgium, points of the insufficiency of the description of Prince Albert. Lewis, Sir. G. C. , speech on the history and power of the East India Company. Liverpool, Lord, earnest for the universal abolition of the slave trade; becomes Prime minister; makes the Catholic question an open question in the cabinet; brings in, and subsequently withdraws, a "Bill of Pains and Penalties"; against the Queen; attacked by apoplexy and dies; contemplates an increased grant to Maynooth. Lopes, Sir M. , procures the return of Mr. Pool for Westbury. Louise, Princess, marriage of. Lowther, Sir John, obtains a grant of Inglewood Forest. Luttrell, Mr. , is declared elected for Middlesex. Lyndhurst, Lord, carries an amendment on the Reform Bill; introduces a Regency bill. 

MACINTOSH, Sir J. , applies himself to mitigate the severity of the law. Mahon, Lord, brings in a bill to diminish the expenses of elections. Mansfield, Lord, condemns general warrants; insists on the necessity of a bill of indemnity; vindicates the supremacy of Parliament; his house is burnt by the rioters in 1780. Martin, Mr. , wounds Wilkes in a duel. Massachusetts, riots in. Maynooth, foundation of a college at; is enlarged and more fully endowed. Melbourne, Lord, becomes Prime-minister; resigns; resumes office; mismanages the arrangements for Prince Albert. Melville, Lord, is impeached. Metternich, Prince, is driven from Vienna. Miles, Mr. , defeats the government on the sugar-duties. Moira, Lord, employed by the Regent to negotiate with the Whig leaders in 1812. Money-bills, power of the House of Lords as to. Montesquieu, M. De, his opinion of the English constitution. Montmorin, M. , Wilberforce writes to him on the subject of the slave-trade. 

NAPOLEON, Louis, is elected President of the French Republic; his _coup d'état_; conspiracy against. Navigation laws, the, repeal of. Nelson, Lord, his victory at Copenhagen. Newcastle, Duke of, Prime minister in 1760. New Shoreham, disfranchisement of for bribery. Newspapers, tax on, reduced and afterward abolished. Nicholas, Emperor of Russia, writes to the Queen. Normanby, Lord, ambassador in Paris, complains of Lord Palmerston. North, Lord, supports the decision in favor of Mr. Luttrell; opposes Mr. Grenville's act; opposes Mr. Seymour's bill to limit the _Nullum Tempus_ Act; opposes reform of Parliament; rejects the demands of Ireland. Northington, Lord C. , defends the embargo on corn; indicates the supremacy of Parliament. _Nullum Tempus_ Act, the, extended. 

O'CONNELL, Mr. D. , is returned for Clare; is chief of the Catholic Association. Octennial act for Ireland. "Olive Branch, the, "Onslow, Colonel, complains of the publication of the debates. Orsini, conspiracy of. 

PALMERSTON, Lord, is dismissed from the Foreign-office; introduces the bill for the transfer of the government of India to the crown; writes to the Queen on the abolition of the authority of the East India Company; is defeated on the Conspiracy Bill and resigns; returns to office; disapproves of the reduction of the paper-duty; desires to uphold the House of Lords. Papineau. M. , organizes an insurrection in Canada. Parke, Sir J. , is created a peer for life. Parliament, first meeting of the United. Peel, Sir Robert, responsible for the change of ministry in 1834; becomes Home-secretary; resigns his seat for Oxford and fails to be re-elected; impropriety of his resignation; speech on introducing the bill for Catholic Emancipation; becomes Prime-minister; declines to form an administration in 1839; supports Lord J. Russell's resolutions in the case of Stockdale _v. _ Hansard; his opinion on the question in which House the Prime-minister should be; becomes Prime-minister in 1841; revises the commercial tariff; suspends the Corn-law; causes its abolition. Peel, Colonel, organizes the Volunteers. Peerages, life, legality of. Peers, the House of, strikes out of a corn bill some clauses giving bounties; their right to inquire into the public expenditure asserted by Lord Camden and others; their privileges as to money-bills; provisions as to Irish peers in the Act of Union; proposed creation of peers to carry the Reform Bill considered; the House of Peers rejects the abolition of the paper-duty. Penal laws, in Ireland; repeal of; in the United Kingdom. Penu, Mr. , sent from America to England with "the Olive Branch. "Perceval, Mr. , becomes Prime-minister; proposes a Regency bill; is murdered. Percy, Lord, proposes the entire abolition of slavery. Persigny, M. De, French Secretary of State, his despatch on Orsini's conspiracy. Pigott, Sir A. , brings in a bill on the slave-trade. Pitt, see Earl of Chatham. Pitt, Mr. T. , denounces the influence of the crown. Pitt, Mr. W. , on the privileges of House of Commons respecting money-bills; _note_; becomes Prime-minister; his long struggle against, and eventual defeat of the Opposition; comparisons between his father and him; his India bill; his Quebec bill; his Regency bill; founds Maynouth; carries the Irish Union; resigns on the Catholic question. Plunkett, Mr. , opposes the Irish Union. Ponsonby, Mr. G. , condemns the policy of open questions. Poor-law, the, reform of. Portland, Duke of, becomes Prime-minister; again. Post-office, reform of; letters opened by the order of the Secretary of State. Powis, Earl, brings in a bill to preserve the Welsh sees. Pownall, Governor, introduces a corn bill. Poynings' Act; repeal of. 

RADETSKY, MARSHAL, his campaign in North Italy. Reform of Parliament, Alderman Sawbridge proposes a measure of; Mr. Pitt brings in a bill for; agitation for, in 1818; introduced and carried by Lord Grey's administration; the people indifferent to farther reform. Regency bill of 1764; of 1840; former Regency bills had been passed in the reigns of Edward III. , Richard II. , Henry VI. , and George II. ; in Ireland; bill of 1810. Registration, extension of, 342. Rice, Mr. Spring, as Chancellor of the Exchequer, introduces Post-office reform; as Lord Monteagle proposes the rejection of the paper-duty bill. Roberts, Mr. , returning officer for New Shoreham. Rochfort, Lord, introduces the Royal Marriage Act. Rockingham, Marquis of, Prime-minister in 1768; moves a resolution condemning the proceedings against Wilkes; Prime-minister a second time; repeals the American taxes; disapproves of the employment of Hanoverian troops at Gibraltar; wisdom of his policy toward America; his speech on the influence of the crown; becomes Prime-minister a second time. Rolle, Mr. , moots the question of the Prince's marriage. Romilly, Sir S. , opposes the Regency bill; applies himself to reforms of the law. Rose, Mr. , opposes Sir A. Pigott's bill on the slave-trade. Russell, Lord J. , his opinion on Fox's conduct in Opposition; on the Regency bill; carries the repeal of the Test Act; introduces the Reform Bill; introduces a bill for municipal reform; his resolutions in the case of Stockdale v. Hansard; becomes Prime--minister. Russia, war with. 

SANDWICH, EARL OF, denounces Wilkes's "Essay on Woman. "Sarsfield, General, takes refuge in France. Savile, Sir G. , his bill for the limitation of the _Nullum Tempus_ Act. Seaforth, Lord, reports of the treatment of slaves in Barbadoes. Seditious Meetings Act. Shelburne, Lord, denounces the employment of Hanoverian troops at Gibraltar; becomes Prime-minister. Sheridan, Mr. R. , his language on the Prince's marriage; opposes the Alien Act; conceals Lord Yarmouth's intention to resign. Sidmouth, Lord, as Home-secretary, introduces six bills for the suppression of sedition; resigns office. Slavery, abolition of. Slave-trade, abolition of. Smith, Mr. W. , M. P. For Norwich, on repeal of the Five Mile Act. Somersett, is released by Lord Mansfield. Stamp Act, imposed on the American Colonies by Mr. Grenville; repealed by Lord Rockingham. Stanley, Mr. , afterward Lord, and afterward Lord Derby, denounces the Catholic Association; brings in a bill for the abolition of slavery; fails in the attempt to form a ministry in 1845; becomes Prime-minister in 1852; proposes a committee on life peerages; becomes Prime-minister; resigns. St. Vincent, Lord, opposes the abolition of the slave-trade. Stockdale, Mr. , brings an action against Messrs. Hansard. Sugar-duties, Sir Robert Peel's ministry is defeated on a reduction of. Sussex, Duke of, protests against some clauses of the Regency Act. Sydenham, Lord, Governor-general of Canada. 

TANDY, NAPPER, proposes a congress. Temple, Earl, his interview with George III. Test and Corporation Acts are repealed. Thurlow, Mr. , afterward Lord Chancellor, on the case of Wilkes; defends the employment of Hanoverian troops at Gibraltar; denounces Fox's India Bill; approves of the King's employment of Lord Temple. Tone, Wolfe, commits suicide. Townsend, Lord, Lord-lieutenant of Ireland. Townsend, Mr. C. , re-imposes taxes on North America. Traitorous Correspondence Bill. Troy, Dr. , petitions for a Roman Catholic college in Ireland. 

UNION, the Irish. Union with Scotland, obstacles to, and advantages resulting from. 

VICTORIA, Queen, succeeds to the throne; marries; her careful exercise of her duties; draws up a memorandum for the guidance of the ministers; writes to foreign sovereigns. Victoria, the province of, grant of a constitution to. Villiers, Mr. C. , advocates the repeal of the Corn-laws. Volunteers, rise of the Irish, 158; rise of the English. 

WALES, Prince or, son of George III. , his conduct and establishment; marries Mrs. Fitzherbert; is attacked in the streets; See George IV. Wales, Prince of, son of the Queen, visits India. Walpole, Sir R. , the case of; on election petitions; refuses to repeal the Test Act; his general policy. Walpole, Mr. Spencer, supports the Conspiracy Bill. Warburton, Bishop of Gloucester, denounces Wilkes. Ward, Mr. , his motion on the appropriation of Church funds. Wedderburn, Mr. , on the case of Wilkes; supports Mr. Grenville's act; his opinion on the Riot Act; the chief legal adviser of the Prince of Wales; suggests the Traitorous Correspondence Bill; excites the King to resist the removal of Catholic disabilities. Wellesley, Marquis, proposed to be appointed Prime-minister. Wellington, Lord, afterward Duke of, his victories in the Peninsula and in France; becomes Commander-in-chief; advises the King to decline dining with the Lord Mayor; fails in the endeavor to form an administration; becomes temporary Prime-minister, holding several offices; condemns the recall of Lord Ellenborough. Westmoreland, Lord, opposes the abolition of the slave-trade. Wetherall, Sir Charles, is attacked at Bristol. Weymouth, Lord, Secretary of State, writes a letter to the Surrey magistrates. Whately, Archbishop, his opinion on the Lord-lieutenancy of Ireland; _note_. Whitbread, Mr. , promotes the impeachment of Lord Melville. Wilberforce, Mr. W. , proposes the admission of Roman Catholics to the militia; devotes himself to the abolition of the slave-trade. Wilkes, Mr. , sets up _The North Briton_; criticises the King's speech; is apprehended; is expelled the House of Commons for printing the "Essay on Woman;" is elected for Middlesex, expelled, and re-elected; as Lord Mayor behaves with spirit during the Gordon riots; procures the expunction of the resolutions against him. William IV. , his conduct on the Reform Bill; dies. Windham, Mr. , brings in a bill for reenforcing the army. Wolseley, Sir C. , is elected M. P. By a Birmingham convention. 

YARMOUTH, Earl of, Lord Chamberlain. 

THE END.