To read a memoir of the late Lord Sidmouth, is like taking a walk
through Westminster Abbey. All the literature, is inscriptions; all the
figures are monumental; and all the names are those of men whose
characters and distinctions have been echoing in our ears since we had
the power to understand national renown. The period between 1798, when
the subject of this memoir made his first step in parliamentary life as
Speaker, and 1815, when the close of the war so triumphantly finished
the long struggle between liberty and jacobinism, was beyond all
comparison the most memorable portion of British history.
In this estimate, we fully acknowledge the imperishable fame of
Marlborough in the field, and the high ability of Bolingbroke in the
senate. The gallantry of Wolfe still throws its lustre over the
concluding years of the second George; and the brilliant declamation of
Chatham will exact the tribute due to daring thought, and classic
language, so long as oratory is honoured among men. But the age which
followed was an age of realities, stern, stirring, and fearful. There
was scarcely a trial of national fortitude, or national Vigour, through
which the sinews of England were not then forced to give proof of their
highest power of endurance. All was a struggle of the elements; in which
every shroud and tackle of the royal ship of England was strained; and
the tempest lasted through nearly a quarter of a century. England, the
defender of all, was the sufferer for all. Every principle of her
financial prosperity, every material of her military prowess, every
branch of her constitutional system, every capacity of her political
existence, her Church, her State, and her Legislature, were successively
compelled into the most perilous yet most powerful display; and the
close of the most furious hostility which Europe had ever seen, only
exhibited in a loftier point of view the victorious strength which
principle confers upon a people.
Compared with this tremendous scene, the political conflicts of the
preceding age were a battle on the stage, compared with the terrors of
the field. The spectators came to enjoy a Spectacle, and sit tranquilly
admiring the brilliancy of the caparisons and the dexterity of the
charge; but perfectly convinced that all would end without harm to the
champions, and that the fall of the curtain would extinguish the war.
But, in the trials of the later time, there were moments when we seemed
to be throwing our last stake; when the trumpets of Europe, leagued
against us, seemed to be less challenging us to the field, than
preceding us to the tomb; and when the last hope of the wise and good
might be, to give the last manifestation of a life of patriotic virtue.
In language like this, we are not abasing the national courage. We are
paying the fullest homage to the substantial claims of the English
heart. It is only by the severest national struggles that the
superiority of national powers can be developed; and without doubting
the qualities of the Marlboroughs and Chathams--or even without
doubting, that if thrown into the battle of the last fifty years, they
would have exhibited the same intellectual stature and powerful
adroitness which distinguished their actual displays--yet they wanted
the strong necessities of a time like ours, to place them on a similar
height of renown. Still their time continues in admirable study. But it
is like the story of the Volscian and Samnite combats, read in the day
when the consul, flying through the streets of Rome, brought the news of
Cannae.
The wars and politics of the eighteenth century were the manoeuvres of
a _garde du corps_, and the intrigues of a boudoir. Our fathers saw no
nation of thirty millions rushing to the field; frantic with the
passion for overthrow, no Napoleon thundering at the head of vassal
Europe against England; no conspiracy of peoples against thrones; no
train of crouching sovereignties, half in terror and half in servility,
ready to do the wildest will of the wildest despot of the world; no army
of five hundred thousand men ready to spring upon our shores, and
turning off only to the overthrow of empires. All was on a smaller
scale; the passions feebler, the means narrower, the objects more
trivial, the triumphs more temporary, the catastrophe more powerless,
and the glory more vanishing.
All has since subsided; and the mind of man is turned to efforts in
directions totally new. All now is the rigid struggle with the physical
difficulties of society. The grand problems are, how to level the
mountain, and to drain the sea: or, if we must leave the Alps to be
still the throne of the thunder, and suffer even the Zuyder-zee to roll
its sullen waves over its incorrigible shallows; yet to tunnel the
mountain and pass the sea with a rapidity, which makes us regardless of
the interposition of obstacles that once stopped the march of armies,
and made the impregnable fortresses of kingdoms. But the still severer
trials of human intelligence are, how to clothe, feed, educate, and
discipline the millions which every passing year pours into the world.
The mind may well be bewildered with a prospect so vast, so vivid, and
yet so perplexing. Every man sees that old things are done away, that
physical force is resuming its primitive power over the world, and that
we are approaching a time when Mechanism will have the control of
nature, and Multitude the command of society.
* * * * *
There are many families in England which, without any change of
circumstances, without any increase of fortune, or any discoverable
vicissitudes, have existed for centuries, in possession of the same
property, generally a small one, and handed down from father to son as
if by a law of nature. The family of Lord Sidmouth is found to have held
the proprietorship of the small estate of Fringford, in Oxfordshire,
from the year 1600, and to have had a residence in Bannebury about a
century and a half before;--the first descendant of this quiet race who
became known beyond the churchyard where "his village fathers sleep,"
being Dr Addington, who died in 1799. Genealogies like those give a
striking view of the general security of landed possession, which the
habits of national integrity, and the influence of law, must alone have
effected, during the turbulent times which so often changed the
succession to the throne of England.
Dr Addington, who had been educated at Winchester school, and Trinity
College, Oxford, having adopted medicine as his profession, commenced
his practice at Reading, where he married the daughter of the Rev. Dr
Niley, head-master of the grammar-school. The well-known trial of the
wretched parricide, Miss Blandy, for poisoning, in which he was a
principal witness, brought him into considerable notice; and probably on
the strength of this notice, he removed to London, and took a house in
Bedford Row, where the late Lord Sidmouth, his fourth child, but eldest
son, was born. He next removed to Clifford Street, a more fashionable
quarter, which brought him into intercourse with many persons of
distinction. Among these were Louth, Bishop of London, the Duke of
Montagu, Earl Rivers, and, first of the first, the great Earl of
Chatham. With this distinguished man, Dr Addington seems to have been on
terms of familiar friendship, as the following extracts show:--Chatham
writes from Burton Pynsent, in 1771.
"All your friends here, the flock of your care, are truly sensible of
the kind attentions of the good shepherd. My last fit of the gout left
me as it had visited me, very kindly. I am many hours every day in the
field, and, as I live like a farmer abroad, I return home and eat like
one. * *
"Ale goes on admirably, and agrees perfectly. My reverence for it, too,
is increased, having just read in the manners of our remotest Celtic
ancestors much of its antiquity and invigorating qualities. The boys all
long for ale, seeing papa drink it, but we do not try such an
experiment. Such is the force of example, that I find I must watch
myself in all I do, for fear of misleading. If your friend William saw
me smoke, he would certainly call for a pipe."
Lord Chatham died May 11th, 1788, which event was thus notified by Dr
Addington to his son Henry.
"You will be grieved to hear that Lord Chatham is no more. It pleased
Providence to take him away this morning, as if it were in mercy that he
might not be a spectator of the total ruin of a country which he was not
permitted to save."
The doctor was a croaker, as was the fashion of the time, with all who
pretended to peculiar political sagacity. Of course the family physician
of the ex-minister was in duty bound to echo the ex-minister's
discontent. It is clear that, whatever professional gifts the doctor
inherited from Apollo, he did not share the gift of prophecy. The
doctor, after realising enough by his profession to purchase an estate
in Devonshire, retired to Reading, where, in 1790, he died, having had,
in the year before, the enviable gratification of seeing his son elected
to the Speakership of the House of Commons.
Henry Viscount Sidmouth was born in 1757, on the 30th of May. At the age
of five years, he was placed under the care of the Rev. William Gilpin,
author of the Essays on the Picturesque, who for many years kept a
school at Cheam, in Surrey.
Lord Sidmouth had but one brother, Hiley, who subsequently figured so
often in the caustic rhymes of Canning, and who, under his brother's
auspices, was successively secretary of the treasury, paymaster of the
forces, and under-secretary of state. In his twelfth year, Henry,
followed by Hiley, was sent to Winchester, then under the government of
the well-known Dr Joseph Wharton, with George Isaac Huntingford as one
of the assistants.
The author of the biography gives Huntingford credit for the singular
degree of attachment exhibited in his occasional letters to his pupil.
It certainly seems singular; when we know the slenderness, if not
sternness of the connexion generally subsisting between the teachers at
a great English seminary, and the pupils. In one of those epistles
Huntingford says to this boy of fifteen.
"For my own part, to you I lay open _my whole heart without reserve_. I
divest myself of the little superiority which age may have given me.
With you I can enter into conversation with all the familiarity of an
intimate companion. The few hours of intercourse which we thus enjoy
with each other give more relief to my wearied body and mind than _any
other amusement on earth_. What I am to do when you leave school, _a
melancholy thought, I cannot foresee_. May the _evil hour be postponed_
as late as possible. Yet let me add, whenever it shall be most for your
advantage to leave me, I will not doubt to sacrifice _my own peace_ and
comfort for your interest. _I love myself, but you better_."
We hope that this style is not much in fashion in our public schools.
Dean Pellew tells us that numerous letters of this kind were written by
this tutor to his pupil in after life, and adds with a ludicrous
solemnity, "It will readily be imagined how _efficacious_ they must have
proved, in forming the character of the future statesman, and erecting
Spartan and Roman virtues on the noble foundation of Christianity."
For our part, we know not what to make of such communications: they seem
to us intolerably silly, and we think ought _not_ to have been
published. In later life, their writer was made Bishop of Hereford and
Warden of Winchester. He seems to have been a fellow of foresight!
In 1773, Henry and Hiley were both removed from Winchester, and put
under the tuition of Dr Goodenough, who took private pupils at Ealing,
and who was afterwards Bishop of Carlisle. In the next year, Henry
entered as commoner in Brazen-Nose College under the tuition of
Radcliffe, then a tutor of some celebrity. In this college he became
acquainted with Abbot, afterwards Lord Colchester, and William Scott,
afterwards Lord Stowell. He took his degree in 1778, and in this year
had the misfortune to lose his mother, who seems to have been an amiable
and sensible person. In the next year, he obtained the Chancellor's
prize for an English essay on "the affinity between painting and writing
in point of composition;" and at the recital of this essay in the
theatre he first became acquainted with Lord Mornington, afterwards
Marquis Wellesley, an intimacy which lasted for sixty-two years. He now
adopted law as his profession, took chambers in Paper Buildings, and
kept his terms regularly at Lincoln's Inn. In 1781, he married Ursula
Mary, eldest daughter and co-heiress of Leonard Hammond, Esq. of Cheam,
in Surrey, and took a house in Southampton Street, Bloomsbury, where he
determined to follow the profession of the law. But this determination
was speedily over-ruled by the success of the celebrated son of Chatham.
On the 26th of February, 1781, William Pitt, then only in his
twenty-second year, made his first speech in the House of Commons, in
support of Burke's bill for the regulation of the civil list. This epoch
in parliamentary annals is noticed in a brief letter from Dr Goodenough
to Pitt's early tutor, Wilson, who sent it to Mr Addington, among whose
papers it was found:--
"Dear Sir,--I cannot resist the natural impulse of giving pleasure, by
telling you that the famous William Pitt, who made so capital a figure
in the last reign, is happily restored to his country. He made his first
public re-appearance in the senate last night. All the old members
recognised him instantly, and most of the young ones said he appeared
the very man they had so often heard described: the language, the
manner, the gesture, the action were the same; and there wanted only a
few wrinkles in the face, and some marks of age, to identify the
absolute person of the late Earl of Chatham."
Addington, at this period, had a good deal of intercourse with Pitt, who
became Chancellor of the Exchequer at the age of twenty-three, and whose
brilliant success in parliament evidently stimulated his friend to
political pursuits. But the infamous coalition broke in, and Pitt was
dismissed from the ministry. Its existence, however, was brief: it not
merely fell, but was crushed amidst a universal uproar of national
scorn; and Pitt, not yet twenty-five, was appointed prime minister. In
the course of the month, an interview took place between Pitt and
Addington, which gave his friends strong hopes of seeing him in
immediate office. His friend Bragge thus writes to him:
"I give you joy of the effects of the interview of last Sunday, of which
I am impatient to hear the particulars. Secretary, either official or
confidential, I should wish you, and indeed all the boards are already
filled."
Still, he remained unappointed, though his intimacy with the minister
grew more confidential from day to day. Pitt was at this time engaged in
a desperate struggle with the Opposition, who, ruined as they were in
character, yet retained an overwhelming majority in parliament. On this
occasion, the young statesman gave perhaps the most triumphant evidence
of his remarkable sagacity. Every one was astonished, that he had not at
once dissolved a parliament which it seemed impossible for him either to
convince or conquer. But, with the House of Lords strongly disposed
towards him, and the King for his firm friend, Pitt fought the House
night after night, until he found the national feeling wholly on his
side. Then, on the 25th of March, 1784, he dissolved the parliament, and
by that act extinguished the whole power of Whiggism for twenty years.
There never was a defeat more ruinous; more than a hundred and sixty
members, who had generally been of the Foxite party, were driven
ignominiously from their seats, and the party was thenceforth condemned
to linger in an opposition equally bitter, fruitless, and unpopular. In
the new parliament, Addington was returned for the borough of Devizes in
place of Sutton, his brother-in-law, who, being advanced in life, made
over his interest to his young relative. On this occasion, he received a
letter from his old master, Joseph Wharton:--
"I cannot possibly forbear expressing to you the sincere pleasure I
feel, in giving you joy of being elected into a parliament that I hope
and trust will save this country from destruction, by crushing the most
shameful and the most pernicious coalition that I think ever disgraced
the annals of any kingdom, ancient or modern. I am, dear sir, with true
regard, yours, &c.--JOSEPH WHARTON."
There are few more remarkable instances of contrasted character and
circumstance than Addington's ultimate rise to power. The anecdote is
mentioned, that on one occasion, when they were riding together to Holl
Wood, then Mr Pitt's seat near Bromley in Kent, that on Pitt's urging
him to follow up politics with vigour, and the latter alleging in excuse
the distaste and disqualification for public life created by early
habits and natural disposition, Pitt burst forth in the following
quotation from Waller:--
"The lark that shuns on lofty boughs to build
Her humble nest, lies silent in the field:
But should the promise of a brighter day,
Aurora smiling, bid her rise and play;
Quickly she'll show 'twas not for want of voice,
Or power to climb, she made so low a choice:
Singing she mounts, her airy notes are stretch'd
Towards heav'n, as if from heav'n alone her notes she fetch'd."
With these words, he set spurs to his horse, and left his companion to
ponder on the moral of the poetry.
But neither poetry nor prose could inspire Addington's mind with the
ardour of his glowing friend. Parliament was indeed open to him, but the
true gate to parliamentary distinction would never have been opened by
his own hand. There are two kinds of speaking, and but two, which ever
make distinguished way in the House. The first is, that superior order
which alone deserves the name of eloquence, and which must carry
distinction with it wherever men are gathered together. The next is,
that adroit and practical style of speaking by which the details of
public business are carried forward; a style which requires briskness of
capacity, united to extent of information, and in which the briskness
must not be suffered to become flippant, and the detail to become dull.
We are perfectly confident, that, beyond those two classes, no speaker
can ever expect to retain the ear of the House. Our theory, however, is
not the favourite one with that crowd, whose diatribes nightly fill the
columns of the newspapers; where bitterness is perpetually mistaken for
pungency, and petulance for power, dryness for business and commonplace
for conviction. But failure is the inevitable consequence; the archer
showers his shafts in vain; they are pointed with lead, and they always
fall blunt on the ground. Some of the noisiest haranguers of our time
utterly "waste their sweetness on the desert air," their hearers drop
away with fatal rapidity, and the orator is reminded of his triumph only
by the general flight of his auditory. Then comes some favourite of the
House: the coffee-room is thinned in its turn; the benches are crowded
once more; and some statesmanlike display consoles the House for its
lost time. Addington's habits were those of a student, and he brought
them with him into parliament. In the House of Commons, there are nearly
as many classes of character, as there are in life outside the walls.
There are the men made for the operations of public life, bold, active,
and with an original sense of superiority. Another class is made for
under-secretaries and subordinates, sharp, and ingenious men, the real
business-men of the House. Another class, perfectly distinct, is that of
the matter-of-fact men, largely recruited from among opulent merchants,
bankers sent from country constituencies, and others of that calibre,
who are formidable on every question of figures, are terrible on
tariffs, and evidently think, that there is no book of wisdom on earth
but a ledger. Then come the country gentlemen, generally an excellent
and honest race, but to whom a life in London, in the majority of
instances, has a strong resemblance to a life in the Millbank
Penitentiary; driven into parliament, by what is called a "sense of
their position in the country," which generally means the commands of
their wives, &c., &c., their sojourn within the circuit of the
metropolis is a purgatory. They sicken of the life of lounging through
London, where they are nothing, and long to get back to the country
where they are "magistrates;" generally too old to dance, the
fashionable season has no charms for them: even the clubs seem to them
a sort of condemned cell, where the crowd, guilty of unpardonable
idleness, cluster together with no earthly resource but gazing into the
street, or poring over a newspaper. If this service is severe enough to
shake their philosophy during the sleety showers of February, and the
withering blasts of March; the first break of sunshine, and the first
streak of blue sky, makes their impatience amount to agony. The rest of
the season only renders their suffering more inveterate; until at last
the discharge of cannon from the Park, and the sound of trumpets at the
doors of the House of Lords, a gracious speech from the throne, and a
still more gracious smile from the sitter on it, let them loose from
their task, and they are free, facetious, and foxhunters once more.
There are still half-a-dozen other classes, "fine by degrees, and
beautifully less," which may be left to the imagination of the reader,
and the experience of the well-bred world.
Addington soon made himself useful on committees. The strong necessities
of the case, much more than the Reform Bill, have remarkably shortened
the longevity of election committees. The committee, in general, was
fortunate, which could accomplish its business within three months. Some
took twice the number, some even crossed over from session to session.
The first committee on which Addington was engaged had this unfortunate
duration, and he was re-appointed to it in the second session of the
parliament of 1785.
At this period, whether from a sense of disappointment, or from the
silent dulness of this drudgery, his health appears to have been in a
feeble state. In a letter to his father, he apologises for listlessness
and stupidity by illness, and says, "that he does not come up to the
definition of man as a risible animal." Yet the man who could live to
eighty-seven, and retain his health in a retirement of nearly a quarter
of a century, could not complain of his constitution.
In 1786 Pitt availed himself of the opening of the session to induce his
friend to break ground. He proposed that he should second the address;
and almost condescended to coax him into further exertion of his
abilities.--"I will not disguise," says his letter, "that, in asking
this favour of you, (the speech,) I look beyond the immediate object of
the first day's debate; from a persuasion that whatever induces you to
take a part in public, will equally contribute to your personal credit,
and that of the system to which I have the pleasure of thinking you are
so warmly attached. Believe me to be, with great truth and regard, my
dear sir, faithfully and sincerely yours,--W. PITT." Addington complied
with a part of the proposal, seconded the Address, and was considered to
have performed his task with effect. But the effort went no farther. His
ability lay in another direction; and though a clear, well-informed, and
influential debater in his more public days, and when the urgency of
office compelled the exertion, he left for four years the honours of
debate to the multitude of his competitors.
In the course of the memoir, there is a letter of Addington's, speaking
of Sheridan's famous speech on the Begum question. Addington voted in
the majority against Hastings; but, though he does not exactly say that
Sheridan's famous speech was the cause of his vote, he yet joins in the
general acclamation.
It has been the habit of late critics to decry the merits of this famous
oration, and even to charge it with being frivolous, outrageous, and
bombastic, an immense accumulation of calumny and clap-trap, which the
craft of Sheridan would not submit to the public ordeal, and which he
has therefore left to its chance of a fantastic and visionary fame. But
this we find it impossible to believe. That in a speech of five hours
and a half, there may have been--nay, there must have been, passages of
extravagance, and even errors of taste, is perfectly probable; but they
must have been overcome by countless passages of lustre and beauty,--by
powerful conceptions and brilliant examples of language; at once
resistless and refined,--by living descriptions, and thoughts of daring
and dazzling energy, sufficient to have made it one of the most
memorable triumphs of senatorial eloquence in the world. How, on any
other supposition, is it possible to account for the effects which we
know it to have produced?
Addington's letter, alluding to this subject, says "The papers will
convey but a faint idea of a speech, which I heard Fox declare to be the
most wonderful effort of the human mind that perhaps had ever been made.
Mr Pitt, and indeed the whole House, spoke of it in terms of admiration
and astonishment, scarcely inferior to those of Mr Fox."
The papers, indeed, convey a worse than inadequate idea of this
wonderful oration, for they give merely a few fragments, in which they
have contrived either to select their examples with the most curious
infelicity, or to blunder them into bombast. But nothing can be more
childish than to suppose, that Pitt would have given his praise to
tawdry metaphor, that Burke would have done honour to feeble truisms,
that Fox should have been unable to distinguish between logic and
looseness of reasoning, or that the whole assembly, who had been in the
habit of hearing those pre-eminent orators, should have been tricked by
theatric dexterity or charlatan rhetoric into homage. The oration must
have been a most magnificent performance, and we have only to deplore
the loss of a great work of genius.
Another young phenomenon shot across the parliamentary horizon within
the same month. It was the late Earl Grey. A letter of Addington to his
father thus describes the debut of this young Liberal.
"Feb. 22, 1787.--We had a glorious debate last night, upon the motion
for an address of thanks to the King, for having negotiated the
commercial treaty. A new speaker presented himself to the House, and
went through his first performance with an eclat that has not been
equalled within my recollection. His name is Grey; he is not more than
twenty-two years of age, and he took his seat, which is for
Northumberland, only in the present session. I do not go too far in
declaring, that in the advantages of figure, elocution, voice, and
manner, he is not surpassed by any one member of the House; and I grieve
to say, that he was last night in the ranks of Opposition, from which
there is no prospect of his being detached."
It is curious to see, how easily the exigencies of party mould men, and
how readily under that pressure they unsay their maxims, and retract
their principles. The object of the commercial treaty was, to put our
commerce in some degree on a fair footing with that of France. The
object of Mr Grey's rhetoric was, to show that the commercial treaty was
altogether a blunder, which, as being a Tory and ministerial
performance, it must be in the eyes of a Whig and an oppositionist. But
the maxim on which he chiefly relied, was the wisdom of that established
system of our policy, in which France had always been regarded with the
most suspicious jealousy at least--if not as our natural foe. Of course
this Whig maxim lasted just so long as the Whigs were out of office, and
could use it as a weapon against the Minister. But, from the moment when
France became actually dangerous, when her councils became demoniac, and
her factions frenzied, Whiggism, despairing of turning out the Minister
by argument, resolved to make the attempt by menace. Hopeless in the
House, it appealed to the rabble, and France was extolled to the skies.
We then heard nothing of the "natural enmity," but a vast deal of the
instinctive friendship. England and France were no longer to be two
hostile powers sitting on their respective shores, with flashing eyes
and levelled spears, but like a pair of citizen's wives loaded with
presents and provisions for each other, and performing their awkward
courtesies across the Channel.
It must be acknowledged, however, that the Whig maxim, though a
watchword of faction, was no blunder of fact. A commercial treaty with
the French in that day, or in any other day before or since, was a
dream. To bring the Frenchman to any rational agreement on the subject
of trade, or to keep him steady to any agreement whatever, has been a
problem, which no British statesman has been able to solve. No
commercial treaty, even with all the genius of Pitt, has ever produced
to England the value of the paper on which it is written. Whether, if
they were two Englands in the world, they might not establish commercial
treaties with each other, may be a question. But we regard it as an
absolute waste of time, to think of trading on fair terms with any of
the slippery tariffs of foreign countries. In fact, this is now so
perfectly understood, that England has nearly given up the notion of
commercial treaties. She trades now, where the necessities of the
foreigner demand her trade. The foreigner hates John Bull, Just as the
Athenian peasant hated Aristides, and for the same reason. He hates him
for being honest, manly, and sincere; he hates him for the integrity of
his principles, for the purity of his faith, and for the _reality_ of
his freedom; he hates him for his prosperity, for his progress, and for
his power. And while the Frenchman capers in his fetters, and takes his
promenade under the shadow of the fortifications of Paris; while the
German talks of constitutions in the moon; and while the Holy Alliance
amuses itself with remodelling kingdoms, John Bull may be well content
to remain as he is, and leave them to such enjoyment as they can find in
sulkiness and sneering.
Grey's brilliant debut appears not to have been sustained: he spoke
little during the session, but talked much--a fatal distinction to a
parliamentary aspirant. Ambitious of figuring, he attempted to figure on
all occasions; and, once or twice, unluckily daring the great champion
of the treasury bench to the field, he was driven from it with wounds
which, if they did not teach him a sense of his weakness, at least
taught him a sense of his danger. Mr Grey's credit, says Addington in a
letter, "as a man of discretion and temper, remains to be established.
His reputation for abilities has not increased within the last two
months, while he has in all respects enhanced that of the person (Pitt)
to whom he ventured to oppose himself."
In alluding to the intercourse of Addington with Wilberforce, the
biographer, we think very justly, complains of the sillinesses which
have transpired in the latter's diary. Addington took higher views on
ecclesiastical subjects; and was less _rapid_ in his movements for the
abolition of the slave-trade; being of opinion that precipitate measures
would only increase the traffic to an enormous extent, deprive England
of all power of restraining the frightful atrocities of the middle
passage; and, by throwing the whole trade into the hands of foreigners,
leave it open to all the reckless abominations of mankind.
The result was, unfortunately, all that rational men anticipated. The
trade carried on by the foreigner has been tripled, or even quadrupled;
the horrors of the middle passage are without restraint; and the
sufferings of the victims, on their march to the coast, by fatigue, want
of food, and the cruelty of their treatment, are estimated to destroy
nearly twice the number of those who ever cross the Atlantic. The very
powers with whom we have already made treaties for the purpose of
extinguishing this infernal traffic, are deepest in its commerce; and
its extinction now seems hopeless, except through some of those
tremendous visitations, by which Providence scourges crimes which have
grown too large for the jurisdiction of man.
Lord Sidmouth, then far advanced in life, when he saw those remarks in
the diary, naturally felt offended, but he bore the offence with
dignity, merely saying, as he closed the volume, "Well, Wilberforce does
not speak of me as he spoke to me, I am sorry to say." Of Wilberforce,
no one can desire to doubt the general honesty; but that he was
singularly trifling and inconstant, was evidently the opinion of his
contemporaries in the House. The following anecdote is given from the
author's notes on this point. "Lord Sidmouth told us, that one morning,
at a cabinet meeting, after an important debate in the House of Commons,
some one said, 'I wonder how Wilberforce voted last night:' on which
Lord Liverpool observed, 'I do not know how he voted, but of this I am
pretty sure, that in whatever way he voted, he repents of his vote this
morning.' Lord Sidmouth added, 'It was odd enough, that I had no sooner
returned to my office, than Wilberforce was announced, who said,--Lord
Sidmouth, you will be surprised at the vote I gave last night, and,
indeed, I am not myself altogether satisfied with it;'--to which I
replied, My dear Wilberforce, I shall never be _surprised_ at any vote
you give.'"
During this session the abolition of Negro slavery first seriously
attracted the notice of parliament. The conduct of it, in the House of
Commons, was intrusted to Wilberforce; but, in his absence, in
consequence of indisposition, Pitt, on the 9th of May 1798, moved the
resolution, "that the House would, early in the next session, proceed to
take into consideration the circumstances of the slave trade." In a
cause like this, the humane and magnanimous mind of Burke naturally
enlisted at once. But he was by no means of that school of humanity
which gains the race, only by riding over every thing in its way.
Red-hot humanity had no charms for the great philosopher; and,
philanthropist as he was, he could discover no wisdom in measures which
changed only one violence for another, pauperised the whites without
liberating the blacks; and, while it cost twenty millions sterling to
repair about third of the injury, left the unhappy African at the mercy
of avarice round the circumference of the globe.
A letter from Huntingford says:--"Dr Lawrence, our Winchester
acquaintance, called on me lately. He talked much on Mr Burke's ideas
respecting the slave-trade. I found by him that Mr Burke foresaw the
total ruin of the West-India colonies, if the trade were _at once_
prohibited. He is for a better regulation of the ships which carry on
that infamous commerce: he would lay the captains under restrictions,
and punish them with rigour for wanton severity or brutal inhumanity to
the slaves; and, when the poor creatures are purchased at the West-India
islands, he would have them instructed in religion; and be permitted to
purchase their own freedom, when by industry they should acquire a
sufficient sum for that purpose. For their religious instruction he
would erect more churches; and, to enable them in time to accumulate the
price of their ransom, he would enact that the property of a slave
should be as sacred as that of a freeman." Burke went further than
opinions, for he embodied his sentiments in a paper entitled, "Sketch of
a Negro Code," all outline of a bill in parliament, which is to be found
in the collection of his works.
In August of this year, Addington mentioned that Lord Grenville passed a
month with him at Lyme, and that one day visiting Lord Rolle, a party
were speculating on the probable successor to the Speaker
(Cornwall)--Grenville and Addington giving it as their opinion, that
neither of them had any chance. He adds, "within twelve months, we were
both Speakers ourselves."
An important and melancholy event, however, threw the cabinet and the
country alike into confusion. Early in November, it was ascertained that
the King was taken dangerously ill. Three successive notes from
Grenville represented the illness as most alarming, and giving room for
apprehening of incurable disorder. As Dr Addington was known to have
paid particular attention to cases of insanity, Pitt proposed his being
summoned to visit the royal patient. In consequence, he visited his
Majesty for several days, and on examination with the other physicians
before the Privy Council, expressed a strong expectation of the royal
recovery, founded on the circumstance that this illness had not, for its
forerunner, any of the symptoms which usually precede a serious attack
of this nature. The debates on the Regency Bill now brought out all the
vigour of the House. The Whigs thundered at the gate of the cabinet; but
there was a strong hand within, and it was still kept shut. The Prince
of Wales, then under all the captivations of Whig balls and banquets,
and worshiping at the feet of Fox, was no sooner to be master of the
state by an unlimited Regency Bill, than Fox was to be master of every
thing. Pitt still fought the battle with all the cool determination of
one determined never to capitulate. Fox became in succession fierce,
factious, and half frantic; still his great adversary stood on the
vantage ground of law, and was imperturbable. But the contest now began
to spread beyond the walls of parliament. The spirit of the nation,
always siding with the brave defence, daily felt an increasing interest
in the gallantry with which Pitt almost alone fought the ablest
Opposition that had ever been ranged within the walls of Westminster,
and inflamed by the sight of power almost within their grasp.
But the announcement of a sudden change in his Majesty's indisposition
abated the contest at once. From the 8th to the 20th of February, the
progress to health was palpable. On the 19th, the discussions on the
Regency Bill were suspended in the House of Lords; and on the 6th of
March, the Speaker and several members of the administration were
admitted to present their congratulations to the King, at Kew, on his
recovery.
We cannot resist the temptation of exhibiting Lord Sidmouth in the
unsuspected character of a poet. As several millions of verses were
poured out as the offerings of the Muse on the joyful occasion, as
Parnassus was rifled by the Universities, and as every village school in
the kingdom hung a pen-and-ink garland on the altar of AEsculapius or
Hygeia; it was felt to be the bounden duty of every candidate for
cabinet honours, to put his desk "in order," and rhyme, to the best of
his power. Addington, in consequence, produced the following--