Abolition of the slave-trade.
Pitt died on the 23rd of January, and the refusal of Lord Hawkesbury to
assume the premiership forced the king to summon Lord Grenville, and to
agree to the inclusion of Fox in the cabinet as secretary for foreign
affairs. Several members of Pitt's administration were admitted to this
"Ministry of all the Talents," including Addington (now Lord Sidmouth),
who had rejoined the ministry in December 1804 and again resigned, owing
to a disagreement with Pitt as to the charges against Lord Melville
(q.v.) in July 1805. The new ministry remained in office for a year, a
disastrous year which saw the culmination of Napoleon's power: the
crushing of Prussia in the campaign of Jena, the formation of the
Confederation of the Rhine and the end of the Holy Roman Empire. In the
conduct of the war the British government had displayed little skill,
frittering away its forces on distant expeditions, instead of
concentrating them in support of Prussia or Russia, and the chief title
to fame of the Ministry of all the Talents is that it secured the
passing of the bill for the abolition of the slave-trade (March 25,
1807).
Catholic question.
The death of Fox (September 13, 1806) deprived the ministry of its
strongest member, and in the following March it fell on the old question
of concessions to the Roman Catholics. True to his principles, Fox had
done his best to negotiate terms of peace with Napoleon; but the
breakdown of the attempt had persuaded even the Whigs that an
arrangement was impossible, and in view of this fact Grenville thought
it his duty to advise the king that the disabilities of Roman Catholics
and dissenters in the matter of serving in the army and navy should be
removed, in order that all sections of the nation might be united in
face of the enemy. The situation, moreover, was in the highest degree
anomalous; for by an act passed in 1793 Roman Catholics might hold
commissions in the army in Ireland up to the rank of colonel, and this
right had not been extended to England, though by the Act of Union the
armies had become one. The king, however, was not to be moved from his
position; and he was supported in this attitude not only by public
opinion, but by a section of the ministry itself, of which Sidmouth made
himself the mouthpiece. The demand of George III. that ministers should
undertake never again to approach him on the subject of concessions to
the Catholics was rejected by Grenville, rightly, as unconstitutional,
and on the 18th of March 1807 he resigned.
Portland ministry.
The continental system.
The Orders in Council.
War with America.
The new ministry, under the nominal headship of the valetudinarian duke
of Portland, included Perceval as chancellor of the exchequer, Canning
as foreign secretary and Castlereagh as secretary for war and the
colonies. It had given the undertaking demanded by the king; those of
its members who, like Canning, were in favour of Catholic emancipation,
arguing that, in view of greater and more pressing questions, it was
useless to insist in a matter which could never be settled so long as
the old king lived. Of more importance to Great Britain, for the time
being, than any constitutional issues, was the life-and-death struggle
with Napoleon, which had now entered on a new phase. Defeated at sea,
but master now of the greater part of the continent of Europe, the
French emperor planned to bring Great Britain to terms by ruining her
commerce with the vast territories under his influence. In November 1806
he issued from Berlin the famous decree prohibiting the importation of
British goods and excluding from the harbours under his control even
neutral ships that had touched at British ports. The British government
replied by the famous Orders in Council of 1807, which declared all
vessels trading with France liable to seizure, and that all such vessels
clearing from France must touch at a British port to pay customs duties.
To this Napoleon responded with the Milan decree (December 17),
forbidding neutrals to trade in any articles imported from the British
dominions. The effects of these measures were destined to be
far-reaching. The Revolution had made war on princes and privilege, and
the common people had in general gained wherever the Napoleonic regime
had been substituted for their effete despotisms; but the "Continental
System" was felt as an oppression in every humble household, suddenly
deprived of the little imported luxuries, such as sugar and coffee,
which custom had made necessaries; and from this time date the
beginnings of that popular revolt against Napoleon that was to culminate
in the War of Liberation. Great Britain, too, was to suffer from her own
retaliatory policy. The Americans had taken advantage of the war to draw
into their own hands a large part of the British carrying trade, a
process greatly encouraged by the establishment of the Continental
System. This brought them into conflict with the British acting under
the Orders in Council, and the consequent ill-feeling culminated in the
war of 1812.
Treaty of Tilsit.
French Invasion of Spain and Portugal.
Peninsular War.
It was not only the completion of the Continental System, however, that
made the year 1807 a fateful one for Great Britain. On the 7th of July
the young emperor Alexander I. of Russia, fascinated by Napoleon's
genius and bribed by the offer of a partition of the world, concluded
the treaty of Tilsit, which not only brought Russia into the Continental
System, but substituted for a coalition against France a formidable
coalition against England. A scheme for wresting from the British the
command of the sea was only defeated by Canning's action in ordering the
English fleet to capture the Danish navy, though Denmark was still
nominally a friendly power (see CANNING, GEORGE). Meanwhile, in order to
complete the ring fence round Europe against British commerce, Napoleon
had ordered Junot to invade Portugal; Lisbon was occupied by the French,
and the Portuguese royal family migrated to Brazil. In the following
year Napoleon seized the royal family of Spain, and gave the crown,
which Charles VI. resigned on behalf of himself and his heir, to his
brother Joseph, king of Naples. The revolt of the Spanish people that
followed was the first of the national uprisings against his rule by
which Napoleon was destined to be overthrown. In England it was greeted
with immense popular enthusiasm, and the government, without realizing
the full import of the step it was taking, sent an expedition to the
Peninsula. It disembarked, under the command of Sir Arthur Wellesley, at
Figueras on the 1st of August. It was the beginning of the Peninsular
War, which was destined not to end until, in 1814, the British troops
crossed the Pyrenees into France, while the Allies were pressing over
the Rhine. The political and military events on the continent of Europe
do not, however, belong strictly to English history, though they
profoundly affected its development, and they are dealt with elsewhere
(see EUROPE: _History_; NAPOLEON; NAPOLEONIC CAMPAIGNS; PENINSULAR WAR;
WATERLOO CAMPAIGN).
Walcheren expedition. Cabinet crisis.
Perceval ministry.
The regency.
The war, while it lasted, was of course the main preoccupation of
British ministers and of the British people. It entailed enormous
sacrifices, which led to corresponding discontents; and differences as
to its conduct produced frequent friction within the government itself.
A cabinet crisis was the result of the outcome of the unfortunate
Walcheren expedition of 1809. It had been Castlereagh's conception and,
had it been as well executed as it was conceived, it might have dealt a
fatal blow at Napoleon's hopes of recovering his power at sea, by
destroying his great naval establishments at Antwerp. It failed, and it
became the subject of angry dispute between Canning and Castlereagh, a
dispute embittered by personal rivalry and the friction due to the
ill-defined relations of the foreign secretary to the secretary for war;
the quarrel culminated in a duel, and in the resignation of both
ministers (see LONDONDERRY, 2ND MARQUESS OF, and CANNING, GEORGE). The
duke of Portland resigned at the same time, and in the reconstruction of
the ministry, under Perceval as premier, Lord Wellesley became foreign
secretary, while Lord Liverpool, with Palmerston as his under-secretary,
succeeded Castlereagh at the war office. The most conspicuous member of
this government was Wellesley, whose main object in taking office was to
second his brother's efforts in the Peninsula. In this he was, however,
only partially successful, owing to the incapacity of his colleagues to
realize the unique importance of the operations in Spain. In November
1810 the old king's mind gave way, and on the 11th of February 1811, an
act of parliament bestowed the regency, under certain restrictions, upon
the prince of Wales. The prince had been on intimate terms with the Whig
leaders, and it was assumed that his accession to power would mean a
change of government. He had, however, been offended by their attitude
on the question of the restriction of his authority as regent, and he
continued Perceval in office. A year later, the king's insanity being
proved incurable, the regency was definitively established (February
1812). Lord Wellesley took advantage of the reconstruction of the
cabinet to resign a position in which he had not been given a free hand,
and his post of foreign secretary was offered to Canning. Canning,
however, refused to serve with Castlereagh as minister of war, and the
latter received the foreign office, which he was to hold till his death
in 1822. A month later, on the 11th of May, Perceval was assassinated in
the lobby of the House of Commons, and Lord Liverpool became the head of
a government that was to last till 1827.
Liverpool ministry.
Foreign policy of Castlereagh.
The period covered by the Liverpool administration was a fateful one in
the history of Europe. The year 1812 saw Napoleon's invasion of Russia,
and the disastrous retreat from Moscow. In the following year
Wellington's victory at Vitoria signalled the ruin of the French cause
in Spain; while Prussia threw off the yoke of France, and Austria,
realizing after cautious delay her chance of retrieving the humiliations
of 1809, joined the alliance, and in concert with Russia and the other
German powers overthrew Napoleon at Leipzig. The invasion of France
followed in 1814, the abdication of Napoleon, the restoration of the
Bourbons and the assembling of the congress of Vienna. The following
year saw the return of Napoleon from Elba, the close of the congress of
Vienna, and the campaign that ended with the battle of Waterloo. The
succeeding period, after so much storm and stress, might seem dull and
unprofitable; but it witnessed the instructive experiment of the
government of Europe by a concert of the great powers, and the first
victory of the new principle of nationality in the insurrection of the
Greeks. The share taken by Great Britain in all this, for which
Castlereagh pre-eminently must take the praise or blame, is outlined in
the article on the history of Europe (q.v.). Here it must suffice to
point out how closely the development of foreign affairs was interwoven
with that of home politics. The great war, so long as it lasted, was the
supreme affair of moment; the supreme interest when it was over was to
prevent its recurrence. For above all the world needed peace, in order
to recover from the exhaustion of the revolutionary epoch; and this
peace, bought at so great a cost, could be preserved only by the honest
co-operation of Great Britain in the great international alliance based
on "the treaties." This explains Castlereagh's policy at home and
abroad. He was grossly attacked by the Opposition in parliament and by
irresponsible critics, of the type of Byron, outside; historians, bred
in the atmosphere of mid-Victorian Liberalism, have re-echoed the cry
against him and the government of which he was the most distinguished
member; but history has largely justified his attitude. He was no friend
of arbitrary government; but he judged it better that "oppressed
nationalities" and "persecuted Liberals" should suffer than that Europe
should be again plunged into war. He was hated in his day as the
arch-opponent of reform, yet the triumph of the reform movement would
have been impossible but for the peace his policy secured.
Character of the Tory party.
To say this is not to say that the attitude of the Tory government
towards the great issues of home politics was wholly, or even mainly,
inspired by a far-sighted wisdom. It had departed widely from the
Toryism of Pitt's younger years, which had sought to base itself on
popular support, as opposed to the aristocratic exclusiveness of the
Whigs. It conceived itself as the trustee of a system of government
which, however theoretically imperfect, alone of the governments of
Europe had survived the storms of the Revolution intact. To tamper with
a constitution that had so proved its quality seemed not so much a
sacrilege as a folly. The rigid conservatism that resulted from this
attitude served, indeed, a useful purpose in giving weight to
Castlereagh's counsels in the European concert; for Metternich at least,
wholly occupied with "propping up mouldering institutions," could not
have worked harmoniously with a minister suspected of an itch for
reform. At home, however, it undoubtedly tended to provoke that very
revolution which it was intended to prevent. This was due not so much to
the notorious corruption of the representative system as to the fact
that it represented social and economic conditions that were rapidly
passing away.
Parliament and the industrial revolution.
Corn Laws and Enclosure Acts.
Repressive legislation.
Both Houses of Parliament were in the main assemblies of aristocrats and
landowners; but agriculture was ceasing to be the characteristic
industry of the country and the old semi-feudal relations of life were
in process of rapid dissolution. The invention of machinery and the
concentration of the working population in manufacturing centres had all
but destroyed the old village industries, and great populations were
growing up outside the traditional restraints of the old system of class
dependence. The distress inevitable in connexion with such an industrial
revolution was increased by the immense burden of the war and by the
high protective policy of the parliament, which restricted trade and
deliberately increased the price of food in the interests of the
agricultural classes. Between 1811 and 1814 bands of so-called
"Luddites," starving operatives out of work, scoured the country,
smashing machinery--the immediate cause of their misfortunes--and
committing every sort of outrage. The fault of the government lay, not
in taking vigorous measures for the suppression of these disorders, but
in remaining obstinately blind to the true causes that had produced
them. Ministers saw in the Luddite organization only another conspiracy
against the state; and, so far from seeking means for removing the
grievances that underlay popular disaffection, the activity of
parliament, inspired by the narrowest class interests, only tended to
increase them. The price of food, already raised by the war, was still
further increased by successive Corn Laws, and the artificial value thus
given to arable land led to the passing of Enclosure Bills, under which
the country people were deprived of their common rights with very
inadequate compensation, and life in the village communities was made
more and more difficult. In the circumstances it is not surprising that
the spirit of unrest grew apace. In 1815 the passing of a new Corn Law,
forbidding the importation of corn so long as the price for home-grown
wheat was under 80s. the quarter, led to riots in London. An attack made
on the prince regent at the opening of parliament on the 28th of January
1817 led to an inquiry, which revealed the existence of an elaborate
organization for the overthrow of the existing order. The repressive
measures of 1795 and 1799 were now revived and extended, and a bill
suspending the Habeas Corpus Act for a year was passed through both
Houses by a large majority. On the 27th of March Lord Sidmouth opened
the government campaign against the press by issuing a circular to the
lords-lieutenants, directing them to instruct the justices of the peace
to issue warrants for the arrest of any person charged on oath with
publishing blasphemous or seditious libels. The legality of this
suggestion was more than doubtful, but it was none the less acted on,
and a series of press prosecutions followed, some--as in the case of the
bookseller William Hone--on grounds so trivial that juries refused to
convict. William Cobbett, the most influential of the reform leaders, in
order to avoid arbitrary imprisonment, "deprived of pen, ink and paper,"
suspended the _Political Register_ and sailed for America. A disturbance
that was almost an armed insurrection, which broke out in Derbyshire in
June of this year, seemed to justify the severity of the government; it
was suppressed without great difficulty, and three of the ringleaders
were executed.
Agitation for reform.