SPEECH IN ANSWER TO LORD MORNINGTON.--COALITION OF THE WHIG SECEDERS WITH
MR. PITT.--MR. CANNING.--EVIDENCE ON THE TRIAL OF HORNE TOOKE.--THE
"GLORIOUS FIRST OF JUNE."--MARRIAGE OF MR. SHERIDAN.--PAMPHLET OF MR.
REEVES.--DEBTS OF THE PRINCE OF WALES.--SHAKSPEARE MANUSCRIPTS.--TRIAL
OF STONE.--MUTINY AT THE NORE.--SECESSION OF MR. FOX FROM PARLIAMENT.
In the year 1794, the natural consequences of the policy pursued by Mr.
Pitt began rapidly to unfold themselves both at home and abroad.
[Footnote: See, for a masterly exposure of the errors of the War, the
Speech of Lord Lansdowne this year on bringing forward his Motion for
Peace.
I cannot let the name of this Nobleman pass, without briefly expressing
the deep gratitude which I feel to him, not only for his own kindness to
me, when introduced, as a boy, to his notice, but for the friendship of
his truly Noble descendant, which I, in a great degree, owe to him, and
which has long been the pride and happiness of my life.] The confederated
Princes of the Continent, among whom the gold of England was now the sole
bond of union, had succeeded as might be expected from so noble an
incentive, and, powerful only in provoking France, had by every step they
took but ministered to her aggrandizement. In the mean time, the measures
of the English Minister at home were directed to the two great objects of
his legislation--the raising of supplies and the suppressing of sedition;
or, in other words, to the double and anomalous task of making the people
pay for the failures of their Royal allies, and suffer for their sympathy
with the success of their republican enemies. It is the opinion of a
learned Jesuit that it was by _aqua regia_ the Golden Calf of the
Israelites was dissolved--and the cause of Kings was the Royal solvent,
in which the wealth of Great Britain now melted irrecoverably away. While
the successes, too, of the French had already lowered the tone of the
Minister from projects of aggression to precautions of defence, the
wounds which in the wantonness of alarm, he had inflicted on the
liberties of the country, were spreading an inflammation around them that
threatened real danger. The severity of the sentence upon Muir and Palmer
in Scotland, and the daring confidence with which charges of High Treason
were exhibited against persons who were, at the worst, but indiscreet
reformers, excited the apprehensions of even the least sensitive friends
of freedom. It is, indeed, difficult to say how far the excited temper of
the Government, seconded by the ever ready subservience of state-lawyers
and bishops, might have proceeded at this moment, had not the acquittal
of Tooke and his associates, and the triumph it diffused through the
country, given a lesson to Power such as England is alone capable of
giving, and which will long be remembered, to the honor of that great
political safeguard,--that Life-preserver in stormy times,--the Trial by
Jury.
At the opening of the Session, Mr. Sheridan delivered his admirable
answer to Lord Mornington, the report of which, as I have already said,
was corrected for publication by himself. In this fine speech, of which
the greater part must have been unprepared, there is a natural
earnestness of feeling and argument that is well contrasted with the able
but artificial harangue that preceded it. In referring to the details
which Lord Mornington had entered into of the various atrocities
committed in France, he says:--
"But what was the sum of all that he had told the House? that great and
dreadful enormities had been committed, at which the heart shuddered, and
which not merely wounded every feeling of humanity, but disgusted and
sickened the soul. All this was most true; but what did all this prove?
What, but that eternal and unalterable truth which had always presented
itself to his mind, in whatever way he had viewed the subject, namely,
that a long established despotism so far degraded and debased human
nature, as to render its subjects, on the first recovery of their rights,
unfit for the exercise of them. But never had he, or would he meet but
with re probation that mode of argument which went, in fact, to
establish, as an inference from this truth, that those who had been long
slaves, ought therefore to remain so for over! No; the lesson ought to
be, he would again repeat, a tenfold horror of that despotic form of
government, which had so profaned and changed the nature of civilized
man, and a still more jealous apprehension of any system tending to
withhold the rights and liberties of our fellow-creatures. Such a form of
government might be considered as twice cursed; while it existed, it was
solely responsible for the miseries and calamities of its subjects; and
should a day of retribution come, and the tyranny be destroyed, it was
equally to be charged with all the enormities which the folly or frenzy
of those who overturned it should commit.
"But the madness of the French people was not confined to their
proceedings within their own country; we, and all the Powers of Europe,
had to dread it. True; but was not this also to be accounted for? Wild
and unsettled as their state of mind was, necessarily, upon the events
which had thrown such power so suddenly into their hands, the surrounding
States had goaded them into a still more savage state of madness, fury,
and desperation. We had unsettled their reason, and then reviled their
insanity; we drove them to the extremities that produced the evils we
arraigned; we baited them like wild beasts, until at length we made them
so. The conspiracy of Pilnitz, and the brutal threats of the Royal
abettors of that plot against the rights of nations and of men, had, in
truth, to answer for all the additional misery, horrors, and iniquity,
which had since disgraced and incensed humanity. Such has been your
conduct towards France, that you have created the passions which you
persecute; you mark a nation to be cut off from the world; you covenant
for their extermination; you swear to hunt them in their inmost recesses;
you load them with every species of execration; and you now come forth
with whining declamations on the horror of their turning upon you with
the fury which you inspired."
Having alluded to an assertion of Condorcet, quoted by Lord Mornington,
that "Revolutions are always the work of the minority," he adds
livelily:--
"--If this be true, it certainly is a most ominous thing for the enemies
of Reform in England; for, if it holds true, of necessity, that the
minority still prevails, in national contests, it must be a consequence
that the smaller the minority the more certain must be the success. In
what a dreadful situation then must the Noble Lord be and all the
Alarmists!--for, never surely was a minority so small, so thin in number
as the present. Conscions, however, that M. Condorcet was mistaken in our
object, I am glad to find that we are terrible in proportion as we are
few; I rejoice that the liberality of secession which has thinned our
ranks has only served to make us more formidable. The Alarmists will hear
this with new apprehensions; they will no doubt return to us with a view
to diminish our force, and encumber us with their alliance in order to
reduce us to insignificance."
We have here another instance, in addition to the many that have been
given, of the beauties that sprung up under Sheridan's correcting hand.
This last pointed sentence was originally thus: "And we shall swell our
numbers in order to come nearer in a balance of insignificance to the
numerous host of the majority."
It was at this time evident that the great Whig Seceders would soon yield
to the invitations of Mr. Pitt and the vehement persuasions of Burke, and
commit themselves still further with the Administration by accepting of
office. Though the final arrangements to this effect were not completed
till the summer, on account of the lingering reluctance of the Duke of
Portland and Mr. Windham, Lord Loughborough and others of the former
Opposition had already put on the official livery of the Minister. It is
to be regretted that, in almost all cases of conversion to the side of
power, the coincidence of some worldly advantage with the change should
make it difficult to decide upon the sincerity or disinterestedness of
the convert. That these Noble Whigs were sincere in their alarm there is
no reason to doubt; but the lesson of loyalty they have transmitted would
have been far more edifying, had the usual corollary of honors and
emoluments not followed, and had they left at least one instance of
political conversion on record, where the truth was its own sole reward,
and the proselyte did not subside into the placeman. Mr. Sheridan was
naturally indignant at these desertions, and his bitterness overflows in
many passages of the speech before us. Lord Mornington having contrasted
the privations and sacrifices demanded of the French by their Minister of
Finance with those required of the English nation, he says in answer:--
"The Noble Lord need not remind us, that there is no great danger of our
Chancellor of the Exchequer making any such experiment. I can more easily
fancy another sort of speech for our prudent Minister. I can more easily
conceive him modestly comparing himself and his own measures with the
character and conduct of his rival, and saying,--'Do I demand of you,
wealthy citizens, to lend your hoards to Government without interest? On
the contrary, when I shall come to propose a loan, there is not a man of
you to whom I shall not hold out at least a job in every part of the
subscription, and an usurious profit upon every pound you devote to the
necessities of your country. Do I demand of you, my fellow-placemen and
brother-pensioners, that you should sacrifice any part of your stipends
to the public exigency? On the contrary; am I not daily increasing your
emoluments and your numbers in proportion as the country becomes unable
to provide for you? Do I require of you, my latest and most zealous
proselytes, of you who have come over to me for the special purpose of
supporting the war--a war, on the success of which you solemnly protest,
that the salvation of Britain, and of civil society itself, depend--do I
require of you, that you should make a temporary sacrifice, in the cause
of human nature, of the greater part of your private incomes? No,
gentlemen, I scorn to take advantage of the eagerness of your zeal; and
to prove that I think the sincerity of your attachment to me needs no
such test, I will make your interest co-operate with your principle: I
will quarter many of you on the public supply, instead of calling on you
to contribute to it; and, while their whole thoughts are absorbed in
patriotic apprehensions for their country, I will dexterously force upon
others the favorite objects of the vanity or ambition of their lives.
* * * * *
"Good God, Sir, that he should have thought it prudent to have forced
this contrast upon our attention; that he should triumphantly remind us
of everything that shame should have withheld, and caution would have
buried in oblivion! Will those who stood forth with a parade of
disinterested patriotism, and vaunted of the _sacrifices_ they had
made, and the _exposed situation_ they had chosen, in order the
better to oppose the friends of Brissot in England--will they thank the
Noble Lord for reminding us how soon these lofty professions dwindled
into little jobbing pursuits for followers and dependents, as unfit to
fill the offices procured for them, as the offices themselves were unfit
to be created?--Will the train of newly titled alarmists, of
supernumerary negotiators, of pensioned paymasters, agents and
commissaries, thank him for remarking to us how profitable their panic
has been to themselves, and how expensive to their country? What a
contrast, indeed, do we exhibit!--What! in such an hour as this, at a
moment pregnant with the national fate, when, pressing as the exigency
may be, the hard task of squeezing the money from the pockets of an
impoverished people, from the toil, the drudgery of the shivering poor,
must make the most practised collector's heart ache while he tears it
from them--can it be that people of high rank, and professing high
principles, that _they_ or _their families_ should seek to
thrive on the spoils of misery and fatten on the meals wrested from
industrious poverty? Can it be that that should be the case with the very
persons, who state the _unprecedented peril of the country_ as the
_sole_ cause of their being found in the ministerial ranks? The
Constitution is in danger, religion is in danger, the very existence of
the nation itself is endangered; all personal and party considerations
ought to vanish; the war must be supported by every possible exertion,
and by every possible sacrifice; the people must not murmur at their
burdens, it is for their salvation, their all is at stake. The time is
come, when all honest and disinterested men should rally round the Throne
as round a standard;--for what? ye honest and disinterested men, to
receive, for your own private emolument, a portion of those very taxes
wrung from the people on the pretence of saving them from the poverty and
distress which you say the enemy would inflict, but which you take care
no enemy shall be able to aggravate. Oh! shame! shame! is this a time for
selfish intrigues, and the little dirty traffic for lucre and emolument?
Does it suit the honor of a gentleman to ask at such a moment? Does it
become the honesty of a Minister to grant? Is it intended to confirm the
pernicious doctrine, so industriously propagated by many, that all public
men are impostors, and that every politician has his price? Or even where
there is no principle in the bosom, why does not prudence hint to the
mercenary and the vain to abstain a while at least, and wait the fitting
of the times? Improvident impatience! Nay, even from those who seem to
have no direct object of office or profit, what is the language which
their actions speak? The Throne is in danger!--'we will support the
Throne; but let us share the smiles of Royalty;'--the order of Nobility
is in danger!--'I will fight for Nobility,' says the Viscount, 'but my
zeal would be much greater if I were made an Earl.' 'Rouse all the
Marquis within me,' exclaims the Earl, 'and the peerage never turned
forth a more undaunted champion in its cause than I shall prove.' 'Stain
my green riband blue,' cries out the illustrious Knight, 'and the
fountain of honor will have a fast and faithful servant.' What are the
people to think of our sincerity?--What credit are they to give to our
professions?--Is this system to be persevered in? Is there nothing that
whispers to that Right Honorable Gentleman that the crisis is too big,
that the times are too gigantic, to be ruled by the little hackneyed and
every-day means of ordinary corruption?"
The discussions, indeed, during the whole of this Session, were marked by
a degree of personal acrimony, which in the present more sensitive times
would hardly be borne. Mr. Pitt and Mr. Sheridan came, most of all, into
collision; and the retorts of the Minister not unfrequently proved with
what weight the haughty sarcasms of Power may descend even upon the
tempered buckler of Wit.
It was in this Session, and on the question of the Treaty with the King
of Sardinia, that Mr. Canning made his first appearance, as an orator, in
the House. He brought with him a fame, already full of promise, and has
been one of the brightest ornaments of the senate and the country ever
since. From the political faith in which he had been educated, under the
very eyes of Mr. Sheridan, who had long been the friend of his family,
and at whose house he generally passed his college vacations, the line
that he was to take in the House of Commons seemed already, according to
the usual course of events, marked out for him. Mr. Sheridan had, indeed,
with an eagerness which, however premature, showed the value which he and
others set upon the alliance, taken occasion in the course of a laudatory
tribute to Mr. Jenkinson, [Footnote: Now Lord Liverpool] on the success
of his first effort in the House, to announce the accession which his own
party was about to receive, in the talents of another gentleman,--the
companion and friend of the young orator who had now distinguished
himself. Whether this and other friendships, formed by Mr. Canning at the
University, had any share in alienating him from a political creed, which
he had hitherto, perhaps, adopted rather from habit and authority than
choice--or, whether he was startled at the idea of appearing for the
first time in the world, as the announced pupil and friend of a person
who, both by the vehemence of his politics and the irregularities of his
life, had put himself, in some degree, under the ban of public
opinion--or whether, lastly, he saw the difficulties which even genius
like his would experience, in rising to the full growth of its ambition,
under the shadowing branches of the Whig aristocracy, and that
superseding influence of birth and connections, which had contributed to
keep even such men as Burke and Sheridan out of the Cabinet--_which_
of these motives it was that now decided the choice of the young
political Hercules, between the two paths that equally wooed his
footsteps, none, perhaps, but himself can fully determine. His decision,
we know, was in favor of the Minister and Toryism; and, after a friendly
and candid explanation to Sheridan of the reasons and feelings that urged
him to this step, he entered into terms with Mr. Pitt, and was by him
immediately brought into Parliament.
However dangerous it might be to exalt such an example into a precedent,
it is questionable whether, in thus resolving to join the ascendant side,
Mr. Canning has not conferred a greater benefit on the country than he
ever would have been able to effect in the ranks of his original friends.
That Party, which has now so long been the sole depository of the power
of the State, had, in addition to the original narrowness of its
principles, contracted all that proud obstinacy, in antiquated error,
which is the invariable characteristic of such monopolies; and which,
however consonant with its vocation, as the chosen instrument of the
Crown, should have long since _invalided_ it in the service of a
free and enlightened people. Some infusion of the spirit of the times
into this body had become necessary, even for its own preservation,--in
the same manner as the inhalement of youthful breath has been
recommended, by some physicians, to the infirm and superannuated. This
renovating inspiration the genius of Mr. Canning has supplied. His first
political lessons were derived from sources too sacred to his young
admiration to be forgotten. He has carried the spirit of these lessons
with him into the councils which he joined, and by the vigor of the
graft, which already, indeed, shows itself in the fruits, bids fair to
change altogether the nature of Toryism.
Among the eminent persons summoned as witnesses on the Trial of Horne
Tooke, which took place in November of this year, was Mr. Sheridan; and,
as his evidence contains some curious particulars, both with regard to
himself and the state of political feeling in the year 1790, I shall here
transcribe a part of it:--
"He, (Mr. Sheridan,) said he recollects a meeting to celebrate the
establishment of liberty in France in the year 1790. Upon that occasion
he moved a Resolution drawn up the day before by the Whig club. Mr. Horne
Tooke, he says, made no objection to his motion, but proposed an
amendment. Mr. Tooke stated that an unqualified approbation of the French
Revolution, in the terms moved, might produce an ill effect out of doors,
a disposition to a revolution in this country, or, at least, be
misrepresented to have that object; he adverted to the circumstance of
their having all of them national cockades in their hats; he proposed to
add some qualifying expression to the approbation of the French
Revolution, a declaration of attachment to the principles of our own
Constitution; he said Mr. Tooke spoke in a figurative manner of the
former Government of France; he described it as a vessel so foul and
decayed, that no repair could save it from destruction, that in
contrasting our state with that, he said, thank God, the main timbers of
our Constitution are sound; he had before observed, however, that some
reforms might be necessary; he said that sentiment was received with
great disapprobation, and with very rude interruption, insomuch that Lord
Stanhope, who was in the chair, interfered; he said it had happened to
him, in many public meetings, to differ with and oppose the prisoner, and
that he has frequently seen him received with very considerable marks of
disapprobation, but he never saw them affect him much; he said that he
himself objected to Mr. Tooke's amendment; he thinks he withdrew his
amendment, and moved it as a separate motion; he said it was then carried
as unanimously as his own motion had been; that original motion and
separate motion are in these words:--'That this meeting does most
cordially rejoice in the establishment and confirmation of liberty in
France; and it beholds with peculiar satisfaction the sentiments of amity
and good will which appear to pervade the people of that country towards
this kingdom, especially at a time when it is the manifest interest of
both states that nothing should interrupt the harmony which at present
subsists between them, and which is so essentially necessary to the
freedom and happiness, not only of the French nation, but of all mankind.'
"Mr. Tooke wished to add to his motion some qualifying clause, to guard
against misunderstanding and misrepresentation:--that there was a wide
difference between England and France; that in France the vessel was so
foul and decayed, that no repair could save it from destruction, whereas,
in England, we had a noble and stately vessel, sailing proudly on the
bosom of the ocean; that her main timbers were sound, though it was true,
after so long a course of years, she might want some repairs. Mr. Tooke's
motion was,--'That we feel equal satisfaction that the subjects of
England, by the virtuous exertions of their ancestors, have not so
arduous a task to perform as the French have had, but have only to
maintain and improve the Constitution which their ancestors have
transmitted to them.'--This was carried unanimously."
The trial of Warren Hastings still "dragged its slow length along," and
in the May of this year Mr. Sheridan was called upon for his Reply on the
Begum Charge. It was usual, on these occasions, for the Manager who spoke
to be assisted by one of his brother Managers, whose task it was to carry
the bag that contained his papers, and to read out whatever Minutes might
be referred to in the course of the argument. Mr. Michael Angelo Taylor
was the person who undertook this office for Sheridan; but, on the
morning of the speech, upon his asking for the bag that he was to carry,
he was told by Sheridan that there was none--neither bag nor papers.
They must manage, he said, as well as they could without them;--and when
the papers were called for, his friend must only put the best countenance
he could upon it. As for himself "he would abuse Ned Law--ridicule
Plumer's long orations--make the Court laugh--please the women, and, in
short, with Taylor's aid would get triumphantly through his task." His
opening of the case was listened to with the profoundest attention; but
when he came to contrast the evidence of the Commons with that adduced by
Hastings, it was not long before the Chancellor interrupted him, with a
request that the printed Minutes to which he referred should be read.
Sheridan answered that his friend Mr. Taylor would read them; and Mr.
Taylor affected to send for the bag, while the orator begged leave, in
the meantime, to proceed. Again, however, his statements rendered a
reference to the Minutes necessary, and again he was interrupted by the
Chancellor, while an outcry after Mr. Sheridan's bag was raised in all
directions. At first the blame was laid on the solicitor's clerk--then a
messenger was dispatched to Mr. Sheridan's house. In the meantime, the
orator was proceeding brilliantly and successfully in his argument; and,
on some further interruption and expostulation from the Chancellor,
raised his voice and said, in a dignified tone, "On the part of the
Commons, and as a Manager of this Impeachment, I shall conduct my case as
I think proper. I mean to be correct, and Your Lordships, having the
printed Minutes before you, will afterwards see whether I am right or
wrong."
During the bustle produced by the inquiries after the bag, Mr. Fox,
alarmed at the inconvenience which, he feared, the want of it might
occasion Sheridan, ran up from the Managers' room, and demanded eagerly
the cause of this mistake from Mr. Taylor; who, hiding his mouth with his
hand, whispered him, (in a tone of which they alone, who have heard this
gentleman relate the anecdote, can feel the full humor,) "The man has no
bag!"
The whole of this characteristic contrivance was evidently intended by
Sheridan to raise that sort of surprise at the readiness of his
resources, which it was the favorite triumph of his vanity to create. I
have it on the authority of Mr. William Smythe, that, previously to the
delivery of this speech, he passed two or three days alone at Wanstead,
so occupied from morning till night in writing and reading of papers, as
to complain in the evenings that he "had motes before his eyes." This
mixture of real labor with apparent carelessness was, indeed, one of the
most curious features of his life and character.
Together with the political contests of this stormy year, he had also on
his mind the cares of his new Theatre, which opened on the 21st of April,
with a prologue, not by himself, as might have been expected, but by his
friend General Fitzpatrick. He found time, however, to assist in the
rapid manufacture of a little piece called "The Glorious First of June,"
which was acted immediately after Lord Howe's victory, and of which I
have found some sketches [Footnote: One of these is as follows:--
"SCENE I.--Miss _Leake_--Miss _Decamp--Walsh_.
"Short dialogue--Nancy persuading Susan to go to the Fair, where there is
an entertainment to be given by the Lord of the Manor--Susan melancholy
because Henry, her lover, is at sea with the British Admiral--_Song_
--Her old mother scolds from the cottage--her little brother (_Walsh_)
comes from the house, with a message--laughs at his sister's fears and
sings--_Trio_.
"SCENE II.--_The Fair_
"Puppet show--dancing bear--bells--hurdy-gurdy--recruiting party--song
and chorus.
"_Ballet_--D'Egville.
"Susan says she has no pleasure, and will go and take a solitary walk.
"SCENE III.--_Dark Wood._
"Susan--gipsy--tells her fortune--recitative and ditty.
"SCENE IV.
"SEA-FIGHT--hell and the devil!
"Henry and Susan meet--Chorus introducing burden,
"Rule Britannia."
Among other occasional trifles of this kind, to which Sheridan
condescended for the advantage of the theatre, was the pantomime of
Robinson Crusoe, brought out, I believe, in 1781, of which he is
understood to have been the author. There was a practical joke in this
pantomime, (where, in pulling off a man's boot, the leg was pulled off
with it,) which the famous Delpini laid claim to as his own, and publicly
complained of Sheridan's having stolen it from him. The punsters of the
day said it was claimed as literary property--being "in usum
_Delpini_."
Another of these inglorious tasks of the author of The School for
Scandal, was the furnishing of the first outline or _Programme_ of
"The Forty Thieves." His brother in law, Ward, supplied the dialogue, and
Mr. Colman was employed to season it with an infusion of jokes. The
following is Sheridan's sketch of one of the scenes--
"ALI BABA.
"Bannister called out of the cavern boldly by his son--comes out and
falls on the ground a long time, not knowing him--says he would only have
taken a little gold to Keep off misery and save his son, &c.
"Afterwards, when he loads his asses, his son reminds him to be
moderate--but it was a promise made to thieves--'it gets nearer the
owner, if taken from the stealer'--the son disputes this morality--'they
stole it, _ergo_, they have no right to it; and we steal it from the
stealer, _ergo_, our title is twice as bad as theirs.'"] in
Sheridan's hand-writing,--though the dialogue was, no doubt, supplied (as
Mr. Boaden says,) "by Cobb, or some other such _pedissequus_ of the
Dramatic Muse. This piece was written, rehearsed, and acted within three
days. The first operation of Mr. Sheridan towards it was to order the
mechanist of the theatre to get ready two fleets. It was in vain that
objections were started to the possibility of equipping these pasteboard
armaments in so short an interval--Lord Chatham's famous order to Lord
Anson was not more peremptory. [Footnote: For the expedition to the coast
of France, after the Convention of Closter seven. When he ordered the
fleet to be equipped, and appointed the time and place of its rendezvous,
Lord Anson said it would be impossible to have it prepared so soon. "It
may," said Mr. Pitt, "be done, and if the ships are not ready at the time
specified, I shall signify Your Lordship's neglect to the King, and
impeach you in the House of Commons." This intimation produced the
desired effect--the ships were ready. See Anecdotes of Lord Chatham,
vol. i] The two fleets were accordingly ready at the time, and the Duke
of Clarence attended the rehearsal of their evolutions. This mixture of
the cares of the Statesman and the Manager is one of those whimsical
peculiarities that made Sheridan's own life so dramatic, and formed a
compound altogether too singular ever to occur again.
In the spring of the following year, (1795,) we find Mr. Sheridan paying
that sort of tribute to the happiness of a first marriage which is
implied by the step of entering into a second. The lady to whom he now
united himself was Miss Esther Jane Ogle, daughter of the Dean of
Winchester, and grand-daughter, by the mother's side, of the former
Bishop of Winchester. We have here another proof of the ready mine of
wealth which the theatre opened,--as in gratitude it ought,--to him who
had endowed, it with such imperishable treasures. The fortune of the lady
being five thousand pounds, he added to it fifteen thousand more, which
he contrived to raise by the sale of Drury-Lane shares; and the whole of
the sum was subsequently laid out in the purchase from Sir W. Geary of
the estate of Polesden, in Surrey, near Leatherhead. The Trustees of this
settlement were Mr. Grey, (now Lord Grey,) and Mr. Whitbread.
To a man at the time of life which Sheridan had now attained--four years
beyond that period, at which Petrarch thought it decorous to leave off
writing love-verses [Footnote: See his Epistle, "ad Posteritatem," where,
after lamenting the many years which he had devoted to love, he adds:
"Mox vero ad _quadragesimum annum_ appropinquans, dum adhuc et
caloris satis esset," &c.]--a union with a young and accomplished girl,
ardently devoted to him, must have been like a renewal of his own youth;
and it is, indeed, said by those who were in habits of intimacy with him
at this period, that they had seldom seen his spirits in a state of more
buoyant vivacity. He passed much of his time at the house of his
father-in-law near Southampton;--and in sailing about with his lively
bride on the Southampton river, (in a small cutter called the Phaedria,
after the magic boat in the "Fairy Queen,") forgot for a while his debts,
his theatre, and his politics. It was on one of these occasions that my
friend Mr. Bowles, who was a frequent companion of his parties,
[Footnote: Among other distinguished persons present at these excursions
were Mr. Joseph Richardson, Dr. Howley, now Bishop of London, and Mrs.
Wilmot, now Lady Dacre, a lady, whose various talents,--not the less
delightful for being so feminine,--like the group of the Graces, reflect
beauty on each other.] wrote the following verses, which were much
admired, as they well deserved to be, by Sheridan, for the sweetness of
their thoughts, and the perfect music of their rhythm:--
"Smooth went our boat upon the summer seas,
Leaving, (for so it seem'd.) the world behind,
Its cares, its sounds, its shadows: we reclin'd
Upon the sunny deck, heard but the breeze
That o'er us whispering pass'd or idly play'd
With the lithe flag aloft.--A woodland scene
On either side drew its slope line of green,
And hung the water's shining edge with shade.
Above the woods, Netley! thy ruins pale
Peer'd, as we pass'd; and Vecta's [1] azure hue
Beyond the misty castle [2] met the view;
Where in mid channel hung the scarce-seen sail.
So all was calm and sunshine as we went
Cheerily o'er the briny element.
Oh! were this little boat to us the world,
As thus we wander'd far from sounds of care,
Circled with friends and gentle maidens fair,
Whilst morning airs the waving pendant curl'd,
How sweet were life's long voyage, till in peace
We gain'd that haven still, where all things cease!"
[Footnote 1: Isle of Wight]
[Footnote 2: Kelshot Castle]
The events of this year but added fresh impetus to that reaction upon
each other of the Government and the People, which such a system of
misrule is always sure to produce. Among the worst effects, as I have
already remarked, of the rigorous policy adopted by the Minister, was the
extremity to which it drove the principles and language of Opposition,
and that sanction which the vehement rebound against oppression of such
influencing spirits as Fox and Sheridan seemed to hold out to the
obscurer and more practical assertors of freedom. This was at no time
more remarkable than in the present Session, during the discussion of
those arbitrary measures, the Treason and Sedition Bills, when sparks
were struck out, in the collision of the two principles, which the
combustible state of public feeling at the moment rendered not a little
perilous. On the motion that the House should resolve itself into a
Committee upon the Treason Bill, Mr. Fox said, that "if Ministers were
determined, by means of the corrupt influence they already possessed in
the two Houses of Parliament, to pass these Bills, in violent opposition
to the declared sense of the great majority of the nation, and they
should be put in force with all their rigorous provisions,--if his
opinion were asked by the people as to their obedience, he should tell
them, that it was no longer a question of moral obligation and duty, but
of prudence." Mr. Sheridan followed in the bold footsteps of his friend,
and said, that "if a degraded and oppressed majority of the people
applied to him, he would advise them to acquiesce in those bills only as
long as resistance was imprudent." This language was, of course, visited
with the heavy reprobation of the Ministry;--but their own partisans had
already gone as great lengths on the side of absolute power, and it is
the nature of such extremes to generate each other. Bishop Horsley had
preached the doctrine of passive obedience in the House of Lords,
asserting that "man's abuse of his delegated authority is to be borne
with resignation, like any other of God's judgments; and that the
opposition of the individual to the sovereign power is an opposition to
God's providential arrangements." The promotion of the Right Reverend
Prelate that followed, was not likely to abate his zeal in the cause of
power; and, accordingly, we find him in the present session declaring, in
his place in the House of Lords, that "the people have nothing to do with
the laws but to obey them."
The government, too, had lately given countenance to writers, the absurd
slavishness of whose doctrines would have sunk below contempt, but for
such patronage. Among the ablest of them was Arthur Young,--one of those
renegades from the cause of freedom, who, like the incendiary that set
fire to the Temple with the flame he had stolen from its altar, turn the
fame and the energies which they have acquired in _defence_ of
liberty _against_ her. This gentleman, to whom his situation as
Secretary to the Board of Agriculture afforded facilities for the
circulation of his political heresies, did not scruple, in one of his
pamphlets, roundly to assert, that unequal representation, rotten
boroughs, long parliaments, extravagant courts, selfish Ministers, and
corrupt majorities, are not only intimately interwoven with the practical
freedom of England, but, in a great degree, the causes of it.
But the most active and notorious of these patronized advocates of the
Court was Mr. John Reeves,--a person who, in his capacity of President of
the Association against Republicans and Levellers, had acted as a sort of
Sub-minister of Alarm to Mr. Burke. In a pamphlet, entitled "Thoughts on
the English Government," which Mr. Sheridan brought under the notice of
the House, as a libel on the Constitution, this pupil of the school of
Filmer advanced the startling doctrine that the Lords and Commons of
England derive their existence and authority from the King, and that the
Kingly government could go on, in all its functions, without them. This
pitiful paradox found an apologist in Mr. Windham, whose chivalry in the
new cause he had espoused left Mr. Pitt himself at a wondering distance
behind. His speeches in defence of Reeves, (which are among the proofs
that remain of that want of equipoise observable in his fine, rather than
solid, understanding,) have been with a judicious charity towards his
memory, omitted in the authentic collection by Mr. Amyot.
When such libels against the Constitution were not only promulgated, but
acted upon, on one side, it was to be expected, and hardly, perhaps, to
be regretted, that the repercussion should be heard loudly and warningly
from the other. Mr. Fox, by a subsequent explanation, softened down all
that was most menacing in his language; and, though the word
"Resistance," at full length, should, like the hand-writing on the wall,
be reserved for the last intoxication of the Belshazzars of this world, a
letter or two of it may, now and then, glare out upon their eyes, without
producing any thing worse than a salutary alarm amid their revels. At all
events, the high and constitutional grounds on which Mr. Fox defended the
expressions he had hazarded, may well reconcile us to any risk incurred
by their utterance. The tribute to the house of Russell, in the grand and
simple passage beginning, "Dear to this country are the descendants of
the illustrious Russell," is as applicable to that Noble family now as it
was then; and will continue to be so, I trust, as long as a single
vestige of a race, so pledged to the cause of liberty, remains.
In one of Mr. Sheridan's speeches on the subject of Reeves's libel, there
are some remarks on the character of the people of England, not only
candid and just, but, as applied to them at that trying crisis,
interesting:--
"Never was there," he said, "any country in which there was so much
absence of public principle, and at the same time so many instances of
private worth. Never was there so much charity and humanity towards the
poor and the distressed; any act of cruelty or oppression never failed to
excite a sentiment of general indignation against its authors. It was a
circumstance peculiarly strange, that though luxury had arrived to such a
pitch, it had so little effect in depraving the hearts and destroying the
morals of people in private life; and almost every day produced some
fresh example of generous feelings and noble exertions of benevolence.
Yet amidst these phenomena of private virtue, it was to be remarked, that
there was an almost total want of public spirit, and a most deplorable
contempt of public principle.
* * * * *
"When Great Britain fell, the case would not be with her as with Rome in
former times. When Rome fell, she fell by the weight of her own vices.
The inhabitants were so corrupted and degraded, as to be unworthy of a
continuance of prosperity, and incapable to enjoy the blessings of
liberty; their minds were bent to the state in which a reverse of fortune
placed them. But when Great Britain falls, she will fall with a people
full of private worth and virtue; she will be ruined by the profligacy of
the governors, and the security of her inhabitants,--the consequence of
those pernicious doctrines which have taught her to place a false
confidence in her strength and freedom, and not to look with distrust and
apprehension to the misconduct and corruption of those to whom she has
trusted the management of her resources."
To this might have been added, that when Great Britain falls, it will not
be from either ignorance of her rights, or insensibility to their value,
but from that want of energy to assert them which a high state of
civilization produces. The love of ease that luxury brings along with
it,--the selfish and compromising spirit, in which the members of a
polished society countenance each other, and which reverses the principle
of patriotism, by sacrificing public interests to private ones,--the
substitution of intellectual for moral excitement, and the repression of
enthusiasm by fastidiousness and ridicule,--these are among the causes
that undermine a people,--that corrupt in the very act of enlightening
them; till they become, what a French writer calls "_esprits exigeans
et caracteres complaisans_," and the period in which their rights are
best understood may be that in which they most easily surrender them. It
is, indeed, with the advanced age of free States, as with that of
individuals,--they improve in the theory of their existence as they grow
unfit for the practice of it; till, at last, deceiving themselves with
the semblance of rights gone by, and refining upon the forms of their
institutions after they have lost the substance, they smoothly sink into
slavery, with the lessons of liberty on their lips.
Besides the Treason and Sedition Bills, the Suspension of the Habeas
Corpus Act was another of the momentous questions which, in this as well
as the preceding Session, were chosen as points of assault by Mr.
Sheridan, and contested with a vigor and reiteration of attack, which,
though unavailing against the massy majorities of the Minister, yet told
upon public opinion so as to turn even defeats to account.
The marriage of the Prince of Wales to the Princess Caroline of Brunswick
having taken place in the spring of this year, it was proposed by His
Majesty to Parliament, not only to provide an establishment for their
Royal Highnesses, but to decide on the best manner of liquidating the
debts of the Prince, which were calculated at 630,000_l_. On the
secession of the leading Whigs, in 1792, His Royal Highness had also
separated himself from Mr. Fox, and held no further intercourse either
with him or any of his party,--except, occasionally, Mr. Sheridan,--till
so late, I believe, as the year 1798. The effects of this estrangement
are sufficiently observable in the tone of the Opposition throughout the
debates on the Message of the King. Mr. Grey said, that he would not
oppose the granting of an establishment to the Prince equal to that of
his ancestors; but neither would he consent to the payment of his debts
by Parliament. A refusal, he added, to liberate His Royal Highness from
his embarrassments would certainly prove a mortification; but it would,
at the same time, awaken a just sense of his imprudence. Mr. Fox asked,
"Was the Prince well advised in applying to that House on the subject of
his debts, after the promise made in 1787?"--and Mr. Sheridan, while he
agreed with his friends that the application should not have been made to
Parliament, still gave it as his "positive opinion that the debts ought
to be paid immediately, for the dignity of the country and the situation
of the Prince, who ought not to be seen rolling about the streets, in his
state-coach, as an insolvent prodigal." With respect to the promise given
in 1787, and now violated, that the Prince would not again apply to
Parliament for the payment of his debts, Mr. Sheridan, with a
communicativeness that seemed hardly prudent, put the House in possession
of some details of the transaction, which, as giving an insight into
Royal character, are worthy of being extracted.
"In 1787, a pledge was given to the House that no more debts should be
contracted. By that pledge the Prince was bound as much as if he had
given it knowingly and voluntarily. To attempt any explanation of it now
would be unworthy of his honor,--as if he had suffered it to be wrung
from him, with a view of afterwards pleading that it was against his
better judgment, in order to get rid of it. He then advised the Prince
not to make any such promise, because it was not to be expected that he
could himself enforce the details of a system of economy; and, although
he had men of honor and abilities about him, he was totally unprovided
with men of business, adequate to such a task. The Prince said he could
not give such a pledge, and agree at the same time to take back his
establishment. He (Mr. Sheridan) drew up a plan of retrenchment, which
was approved of by the Prince, and afterwards by His Majesty; and the
Prince told him that the promise was not to be insisted upon. In the
King's Message, however, the promise was inserted,--by whose advice he
knew not. He heard it read with surprise, and, on being asked next day by
the Prince to contradict it in his place, he inquired whether the Prince
had seen the Message before it was brought down. Being told that it had
been read to him, but that he did not understand it as containing a
promise, he declined contradicting it, and told the Prince that he must
abide by it in whatever way it might have been obtained. By the plan
then settled, Ministers had a check upon the Prince's expenditure, which
they never exerted, nor enforced adherence to the plan.
* * * * *
"While Ministers never interfered to check expenses, of which they could
not pretend ignorance, the Prince had recourse to means for relieving
himself from his embarrassments, which ultimately tended to increase
them. It was attempted to raise a loan for him in foreign countries, a
measure which he thought unconstitutional, and put a stop to; and, after
a consultation with Lord Loughborough, all the bonds were burnt, although
with a considerable loss to the Prince. After that, another plan of
retrenchment was proposed, upon which he had frequent consultations with
Lord Thurlow, who gave the Prince fair, open, and manly advice. That
Noble Lord told the Prince, that, after the promise he had made, he must
not think of applying to Parliament;--that he must avoid being of any
party in politics, but, above all, exposing himself to the suspicion of
being influenced in political opinion by his embarrassments;--that the
only course he could pursue with honor, was to retire from public life
for a time, and appropriate the greater part of his income to the
liquidation of his debts. This plan was agreed upon in the autum of 1792.
Why, it might be asked, was it not carried into effect? About that period
his Royal Highness began to receive unsolicited advice from another
quarter. He was told by Lord Loughborough, both in words and in writing,
that the plan savored too much of the advice given to M. Egalité, and he
could guess from what quarter it came. For his own part, he was then of
opinion, that to have avoided meddling in the great political questions
which were then coming to be discussed, and to have put his affairs in a
train of adjustment, would have better become his high station, and
tended more to secure public respect to it, than the pageantry of
state-liveries."
The few occasions on which the name of Mr. Sheridan was again connected
with literature, after the final investment of his genius in political
speculations, were such as his fame might have easily dispensed
with;--and one of them, the forgery of the Shakspeare papers, occurred in
the course of the present year. Whether it was that he looked over these
manuscripts with the eye more of a manager than of a critic, and
considered rather to what account the belief in their authenticity might
be turned, than how far it was founded upon internal evidence;--or
whether, as Mr. Ireland asserts, the standard at which he rated the
genius of Shakspeare was not so high as to inspire him with a very
watchful fastidiousness of judgment; certain it is that he was, in some
degree, the dupe of this remarkable imposture, which, as a lesson to the
self-confidence of criticism, and an exposure of the fallibility of
taste, ought never to be forgotten in literary history.
The immediate payment of 300_l_. and a moiety of the profits for the
first sixty nights, were the terms upon which Mr. Sheridan purchased the
play of Vortigern from the Irelands. The latter part of the conditions
was voided the first night; and, though it is more than probable that a
genuine tragedy of Shakspeare, if presented under similar circumstances,
would have shared the same fate, the public enjoyed the credit of
detecting and condemning a counterfeit, which had passed current through
some of the most learned and tasteful hands of the day. It is but
justice, however, to Mr. Sheridan to add, that, according to the account
of Ireland himself, he was not altogether without misgivings during his
perusal of the manuscripts, and that his name does not appear among the
signatures to that attestation of their authenticity which his friend Dr.
Parr drew up, and was himself the first to sign. The curious statement of
Mr. Ireland, with respect to Sheridan's want of enthusiasm for
Shakspeare, receives some confirmation from the testimony of Mr. Boaden,
the biographer of Kemble, who tells us that "Kemble frequently expressed
to him his wonder that Sheridan should trouble himself _so little_
about Shakspeare." This peculiarity of taste,--if it really existed to
the degree that these two authorities would lead us to infer,--affords a
remarkable coincidence with the opinions of another illustrious genius,
lately lost to the world, whose admiration of the great Demiurge of the
Drama was leavened with the same sort of heresy.
In the January of this year, Mr. William Stone--the brother of the
gentleman whose letter from Paris has been given in a preceding
Chapter--was tried upon a charge of High Treason, and Mr. Sheridan was
among the witnesses summoned for the prosecution. He had already in the
year 1794, in consequence of a reference from Mr. Stone himself, been
examined before the Privy Council, relative to a conversation which he
had held with that gentleman, and, on the day after his examination, had,
at the request of Mr. Dundas, transmited to that Minister in writing the
particulars of his testimony before the Council. There is among his
papers a rough draft of this Statement, in comparing which with his
evidence upon the trial in the present year, I find rather a curious
proof of the faithlessness of even the best memories. The object of the
conversation which he had held with Mr. Stone in 1794--and which
constituted the whole of their intercourse with each other--was a
proposal on the part of the latter, submitted also to Lord Lauderdale and
others, to exert his influence in France, through those channels which
his brother's residence there opened to him, for the purpose of averting
the threatened invasion of England, by representing to the French rulers
the utter hopelessness of such an attempt. Mr. Sheridan, on the trial,
after an ineffectual request to be allowed to refer to his written
Statement, gave the following as part of his recollections of the
conversation:--
"Mr. Stone stated that, in order to effect this purpose, he had
endeavored to collect the opinions of several gentlemen, political
characters in this country, whose opinions he thought would be of
authority sufficient to advance his object; that for this purpose he had
had interviews with different gentlemen; he named Mr. Smith and, I think,
one or two more, whose names I do not now recollect. He named some
gentlemen connected with Administration--if the Counsel will remind me of
the name--"
Here Mr. Law, the examining Counsel, remarked, that "upon the
cross-examination, if the gentlemen knew the circumstance, they would
mention it." The cross-examination of Sheridan by Sergeant Adair was as
follows:--
"You stated in the course of your examination that Mr. Stone said there
was a gentleman connected with Government, to whom he had made a similar
communication, should you recollect the name of that person if you were
reminded of it?--I certainly should.--Was it General Murray?--General
Murray certainly."
Notwithstanding this, however, it appears from the written Statement in
my possession, drawn up soon after the conversation in question, that
this "gentleman connected with Government," so difficult to be
remembered, was no other than the Prime Minister, Mr. Pitt himself. So
little is the memory to be relied upon in evidence, particularly when
absolved from responsibility by the commission of its deposit to writing.
The conduct of Mr. Sheridan throughout this transaction appears to have
been sensible and cautious. That he was satisfied with it himself may be
collected from the conclusion of his letter to Mr. Dundas:--"Under the
circumstances in which the application, (from Mr. Dundas,) has been made
to me, I have thought it equally a matter of respect to that application
and of respect to myself, as well as of justice to the person under
suspicion, to give this relation more in detail than at first perhaps
might appear necessary. My own conduct in the matter not being in
question, I can only say that were a similar case to occur, I think I
should act in every circumstance precisely in the manner I did on this
occasion."
The parliamentary exertions of Mr. Sheridan this year, though various and
active, were chiefly upon subordinate questions; and, except in the
instance of Mr. Fox's Motion of Censure upon Ministers for advancing
money to the Emperor without the consent of Parliament, were not
distinguished by any signal or sustained displays of eloquence. The grand
questions, indeed, connected with the liberty of the subject, had been so
hotly contested, that but few new grounds were left on which to renew the
conflict. Events, however,--the only teachers of the great mass of
mankind,--were beginning to effect what eloquence had in vain attempted.
The people of England, though generally eager for war, are seldom long in
discovering that "the cup but sparkles near the brim;" and in the
occurrences of the following year they were made to taste the full
bitterness of the draught. An alarm for the solvency of the Bank, an
impending invasion, a mutiny in the fleet, and an organized rebellion in
Ireland,--such were the fruits of four years' warfare, and they were
enough to startle even the most sanguine and precipitate into reflection.
The conduct of Mr. Sheridan on the breaking out of the Mutiny at the Nore
is too well known and appreciated to require any illustration here. It is
placed to his credit on the page of history, and was one of the happiest
impulses of good feeling and good sense combined, that ever public man
acted upon in a situation demanding so much of both. The patriotic
promptitude of his interference was even more striking than it appears in
the record of his parliamentary labors; for, as I have heard at but one
remove from his own authority, while the Ministry were yet hesitating as
to the steps they should take, he went to Mr. Dundas and said.--"My
advice is that you cut the buoys on the river--send Sir Charles Grey down
to the coast, and set a price on Parker's head. If the Administration
take this advice instantly, they ill save the country--if not, they will
lose it; and, on their refusal, I will impeach them in the House of
Commons this very evening."
Without dwelling on the contrast which is so often drawn--less with a
view to elevate Sheridan than to depreciate his party--between the
conduct of himself and his friends at this fearful crisis, it is
impossible not to concede that, on the scale of public spirit, he rose as
far superior to them as the great claims of the general safety transcend
all personal considerations and all party ties. It was, indeed, a rare
triumph of temper and sagacity. With less temper, he would have seen in
this awful peril but an occasion of triumph over the Minister whom he had
so long been struggling to overturn--and, with less sagacity, he would
have thrown away the golden opportunity of establishing himself for ever
in the affections and the memories of Englishmen, as one whose heart was
in the common-weal, whatever might be his opinions, and who, in the
moment of peril, could sink the partisan in the patriot.
As soon as he had performed this exemplary duty, he joined Mr. Fox and
the rest of his friends who had seceded from Parliament about a week
before, on the very day after the rejection of Mr. Grey's motion for a
reform. This step, which was intended to create a strong sensation, by
hoisting, as it were, the signal of despair to the country, was followed
by no such striking effects, and left little behind but a question as to
its prudence and patriotism. The public saw, however, with pleasure, that
there were still a few champions of the constitution, who did not "leave
her fair side all unguarded" in this extremity. Mr. Tierney, among
others, remained at his post, encountering Mr. Pitt on financial
questions with a vigor and address to which the latter had been hitherto
unaccustomed, and perfecting by practice that shrewd power of analysis,
which has made him so formidable a sifter of ministerial sophistries ever
since. Sir Francis Burdett, too, was just then entering into his noble
career of patriotism; and, like the youthful servant of the temple in
Euripides, was aiming his first shafts at those unclean birds, that
settle within the sanctuary of the Constitution and sully its treasures:--
[Greek:
"ptaenon t'agalas
A blaptusae
Semn' anathaemata"]
By a letter from the Earl of Moira to Col. M'Mahon in the summer of this
year it appears, that in consequence of the calamitous state of the
country, a plan had been in agitation among some members of the House of
Commons, who had hitherto supported the measures of the Minister, to form
an entirely new Administration, of which the Noble Earl was to be the
head, and from which both Mr. Pitt and Mr. Fox, as equally obnoxious to
the public, were to be excluded. The only materials that appear to have
been forthcoming for this new Cabinet were Lord Moira himself, Lord
Thurlow, and Sir William Pulteney--the last of whom it was intended to
make Chancellor of the Exchequer. Such a tottering balance of parties,
however, could not have been long maintained; and its relapse, after a
short interval, into Toryism, would but have added to the triumph of Mr.
Pitt, and increased his power. Accordingly Lord Moira, who saw from the
beginning the delicacy and difficulty of the task, wisely abandoned it.
The share that Mr. Sheridan had in this transaction is too honorable to
him not to be recorded, and the particulars cannot be better given than
in Lord Moira's own words:--
"You say that Mr. Sheridan has been traduced, as wishing to abandon Mr.
Fox, and to promote a new Administration. I had accidentally a
conversation with that gentleman at the House of Lords. I remonstrated
strongly with him against a principle which I heard Mr. Fox's friends
intended to lay down, namely, that they would support a new
Administration, but that not any of them would take part in it. I
solemnly declare, upon my honor, that I could not shake Mr. Sheridan's
conviction of the propriety of that determination. He said that he and
Mr. Fox's other friends, as well as Mr. Fox himself, would give the most
energetic support to such an Administration as was in contemplation; but
that their acceptance of office would appear an acquiescence under the
injustice of the interdict supposed to be fixed upon Mr. Fox. I did not
and never can admit the fairness of that argument. But I gained nothing
upon Mr. Sheridan, to whose uprightness in that respect I can therefore
bear the most decisive testimony. Indeed I am ashamed of offering
testimony, where suspicion ought not to have been conceived."