time have, in their inevitable operation, made themselves felt also with
regard to this Institution, and the greatest credit is due to the wisdom
and patriotism of the Brethren for having rightly judged and appreciated
the demands made by them. Having hitherto enjoyed the almost
irresponsible power of taxing the public for the objects of their trust,
they cheerfully consented to submit their affairs to the utmost
publicity, as well as to a control from Government. Their own power they
surrendered without a murmur; the interests of the poor seaman they
thought themselves bound to advocate. Whilst repudiating any wish to
retain patronage in the distribution of alms, which in fact they had
hitherto looked upon rather as an anxious and responsible duty, they
exerted themselves to the utmost to bring the claims of this deserving
class before the Government; and whatever may be the inherent difficulty
in framing a measure, the purport of which is to relieve a _class_,
without impairing its moral strength and self-dependence, they still
hope that the Legislature will not shrink from the attempt.
Gentlemen—for all the Trinity House may have done, thanks are solely due
to the excellent Deputy Master, and the Elder Brethren by whom he is so
efficiently supported. Let us drink his health, and Prosperity to the
Corporation of the Trinity House.
7.
One of the peculiar features of the public life of this country is, that
no public body stands isolated in the community, but that it endeavours
to establish and maintain an organic connection with the other interests
and classes of society, securing thereby the inestimable advantage of
harmony of action and feeling. The Corporation of the Trinity House has
sought to effect this through its Honorary Brethren; and I have only to
point to those who now sit as such round this table to prove that,
whilst the Corporation has been guided in its choice solely by the
desire to connect itself with the men who stand highest in the
estimation of their country, the most distinguished men have, on their
side, deemed it an honour to become the objects of that choice.
In drinking to the Honorary Brethren, I would mention the name of the
gallant Admiral of the Fleet, Sir Byam Martin, who may be truly called
the Father of his profession.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
AT THE BICENTENARY FESTIVAL OF THE
CORPORATION OF THE SONS OF THE
CLERGY.
[MAY 10TH, 1854.]
-------
MY LORD MAYOR,—
Allow me to return you, on my own behalf, and on that of the Royal
Family, my best thanks for the manner in which you have proposed our
health, and to you, gentlemen, for the cordial response which you have
made to the toast.
I am, indeed, highly gratified to have been a witness to the _Two
Hundredth Anniversary_ of this Festival, testifying, as it does, that
the people of this country do not relax in efforts which they have once
undertaken, and do not forsake the spirit which animated their
forefathers.
When our ancestors purified the Christian faith, and shook off the yoke
of a domineering Priesthood, they felt that the key-stone of that
wonderful fabric which had grown up in the dark times of the middle ages
was the _Celibacy of the Clergy_, and shrewdly foresaw that their
reformed faith and newly-won religious liberty would, on the contrary,
only be secure in the hands of a clergy united with the people by every
sympathy, national, personal, and domestic.
Gentlemen—this nation has enjoyed for three hundred years the blessing
of a Church Establishment which rests upon this basis, and cannot be too
grateful for the advantages afforded by the fact that the Christian
Ministers not only preach the _doctrines_ of Christianity, but live
among their congregations an example for the discharge of every
_Christian duty_, as husbands, fathers, and masters of families,
themselves capable of fathoming the whole depth of human feelings,
desires, and difficulties.
Whilst we must gratefully acknowledge that they have, as a body,
worthily fulfilled this high and difficult task, we must bear in mind
that we deny them an equal participation in one of the actuating motives
of life—the one which, amongst the “children of this generation,”
exercises, perhaps of necessity, the strongest influence—I mean the
desire for the acquisition and accumulation of the goods of this world.
Gentlemen—the appellation of a “money-making parson” is not only a
reproach but a condemnation for a clergyman, depriving him at once of
all influence over his congregation. Yet this man, who has to shun
opportunities for acquiring wealth open to most of us, and who has
himself only an often scanty life-income allotted to him for his
services, has a wife and children like ourselves; and we wish him to
have the same solicitude for their welfare which we feel for our own.
Are we not bound, then, to do what we can to relieve his mind from
anxiety, and to preserve his children from destitution, when it shall
have pleased the Almighty to remove him from the scene of his labours?
You have given an answer in the affirmative by your presence here
to-day; and although this institution can do _materially_ but little,
morally it gives a public recognition of the claims which the sons of
the clergy have upon the sympathy and liberality of the community at
large, and as such is of the greatest value.
May it continue for further hundreds of years as a band of union between
Clergy and Laity, and on each recurring centenary may it find this
nation ever advancing in prosperity, civilization, and piety!
------------------------------------------------------------------------
DINNER AT THE TRINITY HOUSE.
[JUNE 21ST, 1854.]
-------
1.
“THE QUEEN.”
2.
The toast which I have to propose to you is that of—
“His Royal Highness the PRINCE OF WALES and the rest of the ROYAL
FAMILY.”
In doing so, I am impelled to refer to one Member of that family who is
at present engaged in the discharge of arduous duties in the East. He is
the only one whom both his position and his age permitted to offer his
services on this occasion, and I rejoice at his having done so, as a
proof that the Members of the Royal Family are at all times ready to
serve—ay! and, if necessary, to bleed for their country.
3.
“The Army and Navy.”
The toast which I have now to propose to you—“The Army and Navy of Great
Britain”—will be drunk by you with peculiar emotions at this time, as
your eyes are turned towards these Services, your hearts beat for them,
and with their success the welfare and the honour of the country are so
intimately bound up.
They will do their duty as they have always done, and may the Almighty
bless their efforts!
What is asked to be achieved by them in this instance is a task of
inordinate difficulty, not only from the nature and climate of the
country in which they are fighting, but also from the peculiarity of the
enemy to whom they are opposed, as it may so happen that the Army may
meet a foe of ten times its number, whilst the Fleet may find it
impossible to meet one at all.
All these difficulties, however, may be considered as compensated by the
goodness of our cause, “the vindication of the public law of Europe,”
and the fact that we have fighting by our side a Power, the military
prowess and vigour of which we have hitherto chiefly known from the
severity of long and anxious contests. If there be a contest between us
now, it will be one of emulation, and not of enmity.
“The Army and Navy of Great Britain, and the Health of the Right
Honourable Lord VISCOUNT HARDINGE, and the Right Honourable SIR
JAMES GRAHAM, Bart.”
4.
We are honoured to-day by the presence of the Members of Her Majesty’s
Government. The only return which the country can make to those men, who
sacrifice their own quiet, privacy, and often health, to the arduous and
anxious labours of conducting the public business, is an acknowledgment
of the sincerity and disinterestedness of their motives of action. This
it is which I invite you to give upon the present occasion in drinking
the health of Her Majesty’s Government, and LORD JOHN RUSSELL, Lord
President of the Council.
6.
I am very much obliged to you for the kind expressions in which you have
proposed my health, and to the company for the way in which they have
received it. But I have to thank you, the Elder Brethren, especially,
for the mark of confidence which you have shown me in re-electing me as
your Master, a confidence which I assure you that I appreciate highly,
and of which I shall be anxious to prove myself at all times worthy.
Although the duties of my office are hardly more than nominal, I attach
the greatest value to my personal connection with your Corporation—the
only public body to whom duties are intrusted so deeply affecting the
interests of the commerce, the shipping, and the seamen of this country.
I must also take this opportunity to congratulate you on the working of
the important alterations made last year in your constitution, as they
have proved a successful attempt at that difficult and nice operation,
to bring the spontaneous activity of a public body into harmony with the
general feelings of the country, as represented in its Government,
without destroying all individual and organic life by the killing
influence of an arbitrary mechanical centralization.
In proposing to you to drink to the future prosperity of the
Corporation, I shall but follow your wishes in coupling the toast with
the name of the Deputy Master, to whose zeal and ability so much of its
present prosperity is due.
7.
I have the honour of naming to you, as the next toast, “The Honorary
Brethren of the Corporation.” They are composed of men, although varying
in their political opinions, yet all standing high in the estimation of
their country—an esteem which they have earned by distinguished services
rendered to the State, and the Corporation is justly proud of its
connection with them. I would ask permission to couple the toast with
the name of The Earl of Haddington.
14.
In returning the thanks of the Corporation to our distinguished guests,
I beg leave to propose to you “The Health of the Lord High Chancellor of
England, and the other noble and distinguished persons who have this day
honoured the Corporation by their presence.”
------------------------------------------------------------------------
SPEECHES DELIVERED AT THE
ANNUAL DINNER AT THE TRINITY HOUSE.
[JUNE 9TH, 1855.]
1.
“THE QUEEN!”
2.
I propose to you the health of the PRINCE of WALES and the rest of the
ROYAL FAMILY. May they prosper under the favour of the Almighty!
3.
The toast which I now propose to you—the “Army and Navy”—is one in which
I am sure no Englishman can join at this moment without the feelings of
the deepest emotion. In their keeping stand the honour and the best
interests of this country—I may say the interests of the civilization of
Europe. And nobly have they done their duty! whether in the daring
impetuosity of attack, in the cool intrepidity of defence, or the noble
and truly Christian patience with which they have endured nameless
sufferings and privations! They have set us all an example well worthy
of imitation, and making us proud of the generation to which we belong.
May God grant that their exertions may be crowned with the success they
have striven to deserve, and that they may, by the side of our noble and
gallant allies, conquer to the world a peace which may secure its
tranquillity and prosperity from any further interruption!
I drink “The health of Viscount Hardinge, Sir Charles Wood, and the Army
and Navy. Success to their exertions!”
4.
I now propose to you the health of “Her Majesty’s Ministers.”
If there ever was a time when the Queen’s Government, by whomsoever
conducted, required the support—ay, not the support alone, but the
confidence, goodwill, and sympathy of their fellow-countrymen, it is the
present. It is not the way to success in war to support it, however
ardently and energetically, and to run down and weaken those who have to
conduct it. We are engaged with a mighty adversary, who uses against us
all those wonderful powers which have sprung up under the generating
influence of our liberty and our civilization, and employs them with all
the force which unity of purpose and action, impenetrable secresy, and
uncontrolled despotic power give him; whilst we have to meet him under a
state of things intended for peace and the promotion of that very
civilization—a civilization the offspring of public discussion, the
friction of parties, and popular control over the government of the
State. The Queen has no power to levy troops, and none at her command,
except such as voluntarily offer their services. Her Government can
entertain no measures for the prosecution of the war without having to
explain them publicly in Parliament; her armies and fleets can make no
movement, nor even prepare for any, without its being proclaimed by the
press; and no mistake, however trifling, can occur, no weakness exist,
which it may be of the utmost importance to conceal from the world,
without its being publicly denounced, and even frequently exaggerated,
with a morbid satisfaction. The Queen’s ambassadors can carry on no
negociation which has not to be publicly defended by entering into all
the arguments which a negotiator, to have success, must be able to shut
up in the innermost recesses of his heart—nay, at the most critical
moment, when the complication of military measures and diplomatic
negociations may be at their height, an adverse vote in Parliament may
of a sudden deprive her of all her confidential servants.
Gentlemen! Constitutional Government is under a heavy trial, and can
only pass triumphantly through it, if the country will grant its
confidence—a patriotic, indulgent, and self-denying confidence—to Her
Majesty’s Government. Without this, all their labours must be in vain.
I hope you will drink with me “The Health of Viscount Palmerston and Her
Majesty’s Ministers.”
5.
I am much obliged to you for your kindness in proposing my health, and
to the company for the reception which they have given to the toast.
It always affords me great satisfaction to be able to preside at your
annual Dinner, particularly when I can congratulate you on the
completion of another year of usefulness and of successful labour. This
I am enabled to do on the present occasion, and have only to point to
the satisfactory working of your extended jurisdiction over the Cinque
Port pilots—to the progress of your lighthouses—to the success in your
efforts to ameliorate the condition of the ballast-heavers—and to the
fact that you have, through the Board of Trade, entered into a
communication with Her Majesty’s Colonies, for the purpose of laying
down a complete system of lighting, based on your knowledge and
experience, in those important but remotely-removed parts of the world.
It is to the indefatigable zeal of the Deputy Master that much of this
success is due; you will, therefore, I doubt not, gladly join with me in
drinking to _his good health_, in connection with the toast of the
evening—“Prosperity to the Corporation of the Trinity House.”
------------------------------------------------------------------------
AT THE OPENING OF
THE NEW CATTLE MARKET,
IN COPENHAGEN FIELDS, ISLINGTON.
[JUNE 13TH, 1855.]
-------
MY LORD MAYOR AND GENTLEMEN,—
Accept the expression of my hearty thanks for your kind welcome, and for
the gratifying assurance of your loyal and affectionate attachment to
the Queen and her Family. I have been much pleased by the opportunity
which your kind invitation has afforded me of seeing and admiring the
great work which you this day open to the public—a work which not only
deserves all admiration in itself, on account of the excellence of the
arrangements and the magnificence of the design, but which will, I
trust, be found eminently conducive to the comfort and health of the
City of London. That its success will be commensurate with the spirit in
which it has been undertaken and carried out I cannot doubt. A certain
dislocation of habits and interests must inevitably attend the removal
of the great City market from the site it has occupied for so many
centuries, and this may possibly retard for the moment the fullest
development of the undertaking; but any opposition arising from such
causes will soon cease, and the farmers will, doubtless, soon learn to
appreciate the boon thus conferred upon them by the Corporation of
London in the increased facility which will be afforded to them for the
transaction of their business and the comparative security with which
they will be enabled to bring up and display their valuable stock in the
Great Metropolitan Cattle Market.
[The LORD MAYOR gave the health of HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS, who, in
responding to the toast, said]—
MY LORD MAYOR,—
I return you my best thanks for the honour you have done me in proposing
my health, and to you, gentlemen, for the kindness with which you have
responded to the toast.
It has given me very great pleasure to have been able to accept the
invitation of the Lord Mayor to be present at the opening of this
splendid and useful work; and I beg to assure him that the oftener he
shall invite me to similar ceremonies, the better I shall be pleased.
This wonderful metropolis, which has already gathered beneath its roofs
nearly two million and a half of human beings, and has even within these
last six years added not less than 290 miles of street to its extent,
imperatively requires that those establishments which are to minister to
the common wants of the whole should keep pace with its growth and
magnitude. They can only be undertaken by public bodies, they can only
be successfully carried out by public spirit. I know that the
difficulties which have to be overcome, where so much private capital
has acquired vested interests, are immense; but I hail the spirit which
is rising amongst us, and which, I doubt not, will meet those
difficulties. I hail this instance as an earnest of your determination
to accept the duties which your position has imposed upon you, and as a
proof that success will at all times reward a bold and conscientious
execution of them.
I beg now to propose to you to drink the “Health of the Lord Mayor and
Corporation of the City of London, and Prosperity to the New
Metropolitan Cattle Market.”
------------------------------------------------------------------------
AT THE BANQUET IN
THE BIRMINGHAM TOWN HALL,
ON THE OCCASION OF LAYING THE FIRST STONE
OF THE
BIRMINGHAM AND MIDLAND INSTITUTE.
[NOVEMBER 22ND, 1855.]
-------
[An Address having been presented by the Corporation,
His ROYAL HIGHNESS in reply said—]
MR. MAYOR AND GENTLEMEN,—
The cordial reception I have met with from you demands my warmest
acknowledgments. You only, I assure you, do me justice in giving me
credit for a deep interest in whatever may tend to promote the
advancement of either the moral or the material good of the people of
this country; but you are doing so in too flattering a manner, and
attach too high a value to any service that it may have been in my power
to render in this cause. I feel it would be a high privilege to be
associated in any way with those who are making such noble efforts—and
nowhere with more energy and perseverance than in Birmingham—for the
improvement of their fellow-countrymen; and to be allowed to witness the
success of those efforts will be a more than sufficient reward for any
assistance I may myself have been enabled to afford.
[Lord CALTHORPE having read the Address of the Council of the
Institute,
His ROYAL HIGHNESS said—]
MY LORDS AND GENTLEMEN,—
I thank you very sincerely for your address. It is with more than
ordinary pleasure that I have accepted your kind invitation to take part
in the ceremony which is this day to mark the first step towards the
establishment of an Institution, from which I join with its warmest
supporters in looking for the most advantageous results.
I cannot, indeed, doubt for a moment that the expectations of those who
believe that the “value and dignity of human labour will receive a
manifold increase, when guided by the light of scientific knowledge,”
will be amply realized. And it is most gratifying to me to hear the
expression of your opinion that the desire for the “keener and more
comprehensive study of the principles by which the exercise of man’s
productive powers is controlled,” from which you anticipate such
advantage, has been stimulated by the Great Exhibition of 1851, to my
connection with which you have been pleased to allude in such flattering
terms.
I cannot forget that the example of such Industrial Exhibitions had been
already set by this town, and with the best results; or that to the
experience so acquired the Executive Committee of the greater
undertaking of ’51 were much indebted in carrying that work to a
successful issue. As Birmingham was thus foremost in giving a practical
stimulus to the works of Art and Industry, so she is now one of the
first in the field to encourage a scientific study of the principles on
which those works depend for success.
I trust with you, and confidently believe, that the moral as well as the
material welfare of this great community will be advanced by the union,
for scientific objects, of men of all classes and of all opinions, in
such institutions as that of which I am to-day to have the honour of
laying the first stone. And most heartily do I join with you in
congratulating the country that not even such a war as that in which we
are now engaged, calculated as it is to enlist our warmest sympathies
and to engage our more immediate interest, can divert Englishmen from
the noble work of fostering the Arts of Peace, and endeavouring to give
a wider scope to the blessings of freedom and civilization.
[Lord CALTHORPE, the President of the Institute, proposed “The
Health of PRINCE ALBERT, and the other Members of the Royal
Family.”
His ROYAL HIGHNESS replied—]
I am much obliged to you, my Lord, for your proposing my health in such
kind terms, and I cannot but be much gratified by the cordial reception
which you, gentlemen, have been pleased to give to this toast.
It has been a great pleasure to me to have been able to participate, in
however trifling a degree, in a work which I do not look upon as a
simple act of worldly wisdom on the part of this great town and
locality, but as one of the first public acknowledgments of a principle
which is daily forcing its way amongst us, and is destined to play a
great and important part in the future development of this nation and of
the world in general: I mean the introduction of science and art as the
unconscious regulators of productive industry.
The courage and spirit of enterprise with which an immense amount of
capital is embarked in industrial pursuits, and the skill and
indefatigable perseverance with which these are carried on in this
country, cannot but excite universal admiration; but in all our
operations, whether agricultural or manufacturing, it is not _we_ who
operate, but the laws of nature, which we have set in operation.
It is, then, of the highest importance that we should know these laws,
in order to know what we are about, and the reason why certain things
are, which occur daily under our hands, and what _course_ we are to
pursue with regard to them.
Without such knowledge we are condemned to one of three states: either
we merely go on to do things just as our fathers did, and for no better
reason than because they did them so; or, trusting to some personal
authority, we adopt at random the recommendation of some specific, in a
speculative hope that it may answer; or lastly—and this is the most
favourable case—we ourselves improve upon certain processes; but this
can only be the result of an experience hardly earned and dearly bought,
and which, after all, can only embrace a comparatively short space of
time, and a small number of experiments.
From none of these causes can we hope for much progress; for the mind,
however ingenious, has no materials to work with, and remains in
presence of phenomena, the causes of which are hidden from it.
But these laws of nature, these divine laws, are capable of being
discovered and understood, and of being taught and made our own. _This
is the task of science_; and, whilst science discovers and teaches these
laws, art teaches their application. No pursuit is therefore too
insignificant not to be capable of becoming the subject both of a
science and an art.