was brought down, recommending the Union, on the ground of "the
unremitting industry with which the enemies of the country persevered
in their avowed design of separating Ireland from England." On the
31st, Pitt moved eight resolutions as the basis of the measure.
Sheridan moved an amendment, which was negatived by one hundred
and forty to fifteen votes. In the Lords, the address in answer to
the message was carried without a division. It was clear that the
question in England was decided.
In Ireland the discussion was more vehement, and more protracted;
but the decision was ultimately the same. Parliament went the way of
all criminals. It must be allowed, that its scaffold was surrounded
with popular clamour, to an extraordinary extent. It faced its fate
with national haughtiness, and vigorously proclaimed its own virtues
to the last. But, when the confusion of the scene was over, and the
scaffold was moved away, none lingered near the spot to wring their
hands over the grave.
The unquestionable fact is, that there was a national sense of the
unfitness of separate legislatures for two countries, whose closeness
of connexion was essential to the existence of both. The Protestant
felt that, by the fatal folly of conceding votes to the popish
peasantry--votes amounting to universal suffrage--parliament must,
in a few years, become popish in all but the name. The landlords
felt that, the constant operation of party on the peasantry must
rapidly overthrow all property. The still more enlightened portion
of society felt that every hour exposed the country more perilously
to civil commotion. And even the narrowest capacity of judging must
have seen, in the smoking harvest, ruined mansions, and slaughtered
population of the revolted counties, the hazard of trusting to a
native parliament; which, though it might punish, could not protect;
and which, in the hour of danger, could not stir hand or foot but by
the help of their mighty neighbour and fast friend.
If, in the rebellion, a wall of iron had been drawn round Ireland,
and her constitution had been left to the defence furnished by her
parliament alone, that constitution would have been but a cobweb;
parliament would have been torn down like a condemned building; and
out of the ruins would have been instantly compiled some grim and yet
grotesque fabric of popular power--some fearful and uncouth mixture
of legislation and vengeance: a republic erected on the principles
of a despotism; a temple to anarchy, with the passions of the rabble
for its priesthood, and the fallen heads of all the noble, brave, and
intellectual in the land, for the decorations of the shrine.
The cry of Repeal has revived the recollection of the parliament; but
the country has refused to recognise that cry as national, and even
the echo has perished. It was notoriously adopted, not for its chance
of success, but for its _certainty_ of failure. It was meant to give
faction a _perpetual_ pretext for mendicancy. But the mendicant and
the pretext are now gone together. A few childish people, forgetting
its uselessness and its errors, alone continue to whine over it--as
a weak parent laments the loss of a son whose life was a burden to
him, and whose death was a relief. The Union was one of the highest
services of Lord Castlereagh.
In corroboration of those sentiments, if they could require any,
it is observable how rapidly the loudest opponents of the measure
lowered their voices, and adopted the tone of government. Plunket,
the ablest rhetorician of the party--who had made his opposition
conspicuous by the ultra-poetic extravagance, of pledging himself
to swear his sons at the altar, as Hamilcar swore Hannibal to Roman
hostility--took the first opportunity of reconciling his wrath to
office, and settled down into a chancellor. Foster, the speaker,
who had led the opposition, received his salary for life without a
pang, and filled the office of chancellor of the Irish exchequer.
Bushe, the Cicero of the house, glowing with oratorical indignation,
condescended to be chief-justice. All the leaders, when the battle
was over, quietly slipped off their armour, hung up sword and shield
on their walls, put on the peace costume of handsome salary, and
subsided into title and pension.
No one blamed them then, nor need blame them now. They had all been
_actors_--and who shall reproach the actor, when the lamps are put
out and the audience gone, for thinking of his domestic meal, and
dropping into his bed? Nature, like truth, is powerful, and the
instinct of the lawyer _must_ prevail.
One man alone "refused to be comforted." Grattan, the Demosthenes
of Ireland, for years kept, without swearing it, the Carthaginian
oath, which had slipped out of the mind of Plunket. He talked of
the past with the rapt anguish of a visionary, and eschewed human
occupation with the rigid inutility of a member of La Trappe. Grattan
long continued to linger in Ireland, until he was hissed out of his
patriotic romance, and laughed into England. There, he found, that he
had lost the better part of his life in dreams, and that the world
demanded evidence that he had not lived in vain. Fortunately for his
own fame, he listened to the demand; forgot his sorrows over the
dead in the claims of the living; threw in his share to the general
contribution of the national heart against the tyranny of Napoleon;
and by some noble speeches vindicated the character of his national
eloquence, and left an honourable recollection of himself in that
greatest temple of fame and free minds which the world has ever
seen--the parliament of England.
Lord Castlereagh, on the final dissolution of the Irish legislature,
transferred his residence to London, where (in July 1802) he took
office under the Addington ministry as President of the Board of
Control--an appointment which, on the return of Pitt, he retained,
until (in 1805) he was placed by the great minister in the office of
secretary for the war and colonial department.
The death of Pitt (1806) surrendered the cabinet to the Whigs, and
Lord Castlereagh retired with his colleagues. The death of Fox soon
shook the new administration, and their own imprudence broke it up,
(1807.) The Grey and Grenville party were superseded by Perceval; and
Lord Castlereagh returned to the secretaryship at war, which he held
until 1809, when his duel with Canning caused the retirement of both.
In the Memoir, the circumstances of this painful transaction are
scarcely more than referred to; but the reply to a letter from Lord
Castlereagh to the King, distinctly shows the sense of his conduct
entertained in the highest quarter.
"The King has no hesitation in assuring Lord Castlereagh that he has,
at all times, been satisfied with the zeal and assiduity with which
he has discharged the duties of the various situations which he has
filled, and with the exertions which, under every difficulty, he has
made for the support of his Majesty's and the country's interest.
"His Majesty must ever approve of the principle which shall secure
the support and protection of government to officers exposing their
reputation, as well as their lives, in his service; when their
characters and conduct are attacked, and aspersed on loose and
insufficient grounds, without adverting to embarrassments and local
difficulties, of which those on the spot alone can form an adequate
judgment." This, of course, settled the royal opinion; and the
ministerial confidence shortly after reposed in Lord Castlereagh, in
the most conspicuous manner, fully clears his reputation from every
stain.
But the letter confirms one fact, hitherto not much known, yet
which would alone entitle him to the lasting gratitude of the
empire. In allusion to the campaign of Portugal under Moore, and the
appointment of a successor, it adds,--"It was also this impression
which prompted the King to acquiesce in the appointment of so young
a lieutenant-general as Lord Wellington to the command of the troops
in Portugal." Thus, it is to Lord Castlereagh's sense of talent, and
to his public zeal, that we ministerially owe the liberation of the
Peninsula. His selection of the great duke, in defiance of the claims
of seniority, and probably of parliamentary connexion, gave England
seven years of victory, and finally gave Europe the crowning triumph
of Waterloo.
But a still more extensive field of statesmanship was now opened to
him. Canning had left the Foreign Office vacant; before the close
of the year it was given to Lord Castlereagh. Another distinction
followed. The unhappy assassination of Perceval left the premiership
vacant; and Lord Castlereagh, though nominally under Lord Liverpool,
virtually became, by his position in the House of Commons, prime
minister.
There never was a moment of European history, when higher interests
were suspended on the intrepidity, the firmness, and the wisdom of
British council. The Spanish war, difficult, though glorious, was
at all risks to be sustained; Austria had taken up arms, (in 1809,)
was defeated, and was forced to make the bitter peace that follows
disaster. Napoleon, at Erfurth, sat on a throne which looked over
Europe, and saw none but vassals. At home, Opposition flung its old
predictions of evil in the face of the minister, and incessantly
charged him with their realisation. An infirm minister in England at
that crisis would have humiliated her by a treaty; that treaty would
have been but a truce, and that truce would have been followed by
an invasion. But the Secretary never swerved, and his confidence in
the courage of England was rewarded by the restoration of liberty to
Europe.
The fortunes of Napoleon were at length on the wane. France had been
stripped of her veterans by the retreat from Moscow, and the Russian
and German armies had hunted the wreck of the French across the
Rhine. But, in sight of final victory, the councils of the Allies
became divided, and it was of the first importance to reunite them.
An interesting letter of the late Lord Harrowby, to the present
Marquis of Londonderry, gives the narrative of this diplomatic
mission.
"I cannot recollect dates, but it was at the time when you, Lord
Aberdeen, and Lord Cathcart, were accredited to the three sovereigns.
It was mooted in Cabinet, I think, by Lord Castlereagh, whether
it would not be desirable, in order to carry the full weight of
the British Government to bear upon the counsels of the assembled
sovereigns, that some one person should be appointed who might speak
in its name to them all.
"The notion was approved of; and after the Cabinet was over,
Castlereagh called me into his private room, and proposed the mission
to me. I was, of course, highly flattered by such a proposal from
such a person; but I had not a moment's hesitation in telling him,
that I had tried my hand unsuccessfully on a somewhat similar mission
to Berlin, where I had also been accredited to the two Emperors;
that I had found myself quite incompetent to the task, which had
half-killed me; that I thought the measure highly advisable, but that
there was one person only who could execute it, and that person was
himself. He started at first. How could he, as Secretary of State,
undertake it? The thing was unheard of. I then told him, that it was
not strictly true that it had never been done: that Lord Bolingbroke
went to Paris in a diplomatic capacity when Secretary of State; and
that, though in that case the precedent was not a good one, it was
still a precedent, and I believed there were more. The conclusion to
which this conversation led was, that 'he would talk it over with
Liverpool;' and the consequence was that, the next day, or the day
after, his mission was decided."
A letter, not less interesting, from Lord Ripon, gives some striking
particulars of this mission. Lord Ripon had accompanied him to the
Congress. "I allude to his first mission to the Continent, at the
close of 1813. I travelled with him from the Hague to Bâle, where he
first came in contact with any of the ministers of the Allied powers;
and thence we proceeded to Langres, where the headquarters of the
Grand Army were established, and where the allied sovereigns, the
Emperors of Austria and Russia and the King of Prussia, with their
respective ministers, were assembled."
The letter proceeds to state the views of the mission, much of whose
success it attributes to the combined suavity and firmness of Lord
Castlereagh's conduct. But, an instance of his prompt and sagacious
decision suddenly occurred. Blucher's impetuous advance had been
checked, with serious loss, by a desperate assault of Napoleon, who,
availing himself of this success, had fallen upon all the advanced
forces of the Allies. There was wavering at headquarters, and there
were even proposals of retiring beyond the Rhine. It was essential to
reinforce Blucher, but there were no troops at hand. Lord Castlereagh
demanded, "Where were any to be found?" He was answered, that there
were two strong corps of Russians and Prussians under the command
of Bernadotte; but that he was "very tenacious of his command," and
they could not be withdrawn without a tedious negotiation,--in other
words, we presume, without fear of giving that clever but tardy
commander a pretext for abandoning the alliance altogether. The
difficulty was, by a high authority, pronounced _insurmountable_.
Lord Castlereagh, who was present at the council, simply demanded,
"whether the reinforcement was _necessary_;" and, on being answered
in the affirmative, declared that the order must be given; that
England had a right to expect that her allies should not be deterred
from a decisive course by any such difficulties; and that he would
take upon himself all the responsibility that might arise, regarding
the Crown-Prince of Sweden.
The order was issued: Blucher was reinforced; Napoleon was beaten
at Laon; and the campaign rapidly approached its close. Still,
formidable difficulties arose. Napoleon, though he had at last
found that he could not face the army of the Allies, conceived the
daring manoeuvre of throwing himself in their rear--thus alarming
them for their communications, and forcing them to follow him back
through France. The consequences of a desultory war might have been
the revival of French resistance, and the ruin of the campaign. The
manoeuvre became the subject of extreme anxiety in the Allied
camp, and some of the chief authorities were of opinion, that he
ought to be pursued. It is said (though the Memoir has not yet
reached that part of the subject,) that the decision of leaving him
behind, and marching direct on Paris, was chiefly owing to Lord
Castlereagh; who pointed out the weakness of taking counsel from an
enemy, the advantage of finding the road to Paris open at last, and
the measureless political importance of having the capital in their
possession.
This advice prevailed: a few thousand cavalry were sent in the track
of Napoleon, to entrap him into the idea that he was followed by the
Grand Army, while Schwartzenberg marched in the opposite direction;
and the first intelligence which reached the French army was in the
thunderclap which announced the fall of the Empire!
Lord Harrowby's letter, in referring to a subsequent period, gives a
curious instance of the chances on which the highest events may turn.
"Now for my other service in the dark. After the attempt to
assassinate the Duke of Wellington at Paris, the Government was
naturally most anxious to get him away. But how? Under whatever
pretext it might be veiled, _he_ would still call it running away, to
which he was not partial. But, when Castlereagh was obliged to leave
Vienna, in order to attend his duty in parliament, I was fortunate
enough to suggest that the Duke should be sent to replace him; and
that would be a command which he could not refuse to obey.
"When I mentioned this to the Duke, just after I left you--for I was
then quite full of the memory of my little exploits--he quite agreed
that, if he had been at Paris, on the return of Buonaparte to France,
it would have been _highly probable that they would have seized him_.
"Small events are great to little men; and it is not _nothing_,
to have contributed in the smallest degree to the success of
the Congress at Vienna, (nor was it then so called,) and of the
subsequent campaign, and to the saving of the Duke for WATERLOO!"
After this triumphant course of political life, with every gift of
fortune around him, and perhaps the still higher consciousness of
having achieved a historic name, how can we account for the closing
of such a career in suicide?
The only probable cause was the intolerable burden of public
business, by his having in charge the chief weight of the home
department as well as the foreign. His leadership of the House of
Commons was enough to have worn him out. Canning once said--"that no
vigour of mind or body can stand the wear and tear of a minister,
above ten years." Castlereagh had been immersed in indefatigable
toil since 1794. He had stood "the wear and tear" for thirty years.
His life was wholly devoted to business. During the summer he rose
at five, in winter at seven, and frequently laboured for twelve or
fourteen hours in succession.
In person he was tall, with a mild and very handsome countenance in
early life, of which we must regret that the portrait in the first
volume of the Memoir gives but an unfavourable resemblance. The most
faithful likeness is that by Sir Thomas Lawrence, in the Windsor
Gallery of Statesmen, though it has the effeminate air which that
admirable painter had the unlucky habit of giving to his men.
The death of Lord Castlereagh seems to have been justly attributed to
mental exhaustion, with the addition of a fit of the gout, for which
he had taken some depressing medicines. The state of his spirits
was marked by the King, on his Majesty's departure for Scotland.
At the Cabinet Council, he had been observed to remain helplessly
silent, and his signature to public papers had become suddenly almost
illegible. On those symptoms, he was expressly put into the hands
of his physician, and sent to Foot's Cray, his villa in Kent. The
physician attended him until the Monday following. Early on that
day he was hastily summoned, and found his Lordship dead in his
dressing-room.
A letter from the Duke of Wellington conveyed the lamentable
intelligence to the present Marquis, who was then at Vienna. After
some prefatory remarks, the Duke says--"You will have seen, that I
witnessed the melancholy state of mind which was the cause of the
catastrophe. I saw him after he had been with the King on the 9th
instant, to whom he had likewise exposed it. But, fearing that he
would not send for his physician, I considered it my duty to go to
him; and not finding him, to write to him, which, considering what
has since happened, was a fortunate circumstance.
"You will readily believe what a consternation this deplorable event
has occasioned here. The funeral was attended by every person in
London of any mark or distinction, of all parties; and the crowd in
the streets behaved respectfully and creditably."
The Duke's remarks on "the fortunate circumstance" of applying to the
physician, we presume to have meant, the vindication of the Marquis's
character from the guilt of conscious suicide. For the same reason,
we have given the details. They relieve the mind of the Christian
and the Englishman from the conception, that the most accomplished
intellect, and the highest sense of duty, may not be protective
against the mingled crime and folly of self-murder.
We have now given a general glance at the _matériel_ of those
volumes. They contain a great variety of public documents, valuable
to the future historian, though too _official_ for the general
reader. One, however, is too curious to be altogether passed by: it
is from Lord Brougham, (dated 1812,) offering himself for employment
in American affairs:--
"MY LORD,--I am confident that the step which I am now taking cannot
be misconstrued by your lordship. Under the present circumstances, I
beg to make a tender of my services to his Majesty's government in
the conduct of the negotiation with the United States, wheresoever
the same may be carried on.
"I am induced to think that I might be of use as a negotiator in this
affair. I trust it is unnecessary to add, that I can have no motive
of a private or personal nature in making this offer. Should it be
accepted, I must necessarily sustain a considerable injury in my
professional pursuits," &c.
We think that, in giving these volumes to the country, the present
Marquis of Londonderry has not merely fulfilled an honourable
fraternal duty, but has rendered a service to public character.
Faction had calumniated Lord Castlereagh throughout a large portion
of his career. The man who breaks down a fierce rebellion, and who
extinguishes a worthless legislature, must be prepared to encounter
the hostility of all whose crimes he has punished, or whose traffic
he has put to shame. The felon naturally hates the hand which holds
the scales of justice, and, if he cannot strike, is sure to malign.
The contemptuous dignity with which Lord Castlereagh looked down upon
his libellers, and his equally contemptuous disregard of defence, of
course only rendered libel more inveterate; and every low artifice of
falsehood was exerted against the administration of a man who was an
honour to Ireland.
His course in England was in a higher region, and he escaped the
mosquitoes which infest the swamps of Irish political life. Among the
leaders of English party he had to contend with men of honour, and
on the Continent his task was to sustain the cause of Europe. There,
mingling with monarchs in the simplicity of a British gentleman, he
carried with him all the influence of a great British minister, and
entitled himself to that influence by the value of his services. Yet,
among the highest distinctions of his statesmanship, we have but
slight hesitation in naming the rapid overthrow of the rebellion. The
scene was new, the struggle singularly perplexing. Political artifice
was mingled with brute violence. If the spirit of revolt raged in the
superstition, the fears, and the rude memories of peasant life, it
was still more hazardously spread among the professional ranks, whose
ambition was frenzied by the prospect of a republic, or whose guilt
was to be screened by its establishment. He has been charged with
tyranny and torture in its suppression; his correspondence in these
volumes shows the manly view which he took of the true condition of
Ireland.
The question of the safety of Ireland has now come before the
legislature once again, in all its breadth. Is Ireland to be a
perpetual seat of rebellion? is every ruffian to find there only an
armoury? is every faction to find there only a parade-ground? Is
its soil to be a perpetual fount of waters, that can flow only to
poison the healthful channels of society? Is the power of government
to be employed only in the hideous duties of the gaoler and the
executioner? Is the noblest constitution that man has ever seen to be
utterly paralysed, from the moment when it touches a soil containing
millions of our fellow subjects?--and to be paralysed by the act of
these millions?