of the Walcheren expedition, and the disgrace of Lord Chatham and the
Duke of York, was still further shaken by the death of the Princess
Amelia, and before long it appeared that he had become hopelessly
insane. After several prorogations it was resolved (December 20) that
it was the duty of Parliament to supply the existing defect in the
organization of Government. A precedent for the action of the ministry
was drawn from Pitt's conduct under similar circumstances in 1788. It
was determined to reproduce, though in a somewhat modified form, the
restrictions then laid upon the power of the Regent. But the Prince of
Wales was by no means disposed to submit to these restrictions, and
induced his brothers to join in a protest against them. Nor did the
Opposition fail to see the probable advantage which would accrue to them
from a more unlimited regency; they regarded it as certain that
Grenville and Grey would be called to office, and they had no wish to
curtail the power of the Crown when wielded by men ready to rectify the
mismanagement under which they thought the country was suffering. But
their hopes were destined to be speedily extinguished. In spite of his
protest the Bill restricting the Regent was passed (Feb. 5), and the
Prince took the oaths before the Privy Council. He had already made up
his mind that it would be better to continue the present ministry, for a
personal quarrel had arisen between him and his Whig friends. He had
requested Grenville and Grey to draw up a reply to addresses from the
two Houses which had been presented to him in January. They had found
considerable difficulty in complying with his request, for Grenville had
been a member of Pitt's ministry when he restricted the regency in 1788,
while Grey then as now was a member of the Opposition; but by careful
suppression of the difficulties, a reply was drawn out and submitted to
the Prince. Such a compromise was not what he had expected; he summoned
his friend Sheridan to assist him in criticising the reply. The paper
was returned with pungent and witty marginal remarks, and a wholly
different form of reply suggested. The Whig Lords took umbrage at the
levity and rudeness of the Prince, and did not refrain from expressing
their anger, a line of conduct which, as might have been expected, in
the case of a man of such selfish and merely personal politics as the
Prince, was warmly resented. Moreover, the flattery of the Queen, and
the adhesion to him of his brothers, who wished for the continuation of
the Perceval ministry, together with the falsely hopeful reports of the
physicians, which led him to think that his regency would be a short
one, induced him to accept the situation; and immediately after having
taken the oaths he declared his intention to retain Mr. Perceval.
Although at first expressing his dislike to his ministers, before long
entirely won over by their courtly language, he began to speak of his
old friends as "the wicked politicians." The regency was at first fixed
for one year only. At the end of that time, that is, in February 1812,
after a few more overtures to the Whig Lords to form a coalition with
his present ministry, which he must have known was impossible, the
Prince allowed the ministry to continue as before, Castlereagh being
readmitted to office, and Lord Sidmouth becoming President of the
Council. The joy of Mr. Perceval at the happy issue of the affair was
proportionate to the fear he had felt at the thought of losing office;
but it was destined to be shortlived, for on the 11th of May, as he
entered the House of Commons, he was assassinated by a lunatic of the
name of Bellingham.
[Sidenote: Lord Liverpool made Premier.]
Again there was much negotiation, and an attempt to introduce Lord
Wellesley and Mr. Canning to the ministry. Of course they could not
serve with Castlereagh; they were then asked to form a ministry with
Grenville and Grey, but these Lords objected to the Peninsula War, to
which Wellesley was pledged. Grenville and Grey then attempted a
ministry of their own, but quarrelled with Lord Moira on the
appointments to the Household; and as an American war was threatening,
and the ministry had already given up their Orders in Council (one of
the chief causes of their unpopularity), the Regent, rather than remain
longer without a ministry, intrusted Lord Liverpool with the
premiership, with Castlereagh as his Foreign Secretary, and the old
ministry remained in office.
[Sidenote: War with America. May 1812.]
Before the day of triumph of this ministry arrived, while Napoleon was
still at the height of his power, and the success of Wellington as yet
uncertain, England had drifted into war with America. It is difficult to
believe that this useless war might not have been avoided had the
ministers been men of ability. It arose from the obstinate manner in
which the Government clung to the execution of their retaliatory
measures against France, regardless of the practical injury they were
inflicting upon all neutrals. The causes of irritation have already been
mentioned. America, adopting the policy of England, had proceeded to
retaliate; an embargo was laid upon trade both with England and France,
and commercial relations with Europe practically broken off. An
attempted arrangement between the two countries in 1809 had produced but
little result. But though foreign trade had diminished, the demand for
home manufactures in America had largely increased; the populations of
the Northern and Eastern States were therefore satisfied with the
existing state of things and decidedly averse to war, with its certain
expenditure and probable injury to their manufactures. In the South the
case was different. Without manufactures to supply the loss sustained by
the restricted export of their tobacco and sugar, not in immediate
contact with English territory, as were the Northern States, and led by
an aristocratic and slave-owning race, the Whites of the South were
inclined to war. The Presidents were Virginians, the Southerners had a
superiority in Congress, and in May of 1812 it became plain that war
must result unless the Orders in Council were repealed. But England was
in confusion owing to the assassination of Perceval, and it was not till
the middle of June, when war had been already declared, that Brougham's
motion for the withdrawal of the Orders was carried. The concession,
awkwardly made in the face of the American threats, came too late. The
Americans had already made up their minds, and planned an invasion of
Canada.
[Sidenote: Character of the war.]
It was a war without great events. The attempts of the Americans upon
Canada failed. Here and there a slight success attended the English
arms, and the deep anger of our enemies was moved by the irksome
blockade of their coast, and the employment of the savage Indian tribes
as our allies. But if fairly successful on land, the English were to
their great astonishment thoroughly worsted upon the sea. Ship after
ship was taken by the American frigates. Nor was it till our commanders
consented to recognise the fact that the classification of the two
navies was wholly different, and that an American frigate was in tonnage
and weight of metal a match for an English fifty-gun ship, that these
disasters were brought to an end. It was an additional blow to the pride
of England that the sailors by whom her ships were defeated were largely
drawn from her own people. From the wretchedness prevalent in England,
from high taxes, commercial difficulties, and the severe laws of
impressment, men fled for refuge to America; and it is said that as many
as 16,000 Englishmen were serving on board the American fleet.
[Sidenote: Attempted negotiations.]
[Sidenote: Capture of Washington.]
The war was really so causeless and so prejudicial to the success of the
allies in Europe, that the Emperor of Russia attempted, in 1813, to
bring it to a close by mediation, and although his offer was declined, a
negotiation was entered into at Ghent which ultimately proved
successful. But before the negotiators advanced far in their labours the
war threatened to assume a more serious character. On the cessation of
hostilities in the south of France, a considerable number of the
English troops were embarked at Bordeaux direct for America, without
even being allowed to return home, and increased energy began to show
itself in all directions. A large fleet under Rear-Admiral Cockburn, and
a body of troops under General Ross, were despatched to the Chesapeake,
and a combined attack by land and water was made upon Washington, the
Federal capital. The success of the expedition, which was complete, was
stained by the destruction of all public property, offices, and
buildings in the city. An outcry was raised, not only in America but in
Europe, at what was regarded as an act of vandalism. It is said that the
English Government had ordered it as a retaliation for the barbarities
of the Americans on the Canadian frontier, and as it is confessed that
private property was scrupulously spared, it may well be a question
whether in fact such a destruction of national property is not a better
manner of exhibiting the severity of war than the destruction of private
property which so constantly attends it.
The capture of Washington was followed by other expeditions of a like
nature with less satisfactory results. Large and systematic operations
against a continent are at all times difficult, and certainly they were
beyond the capacity of the English ministry as then constituted. They
relapsed into all the old errors of the American War, and the military
operations were reduced to mere piratical excursions. An effort was
indeed made upon the only side where a base of operations existed, but
on so small a scale and so badly directed as to be entirely useless. A
combined attack by land and water was arranged against Plattsburg upon
Lake Champlain. The dilatoriness of the commander, Sir George Prevost,
allowed the flotilla to begin the fight unaided; it was completely
beaten, and its destruction putting an end to all hope of success, the
army withdrew. An attack on Baltimore met with no better fate, but the
greater part of the province of Maine was taken and occupied. The
arrival of the Peninsula troops, no longer well commanded, had produced
but little effect; the negotiations at Ghent were gradually drawing to a
conclusion. The Convention was signed on the 24th of December. It was,
as might be expected from the temper of the two nations, little more
than a compromise. The real points at issue were scarcely touched, the
boundaries were left for future negotiation. Such as it was it came too
late to save England from one more disaster. An expedition similar in
character to those already mentioned had been directed against New
Orleans. The place was vigorously defended by General Jackson. Natural
difficulties and mismanagement met the English at every turn. The earth
was too sandy to allow of redoubts; while the Americans used cotton
bales, which answered admirably as defences, the English found nothing
better than barrels of sugar and molasses. When the storming parties
reached the enemy's lines they found that their fascines and
scaling-ladders had been neglected; the assault became impracticable. As
the approach of the town had been completely exposed to the fire of the
enemy, very heavy loss had been sustained, three English generals, and
among them Sir Edmund Pakenham, had been killed, and Lambert, who had
succeeded to the command, thought it better to withdraw the army.
[Sidenote: Abdication of Napoleon.]
The American War was thus still at its height when the ministry had been
called upon to arrange the fate of the late Conqueror of Europe. When
the allies, in their advance towards France, had assembled at Frankfort,
not yet certain of success, and conscious that their work would be easy
could they separate Napoleon's interests from those of the nation, they
had offered to negotiate at a general Congress upon the fixed condition
that France should abandon Italy, Holland, Germany and Spain, and
confine itself to its natural boundaries. Napoleon, suspecting not
without reason their intentions in accepting the Congress, had refused
the conditions. His refusal had been followed by a very able
proclamation of the allies, separating the interests of the ruler from
that of the people, and promising that France should retain its just
weight in the balance of nations. Conscious of the effect of this
declaration, which exactly suited the feelings of the majority of
Frenchmen, Napoleon hastened to accept the conditions. But he was told
it was too late. Traitors had already informed the allied sovereigns
that they were strong enough to avoid compromise. The great campaign
which followed had shown how much could yet be done by the Emperor's
genius. Again negotiations were opened at Châtillon; Napoleon expressed
the utmost readiness to accept the terms of Frankfort. But the ultimatum
of the allies had now risen, the Rhine boundary was no longer to be
conceded. Napoleon could not make up his mind to allow France to issue
from the war less than when he had first taken possession of the
Government. The Treaty of Châtillon was broken off and war was again
resumed; and as though to express the completeness of their
determination, the allied sovereigns entered into a treaty at Chaumont
(March 1), by which they bound themselves together for twenty years,
promised each to supply 150,000 men, to which England was to add a
subsidy of £5,000,000. The knowledge of this treaty made Napoleon feel
that some desperate stroke alone could save him. He passed with his
forces into the rear of the allies; he was nearer, as he himself said,
to Vienna than they were to Paris. The movement put them in great
perplexity. To leave so formidable a person upon their communications
seemed too dangerous a step. Again treason served them in good stead.
Their friends in Paris, at the head of whom was Talleyrand, urged them
at once to move upon the capital. Joseph Bonaparte, who had been left in
charge there, with Marmont and Mortier, fought a last battle before the
very walls. Joseph lost heart, and ordered the marshals to capitulate,
the army was withdrawn behind the city, and Paris was in the hands of
the allies. This was fatal to all Napoleon's hopes. He came to
Fontainebleau, there found himself gradually deserted, heard how his
marshals one after the other had joined the victorious allies, and on
the 4th of April signed his abdication, consenting to withdraw to the
Isle of Elba, which was to be constituted into a principality for his
convenience. He was to be allowed 400 soldiers, his wife and child were
to be placed in possession of Placentia and Parma, and he was to retain
the title of Emperor. In the settlement of the affairs of France and
Europe he was to have no voice. The last stroke of ill-fortune seemed to
have come upon him when his Austrian wife, overpersuaded by her
relations, deserted him, and set off with his young son to Vienna.
During his ten months' residence in the Isle of Elba the settlement of
Europe was being carried on by the diplomatists of all the powers
assembled at Vienna.
[Sidenote: General sketch of the Tory policy.]
Thus the Tory ministry seemed at last to have reaped the fruit of their
lengthened efforts, and to have justified their long retention of
office. But we shall look in vain for any merit in their policy but one,
and that is steadfastness. The accidental discovery, for it was little
more, of a general of surpassing genius had enabled them to hide under
his greatness their own mediocrity; his skill had covered their
constantly-repeated blunders, and fortune had supplied them with an
enemy whose enthusiastic self-confidence, arbitrary temper, and
insatiable ambition, had neutralized his transcendent genius, had forced
upon them allies whom their own skill could not have secured, and had
even alienated the people whose natural representative he was. With
these advantages they had been able to obtain that success which a fixed
line of policy even when itself erroneous not unfrequently secures.
They had raised England to a position of the highest importance, the
success of Europe against Napoleon was indisputably due to her. Yet it
cannot be said that they were urged by patriotic motives. Throughout
their conduct had been dictated by the interests of their class. They
had recognized in Napoleon the great subverter of old institutions, the
arch-enemy of the aristocratic order. It was in this capacity chiefly
that they had pursued him with such firm and undeviating hostility. Of
the events which took place during their ministry, of the successful
skill and bravery of soldiers and sailors, of the establishment of
national independence whether in England or on the Continent, all
Englishmen may be proud. Those who, reading history by the light of
subsequent events, still hold that a strong aristocratic element is a
necessary ingredient of constitutional liberty will admire their
motives. But to those who feel that growth and advance is the essential
principle of the life of a nation, and that those only are good
governors who are capable of understanding and of carrying out the
necessities of advancing civilization, their sole claim to respect (and
that is after all no small one) will be that they knew their own minds,
and in spite of all difficulties realized their object.
[Sidenote: Home government.]
The same motive of class aggrandizement which detracts from the virtue
of the foreign policy of this ministry underlay the whole administration
of home affairs. There was an incapacity to look at public affairs from
any but a class or aristocratic point of view. The natural consequence
was a constantly increasing mass of discontent among the lower orders,
only kept in restraint by an overmastering fear felt by all those higher
in rank of the possible revolutionary tendencies of any attempt at
change. Much of the discontent was of course the inevitable consequence
of the circumstances in which England was placed, and for which the
Government was only answerable in so far as it created those
circumstances. At the same time it is impossible not to blame the
complacent manner in which the misery was ignored and the occasional
success of individual merchants and contractors regarded as evidences of
national prosperity. At the beginning of the year 1810, Perceval, who in
the interest of the Government had been preventing as far as possible
all inquiry into the Walcheren failure, was bold enough at the opening
of the session to take credit to himself for that expedition, and to
declare that the national prosperity was great, and that public works
had been carried out as successfully as in the times of profound peace.
Such assertions could not have been made without some slight foundation.
While the Continental System and the Orders in Council had together
almost closed the European trade, certain other irregular doors had been
opened; the removal of the Portuguese court to the Brazils had given
hopes of an enlarged South American trade, and the two islands of
Heligoland and Anholt had been fortified and turned into smuggling
centres with some success. Certain public works, as the Waterloo and
Vauxhall bridges, had been opened. But before the year was over the
condition of the country surely proved that the prosperity boasted of
was a mere phantom. The American trade proved ruinous to those who had
rushed into it; the British goods on the Baltic had been seized and
confiscated; the public works had been carried on by a lavish issue of
paper money, which was now rapidly depreciating. A bad harvest came to
increase the difficulties of the time. Early in the spring wheat was
already at 102s. a quarter: though £7,000,000 worth was imported, it
rose in August to 116s. But then, under the influence of a good harvest,
it suddenly dropped to 94s.--thus the agricultural interest was also
involved in ruin.
[Sidenote: Depression of trade.]
Under all these influences there was a collapse of credit. There were
273 stoppages of payment instead of the ordinary average of 100, and
before the year was out no less than 2314 commissions of bankruptcy were
issued. This misery and depression lasted till the end of the war.
Indeed, in the following years, 1811 and 1812, it was constantly
increasing. The depression of commerce was so great and the collapse of
credit so general that an advance of £6,000,000 to the merchants on due
security was authorized by Parliament. The withdrawal of Russia from the
Continental System, and its apparent inclination to throw off Napoleon's
influence, slightly revived business. But this improvement was
neutralized by the fearful winter and spring, which destroyed much of
the harvest, and again raised the price of wheat. The apparent
opposition between the interests of the manufacturing and agricultural
classes was very curiously marked. A plentiful harvest in 1813, and the
opening of many continental ports, did much to revive both trade and
manufactures; but it was accompanied by a fall in the price of corn from
17ls. to 75s. The consequence was widespread distress among the
agriculturists, which involved the country banks, so that in the two
following years 240 of them stopped payment. So great a crash could not
fail to affect the manufacturing interest also; apparently for the
instant the very restoration of peace brought widespread ruin.
[Sidenote: Misery of the lower classes.]
[Sidenote: The Luddite riots.]
But whether for the moment it was the agriculturists or the merchants
who suffered most, the lower classes were quite sure to suffer. Not only
did the Continental System injure the great branches of English
industry, the foreign corn ports were also closed. The increase of
population since the large introduction of machinery in the last century
had gone beyond the resources of home production. The high price of
wheat has been already mentioned. Meat also went up from 4d. or 5d. to
10d. a pound. Considering the enormous rate of the price of corn, it was
impossible to give wages sufficient to keep the operatives alive. Before
the end of the year 1811, wages had sunk to 7s. 6d. a week. The
manufacturing operatives were therefore in a state of absolute misery.
Petitions signed by 40,000 or 50,000 men urged upon Parliament that they
were starving; but there was another class which fared still worse.
Machinery had by no means superseded hand-work. In thousands of hamlets
and cottages handlooms still existed. The work was neither so good nor
so rapid as work done by machinery; even at the best of times used
chiefly as an auxiliary to agriculture, this hand labour could now
scarcely find employment at all. Not unnaturally, without work and
without food, these handworkers were very ready to believe that it was
the machinery which caused their ruin, and so in fact it was; the
change, though on the whole beneficial, had brought much individual
misery. The people were not wise enough to see this. They rose in riot
in many parts of England, chiefly about Nottingham, calling themselves
Luddites (from the name of a certain idiot lad who some thirty years
before had broken stocking-frames), gathered round them many of the
disbanded soldiery with whom the country was thronged, and with a very
perfect secret organization, carried out their object of
machine-breaking. The unexpected thronging of the village at nightfall,
a crowd of men with blackened faces, armed sentinels holding every
approach, silence on all sides, the village inhabitants cowering behind
their closed doors, an hour or two's work of smashing and burning, and
the disappearance of the crowd as rapidly as it had arrived--such were
the incidents of the night riots.
[Sidenote: Misery of the agricultural labourer.]