Government. The Foreign Enlistment Bill, to prevent English subjects
from serving in a foreign service or fitting out ships of war for
foreign countries, was carried by a majority of thirteen only, the
ground of opposition being that the Bill was in fact directed to the
injury of the revolted colonies of Spain in America, in whose ranks many
Englishmen were serving. Like the Alien Act of the preceding session,
the Bill was considered as a proof of that legitimist and absolute
tendency of which the Government was accused. Again, in the great
question of Catholic emancipation, which was brought forward by Grattan
in the best speech he ever made in the House, the Government were
victorious by a majority of two only in a very full House; while it was
actually defeated by a majority of five on the question of the reform of
Scotch burghs, which it had got rid of in the last session. The system
in those burghs had been in existence ever since the fifteenth century,
and so acted as to perpetuate the administration in the hands of one
party, often of one family only, as the retiring members of the
corporation had the right of electing their own successors. For years
the burghs had been bent upon ridding themselves of this exclusive
government; as in the case of other reforms, their efforts had passed
out of sight during the tumult of the French wars, again to be called
into existence on the resumption of peace. In 1817 certain
irregularities of form in the burgh of Montrose had caused the elections
to be set aside by the law courts. The Crown had been compelled to give
a new charter, in which a certain popular element was admitted. Other
burghs at once began to clamour for similar changes. To their petitions,
however, the Government turned a deaf ear. When the elections in
Aberdeen were quashed by the law courts, as those at Montrose had been,
the old constitution had been re-established, and Lord Archibald
Hamilton now took up the cause of the burghs. He demanded a copy of the
new warrant, and was defeated by five only. Pressing his success, he
demanded that the petitions of the burghs should be referred to a select
committee. A large majority of the burghs themselves were loudly calling
for reform. The population of those who desired it amounted to 420,000,
as opposed to 60,000, the population of those who had not petitioned.
The proof of the wish of the people most interested was too strong for
the House; in spite of the Government opposition, Lord Archibald's
motion was carried in a House of nearly 300 by a majority of five. As
the ground of opposition had been avowedly that a change in the burghs
was but the beginning of parliamentary reform, this victory shows how
the opposition to that measure was gradually breaking down.
[Sidenote: Chronic sufferings of the poor.]
In spite of these signs of weakness, the ministers were upon the whole
well satisfied with the session. They believed in the success of their
repressive measures in the year 1817, and thought that the state of the
country was both quieter and more prosperous than it had been.
Complaints of the depression of agriculture, and poverty and suffering
among the agricultural poor, were indeed chronic; they depended upon
causes over which the immediate action of Government had little control.
Exaggerated rents were seeking their natural level; over-cultivation,
especially of corn, was giving place to more rational agriculture, and
the enormous prosperity enjoyed by the agriculturists during the war was
shrinking to modest and hard-won profits; the change could not but be
attended with some depression and many painful contrasts. At the same
time the action of the Poor Law as then administered, the injudicious
fostering of the population which had gone on during the war, and the
law of settlement which prevented free competition of labour, of
necessity caused misery among the labourers. It was when the
manufacturing and mercantile interests were also touched, when, under
the action of restrictive corn laws, prices rose, while work was not to
be had, that the social dangers of the country became from time to time
great.
[Sidenote: Political meetings.]
[Sidenote: The Manchester Massacre. Aug. 16, 1819.]
The prosperity of the year 1818 had been rather apparent than real;
there had been much over-trading; a more healthy spirit appears to have
arisen in the beginning of 1819, but the effects of the preceding folly
were now to be felt. In the first half of the year the number of
bankruptcies were almost double the average, the price of corn was still
as high as 75s., work was scarce, and wages fell, and before the year
was over the ministry found upon their hand difficulties even greater
than those they had experienced in the gloomy year of 1817. For again
the political question was ready to start to life, again leaders of a
higher class were ready to take advantage of the sufferings of the
people, and men of more extreme views among themselves were eager to
lead them into desperate and revolutionary designs. There had been great
meetings near Leeds, Glasgow, and at Ashton-under-Lyne, in June. On the
28th of that month, Sir Charles Wolseley and the Rev. Joseph Harrison
had made violent speeches at a great assembly at Stockport, and Sir
Charles had been elected the "legislatorial representative" for
Birmingham. At the same time the reformers were found to be engaged in
drilling. No arms were seen, and it is asserted by one of their leaders
that the only object of their drilling was to secure order and
regularity and the better appearance at a forthcoming great meeting at
Manchester. On the other hand, it was held by those who dreaded popular
movements that the drilling had been long and secretly continued, and
was a part of a great plan for an exhibition of physical force. The
object of the Manchester meeting, which was to be held on the 9th of
August, was to choose a representative as Birmingham had already done.
The meeting was declared illegal; a requisition was therefore sent to
the proper officials, begging them to call it legally. On their refusal,
it was determined to hold it, legal or not, on the 16th, in St. Peter's
Field. Thither, on the day appointed, large bodies of men, well dressed
and without arms, but in something like military array, marched from all
the neighbouring towns, and collected round a hustings, from which Hunt
was to address them. Their number perhaps amounted to about 80,000, all
pressed together in a space of not more than three acres. The
magistrates had formed no very definite notion of what to do. They had
assembled a considerable military force, of which a troop of Manchester
yeomen about forty strong and six troops of the 15th Hussars formed a
part. A warrant was out against Hunt, and with extreme imprudence it was
determined to execute it while he was on the hustings, as had been done
in the case of Harrison on a previous occasion. Just as Hunt was
beginning to speak, a strange pressure made itself visible to the crowd.
The magistrates had come to a house overlooking the field; they had
intrusted their warrant to the chief constable; he had declared he could
not execute it without military aid, and the yeomen had pressed into the
crowded space. As was natural, they had been separated and brought to a
complete standstill. Upon this the magistrates seem to have lost their
presence of mind, to have believed that the yeomanry were in danger, and
to have ordered the 15th Hussars to extricate them. The consequence was
a fearful charge, which swept everything before it, and, as one of the
officers says, "by the time they had reached the other side of the
field the fugitives were literally piled up to a considerable elevation
above the level of the ground." The effect of the panic on so
closely-packed a multitude, among whom the soldiers were using the
sword, sometimes the flat and sometimes the edge, was fearful; about
thirty wounded persons were carried to the infirmary, and forty more
found their own way there in the course of the day. The actual wounds
given by the soldiers do not appear to have been very many. Hunt and
some of his followers were apprehended; the charge of high treason
against them was subsequently dropped, and they were obliged to find
bail to stand their trial for misdemeanour.
[Sidenote: Culpability of the Government.]
[Sidenote: The Six Acts.]
The Manchester Massacre, as it was called, was the result of accident
and the bad management of the magistrates, but the Government seemed to
make the act entirely their own when they lavished approbation on the
conduct of the authorities, and when they induced the Prince Regent
himself to write an approving letter. As usual in England, the
employment of the military except in the very last necessity excited the
anger of very many even of the wealthier classes. Among those who had
suffered from it its effect was simply to exasperate; for the time the
temper of the people seems to have been really dangerous. The point, on
the other hand, which struck the ministerialists was the weakness of the
existing laws for the suppression of sedition, and in accordance with
their view it was thought necessary to hold an autumnal session, which
met on the 23rd of November, and which passed by large majorities a
series of enactments known as "The Six Acts." These were respectively
entitled, "An Act to prevent delay in the administration of justice in
cases of misdemeanour;" "An Act to prevent the training of persons in
the use of arms and the practice of military evolutions;" "An Act for
the prevention and punishment of blasphemous and seditious libels;" "An
Act to authorize justices of the peace, in certain disturbed counties,
to seize and detain arms;" "An Act to subject certain publications to
the duties of stamps upon newspapers, and to make other regulations for
restraining the abuses arising from the publication of blasphemous and
seditious libels;" and "An Act for preventing the assembling of
seditious assemblies." Having passed these repressive measures, the
Parliament was again prorogued (Dec. 29) till February 1820. In the
interval, on the 29th of January, the old King died, in his
eighty-second year.
GEORGE IV.
1820-1830.
Born 1762 = Caroline of Brunswick, 1795.
|
Charlotte = Leopold of Saxe-Coburg.
Born 1796.
Died 1817.
CONTEMPORARY PRINCES.
_France._ | _Austria._ | _Spain._
Louis XVIII., 1814 | Francis II., 1792. | Ferdinand VII., 1813.
Charles X., 1824. | |
_Prussia._ | _Russia._
Frederick William III., 1797. | Alexander I., 1801.
| Nicholas, 1825.
_Denmark._ | _Sweden._
Frederick VI., 1808. | Charles XIV., 1818.
POPES.--Pius VII., 1800. Leo XII., 1823. Pius VIII., 1829.
_Lord Chancellors._ | _First Lords of the Treasury._
April 1807. Eldon. | Jan. 1812. Liverpool.
April 1827. Lyndhurst. | April 1827. Canning.
| Aug. 1827. Goderich.
| Jan. 1828. Wellington.
_Chancellors of the Exchequer._
Jan. 1812. Vansittart.
Jan. 1823. Robinson.
April 1827. Canning.
Aug. 1827. Herries.
Jan. 1828. Goulburn.
_Secretaries (Foreign and Home)._
June 1812 { Castlereagh.
{ Sidmouth.
Jan. 1822 { Castlereagh.
{ Peel.
Sept. 1822 { Canning.
{ Peel.
April 1827 { Dudley.
{ Sturges-Bourne.
Aug. 1827 { Dudley.
{ Lansdowne.
Jan. 1828 { Dudley.
{ Peel.
May 1828 { Aberdeen.
{ Peel.
[Sidenote: Precarious position of the ministry.]
It was no longer as Regent but as King that George, the new monarch, met
the Parliament on its reassembling. He had so long acted virtually as
sovereign that scarcely any visible effect was produced by the change.
Yet during the first days there was considerable probability that the
change of reign would be marked by a change of ministry, for there were
two questions on which the ministers felt it their duty to oppose the
new King--the one an increase of his private revenue, the other the
divorce of his unfortunate wife. On the latter point, unfortunately for
themselves, they were induced to make a compromise, believing that they
were acting safely. Extremely anxious to avoid a public scandal, they
refused at first to move in the matter of the divorce as long as the
Queen remained quietly abroad, but promised to gratify the King's wishes
should she make her appearance in England. On these terms they remained
in office.
[Sidenote: Cato Street conspiracy. Feb. 23, 1820.]
But, at the very time that their position as ministers was in danger,
their lives were threatened by a conspiracy which in its atrocity and
feebleness gives a fair measure of the power and intentions of the worst
part of those engaged in the agitations of the day. As in the case of
the Derby insurrection, it is impossible to acquit the authorities of
the guilt of having employed spies who, though probably without
Government authority, did in fact aggravate the crime of the
conspirators. Information was given as early as November by a man named
Edwards of a plot against the lives of the ministers, and from that time
till the day of the explosion of the Cato Street conspiracy he continued
to play the double part of conspirator and police agent. The form the
plot ultimately assumed was the murder of all the ministers in a body at
a Cabinet dinner, which Edwards informed the conspirators was to be held
at Lord Harrowby's on the 23rd of February. The assassination was to be
followed up by an attempt to fire the barracks, and to rouse the people
to an assault upon the Bank and the Tower. As the ministry were well
informed of the plot, the dinner was of course postponed. The guests
arriving at the house of the Archbishop of Canterbury, who was giving a
dinner-party that day, and who lived next door to Lord Harrowby,
prevented the conspirators from discovering the postponement of the
ministerial meeting; and they were arming themselves in a stable in Cato
Street, near Edgeware Road, when the police came upon them. The capture
was badly managed; the first officer who entered the room was stabbed,
and in the confusion Thistlewood (already mentioned as the confederate
of the Watsons), who was the soul of the present conspiracy, with
fourteen others, contrived to escape; the rest, nine in number, were
apprehended when the soldiers, who should have accompanied the police,
arrived. Early the next morning, however, Thistlewood was captured. He
and four others were executed, and five more transported for life. The
terror excited throughout England was strangely exaggerated; the design
appears to have been confined entirely to a few desperate men, and to
have been scouted by all the more earnest Radicals to whom it had been
suggested. About the same time the other prisoners, Hunt and his friends
from Manchester (April), Wolseley and Harrison from Stockport (July),
were tried, and sentenced to various periods of imprisonment. One
advantage at least came from the trials; the true character of Hunt was
discovered, his friends and companions learnt the worthlessness and
egregious vanity of the man, and his influence was entirely destroyed.
[Sidenote: Importance of the Queen's trial.]
The Parliament had assembled, according to law, upon the demise of the
King, and after going through the necessary business, was dissolved. In
April the new Parliament met. But any interest which might otherwise
have attended its labours disappeared before the absorbing interest of
the year, the trial of the Queen. Though in itself wholly unconnected
with politics, no event produced a stronger influence on the course of
political growth. The loyalty of the country, and respect for authority
and for the established powers, received a rude shock. It could not be
otherwise when the people saw a ministry, many of whose severest and
most unpopular measures had been based on the specious ground of the
desire to maintain morality, forcing into public notice scandalous
details, which the papers spread to every corner of the country for the
satisfaction of prurient curiosity; when they saw the sovereign having
recourse to all the foul and mean resources of the private inquiry
office, which fill right-minded men with disgust even in the cases of
private individuals, and the Government lending the whole weight of its
authority to the vindictive prosecution of an unfortunate and ill-used
woman. The effect was a complete severance between the Government and
the more liberal-minded of the middle classes, whom fear of popular
extravagances had hitherto united with it, and from the close of this
trial may be dated the serious determination of the people at large to
insist upon some great measure of reform.
[Sidenote: Position of the Queen.]
[Sidenote: Trial of the Queen. Aug. 17.]
Whatever may have been her folly or her guilt, no one can question the
misfortune of the Queen. Giddy by nature and badly educated, she had
been forced (1795) against her will upon a man whose immoral and selfish
character wholly unfitted him for the difficult position of a husband of
a frivolous and unwise wife. His distaste had been exhibited at their
very first meeting, and he could only force himself to assume a gracious
demeanour by having recourse to wine or spirits. From the very first he
seems to have designed to part from her; she was early sent into a sort
of banishment at Blackheath, a watch was set upon her conduct, an
investigation before the Lords was set on foot, and though declared
innocent of any grave offence, disgusted at such treatment, she unwisely
withdrew abroad in 1814. She was followed in her retirement, by the
advice of Sir John Leach, by emissaries to collect evidence against her,
unknown to herself. It would have been wise had she remained abroad, but
the treatment she had received rendered her desperate; she had been
excluded from foreign courts, and when her husband came to the throne
her name was omitted from the Liturgy. It seems to have been this last
insult which roused her to action. In June she came to England, and was
received with enthusiasm by the people, who regarded her as a persecuted
woman. She thus placed the ministers in the awkward position of being
obliged to fulfil the compromise under which they had retained office
and to proceed to extremities against her. On the 6th of June the King
sent a message to the Lords, ordering them to institute an inquiry into
the Queen's conduct, and proofs were laid on the table. On the following
day, Mr. Brougham, who undertook the management of her case as her
Attorney-General, read a letter to the Commons demanding a public
inquiry. Some efforts were made to effect a compromise, but as the King
refused to demand her reception abroad or to insert her name in the
Liturgy, all negotiations failed. The secret committee of the Lords
therefore proceeded to make its report, declaring that a solemn inquiry
was necessary; and Lord Liverpool shocked public feeling by introducing,
for the purpose of producing such an inquiry, a Bill of pains and
penalties to deprive her Majesty of her position as Queen, and to
dissolve the King's marriage. The trial in fact came on with the second
reading of the Bill, when the charges against the Queen were stated
before the Lords; and for nearly a month the House was occupied in
hearing witness. By this time the feeling in England was strongly
excited. The ministers were insulted whenever they appeared abroad, and
every opportunity was taken by the crowd of showing their sympathy with
the Queen. The question had become in fact a political one, and the
Queen lent herself only too readily to a somewhat ostentatious display
of her sufferings. In October the defence commenced, and at length, on
the 6th of November, the second reading of the Bill was passed by a
majority of twenty-eight. Two days afterwards, on the third reading,
there was a majority of only nine. As this was in the House of Lords,
where the ministers were strongest, they saw it was useless to
persevere, and Lord Liverpool declared that the Bill was abandoned. A
burst of joy was heard throughout the country, for three nights London
was illuminated, even Prince Leopold joining in the rejoicings.
Declining all offers from the Government, the Queen placed her cause in
the hands of the Commons. An annuity of £50,000 was given her the
following session. But she was determined upon some more public
announcement of her innocence; she still tried, though in vain, to
secure the introduction of her name in the Liturgy, and was foolish
enough on the occasion of the coronation in July of 1810 the following year
to attempt to force her way into the Abbey. She had already begun to
lose the sympathy of the people when, in August, she died.
[Sidenote: Consequent alienation between the ministry and people.]
However right it may have been to raise the question of the Queen's
guilt, there was a general feeling that the ministers had at all events
mismanaged the question, and after exciting strongly the temper of the
people, had dropped their Bill without excuse or apology. Advantage was
taken of the popular anger, excited by what was thought an act of
oppression, to give currency to all sorts of charges against the
ministry, and to impute to them unconstitutional principles, and
connivance or even approbation of scandalous conspiracies against the
Queen's character, of which they were certainly guiltless. But, before
all, the late events had given a popular rallying-point for all sections
of the Opposition, and had demonstrated how deep was the alienation
between the ministry and the body of the people. It is from this time
that we find serious and sometimes successful efforts made to begin the
work of reform, which it was believed would render such an alienation
impossible. Although, as was to be expected in a House elected under the
old system, any wide measure, such as that produced by Lambton
(subsequently Lord Durham, April 1821), recommending equal electoral
districts, was sure to be defeated by a large majority, Lord John
Russell succeeded in procuring the disfranchisement of Grampound, a
notoriously corrupt borough in Cornwall (May 30). He and his friends
were wise enough to accept this small beginning, even though his Bill
was changed in the Upper House, where the vacant seat was transferred,
not to one of the great unrepresented cities, as would have been just,
but to the county of York. In the same way the great question of
Catholic disabilities was brought forward with renewed strength. Those
who were in favour of their removal were successful in the Lower House,
and the Bill was only lost after passing through most of its stages in
the Lords.
[Sidenote: Peel joins the ministry.]
[Sidenote: Death of Castlereagh. Canning Secretary of State. Sept. 11,
1822.]