THE STATE OF POLITICS IN ENGLAND IN 1817 AND 1818, AND LORD COCHRANE's
SHARE IN THEM.—HIS WORK AS A RADICAL IN AND OUT OF PARLIAMENT.—HIS
FUTILE ATTEMPTS TO OBTAIN THE PRIZE MONEY DUE FOR HIS SERVICES
AT BASQUE ROADS.—THE HOLLY HILL BATTLE.—THE PREPARATIONS FOR HIS
ENTERPRISE IN SOUTH AMERICA.—HIS LAST SPEECH IN PARLIAMENT.
[1817-1818.]
The years 1817 and 1818 were years of great political turmoil. The
English people, weary of the European wars, which in two-and-twenty
years had raised the national debt from 230,000,000£ to
860,000,000£, thus causing a taxation which amounted, in the average,
to 25£ a year upon every family of five persons, were in no mood to
be made happy even by the restitution of peace. Partly by necessity,
partly by the bad management of the Government and its officials, the
war-burdens were continued, and to the starving multitudes they were
more burdensome than ever. Angry complaints were uttered openly, and
repeated again and again with steadily-increasing vehemence, in all
parts of the country. That the ministers and agents of the Crown were
grievously at fault was patent to all; and it is not strange that, in
the excitement and the misery that prevailed, they should be blamed
even more than was their due. But the men in power did not choose to
be blamed at all; they denied that any fault attached to them, and
fiercely reprobated every complaint as sedition, every opponent as a
lawless and unpatriotic demagogue. Hence the Government and the people
came to be at deadly feud. Most right was with the people, and their
bold assertion of that right, albeit sometimes in wrong ways, has
secured memorable benefits in later times; but power was still with
the Government, and it was used even more roughly than in former
years.
That Lord Cochrane, having suffered so much from the vindictive
persecution of the Tories, should have thrown in his lot with its
most extreme opponents, is not to be wondered at. During 1817 he was
intimately associated with the popular party in all its efforts for
the redress of grievances and in all the assertions of its real and
fancied rights. In and out of Parliament he was alike active and
outspoken. The history of his public conduct at this time forms
no small section of the history of the Radical movement during the
period. It resulted naturally from the circumstances in which he had
lately been placed. Energetic in thought and action, a ready writer
and an able speaker, his recent sufferings helped to place him in the
foremost rank of patriots, as they were called by friends—demagogues,
as they were called by enemies. With the exception of Sir Francis
Burdett, than whom he even went further, the people had, outside their
own ranks, no sturdier champion.
If there had been any doubt before as to his line of action, there
could be no doubt after the re-assembling of Parliament in January,
1817. During the recess, monster meetings had been held in all parts
of the country to consider the popular troubles and to insist upon
popular reforms. Lord Cochrane agreed to present to the House of
Commons many of the petitions that resulted from these meetings, and
this he did on the 29th of January, the very day of the re-opening of
Parliament.
In anticipation of this measure, there was a great assembling of
reform delegates from all parts of England, and of others favourable
to their purpose, in front of Lord Cochrane's residence at No. 7,
Palace Yard, Westminster. Shortly before two o'clock Lord Cochrane
showed himself at the window, and announced that he was now on his
way to the House, there to watch over the rights and liberties of the
people, and that he would shortly return and let them know what was
passing. This he did at four o'clock, part of the interval being
occupied with a fervid address from Henry Hunt. On his reappearance,
Lord Cochrane stated that the speech with which the Prince Regent had
opened Parliament had not disappointed his expectations, for it was
wholly disappointing to the people. The Regent had complained of the
disaffection pervading the country, and had announced his intention of
using all the power given him by the Constitution for its suppression.
Lord Cochrane expressed his confident hope that the people, having
the right on their side, would so demean themselves as to give their
enemies no ground of charge against them; for those enemies desired
nothing so much as riot and disorder.
Thereupon an immense bundle of petitions was handed him, and he
himself was placed in a chair, and so conveyed on men's shoulders to
the door of Westminster Hall, where the crowd dispersed in an orderly
way.
In the House, before the motion for an address in answer to the Prince
Regent's speech, Lord Cochrane rose to present a petition, signed by
more than twenty thousand inhabitants of Bristol, setting forth the
present distress of the country, the increase of paupers and beggars,
the grievous lack of employment for industrious persons, and
the misery that resulted from this state of things. In these
circumstances, the petitioners urged, it was in vain to pretend to
relieve the sufferers by giving them soup, while, for the support of
sinecure placemen, pensioners without number, and an insatiable
civil list, half their earnings were taken from them by the enormous
taxation under which the country groaned. After considerable
opposition, the petition was allowed to lie on the table.
Lord Cochrane then presented a smaller but much more outspoken
petition from the inhabitants of Quirk, in Yorkshire. "The
petitioners," it was there urged, "have a full and immovable
conviction—a conviction which they believe to be universal throughout
the kingdom—that the House does not, in any constitutional or
rational sense, represent the nation; that, when the people have
ceased to be represented, the Constitution is subverted; that taxation
without representation is a state of slavery; that the scourge
of taxation without representation has now reached a severity too
harassing and vexatious, too intolerable and degrading, to be longer
endured without resistance by all possible means warranted by the
Constitution; that such a condition of affairs has now been reached
that contending factions are alike guilty of their country's wrongs,
alike forgetful of her rights, mocking the public patience with
repeated, protracted, and disgusting debates on questions of
refinement in the complicated and abstruse science of taxation, as if
in such refinement, and not in a reformed representation, as if in a
consolidated corruption, and not in a renovated Constitution,
relief were to be found; that thus there are left no human means of
redressing the people's wrongs or composing their distracted minds,
or of preventing the subversion of liberty and the establishment of
despotism, unless by calling the collected wisdom and virtue of the
community into counsel by the election of a free Parliament; and
therefore, considering that, through the usurpation of borough
factions and other causes, the people have been put even out of a
condition to consent to taxes; and considering also that, until their
sacred right of election shall be restored, no free Parliament can
have existence, it is necessary that the House shall, without delay,
pass a law for putting the aggrieved and much-aroused people in
possession of their undoubted right to representation co-extensive
with taxation, to an equal distribution of such representation
throughout the community, and to Parliaments of a continuance
according to the Constitution, namely, not exceeding one year."
A long discussion ensued as to whether this petition should be
accepted by the House or rejected as an insulting libel. Several
members of the House denounced it. Other members, while objecting to
its terms, urged its acceptance. Among them the most notable was
Mr. Brougham. The petition, he said, was rudely worded, and its
recommendations were such as no wise lover of the English Constitution
could wholly subscribe to; but it pointed to real grievances and
recommended improvements which were necessary to the well-being of the
State, and therefore it ought to be admitted. Mr. Canning was one of
those who insisted upon its rejection, and this was ultimately done by
a majority of 87, 48 being in favour of the petition, and 135 against
it.
Four other petitions presented by Lord Cochrane, being to the same
effect, were also rejected; and two, more moderate in their language,
were accepted. Lord Cochrane thus succeeded, at any rate, in forcing
the House during several hours to take into consideration the troubled
state of the country, and the pressing need, as it seemed to great
masses of the people, of thorough parliamentary reform.
"You will see by the 'Debates,'" he wrote next day to a friend, "that
I presented a number of petitions last night, and had a hard battle to
fight. Today I am quite indisposed, by reason of the corruption of the
Honourable House. It is impossible to support a bad cause by honest
means. God knows where all these base projects will end." That his own
cause was a good one, and that the means used by him were honest, he
had no doubt. In the same letter he referred to the opposition offered
to him, even by some of his own relatives, on account of his conduct.
"Mr. Cochrane has thought proper to disavow, through the public
papers, any connection with my politics. The consciousness that I am
acting as I ought makes that light which I should otherwise feel as a
heavy clog in following that course which I think honour and justice
require."
Therefore he persevered in his Herculean task. Having presented and
spoken upon others in the interval, he presented another monster
petition to the House on the 5th of February. It was signed, he said,
by twenty-four thousand inhabitants of London and the neighbourhood.
It complained of the unbearable weight of taxation and the distresses
of the country, and of the squandering of the money extracted from the
pockets of an oppressed and impoverished people to support sinecure
placemen and pensioners. "It appears to me," he said, "surprising that
there should be any set of men so cruel and unjust as to wallow in
wealth at the public expense while poor wretches are starving at every
corner of the streets." He represented that the petition was drawn
up in temperate, respectful language,—more temperate, indeed, than
he should have employed had he dictated its phrases. He urged that the
people had good cause for complaint as to the way in which Parliament
neglected their interests, and good ground for asserting that the
system of parliamentary representation then afforded them was no real
representation at all. Members entered the House only in pursuit of
their own selfish ends, and the Government encouraged this state of
things by fostering a system of wholesale bribery and corruption,
degrading in itself and fraught with terrible mischief to the
community. What wonder, then, that the people should pray, as they did
in this petition, for a thorough reform, and should point to annual
Parliaments and universal suffrage as the only efficient remedies?
It is needless to recapitulate all the arguments offered again
and again by Lord Cochrane, with ever fresh-force and cogency, in
presenting massive petitions to the House, and in introducing into
the occasional debates on reform with which the House amused itself
a vigour and practicalness in which few other members cared to
sympathize. Nor need we enumerate all the meetings, in London and the
provinces, in which he took prominent part. It is enough to say that
in Parliament he always spoke with exceeding boldness, and that upon
the people, notwithstanding the contrary assertions of his detractors,
he always enjoined, if not conciliation and forbearance, at any rate
such action as was within the strict letter of the law, and most
likely, in the end, to obtain the realization of their wishes. On all
occasions he defended them from the charges of sedition and conspiracy
brought against them by their opponents, and proved, to all who were
open to proof, that their objects were patriotic, and were being
sought in patriotic ways.
Of this, however, the Government did not choose to be convinced.
Taking advantage of some intemperate speeches of demagogues, making
much of some violent handbills circulated by police-officers under
secret instructions, mightily exaggerating a few lawless acts,—as
when a drunken old sailor summoned the keepers of the Tower of London
to surrender,—they procured, on the 26th of February, the suspension
of the Habeas Corpus Act. Therefrom resulted, at any rate, some good.
The Whigs, who had hitherto mainly supported the Tory Government, were
now turned against it, and with them the wiser Radicals, like Lord
Cochrane, sought to effect a coalition. "You will perceive by the
papers," he said in a letter dated February the 28th, "that I have
resolved to steer another political course, seeing that the only means
of averting military despotism from the country is to unite the people
and the Whigs, so far as they can be induced to co-operate, which they
must do if they wish to preserve the remainder of the Constitution.
The 'Times' of yesterday contains the fullest account of the late
debates on the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act, and by that report
you will perceive that the Whigs really made a good stand."
In that temper, Lord Cochrane spoke at a Westminster meeting, held
on the 11th of March, "to take into consideration the propriety
of agreeing to an address to His Royal Highness the Prince Regent,
beseeching that he will, in his well-known solicitude for the freedom
and happiness of His Majesty's subjects, remove from his royal
councils those ministers who appear resolved to adopt no effectual
measures of economy and retrenchment, but, on the contrary, to
persevere in measures calculated to drive a suffering people to
despair."
There was some flattery or some mockery, or something of both, in
that announcement; and both, with much earnest enunciation of popular
grievances, were in Lord Cochrane's speech on the subject. He said
that the Regent had as much cause as the people to complain of his
present ministers, seeing how shamelessly they sought to hide from him
the real state of the country. It was to be expected, from the early
habits and character of the Regent, that he would anxiously pursue
the interests of the nation, if, instead of being in the hands of an
odious oligarchy, he could act for himself. This, at any rate, Lord
Cochrane maintained should be urged upon him, for if something were
not quickly done for the relief of the nation, trade and commerce
would soon be utterly ruined, and the whole community would share the
misery that had so long oppressed the lower orders. He again dwelt
forcibly on the causes of this misery, and again denounced the conduct
of the ministers and placemen who, while squandering the hardly-earned
pounds of the people, claimed respect for their exemplary charity
in doling out a few farthings for "the relief of the poor." In the
previous year, he showed, Lord Castlereagh, "the bell-wether of the
House of Commons," and thirteen other persons, had drawn from the
revenues of the country 309,861£, and out of that amount had given
back, in "sinecure soup," only 1505£
On a hundred other occasions, both outside of the House of Commons and
within its walls, Lord Cochrane continued fearlessly to set forth
the troubles of the people and the wrong-doing of its governors. In
Parliament petitions without number were presented, and, amid all
sorts of contumely, defended by him; and he took a no less active part
in various important discussions, of which it will suffice, by way of
illustration, to name the debates of the 3rd, 14th, and 28th of March,
on the famous Seditious Meetings Bill, and that of the 13th of March
on the depressed condition of English trade and its causes—a subject
which was recurred to by Mr. Brougham in his memorable motion of the
11th of July on the state of the nation.
Six weeks before that, on the 20th of May, Lord Cochrane spoke on
another famous motion—that made by his friend Sir Francis Burdett
in favour of parliamentary reform. Once more, he complained that the
existing House of Commons in no way represented the people, and was
entirely regardless of its interests. Nothing better, he alleged,
could be hoped for, without a radical change in the system of
representation. "But," he continued, "reform we must have, whether we
will or no. The state of the country is such that things cannot much
longer be conducted as they now are. There is a general call for
reform. If the call is not obeyed, thank God the evil will produce
its own remedy, the mass of corruption will destroy itself, for the
maggots it engenders will eat it up. The members of this House are the
maggots of the Constitution. They are the locusts that devour it and
cause all the evils that are complained of. There is nothing wicked
which does not emanate from this House. In it originate all knavery,
perjury, and fraud. You well know all this. You also know that the
means by which the great majority of the House is returned is one
great cause of the corruption of the whole people. It has been said,
'Let the people reform themselves;' but if sums of money are offered
for seats within these walls, there will always be found men ready to
receive them. It is impossible to imagine that the profuse expenditure
of the late war would have taken place, had it not been for a corrupt
majority devoted to their selfish interests. At least it would have
had a shorter duration, from being carried on in a more effective
manner, had it not been conducive to the views of many to prevent its
speedy termination. Much has been said about the glorious result of
the war; but has not lavish expenditure loaded us with taxation which
is impoverishing the people and annihilating commerce? Are not vessels
seen everywhere with brooms at their mastheads? Are not sailors
starving? Is not agriculture languishing? Are not our manufactures in
the most distressed state?"
Lord Cochrane asserted that the real revolutionists of England were
the ministers and their followers. "I am persuaded that no man without
doors wishes the subversion of the Constitution; but within it,
bribery and corruption stand for the Constitution. Mr. Pitt himself
confessed that no honest man could hold the situation of minister for
any length of time. There can be no honest minister until measures
have been taken to purge and purify the House. If this be not done,
it is in vain to hope for a renewal of successful enterprise in this
country: the sun of the country is set for ever. It may indeed exist
as a petty military German despotism, with horsemen parading up and
down, with large whiskers, with sabres ringing by their horses' sides,
with fantastically-shaped caps of fantastical colours on their
heads; but this country cannot thus be made a great military power.
A previous speaker has instanced juries as one of the benefits of the
Constitution; but I will affirm, with respect to the manner in which
juries are chosen under the present system, that justice is much
better administered, in a more summary manner, with less expense, and
no chicanery, by the Dey of Algiers. If this country were erected at
once into a downright, honest, open despotism, the people would be
gainers. If a judge or despot then proved a rogue, he would at
once appear in his true character; but now villany can be artfully
concealed under the verdict of a packed jury. I am satisfied that the
present system of corruption is more detrimental to the country than a
despotism."
No other speaker spoke so boldly as Lord Cochrane; but his eloquent
words were substantially endorsed by many; by Sir Samuel Romilly and
Mr. Brougham in especial; and on a division, though 265 voted
against Sir Francis Burdett's motion, it was supported by a
minority—unusually large for the time—of 77.
Slowly but surely the better principles of government for which
Lord Cochrane fought so persistently were gaining ground, destined
ultimately to produce the changes in national temper which made plain
the duty and expediency of adopting the changes in political systems
in which the years 1832 and 1867 are epochs. In after years, Lord
Cochrane himself clearly saw that he had been rash in his advocacy
of the sweeping reforms which the excited people deemed necessary for
their welfare in the years of trouble and misgovernment consequent on
the tedious war-time ending with the battle of Waterloo. But he never
had cause to regret the honest zeal and the generous sympathy with
which he strove, though in violent ways, to lessen the weight of the
popular distresses.
Distresses were not wanting to himself during this period. The weight
of his former troubles still hung heavily upon him. He could not
forget the terrible disgrace—none the less terrible because it was
unmerited—that had befallen him. And in pecuniary ways he was a
grievous sufferer by them. In losing his naval employment he lost
the income on which he had counted. His resources were thus seriously
crippled; and the scientific pursuits, in which he still persevered,
failed to bring to him the profit that he anticipated.
In one characteristic way—only one among many—the Government
persecution still clung to him. In the distribution of prize-money
for the achievement at Basque Roads all the officers and crews of
Lord Grambier's fleet had been considered entitled to share. To this
arrangement Lord Cochrane objected. He urged that as the whole triumph
was due to the _Impérieuse_ and the few ships actually engaged with
her, the reward ought to be limited to them. "I am preparing to
proceed in the Court of Admiralty on the question of head-money for
Basque Roads," he wrote on the 5th of November, 1816; "my affidavit
has reluctantly been admitted, though strenuously opposed, on the
ground that I was not to be believed on my oath!"
Lord Cochrane's council in this case was Dr. Lushington, afterwards
the eminent judge of the Admiralty Court. Dr. Lushington showed
plainly that the greater part of the fleet, having taken no share in
the action, had no right to head-money, and that therefore all ought
to be divided among those who actually shared with Lord Cochrane
the danger and the success of the enterprise. But Sir William Scott
(afterwards Lord Stowell), the judge at that time, was not disposed
to sanction this view. Therefore he thwarted it by delays. The case
having been postponed from November, 1816, was brought up again in the
first term of 1817. "The judge has again delayed his decision," wrote
Lord Cochrane on the 28th of February, the day of the announcement,
"and I believe has done so until next session. He gave a curious
reason for this, namely, that I took part at the Westminster meeting
against the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act!"
At the next session it was again postponed, all the time available
for its consideration being taken up with a frivolous discussion as to
Lord Cochrane's right to give evidence. "They have gone the length,"
wrote his secretary, Mr. Jackson, on the 3rd of May, "of denying Lord
Cochrane's credibility in a court of justice. They had no other way
of answering his affidavit, which would have gained his cause in the
Court of Admiralty, as it proved that the French ships in Basque Roads
were destroyed by his own exertions in fighting without orders from
the Admiral. The denial-of Lord Cochrane's competency to give evidence
has excited a great deal of interest, and the Court of Admiralty was
quite crowded on Tuesday, when the question came on to be discussed.
I thought that our counsel had much the best of the argument, and I
believe the judge, Sir William Scott, thought so too, as he put off
his sentence to a future day." On the future day the judge admitted as
much. "We have gained a bit of a victory in the Admiralty Court," said
the same writer in a letter dated the 9th of June, "the judge having
been compelled to pronounce in favour of his lordship's right to
be believed on his oath." The time taken by him to arrive at this
decision, however, was so long that the case had to be adjourned to
November term, and thereby Lord Cochrane's enemies so far attained
their object, that it was impossible for him, in November term, to
renew the suit.
In the interval he had gone to France, preparatory to a much longer
and more momentous journey to South America, in anticipation of which
he was winding up his affairs and realizing his property during and
after the summer of 1817.
In this settlement of accounts there was at any rate one amusing
incident. It will be remembered that, on the occasion of his being
elected Member of Parliament for Honiton in 1806, Lord Cochrane had
refused to follow the almost universal fashion of bribery, but, after
the election was over, had thoughtlessly yielded to the proposal
of his agent that he should entertain his constituents at a public
supper.[A] This entertainment, either through spite or through wanton
extravagance, was turned by those to whom the management of it was
assigned into a great occasion of feasting for all the inhabitants of
the town; and for defrayment of the expenses thus incurred a claim
for more than 1200£ was afterwards made upon Lord Cochrane. Through
eleven years he bluntly refused to pay the preposterous demand; but
his creditors had the law upon their side, and in the spring of 1817
an order was granted for putting an execution into his house at Holly
Hill.
[Footnote A: 'The Autobiography of a Seaman,' vol. i. pp. 203, 204.]
Lord Cochrane, however, having resisted the demand thus far,
determined to resist to the end. For more than six weeks he prevented
the agents of the law from entering the house. "I still hold out,"
he said in a letter to his secretary, "though the castle has several
times been threatened in great force. The trumpeter is now blowing for
a parley, but no one appears on the ramparts. Explosion-bags are set
in the lower embrasures, and all the garrison is under arms." In
the explosion-bags there was nothing more dangerous than powdered
charcoal; but, supposing they contained gunpowder or some other
combustible, the sheriff of Hampshire and twenty-five officers were
held at bay by them, until at length one official, more daring than
the rest, jumped in at an open window, to find Lord Cochrane sitting
at breakfast and to be complimented by him upon the wonderful bravery
which he had shown in coming up to a building defended by charcoal
dust.
That battle with the sheriff and bailiffs of Hampshire occupied nearly
the whole of April and May, 1817. In the latter month, if not before,
Lord Cochrane began to think seriously of proceeding to join in
battles of a more serious sort in South America, under inducements and
with issues that will presently be detailed. "His lordship has made up
his mind to go to South America," wrote his secretary on the 31st of
May. "Numbers of gentlemen of great respectability are desirous of
accompanying him, and even Sir Francis Burdett has declared that he
feels a great temptation to do so; but Lord Cochrane discourages all.
They think he is going to immolate the Spaniards by his secret plans;
but he is not going to do anything of the kind, having promised the
Prince Regent not to divulge or use them otherwise than in the service
of his country."
With this expedition in view, and purposing to start upon it nearly a
year sooner than he found himself able to do, Lord Cochrane sold Holly
Hill and his other property in Hampshire, in July. In August he went
for a few months to France, partly for the benefit of Lady Cochrane's
health, partly, as it would seem, in the hope of introducing into
that country the lamps which he had lately invented, and from which he
hoped to derive considerable profit.
To this matter, and to his efforts to obtain some share, at any rate,
of his rights from the English Government, the letters written by
him from France chiefly refer. But there are in them some notes and
illustrations of more general interest. "I am quite astonished at the
state of Boulogne," he wrote thence on the 14th of August. "Neither
the town nor the heights are fortified; so great was Napoleon's
confidence in the terror of his name and the knowledge he possessed
of the stupidity and ignorance of our Government." In a letter from
Paris, dated the 23rd of August, we read: "Everything is looking much
more settled than when I was formerly here, and I do really think that
the Government, from the conciliatory measures wisely adopted, will
stand their ground against the adherents of Buonaparte. We are to have
a great rejoicing to-morrow. All Paris will be dancing, fiddling, and
singing. They are a light-hearted people. I wish I could join in their
fun. I was hopeful that I should; but the cursed recollection of the
injustice that has been done to me is never out of my mind; so that
all my pleasures are blasted, from whatever source they might be
expected to arise."
That last sentence fairly indicates the state of Lord Cochrane's mind
during these painful years. Weighed down by troubles heavy enough to
break the heart of an ordinary man, he fought nobly for the thorough
justification of his character and for the protection of others from
such persecution as had befallen him. In both objects, altogether
praise-worthy in themselves, he may have sometimes been intemperate;
but ample excuse for far greater intemperance would be found in the
troubles that oppressed him. "The cursed recollection of the injustice
that has been done to me is never out of my mind; all my pleasures are
blasted!"
In the same temper, after a lapse of nine months, about which it is
only necessary to say that, like their forerunners, they were
employed in private cares, and, especially after the reassembling of
Parliament, in zealous action for the public good, he made his last
speech in the House of Commons on the 2nd of June, 1818. The occasion
was a debate upon a second motion by Sir Francis Burdett in favour of
parliamentary reform, more cogent and effective than that of the
20th of May, 1817, to Lord Cochrane's share in which we have already
referred. The former speech was wholly of public interest. This has a
personal significance, very painful and very memorable. It brings to a
pathetic close the saddest epoch in Lord Cochrane's life—so very full
of sadness.
"I rise, sir," he said, "to second the motion of my honourable friend.
In what I have to say, I do not presume to think that I can add to
the able arguments that have just been uttered; but it is my duty
distinctly to declare my opinions on the subject. When I recollect all
the proceedings of this House, I confess that I do not entertain much
hope of a favourable result to the present motion. To me it seems
chiefly serviceable as an exhibition of sound principles, and as
showing the people for what they ought to petition. I shall perhaps be
told that it is unparliamentary to say there are any representatives
of the people in this House who have sold themselves to the purposes
and views of any set of men in power; but the history of the
degenerate senate of that once free people, the Romans, will serve
to show how far corruption may make inroads upon public virtue or
patriotism. The tyranny inflicted on the Roman people, and on mankind
in general, under the form of acts passed by the Roman senate, will
ever prove a useful memento to nations which have any freedom to lose.
It is not for me to prophesy when our case will be like theirs; but
this I will say, that those who are the slaves of a despotic
monarch are far less reprehensible for their actions than those who
voluntarily sell themselves when they have the means of remaining
free.
"And here," he continued, in sentences broken by his emotions, "as it
is probably the last time I shall ever have the honour of addressing
the House on any subject, I am anxious to tell its members what I
think of their conduct. It is now nearly eleven years since I have
had the honour of a seat in this House, and since then there have
been very few measures in which I could agree with the opinions of the
majority. To say that these measures were contrary to justice would
not be parliamentary. I will not even go into the inquiry whether
they tend to the national good or not; but I will merely appeal to the
feelings of the landholders present, I will appeal to the knowledge
of those members who are engaged in commerce, and ask them whether the
acts of the legislative body have not been of a description, during
the late war, that would, if not for the timely intervention of the
use of machinery, have sent this nation to total ruin? The country is
burthened to a degree which, but for this intervention, it would have
been impossible for the people to bear. The cause of these measures
having such an effect upon the country has been examined and gone
into by my honourable colleague (Sir Francis Burdett); they are to
be traced to that patronage and influence which, a number of powerful
individuals possess over the nomination of a great proportion of the
members of this House; a power which, devolving on a few, becomes
thereby the more liable to be affected by the influence of the Crown;
and which has in fact been rendered almost entirely subservient to
that influence. To reform the abuses which arise out of this system
is the object of my honourable friend's motion. I will not, cannot,
anticipate the success of the motion; but I will say, as has been
said before by the great Chatham, the father of Mr. Pitt, that, if the
House does not reform itself from within, it will be reformed with
a vengeance from without. The people will take up the subject, and
a reform will take place which will make many members regret their
apathy in now refusing that reform which might be rendered efficient
and permanent. But, unfortunately, in the present formation of the
House, it appears to me that from within no reform can be expected,
and for the truth of this I appeal to the experience of the few
members, less than a hundred, who are now present, nearly six hundred
being absent; I appeal to their experience to say whether they have
ever known of any one instance in which a petition of the people for
reform has been taken into consideration, or any redress afforded in
consequence of such a petition? This I regret, because I foresee the
consequence which must necessarily result from it. I do trust and
hope that before it is too late some measures shall be adopted for
redressing the grievances of the people; for certain I am that
unless some measures are taken to stop the feelings which the people
entertain towards this House and to restore their confidence in it,
you will one day have ample cause to repent the line of conduct you
have pursued. The gentlemen who now sit on the benches opposite
with such triumphant feelings will one day repent their conduct. The
commotions to which that conduct will inevitably give rise will shake,
not only this House, but the whole framework of Government and society
to its foundations. I have been actuated by the wish to prevent this,
and I have had no other intention.
"I shall not trespass longer on your time," he continued, in a few
broken sentences, uttered painfully and with agitation that aroused
much sympathy in the House. "The situation I have held for
eleven years in this House I owe to the favour of the electors of
Westminster. The feelings of my heart are gratified by the manner
in which they have acted towards me. They have rescued me from a
desperate and wicked conspiracy which has nearly involved me in total
ruin. I forgive those who have so done; and I hope when they depart to
their graves they will be equally able to forgive themselves. All
this is foreign to the subject before the House, but I trust you will
forgive me. I shall not trespass on your time longer now—perhaps
never again on any subject. I hope his Majesty's ministers will take
into their serious consideration what I now say. I do not utter it
with any feelings of hostility—such feelings have now left me—but
I trust they will take my warning, and save the country by abandoning
the present system before it is too late."