PERCEVAL AND LIVERPOOL.
The administration of Perceval, covering the period from October, 1809,
to May, 1812, coincided with a lull in the continental war save in the
Peninsula, though it saw no pause in the progress of French annexation.
Nor was it marked by many events of historical interest in domestic
affairs. When parliament was opened on January 23, 1810, it was natural
that attention should chiefly be devoted to the Walcheren expedition,
which the opposition illogically and unscrupulously contrived to use to
disparage the operations of Sir Arthur Wellesley, now Viscount
Wellington, in Spain. Grenville, who argued with some reason that 40,000
British troops could have been employed to far better purpose in North
Germany, would have been on stronger ground if he had complained that
for want of them the British army had been unable to occupy Madrid.
Castlereagh, indeed, had confessed to Wellesley that he could not spare
the necessary reinforcements, after the reserves had been exhausted in
Walcheren; but it is by no means certain that Wellesley could have
collected provisions enough to feed a much larger force, or specie
enough to pay for them. Liverpool was driven in reply to Grenville to
magnify the value of the capture of Flushing, as the necessary basis of
the naval armaments which Napoleon had intended to launch against
England from the Scheldt. The government was also defended by the young
Robert Peel, lately elected to parliament. As the calamity was
irreparable, a committee of the whole house spent most of its time on a
constitutional question, regarding a private memorandum placed before
the king by Chatham in his own defence. So irregular a proceeding was
properly condemned, and Chatham resigned the mastership of the ordnance,
but the policy of the Walcheren expedition was approved by a vote of the
house of commons. Mulgrave received the office Chatham had vacated, and
was himself succeeded by Yorke at the admiralty.
Parliament was next occupied by a question of privilege, in which Sir
Francis Burdett, member for Westminster, then a favourite of the
democracy, played a part resembling that of John Wilkes a generation
earlier. Burdett had been for fourteen years a member of parliament, and
had been conspicuous from the first for the vehemence of his opposition
to the government, and more especially to its supposed infringements of
the liberty of the subject. He had more recently taken an active part on
behalf of Wardle's attack on the Duke of York and had supported the
charges of ministerial corruption in the previous session. On the
present occasion one John Gale Jones, president of a debating club, had
published in a notice of debate the terms of a resolution which his club
had passed, condemning in extravagant language the exclusion of
strangers from the house of commons. This was treated as a breach of
privilege, and Jones was sent to Newgate by order of the house itself.
Burdett, in a violent letter to Cobbett's _Register_, challenged the
right of the house to imprison Jones by its own authority, and, after a
fierce debate lasting two nights, was adjudged by the house, on April 5,
to have been guilty of a still more scandalous libel. Accordingly, the
speaker issued a warrant for his committal to the Tower. Burdett
declared his resolution to resist arrest, the populace mustered in his
defence, the riot act was read, and he was conveyed to prison by a
strong military escort, on whose return more serious riots broke out,
and were not quelled without bloodshed. On his release at the end of the
session a repetition of these scenes was prevented by the simple
expedient of bringing him home by water. During his imprisonment he
wrote an offensive letter to the speaker, and his colleague, Lord
Cochrane, presented a violently worded petition from his Westminster
constituents. In the following year he sued the speaker and the
sergeant-at-arms in the court of king's bench, which decided against him
on the ground that a power of commitment was necessary for the
maintenance of the dignity of the house of commons, and its decision
was confirmed, on appeal, by the court of exchequer chamber and the
house of lords.
[Pageheading: _THE CURRENCY QUESTION._]
The most important subject of internal policy discussed in the session
of 1810 was the state of the currency. Since 1797 cash payments had been
suspended, the issue of banknotes had been nearly doubled, and the price
of commodities had risen enormously. Whether these results had in their
turn promoted the expansion of foreign commerce and internal industry
was vigorously disputed by two rival schools of economists. The one
thing certain was the increasing scarcity of specie, and the serious
loss incurred in its provision for the service of the army in the
Peninsula. Francis Horner, then rising to eminence, obtained the
appointment of what became known as the "bullion committee" to inquire
into the anomalous conditions thus created, and took a leading part in
the preparation of its celebrated report, published on September 20. The
committee arrived at the conclusion that the high price of gold was
mainly due to excess in the paper-currency, and not, as alleged, to a
drain of gold for the continental war. They attributed that excess to
"the want of a sufficient check and control in the issues of paper from
the Bank of England, and originally to the suspension of cash-payments,
which removed the natural and true control". While allowing that paper
could not be rendered suddenly convertible into specie without
dislocating the entire business of the country, they recommended that an
early provision should be made by parliament for terminating the
suspension of cash-payments at the end of two years. These conclusions
were combated by Castlereagh and Vansittart, who afterwards, in 1811,
succeeded in carrying several counter-resolutions, of which the general
effect was to explain the admitted rise in the price of gold, for the
most part by the exclusion of British trade from the continent, and the
consequent export of the precious metals in lieu of British
manufactures. The last resolution, while it recognised the wisdom of
restoring cash-payments as soon as it could safely be done, affirmed it
to be "highly inexpedient and dangerous to fix a definite period for the
removal of the restriction on cash-payments prior to the conclusion of a
definitive treaty of peace". These counsels prevailed, and the
restriction was not actually removed until Peel's act was passed in
July, 1819.
The last domestic event in the inglorious annals of 1810 was the final
lapse of the king into mental derangement in the month of November. For
more than six years his sight had been failing, but he had suffered no
return of insanity since 1804. Now he lost both his sight and his
reason. This event, impending for some time, was precipitated by the
illness and death of the Princess Amelia, his favourite daughter, and
was perhaps aggravated by the Walcheren expedition and the disgrace of
the Duke of York. Parliament met on November 1, and was adjourned more
than once before a committee was appointed to examine the royal
physicians. Acting on their report, the ministers proposed and carried
resolutions declaring the king's incapacity, and the right and duty of
the two houses to provide for the emergency. It was also determined to
define by act of parliament the powers to be exercised in the king's
name and behalf. This implied a limitation of the regent's authority,
and was resented by the Prince of Wales and his friends. Perceval,
however, was able to rely on the precedent of 1788, to which Grenville,
for one, had been a party, and, after considerable opposition, the
prince was made regent under several temporary restrictions. With
certain exceptions, he was precluded from granting any peerage or office
tenable for life; the royal property was vested in trustees for the
king's benefit, and the personal care of the king was entrusted to the
queen, with the advice of a council. In this form, the regency bill was
passed on February 4, 1811, after a protest from the other sons of
George III. and violent attacks upon Eldon by Grenville and Grey. On the
5th, the regent took the oaths before the privy council, but, in
accepting the restrictions, he delicately expressed regret that he
should not have been trusted to impose upon himself proper limitations
for the exercise of royal patronage. The interregnum thus established
was to be provisional only, and was to cease on February 1, 1812, but
the queen and her private council, with the concurrence of the privy
council, were empowered to annul it at any time, by announcing the
king's recovery, when he could resume his powers by proclamation.
[Pageheading: _THE REGENCY BILL._]
The hopes of the opposition had been greatly excited by the prospect of
a regency, and it was generally expected that a change of ministry would
be its immediate consequence. Private communications had, in fact,
passed between the prince and the whig lords, Grenville and Grey, but
they were rendered nugatory by the dictatorial tone assumed by those
lords and by the unwillingness of the prince to dispense with the advice
of Moira and Sheridan. The two whig lords had by the prince's desire
prepared a reply to the address from the houses of parliament,
preparatory to the regency bill. Grenville had voted in favour of the
restriction on the creation of peers, and it is therefore not surprising
that the reply which he and Grey drafted appeared to the prince too weak
in its protest against the limitations. He therefore adopted in its
stead another reply which Sheridan had composed for him. The two lords
thereupon addressed to the prince a remonstrance, which practically
claimed for themselves the right of responsible ministers to be the sole
advisers of their prince. This remonstrance provoked the ridicule of
Sheridan, and certainly did not please the prince, who since the fall of
the Grenville ministry had refused to be regarded as a "party man". The
regent, accordingly, gave Perceval to understand that he intended to
retain his present ministers, but solely on the ground that he was
unwilling to do anything which might retard his father's recovery, or
distress him when he should come to himself. This reason was probably
genuine. The king appeared to be recovering; he had had several
interviews with Perceval and Eldon, and had made inquiries as to the
prince's intentions. Soon, however, the malady took a turn for the
worse, and the physicians came to the conclusion that it was
permanent.[41]
Before February, 1812, when the restrictions expired, and a permanent
regency bill was passed, the prince drifted further away from his former
advisers, and had been pacified by the loyal attitude of Perceval and
Eldon. Further overtures were conveyed to the whig lords through a
letter from the prince regent to the Duke of York, in which he declared
that he had "no predilections to indulge or resentments to gratify," but
only a concern for the public good, towards which he desired the
co-operation of some of his old whig friends, indicating Grenville and
Grey. They declined in a letter to the Duke of York, alleging
differences on grounds of policy too deep to admit of a coalition.
Eldon, on his part, expressed a similar conviction, but the regent never
fully forgave what he regarded as their desertion. Wellesley, who was
strongly opposed to Perceval's policy of maintaining the catholic
disabilities, resigned the secretaryship of foreign affairs, protesting
against the feeble support given to his brother in the Peninsula, and
was succeeded by Castlereagh. In April Sidmouth became president of the
council in place of Camden, who remained in the cabinet without office;
and in the next month, on May 11, Perceval was assassinated in the lobby
of the house of commons by a man named Bellingham, who had an imaginary
grievance against the government.
A very general and sincere tribute of respect was paid by the house to
Perceval's memory, for, though his statesmanship was of the second
order, he was far more than a tory partisan; he was an excellent
debater, and a thoroughly honest politician, and his private character
was above all reproach or suspicion. The cabinet was bewildered by his
death, and a fresh attempt was made to strengthen it by the simple
inclusion of Canning as well as Wellesley. Wellesley stipulated that the
catholic question should be left open, and that the war should be
prosecuted with the entire resources of the country, while Canning
declined co-operation on the ground of the catholic question alone. No
agreement being found possible, the house of commons stepped in and
addressed the regent, begging him to form a strong and efficient
administration, commanding the confidence of all classes. He replied by
sending for Wellesley, offering him the premiership and entrusting him
with the formation of a comprehensive ministry; but Wellesley soon found
that Liverpool and his adherents would not serve under him at all, while
Grenville and Grey, who secretly condemned the Peninsular war, would
only serve on conditions which he could not grant. Once more, the regent
treated directly with these haughty whigs, now including Moira, to whom
he committed the task of forming an administration. Grenville and Grey
raised difficulties about the appointments in the royal household, which
they wished to include in the political changes, and the negotiation was
broken off. The regent at last fell back on Liverpool, a capable and
conciliatory minister, who adopted Perceval's colleagues, and a spell of
tory administration set in which remained unbroken for no less than
fifteen years. Had more tact been shown on all sides, had the whigs been
less peremptory in their demands, and had the trivial household question
never arisen, the course of the war, if not of European history, might,
whether for good or evil, have been profoundly modified.
[Pageheading: _SOCIAL REFORMS._]
During the later period of Perceval's administration, from 1811 to 1812,
the strife of politics had been mainly concentrated on the regency
question, the chance of ministerial changes, and the fortunes of the war
in Spain. But it must not be supposed that social questions were
neglected, even in the darkest days of the war, however meagre the
legislative fruits may appear. Session after session, Romilly pressed
forward reforms of the criminal law, the institution of penitential
houses in the nature of reformatories, and the abolition of state
lotteries. Others laboured, and with greater success, to remedy the
delays and reduce the arrears in the court of chancery. Constant efforts
were made to expose defalcations in the revenue, to curtail exorbitant
salaries, and to put down electioneering corruption. In 1809 Erskine
introduced a bill for the prevention of cruelty to animals. In 1810
there were earnest, if somewhat futile, debates on spiritual
destitution, the non-residence and poverty of the clergy, and the
scarcity of places of worship. Moreover, early in 1811, a premonitory
symptom of the repeal movement caused some anxiety in Ireland. It took
the form of a scheme for a representative assembly to sit in Dublin, and
manage the affairs of the Roman catholic population, under colour of
framing petitions to parliament, and seeking redress of grievances. It
was, of course, to consist of Roman catholics only, and to include Roman
catholic bishops. The Irish government wisely suppressed the scheme, and
Perceval justified their action, on the ground that a representative
assembly in Dublin, with such aims in view, bordered upon an illicit
legislature.
Except for the war in the Spanish peninsula, and the war between Russia
and the Porte on the Danube, the year 1810 was marked by undisturbed
peace throughout the continent of Europe. France continued to make
annexations, but they were at the expense of her allies, not of her
enemies. Her supremacy was signalised in a striking way by the marriage
of her _parvenu_ emperor, whose divorce the pope still refused to
recognise, with Maria Louisa, daughter of the Emperor of Austria. Though
thirteen out of twenty-six cardinals present in Paris declined to attend
it, this marriage was a masterstroke of Talleyrand's diplomacy; it
secured the benevolent neutrality of Austria for the next three years,
and weakened the counsels of the allies during the negotiations of
1814-15. But it went far to estrange the Tsar of Russia, who, though he
had courteously declined Napoleon's overtures for the hand of his own
sister, was greatly offended on discovering that another matrimonial
alliance had been contracted by his would-be brother-in-law before his
reply could be received.
It was only within the limits of the French empire that Napoleon's
authority had been sufficient to enforce the rigorous exclusion of
British goods. His allies, including Sweden, which closed her ports to
British products in January, 1810, and declared war on Great Britain in
the following November, had adopted the continental system; but
administrative weakness, and the obvious interest that every people had
in its infraction, rendered its operation partial. Napoleon, determined
to enforce the system in spite of every obstacle, met this difficulty by
placing in immediate subjection to the French crown the territories
where British goods were imported. The first ally to suffer was his own
brother, Louis, King of Holland. His refusal to enforce Napoleon's
orders against the admission of British goods was followed at once by a
forced cession of part of Holland to France and the establishment of
French control at the custom houses, and shortly afterwards by the
despatch of French troops into Holland and its annexation to France on
July 9, 1810. In December the French dominion over the North Sea coast
was extended by the annexation of a corner of Germany, including the
coast as far as the Danish frontier, and the town of Lübeck on the
Baltic. As a result of this annexation, the duchy of Oldenburg, held by
a branch of the Russian imperial family, ceased to exist. The act was a
conspicuous breach of the treaty of Tilsit, which Napoleon considered
himself at liberty to disregard, as Russia had shown by her conduct
during the campaign of 1809 that she was no longer more than a nominal
ally of France. At last, on January 12, 1811, Russia asserted her
independence in fiscal matters by an order which declared her ports open
to all vessels sailing under a neutral flag, and imposed a duty on many
French products. Still the course of French annexation crept onwards,
and quietly absorbed the republic of Vallais in Switzerland, which had
been a great centre of smuggling.
[Pageheading: _THE CONTINENTAL SYSTEM._]
Meanwhile, the restrictions and prohibitions which formed the
continental system were made more and more severe. By the Trianon tariff
of August, 1810, heavy duties were levied on colonial products, and by
the Fontainebleau decree of October 18 all goods of British origin were
to be seized and publicly burned. In November a special tribunal was
created to try offenders against the continental system. Nevertheless,
the fiscal and foreign policy of France at this date alike show how far
the continental system had failed in its object, and to what extreme
lengths it had become necessary to push it in order to give it a chance
of success. The strain of the system on English commerce was immense,
but the burden fell far more heavily on the continental nations.
Colonial produce rose to enormous prices in France, Germany, and Italy,
especially after the introduction of the Trianon tariff, and a subject
or ally of the French emperor had to pay ten times as much for his
morning cup of coffee as his enemy in London. The German opposition to
Napoleon had failed in 1809 mainly through the political apathy of the
German nation. Napoleon's fiscal measures were the surest way of
bringing that apathy to an end, and converting it into hostility.
The events of December, 1810, and January, 1811, constituted a distinct
breach between France and Russia, which could only end in war, unless
one party or the other should withdraw from its position. A few months
sufficed to show that no such withdrawal would take place; but neither
power was prepared for war, and seventeen months elapsed after the
breach before hostilities began. The intervening period was spent in
negotiation and preparation. Much depended on the alliances that the
rival powers might be able to contract. Although Napoleon had bound
himself not to restore Poland, he had by the creation and subsequent
enlargement of the duchy of Warsaw given it a semblance of national
unity, and had inspired the Poles with the hope of a more complete
independence. The Polish troops were among the most devoted in the
French army, and the position of their country rendered the support of
the Poles a matter of great importance in any war with Russia. It
occurred to the Tsar Alexander that he might win their support for
himself by a restoration of Poland, under the suzerainty of Russia. He
promised Czartoryski the restoration of the eight provinces under a
guarantee of autonomy, and undertook to obtain the cession of Galicia.
On February 13, 1811, he made a secret offer to Austria of a part of
Moldavia in exchange for Galicia. Nothing came of this, but the massing
of Russian troops on the Polish frontier in March was met by the hurried
advance of French troops through Germany, and war seemed imminent until
Russia postponed the struggle by withdrawing her troops.
Meanwhile, other European powers looked forward to selling their
alliance on the best possible terms. Sweden and Prussia both approached
the stronger power first. Bernadotte, on behalf of Sweden, was prepared
for a French alliance if France would favour the Swedish acquisition of
Norway. Napoleon, on February 25, not only refused these terms, but
ordered Sweden to enforce the continental system under pain of a French
occupation of Swedish Pomerania. This threat Sweden ventured to ignore.
Prussia, lying directly between the two future belligerents, was in a
more dangerous position. Neutrality was impossible, because her
neutrality would not be respected. She first offered her alliance to
Napoleon in return for a reduction of the payments due to France and a
removal of the limit imposed on her army. Napoleon did not reply to this
offer at once. Meanwhile the movement of French troops already mentioned
and the increase of the French garrisons on the Oder, though primarily
intended for the defence of Poland, caused great alarm in Prussia and
resulted in preparations to resist a French attack. In July Napoleon
finally refused to discuss the Prussian terms. Ever since his marriage
he had been inclined more and more to an Austrian alliance. On March 26
of this year Otto, his ambassador at Vienna, had received information
that France would support Austria if she would protest against the
occupation of Belgrade by the Serbs. Napoleon even assured Otto that he
was prepared to undertake any engagement that Austria desired. Rest
was, however, essential to Austria. The military disasters of 1809 had
been followed by national bankruptcy, and with the government paper at a
discount of 90 per cent. she dared not incur further liabilities.
Russia had an advantage over France in that she was able to free herself
from her entanglement in Turkey, while Napoleon could not make peace
either with Great Britain or with the Bourbon party in Spain. An
armistice with the Porte was concluded on October 15. By that time all
pretence of friendly intentions had been abandoned by France and Russia.
Prussia, hoping still to save herself from an unconditional alliance
with France, now turned to Russia, and Scharnhorst was despatched to
seek a Russian alliance. Meanwhile Napoleon sent word to the Prussian
court that, if her military preparations were not suspended, he would
order Davoût to march on Berlin, and at the same time disclosed his
offer of an unconditional alliance against Russia. Prussia, hoping for
Russian aid still, put aside the French demands, but the Tsar Alexander
expressed a decided preference for a defensive campaign against France,
and refused any assistance unless the French should commit an unprovoked
aggression on Königsberg. Scharnhorst seems to have seen the wisdom of
this policy. He now turned to Austria, but there again a definite
alliance was refused. Russia was equally unable to move Austria to join
her, so that Russia and Prussia were each isolated in their opposition
to Napoleon.
In the months of August and September of this year a British force,
commanded by Auchmuty, effected the conquest of Java, the wealthiest of
the East Indian islands. The island had been a Dutch colony, and like
other Dutch colonies had passed into the hands of France. Sumatra fell
into English hands along with Java, so that the supremacy of Great
Britain in the East Indies was fully established.
[Pageheading: _LIVERPOOL'S MINISTRY._]
The new ministry which entered on office in June, 1812, differed largely
in composition from that which had preceded it. Ryder and Yorke retired
at the death of Perceval, Harrowby returned to office, and places in the
cabinet were found for Sidmouth's adherents, Buckinghamshire,
Vansittart, and Bragge-Bathurst. Sidmouth himself succeeded Ryder as
home secretary, while Harrowby succeeded Sidmouth as president of the
council. Earl Bathurst took Liverpool's place as secretary for war and
the colonies. Vansittart succeeded Perceval at the exchequer and
Bragge-Bathurst in the duchy of Lancaster. Robert Dundas, now Viscount
Melville, followed Yorke at the admiralty, and Buckinghamshire took
Melville's place at the board of control, which became once more a
cabinet office. Eldon, Castlereagh, Westmorland, and Mulgrave retained
their former offices, while Camden remained in the cabinet without
office. In September Mulgrave was created an earl, and Camden a marquis.
The internal history of England during the first two years of
Liverpool's premiership has been entirely dwarfed by the interest of
external events. For this period comprised not only the Russian
expedition--the greatest military tragedy in modern history--the
marvellous resurrection of Germany, with the campaigns which culminated
in the stupendous battle of Leipzig, and the invasion of France which
ended in the abdication of Napoleon at Fontainebleau, but also the
brilliant conclusion of the Peninsular war, and the earlier stages of
the war between Great Britain and the United States.
The nation was contented to leave the guidance of home and foreign
policy at that critical time to the existing ministers, all honest,
experienced, and high-minded statesmen, but none gifted with any signal
ability, and inferior both in cleverness and in eloquence to the leaders
of the opposition. Napoleon was not far wrong in regarding the British
aristocracy, which they represented, as his most inveterate and powerful
enemy; but he was grievously deceived in imagining that this
aristocracy, in withstanding his colossal ambition, had not the British
nation at its back. The electoral body, indeed, to which they owed their
parliamentary majority, was but a fraction of the population, and the
public opinion which supported them may seem but the voice of a
privileged class in these days of household suffrage. But there is
little reason to doubt that, if household suffrage had then prevailed,
their foreign policy would have received a democratic sanction; nor is
it at all certain that some features of their home policy, now generally
condemned, were not justified, in the main, by the exigencies of their
time.
[Pageheading: _INDUSTRIAL DISTRESS._]
The "condition of England," as it was then loosely termed, was the
first subject which claimed the attention of Liverpool's government.
While Perceval was congratulating parliament on the elasticity of the
revenue, a widespread depression of industry was producing formidable
disturbances in the midland counties. This depression was the
consequence partly of the continental system, crippling the export of
British goods to European countries; partly of the revival, in February,
1811, of the American non-intercourse act, closing the vast market of
the United States; and partly of the improvements in machinery,
especially those in spinning and weaving machines introduced by the
inventions of Cartwright and Arkwright. Unhappily, this last cause,
being the only one visible to artisans, was regarded by them as the sole
cause of their distress. During the autumn and winter of 1811 "Luddite"
riots broke out among the stocking-weavers of Nottingham. Their name was
derived from a half-witted man who had destroyed two stocking frames
many years before. Frame-breaking on a grand scale became the object of
an organised conspiracy, which extended its operations from
Nottinghamshire into Derbyshire, Leicestershire, Lancashire, and
Yorkshire. At first frame-breaking was carried on by large bodies of
operatives in broad daylight, and when these open proceedings were put
down by military force, they were succeeded by nightly outrages,
sometimes attended by murder. Early in 1812 a bill was passed making
frame-breaking a capital offence.
In spite of this riots grew into local insurrections, and a message from
the prince regent on June 27 recommended further action to parliament.
It was natural, in that generation to connect all disorderly movements
with revolutionary designs, and this belief underlies an alarmist report
from a secret committee of the house of lords on the prevailing tumults.
Accordingly, Sidmouth obtained new powers for magistrates to search for
arms, to disperse tumultuous assemblies, and to exercise jurisdiction
beyond their own districts. In November many Luddites were convicted,
and sixteen were executed by sentence of a special commission sitting at
York. These stern measures were effectual for a time, and popular
discontent in the manufacturing districts ceased to assume so acute a
form until after the war was ended.
The sufferings of the poor in the rural districts, though generally
endured in silence, were at least equally severe with those of the
artisan class, and it is difficult to say whether a good or bad harvest
pressed more heavily on agricultural labourers. When the price of wheat
rose to 130s. per quarter or upwards, as it did in 1812 and other years
of scarcity, the farmers were able to pay comparatively high wages. When
the price fell to 75s., as it did in years of plenty like 1813, wages
were reduced to starvation-point, but supplemented out of the
poor-rates, under the miserable system of indiscriminate out-door relief
graduated according to the size of families. In either case, the entire
income of a labourer was far below the modern standard, and the
prosperity of trade meant to him an increase in the cost of all
necessaries except bread. As for their employers, the golden age of
farming, which is often identified with the age of the great war, had
really ceased long before. Not only did the high price of a farmer's
purchases go far to neutralise the high price of his sales, but the
excessive fluctuations in all prices, due to the opening and closing of
markets according to the fortunes of war, made prudent speculation
almost impossible. The frequently recurring depressions were rendered
all the more disastrous, because in times of high prices "the margin of
cultivation" was unduly extended.
[Pageheading: _CORN LAWS._]
With a view to diminish the violence of these fluctuations, a select
committee on the corn-trade was appointed by the house of commons in
1813, and reported in favour of a sliding-scale. When the price of wheat
should fall below 90s. per quarter, its exportation was to be permitted;
but its importation was to be forbidden, until the price should reach
103s., when it might, indeed, be imported, but under "a very
considerable duty". It was assumed, in fact, that the normal price of
wheat was above 100s. per quarter, and the price above which importation
should be permitted was nearly twice as high as that fixed in 1801,
when, moreover, it was to be admitted above 50s. at a duty of 2s. 6d.,
and above 54s. at a duty of sixpence. It is remarkable that in the
debates of 1814 upon the report of this committee, William Huskisson, as
well as Sir Henry Parnell, supported its main conclusions, upon the
ground that agriculture must be upheld at all costs, and the home-market
preferred to foreign markets. Canning and others ably advocated the
cause of the consumers, alleging that duties on corn injured them far
more than they could benefit landowners or farmers. Finally, a bill
embodying a modified sliding-scale was introduced by the government,
and, though lost by a narrow majority in 1814, became law in 1815. Under
this act the importation of foreign corn was prohibited, so long as the
price of wheat did not rise above 80s. Above that price it might be
imported free. Corn from British North America might, however, be
imported free so long as the price of wheat exceeded 67s.
The parliamentary debates of 1812 chiefly turned on Spanish affairs, the
revocation of the orders in council, the subsequent rupture with the
United States which had anticipated this great concession, and the
wearisome cabinet intrigues which preceded the accession of Liverpool as
prime minister. It is noteworthy that so conservative a house of commons
should actually have pledged itself to consider the question of catholic
emancipation in the next session, and should have passed an act
relieving nonconformists from various disabilities. The next session of
this parliament, however, never came, for an unexpected dissolution took
place on September 29. This dissolution was attributed, with some
reason, to a wish on the part of the government to profit by an abundant
harvest, and to the restoration of comparative quiet both in England and
in Ireland. A new parliament assembled at the end of November. The
prince regent's speech in opening it, though it noticed the suppression
of the Luddite disturbances, was inevitably devoted to the great events
in Spain and Russia, the conclusion of a treaty with Russia, and the
American declaration of war. After the Christmas recess, Castlereagh
presented an argumentative message from the prince fully discussing the
points at issue between Great Britain and the United States, upon which
Canning, though out of office, delivered a vigorous speech in defence of
the British position. Eldon, in the house of lords, went further, boldly
justifying the right of search, and denying the American contention that
original allegiance could be cancelled by naturalisation without the
consent of the mother-country. The Princess of Wales, who had long been
separated from the prince, was the cause of more parliamentary time
being wasted by a complaint which she addressed to the speaker against
the proceedings of the privy council. That body had approved
restrictions which her husband had thought fit to place on her
intercourse with her daughter, the Princess Charlotte. Parliament,
however, took no action in the matter.
Perhaps the most important measure enacted in the session of 1813 was
the so-called East India company's act. By this act the charter of the
company was renewed with a confirmation of its administrative privileges
and its monopoly of the China trade, but subject to material
reservations: the India trade was thrown open from April 10, 1814, and
the charter itself, thus restricted, was made terminable by three years'
notice after April 10, 1831. In this year the naval and military
armaments of Great Britain, considered as a whole, perhaps reached their
maximum strength, and the national expenditure rose to its highest
level, including, as it did, subsidies to foreign powers amounting to
about £10,500,000. Of the aggregate expenditure, about two-thirds,
£74,000,000, were provided by taxation, an enormous sum relatively to
the population and wealth of the country at that period. Patiently as
this burden was borne on the whole by the people of Great Britain, we
cannot wonder that Vansittart, the chancellor of the exchequer, should
have sought to lighten it in some degree by encroaching upon the sinking
fund, as founded and regulated by Pitt. The debates on this complicated
question, in which Huskisson and Tierney stoutly combated Vansittart's
proposal, belong rather to financial history. What strikes a modern
student of politics as strange is that Vansittart, tory as he was,
should have advocated the relief of living and suffering taxpayers, upon
the principle, then undefined, of leaving money "to fructify in the
pockets of the people"; while the whig economists of the day stickled
for the policy of piling up new debts, if need be, rather than break in
upon an empirical scheme for the gradual extinction of old debts.
FOOTNOTES:
[41] For the whole crisis see Walpole, _Life of Perceval_, ii., 157-96,
and for Sheridan's share in the transactions, Moore, _Life of Sheridan_,
ii., 382-409.