THE LAST YEARS OF LORD LIVERPOOL.
The only important events of domestic interest in the year 1820, after
the death of George III., were the Cato Street conspiracy, and the
so-called trial of Queen Caroline. For the accession of the king, who
had so long exercised royal functions as regent, produced no visible
effect either on the personal composition or on the general policy of
the government. Immediately after his proclamation he was attacked by a
dangerous illness, but on his recovery he promptly raised two questions
which nearly involved a change of ministry. One of these was a proposal
to increase his private revenue, which he was induced to abandon for the
present. The other was a demand for a divorce, which the ministers
firmly resisted, though they ultimately agreed to a compromise, under
which the divorce question was to be deferred, so long as the queen
remained quietly abroad, but action was to be taken in case she returned
to assert her rights.
[Pageheading: _THE CATO STREET CONSPIRACY._]
In the midst of these difficulties the lives of the ministers were
threatened by a plot somewhat like those of the seventeenth century.
Later writers have represented it as contemptible in its conception, and
as directly provoked by the "Manchester massacre". So it may be said
that Guy Fawkes was an insignificant person, and that his employers were
exasperated by the severe treatment of popish recusants. The facts are
that Arthur Thistlewood, the author of the Cato Street conspiracy, was a
well-known confederate of the Watsons and other members of the extreme
reform party, and that his plan for murdering the assembled cabinet in a
private house would probably have been effectual, had it not been
detected by the aid of an informer. This informer, Edwards, had warned
the authorities in November, 1819, of the impending stroke, and may or
may not have instigated Thistlewood's gang to execute it at a moment and
place well-calculated to secure their arrest. At all events twenty-four
conspirators armed themselves in Cato Street, near the Edgware Road,
London, for the purpose of assassinating the ministers at a cabinet
dinner in Harrowby's house in Grosvenor Square, and some of their
associates were posted near the door of that house to summon them when
the guests should have assembled. Harrowby's dinner was of course put
off, but the watchers were deceived by the arrival of carriages for a
dinner party next door, and failed to apprise the gang in Cato Street.
The police rushed in upon the gang, but a body of soldiers ordered to
support them reached the spot too late, a policeman was stabbed, and
Thistlewood, with twelve or fourteen others, contrived to escape. He was
captured the next morning, and executed with four of his accomplices,
five more were transported for life, and the atrocity of the enterprise
was naturally treated in the king's speech as a justification for the
repressive measures in operation. In the following April a petty
outbreak in Scotland was easily put down by a few troops at a place
called Bonnymuir. It was, however, preceded by a treasonable
proclamation, which spread terror among the citizens of Glasgow for
several hours, and was sufficiently like an attempt at armed rebellion
to confirm the alarm excited by the Cato Street conspiracy. In the face
of such warnings, the energy of the government in stamping out disorder
could hardly be censured.
The last parliament of George III. was prorogued on February 28, 1820,
and dissolved on the following day. One of its last debates was on Lord
John Russell's proposal to suspend the issue of writs to the boroughs of
Grampound, Penryn, Barnstaple, and Camelford. This was carried in the
house of commons, but lost in the house of lords. The new parliament was
opened by George IV. in person on April 21. Widespread excitement
occasioned by the question of the divorce prevented the business of the
first session from attracting much attention. A deficit in the revenue,
coinciding with growing expenditure, compelled Vansittart to fall back
on a fresh manipulation of the sinking fund. One measure, however, of
the highest importance was introduced by Brougham. The committee of 1814
on national education had amassed a great body of valuable evidence,
and he now founded upon its report a comprehensive bill extending to the
whole country. It placed the management and teaching of elementary
schools entirely in the hands of Churchmen, and was dropped after the
first reading, but the conscience of the nation was roused by it, and it
bore fruit later. Further slight mitigations of the criminal law were
carried as a result of attacks made by Sir James Mackintosh, upon whom
the mantle of Romilly had fallen, and it is worthy of notice that even
Eldon, the stout opponent of such mitigations, condemned the use of
spring-guns, as a safeguard against poaching. The only ministerial
change in this year was the final retirement in May of Lord Mulgrave,
who had held high office in every ministry except that of Grenville
since 1804, and had voluntarily surrendered his post at the head of the
ordnance in 1818 to make room for Wellington.
[Pageheading: _QUEEN CAROLINE._]
The "queen's trial," as it is erroneously called, was the last act but
one in a domestic tragedy which had lasted twenty-five years. The
Princess Caroline of Brunswick was a frivolous and ill-disciplined young
woman when she was selected by George III. as a wife for the
heir-apparent, already united and really attached to Mrs. Fitzherbert.
The princess could not have been married to a man less capable of
drawing out the better side of her character, nor was she one to inspire
his selfish and heartless nature with a sentiment, if not of conjugal
love, yet of conjugal friendship. From the first there was no pretence
of affection between them. A few years after her marriage she was
relegated, not unwillingly, to live independently at Blackheath, where
many eminent men accepted her hospitality. During this period, as we
have seen, a "delicate investigation" into her conduct was instituted in
1806. Though she emerged from it with less stain on her character than
had been expected, she never enjoyed the respect of the royal family or
of the nation, and there was no question of her sharing the home of her
husband. Instead of being a bond of concord between them, the education
of her daughter was the subject of constant discord, requiring the
frequent intervention of the old king until he lost his reason. After
she went abroad in 1814, she travelled widely, but her English
attendants soon retired from her service, and she incurred fresh
suspicion by her flighty and undignified conduct. She had no part in the
rejoicing for the marriage, or in the mourning for the death, of the
Princess Charlotte; and in 1818 a secret commission, afterwards known as
the Milan commission, was sent out by the prince regent to collect
evidence for a divorce suit. Not only Liverpool, but Eldon, who had
formerly stood her friend, concurred in the appointment of this
commission, promoted by Sir John Leach, and its report was the
foundation of the proceedings now taken against her.
These proceedings were immediately due to her own action in returning to
England in June, 1820, but this action was not wholly unprovoked. She
had long and bitterly resented her official exclusion from foreign
courts, and when, after the king's accession, her name was omitted from
the prayer-book, she protested against it as an intolerable insult.
Contrary to the advice of her wisest partisans, including Brougham, she
persisted in braving the wrath of the king and throwing herself upon the
people. She was received at Dover with acclamations from immense
multitudes; and her journey to and through London was a continued
ovation. Not that her innocence was established even in the popular
mind, but that, innocent or guilty, she was regarded as a persecuted
woman, and persecuted by a worthless husband. The ministry fulfilled its
promise to the king by moving the house of lords to institute an inquiry
into the queen's conduct. Pending this, conferences took place between
Wellington and Castlereagh, on the part of the king, and Brougham and
Denman on that of the queen. It was at once laid down as a preliminary
basis of the negotiation that neither should the king be understood to
retract, nor the queen to admit, any allegation against her. The points
upon which she inflexibly insisted were, the recognition of her royal
status at foreign courts, through an official introduction by the
British ambassador, and the insertion of her name in the prayer-book.
The house of commons, on the motion of Wilberforce, offered to protect
her honour (whatever that might import) on condition of her waiving this
last point, but she courteously declined its conciliatory proposals on
June 22. On July 4 a secret committee of the house of lords recommended
a solemn investigation, to be carried out "in the course of a
legislative proceeding," and on the 8th Liverpool introduced a bill of
pains and penalties, to deprive her of her title, and to dissolve her
marriage. The second reading of this bill was formally set down for
August 17, and for several weeks afterwards the house of lords was
occupied in hearing evidence in support of the charges against her. The
whole country was deluged with the squalid details of this evidence, the
ministers were insulted, and the sympathy of the populace with her cause
was obtrusively displayed in every part of the kingdom. On October 3,
after an adjournment of the lords, Brougham opened the defence in the
most celebrated of his speeches. On November 2 the lord chancellor,
Eldon, moved the second reading of the bill, and on the 8th it was
carried by a majority of twenty-eight. Four days later, on the third
reading, the majority had dwindled to nine only. Knowing the temper of
the house of commons, Liverpool treated such a victory as almost
equivalent to a defeat, and announced that the government would not
proceed further with the measure.
Had the queen possessed the virtue of self-respect or dignity, she would
have been satisfied with this legislative, though not morally decisive,
acquittal. But she was intoxicated with popular applause, largely due to
her royal consort's vices, and, after London had been illuminated for
three nights in her honour, she declined overtures from the government,
and appealed for a maintenance to the house of commons, which granted
her an annuity of £50,000 in the next session. But she never lived to
enjoy it After going in procession to St. Paul's, to return thanks for
her deliverance, on the 29th, and vainly attempting, once more, to
procure the mention of her name in the prayer-book, she concentrated her
efforts on a claim of right to be crowned with the king. No government
could have conceded this claim, and, when it had been refused by the
privy council, her solemn protests were inevitably vain. Even her least
prudent counsellors would assuredly have dissuaded her from the attempt
which she made to force an entrance into Westminster Abbey on the
coronation day, July 19, 1821. It was a painful scene when she, who had
so lately been the idol of the fickle populace, was turned away from the
doors amidst conflicting exclamations of derision and pity. A fortnight
later, on August 2, she was officially reported to be seriously ill; on
the 7th she was no more. In accordance with her own direction her body
was buried at Brunswick. Her ill-founded popularity was shown for the
last time, when a riotous multitude succeeded in diverting her funeral
procession, and forcing it to pass through the city on its way to
Harwich. But it did not survive her long; the people were becoming tired
of her, and the king, who had forfeited the respect of the middle and
upper classes, was less hated by the lower classes after her death.
[Pageheading: _GEORGE IV. IN IRELAND._]
The personal character and opinions of George IV. seem to have
influenced politics less during the early years of his reign than during
his long regency. His coronation was celebrated with unprecedented
magnificence, and amidst external demonstrations of loyalty, hard to
reconcile with the unbounded enthusiasm which the queen had so lately
inspired. Soon afterwards, he sailed in his yacht from Portsmouth on a
voyage to Ireland, but put into Holyhead and there awaited news of the
queen's expected death. This reached him at last, and probably impressed
him, no less than his ministers, as "the greatest of all possible
deliverances, both to his majesty and the country".[68] He proceeded to
Dublin in one of the earliest steam-packets, and secluded himself until
"the corpse of his wife was supposed to have left England".[69] He then
plunged into a round of festivities, and pleased all classes of Irishmen
by his affable and condescending manners. He was, indeed, the first
sovereign of England who had appeared in Ireland on a mission of peace.
John William Ward, afterwards fourth Viscount Dudley in his letters,
describes him as having behaved like a popular candidate on an
electioneering trip, and surmises that "if the day before he left
Ireland, he had stood for Dublin, he might have turned out Shaw or
Grattan ".[70] Certain it is that his visit to Ireland was regarded as
an important political event. The same kind of success attended his
visit to Scotland in August of the following year, 1822. Thenceforth, he
scarcely figures in political life until the resignation of Lord
Liverpool in 1827, and though he consented with reluctance to Canning's
tenure of the foreign office, he did not attempt to interfere with the
change in foreign policy consequent upon it. He was, in fact, sinking
more and more into an apathetic voluptuary; but he could rouse himself,
and exhibit some proofs of ability, under the impulse of his brothers,
the honest Duke of York and the arch-intriguer, the Duke of Cumberland.
The cry for retrenchment, now taken up by the country gentlemen, and not
unmingled with suggestions for a partial repudiation of the national
debt, compelled the government to adopt a policy of strict economy.
Accordingly, in 1822, Vansittart introduced a scheme for the conversion
of the so-called "Navy 5 per cents.," which resulted in a saving of
above £1,000,000 annually. He also carried a more questionable scheme
for the payment of military, naval, and civil pensions, which then
amounted to £4,900,000 a year, but were falling in rapidly; the money
required for this purpose was to be borrowed by trustees, and was to be
repaid in the course of forty-five years at the rate of £2,800,000 a
year; in this way an immediate saving of about £2,000,000 annually was
effected at the cost, however, of the next generation. By means of these
expedients, with a considerable reduction of official salaries, the
government was enabled to repeal the additional duty on malt, to
diminish the duties on salt and leather, and, on the whole to remit
about £3,500,000 of taxes. When the entire credit of financial reform is
given to Huskisson, Joseph Hume, and other economists of the new school,
it should not be forgotten that a beginning was made by economists of
the old school, before Huskisson joined the government in 1823, or
Robinson took Vansittart's place as chancellor of the exchequer.
From the beginning of this reign a more enlightened spirit may be traced
in parliamentary debates. This was aided by the growth of a
constitutional movement in favour of reform in parliament as the first
step towards a redress of grievances. The movement left its first trace
on the statute-book in a measure carried by Lord John Russell in the
session of 1821 for the disfranchisement of Grampound, though the vacant
seats were transferred to the county of York, instead of to the
"village" of Leeds or some other of the great unrepresented cities. This
was the first instance of the actual disfranchisement of a constituency,
though it was not without precedent that the franchise of a corrupt
borough should be extended to the freeholders of the surrounding
district. A notable sign of the progressive change was the
reconstruction of the cabinet in 1822. Liverpool, who always possessed
the gift of working harmoniously with colleagues of different views and
felt the weakness of his present ministry, once more attempted to bring
about a coalition with the Grenville party in the opposition. Grenville
had long been drifting away from his alliance with Grey, and had been a
stout advocate of repressive legislation which the more advanced whigs
opposed. Though he declined office for himself, several of his relatives
and adherents were rewarded with minor appointments, his cousin, Charles
Wynn, became president of the board of control, in succession to
Bragge-Bathurst, who had himself succeeded Canning in the previous year,
and his nephew, the Marquis of Buckingham, obtained a dukedom. Such
recruits added little strength to the Liverpool government, and Holland
well said that "all articles are now to be had at low prices, except
Grenvilles".
[Pageheading: _THE DEATH OF CASTLEREAGH._]
But Liverpool gained far more powerful coadjutors in the Marquis
Wellesley, Peel, and Canning. In December, 1821, Wellesley undertook the
lord-lieutenancy of Ireland, which had relapsed into so disturbed a
state that it had been proposed to make Wellington both viceroy and
commander-in-chief. The significance of this selection was increased by
the appointment of Plunket as attorney-general. Sidmouth, while
retaining his seat in the cabinet, retired, by his own wish, from the
office of home secretary, with a sense of having pacified the country,
and was succeeded by Peel. Castlereagh, now Marquis of Londonderry,
remained foreign secretary, but on August 12, 1822, as he was on the
point of setting out for the congress of Verona, he died, like Whitbread
and Romilly, by his own hand. His suicidal act was clearly due to a
morbid fit of depression, under the stress of anxieties protracted over
more than twenty years; and the disordered state of his mind had been
observed, not only by Wellington, but also by the king. His successor
was Canning, who also became leader of the house of commons.
The characters and political aims of these rival statesmen have often
been contrasted by historians of a later age, who have seldom done
justice to Castlereagh. It is remembered that he was the author of the
Walcheren expedition; it is forgotten that he was the advocate of
sending a powerful force to the Baltic coast at the critical moment
between Jena and Eylau, that he was not altogether responsible for the
delays which rendered the Walcheren expedition abortive or for the
choice of its incompetent commander, that his prime object was to strike
a crushing blow at Napoleon's naval power, and that, if his
instructions had been obeyed, this would have been effected by a rapid
advance upon Antwerp when nearly all the French troops had been
withdrawn from the Netherlands. It is remembered that he was at the war
office when the operations of Wellington in the Peninsula were crippled
for want of supplies; it is forgotten that it was he who selected
Wellington, and that he loyally strained every nerve to keep him
supplied with troops, provisions, and specie, when few but himself
believed in the policy of the Peninsular war, and Sir John Moore had
assured him that if the French dominated Spain, they could not be
resisted in Portugal. It is remembered--or rather it is assumed--that he
was the eager promoter of coercive and reactionary legislation at home;
it is forgotten, or ignored, that he was among the earliest and
staunchest advocates of catholic emancipation, and that a despotic
temper is belied by the whole tone of his speeches. Above all, he is
unjustly credited, in the face of direct evidence to the contrary, with
being the champion of absolutism in the councils of Europe, the fact
being not only that his voice was always on the side of moderation and
conciliation, but that Canning himself, on succeeding him, dissociated
Great Britain from the holy alliance by taking his stand upon an
admirable despatch of Castlereagh and adopting it as his own. When he
met with his tragical end, the brutal shouts of exultation raised by a
portion of the crowd at his funeral were the expression of sheer
ignorance and not of intelligent public opinion. He was a tory, in days
when most patriots were tories, but he was a tory of the best type; and
we of a later generation can see that few statesmen of George III.'s
reign have left a purer reputation or rendered greater services to their
country.
[Pageheading: _CANNING AND PEEL._]
George Canning, his successor, has been far more favourably judged by
posterity, and not without reason, if intellectual brilliancy is a
supreme test of political merit. A firm adherent of Pitt, and a somewhat
unscrupulous critic of Addington, he was probably the first
parliamentary orator of the nineteenth century, with the possible
exception of Sheridan. Pitt's eloquence was of a loftier and simpler
type, Fox's was more impetuous and spontaneous; Peel's range of
political knowledge was far wider; Gladstone excelled all, not only in
length of experience but in readiness and dialectical resource.
Canning's rhetoric was of a finer quality and was combined with great
debating power, but he was a man to inspire admiration rather than
confidence, and had not held one of the higher political offices since
his resignation in 1809, after his quarrel with Castlereagh. He accepted
a mission to Portugal, however, and was in Lisbon when Napoleon returned
from Elba. In 1816, as has been seen, he became president of the board
of control, but, having been formerly one of the queen's advisers, he
declined to have anything to do with her trial and remained abroad
during its continuance. In December, 1820, he returned, but persisted in
resigning his place at the board of control on the supposed ground that
further parliamentary discussion of the queen's case was inevitable. On
this occasion he received a special vote of thanks from the directors of
the East India Company for his services on the board. The king objected
to his readmission after the queen's death, and he was a private member
of parliament when he was offered and undertook the governor-generalship
of India in March, 1822. But his departure was delayed until August, and
he was on his way to bid farewell to his constituents at Liverpool when
Castlereagh destroyed himself. It was generally felt that no other man
was so well qualified as Canning to succeed him. But the king declared
his "final and unalterable decision" to sanction no such change. Though
he afterwards relented, on the remonstrances of Wellington, he did so
with a bad grace; but there was no delay on Canning's part in accepting
the foreign secretaryship thus offered. From his acceptance may be dated
the most remarkable part of his career.
The accession of Peel to the Liverpool ministry, in the capacity of home
secretary; was only less important than that of Canning. Hitherto, Peel
had mostly been known to the British public as chief secretary for
Ireland, and as chairman of the committee which, in 1819, recommended
the early resumption of cash payments. In both these posts he displayed
a certain moderation and independence of mind, combined with a rare
capacity for business, which marked him out as a great administrator.
This promise he amply fulfilled as home secretary. He was the first
minister of the crown who took up the philanthropic work of Romilly and
Mackintosh, largely reducing the number of offences for which capital
punishment could be inflicted. He was also the first to reform the
police system of London, and to substitute for a multitude of decrepit
watchmen, incapable of dealing with gangs of active criminals, a
disciplined body of stalwart constables, which has since been copied in
every county and large town of Great Britain. Above all, while he cannot
be said to have shown a statesmanlike insight or foresight of the
highest order, he could read the signs of the times and the temper of
his countrymen with a sagacity far beyond that of his predecessor,
Sidmouth, or of such politicians as Eldon and Castlereagh. In him was
represented the domestic policy of Pitt in his earlier days, as Pitt's
financial views were represented in Huskisson, who had actually served
under him.
Though Huskisson was only made president of the board of trade, in
January, 1823, and not chancellor of the exchequer, it is certain that
his mind controlled that of Robinson, who succeeded Vansittart in that
position. Vansittart, who was created Lord Bexley, succeeded
Bragge-Bathurst as chancellor of the duchy. The cabinet changes were
completed in October by the removal of Wellesley Pole, now Lord
Maryborough, from the office of master of the mint. Huskisson, if any
man, was the leading pioneer of free trade, and there can be little
doubt that, had he not died prematurely, its adoption would have been
hastened by ten or fifteen years. In his first year of office he
welcomed petitions for the repeal of the import duties on foreign wool,
but failed to convince the wool manufacturers that it must be
accompanied by the abolition of export duties on British wool. The
proposed reform was, therefore, dropped, and a like fate befell his
attempt in the same year to benefit the silk trade by abolishing certain
vexatious restrictions upon it, including the practice of fixing the
wages of Spitalfields weavers by an order of the magistrates. For the
moment the ignorant outcry of the journeymen themselves prevailed over
their real interests, but in the following year, 1824, Huskisson carried
a much wider measure, providing that foreign silks, hitherto excluded,
should be admitted subject to a duty of 30 per cent. in and after 1826,
and another measure for the joint relief of wool growers and wool
manufacturers which imposed a small duty of equal amount on the
importation and the exportation of wool.
His great achievement in 1823 was the reform of the navigation laws.
These acts, dating from the commonwealth and the restoration, gave
British shipowners a qualified monopoly of the carrying trade, since
they prohibited the importation of European goods except in British
ships or ships of the producing country, while the importation of goods
from other quarters of the world was confined to British ships only.
America had protested against this exclusive system, and it was
abandoned, as regards the United States, by the treaty of Ghent in 1814.
The mercantile states of Europe soon followed the example of America,
and the reciprocity of duties bill, introduced by Huskisson on June 6,
1823, conceded equal rights to all countries reciprocating the
concession, only retaining the exclusion against such countries as might
reject equality of trade. The change involved some hardship to
shipowners who had built their vessels with timber bought at prices
raised by heavy duties, but they were too shortsighted to accept the
compromise offered by Huskisson. Before long, however, the act was
justified, and the shipowners compensated by a rapid increase in British
shipping.
[Pageheading: _AGRICULTURAL DISCONTENT._]
For nearly five years after the accession of George IV. the state of the
country was, on the whole, more prosperous, and the industrial classes
were more contented, than in the five years next preceding. Such
restlessness as there was prevailed among farmers and agricultural
labourers rather than among workmen in the manufacturing districts, and
in 1823 every branch of manufactures was reported to be flourishing. It
is difficult for a later generation, accustomed to consider 30s. a
quarter a fair price for wheat, to understand the perennial complaints
and petitions of the agricultural interest when 60s. a quarter was
regarded as a low price for wheat, and the cultivation of wheat extended
over a vastly larger area than it does at present. Nor is the difficulty
lessened, when we remember the miserably low rate of wages then paid by
farmers. A partial explanation may be found in the fact that what they
saved in wages they lost in poor rates, and that most agricultural
products except corn were sold at a very small profit. The high poor
rates were the result of the disastrous system of giving allowances to
labourers.
But there were other evils caused by the vicious policy pursued by the
government. The encouragement of home production had led to the
enclosure of land not fit for cultivation, so that a slight fall in
prices meant ruin to many farmers. Moreover, the corn laws, though
framed for the purpose of arresting fluctuations in price, actually
increased fluctuations and thus enhanced the risks attending
agricultural enterprise. Nor were landlords who had thriven on war
prices, and raised the scale of their establishments as if these prices
were to be perpetual, willing to reduce their rents on the return of
peace. Rent was said to have risen 70 per cent. since 1792; but the
landlords were often embarrassed, because their lands had too often been
burdened with jointures, settlements, and mortgages during the war. It
was in their interest that the act of 1815, which aimed at maintaining
war prices, had been passed. But the deeper reason for all this clamour
from the rural districts was the stagnation of ideas, and incapacity of
improvement, engendered by an artificial monopoly of the national food
supply. This was not the special lesson impressed upon landlords or
tenants by Cobbett, whose violent and delusive writings had a large
circulation in the country. But his teaching was so far beneficial that
it quickened the demand for parliamentary reform, though the fruits of
that reform were destined to be very different from the expectations
which he excited.
[Pageheading: _SPECULATIVE FRENZY._]
The spell of general prosperity which, in spite of some distress in the
rural districts, prevailed in the years 1820-23 was somewhat broken in
1824 by strikes and outrages in the manufacturing districts. Strikes for
higher wages naturally arose out of the increase in mill owners'
profits, and the ferocious spirit displayed by the strikers against
masters and fellow-workmen was attributed by reformers to the one-sided
operation of the combination laws. Accordingly, a committee of the house
of commons reported in favour of repealing these laws, and also part of
the common law which treated coercion either by trade unions or by
masters as conspiracy. A bill founded on this report was hastily passed,
with the natural result that strikes broke out in every quarter of the
country; wholesale and cruel oppression was practised by trade
unionists, and it became necessary for parliament to retrace its steps.
Under a new act, passed in 1825, which continued in force until very
recent times, trade unions were recognised as legal, but their worst
malpractices were once more brought within the control of the criminal
law.[71] So far the commercial policy of Huskisson was justified, as a
whole, by its effects on trade, and the session of 1824 was closed on
June 25 by a cheerful speech from the king, in which the disturbed state
of Ireland was the only topic suggestive of anxiety. Already, however,
the revival of commercial hopefulness at home, with the opening of new
markets in South America, was paving the way for the most ruinous mania
of speculation known in England since the south sea bubble. It was well
that sound and sober-minded economists now guided the action of the
government, and that Liverpool proved himself a worthy successor of Sir
Robert Walpole during the great financial crisis of 1825.[72]
The speculative frenzy of 1825 differed from the railway mania of the
next generation in that it had no solid basis of remunerative
investment. The development of the railway system, after the application
of locomotive steam engines to iron tramways, offered a legitimate
promise of large profits, and this promise would have been still more
amply realised but for the shameful waste of capital on competition and
law expenses. It was otherwise with the dupes and victims of the rage
for speculation which possessed all classes of society in 1825, and
arose out of an immense accumulation of wealth for which no safe
employment could be found at home except at a modest rate of interest.
The weakening of the hold of Spain on South America left her colonies
open to foreign trade, but the enterprises there and elsewhere which
absorbed the hard-won savings of humble families, by thousands and tens
of thousands, were nearly all chimerical, and some of them grotesque in
their absurdity. Whether or not warming-pans and skates were actually
exported to the tropics, it is certain that Scotch dairy-women emigrated
to Buenos Ayres for the purpose of milking wild cows and churning butter
for people who preferred oil. The incredible multiplication of
bubble-companies was facilitated by a marvellous cheapness of money,
largely due to an inordinate issue of notes by country bankers, and even
by the Bank of England, in spite of the fact that gold and silver were
known to be leaving the country in vast quantities, especially in the
shape of loans to France. The inevitable reaction came when the Bank of
England contracted its issue of notes in order to arrest the drain of
gold; goods recklessly bought up had to be sold at a fearful loss, bills
upon which advances had been made proved to be of no value, and several
great London banking houses stopped payment, bringing down in their fall
a much larger number of country banks dependent on them.
In the month of December, 1825, the crisis was at its height, and it is
stated that within six or seven weeks after the failure of the banking
firm of Pole & Company on the 5th, sixty or seventy banks had broken.
The king's speech in July had congratulated parliament on increasing
prosperity and had betrayed no misgivings about its stability. When the
crash came, however, the ministers showed no want of firmness or
resource. They could not repair the consequences of national folly, but
they devoted themselves with intelligence to a restoration of credit.
For this purpose they suppressed at once the further issue of small
notes from country banks by a high-handed act of authority, for which
they admitted that an act of indemnity might be needed. At the same time
they rapidly increased the supply of small notes from the Bank of
England, and of coin from the mint. Moreover, they induced the Bank of
England to establish branches in a few provincial towns and to make
advances upon merchants' goods to the amount of three millions. It cost
a greater effort to break down the monopoly of the Bank of England by
legalising joint-stock banks in the provinces, though not within a
distance of sixty-five miles from London. Such practical expedients as
these, seconded by the good sense of the mercantile community, proved
sufficient to avert a catastrophe only less disastrous than national
bankruptcy. With the subsidence of alarm, the causes of alarm also
subsided, the recuperative powers of the country reasserted themselves,
as during the great war, and the heart-breaking anxieties of 1825-26
were ignored, if not forgotten, in the political excitement of 1827.[73]
[Pageheading: _ECONOMIC REFORM._]
The budgets of 1823-26 indeed mark a memorable advance in financial
reform, which the commercial panic of 1825 scarcely interrupted. There
had been a reduction of the national debt by about £25,000,000. "The
poorer householders had been relieved from the pressure both of house
tax and window tax. The manufacturing classes had been encouraged by
the reduction of the duties on silk, wool, and iron. The consuming
classes had been benefited by the reduction of duties on spirits, wines,
coffee, and sugar."[74] Owing to Huskisson's enlightened policy the old
navigation laws had been repealed upon the condition of reciprocity; the
combination laws had been liberally revised; various bounties had been
abandoned on free trade principles, and the monstrous evils of smuggling
had been greatly abated. If the chancellor of the exchequer could show
no surplus in 1826, he could at least boast that after so desperate a
crisis there was no deficit, and he had no reason to be ashamed of
Cobbett's nickname, "Prosperity Robinson," which he owed to his
optimism, largely founded upon facts. Before the close of the year 1826,
however, this optimism received a rude shock. The agitation against the
corn laws assumed an acuter form than ever, and Huskisson prudently
deprecated it on the simple ground that no effective action could be
taken in an expiring parliament. Distress had recurred in the
manufacturing districts; mills and power-looms were again destroyed. The
free trade policy of Huskisson was vigorously attacked in parliament,
but it was successfully defended in powerful speeches by Canning as well
as by himself. Ultimately the government, having obtained limited powers
from parliament to admit foreign corn during the temporary emergency,
had the courage to exceed those powers and seek an indemnity from the
next parliament.
The dissolution of 1826, closing the life of one of the longest
parliaments in modern times, was the prelude to a very eventful year.
The general election brought into prominence the two burning questions
of catholic relief and the corn laws, and unseated for the moment
Brougham, Cobbett, Hunt, and Lord John Russell, but it produced no
material change in the balance of parties. Little was done in the short
autumn session, but when parliament met again early in February, 1827,
great events had already cast their shadows before. The Duke of York,
heir-presumptive to the crown, had died on January 5. He was known to be
a strong tory in politics, but, in spite of this, and of the scandals
which attached to his name in earlier years, he enjoyed a considerable
share of popular confidence. Compared with his elder brother, he was
respected; he was a true Englishman, like his father, whom he resembled
in character; his administration of the army had survived hostile
criticism, while a declaration which he had recently made against
catholic emancipation had produced a profound impression on public
opinion. Much less was known of the Duke of Clarence, who stood next in
succession. He had already injured himself in public estimation by
declining the increased allowance offered him, and then claiming it with
arrears; nor did he now improve his position in the eyes of his future
subjects by stickling for a larger addition to it than parliament was
disposed to grant. But the Duke of York's death was followed by a far
more important incident. Liverpool was disabled by illness from
attending his funeral, which, occurring in the depth of winter, proved
directly fatal to one of those who were present, and seriously weakened
the constitutions of others, including Canning. On February 8, the first
day of the session, Liverpool was in his place, though in broken health,
and on the 17th he took a feeble part in the debate on the grant to the
Duke of Clarence. On the following morning he was struck down by a
paralytic seizure, and, though his life was prolonged for two years, he
never recovered the use of his faculties.
[Pageheading: _THE CLOSE OF LIVERPOOL'S MINISTRY._]
Liverpool's disappearance from the political scenes may be said to mark
an epoch in the later history of England. Though only fifty-six years of
age, he had been continuously in office for twenty years, and prime
minister for fifteen, a tenure of power which none of his predecessors
had exceeded except Walpole and Pitt. His lot was cast in the most
critical period of the great war, and in the long night of adversity and
anxiety which ushered in the "thirty years' peace". As foreign secretary
he conducted the negotiations for the peace of Amiens; as home secretary
he led the house of lords and was responsible for the government of
Ireland; as secretary for war and the colonies he gave Wellington a
steady, if not ardent, support in those apparently barren campaigns
which strained the national patience; as prime minister he guided the
ship of state in all the difficulties of foreign and domestic affairs
which arose between 1812 and 1827. Castlereagh may have been the most
influential minister in the earlier years of his administration, and
Canning in the later, but he was never the mere tool of either; on the
contrary, it Is certain that he was treated with respect and deference
by all his numerous colleagues. In general capacity and debating power
he was inferior to few of them; in temper, judgment, and experience he
was superior to all.
He may be said to have lived and died without "a policy," in so far as
he forebore to identify himself with any of the great questions then
pressing for solution. His real policy both at home and abroad was one
of moderation and conciliation; he looked at party divisions almost with
the eyes of a permanent official who can work loyally with chiefs of
either party; and he succeeded in keeping together in his cabinet
ambitious rivals who never would have co-operated under any other
leader. This is not the road to fame, neither is it the course which men
of imperious character like Castlereagh, or Canning, or Wellington, in
his place, would have adopted. But Canning and Wellington actually
proved themselves incapable of winning the confidence which Liverpool so
long retained, and the whig government which followed them fell to
pieces in two years. Moderation in statesmanship does not always imply
mediocrity of ability; and if Liverpool failed to see how many
institutions needed radical amendment, he was not so blind as some of
his more celebrated associates. Not only was he more liberal in his
views than Eldon and Castlereagh, but he was less opposed to free trade
than most of his cabinet, to parliamentary reform than Canning, and to
catholic emancipation than Wellington or Peel. His fault was that he did
not act upon his own inward convictions with sufficient promptitude, or
assert his own authority with sufficient energy. Had he done so, the
beneficial measures of the last years of his administration might have
been anticipated, and the country might have been spared much of the
misery which darkened the close of George III.'s reign.
FOOTNOTES:
[68] Lord Londonderry in Twiss, _Life of Eldon_, ii., 432.
[69] Harriet Martineau, _History of England During the Thirty Years'
Peace_, i., 274.
[70] _Letters to Copleston_, p. 295.
[71] Cunningham, _Growth of English Industry and Commerce in Modern
Times_ (edit. 1903), pp. 756-59. Compare Dicey, _Law and Opinion in
England_, pp. 190-200.
[72] The graphic description of this crisis in Harriet Martineau's
_History of the Thirty Years' Peace_, i., 355-66, deserves to be studied
and remembered as a masterpiece of social portraiture by a contemporary.
[73] Cunningham, _Growth of English Industry and Commerce in Modern
Times_, p. 823.
[74] Walpole's _History of England_, vol. ii., p. 187.