much to the mortification of Mr. Wilberforce and other grave members
who conducted them, they ended in nothing) gave strong colour to the
apprehension that, even if a bill of Pains and Penalties should pass the
Lords, it would, by direct vote or by delay, be inevitably lost in the
Commons. The thought of this animated and inflamed the public. Reports,
perhaps unfounded, of murmurs among the soldiery were afloat.[300] They
were said to confound the authority of a Queen with that of a King,
and, conceiving them to be co-equal and co-ordinate, to imagine it left
to their option which to obey. Certain it is that the lowest orders of
the community and the fanatic sects of the middle ranks were both, for
different and even opposite reasons, stirring partizans of the Queen.
The clergy incurred great odium by their ready and over-zealous
acquiescence in the views of a Court which was neither moral nor
decorous. They could not disobey the injunctions of their superiors about
the Liturgy; but their industry in disseminating the filthiest tales
about the Queen and their haughty displeasure at every popular movement
on her behalf, disgusted and irritated their flocks exceedingly. Never
since the period of Charles I. were the English people so estranged from
the Established clergy as on this occasion. Many useful reforms effected
since, as well as many less sensible but not less certain symptoms of
the declining influence of the hierarchy, may be traced to that epoch.
They have been slowly and indirectly, but not unjustly, mulcted and
reduced for abetting the petty malice, and conniving at the ill-assumed
hypocrisy, of an unprincipled and revengeful Prince.
The report of the Committee of the House of Lords recommending a bill
of Pains and Penalties was read on July 4, and Lord Liverpool presented
the bill on the next day. It had been settled by an understanding, not,
I believe, by a vote of the House, that Her Majesty’s legal advisers,
even though members of the other House, should be allowed to be heard
and to conduct her defence at the bar; although members of the House
of Commons are not usually admitted as counsel for or against any
legislative proceeding. However, the whole proceeding was anomalous, and
the counsel on both sides were members of Parliament. The proceedings on
the bill were to be resumed, or as in common parlance it was described,
the Queen’s trial was to begin, on August 17, and on that day Parliament
Street was lined by a crowd whose aspect was far more formidable than
their numbers. Unlike English multitudes, their countenances seemed
to indicate design, determination, and revenge. They hissed some and
applauded other peers as they passed; but they performed both those
tasks with such marked indifference that it was difficult not to suspect
that they had some more serious undertaking in view. One man quitted his
companions, and, placing himself at the head of the Duke of Wellington’s
horse (as he was riding down to the House), clenched his fist, and
repeated the word _Ney_ three times with great emphasis and anger—an
exclamation which surprised the bystanders exceedingly, and is said to
have disconcerted the Duke himself not a little. Soon afterwards the
railing which barricaded the street was broken down by mere pressure, and
advantage was taken of this incident to augment both the military and the
police. Owing to such precautions or to other accidents, the appearance
of the people in the streets, though in numbers always considerable,
gradually improved in character, and they became, as English mobs
generally are, as manageable and good-humoured as at an election or a
fair.
As I had taken some part in the preliminary discussions, chiefly to mark
my disapprobation of so unusual, hazardous, and unnecessary a proceeding,
so I voted for the Duke of Leinster’s motion to rescind the whole and
reject the bill without any inquiry at the bar. But during the inquiry
itself, I was for the most part employed in writing nonsensical puns and
epigrams on the various indecencies which occurred, and tossing them
across the table to the Chancellor for his diversion, and I believe I
was the only Lord practised in public speaking who asked not a single
question during the inquiry. Once or twice, before the Order of the Day
was read, I endeavoured, but in vain, to rouse the attention of the
House to the grave events passing in Europe. I also spoke on occasions
which seemed to me opportune for dismissing the subject altogether, and
I occasionally expressed my opinion on matters of form which arose in
the course of it. Upon these latter points I acquired, chiefly during
that period, a very undeserved reputation for a knowledge of the rules
and orders of the House, which I do not possess. I have, however,
frequently, though not perhaps without laughing or at least smiling in
my sleeve, taken some credit for it, and availed myself of the delusion
to facilitate public business or possibly to give a friendly party a
lift. Form is so necessary in an assembly as large as the House of Lords
is become, that perhaps where there is neither code nor individual
vested with authority, it is pardonable to counterfeit more wisdom than
one possesses and lay down some law in an authoritative tone. Lords of
order, like yet greater beings, may be worshipped because some worship is
convenient, rather than because their oracles are infallible.
Expedit esse Deos et, ut expedit, esse putemus.
Lord Grey earnestly wished to give to this bill all the outward dignity
of an impeachment, and asked, on his legs, if there were not a more
solemn way of voting than is usually practised on a division. I stated
to him and the House that the regular and orderly, though generally
neglected, method of taking votes on bills and motions much more nearly
resembled that of taking individual judgments on a trial than from
the common practice might be supposed. On a question being put, every
Lord should in strict form be called, and should stand up in his place
and say _Content_ or _Not Content_, in the same manner as he answers
_Guilty_ or _Not Guilty_ in Westminster Hall on an impeachment. What
was called a division of the House, by the _Contents_ going below and
the _Not Contents_ staying within the bar, was a convenient device for
ascertaining the number of votes _that had been given on each side_, but
does not strictly or technically constitute the act of voting; which
was presumed to have been done in obedience to the injunction from the
Woolsack, “Those who are for the motion will say _Content_, and those who
are against it will say _Not Content_.” The strict form was accordingly,
on this solitary occasion, observed. We stood up and voted _seriatim_. We
then divided, and were told, as usual, to ascertain the number who had
said _Content_ or _Not Content_. This proceeding, from the long disuse of
it, was imposing enough; and I not improbably owe the character and the
authority of a profound Lord of order chiefly to the accident of having
suggested it.
The questions on the various stages after the examination of witnesses
were preceded by long debates. In the course of them I shortly stated
my reasons against the form, expediency, or necessity of such a bill,
but studiously avoided giving the character of a verdict of _Not Guilty_
to that opinion. Others were not so cautious. Many on both sides
displayed great subtleness and eloquence. But yet there was a certain
lack of earnestness, sincerity, and truth in all that was said, and,
in my judgment, individuals and parties, as well as our monarchy and
institutions, appeared to sad disadvantage throughout the performance. It
was a farce, and a sorry, disgusting, and dangerous one. The manner in
which Lord Liverpool dropped the curtain after the third reading is well
known. His pretext was that slender majority of nine, which voted for
that last reading, did not exceed the number of Cabinet Ministers who had
already given a previous and extra-judicial opinion by advising the bill;
but his real motive was a conviction that, if he persisted, the bill
would be lost in the Commons, or, passing, produce some convulsion in the
country.
The relinquishment of the bill was hailed almost instantaneously in the
purlieus and adjoining streets with loud shouts of triumph. Within the
walls there were, no doubt, many much mortified at so lame and impotent
a conclusion; but, though some few protested, the Duke of Montrose alone
ventured to raise his voice against an ignominious withdrawal of so grave
and, as he thought, so well substantiated a charge. He acted honestly, no
doubt. But as he had been by no means a pattern of purity in his youth,
he could gain no credit for virtuous abhorrence of female frailty; and
having been celebrated in verse and prose as a specimen of that brood
which cackles around the Capitol, he must have hissed at the sorry
catastrophe of the drama, more from aristocratical disdain of the low
character of the paramour than from puritanical horror at the heinousness
of the offence. However gloomy and even awful had been the commencement
of the business, the fulness of the town at an unusual and agreeable
season of the year, the entire close of business after four o’clock in
the day, and perhaps some circumstances connected with the nature of
the inquiry, rendered the period of its progress singularly festive and
gay. Its permanent effect on the House was not so fortunate. It, in some
degree, verified Lord Egremont’s prediction that the habit of putting
questions to witnesses would familiarise every blockhead to hearing his
own voice in public, and he would hereafter weary the House with his
silly remarks on various occasions. The Lords, if not more unmanageable,
became from this period a more loquacious assembly than heretofore.
The King must have been sorely nettled at the result. He taxed his
Ministers with pusillanimity, and sometimes affected to suspect them of
treachery. He authorised various persons, such as Lord Donoughmore, Lord
Hutchinson, Sir John Leach,[301] and others, to make half-confidences to
Lord Grey, Lord Lansdowne, Mr. Tierney, and myself. If there was really
any further design in such communication than to feel our pulse and alarm
his Ministers at the possibility of a change, that design proved quite
abortive. Lord Grey justly remarked in a letter, November 21, 1820, that
it was impossible for the King and his Ministers to separate, however
much they might hate one another.
The Queen’s advisers and partizans, miscalling the cessation of all
proceedings an acquittal, were busily endeavouring to set up her Court
in rivalry to that of her husband. She gave dinners and had parties; but
she had neither a case, a character, nor friends, to enable her to play
that game with success; and some ladies of rank and character wrote their
names at her door, or even on invitation dined at Brandenburg House, but
none took office in her household. It was manifest that her station in
fashionable society could never be made either brilliant or comfortable
to herself or her visitors.
Whatever might be her failure in London society the agitation in the
country continued. Numberless meetings were held, which passed petitions
for the introduction of her name in the Liturgy, and pointed more or
less directly to the removal of Ministers who advised the prosecution.
If I may judge from the two which I was prevailed upon to attend—those
of Bedfordshire and Oxfordshire—the enthusiasm in her cause had not
abated in the country for several months after the failure of the bill.
Yet perhaps in the course of the winter, and yet more manifestly during
the early part of the ensuing year, the tide of popularity was on the
turn. Her exhibition at St. Paul’s and the King’s re-appearance at
the public theatres had very opposite effects. The first weakened the
interest engaged in her cause, and the latter softened in some degree
the displeasure felt against him. She, on November 29, proceeded to St.
Paul’s to return thanks and take the Sacrament. She thereby scandalised
many religious persons, who deemed it a profanation of a holy rite, and
she disgusted the indifferent, who regarded it as a piece of needless
hypocrisy. The King, three months afterwards, mustered courage to show
himself in public, and his reception at the theatres in February, though
neither brilliant nor striking, indicated plainly enough that the popular
frenzy was subsiding.[302]
All this preceded and accounted for the comparative flatness with which
her subsequent endeavours to revive popular feeling at the Coronation,
and even her death and funeral, with all their exciting circumstances,
were received in the course of a short year from the period of her
prosecution. The King’s asperity was not so speedily mitigated as the
people’s disrelish of it; for when in the ensuing year the intelligence
of the death of Napoleon, which arrived before the Queen was taken ill,
was announced to him in the ambiguous terms—“I have, Sir, to congratulate
you: your greatest enemy is dead,” he unguardedly exclaimed, “Is _she_,
by God?” thus betraying the gradation in which personal spite ranged
above political enmity in his narrow and pitiful mind.
In 1820 died Sir Arthur Pigott,[303] a high-minded man and sound lawyer,
who combined real philosophy with considerable eloquence, acuteness,
and learning; and who, although in all exigencies, public and private,
singularly serviceable to his friends and party, was too unobtrusive to
acquire the celebrity to which his rare attainments and elevated mind
certainly entitled him. His appearance was indeed uncouth; and both in
figure and his face it was said that anatomists could trace affinity to
the African race.[304] If so, he afforded practical proof that the narrow
theory which denies capacity to that affectionate people is as erroneous
as it is uncharitable. I have heard that, at an early period of his
professional life, he had been a solitary instance of a contemporary or
rival at the Bar unfairly treated by Lord Erskine. He was certainly among
the many whom that extraordinary advocate, by bursting out into a sudden
blaze, eclipsed and for a while seemed to extinguish.
About the time of his death, Lord Erskine, who had involved himself
in many embarrassments, pecuniary and domestic, was making the last
exhibition in public worthy of his former fame. He moved on July 24,
on the eve of the examination relating to the Queen, that a list of
the witnesses should be forthwith delivered to the Queen to enable her
to prepare her defence; but in his subsequent attempt to sum up the
evidence he was interrupted in his speech by a loss of recollection, the
consequence, as he thought, of sudden and severe illness. He recovered,
however, to all appearance. The two or three years he survived added
little to his happiness and less to his reputation.
Here then in 1820 closed his singular career, and here a friendly
chronicler may feel pleasure in retracing the lines of his character.
Few lives have been more useful to the laws of his country, and none
more serviceable to his contemporaries, and, indeed, to the liberties
of mankind, than Lord Erskine’s. His wonderful exertions in the trials
of 1794[305] stemmed the torrent of political violence, which was
rapidly rising. In my conscience I believe, that had Horne Tooke and his
associates fallen victims to a charge of constructive treason, it would
not have been long ere the first men in the country, and among them
perhaps the very individuals who instituted the proceedings, would have
followed their fate; for a system of political vengeance and persecution
as merciless, though in an opposite direction from Robespierre’s, would
have been inevitably established. From such scenes I believe we were
protected chiefly by the successful genius of Erskine. His character
was as extraordinary as his career. Who ever attained so suddenly
such celebrity at the Bar? Who ever held it longer? Who owed it more
undeniably to brilliant talents and amiable virtues? Who, above all,
ever exercised in that profession such superiority, with such uniform
amenity of manners, such magnanimity to young and old, to inferiors and
followers, to equals and rivals—in short, to all who approached him?
In a career whose very essence is contention, it is marvellous how little
angry passion of any kind he either betrayed or provoked. His triumphs
(and who had more?) wounded nobody. His disappointments (and he had his
share) never fretted and hardly ruffled him. It is said he has left
memoirs of his early and professional life. If they relate exclusively to
passages in his professional career (to which I earnestly exhorted him
to confine himself), they will be not only curious but invaluable. If
they embrace politics and private life, they must, I fear, disappoint the
world; and they will certainly surprise and divert rather than instruct
or enlighten his readers. Yet he was a clear and pleasant writer,
when the subject he treated of was such as suited his powers. Even in
politics, in which he was anything but sedate or wise, what was miscalled
his failure in Parliament should not have occasioned a neglect of his
printed speeches. They were often very finished performances; but those
delivered at the bar, and afterwards edited by himself, are absolute
models of forensic eloquence. They abound in beauties. They have pathos,
vehemence, wit, and fancy, and, above all, an originality of mind which
they who knew him little and late could hardly imagine to have been in
him. Truth is, he was a phenomenon throughout. Well might Mr. Robert
Smith say that he knew not why God Almighty should have been at the pains
of making a _nisi prius_ lawyer, but he certainly had been and succeeded,
when Erskine was formed. Vain even to a proverb, he seldom, very seldom,
mortified the vanity, and he _never_ grudged or envied the success, of
any other man.
Destitute of all classical education, and consequently debarred from
all familiarity with the great models of poetry and oratory, he was yet
remarkable in public and private for the taste and purity of his diction.
After serving in two active professions, the Navy and the Army, and
speaking broad Scotch at the age of 22, he, in the course of five years
from that time, was scarcely more distinguished for any other branch of
oratory than the grace of his delivery and the beauty and correctness of
his elocution. His sagacity and discretion _in a cause_ were unrivalled,
but they scarcely exceeded his levity and impudence _out of it_. His
judgment and dexterity in other men’s affairs equalled, but it could
not surpass, his simplicity and childishness, not to say silliness, in
the management of his own. No one gave him credit for much sensibility
or very strong affections. Yet the zeal, the earnestness, the energy,
with which he espoused the interests of a client, the light-hearted
playfulness with which he enlivened the gravest deliberations, his
sweetness of temper and gracefulness of manner, made him a welcome
associate in all companies and the intimate friend of some of the wisest
and best of his contemporaries. His public principles were unquestionably
of no very inflexible kind. They had, perhaps, never been very deeply
considered, and yet honour or accident, the recollections of early life,
and an unaffected deference for the more comprehensive genius of Mr.
Fox, which, vain as he was, he never disputed or regretted, rendered him
one of the most consistent party men of our days, at least, among those
who from lawyers have become politicians.
In short, in drawing his character one might go on with one endless
antithesis; and it is not the least remarkable circumstance about him
that, in spite of apparent contradictions in his composition, there
scarcely ever was a man on the great theatre of the world about whose
qualities, moral and intellectual, all persons and parties were more
generally agreed. I have chosen to close his character here, for there
was nothing in the last years of his life on which a friend could dwell
with any satisfaction, though there was nothing on which a biographer or
historian could be called upon to dilate. He died in very embarrassed,
not to say indigent, circumstances in 1823.
Though the Session of 1820, of which I am now speaking, was engrossed
with the Queen’s business, time was found by the Ministers to pass an
Act for continuing that odious and unconstitutional law called the Alien
Bill. I did my best, but in vain, to rouse some feeling against it. I
was left in a minority of seven. On the other hand, a just and necessary
amendment of the Marriage [Act] was, after some discussion, lost in the
Lords,[306] though the earnestness and home truths of Lord Westmorland
and the eloquence of Lord Ellenborough in its favour made an impression
which ensured some success in that work of mercy and justice on a future
occasion.
But though the legislation of this country was torpid during 1820, the
Continent of Europe was not so inert. The Spanish Constitution of 1812
ran like wildfire through the south of Europe.[307] It was proclaimed
at Naples, where no copy of it was to be found, and within a month it
was adopted in Portugal likewise. The Emperor of Russia and the other
members of the Holy Alliance were not unmindful of these events. They
signified their apprehension of such revolutionary movements, and,
obliquely threatening some efforts to suppress them, called on their
Allies to meet at Laybach to take the state of affairs in Italy into
serious consideration. Accordingly, at the commencement of 1821, and on
the opening of Parliament in January, the Government and the two Houses
seemed once more occupied with questions affecting the interests of
Europe. They were, indeed, diversified by the county meetings praying
for the restoration of the Queen’s name to the Liturgy, to which I have
already adverted.
The Duke of Wellington began to take a greater part in debate than
hitherto, and, I suspect, in Council, too, after Mr. Canning had
withdrawn. In a speech in the House of Lords he ventured on a paradox
which shocked the friends of freedom exceedingly. He maintained that open
public meetings were an absolute farce, and pretended that resolutions
and addresses got up in private, which had been pretty generally resorted
to with a view to counteract the impression of those voted in public, and
which were much branded as hole-and-corner petitions, were more deserving
the attention of Parliament.
Mr. Canning, who had absented himself while the Queen’s Bill was pending,
actually resigned in December. He had received the King’s permission
to do so. It may be said to have been matter of agreement with him
and the King, as appears from a letter written by him to one of his
constituents.[308] But the publication of that letter was not agreed to
or permitted, and gave His Majesty much umbrage. So much so, that Mr.
Canning was obliged to explain and to accuse the poet Campbell, in whose
magazine it first appeared,[309] of a breach of confidence or, at least,
of discourtesy for printing it without his authority. It is possible that
Mr. Canning’s retirement from the Cabinet at that critical moment in some
degree facilitated the measures of the Holy Alliance, who then or shortly
afterwards determined to trample on the rising liberties of Italy,
and succeeded in their iniquitous projects through the pusillanimous
treachery of the King of Naples and the irresolute, if not insidious,
connivance of the French and English Cabinets.[310] It is true, however,
that Lord Liverpool and Lord Castlereagh, both in speeches and public
papers, unequivocally disclaimed all participation in the proceedings
against Naples, and all sanction or approbation of the principles of the
Congress of Laybach.