(1815—1837)
Source.—William Cobbett's Rural Rides, ed. by Mr. Pitt Cobbett, 1885. Letter to Mr. Jabet of the "Birmingham Register," Nov., 1816. The reformers have yet many and powerful foes; we have to contend against a host, such as never existed before in the world. Nine-tenths of the Press, all the channels of speedy communication of sentiment; all the pulpits; all the associations of rich people; all the taxing people; all the military and naval establishments; all the yeomanry cavalry tribes. Your allies are endless in number and mighty in influence. But we have one ally worth the whole of them put together, namely the Debt! This is an ally whom no honours or rewards can seduce from us. She is a steady, unrelaxing, persevering, incorruptible ally. An ally that is proof against all blandishments, all intrigues, all temptations, and all open attacks. She sets at defiance all 'military,' all 'yeomanry cavalry.' They may as well fire at a ghost. She cares no more for the sabres of the yeomanry or the life guards than Milton's angels did for the swords of Satan's myrmidons. This ally cares not a straw about spies and informers. She laughs at the employment of secret-service money. She is always erect, day and night, and is always firmly moving on in our cause, in spite of all the terrors of gaols, dungeons, halters and axes. Therefore, Mr. Jabet, be not so pert. The combat is not so unequal as you seem to imagine; and, confident and insolent as you are now, the day of your humiliation may not be far distant."
Source.—Life and Correspondence of Lord Sidmouth, by Dean Pellew. Vol. III. p. 142. London, 1847. Letter from Viscount Exmouth on defeat of Barbary Pirates. "Queen Charlotte,
Algier's Bay, August 30th, 1816. "My dear Lord Sidmouth, "I perfectly remember, in your office, pledging myself to you for the destruction of the Algerine navy. I am happy to inform you I have redeemed my pledge, and am in whole bones, as is also my opponent the Dey. His chastisement, however, has humbled him to the dust; and he would receive me, if I chose it, on the Mole, upon his knees. "You will readily believe how much I regret the sad loss we have sustained: 883 out of 6500 is a large proportion; but we were exposed to almost a complete circle of fire. I can only enclose you the copy of my memorandum to-day to the fleet, and beg you to believe that I consider this the happiest event of my fortunate life. One thousand liberated slaves, just arrived from the country whither the Dey had driven them, are now cheering on the Mole. The consul has been cruelly treated, and the Dey been compelled to beg his pardon, before his full court, by the dictation of my captain. "God bless you, my dear Lord. I hope to reach England before October, and am ever your most faithful friend and servant, "Exmouth."
Source.—Annual Register, 1816. The hon. member rose to move for the production of a copy of the treaty concluded at Paris on September 26th between Austria, Russia, and Prussia. By the tenor of this treaty, expressed in the most devout and solemn language, the three potentates, members of three different Christian churches, declared in the face of the world their resolution both in the administration of their own states, and in their political relations with other Governments, to take for their sole guide the precepts of the holy religion taught by our Saviour. In consequence, they signed an agreement to three articles, the first of which bound them to a fraternity of mutual friendship and assistance, and the common protection of religion, peace and justice, which in the second was explained in a kind of mystical strain, to notify that they regarded themselves as delegated by Providence to govern three branches of one and the same Christian nation, of which the Divine Being under his three characters was the sole real sovereign; and the third declared a readiness to receive into this holy alliance all the powers who should solemnly avow the sacred principles which had dictated it. Politicians were much at a loss to conceive the occasion and purpose of a treaty, at the same time so serious and so indefinite, which appeared to bind the subscribers to nothing more than to act upon those general principles which, as Christian princes, they had always held forth as the rule of their conduct. It was understood that its immediate cause was an impression made upon the mind of the emperor Alexander, whose peculiar zeal in the project was displayed by a manifesto issued on Christmas day, and signed by his own hand, in which he made public the engagement which the three powers had entered into, and which he interpreted to be a reciprocal league of peace and amity upon Christian principles for the general good. Mr. Brougham prefaced his motion with reasons why he thought it material that inquiry should be made respecting the above treaty, instancing the circumstances of its having been contracted by three powers, our allies, without our participation; of its having received the signatures of the sovereigns themselves, whereas all other treaties had been ratified by the medium of diplomatic agents; of being apparently uncalled for, since the attachment of the contracting parties to the Christian religion had never been questioned. He adverted to the union of the same powers for the partition of Poland, on which occasion the empress Catherine had employed in the proclamations language similar to that of the treaty. He concluded by moving an address to the Prince Regent, that he would be pleased to give directions that a copy of the treaty would be laid before the House. Lord Castlereagh who had previously admitted to the authenticity of the document moved for, after adducing, from the result of the preceding union of these sovereigns, arguments against regarding them with suspicion, informed the hon. gentlemen, that instead of any secrecy in their proceedings on the present occasion, the emperor of Russia had communicated to him a draft of the proposed treaty, he believed, before it had been communicated to the other sovereigns; and that after its signature a joint-letter had been addressed by them to the Prince Regent, stating the grounds on which it had been concluded, and anxiously desiring his accession to it: that his Royal Highness in reply had expressed his satisfaction at the nature of the treaty, and his assurance that the British Government would not be the one least disposed to act up to its principles. His lordship then went into a panegyric of the emperor of Russia, and finally characterised the motion as wholly unnecessary and of dangerous tendency if the confederacy could be shaken by attempts to degrade the sovereigns of Europe by unfounded imputations. On a division of the House, the motion was rejected by a majority of 104 to 30. The public opinion concerning this extraordinary treaty seems to have corresponded with that expressed by the hon. Mr. Bennet in his speech: "that the only motive which the noble lord could have for refusing its production was, that he was ashamed of it and of our allies."
Source.—The Political Life of Sir Robert Peel, by Thomas Doubleday. London, 1856. Vol. I. pp. 169-172. In the course of a debate on the army estimates in February, 1816, the Irish Secretary entered into the following extraordinary details on the employment of the soldiery in Ireland in the suppression of illicit distillation, as well as of insurrectionary movements in the wilder districts of Ireland: "It must not be forgotten (said Mr. Peel) that the employment of a military force in Ireland, under existing circumstances, is calculated to save the government of that country from the necessity of recurring to those measures of civil rigour which parliament had sanctioned with its approbation. In some districts, where the military was not employed, they had been compelled to suspend trial by jury, under the operation of the Insurrection Act; but every one would allow that it was better to deter from the commission of crime than to transport for it. If they could succeed in deterring these, there was not the necessity to proclaim certain districts. What he asserted was no visionary speculation. Events, such as he now described, were passing at that moment. The Act to which he alluded had been applied to several baronies in Tipperary, upon the unanimous application of forty of the magistrates. He believed he was right in saying the unanimous application. In some cases, indeed, it had been refused; but he knew as a fact, that not less than seventy-six magistrates of that county, united for the paramount object of maintaining the public peace, had applied to government for the application of that bill. A similar course had been pursued in the county of Westmeath. It was proposed in some counties to remove the soldiers; but the answer was by the magistrates, 'If you remove the troops you must give us the Insurrection Act, as it will be impossible to do without it.' Even on constitutional grounds, therefore, and as calculated to prevent a recurrence to these really severe measures, he would venture to appeal to the House for its approbation of the alternative of employing the military to aid the civil power. With respect to its employment in another way, by doing the duty of custom-house officers, he wished to observe that this system had prevailed in Ireland at least as far back as in 1799. At that period, a regulation for the employment of a military force in that service was adopted. It was stated to be imperatively necessary for the suppression of illicit distillation; and it was further ordered, that any officer hesitating to employ his men on that service should be brought to a court-martial for disobedience of orders. He stated that, to prove the propriety of a remark made at the commencement of his address, that even if it should be thought that the introduction of a military force was a vicious practice, it was at all events unavoidable without the accomplishment of other essential reforms. "He should now state the extent to which the military arm had been so employed, and in order also to show that it had not been the policy of one single government merely, he should mention that, in 1806, under the government of the honourable gentlemen opposite, 448 military parties were employed in detecting and frustrating the practice of illicit distillation; in 1807 there were 598 military parties; in 1808 there were 431; in later periods still more; and in the half-year ending the 31st December, 1815, there were 1889. No one, he presumed, would deny that the morals and habits of the lower classes were not only corrupted by the dreadful extent to which that illicit distillation was carried, but that the laws of the country were violated, and that the revenue was greatly diminished by it. In order that the House might be enabled to judge of the character of those who carried on those practices, as well as of the danger attending their detection or apprehension, he would mention one circumstance that came within his own knowledge. In a district in the north-west of Ireland well known to the gentlemen of that country as one where illicit distillation is carried on to an enormous excess, frequent seizures were made by parties of twenty to forty men, who generally had to risk an actual engagement with the offenders. In one instance he recollected the soldiers were fired at, and no less than two hundred rounds of musketry were discharged in their own defence. They succeeded in their seizures, however, but on their return were again attacked, their seizures taken from them, and they themselves obliged to seek shelter in a house on the road, where they maintained a contest with the assailants till they were relieved by two hundred men who were marched to their assistance. Such occurrences sufficiently showed the necessity of employing a military force, but he would again guard against its being supposed that he considered these temporary remedies as at all calculated to afford any permanent relief. He was as fully convinced of their inadequacy in that respect as any honourable member could be; but whilst that disposition to turbulence existed, would it be contended that the crimes connected with it ought to go unpunished? Would it be said that desperate bands that roamed about the country at night ought to remain unmolested? "Perhaps it would be said that the course of policy hitherto pursued in Ireland was a bad one. Let that be granted, then, for the sake of argument; still, was it possible to remove the evils of that bad and imperfect policy in an hour—or by the 25th of April? Would it be possible, even to gentlemen opposite, to change on a sudden the whole habits and manners of so large a class of the community, and to introduce, as by magic, a radical and effectual reform? It was utterly impossible. He was perfectly satisfied of the inefficiency of these temporary remedies, but meanwhile the hand of the robber must be arrested, or else the whole frame of civilized society must be now dissolved, and a residence in Ireland be rendered absolutely impracticable. He was of opinion that good might be done in that country by a reformation of the police, and he should prefer an army of police if he might so call it, to a military army. He deeply regretted the very imperfect character of the police in Ireland. Since he had the honour of filling the station he occupied, he had turned much of his attention to the subject of police, and proposed alterations which the House had sanctioned. Real, substantial, and permanent reform, however, amongst the lower classes, could be looked for only from the general diffusion of knowledge, and from enlightening their minds. From such sources of reform he anticipated the grandest and the noblest results. (Hear, hear, hear.) He could state it as a fact within his own knowledge, that the greatest eagerness for instruction prevailed amongst the lower classes. It was the duty of every one, even in these times of economy, not to obstruct the progress or the limits of education, which ought to be as widely as possible diffused. It would be infinitely better for Ireland and for this country to have a well instructed and enlightened Catholic population than an ignorant and a bigoted one!" Hansard's Debates, Vol. XXXII. pp. 926, 1816.
Source.—Life and Correspondence of Lord Sidmouth, by Dean Pellew. Vol. III. p. 242. London, 1847. Letter from Earl of Sheffield to Lord Sidmouth. "Sheffield Place, Dec. 13th, 1818. "My dear Lord, "Although I doubt not your Lordship has ample information, I cannot resist the pleasure of communicating the very satisfactory accounts I have received from different parts, of the state of trade and manufactures, and particularly from the neighbourhood of Birmingham, Warwickshire, and Staffordshire. Both trade and manufactures are in a flourishing condition, and likely to improve still further. There appears to be little speculation beyond the regular demands of the different markets, men without adequate capital finding it almost impossible to procure credit; so that there is now no disposition to force a trade, and no injurious competition among the merchants to procure the execution of orders, and, consequently, wages are fair and reasonable. I conceive that things cannot be in a much better train either for the merchant or manufacturer, not so for the constitution or agriculture of the country: the first, I fear, is en dÉcadence; the case, however, of the latter is somewhat better than it was, though far short of that of the trading part of the community. The demand for land is considerably increased, but in many instances at reduced rents. Agriculture, the most essential of all concerns, is so extremely depressed by the great increase of tithes and of parochial rates, that I cannot refrain from being its strenuous advocate: and so strongly am I impressed with the evil consequences of the excessive load of such taxation on the landed interests, and particularly on the occupiers in the southern and midland parts of England, that it is wonderful to me that agriculture has not been in those districts annihilated; and there is nothing of which I am more thoroughly convinced than the necessity of affording it every relief and encouragement possible. I do not conceive that the subject of the corn laws can be renewed at present with advantage. The ignorance and supineness of the landowners generally is so excessive; the violence of the middling and lower classes so overbearing; the use made of it by the popularity hunters of all descriptions so pernicious and vile; the fears of government so great, and at the same time so natural, that, upon the whole, I do not entertain a hope of any beneficial results from any efforts that are now making, or may be made, for a considerable time. It is greatly to be regretted, however, that in the last correction of the corn laws, foreign grain, under any circumstances, should be admitted duty free; it would have been sufficient to have lowered the import duties, as to wheat, when the price in our market was 5l. per quarter; but I by no means wish ministers so soon to be embroiled again on that subject, nor do I think, earnest as I am on this head, that this is the proper time to renew the discussion, or to attempt a change with respect to the duties. I would not, however, wish to damp the ardour of those who urge the principle, that every thing arising from the soil, and every manufacture of the country, should be protected by adequate import duties; as that principle is generally observed with regard to every article except wool, and must be in a country so heavily tithed, and necessarily burdened with such an extraordinary degree of taxation. Previously to the year 1793, no direct or assessed tax, affecting agriculture, was tolerated, and surely it is now expedient, whenever possible, to relinquish those taxes which particularly affect that most essential interest of the country, and to adopt such other measures as will enable it to support the heavy imposts which fall upon it. The legislature might now show attention to the grievances of the occupiers of land, by relinquishing all the direct taxes imposed on agriculture during the late war; and it will only be common justice to protect the wool of the country from being debased in value, by the import of wool from every part of the world free of duty, and it is not difficult to demonstrate that a moderate duty on the import of foreign wool would not affect, even in a slight degree, the great mass of our woollen manufacture.... The levity of the public on the most interesting and important subjects is often not only very extraordinary, but even ridiculous. The well-founded alarm on the ruinous and impolitic management of the poor, which appeared to make a deep and general impression, seems now to be forgotten except by the oppressed occupiers of lands, who so severely feel the effects of it. The public mind is not yet ripe for such a great measure as might prove an effectual remedy; but in the meantime I think something might be done. Is your Lordship disposed to repeal all the laws relating to the poor (heterogeneous, discordant, impracticable, unintelligible, and absurd as they are), to the 43d of Elizabeth, and to re-enact all those parts of them which the circumstances of the times may require (defining the powers of the magistrates, the parish officers, and the claims of the poor), and form them into a regular intelligible code? for I verily believe there is not one magistrate, nor any clerk (who governs him) who is acquainted with them all. I believe I am one of the oldest magistrates in the kingdom, being in my fiftieth year, and yet I have never met with any man who seemed fully acquainted with them. If an intelligent select committee, having a practical knowledge of the subject (without which the ablest men are not competent to it), could be induced to undertake this work, I have no doubt but that a law could be so framed as to lead to a great amelioration of our present vile system, if not gradually to a complete remedy. But I must not impose more of my notions on your Lordship. You must be now quite tired of me. If you think there is any thing in this letter worthy of Lord Liverpool's attention, I wish it to be communicated to him; but as I inflicted on his Lordship some time ago a large dose respecting the poor, I refrain from a direct communication. I am, seemingly, as well as ever I was; but I must not risk myself in town before the end of March, except for two nights on the meeting of parliament, in order to take my seat and enable me to leave a proxy. I have the honour to be, with very sincere regard, my dear Lord, most truly your Lordship's faithful servant, "Sheffield."
Source.—The London Medical Repository, Vol. X. p. 267. George Man Burrows on Parish Registers. But I must reiterate, that it will be a work of supererogation to offer either remarks or proposals for establishing improved registers of marriages, births, baptisms, burials, diseases, &c. or for attaining any of the other objects upon which I have dilated, unless all denominations of religion in the whole of the united kingdom be included. On recapitulation, it appears that the principal defects in the present system are: 1. Registers of marriages, births, baptisms, and burials, or bills of mortality are not kept in every place of religious worship; nor in hospitals and infirmaries having private burying-grounds. 2. Children who die unbaptized are not entered in any register or bill of mortality. 3. Registers of baptism do not set forth the place and date of birth. 4. Registers of burial do not specify where a person died, as well as where he lived, nor his condition, whether single, married, or widowed. 5. There is no certificate provided, showing in what parish a person died, with other necessary particulars, as to age, the disease, &c. 6. A corpse may be removed from a parish within the bills of mortality of London to one without, and the burial be omitted in the returns. 7. There is no medical authority for ascertaining and certifying the nature of the disease of which a person died, &c. 8. The names of diseases in the bills of mortality are either unintelligible, or so arranged as to confound diseases very distinct in their characters. 9. In respect to ages, the periods are injudiciously divided; so that many of the purposes to which the bills are applicable in medical and political science are defeated. 10. The law enforcing the keeping of Registers is defective; and does not adequately regard political, civil, or medical information. 11. All parishes and places of worship within that circle denominated the bills of mortality of London, are not included in the weekly or general annual returns; nor is there any existing authority to enforce their being made, and regularly entered.
Among some of the advantages in medical, political, and moral science, which would result, were proper parochial registers and bills of mortality established and kept throughout the united kingdom, the following present: I. Medically.—They point out: 1. The causes of many diseases, and their affinity to one another. 2. The rise, situation, increase, decrease, and cessation of epidemic and contagious diseases. 3. The means of guarding against their extension and effects. 4. The comparative healthiness of different countries and places, climates and seasons. 5. The influence of particular trades and manufactures on the human constitution. 6. They elucidate many important and dubious medical points essential to the perfection of the preventive and curative arts. II. Politically.—They are a means: 1. Of ascertaining the increment or decrement of the population in every place, and at any period. 2. Of accurately ascertaining the population of the country, and at any period. 3. Of diminishing, if not nearly superseding, the immense expense incurred by a census. 4. Of obviating the difficulties, great expense, and frequent disappointment in proving marriages, births, baptisms, and burials, to which persons who are desirous of establishing legal proof of their identity, descent, consanguinity, &c. are still exposed. 5. The present extensive and beneficial system of assurance on lives, reversionary payments, annuities, and legacy duties on the latter species of testamentary property, is founded on calculations deduced from numerous bills of mortality. 6. The prosperity or decay of commerce, manufactures, or trade of any place, is shown by comparing bills of mortality of different dates. III. Morally.—They mark: 1. The prevalence of moral or licentious habits. 2. The diseases of which the inhabitants of a place die; and, consequently, those arising from luxury or intemperance. 3. The effects of the passions on human actions. 4. By knowing where they are most required, the means of correcting such effects may be the more effectually applied.
Source.—Life and Correspondence of Lord Sidmouth, by Dean Pellew. Vol. III. p. 253. London, 1847. Letter of Sir Wm. Jolliffe to Thos. G. B. Estcourt. "9 St. James's Place, April 11th, 1845. "My dear Sir, "Twenty-five years have passed since the collision unfortunately occurred between the population of Manchester and its neighbourhood, and the military stationed in that town, on the 16th of August, 1819. "I was at that time a lieutenant in the 15th King's Hussars, which regiment had been quartered in Manchester cavalry barracks about six weeks. This was my first acquaintance with a large manufacturing population. I had little knowledge of the condition of that population; whether or no a great degree of distress was then prevalent, or whether or no the distrust and bad feeling, which appeared to exist between the employers and employed, was wholly or in part caused by the agitation of political questions. I will not, therefore, enter into any speculations upon these points; but I will endeavour to narrate the facts which fell under my own observation, although acting, as of course I was, under the command of others, and in a subordinate situation. The military force stationed in Manchester consisted of six troops of the 15th Hussars, under the command of Colonel Dalrymple; one troop of horse artillery, with two guns, under Major Dyneley; nearly the whole of the 31st regiment, under Colonel Guy L'Estrange (who commanded the whole force as senior officer). Some companies of the 88th regiment, and the Cheshire yeomanry, had also been brought into the town, in anticipation of disturbances which might result from the expected meeting; and these latter had only arrived on the morning of the 16th, or a few hours previously; and, lastly, there was a troop of Manchester yeomanry cavalry, consisting of about forty members, who, from the manner in which they were made use of (to say the least), greatly aggravated the disasters of the day. Their ranks were filled chiefly by wealthy master manufacturers; and, without the knowledge which would have been possessed by a (strictly speaking) military body, they were placed, most unwisely, as it appeared, under the immediate command and orders of the civil authorities. "Our regiment paraded in field-exercise order at about half-past eight, or, it might be, nine o'clock a.m. Two squadrons of it were marched into the town about ten o'clock. They were formed up and dismounted in a wide street, the name of which I forget, to the north of St. Peter's Field (the place appointed for the meeting), and at the distance of nearly a quarter of a mile from it. The Cheshire yeomanry were formed, on our left, in the same street. One troop of our regiment was attached to the artillery, which took up a position between the cavalry barracks and the town; and one troop remained in charge of the barracks. "The two squadrons with which I was stationed must have remained dismounted nearly two hours. During the greater portion of that period, a solid mass of people continued moving along a street about a hundred yards to our front, on their way to the place of meeting. Other officers, as well as myself, occasionally rode to the front (to the end of a street) to see them pass. They marched, at a brisk pace, in ranks well closed up, five or six bands of music being interspersed; and there appeared to be but few women with them. Mr. Hunt, with two or three other men, and, I think, two women dressed in light blue and white, were in an open carriage, drawn by the people. This carriage was adorned with blue and white flags; and the day was fine and hot. As soon as the great bulk of the procession had passed, we were ordered to stand to our horses. In a very short time afterwards the four troops of the 15th mounted, and at once moved off by the right, at a trot which was increased to a canter. Some one who had been sent from the place of meeting to bring us up led the way, through a number of narrow streets and by a circuitous route, to (what I will call) the south-west corner of St. Peter's Field. We advanced along the south side of this space of ground, without a halt or pause even: the words 'Front!' and 'Forward!' were given, and the trumpet sounded the charge at the very moment the threes wheeled up. When fronted, our line extended quite across the ground, which, in all parts, was so filled with people that their hats seemed to touch. "It was then, for the first time, that I saw the Manchester troop of yeomanry: they were scattered singly, or in small groups, over the greater part of the field, literally hemmed up, and hedged into the mob, so that they were powerless either to make an impression or to escape; in fact, they were in the power of those whom they were designed to overawe; and it required only a glance to discover their helpless position, and the necessity of our being brought to their rescue. As I was, at the time, informed, this hopeless state of things happened thus: A platform had been erected near the centre of the field, from which Mr. Hunt and others were to address the multitude; and the magistrates, having ordered a strong body of constables to be in readiness to arrest the speakers, unfortunately imagined that they should support the peace officers by bringing up this troop of yeomanry at a walk. The result of this movement, instead of that which the magistrates desired, was unexpectedly to place this small body of horsemen (so introduced into a dense mob) entirely at the mercy of the people by whom they were, on all sides, pressed upon and surrounded. "The charge of the hussars, to which I have just alluded, swept this mingled mass of human beings before it: people, yeoman and constables, in their confused attempts to escape, ran one over the other; so that by the time we had arrived at the end of the field, the fugitives were literally piled up to a considerable elevation above the level of the ground. (I may here, by the way, state that this field, as it is called, was merely an open space of ground, surrounded by buildings and itself, I rather think, in course of being built upon.) The hussars drove the people forward with the flats of their swords; but sometimes, as is almost inevitably the case when men are placed in such situations, the edge was used, both by the hussars, and, as I have heard, by the yeomen also; but of this latter fact, however, I was not cognisant; and believing though I do, that nine out of ten of the sabre wounds were caused by the hussars, I must still consider that it redounds highly to the humane forbearance of the men of the 15th that more wounds were not received, when the vast numbers are taken into consideration with whom they were brought into hostile collision; beyond all doubt, however, the far greater amount of injuries arose from the pressure of the routed multitude. The hussars on the left, pursued down the various streets which led from the place; those on the right met with something more of resistance. The mob had taken possession of various buildings on that side, particularly of a Quaker's chapel and burial-ground enclosed with a wall. This they occupied for some little time; and, in attempting to displace them, some of the men and horses were struck with stones and brick-bats. I was on the left; and as soon as I had passed completely over the ground, and found myself in the street on the other side, I turned back, and then, seeing a sort of fight still going on on the right, I went in that direction. At the very moment I reached the Quaker's meeting-house, I saw a farrier of the 15th ride at a small door in the outer wall, and, to my surprise, his horse struck it with such force that it flew open: two or three hussars then rode in, and the place was immediately in their possession. I then turned towards the elevated platform, which still remained in the centre of the field with persons upon it: a few struggling hussars and yeomen, together with a number of men having the appearance of peace officers, were congregating upon it. On my way thither I met the commanding officer of my regiment, who directed me to find a trumpeter, in order that he might sound the 'rally' or 'retreat.' This sent me again down the street I had first been in (after the pursuing men of my troop); but I had not ridden above a hundred yards before I found a trumpeter, and returned with him to the Colonel. The field and the adjacent streets now presented an extraordinary sight: the ground was quite covered with hats, shoes, sticks, musical instruments, and other things. Here and there lay the unfortunates who were too much injured to move away; and this sight was rendered the more distressing by observing some women among the sufferers. "Standing near the corner of the street where I had been sent in search of a trumpeter, a brother officer called my attention to a pistol being fired from a window. I saw it fired twice; and I believe it had been fired once before I observed it. "Some of the 31st regiment, just now arriving on the ground, were ordered to take possession of this house; but I do not know if it was carried into effect. "I next went towards a private of the regiment, whose horse had fallen over a piece of timber nearly in the middle of the square, and who was most seriously injured. There were many of these pieces of timber (or timber trees) lying upon the ground; and as these could not be distinguished when the mob covered them, they had caused bad falls to one officer's horse and to many of the troopers'. "While I was attending to the removal of the wounded soldier, the artillery troop, with the troop of hussars attached to it, arrived on the ground from the same direction by which we had entered the field: these were quickly followed by the Cheshire yeomanry. The 31st regiment came in another direction; and the whole remained formed up until our squadrons had fallen in again. "Carriages were brought to convey the wounded to the Manchester Infirmary; and the troop of hussars, which came up with the guns, was marched off to escort to the gaol a number of persons who had been arrested, and among these Mr. Hunt. For some time the town was patrolled by the troops, the streets being nearly empty, and the shops, for the most part, closed. We then returned to the barracks. I should not omit to mention, that, before the men were dismissed, the arms were minutely examined; and that no carbine or pistol was found to have been fired, and only one pistol to have been loaded. About eight o'clock p.m., one squadron of the 15th Hussars (two troops) was ordered on duty to form part of a strong night picket, the other part of which consisted of two companies of the 88th regiment. This picket was stationed at a place called the New Cross, at the end of Oldham Street. As soon as it had taken up its position a mob assembled about it, which increased as the darkness came on: stones were thrown at the soldiers; the hussars many times cleared the ground by driving the mob up the streets leading from the New Cross. But these attempts to get rid of the annoyance were only successful for the moment; for the people got through the houses or narrow passages from one street into another, and the troops were again attacked, and many men and horses struck with stones. This lasted nearly an hour and a half; and the soldiers being more and more pressed upon, a town magistrate, who was with the picket, read the Riot Act, and the officer in command ordered the 88th to fire (which they did by platoon firing) down three of the streets. The firing lasted only a few minutes: perhaps not more than thirty shots were fired; but these had a magical effect: the mob ran away, and dispersed forthwith, leaving three or four persons on the ground with gun-shot wounds. "At four o'clock in the morning the picket squadron was relieved by another squadron of the regiment. With this latter squadron I was on duty; and after we had patrolled the town for two hours, the officer in command sent me to the magistrates (who had remained assembled during the night), to report to them that the town was perfectly quiet, and to request their sanction to the return of the military to their quarters. "On the afternoon of the 17th I visited, in company with some military medical officers, the infirmary. I saw there from twelve to twenty cases of sabre wounds; several persons that were severely crushed, and, among these, two women, who appeared not likely to recover. One man was in a dying state from a gun-shot wound in the head; another had had his leg amputated: both these casualties arose from the fire of the 88th the night before. Two or three were reputed dead; one of them, a constable, killed in St. Peter's Field; but I saw none of the bodies. "As shortly as I could, I have now related what fell under my own observation during these twenty-four hours.... I trust that I have, at least in some degree, complied with your wishes; and I beg you will believe me, my dear Sir, yours most truly, "Willm. J. Hylton Jolliffe." "To Thomas Grimston Bucknall Estcourt,
"Esq., M.P."
Source.—Works of P. B. Shelley. An old, mad, blind, despised and dying king,— Princes, the dregs of their dull race, who flow Through public scorn,—mud from a muddy spring,— Rulers who neither feel nor see nor know, But leech-like to their fainting country cling, Till they drop, blind in blood, without a blow,— A people starved and stabbed in the untilled field,— An army, which liberticide and prey Makes as a two-edged sword to all who wield,— Golden and sanguine laws which tempt and slay; Religion, Christless, Godless—a book sealed; A Senate—Time's worst statute unrepealed,— Are graves, from which a glorious phantom may Burst, to illumine our tempestuous day.
Source.—Annual Register, 1820, pp. 30-32. At last, on Saturday, the 19th of February, it was resolved at one of their meetings, that poverty did not allow them to delay their purposes any longer, and that, therefore, on the next Wednesday, the ministers should be murdered separately, each in his own house. On Sunday they arranged their plans. Forty or fifty men were to be set apart for the work of murder; and whoever failed through any fault of his own, in performing the task assigned to him, was to atone for his failure with his life. Two separate detachments were at the same time to seize two pieces of cannon stationed in Gray's-Inn-lane, and six in the artillery ground. The Mansion-house was to be proclaimed the palace of the provisional government; the Bank was to be attacked forthwith; and London was to be set fire to in different quarters. Meetings were again held on Monday and Tuesday; and on the latter day, a conspirator, named Edwards, informed Thistlewood, that there was to be a cabinet dinner on the morrow. Thistlewood, doubting the information, sent for a newspaper, and finding it announced that a cabinet dinner was to be given at lord Harrowby's house in Grosvenor-square on Wednesday evening; "As there has not been a dinner so long," said he, "there will no doubt be fourteen or sixteen there, and it will be a rare haul to murder them all together." According to the fresh arrangements now determined on, one of their number was to go with a note addressed to lord Harrowby; when the door was opened to him, a band of the conspirators were to rush in; and while some seized the servants, and prevented any one from escaping from the house, others, forcing their way into the room where the ministers were assembled, were to murder them without mercy. It was particularly specified, that the heads of lords Sidmouth and Castlereagh were to be brought away in a bag. From lord Harrowby's house two of their number were to proceed to throw fire-balls into the straw-shed of the cavalry barracks in King-street, while the rest were to co-operate in the execution of the subsequent parts of the scheme. In the meantime spies were dispatched to watch lord Harrowby's house, and to ascertain that no police officers or soldiers were concealed within it, or close to it. The next day was spent in preparations. Their weapons and ammunition were put into a state of readiness, and proclamations were written, which it was intended to fix to the houses that were to be set on fire. In the course of the day several of the infatuated wretches met, from time to time, at the old place of rendezvous; and, towards six in the evening, they assembled in a stable, situated in an obscure street, called Cato-street, in the neighbourhood of the Edgware-road. Besides the stable in the lower part, the building contained two rooms above, accessible only by a ladder, in the larger of which, a sentinel having been stationed below, the conspirators mustered, to the number of twenty-four or twenty-five, all busy in adjusting their accoutrements by the scanty light of one or two candles, and exulting in the near approach of the bloody catastrophe. All their machinations, however, were known to the very men, whom they hoped within an hour to see lying butchered at their feet. One of the conspirators, Edwards, had, for some time, been in the pay of government, to whom he communicated every step that was taken. A man, too, of the name of Hidon, who had been solicited to enter into the plot, warned lord Harrowby of it, the day before that which was fixed for carrying it into execution. The ministers took no steps which might deter or alarm the ruffians; for it would have been the height of madness to have stopped them in their career of guilt. Interruption would have saved them from punishment, by rendering it impossible to procure evidence of the atrocious nature of the plot; so that they would have been let loose upon society, ready to enter into some new scheme of murder, which, by being intrusted to a smaller, or more select number, or by being attempted with less delay, might be followed by success. The preparations for the dinner went on at lord Harrowby's house till eight in the evening, though, in fact, no dinner was to be given. In the meantime, a strong party of Bow-street constables, under the direction of Mr. Birnie, proceeded to Cato-street, where they were to be met and supported by a detachment of the Coldstream Guards. The police officers reached the spot about 8 o'clock. They immediately entered the stable, and, mounting the ladder, found the conspirators in the loft, on the point of proceeding to the execution of their scheme. The principal officer called upon them to surrender. Smithers, one of the constables, pressing forward to seize Thistlewood, was pierced, by him, through the body, and immediately fell. The lights in the loft were now extinguished; some of the conspirators rushed down the ladder, and the officers along with them; others forced their way out by a window in the back part of the premises. At this moment, the detachment of the military arrived, somewhat later than the precise time fixed. Two of the conspirators, who were in the act of escaping, were seized: by the joint exertions of the police and soldiers nine in all were taken that evening, and conveyed to Bow-street. Thistlewood was among those who had escaped, but he was arrested next morning, in bed, in a house near Finsbury-square. Some others of them were seized in the course of the next two days. On the 27th of March, true bills of indictment for high treason were found against eleven of the prisoners; and, on the 17th of April, Thistlewood was put upon his trial. The principal witness was a conspirator, of the name of Adams, who, having escaped from Cato-street, had been taken on the following Friday, and had remained in custody up to the time when he was produced in court to give evidence. After a trial which lasted three days, the accused was found guilty on those counts of indictment which charged him with having conspired to levy, and with having levied war against the King. Ings, Brunt, Tidd, and Davidson, were afterwards severally tried and convicted. The remaining six, permission to withdraw their former plea having been given, pleaded guilty. One of them, who appeared to have joined the meeting in Cato-street without being aware of its true purpose, received a pardon; the other five had their sentence commuted into transportation for life. Thistlewood, with the four whom we have named, suffered the sentence of the law, rather glorying in what they had attempted, and regretting their failure, than repenting of their atrocious guilt.
Source.—The Diary and Correspondence of Charles Abbott, Lord Colchester. London, 1861. Vol. III. p. 112. Letter from Mr. B. Wilbraham. "Portland Place, February 7th, 1820. "My dear Lord, "I am not aware that I can communicate much more information than the newspapers, if so much, but as a letter from London at a moment like the present is supposed to be interesting, I write a few lines. "The death of the poor King was not expected by the public in general, but those who were about him saw a rapid change taking place, and a loathing of nourishment and other symptoms; and when I was at Windsor three weeks ago, the Duke of York, who had not seen him for five or six days, was much affected at the change. "He died without any pain, spoke a short time before his death, and had no gleam of returning reason, which Dr. Willis then told me he would not have. Since his death we have been in some danger of losing the present King, who has been very ill of an inflammation of the chest, which was cured by his losing 130 ounces of blood. This loss would have killed you or me, but he is so accustomed to being bled, that the day after the operation was performed his pulse was at 84. He is now recovering, but I expect that his constitution will not be the better for this violent, though necessary discipline. "He held a Privy Council two days after the King's death, and was forced to exert himself, which I believe was rather against him; but he has not done anything of the sort since, and I hope he will soon recover his strength. "No political change has taken place under the circumstances of the country, but we look forward to a dissolution of Parliament; and whether it will be early or late, before the ensuing session of Parliament or after it, it is the question about which we are very anxious; though I am not of the number, it being a matter of indifference to me when I visit my Dover[1] friends. "Brougham, it is said, has sent the Queen a detailed account of her patronage, which, as you know, is considerable, and a blank patent for the office of her Attorney-General; when this returns filled up, he will form a third party in the House of Commons, and probably will be very troublesome to both the others; though the Whigs will contrive to agree with him as often as they can. "You will be glad to hear that we are as peaceable and quiet as lambs in Lancashire; that seditious printers, drillers at night, and others were found guilty by the juries at the Manchester Sessions, and were sentenced to various punishments without a single murmur being heard in Court. I understand that this implicit obedience to the laws has produced a sensation of considerable surprise on the Continent, where people imagined us on the eve of a revolution. I confess that I imagined we should not have been so quiet in the North as we are. Hunt and Co., you know, are to be tried at the Spring Lancashire Assizes.... "The Bank resumed bullion payments on the 1st February, in ingots (to the amount of £300), commonly called Ricardos; and I understand that in the first three days only three were applied for. One for Lord Thanet, one for a country banker, from curiosity, and the other I know not for whom. The price of gold is from two to three shillings below the Mint price, which accounts for this little demand. "Yours very truly,
"E. B. Wilbraham."
Source.—Annual Register, 1820. Appendix to Chronicle, p. 749. The King's Speech to the New Parliament (Thursday, April 27). "My Lords and Gentlemen; "I have taken the earliest occasion of assembling you here, after having referred to the sense of my people. "In meeting you personally, for the first time since the death of my beloved father, I am anxious to assure you, that I shall always continue to imitate his great example, in unceasing attention to the public interests, and in paternal solicitude for the welfare and happiness of all classes of my subjects. "I have received from foreign powers renewed assurances of their friendly disposition, and of their earnest desire to cultivate with me the relations of peace and amity. "Gentlemen of the House of Commons; "The estimates for the present year will be laid before you. "They have been framed upon principles of strict economy; but it is to me matter of the deepest regret that the state of the country has not allowed me to dispense with those additions to our military force which I announced at the commencement of the last session of parliament. "The first object to which your attention will be directed is the provision to be made for the support of the civil government, and of the honour and dignity of the crown. "I leave entirely at your disposal my interest in the hereditary revenues; and I cannot deny myself the gratification of declaring, that so far from desiring any arrangement which might lead to the imposition of new burthens upon my people, or even might diminish, on my account, the amount of the reductions incident to my accession to the throne, I can have no wish, under circumstances like the present, that any addition whatever should be made to the settlement adopted by parliament in the year 1816. "My Lords and Gentlemen; "Deeply as I regret that the machinations and designs of the disaffected should have led in some parts of the country to acts of open violence and insurrection, I cannot but express my satisfaction at the promptitude with which those attempts have been suppressed by the vigilance and activity of the magistrates, and by the zealous co-operation of all those of my subjects, whose exertions have been called forth to support the authority of the laws. "The wisdom and firmness manifested by the late parliament, and the due execution of the laws, have greatly contributed to restore confidence throughout the kingdom, and to discountenance those principles of sedition and irreligion which had been disseminated with such malignant perseverance, and had poisoned the minds of the ignorant and unwary. "I rely upon the continued support of parliament in my determination to maintain, by all the means intrusted to my hands, the public safety and tranquillity. "Deploring, as we all must, the distress which still unhappily prevails among many of the labouring classes of the community, and anxiously looking forward to its removal or mitigation, it is in the meantime our common duty effectually to protect the loyal, the peaceable, and the industrious, against those practices of turbulence and intimidation by which the period of relief can only be deferred, and by which the pressure of the distress has been incalculably aggravated. "I trust, that an awakened sense of the dangers which they have incurred, and of the arts which have been employed to seduce them, will bring back by far the greater part of those who have been unhappily led astray, and will revive in them that spirit of loyalty, that due submission to the laws, and that attachment to the constitution, which subsist unabated in the hearts of the great body of the people, and which, under the blessing of Divine Providence, have secured to the British nation the enjoyment of a larger share of practical freedom, as well as of prosperity and happiness, than have fallen to the lot of any nation in the world."
Source.—Washington Irving's Sketch Book. Pp. 237-239. Bohn's Libraries. G. Bell & Sons, London. What is worst of all, is the effect which these pecuniary embarrassments and domestic feuds have had on the poor man himself. Instead of that jolly round corporation, and snug rosy face, which he used to present, he has of late become as shrivelled and shrunk as a frost-bitten apple. His scarlet gold-laced waistcoat, which bellied out so bravely in those prosperous days when he sailed before the wind, now hangs loosely about him like a mainsail in a calm. His leather breeches are all in folds and wrinkles, and apparently have much ado to hold up the boots that yawn on both sides of his once sturdy legs. Instead of strutting about as formerly, with his three-cornered hat on one side; flourishing his cudgel, and bringing it down every moment with a hearty thump upon the ground; looking every one sturdily in the face, and trolling out a stave of a catch or a drinking song; he now goes about whistling thoughtfully to himself, with his head drooping down, his cudgel tucked under his arm, and his hands thrust to the bottom of his breeches pockets, which are evidently empty. Such is the plight of honest John Bull at present; yet for all this, the old fellow's spirit is as tall and as gallant as ever. If you drop the least expression of sympathy or concern, he takes fire in an instant; swears that he is the richest and stoutest fellow in the country; talks of laying out large sums to adorn his house or buy another estate; and with a valiant swagger and grasping of his cudgel, longs exceedingly to have another bout at quarter-staff. Though there may be something rather whimsical in all this, yet I confess I cannot look upon John's situation without strong feelings of interest. With all his odd humours and obstinate prejudices, he is a sterling-hearted old blade. He may not be so wonderfully fine a fellow as he thinks himself, but he is at least twice as good as his neighbours represent him. His virtues are all his own; all plain, home bred and unaffected. His very faults smack of the raciness of his good qualities. His extravagance savours of his generosity; his quarrelsomeness, of his courage; his credulity, of his open faith; his vanity, of his pride; and his bluntness, of his sincerity. They are all the redundancies of a rich and liberal character. He is like his old oak, rough without, but sound and solid within, whose bark abounds with excrescences in proportion to the growth and grandeur of the timber; and whose branches make a fearful groaning and murmuring in the least storm, from their very magnitude and luxuriance. There is something, too, in the appearance of his old family mansion that is extremely poetical and picturesque; and, as long as it can be rendered comfortably habitable, I should almost tremble to see it meddled with, during the present conflict of tastes and opinions. Some of his advisers are no doubt good architects, that might be of service; but many, I fear, are mere levellers, who, when they had once got to work with their mattocks on this venerable edifice, would never stop until they had brought it to the ground, and perhaps buried themselves among the ruins. All that I wish is that John's present troubles may teach him more prudence in the future. That he may cease to distress his mind about other people's affairs; that he may give up the fruitless attempt to promote the good of his neighbours, and the peace and happiness of the world, by dint of the cudgel; that he may remain quietly at home; gradually get his house into repair; cultivate his rich estate according to his fancy; husband his income—if he thinks proper; bring his unruly children into order—if he can; renew the jovial scenes of ancient prosperity; and long enjoy, on his paternal lands, a green, an honourable and a merry old age.
Source.—The Gentleman's Magazine, 1821. Vol. 91, p. 86. May 5. At St. Helena, of a lingering illness, which had confined him to his bed for upwards of forty days, Napoleon Buonaparte. He desired that after his death his body should be opened, as he suspected he was dying of the same disease which had killed his father—a cancer in the stomach. He lay in state three days, at the particular wish of the French people, who behaved to all visitors with much affability, amounting to condescension. The body was opened; the stomach was the entire seat of the disease—a cancer, or a schirrous state of that organ. The disease must have caused great pain, and appeared to have been of considerable standing. It was remarked before his death, that for more than nine days he had refused all nourishment, which was supposed to proceed from resignation or obstinacy; but the diseased state of the stomach fully accounts for it. The body was laid out on a bed in a room of the middling size, hung with black, and well lighted up. He was dressed in full Field-Marshal's uniform; that said to have been worn by him at the battle of Marengo. His person seemed small, and rather diminutive (exact height five feet seven inches); but the fineness of the countenance much exceeded expectation. The face appeared to be large, compared with the body; the features pleasing and extremely regular, still retaining a half-formed smile; and must have been truly imposing, when enlivened by a penetrating pair of eyes. His skin was perfectly sallow, which seemed to be its natural colour. The garden was laid out in the most fanciful manner; an astonishing variety being contained in a very small space. Buonaparte died on Saturday, and the funeral took place the following Wednesday at 12 o'clock. A grand procession was formed of the officers, soldiers, and marines; which, altogether, made a very striking exhibition. The troops were drawn up two men deep on the road side, out of Longwood gates; each man resting the point of his musket on his foot, with the left hand on its butt; and the left cheek leaning on his hand in a mournful position; the band stationed at the head of each corps playing a dead march. He was buried at the head of Rupert's Valley, about half-way between James' Town and Longwood, under the shade of a large willow-tree, near a small spring well, the water in which is both good and pleasant. For some years past he had water carried to him daily from this well, in two silver tankards which he brought from Moscow. Some years since, when visiting this well, in company with Madame Bertrand, he said, if the British Government buried him on St. Helena, he wished this to be the spot. It is certainly a very retired pretty situation, surrounded by high hills in the form of an amphitheatre, the public road to Longwood leading along the top of the ridge. After letting the coffin into the grave, three vollies from 11 field pieces were fired, and the flag-ship also fired 25 minute guns. The Catholic priest performed the ceremony after the rites of the Romish Church. The grave was 10 feet long, 10 deep, and five wide; the bottom happened to be solid rock, in which a space was cut to receive the coffin; the sides and ends of the grave were each walled in with one large Portland flag, and three large flags were put immediately over the coffin, and fastened down with iron bars and lead, beside Roman cement. The top of the grave is elevated about eight inches above the surface of the ground, and covered over with three rough slates.
Source.—P. B. Shelley's Poems. What! alive and so bold, O Earth? Art thou not over bold? What! leapest thou forth as of old In the light of thy morning mirth, The last of the flock of the starry fold? Ha! leapest thou forth as of old? Are not the limbs still when the ghost is fled And can'st thou move, Napoleon being dead? How! is not thy quick heart cold? What spark is alive on thy hearth? How! is not his death-knell knolled? And livest thou still, Mother Earth? Thou wert warming thy fingers old O'er the embers covered and cold Of that most fiery spirit, when it fled— What, Mother, do you laugh now he is dead? "Who has known me of old," replied Earth, "Or who has my story told? It is thou who art over bold!" And the lightning of scorn laughed forth As she sung, "To my bosom I fold All my sons when their knell is knolled, And so with living motion all are fed, And the quick spring like weeds out of the dead. "Still alive and still bold," shouted Earth, "I grow bolder and still more bold. The dead fill me ten thousand fold Fuller of speed, and splendour, and mirth. I was cloudy, and sullen, and cold, Like a frozen chaos uprolled, Till by the spirit of the mighty dead My heart grew warm. I feed on whom I fed. "Ay, alive and bold," muttered Earth, "Napoleon's fierce spirit rolled, In terror and blood and gold, A torrent of ruin to death from his birth. Leave the millions who follow to mould The metal before it be cold; And weave into his shame, which like the dead Shrouds me, the hopes that from his glory fled."
Source.—Lord Tennyson's Early Sonnets, V. 1832. Buonaparte. He thought to quell the stubborn hearts of oak, Madman!—to chain with chains, and bind with bands That island queen that sways the floods and lands From Ind to Ind, but in fair daylight woke, When from her wooden walls, lit by sure hands, With thunders, and with lightnings and with smoke, Peal after peal, the British battle broke, Lulling the brine against the Coptic sands. We taught him lowlier moods, when Elsinore Heard the war moan along the distant sea, Rocking with shattered spars, with sudden fires Flamed over: at Trafalgar yet once more We taught him: late he learned humility Perforce, like those whom Gideon school'd with briers.
Source.—Annual Register, 1823 (Public Documents). President Monroe's Message to Congress, Dec. 2, 1823. "In the wars of the European powers in matters relating to themselves we have never taken any part, nor does it comport with our policy to do so. It is only when our rights are invaded or seriously menaced that we resent injuries or make preparation for our defence. With the movements in this hemisphere we are, of necessity, more immediately connected, and by causes which must be obvious to all enlightened and impartial observers. The political system of the allied powers is essentially different in this respect from that of America. This difference proceeds from that which exists in their respective governments. And to the defence of our own, which has been achieved by the loss of so much blood and treasure, and matured by the wisdom of our most enlightened citizens, and under which we have enjoyed unexampled felicity, this whole nation is devoted. We owe it, therefore, to candor, and to the amicable relations existing between the United States and those powers, to declare that we should consider any attempt on their part to extend their system to any portion of this hemisphere as dangerous to our peace and safety. With the existing colonies or dependencies of any European power we have not interfered, and shall not interfere. But with the Governments who have declared their independence, and maintained it, and whose independence we have, on great consideration and on just principles, acknowledged, we could not view any interposition, for the purpose of oppressing them, or controlling in any other manner their destiny, by any European power, in any other light than as the manifestation of an unfriendly disposition towards the United States."
Source.—The Political Life of George Canning, by A. G. Stapleton. 1831. Vol. III. p. 90. He concluded with moving as a resolution, "that the state of Slavery was repugnant to the principles of the British Constitution, and of the Christian Religion, and that it ought to be abolished throughout the British Colonies with as much expedition as might be found consistent with a due regard to the well-being of the parties concerned." Mr. Canning rose immediately after Mr. Buxton had concluded, in the hope that by at once making known the opinions of the Government he might restrain the warmth of debate on so "fearful" a question, on which he said the use of "one rash word," perhaps even of one too "ardent an expression, might raise a flame not easily to be extinguished." After pointing out the impropriety, not to say unfairness, of Mr. Buxton, in having recourse to the by-gone question of the Slave Trade as a topick of declamation, and remarking that the course pursued by that gentleman of addressing himself not to the judgment, but to the feelings of the House, was the one the least likely to lead to a satisfactory result, Mr. Canning entreated the members to look at the then "situation of the West Indies not as a population accumulated by a succession of crimes, but simply as it then existed." We might deplore the crimes and condemn those who had encouraged their commission; but committed they had been with the sanction of the British Parliament, whose duty it then was to look at the subject not with reference to the crimes alone, but to the nature of that state of society which had grown up in consequence of their perpetration. "Looking at the West Indies," said Mr. Canning, "I find there a numerous black population with a comparatively small proportion of whites. The question, therefore, to be decided is, how civil rights, moral improvement, and general happiness, can be communicated to this overpowering multitude of slaves with safety to their lives, and security to the interests of the White Population? For the attainment of so great a good as raising these unfortunate creatures in the scale of being, sacrifices ought undoubtedly to be made; but would I therefore strike at the root of the system—a system the growth of ages—and unhesitatingly and rashly level it at a blow? Are we not all aware that there are knots which cannot be suddenly disentangled and must not be cut—difficulties which, if solved at all, must be solved by patient consideration and impartial attention, in order that we may not do the most flagrant injustice by aiming at justice itself."
Source.—The Diary and Correspondence of Charles Abbot, Lord Colchester, Vol. III. p. 302. From Lord Redesdale. "Batsford, October 30th. "My Dear Lord, "I think the state of Ireland at this time most perilous. "The government of a dictator, firm and well judging, assisted by a great armed force ready to execute his will, is now become necessary to the peace of Ireland. A Cromwell, at the head of such an army as he had, not subject to the control of a Cabinet in England—where is to be found such a man? Where is to be found such an army? And how is the government of such a man, if found, to be rendered independent of a Cabinet here? "He ought also to have so fully the confidence of Parliament, and the spirit of the measures adopted by him ought to have been so fully previously adopted in Parliament, that there should remain no hope of obtaining countenance here for any complaint against him. The people of Ireland must be fully persuaded that his orders must be obliged. His government must bear some resemblance to that of the French in Italy, but it must be uncorrupt, just, and humane, and so far different from the French Government in Italy. "In this conceit I have imagined what is not possible; but if we mean to save Ireland from great misery, we must approach as nearly to what I have imagined as possible. "The first thing to be done must be to put an end to all the hopes of the Roman Catholics obtaining the overthrow of the Protestant establishment. This can only be done by a firm union of all Protestants in both islands. Can we hope for this? The two Houses of Parliament might pass strong resolutions on this subject. But can we hope for unanimity in such resolutions? Can we hope to carry such resolutions without strong opposition? May we not rather fear that such propositions would be rejected, or so modified as to be more mischievous than beneficial? I despair, therefore, of bringing Ireland to a state of quiet. The system now pursued, I think, must lead to increased agitation, and finally to insurrection, and perhaps open war is better than the secret war now carried on. "I consider the late Tithe Bill as an experiment, which I apprehended would, if it produced no other effect, show the unreasonableness of the Irish landholders on the subject of tithes. Tithes are undoubtedly a great oppression to agriculture. They are a tax upon the most important manufacture, the production of food. If the woollen manufacturers, for instance, were obliged to pay the tenth yard of cloth manufactured for the maintenance of the clergy, what would be the effect? Just the same as the payment of the tenth of agricultural produce. The price must be raised in proportion to the charge, or the profit of the manufacturer would be wholly absorbed. A profit of 10 per cent. is esteemed a fair mercantile profit; but the tithe of the manufactured cloth would be more than 10 per cent. on the price for which cloth now sells. Importation would keep down the price, but it would ruin the manufacturer if the article could be imported at a cheaper rate. If, therefore, tithes could be transferred from the occupier to the landowner, it would be beneficial to cultivation, though it would fall heavy on the proprietors of land. On this ground also, I have approved of the commutation of tithes in enclosures. "We give two-ninths of arable, and one-eighth of green land to the tithe-owner. So far as tithes belong to the clergy, they put so much land in mortmain. But land in mortmain is not so injurious to agriculture as tithes taken in hand. And I thought the Bill might lead to some permanent commutation, or at least to a settled rent, putting all the occupiers of land on an equal footing with respect to cultivation. "The French agriculturists have gained a great advantage by throwing the maintenance of their clergy on the nation at large, instead of tithes which pressed wholly on agriculture. Formerly land was almost the only property productive of income; and, therefore, many charges were imposed on land which ought, in the present circumstances, to be a charge on property generally, if that could be effected. It seems to me that the present state of the European world is so changed that other changes must follow. Moneyed property, the profits of trade and manufacturers, are now a vast proportion of the income of the inhabitants of this country, and the persons deriving income from these sources bear that proportion only of the public burdens which are taxes on expenditure; while the income derived from land maintains the Church, the poor, the roads, the administration of justice, etc., etc., to a vast amount, and pays at the same time all taxes on expenditure; and the direct burdens on land increase with the riches produced by trade and manufactures, and the moneyed property. This I take to be a great cause of distress amongst the agriculturists and their landlords. "Truly yours,
"Redesdale."
Source.—In the Edinburgh Review, 1823, by the Rev. Sydney Smith. Men are governed by words, and under the infamous term convict, are comprehended crimes of the most different degrees and species of guilt. One man is transported for stealing three hams and a pot of sausages; and in the next berth to him on board the transport is a young surgeon, who has been engaged in the mutiny at the Nore; the third man is for extorting money; the fourth was in a respectable situation of life at the time of the Irish Rebellion, and was so ill-read in History as to imagine that Ireland had been ill-treated by England, and so bad a reasoner as to suppose, that nine Catholics ought not to pay tithes to one Protestant. Then comes a man who set his house on fire, to cheat the Phoenix Office; and, lastly, that most glaring of all human villains, a poacher, driven from Europe, wife and child, by thirty lords of manors, at the Quarter Sessions, for killing a partridge. Now, all these are crimes no doubt—particularly the last; but they are surely crimes of very different degrees of intensity, to which different degrees of contempt and horror are attached—and from which those who have committed them may, by subsequent morality, emancipate themselves, with different degrees of difficulty, and with more or less of success. A warrant granted by a reformed bacon-stealer would be absurd; but there is hardly any reason why a foolish hot-brained young blockhead, who chose to favour the mutineers at the Nore when he was sixteen years of age, may not make a very loyal subject, when he is forty years of age, and has cast his Jacobine teeth, and fallen into the practical jobbing and loyal baseness which so commonly developes itself about that period of life. It is to be believed that a governor, placed over a land of convicts, and capable of guarding his limbs from any sudden collision with odometrous stones, or vertical posts of direction, should make no distinction between the simple convict and the double and treble convict—the man of three juries, who has three times appeared at the Bailey, trilarcenous—three times driven over the seas.
Source.—The Life of the Duke of Wellington, by G. R. Gleig. Letter from the Duke of Wellington to the Rev. H. M. Wagner. "Hatfield, 10th October, 1824. "My dear Sir, "I have received your letter of the 7th, to which I proceed to give an answer; and I request you to communicate it to my sons, which will save both me and them trouble. "After all inquiries which I have made, I believe that the allowance which they ought to have, and which would go nearest to provide for their education at Oxford, excluding a private tutor, but including everything else, would be for Douro, who will be entered as a nobleman, £800 per annum, including his half-pay; and for Charles, who will be entered as a gentleman commoner, £500 per annum, besides his half-pay. I therefore, by this post, direct Messrs. Coutts to pay Douro £200, and Charles £125, on the 1st October, 1st January, 1st April, and 1st July, each year, beginning with the 1st inst. "I beg that Charles will observe that I make him this allowance, at present, in order that he may defray the expenses of his education. He must recollect, however, that he is only a younger brother, and that it is not at all clear that he will ever have so much again, unless he should make it by his own industry and talent; and I beg you will tell them both that when I entered the world I had just the sum for the whole year which I now give Charles every quarter. "I intend that these allowances shall cover all expenses of every description; and I have reason to believe them so ample that I expect they will not run in debt; particularly as I begin by paying them in advance, and as I will take upon myself the following expenses: "The entrance fees at the college and university for both. "The expenses of the nobleman's and gentleman-commoner's gowns. "They must pay for the furniture of their rooms themselves, but if you should think the expense too heavy upon them immediately, I would advance the money, and they can repay me hereafter. "I give them the horses which they now have with them, of which they may dispose as they may think proper; and they may take any servants they please out of my house or stables, they, of course, paying their wages, and also their expenses, from the time of their leaving me. "Accordingly, if you let me know what the entrance-money is, and the expense of the gowns, I will send you the money. "I beg you to impress upon them that there is but one certain and infallible way of avoiding debt, that is, first, to determine to incur no expense, to defray which the money is not in their pockets; secondly, to pay the money immediately for everything they get, and for every expense they incur. They will then be certain that everything they have is their own, and they will know at all times what they can and what they cannot do. There is nothing so easy, provided they begin in time; and I give them these ample allowances, and pay them beforehand, purposely that they may at once pay for everything the moment they get it. "They should, in adopting this system, advert to the expenses of the college, which they have to defray themselves, their servants' wages and clothes, the keep of their horses, and lay by a sufficiency to defray their expenses till the 1st January. The remainder will be their own, and they will lay it out as they please; observing always, that if this remainder is laid out uselessly or idly, and they act up rigidly to the system of paying for everything at the time they get it, they may want clothes or other necessaries, or reasonable gratifications, before the quarter will expire. "I think it best to remind them of all this, because I hope that they and I will have no further discussion upon these subjects. In respect of their studies, I am very anxious about their mathematics, as essential to those who serve in the army. If you will let me know what the course is in the university, I will give you my opinion upon other matters. They should likewise have a perfect knowledge of modern geography and history, of course, but I shall hear further from you on these points. I will go and see them shortly after they shall have gone to Oxford, where they ought to be on the 14th. They had better probably go to Strathfieldsaye to make their arrangements for their departure, as soon as you will receive this letter. "I wish you would let each of them keep a copy of this letter, and send me one."
Source.—William Cobbett's Rural Rides, ed. by Mr. Pitt Cobbett, 1885. One newspaper says that Mr. Huskisson is gone to Paris, and thinks it likely that he will endeavour to "inculcate in the mind of the Bourbons wise principles of free trade!" What next! Persuade them, I suppose, that it is for their good that English goods should be admitted into France and into St. Domingo with little or no duty? Persuade them to make a treaty of commerce with him; and in short persuade them to make France help to pay the interest of our debt and dead-weight, lest our system of paper should go to pieces, and lest that should be followed by a radical reform, which reform would be injurious to "the monarchical principle!" This newspaper politician does, however, think that the Bourbons will be "too dull" to comprehend these "enlightened and liberal" notions; and I think so too. I think the Bourbons, or, rather, those who will speak for them, will say: "No thank you. You contracted your debt without our participation; you made your dead-weight for your own purposes: the seizure of our museums and the loss of our frontier towns followed your victory of Waterloo, though we were 'your Allies' at the time; you made us pay an enormous tribute after that battle, and kept possession of part of France till we had paid it; you wished, the other day, to keep us out of Spain, and you, Mr. Huskisson, in a speech at Liverpool, called our deliverance of the King of Spain an unjust and unprincipled act of aggression, while Mr. Canning prayed to God that we might not succeed. No thank you, Mr. Huskisson, no. No coaxing, sir: we saw, then, too clearly the advantage we derived from your having a debt and a dead-weight, to wish to assist in relieving you of either. 'Monarchical principle' here or 'monarchical principle' there, we know that your mill-stone debt is our best security. We like to have your wishes, your prayers, and your abuses against us, rather than your subsidies and your fleets; and so, farewell, Mr. Huskisson; if you like, the English may drink French wine; but whether they do or not, the French shall not wear your rotten cottons. And, as a last word, how did you maintain the 'monarchical principle,' the 'paternal principle,' or as Castlereagh called it, the 'social system,' when you called that an unjust and unprincipled aggression which put an end to the bargain by which the convents and other Church property of Spain were to be transferred to the Jews and jobbers of London? Bon jour, Monsieur Huskisson, ci-devant membre et orateur du club de quatre-vingt-neuf!" If they do not actually say this to him, this is what they will think; and that is, as to the effect, precisely the same thing. It is childishness to suppose that any nation will act from a desire of serving all other nations, or any one other nation, as well as itself. It will make, unless compelled, no compact by which it does not think itself a gainer; and amongst its gains, it must, and always does, reckon the injury to its rivals. It is a stupid idea that all nations are to gain by anything. Whatever is the gain of one, must, in some way or other, be a loss to another. So that this new project of "free trade" and "mutual gain" is a pure humbug as that which the newspapers carried on during the "glorious days" of loans, when they told us, at every loan, that the bargain was "equally advantageous to the contractors and to the public!" The fact is the "free trade" project is clearly the effect of a consciousness of our weakness. As long as we felt strong, we felt bold, we had no thought of conciliating the world; we upheld a system of exclusion, which long experience proved to be founded in sound policy. But we now find that our debts and our loads of various sorts cripple us. We feel our incapacity for the carrying of trade sword in hand: and so we have given up all our old maxims, and are endeavouring to persuade the world that we are anxious to enjoy no advantages that are not enjoyed also by our neighbours. Alas! the world sees very clearly the cause of all this; and the world laughs at us for our imaginary cunning. My old doggrel, that used to make me and my friends laugh in Long Island, is precisely put to this case. When his man was stuffed with paper, How John Bull did prance and caper! How he foam'd and how he roared: How his neighbours all he gored. How he scrap'd the ground and hurled Dirt and filth on all the world! But John Bull of paper empty, Though in midst of peace and plenty, Is modest grown as worn-out sinner, As Scottish laird that wants a dinner; As Wilberforce, become content A rotten borough to represent; As Blue and Buff, when, after hunting On Yankee coasts their "bits of bunting," Came softly back across the seas, And silent were as mice in cheese. Yes, the whole world, and particularly the French and the Yankees, see very clearly the course of this fit of modesty and of liberality into which we have so recently fallen. They know well that a war would play the very devil with our national faith. They know, in short, that no ministers in their senses will think of supporting the paper system through another war. They know well that no ministers now exist, or are likely to exist, will venture to endanger the paper-system; and therefore they know that (for England) they may now do just what they please. When the French were about to invade Spain, Mr. Canning said that his last despatch on the subject was to be understood as a protest, on the part of England, against permanent occupation of any part of Spain by France. There the French are, however; and at the end of two years and a half he says that he knows nothing about any intention that they have to quit Spain, or any part of it.
Source.—The Political Life of Sir Robert Peel, by Thomas Doubleday. London, 1856. Vol. I. pp. 329-331. The most trustworthy account of the almost insane operations of 1824 and 1825 is perhaps that of Mr. Tooke, the well-known author of the treatise on "High and Low Prices," who in his "Considerations on the State of the Currency," published in 1826, immediately after the panic, thus describes the steps that led to it.[2] Speaking of the latter months of 1824 and the first six months of 1825, Mr. Tooke thus proceeds: "Never did the public exhibit so great a degree of infatuation, so complete an abandonment of all the most ordinary rules of mercantile reasoning, since the celebrated bubble year of 1720, as it did in the latter part of 1824 and the first three or four months of 1825. "The speculative anticipation of an advance was no longer confined to articles which presented a plausible ground for some rise, however small. It extended itself to articles which were not only deficient in quantity, but actually in excess. Thus coffee, of which the stock was increased compared with the average of former years, advanced from 70 to 80 per cent.; spices rose in some instances from 100 to 200 per cent., without any reason whatever, and with a total ignorance on the part of the operators of everything connected with the relation of the supply to the consumption. "In short, there was hardly an article of merchandise which did not participate in the rise; for it had become the business of the speculators, or of the brokers, who were interested in the raising and keeping up prices, to look minutely through the general prices-current, with a view to discover any article which had not advanced, in order to make it the subject of anticipated demand. If a person, not under the influence of the prevalent delusion, ventured to inquire for what reason any particular article had risen, the common answer was, 'Everything else has risen, and therefore this ought to rise.' "Whilst such were the transactions in the markets for goods, and whilst there was an extension of the system of loans to the transatlantic states, some of them affording little or no security, but almost all coming out at a premium, an enlarged field was presented for the spirit of gambling to enter upon. New mining, insurance, and other schemes, were set on foot, on the principle of joint-stock companies, in immense number. "The earliest South American mining speculations or associations formed in this country had been entered into with considerable circumspection, the parties with whom they originated having, by local information and connexion, secured comparatively beneficial contracts, and priority of the working of mines known to be most productive. These apparent advantages being made known, attracted numerous persons to buy shares from the original subscribers at a progressively increasing premium. The great gains—or rather premiums in anticipation of gains—thus obtained by one or two of these associations, held out an inducement to the formation of new ones. "It is well known how numerously mining and other joint-stock companies sprung up, and how successful they were for some time in catching and turning to account the disposition for hazardous adventure which now pervaded the nation. The operators on the share market made the new schemes the basis for an enormous extent of gambling. Many persons, quite removed from all connexion with business—retired officers, widows, and single women of small fortune—risked their incomes or their savings in every species of desperate enterprize. The competition and scramble for premiums in concerns which ought never to have been but at a discount, were perfectly astounding to those who took no part in such transactions. These operations in shares had an effect like that of speculations in goods, in adding to the mass of the circulation of paper and of credit; and this, be it still kept in mind, concurrently with the addition which had been made to the Bank of England issues. "It is not possible to compute, with even any approach to accuracy, the amount of the addition to the total of the circulating medium by these united causes; but if I were called upon to hazard an estimate, I should conjecture that the whole amount of the circulating medium, including the transactions on credit without the intervention of paper, must have been, on the average of the four months ending April, 1825, little if at all short of fifty per cent. above what it had been in the corresponding period of 1823. The approximation of this estimate to the truth is rendered probable by the consideration that, upon the principles which determine money prices and nominal values, such a general rise of prices, amounting in some instances to above 100 per cent., without even the allegation of any general scarcity, could not have taken place without an immense expansion of the circulating medium." Tooke's Considerations of the State of the Currency, 1826, p. 47.
Source.—Martineau's History of the Peace, Vol. I. pp. 406-408. Bohn's Libraries. G. Bell & Sons. It having been objected that the balance of dignity and honour among nations had been affected by the French occupation of Spain, which was thought to have exalted France and lowered England, Mr. Canning replied: "I must beg leave to say that I dissent from that averment. The House knows—the country knows—that when the French army was on the point of entering Spain, his Majesty's Government did all in their power to prevent it; that we resisted it by all means short of war. I have just now stated some of the reasons why we did not think the entry of that army into Spain a sufficient ground for war; but there was, in addition to those which I have stated, this peculiar reason, that whatever effect a war commenced upon the mere ground of the entry of a French army into Spain, might have, it probably would not have had the effect of getting that army out of Spain. In a war against France at that time as at any other, you might perhaps have acquired military glory; you might, perhaps, have extended your colonial possessions; you might even have achieved, at a great cost of blood and treasure, an honourable peace; but as to getting the French out of Spain, that would have been the one object which you almost certainly would not have accomplished. How seldom, in the whole history of the wars of Europe, has any war between two great powers ended in the obtaining of the exact, the identical object for which the war was begun! Besides, sir, I confess I think that the effects of the French occupation of Spain have been infinitely exaggerated. I do not blame those exaggerations, because I am aware that they are to be attributed to the recollections of some of the best times of our history; that they are the echoes of sentiments which, in the days of William and Anne, animated the debates and dictated the votes of the British Parliament. No peace was in those days thought safe for this country while the crown of Spain continued on the head of Bourbon; but were not the apprehensions of those days greatly overstated? Has the power of Spain swallowed up the power of maritime England? Or does England still remain, after the lapse of more than a century, during which the crown of Spain has been worn by a Bourbon, niched in the nook of that same Spain—Gibraltar?... Again, sir, is the Spain of the present day the Spain ... whose puissance was expected to shake England from her sphere? No, sir, it was quite another Spain; it was the Spain within the limits of whose empire the sun never set; it was Spain "with the Indies" that excited the jealousies, and alarmed the imaginations of our ancestors. But then, sir, the balance of power! The entry of the French army into Spain disturbed that balance, and we ought to have gone to war to restore it! I have already said that when the French army entered Spain, we might, if we chose, have resisted or resented that measure by war. But were there no other means than war for restoring the balance of power? Is the balance of power a fixed and unalterable standard? or is it not a standard perpetually varying, as civilisation advances, and as new nations spring up, and take their place among established political communities? The balance of power, a century and a half ago, was to be adjusted between France and Spain, the Netherlands, Austria and England. Some years afterwards, Russia assumed her high station in European politics. Some years after that again, Prussia became, not only a substantive, but a preponderating monarchy. Thus, while the balance of power continued in principle the same, the means of adjusting it became more varied and enlarged. They became enlarged in proportion to the increased number of considerable states—in proportion, I may say, to the number of weights which might be shifted into the one or the other scale. To look to the policy of Europe, in the time of William and Anne, for the purpose of regulating the balance of power in Europe at the present day, is to disregard the progress of events, and to confuse dates and facts which throw a reciprocal light upon each other. It would be disingenuous, indeed, not to admit, that the entry of the French army into Spain was, in a certain sense, a disparagement—an affront to the pride—a blow to the feelings of England; and it can hardly be supposed that the government did not sympathise, on that occasion, with the feelings of the people. But I deny that, questionable or censurable as the act might be, it was one which necessarily called for our direct and hostile opposition. Was nothing then to be done? Was there no other mode of resistance than by a direct attack upon France; or by a war to be undertaken on the soil of Spain? What if the possession of Spain might be rendered harmless in rival hands—harmless as regarded us—and valueless to the possessors? Might not compensation for disparagement be obtained and the policy of our ancestors vindicated, by means better adapted to the present time? If France occupied Spain, was it necessary, in order to avoid the consequences of that occupation, that we should blockade Cadiz? No. I looked another way. I sought materials of compensation in another hemisphere. Contemplating Spain, such as our ancestors had known her, I resolved that if France had Spain, it should not be Spain 'with the Indies.' I called the New World into existence, to redress the balance of the Old."
Source.—The Political Life of George Canning, by A. G. Stapleton. London, 1831. Vol. III. pp. 16-22. Mr. Huskisson felt therefore, when he came to the Board of Trade, that although much had been done, yet more remained to do, and he proceeded fearlessly, yet at the same time most cautiously, in relaxing those restrictions on our commerce, which if preserved were calculated to render almost nugatory the concessions already made. Accordingly during the sessions of 1823, 1824, and 1825, different Acts were introduced by Mr. Huskisson for doing away with the discriminating duties; but in order that foreign nations might not impose new, or increase old discriminating duties, at the very moment when we were abandoning ours, a power was reserved to the King in Council to enforce the payment of additional duties upon the ships of all foreign countries, in the event of the treatment which British ships should meet with in their ports, not being reciprocal to that, which their ships were to meet with, in the ports of the United Kingdom. In 1826 a new rule of navigation, exclusively applicable to the Mediterranean, was established. Goods, the productions of Asia and Africa, which should find their way to ports in Europe within that sea by internal routes, and not by the Atlantick Ocean, were made importable from those ports in British ships: thus erecting the Mediterranean and its surrounding shores, as it were, into a fifth quarter of the globe. Mr. Huskisson also revised and altered the list of "enumerated articles." When that list was first constructed it was intended to consist of commodities of extensive importation; in process of time some of the articles contained in the list had nearly ceased to be imported, while their places were supplied by other articles which were omitted. The list was therefore reconstructed upon the principle of its original intention. In 1825 the general consolidation of the Laws of the Customs was effected by Mr. Hume,[3] under the favouring auspices of the Board of Trade and Treasury. The difficulty and vastness of this undertaking was only surpassed by its importance. From the reign of the first Edward up to the present times, these laws had accumulated to the enormous number of fifteen hundred—frequently contradictory, and made without reference to each other, they were only understood by the initiated few, and required the devotion of a whole life to their study, at once to comprehend, and to obey them. They were unintelligible to the merchants, while they perplexed and harassed all their proceedings. This chaos of Legislation was compressed by Mr. Hume into Eleven Acts (a sort of Code Napoleon), with an order, a clearness, and a precision whereby even the least talented of our mercantile men are now enabled to consult the laws of the Customs with facility, and to take them with safety for their guide. These effects, upon which for their advantages to commerce Mr. Huskisson several times expatiated with exultation, would alone make this consolidation a most important era in our fiscal policy; but advantage was likewise taken of the opportunity to introduce into the Laws themselves some memorable changes, in conformity with the spirit of those principles of commercial intercourse, on which the Government had determined to act. Not only were duties of importance considerably reduced, but those on numerous minor articles were lowered. During the war the rates of the Tariff had been so increased, for the single purpose of revenue, that they had become for the most part inapplicable to a state of peace, and required general revision. This revision was regulated by the following principles: First, those duties were reduced, the heaviness of which tended to lessen, rather than to increase their total product. Secondly, the duties on raw materials, and on various articles useful in manufactures, were lowered to little more than nominal sums. Thirdly, protecting duties of extravagant amount were reduced to that point, at which the consumer was fairly entitled to relief, either by the increased industry of the home manufacture, or by access to other sources of supply. And, lastly, the comforts and the tastes of the publick, and the advantage of their retail suppliers, were consulted by the removal of duties which prevented the introduction, or most unnecessarily abridged, the use of many articles without benefit to any party whatever. By the system founded on these principles, there has not only been distributed amongst a numerous population a great increase of employment, but its diffusion has been greater in proportion, than its increase. It is also very remarkable, that those trades which have been prominent in complaining of foreign competition have neither suffered more in diminution of profits, nor increased less in extent of business, than those which have been able to hold foreign competition at defiance. Besides this consolidation of the Customs' Laws which took place in 1825, an Act was passed in the session of that year, whereby many commercial advantages were conferred on the Colonies, beyond those contained in Mr. Robinson's two acts of 1822; Mr. Huskisson laying down as the fundamental principle on which his alterations were founded—a principle deduced from past experience with respect both to Ireland and to our Colonies—that "so far as the Colonies themselves were concerned, their prosperity was cramped and impeded by a system of exclusion and monopoly; and that whatever tended to increase the prosperity of the Colonies could not fail, in the long run, to advance, in an equal degree, the general interests of the parent state." By these Acts, not only articles of first necessity, but goods of all descriptions, with very few exceptions, were allowed to be imported from all countries, either in British ships, or in ships of the country of their production; and the goods of the Colonies were allowed to be exported in any ships to any foreign country whatever. The only part of the Colonial system which was persevered in, was that which excludes foreign ships from carrying goods from one British place to another; "so that by this arrangement was preserved the foundation of our Navigation Laws—all intercourse between the mother-country and the Colonies, whether direct or circuitous, and all intercourse of the Colonies with each other, being considered as a coasting trade to be reserved entirely and absolutely for ourselves." The admission of foreign ships, however, was not unconditional: it was made to depend upon reciprocal or equivalent liberality towards our trade and navigation on the part of the countries profiting by the advantages of it; but a power was given to the King in Council to relax the rigour of the Law, if occasion should, in any particular cases, seem to require it. By the same act, the privileges of warehousing were extended to the chief trading ports of the Colonies; a measure, which was well adapted to promote the creation of entrepÔts in those places, for the general barter trade of that quarter of the globe. Independently of all these measures of internal legislation, Treaties of Commerce, founded on the principles of reciprocity, were negotiated with Prussia, Denmark, Sweden, the Hanse Towns, three of the new States of Spanish America, and lastly with France. In the case of Prussia, the power with whom the first of these Treaties was made, it may be said that, it was fairly forced upon this country. It certainly was not the wish of our Government unnecessarily to stir the question. But "the Prussian ship-owners were all going to ruin," and the Prussian Government very wisely resolved not to give to British ships privileges which the British Government denied to Prussian ships. When once foreign powers began to adopt that course, against which we could not justly remonstrate, it has been already shewn that the only safe and wise way was to meet it with concession. Prussia having therefore thus attained her object, to have manifested any unwillingness to treat other powers on the same footing, would have been inconsistent with the principle of our navigation law, which, acting upon the principle "divide et impera," was more anxious for an equal distribution of foreign shipping, than for its diminution.
Source.—The Political Life of George Canning, by A. G. Stapleton. London, 1831. Vol. III. p. 219. The King's Message. "George R.—His Majesty acquaints the House of Commons that His Majesty has received an earnest application from the Princess Regent of Portugal, claiming, in virtue of the ancient obligations of alliance and amity between His Majesty, and the Crown of Portugal, His Majesty's aid against an hostile aggression from Spain. "His Majesty has exerted himself for some time past, in conjunction with His Majesty's Ally, the King of France, to prevent such an aggression, and repeated assurances have been given by the Court of Madrid of the determination of his Catholick Majesty, neither to commit, nor to allow to be committed, from his Catholick Majesty's territory, any aggression against Portugal; but His Majesty had learned, with deep concern, that notwithstanding these assurances, hostile inroads into the territory of Portugal have been concerted in Spain, and have been executed under the eyes of Spanish Authorities, by Portuguese Regiments, which had deserted into Spain, and which the Spanish Government had repeatedly and solemnly engaged to disarm, and to disperse. "His Majesty leaves no effort unexhausted to awaken the Spanish Government to the dangerous consequences of this apparent connivance. "His Majesty makes this communication to the House of Commons with the full and entire confidence, that his faithful Commons will afford to His Majesty their cordial concurrence and support in maintaining the faith of treaties, and in securing against foreign hostility the safety and independence of the kingdom of Portugal, the oldest ally of Great Britain. "G. R."
Source.—The Political Life of George Canning, by A. G. Stapleton. London, 1831. Vol. III. p. 222. "Some years ago," said Mr. Canning, "in the discussion of the negotiations respecting the French war against Spain, I took the liberty of adverting to this topick. I then stated that the position of this country in the present state of the world, was one of neutrality, not only between contending nations, but between conflicting principles; and that it was by neutrality alone that we could maintain that balance, the preservation of which I believed to be essential to the welfare of mankind. I then said that I feared that the next war which should be kindled in Europe, would be a war not so much of armies, as of opinions. Not four years have elapsed, and behold my apprehension realised! It is, to be sure, within narrow limits that this war of opinion is at present confined: but it is a war of opinion, that Spain (whether as Government, or as nation), is now waging against Portugal; it is a war which has commenced in hatred of the new institutions of Portugal. How long is it reasonable to expect that Portugal will abstain from retaliation? If into that war this country shall be compelled to enter, we shall enter into it, with a sincere and anxious desire to mitigate, rather than exasperate—and to mingle only in the conflict of arms, not in the more fatal conflict of opinions. But I much fear that this country (however earnestly she may endeavour to avoid it), could not, in such case, avoid seeing ranked under her banners, all the restless and dissatisfied of any nation with which she might come in conflict. It is the contemplation of this new power in any future war, which excites my most anxious apprehension. It is one thing to have a giant's strength, but it would be another to use it like a giant. The consciousness of such strength is, undoubtedly, a source of confidence and security; but in the situation in which this country stands, our business is not to seek opportunities of displaying it, but to content ourselves with letting the professors of violent and exaggerated doctrines on both sides feel that it is not their interest to convert an umpire, into an adversary. The situation of England, amidst the struggle of political opinions, which agitates more or less sensibly different countries of the world, may be compared to that of the Ruler of the Winds, as described by the poet: " 'Cels sedet Aeolus arce, Sceptra tenens; mollitque animos et temperat iras; Ni faciat, maria ac terras caelumque profundum Quippe ferant rapidi secum, verrantque per auras.' "The consequence of letting loose the passions at present chained and confined, would be to produce a scene of desolation, which no man can contemplate without horror: and I should not sleep easy on my couch, if I were conscious that I had contributed to precipitate it by a single moment. "This, then, is the reason—a reason very different from fear—the reverse of a consciousness of disability,—why I dread the recurrence of hostilities in any part of Europe: why I would bear much, and would forbear long; why I would (as I have said) put up with almost anything that did not touch national faith and national honour;—rather than let slip the furies of war, the leash of which we hold in our hands,—not knowing whom they may reach, or how far their ravages may be carried. Such is the love of peace which the British Government acknowledges, and such the necessity of peace which the circumstances of the world inculcate. "Let us fly," said Mr. Canning, in conclusion, "to the aid of Portugal by whomsoever attacked; because it is our duty to do so: and let us cease our interference where that duty ends. We go to Portugal not to rule, not to dictate, not to prescribe Constitutions, but to defend and to preserve the independence of an ally. We go to plant the standard of England on the well-known heights of Lisbon. Where that standard is planted foreign dominion shall not come."
Source.—The London Magazine, 1827. Vol. VIII. p. 518. Extract from "Two Years in New South Wales," by P. Cunningham, Surgeon, R.N. "The convict-servants are accommodated upon the farms in huts walled round and roofed with bark, or built of split wood and plaster, with thatched roofs. About four of them generally sleep and mess in each hut, drawing their provisions every Saturday, and being generally allowed the afternoon of that day, whereupon to wash their clothes and grind their wheat. Their usual allowance I have already stated to be a peck of wheat; seven pounds of beef, or four and a half of pork; two ounces of tea, two ounces of tobacco, and a pound of sugar, weekly; the majority of settlers permitting them to raise vegetables in little gardens allotted for their use, or supplying them occasionally from their own gardens. Wages are only allowed at the option of the master; but you are obliged to supply them with two full suits of clothes annually; and you also furnish a bed-tick (to be stuffed with grass), and a blanket, to each person, besides a tin-pot and knife; as also an iron-pot and frying-pan to each mess. The tea, sugar, and tobacco, are considered bonuses for good conduct, and withheld in default thereof. "To get work done, you must feed well; and when the rations are ultimately raised upon your own farm, you never give their expense a moment's consideration. The farm-men usually bake their flour into flat cakes, which they call dampers, and cook these in the ashes, cutting their salted meats into thin slices, and boiling them in the iron-pot or frying-pan, by which means the salt is, in a great measure, extracted. If tea and sugar are not supplied, milk is allowed as a substitute, tea or milk forming the beverage to every meal. Though not living so comfortably as when everything is cooked and put down before them, yet it is more after their own mind, while the operations of preparing their meals amuse their leisure hours and give a greater zest to the enjoyment of those repasts. When the labour of the day is over, with enlivening chit-chat, singing, and smoking, they chase away ennui, and make the evening hours jog merrily by. Indeed, without the aid of that magic care-killer, the pipe, I believe the greater portion of our 'pressed men' would 'take the bush' in a week after their arrival in our solitudes, before time had attuned their minds to rural prospects and industrious pursuits. "Convicts, when first assigned, if long habituated to a life of idleness and dissipation, commonly soon become restless and dissatisfied; and if failing to provoke you to return them into the government employ, wherein they may again be enabled to idle away their time in the joyous companionship of their old associates, will run off for head-quarters, regardless of the flogging that awaits them on being taken or on giving themselves up—the idle ramble they have had fully compensating them for the twenty-five or fifty lashes they may receive, in case they should not be admitted among the list at head-quarters. Many, too, start off for want of something for their fingers to pick at,—the leader of one batch of runaways from a friend of mine, exclaiming to those he left behind, on bidding them adieu, 'Why, I may as well be dead and buried in earnest, as buried alive in this here place, where a fellow has not even a chance!' The chance here wished for, not being the chance of bettering his condition by good conduct, but by emptying the full pocket of some luckless wight! If they can be coaxed or compelled to stop, however, for a twelvemonth or so, the greater portion, even of the worst, generally turn out very fair and often very good servants; cockneys becoming able ploughmen, and weavers, barbers, and such like soft-fingered gentry, being metamorphosed into good fencers, herdsmen and shepherds; a little urging and encouragement on the part of the master, and perseverance in enforcing his authority, generally sufficing. "The convict-servants commence labour at sunrise, and leave off at sunset, being allowed an hour for breakfast, and an hour or more for dinner. It is long before you can accustom the greater portion to steady labour, the best of them usually working by fits and starts, then lying down for an hour or two, and up and at it again. To get your work readily and quietly done, the best method is certainly to task them, and allow them to get through it as they please; but as it is an object to accustom them to regular industry, it will eventually serve your purpose better, and benefit them more, to keep them at constant work. Even some of the free-men who have served their time are perpetually skipping about, seldom remaining long in one situation."
Source.—The Diary and Correspondence of Charles Abbot, Lord Colchester. London, 1861. Vol. III. p. 472. March 27th. Heard from the Duke of Newcastle a fuller account of his interview with the King, at Windsor, on Saturday last. (The former account I had received from Lord Falmouth.) He arrived at Windsor at two, and requested an audience. At the end of two hours, when he was exhausted and almost asleep, the door of his apartment was opened, and the King was announced. The King received him very graciously; believed he understood the subject of his visit; entered at great length into the whole history of the Roman Catholics, from the reign of James II. down to the present time. Professed himself a "Protestant, heart and soul." Declared he never would give his assent to any measures for Roman Catholic Emancipation. And, when pressed by the Duke as to the new form of his administration, he assured the Duke "that the First Minister should be for the Protestant side of the question," and, as to Ireland, that the Chancellor there should be Protestant also. He added that the present audience would be necessarily known to everybody; but "he must keep faith with his Ministers." He said, "the courage of his family had never been questioned." When assured that, in choosing Protestants for his Ministers, his choice would be supported by a large and powerful body of Peers, and pressed for an assurance that his choice would be made accordingly, he said, again and again, "Do you doubt me? But it is not I who fail in my duty. It is you in Parliament. Why do you suffer the d——d Association in Dublin?" The Duke of Newcastle clearly saw that the Chancellor had lost his former influence with the King. It was evident that the King knew the Duke of Rutland's opinions upon the present subject. The King's sentiments were strongly expressed, but there was reason to apprehend that considerations of ease and repose might outweigh his principles. The Duke told the King plainly that the support or opposition of himself, and of those for whom he was acting, would depend on the choice that the King should finally make in forming his Administration. In parting, the King very graciously told him "he never need ask an audience in form, he was always welcome," and hoped he would come and fish there in the summer. (N.B.—The King did not finish the audience without talking to the Duke about his tailor.)
Source.—The Political Life of George Canning, by A. G. Stapleton. London, 1831. Vol. III. p. 286. The treaty was signed on the 6th of July, 1827, by Prince Lieven, Lord Dudley, and Prince Polignac. In execution of this treaty instructions were sent in common to the Representatives of the three Powers at Constantinople, directing them to present a joint declaration to the Divan; stating that their respective Governments had for six years been exerting themselves to induce the Porte to restore tranquillity to Greece; that these efforts had been useless, and that a war of extermination had been prolonged, of which the results were on the one hand shocking to humanity, while on the other they inflicted intolerable injuries on the commerce of all nations. That on these accounts it was no longer possible to admit that the fate of Greece, concerned exclusively the Ottoman Porte, and that the Courts of London, of Paris, and St. Petersburgh, therefore, felt it to be their duty to regulate by a special treaty the line of conduct which they had resolved to follow. That they offered their mediation between the Sublime Porte and the Greeks to put an end to the war, and to settle by an amicable negotiation the relations, which ought for the future to exist between them. That for the purpose of facilitating the success of the mediation, they proposed to the Sublime Porte to suspend by an armistice all acts of hostility towards the Greeks, to whom a similar and simultaneous proposition was to be addressed. Lastly, that before the end of a month, the Ottoman Porte must make known its definite determination. That it was hoped that that determination would be in conformity with the wishes of the allied courts; but if the Porte refused to comply with the request, or returned an evasive and insufficient answer, or even maintained a complete silence, the allied courts would be compelled to have recourse to the measures which they should think most likely to be efficacious to put an end to a state of things, incompatible with the true interests of the Porte, with the security of the commerce, and the assured tranquillity of Europe. In the event of no answer, an evasive answer, or a refusal on the part of the Porte, before a month had elapsed, the Divan was to be informed that the Allied Courts would interfere themselves to establish an armistice; but that, in the execution of this resolution, they were far from wishing to put an end to their friendly relations with the Porte. The result of these representations was forthwith to be reported to the Admirals, commanding the several fleets of the Allies, who were instructed to make a similar requisition for an armistice, to the Greek Government; and in the event of either that Government, or the Porte refusing, or delaying, to consent to the establishment of an armistice, coercive measures were to be taken to enforce it. If the Porte should be the refusing party (for after the propositions made by the Greeks there was little chance of their not consenting to the armistice), the Allied Squadrons were to unite, and the Admirals were to enter into friendly relations with the Greeks on the one hand, and on the other, to intercept all ships, freighted with men and arms, destined to act against the Greeks, whether coming from Turkey, or from the coast of Africa. But whatever measures they might adopt towards the Ottoman navy, the three Admirals were especially instructed to take extreme care (soin extrÊme) that they should not degenerate into hostilities. The fixed intention of the three Powers was to interpose as conciliators (conciliatrices), and any hostile step would be contrary to the pacifick character, which they were desirous of assuming. The settlement of this treaty, and of these instructions to the representatives of the three Courts, at Constantinople, and to the commanders of the Allied Squadron, were Mr. Canning's last acts on the subject of Greek affairs.
Source.—The Gentleman's Magazine, Vol. 97, 1827, p. 453. Turkey and Greece. In our last number (p. 360), we stated that the combined squadrons of England and France (to which that of Russia, under Count Heyden, has been since added) had compelled Ibrahim Pacha to assent to an armistice, until the result of the negociations at Constantinople should be known; when he promised that "his fleet should not move from Navarino, until he received full instructions from Constantinople." It appears, however, that Ibrahim, whether in obedience to, or in opposition to the Ottoman Government, treacherously broke the conditions of the armistice. In the first place he attempted to make sail from Navarino to Patras, and on being ordered back by Adm. Codrington, landed his troops, and wreaked his barbarous vengeance on the miserable Greek inhabitants of the Morea. In short, it was discovered that the Turkish soldiers were desolating the country with fire and sword, and even butchering the women and children. Capt. Hamilton, of the Cambrian, communicated the circumstances to Adm. Codrington, in a letter dated Kitries, October 18. He says: "I have the honour of informing you that I arrived here yesterday morning, in company with the Russian frigate Constantine, the captain of which ship had placed himself under my orders. On entering the Gulf, we observed by clouds of fire and smoke that the work of devastation was still going on. The ships were anchored off the pass off Ancyro, and a joint letter from myself and the Russian captain was despatched to the Turkish commander. The Russian and English officers, the bearers of it, were not allowed to proceed to head-quarters, nor have we yet received any answer. In the afternoon, we, the two captains, went on shore to the Greek quarters, and were received with the greatest enthusiasm. The distress of the inhabitants driven from the plain is shocking! women and children dying every moment of absolute starvation, and hardly any having better food than boiled grass! I have promised to send a small quantity of bread to the caves in the mountains, where these unfortunate wretches have taken refuge. It is supposed that if Ibrahim remained in Greece, more than a third of its inhabitants will die of absolute starvation." Under these circumstances the commanders of the allied forces signed an agreement on the 18th of October to enter and take a position in the port of Navarino, as a commodious means of "renewing to Ibrahim Pacha propositions, which, entering into the spirit of the treaty, were evidently to the advantage of the Porte itself." After the first part of this arrangement had been executed on the 20th by their anchoring close to the Turkish line of battle, the allied flags of truce were fired upon, and many British lives destroyed, in the very act of peaceable remonstrance with the Infidels. The necessary retaliation for this outrage brought on a general action, and the total destruction of a fleet which was armed with 1,800 pieces of ordinance. The particulars of this brilliant victory are admirably detailed in the official despatches addressed to J. W. Croker, Esq., by Vice-Admiral Sir Edward Codrington, dated Navarino, October 21. They appeared in a Gazette Extraordinary of the 10th of November, of which the following is a copy: "H.M.'s Ship Asia,
"Port of Navarino, October 21. "Sir, "I have the honour of informing his Royal Highness the Lord High Admiral, that, my colleagues Count Heyden and the Chevalier de Rigny having agreed with me that we should come into this port, in order to induce Ibrahim Pacha to discontinue the brutal war of extermination which he has been carrying on since his return here from his failure in the Gulf of Patras, the combined squadrons passed the batteries, in order to take up their anchorage, at about two o'clock yesterday afternoon. The Turkish ships were moored in the form of a crescent, with springs on their cables, the larger ones presenting their broadsides towards the centre, the smaller ones in succession within them, filling up the intervals. The combined fleet was formed in the order of sailing in two columns, the British and French forming the weather or starboard line, and the Russian the lee line. "The Asia led in, followed by the Genoa and Albion, and anchored close alongside a ship of the line bearing the flag of the Capitana Bey, another ship of the line, and a large double banked frigate, each thus having their proper opponent in the front line of the Turkish fleet. The four ships to windward, part of the Egyptian squadron, were allotted to the squadron of Rear-Adm. de Rigny; and those to leeward, in the bight of the crescent, were to mark the stations of the whole Russian squadron; the ships of their line closing those of the English line, and being followed up by their own frigates. The French frigate Armide was directed to place herself alongside the outermost frigate, on the left hand entering the harbour; and the Cambrian, Glasgow, and Talbot next to her, and abreast of the Asia, Genoa, and Albion; the Dartmouth and the Musquito, the Rose, the Brisk, and the Philomel were to look after six fire vessels at the entrance of the harbour. I gave orders that no gun should be fired, unless guns were first fired by the Turks; and those orders were strictly observed. The three English ships were accordingly permitted to pass the batteries and to moor, as they did with great rapidity, without any act of open hostility, although there was evident preparation for it in all the Turkish ships; but upon the Dartmouth sending a boat to one of the fire vessels, Lieut. G. W. H. Fitzroy, and several of her crew, were shot with musketry. This produced a defensive fire of musketry from the Dartmouth, and La Syrene, bearing the flag of Rear-Admiral de Rigny; that was succeeded by cannon-shot at the Rear-Admiral from one of the Egyptian ships, which, of course, brought on a return, and thus very shortly afterwards the battle became general. The Asia, although placed alongside the ship of the Capitana Bey, was even nearer to that of Moharem Bey, the commander of the Egyptian ships; and since his ships did not fire at the Asia, although the action was begun to windward, neither did the Asia fire at her. The latter, indeed, sent a message, "that he would not fire at all," and therefore no hostility took place betwixt our two ships for some time after the Asia had returned the fire of the Capitana Bey. "In the meantime, however, our excellent pilot, Mr. Peter Mitchell, who went to interpret to Moharem my desire to avoid bloodshed, was killed by his people in our boat alongside. "Whether with or without his orders I know not; but his ship soon afterwards fired into the Asia, and was consequently effectually destroyed by the Asia's fire, sharing the same fate as his brother Admiral on the starboard side, and falling to leeward a mere wreck. These ships being out of the way, the Asia became exposed to a raking fire from vessels in the second and third line, which carried away her mizen-mast by the board, disabled some of her guns, and killed and wounded several of her crew. This narration of the proceedings of the Asia would probably be equally applicable to most of the other ships of the fleet. The manner in which the Genoa and Albion took their stations was beautiful; and the conduct of my brother Admirals, Count Heyden and the Chevalier de Rigny, throughout was admirable and highly exemplary. "Captain Fellowes executed the part allotted to him perfectly, and with the able assistance of his little but brave detachment, saved the Syrene from being burnt by the fire vessels. And the Cambrian, Glasgow and Talbot, following the fine example of Capitaine Hugon, of the Armide, who was opposed to the leading frigate of that line, effectually destroyed their opponents, and also silenced the batteries. This bloody and destructive battle was continued with unabated fury for four hours, and the scene of wreck and devastation which presented itself at its termination was such as has seldom been witnessed. As each ship of our opponents became effectually disabled, such of her crew as could escape from her endeavoured to set her on fire; and it is wonderful how we avoided the effects of their successive and awful explosions. "I contemplate, as I do with extreme sorrow, the extent of our loss, I console myself with the reflection that the measure which produced the battle was absolutely necessary for obtaining the results contemplated by the treaty, and that it was brought on entirely by our opponents. "When I found the boasted Ottoman's word of honour made a sacrifice to wanton savage devastation, and that a base advantage was taken of our reliance upon Ibrahim's good faith, I own I felt a desire to punish the offenders. But it was my duty to refrain, and refrain I did; and I can assure his Royal Highness, that I would still have avoided this disastrous extremity if other means had been open to me. "Total killed, 75; total wounded, 197. "Killed and wounded on board the French ships: Killed, 43; 79 severely wounded; 65 wounded. "Accounts have been received from Constantinople of a date subsequent to the arrival of the above news at that city. The Divan appeared to be in a state of consternation; and the Ambassadors of the three allied powers were urgently pressing the subject of their intended negociations. The haughty tone of the Porte seems to be in some measure subdued; and, contrary to general expectation, there has been no popular commotion excited against the resident Christians."
Source.—Memoirs of Sir Robert Peel, by Stanhope and Cardwell. London, 1856. Pt. I. p. 35. Extracts from Lord Anglesey's Letter to Lord Francis Leveson Gower. "I will give you my opinion upon the state of things and upon the great question. "I begin by premising that I hold in abhorrence the Association, the agitators, the priests, and their religion; and I believe that not many, but that some of the Bishops, are mild, moderate and anxious to come to a fair and liberal compromise for the adjustment of the points at issue. I think that these latter have very little, if any, influence with the lower clergy and the population. "Such is the extraordinary power of the Association, or rather of the agitators, of whom there are many of high ability, of ardent mind, of great daring (and, if there was no Association, these men are now too well known not to maintain their power under the existing order of exclusion), that I am quite certain they could lead on the people to open rebellion at a moment's notice; and their organization is such, that, in the hands of desperate and intelligent leaders, they would be extremely formidable. The hope, and indeed the probability of present tranquillity, rests upon the forbearance and the not very determined courage of O'Connell, and on his belief, as well as that of the principal men amongst them, that they will carry their cause by unceasing agitation, and by intimidation, without coming to blows. I believe their success inevitable—that no power under heaven can arrest its progress. There may be rebellion, you may put to death thousands, you may suppress it, but it will only be to put off the day of compromise; and in the meantime the country is still more impoverished, and the minds of the people are, if possible, still more alienated, and ruinous expense is entailed upon the empire. "But supposing that the whole evil was concentrated in the Association, and that if that was suppressed all would go smoothly; where is the man who can tell me how to suppress it? Many, many cry out that the nuisance must be abated; that the Government is supine; that the insolence of the demagogues is intolerable; but I have not yet found one person capable of pointing out a remedy. All are mute when you ask them to define their proposition. All that even the most determined opposers to emancipation say is that it is better to leave things as they are than to risk any change. But will things remain as they are? Certainly not. They are bad; they must get worse; and I see no possible means of improving them but by depriving the demagogues of the power of directing the people; and by taking Messrs. O'Connell, Sheil, and the rest of them from the Association, and placing them in the House of Commons, this desirable object would be at once accomplished. "July 3rd. The present order of things must not, cannot last. There are three modes of proceeding: "1st. That of trying to go on as we have done. "2nd. To adjust the question by concession, and such guards as may be deemed indispensable. "3rd. To put down the Association, and to crush the power of the priests. "The first I hold to be impossible. "The second is practicable and advisable. "The third is only possible by supposing that you can reconstruct the House of Commons; and to suppose that is to suppose that you can totally alter the feelings of those who send them there. "I believe nothing short of the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act, and Martial Law will effect the third proposition. This would effect it during their operation, and perhaps for a short time after they had ceased, and then every evil would return with accumulated weight. "But no House of Commons would consent to these measures until there is open rebellion, and therefore until that occurs it is useless to think of them. The second mode of proceeding is then, I conceive, the only practicable one, but the present is not a propitious time to effect even this. "I abhor the idea of truckling to the overbearing Catholic demagogues. To make any movement towards conciliation under the present excitement and system of terror would revolt me; but I do most conscientiously, and after the most earnest consideration of the subject, give it as my conviction that the first moment of composure and tranquillity should be seized to signify the intention of adjusting the question, lest another period of calm should not present itself."
Source.—Memoirs of Sir Robert Peel, by Stanhope and Cardwell. London, 1856. Pt. I. p. 35. Irish Police Reports, January and February, 1828. Sligo.—Generally quiet; 1 murder; 7 outrages. Mayo.—Perfectly quiet; 1 murder; 1 outrage. Roscommon.—Rockites rather busy; apprehensive of their extending their operations; 2 murders; 11 outrages. Clare.—Quiet; apprehensive of Ribbon spirit extending; 9 outrages. Leitrim.—Much disturbed; the sway of the Rockites formidable; magistrates supposed to be deficient in energy; 36 outrages. Galway.—Perfectly quiet; 1 murder; 6 outrages. Antrim.—Disturbed; robberies of fire-arms; not insurrectionary; 3 murders; 7 outrages. Armagh.—Quiet; 1 outrage. Cavan.—Strong political feeling ready to develop itself; 9 outrages. Donegal.—Not tranquil; 2 murders; 4 outrages. Down.—Quiet; 2 outrages. Fermanagh.—Tranquil; 6 outrages. Londonderry.—Generally quiet; 1 murder; 4 outrages. Monaghan.—Disturbed; party violence runs high; 1 murder; 6 outrages. Ulster may be considered tolerably tranquil, with the exception of some baronies in the counties of Donegal and Monaghan. Tipperary.—Whiteboy system prevails very generally; no organized insurrectionary system founded upon political feeling; 4 murders; 75 outrages. Cork.—Generally quiet; 1 murder; 4 outrages. Waterford.—Quiet; 3 outrages. Kerry.—Quiet; 3 outrages. Roscrea.—Dissatisfied spirit excited by inflammatory speeches. Limerick.—Satisfactory state; 9 outrages. Wicklow.—Western division disturbed; considered necessary to increase the constabulary force by ordering three men to Dunlavin, and three more to another disturbed point; Talbotstown the most disturbed; 3 outrages. Kildare.—Nothing to notice.
Source.—Annual Register for 1829, p. 94. Duke of Wellington's Speech. [The attitude of the Ministry was set forth in a brief speech by the Duke of Wellington at the close of the debate. While there is little in the utterance beyond a personal explanation of the secrecy maintained, it is inserted as being the final word on the great question which had for so many years troubled the heart of England.] The debate was closed by a brief reply from the Duke of Wellington. The apprehended danger to the Irish Church from the admission of a few Catholics into Parliament, he treated as futile, considering that the throne would be filled by a Protestant. Moreover, a fundamental article of the Union between the two countries was the union of the two Churches; and it was impossible that any mischief could happen to the Irish branch of this united Church, without destroying the union of the two countries. "A different topic," said his grace, "to which I wish to advert is a charge brought against several of my colleagues, and also against myself, by the noble earl on the cross-bench, of a want of consistency in our conduct. My lords, I admit that many of my colleagues, as well as myself, did on former occasions vote against a measure of a similar description with this; and, my lords, I must say, that my colleagues and myself felt, when we adopted this measure, that we should be sacrificing ourselves and our popularity to that which we felt to be our duty to our sovereign and our country. We knew very well, that if we put ourselves at the head of the Protestant cry of 'No Popery,' we should be much more popular even than those who had excited against us that very cry. But we felt that in so doing we should have left on the interests of the country a burthen which must end in bearing them down, and further that we should have deserved the hate and execration of our countrymen. Then I am accused, and by a noble and learned friend of mine, of having acted with great secrecy respecting this measure. Now I beg to tell him, that he has done that to me in the course of this discussion which he complains of others having done to him—in other words, he has, in the language of a right hon. friend of his and mine, thrown a large paving-stone, instead of throwing a small pebble. I say, that if he accuses me of acting with secrecy on this question, he does not deal with me altogether fairly. He knows as well as I do how the Cabinet was constructed on this question; and I ask him, had I any right to say a single word to any man whatsoever upon this measure, until the person most interested in the kingdom upon it had given his consent to my speaking out? Before he accused me of secrecy, and of improper secrecy too, he ought to have known the precise day upon which I received the permission of the highest personage in the country, and had leave to open my mouth upon this measure. There is another point also on which a noble earl accused me of misconduct; and that is, that I did not at once dissolve the Parliament. Now I must say that I think noble lords are mistaken in the notion of the benefits which they think that they would derive from a dissolution of Parliament at this crisis. I believe that many of them are not aware of the consequences and of the inconveniences of a dissolution of Parliament at any time. But when I know, as I did know, and as I do know, the state of the elective franchise in Ireland—when I recollected the number of men it took to watch one election which took place in Ireland in the course of last summer—when I knew the consequences which a dissolution would produce on the return to the House of Commons, to say nothing of the risks which must have been incurred at each election—of collisions that might have lead to something little short of a civil war—I say, that, knowing all these things, I should have been wanting in duty to my sovereign and to my country, if I had advised his Majesty to dissolve his Parliament."
Source.—The Life of the Duke of Wellington, by J. R. Gleig. Letter from Col. Fairman to the Editor of the "Morning Herald," April 6, 1830. "Dear Sir, "From those who may be supposed to have opportunities of knowing 'the secrets of the castle,' the King is stated to be by no manner in so alarming a state as many folks would have it imagined. His Majesty is likewise said to dictate the bulletins of his own state of health. Some whisperings have also gone abroad, that in the event of a demise of the crown, a regency would probably be established, for reasons which occasioned the removal of the next in the succession from the office of high-admiral. That a maritime government might not prove consonant to the views of a military chieftain of the most unbounded ambition, may admit of easy belief; and as the second heir-presumptive is not alone a female, but a minor, in addition to the argument which might be applied to the present, that in the ordinary course of nature it was not to be expected that his reign could be of long duration, in these disjointed times it is by no means unlikely a vicarious form of government may be attempted. The effort would be a bold one, but after the measures we have seen, what new violations should surprise us? Besides, the popular plea of economy and expedience might be urged as the pretext, while aggrandisement and usurpation might be the latent sole motive. It would only be necessary to make out a plausible case, which, from the facts on record, there could be no difficulty in doing, to the satisfaction of a pliable and obsequious set of ministers, as also to the success of such an experiment. "Most truly yours,
"W. B. F." Note.—Colonel Fairman was an Orangeman. After the Emancipation Bill became law, the Orangemen gave vent to their wrath upon the Duke of Wellington.
Source.—William Cobbett's Rural Rides, ed. by Mr. Pitt Cobbett, 1885. "Leicester, 26th April, 1830. "At the famous city of Lincoln, I had crowded audiences, principally consisting of farmers, on the 21st and 22nd; exceedingly well-behaved audiences, and great impression produced. One of the evenings, in pointing out to them the wisdom of explaining to their labourers the cause of their distress, in order to ward off the effects of the resentment which labourers now feel everywhere against the farmers, I related to them what my labourers at Barn-Elm had been doing since I left home; and I repeated to them the complaints that my labourers made, stating to them, from memory, the following parts of that spirited petition: "That your petitioners have recently observed that many great sums of money, part of which we pay, have been voted to be given to persons who render no services to the country; some of which sums we will mention here; that the sum of £94,000 has been voted to disbanded foreign officers, their widows and children; that your petitioners know that ever since the peace this charge has been annually made; that it has been on the average, £110,000 a year, and that, of course, this band of foreigners have actually taken away out of England, since the peace, one million and seven thousand pounds; partly taken from the fruit of our labour; and if our dinners were actually taken from our table and carried over to Hanover, the process could not be more visible to our eyes than it now is; and we are astonished that those who fear that we, who make the land bring forth crops, and who make the clothing and the houses, shall swallow up the rental, appear to think nothing at all of the swallowings of these Hanoverian men, women, and children, who may continue thus to swallow for half a century to come.
"That your petitioners know that more than one half of their wages is taken from them by the taxes; that these taxes go chiefly into the hands of idlers; that your petitioners are the bees, and that the tax receivers are the drones; but that your petitioners hope to see the day when the checking of the increase of the drones, and not of the bees, will be the object of an English parliament. "That, in consequence of taxes, your petitioners pay sixpence for a pot of worse beer than they could make for one penny; that they pay ten shillings for a pair of shoes that they could have for five shillings; that they pay sevenpence for a pound of soap or candles that they could have for threepence; that they pay sevenpence for a pound of sugar that they could have for threepence; that they pay six shillings for a pound of tea which they could have for two shillings; that they pay double for their bread and meat, of what they would have to pay if there were no idlers to be kept out of the taxes; that, therefore, it is the taxes that make their wages insufficient for their support, and that compel them to apply for aid to the poor-rates; that, knowing these things they feel indignant at hearing themselves described as paupers, while so many thousands of idlers, for whose support they pay taxes, are called noble Lords and Ladies, honourable Gentlemen, Masters, and Misses; that they feel indignant at hearing themselves described as a nuisance to be got rid of, while the idlers who live upon their earnings are upheld, caressed, and cherished, as if they were the sole support of the country." Having repeated to them these passages, I proceeded: "My workmen were induced thus to petition, in consequence of the information, which I, their master, had communicated to them; and, gentlemen, why should not your labourers petition in the same strain? Why should you suffer them to remain in a state of ignorance, relative to the cause of their misery? The eyes sweep over in this country more riches in one moment than are contained in the whole county in which I was born, and in which the petitioners live. Between Holbeach and Boston, even at a public house, neither bread nor meat was to be found; and while the landlord was telling me that the people were become so poor that the butchers killed no meat in the neighbourhood, I counted more than two thousand fat sheep lying about in the pastures in that richest spot in the whole world. Starvation in the midst of plenty; the land covered with food, and the working people without victuals: everything taken away by the tax-eaters of various descriptions: and yet you take no measures for redress; and your miserable labourers seem to be doomed to expire with hunger, without an effort to obtain relief. What! cannot you point out to them the real cause of their sufferings; cannot you take a piece of paper and write out a petition for them; cannot your labourers petition as well as mine, are God's blessings bestowed on you without any spirit to preserve them; is the fatness of the land, is the earth teeming with food for the body and raiment for the back, to be an apology for the waste of that courage for which your fathers were so famous; is the abundance which God has put into your hands to be the excuse for your resigning yourselves to starvation? My God! is there no spirit left in England except in the miserable sandhills of Surrey?"
Source.—The Gentleman's Magazine, Vol. 100, p. 552. Railway Carriages—June 14. The directors of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway made their first public exhibition upon the line, and the experiment proved most successful. The Arrow steam engine drew a carriage with twelve inside passengers, another with thirty outside, and seven carriages loaded with thirty-four tons of rough stone. The journey from Liverpool to Manchester (rather more than thirty miles) was performed in two hours 23½ minutes, including stoppages for water, which occupied 13½ minutes. They left Manchester again for Liverpool about half-past four o'clock, at the rate of about 25 miles the hour, drawing two very large carriages with upwards of fifty passengers, and performed the whole distance in one hour 46½ minutes, including 12 minutes watering and to set down a passenger. The introduction of Railways is likely to be as beneficial in improving the accommodation afforded to travellers, as in increasing the expedition with which they will be conveyed. Some of the carriages which have been made at the manufactory of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway Company, for the public conveyance of passengers on the Railway, give quite a new idea of the ease and luxury with which persons may in future travel. Most of the carriages to be used as public coaches consist, like the French diligences, of two or three bodies joined together. Some are intended to accommodate four persons in each body, and others six. Between the sittings is a rest for the arms, and each passenger has a cushion to himself; the backs are padded and covered with fine cloth, like a private carriage. There are at present exhibiting in Edinburgh three large models, accompanied with drawings of railways and their carriages, invented by Mr. Dick, who has a patent. These railways are of a different nature from those hitherto in use, inasmuch as they are not laid along the surface of the ground, but elevated to such a height as when necessary to pass over the tops of houses and trees. The principal supports are of stone, and, being placed at considerable distances, have cast iron pillars between them. The carriages are to be dragged along with a velocity hitherto unparalleled, by means of a rope drawn by a steam-engine, or other prime mover—a series being placed at intervals along the railway. From the construction of the railway and carriages the friction is very small.
Source.—The Gentleman's Magazine, Vol. 100, p. 264. September 15. The interesting ceremony of opening the Manchester and Liverpool Railway took place this day. It was rendered more splendid and imposing by the presence of the Duke of Wellington and many distinguished individuals, whom the Directors had invited. The concourse of spectators at each end of the line was immense. The procession left Liverpool twenty minutes before eleven o'clock drawn by eight locomotive engines, the first of which was the Northumbrian, with the Directors and numerous distinguished visitors, including the Duke of Wellington. The other engines were the Phoenix, North Star, Rocket, Dart, Comet, Arrow, and Meteor. The carriage in which the Duke of Wellington and his friends travelled, was truly magnificent. The floor was 32 feet long by 8 wide, and was supported by eight large iron wheels. A grand canopy, 24 feet long, was placed aloft upon gilded pillars, contrived so as to be lowered in passing through the tunnel. The Northumbrian drew three carriages, the first containing the band, the second the Duke of Wellington and the distinguished visitors, and the third the Directors. The Phoenix, and the North Star drew five carriages each; the Rocket drew three; and the Dart, Comet, Arrow, and Meteor, each four. The total number of persons conveyed was 772. On issuing from the smaller tunnel at Liverpool, the first engine, that is, the Northumbrian, took the south, or right-hand line of railway, while the other seven engines proceeded along the north line. The procession did not proceed at a particularly rapid pace—not more than 15 or 16 miles an hour. In the course of the journey, the Northumbrian accelerated or retarded its speed occasionally, to give the Duke of Wellington an opportunity of inspecting the most remarkable parts of the work. On the arrival of the procession at Parkside (a little on this side of Newton) the carriages stopped to take in a supply of water. Before starting from Liverpool, the company were particularly requested not to leave the carriages, and the same caution was repeated in the printed directions describing the order of procession. Notwithstanding this regulation, however, Mr. Huskisson, Mr. Wm. Holmes, M.P., and other gentlemen, alighted from the carriage of the Duke of Wellington, when the Northumbrian stopped at Parkside. At the moment they descended into the road, three of the engines on the other line—the Phoenix, the North Star, and the Rocket, were rapidly approaching. Mr. Huskisson and Mr. Holmes were standing in the road between the two lines of railway, which are about four feet distant from each other. Unluckily, Mr. Huskisson imagining that there was not room for a person to stand between the lines while the other engines were passing, made an attempt to get again into the carriage of the Duke before the Dart came up. He laid hold of the door of the carriage, and pulled it open with so much force that he lost his balance, and fell backwards across the rails of the other line, the moment before the passing of the Dart. The conductor of that engine immediately stopped it, but before that could be effected, both wheels of the engine passed over the leg of the unfortunate gentleman, which was placed over the rail, his head and body being under the engine. The right leg was frightfully shattered, the muscles being torn to pieces. The Earl of Wilton, Mr. Holmes, and Mr. Parkes, solicitor, of Birmingham, raised Mr. Huskisson from the ground. The only words he uttered were: "I have met my death—God forgive me!" A tourniquet was immediately applied by the Earl of Wilton; and Dr. Brandreth was quickly in attendance. He was then removed to a car, and carried to Eccles, a village within four miles of Manchester; and after his arrival there, was removed to the house of the Rev. Mr. Blackburn, the rector of that place, where the Right Hon. Gentleman expired between nine and ten o'clock the same evening. After the above melancholy accident a question arose as to what ought to be done with regard to the further progress of the business of the day. The Duke of Wellington refused to proceed further. Some of the proprietors and directors insisted that they had a public duty to perform in carrying the day's proceedings to an end, and that the success of the project, on which they had expended so much capital, might depend on their being regularly finished. They contended, moreover, that the procession must go on to Manchester, if they wished to avoid a breach of the public tranquillity. The Duke's scruples ultimately gave way, and the order was issued to move on to Manchester. On its return the Duke of Wellington quitted the rail-road about three miles before the cortege reached Liverpool, and posted off to the Marquis of Salisbury's seat at Childwell. The splendid corporation dinner which had been prepared at Liverpool was suspended; and nothing was heard spoken of but the above melancholy event. Mr. Huskisson was interred on the 24th at the public cemetery at Liverpool. The funeral was a public one.
Source.—The Life of the Duke of Wellington, by J. R. Gleig. Letter from the Duke of Wellington to J. R. Gleig, Esq. "London, 11th April, 1831. "I have received your letters of the 8th and 9th. It is curious enough that I, who have been the greatest reformer on earth, should be held up as an enemy to all reform. This assertion is neither more or less than one of the lying cries of the day. "If by reform is meant parliamentary reform, or a change in the mode or system of representation, what I have said is, that I have never heard of a plan that was safe and practicable that would give satisfaction, and that while I was in office I should oppose myself to reform in parliament. This was in answer to Lord Grey on the first day of the session. I am still of the same opinion. I think that parliament has done its duty: that constituted as parliament is, having in it as a member every man noted in the country for his fortune, his talents, his science, his industry, or his influence; the first men of all professions, in all branches of trade and manufacture, connected with our colonies and settlements abroad, and representing, as it does, all the states of the United Kingdom, the government of the country is still a task almost more than human. To conduct the government would be impossible, if by reform the House of Commons should be brought to a greater degree under popular influence. Yet let those who wish for reform reflect for a moment where we should all stand if we were to lose for a day the protection of government. "That is the ground upon which I stand with respect to the question of reform in general. I have more experience in the government of this country than any man now alive, as well as in foreign countries. I have no borough influence to lose, and I hate the whole concern too much to think of endeavouring to gain any. Ask the gentlemen of the Cinque Ports whether I have ever troubled any of them. "On the other hand, I know that I should be the idol of the country if I could pretend to alter my opinion and alter my course. And I know that I exclude myself from political power by persevering in the course which I have taken. But nothing shall induce me to utter a word, either in public or in private, that I don't believe to be true. If it is God's will that this great country should be destroyed, and that mankind should be deprived of this last asylum of peace and happiness, be it so; but, as long as I can raise my voice, I will do so against the infatuated madness of the day. "In respect to details, it has always appeared to me that the first step upon this subject was the most important. We talk of unrepresented great towns! These are towns which have all the benefit of being governed by the system of the British Constitution without the evil of elections. Look at Scotland. Does Scotland suffer because it has not the benefit of riotous elections? I think that reform in Scotland would be, and I am certain would be thought, a grievance by many in that country. I can answer for there being many respectable men in Manchester, and I believe there are some in Birmingham and Leeds, who are adverse to change. "But how is this change to be made? Either by adding to the number of representatives in parliament from England, or by disfranchising what are called the rotten boroughs! The first cannot be done without a departure from the basis and a breach of the Acts of Union. And, mind, a serious departure and breach of these acts, inasmuch as the limits of the extension could not be less than from fifteen to twenty towns. The last would be, in my opinion, a violation of the first and most important principle of the constitution, for no valid reason, and upon no ground whatever excepting a popular cry, and an apprehension of the consequences of resisting it. But this is not all. I confess that I see in thirty members for rotten boroughs thirty men, I don't care of what party, who would preserve the state of property as it is; who would maintain by their votes the Church of England, its possessions, its churches and universities, all our great institutions and corporations, the union with Scotland and Ireland, the connection of the country with its foreign colonies and possessions, the national honour abroad and its good faith with the king's subjects at home. I see men at the back of the government to enable it to protect individuals and their property against the injustice of the times, which would sacrifice all rights and all property to a description of plunder called general convenience and utility. I think it is the presence of this description of men in parliament with the country gentlemen, and the great merchants, bankers, and manufacturers, which constitute the great difference between the House of Commons and those assemblies abroad called 'Chambers of Deputies.' It is by means of the representatives of the close corporations that the great proprietors of the country participate in political power. I don't think that we could spare thirty or forty of these representatives, or change them with advantage for thirty or forty members elected for the great towns by any new system. I am certain that the country would be injured by depriving men of great property of political power, besides the injury done to it by exposing the House of Commons to a greater degree of popular influence. "You will observe that I have now considered only the smallest of all reforms—a reform which would satisfy nobody. Yet it cannot be adopted without a serious departure from principle (principle in the maintenance of which the smallest as well as the greatest of us is interested), and by running all the risks of those misfortunes which all wish to avoid. "I tell you that we must not risk our great institutions and large properties, personal as well as real. If we do, there is not a man of this generation, so young, so old, so rich, so poor, so bold, so timid, as that he will not feel the consequences of this rashness. This opinion is founded not on reasoning only, but on experience, and I shall never cease to declare it."
Source.—Molesworthy's History of the Reform Bill, London, 1866, p. 103. The object of ministers has been to produce a measure with which every reasonable man in the country will be satisfied—we wish to take our stand between the two hostile parties, neither agreeing with the bigotry of those who would reject all Reform, nor with the fanaticism of those who contend that only one plan of Reform would be wholesome or satisfactory, but placing ourselves between both, and between the abuses we intend to amend and the convulsion we hope to avert. The ancient constitution of our country declares that no man should be taxed for the support of the State, who has not consented, by himself or his representative, to the imposition of these taxes. The well-known statute, de tallagio non concedendo, repeats the same language; and, although some historical doubts have been thrown upon it, its legal meaning has never been disputed. It included "all the freemen of the land," and provided that each county should send to the Commons of the realm, two knights, each city two burgesses, and each borough two members. Thus about a hundred places sent representatives, and some thirty or forty others occasionally enjoyed the privilege, but it was discontinued or revived as they rose or fell in the scale of wealth and importance. Thus, no doubt, at that early period, the House of Commons did represent the people of England; there is no doubt likewise, that the House of Commons, as it now subsists, does not represent the people of England. Therefore, if we look at the question of right, the reformers have right in their favour. Then, if we consider what is reasonable, we shall arrive at a similar result. A stranger, who was told that this country is unparalleled in wealth and industry, and more civilized, and more enlightened than any country was before it; that it is a country that prides itself on its freedom, and that once in every seven years it elects representatives from its population, to act as the guardians and preservers of that freedom,—would be anxious and curious to see how that representation is formed, and how the people chose those representatives, to whose faith and guardianship they entrust their free and liberal institutions. Such a person would be very much astonished if he were taken to a ruined mound, and told that that mound sent two representatives to Parliament—if he were taken to a stone wall, and told that three niches in it sent two representatives to Parliament—if he were taken to a park, where no houses were to be seen, and told that that park sent two representatives to Parliament; but if he were told all this, and were astonished at hearing it, he would be still more astonished if he were to see large and opulent towns full of enterprise and industry, and intelligence, containing vast magazines of every species of manufactures, and were then told that these towns sent no representatives to Parliament. Such a person would be still more astonished, if he were taken to Liverpool, where there is a large constituency, and told, here you will have a fine specimen of a popular election. He would see bribery employed to the greatest extent, and in the most unblushing manner; he would see every voter receiving a number of guineas in a box, as the price of his corruption; and after such a spectacle, he would no doubt be much astonished that a nation whose representatives are thus chosen, could perform the functions of legislation at all, or enjoy respect in any degree. I say, then, that if the question before the House is a question of reason, the present state of representation is against reason. The confidence of the country in the construction and constitution of the House of Commons is gone. It would be easier to transfer the flourishing manufactures of Leeds and Manchester to Gatton and Old Sarum, than re-establish confidence and sympathy between this House and those whom it calls its constituents. If, therefore, the question is one of right, right is in favour of Reform; if it be a question of reason, reason is in favour of Reform; if it be a question of policy and expediency, policy and expediency are in favour of Reform. I come now to the explanation of the measure which, representing the ministers of the King, I am about to propose to the House. Those ministers have thought, and in my opinion justly thought, that no half measures would be sufficient; that no trifling or paltering with Reform could give stability to the Crown, strength to Parliament, or satisfaction to the country. The chief grievances of which the people complain are these. First, the nomination of members by individuals; second, the election by close corporations; third, the expense of elections. With regard to the first, it may be exercised in two ways, either over a place containing scarcely any inhabitants, and with a very extensive right of election; or over a place of wide extent and numerous population, but where the franchise is confined to very few persons. Gatton is an example of the first, and Bath of the second. At Gatton, where the right of voting is by scot and lot, all householders have a vote, but there are only five persons to exercise the right. At Bath the inhabitants are numerous, but very few of them have any concern in the election. In the former case, we propose to deprive the borough of the franchise altogether. In doing so, we have taken for our guide the population returns of 1821; and we propose that every borough which in that year had less than 2,000 inhabitants, should altogether lose the right of sending members to Parliament, the effect of which will be to disfranchise sixty-two boroughs. But we do not stop here. As the honourable member for Boroughbridge [Sir C. Wetherell] would say, we go plus ultra; we find that there are forty-seven boroughs of only 4,000 inhabitants, and these we shall deprive of the right of sending more than one member to Parliament. We likewise intend that Weymouth, which at present sends four members to Parliament, should in the future send only two. The total reduction thus effected in the number of the members of this House will be 168. This is the whole extent to which we are prepared to go in the way of disfranchisement. We do not, however, mean to allow that the remaining boroughs should be in the hands of a small number of persons to the exclusion of the great body of the inhabitants who have property and interest in the place. It is a point of great difficulty to decide to whom the franchise should be extended. Though it is a point much disputed, I believe it will be found that in ancient times every inhabitant householder resident in a borough was competent to vote for members of Parliament. As, however, this arrangement excluded villeins and strangers, the franchise always belonged to a particular body in every town;—that the voters were persons of property is obvious, from the fact that they are called upon to pay subsidies and taxes. Two different courses seem to prevail in different places. In some, every person having a house, and being free, was admitted to a general participation in the privileges formerly possessed by burgesses; in others, the burgesses became a select body, and were converted into a kind of corporation, more or less exclusive. These differences, the House will be aware, lead to the most difficult, and at the same time the most useless questions that men can be called upon to decide. I contend that it is proper to get rid of these complicated rights, of these vexatious questions, and to give the real property and real respectability of the different cities and towns, the right of voting for members of Parliament. Finding that a qualification of a house rated at £20 a year, would confine the elective franchise, instead of enlarging it, we propose that the right of voting should be given to the householders paying rates for houses of the yearly value of £10 and upwards, upon certain conditions hereafter to be stated. At the same time it is not intended to deprive the present electors of their privilege of voting, provided they are resident. With regard to non-residence, we are of opinion that it produces much expense, is the cause of a great deal of bribery, and occasions such manifest and manifold evils, that electors who do not live in a place ought not to be permitted to retain their votes. With regard to resident voters, we propose that they should retain their right during life, but that no vote should be allowed hereafter, except to £10 householders. I shall now proceed to the manner in which we propose to extend the franchise in counties. The bill I wish to introduce will give all copyholders to the value of £10 a year, qualified to serve on juries, under the right hon. gentlemen's [Sir R. Peel] bill, a right to vote for the return of knights of the shire; also, that leaseholders, for not less than twenty-one years, whose annual rent is not less than £50, and whose leases have not been renewed within two years, shall enjoy the same privilege.
Source.—Macaulay's Life and Letters, by the Right Hon. Sir George Otto Trevelyan, 1876. Lord Macaulay's Description of the Scene. Such a scene as the division of last Tuesday I never saw, and never expect to see again. If I should live fifty years the impression of it will be as fresh and sharp in my mind as if it had just taken place. It was like seeing Caesar stabbed in the Senate House, or seeing Oliver taking the mace from the table; a sight to be seen only once, and never to be forgotten. The crowd overflowed the House in every part. When the strangers were cleared out, and the doors locked, we had six hundred and eight members present—more by fifty-five than ever were in a division before. The Ayes and the Noes were like two volleys of cannon from opposite sides of a field of battle. When the opposition went out into the lobby, an operation which took up twenty minutes or more, we spread ourselves over the benches on both sides of the House; for there were many of us who had not been able to find a seat during the evening. When the doors were shut we began to speculate on our numbers. Everybody was desponding. "We have lost it. We are only two hundred and eighty at the most. I do not think we are two hundred and fifty. They are three hundred. Alderman Thompson has counted them. He says they are two hundred and ninety-nine." This was the talk on our benches. I wonder that men who have been long in Parliament do not acquire a better coup d'oeil for numbers. The House, when only the Ayes were in it, looked to me a very fair House—much fuller than it generally is even on debates of considerable interest. I had no hope, however, of three hundred. As the tellers passed along our lowest row on the left hand side the interest was insupportable—two hundred and ninety-one—two hundred and ninety-two—we were all standing up and stretching forward telling with the tellers. At three hundred there was a short cry of joy—at three hundred and two another—suppressed, however, in a moment; for we did not yet know what the hostile force might be. We knew, however, that we could not be severely beaten. The doors were thrown open, and in they came. Each of them, as he entered, brought some different report of their numbers. It must have been impossible, as you may conceive, in the lobby crowded as they were, to form any exact estimate. First, we heard that they were three hundred and three; then that number rose to three hundred and ten; then went down to three hundred and seven, Alexander Barry told me that he had counted, and that they were three hundred and four. We were all breathless with anxiety, when Charles Wood, who stood near the door, jumped on a bench and cried out, "They are only three hundred and one." We set up a shout that you might have heard to Charing Cross, waving our hats, stamping against the floor, and clapping our hands. The tellers scarcely got through the crowd; for the House was thronged up to the table, and all the floor was fluctuating with heads like the pit of a theatre. But you might have heard a pin drop as Duncannon read the numbers. Then again the shouts broke out, and many of us shed tears. I could scarcely refrain. And the jaw of Peel fell; and the face of Twiss was as the face of a damned soul; and Herries looked like Judas taking his necktie off for the last operation. We shook hands and clapped each other on the back, and went out laughing, crying, and huzzaing into the lobby. And no sooner were the outer doors opened than another shout answered that within the House. All the passages, and the stairs into the waiting-rooms, were thronged by people who had waited till four in the morning to know the issue. We passed through a narrow lane between two thick masses of them; and all the way down they were shouting and waving their hats, till we got into the open air. I called a cabriolet, and the first thing the driver asked was, "Is the Bill carried?" "Yes, by one." "Thank God for it, sir." And away I rode to Gray's Inn—and so ended a scene which will probably never be equalled till the reformed Parliament wants reforming; and that I hope will not be till the days of our grandchildren, till that truly orthodox and apostolical person, Dr. Francis Ellis, is an archbishop of eighty."
Source.—Molesworthy's History of the Reform Bill, London, 1866, p. 185. Under these circumstances, ministers acted with promptitude and decision. Their defeat had occurred on the morning of the 22nd of April; on the same day summonses were issued, calling a Cabinet Council at St. James's Palace. So short was the notice, that the ministers were unable to attend, as was customary on such occasions, in their court dresses. At this council it was unanimously resolved that Parliament should be prorogued the same day, with a view to its speedy dissolution, and the royal speech, which had been prepared for the occasion, was considered and adopted. All necessary arrangements having been made, in order to take away from the King all pretext for delay, Earl Grey and Lord Brougham were deputed to wait on the King, and communicate to him the advice of the Cabinet. From what has been already said, the reader will be prepared to anticipate that this advice was far from palatable. The unusual haste with which it was proposed to carry out that measure, naturally increased the King's known objections to the proposed step, and furnished him with a good excuse for refusing his assent to it. Earl Grey, the pink and pattern of loyalty and chivalrous courtesy, shrunk from the disagreeable errand, and requested his bolder and less courtly colleague to introduce the subject, begging him at the same time to manage the susceptibility of the King as much as possible. The Chancellor accordingly approached the subject very carefully, prefacing the disagreeable message with which he was charged, with a compliment on the King's desire to promote the welfare of his people. He then proceeded to communicate the advice of the Cabinet, adding, that they were unanimous in offering it. "What!" exclaimed the King, "would you have me dismiss in this summary manner a Parliament which has granted me so splendid a civil list, and given my Queen so liberal an annuity in case she survives me?" "No doubt, sire," Lord Brougham replied, "in these respects they have acted wisely and honourably, but your Majesty's advisers are all of opinion, that in the present state of affairs, every hour that this Parliament continues to sit is pregnant with danger to the peace and security of your kingdom, and they humbly beseech your Majesty to go down this very day and prorogue it. If you do not, they cannot be answerable for the consequences." The King was greatly embarrassed; he evidently entertained the strongest objection to the proposed measure, but he also felt the danger which would result from the resignation of his ministers at the present crisis. He therefore shifted his ground, and asked: "Who is to carry the sword of state and the cap of maintenance?" "Sire, knowing the urgency of the crisis and the imminent peril in which the country at this moment stands, we have ventured to tell those whose duty it is to perform these and other similar offices, to hold themselves in readiness." "But the troops, the life guards, I have given no orders for them to be called out, and now it is too late." This was indeed a serious objection, for to call out the guards was the special prerogative of the monarch himself, and no minister had any right to order their attendance without his express command. "Sire," replied the Chancellor, with some hesitation, "we must throw ourselves on your indulgence. Deeply feeling the gravity of the crisis, and knowing your love for your people, we have taken a liberty which nothing but the most imperious necessity could warrant; we have ordered out the troops, and we humbly throw ourselves on your Majesty's indulgence." The King's eye flashed and his cheeks became crimson. He was evidently on the point of dismissing the ministry in an explosion of anger. "Why, my lords," he exclaimed, "this is treason! high treason, and you, my Lord Chancellor, ought to know that it is." "Yes, sire, I do know it, and nothing but the strongest conviction that your Majesty's crown and the interests of the nation are at stake, could have induced us to take such a step, or to tender the advice we are now giving." This submissive reply had the desired effect, the King cooled, his prudence and better genius prevailed, and having once made up his mind to yield with a good grace, he accepted, without any objection, the speech which had been prepared for him, and which the two ministers had brought with them, he gave orders respecting the details of the approaching ceremonial, and having completely recovered his habitual serenity and good humour, he dismissed the two lords with a jocose threat of impeachment. At half-past two o'clock the King entered his state carriage. It was remarked that the guards on this occasion rode wide of it, as if they attended as a matter of state and ceremony, and not as being needed for the King's protection. Persons wishing to make a more open demonstration of their feelings, were allowed to pass between the soldiers and approach the royal carriage. One of these, a rough sailor-like person, pulled off his hat, and waving it around his head, shouted lustily, "Turn out the rogues, your Majesty." Notwithstanding the suddenness with which the resolution to dissolve had been taken, the news had already spread through the metropolis, an immense crowd was assembled, and the King was greeted throughout his whole progress with the most enthusiastic shouts. He was exceedingly fond of popularity, and these acclamations helped to reconcile him to the step he had been compelled to take, and to efface the unpleasant impression which the scene which had so recently occurred could not fail to leave behind it. Meanwhile, another scene of a far more violent kind was taking place in the House of Lords. The Chancellor on leaving the King went down to the House to hear appeals. Having gone through the cause list he retired, in the hope that he should thereby prevent Lord Wharncliffe from bringing forward his motion. But the opposition lords had mustered in great force, and the House was full in all parts. It is usual on the occasion of a prorogation by the sovereign, for the peers to appear in their robes, and most of those present wore theirs, but owing to the precipitation with which the dissolution had been decided on, several peers, especially on the opposition side of the House, were without them. A large number of peeresses in full dress, and of members of the House of Commons were also present. And now a struggle commenced between the two parties into which the House was divided. The object of the opposition was to press Lord Wharncliffe's motion before the King's arrival; the supporters of the ministry wished to prevent it from being passed. The firing of the park guns announced that the King was already on his way down to the House, and told the opposition they had no time to lose. On the motion of Lord Mansfield, the Earl of Shaftesbury presided, in the absence of the Lord Chancellor. The Duke of Richmond, in order to baffle the opposition, moved that the standing order which required their lordships to take their places should be enforced. The opposition saw at once that this motion was made for the sake of delay, and angrily protested against it; whereupon the duke threatened to call for the enforcement of two other standing orders which prohibited the use of intemperate and threatening language in the House. Lord Londonderry, furious with indignation, broke out into a vehement tirade against the conduct of the ministry, and thus effectually played the game of his opponents. So violent was the excitement which prevailed at this time in the House, that the ladies present were terrified, thinking that the peers would actually come to blows. At length Lord Londonderry was persuaded to sit down, and Lord Wharncliffe obtained a hearing. But it was too late to press his motion, and he contented himself with reading it, in order that it might be entered on the journals of the House. At this conjuncture, the Lord Chancellor returned, and the moment the reading of the address was concluded, he exclaimed in a vehement and emphatic tone: "My lords, I have never yet heard it doubted that the King possessed the prerogative of dissolving Parliament at pleasure, still less have I ever known a doubt to exist on the subject at a moment when the lower House have thought fit to refuse the supplies." Scarcely had he uttered these words when he was summoned to meet the King, who had just arrived and was in the robing room; he at once quitted the House which resounded on all sides with cries of "hear" and "the King." The tumult having in some degree subsided, Lord Mansfield addressed the House, regretting the scene which had just occurred, and condemning the dissolution, which he qualified as an act by which the ministers were making the sovereign the instrument of his own destruction. He was interrupted by another storm of violence and confusion, which was at length appeased by the announcement that the King was at hand. When he entered, the assembly had recovered its usual calm and decorous tranquillity. The members of the House of Commons having been summoned to the bar, the King, in a loud and firm voice, pronounced his speech, which commenced with the following words: "My lords and gentlemen, "I have come to meet you for the purpose of proroguing this Parliament, with a view to its immediate dissolution. "I have been induced to resort to this measure for the purpose of ascertaining the sense of my people, in the way in which it can be most constitutionally and authentically expressed, on the expediency of making such changes in the representation as circumstances may appear to require, and which, founded on the acknowledged principles of the constitution, may tend at once to uphold the just rights and prerogatives of the crown, and to give security to the liberties of the people."
Source.—Lord Macaulay's Speeches, 1854. Sir, the public feeling concerning reform is of no such recent origin, and springs from no such frivolous causes. Its first faint commencement may be traced far, very far, back in our history. During seventy years that feeling has had a great influence on the public mind. Through the first thirty years of the reign of George the Third, it was gradually increasing. The great leaders of the two parties in the state were favourable to reform. Plans of reform were supported by large and most respectable minorities in the House of Commons. The French Revolution, filling the higher and middle classes with an extreme dread of change, and the war calling away the public attention from internal to external politics, threw the question back; but the people never lost sight of it. Peace came, and they were at leisure to think of domestic improvements. Distress came, and they suspected, as was natural, that their distress was the effect of unfaithful stewardship and unskilful legislation. An opinion favourable to parliamentary reform grew up rapidly, and became strong among the middle classes. But one tie, one strong tie, still bound those classes to the Tory party. I mean the Catholic question. It is impossible to deny that, on that subject, a large proportion, a majority, I fear, of the middle class of Englishmen, conscientiously held opinions opposed to those which I have always entertained, and were disposed to sacrifice every other consideration to what they regarded as a religious duty. Thus the Catholic question hid, so to speak, the question of parliamentary reform. The feeling in favour of parliamentary reform grew, but it grew in the shade. Every man, I think, must have observed the progress of that feeling in his own social circle. But few reform meetings were held, and few petitions in favour of reform presented. At length the Catholics were emancipated; the solitary link of sympathy which attached the people to the Tories was broken; the cry of "No popery" could no longer be opposed to the cry of "Reform." That which, in the opinion of the two great parties in parliament, and of a vast portion of the community, had been the first question, suddenly disappeared; and the question of parliamentary reform took the first place. Then was put forth all the strength which had been growing in silence and obscurity. Then it appeared that reform had on its side a coalition of interests and opinions unprecedented in our history, all the liberality and intelligence which had supported the Catholic claims, and all the clamour which had opposed them.
Source.—Ebenezer Elliott's Poems, 1832. Day, like our souls, is fiercely dark, What then? 'Tis day! We sleep no more; the cock crows—hark! To arms! away! They come! they come! the knell is rung Of us or them; Wide o'er their march the pomp is flung Of gold and gem. What collar'd hound of lawless sway To famine dear— What pensioned slave of Attila, Leads in the rear? Come they from Scythian lands afar, Our blood to spill? Wear they the livery of the Czar? They do his will. Nor tassell'd silk, nor epaulet, Nor plume, nor torse— No splendour gilds, all sternly met, Our foot and horse. But, dark and still, we only glow, Condensed in ire! Strike, tawdry slaves and ye shall know Our gloom is fire. In vain your pomp, ye evil powers, Insults the land; Wrongs, vengeance, and the Cause are ours, And God's right hand! Madmen! they trample into snakes The wormy clod! Like fire, beneath their feet awakes The sword of God! Behind, before, above, below, They rouse the brave; Where'er they go, they make a foe, Or find a grave.
Source.—Lord Macaulay's Speeches, 1854. Speech of Lord Macaulay. Delivered in House of Commons, Feb. 6, 1833. Ireland has undoubtedly just causes of complaint. We heard those causes recapitulated last night by the honourable and learned member,[6] who tells us that he represents not Dublin alone, but Ireland, and that he stands between his country and civil war. I do not deny that most of the grievances which he recounted exist, that they are serious, and that they ought to be remedied as far as it is in the power of legislation to remedy them. What I do deny is that they were caused by the union, and that the repeal of the union would remove them. I listened attentively while the honourable and learned gentleman went through that long and melancholy list: and I am confident that he did not mention a single evil which was not a subject of bitter complaint while Ireland had a domestic parliament. Is it fair, is it reasonable in the honourable gentleman to impute to the union evils which, as he knows better than any other man in this House, existed long before the union? Post hoc: ergo, propter hoc is not always sound reasoning. But ante hoc: ergo, non propter hoc is unanswerable. The old rustic who told Sir Thomas More that Tenterden steeple was the cause of Godwin sands reasoned much better than the honourable and learned gentleman. For it was not till after Tenterden steeple was built that the frightful wrecks on the Godwin sands were heard of. But the honourable and learned gentleman would make Godwin sands the cause of Tenterden steeple. Some of the Irish grievances which he ascribes to the union are not only older than the union, but are not peculiarly Irish. They are common to England, Scotland, and Ireland; and it was in order to get rid of them that we, for the common benefit of England, Scotland, and Ireland, passed the Reform Bill last year. Other grievances which the honourable and learned gentleman mentioned are doubtless local; but is there to be a local legislature wherever there is a local grievance? Wales has had local grievances. We all remembered the complaints which were made a few years ago about the Welsh judicial system; but did anybody therefore propose that Wales should have a distinct parliament? Cornwall has some local grievances; but does anybody propose that Cornwall shall have its own House of Lords and its own House of Commons? Leeds has local grievances. The majority of my constituents distrust and dislike the municipal government to which they are subject; they therefore call loudly on us for corporation reform: but they do not ask us for a separate legislature. Of this I am quite sure, that every argument which has been urged for the purpose of showing that Great Britain and Ireland ought to have two distinct parliaments may be urged with far greater force for the purpose of showing that the north of Ireland and the south of Ireland ought to have two distinct parliaments. The House of Commons of the United Kingdom, it has been said, is chiefly elected by Protestants, and therefore cannot be trusted to legislate for Catholic Ireland. If this be so, how can an Irish House of Commons, chiefly elected by Catholics, be trusted to legislate for Protestant Ulster? It is perfectly notorious that theological antipathies are stronger in Ireland than here. I appeal to the honourable and learned gentleman himself. He has often declared that it is impossible for a Roman Catholic, whether prosecutor or culprit, to obtain justice from a jury of Orangemen. It is indeed certain that, in blood, religion, language, habits, character, the population of some of the northern counties of Ireland has much more in common with the population of England and Scotland than with the population of Munster and Connaught. I defy the honourable and learned member, therefore, to find a reason for having a parliament at Dublin which will not be just as good a reason for having another parliament at Londonderry.
Source.—Lord Macaulay's Speeches. London, 1854. Macaulay's Speech on Jewish Disabilities in a Committee of the whole House, April 17, 1833. "But where," says the member for the University of Oxford, "are you to stop, if once you admit into the House of Commons people who deny the authority of the Gospels? Will you let in a Mussulman? Will you let in a Parsee? Will you let in a Hindoo, who worships a lump of stone with seven heads? I will answer my honourable friend's question by another. Where does he mean to stop? Is he ready to roast unbelievers at slow fires? If not, let him tell us why: and I will engage to prove that his reason is just as decisive against the intolerance which he thinks a duty, as against the intolerance which he thinks a crime. Once admit that we are bound to inflict pain on a man because he is not of our religion; and where are you to stop? Why stop at the point fixed by my honourable friend rather than at the point fixed by the honourable member for Oldham,[7] who would make the Jews incapable of holding land? And why stop at the point fixed by the honourable member for Oldham rather than at the point which would have been fixed by a Spanish Inquisitor of the sixteenth century? When once you enter on a course of persecution, I defy you to find any reason for making a halt till you have reached the extreme point. When my honourable friend tells us that he will allow the Jews to possess property to any amount, but that he will not allow them to possess the smallest political power, he holds contradictory language. Property is power. The honourable member for Oldham reasons better than my honourable friend. The honourable member for Oldham sees very clearly that it is impossible to deprive a man of political power if you suffer him to be the proprietor of half a county, and therefore very consistently proposes to confiscate the landed estates of the Jews. But even the honourable member for Oldham does not go far enough. He has not proposed to confiscate the personal property of the Jews. Yet it is perfectly certain that any Jew who has a million may easily make himself very important in the state. By such steps we pass from official power to landed property, and from landed property to personal property, and from property to liberty, and from liberty to life. In truth, those persecutors who use the rack and the stake have much to say for themselves. They are convinced that their end is good; and it must be admitted that they employ means which are not unlikely to attain the end. Religious dissent has repeatedly been put down by sanguinary persecution. In that way the Albigenses were put down. In that way Protestantism was suppressed in Spain and Italy, so that it has never since reared its head. But I defy anybody to produce an instance in which disabilities such as we are now considering have produced any other effect than that of making the sufferers angry and obstinate. My honourable friend should either persecute to some purpose, or not persecute at all. He dislikes the word persecution I know. He will not admit that the Jews are persecuted. And yet I am confident that he would rather be sent to the King's Bench Prison for three months, or be fined a hundred pounds, than be subject to the disabilities under which the Jews lie. How can he then say that to impose such disabilities is not persecution, and that to fine and imprison is persecution? All his reasoning consists in drawing arbitrary lines. What he does not wish to inflict he calls persecution. What he does wish to inflict he will not call persecution. What he takes from the Jews he calls political power. What he is too good-natured to take from the Jews he will not call political power. The Jew must not sit in parliament: but he may be the proprietor of all the ten pound houses in a borough. He may have more fifty pound tenants than any peer in the kingdom. He may give the voters treats to please their palates, and hire bands of gipsies to break their heads, as if he were a Christian and a marquess. All the rest of this system is of a piece. The Jew may be a juryman, but not a judge. He may decide issues of fact, but not issues of law. He may give a hundred thousand pounds damages; but he may not in the most trivial case grant a new trial. He may rule the money market: he may influence the exchanges: he may be summoned to congresses of emperors and kings. Great potentates, instead of negotiating a loan with him by tying him in a chair and pulling out his grinders, may treat with him as with a great potentate, and may postpone the declaring of war or the signing of a treaty till they have conferred with him. All this is as it should be: but he must not be a Privy Councillor. He must not be called Right Honourable, for that is political power. And who is it that we are trying to cheat in this way? Even Omniscience. Yes, Sir; we have been gravely told that the Jews are under the divine displeasure, and that if we give them political power God will visit us in judgment. Do we then think that God cannot distinguish between substance and form? Does not he know that, while we withhold from the Jews the semblance and name of political power, we suffer them to possess the substance? The plain truth is that my honourable friend is drawn in one direction by his opinions, and in a directly opposite direction by his excellent heart. He halts between two opinions. He tries to make a compromise between principles which admit of no compromise. He goes a certain way in intolerance. Then he stops, without being able to give a reason for stopping. But I know the reason. It is his humanity. Those who formerly dragged the Jew at a horse's tail, and singed his beard with blazing furzebushes, were much worse men than my honourable friend; but they were more consistent than he."
Source.—Duke of Buckingham's Memoirs of the Courts of William IV. and Victoria, Vol. II. p. 84. London, 1861. On the 28th, [April] there was a strike of the London journeymen tailors, numbering thirteen thousand. Their masters came to a determination not to employ men belonging to trades unions, and after a few weeks, the journeymen were content to return to their work on those terms. These trades unions and their strikes were becoming an insufferable nuisance; nevertheless, no proper effort was made to put them down. The mischief they created was well known to the Government,[8] their interference with trade, their atrocious oaths, impious ceremonies, desperate tyranny, and secret assassinations, had been brought under their observation; but Ministers could not be stirred to any exhibition of energy for the protection either of the manufacturer, the workman, or the public. Even the following powerful appeal was addressed to them without effect: "Those whose lives and property have been endangered by these illegal associations have a right to call on Government to employ some additional means for their suppression. Those who wish for the prosperity of our trade, and what is of far more importance, the prosperity and happiness of the working-classes, should equally desire their extinction. Those who hate oppression should give their suffrages for the putting down these most capricious and irresponsible of all despotism. They are alike hurtful to the workmen who form them, to the capitalists who are the objects of their hostility, and to the public who more remotely feel their effects. Were we asked to give a definition of a trades union, we should say that it is a society whose constitution is the worst of democracies, whose power is based on outrage, whose practice is tyranny, and whose end is self-destruction."
Source.—Martineau's History of the Peace, Vol. III. pp. 254-5. Bohn's Libraries. G. Bell & Sons. Speech by Mr. O'Connell at Edinburgh, 1835. "We achieved but one good measure this last session; but that was not our fault; for the 170 tyrants of the country prevented us from achieving more. Ancient Athens was degraded for submitting to thirty tyrants; modern Athens will never allow 170 tyrants to rule over her.... It was stated in one of the clubs, that at one time a dog had bitten the bishop, whereupon a noble lord, who was present, said, 'I will lay any wager that the bishop began the quarrel.' Now, really the House of Lords began the quarrel with me. They may treat me as a mad dog if they please; I won't fight them; but I will treat them as the Quaker treated the dog which had attacked him. 'Heaven forbid,' said he, 'that I should do thee the slightest injury, I am a man of peace, and I will not hurt thee'; but when the dog went away, he cried out, 'Mad dog! mad dog!' and all the people set upon him. Now, that is my remedy with the House of Lords. I am more honest than the Quaker was; for the dog that attacked me is really mad. Bills were rejected in the House of Lords simply because Daniel O'Connell supported them; and I do say, that if I had any twelve men on a jury on a question of lunacy, I would put it to such jury to say if such men were not confirmed madmen. So you perceive the dog is really mad—and accordingly I have started on this mission to rouse the public mind to the necessity of reforming the House of Lords; and I have had 50,000 cheering me at Manchester, and 100,000 cheering me in Newcastle; and I heard one simultaneous cry, 'Down with the mad dogs, and up with common sense!' The same cry has resounded through Auld Reekie. The Calton Hill and Arthur's Seat re-echoed with the sound; and all Scotland has expressed the same determination to use every legitimate effort to remove the House of Lords. Though the Commons are with us, yet the House of Lords are against us; and they have determined that they will not concede a portion of freedom which they can possibly keep back. Sir Robert Peel, the greatest humbug that ever lived, and as full of political and religious cant as any man that ever canted in this canting world—feeling himself quite safe on his own dunghill, says that we want but one chamber—one House of radical reformers. He knew that in saying this he was saying what was not true. We know too well the advantage of double deliberation not to support two Houses; but they must be subject to popular control; they must be the servants, not the masters, of the people."
Source.—The Curse of the Factory System, by John Fielden, M.P. London, 1836. "Oldham, 25th February, 1836. "Sir, "I am instructed by the Master Spinners and Manufacturers in this Township to forward you the inclosed copy of a Memorial, the original of which has this day been forwarded to John Frederick Lees, Esq., one of the Members for this Borough, for presentation to the Lords of His Majesty's Privy Council for Trade, and to solicit your assistance and influence in obtaining an alteration of the present Factory Regulation Act. "I am, Sir,
"Your obedient Servant,
"Kay Clegg. "John Fielden, Esq., M.P.
"House of Commons, London." "To the Right Honourable the Lords of His Majesty's Privy Council for Trade, etc., etc. "The Memorial of the Undersigned Mill-owners, Occupiers of Mills, Master-Spinners, and Manufacturers of the Township of Oldham, in the County of Lancaster. "Showeth, "That an Act of Parliament was made and passed in the third and fourth years of the reign of his present Majesty, entitled 'An Act to regulate the labour of children and young persons in the Mills and Factories of the United Kingdom.' "That the eighth section of the said Act enacts 'That after the expiration of thirty months from the passing of such Act it shall not be lawful for any person whatsoever to employ, keep, or allow to remain, in any factory or mill for a longer period than forty-eight hours in any one week, any child who shall not have completed his or her thirteenth year of age.' "That the said Act has prohibited the employment of children under twelve years of age for more than nine hours in any one day since the first day of March one thousand eight hundred and thirty-five, and such prohibition has tended greatly to injure the interests both of your Memorialists and the parents of such children, without any advantage resulting to the children themselves. "That your Memorialists are looking forward with great anxiety and alarm to the situation in which they will be placed on the first day of March next, by the working of children under thirteen years of age being restricted to forty-eight hours in one week, for that such restriction will have the effect of throwing all children under thirteen years of age wholly out of employment, and will render it impossible for your Memorialists to work their respective mills with advantage, in proof whereof your Memorialists confidently appeal to the Factory Inspectors of this district for the truth of their assertion. "That your Memorialists are far from wishing a total repeal of the provisions of the said Factory Act, but humbly submit that it is absolutely necessary to the carrying on of the cotton trade with advantage, to allow the employment of children of eleven years of age for sixty-nine hours a week. "That your Memorialists approve of the principle of appointing responsible superintendents over the mills and factories of the United Kingdom, and are favourable to a restriction of the employment of young persons under twenty-one years of age to sixty-nine hours in the week. "Your Memorialists, therefore, pray that a Bill may be forthwith introduced by his Majesty's Government, which shall prevent the latter part of the above-mentioned section from coming into operation on the first of March next, and which shall permit children of eleven years of age to be employed for sixty-nine hours per week in the mills and factories of the United Kingdom." This memorial is signed by seventy-two mill-owners, but I do not think it necessary to publish their names. The following is the answer that I returned to Mr. Clegg: "London, February 29, 1836. "Sir, "I have received your letter of the 27th, and a copy of the memorial sent to Mr. Lees. "The prayer of the Memorialists, that young children between eleven and thirteen years of age should be allowed to work in factories sixty-nine hours in the week instead of forty-eight hours a week, which the law now prescribes, is so revolting to my feelings, and so opposed to my views of the protection such children are entitled to, that I must decline supporting the prayer of the Memorialists. "The work-people have long petitioned that the maximum of time for those under twenty-one should be fifty-eight hours per week. This I should be glad to see adopted, as an experiment, and would support such a proposition by my vote; but I do not think the restriction is sufficient. "I am embarked in the same business with the Memorialists. I have had long experience in it. I have paid great attention to this question; and, after mature consideration of it, I am convinced that eight hours work per day, in factories, is as long as ought to be exacted from either children or adults, and I am of opinion, too, that such a regulation, combined with a daily system of training and instruction, would be more advantageous both to masters and servants, than the regulation now in practice. But the subject is so important, and is likely to be brought under the consideration of Parliament so soon, that I propose to publish my opinions, and the reasons for those opinions, and the conclusions I have come to on this question, in reply to the Memorialists. "I am, Sir,
"Your obedient Servant,
"John Fielden. "Klay Clegg, Esq., Oldham."
Source.—The Curse of the Factory System, by John Fielden, M.P. London, 1836. The Commissioners have given a short summary in pp. 26 to 28 of their report, of the "Effects of Factory Labour on Children," from which I make the extracts following. It is taken, it appears, from the mouths of the children themselves, their parents, and their overlookers. The account of the child, when questioned, is: "Sick-tired, especially in the winter nights; so tired she can do nothing; feels so tired she throws herself down when she gangs home, no caring what she does; often much tired, and feels sore, standing so long on her legs; often so tired she could not eat her supper; night and morning very tired; has two sisters in the mill; has heard them complain to her mother, and she says they must work; whiles I do not know what to do with myself; as tired every morning as I can be." Another speaks in this way: "Many a time has been so fatigued that she could hardly take off her clothes at night, or put them on in the morning; her mother would be raging at her, because when she sat down she could not get up again through the house; thinks they are in bondage; no much better than the Israelites in Egypt, and life no pleasure to them; so tired that she can't eat her supper, nor wake of herself." The Commissioners say the evidence of parents is generally this: "Her children come home so tired and worn out they can hardly eat their supper; has often seen her daughter come home so fatigued that she would go to bed supperless; has seen young workers absolutely oppressed, and unable to sit down or rise up." They say that the evidence of the overlooker is: "Children are very often tired and stiff-like; have known children hide themselves in the stove among the wool, so that they should not go home when the work is over; have seen six or eight fetched out of the stove and beat home; beat out of the mill, however; they hide because too tired to go home." Again, an overlooker says: "Many a one I have had to rouse, when the work is very slack, from fatigue; the children very much jaded when worked late at night; the children bore the long hours very ill indeed; after working eight or nine or ten hours, they were nearly ready to faint; some were asleep; some were only kept awake by being spoke to, or by a little chastisement, to make them jump up. I was obliged to chastise them when they were almost fainting, and it hurt my feelings; then they would spring up and work pretty well for another hour; but the last two or three hours was my hardest work, for they then got so exhausted." Another child says: "She often falls asleep while sitting, sometimes standing; her little sister falls asleep, and they wake her by a cry; was up at four this morning, which made her fall asleep at one, when the Factory Commissioners came to inspect the mill." A spinner says: "I find it difficult to keep my piecers awake the last hours of a winter's evening; have seen them fall asleep, and go on performing their work with their hands while they were asleep, after the billey had stopped, when their work was over; I have stopped and looked at them for two minutes, going through the motions of piecening when they were fast asleep, when there was no work to do, and they were doing nothing; children at night are so fatigued that they are asleep often as soon as they sit down, so that it is impossible to wake them to sense enough to wash themselves, or even to eat a bit of supper, being so stupid in sleep." In alluding to the cruelty of parents, who suffer their children to be overworked in factories for their own gain, as spoken of in the Report of the Board of Health in Manchester, and above-quoted, the Commissioners say that "It is not wholly unknown in the West Riding of Yorkshire for parents to carry their children to the mills in the morning on their backs, and to carry them back again at night." And, further, that "It appears in evidence that sometimes the sole consideration by which parents are influenced in making choice of a person under whom to place their children, is the amount of wages, not the mode of treatment, to be secured to them." If this is not enough to show that there were grounds for the further protection, I will now refer to the same Report of the Commissioners, to show, that from Scotland the details are full as affecting, and even more disgusting. At page 18 (Report) the Commissioners open with these words: "Had the fact not been established by indubitable evidence, everyone must have been slow to credit, that in this age and country the proprietors of extensive factories could have been indifferent to the well-being of their work-people to such a degree as is implied in the following statements": In page 41 an half-overseer gives this evidence: "Does not like the long hours; he is very tired and hoarse at night; and that some of the young female workers in his, the spinning flat, have so swelled legs, one in particular, from standing so long, about seventeen years old, that she can hardly walk; that various of them have their feet bent in and their legs crooked from the same cause." In short, so universal is this complaint of "sair tired," and of swelled legs, ankles, feet, hands, and arms, that it almost seems as if one voice spoke the facts; for if we find them varied, it is only here and there by touches like the above, so true to nature, that one would think they must pierce even the most callous and avaricious man to the very core. In one page we find a little child of eight years old complaining that she is "sair tired" every night, and has no time for going to play. "That, at the age when children suffer these injuries from the labour they undergo, they are not free agents, but are let out to hire, the wages they earn being received and appropriated by their parents and guardians, and therefore they think that a case is made out for the interference of the legislature in behalf of the children employed in factories"—p. 32.
Source.—Treatise on the Magistracy of England, by Edward Mullins. London, 1836. Commissioners' Report on Police. "The constable is most commonly an uneducated person, from the class of petty tradesmen or mechanics, and in practice is usually nominated by his predecessor on going out of office. No inquiry takes place into his qualification or fitness for the office, and indeed he is said to be often the person in the parish the most likely to break the peace. So common is it for the constable to be unable to write or read, that an improper fee is often charged upon that ground by the Magistrate's clerk, 'for making out the constable's bill for conveyance to gaol.' "'The manner of appointing constables, in my opinion,' says a correspondent, 'might be advantageously altered, for the court leet jury and steward being irresponsible parties, and the jurymen (vulgarly called Tom-fool's men) not liking the burthen themselves, often appoint persons of bad character, and sometimes for the purpose of keeping them off the parish.' If respectable persons are sometimes chosen at the Leet, they 'find substitutes for a small sum, and these deputies blunder through the year, and when they are most wanted are never to be found.' What integrity or propriety of conduct can there be expected from one whose necessity renders every shilling that is offered him an irresistible temptation? "Entirely ignorant of his duties when first appointed, the parish constable is often displaced at the end of the year, when his acquaintance with them is, perhaps, beginning to improve. Even when suited in other respects to the employment, his efficiency is always in a great measure impaired by the nature of his position with regard to those among whom he is called upon to act. Belonging entirely to their class, and brought into constant contact with them by his ordinary occupations, he is embarrassed in the discharge of his duty by considerations of personal safety, interest or feeling, and by an anxiety to retain the good will of his neighbours. When all these circumstances are considered, it would, indeed, be surprising if the constables were found to render satisfactory service. In point of fact they are deficient in zeal and activity to a degree which it is difficult to exaggerate, and it may be said, without undue severity, that they are in all respects utterly unfit for the duties to which they are appointed. "The accuracy of this statement, we believe (continue the Commissioners) will be generally admitted by those who have opportunities of becoming acquainted with the subject by personal observation. 'No person can be aware,' says the treasurer of the West Riding of Yorkshire, 'of the reluctance shewn by the parish constables in apprehending felons, particularly since the disposition shewn by the lower orders to retaliate by committing destruction on their property.' 'There is not a single constable,' he afterwards adds, 'who dares move, nor has he any encouragement to move, and if he does move, he is quite incompetent.' "'We cannot go on in the country,' says another witness, 'with our present police; when there is the least danger we are obliged immediately to call out the special constables.' 'The present system of parochial police,' says another, 'is unsound; it consists of a constable in each parish, who has very often to make his election between violating his duty as a constable, and forfeiting the regard and affection of his neighbours.' 'The great end of police is to prevent crime,' is the remark of another gentleman of great experience on this subject, 'and who ever heard of this being the object of the present force? They are worse than useless.' "The frauds, extortion, embezzlement and pillage practised by these officers are the natural consequence of their situation. They charge for assistants when they are accompanied only by their wives or by poor labourers, to whom they pay the common farmers' day wages, receiving the county allowance and retaining the difference. "They charge for carriages when they compel prisoners to walk to gaol; they receive the full mileage for all the witnesses attending a prosecution, and contract with coaches to carry them at half price. "They receive their allowance for time and trouble, and often keep back a part; they pass stolen goods from hand to hand, so as to make as many of themselves as possible necessary witnesses at the trial; and what is matter of most serious charge against them, they withhold, and it is said, in many instances appropriate, the money and other valuable property found upon persons apprehended. "'We have at Thirsk (observes a Yorkshire magistrate) an association for the prosecution of felons, but it does little good, as we have no police, and the constables are extremely bad—so bad as to call forth many severe expressions on their inefficiency by Baron Alderson, a short time ago at York, in the case of two violent attempts at murder committed near Thirsk.'" The Commissioners further report that, "It is the deliberate opinion of a very valuable correspondent, that our constabulary system has greatly promoted the increase of crime; that no useful improvement can be introduced into the present miserable system of attempting to exercise police through parish constables annually elected. 'Our constabulary system,' says this correspondent, 'is so absurd and unjust, that I really do not think it fair or equitable to blame or deride the unfortunate conscripts who are compelled to be tithingmen; if I did, I could compose a farce with the anecdotes to be collected of petty occurrences in the warfare with offences in this neighbourhood; neglect of duty, forgetfulness, ignorance, blunders, cowardice without excuse, supineness,'" etc. The current of evidence as to the decayed and worn-out state of the parish constabulary system is irresistibly strong; and its defects are the more striking when viewed in contrast with the improved system of an organized and permanent police as established in many parts of the kingdom.
Source.—The Edinburgh Review. Vol. 133, pp. 319-321. From the 'Recollections' of Lord Broughton de Gyfford. "I heard from all quarters that H.M. was in a state of great excitement. This was not all we knew of the Royal disinclination to us; for, on Saturday, July 11, in Downing Street, Lord Melbourne addressed us as follows: "'Gentlemen, you may as well know how you stand;' and, pulling a paper from his pocket, he read a memorandum of a conversation between the King and Lord Gosford, after the review, the day before. The King said to Lord Gosford, 'Mind what you are about in Canada. By G——d! I will never consent to alienate the Crown lands, nor to make the Council elective. Mind me, my Lord, the Cabinet is not my Cabinet, they had better take care, or, by G——d! I will have them impeached. You are a gentleman, I believe. I have no fear of you; but take care what you do.' "We all stared at each other. Melbourne said, 'It is better not to quarrel with him. He is evidently in a state of great excitement.' And yet the King gave Dedel, the Dutch Ambassador, the same day, on taking leave, very sensible advice, and told him 'to let the King of Holland know that he was ignorant of his true position, and that Belgium was lost irrecoverably.' H.M. had also given his assent in writing to the second reading of our Irish Church Reform Bill, which showed that these outbursts were more physical than signs of any settled design; although there were some of us who thought it was intended to drive us by incivilities to resign our places, and thus make us the apparent authors of our own retirement. Lord Frederick Fitzclarence told me that his father had much to bear, being beset by the Duke of Cumberland and Duchess of Gloucester by day, and by the Queen at night. As to ourselves, it was clear to me that, if we continued in the Government, it would be entirely owing to the good sense and good manners of our chief, who knew how to deal with his master, as well as with his colleagues, and never, that I saw, made a mistake in regard to either; and I must add that, when a stand was to be made on anything considered to be a vital principle of his Government, he was as firm as a rock. "We foresaw that the instructions, which we had agreed upon as the basis of Lord Gosford's administration in Canada, would meet with much disfavour in the Royal closet; and Lord Glenelg told me that when he read these instructions to the King, H.M. broke out violently against the use of certain words, saying, 'No, my Lord, I will not have that word; strike out "conciliatory"—strike out "liberal"'; and then he added, 'you cannot wonder at my making these difficulties with a Ministry that has been forced upon me.' However, as Glenelg went on reading, H.M. got more calm. He approved of what was said about the Legislative Council and the territorial revenues. In short, he approved of the instructions generally on that day, and also on the following Monday; but, when Glenelg went into the closet this day (Wednesday, 15th July), he was very sulky, and, indeed, rude; and objected to some things to which he had previously consented. Lord Melbourne was told by Glenelg how he had been treated, and, when he (Lord M.) went into the closet, the King said he hoped he had not been uncivil to Lord Glenelg, on which Lord Melbourne made only a stiff bow. The King took the reproof most becomingly; for when Glenelg went in a second time, H.M. was exceedingly kind to him, and said, 'He approved of every word of the instructions'; and he then remarked 'that he was not like William III. who often signed what he did not approve. He would not do that. He was not disposed to infringe on the liberty of any of his subjects; but he must preserve his own prerogative.' "H.M. retained his good humour at the Council, which he held afterwards to hear the Recorder's Report. Chief Justice Denman was detained at Guildhall, and kept His Majesty waiting a long time. When he came the King took his apologies very kindly. He asked the Chief Justice when he should leave London for the holidays, and where he lived; and invited him to Windsor, and said he should be glad to see him, adding, 'I hope you won't hang me, my Lord.' Such was this kind good man, generally most just and generous, but, when irritated, scarcely himself. He was more sincere than suited his Royal office, and could not conceal his likings and dislikings from those who were most affected by them."
Source.—Alison's History of Europe, London, 1848; compiled from Porter's Party Tables, Marshall's Edition, and other sources. | Year. | Exports. | Imports. | Population. | | | | | | 1816 | £49,197,851 | £26,374,921 | 13,640,000 | | 1817 | 50,404,111 | 29,910,502 | 13,860,000 | | 1818 | 53,560,338 | 35,845,340 | 14,000,000 | | 1819 | 42,438,989 | 29,681,640 | 14,200,000 | | 1820 | 48,965,537 | 31,515,222 | 14,300,000 | | 1821 | 51,461,423 | 29,769,122 | 14,391,631 | | 1822 | 53,464,122 | 29,432,376 | 14,600,000 | | 1823 | 52,408,276 | 34,591,260 | 14,800,000 | | 1824 | 58,940,336 | 36,056,551 | 15,000,000 | | 1825 | 56,335,514 | 42,660,954 | 15,200,000 | | 1826 | 51,042,071 | 36,174,350 | 15,400,000 | | 1827 | 62,050,008 | 43,489,346 | 15,600,000 | | 1828 | 62,744,002 | 43,536,187 | 15,850,000 | | 1829 | 66,835,443 | 42,311,609 | 16,140,000 | | 1830 | 69,691,301 | 46,245,241 | 16,240,000 | | 1831 | 71,429,004 | 49,713,889 | 16,539,318 | | 1832 | 76,971,571 | 44,586,741 | 16,800,000 | | 1833 | 79,773,142 | 45,952,551 | 17,050,000 | | 1834 | 85,393,686 | 49,362,811 | 17,270,000 | | 1835 | 91,074,455 | 48,911,542 | 17,480,000 | | 1836 | 97,621,548 | 57,023,867 | 17,690,000 | | 1837 | 85,781,669 | 54,737,301 | 17,800,000 | | | | |
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