Historical Characters

This passage possesses all the qualities of oratory, and could hardly have been delivered without exciting a burst of applause. So again, when the Minister, his voice swelling, his arm outstretched, and his face turned towards the benches where sat the representatives of the great monarchs who, but a short time before, derided our power and denounced our principles, said, “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,” a thrill ran through the assembly at these simple but ominous words. My conviction, indeed, was that this speech must throughout have produced as great an effect in delivery as it does, even now, in reading; but I was talking the other day with a friend who, then being a Westminster boy, was present at the debate; and he told me I was mistaken, and that with the exception of one or two passages such as those I have cited, there was a want of that elasticity and flow which distinguished Mr. Canning’s happier efforts.

It is probable that not having had time, amidst the business which the step he was taking had created, to prepare himself sufficiently, he had the air of being over-prepared, and, according to my friend, only rose to his full height as an orator, when he made that famous allusion to the position which England then held between conflicting principles, like Œolus between conflicting winds; and when again, in reply, defending the course he had adopted during the recent French expedition, he thus elevated his hearers to a conception of the grandeur of his views, and the mingled prudence and audacity of his conduct. “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 the materials of occupation in another hemisphere. Contemplating Spain such as her 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.”

XIV

But the Minister of Foreign Affairs displayed talents far beyond those of the mere orator on this occasion. He took a step which was certain to incur the displeasure and excite the open hostility of a powerful party throughout Europe. Many who might have felt themselves obliged by honour to take this step would have done so with a timid and downcast air, endeavouring by an affectation of humanity to deprecate the anger of the high personages they were offending. Such men, exciting no sympathy, creating and maintaining no allies, encouraging the attacks and justifying the insults of all enemies, would have placed their country in a false and pitiful position, where, powerless and compromised, she would have stood before her opponents, exposed by her advance, tempting by her weakness. But the sagacious know that a bold game must be played boldly, and that the great art of moderating opponents consists in gaining friends.

Mr. Canning, then, neither flinched nor faltered. In venturing upon a measure which aroused the anger of so many powerful foes, he made those foes aware that if we were assailed because, in fulfilment of treaties, we marched to the defence of a country which was attacked on account of its liberal institutions, England would gather beneath her standard all those who loved liberty throughout Europe. Our country was on the verge of a contest with the most potent sovereigns. Our minister neither provoked nor quailed before those sovereigns, but plainly told them, that if such a contest did arise, it would be a contest in which many of the governments eager to provoke it might expect to find, side by side with our soldiers, not a few of their own people – a contest in which, were Englishmen forced to take a part, they would not shrink from taking the part that befitted the brave and free descendants of men who had suffered for their religion at the stake, and adjudged their monarch to the scaffold.

XV

British troops, then, were at last sent in aid of Portugal; no other troops opposed them; the expedition was successful; and from that moment Mr. Canning was pointed to as the first statesman of his time; and Great Britain – without having excited war or produced revolutions, following a course conformable to her interests, her history, and her character, backed by the sympathy of the free, and guarded by the reverence and affection of the intelligent; having shed no blood, having exhausted no treasure, having never uttered a word that our nation did not echo, nor shrunk from supporting a word that had been uttered – stood before the world in a yet more exalted and noble situation than even at that moment when Napoleon fled from Waterloo, and the British drum was beating in the streets of Paris.

This is the third epoch in Mr. Canning’s conflict with the crusaders against constitutional principles. I have described the measures by which that conflict had been supported. It would be difficult to point out any stronger measures that a country, placed in similar circumstances, could have taken. But Mr. Canning, acting with force and spirit, had acted without exaggeration. He had not said, “I will wage war with certain opinions;” he had not told the sovereigns of Troppau, Laybach, and Verona, “Because you commit aggression and injustice, I will do the same; because you enter into a war against Liberal governments, I will forthwith arm the people of my country against all governments of a despotic nature.”

Representing a state which did not wish to give the law, but which would not receive it, he neither cringed nor threatened. “Publish what doctrines and take what course you may,” was the language of England’s great statesman, “I will shape my way according to the interests and treaties of my country with equal independence.”

With such language the Spanish colonies were recognised, because Spain could be no longer responsible for their conduct; because France maintained herself in Spain under the hope that those colonies would furnish an indemnity for the money she had spent in re-establishing despotism in Spain itself; because England, at the head of constitutional governments, found it necessary to check the moral influence of the Holy Alliance, at the head of absolute governments.

Thus the separation of Brazil from Portugal was negotiated, since the struggle between the mother country and her ancient but emancipated possession, was unfavourable to British commerce, embarrassing to British influence, and adverse to the general policy it was found expedient, as I have said, to pursue in Spanish America.

Thus British troops were sent even ostentatiously to Lisbon, since Mr. Canning would not for a moment countenance the belief that England would shrink from her engagements to the weakest ally, although the form of government adopted by that ally was contrary to the particular opinions of the most powerful confederacy in the world.

And here it is especially to be remarked that a policy which, regarded as a whole, bears so decided an appearance, and which was certain to produce so considerable an effect, offers hardly a single point where the success was doubtful, or the peril great. Developing itself, like that game where the skilful winner advances gradually but surely, each piece protected by another through a series of moves, our policy had only become conspicuous by the last move which obtained its victory.

Our treaties with Buenos Ayres, with Mexico, and Columbia, guarded as they were by our own previous declarations, and also by the important declaration of the American President, could only expose us to a useless and insignificant exhibition of displeasure.

The severance of Brazil from Portugal, as long as Portugal was a consenting party, could with little decency be objected to by an indifferent power; the concession of a charter to Portugal, coming from the sovereign of Portugal himself, was an act which those who contended for the divine right of kings to do what they thought proper, could not well oppose: and finally, the expedition of British troops to Lisbon – sent out at the time when the name of “Mr. Canning” had become the rallying word of England, and “England” herself the rallying word of the free and the intelligent throughout the world, demanded also under circumstances too well known to be disputed, and authorised by treaties which had always been acknowledged, and to which, from the very commencement of his administration, Mr. Canning had called attention – resolutely as it was announced, gallantly as it was made, and important as its impression on the public mind was sure to be – could hardly have been resented with propriety or advantage. On each occasion the minister had made his stand at the happiest opportunity and on the strongest grounds. Abandoning, it is true, all direct resistance to France and to the principles she maintained – where such resistance must have been made with great peril, and with but small chance of success – he had adopted towards both France and her principles a system of opposition which exhibited itself by a variety of successive acts each by itself little likely to be dangerous, and all in their combination certain to be effective. In the first place, instead of meeting the enemy on a ground undermined by factions, and where a large military force, inconsistent with the nature of our means, would have been necessary, he carried the quarrel into a new hemisphere, and placed it on a question which, mistress of the seas, England had the undoubted power of deciding. Lastly, when a British army was sent to the continent, it was sent not on grounds which might merely be justifiable, but for reasons which were obligatory; while the people to whose aid it marched – open to the ocean, animated by hereditary jealousy against their neighbours, accustomed to British command, and confident in British assistance – were the people whom we were most likely to be allowed to succour with impunity, and most certain, should war ensue, of triumphantly defending.

Something of chance and fortune, no doubt, was mingled in the happy conduct of these events, as is the case in all human affairs; but there is visible a steady and impressive will, tempering and ruling them throughout; the mind and spirit of a man, who was capable of forethought, governed by precaution, and prompt in decision.

Part IV

FROM THE BEGINNING OF MR. CANNING’S POPULARITY AS FOREIGN MINISTER TO HIS DEATH

Mr. Canning’s position. – Altered tone of opposition. – Favour of King. – Death of Duke of York and of Lord Liverpool. – Struggle for the Premiership. – Nomination of Mr. Canning. – Secession of Duke of Wellington and Anti-Catholic party. – Junction with Whigs. – Formation of Cabinet. – Effect of Canning on the men of his time, and their effect on a subsequent one. – Eastern affairs. – Treaty concerning Greece with Russia and France. – Sickness. – Death.

I

It is needless to say that a policy which raised England so high in the world’s consideration was popular with Englishmen; they were proud of their country and of their minister. The Whig opposition, moreover, which at first depreciated that minister and praised his colleagues, soon began to depreciate his colleagues and to praise him. But Mr. Canning’s most extraordinary and unexpected triumph was at court. From being the man in the Cabinet the most odious to the King, he had become the King’s pet minister, and one of the most intimate of his chosen circle.

The leader of the House of Commons had one peculiar mode of obtaining his Majesty’s confidence, and cultivating his intimacy. It was his arduous duty to send to the Sovereign every night a written account of that night’s proceedings in the assembly to which he belonged. It is easy to see the advantage which this established custom may give to a writer who expresses himself with tact and clearness. A minister of foreign affairs has also more opportunities than any other minister of captivating the Royal attention. Foreign politics, which constitute the arena in which kings are pitted against kings, are the politics which most interest royal personages. A monarch there represents before other monarchs the fame, the power, the character of the nation he rules; he rises as it rises, he falls as it falls.

George IV., whatever his faults, was not without talent or ambition. In early life he wished to distinguish himself in military service abroad, and when, on this being denied him, he entered more deeply than discreetly into politics at home, it was the desire for popularity which connected him with the Opposition. He still remembered the high position which after the battle of Waterloo he held, as Regent of England, amongst the great potentates of the earth; and though personally attached to Lord Castlereagh, and unwilling to sever himself altogether from the sovereigns who had formerly been his allies, and who now in confounding Liberty with Anarchy came forward as the champions of Royalty and order, still he was not insensible to the fact that he had become, little by little, a nonentity in the councils of his peers, and that his advice and opinions, even when expressed by the great warrior who had vanquished Napoleon, were treated with a disregard which was galling to his pride as a monarch, and painful to his feelings as an Englishman. He experienced no small exultation, then, when he saw this state of things reversed, and that the King of England was once more a personage whose policy created hope and alarm. He had, moreover, a singular propensity, which was in fact a sort of madness, for conceiving that he had played a personal part in all the events which had passed in his reign. Amongst other fancies of this kind, he believed, or at least often spoke as if he believed, that he had been on the great battle-field which had terminated the war in 1815; and I have been told by two persons who were present, that one day at dinner, after relating his achievements on this occasion, he turned round to the Iron Duke and said:

“Was it not so, Duke?”

“I have heard your Majesty often say so,” replied the Duke, drily.122 It was easy, then, for Mr. Canning to make George IV. consider Mr. Canning’s policy his policy, Mr. Canning’s successes his successes, and indeed Mr. Canning always spoke to his Majesty, when the popularity of his administration became apparent, as if he had only followed the inspiration of a prescient and intelligent master.

I should omit more trifling causes of favour, if I did not think them necessary to illustrate the character of the parties, and of the times of which I am speaking, and to show the attention which Mr. Canning, once engaged in the task of recasting our foreign policy, gave to the smallest circumstances which might facilitate it. In the ordinary acceptation of the word, he was not a courtier, or a man of the world. Living, as I have already stated, in the midst of a small clique of admirers, and little with society at large, he confined his remarkable powers of pleasing to his own set. He had determined, however, on gaining George IV.’s goodwill, or, at all events, on vanquishing his dislike, and he saw at once that this was to be done rather indirectly than directly, and that it could best be done by gaining the favour of those ladies of the court whom the King saw most frequently, and spoke to most unreservedly. These were Lady Conyngham and Madame de Lieven. For Lady Conyngham George IV. had a sort of chivalric devotion or attachment; Madame de Lieven he liked and appreciated as the lady who had the greatest knack of seizing and understanding his wishes, and making his court agreeable. She was a musician, and he was fond of music; she had correspondents at every capital in Europe, and knew all the small gossip as well as the most important affairs that agitated Paris, St. Petersburg, and Vienna, and he was amused by foreign gossip and interested in foreign affairs. Her opinion, moreover, as to the position of any one in the world of fashion was law, and George IV. piqued himself especially on being the man of fashion. Mr. Canning resolved, then, on pleasing this remarkable lady, and completely succeeded. She became, as she afterwards often stated, subjugated by the influence of his natural manner and brilliant talents; and the favour of Madame de Lieven went the further in this instance with the King, since he had previously a sort of prejudice against Canning, as being too much the man of letters, and not sufficiently the fine gentleman. This prejudice once removed, a man of wit, genius, and information, had no inconsiderable hold on a prince whose youth had been passed in the most brilliant society of his time, and who was still alive to the memory of the sparkling wit of Sheridan and the easy and copious eloquence of Fox. Lady Conyngham’s alliance was still more important than that of Madame de Lieven, and one of Mr. Canning’s first acts was to name Lord Francis Conyngham Under Secretary of State, it is said at the King’s desire. At all events, Lord Francis’s appointment, which was in every respect a good one, pleased the Marchioness, and satisfied his Majesty, who saw in it the willingness of his Minister to bring even the most private acts of his administration under the Royal cognisance.

II

An anecdote of the time is worth recording, since it connected itself with the recognition of the Spanish colonies, and the subsequent elevation of the minister to whom this important act was due.

Lady Conyngham had been supposed in early life to have greatly admired (there was no scandal, I should say, attached to this admiration) Lord Ponsonby, then the finest gentleman of his day. Lord Ponsonby, who had long been absent from England, returned from the Ionian Islands, where he had held a small office, not a little desirous to get a better place than the one he had quitted. He met Lady Conyngham at Lady Jersey’s, and (so went the story of the day) Lady Conyngham fainted. So interesting a piece of gossip soon reached the ear of the monarch: the friendship of old men is very often as romantic as the love of young men. His Majesty took to his bed, declared himself ill, and would see no one. All business was stopped. After waiting some time, Mr. Canning at last obtained an interview. George IV. received him lying on a couch in a darkened room, the light being barely sufficient to read a paper.

“What’s the matter? I am very ill, Mr. Canning.”

“I shall not occupy your Majesty for more than five minutes. It is very desirable, as your Majesty knows, to send Envoys, without delay, to the States of South America, that are about to be recognised.”

The King groaned, and moved impatiently.

“I have been thinking, Sire, it would be most desirable to select a man of rank for one of these posts (another groan), and I thought of proposing Lord Ponsonby to your Majesty for Buenos Ayres.”

“Ponsonby!” said the King, rising a little from his reclining position – “a capital appointment! a clever fellow, though an idle one, Mr. Canning. May I ask you to undraw that curtain a little? A very good appointment: is there anything else, Canning, that you wish me to attend to?”

From that moment, said the person who told me this story, Mr. Canning’s favour rose more and more rapidly.123

But in mentioning Lady Conyngham and Madame de Lieven, as having been of much use to Mr. Canning, I should also mention Doctor Sir Wm. Knighton. Yet, I would not have it thought that I intend in any way to take from Mr. Canning’s character as a great minister by showing that he adopted the small means necessary to rule a court. George IV.’s habits were such that without some aid of this kind no statesman could have got current affairs carried on with due regularity, or initiated any policy that required the Royal support.

III

The moment was now at hand, when the extent of this Royal support was to be tested; when, in short, it was to be decided whether the Canning party or the Wellington and Eldon party was to be predominant in the Cabinet. The difference in feeling and opinion between the two sections was, as I have said, more or less general; but as the only question on which the members of the same government were allowed to disagree (according to the principle on which the Cabinet had been founded) was Catholic Emancipation, so it was on the Catholic Emancipation question that each tried its strength against the other. In the preceding year the Emancipationists had obtained a majority in the House of Commons, and would have had only a small majority against them in the House of Lords, but for the speech of the Duke of York, heir-presumptive to the throne, who declared that he was, and ever would be, a determined supporter of the Protestant principles of exclusion, maintained by his late father. There is reason to suppose that this declaration was made on an understanding with the King, who thought that he would thus fortify his own opinions, which had become for the last twenty years hostile to the Catholics, and also deter Canning and his friends from pushing forward too eagerly a matter on which they must expect to encounter the opposition of two successive sovereigns.

On the 5th of January, 1827, however, the Duke of York died; and though during his illness he strongly advised his brother to form an anti-Catholic Administration – without which, he said, Catholic Emancipation must ere long be granted – the counsel, though it had distressed George IV. considerably, had not decided him; for his Majesty preferred his ease, as long as he could enjoy it, to facing difficulties which would disorder the ordinary routine of his social life, as well as that of public affairs. The Duke of York’s influence on George IV., moreover, was that of personal contact, of a living man of honest and sterling character, over a living man of weaker character; it expired, therefore, when he expired.

Another death soon afterwards occurred. Lord Liverpool was taken ill in February, 1827, and he died in March. This left the first situation in the Government vacant. The moderator between the two conflicting parties was no more, and a struggle as to the Premiership became inevitable.

Mr. Canning was at this crisis seriously ill at Brighton: and we may conceive the agitation of his restless mind, since Sir Francis Burdett’s annual motion on the Catholic claims was just then coming on. His absence would, he knew, be misinterpreted; and literally rising from his bed, and under sufferings which only ambition and duty could have rendered supportable, he appeared to confront his enemies and encourage his followers in his place in the House of Commons.

The debate was more than warm, and an encounter between the Master of the Rolls, Sir J. Copley, afterwards Lord Lyndhurst, and the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, was such as might rather be expected from rival chiefs of hostile factions, than from men belonging to the same government, and professing to entertain on most subjects the same opinions. Finally, a majority of four decided against Sir Francis Burdett.

After this trial of strength, it was difficult for the Minister of Foreign Affairs to insist upon the first place in a balanced cabinet, with a majority in both Houses of Parliament against the party which he represented. When, therefore, the King consulted him subsequently as to a new Administration, he said:

“I should recommend your Majesty to form an Administration wholly composed of persons who entertain, in respect to the Roman Catholics, your Majesty’s own opinions.”

This counsel could not be carried out; but it seemed disinterested, and forced George IV. to allow, after making the attempt, that it was impracticable. The formation of a Cabinet on the old terms of general comprehension thus became a necessity, and to that Government Mr. Canning was indispensable. But his Majesty naturally wished to retain him in a position that would not offend the rest of his colleagues, and to place some person opposed to the Catholics in Lord Liverpool’s vacant situation. This Mr. Canning would not consent to. In serving under Lord Liverpool, he had served under a man highly distinguished from his youth, offered, as early as the death of Mr. Pitt, the first situation in the State, and who, as the head of a government retaining possession of power for many years, had enjoyed the good fortune of holding it at one of the most glorious epochs in British history. That nobleman left no one behind him entertaining his own opinions, and on whom his own claims of precedency could be naturally supposed to descend. Besides, he was Mr. Canning’s private friend, and agreed with him on almost every question, except the solitary one of Catholic Emancipation.