Revolution, governed the country; but the cur- | (Wellington), made on a former night relative rent of public opinion was so strong that they, to parliamentary reform, was framed with a as popular leaders, were obliged to go along view of conciliating and gaining the support of with it, and in public stand forth as the chief the noble and high-minded persons with whom promoters of the desired change. The only he had been usually united, I can tell the noble considerable body in the State who steadily duke he might as well attempt to take high opposed reform in the abstract were the hold- heaven by storm. These are times of danger ers of the close boroughs, and the members and peril, in which we require to see efficient whom they had introduced into Parliament; men at the head of the Government of the coun but their numbers were too inconsiderable to try. Now we see the consequence of having form any counterpoise to the formidable pha- not long given up a great question, not upon lanx arrayed on the other side; and such as the ground of justice or equity, but upon the they were, their numbers had been lessened to ground of fear. So far from creating confi. an unprecedented extent by the result of the dence, the yielding up of that question has crelast elections, conducted under the pressure of ated a feeling of distrust in the minds of the internal distress, and the fervor of the French people. They no longer rely on the GovernRevolution. ment to afford them redress, or to mitigate their sufferings; they know that Ministers will grant nothing but upon compulsion. I am one of those who feel the necessity of having competent men at the head of the administration in the present situation of the country; and I feel bound to say, that those who compose the higher branches of his Majesty's government at this moment, are not, in my opin-1 Mirror of ion, worthy of the confidence of Parliament, the people in this hour of imminent 1830, ◊ 1. peril.”1 75. This strange, and, in English history, unprecedented combination of parties in Mr. Brough- favor of reform, appeared on the am's plan of very first night of the session in the reform. House of Commons. There was no division on the Address; but in the course of the debate on it, Mr. Brougham gave notice of a motion on the subject on the 16th November. He said "he had been described by one party as intending to bring forward a very limited, and therefore a very useless and insignificant plan; by another he was said to be the friend of a radical, sweeping, and innovating, and I may add—for I conscientiously believe it would prove so-a revolutionary reform. Both these schemes I disavow. I stand on the ancient ways of the constitution. To explain at this moment what I mean by that, would be inconvenient, indeed impossible; but my object in bringing forward this question is not revolution, but restoration; to repair the constitution, not to pull it down." From the manner in which this announcement was received by the old Tories, it was evident that a most formidable coalition of parties was likely to take place upon it.* "I must be allowed," said Lord Winchelsea, who represented that body, "to say, that if the assertion of the noble duke ✦ Mr. Brougham's plan of reform, which was laid before his party on the 13th November, was as follows-a termined to stand on the ancient ways of the constitu curious commentary on his assertion, that he "was de tion." This is what Mr. Brougham called Stare super an tiquas vias. His panegyrist, Mr. Roebuck, more correct. ly designated it when he said," By this scheme the whole character of the House of Commons would have been changed."-ROEBUCK, i. 421. Undoubtedly it would have been so. Household suffrage in the boroughs-that is, in three-fifths of the House-was "the class government of the laboring classes" that is, revolution. The £10 clause in the Reform Bill avoided this danger, but only by running the nation into another, viz., the class gov ernment of shop-keepers, under which we have since lived. p. 81. 176. When such was the language of the most steady and consistent supporters of Government in former times, it was Postponeevident that its overthrow was only ment of the a question of time; and the whole King's visit to the City. attention of parties, and of the counNov. 9. try, was fixed on the question, on what point the decisive division was to take place. A fortuitous event, however, accelerated the catastrophe somewhat sooner than was expected. It had been an ancient custom for the monarchs of England to partake, soon after their accession to the throne, of the splendid hospitality of the City of London; and on this occasion the day was fixed for the 9th November, being the one on which the lord mayor elect came into office. Magnificent preparations had been made for the monarch's recep tion, and all London was in anxious expectation of the splendid procession, when, on the evening of the 7th, the lord mayor received a note from the Home Secretary, stating that, in consequence of information recently received, there was reason to apprehend that, notwithstanding the devoted loyalty of the citizens of London, advantage would be taken of the nocturnal assemblage to create tumult and confusion, and endanger the lives of the people. The truth was, that the new police, which has proved so great a blessing to the metropolis, had lately come into operation; and the thieves and vagabonds of London, perceiving the difference between its energetic bands and the drowsy old watchmen who had preceded it, had been indefatigable in their endeavors to get up a tumult to overthrow it, and fixed on the day of the King's entry of the City for the execution of their design. Thousands of handbills had been printed and circulated, calling on the people to come armed on the occasion;* * "To arms! Liberty or death! Nov. 7. "London meets on Tuesday next: an opportunity not to be lost for revenging the wrongs we have suffered so long. Come armed: be firm, and victory must be ours AN ENGLISHMAN." Englishmen, Britons, and honest buck, i. 412, 413. and in addition to the contemplated riot in the | in the field, which have won for the Duke of Wellington, as a soldier, a general, and a conqueror, a great, brilliant, and imperishable renown, coupled with a deviation by the noble Duke from his proper sphere into the labyrinth of politics-I wish to heaven I had not lived to see the day when the forgetfulness of the people of the merits of the soldier, and the forgetfulness of the soldier of his own proper sphere of greatness, display to England, to Europe, and to the world, that he can not accompany his Majesty on his journey into the hearts of an attached and loyal population." 1 An. Reg. streets, it was intended to attack the 1830, 158, Duke of Wellington's house while the 159, Roe- police were absent in other quarters, in order to give a political color to the disturbance.1 Immense was the effect of this announcement 77. upon the already excited minds of General con- the metropolis. The most alarmsternation on ing reports were immediately in circulation, that a vast conspiracy had been discovered; that we were on the edge of a terrible convulsion; that the Revolt of the Barricades was to be re-enacted that very day the occasion. in the streets of London. The citizens looked to the bolts and bars of their doors; the more courageous laid in arms, and prepared for resistance; the shutters were lined with iron plates, and iron blinds were hastily run up. Such was the general consternation that in two hours the Funds fell 3 per cent. Before the end of the week the panic had subsided, when it was seen that no outbreak took place, and that the excessive alarm had been in a great measure unfounded. But with that reaction commenced a new set of feelings still more damaging to the Government. Ashamed of their own fears, and of the ridiculous length to which they had been carried, the citizens were fain to throw the responsibility for them upon the Ministers; and those who had a few days before been loudest in the exaggeration of the danger, were now foremost in proclaiming * Ann. Reg. 1830, 160, 161, its entire groundlessness, and the Martineau, ii culpable timidity of the Govern18 Roebuck, ment which had yielded to such i. 415, 416. unfounded alarms.2 The liberal chiefs in Parliament made a skill78. ful use of the consternation proSpeech of Mr. duced by this event. "I regret Brougham on much," said Mr. Brougham, "the the occasion. appearance of the letter of this morning. I regret it on account of the mischief which it is certain to cause in the mercantile world, and still more from the connection which it has with the fatal speech from the throne, and the still more fatal speech of the Duke of Wellington against every species of reform-a declaration to which I conscientiously believe he owes nine-tenths of his present unpopularity. I wish that that declaration had not been made. I wish also that I had not lived to see the day when a forgetfulness of the invaluable services men' the time has at length arrived, and all London meets on Tuesday. Come armed, we assure you, from ocular demonstration, six thousand cutlasses have been removed from the Tower for the immediate use of Peel's bloody gang. Remember the cursed speech from the throne. These damned police are to be armed. Englishmen, will you put up with this?"—Ann. Reg., p. 159, 160. 1 Ann. Reg. 1830, 161, 162; Parl. Deb. i. 74, 75 (new series.) leaves Minis. It was now evident to all the world that the downfall of the Wellington Minis- 79. try was at hand, and the only Division on question was on what point they the Civil List should make their election to be ters in a mibeaten. Three important questions nority. stood for early discussion-the Civ- Nov. 15. il List, Parliamentary Reform, and Negro Slavery-of the two last of which notices of motion had been given by Mr. Brougham, and the former stood for the 16th of November. Ministers, with great propriety, resolved to retire on the first, on which they foresaw they would be beaten, because, by so doing, they avoided implicating the Crown or themselves upon the all-important national questions which remained behind. The debate came on upon the 15th November, when the Chancellor of the Exchequer moved in common form that the House do resolve itself into a committee on the Civil List, whereupon Sir Henry Parnell moved as an amendment, "that a select committee be appointed to take into consideration the estimates and accounts printed by command of his Majesty regarding the Civil List." The debate was a very short one, but it was distinguished by one significant circumstance. Three old Tories-Mr. Bankes, Mr. Wynn, and Mr. Holme Sumner--spoke in favor of Sir H. Parnell's motion, and against the Government. On a division there appeared 233 for the amendment, and 204 against it, giving a majority of TwENTY-NINE against Ministers. Mr. Hobhouse immediately asked Sir Robert Peel* whether Ministers intended to retain office after this expression of the sentiments of the House, to which he properly declined to give any an- 2 Ann Reg. swer at the time; but the next day 1830, 162, 163; the Duke of Wellington announced Roebuck, i. ert Peel in the House of Commons, Parl Deb. i. in the House of Lords, and Sir Rob- 429, 430; Martineat, ii. 19; that they held office only till their 87, 88 (new successors were appointed.❜ series). He had lately succeeded to the baronetcy on the death of his father, at the reverend age of eighty. CHAPTER XXIII. DOMESTIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND FROM THE FALL OF THE WELLINGTON ADMINISTRATION IN 1829, TO THE PASSING OF THE REFORM BILL IN 1832. Reflections on Wellington THUS fell the Wellington Administration, the most important event in the domestic history of England since the the fall of the Revolution, in the general annals of Europe since the battle of Waterloo. In the decisive and lasting transference by the political power in the State by which it was followed to another party, it bears a very close resemblance to the overthrow of the Coalition Ministry by Mr. Pitt in 1784, which terminated a dominion of nearly a century by the Whigs, and introduced one of half the time by the Tories. But in its political and social results it was far more important than Mr. Pitt's triumph. It induced a transference not merely of the reins of government from one party to another, but of political power from one class in society to another. It terminated the long-established dominion of the landed and commercial aristocracy, and vested it in the class of shop-keepers and small householders. It closed the sway of the interests of production, whether in land or manufactures, and created that of buying and selling. Thence has ensued an entire change in our whole domestic policy, both in relation to agriculture and manufactures, and the adoption of a series of measures calculated, by cheapening every thing, to benefit consumers and the holders of realized capital, without any regard to their influence on those engaged in the work of production. Thence also have arisen changes in our foreign policy equally startling and unexpected. It has displaced Great Britain from the head of Conservative alliances, and placed her in the front rank of the coalitions founded upon movement; and, stifling the ancient animosity of France and England, has brought the legions of both nations in cordial amity and generous rivalry to combat the forces of the Czar, in defense of Turkey, on the shores of the Crimea. 2. ther met their wishes, nor provided for their necessities. 3. Continued. The very errors, as they were deemed by many at the time, were themselves forced upon their authors by general and irresistible causes. It is easy to see now, on the retrospect, that it was the monetary measures of 1819 and 1826, coupled with the emancipation ofthe Catholics, which brought about the change, because it was these which spread discontent and division among the rural and industrious classes, who had heretofore been the firmest supporters of the throne, the steadiest friends of the constitution. But that only removes the difficulty a step farther back. The question remains, What caused these measures to be adopted by successive governments, in opposition alike to the interests of the whole industrious classes of the people and their religious feelings, and in direct antagonism to the policy pursued for a century and a half by the Government, and under which the country had risen to an unexampled height of prosperity and glory? It is evident to any one who attentively considers the progress of these changes that they were not forced upon the Legislature by individual men, but forced upon individual men by the Legislature; and that a fixed majority had got into the House of Commons, which rendered it impossible to carry on the government in any other way. Each successive administration since the peace had been compelled to relinquish, as the price of retaining office, a part of the old system, until none remained, and an entire change of government and of the constitution had become unavoidable. It is not difficult to see, at this distance of time, what was the cause which ren- 4. dered this change of system neces- What had set sary; and what is very remarkable, these causes and perhaps unprecedented in hu in motion. Superficial observers, and those whose atten-man affairs, that cause is to be found in the nattion is exclusively fixed on the ural consequences of the entire success of the Causes which influence of individual agency in opposite system. So amazingly had the whole rendered the human affairs, see in these vast industrial interests of the community-landchange so de- events and this entire change of ed, manufacturing, commercial, and colonialcisive. system, both foreign and domes- grown and prospered under the old protective tic, the effect only of the capacity of the lead-system, under which they had all found shelter ers and their dexterity in the management of during a hundred and fifty years, that a new parties; and they declaim against the mistakes interest had arisen in society, the fruit of their which, as they conceive, have ruined ancient prosperity, but which was destined to limit and interests, and the tergiversations which have restrain it. This was the interest of REALIZED broken up old alliances. But without disput-CAPITAL, the produce of long-protected and thriv ing the important effect of individual men in moulding the fate of nations, it may with safety be asserted that, in this instance, the great change which took place was owing to general causes. The Wellington Administration, and with it the old system of government in Great Britain, fell, because it had become unsuited to the altered circumstances of the people; it nei ing industry, but which had at length, from the unexampled impulse and successes of the war, acquired an influence which enabled it to set all other interests at defiance. This interest, by the command of ready money, and the acquisition of the close boroughs, had succeeded' in acquiring a majority in the House of Commons, and with it the entire government of the State. Its interests were no longer identical | claims to a higher situation than the aristowith those of the industry from which it had sprung; on the contrary, they were adverse to it. To sell dear is the interest of the creators of wealth; to buy cheap is the interest of its inheritors. It is in the nature of things that Sir R. Peel the father, who made the fortune, should be the supporter of the protective; Sir R. Peel the son, who succeeded to it, the advocate of the cheapening system. Thence the change of system in the Legislature when the inheritors became the more powerful body; and thence the creation of a general discontent in the industrious classes, which at length over whelmed at once the Ministry and the previous system of government. When once capital, for its own advantage, had rendered the currency of the country entirely dependent on the retention of gold, and introduced free trade into the principal branches of manufacture, a revolution in the whole frame and system of government had become inevitable, and it was merely a question of time when it was to take place. declaration portant. It was this circumstance which rendered the 5. Duke of Wellington's famous declaWhat made ration against reform so very influthe Duke's ential in inducing the immediate against Re- downfall of his administration. It form so im- announced the determination of Government at all hazards to maintain the existing system in the House of Commons. But that was the precise thing which the country desired to have altered, because it had been the cause of all the suffering which had been experienced. It was against the " boroughmongers," as they were called, that the outery was directed, because they brought in the men who had pursued the system which had been attended with such disastrous results. There was no hostility against the Crown; little, comparatively speaking, against the House of Lords, except in so far as it influenced the House of Commons. It was the venal and nomination boroughs which were the object of the general indignation, and they were so because the persons who got into Parliament through their seats had first, by the measures they pursued for the advantage of capital, created the distress, and then shown themselves insensible to all petitions for its relief. When the Duke of Wellington, therefore, declared himself decidedly opposed to every species of reform, he not only thwarted a vehement national passion, but expressed his determination to uphold what was the source of all the suffering which was experienced, and continue the close boroughs, which had become a great national grievance. It is no wonder that it accelerated his fall. the new Min claims. cratic Whigs were willing to allow to any man 1830, 163, 165; 22. 7. EARL GREY, who at this eventful crisis succeeded to the government of the country, has left a name which Character of never will be forgotten in English Earl Grey. history, for he introduced that change in the constitution which has been attended with such great and lasting effects. He was beyond all doubt a most remarkable man. Gifted by nature with talents of a very high order, he pos The new Ministry stood as follows: In the Cabinet.-First Lord of the Treasury, Earl Grey; Lord-Chancellor, Lord Brougham; Chancellor of the Exchequer and leader of the Commons, Lord Althorpe ; President of the Council, Marquess of Lansdowne; Lord Privy Seal, Earl of Durham; Home Secretary, Lord Melbourne; Foreign Affairs, Lord Palmerston; Secretary of Colonies, Lord Goderich; First Lord of the Admiralty, Sir James Graham; President of the Board of Control, Mr. Charles cellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, Lord Holland; without Grant; Postmaster-General, Duke of Richmond; Chan office, Lord Carlisle. Earl Grey, as a matter of course, was sent for Not in the Cabinet.-President of the Board of Trade, 6. by the King to form the new Min-Lord Auckland; Secretary at War, Mr. C. W. W. Wynn Master-General of Ordnance, Sir James Kempt, Lord The difficulty istry, which it was easy to fore- Chamberlain, Duke of Devonshire; Lord Steward, Marin forming see would be composed chiefly, if quess Wellesley; Master of the Horse, Lord Albemarle; istry fixes Mr. not entirely, of the leaders of the Groom of the Stole, Marquess of Winchester; First Commissioner of Land Revenue, Mr. Agar Ellis; Treasurer Brougham's Liberal party in the two Houses of of the Navy, Mr. Poulett Thomson; Attorney-General, Parliament. No small embarrass- Sir T. Denman; Solicitor-General, Sir W. Horne. In Ireland. Lord Lieutenant, Marquess of Anglement, however, was experienced in forming the sea; Lord-Chancellor, Lord Plunkett; Commander of the administration, chiefly in consequence of the Forces, Sir John Byng; Chief Secretary, Lord Stanley; difficulty of finding a suitable situation for Mr. Attorney-General, Mr. Pennefather; Solicitor-General, Brougham, whose great abilities, and position Mr. Crompton. as the real if not the avowed leader of the Lib-or-General, H. Cockburn, Esq.-Ann. Reg., 1830, p. 164, In Scotland.-Lord-Advocate, F. Jeffrey, Esq.; Solicit. eral party in the House of Commons, gave him 165; ROEBUCK, vol. i. p. 450, 451. sessed, at the same time, that quality of still | rarer occurrence, but which, when it does exist, seldom fails to lead to early shipwreck or ultimate greatness-moral courage, and invincible determination. His political life was consistency itself. He shared with his party their early hostility to the French war, and must bear with them the obloquy, in the eyes of posterity, of having defended the French Revolution long after its atrocities had discredited it in the eyes of all impartial men, and resisted the contest with it when it had become apparent that it was waged by this country for the liberty and independence of mankind. But this was the result of the firmness and consistency of his character, which, having once embraced an opinion, adhered to it for good or for evil through all the mutations of fortune. On the subject of reform he was the same throughout. Unlike the greater part of the Whig aristocracy, who supported it in public, and in secret deprecated it as the most dangerous innovation alike to the country and themselves, he was its advocate from his first entrance into public life; and the plan of reform which he brought forward in the House of Commons, without suc1 See Hist. cess, in 1797, differed in no material of Europe, degree from that which he brought c. xxii. 99. to a triumphant issue in 1832.1 As a public speaker he must be assigned a 8. very high place-second, perhaps, His character only to Pitt and Fox in the Auas an orator, gustan age of English oratory. He and in private had not the power of lucid exposition of the former, nor the impetuous flow of the latter, but in condensed expression, cogent argument, and sarcastic power, he was equal to either. He had not the poetic fancy or playful expression of Canning, but he was more thoroughly, and at all times, in earnest-the great secret for moving and permanently ruling the hearts of men. His well-known philippic against that celebrated orator, when he succeeded to power in April, 1827, is deservedly placed among the most brilliant specimens of rhetorical power which the English language can boast. In society, his manner, though somewhat reserved and stately, had all the courtesy which belongs to real high-breeding, and in domestic life he was simplicity itself the sure sign of a mind superior to any station, how lofty soever, to which its possessor may be elevated. 9. and errors, but noble when acquired. The great fault of Earl Grey, as of most men of his rank who are called to the His defects general direction of affairs, was a want of practical acquaintance with use of power mankind in all grades. He shared this defect with his whole cabinet, when arranged in 1830, which was almost entirely composed of the nobility; and so conspicuous did this deficiency immediately become, that, as will appear in the sequel, he was saved from early overthrow only by identifying himself with the extreme movement party, and advancing a measure which entirely and forever changed the institutions of the nation. He did great service to his country by taking the direction of that movement, and preventing it from falling into other and less scrupulous hands, and deserves its lasting gratitude for the use which he made of the vast power he enjoyed when the victory was gained. There was much to condemn in the mode in which, in its latter stages, he carried on the contest, but nothing save to admire in the conduct he pursued after it was over. He then boldly confronted menaced rebellion in Ireland, coerced its wildest excesses, and when he had the power to have carried innovation in Great Britain to any imaginable length, stopped short with one organic change, and observed henceforward the landmarks of the constitution. of the Reform Although the practical results of the Reform Bill, which he carried through, 10. have been widely different from He was miswhat he either intended or de- led by others sired, yet this is not so much to as to the effect be ascribed as a fault to Earl Grey, Bill. as it was the unfortunate result of the elevated position he occupied, and the sphere in which he had moved in society. In the framing of that measure itself he was as completely misled by the representations of others of inferior rank about him, who possessed the practical knowledge which he wanted, and had their own ends in view in their representation, as he had been in early life as to the tendency of the French Revolution by the declamations of the philosophers and Girondists. He said it was the most aristocratic measure ever brought forward in Parliament, when it was a measure, as experience has now proved, which took the government of the country entirely out of the hands of the aristocracy. He declared he would stand or fall by his order, and yet he exerted all his talent and influence to carry through a measure which politically nullified that order, and substituted that of shop-keepers, with whom assuredly his aristocratic feelings had nothing in common, in its room. In this there was no duplicity or disingenuousness on the part of this proud and straightforward nobleman. He believed all he said, and acted accordingly; but his measures, being founded on no practical acquaintance with the community to which they referred, had a directly contrary tendency to what he intended, and ere long precipitated himself from power, and his order from the dominant position it had so long held in English society.* *In the course of the debates on the Reform Bill in the House of Peers, Lord Sidmouth, who supposed Lord Grey to have been carried by circumstances far beyond his original intention, said to him, “I hope God will forgive you on account of this bill; I don't think I can." To which you will find that we have become unpopular from hav Lord Grey replied, "Mark my words: within two years ing brought forward the most aristocratic measure that ever was proposed in Parliament." Lord Althorpe, too, did not conceal his opinion; he avowed it, "that the Re nation; and the wonder is, who can doubt it, while the new county representation preponderates over the addition to the towns."-See Sidmouth's Life, iii. 439; and Miss MARTINEAU, ii. 28, 29. The truth is, that there was much plausibility in the reason thus advanced to prove the aristocratic tendency of the Reform Bill; and without doubt these noble lords were perfectly sincere in the opinion thus advanced. But what they did not see, though their followers did, was, that these aristocratic tendencies were entirely neutralized and overpowered by three circumstances, the action of which has now been The working of the ten-pound clause, which in all the completely demonstrated by experience. These were: 1. boroughs (that is, three-fifths of the Ilouse of Commons) vested the returns in one class-that of small shop-keepadding 50 per cent. to the value of money, and taking as ers; 2. The operation of the monetary laws, which, by much from the remuneration of industry, has rendered form Bill was the most aristocratic act ever offered to the |