minent part in an Administration which, in the midst of unexampled difficulties, skilfully conducted our foreign affairs, and, by the aid of the most consummate General who ever led an English army to victory, overthrew the power of Napoleon, and restored peace to the world. The first measure of the new Administration was an immediate dissolution of the Parliament, which had only sat a few [JUNE 26, 1807.] months. This Lord Eldon strongly recommended, notwithstanding his violent animadversions on the late Ministers for dissolving a Parliament which had sat above four years. The speech delivered by him, closing the session in the King's name, announced the object of this proceeding to be," to afford to his people the best opportunity of testifying their determination to support him in every exercise of the prerogatives of his crown, which is conformable to the sacred obligations under which they are held, and conducive to the welfare of his kingdom and to the security of the Constitution." This plain denunciation of the Catholics was received with loud applause, and most of the candidates supposed to be favourable to their claims were defeated at the hustings. When the "No-Popery Parliament" met, the note of triumph was sounded in the royal speech delivered by the Lord Chancellor, which boasted of "the numerous addresses which his Majesty had received from his subjects, expressing their firm resolution to support him in defending the just rights of his crown and the true principles of the Constitution."*"

66

An amendment being moved, censuring the late dissolution, and the principles upon which the change of Administration had taken place, the Lord Chancellor said the present Government was stigmatized by the amendment, which accused them of manifest misconduct. He defended the dissolution, which had been found necessary for the safety of the Established Church; and he denied the general doctrine, that Ministers, by accepting office, were responsible for the manner in which their predecessors had been dismissed, although he declared his entire approbation of the principles on which the King had lately called to his councils men in whom not only his Majesty but the nation confided."‡ The amendment was rejected by a majority of 160 to 67.§

On a subsequent day, Lord Erskine and Lord Spencer having reiterated the same complaints on the occasion of the second reading of a Bill to indemnify Ministers for an Order in Council rendered necessary by the dissolution of Parliament, "the Lord Chancellor avowed, that, with a view to render the new Administration as firm and as vigorous as possible, he had been a strenuous adviser-probably one of the most strenuous advisers-of that measure. He looked to the Protestant

9 Parl. Deb. 577.

† Sir Robert Peel, who will generally be found to lay down sound constitutional doctrine, admitted, in the Parliament which met in the beginning of 1835, that in accepting office, after the dismissal of Lord Melbourne's Government by William IV., he made himself responsible for that act, although he was at Rome when it took place, and he was in no respect actually privy to it. § Ib. 607.

9 Parl. Deb. 605.

people, whose regard and veneration, once lost to the Government, would at least be but imperfectly replaced by the conciliation of the Roman Catholics. But such a conciliation was not, in his opinion, at all likely to be effected. He concluded by taunting the late Government for confining their measure of relief to officers in the army and navy, and asked why it should not be extended to all professions and all

offices in the state?"* In a subsequent stage of the bill [JULY, 1807.] he was quite jocular in answering a charge of having been factious when in Opposition, and observed, that "All the Talents, as they were called, had been absolutely without any opponents in that House, or he believed any where else, until they began to oppose themselves."+

The only other occasion of his addressing the House during this session was for the purpose of throwing out Lord Holland's Bill for the establishment of Parochial Schools, [AUG. 11, 1807.] -on the ground that "it departed from the great principle of education in this country, by taking the business of instruction, in a great degree, out of the superintendence and control of the clergy." He even objected to a provision in the bill giving the Court of Chancery jurisdiction over the funds appropriated to the use of the schools; saying,what he would not have allowed any one else to say, without expressing high indignation,-"It should be recollected how money so intrusted was sweated in that court, and how, in the end, when the oyster came to be divided, the parties entitled got nothing but the shells." His will in the House of Lords was henceforth law, and at [AUG. 14, 1807.] the prorogation he exultingly returned thanks to them in the King's name, "for the steady loyalty, and the zealous devotion to the public service, which had characterized all their deliberations"§-although only a few months had elapsed since his desponding conviction that the King was alienated from him, and that the Whigs, with their new Parliament, were permanently fixed in power. This revolution was in no small degree to be attributed to his own dexterity in turning to account the prejudices of the King and of the people.

Lord Eldon at this time exercised a much greater influence in the Cabinet than had belonged to any Chancellor for a vast number of years. The nominal head of the Government was the Duke of Portland-never a very vigorous statesman, and now enfeebled by age and disease; and Mr. Perceval, leader of the House of Commons, having long practised as counsel under the Chancellor, still regarded him as his chief. Lord Camden, Lord Westmoreland, Lord Mulgrave, and Lord Chatham, were very little considered; and Lord Hawksbury, Lord Castlereagh, and Mr. Canning, though aspiring statesmen, had not yet acquired much ascendency. Lord Eldon continued in high favour with the King and the Duke of Cumberland; and his colleagues, sensible that they chiefly owed their places to his skilful intrigues, were, for a while, much disposed to defer to his opinion.

* 9 Parl. Deb. 778.

9 Parl. Deb. 1176.

t Ib. 808.
§ Ib. 1223.

He zealously supported, if he did not suggest, two measures of great energy, but very doubtful justice and expediency; the discussion of which long occupied Parliament and the public-the Orders in Council against Neutral Commerce, and the seizure of the Danish fleet. Napoleon's Berlin and Milan decrees having declared "the whole of the British dominions in a state of blockade," and ordained that "every article of her manufacture, or belonging to her, or coming from her colonies, wheresoever found, should be lawful prize," it was judged right, through orders in council, to retaliate, by declaring "that not only the ports and places of France and her allies, and of any other coun[Nov. 1807.] try at war with his Majesty, but likewise all ports and places in Europe from which the British flag was excluded, and all ports and places in the colonies of the King's enemies, should be subject to the same restrictions, in point of trade and navigation, as if they were under actual blockade; and further, that all trade in the produce or manufacture of the said countries or colonies should be deemed unlawful; and that every vessel trading from or to them, and its cargo, and every article of the produce and manufactures aforesaid, should be liable to be captured as enemies' property." Of these orders in council Napoleon had no right to complain; but they were grievously unjust to neutrals, and it is now generally allowed that they were contrary to the law of nations and to our own municipal law.

On the seizure of the Danish fleet, diversity of sentiment still prevails; but, in my opinion, the act was unjustifiable, for [Oct., 1807.] the Danes had offered us not the slightest provocation, and it is vain to say that self-preservation required such an outrage upon an independent and friendly people, the only pretext for it being that, if we did not seize their ships, probably, ere long, Napoleon would have tried to do so.*

The stormy session of Parliament which began in January, 1808, was almost entirely taken up with motions on these two subjects. Lord

* I have received from the venerable ex-Lord Justice, General Hope, a letter, in which, after some complimentary expressions, he says, "I differ from you respecting the expedition to Copenhagen, and the seizure of the Danish fleet. The fact was this:-Mr. Henry Hope, of Amsterdam, and of the great house of Hope & Co. there, upon the invasion of the French on Holland, came over to this country, and lived in that large house upon the corner of Harley Street, Cavendish Square, in which he had that fine collection of pictures. On account of his mercantile and banking proceedings he was led to have secret agents and banking correspondents in every court of Europe: among others, at Paris, in the time of Buonaparte. And by them at Paris he learnt that Buonaparte was at that very time marching small detachments of sailors, under lieutenants, through Germany to Copenhagen, there to take possession of, and man, the Danish fleet. This fact Mr. Henry Hope communicated to my brother, Sir William, who, of course, communicated it to the Board of Admiralty, of which he was then a member, and, of course, our expedition was undertaken in order to anticipate that of Buonaparte. Now this private history could not be made public at the time; for if it had, Buonaparte would have put to death the one half of his officials in Paris. In consequence, our government was obliged to let the affair pass as a voluntary and spontaneous movement of ours."-Note to 3d Edition.

Eldon repeatedly defended with ability the orders in council. "He denied that they were contrary either to international or municipal law. He admitted that neutrals might suffer some inconvenience by the retaliation which placed them between confiscation by France or by England; but a neutral nation, which by her acquiescence in an invasion of her rights lent herself to one belligerent at the expense of the other, could have very little reason to complain if the other belligerent protected himself by the necessary measures for rendering such a combination ineffectual. These measures were aimed not at the neutral but at the adverse belligerent-the damage to the neutral was only incidental. It might be an evil, but it was not an injury. With respect to America, the chief sufferer, we must recollect the mischief she caused us by acquiescing in the decrees of Buonaparte, as well as the advantage she might bring to us by her trade and friendship; and he hoped that, instead of going to war with us, she would join us in resisting the extravagant pretensions of the common enemy of all civilized nations." It required much suffering to ourselves from the Orders in Council, as well as a long-continued series of attacks against them in both Houses of Parliament, to do away with the effect of such arguments.*

*

The cause of the Danes was warmly taken up by Lord Ellenborough and Lord Sidmouth, who, having been ejected with the Whigs, were not disposed to view with much favour the measures of the new Government, and who commented severely on this expedition as dishonourable to England and discreditable to those who had advised it. Lord Eldon had been shocked at the carnage caused among the Danes, which, however, he ascribed to "weak pride and false honour," in not quietly submitting. In a letter to Lady Eldon, giving an account of a conversation with some of the officers present, whom he had met at dinner on their return, he says, "The state of the inhabitants in Copenhagen, and their distresses, must have been terrible and tremendous. In one street our mortars destroyed five hundred persons, principally poor helpless women and children. It seems weak pride and false honour that actuated the Danish commander. From the first he meant to surrender, and yet wished to have the credit of a battle before he did so; and to this point of military etiquette he sacrificed one-fourth of the buildings of the town, and devoted to destruction property and lives to a terrible amount. It made my heart ache, and my blood run cold, to hear the accounts these gentlemen gave." But now, in the House of Lords, he declared that, "so far from feeling himself dishonoured as an Englishman by the measure adopted, he should have felt himself dishonoured if, under all the circumstances, he had hesitated to concur in advising it," -and he scouted the proposal that the ships should be restored to Denmark at the end of the war, saying "that the Danish Government had not even a pretence for demanding a restitution, which had been offered only on the condition of peaceable surrender."t

10 Parl. Deb. 149, 641, 1079, 1244.

† 10 Parl. Deb. 656. He used afterwards to relate, on the authority of the Ying himself, an anecdote showing that on this occasion his Majesty could not

Soon after came the Jesuits' Bark Bill, in opposing which, as counsel, at the bar of the House of Lords, I made my début in [APRIL 7, 1808.] public life.* Lord Eldon behaved with great cour. tesy to me, and, I must say, seemed impressed by my observations and evidence as to the private injustice which would be done to my client, the owner of several valuable cargoes, which would be embargoed and rendered useless by this measure, directed against the fever hospitals of France. He took no part in the debate, leaving it to others to contend that the bill rested on the principle which justifies cutting off supplies of arms and provisions from a besieged town, although he was compelled to vote in the disgraced majority of 110 to 44, by which it was carried.t

He still continued his intimacy with the Princess of Wales, who was patronized by the King, and not only visited her at Blackheath, but gave her a grand dinner in his own house in Bedford Square. From the following good-natured note, we find that this entertainment had gone off well, although he had not been able to prevail on Lady Eldon to appear at table:

"Thursday, June 9th, 1808.

"The Princess of Wales desires of the Lord Chancellor to express to Lady Eldon how much she was mortified at not having had the pleasure of meeting her at the Chancellor's agreeable dinner; and trusts that, whenever another opportunity shall offer itself, she may have the gratification of assuring the Lord Chancellor, as well as Lady Eldon, that the Princess will ever be happy of personally assuring them of her highest regard at their house."

The same autumn he received a visit of some days, at his country residence, Encombe, in Dorsetshire, of his steady friend and associate in Cabinet-making, the Duke of Cumberland. An entertaining account given by him, in a letter to his daughter-in-law, of his Royal Highness's gracious demeanour, says, "He was very good-humoured and condescending, and we all behaved well. . . . dear Mamma very well, after the flutter which, you know, so rare a scene would occasion. Fanny got an embrace, and we have had some difficulty to get her to allow her face to be washed since, lest she should lose the impression."

The session of 1809 was very inactive with the Lords, who were obliged to look quietly on while the nation was almost convulsed by the proceedings in the House of Commons against the Duke of York. Lord Eldon privately gave advice as to the conduct of [MARCH 19, 1809.] the defence-and if it had been implicitly followed, the result would probably have been less disastrous. On the have approved of the act of his Ministers. "When Mr. Jackson, our ambassador sent to Copenhagen to demand the surrender of the fleet, was presented at Court on his return, the King abruptly asked him, 'Was the Prince Royal up stairs or down when he received you?" He was on the ground floor,' was the answer. I am glad of it, I am glad of it,' rejoined the King, for if he had half the spirit of his uncle George III., he would infallibly have kicked you down stairs!' '; * Ante, Vol. VI., Ch. CLXXXVI. † 10 Parl. Deb. 1320.